Church and Empire II: A Gentile Church
by Thomas Fleming
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The early Church faced many grave crises and challenges, many of which can be summed up in one question: What kind of Church was it to be? In an important sense, this question was whether it was to be a Judeo-Christian Church limited to Jews, including Gentile converts to Judaism, or a Christian Church liberated from most of the peculiarities of Jewish law and custom? But a second part of this question was whether this Church was to be a sect alienated from everyday life, like the Essenes, or an institution that existed in the world, and if the latter, what was to be its relationship to the Empire, the Roman legal and political order and Greek culture.
The Master himself had provided hints that could be interpreted in various ways. On the one hand, he had declared that he had not come to change one jot or tittle of the law; but, almost in the same breath he had claimed to be the fulfillment of the law, which implies something a good deal less than Pharisaic legalism. He had also scandalized the scrupulous by picking grain and healing the sick on the Sabbath.
There are several important incidents in the Gospels that clearly indicate that his mission was directed at more people than “the lost sheep of Israel.” Returning to Galilee by way of Samaria, Jesus shows His power to a Samaritan woman and reveals He has not come to save only the Jews but also the Samaritans, a Jewish people who worshipped God not in the temple but on their sacred hill. Reminded of the differences between the two peoples, Jesus tells the woman, “the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.” [John 4:21]
Christ, early in His ministry, knew that His mission was not just to the people of Israel but to the whole world. His mission to all mankind is further revealed in His conversation with the Syrophoenician woman [Mark 7:24-30], who asks Him to heal her demon-possessed child. She is at first rebuffed as a “dog” (that is, a gentile), and not one of the lost sheep of Israel He has come to save, but her appeal is the occasion on which His mission to the entire world is disclosed. St. Luke [17:11-19 ] tells the story of the ten lepers healed by Jesus, only one of whom—a Samaritan alien—returned to give thanks.
After Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested, He is condemned by the Jewish religious leadership, who cannot execute Him but must appeal to the Roman authority, the procurator Pontius Pilate. Asked if He is King of the Jews, Jesus asks the Roman: “Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee?”
Pilate is afraid that Jesus is fomenting a revolution against the Roman Empire, but, when Jesus informs the procurator that His kingdom is not of this world, Pilate tells the Jews he finds no fault in the man and would release him. The Jews, on the point of an uprising, demand his death. This judicial murder is a defining moment in the history the Empire’s policy toward the Church.
The Apostolic Church
Following the Master’s instructions, a group of Jesus’ followers gathered in Jerusalem. The first order of business was the selection of a replacement for Judas. The method adopted shows us something of the way the Church will operate: The apostles themselves choose the most worthy candidates and then leave the final choice to chance, that is, to God. In other words, power over the Church has been entrusted to the apostles, who must use their own wisdom but also rely on divine guidance.
The apostles showed their power in many ways: by communicating to foreigners at Pentecost, by healing the sick, and by punishing those who violated the rules of their fellowship. Faithfully following the Lord’s teachings, they instituted a communal life in which they voluntarily shared their possessions and ate a common meal in commemoration of the Last Supper. When Ananias and Sapphira sold one of their possessions and retained the money, they were rebuked by Peter. No one had demanded them to share their wealth, but they had thought to cheat the Holy Ghost. When confronted with their sin, each died, as of apoplexy. Once again, the Church is revealed: She can condemn but not impose death.
The incident is important in other ways. Many early Christians apparently thought everyone should practice communism and celibacy and observe strict dietary laws. If these restrictions had endured, Christianity would have remained an obscure sect of Jews, waiting for the End of the world like the Adventists. But as the Church grew in wisdom, these ideals were considered marks of the monastic clergy and not as rules for ordinary Christians. This was only one of many problems that were solved as the Church matured.
In fact Our Lord well knew that his followers had a need for what is now called “continuing education.” He was aware that the disciples would forget some of what He told them and be confused about many things, especially as fresh issues demanded attention. He did not, as some people imagine, tell them that a book would be put together that would tell them everything. On the contrary, He told them, in His last instructions, that His suffering and death were necessary, because only then could He send them the Holy Ghost, the Comforter (“the Paraklete”), the Spirit of Truth, Who “will guide you into all truth…and he will shew you things to come.” [John 16:13].
This same Holy Ghost “shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” [John 14:26]. As time went on, Jesus’ disciples helped to establish a sacred institution that would serve as the vehicle for the operation of the Holy Ghost, and that institution is the Church.
One of the first Christian offices to be instituted is that of deacon (diakonos), a servant charged with responsibility for serving the bread and wine at the common meal. One of the first seven deacons to be chosen was Stephen, who was stoned to death by a group of Jews called together by Caiaphas, the high priest. This was, of course, a violation of Roman law, which reserved the death penalty to its own authorities. Caiaphas was shortly thereafter removed from office by the legate to Syria sent by Tiberius in 36-7.
Stephen’s killers stripped off their garments and laid them at the feet of a rabbinical student, Saul of Tarsus, who was zealous against the Christians. This Saul was a follower of the Pharisees, who stressed strict obedience to the Old Testament law. On the way to Damascus to continue the persecution, Saul was challenged by Christ and blinded. This was the revelation that converted Saul the persecutor into Paul the apostle to the gentiles. By the time of their martyrdoms in Rome, Paul and Peter would have preached the gospel throughout the eastern Mediterranean, while other apostles went as far as India and Spain.
Christian Worship—and Early Disputes
Instead of celebrating the Jewish Sabbath (the seventh day of the week), the faithful gradually broke with Jewish custom and assembled, instead, on the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, which they identified with the first day of Creation. They came together to sing hymns, hear the good news preached, make common prayers, and partake of communion. Even before there were written Gospels, stories of Christ’s life and teachings as told by the apostles were recited, and letters from Paul and, later, of Clement and Barnabas, were read aloud. Some of these stories were not incorporated directly into the Gospels, but they continued to be told in the major churches that had received the teachings of the apostles.
Most of the early followers of Christ were Jewish and naturally continued to live as Jews, observing all the dietary and ritual prohibitions. The gentiles whom Paul converted were naturally reluctant to observe the same rules, much less to submit to circumcision. Troublemakers from Judea insisted that these gentiles were not true Christians unless they became Jews, while Paul and Barnabas defended their gentile converts (though Paul would later have Timothy circumcised to make him a more effective preacher to the Jews).
A council of the Church was convened in Jerusalem at which the Pharisees, who insisted on circumcision, were challenged by Peter, one of the first to have preached to a gentile (Cornelius). Peter argued that it was unnecessary to impose such a burden on gentile converts. James the Just, who presided and served as arbitrator, gave the verdict to Peter and Paul, and the apostles and elders collectively sent out an apostolic letter to other congregations, saying,
“It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things,” that is, to abstain from idolatry and fornication.
Once again, we see the model of the Church. The leaders—and not just from Jerusalem—assemble and discuss. A consensus is reached, though probably not to everyone’s satisfaction, and the decision is given by the presiding officer in the name of both the apostles and the Holy Ghost. The early Church, then, although it listened to both sides, was not democratic, nor was it local and congregational. Once the decision was made by the council, it was made for the entire Church.
The problem, however, did not go away. Judeo-Christians continued to complain that Paul was turning his back on Judaism, and the dispute became serious in Antioch. When Peter arrived, he joined Paul in common meals with gentile Christians, but when messengers came from Jerusalem complaining, Peter withdrew, and Barnabas, Paul’s collaborator, went with him. As we used to say in the South, Paul rose up and stuck it into Peter and broke it off in him. In telling this story to the Galatians, the Apostle makes a clean break with Judaism and demands the same of all Christians: “For I testify to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to the whole law. Christ is become of no effect to you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.”
Defenders of the Faith
Apart from the Gospels, the earliest Christian writings are for the most part epistles, both of the apostles and later Church leaders, directed primarily at Christians and sympathetic “fellow-travelers.” These writings include not only the scriptures of the New Testament, but also the writings of early Apostolic Fathers, who continue Paul’s work of clarifying doctrine and rectifying abuses. One of the most important of these early Fathers is Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who lived in the second half of the First Century. Ignatius emphasized the unity of the Church and the importance of respect for the bishops, who ruled over Christian communities like so many captains of ships.
Antioch was a great Hellenized city (that is, the people had adopted Greek language and culture) in Syria, where the name “Christian” was first used, perhaps because most of the converts in Antioch were non-Jewish and needed a specific name. Ignatius warned against one of the perennial temptations—to impose Jewish customs on the Church: “It is absurd to profess Christ Jesus, and to Judaize. For Christianity did not embrace Judaism, but Judaism Christianity, that so every tongue which believeth might be gathered together to God.” [Magnesians 10] Ignatius also warned against the poison of heretics who denied the reality of Christ’s passion. [Trallians 11]
One of these early attempts to defend the faith in public is the letter of the “Mathetes” (Greek for Disciple) addressed to Diognetus, a pagan intellectual. The Disciple clearly distinguishes Christians both from idolatrous Greeks and from Jews, whose dietary laws he describes as superstitious and even blasphemous. “For, to accept some of those things which have been formed by God for the use of men as properly formed, and to reject others as useless and redundant—how can this be lawful? And to speak falsely of God, as if He forbade us to do what is good on the Sabbath-days—how is not this impious? And to glory in the circumcision of the flesh as a proof of election, and as if, on account of it, they were specially beloved by God—how is it not a subject of ridicule.”
Conflicts between Jewish and gentile Christians had obviously not disappeared after the Council of Jerusalem, especially in Asia Minor and Syria. Ignatius and the Disciple were concerned to make it clear that Christianity had gone beyond Judaism. One of their reasons was the fulfillment of Christ’s prophecy that the temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed. Jews had become increasingly militant against the Roman Empire, and when they rose up in rebellion in the late 60’s, Vespasian was sent by Nero to put it down. When the war was finished by Vespasian’s son Titus, Vespasian (now the emperor) had the temple destroyed. Problems continued until another major rebellion, led by a false messiah, broke out in the reign of Hadrian. Hadrian’s generals not only crushed the rebellion but expelled the Jews from Jerusalem and much of Judaea. Jerusalem was renamed Aelia Capitolina, and it would be several centuries before the Church in Jerusalem, no longer made up of Jewish Christians, would play a major role. During this difficult period, then, Christians wanted to show that they were not Jews, but good citizens of the Empire.
This concern may explain why the Disciple is so eager to portray the Christians as good citizens who do not make trouble:
“For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity…inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. .. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted.
By the Age of the Antonines, Christianity had attracted enough attention that pagan intellectuals were able to distinguish Christianity from Judaism. Many of the same charges continued to be made: Christians were immoral, unpatriotic, and cannibalistic. The philosopher Celsus, later refuted by Origen, ridiculed the beliefs of Christians as a mishmash of lies, false history, and traditions borrowed from Jews, Greeks, and other nations. Christians, at this same time, were beginning to feel confident enough to address a series of “apologies,” that is, philosophical explanations in defense of their faith, to the emperors. The first to survive (discovered at the end of the 19th Century in an Armenian version) is from Aristides of Athens and addressed to Emperor Hadrian.
All these early defenders of the faith underlined the importance of the moral virtues. Christians are just like other citizens of the empire, paying taxes and serving in the army. Their only distinction is that they abide by their oaths and do not rob or cheat in business; they do not fornicate or commit adultery or waste time on drunken rioting. As the Disciple says, “They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy the fetuses.” In other words, they did not abort or expose their children. Aristides of Athens also points out another vice not practiced by Christians: homosexuality.
But Christian morality is not just a series of “Thou shalt nots.” It is a positive moral code. Christians, says Aristides:
“Honor father and mother, and show kindness to those near to them.. ; and whenever they are judges, they judge uprightly…and whatsoever they would not that others should do unto them, they do not to others….And their oppressors they comfort and make them their friends; they do good to their enemies; and their women, O King, are pure as virgins, and their daughters are modest….”
Christians practice charity not only among themselves but even to pagan strangers.
Heresies Afflict the Church
We know a good deal about these early heresies because of a book written by St. Irenaeus, a Christian from Smyrna (in Asia Minor), who lived in Gaul in the late Second Century. Gaul was troubled by a heretical group known as Montanists, and Irenaeus was sent to Rome to discuss the problem. To his horror, Irenaeus discovered that even Rome was a hotbed of false ideas and bizarre mythologies that claimed the name Christian.
The word heresy comes from a Greek word (hairesis), which means “choice.” In other words, a heretic is someone who chooses his own belief instead of following the Church’s teachings. There are so many heresies with such ridiculous theories, it is a waste of time to study them.
However, since mankind tends to repeat his mistakes, we should look at some of the bad ideas that have returned in the past 500 years.
Since many of the heretics picked and chose their bad ideas from different heretical traditions, it is difficult to sort them out. It is simpler to look at the principal mistakes. One group of heretics, for example, were Judaizing, that is, like the Pharisees at the council of Jerusalem they wanted to maintain the Old Testament laws. They also taught, typically, that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Jewish tradition, adopted by the Father at baptism, and they rejected Paul’s epistles, because he was a Jewish renegade. Very early on the Church ruled against keeping Jewish customs of circumcision and dietary laws which, they said, were superstitious and blasphemous because they declared some parts of what God had created to be unclean. Peter had had a vision that all things in Creation were pure, and later writers made this absolute.
Other Judaizing heretics went in the other direction and claimed to be entirely spiritual. They rejected most of the Old Testament, because, after the destruction of the Temple, they thought Jehovah had failed them. Because they relied only on spirit and not on good works, they felt free to eat meat that had been offered to idols and to engage in adultery and fornication. [Cf. Jude]
Many of these spiritualist heretics were also Gnostics, a Greek term (from gnosis, knowledge) that suggests Gnostics were seeking a higher former of knowledge that would liberate them from bondage to the flesh. Fantastic mythologies. Irenaeus correctly interpreted the heresies as symptoms of a general problem. The leaders (heresiarchs) were all intellectuals, individualists who wanted to make themselves the center of their own schools. They were opposed by the bishops, who did not represent their own ideas but the traditions of the Church, going back to the apostles.
Puritans
Not all heresies were as fantastic as the extreme forms of Gnosticism. The followers of Montanus, for example, took Christian moral teachings and pushed them to such an extreme that Christians would not have been allowed to serve in the army, serve in the imperial administration, or even attend public ceremonies honoring the emperor on his birthday. Montanists, who were convinced that the end of the world was near, rejected all participation in the Roman world. They and the other super-Puritans, who were expecting the Apocalypse, gave Christians a bad reputation for being unpatriotic, uncharitable, and misanthropic, and their repudiation of imperial authority and Greco-Roman culture gave the enemies of the Faith a good pretext for persecution.
Though Tertullian, one of the most important and most irascible of the early Latin Fathers, embraced Montanism later in his life, Pope Eleutherius (c. 175-80) condemned the dangerous heresy, and his decree was accepted. When Septimius Severus came to power, he grew alarmed by the apparent threat to the Empire and he issued an edict forbidding the Christians to make new converts. Sensible bishops, wishing to avoid unnecessary conflicts, did their best to calm the hysteria of the extremists, but every persecution brought with it new expectations that the world was coming to an end.
Another form of pernicious Puritanism was sponsored by Novatianus, a priest in Rome at the time of Decius’ persecution and afterwards. Novatian and his followers insisted that Christians who, under threat of death, had sacrificed to an idol, could never be readmitted into the Church. They repudiated Pope Cornelius, who insisted on showing charity to the cowardly Christians who had saved their lives, and Novatian and his followers set up their own Church. Pope Cornelius was stoutly defended by the second most important patriarch, Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria, a pillar of sound doctrine. Hearing that Novatian was attempting to transfer blame for the schism (split) in the Church to the priests who supported him, Dionysius called on him to prove that he was “led on unwillingly” by giving up the schism willingly.
“For a man ought to suffer everything for the sake of not cutting up the Church of God, and to suffer martyrdom to prevent schism is no less glorious than to suffer martyrdom to avoid idolatry, and, in my opinion, it is even more glorious. For in the one case, a man is martyred for the sake of one soul, while in the other it is for the sake of the entire Church.”
This same Dionysius was also asked to settle a thorny question that divided Christian communities in Egypt (and elsewhere). Some Christians (particularly Judeo-Christians) had become obsessed with the details of what would happen when Christ returned. During the thousand year reign predicted in Revelations, would faithful Christians have their own bodies and enjoy all the licit pleasures of the flesh? Though Christ had told the disciples that no one would know the hour of his return, some of these Christians (“millenarians”) attached a great importance to the Millennium. Dionysius, among many other Fathers of the Church, firmly repudiated the idea of a Millennium spent in fleshly pleasures and warned against the dangers of a teaching that distracted Christians from fundamental teachings.
By the middle of the 3rd Century, then, Christian bishops, when problems arose, could appeal both to the apostolic tradition and to the unity of the Church universal. There was also a body of coherent and rigorous theology, following the rules of Greek philosophy, which enabled them to defend the Church against external pagan attacks and against internal subversion of heresies that often resulted from a literalist misreading of the Old Testament.
Unity, the authority of the bishops, and the authentic teaching of the apostles, this was the solid foundation for the Church when it was about to face the severest test: the persecution of Diocletian. Christians were loyal citizens of the Empire, they served in the armies, staffed the bureaucracy.
Triumph of the Church
By the Third Century the Church was growing in many ways. The authority of the bishops was increasing, the loose network of Christian communities was being tightened into a disciplined order, and Christianity was attracting converts from all walks of life. In the first century of the Church converts were drawn primarily from the poor and uneducated classes. There were exceptions, however, and members of the highest Roman aristocracy are known to have converted as early as the First Century A.D.
Greek and Roman intellectuals took little interest in the Church, except to ridicule its “superstitions.” Christian apologists did their best, but even Justin Martyr, though a good writer and honest thinker, lacked the advanced education that he would have needed for a serious debate with trained philosophers. Justin had, however, taken one very important step: At a time when many Christians were simply repudiating Greek thought and Roman authority, he had tried to explain Christianity in the terms of Greek philosophy and literature.
Alexandria (the Greek capital of Egypt) was the most intellectual center for the Greeks, and it was at Alexandria that Christian thinkers mastered the tools of Greek philosophy and literature and put them into the service of the Faith. In the late 2nd Century, Pantaenus, who had been taught by disciples of the first apostles, achieved such prominence that he was sent to India to preach. He was not the first Christian on the subcontinent, since while he was in India he actually found a copy of Matthew’s Hebrew Gospel.
Pantaenus’s student Clement was even more famous than his teacher. Though born, probably, at Athens, Clement’s study of philosophy led him to Alexandria, where he converted and became a priest (about 190). Clement, who was well-read, not only in philosophy but in poetry, saw Greek and Roman culture as a reflection of the eternal truth that had been given to literary and religious leaders of all nations. In this way, although the Greek mind had been darkened by superstition and error, the poetry of Homer and Hesiod could be compared with the Hebrew Scriptures. Clement put strong emphasis on philosophy, which could be used to refute the errors of non-Christian philosophers and clarify Christian teaching. With no appetite for martyrdom, Clement left Alexandria to escape persecution, but he returned some time for his death (not later than 220).
Clement’s student Origen was a philosopher and literary scholar of great reputation even among pagans. Reared in a Christian family, Origen supported his family by teaching pagan literature, but he was also a teacher of the catechism. Realizing that his students had been led astray by philosophical errors, he devoted himself to philosophy and studied with a leading Neoplatonist philosopher. He wrote constantly, on Scriptural interpretation, moral exhortation, philosophy. Origen was so successful that he attracted the interest even of pagans, and the mother of Emperor Alexander Severus asked him to explain his religion to her.
Origen’s fame, even after his death, was so great that he was attacked by the Church’s most important intellectual enemy, Porphyry (232-305), a Neoplatonist philosopher who wrote a 15 volume work against Christianity. Porphyry not only rejected the central Christian truths, but he ridiculed the idea that Christianity could be reconciled with philosophy. One important part of his critique was aimed at the stories of the Old Testament: Taken literally, these stories were not always compatible with the high moral teachings of the Church. Celsus had already pointed to some of the apparent absurdities but blamed Jews who in converting to Christianity abandoned their customs.
Origen’s answer was subtle. First of all, there were Judeo-Christians who clung to the Mosaic law, and even Peter, before he was fully enlightened, took pride in his circumcision. [Contra Celsum II.ii.]But Christ message transcended the old law, and this was probably one of those things of which he spoke in predicting the coming of the Holy Ghost:
“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.“ As Origen observes, because “the apostles were Jews, and had been trained up according to the letter of the Mosaic law, He was unable to tell them what was the true law, and how the Jewish worship consisted in the pattern and shadow of certain heavenly things, and how future blessings were foreshadowed by the injunctions regarding meats and drinks, and festivals, and new moons, and Sabbaths.”
Origen insisted upon a spiritual interpretation of the Law and the Prophets, an interpretation used both by our Lord and within the OT itself: “Jesus, then, is the Son of God, who gave the law and the prophets; and we, who belong to the Church, do not transgress the law, but have escaped the mythologizings of the Jews, and have our minds chastened and educated by the mystical contemplation of the law and the prophets.”
If the Church was going to continue to grow, it would have to meet the philosophers on their own ground. Porphyry himself admits that Origen had great influence and, therefore, does his best to attack him by showing that he learned his wisdom from pagan teachers and that his philosophy is incompatible with Christianity. In going beyond the crude and literal interpretations of the Old Testament made by earlier Christian apologists, Origen had showed that Christianity was not incompatible—though it was superior to—the best Greek philosophy.
There was a danger, however, that Christian thinkers would drink too deep of pagan philosophy and import alien ideas into the faith. Many heresies sprung from this mistake, and Origen himself fell into several errors, but it is important to remember that philosophical errors could never be refuted except by philosophical truth put in service of the Christian faith.
The Spread of Christianity Throughout the Empire
By the late 3rd Century, Christians, who may have made up as much as a fourth of the Empire’s population, could be found in high positions in the army and government, as teachers of rhetoric and philosophy, and even within households of persecuting emperors. In some places they were bitterly resented by the pagans. In Alexandria, the active center of Greek philosophy, and in Lyons (in Gaul), where pagan religion was very strong, Roman authorities were egged on and assisted by angry mobs. At Alexandria, they tore their Christian victims to pieces in the streets, going house to house to find neighbors they knew to be Christians. Not content with killing their “enemies,” the Alexandrian mob stole their property, destroyed their houses, and burnt whatever was not valuable in great bonfires.
Elsewhere, as in Rome and Carthage, Christians and pagans lived side by side, did business with each other, and intermarried. There are Roman houses that have rooms with wall-paintings on both Christian and pagan themes, and St. Augustine’s mother Monica, born to Christian parents, had a pagan husband, who disliked her religion and refused to allow their three children to be baptized. Late in life, her husband converted and received baptism. By this time few non-Christians, it is fair to say, were enthusiastic about the persecutions, and many were so indifferent to the competing claims of the different sects that they were willing to switch from one to the other, if it proved to be convenient.
Christianity, when it was not corrupted by heresy, had one clear story to tell, and once the Christian message was given a philosophical rigor by Origen and his successors, it also had a logical theology that could defend itself against both heretics and pagan philosophers alike. But Christians had another advantage: the moral purity of their lives. It was not that pagans had no morality. Apart from looseness in matters of sex, pagan morality was comparable with Christian: keep your oaths, do not steal, lie, or cheat, be loyal to family and friends. The difference was that while pagans were not very strict in observing the ideal, ordinary Christians took their own more demanding moral code for granted as the normal way they were to lead their lives. As they pointed out, ordinary Christians lived up to as high a standard as the most self-denying Stoic philosophers.
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1 Comment by Sid Cundiff on 20 December 2007:
Dr. Fleming view is similar to the Lucan view of Luke-Acts (to be considered one work), that Christianity “replaces” Judaism, the “Lucan Replacement Theme”. I following a well-trod path would argue that Luke-Acts is post aD 70. The Lucan version of the parousia (Ch 21), esp vv 20 and 24 seems to refer to the events of aD 70. Thus Luke – and I accept the tradition that he was a gentile and a native speaker of koine – is writing to a gentile church, the Jewish Palestinian church having been wiped out along with many Jews, if Josephus is to be believed. Even in Paul’s day, several decades before Luke-Acts, we read that the church in Jerusalem is in trouble and needs a collection. Thus Jewish Christianity had been replaced by Gentile Christianity, and replace by the Roman sword.
Luke embodies his replacement theme in his symbol of “The Journey”, from Nazareth to Rome. The Gospel begins in a very Jewish setting and even in an Aramaic style. Chapter 1, after the wonderful periodus of vv 1-4, is written in a much simpler Aramaic syntax, a style which Luke abandons when, in Acts, Paul begins his mission to the Gentiles. His gospel begins in the temple. John the Baptist is seen as the representative of the passing age, the last Old Testament prophet. Chapter 9:51-19:44, almost half the gospel, is the final journey to Jerusalem, and almost all the material therein is unique to Luke. Acts continues the journey to Antioch, and ends with Paul entering Rome, and the final break with the Jews.
Matthew has a different view, one suggesting a very Jewish Christian setting, and thus maybe an earlier date. Matthew has Christianity as the “fulfillment” of Judaism, the “Matthean Fulfillment Theme”. Judaism is just Christianity in embryo. John the Baptist is a proto-Christian.
John has yet another view, that of Christianity as metamorphosed Judaism. John is liturgical; his discussion with the Samaritan woman is about were one correctly worships (i.e. “sacrifices”). Our Lord in John is almost always at a Great Jewish Feast or going to and from one, with the Passover at the beginning, middle (Ch 6), and end. Each feast Our Lord transfigures, usually through a process of the seven “signs” (sigma), the “hour”, and “the glorification”.
Mark is interested in little of this. He had a more urgent issue. Mark is writing to a church under fire. Thus his themes of “failed discipleship” and the “glorious Cross”. By the way, I’m still a follower of “Markan Priority”.
Paul, as always, is complicated, and I take my Pauline theology from the New Perspectives on Paul movement. Paul also goes through a development. In Galatians, an earlier work, Paul seems to be anti-Judaizer. But his sad experience with the Corinthian church’s immorality (“But Paul, you said we didn’t have to follow the law!”) forced him to reformulate his ideas in Romans. Paul thinks in terms of covenant communities. One “gets into” the Jewish covenant community first by the redemptive act in the Passover/Paschal mystery, and then by circumcision. One “gets into” the Christian covenant community first by the redemptive act of the Christian Passover, and then by sacramental baptism. One “stays in” by keeping the law proper to both communities.
By the way, Romans 1: 18-23 seems to be an endorsement of Natural Law.
I would welcome Dr. Fleming’s interpretive reading of Acts 17: 16-23, the Sermon on the Areopagus, a passage with reference to Greek philosophy and poetry, highly logical in structure, and one of the first attempts in the whole Bible to convert Gentiles. Not a single reference is made to an Old Testament text. A specific question: to judge by the passage’s philosophical content, are the mockers in vs 32 the Epicurians, and the “joiners” Stoics?
2 Comment by Sid Cundiff on 20 December 2007:
I add: Romans Chapter 9-11 is the definitive NT view of the proper relation between Christians and Jews.
3 Comment by Rublev's Dog on 21 December 2007:
Romans 11:17-29 is a solemn admonition against ecclesiastical arrogance. While Christianity has “replaced” Judaism, so to speak, God is still able to graft the natural brances back in — and cut off wild branches that get too haughty.
4 Comment by Lee on 21 December 2007:
As a counterweight to Sid, I don’t believe there is any compelling evidence that any of the Gospels were written after the martyrdom of Paul – I think around 65 AD. There is also physical evidence which points to the Gospel of Matthew having been written before 40 AD and linguistic evidence that it was originally written in Aramaic. While the various “higher” criticisms of the Bible have made some interesting contributions to its understandings, its primary intent was to “Enlightenmentally” render it unbelievable and thus to destroy it from within. (This effort started to fall apart with the apparent actual discovery of Troy and subsequent discoveries in the Middle East.) Thus, I give no quarter to any of the pretentious, self serving assertions of these Enlightenmentalists that are not accompanied be hard, incotrovertible truths (factoids remain just that – details that can be accounted for in hundreds of ways.)
5 Comment by TJF on 21 December 2007:
I am willing to look at any hard evidence for dating and for complex authorship, but, as I explained earlier, the techniques of scholarship are not beyond dispute. The so-called evidence for Shakespeare’s plays being written by someone else is not evidence at all, when it is subject to genuine scrutiny, and the same holds true for much of the criticism of the NT. Scholars, even Christian scholars, love to debunk traditional ascriptions of authorship, because that is how Lorenzo Valla and Richard Bentley became justly famous. (By the way, the anti-Christian Porphyry was able to disprove the Jewish claims for early dating of certain OT texts.) But we should we very careful about drawing conclusions from selective analysis. In the case, raised earlier, of John as “beloved disciple,” all Christians really have to know is that it was the tradition.
Let us take the extreme hypothetical case. Let us assume that some book of the NT is falsely attributed. For example, let us assume that the suspicions about the Apocalypse were valid, that it is not by the disciple John or even by anyone named John but written by the heretic Cerinthus, as was claimed. Now, if we are fundamentalists, we run into some problems, because either we shall find ourselves taking literally a bogus text and deriving bad ideas or else we shall repudiate a text accepted by the Church for 1500 years. If we accept the tradition–for the sake of argument, let us confine ourselves to the first 1000 years of the Church and set aside questions of schism and Reformation–then what matters is the Church’s traditional teachings on what the book means. Such teachings, though there is some variety and some dispute, basically exclude the modern interpretations given by pre-millenialists, Adventists, et al. I think the worst mistake we can make is to take some part of the text or tradition and use it to attack another part of the tradition, missing the larger picture. I have taken to saying to people who like clever disputes, “If fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, thenn the next step is the confession of ignorance.” The third step is accepting the wisdom that has been handed down to us.
6 Comment by robert m. peters on 21 December 2007:
Lee at #4
Indeed. There may well be countervailing evidence of which I am utterly unaware, and it may be as obvious as the nose on my face; and having a teachable, spirit I will reevaluate when the such evidence is presented; however, unless Luke (the Gospel thereof and Acts) was heavily edited after the fact or unless Luke, for whatever reason, chose to leave out the martyrdom of Paul, the content of the text itself or the lack thereof (no martyrdom of Paul) strongly suggests that the Gospel of Luke and Acts were written before the martyrdom of Paul.
7 Comment by Sid Cundiff on 21 December 2007:
Lee demands evidence, a rule he also should follow. I would welcome his evidence for the claims of Matthew’s Gospel.
I have myself in my post given reasons for a post A.D. 70 date for Luke-Acts.
Mark clearly has no knowledge of Palestinian geography and uses the Roman way of marking the watches of the night (4 watches, not the Palestinian way of 3). I stick by my guns that Mark is before a.D. 70. It comes after intense persecution of Christians begins, given Mark’s thematic; and that persecution begins in Palestine rather early, and in Rome with Nero. I also hold Matthew’s gospel to come after Mark’s, and it too may be pre-a.D. 70.
The so-called “Q” material, by which I mean nothing more material found in Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark, and consisting almost exclusively in logon , differs between Luke and Matthew. This suggests that the one is not copying the other but instead is referring to the Apostolic Tradition as it was preserved in each evangelist’s community.
None of the gospels are biography. All of them are theology addressed to a particular community in a particular circumstance, and their theologies differ (though not necessarily contradict).
Poisoning the wells with reference to the historical-critical method is popular with Fundamentalists. Such arguments are not arguments. It is also not true that something written earlier, or written in Aramaic, is more trustworthy than something written later and written in Greek. Fundies are so sola scriptura and so persuaded that church should be a school, that they ignore and important fact: The church from the start is liturgical, and in the liturgy once gathers around The Resurrected Lord. In the early Church, one meets the real Christ in the liturgy, face to face, and there one learns about the real Christ from Christ present in the liturgy. The early Church is not a paper and ink movement. Scripture’s home is in the liturgy, and serves the liturgy. The Catholic perspective is the correct one.
All the gospels are using earlier material that the Church preserved, orally or in writing. So all the gospels, regardless of when they were written, contain material that goes back to Our Lord. The Church comes first, she preserves the Apostolic Tradition and the Deposit of Faith, and she choses the texts and makes the Canon — a point of view not popular with Protestants in general and Fundamentalists particular.
I agree with Lee that he dating of the gospels is notoriously difficult.
The real problem with the historical-critical method Lee doesn’t mention. It establishes the text in a historical context, yet it leaves the text in that context, instead of applying it to our own context.
I also separate myself from those scholars that doubt the fidelity of the gospels to actual events. Like Holy Father, I trust the gospels — regardless of when they were written.
8 Comment by Sid Cundiff on 21 December 2007:
“Fundies” is perhaps to harsh, and I withdraw the word.
9 Comment by robert m. peters on 21 December 2007:
Dr. Fleming at 5,
Would you give some references to Porphyry’s writings pursuant to Jewish texts? Years ago, he was brought to my young student mind and has since slipped into the near oblivion of my “munin,” who has been sorely wounded in his flight through the process of my aging.
10 Comment by TJF on 21 December 2007:
The problem with the arguments about dating is twofold: first, much of it rests upon conjectural arguments–e.g., ignorance of Palestinian geography, use of one or another kind of term. Such arguments may be persuasive but they are rarely conclusive. The disentangling of Q materials was probably valid and valuable–look at Canon Streeter’s old book, it is quite readable–but it tells us little more than what we might have expected: that Gospel writers used what materials they could dig up. Luke is pretty explicit about this. Conjectural theories about dating are likely to be overthrown at any moment by a single scrap of material evidence. In the end, they mean very little, and I would rather not be distracted by them. What we have is what we have. I long ago had the ambition of understanding the transmission of the NT text and read what I could until I realized that it is a subject requiring a lifetime of devotion, which I am not prepared to give. Simply reading the arguments and opinions of the experts does not advance one’s real knowledge.
Porphyry is a fascinating character, one of the last good pagan philosophers, in my view, though anti-Christian. In a later posting, I’ll include a bit of his criticism of Origen. His 12 Books Against the Christians have not survived, for obvious reasons, but there are significant quotations that have been preserved. The only place I have checked them out is with the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, but someone surely has collected the more important bits in translation. If I find something I’ll let you know.
11 Comment by Rublev's Dog on 21 December 2007:
Sid — as one who lived in fundie-dom for a long time, I take no offense. This is a fascinating discussion.
12 Comment by robert reavis on 21 December 2007:
Tradition is the most misunderstood term in the Western world. When a scholar of Tom Fleming’s caliber uses the word , he does not mean what most educated people think of Tradition, or myth or legend or folklore. For those interested in recovering some sense of what Tradition means, other than some recent custom or random act of the past, I would recommend some of the works of Ananda Coomaraswamy on art and symbol.
“Although he agrees with Guénon on the universal principles, his works are very different in form from Guénon’s. By vocation, he was a scholar, who dedicated the last decades of his life to searching the Scriptures. He offers a perspective on the tradition which complements well that of Guénon. He had a very highly active aesthetic perceptiveness and he wrote dozens of articles on traditional arts and mythology. His works are also intellectually more balanced. Although born in the Hindu tradition, he had however a deep knowledge of the Western tradition and had also a great expertise and love for Greek metaphysics, especially that of Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatonism”
One cannot understand the “real absence” of modern theology without some real understanding of Tradition. We Christians afterall, share the same scriptures — for the most part , it is the absence of a tradition or an “understanding” that divides us.
13 Comment by Lee on 21 December 2007:
Sid,
The physical evidence is the discovery of pieces (half dollar size) of Egyptian (that is dug up in Egypt) papyrus existing among extensive English collections that contain parts of Matthew in Greek and which, based on the formation of the script itself, date the scraps to 40 AD or earlier. This, and the analysis of linguistic scholars that the currently existing Matthew in Greek is in a very stlited Greek; but when you translate this stlited Greek into Aramaic it is clear that the Greek is a rigid, literal translation of the Aramaic into Greek because it is very normal, grammatical Aramaic.
I also agree with Tom: The Bible is inspired and inerrant because and only because the Church and therefor Tradition, in the late 300’s in three different African councils which were subsequently confirmed by the then reigning Popes, pronounced them so. This in spite of the fact that there seems to be genuine agreement that we and possibly the early Church may not have the canonical (sufficiently original) version of some of the text.
The one indisputable fact is that the Christian religion is an Incarnational Mystery handed on by Oral Tradition. No one even alleges that Christ wrote anything with His own hand (not including some marks in the sand). And John states that if everything the Lord did and said were written down it would fill all the books ever written, and Paul says people believe because they hear the Word.
I also accept the ordering of the Gospels, contrary to the higher critics because Tradition says that is the order they were written in. Much (very) of the “higher” criticism has the same relation to scholarship as scientism has to science; and “Q” sourcing is pure ideological, arm chair blather when it is not blasphemy.
14 Comment by Sid Cundiff on 21 December 2007:
That the gospels are canonical scripture is the decision of the Council of Trent, 4th Session. It is what that Council said that I’m obliged to accept as dogmatic truth. The Council never said something so foolish as that the order that the books appear in the Bible would be the order in which they were written.
I stated clearly that “Q” for me is only material in Lk and Mt absent in Mark. I do not subscribe to “Q” as a single source, if for no other reason than Lk quotes it differently than Mt.
Finds in Egypt may indeed be material that Matthew used. That doesn’t prove the the whole gospel is a.D. 40. What is more, the same finds found Gnostic material, much of it early. I’m I to regard that material as canonical? Then there was the flap over Thiele’s scrap of “Mark”, a flap that leaves me skeptical about scraps in general.
The dating of the Gospel’s is indeed conjectural, wandering between “possible” and “probable”. So is 99% of our secular knowledge whatsoever, except for the “notional” knowledge of logic and math. The most one can say, absent a full text of a gospel that can be carbon 14 dated, is what the text might suggest, and leave it at that. The dates of the Gospels are not relevant to the Faith anyway.
I also agree with Tom: The Bible is inspired and inerrant — Lee. Does Dr. Fleming believe Scripture to be inerrant? Does he believe that Jonah lived in a whale? Has he become a Protestant Fundamentalist? Were “three African councils” asserting Fundamentalist inerrancy? Point of fact, inerrancy is a modern ideology from the 1920s that came about as a reaction to Darwin and historical-critical method. Catholics have never held this view of inerrancy, and certainly not since the teaching of Pius XII, the pope who made historical-critical method acceptable Catholic practice.
I stick by my conjectural views as having textual merit, (views that I’d change if more evidence comes forward) that (1) that of the synoptics, Mark is first and before a.D. 70; (2) that Mt follows Mark, using almost 90% of Mark; (3) that Luke-Acts is after a.D. 70., with some use of Mark and likely no familiarity with Mt; a that (4) all rest on earlier traditions held by the early church; and that (5) early Christians were not Bible thumpers and instead considered themselves to have direct contact with Our Lord in the liturgy, the cultus being their central activity, a belief held by Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental churches to this day. The Bible’s home is the Mass and the Divine Office.
15 Comment by robert reavis on 21 December 2007:
Sid writes : Does Dr. Fleming believe Scripture to be inerrant? Does he believe that Jonah lived in a whale?
Sid,
This reminds me of a poetry session during my undergraduate days. We would attend formal lectures on Tuesday and Thursday and then a poetry session on Wednesday in small group sections discussing the text. Usually a graduate student from the classics department would conduct the small groups, but sometimes the professors would conduct them in order to emphasize a theme.
Homer was one day being ridiculed by a sophisticate for ” being blind” for “having women turn into pigs” and Proteus changing shapes and character. “This is all silly legend and make-believe, why do you take it so seriously ?” a student asked. The professor responded, ” Because it is all true. In fact, he said, I attended a sorority party just the other night, when the women ( some of my own students) all turned into pigs. “
16 Comment by TJF on 21 December 2007:
I prefer not to get sidetracked down the alleways of inerrancy or the dating of specific Scriptures. Instead, I shall post a few more paragraphs to the original “Gentile Church” article, eliminating, as usual, some other important but irrelevant topics, such as Justin Martyr.
17 Comment by TJF on 21 December 2007:
A few simplistic observations on early heresies, posted more conviently at the end of Gentile Church:
Heresies Afflict the Church
We know a good deal about these early heresies because of a book written by St. Irenaeus, a Christian from Smyrna (in Asia Minor), who lived in Gaul in the late Second Century. Gaul was troubled by a heretical group known as Montanists, and Irenaeus was sent to Rome to discuss the problem. To his horror, Irenaeus discovered that even Rome was a hotbed of false ideas and bizarre mythologies that claimed the name Christian.
The word heresy comes from a Greek word (hairesis), which means “choice.” In other words, a heretic is someone who chooses his own belief instead of following the Church’s teachings. There are so many heresies with such ridiculous theories, it is a waste of time to study them. However, since mankind tends to repeat his mistakes, we should look at some of the bad ideas that have returned in the past 500 years.
Since many of the heretics picked and chose their bad ideas from different heretical traditions, it is difficult to sort them out. It is simpler to look at the principal mistakes. One group of heretics, for example, were Judaizing, that is, like the Pharisees at the council of Jerusalem they wanted to maintain the Old Testament laws. They also taught, typically, that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Jewish tradition, adopted by the Father at baptism, and they rejected Paul’s epistles, because he was a Jewish renegade. Very early on the Church ruled against keeping Jewish customs of circumcision and dietary laws which, they said, were superstitious and blasphemous because they declared some parts of what God had created to be unclean. Peter had had a vision that all things in Creation were pure, and later writers made this absolute.
Other heretics went in the other direction and claimed to be entirely spiritual. They rejected most of the Old Testament, because, after the destruction of the Temple, they thought Jehovah had failed them. Because they relied only on spirit and not on good works, they felt free to eat meat that had been offered to idols and to engage in adultery and fornication. [Cf. the Epistle of Jude]
Many of these spiritualist heretics were also Gnostics, a Greek term (from gnosis, knowledge) that suggests Gnostics were seeking a higher former of knowledge that would liberate them from bondage to the flesh. Fantastic mythologies. Irenaeus correctly interpreted the heresies as symptoms of a general problem. The leaders (heresiarchs) were all intellectuals, individualists who wanted to make themselves the center of their own schools. They were opposed by the bishops, who did not represent their own ideas but the traditions of the Church, going back to the apostles.
Puritans
Not all heresies were as fantastic as the extreme forms of Gnosticism. The followers of Montanus, for example, took Christian moral teachings and pushed them to such an extreme that Christians would not have been allowed to serve in the army, serve in the imperial administration, or even attend public ceremonies honoring the emperor on his birthday. Montanists, who were convinced that the end of the world was near, rejected all participation in the Roman world. They and the other super-Puritans, who were expecting the Apocalypse, gave Christians a bad reputation for being unpatriotic, uncharitable, and misanthropic, and their repudiation of imperial authority and Greco-Roman culture gave the enemies of the Faith a good pretext for persecution.
Though Tertullian, one of the most important and most irascible of the early Latin Fathers, embraced Montanism later in his life, Pope Eleutherius (c. 175-80) condemned the dangerous heresy, and his decree was accepted. When Septimius Severus came to power, he grew alarmed by the apparent threat to the Empire and he issued an edict forbidding the Christians to make new converts. Sensible bishops, wishing to avoid unnecessary conflicts, did their best to calm the hysteria of the extremists, but every persecution brought with it new expectations that the world was coming to an end.
Another form of pernicious Puritanism was sponsored by Novatianus, a priest in Rome at the time of Decius’ persecution and afterwards. Novatian and his followers insisted that Christians who, under threat of death, had sacrificed to an idol, could never be readmitted into the Church. They repudiated Pope Cornelius, who insisted on showing charity to the cowardly Christians who had saved their lives, and Novatian and his followers set up their own Church. Pope Cornelius was stoutly defended by the second most important patriarch, Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria, a pillar of sound doctrine. Hearing that Novatian was attempting to transfer blame for the schism (split) in the Church to the priests who supported him, Dionysius called on him to prove that he was “led on unwillingly” by giving up the schism willingly. [Note: There is some confusion about the identity of Novatus/Novatianus and whether there are two men or one, but that would be irrelevant to the discussion.]
“For a man ought to suffer everything for the sake of not cutting up the Church of God, and to suffer martyrdom to prevent schism is no less glorious than to suffer martyrdom to avoid idolatry, and, in my opinion, it is even more glorious. For in the one case, a man is martyred for the sake of one soul, while in the other it is for the sake of the entire Church.”
This same Dionysius was also asked to settle a thorny question that divided Christian communities in Egypt (and elsewhere). Some Christians (particularly Judeo-Christians, I believe) had become obsessed with the details of what would happen when Christ returned. During the thousand year reign predicted in Revelations, would faithful Christians have their own bodies and enjoy all the licit pleasures of the flesh? Though Christ had told the disciples that no one would know the hour of his return, some of these Christians (“millenarians”) attached a great importance to the Millennium. Dionysius, among many other Fathers of the Church, firmly repudiated the idea of a Millennium spent in fleshly pleasures and warned against the dangers of a teaching that distracted Christians from fundamental teachings.
By the middle of the 3rd Century, then, Christian bishops, when problems arose, could appeal both to the apostolic tradition and to the unity of the Church universal. There was also a body of coherent and rigorous theology, following the rules of Greek philosophy, which enabled them to defend the Church against external pagan attacks and against internal subversion of heresies that often resulted from a literalist misreading of the Old Testament.
Unity, the authority of the bishops, and the authentic teaching of the apostles, this was the solid foundation for the Church when it was about to face the severest test: the persecution of Diocletian. Christians were loyal citizens of the Empire, they served in the armies, staffed the bureaucracy.
18 Comment by Lee on 21 December 2007:
Sid, First, you need to check out the Councils of Hippo, 393 AD, Carthage, 397 AD, and second Carthage, 419 AD, all of which confirmed the same Canon and then sent them along to the Pope for confirmation binging on the whole Church. (And this is why the Church is the ultimate interpreter of the Bible — its their book.) They settled the content of the Canon. Trent was merely one of several councils that reconfirmed the Canon, and the only reason they addressed it was because Calvin and others rejected, following the Jewish Council of Jamnia in 96? AD, certain of the books in the Old Testament on the basis that they were authored originally in Greek.
Second, I never said that a scrap of papyrus proved the early dating, it merely lends credence to Tradition. I believe that the Tradition actually says that the New Testament was completely written during the lifetime of many of the disciples of Christ who personally saw Christ, listened to Him preach, and witnessed the Crucifixion and events following the Resurrection.
Third, inerrant does not mean (necessarily) literally true. Such a conclusion would totally eliminate the literary qualities of the Bible and all of the analogical levels of meaning contained therein. Inerrant means that it conveys truthfully, using all the literary devices that ancient authors used (many more than moderns use by the way), what God wanted to convey. In the words of that great Trentian, Card Bellarmine, it does not teach us how the heavens go, but how to go to heaven.
Fourth, for a liturgical expert, you seem to be ignorant of the fact that the first half of the Catholic Mass is essentially the same as a Jewish service. It then grafts on the Consecration and Communion, the Re-presentation of the sacrifice of the spotless Lamb, special pleadings for the living and the dead, and thanksgiving for the gifts provided.
19 Comment by Sid Cundiff on 22 December 2007:
1. The Eastern Church would have trouble with Lee’s Western councils. What about the 151st Psalm? or 3rd and 4th Maccabees? (all three in the Eastern Canon). or 1st and 2nd Esdras? All these works in the LXX, or at least in all the editions of the LXX that were circulating. Or the Apocalypse of Moses, used by Jude’s congregations a scripture?
The issue of canon (and lectionary) is complicated by the fact that many bishops had their own canon of books they permitted to be used in the liturgy (what canon means).
The Marcion heresy is relevant here also.
Trent made the final dogmatic canon, with anathemas, which all Catholic bishops were obliged to follow.
Otherwise on this issue I’m not in disagreement.
2. I believe that the Tradition actually says that the New Testament was completely written during the lifetime of many of the disciples of Christ who personally saw Christ, listened to Him preach, and witnessed the Crucifixion and events following the Resurrection.
Where does the Tradition (upper case) say this? Legend has Mark associated with Peter, and Luke with Paul. Matthew might be the name of the community that Matthew founded, a popular literary practice. Moreover, it was common in the ancient world that if one had studied with a master and the master had certified the student, the the student could use the master’s name for his own work. Thus Colossians and Ephesians probably aren’t from Paul’s hand, but from one of his students. Ditto the Pastorals. And no one now says Paul wrote Hebrews, a claim doubted even in antiquity. Much work thought to be by Plato and Aristotle is from their students. The ancients simply had other standards of authenticity than we do.
3. inerrant does not mean (necessarily) literally true.
It does for Fundamentalists. And so it is understand in our culture. Choose another word. The Resurrection of our Lord is a “saving truth”. Jonah’s living in a whale is not. Otherwise, no disagreement on this point.
4. for a liturgical expert, you seem to be ignorant of the fact that the first half of the Catholic Mass is essentially the same as a Jewish service..
I am not so ignorant, and what the hell does this have to do with the argument? I thought we were debating the antiquity of the gospels prior to, say, Paul’s letters. (I’m dating his first, 1st Thessalonians, c. AD 50. I’m dating Mark before AD 70 and possibly, given Mark’s thematic, during the Nero persecutions. I’m saying that Matthew comes after Mark, and was written possibly in a Jewish-Christian setting. I’m dating Luke after AD 70, in a gentile setting, for the reasons given in a previous writeback. These dates seem to be plausible — a word that I would prefer to “conjectural”.)
20 Comment by martin luther on 22 December 2007:
21 Comment by Philip Zurich on 22 December 2007:
22 Comment by roho on 22 December 2007:
Paul circumcized Timothy to appease his mother, a Jew.(His Father a Greek)……..Paul recognized early on that by working through women(Such as Lydia), where the women went, the children followed. This was an important strategy as he was in direct competition with the Jewish recruits that offered “Slave Girls and Concubines”, which always appealed to the men of Asia Minor that had been brought up in the Helinistic rituals of “Female Worship”……………….Old habits are hard to break, so the Virgin Mary was elevated inorder to ballance that thinking pattern later.(But women’s roles in the church were controled inorder to maintain ballance.)
23 Comment by John Smythe on 22 December 2007:
24 Comment by Mark Depré on 22 December 2007:
I’m interested in the views of a scholar like Dr Fleming concerning
“text criticism” and the scholary reasons why he ,as historian and
classical philologist ,believes that the mainstream-dating of the gospels is possible not accurate but it seems the thread is hijacked
(again) by zealous “ueber” catholics….pitty.
25 Comment by John Smythe on 22 December 2007:
i hear you mark – sorry – you have a right to debate how many angels live on the head of a pin… while you perish – you Are correct.
26 Comment by Mark Depré on 22 December 2007:
Mr Smythe,
My excuses Sir, I was almost forgotten that “Extra ecclesiam nulla salus !”
” We declare, say, define and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”
Pope Boniface VIII, the Papal Bull ” Unam Sanctum”, 1302 A.D.
” The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatic’s, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her and that so important is the unity of
this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgiving, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian solder. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, not even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.”
Pope Eugene IV, the Papal Bull ” Cantate Domino”, 1441 A.D
Please note this: anyone living outside of the Church, even while practicing a long and zealous Christian way of life, will not be rewarded for his charitable life, even if he saves his soul by a death-bed conversion. Every person outside the Church is throwing away his time.
Pope Pius XIII, caritas 43 (papal office), 2004 A.D.
Best regards,
Mark.
27 Comment by G. Oren on 22 December 2007:
I would refer Mr. Depre to Dominus Iesus, issued in 2000 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
28 Pingback by gospel of judas | News of course on 23 December 2007:
[...] Church and Empire II: A Gentile Church [...]
29 Comment by Nicholas G.P. MOSES on 23 December 2007:
“Pope Pius XIII, caritas 43 (papal office), 2004 A.D.”
Would Mr. Depré care to clear up this oddity, or is it merely a temper tantrum?
30 Comment by Mark T. Depré on 23 December 2007:
Mr Moses,
No, not a temper tantrum…just an ironic wink.I will try to
explain :
Pope Pius XIII (aka Mr Pulvermacher) is a sedevacantist priest who was elected “pope” by some “true catholics” in Montana who believe that the guy in the Vatican is a heretic and ursupator.(see http://www.truecatholic.org)
Sounds indeed odd but for me as non-catholic the claim of Mr Ratzinger to be Peter’s succesor has no more value
than the claim of Mr Pulvermacher. I consider all popes as you probably will consider Mr Pulvermacher :an odd guy with an odd claim.
Therefore I am not impressed when Mr Smythe warns me that I shall perish because I am more interested in dr Fleming’s scholary opinions about ““text criticism” of the Scriptures instead of his (and others) theological ravings about “Montanists who were super-puritans” , “fundies”, “The Bible is inspired and inerrant because and only because the Church and the then reigning Popes, pronounced them so”, “Trent” , “Calvin” etc.
31 Comment by Mark T. Depré on 23 December 2007:
Mr Oren,
Thanks for the tip.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFUNICI.HTM
32 Comment by Allen Wilson on 24 December 2007:
Well, the stories from truecatholic.org of John XXIII’s body being found facing downward towards hell when he was exhumed, and Paul VI’s corpse rotting even before burial, and then stinking so bad that they kept having to add formaldehyde even after burial, are amusing. However, these schismatics are as repugnant in condemning all non-catholics to hell as are protestants who do the same thing.
TJF, your descriptions of early heretics and their practices are eerily reminiscent of modern nutcase groups. The Montanists remind me of Jehovies, who claim (of course) to be the only true descendants of the early Christians. Perhaps they confuse Montanists with early Christianity itself. I think I see why the story of early Christianity needs to be studied – without Marxist or sectarian bias – by everyone; so we can avoid making the same mistakes and heresies that others have already made. When protestants turned away from Church tradition, they left themselves wide open to many heresies, all of which had alrerady been made in the early days of the faith. History has repeated itself, and there is nothing new going on. It could have been avoided. Perhaps, in a sane world, Church history would be studied right along with the classics.
33 Comment by Allen Wilson on 24 December 2007:
Concerning Porphyry, if there were so many heresies afoot in his time, and logic was often used by the Church itself to defend against them and defeat them, then there must have been a lot of illogical garbage passing for Christianity in those days. No wonder someone like Porphyry would attack ‘Christians’, if they were making illogical or absurd claims. His attacks on ‘Christians’ may have been directed largely at these fruity types as well as the Church, so he may have helped to eliminate heresy in the long run, whatever his own aims were, and whether or not he attacked the Chruch itself.
34 Comment by Allen Wilson on 24 December 2007:
Err…the last clause in the last sentence should have been edited out. The sentence should have ended with ‘whatever his own aims were’.
35 Comment by TJF on 24 December 2007:
I fully agree with Allen Wilson that pagan tools are necessary tools for correcting Christian eccentricities and heresies. On the question of Porphyry and his master Plotinus, they (Plotinus in particular) do not seem to have distinguished between Catholic Christianity and the various Gnostic forms so popular in Egypt. Plotinus’ essay against Gnosticism is quite good, attacking them for, among many other sins, their ignorance and effrontery in preferring their own myths to the serious work of the Greek philosophical tradition. Too many orthodox Christians fell into the same trap, largely out of envy and resentment and the inflated sense of self-importance against which Paul rails.
I have known many Lutherans and some, certainly, believe that Catholics are going to Hell, just as some Catholics believe every non-Romanist is headed in the same direction. Boniface’s papacy was disastrous. He never tired of asserting the by then impossible doctrine that the rulers of secular states owe their authority to the Church. If he had not been so arrogant and abusive, one might feel more sympathy for him. As it is, his misbehavior contributes, by a short train of events, to the Avignon Captivity, which later spawned the Great Schism. Even in his own lifetime, he had to take back much of what he put in his absurd Bull Clericis laicos. Let us also remember that Dante put Boniface in Hell with the simoniacs–even though the Pope was alive at this time. Popes have their opinions, some of them quite strange. Catholics are obliged to follow the teachings of the Church’s Tradition and not the whim of every man who has sat upon the throne of Peter. We owe every Pope the respect due his office but are free to disagree–just as one of Boniface’s successors (my memory fails) was forced to retract his theory that the souls of the just do not enjoy, immediately, the beatific vision.
There have been Popes who gave color to this rather parochial notion of the Church, but many other Popes who have treated the Orthodox as separated brethren and Protestants as misguided but not necessarily Hell-bound. If salvation depended on correct belief, then there is hope for very few of us. The answer one hears from some Evangelicals is that what matters is being “born again,” or having “Jesus in your heart,” in which case salvation is a matter of feeling good about one’s self. Anyone notice, by the way, how when some celebrity is caught doing something nasty–making an unthinkable ethnic aspersion–he inevitably says “I am a good person, ” which no Christian can say with confidence. Obviously good person= true-believing liberal.
As a scholar I believe that the only Gospel in its present form (more or less) almost certainly written by a disciple of Jesus is John’s, though there must surely be a good deal of early, contemporary witness in the other three. As for the doubted authorship of Colossians, etc., credat Apella Judaeus. Having spent years on the techniques of settling authorship questions, I can say unequivocally that internal evidence is of little use. Writers change and there are circumstances about which we know nothing–dictation through a less or more literate scribe, translation, etc. While I am happy to look at real scholarship on such points, most of what has been done simply does not pass the most elementary test: Does it work on a case where we know the answer? In the case of Shakespeare, none of the charlatan Ogburns have contributed anything useful to the discussion. I have never seen any study of Pauline authorship that was any better. If I have time this year, I am going to revise and publish a serious article I did on the authorship of Aeschylus’ Prometheus–now generally rejected as Aeschylean. It was accepted by a journal and then rejected, when the journal editor–now an Ivy League university president–had reason to do a favor for a scholar whose work I debunked.
I hope this is not too confusing. My argument boils down to this: Christians should not adopt an obscurantist approach and ignore the fruits of serious scholarship or science. It is not the date or authorship of this or that text, ultimately, that matters, but what the Church has taught. Even if there are trivia mistakes in fact or textual corruption (though very little of that), the Church and its Scriptures are inerrant on matters of faith and morals. On the other hand, we should not confuse true science and scholarship with the conjectural literary interpretations that are too often passed off as philological research.
I’ll try to post a bit more to keep the conversation moving, both here and in Gentile Church II
36 Comment by TJF on 24 December 2007:
MORE
Triumph of the Church
By the Third Century the Church was growing in many ways. The authority of the bishops was increasing, the loose network of
Christian communities was being tightened into a disciplined order, and Christianity was attracting converts from all walks of life. In the first century of the Church converts were drawn primarily from the poor and uneducated classes. There were exceptions, however, and members of the highest Roman aristocracy are known to have converted as early as the First Century A.D.
Greek and Roman intellectuals took little interest in the Church, except to ridicule its “superstitions.” Christian apologists did their best, but even Justin Martyr, though a good writer and honest thinker, lacked the advanced education that he would have needed for a serious debate with trained philosophers. Justin had, however, taken one very important step: At a time when many Christians were simply repudiating Greek thought and Roman authority, he had tried to explain Christianity in the terms of Greek philosophy and literature.
Alexandria (the Greek capital of Egypt) was the most intellectual center for the Greeks, and it was at Alexandria that Christian thinkers mastered the tools of Greek philosophy and literature and put them into the service of the Faith. In the late 2nd Century, Pantaenus, who had been taught by disciples of the first apostles, achieved such prominence that he was sent to India to preach. He was not the first Christian on the subcontinent, since while he was in India he actually found a copy of Matthew’s Hebrew Gospel.
Pantaenus’s student Clement was even more famous than his teacher. Though born, probably, at Athens, Clement’s study of philosophy led him to Alexandria, where he converted and became a priest (about 190). Clement, who was well-read, not only in philosophy but in poetry, saw Greek and Roman culture as a reflection of the eternal truth that had been given to literary and religious leaders of all nations. In this way, although the Greek mind had been darkened by superstition and error, the poetry of Homer and Hesiod could be compared with the Hebrew Scriptures. Clement put strong emphasis on philosophy, which could be used to refute the errors of non-Christian philosophers and clarify Christian teaching. With no appetite for martyrdom, Clement left Alexandria to escape persecution, but he returned some time for his death (not later than 220).
Clement’s student Origen was a philosopher and literary scholar of great reputation even among pagans. Reared in a Christian family, Origen supported his family by teaching pagan literature, but he was also a teacher of the catechism. Realizing that his students had been led astray by philosophical errors, he devoted himself to philosophy and studied with a leading Neoplatonist philosopher. He wrote constantly, on Scriptural interpretation, moral exhortation, philosophy. Origen was so successful that he attracted the interest even of pagans, and the mother of Emperor Alexander Severus asked him to explain his religion to her.
Origen’s fame, even after his death, was so great that he was attacked by the Church’s most important intellectual enemy, Porphyry (232-305), a Neoplatonist philosopher who wrote a 15 volume work against Christianity. Porphyry not only rejected the central Christian truths, but he ridiculed the idea that Christianity could be reconciled with philosophy. One important part of his critique was aimed at the stories of the Old Testament: Taken literally, these stories were not always compatible with the high moral teachings of the Church. Celsus had already pointed to some of the apparent absurdities but blamed Jews who in converting to Christianity abandoned their customs.
Origen’s answer was subtle. First of all, there were Judeo-Christians who clung to the Mosaic law, and even Peter, before he was fully enlightened, took pride in his circumcision. [Contra Celsum II.ii.]But Christ message transcended the old law, and this was probably one of those things of which he spoke in predicting the coming of the Holy Ghost:
“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.“ As Origen observes, because “the apostles were Jews, and had been trained up according to the letter of the Mosaic law, He was unable to tell them what was the true law, and how the Jewish worship consisted in the pattern and shadow of certain heavenly things, and how future blessings were foreshadowed by the injunctions regarding meats and drinks, and festivals, and new moons, and Sabbaths.”
Origen insisted upon a spiritual interpretation of the Law and the Prophets, an interpretation used both by our Lord and within the OT itself: “Jesus, then, is the Son of God, who gave the law and the prophets; and we, who belong to the Church, do not transgress the law, but have escaped the mythologizings of the Jews, and have our minds chastened and educated by the mystical contemplation of the law and the prophets.”
If the Church was going to continue to grow, it would have to meet the philosophers on their own ground. Porphyry himself admits that Origen had great influence and, therefore, does his best to attack him by showing that he learned his wisdom from pagan teachers and that his philosophy is incompatible with Christianity. In going beyond the crude and literal interpretations of the Old Testament made by earlier Christian apologists, Origen had showed that Christianity was not incompatible—though it was superior to—the best Greek philosophy.
There was a danger, however, that Christian thinkers would drink too deep of pagan philosophy and import alien ideas into the faith.
Many heresies sprung from this mistake, and Origen himself fell into several errors, but it is important to remember that philosophical errors could never be refuted except by philosophical truth put in service of the Christian faith.
By the late 3rd Century, Christians, who may have made up as much as a fourth of the Empire’s population, could be found in high positions in the army and government, as teachers of rhetoric and philosophy, and even within households of persecuting emperors. In some places they were bitterly resented by the pagans. In Alexandria, the active center of Greek philosophy, and in Lyons (in Gaul), where pagan religion was very strong, Roman authorities were egged on and assisted by angry mobs. At Alexandria, they tore their Christian victims to pieces in the streets, going house to house to find neighbors they knew to be Christians. Not content with killing their “enemies,” the Alexandrian mob stole their property, destroyed their houses, and burnt whatever was not valuable in great bonfires.
Elsewhere, as in Rome and Carthage, Christians and pagans lived side by side, did business with each other, and intermarried. There are Roman houses that have rooms with wall-paintings on both Christian and pagan themes, and St. Augustine’s mother Monica, born to Christian parents, had a pagan husband, who disliked her religion and refused to allow their three children to be baptized. Late in life, her husband converted and received baptism. By this time few non-Christians, it is fair to say, were enthusiastic about the persecutions, and many were so indifferent to the competing claims of the different sects that they were willing to switch from one to the other, if it proved to be convenient.
Christianity, when it was not corrupted by heresy, had one clear story to tell, and once the Christian message was given a philosophical rigor by Origen and his successors, it also had a logical theology that could defend itself against both heretics and pagan philosophers alike. But Christians had another advantage: the moral purity of their lives. It was not that pagans had no morality. Apart from looseness in matters of sex, pagan morality was comparable with Christian: keep your oaths, do not steal, lie, or cheat, be loyal to family and friends. The difference was that while pagans were not very strict in observing the ideal, ordinary Christians took their own more demanding moral code for granted as the normal way they were to lead their lives. As they pointed out, ordinary Christians lived up to as high a standard as the most self-denying Stoic philosophers.
37 Comment by TJF on 24 December 2007:
PS On the destruction of Carthage, the story of salt sown into the soil is certainly quite late, and I apologize for not eliminating it from the text of a popular lecture which, in one form, goes back many many years. In delivery, I can expatiate, explain, retract, but when I return to the office, I almost never make corrections. As I said at the beginning, these lectures, from which I am extracting bits, are an attempt to vulgarize certain aspects of history. In no way should they be regarded as scholarly texts suitable for publication.
38 Comment by Kyle Rodramdon on 24 December 2007:
I love the Editing herein – I understand – & Endorse. Just like I have never been opposed either to our mother Church’s (alleged) if real – “steering.”
Otherwise what’s her purpose? It’s like with most guy’s wives – he leads her where she lets him follow. it’s win-win.
“More than this cannot be ‘told’, for the Holy Steams will take you to that place where words are no more, and even the Holy Scrolls cannot record the mysteries therein.”
I’m down for it. Why not. ?
39 Comment by John Lofton on 24 December 2007:
The Lord Jesus Christ First, True Libertarian; His Coming Most Important “Political” Event In History
By John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
“And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him.” – Mark 12:17.
The religious significance of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is well known. But, what is not so well known is the sense in which Christ’s birth is “the most important single political event in history,” as Dr. R.J. Rushdoony has observed and documented in many of his books. For example, in his book “The Foundations Of Social Order: Studies In The Creeds And Councils Of The Early Church” (1968), Dr. Rushdoony, referring to the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.), calls this an event that “handed Statism its major defeat in man’s history” because it established God as “the true sovereign and the true source of law.” He notes:
“Western liberty began when the claim of the State to be man’s savior was denied. The State then, according to Scripture, was made the ministry of justice. But, wherever Christ ceases to be man’s Savior, there liberty perishes as the State again asserts its messianic claims. Man is in trouble, and history is the record of his attempt to find salvation. Man needs a savior, and the question is simply one of choice: Christ or the State? No man can choose one without denying the other, and all attempts at compromise are a delusion.”
And this is why, Dr. Rushdoony says, so much legislative action has been futile: “Congress may enact something, but the ‘sovereign’ bureaucracy and courts can empty the act of all meaning and continue to play god over us. The root of the problem must be faced: sovereignty. The secular humanists have created, after [the German philosopher] Hegel, a new god walking on earth — the State. There is no way to harness a god; he harnesses us. As long as the State is sovereign, we are helpless. The efforts of men against a god are helpless….
“Thus, the key issue of our time is lordship or sovereignty: Who is the lord or sovereign, Christ or the State? Christmas reminds us once again of the birth of this world’s only true Lord or Sovereign. We will either acknowledge Him or be judged by Him.”
And make no mistake about it. Regardless of what you’ve heard regarding the alleged greatness of the ancient, Greco-Roman, pre-Christian world, there was no real, true freedom and/or liberty during this era. None. In his book “The Ancient City: A Study On The Religion, Laws And Institutions Of Greece And Rome” (1889), Fustel de Coulanges spells out in detail the darkness of this Christless world:
“The citizen was subordinate in everything, and without any reserve, to the city; he belonged to it body and soul. The [pagan] religion which produced the State, and the State which supported [this] religion, sustained each other; these two powers formed a power almost superhuman, to which the body and soul were equally enslaved. There was nothing independent in man; his body belonged to the State and was devoted to its defense.”
For example, Aristotle and Plato incorporated into their ideal codes the command that a deformed baby son was to be put to death. And in his “Laws,” Plato says (and this sounds very familiar today): “Parents ought not to be free to send or not to send their children to the masters to whom the city has chosen [for their education]; for the children belong less to their parents than to the city.” And in ancient Athens, a man could be put on trial and convicted for something called “incivism,” that is being insufficiently affectionate toward the State! Coulanges says:
“The ancients, therefore, knew neither liberty in private life, liberty in education, nor religious liberty. The human person counted for very little against that holy and almost divine authority called the country or the State… .It is a singular error, among all human errors, to believe that in the ancient cities men enjoyed liberty. They had not even the idea of it.”
Commenting on our Lord’s God/Caesar distinction, Coulanges says: “It is the first time that God and the state are so clearly distinguished. For Caesar at that period was still the pontifex maximus, the chief and the principal organ of the Roman religion; he was the guardian and the interpreter of beliefs. He held the worship and the dogmas in his hands. Even his person was sacred and divine, for it was a peculiarity of the policy of the emperors that, wishing to recover the attributes of ancient royalty, they were careful not to forget the divine character which antiquity had attached to the king-pontiffs and to the priest-founders. But now Christ breaks the alliance which paganism and the empire wished to renew. He proclaims that religion is no longer the State, and that to obey Caesar is no longer the same thing as to obey God.
“Christianity…. separates what all antiquity had confounded….It was the source whence individual liberty flowed….The first duty no longer consisted in giving one’s time, one’s strength, one’s life to the State….all the virtues were no longer comprised in patriotism, for the soul no longer had a country. Man felt that he had other obligations besides that of living and dying for the city. Christianity… placed God, the family, the human individual above country, the neighbor above the city.”
Because of this hideous tyranny, it is no surprise that self-murder (suicide) was so rampant in the ancient world. As Dr. Gerhard Uhlhorn tells us in his “The Conflict Of Christianity With Heathenism” (1899): “Heathenism ended in barrenness and sheer despair, and at last the only comfort was that men are free to leave this miserable world by suicide. Patet exitus! The way out of this life stands open! That is the last consolation of expiring heathenism.” And he quotes Seneca, who said that “the aim of all philosophy is to despise life,” as saying, concerning the suicide option: “Seest thou yon steep height? Thence is the descent to freedom. Seest thou yon sea, yon river, yon well? Freedom sits there in the depths. Seest thou yon low, withered tree? There freedom hangs. Seest thou thy neck, thy throat, thy heart? They are ways of escape from bondage.” To which Dr. Uhihorn adds:
“Can the bankruptcy of Heathenism be more plainly declared than in these words?…With what power then must have come the preaching of this word: ‘Christ is risen! The wages of sin is death: but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.’”
And in a little noticed and seldom quoted passage from “Democracy In America,” Alexis de Tocqueville says:
“The most profound and capacious minds of Rome and Greece….tried to prove that slavery was in the order of nature and that it would always exist. Nay, more, everything shows that those of the ancients who had been slaves before they became free, many of whom have left us excellent writings, themselves regarded servitude in no other light.
“All the great writers of antiquity belonged to the aristocracy of masters, or at least they saw that aristocracy established and expanded before their eyes. Their mind, after it had expanded itself in several directions, was barred from further progress in this one; and the advent of Jesus Christ upon earth was required to teach that all members of the human race are by nature equal and alike. “
The historian Arnold Toynbee saw, accurately, the great failing of the ancient Greeks that they “saw in Man, ‘the Lord of Creation,’ and worshipped him as an idol instead of God.” And this rejection of the true God —- which similarly threatens modern Western civilization —- led to Hellenism’s breakdown and disintegration. Rejecting Gibbon, Toynbee says neither Christians nor barbarians destroyed the Roman Empire; they merely walked over a corpse.
And in his book “Religious Origins Of The American Revolution” (Scholars Press, 1976), Page Smith points out: “The American Revolution might thus be said to have started, in a sense, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg. It received a substantial part its theological and philosophical underpinnings from John Calvin’s ‘Institutes Of The Christian Religion’ and much of its social history from the Puritan Revolution of 1640- 1660, and, perhaps, less obviously, from the Glorious Revolution of 1689.
“Put another way, the American Revolution is inconceivable in the absence of that context of ideas which have constituted radical Christianity. The leaders of the Revolution in every colony were imbued with the precepts of the Reformed faith.” Indeed, he adds, in early America, the Reformation “left its mark on every aspect of the personal and social life of the faithful. In the family, in education, in business activity, in work, in community and, ultimately, in politics, the consequences of the Reformation were determinative for American history.”
As remote or repugnant as Puritanism may be to some, Smith says “it is essential that we understand that the Reformation in its full power was one of the great emancipations of history.” He says the passage in the book of Micah about “every man…under his vine and under his fig tree” was “the most potent expression of the colonist’s determination to be independent whatever the cost,…having substantial control over his own affairs. No theme was more constantly reiterated by writers and speakers in the era of the Revolution.”
God’s Word tells us that if the Son makes us free, we “shall be free indeed” (John 8:36) —- meaning, among other things, at liberty from sin. We are told of “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). We are told that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (II Corinthians 3:17). We are told to “stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free…” (Galatians 5:1). And we are told of Christ’s “perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25).
The Lord Jesus Christ is, in all areas of life, the First, True Libertarian! He is not only the author and finisher of our faith, but also the Architect of all real human freedom. And of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, to His kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and justice, from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this (Isaiah 9:7). Come, let us adore Him, Christ The Lord!
40 Comment by Kyle Rodramdon on 25 December 2007:
yes don’t lose the element of worship John L. He cares about you as much as you do care about him it seems. But it’s a matter of faith, les’t we blaspheme and pretend to know God. Right? Hard Right?
all of this makes me wonder – are we venturing out of the age of soft liberalism – into the era again of Hard Liberalism – hard right!
wow. looks like folks are getting ready to strap on a pair – vomen (hard headed women) or men?!
wow.
cool.
41 Comment by Lee on 26 December 2007:
John Lofton has several interesting quotes, although they are hardly authoritative. To mention just three: first, the American “revolution”, regardless of the intent of some of its backers, was overwhelmingly a war of secession of 13 English colonies from mother England — events that were being attempted all over the British empire at the time including within the British Isles. The Revolution had to wait for Abraham Lincoln and some say it was not completely engaged until the 1960’s. Second, to qoute from that great German/Jesuit economist, Heinrich Pesch, “Order, not freedom, is the highest principle and the best guarantee of the right degree of freedom.” And, third, all societies constrain, more or less, individual members or there would be no society at all, but the degree of regimentation suggested by Lofton’s quotes is not credible; for if it were Christianity could never, ever have developed.
42 Comment by robert reavis on 26 December 2007:
TJF,
Quoting Origen :
“Jesus, then, is the Son of God, who gave the law and the prophets; and we, who belong to the Church, do not transgress the law, but have escaped the mythologizings of the Jews, and have our minds chastened and educated by the mystical contemplation of the law and the prophets.”
I wonder if the word “mythologizings” is accurately translating what Origen actually said. How is the “mythologizing of the Jews” and the ” mystical contemplation ” ( of the Christians ) different ? It seems from much of what Christ taught and revealed about Heaven, that it was the literal and material emphasis of scripture, that which could be measured by the senses only, that was the undoing of the Jews intimate relationship with God. What did Origen mean by the mythologizings of the Jews ? Thank you.
43 Comment by TJF on 26 December 2007:
I don’t have the text of Origen at the office and I forgot to renew my TLG subscription. As I recall, he uses some form or derivative of mythologia, that is, the telling of religious and heroic stories. His point is that Jews took too literally some of their customs and traditions, such as dietary laws, which he interpreted in an allegorical or spiritual sense. Their excessive concreteness about such matters blinded them to the spiritual reality they had been taught. Fables and myths are fine, I think he would have said, so long as we do not let the surface details distract us from the deeper meaning. In this sense, it is less important to know how much of the tale of Jonah and the whale ought to be swallowed literally than it is to understand the point of the story, which is that a reluctant Jewish prophet is forced to preach to Gentiles, who, embarrassingly enough, turn out to be more receptive than his own people are.
44 Comment by robert reavis on 26 December 2007:
Dr. Fleming,
“In this sense, it is less important to know how much of the tale of Jonah and the whale ought to be swallowed literally than it is to understand the point of the story, which is that a reluctant Jewish prophet is forced to preach to Gentiles, who, embarrassingly enough, turn out to be more receptive than his own people are.”
Yes, and this is what I suspected you meant in regards to understanding tradition. It is often thought that “primitive ” people were stupid dupes who did not know that (or know how) real imitation was like modern photography — in art as in revelation — when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. In fact the poetry, art, and revelation of the ancients is precisely for those truths which cannot be grasped literally. I fell in love with my wife because she was 5′8′ and I was 6′ 0″ , she was from the city and I was from the country, I was traveling to Spain and she knew the language, etc… Or ” There was something in the way she moved” or as St. Thomas said simply: “No man falls in love with a woman unless he is first delighted by her beauty.” Now which of these methods of communicating the truth really imitates or is “like” the thing itself ? I would say the literal list or “quantitative” aspects is the least descriptive of the truth. It is little surprise when faith in revelation, which is a kind of knowledge is lost or forgotten or disparaged, that reason soon follows by always being reduced to a nominalist conception — or half truth.
45 Comment by Bob on 26 December 2007:
Some very interesting and learned comments.
And some not so.
Coming in on the tail end of things, I still must comment upon the root of the matter, though it is somewhat of an aside from the historical discussion.
If Jesus said he must go, that the Holy Spirit might come and that the same would lead the apostles into all the truth Jn. 16:7, yet in the same Scripture or Bible wherein we are told this, we are also told that the sword of the spirit is the word of God Eph. 6:17, that it equips one for – not some, a few or even many – but all good works 2 Tim. 3:17 and that while, yes, Peter tells us, there are some things in the Scripture that are hard to understand such as some of what Paul wrote 2 Pet. 3:16, Paul is still persuaded that Timothy not only can, but has known the inspired Scriptures even as a child and is, as a consequence, wise unto salvation 2 Tim. 3:15.
In other words, according to the Scripture itself, it is the only inspired, infallible, sufficient and perspicuous or clear Word of Christ we have to go on. Can we say the same? From what I am reading here, I think not.
The Word of God is the Word of God, not because the church has declared it on the strength of its own authority to be so, but because it is the Word of God and the church has in humility recognized it, because God has given all those who believe and obey wisdom and grace to know the difference. My sheep hear my voice and follow me. A stranger will they not follow. John 10:27,5.
That Word is of course providentially preserved in Christ’s church Is. 59:21, Mtt.5:18, but woe be unto the church if it places itself over Scripture, over the word of Christ her master, rather than under.
Of course, there is nothing new under the sun Eccl. 1:9. The Pharisees too, asked Jesus why his disciples walked not according to those most holy religious and reverent traditions of the elders and were ready to condemn them. Imagine their surprise when he told them, THE scribes of Israel:
Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. Mark 7:6-9.
And just what is this commandment of God? Believe on his only begotten Son whom he hath sent and worship thou him and not any other in spirit and truth John 3:18, 4:23.
In other words, the tables have been turned. It is better that we are the dogs underneath Mk. 7:28 than those who sit in pomp and glory with the Pharisees at their feasts and their traditions, however ancient. In other words, we do well to make sure we are not following the traditions of men even today, even that tradition that says because Jesus said “That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it Matt. 16:18” we must follow Peter and his church or be outside Christ’s church and forever lost.
Unfortunately five verses and a short time later, Jesus also says to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.”Matt. 16:23. But why is this? Why the contradiction? How can Peter be both the first pope and the antiChrist according to the words of Christ? Because Peter first confessed Christ, THE rock and chief cornerstone in Zion, upon which the church is built, as Peter himself confesses again later in 1 Pet. 2:6, but then he goes on in the second place to counsel Christ to turn from his duty as head of his church, of laying down his life for his sheep. Ergo Christ responds in kind to both comments, commending the one and condemning the other
Again, Christ is that stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed 1 Pet. 2:8. Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. Matt. 21:44
Yes, this is all somewhat off topic, but if Christ said, if we receive not the love for the truth, we cannot be saved 2 Thess. 2:10 it is still germane if we must insist on mixing theology with our history.
Thank you
46 Comment by Robert Reavis on 26 December 2007:
Bob,
Never fear to offer your comments however belated, on this blog. Your assertions are not new and in a happier age, vigorously debated. Here is a Catholic reply to this type of “book” theology that I have always admired. It was addressed to the Dean of St Pauls Cathedral.
“Your second objection is weightier. We of the Faith are not universal, but segregated. The world notes (as you do) that we stand together, making one regiment. You mistake that unity for mere servitude, and that bond for a chain. There is none of us but can assure you that only in the Faith does the reason reach a plenitude of freedom, nor any of us that has searched into ideas but will further tell you that we of the Faith may doubtfully admit some sceptics for our equals, but certainly no sentimentalists or men of merely emotional religion.
You say that we are within walls. So we are. But they are the walls of a city. It is the secure City of God. You resent our unity. Without it how would the structure of revelation be preserved, or of that Christian society which we made, which is Europe, and the dissolution of which will be the death of all? You are offended at our central command. But are we not under siege?
In truth it is not the constitution of the Church you abhor, but the thing itself—little though you know that thing: just as men hate some strange country though they know not a word of its language. When such decry the tyranny or the licence of some polity, it is not Monarchy nor the Republic which troubles them, but the very texture of a detested nation. With you it is not the Captaincy of Peter that offends—though that is holy, necessary, and aboriginal—it is his Ship: the Ship itself: life on shipboard: the manner of the sea.
Wherein also resides your chief, and only grave, indeed your one grievance: that what the Catholic faith lays down, this you do not believe.
You have writen “The Catholic Church is an Imposture,” thereby provoking all the past of Europe, and challenging Ignatius of Antioch and Augustine of Hippo no less than the least of our fellowship today.
I forbear to pin you to a strict explanation, whether that “imposture” be the Incarnation, the Eucharist, or any other of our structural mysteries.
Your office forbids you to reply. You take money paid you to teach and maintain some, at least, of the Christian doctrines and the creeds. Therefore you cannot speak your mind openly, or tell us whether at heart you do not agree with the half-instructed millions around you who make no doubt that religion is of man: a figment.
I will content myself by concluding with this: that there wholly escapes you the character of the Catholic Church. You judge it by indications dead and valueless; you have not—for all your detestation of it—experienced its life, not known it for what it is. You are like one examining the windows of Chartres from within by candle-light, and marvelling how any man can find glory in them; but we have the sun shining through. You are like one curious to note the canvas-marks on the back of a Raeburn, and marvelling to hear its obverse called the true picture of a man. For what is the Catholic Church? It is that which replies, co-ordinates, establishes. It is that within which is right order; outside, the puerilities and the despairs. It is the possession of perspective in the survey of the world. It is a grasp upon reality. Here alone is promise, and here alone a foundation.
Those of us who boast so stable an endowment make no claim thereby to personal peace; we are not saved thereby alone. But we are of so glorious a company that we receive support, and have communion. The Mother of God is also ours. Our dead are with us. Even in these our earthly miseries we always hear the distant something of an eternal music, and smell a native air. There is a standard set for us whereto our whole selves respond, which is that of an inherited and endless life, quite full, in our own country.
You may say, “All this is rhetoric.” You would be wrong, for it is rather vision, recognition, and testimony. But take it for rhetoric. Have you any such? Be it but rhetoric, whence does that stream flow? Or what reserve is that which can fill even such a man as myself with fire? Can your opinion (or doubt, or gymnastics) do the same? I think not!
One thing in this world is different from all other. It has a personality and a force. It is recognised, and (when recognised) most violently loved or hated. It is the Catholic Church. Within that household the human spirit has roof and hearth. Outside it, is the Night.
In hac urbe lux solennnis
Ver aeternum pax perennis
Et aeterna gaudia. “
47 Comment by Bob on 26 December 2007:
Dear Robert,
Thank you for yours above of #46.
Yet having read it I am still left with the question: What was the point?
Eloquent it may have been, but it was also immaterial, if not a red herring and dust in one’s eyes.
Yes, perhaps I could have said it better in my first post.
As my freshman history teacher at the Jesuit Prep school I went to, Mr. Painter, used to din into our numb skulls, in studying history, you have to distinguish between primary texts and secondary texts.
While I will not pretend to any great knowledge of history, even early church history which is the formal topic under discussion, the Bible is not only a primary text, it should also be allowed to speak for itself, which it does eloquently enough, before it is wrested into something else. It is after all, either the word of Christ or it is not. Neither can one know or purport to love Christ apart from his words, much more his Word the Bible.
True, it comes to us through the church, but it does not follow that the church may then say what she likes about what the Bible says.
True, we all bring our preconceptions to a text, but the idea is to bring as few as possible, particularly when it is God’s Word. There will be more than enough time later to double check what we think it is saying. (And yes, Virginia, sometimes the Bible actually means what it literally says, as opposed to being literally figurative or allegorical in places.)
Contra the Koran, it can also be translated into other languages so that all who can read the vernacular can run the race set before them, of which the crown is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Granted too, only the faithful copies of the Greek and Hebrew originals are ultimately authoritative for the church. For this we have Islam to thank for the fall of Constantinople, which brought the Greek scholars and manuscripts to the West and helped ignite the Reformation. Likewise because Charles was busy with the Muslims, he didn’t have time for that pesky monk in Wittenburg. The western antichrist was too busy with the eastern antichrist.
In other words again, scripture alone is infallible, sufficient, self interpreting and clear.
This is not merely my point of view, but classic reformed and presbyterian theology as confessed in the first chapter of the Westminster Assembly’s Confession of Faith 1647, which confession was largely seconded by the congregationalist Savoy Statement of 1658 and the London Baptist Confession of 1689, hardly a superficial fundamentalist consensus, but still a consensus that most traditionalists seem happy to leave out of the picture, nuances and all.
As for “book” theology, looking around a bit more and realizing what site I am on, I supposed I could rather have expected to hear the term “bibliolatry”. I did not.
Yet if I may be excused and with all due respect, the sneer and the curled lip might almost be palpable. I would hope not.
That is because not I, but another said, “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” Matt. 4:4 in answer to the temptation of Satan of who’s devices we are to be aware.
But it gets worse.
Jesus also said: He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day John 12:48.
And just how are we supposed to spin that?
Which is just the problem. Respectfully, I find Christ’s word, even the Scriptures to be decisive over and against the many eloquent, vain and specious arguments for the traditions of men, even religious men and institutions of long standing and ancient origin, i.e. “book theology” trumps all the imitations, pretenders and usurpers.
Thank you again.
48 Comment by G. Oren on 27 December 2007:
Brother Bob:
Thanks for your insightful comments. As a Protestant (Baptist), they echo much of what I have been taught most of my life. The questions at issue have their roots in the Reformation and the justification for the Reformation posited by the reformers. As the word itself indicates a reform of what was the practice of the Roman Catholic Church in the 15th and 16th centuries, Luther, Calvin, their followers and subsequent groups like the Anabaptists had to base their reforms on some authority, and so began the intellectual tradition of sola scriptura and sola fidei (I vastly oversimplify but you see my point).
Having tried for some years to study the history of the early church, and to humbly determine what, in the traditions of the Baptist church, seemed most essential to trace from that history (through the way of teaching catuchemens to the counciliar history of the early centuries, up until the Schism with the Eastern Church and even into growth of humanism prior to the Reformation itself). I have found it incredibly difficult to detect at what point one can say with certain authority “here we throw out the bath water without throwing out the baby”. It is certain that ecclesiastical excesses (like indulgences) and other points of doctrine, such as the number of sacraments and their importance, not to mention the thorny problem of Eucharistic theology, grew into stumbling blocks when compared to the apparently clear emphasis of scripture.
My Catholic friends would say that we Protestants have no ground on which to stand in picking and choosing were it not for the existence of the Church itself and its organic growth and adaptation to the leading of the Holy Spirit. We can chide them as Pharisees who have somewhere missed the boat, but can we truly point to the nearly five hundred years of Protestant history as bearing better fruit. If we argue that in the fullness of time the Holy Spirit led the reformers to enlighten the way to Sola Scriptura can we also acknowledge that such emphasis has led to innumerable schisms and enthusiasms, not to mention some heresies. Having grounded our faith in scripture and our interpretations of it, did we close ourselves off from a living tradition? Are we guilty of biblioidolatry? Is the Word of God the point or does the Word lead us into the fold of the Body of Christ?
The liturgy of my own denomination is focused on the salvific work of Christ and the evangelium, well and good, but it is often also undisciplined, sentimental and narrow.
I take heart from the example of Catholic brothers who are truly informed about scripture and the history and traditions of the early church. I also take heart from such pronouncements as Dominus Iesus, that acknowldege the saving grace of Christ within Protestant denominations while maintaining that our fellowship is imperfect outside the fold of the Catholic Church.
We won’t solve any real problems from the discussions of this blog, but perhaps we shall truly understand each other better, which is certainly a step in the right direction.
Grace and peace.
49 Comment by robert reavis on 27 December 2007:
Bob,
“Respectfully, I find Christ’s word, even the Scriptures to be decisive over and against the many eloquent, vain and specious arguments for the traditions of men, even religious men and institutions of long standing and ancient origin, i.e. “book theology” trumps all the imitations, pretenders and usurpers”
I find nothing objectionable in reading scripture and meditating upon the Word of God. The contemplative life is the highest calling in the Catholic Church. Luther was an Augustinian monk but since as Chaucer noticed, a monk out of the cloister is not worth an oyster, he started a riot in the family. I have friends who spend almost their entire working day doing exactly what you recommend, from the Alps of France to the plains of Oklahoma. In fact one of the most famous Catholic monasterys in the world has made a recent foundation in America, based on the very Christian life you describe. So far as I know, as of this writing, famous Catholics like Buckley and Father Teahouse have contributed about a hundred dollars -=- the monks are still waiting for the Lutherans and Anglicans to weigh in.
The object of my last post was to create a little thinking space for the reflexive anti-catholic stupidity that I often read and hear
too often on a blog of this stature. We Catholic also have our Apologia although given the times, I think this sectarian bickering between Christians of good will is misplaced. I honestly admire men like Aaron Wolf, Mr Peters, Clyde Wilson, Justin Rainondo and many, many others who post on this site and do not share my faith in the government of Christ’s Church . Of course that is mere testimony for some, but it is honest testimony whether inspired by my catholic upbringing ( what was handed down to me ) or something I read in a book.
50 Comment by TJF on 27 December 2007:
A few stray responses. I regret having uttered the name JL, because it elicited his usual response, the same string of quotations and out-of-context references that reveal a complete lack of understanding of the ancient world–or indeed any world in which human beings have lived. Sincerity may cover much, but it cannot cover all deficiencies.
The friendly exchanges beween Bob and Robert have contributed a good deal, though I would say to Bob that his argument that “the Bible is not only a primary text, it should also be allowed to speak for itself, which it does eloquently enough, before it is wrested into something else. It is after all, either the word of Christ or it is not. Neither can one know or purport to love Christ apart from his words, much more his Word the Bible” is after all something to be proved with more than a QED or a reference to reformed theological theory which comes quite late in Christian history. In what sense, exactly, is the Bible “the word of Christ?” Surely not in the sense that he wrote it, because we know of nothing he wrote. Then it is inspired by the Logos? But surely many pagan philosophers, if htey taught truth, were inspired by the Logos. Then what does such a statement mean? I for one do not know.
If Bob has followed the entire thread, he will recall that I have two or three times cited Christ’s promise not to leave behind a book but to send the Holy Ghost to remind His followers of what he actually taught and to clarify all things. I have also pointed out, in response to a liberal-pacifist critic, that the Old and New Testaments can and have been used to teach a great many dangerous ideas about marriage, property, and morality. Those heretics always began with some piece of Scripture but ignored others and ignored the Tradition within the Scriptures were understood. Finally, some attention should be paid to Christ’s use of the Scriptures–to say nothing of the uses made by Paul et al. It always seems to me that most rabbis would have been quite angry with His free-and-easy way of taking things out of one context and applying them to another, and His rather narrow and selective–from the Jewish point of view–approach that concentrates on His own mission.
If the writings of the OT were self-evident and clear, such readings would not be necessary. Indeed, they would be illicit. And then, finally, who selected the Scriptures? Surely not Jesus in human form. If we say the Holy Ghost, then we concede that the Holy Ghost works through the Church. Calvin thought there was no problem but that the selection was self-evident. If he really believed that he had only deceived himself. It is the slender piece of straw on which the great mass of Reformed theology sits, and it cannot be true.
I am not here arguing for a particularly Catholic point of view, though I believe it is catholic and common to the Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican traditions.
As Aaron Wolf has explained to me, even the notion of sola Scriptura has been misinterpreted or at least overinterpreted. I certainly agree with the Protestant insistence upon careful and constant reading of Scriptures for theologians and scholars–though I am not sure, among the unlearned, that unsupervised reading of the Scriptures does not do more harm than good. St. Thomas would have been in complete agreement. But no book–much less a set of books like the OT and NT, however, inspired, even if inerrant in its teachings (though not, obviously, without errors) can explain itself. When it comes to exegesis, we have a limited number of choices: 1) the Tradition of the Church, 2) the authority of a teacher (whether St. Thomas or Martin Luther or Rousas Rushdoony), 3) private interpretation. The third choice leads quite obviously to madness and heresy, but the second is only removed by one step: Who gave Luther or Calvin or Thomas the last word? Indeed, Luther and Calvin studied the Tradition and though they reserved the personal right to break with its later expressions, they did not accord that right to others, such as the Anabaptists. From the Catholic point of view, Thomas is not an independent authority in his own right but only a systematic and brilliant expositor of the Tradition in which he works. Even if he were or is in fact the greatest Christian theologian, he is not perfect and his errors should not be embraced but corrected by other parts of the Tradition.
We all make mistakes, some of them quite serious. Many Renaissance Popes were rotten to the core and the Church was in serious need of reformation, though not necessarily of the Reformation. Luther had much to contribute to this reformation and in two ways he did: by reawakening an Evangelical spirit among German Lutherans and also, in a backhanded way, by inspiring the Counter-Reformation. As I have argued before, the only common ground we can find for exegesis is in a broadly inclusive–not selective–understanding of the early tradition. To have such a conversation, I am willing to bracket off everything after, say 1200 or 1100 or 1000.
51 Comment by Lee on 27 December 2007:
WRT # 45
“If Jesus said he must go, that the Holy Spirit might come and that the same would lead the apostles into all the truth Jn. 16:7, yet in the same Scripture or Bible wherein we are told this, we are also told that the sword of the spirit is the word of God Eph. 6:17, that it equips one for – not some, a few or even many – but all good works 2 Tim. 3:17 and that while, yes, Peter tells us, there are some things in the Scripture that are hard to understand such as some of what Paul wrote 2 Pet. 3:16, Paul is still persuaded that Timothy not only can, but has known the inspired Scriptures even as a child and is, as a consequence, wise unto salvation 2 Tim. 3:15.
“In other words, according to the Scripture itself, it is the only inspired, infallible, sufficient and perspicuous or clear Word of Christ we have to go on. Can we say the same? From what I am reading here, I think not.”
If seems to me that these quotations from Paul are being used to justify the authority of the entire Bible. Since the New Testament was only created in 393 AD by the Catholic Church, Paul’s comments can only apply to the Old Testament which Christ in the Gospels and the other Apostles quoted from extensively. Even so there was not universal agreement in the first century on what constituted the Old Testament Canon anyway.
52 Comment by TJF on 27 December 2007:
I know too little of the OT canon, though I have often wondered why many Protestant sects have followed the postChristian rabbinical tradition in eliminating texts that just happen to refer rather pointedly to Christ. This indicates one serious problem of some Protestant groups: their atavistic concentration on the OT and the Jews at the expense of the New. This is one of several causes of their unwholesome and immoral support for the extreme wing of the Likkud Party.
53 Comment by Sid Cundiff on 27 December 2007:
For the Record:
The WORD of God is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity incarnate in the God-man CHRIST, named Joshua (”Savior”), in Greek Iesus, known in his own time as Yeshua bar-Yosef, yet, unusually, called by the NT Yeshua bar-Mariam. Thus The WORD of God is a Person, and an incarnate person, not paper and ink.
The WORD speaks words. The words of the WORD are found in two places by both Jews and Catholics:
1. the written (scriptura words, for Jews the Tanakh, for Catholics the canon as defined and listed by the Council of Trent, 4th Session 08 April AD 1545.
2. the unwritten word, for Jews given at Sinai along with the written word, and exegetically commented on by the rabbis first in the Mishnah, and expanded in the Talmud, and also called “The Tradition”; and for Catholics by the Deposit of Faith given by the Resurrected One to the Apostles and from them handed on (tradere) by them to their successors, and which is made known, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, through the Magisterium. For Catholics this unwritten word came first; indeed, it guided the Church in deciding what the Canon of the written word was to be, first in combating the heresy of Marcion of Sinope (the proto-Protestant) and then definitively at Trent.
Protestants may correct me, but I understand their position of sola scriptura to teach
1. that the written Word is what the Reformers said the word was, thus throwing out books of the Canon which Christians had used from the start;
2. That there is no unwritten word;
3. That there is no Deposit of Faith with the Apostles, nor anything handed on by them;
4. That there is no magisterium, and every man is his own magisterium and interpreter of the written word.
These principles were held by no one whom we know of until AD 1517 (did Hus hold them? or Wycliffe? If so, they are still very late in the history of the question. )
54 Comment by Aaron D. Wolf on 27 December 2007:
Martin Chemnitz, one of the greatest Lutheran theologians, wrote in his Examination of the Council of Trent, “We confess also that we disagree with those who invent opinions which have no testimony from any period in the church, as Servetus, Campanus, the Anabaptists, and others have done in our time. We also hold that no dogma that is new in the churches and in conflict with all of antiquity should be accepted.”
As per #53, Lutherans disagree with 1, 2, 3, & 4. Sacred Scripture is the norma normans of all doctrine. “Norm” and “source” are not the same.
55 Comment by John Lofton, Recovering Republican on 28 December 2007:
Please, Tom, for openers, put my Fustel de Coulanges quote in context and show how I’ve misused it. Thank you. John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
56 Comment by TJF on 28 December 2007:
To Aaron Wolf, thanks for providing a quotation which could be used as the beginning point for an authentic ecumenical discussion among men of good will.
To John Lofton: I am getting ready to go to Rome–geographically, of course–and don’t have much time. Let me say simply that while I regard Fustel as a brilliant interpreter of ancient civilization, he is as much a philosopher as he is a philologist. To understand his intentions and to evaluate his work, the minimum requirement is the education a good English schoolboy would have had 100 years ago, which means a sounder reading knowledge of the classics than an American PhD in classics would have today. Some non-classicists who read Fustel find proof of what they are looking for, e.g., the pagan elevation of “the state” to a divine level. But, if we confine ourselves to ancient Athens, there was no state, no police, virtually no taxes. Even homicide law only operated in kinfolks brought charges against the killer. Without a state, there can be no state cults, though the Athenians, certainly, had a collective religious sense that displayed itself in the celebration of festivals and in the construction of temples. On this question, about which I know far more than he did, Fustel is simply wrong. Great men are often wrong. As for Rushdoony, although he was probably broadly read, he was simply no classical scholar of any kind, and his opinions are irrelevant to this discussion.
Athenians were, to take one small example, not constrained by any law to kill deformed babies, and even the Spartans, who exerted more social pressure in this matter, raised up children with game legs and other problems. Families were free to make all these decisions, and there was no state to tell them yea or nay. We may not like this, but it is certainly no proof of state-coercion, but quite they contrary. In fact, Greeks and Romans did not typically kill unwanted babies but exposed them and–as the story of Oedipus shows–the abandoned baby could be taken up by someone else. Indeed, this seems to have been the general expectation, except in such cases as the infant was manifestly non-viable. Yes, ancient pagans were capable of immorality and brutality, but so are Christians. No, you can retort that only false Christians have abortions or commit adultery, but that is simply a cop-out. I could just as well say that only bad pagans did these things. The truth is that in our postChristian society, we kill many more babies than the Greeks and Romans ever dreamed of.
To form a rational and coherent picture of ancient moral standards, there is no substitute for a broad reading of ancient literature. There we shall find that husbands and wives were expected to love and take care of each other and their children, that while men wanted to cheat on their wives, the women made it for them if they were found out, that people pursued their private interests without worrying too much about either their commonwealth or their neighbors, that, in fact, they were a great deal more moral and more sensible than either postchristian Americans, sects like the Anabaptists, or the clownish Evangelicals in megachurches or on TBN, who cannot open their mouths without uttering blasphemies. I know that John Lofton is a severe Calvinist and not one of these, but like his mentor Rushdoony, he too is tinged with the Judaizing tendencies that have done so much to distort Christianity from the beginning.
57 Comment by Aaron D. Wolf on 28 December 2007:
I underscore what Dr. Fleming wrote when he said “an authentic ecumenical discussion among men of good will.” I will admit that far too often I give in to the temptation of turning theological debate and discussion into something unnecessarily acrimonious. Something Dr. Harold O.J. Brown always emphasized to me was Our Lord’s prayer on the night of His Passion “that they may be one.” Those of us who confess the Nicene Creed together have to strive toward that goal, even while we are careful to keep our doctrine pure.
My brothers in the Society of St. Polycarp, who are among the sharpest Lutherans I know, take this very seriously. The Rule of the SSP states:
The whole SSP Rule (http://societyofsaintpolycarp.blogspot.com/2006/08/rule-of-society-of-st-polycarp.html) may be of interest to readers, because it represents the historic Lutheran position on a number of topics that are regularly brought up in these discussions.
58 Comment by John Lofton on 28 December 2007:
Great idea! — to have “an authentic ecumenical discussion among men of good will.” Such a discussion, however, is not facilitated by regretting having uttered my name and accusing me of “out-of-context references that reveal a complete lack of understanding of the ancient world” yet not giving one example to support this charge – until I asked for one.
And can it be true that what I wrote really, literally, reveals “a complete lack of understanding of the ancient world.” A “complete lack of understanding of the ancient world?”
Hey! C’mon! I never went to college and I can’t read or write in Latin. But, I know that my understanding here is not “complete.” For example, I know there was an ancient world and it existed a long time ago. So, there! Therefore, my ignorance of this time is not, sir, “complete.” In any event, I forgive you, Tom, you’re your rhetorical recklessness – another problem with some ancients. Now, to some of Tom’s reply, please:
Tom: Let me say simply that while I regard Fustel as a brilliant interpreter of ancient civilization, he is as much a philosopher as he is a philologist. To understand his intentions and to evaluate his work, the minimum requirement is the education a good English schoolboy would have had 100 years ago, which means a sounder reading knowledge of the classics than an American PhD in classics would have today. Some non-classicists who read Fustel find proof of what they are looking for, e.g., the pagan elevation of “the state” to a divine level.
Me: Whoa! Remember Tom, I never went to college and speak only English so send me a little stronger signal here, please. Is this a way of trying, at the outset here, to disqualify me because I ain’t got enuf lernin’? Is this your point? And are you saying the “brilliant interpreter of ancient civilization” Fustel did — what? Did he just make up the story about the pagan elevation of “the state” to a divine level? And if he did that, or just plain didn’t get it re: the ancients, why do you call him “a brilliant interpreter” of that time in history?
Tom: But, if we confine ourselves to ancient Athens, there was no state, no police, virtually no taxes. Even homicide law only operated in kinfolks brought charges against the killer. Without a state, there can be no state cults, though the Athenians, certainly, had a collective religious sense that displayed itself in the celebration of festivals and in the construction of temples. On this question, about which I know far more than he did, Fustel is simply wrong. Great men are often wrong.
Me: Wow! No state in ancient Athens, huh? Never heard that. But, I’ll check it out. Can you give me at least one source that says this, please. Thank you.
Tom: Great men are often wrong.
Me: Are you a great man, Tom?
Tom: As for Rushdoony, although he was probably broadly read, he was simply no classical scholar of any kind, and his opinions are irrelevant to this discussion.
Me: He was “probably broadly read,” huh? How many books or articles by Rush have you read? No, seriously, how many?
Tom: Athenians were, to take one small example, not constrained by any law to kill deformed babies, and even the Spartans, who exerted more social pressure in this matter, raised up children with game legs and other problems. Families were free to make all these decisions, and there was no state to tell them yea or nay. We may not like this, but it is certainly no proof of state-coercion, but quite the contrary.
Me: So, you are saying it is false to say as I wrote that Aristotle and Plato incorporated into their ideal codes the command that a deformed baby son was to be put to death. This statement by me is not true?
Tom: In fact, Greeks and Romans did not typically kill unwanted babies but exposed them and–as the story of Oedipus shows–the abandoned baby could be taken up by someone else. Indeed, this seems to have been the general expectation, except in such cases as the infant was manifestly non-viable.
Me: I do not think I said this was done “typically.” And, again, dumb it down for me in plain English, please. Leaving aside whether “exposed” babies could be taken by someone else, the intention of those who “exposed” babies was to kill them, right? Or were those who did this simply “pro-choice”? And “exposing” these babies was not illegal, right?
Tom: Yes, ancient pagans were capable of immorality and brutality, but so are Christians.
Me: Were they just as capable as Christians? No difference here at all? Was there just as much, for example, human sacrifice among the Christians as among the ancient pagans? Mr. Lecky seems to think Christians stopped a lot of bad things done by ancient pagans. Is he also wrong?
Tom: No, you can retort that only false Christians have abortions or commit adultery, but that is simply a cop-out.
Me: I can, however, retort that our Lord says we know a tree by its fruit (Matthew 7:17ff). And He says that those who love Him will obey His commandments. So, behavior is an indication as to whether one is saved or not. But, Christians do sin. And if a person says he is a Christian, but continues to sin, continually sin, and has besetting sins, and shows only bad fruit, continually, there is good reason to believe that this person is not a Christian.
Tom: I could just as well say that only bad pagans did these things.
Me: All pagans, by Christian/Biblical standards, were bad. Our Lord says there is none good but God. Thus, good = Godly. Thus, no pagan was truly Godly. They were unbelievers who God, in His Word, says were/are wicked, children of the devil (John 8:44ff), bastards (Hebrews 12:8 in the KJV, meaning not members of God’s family).
Tom: The truth is that in our post-Christian society, we kill many more babies than the Greeks and Romans ever dreamed of.
Me: Not sure of the numbers but you are probably right here if you include murder of the unborn. And this is true because we are now pagan. Actually, we are in the barbarian stage. Pagans at least talked about the good, true and the beautiful even if they knew not the real definition of these things. Not much talk about these things now – an age whose epitaph might be “Whatever…”
Tom: To form a rational and coherent picture of ancient moral standards, there is no substitute for a broad reading of ancient literature.
Me: I think there is a substitute – indeed for a Christian there must be a substitute. And it is reading ancient literature through the grid of the Bible, God’s Word.
Tom: There we shall find that husbands and wives were expected to love and take care of each other and their children…
Me: Expected by whom to do this? And in ancient Rome did a Father not have life/death execution power over his family?
Tom: that while men wanted to cheat on their wives, the women made it for them if they were found out…
Me: Something missing here? Don’t understand this.
Tom: that people pursued their private interests without worrying too much about either their commonwealth or their neighbors, that, in fact, they were a great deal more moral and more sensible than either postchristian Americans, sects like the Anabaptists, or the clownish Evangelicals in megachurches or on TBN, who cannot open their mouths without uttering blasphemies.
Me: Agree strongly with the latter. But what do you mean by “a great deal more moral”? “Moral” by what standard?
Tom: I know that John Lofton is a severe Calvinist and not one of these, but like his mentor Rushdoony, he too is tinged with the Judaizing tendencies that have done so much to distort Christianity from the beginning.
Me: Simply “a Calvinist” will suffice here, thank you. But, “Too tinged” with “Judaizing tendencies”? Such as? Specify, please. Give some examples. And in the future, if we are to have that “authentic ecumenical discussion among men of good will,” when you make a charge, particularly a serious one, give at least one example of what you are alluding to. Thank you.
59 Comment by Bob Suden on 29 December 2007:
Greetings,
Respectfully again, a few hopefully brief remarks.
As regards that heavily trafficked and chaotic intersection between tradition and Scripture, the reformers offered, if you will, the nuanced middle way between the extremes of either the tradition of the elders/pharisees or the anabaptist/fundamentalist camp.
Further the reformers took great pains to show that the reformed church and its creeds were based in the historic tradition of the church and that it was the roman church that had departed the way (- as also the anabaptist in the denial of the covenant and paedobaptism. Rom.4:11 is decisive. Circumcision was the sign and seal of the righteousness by faith that was applied to Abraham’s seed whether of the age of accountability or not. If Rome believed in baptismal regeneration, the anabaptist denied that baptism was a sign of grace and made it and the gospel into a works righteousness if you will and unchurched the covenant seed and children.) As Warfield correctly noted, the reformers followed Augustine on the gospel and the doctrines of grace, while Rome followed him on the doctrine of the church.
But just as the Word must precede the sacraments and not the other way around, so too the church stands on the gospel and not the other way around. The church stands along side of Peter and confesses with him that Jesus is the Son of God, not on Peter, whom not only Christ rebuked, but also Paul when Peter sat with the Judaizers, Gal.3:11 who are still with us today.
That is in part what the historic sense of the word “reformed” means – as over and against the roman church, deformed in doctrine, worship and government.
All of which leads to the various objections or remarks on the doctrine of Scripture, to which the Westminster Confession of Faith Chapt. 1 ably, eloquently and exhaustively replies. It opens by saying that,
The Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, revealed Himself, and declared that His will unto His Church, ie. in dreams, oracles yet afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, the same was commited wholly unto writing: which maketh the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.
In other words, Protestants believe that:
1.The Word was first unwritten. Moses was the first to write it down under inspiration and if he did make use of the inspired prophetic tradition, the crucial point is that this unwritten tradition NEVER at any times contradicts the written Word in the Old or New. Paul indeed considers it a moot point in 2 Thessalonians 2:15:
Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.
2. Christ never charged the Jews with debasing or adding to the Scripture, hence the OT canon was that of the Jews and indeed the NT quotes from every canonical OT book.
3. The early church under the influence of the Holy Spirit in many different places and not under the exclusive and dictatorial purview of Rome, independently recognized the NT canon, i.e. that which was written under the inspiration of Christ by his apostles and eyewitnesses or at most, their amanuesis, which is again the fulfillment of the promise in Jn 14:26 and the like to the apostles.
(To say that many pagan philosphers, as much as they taught the truth, were inspired by the Logos of God is an anathema that I was unaware that Rome had surrendered to.)
4. Further, as the Word of God become flesh tells us, in the Word written no less, “The Word of God cannot be broken” (Jn.1:1,12, 2Tim.3:16, Jn.10:35). Hence the quotes from the NT epistles which were still being written and as in at least 1 Tim. 3:16 that originally referred to the OT, still can be applied to the NT canon after it was completed today. Rev. 22:18,19.
5. Where the Word is, there the Church is and where the Word is not, there the Church is not, though some have a name that they live, but art dead. Rev.3:1. Will not many say in that day, Lord, Lord . . and he shall say, Get away from me? Matt.7:22
As the Westminster again confesses in Chapt.1, the Scripture is the divine infallible and inspired, most necessary, supremely authoritative, sufficient, perspicuous, providentially preserved and spiritual Word of God, which again skirts the abyss on either hand; that of the self righteous (arminian) anabaptist and wooden fundamentalist worship of the letter that kills or the ancient and learned traditions and so called science and wisdom of the elders/pharisees that chokes, perverts, buries or ignores the word of him whom they profess to worship and believe.
Rather Jesus is the the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by him, and all that the Father giveth him shall come to him and he will in no wise cast them out. Jn. 14:6,6:37
But likewise he also said, He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. Jn 8:47
Thank you very much.
60 Comment by TJF on 29 December 2007:
I apologize to John Lofton for taking his initials in vain–but see what it has led to! I am also sorry to have used the phrase completely ignorant, when I should have said “as completely ingnorant as it is possible for an intelligent autodidact to be.”
Send me an email and I’ll give you an introductory bibliography on the ancient family, but even the most elementary book is written for someone with a basic knowledge of the texts. As for exposure, who can know what is on anyone else’s mind. So far as I can determine, the object of exposure was not ordinarily infanticide but to eliminate an unwanted child without incurring blood-guilt. And no, we are postChristians and not pagans. We have all of their vices and none of their verses.
Years ago, Mathew Arnold, admittedly a postChristian, said that he who knows only the Bible knows not even that book, and I have to say that some of the more or less Fundamentalist and Calvinist interventions in this discussion have proved Arnold’s point. John I have been listening to you make the same points over the decades, and you never listen, never study, and never learn. I wish you well, but I am not going to waste precious time giving you instruction in a subject you will never pay attention to because you believe you have all the answers in advance.
61 Comment by John Lofton on 29 December 2007:
Tom: I apologize to John Lofton for taking his initials in vain–but see what it has led to!
Me: I accept your apology but must be honest and say I doubt it’s sincerity.
Tom: I am also sorry to have used the phrase completely ignorant, when I should have said “as completely ingnorant as it is possible for an intelligent autodidact to be.”
Me: Good! We’re making progress here re: your loose talk.
Tom: Send me an email and I’ll give you an introductory bibliography on the ancient family, but even the most elementary book is written for someone with a basic knowledge of the texts.
Me: You have my email address. Send away and I’ll try real hard to understand what you are sending.
Tom: As for exposure, who can know what is on anyone else’s mind.
Me: Good point! Who can possibly know what a person intends when they throw their kid off a cliff or leave him under a bridge?! Maybe they were just saying “Happy Birthday!” I mean, who can know?
Tom: So far as I can determine, the object of exposure was not ordinarily infanticide but to eliminate an unwanted child without incurring blood-guilt.
Me: “Eliminate?” Does that mean kill, murder?
Tom: And no, we are postChristians and not pagans. We have all of their vices and none of their verses.
Me: We? Speak for yourself, Tom.
Tom: Years ago, Mathew Arnold, admittedly a postChristian, said that he who knows only the Bible knows not even that book, and I have to say that some of the more or less Fundamentalist and Calvinist interventions in this discussion have proved Arnold’s point.
Me: “Post-Christian”? Does that mean NOT a Christian? And did he really say “he who knows only the Bible knows not even that book?” Sounds like a line from one of Algernon Swinburne’s parodys of himself. Or the kind of gibberish spouted by those wandering heathen philosophers you admire.
Tom: John I have been listening to you make the same points over the decades, and you never listen, never study, and never learn.
Me: Hey!, what happened to that “authentic ecumenical discussion among men of good will” you wanted to have? And what do you mean I “never listen”? I replied, directly, to almost everything you wrote. And you ignored almost everything I wrote.
Tom: I wish you well, but I am not going to waste precious time giving you instruction in a subject you will never pay attention to because you believe you have all the answers in advance.
Me: Oh, ye of little faith. You denounce me for my ignorance while refusing to instruct me. Is this Christian behavior? And it’s God Who has all the answers (and the questions worth asking) which is why I have spent a lot of time diligently studying His Word and the word of St. Augustine who demolished your demon-worshipping pagan philosophers in the “City Of God.” I’m sorry you don’t want to come out and play and defend your position.. God’s Word tells us to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you.” I am. You are not. But, no hard feelings. If I had your position I wouldn’t want to defend it against me either.
62 Comment by Bob Suden on 1 January 2008:
“Years ago, Mathew Arnold, admittedly a postChristian, said that he who knows only the Bible knows not even that book, and I have to say that some of the more or less Fundamentalist and Calvinist interventions in this discussion have proved Arnold’s point.”
Belatedly – in that I too do not want to waste any time of mine or others on unprofitable squabbling and while I know little of Arnold, though I have never heard him called a postChristian, nor do I know if my previous comments are being referred to above, to whom it may concern and for what it’s worth:
The Westminster Confession of Faith, the chief document of the Westminster Standards was the latest and most comprehensive of the reformed (calvinist) confessions. Please do not ignorantly or willfully accept any fundamentalist substitutes.
Further Turretin, who followed Calvin in Geneva in the seventeenth century answers the Roman question of where was your church before the Reformation?, in the fashion of Luther and Calvin. ‘Where apostolic doctrine and teaching is found, there is the apostolic church, that is the true apostolic lineage and heritage’. His scholastic Institutes along with Calvin’s humanistic Institutes can be taken as a reasonable representation of what Calvinist theologians teach.
Even further, Richard Muller’s recent 4 vol. Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics deals with three topics: the prolegomena to theology, the doctrine of Scripture and the doctrine of God. Not only does he show the continuity between medieval theology and reformed theology, he also shows the consensus, yet variety of orthodox reformed theology ca. 1520 -1725.
Again the two principium of theology are fundamental to genuine theology – we do not know God apart from the Scripture, but we must believe in God in order to profit from the Scripture.
Again, the two classic principia of Christian theology are God and Scripture. Not God and the Church. Not the Church and Scripture. Ecclesiology is not of the first order. To believe it to be so, is to have an inferior and second rate theology. Likewise the same can unfortunately be said of any church which holds that theology.
Thank you.
63 Comment by John Lofton, Recovering Republican on 2 January 2008:
Very important point here by Brother Suden, that we must be believers to profit from Scripture. As we are told in I Corinthians 2:14: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
Verses 15, 16 important too. Believers, when we say something emphatically re: good, evil, right, wrong, are often asked: “Who are you to judge?”. Well, here’s an answer from the aforementioned verses:
“But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”
Thus, in a very real sense, Christians are the only ones qualified to judge (according to God’s Word, of course.)
64 Comment by Thomas Fleming on 3 January 2008:
The conversation has been thoroughly diverted–I
should say highjacked–from thje original non-sectarian intentions, and I am requesting the webmaster to close down the comments. I thank you all for taking the trouble to right in. The weather in Rome is pleasantly in the 50’s and I am looking forward to tomorrow’s excursion to Ostia Antica.
65 Trackback by demon babies on 27 June 2008:
demon babies…
As you seem to know what your doing blogging wise, do you know what the best time of the week is to blog and have them read?…