Lesser Known Fathers X: The Shepherd of Hermas IV

This will be the fourth and final installment on the obscure patristic text The Shepherd of Hermas, which follows a series of mystical visions about the end times and the nature of the Church given to Hermas, a freed Roman slave and brother of Pope St. Pius I. These parables are, to say the least, esoteric and abstract, which, along with the failed end times prediction, probably impeded its entry into the the canon of Scripture. This work still makes for great spiritual reading and need not be read sequentially. As a Lenten exercise, I would recommend spending some time with the first book of the Shepherd. We resume with the four final parables:

In the seventh parable the angelic shepherd explains to Hermas why he must suffer on account of the sins of his family, their loss of faith or presumed apostasy in a period of persecution. It is fitting, the angel says, for the head of the house to suffer for the sins of its inhabitants, to render satisfaction for the ills of the whole. Our modern ears hear offence at the idea of justice issued communally, but in these times entire peoples suffered for the sins of a few or many of them, if not for aiding those sins then for not condemning them. "The person who repents," the angel teaches, "must torture his own soul, and must be thoroughly humble in his every action.... and if he endures the afflictions which come upon him, then assuredly He Who created all things and endowed them with power will be moved with compassion and will bestow some remedy." 

The eighth is the parable of the willow tree. Hermas watches the shepherd lop off many branches of an enormous tree and, amazed that the tree can survive such extensive pruning, watches the angel distribute them. Some remain green, some whither, some are eaten by moths, but a few grow shoots and even fruit. The angel sends the holders of these branches to the tower that represents the Church. Hermas, still confused, asks for an explanation. The angel unravels the mystery. The tree that can survive indefinite pruning is the Law of the Son of God, which provides shade to His people, who are protected by the archangel Michael. This Law many ignore, many abuse, but many accept and even allow to flourish within them. These last men are the ones with the fortuitous branches. Some of the withered and cracked branches repair, overcoming Hermas and the shepherd with joy, but others remain broken, just as some sinners repent and bring joy unto God in doing so while others betray the Church in their sins and apostasy. Among those who keep the laws of God and repent there "is no place for rivalry" as to who is the greatest, for all should be happy to be within the tower that is the Church. The latter group, those who live partially in the world and partially in the Church, those with the somewhat withered branches, may be either saved or lost depending on their will move into one camp or another, to claim the fruit of their deeds.

The angel leads Hermas to a plain between twelve hills—some green, some brown, some burned, one lush, and one beautiful. On a mountain adjoining the plain virgins build a familiar great white tower, beginning with six stones, then ten, then twenty-five, and so on. Virgins, those weak and naive to the world, are the strong builders and pillars of the Church and of heaven in the eyes of "the Master," who comes to inspect the tower and finds some of the stones cracked and wanting. He discards of them as He discards of those who leave the Church and invites new stones in their places. Some of these new stones are not cuts, still round. These rest on the sides of the tower and are not forced into slots just yet.

Hermas and the angel inspect the tower and complete its surroundings with plaster, seal it, and clean the detritus. The angel then departs Hermas, who is perplexed that he is being left alone in the event the Master returns. The angel returns at morning after Hermas and the virgins spend the night in prayer. Why, Hermas inquires, is there a gate and a rock at the tower? The rock, the shepherd explains, is the Son of God, anciently predating the Creation of the Father and hence an "adviser" in the Creation by the Father. The gate, however, is not new, but only known now in the last stages and the consummation of the world. "No one shall enter the kingdom of God," the angel concludes, "unless he accept the name of the Son of God." The kingdom of the God is a city like those which existed at the time of Hermas and today exist only for tourists: walled all around, with the exception that the kingdom of God has but one gate. The stones cast away were those unworthy of entering through the gate because they held not the name of the Son of God—the shepherd never says "Jesus" or any linguistic variation of "Christ." The Son of God, the rock upon which the tower is built, "sustains the world" which rests upon Him, echoing the phrase "the stone the builders have rejected has become the cornerstone." Some stones cracked and turned black because they are like unto those who know God and sin against Him, a greater offence than not knowing God and sinning against natural reason. Again, the angel pastor admonishes Hermas to repent and forfeit guile, grudges, and urges to sow seeds of disunion within the Church.

Then follows the last of the parables and the end of the work. The shepherd and another angel visit Hermas after writing the preceding work and remind him that God has power over repentance. They know Hermas is not about to live a life of full repentance immediately, but that he wants to do so and to follow the commandments of God. As an enduring test, they leave the virgins from the tower with Hermas. If he follows God in purity, they will remain in his abode. If he deviates, they will leave. How the soul and grace are the same!

Lesser Known Fathers X: The Shepherd of Hermas Part III

Let us return to the account given by Hermas, the second century brother of Pius I, who was given several visions of the nature of the Church and its relationship to personal sin. The last and longest segment of the Shepherd of Hermas is that of the parables. While some of them are quite lengthy, the first six are pithy and so we shall consider them here.

First Parable

"You know that you, who are servants of God, are dwelling in a foreign land; for your city is far from this city," begins the first vision. This vision contrasts our true home, the Church and heaven, with the city in which we currently dwell. These cities are not St. Augustine's City of God and the City of the Pagans, which offer two competing visions of reality in a Christianizing society. The angel's parable to Hermas reflects the displacement of the Christian, who must live indefinitely in a strange place before he is called to his Maker at the end of his days. Because of the transitory nature of things, he must not fall too deeply in love with the place of his temporary residence. Instead, he must cleave to the laws and customs of his real homeland, even if he cannot touch it yet, for adapting to the laws and customs of the city of residence rejects the laws and customs of the real homeland city. 

"For the sake of thy fields and the rest of thy possessions wilt thou altogether repudiate thy law, and walk according to the law of this city? Take heed, lest it be inexpedient to repudiate the law; for if thou shouldest desire to return again to thy city, thou shall surely not be received, and thou shalt be shut out from it. Take heed therefore; as dwelling in a strange land prepare nothing more for thyself but a competency which is sufficient for thee, and make ready that, whensoever the master of this city may desire to cast thee out for thine opposition to his law, thou mayest go forth from his city and depart into thine own city and use thine own law joyfully, free form all insult."

Second Parable

Hermas sees an elm tree and a grapevine while ambling through a field and takes the time to meditate on them. The angelic shepherd asks Hermas upon what he meditates. Hermas replies that the vine and elm are "excellently suited the one to the other." The shepherd explains that the grapevine yields much fruit while the elm tree yields none. The imagery reminds the faithful to the dicta of Our Lord "I am the vine and you are the branches" and "By their fruits you shall know them." Contrary to instinct, this parable does not primarily concern either of these two things. Rather, Our Lord's warning that "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" more readily relates to the shepherd's words. The shepherd explains that a grapevine cannot yield fruit alone. It must climb so that its fruit may bud, grow, and hang well. So, the grapevine latches on to the tree and climbs its sides, giving fruit on its branches which cling to the tree. The same is true with the rich and the poor. The rich concern themselves with the things of the world, with wealth and luxury, making their efforts before God scant. However, the rich can use their resources to help the poor, who are close to God in their poverty and desperation. If the rich man helps the poor man with all his effort, the poor man might make gratuitous intercession before God for his helper and so aid in the rich man's salvation. "Blessed are the rich," the shepherd says, "who understand also that they are enriched from the Lord. For they that have this mind shall be able to do some good work." Such was the mind of many well off saints such as Thomas More and kings like Louis IX. Salvation is not solitary, but an act of cooperation.

Third Parable

The shepherd shows Hermas withered winter trees, naked and without leaves. Hermas is told that some of these trees represent the unjust while others symbolize the righteous. The angelic figure explains to Hermas that in this world "neither the just nor the sinners are distinguishable, but they are all alike." This is healthy warning for those who judge the souls of other people or sanctimoniously lecture others on their actions or even who suggest the damnation of particular people. In the end, only God knows whether or not a tree has truly withered.

Fourth Parable

Suddenly, some of the trees begin to bud. "By their fruits you shall know them" suddenly springs to relevance in the mind of the devout reader. These trees are in the summer of God's radiant mercy. They show signs of life here and will spring permanently in the life to come. Sinners and the "Gentiles"—a generic term for those who do not wish to know God in the Shepherd—will burn, however, on account of their lack of repentance. Bear fruit and abstain from thinking too deep;y about past sins, which leaves one distracted about one's own business and unable to serve the Lord.

Fifth Parable

Hermas is fasting and keeping a vigil of prayer when the angelic shepherd again appears to him and condescends Hermas for his vanity in fasting. Fasting should not be mechanical abstention, but an effort to maximize one's devotion. He recommends that Hermas fast on bread and water, giving the money saved from the day's food to the poor. Unable to grasp the greater concepts behind fasting, the shepherd tells Hermas a fifth parable. A vintner leaves on a trip and gives charge of his estate to a servant with the command to do nothing to the estate, only to return it in the condition in which the master left it. The servant maintains the fences, but notices overgrowth in the vines and other defects on the property. He takes the time to clean the estate and improve the plantings. Upon return, the renewed condition of the property elates the master, who frees the servants and makes him a co-heir with his own son to his estate. The other people of the estate are elated and share the servant's joy.

Primitive Trinitarianism underlies this parable about fasting. The shepherd explains to obdurately dense Hermas that the property is the world, the master is God, the fence is the angels, the vines are the people within the world, and the servant is the Son of God. Christ was given reign over the world by His Father and did not keep it as it was, but rather redeemed it by His blood and infused it with a new life in Him. He did not please the Father by following a set pattern, but rather by doing the most on behalf of Creation as He could. How was he able to do this, Hermas asks. The shepherd replies that the "Holy pre-existent Spirit, which created the whole world," imparted to the servant a perfect holiness and purity by dwelling in him. The pre-existence of the Holy Spirit and the notion that the Spirit made the world would rattle those scholars who think Christ's divinity and the Trinity were Constantinian concoctions. Genesis speaks of the spirit of God hovering over the black, un-molded wasteland of the world, but does not assign the "spirit" a personhood which creates. Hermas does and goes further by making the Spirit the agent of the servant's renewal of the vineyard and hence of Christ's renewal of Creation. The characterization of the Holy Spirit as the love between the Father and the Son may well originate in second century Rome. This parable does not fit that characterization perfectly, but then again this parable is about fasting.

Sixth Parable

Our last parable today is one of shepherds. The angelic shepherd shows Hermas several shepherds tending different flocks of sheep. Some sheep are playful and frolic in the fields. Others sit in one place and eat. Others still are caught in thorns and suffer greatly. This last herd is the the one guided by a just shepherd, the Angel of Punishment who "presides over just punishment." We must keep in mind that these parables pertain to fasting and repentance, not all of the Christian outlook; a thoroughly morose saint is no saint. The former flocks were too immersed in self-indulgence, but will have to pay a penalty of repentance equal to their time spent sinning eventually whereas those in penance now will enjoy eternal life without pain. The shepherd then disabuses Hermas of some of his erroneous notions, such as his idea that an hour spent in over-indulgence requires more than an hour of penance and punishment. Punishment, the shepherd reminds our narrator, is always more painfully and feels longer than enjoyment. This last parable should deepen in our minds a fading understanding, that God's justice and mercy are not in contradiction, and His punishments will fit our sins, nothing more or less.

Conclusion

We will cover the longer parables at a later time. Some of the parables may seem to contradict our doctrines of penance, purgation, and the Trinity. These differences ought not alarm us. These teachings were believed in a less defined manner, but are clearly still present in the Shepherd of Hermas, a work which emphasizes repentance and returning to the Church with sincerity. The parables and visions match with this point and may use language or allegories which do not match perfectly with later teachings, but certainly do not contradict or contravene them.

Lesser Known Fathers X: Shepherd of Hermas Part II

At some point after the initial visions, the Angel of Repentance explains commandments to Hermas, who, it seems, had begun living a life of genuine repentance after the shocking visits from the Church-woman.

The Commandments

The commandments of the Shepherd of Hermas emphasize a spiritual balance, with God at the forefront and a mind focused on the avoidance of excesses which twist the mind and the soul into the weight of sin.

The first commandment is the First Commandment, to love the Lord God as the only god, He Who "comprehends all things, and is alone incomprehensible," He Who "brought all things out of non-existence into being", a phrase which endures in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy.

The second commandment is to avoid speaking or hearing slander. Instead, clothe one's self with simplicity and be generous.

Third, "Love truth, and let nothing but truth proceed from your mouth, that the Spirit that God made to dwell in this flesh, may be found true in the sight of all men." The Angel's third mandate is a psychological version of lex orandi lex credendi. As one prays, one believes; so as one speaks and acts, one thinks. Lying and misdeeds make one "robbers of the Lord" and alienate one not only from the community of believers, but from God Himself. This last point sends Hermas into disconsolate spirits. The Angel strengthens Hermas neither with self-help tips nor with affirmations of his inner good. Instead, the Angel continues teaching, "it behooves you as a servant of God to walk in truth, and no complicity with evil should abide with the Spirit of Truth," as he segues into the fourth commandment.

Fourth, the Angels relays God's demands for absolute purity and fidelity to Him within the bounds of marriage. Hermas' family lost the faith, either through disbelief, fear of persecution, or some other alienation to which the Angel alluded in the Visions. The spirit of fornication pollutes the heart and is death unto God. Hermas asks if a man whose wife is found in adultery is himself guilty of adultery. The Angel replies that so long as the husband lives with her in knowledge of her sin, he himself is an accomplice to her sin. "Let him divorce her," the Angel of Repentance teaches, "and let the husband abide alone: but if after divorcing his wife he shall marry another, he likewise commits adultery." Should the wife repent, the husband is bound under the pain of sin to accept her back into the marital union.

During the fourth commandment Hermas misspeaks in his assumption that the Lord "held me worthy" to receive special revelations about His value of repentance. The Angel disabuses Hermas of this misperception: "to repent is to understand." Repentance, the return to God, is a great understanding of sin and of God which compels the sinner to avoid sin for ever after. For modern readers, we may think of the immediate availability of forgiveness in Confession. Early Christians were not so easily persuaded with regard to forgiveness. Many thought Baptism should be enough to live a flawless life from the immersion in water until death. Forgiveness of sins after Baptism might be impossible. The Angel says that is not so. Remission of sins belongs to Baptism, but repentance and return to God is still possible for the baptized. This repentance is serious and not to be taken lightly. Repeated and abused repentance reflects insincere repentance and a double-mindedness, the stumbling block to God:

"But I say unto you," he said, "if after this great and holy calling any one, being tempted of the devil, shall commit sin, he has only one (opportunity of) repentance. But if he sin off-hand and repent, repentance is unprofitable for such a man; for he shall live with difficulty."

"Be long in suffering and understanding," begins the fifth commandment, "and you shall have mastery over all evil deeds, and shall work righteousness." Suffering purges one from the temptations and proclivities towards sin in the world, freeing one from sin and leaving one in cheer to serve the Lord. The Christian must avoid the "angry temper" of the devil, opting for the "long suffering" of God. Dwelling in both is, again, the troublesome double-mindedness. Suffering insinuates the heart and protects it against the trivialities and superficial concerns of the world for comforts, foods, and vain affairs.

The sixth commandment is a short parable about an angel of righteousness and an angel of wickedness, whose works in men speak for their causes. Hermas is to take their works at face value and, in accordance with the words of the Lord, to judge actions and works in order to understand them. By their fruits you shall know them, indeed.

Fear the Lord, but not the devil. This is the seventh mandate. One should fear and avoid the works of the devil, but for those who dwell in the Lord, there is nothing to fear of the person of the devil.

The eighth command is to show "no restraint" in doing good and severe restraint in luxury, drunkenness, and the works of evil. The unrestrained good's duty is:

"to minister to widows, to visit the orphans and the needy, to ransom the servants of God from their afflictions, to be hospitable (for in hospitality benevolence from time to time has a place), to resist no man, to be tranquil, to show yourself more submissive than all men, to reverence the aged, to practice righteousness, to observe brotherly feeling, to endure injury, to be long-suffering, to bear no grudge, to exhort those who are sick at soul, not to cast away those that have stumbled from the faith, but to convert them and to put courage Into them, to reprove sinners, not to oppress debtors and indigent persons, and whatsoever actions are like these."

"Remove yourself from a doubtful mind," is the ninth of twelve commandments. God does not bear petty grudges as men do, but loves to multiply His blessings upon His servants. Those who waver in their hearts merit little reward in prayer because their prayer is tepid. For "they that are complete in the faith make all their petitions trusting in the Lord, and they receive, because they ask without wavering, nothing doubting; for every doubtful-minded man, if he repent not, shall hardly be saved."

Tenth, put away sorrow, the "sister of double-mindedness." Sorrow is the worst of the passions of the world because it "destroys a man.... and crushes out the Holy Spirit." Sorrow is doubly crippling to the soul because:

"the sad man is always committing sin. In the first place he commits sin, because he grieves the Holy Spirit, which was given to the man being a cheerful spirit; and in the second place, by grieving the Holy Spirit he does lawlessness, in that he doth not intercede with neither confess unto God. For the intercession of a sad man hath never at any time power to ascend to the altar of God."

The eleventh commandment forbids the consultation of false prophets, who answer empty questions according to the emptiness of the enquirers, always mingling his falsehoods with an iota of truth to mask his duplicity and lend credibility to his advice. The Spirit of God speaks for itself and needs no consultation. Of all things other than the Spirit of God, men should be "aloof."

The final mandate concerns wicked desire and good desire. Wicked desire appeals to sex and luxury, yet it flees at the fear of God, which the repentant man inculcates into his heart.

The Angel then tells Hermas that he will depart. Hermas' nerves get the better of him and he pleads with the Angel's commandments. How can anyone really and thoroughly keep these commandments? The Angel's response, again, is very robust: if you do not believe these commands can be kept, then you will not keep them. If you do believe that they can be kept, then you will keep them. The Angel then quiets his consternation and returns to a more gentle approach. God is a God of strength, whereas the devil can only persuade by means of fear. The Lord's Angel of Repentance is with Hermas—and, presumably, with all who repent—that he may

"make you strong in faith. Trust God, then, you who on account of your sins have despaired of life, and who add to your sins and weigh down your life; for if you return to the Lord with all your heart, and practice righteousness the rest of your days, and serve Him according to His will, He will heal your former sins, and you will have power to hold sway over the works of the devil. But as to the threats of the devil, fear them not at all, for he is powerless as the sinews of a dead man."

The message of the commandments is to keep God at the forefront of a temperate mind, by which the faithful servant will abide in the Lord and avoid sin. Those who ignore the commandments of God or deem them impossible to follow weigh themselves down by their sins and make the works of the devil apparent to the faithful. How relevant Hermas remains to us today.

The last installment will be on the parables.

Lesser Known Fathers X: The Shepherd of Hermas Part I

Introduction

source: wikipedia

The Shepherd of Hermas is an account that answers two fundamental questions: what is repentance and what is the Church? The length and depth of Hermas' story prompts us to break it into three sections so that we may treat each composite part with due dignity. 

The early Church received The Shepherd of Hermas' prophecy with the utmost respect, reading it both for personal edification and during the celebration of sacred rite. So esteemed was the Shepherd, Ss. Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus of Lyon, along with Origen and Tertullian (before he became a Montanist) considered the Shepherd to be worthy of Holy Writ and included the account in their canons of Scripture. As time passed, the Shepherd's apocalyptic and prophetic elements wore thin, gradually depleting the popularity of the ancient text. Ss. Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome still regarded the Shepherd as worthy reading in the fourth and fifth centuries, but the councils of Rome and Carthage saw the text unfit for the Bible. St. Jerome even recounted that the Greek Christians of the eastern empire persisted in reading the Shepherd during Divine services.

Hermas tells his story of sin and repentance, of the drift away from God and the reunion with Him through His Church. The Shepherd is not the Good Shepherd Jesus, nor is it a shepherd in a place called Hermas. The Shepherd of Hermas is the "Angel of Repentance" who guides Hermas through his visions and Divinely revealed allegories.

St. Pius I, Pope and brother of
Hermas. source: wikipedia

Our text itself was clearly written by one man and just as clearly not all written in one effort. The structure of the Shepherd of Hermas betrays the chronology of Hermas' visions and his recounting of them on paper: first "Visions," then the "Commands," and finally the "Similitudes." The last of these represents a maturity of thought and a clarity of vision not entirely present in the more direct early chapters.

Who was Hermas and when did he write? Dr. Brian Fitzgerald reminds us that Origen, born in 185AD, revered Hermas as canonical Scripture, suggest that the text pre-dates him by some time. The Muratorian fragment, one of the oldest extant lists of Scriptural Christian texts, dates to about 170AD and says of the Shepherd:

"But Hermas wrote The Shepherd very recently, in our times, in the City of Rome, where his brother Pius was occupying the chair of the church of Rome. And therefore, it ought indeed be read, but it cannot be read publicly to the people in Church or among the Prophets, whose number is complete, or among the Apostles, for it is after their time."

The notoriously unreliable Liber Pontificalis confirms the other texts in its passage on St. Pius I:

"While he was bishop, his brother, Hermas, wrote a book in which he set forth the commandment which the angel of the Lord delivered to him, coming in the garb of a shepherd."

Hermas does mention an "elder" in the beginning of the Shepherd. Our text was originally written in Greek, the literary language of the time. The Greek words for elder usually come to us as episkopos (bishop), presbuteros (priest), or poimen (shepherd). Hermas, at the end of the second vision, mentions the name of an elder named Clement. This may reference St. Clement, the pope at the end of the first century, or a priest in Rome named Clement. Despite the probable dating of the Shepherd to the mid-second century, it is not implausible that Hermas received his early visions during his youth, under the leadership of Clement of Rome.

The Visions

Hermas' story begins with a series of five visions that reveal a rough draft of sin and repentance within the Church. Hermas one day meets his former mistress and owner, Rhoda, bathing in the Tiber river. He assists her and, in passing thought, thinks to himself that he would like a woman like her for a wife. Some time later Hermas was traversing the road to Cumae, south of Rome, when he saw a vision of Rhoda. His former mistress told him that he had sinned against God and her, that she would accuse him before Lord, but the accusation had not yet come to pass. A despondent Hermas is then visited by an elderly woman who asks him why he is sad. He tells her that he thinks Rhoda will accuse him of lust. The old woman corrects him, telling him:

"God is not angry with you on account of this, but that you may convert your house, which have committed iniquity against the Lord, and against you, their parents. And although you love your sons, yet did you not warn your house, but permitted them to be terribly corrupted. On this account is the Lord angry with you, but He will heal all the evils which have been done in your house. For, on account of their sins and iniquities, you have been destroyed by the affairs of this world. But now the mercy of the Lord has taken pity on you and your house, and will strengthen you, and establish you in his glory."

She tells Hermas to repent with all his heart, as those whose names are written in the "book of the Saints" repent with all their hearts. Hermas agrees to repent, reform, and return to God. His sin was not a violation, but a neglect of his family's loss of faith, a faith which he still held.

A year later Hermas again walks to Cumae and again sees the old woman escorted by six angelic looking boys. She reminds him that his "seed have sinned against the Lord and blasphemed against the Lord." He must make the message of repentance known to his wife and his children and to the entirety of the Church. This last point establishes Hermas as a visionary and a prophet of sorts for the Church's ears. After re-iterating the impending importance of repentance the elderly woman departs. An angel visits Hermas in his dormancy. He queries the angel as to the woman's identity. Is she a pagan oracle? "The Church," the angel replies. "She was created before all things; therefor she is aged; and for her sake the world was framed."

In the third vision the elderly woman shows Hermas a great, square based stone tower being built with stones by the six young angelic boys from the previous visions, stones delivered by other humanoid beings. The angels build the tower not on a foundation over land, but over an islandless water. The outer most stones fit together so snugly that one cannot see a crease or line in the side. These stones were brought from the deep of the water in perfect condition. Stones brought from land can fit inside the outer casing, but only after masonry and cutting. Some stones are rejected for their shape or size. Among these, some are kept near the tower, some are thrown far away, some tossed back to the deep, and others outright burned. She explains that the tower represents the Church and the stones represent people. The watery foundations are the waters of Baptism which save. The angels who escort the Church-elder woman and who build the tower are the same angels whom God charged with care of His creation. The perfect stones are the Apostles, prophets, bishops, teachers, and deacons who exercised their offices blameslessly and without corruption. The stones from the water are those who suffered "for the holy Name" of God. The rougher stones placed within the framework are the youthful and less temperate in faith who, although good, required warnings from angels throughout their lives. The stones rejected and left near the tower are sinners who, although they separated themselves from the Church by sin, can still be saved if they repent. This point would especially have interested ancient readers, who hitherto would have been greatly concerned about the future of those who had left the faith through loss of faith or for fear of death. 

The woman does warn Hermas, "If the building shall be finished, they will have no more place, they will be castaways." Those thrown afar were the lawless in life. Some stones are both white and round. These are those who have the faith, but are similarly disposed to earthly passions and wealth. They can be fitted to the tower, but must have their excess cut away. Those burned have "rebelled from the living God and it entered no longer into their hearts to repent." Those stones outside the tower can not be within it, yet they may still be saved and put within the interior after "they have undergone torments, and have fulfilled the days of their sins." One Orthodox commentator begrudgingly concedes that this might be read as a precedent for the Latin concept of a purgatorial intermediate state. 

Holding up the tower are seven women: Faith and her daughter, Continence, and her successive descendants, Simplicity, Knowledge, Guilelessness, Reverence, and Love. Their power flows from the oldest to the youngest, but are inseparable from each other. She again entreats Hermas to repent and to lead others to repent before the tower the angels complete the tower, at which point the world will end and repentance will no longer be possible.

The angel tells Hermas that the woman appeared in different ways because of his double-mindedness. Double-mindedness is a common theme in the Shepherd. Contrary to the translation, it is not speaking out of both sides of the mouth, but an internal conflict springing from having a foot in the door and a foot out. This internal conflict leads to disparate actions displeasing to God. The fervent Christian does not waiver in his devotion.

Hermas' fourth vision begins like the previous, with him stopping his travels to pray and to confess his sins. A voice tells him to rid himself of his "doubtful mind." Hermas is taken aback. How could he be of doubtful mind when the Lord so clearly engages him? Suddenly a cloud of dust kicks up and Hermas assumes a cattle stampede. Emerging from the cloud was not a herd, but a great beast. In spite of his timidity, Hermas passes the beast unharmed. He notices the beast's head is black, red, gold, and white. On the other side he again see the Church-woman, this time dressed as a virgin with a white turban. She tells the seer that the beast is a "type" of the end times, of the beast of the apocalypse which will wreak havoc. The black on the beast is the world, the red its impending suffering, the gold those who escaped, and the white those purified in the tower. She commands Hermas not to tarry any longer, but to make his visions finally known—he seems to have neglected this task several times.

The last and shortest vision takes place in Hermas' house. While reclining on the soda and luxuriating, a shepherd who claims to have been sent "from the most holy angel" enters Hermas' abode and salutes the resident. Hermas at first wonders if this is a temptation, but relents to the shepherd's veracity. The pastor angelicus then tells Hermas not to be confounded, but to write down the commands and parables that he is about to reveal. You, dear readers, will have to read our next post to find out what the commands are!

Last Word on Neo-Gallican Rites & Upcoming Posts

First, the beginning of the [long delayed] series on the early traditionalist movement is a few weeks away, but close. The first three entries with be on Msgr. Alfred Gilbey, Mrs. Mary Ball-Martinez, and Abbé Quintin Montgomery-Wright. The last two have proven challenging objects of research, particularly the obscure Mrs. Martinez. We will also be reviving our series on the Lesser Known Fathers next week with the challenging Shepherd of Hermas. 

Reproduced below is a cleaned up version of an e-mail to a reader who wanted to know about the emergence of the neo-Gallican "Jansenist" rites of France. It represents the final thoughts I have on the matter. My thoughts can only apply to the Missals. The breviaries departed more heavily than the Missals from the received tradition, particularly with regard to the distribution of psalms, which inspired the 1911-1913 reforms (did Papa Sarto violate Quo primum's older brother, Quo a nobis I wonder?):

The neo-Gallican rites are complicated. France had local rites galore. I am starting to think that the Norman liturgical family (which includes Sarum, Rouen, York, Dominican, maybe Braga and many others) may be somewhat distinct from the Roman. See here.

I am unsure as to just how different the rite of Paris was, for instance, from the others originally. If you go through some of my older posts on the Parisian rite—for instance—you will find that I compared some of the propers (variable daily texts) from a Missal from 1300 with the 18th century books and found considerable variance. While the Sarum/Dominican/Norman tradition often had unique texts on the great feasts, the Parisian Mass was almost exactly the same as the Roman rite that was codified in 1570 and used until the mid 20th century, word for word! This suggests that the Parisian rite was perhaps a distinct rite from the Roman in other regards (ceremonies, the Divine Office etc), but used the Roman texts originally. However, this may not necessarily be the case. In the Middle Ages—hell, everywhere before Trent—Mass differed diocese to diocese and sometimes even within single churches. Priests in monasteries and cathedrals would be assigned one altar in perpetuity for their daily Masses and would celebrate as they wished at that altar (the fact that no one dared touch the Roman Canon for 14 centuries should show you just how strong their sense of tradition was). We have no idea where in Paris that Missal was used or by whom. The University of Paris was constantly at odds with the local Archbishop, so the popes placed the university under the Holy See's direct jurisdiction and protection (St Thomas Aquinas and Innocent III were both students). Could the Missal have been used by the University in school services as part of their patronage under Rome? Could it have belonged to a Roman priest studying there? Could the Roman rite have been used everywhere in Paris? Not enough remaining manuscripts to come to a conclusion. 

Regardless, the Parisian and French rites were closer to the Roman rite originally than the books I examined in my blog series (all 18th and 19th century). The books I examined had either been altered in text (many propers changed) or in translation (ditching the Old Roman psalms for the Vulgate psalms of St Jerome). The Ordo Missae of Rouen and Paris are the Roman Ordo Missae with French modifications, not the Norman/Sarum/Dominican Ordo Missae.

What I think happened was that after Trent most of France took on the Roman books because bishops did not want to have to monitor and approve liturgical changes when some office of monsignori in Rome could do it, leaving the bishops to their own devices. Over time, the people and clergy of those various dioceses using the Roman books became disillusioned for many reasons and sought to return to their heritage or to insert new content. Some features like the available alternative readings for ferial days (when the Sunday Mass is repeated during the week) would be restorations of the Norman practice. Others are interpolations of Norman features into the Roman Mass (like the archbishop giving the pontifical blessing during the Canon of the Mass and reciting the Last Gospel in the recession to the sacristy rather than at the altar). And some others are just different altogether (see the Secrets and post-Communion chants for many weekdays and feasts). While Gueranger cried Jansenism, I see no evidence for it (and plenty textual evidence against it) other than the [puzzling] octave of St Augustine, which was only strange but not heretical by any means. What I think happened was a conflux of:

1-a resurgence in classical education and Latin literacy being expressed in very vivid new texts
2-a revived liturgical interest in the local clergy and the people of the dioceses, wanting their own traditions back
3-desire on the part of the bishops to curry favor with the kings of France by demonstrating their independence from Rome
4-boredom with the existing, rather tame ceremonies (compare a Roman high Mass with the Pontifical Mass in the Lyonese rite that I described here)

Clearly, the neo-Gallican books were justifiably called neo-Gallican and not just Gallican. Some of their changes were bad, but I think many were good for their local tradition (like the Palm Sunday rites in Paris). While the texts had some anti-Roman elements (like the psalm translations), that means the books needed adjusting, not discarding. Roman wanted to end the neo-Gallican uses for some time, but could never quite do it until the middle to late 19th century. Whether it was because of centralization or orthodoxy, I cannot say. I am inclined to say that the neo-Gallican books do continue a unique tradition in those dioceses because Roman could not entirely apply Quo primum, which bans liturgies less than 200 years old, to those rites. They may have been rites similar to Rome's initially, yet still unique enough to call rites. Pius VII officially recognized those rites as part of his peace with Napoleon. Then came the Liturgical Movement, Gueranger etc.

All right. End of rant. Does that clear things up?

Lesser Known Fathers IX: St. Polycarp and the Philippians

Given the "proof text" approach of many Catholic apologists today, using the writings of the Apostolic and Church Fathers against protestants, only certain Fathers are read. St. Justin the Martyr is useful in "proving" the Eucharist. St. Ignatius of Antioch is useful in "proving" the idea of the Catholic Church. St. Cyprian is useful in "proving" the papacy. Yet what of great Fathers who are not so easily weaponized? Today they are forgotten by those who call nineteen century old writers to arms against Legion and his megachurches, but they are not forgotten by all. Some of us still find edification in the pastoral writings of the Fathers, as much so as in the doctrinal writings of other Fathers. One such Father who I find fascinating is St. Polycarp of Smyrna.

According to tradition Polycarp was taught by "St. John," who ordained him a bishop of the city of Smyrna. I put John in quotations because a few dispute whether his teacher was John the Apostle—writer of the Johannine Gospel, the first epistle of John, and the Apocalypse—or whether it was John the Presbyter—likely writer of the second and third epistles of John. Polycarp, who lived until the mid-second century, is remembered in his surviving letter to the Church at Philippi, where St. Paul "accurately and steadfastly taught the word of truth in the presence of whose who were then alive" (Ch. 3). The epistle is an exhortation to the laity and clergy to ignore the worldly temptations which have seduced some of the church and to return to the faith given to them by Paul and Ignatius. At some point Polycarp visited St. Anicetus, a fellow Syrian and at the time Pope of Rome. He fell asleep in the Lord in 155.

The epistle begins with a veritable Pauline greeting: "Polycarp, and the presbyters with him, to the Church of God sojourning at Philippi: Mercy to you, and peace from God Almighty, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, be multiplied." The tone establishes that this missive has a personal connotation and not a formal one. He is acquainted with these believers and greets them in the spirit rather than in social respect.

The saint initiates the body of his letter with a reminder of that church's sufferings, "diadems of the true elect of God and our Lord." Mere works do not save, but faith. How is suffering not a "work?" Are the Christians of today to read Polycarp and surrender to the modern dichotomy between "faith" and "works?" This is not what the saint means: "[know] that by grace you are saved, not of work, but by the will of God" (Ch. 1) and "But He who raised [Jesus] up from the dead will raise up us also, if we do his will, and walk in His commandments, and love what He loved" (Ch. 2). One is saved by the will of God, not personal merit. Yet if one loves God one is united to the will of God and does what He wishes out of love for God—what we now call Sanctification or Theosis. This holiness in which one unites to the will of God is found in suffering, for Christ "suffered for own sins unto death" (Ch. 1) that "we might live in Him" (Ch. 8, 1 John 4:9). One does not suffer alone for Christ. The Christian suffers with Him as did the Apostles, who are "in their due place in the presence of the Lord, with whom also they suffered" (Ch. 9).

This same call to virtue displays ante-Nicene Trinitarianism. St. Polycarp establishes order and communion between "God" and the Son "Jesus Christ." The separation of the two persons of the Trinity as "God" and "Jesus" should not trouble us, as this terminology survives in the traditional Roman and the Byzantine liturgies, wherein God the Father is sparingly called "Father" directly, indeed perhaps only in the Our Father. "God" raised Jesus, glorified Him, sat Christ at His right hand, and gave Him the power of judgment; all these things are proper to the Godhead. Polycarp is using the ante-Nicene vocabulary for talking about the Divine inherited from the Jews which survives in the Church's liturgical life.

Chapter four opens with a famous aphorism, "But the love of money is the root of all evils." From here Polycarp gently indicts the priests, deacons, and laity of the church for losing their focus and then tries to re-direct this wayward church. What utility, the saint questions, is to be found in alternatives to virtue or the presentation of false virtue? God "clearly perceives all things, and that nothing is hid from Him, neither reasonings, nor reflections, nor any one of the secret things of the heart" (Ch. 4). God is not mocked, even in private. The saint gives a general warning against various kinds of that most powerful kinds of private sin, the sexual:

"For it is well that they should be cut off from the lusts that are in the world, since every lust wars against the spirit; and neither fornicators, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind [doesn't sound terribly fond of gay marriage] shall inherit the kingdom of God, nor those who do things inconsistent and unbecoming. Wherefore, it is needful to abstain from all these things, being subject to the presbyter and deacons, as unto God and Christ. The virgins also must walk in a blameless and pure conscience." (Ch. 5)

Sexuality is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed it is quite good. The chastity outlined negatively above is one found in behaving according to one's place in life.

Perhaps priests would do well to read this letter particularly the sixth chapter, which outlines the saint's expectations of the presbyters and other clergy of the Church:

"Let the presbyters be compassionate and merciful to all, bringing back those that wander, visiting all the sick, and not neglecting the widow, the orphan, or the poor, but always providing for that which is becoming in the sight of God and man.... If then we entreat the Lord to forgive us, we ought also ourselves to forgive; for we are before the eyes of our Lord and God, and we must all appear at the judgment seat of Christ, and must every one give an account of himself. Let us then serve Him in fear, and with all reverence, even as He Himself has commanded us, and as did the apostles who preached the Gospel unto us, and the prophets who proclaimed beforehand the coming of the Lord."

In short, the priest is the fearful instrument of Christ God's mercy. The end.

Polycarp places the greatest emphasis of faith on the Resurrection and Last Judgement. Here is the strongest insight yet into how the early Church believed. Christ was the first fruit of His own work, a work from which we shall in time benefit or suffer from abusing. Reality in changed by this one event, the rising of a man—Who is God—from the dead. We are partakers in that Resurrection and will be held to account for it. Those who deny this are the "first born of Satan" (Ch. 7). Oh how does this concept of death survive for us today in the Requiem Mass of All Souls' Day! In the epistle of that Mass St. Paul warns the Corinthians that those who lived in Christ will come to the "resurrection of life," but that those who did evil will awake in the "resurrection of judgment." Death and judgment. Could any two topics be less popular? In my own family mention of either is tantamount to scandal.

After another exhortation to virtue St. Polycarp writes harsh words that should carry weight with every Catholic who sins in public, who dissents from the Church in public, and who does not practice virtue: "Be all of you subject one to another having your conduct blameless among the Gentiles, that you may both receive praise for your good works, and the Lord may not be blasphemed through you. But woe to him by whom the name of the Lord is blasphemed! Teach, therefore, sobriety to all, and manifest it also in your own conduct" (Ch. 10). 

The author winds down his letter in lamentation, regretting the loss of the priest Valens and his wife to bad faith. Evidently they fell in matters of "covetousness." Polycarp finds the loss of the two particularly painful given St. Paul's praise for the church of Philippi. He begs the Philippians not to be too harsh on Valens and his wife: "And be then moderate in regard to this matter, and do not count such as enemies, but call them back as suffering and straying members, that you may save your whole body. For by so acting you shall edify yourselves" (Ch. 11).

The saint concludes in telling the Philippians that he is sending copies of St. Ignatius of Antioch's epistles with the messenger and even divulges the name of the scribe who wrote the letter, a man named Crescens, who will pay the Philippian Christians a visit with his sister! Personally I find the human elements of these letters calming, as I do in the Pauline epistles. Modern readers can read these ancient texts and think them remote, saccharine, or even impossible. These letters were written by and for people who, like we today, must run our course in the faith and do so with the same union to the will of God and the same humility to which Polycarp exhorted the church of Philippi.

Interesting Historical Notes

• Although a disciple of St. John, he rarely quotes John in this letter. The few times he does refer to John, such as in Chapter 8, are in reference to union with God—Theosis—indicating that this is a trait of the Johannine tradition. Also, in light of this, I would side with those who say Polycarp's John was the Evangelist and not the Presbyter.
• He is very familiar with most all of the Pauline letters and quotes them more than any other text considered Scripture. He especially favors Philippians, Galatians, Timothy, and Ephesians. This indicates that Paul's letters, which most now agree were written in the 50s, had been in wide circulation beyond the local churches for quite some time.
• Again, despite being from the Johannine tradition, Polycarp refers exclusively—at least in this sole surviving letter—to the Gospel according to St. Matthew and occasionally to St. Luke's account. These references are most often made to the Sermon on the Mount. The implications of this should be problematic to 20th century Biblical scholars who seek to drive a wedge between the Johannine tradition and the Synoptic texts. Evidently the bishop of Smyrna, a follower of John, saw no conflict or incongruity between the Synoptic narrative and the one he received. This could be explained by a theory that the account in St. John's Gospel draws to attention not a different Christ or different tradition, but different events and teachings not mentioned in the Synoptics. There is one Gospel and four accounts of it.

From this I think we must conclude that the New Testament texts were more broadly circulated and more widely accepted than we often realize.

Happy feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross!

Lesser Known Fathers VIII: St. Vincent of Lerins & the Importance of Antiquity

Precious little do we know about St. Vincent of Lerins. Many biographies of the Saint muse, rightly, that if not for his surviving work, the Commonitory, none would remember him. Writing in early fifth century Gaul St. Vincent seeks to "commit to writing such things as I have faithfully received them from the holy fathers." In St. Vincent's time "holy father" did not mean the Pope in Rome, but one's immediate spiritual father, the person who taught one the faith, which prompts Vincent to emphasize that he received things from them with fidelity.

If one receives something, another must pass it. The Latin word for "to pass" is tradere, which gives us our word "tradition." Tradition and antiquity make the faith trustworthy. Far from being corruptions, antiquity places belief nigh its source, with the Apostles and ultimately Our Lord Himself. Given St. Vincent's era, when even Our Lord's divinity was in question, the author of the Commonitory held tradition in the highest esteem. Vincent derives a test for examining the novel doctrines of his own time and ours:

"Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense Catholic, which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent." (Chapter III)

As an example St. Vincent adduces the case of the re-baptism of heretics so common in earlier centuries. Agrippinus and St. Cyprian of Carthage insisted on the re-baptism of those who had fallen from the faith, either by heresy or, most often, by apostasy under the threat of death. They had visibly left the Body of Christ. Did they require another baptism to re-admit them? Logic may say yes, but tradition said no. St. Stephen, "prelate of the Apostolic See," condemned the novel practice as a deviation from what had been handed to the Church by the holy fathers.

We must be vigilant of any deviation from the Gospel of Christ as the Church has received it. Vincent quotes St. Paul: "As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema" (Galatians 1:9). St. Paul did not intend to isolate this warning to the Galatians. This danger shadows over all men of great intellect in danger of falling victim to their minds, as did Origen. It hovers over those of ego and greed, like Nestorius and Donatus, who leveraged their novel doctrines to gain clout in the political sphere.

Why, then, if it is Divine Law, does God permit heretics to run about the Church so freely? Contemporary Catholics, particularly those of a more traditional persuasion, have asked this question unrelentingly for decades. St. Vincent asked the same question fifteen centuries earlier and surmised that, as was the case with Moses in the Desert, God permits conveyors of novelty to demonstrate their prophecies, their ideas, and their concepts before the Church so that the Church may in time pass judgment upon them. Vincent of course presumes that these innovations end in chaos and disorder. Without exception, history has proven him correct.

Vincent then condemns the wickedness of Nestorius, Apollinarius, and Donatus for twisting the Scriptures, the Word of God, and using them to inculcate strange ideas disconnected from the received wisdom of the Church concerning the nature of Jesus. He defends the Trinity against the blasphemous concept that Christ only acted as a Savior and suffered Crucifixion, asking how would sins be forgiven through the supplication of a feigned act? No, the supplication must be performed by an actual person with both human and divine nature.

However, one condemnation clearly troubles St. Vincent, that of Origen. With Origen came Christian philosophy and what people now call theology. The same Vincent who condemns Origen in the same chapter asks, "Who would not rather be wrong with Origen than right with anyone else?" Origen, whose intellectual lineage includes many great saints, drew the just ire of the first millennium Church because of one remarkably wrong idea: that the soul pre-exists the body. In Origen's system of thought God creates the soul before the body and at the end of time will revive and save all souls, including that of the Devil and his fallen angels. While many saints believed in a refashioning and renewal of creation and many believe(d) in universal salvation, Origen somehow managed to create the most demented combination of the two. The Alexandrian was not without learning. None were more learned. Yet Origen was still a man with a mortal mind, a mind which subordinated part of God's revelation in favor of his own private philosophy:

Hence it came to pass, that this Origen, such and so great as he was, wantonly abusing the grace of God, rashly following the bent of his own genius, and placing overmuch confidence in himself, making light account of the ancient simplicity of the Christian religion, presuming that he knew more than all the world besides, despising the traditions of the Church and the determinations of the ancients, and interpreting certain passages of Scripture in a novel way, deserved for himself the warning given to the Church of God, as applicable in his case as in that of others, If there arise a prophet in the midst of you,... you shall not hearken to the words of that prophet,...because the Lord your God does make trial of you, whether you love Him or not.

The errors of men like Origen and Nestorius then, or Rahner and Kung today, are trials for the Catholic Church and for its faithful. For this trial St. Vincent creates a test, revealed early in the Commonitory, for examining new ideas in Christianity: for something to be Catholic is must be "believed always, everywhere, and by everybody." In other words, there was never a time when the faithful did not, in some way, believe in a doctrine. What of schism then? The Church has endured many schisms over the centuries since the deaths of the Apostles. Is the Church split then? Does she now hold multiple variations of a doctrine? Not so, says St. Vincent. Once a part of the body tears itself off, it is no longer a member or limb and the Church is better for it.

In Chapter 23 St. Vincent writes the most enduring lines in the entire Commonitory, words raised to even greater stature by the First Vatican Council:

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

In short, if it ain't like your Mama's catechism don't listen to it!

St. Vincent concludes in re-iterating his criteria for the heart and mind of the Church: antiquity, universality, and consent. If a new idea barren of ancient origin and in conflict with the universal opinion of the ancient Church should arise then it is to be consigned to the dustbin without hesitation. Let your criteria be the same!

Aside: I used this edition of the Commonitory because I cannot stand to read regular text on an internet page. I need at least the semblance of a book a pdf provides. The introduction, interesting for its historical context, is a neurotic bit of mid-19th century Anglicanism. At the time many Anglicans were presenting their community as the via media between the "Roman" Church and "protestantism," understandably drawing attention from the hierarchy, who were surprised to find themselves no longer protestants. There are epigraphs from Thomas Cranmer and a passage from John Jebb of Limerick, condemning the "Romish" and "Popish" errors to have crept into Catholicism since the 5th century. I suspect that the purpose of these quotations are to convince less "high" Anglicans that a saint could indeed be safe reading and that Vincent was not solely the domain of "Roman" Catholicism. For those of you who fancy 19th century Anglophonic religious history, take a peak!

Lesser Known Fathers VII: St. Theodore the Studite on Icons

source: orthodoxwiki.org

For those of us on the Gregorian calendar this past Sunday was the Sunday of the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council in the Byzantine rite. This Council once and for all condemned iconoclasm and affirmed the right and necessary place of holy images in the Divine worship. Unfortunately the circumstances surrounding the iconoclasm controversy would eventually lead to the Photian schism, the effects of which continue to our present time.

We have already covered the writing of St. John of Damascus on the Holy Icons, but the significance of the Seventh Ecumenical Council and the celebration of its Fathers this week inspired the Rad Trad to examine briefly the writings of St. Theodore the Studite on the matter, perhaps the last major writer concerning the icon controversy. Theodore was born in 759 and raised for a bureaucratic career, but diverged from the set path and joined his uncle Plato's monastery. Circumstances brought Theodore to Studios monastery in Constantinople. Emperor Constantine VI exiled Theodore for opposing his divorce and re-marriage, holding that an emperor had not the competence to override the decisions of the Church concerning marriage. The next emperor, Michael II, permitted Theodore a partial return from exile, but would not permit the Saint to enter the Byzantine capital. Theodore died on November 11, 826, the day before his current feast.

For practical purposes, this post will be shorter than previous installments of the Lesser Known Fathers series, given that much of what St. Theodore says has already been said by St. John of Damascus.

Studios monastery
source: wikipedia.org

First, Theodore refutes the common objection that the creation and veneration of icons violates the second commandment, which prohibits the worship of images and idols. Not all images are made equal. The commandment against the fashioning and veneration of idols and images does not equate with images as the Christian is acquainted with them. Theodore establishes that the veneration of an image or icon for the Christian is actually veneration of the prototype of the image through veneration of a replica. The attention and worship is directed toward the prototype, be it God, a mystery, an angel, or a saint. The Christian does not glorify and give honor to a plank of wood or smudges of paint. His devotion seeks the original through the copy.

This contrasts with the second commandment because, when considered in context, the second commandment has little application in the realm of icons. The Jews were forbidden images, more or less, because no one had "seen God at any time" prior to the coming of the Second Person of the Trinity (John 1:18). Without any comprehension of God in a form discernible to human beings the veneration of images would eventually slip into idolatry, the worship of images as though those images were gods in themselves. Even during Old Testament times God exempted the Jews from this commandment under His Divine providence. For example, God explicitly commanded the Israelites to fashion two cherubim, forming the "Glory Seat" on the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18). Similarly, He demanded the same Israelites create a bronze serpent which healed snake bitten persons (Numbers 21:8). Given the proper intention and disposition, God is glorified in the veneration of holy icons and images.

This gives way to the second, and far more interesting, aspect of the iconoclast controversy: how an image relates to its original, its prototype. St. John of Damascus briefly touches upon this topic in his third discourse, but does not delve. St. Theodore does.

An image can be venerated as a proximate to the original because the original is intelligible to those who offer it their honor. The iconoclasts, among whom Orthodox translator Catherine Roth nearly counts St. Gregory of Rome, insisted that icons were ill-suited for Divine worship because God cannot be circumscribed to human understanding and human reason. Man cannot know God.

St. Theodore constructs a dialogue between an iconophile and an iconoclast—who he plainly calls the "orthodox" and the "heretic" respectively—in his second treatise in order to set up an explanation for how mankind can know God. He quotes St. Gregory of Nazianzus in saying Christ is God "Circumscribed in the body, uncircumscribed in the spirit (Treatise 2.1, Gregory ep. 101). Similarly those who respected the image of the Byzantine emperor did so because they knew the emperor to be a flesh-and-blood person who could be seen with human eyes (Treatise 2.28).

Is there not a circumscription to the risen Christ? Eastern, and Western, theology holds that Christ's resurrected body was a renewed, transformed one, so glorious and different that it was unrecognized by the Lord's own disciples (St. Mary Magdalen at the tomb) or even by His Apostles (on the road to Emaus). This body could appear and disappear at whim. Surely the resurrected Lord's image should not be venerated (Treatise 2.41-47), but rather treated with the same alien respect as the Jews treated God, in their vague understanding, in the Old Testament. No! This same Christ walked and talked and ate as His Apostles and as He Himself did prior to His Passion. Even the risen Christ is very knowable through the human senses.

Given that the common objectors to images, be it iconography or Roman statues, are protestants in our day, one argument of the iconoclasts is amusing: "'We grant,' the heretics say, 'that Christ may be represented, but only according to the holy words which we have received from God Himself; for He said, 'Do this in remembrance of me,' obviously implying that He cannot be represented otherwise than by being remembered. Only this image is true and this act of depiction sacred'" (Treatise 1.10). Effectively, iconoclasts believed the Eucharist to be the only viable depiction of Christ because the gifts on the altar are Christ. Of course, Theodore rebuts, the Eucharist is the most fitting remembrance of Christ, but an image need not be of the same essence as the original, as the Eucharist is of Jesus (1.10-11).

One last point of interest is the Cross. Some apparently worried that veneration of the mysteries of Christ and of the saints would detract from veneration of the Cross (1.15), which is done at the end of Divine Liturgy. Of course there is a limited amount of wood from the True Cross to venerate, so the faithful adore fabricated crosses. If this is acceptable, why would icons not be? Christ hallowed the cross by making it worthy of His passion. Is not the same true of His other mysteries?

We are beginning to see that written theology has progressed beyond the first millennium and the Fathers. Yet these men and their writings remain singularly important, not just for tracing what the "early Church" (as though it is not the same as today's Church) believed, but how the Church believed. The average quasi-secular person today, when he walks into a parish to observe a Mass, is not going to ask about Aquinas' concept of form-matter-intent for the Sacraments. He is going to ask more basic questions: does God exist? Why worship Him? How does He matter to you? Why do you Catholics do what you do? The writings of the Fathers are more instinctive and accessible for the layman.

Some time in the next week I hope to put up a post on five random Sunday Masses from the Parisian Missal and a review of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.

Brideshead, Revisited

source: NYTimes.com

This week the Rad Trad intends to publish the next posts in two series, the Lesser Known Fathers and the examination of the French usages of the Roman rite. The Lesser Known Fathers will delve into St. Theodore the Studite's defense of holy icons, which builds on the solid foundation of St. John of Damascus' earlier writings on the same subject. In the series on French liturgy we shall have an overview of the Holy Week and Pascha Sunday Masses in the Parisian Missal. Stay tuned.

 

The Rad Trad is also re-reading Evelyn Waugh's nostalgic classic Brideshead Revisited. Doubtless, many readers are familiar with this prosaic masterpiece, which weaves a personal narrative and a long ago social setting into a story of God's grace. The brand of post-modern literature, to which most of us were exposed by our universities, lacks the aesthetic verbosity of Waugh, whose style re-fashions settings and moods on paper. The Word of God was spoken and the world came to be. The word of Waugh was written and an embracing reflection comes about. Waugh describes the Oxford of 1923 in the second paragraph of the first chapter:

"Oxford—now submerged and obliterated, irrecoverable as Lyonnesse, so quickly have the waters come flooding in—Oxford, in those days, was still a city of aquatint. In her spacious and quiet streets men walked and spoke as they had done in Newman's day; her autumnal mists, her gray springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days—such as that day—when the chestnut was in flower and the bells rang out high and clear over her gables and cupolas, exhaled the soft airs of centuries of youth. It was this cloistral hush which gave our laughter its resonance, and carried it still, joyously, over the intervening clamor."

Oxford devolved into a destination for upper-middleclass American tourists long before J.K. Rowling's harebrained, hackneyed Harry Potter stories. Whilst a student there the Rad Trad enjoyed deceiving fellow Americans on holiday. With one exception, they always enquired as to where the nearest Harry Potter attraction could be found: the library (Bodleian library), the dining hall (Christ Church College), the hallways (Theology faculty), and whatever else they could want. The Rad Trad obliged their requests, with either a heavily affected Yorkshire or Oxonian accent—depending on his mood. Often, after carrying down the High Street toward their destination, these poor site-seekers would chirp within the Rad Trad's earshot "Ooooh Jawhnny, don't you just love that English accent" or "Wasn't that a fancy voice" or even "I could just listen to British people talk all day." The bars are the only other form of entertainment in Oxford.

 

There is also an amusing description of the family house's chapel, 19th century art nouveau kitsch:

"The whole interior had been gutted, elaborately refurnished and redecorated in the arts-and-crafts style of the last decade of the nineteenth century. Angels in printed cotton smocks, rambler-roses, flower-spangled meadows, frisking lambs, texts in Celtic script, saints in armor, covered the walls in an intricate pattern of clear, bright colors. There was a triptych of pale oak, carved so as to give it the peculiar property of seeming to have been molded in Plasticine. The sanctuary lamp and all the metal furniture were of bronze, hand-beaten to the patina of a pockmarked skin; the altar steps had a carpet of grass-green and gold daisies."

 

Brideshead has developed a modern following focused on the sexual tension between its two main male characters, Charles Ryder and Lord Sebastian Flyte. These modern pseudo-aesthetes usually neglect or deride the main theme of the book, God's grace, or the various characters who act of God's instruments—Cordelia and Lady Marchmain. Others who understand and appreciate the theme often cite Sebastian and Cordelia as the good souls of the novel and ignore Lady Marchmain. A letter by Waugh to A.D. Peters, published in the back of the Back Bay Books edition, sheds some light on the matter:

"Yes, Lady Marchmain is an enigma. I hoped the last conversation with Cordelia gave a theological clue. The whole thing is steeped in theology, but I begin to agree that theologians won't recognize it.... I am steaming ahead with the novel. It is becoming painfully erotic."

A review might be forthcoming.

Lesser Known Fathers VI: St. Gregory of Nyssa's "On the Soul and the Resurrection" and Universal Salvation

 

Christos anesti!

St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote On the Soul and the Resurrection following the death of his brother, St. Basil the Great, archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Gregory was very unlike his brother, the great Cappadocian bishop. Basil and Gregory came from a family of about nine children, half of them recognized as saints. Basil, at the behest of his sister, the monk St. Macrina, embraced the ascetic life. Gregory married a woman named Theosebia and took a career in rhetoric, though serving as a lector in the Church. In 371, likely after Theosebia's death, Gregory, under his brother's influence, was elected bishop of the newly created episcopal see in Nyssa. St. Basil died in 379, prompting a grieving Gregory to visit his sagacious sister, Macrina, who died the very next day herself. Shortly thereafter St. Gregory composed On the Soul and the Resurrection, possibly as a means of coping and possibly as a way to continue to interact with his brethren "who here or elsewhere lie asleep in the Lord." On the Soul and the Resurrection, which would probably generate an interesting reaction from many more traditional Roman Catholic priests today, is written in the Greek dialogue style, using the author as the emotional and unsure enquirer and his saintly sister Macrina as the logical and wise respondent.

 

 

St Macrina, sister of the author and
respondent in the dialogue.

The first section of On the Soul constructs the reason the soul exists and, in passing, on why one can expect it to be immortal. The first necessary construct is the existence of God. All Creation, says Macrina, points toward the existence of the Creator Himself just as "cloth suggests a weaver." The error of Epicurus and his followers was to look at physical matter as it was and to look no further. Under this scheme of philosophy man is a physical arrangement of particles, and one in decay at that. If the soul exists though, and is part of the human person, who decays, does not the soul die with the body? Does it dissolve? Even if it did, Macrina observes, it would be akin to a shattered pot, whose shards still suggest the makings of the original pot. More important to Macrina is the Greek belief that like attracts and reflects like. The human person is a reflection of the larger Creation, of which he is a part. He has a physical aspect like the earth and the stars and the mud, but has the soul as well, just as the Universe has God. Far from the soul being an alternative to God, the soul, in Greek philosophy, is a microcosm of God within the human person, an icon (although St. Gregory does not use this terminology). When one understands this one understands the Incarnation as conceived by Ss. Athanasius (On the Incarnation) and John of Damascus (Three Treatises on Icons): that the human soul, as an icon of God, was so precious God could not allow it to continued in corruption and decay.

 

 

St. Gregory attempts to ascertain of Macrina a definition of the soul. Macrina makes a convincing materialistic case against the soul and then turns the entire argument in favor of the soul (Ch 2). The soul is an intelligence that has latent thought and some sort of knowledge, she contends. She asks Gregory how he can understand the illumination and phases of the Sun and Moon without the soul? Here the "soul" she has constructed is really analogous to the brain's consciousness as modern science would conceive of it. The "soul" is really just a means of processing and applying information gathered from a lifetime of observation. However, she continues "Is it not clearly proved by what we can see that there is in man a mind, something else beside what we can see? By the invisible intelligence of its own nature the mind makes such plans by thoughts within itself; then, as we have described, through material assistance it brings into the open the concepts which exist within." Her primary example is "art"—by which she includes engineering. Art is a creative faculty which, although it uses knowledge of physical matter, re-arranges matter in a higher and better state, much like the God of Whom the soul is a microcosm.
 

Is not this apophatic approach without merit, asks Gregory. What is the use in defining the soul based on negative principles (the soul is without a body, the soul is without physical properties etc). His sister in dialogue upbraids him: "We make cowardice known by calling it 'unmanliness'." To deny the non-physical would be to deny God Himself. It would also mean the denial of ideas or of thought. Moreover, precisely because the soul is not part of the body it can survive after death. Were the soul physical it would break up, as a wrecked ship, after death. But instead it can be present at any place without losing any of its essence or form. This point touches on a type of knowledge apparent to the ancient Platonists and their Christian successors, of which St. Gregory is one, but which our materialistic philosophers neglect. Sometimes things, like ideas, are not easily categorized as part of physical phenomena, such as brain activity. A classically Platonic example might be the concept of a sphere; someone may only see oblong objects all his life, but he will know what a perfect sphere is and that oblong shapes are not it. A similar epistemology is at work in On the Soul.

 

 

Are not emotions an obstacle here? How does one taxonomize the mind, the soul, and simple impulses? Herein enters a distinction between the Passions, sinful impulses, and simple emotions which are proper to physical nature. Passions, although the word is used sparingly, are impulses that are not of God and therefor not proper to the soul, as the soul if of God. One example St. Gregory, in the person of Macrina, gives is anger. None of the saints were angry people. What about Moses? Chapters 2 and 12 Exodus surely state otherwise. But no, Macrina controverts. Anger is the unholy desire to cause harm to another without just provocation (ch. 3). Emotions of their own are of no harm, but it is meet for them to be subjected to the intellect and to the soul (between which St. Gregory hardly makes a distinction). Animals have all the physical qualities and emotions as persons, but lack the acumen and consciousness of humans. For this reason man is called a "rational" animal in Greek thought. Macrina illustrates this ordering of personal properties using the Platonic Chariot from Phaedrus. The soul and mind are the charioteer while the emotions are the horses. Were the mind not in control the human person would become entangled and crushed in emotion and impulse as the charioteer would in the reins of his horses were he not directing them in their paths.

The Harrowing of Hell (Descent into Hades)

In chapter 4 Macrina uses the geocentric astronomy of the time to prove that while the soul is immortal it does not go to a physical "place." The "infamous" word of "Hades" suggests something more to Macrina. The character of Gregory objects to this doctrine on the basis of St. Paul's epistle to the Philippians, which, in chapter 2, the Apostle says that at the "name  of Jesus every knee must bend, of those above the earth, on the earth, and under the earth." Macrina corrects Gregory and proves that by this Paul meant those in different states of being: those pure and in heaven, those still attached to flesh on earth, and those who let their Passions consume them and who have been subsumed by the things of the earth. On the whole, St. Gregory's willingness to engage in contemporary astronomy and ideas of being impresses the reader in this chapter and makes him appreciate the work of serious scholars who attempt to do the same with the faith today.



Michelangelo's racy depiction of the General
Resurrection and Last Judgment

St. Gregory—in Macrina—finally makes a formal, and long overdue, distinction between the intellect and the soul in an allegory about the General Resurrection. The character Gregory ponders how the soul can go on without a body and how it can continue without a body to recognize (Ch. 5). Macrina draws a parallel to mixing hues of paint, such as black and red, which form a new hue, but which can—with great difficulty—be separated into their previous forms, still known to the artist. The same is true of God, and His knowledge and ability to "re-mix" the human bodies justify the Church's faith in the General Resurrection at the end of time. Then in what state does the soul exist between death and the General Resurrection? How does the soul not exist corporeally as suggested in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus? Was he not taken "into the bosom of Abraham" (Luke ch. 16)? "Bosom," retorts Macrina, suggests a place of proximity or closeness to home. "Bosom" was a term for the land near a bay in the Greek language likely spoken by the Evangelists. Abraham was the first to be joined to the covenant that would bring the Savior into the world, and so residence at his "bosom" points toward a proximity to Christ's work (might present a problem for the hardline EENS party). Here we stumble upon two issues which have been present in the background thus far: 1-the soul is certainly incorporeal and when it enters eternity it does so immaterially (which makes sense, as modern science tells us time and "space"—material—are bound together) and 2-this work, although a treasure, has a vagueness in terminology that can tend toward confusion concerning the soul. This last point has troubled scholars of St. Gregory for years.

Continuing, why does the Rich Man still show concern for his kin and friends while Lazarus does not? Macrina gives Gregory another wonderful image. Consider a man who spends considerable time in a place infested with a foul stench. He may emerge into clean air and enjoy the improvement of his affairs, but some of the onerous odor will linger with him until time and the breeze take it away. This conflict between the Divine transformation of the person and past sins is the source of shame (Ch. 6). A Christian seeking to improve his life by God's grace will progress along the Divine path, aided and motivated by hope, but find himself tugged backward and discouraged by memories of the past: "And thus a civil war is established in the soul, in which memory fights with hope, accusing it of fighting our choice badly. The feeling of shame clearly interprets some such meaning, when the soul is stung by the result. The soul attacks the thoughtless impulse with repentance as with a whip and enlists forgetfulness as an ally against the source of grief." This is overcome by "purification," a process by which a person gradually separates from the things of the world, the Passions in Eastern theology, that restrain one from God. A purified person does not lose his "impulses," Macrina assures Gregory, because all good impulses flow from God. Instead the impulses more or less cease because the person no longer needs to desire God, having attained purification and having become more like Him: "If the soul has no desire because it has no lack of anything good, it would follow that the soul which has no insufficiency also casts out from itself the desiring impulse and disposition, which occurs only when something wanted is not present."

Met. Alfeyev contemplates purgation.
source: datum.org.ar

The separation from the things of the world is accomplished by purification, in this life or after death if necessary. The procession of purification was later called "Purgatory"—for purgation—by Pope St. Gregory the Great and gained the lasting association with fire. The Byzantines have a less lucid approach to the matter. If someone dies and does not go straight to heaven that person is said to be in the "intermediate state" and in need of prayers. It is also unclear in this theology if Hell is closed, given that Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev stated that the Orthodox view of Hell corresponds to the Catholic idea of Purgatory—drawing on Origen's belief that even the Lucifer will be redeemed, a belief condemned by Pope Vigilius (Denzinger 209 & 211). Gregory takes a more grounded approach while implicitly suggesting all might be saved. He appeals to both God's mercy and His justice. God purifies each sinner proportional to the amount of evil committed by that person and to which he remains attached just as a goldsmith may have to melt down metals in different way to extract gold. "So the divine judgment," Gregory in character elucidates, "as it seems, does not primarily bring punishment on sinners. As our discourse has just shown, it operates only by separating good from evil and pulling the soul towards the fellowship of blessedness. It is the tearing apart of what has grown together which brings pain to the one who is being pulled" (Ch. 7). Gregory alludes, but does not argue, to the limited nature of punitive measures, that the "punishment fits the crime." What finite crime is worthy of eternal punishment? Even the man who is punished in the parable of the debtors (Matthew 18) is only tortured until "he pays back all that he owes." The Saint's greater concern is not punishment, but the pains of purification. The Christian must seek to avoid occasions of sin and places of evil influence lest he suffer the torments of purification. Here Gregory shies away from the obvious question of free will: "Freedom consists in becoming like that which has no master and is under its own control." In the end, evil will suffer total defeat: "In this the apostle seems to me to teach the complete annihilation of evil. If God will be in everything that exists, evil obviously will not be among the things which exist; for if one should supposed that evil existed, how would it remain true that God is 'in all?' If evil is excluded, not all things are included. But He Who will be 'in all,' will not be in what does not exist."

The Saint devotes the entirety of chapter 8 to the refutation of contemporary pagan beliefs, among them the diverse narratives of reincarnation and other "nonsense." Chapter 9 is more intriguing. Macrina concludes that, owing to the order of Creation, the soul originates with the body—opposing Origen's doctrine of the soul's pre-existence—but that it also flourishes as the body grows until death, wherein it can neither grow nor become corrupt as it can on earth; it becomes stable as physical phenomenon, once it ceases to grow or decay, becomes stable. The emergence of the soul with the body is in accordance with Creation, given that God created the universe ex nihilo, the soul included. This Christian doctrine controverts the pagan belief that the universe is actually a formulation of pre-existing, eternal matter. Fascinatingly, 19th century atheists promoted this very teaching in order to undermine the possibility of a Creator; Einstein himself implicitly believed in it because he believed in a static universe, until Fr. Georges Lemaitre convinced him otherwise with the Big Bang theory, which many scientists at the time wrote off as Catholic nonsense. Oddly, Stephen Hawking now uses that same Catholic nonsense to discourage the idea of a Creator and the eternality of the matter which comprises the universe. Some errors never die. Macrina, seeking to avoid a pagan belief that could not be disproved until the advances of 20th century physics, wholesale denies the materiality of matter! According to her color, shape, and other features create matter, not elements.

On the Soul concludes with a discourse on the General Resurrection itself. Just as God breathed life into the material to create and animate life, so will His Spirit do the same at the General Resurrection. The gift of life is one that comes from the Holy Spirit, as the book of Genesis tells us. Yet Resurrection is accomplished and eventuated through the person of Jesus Christ. Although the Spirit gives life, Christ is the one Who resurrects the dead in the Gospel, including Lazarus, who had been dead and decomposing for four days. Here Gregory introduces some objections to the Resurrection, from both the perspective of a doubter and from the perspective of a secularist. The doubter questions how the Resurrection, with the same physical body as people had in life on earth, should be viewed in light of suffering. Many live with great ailments and deformations; others die old and decrepit; others still die as children. The secular objection doubts the physical aspect of the Resurrection. What use are certain organs if they will no longer be used? What of the condition of the resurrected body? How will it appear? Macrina condemns these objections as deceitfully crafted rhetoric void of merit upon learned and patient consideration. Macrina returns to the theme of purification. Physical pain and ailment were brought into the world by sin. Purification from sin and attachment also means detachment from the physical punishments condign to sins. the human body will no longer appear as it did on earth, but rather as it should have before the Fall of Adam and Eve. At this point the words of St. Paul will come true: corruption will put on incorruption, and mortals will put on immortality (1 Corinthians 15).

St. Gregory, through Macrina, takes the Temple of Jerusalem as a type of the renewed life of the resurrected. In the Temple the Holy of Holies was so sacred only a priest could enter it, and only once a year at that. The next part of the Temple was reserved for those chosen as priests. The next after that belonged to the followers of the Law. The part beyond that was more generally accessible and did not require people to take actions or make merits. And the gate was accessible to regular Jews or anyone else. All those barriers and gradations will be gone at the General Resurrection after purification. Man will see God as He is and be at home. At the end of On the Soul and the Resurrection St. Gregory writes "So when such things are cleansed and purified away by the treatment through fire, each of the better qualities will enter in their place: incorruptibility, life, honor, grace, glory, power, and whatever else of this kind we recognize in God Himself and in His image, which is our human nature."

St. Gregory is certainly the most Greek of the Fathers featured thus far. His philosophy and outlook relies much more on Hellenistic thought than the Eastern ascetics and Latin Fathers presented in prior installments. Many of his conclusions are unique or foreign to us, but we ought not discount them out of hand, as they give us spiritual food for thought. Next in the series, St. Theodore the Studite.

St. Gregory of Nyssa, pray for us!