O Antiphons- O Radix Jesse

O Radix Jesse,

qui stas in signum populorum,

super quem continebunt reges os suum,

quem gentes deprecabuntur:

veni ad liberandum nos,

jam noli tardare.

O Flower of Jesse’s stem,

you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples;

kings stand silent in your presence;

the nations bow down in worship before you.

Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.

From our emphasis on God's might in the last entry, we move to considering what kind of kingdom we anticipate Jesus, as the Messiah, will inaugurate. This movement, I think, is a crucial one because it is entirely possible to have the concept of a mighty God, but one which primarily engages in indiscriminate smiting; a harsh judgemental God who punishes more than saves, who curses more than blesses. I certainly know people who struggle with that concept of a God and it is difficult to have faith in a divine being who is fundamentally a tyrant. How are you supposed to have faith in someone who is, fundamentally, cruel and arbitrary? You can't.

Yet, I also know that this isn't the God I worship. The Christian God, contrary to the views of some Christians, is one of grace and love. Indeed, Jesus' own life, as we discussed in the last entry, confounds that image, both in the hiddeness of Jesus' power and in his willingness to lead the way through a completely undeserved death to a salvation that no one could have anticipated. That salvation begins now, but leads directly to the vision of God's peaceable kingdom to which this antiphon alludes today.

The crucial biblical passage for this vision is Isaiah 11, 1-10. It is worth quoting the passage at length:

A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse,

and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,

the spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the spirit of counsel and might,

the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

3 His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,

or decide by what his ears hear;

4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,

and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;

he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,

and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,

and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

6 The wolf shall live with the lamb,

the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

the calf and the lion and the fatling together,

and a little child shall lead them.

7 The cow and the bear shall graze,

their young shall lie down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,

and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.

9 They will not hurt or destroy

on all my holy mountain;

for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.

10 On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples;

the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

The passage goes on to describe the return of the the remnant of Israel from all the places to which it was scattered and the turning of its enemies to peace and to worship of Israel's God. However, for Christians, as a graft onto the house of Israel, this passage is a first hint of the kingdom that is to come. Here e find an invocation of the Holy Spirit, an affirmation of the return of justice to the world, a return of creation to its primitive peace with the Creator and the turning of the nations, the non-Jews, to the God of Israel. All this will be brought about by a Messiah, symbolized by the branch of Jesse, by Jesus as a descendant of David, will set the world to rights, bring justice and, more importantly, peace to the world. This peace is so profound that even Nature responds to it and stops being red of tooth and claw.

Ultimately, it is this vision of the peaceable kingdom, the great Shalom, which is the object of the invocation of God's might which we talked about yesterday. God's might isn't employed arbitrarily to put us in our place or to make our lives less enjoyable. God's might is designed to bring out this peaceable kingdom through the undermining of the apparent power of evil in the world. The result is this kingdom in which all creation, all humanity is, finally, united in acknowledging the God who created them. No longer will humanity be at war with each other. More importantly, no longer will humanity be at war God or, for that matter, with His creation. Jesus, as the Messiah, the branch of Jesse, promises this kingdom and works even now, through us, to achieve it. This is nothing less than our reconciliation and peace with God and, through that reconciliation, our salvation from our own delusions of power. We all know where those delusions lead: relationships broken by our need to exert our power, the wars which we fight to exert the power we don't have, the rape of creation of which we are supposed to be stewards, to the manifold sorrows and suffering of a broken world and, ultimately, to death. Our individual and communal delusions are destroying us and only a return to God will save us

Jesus, that root of Jesse, offers us that salvation. He seeks to return humanity and creation itself back to the state of peace which it enjoyed before humanity deluded itself into thinking it knew better than God. Jesus, through becoming human, confronts those delusions and shows us how to break the power they have over us. Jesus promises a world in which peace returns and we are returned to the role that God intended for us- a role which we will find, ultimately, more free than the world we created for ourselves. We see this even now in those grace-filled moments in which the kingdom seen by Isaiah comes, albeit briefly, into sight. When we work for justice, when we confront injustice, when we seek to reconcile with our enemies, when we avoid the easy, violent fix, Jesus, the root of Jesse, is working within and through us. This is how we proceed on the road to the kingdom alluded to in this antiphon; a road which leads not to destruction, but to life.

Veni, O Iesse virgula,

ex hostis tuos ungula,de spectu

tuos tartari educ et antro barathri.

O Come, Thou Rod of Jesse's stem,

from ev'ry foe deliver them

that trust Thy mighty power to save,

and give them vict'ry o'er the grave.

Peace,

Phil

O-Antiphons- O Adonai

Welcome to the second installment of the O-Antiphons series. Yesterday, we talked about Wisdom, the Logos and creation, today we'll talk about might. burning bushes and salvation.


O Adonai, et dux domus Israel,
qui Moyse in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,
et ei in Sina legem dedisti:
veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.


O Sacred Lord of ancient Israel,
who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush,
who gave him the holy law on Sinai mountain:
Come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.


In this antiphon, we find ourselves returning to one of God's great saving acts in history- Moses and the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. We begin with the burning bush on Mt. Horeb(Exodus 3) and the commission of Moses as the leader who would lead Israel from bondage in Egypt into freedom. We move quickly onto Mt. Sinai, where the law was handed down amid the cloud and the fire of God's presence in the centre of it all. Both of these events are affirmations of God's power in their own right, but they also book-end among the most spectacular examples of God's might in the defence of Israel in the whole Old Testament. From the plagues in Egypt, to the destruction of the Pharaoh's army amid the parting of the Red Sea and the coming of the manna from heaven, we find God using the natural world to overcome Israel's oppressors and to save the people with whom He had made a covenant with in the days of Abraham. Here we find the power implicit in the action of creation being wielded and made manifest in the world of humanity.


This kind of thing, of course, makes Christians uncomfortable, partly because we see God taking sides in history as just code for the 'holy wars' which plague the history of the people called by the Prince of Peace and partly because we find God's power so overwhelming. Like the ancient Israelites, we fear even putting our hand on the mountain in case we die from such direct contact with God's might (Exodus 19,12). Besides, doesn't the smoke and fire on Mt. Sinai produce the Law and aren't we Christians all about grace, not law? How can this evocation of the Exodus story matter to Christians, who, in this post-Holocaust world, have turned their back of triumphalism and coercion in the name of religion?


Yet, what the Exodus story meant to the Jews was that it was a story of salvation par excellence. Completely unexpectedly, God took an oppressed and powerless people and raised them up in order to make them a priestly people, to whom all the other nations would come to worship the one and true God. Here is God's saving intervention in history- one of several which, in the Christian view, would culminate in the God becoming man in the person of Jesus Christ. Just as God saved the people of Israel, Jesus Christ, through his life, death and resurrection, will save all humanity from the sin and death that was a natural outcome of its rebellion against its own Creator.


Of course, in the New Testament, that power is oddly hidden. After all, didn't the all-powerful God become a helpless babe in arms? Wasn't He executed like a common criminal without barely any resistance whatsoever? As we read more deeply into the Christian story, we find that this apparent weakness will prove to be the power which breaks the power of sin and the death in the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus' resurrection will prove to be the beginning of the end for death and for evil because it proved that God, even in the weakness of the incarnated Jesus, can't be bound by death, but, rather, bursts forth into life with all the intensity which lies behind the creation of the world. Jesus not only gives us an example of how to resist sin and evil in the world, but He gives us the power to do it and the hope to defeat death in our bodily resurrection. And that is the power of God's weakness. What does his strength look like?


If we take Revelation seriously, we'll find that out one of these days. The promise of the Second Coming is, of course, a fraught issue as Christians debate the merits of pre- or post-millenialism, the Rapture and the value of biblical prophecy. I really don't want to get into those debates, but what Jesus taught us is that He will return to set the world right once and for all. Then, God's power will be on display and nothing will stand against it. We justly worry about what all this means and we also justly worry about those who try to anticipate that time or try to hurry it along. Very few things are as deadly as violence backed by religious delusion. We are right to be on our guard.


Yet, if we believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, good and loving, should we, also, not trust that this God's power will be used not only effectively, but justly? Is not God's might, by definition, just? Is not the Wisdom of God the most important guarantor of the just use of God's might? How can we fail to trust God's power, when we believe God to be good? And if God is good, can He fail to use his power to drive out evil from the world he created and restore goodness and life?


So, we look for the ultimate act of salvation- the restoration of God's universe and the return of humanity to its place in it. We can count on Jesus to have the wisdom to know what to do, but He must have the power and might to do it. As Christians, we trust that power and might will be used for good because of the God we serve. The vision of what that kingdom would look like is the subject of the next antiphon.


Veni, Veni, Adonai,
qui populo in Sinai legem dedisti
vertice in maiestate gloriae.


O Come, O Come, Thou Lord of might,
who to thy tribes on Sinai's height
in ancient times didst give the law,
in cloud, and majesty, and awe.

Peace,
Phil

O Antiphons-O Wisdom

Welcome to the first installment of the O Antiphons series. As a rule, I'm going to quote either the Evening Prayer or the Alleluia verse version (depending on what I think about the version and its translation). I'll finish up the entry with the Latin and English of the O Come, O Come Emmanuel version. The source for my text is the catholic-resource.org page on the O-Antiphons.

Sapientia Altissimi,

fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia:

veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

O Wisdom of our God Most High,

guiding creation with power and love:

come to teach us the path of knowledge!

In this first O-Antiphon, we begin at the beginning, creation. And, at the very beginning, according to Proverbs 8, 22-31 and, in a different sense, John 1,1-5, we find Wisdom. In Proverbs, we find Wisdom spoken as the first born of the Creation, begotten before the beginnings of the universe, when there was nothing yet made- earth, seas, heavens. We find Wisdom participating in Creation 'like a master worker' (Proverbs 8, 30) and rejoicing with God in the sheer delight of creating and in what was created (Proverbs 8,30-31). Wisdom, the divine Wisdom was there from the beginning, involved in creation and involved with God. But, it almost sounds like Wisdom is a separate being from God in Proverbs, why do we think that Wisdom is title of Jesus as the Messiah?

The connection comes with the justly famous opening to John's Gospel which echoes Proverb's vision of Creation, only changing the terminology from Wisdom to the Logos, the Word. Logos is a rather more encompassing term than merely intelligible speech. It is closer to an organizing intelligence just like Proverb's Wisdom. As John says, the Word was with God and was God( John 1,1-2). The Word was there in the beginning and all things, all life, all light came into being through the Word (John 3-5). Just like Wisdom, the Word was not only a witness to creation, but a co-participant in creation. Indeed, John goes just a little farther than Proverbs and, not only identifies the Word as God, but declares that the Word became human in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Messiah. So, the Creator becomes part of His Creation as part of a dramatic effort to redeem it from its present state where humanity's weaknesses and their consequences reign supreme.

Now, that is mind-blowing. One day, over two thousand years ago, the Wisdom of God, that 'master-worker' in creation, who created all things we know and see, entered into His creation as a helpless and vulnerable baby in a provincial backwater in the Roman Empire to a mere carpenter and his wife. The divine becomes mundane, in the true sense of the word. But why?

That reason, I think, is addressed by the request in this antiphon- to teach us in the path of knowledge. Well, prudentia, is the what the Latin says which is a richer word than the rather flat translation of 'knowledge' we have here. What the divine wisdom teaches us isn't some kind of database of useful information nor is it mere trivia. It is what Proverbs means by Wisdom: a sense of one's real place in the universe. We are the created, we are not God. Any suggestion that we control our destiny, that we are in charge of our life is, at best, delusional when we are faced with the Creator God. As God asked Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" (Job 38,1). Wisdom, true wisdom, tells us that we are not the defining intelligence in this world, God is because God created the heavens and earth. And Wisdom, the Logos, was right there in and with God.

An essential beginning step to faith is the startling realization that we are not, in fact, God. We have to begin with realizing that, whatever else is true, that we are not the centre of the universe, nor are we masters of it. That is a humbling, but necessary realization for us to make in these early days of the 21st century. All around us, voices tell us that we, each one of us, are the most important beings in the world. Wisdom, true wisdom, whispers to us that we are not gods, but, rather, we should look to the true God, the Creator of this exciting and beautiful universe. Only after we've realized this, can we find the path of wisdom which shows us how we can contribute to the world around us and, more importantly, to the redeemed world to come.

Veni, O Sapientia,

quae hic disponis omnia,
Veni, viam prudentiae
ut doceas et gloriae.

O Come, Thou Wisdom,

from on high,and order all things far and nigh;

to us the path of knowledge show,

and teach us in her ways to go.

Peace,
Phil

'O-Antiphon' Series- Coming December 17th

The last few days I've been thinking about the leadup to Christmas and how, amid the busyness of getting ready for the season, I can also keep in the Advent mode of reflection and contemplation. Then, it came to me: what about a series on the 'O-Antiphons' in the last week before Christmas. If anything would remind me of the expectation of Christ's coming, the 'O-Antiphons' should.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with them, the O-Antiphons are seven short verses sung before the Magnificat either in Evening Prayer or during Eucharist between December 17th and December 23rd. Each of the 'O-Antiphons' invokes the coming of the Messiah, beginning with a biblical title and ending with a petition. They are most popularly known in the Advent hymn "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel", even if the first verse really is the last in the series. This is the form in which I first encountered them and which I continue to cherish them. Yet, they are a staple of the monastic Advent experience (as mentioned by, among others, Kathleen Norris in her book, Cloister Walk) and they call us to a very different kind of preparation for the Christmas season.

So, what I propose to do is to post each antiphon on their appropriate day and to make a brief comment or two on them. My intention is not to be too tiresomely academic, but, rather, look for the spiritual meaning of each of the antiphons. So, I hope you'll join me for the O-Antiphon series starting on Friday.

Peace,
Phil

Advent: Sit down, Shut Up and Wait

Happy New Year! Happy Advent!

So, we're back to the top of the Christian calendar, Advent- that time of waiting before we again celebrate the coming of God as one of us. So, we wait as people waited over two thousand years ago, but, as our priest pointed out this week, we wait with three Advents in mind. We remember the waiting of the first Advent, the one that ended with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem- the long-expected Messiah. We, also, wait now for the Advent of Jesus into our lives now in the world we live in and the people we live with. We, also, wait for the Advent to come- the coming of Jesus who will come to set this messed up world right.

That's a lot of waiting and, in our highly technological society, that can be quite difficult As a recent article on gratitude I read pointed out, we don't manage waiting well. If our bus or train or plane is late even a few minutes, we become angry at the inconvenience. Why, if our computer takes more than a few seconds to process some massive program, we want to hurl the whole thing, monitor and all, out the window in our rage at the inconvenience of it all!! We rarely do, but, instead, we snarl at whoever has the misfortune of asking what is wrong? That we forget the wonders that our technologies have given us is only a very small part of the problem. The problem really is with time.

So, what is the problem? We often say that there isn't enough time in the day. That is, of course, a lie we tell ourselves. There is enough time, if we could just decide how best to spend it. There are some many things competing for our attention these days- shopping, family obligations, professional obligations, socializing and much, much more. The competitive demands on our time are increasing with the pace of life and, ironically, labour saving devices such as e-mail or computers or the ever-ubitquitious Blackberries don't actually save time, they suck out more time. The price for a little slice of our time keeps going up, but we are so distracted that the value of it is plummeting. Our life is just one big inflationary spiral.

So, Advent. Advent talks about another time in which time spent waiting is time well-spent because it is time waiting what are the most important transformations in human history: the coming of God as man to show us what reality is actually like and how we should live in it, the coming of God into our lives to give us the power and the grace to act on it here and now in this imperfect, in-between time and the promise of another coming of God to permanently return us and this world to the way we were intended to be. What could be more important? What could be more worth our time than to sit down, shut up and wait.

Peace,
Phil

A Miscellany of Thoughts

It has, of course, been a long time since I've written for pretty much the usual reasons. Busyness and fatigue. All of which raise real questions about the long-term viability of this blog, but I did want to write some more, if only to get Glenn Beck off my first page. Yes, I know, I gave him a place in the title, but, even if I had a point, it gets irksome and I sure as heck don't want that to be a last entry.

So, what I decided to put on offer was a just an assortment of my jumbled thoughts this week. I have plans for a book review and maybe a couple other posts over the next few weeks, but I haven't really formulated in my head what I wanted to say. So, instead, this is what we get.

So, first, thoughts about John Cassian. Through much of October, I spent much of my transit time reading through the Conferences of John Cassian, as ably translated by Boniface Ramsey. This is, of course, St. Benedict's fault, who recommends John Cassian's Institutes (I read these in the summer) and the Conferences as supplementary reading in his Rule. In both works, Cassian tries to take what he learned among the Desert Fathers in Egypt and apply them to his cenobitic monastery in the south of France. Ultimately, what is attractive in this work is the essential grace of John Cassian and of the Desert Fathers; a grace which is rather surprising to many because of the reputation of ascetics in general, who are seen as rather grumpy or insane or both. What comes out in these writings is more humility and just sheer good sense about the spiritual life and the struggles implicit in a serious spiritual discipline. Yes, there are sections which caused me to grind my teeth (the conference on the Abba Theonis, who abandoned his wife, got very much on my nerves- this would make a good post, so I will try to follow up on this), but there is more to learn from John Cassian than to dismiss. And Ramsey's translations are clear and readable which isn't always true of translations of the the Fathers.

Second, another useful find- the DVD Be Still, which was quite literally dropped into my mailbox by a friend (it took a week or so to get confirmation which one, but there was little doubt- thanks, Judy, if you read this). I found this a very useful video, especially because, when it came, I was up to my eyeballs in work, but I was sufficiently intrigued by the cast of commentators- Dr. Henry Cloud, Richard Foster, Max Lucado, Beth Moore, Dallas Willard-; all luminaries of the evangelical scene these days. This fits in with the increased interest of many Evangelicals in contemplative prayer and it offers a really useful set of discussions around silence and reflective prayer. Normally, I really hate books and videos which talk about prayer, for reasons that I've ranted on before. Yet, this one was prayerful and practical. And it inspired me to get back to this, at least, in my early morning prayer. And that has made all the difference in this very busy and stressful few weeks. In fact, I think a refresher may be in order this week as reports cards are due.....

Third, a quote from Stanley Hauerwas' Peaceable Kingdom, which I'm re-reading slowly over breakfast (bracing, I can tell you at 6:15 in the morning):

Our initiation into a story as well as the ability to sustain ourselves in that story depends on others who have gone before and those who continue to travel with us. "What I am, therefore, is in key part what I inherit, a specific past that is present to some degree in my present. I find myself part of a history and that is generally to say, whether I like it or not, whether I recognize it or not, one of the bearers of a tradition" [from Alaisdair MacIntyre). Given this, the crucial question becomes whether the tradition is more or less truthful. At least one of the conditions of a truthful tradition is its own recognition that it is not final, that it needs to grow and change if it is to adequately shape our futures in a faithful manner" (p.45)

I quote this because, in many ways, this explains my attitude to tradition and to history in a much more concise and clear way than I've every managed to say it. Much of my project as a historians has been to contribute to what I believe to be a truthful and living tradition, that of a broadly orthodox Christianity (in itself, also worth a blog entry to explain- not that I haven't tried already). Whatever else I decide to do with my life, I maintain an interest in explaining and interpreting this tradition, so this passage reminded me of what set me off in this direction over ten years ago.

My last thought is related to this topic. I've been reading Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity. The First Three Thousand Years. In a bit of a fluke, I found Christianity in one of the college libraries at U of T which was a surprise, given that it hasn't been out much more than six months. I had read MacCulloch's Reformation, which was an excellent book and I read my blogging friend, Jim's glowing review of MacCulloch's new book. I'm about a third of the way in and I'm less glowing. To be fair, of course, this shouldn't be surprising because the sections on the ancient world and Christianity are hardly MacCulloch's area of speciality and they are mine, so some discontent on my part is likely in this part. Still, I found it off putting and significant that the Greek background comes before the Judaic because, like many church historians, priority is frequently given to Greek philosophy and thought over the Judaic inheritance (to some degree rightly, the early and patristic church was notorious for this as well). Similarly, the confident and, occasionally, smug sense of superiority of modern biblical exegetical techniques gets on my nerves and I did grind my teeth a couple of times on the issue of 'censorship' in early Christianity (again, a complex enough topic which deserves more discussion). In many ways, these flaws are the flaws which one would expect in such a broad survey. MacCulloch makes no bones about being depending on the secondary literature for periods about which he is less familiar and that is fair enough. So, really, my problem with the tone of some of these sections is less a problem with MacCulloch than with modern scholarship on the topic. And, the sheer breadth of this history and the quality of the writing still make this a good book. Don't mind me, if I grind my teeth occasionally.

So, those are my thoughts this week. Hopefully, I'll make better sense next week.

Peace,
Phil

Glenn Beck and Civic Religion

Normally, I wouldn't give Glenn Beck the time of day in a blog entry. I wouldn't because he really is the television equivalent of a shock-jock and I'm not really interested in ill-informed polemic. However, I was reading an article from Christianity Today talking about Beck's Washington D.C. rally and come across a discussion of Beck's 'Black Robe Regiment' This 'regiment' consists of 240 clergymen of various strips, mostly evangelicals, who support Beck's call to defend liberty in America. The article goes on to quote a Sojourner's blogger, Valerie Elverton Dixon, who identified this venture as an exercise of civil religion which she saw as a form of idolatry. Strong language that, but, perhaps, accurate. I, too, worry about civil religion because of what we've seen in history.

Of course, civil religion meant, to Christians, the traditional pagan rites which so permeated Greek and Roman society. These rites sought to appease gods who were generally not well-disposed to humans, so had to be made happy by regular sacrifices. If one didn't appease these gods, the result was, potentially, disaster to the city and to its citizens. This perceived risk was a large part of why Christianity was so threatening to the Romans and Greeks. Christianity took away people who should be, before anything else, keeping the gods happy and the city safe. So, should any disaster of whatever magnitude happen, it was natural to blame Christians because they weren't doing their duty by their ancestral gods; thus, explaining the hostility of the gods who brought about the disaster in the first place. The world was simply too dangerous to fool around which such things as new religions which suppress the worship of gods who had, at least, tolerated the existence of human communities for centuries.

Add to this, the practice of Emperor worship which began in the East shortly before the birth of Christ and expanded in the centuries following. Here was a much more blatant connection of the state and religion, so the stakes for not sacrificing reflected very badly on one's loyalty to the Roman state.


Of course, there were skeptics in the Greek and Roman period; individuals who didn't really believe in the traditional cults or even Emperor worship. Sometimes these critics might even question the existence of said gods, but, with only a few exceptions, very few of them refused to pay the standard attention to the civil cults. A large part of this was prudence, but, also, loyalty to one's community seemed to dictate participating in the communities religious festivals and rites as a form of loyalty to the city/state. One might seek to explain the mythological stories behind these cults using allegorical and other interpretive methods, but one still participated, if only to foster communal feelings.


These approaches to civil religion, of course, are easy to dismiss as mere superstition or hypocrisy. Yet, Christianity's record as a civil religion is not necessarily free from problems. In my last entry, I referred to the legacy of Constantinianism which, in many ways, represents the conversion of Christianity into a civil religion. This is particularly striking under Constantine, who openly supported Christianity, but still issued coinage which had blatantly pagan symbols on it and who put off his baptism (and, thus, membership in the Church) until the last minute in order to avoid post-baptismal sin. It remains influential for centuries as it became, first, politically, then socially expedient to claim Christian status in the Empire. The depth of these 'conversions' can be questioned, but their ubiquity cannot.

Now, don't get me wrong. The Constantinian impulse was, in the first place, a reaction to a unique theological conundrum at the time of Constantine; namely, how does the Church deal with a Emperor who was sympathetic to its aims. Understandably, after the persecutions of the late 3rd century and the 'Great Persecution' in the early 4th century, Christians were disinclined to reject the overtures coming from Constantine. So, it became necessarily to try to define a Christianity which could serve both as Gospel and as a civil religion.

The problem with this impulse is that it tends to lead to a flattening out of our hope that Christ will return to set the Creation to rights and put an end to death) and the identification of those hopes with the fortunes of the state. Thus, it should come as no surprise that Eusebius of Caesarea, the first and, arguably most influential theorist of Constantinianism saw Constantine's reign as a kind of foretaste of Christ's reign on Earth. Given how hard pressed the Church was during the 'Great Persecution', I think we can all sympathize with the sheer relief experienced by the Christians of the Roman Emperor when Constantine came along and, not only declared toleration for Christians, but even began to favour them. Yet, in their relief, one wonders if Eusebius et al realised that they were created divided loyalties by identifying Constantine too closely with Christ and the fulfillment of the hopes of the Gospel.


And, so, one wonders about this latest exercise in civil religion. Does the 'Black Robe Regiment' necessarily understand that what is at stake is their identification as the Church as distinguished from their loyalty to the American state? Does their loyalty as Americans trump their Christian hope? I trust not, but the blurriness of the picture created by this 'regiment' should cause us all to worry. Whose Second Coming are we waiting for? Christ's or America's?

Peace,
Phil

The Constantinian Blues:Or Did you hear the one about the Greek, the Syrian and the Texan?

One of the benefits of reading several books at the same time ( a habit, I know, that I was fretting over last week) is that it has a way of generating ideas for writing. I am, it seems, a bit of a lateral thinker, so it makes sense that it just doesn't work for me to read only one thing at the same time. That, certainly, explains how I operated in university. I like to make connections between ideas or books or disciplines that don't seem to have much to do with each other at first glance. Sometimes, mind you, they still .

So, what do you Ephrem the Syrian's Hymns Against Julian meets Stanley Hauerwas' autobiography, Hannah's Child? That's right, a reflection on Constantianism. So, what is Constantinianism? According to Hauerwas (among others), it is a mode of thought about the state and the church which isn't working, if it ever really worked. Constantinianism is the alliance between the state and the church which has characterized the Christian religion for just over nineteen hundred years. It began with the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, which established toleration for Christianity and continued in Constantine's lifetime until two important developments happened. Christianity achieved a favoured status among religions in the Empire, enjoying tax benefits and imperial money and patronage in abundance. Second, the church and the state had taken the opening steps towards a symbiotic union which would see the state and the church working together to build a Christian society. While those who favour the Constantinian alliance rightly point out that the union did cause the state to be come more Christian and humane in many respects, it is equally true that the church's influence on morals was tenuous at best and it frequently had to underwrite actions which were not in accord to what Jesus taught us in the Bible. In fact, much of the criticism of the church in history is based on these compromises and on the ways that religion underwrote such atrocities as the persecution of heretics, the Crusades and onwards to include the Holocaust.

So, how does Ephrem the Syrian's Hymns Against Julian fit into this? These hymns were written in the summer of 363 AD, while the Emperor Julian was engaged in a particularly strenuous and, arguably, misguided campaign against the Persians which would, ultimately, lead to his death during the retreat of his army. Ultimately, the new Emperor, Jovian, had to surrender the fortress city of Nisibis (the hometown of Ephrem which had held off the Persians in three sieges between the 340s and the 350s) in order to convince the Persians to let him and his battered army return to Roman territory. These hymns begin with forbodding at the coming of the apostate emperor and end in a mingled joy at the death of Julian and mourning at the loss of Nisibis.


So, how does Constantinianism fit into these hymns?

First, the figure of Julian himself is an interesting demonstration of the spiritual impact of this Constantinian alliance between the Church and imperial politics. . Julian was the cousin of the previous emperor, Constantius II, who ruled in the East after his father's, Constantine I, death in 337 AD. In the early months of Constantius' rule, Julian's father, uncle and cousins were massacred in what looks like a dynastic feud. Julian and his older brother, Gallus, were the only survivors from this family, largely because they were considered too young to be threats. They were virtually imprisoned on an imperial estate under the care of an Arian bishop. The two boys were given good classical educations and learned how to dissemble their thoughts, but, certainly, Julian never forgot his captivity at the hands of a Christian bishop.

The incongruity of this scenario, I think, comes out in the telling. A Christian emperor either ordered or, as other sources suggest, permitted a mass murder of his relatives as a way of securing his succession to power. One doesn't have to be a Hauerwasian pacifist to see the accommodation that the Church would have to do to countenance that. Yet, there is no evidence that the Church protested this action or called Constantius or the perpetrators to account. Indeed, the fact that the two surviving royal princes were handed over to a bishop (albeit a heretical one) suggests that, far from criticizing the action, the Church tacitly condoned it and was complicit after the fact in it. Only a desire to keep the state-Church accommodation could explain this set of actions and it is perhaps unsurprising that Julian saw the distinction between the teachings of Jesus and the actions of his powerful followers. So, the question needs to be asked: did this early experience with the 'Christian' power circles around Constantius play a role in inoculating Julian from Christian faith? Was this persecutor the result of internal contradictions within Constantinianism itself? If so, Julian's life presents an early warning about the dangers of the Constantinian accommodation between Church and State; namely that the Church finds it difficult to be the Church because of its obligations to its more powerful partner, the state.

The second point of Constantinian tension in these hymns is the story it tells. One of the interesting things about Constantinianism is that it presents a coherent story; a coherent historical narrative. In itself, this is a good thing. As Hauerwas would say, we tend to be defined by the stories we tell about ourselves So, what is the story that Constantinianism tells us? In particular, what is the story that Ephrem tells us, within the context of the broader Constantinian narrative?

While this story portrays the Church as recovering from the initial shock that the withdrawal of imperial favour and the shifting of that favour to paganism (and anyone else that wasn't officially Christian- heretics, Jews) so that it was the only real opposition to Julian (Hymn 1) , it, also, shows the effect on the membership of the Church that this alliance had. In Hymn 2, we find an admission that many Christians fell away from the Church and, I think, we have to ask why. Is it because the tax and legal concessions drew people to the Church to enjoy those exemptions, so when they were lost, it wasn't worthwhile? Is it because, while it wasn't a requirement for high political office, being a Christian was certainly an asset in the ambitious aspiring young man, so when imperial favour shifted elsewhere, many followed? Is it the magnificence paid for by imperial generosity which convinced one that this was the religion to follow, but, once it was lost, Christianity wasn't worth it? That is, were social and economic reasons more important that faith in Christ? Not for all. Ephrem speaks of penitents and those who follow the pagans (Hymn 2) and the bitter-sweet paradox that the angels (literally, in Syriac, the Watchers) rejoiced for the faith of the former and lamented the apostasy of the latter (Hymn 1). Yet, it is hard to escape the conclusion that fifty years of Constantinianism seems to have produced an incomplete reformation of the faith and courage of the Christian people of the Roman Empire.



To some extent, this criticism is a little unfair. The same flight of the faint-hearts and insincere happened with each of the persecutions Christianity experienced in the Roman period. That this happened is just indicative of the rhythms of enervating prosperity and invigorating tribulation which is a constant tension in church history. Yet, if we consider the job of the Church to teach how to be a Christian, one might ask about the kind of mass failures represented by Julian's short reign. Given that the Church is not a huddle of the pure and holy, but a mixed church of sinners, saints and everyone in between, isn't apostasy a reflection that we haven't taught the Christian virtues in such a way that they are more compelling than the political advantages of being a Christian? Was this an early warning that the Constantinian church may not have been as effective at making Christians than the numbers would have suggested?

The problem of Nisibis represents a third issue- the relationship of the Prince of Peace to the fortunes of Roman-Persian border wars (or, really, any wars). Ephrem is pretty clear about what he thinks about this. Nisibis successfully resisted the Persians over three sieges because of Christ's defence; the last of which was a miraculous flood which drove off a major Persian assault just as it was on the brink of success (Hymn 2). However, under Julian, a idol was established in the city and, as a result, after the deluded Julian died, the city was tamely handed over to the Persian king (Hymn 2 and 3). This incident of idolatry caused the city to be forsaken and handed over to the Persians; a fact recognized by the Persian king when he destroyed the idolatrous altar when he took over the city, but preserved the church of Nisibis (Hymn 2). It also seemed to be a factor when he timed his take-over of Nisibis for when Julian's funeral cortege passed by Nisibis. God forsook Nisibis because Nisibis forsook Him.

Again, we can see the Constantinian narrative in this story, can't we? As long as there was a faithful emperor or, in this case, a faithful city, all would be well for the Christian Roman Empire. This, of course, reflect Old Testament history as well, so Ephrem comes by the narrative honestly. It explains how such a 'God-favoured' city should be surrendered which was the real motive behind the last two Hymns Against Julian. It was a bargaining chip, albeit an unusually strategically important and sentimental one. We find ourselves with the paradox of the Constantinian state abandoning a city so clearly favoured by God that He intervened dramatically to save it which raises the question: does God's favour trump imperial diplomacy? If it doesn't, what happened to remove God's favour then? Here, it was the sin of idolatry.

Again, we see the state and the church working closely together, both in encouraging resistance to the Persians and, also, in reconciling the people of Nisibis to the forced surrender of their town. The resistance to the Persians was easier because they weren't Christians. Indeed, at times, they were persecutors of Christians. Yet, again, what does the Prince of Peace have to do with war or, more specifically, with the border wars of the Romans and Persians? If Hauerwas (and Yoder) is right that pacifism is the only politics which makes sense for Christians, how do we respond to the use of the Christianity to underwrite the state's, any state's wars? How do we react to Ephrem's explanation of the surrender of Ephrem? Was this, really, a truthful narrative?


In many ways, this Hauerwasian reading of Ephrem is a deeply unfair one. It is always easier to critique the stories of another place and time, not only because of our distance to the issues, but also because the objects of our critiques are conveniently dead and, so, can't talk back. Yet, the point of this exercise is to say that we have to be careful about the stories that we, the Church, tell ourselves. Ephrem wasn't a fool or a politician. He was an individual believer trying to make sense of his times and his life as a Christian the best way he knew. What this reflection on his Constantinian assumptions is meant to do isn't to belittle him, but rather call us to ask the same questions about our own stories. Are they true? Are we blind to our own culture's sins? Those are the really relevant questions.


Peace,
Phil

Summer

I'm back from vacation and starting to settle into preparations for the coming school year, so I thought I'd get back to writing again. That isn't necessarily easy because I've really been feeling like I don't have much to say these days, despite the rather frantic pace of my reading. I'm doing my usual summer bonanza of reading, so I'm currently reading five books, plus trying to read some Greek New Testament and working through my patristics reader. That is, in the spaces between taking care of my son and, well, sleeping. I sometimes suspect that reading is an escape from praying for me, so I'm really trying to cut it back. Not with much success, of course.

I think what is most on my mind, however, is what I've been learning over the last year or so about the Desert Fathers- the ascetics active in Egypt especially, but also Syria and Palestine. A combination of books have commended them: Rowan William's Where God Happens (which I read in a book study at church a couple of years ago), Kathleen Norris' Acedia and Christopher Hall's long-awaiting Worshipping with the Church Fathers. On the face of it, these men and women seem far removed from the life of anyone in the modern urban world which I inhabit. After all, did they not flee their own cities? How are they relevant in the here and now?

Good questions, but I admit that, reading them, I wonder sometimes about us. There have been times over the last few months when I've been walking in the very upscale stretch of Bloor Street (Toronto) or in Yorkdale Mall, when I've wonder what it is that we're doing to ourselves and each other. The site of so much abundance and, paradoxically, so much poverty perplexes me sometimes. The abundance is, of course, easy to see in both the stores, the shoppers and the advertising, ever eager to spur us on to more consumption. The poverty is more subtle, but, nonetheless, real. The very fact that advertising works suggests that poverty because, as one of the author's I've read in the last few months has noted, advertising isn't really about getting things, but desiring things. Incessant and unfulfilled desire seems an excellent description of poverty to me; at least, poverty of the spiritual variety. Our malls and shopping areas are, really, temples to consumption as well as our equivalents to marketplaces. While I have no problem with marketplaces (they are enormously practical things to have in a city), I do have a problem with temples to consumption for the obvious reasons.

I also wonder about me. That is, one of the things that I've really taken to heart is a desert story in which an elder shows up at a meeting of monks who were deliberating the punishment of a wayward brother. The elder puts on a backpack of sand on his back and holds out a basket with a little sand in it in front of him. When asked what this was all about, the elder said that he is chasing his brother's sins, while his sins (in the backpack) are chasing him. The monks take the elders point, break up the meeting and don't judge the wayward brother.

That image keeps coming into my mind because it is an excellent reminder about our self-righteousness. It is easier to see the sins of others and not our own sins. It is easier to judge someone else, than to look to themselves for their own shortcomings. This is what G.K. Chesterton meant, I think, when he answered a invitation to write an essay on what was wrong with the world with a terse and eloquent "I am". And, so am I.

Of course, the Christian life doesn't just stop there. What the Desert Fathers (and Mothers) were good at was striping away one's own self-delusions which prevent us from seeing God. This made them subtle psychologists (explaining their popularity in our psychologized and individualistic society), but, also, admirable spiritual guides, even in their imperfections. They saw human failings not as something to justify flagellation, self-inflicted or otherwise, but as something to be expected and, more importantly, to be overcome with God's help. While some desert monks performed strange and, occasionally, repellent ascetic practices, the wisdom of the Desert Fathers was firmly against these demonstrations partly because they were a demonstration of pride and competition in some, partly because they weakened the body and soul of many. There was enough challenge to fast, to pray, to work and to live in solitude day in and day out.

Now, I don't perform these ascetic practices in my life because my life isn't built that way. I am a husband and a father, a teacher and a churchman, so there are a lot of busyness that I'm involved in which makes the desert life impossible. Yet, I had a reminder today about the similarities in the vowed life of a monk and my own vowed life as a husband and father. A colleague of mine had asked for a French translation for 'mid-life crisis' and she, eventually, came up with demon apres midi- the noon-day demon. I laughed, of course, not only because my colleague is hardly fond of religion, but, also, because of the aptness of the phrase. The noon-day demon was used among the desert monastics as a description of acedia- that restless funk that one gets into when one is engaged in routine things and the day begins to stretch on for an eternity. So much of our modern mythology around the 'mid-life' crisis resembles the noon-day demon run amok that it is entirely appropriate that the French use this synonym to acedia to describe it. How many times have we heard someone justify some rash move (an affair, a new sports car, taking up a dangerous sport) as being a way to feel alive again? Acedia, right?

That leads me back to my opening comments, wondering if my reading frenzy is really about avoiding the prayer and the monotony of the occasional glimpses of solitude that I get from day to day. It is difficult to know how far this is my passion for learning or my tendency to want to keep busy and in control. The Desert Fathers are teaching me to suspect what I'm doing and stop worrying about what others are up to. That is a hard enough lesson for me right now.

Peace,
Phil

Book Review: Laura Salah Nasrallah, Christian Response to Roman Art and Architecture. The Second Century Church Amid the Space of Empire

Yes, another book review. Summer is very much my time for reading, even this year where I'm so busy with a temporary job this month. I came upon the book I'm reviewing in this entry, Laura Salah Nasrallah's Christian Response to Roman Art and Architecture. The Second Century Church Amid the Space of Empire, quite by accident. I was doing a search on Greek theatres and found this in my list of hits. Goodness only knows how. Besides the general link to art and architecture, there is really very little about the ancient theatre in this book. So, chalk it up to the vagaries of library database searches or to chance for a lucky find.

Nasrallah's book fascinated me when I found it because of the promise of linking patristics, classics and art/archaeology- my three main intellectual interests. What is more, Nasrallah attempts to use these three unusually distinct disciplines to get a more complete picture of what it meant to be an Christian intellectual in the 2nd century. Central to Nasrallah's project are two major insights: first, that Christian writers of any age should not be removed from their intellectual environments and, second, that they were certainly not removed from their physical environment. These insights may seem obvious to my readers, but, given how classicists tend to deal with Christianity (which can be described as a scarcely veiled contempt, at best), they are potentially revolutionary for our understanding of the Fathers, if enough people bothered to learn enough languages, history, literature and theology to employ this type of analysis. That is becoming less and less common

The second century apologists are Nasrallah's main concern. Her main argument is that we have to understand them, first of all, within the literary-intellectual currents of their time. That means, for apologists like Justin Martyr, Tatian, Athenagoras, we need to understand the 'Second Sophistic' that (Roman-sponsored?) revival of self-conscious Hellenism in the 2nd century AD. This revival included an increased focus on rhetoric, grammar (especially Atticizing the language) and, ultimately, on philosophy. Nasrallah argues that the Christian apologists participated in the debates about the true paidaia (education, but more than education), philosophy and power, albeit from a critical stance. They, implicitly, questioned the Greek paidaia and, through it,the philosophical status of the Roman emperors because of their inherent injustice and their unwillingness to accept the 'true philosophy' of Christ. She also identifies a crisis of representation which goes along with these criticisms and blurred the boundaries between human and the divine. There is more to this discussion than my rather glib summary, but this is enough to change our view of the apologists to narrow-minded partisans of religion to participants in second-century 'culture wars'. I hesitate on using the term 'culture wars' here because of the risk of anachronism implied with our own rather different ones, but I find the idea of connecting the apologists to the intellectual currents of the time fascinating.

Possibly the most original aspect of this book, however, rests in Nasrallah's attempts to link the debates in which these apologists participated to the physical surroundings they found themselves in. In each chapter, Nasrallah links a given apologist, a non-Christian writer and a building/artifact together in order to explore an aspect of the debates mentioned above. So, for instance, we see Athenagoras' apology, Dio Cassius account of the emperor Commodus, and the statue of Commodus as Heracles (now in the Capitoline Museum) into a discussion of the hazy boundary between human and divine which Athenagoras critisized as a failure of philosophy by even Roman emperors. These comparisons are bold, but they usually work quite well. I admit that my 'inner historian' did grind his teeth at a few of the linkages of clearly anachronistic combinations. For example, the linkage of the Acts of the Apostles with Panhellion of Hadrian really annoyed me. Mind you, Nasrallah's point that Paul in the Acts of the Apostles was creating a kind of league of Christian churches which was similar to Hadrian's much later Hellenic leagues (to organize the imperial cult among other things?) is still well-taken and an interesting insight in the religious-political sphere.

Despite minor quibbles, this book deserves wide reading by those interested in early Christianity and by classicists. It bridges a divide which desperately needs a bridge and provides interesting insights into Christian and non-Christian intellectual world of the 2nd century.

Peace,

Phil

Book Review: Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks and a Writer's Life

In my last entry, I promised a review of Kathleen Norris' new(ish) book, Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks and A Writer's Life. So, here it is.

I have to start with an admission. I am a fan of Kathleen Norris and have been for about ten years or so. It was my wife who introduced me to her writing, just before we got married. I fell in love with Norris' blend of Benedictine spirituality, married experience and introspection so much so that, when I have problems sleeping (an annoying frequent experience for me), it is, most often, Kathleen Norris' prose to which I turn to calm down, let go of whatever I'm worrying about and re-connect to the reality that God has it all under control.

Acedia and Me is an excellent addition to Norris' better known books, Dakota, Cloister Walk and Amazing Grace. It focuses on the 'bad thought' of acedia- a kind of restless apathy, called in monastic literature, the 'noonday demon'. It is that feeling that I think we all get from time to time that what we are doing is completely pointless and which makes us so restless that we can't sit, we can't sleep and we can't work. All we can do is to sit an contemplate how pointless anything we can do is. Norris examines the idea of acedia, but also looks at in her own life, marriage and spirituality (all of which are closely intertwined). She considers acedia's relationship with depression, of course, but with a sense of balance which places her in between the extremes of modern thought which medicates any bad feeling and which rejects all medication- the pro-psychiatry and anti-psychiatry positions, if you like.

As she usually does, Norris weaves in a goodly amount of autobiography as she traces the impact of her life-long battle with acedia on her life. The details of the autobiographical elements aren't necessarily new to those who have read her new books, although there are more specifics at times, partly because there is less need to circumspection now that many people in Norris' stories have died, including her husband. This is one of my favourite parts of Norris' writings in that she takes the spiritual things she is discussing and traces them out in real life, in her real life. This makes them more real because it is all too easy to write about spirituality in a spirit of abstraction which leads directly to irrelevance and ennui in the reading. Norris' insights hit home because they are the result of a happy marriage of learning and experience without which no spiritual truth can be expressed.

Here the spiritual truth is one that needs expressing, but has somehow disappeared off the radar for centuries. We live in an age so filled with acedia that it seems to be part of the air we breathe. We even raise it to an art-form or, at least, we seem to make acedia a condition of being an artist/writer. I can see it in people around me. I can see it in my students. I can see it in my colleagues, friends and acquaintances. I can see it in myself. That voice which tells me that all of what I'm doing doesn't matter is the 'bad thought' of acedia.

It is ironic that we, sophisticated and modern as we think we all are, have to turn to the monastic tradition to figure out what to do with this 'bad thought'. Of course, the very tedium of the monastic life- the same pattern of worship, study and work day in and day out can be wearing, I'm sure- spawns it. The sanity of the monastic tradition's response makes for a refreshing alternative to our psychologizing of acedia. On one hand, we're told to stay in our cells and stop wandering about looking for the thing that will distract us from the acedia we are experiencing. We have to, in effect, get on to the life we have, not wander around for the life we don't. On the other hand, we're told that acedia is serious and that, if it is prolonged, we have to look for causes including spiritual direction and, now, psychiatry. We use the help we can get.

For me, Acedia and Me didn't show or tell me anything new, but it brought into focus a lot of disparate thoughts I've had over the years. Norris' blend of acute perception, contemplation and insights from the Desert Fathers makes for compelling spiritual reading. I know I'll be coming back to it regularly, along with her other books.

Peace,
Phil

Quotidian Mysticism

It's been a while since I last posted, mostly because the quotidean busyness is so crazy that I haven't had time to do much else, but work, family time and sleep. But, I came across this quote which gives me the hope that, perhaps, I can still be in touch with what is real, even amid the everyday (thus, quotidian) hustle and bustle. Not there yet, but hope is always good:

"Perhaps our most valuable mystics are those of the quotidian, people who do not contemplate holiness in isolation, or devote themselves to the pursuit of spiritual arcana accessible only to a select few, or reach their illumination in serene silence. Instead, they search for God in a life filled with noise, the demands of other people, and the duties that can submerge the self. They may be young parents juggling child-rearing and making a living, or nuns in a small community who have to wear three or four hats because there are more jobs than people to fill them. And they may find whatever spiritual strength they have arises out of weariness and frustration."

Kathleen Norris, Acedia And Me: A Marriage, Monks and A Writer's Life

A review of this superb book will follow after next week (my traditional, semi-annual mark-like-a-crazed-person event). Kathleen Norris has always been an inspiration to me and led me to Benedictine spirituality as a way of grounding myself in the now and living a vowed life (in my case and hers, a marriage) in real time. This little paragraph is at the root of what I've learned from her and at the root of the way I try to live my life. So, I can only say, for now, Amen and Amen.

Peace,
Phil

Speaking of Social Justice: William Cavanaugh, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire

I haven't been doing a lot of book reviews over the last year, so I thought I'd do a brief one on a book that had been in my head while I was writing the last entry of St. John Chrysosthom: William Cavanaugh, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. For those who haven't read any Cavanaugh, you should. He's a relatively new Catholic theologian who has been doing some interesting work, especially on the Eucharist and its interconnection with ethics/politics. His first book is the oddly titled, Torture and Eucharist, which discusses Catholicism in Pinochet's Chile, discussing the potential of the Church to serve as the only permissible alternative society to the state and why so many Chilean Catholics failed to take advantage of that alternative and underwrote the Pinochet regime. I'm not doing justice to it, of course, but it is a fascinating study.

In Being Consumed, Cavanaugh considers what the legitimate Christian response to the current economy should be. This volume is designed to be accessible and is clear and concise. It is, also, pleasantly removed from the conventional questions of right vs left, capitalist vs socialist dichotomies which bedevil Christian responses on economic questions. Cavanaugh is interested in developing a Christian (Catholic) response to such things as the market, materialism, globalization and scarcity. His responses are surprising sometimes, but compelling.

What particularly struck me in Cavanaugh's discussion is his point that, really, our problem isn't so much with materialism (that is, the stuff!) as with distorted desire. That is, he argues, rightly, I think, that the consumer economy is designed to encourage desire for things, not so much the things themselves. Indeed, the value of the things we buy isn't so much a factor of acquiring more and more things as to satisfy the desire for what those things represent: status, power etc. In that sense, we are actually surprising detached from the physical realm so much so he sees a comparison with asceticism in its rejection of the physical. We simply don't know (or, in many cases, care) who produces our products or how they are produced or, even, what they are produced from. We are detached from this because the physicality of the product is simply not the point- consumption is. It is an interesting point and explains much about the compulsive over-consumption that we in the West are notorious for.

Cavanaugh's argument doesn't just criticize our consumer economy, but it suggests that the Christian response is, ironically, greater attachment. That is, community and, particularly, that sacramental expression of community, Eucharist, gives us the valuable clues for overcoming that almost Gnostic separation of matter and spirit. We are (or should be) connected to those who produce our foods or other products. We are (or should be) connected to our neighbour and to our own environment. We are (or should be) connected to each other through the anticipation of God's extravagant feast, the Eucharist.

In this analysis, Cavanaugh jumps over the much debated issues of free markets or globalization. He offers a coherent Christian view on the economy- one which we all need to consider. As Cavanaugh points out, we can't avoid being consumers. But we can seek to bring our consumption into line with what our faith teaches us.

Peace,
Phil

St. John Chrysosthom and Social Justice

It's been awhile since I've written on the blog. That is, of course, May and June for me. Events pile upon events as the school year ends, so most of my energy is spent just trying to keep my head above water. I'm managing that, but this year has been exceptionally busy, so I feel like I'm barely doing that. Still, I have a chance to write today and I'm taking it.

What has moved me to get back in front of the computer is social justice. There have been a number of convergences in my life over the last few weeks which has brought me back to social justice. My wife attended a Justice Camp all last week for her work and came home full of stories. I've been running presentations in my Civics classes about local charities. Then, stir in some St. John Chrysosthom and you'll see where I'm going with this.

Social justice in St. John Chryosthom is hardly a bit leap. He is particularly well known for his uncompromising attitude to the rich and influential members of his flock and his persistent condemnations of luxury and oppressive practices both in Antioch and, later, in Constantinople. No matter the context, St. John was unwilling to compromise in what he perceived as his healing of his rich congregants and, no doubt, this is a large part of the reason why he became so unpopular among the powerful and influential people who dominated the court as well as the ambitious and aggressive individuals which a powerful court will attract. Mind you, implying that the Empress is a Jezebel could hardly have helped St. John's cause.

This passage from Against the Opponents of the Monastic Life should serve as a case in point:

"It is not philosophy, my good man, but the failure to philosophize which destroys and corrupts everything. Who, tell me, really corrupts the present situation: those who live moderately and morally, or those who devise new and illicit modes of luxury? Those who try to possess everything, or those who are satisfied with what they have? Those who have phalanxes of servants and who parade around with a swarm of flatterers and parasites, or those who think that only one servant is enough for them (for I am not treating the height of philosophy, but only what is accessible to most people)? Those who love humanity, who are gentle and who have no need of the honour of the multitude, or those who demand honour from their fellow citizens more than any debt, who cause countless calamities for anyone who does not stand up in respect, greet them first, bow down and act like a slave in their presence? Those who practice obedience, or those who desire political positions and offices and who are willing to do and to suffer everything for this? Those who say that they are better than everyone else and who, therefore, think they can do and say all things, or those who count themselves among the least and who, therefore, reproach the irrational power of passions? Those who live in splendid houses and prepare richly laden tables, or those who desire nothing more than the necessary food and shelter? Those who carve out for themselves thousands of acres of land, or those who think it unnecessary to own even one little plot? Those who compile interest upon interest and pursue the unjust path of all commerce, or those who tear apart those unjust contracts and aid the needy out of their own resources? Those who reflect upon the worthlessness of human nature, or those who do not wish to see this and who with consummate arrogance reject he thought that they are mortal? Those who keep mistresses and wreck other people's marriages, or those who abstain even from their own wives"

I think you see what I mean. Here we have a moral critique of the upper classes of Antioch (in this case--this is an early work, after all) which is bracing applicable to our time. Antioch, after all, was one of the richest cities of the Empire- an imperial capital almost as much as Constantinople had become. It was an important trade center and a major administrative hub for both the civilian and military administration of the East. There were luxurious suburbs like Daphne and, also, I'm sure, slums of aching poverty. The social injustice of Antiochine society (indeed, of Roman) must have been all around St. John and it is part of what provoked him into these kinds of outbursts.

Yet, what would he say to us in the West? We are richer by far than the Romans ever dreamed to be. Even our working poor are rich in comparison with the Romans and, indeed, with the developing world today. There is so much geared towards acquisition and consumerism today that it has become the norm and, I think, we miss the distorted values which feeds into this. Even Christians are, like in St. John's day, infected by this almost compulsive need to succeed in this life and to measure that success by material gain and increases in status. A good dose of St. John reminds us about that compulsion and, hopefully, kicks us back to the weirdness of the consumized world around us.

There is no surprise that, amid the riches of St. John's Antioch, that monasticism flourished nor that there is a move to a 'new monasticism' among younger, committed Christians. This impulse to flee to the desert or to the urban deserts of our day, I think, is an impulse to challenge Christianity as it has grown up in the modern West- rich, privileged and comfortable. This isn't to say that the Christian churches of today or the churches of St. John's day didn't deal with social justice, but rather it is meant to ask whether they or we asked the crucial questions about how we fit into the web of injustice which penetrates into the fabric of our respective societies. And, of course, what are we going to do about that?

St. John's critique resonates even today because we, too, forget the call made by Jesus to be just and help the poor and disadvantaged. We too ignore the call to be content with less, preferring to glut ourselves with the excesses which our time and place afford us.We too ignore the call to deepen our spiritual lives and seek first God's kingdom and our gain last. St. John provides a timely warning for us to repent of our materialism and vainglory because we all know where all this led in the longer term for the Romans. I worry about us in the West because, inevitably, our material prosperity and power will fail and I wonder what we will have left when it does. We have built up a powerful, rich dominion in the West, but it will no more last forever than the Roman Empire did. And what will be left to us when it does?

Peace,
Phil

Who's Afraid of Old Testament History?

Over the last few months, I've been reading through the historical books of the Old Testament, starting with I Samuel. This is a part of the Bible which many people avoid for two oddly contrasting reasons. First, it seems entirely pointless for Christians to re-hash all the history of Israel thing again. Isn't it just one damned thing after another, complete with interminable lists? Second, they're really offensive to our sensibilities what with the miracles, massacres (sometimes to the point of genocide) and ugly court politics which characterized the days when Israel stood as a kingdom on the earth. Thus, one is faced with books which will either put your to sleep or outrage you, so why would you bother?


So, why am I bothering?

Well, for one thing, I'm an inveterate historian. What's worse, I'm interested not so much in the history as the writing of history. Back in my grad student days, my main field of interest was Roman historiography and its connection with Roman identity. If history serves as a culture's memory, what is remembered and how something is remembered becomes crucial questions in determining how a culture thinks about itself. Like many cultures, history taught the Romans what it meant to be Romans by looking back on what seemed to exemplify the Roman-ness (or lack thereof) of one's ancestors. Thus, what we choose to remember and to value is central to what we seek to replicate and imitate today. This is true of Rome just as it is true of ancient Israel or, appearances to the contrary, even ourselves.

A second reason why I'm bothering is that, these days, what I'm most interested in is what it means to be a Christian historian both today and in the patristic era. There is, of course, no doubt that the Graeco-Roman historiographical tradition is central to understanding the emergence of church history in the fourth century AD., but I can't help but wonder if we're missing something when we restrict our consideration of Christian church historians to this set of influences. How does the historical books of the Bible contribute to the invention of a Christian historiography or, for that matter, the political ideology of Christendom? I don't know if anyone has explored this, but, if one is to start, one has to start with the sources. So, ad fontes, folks, ad fontes! And, here, I mean all the sources, not just those convenient to our sensibilities.

And a last reason is that I'm fascinated by the charting of the history of the kingdom of Israel. It has always intrigued me, for instance, that the establishment of the kingship in Israel was marked by one of the more prescient political analyses of the nature of kingship that I know. God, through Samuel, gives Israel the king it asks for, but not before He warns Israel what kingship really meant.


These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take
your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to
run before his chariots; 12and he will appoint for himself commanders of
thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plough his ground and to
reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his
chariots. 13He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and
bakers. 14He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive
orchards and give them to his courtiers. 15He will take one-tenth of your grain
and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. 16He will
take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle* and donkeys, and put them to his work. 17He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.
18And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have
chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day.’

All of his amounts to 'Fine, you can have a king, but you'll. And so it proves. Even the great kings of Israel, David and Solomon, proved imperfect and their reigns burdensome. David was a 'man of blood' and an adulterer, who knocked off his rival. He dared to have a census of his army, offending God whose help he was supposed to rely on. He was forced to kill his own son, who rebelled against him. And, Solomon. Yes, he was wise and built the Temple, but he was uxorious, idolatrous and the burden of his building projects was so heavy that most of Israel broke into rebellion after his death when his successor refused to ease up. And this sets aside the kings of Israel and Judah who were, on the whole, rather a bad lot, worshipping false gods and oppressing the godly and weak. In the historical books, we find God intervening time and again to point out the corruption of the political process. The ultimate end of this sorry tale is the exile- the eradication of Israel/Judah as a political entity, even as the religious/cultural entity of Israel continued.

All of this makes me wonder if what we are meant to see in the debacle that was the kingdom of Israel is the insufficiency of our efforts at controlling our lives in this world. That is, while I believe that God used the kingdom of Israel for his purposes, I believe that what we are expected to learn is that we aren't good enough to manipulate the world on our efforts alone. Israel did best when it abandoned its own 'wisdom' and 'power' and listened to the power and wisdom of God. God's interventions in favour of Israel are less common than one would think when one remembers Israel's election, but they are not less decisive or surprising. Time and again, Israel routs its enemies with little or no effort when it relies on God alone. Yet, time and again, it refuses to trust God alone. The result is failure and collapse.

Honestly, I don't know what to do this lesson. Yet, there is a a strong warning in these books about relying too much the power politics of the day. Many of the decisions of the kings of Israel really did make sense politically in their day- concessions to the cults of other gods kept those gods and their supporters onside, the oppressive political and economic policies of Israel's kingship were 'necessary evils' to maintain the trappings of Near Eastern kingship without which one just wasn't considered a player or worthy of respect. Yet, what God called Israel to do was radical reliance on God alone which meant an uncompromising faith in God and justice, God help us, justice! If the failure of Israel's political experiment signals the failure of human self-reliance, I can't help but wonder if it doesn't, also, signal the anticipation of the success of God's Kingdom to come. That we have failed, I think, is clear enough. That God won't is central to our hope as Christians.

So, I'm still struggling my way through the historical books. Yet, even as I'm wadding through list upon list of people we can never know anything about past their names and their jobs in the Temple of Solomon, I'm watching for God's footprints. I wonder what would happen if we did the same, when we read our newspapers or watch the evening news. God acted in the life of Israel and, I think, He acts now- just not the way we expect or, necessarily, even want. God's word to those of us who live in the modern-day West today is unlikely to be comforting or comfortable just as it was rarely comfortable for the kings of Israel.

Peace,
Phil

Christ has risen! Easter and St. John Chrysosthom

Christ has risen!

Well, he rose yesterday, strictly speaking, but the last day of the Triduum Triathlon was extremely busy what dragging ourselves awake after the Easter Vigil on Saturday night, dealing with a sick toddler, getting out to Easter Sunday service where I was MCing and, then, having friends over for our Paschal feast of leg of lamb, Greek style potatoes, asparagus et al. I had a good Triduum, especially because, for the first time in a couple of years, I managed to make all the services (Good Friday was the children's service- an abbreviated Stations of the Cross- but, still, good) plus the Stations of the Cross on Wednesday. Good, but tiring.

Another good thing was that I made an acquaintance with St. John Chrysosthom's famous Paschal Homily. I can't believe that I hadn't run into this sermon before. Not only is St. John Chrysosthom one of my favourite patristic authors, this homily is so famous it is read Easter morning in Orthodox churches. You'd think I'd have read it before. Mind you, I could have and simply forgot. That happens sometimes.

So, for those of you who haven't read it, here is the full sermon from good folks at monachos.net:

If any man be devout and loveth God,

Let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast!

If any man be a wise servant,

Let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord.
If any have laboured long in fasting,

Let him how receive his recompense.

If any have wrought from the first hour,

Let him today receive his just reward.

If any have come at the third hour,

Let him with thankfulness keep the feast.

If any have arrived at the sixth hour,

Let him have no misgivings;

Because he shall in nowise be deprived therefore.

If any have delayed until the ninth hour,

Let him draw near, fearing nothing.

And if any have tarried even until the eleventh hour,

Let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness.

For the Lord, who is jealous of his honour,

Will accept the last even as the first.

He giveth rest unto him who cometh at the eleventh hour,

Even as unto him who hath wrought from the first hour.

And He showeth mercy upon the last,

And careth for the first;

And to the one He giveth,

And upon the other He bestoweth gifts.

And He both accepteth the deeds,

And welcometh the intention,

And honoureth the acts and praises the offering.

Wherefore, enter ye all into the joy of your Lord;

Receive your reward,

Both the first, and likewise the second.

You rich and poor together, hold high festival!

You sober and you heedless, honour the day!

Rejoice today, both you who have fasted

And you who have disregarded the fast.

The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously.

The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.

Enjoy ye all the feast of faith:

Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness.

Let no one bewail his poverty,

For the universal Kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one weep for his iniquities,

For pardon has shown forth from the grave.

Let no one fear death,

For the Saviour's death has set us free.

He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.

By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.

He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.

And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:

Hell, said he, was embittered

When it encountered Thee in the lower regions.

It was embittered, for it was abolished.

It was embittered, for it was mocked.

It was embittered, for it was slain.

It was embittered, for it was overthrown.

It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.

It took a body, and met God face to face.

It took earth, and encountered Heaven.

It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is thy sting?

O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown!

Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!

Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is risen, and life reigns!

Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.

For Christ, being risen from the dead,

Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be glory and dominion

Unto ages of ages.
Amen.

What I love about this homily is that St. John manages to convey the joy of Easter in such a human and humane way. We all know that St. John was not exactly a shrinking violet when he saw injustice or luxury or sin in his congregation, but here he is at his most charitable, largely because he sees God's grace cascading forth in Easter in such a way that it covers over our sins and shortcomings. Thus, he invokes the labourers in the parable of Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20) as a way of encouraging his congregation to celebrate the Easter no matter their successes or failures at Lenten disciplines. Further, he reinforces this sense by the bold juxtapositions in the fourth stanza in which he sets those who 'succeed' at Lent and those who do not, but calls them both to the Paschal (and, thus, the eschatological) Feast.

Ultimately, the reason for this call and for this grace comes towards the end- the resurrection of the Lord. That moment, the moment when Jesus broke the power of sin and death, is a crucial moment for all of us sinners. Without warning or expectation, God intervened in the world in a dramatic and intimate way in order to save us (US!) from the mess that we ourselves had created through our continued rebellion against God. Easter reminds us of that new beginning and the new creation we are called to be. And it calls us to the consummation of that new beginning in the hoped-for future

So, it is comforting to know that no matter how well our Lenten discipline have gone, we are called to the Paschal feast and to the redemptive victory so painfully won by God himself.

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

Peace,

Phil