Ceremonial Law vs. Moral Law

The same Leviticus straw men keep appearing.

There are two types of law in the Torah: 1) moral law; 2) ceremonial law.

See following humorous video for advancement in self-education:

Some Commonly Repeated Biblical Myths

Here are a number of urban legends that get repeated in sermons. Some are more pervasive than others, even appearing in commentaries and scholarly works.

1. The “eye of the needle” refers to a gate outside Jerusalem.

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God,” says Jesus in Mark 10:25. Maybe you’ve heard of the gate in Jerusalem called the “eye of the needle.” The camel could pass through it only after stooping down and having all its baggage taken off.

The illustration is used in many sermons as an example of coming to God on our knees and without our baggage. The only problem is… there is no evidence for such a gate. The story has been around since the 15th century, but there isn’t a shred of evidence to support it.

2. The high priest tied a rope around his ankle so that others could drag him out of the Holy of Holies in case God struck him dead.

Various versions of this claim have been repeated by pastors, but it is a legend. It started in the Middle Ages and keeps getting repeated. There is no evidence for the claim in the Bible, the Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, the Pseudepigrapha, the Talmud, Mishna or any other source. Furthermore, the thickness of the veil (three feet) would have precluded the possibility of a priest being dragged out anyway. [...]

6. Gehenna was a burning trash dump outside Jerusalem.
I’ve used this illustration many times. But there isn’t evidence to support this idea. Still, because it seems like a reasonable explanation for the origin of the Hinnom Valley as “hell,” commentators and preachers have accepted it. It’s possible that the verdict may still be out on this one, but not if Todd Bolen is right: 

“The explanation for the ‘fire of Gehenna’ lies not in a burning trash dump, but in the burning of sacrificed children. Already in Old Testament times, the Valley of Hinnom was associated with the destiny of the wicked.  That the valley was just outside the city of Jerusalem made it an appropriate symbol for those excluded from divine blessing.”

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Source for the above: Trevin Wax, "Urban Legends: The Preacher's Edition," TGC, April 27, 2011, accessed May 30, 2015, http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2011/04/27/urban-legends-the-preachers-edition/.

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[Further information on Gehenna from various sources:]

“Gehenna is presented as diametrically opposed to ‘life’: it is better to enter life than to go to Gehenna. . .It is common practice, both in scholarly and less technical works, to associate the description of Gehenna with the supposedly contemporary garbage dump in the valley of Hinnom. This association often leads scholars to emphasize the destructive aspects of the judgment here depicted: fire burns until the object is completely consumed. Two particular problems may be noted in connection with this approach. First, there is no convincing evidence in the primary sources for the existence of a fiery rubbish dump in this location (in any case, a thorough investigation would be appreciated). Secondly, the significant background to this passage more probably lies in Jesus’ allusion to Isaiah 66:24.”

Source: Peter Head, “The Duration of Divine Judgment in the New Testament,” in The Reader Must Understand: Eschatology in Bible and Theology, ed. by K. E. Brower and M. W. Elliott (Leicester, UK: Apollos, 1997), 223.

Ge-Hinnom (Aramaic Ge-hinnam, hence the Greek Geenna), ‘The Valley of Hinnom,’ lay south of Jerusalem, immediately outside its walls. The notion, still referred to by some commentators, that the city’s rubbish was burned in this valley, has no further basis than a statement by the Jewish scholar Kimchi (sic) made about A.D. 1200; it is not attested in any ancient source. The valley was the scene of human sacrifices, burned in the worship of Moloch (2 Kings 16:3 and 21:6), which accounts for the prophecy of Jeremiah that it would be called the Valley of Slaughter under judgment of God (Jer. 7:32-33). This combination of abominable fires and divine judgment led to the association of the valley with a place of perpetual judgment (see Isa. 66:24) and later with a place of judgment by fire without any special connection to Jerusalem (see, for example, 1 Enoch 27:1ff., 54:1ff., 63:3-4, and 90:26ff).

Source: G. R. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986), 376-377, footnote 92.

The traditional explanation that a burning rubbish heap in the Valley of Hinnom south of Jerusalem gave rise to the idea of a fiery Gehenna of judgment is attributed to Rabbi David Kimhi's commentary on Psalm 27:13 (ca. A.D. 1200). He maintained that in this loathsome valley fires were kept burning perpetually to consume the filth and cadavers thrown into it. However, Strack and Billerbeck state that there is neither archeological nor literary evidence in support of this claim, in either the earlier intertestamental or the later rabbinic sources (Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud and Midrasch, 5 vols. [Munich: Beck, 1922-56], 4:2:1030). Also a more recent author holds a similar view (Lloyd R. Bailey, "Gehenna: The Topography of Hell," Biblical Archeologist 49 [1986]: 189

Source: Hans Scharen, "Gehenna in the Synoptics," Bibliotheca Sacra 155 (January-March 1998) 328, footnote 17.

The traditional explanation for this seems to go back to Rabbi David Kimhi’s commentary on Psalm 27 (around 1200 C.E.). He remarked the following concerning the valley beneath Jerusalem’s walls:

Gehenna is a repugnant place, into which filth and cadavers are thrown, and in which fires perpetually burn in order to consume the filth and bones; on which account, by analogy, the judgement of the wicked is called ‘Gehenna.’

Kimhi's otherwise plausible suggestion, however, finds no support in literary sources or archaeological data from the intertestamental or rabbinic periods. There is no evidence that the valley was, in fact, a garbage dump, and thus his explanation is insufficient. [...]

Even after the valley ceased to function as a cult center, it continued to be regarded as the location of an entrance to the underworld over which the sole God was sovereign. This is clear from the following statements in the Babylonian Talmud: (Rabbi Jeremiah ben Eleazar further stated:) Gehenna has three gates; one in the wilderness, one in the sea and one in Jerusalem. (According to Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai's school:) There are two palm trees in the Valley of Ben Hinnom and between them smoke arises..,. and this is the gate of Gehenna? (Babylonian Talmud, Erubin, 19a-see Slotki 1938: 130-31)

Source: Lloyd R. Bailey, "Gehenna: The Topography of Hell," Biblical Archaeologist 49, no. 3 (1986): 189, 191.

It seems that the location of the city-dump of the late Second Temple period in this particular part of the city had a previous long history in the late Iron Age II. The Book of Nehemiah mentions several times a gate called Saar ha-Aspot/Sopot (Neh 2, 13; 3:13-14; 12:31). This toponym is usually translated as ‘Dung Gate’, based on the analogy with 2 Sam 2,8 and Ps 113,7 (Simons 1952, 123). These verses mention the city’s poor people, who most probably were foraging the city dump for food. Even if we accept B. Mazar’s suggestion (1975, 194-95), to relate spt to tpt – the Tophet – which was an extramural high place in the Valley of Hinnom (2 Kgs 21, 6; 2 Chr 33,6), we remain in an area of dirt. This place involved an extensive use of fire, which produced burning waste such as ashes, soot and charred wood. Also the location of the Gate of the pottery sherds (Sa’ar ha-Harsit), in the south (Jer 19,2), might point to a pile of garbage (Simons 1952, 230), as pottery vessels were the type of household item broken and discarded in antiquity more than any other type of artifact.

All the various types of city-garbage (ashes, pottery shards, waste of human occupation, etc.) were moved and dumped at the southeastern side of the city of Jerusalem, in the Iron Age and Persian periods. This was the city dump to where also the debris of the smashed cult objects and related material that was created during the Josianic religious reform, were moved and dumped, mentioning particularly the Kidron Valley (2 Kgs 23,4,6,10,12)”

Source: Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, “The Jerusalem City-Dump in the Late Second Temple Period," Israel Exploration Journal 53 (2003): 17.

Repost: Steve Caruso - "Abba" Doesn't Mean "Daddy"

אבא “abba” was a term that meant “father.” When used in direct address it did mean “my father.” However, this word was used by children and adults in both formal and informal contexts. You have full grown men referring to their fathers as “abba” and some Rabbis even referring to honored elder members of their schools as “abba” (it’s were we get the word “Abbot” in Christian tradition, even).

However, what makes this very confusing, especially in modern times, is that “abba” was adopted into Modern Hebrew as… you guessed it… “daddy.” This was simply not the case in Jesus’ day. It’s a modern development.

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Source: Steve Caruso, "Mean 'Daddy'," The Aramaic New Testament (blog), June 14, 2014, accessed February 24, 2015, http://aramaicnt.org/2014/06/14/brace-yourselves-abba-does-not-mean-daddy/.

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So, for those of you who aren’t familiar with this particular meme, it is common to find around the Internet and in sermons throughout the world that where Jesus is recorded in the New Testament to use the Aramaic word “abba” that the term was an informal word, the likes a child would refer to their pop (i.e. “dad” or “daddy”).

This stemmed from an idea that was originally proposed by a scholar named Joachim Jeremias (b1900-d1979); mainly, that the form “abba” originated from “child-babble.” The connection between “abba” and “daddy” was then popularized by his following.

However, this idea was immediately challenged by a number of other scholars, such as James Barr who published an article entitled “Abba Isn’t ‘Daddy'” (in the Journal of Theological Studies) which outlined the numerous problems with such an assertion and addressed them in detail.

Overall, I believe that Mary Rose D’Angelo summed up what happened next nicely:

Jeremias began almost at once to retreat from the claim that “abba” had the same connotations as “daddy.” In a sense, Barr’s title (but only his title) misrepresents Jeremias. Even as Jeremias acknowledged that the word was in common use by adults and was used as a mark of repect for old men and for teachers, he continued to stress the origins in babytalk and the consequent intimacy as a special component of Jesus’ use of the word. This meaning seems to have been the basis on which he regarded Jesus’ use as absolutely distinct from the Judaism of his time. 

The NT itself gives quite a different reading of αββα. Each of the three occurrences of αββα in the NT is followed by the Greek translation ο πατερ, “the father.” This translation makes clear its meaning to the writers; the form is a literal translation — “father” plus a definite article — and like abba can also be a vocative. But it is not a diminutive of “babytalk” form. There are Greek diminutives of father (e.g., παππας [pappas]), and the community chose not to use them. (Mary Rose D’Angelo. Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 111, No. 4 (Winter, 1992), pp. 615-616)

And beyond this, many years after Jeremias’ death, modern linguistic study of how children pick up speech has completely discounted his conclusions of abba as “babytalk.”

But…

There is still a point of confusion: In Modern [emph. original] Hebrew, “abba” has become commonly used as… You guessed it: “Daddy.” So, when a Hebrew speaker happens upon this anecdote, to them it makes “perfect sense.” 

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Source: Steve Caruso, "Abba Isn't Daddy – The Traditional Aramaic Father's Day Discussion," The Aramaic New Testament (blog), June 21, 2009, accessed February 24, 2015, http://aramaicnt.org/2009/06/21/abba-isnt-daddy-the-traditional-aramaic-fathers-day-discussion/.

St. Thomas Aquinas on Rationalizing Sexual Hedonsim

For know you this and understand: that no fornicator or unclean or covetous person, which is a serving of idols, hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words. For because of these things cometh the anger of God upon the children of despair. Be ye not therefore partakers with them. (Eph. 5:5–7)

The Apostle above forbade carnal sins (5:3); here he threatens them with the penalty of damnation that is inflicted on sinners. [...]

He states For know you this and understand, that is, be actually certain of it and not just habitually. “These things I write to you that you may know that you have eternal life; you who believe in the name of the Son of God” (1 Jn. 5:13). And what does he write? That no fornicator or unclean or covetous person, which is a serving of idols, hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Notice that he calls covetousness idolatry, for idolatry happens when the honor due God alone is given to creatures. Now there is a twofold honor due God; we must establish him as the goal of our life and we must put our trust of reaching the goal in him. Hence, whoever places these ‘in creatures is guilty of idolatry. A covetous person commits this when he fixes his end in a created reality as well as putting all his trust in it. “Of their silver and their gold they have made idols to themselves, that they might perish” (Os. 8:4). This happens since, as Proverbs 11 (28) affirms: “He that trusteth in his riches shall fall.” [...]

Notice that only in reference to carnal vices does he teach them to avoid being deceived. For from the beginning men have rationalized to find reasons why fornication and other venereal sins were not really sins so that they might indulge their cupidity without restraint. Hence he states vain words since words that claim these are not sins and do not exclude one from the kingdom of God and of Christ are irrational. “Beware lest any man cheat you by prophecy and vain deceit” (Col. 2:8).”

He demonstrates that such men are deceivers and their words fallacious since, if carnal sins were not sins, they would not be punished by God; God is just and does not impose a penalty where there is no offense. But such acts are punished by God and therefore are sins. He proves the minor when he says For because of these things comes the anger of God, namely, on account of carnal sins, upon the children of despair. This is evident in the flood (Gen. 7), in what happened to the Sodomites (Gen. 19); and again, almost the whole tribe of Benjamin was destroyed on account of this (Jg. 19 & 20).

He says the children of despair because those who sin in this way despair of eternal life. If they acted this way and still hoped for eternal life, it would rather be presumption than hope, which is the certain expectation of obtaining future beatitude meritoriously.

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Source: St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, trans. by Matthew L. Lamb (Albany, NY: Magis Books, 1966), Dominican House of Studies website, accessed Sept. 23, 2014, http://dhspriory.org/thomas/Eph5.htm#3, 5.3.

Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis on Love of Enemies and Spiritual Perfection

"You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven [....] Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt. 5:43-45, 48).

[236] [Our Lord's] commands are couched in the future indicative: "You will love your neighbor...", "You will be perfect...." These wills are stronger than a more straightforward command in the usual imperative because they not only communicate the speaker's wish that something be done, they also prophesy that something in the future will in fact be the case. Hence, not only the desirability that something be so is expressed by Christ but also the possibility that it become a reality.

Now in the first instance, when the Lord is loosely quoting Leviticus (19:18), all seems to make sense. It is not difficult to prophesy that natural man will love his neighbor (that is, those who are like himself and with whom he must get along if he is to exist at all) and hate his enemy. This is the logic of the flesh, of survival, of the precarious community establishing its unique identity over against all other groups, which simply by being other are potential threats. Much of the force of the passage resides in the fact that the Lord goes on [237] to subvert this natural logic by continuing to use its own forms, as if the unheard-of things he is proposing, so naturally repulsive to man, came as naturally to himself as Word of God as loving one's neighbor and hating one's enemy come to natural man.

"You will be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect": the expediency and real possibility of man putting on the mind and habits of God are presented by the Son as if nothing else in the world were more natural, desirable, possible, or necessary. His use of the future indicative as an imperative command manifests not only his wish and his teaching that his followers ought to move in this direction; it contains the promise that, by the power of his word here and now spoken to them, this will in fact become a reality. 'You must be perfect like God, because such is the nature of the human vocation in God's mind, and therefore you will be perfect. The One manifesting your deepest identity to you at this moment is, by doing so, communicating to you the power to undergo such a transformation.'

The image of man in the mind of the Word imposes itself as more real than the condition in which natural man happens to find himself. The very revelation of this image is already a promise of its realization.

"Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you [...] for if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the heathens this?" (Mt. 5:44, 46-47).

Whereas human activity had previously been neatly and satisfyingly divided into loving and hating others, the Lord here keeps the first verb but adds another to that, instead of being its opposite, is rather an extension of the first. The Christian cannot allow himself the too easy satisfaction of loving and hating [238] according to personal whims or the superficial identity of his community or race. All the Christian is allowed to do is love, unconditionally. It is crucial, however, that the categorical imperative to love everyone at all times does not come from a blindness that refuses to see the existence of evil in the world. We are not to love others without exception on the grounds that everyone is so good and love-worthy, or especially because we are so good and loving in any spontaneous, natural sense. No: this would be illusory daydreaming of the first order! We are to love without qualification because the Son of the Father has, through the power of his word, made us children of this same Father [....] It is by the power of God in Christ that we are enabled to love without exception, because this is what the Father does, who is incapable of hatred.

Furthermore, the Lord here recognizes the existence of real enemies and persecutors. He passes no judgment, either, as to whether there is any justice in their animosity toward us and their persecution of us. We are hardly to assume automatically that anyone who is our enemy is a personification of evil! But the Christian's business is to love and to perform the work of love without having previously qualified or disqualified others according to criteria foreign to the mind of the Word. [...]

[239] The universal generosity of love to which Jesus is calling his disciples is like the unrestrained brilliance of the sun as it sheds its rays over all of creation. When we love someone, we are like a sun bestowing the benefit of life, or like rain drenching the parched land that it may give fruit. Behind both the Christian's deeds of goodness and the outpouring of light and water there is the same agent at work: God, the Creator and Bestower of life. Our love is the light and the rain of God upon the world, especially on those who need it the most—the bad and the unjust, who are the truly benighted and parched. [...]

The Lord is establishing a continuity and a harmony between the moral attitude in the heart of man and the objective laws that govern the laws of the cosmos. When we choose to love universally without private prejudice, we leave that illusory inner chamber where we create a puny world in keeping with our own mean ideas and begin discovering the real world created by God in his magnanimous wisdom. Learning how to love as God loves not only makes us his children in a purely interior sense; it is the gateway itself to our perception of the cosmos in all its glory and a participation in its mysterious life. Through universal love, we allow the full benefit of the sun and the rain to fall upon ourselves for the first time. [...]

"If you love [only] those who love you...." Can my attitude of soul be worhty of the name "love" if it is nothing more than a response in kind to someone else's [240] attitude of goodwill toward me? At a purely human level, yes: What sense does it make to pour affection into a dark hole? Is not a clinging to unreciprocated love—or, even worse, to the love of what hurts us—the privilege of the mad? Human love encloses itself in a neat system of "energy conservation", where nothing is ever lost because nothing is ever gained. To love in this way is to take a prudent, speculator's view of human relationships, in which success depends on the greatest possible avoidance of risks. [...] The alleged child of God belies his Origin if he loves only those who love him, out of self-interest, instead of acting like his Father, whose goodness falls upon all without expecting a return in kind. [...]

To love only those who love us is its own reward. The account is neatly balanced. We are established in self-satisfaction. We inhabit a purely horizontal realm with a ceiling so low that our existence smothers for lack of oxygen. Our vision, too, is projected only unidimensionally down the tunnel of our immediate concerns. Man is unlike the other primates in that his posture is upright: he can, if he so chooses, gaze upward continually. His field of vision, if free of artificial clutter, enables him to take in both the ground under his feet and the sky above his head. This is why "our Father" is said here to be "in the heavens": by nature he is the one above the choking [241] horizontality of hermetic systems; he is the one whose very nature makes him condescend, makes him bestow life and love where none yet exists. To be "in heaven", to have one's dwelling in the heavens, far from connoting a spiritualistic fleeing from the earth, means rather to reside in the fullness of love and to be always engaged in bestowing the benefits of love on others—to pour out one's being into the void in others as if one were sunlight and rain. [...]

"You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." How can a human being be perfect in the same manner that God in heaven is perfect? There is an insurmountable problem in our Lord's solemn injunction, which concludes this whole section as its summary, as long as we insist on an abstract, essentialist definition of the term "perfect". The being of man, in this sense, can never be perfect in the same way God's is, and the Lord seems to be enjoining the impossible. Persons have been known to wreck their psychic, physical, and spiritual lives trying to apply this command in an erroneous way. If we apply the literal Greek meaning of the word for "perfect" as noted ("goal" or "end"), we will see that what the command intends is, rather, 'Guide your actions and attitudes by the same intention, the same finality, as your heavenly Father's.' Far from implying a head-breaking striving for the unattainable, we should rise from our immersion in the business of self-survival and focus our outlook from the divine point of view.

From this vantage point in heaven, the Father has as the "goal" of his love the totality of the human family, not just individuals within it.

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Source: Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, vol. 1 (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1996), 237–241.

St. Thomas Aquinas: "Everything is as so much straw..."

When towards the end of his life St. Thomas Aquinas was graced with undoubtedly some of the highest experiences of contemplation, a famous episode occurred while the theologian was celebrating a morning Mass on December 6, 1273. We are not entirely sure what the content of that experience was, whether St. Thomas had a vision or locution (extraordinary graces) or an actual moment of contemplative prayer or perhaps some combination, but we know that after this experience, St. Thomas never finished his famous Summa Theologiæ. When pressed by his assistant and companion, Brother Reginald, why the saint had stopped writing, St. Thomas replied, "I can't go on.... Everything seems as so much straw in comparison with what I have seen and what has been revealed to me."

This episode is in fact recorded for us by Br. Reginald himself, passed on to a certain Bartholomew of Capua, and made its way into the canonization process for St. Thomas. I bring attention to it because many people, especially those who in subtle ways dislike St. Thomas, point to this episode as if somehow to lessen the emphasis that Thomists give to their intellectual and spiritual master. They use this episode as if to say, "Look, you can't know everything about God. You can't dissect the work of God into an exact science [like Thomas—they mean to imply; this is, of course, a strawman of Thomas's work as well as Thomists']. God is a mystery, infinitely beyond our capacity to understand [when a person has said something like this, you know that he has never read St. Thomas in any way beyond a cursory glance, if at all]. Thomas never would have wanted to be read in this way. His work wasn't supposed to be followed so closely. It was more like guidelines [when a person says this, they clearly don't know or are deliberately ignoring papal and official Church documents promoting St. Thomas's philosophical and theological work]. Even at the end of his life, he admitted that his work was just straw, useless, etc." You may have encountered not a few people who say something similar to these words.

And they must be responded to very simply with a little fact that most people don't know: when St. Thomas compared his work to straw (remember, he didn't explicitly call it straw, but said, rather, "Everything seems as so much straw..."), he was alluding to what was in the Middle Ages a common term for Scripture's literal sense. 

Recall that the Church has taught that there are four primary senses for Sacred Scripture: the literal (or historical), and the spiritual senses (allegorical, tropological (meaning related to morals), and anagogical (meaning related to eternal things or eschatological). See Br. André Marie, MICM's very good article on the four senses, basing his explanation primarily off of St. Thomas here: http://brotherandre.stblogs.com/2007/12/11/the-four-senses-of-scripture/.

You will see, then, that for St. Thomas, the literal sense—or "straw"—was quite fundamental and nuanced. St. Thomas has a very profound doctrine of the literal sense and how it is foundational for the spiritual senses derived from it. As Fr. Paul Murray, one of the great historical scholars on spirituality of our times, has noted, "So, although Aquinas was compelled, at the end, to acknowledge the radical limitation of his lifetime's work, he was not simply dismissing it all as so much rubbish" (Fr. Paul Murray, "Aquinas at Prayer," Logos 14, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 58, 65 (fn. 80)).

Aquinas was being humble but not dismissive.

Distinction: St. Paul, St. Thomas Aquinas on Freedom for Excellence vs. Freedom to Sin

Chapter 6, lecture 3, n. 501: But the one who obeys God is made a slave of this obedience, because through the habit of obeying the mind is inclined more and more to obeying and as a result achieves holiness. Therefore, he says: or of obedience, namely, of the divine precepts, which leads to righteousness: “It is the doers of the law who will be justified” (Rom 2:13). 

Chapter 6, lecture 4, n. 508: In regard to the first it should be noted that man is by nature free because of his reason and will, which cannot be forced but can be inclined by certain things. Therefore, in regard to the freedom of the will man is always free of compulsion, although he is not free of inclinations. For the free judgment is sometimes inclined to the good through the habit of grace 

or righteousness; and then it is in slavery to righteousness but free from sin. But sometimes the free judgment is inclined to evil through the habit of sin; and then it is in slavery to sin and free from righteousness. Now, slavery to sin consists in being drawn to consent to sin against the judgment of reason: “Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin” (Jn 8:34). 

And in regard to this he says: When you were slaves of sin. Freedom from righteousness, on the other hand, implies that a man rushes headlong into sin without the restraint of righteousness; in regard to this he says: you were free in regard to righteousness. This happens especially in those who sin of set purpose: “Long ago you broke your yoke and burst your bonds; and you said, ‘I will not serve’” (Jer 2:20); “A vain man is lifted up into pride, and thinks himself born free like a wild ass’ colt” (Jb 11:12). 

509. Yet it should be noted that this state involves true slavery and only apparent freedom. For since man should act according to reason, be is truly a slave when he is led away from what is reasonable by something alien. Furthermore, if he is not restrained by the yoke of reason from following concupiscence, he is free only in the opinion of those who suppose that the highest good is to follow one’s concupiscence.

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When we become slaves to sin, we are free from righteousness. But when we are free from sin, we are slaves to righteousness. Hence the arbitrary freedom of hedonism is diametrically opposed to the freedom for excellence although both make use of the will's profound dynamic energy behind habitus, whether virtuous or vicious.

Notice also how St. Thomas identified so clearly the false autonomy that exists in Western society today: "If he is not restrained by the yoke of reason from following concupiscence, he is free only in the opinion of those who suppose that the highest good is to follow one's concupiscence." Hence people say, for example, of a homosexual couple who "love" each other that they should be allowed to marry and follow their "love." The love itself is justification for the act. This is morality for excellence reduced to bestiality, the moral animal to the beasts.

St. Thomas also identifies the psychological indicator of slavery either to sin or righteousness: the predominant inclination to one or the other. Notice St. Thomas also says that we shall never be free of inclination itself, which is desire. If there is a predominant inclination to sin, such that we usually fall into sin by acting on that inclination, then we know we are enslaved to sin. But if the predominant inclination draws us to act righteously, then we know that we are enslaved to righteousness. 

Hence the psychological test that I have given elsewhere to demonstrate one's predominant inclination, namely, can you go at least three months without fixation on some object or action? For example, only recently I was reminded of a song I used to listen to over and over when I was younger. The fact that I haven't thought of that song in such a long time demonstrates to me that I have no attachment to it any longer. I am "free" from that song, not a slave to it. 

Then St. John of the Cross shows us that the way to freedom for excellence is to remove ourselves from that object of inclination and enter the dark nothings by which our desire can refocus on God. St. John of the Cross further shows that in the transforming union, the soul reaches such a state that although it may suffer temptations as God allows them, these are alien to its predominant desire, which is centered on God. Hence these temptations are hardly occasion for sin but rather occasions for further perfection.

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Source: St. Thomas Aquinas, Lectures on the Letter to the Romans, trans. by Fabian Larcher, ed. by Jeremy Holmes, Nova et Vetera, accessed April 23, 2014, http://nvjournal.net/files/Aquinas_on_Romans.pdf.

St. Thomas Aquinas on Living Water

Jesus replied and said: “If you knew the gift of God, and realized who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ You perhaps would have asked him that he give you living water" (Jn 4:10).

And we should say that water signifies the grace of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes this grace is called fire, and at other times water, to show that it is neither one of these in its nature, but like them in the way it acts. It is called fire because it lifts up our hearts by its ardor and heat: “ardent in Spirit” (Rom 12:11), and because it burns up sins: “Its light is fire and flame” (Sg 8:6). Grace is called water because it cleanses: “I will pour clean water upon you, and you will be cleansed from all your uncleanness” (Ez 36:25), and because it brings a refreshing relief from the heat of temptations: “Water quenches a flaming fire” (Sir 3:33), and also because it satisfies our desires, in contrast to our thirst for earthly things and all temporal things whatever: “Come to the waters, all you who thirst” (Is 5 5:1 ).

Now water is of two kinds: living and non-living. Non-living water is water which is not connected or united with the source from which it springs, but is collected from the rain or in other ways into ponds and cisterns, and there it stands, separated from its source. But living water is connected with its source and flows from it. So according to this understanding, the grace of the Holy Spirit is correctly called living water, because the grace of the Holy Spirit is given to man in such a way that the source itself of the grace is also given, that is, the Holy Spirit. Indeed, grace is given by the Holy Spirit: “The love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). For the Holy Spirit is the unfailing fountain from whom all gifts of grace flow”One and the same Spirit does all these things” (1 Cor 12:11.). And so, if anyone has a gift of the Holy Spirit without having the Spirit, the water is not united with its source, and so is not living but dead: “Faith without works is dead” (Jas 2:20).

578 Then we are shown that in the case of adults, living water, i.e., grace, is obtained by desiring it, i.e., by asking. “The Lord has heard the desire of the poor” (Ps. 9:17), for grace is not given to anyone without their asking and desiring it. Thus we say that in the justification of a sinner an act of free will is necessary to detest sin and to desire grace, according to Matthew (7:7): “Ask and you will receive.” In fact, desire is so important that even the Son himself is told to ask: “Ask me, and I will give to you” (Ps 2:8). Therefore, no one who resists grace receives it, unless he first desires it; this is clear is the case of Paul who, before he received grace, desired it, saying: “Lord, what do you want me to do?” (Acts 9:6). Thus it is significant that he says, you perhaps would have asked him. He says perhaps on account of free will, with which a person sometimes desires and asks for grace, and sometimes does not.

579 There are two things which lead a person to desire and ask for grace: a knowledge of the good to be desired and a knowledge of the giver. So, Christ offers these two to her. First of all, a knowledge of the gift itself; hence he says, If you knew the gift of God, which is every desirable good which comes from the Holy Spirit: “I know that I cannot control myself unless God grants it to me” (Wis 8:21). And this is a gift of God, and so forth. Secondly, he mentions the giver; and he says, and realized who it is who says to you, i.e., if you knew the one who can give it, namely, that it is I: “When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth ... he will bear witness to me” (below 15:26); “You have given gifts to men” (Ps 67:19).

Accordingly, this teaching concerns three things: the gift of living water, asking for this gift, and the giver himself.

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Source: St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Saint John's Gospel (Super Evangelium S. Joannis lectura), trans. by James A. Weisheipl, DHS Priory, accessed March 23, 2014, http://dhspriory.org/thomas/John4.htm, chapter 4, lecture 2, verse 10, nn. 577-579.

Dr. Timothy J. William's "Using Fiction to Vindicate the Gospels"

Any good student of literature can recognize the hallmarks of great fiction. It is nothing if not consistent, conceived as a whole, seamless and artful, thus artificial. Every detail of the work is determined and arranged by the author, and has purpose and relevance. And even if the author decides to include extraneous details, these non-sequiturs are only apparent, for they too play a role in revealing the author’s overarching esthetic stance. The analogies, the metaphors, the similes are all crafted and positioned just so, to reinforce motivation and action, to move the story inexorably toward a predetermined conclusion. If a writer’s intention is too obvious, too heavy-handed, too clumsy, too cliché-ridden, we relegate his works to second-rate status. But all writers follow more or less the same creative procedures. [...]

Paradoxically then, the greatest works of pure fiction can impart a sense of “reality” during the act of reading. [...]

The Gospels, on the other hand, are living documents, each a specific but incomplete testimony of something true, not a work of the imagination. The chronicles are episodic, the seams show everywhere, and the authors are not concerned with creating a smoothly flowing narrative, because what they have experienced or investigated is too powerful, too immediate, too real to require or permit any artful recasting. The Evangelists do not hesitate to interrupt their own narratives with extraneous events and details, including things whose significance they themselves do not seem to understand. They are obviously afraid of adding anything uncertain, or omitting anything known. This is the hallmark of reliable testimony, of four different people telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, without concern for how the testimony appears or is received. [...]

The Gospels also contain that other mark of honest testimony, the odd non sequitur that leaves you wondering why more was not said, or more left out. The classic example is the narrative of the adulterous woman about to be stoned to death, and Jesus’s composed distractedness before he disarms the crowd with a few words of astonishing simplicity and revolutionary morality. In the most ancient manuscripts of the fourth Gospel, John tells us twice that Jesus “bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground” (John 8: 6, 8) but he does not tell us why, nor what Jesus wrote, nor whether we should even care about this odd gesture at a moment of great anticipation. [...]

No great writer of fiction, nor even a mediocre one, would ever have mentioned this detail without telling us what Jesus wrote in the sand. Indeed, the well-intended “corrections” found in later manuscripts but ultimately excluded from the Bible – namely that Jesus wrote “the sins of each of them” – merely point out what is humanly unsatisfying in the passage. [...]

It is impossible to tie all the loose threads together, to weave into an artfully seamless whole the many stories a man capable of fascinating and converting both Luke the Greek, the learned physician, and Saul of Tarsus, the militantly anti-Christian Jew. That is why the multifaceted nature of the Scriptures surpasses in realism the very greatest works of fiction.

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Source: Dr. Timothy J. Williams, "Using Fiction to Vindicate the Gospels," Crisis Magazine, Janurary 20, 2014, accessed March 19, 2014, http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/using-fiction-to-vindicate-the-gospels.

St. Thomas Aquinas on Freedom from Fear of Death

14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage. 16 For surely it is not with angels that he is concerned but with the descendants of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted. (Hebrews 2:14-18)

[...]

Christ assumed a nature without sin, but with the possibility of suffering, because He assumed a flesh similar to the sinner: ‘In the likeness of sinful flesh’ (Rom. 8:3). Therefore, like the children, He is partaker of flesh and blood, and all in the same way: for it was not imaginary flesh, as the Manicheans say, not was it assumed in the accidental way, as Nestorius said. But true flesh and blood, such as children have, were assumed into the unity of the person.

That Christ is a partaker of flesh and blood is not to be understood as referring to the vices of flesh and blood, because He did not take on sin or commit any; but as referring to the very substance of animated flesh, because He assumed flesh and soul. It also included the possibility of suffering, because He assumed our nature capable of suffering. Therefore, the sense is: Because the children, i.e., the faithful, has a nature capable of suffering, Christ Himself partook of the same, i.e., of flesh and blood. But we partake of them through our person; and Christ in like manner assumed them to His person: ‘The Word was made flesh’ (Jn. 1:14). By flesh and blood can also be understood the flesh and blood of Christ according to the statement: ‘He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood’ (Jn. 6:55), of which the children, i.e., the apostles, partook at the last supper and of which Christ partook: ‘He drank His own blood’, as Chrysostom says.

Then (v. 14b) he shows the benefits His death brought. In regard to this he does two things: first, he shows its usefulness on the part of the devil, who had the power; secondly, on our part who were held (v. 15).

He says, therefore: He partook of flesh and blood, i.e., He assumed a nature in which He could suffer and die, which he could not do in the divine nature, that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, i.e., the devil. But how does the devil have the power of death? For this is God’s prerogative: ‘The Lord kills and makes alive’ (1 Sam. 2:6); ‘I will kill and I will make to live’ (Dt. 32:39). I answer that a judge has the power of death in one way, because he inflicts death, when he punishes with death; but a thief has it another way in the sense of deserving death because of demerit. God has the power of death in the first way: For in what day you shall eat of it, you shall die the death’ (Gen. 2:17). But the devil in the second way, because by persuading men to sin, he yielded him over to death: ‘by the envy of the devil, death came into the world’ (Wis. 2:24). But he says, that he might destroy him, not as to his substance, which is indestructible, nor as to his malice, so that the devil would become good at some time, but as to his power: ‘Despoiling the principalities and powers’ (Col. 2:15).

This was accomplished by the death of Christ in three ways: first, on the part of Christ, for the true nature of justice is that the victor subject the vanquished to himself [major premise]: ‘For by whom a man is overcome, of the same is he the slave’ (2 Pt. 2:19) [Scriptural justification for premise here and as follows]. But Christ overcame the devil [minor premise]: ‘The Lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed’ (Rev. 5:5). Therefore, it is just that the devil be subject to Him [conclusion]: ‘When a strong man armed keeps his court, those things are in peace which he possesses (Lk. 11:21). Secondly, on the part of the devil: for justice requires that a person who unjustly uses power granted him should lose it. But the devil has been given power over the sinners he seduced, but not over the good. Therefore, because he presumed to extend this power even to Christ, Who did not sin: ‘The prince of this world comes, and in me he has nothing’ (Jn. 14:30), he deserved to lose it. The third reason is on our part: for it is just that the vanquished be the servants of the victor. But man by sin was the servant of the devil: ‘Whoever commits sin is the servant of sin’ (Jn. 8:34); consequently, he was subject to the devil and liable to sin. But Christ paid the price for our sin: ‘Then did I pay that which I took not away’ (Ps. 68:5). Therefore, when the cause of servitude was taken away, man was set free by Christ.

But it should be noted that another satisfaction was suitable. For man was in debt; but one man can satisfy for another out of charity, although no one can satisfy for the entire human race, because he does not have power over it, nor could the entire human race satisfy sufficiently, because it was entirely subject to sin; nor could an angel, because this satisfaction was unto glory, which exceeds the power of an angel. Therefore, it was necessary that the one who satisfied be man and God, Who alone has power over the whole human race. By the death of God and man, therefore, He destroyed him who had the empire of death.

Then (v. 15) another advantage on our part is mentioned. In regard to this it should be noted that a man is a servant of sin to the extent that he is induced to sin. But the most effective inducements to sin are the love of transitory goods and the fear of present punishments: ‘Things set on fire, as to the first and dug down as to the second, shall perish at the rebuke of your countenance’ (Ps. 79:17). But these two amount to the same thing, because the more a person loves something, the more he fears its evil contrary. Hence, we see that savage beasts are kept from the greatest pleasures through fear of punishment; thus fear makes cowards of us all. Hence, if a man overcomes his fears, he overcomes everything; and when fear is overcome, all disordered love of the world is overcome. Thus Christ by His death broke this fear, because He removed the fear of death, and, consequently the love of the present life. For when a person considers that the Son of God, the Lord of death, willed to die, he no longer fears death. That is why before the death of Christ, it was said: ‘O death, how bitter is the remembrance of you’ (Sir. 41:1); but after Christ’s death the Apostle expresses a desire to be dissolved and be with Christ: Hence, we are told: ‘Fear not them that kill the body’ (Mt. 10:28). He says, therefore, and deliver all those who through the fear of death were subject to lifelong service, namely, the servitude of sin.

But Christ freed us from a double servitude, namely, that of the Law and that of sin, since the law is called a yoke which neither we not our fathers were able to bear (Ac. 15:10). Now the difference between the Old and the New Law is fear and love. In the New there is love: ‘If you love me, keep my commandments’ (Jn. 14:15). But the Old was the law of fear: ‘You have not received the spirit of servitude again in fear’ (Rom. 8:15). Therefore, he sways, and deliver them who through the fear of bodily death, which the Law inflicted, were all subject to lifelong servitude.

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Source: St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Super Epistolam B. Pauli ad Hebraeos Lectura), trans. by Fabian R. Larcher, DHS Priory website, accessed March 12, 2014, 2.4.138-145.

Joe Heschmeyer on Mary's Sinlessness during the Presentation

Great, concise apologetic article on how the purification of Mary at the Presentation does not disprove her sinlessness as Protestants attempt to show but rather demonstrates even more strikingly how she participated uniquely in the redemption wrought by Christ.

Shameless Popery: The Feast of the Presentation: a Smoking Gun for Mary's Sinlessness

St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on 2 Tim. 1.3

"God’s grace is like a fire that, when covered with ashes, no longer shines: in a man, grace is thus covered by laziness and human fear."

Source: St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on 2 Tim. 1.3.

Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange on What We Must Abandon to Providence

In what matters we should abandon ourselves to divine Providence

Once we have complied with the principles just laid down, when we have done all that the law of God and Christian prudence demand, our self-abandonment should then embrace everything. What does this involve? In the first place, our whole future, what our circumstances will be tomorrow, in twenty years and more. We must also abandon ourselves to God in all that concerns the present, in the midst of the difficulties we may be experiencing right now; even our past life, our past actions with all their consequences should be abandoned to the divine mercy.

We must likewise abandon ourselves to God in all that affects the body, in health and sickness, as well as in all that affects the soul, whether it be joy or tribulation, of long or brief duration. We must abandon ourselves to God in all that concerns the good will or malice of men. Says St. Paul:

If God be for us, who is against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how hath He not also, with Him, given us all things? . . . Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulations? Or distress? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or persecutions? Or the sword? . . . I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Could there be a more perfect self-abandonment in the spirit of faith, hope, and love? This is an abandonment embracing all the vicissitudes of this world, all the upheavals that may convulse it, embracing life and death, the hour of death, and the circumstances, peaceful or violent, in which we breathe forth our last sigh.

The same thought has been expressed in the psalms: "Fear the Lord . . . for there is no want to them that fear Him. The rich have wanted, and have suffered hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good" (Ps. 33:10); "O how great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee! Which Thou hast wrought for them that hope in Thee. . . . Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy face from the disturbance of men. Thou shalt protect them in Thy tabernacle from the contradiction of tongues" (Ps. 30:20-21). [...]

What is our practical conclusion to be? It is this, that in doing our utmost to carry out our daily duties we must for the rest abandon ourselves to divine providence, and that with the most childlike confidence. And if we are really striving to be faithful in little things, in the practice of humility, gentleness, and patience, in the daily routine of our lives, God on His part will give us the grace to be faithful in greater and more difficult things, should He perchance ask them of us; then, in those exceptional circumstances, He will give to those that seek Him exceptional graces.

In psalm 54:23 we are told: "Cast thy care upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee: He shall not suffer the just to waver forever. . . .  But I will trust Thee, O Lord."

Imbued with these same sentiments, St. Paul writes to the Philippians (4:4): "Rejoice in the Lord always: again, I say, rejoice. Let your modesty be known to all men. The Lord is nigh. Be nothing solicitous: but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

Again, in order to exhort us to have confidence, St. Peter tells us in his First Epistle (5:5):

Be ye humbled therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in the time of visitation: casting all your care upon Him, for He hath care of you. Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in faith: knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us into His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little, will Himself perfect you and confirm you and establish you.

"Blessed are they that trust in Him" (Ps. 2:13). "They that hope in the Lord," says Isaias, "shall renew their strength. . . . They shall walk and not faint" (40:31).

We have a perfect model of this abandonment to divine providence in St. Joseph, in the many difficulties that beset him at the moment of our Lord's birth at Bethlehem, and again when he heard the mournful prophecy of the aged Simeon, and during all the time that elapsed from the flight away from Herod into Egypt until the return to Nazareth.

Following his example, let us live our lives in that same spirit, fulfilling our daily duties, and the grace of God will never be wanting. By His grace we shall be equal to anything He asks of us, no matter how difficult it may sometimes be.

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Source: Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Providence, trans. Dom Bede Rose (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1998), 221-225.

What Is Idle Talk?

Idle chatter is that talk which is not directed toward some good end either by habitual intention or actual deliberation and which does not take into appropriate account duty, time (occasions or actual time), place (location or status), and other circumstances (such as remaining recollected or maintaining appropriate boundaries), which make communication most effective and proper.

Cf. Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 2, ch. 7, q. B, 1.e.

A good end is always determined by love of God and love of neighbor, either individually or communally. This love of neighbor, whether individually or communally, may manifest itself in the desire to foster peaceful relations or just relations; to aid the poor, suffering, or neglected by attending to them with words of comfort or conversation; to respect our superiors or those in offices of honor or power, such as a judge, an officer, or our boss; etc.

Time, place, and circumstances with respect to 1) our duties and responsibilities; 2) our recollection in God; 3) our appropriate boundaries. 

1) With respect to duties, making sure that our conversation will not make us negligent in our duties in any way; making sure that our conversation doesn't lead us to escape burdens, commitments, conflicts that must be resolved or faced. Such conversation often imposes on others.

2) With respect to recollection, making sure our conversation doesn't draw us away from God and immerse us totally or even predominantly in creaturely things unless these are subordinated and directed to God habitually or actually. Such conversation affords many occasions of sins.

3) With respect to maintaining appropriate boundaries, making sure our conversation would not put us in danger of blurring physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries that keep us safe and out of occasions of sin. Such conversation is also respectful of others' duties and responsibilities.

Scripture speaks of right language as edifying (Eph. 4:29), as calm, joyful, gentle, honest and upright (Col 3:8), pure, moral, dignified, mature, in its proper place, and grateful (Eph. 5:4), directed towards the supernatural, non-argumentative (1 Tim. 6:20b-21), sensitive, considerate, patient, fraternally correcting when necessary (2 Tim. 2:14-17, 23-26), careful, and coming from the depths of our hearts (Mt. 12:34b-37).

Sacred Scripture on Good and Bad Language

"But now you must put them all away: anger, fury, malice, slander, and obscene language out of your mouths" (Colossians 3:8).

“No foul language should come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for needed edification, that it may impart grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).

“Immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be mentioned among you, as is fitting among holy ones, no obscenity or silly or suggestive talk, which is out of place, but instead, thanksgiving” (Ephesians 5:4).

Sacred Scripture on Idle Words and Argumentativeness

“Avoid the profane chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge; by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith” (1 Tim. 6:20b-21).

“Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth. Avoid profane chatter, for it will lead people into more and more impiety, and their talk will spread like gangrene. [...] Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and that they may escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:14-17, 23-26).

Our Lord says, “How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Mt. 12:34b-37).