Semi-Docetic Nestorianism

 

Dionysius the Areopagite

When I was 18 or 19, the Protestant clergyman who was tutoring me in the New Testament advised me to be ‘more sceptical about the sceptics’. I took this bracing advice to heart, and have been following it ever since. In this spirit I approach the question of Dionysius the Areopagite.

What are the arguments that are brought forward against the authenticity of the writings once universally accepted to be from the disciple of St Paul, disputed since the late 15th or early 16th century, and now almost universally rejected? Gandillac, a French translator in the 1940′s of the Dionysian corpus for the series ‘Bibliotheque Philosophique’, makes a list of them. He, by the way, is thoroughly convinced that the works are not from the Areopagite, and has plenty of ironic fun with the few stragglers who haven’t yet caught up. I list his objections below, with my sceptical thoughts after each one.

1. The earliest extant reference to Dionysius’ works is in the first half of the 6th century.

Bellarmine’s reply to this was that the works were lost and then found again. This is not implausible given the shortness of the corpus: less than 300 pages in my French paperback edition. It is not like imagining that the whole of St Augustine’s works, or St Jerome’s, might have been lost. Again, books, even precious one, did get lost in antiquity. Where are Aristotle’s dialogues now? Yet Cicero called them ‘a river of gold’. Even in modern times valuable works can be lost: St Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion was only discovered 125 years after his death. And the difficulty of Dionysius’ works would have militated against a wide circulation at a time when most philosophers were not Christians, and most Christians not philosophers.

{A 19th century article argues that there are testimonies to Dionysius before the 6th century. Apart from that by Origen, already rejected as spurious by Bellarmine, I haven’t found what modern scholars say of these claimed testimonies.}

2. Dionysius speaks of monks and hermits with habits and tonsures. But St Paul the first hermit lived in the 3rd century, and it would have been unwise to have worn identifying marks like religious habits in a time of persecution.

St Paul the first hermit could have been the first man to live a completely solitary life, but not a relatively solitary one. It is clear from the New Testament that some people took vows not to marry. Wherever we have clear and detailed information about the life of the Church we find religious profession, so it is reasonable to suppose that it is found even in those early years where our information is less clear and detailed. The religious life belongs, if not to the esse, at least to the bene esse, of the Church. The significance of the religious habit in the first century could have been not that it was dramatically different from what other people were wearing, but that it had been blessed by the bishop.

3. He speaks of the exclusion of catechumens during the Holy Mysteries, and the incensation of the altar, but these are practices later than the first century.

Who says? With the exception of Dionysius, we have no author purporting to be from the first century who tells us what happened to catechumens during the Holy Mysteries, as far as I know. Are we to suppose that the apostles were totally relaxed about who was there and who wasn’t? As for incense, this fits the criteria which St Augustine gives for reckoning a custom as apostolic, namely, that it is found throughout the Church and that there is no record of any council introducing it. It is in any case likely that the first Christian would have used incense, since it was used in the temple worship in Jerusalem. When St Paul’s tomb was opened recently, grains of incense were found inside.

This kind of objection stems from the tendency to suppose that complex things come into being by gradual stages from simple beginnings. This tendency seems to be another ‘Idol of the Tribe’, but it has no doubt got far worse because of Darwinism.

4. He speaks of the singing of the Creed during the liturgy, when this was not done till the year 476 according to Peter the Fuller.

In fact he does not mention the Creed, but simply a ‘universal canticle of praise’, commemorating God’s mighty deeds. From Dionysius’ description, it sounds much more like a kind of ‘Eucharistic prayer’.

5. He claims to be writing after the martyrdom of St Ignatius which happened around AD 107, yet he addresses his work to St Timothy, the disciple of St Paul, who would have been already dead.

Does he specify that the Timothy he is addressing is that to whom the two canonical letters were written? I don’t remember him doing this. But even if he does (and I haven’t read through the whole corpus for a couple of years), so what? We don’t know anything for certain about the death of that St Timothy, according to the modern Butler’s ‘Lives of the Saints’.

6. He calls Timothy ‘child’, even though Timothy was an old man (as well as being already dead, apparently!)

This is a silly objection. He also calls Timothy his fellow priest, so clearly ‘child’ has a special meaning here. Probably he uses it as St John uses it in 1 Jn. 2:12, as a reference to Christian innocence.

7. He is familiar with the whole canon of Scripture, even though the canon wasn’t formulated by the beginning of the second century.

There may have been no papal or episcopal decrees setting out the whole canon, but it must have been known by the beginning of the second century, or it could never have been defined. This is compatible with individual people expressing doubts about e.g. Hebrews and the Apocalpyse because of Novatianism and Millenarianism, controversies that arose after the beginning of the second century.

8. He speculates about how exactly the apostles knew that Matthias was the man chosen to replace Judas – why didn’t he ask St Paul, if he had known him?

St Paul had been dead for 40 years, and perhaps he’d never thought of asking him while he was alive. Perhaps St Paul didn’t know himself, as he wasn’t in the Cenacle when Matthias was chosen.

9. He uses expressions that belong to a later period, such as ‘Trinity of Persons’, or, when talking about Christ, the Chalcedonian term ‘unmixed’.

Someone had to be the first to use the phrase Trinity, or three persons. Why not a disciple of St Paul who was also a philosopher?  No later author claims to have been the first to use them. The word unmixed may only have been defined at Chalcedon, but again it could only be defined because it had been believed from the beginning. It is in itself an ordinary Greek word, not a technical term. On the other hand Dionysius doesn’t use some important post 2nd century terms, like ‘homoousios’ or ‘theotokos’.

10. His desire to be neutral in certain questions shows the influence of the decree Henotikon issued in AD 482.

This begs the question. If he doesn’t address certain questions about the relation of the two natures in Christ, this could equally be because they hadn’t arisen in his day.

11. His works contain close parallels to those of Proclus, who died in AD 487.

Maybe Proclus got some things from Dionysius, directly or indirectly. Or maybe both of them drew on a common source, now lost. Why should similarities between a Christian and a pagan be interpreted in favour of the pagan?

A series of poor arguments don’t add up to a convincing argument. Only argument (1) seems weighty, but against it is the fact that the 6th Century Greeks, Catholics and dissidents alike, presumably better able than anyone today to judge, concluded that these works were indeed by the Areopagite.

Again, for all the learned talk about ‘traditions of pseudepigraphy’, a fraud is a fraud. If these works were not by someone who had known the apostles, they were by a bad man, since he says he knew the apostles and he convinced people that he did.

Again, there is the esteem in which these writings have been held by Catholics for so long a time. Bellarmine, after the question had been aired for more than 100 years, was able to say that only heretics and a few dabblers (scioli) like Erasmus and Valla doubt their authenticity (presumably he means dabblers in theology.) This argument is sometimes rejected on the ground that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and so the tradition in favour of Dionysius is no more valuable than the earliest witnesses to him. But this forgets that the tradition in his favour is also a tradition in favour of the holiness of the author, based on the prayerful study of his writings. If the author was holy, he was the Areopagite, since if he was not the Areopagite he was a forger.

 

Help!

Is there a way of un-knowing this exists?

I have work to do, after all!

(The USA have quite bad resolution. Russia’s is good, but signs do not help that much. Yet, to miss Nishni Novgorod! Once you are stuck in some desolate wilderness in Australia or Scandinavia, you strangely know that you are exactly that, but where? Still, it is unfortunately even better than following obscure Iclandic streams at high resolution.)

 

The Rebel

There is a wall of which the stones
Are lies and bribes and dead men’s bones.
And wrongfully this evil wall
Denies what all men made for all,
And shamelessly this wall surrounds
Our homesteads and our native grounds.

But I will gather and I will ride,
And I will summon a countryside,
And many a man shall hear my halloa
Who never had thought the horn to follow;
And many a man shall ride with me
Who never had thought on earth to see
High Justice in her armoury.

When we find them where they stand,
A mile of men on either hand,
I mean to charge from right away
And force the flanks of their array,
And press them inward from the plains,
And drive them clamouring down the lanes,
And gallop and harry and have them down,
And carry the gates and hold the town.
Then shall I rest me from my ride
With my great anger satisfied.

Only, before I eat and drink,
When I have killed them all, I think
That I will batter their carven names,
And slit the pictures in their frames,
And burn for scent their cedar door,
And melt the gold their women wore,
And hack their horses at the knees,
And hew to death their timber trees,
And plough their gardens deep and through—
And all these things I mean to do
For fear perhaps my little son
Should break his hands, as I have done.

- Hilaire Belloc

 

Edwardian Pride

I have often wondered why the SNP should trouble themselves to promote such a thing as ‘Gay Marriage’ in Scotland. I find it hard to believe that Alex Salmond is doing it for idealistic reasons. Scotland’s image generally is of a particularly virile country. If the novelty were resisted for a decade or so I think a certain amount of patriotic feeling would soon attach itself to the fact, securing the position of marriage north of the border for the long term. I fear Salmond may have simply calculated that if he were to allow Cameron to take this step but not do so himself, then ‘Gay Marriage’ would become an issue in the referendum and the Homosexual lobby would be more effective in opposing Scottish Independence because it was lacking, than the Natural Law vote would be in supporting it for the same reason. Perhaps this is a sad reflection on the strength of reason and revelation in Scotland. (Although the cases are not alike. Remaining in the Union would not affect the chances of ‘Gay Marriage’ either way, while leaving before it was legalised would probably reduce them).

It is a shame that everyone seems to forget that the ‘proud Edward’ in Flower of Scotland, whose armies were sent homeward to think again, was Edward II not Edward I. I have mused from time to time that this blog ought to grant an ‘Edwardian Pride’ award to that figure who has done most that year to import the ‘Gay agenda’ into Scotland and perhaps a ‘Send Them Homewards’ award for whoever has done most to resist. Until it was revealed that he had rather let the side down, the first ‘Send Them Homewards’ award would probably have had to go to the former Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh. That leaves Bishop Joseph Divine and Bishop Hugh Gilbert. While I feel my Lord of Aberdeen’s comments were more effective the award might fit his brother of Motherwell’s temperament rather better. Nominations remain open. I think it would be uncharitable to place the former archbishop in the running for the Edwardian Pride trophy. He did work vigorously to uphold the Church’s teaching after he took the oath prepared for him by the then Cardinal Ratzinger in 2003. That being the case there is no real challenger, Salmond himself ought undoubtedly to be the first recipient of the ‘Edwardian Pride’ trophy.

 

Marie Dominique Philippe

The Prior General of the Community of St John P. Thomas Joachim has announced that there exist “convergent and credible testimonies concerning the failures in chastity of their founder” Marie Dominique Philippe. Apparently these failures regard between five and ten adult women to whom he gave spiritual guidance and with whom he was romantically involved but do not extend as far as sexual intercourse. In an interview for La Croix the Prior General has rejected comparisons with Marcial Maciel.

I remember attending a lecture by Fr John Saward many years ago in which he pointed out that there have as yet been no saints raised on the Novus Ordo. One of the attendees was very annoyed by this comment and indeed it is still relatively early days. Nevertheless, we were promised the wrath of Almighty God and the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul if we overthrew the Missal of St Pius V and it is hard not to suspect that is what we have received. The very idea of jettisoning a patristic rite of apostolic origin in favour of the work of committee of academics and officials in the nineteen sixties only needs to be expressed for its absurdity to be seen. There is an urgent need to recover the powerful feeling of the Fathers that ‘novelty’ is a dirty word. In this regard I am reminded of the thirteenth canon of the Fourth Lateran Council which has been so spectacularly ignored over the last eight hundred years,

“Lest too great a variety of religious orders leads to grave confusion in God’s church, we strictly forbid anyone henceforth to found a new religious order. Whoever wants to become a religious should enter one of the already approved orders. Likewise, whoever wishes to found a new religious house should take the rule and institutes from already approved religious orders…”

There are many extremely sensible disciplinary provisions in the Councils (such as the prohibition of Nicaea against the translation of a bishop from one diocese to another) which might have done much good to the Church if they had been observed. St Pius X is of course a great and glorious pontiff but the decision to codify canon law and the reform of the Roman Breviary seem to reflect an unfortunate conception of the proper relationship of the Holy See to tradition which bore evil fruit later in the century.

I spent a week listening to the lectures of Marie Dominique Philippe once and I am afraid I was not impressed. He seemed to think no one had really understood a word of St Thomas until he came along and, as he had now surpassed the Angelic Doctor in many important respects, there was not much point in approaching the Angelic Doctor except through him. He had taken Maritain’s ideas about the supposed distinction between the Individual and the Person and run with it. He held that the end of the person was the knowledge of God but the end of the individual was reproduction. I expressed scepticism about this idea to one of the Priests of the community who insisted it was a wonderful insight which was very helpful in understanding the challenges of celibacy. That seemed unlikely to me.

I bumped into quite a number of friends and acquaintances at Saint-Jodard one of the them was a novice in the contemplative sisters who (unbeknownst to me) was about to leave. She complained that all they did was pray the five offices of the Novus Ordo breviary that the last of these (Compline) was often substituted by a lecture or reflection of the founder. They spent an awfully long time listening to his lectures and she had noticed considerable divergence between what struck her as the authentic doctrine of St Thomas and what she was being told. She wished there was some productive work to be done. She wasn’t sure she could cope with a lifetime of these lectures. I pointed out that Fr Philippe was rather elderly and thus a lifetime of his lectures did not seem very likely. She grabbed my arm with a rather desperate look in her eyes “No! There are tapes, there are thousands of tapes!”

Many new orders were founded in the Tridentine period, particularly in the nineteenth century. They seem to have done a lot of good. Nevertheless, they have fared very badly in the post-conciliar period. The Jesuits would be the most spectacular casualty of an enforcement of canon thirteen of Lateran IV. They have of course been dissolved before and it is not inconceivable that it could happen again. It is certainly much easier to read Dominus ac Redemptor with sympathy when one reflects on the state of the Society now and the many unfortunate theological positions such as implicit faith, the third degree of obedience, the ‘black is white’ doctrine, scientia media, indirectism, the denial of the real distinction between essence and existence etc. which the Society has sponsored and which have done so much harm to the Church. In general the sponsorship of theological systems by religious orders has been a shelter under which many errors have grown up. This is particularly true of the Franciscans (whose rule was the last to be approved before 1215) who were obviously straying from the charism of the Seraphic Father by engagement in such activities. Nevertheless, it was the Jesuits who were in the forefront of the effort to prevent Benedict XV enforcing the Twenty Four Theses (admittedly written by a Jesuit!) promulgated by St Pius X in the last month of his pontificate.

The Rules of St Basil, St Augustine, St Benedict and St Francis have vast centuries of sanctity to commend them to the Church. To join a community based on one of these is to know that whatever the failings of individuals the foundation is sure. It is dispiriting to realise one has taken a wrong turn and have to retrace one’s steps and start again but, in the end perhaps, salutary.

 

Paul VI and Pelagianism

I am struggling rather with a couple of sections of Populorum Progessio. In  §15-16 the Pontiff makes some statements which seem really very odd.

Personal Responsibility

15. In God’s plan, every man is born to seek self-fulfillment, for every human life is called to some task by God. At birth a human being possesses certain aptitudes and abilities in germinal form, and these qualities are to be cultivated so that they may bear fruit. By developing these traits through formal education of personal effort, the individual works his way toward the goal set for him by the Creator.

Endowed with intellect and free will, each man is responsible for his self-fulfillment even as he is for his salvation. He is helped, and sometimes hindered, by his teachers and those around him; yet whatever be the outside influences exerted on him, he is the chief architect of his own success or failure. Utilizing only his talent and willpower, each man can grow in humanity, enhance his personal worth, and perfect himself.

Man’s Supernatural Destiny

16. Self-development, however, is not left up to man’s option. Just as the whole of creation is ordered toward its Creator, so too the rational creature should of his own accord direct his life to God, the first truth and the highest good. Thus human self-fulfillment may be said to sum up our obligations.

Moreover, this harmonious integration of our human nature, carried through by personal effort and responsible activity, is destined for a higher state of perfection. United with the life-giving Christ, man’s life is newly enhanced; it acquires a transcendent humanism which surpasses its nature and bestows new fullness of life. This is the highest goal of human self-fulfillment.

I find it very hard to see how these passages are not Pelagian. Even Semi-Pelegian seems a bit generous. Especially the words “whatever be the outside influences exerted on him, he is the chief architect of his own success or failure”. I suppose one might say that grace is assumed throughout and that the passage only concerns man’s relation to ‘outside’ influence not grace (which moves from within). One would have to interpret the  ’higher state of perfection’ referred to as the evangelical counsels. Still it is the most extreme case of ambiguous optimistic magisterium prose I have come across.