Friday, January 27, A.D. 2012

The Pro-Life Cause, Orthodoxy, and Hope

Following the prolife theme of this week’s posts, I recommend that you read Matushka Frederica Mathewes-Green’s address, “The Pro-Life Cause, Orthodoxy, and Hope.” Matushka Frederica speaks of her own transformation from an abortion rights supporting feminist to a supporter of the prolife movement, and she lists some interesting selections from the fathers concerning abortion. Here are segments of her speech:

You may be surprised to learn that abortion was common in the ancient Roman Empire. The methods were more dangerous than today (I should say, more dangerous to the mother; every abortion is lethally dangerous to the child). But those methods were nevertheless used by women who wanted to conceal sexual activity, or who were forced to have abortions by their husbands and lovers.

The ancient, pagan world was a harsh one. Not only were children aborted before birth, but a newborn child was not officially received into a family until its father picked it up and held it. If the father didn’t want the child he simply refused to take it up, and the child was legally abandoned. This was called “exposing” an infant; it would be placed in some public place, and the social fiction was that someone else might pick it up and care for it. Sometimes people did take in these babies, and rear them to be sold as slaves or put on the street as prostitutes. But, often enough, no one took the child before it was found by dogs or other animals, or died of exposure and starvation.

And this was legal. It was a harsh world. Christians stood out as different, in that world. They were different in seeing every human being as worthy of dignity, whether free or slave, male or female, Jew or Gentile (as St. Paul said in Galatians 3:21). One of the big differences between Christians and pagans was that Christians did not have abortions. From the earliest years, the Church Fathers spoke against abortion. Let me read you some of their statements.

This is from the Didache, a work which was written about the same time as the Gospels: “You shall not murder a child by abortion.”

The Letter of Barnabas, written about the same time, repeats those words. “You shall love your neighbor more than your own life. You shall not murder a child by abortion.” Note the connection he makes there. This is not about sexual morality, it’s about loving your neighbor, who in this case is a helpless child.

The Letter to Diognetus, probably written around 125, describes to a nonbeliever what Christians are like. He writes, “They marry, as do all others; they beget children, but they do not abort fetuses.”

The Apocalypse of Peter says that, in heaven, aborted children are cared for by an angel named Temlakos. He writes, “The children shall be given over to the caretaking angel Temlakos, and those who slew the children will be punished forever, for this is God’s will.”

Matushka Frederica continues:

Yet, even though the early Christians refused to participate in abortion, a terrible rumor circulated about them in those days. You know that, in the centuries when Christianity was illegal, some parts of our faith were kept secret and not shared outside the community of believers. For example, the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist was something only baptized Christians knew about, and it was never spoken about to nonbelievers. We still say, in the pre-communion prayer of St. John Chrysostom, “I will not speak of your mystery to your enemies.”

Yet rumors started to circulate that Christians were cannibals. There was a story going around that in Christian worship a baby was put inside a sack of flour and beaten to death, and then eaten. Well, if you thought people in your neighborhood were doing that as part of a religious ritual, you’d want to see them executed too. And you can see how the rumor is a mixed-up version of our belief that Christ came to earth as a child, and that he gives us his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. So, many of the early Christians were martyred because they were thought to be child-killers and cannibals, and some early writers protest it’s a lie, Christians do no such thing, while it’s pagans who commit abortion and expose newborns.

Minucius Felix wrote, around 200 AD, “I would like to meet the person who says …that we [Christians] are brought into the faith by means of the slaughter and blood of an infant. Do you think that it can be possible for such a tender little body to receive such fatal wounds? Is it possible for anyone to pour forth the new blood of a little child, scarcely come into existence? Nobody is capable of believing this—except the person who would do it. Yes, I see that you expose your newborn children to wild beasts and to birds, and at other times crush them to death. There are some women who drink medicines that extinguish the life of a child while it is still inside their body, and thus murder their own relative before they bring it forth.”

Tertulllian says that for Christians, “Since murder has been once and for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb. …To interfere with a birth is merely an earlier way of killing a person. It doesn’t matter whether you take away a life that has been born, or destroy one that is coming to birth.” (Apology 9:8) Elsewhere he wrote, “We hold that life begins with conception, and that the soul also begins at conception; life has its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does.” (Apology 27)

St. John Chrysostom wrote, “Do you condemn the gifts of God, and fight against His laws? Childlessness is seen as a curse, but you seek it as though it were a blessing. Do you make the chamber of birth a place of slaughter? Do you teach the woman who is formed to give life to perpetuate killing instead?” (Homilies on Romans 24)

St. Basil puts medicines that cause abortion in the same category as other kinds of killing. He writes, “The man or woman is a murderer who gives a potion, if the person that takes it dies from it. So also are they who uses a medicine to procure abortion; and so are those robbers who kill on the highway.”

Matushka further shows how our Orthodox appreciation for pre-natal life has scriptural and festal sources. She quotes the story of the Visitation in the Gospel of Luke, wherein Elizabeth exclaims at Mary’s visit,  “Why do I deserve such honor, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? For when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy.”

Moreover, we celebrate not only the birthdays of Mary, John, and Jesus—September 8, June 24, and December 25, respectively—but also their conceptions—December 9 (a day later than the December 8 celebration for the Latins), September 23, and March 25, respectively. Christians have always been a people of and for life . . . and life more abundant.

Posted by Joseph on Friday, January 27, A.D. 2012
Orthodoxy • Patristics • Saints • Scripture • (0) Comments • Permalink

Monday, December 19, A.D. 2011

How to Deal with Heretics

To those on the real old calendar, happy feast of Saint Nicholas!

Saint Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church in Springdale, Arkansas has a brief summary of Nicholas’ life and work. Among the items listed is the famous episode at the Council of Nicea where Nicholas struck Arius for his blasphemy. Marc from Bad Catholic offers some amusing commentary “On the St. Nick Punch.” Though it is in indisputably bad taste, I enjoyed his caption for the painting of Nicholas’ strike: “BOOM! YOU JUST GOT KRIS KRINGLED SON!”

Three years ago when I wished everyone a “Happy Feast of Saint Nicholas,” I mentioned a movie about Nicholas that was due out the following year. Production has evidently stalled; the movie has not yet been released. Maybe the delay is due to funding or to the poor economy. However, Nicholas of Myra should eventually be released.

С праздником!

Posted by Joseph on Monday, December 19, A.D. 2011
Orthodoxy • Patristics • Saints • Non-Chalcedonianism • Roman Catholicism • (0) Comments • Permalink

Friday, November 18, A.D. 2011

The Cult of the Saints and the Cato Institute

A few weeks ago, I lost a small screw while helping someone fix his glasses. This screw was tiny even for frames. I accidentally dropped the screw, and then our not so merry crew began to search for the humble hardware. We looked in vain for about twenty minutes, and I was starting to lose hope. I then suggested that we pray to Saint Anthony. I began the prayer, and as soon as I got to the word, “find,” one of the seekers exclaimed, “Found it!” The Lutheran fellow who owned the glasses joked that he should convert to Catholicism.

The episode occasioned thoughts about the cult of the saints. I wondered why Protestants resisted it so strongly. Protestants frequently bring up the “middleman” objection—why not simply pray to God directly? This is a strawman argument, as there has never been a Christian who did not pray to God directly. It then occurred to me that Protestantism—the spiritual side of modernity—is intensely individualistic, and perhaps that individualism is behind the Protestant inability to appreciate the Church Triumphant.

Protestants might ask why God would “assign” saints to assist the faithful. After all, the Lord is omniscient and omnipotent; he does not need an army of prayer listeners in heaven’s call center. However, we might just as well ask why God expects us to walk as children of light. We Christians are God’s invasion force that brings the gospel to the world. God works through us, not because he needs us, but because such is the fulfillment of our purpose and of our nature. We are to be gloves for the divine hands. I do not see why that role would change upon earthly death. If the saints are involved in intercessions and miracles, it is because God allows them to continue to serve their fellow men because that is their nature. God’s economy allows human beings to be his intermediaries; such is his gift to us. It is not an indication of any sort of weakness in God.

For this to make sense, however, one must see mankind corporately. We exist for one another and are accountable to one another. Our destiny is not simply as an individual; the highest thing is not between “me and God,” as one so often hears Protestants proclaim (and note the order of importance shown in the common saying). Rather, human life is social, even in its salvation. The Church teaches that it remains so even in heaven.

Posted by Joseph on Friday, November 18, A.D. 2011
Orthodoxy • Saints • Protestantism • Roman Catholicism • (0) Comments • Permalink

Friday, August 19, A.D. 2011

Mount Tabor

I wish those on the old calendar a blessed feast of the Transfiguration, as well as a happy birthday to my sister.

The gospels do not specify upon which mountain the Transfiguration occurred, though Christian tradition holds that it was Mount Tabor. Christians have made pilgrimages to the mount since antiquity, though the Mohammedans demolished all Christian edifices in the thirteenth century. Centuries later, the Ottomans allowed first the Franciscans and then the Orthodox to rebuild monasteries and temples on Mount Tabor. The site BibleWalks has pictures and information, and there is another page for the Orthodox Monastery of Saint Elijah.

Interestingly and coincidentally, my sister’s namesake has a historical connection to Mount Tabor, as recounted in the fourth chapter of the Book of Judges.

Posted by Joseph on Friday, August 19, A.D. 2011
Orthodoxy • Patristics • Saints • Scripture • Muhammadanism • Rabbinical Judaism • Roman Catholicism • (0) Comments • Permalink

Friday, June 17, A.D. 2011

The Birth of the Church

Nearing the end of this Pentecostal week, I wanted to address the Church’s beginning. Sometimes, you notice parochial signs or bumper stickers that list the foundation of the Church in A.D. 33 (more likely A.D. 30, but who knows?). As far as I can tell, dating the foundation of the Church to Pentecost is a Western idea, though one can find it among Orthodox Christians in America. When, then, did the Church begin? It certainly did not start in Los Angeles, California sometime in the 1970’s, or in Boston or Utah in the nineteenth century. It predates the Great Schism. The Church was alive and strong with the first of the ecumenical councils at Nicea, as its nascence came before the first ecclesial council in Jerusalem about which we read in the Acts of the Apostles. Then, we have the tradition that founds the Church at Pentecost, with the tongues of fire. Yet, in the Gospel of John, we read that Jesus met the disciples before his Ascension:

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the LORD.
Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:
Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

Indeed, the Lord commanded the Great Commission afterward, but before the Pentecost, and yet are we to think that there was no Church to receive the order? So, perhaps, we can trace the Church to the death and resurrection of Christ? Christians are the Paschal people, after all. However, before the Passion, Peter addressed Jesus as Lord on Mount Tabor, and, as Paul writes, “No one can know Jesus as Lord except by the revelation of the Holy Spirit.” Wasn’t the Church present when Peter, James, and John witnessed the Transfiguration?

The Church is Israel, matured and blossomed, and its saints lived long before the coming of the Messiah in time and space. The Church exists before the temple, and it exists before Aaron and the Kohanic priesthood. For the people of God had already assembled to receive the law from Moses. As the Church is Israel, maybe we should date the Church to Jacob and his children, but what about Abraham? Wasn’t the sacrifice of Isaac a great milestone in the history of God’s economy with man? Perhaps, we should go back to Noah, when universal laws were given for all nations. Yet, certain men before Noah were righteous and communed with God. Consider what such piety did for Abel. So, it seems sensible to start at the beginning, with the Church’s coming to be in time with the creation of Adam. Yet, time itself is an image of the eternal, and from all eternity the Body of Christ exists for the mind of God. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes,

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;
Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.
In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

Think again whether Pentecost is truly the Church’s birthday. I contend that it might be better to consider Pentecost as the Church’s Bar Mitzvah.

Posted by Joseph on Friday, June 17, A.D. 2011
Orthodoxy • Saints • Scripture • Non-Chalcedonianism • Protestantism • Rabbinical Judaism • Roman Catholicism • (0) Comments • Permalink

Monday, November 8, A.D. 2010

Clerical Celibacy

I found an interesting article yesterday on Orthodox Answers: “Clerical Celibacy,” by Fr. Laurence Cleenewerck. Fr. Laurence notes the movement in the Roman Church to defend the apostolic origin of clerical celibacy, and then he reviews the history and reasons underlying clerical celibacy in the East and in the West. It is relatively brief, given the subject matter, and quite informative. Most interesting to me was the parallel that early Christians saw between the ordained ranks of the new covenant and the Levitical system. The development of Christian doctrine and vocabulary seem to unfold quite dramatically within the scriptural imagination.

Posted by Joseph on Monday, November 8, A.D. 2010
Orthodoxy • Liturgy • Patristics • Saints • Scripture • Ecumenism • Non-Chalcedonianism • Roman Catholicism • (0) Comments • Permalink

Sunday, October 3, A.D. 2010

John Chrysostom on Charity

On the Kruse Kronicle, there is a few noteworthy paragraphs from Saint John regarding charity and its character in a post impishly named “John Chrysostom was a Tea Party Republican.” From Sermon XLIII, translated and presented anew in a selection of Saint John’s writings titled On Living Simply, we read:

Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich person’s gold and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg the emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the level of the poor and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone? Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm.

Those who combined both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making themselves rich again. Worse still, the rich whose gold was taken away would feel bitter and resentful; while the poor who received the gold form the hands of soldiers would feel no gratitude, because no generosity would have prompted the gift. Far from bringing moral benefit to society, it would actually do moral harm. Material justice cannot be accomplished by compulsion, a change of heart will not follow. The only way to achieve true justice is to change people’s hearts first — and then they will joyfully share their wealth.

It is funny how the mind of the Church is present in the people. I remember Andrew’s schooling me on these very points about a decade ago. It just makes sense given the Christian paradigm. That being said, it is clear that a good deal of what may be generously called “contemporary Christian thought” springs from other, more horizontal concerns.

In Kruse’s post and in one by John Couretas, Chrysostom on the Poor, there are some other excellent passages from Saint John that emphasize the communal reality of human life. We are not atoms in a social void. Rather, we are members of a larger body. This is true of man naturally, and that natural unity takes on a transcendent character in the life of Christ.

Whenever I read the fathers in general and Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Basil of Caesarea in particular, who wrote so much on Christian society, I am reminded of Alexander Schmemann’s description of modern -isms as Christian heresies. The revolutionary and socialist doctrines of the Left are indeed bastardized and disfigured Christian teaching. I had a professor once who mused how the French philosophes could dare propose liberté, égalité, fraternité when they had thrown out the Paternité on whom those ideas rest. The consequences of a horizontal, godless society is not the social utopia imagined by Condorcet but the hellish state of nature where there can be no such thing as a commonwealth—an endless Hobbesian dytopia. For the common good, and adherence thereto, ultimately rests on transcendent truth and man’s allegiance to it (for further musings on this topic, go here).

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, October 3, A.D. 2010
Patristics • Saints • (0) Comments • Permalink

Saturday, July 31, A.D. 2010

And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time

Today is the feast of Saint Joseph of Arimathea on the new calendar. For those of you so ordered, have a blessed feast.

Below is William Blake’s poetic preface to Milton, which refers to the legend of Joseph’s having brought the Christ Child to the lovely island of Albion:

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.

The poem has been popularized as the patriotic song “Jerusalem.”

It hearkens back to England’s better days . . .

Posted by Joseph on Saturday, July 31, A.D. 2010
Orthodoxy • Saints • Protestantism • (0) Comments • Permalink

Monday, October 5, A.D. 2009

Paul on Mars Hill

Dr. Reynolds from Biola University wrote a fine post on the occasion of his class trip to Athens’ Areopagus in “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?” In it, he discusses the philosophical controversy into which Saint Paul entered with his sermon to the Athenians. He points out how close the Platonists were to the gospel. Of all the intellectual currents in the Greco-Roman world, Platonism made the most receptive audience for Christianity. It is customary to hear Platonism contrasted with the earthy goodness of creation Christianity, but even our terrestrial doctrines exist within a celestial framework. The ancient Platonists were some of the few pagans who realized that God transcends the world and that the world is God’s creation. The ancient Platonists understood that God is good, eternal, and the source of all being. The ancient Platonists conceived of all being as an image of the beyond being. Given such, Porphyry rather than Origen becomes the philosophical mystery. What explains a man such as Porphyry, other than ancestral loyalty and cultural conservatism?

As my friend Andrew said, religion—or at least Christianity—only makes sense within a Platonic understanding of reality. I fully agree. I suspect that many of the intellectual ruptures of the modern West only became possible by its rejection of Platonism. When God becomes a being among beings, one must give up either his faith or his science. For God’s presence in the world will always be seen as a nullification of the world’s own order, integrity, and intelligibility. To assert such a God is to deny the possibility of scientific knowledge. To embrace philosophy likewise involves a rejection of the divine as superfluous superstition. Only ignorant regressives cling to religion to fill gaps in their ignorance, as the being God has no place in a scientifically understood cosmos. One must make this choice or cultivate bizarre confusions that attempt to carve a place for the divine and for science in the husk of our ignorance. Reason suffers terribly when forced to accept false choices. So does the human soul.

Posted by Joseph on Monday, October 5, A.D. 2009
Orthodoxy • Saints • Scripture • Paganism • (0) Comments • Permalink

Tuesday, September 22, A.D. 2009

Joachim and Anna

On days following major feasts, the Church often celebrates people who are connected with the feast on what is called synaxes. The day after the nativity of the Theotokos, we observe the the synaxis of the holy and righteous ancestors of God, Joachim and Anna.

As I stated in my post on “The Nativity of the Theotokos,” Joachim and Anna are iconic grandparents for Christians. Their life is an image of their ancestors Abraham and Sarah’s story. For as Abraham and Sarah waited until old age to experience the miraculous conception, pregnancy, and birth of Isaac, thus orginating the Hebrews as a distinct lineage from Abraham, Joachim and Anna had the Mother of God in their advanced years—another miracle that announced a new birth—a new race—into the world. Yet, this time, the lineage would not be biological but spiritual—the kinship of Christ in the Christian Church.

You may wish to read more about Joachim and Anna as well as to see some more wonderful icons on the Full of Grace and Truth web site. I especially like the first icon with the young Mary standing on the tree, which I assume is the tree of Jesse.

Troparion:

Since you were righteous under the law of grace, O Joachim and Anna,
For our sake you gave birth to the God-given Infant.
The divine Church today therefore feasts radiantly,
Joyfully celebrating your honorable memory and giving glory to God
Who has raised up a horn of salvation
From the house of David!

Kontakion:

Now Anna is no longer barren and nurses the All-Pure One!
She rejoices and calls us to sing a hymn of praise to Christ,
Who gave mankind the only Ever-Virgin Mother!

Posted by Joseph on Tuesday, September 22, A.D. 2009
Orthodoxy • Saints • (0) Comments • Permalink