Blaise Pascal - Faith and Reason

There is sufficient light for those who desire to see, and there is sufficient darkness for those of a contrary disposition.

Pensees 149

Part I

At the dawn of the seventeenth century, the Western world was experiencing one of the most profound paradigm shifts in scientific and philosophic intellectual history. With the overthrow of the ancient Ptolemaic geocentric cosmology, Copernicus and Galileo had prevailed in the arena of astronomy by demonstrating the theory of heliocentrism, Francis Bacon had laid the groundwork for a new scientific epistemology (i.e., the scientific method), and Rene Descartes, impressed by strict mathematical deductive logic, rejected the a priori assumptions of the medieval Scholastic philosophers and instead set forth a new methodological process of arriving at philosophic truth. Essentially, Descartes' method emphasized a subjective approach, beginning with his classic dictum, "Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am"), thus rejecting the presuppositional acceptance of certain objective theistic assertions. So, clearly, although theism had not yet been denied, this new shift in epistemological methodology would clearly predict the ascent of reason, which, of course, would culminate during the era of the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason, in the eighteenth century. Thus, it was at the threshold of this new era, marked by the Copernican revolution and Cartesian epistemology that the spirit of skepticism and freethinking would be born - the sword had been unsheathed, and a fire had been kindled which would eventually explode into a war of worldviews, a war that we even witness today, i.e., the war between theism (revelation and reason) and philosophical naturalism (reason alone).

Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont, France in 1623, Clermont being the city from where Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade in 1095. In addition to the intellectual changes which were occurring in Pascal's world, Europe was experiencing profound religious transformation as well as political chaos. This was the era of the post-Reformation when the religious unity of medieval Christendom had been shattered, and the violence of the Thirty Years War (1618-48) would leave the old Holy Roman Empire in utter desolation, with many cities and villages, once prosperous in agriculture and industry, now razed to the ground, their memory smoldering in the ashes of their remains. So whereas the intellectual spirit of man was thriving and going through marked evolutive change, the essential nature of man still appeared unchanged, arrested by its innate tendency toward divisiveness and destruction, imprisoned in the dungeon of its own depravity.

Now although the societal context in which Pascal lived was one of heightened volatility, the young Blaise was reared in a very stable, upper-class environment, his father Etienne being a principal financial magistrate who once contended with the infamous Cardinal Richelieu, the chief prime minister of Louis XIII. Tragically, however, the young Pascal's mother died when he was only three, and his years of infancy would be plagued by illness, something that would haunt him throughout his entire life. Nevertheless, Etienne Pascal was a capable father who, with the help of his daughters, Gilberte and Jacqueline, would sustain the young Blaise and then impel him into a career of intellectual magnificence. Essentially, Etienne Pascal was an ingenious man who was not only an able financial magistrate, but he was well versed in mathematics, ancient languages, Greek literature, and the art of poetry. Yet as a freethinker, he was critical of contemporary pedagogical methods, so he decided to take the matter of his son's education into his own hands, and true to his commitment. Etienne did not fail.

Beginning at a very early age, the young Pascal began to display extraordinary signs of intellectual prowess. Whether or not the story is true, that the twelve-year-old Blaise discovered complex geometrical principles on his own, it is certain that the young Pascal was a child prodigy and savant who excelled in the disciplines of mathematics and physics. At age sixteen he wrote a treatise on conic sections - i.e., circles, ellipses, and parabolas which are formed when a cone is intersected by a plane - his essay would be published in the following year. Shortly thereafter, Pascal would invent a digital calculating machine which would aid his father in the assessment of taxes, and in subsequent years, his experiments on atmospheric pressure and the possibility of a vacuum (something that Descartes claimed could not exist) would astonish the scientific intelligentsia. In addition to these achievements, Pascal would continue to make important contributions in the fields of mathematics and physics, especially with regard to probability theory and hydrodynamics (a branch of physics that deals with the forces produced by water and other fluids). Needless to say, Pascal would be universally acclaimed for his innumerable and timeless contributions to the disciplines of mathematics and science.

In the year 1646, however, Pascal would begin a spiritual journey that would possess his mind and occupy his soul until his tragic death at the young age of thirty-nine in 1662. And during this period in his life, "Pascal the mathematician and physicist" would become "Pascal the apologist and philosopher." Though he never abandoned his scientific experiments, he nevertheless consecrated his work to the glory of God and began to focus his penetrating mind on philosophical and theological pursuits.

It was in January of 1646 when his father had severely injured his leg that two profoundly religious men came to care for the ailing Etienne - thus, Blaise would be deeply impressed by the degree of Christian charity and spirituality that these two men evoked. Since these men were Jansenists, a movement within Roman Catholicism that was based on the teachings of Cornelius Jansenius (1585-1638), bishop of Ypres and author of the controversial work Augustinus, it seemed natural for Pascal to be drawn initially toward the Jansenist school of thought. Essentially, Jansenism resurrected the ancient Pelagian Controversy, a theological debate in the ancient church (ca. 400) between Augustine and Pelagius over the issues of grace, free will, and original sin. In contrast to the Jesuit teaching that grace is effective when the recipient assents and cooperates with God through free will, Jansenius taught that grace is wholly unmerited and therefore granted to the recipient by God through predestination. Thus, the ideas proposed by Jansenius were in the tradition of Augustinian thought, and not unlike those of John Calvin. Nevertheless, his central propositions were declared heretical by Pope Innocent X in 1653, but the firestorm of controversy would continue to rage on for some time. And in the midst of this theological conflict, Blaise Pascal would enter the arena as a philosophical thinker and polemicist par excellence.

On Monday, November 23, 1654, the Feast of St. Clement, Pascal experienced a profound spiritual awakening and conversion that he described in terms of mystical illumination. Prior to that fateful night of the 23rd, Pascal had taken the Roman Catholic ritual quite seriously, especially since he experienced the profound religiosity of the two Jansenist brethren who cared for his father in 1646; nevertheless, Pascal was plagued by spiritual distress and despair - he still felt as if he hadn't yet experienced true communion with God. So at the height of his struggle, while he was yearning and hungering for a deep interpersonal relationship with the God who seemed to evade him, or the "hidden God" as he later referred to the Supreme Being[1], Pascal's spirit was filled with immense grace and glory, as the "hidden God" determined to reveal Himself to the earnest seeker through a profound spiritual experience. Later, Pascal would relate his mystical experience with the following words:

"From about half past ten in the evening until about half past twelve, FIRE - God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars. Certitude, certitude. Heartfelt joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. My God and thy God. Thy God shall be my God" (This text is from what is called the Memorial, a piece of parchment which was sewn into the lining of Pascal's coat).

It was at this point, then, that Pascal dedicated himself entirely to God and sought to serve the Divine Master with austerity and rigor. With the same degree of penetrating ingenuity that he had applied to his mathematic and scientific pursuits, Pascal now immersed himself in the study of Scripture and the Church Fathers, and it was not uncommon for him to turn to Protestant and rabbinical sources as well.

During the years 1655-57, Pascal, who sympathized with the Jansenist cause, articulated a powerful defense of certain Jansenist ideas and articulated a powerful polemic against the Jesuits in what has come to be known as the Lettres Provinciales. Writing anonymously in order to avoid imprisonment, Pascal essentially attacked the contemporary moral theology of the Jesuits. As the Jesuit scholar and historian of philosophy, Frederick Copleston indicates, "Pascal regarded the casuistry (the application of moral principles to particular cases) of the moral theologians as evidence of moral laxity and as an unjustifiable attempt to make Christianity easier for the more or less worldly-minded." [2] In this regard, Pascal greatly respected and identified with the seriousness of Jansenist Christianity, although he never fully identified himself with any sect, so it would be an error to speak of Pascal as a committed Jansenist.[3] Nevertheless, Pascal's polemical pen flagellated the Jesuits and caused them considerable aggravation.

As the great thinker was unwittingly entering into the final phase of his life (1657-62), he took it upon himself to prepare An Apology for the Christian Religion, a work which would be written with the intent of converting skeptics and freethinkers. With his years of intimate experience among the intelligentsia of his time, and with his penetrative ingenuity, Pascal was certainly proven for such a monumental work - however, fate would have it that the great Pascal would be cut down in his prime at the young age of thirty-nine, and the world would be left with about a thousand of his maxims, aphorisms, philosophical insights, and notes, later to be compiled into a work called Pensees (lit. "Thoughts"). Although the philosophical world would have been much richer with a systematic apologetic work by Pascal, scholars have nevertheless been able to glean from his writings his essential philosophical and theological position, a rather unique apologetic approach from which contemporary Christian thinkers can learn volumes,

Part II

So, now let us approach the question regarding Pascal's philosophical contribution. Why was his thought so unique, and why has his perspective transcended the centuries? Ironically, Pascal's philosophic insight differed greatly from the thinkers of his time. For instance, whereas Descartes, who was also a mathematician of great repute, reasoned that mathematical principles could serve as the paradigm for inferring philosophic knowledge [4], Pascal regarded Descartes' exaltation of mathematical sovereignty as overly ambitious and useless with regard to philosophical and theological applications. And here lies the wonder of Pascal. In contrast to his contemporaries who had elevated science and mathematics to an ascendant level, the philosophical genius of Pascal was that throughout his career as a mathematician and physicist, he had plunged the very depths of reason to such a degree that only a handful of thinkers in the course of human civilization could be ranked with him. And because he deeply penetrated the very depths of reason to a point which was beyond the common reach of man, he therefore recognized the limitations of reason. He had journeyed to its very perimeter, and he thus perceived that there was no traversing beyond that point. Before him stood an unsurpassable chasm; and though he realized that the truth regarding ultimate reality awaited on the other side, he knew that not he, nor anyone else, could pass over the unsurpassable chasm. Thus, he dismissed the omnicompetence of reason and instead recognized the finitude of man's potential intellect. In one of his famous quotes from his Pensees, he humbly concedes the finitude of his own reason - and ironically it is reason herself, which he has met face to face, who instructs him as to her limitations. In one of his honest encounters with uncertainty, he wrote:

"I do not know who put me into the world, nor what the world is, nor what I am myself I am terribly ignorant about everything I don't know what my body is, or my senses, or my soul, or even that part of me which thinks what I am saying, which reflects about everything and about itself, and does not know itself any better than it knows anything else. I see the terrifying spaces of the universe hemming me in, and I find myself attached to one corner of this vast expanse without knowing why I have been put in this place rather than that . . . All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least about is this very death which I cannot evade. Just as I do not know whence I come, so I do not know whither I am going All I can know is that when I leave this world I shall fall forever into nothingness or into the hands of a wrathful God, but I do not know which of these two states is to be my eternal lot." (emphasis mine) Pensees 427

This spirit of uncertainty regarding the omnicompetence of reason, contrary to modern positivistic and naturalistic notions, is actually indicative of the humility of other great thinkers such as Socrates[5], who has served as the paradigmatic thinker for intellectual modesty and careful epistemology ever since the Greek classical era (ca. 400 BC). Thus, echoing Socrates, Pascal recognized his own limitations (despite his magnificent academic achievements which were based on reason alone), and in so doing, he anticipated the thought of Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55). Kierkegaard, too, was reluctant to build an ambitious rationalistic system, and like Pascal, he perfectly understood the apparent ambiguity of God, and the importance of faith in the Christian life: "I contemplate the order of nature in finding God, and I see omnipotence and wisdom; but I also see much else that disturbs my mind and excites anxiety. The sum of all this is an objective uncertainty." (emphasis mine).[6] Nevertheless, despite these realizations of the ambiguity of God, both Pascal and Kierkegaard, rather that seeing uncertainty as a weak link in an apologetic system, perceived such ambiguities as "that which must be," especially if we stand by the assertion that God is wholly transcendent and unfathomable (Rom 11:33 // Isa 55:8-9), apart from his own determined self-revelation.

Notwithstanding our discussion of Pascal's concept of God's ambiguity, the great thinker did in fact integrate an undeniable existential principle into his system which was, at the same time, both similar and dissimilar to the assertion of Descartes. Simply whereas Descartes argued that self-existence ("Cogito, ergo sum") was the key pillar upon which man must erect all subsequent knowledge, Pascal argued that it was in fact "the end of self-existence" (i.e., death) with which man must concern himself primarily and ultimately. For Pascal, knowledge and acclaim in life were future if man disregarded this essential existential problem:

"Nothing is so important to man as his state: nothing more fearful than eternity. Thus the fact that there exist men who are indifferent to the loss of their being and peril of an eternity of wretchedness is against nature. With everything else they are quite different. they fear the most trifling things, foresee and feel them; and the same man who spends so many days and nights in fury and despair at losing some office or at some-imaginary affront to his honor is the very one who knows that he is going to lose everything through death but feels neither anxiety nor emotion. It is a monstrous thing to see one and the same heart once so sensitive to minor things and so strangely insensitive to the greatest. An inevitable death, which threatens us at every moment, must infallibly in a few years face us with the inescapable and appalling alternative of being annihilated or wretched for all eternity." Pensees 427, 432

For Pascal, then, the shadow of death loomed large, and the idea of facing eternity without knowing one's destiny was simply a burden to wearisome to bear -- the stakes were simply too high. Thus, Pascal articulated his famous Wager-argument, which essentially set forth the idea that the Christian has nothing to lose (even if he is mistaken), while the atheist has everything to lose (if he is mistaken). The most reasonable position, then, would be for one to place his wager on the existence of God, since there is nothing to lose one way or the other. And the sensual pleasures he might sacrifice in his devotion to God, would simply be reciprocated by the peace of mind, joy, and harmonious living which would be the product of his devotional life. Interestingly, Pascal did not offer his Wager-argument as a conventional proof of the existence of God, but rather as a challenge to those skeptics and atheists who were unconvinced by the traditional arguments and thus remained comfortably in a state of "suspended judgment."[7] As for Pascal, he placed his wager on the existence of God, and he found his perfect hope in the person of Jesus Christ.

At one o'clock in the morning, on the 19th of August 1662, Blaise Pascal breathed his last, his final words being, "May God never abandon me." Throughout his life he had struggled with chronic ill-health, yet as he approached the bitter end, his condition worsened to the point that he suffered terribly and tragically. There was nothing heroic about the death of Pascal - no glory or martyrdom by which he would be remembered. Nothing but a slow, progressively, gruesome disease which would consume his life at a time when the great thinker, in the eyes of man, should have been soaring through the heavens with the intellectual gifts that God had granted him. Yet perhaps this is part of the enigma of Pascal - the profound mystery. For, why would God bestow upon a young child such gifts of extraordinary magnitude, and then at the prime age of thirty nine precisely at a point when the young man would be writing a powerful systematic defense of the Christian faith - why would God snatch away his very soul? Why? Well, perhaps if Pascal could speak to us today, he would simply say that it was all part of the ambiguity of God . . . part of the uncertainty which God has purposed in His creation in order that men might come to Him through "faith," rather than simply through intellectual assent, for as the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews teaches us, "without faith it is impossible to please Him" (Heb 11:6). Thus, it was in the realm of such faith that the great Pascal attained his communion with God . . . Transcending the idea of reason alone, the great philosopher recognized that God had purposed a degree of ambiguity in His creation in order that He might discover the faithfulness of the heart, rather than the certitude of the mind.

"Acknowledge the truth of religion in its very obscurity . . . for it is not true that everything reveals God, and it is not true that everything conceals God. But it is true at once that he hides from those who tempt Him and that He reveals Himself to those who seek Him." Pensees 439, 444

Works Cited

1. John A. Mackay's "Forward" in Emille Cailliet, The Clue to Pascal (Philadelphia: Westminster Press), 1943, p. 10.

2. Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy - Vol. 4, Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Leibniz (New York: Doubleday), 1963, p. 156.

3. Ibid., p. 155.

4. Antony Flew, "Rene Descartes" in A Dictionary of Philosophy (New York: St Martin's Press), 1979.

5. Plato, Plato's Apology, trans. by Benjamin Jowett (New York: Simon and Schuster), 1928.

6. Soren Kierkegaard, "Concluding Unscientific Postscript," quoted by Copleston in A History of Philosophy - Vol 7, p. 346

7. Copleston, A History of Philosophy - Vol. 4, p. 169.

Soren Kierkegaard - Existentialism, Nominalism, and the Three Spheres of Existence

The dawning years of the nineteenth century were indeed years of great historic change. The Age of Reason was slowly disappearing over the horizon and the Romantic era was gradually rising to the fore. Moreover, it was a time of momentous social change and industrial progress, an age of revolution and powerful human expression. While Rousseau and Jefferson assailed the divine right of kings and proceeded to carve out their respective revolutionary ideals, great artists such as Beethoven, Goethe, and Goya were offering to the world their timeless creations. Meanwhile, the engines of the industrial machine were set in motion by the inventive genius of the age, creating a momentous force which has not ceased to this day. Thus the dawn of the nineteenth century was pervaded by the spirit of optimism and human ascent, and it was posited for the first time that the "theoretical possibility of uninterrupted human progress might be concretely realized."1 But as contemporary historians have observed, the Romanticist "escape from reason" was nothing more than a "fallacy of hope,"2 an imaginary dream of utopian ideals from which the European man would awake in horror.

Perhaps this shattered dream is best represented by the story of Beethoven and Napoleon, a story which seems to encapsulate the death of political idealism in nineteenth century Europe. As the story goes, Beethoven, though not a political man, but a grand admirer of Napoleon as an apostle of revolutionary ideals, dedicated his Third Symphony (Sinfonia Eroica) to the French general, inscibing "Buonaparte" at the very top of the manuscript's title page. However, in 1804 when the orchestral master heard that Napoleon crowned himself Emperor in the cathedral of Notre Dame, Beethoven flew into a rage and said, "Now too he will tread under foot all the rights of man, indulge in his own ambition; now he will think himself superior to all men and become a tyrant!"3 Infuriated, the master stormed to the table upon which his work of art lay, and tore the title page into shreds, the name of "Buonaparte" being committed to the hearth and flame. The resulting imperialism of Napoleon, then, would cause much dismay and disillusionment in the hearts of the European people; the intellectual edifice of Romanticism was doomed to collapse and a new context was being formed in which a new philosophy might emerge -- indeed, the philosophy of existentialism.

Perhaps more than any other system of thought, the existential worldview is dependent on the socio-cultural context of the age. Unlike any form of transcendental idealism, existentialism envelops and engages troubled civilization, responding to the predicament of the existing individual. Thus, we can say that existentialism is a philosophy which is attentive to the anguish, aspirations, and needs of the people, a philosophy which moves the existent to realize his "ultimate concern,"4 and thus attain an authentic existence. So, when we reflect upon the societal conditions which prevailed in post-Napoleonic Europe, and then take into consideration the fact that rationalism and higher criticism had already contributed greatly to the erosion of biblical authority, it is not difficult to see how the philosophy of existentialism could have taken root, even though it would not flourish until the twentieth century.

In truth, a concrete definition of existentialism is elusive, indeed a difficult assignment. For, it is not a philosophical system or school of thought per se, nor can it be reduced to a series of propositional truths or tenets. Furthermore, the philosophers which are identified as existentialists are thinkers who differ on the essentials; thus, existential thinkers should not be viewed categorically, but rather on a continuum which spans a wide range of thought. For this reason, then, we find within existentialism such Christian thinkers as Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard on one end of the spectrum, and such atheists as Nietzsche and Sartre on the other end.5 But what is common among existential thinkers is an attitude of revolt against traditional paradigms of thought, especially the epistemological and ontological structures offered in institutionalized Christianity and systematic philosophical idealism (e.g. Platonism or Hegelianism). Rather than viewing reality and existence from an objective rationalistic perspective, existentialism makes precedent the individual's subjective presence and participation in the changing world order.6 Truth is never realized by an a priori assent to a systematic worldview, but by the existent's dialectical interaction with the dynamics of the life situation. The meditative individual contemplates his finitude in the seeming void of the infinite, and endeavors to understand his relation to the world in order that he might attain some form of "authentic existence." Thus, through his own freedom and volition, the individual shapes his own existence, an existence which is part of abstract reality, but not necessarily dependent on it. Thus, authentic existence means that one must become more and more an individual and less and less a member of the "herd," or common humanity. Essentially, then, this is what is meant by the common existential refrain, "existence precedes essence." In sum, this is existentialism.

In the text of this paper, we will explore the ideas of one of the pioneers of existential thought, the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55). Although we will allude to various aspects of his existential philosophy, our primary focus will be concerned with his distinct approach to Christianity against the backdrop of nineteenth century nominalism which prevailed in the Danish State Church as well as in Protestant Christianity in general. Soren Kierkegaard was a passionate thinker, sometimes eccentric, and sometimes cynical, who vigorously opposed "Christendom" in its nominal form. In doing so, he served as the prototypical thinker for future existentialists in their polemic against any form of institutionalized nominalism, whether religious, academic, social, or otherwise. Yet although Kierkegaard has been deemed the "father of existentialism" by many contemporary thinkers, it is doubtful that he would have recognized his own ideas in many of the twentieth century existential writings.

At any rate, Kierkegaard's purpose was to awaken the masses from their passive spiritual slumber; and, in his mind, he even sacrificed his marital commitment to Regina Olsen in order to serve God for the sake of this higher principle. He truly believed that Christianity could address the individual existential concerns of the people; but true Christianity, for Kierkegaard, would come with a price. According to his way of thinking, in the early centuries of Christianity, becoming a Christian meant sacrifice and separation from the world, indeed renouncing the ways of the kosmos and following Christ in a continual state of self-surrender, even in the face of scorn and ridicule. In Kierkegaard's day, however, as well as in any era of nominalism, becoming a Christian meant conformity to social principles which were thought to have been derived from Christianity. Thus, in the Danish-Lutheran society, everyone was a Christian. And as Kierkegaard argued in his Attack Upon Christendom, "If all men are Christians, then Christianity eo ipso does not exist."7 Thus, according to Kierkegaard, Christianity had been reduced to a meaningless and irrelevant system which was wholly foreign to its true original form as preserved in the New Testament. Rather than propagating Christian truth (as was supposed), the church was simply contributing to the abolition of authentic Christianity.

As one would expect, because of his countercultural views, Soren Kierkegaard was made the object of scorn and ridicule in the Danish state press. Thus, he was relatively unknown in his own day, unrewarded and unappreciated as a philosophical thinker. Like many of the great minds in history, he simply transcended the age in which he lived. Yet in retrospect, we can see that his philosophical and psychological penetration of the human spirit was so profound that the twentieth century zeitgeist would altogether be different without his important literary contributions.

"The stone which was rolled before Christ's tomb might
appropriately be called 'the philosopher's stone' because its
removal gave not only the Pharisees but, now for 1800 years,
the philosophers so much to think about."8

Soren Kierkegaard was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1813, and it seemed that tragedy would grip his family all the days of his life. By the time he was twenty-one, two of his sisters, a brother, and his mother had all died, and Soren himself would only life to the age of forty-one. Whether one would attribute such tragedy to his father, who as a young boy cursed God for seemingly condemning him to a life of obscurity on the shepherd plains of the Jutland Heath,9 or whether one would attribute such sickliness and frailty to a genetic abnormality which infected the Kierkegaard family, the fact remains that though Soren lived a short life, his proficient mind and prolific pen produced an abundance of ideas, which have earned their place in the bibliotheca of human thought.

In the mind of Kierkegaard, the rationalism which resulted from Enlightenment thinking was nothing short of repugnant. Most of all, he abhorred the philosophy of Hegel, a philosophy which could be regarded as one of the most ambitious systematic philosophies ever devised by the mind of one man.10 Not that Kierkegaard was irreverent toward the great idealistic thinker; indeed, by no means. Kierkegaard recognized the immensity and magnitude of the Hegelian achievement. But as Frederick Copleston has indicated, this was precisely the problem with the Hegelian system according to Kierkegaard. "Kierkegaard regarded Hegel as the greatest of all speculative philosophers and as a thinker who achieved a stupendous intellectual 'tour de force.'"11 Problematic for Kierkegaard, however, was that Hegelian philosophy was a "gigantic 'tour de force' and nothing more."12 It pretended to be a transcendent philosophy which could objectively discern and define all of reality -- indeed, an effort of Promethean fortitude -- but for Kierkegaard, though the Hegelian system sought to encapsulate all of reality within an objective, abstract system, Hegel neglected one very important fact, namely, the "individual existent" and his dynamic interaction within the all-comprehensive reality. Thus, with some cynicism, Kierkegaard wrote, "If Hegel had written his whole 'Logic' and in the Preface had disclosed the fact that it was merely a thought-experiment, he would have been the greatest thinker that has ever lived. Now he is a comic."13

Most importantly, however, what aggravated Kierkegaard the most was that the Hegelian ethos had been superimposed upon the Danish State Church (and Protestantism in general), and had thus reinforced the spirit of nominalism within the church. Of course, Hegel's primary effort was directed at resolving the Kantian distinction between the phenomenal and the noumenal realms,14 the solution being a progressive dialectic between the two which would result in a synthesis of theological and philosophical postulates -- or as some contemporary scholars have asserted, a transformation of the Christian mythos into a philosophical/contemporary understanding.15 Practically, however, Christianity became equated with Christendom (or institutionalized nominalism), the criterion of faith being an assent to the ethical principles of the universal Christian system.

For Kierkegaard, however, this gross nominalism presented a critical problem which had to be overcome if authentic Christianity was to have any practical realism. Within the Hegelian paradigm, there was no place for an individual dynamic faith, i.e. a subjective faith that was elementary to the authentic Christian life.16 Christendom was simply a "prodigious illusion" which distorted and masked the true essence of the Christian kerygma. As Kierkegaard himself noted in his Point of View:

"What does it mean that all these thousands and thousands call themselves Christians as a matter of course? These many, men, of whom the greater part, so far as one can judge, live in categories quite foreign to Christianity! People who never think about God, never mention his name except in oaths . . . Yet all these people are all called Christians, call themselves Christians, are recognized as Christians by the State, are buried as Christians by the Church, are certified as Christians for eternity!"17

Thus, according to Kierkegaard, most of the people within Christendom were not really true Christians, i.e. disciples of Jesus Christ. Indeed, as Kierkegaard argued in his Training in Christianity, if these people (whether minister, philosopher, or statesman) had lived contemporaneous with Christ, they certainly would not have comprised his following, but rather, his opposition. In reality, they were simply the heirs of 1,800 years of Christian civilization (i.e. "the upshot"),18 and "they live(d) in aesthetic, or at most, in aesthetic-ethical categories" (a subject to which we will allude in later discussion).19 For Kierkegaard, then, the great sea of nominalism in which the Church was immersed in his day resulted not in the propagation of Christian truth (as was commonly believed), but rather, in the abolition of authentic Christianity. The "faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3) had been reduced to a superficial triviality; it had been diffused among the passive recipients of mediocrity, and had thus come "dangerously close to sanctioning the Christian faith with the spirit of worldliness."20

In sum, then, the key question for the Danish thinker was, "How can one become a Christian if everybody is already a Christian?" Spoken another way, "How can one preach Christianity to those who presume to be Christians?" Kierkegaard was no fool, however. He recognized the near impossibility of resolving such a socio-spiritual problem. As he wrote in 1848, "Once in a while there appears a religious enthusiast: he storms against Christendom, he vociferates and makes a loud noise, denouncing almost all as not being Christians, yet he accomplishes nothing . . . and illusion is not an easy thing to dispel."21

Despite this, however, Kierkegaard viewed himself as the one who would "storm against Christendom" and expose the institutionalized nominalism which prevailed within the Danish State Church. In articulating authentic Christianity, he would build his system upon three pillars, namely, (1) the idea of the Three Spheres of Existence(i.e. the aesthetic, ethical, and religious) as set forth in his Stages on Life's Way, (2) his doctrine of Christ's invitation to the individual in Training in Christianity with the inherent "paradox" and "offense" associated with true faith in Christ -- the paradox and offense being the concept of "theanthropos," and finally (3) the so-called "leap of faith" which begins precisely where logical, systematic thinking leaves off. Essentially, then these are the three pillars upon which the Kierkegaardian "system" is built. Thus, it is within this core of his philosophy in which his developed ideas are contextualized and properly understood.

Because of the brevity of this essay, in the following pages we will focus primarily on the first pillar, i.e. the Three Spheres of Existence, or "Stages on Life's Way."

The Three Spheres of Existence

In the spring of 1845, Kierkegaard wrote his Stages on Life's Way, a work which ponders the question, "How should a human being exist?" Reminiscent of Plato's Symposium, the question is addressed from different perspectives by various fictional characters who have been invited to a banquet. (In the Symposium the issue of discussion was the "meaning of love"). In this work, though, Kierkegaard (through his fictional characters) delineates three spheres of existence or realms, namely the "aesthetic, ethical, and the religious."22 Contrary to Hegel's triadic logical progression (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) which leads to the individual's greater metaphysical understanding,23 Kierkegaard's concern is the psycho-spiritual growth of the individual personality through a series of triadic stages.

The first stage, or aesthetical sphere of existence, is concerned with the sensual world of gratification, pleasure, and worldly pursuits. It is the realm in which man feeds his impulses and emotions, excluding from the forefront of his consciousness "fixed universal standards" and "religious faith."24 As Copleston observes, "Open to all emotional and sense experience, sampling the nectar from every flower, he hates all that would limit his field of choice and he never gives definite form to his life."25 It must be said, however, at this point, that Kierkegaard does not mean to equate aestheticism to mere hedonism, although hedonism would certainly be included in the aesthetic category. Rather, the Kierkegaardian concept of the "aesthetic level of existence" would include primarily, in the Epicurean sense, a priority of immediate self-fulfillment in apposition to some form of loyalty to a supreme universal law. Accordingly, then, the aesthete discovers no contentment in his self-absorbed pursuits (resulting in "despair") and is thus faced with a critical "choice," indeed an "Either/Or," i.e. whether to remain in the aesthetical sphere of existence (what Kierkegaard metaphorically regards as "the cellar,"26 never attaining any form of "authentic existence."

Nevertheless, some men realize the futility of living in the aesthetical sphere, and thus "choose" to proceed to a life of duty, commitment, and morality -- indeed, the second "stage on life's way," the ethical sphere of existence. Whereas the aesthetical stage is typified by the passionate Don Juan, who in European myth (e.g. Mozart's Don Giovanni) lived a life of immediate satisfaction in every situation, the ethical stage is typified by Socrates, a man who though it his duty to pursue a life of virtue in obedience to a universal principle.27 The ethical man, then, accepts universal moral principles and assents to a higher law, thus giving "form and consistency to his life."28 In Kierkegaardian thought, the idea of transition, i.e. of a man who moves from the aesthetic to the ethical level of existence, can be found in the analogy of a man who renounces mere sexual impulses and the convenience of non-commitment and instead enters into a state of marriage, thus making a lifelong covenant with his lover according to the dictates of a higher universal law.29 Accordingly, he has moved from the aesthetic into the ethical sphere of existence, and has thus progressed toward an authentic form of existence.

In the ethical life of duty and commitment, the existent pursues a life of virtue and moral assent to the universal; however, a truly earnest attempt to live such a life eventually results in the individual's awareness of his own insufficiency and shortcomings. He realizes that his autonomous internal volitional powers are unable to bring him to the level of an authentic ethical existence. Thus, the existent reaches the classic point of "despair" and is again faced with the critical "choice" of "Either/Or," i.e. whether to make the transition to the next level, i.e. the religious sphere of existence.

Interestingly, within the ethical stage Kierkegaard introduces to us the tragic hero, i.e. one who sacrifices himself for the universal moral law. In essence, the tragic hero divests himself of his own self-interests for the sake of the universal. An example of the tragic hero would be Socrates, who refused to participate in a last minute plot which would free him from prison, his purpose being that the integrity of his teaching might be jeopardized -- thus, a heroic action of self-sacrifice or martyrdom for the sake of the universal. Or King Agamemnon, who in the Iliad, could not set sail for the shores of Troy because he had offended Artemis (cf. Euripides', "Iphigenia at Aulis) a goddess who thwarted the efforts of his naval fleet and then demanded the sacrificial blood of his daughter Iphigenia for propitiation. as a royal figure who recognized that the fate of all Greece was at stake, and that he had made alliances with Menelaus, Achilles, and Odysseus to go to war against Troy, Agamemnon became a tragic hero by sacrificing his own daughter for the sake of the universal, i.e. the fate of his nation.30 And indeed, throughout history, how many hundreds of thousands of people have sacrificed their lives for the greater good (the universal) of their nation? Yet Kierkegaard, in his book Fear and Trembling, goes on to contrast this tragic hero (or "knight of resignation") with what he calls the "knight of faith" (a subject to which we will allude in our discussion of the "third stage on life's way," i.e. the religious sphere of existence).

Now, according to Kierkegaard, when the existent who has been living at the ethical stage becomes confronted with the "despair" of realization and thus "chooses" to move into the religious sphere of existence, he has essentially recognized the fact that authentic existence cannot be attained without God at the center. Controverting the Kantian "Categorical Imperative," which invokes God "practically" but not "existentially," Kierkegaard seeks to emphasize an immanence in the life of the existent, an immanence which affirms the individual's relationship to God on a deep and personal level. As Copleston notes in regard to this element of Kierkegaardian thought:

"Every man is, as it were, amixture of the finite and the infinite. Considered precisely as finite, he is separated from God, alienated from him. Considered as infinite, man is not indeed God, but he is a movement towards God, the movement of the spirit. And the man who appropriates and affirms his relationship to God 'in faith' becomes what he really is, the individual before God."31

Now the prototypical figure for Kierkegaard in illustrating the religious sphere of existence is the biblical patriarch Abraham. As Kierkegaard relates to us in his Fear and Trembling, God requires Abraham to appropriate and affirm his relationship to God "in faith" by suspending any adherence to the universal ethical law. According to the Kantian dictum, there could be no transcendence of the universal ethical law since it was precisely man's conformity to this law that measured man's perfection or lack thereof.32 So, whereas ethical univerality became a teleological end for Kant, it was the suspension of such ethical universality that provided the theme for Kierkegaard's hermeneutical investigation of the biblical Abraham.

Thus, God calls upon Abraham to perform an abhorrent task, a task so scandalous that no ethical mind could conceive of such an abomination. Indeed, there is nothing done for the sake of the universal in this decree. For, in commanding Abraham to slay his only son Isaac simply to prove his faith, God is purposely removing Himself from any fixed universal realm and thus encountering the existent (Abraham) on an individual plane that is far beyond comprehension or objective understanding. For this reason, then, Abraham cannot speak of his trial to Sarah, or Eleazar, or Isaac, or anyone else, because as Kierkeggard notes, "Abraham is an emigrant from the sphere of the universal."33 he has moved into a realm of solitude where only he and God can convene, a realm where the "Individual can stand in absolute relation to the Absolute."34 Interestingly, Kierkegaard resembles Thomas Aquinas here; for, as James Collins points out in his work "The Mind of Kierkegaard":

"It is a Thomistic teaching that the secrets of the heart, especially those associated with the disposition of freedom, remain inviolable. These secrets are open only to God and the individual, for not even the angels can pierce this inscrutably private zone. And it is not only inviolable but also in a way ineffable: the individual cannot, if he would, communicate to another his complete attitude."35

Thus, it is within this realm of "subjectivity" that the existent Abraham communes with God. There is no conformity to an objectively defined Hegelian system, there is no conformity to the Kantian dictum, and external impositions and influences cannot penetrate this realm of "subjectivity." Abraham stands alone before God, in "fear and trembling," unconditionally accepting the call to faith which God has required. It is here, then, that Kierkegaard contrasts the tragic hero (or "knight of resignation") with the "knight of faith" who is Abraham.

As Kierkegaard observes, the tragic hero like Socrates or Agamemnon resigns himself to the fact that his self-sacrifice will result in an irreversible finality -- nevertheless, a finality which will result in the good of the universal. For instance, Socrates knows that his death is imminent, but his conscience is assured that his sacrificial action is in congruity with the universal. And Agamemnon, as well as Iphigenia, are assured that the required propitiatory sacrifice to Artemis will result in victory for the Greeks. Thus, their action is interpreted as a "sacrifice for the universal cause." In Kierkegaardian language, then, we can say that these tragic heroes are knights of resignation because they have have infinitely resigned their fates to the good of the universal.

What, then, is the difference between these tragic heroes and the biblical figure Abraham? Among the many similarities, where does one find the distinction? Well, as Kierkegaard explains, Socrates, Agamemnon, and Iphigenia had all resigned themselves to their irreversible fates for the sake of the universal. However, although Abraham, too, had passed through this very same fire of resignation (i.e. he infinitely renounced his claim to the one he loved -- Isaac), he went one step further. Though he had resigned to the fact that he would spill the blood of his only son on the heights of Mount Moriah, he nevertheless believed "on the strength of the absurd" that he would receive Isaac again, not in death, but in life.36 In Kierkegaard, the word "absurd" does not have the meaning as in Albert Camus' "Myth of Sisyphus," nor does it mean something that is "logically impossible," but rather, it implies something that is "humanly impossible." Thus, we could say that Kierkegaardian absurdity recognizes such impossibilities as "apparent," and thus commits them to the realm of faith and the divine potentiality. Thus, Abraham became a "knight of faith" because he believed "that for God all things are possible."37 As Kierkegaard himself writes:

"What did Abraham do? He believed on the strength of the absurd, and it was indeed absurd that God who demanded this of him should in the next instant withdraw the demand. He climbed the mountain, even in that moment when the knife gleamed he believed -- that God would not demand Isaac. Certainly he was surprised by the outcome, but by means of a double movement he had come back to his original position and therefore received Isaac more joyfully than the first time."38

The admiration that Kierkegaard (or his pseudonymous author, Johannes de Silentio) has for Abraham is astounding. In Kierkegaard, the scriptural saying that "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Heb 11:6) takes on a deeper meaning than is typically articulated in most commentaries which reflect on the biblical chapter of Genesis 22. Kierkegaard penetrates deep into the words of Scripture, underneath the text, if you will; thus, he probes deeply into the psycho-spiritual dimension of the man Abraham and brings forth a fresh meaning to the text. Apart from the twentieth century misinterpretations and exploitations of Kierkegaardian thought, we must not discard his thinking as it applies to the religious sphere of existence. In Kierkegaard, Christianity is a religion of personal faith, not nominalistic assent, and Abraham is the paradigm of the "man of faith" who is prepared to intercommune with God on a deep and personal level, in a realm of subjectivity which denies entry to any other. Thus, as we come to the end of this essay, I think it is appropriate to finish with the words of the great philosopher himself, Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, who in his assessment of the biblical Abraham, defined him as a man who would forever become the father of the faithful:

"No! No one shall be forgotten who was great in this world; but everyone was great in his own way, and everyone in proportion to the greatness of what he 'loved.' For he who loved himself became great in himself, and he who loved others became great through his devotion, but he who loved God became greater than all. They shall all be remembered, but everyone became greater in proportion to his 'expectancy.' One became great through expecting the possible, another by expecting the eternal; but he who expected the impossible became greater than all. They shall all be remembered, but everyone was great in proportion to the magnitude of what he 'strove with.' For he who strove with the world became great in conquering the world, and he who strove with himself became greater by conquering himself; but he who strove with God became greater than all. Thus, there was strife in the world, man against man, one against thousands, but he who strove with God was greater than all . . . greater than all was Abraham."39
____________________

Notes and References

1. George Perkins, et al., eds. The American Tradition in Literature. 7th ed.
New York: McGraw, 1990, p. 245.

2. Kenneth Clark, Civilisation: A Personal View. New York: Harper, 1969, p. 293.

3. Michael Hamburger, ed. Beethoven: Letter, Journals, and Conversations.
New York: Thames and Hudson, 1951, p. 47.

4. Robert Bretall, ed. A Kierkegaard Anthology. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1946, p. xxi. *Though the term "ultimate concern" was utilized and later developed by the theologian Paul Tillich, the idea is throughly Kierkegaardian.

5. Walter Kaufmann, ed. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre.
New York: Meridian, 1989, p. 11.

6. Antony Flew, ed. A Dictionary of Philosophy. "Existentialism"
New York: St Martin's Press, 1984, p. 115.

7. Soren Kierkegaard, Attack Upon Christendom, in Bretall, p. 446.

8. Kierkegaard, The Journals, in Bretall, p. 2.

9. Walter Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1942, pp. 16ff.

10. Frederick G. Weiss, ed. Hegel: The Essential Writings, New York: Harper,
1974, p. 2.

11. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy: From the Post-Kantian Idealists to Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Vol. 7 of 9. New York: Doubleday, 1965, p. 335.

12. Ibid., p. 335.

13. Lowrie, p. 116.

14. Copleston, p. 167.

15. Thomas Altizer, The Gospel of Christian Atheism. Philadelphia: Westminster,
1966, p. 66.

16. Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling. Trans. Alastair Hannay.
London: Penguin, 1985, p. 29.

17. Kierkegaard, The Point of View, in Bretall. pp. 330-31.

18. Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, in Bretall, p. 396.

19. Kierkegaard, The Point of View, in Bretall, p. 332.

20. James Collins, The Existentialists. Chicago: Henry Regenry Co., 1952, p. 16.

21. Kierkegaard, The Point of View, in Bretall, p. 331.

22. Collins, p. 6.

23. Ibid., p. 6.

24. Copleston, p. 342.

25. Ibid., p. 342.

26. Kierkegaard, Sickness Unto Death, in Bretall, p. 346.

27. Plato, Apology. Trans. Benjamin Jowett New York: Modern Library, 1928, p. 75.

28. Copleston, p. 343.

29. Ibid., p. 343.

30. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 139.

31. Copleston, p. 343.

32. James Collins, The Mind of Kierkegaard. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1983, p. 92.

33. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 139.

34. Copleston, p. 334.

35. Collins, The Mind of Kierkegaard, p. 96.

36. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 75.

37. Ibid., p. 75.

38. Ibid., p. 65.

39. Ibid., p. 50.

The Johannine Logos

For those students of Christology who have now begun their in-depth study of the Fourth Gospel, what is perhaps most important to understand is that we are reaching into the very heart of the incarnation, which is nothing less than the study of the Divine Logos and its ontological and metaphysical meaning. Most readers of Scripture believe they already have an adequate grasp of the incarnation, and to an extent this is true, yet at least on the college level it is necessary for students to press further into understanding the "Divine Logos" and its historic undercurrent which is rooted in both ancient Greek and Judaic thought. Ultimately this gives us a deeper creedal understanding of the incarnation - in fact, it is assured that once one embarks on this quest, they will never conceive of the incarnation in the same terms.

It is my hope that for your own spiritual growth and improvement of scripturual understanding you take a few minutes to read this essay - take it to heart and behold that the Holy Spirit who superintended and breathed his words into the gospel writers grafted a script so multi-dimensional that without such intense study, the jewels of this holy writing would go wholly undetected. What he has given in the concept of the "Divine Logos" is utterly mindblowing!
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The Johannine Logos
The Influence of Greek Philosophy and Judaic Thought
on the Logos Christology of John: A Synergistic Approach

William J Tsamis, M.A.
___________________________

In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God
All things were made through Him . . .
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us
and we beheld His glory
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father

John 1:1-2; 14
___________________________

At the ancient monastery church in Daphne, Greece, there looms in the dome of the cathedral a colossal mosaic of Christ Pantocrator, its ominous presence imposing upon all who enter into the hallowed room. Indeed, the eleventh century icon reveals that awesome, majestic power that overthrew the death tyrant nearly two-thousand years ago. And like the historic Christ who pierced the veil of darkness with the glorious light of His immortality, so too, the iconographic depiction bursts forth showing Jesus Christ as the "King of kings and Lord of lords," the divine Logos, enthroned in the heavens -- the ruler and center of the universe. Obviously, from a theological perspective, the ancient Daphne mosaic reflects the high Christology of Nicaea and Chalcedon, a Christology ultimately derived from the Johannine doctrine of the Logos. But whereas it is simple to deduce the theological origin and background of the awe-inspiring mosaic, the influences which compelled the fourth evangelist to use the Logos designation as a descriptive appellation for the Savior are much more elusive. Indeed, this is indicated by the fact that, even though a considerable body of scholarly literature has been devoted to identifying the primary influence(s) behind the Johannine designation, there still remains a general lack of consensus in the academic forum as to the origin and background of the Johannine Logos doctrine.

In this essay, then, we will endeavor to explore the divergent views proposed by Christian scholars regarding the contextual influences which underlie the the Logos Christology of John. In Part One, we will examine the suggested Hellenistic background for the Johannine doctrine, tracing the evolution of the philosophical term logos from its initial Heraclitean conception to its more developed expression in later Stoicism. Then, we will consider the impact of Hellenistic thought on some of the early Church Fathers, and show how that influence affected their perception of the Johannine Logos. In Part Two, we will evaluate the proposed Judaic background for the Logos doctrine, paying close attention to Johannine dependence of the Creation/Sinai motifs and the Hebrew dabar YHWH (= word of the Lord), as well as the symmetry which exists between the Prologue and certain texts from within the corpus of Jewish Wisdom Literature. Finally, in part Three, we will set forth our own position, which is not an uncommon one -- namely, that the author of the Fourth Gospel found in the term logos a concept which, to the Gentile world, he could present Christ as the fulfillment of all metaphysical speculation; and which, to the Jewish world, He could present Christ as the ultimate revelation (word) and manifestation (theophany) of God. In his personification of the Logos, then, the inspired writer brought together the philosophical world of Athens with the religious world of Jerusalem, and, in synergistic fashion, he form a new philosophical/religious reality that is neither Hellenic nor Judaic -- but rather, a reality that is authentically and originally Christian.1


Part I -- Suggested Hellenistic Background

In any discussion of the Greek philosophical doctrine of the logos, one must regress into the pre-Socratic era to examine the religio-philosophical context of the age. For, it was during this period, the sixth century BC, that the Greek philosophers would begin to challenge the existing polytheistic structure which had dominated ancient civilization for so long. Indeed, in the midst of a plurality of gods and goddesses, the Greek philosophers recognized that there must exist some unifying principle behind the universe, and underlying Reason or Force which pervades cosmological and metaphysical reality. thus, limited to natural theology and intellectual speculation, the early philosophers began to posit various notions regarding the nature of this unifying principle.2

The first thinker to advance his thesis on this cosmological/metaphysical problem was Thales (ca. 600 BC), the founder of the Milesian school of philosophy in Ionia, the cradle of Western thought. (At that time, the Ionian Coast on the west coast of Asia Minor, or modern day Turkey, was an Athenian colony. It was also the approximate region of the seven churches of Asia Minor as mentioned in the biblical Apocalypse of John). In essence, Thales posited the idea that the unifying principle behind ultimate reality was simply water (in its gaseous, liquid, and solid forms).3 Although such a proposition may seem ludicrous to the contemporary mind, what is important here is that Thales raised the question as to the nature of the unifying prinicple, and he opened the door for further metaphyiscal speculation.4 The successors of Thales differed widely in their propositions, Anaximander positing infinity as the unifying principle, and Anaximenes suggesting air; but it was Heraclitus of Ephesus (fl. 504-501 BC) who first used the term logos in connection with the concept of the unifying prinicple. In his speculations, he identified the logos as the universal Reason, i.e. "the universal law immanent in all things, binding all things into a unity and determining the constant change in the universe according to universal law."5 Certainly, Heraclitus did not posit the existence of a transcendent monotheistic deity, but he did recognize that, in a universe of constant change, the metaphysical logos remained constant as the underlying principle of order.

In subsequent centuries, during the Socratic, Platonic, and Aristotelian periods, the great philosophers made little contribution to the Heraclitean logos doctrine, their concerns being epistemologcial rather than speculative.6 But beginning with Zeno (ca. 300 BC) and the rise of the early Stoa, the Heraclitean logos was revived and systematized within the framework of Stoic pantheism.7 Essentially, the Stoics believed that the unifying principle behind ultimate reality was an all-pervading cosmic fiery vapor which they termed "logos spermatikos" (seminal reason), and which they identified with an impersonal pantheistic God.8 Accordingly, this seminal logos (or vital energy) was the "generative principle" of the cosmos, as well as the universal Reason (or rationale) which determined and kept in order the particulars of the universe.9 Simply, the Logos was the rational element which pervaded the universe and unified reality. Thus, in Stoic thought, the Heraclitean logos received its greatest expression, resuming a central role in Hellenistic philosophical cosmology.

Now with regard to our discussion about the origin and background of the Johannine Logos, the question natually arises: "To what extent (if any) did the Hellenistic idea of the logos prevail upon the mind of the fourth evangelist?" Well, although we will deal with the specifics of this issue in Part Three of our essay, it would be worthy to note, at this point, that some of the early Church Fathers (e.g. Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, and so on) understood the Johannine concept to be an integration of the Heraclitean/Stoic notion.10 Justin, for instance, maintained that the Logos is the mediatorial revelation of God who was partially knonw by the Greek philosophers because of the spermatikos (a germinating seed) which they possessed within their souls; thus, he proclaimed Heraclitus worthy of being called a Christian.11 Similarly, Clement of Alexandria asserted that the Logos is Christ, the Divine Reason and Teacher of mankind, who revealed God to the Jews through the Mosaic Law, and to the Gentiles through the Greek philosophers.12

Although it appears that both Justin and Clement inferred a Hellenistic nuance from the Logos Christology of John, it must be remembered that these apologists were very much predisposed to Greek philosophy in their thinking -- Justin being a converted Stoic/Pythagorean/Platonist (he continued to wear the pallium), and Clement being a native of Alexandria, a convert from Stoicism.13 In our discussion regarding the background of the Johannine Logos, then, the early apologists are not especially helpful, since it is difficult to ascertain if they were truly reflecting the Christological tradition of the Johannine community, or if they were merely superimposing their own Hellenist preconceptions onto the Johannine doctrine (even as Philo of Alexandria sought to synthesize Hellenistic and Judaic thought). In the case of Justin, we are more inclined to believe that he utilized Greek philosophical speculation as a "point of contact" for intellectual and apologetical concerns rather than as the controlling center of his epistemic system; for, throughout his writings he continually asserts the preeminence of biblical truth over philosophy.14 Nevertheless, an appeal to Justin's Logos Christology as evidence of a Hellenistic background for the Johannine doctrine is tenuous at best.


Part II -- Suggested Judaic Background

Until recent years, the idea that the Johannine doctrine of the Logos could have originated in Judaic thought was the minorty view among scholars. Indeed, with the rise of New Testament higher criticism in the nineteenth century, many scholars asserted an extra-Judaic origin for the Fourth gospel, proposing a date of authorship as late as AD 170.15 This consensus was based on several factors, one of which was the presence of a Platonic dualism motif in the Fourth Gospel -- e.g. spirit/world, light/darkness, truth/deceit, and so on. The majority of scholars ignored the author's apparent intimacy with Palestinian customs and instead concluded that the author was firmly entrenched in Greek philosophy (or Gnosticism, cf. Rudolf Bultmann). Thus, it was almost universally acknowledged that the Johannine Logos doctrine was thoroughly influenced by Hellenistic thought.16

In the twentieth century, however, the late-date hypothesis would be overthrown with the discover of Rylands Papyrus 457 (P52), an Egyptian codex fragment of John 18:31-33, 37-38, which first came to light in 1935. With the discovery and publication of this earliest extant New Testament manuscript, a hundred years of sophisticated critical theories were tossed onto the ash heap of history. Many eminent scholars such as Sir Fredrick Kenyon reconized the manuscript as early second century, dating to about AD 130.17 But a more recent analysis by Kurt Aland suggests a much earlier date probably at the "beginning of the second century."18 In either case, contemporary New Testament scholarship is now in agreement with the traditional view that the Fourth Gospel is indeed a first century composition.

Now with regard to the nineteenth century critical assertion that the dualistic paradigm in John betrays a Hellenistic influence (Platonic idealism), the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 would altogether eliminate that notion. Indeed, several of the Qumran texts, especially the Rule of the Community (1QS) and the War Scroll (1QM), exhibit a dualistic motif, which, according to most scholars, is entirely independent from Platonic idealism, yet hauntingly similar to the dualism of John.19 Hence, since the discovery of the Qumran Scrolls, the dualism which characterizes the Johannine program does not necessitate a Hellenistic antecedent, since the Essenic writings prove that such language was proper to Judean religious thought in the first century AD.

Needless to say, because of these discoveries (as well as other advances in New Testament studies), contemporary Johannine scholarship has shifted markedly from a Hellenistic orientation to a more Judeo-centric approach; and this radical change in methodology has weighed heavily in the debate regarding the origin and background of the Johannine Logos. Most scholars, instead of looking to the Heraclitean/Stoic ideologies for answers, now place tremendous emphasis on the author's dependence on the Creation/Sinai motifs and the Hebrew dabar/YHWH ("word of the Lord"), as well as some of the parallels which can be found in Jewish Wisdom Literature.20 At this point in our discussion, then, let us consider the relevancy of these Judaic elements.

A simple reading of the Prologue should immediately conjure up images of the Creation and Sinai stories from the Pentateuch. Even the words, "In the beginning" (= en arche - John 1:1), are identical to the LXX translation of the Hebrew Gen 1:1 text, indicating that the evangelist's intent, at the outset, was to establish a Judaic context for the rest of the Prologue.21 In the following verse, the evangelist would further integrate other concepts from Genesis 1-3, such as creation, light, life, darkness, etc., ultimately progressing to verse 14a (lit. "And the Word became flesh and 'pitched His tent' among us, and we beheld 'His glory'"), an obvious allusion to the Sinai/Tabernacle motif of Exodus 40:34ff. As Raymond E. Brown comments, "When the Prologue proclaims that the Word made his dwelling among men, we are being told that the flesh of Jesus Christ is the new localizaiton of God's presence on earth, and that Jesus is the replacement of the ancient Tabernacle."22 Thus, in the incarnational Christology of John the manifestation (theophany) of God's glory (shekinah) plays a controlling hermeneutical role. Therefore, the Pentateuchal context of the Prologue would suggest that we look for a Judaic background to the Johannine doctrine of the Logos.

In searching for Old Testament parallels, the recurrent phrase "word of the Lord" (dabar YHWH = logos kyriou LXX) immediately strikes us as the most likely antecedent for the the Johannine Logos. Indeed, this concept was critical to the whole idea of divine revelation, and, as a phenomenon experienced by the Hebrew prophets (e.g. "The word of the Lord came to Zechariah . . ." - 1:1), the word consisted of ther thoughts and will of God.23 Moreover, it served as the effective instrument of His divine action; thus, for the Psalmist, "the word of the Lord" served as the mediatorial agent of creation (33:6), while for the prophets of God, the "word of the Lord" possessed an inherent life-giving power (Isa 55:3).24 Interestingly, both of these themes are prevalent in the Johannine Prologue.

Now although the "word of the Lord" was never explicitly personified in Hebraic thought, it nevertheless possessed a "quasi-substantial existence of its own."25 Certainly, this is evident from numerous texts, but there is one scripture in particular in which the "word" serves an independent function which is almost identically parallel to the incarnational motif of the Johannine Prologue. In the Isaian invitation to the abundant life (Isa 55), a chapter to which Jesus often alluded, there is a verse (11) which says, "So shall my 'word' be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it." As Brown indicates, "We have here the same cycle of coming down and returning that we encounter in the Prologue."26 Thus, it seems an inescapable conclusion that the Johannine Logos, as the incarnation and revelation of the mind and will of God, is firmly rooted in the Old Testament concept of dabar YHWH // logos Kyriou LXX // memra Adonai Targum.

On a similar plane, another conceptual parallel to the Johannine Logos comes from the corpus of Jewish Wisdom Literature (Proverbs, Sirach, Baruch, and the Wisdom of Solomon). Interestingly, whereas in the Torah and the Prophets the "word of the Lord" only possesses an implicit independent function (or personification), in the Wisdom literary genre the idea of a "personified" Wisdom (Sophia LXX) is fully developed, serving as a controlling hermeneutical theme. Indeed, many of the attributes and actions which are ascribed to the Logos of John can also be ascribed to personified Wisdom.27 The following should suffice in demonstrating the Johannine dependence on the canonical and apocryphal Wisdom Literature:28

1. "In the beginning was the Word (Logos)" (John 1:1).

-"The Lord created me (Wisdom) at the beginning of His work" (Prov 8:22).
-"From eternity, in the beginning He created me (Wisdom)" (Sir 24:9).

2. "All things were made through Him" (John 1:3)

-"For Wisdom is the fashioner of all things" (Wis 7:2).

3. "That which came to be in Him was life" (John 1:3-4).

-"For he who finds me finds life" (Prov 8:35).

4. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5).

-"For the light is succeeded by night, but against Wisdom evil does not prevail"
(Wis 7:30).

5. "Yet the world knew Him not" (John 1:10).

-"No one knows the way to her (Wisdom) or is concerned about the path to her"
(Bar 3:31).

6. "He came to His own" (John 1:11)

-"Afterward she (Wisdom) appeared upon earth and lived among men. She is the
Book of the commandment of God and the law that endures forever" (Bar 3:37-4:1).

7. "And His own received Him not" (John 1:11).

-"You (Israel) have forsaken the fountain of wisdom" (Bar 3:12).

8. "And the Word (Logos) became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).

-"Then the Creator of all things gave me (Wisdom) a commandment, and . . .
assigned a place for my tent. And he said, 'Make your dwelling in Jacob . . .'"
(Sir 24:10).

In analyzing the parallels between the posed writings, it is important to recognize that the similarities are not only conceptual, but also stylistic, reflecting anlalogous linguistic phrases and poetic patterns.29 Furthermore, comparative studies between the Prologue and Sirach, for instance, have revealed that not only are the mediatorial functions of Wisdom and the Logos strikingly similar, but "the order in which these functions are presented is roughly the same."30 Thus, from this evidence, Johannine dependence on Jewish Wisdom Literature is more than certain.


Part III - A Synergistic Approach

In sum, it seems that the suggested Judaic background provides a sufficient context for the origin of the Johannine doctrine of the Logos. Even as contemporary New Testament scholarship has concluded, the Creation/Sinai motifs, the Hebrew dabar YHWH, and the parallels within Jewish Wisdom Literature all provide a firm foundation upon which the Johannine theologian could have presented his Christian Logos. Nevertheless, to dismiss entirely the Greek philosophical nuances inherent in the word Logos (1:1) would be to disregard the Hellenistic zeitgeist which prevailed during the Roman era; and furthermore, it would ignore the historical/geographical considerations which are pivotal in one's understanding of the authorial intent of the Johannine writing.

If the author of the Fourth Gospel was indeed the Apostle John writing from Ephesus about AD 90,31 then we can be certain that he would have been well-acquainted with certain Hellenistic ideologies, including the Heraclitean/Stoic conception of the Logos.32 Ephesus, which was the capital of proconsular Asia, was one of the chief centers of Hellenistic culture; and though the city was renowned for its Artemis cult and accompanying polytheistic ritualism, it was also the home of the ancient Heraclitus, the father of the cosmological logos doctrine, who incidentally was greatly revered even in John's day. And nearby was the city of Miletus (about 20 miles away),33 the very cradle of Greek philosophy, where Thales, Anximander, and Anaximenes once speculated about the unifying principle, and wondered about the underlying reason which pervaded metaphysical and cosmological reality.

When all things are considered, then, it is not unreasonable to assume that the holy Apostle found in the term Logos a concept, which to the Greek world he could present Christ as the fulfillment of all metaphysical speculation; and which, to the Jewish world, he could present Christ as the ultimate revelation (word) and manifestation (theophany) of God, the incarnation of personified Wisdom (Sophia). Astonishingly, in the Johannine doctrine of the Logos we have the convergence of numerous ideological motifs which find their ultimate meaning in the person of Jesus Christ. Perhaps the words of Archibald Alexander would serve as an appropriate conclusion to the thesis we have set forth in this essay:

"From whatsoever source the term Logos was originally derived, whether from Hebrew tradition or Hellenic speculation - on Christian soil it is a new product. It is neither Greek nor Jewish, it is Christian. The philosophical abstraction has become a religious conception. Hellenism and Hebrewism have been taken up and fused into a higher unity, and Christ as the embodiment of the Logos has become the creative power and the world-wide possession of mankind."34
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Notes and References

1. Archibald Alexander, "Logos" in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
ed. James Orr, 5 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939, 3:1916.

2. Frederick Copleston, Greece and Rome: Pre-Socratics to Plotinus Vol. 1 of A History of Philosophy, 9 vols., New York: Image, 1946, p. 20.

3. Ibid., p. 22.

4. Ibid., p. 23.

5. Ibid., p. 43.

6. G. A. Turner, "Logos" in Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible,
ed. Merrill C. Tenney, 5 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975, 3:953.

7. Copleston, pp. 387ff.

8. Ronald H. Nash, Christianity in the Hellenistic World, Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1984, p. 69.

9. Alexander, 3:1912.

10. Ed. L. Miller, "The Logos of Heraclitus: Updating the Report,"
Harvard Theological Review 74:2 (1981):161-76.

11. Johannes Quasten, Patrology, 4 vols. Westminster: Christian Classics,
1950, 1:209.

12. Ibid., 2:21.

13. Ibid., 2:4-5.

14. Theodore Stylianopoulos, "Justin Martyr" in Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, London: Garland, 1990, pp. 514-16.

15. Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, Downers Grove: InterVarsity,
Revised Edition 1990, p. 297.

16. James H. Charlesworth, "Reinterpreting John: How the Dead Sea Scrolls Have
Revolutionized Our Understanding of the Gospel of John" in Bible Review (Feb 1993):
pp. 18-25.

17. Guthrie, p. 297.

18. Raymond E. Brown, "The Gospel According to John I-XII" in The Anchor Bible,
ed. David Noel Freedman, New York: Doubleday, 1966, LXXXIII.

19. Charlesworth, p. 21.

20. John Ashton, "The Transformation of Wisdom: A Study of the Prologue of John's
Gospel" in New Testament Studies (vol. 32: 1986), 161-86.

21. Brown, Sec. 1, p. 4.

22. Ibid., p. 33.

23. "Dabar" in Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, eds. W. E. Vine et al.
Nashville: Nelson, Revised 1985, p. 240.

24. Brown, p. 521.

25. Ibid., p. 521.

26. Ibid., p. 521.

27. Thomas H. Tobin, "Logos" in Anchor Bible Dictionary vol. 4,
ed. David Noel Freedman, New York: Doubleday, 4:348-56.

28. Ibid., 4:348-56

29. Ibid., 4:348-56

30. Brown, p. 523.

31. Contrary to sophisticated critical theories which are prevalent in scholarly circles today, we have presupposed the tradition of the early Church -- a tradition passed on from Polycarp (c. 71-156) to Irenaeus (c. 115-202) -- namely, that the Fourth Gospel was the work of John the apostle in the last decade of the first century. It must be noted that modern criticism has attacked the Irenaean testimony of apostolic authorship, but this assessment is not based on objective, historical evidence; but rather, it is motivated by the implications of critical presuppositions which cannot be reconciled with the early testimony of the Bishop of Lyons (cf. Guthrie, p. 270). As an aside, a similar scholarly criticism was leveled against Irenaeus in his depiction of Gnosticism (Adversus Haereses), the claim being that Irenaeus was a propagandist who sought to present the Gnostics in their worst possible light. However, after the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices in 1949, the polemical writings of Irenaeus were corroborated and thus proved accurate by the Gnostic texts themselves. In my view, then, Irenaeus is a reliable witness to the apostolic authorship of the Fourth Gospel. and furthermore, this confidence is buttressed by the testimony of the Muratorian Canon (AD 170), Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. Simply, if Irenaeus claimed that, as a young boy, he heard Polycarp (a disciple of John) attest to the apostle's authorship of the Fourth Gospel, there is really no reason to disbelieve him. Indeed, if we cannot rely on a tradition as strong as this, then in my view, the whole category of "tradition" as a means of discovering historical truth is entirely worthless.

32. The First Epistle of John, in its polemical thrust against the Gnostic heresy, demonstrates that John was very well-acquainted with Hellenistic ideologies. (cf. John Stott, The Epistles of John, Leicester: InterVarsity, 1960).

33. This is the site where Thales founded the Milesian school of philosophy, and also, where Paul exhorted the Ephesian elders as recorded in Acts 20.

34. Alexander, 3:1916.

Jesus Quest(ions)

Jesus and the New Testament Canon

For nearly 1800 years, Jesus of Nazareth was regarded as the "King of kings" and "Lord of lords" -- the divine Logos, the ruler of the universe, to whom all creation would one day bow down. It was he, the Son of God, who willingly entered into the human realm -- yes, the great mystery of the Incarnation, of God becoming man, of which Thomas Aquinas once wrote, "involved no change in God's eternal state, but united him in a new way with what he created, or rather, united what he created with himself." It was that great mystery which C.S. Lewis so eloquently called "the Grand Miracle," the miracle of God descending into the human sphere, "down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity . . . to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him." Indeed, this was the orthodox portrait of Christ - in fact, the only christological portrait that hung in the museum of classic orthodox theology. Now, however, the gallery is full of a number of portraits, all depcting something different, all reflecting contrary interpretations of the Jesus figure -- meanwhile, the orthodox portrait seems to be decomposing . . . How did this come to be?

In about the year 1600, when the Copernican Revolution began to change the landscape of man's thinking, overthrowing the beliefs of the ancients which had persisted for several thousand years, Western philosophers, too, began to question ancient roots and the procession of truth down through the ages. Of course, the guardian of that truth had been the Church; thus, the aim of skepticism would be directed at the Church, even as it is in our day. However, during the era leading up to the Enlightenment (ca. 1800), philosophers such as Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and scientists such as Isaac Newton (1647-1727) began positing a "mechanistic view of the universe," which essentially states that the physical universe is governed by certain inviolable "laws." Indeed, so powerful and far-reaching was this concept that scientists, philosophers, and many theologians began shifting their views about the ancient world. In 1748, the Scottish philosopher David Hume asked the question, "If the universe is governed by certain invioable laws; from whence do miracles come, for miracles are a "violation" of the laws of nature." As C.S. Lewis once said, Hume devastated biblical studies along with theology, positing the notion that many of the miracle stories in the Bible "probably" did not occur. With Hume and others, then, "Skepticism" became an academically credible exercise.

From that cue, many biblical scholars started questioning the authenticity and reliablity of the Bible -- and for our purpose here, the life of Jesus of Nazareth was being prepared for "reevaluation." In 1776, the "Synoptic Gospels" (Matt, Mark, Luke) were evaluated by setting the respective texts in three parallel columns, and from this ensued a comparative, critical analysis of the first three Gospels. Until this time, most scholars accepted the Augustinian teaching adopted by the Church that the first Gospel was written by Matthew, the second Mark, the third, Luke, and the fourth John. Augustine's theory had been inferred from the writings of such early Church Fathers as Clement of Alexandria (third century), Origen (third century), and Eusebius (fourth century). It is important to point out, however, that the most influential Church Fathers who indicated the actual authors of the Gospels were Papias of Hierapolis (Phyrigia, Western Asia Minor) and Irenaeus of Lyons (Gaul = France) (both Papias and Irenaeus were important second century bishops and theologians). Nevertheless, it must be said that the writings of Papias are not extant, but they are contained in the writings of Irenaeus, which are from the late second century. Let's examine these writings independently for a moment:

1) Papias (pA-pE-us, accent on the first syllable) -- Irenaeus wrote, "Now testimony is borne to these things in writing by Papias, an ancient man, who was a hearer of John, and a friend of Polycarp . . . Papias was not simply a hearer, but he was an eyewitness of the apostles themselves." (Most scholars believe that he lived between AD 70-155, therefore making it impossible for him to have been an eyewitness to the apostles, save the Apostle John, which he makes clear). Anyway, here are the words of Papias, according to Irenaeus: --From the Fragments of Papias, chapter 6. ANF 1:154

"Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the saying or deeds of Christ. For [Mark] neither heard the Lord nor accompanied him. Yet Mark made no mistake in writing them [as he remembered them from Peter]. For of one thing he took special care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements. Matthew put together the sayings of the Lord in the Aramaic language, and each one interpreted them as best he could."

Because of some of the chronological problems in "Fragments," and because the above text seems to have an apologetic overtone, many higher critical scholars are suspicious with regard to the reliability of this witness. However, recent scholarly work, especially that of Richard Bauckham, has vigorously defended the credibility of Papias as an early witness.

2) Irenaeus (E-ren-E-us, with the accent on the third syllable) -- In reading Irenaeus, one comes to the conclusion that the tradition of Gospel origins was firmly in place, and that a second tradition came down to Irenaeus, which bears some similarity to Papias, but also contains some original elements. Essentially, this is what the orthodox Church would come to believe about Gospel origins, and most conservative scholars still hold to this tradition. --From Irenaeus's Against Heresies, Book 3, chapter 1. ANF 1:414 (ca. 180)

"Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterward, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia. These have all declared to us that there is one God, Creator of heaven and earth, announced by the law and the prophets; and one Christ, the Son of God. If anyone does not agree to these truths, he despises the companions of the Lord; nay more, he despises Christ himself the Lord . . ."

It is worth noting here that Irenaeus places special emphasis on the four canonical Gospels. This is done to millitate against certain Gnostic tendencies to identify a heterodox New Testament canon. Marcion, the Gnostic of Pontus, by 150 had formulated his own canon, and since he believed that YHWH was only the God of the Jews, his canon excluded any writings which contained Hebrew overtones - e.g., Matthew, Mark, parts of Luke, Acts of the Apostles, Hebrews, and he only accepted ten letters of Paul, excluding the three Pastoral Epistles (1 Tim, 2 Tim, and Titus). Obviously, this sent shockwaves through the Church, which had been reading as canonical and semi-canonical all of our present New Testament, as well as the 7 Epistles of Ignatius, the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, Polycarp, the Epistle of Pseudo-Barnabas, and a few others. Nevertheless, the orthodox/catholic Church set out to isolate those New Testament books which were apostolic in origin, and, for example, Irenaeus's NT canon consisted of 26/27 books which we accept today, Philemon excepted. (It is also important to note that the early Church was predominantly Greek speaking, so the LXX, which contained the Apocrypha, was used used for purposes of the Old Testament.)

Thus, the process of canonization had begun, and after Irenaeus, important canon lists began to appear - e.g. the canon of the Church at Rome (Muratorian Canon) - ca. 200, which excluded 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 3 John, Hebrews - yet included, the Revelation of Peter and the Wisdom of Solomon. In 250, Origen of Alexandria, articulated his canon as 20/27 books that we accept today, excluding Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude. As time progressed, the Church wrestled with this issue, until Athanasius, in his Paschal Epistle of 363, identified the canon as the precise canon that we receive today. This authoritative declaration was chiseled in stone, at the Council of Carthage in 397. This is not to say, however, that the "church council" which convened at Carthage in 397 decided to admit certain New Testament books into the canon while tossing others onto the ash heap of history (a common misconception). Rather, the key NT books (e.g. the Four Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, et al.) were accepted early on by all the churches, while the remainder were read in the churches as well, albeit in a semi-canonical status. The evolution of the canon, say in the ante-Nicene era, was not a negative process which served the theological interests of the Church (as is so often is asserted by critics), but rather a careful assessment of the particular books, a consideration of their oral tradition and apostolic witness, and the identification of the theological stream which correlated with companion canonical works. It is believed as well by Christians that the process of canonization was guided by the Holy Spirit.

The History of the Jesus Quest

Now as we indicated earlier, the post-Enlightenment paradigm gave rise to higher critical biblical studies, especially New Testament studies, as NT scholars sought to discover the "Jesus of history" as opposed to the "Christ of faith," the former having to do with the rabbi who walked the land of Galilee 2,000 years ago, the latter having to do with the "heavenly Christ," worshipped by the Church. The central objective of this study was to try and probe into the historical past and literally unearth the man from Nazareth.

In 1906, Albert Schweitzer surveyed the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment (Romantic) attempts to exhume the historical Jesus from the pages of the New Testament, and he concluded that the First Quest (1778-1901) had failed miserably because the researchers brought so many philosophical presuppositions to the table, that such a quest was doomed to fail because it simply reflected the presuppositions of the researcher -- thus, every Jesus figure was simply a reflection of the respective researcher. Schweitzer's comments have haunted the New Testament scholarly world to this day, warning all who participate, that their invesigation of Jesus will be more eisegetical than exegetical -- thus, an individual Jesus portrait for every researcher.

For the record, Schweitzer's Jesus was an apocalyptic fanatic like John the Baptist who was deluded, thinking that he could usher in the kingdom of God by forcing the hand of God and thus create a new age, an age spoken of by the prophets. Thus, Jesus was an eschatological, apocalyptic prophet. How then was Jesus victorious, according to Schweitzer? His powerful words bear repeating here:

There is silence all around. The Baptist appears and cries: "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." Soon after that comes Jesus and in the knowledge that he is the coming Son of Man lays hold of the wheel of the world to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and he throws himself upon it. Then it does turn; and crushes him. Instead of bringing in the eschatological conditions; he has destroyed them. The wheel rolls onward, and the mangled body of the one immeasurably great man, who was strong enough to think of himself as the spiritual ruler of humankind and to bend history to his purpose, is hanging upon it still. That is his victory and his reign. Albert Schweitzer, The Quest Of The Historical Jesus - 1906, p. 370

During the post-Schweitzer era (1906-53), the period of the First Quest was supplanted by the era of the No Quest, such was the power of Schweitzer's condemnation of historical Jesus studies. This was the era of Martin Dibelius and Rudolf Bultmann who believed that the Synoptic Gospels contained little or nothing regarding the historical Jesus. Instead of viewing the Gospels as historical sources for a life of Jesus, Bultmann and his students decided that the Gospels were valuable because they could reconstruct the kerygma (preaching) of the early Church. In other words, the historical Jesus was literally unreachable, but by examining his words, we could understand the intent of the early Church since it was the Church who composed the Gospels and put their late first century concerns on the lips of Jesus. For example, when Jesus cleanses the Temple (which has now been expanded and is referred to as Jesus's confrontation in the Temple), this is the Church saying that Christianity has superseded Judaism, much like the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us.

Another aspect of Bultmann's methodology was to "demythologize" the Gospels - in other words, to take out the mythological elements such as miracles, etc., and thereby discover the heart of each pericope (i.e. short story, for instance, Jesus's baptism by John, the feeding of the 5,000 and/or 4,000). By taking out the apparent mythological elements in the Gospels, Bultmann believed that he could discover the "real Jesus," and through this process, understand the concerns of the early Church. Moreover, according to Bultmann, who was highly influenced by the existentialism of Martin Heidegger, it wasn't the historical Jesus who was so important (after all, it was impossible to totally reconstruct him) -- rather, it was the Christ of faith who demonstrates his power to believers in the hear and now. Bultmann's Jesus no longer walks the countrysides of Galilee, or the streets of Jerusalem; no, instead, Bultmann's Jesus walks the battlefields of war torn Europe, an alienated landscape of death, destruction, misery, starvation, and ultimate sorrow (World War I).

Beginning in 1970, New Testament scholars proceeded to embark on what is called the New Quest for the historical Jesus. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, and their long-awaited reconstruction and availability (which didn't occur entirely until the early 1990s), and with advances in Josephan scholarship, along with a greater sociological understanding of the Roman world, the new questers believed it was now possible to avoid Schweitzer's conclusion, and thus come up with a basic core understanding of the life of Jesus. *(Remember, during this era, as in other post-Humian eras, the presupposition of naturalism and Gospel problems remained in tact.)

The scholar E.P. Sanders, in his study called "Jesus and Judaism," as well as in his "The Historical Figure Of Jesus," uncovered eleven undisputable facts about Jesus, a core around which the rest of Jesus's story could be reconstructed. By only resorting to undeniable "core facts" in the New Testament, Sanders uncovered at least fifteen undisputable facts about the life of Jesus around which one can rebuild the essential New Testament portrait of Jesus:

1) Jesus was born ca. 4 BC, near the time of the death of Herod the Great.
2) Jesus spent his childhood and early adult years in Galilee (Nazareth).
3) Jesus was baptized by John the baptist.
4) Jesus called disciples to follow him.
5) Jesus taught in towns, villages, and in the countryside (but not in cities).
6) Jesus preached the kingdom of God (justice, peace, equality, love, etc.)
7) Jesus went to Jerusalem for Passover when he was about 30 years old.
8) Jesus created a disturbance in the Temple compound.
9) Jesus had a final meal with his disciples.
10) Jesus was arrested and interrogated by Jewish authorities - high priest.
11) Jesus was executed on the orders of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate.

Sanders's aftermath of the life and death of Jesus is as follows:

1) His disciples fled at first.
2) His disciples saw him after his death (but in what way is uncertain)
3) His disciples accordingly believed that he would return to found kingdom.
4) His disciples formed a community to await his Messianic return, and sought to win others to faith in him as God's Messiah.

The importance of Sanders's work is (1) his emphasis on the sociological and political elements which were present in the first century AD, and (2) the idea the Jesus's action in the Temple is what eventually led to his crucifixion. The latter would become a standard for nearly all liberals involved in the New Quest. The most recent research has hearkened back to the period of "oral tradition," where stories about Jesus were told over and over in the context of an "oral culture." The difficulties for us to understand the "oral culture" (due to our post-Gutenberg paradigm) are nicely illustrated in James Dunn's work "A New Perspective on Jesus: What The Quest For The Historical Jesus Missed." Other criteria for uncovering the historicity of the real Jesus can be determined by invoking the methodology of the oral culture.

The Jesus Seminar

Without doubt, the most controversial group to arise in recent years is The Jesus Seminar. The Seminar was founded in 1985 by Robert Funk and John Dominic Crossan, and it was essentially comprised of 40-200 North American scholars who would gather twice a year to "vote" on which sayings of Jesus were authentic, and which sayings were not. Although the inferences of these scholars would be better read on a horizontal continuum, the "four-color" scheme that they devised and utilized in their The Five Gospels became notorious. Just as many New Testaments have the words of Jesus in red text, the so-called Scholars Version separated the sayings of Jesus into four categories:

Red = "that's Jesus" (It's something Jesus would definitely say)
Pink = "sure sounds like Jesus" (It's something Jesus might possibly say)
Gray = "well, maybe" (It's something consistent with what Jesus might say)
Black = "there's been a mistake" (It's impossible that Jesus could have said such a thing)

It is important to note that the Jesus Seminar is a self-appointed body with a mission to offset the conservative scholarly thrust which is present throughout North America. The Seminar, regardless of subjecting its works to peer review (except in some cases), has determined to bring liberal academic scholarship to the common man -- for this reason, the aisles of Barnes and Noble are adorned with books written by fellows of the Jesus Seminar. Also, special television shows on National Geographic and Discovery Channel are crammed with liberal scholars spouting out all sorts of heterodoxies to an unsuspecting public. All in all, as a polemical campaign, the effort has been somewhat successful because most readers and viewers are not widely read in these areas. Thus, the effect of the Jesus Seminar has been rather shocking to the North American public. Heralds such as Time and Newsweek have quoted many of the fellows of the Seminar, stating that only 25% of the Jesus sayings in the New Testament are authentic. Or, Jesus never uttered the Lord's prayer. Or that the Gospel of John is a complete fabrication. Without the Jesus Seminar preparing the field, books and films like "The Da Vinci Code" could have never been made.

So although the Jesus Seminar has succeeded in offering alternative Jesus theories to the public, theories that run counter to the traditional Gospel portrayal, it should be pointed out that the Seminar does not have the blessing of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) which is the authoritative governing body for biblical scholarship, comprised of 6,900 members. In fact, only a handful of fellows from the Jesus Seminar are connected in any way to the SBL. Nor is the American Academy of Religion (AAR) supporting the efforts of the Jesus Seminar. A great problem has arisen because the Jesus Seminar has portrayed itself as a "representative scholarly body" when, in fact, it is not, and because of this, many biblical scholars (conservatives, moderates and liberals) have heaped scorn upon the Jesus Seminar. Fr. Luke Timothy Johnson has written a scathing critique of the Seminar in his book The Real Jesus
(HarperCollins, 1997).

Though the methodology of the Jesus Seminar has been exposed for its flaws and biases, the fellows of the Seminar present themselves as doing inductive, scientific work (with an air of triumphalism), exploring the sayings of Jesus against the cross-currents of first century sociological and political conditions. Some might respond, "Yes, but their work is scientific and democratic. What's wrong with that?" Well, sadly, "appearances" aren't always what they seem to be, especially in the case of the Jesus Seminar. Their methods are neither scientific or democratic, and the ghost of Schweitzer has come back to haunt them, accusing them of creating a Jesus figure in their own image. Nearly all of the scholars involved in the Jesus Seminar already had a presupposed construct of the historical Jesus, not only in their minds, but in their writings - even before the advent of the Seminar. There is nothing objective about the method and process of the Jesus Seminar, although they have hoodwinked the North American populace into thinking that what they are doing is sound scholarship which is representative of cutting-edge hypotheses. In sum, no one comes to the Seminar's table with a tabula rasa - each scholar has his own hypothesis, and he or she will pick and choose which sayings of Jesus fit into his or her presupposed construct.

Some Key Sources For Understanding The Historical Jesus

1. Jesus Under Fire - Moreland/Wilkins, IVP
2. Historical Figure of Jesus - Sanders, Penguin
3. The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was And Is - Wright, IVP
4. A New Perspective On Jesus - What the Jesus Quest Missed - Dunn, Baker
5. Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography - Crossan, HarperCollins
6. Backgrounds of Early Chrstianity - Ferguson, Eerdmans
7. The Real Jesus - Luke Johnson, Harper
8. Studying the Historical Jesus: A Guide to Sources and Methods - Bock, Baker
9. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels - Blomberg, IVP
10. A Marginal Jew, Vol. 1 - John Meier,
11. Death of the Messiah (2 vols.) - Raymond Brown, Anchor
12. The Resurrection of the Son of God - Wright, Fortress
13. Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels - IVP
14. Dictionary of Paul and his Letters - IVP
15. Dictionary of New Testament Background - IVP
16. New Testament Introduction - Guthrie, IVP

*It is important to note that there are numerous key works on the topic of the Historical Jesus which range from the popular to the scholarly. In the above list I have tried to provide a combination of works, some specific, some encyclopedic, all scholarly, in order to enhance the student's understanding of this most interesting and important topic.

Josephus, Tacitus, and Jesus

Josephus: The Testimonium Flavianum (Antiquities 18.3.3)
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Josephus (37/8-100+ CE)
Antiquities of the Jews written in 93-94 CE.
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In some apologetics books, it is common to see a version of the Testimonium Flavianum according to William Whiston's English translation. Not to digress, but Whiston was a very brilliant man, the successor to Isaac Newton at Cambridge and popularizer of Newton's theories. Interestingly, like Locke and Newton, Whiston was an Arian (a popular thing to be in the late seventeenth century). Whiston even left the Church of England and became a Baptist so he wouldn't have to hear the Athanasian Creed. Whiston's dissertations are interesting, at the end of his Josephus volume, especially the one where he tries to prove that Joseph ben Matthias (Josephus) became an Ebionite Christian Jew, and served as the 14th bishop of Jerusalem in the succession of James the Righteous. But there really is no historical substance there.

Anyway, since Thackeray (the great Josephus scholar - 1929), it has become the "majority view" in biblical scholarship that the TESTIMONIUM FLAVIANUM is either (1) a total interpolation (a view which has now practically disappeared), or (2) a partial interpolation (a view which has now become the dominant position). Based on these simple facts, I am always quite surprised when I open up low level Christian apologetics books which cite the entire Whiston reference as if it still held the sway of scholars.

Here we will demonstrate the authenticity of the "reconstructed" TESTIMONIUM FLAVIANUM. Note the entire text below, with the interpolations in bold letters.

"Now about this time there was a wise man named Jesus -- if indeed one ought to speak of him as a man, for he was a doer of astonishing deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. He was the Messiah. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. For he appeared to them on the third day, living again, just as the divine prophets had spoken of these and countless other wondrous things about him. And up until this very day the tribe of the Christians, named after him, has not died out."


This is the view of most higher critical scholars. It is the minority view nowadays to regard the entire TESTIMONIUM as an interpolation, based on the "criterion of embarassment" (cf. Josephus's longer and more noble mention of John the Baptist, which is discussed below). Additionally, there is sufficient evidence that this writing did not come from the pen of a Christian:

FIRST, there are indications in this writing that it is an extra-Christian text. Where it says, "And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin." This sentence here indicates that the writer was unfamiliar with the Gospels. Nowhere in the Gospels is there any indication of Jesus gathering to himself people of Greek origin. A Canaanite woman, a Samaritan woman, and a few Gentiles who come to him. But Jesus's command to his disciples in Matt 10 is "Go not to the Gentiles . . . rather go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Although the overarching Matthean theme "is" the great commission to the Gentiles in all the earth - this was a post-resurrection narrative theme.) Thus, this indicates that "the writer" of the TESTIMONIUM was unfamiliar with the Gospels - a later Christian interpolater would have been familiar with the Gospels - yet, the "writer" is familiar with the idea that Christians are both Jews and Gentiles, something that a Jew like Josephus could surmise, and probably make an analagous inference that the immediate followers of Jesus were both Jew and Gentile, as the later Christians were in 93-94 CE. A later Christian could not have written this and blatantly contradicted the canonical Gospels. The question is "Why didn't a Christian interpolater eliminate these words or doctor them to fit the Gospel picture"? Let's be consistent in our criticism!

SECOND, in Antiquities 18:5.2, there is a fairly lengthy section on John the Baptist, of whom Josephus has many lofty things to say. He even says that the Jews regarded Herod Antipas's failed military effort against Aretas (king of Petra) as a judgment from God upon Antipas because he had killed JBap. The "criterion of embarassment" leads us to regard the TESTIMONIUM FLAVIANUM as authentic (with great probability). Why would a Christian interpolater allow JBap to receive such a lengthy tribute from Josephus, while JNaz only received a few words? Like the example of JNaz's humble submission to the baptist in the Gospels, scholars regard such "embarassments" as authentic.

Another important thing about the JBap reference in Antiquities 18.5.2 is that there is "no" connection whatsoever between JBap and JNaz. The two are separated by three chapters and have "nothing to do with one another" in the mind of the writer. It is inconceivable that a Christian could have written this.

THIRD, if a patristic or medieval scribe was the "interpolator" of the entire TESTIMONIUM, why isn't there more of an anti-Semitic "bite" to this passage. The explanation of "Pilate" and the "leading men among us" is very bland. The Gospels, though differing somewhat in the Passion Narratives, all essentially agree that the Sanhedrin condemned JNaz for "religious" purposes, and Pilate condemned JNaz for "political" purposes." A patristic or medieval scribe with anti-Jewish sentiment (which was common) would have probably conflated the the passage to include some sort of anti-Jewish polemic. There is no anti-Jewish polemic in the TESTIMONIUM.

FINALLY, the phrase "And up until this day, the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out." First of all, the word "tribe" (Gr. phylon) is used by Josephus in many instances, yet is "not" particularly utilized by Christians in describing themselves. Secondly, if this was penned by a Christian, there is no mention of the fact that the Christians have somehow persisted, even through the persecution of Nero. There is no "triumph" of Christianity in the tone of this passage.

Stripped of the obvious Christian interpolations, there is still a nucleus to the TESTIMONIUM FLAVIANUM which is regarded as authentic by the majority of scholars. And thus, it tells us some important things about JNaz. Accordingly, Jesus was supposedly a wise teacher who also wrought some wonders (the latter claim was nothing shocking to Josephus because he himself wrote of Vespasian's miracles). Secondly, the text also tells us that Jesus got into some trouble with the religious and political authorities to the point where he was executed. A crucified rebel or leader was nothing out of the ordinary in those days, but Josephus seems a bit surprised that the "tribe of Christians," for some reason, "has not died out." Now "that" was extraordinary.

Thus, we have extra-biblical support for the historical Jesus. The fact that the TESTIMONIUM wasn't used by ante-Nicene Christian apologists does not testify to it's absence from the record, it just affirms the rather neutral tone of the passage, and that it was therefore theologically useless, especially in the context of rising christological problems, etc.



Tacitus (Annals 15.44)
__________________________

Another important extra-biblical reference regarding the historicity of Jesus comes to us by way of the Roman statesman and historian, Cornelius Tacitus. The most unfortunate thing about "The Annals of Tacitus," which record the history of Rome between 14-68 AD, is that one of the gaps in the narrative occurs between the 29-32 AD. This doesn't mean that Tacitus recorded anything specific about JNaz or Pontius Pilate, but it would have been interesting since Tacitus showed great interest in the Tiberian period. At any rate, there are other interesting things about this quote besides the reference to a group called "Christians" whose name comes from one "Christ" -- nominus eius Christus. Before I begin to elaborate, though, let me write the entire quote from Annals 15.44 below, and remember that Tacitus is writing towards the end of his life (57/8-ca. 118), and his focus at this point in the Annals was to record the Neronian Persecution after the great fire of Rome.

"Therefore, to squelch the rumor [about the fire], Nero created scapegoats and subjected to the most refined tortures those whom the common people called 'Christians,' [a group] hated for their abominabe crimes. Their name comes from Christ, who, during the reign of Tiberius, had been executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate. Suprpressed for the moment, the deadly superstition broke out again, not only in Judea, the land which originated this evil, but also in the city of Rome, where all sorts of horrendous and shameful pactices from every part of the world converge and are fervently cultivated."

Now, Tacitus, writing this towards the end of his life, probably when he was proconsul of western Asia Minor ca. 112-13 AD, was writing primarily about Rome and Nero's Fire. So, this passage really has historical importance for early Christianity in Rome, and how opposition to the Imperial Cult was considered "evil," "deadly superstition," "horrendous," and "shameful." This is of tremendous importance when we consider how early Romans perceived Christians, even to the point where Nero could use them as scapegoats and the people would support his morbid persecution. As much as we have corruption in our political system here in America, we should consider ourselves lucky that we didn't live under the dominion of the great-great grandson of Augustus, the last of the Julio-Claudian line, the pupil of Seneca, and the son of Agrippina (whom he had clubbed to death) -- NERO.

Anyway, Tacitus had good cause to know "something" about Christians since he governed over the Ephesian region, as did his friend Pliny the Younger who governed over Bythinia -- both indicated that they had some "remote" knowledge of the "Christian problem," and the latter some immediate knowledge of the problem. But it is very important to note that both Tacitus and Pliny, as governors in the early second century, only had a "remote" knowledge of Christianity. The visibility of "Christian Judaism" (a Roman perception) really started to become evident when "Christian Judaism" evolved into a Gentile-inclusive "cult" called "Christians."

Now, allow me state some interesting things about the TACITUS reference.

1) The entire text is very negative, dismissive, and condescending towards the Christians. It simply could "not" have come from a Christian pen. Notice how Tacitus says, regarding the scapegoats, "those whom the 'common people' called Christians." This is an elitist, and perhaps aristocratic, remark because Tacitus is implying that he doesn't acknowledge them any more than he acknowledges any cult, apart from the Imperial Cult and the worship of the gods. That he doesn't acknowledge them is indicated when he says "the 'common people' [call them] Christians, [of course, I don't call them anything -- they are just another superstitious cult which I don't even recognize]. It's important to understand that this is an "elitist" perception here because "the writer" is sociologically removed from the Christians. The "Christians" do not exist in "his" world. Moreover, he speaks negatively about this superstition. He has nothing to do with it - he wants nothing to do with it.

2) But what is interesting is that (a) He assumes that "Christ" is a proper name because he makes an etymological connection with the term "Christians" - compare how Josephus simply uses the name "Jesus." (b) He has knowledge that JNaz was executed during the Tiberian reign (14-37 AD) by the procurator Pontius Pilate 26-36 AD. Now, how does he have this knowledge? Where did he get this knowledge? It isn't because he has intimate knowledge of the Christian teaching - as we said, he is sociologically removed from what he deems a cult. Therefore, this knowledge must have come to him through Roman sources, whether it was his from his friend Pliny, whether it was from his detailed study of the Tiberian reign and the problems in Judea, or whatever. I'm just saying that it's interesting how Tacitus "knows" about Jesus's execution by Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. What is his source? Some have suggested Josephus, but most scholars dismiss that idea.

3) Some skeptics can't resist in saying that Tacitus would have never used the word "procurator" as a title for Pontius Pilate because of the Caesarea Maritima insciption discovered in 1961. And it's true that the term "prefect" was more appropriate for a man of equestrian (not senatorial) rank, like Pontius Pilate. However, critical scholars have pointed out that the terms were used interchangably, especially in marginal regions like Judea.

4) Another thing is when Tacitus says that, after the execution of Jesus, "[his movement was] suppressed for the moment . . . broke out again, not only in Judea, the land which originated this evil, but also in the city of Rome. This is a loaded statement. Essentially, the phrase indicates that (a) this "Christ" character had some kind of noxious movement in Judea "prior" to his execution (presumably the execution is what temporarily suppressed the movement), but (2) the movement "somehow" broke out "again," and (3) the movement was now polluting Rome. Interestingly, this seems to be quite congruent with the general story of the Gospels and Acts. There seems to be a consistent general parallel between the two - the extra-biblical reference parallels the biblical story in general terms.

Without having to go further in quoting extra-biblical sources, the Josephus and Tacitus references are sufficient to demonstrate the historicity of Jesus (at least during the period of Pilate - 26-36 AD).

So, what are the scholarly conclusions simply from the TESTIMONIUM FLAVIANUM and TACTITUS references?

"Now about this time there was a wise man named Jesus -- if indeed one ought to speak of him as a man, for he was a doer of astonishing deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. He was the Messiah. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. For he appeared to them on the third day, living again, just as the divine prophets had spoken of these and countless other wondrous things about him. And up until this very day the tribe of the Christians, named after him, has not died out." (Josephus -- ca. 93-94)


"Therefore, to squelch the rumor [about the fire], Nero created scapegoats and subjected to the most refined tortures those whom the common people called 'Christians,' [a group] hated for their abominable crimes. Their name comes from Christ, who, during the reign of Tiberius, had been executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate. Suppressed for the moment, the deadly superstition broke out again, not only in Judea, the land which originated this evil, but also in the city of Rome, where all sorts of horrendous and shameful pactices from every part of the world converge and are fervently cultivated." (Tacitus -- ca. 112)

Thus we have the core facts of the Essential Jesus just from two extra-biblical sources:

The Essential Jesus

1) A wise man and teacher with a devout following
2) It was said that he had performed astonishing deeds
3) The religious leaders accused him of something
4) Pilate condemned him to the cross and executed
5) His following seemed to disappear for a short time
6) But his following was somehow revived again
7) His followers flourished in Judea, where he was executed
8) His followers spread the movement even to Rome
9) His followers called him Christ (Gr. "annointed")

The Crucifxion of Jesus - An Historical, Procedural, and Pathological Approach

by William J. Tsamis, M.A.

1. Crucifixion in Antiquity

Perhaps the most horrendous form of execution ever known to man, crucifixion was practiced from very ancient times, although in several different forms. In one form or the other, whether "impalement" or "crucifixion proper," it was utilized by the Egyptians, the Hindus, the Assyrians, the Scythians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the SeljukTurks, the Saracens, and even the Japanese.1 It is remarkable how widespread this practice was in the ancient world. According to Herodotus (ca. 485-25 BC), the Greeks probably adopted "crucifixion proper" from the Persians, and in the post-Alexander era (i.e. after 325 BC), it became normative in the Mediterranean world. Accounts of Muslim crusaders crucifying their captives, and non-Christian peoples crucifying missionaries (e.g. the Japanese) have to do with the "mockery" that captive crusaders or missionaries had to incur. For the most part, at least in the Greco-Roman world, "crucifixion proper" was perfected by the Romans as a method of prolonged torture, with profound psychological influence upon the masses. It was used primarily upon peoples of the lower classes, especially criminals and rebels in the provinces, yet sometimes it was also used upon high Roman officials who were accused of "treason."

At any rate, crucifixion had become so perfected as a method of torture and execution that it is was regarded as an "utterly vile death" (Origen), indeed "hideous" and "barbaric." Even the Roman statesman Cicero (106-43 BC) deplored it as "a most cruel and disgusting punishment." And further, he would remark, "To bind a Roman citizen is a crime, to flog him is an abomination, to kill him is almost an act of murder; but to crucify him is what? There is no fitting word that can possibly describe so horrible a deed . . . "2

The brutality of crucifixion is well attested in ancient literature. For instance, after Alexander the Great conquered Tyre in 332 BC, he ordered the crucifixion of two-thousand Tyrians, a grave consequence for their seven month resistance. However, Alexander's actions would pale in comparison to the wrath of the Roman general Titus, who, during the seige of Jerusalem in AD 70, stripped the entire Judean hillside of nearly every tree so that the wood could be used for the making of crosses.3 And four years prior, during the governorship of Florus, at the outset of the Jewish War against the Romans, the practice was even imposed upon innocent men and women, while children and infants were subjected to wholesale slaughter.4 So outrageous was the aggressive policy of Florus on the Jerusalemites, that Josephus would comment that Bernice, sister of Herod Agrippa II (fl. AD 40-70), before whom the Apostle Paul testified (Acts 25:14-17), was horrified at the site and immediately sent messengers to Florus, begging him for clemency,5 but the pleas of the Herodian princess fell on deaf ears. Roman military brutality intensified, and crucifixion became prevalent because of its punishing and psychological efficacy. The Roman intolerance of Jerusalem was now final; thus, victims were even crucified on the walls of Jerusalem, and also on various shaped crosses in every position imaginable.

Although the Roman practice of crucifixion was intended to be a method of torturous execution for criminals and political revolutionaries, there was also a profound psychological effect which was to serve as a deterrent. Thus, as the roads of Syria/Palestine were donned with the bodies of dying revolutionaries as they hung on their respective crosses, it is fair to say that no one in that territory was immune from the gruesome vision and stench of a crucified victim. Martin Hengel states it perfectly when he says:

"The chief reason for crucifixion was its allegedly supreme efficacy as a deterrent; it was, of course, carried out publicly . . . . It was usually associated with other forms of torture, including at least flogging . . . . By the public display of a naked victim at at a prominent place -- at a crossroads, in the theatre, on high ground, at the place of his crime -- crucifixion also represented his uttermost humiliation, which had a numinous dimension to it."6

Interestingly, one feature of crucifixion that is often overlooked is that the victim, in many cases, provided a feast for the birds of prey, ultimately until the guards would take down the body and throw it to the carrion dogs in the wilderness so that they might consume the remains. This is one of the reasons archaeologists cite for the dearth of crucified skeletons. So, crucifixion was not simply a "just" execution carried out as a consequence of criminal offense; crucifixion was a method of barbaric and heinous torture which ultimately resulted in brutal death. Many Greco-Roman writers would comment on the procedure by using phrases like "grim pickings for the dogs" and "hung alive for the wild beasts and birds of prey."7 So, whenever we posit the idea of "crucifxion" in our minds, we must graphically envision the execution sites with their numerous crosses, the Roman guards standing watch to ensure that families or sympathizers would not try to save their crucified love ones from the endless torture; and we must remember that crucifixion sites were darkened by a host of vultures circling over the site, as well as the carrion dogs waiting patiently at a safe distance for their sustainers to provide them their ration.

Moreover, we must appreciate "what it meant for a man in antiquity to be refused burial, and the dishonours which went with it."8 Although some cultures practiced ritualistic cremation, most cultures in the Ancient Near East practiced burial rituals and funerary rites, which included sacred readings, mourning, preparation of the body, procession, and finally interment. In the Roman era, especially, the subjected peoples perceived crucifxion as an unfair abomination because it was a form of execution used only on the conquered subjects -- Roman citizens were exempt from crucifixion. Thus, crucfixion was regarded as an imperial form of oppression -- indeed, a disregard by the suzerain for the peoples of the provinces. Anyway, throughout the Roman period crucifixion was a terror which was reserved for criminals of the worst sort; and after the Jewish War (AD 70) and the rise of Christianity during the persecutions, crucifixion was one of many methods of toruturous exections imposed on Christians. It would not be until the reign of Constantine (306-337) that this horrid method of execution would be abolished. Most likely, it was Constantine's reverence for the cross which moved him to abolish crucifixion from the earth.

2. The Procedure of Roman Crucifixion

After a criminal had been sentenced to the cross, he would be stripped of his clothes and tied to a post in the tribunal. Then, a most cruel and severe form of scourging would begin. The whip, called a "flagrum," was an instrument with many lashes, to which pieces of sharp bone and metal were attached. One expert in pathology describes the torture as such:

"Over an over again the metal tips dug deep into the flesh, ripping small vessels, nerves, muscles, and skin. The victim writhed, rolled, wrenched and his whole body became distorted with pain, causing him to fall to the ground, only to be jerked up again. Seizurelike activities occurred, followed by tremors, vomiting, and cold sweats." 9

Of this gruesome torture, the early Church historian Eusebius wrote: "The veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews, and bowels of the victim were open to exposure." According to the Law of Moses, as stipulated in the Book of Deuteronomy, the Israelites limited the number of lashes to forty (Deuteronomy 25:3). (It is important to note that the Israelites never used any whip-like instrument which resembled the Roman "flagrum.) But since Jesus was subjected to the Roman system of justice, the limitation of forty lashes did not apply. In connection with this, it is interesting to note that many researchers who have examined the "Shroud of Turin"10 have detected over one hundred scourge wounds on the burial cloth. This excessive pre-crucifixion torture seems to be consistent with the Gospel accounts which seem to imply that, Pontius Pilate, in hoping to spare Jesus the cross, had Him severely scourged in order that the wrath of the Jewish mob might be quenched by such an awful spectacle of a "Man." However, Pilate's attempt to incite the pity and sympathy of the crowd were all to no avail. The rabid mob cried out with even more venemous contempt and fury: "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!" (John 19:15).

In considering the pre-crucifixion suffering of Jesus, which was, no doubt, more intense that the typical victim, something must be said about the "crown of thorns" that was forced upon the head of Jesus. Many experts agree that the "crown" was made from either the "zizphus spina" or the "paliuris spina," both members of the buckthorn family with thin, one-inch thorns. 11 Medical experts have commented about the nerves with regard to the area of the scalp. Essentially, any laceration of the small blood vessels would result in severe pain and significant bleeding.12 Although the physical pain caused by the "crown of thorns" must have certainly been excruciating, the sorrow, grief, and mockery must have caused Jesus even more pain.

After the fateful sentence was pronounced, "Ibis ad crucem," ("You shall go to the cross"), the victim was forced to carry his cross, or usually just the crossbeam (which could weigh a hundred pounds), to the site of execution, which in Jesus' case would have been just outside the walls of Jerusalem, probably along one of the main roads leading into the city. The purpose for exposing crucified victims to passers-by, as we saw in Hengel's remarks, was to fortify the impression of Roman military power in the minds of incoming Jewish pilgrims. And above the infrastructure of the numerous crosses, vultures would be circling, waiting to pick away at the dying carcasses hanging on the Roman crosses. Outside of Jerusalem, in the nearby wilderness, wild carrion dogs would be waiting in hope that the Roman executioners would dispose of the bodies in the wilderness; thus, providing the carnivorous canines with a ready meal.

Anyway, after the words "Ibis ad crucem" were uttered by the prefect (Roman military governor), the victim would take up his cross (or crossbeam), a herald would sometimes walk ahead of the victim announcing the crime while holding up the placard (i.e. the wooden plate placed above the victim's head on the cross) with the criminal charges written upon it. At other times, the placard would be hung around the victim's neck as he staggered through the streets, all the while being goaded along by the spears of the attending soldiers. Indeed, it was this placard, placed above Jesus' head on the cross, with His crime written upon it: "King of the Jews."

At the site of execution, the victim would be nailed through the wrists (7 inch spikes) to the crossbeam, and then, drawn up by ropes, the crossbeam would be fastened to the vertical beam. Then, with allowing some flexibility at the knees, the executioner would hammer the third spike through the victim's feet, or sometimes a spike would be hammered through each heel. (There was no uniformity or precise methodology with regard to crucifxion.) Interestingly, some scholars believe that the skeleton of a crucified victim named Yohanan, unearthed in 1967, shows that one long spike was driven through the "heel" bones of his two feet which were crossed over. If this is the case, then this particular detail becomes alive with symbolism in the case of Jesus, of whom it was prophesied in the protoevangelium: "You (Christ) shall crush his (Satan's) head; though he (Satan) will bruise your (Christ's) heel" (Genesis 3:15).

3. The Cause of Death - Pathology

In most crucifixions, the victim was "tied" to the cross, instead of being nailed, and he was allowed to hang there for days. Historical records tell us of instances where some victims survived on the cross for as many as nine days. In these cases, the bodies were left to rot on the cross, while the carrion birds feasted on the dead carcasses. During the imperial persecutions of Christians (ca. 64-312), stories were told of women martyrs who were crucified upside-down, naked, and allowed to hang there until their deaths. Eusebius would comment that this was "the most shameful, brutal, and inhuman of all spectacles to everyone watching."

In the case of Jesus, who was "nailed" to the cross, after incurring the previously described pre-crucifixion torture (i.e. the severe scourging), the death process, though swifter than the use of ropes, was excuciatingly more painful. One author describes it as such:

"The lacerating veins and crushed tendons throbbed with incessant anguish; the wounds, inflamed by exposure, gradually gangrened; the arteries, especially at the head and stomach, became swollen and oppressed with surcharged blood; and while each variety of misery went on gradually increasing, there was added to them the intolerable pang of a burning and raging thirst."13 Accompanying the overwhelming pain was an extreme complication in the normal respiratory function. One expert pathologist, in researching the medical cause of Jesus' death, temporarily suspended himself upon a model cross, and subsequently stated: "The deltoid (shoulder) and pectoral (chest) muscles promptly assume a state of spasm, and the victim so suspended is physically unable to make use of this thoracic (upper body) muscles of respiration."14 In order for the victim to breathe, he had to push himself up by his feet, which were nailed to the vertical beam, thus taking advantage of the flexibility allotted to him by the executioner. However, the pressure on his feet became unbearable, and he would once again collapse into the hanging position, thus putting an intolerable tearing pressure on the affixed hands (wrists). Also, the intense pain caused by the scourging would become aggravated during this "up and down" motion, due to the frictional contact between the victim's back and vertical beam.

After the victim had endured for several hours on the cross (from the Gospel records we can deduce that Jesus hung on the cross for at least six hours), the Roman soldiers, in order to hasten the death process, would smash the lower leg bones; an action called "crucifragium." Crucifragium made it impossible for the victim to move "up and down," thereby affixing the victim in the collapsed position and inducing death through repiratory malfunction. Interestingly, the skeleton of Yohanan reveals that the legs were shattered by one powerful blow.

Of course the Gospels tell us that crucifragium was not necessary in Jesus' case because He was already dead. This was in fulfillment of the prophecy that not one of His bones would be broken (Psalm 34:20). However, the Scriptures also tell us that one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear (not an unusual practice) to certify in fact that He was truly dead. One expert points out: "If Jesus had been alive after the spear wound, the soldiers as well as others at the site would have heard a loud sucking sound caused by breath being inhaled past the chest wound."15

Modern medical pathology has concluded, therefore, after a careful and intense examination of the facts, that the cause of Jesus' death was "cardiac and respiratory arrest due to cardiogenic, traumatic, and hypovolemic shock due to crucifixion."16 Indeed, these conclusions were affirmed in an intense study by the prestigious "Journal of the American Medical Association" (reference link below). Perhaps the best depiction of Jesus' suffering and death on the cross was best described by the Shroud expert, Frederick Zugibe:

"He was almost totally exhausted and in severe pain. Sweat poured over his entire body, drenching him, and his face assumed a yellowish-ashen color . . . The burning, exquisite pains from the nails, the lacerating lighting bolts across the face from the irritation by the crown of thorns, the burning wounds from the scourging, the severe pull on the shoulders, the intense cramps in the knees, and the severe thirst together composed a symphony of unrelenting pain.  Then he lifed his head up to heaven and cried out in a loud voice, 'It is consummated.'  Jesus was dead."17

Go directly to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) article

Endnotes

1. Ian Wilson, The Blood and the Shroud. New York: Free Press, 1998, p. 207.
*In the case of the Seljuk Turks (Muslims) and Japanese, the purpose for crucifixion was one of mockery - i.e. a mockery of the death of Christ. During the Crusades, the Turks would crucify some of the crusaders whom they succeeded in capturing. The ridicule and mockery incurred by these crusaders was simply riotous joy to the Muslim enemy. In the case of the Japanese, there is strong witness that a great number of Christian missionaries were crucified in Nagasaki in 1597.

2. John Stott, The Cross of Christ. Downers Grove:InterVarsity, 1986, p. 24. (Quoting Cicero in his Against Verres II. v64, para. 165. (Interestingly, the Apostle Paul was not crucified (but rather, "beheaded," according to tradition) because he was in fact a Roman citizen, and Roman citizens were exempt from crucifixion) -- cf. Cicero., Verr. Act., I, 5; II, 3, 5; III, 2, 24, 26; IV, 10 sqq.; V, 28, 52, 61, 66).

3. Josephus, War 2. 306-08

4. Josephus, War 5.447-51

5. Ibid.

6. Martin Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message
of the Cross. Philadephia: Fortress, 1977.

7. John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography.
San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1994. (Here, Crossan is quoting from Hengel).

8. Hengel, Crucifixion.

9. Kenneth E. Stevenson and Gary R. Habermas, The Shroud and the Controversy. Nashville: Nelson, 1990, p. 105. *A quote from Frederick Zugibe's, The Cross and the Shroud, NY: Angelus, 1982.

10. *Watch for my coming article on "The Shroud of Turin."

11. Stevenson/Habermas, p. 105.

12. Ibid., p. 105.

13. Ibid.

14. Robert Bucklin, Legal and Medical Aspects, 24.
*Quoted in Stevenson/Habermas, p. 109.

15. Stevenson/Habermas, quoting Frederick Zugibe, p. 113.

16. Ibid., quoting the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

17. Frederick Zugibe, The Cross and the Shroud. NY: Angelus, 1982

N. T. Wright on the Resurrection

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus this Christmas season, there are so many things to think about and contemplate. And although Pascha is still a ways off, I feel compelled to share with you two of N. T. Wright's article/lectures on "The Resurrection." Indeed, I discovered Wright years ago, and I have ploughed through all of his works to my great benefit. It is refreshing to see that conservative scholars like Wright - at least with regard to "Jesus Studies" - are setting new frontiers in historical studies, frontiers that only confirm the Gospel record.

For this reason I am sharing with you two key article/lectures from Wright's personal website. (I have linked his personal website below in the right-hand column under the category "Scholars' Personal Websites"). Anyway, read this wonderful, insightful, and original article on "The Resurrection of Jesus" and please peruse his website. Your spirit will only become the richer for it. A final note: In addition to the articles below (and his website), clear your desk and read his monumental tome "The Resurrection of the Son of God" (2004). This is the definitive work on the resurrection to this date.

Jesus’ Resurrection and Christian Origins

Christian Origins and the Resurrection of Jesus

The Pelagian Controversy : Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis

The Pelagian Controversy
by William J Tsamis

"I once more repeat my position: I say that it is possible for a man to be without sin. What do you say? That it is impossible for a man to be without sin? I am not saying that there is a man without sin . . . Our contention is simply about what is possible, not about what is, and what is not." -- Pelagius

As quoted by Augustine in his A Treatise on Nature and Grace, Against Pelagius Book I, Chapter 8 - (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 1, Vol. 5).
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Introduction and Historical Context

Throughout the history of Christianity, there have been great intellectual wars waged in the name of, and for the sake of, truth. With a spirit of unrelenting zeal and intensity, councils have convened, creeds have been formulated, and in the wake of such ecclesiastical discipline, numerous anathemas have been hurled and not a few heretics have been denounced. In a pattern of dualistic theological conflict, we remember Athanasius and Arius, Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius, Patriarch Photius and Pope Nicholas, Luther and Leo X, Calvin and Arminius, and a host of other saints and heretics whose interpersonal theological disputes and disagreements caused great disruptions within the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church," against which not even the gates of hell could prevail. Not least among these, however, was the great disputation between Augustine and Pelagius, two contemporary thinkers who would clash at the dawn of the fifth century (ca. 411), the former being the bishop of Hippo in North Africa who once experientially fathomed the depths of utter sin and depravity, the latter being a monk from the isles of Britain who lived uprightly in increasing integrity and piety, apparently untainted by the sin and moral evil which prevailed in the world. Thus, with no orthodox anthropological doctrine yet defined by the end of the fourth century, the Eastern Church being consumed with christological and theological schisms and controversies, perhaps it seemed fit that divine providence might bring together two antithetical Western thinkers from distant lands, and thus forge a scriptural anthropology of grace which would glorify God in His soteriological work and thus exalt the cross of the Saviour, Jesus Christ.

The time of the Pelagian Controversy was a time of great change, especially with regard to geopolitical and hegemonic change. Indeed, the sands of Rome were shifting and the lines of provincial demarcation were being erased and redefined. Now although the fall of the western Roman Empire would not arrive until the year 476, when the Germanic tribal chieftain Odoacer would depose the emperor Romulus Augustulus, the pillars of Rome had been crumbling for nearly a century under the consistent and ferocious attacks of the barbarian hordes. After the Visigoths defeated the Emperor Valens and his Roman legions at Adrianople in 378, the legend of Roman invincibility died on the battlefield along with the emperor and his legions, and thus, a century of chaos was now ushered in.1 Vandals, Ostrogoths, Huns, Burgundians, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and others began to tear away at the flesh of the dying beast which was once Rome, seizing territories at will, and thus driving the once invincible armies of Rome into evacuation and retreat. The western provinces of Rome were swallowed up by the gluttonous barbarians, and the former provinces became the new strongholds of alien cultures.

Now it was on the occasion of the sack of Rome in 410, led by Alaric the Goth, that Augustine was compelled to write his classic "City of God," which essentially defended Christianity from the accusations of pagan writers who alleged that the fall of Rome was the consequence of the abandonment of the pagan gods.2 A massive literary undertaking of fourteen years, Augustine effectively articulated a philosophy of history which centered on the sovereignty and providence of God in the affairs of men. Moreover, he not only defended the truth of Christianity, but he polemically attacked the immorality of Roman pagan religion, insisting that the gods of Rome along with their respective sacerdotal systems were worthless in conveying any ethic to their peoples; they were simply a reflection of the perversions of pagan Rome, upon which the God of gods was now visiting His divine retribution.3 Augustine gives evidence to this assertion by demonstrating that in spite of all the "destruction, slaughter, burning, plundering, and distress visited upon Rome . . . it was something entirely new that the fierce barbarians, by an unprecedented turn of events, showed such clemency for the vast basilicas which were designated as places of refuge [for Christian and pagan alike]."4 Augustine reminds his readers that it was not the sudden compassion and mercy of the barbaric savages that spared the lives of both Christians and pagans, but "It was God who struck awe into ruthless and bloodthirsty hearts, who curbed and wondrously tamed them."5

Now because of the geopolitical instability of the times, especially around the perimeters of the empire, Pelagius, the British monk, migrated to Rome in about 380-384.6 There, he studied law, perfecting his polemical skills, and he fused his monastic legalistic piety with his clear intellect, striving all the while to effectuate some change in the corrupt morals of societal Rome. Also, during his time in Rome, Pelagius befriended one, Celestius, who would later become a champion of the Pelagian system. Indeed, it was from the latter that the controversy would take its rise, for as Philip Schaff notes, it was Pelagius who was "the moral author of the system," while Celestius would be regarded as "the intellectual author."7 At the time of Alaric's march against Rome in 410, however, both Pelagius and Celestius would take flight from Rome's impending doom, and set sail for the shores of sanctuary in North Africa. Whereas Pelagius would mark a brief stay in North Africa, leaving for Palestine in 413 in order to forward his anthropologcal views there, Celestius would stay behind in Carthage and seek orders for the presbytery. Ironically, it would be from the latter event that the Pelagian Controversy would then arise.
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Before we discuss the anthropological doctrines of Pelagianism, along with its Augustinian antithesis, let us briefly digress into a biographical sketch of the two thinkers so that we can arrive at some understanding at how these two prominent men, Pelagius and Augustine, not only differed in their anthropology, but in their psychological development and experience as well. For as Berkhof, citing the words of Wiggers, says,

"Their characters were diametrically opposite. Pelagius was a quiet man, as free from mysticism as aspiring ambition; and in this respect, his mode of thought and action must have been wholly different from that of Augustine. Both therefore thought differently, according to their totally different physiognamy; and both, moreover, must have come into conflict just as soon as external occasion should be presented."(Augustinianism and Pelagianism, p. 47).8

So with regard to this debate, i.e. the Pelagian Controversy, the developmental backgrounds of the two men are of immense importance. How each man arrived at his own respective system was not entirely due to scriptural exegesis and inference, but also due to the experiences and essential psychological profiles of the two men in their developmental years. Now with regard to Pelagius (ca. 350-425), there is scant evidence about his early life, although we can presume that he came from a noble family since he was highly educated in language (speaking both Latin and Greek) as well as in the cultural arts. As we noted earlier, he was always known to be a man of great individual piety, morality, and self-discipline. Even Augustine, though he condemned the Pelagian doctrine as error, spoke well of Pelagius's exemplary character. So, from various writings, we can deduce that Pelagius was a moralist who lived an austere, puritan Christian life, a man who believed from his own experience that all men possessed an absolute "freedom of the will" and self-determination toward the holy life. As a man, then, Pelagius is to be commended for his loyalty to the moral teachings of the Saviour; as a theologian, however, as we shall see later, Pelagius is to be denounced as one who emphasized a form of legalism which denied a preeminent role to the grace of God.

Now with regard to Augustine of Hippo (354-430), if we were to examine his developmental years, we would find a man of contrary psychological character to that of Pelagius. Whereas in the life of Pelagius we see stability and concrete affinity to the Christian religion, in the person of Augustine we see a young man "tossed about to and fro" on the waves of various worldviews and thought systems. Even in his youth an active mind, it was when Augustine read Cicero's Hortensius that he began his quest for wisdom, and in the words of the patristic scholar Johannes Quasten, "his long and tormented interior evolution began."9 And though he received a Christian education in his earlier years - his mother Monica being a pious Christian - Augustine had read the scriptures with little or no profit. So, appealing to his rationalistic tendencies, Augustine pursued other forms of thought until he finally rested in the religion of Manichaeism in its heterodox Christian form, which essentially articulated (1) a form of rationalism which excluded faith, (2) a purely spiritual form of Christianity which excluded the Old Testament, and (3) a radical metaphysical dualism which solved the problem of evil.10 For about a decade, then, Augustine would align himself with Manichaeism and maintain a strict anti-Christian bias. But after reading the writings of certain academics and philosophers such as the Platonists, Augustine recognized the irrational and mythical aspects of certain Manichaean metaphysical presuppositions, and he thus fell into the realm of skepticism.

During his years of turmoil, Augustine plunged the depths of immorality and lived a life of full-blown hedonism. Immersed in promiscuity, he lived unmarried with a woman for about thirteen years who bore him a son named Adeodatus, to whom he remained a faithful father his whole life. In his famous work The Confessions, Augustine relates to us his level of depravity:

For in that youth of mine I was on fire to take my fill of hell. Outrageously in all my shady loves I began to revert to a state of savagery: my beauty consumed away and I stank in [God's] sight; pleasing myself and being anxious to please in the eyes of men."11

Nevertheless, despite his immersion in the hedonistic lifestyle, Augustine excelled in learning and became a professor of rhetoric at Milan in the year 385. Partly due to the volatility of the times, and partly due to his soaring intellect, Augustine experienced tremendous success and, for a time, he even considered pursuing a political career. In reflecting on those years, however, he said,

"In the years that I taught the art of rhetoric, I was overcome by a desire for [monetary] gain. I took money for instructing my pupils on how to overcome
other people by speech-making."12

Augustine, then, was a master of logic and rhetoric, a very successful and rising star, but he was deeply unhappy and discontented.

Ironically, or providentially, a very learned and eloquent man also resided in Milan, a spiritual man whose character and intellect transcended even the greatest minds of the era - his name was Ambrose, the bishop of Milan. Not only was Ambrose a highly skilled rhetorician, but he was a master of classical philosophical works as well, a true scholar of his age. Most importantly, however, Ambrose possessed the soul of a pastor who deeply cared for the Church, not only in an intellectual polemical sense, but in an ethical and moral sense as well. (Ambrose's denunciation of Theodosius after the massacre at Thessalonica is legend.) Thus, it would not be long before Augustine would hear of Ambrose, and subsequently desire to listen to his powerful homilies which were rich with theological and philosophical insights. Yet although Ambrose would have a profound effect on the "spiritual restlessness" of Augustine, it would be by a simple act of faith in the Saviour that Augustine would enter into the kingdom of God and be baptized into the Church. And after his baptism by the great Ambrose in 387, he decided to abandon his career as a professor of rhetoric, along with the renunciation of his formal lifestyle, and instead, return to Hippo in North Africa with his son and his mother in order to found a monastic community. In 385, however, Augustine would become bishop of Hippo, a post which he would retain his entire life, a post from which he would launch his timeless theological and polemical writings. In sum, then, this is the story of Augustine's radical metamorphosis from hedonistic paganism to the faith of Jesus Christ.
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The Pelagian Thesis

In discussing the Pelagian Controversy, it is critical to point out that the Church, until that time, had not really dealt with the issue of anthropology in any depth. If we could ascribe any systematized doctrine to the Eastern Chuch, we could say that the Greek Fathers, especially those at Alexandria, were so concerned with the cosmological dualism and fatalism of earlier Gnostic systems, that the anthropology which was developed in the East stressed a "synergism" which attributed salvation to the work of the human will alongside the work of divine grace.13 Moreover, as we stated in our introduction, the Greek Fathers of this era (e.g., Athanasius, the Cappadocians, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, et al.), were consumed with christological and theological subordinationist issues, issues of course which would prove to be of immense importance to the historic Christian faith. It can also be said, at this point, that although the Eastern Church joined the Western Church in the condemnation of Pelagianism at the Council of Ephesus in 431 (along with the condemnation of Nestorius), the anathema in no way implied an acceptance of the Augustinian anthropology.14 Salvific theology in the Eastern Church had inferred from the words of Athanasius the doctrine "Theosis" (sometimes rendered deification or divinization), the words of Athanasius being "He became what we are, so that He might make us what He is." Certainly, the concept of Theosis is not to be confused with far eastern metaphysical monistic ideas such as the Vedantic idea of absortion into Brahman, but rather, the idea is inferred from incarnational theology and certain scriptures such as "You have become partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet 1:4).

Thus, in the Western theological tradition the idea is similar to that of "glorification." In the centuries following the Council of Ephesus the idea of Theosis became more systematized by such Eastern thinkers as Maximus Confessor (580-662) and the mystic, Symeon the New Theologian (ca. 11th cent.). Perhaps the differences between anthropological doctrine in the East as compared to that of the West are best summarized by the words of the eminent scholar Jaroslav Pelikan:

"The divergences between the Eastern and Augustinian definitions of Christianity were expressed in connection with this doctrine of deification (Theosis). For although Symeon spoke at length about the fall of Adam and its disastrous consequences, he was explicit in asserting that the consequences of the fall for subsequent generations were tied to the repetition of Adam's sin; guilt was not transmitted through conception and birth to his descendants. The fall of Adam had as its result that man was 'sick, weak, and infirm,' but a man's sin was still his own."(emphasis mine)15

So as we can see, the Eastern Church perceived anthropological and soteriological ideas in a much different way than the Western Church did. Much of the divergence, however, can be ascribed to the differing languages of the Eastern (Byzantine) and Western (Roman Catholic) churches, i.e. the languages of Greek and Latin respectively. As one scholar remarked with some wit, "They didn't understand each other because they simply didn't 'understand' each other." So, although the Byzantine and Roman churches were united at Ephesus in 431 in their condemnation of Pelagianism, we can see that there was an existing chasm with regard to their respective premises regarding anthropology and hamartiology. In lieu of this distinction, then, let us now return to our discussion of the Pelagian system.

Now the major proponents of Pelagianism were, Pelagius, Celestius, and Julian, the latter being a bishop at Rome who would become a fierce opponent of Augustine and thus battle against the Augustinian anthropology to the very day of his death. From the perspective of intellectual appreciation, it must be admitted that these three pillars of Pelagianism were no mean scholars, but rather, they were quite learned and orthodox with respect to their christology and theology. So, at this point, then, let us ask the question, "What exactly was Pelagianism, and what were the major tenets upon which the doctrine rested?"

If we look at the six major propositions forwarded by Celestius while he was at Carthage, we can truly see inside the Pelagian system and thus appreciate why Augustine necessarily put forth a polemical refutation. In sum, the six major propositions of Celestius were:

1. "Adam was created mortal and would have died whether he had sinned or not sinned."

2. "The sin of Adam injured only him, not the human race."

3. "The law leads to the kingdom, just as the gospel does."

4. "Even before the coming of Christ there were men without sin."

5. "Newborn infants are in the same state in which Adam was before his transgression."

6. "The whole human race does not die through the death and transgression
of Adam, nor does it rise again through the resurrection of Christ."16

Although the six propositions of Celestius are concise in form, certain inferences can be drawn with respect to some major heterodox theological ideas, and for this reason Pelagianism was first condemned at a synod in Carthage in 411, Celestius refusing to recant the errors ascribed to him, and then at the Synod of Diospolis in 415, the Council of Carthage in 418, and the final, universal anathema pronounced at the Council of Ephesus in 431.

Now, first and foremost in the mind of Pelagianism was the idea of "the freedom of the will," namely, that man has an absolute power over his own will, and that in each instance where man has the opportunity to make a moral decision he has the power to choose between good and evil, between the holy and the unholy.17 In the view of the Western church, this Pelagian idea seemed to diminish, or altogether exclude the doctrine of grace and instead imply a self-determinative principle within man which would make possible the achievement of a sinless life without the grace of God. Thus, the concept of "posse non peccare" (i.e., the possibility of not sinning) was not limited to Adam before the fall, but was possible for all mankind since there was no generational transmission of Adamic guilt, i.e. original sin. In the Pelagian system, then, men are born into the world much in the same way that Adam was, i.e., innocent, a tabula rasa upon which the self-determinative and uninterrupted will of man would write his own moral and salvific story. Through the fall of Adam, then, there was no hereditary corruption of the entire human race, but rather, Adam simply provided a bad example in his autonomous disobedience to the will of God. Accordingly, it is not the Adamic corruption of the human race which is the fountain of sin, but rather, the increasingly entropic socio-psychological conditions which provide the negative impluses for the sins of mankind.

Another dangerous implication of the Pelagian view was that it seemed to reinforce a doctrine of works which was blatantly contradictory to the doctrine of grace and the salvific plan of God. Essentially, Pelagianism asserted that, since there was no such thing as original sin, it was even possible for the heathen to attain salvation apart from the cross of Christ. Though this Pelagian view should not be confused with such contemporary soteriological ideas as inclusivism or universalism, it would not be inappropriate to identify the Pelagian view with any doctrine which ascribes works to salvation. For Pelagianism, then, the only beneficial aspect of the gospel was that it made "perfect obedience" far easier to attain.18

The most devastating aspect of the Pelagian system, however, was that it seemed to controvert the explicit teaching of the Apostle Paul in Romans 5. The natural rendering of the text, especially Rom 5:12-21, seems to convey the idea that Adam was the originator of sin, introducing it along with its consequence, "death," into the human race, and that Christ, the Second Adam, was the source of justification, introducing "life eternal" to all those who believe in Him. The Pelagians were fully cognizant of this difficultly in their system, and they attempted to construct an alternative hermeneutic which would support their doctrine. Pelagius, for instance, argued that the term "all" in Rom 5:12 was simply a general statement rather than a universal one, and that such pre-Christian saints as Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Samuel, Elijah, Daniel, and even Mary were free from a life of sin.19 With regard to this aspect of the Pelagian view, Schaff makes some meaningful comments: "In this system Paul's exhibitions of Adam and Christ have no meaning. If the sin of Adam cannot be imputed , neither can the merit of Christ."20 In sum, then, the exposition of Rom 5 would deal a crushing blow to the doctrine of Pelagianism.
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The Augustinian Antithesis

In the second decade of the fifth century, when Augustine understood the task of refuting the Pelagian anthropology, he had already engaged in two disputations of critical magnitude, i.e., the heresy of Manichaeism and the Donatist controversy; so Augustine was no stranger to apologetics and polemical writing. When the Pelagians entered into the theological forum in which Augustine was a proven champion, they had no idea of the level of genius with which they would have to contend. As in many instances, the contemporaries of a great man (whether he be a thinker or an artist) have only a limited appreciation of the true level of his brilliance - only historians can look back in retrospect and truly understand the implications of a man's genius. Certainly, Pelagius, Celestius, and Julian (the traid of Pelagian thought) had no idea that the man with whom they had to contend, would be regarded as one of the most important thinkers since the Apostle Paul, and moreover, that an entire millennium of philosophic thought would be declared as "The Augustinian Age." In sum, the Pelagian view, though set forth by no mean scholars, would be cut down by the sharp blade of Augustine's theological, philosophical, exegetical, and rhetorical edge.

Now, when Pelagius forwarded his doctrine of posse non peccare, thus extending the possibility of attaining holiness and sinless perfection beyond the fall of man, Augustine perceived the pastoral implications of the idea, namely, that laypeople would become discouraged in their quest for Christian piety and thus despair, because for them "perfect obedience" was impossible.21 Augustine could truly identify with converts to Christianity because he had come from the world of hedonism and paganism himself. Experientially, he knew the power of sin and the depth of human depravity; and, in his personal exodus from the kosmos, he knew, again experientially, the power of divine grace, as he so openly expressed in his Confessions. As Schaff so eloquently states:

"[In the Confessions], every Christian may bewail his own wanderings, despair of himself, throw himself unconditionally into the arms of God, and lay hold upon unmerited grace . . . [Augustine] teaches nothing which he has not felt. In him the philosopher and living Christian are everywhere fused."22

It must be emphasized that it was not in the interest of Augustine to denigrate the concept of the Christian's pursuit of piety and thus provide a way for antinomianism, but rather, in the sprit of Paul, Augustine sought to emphasize the fact that the Christian can experience metamorphosis only by divine grace. For this reason, then, it is interesting to examine the various metaphors used by the Pelagians to those of Augustine, for in these metaphors we see the contradiction of the two systems. For instance, whereas Pelagius taught his followers to strive toward spiritual adulthood by positive moral action, Augustine stressed the helplessness of infants and, therefore, the need for divine grace.23 Furthermore, whereas the Pelagian system required the Christian to pursue an uphill determinative course with absolute resolution, the Augustinian antithesis discussed moral action within the context of divine grace, i.e., positive human works done in spontaneity without effort, all for the love of, and for the sake of, Christ.24

Perhaps the greatest doctrine which is immediately identified with Augustinian anthropology is that of original sin. Of course the locus classicus for the doctrine of original sin is Rom 5:12-21,

"For just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin; thus, death spread to all men (v. 12) . . . For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous. Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned (v. 19) . . ."

Now as we stated in our introduction, there was no theological or hermeneutical consensus regarding this Pauline text in the ante-Nicene, Nicene, or post-Nicene churches. Apart from Irenaeus, the second century (Western) bishop of Lyons who exegeted much of his recapitulation theology from the text of Rom 5 (cf. Against Heresies), we know that the early Greek Fathers, though conscious of humanity's universal solidarity with Adam's fall, never espoused any doctrine of inherited guilt (i.e., "original sin"). Indeed, from the greater corpus of the writings of the Eastern Church we can infer this emphasis by the recurrent attitude toward the sinlessness of infants (cf. Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom).25 But with all due respect to these great thinkers of the east, no one in the early church had plunged the depths and dissected the locus classicus to the extent of Augustine. For Augustine, the critical issue here was not necessarily the "freedom of the will" (although he elaborated on it in depth), but rather, the role of divine grace in human salvation.26 Critical to the thought of Augustine was the recapitulation motif of Paul, i.e. sin and death through Adam, and justification and life through Jesus Christ. In the writings and teachings of the Pelagians, Augustine perceived a dangerous denigration of both divine grace and salvific theology. For him, unless there was a solidarity (or oneness) with the nature of Adam, there could be no solidarity (or oneness) with the person of Christ. Thus, for Augustine, sin was not merely a moral decision of the will, but rather, a condition of human nature itself; and this sinful nature (i.e., original sin) was transmitted to the entire human race through seminal generation (i.e., the theory of Traducianism which originated in the thought of Tertullian).

Although the Augustinian anthropology is defined extensively, we can deduce, in sum, that the power of sin due to the Adamic fall is universal and pervasive. It is seated in the moral character of man, and it manifests itself naturally through his actions. Though man is utterly depraved, this is not a negative theological factor, but rather a postitve one because it exalts the idea of God's redeeming grace. As Schaff notes, "The greater the corruption, the mightier must be the remedial principle."27 Whereas in Pelagianism we discover a doctrine of human ascent (works), in the Augustinian antithesis we discover a doctrine of divine descent (grace). In his Confessions, Augustine beautifully describes how man is nothing without God. Nor can man accomplish anything divine without the Lord of heaven and earth:

And how shall I pray to my God, my God and my Lord? When I pray to Him, I call Him into myself. And in me what place or room is there into which my God should come? God should come? How should God come into me, God who created heaven and earth . . . Oh that I might find my rest and peace in you! Oh, that you come into my heart and so inebriate it that I would forget my own evils and embrace my one and only good, which is you. Lord, have mercy on me!"28

In Augustinian thought, the transforming power of Christ works within the heart of man, and first, cleanses the Christian through the forgiveness of sins, restoring the communion between man and God, and then begins to manifest itself outwardly through the life of the believer, reflecting the image and character of Christ. For Augustine, the ultimate manifestation of this image was one's love for his fellow man. But none of this could occur without the unmerited grace of God; this is sola gratia. And athough not necessarily identical to the Protestant exposition, it is still a powerful emphasis on the grace of God, something which, in an age of asceticism, was revolutionary in one sense, but in another, it was simply a return to Pauline theology.
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Semi-Pelagian Synthesis and Conclusion

In this paper, I have used as my outline the motif of Pelagian thesis, Augustinian antithesis, and Semi-Pelagian synthesis. Although this is a Hegelian paradigm (i.e. the dialectical method), let me say that it is not entirely loyal to Hegel's idea of the triadic paradigm. Rather, it is representative of the commonly misunderstood idea (or caricature) of the Hegelian method, i.e. that thesis and antithesis lead to a higher unity which is synthesis. According to this understanding of the Hegelian triad, the common ideas of the thesis and antithesis are synthesized, while the uncommon elements are laid aside. However, a true philosophic understanding of Hegel's method will reveal that the contradictions of the thesis and antithesis must be incorporated into the synthesis as well. Hegel articulates this in detail in his Phenomenology of Spirit. Nevertheless, in analyzing the historical outcome of the Pelagian Controversy, it occured to me that the caricatured understanding of Hegel's system appropriated itself perfectly. For, in the post-Augustinian doctrine of Semi-Pelagianism, the contradictions of Pelagius and Augustine are not incorporated into a higher unity, but rather, the contradictions are laid aside and the common ideas are thus integrated. With this said, then, let us conclude with a concise epilogue to the Pelagian Controversy, namely, the adoption of Semi-Pelagianism, its refutation, and the subsequent formulation of a Semi-Augustinian position.

Essentially, the problem for many thinkers who succeeded Augustine was the apparent contradiction of divine providence and free will. Augustine's emphasis on sovereign grace and predestination reminded many theologians of pagan fatalism and determinism,29 and for such eminent thinkers as the Eastern theologian John Cassian (365-433), a disciple of John Chrysostom, the predestinarianism of Augustine seemed to eclipse the whole idea of free will, the logical question being, "If God desired all men to be saved (cf. 1 Tim 2:4), then how could God predestine only some to eternal life?" Anyway, the principal defender of Augustine was Prosper of Aquitane (390-455), and it was primarily through his writings that the ideas of Augustine were preserved and diffused throughout the Middle Ages.30

That John Cassian would become the champion of Semi-Pelagian thought is not surprising since his monastic background would be sympathetic to the Pelagian view. Indeed, not only did Cassian labor with Pelagius for a short time in Rome, but his seven year association with the monastic communities of Egypt provided a fertile breeding ground for the idea that the Christian life is an uphill determinative course with absolute resolution - in essence, a doctrine of works. It is true that Cassian rejected certain elements of the Pelagian view (cf. his thirteenth Colloquy), affirming the absolute universality of human sin and necessity of divine grace, but it is also true that Cassian was a man of the Eastern Church who adopted the ideas of the Greek Fathers (who admittedly were better theologians and christologians than anthropologians), ideas such as Theosis, etc. In his own presdisposition to ascetic practice, he implicitly rejected certain Augustinian ideas such as predestinarianism and irresistible grace,31 which he felt were in conflict with Holy Tradition. So, in essence, Cassian discarded certain aspects of both the Pelagian and Augustinian systems, yet at the same time, he retained certain tenets which were central to both. In essence, according to the synthesis of Cassian, man is not totally depraved by the Adamic fall, yet he is greatly weakened; he is in dire need of God's grace, yet he must, through his own free will, co-operate with the offer of God's salvation.32 So, yes, the nature of man is corrupted by the fall in original sin, yet there is a role for human volition as well, especially with regard to initiating the process of salvation by desiring to receive the grace of God. In sum, then, this is Semi-Pelagianism in its essential form. It must be said, however, that this form of Semi-Pelagianism, though it prevailed in Gaul and in certain monastic communities, was eventually condemned by the Synod of Orange in 529. At Orange, the champion of Augustinianism, Caesarius of Arles drew from Prosper of Aquitane's A Book of Sentences from The Works of St. Augustine and systematically refuted the Semi-Pelagian position in a series of canons.33 Nevertheless, the absoulte monergistic predestinarianism of Augustine was also rejected (although gently), and a Semi-Augustinian position was formulated, a position upon which the Roman Church would stand for centuries.

In the end, then, Augustine prevailed, and his ideas were further developed by later thinkers such as Gregory the Great and Thomas Aquinas. And in the Reformation, both Martin Luther and John Calvin would build their entire theologies on the doctrines set forth by Augustine. So, in a sense, the comment by Alfred North Whitehead bears a great truth - i.e., that "the rest of Western theology would be but a footnote to the ideas of Augustine."
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Works Cited

1. T. Walter Wallbank and Alastair M. Taylor, Civilisation: Past and Present, 4th ed.,(Chicago: Scott, Foresman, and Company, 1960), p. 210.

2. St. Augustine, City of God, Trans. by Gerald G Walsh, S.J., et al. (New York: Image, 1958), Book I, Chapter 3.

3. Ibid., Book I, Chapter 8.

4. Ibid., Book I, Chapter 7.

5. Ibid., Book I, Chapter 7.

6. Johannes Quasten, Patrology: The Golden Age of Latin Patristic Literature from the Council of Nicea to the Council of Chalcedon, Trans. by Placid Solari, 4 of 4 vols., (Westminster. MD: Christian Classics, 1986), p. 465.

7. Philip Schaff, The History of the Christian Church: Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity, 3 of 8 vols., (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, reprinted 1995, original publisher Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910), p. 792.

8. Louis Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrines, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1937), pp. 131-32.

9. St. Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine, Trans. Rex Warner, (New York: Meridian), Book III, Chapter 4.

10. Quasten, p. 346.

11. St. Augustine, The Confesssions, Book II, Chapter 1.

12. Ibid., Book 1V, Chapter 2.

13. Schaff, p. 786.

14. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600), 1 of 5 vols. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1971),
p. 318.

15. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700), 2 of 5 vols. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974), pp. 260-61.

16. Pelikan, 1:315-16.

17. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2 of 3 vols., (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, reprint 1993), p. 153.

18. Ibid., 154.

19. Schaff, p. 807.

20. Ibid., p. 808.

21. Michael P. McHugh, "Augustine" in The Encyclopedia of Early Christianty, ed. Everett Ferguson, (London: Garland, 1990), p. 124.

22. Schaff, p. 816.

23. McHugh, p. 125.

24. Ibid., p. 125.

25. Ibid., p. 669.

26. Schaff, p. 830.

27. Ibid., p. 843.

28. St. Augustine, Confessions, Book I, Chapters 2, 4.

29. Pelikan, 1:321.

30. McHugh, "Prosper of Aquitane," p. 760.

31. Schaff, p. 861.

32. Ibid., p. 861.

33. Pelikan, 1:329.

34. Alfred North Whitehead quoted in Pelikan, 1:330.

The Apocalyptic Literary Genre: Vision and Symbol

13 Violently agitated and trembling, I fell upon my face . . .

17 I looked, and I saw an exalted throne.

18 The appearance of which was like that of frost;
While its circumference resembled the orb of the brilliant sun;
And there was the voice of the cherubim.

19 From underneath this mighty throne rivers of flaming fire issued.

20-21 To look upon it was impossible. One great in glory sat upon it:

22 Whose robe was brighter than the sun, and whiter than snow.

23 No angel was capable of penetrating to view the face of Him, The Glorious and the Effulgent. For a fire was flaming around Him.

24 A fire also of great extent continued to rise up before Him; Not one of those who surrounded Him was capable of approaching Him, I also was so far advanced, I also was so far advanced, with a veil on my face, and trembling. Then the Lord with his own mouth called me, saying, "Approach hither, Enoch, at my holy word."

1 Enoch 15:13-24
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The pseudepigraphal book of 1 Enoch (c. 170-80 BC) perfectly represents that great body of literature called apocalyptic, which flourished from the third century BC to the second century AD. Some other works from this genre and period include such non-canonical texts as 2 Enoch, 2 Baruch, 2 Esdras (4 Ezra), The Rule of War (1QM), The Shepherd of Hermas, The Apocalypse of Peter, as well as the canonical Apocalypse of John (Revelation). In addition, we would include certain prototypical canonical texts such as Joel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah, which all date from the pre-Hellenistic age. It is true that many liberal scholars regard apocalyptic indications in the Hebrew Prophets as later interpolations,1 but in fact, this assertion is nothing more than philosophical naturalism masked by a method and approach rooted in higher (negative) criticism. The presumption of vaticinia ex eventu, for instance, which reflects the antisupernaturalism of David Hume and others, should not be the overriding compass which guides the objective scholar into historiographical pursuit. Nevertheless, it is precisely this presumption that has led to the fragmentaton of the Book of Isaiah and the late-dating of the Book of Daniel as well as sections of Zechariah. Although it would be impossible within the confines of this paper to defend the traditional views of authorship with respect to these prophetic books, I would like to emphasize the accepted opinion that although the apocalyptic literary genre flourished generally from the Hasmonean period to the sub-apostolic era, the rise of this literary corpus was "neither sudden or anomalous,"2 but rather, was firmly rooted in the characteristic style of the Hebrew Prophets. In this paper, then, I would like to discuss some of the features of the apocalyptic literary genre, and I would like to show how the Hebrew Prophets served as the prototypical model for this unique style of writing.
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Although there are many features which denote that a particular writing is apocalyptic, including such elements as eschatology, dualism, deliverance of the righteous, punishment of the wicked, angelic mediators, resurrection and the afterlife, and so on, we will limit our discussion to essentially two critical features, namely, visions and symbolism. Along with eschatology and dualism, I would say that these two features are the central components within the apocalyptic literary genre.

First, however, let us discuss the meaning of the word apocalyptic because it is often limited to the confines of eschatology, i.e. "the study of last things." In point of fact, though, the term apocalyptic (apocalypsis) literally means "unveiling," and although it can encompass or imply eschatological matters, it is by no means confined to that definition. Thus, the term apocalyptic is much broader and is denoted by a number of unique features, as we mentioned above. With this said, then, let us examine the ideas of vision and symbol within the corpus of apocalyptic literature.
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Visions

It is interesting, when examining the text of 1 Enoch 15 at the beginning of this paper, we are immediately reminded of certain visions and theophanies which are recurrent in the Major and Minor Prophets - e.g. Isa 6, Ezek 1-3, Dan 7, Zech 1-6. In the instances of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, for example, we have apocalyptic theophanic visions which are prototypical not only of the Enochian text, but also of the christophany in Rev 1 and of the heavenly throne room vision in Rev 4. Thus, through the Book of Revelation, we can deduce that the visionary feature of apocalyptic literature in the early Church, along with many other features, can be considered a coninuance of the apocalyptic tradition which has its prototypical roots in the Prophets.3

Now before we discuss some of the aspects of apocalyptic theophanic visions, let us first address the contemporary assertion that such visions were the result of ecstatic trance. Again, let me point out that such a hypothesis is borne, not out of historical objectivity, but rather out of the post-Enlightenment paradigm which has granted ascendancy to the schools of anthropology and psychology, although it should be noted that there is great polarity and fragmentaton within these fields with regard to a host of issues. Nevertheless, the anthropological assertion that the ancient prophets of Israel must have paralleled their pagan counterparts, who were ecstatics - e.g. the Dionysian frenzy of Hellenistic priests and oracles, or the "divine" seizures of the Assyro-Babylonians and Canaanites (nabiism) - seems to be a universal anthropo-psychological hypothesis, although such a hypothesis conveniently ignores altogether the idea that the Hebrews regarded such behavior as "madness," or a "state of dementia" (Heb. = tardemah; cf. Isa 29:10),4 and that they attributed this sort of ecstatic mania to "false prophets."5 Finally, let me point out that this type of ecstasy (i.e. the loss of conscious faculties as in divine seizure) was condemned by the rabbinic school (e.g., the talmudic rabbis, Maimonides, and so on), as well as by the early Church Fathers (as in the case of the Montanist heresy).6

Now although we reject the idea of ecstatic frenzy as practiced by numerous pagan cultures, we accept the idea that the Hebrew Prophets experienced something, perhaps a mystical state of conscious rapture or some form of transcendent experience. The primary difference between the experiences of the pagans and the experiences of the prophets is that the former produced nothing more than a "spasmodic," perhaps riddling utterance, whereas the latter produced an utterance which was deeply meaningful, in continuity and agreement with character of YHWH and the holy covenant.

Moving on, now, to some of the features of apocalyptic theophanic visions (e.g. Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, 1 Enoch, Revelation), we clearly see a pattern of fear, portrayal, approach, communication, and ultimately special revelation, although the Danielic vision could be more likened to a dream (cf. Dan 7), so there are some variations from this pattern. Nevertheless, in these theophanic visions, we are given the details of a great portrait, but for some reason we can't really grasp the images painted on the canvas of our minds. The portrait, though well-defined by the prophet, seems to evade us in some way - it simply defies the imagination. Yet "the word of YHWH" proceeds forth loud and clear, and in my view, this is the great beauty of the apocalyptic theophanic vision. While the portrayal of the vision inspires the disciplined, sanctified mind to enter into the prophet's mind (to some extent), it is the words and symbols that emanate from the vision which carry the weight of the inspired authorial intent. So, although it is difficult to decipher the meaning of the symbols (especially in a hyper-literal sense), there are certain symbols in the apocalyptic vision which can be hermeneutically determined (to a degree) because of their context and repetition. Thus, let us now turn our attention to this other very important feature of the apocalyptic literary genre, namely symbolism.
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Symbolism

Indeed, symbolism plays a critical role in apocayptic writings, and in most cases, the symbols themselves are nothing short of strange and bizarre. For instance, the prophets portray such things to us as The Valley of Dry Bones (Ezek 37), The heavenly Throne-Chariot of God (Ezek 1; Isa 66:15-16), The Four Great Beasts of Daniel (Dan 7), The Four Horsemen of Zechariah and Revlelation (Zech 6; Rev 6), The Beasts from the Sea and Earth (Rev 13), and so on. And the pseudepigraphal writings invoke their own symbols as well - those writings from the Hasmonean period draw on their canonical prototypes in the Prophets, and those writings from the sub-apostolic era draw on the New Testament, some pre-Christian pseudepigraphal literature, and also on the Prophets.

Interestingly, such symbolism is unparalleled in the sacred writings of the world, yet these symbols have captivated the imaginations of millions, primarily because of their eschatological nature. The principal question is, "How are we to interpret these symbols"? And indeed, this is a difficult question to answer. For instance, as we have seen in our day, certain people have appealed to a very rigid interpretation of apocalyptic symbols, superimposing their hermeneutic onto the geo-political stage, their underlying hope (perhaps subconscious) being that they are living in the time of the eschaton. And interestingly, we find such parallels throughout Judeo-Christian history, one example being the pesharim of the Qumran community, where we find certain ancient prophecies superimposed onto the religio-political circumstances of their time.7 At any rate, the contemporary hyper-literal approach has proven irresponsible at best, and to this day, every predictive inference has proved to fail. In all fairness, though, the problem does not lie in the sincerity of the hyper-literalist, but rather, in the misunderstanding between the genre of prophecy with the genre of apocalyptic.

So, the question remains, "How do we differentiate between the genre of prophecy and the genre of apocalyptic," because, on the one hand, the two genres are interrelated, yet on the other, they are to be distinguished from one another? Perhaps two or three examples will suffice in demonstrating the distinction.

First, let's take a look at a prophetic text. In Mic 5:2, for instance, the prophet fortells that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem of Judea. Certainly, we can understand this in a literal sense, even as the chief priests and scribes in Herod the Great's court understood this text (cf. Matt 2:3ff.). In the prophetic text of Micah, there are no features of apocalyptic literature (except perhaps by implication); thus, it is a clear prophecy which can be understood in a very literal sense. Again, in Isa 53:7, the prophet tells us that the Servant (Messiah) will be "oppressed and afflicted," yet He will "open not his mouth" (53:14). Indeed, so precise is this prophecy that those with a naturalistic bent will claim that this incident is not historical, but rather, a fictional superimposition which, along with Aqedah theology (Gen 22) and the Yom Kippur motif, was utilized to construct a Passion Narrative onto the life of Jesus. (In the minds of these critical scholars, Jesus was simply seized when he threatened the Temple establishment and he was immediately crucified (without trial) as an ordinary criminal, his body fed to the carrion in the wilderness).8 Nevertheless, for those who presuppose the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, prophecies are, to a degree, fairly precise.

Yet in apocalyptic literature, the coming of the "Divine Warrior" (YHWH) is set forth in a different light. Whereas precision is characteristic of prophecy, impressionism is characteristic of apocalyptic. Isa 63:1-6 and Isa 66:15-16 are clear regarding the coming vindication of the "Divine Warrior." However, in classic apocalyptic style, the symbolism is such that it is impossible to infer specific details - in fact, to do so would be a hermeneutical error. So, in reading the apocalyptic texts we are certain that the Dies Irae will be realized in the eschaton, but to speculate about how or when it will occur is simply futile, demonstrating an ignorance of the distinction between the genre of prophecy and the genre of apocalyptic.

Nevertheless, within the genre of apocalyptic literature, there are certain symbols which lend to a more precise inference - e.g. the Four Great Beasts of the Sea as foretold by the prophet Daniel. However, there is a difference of opinion among scholars regarding the meaning of the symbols (i.e. the beasts), yet the differences are informed by philosophical biases rather than by pure historical investigation (although a good case can be argued from both sides). Essentially, those scholars who opt for sixth century BC authorship will interpret the successive beasts as representative of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, whereas those scholars who opt for second century BC authorship will interpret the successive beasts as representative of Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece.9 Thus, for the latter, the Book of Daniel is one of vaticina ex eventu.

Nevertheless, there is agreement (for the most part) among scholars that the Four Great Beasts from the Sea represent suzerain nations which would possess the land of Israel as a province or territory of their vast empires. The symbolism of the beasts, whether lion, bear, leopard, or ten-horned beast, invoke images of aggression, terror, and conquest. And like the Python or Nine-Headed Hydra of Greek mythology, or the Lotan of the Ugaritic texts, the Danielic beasts arise from "the sea" (7:2), which in ancient times was considered the domain of evil. Some scholars, however, would appeal to Rev 17:15 especially to demonstrate that "the sea" is representative of humanity (i.e. "peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues). I point out the differing opinions to indicate that, even with regard to certain symbols which are somewhat self-evident from Scripture, in apocalyptic literature it is sometimes difficult to be dogmatic. Therefore, it is best to imagine the grandeur of the whole symbolic vision, rather than to try and decipher the parts. In the apocalyptic literary genre, it is precisely the entirety and the whole of the symbolic vision that evokes literary power.
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In sum, then, both vision and symbol are central to the genre of apocalyptic. Along with the other features of apocalyptic literature, they contribute to a style of writing which does not intend to be understood in terms of wooden literalism; but rather, the author is appealing to the disciplined, or sanctified imagination in order to cause the reader to think, to wonder, to imagine, and to contemplate that which is unfathomable. Perhaps the author is writing of the fall of Babylon (Isa 13:9-10), or the destruction of Jerusalem (Exek 21), or the coming of the Divine Warrior (Zech 14:3-4) -- in any case, the language employed is grandiose, magnific, terrible, awesome, and even frightening. Indeed, it is apocalyptic . . . .
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Endnotes

1. Mounce, Robert H. The Book of Revelation (NICNT). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1977, p. 5, note 21.

2. Hanson, Paul D. The Dawn of Apocalyptic. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979, p. 7.

3. Cross, Frank Moore. The Ancient Library of Qumran. Minneapolis: Fortress,
1995, p. 145.

4. Heschel, Abraham J. The Prophets. 2 Vols. New York: HarperCollins,
1962, Vol. 2, p. 118.

5. Ibid., p. 118.

6. Ibid., p. 120-23.

7. Brown, Raymond E. The Birth of the Messiah. New York: Doubleday,
1993, p. 558.

8. cf. the writings of John Dominic Crossan

9. Russell, D.S. Daniel. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981.

Gnosticism: A Concise Exploration of its Primary Systems

Gnosticism - A Concise Exploration of its Primary Systems and the Philosophical Challenge Posed to Ante-Nicene Orthodoxy

by William J Tsamis, M.A.

In those years when the apostolic faith began its march westward through the regions of the Roman Empire, the great Adversary of God arose from his lair in venemous fury and set his legions in bold array against this new religion of Jesus Christ. Descending upon the saints of God like a fire-breathing dragon, the evil one left no stone unturned in his vain attempt to stamp out the Church of God Most High. Strategically, he sought war on two fronts (i.e. the external and the internal), and thus launched a two-fold assault which was designed to crush the Church from the outside (via persecution) and/or contaminate it from within (via heresy). The student of ecclesiastical history, then, cannot fail to notice one phenomenon in particular -- i.e. that the history of the ten Roman imperial persecutions (ca. 64-312 AD) runs virtually parallel with the history of ante-Nicene heretical movements, such as Gnosticism. While Nero, Domitian, Trajan, and Marcus Aurelius were issuing edicts of destruction, declaring the Christian faith a "religio ilicita," dangerous "wolves in sheeps' clothing" (e.g. Cerinthus, Basilides, Valentinus, and Marcion) were devouring many with their insidious heresies and aberrant teachings.

In this thesis, we will endeavor to examine the religio-philosophical movement(s) of Gnosticism which flourished during the second century AD and posed a serious threat to the pure apostolic teaching. We will explore the major tenets of the Gnostic worldview as expressed by the various schools of thought, and then evaluate the Christian polemical response which not only served an outward purpose by presenting a systematic refutation of gnostic beliefs, but also an inward purpose by clarifying Christian doctrine and defining orthodoxy. Finally, we will examine how the God of gods sovereignly used the threat of Gnosticism for His divine purposes -- i.e. for the ultimate furtherance of the true Christian religion.

Renewed interest in Gnosticism was sparked by the recent discovery of thirteen ancient codices, written in Coptic near the modern Egyptian village of "Nag Hammadi," some 300 miles south of Cairo. In December 1945, while digging for soil to fertilize crops, an Arab peasant accidentally uncovered a red earthenware jar containing the codices, which in sum preserved fifty-two Gnostic texts. Most scholars and antiquarians have determined that these Coptic texts are translations of Greek autographa which were probably composed some time before AD 200.1 Needless to say, the importance of this discovery is monumental for several reasons, the primary reason having a direct bearing on our understanding of ante-Nicene Christianity in its struggle for orthodoxy.

Until "Nag Hammadi," our knowledge of Gnosticism was gleaned primarily from the patristic writings (e.g. Irenaeus, Tertullian, et al.) which were alleged by some liberal scholars to exhibit a gross bias and misrepresentation of the diverse Gnostic systems. It was said that the Church Fathers were propagandists who sought to "expose the weaknesses of the Gnostic theory and to present the Gnostics themselves in the worst possible light."2 However, comparative studies of the patristic writings with the Nag Hammadi corpus has revealed no essential or substantive disagreement between these two sources of the ancient system(s).3 Nevertheless, as one prominent Gnostic scholar points out, the Nag Hammadi corpus gives us a unique insight into this earliest of Christian heresies -- "Now for the first time, the heretics can speak for themselves."4

Although a concise definition of Gnosticism is elusive, Philip Schaff, in his monumental, "History of the Christian Church," summarizes the ancient thought system in the following manner:

"Gnosticism is the grandest and most comprehensive form of speculative religious sycretism known to history. It consists of Oriental mysticism, Greek philosophy, Alexandrian, Philonic, and Cabbalistic Judaism, and Christian ideas of salvation, not merely mechanically compiled, but, as it were, chemically combined."5

As a religio-philosophical movement which was thoroughly syncretistic, then, Gnosticism did not arise in isolation, but rather, it was deeply rooted in the "mighty revolution of ideas induced by the fall of the old religions and the triumph of the new."6 In sum, Gnosticism was the child of the religious pluralism which pervaded the Hellenistic world in the post-Alexander era.

Derived from the Greek word for knowledge (gnosis), the term Gnosticism covers a number of religious and quasi-philosophical movements that began to flourish during the ante-Nicene era.7 Despite this plurality of influences and plethora of philosophical views, however, it is possible to identify the three key pillars of Gnosticism upon which the individual Gnostic sects constructed their own sectarian systems:

1. Cosmological dualism -- i.e. the spirit/matter distinction, or in Schaff's words, "the assumption of an eternal antagonism between God (Spirit) and matter."8 According to this principle, a sharp dualism exists between two worlds -- the "spiritual" world of divine light and the "material" world of darkness.9 In sum, the Gnostics equated "spirit" with "good" (or light), and "matter" with "evil" (or darkness). Thus, as the abode of the principle of evil, the material visible world could not possibly be the handiwork of the Supreme God.10 From this conclusion, then, the Gnostic thinkers derived the whole concept of a "demiurge." (It is interesting that in the Nicene Creed, which in effect is a compilation of earlier rules of faith and assertions of orthodoxy, the Creed opens with a polemic against the idea of a demiurge -- "I believe in one God, Father Almighty, MAKER OF ALL THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE . . .").

2. The demiurgic notion -- i.e. the God/Demiurge distinction, which is the idea that the material universe was not created by the Supreme God (i.e. the God of the New Testament), but rather, by the Demiurge (Gr. "craftsman"), an inferior deity (in some systems, an evil being) who is identified by Gnostic thinkers with the Old Testament YHWH.11 Although the philosophical idea of a demiurge (divine craftsman) is rooted in the thought of Plato (cf. Timaeus),12 the Gnostic notion is fundamentally different. Whereas in the Platonic system the Demiurge creates wthe world as a reflection of the heavenly Forms (Ideas, Ideal Types)13 -- thus implying some inherent good in the material creation -- the Gnostic system beholds the rabid evil of our decaying world and therefore concludes that such an "evil universe cannot be assigned to a good God."14 Thus, YHWH is perceived as a finite, imperfect God, and is furthermore accused of being an angry and terrible deity. As a patristic scholar once wrote, "YHWH is just but he has passions; he is irate and revengeful; he is the author of all evil, be it physical or moral. For this reason he is the instigator of all wars."15 Obviously, the implications of this Gnostic assertion are quite predictable, especially with regard to the radical Christology which we will now examine as the third pillar of Gnostic relgion.

3. A Docetic Christology -- i.e. the view that Christ was not a "material" entity, but rather, a sort of "phantom" who merely bore the similitude of a man for purposes of "cosmological dualism" and the "demiurgic notion." As Nash points out, "Given the inherent evil of matter, the Gnostics regarded even the possibility of a genuine incarnation as unthinkable."16

Although not all Gnostic systems embraced a Docetic Christology (e.g. Cerinthianism), the prevailing and dominant sects (e.g. Valentinians, Marionites, Manichaeans) were firmly rooted in some form of Docetic doctrine. The typical characteristics of Docetism which were common to most Gnostic systems can be summarized accordingly:

(a) Christ was not the Messiah announced by the Demiurge (i.e. YHWH) in the Old Testament.

(b) Christ was not born of the Virgin Mary.

(c) In the fifteenth year of Tiberius (AD 29), Christ manifested himself suddenly in the synagogue at Capernaum.

(d) From that point on, until the crucifixion, Christ merely bore the similitude of a man, i.e. he was more akin to a "phantom."

(e) Christ did not suffer death, but rather, "Simon of Cyrene bore the cross in his stead; so that this Simon, being transfigured by Jesus, that Simon might be thought to be Jesus, was crucified through ignorance and error while Jesus himself received the form of Simon and standing by laughed at them" (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, I. 24, 3-4).17 Interestingly, the reliability of Irenaeus (as discussed earlier) was confirmed here by one of the texts in the Nag Hammadi corpus, "The Second Treatise of the Great Seth." In this pseudepigraphal work, Jesus says, "It was another who drank the gall and vinegar; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. I was rejoicing in the height over all . . . and I was laughing at their ignorance."18

Immediately, it becomes apparent that the Jesus of Gnosticism is "not" the Jesus of orthodox/canonical Christianity. In fact, the two are diametrically opposed. And now, as we shall see, the chasm between the two religions becomes even greater as one examines the lives and teachings of the heresiarchs themselves.

One of the first Gnostic leaders to emerge during the post-apostolic age was Cerinthus (ca. 100). According to uncertain traditions, Cerinthus was an Egyptian Jew who studied at the school of Philo in Alexandria.19 After developing his philosophical system, he moved on to Asia Minor where his teaching typically embraced a dualistic cosmology as well as the demiurgic notion. However, his Christology was somewhat unique in that he synthesized the Docetic and Ebionite views of Christ. (The Ebionite view, of course, denied the incarnation, asserting that Jesus was an ordinary man who received the Holy Spirit at His baptism.)20 In the Cerinthian view, then, the divine presence descended upon Jesus at his baptism and abandoned him at his death.21

Interestingly, Irenaeus records a story which was related by Polycarp (a disciple of the apostle John) about an incident which occurred when the holy apostle accidentally crossed paths with Cerinthus. According to Irenaeus: "John the Lord's disciple, when at Ephesus went to take a bath, but seeing Cerinthus inside rushed out of the building without taking a bath, crying, 'Let us get out of here, for fear the place falls in, now that Cerinthus, the enemy of truth is inside!'"22 Admittedly, the historicity of such an account could be challenged (although the authority of Irenaeus is quite strong). Undisputed, however, is the anti-Cerinthian polemic which is explicity apparent in the Johannine writings, especially in the First Epistle (1:1-3; 2:22; 4:3).

Another Gnostic teacher of prominence during this period was Basilides, who taught at Alexandria during the reign of Hadrian (117-138). In his youth he studied under the Samaritan, Menander, the infamous pupil of the notorious arch-heretic himself, Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-24).23 Basilides developed the first complex and cohesive Gnostic mythosophical system, but as Schaff points out, "it was too metaphysical and intricate to be popular."24 In contrast to other systems of Gnosis, Basilides rejected the notion of cosmological dualism and instead embraced a "monistic" view of reality quite similar to the Hindu Vedantic model (cf. the Upanishads). Essentially, he constructed his philosophy upon a hyper-abstract view of God (cf. Vedantic Monism, Hegel); a view that describes God as "ineffable" and "unnamable," and therefore deduces that He is beyond any possible comprehension.25 According to Irenaeus (Against Heresies, I. 24), Basilides taught that from the womb of God's inexpressible Being, a whole series of principalities, powers, and angelic beings proceeded by virtue of emanation.26 Also formed were 365 heavens, the lowest of which is ruled by an "evil" angelic being (or emanation), YHWH, the God of the Jews.

Another characteristic of the Basilidian view was the Platonic doctrine of the "preexistence of souls" and its implications toward metempsychosis, i.e. reincarnation. In fact, metempsychosis played a critical role in the salvific doctrine of the Basilidians.

Far more important than Basilides, however, was his contemporary, Valentinus (fl. 120-160), who was probably of Egyptian Jewish descent and Alexandrian education. According to Tertullian (Praescriptio Haereticorum), Valentinus was a disciple of Platonism and Pythagoreanism.27 In developing his own system of Gnosis, he borrowed heavily from Oriental, Greek, and Christian concepts, synthesizing these ideas with material he derived from his own "fertile imagination."28 As a teacher in the metropolis of Rome (ca. 150) he was celebrated (even by his detractors) for his brilliance and eloquence.29

Like Basilides, the thought system of Valentinus was mythosophically complex and highly imaginative. He begins with the concept of an eternal primal Being, which he calls "Bythos" or "Abyss." As Schaff explains, "The Bythos is unbegotten, infinite, invisible, incomprehensible, nameless, the absolute agnoston [lit. "unknown"]; yet capable of evolution and development, the universal Father of all beings."30 Moreover, the nature of Bythos is dualistic -- i.e. its ethereal composition consists of both male and female principles. Echoing the words of Hippolytus, Schaff tells us, "Valentinus derived this sexual duality from the essential nature of love, and said: 'God is all love; but love is not love except there is some object of affection.'"31 As Schaff goes on to say, "Valentinus grappled here with a pre-mundane mystery, which the orthodox theology endeavors to solve by the doctrine of the immanent eternal trinity in the divine essence: God is love, therefore God is triune: a loving subject, a beloved object, and a union of the two."32

Although the Valentinians were prolific in their dissemination of pseudepigraphal literature, one writing of particular importance was the so-called "Gospel of Truth," referred to in the polemical writings of Irenaeus. Interestingly, the Gospel of Truth, was among the texts discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945. Upon scholarly examination, it was revealed that this pseudepigraphal work was permeated with pericopes and terminology from the canonical gospels (although the Gnostic interpretation, of course, was to be understood in an esoteric sense). This discovery is significant for many reasons; one reason being that it sheds incredible light on a passage from Irenaeus's heresiological work, Against Heresies (III. 15, 2). In his polemic, Irenaeus perceived the deceptive power of the Valentinian literary style, writing, "By these words they entrap the more simple and entice them, imitating our phraseology that these dupes may listen to them the oftener; and then these are asked regarding us how it is that, when their whole doctrine is similar to ours, we without cause keep ourselves aloof from their company."33 In this way, then, the Valentianian "wolves" devoured many in the flock of Christ.

The most dangerous heresiarch of all, however, was none other than Marcion of Pontus, who gained notoriety as a teacher in Rome during the reign of Antoninus Pius (138-161). The son of a Christian bishop, he was excommunicated from the Church by his own father, probably on account of his heretical ideas and contempt for authority.34 Whereas his contemporaries (Basilides and Valentinus) constructed their thought systems upon extreme metaphysical speculations, Marcion adhered to a more practical and rationalistic ideology.35 It was probably for this reason that the ante-Nicene fathers regarded him as the most infamous and dangerous of the Gnostic "wolves." Irenaeus, for instance, related a story that "Polycarp himself on one occasion came face to face with Marcion, and when Marcion said, 'Don't you recognize me?', he replied: 'I do indeed; I recognize the firstborn of Satan!"36

Typcially, Marcion embraced the three pillars of Gnosticism (i.e. cosmological dualism, the demiurgic notion, and a Docetic Christology) and furthermore asserted a sharp dichotomy between the Old and New Testaments. Moreover, he preached an extreme asceticism, which he followed rigorously. But the most salient feature of Marcion's career was his redaction of the New Testament into his own canon. Convinced that the Jews had falsified the original gospel by introducing Jewish elements,37 he rejected the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John, and "repudiated all the so-called Jewish interpolations in the Gospel of Luke, which he believed contained substantially the true gospel of Christ."38 Ultimately, then, the canon of Marcion consisted of eleven books -- i.e. a mutilated version of Luke (omitting the nativity stories because of his Docetic Christology), and ten of the Pauline letters. (He rejected the pastoral epistles because of their anti-Gnostic polemical content (1 Tim 4:3; 6:20; 2 Tim 2:18), as well as the Book of Acts, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the General Epistles, and the Apocalypse).39 In his hyper-critical methodology he unwittingly anticipated the "higher critical" schools of the nineteenth century.

Despite the fact that post-Constantinian Christendom vigorously suppressed Marcionism, the movement continued to spread throughout the Mediterranean world for centuries. Indeed, some Marcionite communities were still in existence as late as the Middle Ages (tenth century).

Thus far, we have examined the religio-philosophical movement(s) of Gnosticism which flourished during the second century AD, and we have explored the major tenets of the Gnostic worldview as expressed by the various schools of thought. Let us now briefly consider the Christian polemical response as articulated in the Pauline, Johannine, and ante-Nicene literature, and in so doing, examine God's providential purpose in allowing Gnosticism to threaten the apostolic Church.

There were two reasons, primarily, for God's permitting of the Gnostic threat -- (1) For the "defense of orthodoxy" (i.e. the repudiation of false doctrine), and (2) For the "definition of orthodoxy" (i.e. the clarification of Christian doctrine, the development of rules of faith and creedal formulas, and the establishment of the New Testament canon). In this brief analysis, then, let us begin with the first aspect of God's providential purpose, the "defense of orthodoxy."

In the book of Isaiah, God tells his people, "When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Lord shall raise up a standard against him" (59:19). The relevance of this prophetic text to our discussion is at once realized when we understand the severity of the Gnostic threat to the early Church. Like raging flood-waters, Gnosticism was a powerful force with tremendous potential for destruction. And many who were caught in its path were swept away by its mighty current. However, God raised up men of great intellectual stature to confront the opposing system(s) of thought and to defend the apostolic faith against all philosophical and worldly onslaughts. Men such as the Apostle Paul, the Apostle John, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria were among some positioned by the Most High to "contend earnestly for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).

Within the polemical writings of these apostolic and patristic fathers one can certainly detect a commonality of purpose aimed at the refutation of Gnosticism, or as Paul described it -- "the knowledge (gnosis) falsely so-called"(1 Tim 6:20). A close examination of several Pauline and Johannine texts, for instance, reveals that the "three pillars of Gnosticism" (cosmological dualism, the demiurgic notion, and a Docetic Christology) were alive in embryonic form during the apostolic era. Thus, an authoritative repudiation of such concepts was absolutely necessary. And indeed, this is precisely what we find when we examine certain passages from Colossians (1:16-17; 2:9) and from the Fourth Gospel (1:1-3, 14) where the primary thrust of each text serves to demolish such heretical notions as cosmological dualism and the demiurgic notion. Similarly, the Docetic Christology, so important to the Gnostic worldview, is refuted in the Fourth Gospel (1:14; 6:51), as well as in First Timothy (3:16), and again in First John (1:1-3; 4:1-3).

Building upon the foundation of Pauline and Johannine polemical theology, the second century fathers continued to carry the torch of orthodoxy into the post-apostolic age. During the course of their polemical careers some powerful refutations of the Gnostic religion were composed. As Eusebius relates, "Truth again put forward many to do battle for her, and they, not only with spoken arguments but also with written demonstrations, took the field against the godless heresies."40 Some of these "written demonstrations" included: Irenaeus's "Against Heresies: The Overthrow of the Knowledge Falsely So-Called," Tertullian's "Praescriptio Haereticorum," and Clement of Alexandria's "Stromata." Thus, in this way the defense of orthodoxy was accomplished and the providential will of God was fulfilled.

The second reason for God's permitting of the Gnostic threat was for the definition of orthodoxy -- i.e. the clarification of Christian doctrine, the development of rules of faith and creedal formulas, and the establishment of the New Testament canon. As Christianity began to spread throughout the Mediterranean world, there was a clear and ominous danger that the universality of the faith would be lost, and that the Christian religion would become a loose conglomeration of divergent systems. In order to preserve catholicity, then, the Church Fathers, would have to define orthodoxy and remove ambiguity from Christian doctrine. Ultimately, it would be the threat of Gnosticism which would serve as the catalytic antithesis that would force the early fathers to articulate the cardinal tenets of apostolic Christianity in the form of a "Rule of Faith" (or Creed).

Indeed, the first writer to clearly set forth an identifiable Rule of Faith was the anti-Gnostic polemicist, Irenaeus. As we relate the text of his Rule, take notice of the polemical content:

"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, who made heaven and earth and the seas and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was made flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who made known through the prophets the plan of salvation, and the coming and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily ascension into heaven of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and his future appearing from heaven; in the glory of the Father to sum up all things and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race."41 Eventually, this Rule of Faith would be refined and expanded, realizing its greatest expression in the form of the Nicene Creed, or the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (i.e. the Nicene Creed as finalized at the First Council of Constantinople in 381).

Concurrent with the development of the Rule of Faith was the recognition that the canon of the New Testament must be firmly established. Again, this sentiment was set in motion by the rise of Gnosticism. For not only did Marcion announce his canon list in AD 140, but the entire second century experienced a great proliferation of Gnostic pseudepigraphal works. Therefore, it was vital for the orthodox church to define which books were considered normative for faith and practice.42 In this way, then, the definition of orthodoxy was accomplished, and the universal church was held together by one indissoluble bond.

In conclusion, we can clearly see that the religion of Gnosticism, though obviously a design of the Adversary, was ultimately used by God according to his sovereign will for the furtherance of Christianity. For even as the imperial persecutions served to cleanse the Church of those who were less than fully committed to the faith (thereby protecting the early church from nominalism), the threat of Gnosticism forced the Church to defend and define the orthodox doctrines of the apostolic faith and thereby take a stand against all heresy and error. In this historic clash between the two worldviews, then, orthodox Christianity emerged in triumph and victory. Indeed, Christ had "built his church, and the gates of hell could not prevail against it" (Matt 16:18).
____________________________________________

Works Cited

1. Trent C. Butler, "Gnosticism" in Holman Bible Dictionary. Nashville:Holman, 1991, p. 1001.
2. R. McL. Wilson, Gnosis and the New Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968, p. 84.
3. Edwin Yamauchi, Pre-Christian Gnosticism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973, p. 56.
4. Douglas Groothuis, "Gnosticism and the New Testament Jesus" in Christian Research Journal. Fall 1990, p. 9 (a quote from Elaine Pagels).
5. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church: Ante-Nicene Christianity. Vol. 2 of 9.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1910, p. 448.
6. Ibid., 447.
7. Everett Ferguson, "Gnosticism" in Encyclopedia of Early Christianty.
London: Garland, 1990, p. 371.
8. Schaff, p. 452.
9. Ibid., 452.
10. Ibid., 454.
11. Frederick Copleston, History of Philosophy: Augustine to Scotus. Vol. 2 of 9.
New York: Doubleday, 1962, p. 167.
12. Ibid., 21.
13. Frederick Copleston, History of Philosophy: Greece and Rome. Vol. 1 of 9.
Doubleday: New York, 1962, p. 167.
14. Jack Finegan, Myth and Mystery: An Introduction to the Pagan Religions of the
Biblical World. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989 p. 256.
15. Johannes Quasten, Patrology: Vol. 1, Westminster: Christian Classics, 1950. p. 270.
16. Ronald Nash, Christianity in the Hellenistic World. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1984, p. 222.
17. Quasten, p. 258 (a quote from Irenaeus).
18. Groothuis, p. 11.
19. Schaff, p. 465.
20. Henry C. Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977, p. 206.
21. Ferguson, p. 190.
22. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History. Trans. by G. A. Williamson. Penguin: London, 1965, IV, 14, p. 116
23. Quasten, pp. 255-56.
24. Schaff, p. 467.
25. Ibid., p. 468.
26. Finegan, p. 223.
27. Ibid., p. 227.
28. Schaff, p. 473.
29. Ferguson, p. 923.
30. Schaff, p. 474.
31. Ibid., p. 474.
32. Ibid., p. 474.
33. Quasten, p. 260.
34. Schaff, p. 484.
35. Ibid., p. 484.
36. Eusebius, IV. 14, p. 117.
37. Quasten, p. 271.
38. Ibid., p. 271.
39. Schaff, p. 486.
40. Eusebius, IV. 8, p. 110.
41. Tim Dowley, Handbook to the History of Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977, p. 113.
42. Ibid., p. 105.

Isaiah 14 - The Fall of Lucifer

An Examination of Authorial Intent

by William J Tsamis


12 How you are fallen from heaven
O Lucifer (Day Star), son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!
13 For you have said in your own heart:
'I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.' (Isaiah 14:12-14) NKJV

For nearly two thousand years, this Isaian text has provided Christendom with the fertile idea that, at one time in the primeval past, before the dawn of human history, Satan led a rebellion against God in an attempt to overthrow the Most High. Yet, like any attempt to usurp the Mighty One, Satan and his demonic legions were cast out of Heaven into the farthest reaches of the infernal abyss, indeed into the habitation of Pandaemonium, the capital city of a domain called Hell. Drawing from, and contributing to, the concepts elucidated by early Christian theologians in their efforts to develop a systematic diabology, great artistic minds such as Jan van Eyck, John Martin, Gustav Dore, and others brilliantly captured the magnific theme through their ominous paintings and horrifically detailed drawings. In addition, gifted poets such as Dante Alighieri and John Milton would immortalize this motif in their respective works, "The Inferno" and "Paradise Lost." Indeed, with respect to the latter, the religious imagination runs wild, transforming the essential Isaian motif into an epic myth of Homeric proportions.

Now, in this paper, I would like to suspend this conventional systematic mythos in order to explore the context and authorial intent of the Isaian text. Although it would be impossible within the confines of this paper to address all of the questions which are relevant to a systematic biblical diabology, we will thus concern ourselves with a specific examination of the Isaian text above, and primarily address the principle question, "Did the great prophet intend to convey to his readers the idea that Satan, 'the adversary' of God, at one point in the primeval past, incite a heavenly rebellion in an attempt to usurp the Holy One, and was, for this reason, cast out of heaven?" Indeed, this is the primary issue with regard to the Isaian oracle, and scholars have vigorously debated this question for over a century.

Important to our discussion, then, will be the legitimacy of the term Lucifer as a proper name in the translated text, and the relevance of the excavations at Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra) in 1929, which revealed to archaeologists and scholars a massive deposit of Canaanite civilization and mythology. In the end, we will hopefully gain a greater and more proper understanding of the Isaian text, the conventional systematic mythos notwithstanding.

Now with regard to the study of diabology, as it is with other areas of biblical studies, it is always interesting to consult the works of higher critical scholars, although it is predictable that the conclusions of these academics will simply be a reflection of their initial presuppositions. Nevertheless, it would be fair to say that the hypotheses of the higher critics have, for the most part, defined the modern concept of "The Devil," which concurs with the naturalistic worldview, and thus sees the biblical portrayals as mythic or, at best, symbolic. So, while there is room for the idea of a Supreme Being within this paradigm (not necessarily the God of the Bible), such ideas as "The Devil" or "Hell" are considered primitive and indicative of a medieval mindset.

According to the naturalistic worldview, in which the higher critical establishment serves as an interpreter of religion, the societal evolution of peoples, in an anthropological sense, strongly assumes that the introduction and evolution of religious ideas has been ongoing since the dawn of man. Although there appear to be great differences in the religions of ancient peoples (and I am speaking primarily of the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Canaanite, and Israelite cultures), most anthropologists recognize the numerous similarities which exist (e.g. cosmogonies, diluvial cataclysms, temple and sacrificial cults, feasts and festivals, linguistic similarities in religious terms, and so on); thus, to the anthropologist or higher critic, the similarities suggest a common origin, while the differences imply an evolutive principle which helped define the religious particulars within each respective culture. With the passing of time, each tribal group or culture became more concrete in a nationalistic sense, and certain religious ideas began to evolve according to the particular cultural construct, many of the ideas shaped by the influence of oppressors or neighboring nations, or the experiences of the people.

Now with regard to the people of Israel, it is commonly asserted by the higher critical community that the idea of Satan, as an adversarial foe of God, was grafted into Israelite religion well after the Babylonian exile during the apex of the Persian Empire. The Zoroastrian dualistic concept of a good spirit (Ahura Mazda = Wise Lord) and an opposing force (Angra Mainyu = Hostile Spirit)1 served to provide the post-exilic Israelites with a working theodicy in the wake of the horrific conquests of Israel and Judah in the eighth and sixth centuries BC. It is further asserted that, prior to the era of Persian ascendancy, the canonical writers of the Hebrew Scriptures knew nothing of the idea of fallen angels or demonic beings.2 Indeed, higher critics contend that prior to this period, Satan remains a part of the heavenly court, obedient to the dictates of God, even though his role is adversarial.3 For instance, Satan performs no willful action apart from the permission of God, and this is indicated in the story of Job where the faith of Job is tested (cf. 1:6-2:8). Similarly, in the Book of Zechariah, which was probably written during the early Persian era around 520 BC (although higher critics would contend that chapters 9-14 were written in the fourth century BC),4 we discover Satan as an accuser of sorts, levelling accusations against Joshua the high priest, the mediator between YHWH and the covenant people. And in 1 Chronicles (21:1), probably one of the last books written in the canonical Hebrew Scriptures, we find Satan once again standing against the people of Israel, although in the earlier book of 1 Samuel (24:1), where the same event is recorded, we discover that it is YHWH, not Satan, who is moving against the people of Israel. The apparent discrepancy is ususally explained by conservative scholars in terms of God's permissive will, i.e. that Satan acted against Israel only by God's permission, while the higher critical community will emphasize the evolutive element in the role of Satan from the time of of 1 Sam to the time of 1 Chr. Thus, according to higher critical conclusions, during the time of early Israelite culture (pre-exilic), YHWH was perceived as a dualistic being in a sense, exercising grace and mercy on the one hand, yet on the other, exercising calamity and woe. Perhaps the Isaian text, "I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity, I, YHWH, do all these things" (45:7) is most indicative of this mindset. Sometimes, higher critics will refer to "the right hand of YHWH" to denote His saving power and goodness, yet at the same time they will refer to "the left hand of YHWH" to denote His capacity for allowing calamity and evil. In sum, then, the higher critic asserts that YHWH was the source for both good and evil in early Israelite culture, and as the evolution of Israelite religion took place, and the need for a theodicy became apparent especially after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC, the Zoroastrian concept of dualism (good/evil distinction) found its way into Israelite religion. Thus, the character of Satan was the result of a long evolutive process, and the idea of Satan as a personified autonomous adversarial foe didn't attain prominence until the post-exilic era,5 and especially during the Hasmonean era when many apocryphal writings achieved great importance in Israelite culture.

Now although we reject the presuppositions of the higher critical community - presuppositions which are steeped in post-Enlightenment naturalism - it is nevertheless true that we begin to see the rise of the idea of a cosmic dualistic struggle during the Hasmonean era, and especially in the New Testament and early patristic literature. As Satan became increasingly personified, speculations regarding his origin began to proliferate. Apocryphal books such as The Life of Adam and Eve, the First Book of Enoch, and the Book of Jubilees explored the question of "How did one of God's angels become an evil entity"?6 (It was the First Book of Enoch that took the idea of "the sons of God" from Gen 6 and expanded it into a full-blown mythological account of demonic intercourse with human women, thus producing a race of nephilim). At any rate, some scholars have observed that the idea of Satan's defection from the heavenly court was simply a reflection of the sectarian struggle which was ongoing during the Hasmonean period. Thus, the key idea is that the enemy arises from within - as the author of Jubilees (ca. 160 BC) concerns himself with the issue of Jewish divisions and the problem of assimilation into Gentile ways. So, according to the author of Jubilees, the socio-religious conscience of the day essentially asked the question, "How could one of 'us' become one of 'them'"?7 Since the idea of defection was believed to have first originated in the heavenly court, the author of Jubilees attributes the dissensions within Israelite culture to the evil one, whom he refers to as Mastema ("hatred"), Satan, or Belial.8 Thus, the personification of Satan as an autonomous adversarial foe became even more integrated into Jewish thought, especially in the drama of dualistic apocalyptic cosmic struggle as emphasized by the Qumran community (e.g. the War Scroll) and the New Testament church and its emphasis on the eschaton.

So, let us now turn our attention to another question, essentially the question of how Satan became identified with the proper name Lucifer in Christian thought; and further, let us explore the relevance of the archaeological excavations at Ugarit, excavations which unearthed the civilization of the Canaanites, and brought to light, among many things, the particulars of their mythological belief system.

By the end of the first century, Christianity had formulated a concrete diabology which was based on the teachings of Christ in the Gospels, and on the teachings of the apostles in the epistolary writings, not to mention the Apocalypse of John. During the early years of the second century AD (ca. 107), Ignatius of Antioch would echo the received tradition that it was Satan who was the architect of the great persecutions which descended upon the followers of Christ.9 Later in the second century, the Epistle of Polycarp would attribute gnostic heresies to the wiles of the Devil, thus echoing 1 John; and the Shepherd of Hermas would emphasize the conflict between good and evil within the human heart.10 With regard to our primary concern about the fall of Satan, other theologians such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, et al. would emphasize the great dualistic cosmic struggle between God and Satan which would continue until the Parousia. And although these theologians followed the Scriptures closely with regard to the Devil and his demons, they didn't hesitate to allow their creative imaginations to run free, thus fortifying the Christian theodicy to a point in which it became virtually impenetrable. So, by the time of the Alexandrian Fathers in the third and fourth centuries, and then, by the time of Ambrose and Augustine, the Christian theodicy and diabology was so complete and magnified that it bordered on a type of systematic mythos. The only weak link in the system was the delay of the Parousia.11

Now, of all of the early theologians who commented extensively on the Devil, it was Origen who was "the most inventive diabologist" of all.12 Although a discussion of Origen's theology is tempting here, suffice it to say that it was Origen who first made the connection between Lucifer and Satan.13 Why the term "Lucifer"? Because the term derives from the Latin lucem ferre ("bringer of light"), which like the LXX rendering phosphoros ("bearer of light"), is the best translation of the Isaian helel ("bright one").14 Anyway, the term Lucifer was integrated into Christian thought after Origen, and became chiseled in stone by Jerome when he put together the Latin Vulgate during the years 382 to 404. Although many scholars today negate the legitimacy of the term Lucifer as a proper name, especially as a name for Satan, it has nevertheless become so ingrained in the Christian tradition that it has become part of the conventional systematic mythos, indeed something that is simply presupposed by Christians.

Now, with specific regard for Isaiah 14 as an ancient taunt song, the archaeological excavations at Ugarit, which began in 1929, have shed great light on the Isaian text with regard to authorial intent. Although many Christian theologians would sieze the text in order to complete their systematic diabology and theodicy, a majority of scholars today reject the idea that there are diabological implications in this passage. As we saw earlier, it is very questionable whether or not the prophet Isaiah, in the pre-exilic period, had Satan in mind when he drafted this particular taunt song; and if he did, it must have been on a sub-stratum level as part of the inspired word of God.

From the thousands of clay tablets which were unearthed at Ugarit, modern scholars have taken notice of the parallels which exist between the Isaian text and the myth of Baal, especially the fertility cycle of the dying and rising god. In the Ugaritic myth, Baal is a high god who resides on Mount Zaphon (modern Jebel Aqra); yet he must die and descend into the underworld by the decree of the god Mot ("death"). During this period of descent, another god, Athar the terrible (Athar = Venus), filled with pride, attempts to usurp Baal and ascend the throne at Mount Zaphon; however, he is unsuccessful in his attempt; thus, he is cast down.15 Athar, as the planet Venus, is the star which rises before dawn as the bringer of a new day, hence the term day star. In any case, the motif of a proud usurper is present in the Baal myth; therefore, many scholars believe that the authorial intent of Isaiah was to utilize a well-known myth in that day to proclaim an oracle of destruction against an oppressive earthly ruler (probably a Babylonian or Assyrian king).

Although there has been much scholarly discussion regarding the identity of the usurper here (the Bible refers to him as "the king of Babylon"), it is quite possible that Isaiah is referring to Sennacherib, the Assyrian king who laid siege to Jerusalem in 701 BC. There is scholarly support for such a theory.16 Although Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, all of the Assyrian kings after Tiglath-Pileser (d. 727 BC) considered themselves kings of Babylon as well. And though Nineveh remained the capital of the Assyrian empire, Babylon became the cultural and religious center, as many aspects of the old-Babylonian empire (including the worship of Marduk) were assimilated into the Assyrian system.17 Because Isaiah deals extensively with Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem in chapters 36 and 37, I would lean toward the theory that the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14 is Sennacherib. There are simply too many allusions to the rise and fall of Sennacherib to ignore this point. In the story of Sennacherib's siege, for instance, he does exalt himself above YHWH continuously according to the typical Assyrian royal boast. In one instance, his messenger relates his words to the citizens of Jerusalem, saying, "Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying 'YHWH will deliver us. 'Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria'"?(Isa 36:18). Thus, Sennacherib is the proud usurper - indeed, the embodimentof pride and defiance against the Living God. The prophet Isaiah mocks Sennacherib in this particular oracle, and draws upon the well-known myth of Baal to illustrate that although Sennacherib rose to great power as a mighty emperor, he would nevertheless be cast down by the power of YHWH, and he would be brought down "to the lowest depths of the Pit" (Isa 14:17).

In sum, then, when assessing the initial question posed at the beginning of this paper (i.e. "Did Isaiah have Satan in mind when he penned this oracle"?), I must admit that it is a difficult question to answer. Most scholars would say during the pre-exilic era, the Israelites had not yet developed any kind of systematic diabology, not to mention an elaborate description of the fall of Satan. At the same time, however, although the Hebrew Scriptures are relatively silent about the role of Satan compared to the New Testament, the fall of Satan seems to be implied, especially in Gen 3 and Ezek 28, and the New Testament writers draw heavily on the presupposition that Satan was, at one time in the primeval past, cast out of heaven. So, although I would interpret Isa 14 within it's immediate historical setting, I would go further and say that the Isaian text, on a sub-stratum level, does provide some insight into the fall of Satan. Thus, only "destruction" awaits that being who bears the "proud heart."
________________________________________________________________________

Works Cited

1. Jack Finegan, Myth and Mystery, p.87
2. Apocryphal literature and Gen 6
3. Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan, p. 39 - The literal Hebrew rendering of Satan is actually "the satan."
4. Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, "Zechariah, Book of"
5. Pagels, p. 39
6. Ibid., p. 49
7. Ibid., p. 49
8. Ibid., p. 53
9. The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch, Trallians 4:2; Romans 5:3
10. Jeffrey Burton Russell, Satan: The Early Christian Tradition, p. 43
11. Ibid., p. 136
12. Ibid. p. 123
13. Ibid., p. 130
14. Finegan, p. 145
15. Ibid., pp. 144-145
16. Bible Knowledge Commentary, "Isaiah," John Martin, p. 1061
17. Ibid., p. 1061

"Paul's Condemnation of Pagan Humanity"

Paul's Condemnation of Pagan Humanity - An Essay on Romans 1:18-25

William J Tsamis, M. A.
_______________________

The ancient proverb, "There are more gods in Athens than there are men," 1 must have been in the mind of the Apostle Paul as he walked through the streets of the city of Aristotle and Plato in the year A.D. 50. The once great seat of the powerful Athenian city state, though sacked by the Romans in the second century B.C., nevertheless maintained its reputation as a major center of learning and its primacy among the cities of idols in the ancient world. What Paul saw in Athens could only be followed by Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome. Indeed, at the Parthenon the goddess Athena stood tall with brilliant bronze spear in hand. Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, indeed all of the gods of the Olympian pantheon had their cults in Athens. To the ancient citizen, Athens was a city of great adorn and beauty, bathed in divine glory. And though Paul was certainly not blind to the artistic beauty which Athens beheld - to this holy apostle, such images and architectural wonders were nothing more than representations of the hideous and the demonic, indeed the realm of the heathen. Such vile depravity and condition of wickedness was enough to cause in the former Pharisee a sense of revulsion which had been unknown in Jerusalem for centuries, since the years of the captivity centuries prior.

Perhaps Paul was moved by the Athenian blindness of this gross paganism, or perhaps the thought of the "wrath of God" was in the back of his mind - at any rate, Luke tells us that "[Paul's] spirit was provoked within him as he observed the idols in the city" (Acts 17:16). Thus, Paul delivered his monotheistic elocution to the Epicureans, the Stoics and other Aereopagites, all to little avail however (though never a greater man stood where the Jew from Tarsus stood). So, through the midst of malcontents and religious partisans, Paul made his way out of Athens, westward to the notorius city of Corinth (c. A.D. 51-52), where he would proclaim the gospel in another pagan colony - this time against the landscape of the temples of Aphrodite, Apollo, Asclepius, Hera, and other glorified gods of the Greek pantheon.

It would be several years later that the Apostle Paul would write his Epistle to the Romans (c. A.D. 56-57) from the very city of Corinth, where he would level his condemnation upon pagan mankind. As we go through some of these texts, we will actually "feel" the "dark shadows" of Athens and Corinth making their way into the lyrical discourse as Paul imparts to the church at Rome this theology of condemnation and wrath of God. It is precisely in these verses where the holy apostle begins to set forth God's indictment against man, and argue subsequently that "[since all men stand condemned before God]," and "[since no man can be justified (declared righteous) according to his deeds]," [man must therefore turn to God and look to him for "justification" instead] (3:23-24, 28). Thus, in this paper we will present a consise discussion of Paul's condemnation of pagan mankind as expressed in Rom 1:18-25.2

These few verses are reminiscent of the genre of the prophets, i.e. those who condemned the pagan practices of the ancients. And although Paul is setting the stage to demonstrate why all mankind is depraved before God, and therefore why all men need justification through Jesus Christ, in this short paper we will limit ourselves to a discussion of the sin of "idolatry," which in the words of Paul, is a heinous and monstrous crime in the eyes of God. With this said, then, let us begin.

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God
made it evident to them

20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal
power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood
through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or
give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their
foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the
form of corrupible man and of birds and four-footed animals and
crawling creatures.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity,
so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.

25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served
the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.


Though we have presented the entire text above, we have done so for the sake of context. As stated, our discussion will be concerned with a few selected texts. Thus, let us begin with v. 18 and the concept of the wrath of God. However, let us first point out that the phrase "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven" does not stand in isolation, but rather is paralleled in v. 17, "the righteousness of God is revealed from heaven," with another close parallel in 3:21, ". . . the righteousness of God has been manifested." Although v. 17 has been discussed for centuries, and I believe that I have a good Protestant evangelical understanding of that text, for the sake of space and this assignment I would like to begin with v. 18 and Paul's discussion of the "wrath of God."

It is interesting, that although the concept of the "wrath of God" has only been particularly unpalatable to the Western mindset since the Enlightenment, in truth, we find our very first objection to this phrase in the work of the great heresiarch, Marcion of Pontus (c. A.D. 85-160). Indeed, in "his" Apostolicon (Marcionite canon), wherein he included an "edited" version of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, in v. 18 he omitted from the phrase "wrath of God," the part that says "of God" because, of course, his excised phrase conformed to his anti-Yahwistic Gnostic theology. Indeed, in the Marcionite text of Romans the phrase is "For the wrath is being revealed from the heaven . . ."3

Whether or not one finds the concept of the "wrath of God" distasteful really matters not. If the orthodox/canonical Christian metanarrative is true, which we believe it is on the basis of revelation and sufficient reason, the "wrath of God" is simply one aspect of God's person that has to do with his holiness and justice. Alluding to Anders Nygren, Douglas Moo, in his commentary on the Book of Romans, puts it nicely when he writes, "[God] cannot behold with indifference that His creation is destroyed and His holy will is trodden underfoot. Therefore He meets sin with His mighty and annihilating reaction."4 Thus, Paul is using the phrase "wrath of God" consistently with the prophetic genre; however, for Paul, this "wrath" not only has futuristic implications, but also those which are very much present. Thus, to those who stand outside of Christ, this "wrath" is already being poured out.5 According to a number of scholars whose works I consulted regarding this text, the desolation of societies and the deterioration of any moral fabric within these cultures is a juridicial consequence of their apostasy from, or ignorance of Christ, who is the sole "mediator" of any "right relationship" (v. 17) with God. In matter of fact, it is only through Christ that "justification" can be conferred upon people(s) (3:20-26), thus making possible any "right relationship" with God. Apart from Christ in God, there can only be death, dissolution and demise as a people wither and die because they are "separated" (or "cut-off") from God who is the source of all life.

Now we ask, "Who are those who 'suppress the truth in unrighteousness'" according to the holy apostle?" Though Fitzmyer correctly indicates that Paul "has in mind the totality of pagan society,"6 and this is consistent with the context, there is no argument against the notion that there is a categorical element here at work as well.

Since the dawn of time, man has been in rebellion against God, developing elaborate systems of polytheism, pantheism, and a host of other metanarratives. Indeed, the creative potential of man can be seen not only in the outward manifestations of such idolatrous and false religions, but in the inner teachings of such religions and philosophies as well. Even to this day, I am astonished at how "inventive" man can be when it comes to constructing elaborate philosophical/religious thought systems which are antithetical to Christianity. On almost every point, there is an antithesis to Christian doctrine which at some point becomes quite obvious to the Christian student of religion and philosophy, that all religions and most philosophies inherently and "systematically" proffer an alternative thesis or a direct counterpoint as if the "overthrow" of Christianity is the obvious goal. We have seen this in the past two millennia, especially after the Enlightenment, so we cannot say that Paul was talking about something future. Nevertheless, the categorical implication (which includes all heretical ideas) is there. It is obvious that some systems (e.g. macroevolution) purposely "suppress" the truth, while others (e.g. neo-Platonism) are speculative superstructures wherein pure fideism is necessary.

Leon Morris, however, believes that the English word "suppress" is too strong for the context; thus, he would prefer "hinder,"7 and perhaps I would agree with his assessment in the context. As he says, "[suppress] implies that sinners are successful."8 But in the Pauline context they are not successful in an absolute sense; they are only successful in that they attempted to "hinder" the truth.

The key to this whole idea of "suppressing" the truth is noted by Fitzmyer as he understands the Pauline intent which is quite evident:

For Paul the condition of pagan humanity results, first, from its
failure to recognize God for what he is, to glorify him, and to
thank him, when it could readily have done so, had it paid
due attention to the traces of him and his qualities evident
in the created world.9

Thus, "natural revelation," which is sufficient to bring one to faith in a Creator who possesses certain attributes, is rejected on account of depraved man's desire to set up himself above God (or make himself prior to God) in order that he might be able to do that which is in accord with his own will. Thus, he might create a cosmogony (e.g. the "Enuma Elish") wherein a story of the gods is told. And in order to mediate ultimate reality (i.e. the gods of the cosmogony) to the masses, a priestly class is created. Since the priests are the mediators of ultimate reality, they are the most powerful caste/class in the tribe; thus, they make certain demands upon the populace (who nominally believe in the things they have been taught), while at the same time allowing for a degree of hedonism to bring pleasure to the populace, and a sort of "symbiotic" relationship is created between the priests, the rulers, and the populace. In the midst of it all, visuals become necessary, so sacerdotalism becomes central to the pagan religion, with the construction of temples and the invention of elaborate priestly rites, all dedicated to propitiate a particular god, whose appetites are really a reflection of the appetites of man. This elaborate system is what Fitzmyer calls "the big lie,"10 in which they have no excuse.

This is what Paul considers particularly odious and detestable in the eyes of YHWH - that pagan mankind "exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corrupible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures . . . they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator" (1:23, 25). Now, in returning to our introduction, it isn't hard to imagine, from all that Paul had seen on his journeys through the pagan world, and from the Jewish teachings about how ancient Israel repeatedly became ensnared in the idolatries of the "nations" - it isn't hard to imagine the multitude of gods which paraded across Paul's mind. The "images of corruptible man" polluted the thought of the Greeks in the sense that nearly all of their gods were represented in some human form. In Corinth, from which Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans, the goddess Aphrodite was honored in three temples. She was the Greek "fertility goddess," and "goddess of love," draped in soft flowing gowns and adorned with jewels. Her hair gleamed in the sunlight and her silvery feet completed the depiction of a charming and seductive woman.11 Additionally in Corinth there were human representations of Hera, Apollo and Asclepios, and the gods of Olympus - all "corruptible men and women." Further, Paul only had to recall stories from Exodus to think of such gods as Horus (which was portrayed as a falcon) or the sacred bull/cow gods, Apis and Hathor. Simply put, in this section on the "condemnation of pagan humanity," someone like the Apostle Paul not only encountered gross idolatry in his studies of Israel's past, but he journeyed through many cities of the Gentiles which, in his day, were polluted with dead "corruptible" gods, and in our day are filled with nothing but the ruined remains of that idolatrous past. Thus, what we see in historical ruin was "corruptible" all along, precisely as Paul said it was. And now, while archaeologists and others sift through the remains of dead gods and the remains of their temples, hundreds of millions of people worship the one, true living God, through Jesus Christ, in accord with the teachings of the Apostle Paul.


Endnotes

1. Unknown ancient source.

2. A longer paper covering the entire section of Rom 1.18-32 would have been more interesting, including the discussion of the sins of the pagans; however, such a paper would have required me to overwrite for the assigned space.

3. Joseph A. Fizmyer, Romans, The Anchor Bible. (New York: Doubleday, 1998) 270.

4. Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans. New International Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 100, n. 31.

5. Ibid., 101.

6. Fitzmyer, 270.

7. Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 77-78.

8. Ibid., 78.

9. Fitzmyer, 271.

10. Ibid.

11. Felix Guirand, "Greek Mythology" in New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology. Trans. Richard Aldington and Delano Ames. (New York: Crescent, 1989), 85-198.

The Orthodox/Canonical Definition of God

Deconstructing God (or redefining Him) is a popular thing to do in our times. Nearly everyone has some private belief about God which is wholly subjective, even if the person claims to be an adherent of a historic denomination - cf. the John Kerry article below. Yes, today, everything goes. However, to the student of Christian theology and Church History, such private religions are nothing more than "make-believe myths and private fairy tales." They do not correspond "at all" to any objective form of Christianity (the religion in question). Not today, not yesterday, nor long ago.

So, for those who hold to a private form of Christian religion, or to those students who want to know the "precise language" which is used by theologians in creedal statements for the purpose of defining God and his attributes, I have posted the following creed, called An Orthodox Definition of God. *Note that every word and line is supported by Holy Scripture and/or the writings of the great theologians. In sum, this is what biblical Christianity believes about God.

Asserting a High Theology by William J. Tsamis

--1 God is the infinite, incomparable, and incomprehensible
--2 Supreme Being and Sovereign Spirit who exists eternally as an
--3 autonomous, self-subsisting living entity, transcending the
--4 physical and metaphysical universe by His immensity, yet filling
--5 the domain of ultimate reality with the glory of His ineffable
--6 presence. In His composition He is incorporeal, altogether
--7 simple, without spatial form or dimensionality, His essential
--8 constitution being one of mind and personality. In His ontological
--9 being He is immutable, beyond qualitative change or modification,
-10 embodying infinite perfection in all His attributes; yet
-11 in His constancy, He is neither static, nor detached, but dynamically
-12 interrelated with His creation as an affective being.
-13 In His infinite potentiality He is omnipotent - capable of accomplishing
-14 any determination of His will; He is omnipresent -
-15 wholly, immediately, and existentially present everywhere;
-16 He is omniscient - comprehending all universal, particular, and
-17 middle realities, not by successive thought processes, but by
-18 intuition, through one, single, simultaneous cognitive embrace.
-19 In His character He is impeccable, inherently possessing the
-20 elemental quality of holiness, which emanates forth from His
-21 being in the form of distinct attributes which are perceptible
-22 to spiritual humanity -- love, wisdom, mercy, goodness, justice.
-23 These communicable attrubutes of God are unified in the substance
-24 of His holiness, all radiating forth from the same refracted light,
-25 all realizing their harmony and consonance inthe holiness of His being.
-26 In His self-revelation, He has revealed Himself as He is,
-27 His nature being of one essence (ousia),
-28 undivided in being; yet He exists simultaneously in three persons (hypostases)
-29 who are coequal, coeternal, and consubstantial,
-30 each one possessing the fullness of the Godhead with all its
-31 attributes -- thus, we speak of God the Father, God the Son, and
-32 God the Holy Spirit -- the Triune God. Though the divine persons
-33 are immanent in one another, coexisting eternally in perpetual
-34 impenetration and intercommunion, there is nevertheless a principle
-35 of functional subordination which manifests the distinct
-36 particularities (idiotes) of the divine persons. Accordingly,
-37 the fount of the Godhead is the Father, the unbegotten source
-38 of the divine essence, from whom the Son is eternally begotten,
-39 and from whom the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds. thus, as
-40 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God is one -- Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer --
-41 He is the Most High and Excellent One,
-42 the Almighty and Everlasting King, the unnamable YHWH to whom all
-43 glory and honor is due -- He is God, the Mysterium Tremendum.


Biblical and Theological References
___________________________________
LINE 1
--- infinite . . . Ps 90:1-2; Isa 44:6; Rev 1:8
--- inccomparable . . . Deut 4:35; Isa 45:21; 46:5
--- incomprehensible . . . Rom 11:33; Ps 40:5; Isa 55:8-9 --

Athanasius wrote: "Man can perceive only the hem of the garment of the Triune God" (Epistle to the Monks).

Novatian wrote: "At the contemplation and utterance of His majesty all eloquence is rightly dumb, all mental effort is feeble. For God is greater than the mind itself. His greatness cannot be conceived . . . our loftiest utterances will be trivialities in comparison with Him" (On the Trinity - ca. 250).

LINE 2

--- Supreme Being . . . Acts 17:23b-28; Isa 66:1
--- Sovereign Spirit . . . John 4:24

LINE 3

--- autonomous, self-subsisting . . . Ex 3:14; Gen 1:1
--- living . . . Jer 10:10; 1 Thess 1:9
--- transcending . . . Isa 66:1; Ps 113:5-6; Acts 17:24

LINE 4

--- filling . . . Ps 139:7-12; Job 34:14-15

Aquinas wrote: "God is everywhere in every place . . . filling every place, not as bodies do by excluding some other body but by giving existence to whatever occupies that place" (Summa Theologiae I, 8.2).

LINE 6

--- incorporeal . . . John 4:24; Ex 20:4; Deut 4:15

LINE 7

--- simple . . . Ex 3:14; Augustine, City of God, VIII, 6

Aquinas wrote: "God is spirit, without bodily dimensions. God has no properties other than His nature . . . In our world perfection is made built up of many elements; but divine perfection is simple . . ." (Summa, I, 3.1, 7).

LINE 8

--- mind . . . Ps 111:110; Rom 11:33
--- personality . . . Ex 34:6; Deut 5:4

LINE 9

--- immutable . . . Ps 90:1-2; Mal 3:6; Heb 13:8

LINE 10

--- infinite perfection . . . Ps 18:30; Matt 5:48

Aquinas wrote: "God is also infinitely perfect embracing within Himself the fullness of perfection of all existence" (Summa I, 9.1).

LINE 11

--- constancy . . . Ps 33:11; 102:26-27
--- dynamically interrelated . . . Job 34:14-15; Acts 17:27-28; Matt 5:26, 30.

LINE 12

--- affective being . . . Ex 34:6-7; Matt 6:25-34; John 3:16

LINE 13

--- omnipotent . . . Gen 17:1 ('el Shaddai); Job 42:2; Rev 4:8

Aquinas wrote: "Power is the ability to execute what 'will' commands and 'mind' plans; but in God the three (power, will, and mind) are identical. God is said to be all-powerful in the sense that he can do whatever can be done . . . the only things escaping God's all-powerfulness are things involving simultaneous existence and non-existence. It would be better to say such things cannot be done than that God cannot do them" (Summa I, 25:1, 3).

LINE 14

--- omnipresent . . . Ps 139:7-10; Jer 23:23-24; Heb 4:13

LINE 16

--- omniscient . . . Prov 15:3; Isa 45:21; Heb 4:13

LINE 17

--- not by successive thought processes . . .

Augustine wrote: Neither does His attention pass from thought to thought, for His knowledge embraces everything in one single spiritual contuition" (City of God, XI, 21).

LINE 20

--- holiness . . . Lev 11:44ff.; Isa 6:3; Ps 22:3

LINE 22

--- love . . . Deut 7:6-8; 1 John 4:8; John 3:16
--- wisdom . . . Eph 1:11; Prov 3:19; Rom 11:33-34
--- mercy . . . Ex 20:6; Nub 14:18; Eph 2:4
--- goodness . . . Ex 34:5-7; Ps 107; Rom 11:22
--- justice . . . Gen 18:25; Isa 45:21; Neh 9:33

LINE 26

--- self-revelation . . . Ex 3:14; John 20:28; 14:16, 28

LINE 27

--- one essence (ousia) . . . Deut 6:4; Matt 29:19; 2 Cor 13:14

Basil the Great wrote: "He who fails to confess the community of the essence of substance faills into polytheism" (Epistle 210).

Didymus the Blind wrote, "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have the same nature . . . they alone can exist together . . . and be everywhere understood with Him who is one" (On the Trinity, II. 6, 4 -- ca. 360).

LINE 28

--- three persons (hypostases) . . . Matt 28:19; 2 Cor 13:14

Basil the Great wrote, "He who refuses to grant the distinctions of the hypostases is carried away in Judaism" (Epistle 210).

Augustine wrote: "And this whole is a Trinity because of the individuality of the Persons and, yet, a single God because of indivisible divinity . . . each Person individually is God and each is Almighty . . . there are not three Gods or three Almighties, but a single God Almighty. Such is the indivisible unity in the Three" (City of God, XI, 24).

LINE 29

--- coequal, coeternal . . . John 10:30; 14:8-0; Acts 5:3-4

Athanasian Creed states: "The whole three persons are coeternal together and coequal" (ca. 590).

LINE 35

--- functional subordination . . . John 5:26, 27; 14:26, 28

Philip Schaff wrote: "Father, Son, and Spirit all have the same divine essence, yet not in a co-ordinate way, but in an order of subordination" (History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3, p. 681).

LINE 36

--- particularites (idiotes) . . .

Philip Schaff continues: "The idiotes is a peculiarity of the hypostasis, and therefore cannot be communicated or transferred from one to another . . ." (ibid., p. 679).

LINE 37

--- the Father, the unbegotten source . . . John 1:18; 5:26

Gregory of Nazianzus wrote: "The Father is Father and unoriginate, for He is of no one" (Oration 30).

Athanasian Creed states: "The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten" (ca. 590).

LINE 38

--- the Son is eternally begotten . . . John 1:18

Athanasius wrote: "As radiance from light, and stream from fountain; so that whoso sees the Son, sees what is proper to the Father . . . wherefore neither is the Son another God, for He was not procured from without" (Oration against the Arians, 2.41).

Cyril of Jerusalem wrote: "For what the Son is now, that has He been timelessly begotten from the beginning. For God was not at first childless, and then after lapse of time became Father, but He had His Son from all eternity, not begetting Him as men beget men, but as He alone knows Who begat Him, true God before all ages. The Father being Himslef true God begat a Son like to Himself, true God" (Catechesis - ca. 348).

Nicene Creed states: ". . . begotten not made . . ."

LINE 39

--- the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds . . . John 15:26

Gregory of Nazianzus wrote: "The Holy Spirit is truly Spirit, coming forth from the Father indeed, but not after the manner of the Son, for it is not by generation but by procession" (Oration 39).

Nicene Creed states: ". . . the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father . . ."

LINE 40

--- God is one . . . Deut 6:4
--- Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer . . . Ps 33:6; Isa 44:6; Job 34:14

LINE 41

--- Most High ('el elyon) . . . Gen 14:18; 2 Sam 22:14
--- Excellent One . . . Ps 8:1; 93:5; Ex 15:7

LINE 42

--- Almighty ('el Shaddai, Pantocrator) . . . Gen 17:1; Rev 4:8

Nicene Creed states: "I believe in one God, Father Almighty (Pater Pantocrator) . . ."

Athanasian Creed states: "So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty. And yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty."

--- Everlasting King . . . Ps 90:3; Isa 9:6
--- the unnamable YHWH . . . Ex 3:14-17

LINE 43

--- all glory and honor is due . . . Isa 45:23; Ps 145-150
--- the Mysterium Tremendum . . . Acts 17:23; Rom 1:20

A. W. Tozer, commenting on Rudolf Otto's usage of the term mysterium tremendum, wrote: "The Mysterium Tremendum can never be intellectually conceived, only sensed and felt in the depths of the human spirit. It remains as a permanent religious instinct, a feeling for that unnamed, undiscoverable Presence that 'runs quicksilverlike through creation's veins' and sometimes stuns the mind by confronting it with a supernatural, suprarational manifestation of itself. The man thus confronted is brought down and overwhelmed and can only tremble and be silent. This nonrational dread, this feeling for the uncreated Mystery in the world is the back of all religion . . . but while the pagan can only 'feel after' and unknown God, we have found the true God through His own self-revelation in the inspired Scriptures" (Knowledge of the Holy, p. 111).

The Abortion Holocaust: Child Sacrifice in the Modern Age -- by William J Tsamis

Aborted Fetus at 22 Weeks -- Legal Human Slaughter

"The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being and it is a most monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet come to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man's house is his most secure place of refuge, it ought surely be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light." John Calvin

Until recently, the Christian Church has cried out with one voice regarding the crime of abortion. From the writings of Clement of Alexandria and Basil the Great, who both condemned the use of abortifacients, to the writings of Jerome, Augustine, Origen, and Chrysostom, to the writings of such contemporary theologians as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth, the Church has raised its voice in unison concerning this monstrous crime. As the Oxford scholar Bruce Metzger has observed, "It is really remarkable how uniform and pronounced the Christian opposition to abortion has been throughout the centuries."1 Not suprisingly, this solidarity of opinion derives from a holy tradition which is rooted in the very ethic of the early Church. As the Didache (ca. 100) explicitly teaches, "Thou shalt not slay a child by abortion or infanticide" (2.2), so too, the pseudepigraphal Apocalypse of Peter (ca. 150), a book which is quite vivid in its description of the inferno, tells us that the very lowest places of hell are reserved for those who have participated in the act of abortion in some way. Although not a canonical reflection of the inspired truth of God, the Apocalypse of Peter nevertheless gives us an indication as to the sentiment of the early Christians regarding the issue of abortion.

Why has the Church, historically, been so opposed to the act of abortion? Well, simply, the answer is rooted in the theology of creation and the anthropological idea that man is created in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27). Although many proponents of abortion will argue that the word abortion itself is not used in the Bible, we must respond by saying that, not only is this a futile and fraudulent argument (e.g. neither does the term substitutionary atonement, Holy Trinity, etc.), but the anthropological idea that man was created in the image of God precludes the destruction of that image in any way shape or form (although state execution has been debated, while self-defense and divine judgment are different issues). Anyway, with regard to the issue of the conception and development of human life, from the perspective of the biblical worldview, the living being, man, is not the result of a multi-billion year neo-Darwinian process, but rather, the living being, man, is a special, unique, and priceless creation of the God of the universe. Thus, any destructive assault upon the life of man, regardless of what point on the life continuum a particular person may be (continuum = conception >> birth >> early life >> adulthood >> aging years), such an assault is regarded as a horrendous abomination according to the biblical worldview. Thus, it is because of this belief in the divine origin of human life (cf. Gen 1:26-27) that the writer of the second century extracanonical work, the Epistle of Barnabas, condemns those who abort their unborn children as "killers of children who abort the image of God" (19.5).


Now, before we delve into the issue of pagan child sacrifice as a parallel of abortion in the modern age, let me just add that abortion is not only condemned by the historic Christian Church, but by all the surviving major religions of the world. For instance, the religion of Islam condemns abortion as the "Second gravest sin next to the rejection of Allah." Dr. Muhammad Abdul-Rauf, a leading Islamic scholar and bioethicist, poignantly states: "The prohibition against abortion is based upon the divine law, which makes the destruction of innocent human life, in particular the killing of one's own child, 'second in gravity only to the sin of disbelief in Allah.'"2 Abdul-Rauf's words, though very strong, are solidly based on the teachings of the Qu'ran and Hadith.

In addition to Islam, of course, we have the vehement opposition to the practice of abortion by the Orthodox and Messianic branches of Judaism,3 their arguments being quite the same as those articulated by historic Christianity. Unfortunately, the Reformed branch of Judaism,4 like many of its liberal counterparts in Protestant Christianity, has offered its consent to the horrific practice because of utilitarian impositions. And the Knesset, like many of its parlimentary counterparts in the Euro-American West, has legalized abortion as well. The Orthodox and Messianic branches of Judaism who have been lobbying the Knesset since the time of Menachim Begin (1973) have tried to restore the biblical worldview of the sanctity of life to the Jewish nation. However, with the rise of secularism and nominalism in Israel, all such attemps have resulted in futility. So, as in the days of Elijah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, we find innocent blood once again being shed on holy land.

Now along with the great religions of Christianity/Messianic Judaism, Islam, and Orthodox Judaism, both Buddhism and Hinduism deplore the practice of abortion as well. According to the Buddhist canonical scriptures (in this instance, the Vinyana-Pitaka), it is written: "Abortion is in accord with Buddha's teaching that the destruction of life is a moral transgression." In fact, expulsion from the monkhood is the consequence if a monk were to advise someone to procure an abortion -- to the Western mind such a penalty might seem somewhat lenient, but to the Buddhist mindset, such a penalty is a severe, dread consequence, re-depositing an incalculable sum of karmic debt.5 With regard to Hinduism, the noted scholar Candrasekhara dasa makes reference to Vedic teaching, when he says, "Life begins within the womb at the time of conception. Abortion, according to the 'Vedic texts,' is therefore tantamount to murder."6 Thus, we can conclude that not only is historic Christianity vociferous in its opposition to the horrific practice, but nearly all the great surviving religions of the ancient world have attested to this gross and detestable evil.

Now, what is especially evil and horrific about the practice of abortion, is the monstrosity and barbarism associated with the practice itself. Although it has now been refined to a technical, systematic procedure of fetal mutilation (still more barbarous than ever), in the ancient past abortion was practiced in a variety of ways. As G. K. Chesterton pointed out, "Throughout human history, there is above all, this supreme stamp of the barbarian; the sacrifice of the permanent for the temporary."7 A few examples will suffice in demonstrating that, in pagan antiquity, abortion was a common practice: For example, the Greeks would offer medicinal and herbal poisons which were intended to induce early fetal labor.8 (Incidentally, the usage of abortifacients was condemned by Hippocrates, as stated in the Hippocratic Oath). Some ancient Chinese women would tie heavy ropes around their waists so stringently that they would destroy the frail fetus in the womb and thus cause some form of miscarriage.9 The Polynesians would beat the abdomens of certain pregnant women with such force that the death of the fetus, again, was the ultimate objective.10 However, while such cultures practiced abortion, others resorted to infanticidal practices which were horrendous and gruesome, and even worse, such practices became part of the pagan religious cults of certain peoples -- the Canaanite practice of offering children to Baal/Molech/Chemosh being one of the most hideous of all examples. And it is with regard to this latter practice, i.e., the practice of child sacrifice, that the Bible is explicitly condemnatory.

Now, it is well-known that in the ancient world, child sacrifice and human sacrifice were somewhat common. In the Americas, for instance, the Mayans and the Incans performed ritual sacrifices, but perhaps the most bloody civilization of all was that of the Aztecs. In 1487, at the dedication of the great temple which stood in what is today Mexico City, a massive ritual sacrifice took place in which over 10,000 people perished on the temple's altars -- the killing was continual, four at a time, from sunrise to sunset. The priests worked on rotating shifts without pause to ensure that there was no pause in the offering of human hearts to the gods, the principal god being Tezcatilpoca.11 With methodical precision, the priests would cut into the victim's chest, take out his palpitating heart, and offer it to the great sun god. Ironically, though, despite the rivers of blood that would flow from their sacrificial temples, the Aztecs regarded themsleves as a gentle, environmentally conscious people, much like contemporary Western man. An ancient Aztec poem called "The Song of Spring" reads:

"In the house of paintings the singing begins, the song resounds bringing happiness. Over the flowers the pheasant's song unfolds, inside the waters, red birds respond. The song scatters flowers, bring happiness."12

Certainly, the tenor of this poem seems incongruent with a culture which was steeped in human sacrifice. And although we may think of the Aztecs as a barbarous people, they were actually very advanced in architecture, science, and technology, much like ourselves. So, in a sense, Western man is very much like Aztec culture, although this assertion would certainly be met with denial. Nevertheless, we talk and sing of love for nature and even for our fellow man, and much can be said to our credit. We are a charitable people who care about abused children, and we oppose evils like racism and bigotry. Yet while we retain values such as these, we also engage in the systematic mutilation and destruction of developing human life. We develop gross, barbaric procedures such as the D & X abortion procedure (Partial-Birth abortion) and we have no reservations regarding the wholesale slaughter of innocent human life. Good people we are, but with an addiction to murder!

Not to be outdone by the Aztecs, however, the Canaanite civilization was perhaps the most ominous and ritualistic when it came to child sacrifice. For instance, the Ammonite practice of sacrificing children to Molech was performed in the following manner: (1) A huge, hollow iron statue of the god was heated up from the inside so that the statue became like a furnace. In appearance, the statue stood erect with its iron-hot hands outstretched, and there was a mouth which would open and close, the mechanism being controlled by a secret lever; (2) This was a religious sacrifice, so it was officiated by the Canaanite (in this case, Ammonite) priesthood; (3) A woman would give her child into the arms of the priest, and the priest would walk, in ritual procession, toward the statue of Molech, between two rows of drummers who would slowly pound their big toms in order to "drown-out" the cries of the parents and children; (4) The priest would place the child on the burning-hot arms of Molech, and because the arms were tilted toward the body of the statue, the child would roll toward the mouth which would then be opened by the secret lever; (5) The child, scorched by the burning-hot arms, would then roll into the open mouth of the god and be consumed in the bowels of the inner furnace. Interestingly, many archaeological excavations in Syria, Palestine, and Jordan have revealed a massive deposit of infant remains which are, no doubt, the human debris from such Canaanite sacrificial rites. And it is with regard to this barbaric practice, i.e. child sacrifice, that the Bible makes numerous powerful, explicit condemnations.

As early as the Book of Leviticus, we find written in the "Holiness Code" (i.e. chapters 17-26), "[Whoever of the children of Israel sacrifices any of his children to Molech, he shall surely be put to death]" (Lev 20:2). Other texts such as Jeremiah 7 and 19, and especially Ezekiel 16:20-21, which deal with Israel in their state of apostasy, indicate that child sacrifice would eventually become a curse for the nation of Israel. For instance, the text of Ezekiel reads: "Moreoever you took your sons and daughters, whom you bore to me, and these you sacrificed to [the heathen gods] to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, that you have 'slain my children' and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire?" (16:20-21). As the texts imply, the ancient kingdoms of Judah and Israel adopted the pagan Canaanite practices of idolatry and child sacrifice. Not only is this attested by Scripture, but also by numerous excavations in Palestine (e.g., the temple of Ashtoreth in Megiddo where numerous infant remains tell the story of a gruesome, barbaric, and heinous practice that once occurred). In the year 586 BC, the pagan city of Jerusalem was smashed by the Babylonians, and hundreds of thousands of Jews were slaughtered or deported, precisely as the prophets had foretold. The major transgression which brought about such destruction was that of child sacrifice. As the prophet Jeremiah had foretold:

"Hear the word of YHWH, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem . . . Behold, I will bring such a catastrophe on this place, that whoever hears of it, his ears will tingle. Because they have forsaken me and made this an alien place . . . and have filled this place with the 'blood of innocents.'"
Jeremiah 19:3-4 (ca. 605 BC)

Now, the philosophical issue which seems quite obvious to me is the parallel that exists between ancient pagan child sacrifice and the practice of abortion in our modern day. First, let us ask the question, "What is sacrifice?" Well, "sacrifice" (in this context) can be defined as "relinquishing what is valuable in order to secure a better future for oneself." In the Mesopotamian religions of the second and third millennia BC, for instance, the subjects of a certain kingdom would bring forth their offerings to the temple, and along with prayer and accompanying rituals, they would provide the gods their due, in exchange for health, prosperity, and well-being. In the extreme, the offering of one's child would be considered the greatest sacrifice; therefore, the subject would expect even greater rewards. Sometimes the remains of the firstborn child were even interred in the wall of the family home, thus assuring prosperity for the family.

Now although the pro-abortion community would decry such a comparison with ancient child sacrifice, if we superimpose the intents of the heart from that period onto the modern day, there is really no difference whatsoever. Essentially, we can conclude two things about abortion: First, that it is indeed a sacrifice, in that it can certainly be defined as relinquishing something that is valuable. And second, the deed is done in order for the individuals to secure a better future for themselves (the "individuals" being the birth-parents or others who benefit from the abortion -- several examples could be noted here, but this would bring about an unnecessary digression). Without getting into great detail, then, it is believed that a newborn child will be an obstacle to the future aspirations of the birth-parents and/or others. Indeed, even as it was in ancient times, the cultural mindset of the day (zeitgeist or spirit of the age) encourages and supports the abortive sacrifice of an [unborn] child in order that the participants might secure for themselves a better future. For instance, a young man and woman might decide that a child would be an obstacle to their college education, which would have implications for their future career and financial state -- thus, the abortive sacrifice is the answer. Or perhaps a single mom might decide that another child might require her to work harder in order to provide food and sustenance for another mouth. On the other hand, the abortive sacrifice sometimes benefits peripheral figures who then become instrumental in the decision-making process. For example, a wealthy father who has a reputation to protect in his community might persuade his unmarried pregnant daughter to procure an abortion in order to secure his future reputation in the community. In sum, at the heart of all these decisions is the attribute of selfishness -- even worse, it is selfishness at the expense of another -- indeed, even the death of another. However, contemporary Western man psychologically and sociologically veils this selfishness, first by denying the humanity of the [unborn] child, and then by proceeding to define the act in terms of altruism. The appeal to altruistic ideals intends to reinforce the legitimacy of abortion and provides a veil for the guilt that usually arises after the abortive sacrifice is secured (though the guilt associated with abortion is difficult to suppress, hence "post-abortion syndrome"). Some altruistic cliches which are employed to justify abortion are "Population explosion," "Individualism -- 'No one has the right to tell you what to do with your body,'" "It is unfair to bring an unwanted child into the world, especially if that child will be handicapped," "Just think, you could get a college education and do so much good for so many people," etc. But as the philosopher Ayn Rand once observed, "Every barbaric act of history has been built upon an altruistic ideal."

Although it is impossible to explore all of the evils of abortion in this paper, we can certainly deduce that abortion is the modern counterpart to child sacrifice in the ancient world - the intents of the heart being the same. In both contexts (i.e. the present and the past), we have the relinquishing of that which is valuable in order to secure a better future for oneself. Yet, even worse, the sacrificial act is being committed against a child by means of a hideous, barbaric, and gruesome method that results in pain, mutilation, and death. The theist must ask, "What can be more abominable in the eyes of God?" Thus, it is quite apparent from the perspective of historic Christianity that the essence of abortion is not only directed against an innocent creature of God, but even more, it is a violent and barbaric attack against the image of God (Gen 1:26-27). Moreover, though ancient child sacrifice was certainly horrendous, as we described above, I would venture to say that the pseudo-medical procedure of our day is perhaps the most horrific deed ever devised by the mind of man. Such techniques as systematic fetal mutilation and crushing of skull (D & C), saline destruction (salt poisoning), D & X (partial birth abortion - i.e. partial delivery of fetus, incision at base of skull, and suction of brain contents), etc., are simply brutal, barbaric, and criminal, bearing a mark of inhumanity that is second to none. That it is an assault upon the human being at his or her most vulnerable stage in the continuum of the life process, along with the barbarism associated with the technical practice itself, exposes the act of abortion for what it really is -- i.e. a Satanic attack upon the image of God in its most vulnerable form.

I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion,
because it is war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child,
murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill
even her own child, then how can we tell other people not to kill on another.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
_______________________________
Postscript: An apologetic against abortion

You would ask your "abortion rights" opponent the following three questions, and then draw the unavoidable conclusion that the "abortion rights" supporter must concede!

1. Is the fetus developing in the womb? Yes

2. Is the fetus of the human species? Yes

3. Is the fetus a living thing? Yes

Conclusion: You have conceded that the fetus is a developing human life, and as an abortion rights supporter, you are sanctioning the systematic dismemberment, mutilation, and death of a developing human life.


Endnotes

1. Michael Gorman, Abortion and the Early Church. Downers Grove: InterVarsity,
1982, p. 9. *Condemnations of abortion by the early Church Fathers are littered throughout the Ante-Nicene, Nicene, and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995 (2nd printing), 1885 (1st printing). There is no ambiguity regarding the ethical position of the historic Church on this issue.

2. Tj. Bosgra, Abortion: The Bible and the Church. Toronto: Life Cycle, 1976, 1987,
p. 114.

3. Ibid., p. 121, 124.

4. Ibid., p. 118.

5. Ibid., p. 70.

6. Ibid., p. 124 -- International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).

7. G. K. Chesterton, The Quotable Chesterton. Eds. George Marlin et al.,
Garden City, NY: Image, 1987, p. 34.

8. George Grant, The Quick and the Dead. Wheaton: Crossway, 1991, p. 66.

9. Ibid., p. 66.

10. Ibid., p. 66.

11. Larousse, Encyclopedia of Mythology, "The Aztecs" Trans. by Richard Aldington and Delano Ames, Cresent Books, 1989.

12. The Heights of Hungry Coyote, Poet of Ancient Mexico -- Trans. from the
Nahuatl (an Aztec writing) by John Curl http://www.jps.net/redcoral/Hungry.html

My wife, our life, our cries. . . experiential suffering and theodicy . . .

by William J Tsamis, M.A.

"Through his own abandonment by God, the crucified Christ brings God to those who feel 'abandoned by God'" ~ Juergen Moltmann).

In one day this woman's life was ripped out from underneath her and she was assigned to a life of excruciating constant pain and suffering. The thing is that none of it was her fault -- she was just a victim of fate. WHY? 

_____________________________________________________

I'm sure, as many of you know, Gabriel Marcel spoke of both "existential evil" and "experiential evil," proposing that the philosophical problem of evil has been treated in its "existential" form, a detatached persepective, which to him, was meaningless. Of course, I disagree with that proposition - I believe evil can be perceived objectively. Nevertheless, I'm sure you have all experienced the "experiential" face of evil in your lives. Indeed, Everyman has, for this is a problem which confronts both the logic of the intellectual and the logic of the proletariat.

Let me share "our story" with you, because I think that you will find it interesting - a real chimera that will blow you away - an example of "experiential" evil and suffering that can only be swallowed up by "faith in God," i.e. in an "assent of the heart," understanding that "Jesus Christ, in his suffering, identified with "Everyman," thereby demonstrating the love of God for all mankind.

In sum, the past several years been a horrifying voyage for our "Christian" family. The only words we can relate to in Scripture are the "Psalms of Lament," and Jesus's cry on the cross, "Why have you forsaken (abandoned) me?" Now of course I wouldn't drift from the faith because there is "sufficent light for me to believe" (Pascal) - a theistic realist with a pinch of Kierkegaardian existentialism in me - so I believe on the "strength of the absurd." "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15). Of course, Camus would find such a proposition "absurd," and Flew would turn me immediately into a Stoic; nevertheless, I'm with Pascal on this one. And although it bears a resemblance to Stoicism and absurdism, on its own ground it is thoroughly Christian.

Anyway, here's the story. My wife suffered a serious automobile accident in a taxi in Jamaica (250 feet off a cliff) and her spine was fractured in 5 places. Since then, she has had several major spinal surgeries (anterior and posterior), one in which the surgeon accidentially lacerated the vena cava (the largest arterial vein in your body that provides blood to the heart) -- anyway, she actually lost nine pints of blood and flatlined, but a vascular surgeon saved her life on the OR table. I remember that day as if it were yesterday, going into the "ecumenical" hospital chapel at the hospital and reciting the "typical" Christian prayer for surgery. Everything that I prayed for went wrong that day, to the point that I almost lost my wife.

After 10 years of descending into Dante's Inferno, several hospitalizations, several surgeries, and the like (my wife takes enough morphine to land someone in the cell for a few years) - anyway, my wife had a full blown spinal fusion on 12-3-98. It was deemed a success. A year and a half later (5-14-00), she developed a massive infection of her spinal hardware, and she was rushed to one of the leading research hospitals and spinal institutes in the Southeast - she received the heaviest antibiotic therapy possible for 100 days until the CDC and an infectious disease expert decided to cut her therapy down.

During that 100 days of summer 2000, she was scheduled to have two more massive neuorsurugeries by one of the leading neuros in the nation. I'll tell you, after all of these terrible things had happened, we weren't thinking too much about verses like Rom 8:28 ("God causes all things to work together for good . . ."), because they seemed senseless (at least in this life) - instead, we were ready to be introduced to the "theology of abandonemnt" and the text of Job 13:15. I have encountered "absurdism" in our un-healthcare system to the nth degree, I have encountered "evil" in our unhealthcare system, yes, I have encounted a lot of things . . . so why do I still believe? Is Flew right? Am I a Stoic? Do I just tend to ignore the absurdism of the world, along with the experiential evil in the world, and simply integrate it all into my systematic Christian theological system? NO, I don't do that, and I don't necessarily think the answer to theodicy will be found in "apologetics." Rather, it is to be found in the "Suffering Christ, the Son of God, who identified somehow with all of the experiential evils of mankind, by "emptying" himself, and subjecting himself to the same torments that we face, both physcial and emotional . . ." Yes, Dr Flew, "we continue to believe no matter what" -- for when we understand the Incarnation and the Suffering God, we then realize that we can barely touch the hem of his garment (Athanasius), yet what we see is beautiful. Of these mysteries, we know nothing . . . Certainly, the atheist would immediately conclude that this is an "irrational faith," a worthless hope. But such a conclusion would be unwarranted if that person really knew me . . .

Anyway, my wife's steel hardware from a second spinal fusion ruptured and pierced the outer layer of skin on her back at the beginning of our latest crisis, which started on 5-14-00. Simply put, she had a wound the size of a gunshot wound, and the steel hardware was protruding outward, visible to the naked eye -- very Frankensteinish, if you know what I mean. Tears, pain . . . like being alive, but dead. That's when they immediately began bombarding her, through IV delivery (for 104 days), with the heaviest antibiotic in the world to prevent osteomylitis of the spine (deep vertebrae spinal infection - one of the most painful things in existence!). Anyway, we actually had to move a hospital bed into our house . . . Our little girl (7 at the time) was so used to having a hospital bed in our house, along with frequent nursing visits (the nurses had actually become part of our family), that she (our daughter) developed characteristics of sympapthy, touching, gentleness, care, and compassion, and she became quite the little helper (wearing her surgical mask, gloves, and a real stethescope) --in the tragedy, there was something "cute." I will say, though, that at Bible camp one summer, the teacher was reading a pericope of Jesus's "healing of the paralytic," and our poor little girl started to cry. So, I know this was hard for her -- I'm not going to justifty it. God is either permitting all of this (for some reason), or God is simply a figment of my imagination. But like I said, as a moderate fideist, I will believe no matter what. "There is sufficient light for me to believe" (Pascal). Perhaps, God wants us to ascend to Him, through faith by an "assent of the heart" (Heb 11:6), rather than by an assent of the mind. And I must confess that my ascent to God so far has been primarily through the mind. (I started out as a nihilist).

Anyway, of the three surgeries, the most gruesome and painful was the removal of "all" of the steel hardware in my wife's back - and she was fused from the high thoracic down through to the lower lumbar of the spine. At the time, she already had her lumbar hardware taken out once, so this was the second removal of hardware (and we're talking bolts, screws, rods, hooks, etc - lots of them).

Now to my point. Like I said, I decided a while ago to utilize our "experiential" situation to explore that "cognitive dissonance" called "theodicy." In my view, Augustine, Leibniz, Aquinas, Hick, Plantinga, et al. were all grasping at straws in their existential theodocies, although I can understand Augustine's struggle and possible superimposition of Platonic thinking, because the "duality" that says that "this" is an "imperfect" world, therefore a "perfect" world awaits us has been my only hope. Anyway, not to digress, but perhaps it is senseless to reduce "existential" evil to objective logical theological/philosophical categories as we are so accustomed. Because if you've experienced "experiential" evil on the level that I have described, you know that all this "seems" senseless and absurd. Everything seems absurd!

In my view, it is not the "existential" theodicy that bothers skeptics so much, but rather, the immediate apologetic of an "experiential" account - this, perhaps more than any other issue, causes more "cognitive dissonance" in the minds of skeptics (and Christians) than any other issue. Why not leave it to ambiguity or mystery if it is ambigous or mysterious"

One thing I noticed, however, is that the last time I took my wife to ER at the Univ. of FL -- well, while we were waiting in an ER room for the neurosurgeon to "grace us" with his presence (I was reading Camus - the absurdist, but I also had Swinburne there - the philosopher/theologian --- note the dichotomy) --- anyway, I noticed a lady across the hall (maybe 60-70 years old), and she was crying, and weeping, and moaning in a terrible way. She had had 36 surgeries up to that point (we didn't talk with her, but I heard one doctor speaking to another). And interesting, I recognized that "moan." It was so familiar to me that I contemplated just on the sound of that "moan." And then I figured it out -- it was the same "moan" (or type of "moan") that I remember from my father's funeral (he died when I was 24). And then I realized that there is really no difference between "emotional suffering" and/or "physical suffering." The "moans," the "tears," and the "pain" are the same. Suffering, whether emotional or physical, strikes the human being in the same way. Pain is Pain, plain and simple. Suffering is suffering. But why so many variations of the same sensation? A mystery.

I didn't know (and still don't know) the theological/philosophical answer to the question that I have been faced with. I do know that we have gone through the "worst time" of our entire lives these past several years (even worse than my father's death). And I could have developed or leaned on theodicies from an existential, philosophical perspective, but they would have been worthless to me at the time. When a person is going through a severe degree of "experiential" evil, something most people will experience in their lives, something that my wife and family have experienced -- we can only relate in "solidarity with Jesus" on the cross, when He said: "My God, my God, why have your forsaken (abandoned) me"? If anything, this helped us (and still helps us) to understand God's love for man, to die in solidarity with man and all his suffering (cf. Moltmann). Too often we only think of "the cross" from a salvific perspective, whereas it would do us well to ponder the "suffering God," who is on the cross, suffering and dying with us . . . and, of course, for us.

With this said, please read the below post regarding my attempt at understanding some sort of theodicy - i.e. the theodicy of "the crucified God," a most grand and all encompassing theodicy.

"The Crucified God" ~ A Most Grand and all-Encompassing Theodicy

by William J. Tsamis, M.A.
__________________________________________________

Saint Augustine wrote the following words about the Christian God:

He holds in his hands the causes of all things, knowing them all and connecting them all. Neither does his attention pass from thought to thought, for his knowledge embraces everything in one single spiritual intuitive embrace.  

He is wholly present everywhere, is confined by no frontiers and bound by no hinderances; and though his nature has no need of either heaven and earth, he fills them both with his presence and his power.1

In the "Theodicy of the Cross," it is the incarnation, persecution, suffering, and death of the theanthropic person Jesus of Nazareth that is paramount. Indeed, as we address the question, "Why would a good and omnipotent God permit evil and suffering to exist?", we will find that "all roads eventually lead to Calvary." The monstrous phrase "the crucified God" was first used by Martin Luther, and then other Reformers to indicate that the one on the cross at Calvary was none other than God the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, who endured the evils of the cross, not only suffering and dying "for" mankind, but suffering and dying "with" mankind as well. Indeed, when suffering mankind looks upon the poor and humiliated Christ hanging there helplessly on the cross, it is then, and only then, that suffering mankind recognizes his own misery and suffering, seeing it in another human being (Jesus), and thus he experiences solidarity with Christ, receiving the love of God in Christ.

The contemporary German theologian Jurgen Moltmann recalls the Negro spiritual from the slave era, when black slaves sang in unison, "Were you there, when they crucified my Lord? We, the black slaves, were there with him in his agony."2 Moltmann goes on to quote another scholar who has contemplated the slavery/suffering issue in great depth:

In Jesus's death black slaves saw themselves, and they unleashed their imagination in describing what they felt and saw . . . His death was a symbol of their suffering, trials and tribulations in an unfriendly world. They knew the agony of rejection and the pain of hanging from a tree . . . Because black slaves knew the significance of the pain and shame of Jesus's death on the cross, they found themselves by his side.3

Thus, for all those who suffer, whether they are dying, enslaved, starving, humiliated, rejected, impoverished, isolated, marginalized, mocked, or experiencing convulsions of extreme pain -- we can say that, to the extent that men contemplate the suffering of Christ on the cross, to that extent they are freed from their own sufferings by experiencing the peace that Christ brings in solidarity.

Thus, on the cross of Calvary, Jesus Christ has become the archetype for all those who suffer. It is only in Christianity, in the mystery of the Incarnation, where God becomes man and experiences suffering in such a paradigmatic form (the passion and the crucifixion), where all those who have suffered in any form, can look upon the cross and experience union with God. And even when we feel "abandoned" by God, when it seems that God is not hearing our prayers, when it seems that God has left us, we can join in solidarity with Jesus, who cried out on the cross, "My God, My God, Why have you [abandoned] me?" As Moltmann remarks, "Through his own abandonment by God, the crucified Christ brings God to those who feel abandoned by God."4

Now to the point of the "Theodicy of the Cross," let's remember the words of Saint Augustine as he described God as an extra-temporal, omniscient, omnipotent Supreme Being - indeed the Mysterium Tremendum. Thus, with God there is no such thing as time - so when Augustine says that "[God's thoughts are not successive]," he is essentially implying that God embraces "all knowledge," ranging from the microbiological changes which are occuring in every species that has ever lived and will yet live, to the galactic motions and complexities of physics on the micro-atomic scale. His knowledge embraces the "sum of all occurences" (past, present, and future). He comprehends the "sum of all human mental activity" (past, present, and future), and he does so in "one single intuitive millithought." In less than the time it takes you to snap your fingers, God knows EVERYTHING - and I mean EVERYTHING. For instance, if we were to take the "sum of all occurrences in the universe since the dawn of cosmological existence, from the atomic/microbiological realm to the galactic realm, from the conscious to the unconscious realm, phenomenal and noumenal, etc. -- essentially "everything" that has ever happened in this universe, or is happening in this universe, and everything that will happen in this universe -- God "knows" it all, including the emotional and physical pains that every human being has suffered, whether on a level which is typical for all human beings, or whether it is within the "viscious circles" where cultures of poverty, alienation, racism, etc. brew their evils. Thus, God's empathy correlates with his omniscience on a level which is simply beyond our comprehension and imaginative abilities. God is utterly unfathomable; thus as Saint Athanasius once wrote, "We can barely touch the hem of his garment." He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, who is, who was, and who is to come - the Almighty.

Now to the point! And here I will quote Fr. Malachi Martin, the late Jesuit professor at the Pontifical Institute in Rome, as he beautifully commented on "Why God decided to create the world as it is."

Creation was a decision that was integral in cause and effect from the start. God's view of what everybody would do at any given moment was identical with his view of what everybody did, does, and will do until the end of all time and space. That view was complete always. And every detail of the decision was taken integrally and wholly from eternity in view of every possible human action and reaction and result. The "centerpiece" of that decision was God's own choice to become man . . . God was to enter into an intimate relationship with matter, place, time, objects, and humans.5


Now, in applying this idea to "theodicy," I would say that the "centerpiece" of God's decision to create mankind, knowing the "actions, reactions, and results," was the very "cross of Calvary" where he would hang there "himself" between two criminals. "The Crucified God," then, is at the very epicenter of human existence. In other words, if we were to draw a circle, signifying the "sum total of reality in the universe - past, present, and future," and if we were to note within that circle various genocides, wars, exploitations, famines, and hundreds of other evils and sufferings, we would simply denote a "point" at the very center of that grand circle, and that "point" would symbolize "The Crucified God" at Calvary. Thus, in the synthesis of the transcendent God, the Triune God, the Incarnation, and the Passion and Crucifixion we find "a most grand and all-encompassing theodicy" -- yes, a reality of evil and suffering, but a reality where the God of the universe descends into the human realm, and experiences that evil and suffering, collectively in himself, suffering and dying "for" mankind, and suffering and dying "with" mankind. What wondrous love is this . . . ?
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References

1. Saint Augustine, City of God

2. Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, 1991

3. T. Lehmann, Negro Spirituals "Geshichte and Theologie," 1965 in Moltmann

4. Moltmann

5. Malachi Martin, Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Living Americans, 1976

Jesus' Burial Site Found? Says Who?

Ynet (Israeli Culture Magazine) -- New film documents discovery of Jerusalem cave containing ten caskets believed to hold remains of Jesus, Mary, Mary Magdalene and others

Ynet Article 2/23/07

"The cave in which Jesus Christ was buried has been found in Jerusalem, claim the makers of a new documentary film," so says the article above from the popular Israeli news and culture netzine.

It seems that every Easter season we are exposed to books, news releases and films that are supposed to bury God once and for all. Well, this year, James Cameron (of Titanic/Terminator) fame is seeking to overshadow last year's entry, "The Da Vinci Code." However, this two-hour program, which will air Mar 4, 2007, is not simply a work of "fiction," as is the work of Dan Brown, "The Da Vinci Code," which is based on an earlier discredited hypothesis set forth in the Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln pop mystery, "Holy Blood, Holy Grail." In contrast, the "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" special is about an "assembled team of international scholars" who have brought to light a fantastic tomb from the first century, which was once filled with ten ossuaries (bone boxes) which are inscribed with such names (Anglicized here) as Jesus, son of Joseph, Maria, Mariamne, Jose (Joses), Matai (Matthew), and unexplainably, Judah, son of Jesus (not to mention the further allegation that a "missing ossuary" is none other than that of the famous James, son of Joseph, 'brother of Jesus' - which is also a highly controversial issue in its own right).

Allegedly, it is presented that finding a "family" tomb with this name cluster makes it virtually certain that this is the final resting place of many in Jesus of Nazareth's family, including JNaz himself. Supposedly, it will not be presented as a threat to Christianity or even the doctrine of the resurrection -- remember, this is supposedly pure science at work - the film's underlying hypothesis will be that JNaz was indeed married to Mary Magdalene, the Beloved Disciple of the Johannine Gospel is none other than his "son" (who laid on his breast during the Last Supper), Joseph of Arimathea "temporarily" placed his body in a tomb because of the Sabbath until the family/disciples could move the body to a final resting place, JNaz would have been lain/buried in this Talpiyot tomb (in a shroud) for one year until his body would decompose at which time the family would have collected his bones and put them in an ossuary in the same tomb, Mary Magdalene would go on to be a true "teacher/master" of the gnosis of JNaz (compare the sisters of Philip being prophetesses - cf. Acts of the Apostles), and so on. It will be interesting to see if the film presents anything else . . . I'm sure it will.

The truth is that this alleged "Jesus Family Tomb" (Talpiyot site) is really old news - i.e. it was discovered in 1980 by legitimate archaeologists. Scholars and archaeologists have known about it for years, and if it were true, we certainly would have heard about it from the establishment, especially those who have gone to extreme lengths to disprove the resurrection. However, the commonality of the names in Israel at the time makes this virtually impossible to "prove" that we have here our very own "Jesus of Nazareth." In fact, Dr. Amos Kloner, the expert archaeologist who was the overseer of this excavation says that the "chances" that we have discovered the ossuary (bone box) of JNaz are "virtually zero."

Nevertheless, we can be sure that James Cameron's "international team of scholars" will fashion and edit this film in such a way as to convince many that "JNaz was buried in Jerusalem along with his family, and the resurrection is really a matter of faith." Or that Paul was really teaching about a 'spiritual resurrection,' not a 'bodily resurrection.' Although such claims can be refuted with conventional resurrection apologetics, I'm sure we will be hearing quite a bit of academic dissent against the film's claim from both liberal and conservative scholars. Cameron's "international team of scholars," seems, at this point, to be everyone from the popular amateur archaeologist/journalist (Simcha Jacobovici - The Naked Archaeologist, Exodus Decoded - History Channel), a writer and paleo-biologist (Charles Pellegrino), and James Tabor (yes, he is a biblical scholar -- however, Tabor is already invested in this thesis (cf. his book The Jesus Dynasty). As with such documentaries, I anticipate that other scholars will be consulted, yet their expertise will be compartmentalized and edited -- i.e. they will comment on certain things (e.g., "Yes, this is a first century ossuary") -- but their opinions regarding the underlying hypothesis will be wholly missing (at least until they can comment later in journals and so on). Apart from that, it will make for good television, along with amusing refutation and pushback. At this point, prior to its release on the Discovery Channel, the film and hypothesis has received such media hype and promotion (Cameron's $$) that I expect millions of people will be watching. Sadly, few will follow the scholarly discussion that will ensue . . . For those of you are interested in the ensuing scholarly discussion, I will provide links to scholarly websites as the discussion unfolds. NOTE: This is James Cameron's second adventure into biblical studies with Jacobovici and Pellegrino - the first attempt, The Exodus Decoded, was harshly criticized by the academic world. -- see Higgaion , Associates for Biblical Research

• Discovery Channel
• Jesus Family Tomb (Simcha Jacobovici)
• NT Gateway
• Joe Zias - Israeli Antiquities Authority
• Society of Biblical Literature (Jodi Magness)
• Society of Biblical Literature (Scholars' Forum)
• Y-Jesus
• Gary Habermas
• Craig Blomberg
• Ben Witherington
• Darrell Bock
• Amos Kloner
• James Tabor
• Craig Evans
• Statistics Challenged
• Richard Bauckham
• Chris Rosebrough
• Michael Heiser (2003 paper on the topic)
• Stephen Pfann (On the alleged Mary Magdelene ossuary)
• The James Ossuary - Biblical Archaeology Review
• The James Ossuary - New photos from the 1970s prove authenticity?
• Jesus Tomb Film Scholars Backtrack - Jerusalem Post 4/11/07

American Suicide

"What is happening to us? An immigrant invasion of the United States from the Third World, as America's white majority is no longer even reproducing itself. Since Roe v. Wade, America has aborted 45 million of her children. And Asia, Africa and Latin America have sent 45 million of their children to inherit the estate the aborted American children never saw. God is not mocked." Patrick J Buchanan

Guns and Scissors - Weapons of Choice

It is predictable, I guess, that the same week we mourn the death of innocents (VA Tech, Columbine), certain politicos and media outlets are, on the one hand, expressing their outrage that such a massacre (i.e. the violent murder of innocent life) should occur in a safe-haven (a school) which is designed to ensure the blossoming and maturation of the living human being into the next stage on the life continuum, yet on the other hand, these very same charlatans are, at the same time, condemning the Supreme Court’s decision regarding Gonzales v. Carhart, thus denying that “other” human beings are to be ensured their chance to blossom and mature into the next stage of their life continuum. The irony here can only make one cynical. Either we will have a “culture of life” or a “culture of death.” Read it . . . Gonazles v. Carhart -- April 18, 2007

Since the horror of the the D&X abortion procedure (sometimes called D&E or Partial-Birth Abortion) was first devised by Dr. Martin Haskell (the famed abortionist) in 1992, those of us in the pro-life movement have been working and contributing greatly to the overthrow of this barbaric practice, utilized by Haskell and any unconsciounable abortionist who was willing to learn and implement the procedure with regard to late-term abortions. (Note, this was after the abortion blockades and rescues of the 1980s.) Simply put, it was a matter of ousting the existing Democrat regime in Congress, putting in place "social conservatives" who would see this horror for what it truly was - and after numerous "congressional hearings" on the matter (see below), the consensus (including the majority of the American populace) agreed that such barbarism, bordering infantide, had to be done away with. This occurred in 1994 with the so-called Republican revolution. (Note: This sentiment does not advocate the policies of the Bush administration, i.e. apart from the expected appointment of two critical justices on the bench of the Supreme Court).

Now, of course I know that "Jesus is not a Republican, a Democrat, a Libertarian, a Whig, a No-Nothing, a Marxist, a Puerto Rican Socialist, a Green, a Pharisee or a Sadducee or a member of any political party." He is the theanthropic person Jesus Christ, "God of God, Light of Light, True God of True God" plain and simple. Those who use such idiotic slogans (e.g. "Jesus is not a Republican" - Jim Wallis comes to mind) are not telling us anything. Those who want to remind us with their bumper stickers that "Jesus is not a Republican" are pure imbeciles.) Now certainly there are numerous issues where grave injustice occurs in society, not only in America but also throughout the world. Christians "must" give their whole being in trying to be "salt and light" and a refuge for those who are among the least fortunate in this world. And as far as I can see, Evangelical, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches have been doing just that. At the same time, however, these same Christian groups, in accord with the teachings of the Didache (c. 100) -- "Thou shalt not slay a child by abortion" -- along with Canon Law, have set the standard that killing a fetus (Lat. for "child") is an extenstion of biblical law (Exo 20:13 - "Thou shalt not murder.") NOTE: see the article below called "Abortion: Child Sacrifice in the Modern Age" (and also see below Naomi Wolf's admission regarding "abortion" in another article -- Mrs. Wolf, of course, is pro-choice, yet the interview is quite revealing).

Since Haskell, however, in 1992, it became evident that the late-term surgical abortion practice was becoming "so brutal and horrific" (not that other abortions are any more humane), that it was time. Even pro-choice moderates who would allow for abortion in the first trimester were horrified when they heard the gruesome testimony regarding Haskell's 'partial-birth abortion' procedure, where he, himself, admitted that 80% of these late-term abortions were done for "elective" reasons. Anyway, the Democrat regime was voted out of congress in 1994, the "social conservatives" were voted in; however, the trouble was President Bill Clinton, who like most Democrats, are faithful to the hyper-utilitarian left and the pro-abortion lobby - $$, would not sign a "ban on the 'partial-birth abortion procedure,'" despite the congressional testimonies of medical professionals and ethicists who deemed it a case of barbarism second to none.

However, now the landscape has changed. The "Carhart Case" (which has been swimming around Washington for several years now) -- by the way, Leroy Carhart was a Nebraskan abortionist who worked with the infamous George Tiller of Witchita -- a child killer extraordinaire who even has an incinerator on his premises -- anyway, it was now the turn of pro-lifers, with a "socially conservative congress" and a "socially conservative president" (George W. Bush) to reintroduce the "Carhart Case" to the Supreme Court, the court being tilted slightly to the "right" with Bush's appointments of Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

The decision below speaks for itself . . . Either read it and rejoice, or read it and weep. But to mourn the Virginia Tech and Columbine "murdered," and at the same time condemn the opinion of the Supreme Court regarding the killing of late-term fetuses (Lat. "children"), i.e. at least the killing of 3,000 to 5,000 pre-born babies a year (according to figures provided by Ron Fitzsimmons, once director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers -- you do the math over the years) is simply a contradiction which demonstrates that many politicos (including, Hillary, Obama, Edwards, ad nauseum) along with their media partners (too many to mention) are so disgusting, vile and abhorrent, bought and paid for by Planned Parenthood, NOW, NARrAL, NCAP, etc.), that I would have to seriously restrain myself from using language which is truly fitting for such people.

I have provided numerous links below to demonstrate that it isn't just conservative Christians who abhor "Abortion," but other faith communities, physicians, feminists, "liberals," atheists, and so on. Pope John Paul II simply called it a "culture of life." Yes, we have a long way to go. But the more and more "science" teaches us about the embryo and the fetus, through sonograms and fetoscopy, perhaps we'll see the decency of the American populace come to the fight!

First, though, do yourself a favor as an American citizen and read the Supreme Court opinion, Gonzales v. Carhart. Also, read below some of the excerpts which I have isolated from the document. Gonzales v. Carhart - April 18, 2007

Some excerpts from Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion - 4/18/07

"Intact D&E gained public notoriety when, in 1992, Dr. Martin Haskell gave a presentation describing his method of performing the operation. Dilation and Extraction 110–111. In the usual intact D&E the fetus’ head lodges in the cervix, and dilation is insufficient to allow it to pass. See, e.g., ibid.; App. in No. 05–380, at 577; App. in No. 05–1382, at 74, 282. Haskell explained the next step as follows:

“ ‘At this point, the right-handed surgeon slides the fingers of the left [hand] along the back of the fetus and “hooks” the shoulders of the fetus with the index and ring fingers (palm down).

“ ‘While maintaining this tension, lifting the cervix and applying traction to the shoulders with the fingers of the left hand, the surgeon takes a pair of blunt curved Metzenbaum scissors in the right hand. He carefully advances the tip, curved down, along the spine and under his middle finger until he feels it contact the base of the skull under the tip of his middle finger.

“ ‘[T]he surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull or into the foramen magnum. Having safely entered the skull, he spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening.

“ ‘The surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents. With the catheter still in place, he applies traction to the fetus, removing it completely from the patient.’ ” H. R. Rep. No. 108–58, p. 3 (2003). This is an abortion doctor’s clinical description.

"Here is another description from a nurse who witnessed the same method performed on a 26-week fetus and who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee:

“ ‘Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the baby’s legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby’s body and the arms—everything but the head. The doctor kept the head right inside the uterus… .

“ ‘The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall.

“ ‘The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp…

“ ‘He cut the umbilical cord and delivered the placenta. He threw the baby in a pan, along with the placenta and the instruments he had just used.’ ” Ibid.

"The Act proscribes a method of abortion in which a fetus is killed just inches before completion of the birth process. Congress stated as follows: “Implicitly approving such a brutal and inhumane procedure by choosing not to prohibit it will further coarsen society to the humanity of not only newborns, but all vulnerable and innocent human life, making it increasingly difficult to protect such life.” Congressional Findings (14)(N), in notes following 18 U. S. C. §1531 (2000 ed., Supp. IV), p. 769. The Act expresses respect for the dignity of human life.

"The State has an interest in ensuring so grave a choice is well informed. It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns, only after the event, what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce the skull and vacuum the fast-developing brain of her unborn child, a child assuming the human form.

"Congress determined no medical schools provide instruction on the prohibited procedure . . . Congress also found there existed a medical consensus that the prohibited procedure is never medically necessary."

• National Right to Life Committee
• Misconceptions and Realities on 'Partial Birth Abortion'
• British Physicians Becoming Skittish About Abortion
• Doctors For Life International - A Host of Issues
• Jews For Life
• Feminists For Life
• Liberals For Life > More
• Agnostic and Atheist Pro Life League
• Libertarians For Life

Naomi Wolf on Abortion - Pro- Choice Feminist

The pro-choice movement often treats with contempt the pro-lifers’ practice of holding up to our faces their disturbing graphics....[But] how can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real? To insist that truth is in poor taste is the very height of hypocrisy. Besides, if these images are often the facts of the matter, and if we then claim that it is offensive for pro-choice women to be confronted by them, then we are making a judgment that women are too inherently weak to face a truth about which they have to make a grave decision. This view is unworthy of feminism.16

16 Naomi Wolf, “Our Bodies, Our Souls,” The New Republic, 16 October 1996.
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I decided to share this classic piece on abortion from Naomi Wolf, the third wave feminist scholar and sociologist - perhaps the leading feminist thinker in America. Wolf is pro-choice - and though she is married and a mother, she holds to more progressive feminist beliefs, discarding the old feminism as something that had many countereffects in the whole collective ambition for women's rights.

Her famous piece in "The New Republic" was revolutionary in the sense that it posited that feminists look at abortion "honestly" for the first time, yet at the same time retain the issue of "abortion" as something moral and acceptable. In classic Hegelian logic (thesis > antithesis > synthesis), Wolf tried to come up with an honest synthesis which possessed many problems for the pro-choice movement.

I have reprinted it here, with a "letter to the editor" from a prominent abortionist:
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OUR BODIES, OUR SOULS : Rethinking pro-choice rhetoric
By Naomi Wolf OCTOBER 16,1995 THE NEW REPUBLIC

NAOMI WOLF is the author of Fire with Fire: The New, Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century (Ballantine).

By refusing to look at abortion within a moral framework, we lose the millions of Americans who want to support abortion as a legal right but still need to condemn it as a moral iniquity. Their ethical allegiances are then addressed by the pro-life ovement, which is willing to speak about good and evil.

But we are also in danger of losing something more important than votes; we stand in jeopardy of losing what can only be called our souls. Clinging to a rhetoric about abortion in which there is no life and no death, we entangle our beliefs in a series of self-delusions, fibs and evasions. And we risk becoming precisely what our critics charge us with being: callous, selfish and casually destructive men and women who share a cheapened view of human life.

I still maintain that we need to contextualize the fight to defend abortion rights within a moral framework that admits that the death of a fetus is a real death; that there are degrees of culpability, judgement and responsibility involved in the decision to abort a pregnancy...Norma McCorvey should be seen as an object lesson for the pro-choice movement -- a call to us to search our souls and take another, humbler look at how we go about what we are doing. For McCorvey is in fact an American Everywoman: she is the lost middle of the abortion debate, the woman whose allegiance we forfeit by our refusal to use a darker and sterner and more honest moral rhetoric.

With the pro-choice rhetoric we use now, we incur three destructive consequences --two ethical, one strategic: hardness of heart, lying and political failure. Stories surface regularly about "worthless" babies left naked on gratings or casually dropped out of windows, while "valuable," genetically correct babies are created at vast expense and with intricate medical assistance for infertile couples.

If we fail to treat abortion with grief and reverence, we risk forgetting that, when it comes to the children we choose to bear, we are here to serve them -- whomever they are; they are not here to serve us....those footprints are in fact the footprints of a 10-week-old fetus, the pro-life slogan, "Abortion stops a beating heart," is incontrovertibly true. While images of violent fetal death work significently for pro-lifers as political polemic, the pictures are not polemical in themselves: they are biological facts. We know this.

So, what will it be: Wanted fetuses are charming, complex REM-dreaming little beings whose profile on the sonogram looks just like Daddy, but unwanted ones are mere "uterine material"? How can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real? To insist that the truth is in poor taste is the very height of hypocrisy. Besides, if these images are often the facts of the matter, and if we then claim that it is offensive for pro-choice women to be confronted by them, then we are making the judgment that women are too inherently weak to face a truth about which they have to make a grave decision. This view of women is unworthy of feminism. Free women must be strong women, too: and strong women, presumably do not seek to cloak their most important decisions in euphemism.

There is only one reason I've ever heard for having an abortion: the desire to be a good mother"-- this is a falsehood that condescends to women struggling to be true agents of their own souls.... there were two columns in my mind -- "Me" and "Baby " -- and the first won out. Now, freedom means that women must be free to choose self or to choose selfishly. There is no easy way to deny the powerful argument that a woman's equality in society must give her some irreducible rights unique to her biology including the right to take the life within her life. Grief and respect are the proper tones for all discussions about choosing to endanger or destroy manifestation of life.

Sometimes the mother must be able to decide that the fetus, in its full humanity, must die. But it is never right or necessary to minimize the value of the lives involved or the sacrifice incurred in letting them go. Only if we uphold abortion rights within a matrix of individual conscience, atonement and responsibility can we both correct the logical and ethical absurdity in our position and consolidate the support of the center.

In a time of retrenchment, how can I be so sure that a more honest and moral rhetoric about abortion will consolidate rather than scuttle abortion rights? Look at what Americans themselves say. When a recent Newsweek poll asked about support for abortion using the rare phrasing, "It's a matter between a woman, her doctor, her family, her conscience and her God," a remarkable 72 percent of the respondents called that formulation "about right." This represents a gain of thirty points over the abortion rights support registered in the latest Gallup poll, which asked about abortion without using the words "God" or "conscience."

When participants in the Gallup poll were asked if they supported abortion "under any circumstances" only 32 percent agreed; only 9 percent more supported it under "most" circumstances. Clearly, abortion rights are safest when we are willing to submit them to a morality beyond just our bodies and our selves.

But how, one might ask, can I square a recognition of the humanity of the fetus, and the moral ravity of destroying it, with a pro-choice position? The answer can only be found in the context f a paradigm abandoned by the left and misused by the right: the paradigm of sin and redemption.

We have no ground on which to say that abortion is a necessary evil that should be faced and opposed in the realm of conscience and action and even soul; yet remain legal. But American society is struggling to find its way forward to a discourse of right and wrong that binds together a common thic for the secular and the religious. When we do that, we create a moral discourse that can exist in its own right independent of legislation, and we can find ground to stand upon.

We on the left tend to twitch with discomfort at that word "sin." Too often we have become religiously illiterate, and so we deeply misunderstand the word. But in all of the great religious traditions, our recognition of sin, and then our atonement for it, brings on God's compassion and our redemption. In many faiths, justice is linked, as it is in medieval Judaism and in Buddhism, to compassion. From Yom Kippur and the Ash Wednesday-to-Easter cycle to the Hindu idea of karma, the individual's confrontation with her or his own culpability is the first step toward ways to create and receive more light.

How could one live with a conscious view that abortion is an evil and still be pro-choice? Through acts of redemption, or that the Jewish mystical tradition calls tikkun or "mending." Laurence Tribe, in Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes, notes that "Memorial services for the souls of aborted fetuses are fairly common in contemporary Japan" where abortions are both legal and readily available. Shinto doctrine holds that women should make offerings to the fetus to help it rest in peace; Buddhists once erected statues of the spirit guardian of children to honor aborted fetuses (called "water children" or "unseeing children"). ....if pro-lifers did to women what they do to abortion doctors... The pro-life movement would have to address the often all-too-pressing good reasons that lead good people to abort. That would be intolerable, a tactical defeat for the pro-life movement, and as sure to lose it "the mushy middle" as the pro-choice movement's tendency toward rhetorical coldness loses it the same constituency. *(NOTE: Regarding Laurence Tribe's allusion to the memorial services in Japan where "atonement" is procured see the following in First Things Apologizing to the Babies

Now imagine such a democracy, in which women would be valued so very highly as a world that is accepting and responsible about human sexuality; in which there is no coerced sex without serious jailtime: in which there are affordable, safe contraceptives available for the taking in every public health building; in which there is economic parity for women -- and basic economic subsistence for every baby born; and in which every young American woman knows about and understands her natural desire as a treasure to cherish, and responsibly, when the time is right, on her own terms, to share.

In such a world, in which the idea of gender as a barrier has become a dusty artifact, we would probably use a very different language about what would be -- then -- the rare and doubtless traumatic event of abortion. That language would probably call upon respect and responsibility, grief and mourning. In that world we might well describe the unborn and the never-to-be-born with the honest words of life. And in that world, passionate feminists might well hold *candlelight vigils at abortion clinics, standing shoulder to shoulder with the doctors who work there, commemorating and saying goodbye to the dead." ~ END

*This imagery of the "Abortion Clinic" as a shrine is interestingly foreseen by Aldous Huxley in his book "Brave New World" (1930s). As to whether or not Ms. Wolf was aware of the parallel I know not.
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Next, I have reprinted a "letter to the editor" which was written to the New Republic from a prominent abortionist who was utterly confounded by Ms. Wolf's piece of pro-choice honest reflection. Lately, Ms. Wolf has been confounding many in the feminist community on a number of issues.
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Dear Editor,

I am saddened by Ms. Naomi Wolf's claim to speak in a revolutionary new moral tone about abortion. Her article makes short shrift of people like myself who have been doing abortions for over 20 years and who have quietly believed and acted in what I thought was a moral way for all those years.

Perhaps if Ms. Wolf had taken the time to speak with some of us, she wouldn't have felt so alone in her views. Her claim that pro-choice rhetoric has arrogantly demeaned women is suspect in view of her own arrogant dismissal of her high school classmates' having abortions as being like "getting a fraternity pin"! Whatever Ms. Wolf may believe, she clearly has not stood in the operating room thousands of times watching and supporting these same young women as they grieve their lost pregnancies. For many of these women, it is also a time of loss of a relationship, of the support of their families, of the life plan that they had for themselves. As a physician, I have a grave but welcome responsibility to honor and validate my patients when I see them at such vulnerable and psychologically defenseless moments in their lives.

I have performed abortions for many tens of thousands of women and I have supported them in their grief and sorrow and have tried to allay some of their universal feelings of shame. Women are to be honored for making these difficult decisions; they do not make them in haste or in a moral vacuum! My clinic has long offered women the opportunity to see the embryos or fetuses after the abortion, to see the ultrasound picture before or after the procedure, and to own the full spectrum of their feelings around this most intimate decision. To choose to abort a pregnancy is indeed an intensely personal decision. That it is personal does not somehow deny that it is also deeply moral as Ms. Wolf seems to imply.

I do agree with Ms. Wolf that an abortion is a traumatic event, but that does not mean that it is not also possible for it to be a major life-affirming event for the woman as well. I also agree with Dr. Elizabeth Karlin that a woman is doing the best that she can at that moment in her existence when she chooses an abortion -- even if that sometimes can be expressed only as "I just know I couldn't be a very good mom right now". I wish that Ms. Wolf could have acknowledged in her "soul" that many of us in the prochoice movement have been quietly living her "new morality" for over 20 years.

Sincerely,

Suzanne T. Poppema, MD
Medical Director, Aurora Medical Services
*My Note: "I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy." ~ The Hippocratic Oath

Paradise Lost

"Against the throne and Monarchy of God

He rais'd impious War in Heav'n and Battel proud

With vain attempt.  Him the Almighty Power

Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie

With hideous ruin and combustion down

To bottomless perdition, there to dwell

In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire."    --  MILTON

The Feast of Basil the Great

I had wasted much time on follies and spent nearly all my youth in vain labors, and devotion to the teachings of a wisdom that God had made foolish (1 Cor. 1:20). Suddenly I awoke as out of a deep sleep. I beheld the wonderful light of the Gospel truth, and I recognized the nothingness of the wisdom of the princes of this world that was come to naught (1 Cor. 2:6). I shed a flood of tears over my wretched life, and I prayed for a guide who might form in me the principles of piety.

These are the words of the powerful fourth century Christian thinker, Basil of Caesarea, who along with his brother, Gergory of Nyssa, and his life-long friend Gregory of Nazianzus, came to be known as the Cappadocian Fathers, a trio of theological giants who continued the tradition of Athanasius into the late fourth century, hence for Basil, the title, "Basil the Great."

In the Eastern Church Basil has always been associated with January 1 because it was on that day in A.D. 379 that he died, not even quite fifty years of age. Almost immediately after his death January 1st became denoted as the Feast of St. Basil in the East and is celebrated to this day.

Basil was one of ten children from a solid Christian family, but it wouldn't be until much later that he would draw his conclusions about Christianity. Schooled at the greatest institutions of learning, including Constantinople and Athens, where his classmates included the future emperor Julian (361-363), the infamous "Apostate," and Gregory of Nazianzus with whom he forged a strong brotherly friendship, Basil was one of the great intellectuals of the time. In addition to his erudite nature, Basil's interest in the ascetic life along with his compassion for the poor marked him for a sacrificial life in the pastorate. His "shelter" for the homeless poor (called "Newtown"), which would also provide medical treatment and the teaching of work-skills would become a model institution for other dioceses.

Among his many achievements, Basil is most known for his emphasis on the unity of the Church, his liturgy (the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great), and his beautiful oratories (e.g. the "Hexaemeron" = "The Six Days [of Creation]", where he teaches the Christian view of the creation as opposed to pagan ideas such as Manicheism and the like); and most importantly his teachings which defended the Nicene doctrine of the "Logos" and its implications. A long friend and ally of Athanasius as well, Basil was the first to define "once and for all," the concrete meanings and distinctions of the creedal words "ousia" and "hypostases." His important work on the divine nature of the Holy Spirit (De Spiritu Sanctu) is to be noted as well.

In addition to his academic strengths, he also demonstrated a strength of a different kind (as we see in this story recorded by the hand of Gregory of Nazianzus). It concerned the Emperor Valens (364-378) and his Prefect Modestus in Cappadocia (modern day Turkey). It happened in the wake of Eusebius the historian's death in 370 when Basil became bishop of Caesarea (neo-Caesarea) in Cappadocia, and the Emperor Valens, who had Arian leanings was trying to establish Arianism in the region of Cappadocia. As the story goes, the Prefect Modestus approached Basil and threatened him with confiscation and exile if he did not cede to the wishes of the Emperor. Basil responded,

"The confiscation of goods does not harm one who has nothing, unless perchance, for these tortures and sufferings you need a cloak and a few books which are my whole life. Exile I do not know, for I am bound to no one place: not only this my own land in which I live, but the whole world into which I may be banished, I hold as my own, for the whole world is of God, whose dweller and sojourner I am."

Modestus replied, "No one has ever spoken to me in such a manner!"

And Basil replied, Perhaps you have never met a bishop before... Fire, swords, beasts and the instruments for tearing the flesh are wished for by us as delights more than horrors. Afflict us with such torture, threaten, do all that you can now devise, enjoy your power. Also, let the Emperor hear this, that at all events you will not persuade us nor win us over to the impious doctrine [Arianism], though you threaten with cruel deeds.

Here, then, is Basil the Great ... and as you might imagine, the Emperor Valens abandoned any ideas of subduing the Bishop of Caesarea after this futile confrontation.

So, as we move into the New Year, perhaps we should spend some time and consider the life and writings of Basil the Great. Certainly, if we are without "resolutions," to study the lives of the Saints, whether it be Basil or another, we will find great strength from the lives of these Christian heroes who have gone before us.

Basil the Great - Modeling the Trinity after the Man

The Life of St. Basil

The Life of St. Basil (4 Parts)

The Hexaemeron (The Six Days)

Athanasius - "The Black Dwarf"

"Black Dwarf was the tag his enemies gave him. And the short, dark-skinned Egyptian bishop had plenty of enemies. He was exiled five times by four Roman emperors, spending 17 of the 45 years he served as bishop of Alexandria in exile. Yet in the end, his theological enemies were "exiled" from the church's teaching, and it is Athanasius's writings that shaped the future of the church." Read on .....

Athanasius - The Black Dwarf

Athanasius

Mark Noll Sings the Praises of Jaroslav Pelikan

"For those who believe that you don't need tradition because you have the Bible," he reflects, "The Christian Tradition has sought to say, 'You are not entitled to the beliefs you cherish about such things as the Holy Trinity without a sense of what you owe to those who worked this out for you.' To circumvent Saint Athanasius on the assumption that if you put me alone in a room with the New Testament, I will come up with the doctrine of the Trinity, is naive." Jaroslav Pelikan

So says the great Church historian Jaroslav Pelikan. Too many evangelicals are under the false impression that studying Church History is an unecessary task. Many settle for summary works which are usually biased toward a particular tradition.

Do yourself a favor: Read Pelikan's classic 5 volume set, and at the same time begin integrating some of the great works of the Church Fathers. If you truly want to understand the history of Christianity from a focused, objective view, begin with Jaroslav Pelikan. So says the evangelical scholar Mark Noll ("The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind"). In Noll's words, "Jaroslav Pelikan has written a history of the Christian tradition on a scale no one else has attempted in the twentieth century."

The Doctrine Doctor

The Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church

People are often mystified by the Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church. No, it isn't like the Mass of the Roman Catholic Church. Nor is it like the different Protestant Churches, each with its own pastor and particular emphasis. The Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church is "fixed," and it has been thus since the Nicene Era (4th-5th cent.)

Whether one goes to an Eastern Orthodox Church in Chicago, Los Angeles, Toronto, Moscow, Athens or Thessalonica, one will hear precisely the "same" liturgy that was written by Saint John Chrysostom (the "golden-mouthed") in the 4th century. Sure, the language might be different - Greek or Slavic, but the liturgy is the same, and I know many English speaking people who have been able to follow the liturgy by using the liturgical manual, which has the English translation.

So what is this liturgy all about? Yes, when you walk into an Eastern Orthodox Church your senses are filled - smells of incense, beautiful iconography, Byzantine chants. And if you are theologically astute, and you understand the Eastern Orthodox theology of worship, then the entire church becomes a theological feast as you sing hymns and pray in unison with the faithful, citing ancient creeds and confessions of faith.

Sadly, many of the churches are nominalistic and ethno-centric rather than Christo-centric; however, for the student of theology, there can only be appreciation for the high theology and christology that this church has to offer.

So, introduce yourselves to the "Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church." I think you'll be pleasantly surprised, just as C.S. Lewis was when he first experienced it ..... Introduction to the Divine Liturgy

So much for the "James Ossuary" . . .

"Israel Antiquities Collector to Be Charged," so said the recent article by Associated Press writer, Karin Laub. Not that I ever thought the "James Ossuary" could overcome the negative scholarly criticism levelled against it, and thus be regarded as an inconvtrovertible archaeological discovery, notwithstanding the committment and argumentation forwarded by such supportive scholars as Hershel Shanks and Ben Witherington III. There was just simply too much ambiguity surrounding the debate - something akin to the "Turin Shroud Controversy."

To deepen the controversy (and perhaps kill it), a documentary broadcast on Israeli television earlier this year touted Obed Golan, the antiquities collector who "discovered" the so-called bone-box, as a "talented con man who made millions of dollars selling forged antiquites to gullible buyers around the world." This seems to concur with CBS reporter Bob Simon's findings regarding Golan, the Ossuary, and alleged shenanigans. The Stone Box

Is this just another example of the political conflict between professional archaeologists and the amateur adventurers? Or is this a truthful tale about Golan, which would seem to serve as a deathblow to his credibility?

For those who are interested in the debate, see the article by Karin Laub. In the meantime, I am eagerly awaiting a response from either Shanks or Witherington, both who have committed their reputation to publication in their book The Brother of Jesus: The Dramatic Story & Meaning of the First Archaeological Link to Jesus & His Family in which they claimed that the James Ossuary was "the most astonishing find in the history of archaeology."

See Karin Laub's story at: Israel Antiquities Collector to Be Charged

"Christ is Risen"

"If Christ is not risen from the dead, then our preaching is in vain and so is your faith; Moreover, we are nothing more than liars and false witnesses, because we have been testifying that Christ has risen from the dead. And if Christ has not risen, then your faith is worthless" (1 Corinthians 15:14-15, 17) ~ Paul - 55-56 AD
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In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Christian believers have a tradition where they greet each other with the words "Christ is risen" and "Truly he is risen," instead of the typical conventional greetings which are used from day to day. This sanctified greeting begins on Easter and continues for forty days. Interestingly, the Greeks use the term "Pascha," which is derived from "pesach" or "Passover," instead of "Easter," which, according to the Venerable Bede, was derived from Ēastre, the Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility. In the Eastern churches, "the liturgy of Pascha" is filled with rich liturgical "symbolism," which, to the Western eye, appears as pure sacerdotalism. However, to those familiar with liturgical theology, the "paschal liturgy" expresses the themes of incarnation, humiliation and conquest. Indeed, the Lord and Savior has humbled himself unto torture, death and burial; but on the third day he has risen again to conquer death even as an exalted king tramples underfoot his enemies. "O grave where is thy victory, o death where is thy sting" (1 Cor 15).

Origins of Pascha

Paschal Encyclical 333 - Athanasius

Paschal Encyclical 2004 - Patriarch Bartholomew

In the Roman Catholic Church we have Pope John Paul II giving what could be his very last Easter message to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square:

Pope John Paul II's Easter Message 2004

And in the Protestant West, where "symbolism" and "liturgical tradition" are not emphasized as in the East, we see Easter approached in an intellectual light, from exegesis to apologetics. For the past few centuries, Protestantism (especially the conservative Christian movements) has been faced with the challenges of naturalism and other hostile philosophies which deny an historical resurrection; thus, many brilliant minds within Protestantism have developed powerful apologetic arguments, not only to defend the historicity of the resurrection, but to assail all liberal hypotheses and expose all weaknesses in the case against the resurrection of Jesus.

The Historical Jesus - Numerous Articles by William Lane Craig

Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History? - Yamauchi

Contradictions in the Resurrection Narratives?

What about Y'shua's Resurrection? - Jews for Jesus

Good Friday

H Agia kai h Megalh Paraskeuh (The Holy and Big Friday) is, with the birth and resurrection of Christ, celebrated as one of most important days in the Christian calendar, primarily in the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Episcopal and other liturgical churches. As the day of Christ's suffering and death on the cross it is a somber and most melancholy day, for it is the day foreordained by God that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son would die a horrendous death in the stead of man, at once demonstrating the "love" and "justice/wrath" of God at the "place of the skull." Heaven and earth would collide, and the relationship between God and man would be restored by our wondrous Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

For nearly 2,000 years, theologians and lay people have contemplated this most magnific of all meditations, yet there is no exhausting or expending the universe of ideas associated with "Good Friday." The occasion which took place on that one single day so long ago will forever exhilirate and inspire the spiritual man to reflect on the person of the mighty God who worked nothing but extraordinary wonders on that "Holy Friday."

I have provided some links below for your perusal (very beneficial in understanding liturgical worship). The first link is an article from the Greek Orthodox Church while the second link bears the stamp of the Byzantine Catholic Rite (Eastern Catholics). While reading the words of the liturgy, imagine hymnic melodies which impart the ominous dirges of the Eastern Orthodox or Medieval Church. Thus, by reading the words and imaginatively pairing them with Byzantine hymnic motifs, you can get an idea just how "immense" and "weighty" such liturgical worship might sound.

Great Friday - Article

Vespers for Holy and Great Friday

Hosanna to the Son of David" - Palm Sunday

The branches of the palm tree have historicaly been associated with the motif of "Triumph" and "Celebration." In the ancient world, "palms" victory and triumph. The Romans used to cast palm-branches before their champions of both sport and war. However, "palms" were natural to the region so it was not unlikely to see even earlier usages and customs. Thus "palms branches" were part of the "Triumphal Entry," which was a festive occassion (John 12:13), especially since the "Raising of Lazarus" which was considered a Messianic event and by word of mouth had spread throughout Jerusalem. You can imagine the excitement that the promised Messiah who would release Israel from their bondage had finally been sent by God.

In later Christian art during the Great Persecutions, martyrs were depicted with "palms" in their hands, an allusion of the "victory over evil and death." And sometimes the ancient artists depicted Jesus in heaven amid "palms" as the victorious king.

However, it is interesting that one the key homiletic texts for Palm Sunday has been Phil 2:5-8, which is concerned with Jesus' "Humiliation" (kenosis) and his preparation for his role as the "Suffering Servant." From ancient sermons to Luther to even this day, the "Humiliation" motif (i.e. Phil 2:5-8) has been a key passage to the sermons of Palm Sunday. For it was on that Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, that Jesus entered into Jerusalem riding on a donkey in accord with the prophecy of Zech 9:9 in order to enter into his "Passion," suffering and dying for the sins of mankind, only to rise "victorious" on the third day. His conquest of Death and Satan chiseled in stone his eternal place as the "King of kings and Lord of lords."

Below are some excellent links (articles, sermons) related to Palm Sunday, including an interesting piece on Jesus as he "weeped for Jerusalem" amid all the jubilation prior to his descent into Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives.

Jesus Weeps over Jerusalem

Palm Sunday - Encyclopedia

Hosanna - Encyclopedia

St. Patrick's Day - Excerpts from the "Confessions of St. Patrick"

Some facts about the real St. Patrick, along with excerpts from his own The Confessions of St. Patrick

Patrick of Ireland (387-493) was not an Irish. He was a British Celt, first enslaved in Ireland as a teen. He later became a missionary to Ireland. Yet he was not necessarily the first missionary to Ireland. March 17 as a holiday comes from the "traditional" date of his death, although no one really knows on what day he died. The only documents about Patrick are his Confession and a letter he wrote to Coroticus. Patrick predates the Roman Catholic Church, and was considered a "saint'' before the Roman church created its canon (list) of saints (and added him to it).
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Excerpts from the "Confessions of St. Patrick" - This will give you some insight into his personality, his humility and his reverence before God. Notice that although he wasn't well-learned, he took the Great Commission seriously, he believed that the Holy Spirit was with him, and he literally converted thousands and thousands of pagans to the Christian faith.

"I am Patrick, a sinner, most unlearned, the least of all the faithful, and utterly despised by many. My father was Calpornius, a deacon, son of Potitus, a priest, of the village Bannavem Taburniæ; he had a country seat nearby, and there I was taken captive ..... I was then about sixteen years of age. I did not know the true God. I was taken into captivity to Ireland with many thousands of people---and deservedly so, because we turned away from God, and did not keep His commandments, and did not obey our priests, who used to remind us of our salvation.

"And there the Lord opened the sense of my unbelief that I might at last remember my sins and be converted with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my abjection, and mercy on my youth and ignorance, and watched over me before I knew Him, and before I was able to distinguish between good and evil, and guarded me, and comforted me as would a father his son.

"Hence I cannot be silent---nor, indeed, is it expedient---about the great benefits and the great grace which the lord has deigned to bestow upon me in the land of my captivity; for this we can give to God in return after having been chastened by Him, to exalt and praise His wonders before every nation that is anywhere under the heaven.

"For this reason I had in mind to write, but hesitated until now; I was afraid of exposing myself to the talk of men, because I have not studied like the others, who thoroughly imbibed law and Sacred Scripture, and never had to change from the language of their childhood days, but were able to make it still more perfect. In our case, what I had to say had to be translated into a tongue foreign to me, as can be easily proved from the savour of my writing, which betrays how little instruction and training I have had in the art of words; for, so says Scripture, by the tongue will be discovered the wise man, and understanding, and knowledge, and the teaching of truth.

"But after I came to Ireland---every day I had to tend sheep, and many times a day I prayed---the love of God and His fear came to me more and more, and my faith was strengthened. And my spirit was moved so that in a single day I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and almost as many in the night, and this even when I was staying in the woods and on the mountains; and I used to get up for prayer before daylight, through snow, through frost, through rain, and I felt no harm, and there was no sloth in me---as I now see, because the spirit within me was then fervent.

"And there one night I heard in my sleep a voice saying to me: `It is well that you fast, soon you will go to your own country.' And again, after a short while, I heard a voice saying to me: `See, your ship is ready.' And it was not near, but at a distance of perhaps two hundred miles, and I had never been there, nor did I know a living soul there; and then I took to flight, and I left the man with whom I had stayed for six years. And I went in the strength of God who directed my way to my good, and I feared nothing until I came to that ship.

"When I baptized so many thousands of people, did I perhaps expect from any of them as much as half a scruple? Tell me, and I will restore it to you. Or when the Lord ordained clerics everywhere through my unworthy person and I conferred the ministry upon them free, if I asked any of them as much as the price of my shoes, speak against me and I will return it to you.

"On the contrary, I spent money for you that they might receive me; and I went to you and everywhere for your sake in many dangers, even to the farthest districts, beyond which there lived nobody and where nobody had ever come to baptize, or to ordain clergy, or to confirm the people. With the grace of the Lord, I did everything lovingly and gladly for your salvation.

"And if ever I have done any good for my God whom I love, I beg Him to grant me that I may shed my blood with those exiles and captives for His name, even though I should be denied a grave, or my body be woefully torn to pieces limb by limb by hounds or wild beasts, or the fowls of the air devour it. I am firmly convinced that if this should happen to me, I would have gained my soul together with my body, because on that day without doubt we shall rise in the brightness of the sun, that is, in the glory of Christ Jesus our Redeemer, as sons of the living God and joint heirs with Christ, to be made conformable to His image; for of Him, and by Him, and in Him we shall reign."
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Article on the Life of St. Patrick - Valuable Overview

The Parable of the "Good Policeman"

If you are a Christian and you happen to "bump" into a "Universalist" - i.e. someone who detests the idea that God is a Judge, share with them "The Parable of the 'Good Policeman.'"

"The Good Policeman was walking down Main Street one day when he saw a little old lady with a walker trying to cross the street. As he watched the little old lady, he saw a large Buick fly past him and come to a screeching halt next to the little old lady. Three young men hopped out of the car, laughing. One of them pushed the old lady to the ground, while another started kicking her in the abdomen, then the legs, then the face. Another of the men smashed his heel into the old woman’s face while she screamed in pain. Even from a distance, the Good Policeman could hear bones crack. Finally, one of the young men did the unthinkable. He pulled a knife out of his belt and slit the woman’s throat. But the Good Policeman witnessed these events. So as the men walked back toward their vehicle, he rushed up to them and thrust his hand out in front of them and said, “Hi. I’m the Good Policeman. And I want you to know that I LOVE you.”

Courtesy of Greg Johnson Greg's Couch - Theology and Apologetics for Normal People

What Did Jesus Do?

Every so often I equip my daughter and her schoolmates with the simple bracelet that says WWJD, i.e. "What Would Jesus Do?" The intent of the bracelet, which is in fact a brilliant idea, is a reminder to us that in all of our decisions we should consider the question "What Would Jesus Do?" in any given situation, the implication being that Christians should "imitate" the attributes of our Lord. Indeed, there have been many classics written in this stream of thought - I have reprinted two of these classics in their entirety below, both Thomas a Kempis's "The Imitation of Christ" (ca. 1460) and Charles Sheldon's "In His Steps" (ca. 1940), upon which the WWJD bracelet was based:

"The Imitation of Christ" by Thomas a Kempis

"In His Steps" by Charles Sheldon

Simply, though, when the youth group at Calvary Reformed Church in Holland, Michigan started studying Sheldon's work and applying the principle of WWJD, they came to realize that it had a profound practical effect. "Yes, if we imitate Christ, we become more and more like him and begin to exhibit his principles and express his image."

In the new Christianity Today, there is an article What Did Jesus Do? which essentially breaks down the simple "WWJD" into 7 principles, which are:

1. He sought the Father.
2. He embraced the outcasts.
3. He restored broken lives.
4. He confronted hypocrisy.
5. He taught God's word.
6. He served.
7. He equipped leaders.

Read the CT article story and glean as much as you can from each principle.

Feast of Athanasius - January 18

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Feast of St. Athanasius is held on January 18, 2004. How should we as evangelical Protestants regard such a feast. Certainly there is no liturgical necessity, but perhaps in the spirit of the Eastern Church we should remember the champions of sound biblical Christianity who have protected the faith, their writings serving as protectorates for centuries. There is a movement with evangelical Christianity to look toward the past (e.g. journals such as Christian History, et al.) in order that contemporary Christians learn to connect with their heritage. The pillars that the essentials of the faith we take for granted sometimes are doctrines hammered out by great theologians such as Basil the Great or Athanasius. If the word "Saint" seems a bit distasteful (because the Bible declares that we are all "saints in Christ"), let us think of these great men as Christian heroes of the past who helped build the Church into the doctrinal system that it is. Certainly, scholars are not afraid of the ancient heroes (as well as those who still live today). As Louis Berkhof wrote, "Athanasius is by far the greatest man of the age, an acute scholar, a strong character, and a man who had the courage of his convictions and was ready to suffer for the truth.” (History of Christian Doctrines).
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Athanasius

The Logos was not impaired in receiving a body,
for He deified that which He put on...
and existing in the form of God,
He became man and was called Jesus.
He none the less has the whole creation under foot,
bending their knees to Him in this name,
and confessing that the Logos has become flesh...
For whereas the powers in heaven,
both Angels and Archangels,
were ever worshipping the Lord,
as they are worshipping Him in the Name of Jesus,
this is our grace and high exaltation,
that the heavenly powers will not be astonished at seeing all of us,
who are one body with Him, one day introduced into their realms.

Athanasius was a deacon at the church of Alexandria. In ancient literature he is often referred to as "the black dwarf." Why? Mostly because he was short, he was dark (because of his Coptic heritage), he was lean in his stature, but he was strong and intensely energetic. His hair was auburn, his nose was roman-bent, yet his eyes were intense and brilliant. At any rate, his appearance was certainly worth noting. Although we do not know much of his early life, one thing is evident - he was highly educated in biblical studies, theology, and philosophy - in the fourth century Alexandria was the center of the intellectual world and the center of one of the most important Christian disputes in history. "Was Jesus Christ (the Logos) of the "same essence" of the Father - thus, was he God; or was Jesus Christ "created" by God as the first creature of creation, thus making him a lesser god? Essentially, this is what is known as the Arian Controversy .....

Perhaps a quick review is in order. If you remember, Christianity was a religio ilicita (illegal religion) in the Roman Empire from the time of Nero (AD 64) to the time of Diocletian (303-311). It would be in the year 312 that Constantine the Great (285-337) would become a friend to Christianity, attributing his conquest on the Milvian Bridge to a miracle in the sky (which is still disputed to this day), and he thus declared what is known as "The Edict of Milan" (312) which made Christianity a religio licita (a legal religion). (Contrary to what many writers and teachers have said, Constantine "never" made Christianity the "official state religion," and he signed this document with Licinius, the emperor of the East).

Anyway, in the year 324, Constantine and Licinius (250-324) went to war with each other, and the former secured for himself the entire Roman Empire. It had been eleven years since the dual sovereigns had signed the historic Edict of Milan, which extended toleration to the Christian religion; however, after Licinius withdrew his consent and renewed the Diocletian persecutions in 320, Constantine invaded by land and sea and thus earned for himself the title "Defender of the Faith."

Soon after his accession to the universal throne, the mighty emperor discovered a heated Christological dispute which had spread throughout the Eastern empire - the so-called Arian Controversy. In essence, the controversy was concerned with the nature of the person of Christ - the principal question being, "Was Christ God?" or "Was He the first of God's creatures?" According to Arius (256-336), a priest (presbyter) at Alexandria, the latter position reflected the true view; as he said, "There was a time when the Logos was not; before he was made, he was not." Thus, the implications of the Arian position represent a denial of the supreme divinity of Christ, relegating him instead to the status of a lesser god, a created intermediary between God and the world.

The chief enemy of the Arian movement was the Athanasius (300-373), a deacon at Alexandria, and perhaps one of the greatest defenders of orthodoxy that the Church has ever known. Soon, during the controversy he became the private secretrary to Bishop Alexander who also opposed the Arian view. Although Arius held to a "high view" of the Logos, making him instrumental in the creation of the cosmos, the logical conclusion of his teaching was clear: "The Logos who had come to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth was not God, but a lesser god, a creature." Unlike God, the Logos was not eternal, "for there was a time when the Logos was not." However, in his classic work, On the Incarnation of the Word, Athanasius presented numerous powerful arguments - one, for instance, that since Christians prayed and worshiped Christ, the whole church was guilty of idolatry - thus, the Church was an idolatrous entity (Alistair McGrath). Another one of Athanasius's arguments was purely salvific: If the Logos is not of the same essence as the Father, that would imply that the one who was incarnate (Jesus Christ) was merely as creature; simply put, it is impossible for a creature to redeem a creature. The beauty of the cross is that "the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us." He was one with the Father, the localization of God on earth. Thus, it was God, in a Trinitarian sense, who was led to Golgotha and sacrificed on the cross for the sins of the world. And it was God who conquered death and Satan, remeeming mankind into a kingdom of glory and eternal life.

What is not emphasized is that after Constantine died (337), his sons (successors) were Arians who bitterly opposed the champion of orthodoxy. It was here in his persecution that Athanasius earned the title "Athanasius contra mundum" -- "Athanasius against the world." Indeed, his Arian enemies employed secular influence and corrupt ecclesiastical authority to destroy him, and although he was banished five times for his staunch orthodoxy (spending seventeen years in exile), this one that they called "the black dwarf" would never recede from his position, the orthodox position, that Jesus Christ was "God of God, Light of Light, very God of Very God" - indeed, the incarnation of YHWH. In describing the nature of Christ and his relationship to the Father, Athanasuis wrote,

"As when the sun shines, one might say that the radiance illuminates, for the light is one and indivisible, nor can it be detached; so where the Father is or is named, there plainly is the Son...As radiance from light, and stream from fountain; so that whoso sees the Son, sees what is proper to the Father."

The credit that is due Athanasius lies in the fact that he contended for the Apostolic Faith, defending the orthodox Christology against the Hellenistic influences inherent in the Arian proposition, namely, the Middle Platonic philosophies of Philo, Origen, and Plotinus (Neoplatonism), all of which posited the theory of divine intermediaries (e.g., Logos, Nous, etc.) between God and the world. Not a speculative theologian or a philosopher, Athanasius perceived himself as a defender of "the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the universal Church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, the Apostles preached and the Fathers kept."

As history tells us, the Arian controversy was technically resolved at the Council of Nicea in 325, and the view of Athanasius was upheld by the great majority of the theologians in attendance. In many ways, however, the debate has continued throughout the centuries; thus it can be regarded as a paradigm for all Christological disputes concerning the nature of Christ. For on the one hand, you have those who would call Christ a creature; and on the other hand, you have those who would call Christ God. The solution to the apparent problem, however, is not to be found in the words of an Arius or an Athanasius, but in the words of Jesus of Nazareth himself - not in his moral teachings, or in his parables, but as C.S. Lewis observed, "in the appalling nature of his theological remarks." For unlike any other man in history, Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be the incarnation of the eternal God.

Finally, apart from the great theological and christological work of Athanasius, let me point out that it was "Athanasius" to be the first bishop to declare the 27 New Testament books we have today as canonical. Many others were close (e.g. Irenaeus - 26/27), and many other canon lists were almost to the point. However, it was "Athanasius" in an Easter letter in 367 who articulated precisely the 27 books of the New Testament canon. His work would be chiseled in stone at the Council of Carthage in 397. Anyway, I have placed some links below for more reading on Athanasius and his work, including the canon.

Athansius

"Athanasius" by Gregory of Nazianzus

Arian Controversy (319-325)

Deposition of Arius

The Council of Nicaea

The Malice of the Arians

On the Incarnation of the Word

Easter Letter (AD 367) containing Athanasius's canon

Athanasius and the New Testament Canon

Nicaea - Athanasian Statement of Faith

Nicene Creed - AD 381

Tolkien - The Lord of the Ring

The grand trilogy -- "The Fellowship of the Rings," "The Two Towers," and "The Return of the King" has now been produced and conferred to the silver screen by Peter Jackson and his troupe, and the audiences of the world have now had a chance to assess the wonder of this modern myth in eleven hours time! As with the literary portrayal of Tolkien's myth, the matter is decided: whether in reading or in the theater, this story is perhaps one of the greatest fantastical epics of all time, perhaps on the level of Homer or Milton.

For me, there is little to say. I remain struck down not only by J.R.R. Tolkien's detailed story, but by Peter Jackson's interpretation and the phenomenal work of the cast and crew who have given to mankind a jewel of art which will last forever. I am grateful to all of you for bringing Tolkien to the screen .....

Below are some interesting articles I have assembled from the journal Christian History which pretty much sees the Tolkienesque phenomenon from the Christian point of view. A Tridentine Catholic (like Mel Gibson), J.R.R. Tolkien deserves to be critiqued and enjoyed, first of all, by those who share his worldview. Enjoy .....

The Man Behind the Myth

Good & Evil in Middle Earth

Meeting Professor Tolkien

The Christian Humanists

One Truth, Many Tales

Sacramental Imagination

Gallery: The Inklings

A Literary Friendship: Tolkien and Lewis

Hobbits & Englishmen

Father of Epic Fantasy

An Unexpected Party

The Feast of the Epiphany - January 6

The Feast of the Epiphany has been an important celebration in the Eastern Church for nearly two millennia. From the Greek word epiphanes, the earliest Christian usage of the term comes to us from Clement of Alexandria, who wrote that the Basilideans (a heretical gnostic sect in Egypt), celebrated "the baptism of Jesus" on January 6 (the Feast of the Epiphany). A later reference comes to us from the Emperor Julian (the Apostate) (361).

It is believed by most scholars that Christians, in general, as early as the second century, as well as some heretical groups (noted above), celebrated the "baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist" on January 6. As the Gospels relate to us, it was at this time - "Jesus's baptism" - that the Holy Trinity was manifested in unity, with the Holy Spirit descending like a dove out of the sky, the thundering voice of the Father proclaiming, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased (Matt 3:16-17). And the "manifestation" of the "Son [of God]" (v. 3:17) as the Messiah at the beginning of His ministry.

As time progressed, the Feast of the Epiphany became a conflation of numerous celebrations, including the Feast of the Nativity (Christmas - which continues to be held on January 6 in the Russian Orthodox Church). Also, the stories of the "Wedding at Cana" and the "Feeding of the Five Thousand" have come to be celebrated on January 6 (probably as a polemic against the Greek god Dionysius, or Bacchus).

In later centuries, especially in the coastal villages of Greece, the practice of "diving for the cross" became part of a long and extended liturgy. This tradition occurs in the United States and Canada as well. Here's how it goes:

Essentially, as the bishop or archbishop finishes his prayers from a platform on the coast, a number of young men (perhaps 100) wait anxiously on small boats for the bishop to toss the coveted prize into the water - a large cross. At the point which the bishop makes the throw, every able young man makes the dive (the water being cold or warm), hoping to retrieve the valued possession. However, only "one" boy can be the victor, and to him is somehow bequeathed "good luck" for an entire year.

The practice persists today and is something quite foreign and superstitious to Christianity.

Epiphany

Feast of Epiphany: Feast of Lights

One Solitary Life

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never had a family or owned a home. He never set foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never wrote a book, or held an office. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness.

While He was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him. His friends deserted Him. He was turned over to His enemies, and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While He was dying, His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had --- His coat.

When He was dead, He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure for much of the human race. All the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever sailed, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as this "One Solitary Life".

-author unknown