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.

The Lord calls - we approach with awe

"They will go after Adonai, who will roar like a lion; for he will roar, and the children will come trembling from the west."
Hosea 11.10 (CJB)

Gregory of Nazianzus - The Theologian

This I give you to share, and to defend all your life, the One Godhead and Power, found in the Three in Unity, and comprising the Three separately, not unequal, in substances or natures, neither increased nor diminished by superiorities or inferiorities; in every respect equal, in every respect the same; just as the beauty and the greatness of the heavens is one; the infinite conjunction of Three Infinite Ones, Each God when considered in Himself; as the Father so the Son, as the Son so the Holy Ghost; the Three One God when contemplated together; Each God because Consubstantial; One God because of the Monarchia. No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the Splendour of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish Them than I am carried back to the One. When I think of any One of the Three I think of Him as the Whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking of escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of That One so as to attribute a greater greatness to the Rest. When I contemplate the Three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the Undivided Light. Oration 40

Family Tree of English Bibles

This chart shows a general outline of the base texts used for the NT in English Bibles.

Irish Scribal Colophon - poor me!

Oráit annso dona macaib fogluma 7 is catad in scel bec he 7 na tarbra aithbhir na litir orum 7 is olc in bub 7 in memram gann 7 is dorcha an la!


A Prayer here for the students; and it is a hard little story and do not reproach me concerning the letters and the ink is bad and the parchment scanty and the day is dark!

So reads a small note at the end of a passage relating to s. Finnian in a manuscript preserved in the Royal Irish Academy (ms C I 2, fl.38v). The Irish scribe (probably from Tipperary) was exasperated after finishing his poorly written work, blaming the ink, writing material and poor lighting. Life in an Irish scriptorium, or any medieval scriptorium, was never easy. No wonder that Theodore the Studite (c. AD 800) in Constantinople proscribed 30 penances for scribes who smashed their pens in anger!

Ishtar Gate - The Gate to Babylon

Katie and I recently had the pleasure of visiting Berlin where the Ishtar gate now resides. The Ishtar gate dates back to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. This is the famous king of the book of Daniel, though he also mentioned in Jeremiah, II Kings, II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther and Ezekiel (the deuterocanonical book of Judith also mentions him).

The structure is of blue glazed bricks and stood at the end of the Processional Way in the ancient city of Babylon. The walls on either side of this corridor were decorated with over a hundred lions. Religious processions involving the parading of the statue of Ishtar, the goddess of love and war, would parade down this street.


The possession of the gods image was a fundamental tenant to Babylonian religion. The Babylonians would ‘kidnap’ the gods of their enemies and hold them captive in Babylon, thus asserting their control over their enemies. The Elamites once captured Babylon and took the statue of Marduk back to Susa in the 12th century BC. The Babylonians couldn’t conduct their New Year celebrations without the statue and it was forbidden to make a replica since the statue itself was ‘alive’. Nebuchadnezzar I (d. 1104 BC, not to be confused with Nebuchadnezzar II) raised an army to retrieve the statue. For this action he was given the epithet the ‘pious prince’. The assurance that their gods would bless and protect Babylon was dependent on the Babylonians ability to protect their gods. How different was the God of the Hebrews.


We can maybe see why Nebuchadnezzar took with him to Babylon the articles of Solomon's Temple (Dan 1.2). Since the Jews had no statue of Yahweh, the closest thing to removing their God from them, from a Babylonian point of view, was to take the Temple treasures back to Babylon. The Jewish prophets, however, understood that nothing could conquer Yahweh, and no king could claim to control him. Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians were merely the instruments that He was using to discipline his children. Indeed, as three Hebrew exiles were to testify, ‘our God whom we serve is able to deliver us.’ Kingship and power were not by virtue of possession of holy relics, but by the will of Yahweh. Protection could not be gained by holding onto an idol, but by trusting the Holy One of Israel.

Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him. Daniel 2.20-22

James Ussher's tips to preachers

James Ussher, Church of Ireland Primate of All Ireland between 1625–1656, was an antiquarian, philologist (he obtained the first copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch in the west), textual critic (the first English speaking scholar to critically review the LXX), Biblical scholar (his Doctoral thesis was on Daniel’s ‘seventy weeks prophecy’), and poet (during his teen years at least, he later gave up poetry as a waste of time).
Speaking of time, he retro-calculated the creation of the world to Saturday, October 22nd, 4004 BC. The precise time for creation, however, he vaguely described as ‘the start of the evening’. Not nearly precise enough for some. There are many things I admire about James Ussher and some things that I do not.

A good series of advice he gave to up and coming preachers was,

1. Read the Bible. A careful and precise knowledge of the Bible (in the original languages) is the best tool for preaching
2. Don’t repeat the views of others without measuring them against Scripture and fact
3. Avoid pointless controversies
4. Use a vocabulary that is easy to understand (avoid ‘exotic’ phrases!). It is easier to make something easy hard to understand than to make something hard easy to understand.
5. Be sincerely moved and broken by the message you preach
6. Study hard. Avoid ‘indecent or ridiculous expressions’ to fill the gaps of poor study
7. Don’t water down the truth or give consent to sin
8. Teach by example
9. Don’t be puffed up by men’s praise, nor dejected by their scoffs or frowns.

Among other words of wisdom, Ussher exhorted Christians not to go around with sad and dejected faces. “By your dejection you bring an evil report upon religion”, he once remarked. “Sincere Christians may and ought to rejoice, and to show themselves cheerful; whereas the vicious and wicked have the greatest reason to be sad!”

He also challenged preachers to verify any quotations they might use from the Church Fathers or historical sources. “Trust no man’s eyes but your own”. Ussher frequently debated Roman Catholics and the Church Fathers were used and abused by both sides. Ussher believed careful historical method was a godly characteristic.

Ussher was a man with a passion for the Bible, history and textual criticism. Yet he was also a man of his times. His opposition to Roman Catholicism was vitriolic at times and his politics may have impeded his love for the Catholic Irish. This was an error of judgement and greatly hindered the reformation in Ireland. He urged the government to force Irish Catholics to attend Protestant Church services (hardly biblical). A godly man though he was, he was not without sin or prejudice. His dying words were, “O Lord forgive me, especially my sins of omission!”