It was only after I was well into adulthood that I heard this saying. It came from a client of the generation ahead of me, and we must have been talking about getting things done. I have long forgotten the details of the conversation, other than the saying itself and the click of the light bulb turning on in my brain.
Here is blog post that discusses this adage in a helpful way.
The matter of not rushing things has been the subject of previous posts of mine recently (here and here) as I have been reading from the Adages of Erasmus.
Showing posts with label The Reformation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Reformation. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Thursday, June 12, 2014
What are the Humanities? Any Course not a STEM course?
This provocative interview of President Obama raises the issue, in my opinion. His definition of the Humanities appears to be this: Anything offered by the Academy other than science, technology, engineering and math, regardless of its rigor or the lack of it. He implies, further, that we don't need "Humanities" all that much anymore and certainly not now.
We have, after all, the media elites. They can do the thinking for us.
The word "Humanities," however, derives from the 16th Century Humanists, those artists, scholars, theologians, philosophers, princes, musicians, even merchants, builders, soldiers and sailors, and other people who were readers and mainly lived in or had their economic base in cities. These are the people who ushered in the Renaissance and the Reformation, all on the back of a revolution in technology, with such things as the printing press, advances in architecture, vessels that could sail around the world, and the precursors of modern weaponry. Some of these people were competent in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and even Aramaic ("Chadlean"), the wisdom of the Ancients. They had the ability to translate and communicate such wisdom into the vernacular and to apply it all to rapidly changing circumstances. They were keen observers; they mastered critical thinking and the craft of their respective callings. Oh, for more of those people now!
To separate true "Humanities" and "STEM" is simply folly.
We have, after all, the media elites. They can do the thinking for us.
The word "Humanities," however, derives from the 16th Century Humanists, those artists, scholars, theologians, philosophers, princes, musicians, even merchants, builders, soldiers and sailors, and other people who were readers and mainly lived in or had their economic base in cities. These are the people who ushered in the Renaissance and the Reformation, all on the back of a revolution in technology, with such things as the printing press, advances in architecture, vessels that could sail around the world, and the precursors of modern weaponry. Some of these people were competent in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and even Aramaic ("Chadlean"), the wisdom of the Ancients. They had the ability to translate and communicate such wisdom into the vernacular and to apply it all to rapidly changing circumstances. They were keen observers; they mastered critical thinking and the craft of their respective callings. Oh, for more of those people now!
To separate true "Humanities" and "STEM" is simply folly.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Erasmus worked at a stand-up desk.
Both Holbein and every other of the portraitists made the error of having Erasmus pose seated. He worked habitually standing.
-Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom (Crossroad Publishing Co. 1982), p. 237
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Erasmus and Bible Study. Walter and Koine.
Erasmus is known for the first publication of a New Testament in
Greek, the first edition in 1516. (This followed, of course, the invention of the printing press around 1439.) Bainton writes, however, that “we are not to exaggerate the significance
of mere publication. . . . The contribution of Erasmus to Biblical studies
lies even more in the questions which he raised, the controversies which he precipitated,
and the awareness which he created as to the problems of text, translation, and
interpretation.” Bainton, Erasmus of
Christendom, (Crossroads Paperback 1982) at page 134.
After Erasmus put together the Greek text, he translated the text into Latin. Bainton writes about the translation task in part as follows:
At this point Erasmus noted that Greek was not the mother tongue of the evangelists and their use of it was affected by their native idioms. They did not write the Greek of Demosthenes. “Do you mean to say,” demanded John Eck in Germany [later one of Luther’s adversaries], “that the best Greek was not written by the apostles on whom the Holy Spirit conferred the gift of tongues?” “My dear fellow,” answered Erasmus, “if you will look at the list of languages of which the Holy Spirit gave command to the apostles on the day of Pentecost you will discover that Greek was not one of them. Besides the gift lasted for only one day.” Ibid., p. 139.
When Walter was a freshman at Davidson College, he decided to major in Classics so that he could study Greek. He wanted to be able to read the New Testament in the original text. First Davidson required him to take Classical Greek, and only then “New Testament Greek," known as Koine. Finally, he got to the New Testament. He told me that he was surprised to see the variation in the quality of the Greek, especially among the four Gospels (I recall that he said that the Gospel of Mark was the roughest and John the most elegant).
(Bainton, in his notes to his chapter on Erasmus' "publication, translation, and elucidation" of the NT cites Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament (Oxford, 1964). That title is also in Bainton's bibliography. As I have mentioned several times, I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Metzger during the 1970s when he visited our church to give a series of lectures on the Sermon on the Mount. They were splendid lectures.)
After Erasmus put together the Greek text, he translated the text into Latin. Bainton writes about the translation task in part as follows:
At this point Erasmus noted that Greek was not the mother tongue of the evangelists and their use of it was affected by their native idioms. They did not write the Greek of Demosthenes. “Do you mean to say,” demanded John Eck in Germany [later one of Luther’s adversaries], “that the best Greek was not written by the apostles on whom the Holy Spirit conferred the gift of tongues?” “My dear fellow,” answered Erasmus, “if you will look at the list of languages of which the Holy Spirit gave command to the apostles on the day of Pentecost you will discover that Greek was not one of them. Besides the gift lasted for only one day.” Ibid., p. 139.
When Walter was a freshman at Davidson College, he decided to major in Classics so that he could study Greek. He wanted to be able to read the New Testament in the original text. First Davidson required him to take Classical Greek, and only then “New Testament Greek," known as Koine. Finally, he got to the New Testament. He told me that he was surprised to see the variation in the quality of the Greek, especially among the four Gospels (I recall that he said that the Gospel of Mark was the roughest and John the most elegant).
(Bainton, in his notes to his chapter on Erasmus' "publication, translation, and elucidation" of the NT cites Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament (Oxford, 1964). That title is also in Bainton's bibliography. As I have mentioned several times, I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Metzger during the 1970s when he visited our church to give a series of lectures on the Sermon on the Mount. They were splendid lectures.)
Tuesday, May 06, 2014
Erasmus, Thomas รก Kempis, and the Brethren of the Common Life
Deventer [a town in the Dutch province of Overijssel, an intellectual center when Erasmus lived and in which he attended school as a child] was impregnated by the spirit of the Devotio Moderna, the “modern piety” of the Brethren of the Common Life. The movement originated two hundred years before the time of Erasmus under the impact of Gerard Groote (died 1340) of Deventer, who gathered a following dedicated both to the contemplative and to the active life. They lived in a community under a regimen like that of the monks, calling for fasts, vigils, reading, and prayer, privately and in common, interspersed by long periods of silence unrelieved by boisterous levity. The Brethren went out into the world to care for the sick and the poor and, above all, to teach children. Sometimes they established schools of their own, sometimes planted their members here and there as teachers in existing institutions. Their support came not from alms, but from labor, whether manual or literary, in particular from the copying of manuscripts, which continued to be in demand for some time after the invention of printing. This was work also in which the Sisters could engage, for there were houses also of a branch for women.
The movement called itself modern, but the modernity lay rather in the area of zeal than of dogma. The teaching of the Church was accepted and discussion of her tenants deprecated. Thomas รก Kempis, the best-known of the Brethren, in his Imitation of Christ declared that the “Trinity is better pleased by adoration than by speculation” and he looked askance upon addiction to study. There was thus an anti-intellectualistic strain in the movement. The stress was placed upon piety and deportment. The piety was marked by a heartfelt, lyrical devotion to Jesus, with undeviating endeavor to follow in his steps rather than to merge the self in the abyss of the Godhead. The Brethren were consequently fond of the Latin mystics, Bernard and Bonaventura, rather than of the German mystics, Eckhart, Suso, and Tauler. Nor did they conceive of piety as consisting in tearful dissolution before the wounds of Christ. The following prayer to Jesus by Thomas รก Kempis turns upon the teaching and example of the Master.
Lord Jesus Christ, who art the light, true, eternal and unchanging, who didst deign to descend to the prison of this world to dispel the shadows of human ignorance and show us the way to the land of eternal brightness, hear the prayers of my humility, and by Thine immense mercy instill into me that divine light which Thou hast promised to the world and ordered to be preached to all peoples, that I may know Thy way throughout my earthly pilgrimage. Thou art the mirror of life, the torch of all holiness. . . . Thou hast set Thyself before me as an example for living. . . . Be Thou my joy, the sweetness of my soul. Dwell Thou with me and I with Thee, with all the world shut out. Be Thou my teacher, my Master, and may Thy teaching be my wisdom.One observes that there is no reference to Christ as the propitiator. He is the enlightener, the exemplar, the beloved companion, and the Lord.
One of the most persistent notes in the piety of the
Brethren was inwardness. “Learn to
despise the outward. Direct thyself to
the inward and thou shalt see the kingdom of God come within thee.” “Strive to
withdraw thy heart from all love of the visible and transfer it to the
invisible.” Inwardness admits of no
compulsion and objection to constraint militates against lifelong vows which
constrain the monk to go through exercises in which the mind perchance no
longer believes and to which the heart no longer responds. To go on repeating by rote is the utter stultification
of piety. The movement at the outset
dispensed with lifelong vows, but such was the pressure from the older orders,
who feared lest the more flexible rule would undercut their own recruiting,
that one branch of the Brethren yielded and joined the Augustinian Canons
Regular. Others, however, stoutly held
out for their freedom.
The ethical concern of the Brethren made some of them hospitable to the writings of classical antiquity. Gerard Groote in his writings cited nineteen classical authors as over against twenty-one Christian. He was particularly attracted to the moralists Seneca and Cicero. The disposition to draw upon the pagan preparation for the gospel received a great impetus from the Italian Renaissance. Rudolph Agricola, trained at Groningen in the atmosphere of the Brethren, went to Italy and was there imbued with Plutarch’s ideal of elegant diction, to be employed, however, only in the service of religion. For Agricola the cultivation of the soul, man’s immortal component, was to be undertaken by way of erudition leading to the tranquil and unshakable seat of wisdom. To this end he acquired proficiency not only in Latin, of course, but also in Greek and Hebrew. Erasmus, when twelve years old, heard him speak at Deventer. A younger man than Agricola was his friend Alexander Hegius of like aspirations. While Agricola wrote about education, Hegius practiced it as head of the school at Deventer. Erasmus, in his last year there as a scholar, heard him lecture on special days. For both men Erasmus entertained a high regard and found in their example a tremendous confirmation for his own later battle on behalf of the broader study of the humanities, the more so because these men could not be reproached with any deviation from the faith, from the Church, or even from the Brethren. Agricola was buried in the cowl of a Franciscan.
One observes thus two strands in the tradition of the Brethren. The one represented by รก Kempis was fearful lest any sort of learning might wither the spirit. The other, stemming from Groote and flowering in Agricola and Hegius, could appropriate the classical heritage. The two attitudes were to conflict. Erasmus was to champion the liberal wing while retaining essentially the piety of รก Kempis.
-from Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom, (Crossroad 1982), pp. 8-10.
The ethical concern of the Brethren made some of them hospitable to the writings of classical antiquity. Gerard Groote in his writings cited nineteen classical authors as over against twenty-one Christian. He was particularly attracted to the moralists Seneca and Cicero. The disposition to draw upon the pagan preparation for the gospel received a great impetus from the Italian Renaissance. Rudolph Agricola, trained at Groningen in the atmosphere of the Brethren, went to Italy and was there imbued with Plutarch’s ideal of elegant diction, to be employed, however, only in the service of religion. For Agricola the cultivation of the soul, man’s immortal component, was to be undertaken by way of erudition leading to the tranquil and unshakable seat of wisdom. To this end he acquired proficiency not only in Latin, of course, but also in Greek and Hebrew. Erasmus, when twelve years old, heard him speak at Deventer. A younger man than Agricola was his friend Alexander Hegius of like aspirations. While Agricola wrote about education, Hegius practiced it as head of the school at Deventer. Erasmus, in his last year there as a scholar, heard him lecture on special days. For both men Erasmus entertained a high regard and found in their example a tremendous confirmation for his own later battle on behalf of the broader study of the humanities, the more so because these men could not be reproached with any deviation from the faith, from the Church, or even from the Brethren. Agricola was buried in the cowl of a Franciscan.
One observes thus two strands in the tradition of the Brethren. The one represented by รก Kempis was fearful lest any sort of learning might wither the spirit. The other, stemming from Groote and flowering in Agricola and Hegius, could appropriate the classical heritage. The two attitudes were to conflict. Erasmus was to champion the liberal wing while retaining essentially the piety of รก Kempis.
-from Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom, (Crossroad 1982), pp. 8-10.
Monday, April 21, 2014
New On the Nightstand
Stark, Rodney, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries, quoted by Felipe Assis, the Crossbridge Senior pastor, in a recent sermon. (Felipe's sermons are extraordinarily good. Here is a link to podcasts of them. The one yesterday, Keep Calm, the best Easter sermon in my memory, was vintage Assis.)
Bainton, Roland H., Erasmus of Christendom. More Reformation reading. And because Bainton wrote it. From Bainton's preface:
Bainton, Roland H., Erasmus of Christendom. More Reformation reading. And because Bainton wrote it. From Bainton's preface:
I have long been drawn to Erasmus on a number
of counts. I share his aversion to contention, his abhorrence of war, his
wistful skepticism with respect to that which transcends the verifiable; at the
same time I am warmed by the glow of his piety. I am convinced of the soundness
of the place assigned by him to the classical alongside of the Judaeo-Christian
in the heritage of the Western world. I relish his whimsicality and satire. I
endorse his conviction that language is still the best medium for the
transmission of thought, language not merely read but heard with cadence and
rhythm as well as clarity and precision.
Yet I should probably never have
undertaken this assignment were Erasmus lacking in contemporary relevance. He
is important for the dialogue which he desired never to see closed between
Catholics and Protestants. He is important for the strategy of reform, violent
or non-violent. He was resolved to abstain from violence alike of word and
deed, but was not sure that significant reform could be achieved sine tumultu.
He would neither incite nor abet it. The more intolerant grew the contenders,
the more he recoiled and strove to mediate. He ended as the battered liberal.
Can it ever be otherwise? This is precisely the problem of our time.Tuesday, April 08, 2014
Luther on What Makes a Good Preacher versus What the World Demands of a Good Preacher
First, a good preacher should be able to teach well, correctly,
and in an orderly fashion. Second, he should
have a good head on his shoulders.
Third, he should be eloquent.
Fourth, he should have a good voice.
Fifth, he should have a good memory.
Sixth, he should know when to stop.
Seventh, he should be constant and diligent about his affairs. Eight, he should invest body and life,
possessions and honor in it. Ninth, he
should be willing to let everyone vex and hack away at him. . . .
The world demands six qualities of a preacher: 1. that he have a good speaking voice; 2 that he be learned; 3. that he be eloquent; 4. that he have a handsome exterior . . . ; 5. that he take no money, but give money to preach; 6. that he say what they like to hear.
-as quoted in Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and his Career (Fortress Press Edition 2003), pp. 249-250.
Friday, April 04, 2014
The Work of the Law. The Law as a "Spiegel"
Luther's picture of the human condition in the presence of God was bleak indeed. But it was here [as a new professor of theology at Wittenberg] that he also began to develop a different understanding of humility from that which had filled his lectures on the Psalms. He still saw this state of being utterly drained of self-worth as being necessary for salvation, but now he insisted that it was God himself who graciously taught and provided humility. "The whole task of the apostle and his Lord is to humble the proud and bring them to a realization of this condition, to teach them that they need grace, to destroy their own righteousness, so that in humility they will see Christ and confess that they are sinners, and thus receive grace and be saved." [Footnote omitted]
Here was what Luther called the "proper" work of the law, which he often described as a hammer or an anvil that smashed down upon human pride and made room for God's love. Luther loved plays on words and here chose to refer to the law by using the German word Spiegel. God's law was a Spiegel (which could also mean "mirror") that reveals his human beings what they truly were – in need of grace. Thus, when God was most terrifying and most righteous, he was in fact most gracious. God's mercy was a loving hand with an iron fist.
-from Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and His Career, (Fortress Press edition, pp. 93 - 94).
Here was what Luther called the "proper" work of the law, which he often described as a hammer or an anvil that smashed down upon human pride and made room for God's love. Luther loved plays on words and here chose to refer to the law by using the German word Spiegel. God's law was a Spiegel (which could also mean "mirror") that reveals his human beings what they truly were – in need of grace. Thus, when God was most terrifying and most righteous, he was in fact most gracious. God's mercy was a loving hand with an iron fist.
-from Kittleson, Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and His Career, (Fortress Press edition, pp. 93 - 94).
Monday, March 31, 2014
Repent vs. Do Penance
Luther pointed out [in the controversy over indulgences] that by working with Erasmus's edition of the Greek New Testament, he had discovered that Staupitz [the vicar general of the Augustinians for Germany and Luther's friend] had been right [in his emphasis of "the inclination of the heart rather than particular sins or particular good works as a determinant of the status of the soul"]and that common confessional practices had no basis in the Scriptures. The Latin translation of Jesus' command at Matthew 4:17 read, "Do penance, for the kingdom of God is at hand." But the Greek said, "Be penitent. . . '" Therefore God demanded not outward deeds but a changed heart and mind. "Doing" had literally nothing to do with salvation, particularly with regard to indulgences. "To repent" and "to do penance" were two different things.
-from Kittelson, Luther the Reformer: the Story of the Man and His Career. (Fortress Press edition 2003) at p. 113.
The Douay-Rhems 1899 American Edition continued to translate, "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
The New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition (NRSVACE), however, translates, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand."
Kittleson's 1986 biography is a worthy successor to Bainton's, Here I Stand, a Life of Martin Luther, a 1950 work, but I would never, ever forgo the opportunity to read Bainton.
-from Kittelson, Luther the Reformer: the Story of the Man and His Career. (Fortress Press edition 2003) at p. 113.
The Douay-Rhems 1899 American Edition continued to translate, "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
The New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition (NRSVACE), however, translates, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand."
Kittleson's 1986 biography is a worthy successor to Bainton's, Here I Stand, a Life of Martin Luther, a 1950 work, but I would never, ever forgo the opportunity to read Bainton.
Friday, February 07, 2014
As to Grace, it is all Common
According to Carl Bangs, Arminius held that
free will in man as sinner is "addicted to evil, and "it will not be bent to good except by grace." Grace is as a form which brings into actuality the potentiality of the free will to goodness. In a sinful man the free will is sufficient for only evil choices. Thus Arminius says that "grace is present with all men [as a result of the work of Christ], by which their free will may be actually bent to good; but there is in all men such a will as is flexible to either side upon accession of grace."
That grace of which Arminius speaks is common grace, common to all, not "peculiar grace" or "special grace," as it might be applied to and limited to those whom God has predestined to receive it. Arminius rejects a distinction between common and peculiar grace. There is only common grace. All men have the free will to accept Christ or not, free will in that respect only.
Predestination, as Arminius sees it, is simply this: God predestines those who have faith in Jesus Christ, those who have made the choice to believe, to constitute his elect. This common grace of Arminius, then, sometimes referred to as "prevenient grace" (Bangs does not use that term), is available to everyone. However, not everyone will exercise the will, now liberated by grace, to choose the good, that is to have faith in Christ. Some will decide not to believe. God has predestined those who choose not to have faith not to be among his elect. We have then, conditional election. Being part of the elect is conditioned on one deciding to believe.
Calvinists (Bangs would say "later" Calvinists), on the other hand, will not admit of any flexibility in the will bent to evil. We are totally depraved. (The "T" in Tulip.) God's election, then, is not and cannot be conditioned on one's will, made free to choose by grace, making the choice of faith. God's election is unconditional. (The "U" in Tulip.) Christ did not die to put everyone in a position to make a faith choice - or not. Christ's atonement was limited to the unconditionally elect. (The "L" in Tulip.) Even to think about choosing requires God's grace, much less actually to make the choice to believe. Furthermore, God's grace is irresistible as far as particular, chosen people are concerned. (The "I" in Tulip.) Once grace is set upon us, like some hound of heaven it will get us, and we are as unable to resist it as we were to obtain it before God set loose his hound. We cannot be just a little bit graced, graced just enough to make a choice. It is all or it is nothing. Because our will is not involved in our election, it cannot, after our being saved, be bent away from Christ. As God's chosen we shall persevere in our blessed position. (The "P" in Tulip.)
Hmmm.
free will in man as sinner is "addicted to evil, and "it will not be bent to good except by grace." Grace is as a form which brings into actuality the potentiality of the free will to goodness. In a sinful man the free will is sufficient for only evil choices. Thus Arminius says that "grace is present with all men [as a result of the work of Christ], by which their free will may be actually bent to good; but there is in all men such a will as is flexible to either side upon accession of grace."
That grace of which Arminius speaks is common grace, common to all, not "peculiar grace" or "special grace," as it might be applied to and limited to those whom God has predestined to receive it. Arminius rejects a distinction between common and peculiar grace. There is only common grace. All men have the free will to accept Christ or not, free will in that respect only.
Predestination, as Arminius sees it, is simply this: God predestines those who have faith in Jesus Christ, those who have made the choice to believe, to constitute his elect. This common grace of Arminius, then, sometimes referred to as "prevenient grace" (Bangs does not use that term), is available to everyone. However, not everyone will exercise the will, now liberated by grace, to choose the good, that is to have faith in Christ. Some will decide not to believe. God has predestined those who choose not to have faith not to be among his elect. We have then, conditional election. Being part of the elect is conditioned on one deciding to believe.
Calvinists (Bangs would say "later" Calvinists), on the other hand, will not admit of any flexibility in the will bent to evil. We are totally depraved. (The "T" in Tulip.) God's election, then, is not and cannot be conditioned on one's will, made free to choose by grace, making the choice of faith. God's election is unconditional. (The "U" in Tulip.) Christ did not die to put everyone in a position to make a faith choice - or not. Christ's atonement was limited to the unconditionally elect. (The "L" in Tulip.) Even to think about choosing requires God's grace, much less actually to make the choice to believe. Furthermore, God's grace is irresistible as far as particular, chosen people are concerned. (The "I" in Tulip.) Once grace is set upon us, like some hound of heaven it will get us, and we are as unable to resist it as we were to obtain it before God set loose his hound. We cannot be just a little bit graced, graced just enough to make a choice. It is all or it is nothing. Because our will is not involved in our election, it cannot, after our being saved, be bent away from Christ. As God's chosen we shall persevere in our blessed position. (The "P" in Tulip.)
Hmmm.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Arminius and Good Works
Carl Bangs writes that in 1593, the enemies of Arminius
accused him before the Consistory of Amsterdam (something like our session) of three errors.
One of the alleged errors concerned Arminius' view of “works.” He was accused of teaching that
too much could not be ascribed to good works, nor could they
be sufficiently commended, provided no merit were attributed to them.
At a hearing on the accusations, Arminius simply stood by
that teaching. The consistory
cleared him of all three charges. Bangs, Arminius - a Study in the Dutch Reformation, p. 143.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Johannes Cuchlinus: a Tough Man, during Tough Times, with a Tough Faith
Carl Bangs writes that Arminius
was ordained on Saturday evening August 27, 1588, in
the Old Church, which was the center of church life in Amsterdam. .
. . The long process of preparation was now at an
end, and he was about to enter into the full exercise of his pastoral ministry
in Amsterdam, a ministry that would run for fifteen years.
Arminius joined a staff of five other ministers, and
Bangs gives us a profile of each of them.
One of them was Johannes Cuchlinus.
He was the first pastor from the time of the
Alteration [of Amsterdam, the Alterie,
when in 1578 Reformed Services first began in that city], and he was the only
German minister. Three of his wives had
died, and in 1587, he married an Amsterdam widow. In another nine years he would marry his
fifth and last wife, the sister of Arminius’ father, thus becoming Arminius
uncle by marriage. He was a Calvinist,
but not of the new sort that would make so much trouble in later decades. The Belgic Confession and Heidelberg
Catechism defined his faith, and he was not one to speculate on the order of decrees. He was only forty-two years
old, but in that time forty-two was a ripe old age, and Cuchlinus functioned as
the senior minister of Amsterdam.
Monday, January 20, 2014
"Judaizers:" Where did that term come from?
The problem was that "the Galatian converts," Stott writes, "who had received [from the Apostle Paul] this gospel of grace , were now turning away to another gospel, a gospel of works. The false teachers were evidently 'Judaizers', whose 'gospel' is summarized in Acts 15:1: 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.' " Stott, The Message of Galatians (IVP 1968) at p. 22.
I wanted to track down the verb "Judaize" and focus on it as part of the lesson. So I looked in my Strong's to see where Judaize appears in the KJV. Nowhere. So then, to my NIV concordance. Not there either. Then on to Biblegatway.com where I did a search for that word through the various English translations available at that helpful site. I could not turn up a scripture reference where the word is used. The word is not new to me. I have known and understood that word for over 50 years, it is commonly used to describe the source of the problem that the reader encounters in Galatians and elsewhere in the NT, but the word itself did not seem to be in the Bible. Where did it come from.
I have The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1971). The editors approach to a given word is to identify the earliest written English source of its use, to provide a context-giving sentence fragment from that source that includes the word, then to follow with the next oldest source and fragment, and to the next, and so on. (For a great read on the development of the OED see Winchester's The Professor and the Madman.)
Here is the OED's definition of Judaize and the earliest source and fragment for that definition:
To play the Jew; to follow Jewish customs or religious rites; to follow Jewish practice. 1582 N.T. (Rhem.) Gal. ii: 14. How doest thou compel the Gentiles to Iudaize?
A Judaizer, then, is someone who would force a Gentile to follow Jewish practice. In the context of Galatians, the Judaizers were Jewish Christians who would compel Gentile Christians to follow Jewish customs. Well, I knew that. But what of that source, "Rhem."?
I recognized that word Rhem. It refers to the Rheims-Douay Bible (1582-1610). We Protestants are all about our English language Bibles, and fail to acknowledge that making the Bible accessible in English was part of the Counter-Reformation as well. Bruce Metzger, in his The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions, writes that English Catholics, fleeing persecution by Queen Elizabeth, found refuge in Flanders. In 1568, they established a seminary in Douay, where scholars "undertook, for the first time in the history of the Roman Church, to replace the available Anglican and Genevan Bibles - unacceptable from their point of view - with an English version of their own. This project . . . was completed at Rheims in France to which city the college had transferred itself in 1578 . . . " (Metzger at pp. 67-68) Rhem., then, refers to the Rheims-Douay NT of 1592.
Metzger writes that the translation was made "not from the original languages but from the Latin Vulgate [and] was painstaking and reached a high standard of consistency, but was often too literal to be used in public worship. There was a strong tendency to retain technical words . . ." Ah, like Judaize.
I think it ironic that Stott, an Anglican priest, adopts "Judaizers" as a term of art for the people troubling the Galatian Christians. That word comes from the first Roman Catholic, English version of the Bible. It was translated by scholars fleeing persecution because they were Roman Catholic, persecution by Queen Elizabeth, the head of the Anglican Church. How many Protestants, who might look at Galatians narrowly as a sort of rebuke of the Roman Church, use that word, ignorant of its source?
I wanted to track down the verb "Judaize" and focus on it as part of the lesson. So I looked in my Strong's to see where Judaize appears in the KJV. Nowhere. So then, to my NIV concordance. Not there either. Then on to Biblegatway.com where I did a search for that word through the various English translations available at that helpful site. I could not turn up a scripture reference where the word is used. The word is not new to me. I have known and understood that word for over 50 years, it is commonly used to describe the source of the problem that the reader encounters in Galatians and elsewhere in the NT, but the word itself did not seem to be in the Bible. Where did it come from.
I have The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1971). The editors approach to a given word is to identify the earliest written English source of its use, to provide a context-giving sentence fragment from that source that includes the word, then to follow with the next oldest source and fragment, and to the next, and so on. (For a great read on the development of the OED see Winchester's The Professor and the Madman.)
Here is the OED's definition of Judaize and the earliest source and fragment for that definition:
To play the Jew; to follow Jewish customs or religious rites; to follow Jewish practice. 1582 N.T. (Rhem.) Gal. ii: 14. How doest thou compel the Gentiles to Iudaize?
A Judaizer, then, is someone who would force a Gentile to follow Jewish practice. In the context of Galatians, the Judaizers were Jewish Christians who would compel Gentile Christians to follow Jewish customs. Well, I knew that. But what of that source, "Rhem."?
I recognized that word Rhem. It refers to the Rheims-Douay Bible (1582-1610). We Protestants are all about our English language Bibles, and fail to acknowledge that making the Bible accessible in English was part of the Counter-Reformation as well. Bruce Metzger, in his The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions, writes that English Catholics, fleeing persecution by Queen Elizabeth, found refuge in Flanders. In 1568, they established a seminary in Douay, where scholars "undertook, for the first time in the history of the Roman Church, to replace the available Anglican and Genevan Bibles - unacceptable from their point of view - with an English version of their own. This project . . . was completed at Rheims in France to which city the college had transferred itself in 1578 . . . " (Metzger at pp. 67-68) Rhem., then, refers to the Rheims-Douay NT of 1592.
Metzger writes that the translation was made "not from the original languages but from the Latin Vulgate [and] was painstaking and reached a high standard of consistency, but was often too literal to be used in public worship. There was a strong tendency to retain technical words . . ." Ah, like Judaize.
I think it ironic that Stott, an Anglican priest, adopts "Judaizers" as a term of art for the people troubling the Galatian Christians. That word comes from the first Roman Catholic, English version of the Bible. It was translated by scholars fleeing persecution because they were Roman Catholic, persecution by Queen Elizabeth, the head of the Anglican Church. How many Protestants, who might look at Galatians narrowly as a sort of rebuke of the Roman Church, use that word, ignorant of its source?
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
The Bitter and the Sweet of Learning
 |
| 1633 portrait of Johannes Wtenbogaert by Rembrandt. |
![St. Jerome School [Sint Hieronymusschool]](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sint_Hieronymusschool_Utrecht.jpg){kind=link}
Of his teacher
[Cornelius] Lauerman, Uitenbogaert later said, “I still remember that the
teacher often said to me and my fellow students that the root of study is very
bitter to bite into but that the fruit is very sweet.”
-from Carl Bangs, Arminius– A Study in the Dutch Reformation, Second Edition (Frances Asbury Press 1985) p. 35Thursday, November 21, 2013
The Bangs, Father and Son, the Dutch Reformation, the Pilgrims, and Jacobus Arminius.
The November - December edition of The University of Chicago Magazine, presents a profile of Jeremy Bangs, X'67, entitled "Going Dutch." It not only introduces me to that gifted scholar, but also to Leiden in the Netherlands, the Reformation as it took place in that country, and reintroduces me to the Pilgrims, "yes, those Pilgrims" as Lydialyle Gibson, the article's author, writes. (What a beautiful name, Lydialyle.)
The article also introduces me to Jeremy's dad, Carl Bangs, PhD'58,
a church historian and theology professor, and an expert of the 16th-century Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius. Carl Bang's biography, Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation (Abingdon Press), is a definitive text.
Arminius! But he was so wrong! Isn't that just like a UChi scholar, picking such a subject to write about?
But over to Amazon, to look at that book. Here's a great review:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Unique, Enlightening, and Rewarding Study (Especially for a Calvinist).,June 18, 2006
Mr. Bangs presents a very systematic and, sometimes, personally affective account of James Arminius. Not only does he present Arminius objectively as a pastor, theologian,and professor but also a few yet essential insights of a man who has had his share of sorrow.
I was warned many years ago not to read this book. I was told by Calvinist-leaning individuals that it would upset my faith and cause me to fall away. I have read this book 5 times and filled it with highlighting and notations. Apparently, the one who warned me never read the book. And I think that is a big problem with those who adhere to Calvinism when discussing issues regarding election and predestination. I would encourage every Calvinists to read this book not for the purpose of changing their view but to understand what Arminius really taught as, it seems, many books by Calvinist theologians misrepresent terribly the teachings Arminius espoused. To call him a heretic is to be wholy misinformed or uninformed about the man Arminius and his teachings.
Reading "Arminius" has helped me to understand the significance of Arminianism, it's value and importance in Christian theology, the essential issues that divide two camps of believers (one, Calvinism, and the other, Arminianism), and it has provided me with an alternative (and better, in my estimation) understanding of certain "problem" texts in the Bible.
Most important of all, to me, it has brought me closer to a man after my own heart; a man who knows the pain of lose, still trusts in God, and seeks to present God in a way that makes Him available for all sinners to embrace in repentance and faith.
I highly recommend reading this book. If you do not, you will miss a very important phase in Christian history. It has gotten to a point that when I'm going to my study to read this book and his "Works", I tell my wife I'm going to spend some time with my best friend.
Buy it, read it, you won't regret it.
Also, read "The Works of James Arminius", London Edition, 3 vols. So far, I've read all volumes three times. It is a little difficult to read at first, but once you get use to how it is written, you'll find it very rewarding.
Now, over to half.com, to find a $6.00 "Acceptable" copy on sale (although,you never know just what you are going to get with "Acceptable" - other than a real bargain). Can't wait to read it.
The reviewer quoted above, Mr. Banuchi, writes that he "read 'The Works of James [Jacobus] Arminius', London Edition, 3 vols. . . . three times"! There are editions of those works at Amazon in Kindle Editions. Here is volume 1 of the edition published by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library ("CCEL"). CCEL's website is worth exploring.
The article also introduces me to Jeremy's dad, Carl Bangs, PhD'58,
a church historian and theology professor, and an expert of the 16th-century Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius. Carl Bang's biography, Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation (Abingdon Press), is a definitive text.
Arminius! But he was so wrong! Isn't that just like a UChi scholar, picking such a subject to write about?
But over to Amazon, to look at that book. Here's a great review:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Unique, Enlightening, and Rewarding Study (Especially for a Calvinist).,
By
I was warned many years ago not to read this book. I was told by Calvinist-leaning individuals that it would upset my faith and cause me to fall away. I have read this book 5 times and filled it with highlighting and notations. Apparently, the one who warned me never read the book. And I think that is a big problem with those who adhere to Calvinism when discussing issues regarding election and predestination. I would encourage every Calvinists to read this book not for the purpose of changing their view but to understand what Arminius really taught as, it seems, many books by Calvinist theologians misrepresent terribly the teachings Arminius espoused. To call him a heretic is to be wholy misinformed or uninformed about the man Arminius and his teachings.
Reading "Arminius" has helped me to understand the significance of Arminianism, it's value and importance in Christian theology, the essential issues that divide two camps of believers (one, Calvinism, and the other, Arminianism), and it has provided me with an alternative (and better, in my estimation) understanding of certain "problem" texts in the Bible.
Most important of all, to me, it has brought me closer to a man after my own heart; a man who knows the pain of lose, still trusts in God, and seeks to present God in a way that makes Him available for all sinners to embrace in repentance and faith.
I highly recommend reading this book. If you do not, you will miss a very important phase in Christian history. It has gotten to a point that when I'm going to my study to read this book and his "Works", I tell my wife I'm going to spend some time with my best friend.
Buy it, read it, you won't regret it.
Also, read "The Works of James Arminius", London Edition, 3 vols. So far, I've read all volumes three times. It is a little difficult to read at first, but once you get use to how it is written, you'll find it very rewarding.
Now, over to half.com, to find a $6.00 "Acceptable" copy on sale (although,you never know just what you are going to get with "Acceptable" - other than a real bargain). Can't wait to read it.
The reviewer quoted above, Mr. Banuchi, writes that he "read 'The Works of James [Jacobus] Arminius', London Edition, 3 vols. . . . three times"! There are editions of those works at Amazon in Kindle Editions. Here is volume 1 of the edition published by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library ("CCEL"). CCEL's website is worth exploring.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
But didn't Adam have a point? (Just asking)
But Luther's question was not whether his sins were big or little, but whether they had been confessed. The great difficulty which he encountered was to be sure that everything had been recalled. He learned from experience the cleverness of memory in protecting the ego, and he was frightened when after six hours of confessing he could still go out and think of something else which had eluded his most conscientious scrutiny. Still more disconcerting was the discovery that some of man's misdemeanors are not even recognized, let alone remembered. Sinners often sin without compunction. Adam and Eve, after tasting of the fruit of the forbidden tree, when blithely for a walk in the cool of the day; and Jonah, after fleeing from the Lord's commission, slept soundly in the hold of the ship. Only when each was confronted by an accuser was there any consciousness of guilt. Frequently, too, when man is reproached he will still justify himself like Adam, who replied, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me" – as if to say to God, "She tempted me; you gave her to me; you are to blame."
There is, according to Luther, something much more drastically wrong with man than any particular list of offenses which can be enumerated, confessed, and forgiven. The very nature of man is corrupt. The penitential system fails because it is directed to particular lapses.
-from Bainton's Here I Stand: a Life of Martin Luther, (Abingdon Press 1950, page 55)
There is, according to Luther, something much more drastically wrong with man than any particular list of offenses which can be enumerated, confessed, and forgiven. The very nature of man is corrupt. The penitential system fails because it is directed to particular lapses.
-from Bainton's Here I Stand: a Life of Martin Luther, (Abingdon Press 1950, page 55)
Sunday, September 08, 2013
Home as a Better School for Character than a Monastery
After [Luther's] marriage his tone shifted and his concern was much less to establish the necessity of marriage [in light of the otherwise "uncontrollable" sexual impulse] than to portray the home as a school for character. In this sense it was for him a substitute for the monastery. All the vexations of domesticity, the tension of the sexes, bawling babies, and of disobedient children led him to say there is no need to go hunting for crosses. At the same time he was often lyrical over the consolations of the married state.
-Bainton, The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, pages 256 - 258.
-Bainton, The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, pages 256 - 258.
Friday, September 06, 2013
Let's Not Forget Cranmer's Wife
Henry [VIII] for all his effrontery was not unmoved by the unrest among the populace, and the intransigence among the distinguished. He resolved to hew all the more closely to the line of schism without heresy, and in the latter part of his reign enacted the Six Articles popularly called the "bloody whip with the six strings" whereby a denial of the real presence was visited with death and clerical marriage was forbidden. Archbishop Cranmer, who had married the niece of one of the Continental reformers, was compelled during this period to keep his wife at home or when traveling to conceal her in a chest; when it was turned upside down she was somewhat inconvenienced – and ought to be included among the minor martyrs of the Reformation.
-more from Bainton's The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, Enlarged Edition, p. 198.
-more from Bainton's The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, Enlarged Edition, p. 198.
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Calvinism and the Scots
Scotland was the name in Europe above all others in which
Calvinism became most firmly entrenched . . . [I]n no other land did Calvinism effect so tremendous a change in the
national character and the national destiny.
Calvinism transformed the Scots.
In the Middle Ages they were a notoriously rough and disorderly people
who preferred to raid rather than to raise cattle . . . The Reformation changed all that. The Scots were to become a different people
and the alteration was effected by the new kirk armed with the Book of
Discipline.
-The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, Bainton, Roland H. (Englarged Edition 1985), pages 178 and 179. (Google has the book here, but less pages 183-248.)
I would venture the speculation that Reformed Christianity in China has been working a similar transformation since the 19th Century. Would that God again open the Middle East to the Gospel.
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