Augustine on what Christ became

[Christmas] It is called the Lord’s birthday when the wisdom of God presented itself to us as an infant, and the Word of God without words uttered the flesh as its voice. Let us joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption.

… For whose benefit did such sublimity come in such humility? Certainly for not of his own; but, if we are believers, totally for ours. Wake up, mankind, for your God became man!

… Let us celebrate the festal day on which the great and timeless One came from the great and timeless day to this brief span of our day. He has become for us ‘justice, and sanctification, and redemption;’ (1 Cor. 1.30, 31)

…. Hence, when the Lord whose birthday we are celebrating today was born of the Virgin, the announcement of the angelic choir was made in the words: 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men of good will.' (Luke 2.14) How can peace exist on earth unless it be because 'truth is sprung out of the earth,' (Psalm 81.11) that is, because Christ has been born in the flesh? Moreover, 'He Himself is our peace, he it is who has made both one' (Eph. 2.14) so that we might become men of good will, bound together by the pleasing fetters of unity.

… Let us then rejoice in this grace, so that our glorying may bear witness to our good conscience by which we glory, not in ourselves, but in the Lord. That is why Scripture says: He is my glory, the one who lifts up my head (Psalm 3.4). For what greater grace could God have made to dawn on us than to make his only Son become the son of man, so that a son of man might in his turn become a son of God? Ask if this were merited; ask for its reason, for its justification, and see whether you will find any other answer but sheer grace.

Augustine, Sermon 185

Ailerán the Wise: Homily on the Genealogy of Jesus

A ninth century copy of Ailerán's Interpretatio 
MS CSG 433 f.686

Ailerán Sapientis, (i.e. Ailerán the wise), was a fer léigind (lector) at the famous monastic school at Clonard, Co. Meath, Ireland. He died in the terrible plague of 664. He was the author of the Interpretatio Mystica Progenitorum Domini Iesu Christi (The Mystical Interpretation of the Genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ). This homily takes the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel and interprets each name in a messianic and moral sense. For Ailerán each name signified something about Christ’s mission and also something for the Christian to emulate.

For example one ancestor of Christ was Obed. The Hebrew etymology of Obed (servant) provides Ailerán with his two-fold point,

a. Christ came not to be served but to serve, even taking on the form of a servant.

b. The Christian likewise “may serve the Lord with that servitude which is not out of fear, but with the spirit of the adoption of sons (per spiritum adoptionis filiorum seruitur Deo)”

The onomastic and patristic sources for Ailerán’s work are very impressive and give us a good insight into the resources available to early Irish monasteries. Apart from Latin sources (Jerome, Refunius, Augustine, Tertullian, Ambrose etc.) Ailerán made use of Greek material not attested in other parts of the Latin church. Breen has shown that Ailerán not only made use of Philo and Josephus in their original Greek, but also the Greek forms of the Prayer of Manasseh and Cyril of Alexandria’s Glaphyra in Genesim. Far from simply copying out Greek etymologies Ailerán displayed a sophisticated knowledge of Greek that allowed him to adapt and utilize a variety of Greek sources. Breen noted that onomastic sources “alone could not have made sense to someone who did not have a fuller knowledge of the Greek language” and that “Ailerán’s use and command of such a diverse range of Greek onomastic material extended far beyond their immediate context in this short liturgical-devotional text… The resultant picture certainly raises more questions than it answers: how the Irish, dwelling at the furthest extremity of Europe, could have obtained access to, and made use of, such a wide range of material at this early period…”

The main lessons that Ailerán wanted his students to take from his homily on Matthew 1 were the supremacy of Christ as fount of the Christian’s life and that the only way to understand Scripture was to obey Scripture. One could not say that they understood the message of Scripture if they did not live the message of Scripture.

Here is a small excerpt concerning Amon's etymology.

[Messianic Interpretation] "Amon, faithful, who says ask and it shall be given to you. And Paul says, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest. And John in the book of Revelation [says] Jesus Christ who is a faithful witness. For he is said to be faithful whose promises are always faithful, which are to be hoped for and feared.

[Moral Interpretation] In Amon, that we may be steadfast in the faith, and being faithful let us cling to the faithful Lord. For love believes and hope in all things. Faith moreover is the substance of things hoped for and the proof of things that are yet unseen. For what a man sees, why does he hope for? Faith is thus what makes us sons of Abraham, who believed in God and was considered justified by the faith; by following which pattern all our fathers before us were likewise justified. Accordingly, we live by faith and by faith are righteous, for the just man finds life through faith."

Cummian's Commentary on Mark

A ninth century copy of
Cummian's Commentary
from the Irish monastery of s. Gall,
MS CSG 127

An Irishman, Cummian Fota from Co. Galway, wrote the earliest surviving commentary on Mark’s Gospel. He composed it in Latin around the year 610 and it became the most important commentary on Mark in the western church for the next 1000 years. Copies of it survive in nearly 100 manuscripts scattered all over Europe. A copy in Turin library is heavily glossed in old Irish, showing us the importance of the commentary to Irish exegetes.

Cummian’s commentary was later erroneously attributed to Jerome (which is a beautiful irony since Jerome once quipped his heretical foes were too ‘full of Irish porridge’!). The Latin speaking church, far from viewing this work as Irish porridge, incorporated it into the standard medieval reference work the Glossa Ordinaria and Aquinas cited from it in his Catena Aurea.

The commentary deals with all twelve chapters of Mark and its main themes are Christ, the virtuous Christian life, the unity of the church and asceticism. The exegetical method draws deeply from the Alexandrian allegorical school, and Patristic sources.

Clare Stancliff questioned Cummian’s authorship on internal grounds but Dáibhí Ó Cróinín and Maura Walsh have defended it, (if your interested see Maura Walsh and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, Cummian's Letter De Controversia Paschali, Toronto: PIMS, 1988). Several of the commentary's features point to an Irish author, for example;

-       Use of the tres linguae sacrae

-       Descriptions of Jesus and the disciples in a currach on the sea of Galilee (puppis mortius pellibus)

-       Descriptions of the authors home land as ‘a western nation, wild and untamed’

-       Interest in the correct Easter computus

-       The Celtic inverted Eucharistic formula

-       The Cross-Vigil method of prayer (crux-vigilia)

The late German scholar Bernhard Bischoff also pointed out that a manuscript in Angers, France (not a copy of the commentary) records that a new commentary on Mark was written by one Comiano, whom he argued was our Cummian (nouellum auctorem in Marcum nomine Comiano, Angers, Bibl. munic., 44). Angers library also contains what is generally seen as the best copy of Cummian’s commentary (ms 275).

There are so many great passages in this little commentary, here is a sampling from chapter 14, the trial of Jesus;

“Peter follows from a distance. Here is a man with two minds, inconstant in all his ways (cf. James1.8). Fear draws back but love draws forward. …some said we heard this man saying I will destroy this temple. It is the custom for heretics to extract an imperfect representation from the truth. He did not say what they claim, but a similar expression about the temple of his own body which after three days he reawakened. … The High Priest standing interrogates Jesus but he remained silent…The silence of Christ absolves the excuses of Adam…[Christ is declared guilty] This was so that by his guilt he might remove our guilt; that by the blindfold on his face he might take the blindfold from our hearts; that by receiving the spits, he might wash the face of our soul, that by the blows, by which he was struck on the head, he might heal the head of the human race, which is Adam… The high Priests stirred up the crowds so that they would ask for Barabbas and so that they might crucify Jesus. Here we have the two goats. One is termed ἀποπομπαίος meaning ‘the scapegoat’ (cf. Lev. 16). He is set free with the sin of the people and sent into the desert of hell. The other goat is slain like a lamb for the sins of those who have been set free. The Lord’s portion is always slaughtered. The portion of the devil, who is their master, is cast out, without restriction, into the infernal regions.”

Mael Brigte's Gospel Book

British Library MS Harley 1802, f3.

British Library Manuscript ‘Harley 1802’ is a pocket sized copy of the four gospels in Latin written by a young Irish scribe called Mael Brigte Ua Maeluánaig in the year 1138. It measures 165mm x 120mm, and was clearly designed as a personal copy of Gospels rather than as a magnificent public Gospel book like the Book of Kells. In other words it was designed to be read and studied rather than admired. A quick glance at the tiny pages reveals that in addition to the Gospel text there are copious notes and comments written in the margins and interlinear. These notes are mainly drawn from the early church fathers (including older Irish writers such as Manchén). The notes are simple and were designed much like a study Bible to bring together details to aid study of the text. For example an Irish gloss in the margin of folio 97b reads,

“There were three that were resuscitated by the gentle Christ, when he was for a time upon the earth, the daughter of Jarius the noble, the son of the widow, and Lazarus.”

A curios gloss is recorded next to Matthew 24:26a. The context is where Jesus warns people against believing reports of false Messiahs. The biblical text is,

“If therefore they shall say to you, Behold he is in the desert: go ye not out.” DRB.

To which our scribe added the gloss, which he attributed to Manchén,

“Ecce in deserto .i. ut fiunt anchoritae” (here in the desert, i.e. to become an anchorite).

The connection between the desert and the hermit was strong in early Irish exegesis. The Latin word for desert (deserto) was adopted into the Irish language as dísert, meaning hermitage. In this little gloss the lasting influence of the eastern Desert Fathers on the Irish is seen.

In addition to these explanations of the text there are Irish poems relating to some of the Gospel characters. These poems mainly focus on Christ, the Apostles and the Magi. The Irish church drew from early Greek Magi traditions (i.e. their names and number) and developed these into detailed stories relating to the Magi’s clothes and personalities.

Magi Poem

The poem in our manuscript goes into great detail on the appearance of the Magi, who are called ‘druids’. Melcho is described as grey-haired and without guile, with a very long beard. Caspar, a fair, blooming, beardless youth, and Damascus (normally called Belthazar) is described as, a grizzled man with a crimson and white spotted cloak, with soft yellow sandals.

Another poem focuses on the appearance of Christ and the Apostles. According to William Reeves this poem was, “framed according to certain rules which guided the ancient scribes in the illumination of their biblical manuscripts, and may possibly find a partial illustration in the figures which appear in the Book of Kells and other manuscripts of that class.” Similar literary descriptions were used in the eastern churches for iconography. It’s amusing to read the descriptions of the Apostles in this poem. Apparently Thomas was the best looking (“choicest of faces was his face”), Bartholomew was a ginger, John was beardless (a common description), James and Andrew were blonde with long beards, and Peter had a glossy head of grey hair and a short beard. Such details strike the modern reader as bizarre and unhelpful, but the early Irish church enjoyed them.

The amount of material packed into this pocket-sized book by Mael Brigte is vast. The patristic sources and commentary alone display a remarkable acquaintance with the theological literature of his day. What is perhaps more remarkable is that this manuscript was compiled by a scribe in his twenties! We know this from a note added at the end of Luke’s Gospel, “Mael Brigte who wrote this book in his 28^th year, the second year after the great storm.” The storm in question is also recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters s.a. 1137. For a man in his twenties he certainly was well versed in theology.

Colophon asking for clemency

The manuscripts ends with a colophon asking for people who later read this manuscript to, “pardon the faults of this book…for it requires much clemency both in text and commentaries!” 

The Generous Wrestler

Wrestling was a common sport in the Greco-Roman world. The early Christians sometimes used the analogy of the wrestler for their great champions of the faith. Men and women who refused to deny Christ and call Caesar Lord. Champions like a second century Gallic Christian martyr who “though small and weak and contemptible, but yet clothed with the mighty and invincible wrestler Christ Jesus” overcame the enemy and testified of Christ as she was killed. The fourth century church historian Eusebius refers to men and women who displayed great courage in the face of hatred and persecution as being aided by, “the divine power of our Saviour [infusing] such courage and confidence into his wrestlers.”

Wrestling was a rough business. Not the sort of theatrical nonsense that we see on TV today. This kind of ‘wrestling entertainment’ is more entertainment that wrestling, however, it is not a new phenomenon. The classical period had their own version of WWE. It was used by Gregory of Nazianzus as an analogy to Christological heresy. He described those who denied the full deity of Jesus as like ‘the promoters of wrestling-bouts in the theatres...the sort which are stage-managed to give the uncritical spectators visual sensations and compel their applause’. All style no substance.

True wrestling was a contest, a fight. The early Church fought not with physical violence but with the testimony of Christ (Eph 6.12-20). Christ himself was described as the supreme wrestler (still undefeated). Athanasius of Alexandria (d. AD 373) called Christ ‘a generous wrestler’. Since Christ was not afraid to meet his opponents on their home turf. Leaving heaven and the privileges entitled to him, for our sake, and to defeat the enemy, he took on a fully human nature and met the ‘strong man’, man to man, not in heaven but on earth, not in his throne room surrounded by angelic choirs, but on the hill of Calvary surrounded by mocking voices. In his famous work De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, Athanasius remarks how even though the enemies of Christ considered the cross of Calvary a victory against Jesus, Christ the greatest wrestler, defeated death!
A marvellous and mighty paradox has thus occurred, for the death which they thought to inflict on Him as dishonour and disgrace has become the glorious monument to death’s defeat.

Augustine on the Incarnation

But "the light shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." Now the "darkness" is the foolish minds of men, made blind by vicious desires and unbelief. And that the Word, by whom all things were made, might care for these and heal them, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." For our enlightening is the partaking of the Word, namely, of that life which is the light of men. But for this partaking we were utterly unfit, and fell short of it, on account of the uncleanness of sins. Therefore we were to be cleansed. And further, the one cleansing of the unrighteous and of the proud is the blood of the Righteous One, and the humbling of God Himself; that we might be cleansed through Him, made as He was what we are by nature, and what we are not by sin, that we might contemplate God, which by nature we are not. For by nature we are not God: by nature we are men, by sin we are not righteous. Wherefore God, made a righteous man, interceded with God for man the sinner. For the sinner is not congruous to the righteous, but man is congruous to man. By joining therefore to us the likeness of His humanity, He took away the unlikeness of our unrighteousness; and by being made partaker of our mortality, He made us partakers of His divinity. For the death of the sinner springing from the necessity of comdemnation is deservedly abolished by the death of the Righteous One springing from the free choice of His compassion, while His single [death and resurrection] answers to our double [death and resurrection]. De Trinitate 4.2.4

Ignatius of Antioch - Θεοφόρος

Persecution was nothing new to the early Christian Church. In the opening years of the second century Anno Domini, the pastor of the important church at Antioch in the Roman province of Syria (situated in modern day Turkey), was arrested and sent to Rome for trial and execution. Such things we read of but I can scarce imagine. The journey overland to Rome was a long one. What thoughts or despairs would rack the mind of a man on his way to death? Would circumstance cause bitterness and madness at God’s perceived abandonment? I don’t know how I would react. Sadly, I do know that I grow weary with God at the slightest upset in this privileged life of mine.

With their shepherd gone who would feed the local church the word of God? How could God abandon his servant to the Romans? The pastor in question was a man called Ignatius, a man filled with the Spirit and driven by a love for Christ to bear testimony of God. He once said, life begins and ends with two qualities. Faith is the beginning and love is the end; and the union of the two together is God. On route to his certain death he took the time to write letters to the churches of the regions he was taken through. Here are some excerpts,
In the midst of these iniquities, I am learning. Yet I am not justified on this account...let the tortures of the devil all assail me, if I do but gain Christ...I am the food of God, and am ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread.

He also wrote to the Christians in Rome that awaited his arrival, he urged them not to try and save him from the capital punishment that awaited him. To these co-workers of Christ in Rome he penned the following lines.

Christianity lies in achieving greatness in the face of the world’s hatred...He who died for us is all that I seek; He who rose again for us is my whole desire...earthly longings have been crucified; in me there is left no spark of desire for mundane things, but only a murmur of living water that whispers within me, ‘come to the Father’...Remember the church of Syria in your prayers, it has God for its pastor now, in place of myself, and Jesus Christ alone will have oversight of it...As I write this, it is the twenty fourth of August. Farewell now until the end, and wait with patience for Jesus Christ.

Ignatius’ body was torn to pieces by wild beasts to the amusement of the Romans one hundred and eight years from the incarnation of his Lord.