Pau Figueras on Genenna Playing a Role as a Means of Atonement

  

Gehenna

Situated in the innermost parts of the earth (Midr Qoh 3:21/2a),⁷⁸ Gehenna constitutes a deep cavern that is opened daily to receive the wicked (Pesiq R 41/173b). Its entrance is narrow (Midr Bum R 10/157b, 49) and it has two gates (Pesiq R 24/124), or, according to some, seven gates (Pir dR. Eliezer 53). Inside are different compartments, as in Sheol and Abaddon (Derech Eretz 2/19b, 12), or seven abodes (Midr Tehil 11:5/50b).

 

In Gehenna, the souls of the impious are enchained, while two angels throw them from one end of the earth to the other (Sifre Num 27:16, 139/185) ‘with the sling’ (cf. I Sam 25:29) (BT Shab 152b). Their bodies also suffer similar torment of unrest (ibid.). The chief torments are a terrifying darkness (Tanh א 73b, 14; cf. BT Yebam 109b, 24) and a fierce fire (BT Berak 57b, 24), for all Gehenna is fire (Tanh פקודי 128a, 30). The flames alternate with cold (Tanh ב בראשית 25/9b), for half of Gehenna is fire and half is ice (cf. Ps 66:12) (Midr Exod R 51/103d, 44). To these main punishments others are added, such as smoke, worms, and all kinds of bodily afflictions.

 

Punishment in Gehenna, in view of the fact that Gehenna is a ‘temporary’ state, plays an important role as a means of atonement.

 

The school of Shammai had acknowledged this purgative power of Gehenna, although purgation was here considered to be strictly eschatological. Those who belonged to the ‘middle class’ of sinners (see above, p. 120) had the possibility of leaving once they had been purified by fire. The text quotes Zech 13:9, and evokes I Sam 2:6: The Lord kills and brings to life; He brings down to Sheol and raises up’ (BT Rosh Hashanah 16b, 34). As for Hillel’s followers, their opinion was, as we have seen, that the ‘middle’ group of sinners immediately receive their reward in the coming Age. But ‘those among the Jews and the nations of the entire world who have sinned in their own bodies (to distinguish them from those who induced others to sin) go down to Gehenna, where they are tried for 12 months; after 12 months their body is destroyed and their soul burned with fire, and the wind scatters them under the feet of the righteous’ (Tos Sanh 13:4; this text is followed by quotation of Mal 3:21).

 

From the beginning of the II cent, there was widespread recognition of a temporary Gehenna as a place of atonement, a kind of Purgatory. The process of atonement lasts 12 months (BT 31b), during which time the soul is punished for its sins. R. Akiba, the main proponent of this idea, attempted to prove it by giving various examples of divine judgment: the flood, the book of Job, the plagues upon Egypt and the future punishment of Gog and Magog. ‘Thus, he stated, the judgment of the wicked (רשעים) in Gehenna lasts 12 months’, quoting Isa 66:23 (M ‘Eduyot 2:10). This theory prevailed in the following centuries also (see above, and Tanh בראשית 33/12a). Before Akiba, R. Yohanan B. Nuri had taught that judgment in Gehenna took only seven weeks (M ‘Eduyot 2:10).

 

The possibility of liberation from Gehenna is not only due to the atoning power of the punishment itself (BT Shab 152b, 9), but also to the alms and prayers of relatives (Tanh הִפְקִיד 27b, 33; cf. BT Qiddush 31b, 29). But this is a privilege only enjoyed by the ‘middle group’ of sinners. The rest, namely heretics (מינים), traitors, freethinkers and those who deny the Torah and the resurrection, have no hope for salvation; for them, Gehenna is eternal (M Sanh 10:1ff).

 

The everlasting punishment, similar in all respects to the intermediate one, is preceded by a final and definite judgment, carried out by God (Tanh קדשים 1/136a, quoting Isa 5:6), by the Messiah (BT Hagigah 14a, 18), or by the Israelites themselves. The Gentiles are thrown into Gehenna (BT ‘Erubin 101a, 15, quoting Mic 4:13), and in some texts Gentiles and Israelites are judged together (Midr Tehl 31:5 and 6/119b, 29), the impious of Israel descending together with the nations to Gehenna forever (BT Sanh 105a, 35). Both groups shall arise and suffer judgment (Pesiq R first rec. 192b, 10), such judgment and eternal condemnation being called ‘the second death’ (מות שני) (Pir dR Eliezer 34/18a). Judgments of individuals, such as Pharaoh, also receive mention (Midr Tehil 75:4/170a). (Pau Figueras, Death and Afterlife in Ancient Jewish and Christian Literature [Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, 2019], 129-31)

 

 

Further Reading:

 

1 Corinthians 3:15: A very un-Protestant Biblical Verse

 

Heber J. Grant (August 3, 1887) Recording Wilford Woodruff Teaching that “the Apostleship was the highest office”

 Concerning Wilford Woodruff’s teachings during a meeting in the President’s Office:

 

Prest Woodruff said that at the time the above charge was given by the prophet that he stood on his feet three and one half hours, and that he (Woodruff) to the day of his death should not forget charge of the prophet as it was still ringing in his ears. Prest. Woodruff stated that God had sealed upon Joseph every Key that had ever been bestowed upon man since the days of Adam and that Joseph had sealed all of the keys and powers upon the twelve that he had ever received.

 

Among other things stated by Prest Woodruff, he stated; that the Apostleship was the highest office any man could be ordained to, and that he would always hold his office unless his priesthood was forfeited; that some men had thought that Apostles had no business in the stakes of Zion and that they should be out in the world preaching the gospel, that China, Japan or some other place instead of home was where they should be; that if he were the President of the Church that he would desire it understood that where he was not, that there the apostles presided. ...

 

He desired to place himself right and if he was not right wished to be set right; stated that we would need seven of our quorum to transact business legally in the sight of heaven; stated that the eyes of God and all heaven were upon us and that we had a great work to do which reached into the heavens and was not confined to this world, and that we were working for something of greater importance than the riches of this world. He had felt strong desires that our temples might be preserved from our enemies and had prayed earnestly to God that they might not be defiled and his hopes and faith were that they would be protected. He said he much preferred to stand with his brethren of the quorum than to have two Counselors chosen and stand with them as the President of the Church He desired that all of the financial affairs of Prest John Taylor should be audited and that a new set of books should be opened for his administration.

 

If we were to organize the First Presidency that would not take away any of the authority of a man holding the apostleship. (Heber J. Grant, Journal, August 3, 1887, in The Diaries of Heber J. Grant, 1880-1845 Abridged, comp. D. Michael Quinn [Digital Edition; Salt Lake City, 2015])

 

Excerpts from Thomas Jay Oord, A Systematic Theology of Love, Volume 1: God and Creation

  

GOD ISN’T AN IMMATERIAL SPIRIT

 

In affirming God’s composition as an incorporeal spirit, many theologians say deity must therefore be immaterial. This leads to absolute philosophical distinctions between matter and spirit, between physical and mental entities, between the spiritual and the worldly. Charles Hodge illustrates this when he says, “Spirit isn’t matter, or matter spirit . . . In revealing to us that God is a Spirit, [the Bible] reveals that no attribute of matter can be predicated of the divine essence.”

 

Claiming the Spirit as immaterial puts God in a realm with other immaterial beings, if such beings. People typically view creatures and creation, by contrast, as material. According to some theologians, humans represent a mix of matter and spirit: they are, or have, material bodies with immaterial souls. This way of thinking implies a mind-body dualism famously articulated by Rene Descartes, in which humans have material bodies and mental souls/minds.

 

Two impulses prompt theologians to say the divine Spirit must be immaterial. We have the biblical claim that God is invisible. If the Spirit were material, goes the thinking, God could be seen. Behind the other impulse lies a philosophical framework built primarily by Plato, which prioritizes abstract forms and ideas. Augustine and Aquinas united the invisible God of scripture with Plato’s philosophy to argue that God is an immaterial substance who is timeless, formless, and unchanging.

 

Claiming God is immaterial deity could interact with material creation. An immaterial/spiritual God would be different in kind, after all, from material/physical creatures. The problem of how an immaterial God might interact with a material world mirrors the mind/body problem. Traditional theologians claim to solve this by saying that because an immaterial God supernaturally created matter, divinity can act upon it. These theologians rarely explain “how” this acting happens, however, and they often employ the hand-waving phrase “in such a way.”

 

A second problem with divine immateriality involves questions about how humans perceive the Spirit. Theologians typically regard claims about accessing God with our five senses as symbolic rather than literal. “No one has seen God,” says John’s gospel (Jn. 1:18), and most think biblical references to hearing God’s voice are metaphorical. By the modern era, many scholars shifted from saying humans directly perceive deity to believing humans only infer God’s existence from observations of the world. The question of how a creature could directly perceive God remained unresolved, although some appealed to spiritual senses.

 

Positing an immaterial God creates a third problem of separating of reality into what is important—the spiritual—and the unimportant—the material. If people of faith believe an immaterial God is of the highest value, they will understandably be likely to reject the material world and want to unite with the immaterial One. The influential spirituality of Thomas a Kempis in The imitation of Christ, for example, consistently criticizes the material world and calls readers to the spiritual.

 

Believing God must be immaterial easily undermines the appreciation of, and care for, creation. Thinking only the spiritual is ultimately significant inclines to many to neglect the material care and needs of the poor and oppressed. After all, their salvation would be thought spiritual and not also material. The hard spiritual/material distinction can incline us to think the climate crisis and ecological concerns are unimportant, and to denigrate the human body, gender, and sexuality in general.

 

When theologians strip God of materiality, problems ensue. (Thomas Jay Oord, A Systematic Theology of Love [SacraSage Press, 2026], 1:96-98)

 

 

To say God has a material dimension may lead us to ask why we can’t perceive it with our five senses. But God can be invisible and yet have a material aspect. We know of creaturely entities, such as molecules, that have materiality but are unseen. The elements of the periodic table we affirm as real, but some can’t be seen. And phenomena like gravity can exert real causal influence without being seen. So does dark matter. (Thomas Jay Oord, A Systematic Theology of Love [SacraSage Press, 2026], 1:99)

 

 

Some theologians quote Jesus to establish God’s immateriality. “Spirit has no flesh and bones” says Jesus in reference to his resurrected body (Lk 24:39). Most biblical translators use the term “ghost” instead of “spirit” in this passage; however, saying Jesus isn’t a ghost here has nothing to do with God being immaterial. Many creaturely objects have materiality without having flesh and bones. This verse doesn’t establish divine immateriality. (Thomas Jay Oord, A Systematic Theology of Love [SacraSage Press, 2026], 1:99)

 

 

The phrase “the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever” makes no sense if creatio ex nihilo were true. Everlasting love for creatures isn’t possible if God once existed alone and then created something from nothing. Hesed for creatures isn’t essential to an independent One who once existed without creatures. By contrast, the creation theory that says God, in love, everlastingly creates out of, or in relation to, creation well fits this oft-repeated phrase, “the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever.” (Thomas Jay Oord, A Systematic Theology of Love [SacraSage Press, 2026], 1:303)

 

 

Some Christians appeal to the idea of the social Trinity as a metaphysical foundation for saying God always, and essentially, loving. Essential hesed doesn’t require this claim, because it says God always and essentially loves creatures and creation. But neither does essential hesed deny the trinity. Christians who embrace the social Trinity should also embrace essential hesed. Doing so allows one to say God everlastingly expresses love among members of the Godhead and everlastingly loves creation. (Ibid., 1:303 n. 33)

 

Anthony R. Meyer on the Relationship between אדוני and יהוה in the Great Isaiah Scroll

  

The relationship between אדני and יהוה in 1QIsaᵃ deserves special attention because of the context in which the scroll was produced. The scribe who copied 1QIsaᵃ was also the copyist of the yahad composition Rule of the Community (1QS). The material evidence of scribal editing, therefore, needs careful consideration. Most scholars agree that the Tetragrammaton was read as אדני, but written by the 1QS scribe as יהוה, except where he confused the two designations when they occurred near each other. This situation is well illustrated by the example of 1QIsaᵃ 3.24–26 (Isa 3:17–18). In line 24, the scribe cancels אדני and inserts יהוה, but in line 25 the scribe cancels יהוה and inserts אדני; this seems to be a contradiction. For the sectarian scribe copying 1QIsaᵃ, writing the Tetragrammaton itself is not a problem. Skehan provided one possible explanation for this situation, although his theory depends almost entirely on a hypothetical scenario in which the reader of the scroll warned the copyist everytime he was about to encounter the Tetragrammaton in the biblical source text. Skehan describes the process as follows:

 

. . . both he and his reader pronounce Adonay for both יהוה and אדני. When he hears Adonay, unless somehow warned, he automatically writes יהוה...[the copyist] has no problem with the name Yhwh as such, which he writes in his ordinary script. He always has a problem with the name אדני, and when that name occurs in close conjunction with Yhwh, a secondary problem arises for the tetragrammaton. (Skehan, “The Divine Name,” 41 n. 14)

 

In particular, regarding the seemingly contradictory corrections in 1QIsaᵃ 3.24–26, Skehan writes:

 

There are false corrections; unfortunately for readers’ impressions, the first, in 3:17, is the most botched. Warned that אדני occurred in the verse ... the scribe wrote it correctly, then within the same verse and the same line of script, where יהוה should occur, he wrote אדני [see image above: second from the last word in the first line]. Learning (from the 2 אדני in one verse) that he had made an error, he “corrected” the first אדני by writing יהוה above it and placing 5 dots below it. He thus left both names wrong. (Skehan, “The Divine Name,” 41 n. 14)

 

The best way to account for the mistakes or corrections that entered this manuscript is to assume that אדני was read for the Tetragrammaton. And to this extent, we can agree that the divine name was avoided in speech. We should take caution, however, with the degree to which this scenario becomes a model to understand divine name variants more broadly. It is no surprise that the divine name was avoided in the production of this text, at the hands of the same scribe of 1QS. But how do we make sense of the textual evidence itself, the contradiction of writing and cancelling the divine name? (Anthony R. Meyer, Naming God in Early Judaism: Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek [Studies in Cultural Contexts of the Bible 2; Leiden: Brill, 2022], 139-40)

 

Anthony R. Meyer on the Use of the Divine Name in Colum XI of Papyrus Amherst 63

Papyrus Amherst 63

 

The diverse collection of Aramaic-Egyptian prayers and psalms written on Papyrus Amherst 63 (P. Amh 63) originated also in Upper Egypt. Similar to the Elephantine material, this papyrus is thought to be the product of Aramean and Judean mercenaries who were stationed near Egypt’s southern border. It was written in the late fourth or early third century BCE and contains twenty-one columns, 422 lines of text. Richard Steiner describes the papyrus as a poetic “liturgy of the New Year’s festival of an Aramaic-speaking community in Upper Egypt, perhaps in Syene.” He supposed that this community was deported from Babylonia to Bethel by the Assyrians, where they picked up the worship of YHWH before migrating to Egypt. One of the most remarkable features of P. Amh 63 is the striking parallel between Column XI and Psalm 20. Some parts of this column in P. Amh 63 contain nearly identical wording to Ps 20, but in the former, the Tetragrammaton does not occur. Instead, we find the typical three-letter Aramaic form of the divine name, syncretized with Horus as “Horus-YHH”:

 

Table 5 Comparison of Column XI and Psalm 20 in P. Amh 63

 

P. Amh 63 col. XI, 11-19

Ps 20:2-7 (MT)

May Horus answer us in our troubles May Adonai answer us in our troubles O crescent (lit. bow) Bowman in heaven, Sahar shine forth; send your emissary from the temple of Arash, and from Zephon may Horus help us. May Horus fulfill— may Adonai not fall short in satisfying— every request of our hearts. Some with the bow, some with the spear; But (lit., behold) as for us—Mar is our god; Horus-Yaho, our bull, is with us. May the lord of Bethel answer us on the morrow. May Baal of Heaven, Mar grant a blessing bless you; to your pious ones your blessings.

May YHWH answer you in time of trouble. May the name of the God of Jacob keep you out of harm’s reach. May he send you(r) help from the sanctuary and from Zion may he sustain you. May he accept the reminders of your meal offerings and accept the fatness of your burnt offerings. May he grant you your heart’s desire and may he fulfill your every plan May we shout for joy at your victory and in the name of our God raise our banners. May YHWH fulfill all your requests. Now I know that YHWH will give victory to his anointed . . .

 

Numerous features of this papyrus continue to be debated, including direction of influence between column XI and Ps 20, the singular versus plural pronouns, and especially the significance of the “name theology” of Ps 20 compared with the plethora of divine designations in P. Amh 63: Horus, Mar, El, El Bethel, Baal of Heaven, Adonai, and Horus-YHW. Important for the current study is the Aramaic divine name, which appears in apposition to Horus, the chief sky-king deity of the Egyptians. Horus and YHWH are paralleled in Ps 20:2, 5, 6, which was likely facilitated by their similar spheres of authority.

 

The use of the divine name in P. Amh 63 is analogous to the Elephantine material in that other deities are mentioned alongside YHW, in similar expressions.  In one instance from Elephantine, the name of the Jewish deity is combined with Anat: “Anat-YHW.” While these naming practices are similar, there are also important differences. For example, the community that produced P. Amh 63 does not explicitly identify themselves as yehudin, as do the authors of the Elephantine material. In summary, this document shows the continued use of the divine name, during the fourth or early third century BCE in Upper Egypt. (Anthony R. Meyer, Naming God in Early Judaism: Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek [Studies in Cultural Contexts of the Bible 2; Leiden: Brill, 2022], 64-67)

Addison Pratt Recounting a Theological Discussion with an English Missionary (Protestant) (Septmeber 16, 1845)

Recounting a discussion with Mr. Crowzey, an English missionary (Protestant):

 

He wisht to know what sect I belong to. I told him to the Latter-day Saints. He wisht to know why we were called so. I told him because we bore a strict resembleance to the former-day Saints, or like the church that was established by Jesus Christ and his apostles. He asked if I taught from the Bible. I told him I did teach from that strictly and as Jesus and his apostles taught the gospel.

 

He asked if I had not got another book I called the Bible. I told him I had not. He asked if I had not some book in which our principles were taught. I told him I had. He asked its name. I answered the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. He wisht to see it and I shewed it him. He asked if the Saints were building a city they called the New Jerusalem. I told him “No.” He asked what they were building. I told him a place of residence, like all other civilized citizens of the world. He asked if we believed in a New Jerusalem? I told him we did, but John told us it should come down from God out of heaven. He then asked about the gathering, and I quoted various passages from Genesis, Deuteronomy, and various of the prophets, which he allowed to be all figurative. Said I, “Then what portion of the Bible is there that is not figurative. Is all that Jesus Christ said figurative?” I then turned to Mark and read in the 16th chapter from the 14th to the 19th verses. “Is that figurative?” “Oh! but that was in the days of the apostles.” “So it was,” said I, “But the promise was to all that believed and are you not a believer?” “But do they all follow you?” said he. “If they do then let me hear you speak in tongues. Come, let us talk German together, or if you like Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin” and then boasted of his great learning. I told him I had no great learning to boast of, the Bile was all I was sent out to know. “But, if you have all those gifts you can speak in tongues.” “All of these gifts are in the church, and I am a witness to it, but I did not tell you that I possess’t them all.” I then turned to the 12th chapter of 1 Cor. and read a part of it, and shewd him that these were to be divided among the members of the Church. “But which of them do you possesst?” said he. I told him I did not feel under any obligation to tell him which of them I possess. Two of the American brethren were standing by, listening to the conversation, at this moment, for the first time, they both spoke, and said they were witness to a number of sick people being healed by the laying on the hands of Br. Pratt. (Addison Pratt, Journal, September 16, 1845, in The Journals of Addison Pratt, ed. S. George Ellsworth [Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990], 240-41, spelling in original retained)

 

Addison Pratt on the Arrival of Protestant English Missionaries on the Island of Tubuai and their Claims Against LDS Theology (September 16, 1844)

While serving as a missionary on the Island of Tubuai in French Polynesia, Addison Pratt (1802-1872) recorded the following:

 

[London Missionary Society Missionaries Appear]

 

16th, Sabbath. This morning erly, it was rumored that another vessel was in sight. I hastily wrote a line to Brother Hills and told him if there was any news of importance to write a line and let me know what it is. I dispatcht a messenger with it, and soon after commenced my morning service. Near the close of it, there came in a rummer from Mataura, and after service was over I asked him, “What news?” He said the last vessel had landed 4 English missionaries, and I was wanted immediately. But he brought no letter, and I knew these to be a people easily excited. The weather rainy also. I consulted King Tommatooa who had come over to the see, and he said, “Wait till you get a letter,” and I attended to the farthermore services of the day. In the evening, returned my messenger bearing a letter from Br. Hills stating that those missionaries had been on shore telling the people all the scandalous reports that had ever been reported about the Mormons &c. Stateing that Joseph Smith is a liar and a false prophet and the Book of Mormon is a lie, that his followers worshipped him, and they also worshipped the Virgin Mary and the Saints and there was no differance between the prophet and the pope and much of such like stuff and the church members wished me to come there without fail on the morrow, for they would be there. (Addison Pratt, Journal, September 16, 1844, in The Journals of Addison Pratt, ed. S. George Ellsworth [Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990], 191-92, spellings in original retained)

 

One was reminded of other British Protestants, thosebrainlets from Reachout Trust (Mike Thomas and Tony Brown); as the French would say, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." Furthermore, reminded me of the following clip from one of my fave TV shows of all time:

John Day on the Switch from dāgâ (female fish) to dāg (male fish) in the Hebrew of the Book of Jonah

  

A further pointer to the hand of a redactor within Jonah ii occurs with the use of the feminine form of the word fish, dāgâ, in part of the verse introducing the psalm in ii 2 [ET ii 1], whereas the masculine form dāg is found in ii 1 [ET 117] and ii 11 [ET 10]. If both come from the same author it would be very strange, but if the redactor who added the psalm also added the words “from the belly of the fish (dāgâ), and he said” immediately before the psalm by way of introduction, the discrepancy becomes explicable. Accordingly, we may plausibly suppose that the text originally proceeded directly from ii 2a [ET 1a] to 11 11 [ET 10]. Moreover, starting from one verse further back, ii la [ET i 17a], we find in wv. 1a.b, ii 2. 11 [ET i 17a.b, ii 1.10] a chiastic structure ABBA centring on the Lord — Jonah — Jonah — the Lord, thus further supporting the view that the psalm is a later addition, since it disturbs the sequence. The original text thus ran, “And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God, and the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.” (John Day, “Problems in the Interpretation of the Book of Jonah,” in In Quest of the Past: Studies on Israelite Religion, Literature, and Prophetism. Papers Read at the Joint British-Dutch Old Testament Conference, Held at Elspeet, 1988, ed. A. S. Van Der Woude [Oudtestamentische Studiën 36; Leiden: Brill, 1990], 41-42)

 

H. G. L. Peels on Psalm 58:1 (Hebrew: v. 2) Containing a Reference to “Gods”

  

‎ לַמְנַצֵּ֥חַ אַל־תַּשְׁחֵ֗ת לְדָוִ֥ד מִכְתָּֽם׃  הַֽאֻמְנָ֗ם אֵ֣לֶם צֶ֭דֶק תְּדַבֵּר֑וּן מֵישָׁרִ֥ים תִּ֜שְׁפְּט֗וּ בְּנֵ֣י אָדָֽם

 

<To the chief Musician, Altaschith, Michtam of David.> Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? Do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men? (KJV)

 

 

 

The interpretation of the psalm is dependent upon the answer to the question who is meant in vs. 2f. How is the word אֵלֶם in vs. 2 to be understood?

 

1.     ‘quiet’; the Masoretic vocalization אֵלֶם hardly makes sense: ‘to silence’, ‘in quiet’ (? cf. Ps. 56:1). Aquila translates with ἀλαλία (= אֵלֶם).

2.     ‘yet’; LXX (ἆρα), Peshitta and Hieronymus (utique) read the adverb אֻלָם (= אֻלָם) ‘yet’, ‘all the same’, ‘nevertheless’. From a syntactic perspective this reading would be striking.⁴⁷⁵

3.     ‘congregation’; an ancient translation (Symmachus, Kimchi, Calvin, SV, KJV) is ‘congregation’, derived from אֵלֶם I ‘to bind’. However, this would be a hapax.

4.     ‘mighty ones’; the word אֵלֶם must be read as אֵילִם (= אֵילִים) ‘rams’, in the figurative sense ‘mighty ones’ (Exod. 15:15; 2 Kings 24:15; Ezek. 17:13, 31:11 and 32:21). This would fit well, but the presupposed double scriptio defectiva within one word weakens this option.

5.     ‘gods’; many exegetes (J.D. Michaelis as the first) accept the conclusion that אֵלֶם is to be read as ‘gods’ (= אֱלֹהִים).

 

The last reading is probably the correct one. Tipping the scales in favour of this choice is not only the realization that the reading ‘gods’ provides the simplest solution, but especially the great affinity between Ps. 58 and Ps. 82.

 

Assuming that in vs. 2 it is gods who are addressed, the question must still be answered as to their precise identity. Two opposing views are defended.

 

According to most exegetes, the speaker in vs. 2f. addresses people, and the designation ‘gods’ is an allusion to judges or officials who enact justice. The word ‘gods’ is understood as either an honorary title for those who uphold justice in God’s name (cf. Deut. 1:17; Rom. 13:1) or as an expression of sarcasm. However, this interpretation is not entirely convincing. Aside from the question whether the presupposed parallel texts can carry the burden of proof for this use of the word ‘gods’, this exegesis does not do justice to the clear correspondence between the beginning and the end of the psalm, as well as the comparisons with Ps. 82, where an interpretation of ‘gods’ as judges would appear to be forced (note especially vs. 6f.).

 

In Ps. 58:2 the word אֵלֶם appears to refer to gods rather than to people. It refers to gods who do not properly exercise their assigned task, the administration of justice amongst the people (בני־אדם), but instead of justice they perpetrate violence (חמס) on earth. In a heavenly tribunal, they are called to accountability by God (אלהים, vs. 12). Ps. 82 contains the same imagery, only there the forensic situation is clearer. The gods are condemned by God in a gathering of the gods because of their unjust judging. Extra-biblical literature, especially Ugaritic, provides illuminating parallels for this complex of ideas.

 

With the determination that the word אֵלֶם refers to gods and not people, everything is not yet said. The most important question is how this element functions in the psalm. The address in vss. 2-3 is usually interpreted in a realistic sense. The psalmist would then be seeking the reason for corruption of justice and the general breakdown of society in the heavenly sphere. The transcendant origin is indicated with the (lower) gods who do not act as God’s functionaries of justice but manifest themselves as demonic powers. If the godless on earth can simply go their own way, something must be wrong in heaven!

 

This realistic interpretation, however, clashes with the seamless transition from ‘gods’ (vss. 2-3) to ‘godless’ (vs. 4ff.) and with the fact that no word is spoken about a punishment of the gods. Evidently, the psalmist is not thinking of gods but people. Vss. 2-3 should be viewed, therefore, as a mytho-poetic fragment, which the writer employs to typify the diabolic driving force of the godless. Just as the psalmists and prophets could rework the mythological material of the chaos struggle (e.g. Ps. 74:12ff.; Isa. 51:9f.), so too the writer of Ps. 58 (and that of Ps. 82) does the same with mythological descriptions of a heavenly tribunal where God judges the unrighteous gods. These descriptions are well-suited to be applied to the people who, by their abuses of justice, destroy the foundation of society, so that the question of theodicy arises. The anti-godly dimension of the godless receives a particular emphasis through this mythological illustration.

 

The complaint lodged against the godless in vss. 4-6 is metaphorical and stereotypical. That is also true of the prayers and wishes for cursing in vss. 7-10. It is certainly justified to assume that this terminology reflects ancient, well-known curse formulae. The conclusion of the psalm speaks about the results of God’s punishing intervention: the joy of the righteous (vs. 11) and the theodicy (vs. 12).

 

The צדיק, the opposite of the רשע, is the unnamed subject of the complaint and prayer in vss. 4-10. That is the one who is oppressed and persecuted, who sees justice on earth being destroyed by the fury of the unrighteous, yet he does not grasp at vengeance himself but in the midst of his deepest need he calls upon God, his God who is the Judge of the earth. It is a situation of ‘do or die’. Is there still a God who does justice on earth? Does it still make sense for the צדיק to trust in Him, or does evil ultimately triumph? The foundational principles of existence are on trial.

 

It is against this background that the joy (שמח) of the righteous in vs. 11 must be understood. Following this exegesis of vs. 2f., the joy expressed at the witnessing of vengeance can no longer be explained – somewhat apologetically – as rejoicing over the fall of the demonic powers. Nor is this rejoicing a form of personal malice. The righteous one rejoices when God comes in vengeance to break the rule of the wicked, to punish injustice and through this restoration of justice to put to rest all doubts and questions. It is the joy and the eternal relief to see (היה) the liberation, the restoration of justice, and the acquittal of God.

 

This motif has a secure place in the Old Testament. Vs. 11b, so offensive to modern ears, simply intends to employ a powerful image, borrowed from the all too realistic situation of the battlefield following the fight (wading through the blood), to highlight the total destruction of the godless.

 

The subject of דם in vs. 11 is not the righteous one himself, but God. The righteous one had prayed for God’s vengeance. Through the vengeance of God, who punishes the evil ones, it appears that the case of the צדיק is a righteous one, which bears fruit. Vs. 12 is the conclusion of the psalm and expresses its scope; apart from vs. 12, vs. 11 would be unintelligible. In the mythology, the gods commit injustice on earth; in reality the godless commit injustice on earth; but in faith the צדיק knows that there is a God who does justice on earth. ‘The cry of the afflicted he does not forget’ (Ps. 9:13): God is God and justice is justice. When that finally becomes evident in the vengeance of God, he rejoices. (H. G. L. Peels, The Vengeance of God: The Meaning of the Root NQM and the Function of the NQM-Texts in the Context of Divine Revelation in the Old Testament [Oudtestamentische Studiën 31; Leiden, Brill, 1995], 215-19)

 

Paulus Orosius (385-420) on “Sinlessness,” Being “without guilt” and “without blame” being a process

 On Job et al. being said to be “blameless” in Scripture:

 

For also, to be "without blame" is ascribed to the recognition and judgment of those to whom there is a readiness to notice mildness in one's face and not to notice the turbulence in the heart. Hence, too, Paul decrees with confidence these words: "It behooves a bishop to be without guilt" (Tit. 1.7) and elsewhere gives a general testimony to the Corinthians and asserts: "So that you not lack in of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the very end without guilt." (Cor. 1.1.7 and 8) Lo, Paul reproaches in the very same letter the very same people whom he assured by his own testimony that they are without guilt to the very end when he writes: "Now to be sure, generally, there is fault in you because you have lawsuits with one another." (Cor. 1.6.7) (Thus), under the one title, and referring to the same persons, lo and behold, (here we have): "being without guilt" and here: "fault."; hence, he declares that those whom you would see to be called, "without guilt", are not immediately asserted to be "without fault." For also Lord Jesus has said: "John came without eating and without drinking," (Luc. 7.33) and again, it is written: "His (John's) food was locusts and wild honey." (Matt. 3.4) grace while you await the revelation Are we to believe on the basis of one or another statement, that either John has not eaten or that the Lord was mistaken? On the contrary, in both statements there is truth because John had taken some food into the substance of his flesh, and, on the other hand, the Lord had spoken truly about John, that he had not eaten with the rest, nor what the rest had eaten; proving that he and holy Scriptures disclose men's purposes when the knowledge of God has often been concealed, Therefore it is compliantly accepted that whenever the Scripture mentions "someone just and without blame", he is so called only according to the notion of time and in the judgment of men, not in that final judgment of God; God, to whom the conscience of the whole world is subjected and who should be praised by every tongue.

 

. . .

 

to the Septuagint) And after much reproaching through teaching and after much teaching through reproaching, Job answering, said to the Lord: "Why am I judged to have been admonished and rebuked by the Lord, hearing such things, when I am nothing?' (Iob 39. 34 sec. LXX) Such also (was) Zacharias, a man "without blame", worthy of being honored by men, worthy in the testimony of the Scriptures, who, as a result of this, was already being tickled by his swollen pride and was beginning to believe more the fame than his conscience, and (therefore) was censured with the brand of infidelity by a reproaching angel and punished with a temporary silence. Hence, also Paul says: "Therefore let him who thinks that he is standing, watch out that he does not fall." (Cor. 1.10.12) And serving, so to speak, as a model for men, he declares about himself and says: "I chastise my body and subdue it to slavery lest perhaps I myself should be cast away after preaching to others." (Cor. 1. 9.27) Thus, to call someone "without guilt" and "without blame" is not evidence of perfection, but an example of frequent (Scriptural) use. (Ruth May Gover, “The Liber Apologeticus of Paulus Orosius: A Translation and Commentary” [MA Thesis; Queens College of the City University of New York, May 1969], 34-45, 36)

 

 

Further Reading:

 

Origen on the two meaning of "to be without sin" in Scripture

Ilaria L. E. Ramelli on the Lack of the Doctrine of Original Sin in the Theology of Origen

  

Origen never developed a doctrine of 'original sin' (Teichtweier 1958: 98). Adam's sin symbolizes human sin, but sin is not inherited (Cels. 4.40; H.Ex. 9.1). Inherited sin clashes against free will, which never abandons rational creatures (e.g. Or. 29.13; C.Rom. 5.10 ). Only concupiscence in the reproductive act seems to leave some impurity (rhupos, sordes) in the human being, which makes it advisable to baptize children, to wash it away, although they have not yet committed sins of their own (C.Rom. 5.9; H.Luc. 14.3, 5; H.Lev. 8.3; C.Matth. 15.23). This can be inscribed within the Origenian concept of universal culpability, pointed out above. Origen, an ascetic, is often negative about intercourse, although he recognizes that marriage was instituted by God ( e.g. Pasch a 36; H.Luc. 6.1-2). This is why Mary, the Theotokos, had 'a holy womb, worthy of all veneration, because no male absolutely touched it' (H.Luc. 14.8). She had an 'immaculate giving-birth; without any 'contagion of earthly corruption; since 'the Holy Spirit poured an immaculate seed in her inviolable womb'; therefore, 'Jesus alone is holy among all those born of woman' (Exp.Luc. 2.55-56). Origen explains Christ's identification with a worm in Psalm 21:6 on this basis: 'the origin of worms does not come from a seed stemming from outside, but from themselves' sexlessly, according to the science of Origen's time (H.Luc. 14.8). Augustine, probably basing himself on Origen, gave the same interpretation, claiming to be following his predecessors (prioribus, Ep. 140.21.8). Nevertheless, having taken up a human body, Jesus needed a purification in the Temple (Luke 2:22). For 'no one is free from impurity, not even if he has lived just one day' (Job 14:4-5 [LXX]). This is not sin inherited through generations, but the aforementioned universal state of sinfulness, based on Scripture and Philo (VM 2.29.147) and linked to the fall of all humans. (Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, “The Pre-History of the Pelagian Controversy, Part 1: Grace and Free Will, Intellectualism, and the Birth of Original Sin,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Pelagian Controversy, ed. Anthony Dupont, Giulio Malavasi, and Brian Matz [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025], 33)

 

 

Pope Leo (c. 430-449) Teaching Baptismal Regeneration in "Anti-Pelagian Summaries of the Epistles of Saint Paul"

  

XI. Concerning the sacrament of baptism, in which we die to sin so that we might live to God (6:3). (Pope Leo, “Anti-Pelagian Summaries of the Epistles of Saint Paul: To the Romans,” c. 430-449, trans. Francis X. Gumerlock, in Francis X. Gumerlock, “Translation of Four Neglected Texts from the Pelagian Controversy,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Pelagian Controversy, ed. Anthony Dupont, Giulio Malavasi, and Brian Matz [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025], 595. According to Gumerlock, “These summaries, or chapter headings, . . . were found in a codex at Fulda, written in the year 546” [Ibid., 594])

 

Pope Leo (c. 430-449) Teaching that Only Jesus was Exempt from Original Sin in "Anti-Pelagian Summaries of the Epistles of Saint Paul"

  

X. Concerning the sin of Adam, which passed on to all people without any exception, neither has it been absent [in anyone] except in Christ Jesus, who alone received human nature in such a way that the contagions of the ancient sin did not hold him. And just as through the sin of one the death of everyone was introduced, so through the righteousness of one the life of all was repaired (5:19). (Pope Leo, “Anti-Pelagian Summaries of the Epistles of Saint Paul: To the Romans,” c. 430-449, trans. Francis X. Gumerlock, in Francis X. Gumerlock, “Translation of Four Neglected Texts from the Pelagian Controversy,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Pelagian Controversy, ed. Anthony Dupont, Giulio Malavasi, and Brian Matz [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025], 595. According to Gumerlock, “These summaries, or chapter headings, . . . were found in a codex at Fulda, written in the year 546” [Ibid., 594])

 

Geoffrey D. Dunn on Pope Zosimus (417-418) and His Actions During the Pelagian Controversy

  

Zosimus

 

Things took a dramatic turn under Innocent's successor, Zosimus (417-418). Almost immediately, Caelestius agreed to follow up the appeal he had demanded back in 411 by turning up in Rome before a gathering of Zosimus and his clergy.

 

We could say that Zosimus was concerned with procedural fairness, following not only Roman law (Dalmon 2009) but the scriptural example of Daniel examining the accusers of Susannah (Dan. 13). After all, Pelagius and Caelestius had been exonerated at the preliminary hearing in Jerusalem and at the synod in Diospolis, and Zosimus' predecessor had condemned them without giving them a personal hearing or chance to defend themselves. In September 417, Caelestius appeared at San Clemente in Rome, the details of which we know from a letter Zosimus sent to the Africans (Ep. 2 = Collectio Avellana, Ep. 45; following the CSEL numbering of sections of this letter) and from rather forced comments later made by Augustine, who felt the need to defend Zosimus against criticism from Julian of Aeclanum, even though he was far more critical of Zosimus at the time (De gr. Chr. et de p. o. 2.6.7-2.7.8; C. duas epp. Pel. 2.3-5-2.4.6; Lamberigts 1992: 312-317; 2004: 374; Carefoote 1995: 212).

 

The letter reveals that Caelestius had not come to Rome to fulfil Innocent's demands that he repudiate his views and seek forgiveness (Burns 1979 ), but to have Innocent's decision overturned (Ep. 2.2). He was not asking for clemency or pardon; he was appealing against the initial verdict, and Zosimus was satisfied enough to rescind it (Dunn 2013). Zosimus pointed out to the Africans that he questioned Caelestius extensively on his recent confession of faith (Ep. 2.3; van Egmond 2011). I do not think that Caelestius showed how much he had emended his views (Lamberigts 1992: 319; Carefoote 1995: 186) but explained satisfactorily how his views in fact agreed already with what Innocent required and that he had been condemned unfairly. This was possible because, in all likelihood, the Roman bishops did not share the theological sensitivities about original sin and the baptism of infants held by the Africans (Wermelinger 1975: 138-139 ). Caelestius might not have needed to be too explicit in what he really believed to satisfy Rome.

 

Zosimus was also concerned that the Africans had not condemned Caelestius in 411 when he was present but had done so in 416 in his absence, all too hastily and after having been persuaded by Heros and Lazarus, individuals he found disreputable (Ep. 2.4-7; see Dunn 2015a, 2015b, 2016a). Zosimus challenged the Africans to find fault with Caelestius' confession of faith within the next two months (Ep. 2.8) or let it lapse, since it did no one any good to quibble over words out of an endless curiosity rather than follow Scripture (Ep. 2.9). He certainly saw himself as an impartial arbitrator and not a Pelagian sympathizer. He asserted Rome's authority quite firmly in the letter, also employing Innocent's image of Rome as a spring (Ep. 2.1).

 

Pelagius too had written to Innocent, but it was received only by Zosimus (Pelagius, Libellus fidei; Augustine, De g. Chr. et de p. o. 30.32; van Egmond 2007, 2012) after Caelestius' appeal was upheld. Zosimus wrote again to the Africans (Ep. 3 = Collectio Avellana, Ep. 46). Having read Pelagius' statement of faith, he found it to be much like Caelestius' and therefore acceptable (Ep. 3.3). Much of the vitriol in the letter is directed against Heras and Lazarus (Ep. 3-4-8). The sense again is of Zosimus' concern that procedural fairness had not been observed by the Africans (Ep. 3.10).

 

Further reaction from the Africans and Zosimus, including the latter's March 418 letter (Ep. 12 = Collectio Avellana, Ep. 50) again justifying his procedures in response to an African synod in November 417 and the African synod of May 418, has been analysed by Wermelinger (1975: 146-152), Ocker (1991), Carefoote (1995: 213-218), and Marcos, Chapter 6, this volume.

 

While Zosimus could wrangle with the African bishops all he liked, he could not resist the full force of imperial law, once it became involved in April 418 thanks to the savvy manoeuvring by the Africans. It is clear that Zosimus needed to align himself with the imperial position. This he did by the middle of the year when he issued his Tractoria epistula, only extracts of which survive (Augustine, Ep. 190; Celestine I, Ep. 21; Prosper, C. coll. 5.3), in which it appears that he amended his earlier acceptance of the orthodoxy of Pelagius and Caelestius and excommunicated them and their teachings, but only to the extent that he no longer opposed the imperial edict and was sufficiently in agreement with the position of lnnocent that the Africans would not object, without probably accepting that his position really had changed (Wermelinger 1975: 204-218; Carefoote 1995: 260-269 ). From the fragments, we see Zosimus affirm the reality of original sin and the reality of its forgiveness in baptism (Augustine, Ep. 190.23), of the need for divine grace as established in Scripture (Celestine, Ep. 21.9 ), and of the primacy of that grace (Prosper, C. coll. 5.3) (Floëri 1955). While the Africans rallied around Zosimus and promoted the idea of his unwavering orthodoxy, put forward to marginalize Julian of Aeclanum, whom together with eighteen fellow bishops Zosimus had to excommunicate when they resisted Zosimus' change of heart, the fact that the Tractoria epistula was not preserved probably indicates a lingering frustration with it by the Africans.

 

Meanwhile, in Italy there were now those who thought Zosimus did not go far enough and those who thought he had gone too far. The division in the Roman clergy led to a delegation going to Ravenna in opposition to Zosimus (Ep. 14; Dunn 2016b), although it is a matter of conjecture which type of opponent went to Ravenna. This division plagued the Roman Church after Zosimus' death in December 418 in an electoral controversy over a successor, which, in part, must have been caused by theological divisions in Rome over grace, free will, original sin, baptism, and Zosimus' handling of the affair. (Geoffrey D. Dunn, “The Creation of Pelagianism: Orosius, Roman Bishops, and Marius Mercator,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Pelagian Controversy, ed. Anthony Dupont, Giulio Malavasi, and Brian Matz [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025], 403-4)

 

Theodore De Bruyn on the Transmission of Pelagius's Commentaries

  

Authenticity, Transmission, and Authenticity

 

No manuscript ascribing the commentaries to Pelagius has survived, but there is no doubt that he was their author. When Augustine introduces the third book of On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins and on Infant Baptism, composed in 411 CE, he explains that he had read 'some works by Pelagius . . . containing very short explanations [expositiones breuissimas] of the letters of the apostle Paul' (Pecc. merit. 3,1.1; Souter 1922: 4). This motivated him to refute certain arguments against the transmission of sin from Adam to his descendants, relayed by Pelagius in his comment on Rom. 5:15, which Augustine then quotes (Pecc. merit. 3.2.2, 3.3.5; Souter 1922: 40-41). About two decades later, in a brief prepared for the church in Constantinople, Marius Mercator states that Pelagius composed commentaries (commentarios) on the Pauline letters for a circle of friends prior to the sack of Rome in 410 (Commonitorium super nomine Caelestii 2.1; Souter 1922: 4). In that work Mercator paraphrases Pelagius' comments on Rom. 5:12-14 (Souter 1922: 41-44).

 

A century later, if not earlier, the commentaries were already circulating under another name. When Cassiodorus in his Institutes (begun in the 530s) describes commentaries on the apostolic (not just Pauline) letters, he begins with a set of glosses (annotationes) on thirteen Pauline letters that were widely known and admired but erroneously attributed to Pope Gelasius. Cassiodorus, detecting 'the poison of the Pelagian error' in these glosses, undertook to remove the offending passages, a task he completed for the commentary on Romans, leaving the rest of the commentaries to his students (Inst. 1.8.1; Johnson 1989).

 

Early on, the commentaries were used in monastic circles in Ireland (Zimmer 1901; Kelly 1978), England (Dumville 1986), and the Continent (Frede 1975-1991: 1026), as one can see from quotations taken from the commentaries or copies made of them. Although the commentaries were popular in Irish circles, the Irish were not the exclusive means of their early transmission, as was once thought ( de Bruyn 1993: 28-29 ). From glosses introduced into early medieval copies of the text of the Pauline letters with a sign indicating that they came from Pelagius (Zimmer 1901: 39-112, 137-155; Souter 1922: 5, 25-28, 326-330; Picard 2003; De Paor 2016; Dunphy 2019), it is evident that Pelagius was known to have produced commentaries on the Pauline letters, probably because the manuscripts from which the glosses were derived attributed the commentaries or the comments to Pelagius (Zimmer 1901: 156-158; Souter 1922: 28). But otherwise the commentaries were transmitted throughout the Middle Ages anonymously or under the name of Jerome.

 

The texts preserved in manuscripts of the commentaries, some of which can be grouped into families, differ. Although early modern scholars from Erasmus onwards no longer accepted that the commentaries were by Jerome and suspected or argued that they were by a Pelagian, they were misled in their efforts to ascertain the author by the absence in the prevailing text of the commentaries (in the tradition now called pseudo-Jerome) of exact parallels to the passages quoted by Augustine and paraphrased by Mercator. This led them to conflate the pseudo-Jerome commentaries with the expurgated version produced by Cassiodorus and his students (Souter 1922: 6- 24), which in the first printed edition in 1537 was erroneously attributed to Primasius (Souter 1922: 319-321). It is owing to the observations of Heinrich Zimmer (1901), Cuthbert Turner (1902), Sigmund Hellmann (1906) (see Souter 1922: 28-33), and above all Alexander Souter that several strands of the commentaries' early transmission were unravelled and distinguished: the original commentaries by Pelagius; copies of Pelagius' commentaries with additional material found primarily but not exclusively in the pseudo-Jerome family of manuscripts; and the revision of Pelagius' commentaries by Cassiodorus and his students.

 

As Souter demonstrated in the introduction to his edition of the commentaries, two manuscripts to which Souter gave the sigla A and B-Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, Augiensis CXIX (A; 8th-9th c.) and Oxford, Balliol College 157 (B; 15th c.)-have the strongest claim to preserving the text of Pelagius' commentaries. They attest to the passages quoted by Augustine and paraphrased by Mercator completely and, importantly, without the additional material found, to varying degrees, in all the other witnesses (Souter 1922: 34-48). Their fidelity to a very early transmission of the commentary is further demonstrated by leaves from a sixth-century manuscript, Vatican, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana lat. 10800 (Mercati 1907). The leaves preserve a text similar to that in B (Souter 1922: 48-51, 226-228). In reconstructing the text of Pelagius' commentary, Souter justifiably relied on A and B, while also taking into consideration the witnesses of the other manuscripts, Cassiodorus' revision, and early medieval glosses.

 

The two manuscripts are not without difficulties. They present different versions of the text of the Pauline letters (see below), and they each include material that the other omits. The text in A is shorter and, on the whole, more reliable than the text in B, whose scribe was copying from a defective manuscript (Souter 1922: 211-212, 216-223). The text in B includes comments that were added to Pelagius' commentary by a 'Pelagian' writer within decades of its circulation-the so-called pseudo-Jerome interpolations that were published by Souter (1922: 265-267; 1931) and then verified with greater precision by Hermann Frede in his edition of a manuscript-Budapest, Hungarian National Museum codex latinus medii aeui 1 (800 CE)-that preserves comments from an anonymous commentator used by Pelagius as well as comments from the later interpolator (Frede 1973: 164-205; 1974; on the manuscript, see further Dunphy 2013, 2014, 2015; Maclachlan 2014). Occasionally A also includes comments not found in the other witnesses.

 

More problematic in A, however, are variations in the phrasing of a comment that alter its meaning in what might be considered an 'Augustinian' direction. These variants are often, but not always, also found in one other manuscript, St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek 73 ( G; 9th c.). Many of the variants occur in the commentary on Romans, the Pauline letter that had the greatest bearing on the central interpretative questions of the early Pelagian controversy (de Bruyn 1993: 32-33). Were these variants present in the original commentary and later altered by a reviser, or were they absent from the original commentary and later added by a reviser? While there is no decisive evidence to eliminate one of these possibilities, the presence elsewhere in Pelagius' commentaries of remarks similar to those that are disputed, but with the support of multiple witnesses, argues in favour of regarding these variants as coming from Pelagius ( de Bruyn 1993: 33-34; Matteoli 2011). But, even if one questions the authenticity of these variants, most of the text of the commentaries has been transmitted with only inconsequential discrepancies among the witnesses. To exclude the entire work from consideration when studying Pelagius' thought and practice (see A. Bonner 2018: pp. xvii-xviii) is too radical as a general method, since it dispenses with much that probably comes from Pelagius. A more nuanced approach would be to be cognizant of variants that introduce significant alterations in meaning and weigh their value as warranted (see e.g. Matteoli 2011) . Souter's practice ( 1926: p. viii) of marking points where A and B diverge with square brackets in his edition is useful for that purpose. These are replicated in the translations of de Bruyn ( 1993 ) and Scheck (2022), as well as in the quotations below. However, one must always consult the apparatus in Souter's edition, since the variants differ in type and importance. (Theodore De Bruyn, “Exegetical Commentaries by Pelagius,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Pelagian Controversy, ed. Anthony Dupont, Giulio Malavasi, and Brian Matz [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025], 281-84)

 

Isaiah 52:7-10 in Targum Jonathan to the Prophets

  

7     מָא יַאְיָן עַל טוּרֵי אַרעָא דְיִשׂרָאֵל רַגלֵי מְבַסַר מַשמַע שְלָם מְבַסַר טָב מַשמַע פוּרקָן אְמַר לִכנִשתָא דְצִיֹון אִתגְלִיאַת מַלכוּתָא דַאְלָהִיך׃

8     קָל פַרנָסַך דִמרִימִין קָלְהֹון כַחדָא מְשַבְחִין אְרֵי בְעֵינֵיהֹון יִחזֹון גְבוּרָן דְיַעְבֵיד יוי כַד יָתִיב שְכִינְתֵיה לְצִיֹון׃

9     בוּעוּ וְשַבַחוּ כַחדָא חָרבָת יְרוּשלַם אְרֵי עְתִיד יוי לְנַחָמָא עַמֵיה פְרַק יְרוּשלַם׃

10     גְלָא יוי יָת דְרָע קוּדשֵיה לְעֵינֵי כָל עַמְמַיָא וְיִחזֹון כָל דְבִסיָפֵי אַרעָא יָת פוּרקָנָא דַאְלָהַנָא׃

 

 

 

52.7 How beautiful upon the mountains of the land of Israel are the feet of him who announces, who publishes peace, who announces good tidings, who publishes salvation, who says to the congregation of Zion, “The kingdom of your God is revealed.” 52.8 The voice of your guardians, who lift up their voice, together they sing for joy; for with their eyes they will see the prodigies which the LORD will do when he will return his Shekhinah to Zion. 52.9 Shout and sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem; for the LORD is about to comfort his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. 52.10 The LORD has disclosed his holy arm to the eyes of all the peoples; and all those at the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God (The Isaiah Targum, [trans. Bruce D. Chilton; The Aramaic Bible 11 [Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1990], Logos Bible Software edition)

 

 

Giuseppe Monno (RC): The Father Being Embodied, in LDS Theology, is not a “limitation” or “Imperfection” but “The Fullness of His Glory”

  

Secondo la teologia mormone, il corpo del Padre non rappresenta un limite o un'imperfezione, ma la pienezza della sua gloria. Dio è quindi concepito come un essere personale e corporeo, distinto dalle creature ma dotato di una forma fisica reale. Questa dottrina costituisce uno degli elementi più caratteristici della teologia mormone e la distingue nettamente dalla concezione cristiana tradizionale della natura di Dio.(Giuseppe Monno, Il Mormonismo: Analisi Teologica E Confronto Con La Dottrina Cattolica [Cristiani Cattolici Romani; 2026], 38)

 

 

According to Mormon theology, the Father's body does not represent a limitation or an imperfection, but rather the fullness of his glory. God is therefore conceived as a personal and corporeal being, distinct from creatures but endowed with a real physical form. This doctrine constitutes one of the most characteristic elements of Mormon theology and distinguishes it sharply from the traditional Christian conception of the nature of God.

 

 

Further Reading:

 

Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment

Frank J. Sheed (RC; 1897-1981) Claiming Gabriel was Ignorant of Certain Facts Concerning Mary’s Character At the Annunciation in Luke 1

  

Gabriel’s opening words are: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women.” Mary made no reply. Gabriel misunderstood her silence. Perhaps remembering Zachary, he told her not to be afraid. Clearly he did not yet know her very well. Contact with Zachary was no preparation at all for understanding Mary of Nazareth. Her silence was not from terror, but from perplexity—she was “much perplexed at hearing him speak so, and cast about in her mind what she was to make of such a greeting.” (Frank J. Sheed, To Know Christ Jesus [Sheed and Ward Educational; London: Sheed and Ward Ltd., 1972], 17)

 

Brant Gardner on the use of “God” vs. “gods” when quoting the Decalogue in Mosiah 12:35

  

This change may be another simplification measure, but it may also be Abinadi’s deliberate adaptation to his trial before the priests. Because they were building new religious elements on the fundamental law of Moses, they probably had not attempted to alter with its most basic belief in one God, even if the people included converts from polytheistic cultures. In fact, such converts are typically even more protective of their new religious principles than lifetime believers. Thus, it seems unlikely that the priests of Noah had attempted to introduce new gods. Rather they had probably reinterpreted the law to effectively deny the salvific role of that one God. . . . Because Abinadi’s defense of the Messiah accuses them of departing from that belief he may have deliberately shifted to the singular form (“God”) rather than quoting the original (“gods”) because it would be easy for the priests to deny that they worshipped multiple gods. However, Abinadi’s point is not polytheism but a perversion of the worship of the One God. (Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 3:275)

 

Further Reading:

Shon D. Hopkin on the Textual Variant between Exodus 20:3 and Mosiah 12:35

Chandler David Hendry (Restored Truth) (1999-2026)

Chandler sadly passed away on Friday, August 7. Do keep his family and friends in your prayers, especially his young wife.

I never met Chandler in person, but we were "online friends." We collaborated twice to review his debate on soteriology with a Calvinist:

Review of Chandler Hendry (LDS) vs. Reitmeier (Calvinist) on "How Are We Actually Saved?" (Part 1)

Review of Chandler Hendry (LDS) vs. Reitmeier (Calvinist) on "How Are We Actually Saved?" (Part 2)