South American Jesuit Provincials

Josef de Acosta (1540-1600) was a Spanish Jesuit who became a missionary in South America, and was elected as provincial of a vast part of that continent. From what we read in Cornelius a Lapide, he seems to have been the first person to propose that the ‘beast from the land’ in Apocalypse 13 would be an apostate bishop. I just thought I’d mention it.

 

Why religious should eat well

If bread, wine, eggs and partridges could speak, they would cry out: ‘Let holy men eat us, let the servants of our God eat us.  Let us not be eaten by the enemies of our God.  Let our substance, our flesh, be incorporated into the saints, so that it may rise again in them to glory, and not in sinners – for in them, it would rise for hell (Cornelius à Lapide, on Hosea 2:9, quoting a preacher whom he had once heard in Belgium.)

 

St Irenaeus & the antichrist

St Irenaeus seems quite confident that the antichrist will appear after six thousand years of human history.  He doesn’t explicitly say that he has received this from apostolic tradition, true.  But nor does he say that it is a conjecture of his own.  Given that his whole purpose in the Adversus Haereses is to pass on what he has received, against the false teachings of the gnostics, it seems very likely, at least, that he has received this from some of the disciples of the apostle St John. “In as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded” (Adv. haer. V.28).  The number of the beast he takes not only to be the numerical value of a man’s name or title, but also to allude to apostasy (indicated by the 600 years of Noah’s age when the flood occurred), and persecution (indicated by the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, which was 60 cubits high and 6 broad).

The six hundred years of Noah, in whose time the deluge occurred because of the apostasy, and the number of the cubits of the image for which these just men were sent into the fiery furnace, do indicate the number of the name of that man in whom is concentrated the whole apostasy of six thousand years, and unrighteousness, and wickedness, and false prophecy, and deception (Adv. haer. V.29).

According to Cornelius a Lapide, most meticulous of exegetes, Adam was created in 3950 BC. Adding six thousand years to that we come to AD 2050.  If we were to guess that the lawless one will be about thirty years old when he makes his appearance, that would mean that he is due to be born about now.

In a chilling twist on the apparently obvious interpretation of the parable of the Unjust Judge, St Irenaeus says that this judge who fears neither God nor man is the antichrist, and that the widow woman who cries to him day and night for vindication against her enemy is not the Church, but unbelieving Jewry.  Seeking some Messiah who would not be Jesus of Nazareth, she has been calling upon the antichrist in ignorance for near two thousand years.  It may be that her long wait will soon be over.

 

Four souls

Just before the year 1300, Blessed Mechtilde was asked by a certain brother to put this question to our Lord in prayer: “Where are the souls of Samson, Solomon, Origen and Trajan?” He answered her: “That which My love has done with the soul of Samson, I wish to be unknown, that men may fear to avenge themselves further upon their enemies. What My mercy has done with the soul of Solomon, I wish to be hidden from men, so that they may the rather shun carnal sins. What My kindness has done with the soul of Origen, I wish to be hidden, so that no one, trusting in his own science, should dare be lifted up. And what My generosity has commanded concerning the soul of Trajan, I wish men not to know, that the Catholic faith may thereby be the more extolled: for although he was excellent in all virtues, he lacked Christian faith and baptism” (quoted by Cornelius a Lapide, Commentary on Ecclesiasticus, 47:22).

 

Facial hair, liturgy and the universal call to holiness

St Augustine:

As the ointment on the head, which descended to the beard, to Aaron’s beard, which descended to the fringe of his garment. What was Aaron? A priest. Who is a priest, except that one Priest, who entered into the Holy of Holies? Who is that priest, save Him, who was at once Victim and Priest? save Him who when he found nothing clean in the world to offer, offered Himself? The ointment is on his head, because Christ is one whole with the Church, but the ointment comes from the head. Our Head is Christ crucified and buried; He rose again, and ascended into heaven; and the Holy Spirit came from the head. Whither? To the beard. The beard signifies the courageous; the beard distinguishes the grown men, the earnest, the active, the vigorous. So that when we describe such, we say, he is a bearded man. Thus that ointment descended first upon the Apostles, descended upon those who bore the first assaults of the world, and therefore the Holy Spirit descended on them. For they who first began to dwell together in unity, suffered persecution, but because the ointment descended to the beard, they suffered, but were not conquered…. (in Ps. 132)

 

St Thomas Aquinas:

It is becoming for those who apply themselves to the Divine ministry to be shaven, and to be tonsured in the form of a crown by reason of the shape. Because a crown is the sign of royalty; and of perfection, since it is circular; and those who are appointed to the Divine service acquire a royal dignity and ought to be perfect in virtue. It is also becoming to them as it involves the hair being taken away: both from the higher part of the head by the tonsure, lest their mind be hindered by temporal occupations from contemplating Divine things, and from the lower part by shaving, lest their senses be entangled in temporal things (Suppl. 40, 1).

I’m not sure how to overcome this aporia, unless we think that Hanon in 1 Sam. 10 had the right idea by shaving off one half of the beards of David’s servants. However, Cornelius a Lapide says that this episode represents the Jews plucking off hairs from Christ’s beard during the Passion, or the devil stripping religious men of their courage, so that does not seem promising. I suppose we have to say that per se it is better for a man, especially a Christian, to possess a beard, at least in this life, but per accidens, e.g. because of a particular need to signify something else, it may become better to be shaved (and tonsured). I say ‘in this life’ because Aelianus tells me that the earliest depictions of our Lord present Him as risen and beardless, in token of eternal youth, and suggests that this may be the ‘other form’ which hindered people from recognising Him after the resurrection.

I presume that the historical reason why priests in the west have generally been shaven is Romanitas. Eastern rite priests of course often have beards, and I have a theory that the East-West division here is a providential counterbalance to the characteristics of their respective liturgies. That is, the Eastern liturgies put before us in particular the glory of the resurrection, so it is fitting that their priests be bearded, to preserve some suggestion of the trials and labours of this life as well, lest we float off into unreality. On the other hand, the Roman rite is more stark and sacrificial, so perhaps there is a danger that adding beards as well might make it too much for some people to take. I hope these are not irreverent thoughts.

 

Over what will our Lady triumph?

All those who are interested in the message of Fatima know our Lady’s words: ‘In the end, my immaculate Heart will triumph’. But what exactly will she triumph over? Immediately before these words, she explained what would happen if Russia were not consecrated as she would request: ‘The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated’. It seems quite likely that what Mary is describing here is the rise and brief reign of antichrist.

People often imagine that the overthrow of antichrist will be the work of Christ alone at His second coming. In fact, Scripture apparently indicates that the two events will not be simultaneous:-

From the time when the continual sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination unto desolation shall be set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waits and comes unto a thousand three hundred and thirty-five days (Dan. 12:11-12).

The angel does not explain this riddle, and so we cannot say what will take place on the one thousand three hundred and thirty fifth day. St Jerome thought it would be the second coming. Cornelius a Lapide thought it would be a great triumph of the Church, though still within this present world, the scattered remnant having collected themselves together during the previous forty five days. But whatever it will be, it will apparently take place forty five days after the continual sacrifice will have been restored and the abomination cast down; which seems to mean after the destruction of the antichrist.

So the overthrow of antichrist will not be exactly simultaneous with the Second Coming. Still, they will be close, relatively speaking. Bellarmine says that the time between the two events will be so small as to be reputed as nothing – compared, I take him to mean, to the entire history of the world. St Paul, after all, says that our Lord will destroy him ‘with the epiphany of His coming’ (2 Thess. 2:8).  This suggests that the first event is almost the beginning of the second, as first light is the epiphany of sunrise.

But given that the destruction of antichrist will take place at some point before, however soon before, the end of the world, there is place to suppose that it will in a special way be the work of our Lady. There are several reasons to think this.

First, our Lord wishes to associate the blessed Virgin Mary with His own victory to the highest degree. She has already shared in this victory in her own person, by her bodily assumption into glory. It would seem very appropriate that she should share in it in this other way, intervening in history to bring the last persecution to an end.

Secondly, Christ is the head of the city of God, as the devil is the head of the opposite city. The man of sin is not the devil, but the one in whom that fallen spirit is most completely active. It seems therefore appropriate that his adversary should be our Lady, the one in whom Christ’s Holy Spirit is most active.

Again, St Paul says that our Lord will destroy the man of sin ‘with the breath of his mouth’ (2 Thess 2:8). The Book of Wisdom describes wisdom as being, among other things, ‘a breath of the power of God’ (Wis. 7:25). This is significant because the Church’s liturgy applies the Old Testament encomia of wisdom to Mary. The word for breath, admittedly, is not the same in each case: πνεῦμα in St Paul and ἀτμίς in Wisdom; the former may also be translated as ‘spirit’ and the latter as ‘vapour’. Still, it is interesting, all the same.

A lesser known part of the Fatima message is Mary’s promise of a seventh apparition. Sr Lucia described her first conversation with the Queen of heaven in this way:-

Our Lady said to us: ‘Do not be afraid. I will do you no harm.’

‘Where is Your Grace from?’ I asked Her.

‘I am of Heaven.’

‘What does Your Grace want of me?’

‘I have come to ask you to come here for six months in succession, on the 13^th day, at this same hour. Later on, I will tell you who I am and what I want. Afterwards, I will return here yet a seventh time.’

That seventh apparition has not yet occurred.  The promise of it must be intended to console and strengthen the faithful during some exceptionally dark time.

 

Did St Peter say Mass in England? *

The question arises from a remark of Cornelius a Lapide’s at the start of his commentary on the Letter to the Romans. He says that it was written in AD 58 (the editor amends this to AD 55), ‘when St Peter having left Rome at Claudius’s command had gone into Britain’. Does anyone know what the source for this might be?

* or Wales, I should add. Happy St David’s day!

 

 

 

 

 

St Peter on Purgatory

Christ died once for our sins, the just for the unjust, that e might offer us to God, being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit; in which also coming he preached to those spirits which were in prison, which had formerly been incredulous when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noah (1 Pet. 3).

Who are these ‘spirits in prison’? Not damned souls, since Christ has nothing to say to them; He ‘knows them not’. Also, the context in which St Peter mentions these spirits is that of Christ’s work of reconciliation.

Nor, pace Cornelius a Lapide, do I think they are the just in Abraham’s bosom who were ready, as soon as our Lord descended to the world below, to receive eternal bliss. For if St Peter had wanted to mention such souls, or a sub-set of such souls, why would he have defined them as those who were ‘incredulous’ or ‘disobedient’ in the days of Noah? For the characteristic of the souls in Abraham’s bosom was that they were prevented from entering paradise simply by original sin, the debt of which had not yet been paid, and not by personal sins.

The most natural reading of St Peter’s words is that he is thinking of souls in purgatory. This was the only group of souls that both could be preached to and also was in prison on account of personal sins. If he mentions those who had sinned in the days of Noah – but, presumably repented when the flood waters actually appeared on the horizon – this is perhaps to emphasise both the justice and mercy of God. Justice, as they had been in purgatory so long. Mercy, as even some of those who lived when all flesh had corrupted its way upon earth, and who laughed at God’s calls to repentance, were yet saved before the end.