Friday, November 29, 2013

"how is it consistent with the belief that the church is the body of Christ, a belief I share, to think it has no intrinsic life to be relied on, and must, for the sake of its survival, be fastened to a more vigorous body, that of the nation?"

     Marilynne Robinson, "Wondrous love," Christianity and literature 59, no. 2 (Winter 2010):  212 (202-215), and When I was a child I read books:  essays (New York:  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), 136 (125-141).
     This oversimplifies, but Robinson is one of those Christian "liberals" with the spirit of whom one would have to be exceptionally churlish to take issue.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

"Always you are there to help me."



In the early hours of the morning, I think of you, O Lord.
     In the early hours of the morning, I think of you, O Lord.
Always you are there to help me.
     I think of you, O Lord.

In matutínis, Dómine, meditábor de te.
     In matutínis, Dómine, meditábor de te.
Quia factus es adiútor meus.
     Meditábor de te.

     Ancient versicle-and-response based on Ps 63:6-7 (62:7-8 in the Vulgate according to the Greek (Septuagint)), as translated by the ICEL for the Liturgy of the hours:

     . . . in matutinis meditabar in te quia fuisti adiutor meus. . . .
     . . . ἐν τοῖς ὄρθροις ἐμελέτων εἰς σέ· ὅτι ἐγενήθης βοηθός μου. . . .

Note how different the wording is in the Vulgate according to the Hebrew as edited by Weber & Gryson:

     . . . per singulas vigilias meditabor tibi quia fuisti auxilium
     meum. . . .
     . . . .בְּ֝אַשְׁמֻרֹ֗ות אֶהְגֶּה־בָּֽךְ׃כִּֽי־הָיִ֣יתָ עֶזְרָ֣תָה לִּ֑י . . .

     The image is a close-up of fol. 60r of the Salzinnes Antiphonal (CDN-Hsmu M2149.L4) of 1554/5, but in CANTUS (at least) manuscripts from as early as the 10th century are listed.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Grelot on Jesus in the face of death

"The death of Jesus is not that of Socrates, drinking the hemlock in a calm and impavid fashion:  Jesus suffers fear and anguish in full view of his closest disciples.  This is not the Stoic death of Senecaopening up his veinsor of Ciceroextending his neck to the executionerin acceptation of their Destiny.  It is not the death of a disciple of the Buddha, in whom the death of all desire would have prepared [the way for a] tranquil entrance into Nirvana.  It is not the death of a mystic in ecstasy or burning to encounter the God whom he desires (one thinks here of the execution of Hallâj).
     "It is above all the death of a Jew shaped in his comportment by the substance of the Scriptures, expressing in the perspective that they have opened up his faith and his questions ('Why have you abandoned me?'), his anguish and his hope.  The Scriptures are thus accomplished because Jesus assumes them.  But every man can also recognize in him the most intimate depths of his [own] experience, for this is the ineluctable destiny of the sinful humanity that he bore [right through] to the end [(bout)]."

     Pierre Grelot, Dictionnaire de spiritualité, s.v. Mort I. dans l'écriture sainte (t. 10 (1980), cols. 1753-1754).  Cf. St. Leo the Great on the Slave mentality.

"if the whole precedes in the type, then [it] is not in a type, but must be considered a truth of history": Jerome on Julian the Apostate on Hos 11:1/Mat 2:15

"This passage—which, in [his] seventh book, Julian Augustus has vomited forth against us, that is, [us] Christians—he calumniates, and says:  ‘What is written of Israel, the Evangelist Matthew has transferred to Christ, in order that he might make a laughing stock of the simplicity of those who, from among the gentiles [(de gentibus)], had believed.’  To him we shall respond briefly [as follows]:  First, that the Gospel [of] Matthew was brought forth in Hebrew [(Hebræis litteris)], for which reason [(quod) none] were able to read [it] except those who were from among the Hebrews [(ex Hebraeis)].  Therefore he [(i.e. Matthew?)] has not done [this] in order that [(propterea . . . ut)] he might make a laughing stock of gentile [converts (ethnicis)].  But if he [(i.e. Julian?)] did not wish to make a laughing stock of the Hebrews, he was either foolish or ignorant:  foolish, if he has concocted a patent falsehood; ignorant, if he has not understood about whom these things were being said.  That book absolves of [(excusat)] folly which is composed circumspectly and in order; we are not able to call [him (i.e. Matthew?)] ignorant whom from other testimonies of the Scriptures we know to have possessed a knowledge of the Law.  It remains that we say this, that [(illud . . . , quod)] those things that precede in others τυπικῶς [(typologically)] are according to truth and fulfillment referred to Christ:  which [referral] we know [(cognovimus, have learned)] the Apostle effected in the two mountains Sinai and Zion, and in Sarah and Hagar.  For not only is [Mount Sinai] not Mount Sinai, but [Zion] is also not Zion:  [Sarah] was [(PAi3S)] not Sarah, and [Hagar] was [(PAi3S)] not Hagar; because these the Apostle Paul has referred to the two Covenants [(Gal 4:22-26)].  So therefore this [is] what is written:  ‘A child [was] Israel, and I have loved him, and out of Egypt I have called my son’ is assuredly said of the people of Israel, which is called out of Egypt, which is loved, which, after the wandering of idolatry, was, at that time, as if an infant and a child, called [(PAi3S)]:  but is referred in full [(perfecte)] to Christ.  Thus [(Nam)] Isaac was in type of Christ because the latter was himself [(ipse)] to have carried [(portaverit, FpAi3S, will have carried; or PAS3S)] for himself [(sibi)] the wood of future death [(Gen 22:6)], and also Jacob, because [the latter, namely Christ] was to have had [(habuerit, FpAi3S, will have had; or PAS3S) both] Leah afflicted in [(dolentem, grieving)] the eyes, and Rachel the beautiful wife [(Gen 29:17, 23-28)].  In Leah, who was older, we understand the blindness of the Synagogue:  in Rachel, the beauty of the Church; and yet[, with respect to those] who are [(PAi3S)] in part types of [our] Lord [and] Savior, not all things that are said to have happened [to them] must be believed to have happened in type of him [(et tamen qui ex parte typi fuerunt Domini Salvatoris, non Omnia quæ fecisse narrantur, in typo ejus fecisse credenda sunt)].  For the type indicates a part:  because if the whole precedes in the type, then [it] is not in a type, but must be considered a truth of history."

     Jerome, In Osee III.xi.1-2 (CCSL 76, 121 l. 57-122 l. 90), translation mine.  Marc Adriaen, in CCSL 76, glosses the reference to Julian's "seventh book" rather straightforwardly as follows:  Julian the Apostate, Contra Galilaeos VII.  Karl Johannes Neumann, in his reconstruction of the Contra Christianos on the basis of the many fragments quoted by (mostly) Cyril of Alexandria (Ivliani Imperatoris librorvm contra Christianos qvae svpersvnt, Scriptorum Graecorum qui Christianam impugnaverunt religionem quae supersunt 3 (Leipzig:  Teubner, 1880)), treats the question of the position of this fragment in the original on pp. 100, 237, and 240.  Hos 11:1 in the Septuagint:  ἐξ Αἰγύπτου μετεκάλεσα τὰ τέκνα αὐτοῦHos 11:1 at Mt 2:15:  ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐκάλεσα τὸν υἱόν μου.

"Hunc locum in septimo uolumine Iulianus Augustus quod aduersum nos, id est Christianos, euomuit, calumniatur, et dicit quod de Israel scriptum est, Matthaeus euangelista ad Christum transtulit, ut simplicitati eorum, qui de gentibus crediderant, illuderet.  Cui nos breuiter respondebimus:  Primum Matthaeum euangelium Hebraeis litteris edidisse, quod non poterant legere nisi hi qui ex Hebraeis errant.  Ergo non propterea fecit, ut illuderet ethnicis.  Sin autem Hebraeis illudere uoluit, aut stultus, aut imperitus fuit; stultus, si apertum finxit mendacium; imperitus, si non intellexit de quo haec dicerentur.  Stultitiam ipsum uolumen excusat, quod prudenter ordinatimque compositum est; imperitum non possumus dicere, quem ex aliis testimoniis scripturarum scientiam  legis habuisse cognoscimus.  Superest ut illud dicamus quod ea quae τυπικῶς praecedunt in aliis, iuxta ueritatem et adimpletionem referantur ad Christum; quod apostolum in duobus montibus Sina et Sion, et in Sara et Agar fecisse cognouimus.  Neque enim non est Sina mons et non est Sion; non fuit Sara et non fuit Agar; quia haec apostolus Paulus ad duo rettulit testamenta.  Sic igitur hoc quod scriptum est:  Paruulus Israel et dilexi eum, et ex Aegypto uocaui filium meum; dicitur quidem de populo Israel, qui uocatur ex Aegypto, qui diligitur, qui eo tempore post errorem idololatriae quasi infans et paruulus est uocatus; sed perfecte refertur ad Christum.  Nam et Isaac in typo Christi fuit quod future mortis ligna sibi ipse portauerit; et Iacob quia Liam dolentem oculos, et Rachel pulchram habuerit uxorem.  In Lia quae maior erat, caecitatem intellegimus Synagogae, in Rachel pulchritudinem Ecclesiae; et tamen qui ex parte typi fuerunt Domini Saluatoris, non omnia quae fecisse narrantur, in typo eius fecisse credendi sunt.  Typus enim partem indicat, quod si totum praecedat in typo, iam non est typus, sed historiae ueritas appellanda est."