In a recent blog article by the economist Gary Becker, entitled “The Behavior of Catholics and Contraceptive Use,” Becker, an old guy, used the words “rhythm method” and predictably, a Roman Catholic commented that “rhythm method” has been supplanted by “natural family planning” (NFP). I’m guessing that the Roman Catholics who read this are knowledgeable to know the difference between these two terms.
I don’t plan to get into a discussion of those things; but it is interesting that Roman Catholics who would take offense over a usage like this one are oblivious to the misuse of much more serious language (the language of Scripture) when used by their own denomination.
In the comments to my previous post, this quickly became evident. So I want to address “TheDen,” a Roman Catholic writer who finds my work “amusing.” He says, “Reading this blog does not make me want to leave the Church but rather to cleave to her ever the more strongly.” Meanwhile, I think he has said a few things that need to be addressed.
“TheDen” said: Your goal is not to steer people to the Truth. Your goal is to claim that the Church is wrong. Your mission is not to evangelize and lead people to Christ but rather to tear apart and rent asunder. This is shameful.
On the contrary, we do quite extensively point out truths and falsehoods here. We make all kinds of fine distinctions that many people seem not to understand. But if people have falsely become “cleaved” to the Roman church the way a broken bone heals wrongly, then sometimes the better thing to do is to re-break the bone so it can heal properly.
“TheDen” said: As you have pointed out, the Roman Church has not fallen. It has not eroded (albeit some people in it have been and may still be corrupt). The beauty of the Church is that it protects the message of Jesus Christ as it was given to her by Christ Himself. Not a reinvention of Christ by using His Scripture but the actual message that Christ gave.
What I said was, “Roman Catholics ask us all the time, “when did the Roman church fall?” It was not necessarily a “fall,” but more like an erosion. Constant erosion, at greater and lesser rates of erosion. But it was an erosion of the Gospel message. It was the erosion of the core apostolic message, at the expense of the constant aggrandization of the bishops of Rome, and the constant aggrandization of Rome itself.” This is not at all the happy situation you have posited.
“When you say “the actual message that Christ gave,” the actual message that He gave was from the Scriptures. Generations of “oral tradition” had caused the Scriptures to become widely misunderstood; Christ did not give a new message; he reiterated the old message:
“TheDen” said: Marriage is not a sacrament because of Ephesians 5. Marriage precedes Christ and He elevates it to a sacrament (per Mark 10:9). There are numerous passages that point to the importance of marriage in God’s plan. To believe that marriage is a sacrament only because of the word sacramentum in Ephesians 5 is ignorance of Scripture and Christ’s teachings.
Let’s look at that process of “making a sacrament”, according to Rome:
A Foundational ‘Sacrament’ Built on and Reinforced by a Mistranslation
“TheDen” said: Penance: The Vulgate does not say "Do Penance" it says, “Poenitentiam” which means “Repent” which also means “do penance.” It is not referring to the Sacrament of Penance and it is not a mistranslation.
Actually, “TheDen,” you omitted a very important little word, and in fact, by adding that word, Jerome did change the sense of the entire passage. Here’s a link to A Concise Dictionary to the Vulgate New Testament with an introduction by G.C. Richards who lists, on page 16, some of the same effects on the text that McGrath noted. Specifically, the words paenitentiam agere which “inevitably suggested ‘acts’ and that it no doubt led to the development of the penitential system, by which ‘penance’ became something [to be] done.”
He gives other examples that you can read for yourself, and the inevitable conclusion is: “thus the language of the Vulgate affected in no small degree the life of the Church”.
Diarmaid MacCulloch in his History of the Reformation also summarizes the effects of the Latin Vulgate on the church:
I don’t plan to get into a discussion of those things; but it is interesting that Roman Catholics who would take offense over a usage like this one are oblivious to the misuse of much more serious language (the language of Scripture) when used by their own denomination.
In the comments to my previous post, this quickly became evident. So I want to address “TheDen,” a Roman Catholic writer who finds my work “amusing.” He says, “Reading this blog does not make me want to leave the Church but rather to cleave to her ever the more strongly.” Meanwhile, I think he has said a few things that need to be addressed.
“TheDen” said: Your goal is not to steer people to the Truth. Your goal is to claim that the Church is wrong. Your mission is not to evangelize and lead people to Christ but rather to tear apart and rent asunder. This is shameful.
On the contrary, we do quite extensively point out truths and falsehoods here. We make all kinds of fine distinctions that many people seem not to understand. But if people have falsely become “cleaved” to the Roman church the way a broken bone heals wrongly, then sometimes the better thing to do is to re-break the bone so it can heal properly.
“TheDen” said: As you have pointed out, the Roman Church has not fallen. It has not eroded (albeit some people in it have been and may still be corrupt). The beauty of the Church is that it protects the message of Jesus Christ as it was given to her by Christ Himself. Not a reinvention of Christ by using His Scripture but the actual message that Christ gave.
What I said was, “Roman Catholics ask us all the time, “when did the Roman church fall?” It was not necessarily a “fall,” but more like an erosion. Constant erosion, at greater and lesser rates of erosion. But it was an erosion of the Gospel message. It was the erosion of the core apostolic message, at the expense of the constant aggrandization of the bishops of Rome, and the constant aggrandization of Rome itself.” This is not at all the happy situation you have posited.
“When you say “the actual message that Christ gave,” the actual message that He gave was from the Scriptures. Generations of “oral tradition” had caused the Scriptures to become widely misunderstood; Christ did not give a new message; he reiterated the old message:
He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.In fact, the Roman church did not “protect” the message of Christ but allowed it to be changed and corrupted over time, just in the manner I described, by making its own self greater and making Christ the lesser.
“TheDen” said: Marriage is not a sacrament because of Ephesians 5. Marriage precedes Christ and He elevates it to a sacrament (per Mark 10:9). There are numerous passages that point to the importance of marriage in God’s plan. To believe that marriage is a sacrament only because of the word sacramentum in Ephesians 5 is ignorance of Scripture and Christ’s teachings.
Let’s look at that process of “making a sacrament”, according to Rome:
Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”This is something that, for “TheDen”, qualifies as “elevation to a sacrament”. But in reality, Jesus was reiterating the Scriptures, while clarifying in the face of the way that some “oral traditions” had obscured them. Is the whole Sermon on the Mount elevating things to sacraments?
“What did Moses command you?” he replied.
They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”
“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”
A Foundational ‘Sacrament’ Built on and Reinforced by a Mistranslation
“TheDen” said: Penance: The Vulgate does not say "Do Penance" it says, “Poenitentiam” which means “Repent” which also means “do penance.” It is not referring to the Sacrament of Penance and it is not a mistranslation. Actually, “TheDen,” you omitted a very important little word, and in fact, by adding that word, Jerome did change the sense of the entire passage. Here’s a link to A Concise Dictionary to the Vulgate New Testament with an introduction by G.C. Richards who lists, on page 16, some of the same effects on the text that McGrath noted. Specifically, the words paenitentiam agere which “inevitably suggested ‘acts’ and that it no doubt led to the development of the penitential system, by which ‘penance’ became something [to be] done.”
He gives other examples that you can read for yourself, and the inevitable conclusion is: “thus the language of the Vulgate affected in no small degree the life of the Church”.
Diarmaid MacCulloch in his History of the Reformation also summarizes the effects of the Latin Vulgate on the church:
An examination of the New Testament [of Jerome’s mistranslations in the Vulgate] had even more profound consequences [than his mistranslations of the Old Testament]: Jerome had chosen certain Latin words in his translation of the original Greek, which formed a rather shaky foundation for very considerable theological constructions by the later Western Church.Again, regarding the translation of “metanoiea”:
It was not simply that Jerome gave misleading impressions of the Greek text: the mere fact that for a thousand years the Latin Church had based its authority on a translation [with many errors in it] was significant when scholars heard for the first time the unmediated urgency of the angular street-Greek poured out by … Paul of Tarsus as he wrestled with the problem of how Jesus represented God. The struggle sounded so much less decorous in the original than in Latin: the shock was bound to stir up new movements in the Church and suggest that it was not so authoritative or normative an interpreter of Scripture as it claimed.(82-83)
Most notorious was Erasmus's retranslation of Gospel passages (especially Matthew 3.2 [and and also 4:17]) where John the Baptist [and Jesus] is presented in the Greek as crying out to his listeners in the wilderness: “metanoeite”. Jerome had translated this as “poenitentiam agite,” “do penance”, and the medieval Church had pointed to the Baptist’s cry as biblical support for its theology of the sacrament of penance. Erasmus said that what John had told his listeners to do was to come to their senses, or repent, and he translated the command into Latin as “resipiscite.” Much turned on one word.(99-100)Craig Keener has provided an excellent study of what the word “repentance” meant in the New Testament-era literature, and says (primary source references omitted):
“Repentance” in the Gospels recalls not the “change of mind” earlier etymological interpreters sometimes supposed, but the biblical concept of “turning” or “returning” to God (Is 31:6; 45:22; 55:7; Jer 3:7, 10, 14, 22; 4:1; 8:5; 18:11; 24:7; 25:5; 26:3; 35:15; 36:7; 44:5; Lam 3:40; Ezek 13:22; 14:6; 18:23, 30; 33:9, 11; Hos 11:5; 12:6; 14:1-2; Joel 2:12-13; Zech 1:3-4; Mal 3:6).Since this is already long I’ll break here and pick up some of the other comments in another post.
[I’ve listed all these Scriptural citations to show that the idea of “repentance” espoused here did have a great deal of consistency through the OT.]
The idea of repentance as returning to God was pervasive in early Judaism but foreign to Greek religion. Sages extolled repentance, some later rabbis even claiming its preexistence or its association with the Messiah’s mission. It is efficacious, though in rabbinic tradition it merely suspends judgment until the Day of Atonement may remove it (and beyond a certain limit it is not efficacious for the person who premeditates sin in hopes of repenting afterward [Sounds a lot like Roman Catholics who think it’s ok to sin, because you can then just go to confession]).
Yet John’s call is more radical; his “repentance” refers not to a regular turning from sin after a specific act, but to a once-for-all repentance, the kind of turning from an old way of life to a new that Judaism associated with Gentiles converting to Judaism, here in view of the impending day of judgment (cf. MT 4:17; 11:20; 12:41; Acts 17:30-31; Rom 2:4). His call to repentance recalls a familiar summons in the biblical prophets. In various ways John warns his hearers against depending on the special privileges of their heritage. Craig Keener (“The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary” Grand Rapids, MI, Cambridge, UK, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, ©2009, pg 120)
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55 comments:
John,
Your analysis involves the error of anachronism.
While there is some truth to it, what you are doing is looking at how late medieval readers, people who theological products of the entire medieval period of doctrinal development and thought, looked at the Latin text, the effects and connotations it engendered in them, and blaming all that on the early medieval translation, on Jerome. That is, in a way, like blaming the translators of the KJV for all the errors that arose when late modern readers misunderstood the text because the English language had changed.
What happened is 1. The Latin language, especially in its technical theological terms, did change. Of course Latin is called a "dead" language because it supposedly does not change but really it is not entirely dead. 2. Medieval theology in the west evolved in certain directions, and the Latin terms and language gradually became associated with that language.
Its a subtle point. The renaissance and the rediscovery of The Greek did certainly have the effect you describe, bur it is not so much the case that's Jerome's translation was flawed, that translation "worked" very well when it was first written, but rather that the associations of the Latin terms evolved along with the evolution of the theological ideas.
Your analysis involves the error of anachronism.
I'm not blaming anyone. Jerome was a good but not a perfect scholar. There were a lot of things happening at the time.
I don't recall you giving us your Latin credentials here, but you've harped on this point a good bit.
It's not as if I'm the first person drawing these conclusions. I'm citing scholars who have studied these issues far more extensively than either of us have, and yet in successive posts, you've said that Erasmus was wrong, that the writer of a Latin dictionary was wrong, that leading historians of the Reformation were wrong ...
So please forgive me if I suggest that you need to go back and provide some better documentation than your own word on this.
It's really a logical problem involving cause and effect. It's subtle. To put it succinctly, the cause has to precede the effect in time and the effect has to occur later in time than the cause.
We do not have to be a Latin experts to understand that Jerome was fluent in Latin and a Latin scholar, nor to understand the cause and effect problem that the analysis creates. It may seem nit picky to you but huge open wounds and even amputations can eventually result if these nits are allowed to create sores that fester. It is also important to be aware that we are talking about real people who because they have died cannot defend themselves. extra care must be taken to be fair to them.
If it is true that the idea of "doing penance" as an essential element of confession and absolution as it was understood by the late medieval western church (and as is still understood by the Roman church) only developed after Jerome, then it is not logically possible that paenitentiam agere (as opposed to the use of the word paenitentia without the word agere) connoted the later practice at Jerome's time. If the practice had already evolved at Jerome's time, you may be justified in criticizing Jerome's translation (here's where we would have to look to expert Latin scholars who understand the history of latin and the logical cause-and-effect issues) but in that case you cannot say that Jeromes translation caused the practice to evolve. So on the basis of the logic of historical cause and effect you can see that there is a problem with the "blame Jerome" analysis without committing to either answer in regards to the question of the connotation of the Latin phrase.
I shouldn't refer to your analysis as the "blame Jerome analysis" it would be better to refer to it as the "blame Jerome's translation" analysis, I think. You do seem to be blaming the translation. It seems clear to me that to do so a creates a logical problem involving cause and effect.
You do realize that you are, on your own word, and with no supporting evidence, criticizing Erasmus (and humanism's conclusions about the Vulgate), along with the Reformation, and Reformation scholars such as McGrath and MacCulloch, and the Latin scholar I cited.
Do you suppose they had not encountered the objection you are making and rejected it?
John,
"You do realize that you are, on your own word, and with no supporting evidence, criticizing Erasmus (and humanism's conclusions about the Vulgate), along with the Reformation, and Reformation scholars such as McGrath and MacCulloch, and the Latin scholar I cited. "
You are mistaken. For one thing, I was dealing with your article and your argument specifically. I understand that you believe that those other people were arguing in a similar manner, and maybe you think of what you are doing as summarizing them, but as long as you bracket quotes from McGrath and MacCulloch within your own comments explaining what the argument is, it is your argument. I'm not saying that you are or not fairly summarizing those other people's arguments I am saying that your argument, derivative or not, a fair summary of those other people or not, is interesting and significant, all on its own, and worthy of analyzing critically. That is what I am doing.
Secondly and more importantly, my argument, my response to your argument, is not an evidentiary inductive argument. It is primarily logical and deductive analysis. There cannot be "evidence" to support such a thing. I would think that the idea that historical effects must temporally follow their causes is self evident.
"Do you suppose they had not encountered the objection you are making and rejected it?"
Perhaps. One critical assumption behind that question is that each and every person you mentioned made precisely the same argument you just made with your explanatory comments. I was interacting with your argument because it is an interesting, important, and significant argument, and it is so regardless of whether or not your argument is partly original to you or nothing at all but a summary of an argument that one or more of the people you mentioned made.
If one or more of those people had encountered my objection and rejected it it would be interesting to learn why they had done so, what their reasoning for rejecting it was. If you can dispose of my objection, if you can show that it is obviously incoherent or flawed, we might suppose that those other people (in particular Erasmus whom I would expect never to miss the obvious) would disposed of it in a similar way.
John,
I'm sorry. I take back what I said. The argument was entirely within the indented paragraphs, so I guess it isn't your argument, except in regards to what you decided to excerpt and what order you pasted your arguments in.
So what I am arguing with is the excerpts you quoted. They betray a confusion of historical cause and effect in regards to time, and do not address the evolution of Latin, particularly technical theological terms and how the evolution of theology influences the meaning of those terms, seeming to treat Latin as an absolutely dead language.
What is your background that enables you to speak with the authority you seem to claim for yourself on "the evolution of Latin"?
John,
"What is your background that enables you to speak with the authority you seem to claim for yourself on 'the evolution of Latin'?
If you are asking about my objection to the argument that you presented in your indented paragraphs you are asking the wrong question, you are misunderstanding the objection. It's about the more general idea that, in the history of theology (in history, generally) effects must come later in time than their causes.
If that's just an offhand question about how I know Latin has evolved and has nothing to do with the argument, I have read enough works in Latin to have seen for myself that the language has evolved. Also I learned that Latin is not a dead language from experts in Latin (my high school and especially college teachers) and remember one teacher in particular taking some time to show by examples how the language has evolved. Of course it is also static in the sense that everyone who learns latin formally reads classic texts.
Again, however, if you are talking about my objection to your argument it is not about the specifics of Latin per se it is about the more general logical possibilities in regards to language influencing theology and vice versa.
John,
Oh, and I resent that crack about "claiming authority for yourself."
You are seemingly deliberately misunderstanding almost everything I say.
For the record, I claim no authority on any subject whatsoever except some very particular topics in a particular scientific discipline which has nothing to do with the subjects discussed in this blog. The subjects discussed in this blog have to do with the Christian faith and are the business of all the Christian faithful. Experts are as likely as not to lead us astray.
I'll try to explain it to you again. You don't have to know anything about latin or the evolution of theology in order to understand this:
The argument you've presented, if I am understanding it correctly, is that "paenitentiam agere" connotes the penance that RC priests give the penitents in confession and "doing acts of penance;" that it is very like the english phrase "doing penance" in that regard; but the word "paenitentia" without the "agere" does not have the connotation. Because of this difference in connotation, Jerome made a mistake in his translation.
If that is so, however, if Jerome should have known better, it can only be because the connotation developed before Jerome's time. But if the connotation developed before Jerome's time, Jerome's translation cannot be the cause of that development, since historical causes must happen before effects.
If the connotation developed only after Jerome's time, influenced by the developing theology of "doing penance" and merits and the treasury thereof and purgatory and so on, Jerome cannot be said to have translated poorly (since he didn't have a time machine) and the cause in that case would be the developing erroneous theology and the effect would be the change in connotation.
Do you understand? Do you see that what I am giving you is an argument, and a logical objection, not evidence? Evidence is besides the point, as are appeals to authority on language and history. The argument is about something much more fundamental and philosophical, the notion of cause and effect.
As a Christian with a brain, you have the authority to look at scripture and reason regarding doctrine yourself. You don't have the authority to challenge and preach against the creed or the historic professions of faith and your own religious authorities, but you do have the authority to think critically. It is inherent in your possession of critical faculties.
Oh, and I resent that crack about "claiming authority for yourself." You are seemingly deliberately misunderstanding almost everything I say.
It wasn't intended to be a crack. I genuinely do not understand what you are doing here. I genuinely do not understand what your intention is in this whole line of comments.
You begin by saying "Your analysis involves the error of anachronism." And you qualify it, "what you are doing is looking at how late medieval readers, people who theological products of the entire medieval period of doctrinal development and thought, looked at the Latin text, the effects and connotations it engendered in them, and blaming all that on the early medieval translation, on Jerome. "
Ok, in the first place, I wasn't blaming it on the translation. I was reporting [as you later noted, it wasn't my argument, it was the argument -- really the analysis -- of McGrath and MacCulloch -- two premier historians -- that Jerome had mistranslated
I never intended to suggest that the creation of the sacrament of penance was then the immediate effect of that mistranslation. But what it did was to certainly enable the groundwork for the sacrament -- I have provided a link to an earlier post of mine that outlined the sacrament of penance.
Look at the citation from G.C. Richards, in the "Dictionary Vulgate New Testament. "Specifically, the words paenitentiam agere which “inevitably suggested ‘acts’ and that it no doubt led to the development of the penitential system, by which ‘penance’ became something [to be] done.”
And I've asked this question before: Do you think he did not take into account -- and dismiss -- the very question that you are bringing up? Are you suggesting that he did not understand the logic
What is your point? Are you trying to say, "oh, gee, the whole Reformation really was a big mistake because Erasmus and the Reformers mistakenly and anachronistically attributed "penance" to Jerome's mistranslation?
Are you trying to say that Jerome really did get the translation right, and that later evolutions in the language caused the problem?
You said "Secondly and more importantly, my argument, my response to your argument, is not an evidentiary inductive argument. It is primarily logical and deductive analysis. There cannot be "evidence" to support such a thing. I would think that the idea that historical effects must temporally follow their causes is self evident."
So what. No kidding that "historical effects must temporally follow their causes."
Here's my point. Not that Jerome's mistranslation caused penance to be made a sacrament.
My point is that the Vulgate had multiple mistranslations. Rome nevertheless held it to be authorized and later then it dogmatically asserted that the Vulgate was the "authentic" text of the Bible.
It was the overall effect of Rome's assertions that these mistranslations were authorized, though incorrect, that caused the humanists and later the Reformers to question Rome's authority.
Do you at least understand this portion of what I am saying?
Returning to your most recent post, which must have crossed my most recent post, you said:
If that is so, however, if Jerome should have known better, it can only be because the connotation developed before Jerome's time. But if the connotation developed before Jerome's time, Jerome's translation cannot be the cause of that development, since historical causes must happen before effects.
If the connotation developed only after Jerome's time, influenced by the developing theology of "doing penance" and merits and the treasury thereof and purgatory and so on, Jerome cannot be said to have translated poorly (since he didn't have a time machine) and the cause in that case would be the developing erroneous theology and the effect would be the change in connotation.
I am all for sorting out "what they knew and when they knew it."
But the reason for Jerome's translation -- whether penance had the force of a sacrament before or after he made that translation -- really had nothing to do with the overall net effect of THAT he mistranslated the words on the page, so to speak.
John the Baptist, live and up close, was NOT saying to the people, "do Penance." Jesus was NOT saying "do Penance."
The Greek verb "repent" (as Keener has pointed out) had a clear meaning in both in the Old Testament and in Jesus's time.
So whether there was some understanding of "penance" before Jerome's time, or whether the sacrament developed after (and because of) the mistranslation, is of no importance whatsoever.
The fact is, the Roman church, for 1000 years, operated "authoritatively" with what it believed was an "authentic" translation, when in actual fact, it was a mistranslation, it would have been seen as a mistranslation by Matthew when he wrote the Gospel, and Jesus and John would clearly have said, "that's not what we mean."
I don't care why Jerome made the translation the way he did. At this point, I don't care who made the translation. (In an earlier post, I suggested that it was Jerome's effort to translate into "fine" Latin that caused some problems. But it still does not matter whether it was Jerome or not.)
The fact is, the words are on the page. Once the translation was made, Jerome is out of view, off the radar screen. Roman authority picked up the Vulgate and made it authoritative, errors and all.
You have been harping on a moot point.
"But what it did was to certainly enable the groundwork for the sacrament..."
I don't see that certainty yet. I'm trying.
"Look at the citation from G.C. Richards "Specifically, the words paenitentiam agere which inevitably suggested acts and that it no doubt led to the development of the penitential system, by which ‘penance’ became something [to be] done.'”
"And I've asked this question before: Do you think he did not take into account -- and dismiss -- the very question that you are bringing up? Are you suggesting that he did not understand the logic?"
I don't know about that. If by "the very question that I am bringing up" you mean what I said in previous comments, those were not addressed to what Richards is saying here. To what Richards is saying here I would reply:
OK, "agere" can suggest "acts," among other things. I have plenty of doubt. Richards fails to be convincing here and seems to be doing nothing more than noticing that "agere" can be translated "to act" and jumping to unwarranted conclusions.
"Are you trying to say, 'oh, gee, the whole Reformation really was a big mistake..."
"Oh gee" is right. Of course I don't think that at all, except in the sense that the RC made a pretty darned big mistake when it anathematized the gospel and alienated and excommunicated the reformers and the faithful.
"...because Erasmus and the Reformers mistakenly and anachronistically attributed 'penance' to Jerome's mistranslation?"
I am astounded that you think the whole reformation was based on Erasmus and the Reformers attributing penance to Jerome's mistranslation. The Reformation stands on its own, regardless of whether said attribution hits the nail on the head or is mistaken and anachronistic.
"Are you trying to say that Jerome really did get the translation right, and that later evolutions in the language caused the problem?"
I am saying that it is impossible for that kind of cause to come later in time than its effect, so it makes no sense to blame theological evolution on the evolution in meanings of theological terms that necessarily accompanies it.
"My point is that the Vulgate had multiple mistranslations."
Speaking of knowledge of latin and "authority" to make such assertions, I certainly don't have said "authority." Are you implying that you do have the authority to make that assertion? :-)
On general principle I would say that any translation of the bible must have multiple mistranslations. As for examples of mistranslations in the Vulgate, only one of the three you came up with appeared to me to actually be a mistranslation, if I remember correctly. That's why I was not very impressed.
The arguments you've presented involve some leaps, and I wonder whether all the authorities you mentioned really did make precisely the same argument as each other and as you made. I don't know what else to say about it except that what you've presented is not convincing. Phrased as a black-and-white proposition it's illogical and at best it's a vague hypothesis, or rather a set of hypotheses. It's intriguing and there may be something to it, but it seems to me that you need something else, an independent test: What about the Eastern Orthodox sacrament? How is it like and unlike the RC version? The Easterns didn't need the Latin translation and would not have been influenced by it in the way you propose. So if there is a logical cause-and-effect involving the language influencing the theology, you can only blame the latin translation for aspects of the sacrament that are uniquely western. Things that the latins and greeks have in common cannot be the result of Jerome's latin translation.
"Rome nevertheless held it to be authorized and later then it dogmatically asserted that the Vulgate was the "authentic" text of the Bible."
Yeah, that was a pretty dumb piece of dogmatizing.
"But the reason for Jerome's translation -- whether penance had the force of a sacrament before or after he made that translation -- really had nothing to do with the overall net effect of THAT he mistranslated the words on the page, so to speak."
But Jerome's translation cannot be the cause of things for which he had a reason unless he was a time traveler. The translation can only be the cause of things that happened after the translation was published (copied and distributed). So if Jerome already had a reason to think that the idea you and I have when we read the english phrase "do penance" is an appropriate understanding of the biblical text, it must be something he received, a "tradition of men" already being propagated before his translated. It cannot be something the development of which his translation was a factor.
"John the Baptist, live and up close, was NOT saying to the people, 'do Penance.' Jesus was NOT saying 'do Penance.'"
And Jerome was not saying "to do Penance" when he wrote "paenitentiam agere." It may look that way, and if we were given that phrase in latin class we'd probably translate the latin into english that way but we are looking at it from the twenty-first century, from the this side of the reformation, and through the lens of centuries of theological "development" that was really a lot of radical and tragic error in regards to fundamental aspects of the gospel.
Well, I'll take the word of the Cambridge guy and the Oxford guy and the Latin scholar over your word. Especially since all you've done is speculated over facts and given your opinion.
Steelikat, I am curious. Which is your dog in this fight? Are you leaning Rome-ward? I have no reason for asking and I don't anticipate a follow up. I'm just curious.
Andrew,
What fight is that?
No!
Ya got yer followup anyway.
Curiosity is good, as long as it's under control, I think.
Andrew,
I don't think the issue is RCism vs. Protestantism. One can give reasons against Rome and be incorrect in their statements. I am not saying John is right or wrong in his analysis. It just appears as if steelikat is trying to correct what he sees as an incorrect basis for making certain assertions.
I would hope that someone would point it out when another person is making bad arguments. This ensures that others who are ignorant will not try to use these arguments at a later date, only to find out that they are lacking.
Again, I make no case that John is right or wrong, but only about the discussion as I have seen it thus far.
John,
My apologies for the delay. Been working all day. This is the first chance to respond to your post.
Christ’s message is simple. It’s to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength. It’s the greatest commandment. To love the Lord, is found in John’s Gospel. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” So, to love the Lord is to keep His commandments. To love the Lord is to be obedient in all things. To love the Lord is to remain in Him. If we remain in Him, we will bear much fruit. If we remain in Him, we will be saved. If we are disobedient, we will be “thrown out like a branch.” We will be burned. That's the message the Church protects. This is what I don't see in your posts.
“Specifically, the words paenitentiam agere which “inevitably suggested ‘acts’ and that it no doubt led to the development of the penitential system, by which ‘penance’ became something [to be] done.””
Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with paenitentiam agere. It means repent. You’re trying to create this false argument that this “mistranslation” allowed the Church to change doctrine which is not true. “Doing penance” is not the act of going to confession but rather a “turning to God.” (CCC 1430) Which is exactly how I described it in my previous comments.
“Yet John’s call is more radical; his “repentance” refers not to a regular turning from sin after a specific act, but to a once-for-all repentance,”
You don’t have a proper understanding of John. John specifically tells us to not sin but if we do sin, we have an advocate in Christ. He also says that if we know Him yet disobey His commandments, we’re liars and the Truth is not with us and that we MUST be obedient to Christ. (1 John 2: 1-6)
Confession/Repentance is also not just an inward turning. 1 John 1:9 tells us we must confess our sins to be forgiven. James 5:16 tells us to confess our sins to one another and Romans 10:10 tells us a man must “confess with his lips” to be saved.’
None of this sounds like just an inward turning or a “once-for-all repentance.”
Your understanding of Catholic marriage is erroneous. The elevation to a sacrament isn’t found in Matthew. It’s found in Ephesians 5: 21-32. The Church didn’t declare marriage a sacrament because of the word “sacramentum” or “mysterion.” They ACTUALLY READ what Paul was saying.
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Per Paul, Christ elevated marriage to a sacrament at the Cross. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy...
In obedience to Christ, men sanctify their wives. We purify our wives as Christ purifies us. We nourish them as Christ nourishes us. We offer our lives completely, in service to our wives. Willing to die for them so that they may live.
Marriage is a reflection of Christ and His Church. As we cannot separate the Head from the Body, we cannot separate husband from wife in divorce. (Per Matthew) Loving my wife is helping me understand Christ’s love for me.
This is a mystery that Christ gave us and it is truly profound. It is a sacrament.
All you’re really doing is further showing to me that you don’t understand Catholicism.
Steelikat, I meant that I would ask no follow up questions. Anyway, thanks for answering. Iconophile, I agree that when someone is wrong we should correct them, even when they are on our team. For what it's worth I think John's analysis is pretty good. I also find that I frequently enjoy Steelikat's comments.
I've also been puzzled by steelikat's "side", and I'm glad someone asked.
He's making a point that I almost made, too. Is it the case that Latin lexicons from the time of Jerome defined the phrase in question as "do penance", or that that the phrase in question in Jerome's dialect of Latin meant "repent" and sacramentalism inserted into the meaning of those words "do penance" over the ages to account for their sacramental system?
Ikonophile: It just appears as if steelikat is trying to correct what he sees as an incorrect basis for making certain assertions.
There are two levels here. One involves the argument by steelikat that Jerome may not be responsible for errors in the translation, if indeed "the connotation" of "doing penance" existed in his time; Steelikat would say then (and I am quoting him) If the connotation developed only after Jerome's time, influenced by the developing theology of "doing penance" and merits and the treasury thereof and purgatory and so on, Jerome cannot be said to have translated poorly (since he didn't have a time machine) and the cause in that case would be the developing erroneous theology and the effect would be the change in connotation.
In a way, my original post did not properly address Steelikat's concern. He is concerned to understand what Jerome knew and intended when he made the translation.
[My original post was of course to address the fact that Roman Catholics who will fight over the precise meaning of "Rhythm method vs NFP" will make all kinds of excuses of why the meanings of Biblical words have lapsed, sometimes severely, in the Roman Catholic scheme of things.]
If I were trying to produce a proper exegesis of the word "metanoiea," which is the word in the Greek gospels attributed to both Jesus and JOHN THE BAPTIST [that was for "TheDen" who has confused John the Apostle and John the Baptist in one of his recent comments], I would of course begin with Keener. Keener goes into a great deal of effort to describe what the programs of Jesus and John the Baptist actually were. The things they were actually teaching.
And he does list about 20 Old Testament citations, where this concept of "turning" or "returning to God" is cited. He not only cites these citations, but he then goes into the background of what it would have meant to the original hearers.
In this way, he is describing "what they knew and what they knew it." And so, he is able to follow up with a description of what John the Baptist and Jesus were preaching in Matthew 3 and 4:
John [the Baptist]’s call is more radical; his “repentance” refers not to a regular turning from sin after a specific act, but to a once-for-all repentance, the kind of turning from an old way of life to a new that Judaism associated with Gentiles converting to Judaism, here in view of the impending day of judgment (cf. MT 4:17; 11:20; 12:41; Acts 17:30-31; Rom 2:4). His call to repentance recalls a familiar summons in the biblical prophets. In various ways John warns his hearers against depending on the special privileges of their heritage.
I'm just going to pause here, and ask, if you understand what is going on at precisely this point. Keener [and other exegetes who do the same thing] have worked very hard to understand the following:
What was actually said
What the hearers understood when they heard it
And to some degree What the Gospel writer (in this case Matthew) intended to communicate to his readers .
At this point, once we have established the meaning what the words actually meant: in the culture, as spoken by Jesus and John THE BAPTIST, and as written to the early church by Matthew, then we have to look at the program of Damasus and Jerome, which ultimately produced The Vulgate translation. And I gave that in the prior post:
* * *
This Romanisation of the Church was not all a matter of worldiness, however. The bishops of the imperial capital had to confront the Roman character of their city and their see. They set about finding a religious dimension to that Romanitias which would have profound implications for the nature of the papacy. Pope Damasus in particular took this task to heart. He set himself to interpret Rome’s past in the light not of paganism, but of Christianity. He would Latinise the Church, and Christianise Latin. He appointed as his secretary the greatest Latin scholar of the day, the Dalmatian presbyter Jerome, and commissioned him to turn the crude dog-Latin of the Bible versions [currently] used in the church into something more urbane and polished. Jerome’s work was never completed, but the Vulgate Bible, as it came to be called, rendered the scriptures of ancient Israel and the early Church into an idiom which Romans could recognize as their own. The covenant legislation of the ancient tribes was now cast in the language of the Roman law-courts [emphasis added], and Jerome’s version of the promises to Peter used familiar Roman legal words for binding and loosing -- ligare and solver -- which underlined the legal character of the Pope’s unique claims. (Eamon Duffy, “Saints and Sinners, A History of the Popes, New Haven and London, Yale Nota Bene, Yale University Press ©1997 and 2001, pgs 38-39)
* * *
So it was at this point that the original meaning of the Scriptures -- and the meanings of the words used to convey what those meanings were -- were changed.
It was not Jerome's program to make the most accurate translation. It was not his program to convey the original meaning of the text, in the cultural context.
I am not blaming Jerome at all for this; the fact is, though, the meanings changed, the words [in translation] were not chosen to convey that original meaning. The words were chosen to "Romanize" the language of the bible.
It is this "Romanization" that Erasmus and the humanists noticed, and which the Reformers sought to extricate from both the Bible and from the doctrines that had developed from (and intertwined themselves with the "Romanized text") in the intervening centuries.
Following on this explanation of "original meaning," now, let's look at TheDen's question.
TheDen said (just above): there’s nothing wrong with paenitentiam agere. It means repent. You’re trying to create this false argument that this “mistranslation” allowed the Church to change doctrine which is not true.
"TheDen", how do you know? Erasmus said it did. He translated it with a totally different word. The Reformers gave their lives because, in part, they were attempting to go ad fontes. The Latin scholar G.C. Richards explicitly says that this shift "no doubt l ed to the development of the penitential system." McGrath (Cambridge) and MacCulloch (Oxford) both explicitly said there was a difference.
I'm sure there is a scholarly monograph or two somewhere, examining this question in the minutest detail. If anyone is aware of one, I'll be happy to look at it.
In the meanwhile, I've produced some scholarly exegesis on the original meaning of the word, I've shown what the Jewish context meant, I've shown what Jesus's and John the Baptist's hearers would have understood the term to mean, I've show how Damasus/Jerome had a program that effectively (however subtly -- or not) changed the meaning in the Vulgate, and the historical consequenses of that meaning.
I'm wondering if "TheDen" would split hairs and protest that "NFP" is different from "Rhythym Method". He certainly wants to lump together "repent" and "do penance".
TheDen said: “Yet John’s call is more radical; his “repentance” refers not to a regular turning from sin after a specific act, but to a once-for-all repentance,”
You don’t have a proper understanding of John. John specifically tells us to not sin but if we do sin, we have an advocate in Christ. He also says that if we know Him yet disobey His commandments, we’re liars and the Truth is not with us and that we MUST be obedient to Christ. (1 John 2: 1-6)
Confession/Repentance is also not just an inward turning. 1 John 1:9 tells us we must confess our sins to be forgiven. James 5:16 tells us to confess our sins to one another and Romans 10:10 tells us a man must “confess with his lips” to be saved.’
None of this sounds like just an inward turning or a “once-for-all repentance.”
I'll forgive you for not reading carefully enough and for mistaking "John" meant "John the Baptist" in the original post. What John the Baptist said, however, was precisely an "inward turning, once-for-all repentance," as Keener explained in the original post.
TheDen said: Your understanding of Catholic marriage is erroneous. The elevation to a sacrament isn’t found in Matthew. It’s found in Ephesians 5: 21-32.
I was quoting your actual words when you said, "Marriage is not a sacrament because of Ephesians 5. Marriage precedes Christ and He elevates it to a sacrament (per Mark 10:9). There are numerous passages that point to the importance of marriage in God’s plan. To believe that marriage is a sacrament only because of the word sacramentum in Ephesians 5 is ignorance of Scripture and Christ’s teachings.
So you have explicitly contradicted yourself, on record, in two different places. I am less likely to be forgiving for this blatant self-contradiction.
Now, I know you only read here for entertainment, but you are twisting what you yourself said.
I don't doubt that marriage is important. But it is not a sacrament. And nothing you have said here completes the leap between "Marriage is important" and "Marriage is dogmatically defined as a sacrament".
"So you have explicitly contradicted yourself, on record, in two different places. I am less likely to be forgiving for this blatant self-contradiction. "
Pardon my ignorance. It IS found in Ephesians 5. What I meant to say was that it's not because of the word "Sacramentum." Which I clarified initially and reiterated in my follow up.
Marriage is important to Christ as He mentions it in Matthew, and even before His ministry began, He chose a wedding as His first miracle.
Just wanted to clarify...I am at work right now so the remainder of my response will have to come later.
Peace,
Dennis
I am at work too and I understand the constraints of time.
But "choosing a wedding as the backdrop for his first miracle" does not make marriage into a sacrament. "Christ and the church" is a mystery. But saying that doesn't make marriage a sacrament. Paul makes an analogy, but so far, the only connection between "marriage" and "sacrament" is a mistranslation.
John,
" that Jerome may not be responsible for errors in the translation"
I'm sorry, that's not what I was arguing. If there were errors in the translation, at the time Jerome wrote it, he is responsible for them. The translator is always responsible the errors in his translation.
What I am saying is that if "paenitentiam agere," was an erroneous translation at the time Jerome translated it, if at that time the phrase already connoted the RC practice of "doing penance" after confession, the practice must have already existed at that time.
If THAT is true, if the practice already existed at that time, it cannot also be true that the practice only came into existence later under the influence of that phrase.
See?
John,
"Erasmus said it did."
If it is true that Erasmus said the phrase connoted the RC sacramental "doing of penance" at the time Jerome wrote it, and if it is also true that Erasmus said that the RC sacramental "doing of penance" only came into existence after Jerome's time, then Erasmus contradicted himself.
I am not telling you that either of those things are true I am asserting that if both of those things are true Erasmus contradicted himself and that you ought to be able to understand why that is so.
John,
"It was not Jerome's program to make the most accurate translation...
I am not blaming Jerome at all for this"
You ought to. If you think that Jerome did not intend to make the most accurate transltion you ought to blame him for translating poorly.
It is intent that makes blame appropriate. Only the lack of intent might excuse.
John,
"Paul makes an analogy, but so far, the only connection between 'marriage' and 'sacrament' is a mistranslation."
You lack imagination. You think the only possible way someone could use the extended passage to defend the idea that marriage is a sacrament is to point to the word "mysterion" (the Greek word for "sacrament.")
I outlined another way in the comment box in a different thread. The really critical verse is 25. How can a man do what is commanded in that verse? He cannot, unless God graciously enables him to do so. That would fulfill one of the necessary conditions for something to be called a christian sacrament.
Protestants disagree because they define the relevant condition slightly differently, but the Protestant definition still seems a little "ad hoc" to me. Why must we allow that only instruments of justification be called sacraments when sanctification, though secondary, is still a gracious work of God and in fact in the Calvinist understanding it is the raison d'etre of justification?
Steelikat said: What I am saying is that if "paenitentiam agere," was an erroneous translation at the time Jerome translated it, if at that time the phrase already connoted the RC practice of "doing penance" after confession, the practice must have already existed at that time.
If THAT is true, if the practice already existed at that time, it cannot also be true that the practice only came into existence later under the influence of that phrase.
You don't know whether it existed at the time, and you've spammed this thread pretty heavily with A BIG IF.
Meanwhile, all that you've done is to insinuate that men like McGrath and MacCulloch and Richards did not perform the due diligence that you think needs to be done to validate this one point.
But you don't know that, either. You haven't demonstrated it, all you've done is insinuate.
If you can somehow document that Jerome's translation was based on an existing translation, then I'll say that you may be onto something. But until you do that, your speculations are worthless.
A translation ultimately should be based on exegetical considerations, which I've talked about at length here, not about how an existing practice might be read back into a text.
So whether the practice was based on the translation, or the translation was based on the practice, either way, that's a horrible way to understand the Biblical texts, but it is standard practice for Roman doctrine.
In any event, your speculations here have been worthless to the discussion; your accusations have absolutely no basis in fact.
"you've spammed this thread pretty heavily with A BIG IF.you've spammed this thread pretty heavily with A BIG IF."
A big if, indeed, and a critical one since it points out a logical contradiction.
"Meanwhile, all that you've done is to insinuate that men like McGrath and MacCulloch..."
I haven't insinuated anything about anybody. You
presented an argument in this blog and I reacted to it, pointing out a logical error in it. If the paragraphs that made up the argument had not been indented I would have reacted to it in exactly the same way.
"If you can somehow document that Jerome's translation was based on an existing translation, then I'll say that you may be onto something."
I don't know why you would say that, since I have never suggested that Jerome's translation was based on an existing translation.
What I suggested is that if it is true Jerome was born into, that he received, a state of affairs wherein the phrase "paenitentiam agere" connoted an RC practice, "doing penance," that already existed (which connotation would make his translation a mistranslation), it cannot also be true that the practice only came to exist as a result of his translation.
If, otoh the practice did not yet exist at Jerome's time, it cannot be the case that paenitentiam agere connoted that practice. In that case, it would not have been a mistranslation at that time.
See?
John,
"A translation ultimately should be based on exegetical considerations, which I've talked about at length here, not about how an existing practice might be read back into a text."
Of course that's true, and if that represented what Jerome did his translation is rightfully called a mistranslation and he is rightly held responsible for the error. If that is the case, however, if the practice was an existing practice, it cannot also be the case that the practice would only come to be an existing practice later as a result of Jerome's translation.
Lastly and most importantly, you are my bother in Christ and Please don't think I have accused you of anything. I saw paragraphs on a computer screen, noticed that they presented a logical error, and reacted to them impersonally as words on a screen, pointing out the logical error they contained. Your reaction to that involved misunderstanding the point I was making, and I have repeatedly tried to explain what I meant, to present my point in various ways so that you would understand.
I certainly wasn't attacking you or making accusations about you, let alone two MacSomebodyorothers I don't even know.
"my bother in Christ."
That was not a Freudian slip, just a typo.
I'm at work and I'll respond later tonight. Meanwhile, I had a typo too:
"If you can somehow document that Jerome's translation was based on an existing translation, then I'll say that you may be onto something."
I don't know why you would say that, since I have never suggested that Jerome's translation was based on an existing translation.
Should have been "If you can somehow document that Jerome's translation was based on an existing practice ..."
John,
"Should have been "If you can somehow document that Jerome's translation was based on an existing practice ..."
Oh I see! I wasn't asserting that it was based on an existing practice, I was saying that there are two possibilities, that it was based on an existing practice or that the practice came into existence later. I then separately examined the implications of each of those two possibilities and showed that in either case the argument you presented in indented paragraphs doe not work.
1. If the practice already existed then it is not something that came into existence later as a result of the mistranslation.
2. If the practice did not already exist it was not a mistranslation at the time Jerome wrote it. (since the connotation could not have yet existed if the practice did not yet exist) In that case it may have been a translation that accidentally and weakly helped to lead to an abusive practice (yes, "agere" is sometimes best translated "to act" or "to do") but Jerome would have had no way to know that would happen since it was a harmless translation at his point in time.
John,
“"TheDen", how do you know? Erasmus said it did. He translated it with a totally different word. “
Alright, first off, I have no problem with Erasmus’s word choice. Personally, I see the words as interchangeable. Additionally, I don’t have a problem with Keener’s commentary. The Vulgate will have a large influence as it is the official translation of the Church nor do I really have issue with Keener’s understanding of John the Baptist’s use of the word repentance. This really is how I understand it as well. It’s a conversion. A complete turning back towards God. A commitment to return to Him.
However, I do take issue with MacCulloch’s understanding. I don’t believe it was a mistranslation. While the process of “Doing Penance” has evolved over time, the process of penance is evident going back into the Old Testament.
““Repentance” in the Gospels recalls not the “change of mind” earlier etymological interpreters sometimes supposed, but the biblical concept of “turning” or “returning” to God “
Yes, this is the Catholic understanding as well. (CCC 1430)
“So it was at this point that the original meaning of the Scriptures -- and the meanings of the words used to convey what those meanings were -- were changed.”
Based on the quote you used, that’s a stretch.
“I am not blaming Jerome at all for this; the fact is, though, the meanings changed, the words [in translation] were not chosen to convey that original meaning. The words were chosen to "Romanize" the language of the bible.
It is this "Romanization" that Erasmus and the humanists noticed, and which the Reformers sought to extricate from both the Bible and from the doctrines that had developed from (and intertwined themselves with the "Romanized text") in the intervening centuries.”
Your thought process as Steelikat notes is anachronistic. Jerome “Romanizes” the Bible because he’s Roman. Not because of some nefarious plot by Damasus. I’m not following the logic in this. If John Bugay were to translate the Bible today, you would have an inherent bias towards American English with a Protestant bent. Is it hard to believe that Jerome would have a Roman bias with a Catholic bent? It still doesn’t make his translation a mistranslation. There’s nothing wrong with his use of “paenitentiam agere” as my understanding of “doing penance” is defined in the Catechism as “a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, and and of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed.” (CCC 1431). That’s the Catholic understanding of “paenitentiam agere” is which matches up quite well with Keener’s understanding.
“I'm wondering if "TheDen" would split hairs and protest that "NFP" is different from "Rhythym Method". He certainly wants to lump together "repent" and "do penance".”
OK...there’s a RADICAL difference between the “Rhythm Method” and “NFP.” Something that we can discuss some other time.
Just for your reference, the Sacrament of Penance isn’t just “doing penance” but rather consists of four elements. Confession, Contrition, Absolution, Penance. All four are equally important and all four are based out of Scripture. This rubric is what’s evolved since the early Church and what your scholars are likely referring to. Specifically the “Penance” which consists of an act given by the priest during the confession.
Could this specific process have evolved because of the Latin Vulgate? I will concede that it’s a plausible/logical argument. Yet, all four elements have been present since the early Church.
Again, my apologies for not remembering what I wrote in December. Yes, Marriage as a sacrament is evident here albeit not clear in your post for some reason.
The sacrament can be found in v. 9: “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate”
What Christ is saying is that a marriage is no longer between just a man and a woman. It’s now bonded by God. In marriage, we are bound together by God and this union cannot be separated. It is further delineated in Ephesians 5, marriage is a mystical union between husband and wife where a wife is obedient to her husband and a husband loves his wife as Christ loves the Church.
Again, what this is saying is first, that both husband and wife be obedient to Christ (it really does NOT work without this first aspect). Then, the wife be obedient to the husband while the husband loves the wife--as Christ loves the Church. This marital love of the husband is a love of service. The husband serves the wife and gives her his entire life in service to her in order to deliver her to Christ in purity.
The grace received from the sacrament is not a sanctifying grace but rather a grace where we have a better understanding of Christ’s love for us, our love for Christ and a better understanding of the obedience Christ commands from us.
TheDen,
"The grace received from the sacrament is not a sanctifying grace but rather a grace where we have a better understanding of Christ’s love for us, our love for Christ and a better understanding of the obedience Christ commands from us."
You're right, that sounds a lot more like desecration than sanctification to me. :-)
Steelikat,
"You're right, that sounds a lot more like desecration than sanctification to me. :-)"
Well, the way that some people (Catholics/Protestants/whoever) treat marriage. Yeah I can see you point.
TheDen,
To be serious, I cannot see your point at all. If God gives a man a better understanding of Christ’s love for us, our love for Christ and a better understanding of the obedience Christ commands from us, isn't God thereby sanctifying that man? Yet you say it is not sanctifying grace.
Stellikat,
I think this just a difference in terms for us. First, for the most part, yes I agree with what you say and yes, that is what marriage does.
I’m fairly sure you persevered through all my comments from the previous post so I won’t rehash but I’ll give a quick explanation of this.
In the Catholic Church, there are seven sacraments. These sacraments (per Augustine) are visible signs that we are receiving God’s grace. (Note: God is not limited to giving grace by these sacraments. These are just visible signs that we are receiving His grace).
Two of these sacraments give sanctifying grace and the other five build up the sanctifying grace that we have received.
So, to build on what I had said earlier, we are saved in our unity with Christ. We are united to Christ through grace. The grace that we receive that unites us to Christ is our SANCTIFYING GRACE. This sanctifying grace is found in Baptism and in Reconciliation.
The other five help us to grow in Christ and thus are grace but they’re not sanctifying (meaning that they do not unite us to Christ). With God’s help through the other sacraments, we further conform ourselves to Christ.
So in marriage, it’s not that God is “sanctifying that man.” Rather, God’s further sanctifying that man. We get a better understanding of our relationship with God through our marriage and family. For example, it’s in fatherhood that I get a better understanding of God the Father. It’s in being a husband that I understand Christ and the Church. It’s in my arguments with my kid that I understand that I argue the same way with God and as my kid doesn’t understand that I’m only looking out for her best interests, I begin to understand that God is looking out for my best interests.
The marriage however doesn’t save you and it’s not a requirement to be saved which is why it’s not sanctifying grace. If that were the case, you could make the argument that marriage is a requirement which is not true.
TheDen,
Clear as mud, I'm afraid.
To me, grace is the unmerited favor of God by which, primarily, he justifies sinners by imputing Christ's righteousness to them and, secondarily, he transforms justified believers by sanctifying and ultimately resurrecting and glorifying them so that they may enjoy an eternity united with God.
So to me, sanctifying is sanctifying. I don't see any difference between sanctifying (but not very far?) and "further" sanctifying.
I'm pretty sure we've strayed quite far from the topic, although I guess we are still talking about words and what they mean.
The Den,
In response to your latest comment, just one question.
Does the Eucharist unite you to Christ in the Catholic Church? You said it was only Baptism and Reconciliation (which I'm assuming is confession, penance, etc. all rolled into one word).
I'm Orthodox and the idea that the Eucharist does not unite one to Christ is very odd to my ears. I know RC and EO differ in large respects, I just didn't think it was so much so concerning the Eucharist.
John
Steelikat,
"So to me, sanctifying is sanctifying. I don't see any difference between sanctifying (but not very far?) and "further" sanctifying. "
Again, I think this is just a difference in our understandings in thought between Protestants and Catholics. I think our term of "sanctification" would be closer to your term of "justification." I'm really not that familiar with Protestant thought so I'm not 100% sure. I can explain it more in detail perhaps after I'm done with work if you need me to.
Ikonophile,
I'm pretty sure the EO idea is the same although I'm not sure as I'm not EO.
The Catechism explains:
"Communion with the flesh of the risen Christ, a flesh "given life and giving life through the Holy Spirit," preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism." (CCC 1392)
When we receive the Eucharist, we "receive the Body of Christ." We should already be united to Him through our Baptism and through our regular reception of the His Body, we further conform ourselves to Christ.
If we are in a state of mortal sin, we should not receive His Body and Blood as we are not in "Communion" with Him and would need to be reconciled first per Scripture. (1 Corinthians 11:27-28).
TheDen,
You would be incorrect in your analysis of the Holy Mysteries from the Orthodox perspective.
In fact, to my knowledge (though it isn't infallible) there isn't this distinction between sanctifying grace and non-sanctifying grace in the mysteries that works on the grace already given. At the Eucharist, we receive His very body and very blood, uniting us to Christ. What you have said sounds more like RC legal categories to me than Eastern Orthodoxy. And so it is.
John
Ikonophile,
"You would be incorrect in your analysis of the Holy Mysteries from the Orthodox perspective. "
I really don't think the understanding on this is different between Orthodox and Catholic.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm not Orthodox, however, I did find this in an EO catechism on line:
"Grace unto sanctification is imparted through Baptism and Penance, and
Grace for progress in the Christian life is given through the remaining
five (5) Sacraments."
Found in article 10 of the "Catechism of the Eastern Orthodox Churth"
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/catechis.html
This idea is essentially the same as what I was talking about. From what I understand, Orthodox don't necessarily differentiate between Sanctifying and Actual Grace but the idea is there in the Orthodox Church.
"What you have said sounds more like RC legal categories to me than Eastern Orthodoxy. And so it is."
I think you're reading some person's opinion on this and not necessarily sound teaching.
Ikonophile,
Reading your comment again, I realized I didn't really answer it correctly.
"Does the Eucharist unite you to Christ in the Catholic Church? "
The answer is YES, it does unite us to Christ. All who partake in the Eucharist (Orthodox and Catholics) are united.
It's different than Baptism and Penance which unite us to the "Body of Christ" (ie the Church).
This unity is a "communion" which transcends time where we (all of heaven and earth)from the past, into the present and into the future are all united together at the foot of the cross.
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