Meg Funk

Winter's spent

(Meg Funk) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:28:54 EST

was special

Winter's over

Meg: It seems that the snow is finally melting. We have only piles here and there at the edges of the parking lot and side of the roads.

Yet, the beauty that was here I need not forget, nor act as though the winter was never here. 40 days and nights were cold, wet, windy and wild.

Before spring comes I'll enjoy these gray days of in-between that I can pause and get back my breath.

Was a stunning season that passed through Indiana.

Lectio of experience

(Meg Funk) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:00:00 EST

photo by Mairin Ni Fhlaithearta

Lectio of Experience

Meg: When does the getting there stop? Is it on the other side? or somewhere in-between?

update Lectio Matters

(Michael Plekon) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:19:43 EST

from Beech Grove

So, what's the point?

I just posted that long essay on how lectio divina got lost over the course of time. It helps to see that there are many ways to understand Scripture and to interpret the revelatory text.

My book, Lectio Matters before the burning bush will be out in September, as I understand from Continuum's email to Mercedes last week.

This gives us more time to prepare for that text. I feel like it is more important to experience lectio than to know about it so I'm shifting my web site into just doing lectio.

Sometimes I'll enter through the door of Scripture, the hallowed medium. Other times I'll post for your consideration the revelatory texts of nature, and of experience.

When you see it and feel it....all the revelatory texts are simply some form of the experience. Hopefully the text is more of a transmission than a commentary.

I have just viewed the photo section in the New York Times the Chile earthquake report. No amount of words can tally the one glance at one of those revealing pictures. The look of loss, the total collapse of buildings, the sleeping in the street of ordinary people who suddenly lost their homes.

Those images I carried in my mind's eye to Morning Lauds and Eucharist. We prayed for them out loud during the petitions and offered their suffering for healing and solace.

So, the point is to actually "do" lectio on this web site the rest of lent:

*it maybe just a word, a photo or a color that we pause as did Moses before that burning bush.

Scripture and Spiritual Exegesis-Conclusion

(Schneiders, S. M.) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:21:45 EST

photo:Mairin Ni Fhlaithearta

p. 16
and conclusion

Post-critical

The approach to Scripture characteristic of the patristic and medieval periods is strikingly different from that of post-Renaissance or modern times.

The contrast is often summarized somewhat simplistically, as the opposition between “spiritual” and “literal” interpretation, a distinction that is more confusing than enlightening.

The confusion results, in large part, from the different meanings of the two labels in ancient and modern usage as well as from the different contexts of interpretation characteristic of ancient and modern scholarship.

First, the term “literal sense” meant something quite different in the pre-Renaissance period from what it means today.

For the ancient exegete the literal sense was the letter of “body” of the text opposed to its religious meaning or “spirit,” whether or not the latter was intended or even known by the biblical writer. Thus, for example, if this theory were applied to the New Testament, the literal meaning of the account of the crucifixion of Jesus would be restricted to the physical and political facts of the story.

Its salvific significance (which is obviously the primary meaning of the evangelists were trying to convey) would belong to the spiritual meaning. In contrast, for the modern exegete the literal sense is the meaning intended by the human author. Consequently, the meaning of the text would be identical to the historical facts only when the recounting of history is what the author intended.

The literal meaning of a parable, prayer, poem, prophetic oracle, etc. would be determined by the literary genre in which it was written and the literary devices (symbol, metaphor, hyperbole, etc.) employed in it. These latter would belong to the literal sense because they belong to the meaning intended by the author even though they are not historical but literary, not literal buy figurative.

Given the two very different understandings of literal meaning, it is more surprising that the ancient exegete saw it primarily as a door (albeit an important and usually indispensable one) to the true meaning of the text whereas the modern exegete, persuaded that the true meaning of the text is determined by the author, would consider the literal meaning to be identical with the true meaning.

Second, the term “spiritual sense” also had a very different meaning for the ancients from the meaning it holds for post-Renaissance exegetes. For the ancients the spiritual sense was the true meaning of the text, the message God wished to convey through Scripture to the believer.

Consequently, although it might be obscure and never more than tentatively discerned, it was by no means arbitrary, fanciful, or subject to human manipulation. Indeed, for Origen, the same charism of inspiration was at work in the exegete as in the sacred writer, guiding the former to read truly under divine influence what the latter had written truly under divine influence.

The theory of the necessity of divine illumination for the proper understanding of the Scriptures was a constant in the tradition of spiritual exegesis.

The problem for the modern reader in understanding and appreciating the ancient and medieval practice of spiritual exegesis arises from its underlying assumptions about Scripture, some of which appear valid to a modern reader and others of which seem quite doubtful.

1. Scripture was understood as inspired by God, something a modern believing interpreter might also hold. But inspiration was understood in premodern times according to a quasi-dictation model, which is hardly tenable today.

According to this model, every word of Scripture is directly attributable to God and must, therefore, be suffused with meaning worthy of God. This led to the attempt to find serious religious significance in passages we today would easily relativize or even pass over.

The attempt to find deep meaning where none probably exists led to the strained inventiveness of some patristic exegesis that moderns rightly found groundless or even fantastic.

2. The ancients were convinced that Scripture was concerned uniquely with God’s revelation in Christ and that until the interpreter had uncovered the Christological and salvific significance of the text he or she had not reached its true meaning.

This true meaning could be conveyed straightforwardly by the literal meaning of the text, for example, in the Decalogue, but usually it was hidden in the dynamics of promise and fulfillment or the revelatory sacra mentality of mundane realities events. Typology and allegory, as literal vehicles, were not as sharply distinguished by the ancients as they later were by the twentieth-century theorists.

Typology referred to the foreshadowing of later realities by earlier ones, something which was intended by God, who inspired the whole of Scripture, but which could only be discerned by the later reader enlightened by Christian experience.

Allegory referred to all figurative meanings, a range that extended from genuine symbolism and allegorical interpretation overlapped in actual practice, for both were founded on the same basic understanding of the unity of the two Testaments under the single revelatory intent of the divine author.

3. The patristic conception of Scripture not only allowed for but also created the expectation that the word of God had multiple meanings corresponding to the richness of the mystery of the Word made flesh (thus a spiritual and a corporal meaning) and to the complexity of levels and phases in the realization of the Christian mystery (thus ecclesial and individual meanings; historical, contemporary, and eschatological meanings).

In contrast to this rich and theologically well-founded (although not always soberly used) understanding of the spiritual sense is that of post-Renaissance critical scholarship. For the latter, as it became progressively better equipped with philological, archaeological, and historical tools, the ideal of interpretation became the literal sense understood as the meaning intended by the human author, a meaning that seemed within realistic reach of the careful scholar.

The spiritual sense became, in contrast, those meanings that had no real basis in the literal sense, whether such meanings be New Testament inspired Christological interpretations of Old Testament prophecy (interpretations that could not be attributed to the Old Testament author) or deifying modern accommodations erected upon historical texts which had nothing to do with the later situation.

Religiously committed Scripture scholars of the modern period have repeatedly tried to develop interpretive theories that could allow also for a contemporary-that is, relevant-meaning of the text that would be well grounded in the literal sense.

However, these theories-such as modern approaches to typology, the theory of the sensus plenior or fuller sense, or various understandings of “salvation history”-have been characterized by a certain extrinsicism and arbitrariness.

They invariably involve the building of an applied sense as a kind of superstructure on the literal sense, which remains imprisoned in the past, unable to transcend the world of the author.

Finally, a third difference between the patristic and the modern exegete concerns the relationship of each to tradition. For the ancient, the tradition of the faith provided the universally accepted context for all biblical interpretation.

The instinct of faith, the sense of church, accepted theological development, and liturgical participation functioned normatively in the process of interpreting what was frankly acknowledge to be the “church’s book.”

Caught up in the sense of the uninterrupted development of God’s plan of salvation, the ancient interpreters responded aesthetically and religiously to the symbolic connections that guided their interpretation at a level unavailable to the modern exegete relying exclusively upon the tools of critical research.

With the Renaissance were born the quest for objectivity in the modern sense of the word and the profound suspicion of authority that would culminate in the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment.

The immediacy of participation in an interpretive tradition was shattered. Scientific method became the sole guide of scholarly investigation, and mathematical exactitude and certitude the ideals of all knowledge worthy of the name.

In such an intellectual climate the spiritual exegesis of the patristic and medieval scholars could only appear accidentally insightful at best and frivolously imaginative at worst.

In the late twentieth century, with the discovery of the serious limitations of scientific method in the humanistic sphere, the rediscovery of the power of symbolism and the ubiquity of metaphorical thinking and language, the development of a more adequate understanding of the constitutive function of imagination, and the raising of questions of language and interpretation of every field of investigation, a new appreciation of ancient biblical exegesis is also emerging.

There can be no question of a simple return to the methods or conclusions of the patristic and medieval exegetes (although some of it looks more credible than it did a century ago!) Historical criticism is an indispensable component of any responsible biblical interpretation and precludes the possibility of a scientifically responsible precritical approach to the text.

But post critical interpretation, characterized by what Paul Ricour has called “the second naivet�”, will no doubt involve an aesthetic appreciation and spiritual sensitivity that have long been almost absent from the world of biblical scholarship.

_(em>end of chapter. She adds a Bibliography with sources and studies.

Exegesis in the Middle Ages

(Schneiders, S. M.) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:02:30 EST

photo by Mairin Ni Fhlaithearta

p. 14 The Development of Exegesis in the Middle Ages

The early Middle Ages extends, for our purposes, from the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century to the rise of the cathedral schools at the beginning of the eleventh century.

During this time of political and cultural upheaval the monasteries provided almost the only setting for the serious pursuit of the spiritual life, which was understood as a common life of prayer, study, and work.

Study consisted primarily in the prayerful interpretation of Scripture under the guidance of the patristic writings collected in the caternae.

The powerful study of Scripture and the fathers, to which the monastics devoted several hours of each day, was known as lectio divina, and it was understood by this method of “fourfold interpretation” which John Cassian (ca. 360-435) introduced into Western monasticism in his Conferences of the Fathers (Collationes).

This method, which corresponds better to Origen’s actual exegetical practice than the three-senses theory he propounded, dominated exegesis until the high Middle Ages and is aptly summarized in a famous medieval couplet of uncertain authorship:

Litera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria;
Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.*

*the letter teaches what happened; the allegorical sense what to believe, the moral sense what we are to do; the anagogical sense whither we go.”

Thus, the literal sense refers to the events and realities of Jewish history.

The other three are spiritual senses: the allegorical, which reveals the Christian or theological meaning of the next; the moral or tropological, which applies the text to the individual Christian’s practice; and the anagogical, which points toward eschatological fulfillment.

The classic example of fourfold interpretation is the understanding of Jerusalem
* as the Jewish city (literal),
* the church (allegorical),
* the soul (tropological),
*and the heavenly city (anagogical) (see Cassian Conferences 14.8).

Gregory the Great (540-604), who became pope in 590, and the English monk Bede the Venerable (672-735), whose compilations heavily influenced later medieval scholarship, is classic proponents of this type of exegesis.

The interest in a more literal type of exegesis never completely disappeared during the early Middle Ages. It appears in the wok of the Spaniard Isidore of Seville( ca 560-636) and among the Irish monks. However, the dominance of the fourfold interpretation, that is, of spiritual exegesis was never in question.

In the eleventh century the foundation of the cathedral schools in centers such as Paris, Laon, and Utrecht ushered in a new era of scholarship, during which systematic theology and biblical studies gradually became two quite distinct disciplines, until by the thirteenth century the separation of functions was virtually complete.

This development took place in many centers, not least the famous Abbey of Saint-Victor of Paris (founded 1110) in which monastic lectio divina and the dialectical methods of the universities met and mutually enriched each other.

The spiritual sense of the Scriptures retained its importance, but intense interest in the Hebrew language and in Jewish exegesis revived a serious concern with the literal sense of the text.

Scripture came to function quite differently in the lecture hall, where its literal sense was exploited in relation to doctrine and in the liturgical and contemplative contexts where its spiritual sense nurtured faith.

Two Schools

(Schneiders, S. M.) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:12:12 EST

photo by Mairin Ni Fhlaithearta

p. 10

The Two Schools of Exegesis in Antiquity

Before discussing spiritual exegesis as it developed in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, especially in the Latin church, it is necessary to trace briefly the development in the East of the two types of exegesis that dominated the patristic period.

Alexandrian Exegesis

Alexandria was a cosmopolitan city in Africa in which Hellenistic culture had reached a high level of development. It was the home of Philo the Jew (ca. 20-B.C.E.,-50 C.E.), one of the most influential biblical exegetes of all time.

Philo developed a method of allegorical exegesis, the purpose of which was to demonstrate the compatibility between the spiritual meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures and the loftiest insights of Platonic philosophy.

Philo’s allegorical method is the background for the development of the exegetical school that arose in Alexandria. The school’s first major scholar was Clement (ca. 150-215), a Christian intellectual who used Philo and found in allegorical exegesis a key to unlocking the scriptural symbolism within which were hidden riches of Christian gnosis, the secret wisdom reserved for the initiates in the faith.

Clement was not primarily concerned with questions of exegesis but with humanistic Christian wisdom; his interpretations of the biblical text were often spiritual accommodations that appear fanciful to the modern reader.

Clement’s greatest student, and certainly the greatest Christian exegete of antiquity, was Origen (ca. 185-ca. 254), who developed the theory of biblical interpretation that was predominant in the church until the high Middle Ages and who applied his theory in the production of a prodigious corpus of biblical commentary and scripturally based theological reflection.

His Hexapla Biblia (ca. 240), six-column presentation of Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible, which enabled scholars to compare critically a variety of ancient versions, was an astounding scholarly accomplishment that adequately demonstrates Origen’s profound concern with what moderns would call the literal sense of Scripture as the basis of exegesis.

Origen, in his On First Principles (De principiis, book 4), developed a theory of the threefold sense of Scripture which was the ancestor of the fourfold sense that became standard I the Middle Ages. This threefold division corresponded to the tripartite composition of the human person (body, soul and spirit), as it was understood by the Greek fathers.

The literal sense (body) was the historical sense; the typological sense (soul) was the moral application to the individual; and the spiritual sense (spirit) was the foreshadowing of the new covenant in the old.

Actually, Origen frequently proceeded according to a different method, distinguishing the literal sense from the spiritual sense, which he then often applied to the individual Christian soul.

Origens’ Commentary on the Song of Songs (In Canticum Canticorum, ca. 240) interprets the love of the spouses both as the relation between Christ and the church and as the relation between the Word and the Christian soul. (Both tradition and Origen thought of the Song of Songs as the wedding son of Solomon.) It is perhaps his most sustained and inspiring exercise of this method.

Origen had a number of significant successors in Alexandria such as Dionysius (ca. 190-ca. 264), Athanasius (296-372), Didymus the Blind (313-398), and Cyril (376-444), but none was his equal in scholarship or creativity. The influence of this type of exegesis developed in Alexandria saturated the Christian Wet and retained its hegemony throughout the Middle Ages.

Antiochene Exegesis

The catechetical school in Antioch in Syria developed its characteristic approach to exegesis largely in opposition to the allegorical approach of Alexandria. Its origins in the late third century are difficult to trace because the extant works of its scholars are few ad fragmentary.

It was founded by Lucian of Samosata (d.312), who was followed by the school’s major theoretician, Diodorus of Tarsus (d. ca. 392), who was himself overshadowed in the actual practice of exegesis by his famous pupil Theodore of Mopsuestia (350-428). John Chrysostom (347-407), more a theologian than an exegete was a fellow student of Theodore and was basically Antiochene in his approach to the Scriptures.

The last great figure of the school I Antioch was Theodoret of Cyrus (ca 390-ca.458). Antioch’s influence reached the West through Julian, the Pelagian bishop of Eclanum (d. 454) and Junilius (ca. 540).

The opposition between Alexandrian (allegorical) and Antiochene (literally) exegesis has often been exaggerated. In fact, the scholars of Antioch were as adept at “more than literal” exegesis as were those of Alexandria, but their literalism that was characteristic of Jewish interpretation.

But the Christian exegetes of Antioch were, of course, also concerned with interpreting the Old Testament in a Christian sense. Thus, on the one hand, they shared the Jewish conviction that history itself was the lacus of divine revelation and that the literal (by which they meant the historical) sense was of uttermost importance, and, on the other hand, they needed a method for uncovering in the historical material a meaning that could have become apparent only with the coming of Christ.

This twofold concern let to the development of a hermeneutical theory that embraced both typology and theoria and tended to center especially on the prophetic writings of the Old Testament.

The method of interpretation called theoria, the characteristic contribution of Antioch, attributed to the biblical writer a simultaneous perception of both the actual historical events that the prophet was describing and, in and through them, the future events that they foreshadowed.

This theory presumed an ecstatic conception of biblical inspiration that grounded the attribution of revelation to every word of the sacred text, an approach characteristic also of Jewish exegesis of the period.

This, in turn, led to a profound respect for the historical (or so-called literal) sense as the starting point of all interpretation and a greater interest on the part of the exegete in the perceptions of the human author in contrast to Alexandria’s Platonic approach and its primary concern for the timeless revelation of the Holy Spirit hidden in the rather opaque grapping of the historical material.

In summary, both the school of Alexandria and that of Antioch shared a double concern: for the starting point of all exegesis in the literal sense of the text and for the termination of exegesis in a spiritual sense consisting in the Christian (i.e., for them, the true) meaning of the Old Testament, which, by definition, had to exceed in some way the material content of that text.

The primary locus of the spiritual sense for the Alexandrians was allegory (an inclusive term for all the literary vehicles of a more than literal meaning) and for the Antiochenes it was theoria, a less inclusive and flexible instrument even if one more closely tied to the historical sense.

Both schools of interpretation influenced the development of exegesis in the West. The antiochene stream, far less influential than that of Alexandria, reached the West through the writings of John Chrysostom.

The principles of Antiochene exegesis were espoused by Jerome (340-420). The most accomplished biblical scholar of antiquity in the West.

But Jerome’s work, in practice, was more Alexandrian than Antiochene. Jerome and Rufinus also translated many key works of Origen. Jerome’s contribution to understanding of the literal sense was his recognition that metaphors as such are part of the literal sense, something Origen never seemed to have realized.

Jerome’s greatest importance for the history of biblical interpretation I Latin Christianity was through his view translation, the Vulgate begun in 382, at the request of Pope Damasus. Its style and language had incalculable effects upon the history of Western spirituality down to this century.

Alexandrian influence in the West was enormous. Although Ambrose of Milan use Alexandrian exegesis, its most influential proponent was Augustine of Hippo (354-420), whose approach to Scripture is set forth in his On Christian Doctrine (De doctrina Christiana).

Augustine always commenced his exegetical work with the literal sense, that is, with Jewish history as presented in the sacred text, but he believed that all of Scripture had a spiritual sense, which was the true goal of interpretation.

Augustine’s books designed to help the clergy in their central teaching task of interpreting and preaching the sacred text, was the Magna Carta of biblical culture of the Middle Ages. The bishop’s encouragement of the use of classical learning (e.g., On Christian Doctrine 2.4) was crucial in medieval education, and his exploration of the meaning of Scripture in terms of literal and figurative signs gave a new basis for the spiritual interpretation and enabled him to enunciate as the general principle of all exegesis the maxim “Scripture teaching nothing but charity, nor condemns anything except cupidity, and in this way shapes people’ minds” (3.10).

Only interpretations compatible with charity understood as correct belief and love ordered to the enjoyment of God were legitimate, though in case of difficult passages such interpretations might well be multiple (e.g., Confessions 12. 18-31).

The bishop of Hippo remained true to this program throughout his long career as an exegete. He did not neglect the interpretation of the literal signs of the Scripture, as his great literal Commentary on Genesis (De Gensi ad litteralm, 401-414 C.E.) shows, though the letter of the creation account for him revealed primarily the metaphysical structure of the universe.

Other works, especially his lengthy Discourses on the Psalms (Enarrationes in Psalmos, ca. 390-420), which did so much to shape the prayer life of the middle Ages, were explorations of the figurative meaning of the scriptural text.

The golden age of patristic exegesis came to a close with Cyril of Alexandria (376-444), in whom occurs a certain confluence of Alexandrian and Antiohene influences.

There is no question that Alexandria exerted the greater influence on succeeding ages, but the primary concern and basic principle of both strands of the tradition can be summed up in Augustine’s oft quoted line, “The New Testament lies hidden in the Old; the Old is enlightened through the New” (Questions in Heptateuch (Quaestiones in Heptateuchum) 2.73.).

Differing Approaches

(Schneiders, S. M.) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:10:52 EST

photo by Mairin Ni Fhlaithearta

p. 9
Differing Approaches
to Biblical Interpretation
in Antiquity

In the early church two basic approaches to the biblical text developed, which gave rise to two characteristic types of interpretation.

As we will see later, traditionally these approaches have been called the “literal” approach and the “more than literal,” or “allegorical,” approach. These terms did not mean the same thing to the ancients that they meant in later times-and certainly not what they mean today.

But they denote fundamental approaches, each of which gave rise to a tradition of interpretation that lasted until the high Middle Ages, when a philosophical approach to theology transformed the latter from biblical commentary and exposition into what finally became systematic and eventually scholastic theology.

The “more than literal” approach was developed in Alexandria in Egypt can be traced back to the middle of the second century. It was related to the midrashic, typological, and an allegorical interpretation that we find in the Old and New Testament, but it was developed into a theoretically articulated exegetical method.

The “literal” approach developed in Antioch Asia Minor, partly in opposition to what was perceived as excessive allegorizing in Alexandria. As we shall see, the real differences between the approaches had at least as much to do with intellectual heritage and temperament as with hermeneutical theory or exegetical method.

Another major tension at the heart of the development of early Christian biblical hermeneutics concerned the respective roles of scholarship and authority.

The emphasis on thoroughgoing scholarly research as the basis of the interpretation of the sacred text was more characteristic of Alexandria, which was a center of the encounter between early Christianity and the Hellenistic culture of late antiquity.

In Antioch, situated at the heart of the Jewish-Christian conflict and always beset with heterodox tendencies of more exotic kind, the role of authority in the proper interpretation of the church’s books was emphasized more even though Antiochene exegesis relied on serious historical and linguistic scholarship.

The emphasis on authority eventually prevailed, and by the sixth century exegesis had come to consist primary in the compiling of catenae (“chains”) of authorative interpretations by earlier commentators.

Relationship between OT and NT

(Schneiders, S. M.) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 12:46:29 EST

Photo by Mairin Ni Fhlaithearta

p. 7 The Problem of the Relationship between the Two Testaments

The primary problem for the early church was the relationship between the two Testaments; a problem that took two closely related forms.

The primary focus of the early church’s exegetical concerns was not the New Testament. Even though the New Testament itself (see 1 Peter 3:16) acknowledged that some of Paul’s writings were “hard to understand” and that some people were trying to “twist” (Paul’s teachings) to their own destruction,” the first Christian preachers and teachers were close enough in culture and language to the New Testament to assume an immediate access to its meaning, which could not be assumed with regard to the Old Testament.

The primary problem for the early church was the relationship between the two Testaments; a problem that took two closely related forms.

First was the problem of trying to interpret the story of Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ-event for believing Jews who would see the ignominious death of Jesus on the cross as God’s repudiation of his teaching and of the claims of his disciples that he was the Messiah (see Deut 21:22-23).

The first disciples had to interpret that death as part of God’s plan, which was brought to its completion by the vindication of Jesus through resurrection and exaltation at God’s right hand.

In telling the Jesus story, the first Christians attempted to show that the Old Testament itself was the basis for the messianic claim.

This was done in various ways: by presenting Jesus’ birth midrashically so as to show

*that he was the New Moses fleeing a contemporary pharaoh and returning from exile in Egypt as the mediator designation by God to save and form a new people (see Matthew 2); by showing

* that he was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy (e.g., that he was the Suffering Servant of Deutero-Isaiah (see Luke 4:17-21 in relation to Isa 6: 1-2);

* or by showing how the events of Jesus’ life and death, if properly understood are seen as the global working out of a divine plan that can be discerned only now that it has been fulfilled in Jesus (see Acts 2:14-36).

The second task, even more difficult than showing that the New Testament was a fulfillment of the Old, was that of showing how the Old Testament could be interpreted in terms of the New.

This was necessary if the Old Testament was to be “saved” from those who wished simply to abandon it as either totally irrelevant now that the new covenant had been established in Jesus or as unworthy of the God revealed by Jesus.

The sound intuition of the early church was that the Scriptures that were so dear to Jesus, which had prepared a people for him even if not all recognized him when he came and which had been faithfully held to be the word of God from time immemorial, could not be rendered null and voice—much less, evil—by the final revelation of God in the fullness of time.

On the other hand, it was clear that priority had to be assigned to the New Testament and that the Old had to be brought into a relationship with it that honored the Old but subordinated it to the New.

This is an example of the hermeneutical problem, the recognition that an ancient document is no longer assimilable purely on face values but that it is too significant to be abandoned as irrelevant or assigned merely historical interest. The actualizing of the perennial value of the classical text is the central task of interpretation.

In the New Testament itself the foundations are laid for the Christian interpretation of the Old Testament. Paul, for example, skilled as a rabbinical exegete, used the rabbinical techniques of verbal interpretation, so strange to the modern mind, to extract Christological significance from Old Testament passages.

An excellent example of this technique of interpreting words in isolation, without regard of the context, is Paul’s building of a whose promise-fulfillment Christology on the fact that the divine promise of salvation was made to Abraham’s “offspring” in the singular, that is, to Christ, rather than his “offsprings” in the plural (Gal 3:15-18).

Therefore, Christ, by fulfilling the promise, validated the priority of promise over law. Paul also employed allegory, a term used rather inclusively of interpretation based on similarity. For example, in Gal 4:22-31 Paul develops the Old Testament story of Abrahams two wives and their respective sons as an allegory of the relationship between the two covenants, the old being a dispensation of slavery to the law, the nee new a dispensation of freedom according to grace.

Paul’s exegesis of the Old Testament, which he continued to hold in the highest esteem after his conversion, was thoroughly Christological in content even though his methods remained largely rabbinic.

Another interpretive technique that appears in the New Testament itself is typological interpretation. A type is an Old Testament reality (person, place, thing, or event) that is understood from a later perspective, to have been a foreshadowing of a New Testament reality.

For example, Paul sees the rock that Moses struck to provide life-giving water for the Hebrews during the wandering in the desert. (Exod 17:6) as a type of Christ, the source of life for Christians (1Cor 10:4).

In John’s Gospel Jesus himself is presented as interpreting the brazen serpent that Moses lifted up in the desert to save the rebellious Hebrews who had been bitten by fiery serpents (Num 21:6-9) as a type of the Son of man who would be lifted up so that all who believed in him would have eternal life (John 3:14-15).

New Testament typological interpretation of the Old Testament is most strikingly evident in the Letter to the Hebrews, which is a prolonged explanation of how the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New, how the “law has but a shadow of the good thins to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Heb 10:1).

Another New Testament basis for the Christological interpretation of the Old Testament is found in the Fourth Gospel’s presentation of the Paraclete Jesus, according to john, had much to say to his disciples which his earthly companions were not able to bear (John 16:12-13); consequently, subsequent generations of Christians under the influence of the Holy Spirit would have to draw out the full meaning of the Christ-event.

This interpretive activity, authorized by Jesus himself and guaranteed by the gift of the Holy Spirit, would consist partly in showing how Jesus and his messianic activity were already present in the Old Testament.

The fourth evangelist himself is quite explicit in presenting Jesus as the one of whom Moses and the prophets spoke (see John 5:45-47; 12:12-16; 12:38-42).

Interpreting Scripture

(Schneiders, S. M.) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:20:44 EST

photo by Mairin Ni Fhlaithearta

p. 5

The Problem of Interpreting Scripture in the Early Church

Underlying Assumptions

The problem of how to interpret the scriptures was crucial for the early Church. Certain presuppositions about interpretation underlay all the exegetical efforts of these first centuries.
First, contrary to the assumptions of Post-Renaissance exegesis, the early church assumed that the Bible in some ways at least, was unlike any other type of literature.

It was believed not only that every word of Scripture was inspirited by God, but also that every word was the bearer, in some way, of Divine revelation. Consequently, the interpreter required divine assistance usually understood as interior illumination in order to understand the text right.

This led Origen, the early church’s greatest biblical scholar, to insist that the students at his catechetical school in Alexandria lead a quasi-monastic life since the purity of their consciences and the intensity of their prayer were substantively determinative of the quality of their scholarship.

Because the Scriptures were the church’s book, only the believer, working from within the believing community, could rightly interpret the biblical text.

By the sixth century this position had developed into a theory of authoritative ecclesiastical interpretation that effectively brought an end to the creative period of patristic exegesis. But its original purpose was not to control the work of orthodox exegetes; rather it was to dispute the legitimacy and therefore, the validity of the interpretation of the ‘heretics’ – that is, those thinkers and teachers, such as the Gnostics, whose faith was no longer compatible with that of the great church.

Justin, Origen, and the Orthodox Tertullian among others invoked this principle against Jewish, Gnostic, and Marcionite interpretations, particularly in defense of the continued significance of the Old Testament for Christians, the Christological interpretation of the Old Testament, and the defensibility of the Old Testament presentation of God, which some of the heretics regarded as too materialistic and anthropomorphic, if not blatantly immoral.

Nevertheless, even if only the believer could achieve the proper interpretation of the bible, the results of this interpretation were intended to be understood by and convincing to the well-disposed nonbeliever as well as triumphant in the struggle against heretics.

A second presupposition underlying early Christian exegesis was that Jesus himself was the hermeneutical principle par excellence. Not only was He the fulfillment of the Old Testament (see Acts 2:22-36) and therefore the way to its true meaning, but also he was present as supplying during his own lifetime the example of how the Scriptures were to be interpreted.

Jesus made it clear that the Old Testament required an interpretation that was more than mere repetition or literalistic application of the Mosaic law (e.g. Matt 19:3-9). He also showed repeatedly that all parts of Scripture were not of equal weight and that even the most sacred tenets of Torah, such as the observance of the Sabbath, must yield before the demands of the great law of love (see Mark 3:1-6).

Furthermore, Jesus taught as one “having authority” that is without appealing to either the law or the traditional interpretation of the law (see Mark 1:21-28), thus grounding the claim of the church that Jesus inaugurated a truly new covenant, which had become the norm for the interpretation of the old.

A third underlying assumption of early Christian exegesis was that biblical interpretation was simultaneously a work of scholarship demanding the best use of the most advanced methods and a work of faithful contemplation that would never be equal to the mystery of divine revelations.

Related to this was the double obligation of the exegete to scholarly integrity and to the tradition of the church. Each of these two poles was accorded different importance at different times and in different places.

Origen, for example, although deeply convinced that biblical interpretation was an essentially contemplative and ecclesial occupation, tended to place more confidence in the results of research than in the deliverances of tradition, whereas Irenaenus regarded tradition as the ultimate norm of scholarly

Early Christian Spirituality

(Schneiders, S. M.) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:59:25 EST

photo by Mercedes Camelo

p.4 The Role of Scripture in Early Christian Spirituality

The attitude of the first Christians toward Scripture differed in no significant way than that of believing Jews.

Every word of the sacred text was pregnant with divine meaning and everything of religious significance was expressed in the context of biblical categories and by means of biblical language consequently, the entire religious experience of the early church was steeped in and articulated by biblical symbolism.

At first this symbolism was drawn entirely from the Hebrew Scriptures. Late, as we have seen, the Christian community produced its own writings which were themselves profoundly influenced by the Old Testament.

Proclamation, the preaching of the gospel to those who had not yet heard it, was the first task of the new community that was inaugurated by the resurrection of Jesus.

As we see from the records of the earliest preaching by Peter, Paul, and the other apostles as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, every effort was made to interpret the Christ-event in terms of the promises given to the ancestors in the Old Testament. Jesus was presented in the preaching of the early church as the New Adam, the New Moses, the prophet promised in Deuteronomy, the promised heirs to the David throne, the Isaiah Suffering Servant, and the mysterious Son of Man in the Book of Daniel.

All of the titles that the early church employed in order to understand the Old Testament and transformed by the Christian experience of Jesus to become vehicles for the interpretation of his life, work and destiny.

Catechesis, the further formation of new converts in the life of Christ was likewise virtually entirely biblical as was the prayer life, both liturgical and individual, of the early Christians.

The celebration of baptism in connection with the solemnity of the resurrection (Easter) was an initiation of the Christian into the mystery of Christ in his passion, death, and resurrection understood against the background of creation, the fall, the flood, the promise to the ancestors, the exodus, the covenant, the exile, and the return, all understood as types of salvation finally effected in Christ and now communicated to the members of the believing community.

Eucharist, the commemoration of the Lord’s last supper with his disciples, was interpreted by the Christian community against the background of the paschal meal. Thus, the death of Jesus was understood as an exodus by which Jesus, the New Moses, leads the community to life and freedom in a new and eternals covenant that was sealed in his blood, shed for them on Calvary.

The daily prayer of the early Christians consisted of the psalms of the Old Testament as well as the prayer that Jesus himself had taught them (the Our Father (see Luke 11:1-4), which was itself profoundly scriptural.

Theology as it developed in the early church, beginning with the work of the apologists and that of the masters of the earliest catechetical schools of Alexandria and Antioch, consisted entirely in the exegesis of Scripture.

In attempting to make the new teaching acceptable to the Jews, the Christians relied almost exclusively on the exposition of the Hebrew Scriptures as prophesy fulfilled in Jesus. For the Gentiles, especially those knowledgeable in philosophy, the exposition of the Scriptures aimed at showing the reasonableness of the biblical material and its compatibility with pagan learning.

Indeed it was not until the high Middle Ages that theology began to take an independent dialectical form that relied primarily on philosophy rather than on Scripture.

In short, the Scriptures played the role in the religious experience of the early church that the Second Vatican Council claimed it should play in the life of Christians of our own day.

Scripture was indeed the “pure and perennial source of the spiritual life” (Dogmatic Constitutions on Divine Revelation) Dei Verbum, chapter 6, art. 21).

Christians Produce Scripture

(Schneiders, S. M.) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:53:43 EST

Early Christian Scriptures

Christian Spirituality as Productive of Scripture

p. 2

The resurrection experience, as well as the ignominious death of Jesus on the cross, required interpretation in religious categories that could be understood by the first disciples and those to whom they proclaimed salvation in Jesus’ name.

It was to Israel’s sacred literature, the Hebrew Scriptures, that Peter and Paul and the other apostles turned for the religious language that enabled them to interpret the Jesus story as messianic salvation and Jesus himself as Lord and Savior.

For the first Christians and Hebrew Scriptures were the word of God just as they had been for Jesus himself (John 10:34-36). However, the Christians began to interpret the Scriptures differently from the Jews, since the Christians regarded Jesus as the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies whereas Jews still awaited that fulfillment.

Furthermore, within two to three decades after Pentecost-when Peter and the others had experienced the outpouring of the Spirit upon themselves and had begun to preach the gospel- a body of original Christian writings began to develop.

The letters of the apostle Paul to the communities had had founded began to be circulated and read in other communities. Sometime in the sixties the first narrative account of the life, preaching, work, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the document we call the Gospel of Mark, was composed and was followed by a number of other Gospels, three of which (Matthew, Luke, and John) have been included with that of Mark in the ‘canon’, or official book of Christian Scripture.

One of these Gospels, that of Luke, had a sequel, which came to be called the Acts of the Apostles and which described the life of the early church from Pentecost until the end of Paul’s apostolic career.

Finally, toward the end of the first Christian century a piece of Christian apocalyptic literature was written, probably composed in the same community that produced the Gospel of John, and this book of Revelation, or Apocalypse, eventually became part of the Christian canon of sacred writings.

The most striking feature of the Christian writings that eventually came to be regarded as Scripture is that they not only transmitted the teaching of Jesus, namely, his announcement that the promised reign of God was imminent, but also identified that reign as having been inaugurated in and by the person and work of Jesus himself.

Jesus, now believed to be the Son of God, Messiah, and Savior of the world, was the primary content of the Christian teaching.

In confessing Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, the Christian community expressed the centrality of his person to their monotheistic faith, a development that finally proved incompatible with the Jewish faith in one God, as it was preserved and taught by the synagogue after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.

The first suggestion that these Christian writings were beginning to be considered “Scripture” appears in 2Peter 3:16 (ca. 100-125) where the author refers to the writings of Paul as on a par with “the other scriptures”.

In Justin’s Apology 1,67, written about 150, we find an indication that some of the Christian writings, notably the Gospels, were being read along with the Hebrew Scriptures at Christian liturgies.

The most important development, in view of what will follow, was the attempt to situate the Christian writings in relation to the Hebrew Scriptures, which the Christians continued to regard as the inspired word of God even after the expulsion of the Christians from the synagogue (ca. 90).

The struggle between Marcion, who rejected the Hebrew Scriptures, and the larger community, which accepted them, precipitated the formulation of the official position that Scripture is a single “book” composed of two Testaments.

The earliest known reference to the Hebrew Scriptures as the Old Testament is that of Melito of Sardis, which is recorded in Eusebius’s Church History (historia ecclesiastica) 4.26 and dates from ca. 170. Tertullian, around 200, seems to have been the first to refer to the Christian writings aw the New Testament.

The Christian designation of the Hebrew Scriptures as the Old Testament was an expression of an intuitive understanding of the process of revelation within history that has never been explained in a fully satisfactory way.

The Christian community came to see itself as the “true” (and eventually as the new”) Israel, the inheritor of the promises made to Abraham and the covenant mediated by Moses.

Thus, the Old Testament was regarded by the Christian community as its own literature, but only in the context of the new covenant established in and by Jesus Christ. What is the whole of Scripture for a Jew is only part, and indeed a preparatory part, of the Sacred Scripture for a Christian. Consequently, the most fundamental law of hermeneutics, the mutually determining relationship of parts and whole, entails a radically different approach to the Hebrew Scriptures by Christians.

The problem of how the Christian is to interpret the Old Testament in light of the New and the New Testament against the background of the Old was the central hermeneutical problem of the Christian use of Scripture during the first half of the Christian era.

Scripture and Spirituality

(Schneiders, S. M.) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:45:22 EST

Birth of Christian Spirituality

Schneiders, S. M. (2000), ‘Scripture and Spirituality’, in B. McGinn, J. Meyendorff, and J. Leclercq (eds), Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth C. New York, NY: Crossroads, pp. 1-20.

This initial chapter in this volume sets out the delicate negotiations of the Christ event in human history: a Jewish Christ in the midst of a Greek Culture that evolved into a dominant Latin Church. Sandra Schneiders’ clarity in very few words is a great service to us.

p. 1: The Birth of Christian Spirituality

It was historical events, the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt under the leadership of Moses and the covenant they made with Yahweh on Mount Sinai, that gave rise to and defined Jewish religious experience.

Likewise, it was an event, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, that inaugurated and shaped Christian spirituality. From the moment of that event, Christianity was distinct from Judaism even though it would be some sixty years (ca. 90 C.E.) before the break between the synagogue and the newly consolidated Christian community would be definitive.

Twenty centuries of exegesis and theology have not succeeded in fully elucidating that inaugural experience to which the disciples of the historical Jesus bore witness first by proclamation (e.g. Acts 2:22-24; 1Cor 15:3-8) and then by narratives in which they described, “seeing the Lord” (e.g. Luke 24:13-53; John 20:11-18, 19-23, 26-29).

Some of the first disciples, utterly disillusioned by the Roman execution of the one they had believed to be the Messiah who would liberate Israel, testified to their experience that the same Jesus whom they had followed, who had been killed and buried, was alive with God and in and among themselves, alive with an indestructible new life which the disciples experienced in themselves as the guarantee of their own eventual and full triumph over sin and death.

They began to live as participants in the paschal mystery, this is, in the death and resurrection of Jesus, whom they now acknowledge as Lord and Messiah. The felt themselves to be free of the Mosaic law (see Gal 3:23-27), no longer bound to struggle to please God through the performance of good works, but as graced children of God in Christ, empowered by his indwelling to the pattern that Jesus had given them during his life and described to them in the Beatitudes (Matt 5: 1-12).

Their joy and their mission were to proclaim the good news (the gospel) of salvation in Christ available to every person who believed in him, was baptized, and lived faithfully within the community of believers who soon came to be called “Christians” after the one to whom they had given their lives. This salvation was offered equally Jews and Gentiles, to men and women, to slaves and free people (see Gal 28).

The salvation that Jesus had announced and made available was the universal salvation that the most deeply religious of the ancient Israelites had dimly foreseen as characteristic of messianic times (e.g., Isaiah 60).

Christian spirituality, that is, personal participation in the mystery of Christ begun in faith sealed by baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, was nourished by sharing in the Lord’s Supper, which the community celebrated regularly in memory of him who was truly present wherever his followers gathered (see Matt 18:26), and was expressed by simple use of universal love that bore witness to life in the Spirit and attracted others to faith (see Acts 4:32-35); 1John 1; and elsewhere).

Within a very short time Jesus’ followers experienced the same persecution that had cost Jesus his life (see Acts 3:1-4; 31), and martyrdom, witness to the faith by the shedding of one’s blood, became the most coveted crown of Christian life (see Acts 6-7).

Resources for Confession

(Meg Funk) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:35:14 EST

For I have sinned

Resources for Preparation for Confession

Antonopoulos, Archimandrite N. (2002), Return: Repentance and Confession, The Return to God and His Church. Akritas Publications.

This 86-page book from the Orthodox Tradition helped teach me more about repentance than about sin and moral degrees of gravity. The point is Christ, and sin separates us out from our own presence and the Presence of Jesus, Our Lord. Repentance is the way back through the door of mercy. This return has a tradition through the sacrament of Confession.

Hahn, S. (2003), Lord, Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession. New York, NY: Doubleday.

This is a very readable Catholic Book recommended by Father Paul that gives one courage to return to confession in their adult life. The Appendix has the Rite, an examination of conscience and a fine list of sources and references.

Turner, P. (2005), Preparing for Confession: Receiving God’s Mercy. Chicago, IL: Liturgical Training Publications.

I have found this little 30 page small pamphlet size teaching to be a comforting aid for new and old sinners coming to this ancient sacrament. It is well worth the price of $1.25.

Harrilchak, P. N. (1996), Confession with Examination of Conscience and Common Prayers, Way to a common growth in the spirit of repentance. Reston, VA: Holy Trinity Orthodox Church.

In writing this examination of conscience I took three days to list all the sins according to each of the eight afflictive thoughts (Thoughts Matter).

Then, I realized that in the Gospels Jesus was total compassion. He simply healed them, forgave them and said to sin no more. It is not sin that is at issue here, but our relationship with God.

Hausherr, I. (1982), Penthos: The Doctrine of Compunction in the Christian East (CS 53), Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications.

Hopko, Thomas. Sin: Primordial, Generational, Personal. Crestwood, NY 10707: St. Vladimir Seminary Press. Ti IrderL1-800-204-2665.

The Love of Learning and the Desire for God

(Meg Funk) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:59:18 EST

photo by Mercedes Camelo

Leclercq, J. (1961), The Love of Learning and the Desire for God. New York, NY: Fordham University Press.

This book was published the year I entered the convent (as it was called in those days).

In reading this book I understood for the first time that the culture of the monastery is lectio divina.

Each monastic is doing his or her lectio and sustaining a God consciousness.

Without the practice of lectio divina we simply take on another culture, e.g., a university, a hospital, a hotel, a cottage industry, a farm, etc.

The Jonah Syndrome

(Meg Funk) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:01:27 EST

Jonah in all of us

Murray, P. (2002), A Journey With Jonah the Spirituality of Bewilderment. Blackrock, Co. Dublin: The Columba Press.

This book is a delightful sustained meditation on the Book of Jonah.

His study is in-depth research and shows extensive familiarity with theology, psychology, art, poetry, literature and Scriptures in both Christian and other religions such as Islam and Hinduism.

In this readable little book of 70 pages that includes the NAB version of the Book of Jonah text, he makes a compelling case that Jonah is in all of us and gives us insight and flight from our bewilderment.

p. 23. A quote from Paul Murray’s wonderful study of Jonah:

‘Modern consciousness, Buber writes, looks to the soul as the only sphere in which we can expect to harbour or discover the “divine.”

And this marks, of course, a complete shift away from transcendence to immanence. In Buber’s opinion,

“(Modern consciousness) will have nothing more to do with the God believed in by the religions, who is to be sure present to the soul, who reveals himself to it, communicates with it, but remains transcendent to it in his being.”

A spirituality of this kind – an exclusively immanent spirituality – at least in its extreme manifestations, represents a regress back to a safe, controlled environment, a return to “the womb” even. In terms of religion, it is nothing less than a spiritual manifestation of “the Jonah syndrome”.’

The Ladder of Monks by Guigo II

(Meg Funk) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:38:29 EST

4 step

Guigo II (1981), The Ladder of Monks and Twelve Meditations (trans E. Colledge and T. Walsh). Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications.
Written by a Carthusian in the 12 C., this is a classic in Western Christian mysticism.

Today the most common method in use is the four steps outlined by Guigo II, the Carthusian who wrote the Ladder of Monks a thousand years after the teachers of the Alexandrian School of Catechesis. Guigo II provides a masterful outline of reading, meditating, praying and contemplation.

No distinctions are made between the voice of the text and the senses of the reader; it is simply to read the text four different times using different ways of approaches. However, this method of lectio divina was never meant to be done in common (as a group prayer) or at one single session (like morning prayers before the Blessed Sacrament).

Selecting a Bible for Lectio

(Meg Funk) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:17:02 EST

Translations

Selecting a Catholic Bible for Lectio

What translation of a Bible should be used for lectio divina?

I recommend four translations for Catholic readers: The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), The New American Bible (NAB), The Jerusalem Bible (JB) and The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB).

My personal favorite translation is the Jerusalem Bible. It is translated from original languages then into French, then English. I find the Jerusalem text more poetic and it sounds true to my ears. I also think the Jerusalem Bible editions have taken much trouble to format and leave some white spaces for just resting with a text. The NJB has several editions that are easy to hold and pleasant to read.

The most recommended translation today is the NRSV. It is excellent and has Study Bible editions like the New Oxford Annotated Bible and is readable and full of help for study. The NRSV has attended to inclusive language issues.

For some months I used a Protestant Bible for travel, the large print compact edition of Holman Christian Standard Bible. It has a great feel of near-leather, with a Celtic cross cover, but I missed the Catholic canon that includes the book of Tobit, the complete book of Daniel, Judith, additions to Book of Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the letter of Jeremiah, 1 and 2 Maccabees.

As a Catholic who hears so much of the Bible at liturgy I missed those sections that were not included in my Protestant travel Bible.

Now, I use a NRSV Catholic Edition plus Anglicized Text for both travel and at home for study and teaching, but for my own prayer I use my Jerusalem Bible that I got as a present from my mother at first vows in 1963.

For lectio divina we need a translation that is from original languages, as in formal correspondence. We also need a bible with footnotes, commentary, and study guides.

For more information on choosing a Bible translation google John J. Pilch. Or order the pamphlet of that title from Liturgical Press, Collegeville MN copyright 2000.

There is certainly a risk in using a translation that has little correspondence with the literal sense of the text. These translations like the Good News Bible (Today’s English Version, TEV), or the Contemporary English Version (CEV) start with the meaning to meaning and there is more risk of the translator giving his/her meaning rather than the original intention of the author(s).

Avoid using the Good News Bible (TEV) or the Contemporary English Version (CEV). Since lectio divina is an encounter with God we need to read the most orthodox translations.

RSV (Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition) Oxford University Press: London. “Introduction” The aim of this translation must be to render into inteligibl language, as faithfully as possible, what he regards on solid critical grounds, as the original text or the closest possible approximation to it.

In some cases the original has not come down to us, but it is still incumbent on the translator to try to get as near as possible to it by a study of the most ancient versions.” P. iv.

A study Guide for Thoughts and Tools

(Meg Funk) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 07:17:12 EST

Our Sources

A Study Guide pertaining to the Thoughts
Thoughts Matter: a study guide. These notes might be helpful for confessors, spiritual directors, teachers and practitioners.

Introduction

Sources:

Twelve Institutes and twenty-four Conferences of John Cassian

Rule of St. Benedict (520 AD) is about 7000 words, 823 verses, 300 Scripture quotes (of which 136 are quotes from John Cassian), over 20 other sources of older Rules and Early Christian Documents.
There are 537 teachings in the Rule of Benedict.

John Cassian (366–430) took two seven-year journeys from Rome to Egypt, Palestine, Syria and founded a monastery in today’s southern France. Visited the now famous desert Fathers and Mothers. He lived in those monasteries and listened to their teachings. He put these teachings and his own formation from Evagrius into these writings. It is considered the richest source of theory of religious life for Western Christianity.

Overview:

Ancient Writings from the Desert Tradition: 250–450 AD. About 200 Abbas and Ammas became known for having realized a contemplative life of holiness.

Sayings, stories, history of this period gathered over 2000 Sayings. 80% are about the Thoughts.

The Apophthegmata or sayings come from two basic sources. The alphabetical collection has 1,000 sayings from 130 monks. It uses the Greek Alphabet. Abba Anthony has 38 sayings.

Later there was the Anonymous Collection that was attached to the alphabetical collection. There were first 200 additional sayings, then another 640 sayings. These 1,840 sayings got translated into Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Slavonic translations.

The second collection is called the Systematic Sayings, using 21 topics such as discernment, unceasing prayer, hospitality and humility. There are 1,200 sayings in this collection. It came to be known in Latin as the Verba Seniorum. This would have been known by St. Benedict.

While the theme of Journey is in every literature including Abraham, Moses, and Dante it was Origen who had a theory about the Spiritual Journey. Origen was a famous Scripture mystic-scholar (b. 185) who wrote extensively about the spiritual sense of Scripture. It’s his distinctions that became the stages about the Interior Life: Purgative, Illuminative and Unitive stages along the journey.

John Cassian picked up the theme of the Spiritual Journey, saying that there are four Renunciations:
1) Former Way of Life
2) Thoughts of your Former Way of Life
3) Thoughts of God
4) Renunciation that we renounce our very selves and merge with the Divine (like the Sufi Fana).

The end or aim is union with God. Even now we can obtain purity of heart. So the goal is to obtain purity of heart during the earthly life. This makes possible the experience of contemplating God because a heart pure is free of obstacles that veil the immediacy of God’s Presence.

The first renunciation corresponds with one’s Baptismal promises to renounce Satan, all his works and pomps (which means ‘goods’ that don’t bring us closer to God). This is a renunciation to pick up the Christian way of life that is externally virtuous, committed to an ecclesial membership through the Church.

The second renunciation starts the interior work, or the Spiritual (meaning hidden from external senses). This purgative work is the life of asceticism to check thoughts of the former way of life because thoughts are the intentions of the heart.

The third renunciation is to renounce one’s thought of God because any concept is not God—because God is beyond one’s thoughts, images and descriptions.

The fourth renunciation is one that I barely understand. It’s about renouncing one’s thought of oneself so that merging with God in unity becomes one’s own

School of Alexandria

(David G.R. Keller) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:05:24 EST

interdisciplinary

From Oasis of Wisdom, The Worlds of the Desert Fathers and Mothers by David G.R. Keller. Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN, pp. 18–19.

A major venue for this dialog and for Christian learning during this period was the influential Catechetical School in Alexandria, probably founded in the early to mid-second century.

It was a focus for the formulation of Christian theology in the East at a time when the church at large was trying to articulate and embody its faith in worship, catechesis, evangelization and dialog with the dominant Greek worldview.

Many church leaders were educated in the school’s interdisciplinary curriculum that emphasized religion but included the humanities, science and mathematics.

One of the first great leaders of the school from 190–254 C.E. was Clement of Alexandria. He was born in Greece, circa 160 C.E., and traveled throughout the Mediterranean world studying philosophy.

After his conversion to Christianity he found a wise teacher in Alexandria, Pantaenus, who may have been the head of the Catechetical School. Clement was known for his efforts to seek a transition between biblical truth and Greek myth and philosophy.

Yet he maintained that the Bible is central for Christian living, the firm foundation for living human lives, and an unparalleled source of truth in which God could be experienced in a personal way.

Clement is one of the first early male theologians called ‘the Church Fathers.’ Although steeped in the scholarship of Greek and Latin philosophy and literature, these early Fathers were captivated by the simplicity and wisdom of the Bible.

The Bible transcended the ideals and images of Greek thought, brought philosophy and theology down to earth and grounded them in human life. Clement used biblical language to interpret the goal of human life that had been articulated in more ideal terms in Platonic thought. He wrote that humans were created in the ‘image of God’ (from Genesis) and our human vocation is to manifest ‘likeness to God’ through our manner of life.

For Christians, living according to the biblical example of Jesus Christ is the path from image to likeness, a transformation made possible by God’s grace.

Clement and later Church Fathers would have a significant influence on the lives of the desert fathers and mothers in three ways:
* 1) emphasizing the centrality of the Bible for Christian living;
*2) articulating a vision of the end or goals of Christian life as a transformation, through grace, that makes embodiment of the likeness of God possible; and
* 3) exhorting openness to God’s grace through Baptism, the Eucharist and prayer.

The Church Fathers were persons of prayer and their writing was rooted in personal prayer and the Bible.

Perhaps the most influential leader of the Catechetical School was Origen of Alexandria who followed Clement in 254 C.E. He was a biblical scholar, theologian, and philosopher whose methods for reflecting on Scripture and using Greek thought for exploring and interpreting Christian faith in the third-century world made him very controversial.

He taught that reading and contemplation of Scripture initiates a dialog in which God is truly present to the reader and the reader is changed in his or her inner being. Reading at this time was vocalized, and silent reading was unknown in most places.

Like his teacher, Clement, Origen emphasized the uniqueness of biblical wisdom for Christian life, yet he was more assertive in claiming the value of Greek philosophy and its language as a means of interpreting the Christian faith. He honored reason as a human faculty, but taught that the origin of Christian wisdom lies in God rather than human wisdom. Origen’s thought and the fruits of his contemplative life had an influence on many monks, including Antony and Evagrius.

quoted with permission from Liturgical Press

Medieval exegesis

(McNally, R. E.) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:29:22 EST

Lost the tradition

McNally, R. E. (1981), ‘Medieval exegesis’, in Catholic U of A, New Catholic Encyclopedia (Vol. 5). Palatine, IL: Jack Heraty & Associates, p. 707-712.

This is a shorter summary that reports the demise of the hermeneutics that dominated Western theology till about the year 1500.

The five page article ends with the sentence:

‘With the coming of the Reformation and humanism, which employed the disciplines of the new learning, criticism, philology, and history, the usefulness of medieval exegesis as a hermeneutical system was virtually terminated. Face to face with this new critical spirit and its scientific technique, medieval exegesis ceased to be relevant and was discarded’ (p.712).

This article does give a sketch how the sense theory evolved. Sometimes it was threefold body, soul and spirit anthropology with a threefold sense of Scripture: somatic, psychic, and pneumatic (Origen De Principilis 4.2.4).

John Cassian teaches the threefold method using the terms the ‘letter’ or literal, ‘tropicus’ which is the moral sense and higher understanding which is called ‘anagogic’ (Collationes 8.3).

Gregory the Great, in his homilies on Ezekiel (Hom. 9 n.8) developed the fourfold senses theory: literal and three spiritual senses: the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogic. The literal was not neglected, but the spiritual meanings were the revelation (p.708).