From Chapters 66-67 of Saint Basil’s On the Holy Spirit. In this book, Basil argues against the newly-arisen pneumatomach (“spirit fighters”) movement, which taught that the Holy Spirit is not to be glorified or worshiped. In Chapter 1 he writes:

Lately when praying with the people, and using the full doxology to God the Father in both forms, at one time “[Glory to the Father] with the Son together with the Holy Ghost,” and at another “through the Son in the Holy Ghost,” I was attacked by some of those present on the ground that I was introducing novel and at the same time mutually contradictory terms.

The controversy was in part over the exact words with which scripture refers to the Holy Spirit. In this chapter, Basil pauses to note that not everything we say or do in prayer is verbatim from scripture — yet none of his readers, in any of the churches of the ancient east or west, would suggest changing these ancient practices.

Of the beliefs and practices, whether generally accepted or publicly enjoined, which are preserved in the Church, some we possess derived from written teaching; others we have received delivered to us “in a mystery” by the tradition of the apostles; and both of these in relation to true religion have the same force. And these no one will gainsay — no one, at all events, who is even moderately versed in the institutions of the Church. For were we to attempt to reject such customs as have no written authority, on the ground that the importance they possess is small, we would unintentionally injure the Gospel in its very vitals; or, rather, would make our public definition a mere phrase and nothing more. For instance, to take the first and most general example, who is thence who has taught us in writing to sign with the sign of the cross those who have trusted in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ?

What writing has taught us to turn to the East at the prayer? Which of the saints has left us in writing the words of the invocation at the displaying of the bread of the Eucharist and the cup of blessing? For, as is well known, we are not content with what the apostle or the Gospel has recorded, but both in preface and conclusion we add other words as being of great importance to the validity of the ministry, and these we derive from unwritten teaching. Moreover we bless the water of baptism and the oil of the chrism, and we also bless the catechumen who is being baptized. On what written authority do we do this? Is not our authority silent and mystical tradition? In fact, by what written word is the anointing with oil itself taught? And from where comes the custom of baptizing thrice? And as to the other customs of baptism from what Scripture do we derive the renunciation of Satan and his angels?

Does not this come from that unpublished and secret teaching which our fathers guarded in a silence out of the reach of curious meddling and inquisitive investigation? Well had they learnt the lesson that the awful dignity of the mysteries is best preserved by silence. What the uninitiated are not even allowed to look at was hardly likely to be publicly paraded about in written documents. What was the meaning of the mighty Moses in not making all the parts of the tabernacle open to every one?

The profane he stationed outside the sacred barriers; the first courts he conceded to the purer. The Levites alone he judged worthy of being servants of the Deity; sacrifices and burnt offerings and the rest of the priestly functions he allotted to the priests; one chosen out of all he admitted to the sanctuary, and even this one not always but on only one day in the year. And of this one day a time was fixed for his entry so that he might gaze on the Holy of Holies amazed at the strangeness and novelty of the sight. Moses was wise enough to know that contempt stretches to the trite and to the obvious, while a keen interest is naturally associated with the unusual and the unfamiliar. In the same manner the Apostles and Fathers who laid down laws for the Church from the beginning thus guarded the awesome dignity of the mysteries in secrecy and silence, for what is bruited abroad randomly among the common folk is no mystery at all.

This is the reason for our tradition of unwritten precepts and practices, that the knowledge of our dogmas may not become neglected and held in contempt by the multitude through familiarity.

Dogma [that which is believed] and Kerygma [that which is preached] are two distinct things; the former is observed in silence; the latter is proclaimed to all the world. One form of this silence is the obscurity employed in Scripture, which makes the meaning of “dogmas” difficult to be understood for the very advantage of the reader.

Thus we all look to the East at our prayers, but few of us know that we are seeking our own old country, Paradise, which God planted in Eden in the East. We pray standing, on the first day of the week, but we do not all know the reason. On the day of the resurrection [Greek standing again] we remind ourselves of the grace given to us by standing at prayer, not only because we have risen with Christ, and are bound to “seek those things which are above,” but because the day seems to us to be in some sense an image of the age which we await. Therefore, though it is the beginning of days, it is not called by Moses first, but one. For he says “There was evening, and there was morning, one day,” as though the same day often recurred.

Now this “one” day and the “eighth” day are the same, in itself distinctly indicating that really “one” and “eighth” of which the Psalmist makes mention in certain titles of the Psalms. The eighth day is the state which follows after this present time, the day which knows no waning or evening, and no successor; that age which does not end nor grow old. Of necessity, then, the church teaches her own foster children to offer their prayers on that day standing, so that through continual reminder of the endless life we may not neglect to make provision for our removal thither. Moreover all of Pentecost is a reminder of the resurrection expected in the age to come. For that one and first day, if seven times multiplied by seven, completes the seven weeks of the holy Pentecost; for, beginning at the first, Pentecost ends with the same, making fifty revolutions through the intervening days.

And so it is a likeness of eternity, beginning as it does and ending as in a circling course, at the same point. On this day the rules of the church have educated us to prefer the upright attitude of prayer, for by their plain reminder they, as it were, make our mind to dwell no longer in the present but in the future. Moreover every time we fall upon our knees and rise from off them we shew by the very deed that by our sin we fell down to earth, and by the loving kindness of our Creator were called back to heaven.

Time will fail me if I attempt to recount the unwritten mysteries of the Church. Of the rest I say nothing; but of the very confession of our faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what is the written source? If it be granted that, we are under obligation to believe in the same way we were baptized, then we make our confession in like terms as our baptism, in accordance with the tradition of our baptism and in conformity with the principles of true religion. So let our opponents grant us too the right to be as consistent in our giving glory as in our confession of faith. If they deprecate our doxology on the ground that it lacks written authority, then let them give us the written evidence for the confession of our faith and the other matters which we have enumerated. While the unwritten traditions are so many, and their bearing on “the mystery of godliness” is so important, can they refuse to allow us a single word which has come down to us from the Fathers — which we found, derived from untutored custom, abiding in unperverted churches — a word for which the arguments are strong, and which contributes in no small degree to the completeness of the force of the mystery?

For those who follow Christian traditions, Christmas begins when the darkness of Christmas Eve yields to bright midnight candles and the Mass of the Angels or the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Christmas season then lasts 12 days, ending with Epiphany on Jan. 6.

But things aren’t that simple in modern America, the land of the free and the home of the malls…

“Unfortunately, most Americans — especially evangelical Protestants — have so distanced themselves from any awareness of the Christian calendar that their decisions about that kind of question have been handed over to the culture,” said the Rev. Russell D. Moore, dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Keep reading…

So I enjoy reading how western liturgical Christians adapt their existing cultural observances when they enter the Orthodox Church. Father Ernesto Obregon, who came to Orthodoxy from the Anglican tradition, describes how his family uses an Advent wreath to build anticipation of the feast of Christ’s Nativity as the Church enters the Advent season which begins November 15. He writes:

Advent is the 40 day period prior to Nativity during which we prepare ourselves for the coming of the Messiah. It is a period of fasting, prayer and participation in the church services and sacraments to help us understand the full meaning of Christ’s coming.

One way to observe Advent and involve the whole family is through the Advent wreath. First purchase a wreath (either decorated or a plain one which can be decorated) or make one out of styrofoam. There should be space enough for seven candles (one for each week of Advent). Between the candles spread evergreen branches or arrange the candles around the wreath between the branches. The colors of the candles are: green, blue, gold, white, red and purple. If it is difficult to obtain candles in these colors, tie colored ribbon around white candles.

As the wreath is assembled know the symbolism of each part. The circle (wreath) is the Christian symbol for God Who is eternal. The evergreen branches symbolize eternal life, the life of God, of which Christ came to make us partakers. The candles represent Christ Who is the light of the world. The color of each candle expresses a specific theme which can be discussed as a family or among fellow Orthodox Christians each week as Advent progresses. One candle is lit each week on Sunday.

First Sunday of Advent

Candle: green (faith)

Symbolism: The first candle reminds us of faith, the faith we have in God that He will keep His promise to send His Son.

Scripture: Isaiah 9:2, 6-7; 40:3-5; 52:7

Theme: God’s promise to send the Messiah.

Second Sunday of Advent

Candle: blue (hope)

Light both candles and review the meaning of the first candle.

Symbolism: The second candle reminds us of the hope we have that Christ will come again this year to bring new joy into our lives.

Scripture: Luke 1:5-31

Theme: Ways in which Christ brings joy to our hearts today and why should a Christian be joyful.

Third Sunday of Advent

Candle: gold (love)

Light all three candles and review the meaning of the first two candles.

Symbolism: Remember the words of St. John, “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.”

Scripture: St. Luke 1:26-38.

Theme: The life of St. Nicholas who was known for his great generosity in distributing gifts and money to the poor. He preferred to deliver his gifts after dark and in disguise so that no one would know who left them. How can we follow his example by giving gifts to the needy?

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Candle: white (peace)

Always review the meaning of the previous candles as the candles are being lit.

Symbolism: This candle reminds us of the Angel’s message to the shepherds, “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.”

Scripture: Luke 2:1-18

Theme: Reflect on whether there is someone who has something against us, or if we have something against anyone. Are there relationships that need repairing or people we need to forgive? Forgive and be forgiven.

Fifth Sunday of Advent

Candle: purple (repentance)

Review the meaning of the first four candles.

Symbolism: This candle reminds us of our need to repent before we can meet the coming of Christ. “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”

Scripture: Mark 1:1-8, 14-15.

Theme: Discuss repentance and then prepare oneself with a thorough self-examination followed by confession and communion.

Sixth Sunday of Advent

Candle: red (Holy Communion)

Symbolism: Christ, Who was born in Bethlehem and Who will come again at the end of time, comes to us now in the great Sacrament of Holy Communion. The reason He was born in Bethlehem was that we might allow Him to come and be born in the manger of our hearts.

Scripture: John 1:1-18 and John 6:52-58.

Theme: Reflect on Holy Communion

Seventh Sunday of Advent

Candle: a specially decorated white candle such as the one used at baptism or during Pascha (Christ)

Begin by lighting all seven candles. Review the meaning of the first six candles.

Symbolism: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given and His name shall be called Wonderful.”

Scripture: Luke 2:1-7

Theme: The meaning of Christ’s coming.

A few disclaimers are in order. First of all, this is probably the only article by Gary North I will ever repost, and I endorse none of his political writings. Second, no disrespect is intended to the memory of Ronald Reagan; I may take issue with his politics, but mocking someone with Alzheimer’s would be despicable. Finally: my reason for posting this is to highlight the relationship between salvation, grace, understanding, and what it means to be a member of Christ. 

My own tradition, Eastern Orthodoxy, baptizes and communes infants as full members of the community of faith, in expectation that the young person will grow into the faith as it is taught and lived around him. However, most other Christian traditions, while they may baptize infants or not, reserve the Eucharist for adults. In this article I think the author brings up some meaningful questions that arise from our various traditions’ practices of Communion.

THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF RONALD REAGAN: A LITERARY INVESTIGATION
(2003 version)
by Gary North

Ronald Reagan is afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. Most of us fear this disease as we grow older because the older we get, the more likely we will be its victims.

Mr. Reagan is a member in good standing in Bel Air Presbyterian church (PCUSA), and has been for decades. The theological question arises: Should he be allowed to take the Lord’s Supper?

Why should this question arise? Because of the centuries-old tradition in Presbyterianism that anyone who does not understand what the theological meaning of the Lord’s Supper is not allowed to partake. This principle is almost universally applied to young children. It is also applied to people with Down’s Syndrome.

Why isn’t it applied to Alzheimer’s victims? One possible reason: “The victim’s correct understanding years ago still counts judicially.” But this does not answer these theological questions:

1. Why does someone who doesn’t understand today allowed to partake?
2. How can we be sure the person was ever truly saved, since confession of faith is judicial evidence of such salvation?
3. Isn’t a participant supposed to examine himself before partaking, as Paul requires in I Corinthians 11?

The fact that pastors prefer not to deal publicly with this problem doesn’t make it go away.

What about you? Will you be allowed to partake? If not, doesn’t that mean you have been excommunicated? Excommunication is defined as cut off from Holy Communion, i.e., the Lord’s Supper. Not only must you worry about Alzheimer’s, are you also to worry about being unofficially excommunicated?

To help you understand the theological issues in this controversial topic, I offer this hypothetical dialogue, which would never take place in a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in the USA. But it might happen in your congregation with someone less famous than Mr. Reagan. If it wouldn’t, be grateful, but you owe it to yourself find out why it wouldn’t. If it wouldn’t happen mainly because Ronald Reagan is an important person, then you are at risk unless you are an equally important person. So, you might consider showing this essay to your pastor. See if he disagrees with it, and why.

The following discussion is between Reagan’s pastor and his legal guardian at the time of the fictitious incident.

* * * * * * * * *

Pastor: I have invited you to my office to discuss the matter of Mr. Reagan’s membership in this congregation.

Guardian: Is there something wrong?

Pastor: Well, frankly, there is. Mr. Reagan has Alzheimer’s disease.

Guardian: Yes. He has had it for some time.

Pastor: I suppose the elders should not have waited so long to deal with this.

Guardian: Deal with what?

Pastor: The fact that Mr. Reagan no longer understands theology.

Guardian: What has his understanding of theology got to do with his membership?

Pastor: He is a communicant member. Or, I should say, he was a communicant member. He is no longer.

Guardian: What do you mean?

Pastor: The elders voted him a non-communing member at last week’s meeting.

Guardian: On what authority?

Pastor: On the authority of Book of Order.

Guardian: Where does it say that you can refuse to offer the Lord’s Supper to him without a trial?

Pastor: Well, it doesn’t actually say this, but we posses this authority.

Guardian: On what basis?

Pastor: Because we are authorized to determine at what age a child is eligible for communing membership. The Book of Order is quite clear about this: G-5.0100, “The Meaning of Membership, Section c.”

http://www.pcusa.org/oga/publications/01_FOG.pdf

Guardian: He is not a child.

Pastor: On the contrary, he is a child. He has the mentality of a toddler.

Guardian: But he is 91 years old.

Pastor: In years, yes. In mental ability, he is about three years old.

Guardian: But baptized adults are entitled to the Lord’s Supper.

Pastor: Mental adults are entitled to the Lord’s Supper. Mental children are not.

Guardian: I have never heard such an interpretation before.

Pastor: That’s because the elders of this congregation have just discovered this principle.

Guardian: But it’s not part of Presbyterian law.

Pastor: It’s part of a well-established traditional interpretation of Presbyterian theology. The basis of the prohibition against toddlers’ taking communion has always been this: the toddlers’ inability to understand theology. Toddlers don’t understand what communion means. Neither does Mr. Reagan.

Guardian: You’re saying that access to the Lord’s Supper is based on a person’s IQ.

Pastor: Well, we wouldn’t want to put it that way.

Guardian: But that’s the implication of what you’re saying. “No brains, no communion.”

Pastor: Well, yes, I suppose that is our position.

Guardian: He understood communion before he got Alzheimer’s.

Pastor: But he doesn’t understand any longer.

Guardian: But doesn’t his intelligence carry over legally?

Pastor: How? He doesn’t understand the meaning of communion. So, he cannot search his heart before he takes communion, as Paul requires in I Corinthians 11.

Guardian: Well, I can do this for him, now that I’m his legal guardian and trustee. So can the elders, if I fail in my duty.

Pastor: I’m afraid your argument doesn’t apply. If we accepted its logic in your case, we would have to accept it for toddlers and infants.

Guardian: Why?

Pastor: Because it’s the same argument, judicially speaking. You’re saying that a legal guardian who is a member of this congregation and is mentally competent can judge the moral state of his or her mentally incompetent ward. If we were to accept your argument regarding Mr. Reagan, we would have to accept it for the parents of every toddler. The parents would say that the child has not done anything so evil since the date of the last communion that the child should be denied access to the Lord’s Supper.

Guardian: But he hasn’t done anything deserving of excommunication.

Pastor: But he has.

Guardian: What has he done?

Pastor: He got Alzheimer’s.

Guardian: Are you saying that a disease is grounds for excommunication?

Pastor: This disease is grounds for exclusion from the Lord’s Table. Also any other disease or head injury that lowers a person’s IQ to the level of a toddler.

Guardian: Then contracting such a disease is the same, judicially speaking, as committing adultery.

Pastor: No, I’m not saying that.

Guardian: No, I guess you aren’t. That’s because someone can repent from committing adultery. A person can’t raise his IQ. You’re saying that Alzheimer’s is a legal basis for permanently excommunicating a person, but adultery isn’t.

Pastor: Well, now you put it that way, I agree with you. I hadn’t thought of that.

Guardian: There is a whole lot that you haven’t thought of.

Pastor: Like what?

Guardian: Like the fact that anyone can get Alzheimer’s. Like the fact that you are condemning in advance millions of old people to excommunication. Like the fact that you are bringing despair to millions of spouses who are married to people with Alzheimer’s. You are also raising a specter of separation from the Lord’s Table to every Presbyterian, who must now fear the day that he will be treated the way you are treating Mr. Reagan, should they contract this terrible disease.

Pastor: Well, that’s what we tell parents of toddlers.

Guardian: Parents of toddlers have hope that their children will get smarter as they grow older. Their pain is bearable, especially because your interpretation is backed up by tradition.

Pastor: Parents of low IQ children have to live with this despair, and it’s permanent. They don’t complain. They know that Presbyterians have always accepted this risk as a cost of being Presbyterians.

Guardian: But why should this be? Why should you treat Down’s Syndrome victims as sinners who are forever cut off from the communion table?

Pastor: Because they are stupid.

Guardian: You mean intelligence is a matter of saving grace?

Pastor: Oh, no. We wouldn’t say that.

Guardian: You already have. You are saying a lot worse. You are saying that having a low IQ is worse than committing adultery, because repentance is possible for adulterers.

Pastor: Being excluded from the communion table isn’t the same as excommunication.

Guardian: Really? How is it different?

Pastor: Because you have to be convicted of a sin in order to be officially excommunicated.

Guardian: But what’s the difference in the objective result? In both cases, the person is cut off from the Lord’s Table. Excommunication is considered the supreme negative sanction that the church can impose. Why isn’t it a negative sanction for a Down’s Syndrome child to be cut off from the Lord’s Supper?

Pastor: Because there has been no trial.

Guardian: What kind of view of the Lord’s Supper are you teaching here? Are you people Baptists?

Pastor: That is a terrible thing to accuse anyone of being, unless he’s a Baptist.

Guardian: Well, that’s the view of the Lord’s Supper that you’re defending. You’re saying that the Lord’s Supper is one thing for one person, and another thing for someone else. It’s whatever a person thinks it is. It has no judicially valid authority in its own right.

Pastor: I don’t follow you.

Guardian: If being denied access to the Lord’s Supper is a negative sanction for an adulterer, then it’s also a negative sanction for a Down’s Syndrome victim.

Pastor: But this isn’t a negative sanction for the Down’s Syndrome victim.

Guardian: Why not?

Pastor: Because there has been no trial.

Guardian: There doesn’t need to be a trial. My point is that the same negative sanction applies to both the Down’s Syndrome victim and the adulterer. If the sanction is the same for one, it’s the same for the other. It’s not just what the participants think it is. The Westminster Confession of Faith is clear about this. It’s right here in Chapter XXI. Let me read it to you.

These sacraments, both of the Old Testament and of the New, were instituted by God not only to make a visible distinction between his people and those who were without the Covenant, but also to exercise the faith of his children and, by participation of these sacraments, to seal in their hearts the assurance of his promise, and of that most blessed conjunction, union, and society, which the chosen have with their Head, Christ Jesus. And so we utterly condemn the vanity of those who affirm the sacraments to be nothing else than naked and bare signs. No, we assuredly believe that by Baptism we are engrafted into Christ Jesus, to be made partakers of his righteousness, by which our sins are covered and remitted, and also that in the Supper rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us that he becomes the very nourishment and food of our souls. . . .

Therefore, if anyone slanders us by saying that we affirm or believe the sacraments to be symbols and nothing more, they are libelous and speak against the plain facts.

Pastor: I’m not saying that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper has no independent power on its own authority. I’m not a “memorial only” theologian.

Guardian: Then why do you deny access to the Lord’s table for a member in good standing?

Pastor: Because a member in good standing has to have an IQ over 80.

Guardian: Why?

Pastor: So he can understand what’s going on.

Guardian: You think a Down’s Syndrome person doesn’t understand that he is not being allowed to participate, when everyone else in the church is taking the elements except those people nobody talks to — adulterers, thieves, and child molesters?

Pastor: Yes, that’s what I’m saying, at least the victims of extreme Down’s Syndrome.

Guardian: His parents understand, and they act on his behalf. They can decide that he has not committed an excommunicable sin. You should support their decision.

Pastor: They don’t have the authority to act on his behalf. He has to be responsible. He has to act on his own authority.

Guardian: I was right. You’re a Baptist.

Pastor: I deeply resent that accusation.

Guardian: I apologize. You’re only half-Baptist. If a parent who is a member in good standing can act on behalf of the child when it comes time to baptize the child, then why not allow the parent to make the same representative decision in the case of the Lord’s Supper?

Pastor: Because that’s what Presbyterianism has done for centuries.

Guardian: So, you’re saying that Presbyterians are half- Baptists. Presbyterians draw a judicial line at the Lord’s Table, and say to parents, “Your authority ends here.” Then you treat their young children just as you treat excommunicated adults. Meanwhile, the Baptists stand on the sidelines and taunt you. “You don’t really believe in all that representation stuff. You hold the same view that we do regarding the Lord’s Supper. There has to be an age of accountability. The difference is, we take baptism as seriously as you take the Lord’s Supper. We close access to baptism to toddlers and morons and people with Alzheimer’s.”

Pastor: But the child isn’t missing out. Not really.

Guardian: Of course he is missing out. The Confession says that “in the Supper rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us that he becomes the very nourishment and food of our souls.” I ask you: Is it a positive sanction to be able to take the Lord’s Supper?

Pastor: I think I see where you’re going with this.

Guardian: Good. Then you have not yet developed Alzheimer’s.

Pastor: You’re trying to get me to say that the Lord’s Supper is a means of grace or something like that.

Guardian: Well, isn’t that what answer 96 of the Shorter Catechism says? “The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ’s appointment, his death is shewed forth; and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment, and growth in grace.”

Pastor: Yes, but answers 96 and 97 say that these benefits are limited to worthy receivers. “It is required of them that would worthily partake of the Lord’s Supper, that they examine themselves of their knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, of their faith to feed upon him, of their repentance, love, and new obedience; lest, coming unworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves.” Toddlers, morons, and Alzheimer’s victims are not worthy.

Guardian: Nobody is worthy except Jesus Christ.

Pastor: Of course, of course. But there are worthy members and unworthy members.

Guardian: Is an infant worthy?

Pastor: That’s a trick question.

Guardian: Only for Presbyterians with tricky answers.

Pastor: An infant is worthy to be baptized, but not to take the Lord’s Supper.

Guardian: What is the difference?

Pastor: The judicial authority of his parents. In the sacrament of baptism, the parents are worthy on his behalf, but not in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

Guardian: Where does it say that in the Confession or the Catechisms?

Pastor: It doesn’t. It’s implied.

Guardian: Where does it say that in the Bible?

Pastor: It doesn’t. It’s implied.

Pastor: Where does it say that Alzheimer’s victims are unworthy?

Pastor: It doesn’t. It’s implied.

Guardian: So, the elders of this congregation added together a series of implications, and they concluded that Mr. Reagan just had to be excommunicated.

Pastor: I wish you wouldn’t use that word.

Guardian: Then what word would you use? If being officially denied access to the Lord’s Supper isn’t excommunication, what is it?

Pastor: We like to think of it as “safety-first righteousness.”

Guardian: It’s more like “righteousness, emeritus.”

Pastor: Mr. Reagan is still righteous, in a childish sort of way.

Guardian: Toddlers are righteous in an Alzheimer’s sort of way.

Pastor: That’s it, exactly.

Guardian: Infants are baptized in an Alzheimer’s sort of way.

Pastor: No, that’s completely different. Infants are baptized in a judicially representative way. Their parents speak on their behalf.

Guardian: Then the sacramental issue is the competence and judicial standing of the parents.

Pastor: Yes, but only with respect to infant baptism, not young child communion.

Guardian: Then toddlers are denied access to the Lord’s Table in an Alzheimer’s sort of way.

Pastor: Very well put.

Guardian: What about an Alzheimer’s victim who commits adultery?

Pastor: What about him?

Guardian: Is this an excommunicable sin?

Pastor: Yes.

Guardian: But what if he didn’t know that the other person was not his spouse? After all, he has Alzheimer’s.

Pastor: Well, in that case, it wouldn’t be an excommunicable sin.

Guardian: But it would be for the woman who deceived him.

Pastor: Yes, but not for him.

Guardian: Then the only difference between the adulterer and the Alzheimer’s victim is that the adulterer knew what she was doing.

Pastor: Yes.

Guardian: Then the moral and judicial difference between the two kinds of sexual contact outside of marriage is that the deceiver, who lures the Alzheimer’s victim into adultery, is legally responsible.

Pastor: I don’t like where this line of reasoning is headed.

Guardian: I’ll bet you don’t.

Pastor: You’re trying to get me to say that the person with legal authority in the case of adultery is the mentally competent decision-maker, not the mentally incompetent person who obeys the words of the person he believes is in authority.

Guardian: You have got it, exactly.

Pastor: And then you’re going to go from the representative authority of the decision-making adulterer to the representative authority of a decision-making parent.

Guardian: You have got it, exactly.

Pastor: You’re trying to make access to the Lord’s Table as much a matter of representative parental authority as baptism is.

Guardian: You have got it, exactly.

Pastor: Well, I’m not going to say that.

Guardian: Why not?

Pastor: Because it doesn’t sound Presbyterian to me.

Guardian: Neither does excommunicating a person with Alzheimer’s.

Pastor: But that is the logical implication of Presbyterianism.

Guardian: It is the logical implication of a particular Presbyterian tradition. But it is not the logical implication of the doctrine of parental representation in the Presbyterian doctrine of baptism.

Pastor: You’re trying to confuse me.

Guardian: Not too difficult a task.

Pastor: You’re implying that Presbyterianism is theologically schizophrenic: that its doctrine of representation regarding parental authority in baptism is in conflict with the Presbyterian tradition of denying parental authority in the Lord’s Supper.

Guardian: I’m not implying it. I’m inferring it. They are in conflict.

Pastor: You want me to believe that Mr. Reagan should not be excluded from the Lord’s Table even though he has the mind of a toddler or a Down’s Syndrome child.

Guardian: Correct.

Pastor: But if I drew that conclusion, I would have to open the Lord’s Table to toddlers and Down’s Syndrome victims.

Guardian: Correct.

Pastor: And all this is based on the theology of judicial representation.

Guardian: Yes. That’s an important Presbyterian doctrine. Let’s begin with Adam.

Pastor: Let’s not.

Guardian: Then let’s begin with the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ.

Pastor: Let’s not.

Guardian: Then where should we begin?

Pastor: With Presbyterian tradition.

Guardian: You want to substitute ecclesiastical tradition for the Bible and covenant theology?

Pastor: I didn’t say that.

Guardian: But that’s what is implied by what you did say. You are saying that an ecclesiastical tradition that is inconsistent at this point with the doctrine of judicial representation — covenant theology, in other words — carries more authority than covenant theology.

Pastor: Tradition is important.

Guardian: It isn’t that important. Or was Luther wrong in 1517? Was Calvin wrong in 1536? Was the Reformation a mistake?

Pastor: You’re making this more complicated than it is.

Guardian: No, you’re making it more complicated than it is. The doctrine of representation is not all that complicated. Adam sinned on our behalf. Jesus Christ died on our behalf. Parents speak on behalf of their infants. If the concept of “on behalf” is abandoned, then Christianity loses its judicial character. And Presbyterianism is nothing if not judicial.

Pastor: You’re trying to persuade me to begin with the doctrine of judicial representation.

Guardian: No, I’m trying to persuade you to end up with the doctrine of judicial representation that you officially begin with as a Presbyterian. You keep ending up a Baptist. If Mr. Reagan had wanted to be a Baptist, he would have joined a Baptist church. There are surely a lot more voters who are Baptists than there are Presbyterians. He took Presbyterianism seriously. I’m asking you to take Presbyterianism seriously.

Pastor: I’ll have to think about this.

Guardian: Good. I would suggest that you and the elders put his excommunication on hold until you make up your mind.

Pastor: This will have to go to a committee.

Guardian: Somehow, that does not come as a surprise.

###

PAEDOCOMMUNION

Two decades ago, Rev. Ray Sutton and James Jordan each wrote a brief paper, “Presuppositions on Paedocommunion,” and “Theses on Paedocommunion,” respectively. That’s a fancy word for young child communion.

The same judicial is at stake as with Reagan. If a child can be lawfully separated from the Lord’s Supper merely because he doesn’t understand it, what about Down’s Syndrome victims and Alzheimer’s victims?

The two authors concluded that the Lord’s Supper should be open to young children. Their conclusion was accepted by the Reformed Episcopal Church, which Sutton later joined. It has been ignored by most Presbyterians and other Protestants. Here are their articles on the subject. They download slowly.

ftp://entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/a_pdfs/newslet/geneva/82s1.pdf

ftp://entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/a_pdfs/newslet/geneva/82s2.pdf

These papers were circulated widely, but rarely referred to publicly. They never became the focus of a formal debate in Presbyterian circles.

In 1983, David Chilton wrote an essay in dialogue form, “Conversations With Nathan.”

http://freebooks.entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/a_pdfs/cc_4.pdf

It covered the same theological issue. It was even more ignored than the Sutton-Jordan papers. I imitated Chilton’s educational approach in my essay: a dialogue.

CIRCULATE THIS ESSAY

I authorize anyone to send this report to any mailing list. I authorize its posting on any Web site. But this authorization applies only if the entire report is mailed or posted. If you want a copy of your own, send an e-mail to:

reagan@kbot.com

Wait 30 seconds after your e-mail has been sent. Then Click SEND/RECV to download it.

The medieval theory of levels of meaning in the biblical text, with all its undoubted defects, flourished because it is true, while the modern theory of a single meaning, with all its demonstrable virtues is false. Until the historical – critical method becomes critical of its own theoretical foundations and develops a hermeneutical theory adequate to the nature of the text which it is interpreting, it will remain restricted – as it deserves to be – to the guild and the academy, where the question of truth can endlessly be deferred.

In 1859 Benjamin Jowett, then Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford, published a justly famous essay on the interpretation of Scripture.¹ Jowett argued that “Scripture has one meaning – the meaning which it had in the mind of the Prophet or Evangelist who first uttered or wrote, to the hearers or readers who first received it.”² Scripture should be interpreted like any other book and the later accretions and venerated traditions surrounding its interpretation should, for the most part, either be brushed aside or severely discounted. “The true use of interpretation is to get rid of interpretation, and leave us alone in company with the author.”³

Jowett did not foresee great difficulties in the way of the recovery of the original meaning of the text. Proper interpretation requires imagination, the ability to put oneself into an alien cultural situation, and knowledge of the language and history of the ancient people whose literature one sets out to interpret. In the case of the Bible, one has also to bear in mind the progressive nature of revelation and the superiority of certain later religious insights to certain earlier ones. But the interpreter, armed with the proper linguistic tools, will find that “… universal truth easily breaks through the accidents of time and place”⁴ and that such truth still speaks to the condition of the unchanging human heart.

Of course, critical biblical studies have made enormous strides since the time of Jowett. No reputable biblical scholar would agree today with Jowett’s reconstruction of the gospels in which Jesus appears as a “teacher… speaking to a group of serious, but not highly educated, working men, attempting to inculcate in them a loftier and sweeter morality.”⁵ Still, the quarrel between modern biblical scholarship and Benjamin Jowett is less a quarrel over his hermeneutical theory than it is a disagreement with him over the application of that theory in his exegetical practice. Biblical scholarship still hopes to recover the original intention of the author of a biblical text and still regards the pre – critical exegetical tradition as an obstacle to the proper understanding of the true meaning of that text. The most primitive meaning of the text is its only valid meaning, and the historical – critical method is the only key which can unlock it.

But is that hermeneutical theory true?

I think it is demonstrably false. In what follows I want to examine the pre – critical exegetical tradition at exactly the point at which Jowett regarded it to be most vulnerable – namely, in its refusal to bind the meaning of any pericope to the intention, whether explicit or merely half-formed, of its human author. Medieval theologians defended the proposition, so alien to modern biblical studies, that the meaning of Scripture in the mind of the prophet who first uttered it is only one of its possible meanings and may not, in certain circumstances, even be its primary or most important meaning. I want to show that this theory (in at least that respect) was superior to the theories which replaced it. When biblical scholarship shifted from the hermeneutical position of Origen to the hermeneutical position of Jowett, it gained something important and valuable. But it lost something as well, and it is the painful duty of critical scholarship to assess its losses as well as its gains.

I

Medieval hermeneutical theory took as its point of departure the words of St. Paul: “The letter kills but the spirit makes alive” (II Cor. 3:6). Augustine suggested that this text could be understood in either one of two ways. On the one hand, the distinction between letter and spirit could be a distinction between law and gospel, between demand and grace. The letter kills because it demands an obedience of the sinner which the sinner is powerless to render. The Spirit makes alive because it infuses the forgiven sinner with new power to meet the rigorous requirements of the law.

But Paul could also have in mind a distinction between what William Tyndale later called the “story – book” or narrative level of the Bible and the deeper theological meaning or spiritual significance implicit within it. This distinction was important for at least three reasons. Origen stated the first reason with unforgettable clarity:

Now what man of intelligence will believe that the first and the second and the third day, and the evening and the morning existed without the sun and moon and stars? And that the first day, if we may so call it, was even without a heaven? And who is so silly as to believe that God, after the manner of a farmer, “planted a paradise eastward in Eden,” and set in it a visible and palpable “tree of life,” of such a sort that anyone who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life; and again that one could partake of “good and evil” by masticating the fruit taken from the tree of that name? And when God is said to “walk in the paradise in the cool of the day” and Adam to hide himself behind a tree, I do not think anyone will doubt that these are figurative expressions which indicate certain mysteries through a semblance of history and not through actual event.⁶

Simply because a story purports to be a straightforward historical narrative does not mean that it is in fact what it claims to be. What appears to be history may be metaphor or figure instead and the interpreter who confuses metaphor with literal fact is an interpreter who is simply incompetent. Every biblical story means something, even if the narrative taken at face value contains absurdities or contradictions. The interpreter must demythologize the text in order to grasp the sacred mystery cloaked in the language of actual events.

The second reason for distinguishing between letter and spirit was the thorny question of the relationship between Israel and the church, between the Greek Testament and the Hebrew Bible. The church regarded itself as both continuous and discontinuous with ancient Israel. Because it claimed to be continuous, it felt an unavoidable obligation to interpret the Torah, the prophets, and the writings. But it was precisely this claim of continuity, absolutely essential to Christian identity, which created fresh hermeneutical problems for the church.

How was a French parish priest in 1150 to understand Psalm 137, which bemoans captivity in Babylon, makes rude remarks about Edomites, expresses an ineradicable longing for a glimpse of Jerusalem, and pronounces a blessing on anyone who avenges the destruction of the temple by dashing Babylonian children against a rock? The priest lives in Concale, not Babylon, has no personal quarrel with Edomites, cherishes no ambitions to visit Jerusalem (though he might fancy a holiday in Paris), and is expressly forbidden by Jesus to avenge himself on his enemies. Unless Psalm 137 has more than one possible meaning, it cannot be used as a prayer by the church and must be rejected as a lament belonging exclusively to the piety of ancient Israel.

A third reason for distinguishing letter from spirit was the conviction, expressed by Augustine, that while all Scripture was given for the edification of the church and the nurture of the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, not all the stories in the Bible are edifying as they stand. What is the spiritual point of the story of the drunkenness of Noah, the murder of Sisera, or the oxgoad of Shamgar, son of Anath? If it cannot be found on the level of narrative, then it must be found on the level of allegory, metaphor, and type.

That is not to say that patristic and medieval interpreters approved of arbitrary and undisciplined exegesis, which gave free rein to the imagination of the exegete. Augustine argued, for example, that the more obscure parts of Scripture should be interpreted in the light of its less difficult sections and that no allegorical interpretation could be accepted which was not supported by the “manifest testimonies” of other less ambiguous portions of the Bible. The literal sense of Scripture is basic to the spiritual and limits the range of possible allegorical meanings in those instances in which the literal meaning of a particular passage is absurd, undercuts the living relationship of the church to the Old Testament, or is spiritually barren.

II

From the time of John Cassian, the church subscribed to a theory of the fourfold sense of Scripture.⁷ The literal sense of Scripture could and usually did nurture the three theological virtues, but when it did not, the exegete could appeal to three additional spiritual senses, each sense corresponding to one of the virtues. The allegorical sense taught about the church and what it should believe, and so it corresponded to the virtue of faith. The tropological sense taught about individuals and what they should do, and so it corresponded to the virtue of love. The anagogical sense pointed to the future and wakened expectation, and so it corresponded to the virtue of hope. In the fourteenth century Nicholas of Lyra summarized this hermeneutical theory in a much quoted little rhyme:

Littera gesta docet,
Quid credas allegoria,
Moralis quid agas,
Quo tendas anagogia.

The literal sense teaches what happened,
The allegorical what you believe.
The moral what you should do,
The anagogical where you are going.

This hermeneutical device made it possible for the church to pray directly and without qualification even a troubling Psalm like 137. After all, Jerusalem was not merely a city in the Middle East; it was, according to the allegorical sense, the church; according to the tropological

ense, the faithful soul; and according to the anagogical sense, the center of God’s new creation. The Psalm became a lament of those who long for the establishment of God’s future kingdom and who are trapped in this disordered and troubled world, which with all its delights is still not their home. They seek an abiding city elsewhere. The imprecations against the Edomites and the Babylonians are transmuted into condemnations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. If you grant the fourfold sense of Scripture, David sings like a Christian.

III

Thomas Aquinas wanted to ground the spiritual sense of Scripture even more securely in the literal sense than it had been grounded in Patristic thought. Returning to the distinction between “things” and “signs” made by Augustine in De doctrina christiana (though Thomas preferred to use the Aristotelian terminology of “things” and “words”), Thomas argued that while words are the signs of things, things designated by words can themselves be the signs of other things. In all merely human sciences, words alone have a sign – character. But in Holy Scripture, the things designated by words can themselves have the character of a sign. The literal sense of Scripture has to do with the sign – character of words; the spiritual sense of Scripture has to do with the sign – character of things. By arguing this way, Thomas was able to show that the spiritual sense of Scripture is always based on the literal sense and derived from it.

Thomas also redefined the literal sense of Scripture as “the meaning of the text which the author intends.” Lest Thomas be confused with Jowett, I should hasten to point out that for Thomas the author was God, not the human prophet or apostle. In the fourteenth century, Nicholas of Lyra, a Franciscan exegete and one of the most impressive biblical scholars produced by the Christian church, built a new hermeneutical argument on the aphorism of Thomas. If the literal sense of Scripture is the meaning which the author intended (presupposing that the author whose intention finally matters is God), then is it possible to argue that Scripture contains a double literal sense? Is there a literal – historical sense (the original meaning of the words as spoken in their first historical setting) which includes and implies a literal – prophetic sense (the larger meaning of the words as perceived in later and changed circurnstances)?

Nicholas not only embraced a theory of the double literal sense of Scripture, but he was even willing to argue that in certain contexts the literal – prophetic sense takes precedence over the literal – historical. Commenting on Psalm 117, Lyra wrote: “The literal sense in this Psalm concerns Christ; for the literal sense is the sense primarily intended by the author.” Of the promise to Solomon in I Chronicles 17:13, Lyra observed: “The aforementioned authority was literally fulfilled in Solomon; however, it was fulfilled less perfectly, because Solomon was a son of God only by grace; but it was fulfilled more perfectly in Christ, who is the Son of God by nature.”

For most exegetes, the theory of Nicholas of Lyra bound the interpreter to the dual task of explaining the historical meaning of a text while elucidating its larger and later spiritual significance. The great French humanist, Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples, however, pushed the theory to absurd limits. He argued that the only possible meaning of a text was its literal – prophetic sense and that the literal – historical sense was a product of human fancy and idle imagination. The literal – historical sense is the “letter which kills.” It is advocated as the true meaning of Scripture only by carnal persons who have not been regenerated by the life – giving Spirit of God. The problem of the proper exegesis of Scripture is, when all is said and done, the problem of the regeneration of its interpreters.

IV

In this brief survey of medieval hermeneutical theory, there are certain dominant themes which recur with dogged persistence. Medieval exegetes admit that the words of Scripture had a meaning in the historical situation in which they were first uttered or written, but they deny that the meaning of those words is restricted to what the human author thought he said or what his first audience thought they heard. The stories and sayings of Scripture bear an implicit meaning only understood by a later audience. In some cases that implicit meaning is far more important than the restricted meaning intended by the author in his particular cultural setting.

Yet the text cannot mean anything a later audience wants it to mean. The language of the Bible opens up a field of possible meanings. Any interpretation which falls within that field is valid exegesis of the text, even though that interpretation was not intended by the author. Any interpretation which falls outside the limits of that field of possible meanings is probably eisegesis and should be rejected as unacceptable. Only by confessing the multiple sense of Scripture is it possible for the church to make use of the Hebrew Bible at all or to recapture the various levels of significance in the unfolding story of creation and redemption. The notion that Scripture has only one meaning is a fantastic idea and is certainly not advocated by the biblical writers themselves.

V

Having elucidated medieval hermeneutical theory, I should like to take some time to look at medieval exegetical practice. One could get the impression from Jowett that because medieval exegetes rejected the theory of the single meaning of Scripture so dear to Jowett’s heart, they let their exegetical imaginations run amok and exercised no discipline at all in clarifying the field of possible meanings opened by the biblical text. In fact, medieval interpreters, once you grant the presuppositions on which they operate, are as conservative and restrained in their approach to the Bible as any comparable group of modern scholars.

In order to test medieval exegetical practice I have chosen a terribly difficult passage from the Gospel of Matthew, the parable of the Good Employer or, as it is more frequently known, the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matt. 20:1 – 16). The story is a familiar one. An employer hired day laborers to work in his vineyard at dawn and promised them the standard wage of a denarius. Because he needed more workers, he returned to the market place at nine, noon, three, and five o’clock and hired any laborers he could find. He promised to pay the workers hired at nine, noon, and three what was fair. But the workers hired at the eleventh hour or five o’clock were sent into the vineyard without any particular promise concerning remuneration. The employer instructed his foreman to pay off the workers beginning with the laborers hired at five o’clock. These workers expected only one – twelfth of a denarius, but were given the full day’s wage instead. Indeed, all the workers who had worked part of the day were given one denarius. The workers who had been in the vineyard since dawn accordingly expected a bonus beyond the denarius, but they were disappointed to receive the same wage which had been given to the other, less deserving workers. When they grumbled, they were told by the employer that they had not been defrauded but had been paid according to an agreed contract. If the employer chose to be generous to the workers who had only worked part of the day, that was, in effect, none of their business. They should collect the denarius that was due them and go home like good fellows.

Jesus said the kingdom of God was like this story. What on earth could he have meant?

VI

The church has puzzled over this parable ever since it was included in Matthew’s Gospel. St. Thomas Aquinas in his Lectura super Evangelium Sancti Matthaei offered two interpretations of the parable, one going back in its lineage to Irenaeus and the other to Origen. The “day” mentioned in the parable can either refer to the life – span of an individual (the tradition of Origen), in which case the parable is a comment on the various ages at which one may be converted to Christ, or it is a reference to the history of salvation (the tradition of Irenaeus), in which case it is a comment on the relationship of Jew and Gentile.

If the story refers to the life span of a man or woman, then it is intended as an encouragement to people who are converted to Christ late in life. The workers in the story who begin at dawn are people who have served Christ and have devoted themselves to the love of God and neighbor since childhood. The other hours mentioned by Jesus refer to the various stages of human development from youth to old age. Whether one has served Christ for a long time or for a brief moment, one will still receive the gift of eternal life. Thomas qualifies this somewhat in order to allow for proportional rewards and a hierarchy in heaven. But he does not surrender the main point: eternal life is given to late converts with the same generosity it is given to early converts.

On the other hand, the story may refer to the history of salvation. Quite frankly, this is the interpretation which interests Thomas most. The hours mentioned in the parable are not stages in individual human development but epochs in the history of the world from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to David, and from David to Christ. The owner of the vineyard is the whole Trinity, the foreman is Christ, and the moment of reckoning is the resurrection from the dead. The workers who are hired at the eleventh hour are the Gentiles, whose complaint that no one has offered them work can be interpreted to mean that they had no prophets as the Jews have had. The workers who have borne the heat of the day are the Jews, who grumble about the favoritism shown to latecomers, but who are still given the denarius of eternal life. As a comment on the history of salvation, the parable means that the generosity of God undercuts any advantage which the Jews might have had over the Gentiles with respect to participation in the gifts and graces of God.

Not everyone read the text as a gloss on Jewish-Christian relations or as a discussion of late conversion. In the fourteenth century the anonymous author of the Pearl, an elegy on the death of a young girl, applied the parable to infancy rather than to old age. What is important about the parable is not the chronological age at which one enters the vineyard, but the fact that some workers are only in the vineyard for the briefest possible moment. A child who dies at the age of two years is, in a sense, a worker who arrives at the eleventh hour. The parable is intended as a consolation for bereaved parents. A parent who has lost a small child can be comforted by the knowledge that God, who does not despise the service of persons converted in extreme old age, does not withhold his mercy from boys and girls whose eleventh hour came at dawn.

Probably the most original interpretation of the parable was offered by John Pupper of Goch, a Flemish theologian of the fifteenth century, who used the parable to attack the doctrine of proportionality, particularly as that doctrine bad been stated and defended by Thomas Aquinas. No one had ever argued that God gives rewards which match in exact quantity the weight of the good works done by a Christian. That is arithmetic equality and is simply not applicable to a relationship in which people perform temporal acts and receive eternal rewards. But most theologians did hold to a doctrine of proportionality; while there is a disproportion between the good works which Christians do and the rewards which they receive, there is a proportion as well. The reward is always much larger than the work which is rewarded, but the greater the work, the greater the reward.

As far as Goch is concerned, that doctrine is sheer nonsense. No one can take the message of the parable of the vineyard seriously and still hold to the doctrine of proportionality. Indeed, the only people in the vineyard who hold to the doctrine of proportionality are the first workers in the vineyard. They argue that twelve times the work should receive twelve times the payment. All they receive for their argument is a rebuke and a curt dismissal.

Martin Luther, in an early sermon preached before the Reformation in 1517, agreed with Goch that God gives equal reward for great and small works. It is not by the herculean size of our exertions but by the goodness of God that we receive any reward at all.

But Luther, unfortunately, spoiled his point by elaborating a thoroughly unconvincing argument in which he tried to show that the last workers in the vineyard were more humble than the first and therefore that one hour of their service was worth twelve hours of the mercenary service of the grumblers.

The parable, however, seems to make exactly the opposite point. The workers who began early were not more slothful or more selfish than the workers who began later in the day. Indeed, they were fairly representative of the kind of worker to be found hanging around the marketplace at any hour. They were angry, not because they had shirked their responsibilities, but because they had discharged them conscientiously.

In 1525 Luther offered a fresh interpretation of the parable, which attacked it from a slightly different angle. The parable has essentially one point: to celebrate the goodness of God which makes nonsense of a religion based on law-keeping and good works. God pays no attention to the proportionately greater efforts of the first workers in the vineyard, but to their consternation, God puts them on exactly the same level as the last and least productive workers. The parable shows that everyone in the vineyard is unworthy, though not always for the same reason. The workers who arrive after nine o’clock are unworthy because they are paid a salary incommensurate with their achievement in picking grapes. The workers who spent the entire day in the vineyard are unworthy because they are dissatisfied with what God has promised, think that their efforts deserve special consideration, and are jealous of their employer’s goodness to workers who accomplished less than they did. The parable teaches that salvation is not grounded in human merit and that there is no system of bookkeeping which can keep track of the relationship between God and humanity. Salvation depends utterly and absolutely on the goodness of God.

VII

The four medieval theologians I have mentioned – Thomas Aquinas, the author of the Pearl, the Flemish chaplain Goch, and the young Martin Luther – did not exhaust in their writings all the possible interpretations of the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. But they did see with considerable clarity that the parable is an assertion of God’s generosity and mercy to people who do not deserve it. It is only against the background of the generosity of God that one can understand the relationship of Jew and Gentile, the problem of late conversion, the meaning of the death of a young child, the question of proportional rewards, even the very definition of grace itself. Every question is qualified by the severe mercy of God, by the strange generosity of the owner of the vineyard who pays the non – productive latecomer the same wage as his oldest and most productive employees.

If you were to ask me which of these interpretations is valid, I should have to respond that they all are. They all fall within the field of possible meanings created by the story itself. How many of those meanings were in the conscious intention of Jesus or of the author of the Gospel of Matthew, I do not profess to know. I am inclined to agree with C. S. Lewis, who commented on his own book, Till We Have Faces: “An author doesn’t necessarily understand the meaning of his own story better than anyone else….”⁸ The act of creation confers no special privileges on authors when it comes to the distinctly different, if lesser task of interpretation. Wordsworth the critic is not in the same league with Wordsworth the poet, while Samuel Johnson the critic towers over Johnson the creative artist. Authors obviously have something in mind ‘when they write, but a work of historical or theological or aesthetic imagination has a life of its own.

VIII

Which brings us back to Benjamin Jowett. Jowett rejected medieval exegesis and insisted that the Bible should be read like any other book.⁹ I agree with Jowett that the Bible should be read like any other book. The question is: how does one read other books?

Take, for example, my own field of Reformation studies. Almost no historian that I know would answer the question of the meaning of the writings of Martin Luther by focusing solely on Luther’s explicit and conscious intention. Marxist interpreters of Luther from Friedrich Engels to Max Steinmetz have been interested in Luther’s writings as an expression of class interests, while psychological interpreters from Grisar to Erikson have focused on the theological writings as clues to the inner psychic tensions in the personality of Martin Luther. Even historians who reject Marxist and psychological interpretations of Luther find themselves asking how Luther was understood in the free imperial cities, by the German knights, by the landed aristocracy, by the various subgroups of German peasants, by the Catholic hierarchy, by lawyers, by university faculties – to name only a few of the more obvious groups who responded to Luther and left a written record of their response. Meaning involves a listener as well as a speaker, and when one asks the question of the relationship of Luther to his various audiences in early modern Europe, it becomes clear that there was not one Luther in the sixteenth century, but a battalion of Luthers.

Nor can the question of the meaning of Luther’s writings be answered by focusing solely on Luther’s contemporaries. Luther’s works were read and pondered in a variety of historical and cultural settings from his death in 1546 to the present. Those readings of Luther have had measurable historical effects on succeeding generations, whose particular situation in time and space could scarcely have been anticipated by Luther. Yet the social, political, economic, cultural, and religious history of those people belongs intrinsically and inseparably to the question of the meaning of the theology of Martin Luther. The meaning of historical texts cannot be separated from the complex problem of their reception and the notion that a text means only what its author intends it to mean is historically naive. Even to talk of the original setting in which words were spoken and heard is to talk of meanings rather than meaning. To attempt to understand those original meanings is the first step in the exegetical process, not the last and final step.

Modern literary criticism has challenged the notion that a text means only what its author intends it to mean far more radically than medieval exegetes ever dreamed of doing. Indeed, contemporary debunking of the author and the author’s explicit intentions has proceeded at such a pace that it seems at times as if literary criticism has become a jolly game of ripping out an author’s shirt – tail and setting fire to it. The reader and the literary work to the exclusion of the author have become the central preoccupation of the literary critic. Literary relativists of a fairly moderate sort insist that every generation has its own Shakespeare and Milton, and extreme relativists loudly proclaim that no reader reads the same work twice. Every change in the reader, however slight, is a change in the meaning of the text. Imagine what Thomas Aquinas or Nicholas of Lyra would have made of the famous statement of Northrop Frye:

It has been said of Boehme that his books are like a picnic to which the author brings the words and the reader the meaning. The remark may have been intended as a sneer at Boehme, but it is an exact description of all works of literary art without exception.¹⁰

Medieval exegetes held to the sober middle way, the position that the text (any literary text, but especially the Bible) contains both letter and spirit. The text is not all letter, as Jowett with others maintained, or all spirit, as the rather more enthusiastic literary critics in our own time are apt to argue. The original text as spoken and heard limits a field of possible meanings. Those possible meanings are not dragged by the hair, willy-nilly, into the text, but belong to the life of the Bible in the encounter between author and reader as they belong to the life of any act of the human imagination. Such a hermeneutical theory is capable of sober and disciplined application and avoids the Scylla of extreme subjectivism, on the one hand, and the Charybdis of historical positivism, on the other. To be sure, medieval exegetes made bad mistakes in the application of their theory, but they also scored notable and brilliant triumphs. Even at their worst they recognized that the intention of the author is only one element – and not always the most important element at that – in the complex phenomenon of the meaning of a text.

IX

The defenders of the single meaning theory usually concede that the medieval approach to the Bible met the religious needs of the Christian community, but that it did so at the unacceptable price of doing violence to the biblical text. The fact that the historical-critical method after two hundred years is still struggling for more than a precarious foothold in that same religious community is generally blamed on the ignorance and conservatism of the Christian laity and the sloth or moral cowardice of its pastors.

I should like to suggest an alternative hypothesis. The medieval theory of levels of meaning in the biblical text, with all its undoubted defects, flourished because it is true, while the modern theory of a single meaning, with all its demonstrable virtues, is false. Until the historical – critical method becomes critical of its own theoretical foundations and develops a hermeneutical theory adequate to the nature of the text which it is interpreting, it will remain restricted – as it deserves to be – to the guild and the academy, where the question of truth can endlessly be deferred.

Originally in Princeton Theological Seminary’s Theology Today (April 1980)

Notes

David C. Steinmetz is Professor of Church History and Doctrine at the Divinity School of Duke University and the author of Misericordia Dei: The Theology of Johannes von Staupitz in Its Late Medieval Selling (1968) and Reformers in the Wings (1971). He also contributed an article, “Reformation and Conversion,” to the April 1978 issue of THEOLOGY TODAY.

¹ Benjamin Jowett, “On the Interpretation of Scripture,” Essays and Reviews, 7th ed. (London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 186 1), pp. 330 – 433.

² Ibid., p. 378.

³ Ibid., p. 384.

⁴ Ibid., p. 412.

⁵ Helen Gardner, The Business of Criticism (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 83.

⁶ Origen, On First Principles, ed. by G. W. Butterworth (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), p. 288.

⁷ For a brief survey of medieval hermeneutical theory which takes into account recent historical research see James S. Preus, From Shadow to Promise (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969), pp. 9 – 149; see also the useful bibliography, pp. 287 – 93.

⁸ W. H. Lewis, ed., Letters of C S. Lewis (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1966), P. 273.

⁹ Jowett, “Interpretation,” p. 377.

¹⁰ This quotation is cited by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 1, at the beginning of a chapter which sets out to elaborate an alternative theory.

Three Kings?

We’re all familiar with the image of three men on camels, traveling trackless sand dunes by starlight: “Field and fountain, moor and mountain, / Following yonder star.” But how accurate are our Hallmark greeting cards?

Snopes.com is famous for debunking urban legends and popular misconceptions. Their entry for Three Wise Men begins:

Claim: The Bible says that three wise men traveled from afar on camels to visit the infant Jesus as he lay in the manger.
Status: False.
Origins: As Santa Claus and his reindeer are to the secular celebration of Christmas, so the three wise men and the creche are to the religious celebration… it depicts the biblical account of three wise men from the east who rode atop camels and followed a star to Bethlehem… The truth is, the Bible contains virtually none of these details. They have all been added over the years from sources outside the Bible. More…

Our modern account of three wise men dates back to the sixth century, and the three or more names vary considerably among the legends. The Syrians have Larvandad, Hormisdas, Gushnasaph; the Armenians, Kagba, Badadilma and Badadakharida. The fanciful third-century Syriac Revelation of the Magi names twelve Magi.

St. Matthew doesn’t define Magi for us. But the word was old when he used it. Matthew’s Greek word μάγοι comes from Persian maguŝ. The Magi were the priestly caste of the Zoroastrian faith, which before Islam was the national religion of Persia and remains so among Parsis outside Iran. In the Eastern Christian churches, the ancient troparion [festal hymn] for the Nativity of Christ is:

Thy Nativity, O Christ our God, dawned upon the world the light of knowledge; for by it, those who worshipped the stars were taught by a star to worship Thee, the Sun of Righteousness, and to know Thee, the Dayspring from on high. O Lord, glory be to Thee.

When those led by Nehemiah and Ezra returned to Jerusalem., a significant, influential Jewish community never left Babylon. Governed by princes of the line of David, this community prospered in Persian Mesopotamia; five hundred years after Christ, they produced the important Babylonian Talmud.

Jewish scholars have never been shy about practicing and discussing their distinctive faith, and it was during the Babylonian captivity that the fierce, exclusive monotheism of later Judaism was forged. While Jews in first-century Alexandria were interacting with Hellenic thinkers, what kind of dialogue were their contemporaries in Babylon and Persepolis getting up to with Parsi philosophers? If nothing else, the strictness of Jewish dietary, funeral and household laws ensured that food merchants, house builders, and animal vendors would all be learning how to sell to the growing Jewish demographic. And the Jews’ monotheism, in contrast to the Parsis’ dualism, must have made for fascinating debates.

Meanwhile Messianic expectation was growing in the centuries nearer the time of Christ – especially among nonconformist Jewish communities like Qumran, who, like the Persians, awaited a last great war between sons of light and darkness. And at the same time the Parsis had their own prophecies of a coming savior, Saoshyant, who was to be born of the virgin they called Eredat-fedhri. If the Magi learned – through divination, astrology, or divine revelation – that the Savior was about to be born in the far west, might they have hoped the Jews in Judaea, who also expected a Savior, would know where He’d been born?

How about the Star? Every year, around Christmas, reports appear in the papers or on television which claim to give an astronomical explanation of the Star of Bethlehem: It was a comet, or a supernova, or a reading in an astrological horoscope. These speculations miss the early Christian understanding of the Star that led the magi. Fourth-century master preacher John Chrysostom notes the impossibility of an actual star leading anybody to the Child:

You know that a spot of such small dimensions, being only as much as a shed would occupy, or rather as much as the body of a little infant would take up, could not possibly be marked out by a star… the moon, which being so far superior to the stars, seems to all that dwell in the world to be near to each and every one of them. How then, tell me, did the star point out a spot so confined, just the space of a manger and shed, unless it left that height and came down, and stood over the very head of the young child?

Chrysostom insists the magi had to have been following a divinely-provided guide, a manifestation like the pillar of fire that led Israel through the desert. Many other teachers from Origen to Gregory of Nyssa link the star to Balaam’s prophecy and insist the star was a revelation of Christ himself.

What about the camels? Can’t we at least keep them? The camel had of course been domesticated millennia before, but Persian VIPs didn’t need to ride those nasty, vicious, stinky, ungainly animals; the Persians’ pride was their horses. At Carrhae it was Persian horsemen that routed the Roman army. What we know today as Arabian horses only developed in large numbers when the conversion of the Persians to Islam in the 7th century AD brought knowledge of horse breeding to the Bedouin.

The trip from Persepolis to Bethlehem is just over 1,000 miles as the crow flies; more than 1200 miles via Aleppo and Palmyra to Judea; at least a few months travel. Our band of Parsi priests is not about to travel that distance alone, or across a trackless waste; a journey of this length for men of importance meant hiring a caravan for protection, provisions, and negotiating lodging on the way. Caravans regularly traveled the established trade routes of the Silk Road through Hellenized Mesopotamia and Syria, to the cities of Roman Judaea.

So picture a significant caravan with guards, carters, merchants and fellow-travelers accompanying a delegation of Parsi priests along the west end of the Silk Road, finally arriving after months of travel in Caesarea, at the court of the Edomite King Herod, whom the Romans had made King of the Jews.

Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-202 AD), in “Against Heresies” 1:10:1-2

The Church, though dispersed through our the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith:

[We believe] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father “to gather all things in one,” and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race; in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord and God and Savior and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess” to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send “spiritual wickednesses,” and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love — some from the beginning [of their lives], and others from [the day of] their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.

As I have already observed, the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same. For the Churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world. But as the sun, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shines everywhere, and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Nor will any one of the rulers in the Churches, however highly gifted he may be in point of eloquence, teach doctrines different from these — for no one is greater than the Master; nor, on the other hand, will he who is deficient in power of expression inflict injury on the tradition. For the faith being ever one and the same, neither does one who is able at great length to discourse regarding it, make any addition to it, nor does one, who can say but little diminish it.

by John Stamps

When it comes to St. Augustine, the great fifth-century bishop of Hippo, Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox all have a similar reaction: none of us quite know what to do with him. Or at least that was my impression, based on the conference I attended at Fordham University last June.

The event was star-studded, at least on an intellectual level. Fordham managed to pull together an amazing collection of theological heavy-hitters: Jean-Luc Marion and Fr. David Tracy from the University of Chicago; Fr. Andrew Louth from Durham (UK), along with his wife, Dr. Carolyn Harrison, herself an Augustine scholar of no mean reputation; Fr. Brian Daley of Notre Dame; David Bentley Hart, lately of Providence College; Fr. John Behr of St. Vladimir’s Seminary; David Bradshaw of the University of Kentucky; and more.

The conference attracted an equally fascinating cross-section of the Christian world. In addition to all the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic priests and monastics, I saw a distinguished-looking Coptic priest and a motley crew of divinity students from across the theological spectrum. From where I was sitting, I could see students with name tags from Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Ft. Worth, Reformed Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, St. Vladimir’s, Harvard Divinity School, and of course Fordham.

My next-door neighbor in our Spartan dorm was a Roman Catholic abbot from Orange County. With the conference held in the Bronx, we were able to hang around Little Italy and talk theology into the night with a Black American Baptist pastor from Berkeley, who wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on St. Augustine’s controversy with the Donatists. I even encountered an old seminary friend, a faithful Presbyterian pastor for many years.

The Fordham organizers did an excellent job of pulling together speakers and presentations on St. Augustine that avoided the worst excesses of Augustinian advocates and detractors alike. The lectures were brilliant, the one exception being the reader who claimed his paper was eaten, not by his dog, but by his PC. Even the sharpest of disagreements were polite, but the flash points surprised me: David Bradshaw ended up the target of most potshots and not St Augustine himself. There was little evidence of what the medievals called odium theologicum, that is, the intense hatred generated when partisans argue over minute points of theology little understood by anyone except the cognoscenti.

Fr. Andrew Louth’s keynote lecture set the tone for the conference. Fr. Andrew freely acknowledged all the usual Orthodox sore spots with St. Augustine: his arguments for the filioque clause; his contentious teachings about original sin, grace, and dual predestination; his endorsement of government-sanctioned violence against fellow Christians; and so on. But he wisely decided instead to put Augustine’s famous theological works (for example, “On the Trinity”) or his more polemical works (for example, his writings against the Pelagians and the Donatists) on the backburner, and focus instead on Augustine the bishop, who preached the Bible to his flock in Hippo, week in and week out, for over 30 years. Indeed, the consensus of the conference seemed to be that we’d all be better off reading Augustine’s sermons on St. John’s Gospel or the Psalms than focusing on his more divisive writings.

If I had to choose my favorite speaker in the conference, it was Fr David Tracy from the University of Chicago. On a personal note, his book Blessed Rage for Order fried my mind when I was a young impressionable seminary student at Princeton back in the late 70s. The revisionist theologian of Blessed Rage and the wise grandfatherly character who spoke with such affection for Metropolitan Zizioulas hardly seemed to me like the same person. When I saw David Tracy’s name on the program, I didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t insightful reflections on the “Christological fragments” scattered throughout the Augustinian corpus. I was charmed.

Almost by way of footnote, Tracy observed that the famous 17th century Bishop Cornelius Jansenius (1585-1638), spiritual father of the Jansenist movement and the spiritual grandfather of Blaise Pascal, had read through the entire massive Augustinian corpus 20 times. But the problem with Jansenius was his misplaced zeal. In an attempt to return the Western Church back to Augustine’s true doctrine of grace, he had read Augustine’s writings against the Pelagians 31 times. For AGAIN readers who don’t recognize Bishop Jansenius, his massive work Augustinus was condemned not once but at least three times by various popes (Urban VIII in 1642, Innocent X in 1653, and finally Alexander X in 1665). Perhaps Jansenius was condemned for good reason. The 17th century Latin church wasn’t ready for a St Augustine who sounded more like John Calvin than St Thomas Aquinas.

When Tradition Fractures

Something bad has happened to Christianity in the West, and it’s hard to know who is at fault, and where and when exactly to place the blame. For many, St. Augustine seems like a good place to start. The existentialist philosopher Karl Jasper credits him with being “the first modern man.” The Confessions of St. Augustine continue to appeal deeply to contemporary readers because he sounds just like us. He is the poster child of deep psychological introspection, without peer in the ancient world and perhaps even today: “I had become a great question to myself” (IV.4.9). In psychological terms, Augustine reveals that he is a deeply conflicted individual, as in his half-hearted prayer to God: “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet” (VIII.7.17). His internal torment as he wrestles with overcoming his sinful passions portrays someone just like us. He also sounds modern as he tries on various lifestyle options. As a People magazine addict, I like nothing better than a good sinner-to-saint conversion story. When trying to understand modern sources of the self, we Westerners can’t understand ourselves if we don’t come to grips with St. Augustine. As Charles Taylor put it, “On the way from Plato to Descartes stands Augustine.”

The Fordham conference brought to the surface the problem of this Augustinian inheritance. Many speakers took potshots at David Bradshaw because his book, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom, argues that Augustine is in part responsible for so many Western dead-ends in theology and spirituality. For example, Augustine’s elevation of the Platonic intellect spawned a nasty streak of rationalism. Bradshaw’s tour de force clearly describes how Augustine’s emphasis on God’s absolute simplicity makes him difficult to assimilate within Eastern Orthodoxy. Augustine’s stress on God’s intelligibility – God is for the mind to understand, as body is for the eye to see – doesn’t easily mesh with the profound sense of God’s mystery encountered in the Divine Liturgy.

The Christian West itself couldn’t take the Doctor of Grace’s ferocious theology of grace without serious dilution. For roughly 1000 years, the Christian West survived the unstable synthesis of St. Augustine’s doctrine of predestination with his doctrine of the Church. John Calvin once chortled, “Augustine is completely on our side” about predestination. But ironically, it was Augustine’s doctrine of the Church, “For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church,” that kept the rest of his theology from unraveling.

Eventually Martin Luther, John Calvin, and a host of others who wanted to stress Sola Scriptura and recover Augustine’s stress on dual predestination kept chipping away at the weak spots until the synthesis fractured into thousands of denominational shards. The only thing that held the Western Church together were the forces of the tradition that quietly corrected Augustine’s excesses. Ever since that historical structure fractured, we in the West, like all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, have been trying to piece together the fragments of the shattered tradition into some kind of coherent whole.

Intellectual historians like Jaroslav Pelikan easily summarize where the various fault lines lay in Western thought by referring to Augustine: “What was embarrassing about Augustine on the real presence in the Eucharist was his vagueness; what was embarrassing about him on Predestination was his clarity.” The only thing needed was someone with a big enough sledgehammer to start pounding. That someone, with a hammer in one hand and a list of grievances in the other, was a young Augustinian monk named Martin Luther.

A perfect storm of social, political, economic, and religious forces converged in Luther to shatter the tradition that had previously united Western Christendom. He unleashed a massive revolt against authority that we are still struggling with today. Ironically, it was St. Augustine who was the inspiration behind the Reformation, as B.B. Warfield, the famous nineteenth-century Princeton theologian, argued: “The Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the Church.”

What was apparently a seamless garment of grace and Church for St. Augustine was shredded in the Reformation. Augustine perceived no contradiction between the absolute necessity of God’s grace and the mediation of that grace through the sacramental life of the Church. But Luther and other reformers wanted Augustine’s theology of God’s sovereign election undiluted, in full strength.

The only consistent Augustinian I know of is Augustine himself, and he was inconsistent. The theological garment Augustine wove together in his own person, his most fervent disciples rent asunder from top to bottom. Comparing Augustine’s vision of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church in The City of God with its numerous Protestant progeny, the triumph of “grace” over “Church” was no victory at all.

Among Augustine’s many retractions, he repudiated his earlier view that miracles had stopped with the early Church. Previously, Augustine thought miracles were necessary only long enough to jumpstart the Church and provide her with divine credentials for her astounding truth claims. But after witnessing several miracles himself, Augustine came to relish the evidence of God’s miraculous power at work through the relics of the saints (The City of God, XXII.8 C10).

Sadly, these very relics are what finally created the decisive breach in Western Christianity, precisely along the Augustinian fault lines of grace and the sacraments. The triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over his doctrine of the Church only meant that the Church’s sacraments, her apostolic succession, her visible unity, and her miracles and relics, so dear to Augustine’s heart, were swept away as so much useless detritus by the Reformers. Such a “triumph” of his influence is at best a Pyrrhic victory which Augustine himself would have not recognized. The great American historian Phillip Schaff once speculated that if Augustine had lived in the 16th century with Luther and Calvin, “he might, perhaps, have gone half way with the Reformers.” But because Augustine loved the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church so much, Schaff couldn’t imagine that he’d jump ship and create his own weird Augustinian version of the Donatist schism (which he despised). Instead, Augustine “would have become the leader of an evangelical school … within the Roman Church.”

Maybe so. Unless he could have met St Cyril of Alexandria first.

St. Augustine and the Christian East

St. Augustine bequeathed an amazing patrimony to the Christian West. He wrote more theology – and retracted a good chunk of it! – than any normal person could digest in a single lifetime. Augustine’s significance cannot be overestimated. We simply cannot understand the Christian West without St. Augustine’s looming influence, whether for good or ill. His contemporary, St. Jerome, himself no stranger to the company of great men, even considered Augustine “the second founder of the Christian faith.”

But you’d never know Augustine’s significance from Eastern Orthodox reactions. An unsuspecting Orthodox reader would never guess the sheer magnitude of Augustine’s impact on Western Christianity from the terse reference to him in the Prologue of Ochrid. The problem in the East may be an embarrassment of riches. The fourth to eleventh centuries produced one amazing theological luminary after another: Athanasius; Basil the Great, his little brother Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus; John Chrysostom; Cyril of Alexandria; Maximus the Confessor; John of Damascus; Symeon the New Theologian, and more. But based on sheer historical impact, no theologian was comparable to Augustine in the Eastern Church, except perhaps the heretic Origen.

The Christian West had no such plenitude. After Augustine died, the Latin West suffered a major theological vacuum that wasn’t filled until St. Anselm of Canterbury came along in the eleventh century. To steal Lord Whitehead’s comment about Plato, Western theology was (and still is) a series of footnotes going back to Augustine. The liberal 19th century German church historian Adolph von Harnack claimed Augustine is the intellectual ancestor of all of us: “Just because his rich spirit embraced all these discrepancies and characteristically represented them as experience, has Augustine become the father of the Church of the Occident. He is the father of the Roman Church and the father of the Reformation, of Biblicists and of mystics; yes, even the Renaissance and modern empirical philosophy (psychology) are indebted to him.” Even his harshest critics concede grudgingly that St. Augustine is historically the single most important theologian in the Christian West. The Western problem with St. Augustine was essentially imbalance: the singular and almost isolated emphasis on Augustine proved harmful for the West, as well as the exclusive stress on particular doctrines of his.

By contrast, the Christian East continued to correct herself against her own worst tendencies, for example, the universalist strain in Origen and St Gregory of Nyssa. We might even construe the millennium of Eastern Orthodox history ranging roughly from Athanasius to Gregory Palamas as the ruthless purging of those elements in philosophy that were harmful to her theology. St Gregory Nazianzus suggested ways that the semi-Arians and the Eunomians could spend their time more usefully than attacking Orthodoxy. He suggests, for example, they should profitably criticize Platonism! “Attack the Ideas of Plato, and the Transmigrations and Courses of our souls, and the Reminiscences, and the unlovely Loves of the soul for lovely bodies.” Against all heretics ancient and modern, the Orthodox Church has argued that the dividing line between the Uncreated and what the Triune God has created ex nihilo is the most fundamental distinction in the universe, not the Platonic difference between what is intelligible and what is sensible. St Gregory certainly didn’t share Augustine’s enthusiasm for Platonic forms! Recall also that the Eastern Orthodox Church condemns Plato’s Ideas (“Anathema, anathema, anathema!”) during the Sunday of Orthodoxy.

We should remember that “Blessed Augustine,” as we Orthodox typically call him, is a saint of good standing in the Eastern Orthodox Church. His feast day on the Orthodox calendar is June 15. On the other hand, the East for over 800 years was afflicted with nearly invincible ignorance of his teachings. Despite the minority opinion of vigorous but lonely voices of Orthodox supporters like the enthusiastic Fr. Seraphim Rose, Augustine’s theology has had negligible impact on the Christian East. Here perhaps St. John of Damascus’ Fountain Head of Knowledge (650 C750) is our most accurate bellwether. John of Damascus never mentions Augustine, nor is Pelagius included in his voluminous list of 103 heresies.

This blindness to Augustine did not signify rejection, but merely ignorance. Constantine had moved the capital of the Roman Empire to his new imperial city of Constantinople, and Rome quickly became a cultural backwater. In many ways, the East simply forgot about the West. As a result, we shouldn’t be shocked that the translation from Latin into Greek of Augustine’s treatise on the Trinity, which had been so crucial for Western thinking about the nature of God, had to wait until the thirteenth century.

Fr John Meyendorff somewhere observed that St Gregory Palamas was the most “Augustinian” of Orthodox theologians. That statement which puzzled me – and infuriated Fr John Romanides – suddenly made sense when Reinhard Flogaus at the conference demonstrated how St Gregory liberally quotes the Maximos Planoudes translation of St Augustine’s De Trinitate in his own work, The 150 Chapters (see chapters 27 C38, 125, 132), and even in a couple of his sermons! The problem is, ancient standards of scholarship being what they were, St Gregory didn’t reveal his sources here. He used the Planoudes translation word-for-word (from Books 4, 13, and 15 of De Trinitate) but never attributes his source. No wonder Palamas sounds Augustinian!

Nevertheless, this lack of overlap between Eastern Orthodoxy and the Christian West, St. Augustine in particular, makes it hard to find points of agreement. “What if?” scenarios come to mind. What if Augustine hadn’t died in 430 and could have made his way to the Council of Ephesus? What if, despite barbarian invasions, St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, and St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, could have met face to face?

One of the very few Christians in the ancient world who could bridge East and West was St John Cassian. An almost exact contemporary (360-430) of Augustine, he couldn’t bring himself to criticize St Augustine by name. Through the mouthpiece of Abbots Germanus and Chaeremon (Conference XIII), John Cassian disagrees strongly with Augustine’s view of free will but he conducts his critique with gentle restraint, surely an aberration in the history of theology, West or East.

The Orthodox East and the Latin West find themselves like two ships passing unaware in the night, so close yet so far. By contrast, Roman Catholics and Protestants of nearly all stripes participate in a centuries-old argument in which they share deep points of contact (or conflict as the case may be) that make little sense to Eastern Orthodox Christians. The problem is further exacerbated for Orthodoxy by the fact that being “Protestant” doesn’t make sense apart from specific reactions to the Roman Catholic Church.

St. Augustine and the Introspective Conscience of the West

We Orthodox ignore St. Augustine to our own spiritual peril. We need to understand him, if only to understand why we think the way we do, so that we don’t trip over our own mental furniture. For better or worse, few saints speak to us like Augustine. There really is a good reason why Augustine’s Confessions continues to be read as part of the Western “canon,” even in the most politically correct of universities, like Stanford or Berkeley. To read his Confessions is like looking in a mirror: we see ourselves in him and we see him in ourselves.

For example, the famous French actor, Gerard Depardieu, recently read selections from St. Augustine’s Confessions at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Anyone who knows about Depardieu’s superstar lifestyle might be puzzled. But Depardieu stated the reason in an interview: “I was heavy with spirituality without knowing it. I was touched by the light of St. Augustine. St. Augustine’s quest touched me personally because it reflected my own fragility.” My heart warmed hearing how a charming reprobate like Gerard Depardieu is attracted to St. Augustine. Depardieu’s testimony makes a lot of sense, though, if we think of St. Augustine as the patron saint of the introspective conscience of the West.

But moralists, Christian or otherwise, have never liked Augustine. His radical view of God’s grace undercuts the vital nerve of striving in the ethical life. What’s the point of human effort if the moral life depends exclusively on God and not on us? When the British monk Pelagius heard Augustine’s Confessions read in the company of the Roman governor of Campania, Paulinus of Nola (one of Augustine’s friends), he stormed out in rage. If you believe you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps into ethical perfectionism, Augustine’s prayer leads to passivity: “Grant what You command, and command what You will” (X.29.40).

Polemics with the theological opponents of his day (first the Manichees, then the Donatists, and finally the Pelagians) certainly tended to sharpen the final shape of Augustine’s thought into black-and-white thinking that didn’t allow for much nuance. Here David Bradshaw’s magnificent book on God’s divine energies might help our Western friends avoid the apparent impasse in Augustine’s one-sided view of grace. It may be paradoxical, but St. Paul shows us how human actions can also be God’s actions, without one negating the other: “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12 C13). We act, but God is acting in us.

The real problem we Eastern Orthodox have with St. Augustine is perhaps not so much his theology as our sheer lack of spiritual acquaintance with him. Since Eastern Orthodox theologians don’t write summas anyway, we Orthodox aren’t really interested in an intellectual synthesis of East and West. Worship and prayer drive the engine of Eastern Orthodox theology. Both Fr. Seraphim Rose and St. John Maximovitch of San Francisco understood this, which is why they encouraged regular celebration of so-called “Western saints” and their feast days by Orthodox Christians. In 1955 St. John Maximovitch commissioned a complete liturgy, including Vespers and Orthros, to Blessed Augustine.

Eastern Christianity subscribes heartily to Prosper of Aquitaine’s axiom, Lex orandi lex credendi: If you want to know what we believe, look at the way we worship. Until we Orthodox sing Augustine’s troparion and kontakion on his feast day in his honor, and until we ask St. Augustine himself to intercede with Christ God for us sinners, we will be hopelessly unacquainted with him, at least in any way that truly matters.

To learn more about St. Augustine, here’s a suggested reading list:

David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Not an easy read, but certainly worth the intellectual effort.

Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, Reprinted with Epilogue (London: Faber/Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Biography without the theology.

Henry Chadwick, Augustine: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Theology without the biography.

Alister E McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987).

St. Augustine, The Augustine Catechism: Enchiridion on Faith Hope and Love (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999). There’s no substitute for understanding St. Augustine by reading his own work. Enchiridion literally means “in the hand.” Augustine intended this little book as a summary of the central convictions of the Christian faith, based on his exposition of the Creed. Surprisingly, here Augustine teaches not once but twice that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (9, 38), without the double procession of the filioque clause! You can also read for yourself his vexing exegesis (26) of Romans 5:12 (“in him all have sinned”), with its logical consequences for his view of original sin.

John Stamps is currently Senior Technical Writer at BMC Software in Sunnyvale, California. He holds a BA in Greek from Abilene Christian University, an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary, and did work towards an STM in philosophy of religion at Yale University. He is married to Shelly Stamps and attends St. Stephen Orthodox Church in Campbell, California.

Expanded from an article originally published in AGAIN Vol. 29 #3, Fall 2007.

Several decades have passed since Bing Crosby donned clerical garb and portrayed on the screen a role which would endear him to many even to this day — Father O’Malley. Somewhat earlier in our century, one of the great humanitarians of our time, Father Flanagan, founded Boys Town in Nebraska. The home became a nationally known refuge for homeless boys. In many ways, Mother Teresa of India is his contemporary female counterpart in caring for the poor and downtrodden of her adopted land. But what are we to make of these titles? We admire the work and character of these people, but does not the Bible issue the command to call no man “father”? Certain statements made by Jesus have often been the basis of great controversy, both inside and outside the Church. His saying, “Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven”,¹ has proven to be no exception.

AT ISSUE IS INTERPRETATION

Some Protestant interpreters are sure that Jesus is warning here against addressing Church leaders as “father”. They, of course, are interpreting “father” in this Scripture to mean, “spiritual father”. Therefore, they refuse to call their clergymen “father”, preferring instead such titles as “pastor”, “reverend”, or perhaps even “brother”. At the outset, therefore, let me point out that “spiritual father” is an interpretation of the Lord’s statement rather than what He actually said. Mind you, I am not denying the need for interpretation of Scripture. Instead, I am pointing out that the Lord said “father”, not “spiritual father”. What is at issue here? Simply this: taken at face value, Jesus’ warning against calling any man “father” would not only seem to rule out calling a clergyman “father” , it would also keep us from using that title for earthly fathers and grandfathers, ancient Church fathers, or even city fathers, would it not? For in reality, the Lord’s statement, as it appears in the text, is that only one Person is ever to be called “father”, namely, our Father who is in heaven. But is Christ’s saying to be taken at face value? If so, several other passages in the Bible are immediately in conflict, including some statements by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. To the church at Corinth he wrote, “For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel”.² Does not Paul claim to be the spiritual father of the Corinthians — “Father Paul”, if you please? Furthermore, he boldly refers to his spiritual ancestry as “our fathers”.³ And he did address earthly fathers in Colosse in this way: “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged”.⁴ It would appear the Apostle Paul certainly did not interpret the Lord Jesus Christ’s words to mean only One was to be called “father”, that is, the heavenly Father. In addition to this, when the rich man saw Abraham in heaven with Lazarus in his bosom, and addressed him as “Father Abraham”, Abraham’s response was not, “Do you not realize that only God the Father is to be called `father?” Rather, he replied, “Son, remember…”⁵ Instances like the above could be multiplied from Scripture to show that a great many people are acknowledged to be “fathers”.

OTHER TITLES

But let us not stop here. For after saying only “One is your Father”, Jesus proceeded to declare, “And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ”.⁶ Yet He Himself acknowledged Nicodemus to be a “teacher of Israel”.⁷ And in the church at Antioch certain men were called “prophets and teachers”.⁸ Then again, the Apostle Paul not only recognized teachers as gifts of God to the Church,⁹ but he also did not hesitate to call himself “a teacher of the Gentiles”.¹⁰ Furthermore, in this present day, almost all of us have at one time or another called certain people Sunday School teachers. The discussion thus goes far beyond any Protestant-Catholic lines. Therefore, in saying we should call no one “father” and “teacher”, except God the Father and Christ Himself, the Lord Jesus appears not to be taking issue with the use of these particular titles in and of themselves. The context of the passage gives us the interpretive key we are looking for. In this “call no man father” passage, our Lord is contending with certain rabbis of His day who were using these specific titles to accomplish their own ends. And had these same apostate rabbis been using other titles, such as “reverend” and “pastor”, Jesus, it seems to me, would have said of these as well, “Call no one reverend or pastor”.

WHAT DID THE RABBIS MEAN?

To what ends, therefore, were the rabbis using the titles “father” and “teacher”? The answer revolves around at least two critical areas of leadership: teaching and personal character. Consider first the teaching of these particular rabbis. They had begun their teaching at the right place, the Law of Moses. Said Jesus, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat”.¹¹ Moses’ Law was the true tradition. God had given it to Israel through Moses. The rabbis’ responsibility was to preserve that tradition and faithfully pass it on to the next generation. All too often, however, a rabbi would add his own grain of wisdom to the true tradition, thereby clouding it. Instead of passing down the sacred deposit along with the true interpretations of that deposit, he would add his own private interpretation. In turn his disciples, like their teacher, would, after becoming rabbis, do the same thing. (Some things never change, do they!) The final outcome of all this was a tradition of men that made the true Mosaic tradition of no effect. To these very rabbis Jesus said, “For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men”,¹² and again, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition . . . making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down”.¹³ The summation of their private interpretations did in fact “shut up the kingdom of heaven against men”.¹⁴

JESUS’ CASE FOR TRUE TRADITION

In order to cut through all this tradition of men that had made the Mosaic tradition of no effect, and to bring people back to the truth, Jesus told His disciples, “But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’”¹⁵ In other words, He was telling them not to use their positions as fathers and teachers as an opportunity to build disciples around their own private opinions. For to do so would only serve to “shut up the kingdom of heaven against men”.¹⁶ Instead, with the coming of Christ, these rabbis — and indeed all who would teach God’s Word — are to hand down faithfully the true tradition of only one Rabbi: Christ Himself. The Bible, through the pen of the Apostle John, calls this particular tradition “the doctrine of Christ”.¹⁷ In fact, this is why the specific teaching of the Twelve became known as “the apostles’ doctrine”.¹⁸ Since their time, successive generations of fathers and teachers in the Church have handed down and guarded the apostolic doctrine concerning Christ very carefully, for it represents the true interpretation of Holy Scripture. This faithfulness to true Christian doctrine, by the way, can especially be seen in the Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Church, held between the fourth and eighth centuries. It behooves anyone who claims to be a teacher of Christ’s doctrine to be faithful to the apostles’ doctrine handed down in those Councils. Otherwise he runs the risk of inserting his own “private interpretation”.¹⁹ While it is true that all teachers of Christ’s doctrine must begin at the right place, namely, the Holy Scriptures, it is also true that they should give the correct and true interpretation of Holy Scripture as passed down by holy and godly teachers and fathers of the Church, especially in the Seven Councils. Why are the Seven Ecumenical Councils so important? Because they point out what the Church universally held to be the true teaching concerning the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity. They are faithful to what the Holy Scriptures teach concerning the one true Rabbi and Teacher, Jesus Christ. Teachers and fathers who teach private interpretations contrary to the doctrine of Christ as taught in the Seven Ecumenical Councils should not, I believe, be recognized as true teachers and fathers.

THE RABBIS AND PERSONAL CHARACTER

A second critical area of rabbinic leadership with which Jesus was concerned was personal character. He had detected a major flaw in the character of the scribes and Pharisees, a sin that might be called self-exaltation. They were using their position as fathers and teachers among God’s people to exalt themselves. They wanted to be sure they received appropriate recognition. In light of this lack of character, Jesus said, “But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted”.²⁰ Their self-exalting spirit had manifested itself in several ways. First, in hypocrisy: “for they say”, said Jesus, “and do not do.”²¹ All talk and no walk. Their talk was cheap because it was totally contradicted by their behavior. In pretense they would make long prayers, but in behavior devour widows’ houses.²² They would make oaths, swearing by the gold of the temple rather than by the temple that sanctified the gold, thereby revealing their secret love of money.²³ Although they paid tithes of mint, anise, and cumin, which they should have done gladly, they neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith.²⁴ Because they were hypocrites in these and numerous other ways, the Lord summed up His critique by saying, “Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.²⁵ Plainly, their “insides” did not match their “outsides” because they were filled up with a self-exalting and self-serving spirit. A second manifestation of their selfexalting spirit was the noticeable lack of actual service on their part. “For”, said Jesus, “they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.”²⁶ No dirt was to be found under their fingernails. They were simply a group of lazy leaders who wanted to be served rather than to serve. No wonder, then, Jesus said not to be like them, for from God’s standpoint, “he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.”²⁷ A third manifestation of their self-exalting spirit was self-love, demonstrated by a desire to be seen by men,²⁸ by their love for the best seats at the feasts and in the synagogues,²⁹ and by their love of greetings in the marketplaces, being called by men, “Rabbi, Rabbi.”³⁰ This self-love was a clear transgression of the Mosaic Law, which they professed to be keeping. For Moses’ entire law could be summed up in the two great commandments, the greatest of which is, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”³¹ The second greatest is, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”³² Thus, these fathers and teachers were not leading their people into the love of God and neighbor. Quite to the contrary, they were exhibiting a self-exalting, self-serving spirit, filled up with a love for self.

THE VERDICT OF CHRIST

In the face of the stench and shame of the apostasy of these religious leaders, therefore, Jesus commanded His disciples, “Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.”³³ While Father Abraham by his faithfulness deserved the title, as did others of Israel’s greats in history, these men had forfeited their role as fathers. They were to cease and desist in their use of the term and, in turn, bow to God Himself as the fountainhead of all fatherhood. And in issuing His warning, Jesus addresses us today with the greatest of all commandments, pointing the fathers and teachers in His Church and those they lead to a primacy of love for God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, and to a love for one’s neighbor.

AND WHAT ARE WE TO DO?

From the beginning of Church history, as was true throughout Israel, those anointed by God for service were called by certain names: “prophet”, “teacher” (rabbi in Israel), and “father.” In that same spirit, other titles have emerged, such as “reverend”, “pastor”, “professor” (teacher), or “brother” (for some evangelical pastors and Catholic monks). These designations speak of both warmth and dignity. Just as in our family units there is one who with love is called “father”, so in God’s household we have honored and will continue to honor those who have brought us to the new birth through our Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, what better term for them than “father”? Jesus warned against calling men “father” or “teacher” in order that the leadership of His holy nation would remain pure. Whether bishop, father, teacher, deacon, or pastor, all leaders must remain faithful to the true doctrine of Christ and manifest a personal character befitting godly humility, a humility that leads the Church into the love of God the Holy Trinity and of one’s neighbor.

May the Lord have mercy on all of us who lead the flock, regardless of the title we are given.

FOOTNOTES

(All Scripture references, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the New King James Version.)

1. Matthew 23:9
2. 1 Corinthians 4:15 (New American Standard Version)
3. 1 Corinthians 10:1
4. Colossians 3:21
5. Luke 16:24, 25
6. Matthew 23:10
7. John 3:10
8. Acts 13:1
9. 1 Corinthians 12:28 and Ephesians 4:11
10. 2 Timothy 1:11
11. Matthew 23:2
12. Mark 7:8
13. Mark 7:9, 13
14. Matthew 23:13
15. Matthew 23:8
16. Matthew 23:13
17. 2 John 9
18. Acts 2:42
19. 2 Peter 1:20
20. Matthew 23:11, 12
21. Matthew 23:3
22. Matthew 23:14
23. Matthew 23:16, 17
24. Matthew 23:23
25. Matthew 23:28
26. Matthew 23:4
27. Matthew 23:11
28. Matthew 23:5
29. Matthew 23:6
30. Matthew 23:7
31. Matthew 22:37
32. Matthew 22:39
33. Matthew 23:9

© Conciliar Press. Used by permission.

Vincent attempted, as did St John Cassian, to find a way that avoided the extremes both of Pelagius and of Augustine. His Commonitories [reminders] offer a guide to distinguish Orthodox teaching from innovation, the maxim now known as the Vincentian Canon: quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est (i.e. only “what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all” is the catholic Faith of Christianity). Vincent taught that the ultimate source of Christian truth was Holy Scripture and that the tradition of the Church was to be invoked to guarantee the correct interpretation of Scripture.

CHAPTER I

I, Peregrinus, who am the least of all the servants of God, remembering the admonition of Scripture, “Ask thy fathers and they will tell thee, thine elders and they will declare unto thee,” and again, “Bow down thine ear to the words of the wise,” and once more, “My son, forget not these instructions, but let thy heart keep my words;” remembering these admonitions, I say, I, Peregrinus, am persuaded, that, the Lord helping me, it will be of no little use and certainly as regards my own feeble powers, it is most necessary, that I should put down in writing the things which I have truthfully received from the holy Fathers, since I shall then have ready at hand wherewith by constant reading to make amends for the weakness of my memory.

To this I am incited not only by regard to the fruit to be expected from my labour but also by the consideration of time and the opportuneness of place:

By the consideration of time, — for seeing that time seizes upon all things human, we also in turn ought to snatch from it something which may profit us to eternal life, especially since a certain awful expectation of the approach of the divine judgment importunately demands increased earnestness in religion, while the subtle craftiness of new heretics calls for no ordinary care and attention.

I am incited also by the opportuneness of place, in that, avoiding the concourse and crowds of cities, I am dwelling in the seclusion of a Monastery, situated in a remote grange, where, I can follow without distraction the Psalmist’s admonition, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Moreover, it suits well with my purpose in adopting this life; for, whereas I was at one time involved in the manifold and deplorable tempests of secular warfare, I have now at length, under Christ’s auspices, cast anchor in the harbor of religion, a harbor to all always most safe, in order that, having there been freed from the blasts of vanity and pride, and propitiating God by the sacrifice of Christian humility, I may be able to escape not only the shipwrecks of the present life, but also the flames of the world to come.

But now, in the Lord’s name, I will set about the object I have in view; that is to say, to record with the fidelity of a narrator rather than the presumption of an author, the things which our forefathers have handed down to us and committed to our keeping, yet observing this rule in what I write, that I shall by no means touch upon everything that might be said, but only upon what is necessary; nor yet in an ornate and exact style, but in simple and ordinary language, so that the most part may seem to be intimated, rather than set forth in detail. Let those cultivate elegance and exactness who are confident of their ability or are moved by a sense of duty. For me it will be enough to have provided a Commonitory (or Reminder) for myself, such as may aid my memory, or rather, provide against my forgetfulness: which same Commonitory however, I shall endeavor, the Lord helping me, to amend and make more complete by little and little, day by day, by recalling to mind what I have learnt. I mention this at the outset, that if by chance what I write should slip out of my possession and come into the hands of holy men, they may forbear to blame anything therein hastily, when they see that there is a promise that it will yet be amended and made more complete.

CHAPTER II

A general rule for distinguishing the truth of the catholic faith from the falsehood of heresy.

I have often then inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or any one else should wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics as they rise, and to continue sound and complete in the catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways; first, by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the catholic Church.

But here some one perhaps will ask, Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church’s interpretation? For this reason, — because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and catholic interpretation.

Moreover, in the catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense “catholic,” which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors.

CHAPTER III

What is to be done if one or more dissent from the rest.

What then will a catholic Christian do, if a small portion of the Church have cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What, surely, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the unsoundness of a pestilent and corrupt member? What, if some novel contagion seek to infect not merely an insignificant portion of the Church, but the whole? Then it will be his care to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty.

But what, if in antiquity itself there be found error on the part of two or three men, or at any rate of a city or even of a province? Then it will be his care by all means, to prefer the decrees, if such there be, of an ancient General Council to the rashness and ignorance of a few. But what, if some error should spring up on which no such decree is found to bear? Then he must collate and consult and interrogate the opinions of the ancients, of those, namely, who, though living in divers times and places, yet continuing in the communion and faith of the one catholic Church, stand forth acknowledged and approved authorities: and whatsoever he shall ascertain to have been held, written, taught, not by one or two of these only, but by all, equally, with one consent, openly, frequently, persistently, that he must understand that he himself also is to believe without any doubt or hesitation.

CHAPTER IV

The evil resulting from the bringing in of novel doctrine shown in the instances of the Donatists and Arians.

But that we may make what we say more intelligible, we must illustrate it by individual examples, and enlarge upon it somewhat more fully, lest by aiming at too great brevity important matters be hurried over and lost sight of.

In the time of Donatus, from whom his followers were called Donatists, when great numbers in Africa were rushing headlong into their own mad error, and unmindful of their name, their religion, their profession, were preferring the sacrilegious temerity of one man before the Church of Christ, then they alone throughout Africa were safe within the sacred precincts of the catholic faith, who, detesting the profane schism, continued in communion with the universal Church, leaving to posterity an illustrious example, how, and how well in future the soundness of the whole body should be preferred before the madness of one, or at most of a few.

So also when the Arian poison had infected not an insignificant portion of the Church but almost the whole world, so that a sort of blindness had fallen upon almost all the bishops of the Latin tongue, circumvented partly by force partly by fraud and was preventing them from seeing what was most expedient to be done in the midst of so much confusion, then whoever was a true lover and worshipper of Christ, preferring the ancient belief to the novel misbelief, escaped the pestilent infection.

By the peril of which time was abundantly shown how great a calamity the introduction of a novel doctrine causes. For then truly not only interests of small account, but others of the very gravest importance, were subverted. For not only affinities, relationships, friendships, families, but moreover, cities, peoples, provinces, nations, at last the whole Roman Empire, were shaken to their foundation and ruined. For when this same profane Arian novelty, like a Bellona or a Fury, had first taken captive the Emperor, and had then subjected all the principal persons of the palace to new laws, from that time it never ceased to involve everything in confusion, disturbing all things, public and private, sacred and profane, paying no regard to what was good and true, but, as though holding a position of authority, smiting whomsoever it pleased. Then wives were violated, widows ravished, virgins profaned, monasteries demolished, clergymen ejected, the inferior clergy scourged, priests driven into exile, jails, prisons, mines, filled with saints, of whom the greater part, forbidden to enter into cities, thrust forth from their homes to wander in deserts and caves, among rocks and the haunts of wild beasts, exposed to nakedness, hunger, thirst, were worn out and consumed. Of all of which was there any other cause than that, while human superstitions are being brought in to supplant heavenly doctrine, while well established antiquity is being subverted by wicked novelty, while the institutions of former ages are being set at naught, while the decrees of our fathers are being rescinded, while the determinations of our ancestors are being torn in pieces, the lust of profane and novel curiosity refuses to restrict itself within the most chaste limits of hallowed and uncorrupt antiquity?

CHAPTER V

The Example set us by the martyrs, whom no force could hinder from defending the Faith of their predecessors.

But it may be, we invent these charges out of hatred to novelty and zeal for antiquity. Whoever is disposed to listen to such an insinuation, let him at least believe the blessed Ambrose, who, deploring the acerbity of the time, says, in the second book of his work addressed to the Emperor Gratian: “Enough now, O God Almighty! have we expiated with our own ruin, with our own blood, the slaughter of Confessors, the banishment of priests, and the wickedness of such extreme impiety. It is clear, beyond question, that they who have violated the faith cannot remain in safety.”

And again in the third book of the same work, “Let us observe the precepts of our predecessors, and not transgress with rude rashness the landmarks which we have inherited from them. That sealed Book of Prophecy no Elders, no Powers, no Angels, no Archangels, dared to open. To Christ alone was reserved the prerogative of explaining it. Who of us may dare to unseal the Sacerdotal Book sealed by Confessors, and consecrated already by the martyrdom of numbers, which they who had been compelled by force to unseal afterwards resealed, condemning the fraud which had been practised upon them; while they who had not ventured to tamper with it proved themselves Confessors and martyrs? How can we deny the faith of those whose victory we proclaim?”

We proclaim it truly, O venerable Ambrose, we proclaim it, and applaud and admire. For who is there so demented, who, though not able to overtake, does not at least earnestly desire to follow those whom no force could deter from defending the faith of their ancestors, no threats, no blandishments, not life, not death, not the palace, not the Imperial Guards, not the Emperor, not the empire itself, not men, not demons? — whom, I say, as a recompense for their steadfastness in adhering to religious antiquity, the Lord counted worthy of so great a reward, that by their instrumentality He restored churches which had been destroyed, quickened with new life peoples who were spiritually dead, replaced on the heads of priests the crowns which had been torn from them, washed out those abominable, I will not say letters, but blotches (non literas, sed lituras) of novel impiety, with a fountain of believing tears, which God opened in the hearts of the bishops?lastly, when almost the whole world was overwhelmed by a ruthless tempest of unlooked for heresy, recalled it from novel misbelief to the ancient faith, from the madness of novelty to the soundness of antiquity, from the blindness of novelty to pristine light?

But in this divine virtue, as we may call it, exhibited by these Confessors, we must note especially that the defence which they then undertook in appealing to the Ancient Church, was the defence, not of a part, but of the whole body. For it was not right that men of such eminence should uphold with so huge an effort the vague and conflicting notions of one or two men, or should exert themselves in the defence of some ill-advised combination of some petty province; but adhering to the decrees and definitions of the universal priesthood of Holy Church, the heirs of Apostolic and catholic truth, they chose rather to deliver up themselves than to betray the faith of universality and antiquity. For which cause they were deemed worthy of so great glory as not only to be accounted Confessors, but rightly, and deservedly to be accounted foremost among Confessors.

CHAPTER VI

The example of Pope Stephen in resisting the iteration of Baptism.

Great then is the example of these same blessed men, an example plainly divine, and worthy to be called to mind, and meditated upon continually by every true catholic, who, like the seven-branched candlestick, shining with the sevenfold light of the Holy Spirit, showed to posterity how thenceforward the audaciousness of profane novelty, in all the several rantings of error, might be crushed by the authority of hallowed antiquity.

Nor is there anything new in this. For it has always been the case in the Church, that the more a man is under the influence of religion, so much the more prompt is he to oppose innovations. Examples there are without number: but to be brief, we will take one, and that, in preference to others, from the Apostolic See, so that it may be clearer than day to every one with how great energy, with how great zeal, with how great earnestness, the blessed successors of the blessed apostles have constantly defended the integrity of the religion which they have once received.

Once on a time then, Agrippinus, bishop of Carthage, of venerable memory, held the doctrine — and he was the first who held it — that Baptism ought to be repeated, contrary to the divine canon, contrary to the rule of the universal Church, contrary to the customs and institutions of our ancestors. This innovation drew after it such an amount of evil, that it not only gave an example of sacrilege to heretics of all sorts, but proved an occasion of error even to certain catholic Christians.

When then all men protested against the novelty, and the priesthood everywhere, each as his zeal prompted him, opposed it, Pope Stephen of blessed memory, Prelate of the Apostolic See, in conjunction indeed with his colleagues but yet himself the foremost, withstood it, thinking it right, I doubt not, that as he exceeded all others in the authority of his place, so he should also in the devotion of his faith. In fine, in an epistle sent at the time to Africa, he laid down this rule: “Let there be no innovation — nothing but what has been handed down.” For that holy and prudent man well knew that true piety admits no other rule than that whatsoever things have been faithfully received from our fathers the same are to be faithfully consigned to our children; and that it is our duty, not to lead religion whither we would, but rather to follow religion whither it leads; and that it is the part of Christian modesty and gravity not to hand down our own beliefs or observances to those who come after us, but to preserve and keep what we have received from those who went before us. What then was the issue of the whole matter? What but the usual and customary one? Antiquity was retained, novelty was rejected.

But it may be, the cause of innovation at that time lacked patronage. On the contrary, it had in its favor such powerful talent, such copious eloquence, such a number of partisans, so much resemblance to truth, such weighty support in Scripture (only interpreted in a novel and perverse sense), that it seems to me that that whole conspiracy could not possibly have been defeated, unless the sole cause of this extraordinary stir, the very novelty of what was so undertaken, so defended, so praised, had proved wanting to it. In the end, what result, under God, had that same African Council or decree? None whatever. The whole affair, as though a dream, a fable, a thing of no possible account, was annulled, cancelled, and trodden underfoot.

And O marvelous revolution! The authors of this same doctrine are judged catholic Christians, the followers heretics; the teachers are absolved, the disciples condemned; the writers of the books will be children of the Kingdom, the defenders of them will have their portion in Hell. For who is so demented as to doubt that that blessed light among all holy bishops and martyrs, Cyprian, together with the rest of his colleagues, will reign with Christ; or, who on the other hand so sacrilegious as to deny that the Donatists and those other pests, who boast the authority of that council for their iteration of baptism, will be consigned to eternal fire with the devil?

CHAPTER VII

How heretics craftily cite obscure passages in ancient writers in support of their own novelties.

This condemnation, indeed, seems to have been providentially promulgated as though with a special view to the fraud of those who, contriving to dress up a heresy under a name other than its own, get hold often of the works of some ancient writer, not very clearly expressed, which, owing to the very obscurity of their own doctrine, have the appearance of agreeing with it, so that they get the credit of being neither the first nor the only persons who have held it. This wickedness of theirs, in my judgment, is doubly hateful: first, because they are not afraid to invite others to drink of the poison of heresy; and secondly, because with profane breath, as though fanning smouldering embers into flame, they blow upon the memory of each holy man, and spread an evil report of what ought to be buried in silence by bringing it again under notice, thus treading in the footsteps of their father Ham, who not only forebore to cover the nakedness of the venerable Noah, but told it to the others that they might laugh at it, offending thereby so grievously against the duty of filial piety, that even his descendants were involved with him in the curse which he drew down, widely differing from those blessed brothers of his, who would neither pollute their own eyes by looking upon the nakedness of their revered father, nor would suffer others to do so, but went backwards, as the Scripture says, and covered him, that is, they neither approved nor betrayed the fault of the holy man, for which cause they were rewarded with a benediction on themselves and their posterity.

But to return to the matter in hand: It behooves us then to have a great dread of the crime of perverting the faith and adulterating religion, a crime from which we are deterred not only by the Church’s discipline, but also by the censure of apostolic authority. For every one knows how gravely, how severely, how vehemently, the blessed apostle Paul inveighs against certain, who, with marvelous levity, had “been so soon removed from him who had called them to the grace of Christ to another Gospel, which was not another;” “who had heaped to themselves teachers after their own lusts, turning away their ears from the truth, and being turned aside unto fables;” “having damnation because they had cast off their first faith;” who had been deceived by those of whom the same apostle writes to the Roman Christians, “Now, I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them. For they that are such serve not the Lord Christ, but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.” “who enter into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with diverse lusts, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth;” “vain talkers and deceivers, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake;” “men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith;” “proud knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, destitute of the truth, supposing that godliness is gain,” “withal learning to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle, but tattlers also and busy-bodies, speaking things which they ought not,” “who having put away a good conscience have made shipwreck concerning the faith;” “whose profane and vain babblings increase unto more ungodliness, and their word doth eat as doth a cancer.” Well, also, is it written of them: “But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.”

CHAPTER VIII

Exposition of St. Paul’s words in Galatians chapter 1

When therefore certain of this sort wandering about provinces and cities, and carrying with them their venal errors, had found their way to Galatia, and when the Galatians, on hearing them, nauseating the truth, and vomiting up the manna of Apostolic and catholic doctrine, were delighted with the garbage of heretical novelty, the apostle putting in exercise the authority of his office, delivered his sentence with the utmost severity, “Though we,” he says, “or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”

Why does he say “Though we“? why not rather “though I“? He means, “though Peter; though Andrew; though John; in a word, though the whole company of apostles preach unto you other than we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” Tremendous severity! He spares neither himself nor his fellow apostles, so he may preserve unaltered the faith which was at first delivered. Nay, this is not all. He goes on “Even though an angel from heaven preach unto you any other Gospel than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” It was not enough for the preservation of the faith once delivered to have referred to man; he must needs comprehend angels also. “Though we,” he says, “or an angel from heaven.” Not that the holy angels of heaven are now capable of sinning. But what he means is: Even if that were to happen which cannot happen, — if any one, be he who he may, attempt to alter the faith once for all delivered, let him be accursed.

But it may be, he spoke thus in the first instance inconsiderately, giving vent to human impetuosity rather than expressing himself under divine guidance. Far from it. He follows up what he had said, and urges it with intense reiterated earnestness, “As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other Gospel to you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” He does not say, “If any man deliver to you another message than that you have received, let him be blessed, praised, welcomed,” — no; but “let him be accursed,” [anathema] i.e., separated, segregated, excluded, lest the dire contagion of a single sheep contaminate the guiltless flock of Christ by his poisonous intermixture with them.

CHAPTER IX

His warning to the Galatians a warning to all.

But, possibly, this warning was intended for the Galatians only. Be it so; then those other exhortations which follow in the same Epistle were intended for the Galatians only, such as, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit; let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another,” etc.; which alternative if it be absurd, and the injunctions were meant equally for all, then it follows, that as these injunctions which relate to morals, so those warnings which relate to faith are meant equally for all; and just as it is unlawful for all to provoke one another, or to envy one another, so, likewise, it is unlawful for all to receive any other Gospel than that which the catholic Church preaches everywhere.

Or perhaps the anathema pronounced on any one who should preach another Gospel than that which had been preached was meant for those times, not for the present. Then, also, the exhortation, “Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh,” was meant for those times, not for the present. But if it be both impious and pernicious to believe this, then it follows necessarily, that as these injunctions are to be observed by all ages, so those warnings also which forbid alteration of the faith are warnings intended for all ages. To preach any doctrine therefore to catholic Christians other than what they have received never was lawful, never is lawful, never will be lawful: and to anathematize those who preach anything other than what has once been received, always was a duty, always is a duty, always will be a duty.

Which being the case, is there any one either so audacious as to preach any other doctrine than that which the Church preaches, or so inconstant as to receive any other doctrine than that which he has received from the Church? That elect vessel, that teacher of the Gentiles, that trumpet of the apostles, that preacher whose commission was to the whole earth, that man who was caught up to heaven, cries and cries again in his Epistles to all, always, in all places, “If any man preach any new doctrine, let him be accursed.” On the other hand, an ephemeral, moribund set of frogs, fleas, and flies, such as the Pelagians, call out in opposition, and that to catholic Christians, “Take our word, follow our lead, accept our exposition, condemn what you used to hold, hold what you used to condemn, cast aside the ancient faith, the institutes of your fathers, the trusts left for you by your ancestors and receive instead — what? I tremble to utter it: for it is so full of arrogance and self-conceit, that it seems to me that not only to affirm it, but even to refute it, cannot be done without guilt in some sort.

CHAPTER X

Why eminent men are permitted by God to become authors of novelties in the Church.

But some one will ask, How is it then, that certain excellent persons, and of position in the Church, are often permitted by God to preach novel doctrines to catholic Christians? A proper question, certainly, and one which ought to be very carefully and fully dealt with, but answered at the same time, not in reliance upon one’s own ability, but by the authority of the divine Law, and by appeal to the Church’s determination.

Let us listen, then, to Holy Moses, and let him teach us why learned men, and such as because of their knowledge are even called Prophets by the apostle, are sometimes permitted to put forth novel doctrines, which the Old Testament is wont, by way of allegory, to call “strange gods,” forasmuch as heretics pay the same sort of reverence to their notions that the Gentiles do to their gods.

Blessed Moses, then, writes thus in Deuteronomy: “If there arise among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams,” that is, one holding office as a Doctor in the Church, who is believed by his disciples or auditors to teach by revelation: well, — what follows? “and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake,” — he is pointing to some eminent doctor, whose learning is such that his followers believe him not only to know things human, but, moreover, to foreknow things superhuman, such as, their disciples commonly boast, were Valentinus, Donatus, Photinus, Apollinaris, and the rest of that sort! What next? “And shall say to thee, Let us go after other gods, whom thou knowest not, and serve them.” What are those other gods but strange errors which thou knowest not, that is, new and such as were never heard of before? “And let us serve them;” that is, “Let us believe them, follow them.” What last? “Thou shall not hearken to the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams.” And why, I pray thee, does not God forbid to be taught what God forbids to be heard? “For the Lord, your God, trieth you, to know whether you love Him with all your heart and with all your soul.” The reason is clearer than day why Divine Providence sometimes permits certain doctors of the Churches to preach new doctrines — “That the Lord your God may try you;” he says. And assuredly it is a great trial when one whom thou believest to be a prophet, a disciple of prophets, a doctor and defender of the truth, whom thou hast folded to thy breast with the utmost veneration and love, when such a one of a sudden secretly and furtively brings in noxious errrors, which thou canst neither quickly detect, being held by the prestige of former authority, nor lightly think it right to condemn, being prevented by affection for thine old master.

CHAPTER XI

Examples from Church history, confirming the words of Moses, — Nestorius, Photinus, Apollinaris.

Here, perhaps, some one will require us to illustrate the words of holy Moses by examples from Church History. The demand is a fair one, nor shall it wait long for satisfaction.

For to take first a very recent and very plain case: what son of trial, think we, was that which the Church had experience of the other day, when that unhappy Nestorius, all at once metamorphosed from a sheep into a wolf, began to make havoc of the flock of Christ, while as yet a large proportion of those whom he was devouring believed him to be a sheep, and consequently were the more exposed to his attacks? For who would readily suppose him to be in error, who was known to have been elected by the high choice of the Emperor, and to be held in the greatest esteem by the priesthood? who would readily suppose him to be in error, who, greatly beloved by the holy brethren, and in high favor with the populace, expounded the Scriptures in public daily, and confuted the pestilent errors both of Jews and Heathens? Who could choose but believe that his teaching was Orthodox, his preaching Orthodox, his belief Orthodox, who, that he might open the way to one heresy of his own, was zealously inveighing against the blasphemies of all heresies? But this was the very thing which Moses says: “The Lord your God doth try you that He may know whether you love Him or not.”

Leaving Nestorius, in whom there was always more that men admired than they were profited by, more of show than of reality, whom natural ability, rather than divine grace, magnified, for a time in the opinion of the common people, let us pass on to speak of those who, being persons of great attainments and of much industry, proved no small trial to catholic Christians. Such, for instance, was Photinus, in Pannonia, who, in the memory of our fathers, is said to have been a trial to the Church of Sirmium, where, when he had been raised to the priesthood with universal approbation, and had discharged the office for some time as a catholic Christian, all of a sudden, like that evil prophet or dreamer of dreams whom Moses refers to, he began to persuade the people whom God had entrusted to his charge, to follow “strange gods,” that is, strange errors, which before they knew not. But there was nothing unusual in this: the mischief of the matter was, that for the perpetration of so great wickedness he availed himself of no ordinary helps. For he was of great natural ability and of powerful eloquence, and had a wealth of learning, disputing and writing copiously and forcibly in both languages, as his books which remain. composed partly in Greek, partly in Latin, testify. But happily the sheep of Christ committed to him, vigilant and wary for the catholic faith, quickly turned their eyes to the premonitory words of Moses, and, though admiring the eloquence of their prophet and pastor, were not blind to the trial. For from thenceforward they began to flee from him as a wolf, whom formerly they had followed as the ram of the flock.

Nor is it only in the instance of Photinus that we learn the danger of this trial to the Church, and are admonished withal of the need Of double diligence in guarding the faith. Apollinaris holds out a like warning. For he gave rise to great burning questions and sore perplexities among his disciples, the Church’s authority drawing them one way, their Master’s influence the opposite; so that, wavering and tossed hither and thither between the two, they were at a loss what course to take.

But perhaps he was a person of no weight of character. On the contrary, he was so eminent and so highly esteemed that his word would only too readily be taken on whatsoever subject. For what could exceed his acuteness, his adroitness, his learning? How many heresies did he, in many volumes, annihilate! How many errors, hostile to the faith, did he confute! A proof of which is that most noble and vast work, of not less than thirty books, in which, with a great mass of arguments, he repelled the insane calumnies of Porphyry. It would take a long time to enumerate all his works, which assuredly would have placed him on a level with the very chief of the Church’s builders, if that profane last of heretical curiosity had not led him to devise I know not what novelty which as though through the contagion of a sort of leprosy both defiled all his labours, and caused his teachings to be pronounced the Church’s trial instead of the Church’s edification.

CHAPTER XII

A fuller account of the errors of Photinus, Apollinaris and Nestorius.

Here, possibly, I may be asked for some account of the above mentioned heresies; those, namely, of Nestorius, Apollinaris, and Photinus. This, indeed, does not belong to the matter in hand: for our object is not to enlarge upon the errors of individuals, but to produce instances of a few, in whom the applicability of Moses’ words may be evidently and clearly seen; that is to say, that if at any time some Master in the Church, himself also a prophet in interpreting the mysteries of the prophets, should attempt to introduce some novel doctrine into the Church of God, Divine Providence permits this to happen in order to try us. It will be useful, therefore, by way of digression, to give a brief account of the opinions of the above-named heretics, Photinus, Apollinaris, Nestorius.

The heresy of Photinus, then, is as follows: He says that God is singular and sole, and is to be regarded as the Jews regarded Him. He denies the completeness of the Trinity, and does not believe that there is any Person of God the Word, or any Person of the Holy Ghost. Christ he affirms to be a mere man, whose original was from Mary. Hence he insists with the utmost obstinacy that we are to render worship only to the Person of God the Father, and that we are to honour Christ as man only. This is the doctrine of Photinus.

Apollinaris, affecting to agree with the Church as to the unity of the Trinity, though not this even with entire soundness of belief, as to the Incarnation of the Lord, blasphemes openly. For he says that the flesh of our Saviour was either altogether devoid of a human soul, or, at all events, was devoid of a rational soul. Moreover, he says that this same flesh of the Lord was not received from the flesh of the holy Virgin Mary, but came down from heaven into the Virgin; and, ever wavering and undecided, he preaches one while that it was co-eternal with God the Word, another that it was made of the divine nature of the Word. For, denying that there are two substances in Christ, one divine, the other human, one from the Father, the other from his mother, he holds that the very nature of the Word was divided, as though one part of it remained in God, the other was converted into flesh: so that whereas the truth says that of two substances there is one Christ, he affirms, contrary to the truth, that of the one divinity of Christ there are become two substances. This, then, is the doctrine of Apollinaris.

Nestorius, whose disease is of an opposite kind, while pretending that he holds two distinct substances in Christ, brings in of a sudden two Persons, and with unheard of wickedness would have two sons of God, two Christs, — one, God, the other, man, one, begotten of his Father, the other, born of his mother. For which reason he maintains that Saint Mary ought to be called, not Theotokos (the mother of God), but Christotokos (the mother of Christ), seeing that she gave birth not to the Christ who is God, but to the Christ who is man. But if any one supposes that in his writings he speaks of one Christ, and preaches one Person of Christ, let him not lightly credit it. For either this is a crafty device, that by means of good he may the more easily persuade evil, according to that of the apostle, “That which is good was made death to me,” — either, I say, he craftily affects in some places in his writings to believe one Christ and one Person of Christ, or else he says that after the Virgin had brought forth, the two Persons were united into one Christ, though at the time of her conception or parturition, and for some short time afterwards, there were two Christs; so that forsooth, though Christ was born at first an ordinary man and nothing more, and not as yet associated in unity of Person with the Word of God, yet afterwards the Person of the Word assuming descended upon Him; and though now the Person assumed remains in the glory of God, yet once there would seem to have been no difference between Him and all other men.

CHAPTER XIII

The catholic doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation explained.

In these ways then do these rabid dogs, Nestorius, Apollinaris, and Photinus, bark against the catholic faith: Photinus, by denying the Trinity; Apollinaris, by teaching that the nature of the Word is mutable, and refusing to acknowledge that there are two substances in Christ, denying moreover either that Christ had a soul at all, or, at all events, that he had a rational soul, and asserting that the Word of God supplied the place of the rational soul; Nestorius, by affirming that there were always or at any rate that once there were two Christs. But the catholic Church, holding the right faith both concerning God and concerning our Saviour, is guilty of blasphemy neither in the mystery of the Trinity, nor in that of the Incarnation of Christ. For she worships both one Godhead in the plenitude of the Trinity, and the equality of the Trinity in one and the same majesty, and she confesses one Christ Jesus, not two; the same both God and man, the one as truly as the other. One Person indeed she believes in Him, but two substances; two substances but one Person: Two substances, because the Word of God is not mutable, so as to be convertible into flesh; one Person, lest by acknowledging two sons she should seem to worship not a Trinity, but a Quaternity.

But it will be well to unfold this same doctrine more distinctly and explicitly again and again.

In God there is one substance, but three Persons; in Christ two substances, but one Person. In the Trinity, another and another Person, not another and another substance (distinct Persons, not distinct substances); in the Saviour another and another substance, not another and another Person, (distinct substances, not distinct Persons. How in the Trinity another and another Person (distinct Persons) not another and another substance (distinct substances)? Because there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost; but yet there is not another and another nature (distinct natures) but one and the same natUre. How in the Saviour another and another substance, not another and another Person (two distinct substances, not two distinct Persons)? Because there is one substance of the Godhead, another of the manhood. But yet the Godhead and the manhood are not another and another Person (two distinct Persons), but one and the same fist, one and the same Son of God, and one and the same Person of one and the same Christ and Son of God, in like manner as in man the flesh is one thing and the soul another, but one and the same man, both soul and flesh. In Peter and Paul the saul is one thing, the flesh another; yet there are not two Peters, — one soul, the other flesh, or two Pauls, one soul, the other flesh, — but one and the same Peter, and one and the same Paul, consisting each of two diverse natures, soul and body. Thus, then, in one and the same Christ there are two substances, one divine, the other human; one of (ex) God the Father, the other of (ex) the Virgin Mother; one co-eternal with and co-equal with the Father, the other temporal and inferior to the Father; one consubstantial with his Father, the other, consubstantial with his Mother, but one and the same Christ in both substances. There is not, therefore, one Christ being God and the other, man; not one uncreated, the other created; not one impassible, the other passible; not one equal to the Father, the other inferior to the Father; not one of (ex) his Father, the other of (ex) his Mother, but one and the same Christ, God and man, the same uncreated and created, the same unchangeable and incapable of suffering, the same acquainted by experience with both change and suffering, the same equal to the Father and inferior to the Father, the same begotten of the Father before time, (“before the world”), the same born of his mother in time (“in the world”), perfect God, perfect Man. In God supreme divinity, in man perfect humanity. Perfect humanity, I say, forasmuch as it hath both soul and flesh; the flesh, very flesh; our flesh, his mother’s flesh; the soul, intellectual, endowed with mind and reason. There is then in Christ the Word, the soul, the flesh; but the whole is one Christ, one Son of God, and one our Saviour and Redeemer: One, not by I know not what corruptible confusion of Godhead and manhood, but by a certain entire and singular unity of Person. For the conjunction hath not converted and changed the one nature into the other, (which is the characteristic error of the Arians), but rather hath in such wise compacted both into one, that while there always remains in Christ the singularity of one and the self-same Person, there abides eternally withal the characteristic property of each nature; whence it follows, that neither doth God (i.e., the divine nature) ever begin to be body, nor doth the body ever cease to be body. The which may be illustrated in human nature: for not only in the present life, but in the future also, each individual man will consist of soul and body; nor will his body ever be converted into soul, or his soul into body; but while each individual man will live for ever, the distinction between the two substances will continue in each individual man for ever. So likewise in Christ each substance will for ever retain its own characteristic property, yet without prejudice to the unity of Person.

CHAPTER XIV

Jesus Christ is Man in truth, not in semblance.

But when we use the word “Person,” and say that God became man by means of a Person, there is reason to fear that our meaning may be taken to be, that God the Word assumed our nature merely in imitation, and performed the actions of man, being man not in reality, but only in semblance, just as in a theatre, one man within a brief space represents several persons, not one of whom himself is. For when one undertakes to sustain the part of another, he performs the offices, or does the acts, of the person whose part he sustains, but he is not himself that person. So, to take an illustration from secular life and one in high favour with the Manichees, when a tragedian represents a priest or a king, he is not really a priest or a king. For, as soon as the play is over, the person or character whom he represented ceases to be. God forbid that we should have anything to do with such nefarious and wicked mockery. Be it the infatuation of the Manichees, those preachers of hallucination, who say that the Son of God, God, was not a human person really and truly, but that He counterfeited the person of a man in reigned conversation and manner of life.

But the catholic Faith teaches that the Word of God became man in such wise, that He took upon Him our nature, not feignedly and in semblance, but in reality and truth, and performed human actions, not as though He were imitating the actions of another, but as performing His own, and as being in reality the person whose part He sustained. Just as we ourselves also, when we speak, reason, live, subsist, do not imitate men, but are men. Peter and John, for instance, were men, not by imitation, but by being men in reality. Paul did not counterfeit an apostle, or feign himself to be Paul, but was an apostle, was Paul. So, also, that which God the Word did, in His condescension, in assuming and having flesh, in speaking, acting, and suffering, through the instrumentality Of flesh, yet without any marring of His own divine nature, came in one word to this: — He did not imitate or feign Himself to be perfect man, but He shewed Himself to be very man in reality and truth. Therefore, as the soul united to the flesh, but yet not changed into flesh, does not imitate man, but is man, and man not feignedly but substantially, so also God the Word, without any conversion of Himself, in uniting Himself to man, became man, not by confusion, not by imitation, but by actually being and subsisting. Away then, once and for all, with the notion of His Person as of an assumed fictitious character, where always what is is one thing, what is counterfeited another, where the man who acts never is the man whose part he acts. God forbid that we should believe God the Word to have taken upon Himself the person of a man in this illusory way. Rather let us acknowledge that while His own unchangeable substance remained, and while He took upon Himself the nature of perfect man, Himself actually was flesh, Himself actually was man, Himself actually was personally man; not feignedly, but in truth, not in imitation, but in substance; not, finally, so as to cease to be when the performance was over, but so as to be, and continue to be substantially and permanently.

CHAPTER XV

The union of the divine with the human nature took place in the very conception of Christ. The appellation “The Mother of God.”

This unity of Person, then, in Christ was not effected after His birth of the Virgin, but was compacted and perfected in her very womb. For we must take most especial heed that we confess Christ not only one, but always one. For it were intolerable blasphemy, if while thou dost confess Him one now, thou shouldst maintain that once He was not one, but two; one forsooth since His baptism, but two at His birth. Which monstrous sacrilege we shall assuredly in no wise avoid unless we acknowledge the manhood united to the Godhead (but by unity of Person), not from the ascension, or the resurrection, or the baptism, but even in His mother, even in the womb, even in the Virgin’s very conception. In consequence of which unity of Person, both those attributes which are proper to God are ascribed to man, and those which are proper to the flesh to God, indifferently and promiscuously. For hence it is written by divine guidance, on the one hand, that the Son of man came down from heaven; and on the other, that the Lord of glory was crucified on earth. Hence it is also that since the Lord’s flesh was made, since the Lord’s flesh was created, the very Word of God is said to have been made, the very omniscient Wisdom of God to have been created, just as prophetically His hands and His feet are described as having been pierced. From this unity of Person it follows, by reason of a like mystery, that, since the flesh of the Word was born of an undefiled mother, God the Word Himself is most catholicly believed, most impiously denied, to have been born of the Virgin; which being the case, God forbid that any one should seek to defraud Holy Mary of her prerogative of divine grace and her special glory. For by the singular gift of Him who is our Lord and God, and withal, her own son, she is to be confessed most truly and most blessedly — The mother of God “Theotokos,” but not in the sense in which it is imagined by a certain impious heresy which maintains, that she is to be called the Mother of God for no other reason than because she gave birth to that man who afterwards became God, just as we speak of a woman as the mother of a priest, or the mother of a bishop, meaning that she was such, not by giving birth to one already a priest or a bishop, but by giving birth to one who afterwards became a priest or a bishop. Not thus, I say, was the holy Mary “Theotocos,” the mother of God, but rather, as was said before, because in her sacred womb was wrought that most sacred mystery whereby, on account of the singular and unique unity of Person, as the Word in flesh is flesh, so Man in God is God.

CHAPTER XVI

Recapitulation of what was said of the catholic Faith and of diverse heresies

But now that we may refresh our remembrance of what has been briefly said concerning either the afore-mentioned heresies or the catholic Faith, let us go over it again more briefly and concisely, that being repeated it may be more thoroughly understood, and being pressed home more firmly held.

Accursed then be Photinus, who does not receive the Trinity complete, but asserts that Christ is mere man.

Accursed be Apollinaris, who affirms that the Godhead of Christ is marred by conversion, and defrauds Him of the property of perfect humanity.

Accursed be Nestorius, who denies that God was born of the Virgin, affirms two Christs, and rejecting the belief of the Trinity, brings in a Quaternity.

But blessed be the catholic Church, which worships one God in the completeness of the Trinity, and at the same time adores the equality of the Trinity in the unity of the Godhead, so that neither the singularity of substance confounds the propriety of the Persons, not the distinction of the Persons in the Trinity separates the unity of the Godhead.

Blessed, I say, be the Church, which believes that in Christ there are two true and perfect substances but one Person, so that neither doth the distinction of natures divide the unity of Person, nor the unity of Person confound the distinction of substances.

Blessed, I say, be the Church, which understands God to have become Man, not by conversion of nature, but by reason of a Person, but of a Person not feigned and transient, but substantial and permanent.

Blessed, I say, be the Church, which declares this unity of Person to be so real and effectual, that because of it, in a marvellous and ineffable mystery, she ascribes divine attributes to man, and human to God; because of it, on the one hand, she does not deny that Man, as God, came down from heaven, on the other, she believes that God, as Man, was created, suffered, and was crucified on earth; because of it, finally, she confesses Man the Son of God, and God the Son of the Virgin.

Blessed, then, and venerable, blessed and most sacred, and altogether worthy to be compared with those celestial praises of the Angelic Host, be the confession which ascribes glory to the one Lord God with a threefold ascription of holiness. For this reason moreover she insists emphatically upon the oneness of the Person of Christ, that she may not go beyond the mystery of the Trinity (that is by making in effect a Quaternity.)

Thus much by way of digression. On another occasion, please God, we will deal with the subject and unfold it more fully. Now let us return to the matter in hand.

CHAPTER XVII

The error of Origen a great trial to the Church.

We said above that in the Church of God the teacher’s error is the people’s trial, a trial by so much the greater in proportion to the greater learning of the erring teacher. This we showed first by the authority of Scripture, and then by instances from Church History, of persons who having at one time had the reputation of being sound in the faith, eventually either fell away to some sect already in existence, or else founded a heresy of their own. An important fact truly, useful to be learnt, and necessary to be remembered, and to be illustrated and enforced again and again, by example upon example, in order that all true catholic Christians may understand that it behooves them with the Church to receive Teachers, not with Teachers to desert the faith of the Church.

My belief is, that among many instances of this sort of trial which might be produced, there is not one to be compared with that of Origen, in whom there were many things so excellent, so unique, so admirable, that antecedently any one would readily deem that implicit faith was to be placed all his assertions. For if the conversation and manner of life carry authority, great was his industry, great his modesty, his patience, his endurance; if his descent or his erudition, what more noble than his birth of a house rendered illustrious by martyrdom? Afterwards, when in the cause of Christ he had been deprived not only of his father, but also of all his property, he attained so high a standard in the midst of the straits of holy poverty, that he suffered several times, it is said, as a Confessor. Nor were these the only circumstances connected with him, all of which afterwards proved an occasion of trial. He had a genius so powerful, so profound, so acute, so elegant, that there was hardly any one whom he did not very far surpass. The splendour of his learning, and of his erudition generally, was such that there were few points of divine philosophy, hardly any of human which he did not thoroughly master. When Greek had yielded to his industry, he made himself a proficient in Hebrew. What shall I say of his eloquence, the style of which was so charming, so soft, so sweet, that honey rather than words seemed to flow from his mouth! What subjects were there, however difficult, which he did not render clear and perspicuous by the force of his reasoning? What undertakings, however hard to accomplish, which he did not make to appear most easy? But perhaps his assertions rested simply on ingeniously woven argumentation? On the contrary, no teacher ever used more proofs drawn from Scripture. Then I suppose he wrote little? No man more, so that, if I mistake not, his writings not only cannot all be read through, they cannot all be found; for that nothing might be wanting to his opportunities of obtaining knowledge, he had the additional advantage of a life greatly prolonged. But perhaps he was not particularly happy in his disciples? Who ever more so? From his school came forth doctors, priests, confessors, martyrs, without number. Then who can express how much he was admired by all, how great his renown, how wide his influence? Who was there whose religion was at all above the common standard that did not hasten to him from the ends of the earth? What Christian did not reverence him almost as a prophet; what philosopher as a master? How great was the veneration with which he was regarded, not only by private persons, but also by the Court, is declared by the histories which relate how he was sent for by the mother of the Emperor Alexander, moved by the heavenly wisdom with the love of which She, as he, was inflamed. To this also his letters bear witness, which, with the authority which he assumed as a Christian Teacher, he wrote to the Emperor Philip, the first Roman prince that was a Christian. As to his incredible learning, if any one is unwilling to receive the testimony of Christians at our hands, let him at least accept that of heathens at the hands of philosophers. For that impious Porphyry says that when he was little more than a boy, incited by his fame, he went to Alexandria, and there saw him, then an old man, but a man evidently of so great attainments, that he had reached the summit of universal knowledge.

Time would fail me to recount, even in a very small measure, the excellencies of this man, all of which, nevertheless, not only contributed to the glory of religion, but also increased the magnitude of the trial. For who in the world would lightly desert a man of so great genius, so great learning, so great influence, and would not rather adopt that saying, That he would rather be wrong with Origen, than be right with others.

What shall I say more? The result was that very many were led astray from the integrity of the faith, not by any human excellencies of this so great man, this so great doctor, this so great prophet, but, as the event showed, by the too perilous trial which he proved to be. Hence it came to pass, that this Origen, such and so great as he was, wantonly abusing the grace of God, rashly following the bent of his own genius, and placing overmuch confidence in himself, making light account of the ancient simplicity of the Christian religion, presuming that he knew more than all the world besides, despising the traditions of the Church and the determinations of the ancients, and interpreting certain passages of Scripture in a novel way, deserved for himself the warning given to the Church of God, as applicable in his case as in that of others, “If there arise a prophet in the midst of thee,” … “thou shalt not hearken to the words of that prophet,” … “because the Lord your God doth make trial of you, whether you love Him or not.” Truly, thus of a sudden to seduce the Church which was devoted to him, and hung upon him through admiration of his genius, his learning, his eloquence, his manner of life and influence, while she had no fear, no suspicion for herself, — thus, I say, to seduce the Church, slowly and little by little, from the old religion to a new profaneness, was not only a trial, but a great trial.

But some one will say, Origen’s books have been corrupted. I do not deny it; nay, I grant it readily. For that such is the case has been handed down both orally and in writing, not only by catholic Christians, but by heretics as well. But the point is, that though himself be not, yet books published under his name are, a great trial, which, abounding in many hurtful blasphemies, are both read and delighted in, not as being some one else’s, but as being believed to be his, so that, although there was no error in Origen’s original meaning, yet Origen’s authority appears to be an effectual cause in leading people to embrace error.

CHAPTER XVIII

Tertullian a great trial to the Church.

The case is the same with Tertullian. For as Origen holds by far the first place among the Greeks, so does Tertullian among the Latins. For who more learned than he, who more versed in knowledge whether divine or human ? With marvellous capacity of mind he comprehended all philosophy, and had a knowledge of all schools of philosophers, and of the founders and upholders of schools, and was acquainted with all their rules and observances, and with their various histories and studies. Was not his genius of such unrivalled strength and vehemence that there was scarcely any obstacle which he proposed to himself to overcome, that he did not penetrate by acuteness, or crush by weight? As to his style, who can sufficiently set forth its praise? It was knit together with so much cogency of argument that it compelled assent, even where it failed to persuade. Every word almost was a sentence; every sentence a victory. This know the Marcions, the Apelleses, the Praxeases, the Hermogeneses, the Jews, the Heathens, the Gnostics, and the rest, whose blasphemies he overthrew by the force of his many and ponderous volumes, as with so many thunderbolts. Yet this man also, notwithstanding all that I have mentioned, this Tertullian, I say, too little tenacious of catholic doctrine, that is, of the universal and ancient faith, more eloquent by far than faithful, changed his belief, and justified what the blessed Confessor, Hilary, writes of him, namely, that “by his subsequent error he detracted from the authority of his approved writings.” He also was a great trial in the Church. But of Tertullian I am unwilling to say more. This only I will add, that, contrary to the injunction of Moses, by asserting the novel furies of Montanus which arose in the Church, and those mad dreams of new doctrine dreamed by mad women, to be true prophecies, he deservedly made both himself and his writings obnoxious to the words, “If there arise a prophet in the midst of thee,”… “thou shall not hearken to the words of that prophet. ” For why ? “Because the Lord your God doth make trial of you, whether you love Him or not.”

CHAPTER XIX

What we ought to learn from these examples

It behooves us, then, to give heed to these instances from Church History, so many and so great, and others of the same description, and to understand distinctly, in accordance with the rule laid down Deuteronomy, that if at any time a Doctor in the Church have erred from the faith, Divine Providence permits it in order to make trial of us, whether or not we love God with all our heart and with all our mind.

CHAPTER XX

The notes of a true catholic.

This being the case, he is the true and genuine catholic who loves the truth of God, who loves the Church, who loves the Body of Christ, who esteems divine religion and the catholic Faith above every thing, above the authority, above the regard, above the genius, above the eloquence, above the philosophy, of every man whatsoever; who sets light by all of these, and continuing steadfast and established in the faith, resolves that he will believe that, and that only, which he is sure the catholic Church has held universally and from ancient time; but that whatsoever new and unheard-of doctrine he shall find to have been furtively introduced by some one or another, besides that of all, or contrary to that of all the saints, this, he will under, stand, does not pertain to religion, but is permitted as a trial, being instructed especially by the words of the blessed Apostle Paul, who writes thus in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, ” There must needs be heresies, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you:” as though he should say, This is the reason why the authors of Heresies are not forthwith rooted up by God, namely, that they who are approved may be made manifest that is, that it may be apparent of each individual, how tenacious and faithful and steadfast he is in his love of the catholic faith.

And in truth, as each novelty springs up incontinently is discerned the difference between the weight of the wheat and the lightness of the chaff. Then that which had no weight to keep it on the floor is without difficulty blown away. For some at once fly off entirely; others having been only shaken out, afraid of perishing, wounded, half alive, half dead, are ashamed to return. They have, in fact swallowed a quantity of poison — not enough to kill, yet more than can be got rid of; it neither causes death, nor suffers to live. O wretched condition! With what surging tempestuous cares are they tossed about ! One while, the error being set in motion, they are hurried whithersoever the wind drives them; another, returning upon themselves like refluent waves, they are dashed back: one while, with rash presumption, they give their approval to what seems uncertain; another, with irrational fear, they are frightened out of their wits at what is certain, in doubt whither to go, whither to return, what to seek, what to shun, what to keep, what to throw away.

This affliction, indeed, of a hesitating and miserably vacillating mind is, if they are wise, a medicine intended for them by God’s compassion. For therefore it is that outside the most secure harbour of the catholic Faith, they are tossed about, beaten, and almost killed, by divers tempestuous cogitations, in order that they may take in the sails of self-conceit, which, they had with ill advice unfurled to the blasts of novelty, and may betake themselves again to, and remain stationary within, the most secure harbour of their placid and good mother, and may begin by vomiting up those bitter and turbid floods of error which they had swallowed, that thenceforward they may be able to drink the streams of fresh and living water. Let them unlearn well what they had learnt not well, and let them receive so much of the entire doctrine of the Church as they can understand: what they cannot understand let them believe.

CHAPTER. XXI

Exposition of St. Paul’s words. — 1 Timothy 6:20

Such being the case, when I think over these things, and revolve them in my mind again and again, I cannot sufficiently wonder at the madness of certain men, at the impiety of their blinded understanding, at their lust of error, such that, not content with the rule of faith delivered once for all, and received from the times of old, they are every day seeking one novelty after another, and are constantly longing to add, change, take away, in religion, as though the doctrine, ” Let what has once for all been revealed suffice,” were not a heavenly but an earthly rule, — a rule which could not be complied with except by continual emendation, nay, rather by continual fault-finding; whereas the divine Oracles cry aloud, “Remove not the landmarks, which thy fathers have set,” and “Go not to law with a Judge,” and “Whoso breaketh through a fence a serpent shall bite him,” and that saying of the Apostle where with, as with a spiritual sword, all the wicked novelties of all heresies often have been, and will always have to be, decapitated, “O Timothy, keep the deposit, shunning profane novelties of words and oppositions of the knowledge falsely so called, which some professing have erred concerning the faith.”

After words such as these, is there any one of so hardened a front, such anvil-like impudence, such adamantine pertinacity, as not to succumb to so huge a mass, not to be crushed by so ponderous a weight, not to be shaken in pieces by such heavy blows, not to be annihilated by such dreadful thunderbolts of divine eloquence? “Shun profane novelties,” he says. He does not say shun “antiquity.” But he plainly points to what ought to follow by the rule of contrary. For if novelty is to be shunned, antiquity is to be held fast; if novelty is profane, antiquity is sacred. He adds, ” And oppositions of science falsely so called.” “Falsely called ” indeed, as applied to the doctrines of heretics, where ignorance is disguised under the name of knowledge, fog of sunshine, darkness of light. “Which some professing have erred concerning the faith.” Professing what? What but some (I know not what) new and unheard-of doctrine. For thou mayest hear some of these same doctors say, “Come, O silly wretches, who go by the name of catholic Christians, come and learn the true faith, which no one but ourselves is acquainted with, which same has lain hid these many ages, but has recently been revealed and made manifest. But learn it by stealth and in secret, for you will be delighted with it. Moreover, when you have learnt it, teach it furtively, that the world may not hear, that the Church may not know. For there are but few to whom it is granted to receive the secret of so great a mystery.” Are not these the words of that harlot who, in the proverbs of Solomon, calls to the passengers who go right on their ways, “Whoso is simple let him turn in hither.” And as for them that are void of understanding, she exhorts them saying: “Drink stolen waters, for they are sweet, and eat bread in secret for it is pleasant.” What next? “But he knoweth not that the sons of earth perish in her house.” Who are those “sons of earth “? Let the apostle explain: “Those who have erred concerning the faith.”

CHAPTER XXII

A more particular Exposition of 1 Timothy 6:20

But it is worth while to expound the whole of that passage of the apostle more fully, “O Timothy, keep the deposit, avoiding profane novelties of words.”

“O!” The exclamation implies fore-knowledge as well as charity. For he mourned in anticipation over the errors which he foresaw. Who is the Timothy of to-day, but either generally the Universal Church, or in particular, the whole body of The Prelacy, whom it behooves either themselves to possess or to communicate to others a complete knowledge of religion? What is “Keep the deposit “? ” Keep it,” because of thieves, because of adversaries, lest, while men sleep, they sow tares over that good wheat which the Son of Man had sown in his field. “Keep the deposit.” What is “The deposit”? That which has been entrusted to thee, not that which thou hast thyself devised: a matter not of wit, but of learning; not of private adoption, but of public tradition; a matter brought to thee, not put forth by thee, wherein thou art bound to be not an author but a keeper, not a teacher but a disciple, not a leader but a follower. “Keep the deposit.” Preserve the talent of catholic Faith inviolate, unadulterated. That which has been entrusted to thee, let it continue in thy possession, let it be handed on by thee. Thou hast received gold; give gold in turn. Do not substitute one thing for another. Do not for gold impudently substitute lead or brass. Give real gold, not counterfeit.

O Timothy! O Priest! O Expositor! O Doctor! if the divine gift hath qualified thee by wit, by skill, by learning, be thou a Bazaleel of the spiritual tabernacle, engrave the precious gems of divine doctrine, fit them in accurately, adorn them skilfully, add splendor, grace, beauty. Let that which formerly was believed, though imperfectly apprehended, as expounded by thee be clearly understood. Let posterity welcome, understood through thy exposition, what antiquity venerated without understanding. Yet teach still i the same truths which thou hast learnt, so that though thou speakest after a new fashion, what thou speakest may not be new.

CHAPTER XXIII

On Development in Religious Knowledge.

But some one will say. perhaps, Shall there, then, be no progress in Christ’s Church? Certainly; all possible progress. For what being is there, so envious of men, so full of hatred to God, who would seek to forbid it? Yet on condition that it be real progress, not alteration of the faith. For progress requires that the subject be enlarged n itself, alteration, that it be transformed into something else. The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the wisdom, as well of individuals as of all, as well of one man as of the whole Church, ought, in the course of ages and centuries, to increase and make much and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that is to say, in the same doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same meaning.

The growth of religion in the soul must be analogous to the growth of the body, which, though in process of years it is developed and attains its full size, yet remains still the same. There is a wide difference between the flower of youth and the maturity of age; yet they who were once young are still the same now that they have become old, insomuch that though the stature and outward form of the individual are changed, yet his nature is one and the same, his person is one and the same. An infant’s limbs are small, a young man’s large, yet the infant and the young man are the same. Men when full grown have the same number of joints that they had when children; and if there be any to which maturer age has given birth these were already present in embryo, so that nothing new is produced in them when old which was not already latent in them when children. This, then, is undoubtedly the true and legitimate rule of progress, this the established and most beautiful order of growth, that mature age ever develops in the man those parts and forms which the wisdom of the Creator had already framed beforehand in the infant. Whereas, if the human form were changed into some shape belonging to another kind, or at any rate, if the number of its limbs were increased or diminished, the result would be that the whole body would become either a wreck or a monster, or, at the least, would be impaired and enfeebled.

In like manner, it behooves Christian doctrine to follow the same laws of progress, so as to be consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age, and yet, withal, to continue incorrupt and unadulterated, complete and perfect in all the measurement of its parts, and, so to speak, in all its proper members and senses, admitting no change, no waste of its distinctive property, no variation in its limits.

For example: Our forefathers in the old time sowed wheat in the Church’s field. It would be most unmeet and iniquitous if we, their descendants, instead of the genuine truth of corn, should reap the counterfeit error of tares. This rather should be the result, — there should be no discrepancy between the first and the last. From doctrine which was sown as wheat, we should reap, in the increase, doctrine of the same kind — wheat also; so that when in process of time any of the original seed is developed, and now flourishes under cultivation, no change may ensue in the character of the plant. There may supervene shape, form, variation in outward appearance, but the nature of each kind must remain the same. God forbid that those rose-beds of catholic interpretation should be converted into thorns and thistles. God forbid that in that spiritual paradise from plants of cinnamon and balsam darnel and wolfsbane should of a sudden shoot forth.

Therefore, whatever has been sown by the fidelity of the Fathers in this husbandry of God’s Church, the same ought to be cultivated and taken care of by the industry of their children, the same ought to flourish and ripen, the same ought to advance and go forward to perfection. For it is right that those ancient doctrines of heavenly philosophy should, as time goes on, be cared for, smoothed, polished; but not that they should be changed, not that they should be maimed, not that they should be mutilated. They may receive proof, illustration, definiteness; but they must retain withal their completeness, their integrity, their characteristic properties.

For if once this license of impious fraud be admitted, I dread to say in how great danger religion will be of being utterly destroyed and annihilated. For if any one part of catholic truth be given up, another, and another, and another will thenceforward be given up as a matter of course, and the several individual portions having been rejected, what will follow in the end but the rejection of the whole? On the other hand, if what is new begins to be mingled with what is old, foreign with domestic, profane with sacred, the custom will of necessity creep on universally, till at last the Church will have nothing left untampered with, nothing unadulterated, nothing sound, nothing pure; but where formerly there was a sanctuary of chaste and undefiled truth, thenceforward there will be a brothel of impious and base errors. May God’s mercy avert this wickedness from the minds of his servants; be it rather the frenzy of the ungodly.

But the Church of Christ, the careful and watchful guardian of the doctrines deposited in her charge, never changes anything in them, never diminishes, never adds, does not cut off what is necessary, does not add what is superfluous, does not lose her own, does not appropriate what is another’s, but while dealing faithfully and judiciously with ancient doctrine, keeps this one object carefully in view, — if there be anything which antiquity has left shapeless and rudimentary, to fashion and polish it, if anything already reduced to shape and developed, to consolidate and strengthen it, if any already ratified and defined to keep and guard it. Finally, what other object have Councils ever aimed at in their decrees, than to provide that what was before believed in simplicity should in future be believed intelligently, that what was before preached coldly should in future be preached earnestly, that what was before practised negligently should thenceforward be practised with double solicitude ? This, I say, is what the catholic Church, roused by the novelties of heretics, has accomplished by the decrees of her Councils, — this, and nothing else, — she has thenceforward consigned to posterity in writing what she had received from those of olden times only by tradition, comprising a great amount of matter in a few words, and often, for the better understanding, designating an old article of the faith by the characteristic of a new name.

CHAPTER XXIV

Continuation of the Exposition of 1 Timothy 6:20

But let us return to the apostle. “O Timothy,” he says, “Guard the deposit,; shunning profane novelties of words. ” “Shun them as you would a viper, as you would a scorpion, as you would a basilisk, lest they smite you not only with their touch, but I even with their eyes and breath.” What is “to shun” ? Not even to eat with a person of this sort What is “shun”? “If anyone,” says St. John, “come to you and bring not this doctrine. What doctrine ? What but the catholic and universal doctrine, which has continued one and the same through the several successions of ages by the uncorrupt tradition of the truth and so will continue for ever — “Receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed, for he that biddeth him Godspeed communicates with him in his evil deeds.”

“Profane novelties of words” What words are these? Such as have nothing sacred, nothing religious, words utterly” remote from the inmost sanctuary of the Church which is the temple of God. “Profane novelties of words, that is, of doctrines, subjects, opinions, such as are contrary to antiquity and the faith of the olden time. Which if they be received, it follows necessarily that the faith of the blessed fathers is violated either in whole, or at all events in great part; it follows necessarily that all the faithful of all ages, all the saints, the chaste, the continent, the virgins, all the clergy, Deacons and Priests, so many thousands of Confessors, so vast an army of martyrs, such multitudes of cities and of peoples, so many islands, provinces, kings, tribes, kingdoms, nations, in a word, almost the whole earth, incorporated in Christ the Head, through the catholic faith, have been ignorant for so long a tract of time, have been mistaken, have blasphemed, have not known what to believe, what to confess.

“Shun profane novelties of words,” which to receive and follow was never the part of catholic Christians; of heretics always was. In sooth, what heresy ever burst forth save under a definite name, at a definite place, at a definite time? Who ever originated a heresy that did not first dissever himself from the consentient agreement of the universality and antiquity of the catholic Church ? That this is so is demonstrated in the clearest way by examples. For who ever before that profane Pelagius attributed so much antecedent strength to free-will, as to deny the necessity of God’s grace to aid it towards good in every single act? Who ever before his monstrous disciple Coelestius denied that the, whole human race is involved in the guilt of Adam’s sin? Who ever before sacrilegious Arius dared to rend asunder the unity of the Trinity? Who before impious Sabellius was so audacious as to confound the Trinity of the Unity? Who before cruellest Novatian represented God as cruel in that He had rather the wicked should die than that he should be converted and live? Who before Simon Magus, who was smitten by the apostle’s rebuke, and from whom that ancient sink of every thing vile has flowed by a secret continuous succession even to Priscillian of our own time, — who, I say, before this Simon Magus, dared to say that God, the Creator, is the author of evil, that is, of our wickednesses, impieties, depravities, inasmuch as he asserts that He created with His own hands a human nature of such a description, that of its own motion, and by the impulse of its necessity-constrained will, it can do nothing else, can will nothing else, but sin, seeing that tossed to and fro, and set on fire by the furies of all sorts of vices, it is hurried away by unquenchable lust into the utmost extremes of baseness?

There are innumerable instances of this kind, which for brevity’s sake, pass over; by all of which, however, it is manifestly and clearly shown, that it is an established law, in the case of almost all heresies, that they evermore delight in profane novelties, scorn the decisions of antiquity, and, through oppositions of science falsely so called, make shipwreck of the faith. On the other hand, it is the sure characteristic of Catholics to keep that which has been committed to their trust by the holy Fathers, to condemn profane novelties, and, in the apostle’s words, once and again repeated, to anathematize every one who preaches any other doctrine than that which has been received.

CHAPTER XXV

Heretics appeal to Scripture that they may more easily succeed in deceiving.

Here, possibly, some one may ask, Do heretics also appeal to Scripture ? They do indeed, and with a vengeance; for you may see them scamper through every single book of Holy Scripture, — through the books of Moses, the books of Kings, the Psalms, the Epistles, the Gospels, the Prophets. Whether among their own people, or among strangers, in private or in public, in speaking or in writing, at convivial meetings, or in the streets, hardly ever do they bring forward anything of their own which they do not endeavour to shelter under words of Scripture. Read the works of Paul of Samosata, of Priscillian, of Eunomius, of Jovinian, and the rest of those pests, and you will see an infinite heap of instances, hardly a single page, which does not bristle with plausible quotations from the New Testament or the Old.

But the more secretly they conceal themselves under shelter of the Divine Law, so much the more are they to be feared and guarded against. For they know that the evil stench of their doctrine will hardly find acceptance with any one if it be exhaled pure and simple. They sprinkle it over, therefore, with the perfume of heavenly language, in order that one who would be ready to despise human error, may hesitate to condemn divine words. They do, in fact, what nurses do when they would prepare some bitter draught for children; they smear the edge of the cup all round with honey, that the unsuspecting child, having first tasted the sweet, may have no fear of the bitter. So too do these act, who disguise poisonous herbs and noxious juices under the names of medicines, so that no one almost, when he reads the label, suspects the poison.

It was for this reason that the Saviour cried, “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” What is meant by “sheep’s closing”? What but the words which prophets and apostles with the guilelessness of sheep wove beforehand as fleeces, for that immaculate Lamb which taketh away the sin of the world ? What are the ravening wolves? What but the savage and rabid glosses of heretics, who continually infest the Church’s folds, and tear in pieces the flock of Christ wherever they are able ? But that they may with more successful guile steal upon the unsuspecting sheep, retaining the ferocity of the wolf, they put off his appearance, and wrap themselves, so to say, in the language of the Divine Law, as in a fleece, so that one, having felt the softness of wool, may have no dread of the wolf’s fangs. But what saith the Saviour? “By !their fruits ye shall know them;” that is, when they have begun not only to quote those divine words, but also to expound them, not as yet only to make a boast of them as on their side, but also to interpret them, then will that bitterness, that acerbity, that rage, be understood; then will the ill-savour of that novel poison be perceived, then will those profane novelties be disclosed, then may you see first the hedge broken through, then the landmarks of the Fathers removed, then the catholic faith assailed, then the doctrine of the Church torn in pieces.

Such were they whom the Apostle Paul rebukes in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, when he says, “For of this sort are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.” The apostles brought forward instances from Holy Scripture; these men did the same. The apostles cited the authority of the Psalms; these men did so likewise. The apostles brought forward passages from the prophets; these men still did the same. But when they began to interpret in different senses the passages which both had agreed in appealing to, then were discerned the guileless from the crafty, the genuine from the counterfeit, the straight from the crooked, then, in one word, the true apostles from the false apostles. “And no wonder,” he says, “for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. It is no marvel then if his servants are transformed as the servants of righteousness.” Therefore, according to the authority of the Apostle Paul, as often as either false apostles or false teachers cite passages from the Divine Law, by means of which, misinterpreted, they seek to prop up their own errors, there is no doubt that they are following the cunning devices of their father, which assuredly he would never have devised, but that he knew that where he could fraudulently and by stealth introduce error, there is no easier way of effecting his impious purpose than by pretending the authority of Holy Scripture.

CHAPTER XXVI

Heretics, in quoting Scripture, follow the example of the devil.

But some one will say, What proof have we that the Devil is wont to appeal to Holy Scripture? Let him read the Gospels wherein it is written, “Then the Devil took Him (the Lord the Saviour) and set Him upon a pinnacle of the Temple, and said unto Him: If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee, that they may keep thee in all thy ways: In their hands they shall bear thee up, lest perchance thou dash thy foot against a stone.” What sort of treatment must men, insignificant wretches that they are, look for at the hands of him who assailed even the Lord of Glory with quotations from Scripture? “If thou be the Son of God,” saith be, “cast the, self down.” Wherefore? “For,” saith he, “it is written.” It behoves us to pay special attention to this passage and bear it in mind, that, warned by so important an instance of Evangelical authority, we may be assured beyond doubt, when we find people alleging passages from the Apostles or Prophets against the catholic Faith, that the Devil speaks through their mouths. For as then the Head spoke to the Head, so now also the members speak to the members, the members of the Devil to the members of Christ, misbelievers to believers, sacrilegious to religious, in one word, Heretics to Catholics.

But what do they say? “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down;” that is, if thou wouldst be a son of God, and wouldst receive the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven, cast thyself down; that is, cast thyself down from the doctrine and tradition of that sublime Church, which is imagined to be nothing less than the very temple of God. And if one should ask one of the heretics who gives this advice, How do you prove? What ground have you, for saying, that I ought to cast away the universal and ancient faith of the catholic Church? he has the answer ready, “For it is written;” and forthwith he produces a thousand testimonies, a thousand examples, a thousand authorities from the Law, from the Psalms, from the apostles, from the Prophets, by means of which, interpreted on a new and wrong principle, the unhappy soul may be precipitated from the height of catholic truth to the lowest abyss of heresy. Then, with the accompanying promises, the heretics are wont marvellously to beguile the incautious. For they dare to teach and promise, that in their church, that is, in the conventicle of their communion, there is a certain great and special and altogether personal grace of God, so that whosoever pertain to their number, without any labour, without any effort, without any industry, even though they neither ask, nor seek, nor knock, have such a dispensation from God, that, borne up by angel hands, that is, preserved by the protection of angels, it is impossible they should ever dash their feet against a stone, that is, that they should ever be offended.

CHAPTER XXVII

What Rule is to be observed in the interpretation of Scripture.

But it will be said, If the words, the sentiments, the promises of Scripture, are appealed to by the Devil and his disciples, of whom some are false apostles, some false prophets and false teachers, and all without exception heretics, what are Catholics and the sons of Mother Church to do? How are they to distinguish truth from falsehood in the sacred Scriptures? They must be very careful to pursue that course which, in the beginning of this Commonitory, we said that holy and learned men had commended to us, that is to say, they must interpret the sacred Canon according to the traditions of the Universal Church and in keeping with the rules of catholic doctrine, in which catholic and Universal Church, moreover, they must follow universality, antiquity, consent. And if at any time a part opposes itself to the whole, novelty to antiquity, the dissent of one or a few who are in error to the consent of all or at all events of the great majority of Catholics, then they must prefer the soundness of the whole to the corruption of a part; in which same whole they must prefer the religion of antiquity to the profaneness of novelty; and in antiquity itself in like manner, to the temerity of one or of a very few they must prefer, first of all, the general decrees, if such there be, of a Universal Council, or if there be no such, then, what is next best, they must follow the consentient belief of many and great masters. Which rule having been faithfully, soberly, and scrupulously observed, we shall with little difficulty detect the noxious errors of heretics as they arise.

CHAPTER XXVIII

In what way, on collating the consentient opinions of the ancient masters, the novelties of heretics may be detected and condemned.

And here I perceive that, as a necessary sequel to the foregoing, I ought to show by examples in what way, by collating the consentient opinions of the ancient masters, the profane novelties of heretics may be detected and condemned. Yet in the investigation of this ancient consent of the holy Fathers we are to bestow our pains not on every minor question of the Divine Law, but only, at all events especially, where the Rule of Faith is concerned. Nor is this way of dealing with heresy to be resorted to always, or in every instance, but only in the case of those heresies which are new and recent, and that on their first arising, before they have had time to deprave the Rules of the Ancient Faith, and before they endeavour, while the poison spreads and diffuses itself, to corrupt the writings of the ancients. But heresies already widely diffused and of old standing are by no means to be thus dealt with, seeing that through lapse of time they have long had opportunity of corrupting the truth. And therefore, as to the more ancient schisms or heresies, we ought either to confute them, if need be, by the sole authority of the Scriptures, or at any rate, to shun them as having been already of old convicted and condemned by universal councils of the catholic Priesthood.

Therefore, as soon as the corruption of each mischievous error begins to break forth, and to defend itself by filching certain passages of Scripture, and expounding them fraudulently and deceitfully, forthwith, the opinions of the ancients in the interpretation of the Canon are to be collected, whereby the novelty, and consequently the profaneness, whatever it may be, that arises, may both without any doubt be exposed, and without any tergiversation be condemned. But the opinions of those Fathers only are to be used for comparison, who living and teaching, holily, wisely, and with constancy, in the catholic faith and communion, were counted worthy either to die in the faith of Christ, or to suffer death happily for Christ. Whom yet we are to believe on this condition, that that only is to be accounted indubitable, certain, established, which either all, or the more part, have supported and confirmed manifestly, frequently, persistently, in one and the same sense, forming, as it were, a consentient council of doctors, all receiving, holding, handing on the same doctrine. But whatsoever a teacher holds, other than all, or contrary to all, be he holy and learned, be he a bishop, be he a Confessor, be he a martyr, let that be regarded as a private fancy of his own, and be separated from the authority of common, public, general persuasion, lest, after the sacrilegious custom of heretics and schismatics, rejecting the ancient truth of the universal Creed, we follow, at the utmost peril of our eternal salvation, the newly devised error of one man.

Lest any one perchance should rashly think the holy and catholic consent of these blessed fathers to be despised, the Apostle says, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, “God hath placed some in the Church, first Apostles,” of whom himself was one; “secondly Prophets,” such as Agabus, read in the Acts of the Apostles; of whom we “then doctors,” who are now called Homilists, Expositors, whom the same apostle sometimes calls also “Prophets,” because by them the mysteries of the Prophets are opened to the people. Whosoever, therefore, shall despise these, who had their appointment of God in His Church in their several times and places, when they are unanimous in Christ, in the interpretation of some one point of catholic doctrine, despises not man, but God, from whose unity in the truth, lest any one should vary, the same Apostle earnestly protests, “I beseech you, brethren, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” But if any one dissent from their unanimous decision, let him listen to the words of the same apostle,” “God is not the God of dissension but of peace;” that is, not of him who departs from the unity of consent, but of those who remain steadfast in the peace of consent: “as,” he continues, “I teach in all Churches of the saints,” that is, of Catholics, which churches are therefore churches of the saints, because they continue steadfast in the communion of the faith.

And lest any one, disregarding every one else, should arrogantly claim to be listened to himself alone, himself alone to be believed, the Apostle goes on to say, “Did the word of God proceed from you, or did it come to you only?” And, lest this should be thought lightly spoken, he continues, “If any man seem to be a prophet or a spiritual person, let him acknowledge that the things which I write unto you are the Lord’s commands.” As to which, unless a man be a prophet or a spiritual person, that is, a master in spiritual matters, let him be as observant as possible of impartiality and unity, so as neither to prefer his own opinions to those of every one besides, nor to recede from the belief of the whole body. Which injunction, whoso ignores, shall be himself ignored; that is, he who either does not learn what he does not know, or treats with contempt what he knows, shall be ignored, that is, shall be deemed unworthy to be ranked of God with those who are united to each other by faith, and equalled with each other by humility, than which I cannot imagine a more terrible evil. This it is however which, according to the Apostle’s threatening, we see to have befallen Julian the Pelagian, who either neglected to associate himself with the belief of his fellow Christians, or presumed to dissociate himself from it.

But it is now time to bring forward the exemplification which we promised, where and how the sentences of the holy Fathers have been collected together, so that in accordance with them, by the decree and authority of a council, the rule of the Church’s faith may be settled. Which that it may be done the more conveniently, let this present Commonitory end here, so that the remainder which is to follow may be begun from a fresh beginning.

[The Second Book of the Commonitory is lost. Nothing of it remains but the following conclusion.]

CHAPTER XXIX

Recapitulation.

This being the case, it is now time that we should recapitulate, at the close of this second Commonitory, what was said in that and in the preceding.

We said above, that it has always been the custom of Catholics, and still is, to prove the true faith in these two ways; first by the authority of the Divine Canon, and next by the tradition of the catholic Church. Not that the Canon alone does not of itself suffice for every question, but seeing that the more part, interpreting the divine words according to their own persuasion, take up various erroneous opinions, it is therefore necessary that the interpretation of divine Scripture should be ruled according to the one standard of the Church’s belief, especially in those articles on which the foundations of all catholic doctrine rest.

We said likewise, that in the Church itself regard must be had to the consentient voice of universality equally with that of antiquity, lest we either be torn from the integrity of unity and carried away to schism, or be precipitated from the religion of antiquity into heretical novelties. We said, further, that in this same ecclesiastical antiquity two points are very carefully and earnestly to be held in view by those who would keep clear of heresy: first, they should ascertain whether any decision has been given in ancient times as to the matter in question by the whole priesthood of the catholic Church, with the authority of a General Council: and, secondly, if some new question should arise on which no such decision has been given, they should then have recourse to the opinions of the holy Fathers, of those at least, who, each in his own time and place, remaining in the unity of communion and of the faith, were accepted as approved masters; and whatsoever these may be found to have held, with one mind and with one consent, this Ought to be accounted the true and catholic doctrine of the Church, without any doubt or scruple.

Which lest we should seem to allege presumptuously on our own warrant rather than on the authority of the Church, we appealed to the example of the holy council which some three years ago was held at Ephesus in Asia, in the consulship of Bassus and Antiochus, where, when question was raised as to the authoritative determining of rules of faith, lest, perchance, any profane novelty should creep in, as did the perversion of the truth at Ariminum, the whole body of priests there assembled, nearly two hundred in number, approved of this as the most catholic, the most trustworthy, and the best course — that is, to bring forth into the midst the sentiments of the holy Fathers, some of whom it was well known had been martyrs, some Confessors, but all had been, and continued to the end to be, catholic priests, in order that by their consentient determination the reverence due to ancient truth might be duly and solemnly confirmed, and the blasphemy of profane novelty condemned. Which having been done, that impious Nestorius was lawfully and deservedly adjudged to be opposed to catholic antiquity, and contrariwise blessed Cyril to be in agreement with it. And that nothing might be wanting to the credibility of the matter, we recorded the names and the number (though we had forgotten the order) of the Fathers, according to whose consentient and unanimous judgment, both the sacred preliminaries of judicial procedure were expounded, and the rule of divine truth established. Whom, that we may strengthen our memory, it will be no superfluous labour to mention again here also!

CHAPTER XXX

The Council of Ephesus.

These then are the men whose writings, whether as judges or as witnesses, were recited in the Council: St. Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a most excellent Doctor and most blessed martyr, Saint Athanasius, bishop of the same city, a most faithful Teacher, and most eminent Confessor, Saint Theophilus, also bishop of fie same city, a man illustrious for his faith, his life, his knowledge, whose successor, the revered Cyril, now adorns the Alexandrian Church. And lest perchance the doctrine ratified by the Council should be thought peculiar to one city and province, there were added also those lights of Cappadocia, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, bishop and Confessor, St. Basil of Caesarea in Cappadocia, bishop and Confessor, and the other St. Gregory, St. Gregory of Nyssa, for his faith, his conversation, his integrity, and his wisdom, most worthy to be the brother of Basil. And lest Greece or the East should seem to stand alone, to prove that the Western and Latin world also have always held the same belief, there were read in the Council certain Epistles of St. Felix, martyr, and St. Julius, both bishops of Rome. And that not only the Head, but the other parts, of the world also might bear witness to the judgment of the council, there was added from the South the most blessed Cyprian, bishop of Carthage and martyr, and from the North St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan.

These all then, to the sacred number of the decalogue, were produced at Ephesus as doctors, councillors, witnesses, judges. And that blessed council holding their doctrine, following their counsel, believing their witness, submitting to their judgment without haste, without foregone conclusion, without partiality, gave their determination concerning the Rules of Faith. A much greater number of the ancients might have been adduced; but it was needless, because neither was it fit that the time should be occupied by a multitude of witnesses, nor does any one suppose that those ten were really of a different mind from the rest of their colleagues.

CHAPTER XXXI

The constancy of the Ephesian Fathers in driving away novelty and maintaining antiquity.

After the preceding we added also the sentence of blessed Cyril, which is contained in these same Ecclesiastical Proceedings. For when the Epistle of Capreolus, bishop of Carthage, had been read, wherein he earnestly entreats that novelty may be driven away and antiquity maintained, Cyril made and carried the proposal, which it may not be out of place to insert here: For says he, at the close of the proceedings, “Let the Epistle of Capreolus also, the reverend and very religious bishop of Carthage, which has been read, be inserted in the acts. His mind is obvious, for he entreats that the doctrines of the ancient faith be confirmed, such as are novel, wantonly devised, and impiously promulgated, reprobated and condemned.” All the bishops cried out, “These are the words of all; this we all say, this we all desire.” What mean “the words of all,” what mean “the desires of all,” but that what has been handed down from antiquity should be retained, what has been newly devised, rejected with disdain?

Next we expressed our admiration of the humility and sanctity of that Council, such that, though the number of priests was so great, almost the more part of them metropolitans, so erudite, so learned, that almost all were capable of taking part in doctrinal discussions, whom the very circumstance of their being assembled for the purpose, might seem to embolden to make some determination on their own authority, yet they innovated nothing, presumed nothing, arrogated to themselves absolutely nothing, but used all possible care to hand down nothing to posterity but what they had themselves received from their Fathers. And not only did they dispose satisfactorily of the matter presently in hand, but they also set an example to those who should come after them, how they also should adhere to the determinations of sacred antiquity, and condemn the devices of profane novelty.

We inveighed also against the wicked presumption of Nestorius in boasting that he was the first and the only one who understood holy Scripture, and that all those teachers were ignorant, who before him had expounded the sacred oracles, forsooth, the whole body of priests, the whole body of Confessors and martyrs, of whom some had published commentaries upon the Law of God, others had agreed with them in their comments, or had acquiesced in them. In a word, he confidently asserted that the whole Church was even now m error, and always had been in error, in that, as it seemed to him, it had followed, and was following, ignorant and misguided teachers.

CHAPTER XXXII

The zeal of Celestine and Sixtus, bishops of Rome, in opposing novelty.

The foregoing would be enough and very much more than enough, to crush and annihilate every profane novelty. But yet that nothing might be wanting to such completeness of proof, we added, at the close, the twofold authority of the Apostolic See, first, that of holy Pope Sixtus, the venerable prelate who now adorns the Roman Church; and secondly that of his predecessor, Pope Celestine of blessed memory, which same we think it necessary to insert here also.

Holy Pope Sixtus then says in an Epistle which he wrote on Nestorius’s matter to the bishop of Antioch, “Therefore, because, as the Apostle says, the faith is one, — evidently the faith which has obtained hitherto, — let us believe the things that are to be said, and say the things that are to be held.” What are the things that are to be believed and to be said? He goes on: “Let no license be allowed to novelty, because it is not fit that any addition should be made to antiquity. Let not the clear faith and belief of our forefathers be fouled by any muddy admixture.” A truly apostolic sentiment! He enhances the belief of the Fathers by the epithet of clearness; profane novelties he calls muddy.

Holy Pope Celestine also expresses himself in like manner and to the same effect. For in the Epistle which he wrote to the priests of Gaul, charging them with connivance with error, in that by their silence they failed in their duty to the ancient faith, and allowed profane novelties to spring up, he says: “We are deservedly to blame if we encourage error by silence. Therefore rebuke these people. Restrain their liberty of preaching.” But here some one may doubt who they are whose liberty to preach as they, list he forbids, — the preachers of antiquity or the devisers of novelty. Let himself tell us; let himself resolve the reader’s doubt. For he goes on: “If the case be so (that is, if the case be so as certain persons complain to me touching your cities and provinces, that by your hurtful dissimulation you cause them to consent to certain novelties), if the case be so, let novelty cease to assail antiquity.” This, then, was the sentence of blessed Celestine, not that antiquity should cease to subvert novelty, but that novelty should cease to assail antiquity.

CHAPTER XXXIII

The children of the catholic Church ought to adhere to the Faith of their fathers and die for it.

Whoever then gainsays these Apostolic and catholic determinations, first of all necessarily insults the memory of holy Celestine, who decreed that novelty should cease to assail antiquity; and in the next place sets at naught the decision of holy Sixtus, whose sentence was, “Let no license be allowed to novelty, since it is not fit that any addition be made to antiquity;” moreover, he condemns the determination of blessed Cyril, who extolled with high praise the zeal of the venerable Capreolus, in that he would fain have the ancient doctrines of the faith confirmed, and novel inventions condemned; yet more, he tramples upon the Council of Ephesus, that is, on the decisions of the holy bishops of almost the whole East, who decreed, under divine guidance, that nothing ought to be believed by posterity save what the sacred antiquity of the holy Fathers, consentient in Christ, had held, who with one voice, and with loud acclaim, testified that these were the words of all, this was the wish of all, this was the sentence of all, that as almost all heretics before Nestorius, despising antiquity and upholding novelty, had been condemned, so Nestorius, the author of novelty and the assailant of antiquity, should be condemned also. Whose consentient determination, inspired by the gift of sacred and celestial grace, whoever disapproves must needs hold the profaneness of Nestorius to have been condemned unjustly; finally, he despises as vile and worthless the whole Church of Christ, and its doctors, apostles, and prophets, and especially the blessed Apostle Paul: he despises the Church, in that she hath never failed in loyalty to the duty of cherishing and preserving the faith once for all delivered to her; he despises St. Paul, who wrote, “O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to thee, shunning profane novelties of words;” and again, “if any man preach unto you other than ye have received, let him be accursed.” But if neither apostolic injunctions nor ecclesiastical decrees may be violated, by which, in accordance with the sacred consent of universality and antiquity, all heretics always, and, last of all, Pelagius, Coelestius, and Nestorius have been rightly and deservedly condemned, then assuredly it is incumbent on all Catholics who are anxious to approve themselves genuine sons of Mother Church, to adhere henceforward to the holy faith of the holy Fathers, to be wedded to it, to die in it; but as to the profane novelties of profane men — to detest them, abhor them, oppose them, give them no quarter.

These matters, handled more at large in the two preceding Commonitories, I have now put together more briefly by way of recapitulation, in order that my memory, to aid which I composed them, may, on the one hand, be refreshed by frequent reference, and, on the other, may avoid being wearied by prolixity.

Bucharest, Romania, October 29-31,1979, a follow-up of the dialogue held in March of 1977 in Lucerne, Switzerland. Under the Sponsorship of Patriarch Justinian of Romania and Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen of Romania

By Father John S. Romanides

The meeting was chaired jointly by H.E. Metropolitan Damaskinos of Tranoupolis,² Director of the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate at Chambesy, Switzerland and Prof. Shemaryahu Talmon, Chairman of the Jewish Council for Inter-religious Consultations in Israel, Professor of Bible, Institute of Jewish Studies and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The papers presented during the sessions of the first day had been prepared and presented by Prof. Michael Wyschogrod of the City University of New York entitled “Tradition and Society in Judaism” and the Orthodox paper had been prepared by Deacon Elie Jones Golitzin of the Institut Des Sciences Bibliques, Faculte de Theologie; Suisse entitled “The role of the Bible in Orthodox Tradition”.³

Before the meeting began I had distributed a study about the Logos in the Old Testament according to the Fathers of the Orthodox Ecumenical Councils. The Jewish representatives reacted by pointing out that is was the first time that they encountered Christians who could point out Who the Logos is in the Old Testament and also asked permission to reproduce this little paper and distribute it.

The two conference papers on “Bible and Tradition” had essentially such similar positions which made it possible to terminate discussion early. In the light of this I asked whether I may pose a question to the Jewish chairman in the light of the paper I had distributed before the meeting began. My question was, “Is the Angel of the Lord Who appeared to Moses in the burning bush a manifestation of God?” “Of course it is!” came the rapid answer.

I reacted with the following question, “Is He created or uncreated?” Then the reply shot back, “Of course uncreated! We Jews do not believe that God reveals Himself by means of creatures!”

I quickly retorted, “That is our Orthodox doctrine of the Holy Trinity”.

Then the Jewish chairman reacted with, “then why all the philosophical terms like “one essence,” ” three hypostases” and “homoousion”?

I replied that “These terms were reactions to heretics who had been transforming the Church’s doctrine into philosophical systems, whereas,” I continued, “the only purpose of such terms was to guarantee the cure of the center of the human personality by means of the purification of the heart, its illumination and the glorification of the whole person”.

The Jews reacted with the information that this is the Hassidim tradition. Then I asked whether this is also that of the modern Hassidim. They answered that, “as far as we know it probably is”.

But this is not only the tradition of the Hassidim. It was and has been the very foundation of prophethood and apostleship of both the Old and New Testaments and the ongoing life of the Church since Pentecost. The only way one becomes a member of the Body of Christ is by means of the purification of the heart completed by its illumination and glorification both in this life and the next.

I have been a member of WCC General Assemblies since Nairobi 1975 and of Central Committee since Vancouver 1983. I have heard a lot of Protestant claims of being moved by God’s Holy Spirit. However, the only sign of being really moved by the uncreated Holy Spirit of God is this purification, illumination of the heart, and glorification, which is the foundation of the Ecumenical Councils sponsored by New Rome. This therapy cures fantasies, among which religions are capable of being extremely dangerous. This is why the tradition — of the Old and New Testaments and the Ecumenical Councils sponsored by New Rome — is not at all a religion. On the contrary this tradition is the cure of the sickness of Religion.

Although the Jews at this meeting pointed out to us that our Orthodox tradition of the cure of the human personality by means of the purification and illumination of the heart and glorification was that of Old Testament Hasidim, this did not become part of the résumé of our discussions which follows.

“The center of discussion was the relation between Scripture and Tradition with a focus on the interpretation of Scripture in Tradition. It was found that both sides agree that the interpretation that the interpretation of Scripture was always inextricably bound to the text of Scripture since tradition is first and foremost the tradition of revelation. Furthermore, both sides stressed that Scripture and Tradition came into existence in a faithful community which preserves them but also, which interprets and applies them to its ongoing life, as the authority and source of its identity”.

“The text of Scripture and its interpretation are both the result of or part of revelation at whose center is God’s revelation to Moses on Mt Sinai.

“The Jewish tradition of the revelation of the written and oral Torah on Mt. Sinai was found to have a parallel in the Orthodox Christian tradition whereby God revealed on Sinai His uncreated Torah [the Logos] and thus inspired Moses to give His chosen people the created or written Torah”.

“The centrality of God’s revelation of Himself to Moses for Jewish and Orthodox Christian understandings of faith and spirituality became evident from the discussions”.

“It was found that in spite of the well known differences in belief there are nevertheless areas of identity and similarity which would be worthwhile to explore in an ongoing dialogue”.

“It was therefore decided that the subject of investigation for the next meeting would be the subject of the law in the spiritual and social life of the Jewish and Orthodox Christian tradition”.

Footnotes

1. Jewish Participants: 1. Rabbi Balfour Brickner, Union of American Hebrew Congregations: 2. Dr. Andre Chouraqui, Jewish Committee for Inter-religious Consultations of Israel; 3. Michael J. Klein, World Jewish Congress; 4. Dr. Moses Rosen, Chief Rabbi of Romania; 5. Rabbi Elie Sabetal, Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece; 6. Zachariah Shuster, American Jewish Committee; 7. Israel Singer, World Jewish Congress; 8. Prof. Shemaryahu Talmon, Jewish Committee for Inter-religious Consultations; 9. Prof. Michael Wyschogrod, Synagogue Council of America.
   Orthodox Christian Participants: Father Dumitru, Prof. of Old Testament at the Theological Institute of Sibiu, Romania; Bishop Anthony, Vicar of the Patriarchate of Romania, Bucharest; Father Cyril Argenti, Marseilles, France; Prof. Ion Bria, World Council of Churches; Deacon Emilian Conritescu, Theological Institute of Bucharest; Metropolitan Damaskinos of Tranoupolis, Director of the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Chambesy, Switzerland; Deacon Elie Jones Golitzin, Institute des Sciences Bibliques, The Faculty of Theology, Lausanne, Switzerland; Deacon Vassilios Karayannis, Orthodox Center, Chambesy, Geneva; Prof. John S. Romanides, University of Thessaloniki, Greece; Slavco Valcanov Slavov, The Theological Academy of Sofia, Bulgaria.
2. Currently also Metropolitan of Switzerland.
3. Papers evidently not originally programmed but read at this conference were as follows: “Tradition and the Bible in the Orthodox Church,” by Rev. Cyril Argenti from Marseilles, France: “Le role des diversses traditions dans la vie de l’Eglise Orhodoxe,” by Rev. Dumitru, of the Theological Institute of Sibiu, Romania: “Peace and Justice in Biblical Tradition, ” by Cand. theol. Slavco Valcanov Slavov: “Jewish Community in the Light of Jewish Tradition,” by Israel Singer of the City University of New York and The World Jewish Congress.

Is it safe to say that no woman in history is more misunderstood by modern Christendom than the Virgin Mary? And is it also probable that in a discussion concerning Mary between two Christians, if their differences remain unresolved, most likely it will be due to differing interpretations of the biblical data? If I have heard him say it once, I have heard Billy Graham say it at least a half-dozen times over the years: We evangelical Christians do not give Mary her proper due. There is no doubt in my mind that he is correct. But his statement raises a crucial question about Mary. What is her proper due?

Before we look to the Scriptures for some answers, let us acknowledge right up front a problem which makes our task much more difficult than it should be. The highly charged emotional atmosphere which surrounds this subject serves to blunt our objectivity in facing up to Mary. Therefore, those of us who were brought up to question or reject honor paid to Mary in Christian worship or art often have our minds made up in advance. That is why we have allowed our preconceptions to color our understanding even of the scriptural passages concerning her. We have not let the facts speak for themselves. As we attempt to face up to Mary honestly and openly, let us turn first to the Bible, the source book of all true Christian doctrine. We will consider what the New Testament teaches about her, and then we will turn to the Old Testament. To understand how the biblical record has been applied through the years by Christians, we will look specifically at Church history to understand both how she has been properly honored, and how excessive beliefs concerning her have crept into the picture. Lastly, we will look at how we must face up to her in light of the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The New Testament Record

What is it, then, that the New Testament clearly teaches concerning the Virgin Mary? The Gospel of Saint Luke, the book of the beloved physician, gives us at least four crucial answers.

1. Mary is the greatest woman who ever lived.

Whereas our Lord Jesus Christ tells us there is no greater man to walk the earth than John the Baptist, both the Archangel Gabriel and the saintly Elizabeth confess to Mary, “Blessed are you among women” (Luke 1:28 and 42). She is the most blessed of women for several reasons, the greatest of which is that she conceived, carried, gave birth to, and nurtured the very Savior of our souls. The One who today occupies the heavenly throne of David, seated regally at the right hand of God the Father, entered the human race and became our Savior through her womb. She was sovereignly chosen by the Father to bear His only begotten Son. In that role, Mary is the first person in all history to receive and accept Christ as her Savior. You and I are called to enthrone the Lord in our hearts and lives-to follow her example in doing so. Early in Christian history she is called “the first of the redeemed”. I remember entering a church some years ago and seeing a painting or icon of Mary with open arms front and center on the wall (the apse) just behind the altar. My first impulse was to wonder why Christ alone was not featured at that particular place in the church, though He was shown in a large circle that was superimposed over Mary’s heart. When I asked why she was so prominently featured, the Christian scholar with me explained, “This is one of the greatest evangelistic icons in the entire Church. What you see is Christ living as Lord in Mary’s life, and her outstretched arms are an invitation to you and me to let Him live in our lives as He has in hers”. The power of that icon stays in my mind to this day. For she has set the pace for all of us to personally give our lives over fully to Jesus Christ. Mary is also blessed because she found favor in the sight of God. Gabriel’s words of encouragement to her were, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). Then he comforted her by saying, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God” (Luke 1:30, italics mine). What does one do to become one of God’s favorites, to be favored by Him? Remember Cornelius in Acts 10? He was the first Gentile to convert to Christ, “a devout man and one who . . . gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always” (Acts 10:2). Two verses later he is told in a vision, “Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God”. The Lord took notice of his deeds of devotion and brought him salvation. In a similar way, Mary’s purity found favor with God, and she was chosen to bear His Son. You say, “Wait a minute! Are you suggesting human merit earns salvation?” Not at all! As commendable as it is for us to live in purity, a devout life never merits salvation. Else why would Mary be called first of the redeemed, or why would Cornelius be baptized into Christ by Saint Peter? Prayer and devotion, however, do gain God’s attention. When we seek Him with all our hearts, we do find Him! Do you want to be favored of God? Then give Him everything you have, give Him your very life. This is precisely what Mary did, and why she is to be considered the greatest woman who ever lived.

2. Mary is our model for Christian service.

While God certainly knew Mary desired to please Him, He did not take her service for granted. The angel explained how she would bear Christ. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest [God the Father] will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Now Mary had a decision to make. Was she willing? Hear her answer, for it is the doorway to the life of spiritual service for all of us. “Behold the maidservant of the Lord!” she said. “Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Even if we are totally sincere about wanting to follow God, He will never conscript us apart from our consent! This is why He is called “the God of all grace” (1 Peter 5:10). We are to choose freely to obey Him and do His will. Some thirty years later, by the way, Mary again had opportunity to exalt her Lord. She was with Jesus at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. The servants who were in charge of the celebration discovered they were out of wine. Mary had no doubt as to who could solve their problem. Referring to her Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, she advised them, “Whatever He says to you, do it” (John 2:5).

3. Mary is the Mother of God.

Now things get a bit more touchy for some of us. Here is one of those emotional trouble spots I mentioned earlier. Whether we like to face it or not, the Bible teaches Mary is the mother of God. First let’s look at the text, then we will discuss why this title is so important to our lives as Christians in the Church. After Christ had been conceived in her womb, Mary paid a visit to the home of relatives Zacharias and Elizabeth, soon to be parents of John the Baptist. When Mary greeted her cousin, Elizabeth called her blessed and said, “Why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43). Elizabeth knew that her Lord, the Messiah of Israel, was in the womb of Mary. The title “Mother of God” took on great importance in the fourth century, when a heretic named Nestorius-a man who held high office in the Church-claimed that the one in Mary’s womb was certainly man, but that He was not God. Orthodox Christians, with one accord, said, “Wrong!” To see Jesus Christ as something less than God in the flesh is sub-Christian. For unless the one in Mary’s womb was and is God, we are dead in our sins. To safeguard the full deity of Christ, the Church has always insisted that Mary be rightly called-as Elizabeth called herthe Mother of God. This title, of course, does not mean mother of the Holy Trinity, for the Holy Trinity has no mother. Neither does it mean she originated the Person who is God the Son. It refers instead to Mary being the Mother of the Son of God, who assumed full humanity in her womb. Just as we insist on the Virgin Birth of Christ, we also insist that for the nine months Mary carried Him in His humanity He was at every moment fully God as well. Thus we say boldly and with great insistence that Mary is the Mother of God, Theotokos, God-bearer. To say anything less is to side with those who deny His deity. When a man buys a large plot of land and turns cattle out to graze on it, he fences in his acreage. He does so to protect his cattle, to keep them from wandering off, and to discourage rustlers. Similarly, the Church sets doctrinal fences around its foundational truths. And nothing is more basic and important to us than the deity of Christ. Because Christ is God, we set a firm and non-negotiable fence around His divinity by our unmovable confession that Mary is Mother of God.

4. We are to honor Mary and call her blessed.

Now comes the toughest test of all. Not only is Mary the most blessed of women, our model for obedience, and the Mother of God, we are called to honor her and to bless her. How do we know? The Bible tells us so. During her three-month stay at Elizabeth’s house, Mary offered one of the most beautiful prayers of praise to the Lord in all the Scriptures. It begins, “My soul magnifies the Lord”, and thus it has become known as “The Magnificat”. In that prayer, inspired by the Holy Spirit, Mary prophesied, “henceforth all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48). Essentially, all generations in Church history have done so; only the last few centuries have faltered. Our generation of American Christians is filled with those who refuse to bless her, and we must change our ways. For some Christian bodies have come to stand dogmatically against Christ and the New Testament by refusing to bless her. From the beginning of recorded Christian worship, Orthodox Christians have taken special care to venerate or honor Mary in the Liturgy. There is an ancient hymn which begins, “It is truly right to bless you, O Theotokos (Mother of God)”. She is also called in this hymn “ever-blessed and most pure”. The biblical injunction to honor Mary is followed and taken seriously. We do not, of course, worship Mary, for worship is reserved for the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But she is most certainly to be honored and venerated. And because Christ is our elder brother, the firstborn of many brethren, we honor the Virgin Mary as our Mother, our Lady, as well. Just as Eve was mother of the old Adamic race, so Mary is the true Mother of the new race, the Body of Christ, the Church. Perhaps in part because we refuse to honor Mary, our generation seems to struggle with honoring anyone. For example, next time a presidential news conference comes on T.V., watch closely how most of the press corps behave! Far from merely trying to get the story, many are out for intimidation and willful dishonor. While God’s word tells us to honor the king (1 Peter 2:17) and to give preference to each other (Romans 12:10), our generation seems to delight in challenging and humiliating other people, especially those in authority. Not only are we who are Bible-believing Christians urged to give honor to whom honor is due (Romans 13:7), we are called by God in no uncertain terms to bless the Mother of our God. We cannot get around that point in Scripture.

The Old Testament and Mary

We know that the Old Testament is more than just an inspired account of the history of mankind, or of Israel in particular. In its pages-indeed central to its message-is also the prophetic record concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. He is typified throughout. Moses is a type of Christ, in that he leads the people out of bondage into the land of promise. David typifies Christ as King of Israel. Adam was a type of Christ as head of the human race. Often overlooked, however, is the fact that the Virgin Mary is also seen in the prophetic pages of the Old Testament. Most Christians are aware that the Prophet Isaiah predicts Mary’s virgin conception of Christ when he writes: “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). But there are numerous other passages which speak of Mary as well.

Ever-virgin

From the very early years of the Church, Mary was called not only Virgin, but Ever-Virgin. She was seen as never having had a sexual union with Joseph, before or after the birth of Christ. Ezekiel 44:1, 2 is a passage often referred to by the early Fathers in this regard. It states: “Then He brought me back to the outer gate of the sanctuary which faces toward the east, but it was shut. And the LORD said to me, `This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter by it, because the LORD God of Israel has entered by it; therefore it shall be shut.’ “In traditional interpretation of this passage, Mary is the temple and Christ is the Prince of Peace. The gate mentioned is seen as a picture of Christ’s passage through the door of Mary’s womb. You might not find that interpretation in some of today’s commentaries, but it was held by the great majority of early Church Fathers, as well as many of the Reformation leaders. At this point, however, a very valid question can be raised. If she remained a virgin, why does the Gospel of Matthew tell us that Joseph knew not his wife until Christ was born (Matthew 1:25)? From a scriptural standpoint, the presence of the phrase, “until she had brought forth her firstborn Son” does not automatically mean that Joseph must have known her afterward. This is because in both Greek and Hebrew the word until or to can have several different meanings. We find it in 2 Samuel 6:23: “Michal the daughter of Saul had no children to [until] the day of her death”. It is used again in Matthew 28:20 where the risen Christ says “Lo, I am with you always, even to [until] the end of the age”. And in Deuteronomy 34:6 we read that Moses was buried “in a valley in the land of Moab . . . but no one knows his grave to [until] this day”. Obviously the use of the word in these passages does not imply that Michal had a child after her death, that Christ will depart at the end of the age, or that Moses’ burial place was discovered the day Deuteronomy 34:6 was written. By the same token, the word until in Matthew 1:25 does not mean that Joseph and Mary began a sexual union after Christ was born. Such a teaching is found nowhere in Scripture and is contrary to the consistent voice of the entire early Church. But doesn’t the Bible also mention other brothers and sisters of Christ? Who are they and where did they come from? For one thing, they are never directly called the sons and daughters of Mary and Joseph. In several passages the Bible speaks of the children or relatives as “brothers”. Abraham and Lot are called brothers, although Lot was actually Abraham’s nephew. And Jacob and Laban are called brothers, even though Jacob was the son of Rebecca, Laban’s sister. Scripture is therefore silent concerning the nature of this relationship between Christ and these brothers and sisters. Early Fathers differed slightly in their understanding of what the terms meant. Some, such as Saint Ambrose, believed that they were children of a former marriage between Joseph and a wife who died prior to Matthew chapter 1. Others taught that they were cousins. But on one point, almost everyone is in agreement: Mary and Joseph had no sexual union whatsoever, before or after the birth of Christ. I must say in all candor that had my betrothed been the woman chosen by the Father to bear His eternal Son in the flesh, my view of her would have been utterly transformed and my honor for her infinitely heightened. Imagine being betrothed to the Mother of God. It was so with Joseph. His betrothed was ever-virgin.

Royalty

If we as the Church are called to be “not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but . . . holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27), does it not follow that she who is the progenitor of the Lord of that Church should be of that same holy character? Not only has Mary by the mercy and power of God conquered both sin and death, the psalmist sees a glimpse of her in heaven through prophetic eyes. For in Psalm 45, Christ is King and Mary is at His side as Queen and rightly so. If God can make us “kings and priests” (Revelation 1:6) for all eternity, certainly He has the prerogative to crown her with higher honor in heaven’s royal procession. Little did John and James realize, the day they argued about which of them might occupy the seat of honor at Christ’s right hand in the Kingdom, that God the Father had already reserved that space for the marvelous woman He chose to bear His Son for our salvation. The honor is appropriate for the most blessed of all women, the one who is our very icon of holiness. Who else could be more rightly rewarded? Thus the psalmist is well within the mark when he writes of Christ, “At Your right hand stands the queen” (Psalm 45:9)!

Other Traditions

There are two other beliefs concerning Mary that must be briefly mentioned and addressed. The first is her bodily assumption into heaven, the other her immaculate conception. It was widely reported in the early Church that shortly after her death, Mary’s body was assumed into heaven. In later centuries, the Roman Church ratified this belief as dogma, while the Eastern Church withheld such an official imprimatur. Most Christians agree that such a miracle is within the realm of firm biblical precedent, Enoch and Elijah being two examples. Further, there is no known record of any gravesite or relics of the Holy Virgin. The assumption of the Virgin is safely seen as an historic Christian tradition, though not recorded in the Scriptures. The Immaculate Conception of Mary is a doctrine unique to the modern Roman Church. In an effort to distance Mary (and protect Christ) from the stain of sin, the Immaculate Conception holds Mary was conceived and born without sin. The Orthodox Church firmly rejects this doctrine on the basis of both Scripture and tradition. Whatever other excesses may have cropped up in history, the Roman Church has never believed or officially taught that Mary was in any way coequal with the Trinity or was to be worshiped with the Trinity. Such allegations are sometimes set forth by critics of the Roman Church, but without basis in fact.

The Vespers Prayer

Near the end of Vespers in the Orthodox Church, the officiant says, “O holy Mother of God, save us”. What does this mean? The Orthodox Church has taught from the very beginning that Mary is the supreme example, or prototype, of what happens to a person who fully places trust and faith in God. Everything we aspire to become in Christ, she already is. We are all to “receive” Christ (John 1:12). And as we noted previously, Mary was the first human being who did receive Christ. Out of the millions of “decisions” made for Christ, Mary’s was the first. Therefore, whatever promises the Holy Scriptures hold for us, Mary already possesses. If the sacred Scriptures declare that we are all kings (Revelation 1:6), is it so strange that the Church refers to Mary as Queen? If the Holy Bible promised that you and I shall judge angels (1 Corinthians 6:3), is it so odd that the Church should sing that Mary is “more honorable than the cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim”? If we who are called “holy brethren” (Hebrews 3:1) are commanded to be holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:15, 16) and are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1), is it so unthinkable that she whose holy body was the recipient of God Incarnate should be called “most holy” by the Church? If Saint Paul instructs us to “[pray] always . . . for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:18), is it so outrageous to confess with the Church that Holy Mary (along with all the saints who have passed from death to life and continually stand in the presence of Christ) intercedes before her Son on behalf of all men? Mary volitionally relinquished her will to the will of God, thus cooperating fully with the purpose of God. So the original question, “Can Mary save us?” leads to another question: “Can we save others?” Again, the Holy Scriptures speak with resounding clarity. Here are some examples: “Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you” (1 Timothy 4:16). “Let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20). “And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire” (Jude 22, 23). Fire saves (1 Corinthians 3:15), prayer saves (James 5:15), angels save (Isaiah 63:9), baptism saves (1 Peter 3:21), preaching saves (1 Corinthians 1:21), the Apostle Paul saved (Romans 11:14). New life in Christ, or salvation, is both personal union with Him and an incorporation into the wholeness of the Body, the Church. Salvation is a Church affair, a Church concern, because we are all affected by it. In another biblical image, salvation is seen as a family matter-God’s family (”the whole family in heaven and earth”-Ephesians 3:15). Everybody gets into the act, so to speak. Therefore, under Christ we each have a part to play in the corporateness of His saving act. We do not save alone; Mary does not save alone. Jesus Christ is our wellspring of salvation. And He said, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). But, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7). Mary has a unique role in our salvation because she provided the physical body of Christ and thereby became the “mother” of all those who would be saved. That is why Jesus, while on the Cross, said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” and then said to Saint John, “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26, 27).

Taking Action

Many Christians have been grossly misinformed in the last 150 years concerning the historical Church’s view of Mary. Therefore, I would suggest that you keep this booklet and use it to help others when the question arises. And remember also that there are things that are unique to the Virgin Mary. She was the only one who gave her flesh to the Son of God, and she is uniquely to be blessed throughout all generations (Luke 1:48). What we do about Mary is connected directly to what we do about Church. The community of Christ’s followers is called to act together. Taking action with regard to Mary is not simply personal or private; it has to do with responding as The Church. And where in Christendom has the fullness of truth concerning Mary been preserved? Even most Protestants-both liberal and conservative-know she is slighted in their circles. The answer for Protestants who take the biblical and historical evidence seriously lies neither within the Protestant Churches nor in the Roman Church, with its questionable late dogmatic additions concerning Mary. I urge you to visit and get to know the historic Orthodox Church which has maintained the biblical fidelity concerning Mary and Christian Faith in general. Within the boundaries of Orthodoxy, the faith and practice of the Church safeguard true commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ together with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. It is there that the truths of the Bible are taught in their entirety, where the worship of God is experienced in Spirit and in truth, and where Mary and the great cloud of witnesses for Christ throughout the ages are honored and revered. The hour is at hand for all of us who love Christ and take seriously the Holy Scriptures to set our hearts and minds to giving Holy Mary her proper due in the proper Church. We do so because God has done great things for and through her (Luke 1:49). As Christians we do not live by feelings, we live by faith. Let us once for all rise above those things the devil has sown in our hearts to neutralize us against this precious woman who gave birth to our Savior. Bless her in the midst of God’s people. Follow her example in exalting Christ. Confess her as the Mother of God. Come home to the Church that has kept intact our Holy Faith. And may we help turn our generation back to giving Mary the honor and blessing which God has commanded.

© Conciliar Press. Used by permission.

The author identifies himself as James — presumably the kinsman of Jesus — and claims to have written shortly after the death of Herod in 4 B.C. This dating is unlikely, however, as the work shows the influence of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. An early boundary is set by the use of Matthew and Luke; a late boundary is set by Origen’s referring to the work, and by its inclusion in the Bodmer papyri. Within this range, a dating in the middle of the second century is accepted by most scholars.

The majority of the work is devoted to the life of Mary, the mother of Christ. She is portrayed not only as a virgin but as an example of purity her entire life. Its popularity is attested to by the numerous surviving ancient translations, the earliest dating back to the third century. It confirms the antiquity of such traditions as Joseph’s being a widower with several children, who is appointed Mary’s guardian; the birth of Jesus in a cave; and the martyrdom of John the Baptist’s father Zechariah during the slaughter of the infants.

Over 140 manuscripts containing the Greek text of the Infancy Gospel of James have been recovered. We have the book in the original Greek and in several oriental versions, the oldest of which is the Syriac. But, oddly enough, there is no Latin version. The matter is found in an expanded and altered form in the ‘Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew’, but we have yet to find an old Latin translation of the present text. Such a thing seems to have existed, since the work is condemned in the Gelasian Decree.

Though the Protevangelium has never been considered Scripture, it is well worth reading to see what early Christians accepted as normal. Within living memory of the last of the apostles, the Protevangelium was being copied, translated and distributed among the churches, who found it both profitable and familiar.

Read the text…

Kissing is a universal sign of affection. It is an act of love, an expression of endearment, not only between man and woman, parents and children, but is also the expression of one’s feelings for the ritual objects and the religious duties associated with them.

There are no religious laws that require us to kiss a ritual or holy object. There is only the force of custom as it develops through the ages. In varying degrees kissing has become an optional commonplace among the Jews as an expression of religious devotion at the following times:

• The tallit [prayer shawl] is kissed just before putting it on.
• The tefillin [phylacteries] are kissed when taken them out of their bag and before replacing them in the bag.
• The mezuzah on the doorpost is sometimes kissed upon entering or leaving a house. It is done by touching the mezuzah with one’s hand and kissing the fingers that made contact with the mezuzah.
• The Torah is kissed when it passes by in the synagogue. Here, too, it is often done by extending a hand to touch the Torah mantle and then kissing the hand. Some touch the Torah with the edge of a tallit and then kiss the tallit.
• The Torah is also kissed before one recites the blessings over it. ere it is done by taking the edge of one’s tallit or the sash that is used to tie the scroll together, touching the outside of the scroll with it, and then kissing the tallit or the sash. Many people place the tallit or sash to the very words where the reading is about to begin. The sages advised against doing this as it may hasten a wearing away or erasure of the letters. At best, they recommend touching only the margin area near the line where the reading is about to begin. In all instances, one should not touch the Torah parchment with one’s bare hand. The custom of not doing so derives
• from a special edict issued by the sages prohibiting such contact (Shabbat 14a: OH 147:1).
• The curtain on the Ark (paokhet) is kissed before one opens it, or after closing it when the Torah is put away.
• A siddur [prayer book] and [C]Humash [Jewish Bible] are kissed before putting them away. These holy books are also kissed if they are accidentally dropped on the floor.

The Lost Gospel of Mary: The Mother of Jesus in Three Ancient Texts

Excerpt:
Mary: Who Was She?

Rediscovering Mary

Interview from National Review Online with author Frederica Mathewes-Greene, April 5, 2007

Q. Frederica, you have a new book out about Mary. Have you discovered a new gospel? Where was it hiding?

A. I feel ambivalent about the title — kind of lurid, isn’t it! But my point was that there are many, many ancient Christian texts that are fully orthodox; it’s not only a matter of New Testament versus gnostics. Earlier generations of Christians read the same kind of supplemental and devotional works we do today: biographies, commentaries, letters, sermons, debates with non-believers…pretty much anything you would find in a Christian bookstore today. Except men’s dress socks with little fish and crosses on ‘em.

These works got “lost” mostly because we forgot them—our “family memory” fades after a few decades or centuries. Contemporary Western Christians have a bad case of spiritual amnesia. So I’m hoping to put a few of the more appealing and worthy works back on the shelf. In this book I present three ancient texts concerning the Virgin Mary, with new translations and verse-by-verse commentary. The first is a “gospel”, or narrative biography, of the Virgin Mary’s birth and early life.

Q. How important is the life of Mary, especially in her Son’s final days, as a model for Christians?

A. Mary’s suffering faith during our Lord’s last days is a model and inspiration for all believers. But what I found in these three documents was that the greatest interest for early Christians was in her pregnancy. The fact of the Incarnation was something early Christians continually marvelled over; also, it was the grounds on which they had to fight most often, defending the real divinity and real humanity of Jesus. And it was Mary whom God called on to provide the physical matrix for Christ’s appearance in the flesh; she was a regular human being, one of us. That means that on one side, Jesus’ grandmother was named Anna, while on the other side…you see how mind-blowing it is.

Q. What does she teach us about sacrifice?

A. The first text, the “Gospel of Mary,” shows us Mary as an adorable little girl, and then as a teenager coping with a “crisis pregnancy” that could cause her execution as a suspected adultress. This was an extremely popular work among Eastern Christians (that is, Asian, African, and Middle-Eastern) in the second century. Many of the stories here made it to Europe, but the intact text did not. A 16th century scholar who translated it into Latin named it “the Protevangelium of James;” this is how scholars know it today, but it’s not the original title (no one title stuck, actually). In this work, Mary is steadfast under this trial, and teaches us much about courage.

The other two texts illuminate other aspects of Mary’s role. The second is a very short prayer that was found on a scrap of papyrus in Egypt in 1917, and dated 250 AD; it is the earliest prayer to Mary. It begins, “Under your compassion we take refuge…”, and it’s still in use East and West (Roman Catholics know it as “Sub Tuum Praesidium.”) This second text shows us that early Christians believed that she (like all the saints) is not dead, but alive in Christ’s presence and continually in prayer, so we can call on her as a prayer partner. The third text is a beautiful and intricately complex “sung sermon”, written around 520 AD, which explores the mystery of the Incarnation and all the ways that Mary’s role is foreshadowed in Scripture.

Q. Is Mary of particular importance to women as a spiritual guide?

A. One of the things that has surprised me, as I explore early Christian spirituality and the Eastern Church, is that there is so little interest in gender division. There aren’t separate types of prayer or spiritual disciplines for men as opposed to women, or for Greek rather than Arab or Egyptian Christians, or for rich versus poor Christians—none of that seems to matter. In Western Christianity, of course, we hear a great deal about tailor-made spirituality, right down to personality type; it fits the grid of our consumer culture. But in these texts there’s very little interest in Mary’s feminity; all the emphasis is on her humanity. She is the Theotokos, the “God-bearer” in the sense of bearing a child; her example invites all people everywhere to be Theophorus, “God-bearers” in the sense of bearing God’s presence like a candlewick bears a flame.

Q. It often seems that poor Joseph doesn’t get the coverage Mary and Jesus (natch) get. What should we know of him?

A. Yes, Joseph is usually relegated to standing in the background and leaning on his staff. There’s a bit more about him in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew knew the story of Mary’s pregnancy from Joseph’s point of view, Luke from Mary’s), and in the “Gospel of Mary” he is an even more developed figure. When he discovers Mary pregnant, he becomes extremely distraught; when the High Priest tells him he must separate from Mary now that she’s pregnant, he weeps openly; when he’s making plans to bring her to the enrollment in Bethlehem, he talks about how embarrassed he is to present this pregnant woman, decades younger than he is, as his wife. Most interesting is the scene when Joseph helps Mary down from the donkey and goes to find a midwife. Suddenly all of nature is frozen: he sees the birds motionless in the air and the stream standing still. The time of Christ’s birth is accompanied by nature’s stillness and awe, just as his Crucifixion will be accompanied by noontime darkness and earthquakes.

Q. Could Mary REALLY have said NO to God?

A. There’s a toughie! It’s the unanswerable question of how God’s will is done, yet humans aren’t mere robots. I think we have to say, on the one hand, that Mary’s acceptance was free and unconstrained, and all Creation hung breathless on her reply. But, on the other hand, God knew her as well as he knows every human being; he knew her every thought and action, and so he knew that she was the right girl to ask. When my daughter was a toddler, I used to think of this puzzle this way: I knew that if she heard me open the refrigerator, she would come over and reach into the bowl on the bottom shelf for an apple. I didn’t compel her to do that, she was free not to, but I knew my daughter. He knows us that way. And God draws us in a similar way, much like a beautiful piece of fruit draws a little girl: his beauty is compelling, and anyone who’s had even a taste of his presence never forgets it, but continually hungers for more (just like a whiff of cinnamon at the mall makes you crave a cinnamon bun). Christianity is not an institution, not a brokerage for spiritual transactions, but a treasury of wisdom; it’s the “art and science” of gradually, increasingly being able to bear the light of Christ—the thing that we are made for, and yearn for.

Q. Are Catholics too into Mary?

A. When you picture Christ on the Cross looking at his mother, and think about how much he loved her at that moment, and how he said to John (and through him to us), “Behold your mother” — surely no amount of love we give her could ever displease him. But I think that over the centuries her role has sometimes been misunderstood and exaggerated, in ways that must distress her. Folk belief has sometimes held that she can overrule her Son, that she has her own magic powers, that she is something of a demigod. But the leading characteristic of her life was humility and service; her whole goal was perfect union with God’s will! Mary has been sometimes misunderstood over the centuries, and accorded imaginary powers, separate from her Son, things that would probably sadden her. I saw an anti-Catholic comic book once that showed Mary kneeling before God’s throne and asking him to have mercy on people who exaggerate her role, and the thing is, that’s a pretty good picture of what the best of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian belief says about her: that she us praying for us, that she is our friend and prayer partner.

Q. Is there a message in your book for non-Christians?

A. One of the interesting things about the Gospel of Mary, that I hope will intrigue non-Christians, is that it is such a strong depiction of a little girl being loved. When I read Julia Duin’s extraordinary 4-part series in the Washington Times about sex-selection abortion in India I was heartbroken; I had never before visualized the century after century of little newborn girls being strangled, buried alive, left out for wild animals to devour—simply because they were female. Now sonagrams and abortion are making this killing a prenatal matter, and the ratio of newborn girls to boys is plummeting. Well, that’s the way much of the world has been, for much of history; the most endangered human being on the planet is a little girl.

But in the Gospel of Mary we see the birth of a girl greeted with a cry of exultation, and watch as the girl is treasured and cuddled and loved throughout her childhood. There’s a lovely 14th century mosaic icon in a church outside Constantinople, that shows her parents, Joachim and Anna, embracing and kissing her. Whatever else was going on in the rest of the world, among Christians in the second century it was easy to believe that a little girl was precious. That’s worth thinking about.

Q. What about Mary in the Easter story is most revealing?

A. It’s funny, but the texts I look at in my book don’t focus Easter; they’re primarily concerned with Mary’s conception of Jesus. So many splinter groups at the time were denying either that Jesus was God, or that he was human, and the obvious place to emphasize that he was both was in Mary’s womb. But of course, Mary’s role at the Cross, on Easter and on Pentecost, is resoundingly significant. What most intrigues me is the hints in the Scriptures that at the time of the conception of Christ, she had only a partial idea of what God’s plan was. The hymn she sings after the conception of Christ, known as the “Magnificat”, clearly expects that the Messiah will be a military leader and expel the Roman oppressors. That didn’t happen; very tragically the reverse, and the utter devastation of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. So it must have surprised Mary when Symeon told her, on her first visit to the Temple after Jesus’ birth, that “a sword will pierce your soul also.” In Orthodox Christian hymnography, as Mary sees Jesus carrying the Cross, she calls out to him and asks where he is going; perhaps to another wedding at Cana, to turn water into wine? We know that in a deep sense this moment is, in fact, the entrance of the Bridegroom, and that he is going to a feast and he will provide the wine. These hymns, which we will sing Thursday night in Eastern Orthodox churches, portray her grief with great intensity; it’s a good idea to bring some tissues to dry your eyes.

Q. What are you doing for Easter?

A. We Orthodox Christians have about a dozen services in the days leading up to Easter, and many churchs will host all-night vigils on Friday night, as the psalms are read aloud next to Christ’s tomb. We observe Easter (we call it Pascha) with a midnight service on Saturday night. We’ll begin in a darkened church with some ancient hymns, have a candlelight procession outside, and then come back in to find the church transformed with light and flowers. The service that follows takes about 3 hours! When it’s over we gather for a breakfast feast with champagne and all the foods we’ve been fasting from during Lent. The last person rolls out the door around dawn—just when our neighbors are heading out for their Sunrise Service. It’s a powerhouse of an evening, and I don’t think I could handle it more than once a year!

Article originally appeared on Frederica.com. See website for complete article licensing information.