Supplements to CofE 1563 & Damantory clauses UR

[Sobornost]

I’m going to put some supplementary material here to the argument I am developing on The Universalism and the EU thread and to the argument I will develop in Damantory Clauses of the Athanasian Creed thread. I can post any corrections to my argument I think of as I go along here (they will not be major, just details), and any useful background stuff. Hope that’s OK

Here some note I made about Origen for starters -

There are some notable facts about Origen that I’ve seen discussed with great clarity in ‘All Shall Be Well’ anthology and elsewhere. He put forward a clear doctrine of universal reconciliation in his writings. Sometime after his death he was condemned as a heretic, but it is wrong to suggest that his views on universal salvation were the main problems. He had views about the Trinity that did not chime with developed Orthodoxy (but he was the first Christian writer to seriously try to develop a doctrine of the Trinity; indeed he was the first Christian theologian of any note full stop, and it seems wrong to judge the forerunner in the lights of later developed doctrine which learnt from his mistakes). He may have held ideas about the last things -after the judgement - being a simple return to first things – Eden/paradise- seemingly without their being any real point for the journey taking place in the first place (and he may even have held views about this journey going on in cycles of eternal recurrence – but I’m unclear on this). Note I write that ‘he may have’ because we only know about most of these things through his posthumous accusers who destroyed most of his writings; some of the ‘heresies’ he was accused of may have been later developments made by his followers.

However there is one thing that we can say about Origen with a fair degree of certainty; he believed in the pre-existence of souls – an idea he found in Plato and in the Alexandrian Jewish mystics of his time. Origen interpreted the first chapter of Genesis as narrating the creation of the spiritual Universe, and the second chapter as narrating the creation of the physical universe; in the second chapter a fall takes place in which our good God creates the physical world as an act of mercy to limit the fall of pre-existent spiritual beings. This is all very curious is it not?

A big irony about Origen the ‘heretic’ is that his life and his mind were dedicated to combating the Gnostic heresy which posed a huge threat to the early church. Gnosticism was many things, and there were different types and degrees of Gnosticism – but it can usefully be seen as an extreme attempt to Platonise Christianity. Gnostics believed in a good god who is the source of the spiritual world, and in another god(ling), the demiurge, who created this world of suffering in an act of ignorance, thinking that he was the most high god in an act of blind arrogance. He had thereby trapped the spirits of human beings in this dark world of matter and law. Jesus for them has saved us by giving us liberating insight into our origin in the world of spirit and freed us from the world of matter and its laws. For the Gnostics – especially those who were followers of Marcion – the God of the Old Testament was the demiurge, the physical world an abomination, and the Jewish law the law of the demiurge. The Jesus they worshipped was not the human/divine Jesus of our faith, but a being of pure spirit (which means they had to ignore passages of scripture that refer to Jesus as having eaten, having enjoyed good company, having loved the Jewish law etc, and having suffered and died).

Origen’s doctrine of physical creation is not Gnostic in the absolute sense. He believed the creation was the act of our good and gracious God – but in his teaching that the creation took place to limit the fall he was obviously rather too influenced by the Gnosticism he sought to combat. There is another reason he fell under suspicion (which I haven’t yet seen mentioned in UR circles – so let’s break the taboo). Origen had himself castrated. Cynical historians used to talk about this as if he rushed at himself with a knife in a frenzy of self-loathing, but this is almost certainly not the case. The operation of castration was quite common in the Hellenistic world, surgery was relatively advanced, and the operation was relatively safe. Justin Martyr speaks of it as having been commonplace amongst some Christians in Rome in the second century. Origen did this, it seems, through taking the words of Jesus about those who have made themselves ‘eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom’ too literally; and wry commentators have noted that for an exegete who resorted to allegory in many other cases it is ironic that Origen should have insisted on the literal sense in this case. He was never anathematised for this act, but the later Church did not and could not condone his act. It appears that by doing this Origen wanted to return to his pre-fallen, angelic state of androgyny in which the soul is the image of God –‘male and female created he them’ (an interpretation of Genesis he probably made under the influence of the Platonic myth of the Androgyn in the Timaeus . Slightly weird stuff and we’d certainly not want to return to this way of looking at life!!!! But he was a man of his times.

In praise of Origen I note that –

He was the first substantial theologian and biblical scholar of the Church

He fought against Gnosticism- - but without the bitter hatred of his near contemporary Tertullian whose writing promoted persecution of heretics – something that Augustine was the first to systematically promote and practice.

His sympathy was both with intellectual Christians and with common believers. As he is reported to have said to the Neo-Platonist snob Celsus – ‘you prepare a fine banquet for the wealthy, while I cook for the masses’. And at least he did have a dialogue with Clesus – no matter how peppery the dialogue was he assumed he was addressing someone who was already illumined by Christ the Logos and simply needed the news of Christ the Victor/Saviour to complete the revelation of Christ the Logos.

He did promote a doctrine of the goodness of creation as the creation of the God of goodness – however flawed his doctrine was. And he preserved the connection between the New Testament and the Jewish Scriptures with his scholarship, at a time when this connection was under threat from the Marcionite Gnostics. He almost certainly collaborated with Jewish Rabbis to establish the best texts of the Hebrew Scriptures.

He promoted a model for Christian tolerance and pluralism in his doctrine of the Divine Names of Christ (and real universalism must be a tolerant faith).

He believed passionately in human freewill and that this collaborates with Divine Grace for our salvation/redemption. (During the reformation Erasmus used Origen to argue with the Augustinan Luther. The latter promoted the doctrine of the complete bondage/impotence of the human will).

His father was a martyr, and he only escaped martyrdom himself because his mother hid his clothes; later in life he was tortured for his faith and probably died later of his injuries. His Latin contemporary Tertullian who also suffered persecution and lost loved ones, was the first to indulge the fantasy of resentment of looking forward to raucous scoffing at the torments of the damned. Origen, by way of contrast, believed in universal reconciliation.

[revdrew61]

I've just started reading Tom Gregg's book "Barth, Origen, and Universal Salvation - Restoring Particularity". Here's an interesting extract from the Introduction:

...both theologians lived in a time when the rules of theology were not concretely set, having not reached Nicea by the time of Origen and having gone through the Enllightenment and liberal theology by the time of Barth. Both theologians correspondingly have to reason from first things, and so an insight into the inner logics of both is possible from a consideration of how each reaches his conclusions. Moreover, both theologians lived in times when Christianity was not the dominant and powerful monolith it was from the age of Constantine to the French Revolution, and living in such times raises directly the question of the salvation of those outside of the church and the simultaneous question that results of the place for Christian faith in that setting. It is the ecclesially focused natures of the two in pluralist settings which makes their theologies so interesting for the question of soteriology.

Looks like an interesting and useful book, of which more later...

[Sobornost]

It is the ecclesially focused natures of the two in pluralist settings which makes their theologies so interesting for the question of soteriology.

That is absolutely fascinating Drew - I look forward to hearing more about this book. It will soon be high time I stoppped writing and instead started attendning carefully to the words of my friends.

All the best


Dick

[JasonPratt]

The few times I've heard of an explanation for Origen's castration beyond "ha ha he took that scripture literally", the explanation was that as chief teacher of catechumens for the Alexandria school, he was worried that his attraction to the women there would lead to scandal for the school, so he made himself a eunuch like a court servant for women's quarters.

That might be charitable speculation, though.


My family and I were watching a recent RCC documentary series (from Spain--so it looked like something made in the 80s ) on the history of the early church, and the most recent episode featured the early apologists. I noticed that the producers went out of their way to say that Tatian and Tertullian, despite their good contributions, eventually fell into heresy; but they could hardly say enough good things about Origen!

(Maybe that'll come later in the 6th century when Pope Whasisname ratifies the anathemas of Justinian II, but I would be tentatively willing to bet not.)

[Sobornost]

Hi Jason –

That’s very interesting and may well be correct. I’d like to say a bit more about Origen and castration since you’ve very usefully opened up the discussion here (for the fearful ).

I’ve heard it sometime suggested that the charge of self castration may have invented by Origen’s enemies. However, I also know that Peter Brown – who I’m told wrote the standard work on the Body and early Christianity - believes it may well be true and entirely in keeping with the worldview that Origen shared with his contemporaries (must read this book one day – apparently it’s a work of great understanding and compassion).

I understand that as a Roman citizen Origen may well have been in trouble with the authorities for self castration. The pagan cult of ‘family values’ brought in by Augustus took a very dim view of this because it deprived the Roman state of a potential breeder for the Roman army - and perhaps we also need to be aware of a context of protest here).

One thing I am fairly certain about is that Origen’s act was not driven by sexual disgust and loathing for women. I understand that it is no longer certain that Clement of Alexandria was Origen’s teacher – but Origen was certainly strongly influenced by Clement. Clement wrote effusively in praise of women, and of women as real equals in Christ with men.

Our ‘negative friend’ Tertullian was, by way of contrast, hot on misogyny. As you say, it is ironic that he – the staunch and angry defender of the severest orthodoxy -ended up a heretic. In the end he joined the Montanists because of their heretical rigour in not forgiving even minor sins committed after baptism and their consequent readiness to hand out excommunications left, right and centre. Their dependence on prophetic utterance as a source of authority also challenged the wider Church at a time when the authority of scripture was under attack and not settled. And the big irony is – regarding Tertullian – that their two leading prophets of Montanism were women.
Certainly Tertullian’s anti-feminism eventually won the day in the early Church.

I note that Augustine, when he was a Manichean had a sort of civil contract (of councubinage) with a woman who was the father of his child Adeodatus – Manichean’s did not marry because they believed the physical world was created by an evil god as a prison for spirit (so they had no sacrament of marriage).When he first became a Christian – before he’d got himself ‘sorted’ – he famously prayed ‘O Lord give me chastity, but not yet’. However, when he had sorted himself out, he did not marry his ‘mistress’ for the sake of his son and out of love for the mother of his son – instead he turned her away, literally telling her to ‘go to hell’.

Jerome – who features over at Tentmakers as a good bloke for having said some things which sound like they were influenced by Origen – claimed that the only woman he’d ever admired (a female ascetic whom he knew) was a woman who filled him with disgust by her physical repulsiveness. There was a contemporary of Jerome’s named Jovinian – also a strict ascetic – who had the temerity to suggest that the married state and the celibate state were equally pleasing to God as vocations for the faithful. Jerome hounded Jovinian with intemperate and vicious invective. I often think that for all the harsh things we can justly say about Luther – he was engaged in one very big battle with tradition and conscience to overcome his fear and marry a runaway nun.

As far as the New Testament goes I remember reading a scholarly work – and I’ve forgotten who it was by – in which the author suggested that one of the big impressions we get from reading the Gospels is that Jesus enjoyed the company of women and walked among them without scruple of anxious prudery. It is often commented how relaxed and humorous his conversation is with the Samaritan woman at the well – for example. And when he addresses the woman with a haemorrhage as ‘Daughter of Abraham’ – I understand that there are no parallels in Rabbinic literature of the time (and he is breaking purity law by his act of inclusion).

The fact that women are the first witnesses to the Resurrection is subversive too – in Hebrew law the testimony of women was not equal to that of men. And of course we have our old pal ‘Junia’ who Paul addresses as a fellow Apostle in the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament (whereas in later manuscripts her name has been changed to its masculine form – ‘Junius’)

Regarding Jesus saying about Eunuchs and the Kingdom – which is obviously about self restraint – I’ve heard it commented that the Mediterranean was and is ‘a magnificent sea surrounded by layers of pathological male sexuality, and nothing accosts that profound insecurity like the mention of eunuchs and castration – so Jesus’ metaphor does not necessarily promote asceticism – and even less literal castration; rather it is directed deliberately at patriarchal chauvinism. Also I’ve heard it commented that eunuchs were not uncommon in the ancient world – whether through birth, through accident, or through castration as male slaves in a Roman household that had intimate contact with the women of the house. Leviticus suggests that eunuchs are unclean because no eunuch can become a Levite – and perhaps a another layer of purpose and meaning to Jesus’ metaphor here is to challenge the exclusions made by purity laws.

A final word about Origen – then high time to move on!!!!! The British writer Karen Armstrong pictures him memorably thus –

‘In an age where the philosopher was characterised by his long beard (a sign of wisdom) Origen’s smooth cheeks and high voice would have been startling’.

And it’s great to know that people are beginning to say good things about ‘our man’ Origen in the media!

All the best


Dick

[JasonPratt]

Incidentally, I read Jesus eunuch statement in the Synoptics as being a typically "Synoptic" bit of reversal criticism.

Jesus has just finished stating that God intends for married couples to withhold themselves from marrying again, in a fashion that indicates He expects the separated couple to reunite as husband and wife eventually. Thus divorcing a woman leading her to have to marry again (in order to sustain herself) is effectively the same as forcing her into adultery, and marrying a separated woman is the same as committing adultery with her--keeping in mind that this would apply even in the case of the husband divorcing her because she had already been committing adultery.

The gist of it is strongly aimed at the husband (ideally anyway) sacrificing himself for the sake of the woman regardless of what she does.

Some disciples in reply retort, "If that is the way things are supposed to be between a man and a woman, it would be better not to marry!" i.e., they aren't talking about living celibate lives but about not going through with the legal and religious commitments so they can still have sex without that kind of devotion.

Jesus turns that around on them: "Not everyone can accept this statement (i.e. what He had just said about this devotion of relationship between man and woman), but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from the womb; and there are eunuchs made no longer men by men; and eunuchs who emasculate themselves for the sake of the kingdom of the heavens.

"The one who can accept this, let him accept it." (Otherwise, by implication, if a man cannot hold to this level of relationship between man and woman, let the man make himself eunuch for the kingdom of God!)

[Sobornost]

That makes enormously good and clear sense to me

[JasonPratt]

This is why Roman Catholics (I think also the Eastern Orthodox?) forbid divorce per se, of course.

But it also has strong thematic ties to the persistence of God in salvation. Even if His bride nails Him to the cross, refusing to acknowledge that she is a widow (as one of the prophets put it), God does not give up on reconciling with her.

[Sobornost]

Hi Jason -

Thanks for the scriptural foundation for the Paraclete as Advocate - that's wonderful! I'd not seen this passage interpreted in this way before- so very helpful; and I no longer have to fall back exclusively no Susanna and the Elders. Also - well I know that you do know, but I'll say it anyway: I know that what I am writing about here is of interest to some people here (and of great interest to Drew and Paul); but I do want to thank you for your hospitality old chum. I would not have remotely dreamed of putting this stuff together - however informal the ‘putting together’ is at the moment - if Drew's question hadn't stimulated me (so I’m hugely grateful to Drew also). I don't know what I'll do with it after this - but at least if I don't have the opportunity to do anything with it (because I love my job as a Community Education teacher and am very happy these days looking after my Mum - at least it’s up here on this site to stimulate other people).

In addition I do hope to have the rough narrative finished by the end of this week - I've got a lot of work coming up next week - and it's amazing that I'm actually talking about all of the things I know about and want to communicate with you all at the moment, there’s not a lot of other stuff in my bonnet full of wild bees. So I won't be quite so manic a poster soon. But once this stage is finished, and I've had a wee break, I will do the work of referencing and checking sources for this a bit at a time; and I will post this gradually.


All the best

Dick

That's very interesting Jason - it chimes with the whole idea of the Church as the bride of Christ as you imply. And in the context of what you are saying I've started to think of this not only in terms of the allegorisation of the Song of Songs (and I think Origen may have been the first Christian exegete to do this) but also in terms of Hosea and his unfaithful wife).

I've read about the Catholic and Orthodox traditions of marriage and divorce in a biography of C.S. Lewis who had difficulties with marrying Joy Gresham even though her first marriage, by all accounts, was abusive - because the Church of England’s laws on divorce were stricter than those in any other Church at this time. The book was the one by A.N. Wilson which is a bit on the’ juicy titbits’ side and has been criticised for this and for its fundamentalist Freudian reading of Lewis - however I've also read 'Jack' a biography by one of Lewis’ friends (can't remember which one) which confirms some parts of Wilson’s portrayal and corrects other parts. But Wilson does have many insightful and deeply compassionate things to say about 'Jack' and I don't doubt him on what he says about divorce.

According to Wilson the Greek Orthodox tradition does allow divorce and remarriage up to three times if it can be established that a given marriage is 'spiritually dead'. As you say the Catholic Church does not allow divorce. However, a person can obtain a 'decree nisi' from the Church (often granted only to the rich in the past) if they can prove or at least claim that the marriage has not been consummated in the first place. This has often been used in the Catholic tradition as a merciful form of casuistry to allow people an escape from abusive marriages - but has, of course, also been open to abuse.

Obviously if an over strict interpretation of Jesus’ sayings about divorce forces women to stay in relationships with violent and abusive husbands then the letter of the law is being upheld against the spirit of the law.

And here are couple of things I've read about the historical context of Jesus’ sayings on divorce -

In New Testament times there was a debate between the severe and merciful schools of the Pharisees on this matter

Shammani - I think that was the name of the head of the severe school - argued that divorce should not be permitted easily.

Hillel - the head of the merciful school - argued that it is permissible for a man to divorce his wife even on slight grounds (for example, if he found her ugly, or if she burnt his food too often). That's a bit of a shock since Hillel also echoed Jesus' golden rule by stating it in the negative form as - 'That which you do not wish others to do to you, do not do to others' (it obviously only applied to men in his reckoning).

Finally the context of divorce during Jesus’ time was pretty much as I've found it in some traditional, verging on fundamemtalist, Muslim communities in the UK today. If the wife is divorced by her husband she is cast out by her own family and by the rest of her community. In addition the context of adultery when Jesus lived was the same as in honour/shame societies today. A man did not commit adultery against a marriage of two people. He committed adultery purely against the other man's honour by stealing the other man’s property. And the wounded party - if he did not get justice through the law - had to avenge himself or else his community would lose respect for him (this situation still obtained in early modern Europe where the male victim of adultery was often mocked and forced to wear 'cuckold's horns' for not being able to control his wife (similar attitudes and rituals are found in many parts of the world today, an in Rap/Gang culture in our cities and our ‘music scene’).

What do you reckon on the saying of Jesus - 'If your right eye offends you, pluck it out'. I've also seen this cited as a possible inspiration for Origen's castration. I have some historical/contextual thoughts on this - but I wonder how you see it as an exegete?


All the best



Dick

[AllanS]

Which is why Paul tells the wife to submit to her husband and respect him (often difficult), but he tells the husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church (which is more difficult still).

[JasonPratt]

What do you reckon on the saying of Jesus - 'If your right eye offends you, pluck it out'. I've also seen this cited as a possible inspiration for Origen's castration. I have some historical/contextual thoughts on this - but I wonder how you see it as an exegete?

When Jesus first says this (He repeats it directly to His own apostles and disciples later in a different context, during their final visit to Capernaum, Mark 9 and parallels), He has just told the audience that they're personally responsible for their sins even if they don't act externally on it. They can't just sit around hating on their brother: it's still murder. They can't just sit around committing adultery with women in their heart: it's still adultery. (And of course, notice how Calvs and even some Arms get around the hatred-of-brothers remark, effectively standing up like the lawyer attempting to justify himself and challenging "So who is my brother?"--a concept that, if at all valid, would have to apply equally well to committing adultery, too!)

The admonition about mutilating one's self, which would be against Torah, answers the expected excuse 'But I just can't help it! It isn't my fault, my body keeps leading me to do it!' Either take responsibility for your thoughts, and do something about those (i.e. repent and seek God's help, as difficult as that may be), or else if you're going to make that excuse then follow through with the logic of your excuse and mutilate yourself!--which Jesus would know violates Torah, too.

It's a typical Synoptic irony statement. (Jesus can also be seen doing this kind of thing in GosJohn, but it happens so much more often in the Synoptic reports that scholars tend to classify it by the Synoptics. Sometimes to the exclusion of being ignorant of it happening in GosJohn, too. )

When Jesus repeats it later at Capernaum, He's doing so in the context of His apostles being raging egotists who are contending with each other over which of them is the greatest, and oppressing other disciples of Jesus for not following them. As one of the strongest statements they've previously heard from Jesus, it's appropriate that Jesus should repeat it as a warning to them: they're sinning by leading the little ones who trust in Christ to stumble by their behavior. (Moreover, Christ points out in directly related ways--reported differently in GosMatt and in GosMark--that God, even in His ultimate wrath, doesn't have the same attitude about Himself that His apostles do about themselves.)

[Sobornost]

That's brilliant Jason - absolutely great!!! It is amazing how often this/these texts have been used in the tradition of 'sexual pessimism' and misogyny to inculcate morbid self hatred. I remember being lectured on this one as an adolescent by a man in his middle years; never mind that it is specifically about adultery in the heart rather than desire per se; the effect was to make us youngsters all think that fancying the girls was displeasing to God. And the seemingly violent body soul imagery, understood without paradox, terrified me for some time.

A thing about the context here is, again, that I see Jesus speaking at first to religious legalists schooled in an honour shame mindset. Perhaps even the ‘eye that offends’ refers to the tradition of keeping women separate from men and veiling or at least partially covering their faces – which can be just as over sexualising as anything we see in the ‘decadent West’ today. All of this attention to externals breeds an easy legalism for men.

The most extreme examples of legalism I've met in my time is when working with Deobandi Muslims from Bangladesh and Pakistan – these are inspired by the Saudi tradition of Islam (although those I have met influenced by the Sufi traditions have been very different in their outlook, as have the moderate liberal Muslims I have met who have often be very fine people). Often it seems to me that with some of these Deobandi men, being a good Muslim is about obeying the letter rather than the spirit of the law; so you can be a really amoral person, but still a respected member of your community if you live up to the externals (and I have one dear female friend who suffered horribly at the hands of this legal externalism and was cast out by her community). I once read a really shocking example of this externalism happening among mullahs in a certain part of the world who visit prostitutes (which is forbidden) marry then before having sex with them, and then divorce them afterwards (thus fulfilling all of their religious legal obligations while still behaving amorally).

Let us who are without sin cast the first stone – and I’m sure we’ve all met amoral fundamentalists on a sin binge thinking that they are saved anyway and so can always return to Christ (never mind the people they hurt along the way): and of course, I’m sure we’ve all met liberal Christians who are just too easy going and morally lax –Jesus’ statement applies to them too - but I feel it was the legalistic mindset that Jesus was first addressing here with this striking and paradoxical statement.

I also wonder about the meaning o f ‘lust’ here – as anger is not hatred, sexual desire that arises spontaneously is not lust per se. And my experience people who think that to feel sexual desire is itself a sin are more likely to fixate upon the desire when it arises. I think there has to be a ‘nurturing with intent’ for desire to become lust and for anger to become hatred. I think Jesus knew/knows this too.

All the best

Dick

[Cindy Skillman]

Thanks for a fascinating thread, guys. I don't have a lot to add, but I've enjoyed reading thus far. I have a question, though.

Ann Nyland translates Matt 19:1-12 like this in her "The Source" NT:

When Jesus had finished these sayings, he left Galilee and headed for the region of Judea beyond the Jordan River. Big crowds followed him, and he healed them. The Pharisees went to put him to the test. They said, "Is it legal for a person to divorce his wife on the grounds of 'Any Matter'?"

Jesus answered, "Haven't you read that he who created in the beginning made people male and female, and said, 'for this reason a person will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife and the two will become a single body/ Thus they are no longer two but a single body. So then what God has united, no one is to break apart.!"

They asked, "Why then did Moses command that a certificate of divorce is to be given upon divorce?"

"Because you are hard-hearted!" Jesus answered. "That's why Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, but it wasn't so from the beginning. In fact, whoever divorces his wife, unless it's on the grounds of 'General Sexual Immorality', and marries someone else, commits adultery."

His disciples said to him, "If this is the situation with husband and wife, it's better not to get married at all!"

But Jesus answered, "This doesn't apply to everyone, but only to those to whom it has been given. Now there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made that way by human intervention, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of Heaven's Realm. If it applies to you, then accept it!"

Nyland claims that these were the two forms of divorce available to Jewish society in Jesus' day, and that the Pharisees were asking Jesus' take on the controversial "Any Matter" form of divorce introduced by Rabbi Hillel, in which the husband could divorce his wife for any complaint, even something so slight as burning a meal, and marry another. She says that Jewish religious leaders of the day were fond of foreign women and also of getting a "new model" ever so often as they tired of their old wives. This was, in Jesus' time, the most popular form of divorce as there would be no court case and the husband had only to write a certificate of divorce and dismiss his wife. Unlike the "General Sexual Morality" divorce, this form of divorce was available only to the male.

So my question is, what do you think? Is she right?

[Sobornost]

Hi Cindy -

I've not read Nyland - but this certainly chimes with everything I have read about the context of these sayings.

Blessings


Dick

P.S. What do you all make of Jesus' saying about in the ressurection there is no marriage (perhaps Origen was also influenced mistakenly by this in his striving for an asexual state (it just struck me that this might be the case)

[JasonPratt]

Cindy,

I hadn't noticed the "Any Matter" phraseology before, but I don't doubt that's the correct cultural reading. Considering how often Jesus usually took stances similar to the school of Hillel, it must have been a shock to hear Him affirming the Shammai school on this one!


Dick,

I can see good arguments going either way there. I'm inclined to think, especially in comparison with OT texts, that Jesus meant that in current society it often happened that the best way to protect the women was to give them (and for them to be given) in marriage, but that this would not be necessary in the resurrection, even though marriage and procreation (and thus sexual activity) would still be occurring. But I respect the broader church tradition, exemplified by my teacher Lewis, that sexual gender will be kept but not used.

In any case Jesus was refuting the notion that ideally a woman belongs to a man like property (specifically in marriage, but also thus otherwise.)

[Sobornost]

Good one Jason - so there's another sexual pessimism clobber text beautifully explained (there are some others). By the way, the excellent biography of Lewis - 'Jack' - was by George Sayer. (I've read the Four Loves - and Lewis was no sexcual pessimist)

All the best


Dick

[Sobornost]

I think I should exaplin that by 'sexual pessimism' I mean the body hating and misogynisitc traditions of Jerome and Augustine. I didn't invent the pharse - but cannot for the life of me remember who did.

There may be other texts which can be twisted or misumderstood to support this tradition but the only ones I can think of at the moment are the several sayings where Jesus appears to be attacking the biological family unit (although I don't think he was doing this at all); and St Paul's use of the term 'flesh', along with his advice that 'it is better to marry than to burn' all of which need a bit of unpacking (and I thought RIchard Beck's blog on the meaning of 'body' in St Paul was excellent).

Any thoughts on these Jason? (if you've got the time - I can wait until another time) -

All the best


Dick

[Sobornost]

Actually the line of investigation and discussion opening here - to my mind a necessary and frjuitful discussion - concerns the last thread topic I wanted to raise on this site - 'The World, the Flesh and the Devil'.

I made a promise to myself to talk this over with Drew before starting it (when I see him in late April I hope). It's nowhere near as involved a topic as the 'Abrogation of the 42nd' - at least in my view - but I would like to put it on hold until late spring (unless anyone else want to give it the full treatment before; and then I'll add any thoughts I've had that have not been covered after Easter, and after I've read Peter Brown's book - I hope).

All the best



Dick

[Sobornost]

[note: mod edited to remove an accidental double-post. More recent version is kept below. ]

[Sobornost]

Here’s an email giving some corrections and clarifications about stuff that I’ve said on the main thread. I think many of you will find this information useful – not only in the context of my specific research here that builds on Drew’s original research.

The 42 Articles

Before Christmas I accessed a notable and thundering Conservative Reformed/Calvinist website at

http://www.reformed.org/sacramentology/ ... b_007.html

The article at this page of the site concerns the English Anabaptists during the Reformation – and is very hostile to the Anabaptist story, and scandalously biased in my view. However, at least the article is properly footnoted – even if it takes persecution texts at face value without asking any further questions etc.

Given the strong male presence in the pictures that head the homepage to this site - lots of tasty blokes in sharp suits looking strong and patriarchal - I reckon I stumbled into hard ‘headship of the male’ territory when I accessed it . However, one thing I am grateful to ‘the boys’ who contribute to this site for is some precise information on the 42 Articles (because, in the absence of access to a University Library I had not been able to find the original text for these). The boys tell me that -

Rev. Prof. Dr. Philip Schaff has pointed out that "in the Forty-two Articles of Edward VI, there are four additional Articles -- on the Resurrection of the Dead, the State of the Souls of the Departed, Millenarians, and the Eternal Damnation of the Wicked." These Articles, Schaff added, are: "against the Anabaptist notion of the psychopannychia (40)"; and "against the millenarians (41)," compare "the Augsburg Confession where the Anabaptists and others are condemned." All of these additional Articles, as Maclear and Williams have explained, refer to the heresies of "the Anabaptist sect whose theories had previously been denounced.

The citation is from Schaff ‘Creeds III p. 514. – which I have checked and verified. So we can now see that Article 40 spoke against soul sleep (or ‘psychopannychia’ as Schaff exotically refers to it);, and Article 41 spoke against the millenarians with the associated doctrines of perfectionism and antinomianism (and Schaff draws the parallel with the Augsburg Confession that I have had reason to dispute on the main thread)

There is a rather charming irony in this Conservative Reformed site quoting approvingly from Schaff. Schaff was a German American Church Historian – a colossus in f his knowledge of the Creeds of the Church. He was a Calvinist by tradition, but as with Barth in the twentieth century he had a truly Ecumenical vision - and it appears that he was a Christian Universalist!

For more on Schaff’s Universalism see

http://www.churchcrucified.org/agapewik ... lip_Schaff

If you ever wish to consult Schaff on the Creeds – and his work is still respected by scholars today – these are available online for free at -

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds2.iv.i.iv.html


Anne Boleyn

I have said that Anne Boleyn was executed explicitly for adultery and implicitly for as a witch. I stand by this. However the actual charge against her was treason (explicitly for having committed adultery against the King – an act of treachery against Majesty – and implicitly also for carrying on with others when she should have been providing the King with a baby boy and male heir). Adultery was not a capital crime in English common law. The other implication, that she was a witch came from insinuations that she had beguiled the King with her charms away from his virtuous first wife Katherine, from the information that she was seemingly born with six fingers on one of her hands, and that after giving birth to a healthy girl child in Elizabeth, her latter pregnancies resulted in miscarriage and stillbirths sometimes badly deformed (These were terrible times; Heiko Oberman comments in his unforgettable biography of Luther that when Luther’s wife gave birth for the first time his brother Reformers waited anxiously around her bed – if the child had been stillborn or deformed this would probably have spelled the end for the Protestant Reformation). Anne was highly manipulative as a court flirt– and she had been brought up to be this way by her ambitious father Sir Henry Bullen. It seems that she was very unkind to Katherine of Aragon. The facts surrounding the accusations of adultery brought against her are difficult to establish; had she made love to other men trying to become pregnant, thinking that the King might be impotent but that her failure to produce a boy child had already put her life in danger? Whatever else may be true of her – she died a hero. Standing before her headsman on Tower Hill she praised her kind and Christian Prince Henry and commended him to God’s good pleasure. It is thought that in so doing she was protecting the future of her young daughter Elizabeth.


Erasmus and the English Humanists

I’d like to clarify some issues about Erasmus and England. He visited here in 1499, 1505, and during an extended stay spent in Cambridge from 1509 -14. After this his huge and loving correspondence included many English scholars and would-be Humanists.

His 1499 visit to England was important in turning his attention from the study of Latin classical literature towards theology and the study of Greek encouraged by John Colet - the native Christian Humanist. So it was the Englishman Colet who gave the initial spur that lead to Erasmus eventual translation of the Greek New Testament. (Words given in italics here and below are lifted from ‘The History Today Companion to British History’ p.182 - entry on Colet -and pp. 289-90 – entry on Erasmus; the author of both entries is Eamon Duffy, the renowned authority on religion in Tudor England who I have and will quote on the Anglican Burial Service)

John Colet had studied at Oxford and on the continent. After ordination in 1496, he lectured at Oxford on St Paul’s Epistles (from the New Testament Greek rather than from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate), establishing himself as a leading English Humanist. He became Dean of St Paul’s in 1501 where his outspokenness on reform lead to frequent serious confrontations with the then (Catholic) Bishop of London. In 1518 he founded St Paul’s school which because of its statutes remained distinctively free from clerical control. It seems that as Colet had influenced Erasmus in terms of evangelical scholarly pursuits, Erasmus in turn had influenced Colet in ideas about church government. Erasmus vision of a tolerant Christianity went hand and hand with his view that the power of the clergy over the laity should be minimised and that power within the church should be exercised in a collegial fashion – as in Convocations - rather than according to the dictates of centralised Papal authority.


Erasmus' Greek New Testament Textus Receptus

Erasmus’ edition of the Greek New Testament with his own translation/paraphrases into Humanist Latin (1516) and later revisions had a Europe wide impact, providing a new view of the biblical text for many of the future Protestant Reformers.

I am no scholar of the New Testament in Greek. However, I have read a useful, if longwinded, article at Tentmakers on Erasmus’ translation which can be accessed at –

http://www.tentmaker.org/Biblematters/K ... ersion.htm

This article was written with a polemical purpose, - to debunk the authority some fundamentalist Christians give to the King James’ version of the Bible, which uses ‘hell’ far more often than any other translation - but it chimes with stuff I have read elsewhere. The writer sates that -

....As I understand it, one of the big reasons why folks have this special fondness for the KJV is that it is based on the Textus Receptus, which they claim is based on the great majority (90%) of the more than 5,000 extant Greek manuscripts. This understanding is important to their claim that the Textus Receptus is based on the oldest Greek manuscripts – the ones closest to the autographs. The reasoning here being that the nearer a manuscript is to the originals time-wise, the less likely it is to have been corrupted by repeated copying, editing, etc. Seems to make sense.

...For those who like to know the details, Erasmus drew his basic text from three 12th century miniscules -- Greek manuscripts penned using lower case letters, a practice that began in the 9th century. He consulted three other miniscules and a few late manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate. None of them were very close to the autographs in terms of time.
The serious Bible scholar and textual critic might wish to know specifically which manuscripts Erasmus used. For his basic text he used, according to the standard manuscript identification system: 2e (12th/13th cent.), 2ap (12th cent.) and 1r (12th cent.). The miniscules he consulted were: 1eap (12th cent.), 4ap 15th cent.), and 7p (11/12th cent.).

So OK, it does seem that Erasmus access to Greek texts was very limited – and that all of the texts he did have access to were late Byzantine manuscripts. This make s me think that his lexical scholarship was almost certainly too limited to appreciate the different meanings of ‘aionos’ in New Testament and Classical Greek (and any notions of Universalism he had came from Origen rather than his from his Biblical Scholarship).

Although the King James translators drew heavily on earlier English translations to paraphrase the New Testament Greek – for example the translations by William Tyndale, MiIes Coverdale, and by the scholars who produced the Geneva Bible – Erasmus Textus Receptus was their only reference point for the Greek text. Tentmakers note that the KJV version of the Bible contains 54 usages of hell; 31 in the Old Testament, twenty three in the New – and the site rightly notes that this greatly exceeds the number of times ‘hell’ occurs in any later translations made from earlier texts and with better lexical scholarship. It would be interesting to find out how many times Jerome uses Latin equivalents for ‘hell’ in his Vulgate translations and how this compares to the number of times ‘hell’ equivalents are used in Erasmus’ Latin paraphrases of his Textus Receptus (I can’t find the answer to his anywhere).

The KJV is obviously partially inspired by Magisterial Protestant ideology – and this goes half way to explaining its excessive use of ‘hell’ when the Greek indicates otherwise (while a lack of sound lexical scholarship explains the other half). The opening dedicatory epistle of the KJV to that ‘Most Dread Majesty’ James I -the vainglorious and strutting successor to Elizabeth - sets the tone. However, the KJV is also a fountainhead of the English language and of English literature throughout the English peaking world.

I have seen one telling comment on ideological intent in the KJV and I quote it here to sign off this post -
‘When the court translators working in the hire of King James chose to translate antistenai as "Resist not evil," they were doing something more than rendering Greek into English. They were translating nonviolent resistance into docility. The Greek word means more than simply to "stand against" or "resist." It means to resist violently, to revolt or rebel, to engage in an insurrection. Jesus did not tell his oppressed hearers not to resist evil. His entire ministry is at odds with such a preposterous idea. He is, rather, warning against responding to evil in kind by letting the oppressor set the terms of our opposition’

(‘The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear’, edited by Paul Loeb).

All the best


Dick

[revdrew61]

The article at this page of the site concerns the English Anabaptists during the Reformation – and is very hostile to the Anabaptist story, and scandalously biased in my view.

Yes, the opening sentence of the article gives a clue that the text you are about to read might not be completely unbiased...

The Anabaptists infected Britain at an early date

like a virus
Reminds me of the hilarious book "Hell under Fire" (Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson Eds Zondervan 2004) which opens its introduction by describing universalism and annihilationism as "two aberrations").

There is a rather charming irony in this Conservative Reformed site quoting approvingly from Schaff. Schaff was a German American Church Historian – a colossus in f his knowledge of the Creeds of the Church. He was a Calvinist by tradition, but as with Barth in the twentieth century he had a truly Ecumenical vision - and it appears that he was a Christian Universalist!

For more on Schaff’s Universalism see

http://www.churchcrucified.org/agapewik ... lip_Schaff

I love this, so ironic! And the "boys" seem to offer no explanation as to why four of the 42 articles were dropped, they just take them as "gospel". Further unbiased historical analysis follows...

So the heresies of the neo-Marcionitic and neo-Manichaean Paulicians and even of the antitrinitarian Servetus himself were already afoot even in Knox's Britain. Indeed, prominent among the British Anabaptists was the so-called 'Family of Love' in England.

As Williams has explained:354 "The English 'Familists' were communitarian pacifistic Anabaptists who, like the Paulicians and the Servetians, received believers' baptism at the age of thirty."

They were very well-described by John Rogers, in his 1579 Horrible Sect of Gross and Wicked Heretics naming themselves the 'Family of Love.' There, explained Rogers, "marriage is made by the brethren.... These had never met before.... All men not of their congregation, or revolted from them, are as dead.... If they have anything to do touching their temporal things, they must do it...through one of their bishops."355

Rome rides again -- toward the sunset of the modern Moonies! Tallyho! Yahoo! Weirdo's of the world -- unite!

Hmmmm. Don't get me started! What may be helpful here is the fact (if it is correct) that Anabaptism rather than Roman Catholicism was seen as the main threat to Reformed orthodoxy. A shot in the dark - perhaps this is because the Anabaptists were better connected with the teaching of scripture and of the early church fathers than the Catholics were. What do you think?

Anyway must get back to my day job. Thanks again Dick for a great post, especially the info about Erasmus, Ann Boleyn and the KJV bias.

Cheers, Drew

[Sobornost]

[Note: mod edited to remove an accidental double-post. More recent version was kept below. ]

[Sobornost]

Hi Drew –

Yes the ‘boys’ site is indeed a godly lesson in daftness. You’ve hit the nail on the head with the key note being set in the opening sentence with te word ‘contagion’ – which is ‘like a virus’ as you say. As Norman Cohn, Rene Girard and others have shown, the metaphor of ‘contagion’ is always the ‘tell tell’ sign that we are reading a ‘persecuting text’. Heretics, political dissidents etc, throughout history are always described in such texts as ‘viral’ – like a cattle plague; and as the corpses of infected cattle need to be piled high and burnt to get rid of contagion, so the burning of heretics protects the doctrinal purity of the faithful and/or the political purity of the party; and God’s punishment of the wicked will simply be an extension of this process of exclusion/quarantine and purification by fire (not purification of wicked individuals by these means but keeping the pure in a pure state by the same).

The other features of all persecution texts is that in the process of ‘justice’ –

There is no counsel for the defence and the roles of council for prosecution and judge are merged

Witnesses against the accused are not cross examined – their testimony is taken at face value

The accused often ends up agreeing with the charges brought against them verbatim– because of any combination of having been worn down by torture, or sleep deprivation, or infection and starvation in prison, and/or because of the sheer overwhelmingness of the proceedings against them and the loneliness of being cast out of all human community. I note that after the show trials in Stalin’s Russia, dissidents would often face death shouting, ‘Long Live Stalin!’
T
hat’s astute observation Drew . I don’t expect you’ve read Cohn or Girard – only gloomy souls like me with time on their hands do this. However, it just goes to show their insights are accessible and chime with a keen, natural and compassionate intelligence. In the light of the above they recommend that we need to treat such texts with a ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’.

(And I would say to anyone else reading this post that – ‘If even in your most fleeting and most occasional waking dream you imagine God’s judgement in the terms described above, you need to sit more easily with yourself and accept God’s merciful acceptance of you – warts and all – more readily. The picture lurking in the back of your mind is a mistaken one which you need to question and re-imagine– for this picture is of the judgement of 'the Accuser who is the Prince of this World')

Again you are right about their failure to mention the abrogation of the 42nd. Curious eh? Christopher Hill plays a similar trick for Marxist ideological reasons.

I note the unwitting testimony of this site is that a lot of the literature raising the tally ho for persecution of the Family of Love and the Anabaptists came from Calvinist pens. Also I love the reference to ‘Knox’s Britain’ – I always thought he was purely a Scot’s phenomena – and I pity poor Scotland for that (one of my Grandmother’s was Scottish so I feel it in my blood)

It certainly is interesting that the main cause of hatred for Calvinists was the Anabaptists – and the Bishop of Rome always took second place, although Catholics too were/are hated by sectarian Calvinists. The Continental Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists persecuted the Anabaptists virtually out of existence. Perhaps they were are at an unconscious level that the Anabaptists were following Christ more purely than they were – and so envy was part of their motivation. I think the conscious reason for their persecuting, besides the memory of the Munster debacle, was that their perception that since Anabaptist sdid not recognise the authority of Magistrates (although they did not wilfully ferment social disorder and disobedience after Munster) they were enemies of all good and godly order in the state. This was the reason for Luther’s hatred of the Peasants who thought they were rising in support of him. He thought he was living in the last days and that the good order of the state was necessary if the Gospel was to be spread and the elect of God gathered. His hatred of the Jews had similar roots – he could not comprehend their ‘stiff necked deafness’ to the Gospel’s offer of repentance in the end times. But neither titbits of contextual information excuse Luther’s hate filled persecuting zeal with its tragic consequences that have echoed through the centuries.

However, I have to hand one thing to Luther. As you may have guessed I see him as a complex man with partially redeeming features (I’d like to say the same of Calvin – I have tried to, even on this site, but I’m still not convinced). At first Luther did not persecute the Anabaptists. He only did so after the Peasant risings and then was palpably moved by their deaths as they died brave women and men certain of their faith. By way of contrast Calvin just had them killed without a second thought, and Zwingli had them drowned in wicked parody of the rite of adult baptism. And the Catholic Princes of Europe joined in the slaughter without scruple.

The only place in Europe where the Anabaptists were eventually tolerated – before many immigrated to America during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the persecuting zeal of America’s Calvinists was under control form other social forces – was the Dutch Free Republic. This Republic, administered by the Princes of Orange, comprised not only Holland, but also the Benelux countries and the Low land countries of what is now Northern France (that is, ‘Flanders’). I need to find out more about its history of tolerance, but I do know that in the first part of Elizabeth’s reign many of these lands were occupied by the Spanish Empire under the Duke of Parma and the Spanish Inquisition was in operation in them. I also know that Protestant England allied with Catholic France (France although Catholic was still an imperial rival of Catholic Spain) to help liberate the occupied Dutch lands. Perhaps the struggle against foreign occupation was the force that united disparate communities of Dutch Catholics, Calvinists and Lutherans together in a tolerant confederation against a foreign tyranny, and perhaps the memory of occupation made them more ready to provide a haven to persecuted minorities from elsewhere in Europe. This is my informed hunch – and I expect to have it confirmed by further reading. Also, of course, this was helped by the proud echoing memory of Erasmus ‘Dutch’ tolerant pan-European Christian Humanism – this much I do know.

Another thing I do know for sure is that the fragile peace of the Dutch Free Republic was only ever seriously threatened by one group – you’ve guessed it, they were the sectarian Calvinists wanting to bring all under God’s sovereignty. In addition I know that it was the Dutch Prince William of Orange who as William III of England sided with the forces urging religious toleration within the Anglican community and together they abolished the last remnants of religious persecution in England – although religious discrimination against Catholics and Non-conformists still persisted for a time (that’s a sneak preview of a detail from part 2 of this story which is really just a briefer appendix to part 1; and part 1 is now almost done even if it’s taking a bit longer than I thought).

I think the Anabaptists experience of persecution by Magisterial Protestants always made them sensitive to reading scripture in a way that gave proper emphasis to the social nature of sin. The Magisterial Protestant tradition only emphasised the personal nature of sin – people are depraved and therefore need to be controlled by a punitive state. The Anabaptists, by way of contrast, retained a tradition of reading scripture with a theology of ‘Powers and Principalities’ in mind – hence their reading of the Book of Revelation as social critique.

All the best Drew old chum (and wasn’t it fun having a laugh at the boys?)

Dick

[JasonPratt]

I just wanted to say I am totally downloading a bunch of historical books from Schaff right this moment.

(I've seen him reffed before, and I suspect Pelikan's book on the Creeds is more up to date--which I own but haven't gotten around to reading yet; but the geek in me nearly wet my pants at seeing how many of Schaff's classic works I can download for free off CCEL. Oh, hey, I wonder if they have copies of the rare Winchester books on prophecy I'm missing?--vols 3 and 4... update: no, they don't. Too much to hope from Calvin College I guess.)

[JasonPratt]

2e (12th/13th cent.), 2ap (12th cent.) and 1r (12th cent.). The [other] miniscules he consulted were: 1eap (12th cent.), 4ap (15th cent.), and 7p (11/12th cent.).

To translate that terminology, this means he didn't use all of every text, but jumped between texts for different portions.

Each miniscule has a different reference number, and four such texts are being discussed here. My apparatus seems to indicate only one of them still exists (the others having been lost by wars or other accidents in the centuries since the TR's compilation). Thus they are no longer available for direct text critical purposes. (They can be sort-of reconstructed from the TR, but such reconstructions are speculative, especially since Erasmus had to use Latin for portions he was missing.)

The little letters after the numbers indicate the contents of the text, but in this case they also indicate which portions of the text he used.

So text #1 (the only one still extant) was his primary text for (R)evelation (also borrowing from the Vulgate although the list doesn't show it); and one of his secondary texts for the (E)vangels (i.e. the Gospels), (A)cts and the (P)auline letters. (My apparatus only lists this text for (e) now, so only the Gospels may currently survive from it.) His primary text for those was #2, supplemented by text #4 and #7. The list doesn't show what he referenced for the (C)atholic epistles. (I don't recall offhand if EpistHeb is listed for apparatus purposes with the Paulines or with the Catholics, but my guess would be the Paulines.)

[JasonPratt]

Incidentally, while 12th century is late relatively late by modern text crit standards, it's still in bounds, and relatively early for "Byzantine" texts (which are mentioned as a group in text apparatuses for comparison purposes).

[revdrew61]

A Godly lesson in daftness indeed! Only sorry I couldn't find the picture of the boys in their sharp suits. Still, its good that we can benefit from their work and at the same time enjoy a chuckle at their expense
I may go quiet for a few days. Working away in the lovely principality of Andorra for the weekend.

[revdrew61]

Forgot to say, I haven't read Girard - not sure my wee brain could handle him - but I do enjoy the books of James Alison, who builds on Girard's insights.

[Sobornost]

Hi Jason -

That's great to hear that you already wanted to get hold of Schaff's big work - and I hope you do find those other books online the slightly out of date but still reliable classics are often the loveliest to read in any field). I would never have heard of Schaff if I had not have chanced upon this here thread before Christmas. Everyone was talking about the Athanasian Creed – and I think this was an overspill from the really wonderful discussion you had about it on another thread. It seemed that Drew wanted to focus on the precise mater of history, which is when I joined up in his support. I felt bad about closing down the discussion about the AC – which I then knew little about - because I did not realise that the other discussion had already taken place. I did a Google search for the AC to find something out about it; and I soon found Schaff’s work from the ‘Theopedia’ link. So my serendipity that is now your serendipity grew out of your discussion of the AC. Wonderful eh?

All clarification about Erasmus and the Textus Receptus gratefully received.

Hi Drew –
You have a lovely time in your sweet arcadia; I’m sure you can do with the break old chap.
Girard? I really am a pickle but I was just teasing you about this. You see when I did my initial and too brief lurking on this site I looked at another thread where you were being subjected to a volley of ‘clobber texts’. I would have come in to support you, because I could already see I liked you a lot. However.... things needed to cool down there as you all know. You had cited James’ Alison’s fine essay – at least fine to my mind – on the first chapter of Romans (an essay that transcends the context of the specific moral issue he was writing about, because it deals with the danger of seeing idols outside of ourselves while becoming blind to the idols within). So I knew you were already well acquainted with Girard and were showing your implicit understanding of him a few posts back on this thread .

Do you forgive me for being a pickle ? I needed a bit of light relief, because although I’m enjoying writing here some of this stuff is very dark – although I think it is necessary that we have a reckoning with it together (I would have despaired by now if I hadn’t been aware of support from EU readers and my three regular correspondents).

All the best


Dick

[Sobornost]

Oh by the way Drew - hope you had a lovely weekend. And just a note to say that I wasn't really pulling your leg about Girard. I knew you had a knoweldge of his ideas but I was in that funny position when posting that althought I am addressing a specific person as often as not, I are also addressing a general audience and cannot assume previous knowledge of arcane matters of them all - if you know what I mean.

All the best


Dick

[Sobornost]

Drew - last note on Girard (and I'm amazed how relevant he's been when looking at this here topic and how clear his New Testament insights are).

When we first met on this site - you know I think I had succumbed to a bit of Nicodemean dissembling myself. I’d seen the very 'scary' thread - where my sympathies were entirely with you (although I have to respect differences among Christians on the topic that was under discussion) - and when you invited me to write an Introduction to myself I did send a signal of support to you by stating that I was enthusiastic about Girard.

With James Alison - sometimes he gets so ‘baroque' in his extravagant enthusiasm that I get a bit lost (perhaps people could say that about me!). However, I really love his article on Romans 1, his essay ‘Contemplation in a world of violence', in 'On Being Liked', and that wonderful and healing book about re-visioning the apocalypse with a non-violent and eschatological imagination - 'Living in the End Times'. Did you know that Alison was a Christian Fundamentalist - that’s probably why he knows the Bible rather too well for a Catholic .

Also I really love 'Saved from Sacrifice' by Mark Heim which is, in my view, the best book about the new non-violent atonement theology. Heim gives some mind blowing details about the uses of Jonah and Susana in the early Church as types and anti-types of Christ. He’s also brilliant in his discussion of martyrdom and responses to persecution in ways that echo the Reformation debate on these matters that I’ve just been reading about in Walsham’s ‘Charitable Hatred’ – I may do a post on this one day when I’m at leisure to pop in the occasional piece on the Supplementary thread here – after the main narrative is finished.

Another more practical (and mercifully little) book from a Girardian perspective which I have learnt much from is ‘Clever as Serpents’ by Jim Grote, John McGeeney. This is interesting because it is a book on business ethics and a canny appraisal of how to mitigate and survive (depending on your role) rivalry and scapegoating in the work place. I was very impressed, having always done some work in community education and being familiar with the ‘twilight of the gods’ period in projects when successful ventures have their funding cut and things get very nasty – I must have been there about ten times. It also chimed with my experience as an employee of a much loved educational institution, founded on principles of education for all and social justice, working on a care ethic, and employing many people with special needs in its administrative staff. Under the pressure of market fundamentalism in the 1990’s it was taken over by middle managers trained in laissez faire policy (downsizing, right sizing, flattened hierarchies, re-imposition of hierarchy – you name it, they tried it) and turned very nasty with plenty of scapegoating and staff break downs. I wish I’d read ‘Clever as Serpents’ at this time. So many people make themselves martyrs to work in these circumstances, when the best thing to do is get out and live again elsewhere. And I like the text that is used for contemplation in this book; when the Pharisees took up stones to kill Jesus in the Temple – ‘he passed through the crowds unharmed’. I’ll bet you see plenty of this type of stuff in the dear old Church of England too – with Bishops acting increasingly like managers (because they have to - but some relish this role too much I understand).

With Girard himself, well I've got a 'Girard Reader' !!! He can be a bit obscure, but the reader highlights some stuff that is interesting to me with a History of Ideas/Cultural History background concerning Girard’s view of Shakespeare’s 'Theatre of Envy, some wonderful stuff on prefiguration of the Gospel in Greek tragedy, and a devastating critique of Nietzsche.

The thing you must always remember about you and me is that although we are equals in intelligence and I hope I sometimes come near to you in compassion (but doubt it), I have a memory like a bucket – and some of my friends view me as a freak of nature!!! It helps when remembering books, but can be a very pest when it comes to important matters like ‘forgiveness’. Where some people just forget, I seldom do and have to go on longer journeys than them, in tying myself in knots trying to forgive until I finally give up and make the space for Grace to happen.

All the best

Dick

[Sobornost]

One other thing Drew – and no need to reply at once, you are busy an can read all of this through at leisure over the year -I've received my copy of Tom Talbott's 'The inescapable Love of God' this morning (you recommended it to me). Hmmm I see what you mean about Calvin and Servetus. Whatever anyone says about Calvin’s efforts to get Servetus to change his mind/repent, and that it was his wish that Servetus ‘merely’ be beheaded rather than burned there is all of the highly unpleasant evidence that Talbott produces suggesting that although Servetus posed no threat to the Genevan state, Calvin actually conspired to entrap him. I have seen a writer compare Calvin’s record favourably with the Elizabeth’s. Whereas Calvin was no enthusiast for burning Elizabeth burned six in her time. Well there is no evidence that Elizabeth was an enthusiast for burning either – besides which nobody died for their faith in the first seventeen years of her rule (and Calvin was only really powerful in Geneva for eleven years at the end of his life – so he didn’t have to cope with all of the reversals and blows to good intentions that Elizabeth experienced – besides which Geneva is a lot smaller than England).Also Calvin, in executing all Anabaptists without mercy – and inciting the execution of Anabaptists in England – and in instigating the harsh laws against disobedient children, adulterers etc. well surpassed anything seen in Elizabethan England.

Dear me - I really don't want to the think the worst of Calvin - there are many moderate Reformed Christians and Universalist Reformed Christians as I well know (and some on this site). I’d love to touch base with some of these to listen to their side of the story because I know Calvinism has its riches – its testimony to the inescapable love of God, its value for education, its love of democratic freedoms (and sometimes in Calvin and indeed in Jonathan Edwards we get a glimmer of real concern for social justice and even passages of almost mystical intensity at the contemplation of the beauty of nature). But I really am confused here. The only insight I have at the moment is that Calvinism bring forth its true riches in situations where it no longer considers itself as ‘the antithesis’ to all that is not under God’s sovereign rule (which can lead to ‘self idolatry’ within its ranks under the guise of humility). Yes it is in a pluralist setting that Calvinism is at its best (and I infer this from what you have told me about the book you are reading Barth and Origen it seems, amongst other things).
Yes I’d love to listen to moderate Reformed views– because I really would like to think of Calvin with the same amount of understanding as I now do Luther.
However, as far as any sectarian Clavinists on this site or elsewhere – God bless them; they are made in the image of God and ultimately predestined for incorporation into the Body of Christ along with the rest of us when Christ shall be All in All. But the prospect of dialogue with them turns me off (and I have read Francis Schaeffer, Hans Rookmaaker, Cornelius Van Til, and Abraham Kuyper so I’m not uninformed about the sectarians). I know all of the moves in Calvinist exegesis of scripture and I’ve long since found them completely unsatisfactory. Therefore I must be one of the reprobate – hence my sinful understanding of scripture – in which case its best for them to leave me alone and for me to leave them alone.. For my part I think ‘better a Hell with Jesus’ as I understand Jesus, than a heaven without him. So we are locked in thesis and antithesis and had better leave each other in peace. Yes, ‘Go in peace’ I say – unless you actually want to learn with me about God’s all embracing love – and you will one day; God is infinite ly patient even if I am not.

Well you know what I mean?

All the best


Dick

[Sobornost]

I want to do some posts here noting some of the subsidiary topics that have occurred to me while I’ve been writing about the abrogation of the 42nd Article; some will be properly developed, but with others I will simply note that I need to look at as specific sub-topic more deeply someday soonish. I’m going to post the completed stuff gradually over this week as I complete the other stuff. I think you will find some of the subsidiary stuff very interesting if you are already interested in the main thread – and writing it down and posting it helps me clear my head and focus on the main argument – for I have ever been one with a bonnet full of wild bees.

Two poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt

I’ve talked about the radical separation of the public and the private self (for self protection) as a phenomenon often found in the acts and works of those who moved in the circles of power during the Renaissance/Reformation; and this insight seemed to cause some interest with some of you. Interesting and very appropriate examples of this – for my/our purposes – can be found in the writings of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Wyatt was one of the first recruits to the full Protestant cause at the court of Henry VIII (even when Henry broke with Rome his theology still remained Catholic and he and Cranmer still persecuted full Protestants). Wyatt was a Christian Humanist scholar who translated the Penitential Psalms from Jerome’s Vulgate into English – and, in coded form, these translations reveal that Wyatt understood ‘penance’ to mean ‘repentance’. He was also a close friend of Anne Boleyn’s. Whether they were lovers in the modern sense is debatable, and any relationship they had took place before Anne was married to Henry. However, it seems very probable that at some stage before the marriage Wyatt had been Anne’s courtly lover – inspired by her presence and beauty to write courtly poems of non-rivalrous desire to her. Their love was perhaps once ‘consummated’ in a courtly, chaste embrace with Anne granting Wyatt the favour of embracing her while she was naked and he kept his clothes on (a sort of asceticism of passion, as they did things then). Wyatt was arrested along with Anne and the other men accused of being her lovers and was sent to the Tower where, it seems, he was forced to watch her execution from an upper window but was later released without trial. A lot of Wyatt’s love poetry is standard courtly stuff – couched in language that had been fresh in the twelfth centre but had become formulaic and clichéd with tie. However two poems come to life with the shock of the new in the dislocation of the public and private, and both of these probably concern Anne Boleyn; they speak of the danger of a love that was once intimate and tender but has turned wild now the beloved belongs to Caesar. I would like to do a brief post on these – they are ‘Whoso list to hunt’ and ‘They flee from me’.

Whoso List to Hunt

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, alas, I may no more;
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that furthest come behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow; I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I, may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain,
There is written her fair neck round about,
'Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.'

This poem is a translation of a sonnet of Petrarch’s by Wyatt – but Watt makes a lot of significant changes to the original and thus the poem becomes very much his own. There’s is no need for me to do a full literary analysis here – I will just pick out the significant bits. The argument of the poem is an extended metaphor about the hunter (Wyatt, the lover) who once pursued the deer (almost certainly Anne Boleyn, the beloved) but is now exhausted through labour in vain. He invites others to take up pursuit if they list/wish, but the closing sestet includes the terrible warning of the motto inscribed in diamonds on the collar around the deer’s neck

'Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.'

‘Noli me a tangere’ is the Vulgate’s Latin for the words ‘Touch me not’ spoken by Jesus to Mary Magdalene in the garden of Resurrection. So here the World of Christ – of love and intimate compassion – is placed together in a dislocating paradox with the World of ‘Caesar’ in Caesar’s/Henry VIII’s ownership of the deer; the concluding punch line is a terrible warning of danger and false seeming. The image is striking, individual and fresh.

They flee from me.

They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, "dear heart, how like you this?"

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.

In the first stanza here we again have the traditional courtly love motif of the fleeing deer signifying the beloved pursued by the lover. However, in a note of almost surreal dislocation, the beloved is not one but many; and the setting is not the hunt in court parklands but the intimacy of the lover’s bedchamber into which the herd of deer stray meekly to be fed bread from his hand.

They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand

In so doing they put themselves in ‘danger’ – and C.S. Lewis wrote a long appendix in his ’Allegory of Love’ on the etymology of this word; it does not signify the danger of physical assault from a jealous husband; rather it signifies the haughty response of the rejection of an abject lover by a proud and dignified lady. However in this stanza ‘danger’ has become the prerogative of the lover rather than the beloved.
The next stanza takes us out of allegory to reveal the truth of the intimate encounter being referred to –

...but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, "dear heart, how like you this?"

When she says ‘dear heart how like you this?’ the roles are reversed again. The lover is now the ‘dear heart’ (which alludes to ‘as pants the heart for cooling stream when heated in the chase’ from the Hebrew Bible). This direct portrayal of intimacy is virtually unknown in other courtly poetry of this period.
In the final stanza all is turned on its head completely as the lover has ‘leave to go’ – is cast off – by the beloved’s ‘goodness’ (surely ironic).

But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.

In the fearful world of this poem the quality of ‘gentleness’ – courtly virtue – which the lover esteems, has no place, The beloved now uses ‘newfangleness’ – which means a desire for novelty and for pastures new. The word was first coined by Chaucer in a poem in which he contrasted the spring green of changeable nature, with the constancy of the blue sky - blue also being the colour of the Virgin Mary’s garments in traditional iconography. (and it is this colour lore that informs the famous Tudor court song ‘Greensleeves’ addressed to the lady who has cast her lover off ‘discourteously’.
And so I suggest that Wyatt’s two finest poems give us a stunning insight into the fearful conflict between the private and the public selves that bedevilled the men and women who moved in the circles of power in our period of study.
.
All the best (and hope you like the poems too)

Dick

[Sobornost]

A footnote on the two poems by Wyatt –

Of course it is the hart that pants for cooling streams not the ‘heart’ – hence the pun

C.S. Lewis’ discussion of the word ‘daunger’ relates to the medieval French Courtly Allegory ‘The Romance of the Rose’. I am certain ‘danger’ still carried the meaning of ‘haughty rejection’ in Wyatt’s time that Lewis suggests here. However, again in the context of Henry’s court it will also have meant real and terrible danger of torture and death.
When I was an undergraduate I read the wonderful book by the twentieth century Dutch Christian Humanist, ‘The Waning of the Middle Ages’, This looks at the cultural games and traditions with which Courtly society in the Middle Ages gave aesthetic form and pattern to its more anarchic and dangerous impulses – namely Chivalry for war, and Courtly Love for sexual desire. I remember that Huizinga argues that although these cultural forms were always idealised they did once stand for real idealism – at least potentially. However as the Middle ages ‘waned’ and the early modern period was born medieval cultural forms still persisted for a while, but they no longer signified anything much, either real or ideal; hence the awful sense of dislocation in Wyatt’s poems.

Henry VIII would hold courtly pageants and jousts, and he himself wrote songs in which he adopted the persona of the troubadour. However... well I’m sure some of you have read ‘The Other Boleyn Girl.’ When Mary Boleyn, Anne’s sister, first came to court with her new husband Henry decided that he wanted her as his mistress; and due to court politics Mary Boleyn’s husband had no say in the matter. And Henry once appeared in the white robes of theological uppity to interrogate and condemned a hectic over transubstantiation.

All the best


Dick

[Sobornost]

I’ve found an article by David Knauss about Christian Humanism. I can’t find it on the Internet – so here is some relevant stuff from it (it’s excellent):

Influenced in large part by the Dutch philosopher Hermann Dooyeweerd’s critique of western culture, Francis Schaeffer frequently used “humanism” as an unqualified polemical term to refer to thinkers and ideas he objected to from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. In his most acclaimed book, How Shall We Then Live?, which was highly influential in Anglo-American Reformed and Evangelical communities, Schaeffer specifically attacked Renaissance humanism and linked it with modern secular humanism...

[However]Christian humanism finds its basis in humbling oneself before the wisdom of others, that one might find exaltation in love and knowledge. It is the extension of John the Baptist's words "He must increase, but I must decrease" to all of God's creation and all His children.

The ‘Praise of Folly’ (circa 1509) is a mock encomium by Erasmus owing much to the book of Ecclesiastes, among other sources, and it would become a major source of inspiration for other writers like Rabelais. The book is the occasion for Dame Folly to praise herself at length by showing how her cult is a the centre of all human affairs. The satire of the book is extreme, but it has a serious message. Erasmus’s goal is not to promote scepticism for its own sake but to lead others through a carnivalesque pageant to a better appreciation of the experience of discovering true wisdom and the hard ordeal by which we come to it through our own folly. Erasmus would have agreed with what Fransesco Petrarca [Petrarch] wrote in ‘On His Own Ignorance and That of Many Others (circa 136 8) – that knowledge sometimes makes us miserable. But Erasmus has Folly assert that it is only because of her existence that knowledge does not always make us miserable. Folly affirms that humans pursuing knowledge are generally presumptuous, incredibly short-sighted, and misery would always be the inevitable fruit of their labour if not for the blinding influence of Folly and her servant Forgetfulness. In this manner Folly becomes a serious comic mouthpiece for Erasmus’ criticism of academics [of late medieval/early modern Catholicism that was ripe for reform]; but these are only two of her targets. The particular folly of which philosophers and theologians partake is more widespread and rooted in human nature – nobody escapes it. To presume to eliminate folly from one’s life is shown to be one of the most foolish endeavours there is. What other than folly resides in the pride behind the belief that one can liberate oneself from creaturely limitations and human fallenness? We cannot get outside ourselves to a folly free zone to perform an exorcism. Any effort to do so is to follow the pure utopian thinking that presumes we actually can step outside human nature to become objective, autonomous observers, capable of finding pure principles for right thought and action. Since this is precisely the kind of presumption that modernity has romanced in various [murderous] political ideologies masquerading as critical sciences, Erasmus sounds very postmodern [feel slightly queasy at the mention for this word] in critiquing it in the early sixteenth century [well I can see what David Knauss is driving at here, but I guess ‘post early modern ‘would have been a better term, if we must use exciting language]...

...accepting our nature, we should learn to deal with uncertainty, ambiguity, and error as constant parts of our lives. Yet however deluded we may be, t is not impossible to discern truth or to act wisely and prudently> Indeed, there is no doubt on Folly’s or Erasmus’ part that here is such a thing as truth and a transcendent reality, a foundation for creation in a creator

I believe that any authentically Christina response to the modern-postmodern dichotomy [slight cringe!] must recover this central trait of Renaissance humanism: the ability to accept and hold together – even to cherish – the two disparate halves of human nature. On the one hand, we are impoverished, deceitful, and self-deceiving. On the other hand, we are noble, capable of reasoning towards truth, capable of sharing the experience of it, and able to improve what we know and how we love. Emphasizing either aspect of human nature at the expense of the other is wrong and will yield distorted results. In reality they are always conjoined, and we live within the tensions both in the Gospel and the fallen human condition. Good, wise readings of ourselves, literature, history, and the word [and the Bible]will only come forth if we push those tensions out front, cherish them, and live under them in humility, always seeking their truth. Here is no systematic, rationalistic method or theory that will help us without an intuitive, experience base and spiritually guided openness to questions and conversations where, if any truth is to be had, it must be tasted to be seen.

And I’ll drink to that


All the best


Dick

[Sobornost]

I’d like to stock up the Erasmus resources on this site a bit more – as you know I’m speaking up for the Christian Humanist and Anabaptist Spiritual tradition with fellow Universalist who are Armenians and Calvinists and don’t know a lot about us (so that’s why I’m posting a lot for a season to keep m brothers and sisters informed).
Erasmus wrote a charming little Book for the Education of the Little Christian gentleman – which really reflects his moderation and good humour. It’s such a contrast to the Puritan literature for children which I’ll do a post on after this. For the moment, if you are a follower of this marginal thread, I hope you enjoy – and please put a note after this post if you have done (it’ll keep me sweet and cheerful).
The Quotations are from ‘A handbook of Good Manners for Children’ by Deisidere Erasmus, translated by Eleanor Merchant (published by Preface 2008)

•Let other people emblazon their shields with lions, eagles, bulls and leopards; the emblems of the intellect, acquired by an education in the liberal arts, bear a truer nobility.

•It’s rather obscene to snort through your nose, and implies anger if it’s a habit. Of course, those who are short of breath on account of illness must be excused.

•To laugh on your own or for no obvious reason is an attribute of the stupid or the insane. If however something of this kind arises, it’s polite to explain to others the reason for your laughter. But if you don’t consider it appropriate to relate this, make something else up, in case someone thinks that they are the object of the joke.

•To refrain from passing urine is bad for your health; but be discreet when you go. There are some who teach that a child should hold in digestive wind by clenching his buttocks. But it’s not good manners to make yourself ill in your eagerness to appear polite.

•Don’t be conspicuous by your shabbiness, nor by any opulence, wantonness or arrogance.

•The greater someone’s fortune, the more agreeable is his modesty.

•When the gospel is proclaimed, stand up, and listen with devout attention if you are able. When the Creed is sung, at the words ‘and was made man’, kneel down, as in this way you submit yourself in honour of him, who, although Lord of all the heavens, came down to earth for your salvation; who, although God, deigned to become man, that he should reconcile you with God.

•Consider yourself to have come to church in vain unless you go out from there a better and purer person.

•Whilst dining you should be cheerful, but not cheeky

•As you wash your hands, so too, clear troubles from your mind. For it’s not good manners to be gloomy at dinner or to make anyone else miserable.

•...the rewards of enjoying strong wine will be decayed teeth, bleary eyes, dim vision and a dull mind, in short, a premature decline.

•It’s courteous to return the favour when someone toasts you with his cup, raising the cup to your lips, sipping a little and giving the impression of drinking.

•If someone crudely urges you to drink more, it’s fine for you to promise that you will respond to his request when you are grown up.

•A child should be kept waiting for a while, so that he gets used to controlling his appetite.

•If someone else offers you a particularly choice piece of food, you should try to decline gently before accepting it, but only cut off a small portion for yourself, and offer the remainder to the person who gave it to you, or share it with someone sitting near you.

•To swallow whole pieces of food in one gulp is the practice of storks and clowns.

•Gnawing on bones is for dogs; using a knife to strip meat away is well-mannered.

•Greedy gobbling is the way of ruffians.

•To blurt out what someone’s said or done when they’ve had a few drinks is behaviour fitting for no one, especially a child.

•At dinner nothing should be blurted out that might darken the cheerful tone. Harming the reputation of someone not present is a great offence. And it’s not the place to reopen old wounds with anyone.

•Get-togethers ought to feel relaxed.

•Those who force children to fast, in my opinion, are just as insane as those who stuff children full of food...Moderation ought to be learnt from the beginning

•Those who often allow their children to stay up through long meals lasting into the middle of the night show their disregard for their children.

•Just as God bid us, through Solomon, that we should stand up out of respect for the elderly, and likewise, through Paul, he urged us to show double reverence to our elders.

•We should speak respectfully and succinctly to our superiors; lovingly and kindly to our contemporaries.

•A shy manner is acceptable, but only if it suits someone, not if it renders them thunderstruck.

•Allow your voice to be soft and gentle, not clamorous like a farmer’s, nor so subdued that it can’t , heard by the person you’re addressing.

•...the well-raised child should neither use foul language nor listen to it.

•If something is to be contradicted, be careful not to say, ‘You’re not telling the truth’, particularly if you are speaking to your elder, but say with respect, ‘It was told to me very differently by so and so.’

•He shouldn’t put himself above others, nor boast about what he’s done, nor criticise someone else’s behaviour, nor disparage the customs or habits of another country, nor reveal a secret he’s been trusted with, nor spread fresh rumours, nor damage someone’s reputation spitefully, nor reproach someone on account of an inborn defect...Following these guidelines should mean that you win praise without envy and gain friends.

•Don’t get involved in quarrels with anyone, and show affability to all.

•When playing games be cheerful. Don’t be stubborn as that causes quarrels.

•Someone who concedes a game with good humour gains more honour than one who always insists on winning.

•Don’t contradict the umpires.

•The point of playing is in the spirit of the game rather than any prize.

•When you’ve been to the toilet, don’t do anything else until after you’ve washed your face and hands, and rinsed out your mouth.

•For those lucky enough to be born in to privilege, it’s disgraceful if their manners don’t match their position. Those whom fate has chosen to be ordinary, common or uncouth have to make a much greater effort with their manners to compensate for their lack of privilege.

•The key to good manners is that you should readily ignore the faults of others, but avoid falling short yourself. For that reason, you shouldn’t look down on a friend if he has poorer behaviour...but if a friend does something wrong without realising it, and it seems important, then it’s polite to inform him of it gently and in private.

My good friend who has shared a very similar spiritual journey to me tyoed these extracts (and chose them). She’s a mum so I thought she’d make the best choice. I’ll have to call her ‘Sister Sobornost’ and offer my warm thanks to her –

All the best

Dick

[edwardtulane82]

•To refrain from passing urine is bad for your health; but be discreet when you go. There are some who teach that a child should hold in digestive wind by clenching his buttocks. But it’s not good manners to make yourself ill in your eagerness to appear polite.

•If someone crudely urges you to drink more, it’s fine for you to promise that you will respond to his request when you are grown up.

•He shouldn’t put himself above others, nor boast about what he’s done, nor criticise someone else’s behaviour, nor disparage the customs or habits of another country, nor reveal a secret he’s been trusted with, nor spread fresh rumours, nor damage someone’s reputation spitefully, nor reproach someone on account of an inborn defect...Following these guidelines should mean that you win praise without envy and gain friends.

good advice

•Don’t get involved in quarrels with anyone, and show affability to all.

likewise here

•Someone who concedes a game with good humour gains more honour than one who always insists on winning.

Tell this one to all the rabid sports fans out there.

•The point of playing is in the spirit of the game rather than any prize.

and this too

good stuff, Rick

blessings

Matt

[Sobornost]

Thanks Matt

[edwardtulane82]

You're welcome, good sir