Many people who keep up with me will know that, in my new role as candidate for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, I am in the process (it will surely be a life long process) of trying to think more deeply about issues surrounding human sexuality.

Talking about this recently with a fellow seminarian (actually, a friend in the Lutheran program here at my seminary) I was confronted with a really good point.

Many conservative types (such as myself) who perhaps have a more “traditional” opinion regarding homosexuality become quite silent when the topic of divorce comes up. My friend suggested (though I don’t think I agree with him) that the Scriptures are more clear on this issue than on homosexuality.

What is true, however, is that Jesus explicitly addresses divorce, and not homosexuality, in the gospel narratives (Matt 19). Why is this important? Because, as another friend pointed out, Anglicanism has always followed “the catholic tradition” of seeing the Gospels as having a certain priority over other parts of the Christian Bible, and this view is embodied in our liturgy. For the classic statement of this by Origen, see here.

Joel at Living Text has a post on divorce which I find quite compelling.

For the introduction to this series, go here.

What is the point of all this? Maybe it is this. Have you ever wondered why it is only modern “protestant types” (liberal and evangelical: really two sides of the same coin, in that they both reject all of the above) who get all hot & bothered over biblical “contradictions?” It is not a coincidence.

“Catholic types” (read: historical traditions who have always known that Scripture is a time bound practice in the bosom of the church) don’t really get too hung up about it, and for good reason.

Another way of saying all of this is that Scripture is mediated through the church and her liturgy. And if that is the case, then the messy details which might seem like an outsider to be earth shattering differences, are in fact part of a larger conversation and development.

Intro to series. Part I. Part II. Part III.

Finally, NT Scripture itself teaches that there is another stream of “revelation” or “teaching” or something that comes to the church (this is ecclesiology) from God other than just Scripture: see the following:
•    2 Thess 2:15. Here the verbal and written apostolic instruction is subsumed under the heading of the ‘traditions’, suggesting not a two source revelation paradigm, but rather one source -  God, who uses two unified means, namely written and oral which are harmonious rather than contradictory.
•    Luke 1:1-4. Here we find the oral tradition (v.2) preceding Scripture as a source of catechesis (the word used in v.4).
•    John 20:30 and 21:25.
•    There is Paul in I Cor 11:23: “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you….”
•    There is 2 Tim 2:2: “Entrust the things which you heard from me to faithful men.”

Conclusion to this series.

Intro to this series. Part I. Part II.

Now for some history.

Another anecdote. In a liturgy class here we were discussing the Didache. Modern scholarship now dates it at 100 CE. Now, what is interesting about the Didache (among other things) is that the Eucharistic liturgy it gives us is in certain very important ways continuous with the way that the church (many branches of it) continued to celebrate the Eucharist down through the centuries. The Didache has the same shape or structure (in important respects) as both the Eastern Orthodox Church has always had as well as the Roman Catholic Church. It is this shape or structure which is then recovered in the 19th and 20th century “liturgical renewal movement” (eg, Dom Gregory Dix) and then imported back into many Protestant churches (including Anglicanism).

The preceding paragraph allows us to say that the liturgy of the church predates (at least much of) the NT documents. We know that if they were worshiping in a particular way in the year 100, then (because liturgy is inherently conservative) they were worshipping that way in the year AD 60.

Hence, liturgy is older than Scripture. Now what, exactly, does that “prove?” I am not quite sure, but this realization has had the effect on me of opening my mind to the possibility that Scripture is something which somehow belongs “within” the liturgy. And I think one could develop this in many ways, including the very liturgy of the didache which is consistent with “the Great tradition” (alluded to above) in which the reading of the Scriptures is decidedly a liturgical act or a liturgical reality. Hence the liturgy provides the context for Scripture.

Now we finally come to the Paschal Mystery, or “the death and resurrection of Christ.” What is the liturgy? One could say that it simply is the Paschal Mystery. It is the death and resurrection of Christ ritually enacted (important phrase) in so many ways and on so many levels. This is true for the Anaphora of the Eucharist; it is true for the rite of Holy Baptism; it is true for the Great Vigil of Easter, out of which and around which developed the entire liturgical year. (BTW, we know about that from another of these ancient historical documents: the reconstructed liturgy of the Roman presbyter Hippolytus.)

Next article: Part IV.

Intro to this series

Previous article (part I)

Here is another reason why the differences in Scripture aren’t such a huge deal: time. This is one of Rowan William’s main Leitworts. The church is in the process of a grand conversation which is leading somewhere. It is leading, ultimately, to the new heavens and the new earth.

Conversations take time. This fits perfectly with my Vosian understanding of Pauline eschatology. Conservatives look at this posture within Anglicanism and call it “neverending indeterminacy” because they want something given, something spatialized, something fixed, static and stable, some kind of original autographa. Over and against that, what liturgical traditions are really showing is that our life (which is liturgical), that is, our reading of Scripture, takes place in a temporality which is analogous to the temporality of the biblical narrative (as Rowan Williams argues here).

If you want to understand the deep theology of liturgy, you must see that it is about God’s actions taking place in and through time (which Plato says is a moving image of eternity).

This, too — liturgical theology — is ecclesiology.

Next article (part III)

Here is the introduction to this series.

Here is Part II.

I have spoken to some friends about how the liturgy has transformed my attitude toward a feminist person at my seminary. Experiencing this person (let’s call her “Jane”) in the liturgy, interacting with her in the liturgy, prompted the realization that, although she may hold many views which I find objectionable, she is a member of the body of Christ, and is clearly worshipping Jesus. I think that this is a powerful anecdote which begins to show how liturgy can transform the way we deal or cope with biblical messiness and interbiblical “conflict” (what some people call “contradictions in the Bible”).

I am drawing an analogy here between myself & Jane, on the one hand, and, say, Joshua and Judges (vis a vis the conquest), or the Old Testament’s portrayal of harem warfare, or whatever biblical conflict (“contradiction”) you like. By the way, one implication here is that it is not the case that “Israel has misreprented YHWH” (say, in the affirmation and committing of harem warfare) but rather that we, the people of God, have (possibly) misrepresented YHWH. Huge difference there, one which (in some ways) is less traumatic or fatal or disturbing. (By the way, and I hope to come back to this at some point, Anglicanism has never affirmed that Scripture is inerrant…. For that matter, I don’t think that classical Presbyterianism has either, at least until our isolated modern denominations did so, has it?)

But because of this analogy, because Jane and I are not just in the same family as each other (and — within the liturgy — we find a way to live peacefully with our differences) but also in the same family as whoever it was who “wrote” or spoke or passed down the Old Testament (on principle I don’t use the phrase “Hebrew Bible” anymore except in limited situations. That phrase contradicts one of my basic points here.), these differences are worth discussing and struggling with, but they don’t cause some crisis in the church. They neither prompt us nervously to rush to Scripture’s defense, nor do they prompt us to jettison Scripture as something which is hopelessly flawed.

This, by the way, is ecclesiology.

This little series is an attempt to flesh out my understanding of Scripture. It is like my own personal “doctrine of Scripture.” It might be called “a liturgical understanding of Scripture,” and I think it is right down the center of classical Anglicanism (including Cranmer and Hooker), but postmodernized (that is, perhaps, filtered through the theology of Rowan Williams and Radical Orthodoxy).

I am trying to challenge (what I perceive as) some basic ways that modern Protestant Christians (including biblical scholars), both more conservative ones such as those associated with Westminster Theological Seminary, as well as more revisionist ones such as Bart Ehrman, are thinking about the Bible. I think this approach helps to explain the anxiety over “inter-biblical conflict” which causes, on the one hand, Westminster Seminary types defensively to freak out over “liberal” views of the Bible, and, on the other hand, the (proto-) Bart Ehrman types to want to jettison Scripture (at least in terms of a norm or rule for the Christian faith and life).

Here’s my  outline:

1. Communion of Saints
2. Philosophy (time)
3. History
4. Scripture Itself (NT)

For the first article in this series, go here.

I just read Rowan’s article “The Body’s Grace.” I am glad I did. It is a wonderful article in almost every respect. I had already read — and profited from — Michel Foucault on human sexuality as always-already socially constructed, and so Rowan’s points about “the hermeneutics of sexual desire” (my term) made complete sense.

When built upon by Christian anthropology (specifically, our theological understanding of body), this is powerful stuff, and compellingly shows why (among other reasons) we don’t agree with (the supposed view of) Rome of procreation as sex’s sole purpose.

However, none of that theology actually challenged the “default posture” in my thinking about human sexuality (ie, same sex erotic desire).

The one sentence that did so challenge, me, however, was: “In a church that accepts the legitimacy of contraception, the absolute condemnation of same-sex relations of intimacy must rely … on an abstract fundamentalist deployment of a number of very ambiguous biblical texts….”

OK, I have blogged on Richard Hays’ (Duke Divinity School NT scholar) work on homosexuality here.

Hays addresses, very profoundly, the relevant Biblical material on homosexual relations, and I find it very compelling. He comes down at a place that is, I think, utterly responsible and charitable, and yet pretty “traditional,” especially by the standards of The Episcopal Church. (BTW, I am 99% sure that NT Wright basically agrees with Hays’ on this issue completely.)

Hays, who takes the authority of Scripture quite seriously (as does historic Anglicanism), ends up saying that, on the basis of Scripture, the church ought not to be ordaining practicing homosexuals to the presbyterate and the episcopate.

Apparently Rowan sees this as fundamentalist. I have spent many years thinking about fundamentalism, and it is not clear to me that this is the case.

I would love to discuss these biblical texts — and how and why they do or don’t matter — in greater depth.

Having said all this, however, here are three ways in which Rowan challenged me:

• He forced me to go back to the three NT texts (other than Rom 1) which are regularly brought out for the traditional position (Acts 15:28-29;I Cor 6:9-11; I Tim 1:10). I can now see that the Acts passage (with its use of pornea) is probably irrelevant to this issue.

• He forced me to think more deeply about our Reformed understanding that “Scripture interprets Scripture.” In this understanding, we elucidate relatively obscure passages by use of relatively clear ones. My question is now: “Which are the clear doctrines: the three passages listed above, or all the biblical contexts Rowan brings out in his article (what God’s instructions to Hosea imply about human sexual desire, risk, and reciprocity; Paul’s instructions on giving our bodies to the other; etc.)?

• While it is pretty clear to me that Hays’ work in this area is not fundamentalist, I do need to consider whether it is abstract. His material on his friend Gary, however, strongly suggests to me that it is not. (But I want to make sure.)

In our study of the book of Acts (which meets on Sunday afternoons at St. Mark’s in Austin) we have waded through many details. We have “gotten down and dirty” and delved into the gritty particulars of the story.

Because we have engaged in this hard work, I think we are now in a position to begin to discern some larger patterns in the narrative (what Alfred North Whitehead called “a simplicity on the far side of complexity”).  One of these patterns which we have seen and discussed repeatedly is the outward expansion of the Jesus movement from Jerusalem, through “Judea and Samaria” (1:8), to Rome, a city which embodies “the ends of the earth” or the outer reaches of the realm of the Gentiles or the “Greeks.”

Presupposed by this theme is the more basic one of “Jewish versus Gentile,” which, again, we have discussed deeply and widely.

But these two themes (outward expansion to the ends of the earth and the cultural tensions between Jew and Greek) are connected to a third: revision of the predecessor religion of the people of the God of the Jewish Scriptures.

The church today is full of people who advocate revision of various kinds. (One thinks of the issue of “open communion” as well as the ordination / consecration of openly homosexual presbyters and bishops.)

There are, however, two kinds of revisionists (at least potentially or in theory): there are those who, in their advocacy for change, are motivated by and rely upon sources external to the tradition (for example, the values of our Western, secular, post-Enlightenment culture) and those who are motivated by and rely upon sources within the tradition of Christianity or, within that, of Anglicanism.

While it does seem to me that revisionists of the first kind are fundamentally misguided right from the start, it nevertheless remains the case that there is a place for revision within the Christian tradition. In fact, the case can be stated much more strongly: the religion of the New Covenant in Christ is itself a drastic, radical, and shocking revision of something prior.  The process of this revision, in fact, lies at the heart of the story told in the book of the Acts of the Apostles.

Given this, it seems that a revisionist can rightly analogize from the revision narrated in Acts to other revisions which might be needed today. (Henry de Lubac, in fact, thinks this way in chapter VII  of his Catholicism. See here.) This would be the second kind of revision, motivated by and relying upon sources inherent to the tradition. Unlike secular revision, this kind should be respected and deeply engaged with.

The book of Acts, in fact, provides us with a set of criteria for revision in the Church. How did it come about that the Gentiles were included in the New Covenant of the God of the Hebrew Scriptures without having to become Jewish (ie, without having to be circumcised and having to observe the other ceremonial and cultic practices of the Jewish people such as festival keeping and various food laws)?

There are several factors which hold in the narrative, and which the text is at pains to emphasize, in the developments narrated in Acts:

1.    Confirmation by the larger body.
2.    Confrontation by undeniable phenomena (ie, Gentiles speaking in tongues).
3.    Scandalous, uncontrollable surprise.

These three factors will be elaborated upon in upcoming posts.

Here is the summary of our discussion for class #9 in our Acts study at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Austin, TX.  The title of the course is “A New Kind of Conquest” (see blog categories below). For the outline of Acts we are using, see here, and for more info please contact Matt.

“Peter’s interpretive word”

In our previous discussion(s) of the event of Pentecost, we paid close attention to the character that the Jewish Feast of the same name. In particular we noticed that at the heart of this feast was the idea of “first fruits,” a term which occurs several places in the NT, in particular in Paul’s writing. The idea here is that the Feast of Pentecost was a time for the people of Israel to offer back to God the initial portion, the “first fruits,” of the harvest. In doing this they were saying two things: “Thanks, God, for this gift,” and also, “Now, please, God, may there be much more of this harvest to follow.”

There is a very important word in this current passage we are considering, Acts 3:11-26, which occurs in verse 15. It is the word archegos, which is very cognate with the Greek word for “first fruits,” (aparchen). These words share a common root: the word arche, which has a wide semantic range which can include “ruler” or “beginning.”

In this verse Jesus is referred to as the archegos, or the Pioneer, or the Founder, of the Author, of life. What it is saying that Jesus in the first human to “bust out: into the new realm of “heaven,” into the new realm of “the Kingdom of God,” into the new realm of “universal restoration,” which very term (Gk. apocatastasis) occurs in 3:21.

So in this passage Peter is interpreting the meaning of the healing of this crippled man. According to Peter,  Jesus, as the Pioneer of the Faith, has entered into the new world of total restoration and holistic shalom by his resurrectin and ascension, and therefore his followers Peter and John, who have Jesus’ same spirit, have been agents through which this “perfect health” (verse 16) was given or restored to this crippled man.

What follows is a summary of the article of “In Praise of Open Communion: A Rejoinder to James Farwell” by Kathryn Tanner which appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of the Anglican Theological Review. I wrote this piece for my “God and Creation” class at the Seminary of the Southwest.

In this article Kathryn Tanner attempts to respond to James Farwell’s article which argues against the practice of open communion in the Episcopal Church. The article is, indeed a rejoinder to Farwell.
Her initial foray into what turns out to be the bulk of her argument is that, while Farwell is correct in pointing out that many or most advocates of open communion, following the consensus of the Jesus Seminar, deny the historicity of the account of Jesus’ Last Supper meal with his disciples, this move need not be made by advocates of open communion. Rather, all that must be argued is that the last supper account be read in light of Jesus’ larger food ministry, both his lavish, unconditionally inclusive table fellowship with sinners and outcasts, as well as his ministry of feeding the crowds. When one does this one quickly realizes that the last supper is not really that different from the latter: in both cases Jesus is dining with sinners (in the case of the last supper, with a Christ-denier and a Christ-betrayer) who are ill-informed about Jesus and his Kingdom designs and purposes. Tanner thinks that this undermines Farwell’s argument, since she thinks, for reasons unknown to this writer, that Farwell’s argument relies on the commitment of the participants in the Eucharist as well as their status as well-informed. (This is not Farwell’s argument.)
Tanner also accuses Farwell of portraying the Eucharist as nourishment for mission, but this, she says, encourages “the corrupting disjunction between worship and mission to which Christians everywhere seem prone.”
While Farwell does not claim that baptism is about commitment, Tanner does make this claim, by emphasizing that the baptismal covenant calls for radical commitment on the part of the baptized. (But what about the repetition of the baptismal covenant by the already baptized? one is led to ask.) Because of this, and because the 79 prayer book supposedly sees baptism and eucharist as part of a larger, complex rite of initiation, one can argue that the Eucharist, in giving the person the shape of the Christian life, can precede and prepare for Baptism.
One way of seeing what Tanner is trying to do here: she is applying the same “logic” which the framers of the 79 prayer book used for baptism (in our post-Constantinian context) to the eucharist. If the wider world is no longer Christian, there are many reasons to admit them directly to the table, she thinks.

What follows is a summary of the article “Baptism, Eucharist, and the Hospitality of Jesus: On the Practice of ‘Open Communion’” by James Farwell which appeared Spring 2004 issue of the Anglican Theological Review. I wrote this piece for my “God and Creation” theology class at the Seminary of the Southwest.

In the first, introductory section of the article Farwell summarizes the basic argument which advocates of open communion put forth. The line of reasoning  goes something like this: “(the historical) Jesus would not have engaged in a ritual meal which in any way excluded anyone, and therefore it is unfaithful to the example of Jesus to do so. On the contrary, the Jesus of history went around and scandalized the Jewish leaders of his day by feasting lavishly with ‘sinners:’ prostitutes, tax collectors, and outcasts. The practice of ‘closed communion’ in which baptism is a ‘gateway’ to the table is exclusionary in a way which contradicts the gospel of Jesus.” Farwell, however, views this is a prima facie argument which lacks systematic rigor and makes arbitrary presuppositions, which need further scrutiny and clarification, especially given so central a matter for the life of the Christian Church. Farwell suggests that the failure to engage in this deeper reflection might lead us to give in to the dangerous “the seduction of relevancy.”

In the second section of the article, “The Argument for Open Communion,” Farwell digs deeper into one  of these presuppositions, namely that “the restriction of the eucharist to the baptized was not an early practice, and, therefore, is insupportable,” a claim made by the Jesus Seminar, seen in the work, for example, of John Dominic Crossan.
Farwell responds to this claim in the third section by saying that, according to many biblical historians such as John Koenig,  “it is not clear that the origins of the eucharist cannot reside with Jesus” (italics his, 220-221). Many scholars, for example, argue that “open meal ministry and the more focused supper with the disciples lie alongside one another in a non-dualistic relationship.” (221) It is true, Farwell grants, that Paul’s teaching on the common meal in I Corinthians does not explicitly state the necessity of baptism; however, “there is in the … passage a clear logic of participation” which requires that at least two conditions be met in order to “participate in the table of the Lord” (I Cor 10:21), the “Lord’s supper” (I Cor 11:20): embrace of “the little ones and the outsiders,” and forsaking idolatry.  This law of participation, which is for St. Paul participation in “the future that animated Jesus himself,” is “consistent with” the practice of baptism. (223) If all of this is so, then the post-apostolic documentary evidence (Farwell quotes from the Didache 9.5; Justin Martyr’s First Apology, Cyril of Jerusalem’s Mystagogical Catechesis, Theodore of Mopsuetia’s Third Baptismal Homily, and Augustine’s Sermon 272) must be reconsidered not necessarily as “the accretion of ecclesiastical exclusivity,” but rather “the deepening of the participatory logic of the NT: eucharist completes the initiation and fires the remembrance of the disciple in a pattern of life suitable to the kingdom, to which he or she has joined himself or herself in baptism” (223).  This logic characterizes participation in the death of Christ (I Cor 11:26) and so it is perhaps “disingenuous to offer this meal as if it requires nothing but the desire to participate out of curiosity, custom, or an unformed sense of spiritual longing, however sincere” (224).
In the next section of the essay, Farwell argues that “there is a classic soteriology enacted in the connection of baptism and eucharist on which the practice of open communion may have a serious impact” (228) by spelling out the “both – and” theology of baptism and eucharist. Taken together, they narrate or display both the “gift” aspect of the Christian life  and the discipleship aspect of the Christian life.  It is true that baptism explicitly centers on and embodies more of the gift element, but it also set forth the trajectory and the content of the Christian life of discipleship and obedience (as, for example, is seen in our Baptismal Covenant). Baptism “carries the weight of clarifying the life for which eucharist strengthens us,” something which the eucharist does not do in an explicit way. Rather, it is as if the eucharist is “the performed shorthand for this divine life that we both receive and adopt through baptism” (emphasis his, 226). In other words, the eucharist presupposes baptism since it is there where the content of the Christian life is most fully described.  The eucharist fortifies us and nourishes us to live the life we were initiated in by baptism. But “open communion threatens to short-circuit this enacted “both-and” soteriology of the sacraments by collapsing the entire practice in the direction of divine gift.” (227)

Next Farwell deals with two pastoral issues. He notes that, when it comes to folks wanting to approach the Altar in Communion, there is a huge pastoral opportunity to shepherd people through the whole ordeal of dealing with desire or longing. If, however, we simply and hastily bring them to the table, we cheaply shortchange them of the opportunity to learn from their longing(s). Second, Farwell suggests that advocates of open communion are falling into our modern society’s priority of the individual, a priority which leads to the loss of the common good. This, too, presents a pastoral issue which is shortchanged if we simply rush ahead with open communion.
Finally, boundaries can be hospitable: “good fences make good neighbors.” Farwell’s point is analogous to my saying that it would be inhospitable for me to invite every stranger who knocks on the front door of my house to spend the night with my wife and me in our marriage bed.

Here is the outline for class #7 in our Acts study at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Austin, TX.  The title of the course is “A New Kind of Conquest” (see blog categories below). For the outline of Acts we are using, see here, and for more info please contact Matt.

Acts 2:37 – 47 (Sunday, February 22, 2009)

“(Entrance into) the New Community”

I. Review: “these last days” from Holy Eucharist Rite II, Prayer B.

II. Repent & be baptized.

A. Repent, or turn, from what?[1]

B. Baptism: comparison with John’s baptism

1. Repentance in Lk 3 (vv 3,

2. “What should we do? (Lk 3:12)

C. Baptism: contrasts with John’s baptism

1. Name of Jesus

2. Reception of HS

3. John’s baptism not sufficient: 18:24-26;19:4-5

III. Life in the New Community

A. Teaching

B. Fellowship / koinonia

C. Breaking of Bread

D. “The Prayers”

· Rather than look at all four of these separately and in depth, I want to suggest that this is a picture of a “worship service” in the early church. The key to this is to see that it was the breaking of bread which is central (perhaps because tactile and concrete) to the worship service: see Lk 22:19; 24:30-35; Acts 20:7,11.[2]

Here is the outline for class #6 in our Acts study at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Austin, TX.  The title of the course is “A New Kind of Conquest” (see blog categories below). For the outline of Acts we are using, see here, and for more info please contact Matt.

Acts 2:1-36 (Sunday, February 15, 2009)

“The Beginning of the New Creation”

I. The Phenomenon of Pentecost: Thinking Typologically (2:1-4)

A. Holy Spirit as first fruits.

1. Some NT uses of this word.

a. Rom 8:23

b. Rom 16:5

c. I Cor 15:20

d. James 1:18

2. First fruits of what?

B. Holy Spirit as new law.

II. New Words for New News (2:5-13)

A. Blessing the World through Israel.

1. Reversal of Babel

2. New house / oikos.

B. Deed à Question à Word (NT Pattern of Mission)

III. Words of Explanation: Peter’s Sermon (2:14-36)

A. Prophecy of Joel: Now Being Fulfilled (2:14-21)

1. “Last Days”

2. “Day of the LORD”

3. Earth-shattering events.

4. Radical Inclusivity (& Political Discomfort)

5. “Salvation”

B. King of Israel, for the World.(2:22-36)

1. Ps 16: King of Israel

2. Ps 110: for the World

Origen, Commentary of the Gospel of John.

Origen is discussing the nature of Scripture. In this text one finds lots of issues raised (and positions on those issues taken) which have recurred over and over countless times in the history of the church, for example:

-    Section 4, “The Study of the Gospels is the First Fruits Offered by These Priests of Christianity.” The primacy of the four Gospels as the “first fruits of the Scriptures.” Origen clarifies that in one sense the epistles of the NT are not properly called “Scripture,” since when Paul says things like, “I say, and not the Lord” and “so I ordain in all the churches,” etc. Also when Paul says “Every Scripture is inspired and profitable by God” he is probably not referring to his own writings. The four Gospels are the first fruits of the Scriptures for Origen in that they are the first which are offered to God, after the whole has become ripe.

-    Section 5, “All Scripture is Gospel; But the Gospels are Distinguished Above Other Scriptures” and Section 6, “The Fourfold Gospel.” John’s Gospel is the First Fruits of the Four. Qualifications Necessary for Interpreting It.”  the primacy of John as the “first fruits of the Gospels.” Origen thinks this is the case in light of two considerations: first, that, while the other Gospels discuss Jesus genealogically, John gives us a picture of God the Word before all genealogy and indeed before all time; second, that John summons us to an intimate commitment to Christ in that we must follow the Beloved Disciple in lying “on Christ’s breast and [receiving] from him Mary to be … mother also.”

-    Section 7, “What Good Things are Announced in the Gospels.” How the Gospel announces and delivers good things. When a believer hears the Gospel, “it brings him a benefit and naturally makes him glad because it tells of the sojourn with men, on account of men, and for their salvation, of the first-born of all creation, Jesus Christ.”

-    Section 8, “How the Gospels Cause the Other Books of Scripture also to be Gospel.” The nature of the Old Covenant Scriptures. Origen teaches that the four canonical Gospels reveal the gospel of salvation in the other books of Scripture. When Christ “sojourned with men and caused the Gospel to appear in bodiy form … [he] caused all things [in the “Old Testament”] to appear as Gospel…. He opened the way for all who desired it … to understand what things were true and real in the law of Moses, of which things those of old worshipped the type and the shadow, and what things were real of the things narrated in the histories which ‘happened to them in the way of type,’ but these things ‘were written for our sakes, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.’

-    Section 9, “The Somatic and Spiritual Gospel.” Analogies between old covenant (“the law”) and the new covenant (“the Gospel”). [Note: I think that this hermeneutic instinct is important for de Lubac, whose hero is Origen.] Origen seems to extrapolating by analogy from old covenant to new covenant. In both, there is a “not-yet” component: just as “the law contains a shadow of the good things to come,” so also “the Gospel teaches a shadow of the mysteries of Christ.” Based on this, Origen concludes another analogy: just as, for Jews it was necessary to be faithful to their Jewishness  (ie, “to be a Jew”) both outwardly (by circumcision) and inwardly (“in secret” … this must go along with “circumcision of the heart”), so also for the Christian it is necessary to be faithful to one’s “Christianness” both outwardly (Origen sees this as baptism) and inwardly (“in secret”).

-    Section 10. “How Jesus Himself is the Gospel.” Origen is saying here, quite simply, that Jesus is the content of Gospel Proclamation. He himself is the good news; he is the promised good things. He is the resurrection; he is the glad tidings.

-    Section 11. “Jesus is All Good Things; Hence the Gospel is Manifold.”

I am attempting to summarize all our readings in our “Theology: God & Creation” class class at SSW. For the list of texts we are reading, see here.

Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology,  “The Discipline of Scripture” (ch5)

In this chapter Rowan Williams argues that the discipline required by the Church in order to read Scripture aright is the discipline of time spent with the text of Scripture in the context of the church’s liturgical practice, its lectionary which is connected to the festal cycle of the Church, supremely the Paschal mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ. Patiently waiting upon Scripture, with all its internal conflicts and challenges, is necessary for the church in general, but it has never been more urgent than today, when we (the church) find ourselves struggling deeply with the same conflicts which are plaguing the world around us.

The key word here is “time.” What Rowan is trying to do in this article is in many ways to show how our (the Church’s) reading of Scripture is like, is analogous to, Scripture itself: it is a diachronic process, much to the chagrin, perhaps, of recent reactions to the higher criticism of the previous generation of high modernity, reactions which, even if quite close to Rowan’s own orthodox views (one thinks of canonical criticism a la Brevard Childs), have tended to eclipse the time-bound nature of the narrative in favor of a synchronic reading of the text in which the only “time” acknowledged is the “eternal present” of the reader. Synchronic readings “spatialize” something which is intended to flow through time; they spatialize the narrative of redemptive history.

It is somewhat ironic that Rowan in this article is defending the more explicitly modern ways of reading Scripture such as source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, as well as their modern, positivistic “kissing cousin,” fundamentalism, with its would be “univocal descriptions and exact representation of particular sequences of ‘fact.’” (48)  And yet, at least these approaches (the nonfundamentalist ones, that is) maintain that readers must be attentive to the difficulties and struggles within the text. Unlike the tendencies of some types of canonical and literary approaches, these hermeneutic strategies refuse any easy unity or harmony of the text.

And yet, all of the above modern approaches fail to appropriate and develop the medieval hermeneutic which we see in the sensus litteralis of, for example, St. Thomas Aquinas. It is true that for Thomas this literal sense is primary, but for him the literal sense includes not just the record of the events wrought by God in history, but along with that all kinds of complex human workings such as metaphor and perspective. So where the higher critics of modernity (and the positivistic fundamentalists) fall short of Thomas is in their reduction of historiography down to the something positivistic, but where the literary types (in reaction to the former) err is at the deeper level of the priority of the historical or temporal nature of the text, its “messy” duration through time. For Thomas as well as for Rowan, this must be primary, in a nonreductionistic way.

One way in which we see the fecundity of this medieval approach is that it posits an analogy between the development of the text of Scripture itself though and my (or our) own development through time in our faith journeys. As Rowan puts it, “The time of the text is recognizably continuous with my time.” (49) Synchronic readings, again however, tend to overlook this.
If the Bible’s movement through time mirrors our own movement through-time, then we can also pattern our own reading of the Bible on its movement through time. Hence the festal lectionary of the Church. There is an “analogy of duration between us and the text.” (50)

The use of a scriptural lectionary bound to the festal cycle is “a major mediation of the sensus litteralis,” since the latter includes not just a dramatic mode of exegesis but also a public performance, a “taking of time now for the presentation of the time of the text.” (51)

As we live the Passion narrative(s) during Holy Week, it is as if we don’t know the ending. We enter into the thick of risk and open-endedness. And we have been doing this before the advent of modern criticism: the church has always had, read, and celebrated the confrontational discussion going on between the four Gospels, for example.

Now, modern critical scholars may be correct to emphasize the ideological disputes between, say J, D, and P in the Hebrew Bible. However, as Rowan has already suggested, the pre-modern community of believers had long before modernity accepted and canonized such diversity of voices and agendas Ruth versus Ezra on the issue of cross-cultural marriage; Chronicles versus Kings on the presentation of various kings (or even kingship itself), to take just two examples.  So this cacophony of voices which leads us into discussion and group struggle, has already been embraced by the community of faith. If anything, higher criticism only underlines a point which has already been made.

And if this is so, if this kind of “diachronic” conflict is built into Scripture, then our (individual and corporate) reading of the same ought to be shaped in analogy to this pattern. This means that we can only discern the “inner reality” of Scripture through time spent hearing, considering, and interacting with all the voices in the text over time: seeing and meditating upon the issues, the connections, the questions raised. So, again, our reading of the text takes place diachronically, over or through time. Reading deeply and faithfully takes time.

Where, then, does the unity and coherence of Scripture come from? It comes from its community of readers: not so much that this community simply invents its own meaning, but rather the meaning comes from the connection, or the analogy, that exists between this diachronic narrative we have been considering and the self-identifying practices of the church which it precisely does and did not invent. We are talking about the central things which give this community its identity: baptism and eucharist, which point to the death and resurrection of Christ. Jesus, the crucified and risen Christ, is the hermeneutic key to Scripture, and not some abstract Jesus, but the Jesus who is embodied, and whose life is reenacted, in the church.

In order not to lose this meaning and this identity, we must participate in this same diachronic struggle which we see in Scripture, even as we read it together. It is in the difficulty of the struggle, the risk, the cost, the disappointment, that we open ourselves as the church to Christ, and grasp the possibility of speaking Christ into the world. Far from a cheap pluralism (and the advocates of cheap pluralism do abound), however, we all must remain open to the judgment of the Paschal mystery.

Only now, nine years after finishing my MDiv, am I finally getting around to reading Thomas Aquinas on Scripture. Some interesting points which I wish I had known much earlier:

1. Thomas emphasizes the priority of the literal sense of Scripture, its sensus litteralis. However, he does not mean by this what most modern people mean by “literal.” When most modern people talk about “literalism” or “literal” interpretations of Scripture, they tend to mean something like “common sense” (whatever that is) or “the plain meaning” (whatever that is) or some kind of univocal historical precision (which presupposes a modern, positivistic view of history and historiography). However, when Thomas discusses the literal sense of Scripture, he is talking about the historical meaning: the “mighty deeds” wrought by God in space and time. He does not presuppose in this, however, “a univocal description and exact representation of particular sequences of ‘fact’” (to quote Rowan Williams).

2. Thomas affirms what later Reformed theologians would mean when they say that “Scripture interprets Scripture.” Specifically, Thomas says that “everything in Scripture that is taught metaphorically is elsewhere in Scripture taught nonmetaphorically.” (Walter Bauerschmidt, Holy Teaching (2005) p. 41, n. 36). So, for example, if one wanted to interpret, say, from the Book of Revelation the “literal” rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem at some point in the future, this would fall short of this “test” which Thomas proscribes (since nowhere else in Scripture is there a nonmetaphorical reference to this).

3. Thomas, as is well known, advocates the four-fold meaning of Scripture. What I did not know, however, is that this is one of the “doctrines” he defends in the Summa Theologica using the structure of disputatio. He quotes Gregory the Great: “Holy Scripture, by the manner of its speech, transcends every scientia, because in one and the same sentence, while it describes a fact, it reveals a mystery.” (Bauerschmidt, 43). He then develops this by distinguishing between the literal sense (see above) in which the text of Scripture refers to the “things” in creation and the spiritual senses of Scripture. This is one “kind of referring,” (the first kind), he says. These created things, however, themselves refer to God himself (or to heaven, or to the church, etc.). This is the second kind of referring, the spiritual kind of reference, which presupposes the literal.  It is this spiritual sense that has a three-fold division. “So far as the things of the Old Law refer to things of the New Law, there is the allegorical sense. So far as the … things that signify Christ are signs of what we should do, there is the moral sense. So far as things related to eternal glory are signified, there is the analogical sense.”

Here is the outline for class #5 in our Acts study at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Austin, TX.  The title of the course is “A New Kind of Conquest” (see blog categories below). For the outline of Acts we are using, see here, and for more info please contact Matt.

(Once again I am encouraged by the depth of the discussion last night, as we discussed the meaning of the ascension (“stage 2″ of the resurrection) of King Jesus.)

“Ascension”

I. Cosmology of “Heaven and Earth”

A. Gen 1:1 – “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Hendiadys for the whole creation.

B. “Heaven is “God’s Dimension or realm,” not “where you go when you die.”

C. The whole narrative of Scripture, including the resurrection and the ascension (and the incarnation!), is about the coming-together of “heaven” and “earth.”

D. St. Thomas Aquinas on the human person: “a rational animal.” Kind of like animals (body), and kind of like angels (disembodied souls). Human being as nexus of “heaven” and “earth.”

II. Scriptural (ie, OT) Precedent: Dan. 7:9-14 & “The Ancient of Days”

A. Daniel would have been in people’s minds due to the “abomination of desolation” text we have discussed in connection of the sacriledge of Antiochus Epiphanes IV.

B. “… coming on the clouds.” Typology of cloud in OT.

III. Greco-Roman Precedent: “ascensions” of Caesars.

- Arch of Titus: souls of emperors going up to heaven.

Here is the outline for class #4 in our Acts study at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Austin, TX.  The title of the course is “A New Kind of Conquest” (see blog categories below). For the outline of Acts we are using, see here, and for more info please contact Matt.

“A Question about the Kingdom”

I.      Is it bad to be a child?

II.    Why were they[1] still like children? 

III.  OT Precedents

• A.   Ps 72
• B.    Ps 89
• C.    Isa 40 – 55

IV. Kingdom Dreams Transfigured

V.   Didn’t Jesus basically answer, “No”?

VI. Not just a trip, but a journey (1:8)

VII.  “My witnesses: King Jesus. We have a job to do.

This is the outline for class #3 in our Bible Study in Acts at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Austin, TX.  The title of the course is “A New Kind of Conquest.” For the outline of Acts we are using, see here, and for more info please contact Matt.

I. Resurrection leads to a New World.

Features of this new world (from Luke 24):

A. Surprise

B. Hope & Joy from Loss & Despair

C. New Prominent Role for Women

D. Holy Spirit Power

II. Holy Spirit

A. “This coming baptism will be like John’s baptism.”

1. plunged into _____ / _____.

2. restored _____ / _____.

3. But not just outside, rather on the inside.[1]

B. Don’t do anything yet; just wait … on the Spirit.

III. What do these 2 things tell us about this “new conquest?”

This is the outline for class #2 in our Bible Study in Acts at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Austin, TX. For more info contact Matt. The title of the course is “A New Kind of Conquest.” For the outline of Acts we are using, see here.

Today’s Thesis: If the Gospels are about a different kind of king, then Acts is about a different kind of conquest.

I. Jerusalem to Rome (1:8)

“In the Acts of the Apostles we find a highly evocative story of the church’s beginnings that traces its dramatic growth from sacred Jerusalem to imperial Rome.”[1]

a. Jerusalem: 1:4

b. Rome: 28:16

II. A different kind of conquest (I Mac 1:1-4).

“After Alexander son of Philip, the Macedonian, who came from the land of Kittim, had defeated Darius of the Persians and the Medes, he succeeded him as king. (He had previously become king of Greece.) 2 He fought many battles, conquered strongholds, and put to death the kings of the earth. 3 He advanced to the ends of the earth, and plundered many nations. When the earth became quiet before him, he was exalted, and his heart was lifted up. 4 He gathered a very strong army and ruled over countries, nations, and princes, and they became tributary to him.”

a. Canonical context: kingdom, king.

b. Historical context.

i. Imperial Hellenism

1. Philip II (d. 336 BCE)

2. Alexander (d. 323 BCE)

3. Ptolemy / Seleucid

4. Antiochus IV Epiphanes[2] (d. 164)

ii. Jewish Revolt / Independence

1. Desecration of the Temple

2. Hasmonean Dynasty

3. Judas Maccabeus[3]

iii. Roman Rule (63 BCE)

the point: feelings of exile / bondage

III. Discussion: What kind of conquest is this? A new conquest for today?

This is the outline for class #1 in our Bible Study in Acts at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Austin, TX. The title of the course is “A New Kind of Conquest.” For more info contact Matt. (For the outline of Acts we are using, see here.)

Theme: If the Gospels are about a new kind of King, then Acts is about a new kind of conquest.

I.    A window onto the larger narrative (of Scripture & liturgy)

II.    The Deeds and Teaching of King Jesus, Part II

III.    Kingdom of God

Here’s the big picture outline of the book of Acts we are using at St. Mark’s for our Sunday afternoon study group:

Outline of the Book of Acts

I.    Prologue: 1:1-5
II.    Initial Events 1:6-26
III.    Birth of the Church in Jerusalem 2:1 – 5:42
IV.    Beginning of Persecution: 6:1 – 9:31
V.    Spread of Christianity to the Gentiles 9:32 – 12:25
VI.    Paul’s 1st Missionary Journey 13:1 – 15:41
VII.    Paul’s 2nd Missionary Journey 16:1 – 18:23
VIII.    Paul’s 3rd Missionary Journey (primarily Ephesus) 18:24 – 20:6
IX.    Paul’s Journey to Jerusalem 20:7 – 21:17
X.    Paul in Jerusalem 21:18 – 23:35
XI.    Paul before Felix, Festus, and Agrippa 24:1 – 26:32
XII.    Paul’s Journey to Rome 27:1 – 28:31

If you would like a word doc of this outline, email me at mattboulter@gmail.org.

A couple of weeks ago I took my GOE’s (General Ordination Exams) as part of my process of pursuing Holy Orders in the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. All seven of the questions / areas (Holy Scripture, Christian Theology, Ethics / Moral Theology; Church History & Ecumenism; Liturgy & Church Music; Pastoral Theology; and Contemporary Society) were good and encouraging to me, but in particular I was stimulated by the ethics and moral theology question:

Lesser Feasts and Fasts tells us that in March of 1965, Jonathan Daniels, a seminarian at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, heard the appeal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to go to Selma, Alabama, to join in the campaign to secure the right to vote for disenfranchised African-American citizens in that state.  One afternoon at Evensong, the words of the Magnificat spoke to him: “He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek.  He hath filled the hungry with good things.”  In that moment, he said, “I knew I must go to Selma.  The Virgin’s song was to grow more and more dear to me in the weeks ahead.”  Daniels went to Selma that summer; in August, he and three fellow volunteers were arrested.  Released six days later, they walked to a small store; a young black woman approaching the store, sixteen-year-old Ruby Sales, was threatened by a deputy sheriff.  Pushing her aside to protect her, Daniels was killed by a blast from the man’s shotgun.

Respond to the following question in an essay of three pages:

How does a virtue ethics approach in moral theology provide a way to interpret and un­derstand an example like that of Jonathan Daniels?

Here is how I responded:

The most fundamental way in which the virtue-centered, Christian moral tradition (for the purposes of this essay, I take this to be tantamount to “a virtue-ethics approach to moral theology”) differs from modern ethical theory is that, according to the former, there is more to the moral – or even the decisional – life of persons than merely the consciously rational dimension. It is this “more than,” this dimension of the human psyche beyond reason (or perhaps behind and under reason) which must be formed or shaped according to an informed rationality. For the most part ignored by modern ethical theory which tends to focus on reason alone (as if that is possible in the first place), whether in its (post-)utilitarian or (post-)deontological forms,  this dimension of the human psyche will inevitably be shaped and conditioned by something: left to its own devices it will be imprisoned by the drives and desires of human appetite (or, in the context of Jonathan Daniels, by human self-preservation).

What is interesting to me about this tradition (magisterially articulated and developed by Alisdair MacIntyre) is that, finding its synthesis in Thomas Aquinas, it absorbs and develops strains from both the “pagan” tradition of classical antiquity (especially represented by Plato and Aristotle in Fifth-century Athens) as well as the Judeo-Christian biblical tradition (including its emphasis on law in the form of torah, translated by the LXX and the NT as nomos).

For this tradition, how is this more-than-simply-rational component of our human nature (our will, our dispositions, our attitudes, our tendencies, our habits, our emotions) to be informed, influenced, and shaped? A good place to start is with the Greek word paideia, for this word occurs and recurs in both of the two traditions mentioned above which merge to form our virtue-based tradition of Christian moral theology.

In his What is Ancient Philosophy?  Pierre Hadot describes this practice of paideia in the context of fifth-century Athens. It was “a fundamental demand of the Greek mentality: the desire to form and to educate” (Hadot 11). Primarily intended to form the character of children “within the social group itself” (Hadot 12), the point of this discipline was to form the “future citizens [of Athens] by physical exercises, gymnastics, music, and mental exercises” (Hadot 12). Similar programs of formation, Hadot shows, were practiced in other social sub-groups within Athens and indeed larger Greek society, including the philosophical schools of Epicureanism and Pythagoreanism as well as Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum. But in all of these cases, the common denominator is that they all implemented and practiced paideia as a way to foster virtue of soul, in service of the primary community in question, the Greek democratic city-state.

It no coincidence that the writers of the New Testament (let alone the translators of the LXX) adopt this word in their writings, for example in Hebrews 12:11:

“Now, paideia always seems painful [or difficult] rather than pleasant at the time, but later iyields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (NRSV)

The most common translation of paideia here in English is “discipline,” which can be misleading if taken to refer to some kind of mechanistic or litigious law-based system of church discipline. But if we take this word in the context of community formation of the kind which was common in the social world of the author of Hebrews, it makes better sense to understand it as referring to the (trans)formation of character and soul, analogous to that of the “pagan” world, but also baptizing it the latter with the Holy Spirit and the love of God in the Gospel, the caritas which is the queen of the theological virtues, and therefore the queen of all the virtues.

Here, too, in the mind of the author of Hebrews, as well as that of St. Thomas Aquinas, the purpose of paideia is to form persons of virtuous character, in service of our primary community of commitment: the Christian church. Of course, a fundamental presupposition of Christianity is that the walls of the church are porous (all people, all image bearers are, at the very least, potential or possible Christians), and so the virtues are designed to enlarge the church as well, spilling over into the larger world.

In the life of Jonathan Daniels, we can see this formation of virtue at work. As he worshipped in the chapel at EDS in Cambridge (in the context of a personal struggle for the fullness of truth) his formation was epitomized and crowned by his experience of singing the Magnificat. And if he was singing the Magnificat, then he was doing much else besides: we was doing things like praying the Daily Office, in which the Magnificat is found, in and with a community of believers, a community of habituation, as Thomas Aquinas would put it. This practice, this celebratory discipline, had the power to do what Kant’s Categorical Imperative, for example, never could: to infuse into his soul the necessary habitus which would (over time, no doubt) allow him, even require him, to sacrifice his life for one of God’s children, victimized by the forces of evil.

Lesser Feasts and Fasts shows from Jonathan’s papers that this kind of formation really was going on in his life, at least in his own view: “the lived faith of the sacraments was the essential precondition of the experience [in Selma] itself” (346).

Rational principles alone cannot produce such virtuous action. But when reason governs our hearts (emotions, attitudes, appetites, desires, etc.) not so much like a king or a monarch, but rather “democratically,” as Thomas Aquinas teaches, this kind of loving deed is the fruit. In the split-second during which Jonathan saw the gun appear and point at the sixteen-year-old girl, there was not time to reflect upon what rational principles might apply in this situation. (Even if there were enough time, these principles are often – perhaps usually – morally inconclusive in isolation of other considerations.)

And yet, the split-second decision to jump in front of the bullet is only one of Jonathan’s ethical decisions which we are considering, and it is possible that it was the easier of the two. What caused Jonathan to “know” that he needed to go to Selma, consciously putting his life in danger? (Many other deaths and martyrdoms had already occurred by this point in the Civil Rights Movement.)

Here is where the Christian virtue tradition provides resources which are lacking not only in modern ethical theory, but in classical (ie, pre-Christian) virtue thought as well. For even Aristotle (for example in his Nichomachean Ethics) promotes such virtues as self-sufficiency and self-preservation. “Charity is not a virtue for Aristotle.” (MacIntyre, 175).

As Christian moral theologians Stanley Hauerwas and Charles Pinches argue, however, the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love turn virtue, as classically envisioned on its head. For with these Christian realities as well as that of grace, we are taught and empowered to live and die for God and for others, as the long line of Christian martyrs throughout history bears witness.

I am not arguing that only a Christian can lay down his life in sacrifice for another; St. Paul disabuses us of this notion in Rom 5:7. But no other “ethical approach” has produced as many martyrs as this Christian moral tradition, which shapes and forms our hearts, our characters, our dispositions, our desires, our emotions, our habits, not simply into the pattern of virtue in general, but into the shape of Jesus Christ, who out of love laid down his life for others, for us.

If there is any doubt left that this is, in fact, what was going on in Jonathan Daniels’ reality, then the following quotation, again from his papers as quoted in Lesser Feasts and Fasts should dispel it:

“I began to know in my bones bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and resurrection… with them, the black men and white men, with all life, in him whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout…. We are indelibly and unspeakably one.”

James Finley, in his Christian Meditation (pp 170ff) quotes the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing:

A [person] who prays [contemplatively, using a word such as "love" or "God" to pull him back to singleness of intention in prayer] prays with all the height and depth and length and breadth of his spirit. His prayer is high, for he prays in full power of his spirit; it is deep for he has gathered all his understanding into this one little word; it is long for if this feeling could endure he would go on crying out forever as he does now; it is wide because with universal concern he desires for everyone what he desires for himself. (italics mine)

As Finley interprets the anonymous author, in this kind of meditation involves us in “nothing less than the heights, depths, length, and breadth of our whole being, now absorbed in a single, naked desire to be one with God.” The anonymous author goes on to say:

It is with this prayer that a person comes to understand with all the saints the length and breadth and height and depth of the eternal, gracious, and almighty God as Saint Paul says, not completely of course, but partially and in that obscure manner characteristic of contemplative knowledge. Length speaks of God’s eternity. Breadth of his love, height of his power, depth of his wisdom. (italics mine)

The anonmymous, author, of course, is alluding to Ephesians 3:18-19.

Finley then points out that, in this writing of the anonymous author, man’s four dimensions are linked up to God’s four dimensions:

- our “length” is the desire, if we could, to go on like this in prayer for ever. God’s “length” is his eternity.

- our “height” is the full “power of spirit”. God’s “height” is God’s power.

- our “depth” is the gathering of all our understanding into this one little word. God’s “depth” is his wisdom.

- our “breadth” is our desire for everyone what we desire for ourselves. God’s “breadth” is his love.

Finley’s point is intriguing for any contemplative and for anyone groping toward, as I hope to be doing, an understanding and participation in what the Eastern Orthodox call “deification.” (Indeed one could compare this four-fold or four-cornered depiction of the human person with St. Maximus’ comparison of the human soul with the four corners of the world, etc.) Finley writes: “and so it is with each dimension of our spiritual nature laid bare in a single burning desire that flows into and merges with God’s own nature. So it is that meditation lays bare our true nature, and in doing so lays bare God’s nature given to us as our own nature.”