Saturday, April 5, 2025

Bede on Luke 22:44 and the Text Speaking of Literal Blood

  

[Luke 22:44] And his sweat became like drops of blood, falling down on the ground. Let no one impute this sweat to weakness, because it is also contrary to nature to sweat blood. It does not support the heresy of weakness, but the sweat of blood establishes the reality of Christ’s body against the heresy which claims that it was only an apparent body. But rather, by the earth watered and sanctified by Christ’s blood, one may understand that it was declared—not to Christ, who knew it, but openly to us—that he already achieved the purpose of his prayer, namely that he should cleanse by his blood the faith of the disciples that earthly weakness still accused; and whatever stumbling block that weakness endured because of his death, he himself destroyed it all by dying. On the contrary, by his innocent death he restored to heavenly life the whole world that was dead far and wide from sins. (Bede, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke [trans. Calvin B. Kendall and Faith Wallis; Translated Texts for Historians 85; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2025], 600)

 

 

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Thomas J. Lane (Roman Catholic) on Romans 15:16

  

Paul’s Priestly Service of the Gospel (Rom 15:16)

 

In Romans 15:16, Paul uses language that compares his ministry to the Gentiles with that of a Jewish priest in the temple. Paul describes himself as a leitourgos (λειτουργός), a minister of Christ to the Gentiles in the priestly service, hierourgounta (ἱερουργοῦντα), of the Gospel. The word leitourgos is not in itself confined to priesthood or worship, but it is prone to being applied in that way, and its context here in Romans 15:16 gives it such a cultic meaning. The word hierourgounta (ἱερουργοῦντα) is obviously from the same root as hiereus (ἱερεύς), priest. Nevertheless, Vanhoye notes that the verb hierourgeo does not necessarily refer to priestly activity, and taken by itself does not clarify whether Paul compares himself to a Levitical priest offering sacrifice, a Levite assisting the priest, or the layman bringing the offering, but in this context, it must be priestly, because it refers to the Gentiles giving an offering to Paul and then Paul, as God’s leitourgos, offering the oblation of the pagans to God. Joseph Fitzmyer sees Paul comparing himself to a Jewish priest: “In his mission to the Gentiles Paul sees his function to be like that of a Jewish priest dedicated to the service of God in his Temple.” Jean Galot goes further than Vanhoye and Fitzmyer and describes as superficial the view that would hold these verses as a figure of speech for Paul’s ministry, and he regards these verses as a demonstration of Paul’s awareness “that in the act of carrying out his apostolic mission he exercises a priesthood that is real and genuine.” Paul is using terminology that compares his ministry to that of Jewish priesthood, but showing that his ministry is of a different order, since he is a leitourgos of Christ. Paul does not merely compare himself with a Jewish priest; he realizes that he is a leitourgos and exercising priesthood coming from Christ. (Thomas J. Lane, The Catholic Priesthood: Biblical Foundations [Steubenville, Ohio: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2006], 154)

 

 

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Friday, April 4, 2025

The Interpretation of Numbers 23:19 in Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenaeus

  

"God is not as a man." He thus shows that all men are indeed guilty of falsehood, inasmuch as they change from one thing to another (μεταφερόμενοι); but such is not the case with God, for He always continues true, perfecting whatever He wishes. (Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenaeus XXIV [ANF 1:572])

 

The Greek reads:

 

Ουχ ως ανθρωπος ο Θεος. Δεικνυσιν, ως παντες μεν ανθρωποι ψεύδονται μεταφερομενοι ο δε Θεος ουχ ούτως αει γαρ μενει αλητης επιτελών οσα βούλεται. (PG 7:1241)

 

The Latin reads:

 

Non est Deus ut homo. Ostendit omne hominum genus mandax, qui ex alio in aliud ferantur; non sic autem Deum: sepmer enim verus manet omnia implens quaecunque velit. (PG 7:1242)

 

 

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David F. Wright on Purported Evidence that Infants Were Among the Recipients of Baptism in the Apostolic Fathers

  

Do References to baptism in the Apostolic Fathers throw any light on the inclusion of infants among its recipients?

 

The directions for baptism in the Didache envisage responsible participants as its subjects. There is no provision for young children, but nor are they explicitly excluded. If we recall that only one small paragraph betrays the place for infants in the lengthy baptismal order in the Hippolytan Apostolic Tradition, such that most questions about their inclusion are left unanswered, we should hesitate to regard the Didache as debarring them. Its text does contribute, however, to the general picture which emerges from all the patristic sources, that the rite of baptism developed throughout the era as a rite for believing respondents, into which non-responding babies when they came to be baptized were accommodated with adaptation minimal to the point of being often near invisible.

 

The Epistle to Barnabas also furnishes an explicit discussion of baptism, from the perspective of its Old Testament foreshadowing. Not only does the writer with unmistakable purposefulness trace no connection between baptism and circumcision (see section 7 below), but what he does say about baptism clearly has responsible agents in view. They go down into the water (καταβαινω, 11. 8, 11) ‘with their hopes set on the cross’ (11. 8), and ascend out of it ‘bearing the fruit of fear in [their] hearts and having hope in Jesus in [their] spirits’ (11. 11). How instinctively Barnabas avoided envisaging infants as subjects of Christian initiation appears earlier in his work.

 

So we are the ones whom [God] brought into the good land. What then do ‘milk and honey’ mean [in Exod. 33. 3]? That a child is brought to life first by honey and then by milk. So accordingly we too are brought to life by faith in the promise and by the word, and will then go on to live possessing the earth. (6. 16–17)

 

When Ignatius through Polycarp exhorts the Smyrnaean Christians, ‘Let your baptism remain as your weapons, your faith as a helmet, your love as a spear, your endurance as your panoply’ (Ign. Pol. 6. 2), is it fair comment that baptism Its better with faith, love, and endurance in this context as a recognizable feature of their conscious Christian experience? The assumption would be similar to that made by Paul in Rom. 6. 3– 4.

 

Hermas was given the explanation of the stones which fell away from the tower near water, yet could not be rolled into the water: ‘These are those who have heard the word and wish to be baptized into the name of the Lord,’ but subsequently return to their former wickedness (Vis. 3. 7. 3). The author’s preoccupation with repentance as the prerequisite for baptism is writ large throughout the work, as is the necessity of baptism (‘water’) for salvation (Vis. 3. 3. 5; Sim. 9. 16. 2– 4). Yet in all of Hermas’s elaborate symbolism, no category appears which might specifically accommodate those originally baptized in early infancy.

 

2 Clement’s interest in baptism is restricted to keeping it ‘pure and undefiled (6. 9). Twice ‘seal’ is used of the baptism to be preserved at all costs. (2 Clem. 7. 6; 8. 6). Nothing can be confidently inferred from these references. (David F. Wright, “The Apostolic Fathers and Infant Baptism: Any Advance on the Obscurity of the New Testament,” in Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005], 126-27)

 

Do note that Wright is a proponent of infant baptism.

 

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David F. Wright: There is No Explicit References to Infant Baptism in the Apostolic Fathers

  

Are there any explicit references to infant baptism in the Apostolic Fathers?

 

The first is likely to prove the easiest to answer, since no scholar known to me now answers in the affirmative. (David F. Wright, “The Apostolic Fathers and Infant Baptism: Any Advance on the Obscurity of the New Testament,” in Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, Andrew F. Gregory and Christopher M. Tuckett [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005], 124)

 

This is significant as Wright himself is a proponent of infant baptism.

 

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The Popular (but errant) claim that the Church Reversed its Priesthood/Temple Restriction Due to a Risk of Losing its Tax Exempt Status

  

Did the risk of losing its tax exemption influence the church’s abandonment of its priesthood and temple ban? It is possible, but unlikely. A small handful of accounts exist that assert that the church did consider its tax-exempt status when reassessing its exclusionary policy. Shortly after the policy change, for instance, church historian Leonard Arrington posited that the “Lord might have permitted the announcement at this particular moment” because a number of states refused to exempt church property from tax. He pointed in particular to Wisconsin.

 

Arrington was right that in the early 1970s, a Wisconsin court held that granting property tax exemptions to racially discriminatory fraternal and benevolent societies violated the Constitution. After that decision, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue began investigating almost 10,000 tax-exempt organizations’ by-laws. It eventually selected thirty organizations to investigate in more depth and ultimately decided that several Masonic lodges had membership practices that effectually allowed them to discriminate against potential Black members. The lodges sued, asking a court to stop the Department of Revenue’s investigation. In November 1977, the trial court refused, and on June 30, 1978 (about three weeks after the church changed its policy), the state supreme court upheld its refusal, allowing the Department of Revenue to continue looking into racially discriminatory policies at a handful of Masonic lodges.

 

There is no evidence that Wisconsin ever investigated, or threatened, the Mormon Church’s property tax exemption. Similarly, legal databases have no record of the Mormon Church challenging any other state’s denial of a property tax exemption based on its racially exclusionary policies (for, for that matter, anything else).

 

Arrington’s assertion illustrates the main problems with most claims that the church changed its policy because of the potential loss of tax exemption: these claims appeared after the fact, without any evidence that the Mormon Church was at risk of losing its tax exemption, and without any evidence that the church leaders considered the church’s tax exemption in deciding to do away with the racial temple and priesthood ban. (Samuel D. Brunson, Between the Temple and the Tax Collector: The Intersection of Mormonism and the State [Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 2025], 190-91)

 

 

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Robert Sungenis on the Justification of Rahab in James 2:25

  

"like manner": ομοιως. James connects the justification of Abraham to that of Rahab and declares they are the same, thus there is no theological difference in the way these two were justified. If not, then either James is misinterpreting them or God has two systems of justification. James' whole thesis, beginning at Jm 2:1, is that God shows no favoritism, especially between Jew and Gentile (cf. Rm 1:16-17; 2:9-10). As such, James certainly does not view Rahab's justification as a vindication, that is, Rahab was not given a forensic imputation prior to her meeting with the Israelite spies and later vindicated. Rahab was a prostitute who lived an immoral life until she encountered God through the Israelites. Her justification comes on the heels of her acceptance of the God of Israel and his laws, which would necessitate she immediately repented of her evil and decided to live righteously. An active event took place in Rahab's relationship with God when she hid the spies, not a demonstration of a previous justification. Hence since Rahab is not vindicated but is truly justified during her encounter; and since James insists Abraham was justified "in like manner," we can only conclude that both Abraham in Genesis 22 and Rahab in Joshua 2 were salvifically justified before God, not vindicated. (Robert A. Sungenis, Commentary on the Catholic Douay-Rheims New Testament Exegeted from the Original Greek and Latin, 4 vols. [State Lina, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2021], 4:180 n. 37)

 

 

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