Melchor Cano (1509-1560) on the Patristic and Medieval Witness Against the Sinlessness of Mary

 Melchor (alt. Melchior) Cano was a Dominican priest and theologian. He was also in attendance during the Council of Trent.

 

De locis theologicis, Book VII, Chapter 1, Number 3

 

Sancti nanque omnes, qui in eius rei mentionem incidere, uno ore asseverarunt, Beatam virginem in peccato originali conceptam, hoc videlicet Ambr. astruit super psal. 118. concione. 6. hoc August. super psalmum. 34. in illum versiculum, Ego autem cum mihi molesti essent, &c. & lib. secundo de baptismo parvulorum cap. 24. & 10. super Genesim ad literam cap. 18. & lib. 53. contra Iulianum cap. 9. hoc Chrysost. super Matthae. hoc Eus. Emis. in 2. concione Nativitatis Domini, hoc Remigius super psalmum vicesimum primum, & Maximus in sermone de Assumptione Beatae virginis astruxere.

 

Idem quoque affirmat Beda in homilia super Missus est. Anselmus in libr. cur Deus homo cap. 16. Bernardus in epistola ad Lugdunenses 174. Erardus episcopus, & martyr in concione quadam de Nativitate Beatae virginis, sanctus Antonius Paduanus in concione etiam de Nativitate eiusdem sanctae virginis, sanctus Bernardinus in sermonum suorum opere tertio, in tractatu de Beata virgine, concione 4. Divus Bonaventura. 3. sentent. distinctione 3. quaest. 1. articul. 2. Divus Thom. 3. parte, quaest. 27. articul. 2. Divus Vincen. in sermone de Conceptione Beatae virginis. Divus Anton. 3. parte, tit. 8. Damas. lib. 3. sententiarum suarum. Hugo de sancto Victore de sacramentis parte 2. cap. 4.

 

& cum nullus sanctorum contra venerit, infirmum tamen ex omnium auctoritate argumentum ducitur; quin potius contraria sententia, & probabiliter & pie in ecclesia defenditur. En argumentum illud Achilleum, quo Erasmus omnium etiam sanctorum testimonio non se existimat obruendum, si quando universis repugnauerit. Cuius sententiae ratio etiam illa suffragatur, quod sancti universi, praeter auctores sacros, qui libros scripsere Canonicos, humano spiritu libros suos ediderunt.

 

Nam si spiritu sancto inspirante ipsi etiam locuti sunt, nihil videtur obstare, quo minus eorum libri in canonicis habeantur. Infirmus igitur hic locus est, quo sanctorum auctoritas continetur. Humana enim veritas firma & certa esse non potest. Omnis quippe homo mendax. Osiander vero. 1. lib. Ann. in harmoniam evangelicam, illud argumentum addit, quod omnes veteres commentatores a tempore apostolorum, id quod Matthaeus de Christo affert, ex Aegypto vocavi filium meum, in genuino literae sensu ad Israelem referunt, iuxta allegoriam vero ad Christum. Cum tamen, ut ait, allegoria, utcunque fingatur, constare non queat, quoquo enim te vertas, nihil simile videtur esse, praeterquam quod utrique fuerunt in Aegypto.

 

Ita contendit, literae sensum a principio capitis de Christo domino esse, qui Rex Israelis est, & aurorae merito comparatus. Quod si in sacrarum literarum expositione sancti omnes errant, horum certe auctoritas firmum argumentum theologis exhibere non potest. Ecce argumenta quibus adversarii nostri locum hunc aggredi & expugnare contendunt.

 

 

All the saints, then, who happened to mention this matter, unanimously asserted that the Blessed Virgin was conceived in original sin: thus Ambrose maintains this in his Commentary on Psalm 118, discourse 6; Augustine, in his commentary on Psalm 34, on the verse, “But when they were troublesome to me,” etc.; and in book 2 On the Baptism of Infants, chapter 24; and in book 10 of his Literal Commentary on Genesis, chapter 18; and in book 53 Against Julian, chapter 9. Chrysostom says the same in his commentary on Matthew; likewise Eusebius of Emesa in his second discourse on the Nativity of the Lord; Remigius on Psalm 21; and Maximus in his sermon on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.

 

The same is also affirmed by Bede in his homily Missus est; Anselm in Cur Deus Homo, book [or chapter] 16; Bernard in his Letter to the People of Lyons, 174; Erardus, bishop and martyr, in a certain sermon on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin; St Anthony of Padua likewise in a sermon on the Nativity of the same holy Virgin; St Bernardine, in the third book of his sermons, in the treatise On the Blessed Virgin, sermon 4; St Bonaventure, III Sentences, distinction 3, question 1, article 2; St Thomas, III, question 27, article 2; St Vincent, in a sermon on the Conception of the Blessed Virgin; St Antoninus, III, title 8; Damascene, book 3 of his Sentences; and Hugh of St Victor, On the Sacraments, part 2, chapter 4.

 

And although no saint has maintained the contrary, nevertheless an argument drawn from the authority of all of them is a weak one; indeed, the contrary opinion is defended in the Church both probably and piously.

 

Here is that “Achilles” argument by which Erasmus does not consider himself overwhelmed by the testimony even of all the saints, should he at some point be opposed by them all. The reasoning supporting this position is also this: all the saints, apart from the sacred authors who wrote the canonical books, published their books by the human spirit.

 

For if they too spoke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, there seems to be nothing that would prevent their books from being regarded as canonical. Thus this is a weak point in which the authority of the saints is contained. For human truth cannot be firm and certain. “Every man is a liar.”

 

Osiander, however, in book 1 of his Harmonia Evangelica, adds this argument: that all the ancient commentators, from the time of the apostles, refer what Matthew says about Christ—“Out of Egypt I have called my son”—in the genuine/literal sense of the text to Israel, but according to the allegorical sense to Christ. Yet, as he says, however the allegory may be constructed, it cannot be made to hold together; for, however you turn the matter, there seems to be nothing similar except that both were in Egypt.

 

Thus he argues that the literal sense, from the beginning of the chapter, concerns Christ the Lord, who is the King of Israel and is rightly compared with the dawn.

 

But if all the saints are mistaken in their exposition of Sacred Scripture, certainly their authority cannot furnish theologians with a firm argument.

 

These, then, are the arguments by which our adversaries attempt to attack and overcome this position.

 

 

De locis theologicis, Book VII, Chapter 3, Number 9

 

Quarta conclusio, Omnium etiam sanctorum auctoritas in eo genere quæstionum, quas ad fidem diximus minimè pertinere, fidem quidem probabilem facit: certam tamen non facit. Quam ego conclusionem postremo illo argumento abundè probatam existimo. Quòd enim ea controuersia non sit ex illarum numero, quæ catholicam fidem, aut promouere, aut immouere possint, vel ex eo perspicuum est: quod beatam Virginem à peccato originali fuisse penitus liberam, è libris sacris iuxta germanum literæ sensum nusquam habetur. Quinimò lex generalis in eis traditur, quæ vniuersos filios Adam, carnali scilicet propagatione creatos, sine vlla exceptione complectitur. Nec verò dici potest, per traditionem Apostolorum id in ecclesiam descendisse.

 

Cum huiusmodi traditiones non per alios, quam per episcopos illos antiquos, & sanctos auctores Apostolis succedentes, ad nos vsque peruenerint. At constat, priscos illos scriptores non id à maioribus accepisse. Tràderent enim bona fide & ipsi posteris suis. Non igitur ad fidem illud attinere potest, quod neque in sacris literis, aut Apostolorum traditionibus inuenitur, neq; ex eis certa valet connexione confici. Cæterum, quò opposita etiam assertio, hoc est, D. Virginem peccatum originale à parentibus contraxisse, non sit in numero dogmatum catholicorum, manifestissimè colligitur ex eo, quod à lege vniuersali per singulare priuilegium vnam Dei matrem excipere, sacrarum literarum fidei nullo pacto aduersum est.

 

Alioqui cum sacræ literæ in vniuersum clament, non videbit me homo & viuet, Deum nemo vidit vnquam, qui Paulum aut Moysen excepisset, sacras literas contra puḡnasset. Atque ea causa est, nisi toto cœlo animus meus errat, quamobrem nec Sixtus 4. nec concilium Lateranen. sub Leone 10. nec synodus Triden. sub Paulo & Iulio tertiis inchoata, eam quæstionem definierunt. Neutram enim ex illis opinionibus, poterant tanquam dogma catholicum approbare. Ita is erráuit, qui asseruit, erroneum esse, aliquem præter Christum à lege illa originalis peccati liberare. Erráuit ac multò etiam magis Basiliæ∕nse concilium, cum definivit, doctrinam illam, quæ docet beatam virginem Mariam nunquam originali subiacuisse peccato, tanquam consormam Scripturæ sacræ ac fidei catholicæ amplectendam fore, nullique de cætero licitum esse in contrarium docere.

 

In pari quippe errore versantur, qui alterutram partem ad catholicam fidem attinere posse credunt. Difficile est hoc dicere. Credo, si in concione quæratur, at hoc loco & disputatione facillimum. Non enim hic cum vulgi imperitia certamus, sed eos instituimus, qui veræ germanæque Theologiæ solidam & expressam effigiem tenere cupiunt, nec fugientes vmbras persequi. Propositum est autem, veri reperiendi causa, & contra nostros & pro alienis etiam dicere: &, cum res postulāt, vtrōsque nullius accepta persona reprehendere. Atque in eo opere maximè quod ad ecclesiæ publicam vtilitatem cudimus, priuatis non debuimus affectibus inseruire.

 

Nec deerunt post hæc etiam ex viris planè doctis, qui me obiurgent, erunt etiam qui vituperent: quod in quæstionem multis nominibus inuidiosam consultò & cogitato, inciderim, vt rem alias grauissimam nullius in Christiana religione esse momenti asseuerarem. At ego, & beneuolos obiurgatores placare, & inuidos vituperatores confutare possum: vt alteros reprehendisse pœniteat, alteri didicisse se gaudeant. Non mihi, fateor ingenue, alia via patuit ad illud Erasmi argumentum eludendum, quo sanctorum auctoritatem acutè ille quidem tentauit eludere.

 

 

Nec fuit integrum, quod hæreticis semper proprium fuit, antiquorum patrum libros corrumpere, & bonam etiam partem voluminum detruncare, vt ore saltem reclamante, licet conscientia possem, Bernardum, Augustinum, Ambrosium, aliosque item patres in ea fuisse opinione negare. Quid enim prodest, si verum scire cupis, sanctorum testimonia membranis inscripta radere, cum animo insculpta abolere non possis? Porro, si vt sanctorum auctoritatem in doctrina catholica tueremur, quod erat ecclesiæ Dei apprime necessarium, quorundam opiniones, ne dicam factiones, asseruimus non esse ad fidem & mores necessarias, quid est, per Deum obsecro, quod nos ea de re valeat quisquam aut admonere amicè, aut inimicè insectari? Atque hæc quidem hactenus in quartæ conclusionis confirmationem dicta sint.

 

In qua etiam causa habemus testem satis idoneum & grauem Vincent. Lirinen. in libro aduersum prophanas nouationes. Vbi antiqua, ait, sanctorum patrum consensio non in omnibus diuinæ legis quæstiunculis, sed solum in fidei regula, magno nobis studio & inuestiǵanda est & sequenda. Id quod quinta conclusione explicandum est. In qua, quoniam huius loci cardo vertitur, & si multa prætereunda, multa tamen dicenda sunt, & ad cognitionem sacrarum literarum vtilissima, & ad scholæ vsum necessaria.

 

 

The authority even of all the saints, in that class of questions which we have said pertain very little to the faith, does indeed make the faith probable, but it does not make it certain. I consider this conclusion to have been sufficiently proved by that preceding argument. For that this controversy is not among the number of those which can either promote or disturb the Catholic faith is evident from this alone: that it is nowhere found in the Sacred Books, according to the genuine literal sense of the text, that the Blessed Virgin was completely free from original sin. On the contrary, a general law is handed down in them which encompasses all the sons of Adam, namely those created by carnal propagation, without any exception. Nor can it be said that this came down into the Church through the tradition of the Apostles, since traditions of this sort have reached us through no others than those ancient bishops and holy authors succeeding the Apostles.

 

But it is evident that those ancient writers did not receive this from their predecessors. For they themselves would have handed it down in good faith to their posterity. Therefore that cannot pertain to the faith which is found neither in the Sacred Scriptures nor in the traditions of the Apostles, nor can be established with certainty from them by a certain connection. Moreover, that the opposite assertion also, namely, that the Blessed Virgin contracted original sin from her parents, is not among the number of Catholic dogmas, is most manifestly gathered from this: that to exclude one mother of God by a singular privilege from the universal law is in no way contrary to the faith of the Sacred Scriptures.

 

Otherwise, since the Sacred Scriptures universally proclaim, “Man shall not see me and live,” and “No one has ever seen God,” they would have spoken against the Sacred Scriptures if they had excepted Paul or Moses. And this is the reason, unless my mind is altogether mistaken, why neither Sixtus IV, nor the Lateran Council under Leo X, nor the Council of Trent, begun under Paul III and Julius III, defined this question. For they could approve neither of these opinions as Catholic dogma.

 

Thus he was in error who asserted that it was erroneous to say that someone other than Christ could be freed from that law of original sin. And the Council of Basel erred still more, when it defined that doctrine which teaches that Blessed Mary had never been subject to original sin should be embraced as consonant with Sacred Scripture and the Catholic faith, and that henceforth no one should be permitted to teach the contrary.

 

For those who believe that either position can pertain to the Catholic faith are involved in a similar error. It is difficult to say this. I grant that, if it were asked in a sermon, it would be very difficult; but in this place and in a disputation it is exceedingly easy. For here we are not contending with the ignorance of the common people, but instructing those who desire to possess a solid and precise image of true and genuine theology, and not to pursue shadows while fleeing from them. Our purpose, for the sake of discovering the truth, is to speak both against our own side and in favor of outsiders, and, when the matter requires it, to criticize both parties without regard to anyone's personal position. And in a work which we are composing chiefly for the public benefit of the Church, we ought not to subordinate ourselves to private affections.

 

Nor will there be lacking after this learned men who will rebuke me; there will also be those who will blame me because I deliberately and consciously entered into a question that is controversial in so many respects, in order to assert that a matter otherwise extremely serious is of no importance in the Christian religion. But I can both appease benevolent critics and refute hostile faultfinders, so that the former may regret having criticized me, and the latter may rejoice that they have learned something. I confess frankly that no other route was open to me for eluding that argument of Erasmus, by which he rather cleverly attempted to evade the authority of the saints.

 

Nor was it proper for me to do what has always been characteristic of heretics: to corrupt the books of the ancient Fathers and mutilate a good part of their volumes, so that, at least with my mouth protesting, though my conscience might permit it, I could deny that Bernard, Augustine, Ambrose, and the other Fathers likewise held this opinion. For what good would it do, if you desire to know the truth, to scrape the testimonies of the saints from parchment, when you cannot erase them from your mind? Moreover, since it was supremely necessary for the Church of God that we defend the authority of the saints in Catholic doctrine, we have maintained that certain opinions, not to say factions, are not necessary for faith and morals. What, I ask you before God, is there by which anyone could either admonish us amicably or attack us hostilely concerning this matter? And let what has thus far been said suffice for the confirmation of the fourth conclusion.

 

In this same matter we have a sufficiently suitable and weighty witness, Vincent of Lérins, in his book Against Profane Innovations. There he says that the ancient consensus of the holy Fathers is not to be diligently investigated and followed in every little question of divine law, but only in the rule of faith. This is what must be explained in the fifth conclusion. In it, since the whole hinge of this locus turns, and although many things must be passed over, many nevertheless must be said, things both exceedingly useful for the understanding of Sacred Scripture and necessary for the use of the schools.

 

Joseph Smith’s “Strange Relationship with Satan” DEBUNKED

Because the next Voice of Reason (and Peter Griffin look-alike winner) is fond of this argument, I am sharing this:

Joseph Smith’s “Strange Relationship with Satan” DEBUNKED

Gaudentius of Brescia (d. 410) on why Mary is called “Woman” in John 2

  

Now let us hear with astonished minds what the Lord responded to her. Jesus says to her: What is that to me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come. According to the meaning of simple understanding we are able to show that the blessed virgin Mary is called woman by reason of sex, just as it is written of Eve in Genesis: And God put a drowsiness upon Adam and he slept; and He took one of his ribs and He restored flesh in its place. And the Lord God built the rib which He had taken from Adam into woman, and certainly He fashioned her a virgin, and brought her to Adam. And Adam said: This now is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she has been taken from her man. (Gaudentius of Brescia, “Tract Number Nine: Second Sermon on the Gospel Lesson,” in Gaudentius of Brescia: Sermons and Letters [trans. Stephen L. Boehrer; The Catholic University of America Studies in Sacred Theology (Second Series) 165; PhD Dissertation, 1965], 115)

 

Gaudentius of Brescia (d. 410) on the Relationship Between God's Foreknoweldge and Human Free-will

  

Or perhaps we think that if the Israelites had repented the almighty Son of God would not have been able to save the world in another manner? Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counsellor? Consider in the Gospel, where Christ reproaches the cities in which He had worked so many miracles, how He had looked for the repentance of the Jews and they would not: Woe to you, Corozain! He says, Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if in Tyre and Sidon had been worked the miracles that have been worked in you, they would long ago have done penance in sackcloth and ashes. Truly I say to you: it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capharnaum, shall ye be lifted up to heaven? You shall go down even to hell, for if in Sodom had been worked the miracles that have been worked in you, it would have remained until today; but I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you. Truly, the foreknowledge of God does not fail. But neither is the liberty once granted to man taken away so that he may never be judged on what he has not freely done. God condemns the obstinacy of evil. He cherishes the conversion of the penitent.

 

You object! Surely God could not lie, He who predicted they would do what they did? We do not comprehend how great is the omnipotent power of One who calls those things that are not, as if they are. We should think Him capable of lying if those things which He foretold were not fulfilled. Did He lie to the Ninivites, then? For He said: Three days more and Ninive shall be destroyed, and it was not destroyed because it did penance after the preaching of Jona. But understand this, the speech of God is a sword, sharp on both edges. Ninive was to have been destroyed in one way, and was destroyed in another. It was to have been destroyed by annihilation if it had remained in its evil. Its iniquity was destroyed instead because it did repent. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, God says to men, so is my mind higher than your minds, and my thoughts than your thoughts. It is written: Do not seek the things that are too high for you, and do not search into things above your ability, the suspicion of them has been the downfall of many. (Gaudentius of Brescia, “Tract Number Three: Third Sermon on the Exodus,” in Gaudentius of Brescia: Sermons and Letters [trans. Stephen L. Boehrer; The Catholic University of America Studies in Sacred Theology (Second Series) 165; PhD Dissertation, 1965], 71-72)

 

Examples of Gaudentius of Brescia (d. 410) Teaching Baptismal Regeneration in his Tracts

  

My beloved people, the elements will not perish so that they are no more, nor shall we die so that we will not rise better than before. Moreover, on this very day we see the promise of the Lord fulfilled as we observe the souls and bodies of the neophytes restored after the manner of the heavens and the earth. We see now the moon also, that is, the Church, to shine as the sun throughout the whole world. It increases in time of peace and is diminished in persecution. The diminishing, however, is that of its round fullness, not that of its intensity. Furthermore, Christ, the Sun of Justice, gives light today on the earth, but seven times more than formerly. His rays, which illuminate every man coming into this world, are witnesses to this. For now that fiery sevenfold Spirit shines forth from Him, that Spirit who as fire rested upon the apostles and who burns today in each of the believers. Before Christ suffered and arose, God was known only in Judea. Now the splendor of the Lord’s brightness has gone forth to all nations. For, its going forth is from the end of heaven, and its circuit is to the other end, and there is no one who can hide himself from its heat.

 

Therefore, because the world has been repaired today, let us rejoice on this birthday of the world’s restoration. This is the day which the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it. When I say the birthday of the world, I mean our birthday, those of us who are reborn in Christ. We were indeed living in sin before, dead to justice. Now, however, dead to the iniquities of former vices we begin to live to God, first being made conformed to Christ’s death, then to His resurrection. For we have been buried with Him through baptism into death so that as Christ has risen from the dead so also we may walk in newness of life. And we rejoice on this festive day and glory in the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who was taken on the tenth day, and on the fourteenth day of the first month was sacrificed by the Jews at the evening of the world. (Gaudentius of Brescia, “Tract Number Three: Third Sermon on the Exodus,” in Gaudentius of Brescia: Sermons and Letters [trans. Stephen L. Boehrer; The Catholic University of America Studies in Sacred Theology (Second Series) 165; PhD Dissertation, 1965], 68-69)

 

 

You are able to observe that you have been regenerated and reborn through baptism and from those terms you are called infants. If some of you who are bound in marriage desire to keep your virgins rather than give them in marriage, let them so have partners as if not having and there will be for them a great reward with the Lord, our God’ let them have regard for the quality of the flesh which has been reborn in the sacrament of baptism. Now I say this for your benefit, not to hold you in check, for even if you live in legitimate marriage after baptism you have not sinned. (Gaudentius of Brescia, “Tract Number Eight: First Sermon on the Gospel Lesson,” in Gaudentius of Brescia: Sermons and Letters [trans. Stephen L. Boehrer; The Catholic University of America Studies in Sacred Theology (Second Series) 165; PhD Dissertation, 1965], 110)

 

 

Next in order, the narration of the evangelist continues: And they were without wine because the marriage wine had been all consumed, (that is, the wine of the marriage was all gone). He clearly expressed that the gentiles did not have the wine of the Holy Spirit. When he says, however: because the marriage wine had been all consumed, (that is, the wine of the marriage was all gone), he did not speak precisely so perhaps you might believe that it was lacking to them, to whom it had not yet been given. Nor does he say that the wine of the marriage was gone “for them”; rather, he says only that the wine of the marriage was gone, as if he would say that all nuptial wine was gone. For this reason, it is understood that the wine was lacking not of those marriages, but of preceeding marriages. For the nuptial wine of the Holy Spirit was already lacking at the ceasing of the prophets who had ministered to the people of the Jews. For all the prophets of the Law have prophesied until John. Nor was there anyone who could furnish the thirsting Gentiles with spiritual wine to drink. The Lord Jesus was looked for, however, He who would fill new wine skins with new wine through baptism. For it says: the former things have passed away; and behold, all things have been made new. All things have been made new in such a way, however, that their origin from the old might remain, for wine is not from nothing but is produced from the ancient element of water. (Gaudentius of Brescia, “Tract Number Eight: First Sermon on the Gospel Lesson,” in Gaudentius of Brescia: Sermons and Letters [trans. Stephen L. Boehrer; The Catholic University of America Studies in Sacred Theology (Second Series) 165; PhD Dissertation, 1965], 112)

 

 

Neophytes! Flee from the example of uncleanness lest you become sharers in the punishment. The apostles have handed down to us one baptism in accord with the divine intention; for He says: whoever shall drink from this water, shall not thirst forever. You have been washed once by this saving baptism. Coming from the font, do not wish to go back into the mire. Preserve the uncleanliness given you. What is given once is not able to be repeated. (Gaudentius of Brescia, “Tract Number Nine: Second Sermon on the Gospel Lesson,” in Gaudentius of Brescia: Sermons and Letters [trans. Stephen L. Boehrer; The Catholic University of America Studies in Sacred Theology (Second Series) 165; PhD Dissertation, 1965], 123)

 

Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) on John 17:5

  

But you have still other words of Christ with which you might assail us. For he says, when praying to the Father, that before the world was founded he had with him that glory with which he was asking to be adorned by him. We truly wonder that men otherwise perspicacious are so blind as not to see that Christ means nothing else than that already before the foundation of the world it had been decreed by his Father that he should be adorned with that glory for which he asked. And if truly not a few other places of the divine writings, in which something is said to be “had” or to have been “given” which is merely decreed and destined, could not instruct you concerning the sense of this place, that place at least in the same discourse of Christ ought to have done so, which may be called a king of explanation of this one. For afterwards Christ says: Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me be also with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. Hence it is certainly clear: because Christ new that he had been loved by the Father before the foundation of the world—that is, that that glory which he expected was already then destined for him by the Father--, he therefore called it “his” and said that he had already been given him by the Father and that he had had it with the Father before the foundation of the world. And what is to be said of this, that in the same prayer to the Father he says that he has given to his disciples that glory which the Father had given him? For how could Christ do this otherwise than by promise and destination? Wherefore it must be altogether be granted that in this very same sense he said that glory had been given him by the Father—which is the same as: that he had had that glory with the Father.

 

We say nothing meanwhile of this, that the glory with which Christ demanded to be endued by his Father was not that which you would have him to have had with the Father before the foundation of the world; nothing of this, that if Christ had never had that glory devised by you, he would never have laid it aside, and would have been furnished with it even then, when he was praying to the Father, so that he would not have had to ask that it be given him; nothing of this, that there was no cause why he should ask it of the Father even if he had laid it aside, for he could have resumed it of himself; nothing, finally, of this, that—even by your own concession—he who was truly praying to the Father, or Christ in so far as he was praying, had in reality never had that glory. All these things, then, and others besides we pass over, which show that your interpretation of the words of Christ can in no way be maintained. For everyone can see them of himself, and some of you yourselves reject that interpretation and embrace ours. (Faustus Socinus, On the Nature of Jesus Christ: Socinus’s Disputation Against Andreas Volanus on the Essence of Christ and the Expiation of Sins [trans. Marcin Poholski; 2026], 40-42)

 

Thomas Buckley on Baptism in Romans

  

Baptism and the Dialectic of Death and Life

 

Through baptism into Christ Jesus we live (Rom 6:3, 4). Baptism works the palingenesis or rebirth (Tit 3:5). Supernatural in its essence and effect baptism should mean as much to humankind as its very genesis when God created man out of the dust. For palingenesis means literally a second genesis, a regeneration and rebirth. It is through baptism into Christ Jesus that we live (Rom 6:3, 4). In the New Testament baptism is intimately related to faith, as its complement really in the appropriation of God’s justice or his justifying grace. In his letter to the Corinthians Paul argues to the close association of baptism to justification. He writes to them in chapter 6, verse 11, “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:11). The three verbs there are all repeated in the same tense, apparently referring then to the same event: washed, sanctified or consecrated, and justified. Washing, of course, refers to baptism. So baptism implies consecration to God. At the same time, this presupposes our justification before him. “You are justified,” Paul tells the Christians, and now that they are Christians he contrasts them to the unjust, or the unjustified of the preceding verses in 1 Corinthians 6:4-11. Hence a new life was implicit in their decision to turn to Christ. But that decision was inseparably connected with their baptism. Paul continues in our text, 6:3, ‘‘Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Rom 6:3) Thus the rite of Christian initiation introduces man into union with Christ, suffering and dying. And the Christian is not merely introduced to the suffering of Christ. He is introduced to the very action by which Christ died to sin. And what is this action but Christ’s extreme expression of obedience and love on the Cross? Through our baptism we can share that expression. We can follow Christ even to the Cross in a new obedience to God through the same love or grace which led him, the grace of the Holy Spirit which is poured forth at baptism (1 Cor 6:11; Tit 3:5). ‘(We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death,’’ Paul continues in verse 4, “so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4).

 

Now the New Testament uses the word new as often as the word joy and both are fairly frequent. Kainos rather than neos is the word most frequently used and it implies something more than recent or fresh. It implies a replacement of the old, but of a higher order. In prophecy the epithet kainos denotes what was thought characteristic of a divine intervention in history. Certainly a new reality was to characterize the messianic era. Thus, Jeremiah spoke of a new covenant (kainos) which is in our hearts (Jer 31:31, 33). Ezekiel spoke of the new spirit which characterizes the messianic era. In Deutero-lsaiah the same promise is made and a generation in exile is admonished:

 

Remember not the former things
nor consider the things of old.
behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not
perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
rivers in the desert (Isa 43:18).

 

Through baptism and through the power as much as the glory of the Father (Rom 6:3), Christians may walk in the newness of life. Though they grow old in years, in the face of sin and death they can remain strong in spirit and inner strength. For their strength is from God. They are children of the resurrection (Rom 6:5). Upon such the burden of age and the claim of death itself can be but tentative and passing. ‘‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). Yet the resurrection remains wholly eschatological. “If we have been united with him ina death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his’ (Rom 6:5). Käsemann notes well, ‘‘Participation in the resurrection is spoken of not in the perfect tense but in the future. Baptism equips for it, calls to it, but does not itself convey this gift. If baptism makes the new obedience possible, this is still only an anticipatory hint of what in the temporal sense is undoubtedly in the future.’ 54 And this is only consistent with Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 15. The resurrection must be deferred to the last day. It is true also that the newness of life which Paul predicates of the baptized in verse 4 and the living with Christ in verse 8 are also spoken of in a future sense. Perhaps that is because such life must wait upon an eschatological fulfillment. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor 13:12).

 

But already the Christian who has been baptized into Christ’s death is withdrawn from the sphere of sin and released from its power. ‘For he who has died is free from sin” (Rom 6:7). At least he is freed in that he is no longer a slave of sin (Rom 6:17, 20). In the light of the eschatological reservation which appears in this chapter (vv. 4, 5, and 8; especially 5), however, Christians are not wholly free from sin. ‘This we know,” Paul says in verse 6: “‘our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom 6:6). Here the old self, the sinful body, is tantamount to flesh or the natural man (cf. Rom 7:24), and the figure of the Cross is invoked because through the Cross the new man prevails and the sinful body is destroyed. Now the sense of our association with Christ is very strong in Romans. Baptism inaugurates a real union with Christ.

 

It also admits the crucifixion of our old self, that the sinful body might be destroyed. The language is very strong in reference to the destruction of the body, that is, the body as enthralled by sin and doomed to die. To be sure at baptism the Christian dies to sin and through the same love or grace which led Christ to the Cross and victory over sin the Christian dies to sin (cf. 2 Cor 5:14-15). Yet in evoking the figure of our crucifixion with Christ “so that the sinful body might be destroyed” (Rom 6:6), Paul suggests also that an elementary ascesis be part of Christian life. Not that our body is to be destroyed but the extirpation of that sin which literally takes possession of a man’s members (Rom 6:12ff.; 7:23) implies some violence, an ascesis. He had already addressed the Christians in Galatia, ‘‘And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24). Later he will admonish the Colossians, ‘Put to death therefore what is earthly in you...” (Col 3:5). But the program of this ascesis should be the way of the cross. In Galatians it is the flesh which is crucified with its passions and desires. Paul’s usage of desire (epithumia) would be familiar enough in the ancient world. The word was popular with Stoic moralists but here in Galatians it refers to the whole perspective of flesh or the natural man. Flesh is egocentric, alienated from God and prone to sin and death. It must be renounced. In Romans it is renounced through baptism and union with Christ but it is a union which revolves about Christ crucified. Again Paul had already written to the Galatians, “| have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer | who live, but Christ who lives in me...” (Gal 2:20). And as Schnackenburg notes, the perfect usage in reference to having been crucified with Christ, ‘‘makes it obvious that Paul not only considers entry into the fellowship of Christ as a becoming crucified with Christ, hence that he can bring the act of baptism into closest connection with the event of Golgotha; he also looks on the Christian existence itself as an abiding union with the Christus crucifixus.’’ But this union with Christ crucified and the overcoming of our old self is with a view to the resurrection. The way of the cross remains the path to glory.

 

The resurrection is reserved to the last day. Paradoxically in this life we experience only through fidelity to the Cross, the power which derives from Christ. In 2 Corinthians especially Paul will draw out the dialectic between weakness and divine strength, between suffering and divine consolation, between the drifting toward death and the life of Christ in those whom he had addressed. He will write to the Corinthians that Jesus may also be revealed in our bodies, “For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you” (2 Cor 4:11, 12). In the weakness of Christ’s servant the divine power can express itself (cf. 2 Cor 12:9). Death with Christ that we might live with and through him derives from baptism. The way of the Cross strengthens the union and deepens the wellspring of Christian life and heroism.

 

To be, to act, is the privilege of men to an exceeding degree. A blade of grass may glorify its Creator in the exquisiteness of its texture, a drop of rain in its purity, and dumb animals in their simplicity, but man is the moral counterpart of God. He can return love for love and in God’s overruling purpose engage freely and bravely. ‘‘Yield yourselves to God,” Paul urges the Christians (Rom 6:13). “Eor sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace” (Rom 6:14). As in the letter to the Galatians Paul argues that grace or God’s love is the key to Christian liberty. Otherwise sin can tyrannize and before its power the law itself is powerless. Grace alone is of advantage.

 

For the balance of the chapter (Rom 6:15-23) Paul contrasts the deference to sin with that offered to God. The verses are a kind of homily on what he had already set forth in w. 1-11. The Christian who through his baptism into the death of Christ was freed from sin (Rom 6:7, 1) especially should realize that he ought to sin no longer. One cannot serve two masters. For the claim of the one excludes the other. Freedom from the power of sin depends on the deference to God and grace implied in baptism. Certainly we have no license to sin because we are no longer under the law. We are under grace and grace alone can be our principle of liberty. Freedom from sin’s power means freedom for the new obedience which, adhering to the standard teaching (Rom 6:17), leads to justification (Rom 6:16). This obedience derives from the heart (Rom 6:17) where God’s grace can penetrate (Rom 5:5). The wellspring of such obedience then is finally grace or love. And, as we have seen, whatever is done out of love is done freely. Paul does speak of a kind of ‘‘slavery” to righteousness (Rom 6:38) and to God (Rom 6:22) but the compulsion must be one of love. Christ’s love constrains, Paul writes to the Corinthians (2 Cor 5:14). If God is indeed his master how could a Christian defer to the tyranny of sin (Rom 6:20)? Sin does offer recompense to its slaves: death. “For the wages of sin is death’ (Rom 6:23). But the surpassing gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 6:23).

 

In chapter 6, then, Paul argued that in the wake of the redemption men were set free from sin so that they were discharged from the law (Rom 7:6). Christians are now under grace. (Thomas Buckley, An Apostle to the Nations: The Life and Letters of St. Paul [Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1981], 185-90)

 

 

 

Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) on John 8:58 and πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι, ἐγώ εἰμι

  

Now here these words must necessarily depend either on the verb λεγω or the verb ειμι. And since both of these verbs are of the present tense, the verb γενεσθαι too must therefore be understood of the present looking towards the future; and for that reason πριν ‘Αβρααμ γενεσθαι in this place altogether signifies “before Abraham comes to be”.

 

And truly no one can be so unskilled in languages as not to notice a solecism in the words “I say to you: before Abraham was made, I am”. But they say this solecism was committed in order that it might be understood that Christ is and who is, namely Jehovah, God. To this we say, first: perhaps nowhere in the sacred writings is God called simply “he who is”. For those famous places—I am who I am and “he who is” has sent me to you—read, as even boys know, otherwise in the Hebrew, namely: I shall be who I shall be, and: “I shall be” has sent me to you.

 

Then we affirm: that is not enough, unless this strange expression, or one like it, be found elsewhere also—where, namely, God is described by the verb “am” in the present tense at the same time answer is made to a verb of the past tense. Moreoever we say: we can then suspect that such solecisms have been committed when it is manifestly established from elsewhere concerning the thing itself which could be their cause. That this is the case in this place we constantly deny—for about this very thing the controversy between us turns. Finally, this is most certain: since nothing compels us to admit this solecism, it is better to reject it; or at least from this place, being doubtful, nothing solid can be gathered in a matter so arduous.

 

But someone will say: what then would Christ have meant if—as you take his words—he had said: “I say to you: before Abraham comes to be, I am”? First it must be examined to which verb those words “before Abraham comes to be” attach to the verb “I say” or to the verb “I am”. And since Christ has elsewhere used this expression “I am” simply and absolutely, and that twice in this very discourse which he held with the Jews, it must be said that he used it here too in the same manner. So that the words “before” and so forth are to be joined not with the verb “I am” but with the verb “I say”—as we see done in words of the same Christ in similar places in the same Evangelist. So that it is the same as if had been said: “I say to you, before Abraham comes to be, that I am he”—but not: “I say to you that, before Abraham comes to be, I am.”

 

Next it must be inquired what that expression “I am” signifies. This can be recognized from those two places mentioned before. The one runs thus: Unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. But the other thus: When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he. But the same Christ said also to his disciples: From now on I tell you before it comes to pass, that when it has come to pass you may believe that I am he. Whence it is established that “I am he” means the same as “I am the light of the world”, “I am the way and the truth and the life”—as he speaks elsewhere--, that is, in a word: “I am the Christ.”

 

But you will say: what then do those words “before Abraham comes to be” mean? Had Abraham, then, who had existed so many centuries before, not yet come to be? That man Abraham had indeed already come to be; but there had not yet come to be that which his name signified and on account of which that name had been laid upon him by God. Not yet had many nations obtained the faith, and therefore that man Abraham, who is the father of believers, had not yet become the father of many nations; nor further could it yet be said that Abraham himself had truly come to be, since “Abraham” is nothing else than “father of a multitude”, that is, of many nations. For God says: And thy name shall no more be called Abrahm, but thou shalt be named Abraham; for I have appointed thee a father of many nations. As therefore Christ on another occasion admonished the Jews that they should walk while they ahd the light, and repeatedly threatened them not obscurely that it would come to pass that the kingdom of God would be given to the nations, but they themselves deprived of it, so in this place too he admonishes them, not without silent threats, that before the door of faith is opened to the nations they should acknowledge that he is the Christ.

 

And in this way he wonderfully deludes them, while they try to catch him in his words—for he himself had not said that he had seen Abraham, as was objected to him by them: he takes the name Abraham as an occasion, meanwhile answering as it were nevertheless what had been objected to him, and turns his discourse elsewhere, namely to the aim he had pursued from the beginning. Yet so that they perceived it and at the same time felt the gravest threats. Whence it came about that in anger they took up stones to cast at him. (Faustus Socinus, On the Nature of Jesus Christ: Socinus’s Disputation Against Andreas Volanus on the Essence of Christ and the Expiation of Sins [trans. Marcin Poholski; 2026], 37-40)

 

Robert R. Cargill on Psalm 110:1 (LXX: 109:1)

  

On Psa 110:1:

 

. . . Ps. 110 was actually written by a psalmist to praise David and his subsequent descendants. The Hebrew term לַאדֹנִי ("to my lord") in verse one, which the LXX renders as τω κυρίω μου, is the common means by which to refer to anyone of higher rank or authority. There are ample examples inside and outside of the Hebrew Bible of the term אדני ("my lord") referring to a higher-ranking individual.

 

However, because the term אדני ("my lord" or adonai) had already become the standard replacement for the Tetragrammaton (יהוה) when reading Hebrew texts, and because the LXX does not distinguish between יהוה and אדני, rendering both as κύριος ("lord”), the Greek phrase κυρίω μου ("my lord") came to be identified more so with the "divine" than its original use in the Hebrew of Ps. 110, where it was clearly a euphemism for referencing the enthroned king of Israel. (Robert R. Cargill, Melchizedek, King of Sodom: How Scribes Invented the Biblical Priest-King [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019], 83)

 

On the use of אדני as a referent to “a higher-ranking individual”:

 

See Gen 23:6, 11, 15 where the Hittites respectfully refer to Abraham as אדני and as a “prince” (נשיא) during the negotiations for the Makpelah Cave. The word אדני is used in Gen. 24:18, when Rebekah refers to Abram’s servant at the well and offers him drink. In Gen. 32-33, Jacob refers to his elder brother, Esau, as אדני repeatedly. The soldier-author of Lachish Letter 3 repeatedly uses אדני (“my lord”) to address his commanding officer. (Ibid., 162 n. 5)

 

 

Le Roy Edin Froom on the Leonid Meteor Storm (November 12, 1833) Being Regarded as a Sign of the Latter Days

 The following is taken from:

 

Le Roy Edwin Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers: The Historical Development of Prophetic Interpretation, 4 vols. [Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1954] 4:297-300)

 

Regarded as Sign of the Latter Days

 

Various observers who described the great 1833 meteoric shower regarded it as a forerunner of the last day. Let us now examine some extracts from contemporary prophetic applications.

 

1. EDITOR OF "OLD COUNTRYMAN" PRONOUNCES IT "HARBINGER."-Henry J. Pickering," New York editor, said of the sixth seal:

 

"We pronounce the raining fire which we saw on Wednesday morning last [Nov. 13] an awful type, a sure forerunner, a merciful sign, of that great and dreadful day which the inhabitants of the earth will witness when the sixth seal shall be opened.

 

"That time is just at hand described not only in the New Testament but in the Old; and a more correct picture of a fig tree casting its leaves when blown by a mighty wind, it was not possible to behold.

 

"Many things now occurring upon the earth tend to convince us that we are in the 'latter days,' This exhibition we deem to be a type of an awful day fast hurrying upon us. This is our sincere opinion; and what we think, we are not ashamed to tell.” [27]

 

2. DOUGLASS SAW IT AS TOKEN OF THE TIMES.—FREDERICK DOUGLASS, [28] noted colored orator and journalist, but still a slave in 1833, saw it as a sign of the times and later wrote:

“I witnessed this gorgeous spectacle, and was awe-struck. The air seemed filled with bright descending messengers from the sky. It was about daybreak when I saw this sublime scene. I was not without the suggestion, at that moment that it might be the harbinger of the coming of the Son of Man; and in my then state of mind I was prepared to hail Him as my friend and deliverer. I had read that the ‘stars shall fall from heaven,’ and they were now falling. I was suffering very much in my mind. . . . I was looking away to heaven for the rest denied me on earth.” [29]

 

3. EPISCOPALIAN CLERIC VIEWS AS SIGN OF LAST DAYS.— Dr. Henry Dana Ward, well-known Episcopalian clergyman of New York (to be noted later), after observing the scene of the starry firmament breaking up, as it were, and the stars falling like flakes of snow, wrote immediately to the editor of The New York Journal of Commerce:

 

“We felt in our hearts, that it was a sign of the last days. For, truly, ‘the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken by a mighty wind.’—Rev. 6:13. This language of the prophet has always been received as metaphorical. Yesterday it was literally fulfilled. The ancients understood by aster in Greek, and stella in Latin, the smaller lights of heaven. The refinement of modern astronomy has made the distinction between stars of heaven, and meteors of heaven. Therefore, the idea of the prophet, as it is expressed in the original Greek, was literally fulfilled in the phenomenon of yesterday, so as no man before yesterday had conceived to be possible that it should be fulfilled.” [30]

 

Ward stressed the exact fulfillment of the apocalyptic prediction:

 

“And how did they fall? Neither myself nor one of the family heard any report; and were I to hunt through nature for a simile, I could not find one so apt to illustrate the appearance of the heavens as that which St. John uses in the prophecy, before quoted. ‘It rained fire!’ says one—Another, ‘it was like a shower of fire.’ Another, ‘it was like the large flakes of falling snow, before a coming storm, or large drops of rain before a shower.’

 

“I admit the fitness of these for common accuracy; but they come far short of the accuracy of the figure used by the prophet. ‘The stars of heaven fell unto the earth;’ they were not sheets, or flakes, or drops of fire; but they were what the world understands by the name of ‘Falling Stars;’ and one speaking to his fellow in the midst of the scene, would say, ‘See how the stars fall;’ and he who heard, would not pause to correct the astronomy of the speaker, any more than he would reply, ‘the sun does not move,’ to one who should tell him, ‘the sun is rising[.]’

 

“The stars fell ‘Even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.’ Here is the exactness of the prophet. The falling stars did not come, as if from several trees shaken, but from one: those which appeared in the east fell toward the East; those which appeared in the north fell toward the North; those which appeared in the west fell toward the West, and those which appeared in the south (for I went out of my residence into the Park,) fell toward the South; and they fell, not as the ripe fruit falls. Far from it. But they flew, they WERE CAST, like the unripe fruit, which at first refuses to leave the branch; and, when it does break its hold, flies swiftly, strait off, descending; and in the multitude falling some cross the track of others, as they are thrown with more or less force.

 

“Such was the appearance of the above phenomenon to the inmates of my house. I walked into the Park with two gentlemen of Pearl Street, feeling and confessing, that this scene had never been figured to our minds by any book or mortal, save only by the prophet.” [31]

 

Ward then said:

 

“In this narrative I have spoken not of causes, [32] but of appearances, and the appearances according to the impression they made on men. . . . No Philosopher or scholar has told or recorded an event, like that of yesterday morning. A Prophet of 1800 years ago foretold it exactly, if we will at the trouble of understanding stars falling, to mean falling-stars.” [33]

 

4. MANY SEE CORRESPONDENCE WITH PROPHETIC FORECAST.— The New York Journal of Commerce (November 27, 1833) quoted a report from the Columbia Spy that many thought the last days had arrived, and that in the neighboring township a clergyman reported a large prayer meeting attendance that night. The Republican, of York, Pennsylvania (November 13, 1833), said editorially, “Some refer these things to the ‘falling stars’ spoken of in Revelation.” A correspondent from Bowling Green, Missouri, was forcibly “reminded of that remarkable passage in the Revelations, . . . calling to mind the ‘fig tree, casting her untimely figs when shaken by a mighty wind,’” [34] as was likewise the clergyman-scientist Dr. Thomas Milner. [35] And Elijah H. Burritt said later that the fiery scene “suggested to some the awful grandeur of the image employed in the Apocalypse, upon the opening of the sixth seal, when ‘the stars’ of heaven fall.” [36]

 

Thus various laymen and clergymen alike recognized it at the time as a sign of the approaching end, just as other men had, on the basis of prophetic depiction, looked forward to and predicted its appearance. Many, feeling that the 1833 falling of the stars had met the full demands and descriptions of prophecy, were constrained to say that we have indeed entered the “last days.” [37]

 

 

Notes for the Above:

 

[27] The Old Countryman (New York), Nov. 20, 1833; cited widely, as in the New York Star, and Portland Evening Advertiser, Nov. 26, 1833. The New York Journal of Commerce observes editorially (Nov. 23), "The Editor of the Old Countryman makes a very serious matter of the 'Falling Stars.”

 

[28] FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1817–1895), born a slave, escaped in 1838 and settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 1847 he founded The North Star at Rochester, New York, and in 1870 The New National Era, at Washington, D.C. He was U.S. Marshal, then Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, and United States minister to Haiti, 1889–91.

 

[29] Frederick Douglass, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, p. 117.

 

[30] The New York Journal of Commerce, Nov. 14, [i.e. 16], 1833, p. [2], dated Nov. 15. For Ward as the author, see Signs of the Times, Oct. 11, 1843, pp. 62, 63.

 

[31] Ibid. It is noteworthy that The New York Journal of Commerce in its issue of November 27 repeated part of the foregoing statement from Ward.

 

[32] Ward said in the concluding paragraph, “Natural causes undoubtedly produced this phenomenon.”

 

[33] Ibid., Nov. 14 [16].

 

[34] Quoted in Olmsted, “Observations,” The American Journal of Science, January, 1834, p. 382.

 

[35] Thomas Milner, The Gallery of Nature, p. 14.

 

[36] Elijah H. Burritt, Geography of the Heavens, p. 163.

 

[37] For an example of a prophetic expositor outside the United States who saw this meteor shower as a prophetic sign—José de Rozas, prominent jurist of Mexico—see p. 308 of the present volume.

 

 

Further Reading:

 

Resources on Joseph Smith’s Prophecies

Le Roy Edwin Froom on Contemporary Accounts of the Leonid Meteor Storm (November 12, 1833)

The following is taken from:

 

Le Roy Edwin Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers: The Historical Development of Prophetic Interpretation, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1954) 4:294-95. 297:

 

 

Matchless 1833 Spectacle Unsurpassed in History

 

According to astronomers, the meteoric shower of the night of November 12/13, 1833, was the most remarkable of its kind on record. The noted contemporary observer, Denison Olmsted, professor of astronomy at Yale, who collated all the available data, called it "an exhibition of the phenomenon called SHOOTING STARS, which was probably more extensive and magnificent than any similar one hitherto recorded.” [18]

 

"A modern Harvard astronomer" describes it thus: "In the early morning of November 13, 1833, the people of the United States were waked by early risers to turn out and see the stars fall. And fall they did—silently, singly, in bursts and sheaves, tiny ones and balls like the moon. All the observers saw that the meteors darted away from a single point in the sky [in the constellation Leo]; the meteors 'were like the ribs of a gigantic umbrella.' So plain was this that two quite amateur observers made sketches, . . so far as we know the only drawings of the phenomenon that have survived."' [19]

 

Beginning about midnight, the meteors came more frequently, until they were described as being thick as snowflakes,' [20] just before dawn blotted out the sublime spectacle. The sky was "literally ablaze," as "in a few hours more than a billion shooting stars appeared over the United States and Canada alone." [21] This "rare and wonderful display" of "terrible magnitude" [22]' was seen in nearly equal splendor and duration from Canada to Mexico, from mid-Atlantic to the Pacific.' [23]

 

The American Indians in the West were so impressed by it that various tribes used it as "a milestone in their calendars." [24] In these calendars, as, for example, among the Dakota tribes, the winter of 1833/34 was designated in picture writing by some symbol of a star shower, and called the winter when "the stars fell," "it rained stars," or "the stars moved around," the "storm-of-stars winter," and similar names." [25]

 

With the general population of the country "the falling of the stars" was an occasion of awe-tinged with delight or fear, as the case might be. Many gathered in groups in churches, schoolhouses, and homes. Some dropped to their knees to pray; others ran to neighbors to confess wrongs. On this "night of restitution," as it was also called, stolen things were suddenly returned. Many felt sure the day of judgment was at hand. And many devout students of the Word believed God had written in the sky.

 

Notes for the Above:

 

[18] Denison Olmsted, "Observations on the Meteors of November 13th, 1833." The American Journal of Science, January. 1834, p. 363. For other astronomers' accounts, see Simon Newcomb, Astronomy for Everybody (1st ed.), p. 280; W. J. Fisher, "The Ancient Leonids," The Telescope, October, 1934, p. 83; Clyde Fisher and Marian Lockwood, op. cit., p. 89.

 

[19] W. J. Fisher, op. cit., pp. 79, 80. These cuts first appeared in The Old Countryman, interesting New York weekly, for Nov. 20, 1833, and were then quickly reproduced in various journals and newspapers, such as Mechanics Magazine (November, 1833), and The New York Journal of Commerce (Nov. 27, 1833). Fisher tells us (p. 80) that one of The Old Countryman's editors, Henry J. Pickering (who gave a really Biblical exposition of the phenomenon over his initial, as noted later), personally, as an observer of the star shower, superintended the drawing of these wood cuts.

 

[20] Fletcher G. Watson, Between the Planets, p. 118.

 

[21] Peter M. Millman, “The Falling of the Stars,” The Telescope, May-June, 1940, p. 57. Estimates for the number visible at one place vary from 10,000 to 200,000 an hour. The only actual count would indicate 34,000 an hour as the display was already ceasing, two hours after the peak. (Charles Olivier, Meteors, p. 25.)

 

[22] Alexander C. Twining, “Investigations Respecting the Meteors of Nov. 13th, 1833,” The American Journal of Science, July, 1834, pp. 337 ff. 351.

 

[23] Denison Olmsted, Letters on Astronomy, p. 349.

 

[24] Clyde Fisher and Marian Lockwood, op. cit., p. 89.

 

[25] Garrick Mallery, “Picture-Writing of the American Indians,” in Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (1888-89), plate XX (between pp. 266 and 267), pp. 209, 320, 723; James Mooney, “Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians,” in the same Bureau’s Seventeenth Annual Report (1895-96), pp. 260, 261; Leslie Spier, Yuman Tribes of the Gila River, pp. 138, 139 (also pp. 15, 16).

 

From Ibid., 4:296:

 

 

INDIAN ANNUAL CALENDARS NOTE 1833 STAR SHOWER

 

(Upper) In Long Dog's Winter Count the Year 1833 (Circled) Indicated by Falling Stars (Upper Yanktoni Tribe). The Dating by Years Is From 1800, Painted on a Buffalo Hide. (Lower) Set-t'an Annual Calendar (Kiowa Tribe), With the Same Event Chosen for the Year. Both Are Native Drawings; (Inset) Only Surviving Contemporary Drawing,- by "Mr. Pickering," Editor of The Old Countryman, Which Shows the Divergence Point, of Radiant, From a Common Center. (Reprinted in Mechanic's Magazine for November, 1833) (Ibid., 4:297)

 

Further Reading:

Resources on Joseph Smith's Prophecies

Paul C. Gutjahr on the Importance of the Leonid Meteor Storm (November 12, 1833) in Seventh Day Adventist Theology

 

 

By 1843, some 50,000 Millerites were looking for Jesus to return within the year. For these Millerites, the momentous nature of Christ’s return had been foretold for over a decade by various signs in the heavens. Miller and his followers had long looked to the night skies to read God’s will in what many considered to be a “heavenly scroll” full of God’s messages.   One of the most important of these scrolls arrived during the night of November 12, 1833. That night, Millerites along with the rest of America witnessed the falling of as many as 150,000 meteors or roughly “forty-one meteors per second” (fig. 10.3).

 

Twentieth-century astronomers would name the event “the Leonid meteor storm” (after the constellation of Leo where such meteor storms originate), claiming it as the greatest meteor shower to occur in the last three hundred years. So bright did the shower make the sky that some awoke and thought it was daytime or that a great fire had started somewhere nearby.   Such an unprecedented and terrifying display of divine power was interpreted by the Millerites as a sure sign that the Earth’s final days were near.   When Halley’s Comet of 1835 appeared, it was just one more cosmic confirmation that Christ stood poised to inaugurate a new age. (Paul C. Gutjahr, Faith in Space: American Religious Belief in Extraterrestrial Life [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2026], 2149 of 8588 of Kindle ed.)

 

 

 

FIGURE 10.3. The meteor shower of 1833 was a heavenly event that demonstrated how God used astronomical phenomena to communicate with humanity. Author’s collection. (Paul C. Gutjahr, Faith in Space: American Religious Belief in Extraterrestrial Life [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2026],2169 of 8588 of Kindle ed.)

 

Oecumenius on Acts 15:15-21 (cf. Amos 9:11-12) and a Reference to Baptismal Regeneration

  

The Jews understood this to refer to the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem after the exile. But this is not true, for that temple was destroyed many times thereafter; the prophecy promises an everlasting rebuilding. Those who say it refers to Zerubbabel have not rightly understood, as if he were descended from the line of David, and this too is not true. For Zerubbabel ruled only a short time and then met the term of death. The prophecy contains a promise of eternal blessings and of the knowledge of God by all the nations, which is not fulfilled by those who lived under Zerubbabel. It is therefore plain that we must interpret this as spoken concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, being descended according to the flesh from David, fulfilled the promise made to David. “For the Word became flesh,” (Jn. 1:14) and dwelt among us, having taken up the dwelling from David. It is therefore fitting that David’s prophetic word says the dwelling will be rebuilt, and not for a short time, but for all the days of the age; and it promises to the nations the gift of knowledge of God, that is, those from the nations who have turned to Christ and have been called by the name of Christ. Others say that this was said concerning his resurrection from the dead. For when the tent that had fallen into death, that is, the flesh raised from the earth by God and Father, then the whole human form was restored to its original shape, and all our things that had fallen down were raised to a new appearance; for we were raised with Christ. Death indeed demolished all the tents. But God the Father rebuilt in Christ. For it was not possible for our nature to be raised otherwise than by the hand of Him who shaped its beginning reaching down and fashioning it anew through regeneration by water and Spirit. (See Jn. 3:5) For it had truly fallen, a ruin incurable, and in need of that mighty hand. And he says that this need of ours will not last a short time, but for the days of an age [αιωνος]. For the good of incorruption is enduring in us. Then, he says, even the remnant of men after those who have believed out of Israel will have truly and by nature known God, having departed from ancient error. And he says that all the nations will be called, and upon them will be my name, upon whom it was called from the beginning, “For whom he foreknew, he also predestined,” he says. (Rom. 8:29) (Commentary on Acts of the Apostles by Oecumenius [trans. John Litteral; 2026], 155-56, emphasis in bold added)

 

Richard A. Diehl (2004) on Weapons Acting as Votive Offerings (cf. Alma 24:19) Among the Olmecs

  

Olmec lapidaries worked greenstone into celts, figurines, beads, ear spools, pendants, and numerous enigmatic objects with uncertain functions. Well-made, highly polished celts or “votive axes” are quite common; hundreds appeared in buried offerings at La Venta, El Manati, La Merced, and several sites in Chiapas, and more than 1,000 are said to have appeared at Rio Pesquero. Celt caches at La Venta often assumed cruciform and other geo¬ metric patterns. Most celts have highly polished though otherwise undecorated surfaces, but some — among them four examples from La Venta and several unprovenienced pieces - have incised designs. Three La Venta pieces, all bearing lightly incised, somewhat whimsical “faces,” occurred in a cruciform cache. The fourth, a true masterpiece that depicts an Olmec were-jaguar covered with red cinnabar, was part of Tomb E’s rich offering. Celts and axes generally lack evidence of actual use in the utilitarian functions their names imply. Karl Taube believes that they symbolically represent maize seeds and may have been employed in rituals dedicated to the maize deity. They may also have functioned as units of value or currency, with caches serving as stored wealth that was hidden but easily accessed if needed. Interestingly enough, the carved designs that grace some of them appear to be miniature versions of the supernatural being shown on the four stelae in front of La Venta’s Great Pyramid. (Richard A. Diehl, The Olmecs: America’s First Civilization [London: Thames & Hudson, 2004], 120-21)

 

Review of the Ryan from NeedGodnet vs. Jacob Hansen Debate on Salvation

 

Review of the  @NeedGodnet   vs.  @thoughtfulfaith2020   Debate on Salvation

"Encomium on Holy Mary the Theotokos"

The following comes from a a disputed work, sometimes attributed to Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444). The text is located in "Sermon 11," Migne, PG 77: 1029, 1032-33, 1035-36, is ):

 

Ἐγκώμιον εἰς τὴν ἁγίαν Μαρίαν τὴν Θεοτόκον.

 

Φαιδρὸς ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος, καὶ χάριτος ἐμπεπλησμένος,

ἐπειδὴ καὶ λαμπρὰ ἡ τῶν ἁγίων Πατέρων σύνοδος.

 

Καὶ γὰρ σφόδρα μου ἐν λύπῃ ὑπάρχοντος διὰ τὴν παράνομον βλασφημίαν Νεστορίου διήπειρονᵃ τοῦτο τὸ πολύκλονον καὶ πολυειδὲς καὶ ἀγγελικὸν καὶ ἐπουράνιον θέατρον.

 

Οὗτοι οἱ τῆς εὐσεβείας διδάσκαλοι,

οἱ στύλοι καὶ ὄροφοι τῆς πίστεως,

οἱ πύργοι οἱ ἀσάλευτοι,

οἱ λιμένες οἱ γαμνοφόροιᵇ,

οἱ πιστοὶ καὶ φρόνιμοι οἰκονόμοι,

οἱ σοφοὶ ἀρχιτέκτονες,

οἱ τὸν αἰθέριον πλοῦν, καὶ ἰσάγγελον βίον ἐπὶ γῆς διάγοντες,

οἱ τῶν προφητῶν σύσκηνοι,

καὶ τῶν ἀποστόλων σύνθρονοι,

καὶ τῶν ἁγίων Ἐκκλησιῶν προστάται,

οἱ τῆς μιαρᾶς βλασφημίας ἔκδικοι,

οἱ τῆς ἡμετέρας πτωχείας, μᾶλλον δὲ εὐφημίας, σοφοὶ ἀντιλήπτορες,

οἱ τὸν καλλιεπῆ καὶ θεόμορφον τῆς ἀρχιερωσύνης θρόνον ἐπέχοντες,

οἱ τὰ μελίρρυτα πηγάζοντες νάματα,

οἱ τῆς Θεοῦ φρονήσεως πνευματικοὶ ῥήτορες,

οἱ τὴν τετραπέρατον οἰκουμένην τῇ ἀκαμάτῳ ὁδοιπορίᾳ βαδίσαντες,

 

οὓς οὔτε καύσων,

οὔτε πελάγη θαλάττης,

οὔτε κυμάτων μαινομένων θυμὸς ἄγριος,

οὐ ζαλώδεις τρισκυμίαι εἰς ὄκνον ἐνέβαλενᶜ,

ἀλλὰ τοῖς πιστοφόροις βήμασι σκιρτῶντες ἐνταῦθα γεγόνασι,

πάντα ὄκνον καταλείψαντες διὰ πόθον,

μᾶλλον δὲ φόβον Κυρίου,

καὶ ἀναλαβόντες τὸν σταυρὸν ὡς σοφοὶ ἔκδικοι τῆς Θεοτόκου Μαρίας,

ἐνταῦθα παραγεγόνασιν.

 

Διὸ καὶ θαρροῦντες ταῖς εὐχαῖς αὐτῶν ταῖς ἁγίαις,

ὀλίγα τινὰ χαιρετίσωμενᵈ ταύτην τὴν πόλιν,

καὶ οὕτως ἐπὶ τὰ ἐγκώμια τῆς Θεοτόκου ἐκτενῶ μου τὸν λόγον.

 

Χαίροις, ὦ Ἐφέσων πόλις, μᾶλλον δὲ θαλασσοθέα,

διότι ἀντὶ λιμένων ἐπιγείων λιμένες ἀγγελικοὶ καὶ ἐπουράνιοι πρὸς σὲ παραγεγόνασιν.

 

Χαίροις, τῆς Ἀσιανῆς διοικήσεως τὸ καύχημα,

ὅτι καθάπερ μαργαριτῶν τιμίων τοῖς τῶν ἁγίων ναοῖς κύκλῳ περιοικοδομῆσαιᵉ,

καὶ νῦν ὑπὸ πολλῶν ἁγίων Πατέρων καὶ πατριαρχῶν ἰχνοπατουμένη ἁγιάζῃ.

 

Εὐλογοῦνται γὰρ ἀληθῶς καὶ αἱ πύλαι, καὶ αἱ ῥύμαι, καὶ οἱ λιμένες,

τῇ τῶν ἁγίων Πατέρων ἐπιδημίᾳ.

 

Ὅπου γὰρ πολλοὶ ποιμένες ἐλαύνουσιν,

πολὺς γίνεται δι’ αὐτῶν ὁ τῆς ἁγιωσύνης σύλλογος·

καὶ μάλιστα οὗτοι οἱ φιλόθεοι καὶ φιλόπιστοι,

καὶ ἰσάγγελοι,

ἐξελαύνουσι πᾶσαν σατανικὴν ἐνέργειαν,

καὶ Ἑλληνικὴν εἰδωλομανίαν,

Πορφυριανῶν τε καὶ Σαβελλιτῶν,

Φρυγῶν τε καὶ Ἀπολιναριτῶν,

Φωτινῶν, καὶ ....... καὶ

πᾶσα ἁπλῶς αἵρεσις μιαρὰ καταισχύνεται,

δοξάζεται δὲ τὸ τῆς ὀρθοδόξου πίστεως καύχημα.

 

Χαίροις δὲ καὶ αὐτός, τρισμακάριε Ἰωάννη,

ἀπόστολε καὶ εὐαγγελιστά,

τῆς παρθενίας τὸ καύχημα,

τῆς ἁγνείας διδάσκαλε,

τῆς τῶν δαιμόνων πλάνης ἐξολοθρευτά,

τοῦ ναοῦ τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος καθαιρέτα,

τῆς Ἐφεσίων λιμὴν καὶ πρόμαχε,

τῶν πτωχῶν τροφεύς,

τῶν θλιβομένων καταφυγή,

τῶν ἐγγὺς καὶ τῶν μακρὰν ἀναψυχὴ καὶ ἀνάπαυσις.

 

Χαίροις, ἀμίαντον σκεῦος σωφροσύνης ἐμπεπλησμένον.

 

Σοὶ γὰρ καὶ ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ἐπὶ τοῦ σταυροῦ ἀναλαμβανόμενος τὴν Θεοτόκον καὶ Ἀειπαρθένον, ὡς παρθένῳ παρέδωκεν.

 

Χαίροις δὲ καὶ αὕτη, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

Παρθενομήτωρ, Φωτοφόρε, σκεῦος ἀμίαντον.

 

Χαίροις, Παρθένε Μαρία, μήτηρ καὶ δούλη,

Παρθένε μὲν, διὰ τὸν ἐκ σοῦ τῆς Παρθένου τεχθέντα·

μήτηρ δὲ διὰ τὸν ἐν ἀγκάλαις σαῖς βασταχθέντα,

καὶ γάλακτι σῷ τραφέντα·

δούλη διὰ τὸν μορφὴν δούλου λαβόντα.

 

Εἰσῆλθε γὰρ ὁ βασιλεὺς ἐν τῇ πόλει σου,

μᾶλλον δὲ ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ σου,

καὶ πάλιν ἐξῆλθεν ὡς αὐτὸς ἠθέλησεν,

καὶ ἡ πύλη σου ἐκέκλειστο.

 

Συνέλαβες γὰρ ἀσπόρως,

θεοπρεπῶς δὲ ἐγέννησας.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία, ὁ κατάλυτος ναός,

μᾶλλον δὲ ἅγιος,

καθὼς βοᾷ ὁ προφήτης Δαβὶδ λέγων·

«Ἅγιος ναός σου, θαυμαστὸς ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ.»

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία, τὸ κειμήλιον τῆς οἰκουμένης·

χαίροις, Μαρία, ἡ περιστερὰ ἡ ἀμίαντος·

Χαίροις, Μαρία, ἡ λαμπὰς ἡ ἄσβεστος.

Ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ ὁ Ἥλιος τῆς δικαιοσύνης γεγέννηται.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία,

τὸ χωρίον τοῦ ἀχωρήτου,

ἡ τὸν Μονογενῆ Θεὸν Λόγον χωρήσασα,

ἡ τὸν στάχυν ἄνευ ἀρότρου καὶ σπέρματος βλαστήσασα τὸν ἀμαράντινον.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἣν προφῆται κελαδοῦσιν,

δι’ ἣν ποιμένες δοξολογοῦσιν,

λέγοντες σὺν ἀγγέλοις τὸν φοβερὸν ἐκεῖνον ὕμνον·

«Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις Θεῷ, καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη, ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία.»

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἣν ἄγγελοι χορεύουσιν,

ἀρχάγγελοι σκιρτῶσι φρικωδεστάτους ὕμνους ἀναπέμποντες.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἣν μάγοι προσκυνοῦσιν,

ὑπ’ ἀστέρος λαμπαδούχου ὁδηγούμενοι.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἣν τὸ δεκάτινονᶠ κάλλος τῶν ἀποστόλων ἐκλέλεκται.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἣν Ἰωάννης ἔτι ὢν ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ ἐσκίρτησεν,

καὶ προσεκύνησεν ὁ λύχνος τῷ φωτὶ τῷ ἀκοιμήτῳ.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἧς προῆλθεν ἡ χάρις ἡ ἀνεκλάλητος,

περὶ ἧς ὁ Ἀπόστολος βοῶν ἔλεγεν·

«Ἐπεφάνη ἡ χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ σωτήριος πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις.»

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἧς προῆλθε τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς Χριστός,

ὁ λέγων ἐν τοῖς Εὐαγγελίοις·

«Ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου.»

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἧς ἐπέλαμψε φῶς τοῖς ἐν σκότει καὶ σκιᾷ θανάτου καθημένοις.

«Ὁ λαὸς γὰρ,» φησίν, «ὁ καθήμενος ἐν σκότει, ἴδε φῶς μέγα.»

Ποῖον ἄρα φῶς, εἰ μὴ τὸν Κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν,

τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν,

τὸ φωτίζον πάντα ἄνθρωπον ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον;

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἣν ἐν Εὐαγγελίοις κηρύσσεται·

«Εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι Κυρίου»·

δι’ ἣν καὶ ἐν πόλεσιν καὶ ἐν κώμαις καὶ ἐν νήσοις Ἐκκλησίαι ὀρθοδόξων τεθεμελίωνται.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἧς προῆλθεν ὁ τοῦ θανάτου νικητής,

καὶ τοῦ ᾅδου ὀλοθρευτής.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἧς προῆλθεν ὁ τοῦ πρωτοπλάστου πλάστης,

καὶ τῆς παραβάσεως αὐτοῦ διορθωτής,

καὶ τῆς ἐν οὐρανῷ βασιλείας ὁδηγός.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἧς ἤνθησε καὶ ἐξέλαμψε τὸ τῆς ἀναστάσεως κάλλος.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἧς βάπτισμα ἁγιοσύνης φρικτόν τε καὶ Ἰορδανικὸν ἔρρευσεν.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἧς ὁ Ἰωάννης καὶ Ἰορδάνης ἁγιάζονται,

καὶ διάβολος ἀτιμάζεται.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε,

δι’ ἧς πᾶσα πνοὴ πιστεύουσα σώζεται.

 

Χαίροις, Μαρία Θεοτόκε·

διὰ σοῦ γὰρ καὶ τὰ θαλάττια κύματα γαληνιῶντα καὶ ἡσυχάζοντα,

τοὺς συνδούλους ἡμῶν καὶ συλλειτουργοὺς μετὰ χαρᾶς καὶ ἡμερότητος ἐβάστασαν.

 

Καὶ γὰρ ἡ γῆ ποτε ὑπὸ λῃστῶν πατουμένη,

τῇ τῶν ἁγίων Πατέρων ἐπιδημίᾳ εἰς εἰρήνην μεταβέβληται.

 

Γέγραπται γάρ·

«Ὡς ὡραῖοι οἱ πόδες τῶν εὐαγγελιζομένων εἰρήνην!»

 

Ποίαν εἰρήνην;

Τὸν Κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν τὸν κήρυκα τῆς εἰρήνης,

τὸν λέγοντα ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις Εὐαγγελίοις·

«Εἰρήνην τὴν ἐμὴν δίδωμι ὑμῖν.»

 

Ποίαν εἰρήνην;

ἣν βλασφημήσας Νεστόριος οὐ παρεδέξατο λέγων,

ὅτι «Οὐκ ἐτέχθη,» φησίν, «ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Λόγος ἐκ τῆς Παρθένου Μαρίας»,

μήτε ἄτρωτον τὸν τῆς παρθενίας τόκον ἐπιστάμενος,

μήτε τῇ ἀρχαγγελικῇ φωνῇ πιστεύων τῇ λεγούσῃ·

«Χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, ὁ Κύριος μετὰ σοῦ.»

 

Περσικῇ γὰρ βασιλείᾳ ἐξομοιούμενοςᵍ,

καὶ τὸν μονογενῆ Υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἀθετεῖν πειρώμενος,

ἐπὶ ἀπωλείᾳ πολλῶν καὶ βλασφημίᾳ ψυχῶν ταῦτα ἐμυθολόγησεν.

 

 

Encomium on Holy Mary the Theotokos

 

Bright for us is the discourse, and filled with grace, since splendid indeed is the council of the holy Fathers.

 

For, although I was exceedingly sorrowful because of the unlawful blasphemy of Nestorius, this many-circled, manifold, angelic, and heavenly spectacle [i.e. the Council] has appeared.

 

These are the teachers of piety,
the pillars and roofs of the faith,
the immovable towers,
the harbours that bring calm,
the faithful and prudent stewards,
the wise architects,
those who make the heavenly voyage and lead an angel-like life upon earth,
the fellow-dwellers of the prophets,
the sharers of the throne of the apostles,
the protectors of the holy Churches,
the avengers of the foul blasphemy,
the wise helpers of our poverty—or rather, of our praise—
those who occupy the eloquent and God-fashioned throne of the high priesthood,
those who pour forth streams flowing with sweetness,
the spiritual orators of the wisdom of God,
those who have traversed the four-cornered world by their tireless journeying,

 

whom neither scorching heat,
nor the seas,
nor the wild fury of raging waves,
nor dizzying tempests cast into fear,
but who, bounding along with faith-bearing steps, have arrived here,
leaving aside all hesitation out of longing—
or rather, fear of the Lord—
and taking up the cross as wise defenders of the Theotokos Mary,
have come here.

Therefore, trusting in their holy prayers, let us greet this city with a few words, and thus I shall extend my discourse to the praises of the Theotokos.

 

Rejoice, O city of the Ephesians, rather, O city that looks upon the sea,
because instead of earthly harbours, angelic and heavenly harbours have come to you.

 

Rejoice, boast of the Asian province,
because, like precious pearls, you have been built around the holy churches, and now you are being sanctified, trodden by the footsteps of many holy Fathers and patriarchs.

For truly the gates, the streets, and the harbours are blessed by the arrival of the holy Fathers.

 

For wherever many shepherds drive forth, there comes through them a great company of holiness. And especially these men, lovers of God, lovers of the faith, and angel-like, drive out every satanic activity and Greek idolatry—[that] of the Porphyrians and Sabellians, the Phrygians and Apollinarians, the Photinians, and …—and every foul heresy is utterly put to shame, while the boast of the orthodox faith is glorified.

 

Rejoice also, thrice-blessed John, apostle and evangelist, boast of virginity, teacher of purity, destroyer of the deception of demons, demolisher of the temple of Artemis, harbour and champion of the Ephesians, nourisher of the poor, refuge of the afflicted, refreshment and rest of those near and far.

Rejoice, undefiled vessel filled with temperance.

 

For to you also our Lord Jesus Christ, as He was being raised upon the cross, entrusted the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin as a virgin.

And rejoice also, O Mary Theotokos, Mother of the Virgin, Light-bearer, undefiled vessel.

 

Rejoice, Virgin Mary, mother and servant:
virgin, because of the one born from you, the Virgin;
mother, because of the one carried in your arms and nourished with your milk;
servant, because of the one who took the form of a servant.

 

For the King entered your city—or rather, your womb—and again came forth as He Himself willed, while your gate remained closed.

 

For you conceived without seed, and in a manner worthy of God you gave birth.

 

Rejoice, Mary, the indestructible temple, or rather, the holy one, as the prophet David cries, saying:
“Holy is your temple, wondrous in righteousness.”

 

Rejoice, Mary, treasure of the inhabited world;
rejoice, Mary, the undefiled dove;
rejoice, Mary, the unquenchable lamp.
For from you the Sun of righteousness has been born.

 

Rejoice, Mary, the place of Him whom nothing can contain,
you who contained the Only-Begotten God the Word,
you who caused the immortal grain to sprout without plough or seed.

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom the prophets sing,
through whom the shepherds glorify God,
saying with the angels that dreadful hymn:

 

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill among men.”

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom the angels dance,
and the archangels leap for joy, sending forth most awe-inspiring hymns.

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom the Magi worship,
guided by a star bearing a light.

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom the beauty of the apostles has been chosen.

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom John, while still in his mother’s womb, leaped for joy,
and the lamp worshipped the unsetting Light.

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom the ineffable grace came forth,
concerning which the Apostle cried out, saying:

 

“The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.”

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom the true Light came forth, our Lord Jesus Christ,
who says in the Gospels:

“I am the light of the world.”

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom light shone upon those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death.

 

“For the people,” he says, “who sat in darkness, have seen a great light.”

 

What light, then, is it, if not our Lord Jesus Christ,
the true Light,
who enlightens every person coming into the world?

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom it is proclaimed in the Gospels:

 

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”;

 

through whom also in cities, villages, and islands churches of the Orthodox have been established.

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom the conqueror of death came forth,
and the destroyer of Hades.

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom came forth the Creator of the first-formed man,
the corrector of his transgression,
and the guide to the kingdom in heaven.

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom the beauty of the resurrection blossomed and shone forth.

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom the baptism of holiness, fearful and Jordanic, flowed forth.

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom John and the Jordan are sanctified,
and the devil is dishonoured.

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos,
through whom every believing breath is saved.

 

Rejoice, Mary Theotokos:
for through you also the waves of the sea, becoming calm and quiet, bore our fellow-servants and fellow-ministers with joy and gentleness.

 

For the earth, once trampled by robbers, has been transformed into peace by the arrival of the holy Fathers.

 

For it is written:

 

“How beautiful are the feet of those who proclaim peace!”

 

What peace?

 

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the herald of peace,
who says in the holy Gospels:

 

“My peace I give you.”

 

What peace?

 

The peace which Nestorius, by his blasphemy, did not accept, saying:

 

“Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word, the Son of God, was not born from the Virgin Mary,”

 

not knowing the birth from virginity to be untouched,
nor believing the voice of the archangel which says:

 

“Hail, highly favoured one; the Lord is with you.”

 

For, comparing himself to the Persian monarchy, and attempting to deny the Only-Begotten Son of God, he fabricated these things to the destruction of many and the blasphemy of souls.