The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Commentary on Matins (First Nocturn, Psalm 8)

The term “First Nocturn” refers to the Psalm used at Matins on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays.  These Psalms change for Tuesdays and Fridays (the Second nocturn), and for Wednesdays and Saturdays (the Third Nocturn).  My source’s commentary on the First Nocturn is 30 pages long, for this reason I’ll be posting only on Psalm 8 today.  The other two Psalms for the First Nocturn are 18 and 23, and these will also be dealt with in individual posts.

Antiphon: Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb.

The following psalm being concerned with the wonders of creation, the Antiphon directs our minds to Our Lady as the choicest and most perfect creature of God.  For if man be made a little lower than the angels and crowned with glory and honor, how much more honorable and glorious is She whose Office and holiness is far above that of the highest Angel?  For which one of them could say to their God as She could say: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee? (Heb 1:5).

Argument: Defines what the Psalm is about according to the views of Venerable Bede and Tomasi.

Tomasi:  That Christ, the Son of Man, was made in His Passion a little lower than the angels.  The voice of the ancient Church speaking of Christ and of faith.  Also of the Ascension of our Savior and of the infants that glorified Him and that said Hosanna in the highest! The voice of the Church giving praise to Christ for the fiath of all creatures.

Venerable Bede:  (The first verse of the Psalm is actually a directive and reads: To the Leader; according to the Gittih.  “Gittih” is probably a reference to a musical tune and is derived from the word “Gath,” meaning wine-press.  The gathering of the vintage harvest was a time of great joy, and it seems that the directive is indicating that the tune which accompanied the text was to be joyful.  This helps explain Bede’s argument).  For the wine-press; that is, a vintage song of thanksgiving.  As in the wine-press when the grapes are bruised and the hardest pips crushed the sweetest wine pours forth, so when obstinacy and pride are crushed in the Church,  which is the true wine-press, at the commencement of these Psalms sings the praises of her Lord God, setting forth His majesty and the greatness of His operations.  Then she speaketh more plainly of the nature of man which, from the low and depraved condition whereto Adam’s fall had reduced it, He raised to the height of glory; and the one Person of Christ in its two distinct and inconfused Natures is unhesitatingly acknowledged.

8:1 O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is Thy Name in all the world.

O Lord our Lord. God’s name is twice repeated; for He is twice our Lord, in that He made us and in that He redeemed us.  he is our Lord also through our knowledge and love of Him.  We also are His servants; by the special claim He has to our life, by our holy vocation; therefore His interests are in a special sense ours.  Again, our Lord naturally suggests Him Who by mortal birth is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh (Gen 2:23); our Elder Brother, Who has shown to us the infinite tenderness and love of the Father.

How admirable is Thy name: The name of God implying perfection, all beauty, all riches, all power, all wisdom, and implying also that sweetest of all relations, taught us by our Lord Himself, the Divine Fatherhood.  But the name of our Lord is still more admirable; for it is the name of Jesus, name above all other names at which every knee shall bow (Phil 2:10); the name which is the joy of the faithful and the true revelation of the Father.

8:2  For Thy magnificence is lifted up above the heavens.

Commentators take this for the most part literally of the Ascension according to the words of St Paul: Who descended, He it is also Who ascended above all the heavens that He might fill all things (Eph 4:10); For then Christ, sitting at the right hand of  God the Father, sent the Holy Ghost and charged His Apostles to speak salvation in His Name as the only means of reaching heaven, and that He was constituted Judge of the living and the dead (Acts 10:42).  Others, and especially the Angelic doctor, see here implied the infinite distance between Christ Who is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24), and the very highest of the saints; not only the Apostles or the angels, but even Her who bare Him, Her whom Christian singers delight in styling the “new heaven.”  Father Lorin takes these words as implying the magnificence of glory of God is far beyond what we can gather from the Scriptures, which tell us of the mysteries of heaven, or from those wonderful manifestations of His power and wisdom, the seven sacraments.

8:3  Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou has perfected praise because of Thine enemies, that Thou mightest destroy the enemy and the avenger.

Literally, the Holy Innocents who thus glorified Christ by their death, and they cried Hosanna by their acclamations, as he Himself hath taught us (Matt 21:16).  Spiritually, the weaker members of the Church of whom the  Apostle writes: I have fed you with milk and not with strong meat (1 Cor 3;2).  And again, those who had the innocence and simplicity of babes; as the first-born of the Church, the Apostle, who, taught by their Lord to speak, fed by Him, like new-born babes with the sincere milk of the word (1 Pet 2:2), and called by Him His children (Jn 21:5).  So teach the Carmelite Angriani and Perez.  Also we may understand it of all religious souls who, in simplicity and innocence, look to God alone and receive from Him their meat in due season, the food of their souls, by the teaching of the Holy Ghost ever whispering to their conscience.

Because of thine enemies- for their conversion; or, if they will not turn, from their destruction, as it is written: The arrows of the little ones are made their wounds (Ps 63:8).

That Thou mightest destroy the enemy: for God has chosen the weak things of this world to confound the wise.

Avenger: Not only tyrants and unbelieving nations whom God has at various times raised up to chastise a sinful people, but the evil spirit himself who is only an instrument in his Creator’s hands, and whose power, like those other avengers, will be destroyed when the good designed to be done through them is accomplished.

2:4  For I see Thy heavens, the works of Thy fingers: the moon, and the stars, which Thou hast established.

The heavens, the works of Thy fingers: The whole course of events under God’s Providence, Who has declared that all things should work together for good to them that love Him (Rom 8:28).  Thy fingers, not hands, because, as St John Chrysostom says, this is but a small thing for God’s omnipotence.  .

The moon, that is, the Church, which is constantly renewed and receives all her light from the true Sun.  The stars, the Saints of God, as it is written: They that turn many to righteousness shall shines as the stars forever (Dan 12:3).  Note: He mentions not the sun, because the Sun of Righteousness (Mal 4:4, or, in some translations 3:20) was begotten not made.  Thus St Ambrose.  Again, the moon, says Jorgius, who was the confessor of Edward the First, denotes our ever dear and blessed Lady; and that for various reasons: as the moon draws all its brightness from the sun, and yet it is the most luminous object next to it, so Mary, made full of grace by Him whose countenance is as the sun shining in his strength (Rev 1:16), is the brightest of all the saints.  And yet, as the moon is nearest to earth, so our Lady is the lowliest of all in her humility.  As the moon rules the tides, so Mary by her prayers helps those who are tossed on the bitter surges of the world.  And as Easter, the festival of the Resurrection, follows the course of the moon, so the spiritual arising of the Man by the Incarnation followed the consent of Mary’s will to the message of the Angel.  The choirs of angels which are her fellows (Ps 44:15) and bear her company, are rightly compared to the stars; only less than the moon in glory and beauty.

8:5  What is Man that Thou art mindful of him? or the Son of Man that Thou visitest him?

When, therefore, the prophet considers all the things tending to man’s salvation, the Providence whereby all events work together for his good, the Church given him as a mother, the saints as examples and friends, his thoughts are naturally carried back to the one source of all, which is the Incarnation.  What is Man? The Psalmist answers in another place, Every man is bu vanity (Ps 39:12); and again, All men are liars (Ps 117:10).  Man: taken absolutely, as a sinner: the  Son of Man, those who are endeavoring to keep the law of God.  Thus St Augustine.  Also the Son of Man, our Lord’s own description of Himself.  In this sense the term is to be understood of His headship over the mystical body.

Visitest the Incarnation, was God visiting His people, as it is written: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His People (Lk 1:68).  And again, Thou visitest the earth and blessed it (Ps 65:9).

8:6  Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, with glory and honor hast Thou crowned him: and Thou hast set him above all the works of Thy hand.

The Carmelite says: For as much as Christ went not up unto joy, but first suffered pain, so here we see Him in His low estate first, and then in His glory; for the humility of His Passion was the merit of His exaltation.

Lower than the angels, in that He condescends to become mortal and passable.  A little lower:  And what marvel, then, of speaking in respect of His humanity, He saith: My Father is greater than I! (Jn 14:28).

With glory, as respects Himself; with worship, in reference to others.  Thus St Basil.  Again, a little lower, for it was but for a short time-a little, because He was mortal and passable of His own free will, and not like us, of necessity.  Glory, in the victory of the Resurrection; honor, on the throne of the Ascension.  And note, as St Albert the Great says, Christ is said to have many crowns, of which the chief are: the Crown of Mercy, wherewith He was crowned in the Incarnation and Nativity; the Crown of Sorrow, when the thorny diadem of the passion was given Him; that of Glory in the Resurrection and Ascension; and that of Dominion, which He will receive when the Court of the Redeemed gathers around Him.

Over the works of Thy hands: and therefore over those angels than whom for a season He was made a little lower.

8:7  All things Thou hast out beneath His feet, sheep and all oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field.

All things Thou hast put beneath His feet. Let the Apostle interpret: In that He put all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that is not put under Him (Heb 2:8).  But when He saith all things are put under Him, it is manifest that He is excepted Who did put all things under Him (1 Cor 15:27).  Note in these three verses of the Psalm we have the four living creatures of the Apocalypse (4:7) for these might denote the four parts of Christ’s works of mercy, as well as the four Evangelists.  What is man? Here we have the face of a man.  Thou hast made Him a little lower than the angels, there we have the ox, the animal fit for sacrifice; Thou hast crowned Him with glory and honor, there the victorious lion; Thou hast put all things under His feet, there the eagle that soars above everything else.  So thinks Rupertus.

Beneath His feet.  As the head of Christ is His Divinity, so His feet are His manhood; and to Him, as Man, is given the empire, which, as God, was always His, Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature…that in all things He might have the headship (Col 1:15, 18).

Sheep: By these we understand those whose business in Christ’s Church is not to teach but to learn: My sheep hear My voice (Jn 10:27).

And all oxen: Those who labor in His word and doctrine; according to that saying of St Paul, quoting from Deuteronomy 5:4, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn (1 Cor 9:9).  For by these great profit is obtained in His Church; as it is written: Much increase is by the strength of the ox (Prov 14:4).

Yea: The word shows that a change of subject is made, namely, from the good to the wicked.

The beasts of the field: Those that own no master, but follow their own hearts’ lusts, like brute beasts, as St Peter teaches, made to be taken and destroyed (2 Pt 2:12).  For the wicked as well as the good are made subject to Christ.  Thus St Bruno, of Aste-Perez remarks, not only are the sheep, the lowly and the docile who hear the voice of the Shepherd, put under Him, but even the oxen, the powerful rulers of the earth; and the beasts of the field, the wandering and barbarous tribes which knew no law before.

8:8  The fowls of the air and the fishes of the sea, and whatsoever walketh through the paths of the seas.

The fowls of the air are the saints who rise above the world, but only by means of the sign of the Cross (A bird with extended wings forms a cross).

The fishes of the sea: ordinary Christians regenerated of water and of the Holy Ghost, and who are made fellows of Jesus Christ, the Divine Fish (The fish was an ancient symbol for Christ found throughout the catacombs.  The Greek letters for fish form an acrostic: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior).

And whatsoever bad, as well as good, unholy, no less than holy; walketh through the paths of the seas, that is, exposed to the waves and storms of this troublesome world.  Thus Casiodorus.  But St Augustine will have the fowls of the air to be the proud and the ambitious, the fishes those who are restless and acquisitive.  While others see in the winged fowls the angels; in the fishes the evil spirits of the Abyss; or again, in a good sense the dwellers in the isles afar, and mariners in them who walk through the paths of the seas.  So Perez.

8:9  O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is Thy Name in all the world.

Admirable, not only because He is very God, as set forth in the first verse, but also because He is very Man, as taught in the succeeding verses.  Teh beginning and the ending of this Psalm is the same, as being in His praise Who is the First and the Last (Rev 22:13), the same yesterday, today, and for ever (Heb 13:8).

The Doxology: Glory be to the Father Who hath put all things under the feet of the Son of Man; Glory be to the Son Who vouchsafed to become Son of Man, made lower than the angels, but now crowned with glory and honor as Priest and King and Prophet; Glory be to the Holy Ghost, the Finger of God’s right hand by Whom the heavens were made.

On The Way Of The Cross: The Fifth Station

To see the other stations published so far go HERE.

And as they led him away, having taken hold on Simon, a certain Cyrenian, coming from the field, they put on him the cross, to bear it behind Jesus (Lk 23:26).

But we preach Christ crucified: unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock, and unto the Gentiles foolishness: But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than men: and the weakness of God is stronger than men.  For see your vocation, brethren, that there are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble.  But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise: and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong.  And the base things of the world and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen: and things that are not, that he might bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his sight (1 Cor 1:23-29).

Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart and a humble mind.  Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless, for to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing.  For “He that would love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile;  let him turn away from evil and do right; let him seek peace and pursue it.  For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those that do evil.”  Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is right?  But even if you do suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence; and keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are abused, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.  For it is better to suffer for doing right, if that should be God’s will, than for doing wrong.
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit (1 Pet 3:8-18).

The end of all things is at hand; therefore keep sane and sober for your prayers.  Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins.  Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another.  As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace (1 Pet 4:7-19)

My most sweet Jesus, I will not refuse the cross as the Cyrenian did; I accept it, I embrace it (St Alphonsus De Liguori).

The cross began to torture Jesus Christ before he was nailed upon it; for after he was condemned by Pilate, the cross on which he was to die was given him to carry to Calvary, and, without refusing, he took it upon his shoulders.  Speaking of this, St Augustine: “If we regard the wickedness of his tormentors, the insult was great; if we regard the love of Jesus, the mystery is great; for in carrying the cross, our Captain then lifted up the standard under which his followers upon this earth must be enrolled and must fight, in order to be made his companions in the kingdom of heaven.”

St Basil, speaking of the passage in Isaiah, a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon His shoulder (Isa 9:6), says, “that earthly tyrants load their subjects with unjust burdens, in order to increase their own power; but Jesus Christ chose to take upon himself the burden of the cross, and to carry it, in order to leave life to us therein, that he might obtain salvation for us.”  He further remarks that the kings of the earth found their kingdoms in the force of arms and in the heaping up of riches; but Jesus Christ founded his kingdom in the insults of the cross,-that is, in humbling himself and in suffering,-and on this account he willingly accepted it, and carries it on that painful journey, in order, by his example, to give us courage to embrace with resignation every cross, and thus to follow him.  Wherefore, also, he said to his disciples, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.

It is useful here to note the beautiful expressions applied to the cross by St John Chrysostom:

He calls it the hope of the despairing; for what hope of salvation would sinners have were it not for the cross on which Jesus Christ died to save them?

He calls it the guide of the voyager; for the humiliation of the cross (that is, of tribulation) is the cause which, in this life that is like a sea of dangers, gives us grce to keep the divine law, and to amend ourselves after our transgressions; as the prophet says, It is good for me that Thou hast humbled me, that I may learn Thy justifications (Vulgate: Ps 118:71).

He calls it The counselor of the just; because in adversities the just learn wisdom, and gain motives for uniting themselves more closely to God.

He calls it the rest of the troubled; for where can the troubled find relief but in beholding that cross on which their Redeemer and God died of pain for love of them?

He calls it the glorying of the martyrs; because in this consists the glory of the holy martyrs, that they were able to unite their deaths to the pains and death which Jesus Christ suffered on the cross; as St Paul says, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal 6:14).

He calls it the physician of the sick; and great indeed is the remedy of the cross to those who are sick in spirit; tribulations make them repent, and detach them from the world.

He calls it the fount for the thirsty; the cross, that is, suffering for Jesus Christ, being the desire of the saints, as St Teresa was wont to say, “Oh that I might suffer! oh that I might die!”  and as St Mary Magdalen of Pazzi said, “May I suffer, and not die;” meaning that she would refuse to die and to go to rejoice in heaven, in order that she might continue to suffer upon this earth.

Finally, to speak of all alike, both the just and sinners, every one has his own cross.  The just, though they enjoy peace of conscience, yet all have their vicissitudes; at one time they are comforted by visits of divine mercy, at another they are afflicted by bodily vexations and infirmities, and especially by desolation of spirit, by darkness and weariness, by scruples and temptations, and by fears for their own salvation.  Much heavier are the crosses of sinners, through remorse of conscience, through the terrors of eternal punishment, which from time to time affright them, and through the pains they suffer when things go wrong with them.  The saints, when adversities befall them, unite themselves with the divine will, and suffer them with patience; but how can the sinner calm himself by recollecting the divine will, when he is living at enmity with God?  The pains of the enemies of God are unmixed pains, without relief.  Wherefore St Teresa was wont to say “that he who loves God embraces the cross, and thus does not feel it; while he who does not love him drags the cross along by force and thus cannot bu feel it.”THE PASSION AND DEATH OF JESUS CHRIST, by St Alphonsus De Liguori

A Patristic/Medieval Commentary On Psalm 5

The Title: English Version: To the Chief Musician upon Nehiloth, a Psalm of David. LXX.: To the end; for the heiress, a Psalm of David. Vulgate: In finem, pr ea haereditatem consequitur; Psalmus David. Or, as modern critics: To the Supreme; on the wind instruments; a Psalm of David.

The argument: St Thomas: That the Christ is the inhabiter of the Saints, the hearer of the Church.  The voice of the Church.  Christ speaketh to the Father concerning the Jews, and to the Church which hath received the heritage of Paradise, not of the Old Testament, as the title of the Psalm proves.

Venerable Bede: To the end: for her that obtaineth the inheritance.  That is, for the Church, who by the Resurrection of Christ, has received the gift of spiritual good; and who herself is sometimes called the heritage of the Lord, since by His precious Blood she hath been redeemed.  Whence it is written in the second Psalm: Desire of Me, and I shall give thee the Gentiles for thine heritage.”  All this Psalm is spoken in the person of the Church.  In the first section she desireth that her prayer may be heard, and showeth how heretics and schismatics are shut out from the gifts of the Lord.  In the second, she maketh request that, through the understanding of Holy Scripture, she may be led in a right path to that happy country, from whence she knoweth that they who are treacherous will be for ever shut out.  In the last she setteth forth the rewards of the blessed, that in one and the same discourse she may convert the wicked by the prediction of their punishment, and excite the good by the promise of their reward.

Syriac Psalter: A prayer of David in the person of the Church when in the morning he went up to the temple of the Lord.

Note: at this point the author gives a list of various uses to which the Psalm was put in the patristic/medieval period; followed by a list of antiphons commonly used.  I have appended these to the end of the post.

1.  Ponder my words, O Lord: consider my meditation.

Here we distinguish two kinds of prayer: words and meditations.  Words may refer both to that form of prayer which Our Blessed Lord has left us, and to those prayers which, by His teaching, His Church has provided for her children.  Meditations, to the thoughts and desires of our heart, whether put into, or ascending without, words.  We call upon God to ponder the first, to weigh their full meaning, oftentimes more than we are aware of, and to give us according to that: to consider the second, bestowing on us what He sees to be good among the things which we ask, and regarding our meaning rather than our expressions.

2.  O hearken thou unto the voice of my calling, my King and my God: for unto thee will I make my prayer.

Note: there are three things which make prayer acceptable to God; faithfulness, humility, and assiduity; and we have them all here.  Faithfulness: my King, showing that we are subjects to none other.  Humility: I will look up.  Assiduity: Early in the morning.  My King and my God.  By King we understand the Son, by God, the Father.  And the reason of this order of the words may be, that by Christ we draw near to the Father, as He saith: “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me” (Jn 14:6).

[All Three Persons of the Holy Trinity are marked in the opening of this Psalm, in the three titles, Lord, King, and God, but the verb is singular, denoting the indivisible Unity].

3.  My voice shalt thou hear betimes, O Lord: early in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.

In the morning. This may be expounded in several senses: first, of diligence in seeking God, not only in the morning, but early in the morning.  Again, of purity; the morning being the clearest and purest time of the day.  Again, the night may be taken of the darkness of original sin: the the illumination of Baptism is signified by the morning.  And literally, David appointed by the Levites to stand every morning, to thank and praise the Lord (1 Chron 23:30).  Look up, because looking down to the earth we can obtain no real help.

[Early in the morning, that is, as soon as Christ, Who is the bright and morning Star, arises on our darkened heart, I will begin to pray (Rev 22:16).  Early in the Resurrection morning, which has no night, I will stand by Thee (Vulgate) at Thy right hand, and will behold (Vulg.) Thy righteous judgments.  Early, because Divine grace is like the manna, which had to be gathered before the sun arose to melt it (Ex 16:21).  Early in the morning, says Rabbi Rasi, because we are guilty sinners, and that is the time of judgment and execution, according to the saying of the Prophet: "Execute judgment in the morning" (Jer 1:12).  Direct the Hebrew verb means "set in order," and is that word which is used to denote the arrangement of the wood or the victims for sacrifice, and therefore denotes either sacrificial worship, or the care and deliberation with which prayer should be offered.  The words my prayer are not in the Hebrew, but are rightly supplied.  Observe further, that the seven stages of true prayer are all set before us in these verses, and in the seventh.  First, right intention: My voice shalt Thou hear; secondly, eagerness: betimes; thirdly, constancy: Early in the morning I will direct my prayer unto Thee; fourthly, a pure conscience: and will look up.  The three other stages are,-union with God: I will come into Thy house; confidence: in the multitude of Thy mercies; and reverence: I will worship.  Look up, in this life, for help, and yet more ponder on the Divine mysteries of the New Law.  Look up, in the life to come, on the ineffable glory and the Beatific Vision.  Some Greek texts, and the Arabic version, read here, Thou shalt see me; and the Syriac and Ethiopic are nearly the same: I shall appear unto Thee.  It is David, observes a Saint, calling on God in trouble, and saying, "Thou hast seen me a shepherd, Thou wilt see me a king.  Thou hast seen me harping (i.e., playing the harp), Thou wilt see me prophesying].

4.  For thou art the God that hast no pleasure in wickedness: neither shall any evil dwell with thee.

The God: Not like the many gods and many lords of the heathen, which were so often served by, and took pleasure in, wickedness.  He saith not, Come unto Thee, but dwell with Thee; for it was in order that, being made clean, they might dwell with Him for ever, that publicans and sinners came into the presence of the Lord.

5.  Such as be foolish shall not stand in thy sight: for thou hatest all them that work vanity.

In this and the next verse are set forth three kinds of sinners who are not to stand in the presence of God; the foolish, that is, sinners in thought (for “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God”); them that work wickedness, that is, sinners in deed; and them that speak leasing, that is, sinners in words.  Shall not stand in Thy sight: They shall not in this world stand in His sight- even in His holy temple- because they will it not; and because they will it not, they shall not then stand in His sight before His Judgment seat, but will be swept from His presence.  That work vanity: Note the present tense.  It does not say “Those who have worked vanity,” for if such were the case, who among the children of men could hope to stand?  (The sense seems to be that the phrase, that work vanity, applies to the unrepentant who come to judgment).

6.  Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the Lord will abhor the blood-thirsty and deceitful man.

Will abhor: That is, thou He now abhors them, He will in the last day manifest His abhorrence by condemning them to everlasting destruction.  Note: the sins of hte heart are visited as if they were sins of action.  Blood-thirsty, not bloody; deceitful, not an open liar.

7.  But as for me, I will come into thine house, even upon the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.

And yet, nevertheless, we who have so often and so grievously offended both in thought, word, and deed, will come into the House of God; and can only do so upon the multitude of His mercy.  Or if prevented from actually going up hither, like Daniel (6:10), who when he made his prayer looked towards Jerusalem, we will worship towards His holy temple. Again, the words may be taken of that heavenly house into which we one day hope to enter, and of the Lamb Who is the Temple thereof (Rev 1:22).

[In Thine house: As a stone let into the very substance of the building, never more to go out.  Toward, not "in", Thy holy temple, doing reverence to the human Body of Christ Jesus, the true sanctuary of God, in which dwelt all His fulness, the temple destroyed by the Jews, and raised up again in three days].

8.  Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness, because of mine enemies: make thy way plain before my face.

And because in attaining to this celestial dwelling, we are surrounded by many enemies, we therefore call upon God to lead us in His righteousness, even Christ Who is the Way.  Because of mine enemies: In a twofold sense; that they may be preserved from hurting us, or that we may be enabled to do them good.  Before my face: That there may be no turning back from it; no “ye did run well” (Gal 5:7).  Or again, that the true Way, our blessed Lord, may be more and more plainly manifested to us; and that we may more and more trustfully look to Him.

[Make Thy way plain: There is an especial pathos in selecting this verse as the Antiphon for that Office of the Dead which takes its name Dirge from the Vulgate Dirige, here found.  It is the cry of the parting soul, about to begin its mystic journey to another world, by a road beset with ghostly enemies, can calling on God for help against them and for light and guidance by the way.

Through death's valley, dim and dark,
Jesus guide thee in the gloom,
Show thee where His footprints mark
Tracks of glory through the tomb.
Grant him, Lord, eternal rest,
With the spirits of the blest.

It is Thy way before my face in the Hebrew and in the English versions.  The LXX, Vulgate, and Ethiopic read it conversely, my way before Thy face.  God's way is before our face when we are following Christ, Who is the Way; our way is before God's Face, when having gone in that Way from strength to strength, we appear at the last unto the God of gods in Zion (Ps 84:7)].

9.  For there is not faithfulness in his mouth: their inward parts are very wickedness.

For their is no faithfulness: and therefore, since there are so many that would lead us into error, we the more require that God’s way may b mead plain to us.  In his mouth…their inward parts are very wickedness: As our blessed Lord says, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matt 12:24).

10.  Their throat is an open sepulchre: they flatter with their tongue.

An open sepulchre: Dangerous and noisome, and as silent in the praises of God, as the tomb.  The two clauses set forth the open and secret endeavors of her enemies to destroy or injure the Church, and they thus also doubly attacked our Lord.  Openly, as when they said, “He hath a devil”; and when “they took up stones to stone Him” (Jn 8:48, 59); as when they “led Him to the brow of a hill” to cast Him down (Lk 4:29).  Secretly, as when tempting Him, they said, “We know that Thou art true” (Matt 22:16); and as when Judas betrayed Him with a kiss.

[An open sepulchre: And so more dangerous even than hypocrites, who are like sepulchres closed and whited outwardly.  Open, because they are gaping to swallow up the labors of others, as the grave gapes for bodies.  Open, because their soul is not only dead in sins, but emits it noisome savor in evil words of heresy, which bring others down into the same tomb of unrighteousness.  They would do less harm were they silent].

11.  Destroy thou them, O God; let them perish through their own imaginations: cast them out in the multitude of their ungodliness; for they have rebelled against thee.

Let them perish: This is the first instance of that praying for evil on others which has so much perplexed some with the Psalms, and which, as clearly as anything else, shows that they are to be taken in a sense above that of the letter.  (This subject is referred to in the Third Dissertation).  But if we always apply such expressions to our spiritual enemies, the difficulty will disappear.  Through their own imaginations: Like Gehazi, who thought to obtain the gold, and was visited with the leprosy, of Naaman (2 Kings 5)

[Destroy them: The LXX and Vulgate read, Judge them. Modern critics take it as: Make them repent.  Let them perish by their own imaginations: The LXX and the Vulgate are somewhat nearer to the Hebrew, reading, as they do, Let them fall away from their thoughts, that is, let them abandon, or be baffled in, their evil plans, or, let their own consciences accuse and condemn them.  Cast them out: So long as the sinner hides his guilt, he is within the grave.  But when the voice of the Lord calls on any Lazarus to come forth (Jn 11:43), then, by moving him to confession, He casts him out of darkness into light in this life, that he may not be cast out of light into outer darkness in the world to come.  Rebelled: The LXX and Vulgate read, embittered Thee. By their own sin, making that Bread of Life which is sweet to the taste of the righteous, a bitter poison to them.

This is the Bread which, taken well,
Preserveth from the flames of hell,
But is of death eternal knell
To them that take it ill.

12.  And let them that put their trust in thee rejoice: they shall ever be giving of thanks, because thou defendest them; they that love thy name shall be joyful in thee.

[Thou defendest them: LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate read, "Thou shalt dwell in them."  The Ethiopic, yet better reads, "Thou shalt dwell over them."  As a sheltering tent, notes Cardinal Bellarmine, but we may better take the Lord's own simile, as a bird gathering her young under her wings (see Matt 23:37)]

13.  For thou, Lord, wilt give thy blessing unto the righteous: and with thy favorable kindness wilt thou defend him as with a shield.

In these verses we have the help of God promised in His Church.  Where note three things.  1. It is eternal: they shall EVER be giving of thanks.  2. Divine: THOU defendest them. 3. Free: Thou wilt GIVE Thy blessing.  And what then matters it who scorns or injures us?  If God be for us, who can be against us?  The Vulgate translation somewhat differs from ours: For Thou shalt give Thy blessing to the righteous: O Lord, Thou has crowned us as with the shield of Thy good-will. “In the life of this world,” says St Jerome, “a shield is one thing, and a crown another: God Himself is both Crown and Shield.  As a shield, He defends; as a crown, He rewards.”  Well, then, may the Church pray in one of  her sweetest hymns:

Thy guardian shield o’er us extend,
Thy glorious sheepfold to defend.

[Wherefore:  Glory be to the Father, unto Whom is said, Ponder my words, O Lord; glory be to the Son, unto Whom is said, Consider my meditation; glory be to the Holy Spirit, unto whom is said, Hearken Thou unto the voice of my calling. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end.  Amen.

Various uses:

Gregorian: Monday: Lauds.  [Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross: II Nocturn.  Feast of the Crown of Thorns, and of the Nails and Spear: II Nocturn.  Feasts of Sts Agnes and Agatha: II Nocturn.  Common of One Martyr: II Nocturn.  Common of Confessors: II Nocturn.  Office of the Dead: Lauds].

Monastic: Ferial; Monday: Lauds.  [Common of One Martyr and of Confessors: I Nocturn].

Parisian: Wednesday: Lauds.

Lyons: Monday: Lauds.

Ambosian: Monday of the First Week: Matins.

Quignon: Tuesday: Prime.

Eastern Church: Prime.

Antiphons:

Gregorian: Ponder my words, O Lord. [Office for the Dead: Make Thy way plain, O Lord my God, before Thy face.  Common of one Martyr: Thou hast crowned him with the shield of Thy good will, O Lord.  Common of Confessors: Let all them that put their trust in Thee, O Lord, rejoice, for Thou hast blessed the righteous, and crowned him with the shield of Thy good will].

Parisian: All they that hope in Thee shall ever be giving of thanks, and Thou shalt dwell in them.

Lyons: Consider my crying, O Lord.

Mozarabic: My voice shalt Thou hear betimes, O Lord.  Early in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up.

Collects:

O merciful Lord, Who understandest the groaning of the contrite heart before it is expressed; make us, we pray Thee, the Temple of the Paraclete, to the end that we may merit to be crowned with the shield of celestial mercy.-Attributed to St Thomas Aquinas.

Our King and our God, repel from our hearts the night of error and ignorance, so that renewing us into a new man, Thou mayest in the morning hear our voice.  Grant that we may very early by good works present ourselves to Thee, and vouchsafe that we may contemplate Thee in the Sacrament of Thy Resurrection-Mozarabic, at Eastertide.

O God, Who hatest all that work iniquity, fill us with the strength of Thy love; that they may at some time turn to Thee and bitterly lament their sins, who now speaks falsely against Thee.-Mozarabic, at Eastertide.

O Lord, the expectation of our salvation, receive the prayers of them that call upon Thee: Thou that art the discoverer of hidden things, give ear to the hidden cry of the heart; that those things which we tremble to have committed and blush to confess, Thou, our King, mayest forgive of Thy clemency, and blot out of Thy goodness; so that our supplication may arise to Thee in the morning, and the good gifts of Thy mercy may descend on us right early.Mazarabic, during Lent.

O our King and God, lead us in Thy righteousness because of our enemies, and direct my way in Thy sight, that Thou mayest ever rejoice and dwell in us, who re crowned with the shield of Thy good-will.

The Sign of the Son Of Man

But immediately after the oppression of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of heaven will be shaken; and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. He will send out his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together his chosen ones from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other. (Mt 24:29-30 WEB Bible)

Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near. (Luke 21:28 RSV)

Many of the early Church fathers believed that the sign of the Son of Man would be the cross appearing in the sky:

“That sign by which the heavenly things were made, that is, the power which the Son of Man wrought when he hung upon the cross. And the sign shall appear in the heaven, that men of all tribes who before had not believed in Christianity when preached, then by that sign, acknowledging it is made plain, shall grieve and mourn for their ignorance and sins… But as, at the dispensation of the Cross (the crucifixion), the sun was eclipsed, and darkness was spread over the earth; so when the sign of the Son of Man appears in heaven, the light of the sun, moon, and stars, shall fail, as though waning before the might of that sign. This we understand to be the sign of the cross… as Zechariah and John speak of: “they shall look on him whom they have pierced,” and the sign of victory. (see Zech 12:10 and John 19:37) (Origin, quoted in THE CATENA AUREA by St Thomas Aquinas, pg 501)

“But because the sun will be darkened, the cross would not be seen, if it were not far brighter than the rays of the sun. That the disciples might not be ashamed, and grieve over the cross, he speaks of it as a sign, with a kind of distinction. The sign of the cross will appear to overthrow the shamelessness of the Jews, when Christ shall appear in judgment, showing not only his wounds, but his most ignominious death, “and then all the tribes of the earth shall mourn.” For when they shall see the cross, they shall bethink them how they have gained naught by his death, and that they have crucified him whom they ought to have worshiped.” (St John Chrysostom, Quoted in CATENA AUREA)

“You will ask, what is the sign of the Son of Man, that is to say, of Christ Incarnate? I answer, it is the Cross. For this is the sign, because it is the standard of Christ, and the cause of the victory of believers. And as it was in times past the scandal of unbelievers and the impious, so will it be in the Day of Judgment their condemnation and punishment. So the Fathers, almost universally taught. Yea, the Church herself gives this meaning he r sanction, when she sings in the office for the Holy Cross: This sign of the Cross shall be in heaven when the Lord shall come to judge.” There are three reasons why the Cross shall appear: 1st. To signify that Christ by the Cross has merited this judicial power and glory. 2nd. To show that Christ was crucified for the salvation of all men, and that therefore they are ungrateful and without excuse who have neglected so grat grace and love. 3rd. To show that all worshipers of Christ crucified shall be then exalted with Him to Heaven, and all who hate and despise Him cast down to hell.” (The Great Commentary Of Cornelius a Lapide, The Holy Gospel According To Matthew, volume 3)

(The crucifixion of Jesus and the darkening of the sun. A woodcut by Gustav Dore)

New Podcast Series On Pope’s Jesus Of Nazareth

Dane from CatholicClasses.org alerted me to the podcast their site is hosting.  The first talk can be heard:  HERE.  Don’t let the musical introduction or the introductory banter turn you off.  In this podcast they look at the Pope’s forward to the book, along with his introduction.

When An Amateur Theologian Attacks

Mister Jay Dyer, a self-proclaimed “amateur theologian” who, apparently on the basis of this grand status he has conferred upon himself, decided to defect from Catholicism to Orthodoxy has now, on the same basis, accused Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) of Nestorianism. Nestorianism is defined as the belief that Jesus was two persons with two natures united in a single subsistent entity. Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say on the matter:

466 The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God’s Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed “that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man.” ⁸⁹ Christ’s humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: “Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh.” ⁹⁰ (Source)

Is Ratzinger a Nestorain? Does he contradict the ancient Doctrine? Before answering these questions, it would, I think, be a good idea to inquire into the competence of Mister Dyer to answer them.

Dyer the Amateur Theologian

It is logic which put the “logy” in theology. Is mister Dyer possessed of the logic necessary to undertake theology? I do not believe he is.

Mister Taylor Marshall, of the CANTERBURY TALES blog responded to Dyer as follows:

Some Eastern Orthodox bloggers… have accused the Holy Father of heresy – Nestorianism no less! They have found two quotations in Ratzinger’s God and the World (pp. 293-294) that they believe proves that Benedict XVI is heretical.

I took a look at the quotes and they are not as tight as one might expect, but I think that one should first check the English translation of the work. It may be just fine in the German. The Ratzinger zinger-line is this one, which does sound a little strange:

“[Mary] was in the sense of having been the mother of the man that was entirely at one with God.”

One would expect “the mother of the person” because “man” in English does not necessarily mean “person”. But we don’t know what it was in German. Also, we should be willing to grant that Cardinal Ratzinger was not being absolutely precise. I don’t think that makes him a formal heretic. I guarantee that if you asked him personally, the Holy Father would provide a beautiful and orthodox account of the incarnation.

To which Mister Dyer responds:

The real zinger, is, in fact, the later statement:

“The Greek theologian Maximus the Confessor depicts this process in a particularly impressive way. He shows us how the “alchemy of being” is accomplished in the prayer on the Mount of Olives. Here, Jesus’ will becomes one with the will of the Son and, thereby, with the will of the Father. All the rebelliousness of human nature, which shuts itself against death and against the horrors he can see, comes to the surface in this prayer. Jesus has to overcome man’s inward resistance against God. He must overcome the temptation to do it some other way. And now this temptation reaches its zenith. Only the breakdown of this resistance makes this yes possible. It ends with the fusion of his own individual, human will into the will of God, and thus, with a single petition: “But let not my will, but your will, be done (God and World, pg. 327).”

There is no sense in which Jesus united himself to the Son of God. And I’ve had 2 years of German, so this is no German mistake.

Whether Dyer truly understand Ratzinger’s quoted statement here will be dealt with below; for now I wish to focus on this self-proclaimed amateur theologian’s expertise as a German linguist. Notice that mister Dyer nowhere quotes or analyzes the German text. Indeed, he never even tells us he has read it. When Father Al “the Pontificator” Kimel presented an english translation of the German text done by a German friend of his, Mister Dyer did not dispute it; nor did he present us with his own translation; he simply ignored it.

“And I’ve had two years of German, so this is no German mistake.” First of all, the possibility of a mistake isn’t about the German; rather, it’s about the English translation. Notice that the “this” in the quote refers not to the German text, but to the English. If I understand him correctly, the scatologian is claiming to be able to assure the validity of the English translation by working it back into German, after all, he has made no reference to the actual German. It needs hardly be said that, if this is what he intends with the above statement, then it is illogical. If I read an English translation of a German math book and suspect that the equation “two plus two equals five” is erroneous, then I cannot simply re=translate that text back into German because I’ll see the same suspected error. One can only establish the validity of a translation by comparing it to the original language text.

Several people noted that some of the quotes he gave of Ratzinger were capable of being understood in an un-orthodox sense but were not necessarily so. It was further noted that Ratzinger was giving and interview, not writing a carefully crafted theological tome. To bolster their arguments some respondents to Dyer appealed to theological works of Ratzinger which were unequivocally orthodox, to them Dyer replied:

Also, again, it doesn’t matter what Ratzinger says in some other place, when this statement is heretical. Its always been the province of heretics to cloak their words in ambiguity. So, quoting him somewhere else begs the question.

Try putting that into an Aristotelean syllogism and the only thing one would come up with is a Dyerian sillygism.

State of the question: Is such and such a statement by Ratzinger Nestorian?

Premise 1: Certainly this statement is Nestorian. Evidence to the contrary is to be ignored because

Premise 2: Ratzinger is a nestorian.

Conclusion: Ratzinger is a Nestorian.

Dyer the Moralist:

Father Al Kimel, in a response to Mister Dyer prefaced the response with this sound advice:

I agree that the two citations from Ratzinger are awkward and certainly vulnerable to a Nestorian construal; but before advancing the charge of heresy, one has a moral obligation to read the Pope’s published work and to understand his Christology. This Mr. Dyer has clearly not done.

I myself wrote:

From the Catechism: 2478 To avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor’s thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way:

Every good Christian ought to be more ready to give a favorable interpretation to another’s statement than to condemn it. But if he cannot do so, let him ask how the other understands it. And if the latter understands it badly, let the former correct him with love. If that does not suffice, let the Christian try all suitable ways to bring the other to a correct interpretation so that he may be saved.

Sound advice. However, Mister Dyer, it appears, will have none of it. He proof-texts a passage From Ratzinger’s writing, declares it heretical, and then, this amateur theologian, when presented with texts that don’t square with his declaration, wipes them away like snot on the end of his nose. ‘Fools!’ he says. ‘Et dilettante locuta est: causa finita est’ (the dilettante has spoken: the matter is finished). Then, to end with a comic flourish, he declares his opponents guilty of his own illogical crime: “…it doesn’t matter what Ratzinger says in some other place, when this statement is heretical. Its always been the province of heretics to cloak their words in ambiguity. So, quoting him somewhere else begs the question.”

So, why hasn’t Mister Dyer fulfilled his moral obligation? Apparently he feels he doesn’t have to because this particular moral obligation is a Catholic thing. Here is how he responded to me and my use of the catechism:

I’m not Novus Ordo anymore, so quoting the Novus Ordo catechism at me is meaningless.

The old adage that, “truth is where you find it,” which is so near and dear to both Eastern and Western Christianity, apparently no longer applies. It needs hardly be said that not paying attention to the requirements of the 8th commandment comes in very handy when a man wishes to engage in a hermeneutics of discontinuity.

So, is Ratzinger a heretic?

Dyer sees this quote from Ratzinger as heretical:

A Human Being as the Mother of God!

This is in fact a great paradox. God becomes small. He becomes man; he accepts thereby the limitations of human conception and childbirth. He has a mother and is truly woven into the tapestry of our human history, so that in fact a woman is able to say to him who is her child, a human child: the Lord of the world is within you.

Dyer sees the bold faced words as being heretical. It’s rather obvious however that this is only because he sees them in isolation from the rest of the text. First of all, as the context makes clear, Ratzinger is here repudiating Nestorianism. It needs hardly to be said that a man of average intelligence, who possessed a respect for the 8th commandment might begin to wonder if his understanding of Ratzinger’s words are correct. Notice first of all that the Cardinal’s words appear under the heading “A Human Being as the Mother of God!” Notice that those words are followed, not by a question mark, but by an exclamation point. Furthermore, notice how Ratzinger begins his statement: “God becomes small. He becomes man; he accepts thereby the limitation of human conception and childbirth. He has a mother…” The personal pronoun throughout relates to the God who “became small”. There is no indication of a change in personal pronoun. Dyer himself describes “the principle error” of the Nestorians as, “ascribing simultaneous personhoods to both the humanity and the divinity.” But it is rather clear, when one see the words Dyer finds objectionable in their context, that he has not ascribed a personhood other than the divine to the humanity of Jesus. So, let’s look again at the words Mister Dyer thinks heretical: “so that in fact a woman is able to say to him who is her child: the Lord of the world is within you.” Who is the “him” who is her child? Dyer would have us believe that it was the non-divine person of the Nestorians, but the introductory phrase is conjunctive: “so that in fact a woman can say to him…” So, who is the “him”?

the “God who became small;” he who became man and accepted the limitations of human conception and childbirth.

Ratzinger continues:

For a long time, there was a great deal of controversy about the expression Mother of God. There were the Nestorians, who said she did not of course give birth to God; she gave birth to the man Jesus. Accordingly she should be called the Mother of Christ, but not Mother of God. It was basically a matter of the question of how profound a unity there is between God and man in this person Jesus Christ, whether it is so great we can say, Yes, the one who is born of her is God, and so she is God’s Mother. Obviously she is not God’s Mother in the sense of his having come from her. But she was in the sense of having been the mother of the man that was entirely at one with God. In this way she entered into a quite unique union with God.

The words in italics in the above quote are what Dyer finds objectionable. He writes: “Did you get that? St. Mary gave birth to a ‘human child’ who has ‘God within him,’ and this child was a ‘man’ who was united with God”

But recall that Mister Dyer himself has stated that the Nestorians refused to admit that Mary could be called the Mother of God. With that in mind re-read this statement by Ratzinger: “Obviously she is not God’s mother in the sense of his having come from her. But she was in the sense of having been the mother of the man that was entirely at one with God.” Notice here that Ratzinger is not denying that Our Lady can be called Mother of God; rather, he is describing the sense in which that can be done. Because Mister Dyer wants to prove Ratzinger is a Nestorian he understand the reference to “the man” according to Nestorian theology. Take this assumptiion away, and the Cardinal’s words are orthodox. She is the Mother of God because she was the mother of the man that was entirely at one with God. It’s precisely this oneness that was accomplished by the incarnation when Mary became pregnant. Who was entirely at one with the man? The divine person of the son of God. This is how she can be termed Mother of God. This is how Ratzinger can speak (as we saw earlier) of God becoming small and accepting the limitations of conception and childbirth.

Mister Dyer Gives the following quote from Ratzinger:

“The Greek theologian Maximus the Confessor depicts this process in a particularly impressive way. He shows us how the “alchemy of being” is accomplished in the prayer on the Mount of Olives. Here, Jesus’ will becomes one with the will of the Son and, thereby, with the will of the Father. All the rebelliousness of human nature, which shuts itself against death and against the horrors he can see, comes to the surface in this prayer. Jesus has to overcome man’s inward resistance against God. He must overcome the temptation to do it some other way. And now this temptation reaches its zenith. Only the breakdown of this resistance makes this yes possible. It ends with the fusion of his own individual, human will into the will of God, and thus, with a single petition: “But let not my will, but your will, be done

Dyer comments:

This is astonishing, Did you notice that the human Jesus is said to unite his will with the will of the son! Then, he states the strange view that Jesus had a natural inclination against God, and after Jesus overcame this, he was united in will to God-God the Son. While it is true that there are two sills, these two wills pertain to the two natures in Christ, and not to two persons in moral conjuction.

Again Mister dyer insists on interpreting thing with the assumption that Ratzinger is a Nestorian.

First, regarding the statement that “he states the strange view that Jesus had a natural inclination against God.” No, that is not what he says. He speaks about the rebelliousness of human nature which Jesus sees in his prayer on Mount Olivet. The temptation Jesus experiences to “do it some other way” is clearly an outward temptation, not the product of his own human nature which was un-fallen. Perhaps this would have been a little clearer to Mister Dyer had he paid attention to the previous paragraph which he nowhere quotes:

Jesus can see the whole abyss of human filth and human awfulness, which he has to carry and through which he must make his way. In what he sees, which goes far beyond anything of which we can be aware — and even we can feel horribly sick if we take a look at the awfulness of human history, into the abyss of denial of God, which can destroy people — in this he sees how dreadful is the burden that is being laid upon him. This is not just anguish in the face of his execution; it is being confronted with the entire, fearful, abyss of human destiny, which he has to take upon himself.

As is clear from the above, along with the mention of the name St Maximus the Confessor, the “alchemy of being” refers to the fact that the one divine person, who possessed two natures showed forth the unity of those natures in one person in the prayer on Olivet. Rather than listening to the scatologian’s torturous eisegesis of the Cardinal’s theology ought not look at the Cardinal’s teaching itself?

“It is common enough for the theological textbooks to pay scant attention to the theological development which followed Chalcedon. In many ways on e is left with the impression that dogmatic Christology comes to a stop with a certain parallelism of the two natures in Christ. It was this same impression that led to the divisions in the wake of Chalcedon. In fact, however, the affirmation of the true humanity and the true divinity in Christ can only retain its meaning if the mode of the unity of both is clarified. The Council defined this unity by speaking of the `one Person’ in Christ, but it was a formula which remained to be explored in its implications. For the unity of divinity and humanity in Christ which brings `salvation’ to man is not a juxtaposition but a mutual indwelling. Only in this way can there be that genuine `becoming like God,’ without which there is no liberation and no freedom.

“It was to this question, after two centuries of dramatic struggles which also, in many ways, bore the mark of imperial politics, that the Third Council of Constantinople (680-681) addressed itself. On the one hand, it teaches that the unity of God and man in Christ involves no amputation or reduction in any way of human nature. In conjoining himself to man, his creature, God does not violate or diminish him; in doing so, he brings him for the first time to his real fullness. On the other hand (and this is no less important), it abolishes all dualism or parallelism of the two natures, such as had always seemed necessary in order to safeguard Jesus’ human freedom In such attempts it had been forgotten that when the human will is taken up into the will of God, freedom is not destroyed; indeed, only then does genuine freedom come into its own. The Council of Constantinople analyzed the question of the two-ness and the one-ness in Christ by reference to the concrete issue of the will of Jesus. It resolutely maintains that, as man, Jesus has a human will which is not absorbed by the divine will. But this human will follows the divine will and thus becomes one will with it, not in a natural manner but along the path of freedom. The metaphysical two-ness of a human and a divine will is not abrogated, but in the realm of the person, in the realm of freedom, the fusion of both takes place, with the result that they become one will not naturally, but personally. This free unity – a form of unity created by love – is higher and more interior than a merely natural unity. It corresponds to the highest unity there is, namely, Trinitarian unity. The Council illustrates this unity by citing a dominical word handed down to us in the Gospel of John: `I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me’ (Jn. 6, 38). Here it is the divine Logos who is speaking, and he speaks of the human will of the man Jesus as his will, the will of the Logos. With this exegesis of John 6, 38 the Council indicates the unity of the subject in Christ. There are not two `I’s in him, but only one. The Logos speaks in the I-form of the human will and mind of Jesus; it has become his I, has become adopted into his I, because the human will is completely one with the will of the Logos. United with the latter, it has become a pure Yes to the Father’s will.

Maximus the Confessor, the great theological interpreter of this second phase of the Christological dogma, illuminates this whole context by reference to Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives, which as we already saw in thesis I, expresses Jesus’ unique relationship to God. Indeed, it is as if we were actually looking in on the inner life of the Word-made-man. It is revealed to us I the sentence which remains the measure and model of all real prayer: `Not what I will, but what thou wilt’ (Mk. 14, 36). Jesus human will assimilates itself to the will of the Son. In doing this, he receives the Son’s identity, i.e., the complete subordination of the I to the Thou, the self-giving and self-expropriation of the I to the Thou. This is the very essence of him who is pure relation and pure act., Wherever the I gives itself to the Thou, there is freedom because this involves the reception of the `form of God.’ [The Absolute].

But we can also describe this process, and describe it better, from the other side: the Logos so humbles himself that he adopts a man’s will as his own and addresses the Father with te I of this human being; he transfers his own I to this man and thus transforms human speech into the eternal Word, into his blessed `Yes,’ Father.’ By imparting his own I, his own identity, to this human being, he liberates him, redeems him, makes him God. Now we can take the real meaning of `God has become man’ in both hands, as it were: the Son transforms the anguish of a man into his own filial obedience, the speech of the servant into the Word which is the Son.

Thus we come to grasp the manner of our liberation, our participation in the Son’s freedom. As a result of the unity of wills of which we have spoken, the greatest possible change has taken place in man, the only change which meets his desire: he has become divine. We can therefore describe that prayer which enters into the praying of Jesus and becomes the prayer of Jesus in the Body of Christ as freedom’s laboratory. Here and nowhere else takes place that radical change in man of which we stand in need, that the world may become a getter place. For it is only along this path that conscience attains its fundamental soundness and its unshakable power. And only from such a conscience can there come that ordering of human affairs which corresponds to human dignity and protects it. Every generation has to seek anew this right ordering of the world in response to a conscience that is alert, until the kingdom of God comes, which God alone can establish.

The Primacy of Christology

Christianity is the good tidings of Christ.  Christianity is Christ.  This is the message that gives foundation and content not only to the moral imperatives and ethical standards, but also to the dogmas, the truths of our faith.  For ultimately it is the Annunciation of Christ that is our confirmation of the dogmas Deus revelan and the Deus trinus; that there is a living God, revealing himself to man,  and that this God is triune.  Only through him has the world attained the unfailing certainty that the Father reigns in heaven, and that this Father begot in eternity a Son of his essence, to whom he is bound  in eternal love by the Holy Spirit, and through whom he binds himself to us.  Thus far the idea of the triune God is of the heart of Christ’s message.  We pray to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.  In the history of our salvation, it was not as if the Son were reached through the Father, nor as if the belief in the Trinity came first and the belief in Christ second.  “No one knows the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”  Only in the Son do we attain certainty about the Father and the Holy Spirit.  For the Son is the living revelation of God’s personal goodness in the Holy Spirit.  And only the conviction that the Son is of the same nature as God, and that he is the son of God, led Christian thought to ascertain processes and sources of life within the Godhead, and to develop the dogma of the Trinity on all sides.  Only belief in Christ produced belief in the Trinity.  Although in our creed the dogma of the trinity has logical priority, in the history of the revelation it came second.  Christology, the doctrine of the person and the work of Christ, comes prior in the history of revelation to the dogma of God the one and three-in-one.

Similarly with the dogmas of creation, of the first state of man, of original sin, and salvation.  It is the belief in the Son of God made man that  gives to all these articles of faith their peculiar place in the Christian Gospel as a whole, their particular form and foundation.  The attempt to understand the mystery of Jesus and his significance for the salvation of man nurtured the searching faith which was to illuminate the relationship ordained by God between creation and the Creator, and to uncover the deeper causes why redemption should be necessary.  These were the questions directed toward the first state of things, toward the fall of man, towards the meaning of the Lord’s incarnation and of his death on the cross.  Only Christology brought permanence and light to these questions.

The same holds true for the Church’s doctrine of grace, the sacraments, eschatology, and last, but not least, the idea of the Church itself.  All these dogmas grew from the seed of the Christological dogma.  What they do is describe the intensive and extensive influence of the mystery of Christ, both in the individual soul and in the bosom of the believing Church.  The articles of the faith of grace, the sacrament, and the Church are fundamentally the universal contemplation and confirmation of the salvation wrought by Christ and his spirit in the individual and in the community.  Without Christ there can be no grace, no sacrament, no Church, no hope for the future.

This leads us to maintain that Christology lies at the heart of all Catholic dogma.  Catholic dogma is centered on Christ.  The mystery of God become man is the holy tabernacle of the Church.  From it the light of our faith shines out on all sides, interpreting and explaining, but also wakening, kindling the spirit, bringing new birth.  Thus do we say in truth:  Christianity is Christ.  In the name of “Jesus Christ” this is exactly what our faith avows: Jesus is the Christ.

Thus our entire religious position stands or falls with the belief in Christ.–Karl Adam, THE CHRIST OF FAITH