Part One: Opening by Giving Offence

QUICUMQUE vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est, ut teneat catholicam fidem:
Quam nisi quisque integram inviolatamque servaverit, absque dubio in aeternam peribit.

Whosoever wishes to be saved, above all, must hold the catholic faith:
Unless he keep it whole and uncorrupted, he will without doubt be lost forever.

(Brief note on the text: The Latin text comes from Creeds.net, the translation is entirely my own.)


In this part of the commentary, I consider the first two lines of the Athanasian Creed. The Creed itself is also known by the two words with which it begins, “Quicumque vult”, “Whosoever wishes”. I will refer to it this way too, from time to time. This beginning is quite bold because of what it posits, but also because other ancient creeds simply began with statements of faith. Instead, the Quicumque vult tells us that what follows will be necessary to salvation. But from what do we even need saving?

Back in my University days, my professor of religious philosophy, Keith Yandell, told us something striking. He said all religions look at the world and propose a diagnosis. And then they follow up with a prescription. Perhaps you have diagnosed a surfeit of suffering in the world, and your prescription is to cure it via eliminating craving and ignorance. Or perhaps you diagnose the problem as being one of suffering due to Original Sin, and you prescribe Faith in the Messiah as the cure. And so on. It is remarkable then that the Athanasian Creed begins with the prescription. If you don’t want to die, you must take this medicine. But, again, what ails me that I must take the medicine?

The opening asks a lot of the reader/reciter. It expects them to not only know the disease, but also to accept that the qualifications of the Doctor, so to speak. It also asks the reader to accept the notion that the cure involves, in some degree, “right belief”. It seems to me that a case can be made that this isn't a document intended for an external audience, but an internal one. The author believes his patients already know and accept the diagnosis, and he is presenting the cure. It makes it an interesting exercise then when someone who either doesn't know or doesn't accept the diagnosis (or even that they are ill) encounters the Quicumque vult.


“You have to take this pill right now, or you will die!”

“Buzz off, Doc, who even asked you? And anyway, how are you even a doctor? You could just be some quack!”


I’ll come back to that, as it is worth addressing. But for now, as I said, the diagnosis is not to be found in this creed. It is the diagnosis of Original Sin: because we are born into a state of exile from God’s Original Justice we are inclined to sin, and if nothing is done to reverse that, we will be divorced from God eternally in Hell. The cure isn't just right belief, but right belief in a very specific, Trinitarian formulation of God.

The notion that right belief is important goes back to the New Testament. Jesus says in John 3:18 “Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (NABRE). John 5:24, and Mark 16:16 are also on point here. Right belief is pretty foundational. Paul speaks of being justified by Faith, and goes so far as to say in Galatians that if anyone, even an angel, preaches wrong belief they are to be rejected. And the Epistle of James carries it further by admonishing that right belief also entails right action. We’ll discuss the intersection between James and Matthew 25 later when we come to the end of the Creed.

Still, what constituted right belief has developed over time. Justin Martyr (d 165 AD) wrote about one belief that was clearly not necessarily essential. Justin was a chilliast, which means he believed in a literal thousand year reign of Jesus (see Rev 20:1-6), but he conceded in his Dialogue with Trypho “many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are true Christians, think otherwise.” Yet, his contemporary, Irenaeus (d. 202 AD) felt compelled to pen Against Heresies to condemn the various flavours of Gnosticism as dangerously wrong beliefs. By the time of St Athanasius people were still very committed to the notion of right belief, but often in condemning one wrong belief they became guilty of others. Eutyches comes to mind here on that point, and I mention him also because he was a possible contemporary of the author of this Creed. Creeds had to keep pace then with the ever-changing landscape. In some ways the Councils that were directly or indirectly responsible for the Creeds couldn't help this, because their primary purpose was to categorically state what wasn't true about the nature of Christ.

But let’s return to the Creed itself, and why we should even listen to the author, or if his words and ideas are not even worthy of notice.The author assumes a lot. Isn’t the fact that he does this a little offensive? More to the point, aren't the assumptions themselves also offensive? He assumes we have and share the same frame of reference, although I argue that is something he was reasonable to assume. I argue he’s writing to, pun intended here, the already converted. However, the underlying diagnosis or even his or the Church’s right to diagnose it … is that offensive? I am going to say that it is, and that is by design. Partly it’s true of all religions. They all assume they are right, that they have arrived at the right diagnosis. So it’s sort of “baked into” any religious approach. But with respect to Christianity it seems to me it’s a feature and not a bug. If we look at 1 Corinthians 1:18 (and its following verses) we see that the Cross, the central mystery of the Faith is meant to confound and even offend. Some of Jesus’ own followers we deeply offended by his teaching in John 6 and left. It is also the case that in John 8 (and elsewhere in the Gospels) he offends, deliberately, the Pharisees and Sadducees. He intended to offend, and it is intentional that the Gospel is upsetting. Jesus is a Doctor, to be sure, but he’s much more like House than we care to admit.

What do with that is delayed in its answer in the Quicumque vult. Before we can ponder the implications, the author feels he needs to establish in quite extensive detail just who Jesus, who God, is.

UPDATE: Honourable mention goes to my friend Bruce who pointed out I missed a golden opportunity to cite the sword verse, i.e. Matthew 10:34, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword." (NABRE)

The Athanasian Creed - Introduction

Introduction

Creeds

Before I begin my commentary it's worthwhile discussing just what is a Creed. A creed, taken from the Latin word "Credo" or "I believe" is an affirmation of Faith. The Creeds people are most familiar with, the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, are positive affirmations. I don't necessarily mean positive in the sense of a value judgement, but rather as statement of what one does believe rather than what one does not believe. The Athanasian Creed, we'll see, differs from this in that it actually condemns beliefs at odds with its positive assertions.

The earliest Creed seems to be the Old Roman Creed. It reads very similarly to the Apostles' Creed:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty;
And in Christ Jesus, his only son, our lord,
Who was born from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,
Who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried,
Rose from death on the third day,
Ascended into heaven,
Sits at the Father's right, from whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead;
And in the Holy Spirit,
The Holy Church,
The remission of sin,
The resurrection of the flesh.

The above is my translation of the Latin. Greek adds "Everlasting Life" at the end.

The date of this Creed is debated, but with its earliest attestation in writing being early 4th century, it probably dates from there or late 3rd century.

When we get to the actual text of the Athanasian Creed, I'll develop an argument that "right belief" is central to Christianity and is part of its DNA. For now, I'll have to leave you with that as a teaser. If we accept it, for now, for the sake of argument we can see the value in a Creed. This lays out what that right belief is. And since it positively asserts something, or in fact some things it necessarily implies what we do not believe in. Since the Old Roman Creed asserts that Jesus is God's only son, then we could not say we believed that Jesus was a daughter, or that God has or had other sons. We could not say that Jesus had a mortal father, since this asserts his father was the Holy Spirit.

But a failing, if I could use that term, of this approach is that it necessarily can't cover everything. Consider that nothing about Christ's Divinity is affirmed or denied. Interestingly, soteriology seems only to be hinted at by the Greek text's addition. But even so, one might believe all the preceding statements, but what implication that has for the believer, or anyone else, is not fully fleshed out.

This would increasingly become a problem as time when by. As divisions over Christology increased, not only were Councils convocted to address the question, but Creeds of greater length and complexity were composed to state what the correct "right belief" was, and in the case of the Athanasian Creed, what that implied soteriologically for the believer and the non-believer.

As an aside, to give you an idea of how length and complexity of Creeds evolved, I link you to Pope Paul VI's Creed of the People of God.

The Athanasian Creed as a Whole and Its Context

The Creed was originally attributed to St Athanasius probably because of its very detailed and forthright assertions about the Trinity. During the divisions over Christology I hinted at before, Athanasius was one of the foremost defenders of the Trinitarian Doctrine. But what exactly was the debate he was involved in?

Arius, who lived from about 240 to 336 AD, was a priest in diocese of Alexandria, Egypt. He posited that Christ was subordinate to God. To Arius, Jesus was a created being, and in this sense was a "creature." Arius put forth that Jesus was not eternally begotten, but instead the Logos was created before the rest of the world was. On the one hand this is easy to comprehend. It preserves a very strict monotheism, as there's only one God, the Father. That also makes it easier to explain. On the other hand it seems to fly in the face of certain assertions in Scripture (although to be fair, they point to others to make their case) where Jesus even goes so far as to claim to be YHWH, as in John 8. Indeed, John seems to be the most Trinitarian of the canonical Gospels,

The practical effect was of division. Arian bishops expelled catholic bishops, and vice versa, and soon it was too divisive to ignore. The newly Christian emperor Constantine, who seems to held Arian views himself, couldn't ignore this any longer. The First Oecumenical Council was convoked in 325 to try to settle it. The Council would, after much debate (it lasted from May to August of 325), declare that Jesus was true God, co-eternal with the Father, begotten of the same substance as the Father not made, and that these declarations best reflected the Apostolic Witness that the Church had inherited. It did not immediately settle all the questions of this early division, but progressively became the orthodox position and Arianism all but died out.

Athanasius was an assistant to his mentor and bishop at the Council. And he wrote extensively on the Trinity, passionately defending the concept and the Nicene position. This brought him into open conflict with a number of influential people, including several emperors. Given his passion it was not hard to see why a forthright declaration of the Trinitarian doctrine was attributed to him for so long. However, he almost certainly didn't write it. It was written in Latin verse for liturgical recitation, he wrote in Greek. It mentions some Christological positions that had not been firmly established as such during his lifetime.

It used to hold more of a pride of place in the Catholic Church. Prior to the Second Vatican Council it was recited at Prime on certain Sundays after Epiphany and Whitsunday. Now, if it is recited at all, it is recited on Trinity Sunday.

Fidelity to the Magisterium

I wish to state something now, and applies to what I have just written and what I will write on this topic. What I write is my own opinion. I hope and pray I teach nothing not in accord with the Magisterium of the Church. If I do, I will humbly accept correction, and amend whatever needs amending. But again I stress, these words are just my opinion. Where possible, I'll try to cite and refer to other documents so you can read for yourself what is taught.

The Athanasian Creed - A Commentary

With Trinity Sunday coming up I feel moved to do a commentary on the Athanasian Creed. I've really been thinking a lot about this particular expression of Faith for a year now. I'll go line by line in a series of posts to give some of my thoughts. The first post is likely to be quite long, because I've spent the most time thinking about the implications of just the first two lines: what do they mean? What do they mean today?

On Epistemology and Historicity

I was reading Raphael Lataster's piece in the Washington Post today, and I was immediately struck by two things:

1. For someone who distrusts the Gospels and the Pauline Corpus as useful in establishing the historicity of Jesus, he quotes from them a bit.
2. The evidence for his nonexistence is as thin as the evidence for his existence, perhaps thinner.

Of course another thing altogether is this breathtaking dismissal, "Believers, who uphold the implausible and more easily-dismissed “Christ of Faith” (the divine Jesus who walked on water), ought not to get involved." Well, I never like being told what to do ...

But let me take a step back for a moment. It is a perfectly legitimate academic exercise to question to the historicity of religious figures. Did Buddha really exist? Lao Tze? Muhammad? John the Baptist? Herod the Great? More of the latter two in a bit. It is perfectly legitimate to question, because if someone did not exist, that provokes profound questions in and of itself. The first question one has right off the bat is ... if Buddha or Christ didn't exist ... why did their religions come about at all? Dr Lataster seems to offer one possible narratives as to why: the  writers "... eager to promote Christianity," and those willing to edit Josephus.

If Dr Lataster has provided a rubric to test historicity for Jesus, then we should be able to use this rubric with others. I mentioned Herod the Great and John the Baptist. Aside from the Christian Gospels (hmmm....) we only have scant other sources for their existence, and one of them is, you guessed it, Josephus. Cassius Dio is another source for Herod, but as you know ... he was born long after Herod died (160 CE, in fact). John the Baptist is covered a lot more extensively in Josephus than is Christ. Indeed, one wonders if these Christian editors were busy little bees dressing up Josephus and Tacitus, why didn't they edit/excise this oddity? In fact when we really apply this rubric what we're left with is maybe nobody before 37 CE (Josephus' birth) existed. Or perhaps we shall try to apply it to someone else. How about Muhammad? The Qu'ran never actually mentions his name once. There are no eyewitness accounts ... later "biased" writers and so on. Hmm. It seems to me all this rubric really does is show how hard it really is to demonstrate anyone existed (try it yourself on other figures from Antiquity. Are the Phillipics really accurate reflections of what Cicero said, or did he dress them up later after some l'esprit d'escalier? Did he never exist, or did his career as an orator never exist? Especially when you consider some question whether his letters are genuine ... But I could go on and on ). Not, in the end, all that useful, perhaps.

The scholars, it seems to me, have made a conscious choice to take any of these first and second century with a certain grain of salt, but not dismiss them outright either. And in some ways, without realising it, so has Dr Lataster. He dismissed out of hand the "the hypothetical (i.e. non-existent) sources behind them" i.e. Q I must presume, but that same scholarly apparatus that thinks Q must have existed is also part and parcel why scholars think books like Thessalonians were written before the Gospels. He takes those theories with a certain grain of salt, but he still does. Put another way, he himself is guilty of the very thing he chides the other scholars for doing.

Mandos and the Reformation

..and [Manwë] said: ‘...Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Eä, and evil yet be good to have been.’

But Mandos said: ‘And yet remain evil ...’

The Silmarillion

I think about these lines whenever Reformation Day comes along in the Calendar. For Papists such as I, it is (this year) the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time. But for Protestants of various stripes it is the day to commemorate the Reformation.

It is undeniable that good did come out of the Reformation. We would never have had a Counter-Reformation without a Reformation. Nor would we have had Choral Evensong or Anglican Chant, or a whole host of other things. Much beauty not before conceived has indeed made it into the World. And I do sincerely pray that evil can be turned to good. But to rip apart the Body of Christ no matter how noble the goals or noble the intent is, as Mandos says, still an evil. The Protestant elves felt justified, and certainly in our ballad their reasons were far more profound than Fëanor’s kin were in the book. And neither side will ever agree to whether they left or were pushed. And no one can deny the triumphs achieved by the Protestant elves in our ballad in the collective war against Morgoth.

But the tearing up of the Body of Christ is a kind of kin-slaying. For the Lord clearly desired that we all be one (Jn 17:21). And he provided means of achieving reconciliation (e.g.Mt 5:24) that do not involve taking your things and going elsewhere. Even anathemas (1 Cor 5:5) are meant to be temporary (2 Cor 2:7), ending in reconciliation. Now it ought to be said that should you stick it out even if they are so totally wrong? Is it not better to enter heaven with one eye rather than burn with two? (Mk 9:47) If your brother won’t reconcile with you, what do you do?

The Church throughout the years has adopted a number of different strategies for dealing with those who do not agree with her teachings. Clearly some have worked better than others as the old joke about the difference between Dominicans and Jesuits attests. And it is without a doubt that the differences that divide us still do matter.

Nevertheless, while my Protestant brothers and sisters celebrate, I am sad. I wait for the day when the Protestant elves will sail back across the sea into the West. For whatever beauty may be wrought, and while “evil yet be good to have been,” the wound in the Body of Christ still remains an evil.

A Fascinating Debate on Islam

Both Patrick Madrid and David Schütz put me onto this most interesting discussion. The question is whether the only good Muslim is a "bad" Muslim. I strongly recommend it.

Patrick Madrid has a few interesting things to say on this: here.

David Schütz mentions it in a fascinating article on the book mentioned in the debate: here


UPDATE: I updated the link to David Schütz's blog. WordPress rather abruptly took it down, but he's back at a new address.

Pope Issues New Apostolic Exhortation on Scripture

Today, Pope Benedict XVI released an apostolic exhortation titled Verbum Domini: Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church. Click here for a link to the document in pdf form. (Catholic Culture is the source I used to obtain the link, from their story here.)

It seems a fortuitous opportunity to let you know about a personal project I have undertaken since All Saints' Day. On November 1st, I started a "Read the Bible in a Year" project that uniquely also ties into the Catechism. You can find the plan here. I highly recommend it.

For my Bible I am using the The New Jerusalem Bible: Saints Devotional Edition, which I acquired several years go. I know the NJB has numerous problems, but this edition does much to mitigate them. Most of the notes and all of the introductions are ditched in favour of very few notes (mostly of the cross-referencing kind, and occasionally of the 'this word could also be X' kind). The real strength is Dr Ghezzi's inserting works by the various saints (not a few of whom are Fathers of the Church) throughout as commentaries on various passages. There are 100 Old Testament commentaries, and 100 New Testament Commentaries. All of them are thoroughly orthodox. It really makes reading the Scriptures an enriched experience, and does much to rescue the New Jerusalem version. One thing though that strikes me from time to time ... It's clear in not a few places that the Fathers and other Saints understood the verses in ways modern scholarship poopoos. So for example "Only-begotten Son" in Jn 1:18 and that sort of thing, which means the commentary has to quote a different version entirely. Somewhat defeats the purpose of the commentaries complementing yours when they have to quote someone else.

To return to the Apostolic Exhortation, when I am done reading it, I will post some observations.

Apologia pro Nostra Aetate

Some time ago, my friend Pr. Lehmann declared that Nostra Aetate (Latin text, English text) was “the most satanic document ever written by the Christian Church.” Now, it will come as no surprise that not only do I disagree, I happen to find it to be an eminently Biblical Document. In fact, it reminds me of one passage in particular; a passage from which it derives its ideas and even its structure. The passage in question is Acts 17:22-33, St. Paul's great speech upon the Areopagus of Athens (the Mars Hill of the Authorised Version).

Let us consider the passage first and then how the Conciliar Document interacts with it. St Paul begins by praising the Athenians for their scrupulous religiosity (the Authorised Version and the Challoner revision* of the Rheims version both imply Paul mocks them for their superstition, but in fact he praises them) by noting that they are so thorough as to worship an “unknown god.” And then he says one of the most startling things, “this god you worship unknowingly, Him I proclaim to you.” This one statement gives the lie to people who assert that either you worship the Trinity or you worship Satan. For Paul himself states it is possible to worship God incompletely and not even have any experience of His revelation in either the Old Testament alone or the Old and New Testaments. For, the Athenians knew neither. And yet, Paul declares that although defective, their unknown god was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. St Paul then goes on to preach to them using Scripture, but not our Scripture. The Scriptures Paul quotes are pagan. “In him we live and move and have our being” is Epimenides of Crete, whom Paul again quotes in Titus (the famous statement that all Cretans are liars) where he describes him as a prophet. “We are indeed his offspring” is from Aratus' Phaenomena . And in this great speech, which converted a number of people like Dionysius the Areopagite and Damaris, he mentions Christ never by name, but only in passing. Indeed, he exclusively uses pagan reasoning, pagan verbiage, pagan scripture, pagan concepts, etc.

Now why is this important? Because we are often told, either outright or by implication, that if you're not Christian then you have no truth at all and worship Satan. But the Catholic position, articulated in Nostra Aetate and drawing heavily from Paul's example, is that while other religions cannot save, they are not totally devoid of truth either. God calls out to Man, a point made by Paul, and they grope about for him. Some people get it completely right by becoming Christians, but others, even in their ignorance, can see some parts of the truth, while not grasping it entirely. But it is a foundation that can be built upon. And that's what Paul does. He takes those points of intersection, where the Greeks grasped at but did not yet come to the truth, and Paul pointed them in the right direction. And I still marvel that he did so, he brought people to Christ, and yet never mentioned Christ by name. Indeed, Christ is hardly noted by the people; the point of contention that causes people to mock Paul is his assertion of the Resurrection. Nostra Aetate goes farther even than Paul; Nostra Aetate says very clearly that “[i]ndeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.” Paul doesn't even mention salvation, but Nostra Aetate does, and makes it the central pivot point around which the whole document revolves.

Like Paul, Nostra Aetate talks about those points of intersection between other religions and the Christian religion. It does not, as some assert, claim that other religions are equally as valid, or that they can save. A careful reading shows that these assertions are made about the document but are absent from it. Rather, it notes, for example, that the Muslims are monotheistic, wish to be associated with Abraham, revere Christ (though not as God), have special regard for Christ's Mother, etc. All of these statements are true, and are also points to build upon. The Catholic position is toward “positive proselytism,” building upon the common points where the Other has grasped partially the truth so the Other can be brought to its fullness. At the same time, Nostra Aetate takes great pains to distance itself from mistakes of the past. For example, Nostra Aetate makes this quite clear: “True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.” The preceding quote being a reference to all the terrible tragedies associated with Blood Libel and the like. In the final assessment, the Council Fathers took the position that emulating Paul would lead more souls to Christ. If the Council Fathers issued a Satanic document, then it is because Paul gave a Satanic speech.

But how can this be? St. Luke, who recorded it, praises it as winning people to Christ. And he didn't say, “many came to believe in spite of Paul's abject surrender to Satan's power.” Clearly, the Holy Ghost, who inspired Luke, thinks that Paul's speech was praiseworthy. But maybe Paul was playing a joke on the people, or maybe he deceived them for some reason. Really? This is how we win people to Christ? By deception? We are left, unfortunately for some, with the clear warrant of Scripture that what Paul and the Council Fathers did was not Satanic at all. Now, I am sure we'll be told that some pluperfect, some preposition, some adverbial phrase in Ephesians or the Gospel of St John says this or that. But I tell you now that's just missing the Gospel Forest for a few grammatical trees. What did Paul plainly do? What did the Council Fathers plainly do in emulating the Apostle?

I can tell you that it involves Satan; his defeat to be precise.



*I have no idea what the original Rheims version said on this point, as I don't have a text to consult.

What's wrong?

After a long hiatus, I'm going to write about an opportunity missed, and why it is part and parcel of what ails us.

Before I begin it is important to note that the readings for Sunday were Gn 18:1-10a, Col 1:24-28, and Lk 10:38-42. These three readings are about the relationship between Faith and diakonia (i.e. ministry, service). Abraham, in the Lesson, serves the three strangers for selfless love of them. He does not know the truth of their identity, and serves them even though he is ignorant. His is a truly selfless love. But it still appears to be primarily about meeting the needs of the "flesh" rather than the "Spirit" as St Paul would distinguish. But the Gospel reading helps make this clearer. It is a commentary on the Lesson. The Gospel reading is very hard on us Moderns. We listen to this proclaimed and are affronted. How unjust for poor Martha! She's busting her mmhmmm to serve Jesus and He seems to snub her. But ... is that really what goes on? This Gospel lesson is not to poo-poo Martha's service per se, it's perfectly salutary to serve others. But the point Christ makes is that it should be done in a context where Faith, and literally listening to the Word of God is central. Mary listens first to the Word, literally, before engaging the world in its toils. And thus the Gospel informs the Epistle. This is how St Paul is able to "fill up that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ" by service that is Christ-focused and Christ-centered. It started with Christ and returns to Him. And so we come full circle to the Lesson, where we now realise that Abraham's diakonia was worthy of reward because of how Christ-like it was. He who yearned for a Saviour acted most like him in this selfless service, precisely because it did not just meet the needs of the "flesh" but, as it were, proclaimed the Gospel even before it was proclaimed by Christ.

*****

This brings me to what struck me on Sunday. Immediately after we profess our Faith, using the ancient and yet still ever-present formula of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, we then offer up a set of prayers that are supposed to pray for the corporate needs of the particular parish. All of the prayers were ones for God to meet needs of the "flesh." Examples included that political leaders respect the poor and marginalised, that those who are financially distressed receive relief from their distress, that our military in harm's way be protected from harm and come safely home, and that the sick and their caregivers be a source of healing and comfort to each other. These are fine in and of themselves -- who does not want our troops to come safely home? -- but is there anything particularly Christian about them? Could atheists not offer the same sentiments? I'll return to that question. What about something like "... bring them safely home, and may they spread the Gospel wherever they are sent in thought word and deed"? This is not fashionable. I can see the papers decrying our troops being used as missionaries with guns. But that's not what I just prayed for. Rather I want someone out there in the far-flung reaches of the globe to see our troops living the Gospel and thus ask the question "why does he love like that? How can I love like that?" and thus come to be saved.

This is more than just an opportunity lost, although it is certainly that. I ask again the question, could not an atheist or other secular person offer those sentiments? Yes. And that's the problem. That's one of the main reasons so many churches are hurting. Many of our leaders in the Faith are out there involved in protests, activism and so on. And defending the downtrodden, the marginalised etc are certainly within the mandate given us by Christ. But, if that's all being a nun or a priest is ... if that's all being a Catholic is ... just protesting and getting socially aware ... then we don't need to be Catholic, or priests, or nuns to do that. Secular people are just as capable of doing these things. If all we are is a socially-aware group of activists and charity workers, we don't even really need religion for any purpose, right? And so many people realised that very thing that vocations are down (and not just for those reasons, obviously, but it is certainly a major factor). But we do need the Gospel. We cannot be saved but by the Gospel. If we focus on the Gospel while being socially active, that's the one road to living in Imitation of Christ. But that means making the saving of the souls you engage a greater priority than just making sure you march for them. I have seen it time and time again that when the church emphasises the things of the "Spirit" first, and makes things Christ-centered and Christ-focused we have increased Mass participation, an increase in vocations and so on.

Surely there are many problems besides this that the Church needs to address and all of them urgently (obviously the abuse scandal comes to mind). But, in my mind, the single greatest thing the Church can do is to listen to Christ in the Gospel pericope. If our dioceses, religious orders and so on make Christ the focus, and meet the needs of the "Spirit" before meeting the needs of the "flesh" then it seems to me cleaning up other problems will necessarily follow.

Luke's Parable of the Sower Considered

First a quick word on my lack of blogging. In a recent posting, well ... "recent" ... I said that the crisis I was experiencing was getting better. Alas, it got much worse before it resolved. But for the grace of God I do not know how I would have coped. But in any event, I feel now as though I can blog again, and so ...

The reading in the LCMS One Year Lectionary for Sunday, I am told, is the Parable of the Sower from Luke (Lk 8:4-8, but we'll be discussing the wider context of Chapter 8:1-18). I thought, as an interesting exercise to set myself, I'd ask what I might make of this text. This is one of the most famous of the Parables, narrated in all three Synoptics. It was clearly a favourite of the Followers of the Way.

In Luke's version the "lead up" to the parable begins with a proclamation. This is an important feature of this particular Gospel. The Gospel itself begins with a proclamation from Caesar, Christ begins His public ministry with a proclamation (see Chapt 4). Thus proclaiming the Gospel is an important thematic feature of this Gospel, more important than it being the Gospel of forgiveness (i.e. the only Gospel to include the Prodigal Son, for example) or of acceptance of the marginalised (i.e. the only Gospel to contain the Parable of the Good Samaritan). This proclamation is then followed by the women followers bearing the fruit of that proclamation.

In other words, the parable is explained before it is given. Again, read Chapter 4, where the Nazareth tale clearly happens after Capernaum (see verse 23 in 4), but is narrated before those stories.

And so the parable. The parable serves many purposes, some obvious, others not. One of the primary purposes is to debunk the idea of Christ's preaching being perspicuous. Indeed, it is clearly not. If it were clear, why would anyone ask for it to be explained? Indeed, as an experiment one could narrate the parable, without Christ's explanation, to non-believers who have never been exposed to it before to see how many could grok it right away. I'd be willing to say very few. Indeed, its opaqueness to all except those to whom He reveals the explanation is the point as made clear by verse 10. It is this verse (and its parallels in the other synoptics) that make me want to scream whenever I hear someone preach that Jesus used parables so as to be easily understood by his audience. FALSE! And how do we know it is false? Jesus says so! So the parable serves to illustrate this important point, the purpose of parables. But that is very minor when compared to the other purpose(s).

We can read the explanation for ourselves, and see that we're called to be Little Sowers in imitation of the Great Sower (and here I think of Tolkien's idea of subcreation most strongly). And we can recognise the groups in the Church that this addresses. Theologians like Thomas Aquinas would have a field day with the four different groups. He especially would see the four as significant; he believed that all humans had three choices, and with grace, four. He would point out that the first group represented those who had chosen supernatural evil. The next group experiences a kind of passive indifference that proves they had no foundation to begin with; a natural evil. The next group recognises the good and responds to it, except the worries of the world prevent them from going beyond natural good. Only the last group responds fully to the grace offered and thus flourish, persevere and bear fruit. I'll get to the Molinists in a second, as their response is predicated on an observation I have not yet made.

What of the soil? To me the soil, and its condition, is of critical importance to the parable. The soil was put there, filled with good nutrients and expected the Sower well before He ever set out to sow. It was meant to receive His seed. It was meant to grow, nourish and bear good fruit. And this is important. The soil is the soil if election. The Molinists say that the soil is proof that God actualised reality in response to His middle knowledge of counterfactuals; He knew that we would respond well if the seed fell on us in such a way, and actualised reality to effect it. Thomists say the soil is demonstration that the recipient souls were put in just the right place and properly disposed to receive and respond well to the grace and thus bear fruit. Meh. With all due respect to my side and the other, they miss the point. Here is a simple, and I might add comforting notion, that God has chosen whom He has chosen. But unlike the hard, no holds barred Predestination of the Calvinists, there's more.

The purpose of the parable of the lamp is key. Once sown, the seed must bear fruit, and that requires us to freely respond to the grace. If we don't respond, the light will stay under the bushel and be as useless as James warns (i.e. James 2:18 and/or 20). Jesus doesn't say here "Once you receive the light, WHAMO, you will irresistibly show forth your light!" Instead, He says that so important is this relationship, that even poorly listening to the Word can be catastrophic. In other words, another purpose of the parable is to explain, without getting too technical, the compatiblism of the synergistic approach. Obviously, the choice is still fueled by grace, not every synergist is a Pelagian; but neither are we passive automatons, riding upon the donkey of Christ or the donkey of Satan as a German theologian once wrote.

The whole point of the parable is to admonish (for even inattentiveness can be disastrous), encourage and comfort. To know that God elects whom He elects, and that we will know this by the fruit produced, is a great comfort. To know that with His grace we can grow in Holiness is a great testimony to His mercy. And this to me is the real purpose of the parable.

More Translations

A friend asked me to compare the NASB, MKJV and NKJV. I have to first state that the reason I didn't touch on many of these types of translations is that they weren't released for the Catholic market and don't contain the Deuterocanon. I only included the KJV in the previous post due to its wording's wide familiarity. Anyway, here's my response for my friend:

I'll get the MKJV out of the way, because I know almost nothing about it. I note it uses Jehovah for the name of God, but aside from that I'd have to sit down and flip to different passages to see how it handles this or that Greek phrase.

The NKJV I am more familiar with. I have a Gideon's New Testament and Psalms, and the Gideon's use the NKJV almost exclusively. The NKJV revised much of the spelling and grammar to make it more contemporary while keeping the same flow and as much of the same aesthetic quality as the KJV. This caused some problems, because in correcting they altered some well-loved passages to conservative Protestants. One that immediately comes to mind is Acts 17:22. The KJV says "Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious." Whereas the NKJV says "Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious;" Conservative Christians balked, thinking this was an error. Actually, the NKJV got it right. The KJV translators couldn't possibly imagine Paul praising the Athenians for paganism, but that is exactly what he was doing. He was getting behind them before he threw a curve at them (he says, mixing his metaphors).

NKJV:

1 A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. 3 He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.

My only fault with it is twofold. One ... no apocrypha/deuterocanon ... That is a show-stopper for me. Two, it, like all KJV derivatives, is too slavish to Textus Receptus. At the time of the KJV that was the best text anyone could use. But more recent scholarship, and by recent I mean from the 18th century onward, has shown that Textus Receptus is serious deficient in some areas and has bits and pieces in others that were not in the original. I also find it ironic that so many Conservative Christians cling to TR, when it was largely an invention of a Catholic Priest, Erasmus of Rotterdam ... yes, that Erasmus.

As for the NASB. It's an extremely literal version of Scripture, to the point where it is nearly unreadable at times in English. Indeed, a criticism of an earlier version than the NASB applies also to the NASB itself: Strong in Greek, weak in English. Psalm 23 won't show this very well, and so I will try to hunt down a passage that is so slavish to the older languages' syntax as to be virtually unreadable in English.

NASB:

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. 3 He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Translations Compared

My friend Ros raised the issue of which version of the Bible to buy. Another friend remarked "the one you will read" a la Billy Graham. But I hope to offer some additional guidance.

First, a warning, two of the translations actually spell out the name of God. This might cause offence.

Second, an explanation. I think it makes it easy to see the differences by comparing how each translation treats a common and well-known passage from the Bible: Psalm 23

The King James Version, more properly the Authorised Version, is probably the loveliest of all the translation. It is not without problems. I think of the end of Isaiah 13 almost immediately where the KJV translators translated dragons and satyrs. But for sheer aesthetic value, the 1611 version of the KJV (with Apocrypha) is the pinnacle of aesthetic and literal consideration.

KJV

1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

But the KJV, for all its beauty, is not a Catholic translation, per se. For its contemporary we turn to the Douay-Rheims. It is not nearly as lovely all of the time. The below quote is proof. The D-R translators were as slavish to the Latin as the KJV translators could be the to the Greek of the NT. And that's important. The D-R is a translation of the Vulgate, and although Bishop Challoner revised it to be closer to the original languages it still suffers from an over dependence on the Latin.

Douay-Rheims

1 (22-1) A psalm for David. The Lord ruleth me: and I shall want nothing. 2 (22-2) He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment: 3 (22-3) He hath converted my soul. He hath led me on the paths of justice, for his own name’s sake. 4 (22-4) For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me. 5 (22-5) Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil; and my chalice which inebreateth me, how goodly is it! 6 (22-6) And thy mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And that I may dwell in the house of the Lord unto length of days.

Many years later the Revised Standard Version, one of a long line of updates to the KJV was produced with a version made available for Catholics. It is among the best permitted for Catholics, and is an even better translation than the Protestant version. The Protestant version has numerous problems in the New Testament (Holy Spirit is an it; the Pericope Auldterae, i.e. John 7:53-8:11 is in a footnote, and so on). The Catholic version could not obtain the imprimatur until these were fixed. It suffers from several problems still though. The RSV still uses thees and thous when referring to God, even though Hebrew does not contain this distinction, and it is one of many translations to not translate Is 7:14 as virgin. Still many conservative Catholics prefer this version or its revision by Ignatius Press for its overall fidelity to the original languages. It also still maintains a high aesthetic style.

RSV-CE

1 A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want; 2 he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters; 3 he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies; thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

More recently the RSV has been updated with a version again prepared for Catholics and another for Orthodox. The NRSV suffers from a number of translation problems, not least of which is its decision to often impute politically correct and gender neutral readings on a text where to do so obscures the meaning.

NRSV

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; 3 he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

The official Catholic Bible in the United States is the New American Bible. This is the version all the readings at Mass are drawn from. So far all the versions I have cited have maintained a high aesthetic style, and the NAB is the first to have very pedestrian and sometimes even ugly lines of text. Psalm 23 is almost not up to the task of showing this. But if you've been reading along then you know this Psalm has a natural rhythm, not unsurprising for poetry. The NAB merely makes these declarative statements with no eye for aesthetics.

NAB:

1 A psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack.
2 In green pastures you let me graze; to safe waters you lead me;
3 you restore my strength. You guide me along the right path for the sake of your name.
4 Even when I walk through a dark valley, I fear no harm for you are at my side; your rod and staff give me courage.
5 You set a table before me as my enemies watch; You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
6 Only goodness and love will pursue me all the days of my life; I will dwell in the house of the LORD for years to come.

Outside the United States, like in Britain and Ireland, the Mass readings are taken from the Jerusalem Bible. While in fresh, modern text, the translators very consciously tried to maintain a literary quality. They retained J.R.R. Tolkien has a translator, although he demurred in later years as to the extent of his contribution. Nevertheless, his influence is clearly evident. This version is still quite controversial for, among other things, deciding to spell out all of God's names. Usually the name of God is obscured by The LORD and so on. Here it is spelled out, although with the popular conjectural pronunciation. Interestingly, in the Mass readings these are returned to The LORD. Also, this version is one of few to split the difference in Is 7:14 by translating almah as "maiden."

Also, its footnotes and introductions were enormously controversial, because they advanced the then still new High Criticism approach. Nowadays you can't actually get the version with those notes. The only version of the JB available is called the "Rearder's Edition."

JB:

1 Yahweh is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 In meadows of green grass he lets me lie. To the waters of repose he leads me;
3 there he revises my soul. He guides me by paths of virtue for the sake of his name.
4 Though I pass through a gloomy valley, I fear no harm; beside me your rod and your staff are there, to hearten me.
5 You prepare a table before me under the eyes of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup brims over.
6 Ah, how goodness and kindness pursue me, every day of my life; my home, the house of Yahweh, as long as I live!

In the 1980s, the JB was revised. The notes were no less controversial, and they joined the chorus of translations that translate almah as "young girl." Moreover, much of the literary quality was sacrificed under the pretense of increasing accuracy. It also introduced more "inclusive language" although not to the extent of the NRSV. The result is a now uglier and less accurate translation of Scripture.

NJB:

1 [Psalm Of David] Yahweh is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 In grassy meadows he lets me lie. By tranquil streams he leads me
3 to restore my spirit. He guides me in paths of saving justice as befits his name.
4 Even were I to walk in a ravine as dark as death I should fear no danger, for you are at my side. Your staff and your crook are there to soothe me.
5 You prepare a table for me under the eyes of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup brims over.
6 Kindness and faithful love pursue me every day of my life. I make my home in the house of Yahweh for all time to come.

The next two translations are firmly in the camp of "thought for thought" translations.

The first one, the Good News Translation, which until the 2000s was called Today's English Version, is very easy to read with simple language. It has a kind of aesthetic quality all its own. The simplistic language is intended for all ages, especially children and people who do not Speak English as a first language. One of the benefits of a version like this is that people who come to it not knowing what predestination or justification mean, are not necessarily going to be put off by these versions. Te Word is thus more accessible. The problem is that the simplicity can also allow the biases of the translators to get in the way. One other thing to note is that the GNT, when they changed the name also introduced inclusive language, abut again, not to the extent of the NRSV.

GNT:

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I have everything I need. 2 He lets me rest in fields of green grass and leads me to quiet pools of fresh water. 3 He gives me new strength. He guides me in the right paths, as he has promised. 4 Even if I go through the deepest darkness, I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me. Your shepherd's rod and staff protect me. 5 You prepare a banquet for me, where all my enemies can see me; you welcome me as an honored guest and fill my cup to the brim. 6 I know that your goodness and love will be with me all my life; and your house will be my home as long as I live.

Finally is the Living Bible. I include it because Our Sunday Visitor sells a Catholic version where they received permission from Tyndale to paraphrase the Deuterocanonical books and include them. The Living Bible is not a translation, it's a paraphrase, what one man (in this case) says each line means not what the line says. It too has a style all its own, and was quite controversial in its day, no less because he had an individual in the Old Testament cuss.

LB

Because the Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need!
2,3 He lets me rest in the meadow grass and leads me beside the quiet streams. He restores my failing health. He helps me do what honors him the most.
4 Even when walking through the dark valley of death I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me, guarding, guiding all the way.
5 You provide delicious food for me in the presence of my enemies. You have welcomed me as your guest; blessings overflow!
6 Your goodness and unfailing kindness shall be with me all of my life, and afterwards I will live with you forever in your home.

As you can see there's a wide variety, but none of them are perfect. Some are much less worthy than others. And I haven't touched on the versions where the Church has given approval to only the New Testament and Psalms versions (which I could have done since my example is Psalm 23).

I hope this helps to give an idea of the ups and downs, and I of course will answer any questions in the combox.

More on the Development of the Canon

Before continuing with my history of the development of the canon, I feel it somewhat important to answer a basic question. If we say that the period of the Councils, like Carthage, Hippo and Rome, defined the OT and NT canons, we do have to answer "which OT canon?" Alexandrian or Palestinian? The Alexandrian canon is also called the Septuagint (often abbreviated LXX for the Seventy translators who supposedly translated it) and the Palestinian is the 39 books no one disputes.

This is an important question, because many of the Fathers considered the LXX to be inspired. Justin Martyr and St Cyril of Jerusalem come immediately the mind as advancing this view. St Cyril even goes so far as to say that it was not done by the agency of human wisdom but entirely as inspired by the Holy Ghost. He explicitly says this.

This helps to explain why the Eastern Churches accepted the LXX entirely, including all four Maccabees, all the Esdrases, Odes and so on. The West, as I said, adopted the Alexandrian canon only to an extent. As I said before, they had a two-tiered system. Of the 39 books, they largely accepted those as being canonical without exception. But they also inherited some books from the Apostles and the Apostolic Fathers and for this reason called the second tier Ecclesiastical. St Cyril, whom I mentioned before, in saying the LXX was inspired, also tells the people to whom he wrote that not to gainsay the books handed down by the Apostles, because "Children of the Church" should not question their "Fathers." But again, this all had to do with the context of what was read out in the churches. As an aside, and to bring Jerome back into this, he was widely criticised for his new Translation into Modern language. People had gotten to like their old translation that sounded very archaic and could only be appreciated by some, especially those with an education. Sound familiar?

By the time of the aforementioned Councils, things had changed enough that the distinction was dropped.

What resulted was a text that could be used to settle disputes, but the important thing to note is that it wasn't Scripture that ultimately settled the disputes but the Ecumenical Councils making use of Scripture. The Canonisation of Scripture was meant to serve the needs of the Church, not the Church serve Scripture.

This served the Church well for centuries. Scripture inspired a rich prayer-life of recitation of the Psalms, Proverbs, and so on. The pericopes of Scripture became so well known as to inspire art throughout the ages. And of all the books, when the Printing Press came about, what was published first? The Vulgate Bible.

Then came the Reformation and the first challenges to the canon in 1100 years. Why? Well, to an extent there's a very simple and logical reason. Suppose you have determined that no institution of Man, no matter how Divinely instituted can be free from the Fall. So you decide that something immutable and outside the structure should be the element to which you appeal. Hence sola scriptura. Since Fallen Man could not be trusted, but the Word of God was unchanging, so now it was the Word of God itself that held the final Authority. But if you're going to have a final Authority, you need to decide which one that is.

Now, cynics charge that the Reformers removed the books that they found disagreed with their position. Exploring that charge is another post entirely. But suffice it to say we can presume their sincerity. If they looked back throughout time they found that the only books of the canon that never met with any resistance in the Old Testament was the Palestinian canon. The New Testament is a different and sometimes fascinating story. Suffice it to say, if we went with some of the first reactions, our New Testament would be a lot smaller. But again, another whole post, and one filled with nuance upon nuance.

But this invites the question "Who gets to decide?" In all previous times it was the Church who decided. So Trent took up something never before deemed necessary. See in the Patristic period the Ecumenical Councils thought it went without saying that the Councils of Hippo, Carthage and Rome had sufficiently dealt with the question. Nowadays we'd liken it to the Supreme Court of the US determining that the lower courts got it right and see no need to take up the question. But with Trent it was different. We had a huge portion of North Europe saying that some books were not to be read with equal reverence and accepted as equally inspired. The position since the Patristic period had been, if not de jure, at least de facto the opposite.

So Trent took up what all its predecessors had seen unnecessary to do and it issued its now famous decree that all of the books in the Vulgate were to be accepted as equally inspired etc. In essence the Council of Trent finally put the seal of an Ecumenical Council to decisions taken and accepted in the Patristic period. Although the Vulgate was held in reverence by the Council, what they really said is that it was not the Vulgate for the Vulgate's sake, but the Vulgate because it was a correct representation of the correct canon. And thus the differences today between the Protestant and Catholic Bibles (and indeed the Eastern Bibles which I touched on earlier).

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Some of my friends lament the fact that the Apocrypha has been somewhat disregarded nowadays. The Reformers, trying to ape the Fathers, considered the Apocrypha in a high place although not canonical per se. But there was a difference between the Reformers and the Fathers. The Fathers never had sola scriptura. And so their two-tiered approach could survive. But under sola scriptura if it's not canonical it eventually will be excised as "extra-biblical". And thus the eventually leaving behind of the Apocrypha and even the naked hostility to it as a collection of "Romish books" are perfectly understandable. Obviously I don't agree, but it is a logical consequence of what the Reformers did.

The Development of the Canon of Scripture

To understand the development of the canon, which I touched on a little in the previous post, we have to understand what the Fathers saw as important and how that changed.

Before the Council of Nicaea, the Fathers (the Ante-Nicene Fathers), especially the Apostolic Fathers (those Fathers who knew the Apostles personally) had an interesting way of approaching this subject. For them, what was important about Scripture was which ones were to be read in church. But what we learn is that many churches allowed a wide variety of works to be read in church that later did not make it into the canon: like the Shepherd by Hermas, Pope Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians, and the Didache to name a few. Some that did make it into the canon of Scripture were contested from the earliest days, this is why some Churches in the East -- to this day -- do not have Revelation in their Bibles. The doctrinal/dogmatic argument-ender for the Ante-Nicene Fathers was "the Apostolic Witness." If anyone could demonstrate conclusively that the Apostles taught X instead of Y ... end of discussion! Scripture was used to corroborate the Apostolic Witness, especially the Pauline Corpus. After all, Paul was an Apostle, and if he taught it, it confirmed the other Apostles taught it, since he learned from them. If Papias or Polycarp claimed that John taught X, that was that. Scripture, while important for educating churchgoers, especially catechumens (they spilled a lot of ink debating which books and which pericopes should be shown to the catechumens) the doctrinal discussion-stoppers were the Apostolic Witness.

But by the time of the Council of Nicaea, indeed the whole reason for it really, the Apostolic Witness was becoming harder to discern from spurious accounts. All of those who knew the apostles and those who knew them were dead. So the Church needed to come up with a way of maintaining right belief (orthodoxia) in union with the Apostolic tradition. This spurred them to determine which Scriptures were canonical and which writings were merely inspired. They would know the canonical Scriptures because they agreed with the Apostolic Witness.

Here are the criteria they used. First and foremost, these Scriptures had to be read by all of the churches and not just some. This seems to affirm a congregationalist polity. But in reality this was a simple, common sense rubric. If all of the churches read these Scriptures it is because they were either taught to do so by the Apostles or they conform to the Apostolic Teaching. The Gospels are a good example of this concept. Not only did they have to deal primarily with Jesus (some contemporary Gospels dealt with other people as well. Luke is the closest to this of the canonical Gospels. He spends quite a bit of time on Jesus' relatives. Other Gospels that did not end up being considered canonical spent more time on others than Luke), and they had to agree completely with what the Apostles taught about Jesus. So the synoptics and John got in, but Gospels were Jesus elevated Mary Magdalene above the Apostles or where Judas was the Good Guy did not, because they disagreed with the Apostolic Teaching.

There was also another consideration that was very important to the Fathers. Nowadays we'd consider this silly superstition, but they took it seriously. Basically, the number of books in the OT had to equal the number of Hebrew letters, and the number of NT books had to equal the number of Greek letters. Here's one example:

There are, then, of the Old Testament, twenty-two books in number; for, as I have heard, it is handed down that this is the number of the letters among the Hebrews; their respective order and names being as follows. The first is Genesis, then Exodus, next Leviticus, after that Numbers, and then Deuteronomy. Following these there is Joshua, the son of Nun, then Judges, then Ruth. And again, after these four books of Kings, the first and second being reckoned as one book, and so likewise the third and fourth as one book. And again, the first and second of the Chronicles are reckoned as one book. Again Ezra, the first and second are similarly one book. After these there is the book of Psalms, then the Proverbs, next Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. Job follows, then the Prophets, the twelve being reckoned as one book. Then Isaiah, one book, then Jeremiah with Baruch, Lamentations, and the Epistle, one book; afterwards, Ezekiel and Daniel, each one book. Thus far constitutes the Old Testament.

-St Athanasius, 39th Festal Letter

Indeed, in the same Festal letter, Athanasius describes what then went on in their minds when they realised they had books left over. Essentially, they had three designations: Canonical, Ecclesiastical, and Apocryphal. Nowadays, we'd call them Protocanonical, Deuterocanonical and Pseudopigriphal. In this second category they included the Old Testament Deuterocanon, of course, but they also included a NT variety, which often included the Shepherd, Clement's Epistle, and so on. They called it Ecclesiastical, because the Apostolic Fathers had ordered them to be read in church. This is behind Jerome's remark in his prologue in my previous post.

By the Councils of Hippo, Carthage, Rome etc it was decided, with respect to the OT, to leave off the artificial designation of canonical and ecclesiastical, and instead to include them altogether. The New Testament fared differently. After much debate certain disputed works were excised and others included.

The purpose for doing all of this though was simple. If the Apostles and their immediate successors are not present to ask about certain points, we need a base text upon which we can debate. Then when the Arians and Nestorians make their claim, we'll have one work to consult. If what they claim is not therein, they're wrong.

(continued tomorrow)

Jerome and the Deuterocanon

I have recently been studying Kevin Edgecomb's translation of the Prologues to the Vulgate.

I find these very interesting for a number of reasons. For one, they tell us a little about how Scripture was viewed in the 4th and 5th centuries. We also see the role of Bishops, and what role they played in this, not least of whom was Pope Damasus I. And we also see the role that Council of Nicaea played.

We also learn a lot about Jerome himself and his translation methodology. All of this is very instructive. But the real reason these are so helpful has to do with why I was looking at them in the first place.

Several days ago I spoke to a friend, B.D., and he (a Protestant) repeated to me the oft-repeated line that Jerome disdained the Apocrypha. He can be forgiven for repeating this line, as it is many quite respectable sources. My Good News Bible, the one with the Apocrypha in a middle section, has this in the intro to the Apocrypha/Deuterocanon. And I have seen it elsewhere. Now, the motivation for this line originally (not B.D.'s per se, or the GNB either, but earlier than they) was to sort of poke fun at us Catholics. The Tridentine Council declared the Vulgate the official Catholic Bible. And so, snicker snicker snicker, isn't it funny you Catholics like this Bible's canon when even its translator rejected the Deuterocanon? Snicker, snicker, snicker.

The truth is much more complicated than that when it comes to Jerome's views himself. I wanted to find the actual Latin of his letters, but it seems I'll have to buy the Biblia Sacra Vulgata, 5th Edition myself to get them, but you see how expensive that is. So I stumbled on Kevin's translations. He does a great job, and shows via footnotes where he got certain translations.

If we just read his prologue to the Solomonic literature, we see the famous line, famous to the Reformers anyway: "Therefore, just as the Church also reads the books of Judith, Tobias, and the Maccabees, but does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures, so also one may read these two scrolls for the strengthening of the people, (but) not for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas." That would seem to be pretty damning wouldn't it? Kevin, in his introduction to this prologue on his blog points out that you could say the same of many canonical Scriptures too. I would be interested, for example, to see what dogma is served by the genealogies at the beginning of 1 Chronicles. Still, in this we see what might be termed at worst naked hostility and at best ambivalence.

So it is then interesting to read the prologues to other more specific books. In his prologue to Tobit, we see Jerome at his most petulant. He complains to the Bishops that they want Tobit translated, when Jerome reminds them the book is not found among the Hebrew canon. But then he says ""But it is better to be judging the opinion of the Pharisees to displease and to be subject to the commands of bishops" (emphasis mine). We again note his surrender to authority in his prologue to Judith: "But because this book is found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures, I have acquiesced to your request ..." There are some interesting tidbits in these two prologues. In the Tobit one he notes that "I have persisted as I have been able, and because the language of the Chaldeans is close to Hebrew speech, finding a speaker very skilled in both languages, I took to the work of one day, and whatever he expressed to me in Hebrew words, this, with a summoned scribe, I have set forth in Latin words." Quite amazing really. And in Judith he notes "Among the Hebrews the Book of Judith is found among the Hagiographa" which is his word for the Ketuvim, the Writings, the third section of Hebrew Scripture. That's remarkable that Judith was considered canonical by some of the Jews even in Jerome's time.

Some might point to his letter about Daniel, which contains this line "Therefore, I have shown these things to you as a difficulty of Daniel, which among the Hebrews has neither the history of Susanna, nor the hymn of the three young men, nor the fables of Bel and the dragon, which we, because they are spread throughout the whole world, have appended by banishing and placing them after the skewer, so we will not be seen among the unlearned to have cut off a large part of the scroll." (emphasis mine). But what we see here actually is something subtle. I bolded a particular part to show what's going on under the surface. Here Jerome is imitating Origen, who placed bits he couldn't find in the Hebrew after an obelus, a skewer. What he is saying here is that he accepts that since the rest of the Church accepts these, rather than be accused of destroying Daniel altogether, he's imitated Origen and placed these stories after the obelus. This is important because many sources I have read say that Jerome placed Deuterocanonical parts in appendices. But in reality placing them after an obelus in imitation of Origen's Hexapla speaks more for their canonicity than relegating them to an appendix.

One could go on. What is interesting to me is that Jerome never, apparently, took up the issue of the New Testament Antilegomena. These books -- Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, Jude, and even Revelation -- were all contested in the same way as the Deuterocanon of the OT was contested. I would have been fascinated to see him tackle these and provide his take on them. Jerome's views are often fascinating, like his assertion that Wisdom was written by Philo Judaeus. We do have his prologue to the Gospels, and they are also quite interesting. First, because he admits he's glad the Pope (St Damasus I) was the one to make the request of him, since if anyone objects to his translation, the Big Boss is the one who asked for them: "Against such infamy I am consoled by two causes: that it is you, who are the highest priest, who so orders..." But also for the reverence shown to the Eusebian system of tables for linking all the Gospels together. The Gospels were divided into pericopes, sections intended to be read in Church, and then each pericope was numbered. The tables (ten in number) showed which pericopes are similar to which other pericopes, and which pericopes occur in one, two, three or all four Gospels, and so on. This is due to the fact that the Fathers saw the Gospels are really one interwoven work, and not as four books with no points of intersection as the modern scholars tend to assert (or their common point of intersection is some mythical document named Q. But more on that later).

What this all tells me is that Jerome had very strong personal views about the Deuterocanon. But in the end, he always bowed, sometime petulantly, to higher authority. And my next post will detail why.

What's Coming Up

A few posts I am working on are not ready for publication yet, but here is what they will be about:

1. Jerome on the Deuterocanon (much different from what people have been told).


2. More from Jerome, this time on Matt 2:23


3. Some Musings on the Pericope Adulterae


4. A request from a friend to discuss Qumran

The Long-Awaited Rom 11 Post

First let me apologise for going silent. There have been some crises in my life that left me feeling decidedly unwilling to do much writing. Enough of the crises have subsided that I feel I can finish this post.

In order to understand the eleventh chapter of Romans, it's necessary to understand much of the preceding discussion of Romans. Paul discusses the Law and its inability to save, because, by human nature, we pervert the law such that rather than save it teaches us sin and thereby condemns us. He stresses the Law is not unholy by this, but rather our Fallen nature is to blame for what appears to be the Law's shortcoming. So only the atoning sacrifice of Christ can and does save.

Romans Chapter 11 is a logical following-on from this discussion, and that helps us to understand its tripartite structure. The first part of Romans 11 is a direct answer to the logical question the preceding discussion provokes: namely, if the Law doesn't save but only Faith in Christ, has God then abandoned the Jews? Paul's unequivocal that this is not the case. He says that God has not abandoned anyone he has chosen. Then he gives an example from God's dealing with Elijah in 1 Kings 19. I am actually reminded also of Jeremiah 24, which to me serves as the unwritten segue into the second part of Chapter 11. In Jeremiah 24, God says that it is actually the people punished with Exile whom He will show His favour to and bring back. That seems to play into verses like verse 12 and verse 15, which speak of God returning the Exiled Jews of today. Indeed, Paul exclaims that this act will be more like the resurrection itself than the salvation of the Gentiles.

And that's the heart of the second part ... The salvation of the Gentiles. But it is interesting to note that we are but grafted onto the Jewish tree here. It is Jewish roots and a Jewish foundation upon which our Faith rests. He points this out to remind Gentiles that we have nothing to boast of over our Jewish brothers and sisters, for if God has dealt with His own people in such and such a way, how much more will He deal harshly with us who have been grafted on? And then this segues into a reminder that just as it is joyous for us to be gifted with this act of grafting, how much greater and more natural a gift will it be when God grafts the original branches back onto the tree again.

The third part then transitions from a statement that God will reclaim all of the Jews once He has claimed all of the Gentiles to an explication of the a paradox, what Paul calls a "mystery." That on the one hand, by rejection they seem to be enemies, but by virtue of God's "irreovocable call" they are still beloved "for the sake of the Patriarchs" (It is not lost that God always described Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Something Jesus noted points to the fact that God is a God of the living. Paul's mentioning of the patriarchs is almost certainly an allusion to this).

But the paradox is beyond even Paul's abilities to understand, so just when you'd expect him to land the coup de grace, he actually appends an epilogue to the 11th Chapter that is a hymn to the Sublime, Ineffable Mind of God. In other words, Paul doesn't know how this will all work out, but He is overcome with expressing His joy and trust in this Sublime Will.

So, Chapter 11 should stand as a warning to us, that in reality we have nothing to boast about, and God's plan for the Jews, far from one of rejection, is one instead of future grafting back onto the tree, a tree that has not withered or died. Indeed, it is still very Jewish. But like Paul I don't have any answers as to how or when, only trust. And that should be enough.

Update on my Romans 11 piece

Posted by Ogden (I am doing it this way, because I realise not everyone is going to go all the way to the end of the post to see who posted. And I have tried everything to get this template to let the author's by-line appear at the top. This will have to do until I can figure that out)

I'm completely rewriting it. Now that Pr. Lehmann and I have made peace, it seems petty to do a yeah-boo piece. So instead I am rewriting it to show forth my methodology in reading the Pauline Corpus in general (with the chapter being the specific instance). Fear not, copious reference to Scripture abounds.

Let us have an end to Dispensationalism

Among Protestants, there has arisen a dangerous and foolhardy school of thought known as dispensationalism, which has morphed from a known radical theology accepted only by the most radical anti-tradition, anti-clerical, anti-denominational versions of protestantism into a a cause celebre of the non-denominational-loving, pithy worship music playing, cheesy pre-school like slogan using, and soon to be all tongues-speaking "evangelical" movement.

Dispensationalism consists of meaningless speculation on past events, combined with downright dangerous speculation of future events. It originated with the Plymouth Brethren, a group that, like most dispensationalist groups that followed, lacked historical perspective and theological grounding. The Plymouth Brethren were a restorationist group, believing that they could, somehow, recreate the atmosphere of the 1st century church by ignoring everything but the Bible, believing that a 1st century book could be understood by an 18th and 19th century people without any kind of hermeneutical training. The restorationists quite frequently devolved into heresies, often similar to heresies that were already discussed and defeated.

They rejected salaries ministers, meaning that their teachers lacked theological training. It is out of this atmoshphere of ignorance that dispensationalism(and later Pentecostalism) arose.

Let us then, take up (rhetorical) arms against the dispensationalists, infiltrate their schools and places of learning, and teach them theology that makes sense! Let us remind them that the book of Revelations was written, largely in code, to the Christians of the 1st century, not as a guidebook for believers in some sort of apocolyptic future, that the antichrist referred to is Nero, not Nicolai Carpathia.

Protestant opponents to dispensationalism typically fall under what is called covenant theology(although I believe Anglicans and Lutherans have slightly different beliefs), but this is not emphasized in Reformed churches the way dispensationalism is in "Evangelical" ones. Covenant theology is not some complex order of things, but simply an acknowledgement of the different pacts that God has made with various human beings and groups of human beings throughout time. It is not supersessionist (belieiving that the church has in effect replaced Israel), but instead simply teaches the truth that Rabbinical Judaism is different than Old Testament Judaism, as there is no atonement, no shedding of bloods and thus no communion with God.

It is long past time for the Evangelical movement to reject the influence of the semi-heretical radicals and embrace the church's rich tradition, reason, and a more thorough reading of scripture.

Some verses, their context, and what that means

Passages discussed: 1 John 2, especially 1 John 2:22-23; and John 8, especially John 8:44; and others

Anyone who reads this blog will know that recently there was a huge bust-up over whether or not Scripture claims that Jews (indeed any non-Christians) worship Satan. Now anyone who reads the combox will know I utterly reject that. But several passages of Scripture were used to justify this view. So it makes sense to consider them in context, and to scrutinise them carefully to see if the cited Scriptures really do say this.

The main verses cited are 1 John 2:22-23:

22 Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist.

23 No one who denies the Son has the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.

and John 8:44

44 You belong to your father the devil and you willingly carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies.

These are by no means the only ones that are damning in this vein. On the face of it these two verses, and similar ones seem to say that the Jewish people are Satanic in the Gospel verse, and worshiping a false God in the Epistle (since they don't even have the Father).

But is that what these are really saying? Let's discuss 1 John and its second chapter in detail.

1 John was written to the Churches of Asia Minor, who were under the jurisdiction of the Apostle John. This letter was likely written around the same time as the Gospel, because they use so many of the same ideas and turns of phrase as to be indisputably by the same hand. And one of the purposes of the Gospel of John was to dispute the notion of that Christ was not Divine and consequently belief in Him was not essential to the Faith. The letter was similarly addressed to this theme, among others. In the second chapter John discusses these people who were clearly in the Asia Minor community and sought to lead people away from believing in Christ. In verse 19, just a few verses before the verses in question, John mentions that these deceivers proved they were never truly members of the community to begin with.

Then he goes on to explain that the reason he is writing is to help explicate the lies that were recently in their midst, not because they are ignorant, but because they are in fact knowledgeable. And now we come to the verses themselves. In helping them to see this then he gives a rubric. What was the lie? In its nutshell, it sought to deny Christ, and since the Father wouldn't be a Father without the Son, by denying the Divinity of Christ they also denied the Divinity of the Father! Thus they were true enemies of Christ, even though they said that they were not. A few verses later (verse 26), just in case people forgot, he reminds again that he's speaking specifically of the lie that was dividing them.

When we read it in context we realise there's nothing about the Jews, Muslims, Hindus or anyone else. This is about people trying to undermine Faith from within. The letter discusses the idea that sin can be deadly, can cut us off from the Salvation offered by God. Thus warning against the Deceivers is critically important, because if their deception is believed, they cut the believer off from Salvation. But, and again John says it twice, these are the lies of people who were within the community, not people from any other Faith. So this verse cannot safely be used to accuse the Jews or anyone else of worshiping Satan. What these verses can be safely applied to, even today, are the sorts of people who say Jesus was the founder of our religion, you know, if he even existed, but if he did he was most likely a hippy communist revolutionary, or something...but God? Rose from the dead? We're too educated for that! ... Those are the people today against whom these verses can be applied. Because their denial is considerably more pernicious.

But what about the verse from John 8? It says that Jews have Satan for a father! That's much more damning, isn't it? Is it?

The 8th Chapter of John, after the Pericope Adulterae, is a long argument Jesus has with people the Gospel identifies simply as Pharisees; it's not more specific. But during the course of this argument, Jesus rather deliberately explains that He is the same God they have always worshiped. These people to whom He is speaking cannot claim invincible ignorance, since they know the Scriptures. They know the prophesies, they know the signs, and here Jesus explicitly tells them repeatedly, at least three times, that He is the I AM of the Theophany to Moses (aka the Burning Bush). Just as in Chapter 6, Jesus does not back down from the incredulous, instead He becomes ever more specific. In Chapter 6, the people became indignant that Christ would command people to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood. Cannibalism they cried! But rather than reassure them it's all just symbolic, He presses on and uses term like "gnaw" that He really means it/ It's so hard a teaching that people reject Him. Well, the same thing goes on in Chapter 8. He slowly but deliberately gets more and more forceful in His language. When verse 44 has come around, it is at the point where, in spite of their constant word-plays and rejection, He is offering them one last chance, but to shock them into understanding this, He accuses them of being no Sons to Abraham (who looked for and would rejoice in the sight of Christ), but rather they have handed themselves over by their rejection to being "Sons of the Adversary."

What is important to understand about this passage is that nowhere does it say that the people simply called Pharisees were ever deputised to stand in for all Jews then and now. Jesus says this shocking thing to the people He's speaking to, because this group of specific people rejects Him (they actually make to stone Him in the last verse of the Chapter). But it cannot be inferred that these people to whom He specifically addressed were made by God to speak for all Jews ever. The only Sons of the Adversary were these specific people. Why? Because they should have known better, but they hardened their hearts and refused to see what was before them. Out of sufficient knowledge and consent of the will, they rejected Christ. So, this verse too, cannot safely be used against the Jews of today or anyone else. It can however be used for those who have sufficient knowledge and are presented with Christ and then reject Him.

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I think one of the reasons this view is "necessary" for some people is the fear on their part that my view somehow is a slippery slope to Universalism. It isn't. My affirming that the Jews of today worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not in any way a soteriological statement (soteriology is the theology of salvation). It is simply a statement of fact. Nor is this meant to imply that Christ is not the way to salvation, and that belief in Him is essential to that. Nothing that I affirm takes anything away from this. Finally, nothing in what I have said is meant to exonerate people from being saved or hindering missionary mandates, etc. In fact, in my next post, I will discuss how this view of mine is little different from St Paul's in Romans Chapter 11.

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Before I close, I want to say a few things about this practice that so annoys me about certain Christian approaches to Scripture; the penchant to slice out verses completely absent their context. But hold on! Isn't St Paul a repeat offender on this front? It only appears that way. In fact, the common practice at the time was to use certain verses as a kind of short hand, a code if you will. By citing a single verse, they intended their interlocutor to reflect in his or her mind on the whole passage from which it came.

A good example of this is Romans 9:8-13:

8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.

9 For this is the wording of the promise, "About this time I shall return and Sarah will have a son."

10 And not only that, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one husband, our father Isaac -

11 before they had yet been born or had done anything, good or bad, in order that God's elective plan might continue,

12 not by works but by his call - she was told, "The older shall serve the younger."

13 As it is written: "I loved Jacob but hated Esau."

If one looks at that, or even in the wider context of Romans 9 (which I urge you to do), you see that it doesn't really flow very well. What do these verses really have to do with his point in and of themselves? Well, that's the point, they by themselves do not. Rather, one is supposed to consider the whole episode from which each verse is excerpted. Another more famous example of this, by the way, is Christ's "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" which is the opening line from Psalm 22. If one reads and reflects on the whole Psalm it is a song of suffering that leads to later triumph and vindication. That is calling us to reflect on, and when we see it like that, the words themselves take on a much different meaning, don't they?

Therefore, it irks me to no end when people take verses out of context, because this whole idea is not just poor exegesis, but is also alien to the very authors, under the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost, who are so abused by this methodology. They didn't do it, and neither should we. When they cited verses, they expect you to know the context (although sometimes the contemporary exegetical understanding of that context is not always immediately apparent). We should be doing the same.