Saturday, July 23, 2011

Abba Sisoes on "whether there is a punishment for men"

"Three old men came to see Abba Sisoes, having heard about him.  The first said to him, 'Father, how shall I save myself from the river of fire [(τοῦ πυρίνου ποταμοῦ; cf. Dn 7:10 on the ποταμὸς πυρός)]?'  He did not answer him.  The second said to him, 'Father, how can I be saved from the gnashing of teeth [(Mt 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30; Lk 13:28)] and the worm which dieth not [(Mk 9:48)]?'  The third said, 'Father, what shall I do, for the remembrance of the outer darkness [(Mt 8:12; 22:13; 25:30)] is killing me?'  By way of reply the old man said to them, 'For my part, I do not keep in mind the remembrance of any of these things, for God is compassionate and I hope [(ἐλπίζω)] that he will show me his mercy.'  Hearing this, the old men went back offended.  But the old man, not wishing to let them go away hurt, said to them, 'Blessed are you, my brothers; truly I envy you.  The first speaks of the river of fire, the second of hell [(τοῦ Ταρτάρου; cf. Jb 40:20, 41:24, and Pr 30:16 LXX; 2 Pt 3:4)] and the third of darkness.  Now if your spirit is filled with such remembrances, it is impossible for you to sin.  What shall I do, then?  I who am hard of heart and to whom it has not been granted so much as to know whether there is a punishment for men [(ὅτι κἀν ἐστι κόλασις τοῖς ἁνθρώποις; cf. Mt 25:46 on κόλασιν αἰώνιον)]; no doubt it is because of this that I am sinning all the time.'  They prostrated themselves before him and said, 'Now we have seen exactly that of which we have heard tell.'"

Abba Sisoes 19 (PG 65, col. 397).  This one doesn't appear in the Collection systématique (SC 387, 474, and 498), or, at least, not in the Concordance (SC 498, pp. 217 ff.) under Sisoès.  The desert Christian:  sayings of the Desert Fathers:  the alphabetical collection, trans. Benedicta Ward (New York, NY:  Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1975), 216-217.  Given the clear quotations of and allusions to Scripture, Sisoes' two responses can't represent as straightforward an agnosticism as they seem to at first glance.  Note that in Daniel the context is a sitting of the divine court in judgment and an opening of the books.  I have not looked beyond Daniel for this "river of fire" imagery, though the references to a "lake of fire" in the Apocalypse (among the uses of fire for judgment generally) cannot be irrelevant.

For searchability:

"Three old men came to see Abba Sisoes, having heard about him. The first said to him, 'Father, how shall I save myself from the river of fire?' He did not answer him. The second said to him, 'Father, how can I be saved from the gnashing of teeth and the worm which dieth not?' The third said, 'Father, what shall I do, for the remembrance of the outer darkness is killing me?' By way of reply the old man said to them, 'For my part, I do not keep in mind the remembrance of any of these things, for God is compassionate and I hope that he will show me his mercy.' Hearing this, the old men went back offended. But the old man, not wishing to let them go away hurt, said to them, 'Blessed are you, my brothers; truly I envy you. The first speaks of the river of fire, the second of hell and the third of darkness. Now if your spirit is filled with such remembrances, it is impossible for you to sin. What shall I do, then? I who am hard of heart and to whom it has not been granted so much as to know whether there is a punishment for men; no doubt it is because of this that I am sinning all the time.' They prostrated themselves before him and said, 'Now we have seen exactly that of which we have heard tell.'"

It's the office, stupid

"in Lumen gentium, the church’s self-definition in the Second Vatican Council, introduced in a council document the charismatic church along with the church of office, saying that charisms are carried by religious orders, by charismatic figures like St. Francis of Assisi, prophetic figures. They’re given a moment when they’re necessary for the reform of the church and for the renewal of the mission, but they’re not permanent.
"What’s permanent is the office, but it doesn’t lend itself very easily to charismatic figures. A bishop, a priest, isn’t a guru. He should disappear behind the office because he comes and goes, and someone else comes and goes. The office is what counts. And so from that perspective I am less concerned about personal memoirs than I am about the preservation of the office, as given to us from the Apostles…the faith and the office, because the office is part of the faith. This is a so called institutional church that somehow rides apart from the church as the body of the faithful. So, from that perspective, what I personally may have experienced in the midst of trying to fulfill the office is not all that important.
"John Paul II was very conscious of the office, but he fulfilled it in a very personal way that didn’t detract from the office. The danger is that if you become a guru, you’ll fulfill it in a way that does detract from the office, in which case you’ve failed."

Francis Cardinal George, OMI, in part two of David Gibson's "Setting boundaries:  a conversation with Cardinal George," a Commonweal web exclusive dated 22 July 2011.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

"no more than a very good Deist"

"[William Wake's] last French interlocutor, the génovéfain P.-F. Le Courayer, distraut, preferred to rally to a reductive Anglicanism that could serve [as a] compromise in [the] guise of [a] project of reunion.  This fooled no one and above all not the Queen of England, who wrote of Le Courayer:  'I fear he is no more than a very good Deist, as most the learned men when they cease being Papists prove.''"

Bernard Plongeron, "Les projets de réunion des communions chrétiennes du Directoire à l'Empire," Revue d'histoire de l'Église de France 66, no. 176 (1980), 17 (17-49), citing E. Préclin, L'union des églises gallicane et anglicane: une tentative au temps de Louis XIV: P.-F. Le Courayer (de 1681 à 1732) et Guillaume Wake (Paris, 1928), 160-162.  The words of the Queen are taken directly from the Diary of Viscount Percival, afterwards first Earl of Egmont, rather than the French of this article:  "Pray has Dr. Couraye a correspondence in France now?  I answered, I did not know, for Mr. Duncombe had stolen him from me, not only for the winter, but now for the summer, which was a loss to me, because of his cheerful temper and learned conversation.  I added that he understood a thing the clearest, and replied to it the quickest of any man I know.  I wish, said she, I could prevail with him to do more than he does.  You mean, Madam, said I, to declare himself a Protestant; but I think it very extraordinary to see a monk go so far as he has done in approaching us.  And yet, said she, I fear he is gone too far; how so, replied I?  Why I fear he is no more than a very good Deist, as most the learned men when they cease being Papists prove.  Madam, said I, he is certainly a true and sincere Christian; for so I find him in all conversations I ever had with him.  Then, said she, he is possibly of Erasmus's opinion, for whom I have a great esteem.  I believe, replied I, that he is of his opinion, for he highly esteems him, and thinks him the greatest man the Church of Rome produced.  I shall, said she, be desirous to see Dr. Couraye when he returns to London" (Diary of Viscount Percival, afterwards first Early of Egmont, vol. 1, 1730-1733, Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont (London:  His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1920), 396).

Monday, July 18, 2011

"a teacher who does not transmit the two Testaments in their unity is a murderer of souls."

"Duo uero ubera propterea dixit quoniam hic qui se doctorem profitetur, et animarum nutritorem, nisi de utroque testamento docuerit auditores, id est uetus et nouum ab uno omnipotenti Deo processisse, homicida effictur animarum."

"Indeed, the two breasts were referred to because he who considers himself a doctor and nurturer of souls, unless he has taught [his] hearers about each Testament, i.e. that the Old and the New have come from the one omnipotent God, [he] is made a murderer of souls."

     Aponius, In canticvm canticorvm expositionem VI.27 (ll. 302-306) (CCSL 19, p. 149, and SC 421, p. 156; cf. PLS 1, col. 901), on Song of Songs 4:5, as quoted in Paolo Prosperi, “Novum in vetere latet.  Vetus in novo patet:  toward a renewal of typological exegesis,” Communio:  international Catholic review 37, no. 3 (Fall 2010):  393 (389-424).  PLS 1 has "hic [qui se] doctorem profitetur, et animarum nutritorem, nisi de utroque testamento docuerit auditores, id est, vetus et novum ab uno omnipotenti Deo processisse, homicida animarum est."  Other variants in CCSL 19.  There is much more of value here in context.