Saturday, September 16, 2017

The primary sources on Cardinal Bellarmine's slap-down of Pope Gregory VIII in 1602

Letter to Pope Clement VIII (1602):

* Italian original:




Autobiographical account (1613):

* Vita ven[erabilis] Roberti cardinalis Bellarmini (Louvain, 1753 (Rome, 1676, but composed in 1613)), p. 43 

* Sammlung der neusten Schriften, welche die Jesuiten in Portugal betreffen 4 (1762):  Latin/German, p. 84/85 ff.
 
* Selbstbiographie des Cardinals Bellarmin (Bonn, 1887)

     For some excerpts, go here.

Friday, September 15, 2017

Semper ambigua

"The concept of the semper reformanda has been popular with persons of very different views.  And this popularity lies undoubtedly in the vagueness in which the semper reformanda is wrapped."

"de semper reformanda-gedachte bij personen van zeer uiteenlopende opvattingen populair is geweest.  En deze populariteit ligt ongetwijfeld in de vaagheid waarmee het semper reformanda omhuld is."

     J. N. Mouthaan, "Besprekingsartikel:  Ecclesia semper reformanda:  modern of premodern?," Documentatieblad Nadere Reformatie 38, no. 1 (2014):  89 (86-89), translation mine.  One of Mouthaan's contributions to the history is Anna Maria van Schurman's reference to "een 'ware particuliere gereformeerde, ofte sig reformerende kerke'" in 1670.  But unlike Johannes Hoornbeeck, who wielded the reformanda against schism, Schurman used it as an expression of schism.

     For much more, go here.

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

interior intimo meo

Communio

"Although being is not irrational, it is nonetheless always more than what a mind can comprehend just by looking at it.  As created being, it is not infinite; yet even as finite being it can never be so exhaustively captured that there is nothing further to grasp.  The infinite Creator has equipped it with the grace of participation in the inexhaustibility of its origin.  You are never finished with any being, be it the tiniest gnat or the most inconspicuous stone.  It has a secret opening, through which the never-failing replenishments of sense and significance ceaselessly flow to it from eternity [(Es hat eine geheime Öffnung, durch die ihm immer neue Vorrätte an Sinn und Bedeutung vom Ewigen her zufließen)]."

     Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-logic:  theological logical theory, vol. 1, The truth of the world (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 2000):  107, underscoring mine.  I was put onto this by Michael Hanby, "Homo faber and/or homo adorans:  on the place of human making in a sacramental cosmos," Communio:  international Catholic review 38, no. (Summer 2011):  216 (198-236).  The quote appears on p. 113 of the German edition of 1987.

Sunday, September 10, 2017

redemptio-libertas, adoptio-hereditas

"O God, by whom we are redeemed and receive adoption, look graciously upon your beloved sons and daughters, that those who believe in Christ may receive true freedom and an everlasting inheritance.  Through."

"Deus, per quem nobis et redemptio venit et praestatur adoptio, filios dilectionis tuae benignus intende, ut in Christo credentibus et vera tribuatur libertas, et hereditas aeterna.  Per."

O God, by whom to us both redemption comes and adoption is offered/accomplished, turn, [being] benificent, your attention to the sons/children of your love, to the end that, upon those who believe in Christ, both true liberty is bestowed, and an eternal inheritance.

     Collect for the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Roman Missal.  This is present in the Wilson edition of the mid-8th-century Gelasian sacramentary.  Bruylants, nos. 96 and 98 (vol. 1, pp. 45-46), fingers the post-790 sacramentary of Gellone, a sacramentary in the Gelasian tradition.  It also occurs as no. 427 in the post-790 Hadrianum, a sacramentary in the Gregorian tradition.  Father Z gives the pre-2010 "translation" as
God our Father, you redeem us, and make us your children in Christ. Look upon us, give us true freedom and bring us to the inheritance you promised.