A long-time friend, and a Benedictine monk of my acquaintance, have enjoyed a lively exchange of letters over the last few years. (I posted the contents of one of them on this blog on July 13, 2022, entitled “The Essentials”.) This letter (from the monk) is an excellent example of apologetics, and of the scriptural basis for living the Gospel. (One could also consider it a Bible study, considering the number of Biblical references it contains.) The monk introduces this text as follows: “Don't think these are simply memorized references to be fired off; I'm not one for either the fundamentalistic apologetic style, or for rote memorization. Rather, your letter led to me reviewing the New Testament as a whole with your implicit questions in mind. Each one of these passages in hand-picked.”
The letter follows:
I plan to begin with Jesus, [then] to Paul, [then] to what I would call – rather than the history of Christian Civilization – World history after the beginnings of Christianization. [Regarding the references] The very best bible I recommend now is the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. They have an excellent one-volume New Testament, hardbound. Scott Hahn, the main writer, is one of the very best exegetes. If you read his introduction to the Ignatius Bible, after the first introduction, you will read an excellent summary of the Catholic approach to Scripture.
You are quite right to emphasize the love & mercy & compassion of Jesus. This is something that is very often underestimated or understood in the wrong way. This is true not only for those who forget that only God can judge a man's knowledge and intentions, and who confuse the objective moral truth of an objective disorder with subjectively judging a man's moral state; but also for those in special need of Jesus' mercy & compassion, but who run from a prayerful encounter out of fear that Jesus' knowledge and, therefore, objective judgment of a man's heart is for the sake of condemnation, rather than merciful love, healing & compassionate forgiveness, and for this full blossoming as the person he is meant to be, happy & at peace, because in harmony with himself, others and his loving Creator.
From the very beginning of such disorders the human race fled from God because he (Adam) saw that he was naked, and was afraid.
Jesus came to be the supreme witness to the truth (John 18:37-38) that God is not arbitrary condemnation but love (John 3:16-21). Love is what created things to be the good things that they are, and to find their full fulfillment in the full blossoming of their nature; and – for men – even a supernatural elevation & blossoming, which of course can only be a gratuitous gift.
The lie born of both fear (Adam) & envy of those in harmony (Cain & Abel) was that of God as naturally a severe judge, an arbitrary rule maker, and a condemnor of true freedom. The lie of Satan from the beginning (John 8:43-44) was – rather than acknowledging that a limited form of existence (a nature) was necessary for diverse individuals to exist – to claim that any nature was itself an unfair constraint on self-assertion and the will to power, and that a happiness of a form determined by a limited and harmoniously oriented nature was an affront to absolute freedom of self-determination and self-definition of one's fulfillment.
Thus began, from the very beginning, the Satanic project of (1) refusing such a harmony, even to the purposeful contradiction of his own fulfillment, in the name of an absolute freedom impossible to realize; and (2) out of hating and envy of that very source, means, and end of such natural & supernatural fulfillment; and so, to spite God the object of his loving and merciful designs, to lead everyone else to the same rejection – whether explicit or implicit – by means of more and more lies, obfuscation, seduction, confusion, etc.
But Jesus came precisely to be a living refutation of this. His most innocent, docile, receptive disciple came to understand all this in a particularly profound way (First Epistle of St. John 4:7-5:5). This is why He, Jesus, showed – emphasized – that the entirety of the laws that truly came from God could be reduced to loving God & others (Mark 12:28-34). Jesus manifested the true meekness & humility of His divine self toward creatures, and sought to teach men to imitate Him (Matthew 11:29-30).
But because mankind was suffering and broken as a result of the consequences of man's disorders – opposed to God's nature – namely pride, lying, murder, domination, hedonism, etc., Jesus came – as He repeatedly insisted – not to condemn, but to heal & teach which He often manifested through physical healings as well (Matthew 4:23-24, 11:4-6).
To those who had truly been offended, Jesus taught unlimited forgiveness (Matthew 18:21-22). To those leading more ordered lives but who thought it pious to abandon those who were more wounded, He insisted that He had come to save the lost (Luke 19:7-10), and that the greater the forgiveness received, the greater the fruit of love & gratitude (Luke 7:36-50). Not only had he come to save the broken-hearted, but to give them the means to help save others (Luke 5:8-11).
Jesus' entire mission was one of compassion toward our ignorance & weakness (Mark 6:34), and of bearing, himself, the cost of our disorders & errors (Matthew 8:16-17)
In return for this divine mercy & gratuitous forgiveness, Jesus asked only that we love as we should, and that that includes forgiving others the relatively tiny offenses they commit against us, in comparison to our offenses toward God (Matthew 6:14-15 and 18:32-35); and, not judging the hearts of others (Luke 6:37-42) as only God can do (John 8:13-19).
There were, however, those with whom Jesus had to be severe, in an attempt to wake them from their obstinate blindness, namely those leaders who, while ignoring true conversion of life, claimed to be the most righteous fulfillers of the externals of the law (Luke 11:37-44). For this purpose, they multiplied scrupulous regulations of an ignorant, material sort (Matthew 15:1-9), and mandated them to the poor people, who were crushed with absurd legalities (Matthew 23:1-36)(Mark 7:3-8, 14-23). Meanwhile, they refused to live the spirit of the true law and to teach it to the people (Luke 11:45-46, 52-53).
At the same time, they were merciless in their desire to ostracize & condemn the weak & sinful rather than to really help them recover & do better. They congratulated themselves on their supposed righteousness (Luke 18:9-14), which Jesus repeatedly showed to be only external and out of vanity (Matthew 6:1-8, 16-18). He preferred the weak & the wounded, who knew they needed healing (Matthew 9:10-13 and Mark 2:16-17) and sought it out (Matthew 21:28-32). He taught that all ritual offerings to God were only authentic if they were an image of interior sacrifice, forgiveness, & harmony (Matthew 5:20-24).
And so, these religious leaders themselves became the very image for the people of the false conception of God: severe judges, arbitrary rule makers, & condemnors of true freedom. In response, Jesus reveals what the true fulfillment [by Himself, i.e. what the old law was destined for] of the law is meant to be, namely, a transformation of the law from a body of material prescriptions to a body of spiritual precepts, to be lived out first interiorly, “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:16-26), and then expressed exteriorly in submission to God's loving plan, and in service to others. The commandments having to do directly with love of God, self, & others were not to pass away (Matthew 5:17-19) but to be fulfilled by a deepening of understanding of them, and a renewal of them, cleansed of all the compromises allowed to those who lacked the docility to live them out (Matthew 5:3-11, 21-22, 27-28, 31-32, 38-45) (Mark 10:1-12).
The commandments were no longer to be misunderstood as coercions opposed to happiness & freedom, but as the necessary means to that harmony that allows for true fulfillment; most of all in the supernatural union of life with God (John 14:15-21, 23-24) (John 15:9-17).
It was precisely because of the importance of allowing oneself to be loved by God, that Jesus also gave warnings & encouragements not to ignore his teaching, because of the dire consequences of separating oneself permanently from God's loving plan for the happiness of each one, dependent on their free will (Matthew 7:21-23; 13:47-51; 25:31-46) (Mark 3:31-35) (Luke 12: 22-34) (John 6:37-46).
This total renewal of love on earth was the fire that Jesus longed to ignite, knowing that its contrast with the desires of fallen men would lead to deep divisions (Luke 12:49-53). Thus although Jesus promised a deep interior peace from God (John 14:25-27), He also promised a sword (Matthew 10:34-36), divisions (Matthew 10:21-22), and hatred (Matthew 24:9-14), but in the end final victory over sin & death in loving union with Himself (Matthew 24:29-31).
St. Paul
In connection with the last section, as I had forgotten to say, it is only in light of what it means to love rightly that the famous central maxim of St. Augustine can be rightly understood: “Love, and do as you will.” It is no wonder, given the many misunderstandings of who Jesus is & what He said, that a number of persons misrepresent Paul in their writings & oppose him to Jesus. Even within the lifetime of the Apostles, his teachings, with their uniquely profound theological explanations of what other Apostles taught in more basic forms, were twisted and misused (2nd Peter 3:14-18).
Now, before Pentecost, the Apostles were, on the whole, fairly lacking in understanding of the deep meanings and consequences of Jesus' teaching. For this reason, Jesus Himself, though He taught them many things apart from what He taught all the people (Matthew13-10-17), He withheld such profound and thorough explanations which they were unprepared, in wisdom and in intellectual penetration, to absorb (John 16:12-14). The Apostles were to await the gift of light from the Holy Spirit and special gifts of ministry (John 14:25-26). But for St. Paul, who converted after the Ascension, he couldn't be an eyewitness to the truth about Jesus without an extraordinary divine intervention whereby he would be taught by Jesus Himself, but would then be very careful to lay what he had been taught before the Apostles, so that they could confirm its authenticity as the true teaching of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:11-14, 2:1-2, 6-10).
Now, in teaching the non-Jewish peoples, Paul had three main difficulties to deal with: First, instilling a whole new idea of who God is in previously pagan minds, namely, a true, immediately present Person, who was truly loving & merciful; who really cared about each individual personally, and sought their true happiness, rather than any benefit to Himself. Again, that God was love, and was to be imitated in order to love more and more with His life.
For Paul, love is what gives true spiritual value to everything (1st Corinthians 13:1-13); it fulfills the whole law (Romans 13:8-14) and is what prepares us for the coming of Christ. God is the Father of mercies (2nd Corinthians 1:3-4), and nothing can separate us from His love, nor does God condemn those who allow Him to save them. (Romans 8:31-39). Thus, God did not save us when we were His friends, but when we were opposed to Him, like enemies (Romans 5:6-11). God destined us for personal friendship with Himself purely out of gratuitous love (Ephesians 1:5-10). God, who is rich in mercy (Ephesians 2:4-10), saved us spiritually from our fallen state, because He made us for Himself; not because He needs anything, but in order to share His infinite fullness with others (Ephesians 3:14-19) out of unbounded love.
For this reason, the only way to properly reciprocate His love – so far as a little creature can – is to go & do likewise by seeking and allowing God to clothe our souls with the garments – so to speak – of His grace (i.e. supernatural assistance in the form of supernatural habits of soul), which elevates & heals us progressively and which makes it possible to live out the humanly impossible demands of the Gospel, namely, a wholly supernatural life of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and love above all (Colossians 3:12-17).
For Paul, all this would result already in an interior blossoming of all that is beautiful & harmonious (Galatians 5:22-26).
As for those other two difficulties, they were very real threats to the happiness & freedom of those Paul had brought the Gospel. For this reason, it is here that he was forced to be a little firm, in order to nip them in the bud before they caused serious damage.
Paul, himself, had gone from being a violent, aggressive pharisee (Acts 8:1-3; 9:1-2) to being a gentle, meek Apostle of the Gospel of God's love, who was even blamed by jealous upstarts for writing powerfully but being weak & simple of speech in person (2nd Corinthians 10:1-10; 11:12-13, 6-21). He refused even to accept financial support, in order not to be any hindrance, vs. the exploitative pretenders (2nd Corinthians 12:11-14).
Paul greatly preferred not to have to be firm and severe (1st Corinthians 4:14-21), nor to cause those whose joy & happiness he desired any more pain than necessary; and he was filled with anguish & sorrow at the thought of the dangers besetting them (2nd Corinthians 1:23-2:4).
To those he put in charge of churches, Paul forbade unreasonable severity (1st Timothy 5:1-2), as well as “stupid, senseless controversies” (2nd Timothy 2:22-26) or quarreling. He spoke very strongly about the evil of judging another's heart, even within the Christian community (Romans 14:10-13, 1st Corinthians 4:3-5). And as for those outside the Christian community, he refuses to judge them, but leaves them to God's knowledge & love (1st Corinthians 5:9-13); i.e., he refuses to judge them even if they seem clearly guilty of serious faults.
Instead Paul emphasizes mercy & compassion and peace (Romans 12:14-21), forgiving & reconciling as apostles of God's forgiveness (2nd Corinthians 15:16-21); and putting away all bitterness, anger, & malice (Ephesians 4:31-5:2) in order to be imitators of God, as his children (Titus 3:1-7).
Of those two aforementioned difficulties, the one of the Corinthians is more straightforward. St. Paul had a special solicitude for the community of the Corinthians, since Corinth was notorious in the classical world for being a very wealthy party town, and those Christians were not only surrounded by this seductive environment but had until recently been living accordingly. Soon enough, a number of them – even after they had embraced the Faith, and been well-taught about their obligations, and about what was good for them (or moral) and what was not – began sliding into old habits, or even worse ones than the pagans (1st Corinthians 5:1-4)! And so, while living inauthentically, they boasted of their Christianity (1st Corinthians 5:6-8). At the same time, they were quickly breaking up into quarrelsome factions (1st Corinthians 1:10-13), and even suing each other before pagan judges (1st Corinthians 6:1-6). Even though Paul needed to penalize the worst offender, he made sure that the community restore him to fellowship after a moderate time, and counseled forgiveness & comforting him (2nd Corinthians 2:5-11).
As for the last difficulty, it was precisely an extension of what Jesus had to deal with because of the Pharisees & Scribes. Some Christian Jews refused to obey the teaching of the Apostles that all the endless material prescriptions of the law had come to an end, and that only the spiritual ones remained, and were fulfilled perfectly in the freedom of the New Testament or Covenant, the one Jesus inaugurated (Romans 3:21-31; 2:12-16). Paul speaks of himself to Peter the Apostle as having died to the law through Christ's death ([his] union with it), and now living with His new life (Galatians 2:11-21). This was because Peter, who was feeling self-conscious and succumbed to fear of the opinion of these same Judaic Christians, was doing an injustice to the non-Jewish Christians by eating separately from them, turning them into 2nd class Christians.
This particular group came to be called the circumcision party (meaning faction, of course; as opposed to the other type of circumcision party! (Joshua 5:2-8)). They even traveled around where Paul had, and took advantage of the trust of non-Jews who believed that the Judaic Christians knew best how to be truly Christian, [i.e.] what Jesus truly wanted.
And so, the Galatians were the most quickly misled (Galatians 1:6-8). Paul taught them that the rigors of the old law were a protective & educational measure taken by God for the Israelites until they would be mature enough to live the life of the spirit in faith without disciplinary, remedial prescriptions (Galatians 3:23, 4:7). That they weren't called to the old covenant wherein fearful reverence for God was emphasized for those who didn't know how to obey out of love for goodness & for God; but that they were called rather to be beloved sons of God, their “Abba” or “Daddy”, to live as heirs in the freedom of the love of Christ: Not a freedom to throw themselves again into disorder, but a freedom to do good for its own sake, out of love for God & others (Galatians 5:13-14).
Paul likewise warned the Romans of these dangers, especially considering the considerable number of them – the Christians – who were Jews (romans 7:4-6; 8:15-17). Likewise, to the other churches, he explains the fulfillment in Christ of what had only been prepared for and foreshadowed in the old covenant or testament (2nd Corinthians 3:7-11, 17-18) (Colossians 2:16-17), and that they shouldn't let themselves be subjected to the old dietary & ritual cleanliness restrictions (Colossians 2:21-23).
Instead, God's universal church includes all men, uniting Jews & Gentiles, abolishing the law of material commandments & ordinances, and bringing about one body in Christ, who is our peace (Ephesians 2:13-22). No longer will it be allowed that there be a difference before God of Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female (Galatians 3:28-29; Colossians 3:11).
World history after the advent of Christianization
Whereas one could write whole books – and has done so – on all these topics, I can now limit myself (being finished with the core material) to a few main comments.
Since Christianity is opposed to the ends & spirit of fallen man, and since men remain fallen, and since even Christian baptism does not remove the fallen tendencies to fall back into self-destruction & that of others, Christianity experiences a whole gradation throughout time and various cultures of either being whole-heartedly accepted, half-heartedly accepted, or rejected & persecuted. The Church makes do with the success that it had, in order to bring men even a little closer to the full truths and to living out the full Christian life.
However, some historians then often point to any event within any culture that even has a light veneer of Christianity, and often blame Christianity for the divisions that occur.
Now, it has been true in every age that even many leaders of the Church at various levels have not themselves committed whole-heartedly to the truth, and from this came the worst scandals of all (Psalm 49:16-21).
Another major aspect has always been the political one. When Roman emperors converted to Christianity, they didn't stop thinking like emperors, i.e. that religion being the most powerful reality that binds a society together – that the emperor needs to help govern religion, and call councils, and suppress dissidents as political threats. Of course it gets far more complicated when shortsighted men on both sides encourage such thinking, or when groups really do adopt a heresy as the best means to begin a political revolt, and take up arms against orthodox believers; or when a leader sends an army after such armed heretics/revolutionaries. And all of this has been true from Constantine to the Arians to the Huguenots to the Communists. And the same goes for those leaders who themselves become heterodox. The Church has tolerated many political impositions over the years for the greater good of men's souls.
You also know that the Crusades were always a mixed bag. Whereas you did indeed have a good number of truly noble, supernaturally minded souls who desired to free the invaded & oppressed Christian populace and the sacred cites of Biblical history, you did have quite a number of persons who treated it as a land grab for their own dominion & profit. Even Mary, the Mother of Jesus, in Her appearances to St. Bridget – while extolling those who lived out faithfully their oath of Christian knighthood – sadly complained of these others who made a mockery & a scandal out of a fundamentally Christian cause.
And who can think of the horrendous sack of Constantinople without memories of most un-Christian, venal, Venetian intrigue; philistine rapine & destruction; and starving barbarian mercenaries assuaging their desperation with piles of Byzantine rump roast?!
Indeed, those who pay close attention to the Scriptures, although they rejoice in the spread of the Gospel to all nations, don't expect the majority of the population – sadly – to live accordingly. True Christians do want to be, for God and others, the salt of the earth & the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16), but they still know that to the extent that the world does not understand who God really is and what is truly for their happiness & peace, to that extent the fallen, disordered elements of society will always oppose him (John 15:18-21, 17:25-26).
By the way, as for the homoousion, Chesterton's response to Gibbon's quip was that there is only one letter difference between the words theist & atheist. But, as you can see, it makes all the difference in the world, even though people should not have killed each other over it. The fundamental difference between saying that Jesus was of a similar substance (homoi-) to God the Father, vs. that he was of the same (homo-), divine, immaterial substance [Uncreated Being] as the Father; it is the difference between His being a sort of preeminent spiritual being vs. His being the second personal, subsisting supposit of the unique Pure Being of God [just a bit of theological metaphysics terms], one in being & divinity & holiness & omnipotence & infinity with the divine Persons of the Father & the Holy Spirit. The result of the easier-to-think-about Arian heterodoxy would have been the very overthrow (were it possible for a divine institution) of Christianity.
This is because the Supreme Witness to who God is, and the supreme authority that can establish a new covenant or testament with the whole human race, and can oblige men to it out of love, can only be God Himself (Luke 10:21-22). Now, as many theologians point out, Christians are happily in the inextricable position – given all that Jesus said of Himself (and, by the way, which the pharisees heard very clearly, charging Him with blasphemy) – of either being very certain that Jesus is who He said He was (one God with the Father: John 10:24-30), or of being certain that He was a madman or a liar. Now, all His life and words show that He was not insane; and, along with His miracles, which could only come from God (John 3:2), they make it certain that He was not a liar. For we know that God does not back up a liar's words & claims, even if the pharisees didn't want to hear that (John 9:30-34, 41). Those who in the hope for a false feeling of harmony want to tone down this claim with various forms of syncretism & naturalism, not only have to contend with Jesus' repeated attempts to help others realize the fact in a non-coercive manner (Matthew 22:41-46; John 8:42-43), and His clear teaching to His Apostles (John 17:1-5, 24-26; John 16:25-33), but also with the clear reaction of the Jewish leaders when Jesus judged it at last the time to further unveil the truth that they had been supposed to be prepared for, and let them make a decision (John 8:53-59 [On the “I am see Exodus 3:13-15]) (Luke 22:67-71) (John 19:7-9) (John 18:33-37) (John 5:18-27).
Moreover, there are the Apostles' straightforward accounts of the manifestations that were meant to reassure them & confirm the truth (Matthew 3:13-17; 17:1-8; 2nd Peter 1:16-21), as well as Jesus' clear acceptance of their acts of faith-filled certainty in who they had come to know Him to be, by the light of the infused certainty of supernatural faith (Matthew 16:13-19; John 20:26-29).
Now, you may have noticed that in some of the quotes above, Jesus – even while calling Himself the Son of God – also calls Himself the Son of Man & seems to contrast this with the Father... God. This is because He like to emphasize both that (#1) As divine Person of the Son, who continuously proceeds from the Father while remaining one in Being with Him [Too much theology here to explain it all], He receives all that He is – continuously – from the Father; and (#2) That existing also now as man, He delights to be – at least in this way – infinitely smaller than & totally dependent, humanly, on the Father, like us. He delights in this because He is now also a little man who, as man, can worship the Father, and throw Himself surrenderingly into the Father's infinitely loving arms. But, He eventually affirmed that there was quite a difference between the way that God the Father is His God & Father vs. the way that He is ours (John 20:17)
And so you see, Christianity, i.e. the truth of Christianity & its realization in men, is the greatest love story ever told; it is the divine romance of the universe, wherein the perfectly self-sufficient God nevertheless does not reject what He has made, even after the human race rejects Him. Rather, He comes in person not only to save us all, His lost sheep (John 10:11-21), as the divine shepherd; but to give us Himself and take us for Himself, as the divine bridegroom of our souls (John 3:27-36). And we monks and nuns – i.e. those who are faithful to the sacred vows they made to God, wherein they already in this life reserve all for Him – we enjoy already this conjugal bond of mind & heart with the world's Beloved, and we look forward to its full development in the life of the world to come.
There are two beautiful passages in which Jesus revealed Himself to John later on, with a vision of all that He is, as God & man (Revelation/Apocalypse 1:12-19), and as the divine bridegroom, who gave His life for His bride (Revelation 19:6-10, 11-16; 21:1-8).
As for Christians on earth being in danger, it is true that there is indeed a danger of a decline, at least in the West; not only because many comfortable Christians are very poor Christians; or not really at all; but also because – as Joseph Ratzinger put it – the “dictatorship of relativism” is on the rise, as it has been, with its inherent intolerance of any manner of thought and behaviour based on objective criteria of truth, nature & its fulfillment, and the goodness of perfected nature.
Yet, not only have Christians been forewarned of inevitable persecution, but Jesus indicated that a catastrophe of some sort would bring about a substantial reduction of those who believe in Him, in the end (Luke 18:18). But where & when this will be, we can only speculate about in various ways.
Alas, Christians themselves have often been a large cause of the truths of Christianity not being well understood or believed.
But true, faithful Christians, like God, desire “all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 1:1-7). And like God, they do not desire even those who knowingly harm themselves and others, and offend God, to be lost, but rather that they be converted and live (Ezechiel 33:11-19).
So there you go, my comments are at an end, and, I
would say, given the vastness of the matters concerned, not too long.
I hope they may be enjoyable reading at least. God Bless.
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