Religio Philologi: The Epistle of James
The Christian faith is rooted in a sublime set of mysteries that inspire the human reason that can never quite comprehend them, rather as the circle can never be quite squared. Some of these mysteries concern the origins of all that is most important to us: How and why is there something rather than nothing, or, rather, how did God make something out of nothing? How did life come from non-life and human consciousness—the soul—out of the non-conscious? Some vain scientists think they have answers to these questions, but they are no more satisfying than the ancient image of the elephant standing on the back of the turtle floating in a basin of water.
Another set of mysteries appears to defy the principle of non-contradiction: How can Christ be both fully human and “very God”? How can the elements of communion be both bread and wine and yet the body and blood of Christ? How can we be saved along by the faith that is given by grace and yet be told that faith without works is dead?
It is only by subordinating our reason to Tradition that we can begin to understand some part of these mysteries. But this same subordination is required of the aspiring scholar or scientist, who, if he were to try to begin his studies by questioning step one, would never make it to step two. I would not presume to offer any original ideas here, and if I do deviate into originality, I hope someone will take me to task. The correct term for an original thinker is heretic, and the common fault of well-intentioned heretics—and such people exist—is that they take one side of a mysterious truth and develop it to the exclusion or prejudice of the other. This was the mistake of Arians and docetists, Nestorians and monotheists, and it is the fault of those who would elevate human free will to the exclusion of grace or grace to the exclusion of works.
This last set of misunderstandings can be emended by a consideration of the Epistle of James, one of the more controversial books of the New Testament. The authorship, dating, and canonicity have all been subjects of dispute, and the epistle’s most famous sentence, “faith without works is dead,” has inspired something like rage in “Pauline” theologians. I write “Pauline,” in full awareness that the Apostle Paul himself would have rejected both the term and the idea it represents. While different New Testament authors are addressing different audiences with various purposes in mind and various emphases, there is only one theology.
In antiquity this epistle was commonly attributed to James the Just, the brother of Our Lord—whatever brother may mean in this context—and first bishop of Jerusalem. Others have supposed it was written by one of the apostles, either the greater or lesser James. There are also the professional doubters who, with no firm evidence, insist it was written in the 2nd century. The only evidence they have is that James's Greek is too literary for an unlettered Palestinian Jew of the First Century. This is a very naive argument. It assumes that a) we know how much Greek was learned by Jews in those days--a matter of considerable dispute, and b) that no Hellenic secretary or assistant could have cleaned up the text--the fact that James does not mention an assistant is entirely irrelevant (Some of the work published in Chronicles undergoes a miraculous transformation at the hands of Aaron Wolf, who is hardly ever credited with an assist), and c) that James's Greek is highly literary, an assertion that is true only by comparison with the wretched Greek of the Apocalypse.
Note: It is not simply a question of writing in Koine: the Writers of the Greek New Testament do not write anywhere no so well as their pagan contemporaries or the later Fathers. I spent years studying disputed authorship problems and the scholarly techniques used to solve them, and I can safely say that internal evidence of the kind employed on NT problems is almost never useful.
While it would be interesting to know for certain who the authoris, it is a matter of little importance. It is a canonical Scripture, and that is all that matters. Origen (d. 254) and, according to Eusebius
Irenaeus (d. after 200) accepted it. Eusebius puts it among the works that have been disputed, and Theodore of Mopsuestia—not, perhaps, the most reliable of the ancient fathers--did not accept it. Jerome acknowledged the controversy but was confident it would evaporate, as indeed it did, and Christian moral theology has fruitfully incorporated James into its rich and multi-faceted understanding of human life and human duty.
During that unfortunate episode known as the Renaissance, Luther cast some suspicion on the work, not from any new historical knowledge, but because he thought James's emphasis on the necessity of good works could be used to weaken Paul's insistence on grace. He was too respectful of the tradition, however, to reject the work, though this has been claimed. Quite reasonably, Lutherans do not wish sentences from James to be taken out of context and used to diminish Paul’s teachings on grace. One might reply that once the Church embraced James, one might just as well argue that Paul should not be searched for proof-texts that can be used to refute James. We have one set of NT Scriptures and one faith, however much we might disagree over what I insist are trifles. If Paul and James disagree on so serious a matter, then the Church went off the rails very early, and we undoubtedly lack the knowledge to correct the Tradition. I think that fair-minded Christians can understand that what differences there are arise out of the different circumstances in which Paul and James were writing and that, indeed, they are less apparent than the different arguments put forward by Augustine on predestination and free will.
Some writers have misapplied the term deuterocanonicity, which refers to OT works not accepted in the rabbinical tradition, to NT works that were for a time disputed (antilegomena), such as the Epistle to the Hebrews, James, and II John, but the arguments do not amount to anything more than special pleading. Whatever doubts some early fathers might have had about the James’ Epistle were for the most part resolved by the time of Jerome and Augustine. That most lucid and severe of doctors, Athanasius, had no doubt that James was canonical.
James’s Epistle is addressed specifically to the 12 tribes of Israel in diaspora, and the intended audience may explain some of its peculiarities, e.g., the lack of detail on Jewish customs, which the writer can take for granted, and the opposition of empty formalism and corresponding emphasis on active charity. For now, this very simplistic introduction should be sufficient prologue for a glance at some of the principal points of the text. I do not wish, at this point, to engage in a learned or unlearned controversy over the authority of the canon or the place of Luther in the history of the Church. Let Cato's "Rem tene" inform this discussion.
Chapter One
James addresses his letter to the 12 tribes in diaspora, that is dispersion. This phrase has unnecessarily disturbed some commentators. After the Babylonian Captivity, a great many Jews—probably a majority—lived outside Judaea. If James the Just is the author, it makes sense for the bishop of Jerusalem to send a letter to Christian Jews living elsewhere, but many explanations are possible.
2-4 (in Authorized Version or AV)
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
The first Christians appear to have called each other "brothers," and it is not always entirely clear in the NT, whether the term brother refers to a) a literal brother, b) a close relative, or c) a member of the Christian brotherhood, as it does here. It does not, typically, refer to any member of the human race, which makes some of Christ's teachings (on forgiveness, for example) rather more specific than they are sometimes taken to be.
I remind you that temptation (πειρασμός) means the tests we are put to, typically by the Tempter, and not simply the promptings of desire. Patience (ὑπομονή) here is not so much what we think of as the virtue of patience as it is endurance.
8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
This phrase seems to be quoted in the early apostolic writings of I Clement and Barnabas, lending some authority to James's early acceptance.
9-12 James warns his readers not to exalt themselves, that wealth and prestige pass away but lowliness or being humble (ταπεινός) is exalted.
18-27 James gets down to his central argument, that it is not enough merely to hear the word and express our faith.
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
This is a very rich passage, but the most common translations are not so helpful as they might be. I have been reading or hearing this passage for decades without really understanding the point of comparison, but it is probably only because I am obtuse. Some commentators have made heavy weather of the word man; acknowledging that ἀνήρ refers ordinarily to the male sex and not to the human race, they either read an irrelevant meaning into it (e.g., women look at themselves more carefully in the mirror) or pretend that ἀνήρ really is generically a person here. Why male? Who knows? It is may simply be the image that came to mind.
First off, the word translated as "behold" in the AV and the Douay-Rheims (DR) is the verb κατανοεῖν, which means something like understand or perceive with the mind. The emphasis is therefore not on vision so much as it is on recognition. This simile is, I believe, profound and not at all shallow or trivial. We look into the mirror and recognize "the face of birth," that is, who we are in the creation and then going away we forget that recognition. Just as we should never forget the image of God made in us our place in creation, so, when we have looked into the perfect or fulfilled law of liberty revealed by Christ, we should not forget and fail to carry out the commandment to love our neighbor.
A man who pretends to be threskos, that is scrupulous in religion as the Pharisees were, but does not visit widows and orphans, has only a vain and fruitless religion. Jerome's religio is an excellent translation, but English religion is a bit flat. For the Romans, religio means a scrupulous attention, through ritual, divination, etc., to the will of the gods. Thus a man might be very religious but not charitable or moral.
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The Apocalypse was written while the St. John the apostle was in exile and thus he may not have had access to the customary amanuensis (this may explain the inferior Greek). We know St. Paul used one routinely (as many busy people of business do to this day).
The authorship of the Apocalypse is much disputed. John is a very common name, and the author does not claim to be the beloved disciple. Since the fact of authorship is not known, we cannot deduce anything from it.
Another excellent article, but I believe it should be "monophysitism" rather than "monotheism" in third paragraph.
Or monotheletism.
I meant to type monophysitism--monotheletism being too obscure. Will change tomorrow, Thanks.
Dr Fleming,
Your words:
"It is only by subordinating our reason to Tradition that we can begin to understand some part of these mysteries."
At little over a month ago, a friend of mine, thirty years my younger, died which eating dinner (lunch) with his father with whom and for whom he work.
Ostensibly, I was his mentor; yet, in many things, I learned much from him.
When we were together, he would often say, "Let's talk about the mysteries!" By that he meant the seeming ambiguities, the paradoxes or the apparent contradictions which call our faith along the Way on which the Christian walk is taken.
You have, Dr. Fleming, already mentioned some of them. We both came to the conclusion that the inability to accept these mysteries has led to no little of the polarization in modernity. We called it "the Puritan mindset."
The natural philosophers who have hijacked "science" cannot tolerate God in their model of "humans coming into being." They are radical secular Puritans. On the other side, are the "creationists," who, like their counterparts, cannot tolerate ambiguity, and deny that God could have created through the very natural order of which He is the Author. They are the radical "religious" Puritans.
I look forward to learning a lot by participating in this discussion. If my friend were still among us quick ones, he would relish reading what is sure to be an interesting discussion. Where he is in eternity and where I am in time is another one of the mysteries.
@6 Robert
My Christian faith -- which has evolved from skeptical Anglicanism, to Free Church charismania, to Eastern Orthodox -- has always embraced the concept of a miraculous, spontaneous creation which several decades ago was referred to as the Still Statement Theory. There are several supporting scriptures apart from the Genesis account of the six-day creation. Colossians has a verse about things being made of things that cannot be seen. Did the Lord give Paul a vision of sub-atomic particles? Who can say?
I don't push my theory in peoples' faces as a concrete, indisputable Christian doctrine, but the idea has certainly been picked up by fans of the Matrix, who see the "world as an illusion" as a complete possibility.
Back in the 1980s there used to be a monthly tabloid called Bible Science News which ran some very plausible articles on tectonic plate theory, wind blown sands in New Mexico, and seeds from deep bore Antarctic ice which supported the Young Earth Theory, while questioning evolution. And many scientists are reaching the same conclusion as a result of their research. The most shrill and strident "puritans" seem to be the Richard Dawkins, and Carl Sagans of this world.
Etienne @ 7
Ultimately, if one places one's faith in the Living God as the Author, Creator, Sustainer, and Finisher of the Cosmos, then one must embrace Him as the Creator and that we are His creatures, a part of the cosmic and natural order.
My faith has also embraced the concept of a miraculous and spontaneous creation, using your words because they state it so well. But I also recognize that I am the creature, the finite one; and on top of that I am a fallen creature. When I, however, arrogate to myself that I in my reason and rational thought processes can transcend my finite and fallen state as well as the nature embedded in me and I in it, then I am ignoring that reason itself is fallen, then I am nigh on to blasphemy and certainly in sin. Thus, my faith, as you have so well stated, but not my reason draws me to the concept of the miraculous and spontaneous creation but that is not the same, not at all the same, as claiming that I have overcome the ambiguity by applying cold and rational science to win the day. That is what natural philosophy does - the Richard Dawkins and the Carl Sagans of the world; but that is also what "creationism" does.
The friend of whom I spoke in a previous post on this thread, got in my car one night and asked, "Doc, you hold that you, biologically, came to be during an intimate moment between your mom and your dad in which one of his sperm fertilized one of her eggs, do you not?" I replied, "Yes." He then asked, "You hold, do you not, that you are a creature, created by God in His image, fallen though it may be, do you not?" I said, "Yes." He responded, "That's our ambiguity, our paradox, or mystery for tonight!" That mystery opened up others, others which we had discussed and prayed over before: the Incarnation, the Trinity, the Church as the Body and the Bride of Christ, the nature of creation, communion, etc.
A mystery to struggle over and to grow with was one of my young friends great gifts. He also gave me a copy of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History; a reprint of the Geneva Bible; a reprint of the oldest publication of the King James Version and the Gospel of Judas to which he said, "Doc, this is so you can study that which you don't need to know about."
Added above:
The Christian faith is rooted in a sublime set of mysteries that inspire the human reason that can never quite comprehend them, rather as the circle can never be quite squared. Some of these mysteries concern the origins of all that is most important to us: How and why is there something rather than nothing, or, rather, how did God make something out of nothing? How did life come from non-life and human consciousness—the soul—out of the non-conscious? Some vain scientists think they have answers to these questions, but they are no more satisfying than the ancient image of the elephant standing on the back of the turtle floating in a basin of water.
Another set of mysteries appears to defy the principle of non-contradiction: How can Christ be both fully human and “very God”? How can the elements of communion be both bread and wine and yet the body and blood of Christ? How can we be saved along by the faith that is given by grace and yet be told that faith without works is dead?
It is only by subordinating our reason to Tradition that we can begin to understand some part of these mysteries. But this same subordination is required of the aspiring scholar or scientist, who, if he were to try to begin his studies by questioning step one, would never make it to step two. I would not presume to offer any original ideas here, and if I do deviate into originality, I hope someone will take me to task. The correct term for an original thinker is heretic, and the common fault of well-intentioned heretics—and such people exist—is that they take one side of a mysterious truth and develop it to the exclusion or prejudice of the other. This was the mistake of Arians and docetists, Nestorians and monotheists, and it is the fault of those who would elevate human free will to the exclusion of grace or grace to the exclusion of works.
This last set of misunderstandings can be emended by a consideration of the Epistle of James, one of the more controversial books of the New Testament. The authorship, dating, and canonicity have all been subjects of dispute, and the epistle’s most famous sentence, “faith without works is dead,” has inspired something like rage in “Pauline” theologians. I write “Pauline,” in full awareness that the Apostle Paul himself would have rejected both the term and the idea it represents. While different New Testament authors are addressing different audiences with various purposes in mind and various emphases, there is only one theology.
In antiquity this epistle was commonly attributed to James the Just, the brother of Our Lord—whatever brother may mean in this context—and first bishop of Jerusalem. Others have supposed it was written by one of the apostles, either the greater or lesser James. There are also the professional doubters who, with no firm evidence, insist it was written in the 2nd century. The only evidence they have is that James's Greek is too literary for an unlettered Palestinian Jew of the First Century. This is a very naive argument. It assumes that a) we know how much Greek was learned by Jews in those days--a matter of considerable dispute, and b) that no Hellenic secretary or assistant could have cleaned up the text--the fact that James does not mention an assistant is entirely irrelevant (Some of the work published in Chronicles undergoes a miraculous transformation at the hands of Aaron Wolf, who is hardly ever credited with an assist), and c) that James's Greek is highly literary, an assertion that is true only by comparison with the wretched Greek of the Apocalypse.
Note: It is not simply a question of writing in Koine: the Writers of the Greek New Testament do not write anywhere no so well as their pagan contemporaries or the later Fathers. I spent years studying disputed authorship problems and the scholarly techniques used to solve them, and I can safely say that internal evidence of the kind employed on NT problems is almost never useful.
While it would be interesting to know for certain who the authoris, it is a matter of little importance. It is a canonical Scripture, and that is all that matters. Origen (d. 254) and, according to Eusebius
Irenaeus (d. after 200) accepted it. Eusebius puts it among the works that have been disputed, and Theodore of Mopsuestia—not, perhaps, the most reliable of the ancient fathers--did not accept it. Jerome acknowledged the controversy but was confident it would evaporate, as indeed it did, and Christian moral theology has fruitfully incorporated James into its rich and multi-faceted understanding of human life and human duty.
During that unfortunate episode known as the Renaissance, Luther cast some suspicion on the work, not from any new historical knowledge, but because he thought James's emphasis on the necessity of good works could be used to weaken Paul's insistence on grace. He was too respectful of the tradition, however, to reject the work, though this has been claimed. Quite reasonably, Lutherans do not wish sentences from James to be taken out of context and used to diminish Paul’s teachings on grace. One might reply that once the Church embraced James, one might just as well argue that Paul should not be searched for proof-texts that can be used to refute James. We have one set of NT Scriptures and one faith, however much we might disagree over what I insist are trifles. If Paul and James disagree on so serious a matter, then the Church went off the rails very early, and we undoubtedly lack the knowledge to correct the Tradition. I think that fair-minded Christians can understand that what differences there are arise out of the different circumstances in which Paul and James were writing and that, indeed, they are less apparent than the different arguments put forward by Augustine on predestination and free will.
Some writers have misapplied the term deuterocanonicity, which refers to OT works not accepted in the rabbinical tradition, to NT works that were for a time disputed (antilegomena), such as the Epistle to the Hebrews, James, and II John, but the arguments do not amount to anything more than special pleading. Whatever doubts some early fathers might have had about the James’ Epistle were for the most part resolved by the time of Jerome and Augustine. That most lucid and severe of doctors, Athanasius, had no doubt that James was canonical.
James’s Epistle is addressed specifically to the 12 tribes of Israel in diaspora, and the intended audience may explain some of its peculiarities, e.g., the lack of detail on Jewish customs, which the writer can take for granted, and the opposition of empty formalism and corresponding emphasis on active charity. For now, this very simplistic introduction should be sufficient prologue for a glance at some of the principal points of the text. I do not wish, at this point, to engage in a learned or unlearned controversy over the authority of the canon or the place of Luther in the history of the Church. Let Cato's "Rem tene" inform this discussion.
Chapter One
James addresses his letter to the 12 tribes in diaspora, that is dispersion. This phrase has unnecessarily disturbed some commentators. After the Babylonian Captivity, a great many Jews—probably a majority—lived outside Judaea. If James the Just is the author, it makes sense for the bishop of Jerusalem to send a letter to Christian Jews living elsewhere, but many explanations are possible.
2-4 (in Authorized Version or AV)
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
The first Christians appear to have called each other "brothers," and it is not always entirely clear in the NT, whether the term brother refers to a) a literal brother, b) a close relative, or c) a member of the Christian brotherhood, as it does here. It does not, typically, refer to any member of the human race, which makes some of Christ's teachings (on forgiveness, for example) rather more specific than they are sometimes taken to be.
I remind you that temptation (πειρασμός) means the tests we are put to, typically by the Tempter, and not simply the promptings of desire. Patience (ὑπομονή) here is not so much what we think of as the virtue of patience as it is endurance.
8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
This phrase seems to be quoted in the early apostolic writings of I Clement and Barnabas, lending some authority to James's early acceptance.
9-12 James warns his readers not to exalt themselves, that wealth and prestige pass away but lowliness or being humble (ταπεινός) is exalted.
18-27 James gets down to his central argument, that it is not enough merely to hear the word and express our faith.
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
This is a very rich passage, but the most common translations are not so helpful as they might be. I have been reading or hearing this passage for decades without really understanding the point of comparison, but it is probably only because I am obtuse. Some commentators have made heavy weather of the word man; acknowledging that ἀνήρ refers ordinarily to the male sex and not to the human race, they either read an irrelevant meaning into it (e.g., women look at themselves more carefully in the mirror) or pretend that ἀνήρ really is generically a person here. Why male? Who knows? It is may simply be the image that came to mind.
First off, the word translated as "behold" in the AV and the Douay-Rheims (DR) is the verb κατανοεῖν, which means something like understand or perceive with the mind. The emphasis is therefore not on vision so much as it is on recognition. This simile is, I believe, profound and not at all shallow or trivial. We look into the mirror and recognize "the face of birth," that is, who we are in the creation and then going away we forget that recognition. Just as we should never forget the image of God made in us our place in creation, so, when we have looked into the perfect or fulfilled law of liberty revealed by Christ, we should not forget and fail to carry out the commandment to love our neighbor.
A man who pretends to be threskos, that is scrupulous in religion as the Pharisees were, but does not visit widows and orphans, has only a vain and fruitless religion. Jerom's religio is an excellent translation, but English religion is a bit flat. For the Romans, religio means a scrupulous attention, through ritual, divination, etc., to the will of the gods. Thus a man might be very religious but not charitable or moral.
A number of Christian writers (C.S. Lewis & Flannery O'Conner come to mind) have said things to the effect that Christianity--the whole thing: warts, mysteries and all--becomes a way of seeing and being. It is not merely a worldview, but an encompassing faith and practice which creates and illumines our life.
When I was younger I felt I needed to prove Christianity to myself through apologetices and philosophy. The apologetics and philosophy were never quite adequate, convincing as they might have been. I gave up the faith and pursued other philosophies and religions. Fortunately, I was determined to hold them to the same rigorous standards I was using to scrutinize Christianity. I found them to fail in many ways, but the biggest was because they could not adequately address the common mysteries of life--such as the huge diversity of being within the unifying universe.
To make a long story short, I returned to Christianity (in part due to Chronicles) when I realized that I needed a faith and practice which embraced mystery without being completely esoteric (most Eastern religions), completely dark (nihilism and existentialism) or just weird. Now I find there are often occasions in which I know am working out my own salvation with fear and trembling (and great effort), and I know that God is working in me both to will and to do his good pleasure. Yet I have no idea how it is that both God and I are working at it, but I know it to be true. Similarly, I embrace God's grace and the fact that I must also do good works.
P.S. Thanks for the excellent article. It speaks to my spirit.
#10 and # 11
Mr. Wihowski,
You spoke well and with a gratitude that brings light for the eyes to see. Thanks. St. Thomas wrote for "beginners" as did St. Benedict who started a little "school for the Lord's service." Your post reminded me of the humility in those two saints. We need more beginners like you and Dr. Fleming who are not afraid to read and comment with as much intelligence as they can bring without suffering from that vain embarassament that there may be more to learn and learn to love. Thanks again
Wow!
This is one incredible piece of writing. I have read this website daily for probably three or four years but rarely post as much that is presented here is far away from my areas of expertise. This little story here is one of the best I've read and will spur months of book reading and study. Thank you Dr. Fleming
I do not wish to go off on too many tangents (there are so many), but as I was meditating on Dr. Fleming's piece last night, another thing came to mind which may be useful to the discussion.
In Walker Percy there is a recurrent theme: without love we lose our mind. To the natural, fallen man, love (charity) is nonsensical (except perhaps if love = lust or romance). Seeking another's good and finding our 'self' and fulfillment in them seems contrary to reason and our nature to put ourself first.
However, Christ says: "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Perfectly contradictory to self-seeking: having the whole world would seem like utter bliss for the natural man. Christ also says: "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." And: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." And of course we know the I Corinthians 13 litany on the demands of charity.
All of these go against natural, fallen reason, yet I believe that when we pursue the Christ calls us to we become sane, sound and whole. Faith and good works are two pieces that come together in our journey of salvation. They may seem distinct to our mind, but in the practice of devotion they begin to knit us back into a being in the image of God, a being who, for now, is seeking His beatitude through the dark glass of faith and good works.
For me, my faith is often strengthened most in the practice of charity (distasteful as it often appears initially).
"How can the elements of communion be both bread and wine and yet the body and blood of Christ?" They aren't. St. Paul says somewhere that the Faith comes through hearing the Word. The Catholic Church has been authorized by Jesus Christ to teach the Word. The Catholic Church teaches that during the Consecration at Holy Mass, the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, only the accidents remain of bread and wine, but not the substance (transubstantiation). This is a matter of Faith. One can reject it or accept it. In rejecting it, one gets the Lutheran spin: that the Body and Blood of Christ is intermingled with the bread and wine (consubstantiality).
Can anyone point me to an accurate dating of the gospels? In college I learned that they were set down well after the fact, but I know there is scholarship out there that comes to a very different conclusion. I don't have a clue where to begin. Google turns up little quality information.
@16, Mr. Chesterbelloc: your only valid source for the dating of the Gospels is the Catholic Church before Vatican II. So, forget Google and all the other naturalistic sources. If you want the truth, go to the Catholic Church before it was taken over by Modernists, exemplified in the so-called Pope Benedict XVI.
Dr. Fleming,
Your quote from the Gospel of James:
"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."
This is a passage from I Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verse
"If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing."
Your statement at the end of your post:
"A man who pretends to be threskos, that is scrupulous in religion as the Pharisees were, but does not visit widows and orphans, has only a vain and fruitless religion."
James and Paul are saying the same thing. James is saying that we must do and act, lest we deceive ourselves. Paul is saying all of our religiosity, no matter how "deeply felt" (the sentimentality which is so pervasive today), is meaningless without love. But what is this "love"? It is not eros, affinity, affection or brotherly love, but is rather an abiding and acting love, a love which bears fruit, a love which serves one's neighbor and which even sees to the needs of one's enemies (One may have to kill one's enemy to keep him off one's doorstep, but when unarmed and begging one has compassion on him and feeds him as did General Lee to the Union soldier after the war.). It is the self-sacrificing and giving love made possible for the Christian to exercise through the atoning work of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. We shall indeed be known by our fruits which is doing good works in accordance unto the purpose of God.
Supra: verses 1-3
@ 17
Thanks for the input. I'm certainly no modernist. However I would like to find some specific scholarly works by orthodox Catholics trying to accuratly date the gospels. The dating of the gospels is not as important as the content, of course, but it seems to come up in coversation with nonbelievers fairly frequently.
Chesterbelloc,
I would start with some common sources such as the Catholic Encyclopedia or Oxford University's work on the early Fathers. It is an endless debate once you enter into it, but it is not a meaningless exercise. There are charlatans on both sides that will always lead (perhaps I should say force) one back to the sanity of tradition and it is really quite interesting to see that while the literal and historical narratives are the least important aspects of the Gospels, they too can withstand the scrutiny of the current crop of deconstructing destroyers. The english and quite modern biographer, A.N. Wilson, spent a great portion of his youthful years attempting to prove the truths of faith to himself and ended up fighting all sorts of demons and dragons on his way to the Church this past Easter. There should be a sign up on all Biblical scholarship peformed outside the life of grace that reads as Dante's in the vestibule of Hell: " Abandon hope all Ye who enter here." But for the willing and fearless young man like yourself who must test these dark waters, just remember that a little learning is a dangerous thing and that doubting Thomas and St. Paul were both martyred after needing to see to believe. Missouri is considered the show me state --- they have the most backwoods and honest traditions of anywhere in the country along with the most vile and prospering Adult Bookstore Business of anywhere except New York and California. Evidently where sin abounds, grace abounds also. Good luck.
Thanks Robert. I've given up looking for one book or site that analyzes all of scripture in an orthodox, academically rigorous way. There is just so much garbage out there, and so little time to sort through it, that I can't help asking for directions. Fortunately we have the sacraments and the noesis of our daily lives to keep us close to God along the way.
St.Paul states in one of his letters that the only two apostles he met personaly were St. James and St. Peter during one of his trips to Jerusalem. He also says that they had no objection to what he was teaching after he spent a few weeks explianing to them his work with the gentiles and his conversion after the death of St. Stephen. Of course St. Paul was a great Pharisee before his conversion, so he knew how to recognize the Messiah once his eyes shifted from his own expectations, to those he discovered through Christ's real presence in his life. There is probably too much made between man's good works and God's grace, as all the early Fathers remind us that while there were four gospels, there was only one Faith.
Just back from Quebec and able to respond very briefly. I am grateful to Meng for restating Catholic teaching, though I should say that I was being quite deliberately vague in my description of Communion, both to avoid sectarian controversy which is quite beside the point here and second, because dogmatic definitions get in the way of a genuinely philological examination of texts. I fully accept what the Church teaches, but neither I nor any other person in possession of his faculties will deny that the wine is, chemically speaking, wine. Even the best Catholic theologians, it sometimes seems to me, are sometimes too dogmatically precise in using a language which can be more an hindrance than an aid to understanding, at least for non-theologians. Over the weekend I'll try to post a continuation.
I should add that the date of the Gospels is a legitimate philological question, though it tends to be dominated by dogmatists. Most of the arguments used by the debunkers are of no demonstrable value. Christians have nothing to fear--quite the contrary--either from good scholarship or good science. It it turns out that the Epistle to the Hebrews was not written by Paul or (to take an extreme case) that Revelations is a product of the heretic Cerinthus, the validity and canonicity of the works is by no means diminished, providing we accept them as the Church accepted and promulgated them.