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
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Reading 1 Clement: The Problem with Envy
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.
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.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Reading 1st Clement: The Ideal and the Problem (1 Clement 1-4)
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Last week, we started to discuss the 1st Letter of Clement to the Corinthians, its context and my aims in this series. This week, I want to get into the letter itself and see what it has to say about what the problem was in the church at Corinth at the time of Clement.
- In some ways, Clement's opening is unusual. After the customary greeting and a cursory apology for not writing earlier, Clement begins his discussion with a picture of the Corinthian church's past which looks, I must confess, pretty idyllic. Here, Clement suggests, is a church in which justice, peace and good order reigned. Here, the Christian virtues of mutual submission and brotherhood controlled how church members interacted. Here we have, if we follow Clement's imagery, the return of the post-Pentecost church, transposed to a Gentile setting- at least, until the troubles began.
This is a little odd, of course, because we do know something of the history of the Corinthian church. We know that Paul had enough problems with the Corinthian church that he felt he had to send two letters to them to get them back onto the right track. We know that the Corinthian church at the time of Paul was also torn by the same kind of division which Clement identifies in his own time. If that is so, just when was this idyllic past of the Corinthian church? What is Clement trying to accomplish here?
Perhaps we can explain this discrepancy by suggesting that Paul's letters and visits eventually did do some good in Corinth and that a period of peace followed Paul's correspondence which lasted right up to Clement's time. At this time, the Corinthian church was at its most fruitful and zealous, but, eventually, as the new generation began to chafe under the oversight of the older one, the younger Corinthian Christians began to try to remake the church in their own image; thus, falling into conflict with their elders.
Perhaps Clement is indulging in a kind of 'prince's mirror' in which he is trying to induce the very virtues which he assigns to the Corinthian church at a time when it distinctly did not have them. By setting out these ecclesial virtues, Clement may have hoped to provide the Corinthians with the vision of peace, justice and order which he wanted them to enjoy.
Regardless of which theory to explain Clement's image of the Corinthian church before this crisis, he is clear about what the problem- church division. For whatever reason (Clement doesn't really say), the Corinthian church broke into factions, quarrelling and strife which caused all the marks of the ideal church which the Corinthian church to rapidly unravel. With the collapse of justice and peace, faith weakens, doing one's Christian duty falls by the wayside and individual Christians begin to go their own sinful way. The Corinthian church was rapidly de-constructing itself, to the horror of Clement and, one presumes, the rest of the Christian world.
I'm not sure that we understand how visceral this Corinthian scandal must have been in Clement's day. In many ways, this kind of church division, while regrettable, is a rather common occurrence today. We have normalized church division to the extent that there are, literally, hundreds of thousands of Christian denominations, with more arising each year. One of the most common reactions to disagreement and conflict in many churches today is to split off form the 'unholy' segment of one's community. It is true that this is a peculiarly Protestant disease, but, really, if we look at it, even those churches which claim an adherence to a catholic ecclesiology have experienced church division as Orthodox and Anglicans split from the Roman Catholics and splinter groups which result perpetuate the division or divide anew.
Furthermore, I don't think that church division ends only here with the division of a community or a communion. Can we see it in our modern propensity to church shop for a community which satisfies our theological, aesthetic or political tastes? Can we see it in our willingness to dismiss a Christian brother and sister as too 'liberal, or too 'conservative' or too 'moderate'? Can we see it in our assurance in our own sense of spiritual self-sufficiency which causes us not to share our real selves with the world? This is to say nothing about muttering about the diocese or the bishop or the denomination's paper. Whatever divides us or causes us to pull back from our fellow Christian, is that not an injury to the community? And am I not as great a sinner in this area as anyone else? Of course.
Yet, we also aren't called to the opposite extreme of placing community ties so high on our priorities that we stamp out our individual conscience and discernment. There are times when the Spirit calls us to confront sin in our church and, at those times, we need the virtues of truthfulness and humility to lead us through the conflict which will result. But does conflict necessarily entail division? Does this conflict come from a moving of the Spirit or from our own sinful desire to dominate the opposition or even to set ourselves up as the authority in the church? I'm not sure it is very easy to know and that should call us to humility and patience as we discern the way forward. Unfortunately, neither humility nor patience are the strong suits of the modern church, even if they remain indispensable for a faithful church.
But how did the Corinthian church break apart? What caused it to turn its back on its own ideals and to descend to chaos? That is the topic for the next post.
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Reading 1 Clement: An Introduction
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
Phil
Sunday, August 28, 2011
End of Summer Reflection
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.
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-
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
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
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
We'll see, of course, if even this modest programs works for me.
Peace,
Phil
Monday, August 08, 2011
This Week in Patristics July 31st to August 6th, 2011
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
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
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
'Useless' Study
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 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
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