Saturday, June 24, 2017

"I have often been disgusted with myself when I came down from the pulpit."

"Ich habe mich offte selbst angespeiet, wan ich vom predigstuel komen bin."

I have often spit upon/despised myself when I have come from the pulpit:  Shame on you!  How did you preach?  You delivered that really well, stuck to no outline [(hast kein Concept gehalten; nullum servasti conceptum)] (as conceived of by you [(wie du es gefaßt hettest)])!  And [yet] the very same sermon have the people praised, [saying] that it has been a long time since I have delivered so fine [a] sermon.  When I have climbed down from the pulpit [(Wan ich hinunter vom predigstuel gestiegen bin)], then have I recalled and realized that I have preached nothing or very little of what, in my mind, I had intended to [(davon . . . das ich bey mir concipirt habe; cf. conceptum/Concept, above)].
In my case, too, it often happens that the delivery of [a] sermon of mine has filled me with shame [(me puduerit, PAi3S)] and perhaps [even] caused me to look upon myself [(putaverim me, PAS1S, I may have esteemed myself)] most coldly.  And [yet] afterwards, by contrast, I have heard the opinion of [my] auditors, who were commending it vehemently.
Thanks to my colleague Robert Smith for posing the question of authenticity and prompting this research.  Being no expert in early 16th-century German (or Latin, for that matter!), I would welcome any suggestions for improvement in these translations.

"Leading or following, the human being who loves" is participating in an archetypical Trinitarian Life

"The redemptive work of God in the world is the common fruit of the Father's power and the Son's pure gift of self ([the] impotence of the cross), while [(et)] the indissociable unity of the [opposing] characteristics [(traits)] of the two is secured [(posée)] here by the Holy Spirit.  An [(L')] effective unity becomes for this reason directly possible:  because the two participants (Father and Son, man and woman) act in love in the most polarized [(polaire)] fashion possible, not in the most assimilated [(semblable)].  It is in the polarity that the equivalence of love (in God an [(l') equivalence] of essence) is guaranteed."

     Adrienne von Speyer, Theologie der Geschlechter, NB 12 (Einsiedeln:  Johannes Verlag, 1969), 23, as quoted in French by Antoine Birot, "Le fondement christologique et de la différence sexuelle selon «Théologie des sexes» (NB XII) de Adrienne von Speyr," Revue catholique internationale Communio 31, nos. 5-6 (septembre décembre 2006):  128 (123-134).  The headine is from p. 36 (the last paragraph in the article).  "'The initiative [(force)] of the man in the act [and] the being-directed of the woman are, as it were, an echo of these primordial [Trinitarian] relations.  The Second Adam is anterior to the first'" (45/135).
     

Sensus plenior, sensus CONSTITUTIVUS

Wycliffe College
"Radner's burden is to show that, far from being a practice limited to the likes of Origen, Augustine, and Wycliffe, figural reading endured as an essential feature of Christian thought among early modern interpreters (Puritans) and flourishes in contemporary churches as well (Pentecostals).
     "One of Radner's central arguments, then, is that figural reading is very much a universal practice identifiable with the Christian Church whenever and wherever it has existed. . . . That figural reading has atrophied in the last two hundred years is not to be explained by its actual deficiencies but rather by Christians' failure to understand what figural reading truly involves."


     Michael C. Legaspi, "Figure it in," a review of Time and the word:  figural reading of the Christian scriptures (Eerdmans, 2016), by Ephraim Radner, First things no. 274 (June/July 2017):  55 (55-56).

The objectivity of the subjective

Wikimedia Commons
"the so-called subjective, or inner, view of things is no less objective than the objective or mechanical view of things.  When questions about the subjective are asked carefully, and in the right way, they are as reliable as the experiments of physics."

     Christopher Alexander, "Making the garden," First things no. 260 (February 2016):  27 (23-28).

"the courage to treat falsehoods with the contempt they deserve"

Wikimedia Commons
"idiots utter idiocies just as plum trees produce plums. . . . The problem is that some readers take them seriously."

     Simon Leys, of the Maoist Maria-Antonietta Macciocchi's On China, as quoted by Henri Astier, "In the age of sham and amnesia," Times literary supplement no. 5885 (January 15, 2016):  5 (5, 7).  The clause in the headline is Astier's.

Monday, June 19, 2017

"before the brightness of whose presence the angels veil their faces"

"Almighty God, most blessed and most holy, before the brightness of whose presence the angels veil their faces; with lowly reverence and adoring love we acknowledge Thine infinite glory, and worship Thee, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, eternal Trinity. Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power be unto our God, for ever and ever.  Amen."

     Adoration, Second order, Morning Service, Book of common order of the Church of Scotland, by authority of the General Assembly, New impression with new lectionary (London:  Oxford University Press, 1962 [1940]), 18.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Because we can?

"The de-extinction of a Neanderthal looks to be, from a technical point of view, relatively easy compared with the de-extinction of the passenger pigeon.  Yet the very prospect of such an attempt brings into sharp focus all the moral, ethical, social, and environmental dilemmas inherent in the new technology—and indeed in de-extinction science itself."

     Tim Flannery, "Can we bring back the passenger pigeon?," The New York Review of books 64, no. 7 (April 20, 2017):  59 (58-59).

Cause us, we pray, O Lord, to be satisfied by that eternal enjoyment of your divinity prefigured by the temporal reception of your precious Body and Blood.

Wikimedia Commons
"Grant, O Lord, we pray, that we may delight for all eternity in that share in your divine life, which is foreshadowed in the present age by our reception of your precious Body and Blood.  Who."

"Fac nos, quaesumus, domine, divinitatis tuae sempiterna fruitione repleri, quam pretiosi corporis et sanguinis tui temporalis perceptio praefigurat.  Qui vivis et regnas in saecula saecularoum."

Cause us, we pray, O Lord, to be satiated by the eternal enjoyment of your divinity that the temporal reception of your precious Body and Blood prefigures.

     Post communion, Corpus Christi, Roman Missal.  Bruylants (no. 552) dates this to 1474, but Corpus orationum (no. 2597), to the 12th century (i.e. behind Aquinas).  Here's another translation:
Fill us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, with that eternal enjoyment of Thy Divinity, which is prefigured by the reception in this life of Thy precious Body and Blood.  Who.