De Lubac on Platonism and Stoicism in the Bible and the Fathers

"It is a commonplace to allude to the Platonism of the Fathers in connexion with these doctrines [of the cosmic body]. But instead of invoking the Platonic doctrine of essential being, we should do better to account for them--to the extent that they are dependent at all on a philosophic basis--by looking rather to the Stoic conception of universal being. There are many expressions in Marcus Aurelius, for example, regarding the integration of the individual in the concrete totality of the cosmos, and still more concerning the reciprocal immanence of those who are participators in the Nous. But all this is of secondary importance, and we should beware of adopting the practice known in accountancy as double-entry, as so many Protestant historians do in dealing with the Fathers and the Bible. For in the Fathers they will see nothing but Hellenistic borrowings and influence, whereas in St. Paul and St. John they will find nothing but 'pure revelation' or at least 'pure religion.' So severely critical an attitude on the one hand, such naive simplicity on the other, are in fact equally the causes of their blindness.

"For in whatever degree a philosophical basis was necessary to the Fathers, were it Platonist or Stoic, their speculation was conditioned less by considerations of philosophy than by a keen realization of the needs of Christianity. How else indeed could they make the most of the metaphor of the body and its members in the great Pauline epistles if they were to leave Stoicism out of account? Or how could they interpret with accuracy the epistle to the Hebrews if first they must eliminate all trace of Platonism? In fact, they never scrupled to borrow, and that to a large extent, from the great pagan philosophers whom they held in esteem. But, wiser than Solomon, they were not led into idolatry by their philosophy, and as a modern historian, Christopher Dawson, has remarked, we must go back to St. John and St. Paul if we would understand patristic thought."

--Henri de Lubac, Catholicism (transl. Lancelot Sheppard; New York: Sheed and Ward, 1958) 9-10. (Pages 40-1 in Ignatius Press version pictured above.)

John Ashton on Demythologization

In his splendid book on the Fourth Gospel, John Ashton has some truly wonderful turns of phrases.  It is one of the most erudite and humane books in biblical studies I have ever read.  One of the hidden gems can be found in his discussion of John 1.51 ("Amen, amen I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man"):

"One of the difficulties of interpreting the saying satisfactorily is that the imagination, for once, is of no avail.  Confronted with the bizarre spectacle of the angels clambering up and down on the strange new figure of the Son of Man, it seizes and stalls.  This is a common experience of twentieth-century Westerners:  as they look at myth, they feel compelled, somehow, to demythologize.  But why should a demythologized myth be any more use than dehydrated water?  The medium is the message--it does not contain it or hold it imprisoned like a genie in a bottle, waiting to be released.  Somehow, then, we have to allow the picture of the ladder, base on earth and top in the clouds, to fuse with that of the Son of man, and at the same time to allow the busily climbing angels, some going up and others going down, to convey the message with which the evangelist has charged them" (249-50).

What is that message?  You'll have to check out the book, which besides being a thoroughly humane and cultured volume, mounts an impressive interpretation of the Fourth Gospel.

Changing Educational Paradigms

Got this in an email from my sister-in-law (that still sounds weird in my ear). Fascinating. Both the animation and the talk.

Pure Mathematics of the Spirit

"The spirits of the living world were never meant to be so neighbourly with the spirits of that other. "Grant to them eternal rest, O Lord. And let light eternal shine upon them." Let them rest in their own places of light; far, far from us be their discipline and their endeavour. The phrases of the prayers of intercession throb with something other than charity for the departed; there is a fear for the living. Grant them, grant them rest; compel them to their rest. Enlighten them, perpetually enlighten them. And let us still enjoy our refuge from their intolerable knowledge.

"As if in a last communion with the natural terrors of man, Margaret Anstruther endured a recurrent shock of fear. She recalled herself. To tolerate such knowledge with a joyous welcome was meant, as the holy Doctors had taught her, to be the best privilege of man, and so remained. The best maxim towards that knowledge was yet not the Know thyself of the Greek so much as the Know love of the Christian, though both in the end were one. It was not possible for man to know himself and the world, except first after some mode of knowledge, some art of discovery. The most perfect, since the most intimate and intelligent, art was pure love. The approach by love was the approach to fact; to love anything but fact was not love. Love was even more mathematical than poetry; it was the pure mathematics of the spirit. It was applied also and active; it was the means as it was the end. The end lived everlastingly in the means; the means eternally in the end."

From Charles Williams, Descent Into Hell, pp. 68-69

Austin Farrer, A Rebirth of Images

Austin Farrer, A Rebirth of Images (London: Dacre, 1949).

No one has applied himself to the question of the literary art of the Apocalypse with more relentlessness than Austin Farrer. The book is a masterpiece and a puzzle, at once impressive and bemusing. The entire book is dominated by the conclusion (or shall we say, conviction) that the Apocalypse “is the one great poem which the first Christian age produced” (6). Accordingly, in this study of the book of Revelation, Farrer claims “to introduce into the field of scriptural divinity a known method of poetical analysis” (20). The origins of Christianity were, in fact, a “rebirth” of the imagery of the Jewish Scriptures. The most complete rebirth was accomplished in Revelation; in John’s poetical labor, the images of the Old Testament were reborn completely with Christ as the new center. Farrer saw, more than many, the sophistication of the book. He approaches the book as a work of genius, not that of a madman, though the difference between the two has often thought to be slight. He traces the themes of the Apocalypse much like one might trace the genius of Christopher Smart’s Jubilate Agno. In fact, the result of the Farrer’s analysis is so complex and dense, one might wonder whether Farrer has seen more than is actually there.

Rowland, "Things into Which Angels Long to Look"

Christopher Rowland, “Things into Which Angels Long to Look: Approaching Mysticism from the Perspective of the New Testament and the Jewish Apocalypses,” in Christopher Rowland and Christopher R. A. Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament (CRINT, vol. 12; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009), pp. 1-216.

In this study Christopher Rowland provides an outstanding survey of apocalypticism in the New Testament (NT). Rowland is to be commended for presenting a thorough argument in favor of the permeation of apocalypticism in New Testament theology. Instead of a limited focus on apocalyptic eschatology, Rowland capitalizes on the theme of the volume by analyzing apocalypticism in its “mystical” aspects. Following Hengel’s definition of apocalypticism as the search for “higher wisdom through revelation,” Rowland is keen to highlight visionary experience(s) and developed angelological and merkavah themes. Thus Rowland seeks to establish the apocalyptic origins of Christianity (á là Schweitzer) by conceptualizing apocalypticism along its (Jewish) mystical axis.

The Historical Jesus: Five Views

Ordinarily I find these 'four views' or 'five views' kind of books a little contrived. Usually published by evangelical publishers and edited by evangelical editors, I think they are intended to show the superiority of the evangelical position. But this volume comprises a nice cross-section of current historical Jesus research.

The introduction to the volume is judicious and offers the basic background to historical Jesus research. The chapters that follow are essays by five scholars (Robert M. Price, John Dominic Crossan, Luke Timothy Johnson, James D. G. Dunn and Darrell Bock) who represent points along the spectrum of scholarly positions on the historical Jesus and the enterprise of studying the historical figure of Jesus. The volume does not disappoint expectations since the arrangement of the essays suggests a graded progression from the most radically revisionist to the most traditional portrait of Jesus. In spite of the clearly chosen arrangement, the essays each provide a snapshot of major voices in historical Jesus scholarship.