Author Archives: chalcedon451

Luminous Christianity (5)

06 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by in Bible, Catholic Tradition, Faith, Salvation

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Eucharist

There are times when it seems as though there is nothing sacred, that is in the sense that nothing is exempt from the tendency of Christians to argue among themselves, and the subject of the fifth and final Mystery of Light, the Institution of the Holy Eucharist is one of those.

It seems simple enough on the page:

26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, [a]blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”

27 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is My blood of the [b]new covenant, which is shed for many for the [c]remission of sins. 29 But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.

St Mark’s version, upon which St Matthew’s was most probably based is typically straightforward:

22 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, “Take, [a]eat; this is My body.”

23 Then He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 24 And He said to them, “This is My blood of the [b]new covenant, which is shed for many. 25 Assuredly, I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

We can see from this why one of the rumours spread about the early Christians in Roman society was that they were cannibals and ate the body and drank the blood of their god.

There is no Institution narrative in St John, but what he does have to say about Jesus as the Bread of Life drives hom the sense of the words we get from SS Mark and Matthew. When teaching in Capernum, Jesus told His listeners He was the Bread of Life, they queried His words and their meaning, and Jesus was clear in His response:

52 The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?”

53 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is [a]food indeed, and My blood is [b]drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”

The result is worth noting: “ From that time many of His disciples went [f]back and walked with Him no more”.

The conventional Protestant explanation (this one from my NKJV Study Bible) is “Jesus was speaking figuratively, but the Jewish leaders took him literally.” But will this really do? We are told that many of His disciples turned away. If they had misunderstood, it would have been easy enough for Jesus to have stated that He was talking figuratively. Instead, He lets them go and even asks “the twelve” whether they, too, will leave Him. It seems a little feeble to explain all of this in terms of figurative speech.

It is St Luke’s versionof the words which seems to have given an excuse for the “figurative” explanation, as there the words of Institution are:

9 And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

Hence the explanation that the Eucharist is a “memorial” of His saving passion, as though we are presented with a binary choice. But is it a binary choice? Have we fully understood what Jesus is saying if we assume so.

As usual, the Church Fathers have been here before us and are an invaluable source of wisdom here.

St John Chysostom explained it thus in Homily 47:2:

When we converse of spiritual things, let there be nothing secular in our souls, nothing earthy, let all such thoughts retire, and be banished, and let us be entirely given up to the hearing the divine oracles only.

The argument here is that we understand Christ’s words spiritually and not carnally. It is in the same vein as St Hilary of Poitier’s statement in On the Trinity:

For as to what we say concerning the reality of Christ’s nature within us, unless we have been taught by Him, our words are foolish and impious. For He says Himself, My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. John 6:55-56 As to the verity of the flesh and blood there is no room left for doubt. For now both from the declaration of the Lord Himself and our own faith, it is verily flesh and verily blood. And these when eaten and drunk, bring it to pass that both we are in Christ and Christ in us.

Orthodox theology, untouched by the scholastic method, argues that in the Eucharist we partake not simply of the physical/material, but of the deified and glorifies Body and Blood of Christ which give resurrection life. Catholic theology expresses the same thought thus:

We believe that at every Mass, bread and wine become Jesus — his body, blood, soul and divinity — even though we can’t fully understand how it happens. The miracle of the Eucharist is a mystery, something that human reason and intelligence can never fully grasp.

The Institution of the Eucharist invites us into the heart of the mystery of God’s love for us. Like the woman at the well, we discover that Jesus is the Living Water, but oh, with what blessing we reflect that in the Eucharistic Feast we receive His Body and His Blood. In the words of the Catechism:

The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods” (CCC 460)

In His Body and Blood we are saved, redeemed and will be glorified.

 

 

Transfiguration

06 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by in Faith

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Luke [chapter 9:28-36] relates the Transfiguration to the mission of Jesus as he moves towards death and glory. Jesus is praying, and the light shines on his face. We do not know that it is a prayer of agony and conflict like the prayer in Gethsemane, but we know that it is a prayer near to the radiance of God and the prayer of one who has chosen the way of death. Luke tells us that the two witnesses were conversing about the exodus which Jesus would accomplish in Jerusalem: not the death alone, but the passing through death to glory. the whole going forth of Jesus as well as the leading forth of the new people of God in the freedom of the new covenant. Luke tells us that after the resurrection Jesus spoke of the witness of Moses and of all the prophets to his suffering and glory.

It was not a glory which the disciples at the time could fathom. No doubt they would have welcomed a glory on the mountain far away from the conflicts which had happened and the conflicts which were going to happen as Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem. Yet when Jesus went up the mountain to be transfigured he did not leave these conflicts behind, but rather carried them up the mountain so they could be transfigured with him. It was the transfiguration of the whole Christ, from his first obedience in childhood right through to the final obedience of Gethsemane and Calvary.

The disciples could not grasp this at the time, but the writings of the Apostolic age were to show that the link between the suffering and the glory came to be understood as belonging to the heart of the Christian message.

[Michael Ramsey, Be Still and Know]

Women priests, Tradition and politics

05 Wednesday Aug 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Blogging, Catholic Tradition, Faith

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Sometimes social media can produce posts which prompt serious throught rather than a hurling of arguments past each other. One of my favourites, flying under the name “laudable practice” recently posted a High Church reflection on why he supported the ordination of women in the Anglican Church. In turn, this prompted the following interesting and incisive comment from a Catholic whom I do not follow, but probably ought to:

it astonishes me as an RC how a priest who celebrates Mass ad orientem with Missa de Angelis, etc, can hold such liberal political/social views. Just doesn’t happen here. Progressive views + serious liturgy seem to fit together better in Anglicanism than they do in the RC Chuch. I understand + respect your points but (speaking again from an RC perspective) when I look at supporters of female ordination, it’s hard not to see it as a Trojan Horse for demythologising, desacralising liberalism – flat, dull + stale.

Quite apart from the welcome tone of the dialogue, the other things which struck me was how it managed to combine this with a very firm exchange of views which remained courteous; would that such could become the norm!

The Anglican Church has spent longer addressing this issue seriously than any global Church. During the 1990s, as it became increasingly clear that things were going to move in favour of the ordination of women, some Anglicans, like myself, came, many of us reluctantly, to the view that in moving away from the common tradition of Christianity, it was deviating so decisively from ecumenical dialogue that it was leaving us behind. A few, like me, remained because, well because we did. In my case it was because I could not see the case being made could be justified by the historical and doctrinal record. The arguments used seem excessively secular in nature. Of course, I found myself saying to the wind, no one would want to argue that women cannot hold any job they like, but being a priest is not a “job” it is being in the person of Christ at the Eucharist, and a woman cannot be in that person.

Reading and rereading my history, and following Newman’s scheme for the discerning of the development of doctrine, I could not in good conscience, accept what my Church had done; but I loved it, and I could not leave it. It was only when I felt it had left me, and then only when, like Newman studying the Arian controversy, I discerned in the mirror that I was not orthodox in adopting the new Anglican position, that I moved.

What I can say is that politics played no part in it. I regard myself as conservative, and in the past I have worked for two Conservative MPs whose views and character I greatly respect, as Election Agent – successfully. I had no problem as an Anglican in being Conservative or that with a small “c”. In the Catholic Church, not so much so, as it seemed to me that political sympathies were to the left of my own. I paid it no mind, but it kept paying me mind in so far as the importation of American culture wars into the UK context did seem to predicate a binary divide in which those on the left were “Vatican II” sort of Catholics, and those not on the left were traditionalists. It seemed, and still seems to me, artificial in an English context; I am not qualified to speak of the Irish or Scottish ones.

But it is undoutedly true in the English Anglican context, that there are connections between High Church Anglicanism and social concern. It comes in part from the notable and the noble role played (and still played) by Anglican clergy in the poorer parts of London and elsewhere. This led some of them to embrace the economic nostrums of socialism, even if only in as far as they remained critical of capitalism. It seemed to many of them, as it seems to me, entirely natural that a Christian should be sceptical of political/economic systems, and my main disagreement with them in my own time was that I thought they were insufficiently critical of left-wing nostrums and over-critical of capitalism, neglecting the defects of the former and over-selling the defects of the latter.

What did strike me was Fr Richard’s comment that: “Many perhaps most of the women priests I know are deeply faithful to Tradition. And yes, I thought, that needed saying. I essayed a rare comment of my own:

Interesting as the arguments in the piece are, it is the work of women priests in the Anglican communion which is the most convincing sign of the work of the Spirit. I know, and accept, all the doctrine of my own Church, but the witness of the women is there for all to see.

This is not to enter into the argument in my own Church, whose views I accept absolutely, but it was, and is, to invite myself and others to reflect on what the experience of women priests within Anglicanism has brought to that Church and to move us away from the not uncommon view in my Church that advocacy of women’s ordination is a “Trojan Horse for demythologising, desacralising liberalism – flat, dull + stale.” The existence of women priests who are far from demytholgising or desacralising the faith, might escape the culture warriors, and the women concerned might throw up their hands in horror or shrug their shoulders. They don’t need validating by a man, and this, I hasten to add, is not that. It is a simple recognition of their ministry and the gifts they bring.

I’ll finish with a few recommendations which, if followed, may bless you as I have been blessed. For those who pray the Rosary, I cannot speak too highly of the Rev Cally Hammond’s series which can be found here. For a fascinating account of “Holiness and Desire” I’d recommend the Rev Jessica Martin’s book, here. Everything I have read by the Rev Angela Tilby has been a blessing, including her most recent piece onJ.I. Packer. One of the blessings of social media is that there are many examples there of women clergy who simply and effectively witness to their vocation.

What, you might ask, do I make of it? I take a delight in the blessings, and in the wonderful way that real life makes a mess of our desire to put things in boxes.

 

Our Lady and Tradition

04 Tuesday Aug 2020

Posted by in Anti Catholic, Bible, Catholic Tradition, Early Church, Faith

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What is one to say when someone questions venerating Our Lady? In me it inspires a sense of sadness. It drags the Blessed Virgin into controversy which is of men; oddly, or not, I have never had a woman find this a cause for controversy. One can, of course, pray for those who do this, and one can point out, for the millionth time that no one worships Our Lady. Those who refuse to see the difference between worship and veneration are, alas, like those who cannot see the difference between red and green; it is a form of spiritual colour-blindness. It is when they have resort to the Scriptures to support their views that a reasonable response can be made.

No one disputes that during the earthly Ministry of Our Lord, Our Lady was not one of those who followed Him from place to place. It is certain that we see her telling the servants at the Wedding at Cana to do as He tells them. It is equally certain that she tried to bring Him back home when He was criticised and attacked by those in the locality; so might any mother do for a beloved Son. Were St Mark all we had to go on then little attention would have been paid to Mary of Nazareth; but then were his Gospel the only one, we would be at something of a loss over the Resurrection. But of course, whilst concentrating on one Gospel and neglecting other sources may be the way of the polemicist, it is the way neither of the scholar nor reading with the eye of Faith.

Our Lady was there, with many others, at Pentecost, St Luke tells us this, as he tells us so much more about her. We know about the Annunciation because of St Luke, who also tells us more about the birth of Jesus than anyone else; it is Luke who also gives us the few details we have of His early life. St Matthew’s Gospel covers some of the same ground, but in less detail. Where did St Luke get his information? We cannot know, but we do know he collected information from eye-witnesses, and Our Lady seems the most likely source for all of this.

But let us go back a step. Why do we accept St Luke’s Gospel? Some time ago I asked Bosco what books he thought should be in the Bible, and he told me, no doubt in jest, that it was on the contents page. Of course there was no “contents page” in the original manuscripts, and we know their name and that they are “Scripture” only by the voice of the Church. Jessica wrote interestingly on the early history of the New Testament, and her piece has many references for those interested. The point to be made here is that the same Church which tells us that there are only four Gospels and which names them, also tells us that Christ was born of a Virgin. It does not go into detail about the early life of Jesus, but all the early traditions are agreed that Our Lady was a Virgin, and before relatively recent times, no one save a few heretics, read the Gospel references to the “brothers” and “sisters” of the Lord as being uterine siblings. There is more on this here, but the point is the same, that if we accept Tradition gives us Scripture, then we accept as a corollary that it knows how to interpret it; were that not so then on what basis would we accept the Canon of Scripture? As Austin Ferrers put it:

The fact on which our faith reposes is not the fact of Christ’s history alone, it is the doubtle fact of that history taken together with the existence of the spirit-filled Church which proclaimed that history and lived by its fruits. And the Church accepted the virginal conception as a harmonious part of the sacred story; once it had been set forth it could not be thought away; it belonged so absolutely in its place. Inspired authority established the belief; Ignatius and Irenaeus make it a kernel of orthodoxy.

There is, of course, nothing to stop anyone calling themselves a Christian and believing whatever they want, but they cannot in so doing claim to be orthodox or in the Tradition of the Church whose book they are choosing to read by the light of their own intellect; wisdom might suggest tempering one’s own views with the great cloud of witnesses who have been here before us.

The recent series on the origin of the Canon has, I hope, been a help here, as one of the things it shows is the importance the first Christians attached to “handing on” what they had received from Jesus and the Apostles.

There are limits to what even the Spirit-filled Church can do. She is inspired to proclaim facts and interpret them. She is not inspired to create new facts; that seems to be uniquely the job of people who think they know better. The Creed states orthodoxy. We believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.” There is, as St Matthew makes clear, a paradox here. In her “yes” Our Lady not only opened the gate to our redemption, she also opened the door to a personal scandal which could have ruined her life. Even the righteous St Joseph behaved as any man might on learning that his betrothed was with child. Being a righteous man he did not want to shame her, so he was minded to put her aside privately; only the Angel stopped him. Our Lady was willing to bear that for us.

Now, of course, there is nothing to stop anyone claiming that all of this tradition about the mother of Jesus being a virgin is just that, a tradition, but since the same is true about the canon of Scripture, I am not sure that the person making such a claim has not just sawn off the branch of the tree upon which he is sitting. In saying, in effect, “my reading of Scripture is x” he is begging the question of how he knows what is and is not Scripture in the first place.

Equally, there is nothing to stop anyone claiming that Our Lady had other children, although the very idea seems to me impious. But such a claim would need to explain why Our Lord gave over His mother to the care of St John rather, than as was the Jewish custom if there was more than one child, to the next eldest. So again, we ask ourselves whether the evidence of Scripture justifies what the Church has always taught, and we find that it does, and that it is the unorthodox who has to explain why the majority of Christians for most of history have been wrong and he and the few who agree with him is correct. Since, invariably, such critics also criticise the idea that the Pope is infallible in matters of faith and morals, there is a certain irony in their insistence on their own infallibility in whatever matter it is upon which they wish to pronounce.

It takes a great deal of chutzpah, or perhaps it is ignorance, to prefer one’s own reading of Scripture to that of the Church which told us and tells us what it is. I have too little of either to wish to go there. Moreover, when it comes to the Blessed Virgin, I have to admit a bias. She is for me an invariable help in coming to her Son. In this sense, this is a very personal post, as I have found the Blessed Virgin an invaluable help on my journey, and sometimes she has been one of the few lights in the darkness. So, to those, such as Bosco, who insist on being unpleasant about her, I direct one comment. Just what do you think any good Jewish boy would think of anyone criticising his mother?  If your version of Christianity pushes you to disparage the mother of Our Lord, then you, or it, is doing something very wrong.

Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death.

Church?

03 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Faith, Heresies

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Our long-time commentator, Jock, recently wrote “as far as ‘church’ goes – it is the police (gestapo) aspect that concerns me most of all.” That is to be read in the context of a long dialogie about “church” and what it means. Here, some words of Michael Ramsey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and one of my favourite theologians, might be called in aid. Commenting that when “we say we believe in the church, we do so only and always in terms of our belief in the God who judges and raises up.” He then goes on to add:

The mistake of ecclesiasticism through the ages has been to believe in the church as a kind of thing-in-itself. The apostles never regardfed the church as a thing-in-itself. Their faith was in God, who had raised Jesus from the dead, and they knew the power of the Resurrection to be at work in them and in their fellow believers despite the unworthiness of them all. That is always the true nature of belief in the church. It is a laying-hold on the power of the Ressurection. And because it is that, it is always on the converse side death: death to self; death to worldly hopes; death to self-sufficiency; death to any security for the church or for Christianity, other than the security of God and the Resurrection. [The Gospel and the Catholic Church].

It is a reminder to us all of what can be so off-putting about the Church – and by that I mean any Church, not simply my own.

In my own Church, as in others, the pejorative description is “clericalism,” which in practice is often no more than the sort of professional camderarderie which can, and therefore does, grow up in any organisation. It is when it gets out of hand, when it appears that what matters is the church itself, not in terms of our belief in God, that things can go badly wrong: it is at the root of all the clerical abuse scandals. It is easy enough to understand how a cleric’s reaction to child abuse, or other sorts of abuse, could be to seek to temper the damage done to the church by “moving on” the suspect, but what is less easily understood, except in terms of clerical group-think is how anyone could have imagined that the longer-term damage would not be more severe; what is impossible to understand is why the first thought of any cleric was not for the victim of the abuse. But, it might be protested, organisations often behave in this self-protective way, to which the answer in the case of the church would be to quote Archbishop Ramsey. Belief in the church as a “thing-in-itself” is ultimately self-defeating.

If the church, any church, seems centred in its own concerns, the chances are that it has lost touch with what, or rather Who, it is there for. Decades of well-meant ecumenism have shown that at national and local level “churches together” can act as one, and the communities where that happens benefit from it. During the current crisis many churches have worked together to help those in need locally. We hear little about that, and much about the supposed failure of Bishops to challenge the Government’s regulations from well-meaning critics who argue one side of a case as though it were the whole picture.

Our faith is in God, and for all the failures of the men who lead it and have led it, the Church is the repository of the dogma and doctrine that has been received from the Apostles. One is at liberty to doubt that, and given the number of churches, it is natural that it should be so. But absent that belief, what have we but a free for all where one person says “x” and another “y” and there is no way of deciding, for example, between the statement that Jesus is the Son of God who died for our sins, rose again on the third day and ascended into Heave, and that He will come again in glory to judge the living and dead, and statement that he was a very good man who went about doing good deeds and died a cruel, but ultimately pointless death? That was not how the Apostles and their their successors proceeded; it cannot be how we proceed.

If we remember and heed Archbishop Ramsey’s advice, we shall at least not swerve far from where we should be. As Jock, like so many, have discovered, the gap between the rhetoric and the reality can be one down which so many people fall. There have been many during the crisis who have claimed that “church” is more than the building, a response to an allegation no one has ever made, though if someone can supply a source for someone saying “the church is just a building” it would be interesting. We might, however, all with profit ponder on Ransey’s words: “we say we believe in the church, we do so only and always in terms of our belief in the God who judges and raises up.”

 

Feeding the needs of others

02 Sunday Aug 2020

Posted by in Bible, Commentaries, Faith, St Matthew's Gospel

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In today’s Gospel reading Jesus feeds a crowd of people who have come to follow Him. There are those who find this improbable and who even feel the need to emphasise the metaphorical aspect of the event. That would be a mistake on at least two levels. In the first place one can hardly profess a belief in the most miraculuous event of all, the Resurrection of Jesus, and doubt that He had the ability to feed those who needed Him. In the second place, it risks taking away from the deep meaning of the event.

It is prefaced by what must have been a truly awful event for Jesus – the execution of His cousin, John at the whim of the tyrant, Herod. Like so many of us His first reaction was to find a place of solitude where He could mourn and perhaps come to terms with what had just happened. It is a need common to humanity, and reminds us that Jesus truly was human as well as divine. It is in His reaction to those who interrupted His need for solitude that we glimpse the Divine. Where you or I might have been irritated, Jesus is “moved to pity.” The Greek goes further and refers to a stirring of the body’s “inward parts,” which tells us something of the depth of His compassion. Where life has been taken, despite His own sorrow, Jesus gives life.

His disciples get the point that you or I might have got, that He needs silence and space; Jesus gets the larger point, which is that where there is need, there He must be with God’s love. So He heals. Then, rather than disperse the crowd, He feeds them. There is a reference back here to the Manna in the wilderness, as well as a resonance forward to the Last Supper. Here Jesus offers His time and patience, later it will be His body and His blood.

The miracle upon which we tend to focus is the feeding of the five thousand (although, given the women and children who were not counted, it must have been more), but we should not forget the sign of God’s Grace in Jesus putting aside His own needs for ours. There is love, not that we love Him, but that He loved us first. The miracle is God’s compassion for us. However much we may feel undeserving, it is ours all the same. Can we go and do likewise?

Consistent with love?

01 Saturday Aug 2020

Posted by in Bible, Faith, Reading the BIble

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I recently had occasion to quote this to our long-time commentator, Bosco: “Whatever is not consistent with love of God and neighbour cannot be a right interpretation of Scripture.” St Augustine was the author of this wise saying, and it is the key to our understanding of Scripture.

One reason, politeness apart, that I interact with Bosco here is that beneath the unappealing surface of what he writes, there is a child of God and a man who believes that he is “saved” and has a concern for the rest of us. Ironically, when he criticises St Thomas More and others in the Church for the way they treated heretics in the past, he fails to see that they were motivated by much the same thoughts that motivate him, namely the view that someone else is teaching “another gospel” and putting their soul in peril, as well as the souls of others. More, like his Protestant successors, had the power of the State on his side and could use it to correct error. Bosco only has the internet, which he uses to scarify the Catholic Church, which he believes is in error. And so it goes on.

The Bible is not a text-book, it is not a history book, it is not a work of scientific accuracy, and yet we believe, nay we know, that it contains everything we need to know in order to attain salvation. But how are we to understand it? Bosco tells us confidently that it explains itself to the person of faith, and follows that up by demonstrating that it doesn’t, by coming to conclusions the diametric opposite of others who read it. Now, it is of course, just possible that a small group of American Fundamentalists understand the Book Canonised by the Church better than the Church which Canonised it, but on the balance of probabilities, it would be unwise to bet the farm, let alone your soul, on it.

At this point in internet “dialogue” it is common to get into proof-texting. Well, I can speak only for myself and I don’t kow about you, but I am heartily sick of Christians from different Churches throwing proof texts at each other.

In her post yesterday, Audre advised us that she was a “big picture” person, and that is good advice. Once we realise that the biggest picture is that God is love, and therefore any interpretation of Scripture inconsistent with love of God and neighbour cannot be correct. It follows that in our dealings with each other, whilst love might lead us to be alarmed that x or y is “wrong” in their interpretation, so might we be.

It is for that reason that Catholics, Anglicans and Orthodox look to the teaching of the Church to support the readings which their own reasoning suggests. No-one who knows anything about the Catholic Church could believe what only those who know nothing about it propound when they suggest that it seeks to tell its members how the read the Bible in every aspect of its richness. That is not, and never has been, the function of the Church.

The Church is the repository of the “rule of Faith”. It is the guardian of the Creeds through which it interprets what it received from the hands of the Apostles themselves. So, to take one example, you can argue about what you think the Trinity is, and you can support yourself with proof-texts, but the Church knows that heretical positions were, in the past (as now) supported by clever men (and it is always men … just saying) with arguments of their own devising, and so, if we are wise, we will turn to the Church to see what it has to say on the matter. There we discover the wisdom of the ages, guided by the Holy Spirit. We can then measure our own conclusions against that collective wisdom. If we think we are right, then of course, we shall act on that. But if we are wise, we will pray for discernment. I don’t know about you, but I lack whatever spirit it is that leads people to believe that they know better than the mind of the Church.

Love is the guide for how we should read Scripture. We bring to it emotional and cultural baggage which is bound to influence how we read and interpret, and it is right that should be the case; even were it not right, it is inevitable. But then let us measure our thoughts against the yardstick that God is Love. The Holy Spirit speaks to us in love, but in the struggle to translate that into words, we can miss the deeper level at which He communicates to us. God abides with us always. Of course we will feel ourselves “unworthy”, and we are – by our standards. If we look at us through God’s eyes, we are the reason that Christ suffered, died, was buried and rose again, we are loved that much. Do you get it? I don’t in my head, but I do emotionally. It makes no sense to my earthly standards, but that just tells me how far those are from God’s.

The Holy Spirit speaks through the Church, and He speaks to all of us if we have ears to hear and a heart open to receiving Him. I am unworthy, and yet Christ died for me, so I am worthy. Yes, I see the distance between this weak and fallible person and the infinite goodness of the Trinity, but then through prayer and through Grace, I have faith that the gap will narrow and I can enter more deeply into the ultimate reality of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Choosing the Canon (4) the rule of faith

31 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by in Bible, Catholic Tradition, Early Church, Faith, Reading the BIble

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Saint-Irenaeus

“Wherefore, let us leave empty and vain thoughts, and come unto the glorious and venerable rule of our holy calling,” thus  Titus Flavius Clemens, or as he is better known to history, Clement of Alexandria, in  his first letter to the Corinthians. what was this “rule of faith’? Irenaeus outlines it in chapter 9 of the first book of Adversus Heraesis when he writes about St John:

proclaiming one God, the Almighty, and one Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten, by whom all things were made, declares that this was the Son of God, this the Only-begotten, this the Former of all things, this the true Light who enlighteneth every man, this the Creator of the world, this He that came to His own, this He that became flesh and dwelt among us

We see it in Tertullian (c.160-225), Hippolytus (c.170-236), as well as later in St Athanasius (c.296-373) and St Augustine (c. 354-4300. It consists of a statement of early Christian teaching and communal belief which could be used, as Clement used it, to refute heresy.

The core belief was that Jesus is the Son of God, the Creator of all things, who had become man and dwelt among us, and who died on the Cross, rose from the dead, and later ascended into Heaven, and who is the Way, the Truth and the Light. These beliefs were supported in the Apostolic writings which were identified by tradition because they were the “rule of faith” by which Christians could be assured of these things. That did not stop some Christians, like Irenaeus taking a view which rested on revelation, tradition, and on the power of the Holy Spirit, or others, like Clement, taking a more philosophical view. The “rule of faith” allowed both idioms; what it did not allow was Gnostic claims that there was “another Saviour, and another Logos, the son of Monogenes, and another Christ produced for the re-establishment of the Pleroma.” This “rule of faith” we see across the Mediterranean and what we call the Middle East, it was not the product of Rome or, indeed, of any central authority, it was the common possession of the Church from the “elders” supported by the Canon.

This is expressed best by Irenaeus when he wrote:

The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was he alone [in this], for there were many still remaining who had received instructions from the apostles. In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome despatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles, proclaiming the one God, omnipotent, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Creator of man, who brought on the deluge, and called Abraham, who led the people from the land of Egypt, spake with Moses, set forth the law, sent the prophets, and who has prepared fire for the devil and his angels. From this document, whosoever chooses to do so, may learn that He, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was preached by the Churches, and may also understand the apostolical tradition of the Church, since this Epistle is of older date than these men who are now propagating falsehood, and who conjure into existence another god beyond the Creator and the Maker of all existing things. To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed; after him, Telephorus, who was gloriously martyred; then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then after him, Anicetus. Sorer having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate. In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth.

This is worth quoting at length as it conveys better than any summary the way in which Bishops like Irenaeus saw themselves as receiving and passing on what had been received from the Apostles themselves, as recorded in the canonical Gospels. As Clement put it:

42:1 The Apostles received for us the gospel from our Lord Jesus Christ; our Lord Jesus Christ received it from God.

42:2 Christ, therefore, was sent out from God, and the Apostles from Christ; and both these things were done in good order, according to the will of God.

42:3 They, therefore, having received the promises, having been fully persuaded by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and having been confirmed by the word of God, with the full persuasion of the Holy Spirit, went forth preaching the good tidings that the kingdom of God was at hand.

42:4 Preaching, therefore, through the countries and cities, they appointed their firstfruits to be bishops and deacons over such as should believe, after they had proved them in the Spirit.

42:5 And this they did in no new way, for in truth it had in long past time been written concerning bishops and deacons; for the scripture, in a certain place, saith in this wise: I will establish their bishops in righteousness, and their deacons in faith.

As Irenaeus put it:

WE have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. 

These men were not part of some “orthodox” conspiracy designed to impose order on “diversity:, they were the stewards the the Gospel message which they had the duty to protect and proclaim. It is not surprising that this “rule of faith” became the origin of the Nicere Creed.

That should not be taken to mean that there were not theological developments along the way, the Trinity is one example of such a development, but it does mean that, as Larry Hurtado put it:

Well before the influence of Constantine and the councils of bishops in the fourth century and thereafter, it was clear that proto-orthodox Christianity was ascendant, and represented the emergent mainstream. Proto-orthodox devotion to Jesus of the seond century constitutes the pattern of belief and practiced that shaped Christian tradition thereafter. [L.W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity].

I would be tempted to tweak that a little after what has been outlined here and to say that the Creeds approved by the Church Fathers, like the Canon they confirmed, served as a theological continuation of inherited orthodoxy, and as its chief means of transmitting what had been inherited.

None of that is to take away from the fierce debates over heresy and the part they played in focussing the mind of the Church on subjects such as the Trinity and Christology, but it is to say that it was the Church which preserved and transmitted what it had received from the Apostles.

My thanks to those of you who have borne with me thus far, and to those who have commented. The attempt to summarise such a vast topic inevitably produces simplifications, but I hope I have reflected what I have read. I am conscious that the sources here are Western in the main, and in later posts I hope to explore other examples of the tradition.

 

Choosing Scripture (3) Orthodox?

30 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by in Bible, Catholic Tradition, Faith

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CouncilOfConstantinople381BnFMSGr510

It is perhaps because in the West in our time “diversity” is a “must have” for intellectuals and politicians that even in Biblical studies we can see its effects. This is most noticeable in the subject which we have been examining recently, the Biblical Canon. Put briefly, there is a new orthodoxy to the effect that the Canon dates from the fourth century AD. and is the result of one type of Christianity triumphing and crushing others. At its most extreme it appears in allegations that the Emperor Constantine “chose” the Canon, but its influence is evident in more reasonable quarters, and two of its most prominent proponents are Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels, who have popularised the idea that there was a huge diversity of “choice” in terms of “Gospels” in the early days of the Church. This was gradually closed down by, well take your choice from Patriarchy/Imperialism/Bigotry (or even put the three together, according to taste).

This abuts onto our purpose here because, if true, it raises the question of how can we really know which books are and are not Scripture?

It is at this point necessary to qualify, or at least clarify, what is meant by saying that the “Church” tells us what is and is not Canonical.

There are those who will point to the three African Synods, at Hippo Regius in 393, and Carthage in 397 and 419, which affirmed that the Canon was 27 books, a decision enshrined in St Jerome’s Vulgate which became the normative Bible in the West. In response, others will ask “what about the Lost Gospels”? It is here that the charge that the self-styled “orthodox” suppressed “diversity” comes into play.

Two questions arise, which wil be considered in turn. What are these “Lost Gospels” and how was it they were not included in the Canon?

Most modern accounts list up to nine other “Gospels” which date from the second century: the Ebionites; the Egyptians; the Hebrews; the Nazoreans; Thomas, Peter; unknown (P. Egerton 2, in the jargon); Judas; and the Infancy Gospel of James. Dating is difficult given the fragmentary sources, but most authorities put these books in the early second century, which dates them later than the four Gospels we receive. These “Gospels” were not unknown to the early Church, and long before the African Synods, none of them were included in the listings we have from the Fathers. This was not because someone somewhere suppressed them, it was because they were not “received.” what does that mean?

The “diversity” orthodoxy is partisan in that in dissenting from orthodoxy, it does what dissent often does, which is to overstate the nature of orthodoxy. Proceeding as it does from the underlying assumption that “diversity” is good and “orthodoxy” bad, it goes on to assume that the proponents of orthodoxy were as committed to propagating their unified view as they, in our time, are. But that is a category error. It is perfectly possible for a group of scholars to share a common view and to stick to their own orthodoxy; the idea that an early Church scattered across the Mediterranean and what we call the Middle East could do the same thing across a few centuries requires more evidence if we are to believe it. If one takes, as some of the modern scholars seem to, the view that those who won what they clearly see as an early Christian version of the “culture wars”, then one can provide a way of adjusting the past to fit your theory; the problem is, as ever, that the pasrt, like the early church, is too messy to be tidied up in this way. That has never stopped scholars from making the attempt, but absent the need to trumpet the importance of “diversity”, most scholars assumed that orthodoxy preceded heterodoxy, not the other way around.

Let us first tackle the idea of “orthodoxy”. The critics, who see it as a rigid, book-burning exercise in triumphal bigotry, overestimate what it meant. It is as though, emphasising as they do that early Christianity was more “diverse” than they had been led to believe, they swing too far in the opposite direction when describing orthodoxy. There is a good reason for this. If you are going to go on to argue that the “orthodox” ruthlessly tidied up the past to explain why your “Lost Gospels” were “lost”, then it follows that they were “rigid.” If that is how you see something called “the Church,” and it is how many in the West see what they might call the “Roman Catholic Church”, then confirmation bias sets in. It is not, after all, as though that Church is free of what is, by contemporary standards, an intolerant attitude toward heterodoxy. But whether it is wise to extrapolate from Pius IX to the first or second century church might be a question to ask before unconsciously so doing?

We can see “diversity” in the early church without going so far as including “Gospels” all our early witnesses exclude. Of course, if one wishes to categorise every early witness as biased because they were “orthodox’, then that gives rise to the question of what early witnesses exist for the advocates of “diversity’? Here, the problem tends to be that those witnesses are known only because of the “Fathers” whose works cite them, which in turn, raises the question of why, once “orthodoxy” had won, all such references were not ruthlessly expunged? Surely the argument cannot be broad enough to comprehend an “orthodoxy” ruthless enough to destroy and suppress heretical texts, but clueless enough to allow references to them to exist in the “Church Fathers”?

The “Church Fathers” who are uniform in identifying four Gospels begin with the pupil of a pupil of St John, namely Irenaeus. Born in Smryna around 115 AD., he studied with St Polycarp who had been a disciple of St John. As Bishop of Lyons, he was concerned by “Gnostic” teachings which claimed to be “secret” sayings of Jesus. Seeing this as that “other Gospel” mentioned by Paul, he wrote a treatise, Adversus Haereses to refute this teaching, in the process of which he cited the four Gospels we know and every book we receive as Canon save, Philemon, 2 Peter, 3 John, and Jude. His account of what the “Gnostics” believed was taken by some in previous generations of scholars to somewhat over-state the case, but the discovery and translation of the Nag Hammadi fragments has shown that he accurately recorded their teachings. For Irenaeus the error of the Gnostics was that they were departing from what had been received.

No one has argued that by the time Irenaeus wrote, probably around 180, there had been any Council or Synod pronouncing on the Canon, and no one who has read him has ever argued that there was anything radical or novel about Irenaeus. He is stating what he had received from Polycarp and the Church is Smyrna, Rome and Lyons We find the same in the writings of Hippolytus in the early second century, who cites only four Gospels, the ones received by Irenaeus.

We see the same pattern in the works of Clement of Alexandria, where the emphasis on the fourfold nature of the Gospels is even more impressive because he does cite the Gospel of the Egyptians and the Gospel of the Hebrews, as well as other Christian works such as the Shepherd of Hermas. This may well reflect the very different cultures of Lyons, a frontier city on the edge of the Roman Empire, and Alexandria, the intellectual powerhouse of the ancient world. But if we examine Clement’s texts, he quotes from the Gospel of the Egyptians eight times, and from the Gospel of the Hebrews thrice. He cites Matthew 757 times, Luke 402 times, John 33 times and Mark 182 times. The other “lost gospels” get a grand total of no citations. In his Stromateis (3.13.93), when pointing out erroneous teaching he writes: “In the first place we have not got the saying in the four Gospels that have been handed down to us, but in the Gospel according to the Egyptians”, which tells us what he thought of it as a source.

The first of the great Christian historians, Eusebius of Caesarea, who wrote in the early fourth century, has access to a text by Clement which has since disappeared (another example, no doubt iof the inefficiency of the ruthless “orthodox”?) called the Hypotyposeis in which Clement repeats a tradition about the four Gospels which he had received from the “elders” to the effect that Matthew and Luke were the first to be written, that Mark was written for those in Rome who had heard Peter preaching and wanted a record of it, and that John, “last of all” had written a “spiritual Gospel.” This was not a tradition derived from Irenaeus, but was from the same source – the tradition handed down from the “elders.”

These examples could be multiplied, and those who want more should go to Charles Hill’s excellent “Who chose the Gospels?” But the point is made. There were other “gospels” but they were not received because they were not attested to by tradition. This leads to the final part of this short series, which is whether it makes sense even to talk about “orthodoxy” in the early Church?

Luminous Christianity (4)

30 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by in Faith

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transfiguration_nimbusThe Transfiguration is one of those rare moments when St Mark and St Matthew pull aside the veil and we see Christ as close to who He is as our humanity can take. Usually we see only through a glass darkly, but here we see Him if not as we shall see Him hereafter, then as close as we shall get this side of the grave. The intense whiteness emphasised by St Mark in his comment that Christ’s garments appeared whiter than any “fuller on earth” could bleach them, is a sign to us as well as a reminder that at the resurrection we shall rise purified of all our iniquities; the corruptions of this world will be blotted out. We see Jesus truly in the form of God while remaining no less human.

St Peter, as so often, does what we might want to do. It is characteristic of him to want to build three tabernacles, but Jesus does not reply. Moses and Elijah are not His equals, but Peter, dear, keen, enthusiastic Peter who does not know what else to do or say, offers, as we do, to be helpful; sometimes though it is best to think first and wait on God’s word. And that word comes, and confirms what we were told at the Baptism in the Jordan.

It was on Sinai that Moses received the Commandments from God, as Elijah had also encountered God on the high mountain, and it is here, on Mt Tabor, that they bear witness to the identity of Christ who is the summary of the Law and the Prophets. As always, we see the Old Testament’s meaning revealed in the New, and it bears witness to Jesus being the Christ.

The eyes of the inner circles, Sts Peter, John and James are opened and their reaction mirrors ours – they fall on their faces in awe. How else could we react to Christ once He is revealed to us through the eye of Faith.

And here we are back in familiar territory. Those who saw were blessed and awestruck and believed, but we, like St Thomas, must believe through Faith as we know He dwells in our heart with thanksgiving. Just as God charged the Apostles to listen to Jesus and Mary told the sevants to do as He said, and just as John heard the voice of God, we too, when we hear that voice know what it is saying – “listen to Him.”

But how hard that is for us in the hustle and bustle of our everyday activities. Do we build a tabernacle in our hearts for Jesus? How can we, we might protest? There is always so much to do and so little time to do it. That, for me, is where the Rosary is a blessing. It can be prayed while I walk, indeed it is usually prayed while I walk, and while I pray reflections come to me (this is the product of one such walk). Are we so time poor that we cannot spare a few minutes for prayer? If we will build that tabernacle, He will answer us.

As so often, we are reminded that He loved us first. How hard can it be to love Him upon whom all the Law and the Prophets depend? How hard are our hearts? That, as Newman once reminded us, is why sometimes they have to be broken.