Jerome on Enoch and Elijah Being the Two Prophets of Revelation 11

  

You have asked me, in the third place, about what the Apostle says, that at the coming of the Lord and Savior some who are still alive will be caught up to meet him in the clouds, in such a way that they will not be preceded by those who have fallen asleep in Christ. And you want to know whether they would meet him in their bodies, and would not die before this, since even our Lord died, and Enoch and Elijah, according to the Apocalypse of John, are said to be going to die. That is to say, [you think that] there should not be anyone who does not taste death. The answer to this question can be known from the contents of the passage itself. For the saints who will be found in their bodies at the advent of the Savior will meet him in the same bodies, yet in such a way that what is unglorified, corruptible, and mortal is changed into glory, incorruption, and immortality. Thus, the prophets of the resurrected bodies will belong to the substance into which all bodies will be transformed, even the bodies of those who will still be alive at that time. This is why the Apostle says in another place: “On this account we do not want to be stripped, but to be clothed over, so that what is mortal may be absorbed by life,” namely lest our soul abandon our body. But while this body is always inhabited by its soul, what was previously lacking glory becomes glorious. This is not the proper time to speak of Enoch and Elijah, who, according to the Apocalypse, will come and die. For in our estimation that entire book should be understood spiritually. Otherwise, if we follow the fleshly interpretation, one would have to accept the fables of the Jews; thus Jerusalem will be built again, sacrifices will be offered in the temple, and our spiritual worship would be diminished and replaced by fleshly ceremonies. (Jerome, “Epistle 59 to Marcella,” c. A.D. 395/396 in St. Jerome: Exegetical Epistles, 2 vols. [trans. Thomas P. Scheck; The Fathers of the Church 147; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023], 1:235-36)

 

E. Sylvester Berry on Varying Degrees of Infallibility in Catholic Theology

  

DEGREES OF INFALLIBILITY. Perfect infallibility belongs to God, the Eternal Truth, but rational creatures may enjoy a certain immunity from error,--an immunity which they hold as a gift from God. This communicated infallibility is either natural or supernatural. Natural infallibility is immunity from error which all men possess in regard to certain self-evident truths. We know from experience that there are certain truths so evident that no one having the use of reason can mistake or misunderstand them. Supernatural infallibility is an immunity from error maintained by special assistance of the Holy Spirit. This special gift may concern the teaching of truths without error, and is then known as active infallibility, or infallibility in teaching. When its purpose is to prevent error in the acceptance of truths taught, it is called passive infallibility, or infallibility in believing. The Church possesses both active and passive infallibility. (E. Sylvester Berry, The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise [Frederick County, Md.: Mount Saint Mary's Seminary, 1955; repr., Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2009], 248)

 

Jerome on the Unforgiveable Sin and Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit

  

But let us raise a more penetrating question to him. Tell us what it means to speak against the Son of man and what to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. For I claim that by his interpretation, those who denied Christ in the persecution spoke against the Son of man, but did not blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. For the one who is asked whether he is a Christian and answers that he is not a Christian certainly denies Christ, that is, the Son of man; but he has not harmed the Holy Spirit. But if, by denying Christ, he also denied the Spirit, let the heretic explain how the one who denies Christ does not sin against the Spirit. Or, if he thinks that in this passage by “Holy Spirit” the Father must be understood, no mention of the Father was made by the denier when he denied. At that time when the apostle Peter was terrified by the maidservant’s question and denied the Lord, against whom does Novatian imagine that he committed his son: against the Son of man or against the Holy Spirit? Now, then, if he wants to put a ridiculous interpretation on Peter’s words: “I do not know the man,” and take it in the sense that he did not deny “Christ,” but “the man,” he makes a liar out of the Savior who had predicted that Peter was to deny him, that is, the Son of God. But if he denied the Son of God, and for this he wept bitterly and later on, with a triple confession, erased the triple denial, it is evident that only the sin against the Hoy Spirit that carries blasphemy with it is unforgivable, that is, when you see God in miracles, and misrepresent the deeds as those of Belzebub. Prove, then, that some apostate called Christ Belzebub, and I will grant you that the apostate cannot obtain forgiveness. It is one thing to surrender to torments and deny that one is a Christian; it is something else to call Christ the devil, as Scripture, read carefully enough in context, could have shown you. (Jerome, “Epistle 42 to Marcella,” A.D. 385, in St. Jerome: Exegetical Epistles, 2 vols. [trans. Thomas P. Scheck; The Fathers of the Church 147; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023], 1:193-)

 

E. Sylvester Berry (RC) on 1 Corinthians 3:11 and Ephesians 2:19-20

  

OBJECTION II.—In his first Epistle to the Corinthians St. Paul says: “Other foundation no man can lay, but that which has been laid, which is Christ Jesus.” (1 Cor. iii, 11) How, then, can St. Peter be called a foundation?

 

ANSWER.—In this passage the Apostle makes no reference to whatever to be the foundation of the Church; he is speaking of the foundation of doctrine, or faith. Rival parties had sprung up at Corinth and were causing much strife. Some claimed to be the followers of Paul; others of Apollo, whom they praised as a more eloquent preacher and a better teacher of doctrine. St. Paul rebukes them for such folly; he and Apollo taught them the same doctrine, although he had been unable to use eloquence of Apollo or to expound the more sublime doctrines of Christ: “I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but only as carnal, as to little ones in Christ. I fed you with milk, not with solid food, for you were not ready for it. Nor are you now ready for it, for you are still carnal,” (1 Cor. iii, 1 sq.) as your conduct shows. The Corinthians, being babes in Christ, St. Paul was forced to omit all attempts at eloquence and to teach them the mere rudiments of doctrine. He taught them nothing “except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” (1 Cor. ii, 2) This is the foundation of all faith and any one who gives them further instruction must built upon it, for “other foundation no one can lay.” (E. Sylvester Berry, The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise [Frederick County, Md.: Mount Saint Mary's Seminary, 1955; repr., Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2009], 177-78)

 

 

OBJECTION III.—St. Paul writes to the Ephesians: “Therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are citizens with the saints and members of God’s household; you are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” (Eph. ii, 19-20) Here all the Apostles are mentioned equally as the foundation stones of the Church in dependence upon our Lord as the chief cornerstone.

 

ANSWER.—This passage also has reference to doctrine, as is evident from the context, in which the prophets are associated with the Apostles as foundation stones of the Church. Yet the prophets were certainly not foundations of the Church in the same sense that Christ calls St. Peter the foundation rock. St. Paul teaches that the faithful are built upon the foundation of the prophets and Apostles by being instructed concerning Christ crucified, whom the prophets had foretold, and whom the Apostles now preach to them. Christ Himself is the chief cornerstone, i.e., the One foretold and now announced to the people.

 

Although St. Paul does not refer to the Apostles as the foundation of the Church, he could have done so with perfect truth; all were in a true sense foundation stones. They were the first members of the Church and its first ministers; through them Our Lord effected the actual organization of His Church, and by them it was extended far and wide to Jew and Gentile. For this reason it is often said that Christ instituted the Church in and through the Apostles, and St. John describes the Church triumphant as a city, “and the wall of the city has twelve foundation stones and on them twelve names on the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” (Apoc. xxi, 14) The twelve Apostles were the twelve foundation stones; St. Peter was even more than this. He was also the solid rock upon which stood both foundation and superstructure. (Ibid., 178)

 

Once Saved Always Saved? A Documentary Film

 

Once Saved Always Saved? A Documentary Film

Jerome on Isaiah 6:6

  

Septuagint: “And there was sent to me one (unum) of the seraphim.” Aquila and Theodotion have: “And one (unum) of the seraphim flew to me”; Symmachus has: “And one (unus) of the seraphim flew to me.” Daily a seraph is sent to us, daily the mouths are purged of those who groan and say: “O, I am wretched, for I pricked”; and when they have been delivered from sins, they prepare themselves for God’s service. But as for what the other translators said, that it “flew” in place of “was sent,” understand this of the swift advent of the divine word upon us who are judged worth of fellowship with him. There is also a difference in the gender. The Septuagint, Aquila, and Theodotion translated “seraphim” in the neuter gender, Symmachus in the masculine. One must not think that there is sex among the powers of God, since even the Holy Spirit himself is set forth as ruach in the feminine gender, in accordance with the properties of the Hebrew language. In Greek this is expressed in the neuter as το πνευμα, in Latin by the masculine word spiritus. From this one must understand that when there is a discussion about the things mentioned above, and something is recorded in the masculine or feminine gender, it is not so much their sex that is being indicated as the unique properties of the language. For indeed God himself, invisible and incorruptible, is set forth in nearly all languages in the masculine gender, even though sex does not apply to him. The error (I grant that it is a pious error) needs to be exposed of those, too, who in their prayers and oblations dare to say, “You who sit above the cherubim and seraphim.” For it is written that God sits above the cherubim, as for instance in this passage: “You who sit above the cherubim, show yourself”; but no Scripture records that God sits above the seraphim. Moreover, we have not even found the seraphim themselves standing around God in any Scripture with the exception of the present passage. (Jerome, “Epistle 18B to Damasus,” c. A.D. 380-382, in St. Jerome: Exegetical Epistles, 2 vols. [trans. Thomas P. Scheck; The Fathers of the Church 147; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023], 1:81-82)

 

The Epiclesis being the Moment of Transformation of the Eucharistic Bread and Wine in the Theology of Theodore of Cyrus

  

Beggar: You have opportunely introduced a word about the divine mysteries, for directly I will prove to you that the body of the Master (του δεσποτικου σματος) is changed into another nature (την εις ετεραν φυσιν μεταβολην). Do but answer my questions.

True believer: I will answer.

Beggar: What do you call the gift that is presented, prior to the priestly invocation)?

True Believer: it is not proper to divulge this; for it is probable that some of the uninitiate are present.

Beggar: You can call it enigmatically.

True Believer: Food from certain seeds.

Beggar: And how do we call the other token (το δε ετερον συμβολον)?

True Believer: It is a common name, signifying a species of beverage.

Beggar: And after the consecration (τον αγιασμον) how do you address them?

True Believer: Body of Christ and Blood of Christ.

Beggar: And do you believe you receive the Body of Christ and His Blood?

True Believer: That is what I do believe.

Beggar: Well then, just as the tokens of the Body and Blood of the Master are one thing before the priestly invocation, and after this epiclesis are changed and become something else, so too after the assumption [of flesh] the body of the Master is changed into the divine essence (την ουσιαν την θειαν).

True Believer: you are hoist with your own petard! For after the consecration the mystical tokens do not retire from their own nature (ουδε γαρ μετα τον αγιασμον μυστικα συμβολα της οικειας εξισταται φυσεως. The mystical tokens or signs or symbols are the bread and wine); for they remain with their former essence and outward appearance and shape, and they are visible and tangible just as they were before. They are understood, however, to be what they have become; and by faith they are believed; and they are adored as that which they are believed to be. (Theodore of Cyrus, Eranistès or Polymorph: A Dialogue Between a Beggar and a True Believer 2, ca. A.D. 447-451, The Faith of the Early Fathers, 3 vols. [trans. William A. Jurgens; Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1979], 3:243-44)

προ της ιερατικης επικλησεως. Literally, before the priestly epiclesis. The προ here is temporal. The True Believer is asked what we all the bread and wine before it has been consecrated; and he shows as a by-the-way in his question that he regards the epiclesis or invocation as consecratory. As the dialogue continues it is interesting to see that the arcane discipline prevents the True Believer from speaking openly of the tokens or symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ before the consecration as bread and wine. Yet he can speak openly of the Eucharist as Body and Blood of Christ. (Ibid., 244 n. 8)

 

μενει γαρ επι της προτερας ουσιας και του σχηματος και του ειδους. The “they,” of course, is το μυστικα συμβολα of the previous clause; remember that in Greek a nominative neutral plural subject regularly takes a singular verb. I am convinced that my translation is correct, but I am not entirely certain of what Theodoret means in this instance by ουσια; and I have perforce translated it as essence as synonymous with substance. If it is clearly a verbal denial of transubstantiation, we must remember that that terminology will not be determined until long after Theodoret’s time; and no matter his explanation, he does very clearly affirm at last a belief in the real presence. That is all that might be expected at so early a period.

 

It might have been argued that though he says that the former essence or substance remains, it is not certain that he does not in this place intend σχημα and ειδος, the outward appearance and shape (or species), as qualifiers to what he means by ουσια rather than as being a second and third thing that remain.  Possibly it were not necessary to take the και . . .και as mere consecutives, but as specifying limits to the ουσια thus: “For the mystical tokens remain by their former substance, both as to outward appearance and as to shape.” But if we do that to try to force a modern orthodoxy upon Theodoret or the True Believer, we destroy the effectiveness of His argument against Eranistes toe Beggar, who said that the flesh assumed by Christ is transformed into the Divine Essence, and who demonstrates a transubstantional understanding of the Eucharistic transformation in establishing a parallel. Since Theodoret denies the parallelism of Eranistes’ argument, it is necessary to accept that Theodoret is really saying that after the consecratory epiclesis, when the bread and wine has really become what it is believed to be, the Body of Christ, the substance of bread remains. If that is really what Theodoret means, then he is an impanationist and a very good Lutheran. (Ibid., 244 n. 13)