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

Humanity in God's Image

I've been having the feeling, over the last few entries, that I'm indulging my propensity towards broad strokes and sketches, so not really getting into the nitty-gritty of how to proceed in learning from the Fathers. Part of the reason for that was that I was taking a break from cracking my head directly on the fathers- a break that I, from time to time, do need. While the Church Fathers are my teachers, they are not always easy to understand and I do need breaks to read 'easier' historical or secondary books. However, after a nice break and a trip to Palm Springs, I felt better able to crack a Church Father this week- this time it's the Saint Vladimir Seminary's St. Basil the Great, On the Human Condition.

This particular collection includes several of St. Basil's homilies or treatises on humanity including a very interesting one that I just finished today on man's creation according to the image of God. I should note from the outset that, as the introduction discusses, St. Basil and most other Fathers were rather shy about describing humanity as the image of God- this is reserved for Christ alone, but rather describes them as being made 'according to the image of God'. The distinction is subtle, but it puts humanity at one small remove from God, which, I think, makes sense. However much we are promised that we can be divinized, we aren't yet and it makes sense- transcendental sense, to emphasis that we aren't there yet and we certainly weren't there when we were first created. There is a distinction between creator and created, after all.

I think what particularly interests me is St. Basil's explanation about what it means for humanity to be 'according to God's image'. He states that it is not the body that is in God's image- that is, it isn't that God created humanity in his physical image which brings with it the corollary of a corporeal body for God (Discourse on Humanity 1,5). Instead, he suggests that it is humanity's rational mind- defined as the real, inner person (Discourse on Humanity, 1,7). I'm particularly interested with this section because my impulse is to pull away because this smacks rather heavily of a Platonic rejection of the body with all that entails. I recognize this as a modern prejudice, but I wonder how much it is a legitimate caution or a serious mis-reading. I honestly don't know, although I wonder if it some nuance is being lost in translation or if I'm being unusually dense.

What I will say is that I would be mentioning these passages out of context, if I didn't hasten to add that Basil, earlier in this homily, referred to the human body as a wondrous act of God (Discourse on Humanity, 1,2). Based on the medical knowledge of the day, Basil wonders at the brilliance of the structures and workings of the human body and sees in it a testimony to God's care in creating us. Yet, this is the body which he seems to reject later on as not being in God's image. So, you can see why I'm a little puzzled.

Mind you, the next homily in the series helps clarify this point a little by offering the paradox that humanity is both nothing (made of dust) and great (God molded the human being) (Discourse on Humanity, 2,2). Well, clarified might be a slight exaggeration, but, at least, it poses the paradox which allows St. Basil to see the body as wondrous and without worth. It also points out that this paradox is biblical (Genesis 2,7) as well. And who says a little paradox can hurt anyone?

Yet, what I worry about is the disconnection of body from soul/mind implicit in this discussion. I worry that it hurts the Incarnation in that it suggests the body isn't worth resurrection. That could lead somebody to question the bodily resurrection. I worry about how it affects our relationship with the material world around us- also, created by God and pronounced God- because, if the body, the material isn't worthwhile, why should we care about this Earth and how we should be stewards of it? Yet, is St. Basil saying this or is it generations of bad theology that I'm reacting to? I wonder.

So, what do you think? One of the important things about the Fathers is that speak differently to us and, while that is bracing when we need to be called back to sound teaching, the two thousand year gap between us can produce real confusion and misunderstanding. One way to look at is that, with that extra couple thousand years of experience, we can see where their mistakes lead. Another way is that we've had that long to make even worse mistakes. The difficulty of my conversation with the Fathers is that we are coming from different places and times, so it is difficult to discern who is right and who is wrong.

Peace,
Phil

Living in the Fragments

Last week was March Break, which, in itself, is really neither here nor there. However, March Break has meant a couple of things the last nine years: a wonderful trip to Palm Springs, CA (thanks to my mother-in-law) and a chance to raid a fairly well stocked church library courtesy of Palm Desert Presbyterian. The attraction of the trip, I think, is clear to anyone who has been to Palm Springs, especially anyone who spends time in even the moderately frozen north (Toronto is, really, in the banana belt of Ontario, but we do get snow). The attraction of the other proves conclusively (in case there was a doubt) that I'm an unreconstructed geek. I look forward to this particular raid because this particular church library stocks books that I don't generally get to see. The lean is evangelical which can mean an awful lot, I know, from fluff to some well-considered theology and history. I lean to the second, if you had any doubts.

One of the finds this year was a surprise. It was the first of two volumes on World Christian History- Dale T. Irvin and Scott W. Sunquist, History of the World Christian Movement. Of course, I swooped in on the first volume dealing with Christianity up to 1453 (where I start to lose interest). What was intriguing about this book is that it didn't just outline the standard Mediterranean perspective, predictably divided into West and East, but, rather, it sought to tell the story of other Christian movements in the Near and even Far East. The book takes seriously these Christian movements and gave a good introduction to them. I was moderately familiar with the Near Eastern examples, but the story of a nascent Christian movement in China during the Han and T'ang dynasties was new ground for me. So, good book and something that I want to dig up again for my own library (and, possibly, the parish one as well).

Now, I mention this book not so much because I wanted to do a mini-book review, but because it fit in with some thing I've been pondering. To give background, I should explain that I was also reading some Ephraim Radner before the break, who has quite a lot to say about ecclesiology. (For those of you who don't know him, Radner is a moderately conservative Anglican theologian who is very smart, but reading his prose, as my wife would say, is a little like stirring concrete with your eyelashes.) Key to Radner's idea is that, since at least the Reformation, Christianity no longer represents a unified tradition but rather fragments of one. That is to say that we aren't so much speaking about a unified Christian tradition today; rather, the various Christian churches are splinters off of a Christian consensus which was largely held in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, but which burst apart. This means that no individual denomination represents the tradition in toto, even if some have a better handhold than others (I'm think especially of Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions here).

Now, if you apply this understanding to what I was reading last week, it makes sense of the church divisions, but extends them backwards to include the splitting off of the non-Chalcedonians and, ultimately, to the Great Schism through the Reformation and into the age of Protestantism (whose characteristic theological disease, honestly, is splitting at the drop of a hat). The Irvin and Sunquist book is relentlessly ecumenical (it was, after all, reviewed by a panel of 43 scholars from all different denominations), of course, so this reading makes sense, but, while I fundamentally agree with Radner and with the spirit of this book, I wonder a little about this view of the church history.

I think what worries me is that this gives a wonderful justification for denominationalism because, if we're just living in the fragments, I'm not sure how we decide on the faithfulness of this or that fragment. That is, have we given up on reconstituting a greater Christian tradition? Has that effort gone the way of the now 'modernist' evangelical search for essentials, maligned by the 'Emerging Church' movement's post-modern scorn for meta-narratives? I wonder what the Fathers would have to say about this?

Well, actually, I don't wonder much. Read some Cyprian. Read some Augustine or Irenaeus or anyone really and you'd get a pretty pungent answer. Yes, we do know that there were splinter Christian groups throughout the Church's history, some of which were tolerated more than others, but none of which were ever really considered to be as good as the Church's own answers. While that raises the issues of 'victors writing history' and triumphalism, I think we hae to consider whether we are called to live in fragments or whether we should, impossible as it seems, look for ways to link those fragments, to return us to something resemble a common consensus on what is important for our faith. Is the day of a Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church really over?

What I find valuable in Radner and/or Irvin and Sunquist is the diagnosis of where we are, but I wonder if this is where we need to stay. How can we rebuild that greater Christian tradition? Or is the effort merely hopeless or, for that matter, a foregone conclusion? What do you think?

Peace,
Phil

Tradition and Prayer

Since the last entry, I've been thinking a bit about the different ways that tradition permeates Christian life. That, in itself, sounds a little odd because I know that most talk about tradition focuses on theological content and very little on practices. That has made a lot of 'traditionalism' seem arid, theoretical and, well, let's be honest, pointless to its critics. Nor is this criticism an unfair one. There are a lot of people of whatever tradition whose adherence to their tradition is a purely intellectual one which has little to do with what they practice each day. That is and should be a scandal for any Christian (or anyone really) who respects Christian tradition over the ages.

Yet, I would suggest that this is a distinctly impoverished view of tradition. Tradition as only an intellectual edifice is really just another way of describing an ivory tower and we all know how useful that is. Besides, Christianity is not, strictly speaking, a philosophy in the sense of merely believing certain propositions. No, Jesus offers us a way of living, not just a way of thinking. Yes, of course, our thinking helps to determine our way of living, but we still have to do something. This is where practices come in.

To demonstrate my point, I could pick any number of Christian practices- prayer, service, fasting, meditation and on and on- to see how what has been handed down (Latin- tradere)to us over the centuries has helped make us better pray-ers, servers, fasters, meditators. Prayer is an excellent example of this because Christians have been praying for more than two thousand years and Jews another couple of thousand years before that. One would think that tradition, as the collected experience of Jews and Christians over the millenia, would have something to say about how prayer works. And it does.

As an example, let's take the Lord's Prayer- a prayer which was very consciously handed down (tradere- again. Can you sense a theme?) and which is the quintessential Christian prayer in most people's mind. Say Christian prayer to anyone and you're liable to get back "Our Father who art in Heaven...." This prayer is so important that there are several patristic commentaries on it (the most notable ones by Origen, Tertullian and St. Cyprian) and I don't know how many books, sermon series and what not explaining it right up to today. And that makes sense because Jesus clearly intended it to be the template for prayers by his followers. From its intimate address to the immediacy of its requests (give us today our daily bread) to its recognition of our need for forgiveness and for forgiving, it is a microcosm of how Christians should live their lives each day. And, if we remember this little prayer, our own practice of our faith is likely to be deeper and more profound. That is, of course, why St. Benedict insisted on praying this prayer three times a day in his Rule and why almost no Christian weekly service goes by (even by the most non-traditional, formal prayer despising Protestants) without it. And that is all to the good.

This is, then, tradition in its very best sense- a practice which deepens our faith. Nor is the Lord's Prayer the only example of prayer informed by tradition. We are blessed by generations of mighty pray-ers (and prayers) and, if we are inclined to look, we can probably find ways of approaching prayer which will make sense to someone somewhere. Personally, I'm grateful for Brother Lawrence, whose practice of God's presence in the day to day activities of his life makes it possible for me to prayer in the busyness of my life these days. I'm grateful for the whole practice of lectio divina which, although I'm hardly an amateur, shows a way to read Scriptures as something other than a history book or an instruction manual. I'm also grateful to the whole tradition of catholic liturgy (in my experience, as expressed in the Anglican catholic tradition) which, somehow, links our story as a Christian people with worship, praise and a call to action in the world. All this is merely scratching the surface of what is out there, but I think you get the idea. The riches of the tradition of Christian prayer are almost endless.

Ultimately, this is the point of having a tradition. Old things aren't valuable just because their old. Anyone who has read any history realizes that there was every bit as much dreck in previous periods as there is manifest today. What has happened has been a sifting of the good from the bad which has allowed us to see the best from all ages. At its best, tradition outlines what works because those things have stood the test of time. That is the riches of any tradition and the peculiar inheritance which we are privileged to enjoy today.

Peace,
Phil

Living the Tradition

Welcome to the new look of hyperekperissou and to my return to the basics. I think that one of the reasons why I have been having such writers block the last few months (besides sheer busyness) is that I’ve been trying to write entries which were just not me. So, I found myself facing the temptation towards trying to be respectable to the academy and produce ‘useful’ work such as translations or scholarly analyses. Not that this ‘useful’ work is a bad thing. It just doesn’t fit what I want to do with my writing.

For better or worse, I am an amateur patrologist and theologian. I make no apologies because I read the Fathers because I love them, because they are my teachers. I write about them because I want to apply what I've learned from them to my life. If firmly believe that the reason why Christians need to read the Fathers is not to mine them for some nugget of theological data, but rather return ad fontes and rejoice in swimming in that capacious pool from which all Christian thought has sprung.

This, of course, not a mainstream approach to theology or the Christian life. I don't mind that. Yet, what a growing number of Christians are realizing is the extent to which our iconoclastic dismissal of tradition in the later part of last century has brought us is theological incoherence and confusion of tongues. I'm not saying that tradition is a cure-all for all ills facing the Church today. Of course, tradition is a double-edged sword. It can stifle and restrict as often as it guides and supports faith. We all know periods when tradition's weight crushed faith and faithful inquiry. I don't advocate a return to those bad ol' days. I also don't think we're remotely close to that extreme today.

Tradition, at its best, supports faith. It gives the necessary boundaries to allow the faithful to dig deeper into the wealth of experience embodied in the lives of the many millions of faithful departed in the history of the Church. It allows us to learn from the successes and the mistakes of others throughout time. It helps us to see that our answers and even our most time-honoured truths developed over time and, likely, will continue to do so, but within agreed upon boundaries. It also allows us to both disagree with others within our tradition, but, also, allows us the resources to work out those disagreements in a productive and constructive manner. A living tradition is one that intersects with the world around it and develop its own answers to the dilemmas of its time. A tradition which isn't flexible enough to do that is dead and good riddance to it. If a tradition doesn't speak to each successive generation anew, it is worse than useless. It is fit only for the dumpster.

We all live in more than one traditions, whether we chose to acknowledge it or not. Some traditions are religious; others are ethnic; some are simply familial. Still others are cultural including the current tradition embodied by the modern university and the modern journalist. Usually, these traditions coincide quite peacefully with a minimum of friction. Sometimes, traditions clash and create dilemmas for those bound up in both. We are, I suggest, living at a time when the Christian tradition and what can be only called the dominant intellectual traditions clash on a regular basis. While we can always appeal to the strong undercurrent of tolerance which runs in the dominant intellectual traditions today (thank God!), there is no mistaking that it is harder and much less intellectually respectable to be a Christian today than it was, say, fifty years ago. A commitment to the Christian tradition isn't mainstream anymore, but, I submit, our witness to Christ in this increasingly secular world needs to be grounded in this commitment or we will become as rudderless as the culture we find ourselves in.

All this brings me back to what I'm trying to do in this blog. I am not interested in excavating the artifacts of the Christian traditions like little potsherds on an archaeological site. Nor am I interested in creating a two-dimensional gallery of long-dead heroes and heroines of faith. Nor do I want to know my tradition so I can ace a Jeopardy category on dead Christian writers. I want to learn from my tradition, certainly; not only from the good, but also from the bad and the ugly. But, as I know very well from teaching, knowledge is pointless unless it is applied in some relevant way to today's concerns and problems. And that is what exactly what I want to do. I want to learn from the Christian tradition, but, more importantly, I want to use the resources this tradition gives me to explain and to cope with the problems facing Christians today.

All of this is, of course, ambitious and I don't claim any special expertise or wisdom in attempting it. What I do claim is a willingness to listen to the teachings of traditional Christianity and to see how it fits my life. God willing, my reflections on how to apply the insights of my tradition will be useful to more people than just me.

Peace,

Phil

Future Directions

Hi all;

Things have been very quiet on hyperekperissou recently, as my faithful readers know, so, now that we've hit the fourth anniversary of this blog, I thought I would update all of you about where I see this blog is going in the next little while.

First, the good news. I hope to get back to regular blogging starting next week. Things at work remain busy, but the worst of the craziness seems to be abating. So, now is a good time to resume. I should note that, while I'm intending to return to weekly posts, I'm not putting as much pressure on myself if I miss a week or two here and there. If I'm too busy or just have no ideas, I'm not posting. Still, I have built up a bit of a bank of ideas over the last few months that I'd like to blog on, so I look forward to getting back to it.

Along with that, I'm going to re-launch this blog with a new look and a slightly new focus. Well, really, it is a return to basics for me. Part of my reason for my dry spell, I think, is that I was starting to twist myself into a pretzel that my patristics writing just wasn't academic enough and that, gasp, I was being listed as a related, devotional blog, not as a 'real' blog on the biblioblog rating system. I realized that this really just doesn't matter and that the point, self-indulgent as it sounds, is that I enjoy what I'm writing and, hopefully, that all of you do as well. So, more on this later with the kick-off post for the new look and focus next week.

Now, the bad news is that, after some prayer and thinking over the last few months, I've realized that I need to let the Patristics Carnival go. I just don't have the energy to do it and do what I want to do on this blog and, frankly, it has been feeling rather like an unending chore the last few months. If anyone wants to take it over, feel free. I'll happily hand over the log-in information for both the dedicated e-mail and the Carnival site (which I have to update this week). Just e-mail me at the dedicated e-mail and we'll work that out.

So, the long and short is keep an eye out next weekend for the triumphant re-launch of hyperekperissou. Have a good week. I wish you happy pancakes (for those of you who do Pancake Tuesday) and the start of a holy Lent.

Peace,
Phil

Patristic Carnival XXXI is up at The Church of Jesus Christ

**Now with a link!**

Patristic Carnival XXXI has been completed. Go and see the wonders of the world of patristiblogging!

Many, many thanks to Polycarp for jumping into the breach for me yet again. I very much appreciate the help on this month's edition.

I will be blogging on the weekend about where we may need to go with the Carnival after this. Many thanks to those who have commented and we'll see what we can come up with to keep this Carnival going.

Peace,
Phil

Patristics Carnival

Hi all;

For those of you who have been looking for the Patristic Carnival XXX, I thought I better let you know that I'm just not going to be able to manage it this month. I have materials for it, but I've been so slammed with marking, student crises, recruitment for my courses for next year and general life that I can't possibly see how to do it. I'm not even sure about the long-term viability of the Patristic Carnival.

For the short-term, I really have to just give this month a miss. If there is a volunteer who is willing to sort through the material for this edition, I'm happy to send them what I have. If not, I'm just going to let it go.

For the long-term, I'm concerned about the long-term viability of this Carnival. This isn't a unique concern. For those who have followed it, the much larger Biblical Studies Carnival has had to downsize a bit. For me, it might be the year I'm having, but I frequently feel overwelmed by the volume of patristic writing out there. On one level, that is a wonderful thing. On another, I just don't see how I can keep track of it all. Any ideas on long term solutions are more than welcome.

Let me know if you have any thoughts.

Peace,
Phil

Pillars of the Church Reflection

This is a very long overdue entry as I have promised a reflection paper to Matt Bell and Tim Becker for the Ancient Christian Faith Initiative, but disappeared in a deluge of busyness in late November and have only now re-surfaced. What follows will likely be an odd reflection paper and may not reach the three to five pages asked of me. Knowing me, however, I'll blow right past it. I'm nothing, if not prolix.

With that caveat, I'll also give some background to those who don't know what the course entailed. The web version of the course (the one I followed, as I do not live in Pittsburg where the live meetings were happening) followed the writings of St. Augustine, On Christian Teaching (books 1-2), the Theological Orations of St. Gregory of Nazianzus and the Hymns on Paradise of St. Ephrem the Syrian. These figures represent the Latin, Greek and Syriac traditions of the patristic period and offer an interesting set of comparisons.

I also have to add the confession that I had already read all three works, although I was able to use the course as leverage to justify myself in buying the St. Gregory and St. Ephrem books (Popular Patristics series). What the course gave me was detailed lectures by Tim and Matt on the readings for the week and the opportunity to re-read carefully and think theologically over what was being said. I appreciated very much that chance because I don't usually get the opportunity to converse with interested people on close readings of the Fathers.

All this, of course, begs the question of what did I learn in these reflections. A few themes jump out.

First, the discussion of how and why theology should be practiced. One of the common threads found in all three authors was that theology as an intellectual pursuit was not a practice which is lightly entered into and that mere intellectual acumen isn't enough to justify one's entry into it. Instead, all three authors stress the need for spiritual preparation for the pursuit of theology- in a name (or a couple of names), prayer and meditation. Thus, we have Augustine's rather curt introduction in which he brushes off anyone who can't understand his guidelines for reading Scripture (by noting that it isn't his fault if they don't get it) or those who think they don't need them (by noting that they are blessed if their claim is true and tempted to pride if it is not) (Preface). Augustine also warns against dealing with humans and God as objects, but rather proposes we view both through the lens of Love to the point that, if we read the Bible and cannot find the love of God and neighbour, we have clearly misread it (Book 1). We also get Gregory of Nazianzus' cautions against word games and the proposal that those who disagree in theological questions shouldn't argue about it before those who don't understand how theology works (Oration 27). Then, we get St. Ephrem, whose poetic vision of Paradise easily crosses the lines of literal and allegorical interpretation, playing with various images and allegories to further our understanding of how we should understand Paradise in the past and in the future. This is the theological vision of a poet, but is no less demanding because Ephrem stresses continuously the hiddeness of what we are to understand about God and God's own unknowability.

All this contrasts with a common thread of academic theology which stresses theology as an intellectual pursuit divorced from the spiritual. There is a continual pressure on theologians- in their subject associations, among university colleagues, among themselves- to conform to either a modernist model of theology verging on a secularist religious studies model or post-modern models which emphasize the problems with meta-narratives and particularisms. Augustine, Gregory and Ephrem all see theology as a prayerful discourse, as a form of prayer, if you like, which is designed to build up both our neighbour (our fellow-Christians and non-Christians as well) and God. It should lead us to faith, not explain it away. It should lead to the heart and the head, not just the head. Given the bad name that theology has out there among many, I can't help but wonder if this approach isn't the way forward to making it more relevant to the Christian in the pew, rather than spewing forth the latest abstract theological point or historico-critical reading of this or that Biblical book. Not that either of those points wouldn't be helpful, but, if we are to understand our faith, we have to start with faith, not with raw spiritual information. And, I think, this is what our three authors are telling us today.

Second, how to read the Scriptures. This point builds off the previous one in the sense that all three of our authors automatically think of the writings of (what we call) the OT and the NT, when it comes to discussing faith. However, clearly, they do not act like fundamentalists today- bound only by a literal point of view. Rather we see the liberal use of allegorical and other figurative readings in all three and a critisism of over-literal interpretations. We especially see this in Gregory's condemnations of the Eunomians' word-play and philosophical dialectic. The problem that these radical Arians, according to Gregory, is that they are more interested with word and logic puzzles than in learning 'true' religion (Oration 27- I'm using this sermon a lot, I know, but it does lay the hermeneutical framework for the rest). This isn't to say that Gregory (or, for that matter, Augustine) reject philosophy, but rather that they subordinate it to what can only be called the rule of faith. That is, philosophy is useful for explaining what we learn about God in scripture and in prayer. In that sense, it is (to use the post-liberal catchphrase) second order discourse par excellence, so we do not judge faith on philosophical grounds, but we judge philosophy on faith-based grounds. This echoes what Augustine is talking about when he uses a hermeneutic of love (later taken up by N.T. Wright, among others) as a way of reading Scripture.

Book 2 of Augustine's On Christian Teaching, of course, provides a clear approach to reading Scripture which includes the theory of signs, but moves beyond it to discuss such topics as numerology, the importance of languages for scriptural study, the canon of Scripture, different versions of the Bible and the problems of dealing with translations and much more. Augustine is discussing these topics at a time which looks suspiciously familiar- a multiplicity of translations, an even greater multiplicity of interpretations, sometimes based on extremely arcane reasonings and readings. As a language teacher, I was particularly interested in Augustine's stress in reading Scripture in the original or, at least, using versions which tend to literal interpretations. I'm also fascinated by his recommendation of non-Christian studies which shows interesting parallels with Quintillian's list of recommended reading for the rhetor. Yet, despite all this stress on theory and knowledge, Augustine's true position comes back to the hermeneutic of love and to the reader whose reaction to Scripture is not to be puffed up with knowledge, but that "[the reader] is entangled in the love of this present age of temporal things, that is, and is far from loving God and his neighbour to the extent that scripture prescribes" (2,7,19). Again, the aim her is not knowledge per se, but rather spiritual learning which should lead the reader to repentance and prayer.

Ephrem is, probably, the most explicitly allegorical. This makes sense because his subject is something that no one alive has seen- Paradise. If this wasn't going to be an 'angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin' kind of discussion, some kind of imagery and allegory was needed. The boldness of Ephrem's imagery, from the image of Paradise as mountain or the Tree of the Knowledge of God and Evil as the veil of the Temple (or vice versa, as is often true of typology), is testimony itself that Ephrem wasn't very concerned with just the literal level. This is a spiritual vision which is only reinforced by Ephrem's ecstatic lines in Hymn 5:

I read the opening of this book
and was filled with joy,
for its verses and lines
spread out their arms to welcome me;
the first rushed out and kissed me,
and led me on to its companion;
and when I reached that verse
wherein is written
the story of Paradise,
it lifted me up and transported me
from the bosom of the book
to the very bosom of Paradise.

Wow. That is a profoundly untheological thing for me to say, but I keep saying it as I read Ephrem. Yet, this is an intimate and personal reaction to Scripture of a type that most people would feel uncomfortable with saying, but, secretly, would love to be able to say. Who doesn't want to be transported by Scripture? The real question that Ephrem's reading of Paradise provides is why can't we do it now? Where has all the wonder and amazement gone from our reading of Scripture? How can we revive it?

Third, the role of mystery. What is refreshing about all of these authors, when contrasted with the fundamentalisms of our age, is that they all know that they don't know all about God. Ultimately, they expect their human wits to fail when they talk about God, so they don't claim for themselves something that they can't deliver. Thus, even St. Augustine in his rather didactic mode in the On Christian Teaching, notes "It is my intention to communicate these rules to those with the will and wit to learn, if my Lord and God does not withhold from me, as I write, the thoughts which he regularly supplies as I reflect on these matters" (Preface). St. Gregory insists throughout his Theological Orations upon the inspiration of the theologian, not his power or his intellect. In fact, he critisizes the Eunomian's for their overtly philosophical and mechanistic methods of dialectic in considering God's attributes which, St. Gregory believes, is the source of their errors in the first place. And, of course, St. Ephrem's poetic vision doesn't map Paradise, but stands in awe of the little he knows. Thus, he comments in his First Hymn:

I took my stand halfway

between we and love;

a yearning for Paradise

invited me to explore it

but awe at its majesty

restrained me from my search.

With wisdom, however,

I reconciled the two:

I revered what lay hidden

and meditated on what was revealed.

The aim of my search was to gain profit

the aim of my silence was to find succour.

What I like about that quote is the balance between what we can know and what is hidden, what we can't know. The more I read and reflect on God, the more I realize that there is a line past which I will not pass in my understanding of God. That makes sense, of course, because God is so much greater than we are. How can we understand God, without God's help, his self-revelation? I can't see how. Ultimately, theology's task is consider what we can know, but, also, respect the mystery we face when we look to God. God is God, and, praise be to God, I am not. Mystery reminds me that I am not God, but a simple, frail human being trying to work out what it means to live a faithful life.

And, ultimately, I think that this is the value of reading these Fathers and, the Fathers in general. Ultimately, one gets the sense of people who take God seriously enough to think and pray over how to think about God, how to read Scripture and how to confront our own inability to understand God and the world in its entirety. In our very information conscious age, the humility and faithfulness of these writers lead us to wisdom, not just knowing.

I want to end this reflection with gratitude, so I want to thank Tim Becker and Matt Bell for this course. I appreciate the chance to talk about these authors with them and the other participants in the online course. There is a new online course starting in February dealing with "The Early Church at Prayer and Worship". I fear, while I haven't quite decided, that I won't be able to participate in this course this time around, but I heartily recommend it for any of my readers who can.

Peace,

Phil

Call For Submissions- Patristics Carnival XXXI

Hi all;

A quick note for the next Carnival. We'll be back at hyperekperissou.

The guidelines remain the same as the Modest Proposal entry back in November, 2006 and my additions in August, 2007.

The last day of submission will be December 31 and the postings will be up in the week of January 6th.

Remember you can offer submissions on the carnival site or the dedicated e-mail (patristics-carnival@hotmail.com)

Peace,Phil