Fr. Z's Blog

We had a look at the phrase "In necessitatibus unitas…", etc. often but falsely attributed to St. Augustine of Hippo.  Someone asked about another famous phrase attributed to the Bishop of Hippo, "He who sings, prays twice".  Augustine didn’t write that either!  Let’s look at it.

First, the original phrase is in Latin and the modern language versions leave out an extremely important little word: bis orat qui bene cantat… "he who sings well prays twice."   I think any of you who attend parishes with sub-optimal pop-bands at Mass understand this.

So, if Augustine didn’t write that phrase, did he write anything similar that gave rise to the phrase?

He did write, "cantare amantis est… Singing belongs to one who loves" (s. 336, 1 – PL 38, 1472). This is the citation for qui bene cantat bis orat in the primitive edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 1156. 

But this is not the end of the story, folks!

In the Latin edition of the CCC we are sent to footnote n. 26 (oddly, this is note 21 in the newer English edition, which adds a confer reference to Col. 3:16 – which is not in the Latin CCC). Latin CCC 1156, note 26 reads:

Cf. Sanctus Augustinus, Enarratio in Psalmum 72, 1: CCL 39, 986 (PL 36, 914).

Surprise surprise, I just happen to have CCL (= Corpus Christianorum Latinorum, a vast series of volumes of Latin authors) vol. 39 at hand. Looking up that reference, we find what Augustine really said:

Qui enim cantat laudem, non solum laudat, sed etiam hilariter laudat; qui cantat laudem, non solum cantat, sed et amat eum quem cantat. In laude confitentis est praedicatio, in cantico amantis affectio…For he who sings praise, does not only praise, but also praises joyously; he who sings praise, is not only singing, but also loving Him whom he is singing about/to/for. There is a praise-filled public proclamation (praedicatio) in the praise of someone who is confessing/acknowledging (God), in the song of the lover (there is) there is deep love.

This is a very interesting passage. Augustine is saying that when the praise is of God, then something happens to the song of the praiser/love that makes it more than just any kind of song. The object of the song/love in a way becomes the subject. Something happens so that the song itself becomes Love in its manifestation of love of the one who truly is Love itself.

However, it does not say qui canit bis orat. There seems to have been some confusion of the verbs laudare and orare.

I mentioned in another post that St. Jerome didn’t like St. Ambrose.  He really didn’t like him.  This needs an explanation.  Why?  Do you ever get the sense these days that many think the chief role of a priest is to be a nice guy?

Let us consider St. Jerome.  He has a mixed reputation for a saint.  Right?  

First, keep in mind that Jerome (+420) was not canonized in the modern sense of the term, which involves a detailed examination of the life and works of a Servant of God so as to discern within a reasonable doubt that he lived a life of heroic virtue.

What’s with Jerome and Ambrose?  Well, to get at this we have to bring in a third character, Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquileia.  

You are no doubt aware that Jerome and his old friend of his youth Rufinus (+410) had a titanic clash over the writings and teachings of the early Alexandrian exgete Origen.  When they were young, they were very close, forming part of a group of dedicated Christians at Aquileia and then later at Jerusalem.  They began to argue over the theology of Origen, but they patched things together before Rufinus left Palestine for Italy. 

However, once in Italy Rufinus began to translate Origen Peri archon (De principiis).  In his preface Rufinus made the mistake of assuming that just because Jerome had translated some of Origen’s work, therefore Jerome was a fan of Origen.  People around Jerome also thought Rufinus purposely made Origen sound more orthodox than he was.  These folks wrote to Jerome to let him know what they thought Rufinus was up to and asked Jerome to explain what was going on.  In response Jerome translated Origen himself.  In a letter he strongly denied being a partisan of Origen’s theology, even though he admired Origen’s skill.   Jerome focused his laser on Origen’s statements about the resurrection and the preexistence of souls, and how the Persons of the Trinity related to each other which made him sound like a subordinationist.  Jerome, in this second phase of translation, interpreted Origen in a very strict and harsh way.

When you look at the way Jerome spoke of Origen the first time around, 12 years before, and what he did to him in the second round, it is pretty clear that this was a reaction to Rufinus’s written assumption about Jerome.  Jerome was afraid that his own reputation was going to be damaged by a positive association with ideas which seemed very strange to many people, especially in the West.  In short, he turned savagely on both Origen and Rufinus in order to defend his reputation.  In defending himself Jerome was a little less than sincere.  

Rufinus responded, of course.  He had too.  Rufinus pointed out, for example, that in a commentary on Ephesians Jerome had referred without objection to ideas of Origen about the preexistence and fall of souls into bodies.  There are other points as well.  Jerome responded with vitrolic force saying that some people (e.g., Rufinus), "love me so well that they cannot be heretics without me."

Of course the ways of saints are strange and fraught with problems.  The postal service, or lack of one, actually plays an importance role in all of this.  Jerome wrote a friendly letter to Rufinus assuring him of his high esteem and speaking of their past friendship and the passing of his mother.  He expressed his desire to avoid a public fight.  

The letter never reached Rufinus.  Jerome’s friend Pammachius kept it, and pubished instead a letter of Jerome which accompanied his translation of Origen’s De principiis.   Not having seen Jerome’s irenic gesture, Rufinus published his Apology, in response to Jerome the attacker.

In Book II of his Apology, Rufinus points out how Jerome had attacked Ambrose.  He mentions, as a matter of fact, Ambrose’ work De Spiritu Sancto which I wrote about yesterday.  Thus, Rufinus about Jerome’s view of Ambrose.  Rufinus relates more of Jerome’s distain for his "rival" in Milan (Apology 2,23-25) as he digs into accusations of plagiarism which were being hurled around.  Rufinus says in 2, 23 that Jerome referred to Ambrose as a raven, a bird of ill omen, croaking and ridiculing in an strange way the color of all the others birds on account of his own total blackness… "praesertim cum a sinistro oscinem corvum audiam croccientem et mirum in modum de cunctarum avium ridere coloribus, cum totus ipse tenebrosus sit."

Again, going on about Jerome’s accusation against Ambrose of plagiarism, in 2,25 Rufinus continues about Jerome’s treatment of Ambrose with his own counter charges:

25. You observe how (Jerome) treats Ambrose. First, he calls him a crow and says that he is black all over; then he calls him a jackdaw who decks himself in other birds’ showy feathers; and then he rends him with his foul abuse, and declares that there is nothing manly in a man whom God has singled out to be the glory of the churches of Christ, who has spoken of the testimonies of the Lord even in the sight of persecuting kings and has not been alarmed. The saintly Ambrose wrote his book on the Holy Spirit not in words only but with his own blood; for he offered his life-blood to his persecutors, and shed it within himself, although God preserved his life for future labours.

Suppose that (Ambrose) did follow some of the Greek writers belonging to our Catholic body, and borrowed something from their writings, it should hardly have been the first thought in your mind, (still less the object of such zealous efforts as to make you set to work to translate the work of Didymus on the Holy Spirit,) to blaze abroad what you call his plagiarisms, which were very possibly the result of a literary necessity when he had to reply at once to some ravings of the heretics. Is this the fairness of a Christian?

Is it thus that we are to observe the injunction of the Apostle, “Do nothing through faction or through vain glory”? But I might turn the tables on you and ask, Thou that sayest that a man should not steal, dost thou steal?

I might quote a fact I have already mentioned, namely, that, a little before you wrote your commentary on Micah, you had been accused of plagiarizing from Origen. And you did not deny it, but said: “What they bring against me in violent abuse I accept as the highest praise; for I wish to imitate the man whom we and all who are wise admire.” Your plagiarisms redound to your highest praise; those of others make them crows and jackdaws in your estimation. If you act rightly in imitating Origen whom you call second only to the Apostles, why do you sharply attack another for following Didymus, whom nevertheless you point to by name as a Prophet and an apostolic man?

For myself I must not complain, since you abuse us all alike. First you do not spare Ambrose, great and highly esteemed as he was; then the man of whom you write that he was second only to the Apostles, and that all the wise admire him, and whom you have praised up to the skies a thousand times over, not as you say in two, but in innumerable places, this man who was before an Apostle, you now turn round and make a heretic.

Thirdly, this very Didymus whom you designate the Seer-Prophet, who has the eye of the bride in the Song of Songs, and whom you call according to the meaning of his name an Apostolic man, you now on the other hand criminate as a perverse teacher, and separate him off with what you call your censor’s rod, into the communion of heretics. I do not know whence you received this rod. I know that Christ once gave the keys to Peter: but what spirit it is who now dispenses these censors’ rods, it is for you to say. However, if you condemn all those I have mentioned with the same mouth with which you once praised them, I who in comparison of them am but like a flea, must not complain, I repeat, if now you tear me to pieces, though once you praised me, and in your Chronicle equalled me to Florentius and Bonosus for the nobleness, as you said, of my life.

And from Jerome’s own pen we have this vicious attack on Ambrose (ep. 69,9).  Jerome was writing in the year of Ambrose’ death, 397, to a Roman named Oceanus who wanted Jerome to help him fight against a bishop in Spain who had married a second time.  Jerome tells Oceanus to drop it, since that bishops’ first marriage had been before baptism.  However, Jerome uses the occasion to take a somewhat less than oblique swipe at Ambrose.  Ambrose had been popularly proclaimed bishop in Milan in 374 even though he had not even been baptized and had no theological training. The emperor, who wanted peace, acceded and within a week Ambrose was baptized and consecrated bishop.  Jerome, who had probably been disappointed that he hadn’t been made bishop of Rome, surely felt the sting of this meteoric rise of Ambrose.  In any event, listen to Jerome:

One who was yesterday a catechumen is today a bishop; one who was yesterday in the amphitheatre is today in the church; one who spent the evening in the circus stands in the morning at the altar: one who a little while ago was a patron of actors is now a dedicator of virgins. Was the apostle ignorant of our shifts and subterfuges? Did he know nothing of our foolish arguments? (Heri catechumenus, hodie pontifex; heri in amphitheatro, hodie in ecclesia; uespere in circo, mane in altari; dudum fautor strionum, nunc uirginum consecrator: num ignorabat apostolus tergiuersationes nostras et argumentorum ineptias nesciebat?) 

Okaayyyy!   That’s "NO!" vote from Jerome. 

This is all very discouraging, in a sense, but important matters in the Church are sometimes hammered out through the instrumentality of weak men who are driven by love and zeal.  Sometimes nice guys finish last, too.   Still, all of us are bound to seek the truth and God will be the final Judge of our intentions.

NAPALM ALERT! 

The other day I posted a groovy little poem by Commodianus about people who blab or gossip in church.  I noticed something else about this poem when I was correcting my all too fast rendering into the English.  The first letters of each line… well… here it is again, but with BOLD letters and a new translation. 

These verses are in dactylic hexameter, though Commodianus is working with word accents, rather than quantities of syllables.  This is a characteristic of later Latin.  Also, he is all over the place with persons and other grammatical elements, but you can figure him out right along.

Patristibloggers NB: This is in CCL 128: 67-8.

Instructionum Lib. II, 31 (35).

Dum leue uidetur cumcumque neque uitatur
Et quasi facile ruis dum ab utero illud,
Fabulae subueniut, quo uenisti fundere preces
Aut pulsare domum stomachi pro delicto diurno.
Bucina praeconum clamat lectore legente,
Ut pateant aures, et tu magis obstruis illas;
Luxaris labia, quibus ingemiscere debes.
Obde malis pectus uel <illa> in pectore solue.
Sed quia diuitias faciunt aut pecunias frontem,
Inde perit omnis, quando sibi maxime fidunt.
Sic feminae quoque coeunt, qua se inicient balneo.
Et, de domo Dei ceu nundinas facitis, astent.
Terruit hinc Dominus: domus orationis adesto!
Sacerdos Domini cum ’sursum corda’ praecedit,
In prece fienda ut fiant silentia vestra,
Limpide respondis nec temperas quodque promittis.    
Exortat ille altissimum pro plebe deuota,
Ne pereat aliquis; at tu te in fabulis uertis,
Tu subridis ibi aut detrahis proximae forma<m>;
Indisciplinata loqueris, quasi sit Deus absens,
Omnia qui fecit, nec <audiat> neque <te> cernat.

Duh!  Cool, huh?  I don’t know why I didn’t notice that before.  The first letters spell out the title of the instruction: De fabulosis et silentio…About blabbers and silence.  I say "blabbers" but we could also go with "gossips".

Here is my own SEMI-LITERAL VERSION.  Keep in mind that the poetry itself is rough and ready and doesn’t perfectly hang together.  He is in and out of persons here, sometimes 2nd person, sometimes 3rd.  It is strange.  Here goes!

When something seems of small importance and isn’t avoided
and you rush forth as easily as if being born,
blabberings enter into the place where you came to pour out prayers
and to disquiet the house of prayer on account of an irritating daily sin.
The horn of the heralds sounds while the lector is reading,
in order that your ears may prick up, and you would rather shut them out;
Your lips are flapping loosely, with which you really ought to be uttering mournful sighs.
Shut your heart to evil things or loose them from your heart.
But because the wealthy make riches or money their facade,
each one perishes thence, when they strongly trust in their own selves.
Just so also the ladies gaggle together when they spur each other on at the baths.
And you would think the house of God were a street market when they are there.
The Lord scared this type away: let this be a house of prayer!
When the priest of the Lord goes ahead with the "Sursum corda"
in the prayer which must be offered, so as to cause silence to fall,
you respond clearly and you do not water down what you profess.
Let him exhort the Most High on behalf of the devout people
lest anyone perish: but you are engaged in little chats,
you sneer around or disparage your neighbor’s appearance;
you blurt dopey things, as if God who made all things weren’t present,
didn’t hear you, wasn’t seeing you.

Notice the referene to Sursum corda ("Hearts on high!") which begins the preface of the Eucharistic Prayer.  So, we know that this is specifically aimed at people shooting their mouths off during Mass, thus distracting others and endangering their own souls.

I am not quite sure about that birth image near the beginning.  I think what Commodianus is driving at is the infantile behavior of people in church during Mass.  I looked at the critical edition in the CCL and didn’t find a manuscript variation in the apparatus criticus for ab utero.  I though maybe it could have rather had something to do with the verb abutor.  Also, cumcumque is a really interesting word: so interesting that I am not sure what the heck it is.  I am pretty sure I can guess its meaning here, however.  Maybe you can try your hand at this?

Listening to some folks crow about the demise of the monstrous Al-Zarqawi made me think.  What can be our attitude about enemies?  Can we enjoy the death or defeat of an enemy?   Must we pray for them?  Can we pray against them?  To get at this, I looked at some texts of St. Augustine.

Moving fast into this, for the sake of getting at the point I find fascinating, I can say that Augustine contrasts Old Testament passages about malevolence toward enemies with New Testament passage about compassion and not judging them unjustly.  In discussing 1 John 5:16 he would hold that one need not pray for those who commit sins that lead to death.   Augustine also reflects on the Judas’s sin and Peter’s denial of Christ.  Moreover, he thinks one should not pray for sinners who sin against the Holy Spirit. In his De sermone Domini in monte 76 (On the Lord’s sermon on the mount), Augustine he makes the point that we cannot hate enemies.

Bringing together the texts, for Augustine the moral obligation we have to love enemies also implies praying for them.  We should pray even for sinners and even sinful enemies, even enemies of the Church, in order that they convert and become friends.  Christ, after all, while on the Cross prayed for those who crucified Him.  Augustine thought that prayers of Christians led, for example, to the conversion of Saul.  Stephan prayed for Saul while he was being killed.

Augustine points out, however, and this is really interesting, that prayer for enemies does not exclude the hope that enemies be punished by God, just as God punished the devil (qu. eu. 2.45.2)!  Augustine does not foresee the eventual conversion of the devil, of course.

Here is the text in its raw form.  Patristibloggers ("All Hail!") will, I am sure, delight in this and those of you who have some Latin can take a stab at it.  The last part is especially good.  This is from Quaestionum Evangeliorum libri duo… Questions on the Gospels.

2,45,2 hic ergo iniquus iudex non ex similitudine sed ex dissimilitudine
adhibitus est, ut ostenderet dominus quanto certiores esse
debeant qui deum perseueranter rogant, fontem iustitiae atque
misericordiae uel si quid excellentius dici aut audiri potest, cum
apud iniquissimum iudicem usque ad effectum implendi desiderii
ualuerit perseuerantia deprecantis. ipsa uero uidua potest habere
similitudinem ecclesiae, quod desolata uidetur donec ueniat
dominus, qui tamen in secreto etiam nunc curam eius gerit. si
autem mouet, cur electi dei se uindicari deprecentur, quod
etiam in Apocalypsi Iohannis de martyribus dicitur, cum apertissime
moneamur ut pro nostris inimicis et persecutoribus oremus,
intellegendum est eam uindictam esse iustorum ut omnes mali
pereant. pereunt autem duobus modis: aut conuersione ad iustitiam
aut amissa per supplicium potestate qua nunc aduersus
bonos, quamdiu hoc ipsum bonis expedit, uel temporaliter aliquid
ualent. itaque etiamsi omnes homines conuerterentur ad deum,
inter quos sunt etiam inimici pro quibus iubemur orare, diabolus
tamen, qui operatur in filiis diffidentiae, remaneret in saeculi fine
damnandus. quem finem iusti cum uenire desiderant, quamuis pro
inimicis suis orent, tamen non absurde uindictam desiderare
dicuntur.

In dialog with Mike Aquilina of The Way of the Fathers fame we have come up with a cunning plan. 

With this post I solemnly announce the foundation of a new group, the… National Association of Patristiblogging Men which shall be called NAPALM.

There are some notable bloggers on Patristic topics, or better, patristiblogggers out there.  I hope they will stand and be counted.

We need a logo now!

Fellow patristicist and blogger … hmmm… patristiblogger Mike Aquilina posted a nice riff over at his place.  I tip my biretta to him.  o{]:¬)  It got me thinking (which nearly always results in trouble).  Here is the blurb that got me going, but you should read the whole piece.

Tarcisius was a boy of third-century Rome. His virtue and devotion were so strong that the clergy trusted him to bring the Blessed Sacrament to the sick. Once, while carrying a pyx, he was recognized and set upon by a pagan mob. They flung themselves upon him, trying to pry the pyx from his hands. They wanted more than anything to profane the Sacrament. Tarcisius’ biographer, the fourth-century Pope Damasus, compared them to a pack of rabid dogs. Tarcisius “preferred to give up his life rather than yield up the Body of Christ.” Even at such an early age, Tarcisius was aware of the stakes. Jesus had died for love of Tarcisius. Tarcisius did not hesitate to die for love of Jesus.

I always uphold the legal right, according to the Church’s legislation, of people to receive Communion in the hand, if they choose.  I don’t like it, but it is (for now) a right in those places where it is permitted (it isn’t everywhere) and according to the manner described by competent authority.

Where am I going with this?  People will often defend Communion in the hand by coming unto my turf (Fathers of the Church).  They site beautiful texts, not without a measure of sentimentality and with no concomitant reference to social history.  Mike’s blurb, though hagiographical, points to something really important: the social context.

When people say, "But Father!  But Father!  Back in the early Church people received in the hand!  St. Cyril says so!"

Okay, that was then and this is now.  The passage about Tarcisius reminds us that people could be KILLED for their relationship to the Church and possession of the Blessed Sacrament. 

I think I would have very little problem with Communion in the hand in an environment in which we could be killed for receiving Communion.  There is nothing like the threat of death to sharpen the mind. 

However, when I see the way most people receive Communion in the hand I have to ask myself, are these people ready to DIE for what is going on in this church today?  Is Mass something "to die for", to borrow a phrase?

While the Fathers are a critical source for our theological reflection, in the centuries that followed our understanding of the Eucharist deepened.  Kneeling and reception on the tongue developed for good reason.  In this day of reduced understanding of the Blessed Sacrament and even belief in the Real Presence, in this age of "me, my, mine, I, I, I", we need to reinforce what we confess through physical gestures.

Several times already in the life if this still young blog I have used the Roman saying “Morto un papa, se ne fa un altro…A pope dies, ya’ make another”.  I have done this very deliberately. 

Lately, I have been musing about the concept of coadjutors.   Here is a Patristic riff on the topic.

St. Augustine of Hippo came into his role as priest and then bishop by being a coadjutor, to the “old man” Valerius (senex used as a term of endearment), who had spotted in Augustine a good thing when he saw it.  Even though a coadjutor was an oddity in N. Africa in the 4^th century and perhaps even against the Church’s law, Valerius made Augustine his successor.  In his turn, when Augustine came into his twilight years he provided for a successor by finding a coadjutor, a fellow well-known in Hippo named Heraclius. 

When in 426 a clerical property scandal was rocking the Church at Hippo (cf. s. 355 & s. 356 for a fascinating look into the life of the ancient Church), Augustine was able to present Heraclius, then a deacon, as a model.  Augustine explained how Heraclius, a monk, had under Augustine’s direction retained ownership of property so that by administering it he could construct the important pilgrimage chapel in honor of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, decorated with mosaics showing the saints death with verses written by Augustine.  He gave income to the Church which Augustine says was constantly living on the thread barest of shoestrings. 

Heraclius had the distinction, and the pressure, of following Augustine.  He seemed to know what he was up against.  Two of Heraclius’ sermons survive, one of which he preached in old man’s presence on the very day he was made Augustine’s successor (PL 39 :1717-19 or Rev. bénédictine 71 (1961) 3-21 and P. Verbraken’s critical text).  On 26 September 426 at Hippo, in the Basilica of Peace, with the clergy gathered, Augustine announced that upon his death Heraclius would succeed him. 

It is really quite moving.  Augustine makes the announcement and goes to sit down.  Heraclius goes to the center and begins to speak.  

First, he invokes an image Augustine had used many times to describe the burden carried by a bishop, the sarcina, the Roman solider’s backpack, and begs the help of the people.  He uses Augustine’s codeword for love, pondus, or literally “weight”.  He plays with the word of Eccl 32, 5: Loquere, senior: decet enim te … Speak, older man, for it is fitting that you do so” saying istead “Loquere, iunior: delectat enim me….Speak, younger man, for it pleases that you do.” 

Heraclius says: “Hoc ergo tacente, nos loquimur.  Hoc, inquam, tacente nos loquimur.  Ciclada clamat, et Cygnus tacet: sed non tacet loquentibus nobis, quia ipse loquitur et in nobis.  …  Therefore, while this man is keeping silent, we are speaking.  While this man, I say, is silent, I am speaking.  The cricket chirps and the swan is silent.  But he is not silent for me as I am talking, for he himself is also speaking in us.”

In a way I am reminded of the many tributes given by Pope Benedict to his great predecessor during the first year of his pontificate.

Sometime in 427/428 Heraclius took the reins of the diocesan administration. 

Augustine lived just long enough to see North Africa destroyed.  His life’s work in the diocese was laid waste.  Cities were sacked.  People were tortured and killed, put to flight as refugees before the Vandals, enslaved.  Churches were burnt.  The sacraments were abandoned.  Bishops deserted their flocks and fled.  In one of his last letters, which was sent out just before the Vandal siege descended on Hippo and the gates were barred, Augustine, who remained with Heraclius, exhorted fellow bishops not to abandon their people: “Let no one dream of holding our ship so cheaply, that the sailors, let alone the captain should desert her in time of peril! (ep. 228.11).  He laid down the conditions under which they could flee, as for example when they went together with their people.  Some bishops, in fact, made it into the fortified Hippo with their people.  Among them was one of Augustine’s old students and colleagues, Possidius, a bishop in his own right. 

The old bishop Augustine died on 28 August 430, gazing at the words of the psalms written out and pinned up beside his bed. 

Possidius got Augustine’s library  – with all of Augustine’s manuscripts and works and this first sermon of his coadjutor Heraclius – out of the wreckage of Hippo.