Undusted Texts

Back in 2016, I drafted a paper contrasting two views of Mary's doubt and faith at the time of the Annunciation.  The first view was that of St. Jacob of Serugh (452-521), one of the most famous Syriac homilists; the second view is that of Antipater of Bostra (fl. 457), a Greek metropolitan, well-regarded for his writings against Apollinarianism and the heresies of Origenism, though only fragments have so far been discovered.  For St. Jacob, I had to rely on English translations of some of his Marian homilies; for Antipater, I was able to use the original Greek of what few homilies survive.   I tried submitting the paper to a journal or two, but I never was able to get it published.  (I have a bit of antipathy with academic journals.)  After a few rejections, the paper, like much of my work, languished in an electronic box for years.  Now I've uploaded it, so that it might, at least, be read once or twice by other eyes. Two Views of Mary's Faith  ...

Not all that Jesus said and did was recorded in the Gospels, nor written down elsewhere, since "the world itself could not contain the books that would be written" (Jn 21:25).  The Gospels are a selection—and a divinely-inspired one—but only a selection.  Even Paul goes outside that selection: "It is better to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35) is found nowhere in the Gospels. Early Christian tradition has passed down a number of non-Scriptural sayings of Jesus, such as "Wherein I find you, there I will judge you," and "He that is near Me is near fire.  He that is far from Me is far from the Kingdom."  (For a collection of these early agrapha , "unwritten sayings," see Montague Rhodes James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 33-37.)   The farther we go from the earliest Fathers, the more tenuous any reported saying will be.  Yet that doesn't stop traditions from being claimed.  So it is that many Muslim a...

  Introduction St. Albert the Great (1200-1280) needs little introduction: a German Dominican, teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas, and Doctor of the Church, he was one of the major philosophers of his age, as well as an important theologian.  His little treatise On Adhering to God  (or On Union with God ) is a beloved spiritual text.  Yet he also wrote much on Mary, though it is little known.  In particular, he wrote a twelve-book compilation entitled On the Praises of the Blessed Virgin Mary (De laudibus beatæ Mariæ Virginis) , which cover various Marian topics.  For instance, Book I is about Gabriel's greeting to Mary, Book IV is on her virtues, and Book V is on her beauty (spiritual and bodily).  (II.7 also has an interesting title: "On the Feast of the Eternity of Blessed Mary.")  Books VI-XI discuss Mary's "titles," though generally this means "images in Scripture that are applied to Mary."  These get very specific, such as "Mary, conch-shell...

 In the Islamic tradition, the Qur'an is the center of everything, for it is believed to be the very word of God, the uncreated word of God, in human speech.  Muhammad was not its author, but rather its transmitter, the channel through which it came to men.  Every single word in it was directly told him by God, and he wrote it all down precisely; this is in contrast to the Catholic view of Scripture, which was written both  by God and men, the divine Author and the human authors.   Yet Islam does not treat Muhammad simply as a channel: he was also a prophet, and the final prophet, "the capstone of the prophets," whose example and practice ( sunnah ) should be followed.  This sunnah  is not contained in the uncreated Qur'an, though; instead, it is passed down by tradition, by word of mouth, by the sayings of and about Muhammad, the hadith . What is unique about the Islamic use of hadith  is the chains of succession each has, the isnad.   ...

  For an introduction to Olier and this work, see the introduction to Part One . Feelings Regarding the Grandeurs of Saint Joseph §II: How Much Jesus Christ Honored the Great Saint Joseph The Son of God having rendered Himself visible in taking a human flesh, He visibly conversed and dealt with God His Father, that is, under the person of Saint Joseph, through whom His Father rendered Himself visible to Him.  The most holy Virgin and Saint Joseph, both together, represented one and the same single person, that of God the Father.  They were two sensible representations of God, two images under which He adored the fullness of His Father, be it in His eternal fruitfulness, be it in His temporal Providence, be it in His love for this Son Himself and His Church.  There, he was like the holy oratory of Jesus Christ and the sensible object of all His devotion.  Doubtless, the temple was, for Him, a place of religion, since He saw in that building a dead and material fi...

         After a thirty-three year trip, with a detour to Hell, the truly prodigal Son now returns to the Father.  (For “prodigal” does not mean “wicked’ or “wandering,” but “lavish in spending,” and Jesus was truly lavish in grace.)  He Who departed from the heavenly courts in order to become man has now ascended back to His home. This is a simple way to describe today, but too simple, and so simple as to be wrong.  “Does He abandon the cherubic throne if He receives worldly birth?” 1   No, He does not: in His fleshy birth, He is still with His Father, and even “when Your body was in the tomb and Your soul in Hades, when You were in paradise with the thief, You were also seated upon the throne with the Father and the Holy Spirit.” 2   (How does that ever-presence in heaven mesh with His declaration of abandonment by the Father on the Cross?  A harder question, one that we won’t tackle now.) Not only did He not fully depart—for ...

  Introduction Jean-Jacques Olier (1608-1657) was a French priest and founder of the Sulpicians (Society of the Priests of Saint Sulpice).  Though encouraged at a young age, by St. Francis to Sales, to become a priest, he lived for fashionable society; when he studied at the Sorbonne, he hoped for academic glory, striving to learn Hebrew in order to defend his thesis in that language, just for the thrill of it.  When his eyesight began to fail, he undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy House of Loreto, where he was cured and converted.  Taught by St. Vincent de Paul and Charles de Condren, superior general of Pierre de Bérulle's Oratory of Jesus, he undertook both spiritual reform and works of charity.  Eventually headquartered at the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, he founded a seminary and an order of priests, the Sulpicians, who continued Olier's dual aim, especially in following St. Vincent de Paul's lead in caring for the poor.  (A pupil of the seminary,...

  For an introduction to St. Bruno and this work, see the introduction to my translation of the Prologue to St. Bruno's Commentary on the Psalms .  Recall that St. Bruno is commenting on the Vulgate text of the Psalms; to understand the precise phrases he is discussing, one should consult the Vulgate or the Douay-Rheims, which is, generally, a quite literal translation of the Vulgate. St. Bruno of Cologne Commentary on the Psalms Psalm I Blessed the man , etc.  It says “man,” not in regards to the distinction of sexes, but in regards to the sense of maturity.  And this is thus explained: Adam, dying to sin through delight, and consent, and action, and custom, drew all the human race with himself, and so was deservedly unhappy.  But there was someone to come, who would be a man , to do all things, not weakly, like Adam, but manfully and maturely.  And since he will be man , he will be blessed , that is, by God, with virtue and work, and, later, the blessing ...