Origin of Origen (ruah paper part 1)

Treasure Hidden in a Field: Reading the Bible with Origen

Furches’ Method


A long, long time ago, in a land far, far away…during my freshman year of college, every Thursday night I scampered over to the Baptist Collegiate Ministry house for the freshman Bible study. We were all wide-eyed Jesus nerds, hungry for depth and detail, and our teachers were super-cool sophomores, excited to dish it out.


Most of us, including the teachers, as we read the Bible, took what I would call a historical and an ethical approach. We wanted to know what the scripture meant “originally,” in its historical context for its “original” audience, and we also wanted to apply the text to our personal lives, either by imaginatively identifying with the story or situation, or by analyzing its moral implications. Growing up in a world of psychological novels, action movies, and cliff-hanger tv-shows, our interpretive instincts had been honed to follow the story closely, to get into the shoes of the characters or author.


Over the weeks of the Bible study, however, one young man, Brian Furches (we all just called him Furches, to differentiate him from several other Brians) distinguished himself with what seemed to me to be a curious style of interpretation. He spoke with daring and excitement, as if he were discovering new puzzle pieces with every word of scripture. To him the Bible was intricately related with itself. Probably all of us believed that the Bible was unified in the love of God, perhaps summed up with the great commandment or John 3:16 or some such verse, but he led us to more than that. And not only did he find evidence of intricate, intertextual connections, but lo and behold the connections were connected! A great pattern emerged! Everything that could be symbolic was symbolic, and if you followed the silvery thread from symbol to symbolized, you always ended up somewhere awesome.


I loved hearing him work on a passage of scripture, you could hear the wheels turning and dots connecting. I didn’t whole-heartedly buy into his method or conclusions - it seemed too easy for him to find the meaning he was looking for...but couldn’t you say that about all of us? There is always a circular shape to exegesis, but his circle seemed particularly tight and complete, too tight for my porous, post-modern, certainly-uncertain self. Nevertheless, his process was energetic and fun, and I wanted in.


Heirs to Origen


Fast forward many, many years! It’s December 2018 and I have to pick a saint or church mother or father for my Ruah report. I wanted to pick someone I was unfamiliar with, and/or someone crazy...that didn’t narrow it down very much! I’d heard two things about Origen: that he had castrated himself, and that he was notoriously symbolic with his Biblical interpretation. Bingo! He’s my man.


Well, in reading Origen and reading about him, I’ve discovered that my old friend Furches was continuing a long and venerable tradition of Biblical interpretation. In many ways, he, and the rest of us in the freshman Bible study, were heirs to Origen.


Origen was an all-star “allegorical” interpreter. For him, “allegorical” meant ‘other speaking,’ or any non-literal understanding (Martens). For critics today, “allegory” usually refers to a story or scenario that, in addition to its ordinary meaning, also has a symbolic or abstract meaning. Pilgrim’s Progress and Hinds Feet in High Places are very explicit spiritual allegories. Think vertical, like a double decker bus; the first deck is the literal meaning (“give us this day our daily bread”), and situated above it is the second deck, the symbolic meaning (dear God teach us your holy Word, or nourish us with Christ’s body, etc).


Furches also demonstrated what critics today call “typological” interpretation: the ordinary meaning of a story or scenario prefigures another story or scenario. Think horizontal, like an articulated bus; the back part of the bus (Moses makes a bronze snake and puts it on a pole) connects by a stretchy middle to the front part of the bus (“just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up”...John 3:14), which is really the motorized part.


See, I just used a double decker bus and an articulated bus allegorically to refer to allegory and typology! I’m learning already. No, seriously, we do it all the time without thinking about it. Symbolism, metaphor, allegory, “figures of speech” - they are part and parcel of language. The question isn’t, do we use allegory? The question is, when and how can we interpret the Bible allegorically?


Some allegory and lots of symbolism are explicitly named into the Bible. For example, Nathan tells a story about an abusive rich man to David and then interprets it, “You are that man!”, in order to convict David of his sin. In the gospels Jesus interprets the parable of the sower allegorically for his disciples. Paul interprets Hagar and Sarah allegorically in Galatians, and the author of Ephesians uses marriage as a “mystery” of Christ and the Church. The gospels use lots of Old Testament imagery and story-line to typologically situate Jesus as messiah.


Origen takes this and runs with it, as we shall see. In fact, Origen is convinced every word of scripture has at least two or three levels of meaning. What stood out about Furches, and what stands out for me about Origen, is their passion for allegorical adventures, their thorough commitment to discover the symbolic treasure hidden in the field of the Bible.


Origin of Origen


Before I’m completely swept away by Origen’s hermeneutics, let’s take a look at his life. Most if his biographical information comes from the Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius, who was a big fan of Origen’s and also wrote an apology for him. Origen, one of the most prolific ecclesiastical writers - Jerome quipped that he wrote more than anyone could ever read - apparently wrote very little about his own life.


Origen was born in 185 C.E. in Alexandria, the capital of Egypt and one of the most prominent cities in the Roman Empire. His parents were Christian, so he was brought up in the church, feed daily by the scriptures, and his father, Leonides, was a teacher, so that Origen also studied the Greek classics from an early age. When Origen was a teenager, his father was imprisoned during a wave of persecution under Emperor Septimius Severus. Eusebius writes that Origen yearned to join his father and face martyrdom together with him, but that his mother prevented him by hiding his clothes and with other ingenious strategems. (He was willing to face death but not public nudity? Perhaps it would have been a serious sin to run naked through the streets.) His father was eventually killed, and Origen took up his father’s trade in order to support his family.


Before long he was asked by the local bishop Demetrius to head the “catechetical school,” where he had studied himself. He was only 19 years old at the time and had big shoes to fill. The famous Clement had only recently left the post. Apparently Origen fit the role hand-in-glove, for the school grew quickly.


Eusebius describes Origen as a very devout young man, fasting, praying, denying himself, eager to serve the Lord and search the scriptures. Origen strove to become “worthy” of understanding, and he writes that worthiness is achieved through Christ in ethical living as well as scriptural study. “For these things go together inseparably: the pure word in the soul and an irreproachable life” (B 641).


“Origen’s Daring Deed” (Eusebius)


In Origen’s pursuit of the irreproachable life, Eusebius relates that “he took the words, ‘There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake,’ in too literal and extreme a sense.” Or perhaps he applied Jesus’s advice, “it is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into hell.” Or maybe Paul’s claim in Galatians that In Christ “there is no longer male and female.” In other words, he had himself castrated.


How ironic! The master of allegory takes the Bible too literally! But it’s more complicated. Origen was a popular young teacher with many admiring students, both male and female. Eusebius speculates that he wanted to protect his reputation and purity of heart. Peter Brown, in The Body and Society, explains that the surgical procedure was common enough to be controversial in the early church. The ancients believed that cutting off the testicles would basically eliminate the sexual “heat” of a man, but if Origen was 19 or 20 at the time, I doubt it solved any of his lust problems. Brown notes that Origen himself preached against taking the “eunuch” verse literally, so perhaps that is evidence that Origen regretted his decision. Another historian, Henry Chadwick, thinks the whole story was made up.


Perhaps Origen also wanted to prevent his ordination, or felt unworthy of it. Following Biblical legal tradition, the council of Nicea (much later than Origen) stated that a man castrated by choice should not be ordained, or if he was already ordained, he should be suspended. This may have already been an unwritten rule in Origen’s day (I think I remember him explicitly referring to it, but I can’t find the passage now).


In any case, Eusebius writes that Origen “thought this [castration] would not be known by many of his acquaintances. But it was impossible for him, though desiring to do so, to keep such an action secret.” Tough luck for Origen! He is most famous for something he hoped would be secret.


You Can Write A Lot With Seven Hands


As the catechetical school grew, Origen decided start an advanced class, “modeled upon the philosophical schools of his day” (Greer 4), and he left the catechesis class to his student, Heraclas, who later became bishop of Alexandria. Origen not only taught but constantly studied, learning Hebrew from and arguing with a local Jewish Rabbi - Alexandria had a vibrant Jewish community. Over the course of 28 years, Origen gathered and studied manuscripts, creating a kind of Old Testament study guide, called the Hexapla, comparing in six columns the Hebrew text with the Septuagint and other Greek translations.


Origen also continued to read and discuss philosophy. Porphyry, the famous writer and disciple of the even more famous Plotinus, records that Origen also studied with Plotinus’ teacher Ammonius. Porphyry writes that Origen “was continually studying Plato, and he busied himself with the writings of Numenius and Cronius,...and those famous among the Pythagoreans…, Ch’remon the Stoic” and so forth. Origen hoped to, in the spirit of Paul, become intellectually a Jew to the Jews and a Greek to the Greeks, so that “by all possible means [he] might save some” (1 Cor 9:22). Eusebius quotes one of Origen’s letters, “When I devoted myself to the Word, and the fame of my proficiency went abroad, and when heretics and persons conversant with Grecian learning, and particularly with philosophy, came to me, it seemed necessary that I should examine the doctrines of the heretics, and what the philosophers say concerning the truth.”


One such heretic, a wealthy man named Ambrose, a follower of the gnostic Christian Vallentius, came to hear Origen. The encounter had such an effect on Ambrose that he not only converted to orthodoxy, he pleaded with Origen, “dude, you’ve got to be writing this stuff down!” Ambrose paid for “more than seven amanuenses” (stenographers), as well as copyists, to write in shifts.


Origen was prolific, and intense, earning the nickname “Adamantius,” man of steel. Gregory Nanzianzen called him “the whetstone of us all.” Hans Balthasar says he dictated to his team “practically day and night.” Thanks to Ambrose’s publication squad, Origen produced, according to Epiphanius, 6000 volumes: mostly commentaries and homilies on scripture. Much of this work was condemned and destroyed under the Emperor Justinian, long after Origen’s death.


A Preaching Scandal


From our perspective, becoming a eunuch seems like the biggest tabloid story of Origen’s life. But according to Eusebius his real scandal started with a sermon. It wasn’t what he was preaching that was the problem, but to whom he was preaching. At some point early in his career he visited Caesarea, where the bishops of Palestine and Jerusalem asked him to expound the scriptures during service, even though Origen had not been ordained as presbyter or priest. His own bishop, Demetrius, the same man who had appointed him as head of the catechetical school, on hearing this took great offence; “such an act was never either heard or done before, that laymen should deliver discourses in the presence of the bishops,” he wrote in a letter. Demetrius recalled and rebuked Origen, who apparently accepted his punishment without protest.


Years later, Origen was called to Greece to help dispute heretical teachings, and Demetrius gave him a letter of recommendation. When Origen passed through Palestine, those same two bishops ordained him presbyter, perhaps hoping to avoid committing the same faux pas. Alas, they only added insult to injury. When Origen returned to Alexandria, Demetrius called a synod and had Origen excommunicated from the church in Alexandria and demoted from the office of presbyter. Maybe Demetrius was jealous of Origen’s fame; maybe he was just a stickler for the rules. Whatever the case, Origen returned to Caesarea, one of the only churches in which he was still recognized as a presbyter, and continued his study, writing, and teaching.


Like Father Like Son


Christianity was growing rapidly in the Origen’s time, and not everyone was happy about that. The Roman Empire was generally tolerant of local religion, but refusal to participate in civic-religious ceremonies, or other counter-cultural, anti-social behaviors on the part of Christians, led to their periodic persecution. Paradoxically, the killing of Christians and the way they approached their execution added fuel to the fire of the church. Tertullian, another famous African Christian several years older than Origen, wrote, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Origen himself wrote An Exhortation to Martyrdom, dedicated to Ambrose and to another friend, and Eusebius lists many of Origen’s students among the martyrs in Alexandria.


Sometime around 250 C.E., the Emperor Decius decreed that all subjects of the empire must sacrifice to the Roman gods and the health of the emperor. Many Christians refused and were executed, many fled into hiding, others performed the sacrifices. Origen, 65 by this time, finally followed in his father footsteps, just as he had desired as a youth. He was imprisoned and tortured in Tyre, and was later released, but died soon after, near the age of 70.

Psalm 2

Recollection

...be warned...

...be wise...

Anti-Praise

   Praise You God
       Lording over the rebellious governors
           Laughing derisively at the insubordinate states
Punishing the jerks who think they can get away with insulting your anointed.
   Your are our king's big bad daddy
        and if anyone picks on your son
             you will stomp around and beat them up.

Anti-Praise

     Praise You God
You cast down the mighty from their thrones, 
scatter the proud in their conceit,
Only to birth your son in a barn, 
ride him around like a fool on a donkey, 
let him get all beat up and crucified like a traitor.
                      I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.
                         So much for that plan.

Thanksgiving

    Thank you, Lord, for being the blessed and only ruler.

           Why do the nations rage?
                 Why don't people act right?
           It's all too crazy. Thank goodness You are in charge...right?

    Thank you, Lord, for begetting your child today. and now. and again.
           
    Thank you for the warning.

    Thank you for the refuge.

Confession

    Have mercy, oh Lord, have mercy.
    I need you because I don't need you.

    (We set ourselves and take counsel against You.
    Let us burst Your bonds asunder, and cast Your cords from us.)

    Paul says we're free from slavery to sin and now Your slaves.
    Jesus humbled himself, taking the form of a slave.
    None of this sounds great. 

    Paul says we're not children of the enslaved earthly Jerusalem,     but of the free heavenly Jerusalem.
    For freedom Christ has set us free.
    But through love become slaves to one another.
    Does that sound better?

    (Let us drop this stupid cross.
    Let us shake off your easy yoke and throw down your light burden.)

    Have mercy, oh Lord, go easy on us, don't be too angry.
    Give us another chance to follow your anointed.

Petition

     Dear God, we've got all kinds of discord inside. Inside ourselves. Inside our earth bubble.
        I know you're way up in heaven, but, could you stoop down and help us get ourselves together?

   A rumbling thunder laugh from on high.
   Lighting dashes, rod of iron from the sky.

   Warn us! Help us! Wake us up! Fear and trembling!
   Kindle your wrath quickly! Cast your fire upon the earth! would that it might already be kindled!

Doxology

    Praise God, who brings order, and maybe disorder, who gives birth, who gets angry, who gives refuge.
    Praise Christ, who did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, You are my Son, today I have begotten you.
    Praise Holy Spirit, terrible in fury, anointing dove from heaven, sweet kisses, quickly kindled wrath, blessing of safety.
   

                   
         
             
              
             

Praying with Origen (Psalm 1)

   Origen recommends prayer in six stages. He doesn't name the first step, but we can sum it up with the monastic term, recollection. Entering a "holy place set aside and chosen in our own house, if possible," we take a few moments to "cast away all temptation and troubling thoughts and remind ourselves so far as we are able of the Majesty whom we approach." We "put away all malice" by turning toward the God of justice, releasing all our "debtors" as we lift our hearts to the God of mercy.
   The second stage is praise. Standing and facing east, "a symbolic expression of the soul's looking for the rising of the true Light," we lift our hands and eyes, representing in the body "characteristics befitting the soul." Origen suggests Psalm 104, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, O Lord my God, you are very great." "See how frequently the topic of praise is found scattered in Scripture," he says.
   Third comes thanksgiving; we thank God for blessings general and specific. And as an example Origen gives David's prayer in 2 Samuel chapter 7, "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far...", which is interesting, because in the prayer David doesn't use "thank you" or "I give thanks" or any such phrase. Perhaps Origen thought it was a good example of combining individual thanks, "Who am I," with collective thanks, "and what is my house," and even more collective, "you established your people Israel."
   After thanksgiving Origen recommends confession. We start by kneeling, "...kneeling is necessary when we are going to speak against our own sins before God, since we are making supplication for their healing and their forgiveness." Like the publican, we kneel not just in body but in spirit, with contrition, confessing our sins and asking God's mercy. "Deliver me from all my transgressions" (Psalm 39).
   Next is petition, and Origen wants us to request the "great and heavenly things," like the fruits of the Spirit, for ourselves and those we know. Origen often quotes a non-canonical saying of Jesus, "Ask great things, and little things shall be added to you: ask heavenly things, and earthly things shall be added to you," much like, "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you."
   Personally, I pray a lot for what Origen would classify as "earthly" or "base" material things, but Origen thoroughly applies to all areas of life the distinction between flesh and spirit. Take two of Jesus's relevant sayings: "Do not fear those who can kill the body but not the soul;" "Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes." Origen might collate these two verses into a kind of syllogism, "see how the soul is so much more valuable than the body, and the body so much more valuable than clothes...how much more valuable, then, is the soul than clothes! therefore do not pray for bodily clothes to wear or earthly food to eat, pray rather for the "essential bread" day by day (how he understands Lord's prayer), which is the bread of heaven (John), and pray for the clothes of "our heavenly dwelling" (2 Cor), for the perishable must put on the imperishable (1 Cor)."
   The final stage is, once again, praise, "a doxology of God through Christ in the Holy Spirit." I'm assuming we stand back up at this point. "Having begun with praise it is right to conclude the prayer by ending with praise." Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

    I'd like to try out some Origen style prayers (somehow I'm reluctant to say Origenian), experimenting with familiar scripture. Hopefully not "heaping up empty phrases!"

Recollection

    ...on his law they meditate day and night...

    ...day and night...


Praise

    Bless the Lord!

    Praise the Lord, the truly Blessed One,
        Wonderful Counselor,
        the True Way,
        enthroned in Glory.

    Bless the Lord, Giver of the Law,
         Stream of Living Water,
         Ever-prospering Shoot of Jesse,
         Producing fruit for Nourishment and leaves for Healing.

    Praise the Lord, Whirlwind of Judgment,
         Bane of sinners,
         Guardian of the righteous,
         Doom of wickedness.

Thanksgiving

   Thank You Lord!

   Thank you for blessing us
         with your counsel, the solid rock of teaching,
         leading us down the narrow way,
         seating us humbly beside you on the mountain side.

   Thank you for delighting us
         by giving and fulfilling your Law,
         offering us the water that quenches all thirst,
         growing among us the mustard tree of the kingdom.
 
   Thank you for threshing us
         with the scorching wind of conviction,
         with the sword of division and scepter of judgment,
         with protection for the sheep and destruction for the goats. (poor goats!)

Confession

   Have Mercy on us, Lord!


   Forgive us, Lord, for resisting your blessing
         taking bad advice and returning it in kind,
         walking the wide and easy path to destruction,
         sitting in scorn and judgment over our neighbors. 

   Forgive us, Lord, for despising your Law
        idolizing mammon day and night,
        preferring the bitter waters of resentment,
        the rotten fruit of opulence, or withered leaves of avarice.

   Forgive us, Lord, for pursuing wickedness,
        hopelessly blown and tossed about in the wind,
        humiliated and locked out of the congregation,
        no one to look after us, headed for hell.
      
Petition

   Help us, Lord!

 Help us, Lord, to seek and receive your blessing
        as doers of the word, and not hearers only,
        guide our feet in the path of peace;
        may we sit before you and choose the better part.

Help us, Lord, to delight in your Word,
       keep it near to us, on our lips and in our heart;
      Water and fertilize us like the fig tree, spread the manure!
      That we might bear fruit worthy of repentance.

Help us, Lord, to turn from evil and do good.
    Take us up in the Holy Wind of the Spirit,
    that we may stand forgiven in Judgment, together with the saints.
    Watch our steps and keep us from every wicked way.

Doxology

    Praise God our Parent, who sets before us two ways, life and death, that we may choose life, punishing our sin for a season, and blessing our goodness into eternity.
    Praise Christ our Savior, who crossed our wicked paths with love, who hung without hatred among the scornful rulers, who bloomed in Grace after the winter of death.
    Praise Holy Spirit, voice we hear behind us, saying, "this is the way, walk in it;" fountain of water welling up to eternal life; wind that drives away sin and dances through the trees of righteousness.

What is Allegory?

   So wait, what is allegory again? I'm just as baffled as I was when I started looking for answers. Or I'm baffled in a more informed way, I guess.
   Let me back up. For our Ruah class we had to pick a saint or church father or mother to study. I picked Origen, because I'd heard he was kinda crazy and read the Bible in eccentric ways. After reading Balthasar's thematic anthology and a handful of articles about Origen, I'd describe him and his exegesis as "very intense," rather than eccentric. He is certainly eccentric vis a vis me and my experience, but it seems like for his time and place he was right in the thick of things. His allegorical method (allegoresis) can claim a Biblical basis - he relies heavily on Paul's distinction between flesh and spirit, letter and spirit, so forth; he's also traditional - scholars speak of an Alexandrian school - Philo, Clement, and other people I haven't read; and he's a very devoted Christian - Christ and his church are front and center.
   What is the big bad deal with allegoresis? Don't we all use it a little bit?
   I like to think of allegory as a double decker bus - a story or scenario with a literal meaning on the first deck and a similarly structured symbolic meaning on the second deck. To me, allegory comes alive the more the relationships at the symbolic level (second deck) correspond to the relationships on the literal level (first deck). Often what happens is, we - the readers - unconsciously discover a couple characters or events with symbolic vibrations; we "find" the stairs to the second deck, so to speak. Then we start to look for more symbolic resonances, and more, and try to understand the second deck plan based on the first deck plan. 
   However, we don't want the literal level and the symbolic level to be too squarely stacked, or too easily discerned; that ruins the fun of finding the hidden meaning and structure. The experience is as important as the result. Maybe that's why meticulously designed allegories often feel lifeless or taste stale. 
   Then there's the messiness of determining what the literal is. How literal is literal? I often think of the literal as the plain, ordinary meaning, but plain, ordinary speech uses lots of "figures of speech." For Origen, the literal level seems to be the most concrete meaning possible.
   So, where does this typology thing fit? Typology is when we understand events or things on the first deck refer to other events or things (as opposed to ideas or values) on the second deck - Old Testament to New Testament, the past age to this age, or this age to the future age, etc.. I think that's a decent definition. Or, to use Bienert's distinction between allegory and typology, allegory is vertical - first deck to second deck, while typology is horizontal - like an articulated bus, two similar structures joined horizontally by a stretchy thingy. I think I'm gonna stick with that: allegory is a double decker bus, typology is an articulated bus. However, for Origen, allegory is any non-literal interpretation, so typology wouldn't be a separate exercise.
   I think for my paper I'm going to take this angle: how does Origen read the Bible, and how do I feel about it...participate in it...reject it...converse with it...etc

Origen - Spirit and Fire: A Thematic Anthology of His Writings - ed Hans Urs von Balthasar, transl Robert Daly, S.J.

from The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity - by Peter Brown
   Chp 8 - "'I Beseech You: Be Transformed': Origen"

from The Blackwell Companion to Paul - ed Stephen Westerholm
   Chp 10 - "Paul and Scripture" - by J. Ross Wagner
   Chp 20 - "Origen" - by Peter Widdicombe

from International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol 18, No 3
    "The Philosophical Stance of Allegory in Stoicism and its Reception in Platonism, Pagan and Christian: Origen in Dialogue with the Stoics and Plato" - by Ilaria Ramelli

from Journal of Early Christian Studies, 16:3
   "Revisiting the Allegory/Typology distinction: The Case of Origen" - by Peter Martens

from A Handbook to the Reception of Classical Mythology - ed Vanda Zajko and Helena Hoyle
   Chp 8 - "Circean Enchantments and the Transformations of Allegory" - by Greta Hawes


I beseech you: be transformed

• Origen thought of himself, above all, as an exegete
• "the whetstone of us all," Gregory Nazianzen
• The material universe as a whole, in his opinion, had been subjected to frustration, not of its will; but it had been subjected in hope...to be placed in a body was to experience a positive act of divine mercy...the body was necessary for the slow healing of the soul...pressing against the limitations imposed by a specific material environment that the spirit would learn to recover its earliest yearning
• Angels and demons were as close to the Christian of the third century as were adjacent rooms
• [sex, even in marriage, procreation - provisional, fleshly, not our highest calling (somewhat different from Clement)
• The eunuch was notorious (and repulsive to many) because he had dared to shift the massive boundary between the sexes
• It [virginity] was a physical concretization, through the untouched body, of the pre-existing purity of the soul
• In such a Platonism, sensuality could not simply be abandoned or repressed. Rather, the sharpness of sensual experience was brought back to its primordial intensity: it was reawakened, in the mystic's heart, at its true level - the level of the spirit. [spiritual senses - Origen and Plotinus]
• the "declaratory" role of the Christian virgin
• [body as temple of the Lord] The humble "ass" of the body could become the "resplendent" vehicle of the soul

Paul and Scripture

• 1 Cor 15 Christ died for our sins "in accordance with the scriptures," buried then raised "in accordance with the scriptures
• weight of holy scripture
• "he says," "it is written"
• 1 Cor 9:10 [do not muzzle oxen while treading out grain] "Or does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was indeed written for our sake.
• 1 Cor 10 (recounting Israel in the wilderness, and putting God to the test, "spiritual food and spiritual drink," "And Christ was the rock") Now these things occurred as examples for us...to serve as an example...written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come
• Paul's frequent clustering of mutually interpreting citations and his occasional conflation of two or more separate passages to form a composite quotation provide further evidence that he hears in Scripture a multitude of harmonious voices speaking in concert with him as witnesses to the gospel.
• allusion
• intertextual echo
• For Paul, the hermeneutical key to the Scriptures is the extra-textual apocalypse of God's righteousness in the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah
• Rom 15:4 whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and through the encouragement of the scriptures we would have hope

Origen

• For Origen, the writers of the New Testament, and the Old for that matter, all told one story about one subject.
• By the time of Origen, the Pauline epistles had acquired the status of Christian Scripture.
• 2 Cor 3:6 the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life
• he tends to use the distinction between the letter and the spirit to solve any problems
• Paul, for Origen, was the person who taught the church how to read the Bible [also Jesus - explaining the scriptres on emmaus rd - and Holy Spirit]

The Philosophical Stance of Allegory in Stoicism and its Reception in Platonism, Pagan and Christian: Origen in Dialogue with the Stoics and Plato

• arkhe (arche) - beginning, origin, source of power, first principle, method of government
• telos - end, purpose, goal
• [on stoic use of allegoresis] Poetry, expressing myth, and cultic traditions must therefore be interpreted allegorically in order to detect the truth hidden in them, and since truth is one, just as the Stoic Logos is one, the truth thereby detected will be one with the philosophical truth of Stoicism.
• etymology very important
• finding hidden truth, under the veil of riddles, decrypt symbolic language
• Porphyry on Origen, "His life was that of a Christian and contravened the laws, but in his view of the existing realities and of God his thoughts were those of a Greek, and he turned the Greek ideas into a substratum of the alien [Jewish] myths...he availed himself of the books of the Stoics Chaeremon and Cornutus, from which he learned the allegorical method of the Greek mysteries, which he applied, then, to the Jewish Scriptures
• according to Ramelli, Origen, Philo, and Clement insisted texts have complete unity, coherence, interpret scripture with scripture, intratextuality [for Stoics, myths not exactly "holy scripture"]
• Origen quoting Celsus, "they [the scriptures] are not susceptible of any allegorical interpretation, but, on the contrary, they are bare myths, and of the most stupid kind...However the allegories that appear to be written on these myths are far more shameful and unlikely than the myths themselves, since, with astonishing and totally senseless madness, they link together things that are absolutely and completely incompatible with one another
• for Origen, creation and Revelation almostly completely allegorical
• the spiritual meanings of scripture are inexhastible
• moral interpretation - troubles of the soul (Philo)
• Origen "necessary to look for a meaning that is worthy of God"
• "Eden" as "once upon a time"
• Origen against Marcionites - "if they are so mistaken in their thoughts it is because they interpret the Law exclusively in a literal sense, and ignore that the Law is spiritual

Revisiting the Allegory/Typology Distinction: The Case of Origen

• Danielou - typology is the research of the correspondences between...OT...and NT
• Gal 4:24 Sara and Hagar as allegory
• W.A. Bienert - "allegory is the vertical manner of interpretation, since it establishes unhistorical-timeless relationships between images (allegories) and their spiritual archetypes; typology, in contrast, is the horizontal manner of interpretation, since it transports the historical events of the past into the present and future
• Frances Young - typology "requires a mirroring of the supposed deeper meaning in the text taken as a coherent whole" (doesn't destroy narrative; ikonic mimesis)
• typology, more analogous relationship?
• typology (requires perception of likeness) as species of allegory (any kind of non-literal understanding)
• for Origen, allegory appears "simply to label the nonliteral reading of texts"
• allegoria - other speaking
• typos - result of a blow or pressing, image, symbol, figure
• sometimes Origen uses typos as a mere symbol, like a letter of the alphabet, to mean literal level
• Origen's guidelines for good allegoresis
• principle of similitude, likeness or relationship between symbol and symbolized
• must fit church doctrine, ecclesiastical rule
• etymology important
• interpret scripture with scripture
• follow example of authoritative allegorists, such as paul

Circean Enchantments and the Transformations of Allegory

• Responses to ancient myth are never arbitrary; a subtle nexus of established assumptions and habits of thinking guide both interpretation and narration.
• allegoresis - an instrument of transformation
• huponoia - undermeaning
• Heraclitus, "If Homer did not compose allegorically, then he was entirely impious; desecrating myths, full of blasphemous madness, tear through both texts"
• need a stable literal level as foil for allegory
• use existing mythological associations
• allegorists distil from texts generalized philosophical principles
• The habits of allegoresis captured a partial vision of Greek literature. Allegorists shone lights into hidden corners of the mythic tradition, but cast a blinkered gaze over other aspects of it.
• lose "numinous ambivalence"
• creative subjectivity of interpretation
• the deliberate composition of large-scale allegories was rare
• Northrope Frye "all commentary is allegorical interpretation"

Spirit and Fire

• He himself hardly ever wrote, but dictated, practically day and night, tirelessly, to a team of stenographers.
• The voice of the Alexandrian is more like that glowing, rainless desert wind that sometimes sweeps over the Nile delta, with a thoroughly unromantic passion: pure, fiery gusts. Two names come to mind in comparison: Heraclitus and Nietzsche. For their work too is, externally, ashes and contradiction, and makes sense only because of the fire of their souls which forces their unmanageable material into a unity and, with a massive consumption of fuel, leaves behind it a fiery track straight across the earth.
• Nevertheless, Origen's style is so thoroughly saturated with the language of scripture that there is really no way to draw clear lines between quotation, vague reminiscence and his personal manner of speaking.
• "...he [Isaac/Christ] wants to renew the wells of the Law and the Prophets which the Philistines had filled with earth....those who put an earthly and fleshly understanding of the law and block up its spiritual and mystical meaning so that they neither themselves drink nor allow others to drink...'neither enter yourselves or permit others to enter'
• But if, from among those who are now listening to me speak, someone familiar with secular letters should say: what you are saying is ours, and it is learned from our skill; these very things which you are discussing and teaching are our art of eloquence...all earth contains water
• For Christ did not change their names but their understanding
• everything that is manifest is related to one of those things which are secret (quoting wis of sol)
• [soul kinda in the middle between body and spirit; call is to be transformed into spirit, or follow spirit]
• every creature endowed with reason has a need for participation in the Trinity
• Justice is in us like an echo; it comes to us by reverberation from the first Justice
• [image - at creation; likeness - consummation]
• look for the fall of the world, so that from finding its fall you might come to see its setting aright
• [journey through wilderness as journey of soul - etymologies or symbolism of place names, Num Com]
• in that same way must Wisdom be understood to be the Word of God because it opens up to everything else, that is, to every creature, the meaning of the mysteries and secrets which are, of course, contained within the divine wisdom.
• For when the Word became flesh, he opened up with this key the scriptures which were closed before his coming, and which no one can now close by claiming they have not been fulfilled
• the Word is near you, on your lips and in your heart
• [spoken word cannot be touched or seen, but takes bodily form when written, so Word of God, took flesh, was seen and written.
• You are, therefore, to understand the scriptures in this way: as the one, perfect body of the Word
• even an "iota or dot" is full of mystery
• If the Law of Moses contained nothing written with a deeper meaning, the prophet would not have said in his prayer to God, "Open my eyes...
• scripture is the "one perfect and harmonious instrument of God"
• all if 167 (so vast a sea of mysteries)
• Search the scriptures (John)
• all of 178 and 179 (will hold the four to be true, but not in bodily form)
• the kingdom of heaven is likened o a net of varied texture because the scripture of the old and new testament is woven together from all kinds of variegated thoughts [humans are fish, some caught by one part of net - prophets - others by another - law - others by apostolic part, etc]...this net is cast into the sea, the tumultuous life of human beings who, everywhere in the world, swim in the bitter affairs of life
• the tutor of the law [and letter?]...we have need of the splendor which can pass away for the sake of the splendor which surpasses it (2 Cor 3:10)...perhaps this refuse is the dung put down under the fig tree by the vinedresser which is the cause of its bearing fruit
• the holy and spiritual person a kind of botanist who reads every iota and every dash which happens to be in the sacred scripture, and finds out the power of the letter and whit it is good for, and knows that nothing written down is superfulous
• the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field...that field, it seems to me, is the scripture, planted...of the histories, law and prophets...Christ "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col 2:3)
• it seems to me that each word of the divine scripture is like a seed whose nature it is, once it has been thrown into the earth...to be multiplied many times over [happens more with more effort or beneficial earth]
• [multiplying loaves] well then, consider how we break the few loaves: we take from the divine scriptures a few words, and how many thousand people are filled! But unless these loaves were broken, unless broken down into small pieces by the disciples, that is unless the letter was broken down into little pieces and discussed, its meaning would not be able to come to all
• ..."And the Rock was Christ" (1 Cor 10:4)...You can see how different Paul's tradition is from the historical reading...How then are we to act, who have received such principles of interpretation from Paul, the teacher of the church?
• all of 205...search out every sign in the old scriptures as a type of something in the new, and what is called sign in the new covenant as indicative of something either in the age to come or in the generations after that in which the sign took place
• pointed to by signs and guarded by seals
• 207...proper understanding of scripture...purpose of the Spirit...to teach us something about the hidden mysteries regarding the fate of human beings...second purpose...to conceal the doctrine...in the revealed accounts...[so that we wouldn't be content with obvious meaning] the Word of God arranged it that some scandals, so to speak, stumbling blocks, and impossibilities would be mixed in...by not parting from the letter, learn nothing that is more divine
• 208 some things literal and not allegorical (ethics), some things both, some things allegorical and not literal
• 209 threefold mode of understanding in the holy scripture: a historical, a moral and a mystical [body, soul, spirit] [three chambered ark]
• the literal sense in holy scripture cannot always stand but is often lacking, when for example it is written, "Thorns grow in the hand of the drunkard" (Prov 26:)...etc
• 212 threefold - Abraham means moral philosophy through obedience...Isaac stands for natural philosophy since he dug wells and searched into the depths of things. But Jacob stands for internal vision [vision of angel and ladder]
• 213 just as "the seen and unseen" (2 Cor), earth and heaven, soul and flesh, body and spirit are related to each other, and this world is made up of these relationships, so too must it be believed that holy scripture is made up of seen and unseen things. It consists of a body, namely, the visible letter, and of a soul which is the meaning found within it, and of a spirit by which is also has something of the heavenly in it...let us seek out not the letter but the soul...if we can do this, we will also ascend to the spirit
• 216 [hunter seeking prey with help of dog's sense of smell - hidden trails, losing the trail, asking for help]
• 217 [like journey through wilderness, suffering failure and hunger], those searching the scriptures "frequently tried by a failure of their ability to perceive"...God "gives food in due season" (Ps 145)
• 218 Jesus spits on the ground and makes a past [dust of the ground is history and deeds, law and prophets, Christ's spittle is Logos, anoints our eyes, wash in the pool of Siloam] by this is signified the swimming so to speak involved in the searching and groping for the truth
• One can even dare to say that the gospels are the first fruits of all the scriptures, but that John is the first fruits of the gospels. No one can grasp its meaning who has not lain on Jesus' breast and also received Mary from Jesus as one's own mother...shown Jesus by Jesus...how elevated a mind must we have in order to be able to perceive worthily this Word lying hidden within the earthen treasures of the ordinary word [Origen interprets "Behold your son" as not "Behold this too is your son," therefore John is like Jesus now, like Paul "Christ lives in me"
• For truly, before Jesus, the scripture was water, but after Jesus it has become wine for us
• lifting the veil (2 Cor 3:14 - have the veil when old covenant is read, only in Christ is it taken away
• Heb 10:1 - since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities
• 214 - divine providence arranged for the city itself and the temple and everything to be destoryed...[so that people would look for higher or deeper meaning of scripture]
• Mt 21:43 - the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it...the meaning of the scriptures is taken from them
• law/prophets and gospels: for neither one has fullness of life without the other
• tree of knowledge of good and evil - thus the law contains both: the letter that kills and the Spirit that gives life [seems to play on Paul's claim that before the law there was no sin...before eating of tree no sin]
• [disciples told to cross the sea - cross from material to immaterial, buffeted by wind
• [Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus - law and prophets in the gospel
• [Jesus as Isaac, as the ram, as the angel who stays Abraham's hand] he himself was in the form of Isaac...the ram too was a form of him
• there never was a time when the spiritual order of salvation according to Jesus was not available to the saints
• We would like, now, to say something even more daring: what came into this life emptied itself, so that through its emptiness the world would be fulfilled. But if what came into this life emptied itself, that very emptiness was Wisdom"
• And just as sin began with the woman and then spread to man, so too what was good began with women.
• For Christ has inundated the whole world with holy and divine streams...from the wound...in his side
• the cross was a double cross, Jesus visibly and the devil/evil invisibly
• Nevertheless it was with wood that that fire was lit (importance of body to the spirit, fire points upward)
• 2 Cor 5:16, even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer
• is everywhere and interpenetrates everything
• for he was sent not only to be known but also to remain hidden [why did some did him resurrected and others didnt]
• two laws, two men
• steps up the temple - our savior is all the steps
• Mt 24:27 [coming of the son of man like lighting] this lighting...it can be found in the whole scripture
• "climbing to higher levels to search out meanings which are beyond my power and ability
• You took your garments, and sewed them into idols for yourself (Ezek 16:16) These clothes are the divine scriptures and the meaning which lies in them. The heretics tore up these clothes and sewed together expression to expression and word to word, but without the right connection
• there is also sin to be seen at a higher level, because I frequently am nourishing pride if I understand the divine word, if I am wiser than the rest. "Knowledge puffs up" (1 Cor 8:1)
• they want to kill the Word and break it up into pieces, as it were, because they do not have room within them for its great size
• there is no matter, which has been founded seriously and is useful for life, in which various heresies have not arisen
• [Jesus escaping arrest] with the exception of the Word of Christ, it is possible to 'capture' every other teaching. It is possible to grasp the spirit of each and every system, gain control of it and, as scripture says, come to terms with it.
• but listen to this spiritually, if you can
• "his garments became white as light" The garments of Jesus are the words and letters of the scripture which he had put on
• But what John calls the "eternal gospel" (Rev 14:6), which might be rightly called the spiritual gospel, presents clearly to those who understand, everything about the Son of God in himself, both the mysteries contained in his words and also the realities of which his deeds were the symbols
• bodily meaning v higher meaning
• John 1:45, we have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote
• speech is one thing, voice is something else...the sheep hear his voice, but the men hear his Word
• the deeper meaning of what he said
• that which someone cherishes above all else, admires and loves above all, that is that person's God
• the prototype of all images, "the image of the invisible God"
• it is thus necessary to die first to the letter so that the soul, finally free, can wed the Spirit and enter into matrimony of the new covenant
• [things hidden brought to light by temptations]
• the holy spaciousness of God "You have given me room" (Ps 4:1)
• [the sun] makes the day by shining, but the night by going away
• evil works constrict the evil one in himself. the love of God makes room in our souls
• as human beings, all of us have within us both sight and blindness
• Would that we too, understanding from this that we are blind and do not see, as we sit by the road of the scriptures and hear that Jesus is passing by, might by our prayers make him stop and tell him we want our eyes to be opened.
• Abraham sitting at the door of his tent (not inside, bodily, etc)
• for something cannot be desired if it is not even known (also Augustine)
• for these things go together inseparably: the pure word in the soul and an irreproachable life
• For one cries out "Lord!" in a perfect way when one's works are crying out and saying, "Lord, Lord!"
• the fruit of works is the vision of being
• and it seems to me that the first beginning and the very foundation of salvation is faith, the development and expansion of the building is hope, but the perfection and summit of the whole work is love
• every time we understand, we owe it to our faith that we understand
• the disciples were reminded of the fulfillment of the scriptures
• But if, like the apostles, we never move away from him but remain with him in all his trials, he will then privately explain and interpret for us what he had said to the multitudes
• [com on Lev] Christ...the one and perfect sacrifice which all these sacrifices preceded in type and image
• just as the church was given for its dowry the books of the law and the prophets, so too were the law of nature, reason, and free-will given to the soul...
• [com on Cant] this is the explanation of the plot of the drama; let us now come to its spiritual understanding
• 691 [if living right, words are "sweeter far than honey in the comb;" if living in sin, then words are bitter]
• true bread is that which feeds the true human being
• 700 "Give us this day our essential bread" Because some suppose that we are being told here to pray for physical bread, it will be helpful, after exposing their error, to present the true understanding
• we must pray for this, that we may be made worthy of it
• do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul
• which truth is rightly called the blood and life of the scriptures because all scripture,  unless it is understood according to the truth, is dead
• 727 the law and the prophets are the cups of the soul's spiritual drink...the scribes and Pharisees search after the external and common meaning and try to show that this is pure and holy; but the disciples of Christ try to purify the internal and spiritual meaning... (clean the inside and the outside will be clean)
• the soul becomes sterile when God abandons it; but becomes a mother when he is at work in it
• In his Epistle to Timothy Paul says that "woman will be saved through bearing children, with modesty." But who is this woman, if not the soul which conceives the divine Word of truth and brings forth good works which are like Christ?
• Ephesians 5:32 This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.
• Say to wisdom, you are my sister (Prov 7:4)
• Those who do righteousness do Christ who is justice. Their souls become, in bringing him forth, the mother of Christ
• 759 [com on Gen] Now I have often said that it is not history being narrated here, but mysteries being woven. I think that something like the following is meant here
• for there is never a time when the soul is not giving birth; it is always doing so
• [com Cant] no flowers appear to her then in her scripture reading, nor do any secrets of a deeper wisdom or hidden mysteries echo, so to speak, from the voice of the turtledove...Then the Word of God comes to her, then he calls her to himself and urges her to "go out"...beyond everything that is bodily and visible in the world
• Blessed is the one who is always being born of God
• all will nevertheless come to salvation in their own particular ways
• Lev 1:3 and 5 - repetition of place
• take heed: there must always be fire on the altar
• Col 2:16-17 - Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ
• we ought to practice the symphony of this divine music
• 856 worthy of supplying some goats' hair
• Let us see how we can apply this...
• he cannot drink alone the wine he promised to drink with us
• 872 - seraphim hide beginnings (head) and endings (feet) but not the middle
• since what was prophesied by them [law and prophets] has been fulfilled, but the words of Christ are always full, and are always in the act of being fulfilled, and are daily fulfilled and never overfilled
• And perhaps everything that is perceivable by the senses, right up to heaven itself and what is in it, are fields white for the harvest, waiting for those who lift up their eyes
• for the one who is dead to worldly things, the weekdays have been skipped and the day of the Lord has come
• Our God is a consuming fire
• What is this fire so wise that it guards my gold and shows forth my silver more brilliantly, that it leaves undamaged that precious stone in me and burns up only the evil I have done, the wood, hay and straw I have built over it"
• but fire has a twofold power: to illuminate, and to burn
• But even if one could, one should not, I think, want to escape the judgment of God
• rather we will learn all things in the judgment of God through our Savior Jesus Christ
• What seemed at first to be an evil, the Egyptian famine, became the starting point of the best decisions the Hebrews could make. Indeed, whatever is regarded as evil, even if it is really evil, is later turned into something good.
• he makes use of these spirits in accordance with their own free decisions
• 948 If the poor heretics could only understand this, they would not be constantly repeating to us: Do  you see how the God of the law is savage and inhuman, since he says: "I kill and I make alive"? Don't you see in the scriptures the message of the resurrection of the dead?
• even to speak truly of God is dangerous
• 961 [interpreting God hardening Pharaoh's heart vs Pharaoh's heart hardened] Now if we really believe that these writings are divine and written by the Holy Spirit, I do not think that we would think so poorly of the divine Spirit as to attribute it to chance that there is this variety in so great a work as this
• I pray that my examination will find something true in this passage
• We are all children with respect to God
• Or don't you see that the resurrection of the dead has already begun in each one?
• If someone, then, in searching through the law and going through the texts which speak of the marriage of women and men thinks that there is nothing more there than the literal meaning, that person is in error, and knows "neither the scriptures nor the power of God" (Mt 22:29)
• But it will be a true sabbath on which God will rest from all his work...when God will be all in all
• And this too must be looked into
• 1015 - Woe to you [those who understand only the letter], scribe of gospel...allegorical meanings "A scribe is trained for the kingdom of heaven"
• 1035 one should not think that historical events are types of historical events, and that bodily things are types of bodily things, but that bodily things are types of spiritual things, and that historical events are types of intelligible events [doesn't this contradict 205]
• in the very acts themselves knowledge is written
• he recognizes there not only the historical but also the anagogical meaning, as it is written, "interpreting spiritual truths to those who posses the Spirit" (1 Cor 2)
• RJD - Origen's mind was tireless in noting the rich panoply of the connectedness and interconnectedness of things

A Question for Mary Oliver

    We were talking about Mary Oliver today at Ruah - grateful for her life and work, and sad that she is gone. She made poetry look so easy; at least what I've read of hers rolls smoothly off the page, opens up the door, invites you outside. One of our teachers recited her poem, "When I am among the trees," during which an old question raised its hand in my head. Is there a discernible line between appreciation of nature and the projection of ourselves onto it?
   I'm heavily skeptical of our definition of nature, our desire to mythologize it, our interpretation of it. Nonetheless I can't resist doing all those things. Today a squad of gnats hovered by a garden chair. Squirrels chomped up cedar seeds and tossed the seed tails down on my head. Sprouting grass (is that liriope?), moss so brightly green - i can't help but stoop down and brush them with my fingers. A hawk perched and preened on the elm branch outside our classroom window, and we all "oohed" and "ahhed." All these things, I think to myself, are theologically and philosophically mute; it's dishonest of us, I say to myself, to "learn" virtues or wisdom from these things (granted, analogies are great for teaching). I just can't shake, or don't want to shake, the belief that they are "significant" in a mystical way.
   Oliver seems convinced both of something mysteriously meaningful about "nature" and of her own projection of benevolence and innocence onto it. "I would almost say that they save me, and daily," she writes of the trees. I understand this to mean - not that the trees could save her but can't quite - but that she experiences something like salvation while walking through the tress, and wants to attribute more agency and spiritual power to the trees than she's willing to. If I remember correctly, that "almost," that hesitancy to dive completely into an animistic or pantheistic world, comes up frequently in the poems that i've read. She wants to see and experience the world "as it is," no demands, no forcing herself into any relationship. However, she can't interpret her experience in any other way than as a gift. She is in relationship, and she receives abundantly. She seems to acknowledge that part of this gift comes from herself, her own projected loving mother nature, but she's never shy about giving voice to nature, hearing voices in nature. She believed in it. How did she balance the two? Did she lean one way or the other? Did it really matter to her?

Old Books New Year

  2019 is here, and the 2018 Jesus read-a-thon continues! For my Ruah saint-report, due next month, I picked Origen, without knowing much about him other than he castrated himself. I figured that meant he was sufficiently crazy. Turns out he might be the ultimate Jesus read-a-thon-er! What I've seen so far - I'm slowly winding through Hans Balthasar's thematic anthology - is a relentless pursuit of Jesus in every nook and cranny of the Bible and to some extent, of philosophy. Origen is convinced that the Christ is Logos is Bible is Wisdom. It's not just that each "jot and tittle" of the scriptures prefigures or is connected to Jesus, it's that their truest meaning is Christ. Somehow, every word and phrase is Christ. Origen's job is to show us how that works.

   I read a couple of books for background.

Manual of Patrology - Rev Bernard Schmid, O.S.B., translated "by a Benedictine"

   I'm not sure I've read anything like this before, except maybe an old Encyclopedia of Basketball I recently gave away. First Schmid lays out some guidelines for who qualifies as a "Father" and who doesn't, how and when the Fathers speak for the Church, and how to safely use or rely on the Fathers. Then he summarizes the life, work, and relevance of about 100 kinda crazy dudes. Not all are "Fathers," some aren't as theologically reliable, so they're called "ecclesiastical writers," and some have been officially upgraded to "doctors" by the church.
   This is a beautiful old book by the way, printed in 1903, in great condition. It smells wonderful.

A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible - Robert Grant

   It lives up to its title. Accessible and enjoyable. A swift "epoch" style history (except for the Alexandrian and Antiochene chapters, all the chapters define and describe intellectual time periods), lightly peppered with quotations and examples. Perhaps the most helpful new word for me was "typological" - usually referring to the way Christians see Hebrew characters or events as "types" of Christ or the crucifixion-resurrection story. Origen was all about this, as was the early church in general, but somehow he took it much further than many people felt comfortable with. I'm still trying to understand that. It's like a Borges story - I'm cool with the "idea" of a library, or a lottery, or an author - but when Borges lets these ideas run free, they end up in some wild, interesting, and sometimes disturbing places.

The Diatessaron - Tatian, translated from Arabic by Rev Hope Hogg

   I heard this described as a "gospel harmony," so I expected a heavily edited gospel based on the four gospels, like something you might see in a bookstore today. Instead it felt more like layering the gospels on top of each other, or weaving them together. Tatian doesn't seem concerned to weed out all duplications or discrepancies. His running editorial question seems to be, how can the monologues in the Gospel of John best fit into the outline of the synoptics?

Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words - Randall Munroe

   My brother gave this to me a while back, and I'd only every read a little bit here and there. I needed something different. I don't keep up with Monroe's comic strip "xkcd," but his book What If? is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read. Thing Explainer is a big tall book, filled with Munroe's wonderfully inviting drawings of planes and planets and machines and stuff (always with a few little stick figures doing funny things). The catch is: he has to explain the pictures using the 1000 most commonly used English words. So, for example, he can't say "one thousand," he has to say "ten hundred." Or he can't say "microwave," so he says "food heating radio box." It's fun.

Weeks 45-50: Other actions proceed from this

An Ocean of Light: Contemplation, Transformation, and Liberation - Martin Laird
  
 "Letting be what we are entrusted with loosens depression's grip even if it does not go away. Again, the contemplative maxim: we let be whatever is simply because it is. Other actions proceed from this."

   A couple Saturday's ago I had the opportunity to hear Martin Laird, an Augustinian monk and teacher, lecture from his new book, An Ocean of Light. And he said something that really got on my nerves. He encouraged those of us for whom "depression and its friends have claimed squatters' rights" to "get to know the contours of your depression." In his book he frames it this way, "it is important for us to get to know our depression in intimate detail."
   How could we not know our depression? We know it all too well. We've seen it, heard it, smelled it, tasted it, touched it. We've read about it; talked about it; paid good money to understand it and let it go. I don't want to give it any more time and energy than it already has. What is he talking about? 
   I don't know, but over the past two weeks that phrase, "get to know the contours of your depression," has opened up as a window. I've got a little more fresh air. It's cold air, but its fresh.
   In the type of silent prayer he teaches, when we become entangled in a thought or feeling, we gently return to our prayer word or breath, letting that thought or feeling go its merry way. I would have anticipated Laird to advocate a similar approach to living with resistant depression.
   It could be that depression is too close, too intimate and familiar. Too intertwined with daily life to see. Perhaps that is what he's getting at. Perhaps I have on a depression mask, and without a mirror the only part I see is the tip of my mask's nose. If I'm crammed into a box with depression, I can see it, touch it, etc, but it might help to open up the box and give us both a more space and perspective.
   Or perhaps he's questioning the objectification of our experience. Instead of experiencing depression as something happening to me, take time to simply experience myself depressing, or experience myself happening depressively. But don't we do that already? As a friend once said regarding his depression, "my favorite past-time is sitting in my room existing...because it's so hard." I dunno. We'll see. I'm just going to keep going with the silent prayer, thanks be to God for that. "Other actions proceed from this."

The Kingdom Within: The Inner Meaning of Jesus' Sayings - John Sanford
  Not as super cool as I was hoping, but a lot of good stuff. It's a Jungian dream-work approach to Jesus' sayings and parables.

• "In order to lift water up from a well, it is necessary to have a rope long enough to reach the water. The teachings of Jesus are such a rope."
• mysterion - initiated knowledge
• "the kingdom and healing go together"
•  "In our dreams the kind of house we have typically symbolizes our conscious framework."
• "The more we are identified with a mask, the more the unconscious will set up an opposing viewpoint in the form of an inner enemy."
• "we will surely incur inner judgment if we stand in judgment on others"
• "perfect" - brought to fulfillment, complete
• "It's not too much to say that Satan is the archetype of choice."
• "The soul's primary function is relationship" (anima/us, eros)
• "Salvation comes from the Samaritan"
• "We cannot sacrifice what we do not have" (need a strong ego to submit)
• "the kingdom...can only be expressed in symbols"

Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality - Richard Rohr
   Rohr rambles. It can be frustrating. I don't even know why he bothers with a table of contents. But that's part of his charm and generosity. Is there such a thing as a Franciscan literary style. Un-self-consious, open, kinda messy, compassionate. He always finds himself somewhere beautiful.

• "We all need forever what Jesus described as the beginner's mind of a curious child."
• "...one of God's favorite and most effective hiding places - humility"
• "Love is the true goal, but faith is the process of getting there, and hope is the willingness to live without resolution or closure."
• "Jesus offers himself as 'way, truth and life,' and suddenly it has all become the sharing of our person instead of any fighting over ideas."
• "...in a position to read the Scriptures in a humble, needy, inclusive and finally fruitful way..."
• "Why do we not use Peter's power of the keys to unbind the world in this way, and to offer it the full victory of God's love? Why do we prefer binding to unbinding"

The Words of Jesus: A Gospel of the Sayings of our Lord - Phyllis Tickle
   In the beginning I wasn't a fan of the way she frames Jesus' words. For example, "Jesus, upon being told that His mother and siblings were in the crowd and desired His attention, said..." 
  I would have kept "Jesus said" as an inseparable unit. On the other hand, having "Jesus" be the first word in every segment is cool too. It grew on me.
   Her introduction is more memoir than analysis, fyi. I love this as an exercise - copy and group all of Jesus words, or parables, or sayings, or what have you. I started my personal "sayings gospel" back in March, but never finished. It's not too late!


Little Russion Philokalia: Vol 1. St Seraphim - Translated by Hieromonk Seraphim Rose

•  "becoming so immersed in God's word that one learns to 'swim in the law of the Lord'" (Rose)
• "the works of faith are: love, peace, long-suffering, mercy, humility, rest from all works, bearing the Cross, and life in the Spirit.
• "a man who has taken upon himself to travel the path of internal mindfulness must have above all the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom
• "Reverent carefulness is necessary here because this sea - that is, the heart, with its thoughts and desires, which one must cleanse by means of mindfulness - is great and vast, and there are numberless reptiles there
• "Those who have truly decided to serve the Lord God should practice the remembrance of God and uninterrupted prayer to Jesus Christ, mentally saying: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.
• "all saints...have spent their whole lives in weeping...
• "As fire purifies gold, so the sorrow of longing for God purifies a sinful heart.
• despondency, straightness of soul, a foretaste of hell, delirium, anxiety, temptation, etc...for there is one treatment for all this...meekness of heart
• "for where humility issues forth, there the glory of God abounds
• revived by patience
• "most of all one should occupy oneself with reading the New Testament and the Psalter, which one should do standing up
• "though Satan might produce also visions of light, he is entirely unable to produce a blessed effect; which is the well known sign of his works.
• "one should not undertake ascetic labors beyond one's measure, but one should strive to make our friend - the flesh - faithful and capable of performing virtues.
• "perhaps one has eaten too much, or done something similar to this which is natural to human weakness - do not be disturbed at this, and do not add injury to injury; but bestir yourself to correction and at the same time strive to preserve peace of soul
• "In whatsoever I find you, in that will I judge you (Jesus via St Justin)
• "trade with those [virtues] which give you the greatest profit
• "the wisdom of God, which seeks our salvation and embraces everything
• "...This knowledge [which does not puff up], which is full of love for God and for our neighbor, builds up every man for his salvation
• "He who walks around the canal with prayer and 150 Theotokos and Virgin Rejoice, for him this place will be Athos, Jerusalem and Kiev