Apocrypha Yesterday and Today

If you go over to New Advent's entry on the Book of Judith, you'll find a rousing defense of its historicity. What brought this up was that I was talking to a Catholic friend of mine about Judith, and she mentioned that her Bible describes the book as a "novel" in the preface, i.e. a work of fiction. Her Bible was published after Vatican II. The Catholic Encyclopedia was published in 1910. I have no commentary on this.

East and West

Church history is fascinating because it drives us to the question, "How did these guys read Scripture? Did they read it at all?" As we all know, there was a lot of fighting in the centuries of the Imperial Church over who was the greatest--the bishop of Rome, or the bishop of Constantinople? What's more is that this question comes up again in the context of Catholic-Orthodox relations.

To just about every Christian in the Reformation tradition, with its strong emphasis on sola scriptura, this seems amazing in light of Luke 22:24-28, where the disciples are fighting over who is the greatest--at the Last Supper, no less! This is, of course, not the only place where the disciples where arguing over honor, and we all know what Jesus' response is. It seems obvious enough that if you are arguing over primacy, power, and greatness, you are completely missing what Jesus is about.

Yet these fights happened in the Imperial Church without anyone saying "Hey! What did Jesus say about greatness in the kingdom of God?" And they still happen today, as though this ancient question deserves an answer. ("No. It's the pope at Rome. No, it's still the patriarch of Constantinople!") So what happened?

I think when you read the Bible itself, you find the answers. No one knew the Scripture better than the Pharisees, yet they were often completely blinded to its meaning by their own agenda. And I suppose that's what happens. The same thing happened to Southern Presbyterians when it came to slavery. It's really easy to become so convinced that you are right that even God's Word cannot speak to you. The only alternative is to be continually open to correction--which is to sacrifice pride, the greatest idol of mankind.

Annoying (Former) Evangelicals

Honestly, nothing is more annoying than a former Protestant who's turned either EO or RC. Having turned, they feel the need to harass all their friends and acquaintances with tear-jerking stories of "coming home" and having finally "reconciled myself to the One True Church." The archetype, of course, is Frankie Schaeffer. First, the guy can't shut up. Second, when he opens his mouth, it's always to be incredibly condescending to the poor fools who haven't yet joined the True Church. Third, Orthodoxy is way more diverse and nuanced than he presents it. Fourth, conscientious Orthodox Christians see way more problems in their own communion than Schaeffer will ever admit.

And that's pretty much how most of the converts are. I find that lifelong Catholic and Orthodox Christians tend to be quite tolerable, charitable, Christian folks who tend to be interested in very Christian sort of things like raising one's children in the faith, activities at the parish, social and political issues, the troubling news about some unfortunate strife at church headquarters, etc. Former Protestants are completely different. It seems that people born in the communions (or converted long enough ago to have internalized the identity) are far more likely to be conscious of diversities and current problems than new converts from Protestantism, who are just enchanted by the perfections of their new communions and appalled at the silliness of Protestantism.

The last thing is the blatant hypocrisy of criticizing Protestants for reappropriating things that were formerly jettisoned. Before it was, "You idiot Protestants don't recite the Creed! You deny the Church!" So we start reciting the Creed, and now it's "You idiot Protestants recite the Creed without joining us! You're just a bunch of consumers!" As a Reformed Christian who sees the salutary use of creeds and liturgies, but not praying to things or dead people, uncritical attitudes toward theologians of the Byzantine Empire, dogmatization of medieval myths and works-based paths of salvation, infallible guys in Italy, or the like, I find that criticism to be invalid. As Michael Spencer of the Boar's Head Tavern said, I'd prefer to stay where I am and deal with my own problems than take on yours.

So this final message is for EO and RC converts: You know how you are now convinced that your current communion is the One True Church That Christ Founded to the exclusion of all others, and would never leave it no matter what else happens? So equally are some of us convinced that the Reformation of the 16th century was a necessary restoration of divine doctrine and expunging of un-Christian practice, and because repudiating what the Reformation was about is a condition of joining your communion, we cannot in good conscience do this. We recognize some missteps we made then and since then, but at the core, we are thoroughly convinced in our own minds that the Reformation was necessary, good, and even vital. Please try to understand and respect that our conviction that we cannot join your communion is just as deep and fundamental as your own conviction that we must.

Transubstantiation

In a discussion with a Lutheran blogger who goes only by the name of CPA, I sought to find what Lutherans might think of transubstantiation. In my Google hunt, I came across instead what some Catholic thinks of the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation. In any case, you owe it to yourself to read this. If that's the metaphysical understanding behind the Catholic doctrine, well, draw your own conclusions.

Especially curious is their claim that they take Christ's words "literally" why we take them "symbolically." I'm not sure how the Mystical Presence of Reformed theology (i.e. that "This is my body" refers to the spiritual connection we have with Christ in the celebration of the Supper) is any less "literal" than the claim that "This is my body" means "Jesus draws the visible appearance of bread around himself and, in so doing, turns the bread into his entire person such that he is nonphysically present, but present only according to substance." "Body," when juxtaposed with "blood" simply means "flesh." "Body, blood, soul, divinity, and indeed the entire person of Christ" isn't a literal reading; it's just as much an interpolation and product of theological reflection as anything you'll find in Calvin's Institutes. If they said "The flesh of Christ" instead of "Jesus in his full divinity in substance," that would be "literal."

What they should say isn't "We take it literally, and you take it spiritually." They should say "Our theological reflection, philosophical speculation, and centuries of tradition just happen to be right. Yours are wrong. The end." This "literal reading" vs "spiritual reading" stuff is just a bunch of malarky.

Cool people don't say God-bearer, liturgy, or icon. They say Theotokos, leitourgia, and ikon. That way, people know that you're a real theologian, not like those schmucks who don't know the proper Greek term for things we have perfectly servicable English names for. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go proskyneo Christos my kyrios before bed. This daily zoe is all part of the pistis, you know.

FV

I feel like I should talk about the Federal Vision controversy. Unfortunately, this is only due to a feeling of vague moral obligation, as every other Reformed blogger seems to care. It is in no way due to any interest of mine. I simply find the whole thing infinitely boring. It should be manifestly clear to everyone that Reformed theology isn't as one dimensional as the 5-points + baby sprinklin' types say it is. It should also be clear that we should steer clear of talking about covenant-keeping as a condition of salvation. I understand what people mean by that, but the problem is that kind of language is still too loaded with medieval baggage to be useful. People are just too likely to automatically think "Racking up credits to use at the heavenly Kwik-E-Mart," and they're not going to read the 300-page book you wrote about it.

Who's a Father?

A question that's recently been circulating around my brain is "Who gets to be a Church Father? And why?" I have noticed two circular claims made by those who study primarily patristic literature:

1. This man said great things that we ought to hear because he is a Holy Father.
2. This man is a Holy Father because he said great things that we ought to hear.

OK, so it's circular. Big deal. However, it got me thinking about the whole selection process for becoming a Father. Of course, you've got to have written something important. That right away eliminates everyone in the era who spent most of his time preaching and little time writing. However, one's writings are only "important" if someone else recognizes them to be so. This "someone" in the case of patristic literature would be the later copyists. The works of blacklisted theologians such as Nestorius and Origen are lost to us for precisely this reason. However, who else is out there that we don't get to see? We have evidence from Augustine and Jerome that there were theologians in their day who neither held to their Stoic view of sexuality nor to the perpetual virginity of Mary. It seems obvious why nothing they said has been preserved--desert monastics transcribing scrolls likely wouldn't have too much interest in someone who believed that sex is no impediment to holiness.

All this is to say that when we say we are speaking of the "view of the Fathers," we implicitly mean the "views of men that monastic scribes thought we should listen to." Of course, a big fan of the Fathers would say that the scribes themselves were also quite holy, being monks, and therefore we should humbly receive that which they have determined we ought to hear.

But I myself don't take such a view. I certainly recognize the value in Augustine, Irenaeus, Athanasius, etc, but at the same time I come at the extant works we have with a recognition that later developments in church history and a profound, uncritical affection for imperial Roman Christianity have played a large part in determining who the "Fathers" are and the particular kind of piety and reverence associated with reading their works.