Will the Pope's Pronouncement Set Ecumenism Back a Hundred Years? (Challenge to Apostolicity)

Progressive Theology ^ | July 07

[redgolum]

As for you folks being simple, well, I’m the one with goat “skatah” on my shoes, the simple grandson of simple Greek peasants. I find you Western types marvelously sophisticated, especially when it comes to religion. :)

Well, I am the latest of a long line of German farmers and chemists that stretches back to the Baltic. Subtlety isn't something we are very good at. :)

[Kolokotronis]

“There is only so much that we can take “just because,” or at least there is only so much that I am willing to take. If you know the explanation, or if you have Patristic writings on this subject showing that this was really the same Christ speaking, I would be very happy. But, as it is, I don’t see Christ in Hosea 13 or in much of the OT hwere cruelty is attributed to Him.”

I got nearly 200 hits when I ran “Hosea” in Logos Library System, but only 2 when I ran Hosea 13. Of those, one was relevant, from Lactantius, The Epitome of the Divine Institutes, chap. XLVII, “Of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Sending of the Apostles, and the Ascension of the Saviour into Heaven”, wherein Lacatanius writes,

“After these things they took His body down from the cross, and buried it in a tomb. But on the third day, before daybreak, there was an earthquake, and the stone with which they had closed the sepulchre was removed, and He arose. But nothing was found in the sepulchre except the clothes in which the body had been wrapped. But that He would rise again on the third day, the prophets had long ago foretold. David, in the xvth Psalm: “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption.” Likewise Hosea: This my Son is wise, therefore He shall not stay long in the anguish of His sons: and I will ransom Him from the hand of the grave. Where is thy judgment, O death, where is thy sting? ”The same again says: “After two days He will revive us on the third day.”

That’s it. Its not much help with finding an explanation for the wrathful God of the OT in comparison to Christ. I know virtually nothing about Lactantius except that I think he was from North Africa and ended his days attached to Constantine I’s court at Constantinople. I remember reading him in Latin in college and thinking how beautiful his Latin was. I don’t remember being impressed with his theology.

You know, it occurs to me that you may have been right when you wrote that perhaps God, or Hosea, were misunderstood. If you read the first few chapters of “On the Incarnation” by +Athanasius the Great, it seems as if he is saying that God tried all sorts of manifestations to make the Jews come to Him but in the end, the “burning bush” business didn’t cut it so “God became man.” Something to think about anyway.

[Kolokotronis]

“Well, I am the latest of a long line of German farmers and chemists that stretches back to the Baltic. Subtlety isn’t something we are very good at. :)”

Subtle is an adjective seldom if ever seen modifying “German”! We Greeks, on the other hand, are the epitome of subtlety! :)

[kosta50]

One more thing regarding male "seed" proponents and I will stop. Pythagoras (6th c. BC) poprosed a method of human inheirtance which inlcuded male and female contributions. While this may appear to be and advanced foreknowledge of what we know about it today, on closer crutiny it is obviously not.

Namly, Pythagoras taught that man contributes all essential characteristics whereas the woman contributed only metrial substrate [Wikipedia and a number of Internet sources].

Curiously, the idea that male sperm contained a fully formed human (just as it was believed that a seed of a tree contained a fully formed miniscule tree) was the predominant belieef until the 17th century! Some early microscopic observers reported "seeing" small humnas inside the sperm (homonculus).

By the 18th century the sides reversed and ovism became the favored theory, shifting everything to the woman, and the male was believed to simply provide the "energy" needed for growth.

It was the discovery of cell division, Mendalian genetics, and the discovery female eggs that advanced our understanding of conception and inhertance, in the 19th century and onward.

[irishtenor]

I thought it all had to do with birds and bees and stuff like that. Then you go out to the cabbage patch and pick a baby from under the leaves.

Personally, I think combining feathers and honey would just make a mess.

[kosta50]

Thank you, Kolo, for looking up the topic. Unfortunately, the effect of your rather informative post brought more disappointment rather than joy.

Let's look at what Lactantius wrote:

But that He would rise again on the third day, the prophets had long ago foretold. David, in the xvth Psalm: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption"

First, this is verse 10, Psalm xvi, not xv. Unfortunately, the Septuagint (LXX) completely differs from the Hebrew Bible (MT)

Septuagint [LXX] vs Hebrew Bible [MT] on Ps 6.10

because You will not leave my soul in Hades, neither will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. [LXX] *

The Lord has hearkened to my supplication; the Lord has accepted my prayer. [MT}

*Note: in this instance the Protestant Old Testament takes the Septuagint version rather than the Hebrew version.

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption

_______________

Second, "This my Son is wise" is (Hosea 13: 13, LXX). Unfortunately, it is irreconcilable with the Masoretic Text. And it's about unrepentant Ehraim, not Christ.

Septuagint [LXX] vs Hebrew Bible [MT] on Hosea 13:13

Pains as of a woman in travail shall come upon him; he is your wise son, because he shall not stay in the destruction of your children. [LXX]

The pains of childbirth come upon him;He is not a wise son, for it is not the time that he should delay at the opening of the womb. [MT]

You will also notice that the word "son" in Lactantius' modern rendition is capitalized. We know that neither Hebrew nor Greek used lower-case letters and that this is a Christianized rendition of the text to give the impression Hosea was "prophesying" about Christ.

The whole Lactanius' sentence asserting that the "prophets foretold" that Christ would rise on the third day is a collage of different verses which may meet the purpose but not the context of such a claim. In other words, it's a concoction of typical cut-and-paste variety presented as a single "prophesy" (in retrospect to boot).

"After two days He will revive us on the third day.”

This is Hosea 6:2, not Hosea 13, Kolo, as your search engine suggests, and it's also out of context.  The very beginning of Hosea 6 makes it clear that this is not about Christ, the Son of God.

  1"Come, let us return to the LORD
         For He has torn us, but He will heal us;
         He has wounded us, but He will bandage us.
    2"He will revive us after two days;
         He will raise us up on the third day,
         That we may live before Him.

Here, Hosea is using Prophet Jeremiah (50:4), predicting that the Israelites will come seeking God (again). Obviously this has no bearing or similitude to Christ. He never had a reason to return to God (i.e. repent)!

Interestingly, +Paul borrows from Hosea's verse 2, associating this verse with Christ

4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, [1 Cor 15:4]

Notice the "accoridng to the Scriptures." It's in the scriptures alright, but it's out of context because the whole chapter is about unfaithful Israelites and not even something close to the perfectly obedient Christ. +Paul used it because it suited his purpose, and then he give it the "according to the Scriptures" to make it authoritative, but in reality it is is an out of context construct for effect.

[kosta50]

If you read the first few chapters of “On the Incarnation” by +Athanasius the Great, it seems as if he is saying that God tried all sorts of manifestations to make the Jews come to Him but in the end, the “burning bush” business didn’t cut it so “God became man.” Something to think about anyway

Maybe, but why would God bother with tricks He must have foreknown wouldn't work?

[Kolokotronis]

“Maybe, but why would God bother with tricks He must have foreknown wouldn’t work?”

I’ve no idea, Kosta mou, no idea, but our ways aren’t God’s ways are they? In any event, it didn’t seem to bother +Athanasius the Great.

[Zero Sum]

IT: It’s all because of sin. The Good news is that Jesus takes away our sin. Praise God.

Yes, not only can we say that Christ came as a lion, but in this way we can also so say that He came as a lamb (talk about the lion and the lamb lying down together, huh?) Here is something from +John Chrysostom's Homily XLVI on the Gospel of St. John (a homily which I found of great interest, as it discusses two major points of contention between modern Christians: Free will and the Eucharist):

For wherever they see the Lord’s blood, devils flee, and Angels run together. This blood poured forth washed clean all the world; many wise sayings did the blessed Paul utter concerning it in the Epistle to the Hebrews. This blood cleansed the secret place, and the Holy of Holies. And if the type of it had such great power in the temple of the Hebrews, and in the midst of Egypt, when smeared on the door-posts, much more the reality. This blood sanctified the golden altar; without it the high priest dared not enter into the secret place. This blood consecrated priests, this in types cleansed sins. But if it had such power in the types, if death so shuddered at the shadow, tell me how would it not have dreaded the very reality? This blood is the salvation of our souls, by this the soul is washed, by this is beautiful, by this is inflamed, this causeth our understanding to be more bright than fire, and our soul more beaming than gold; this blood was poured forth, and made heaven accessible.

Kosta: The final chapter 14 of Hosea repeats the same theme repeated throughout the bible: repent and your sins will be forgiven. The fundamental difference, however, between the Old and the New Testaments is how God brings people to repentence. It's like night and day.

It sure seems that way. But maybe that's what the Fathers meant when they talked about the "shadow" of the fullness to come. I don't know. But one thing I find striking: The history of the Church is full of stories of martyrs who, when given the choice between renouncing their faith and facing a horrible death (like the kind we keep reading about in the OT), chose to stand firm and face that death, while continuing to sing hymns to God's glory. Reflecting on such great faith truly and utterly humbles me. Their suffering was Christ's suffering, and His unending life is their unending life, by the great mystery of His grace.

[Zero Sum]

Likely it was the Levantine subtlety which threw you!

Could be. Say, do you suppose that fellow Luther was a Levantine? :)

I find you Western types marvelously sophisticated, especially when it comes to religion. :)

LOL, there's damning praise if ever I've heard it!

[Zero Sum]

BTW, Tolkien was a Catholic :)

Oh darn, you beat me to it! But as I always feel obligated to point out, his good friend C.S. Lewis wasn't. :)

[Zero Sum]

Zounds, Kosta, thanks for the research! It was a bit more than I was expecting. :)

Indirect evidence of the Hebrew belief that it was man's "seed" and woman's "soil" is given in the bible in the story of Onan, which is used as the basis for prohibition of onanism or masturbation because it represents "destruction of the seed."

Some may read it that way, but I've always heard that it was more about Onan's refusal to procrate. The story wasn't really about masturbation anyway; it was early withdrawl.

The fact that some Greek philosophers postulated male and female "seeds" and their mixing is no different than some who postulated the existence of atoms (indivisible particles) that make up matter, or who have been remarkably right, 500 years before Christ on other things, such as the fact that our genetic material is combined to give a new human being (mixing). But they were not biblical beliefs.

Yes, the "atomic theory" goes back at least to Democritus. Of course, all this was more "natural philosophy" than empirical science. Now, there certainly was a sort of proto-empiricism starting to develop by the time of the Hellenist period (though this wasn't until after old Democritus' time as far as I know), but they didn't really have any way to test their more "profound" hypotheses.

Even today, there's still a lot that we just don't know for sure, and we have to rely a great deal on extrapolation. Unfortunately, there seems to be a pervasive attitude among modern man that someday we'll "know it all." Perhaps there are no finite bounds on our understanding or growth in knowledge; but either way, God is not finite. In fact, in mathematics we can speak of a whole order of infinities, but none is the largest. God alone is uncontained, and this defies understanding.

[Kolokotronis]

“Say, do you suppose that fellow Luther was a Levantine? :)”

Clearly a wannabe; the way he translated Greek showed that he had potential but he never quite got there. His successors toyed with it too, but ultimately overplayed their hand! :)

[Kolokotronis]

"God alone is uncontained, and this defies understanding."

Ο ΩΝ

[kosta50]

It sure seems that way. But maybe that's what the Fathers meant when they talked about the "shadow" of the fullness to come

That's precisely what I am driving at. You see the same phenomenon in the various churches mentioned in +Paul's Epistles, as with various prophets telling Israelites that they need to come back to God; being the "elect" is not something you cannot lose (contrary to what our Reformed friends are saying). They just didn't "get it."

But, in that case, why was God using so many sdifferent approaches before making the ultimate Sacrifice, when He must have known they would fail?

It's like the Big Flood, when God "repented" for having made man because mankind turned out to be so wicked. Hello? Are we surprised? Was God caught off guard? Our reformed friedns will tlel us, oh no, he did it intentionally because He is using sin as an option for His plan.

And what about the Old Covenant, which had to be scrapped for a New One because of Israel's unfaithfulness? It certainly doesn't paint a picture of an all-knowing God, but rather of a trial-and-error, second-guessing "God" waiting on His unruly kids to quiet down. It also doesn't seem to support the Reformed God-is-in-control theology either.

The history of the Church is full of stories of martyrs who, when given the choice between renouncing their faith and facing a horrible death (like the kind we keep reading about in the OT), chose to stand firm and face that death, while continuing to sing hymns to God's glory

Well, that can be explained with Pascal's wager, in short—what do you have to lose? If it is true, your rewards will be great in heaven; if it is not true, you lost nothing.

[kosta50]

Some may read it that way, but I've always heard that it was more about Onan's refusal to procreate

Yes, the intent was wrong, and in Judaism the nature of the intent is essential.

Sex is not thought of as a necessary evil for the sole purpose of procreation. Although sexual desire comes from the yetzer ra (the evil impulse), it is no more evil than hunger or thirst, which also come from the yetzer ra.

Like hunger, thirst or other basic instincts, sexual desire must be controlled and channeled, satisfied at the proper time, place and manner.

But when sexual desire is satisfied between a husband and wife at the proper time, out of mutual love and desire, sex is a mitzvah.

Even though sex is not purely for procreation, the manner of Onan (in the biblical context) was not a mitzvah and God killed him for that.

You are technically right that Onan's practice did not constitute masturbation in the literal sense (although arguments can be made to the contrary, but there is no need for that here), Judaism explains

Although Onan's act was not truly masturbation, Jewish law takes a very broad view of the acts prohibited by this passage, and forbids any act of ha-sh'cha'tat zerah (destruction of the seed)

Unfortunately, there seems to be a pervasive attitude among modern man that someday we'll "know it all."

That is truly foolishness of the ego that tends to deify man. I guess it feels good while it lasts. There are lots of people on this earth who want to be immortalized for all ages and who truly believe they are very, very important.

Such individuals are rather dangerous and should be restrained, for they are capable of ruining many people's lives for their self-glorifcation.

God alone is uncontained, and this defies understanding

Of course. We call God what caused all this to exist; God was before it all existed. How can God be circumscribed by that which exists?

[conservonator]

Oh darn, you beat me to it! But as I always feel obligated to point out, his good friend C.S. Lewis wasn't. :)

Ah so true, had he only lived a bit longer! :)

[stfassisi]

The history of the Church is full of stories of martyrs who, when given the choice between renouncing their faith and facing a horrible death (like the kind we keep reading about in the OT), chose to stand firm and face that death, while continuing to sing hymns to God's glory. Reflecting on such great faith truly and utterly humbles me. Their suffering was Christ's suffering, and His unending life is their unending life, by the great mystery of His grace

Dear Zero,I thank you for writing this!

This is what Faith in Jesus Christ and the Church is. We must be willing to suffer and welcome persecution even until death.

...And this my friend, is a message that the culture of death and this "self fulfillment" world that we live in wants to keep silent.

Here is a few more writings from Blessed Saint John Chrysostom on Eucharist

"When the word says, 'This is My Body,' be convinced of it and believe it, and look at it with the eyes of the mind. For Christ did not give us something tangible, but even in His tangible things all is intellectual. So too with Baptism: the gift is bestowed through what is a tangible thing, water; but what is accomplished is intellectually perceived: the birth and the renewal. If you were incorporeal He would have given you those incorporeal gifts naked; but since the soul is intertwined with the body, He hands over to you in tangible things that which is perceived intellectually. How many now say, 'I wish I could see His shape, His appearance, His garments, His sandals.' Only look! You see Him! You touch Him! You eat Him!"

-"Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew" [82,4] 370 A.D.

"I wish to add something that is plainly awe-inspiring, but do not be astonished or upset. This Sacrifice, no matter who offers it, be it Peter or Paul, is always the same as that which Christ gave His disciples and which priests now offer: The offering of today is in no way inferior to that which Christ offered, because it is not men who sanctify the offering of today; it is the same Christ who sanctified His own. For just as the words which God spoke are the very same as those which the priest now speaks, so too the oblation is the very same."

Source: St. John Chrysostom, "Homilies on the Second Epistle to Timothy," 2,4, c. 397 A.D.

"It is not the power of man which makes what is put before us the Body and Blood of Christ, but the power of Christ Himself who was crucified for us. The priest standing there in the place of Christ says these words but their power and grace are from God. 'This is My Body,' he says, and these words transform what lies before him."

Source: St. John Chrysostom, "Homilies on the Treachery of Judas" 1,6; d. 407 A.D.:

"'The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not communion of the Blood of Christ?' Very trustworthily and awesomely does he say it. For what he is saying is this: 'What is in the cup is that which flowed from His side, and we partake of it.' He called it a cup of blessing because when we hold it in our hands that is how we praise Him in song, wondering and astonished at His indescribable Gift, blessing Him because of His having poured out this very Gift so that we might not remain in error, and not only for His having poured out It out, but also for His sharing It with all of us."

-"Homilies on the First Letter to the Corinthians" [24,1] ca. 392 A.D.

I wish you a Blessed Day!

[kosta50]

Correction: post 13066 re; Psalm xvi

This is one of those humbling moments when one discovers his own "scribal" error. In referring to Psalm xvi (16), I inadvertently quoted from Ps vi (6) when I used the Tanach version. That is obvious even from the heading I gave. As it turns out, the verses in Ps xvi. are much closer, but not close enough:

because You will not leave my soul in Hades, neither will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.[LXX]

For You shall not forsake my soul to the grave; You shall not allow Your pious one to see the pit.[MT]

The key here is the context. The words used in Greek and Hebrew are sufficiently "loose" to allow either interpretation, but in context—considering this is David writing about himself—it is unlikely that he would call himself the "holy one," or that he was referring to anyone but himself. Anyone who reads the entire Chapter xvi (16) should see that immediately. How did Lactantius connect this to Christ is beyond me.

[kosta50]

Re: Lactantius

Considered somewhat heretical after his death. Known for his flat earth teaching. Eloquent in Latin, however, as you said.

So, basically the best out of whopping two early commentaries we can some up with regarding Hosea 13 is Lactantius, a somewhat of a heretic, whose proof is a cut-and-paste collage of out-of-context, heavily chirstianized text?

As I said, the Church remains curiously silent on this and similar biblical chapters. My guess is because there is really no Christ in any of them.