A Commentary on St. John Chrysostom's On the Priesthood (Part I)

Editor's Note: This piece is rather long, so I am going to introduce the less controversial piece today, given that *Christopher recently has written on some of the same subjects. The controversy will have to wait until I can do a good job on it.

I am spurred to this post by Father John Heidt, Canon Theologian of Fort Worth, who writes in a recent post,

"For whatever reason, a Christian man or woman who is unable, or does not feel called, to enter the married state as the bible and the church understand it, must attempt to develop an inward discipline of chastity which most heterosexual people never even consider, and do their best to withstand the external social pressure of conforming to the life style of the homosexual community. This is not an easy calling, but there is no substitute, and today, as in past ages, those who have responded faithfully to that call have often been the great heroes of the Faith. In their pilgrimage they need all the sympathy, encouragement and support that the church can muster, while reminding them that their particular troubles and temptations may differ in kind but not in power from the troubles and temptations of married men and women."

Among other things, Heidt says in this post that we should beware of the label "homosexual," since it was invented by the atheist Havelock Ellis. What I hate to have to tell the Reverend Father in God is homosexuality is prior to Havelock Ellis. And in some sense, Father Heidt does admit this by mentioning "the great heroes of the Faith." But was it is this simple? Did these heroes theologize their homosexuality as something that really doesn't exist? Did they theologize homosexuality as something Christ could take away or did they theologize it as something capable of sanctification as a primary characteristic of the individual nature? Did they theologize same-sex unitive relationships or did they regard such unions as impossibilities in the divine economy? We know what Heidt would answer. I remain quite unconvinced of his position. And I was less unconvinced before reading the ancient sources than afterwards.

*Christopher of Bending the Rule often refers to the family of his conjugal union as a "community of ascesis." In the sense I suspect he means it, he sees his family structure in terms of creatures training for the competition alluded to in 1 Corinthians 9 or obliquely in 1 Timothy 4. Thus, a community of ascesis is in constant training for the present struggle against the principalities and powers in hope for the amazing blessedness of the world to come. This is a common problematization of the monastics. Why are the monastics so popular among Christian gay couples? Why do I see so many icons of Benedict near rainbow flags? Why are relationships that seem the height of profligacy and indulgence in one view so strongly invested in the theology of self-denial for the sake of the "work of God." This is not a modern problem, I believe. I believe these elements are so strongly juxtaposed because monasticism was strongly influenced by a solution to very peculiar problems of the early Christian Era.

The First Problem: You are attracted to a person of the same sex in the 3rd century AD Roman world. You are an adult male citizen. Your beloved is an adult male citizen. In a world with supposedly more liberal sexual mores, your situation is impossible. At best, any relationship between you would be seen as immature, the kind of thing teenage boys would do. It would lower your status in the community. Moreover, it would complicate your property relations. Philosophically, such a relationship would be seen as poor discipline of the soul. At worst, your relationship could be considered a criminal offense.

The Second Problem: You are Christian. From what you read in the Scriptures, you cannot have sexual relations with your beloved without incurring divine sanction. Moreover, you are on the d.l., since in some dioceses, anyone with any homosexual experiences is regarded as incapable of redemption. Such persons are not permitted to be instructed in the Faith, let alone baptized. What are you to do? Surely, God has some good news for you.

To be honest, there seem to have been a variety of solutions to these problems. In some cases, gay men found liberty in solitary or communal living dedicated to prayer and works of mercy. And because being a straight man often wasn't easy in those times, such communities were mixed in sexual orientation. The idea of these communities was very simple. They were all "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven" who had given up everything to take up the cross and follow Jesus. The liberation of all of this was tremendous, because in the ideal world, there was no longer gay or straight living in Greco-Roman society with its worries about taxes, agricultural failure, commercial disaster, and the marriage market. The obligations of earthly citizenship could pass away. In this ideal case, persons were consecrated by their decision to abandon the world and by this consecration, they sought relationship with God and the entire created order. They sought the most final state of holy and eschatological being, in which God would be "all in all." In practice, the Institutes of Cassian suggest there were certain concessions to human nature. A couple of monks might share the same cell, if the abbot had determined their close living would further the work of the community. Were these particular same-sex relationships that actually had romantic dimensions? Probably. But there was no sex. Sex, of course, did not mesh with the theology. And it still doesn't. But I still claim that monasticism originates from a rejection of the heterosexual world for one not just "genderfucked" but completely rearranged. This is the power of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ!

We also can see cases in which particular same-sex romantic relationships became what I like to call "fratrimony." I think the martyrs Sergius and Bacchus came from or were exemplars to a rare community in which there really was a theology of same-sex marriage. And the theology was this: just as matrimony is a potential icon of the relationship between Christ and the Church, fratrimony is a potential icon of the relationship among the members of the Church and the relationship between the Persons of the Trinity. Thus, by natural relationships, the symmetry between koinonia and perichoresis that ultimately will be hyperthesis (by which I mean the transposition of the fullness of God for the fullness of the human being) can be displayed to the world entire. For indeed one of the ancient liturgies of fratrimony ends with this hymn of the priest, "By the union of love the apostles join in the praying to the Master of all; themselves committed to Christ, they extended their beautiful feet, announcing the good news of peace to everyone." When I read this I was amazed, for the Scriptures were opened to me, i.e. John 17.

However, fratimony had a strong pressure on it, the Greek emphasis on body/spirit duality and certain legal issues made it very difficult to theologize its sexual elements. Fratrimony, from the few sources that testify it, emphasized union according to the spirit rather than the flesh. This is a distinction one can make in a Johannine framework, because John could live with both monist and dualist understandings of human nature, but it is very hard to reconcile with the Old Testament. The body without the spirit is mere potential and vice versa . And indeed, the Old Testament lauds the potential of spirit, being "the breath of God" and views "bones" as the potential of the flesh.

But we need not worry. Heterosexual sex still was rather dubious in the Patristic books. It was allowed for sake of procreation. The Schoolmen were able to put it on better footing, until we have reached its ultimate theological celebration in American Protestantism. If it were up to me, I would adapt the formula of the Schoolmen and say, "faith, offspring, and sacrament" for matrimony and say, "faith, direction (cultivation?), and sacrament." In other words, I believe that homosexual unions possess as part of their charism not the fecundity of matrimony but the ability to look beyond the reproductive necessity to the fullness of the human person. In the ideal view, a homosexual union provides to the sensible world benefits in the form of a more objective economic and emotional safety net. They should be able to dedicate more of their time to cultivating the good and healing the harms. They have the ability to make more people their brothers and sisters than their immediate family. In the future of properly theologized relationships I see in the future, fratrimony and matrimony will be a spectrum not about sex per se but about how the couple gives of themselves to the world. The heterosexual couples will give their children to the world, both in terms of genetic potential and the habits they instill in them. Childless, homosexual couples, and celibates will give of themselves in other ways. What will matter is how the nature of God and the Christian community is published to the world by these relationships. By their fruits, we will know them.

[To be continued]

The Integrity of Our Witness

Yesterday, I took a break from the old problem sets to go promote Episcopal Relief and Development at an event at a Baptist church here. There was another detour involved, but that's another story. Actually, I really had no idea I was going to promote Episcopal Relief and Development, but I don't think I did too bad a job on short notice. But one man said to me, "It's really about integrity, isn't it?" I had been doing too much radiative transfer that day and was rather confused. "Integrity, what do you mean?" "The integrity of our witness." I muttered agreement then. But it occurs to me now that he's absolutely right. In literature, there is a strong prejudice against telling as opposed to showing. But the fullness of Christ is proclaimed to the world in both showing and telling a unified Christ. There is no aesthetic prejudice in this. And since I tend to live in communities of showing, I tend to forget how essential to telling showing can seem. Now, if only I could get the telling down.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may proclaim Christ boldly in word and deed.

It's Always A Good Time for Fasting and Prayer

This question was posed to Rabbi Yeshua ben Yosef, "We see that the followers of Rabbi Yohannam and the sages are fasting. But your disciples are eating and drinking. Why do they not fast?" And he replied, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast."

(From the Synoptic Gospels in poor homage to the Talmud).

It's funny. On one hand, my parish church has been promoting the idea of God's October Surprise: an unusual conjunction of Yom Kippur in Ramadan, thus allowing Jews and Muslims to share their fast times. Of course, it's no fair if everyone can't get into the act. So this highly irregular event includes a Hindu festival commemorating spiritual struggle and victory, a Buddhist festival, and the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, whose work to make peace between Islam and Christianity is not as well-known as it should be and gives the lie to all of the critiques of Kingdom of Heaven about the anachronistic religious tolerance of some of the characters. In every age, there are a few saints who can recognize genuine religious differences without considering it an excuse for bloodshed or the impossibility of friendship. The Kingdom of Jerusalem probably had a higher concentration of such people. But anyhow... The Rector encouraged us all to use the conjunction of the Islamic and Jewish festivals to use Yom Kippur as an opportunity to fast and pray for peace and justice. I am presently taking him up on it, though I am not doing it wholesale. For one thing, I am tempted to rub a little olive oil on my head tomorrow to give a Christian character to what I am doing. I also am working. Thus, let not my fast be confused for other fasts going on tomorrow. I merely wish to share some of the sanctity of the day and incline my heart toward the providence of God, bewail my sins and the systems of oppression I uphold, and thank God for the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ.

It is also tomorrow the Feast of St. Edward the Confessor, King of England and founder of St Peter's Abbey, the original West Minster of the See of London. It is also roughly the millenium of his birth. St. Edward the Confessor is quite a proper patron for this fast. In a time of much fighting for the throne of England, Edward came to power not by his sword but by his relationships. He was connected somehow to each of his four most recent predecessors, giving him a superior claim to all rival claimants, who were less connected. Yet Edward never intended to become king. He had taken a vow of chastity and probably would have ended up under the Rule of St. Benedict if he were not needed to bring civil peace to England. He ruled well and mercifully, though. He even married but made it clear to his wife that they would be living as "brother and sister" as the Apostle saith. Although in the long run, this probably was not the most responsible thing to do. Edward also tried to secure the succession for his Norman relatives, which was another ambiguously responsible act. But Edward also was said to have visions from God. Perhaps, he saw that the Normans and Saxons had a common destiny and tried to avoid future bloodshed. His life reminds us that self-denial, mercy, and peace are worthy virtues for even the most powerful of us to cultivate.

And now I hear of this :

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Fasting, almsgiving, and prayer have a long foundation in the Christian tradition stemming from our Jewish matrix. This triple counsel calls us to share signs of tangible grace with one another, reminding each of us to live in such a way that our very lives declare “God is gracious and bountiful, generous and merciful.”

Our holiness is found in loving our neighbor as ourselves. Many saints past knew this. Fasting was not simply a matter of individual piety, but a matter of personal responsibility to sisters and brothers with whom we are intertwined. And so we find St. Catherine of Sienna fasting and giving her meals away to the hungry. We find Desert Elders selling their woven wares to purchase food not for themselves, but for those without sustenance.

In the last few weeks, a series of natural disasters have ravaged the earth, striking brothers and sisters far and near. Some leaders within the Christian community have taken this as a sign of God’s wrath, singling out one or another sort and condition of human being for blame. Others are speaking up about taking care of our own first.

Rather than seeking to lay blame, to raise dividing walls for deciding who is our neighbor, or to get caught up in speculation about the end of days, we choose to discern in the signs of the times, that now is always the time for solidarity with those who are suffering. The signs of the times call us to live graciously as our Heavenly Father is gracious toward us.

To this end, we pledge to be signs of God’s generosity through fasting, prayer, and almsgiving in solidarity in a particular way with our brothers and sisters: To begin each day with the Lord’s Prayer, remembering that the Bread of Heaven at Holy Eucharist is intricately tied to striving so that all shall have daily bread; to abstain from a meal or simplify our eating habits each day; and to give the cost of this meal or savings from simplified eating to Episcopal Relief and Development or equivalent relief organizations for the work of disaster relief amongst our sisters and brothers both far and near.

At a time when our Communion is impaired by conflict and many search far and wide for signs of God’s tangible grace, we invite you to join us in the work of Christ, living into our Baptismal Covenant as we seek to serve Christ in all peoples, loving our neighbor as ourselves.


lux Christi vobis,
*Christopher and Annie

It really weaves all of our troubles into a common whole and a common solution. I've been reading poor Anglican Scotist. Our pangs of schism hit very close to home for him. Rev. Mr. Wilkins has yielded to anger and repented of it. And it's best not to talk about what I've seen at Titusonenine and Virtuosity. While our Bridegroom already has been taken from us and passed through the heavens, having needed no purificatory sacrifice but offering Himself for us, He returns to us in the Bread and Wine of the Holy Eucharist. He also returns to us in all of those acts of two or three or more of us by which we demonstrate our visible unity and the stirring of His Kingdom into this world. Though our unity with Christ is not exclusively dependent on our visible unity with one another, it is only strengthened by our communal obedience to his commandments by which God is reconciled to the world not only by the dispersal of the lifegiving Gospel as it regards salvation but also by works of mercy. Thus, the threat of the diminution of the visible unity of the Church is very much like something of the Bridegroom being taken away from us, it feels very much like an excuse to postpone a wedding (even if the divine economy doesn't work that way.) Thus, *Christopher and Annie are quite right to see natural disasters and schism as two very good reasons to fast, to pray, and to do works of mercy. I'll try to do a little more of all three.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers remind you that the sacrifice of God is a well-threshed spirit, a contrite heart He will not despise.

On the Names of the Persons of the Trinity

Well, not quite... I couldn't possibly give this issue its proper treatment. But I was spurred by this post to do a quick Anglicanocentric look at the issue. Besides, who would jump into this fray? I've already been cyberanathematized once this week. But the commenter who connected this issue to human sexuality issues is quite correct. It's not that sexuality is simply sublimated desire for God or that desire for God is sublimated sexual desire. The same faculties that mediate our part of our relationship with God also mediate our part of our relationship with other people, especially our most intimate ones. The tendency of the liberal moderns is to be sickened by the more ancient sexual responses to theophany. The tendency of the reactionary moderns is to purify the theophanic ecstasy of its sexual aspects.

But this wasn't my point. The Sewanee professor in question is in some sense supported by Athanasius, "And in this Trinity none is afore, or after another; none is greater, or less than another." Quicunque Vult founds the Sonship of the Son not on His inferiority to the Father, for they are indeed co-equal and co-eternal. He is Son because he is Begotten of the Father. Begetting implies no power relations nor any loss of equality or co-eternity. Thus, the Sewanee Professor questions whether Father is an appropriate title, since it implies power relations: the paterfamilias , who of old, had power of life and death over his household. Do we imply poor Christology or soteriology in this way?

But I think the commenters who found themselves on the antiquity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not far off, except they imply this is the only Scriptural formula. The problem is not the names themselves but the exclusionary and erroneous conclusions we draw from them. For instance, if we infer something about the role of women from the name, we certainly may err, "For God created a human being in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female He created him." I have to use "him," because we have no common gender pronoun in English. But why don't we change to something gender-neutral in that case? Well, as a hypothetical, why don't we change the name of Jesus? Well, I hope you don't go any further, because this is ridiculous. Changing the name of Jesus would introduce a number of dangerous errors.

But more importantly, Jesus is a name of power, for its referent is powerful. The name itself means "God saves." When we say it, we are naming its referent to the entire cosmos that may be feeling rebellious and enslaved. By saying that name, we say so much. As for the Names of the Persons, we are baptized into Christ's death, but we are baptized in the name of Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now I have thought about the locative aspects of this. Being baptized in the name of God is a usage that could suggest a variety of reified and substantial meanings for the name of God, particularly in its association with a continuation of the Temple worship in the Church. However, I suspect strongest sense of the usage is legal. It is the language of agency. The priest (or indeed layperson) baptizes by delegation from Christ. You also can find similar usage of doing things "in name of" (nomine + gen.) in contemporary Roman legal sources.

Let us also think of Moses, "Whom shall I say sent me?" And then God gives a fairly long title. These "legal names" clearly do not comprehend God. They are mere shorthand like the name of Fangorn in The Two Towers , but surely we have no authority to change them in "legal" contexts.

Thus, I would insist, if I were in charge, that the "legal" name of the Trinity be said at least once in every liturgy, so that we clearly direct our prayers to the rightful party. (We technically even do this at my own liberal Episcopal megachurch...) But I am not so limited as to deny that certain extralegal appositives may have a place in the liturgy. To give you examples, I have compiled a table of appositives used for God in the Litany of the Books of Common Prayer.

Edition	God the Father	God the Son	God the Holy Ghost (Spirit)
1544*	…of heaven	redemer of the world	procedyng from the father and the sonne
1549			proceding from the father and the sonne
1552	"	"	"
1662	,…of heaven	Redeemer of the world	proceeding from the Father and the Son
1689*	Creator of heaven and earth	Redeemer of the world	our Sanctifier and Comforter
1928E*	Father of heaven	Redeemer of the world	proceeding from the Father and the Son
ASB	N/A	N/A	N/A
1789	Father of heaven	Redeemer of the world	proceeding from the Father and the Son
1892	"	"	"
1928	Creator of heaven and earth	Redeemer of the world	Sanctifier of the faithful
1979	"	"	"
2004-Ireland-2	Creator of heaven and earth	Redeemer of the world	Giver of life
1962-Canada	Creator of heaven and earth	Redeemer of the world	Sanctifier of the faithful
Melanesian	…in heaven	the Saviour of the world	coming from the Father and the Son
Portuguese	criador	redentor	defensor e guia
Spanish	y Padre celestial	Redentor del mundo	procedente del Padre y del Hijo
*	Not official Book of Common Prayer

I apologize for the formatting. But from what I can tell, there is some tension in these appositives. All of these have Scriptural or creedal precedent, though. What we should be wary of is not any departure from Father, Son, and Holy Sprit but what precedent these departures have. But there's one more thing we should be wary of. But I need to tell a story to illustrate it.

This winter, some folks in "815" sent a survey around directed at churchgoers under 30. One set of questions asked our opinions on various formulations intended to name God. I can't reproduce them verbatim, but there were several that sent us into fits of laughter. There was ones that revealed a fellow student's leanings toward Mormon theology on the issue. But none of them seemed right. To some extent, I understand concerns that poor language or good language poorly interpreted and comprehended leads us into bad habits and into vice. But "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" has been good language for a very long time and is the strongest candidate for God's "legal" name. We have no power to change it by fiat. By delegation from that God I was baptized and I seek the unity of that same God in the Eucharistic feast. I am very wary of a trend to deny that this ancient formula is not God's proper name or that there is something wrong about using it to refer to God. Again I say that the problem is not the name of God but how we use it and think it. Who told us to use God's name to diminish our neighbor? No one did. So I can understand the push for inclusive language, yet I think it is becoming an increasingly misguided discourse. We should strive to expand our comprehension of God not diminish it.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit that the whole world may not merely know the names of the Trinity but know the Verity of their Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. And indeed, O gracious Lord, please spare all of your children from the motions of the earth and the ragings of the waters and keep them in life, health, and safety.

XIV. Of Works of Supererogation

XIV. Of Works of Supererogation

Voluntary Works besides, over and above God's Commandments, which they call Works of Supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety...

First, let's examine the very word supererogation, since we do not normally use it in conversation outside of the context of the theology of justification. Its earliest OED citation is 1526. From what I can tell, it originates from the Vulgate translation of Luke 10:35 in which the Good Samaritan leaves the man he has helped with an innkeeper while he takes care of some business. The Good Samaritan leaves a sum for the innkeeper but says that if the innkeeper needs to do anything more than the usual services for a guest (the verb for "if you should perform additional services" is supererogaveris in the Vulgate and prosdapaneses in the original. Considering the concept of which it is the origin, this suggests that the Roman Catholic doctrine of supererogation herein critiqued might originate from an exegesis of this passage in which Christ is the Good Samaritan, the man on the road is the ordinary man, and the innkeeper is the man seeking "perfection." [Though the source of the concept of "perfection" is Matthew 19:21]. Hence, the perfect man aids the cure of souls by following the commandments of Jesus, but if some additional things need to be done, it shall be for the perfect man as for the innkeeper. He shall be repaid by Jesus.

Well, this is a very strange exegesis and completely unlike any reading of this story I have ever heard, but it is the likely origin of the name (at least) of supererogation.

The doctrine itself (and Schaff is my primary authority on this) seems to be the idea of an Englishman, Alexander of Hales. If it was not his original idea, he certainly gave it its most traditional form. Alexander was a man whose influence on the Scholastics was so great that he might as well be called Doctor Doctorum , though honestly I barely have heard anything about him before now. From what I can tell, Hales was a great professor of Paris and a Franciscan of influence and papal patronage. His tendency as a theologian was to justify extant practice, no matter how innovative, and he especially emphasized the superiority of the clerical status.

The idea of the doctrine is this: God reveals in the Scriptures that certain acts (or their omission) either deserve reward or deserve punishment in whatever sense is appropriate. These acts that are either commanded or forbidden are commanded or forbidden in the form of laws, rules, acts, statutes etc. Generally, we call them by the general name of commandments. But Hales and his followers divided the commandments of the New Law (I would presume) into precepts which are obligatory on everyone and counsels (sometimes called evangelical counsels, either from their placement in the Gospels or because they often are connected with evangelism). It is not obligatory on anyone to obey counsels, but their obedience contributes to a gigantic treasury of merit on which the Church may draw to forgive the guilt of those who fail in obedience to precepts, do not have power in themselves to do the necessary penance for their failure, but are willing to do some penance to show their contrition to provide justification for the church to forgive their guilt. And, of course, Purgatory gets involved somewhere. All of this guilt forgiveness is an attempt to avoid Purgatory in which the souls are purified from remanent but not damnable guilt.

The Articulators, like the other Reformers, were highly disdainful of this doctrine. Their chief objection lay in the regula incurvata of their theology. As the Nicene Fathers sought doctrine in which Christ was just enough God and just enough man, the Reformers would not admit anything that spoke against free grace through Jesus Christ. We have argued before against Purgatory and for the impossibly high price of salvation. Although I have suggested one normally does not buy adoption or inheritance, I have not given any Scriptural basis for free grace. I find myself most convinced by the Old Testament in Isaiah 55, a possible reading at Easter Vigil, though I do not know how long it has been part of this Lectionary, since Easter Vigil is an ancient practice of recent restoration among Episcopalians at least. Hear the Word of the Lord through Isaiah, "Come for water, all who are thirsty; though you have no money, come, buy grain, and eat, come, buy wine and milk, not for money, not for a price. Why spend your money for what is not food, your earnings on what fails to satisfy? Listen to me and you will fare well, you will enjoy the fat of the land."

As in much of Isaiah, we see the life and teachings of Jesus in these verses. Water is freely offered, suggesting both the Sacrament of Holy Baptism and the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit (living water welling up such as in the story of the Samaritan Woman at the Well). Bread and wine is freely offered, suggesting both the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist and the mass feeding stories that are forerunners of the Eucharist. Enjoying the produce of the land follows listening to the Word of God, for "man does not live by bread alone but every word out of the mouth of God." Since we often see the Sacraments as the foundation of the life salvifying, i.e., in the midst of salvification, we see symbols of them being freely offered without money and price and thus we also see grace and salvation likewise freely offered. Moreover, salvation through Jesus Christ was a free offering of himself on the cross, for we say of Him that He was as a Lamb led gently to the slaughter. We did not pay Him for taking the fall for us. He gave Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God. It is thus dangerous and potentially erroneous to introduce anything that looks like a payment scheme into the economy of salvation. The amounts of guilt involved are too large to be accounted except in the books of God.

Great was the obedience of the martyrs and they have the full measure of blessedness in the company of the Triune God, but they have no salvific grace to provide to anyone. To which it is objected that the bishops of the Church considered libelli and the reified merit of the martyrs in determining the penance of the lapsi [Note carefully the source of the objection.] And I reply thus: the bishops possess two very confusing powers by delegation to their predecessors the Apostles. First, they possess the power to "bind and to loosen," which could be midrashic or judicial powers. The bishops are the settled judges of the Church, as Hooker might put it, and thus have the authority to decide who belongs inside and outside the carnal communion of the Church. This power, no doubt, is misused, but it is theirs. I have no idea what the extent of their spiritual authority is, though I suspect it is as efficacious as their temporal authority if in full faith and knowledge. But they possess in addition the ability to forgive and retain sins, probably on the same conditions as "binding and loosening," since these powers are introduced analogously in the Gospels. They indeed may be one and the same. But since these powers derive from delegation from Christ and the communication of the Holy Spirit, it is highly likely that if anyone's merits are related to their exercise, it would be the merits of Christ.

Thus when the bishops reconciled the lapsi , they were exercising their proper powers gained for them through the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and no other act. The libelli of the martyrs thus are analogously effectual to the prayers of the saints, they only can help, being patronage and co-endorsement of our prayers, if the saints indeed do patronize us and endorse them. But to say the witness of the martyrs has any power compared to the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross would be contrary to that same witness. Did the bishops really think they were doing otherwise. As far as I can tell, they were extending Christ's mercy. Indeed, any other reading of the libelli suggests that an error of the lapsi has propagated.

For indeed the first form of libelli in the context of martyrdom originates from a decree of the Emperor Decius in the middle of the 3rd century AD. Decius commanded that all of the citizens of the cities of the Empire perform sacrifices to their local gods for the safety of the Empire. Those who sacrificed received a certificate ( libellus ), saying that they had performed the sacrifice. People who did not possess this document and refused to make sacrifice were subject to capital punishment. Christians had a variety of responses to the decree of Decius and similar decrees issued in later persecutions. Some forged libellos or obtained them from the local magistrates by bribery. Others obtained them by actually sacrificing. All of these, no doubt, had theological arguments of better or worse sorts justifying themselves. But in all cases, it was the general consensus of the Church that all who possessed libellos were apostates of greater or lesser sorts. Thus, by obtaining libellos from martyrs in prison they had aided, the lapsi were trying to get right with both God and the Emperor.

As a sign of contrition, the acts of the lapsi were admirable. They risked martyrdom by helping the martyrs. But the libelli of the martyrs had poor precedent. For in the logic of the precedent, the lapsi were making sacrifice to the martyrs in order to keep their place in the Christian commonwealth. The lapsi were better off helping the martyrs out of charity, asking for no documentation, and doing whatever additional penance the bishops mandated. Imitating the institutional logic of the present persecution was iniquitous.

Of course, I see another problem with supererogation that does not involve free grace. I am much disturbed by the division between precepts and counsels. The counsels generally seem to fall under the heading of what we often call, "the hard sayings of Jesus." For instance, see Matthew 19:10-12

"The disciples said to him, 'If that is how things stand for a man with a wife, it is better not to marry.' To this he replied, 'That is a course not everyone can accept, but only those for whom God has appointed it. For while some are incapable of marriage because they are born so, or were made so by men, there are others who have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven. Let those accept who can."

And compare it to Matthew 19:16 ff. which follows an interlude about children...

This passage begins very strangely. The disciples speculate that it is better not to marry. Why do they do this? Has Jesus said marriage leads to damnation? No. Has Jesus said marriage leads to painful boils? No. Has Jesus said women are evil? No! Jesus has said that marriage is permanent. Why is this so troubling?

I was about to put a insufficient exegesis of Deuteronomy 22 here, but I think the disciples are troubled by permanent marriage because Jesus essentially closes off the flexibility of the institution in mediating social relations and property transmission. You can't divorce because your marriage is fruitless. You can't divorce because your wife's family has insufficient standing in the community relative to your ambitions for social ascendancy. In other words, marriage is not a socioeconomic power game but something more fundamental and mystical. Close on the heels of this is Jesus' famous discourse on the eunuchs, especially those who are "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven." Now until the time of Jesus, halakhic teaching on marriage generally held it to be obligatory. One was obligated to be fruitful and multiply in lawful matrimony. These acts were mitzvot . So Jesus' counsel seems hard and superogatory, but it is also tremendously liberating. Jesus wants us to be free from the socioeconomic games that direct our minds too much on the present things and not enough on the constantly arriving kingdom of God. By making chastity a permitted form of life acceptable to God, he allows us to be free from all of the burdens of matrimony on our hearts if we choose to accept this liberty. But because these counsels liberate us in Christ Jesus and this liberation is not only permitted but made possible by God (as is suggested in Matthew), there is nothing meritorious in itself obeying the counsels.

Moreover, dividing matters into precepts and counsels makes us less inclined to the liberation of the counsels. The first son of the medieval aristocracy would feel obligated to take up arms, inherit his father's property, and marry to continue his line. His younger brother would feel obligated not to marry and enter a religious order so that there would be less of a drain on the family property from his potential children. Yet I argue that the counsels in support of celibacy and poverty are liberating. They are meant to free one from such temporal concerns. The older son should feel more liberated by the counsels as his younger brother. But because the counsels are so liberating, they obligate one to pursue the kingdom all to the stronger.
But as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7, the key to all of this is that the kingdom be furthered in the state to which God calls you, "Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God" (1 Cor. 7:24).

The medieval theologians so strongly associated perfection, obedience to counsels, and superogation with the clerical state that they passed over the work of the spirit of Christ in the ordinary man or woman in ordinary life. Moreover, they also sometimes ignored the possibility of the counsels applying well to non-clerics. But sometimes they didn't. The Third Order of the Franciscans etc. are good examples of "the work of God" flowing from the monastery into the world. I guess what I'm saying is that all Christians need an orientation toward poverty, chastity, obedience, and the liberation of the Kingdom of God. It does us no good to say that such things belong to the holy people over there who can give us some of their holiness because we need it. Holiness is the general vocation of the Christian, "be ye holy as the Lord thy God is holy."

Rev. Mr. Richard Kew of Kew Continuum has a post dated 1 October on the general need for a new call to holiness of life. I enjoy reading Rev. Mr. Kew, though I disagree with him most of the time. But I think he's right that there's a general hunger for holiness these days that has to be answered with something. Of course, as someone who recites Psalm 51 several times a day, I may be projecting my own lack of holiness on the world...

...for by them men do declare, that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but they do more for his sake, than of bounden duty is required...

To these people whom the Articulators discuss here I say, "You do realize that the rich young ruler in Matthew didn't really obey all of the commandments in their fullness..." In other words, I am skeptical that anyone can love God and their neighbor with every fiber of their being, so I doubt that anyone can do more than that. And yet it is our bounden duty to love God to the uttermost and our neighbor as ourselves. Here at least, you really can't give 110%. Martyrdom, for instance, is not a gratuitous service to God, just a more fundamental expression of your love for Him.

whereas Christ saith plainly, When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say, We are unprofitable servants.

See Luke 17:7-10. This follows Jesus telling the disciples that they essentially have no faith, since if they had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could do amazing things. The evangelicals sometimes say, "The Cross is very big." Their point is that even with the spirit of Christ working within us, we are still pale and pitiful creatures compared to the weight of our sins and the glory of God. The merits of Christ alone bridge the gap. We always can do more.

Question

What is a novena? Is there any good objection to an Anglican praying one? Let's just say that I have come to a fuller realization that some close connexions of mine are in deep need of prayer.

Angloblography of the Day

Titusonenine is filled with much debate about Robin Eames' lectures at VTS and the changes to the Constitution of the Church of Nigeria. I said my piece here and like all reassessors was promptly ignored. They can smell them on T1:9, you know. Am I obvious? I did like elfgirl's comment about the sudden importance of the 39 Articles, though.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may experience the stirring of the mountains and the fecundity of the sea possible through the faith and merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ and may find in Him whatever liberty is necessary to pursue the good of His Kingdom with every iota of your being.

Quick Angloblography

Paul Zahl Is An Alien Or a Hyper-Lutheran or a Desperate Dean or Something

The "F. Mulder" signature is a cute touch. I'm curious whether my present rector would let Zahl into the pulpit here. It would be the just thing to do.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may know the Truth that is out there.

Dionysius Areopagites

One of the more interesting things I read in college in my spare free time would have to be On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology by Dionysius Areopagites, a pious fraud of the middle of the 1st millennium of the Christian Era. As a pious fraud, Dionysius problematizes himself as a contemporary of Paul, a man who heard the great Areopagitcal address and was converted to Christ by a vision of the synthesis of the Kingdom of God with the investigations of the Stoa. Before (or really after) Tertullian said, "Quid ergo Athenas et Ierusalem? Quid ergo Academia et Ecclesia" (I'm quoting from memory), Dionysius answered, "Everything." Like physicists working with a cloud chamber, the Platonists, the Peripatetics, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and who knows what others had probed to theos with the light and particles of their modes of reasoning. But like the silly women of which Paul speaks, the philosophers were always thinking and like their Jewish parallels and contemporaries of the Wisdom literature, were little closer to the truth. Paul changed that, proclaiming to theos or theos agnostos (for indeed the sense of those words is not very different) to be God the Father, the source of all being. Presumably, Paul also proclaimed the other Persons. Paul gave the hidden electron cloud a name. To continue our analogy, Paul proclaimed the Schrodinger Equation.

Now, the funny thing about the Schrodinger Equation is that it has no analytical solution beyond the hydrogen atom and no numerical solution beyond the helium atom. And thus, I suspect, Dionysius realized that God proclaimed in the gospel which Paul taught was comprehended to the extent of the hydrogen and helium atom. Thus, Dionysius came up with an epistemology of theological humility, a way of seeking the heavier elements of God not in sensible proclamations but through a form of deeply humble engagement with the intelligible. As pious fraud, Dionysius writes to Timothy, presumably the companion of Paul, and his fellow presbyter in Hellas. In history, Dionysius likely was an ethnic Greek perhaps writing in the generation after Chalcedon. To return to our analogy, this was a time for humility. The conclusions of the first Ecumenical Councils were much like the Hartree model of the atom, which simplified the Schrodinger Equation so it could be solved for heavier elements with less trouble. But the Hartree model is an approximation with substantial errors for some elements. In a time when Christendom still felt the wounds of doctrinal winners and losers, Areopagites stood and said, "No one really wins about God."

*Christopher recently cited this anecdote about ++ St. William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1942-1944.

A reporter once asked ++Archbishop William Temple: "Your Grace, the Roman Catholics have Augustine and Aquinas; the Presbyterians have Calvin; the Lutherans have Luther; the Methodists have Wesley; whom does the Church of England have?" Temple relied "Plato." (Gray Temple, Gay Unions)

It's funny that the source for this is a book by Gray Temple. Temple was keynote speaker for the Province V Retreat my sophomore year in college, when I was reading Dionysius.

But St. William Temple, I think, had it wrong (or perhaps he thought the reporter wouldn't know who Dionysius was). Our theologian is not Plato but Dionysius Areopagites. For as Augustine says in City of God , the philosophers did not actually derive the Trinity. Otherwise, they would have predicted and recognized Christ by reason. The self-revelation of God in Christ gave a name, a nature, and a mission to the God of the philosophers. Compare the Mystical Theology and the Enneads of Plotinus. One is simply easier to think through, because we understand the referents in the first, both in the sense of purely Christian referents and the referents that arise from the knowledge of Christ Himself. Paul on the Areopagus preached the fullness of God. Dionysius Areopagites, I think, made the synthesis. I can think of two important examples of Dionysius' impact on the Ecclesia Anglicana. First, Dionysius' great Latin translator was Duns Scotus. Second, Dionysius was the key source for an anonymous tract called "The Cloud of Unknowing," a rich work of early English vernacular.

So if you haven't read any Dionysius for a while, he's available at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library in a few older English translations. See if you see his influence in Anglican theology. I'll wager that the epistemological humility that suffuses Anglicanism and our odd hermeneutical techniques come not from Hooker but from the Areopagite.

I want to say something further before I close. Last week, my rector told an anecdote about the great Reformation-era mystic, St. John of the Cross. St. John was having an ecstatic vision of the Theotokos when he sensed that a beggar was knocking at his door. John pulled himself away, went to the door, and gave the beggar something to eat. He then returned and immediately comprehended the Theotokos, who said that at the moment John heard the beggar knock, his soul lay in the balance. If he had not helped the beggar, he would never see her again.

It is very important to remember that the via negativa is a business very much in the sensible world but not of the world. In Platonism, one tends to talk about participation. But participation is not merely some form of interaction with the intelligibles in whatever way they are posed for you. Plato in the Republic creates an analogy between a city and a human soul. Although some present commentators believe Plato's ideal city was more a discourse on the soul rather than politics, I see it more as an imperfect vision of the gradual communication of the fullness of being present in the intelligibles into the sensible world. The philosopher-kings help the craftsmen make crafts that are closer and closer to the crafts that God makes. Platonism Christianized thus is founded on Christ as the fullness of the intelligibles communicated into the world in human flesh. And it is to that way we are called. Thus, there is no "real" division between the active and the contemplative, the body and the soul, only our fallen and imperfect nature interrupting the seamless unity between the word and the deed, the body and the soul, and the sensible and the intelligible. As Paul says, "I believe that nothing...can separate us from the love of God."

But we fallen folks are broken and we break what should be one. We limit the potential fullness of being that the Kingdom of God offers. This is not just about theology becoming incarnate, though this is a good question to ask a contemplative like me. This is also about theology also being mystical and spiritual rather than mired in the carnal. You do not proclaim the corruptible and claim it is from the incorruptible, for by this act, you attempt pollution of what is incorruptible. You proclaim the incorruptible in the midst of the corruptible that the corruptible may be incorruptible someday. And what is the end of all of this thinking and doing? Well, I've been hearing a good stab at the answer in a variety of places, it's this bon mot by Irenaeus of Lyons,

For the glory of God is a living man; and the life of man consists in beholding God. For if the manifestation of God which is made by means of the creation, affords life to all living in the earth, much more does that revelation of the Father which comes through the Word, give life to those who see God.

( Adversus Haereses , IV.20).

Sounds good to me.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may live in the Grace of the super-unknowable and ineffable God who became a human being and dwelled with us, humbling Himself to death, even death on a cross, so that we might know what it means to be fully alive.

Litania Pro Sede Cantauriae (ex Archivis Monachiae)

Note: I am buried in problem sets and trying to keep calm about my problem sets. This is somewhat more productive than being buried in the Communion's unpleasantness and trying to keep calm about the Communion's unpleasantness. If you want to feel insurgent, read the Scotist. So here's something I did before I was buried in problem sets. I intend to continue work on the Articles and argue that Dionysius Areopagites and not Plato is the Anglican ur-theologian at some point in the future. And, yes, I know the Latin is funny.


Miserere nobis, Domine.
Miserere, nobis, Christe.

Domine, miserere nobis. Christe, audi nos.
Christe gratiose audi nos

Deus Pater, Creator caeli et terrae
Miserere nobis

Deus Filius, Redemptor mundorum.
Miserere nobis

Deus Sancte Spiritus, Sanctificator Fidelium
Miserere nobis

Sanctissima, Benedictissima, et Gloriosa Trinitas, Unus Deus
Miserere nobis

Benedictissime et Summe Dignissimeque, Iustissime et Honestissime Aequitabillimeque, Perfectissime et Mysticissime Potentissimeque.
Adoramus Te, Trinitatem in Unitate, Unitatem in Trinitate.

Noli revocare, Domine Christe, iniquitates nostras, neque iniquitates progenitorum, noli munerare secundum peccatas. Parce nos, Domine Bone, parce populum tuum, quem redempsisti Sanguine Pretiosissimo Tuo, et Misercordio Tuo, preserva nos in saecula saeculorum.
Parce nos, Domine Bone

Ex omni malo et malignitate, iniquitate, artificiis et laesis diaboli, et damnatione perpetua
Salva nos, Domine Bone

Ex caecitia cordis omni, superbia, securvando, hypocrisia, invidia, odio, malitia, et defectu omni caritatis
Salva nos, Domine Bone

Ex affectibus immoderatis peccatosis et dolis mundorum, carnis, et diaboli.
Salva nos, Domine Bone

Ex omni doctrina falsa, contrasalvifica, schismatica, et ex ingravando cordis, et contemptu tui Verbi et mandatorum tuorum.
Salva nos, Domine Bone

Ex fulgure et turbine ventorum, motu terrae, incendio, diluvio, plaga, pestilentia, et famine.
Salva nos, Domine Bone

Ex omni tyrannia, coniuratione, et bello civili, violentia, pugnis, homicidioque, et morte subito imparatoque.
Salva nos, Domine Bone

Per mysterium Incarnationis Tuae Sanctae, Nativitatem Sanctam Tuam et sesubiugendum Legi, Baptismum, Senegandum in deserto, et Temptationem.
Salva nos, Domine Bone

Per Agoniam Tuam et Sudorem Sanguinosam, Crucem Tuam et Sepulturam, Resurrectionem Gloriosam et Ascensionemque, Adventum Spiritus Sancti.
Salva nos, Domine Bone

In omni tempore tribulationis nostrae; in omni tempore prosperitatis nostrae, in hora mortis, et in Die Iudicii
Salva nos, Domine Bone

Nos peccatores te imploramus ut audires nos et te placeret regere et gubernare Ecclesiam Sanctam Tuam Catholicam secundum Ius Tuum.
imploramus te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret illuminare omnes episcopos, sacerdotes, et diaconos cum scientia vera et intellegendo Verbi tui; et ut utroque proclamando modo vitae, proponerent et demonstrarent proprie
imploramus te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret benedicere et curare omnem populum tuum
imploramus te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret promittere operarios in messem tuam et trahere omnia in regnum tuum
imploramus te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret dare omnibus increscendum gratiae ut audivissent et accipissent Verbum tuum et cessissent fructos Spiritus
imploramus te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret trahere omnes erratores et deceptos in viam veritatis
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret nobis dare cor pro timore et amore Tui, et vivendo diligenter secundum mandata tua
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret ita regere corda horum in auctoritate ut iustitiam agerent, misericordiam diligerent, et ambulare solicitum in viis veritatis.
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret finifacere bella in omnibus mundis, dare unitatem, pacem, et concordem omnibus nationibus et donare libertatem in omnibus populis.
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret dare et preservare fructos terrae providentosos pro usu nostro ut omnes utintur in proprio tempore.
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret preservare omnes, qui sunt in periculo propter laborem aut peregrinationem.
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret preservare et praeprovidere feminas omnes in infantilabore, infantes et orphanos, viduatos, effiliatos, et omnes quorum domi sunt fracti et disordinivulnerati.
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret solosos visitare, omnes patientes in mente, corpore et spiritu fortificare, et deficientes et infirmos consolare cum presentia tua.
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret supportare, adiuvare, et consolare omnes qui sunt in periculo, necessitate, et tribulatione.
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret miserere omnia
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret nobis dare veram penitentiam, solvere nos ex peccatis, negligentiis, et ignorantiis nostris, et nos inducere cum gratia Spiritus Sancti pro amendando vitas suas secundum sanctum Verbum tuum.
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret solvere inimicos nostros, persecutores, defamatoresque et convertere corda tua.
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret stantes fortificare, infirmicordantes adiuvare, occidentes elevare, et ad finem decontere Satan sub pedibus nostris.
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Ut Tibi placeret donare fidelibus vitam aeternam et pacem.
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

O Communio Mystica Sanctorum, O Ecclesia Triumphans, O Cumulus Testium
Addite orationes tuas nostris

Sancta et Benedicta Maria Virgo
Ora pro nobis

Sancta Dei Genetrix
Ora pro nobis

O altior cherubis, gloriosior seraphis. Genetrix Verbi Aeterni.
Ora pro nobis

Vos Custodes Archangelici Angulorum Mundorum, Sancti Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, et Uriel
Orate pro nobis

Vos chori angelorum
Orate pro nobis

Vos sancti ordines spirituum benedictorum
Orate pro nobis

Tu Praecursor Christi, Sanctus Iohannes Baptizans
Ora pro nobis

Tu Custos Sancti Infantis, Sanctus Iosephus
Ora pro nobis

Vos sancti patriarches et prophetae
Orate pro nobis

Tu Clavicurator Sanctus Petrus
Ora pro nobis

Tu Minime Apostolorum, Sanctus Paulus
Ora pro nobis

Tu Saltiricrucificate, Sanctus Andreas
Ora pro nobis

Tu Fulminifili, Sanctus Iacobus
Ora pro nobis

Tu Dilecte Domini, Sanctus Iohannes
Ora pro nobis

Tu Dubitator et Fidelis, Sanctus Thomas
Ora pro nobis

Tu Frater Domini, Sanctus Iacobus
Ora pro nobis

Tu Spiritiviator, Sanctus Phillipus
Ora pro nobis

Tu Derminude, Sanctus Bartolemaeus
Ora pro nobis

Tu Scriptor, Sanctus Matthias
Ora pro nobis

Tu Zealos, Sanctus Simon
Ora pro nobis

Tu Fortis, Sanctus Judas
Ora pro nobis

Tu Sortelecte, Sanctus Matthias
Ora pro nobis

Tu Ioviproconfute, Sanctus Barnabas
Ora pro nobis

Tu Magister Theophili, Sanctus Lucas
Ora pro nobis

Tu Primus Evangelistarum, Sanctus Marcus
Ora pro nobis

O Septuaginta
Orate pro nobis

Tu Apostola Apostolorum, Sancta Maria Magdalena, et comites tui
Orate pro nobis

O Sancte Iosephe Arimathaeae, qui sepulit corpus Domini et navigavit ad metalla stannosa Cornubiensis
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Aristobole, Pastor in Britannia
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Albane et martyri Verulami
Orate pro nobis

O vos sancti episcopi Gallorum
Orate pro nobis

O Sancte Patrici, Apostolus Hibernorum
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Ninias, episcopus Galviensis Pictorum
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Columba, nobilissime, penitens, et apostolus Pictorum
Ora pro nobis

Omnes vos sancti apud Hibernos, Pictos, et Britones
Orate pro nobis

O Sanctus Pater Gregorius Magnus, qui angelos non Anglios visit.
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Augustine, Conditor Sedis Cantauriae
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Laurenti, Petriplagatus
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Melliti, Hierophans Cantauriae
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Iuste
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Honori
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Deusdedite Frithona
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Theodore Tarsenis, Murifex Ovilium
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Bertwald
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Tatwin, Aenigmifex
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Nothelme, Quaestor Bedae
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Bregwin
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Jaenbert, Plaga Offae
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Aethelhard, Renovator Primatiae
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Oda Severus, Orator Virtutis
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Dunstan, Prelatus Phroneticus
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Anselm, Theologicus and Defensor Libertatis Ecclesiae
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Thomas Becket, Martyr ad altare Dei apud cathedram tuam
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Edmund, Fugitivus Potignensis
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Thomas Cranmer, Scriptor Orationis Communis
Ora pro nobis

O Sancte Guillame Lauda, Malleus et Martyr
Ora pro nobis

Vos sancti Ecclesiae Anglicanae
Orate pro nobis

Omnes vos sancti Dei Nostri
Orate pro nobis

Domine, audi nos.
Christe, audi nos

Imploramus ut Tibi placet donare ut habitavissemus Regnum Tuum in communione sanctorum omnium.
imploramus Te ut audires nos, Bone Domine

Filius Dei, imploramus Te ut nos audires
Filius Dei, imploramus Te ut audires nos

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccatis mundi
miserere nobis

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccatis mundi
miserere nobis

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccatis mundi
dona nobis pacem

Kyrie eleison
Christe eleison

Kyrie eleison

[Nota Orationem Domini diceri in anglice ut sequitur. Locatio literarum antiqua est. Pronuntiandia praecisa verborum incognita est]

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Domine, surge, nos adiuva
Et salva nos propter Nomen

Deus, audivimus cum auribus et patres matresque nostri declaraverunt nobis labores nobilissimos quas egisti in antiquis diebus, quam portavisses lucem Verbi tui cum apostolis tuis ad insulas Hyperboreales in finibus cratonis Europae in Tellure. Et quando servi tui turbati sunt obstinacia Anglorum, movisti servum tuum Gregorium mittere Augustinum ad Cantiacos. Et ibi Augustinus ovile tuum Cantauriam condidit. Et multi apud sanctos secuti sunt Augustinum in sede. Sed quando errores Ecclesiae Romae excrescerunt numerosiores quam spinae quas natura pro rosis ordinat, rex Anglorum regulamentum Ecclesiae Anglicanae carpsit. Sed credimus sicut Ierusalem primos Christianos judicavisset et Roma et Nova Roma essent iudices communionis catholicae ante schismas antiquas et remansissent iudices communionis fracti in his mundo, Cantauriam condidisti quam iudicem Ecclesiae Anglicanae in Una Sancta Catholica et Ecclesia Apostolica, quam primum inter pares, quam metropolitanum metropolitanorum, quam conventorem seminis dispersi per omnes mundos.

Domine, surge, nos adiuva
Et salva nos propter Nomen

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio, et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum Amen.

Domine, surge, nos adiuva
Et salva nos propter Nomen

Versiculum: Serva nos ex inimicis nostris, O Christe.
Responsum: Specta plagas nostra cum gratia
V. Specta pie dolores cordium
R. Cum misericordia, miserere iniquitates populi tui
V. Cum favore et misericordia, audi orationes nostras
R. O Filius Davidis, miserere nobis.
V. Et nunc et in aeternam, cave audire nos, O Christe.
R. Gratie audi nos, O Christe. Gratie, audi nos, O Christe

Oremus.

Humiliose Te imploramus, O Pater, despectare deficiencias nostras et pro gloria Nominis, avertere malos istos omnes quos meriti sunt iustissime et donare in nostris omnibus tumultibus ut poneremus totum creditum et confidentiam nostram in misericordia tua et servi tui essent in sanctitate et puritate vivendi pro honore et gloria tua per nostrum solum Mediatorem et Advocatum, Dominum Nostrum Iesum Christum. Amen.

-----------------------------------------------

I'm worried. I'm really worried. I'll continue doing what I can on the Articles, though I will be more occupied than formerly.

XIII. Of Works Before Justification

Note: The entry below is a good example of a misreading of an Article. The comments are corrective and instructive, so make sure to read them.

Works done before the grace of Christ, and the Inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ...

One of the great quests of the Enlightenment was for a scientific system of morals. This was not to be a revolution in morals, since most of the philosophes were quite content with the bourgeois or benign aristocratic morals of their class or the class of their patrons. But above all else, they sought to divorce morals from the "superstitions" of inspired religion.

To some extent, this was a laudable goal insofar as they sought to eliminate the need for the religious wars of the previous two centuries that had wrecked much of Christendom and produced untold human misery. Theologies that stressed endurance in beatings, chains, untold tortures, and even unspeakable death were popular prior to the philosophes, but they were merely the necessary counterweight to theologies of the sword. Notable among the courageous and the prophetic of these times were the members of the Religious Society of Friends, who disavowed not only wars of religion but also all forms of outward violence, taking these principles not from some new revelation from heaven but as a core teaching of the New Testament.

The Articulators, however, likely were often theologians of the sword or silent partners to such theology. It is one thing to say that they strived for compromise between Calvinist and Roman Catholic views (and perhaps ended up lukewarm and schizophrenic Lutherans), but it is another thing to pose them as tolerant men. They sought civil peace through ecclesiastical order. One justification for such compromise would be that if they had things right enough in their attempt to renovate the catholic faith, divine favor would shine on the English kingdom. Thus, civil and ecclesiastical polity closely shared their discourses. A Jesuit did not merely spread the errors of Popery but were agents of the foreign powers of the papal court, the Emperor, the King of France, and the King of Spain. Roman Catholicism was not a threat to the health of souls, it often seems, it was a threat to the cherished liberties of Englishmen. To a lesser extent, tensions with the Dutch took on a religious character as well as a civil one. But Roman Catholicism was the greater enemy. The laity of the Church of Rome in England were treacherous puppets and her clergy were the puppeteers. The courts Christian did not condemn such for heresy and transfer them to the civil arm for burning. At times, these were too clogged with "overzealous" Protestants. Instead, it was the prerogative courts and the common law courts that tortured and condemned Catholics for treason and consigned them to a traitor's death.

As Americans, we still bear the prejudices of our English ancestors. We sympathize with the victims of the auto da fe but have less consciousness of the weight of the late Tudor and Stuart persecutions of the Catholics. They both were bloody. But the blood ran too in Germany, France, and Spain and thence we have the concerns of the philosophes.

I give such voluminous and apparently irrelevant background to the first clause of Article XIII, because the first objections we have to it come from our interiorization of the quest of the philosophes for the objective classification of action in the moral sphere. From the Christian perspective and for reasons we have discussed, I believe such a program fails on two grounds.

1. An objective and scientific system of morals will tend toward quantification of what it considers. I am not the most ardent opponent of consequentialism, but I usually fear most types of moral calculus because almost all forms of quantification, especially in the social sphere, become involved in quantitative discourses related to the means of exchange and production. Economists now can analyze the worth of human lives in terms of fixed dollar amounts. This is useful for a variety of purposes, but it becomes positively immoral when moral boundaries are crossed for the sake of profit, whether individual or communal. Even when quantitative arguments are divorced from the economic they can become troublesome. "Do we drop the bomb on the city and kill 50,000 of them to save 1,000,000 of ours?" The easy answer is that 950,000 lives are saved, so let's drop the bomb. What does it matter as long as we save lives? One possible analogy that argues against this would be a man with $100 who spends $5000 to gain $20,000 worth of goods is still out $4900, unless he can resell the goods. But you cannot resell lives, relationships, or reputations. Treating moral questions quantitatively invokes the thinking of economics implicitly. And to some extent, this thinking can be refuted by showing where the analogy breaks down. Yet it would best to avoid such thinking altogether and simply uphold the entirety of the Moral Law whenever possible.

2. An objective system of ethics only can work if there exists either an absolute frame of reference accessible to human thought or a system by which a moral action can be transformed from one frame of reference to another. In the latter case, the method almost certainly would be quantitative and potentially subjective. In the former case, Christians believe that this absolute frame of reference exists in "light inaccessible hid from our eyes." The absolute frame of reference in morals is God. God alone can see the effects of all our works. Thus morals are inevitably bound to "superstition," properly interpreted.

This is not to say, though the Article is not as clear on this point as it should be (and possibly teaches error as we will say later), that all of the outward acts of non-Christians are automatically depraved because they are not pleasant to God. The Article is clear that the righteousness of God is located in our interior relationship with God. Thus, it is clearly possible for non-Christians to practice civil righteousness as Christians do and to have customs of neutral or positive moral content that differ from those of Christians. And as has happened again and again in Christian history, it is possible for the civil righteousness of non-Christians and their customs to be sanctified by the Gospel. For in the account of the Apostle in Romans, it is clear that civil righteousness is possible according either to reason or the Law, but we all fail in civil righteousness and are subject to condemnation. But yet the Law is clearly a source of principles of civil righteousness. And yet Christ said that He did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill the Law, not only in the sense that He fulfilled its mystical promises of Himself but also in the sense that He made it possible for a righteousness greater than the Law but not entirely dissonant with it.

...neither do they make men meet to receive grace or (as the School-authors say) deserve grace of congruity

I do not know of whom the Articulators were thinking, but Aquinas seems to consider this idea in II.114.3 of the Summa Theologica. The core of the idea is in the leading answer to the objections,

"Man's meritorious work may be considered in two ways: first, as it proceeds from free-will; secondly, as it proceeds from the grace of the Holy Ghost. If it is considered as regards the substance of the work, and inasmuch as it springs from the free-will, there can be no condignity because of the very great inequality. But there is congruity, on account of an equality of proportion: for it would seem congruous that, if a man does what he can, God should reward him according to the excellence of his power.

"If, however, we speak of a meritorious work, inasmuch as it proceeds from the grace of the Holy Ghost moving us to life everlasting, it is meritorious of life everlasting condignly. For thus the value of its merit depends upon the power of the Holy Ghost moving us to life everlasting according to Jn. 4:14: 'Shall become in him a fount of water springing up into life everlasting.' And the worth of the work depends on the dignity of grace, whereby a man, being made a partaker of the Divine Nature, is adopted as a son of God, to whom the inheritance is due by right of adoption, according to Rm. 8:17: 'If sons, heirs also.'

In other words, Aquinas and likely most of his contemporaries seem to have believed not that man was incapable of meritorious action but that the salvificity of meritorious human action consisted of participation in the Divine Nature and the consequent will. To simplify: when we permit the Spirit to move within us, our meritorious actions spring from the acts of God, thus our participation in Him is deeper than if we were to do meritorious acts by our own free will, since at most, we merely participate in God to the extent we participate in what is good and thus piddlingly. The salvificity of this participation by the extension of our will from God's is apparently called grace of congruity, since our actions and the will to do them are in harmony with those of God. However, I doubt that the opinion of the Schoolmen on the potential but piddling merit of actions proceeding from our own free will is truly consonant with the first part of the Article discussed.

...yea, rather, for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin.

I find the truth of this conclusion highly dubious. First, it assumes the exercise of free will is inherently sinful. To say it is not sufficiently meritorious or effectual with regard to justification seems proper. But it is quite a leap to say free will is inherently sinful. Free will seems to be the property of rational creatures. Therefore, we would have to believe that God created us to be in a state of sin and rebellion against Him from the beginning. I see nothing to justify that Adam and Eve lacked free will from the beginning. And yet they were primally innocent.

But on the contrary, one could argue that the commands of God were few and simple, thus they surely could be done as God intended them, for they concerned foods that are permissible and one type of food that was not permissible. Thus, the exercise of the unfallen will was not sinful as long as choice was exercised with regard to the permissible foods. For instance, choosing to eat a pomegranate rather than grapes was not sinful. But after one exercise of free will in violation of the divine command, the will became depraved and thus incapable of doing anything without sinning.

Or as Galatians 5:16-18 puts it, "What I mean is this: be guided by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of your unspiritual nature. That nature sets its desires against the Spirit, while the Spirit fights against it. They are in conflict with one another so that you cannot do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to law."

Thus, non-Christians are enslaved to their unspiritual natures, which make everything they do sinful. Well, OK. Maybe, I just don't know anything. Maybe, I don't have the proper Biblical pessimism about the utter depravity of our natures. So I guess I really shouldn't care about the good works of non-Christians and find anything praiseworthy in them. Non-Christians are never to be an example for me. Indeed, if they live in my polity, I should persecute them, since all they do is sin quietly in their own houses, sin grievously when they feed the starving beggar at their door, sin wickedly when I burn their house down and drive them from their land rather than resisting me, and cause unspeakable pollution of the ground when they pray to God on my behalf.

Yes, I'm being sarcastic. But surely we can imagine the same essential act performed by a person led by their spiritual nature and by a person of an unspiritual nature? In a particular case, we can imagine that God views the first as pardonable and the second as damnable. In another case, we can imagine the first act as congruent and salvifically worthy but the second act as incongruent and salvifically unworthy. The fallacy I see in this talk about utter depravity of the will is that it seems to intuit some sort of salvation by works anyway by arguing that non-Christians cannot do anything good. But Christians somehow can do good things. Maybe I'm imagining this fallacy. But let me repeat this: our sanctification and justification (or whatnot) is founded not on what we do but the alignment of our will and ultimately our being with God. Thus, having discussed grace of congruity and salvation by faith rather than works, can the Articulators call all non-Christian acts objectively iniquitous without my skepticism. We all sin. But we all do good.

In the Old Testament, the clear problem of the conscientiously righteous man, e.g. Job, is this: What use is piety if I am going to die anyway? What use is my righteousness before God (which is confirmed in the Scriptures) if I shall make my bed the grave and hand over my flesh to the corruptibility of the primal chaos beasts? If nothing I can do merits eternal life, what hope do I have? This hope we believe is Jesus the Christ. And I suspect the problem of Job is the problem of most non-Christians in this world. It is not that everything they do is evil (though like all of us, much of it surely is), it is that what they do good is of no use in the reference frame of eternity. Their souls are meant for eternity and yet they have no hope for eternal life.

A friend of mine once asked me, "Do you think being Christian makes you a better person?" I answered, "No, I think I am a Christian because I am worse than everyone else." My unspiritual nature needs to be kept in line. As Paul says to close Galatians 5,

"Anyone can see the behaviour that belongs to the unspiritual nature: fornication, indecency, and debauchery; idolatry and sorcery; quarrels, a contentious temper, envy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, party intrigues, and jealousies; drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you as I warned you before, that no one who behaves like that will ever inherit the kingdom of God.

But the harvest of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the old nature with its passions and desires. If the Spirit is source of our life, let the Spirit also direct its course."

Now I have seen the mere appearance of mere appearance of all these things within the circles of the worlds. Virtue and violence are our common inheritance. And I may read of Him who brought the form of the things of the second class into the worlds and said, "Peace is my last gift to you, my own peace I leave with you, peace which the worlds cannot give, I give to you." As for the forms of the first class, I do not know where they reside, but I do not want any part of them nor ever come near to them. But I long for the forms of the second class. Now how could I have recognized for what I yearn if I did not recognize how the fruits of the Spirit shared some qualities with those things that I see as mere appearance of mere appearance, but through the Spirit I knew the fruits were better? How can I say that this is what humans call love, but this love I sense is greater?

Well, that's a bit of Platonism, but the idea is very simple. The names of the fruits of the Spirit existed before Christ came into the world, though their fullness was unknown as Christ was unknown and unrecognized. Would anyone say that love is sinful? Would anyone say that patience is sinful? Would anyone say that self-control is sinful? Paul tells us that there is no law against these things. Yet the concept of all these things surely was prior to Christ. Thus, people loved, were patient, and were continent before Christ, though in mere appearances and without knowledge through the Spirit. And yet the Article would have us believe that love (insofar as it was love) was sin, patience (as far as it was patience) was sin, and self-control (as long as it was self-control) was sin? As if these things were not sin, how are they sin? Who has bewitched you, O Articulators?

As always, this is a work in progress. Feel free to show me where I've gone wrong or where you think the Articulators went wrong.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may crucify your unspiritual nature as Christ was crucified in the flesh, so that you will not glory merely in the things that shall pass away just as the waning light of the Sun brings all the shadow but will rise with Christ into those things that are real and alight even in the darkness.

XII. Of Good Works

Angloblography of the Day

Two items I saw today are worth reading.

First, The Address of the Archbishop, Metropolitan, and Primate of All Nigeria to General Synod : Like many others in the Communion, I have become a close watcher of ++Peter Abuia. And I have found speeches like this most helpful in seeing him as a brother in Christ, which can be difficult these days in the midst of the unpleasantness. I certainly don't agree with everything he says and I am worried that he is calling for Africa to go into laager (and I don't mean beer) and about his interpretation of apocalyptic signs. But there is no question when I read his addresses to the Church of Nigeria that God called him to be overseer of that church. He knows how to push their buttons.

Second, Pontifications has a critique of the Paul Zahl article I linked. I'll let the experts on Lutheranism speak to the question of whether Luther really was monergistic, but I think Father Kimel is right to point out that the ARCIC documents are important in this discussion. Yet I should point out that Zahl also mentions the issue of authority. Now Zahl likely only means papal authority, but I think it is important to remember that the issue of authority is also connected to the question of Roman Catholic dogmatic pronouncements that potentially are inconsistent with the Faith of the Undivided Church.

Now onward to further talk about Justification, Sanctification, and all that!

XII. Of Good Works

Albeit that Good Works, which are the fruits of Faith, and follow after Justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment...

Of course, we went through this story yesterday, but I would like to continue to assure you of the hopelessness of our position. But let's take a slightly different tack. There is a story of Jewish wisdom that goes like this. (I am afraid Madonna turned it into a children's book.) As I remember the story, it goes like this: A thief has been caught in the act. He is taken to the village rabbi to be judged. The rabbi asks him to restore what he has stolen and pronounces this sufficient atonement. The people are amazed. There is a woman among the people, a notorious gossip. She continues to feel increasingly guilty and is shunned by her neighbors. Seeing the judgment on the thief, she thinks the rabbi will set her some easy task to atone for her gossiping ways. So she goes to him with her problem. He says that atonement is possible in her case and asks her to bring him a feather pillow. She does so. The rabbi takes the pillow and tears it apart in the midst of a gust of wind. He tells the woman she will atone for her gossip if she can find the pieces of the pillow and put it back together. She is horrified. Is gossip so bad?

The moral of this story is that stolen property can be restored by the falsehoods and embellishments we tell of each other are not so easily taken back. But this is true of so much of our sin. If we live in a universe constantly at the edge of chaos, both metaphysical and mathematical physical, the harm we do is often nearly impossible to heal. Like most chemical reactions, our sins are irreversible and their effects spiral out of control. This is why it is so important that we forgive one another, since restitution often is impossible. But this is also why we should seek and be thankful for God's forgiveness. We potentially are responsible for so much.

For fun, let us consider the illustration Jesus uses in Matthew 18:21-35 of the magnitude of our "debt." (Remember, folks, this is only an illustration. God does not accept Visa.) The smaller debt in question is 100 denarii, actually a somewhat substantial sum. My experience with Roman prices usually fixes it at about $2000. It is a quite believable debt of one servant to another. But the servant owes to his lord, 10,000 talents. There is some debate about how much a talent was in Jesus' day, but let us estimate it to be in the order of magnitude of the sacred talent and set the value of the shekel equal to the denarius for sake of argument. The debt then becomes 30,000,000 denarii (or $600 million or so). Or to be more realistic, this would be a sufficient amount of money to make payroll for a Roman legion for about a century. And Jesus uses this amount to illustrate the burden of sin on a presumably ordinary man. Against such debts in the divine economy, our good works can mean little in the sense of restitution.

Yet they are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith; insomuch as by them a lively Faith may be evidently known as a tree discerned by its fruit.

At the heart of this part of the Article likely are two great moments in the Scriptures. The first, of course, is that much disputed and little understood speech of James to the prosperous and connected of the church to which he writes. First, he warns in 2:8-11 that if we do not love our neighbors as ourselves in any way, we participate generally in rebellion against the commandments of God, "For he who said, 'You shall not commit adultery' said also, "You shall not commit murder." And of course, James suggests that we are all under judgment on these grounds, "Always speak and act as men who are to be judged under a law which makes them free." Simul iustus et peccator is not a statement merely about our being in God's eyes, it is a way of summarizing how should we live and comport ourselves. And I would argue that this business of showing mercy to another is a key to justification and sanctification if it is a matter of our participation in Christ, for James says, "In that judgement there will be no mercy for the man who has shown none. Mercy triumphs over judgement."

This is the same syllogistic and participatory rhetoric as Romans but implicit. If we die to sin as Christ died, we will live in Him. If we forgive as He did, we will be forgiven. This is not salvation by works in that a man earns salvation through participation, for no man but Christ made effectual those things in which we participate. In a day and age when inheritance has less and less bearing on everyday life, the next analogy I shall give may mean less. But in a Roman will, the testator often could charge his heirs to perform certain obligations before they could enter into their inheritance. The heirs did not earn their inheritance. It was the free gift of the testator, but they did perform some acts to claim the inheritance. It may be this way with us. Though I suspect we still generally don't fulfill those obligations well either, but as the Prayer of Humble Access says, "But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy."

But after this discussion, James says words to mar a press cycle during a Presidential campaign, "What good is it, my friends, for someone to say he has faith when his actions do nothing to show it? Can that faith save him?" And then James presents a poor fellow Christian to his hearers. He asks whether such a person simply should be told to "Fare well, keep warm, and have a good meal." Note his rhetoric: the better-off Christian is wishing health, clothing, and food to the poorer Christian. It is almost a magical formula. James is posing the better-off Christian as someone who has faith that the poorer Christian will be well, yet does nothing. "What good is that?" James next is faced with the growing dichotomy between what we call the active and the contemplative lives. Forget the story of Mary and Martha in this regard. Instead remember that monastics of great contemplation generally are not without charity. But James has a great retort which I'll translate very freely, "Oh, you believe in God, do you? That's great. But even the demons do that and it can scare them back to hell." James desires a faith made manifest. He cites the example of Abraham, whose faith was so great that he tried to sacrifice his only son. He asks his hearers whether their faith is that great.

Abraham's sacrifice apparently remained a high standard for faith in Holy Tradition. In the Institutes of St. John Cassian, we can read of a father who entered a monastery with his son. He was separated from his son during his novitiate but could see the boy being cuffed, scolded, and otherwise ill-treated by his elder monks. Finally, the Abbot wanted to test the strength of the father's faith. He ordered the father to throw his boy in a local stream. The father did so. Fortunately, the Abbot had set other monks to save the boy. But the monks who did so reported to the Abbot that the man had repeated the act of Abraham. Personally, I would have put father and son in different monasteries, so there would be less justification for abusing the boy, but it's still instructive.

So much for the good works of a lively Faith. But what of fruit? The reference comes from Christ's warning about false prophets in Matthew 7:15-20. Simply enough, those you can trust as Christians bear good fruit and those you can't bear bad fruit. The Didache has much to say on telling the bad trees from the good trees. And thus we should beware of televangelists, who generally act like the people we are warned about in the Didache. But if the tree analogy is not quite apropos to the question of good works, the general agricultural and horticultural imagery is more relevant elsewhere. In the Parable of the Sower, we are told of seeds that grew and yielded "a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold." Paul sees good fruit and bad fruit more specifically in the works of the spirit in contrast to the works of the flesh. And we should also remember concerning good works that if others see our good works and glorify the Father, those same others will see our evil works and curse Him. And thus such acts are not well-pleasing to God. This is not the Onion. Jesus is not a sucker.

And we also see the Jacobean (or Jamesian) synergy of faith and works in the more mystical theology of John, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener...Dwell in me, as I you...I am the vine; you are the branches. Anyone who dwells in me, as I dwell in him, bears much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." *Christopher has reminded us that our telos is perichoresis, the mutual communion of our being with God. So far we are from it, but it is our end, the cause and spur of our good works, the spirit of Christ as Article IX says working within us. In a theology proceeding from the ordinances of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, we die in Christ and experience a foretaste through water, through oil, through bread, and through wine of the ultimate and dynamic perichoresis we yearn for in the Trinity. In both my experience and the mystical theology of the sacraments, I can say of the first that it is as if the Holy Spirit moves over the waters of chaos once more that the one baptized may be not merely reborn (as from the womb) but recreated out of nothing. Of the latter, Chrysostom says in Peri Hierosynes that at the Eucharist, Elijah again strives against the priests of Baal. But the sacrifice is yet more marvelous, for fire is sent down on the gifts and they are not consumed. What use are such mighty acts done in our midst and even to us if we believe them and experience them merely as good wishes and empty magic to a world in need of healing?

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may have a lively Faith that does not merely compress and rarefy the air with good wishes but yields the fruits of incarnate mercy: first self-restraint, then food, then clothes, then joy, then peace in the Lord.

XI. Of the Justification of Man

We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works and deservings.

Why should I be afraid in evil days, when the wickedness of those at my heels surrounds me, The wickedness of those who put their trust in their goods, and boast of their great riches? We can never ransom ourselves, or deliver to God the price of our life. For the ransom of our life is so great, that we should never have enough to pay it, in order to live for ever and ever and never see the grave...But God will ransom my life; He will snatch me from the grasp of death." (Psalms 49:4-8, 15, BCP)

I read the Psalms always as the song of three individuals. First, it is the song of the Psalmist, whether David, Asaph, or some other who first set these poems down. Second, it is the song of Jesus, perhaps even in the very hour of agony, for we hear that he cried aloud from the cross the opening words of Psalm 22. But even if He did not speak them at that hour. He lived them. They are clearly prophetic of Himself and Psalm 49 is no exception. Third, the Psalms deserve the name given to the great Canticle of Revelation, they are the Songs of the Redeemed. They are not always the songs of the redeemed triumphant, but they are the songs of the redeemed, whether angry, hopeful, or triumphant. They are songs I pray that all shall live some day.

But Psalm 49, even more than Job, always has seemed to be the strongest statement in the Old Testament of the chief predicament of all too mortal flesh united to a rational soul. No matter what, we are going to die. As Sophocles would say, "Neither wealth, nor war, nor tough sea-blackened ships" can keep death from us. We are absolutely helpless before it. It would be easy here to see us here not as damned but merely mortal. And from there, it would be easy to say that we have no need for God and simply will free ourselves of attachment to this world and embrace the nothingness. But we are not irrational creatures, I am afraid. Our souls will not fade or dissolve harmlessly into the world-soul. As Aristotle said and his medieval editors redacted, the disembodied soul is potential. Surely, this state is not a happy one. But we have come to this conclusion only by stripping away context. The divine economy is somewhat different.

What we have missed is that the association between sin and death must have been implicit in the mind of the Psalmist. Much of the ritual content of the Law can be read as an attempt to avoid and repudiate not simply human death but human non-life: human corruptibility. To violations of both the ritual and moral content of the Law, the Law attached criminal penalties. And within the Law, evildoers are not only promised civil repercussions for their actions but the curse of God and one's own people that leads to death. And this famous choice between life and death, the blessing and the curse, we are told in Matthew 25, shall be assessed finally at the end of the present system of things, drawing one side to the heavenly banquet of eternal life and the other side to the outer darkness and fire of the second death.

And if the Psalmist were David, this association would be strong for him as well. His adultery, his murder plot, and his census of his people all had drawn the death-causing wrath of God upon him and Israel. He had seen Saul unmade by his sins. And he had seen death visited not merely on the instigators of sin but on those who were mere participants (even innocents): his first child with Bathsheba, his subjects, and the great love of his life: Jonathan. I often think that these incidents might not have been God's wrath but the consequences of rejecting His protection by sinning against Him and others. For indeed, the death of David's first child with Bathsheba (presuming she had not had one by Uriah) was likely statistically. David chooses between a variety of awful natural disasters that could have happened to Israel anyway. Saul and Jonathan died at the hands of their enemies. Thus, divine punishment need not always be the mighty show of power of God in the deluge or in the execution of judgment on the gods of Egypt in Exodus, but it might simply take the form of exposing us to the death-dealing, corruptible side of physical and human nature as opposed to its providential side. (Derek, by the way, has some great thoughts on Job today, which have been helpful to my present cogitations on the theology of nature.)

But I think whatever the exact mechanisms that are involved, when we sin, we embrace corruptibility and death. Even considering the base price of our life, which surely is extraordinary, we incur in our lives a tremendous amount of debt, not only to our Creator, but among ourselves. "Debt" is merely shorthand for our limited understanding of this, of course. Jesus problematized it in this way on occasion. And who cannot be moved by the gospel songs that talk about account books and payment in full? Is the popularity of such a view a symptom of the power of the market economy over our mind? Yes. Is this necessary a bad thing? No. But we must remember in His last week of life, Jesus kicked the moneychangers out of the Temple. His righteous violence surely arose out of his objections to taking large profits selling sacrificial goods or exchanging foreign coin for "kosher" Temple silver. But it likely also was a sign to us about the difference between the divine economy and the market economy. In the Temple, the worshippers paid money for their sacrificial animals. Jesus offered Himself for our sins for free.

Thus, we finally get the issue of justification. First of all, I claim that the question of justification is poorly and erroneously posed if we talk about how we are righteous in God's eyes. More specifically, I reject all problematizations of justification which see us as the primary active party in the cause of our own righteousness. I do not reject this, because it is simply harder to argue for justification by grace if we ourselves in this way. Frankly, I am not an enthusiastic fan of either justification by faith or by works as they often are explicated. Because it often seems that faith simply becomes a form of works. Justification by faith also can be explicated in ways that put the focus on what we do or hold as an affection or habit etc. Instead, I think we should problematize God as the chiefly active party in our righteousness, for indeed Psalm 49 and its context should tell us we are helpless to make ourselves righteous, to build up stores of righteousness wherewith we can buy eternal life. Instead, the key of Psalm 49 seems to be verse 15: How do we become righteous in God's eyes and worthy of ransom and rescue from the grip of death? This I think is the chief question of justification.

In the era of the Articulators, there were two main answers to the question of justification, seemingly called by the names by which they were problematized by the Protestants. Justification qua justification itself seems to be a Protestant problematization, stemming from Martin Luther's exegetical revelation concerning Paul's quotation of Habakkuk in Romans 1:17. Using the original Greek, justification then would be dikaeopoesis . Though I think Luther was quite right in identifying some idea of this type as quite essential to Pauline theology. The first we know as justification by faith. The Augsburg Confession claims a Pauline origin for this doctrine, particularly Romans 3 and 4. But indeed much of the Epistle to the Romans is relevant to justification.

But we should be careful: Paul's discussion of these issues begins with his presently notorious discourse on the consequences of idolatry. Again, we see the idea that what is often called God's wrath has an aspect not of something which God inflicts upon us but something to which God abandons us. To some extent, such thinking may stem from God being put in the role of the master of the household or ruler, who has the power to hand us over to the executioners, people at the margins of the social order charged with putting disobedient slaves or subjects to torture and then death. But the summary point of this discourse following "Whoever is justified through faith shall gain life" seems to be the corollary: Whoever lacks faith is clearly unrighteous and deserves death.

Next, Paul warns those to whom he writes that if they participate in the same unrighteousness, they merely are depositing to an account filled with retribution that will be loosed on them at the end. 2:4 puts it, "Or do you despise the wealth of kindness and tolerance and patience, failing to see that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" Thus, it seems that the difference between the Christians and the pagans, if we may call the two groups this, is that God is letting the pagans receive the full consequences of their depravity, whereas Christians are receiving some sort of protection from it. Yet this protection apparently is insufficient to keep us from sin completely. In 2:7, we are told that those who do well and pursue the virtues of the Lamb (not Paul's language: he says glory, honor, and immortality) shall have eternal life, whereas those who continue to be ruled by the selfish ambition (of their fallen natures) we presume will receive the same retribution as the pagans. Jews and Gentiles, though judged differently (one by the Law and the other by the Law written by reason on their hearts), both still will be accountable somehow. But again Paul says, "None will be justified by hearing the law, but by doing it." All of this sounds very much like justification by works. The presumption, however, is that righteousness inside or outside the law still will be insufficient, since it should be clear that we are unable to save ourselves by our own righteousness, as we have said before. Finally in this chapter, Paul like Christ warns that external adherence to the Law means nothing if the Law has not conditioned the heart. Thus, what small righteousness we have in ourselves either comes from a heart conditioned (or written) by reason or adherence to the Law. But in general, this small righteousness still is overpowered by the general weight of our condemnation.

Next, Paul quotes the Psalmist's most famous lines on human depravity, "There is no one righteous, not one..." in favor of his assertion that "Jews and Greeks alike are under the power of sin." The small righteousness of what we have spoken has the effect in Paul's words of bringing to us "the consciousness of sin." Like the old saw that the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know, the more we do good, the more we know we mainly do evil. Job is certainly one of the most righteous characters of the Old Testament, and yet he admits quite freely his sinfulness and need for an advocate with God on account of his sins. What Paul points out is that the righteous of the OId Testament looked for has now been made known to the world through Jesus Christ. And thus Paul repeats the content of the doctrine that so amazed Luther in the ennui of his own small righteousness, "and are justified by God's free grace alone, through his act of liberation in the person of Jesus Christ...to demonstrate his justice now in the present, showing that he is himself just and also justifies anyone who puts his faith in Jesus."

Does anyone see something strange in this? Christ's sacrifice is the demonstration of God's justice. Aren't we used to seeing Christ's sacrifice as the demonstration of God's mercy? And I don't read justice and mercy as being the same thing. Paul likely knew enough about dike as understood by the Greeks and Romans to know it "consists of handing over to each his own." Mercy consists of forgiving the obligation of justice by the one to which something was due by justice. Nor is Paul's line of argument suggestive of any other notion of justice. God's wrath is fully just because it gives death to those who deserve it. How is Christ's sacrifice just rather than merciful? How is overlooking our sins just rather than merciful? Now, Jack Miles might say God had promised liberation to the Jews, thus Christ's sacrifice was just because it fulfilled that promise. Paul probably was thinking in this direction, because he talks next about the promises made to Abraham because of his faith being fulfilled in Christ. But Paul suggests the scope of God's justice is more universal, for he is the God of both the Jews and the Gentiles, and thus He provides justification that is general, "without distinction." Faith and salvation are offered freely to all. The Fathers saw the general promise of Christ's sacrifice in the curse of the serpent in Genesis and the promises to make Israel the means of glory to the Gentiles. Thus, the justice of God demonstrated through Christ's sacrifice is certainly justice in that it is a fulfillment of promise and covenant.

The next question to ask is why did God make promises at all. The promises themselves were not just but acts of mercy. We do not deserve such promises. Paul answers this question in Romans 5:8, "But Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, and that is God's proof of his love towards us." At the final analysis, God ransoms us because He loves us. Paul tells us we are justified by faith in Romans 3 and 4. In Romans 5, he tells us we are justified by Christ's sacrificial death. The exact mechanism of these justifications, however, are not a matter of acts in ourselves, as the names justification by faith or justification by works suggest. Instead, Paul founds our justification on a process of participation in the mighty acts of God executed in Jesus Christ: a process which Paul constructs in Romans 5 and 6 as a syllogistic and process-oriented repudiation of sin, death, and non-life in us.

We emulate, we imitate, we die with Christ, so we might rise with Him. If anything the process of our justification by faith resembles that woman afflicted by a chronic discharge (Luke 8). We in ourselves are unclean, excluded from sacred rites, and the general society of our fellows, but if we can touch the hem of Christ's robe, we shall be healed. But as Christ tells the woman, our faith that such a yearning shall be honored is essential to our justification. Thus, it seems that it is necessary not only that one have faith in Christ, His life, His death, and the promise of salvation through Him. It seems also necessary that you hope, wretch though you are, not merely to believe in these things but to live them. Thus, the catholic side of me sees justification through faith in participation in the sacramental life of the Church and my Quaker education tells me that I should seek the same sacramentality in the whole of life. As Paul says in Romans 6, "Therefore sin must no longer reign in your mortal body, exacting obedience to the body's desires. You must no longer put any part of it at sin's disposal, as an implement for doing wrong. Put yourselves instead at the disposal of God: think of yourselves as raised from death to life." Need I say more?

But is there another option? Looking at the Decree of Trent on justification, the Canons do not line up perfectly with our discussion of justification and of the Articles. There is an interesting note in the main body of the decree on justification being the communication of the merit of Jesus Christ to us, an idea which I certainly appreciate for its proper posing of the issue. Canon VII apparently contradicts Article X in that it suggests some of our works before justification are not sinful. Yet Article X admits good works as a potential class before justification (as does Augsburg) and likewise admits a class of good works that are unpleasant and unacceptable to God. This appears to be a case in which the Articles admit the existence of unusual and paradoxical concepts in order to permit latitude in belief.

Canon IX speaks to the issue of mere belief creating no justification, claiming some effect of belief on the will is necessary. I do not see how this contradicts the Apostle certainly. Various Canons speak of no salvation by believing in salvation etc. I do not see these as problematic. At issue, I believe is Canon XXX, which states that the grace of justification does not remove the debt of temporal punishment in this world or in Purgatory. This Canon suggests there was erroneous thinking hidden in all those Canons that I thought perfectly innocuous. Now, I am not going to bother explaining what this thinking is. One can read the Schoolmen for these matters. But the implication of such thinking I must reject utterly. Salvific grace is not imperfect. Where does God say to any, "I shall ransom you from death to life but rough you up a little as satisfaction for my trouble"? If we are saved, we are saved. I do not exclude the possibility that the workings of salvation in the world to come may involve some sort of purificatory act: the washing in the blood of the Lamb or even a purification by fire. But I do not imagine this to be what Christ problematized as debt. Instead, if there be such purification, it shall be like someone dressing for the wedding of his or her best friends or the preparation of a bride for her wedding. We shall put on incorruptibility as perfume and immortality like our Easter finest.

Tetzel might as well have been selling the Brooklyn Bridge. And Luther caught him at it. But Luther surely realized and we should, too, that Tetzel merely was a poor student of some great but impoverished thinkers. For justification by faith appears to be at the heart of Pauline doctrine and that is wealth not to be disdained.

Wherefore that we are justified by Faith only, is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification.

I can't find a link for the Homily, which is one of those great Elizabethan homilies. Peter Toon of the 1928 Prayer Book Society apparently made a recording of it, but the link no longer works. In compensation, I link to Richard Kew's recent discussion of the Elizabethan homilies .

In closing, I would like to continue to add to my thoughts about the development of Christian doctrine in its social context. It is very clear that while justification by faith is a Pauline concern, its fuller elucidation as doctrine came about because of the intersection of theology with church polity and the market economy. Yet justification by faith arises out of the rejection of those social conditions for the sake of the Gospel. Does it owe its emergence not just to a reaction against one set of social conditions but to the affirmation of others such as conflicting movements in popular piety, the emergence of new technologies, and the rediscovery of ancient texts? Surely. The Gospel is ubiquitous and perpetual, but it is not always visible. God bless those who make it visible, whoever and wherever they are.

The Holy Brothers pray that whether you are Jew, Greek, American, Ibo, Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani, or some other creature in the image of God, the law written on your heart shall convict of your sin and lead you to seek with every fiber of your being the ransom we have in Jesus Christ, even to the stretching of your hand and the giving of your life.