hyperekperissou

Wrongs that are so wrong that there is nothing you can do to make them right

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 02:40:00 +0000

Over the last few weeks, I've been mulling over a particularly striking phrase employed in a video of Stanley Hauerwas talking at Azuza Univeristy (the part I'm thinking about starts around the 9:45 minute point in the attached video). In a discussion of his discomfort with being called the best theologian in America, Hauerwas explains that "America is a country which has no idea of what to do with wrongs so wrong that there's nothing you can do to make it right". While his discussion goes on to what Hauerwas perceives as the American inability to come to terms with its past wrongs, I was struck with his phrase 'wrongs so wrong that there's nothing you can do to make them right'. That's a striking phrase in the Hauerwasian vein--provocative and memorable. Yet, I admit, on reflection, that its meaning isn't necessarily so clear.

What I think Hauerwas is getting at are wrongs that strike at the heart of who we are as people in a God-made world. That is, they challenge what God is trying to do in this world by elevating our self-interest and drive for power to the place that it overrides the justice and compassion that we are called to exercise in this world. They are, in that sense, the wrongs committed while we are imprisoned by the idolatry of ourselves and our place in the world. That makes them, I think, one of the multiple milestones that we hang over our own necks as we seek our will to the exclusion of God's and our neighbours. The fallout of these wrongs distort our relationships, create new conflicts, perpetuate old ones and, ironically, make it increasingly difficult to face up to our wrongs because of our need to create a self-justifying narrative to avoid admitting to our weakness and need for forgiveness. The result is that it is frightfully difficult to break out the cycle of these wrongs which are so wrong that there's nothing you can do to make them right', partly because it is easier to ignore them than to face up to our capacity for evil and partly because they tend to be the start of a string of such wrongs by all sides in a situation. So, these wrongs merely feed the cycle of violence, injustice and brokenness which characterizes not only the political realm which is Hauerwas' focus, but our communal and personal lives.

Anyone who reads Christian history knows that we, like most other groups of people, have any number of wrongs so wrong that there is nothing that we can do to make them right. It isn't difficult to generate a list: the Crusades, religious wars, treatment of Jews and other religious minorities etc.. Nor have we been immune from the temptation to whitewash them as we think about our past. That is, I think, one reason why ecclesiastical history has such a bad name in the historical profession because all too often our historians have tried to spin our wrongs to blame our victims and cast ourselves as the injured in too many cases. No wonder even a whiff of Christian theology is likely to cause other historians to dismiss what we have to say.

Yet, as Hauerwas points out, Christians have a unique understanding of these 'wrongs that are so wrong that there's nothing you can do to make them right' because of our participation in the passion of Christ. In fact, the Cross may represent the ultimate wrong that is so wrong that there's nothing we can do to make them right because it represents the moment when humanity rejected the Son of God and inflicted our injustice and violence on an entirely innocent God. There is nothing that we can do to make it up that humanity, nearly as one, cried 'Crucify Him' when they confronted God as Man.

What is more the phrase continues to percolate down from the level of our faith communities and into our own lives. Wrongs that are so wrong that there's nothing that we can do to make them right are also legion in the lives of individuals, Christian or not. We have all, I think, done damage to our relationships and each other by insisting on our own will and disregarding or overriding those around us whom we will hurt in consequence. We can come up with all sorts of excuses for that like "I felt led to do that' or the 'The Lord told me...' or 'I had no choice....' or 'I had to live my truth....', but the damage is no less real. Relationships break, resentment grows, the desire for revenge is sparked and soon we're in a tit-for-tat exchange of wrongs. Christian or not, this is a sad reality in our lives.

Yet, what is remarkable about Hauerwas' discussion is not that he identifies these wrongs, but that he identifies what solves it--the ability to be forgiven and the consequent commitment to speak truthfully about our wrongs. The temptation in these wrongs is to sweep them under the rug, possibly by affected cluelessness about the impact of our decisions, or denial that it even mattered, or by angrily blaming the person we have wronged, or by framing the resistance of those we've wronged as aggression, or by tireless self-flagellation without any attempt to seek forgiveness. All of these attempts to sweep aside these wrongs are founded upon a rejection of the humility needed to admit one's sins and seek forgiveness. It is hard to be honest enough to admit even to oneself the depth of our wrongs. And so the poison of resentment or self-righteousness can seep in our lives and blight everything we see and we love. Receiving forgiveness is a hard remedy to many of us, but the disease which results from these kinds of wrongs, not only in the one who suffers the wrong, but the one who perpetrates it, is so much worse.

Wrongs that are so wrong that there's nothing we can do to make them right, in whatever form they take, the collective or the individual, are scary things. They're scary because, not only because they reveal the truth of how we all sin and fall short of the the good God made us to do, but also because they are demonstration of our powerlessness in the face of our failings. No one goes out to commits these kinds of wrongs. They almost always appear when we seek our advantage or the advantage of those around us without regard for the bigger picture; when the good we seek becomes greater than the good God would have us do. It happens when what we seek becomes the idol and God and his children becomes the means to feed that idol. They are the relational fallout of our will to power and they can only be fixed by an equally scary emptying of our desires and 'needs' to seek the restoration of relationship through forgiveness. That effort demands both humility and rigorous honesty. And a hefty supply of divine help.

Arrivals

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 02:09:00 +0000

I woke up thinking about arrivals this morning which is entirely appropriate, given the season. Many people travel this season- by plane, by car, by bus- so, there are a lot of arrivals in peoples' life right now. Many of us are planning arrivals or waiting for arrivals or have already arrived at our Christmas destinations. It is the right time of year for these reunions and for time spent with family and friends.

In the Christian calendar, it is, also, Advent which recalls the long wait for possibly the most significant arrival in history- the birth of Jesus, the Son of God. We spend this season listening to the prophets and John the Baptist telling us of the imminent arrival of our Saviour. We wait with Mary, as she expects her child, promised with such awe and mystery. Indeed, we arrive with her and Joseph in Bethlehem. We go with her into the manger as she begins to feel the labour pains of the coming salvation of the world. That is a lot of waiting. That is one very important arrival.

Arrivals come in all sorts and moods. Many arrivals are joyful; the reunion of friends and family who haven't seen each other for too long. Some arrivals add the joy of arriving after the fatigue of an arduous and difficult journey. Some arrivals retain their joy in seeing friends and family, but may be tinged with sadness or grief because of illness or absence of some of those we love. Some arrivals are difficult as one is reminded by strained relationships or loss which makes joy difficult this time of year. . Yet, they all share the journey and the anticipation inherent in travel. When we arrive, we pause for a moment in our travels and realize that we are where we intended to be.

For Mary and Joseph, however, the arrival of Jesus was a difficult one. They, too, did their stint of holiday travel; travelling to Bethlehem at the behest of the Roman authorities. Several days on a donkey while heavily pregnant is hardly a recipe for a peaceful and relaxing trip. Then, there was the hassle over accommodations which ending in the couple bedding down in the manger with the animals instead of in a private room in the inn. Then, as soon as they arrived, it became obvious is was Mary's time and Joseph had to stumble out into the night again to find a midwife to help his wife hundreds of miles from home. I'm sure as he stumbled through the darkness, Joseph was wondering whether things could get worse and whether the arrival of his son would be a safe one.

Still, despite the problems, this arrival was joyful, the most joyful known to humanity. All Creation, tradition tells us, held its breath and time paused for a moment the instant Jesus was born; a valuable tip-off for Joseph that he'd better give up his search for a midwife and get back to his wife and new son. Mary welcomed the child whose extraordinary birth she had agreed to months earlier and had awaited for so long with eager anticipation. . Angel choirs descended upon astonished shepherds in the hills near Bethlehem, sing 'Glory to God' for the arrival of Mary's child. The shepherds joyfully sought out this wonderful child as did kings from the East, bringing gifts to celebrate this arrival. Even the animals back at the manger, valued members of God's Creation, were welcoming the child and hoped that this arrival meant the beginning of the end of the rift between humanity and the world God made. . Did they, as mediaeval legend encourages to believe, greet Jesus, enjoying the temporary power of human speech or did they assure Him of their love in their own tongues. Jesus' arrival began with difficulty and worries, but ends in a joyous celebration, not only of the happy parents, but of all people and creatures within reach of the news- angels and humans, poor and rich, animals and, I'm sure, the very earth itself.

Advent, the time we remember the arrival of Jesus to this earth, is almost at an end and we ready ourselves for Christmas Day. Another arrival is waiting in the future, but, for now, we celebrate how God arrived on earth as a helpless newborn and began to the process which will see the world and all in it redeemed and restored. May God grant you a blessed Christmas and peaceful holiday.

Phil

Readings

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 11:27:00 +0000

Over the last year or so, I've been diversifying my reading a bit. I'm still reading mostly church history, except for the professional or dual-purpose Classical reading, but I'm reading a bit more in periods other than Patristics. A little Mediaeval, a bit more Reformation and a bit of the Enlightenment (sorry, 19th and 20th century, I'm just not up for you just yet- not quite over the aversion from my university days). That has been good for me because, while I continue to love the Church Fathers, it is possible to get a little too familiar and insular about my interests. Yet, much of my interest in these periods tends to be how did we go from the Fathers to now. That is, how did we wind up in this mess, Christianly speaking?

I don't, I should warn you right away, have any brilliant answers to that question. The current post-Christian moment in history has been the result of millions of little decisions and circumstances, but my historian's heart still hopes for answers. So, it has been good to wander through various stages in the Church's life, looking at this or that thread, reflecting on the decisions made and where they led. That search sometimes me to feel that we have wandered so far and so long that we've lost sight of our starting point. That is, of course, the experience of most of us in our own lives, so it shouldn't be entirely surprising that this is true for us communally. Of course, there are those pivotal moments which we see as influential in our own lives or our communal lives. Sometimes, these events serve as pivots, clearly demarcating different phases of life. In our Christian history, that could be the Reformation or some such event, whose impact was so great it completely changed how millions of people lived their faith. In our own lives, it might be getting married, a conversion, a death or facing up to something we have long denied. Still, most of our lives, and the life of the Church, is lived in the mundane world of work, family and everyday life where faith is the unspectacular foundation we live with and we can wander from that faith so easily that it is hard to know where we are.

In my reading, what I've seen is millions of faithful people working, praying and living out their Christian lives over hundreds of years; sometimes well, sometimes badly. In the history of the Church, we see saints and sinners worshiping and working together, each mixing their good and bad motives together. We see the Church bonded to cultural limits which distort its faithful witness to the world and, every once in a while, we see it transcend those limitations spectacularly and in a life-changing way. And we see that promise sink back into the mire of human culture and sin, only to flash out again in a blaze of grace. Somehow God's work still gets done and the rich incarnational parade (to borrow a phrase from novelist Maggie Helwig) continues.

The funny thing is that that parade, in all its messiness and disorder, gives me hope for the future. It reassures me that God is still working in the life of the Church and the world. He hasn't given up on us because somehow he still works through us. The fact that we still see both sinners and saints in the pews with us each week should reassure us that God's healing of the world is continuing because we sinners learn this is a place for healing and redemption so we can reclaim the memory that we are all potentially among the saints. The messiness of Church history is the messiness of a world which, whatever it says about faith, tries to heal itself without God. Despite these obstreperous patients, God keeps working his healing and redemption of this world, step by step, person by person. The history of Christianity tries to track this process. While admitting where we have failed and knowing that we can't truly know its end, we seek to see God's fingerprints on how we humans have interacted.

Perhaps this is all too lyrical for some; too pious for others. Our failings as a church are grim enough, we all can set out those failings in detail. And those who reject Christianity and the Church are always happy to remind us, if we've forgotten. We live in an age where Christians don't want to remember our Christian past because it is too fraught and it has fallen to non-Christians to remind us of our failings. Yet, I wonder why we Christians let others tell our story for us. Why is the history for the Church left so often for those who have little interest in the Church as it is now? There has been some magnificent work done on church history in the last hundred or two hundred years, but do we need to go back and find again our Christian narrative, not papering over our sins and faults, but confessing them and looking for God's purpose in it all? What would a history look like which would celebrate faith and service to God, recognize sin and error, but still be essentially hopeful and faithful? How can we bear witness to the love of God in this world over our long history and offer hope for the future of our Christian lives?

These are more questions I don't have answers for. Yet, I suspect that part of the answer is my own difficulty in seeing my own story in the way that I set out for Christian history. I would prefer to justify, to plead innocence and paper over my own failings. I know what the harder, and better, path is, but I rarely want to go down it. Yet, God is working in my life and others, as I know well. How to bridge the all too common reluctance to admit one is a sinner with the recognition of God in my life and those around me? And, if I can't do it, how can I speak to the broader question of our communal life as a Church?

We are all, in a sense, historians- most often of our own lives, but sometimes with a call for a broader vision. How would you tell your story, I wonder? How would you tell our story?

Pondering....

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 01:20:00 +0000

Generally, one warning that a blog is not receiving enough attention from its author is when it is deluged by spam. Another warning is when a blog is when it is mentioned as past tense as a defunct blog (I appreciate the praise, incidently, and concede the defunct). Yet, ultimately, I'm not entirely sure what I think about continuing this blog. Clearly, my energy and willingness to blog has been at a premium over the last few years, but I'm still hesitant about letting this blog go. Perhaps, I'm just being stubborn. Perhaps there is something else I should be doing with this. I don't know.

Anyway, what I hope is that the readers I have left would add me to whatever prayers they make as I discern what to do with this blog. Suggestions, of course, are also welcome, but anything I take up has to a. excite me and b. be managable given my life.

Still pondering and praying....

Phil

Translating

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 02:11:00 +0000

It has been nice to be back to translating this week, even if it is going quite slowly. Translating well is a slow process at the best of times because it requires great sensitivity in both languages and the sense of knowing when to stay literal and when to loosen up. Rendering Latin into good idiomatic English, while retaining the sense of the original, is challenging. I can crank out an accurate and very literal translation of Sulpicius Severus reasonably easily. The grammar and vocabulary he employs is not extremely complex and he doesn't write high poetry like Vergil or highly rhetorical prose like Cicero. Yet, many, many times, I find myself struggling to get the best sense out of him and into the English without it sounding awkward and forced.

For example, consider what I was working on last night in the (probably) vain hope that I can post the Sulpicius' 1st Letter. I sat down to work on it and, in the first sentence, ran into one of these 'I-know-all-the-grammar-and-vocabulary-but-how-do-I-say-it-in-English' problems. Here is the passage in Latin (for my readers who know it-the rest will just have to take my word for the problems I relate):

Hesterna die, cum ad me plerique monachi uenissent, inter fabulas iuges longumque sermonem mentio incidit libellli, quem de vita beati uiri Martini episcopi edidi, studioseque eum a multis legi libentissime audiebam.

English speakers will, of course, wonder at the length of the sentence and the multiplication of subordinate clauses, but anyone familiar with Latin or ancient Greek will recognize this as a sentence of rather average length. Latin does allow compression of thought, but it tends to like subordinate clauses, although, here at least, the number of participles is down to a minimum. (Later Latin tends to like main verbs in subordinate clauses more than Classical Latin). So, really, the grammar is pretty straight forward as far as that goes.

Here is a pretty literal rendering of the passage:

Yesterday, when very many monks came to me, amid fresh tales and long conversation, mention of my little book, which I published on the life of Bishop Martin, the blessed men, occurred and I was listening very gladly that it was read by many enthusiastically.

As for as it goes, this isn't a terrible translation nor is it overly literal. I did take some liberties to clarify the English, but something about that second clause bothered me. It just didn't sound quite right. It took some time, but I realized that the problem was with the way that mentio and incidit were interacting. mentio is a fairly straightfoward word. Not surprisingly, it is the Latin equivalent of 'mention' in English. That makes sense because it is clearly the Latin root of the English word.

incidit was a rather more difficult word to deal with. The basic meaning of it is 'to fall in, fall, light upon', but its meaning extends to 'occurs, happens', which explains my initial translation. However, the more I thought of it, the more my translation sounded odd. Does a mention occur? Doesn't sound right, does it? Besides, my first translation of incidit really wasn't getting the tone of the word the way I wanted. incidit has the feeling of something which just, well, happens. That is, it has an almost random quality to it, so, in employing it, Sulpicius is trying to say that he didn't bring it up the subject of his book on Martin , it just happened that people started to talk about (and praise) it. This tone is in keeping with the studied modesty of Sulpicius Severus which is a feature of the Life itself (see particularly, the Preface of the Life of Saint Martin for a demonstration of this rather affected modesty). Indeed, this tone is already reflected in the choice of rather self-deprecating use of libellus- little book- to describe the book. incidit falls in with that tone.

So, what did I finally do about it? I had to adjust both the meaning of mentio and incidit beyond the standard dictionary meanings to get the English idiom I needed. Here is what I came up with (for now):

Yesterday, when very many monks came to me, amid new stories and a long conversation, the subject of my little book which I published about the life of the blessed bishop Martin, happened to come up. I heard with very great pleasure that it had been read with enthusiasm by many.

Better. The subordinate clauses are still piling on top of each other in odd ways. Particularly, the 'my little book which I published...' part sounds like odd English (if my students wrong something like this, I'd tell it was Latlish- not quite English, not quite Latin). And I'm tempted to change that last clause from the passive voice to the active because the active voice sounds better in English. Or not. That passive (to be read) fits with the sense that Sulpicius is trying to distance himself from praising himself. I still need to think that out a bit.

I know that this blog entry has been rather a long discussion of what looks like very little. Yet, I think we can get rather blasé about the process of translating, partly because of the wide availability of translations of ao much of world literature and partly because we modern North Americans, as a consequence, don't think it necessary to pursue language study, even at the graduate student level, in its own right. So, we become language phobes who are afraid to do serious language study. That is a dangerous position to take because, while the language in, say, our Latin texts doesn't change, our language, the target language, does and there is a need to retool and refit translations with each generation. All one has to do is to read translations from even a generation ago and one will find them hard to follow. Regular updating of translations enables us to engage more fully with the literature from other culture - whether ones that have passed away or those which continue alongside us. Translating isn't an easy activity, but it is a culturally important one and one which deserves to be taken more seriously.

Return to St. Martin

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 01:17:00 +0000

For as long as this blog has been around, I've been working on a translation of Sulpicius Severus' Life of St. Martin. To be accurate, I've been working on it, off and on, for longer than that, but I spent time in 2007-2009, posting chapter by chapter of the Life which I gathered into a final posting in Feb, 2009. And, then, I set it on the shelf, intending to get back to it in a while. It has been a while and high time to review the whole project.

The project has, in the interim, expanded. I realized that I probably should translate the Letters and Dialogues of Sulpicius Severus because they shed considerable life of St. Martin as we have it. And, while I'm at it, there is St. Gregory the Great's work on St. Martin, which would supplement Sulpicius Severus' account. I haven't got very far on these last pieces, but now that it is summer I thought I'd spend some time on it.

Last night, I found the CSEL volume free on Google Books and have duly printed off the relevant portions of that volume. I thought I would post the translations as I proceed. Comments are always welcome, of course, and, just like the portions of the Life, I'll provide commentary to give a preliminary interpretation to the passages I'm translating.

With that intent in mind, I thought I'd take a post to reflect on what I've observed and learned about this particular enterprise.

1. The biography of St. Martin as remembered by many Christians is limited to one or two incidents. Of course, most people know about the cloak and the beggar incident (Life, 3). This incident has a particular resonance among many Christians these days as an expression of social justice. Of course, giving half one's cloak to a beggar is social justice and particularly striking when done by a Roman soldier, who were not, generally, well-known for acts of social justice. If one hangs around pacifists, one might quote approvingly about Martin's defiant refusal to fight in the late 350s in Gaul (Life 4). And that is about it. The balance of the life which describes St. Martin's episcopate in Tours and his reputation as a holy man is not as well known.

2. Following on this point, there are reasons why the balance of St. Martin's life isn't well known. If one reads it as either a modern or a post-modern, there is much about which to be offended or dismissive. The many miracles of St. Martin are bound to cause modernist readers to dismiss the whole life as fantastic and useless as a historical document. Martin's relentless campaign to root out paganism in the countryside around Tours, involving the destruction of altars and such like, are bound to offend post-moderns, who are liable to see this as an expression of power, not piety. So, one feels when reading the Life that one has the alternative of being credulous or oppressive- neither which are popular shortcomings these days.

3. What is interesting to me about the body of literature on St. Martin is that there is a reflective sense, if only because Sulpicius Severus wasn't content with just writing an saint's life, but he felt it necessary to answer his critics. Not every one of St. Martin's contemporaries agreed with Sulpicius Severus' take on St. Martin. Even in the life, we see opposition to St. Martin's approach to the episcopate, even if that opposition was condemned as being wordly. In the Letters and Dialogues, we see how deep that opposition went, even into St. Martins' own community which elected as his episcopal successor one of the most vociferous critics of St. Martin while alive. That is one of the reasons why I want to translate these works because they give a fuller picture of St. Martin and raise interesting issues such as Martin's mental competence at the end of his life (when, incidentally, Sulpicius Severus knew him).

4. Yet, this complexity is also unsettling. One of the reasons why I embarked on this project back almost a decade ago was that I attend a St. Martin-in-the-Fields (West Toronto, as it happens, not the original in London, England) as well as I attended in London, Ontario. It was, and is, in my mind to give a translation of the Life to both churches as a gift, but I find it is a rather odd one. Simply stated, I would not be giving a plaster saint for the edification of all, but rather a flawed, but, I firmly believed, deeply faithful saint, whose life raises many, many questions which are uncomfortable for us to answer such as our belief in miracles, attitudes to other religions, attitude to the military and, quite possibly, our attitude to mental illness as well as the more satisfying reflections on social justice and faith. I'm not sure I'll be thanked for raising these issues, but I'm also convinced the role of a Christian scholar, even an amateur as myself, is to tell our stories, no matter how unsettling they might be.

That is, for what it is worth, is where I am right now with what I've called elsewhere, the Martiniana. Hopefully, I'll be able to post the first letter before the end of the week and then work my way through the Letters and Dialogues in the course of the summer. That's the plan at any rate.

Observations on history, faith and 'real life'

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 01:09:00 +0000

As I'm sure my readers have noticed, I've decided to refresh the look of uperekperissou a bit, with a changed format done and some tinkering with the sidebars planned. More to the point, I'm also anticipating a summer in which I might be able to do rather more blog writing than I've managed in the school year- a low bar, I know. One of the nice things about summer is that the crush of work in the school year abates and I get more time to reflect and, more to the point, read. So, that is what usually generates blog spots.

So, for today, I thought I'd be a bit self-referential and talk about my new subtitle. The alert reader will have already noticed this change and, I hope, approved of it. Living the Tradition, while reflective of my placement inside a dynamic Christian tradition, is rather a clunky and pompous slogan to go by. I mean, who do I think I sound like, a Tractarian or something? So, when I started to contemplate my summer writing, I thought of this subtitle as rather more reflective of what I do here on this blog. However, it does still bear some explaining, if only because those three subjects don't always go together.

For many, I'm sure, it is the history element of this triad that causes the problem. History, in the experience of very many people, is so removed from 'real life' that how could it possibly be related with it, even with faith serving as an intermediary. Of course, historians hasten to justify themselves with everything from vague, but ominous warnings about being doomed to relive the more unpleasant elements of our history or the quest for historical 'truth' or about redefining narratives et cetera. Or, if they're particularly pious, perhaps making observations about the morality of our present age by comparing us with the spiritual giants of the past or the spiritual villains, depending on one's theology and inclination. Yet, none of these justifications ring true with me. What motivates me to continue to study history, particularly Christian history is the inspiration that earlier Christians give me in their efforts to live out their faith in their own time and the salutary dislocation of my own modern (or post-modern, if you like) assumptions about what faith should be, based, no doubt, on my own accommodation with the cultural around me. What Christian history has taught me is that there are many, many different ways of being a Christian- most of which are as faithful and unfaithful as our own time-, so raises the question of whether I believe I have a lock on the truth. History reveals the cloud of witnesses which tell me to stop assuming that I've got this faith thing locked down.

The faith element, on the other hand, should cause no consternation among Christians, but academically trained historians must now be wincing. Some of that discomfort is probably right. Anyone who has read any ecclesiastical history over the ages knows the piety of some authors has tended to overshadow their historical judgement.. Yet, faith isn't a substitution for using one's brain and, indeed, I would argue that any Christian should be alive to the danger and temptation of perpetrating pious frauds, if they should study history. The impulse to make Christianity look as good as possible is always there as is the impulse to use history polemically against our more vociferous cultural opponents. Yet, I think faith is ill-served when we engage upon any kind of deception (self- or otherwise) about our past. Faith is about trust and, I would argue, it doesn't work if the reasons why we trust are fraudulent.

Besides, my faith is central to how I look at the world and it should surprise no one that I'm going to want to write about it. Really, when push comes to shove and I have to explain why I have faith in God, my answer really has to be that I've found nothing else which give me hope that the evil that I see in the world will not prevail and that this mess that we call human life will be redeemed into something indescribably better. And it is that hope that sustains me in my daily life and pushes me to find a way to contribute to that redemption- through seeking out the dark places in my own soul and through seeking out God's peace in the world where we live.

That brings me to daily life. Ultimately, my faith doesn't allow me to live in a vacuum, but it has to be lived out as I go about my daily routine. I am blessed with work which also is my vocation and, where the rubber hits the road is my daily life. That is where I can see if what I believe comes out in my life or not. Can I live out a faithful life amid the concerns and pressures of my job? Can I trust God even when I really want to control my life and do what I want to do? Do my standards of right really measure up with God's? When I can answer those questions, I'm a lot further on in discerning what I need to do to continue in faith.

So, as I contemplate new posts, I'm hoping to combine these ideas, largely because the best of my posts in the past have done that. I have, as I've discovered, neither the leisure nor the exact skills to be a professional historian. I don't have the sense of detail needed to write history well at the highest level. Nor am I a giant of faith- I'm only trying to apply the little I know about faith and God to my life. However, I find hope and inspiration in finding the connections between the witnesses who preceded me and the witnesses who are before my eyes. If those connections prove helpful to my readers as well, then my task on the blog is done.

An Advent Meditation

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 01:55:00 +0000

Things have been quiet here on hyperekperissou, mostly because things haven't been very quiet for me over the last few months, as I had anticipated back in the summer. Once school resumes in September, I'm usually quite busy, but the addition of our second son in May and the fact that he isn't the best sleeper in the world (not the worst, I recognize and am duly grateful), has meant that on those occasions on which I felt inspired, I was also exhausted and physically not up to writing. The sleeplessness is abating, albeit slowly, but the speed of my life remains faster than I would like. Of course, I suspect that the fault for at least some of that rests with me. I find it difficult to slow down and to let go my work when I do get those chances. This is, I think, the dark side of vocation- if one thinks that one is doing what one is called for, it is difficult to see the need to slow down, even when it is apparent that one would do one's work so much better with some rest once in a while. That is how, of course, vocation becomes a treadmill, instead of the joy that it is supposed to be. Now, in the dying days of December, I'm feeling that need for rest which I rarely want to acknowledge the rest of the year. That is why, of course, Advent comes to me at the perfect time- when I know I need to slow down, look around me and wait.
Yet I've been wanting to write the last few weeks, partly to assure my readers that I'm not dead, but also to review what has been going on with me over the last couple of months. Amid the busyness, I've been blessed with the opportunity for more reflection than most years, so I did want to share a few things along the way.

One of the blessings this fall has been my involvement in a course at church- the Life with God series through the Evangelical Centre for Spiritual Wisdom- which has provide much needed focus in my spiritual life when the challenges for keeping on an even keel have stepped up, what with lack of sleep and adjusting to a new routine and rhythm of life. It is hard to describe simply what this course is; the closest I can get is to call it group spiritual direction. The intention is to explore, first, the goodness of God in our lives, then to begin the exploration of the obstacles to letting us realize that goodness in our lives. Mind you, one of the things that I realized in the first part of the course was that, when compelled to consider God's goodness, my natural tendency is to get grumpy and gloomy. Part of that might be trying to do interactive projects late in the day or in the evening when I'm feeling grumpy at the best of times, but I think there is also a reluctance on my part to recognize the good that God has given the world; a reluctance which goes deeper than my conscious thinking. Perhaps this shouldn't comes as a surprise to me. I remember several years ago when I was working with a friend on spiritual issues, he kept asking me what I was grateful for and I kept wanting to lean across the table and slap him. I didn't and I did start asking myself that question often enough that I am grateful, most of the time. It seems I just need to remind myself more often than other people

Besides this course, I've also been keeping up my reading. I find myself conflicted here as well sometimes because I wonder sometimes how much my reading/projects are an escape from people and how much it is part of a spiritual discipline. I think sometimes I retreat into books as a way of escaping people, who I find are much more unpredictable and challenging (odd that!). Other times, I feel I discover things that I help me understand myself, my faith and my life better. And that isn't even getting into learning for my profession. One of the things that struck me this year, however, is that I have to maintain a careful distinction between a project and the spiritual discipline of study. A project is bad for me, partly because I don't have time for a project (are you kidding me, I'm barely managing what I need to do), but also because the project becomes about me showing off my spectacular intelligence, proving my brilliance or some such nonsense. Study as spiritual discipline, however, builds up my faith and brings me the joy of learning just 'cause. It is the very uselessness of spiritual study- no apparent object, no apparent reason- that helps me take away my ego and my desire for affirmation.And, if I am ever to share what I have learned, it is from that uselessness that I think I have to share from.

Lastly, I've been reflecting about blessings and curses. Our study leader commented last week about the power of curses and blessings in our lives. She pointed out that the world around us gives us curses aplenty from the religious ones like "Goddammit!" to more every day ones like "idiot" (Raca! as Jesus pointed out) or 'you won't amount to anything' or 'you're useless'. Blessings, however, are much harder to find and much more needed in this world of ours. That made me think about my use of blessings and, yes, of curses. One thing that I realized in this reflection is the ubiquity of curses in education and my own guilt in that. One that has touched me especially is the "telling the future curses"- 'I've seen the road you're on and this is how it will turn out'. I've been thinking about that one because this is the time of the year that the first signs of trouble appear in my first year Latin course. And it is the time of year that I get frustrated and start making comments like that. Looking back, even on last year which was a fairly quiet year, I realized that every single kid I said that to went the way I predicted - the curse had, unfortunately, worked and no wonder. If someone told me that I was heading a certain dire route, how motivated would I be to change that? Or how motivated was I, on the occasions that happened? What would have happened, if, instead of cursing or "telling the future", I blessed those students and looked to see what was wrong. I don't know, but, with God's help, I hope to find out.

As usual, I've gone on rather longer than intended, but I'll leave you, my readers, with a wish for a peaceful and happy Advent.

Peace,
Phil

Reading 1 Clement: The Problem with Envy

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 01:37:00 +0000

I left off the last entry with the question of what caused the formerly healthy Corinthian church to fragment into discord and schism. Yet, this is a question that Clement seems to view in quite a different way that we would. Clement's letter is that never really indulges in that all too common (and modern) vice of wanting to name names or report incidents. One presumes that, if he was writing the letter in the first place, he has some idea about what was happening, but, past a general note about the division between the established leaders of the community and, presumably, a younger faction, we know little about the circumstances of the issue in Corinth. This, of course, continues to frustrate church historians. What is more, Eusebius, the father of church history, does nothing help. Indeed, all he does it to note the dissension and report that Hegesippus adequately covered the dispute (which is no help to us, given that we don't have Hegesippus).

In his discussion of this crisis, Clement is more concerned with considering spiritual causes for the Corinthian church's. What is interesting and chilling for us is that Clement charts these causes not as the flaws of certain bad individuals, but the direct consequence of the prosperity of the Corinthian Church. This robs us from the luxury of blaming others for our problems. Clement, however, doesn't let us off the hook because he argues that the very success of the Corinthian church contained in it the seeds of its own self-destruction. This success brought with it arrogance and a greater sense of self-importance which could only spell disaster for a spiritual community. If our success convinces us that, somehow, we deserve or, worse, caused our success; then, we are liable to stop recognizing our dependence on God and to start to think that our power is real. That, then, leads to power struggles as we fight over who should wield the power that, really, we don't really have. The result is that we spend more time trying to impose our vision of how we should employ our non-existent power rather than seeking God's will and direction about how to live out His Kingdom values. Self-will, as a result, runs riot and all we manage to prove is that we do that we aren't God and we don't know better.

For Clement, that process of the ecclesial self-destruction works itself out quite logically. First, the prosperity of the church encourages competitiveness, zelos and phthonos. This is interesting in itself because the two words, while frequently paired and almost synonymous, have very different tones to them. zelos is, more or less, positive, representing the kind of positive competition which draws out the best in people through competitive virtues going back all the way to Homer. phthonos is the destructive mirror image of zelos; the destructive competition which encourages cheating, lying and treachery. Yet, Clement pairs them as equally destructive and unjust. This implies that the kind of competitiveness which characterized the drive to succeed in Classical societies and, in rather different guises, our own has no place in the church. We do not strive to outdo each other in our Christian lives, but, rather, to be faithful servants of God. Our value is not found in our place in a hierarchy, whether ecclesiastical or spiritual, but, rather, in our faithful service to God and our neighbour.

Yet, if we are to be completely honest, competitiveness is a real temptation in a church. It is all to easy to look at someone serving in the church and be jealous of the accolades that they get in their service. It is all to easy to decide that someone else doesn't deserve their position of trust because we all know I can do that just as well or better. Jealousy and envy is alive and well in today's church because it is alive and well in me...and in many more people than me.

Perhaps this is why Clement spends so much time tracing out the examples of the impact of jealousy in the Old Testament, in the lives of Peter and Paul and even in the stories of Greek mythology. The destructiveness of these emotions becomes evident in these examples, by showing how ties of family, ethnicity and even faith cannot survive the destructiveness of jealous and envy.

Furthermore, this envy and jealousy leads directly to the kinds of dissensions and strife which Clement is trying address in this letter. This makes sense, of course. If we are looking askance at our neighbour and envying him, we are already storing up hostility and, ultimately, war against our neighbour. How can we contemplate peace and harbour jealousy in our hearts? Sooner or later, we will abandon peace and seek to 'restore' the balance of what is owed to us. Envy and jealous are the preludes to civil war, even ecclesial civil war such as the one evidently experienced by the Corinthian church and, arguably, the multiple ones experienced by churches today, large and small.

The logical result of this progress from our own individual jealousies and envy to the communal disruption of schism ultimately comes down to the weakening of our ability to live of what God has called us to be: the first-fruits of his kingdom. One of the most persistent scandals of the modern church is the scandal of church division. By this, I don't mean the diversity of worship styles, theological explanation or, even, ecclesiastical structure. Within certain limits, this diversity is a good thing. Rather, I refer to our inability as Christians to live with our differences and work together on what really is our common mission- seeking to further God's kingdom in the world today. While the ecumenical movement has softened the traditional denominational differences, we, all too often, allow ourselves to become distracted by the new fault lines of liberal-conservative, progressive-fundamentalist and such like. We all serve the same Lord, so why can't we work out a way to serve Him together?

In our next entries, we'll consider what Clement has to say about what we need to do just that: serve God together.

Reading 1st Clement: The Ideal and the Problem (1 Clement 1-4)

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 02:56:00 +0000

1st Letter of Clement to the Corinthians

Reading 1 Clement: An Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 01:14:00 +0000

In my last post, I noted my 'epiphany' about my study time; that it is a much more productive use of my time to merely read the Fathers in the original and not worry about any project for now. Part of the reason for that decision was lack of time, but there is also the realization that, unless I read the Fathers in the original (or as close as I can), I wouldn't be able to take myself very seriously. And that means, working on vagaries of Christian Latin and Greek. Those vagaries aren't so much vagaries in language structures or, very often, even of vocabulary, but it is that of context. So, I've decided to embark on a long-range reading program of the Fathers- not an exhaustive one, but hitting the highlights in apologetics, sermons, history and ecclesiology. And, logically, the place to start is Clement's 1st Letter to the Corinthians.

My intention in this first post is to give a bit of context, some idea where I'm going with this series and, honestly, to give the first insights into why anyone should care. That last point is an important one because, at the end of the day, I see my reading of the Fathers both as a way to deepen my understanding of my faith today and as a service to the Church to help us ask the questions that we may have forgotten to ask for so long or which we've forgotten what the answers were.

So, what is my context?

1 Clement is a letter to the church at Corinth (the same one addressed by the Apostle Paul in two letters for very similar reasons), probably in the 90s AD. The author is usually assumed to be Clement, the bishop of Rome, third in succession to Peter. This identification is, of course, something of a stretch in that the text itself mentions no Clement, but, rather, its introduction makes it clear that it is the church of Rome writing to the church of Corinth. Clement is consistently cited in manuscripts as the author and, if I'm not incorrect, this is followed by Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History. The date is established by this letter's apology that the church of Rome had been unable to write because its own problems- usually, taken as a reference to Domitian's measures against Christians in the 90s AD.

It might strike the casual observer that all this is rather a slim groundwork to base a discussion of context. Agreed, but, to someone who has done any Classical work, it has to be conceded that our information about many ancient authors is probably no better than this and, often, much worse. Caution is, of course, indicated, but, ultimately, one has to decide whether the manuscipt writers and/Eusebius had have known a thing or two more than we did about this letter.

Where am I going with this series?

This letter is, in many ways, a founding document in the establishment of a catholic theory of the church (ecclesiology). Note the small 'c' whose use is an attempt not to get bogged down in Protestant-Catholic apologetics which in both insist on using this letter and other patristic texts on ecclesiology like a tennis ball. The idea of a catholic ecclesiology centres upon a belief that all Christians are linked to each other by bonds of doctrine, liturgy and common history. As Vincent of Lerins puts it 'what is believed everywhere, always and by all'. Of course, that definition too has become a theological tennis ball because it is suitably vague. What it means to a Roman Catholic is not precisely what it means to an Orthodox person nor to a Protestant. Yet, we see attempts to work towards it, from the Roman Catholic insistence on the infallibility of the Pope in moral questions, or Orthodoxy's refusal to give up the term or C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity' and evangelicalism's comparative lack of interest in denominational boundaries. There is a hunger to return to 'catholicity', even if, too often, we want to do it on our own terms.

In this series, I hope to look at what it means to be catholic, not primarily from a theoretical view, but from an eminently practical way. Clement, in this letter, is addressing a real problem in Corinth, a schism arising from a power struggle in the Corinthian church- a problem not so uncommon in our multi-denominational universe. What I want to examine is the spiritual habits and practices which draw Christians together, not to use the letter as an apologetic weapon to defend my own claim to catholicity or my own desire to overcome an opponent in a debate. In that light, I welcome dialogue and discussion from those who have different traditions from me.

But who cares?

We all should. I firmly believe that the present divisions among Christians are a scandal, albeit a scandal with a long, difficult history filled with sincere and devout Christians believing that they had no alternative, but to split from a segment of Christ's body. Yet, it is a scandal that a group of people who, in the 2nd century AD, was described a people who drew the astonished cry of "See how they love each other' to a people who not only were willing to throw verbal darts at each other at the drop of a hat, but, from to time, to kill to prove their point (creating all sorts of dissonance with what Christ taught us about being godly human beings, much less His followers). Perhaps, if we can see ourselves in the dysfunctional and divided Corinthian church, we can start asking ourselves how we have come off track and what we need to do to get back on track individually as well as corporately.

All this is a tall order and, of course, I certainly don't expect to abolish church division in the matter of a few months. No, my aim is much more humble: to ask questions, have discussions and reflect on what it is to be a catholic church today. That is more than enough for any series.

Peace,
Phil

End of Summer Reflection

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 01:58:00 +0000

Back from vacation. Well, actually, I've been back about a week, but things

have been busy as I gear up for back-to-school. It is, after all, late August

and that means preparations for a new academic gear are in high gear. That,

also, means that I have to figure out what is sustainable and what is not over

the next eight months. So, I've been thinking about that over the last couple of

weeks and this is what I've come up with.

1. TWP is not sustainable for me right now. That will, of course, cause
some disappointment among many of my readers, but I found this summer,
with the new addition to my family, it was only just sustainable to do the

weekly updates. That is, without a lesson prep, in-class time and marking, it

was just possible to crank out a TWP each week. This would suggest that,

when I add those other things that it is completely impossible to keep up

with a TWP or even a TFP. So, I'm just going to pull the plug on that now and avoid the frustration of wanting to do the updates and not being able to do it.

2. I probably have to scale down my expectations about what I can
accomplish on this blog and just post when I have time and creativity. I'm still
not quite willing to drop the blog (well, certainly not its name!), but I will
be posting more irregularly.

3. I think I may have an interim solution to my soul-searching over what to
spend my study time on. For those of you who have followed the non-TWP
posts, I've been trying to discern where I should use my time and energies-

what kind of project should I embark on with my acres and acres of free

time. Just before departing on my vacation, however, I had an important

moment of claritywhile talking with a friend. In commenting about my

patristic readings, I noted thatI had embarked on reading patristic texts

in the original (Greek or Latin- Syriac and Coptic is beyond me), largely

because I couldn't take myself seriously if I didn't. One of the things that

I absorbed in my academic Classics career was that nothing can replace

reading an author in the original- too many nuances are lost if you don't.

So, that is what I propose to do over the foreseeable future-read as many

patristic texts as it takes and not worry about projects or booksor anything

for now. Now, my job, in the precious moments of study I have, is practicing

patristic Greek and Latin. And learning from the wisdom of the Greek and

Latin Fathers, in the original. Period.

4. In keeping with this resolution, what I expect to see in this blog is
that, as I complete a work or a section of a work which gives me ideas

about howto connect it to today, I'll write up my reflection. Then, I'll

move on to the next text and do the same. I don't want to do book review

(or even treatise reviews), since I'm more interested in trying to apply

what I'm reading from theFathers to my life. In many ways, this is similar

to what I've been trying to do with my patristic entries when I shifted

to a patristic focus. So, we'll see how this works. I will continue to discern

if God wants me to do a big project anytime soon and what it would be,

if I did, but, right now, I'm content with learning how to read and

translate the Fathers better.

5. I'm excited about a program being offered at my church over the next
twelve weeks which focuses on Life with God (offered through the

Evangelical Centre for Spiritual Wisdom). It is a Bible study,

but not a conventional, sit and receive one. It tries to take a contemplative

approach to reading (or, rather, listening!) to Scripture through prayer and

meditation as much as knowing. It is an appealing idea, both pedagogically

and spiritually, so I'll be interested to see how it work. I'm still trying to

make sure it fits in my life, but the signs are good: offered Sunday morning,

so my wife and I canattend without worries about child care and daily, but

not onerous work as we lead up to it. I like it because it links in where I've

been going the last ten years spiritually, towards contemplative prayer.

I admit that this does not come naturally for me, but it is something that

I think is good for me and that I think has already made good changes

in the way I deal with the world and myself.

That is worth the effort, I think.

We'll see, of course, if even this modest programs works for me.

Peace,
Phil

This Week in Patristics July 31st to August 6th, 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:00:00 +0000

A light week this week. Enjoy the offerings!

Aggie on the AppAggie blog notes the Patristic application for i-phones- A Year with the Church Fathers by Mike Aquilina (of the Way of the Fathers blog). It almost makes me want to buy a i-phone...almost.

Joel on the Unsettled Christianity blog reviews Thomas Oden's book, The African Memory of Mark in two parts (part one, part two forthcomng).

Roger Pearse on his self-named blog gives an update about the promising reaction to the Eusebius book he sponsored (which is also on my list to get, but a new computer and a book on Greek religion (for work) first!)

Stephen Huller on stephan huller's observation discusses Marcion in light of a discussion with Professor Markus Vinzint, answers the concerns expressed by some biblio-bloggers (in my opinion, justified) about his 'myth-making' in his discussions about Clement of Alexandria,
condemns Eric Osborn's book on Clement of Alexandria (not my favourite, but for rather different reasons- Stephen because Osborn perpetuates the scholarly concensus about Clement's birth, me because it is a bit tedious), discusses the connections between Origen, Gregory Thaumateurgus and Carpocrates (aka Origin???????????), asks how the alleged Alexandrian ex-Patriot (sic!) church functioned in Jerusalem, wonders why Clement and Origen were so popular, discusses the connection between Clement, Origen, Secret Mark in Gregory's panegyric of Origen, discusses the attestations of names such as Carpocrates in Egypt (source, Stephen, source?), discusses the lack of second century discussions of Marcion (given the fragmentary state of second century Christian literature, is that surprising?), follows up by summarizing the evidence against anti-Marcian polemics (mostly, dismissing anything Eusebius has to say on the subject and arguing from the silence which follows), discusses how the Marcionites became associatedi with a (fictitious) Marcian, condemns patristic literature as rubbish because of the well-known ancient habit of mimesis (really, this is a pretty bad mis-reading. One of the ways that the ancients were different from us is that they didn't cite sources as we do- that is fairly recent i.e. within the last hundred years- and they frequently modeled themselves after an exemplary text- here Irenaeus' Refutation) and discusses the likliehood that anti-Marcion literature is actually hidden polemic against the Markan tradition in Alexandria. An editorial note needs to follow here. Readers will note my punchiness in this entry. It is an editorial policy of mine that I will cite whoever writes on patristics, whether I agree with them or not. I do reserve the right to say what I think about these entries. Stephen Huller is an immensely prolific and imaginative scholar, but I have serious issues with his methodology which seems to consist of discrediting existing sources on his subject of choice and substituting his own speculations about the subject. While patristic sources must be viewed critically, it is all too easy to use unreasonable and anachronistic standards to eliminate Eusebius or Irenaeus or anyone's testimony. However, the results of such an inquiry are neither satisfying nor convincing. I will continue to cite Stephen and continue to comment as things occur to me. Enough said.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review reviews Stephen Mitchell, Peter Van Nuffelen (ed.), One God. Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire

That is it for this week. I'm on a blogging break next week, so you'll have to wait until the following week for the next installment.

Peace,
Phil

'Useless' Study

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:45:00 +0000

Ammon (of the place called Raithu) brought this question to Sisoes: "When I read Scripture, I am tempted to make elaborate commentaries and prepare myself to answer questions on it" He (Sisoes) replied, "You don't need to do that. It is better to speak simply, with a good conscience and a pure mind". From Rowan Williams, Where God Happens. p.140

This quote has been buzzing in my head the last few weeks, largely because of the time of year. Summer brings with it both more free time and a kind of internal pressure to do something 'productive' in my, admittedly, arcane patristics hobby. Don't get me wrong. This isn't about compulsive workoholism (I don't think....). It expresses a dilemma which has been with me for more than ten years, since I left my PhD in Classics. On one side, I truly love learning for its own sake and one of my joys is to have the tools to do that with the Church Fathers. I enjoy my reading of patristic texts and scholarly discussions of them. I like translating the texts--as odd as that sounds. And I have to acknowledge my debt to this study which has affected how I think about my faith and how I live out my spirituality. I can see how St. Augustine's Confessions influenced my conversion as a Christian and how St. Benedict's Rule informs my approach to fatherhood and, oddly, the teaching profession. The Desert Fathers (like Sisoes above) challenge my materialism and draw attention to the 'bad thoughts' which plague my attempts at humility and faithfulness. The Fathers do me the service of calling attention to my theological blind-spots (rather different from their own blind spots), help me read Scripture more deeply and remind me that theology isn't just an intellectual pursuit, but a spiritual one as well. When you get those benefits, more study seems like a profitable thing.

Yet, on the other hand, like Ammon of Raithu, I feel compelled to do something with my studies. That is, I shouldn't just read or translate for my own edification, I should publish something for goodness sake. I'm not saying that publishing is a bad thing nor am I saying that I won't consider working on a project intended to be published. This is probably not the time to fast-track it for it, not the least reason being my committment to my young family. Any planning that I make about this have to be long range, very long range, indeed. Perhaps some fruit will come that. I don't know.

Yet, I also feel the sting of this saying of Abba Sisoes. I don't need to do this. That is, this should not be a compulsion to produce, to argue, to explain. It is better to keep my attention on the spiritual virtues and prayer which my study of the Fathers and of Scripture give me day to day, yer to year. Then, I should do something radical and revolutionary: practice them. What I worry about my desire to 'do' is that it is a manifestation of one or the other of my two great temptations in my study: that all too common compulsion to produce as opposed to just shut and pray or a temptation to intellectualize my faith rather than mediate on it. Prayer, spiritual reading and work on self are gloriously useless activities, at least in the eyes of the world. Yet, I recognize that I need to do all these three things if I expect any spiritual growth or wisdom or, in fact, discernment over what I can contribute to the life of the Church. I need the ability to speak simply, with a a good conscience and pure mind, especially if I expect to write about spiritual things.

That means discernment. What is God calling me to? My main vocation is to teaching and, to my enduring my surprise, teaching adolescents . Yet, I feel the calling to write, but is that vainglory and/or avoiding spiritual growth? Time and discernment will tell me that, of course. So, patience is what is called for and the willingness to do what is 'useless' for as long as it takes. That, I trust, will be enough.

Peace, Phil

This Week in Patristics July 24-30, 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:48:00 +0000

Not a very busy week this week. We all must be on summer vacation or something.

Brantly on the Young, Evangelical and Catholic blog offers a catena to support his argument that St. Augustine was Catholic as opposed to Protestant. Well, yes, but it would be anachronistic to argue otherwise. Yet, as has been pointed out by, I think, Paula Frederickson, Catholics and Protestants emphasis different elements of St. Augustine's teaching, so I'm not sure the distinction can easily be made.

Dan Wallace on the Parchment and Paper blog reviews Bart Ehrman's book, Forged in two parts, with a third projected. (part one, part two).

Joe Heschmeyer on the Shameless Popery blog considers the Council of Carthage's acceptance of the two books of Esdras, aka Ezra and Nehemiah to you.

Steven Huller on the steven huller's observation blog published a bewildering array of observations including a discussion of the lost letters of St. Clement of Alexandria found at Mar Saba, the continued failure to find out how many manuscripts were in the Mar Saba monastery, the alleged forgery of the Mar Saba document, the possible forgery of a letter of Theodore, why Origin denies that Clement of Alexandria was his teacher, the possible emergence of the name of 'Marcian' as heresy in the infiltration of Alexandrian Christianity into Jerusalem, Julius Africanus' evidence of Clement of Alexandria's activity in Alexandria and his flight, Clement's first reference to Marcianites, Clement's role in establishing the Alexandrian liturgy in Jerusalem, whether Irenaeus' dates are correct, why this change in dating will help sovlve the 'Mar Saba' problem, a discussion of Gaius and Hippolythus' holding of bishopric in the same city at the same time, and the internal evidence about whether Clement of Alexandria actually wrote from Alexandria. That is just the larger posts. For a critical comment on Stephen Huller's work, see Rod of Alexandria on the Political Jesus blog.

That's it for this week!

Phil

This Week in Patristics July 17th-23rd, 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:18:00 +0000

Welcome to TWP! It has been a light week, probably because we are in high vacation season this week. Hope you enjoy that there is!

Father Benedict Crawford on the Seeking the Kingdom blog posts Chapter Four of St. Benedict's Rule in two parts with a brief commentary (part one, part two). H/T Matthew Hoskin

mjhoskin on the pocket scroll blog considers the Eucharistic Prayer of Addai and Mari and the insights that liturgical prayer have in our understanding of the Fathers (if we understand theology as worship as many of the Fathers did, I don't see how we could help learn more by praying as they did). He, also, discusses the effect that the Desert Fathers have on our sense of comfort in our lives today.

While not quite about Patristics, J. F. Hobbins on the Ancient Hebrew Poetry blog discusses a concern common to all students of the ancient world- the need for accessible ancient sources in the original language and the will to use them. I've seen the same phenomenon in Classics and in Patristics, writing more about one's colleagues than one's sources. It is easier and it is also symptomatic of our modern (especially North American) unwillingness to learn the linguistic tools of our trade.

Weekend Fisher on the Heart, Mind, Soul and Strength blog discusses a passage from Plato's Euptrypho which asks about the relationship between love and piety, answering in an almost patristic way.

That is it for this week! See you next week.

Peace,
Phil

This Week in Patristics July 10-16th, 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 02:00:00 +0000

Welcome to a new week and a new TWP. And I even managed to get finished on time.

Douglas Dobbins on the Writer's Block blog begins a discussion in which he aims to vindicate St. Cyril of Alexandria and continues in the series, discussing the psychology of Nestorius.

Boniface on the Unam Sanctam Catholicam blog discusses the conservative and progressive nature of the patristic (Catholic) church as well as questioning the Pagan Creep theory. This is a part of a rather long running series on the Fathers from a Roman Catholic perspective.

The Oxford Patristics Conference blog continues to post new abstracts for its conference this summer.

Catholic Online discusses St. Benedict of Nursia and the example which he offers us today in our de-Christianizing West. A good article, but I wonder if 6th century Italy is really an analogy to today...yet. Are things falling apart quite that badly????

Alin Suciu on his self-named blog discusses the Coptic versions of St. John Chyrosthom's Homilies on Hebrews.

mjhoskin on the pocket scroll blog discusses the man and the life of St. Benedict of Nursia as well as the legacy of his famous Rule. He also discusses the definitive (!) proof for the truth of Pope Leo's Tome.

The Son of the Fathers blog discusses St. Athanasius' Letter to Marcellinus, outlining the importance of the Psalms in one's prayer life.

Weekend Fisher on the Heart, Mind, Soul and Strength blog discusses mjhoskin's discussion of typology, giving a Talmudic perspective.

James Pate on James' Thoughts blog discusses an article by R. Davison on the Old Testament and the Church.

That's it for this week. I'll see you next week!

Peace,
Phil

God, the 'New' Athiesm and Delusions- For Victor and Sean

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 01:14:00 +0000

Over the past year, I've been working my way through Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. That is a long time to read a book, I know, but school related things slowed me down. Well, that and I can't read a author like Dawkin's quickly. He is so infuriating and such an expert at rhetorical manipulation that three or four pages at a time was about as much as I could deal with without throwing the book at the wall. So, in order to preserve my serenity and the spine of the book, I took my time. So, finally, I'm done and have lived to tell the tale.

Under normal conditions, I wouldn't post comments on a book like this. Over the years on the posting on Internet bulletin boards and on blogs, I have found that arguing with someone who is as invincibly and stubbornly atheist as Dawkins is a futile endeavor. As even that irascible North African theologian, Tertullian, says about speaking with hardened opponents"you will lose nothing but your breath, and gain nothing but vexation" (de praescriptione haeriticorum, 17). However, when I'm given a book by someone who wants to hear an opinion (thanks, Victor!) or about which I have an interesting correspondence(that's you, Sean), I do feel an obligation. So, for what its worth, here is what I think.

Dawkins is not unspiritual (whatever that means)

This came as something of a surprise to me. Dawkins' basic issue is with theism, not with spirituality, if we define spirituality as believing in something beyond ourselves or our simple material existence. In God Delusion, this rather amorphous concept of spirituality (arguably, the dominant one in our culture) is reflected in a belief in the universe or nature or something like that. In that sense, Dawkins' belief is in the processes of evolution and physics and such like. His ire is raised by the concept of theism- the belief in a separate God who intervenes in the world which he views not only as preposterous, but, out and out dangerous. Personally, I'm a pretty convinced theist, so I tend to find the spirituality of this book rather abstract and unhelpful as I try to live out my life on a day-to-day basis, but, then, I (the annoying theist)would say that, wouldn't I?

Dawkins continues to fight the great evolution/creationism debates

While happy to heap scorn on religion on general principle, Dawkins keeps his real ammunition for the creationism debates which continue to plague the discourse between religion and science. Now, I'm happy to concede that, in some settings, this is a real debate, especially among the more conservative evangelical/fundamentalist Christians, but it is troubling to me that Dawkin fails to really recognize that most Christians and Christian denomination have long since moved on from this debate and accepted some form of modified evolution. The result is either a resounding "Huh?' from most mainline Christians or a not particularly stifled yawn or a heightened sense of embarrassment that such a debate even remains current. I mean, really, all this creationism is so 19th century!
Of course, this is a bit of flippant response to this section of the book. One of Dawkins' most consistent mantras is that everything is explainable using evolutionary theory which explains his emphasis on that rather oddly speculative field, evolutionary biology. Yet, it is entirely possible to accept that God might have made use of evolution and perhaps we need not get too hung up on the number of days or other details in the Genesis account (which can be read as following an order not unlike evolutionary theories). This would not suit Dawkins, mind you, because he wants Christians to be fundamentalists and scientists to be atheists. Unfortunately, the world is rather less tidy that all that.

Dawkins and Intelligent Believers

A striking element of Dawkins' discussion is his general contempt for the intelligence of religious people. This comes out in several ways including his recommendation of the annoyingly self-congratulatory epithet, brights, as a 'reclaimed' name for atheists (on the analogy of gay or queer for homosexuals- except these worlds were reclaimed from insults, not from complements, making the transformation and the subversity of the reclamation rather more compelling). On the odd occasion that Dawkins has to concede the intelligence of a believer, there is a sense of bemusement of that admission as he's wondering "but he/she seemed so intelligent...."
This is a failure of imagination on Dawkins' part. The inability to accept that one's intellectual opponents may actually have some point in what they're saying and that they are capable of intelligent discourse is a common fault in this culture of ours which enjoys the slap down, rather than the cut-and-thrust of a good debate. It is also central to our post-Enlightenment fixation on 'objective' truth which, really, represents a narrowing of possible intellectual options to one worldview. This, combined with a optimistic view of progress, means that we have to assume that someone who doesn't think like us, must be backward and stupid. This is demonstrably not true, if you have the occasion to read, say, Greek philosophy or, even, (*gasp*) Christian patristics.

Dawkins the fundamentalist?

This particular accusation has been made against 'new Atheism' for a few years now and it evokes a few pages of incensed denial in God Delusion. And that denial isn't necessarily wrong in the sense that fundamentalism is rather a conversational atomic weapon to throw about in a debate. It is not calculated to continue the discussion in a rational way, but rather to obliterate everything within a ten mile radius of the point argued. Yet, there is a family resemblance between the kind of 'scientific' stance which Dawkins takes in this book and fundamentalism. Both are relentlessly literal, seeking objective truth defined in its own terms and seeks to impose that truth on anyone outside the system. The difference is that Dawkins' authority is that authority of science and fundamentalists is in their own writings. The fact that the authority of science is in the ascendancy in our culture shouldn't hide the fact that there are assumptions within this belief system which are not anymore provable than the assumptions in a religious world view. We just accept those assumptions in the 21st century West because they are self-evident, we think. Dawkins' rigidity is not all that different from the rigidity of a fundamentalist in full sermon.

Dawkins the extremist

One of my fundamental issues with polemics of this kind is that they rarely acknowledge the existence of a via media which covers a wider range of beliefs than the extremists ever will. That means that there are a wide range of moderate Christians, Muslims and Jews as well as atheists and agnostics who are genuinely struggling to figure out how to react to religion and to science in a way that is constructive, but sensitive to where they have come from (tradition). And that this producing many different and sometimes beneficial ways of reacting to the world manifested in the actions of Martin Luther King, Gandhi and many, many anonymous do-gooders.

Dawkins, however, wants to have neither truck nor trade with any of this. For him, the problem with agnostics is that they either don't have enough guts to be atheists or they are just too fuzzy headed to recognize the difference between evidence which should produce provisional disbelief and evidence which should suggest a probable no. As for moderate religious people, they are as dangerous as extremists because they encourage the same, distorted evolutionary maladies as extremists even if they won't act on the logical outcomes. All that means is that religious people are caught coming and going. If you're an extremist, you are just acting to type. If you are a moderate, you are just breeding more extremists.

I think this is one of the most troubling aspects of God Delusion because there is no moral nuance, no shades of gray. There is an attempt to polarize here which can only lead to conflict which can, conveniently, be used to justify more polemic. It is also one of those reasons why I kept remember Tertullian's warning quoted above. Richard Dawkins isn't someone who is interested in debate, but rather in obliteration of his opponents. As a good liberal, he wants to argue them into the ground, but that is a form of coercion and, in a sense, violence.

Dawkins and evolutionary biology

I find this also a particularly disturbing section in that Dawkins argues that the impulse to theism is an obsolete evolutionary adaptation whose time has passed. In itself, this could be mere polemic, but the part that disturbs me is his insistence that belief in a God leaves an imprint on brain chemistry. This has two equally disturbing consequences to me. First, to Dawkins, he sees any attempt to influence one's children to belief in God to be something just short of child abuse because it is transmitting an disability (i.e. the disconnection from an atheistic reality) to them. Second, this whole idea of faith and the brain makes me think of the Soviet Union which was known to incarcerate religious figures in insane asylums as their faith was prima facie evidence of their insanity. No, Dawkins does not advocate this, but it is but a hop, skip and a jump to get there from Dawkins' reasoning. And this should be disturbing to anyone who is interested in human rights.

Dawkins the liberal

Ultimately, what saves Dawkins from such totalitarian solutions is that he is, like most academics, a good liberal, who is bound by the concepts of human rights and such like. He may not like us and he will work tooth and nail to prevent religious people from making more inroads into the culture, but he is bound by the limits imposed on him by his post-Enlightenment tradition. So, there are glimpses of toleration, even permitting religious studies in school, albeit as a way to inoculate people from (dead or freshly killed) religion. Still, he is not ungrateful. He is even positively nostalgic about his days at an Anglican boarding school. He would just prefer to see religion fade away.

I could continue on, but, really, those are the most important observations I would make. If, however, you want a chaser, you could do worse than to look up David Bentley Hart's Atheist's Delusion: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies, to get the other side. I'm not sure I'm quite with Hart all the time, but his writing is lively and his thinking compelling.

Peace,
Phil

This Week in Patristics July 3rd-9th, 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 19:45:00 +0000

Welcome to the new edition of TWP. Sorry for the lateness, but this week was rather challenging and Internet connection issues aren't helping. Enjoy!

Joe Heschmeyer on Shameless Popery discusses the 'Robber Council' of Ephesus (Ephesus II) and what it says about the criteria for accepting a council as ecumenical. This discussion is based on an entry from June, which I fear I missed ( here it is), which argues that Ephesus II's failure as an ecumenical council was because the Pope opposed it as soon as he heard about it. Well, yes and no. Papal opposition was the final nail in Ephesus II's coffin, but the rejection of the Antiochene delegates who arrived too late to participate in the early part of the council which rehabilitated Eutyches was probably just as important. Maybe the Orthodox were right after all. An ecumenical council actually has to accepted by the full church, not just one faction.

Oxford Patristics continues to publish abstracts for its conference later this summer.

Alin Suciu on his self-named blog discusses the fragments on the Scholia of the Monogenes by St. Cyril of Alexandria.

mjhoskin on the pocket scroll blog discusses Christianization at the time of Justinian in two parts (part one and part two) and problems that this effort made for the Church of the day including making the Church primarily a social insitution and the problem of incomplete Christian education and the survival of 'magic'. In addition, he argues for the promise of typ0logy in enriching our reading of the Bible.

Roger Pearse on his self-named blog considers, amid his scanning marathon, a discussion of Old Coptic.

Mike Aubrey on the en epheso blog notes the annoucement of an SBL Greek Language and Linguistics site/blog. I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but it soundss interesting for both biblical and patristic scholars.

Joel on the Unsettled Christianity blog discusses the Christus Victor tradition and St. Justin Martyr's understanding of who the powers which Christ defeated actually were.

The Bryn Mawr Classical Review blog posts a basically favourable review of Paula Frederickson's Augustine and the Jews.

I hope you enjoyed the entries and see you again next week!

Peace,
Phil

This Fortnight in Patristics June 19th- July 2, 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 01:40:00 +0000

Welcome to TFP or, if you like, TWP x2. There is a lot of entries in this edition, so enjoy the fruits of the backlog!

Al on the Is there Somebody Out There? blog discusses his connection with St. Irenaeus of Lyons.

The RevLife blog presents a patristic catena on the peaceful life.

Proffessor Markus Vincent from the Oxford Patristics (conference) blog posts a plethora of abstracts for the forthcoming Oxford Patristics conference. Far too many to comment on, but, for those in Britain and attending the conference, enjoy!

Alin Suciu on his self-named blog considers Coptic fragments of a sermon attributed variously to Severus of Alexandria, St. Gregory Nazianzus and Hesychius of Jerusalem, a supplentary leaf from a work by Epiphanius of Salamis, additional Coptic works attributed to St. John Chrystostom and notes on the canons of pseudo=Athanasius.

mjhoskin on the pocket scroll blog discusses the need to apply N.T. Wright's concept of a hermenutic of love (probably derived from Augustine's de doctrina ultimately) not only to biblical texts, but to patristic ones, the legacy of '2nd and 3rdgeneration' (wave?) desert monasticism, his thoughts on John Climacus, and discusses two saints of the week, Simeon the Stylite and Shenoute . Wow, I just couldn't keep up with mj, much less the whole list of posts in the last couple weeks.

April DeConick on the Forbidden Gospel blog reviews Bart Ehrman and Zlatko Plese's new book, The Apocryphal Gospels.

Nick Norellii on the Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth blog lists resources for Syriac Christianity and notes the Church Father's module for Bibleworks 8 (based on the work of amicus noster, Roger Pearse!)

The Bryn Mawr Classical Review blog features a review of Thomas O'Loughlin, The Didache: A Window on the Earliest Christians. and Jörg Ulrich, Anders-Christian Jacobsen, Maijastina Kahlos (ed.), Continuity and Discontinuity in Early Christian Apologetics. Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity

That's is it for this last two weeks. Back to weekly updates next week!

Peace,
Phil

This Week in Patristics Delayed...Again

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 01:11:00 +0000

I'm afraid a combination of my end-of-year marks extravagansa, child-induced sleep deprivation and general busyness has prevented me from completing TWP for this week. So, we'll have a This Fortnight in Patristics next week instead.

The good news is that the school year is done and not only can I get back to regular TWP's, but I may even manage a few substantive posts of my own. Stay tuned!

Peace,
Phil

This Week in Patristics June 12th to 18th, 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 20:44:00 +0000

It has been a fairly busy week for patristics this week. Perhaps the run-up to Trinity Sunday inspires thoughts of the Fathers. Or not. Not many of these posts deal with the Trinity. Whatever the reason for it, enjoy the offerings for this week!

Joe Heschmeyer on the Shameless Popery blog, in part of a post discussing why Protestants become Catholic, notes the historical Evangelical avoidance of the Church Fathers and the impact that the Fathers have on many Evangelicals. Interesting notes about the historical blindness of Evangelicals (clear to anyone who visits a Christian bookstore run by Evangelicals- very little history or even high end theology. It just doesn't sell), but one wonders what to do with the admittedly modest Evangelical Resourcement which has been going on for almost ten years.

Alin Suciu on his self-named blog discusses Coptic fragments of Isaiah of Sketis and a fragment of St. John Chrysothom's Homilies on Romans which gives the apocryphal names of the two thieves crucified with Jesus.

mjhoskin on the pocket scroll blog picks up a comment in the May 30th-June 4th TWP about next steps after introductions to patristics and discusses his recommendations. He also discusses the Roman Catholic ressourcement, beginning from the 1920s, and the monastic resourcement. Both give an excellent review of the scholarship which came out of these ressourcements.

Roger Pearse on his self-named blog discusses manuscripts at Rodosto which included a copy of Eusbeius' treatise against Porphyry with a follow-up discussion on the fate of these manuscripts and his concerns about the authenticity of these manuscripts, a reference to Theodoret in St. John of Damascus, and St. Ambrose's mentions of the cult of Mithras,

Kevin Edgecomb on the biblicalia blog discusses the importance of canonicity (here, the rule of faith) against the 'quest for the historical Jesus'.

Rod (of Alexandria) on the Political Jesus blog discusses

Cynthia on the per caritatem blog discusses St. Augustine's political activism as suggested by his letters in two parts (part one, part two). Thanks, Rod for pointing this one out!

That is all for this week. I hope you enjoyed the entries and keep them coming!

Peace,
Phil

This Week in Patristics June 5th-11th, 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:55:00 +0000

Happy Pentecost! Welcome to the Pentecost edition of TWP. Pentecost is one of my favourite church festivals, partly because I was baptized on it, nineteen years ago and partly because of the Jewish tradition of associating 'learning' with the Jewish version. The first appeals to my spiritual history, the second to my general geekness. Perhaps we can revive the tradition of all-night 'learning for Christians....wouldn't that be fun?

David Bates on the Restless Pilgrim blog draws parallels between the death of Jesus and the martyrdom of Polycarp.

Alan Suciu on his self-named blog considers a new witness to St. Macarius of Egypt's Spiritual Homilies and more Coptic fragments of Ephrem Graecus.

Roger Pearse on his self-named blog lists the presentations on Eusebius of Caesarea from the last three years of SBL conferences.

Kevin Edgecomb on the biblicalia blog considers the rule of faith and canonicity from an Orthodox perspective.

Rod of Alexandria on the Political Jesus blog considers Elizabeth Johnson's book, The Quest for the Living God as akin to St. Athanasius' work. Since I haven't rad Elizabeth's Johnson's book, I'm not sure I get that, but when has that stopped me from posting.

That is it for this week. See you next week!

Peace,
Phil

This Week in Patristics May 30-June 4th, 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 01:00:00 +0000

Hi all!

Here is this week's TWP. Enjoy the entries!

Jimmy Atkin on his self-named blog directs us to a Facebook group for his book on the Fathers, Fathers Know Best. I haven't read the book, but it is good to see another introduction out there. It does make me wonder what the next step is, now that we have so many competant introductions. He asks how long it took for the Gospels to spread.

Nick Norelli on the Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth blog reviews a collection of essays edited by Bradley G. Green, The Shapers of Christian Orthodoxy. Engaging Early and Mediaeval Theologians

Charles Ellwood Jones on the Ancient World Online blog allerts us to EDENDA, a project for editing the Latin Church Fathers.

Kelly Gerald on the Bryn Mawr Classical Review blog reviews a collection of essays, edited by Immo Dunderburg, on Stoicism in Early Christianity.

Joel on the Unsettled Christianity blog nominates the Council of Nicaea as one of the ten Most Shameful Events in Christian History. Funny, I'm rather partial to that particular Council. Besides, when you think about the rest of the Councils, ecumenical and not, Nicaea was a walk in the park.

John Bugay on the Triablogue blog considers the early papacy in a series of rather polemical articles including linking the papacy to Roman Emperor worship, discussing the views of St Optatus on 'real substance' and the papacy, discussing how critical scholarship dismisses the idea of an early papacy. I didn't link to all the entries on this topic because many dealt with contemporary theology around the papacy. He, also, questions uncritical readings of the Fathers which deny that they disagreed and were sometimes wrong.

Bryan Cross on the Called to Communion blog considers St. Optatus' treatise against Donatists, arguing that the pre-Donatist church was one church united under the Bishop of Rome. Hence, Protestants are in a state of ecclesial deism as they continue their independence from the Pope.

That's it for now. See you next week!

Peace,

Phil

This Week in Patristics May 22-28, 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Snider) — Mon, 30 May 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Very slim pickings this week. Even my Google updates failed to bring anything much up, but, for what its worth, here are this weeks entries.

Rod on the Political Jesus blog spots the spectre of Nestorianism rising from behind the theology of Tea Party politics.

Michael F. Bird on the Euangelion blog discusses a new book by Markus Vinzent on the 2nd century view of the Resurrection

J.B. Piggin on the Macro-Typography blog posts his abstract for the Oxford Patristics Conference.

Mike Leake on the Borrowed Light blog reviews Michael Haykin's book, Rediscovering the Church Fathers.

That's it for this week. See you next week with TWP!

Peace,
Phil