Category: Church Fathers

Group Pilgrimage

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I thought I would do a follow-up to yesterday’s post about friendship…

Since the earliest times, as pilgrims traveled towards some holy site, they would travel together in groups. They would band together for support, encouragement and safety as they journeyed towards their pilgrimage destination. Likewise, in our pilgrimage towards Heaven, good friends along the way can offer us all kinds of support.

Given my personality type, I benefit greatly from time by myself, but in recent years I’ve come to understand how much I need friends. Good, virtuous friends support and encourage, but also tell us the cold, hard truth about ourselves when we really need it.

A while ago I was praying The Office of Readings and read about the beautiful friendship between St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nazianzen. These were two of the three “Cappadocian Fathers” who were Early Church Fathers in Fourth Century Turkey. On Wednesday, in the Eastern calendar, it will be their feast day, the “Feast of the Three Holy Hierarchs“, I thought I’d share an extract from one of Gregory’s sermons where he describes his relationship with Basil.

the-three-holy-hierarchs

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Worship of St. Hippolytus

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St. Hippolytus of RomeOn Thursday we will be continuing the JP2 Group‘s study of worship in the Early Church by reading another extract from the Early Church. This text comes from the writing of Hippolytus of Rome (c AD 170 – 235) entitled “Apostolic Tradition” and was probably written in about AD 215.

Bishop: The Lord be with you.

All: And with your spirit.

Bishop: Lift up your hearts.

All: We lift them up to the Lord.

Bishop: Let us give thanks to the Lord.

All: It is proper and right.

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Who’s your daddy? St. Justin Martyr

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Justin MartyrIn the JP2 Group we’re doing a mini-series on Christian worship in the Early Church. It is for this reason that I recently posted several blog entries about St. Justin Martyr, an Early Church Father and one of the first great Christian apologists.

However, I realized as I was finishing up yesterday’s post that I haven’t actually written an introductory post about this great man. I had done this previously when we were studying St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Polycarp of Smyrna. So today I’m going to remedy this, providing a little bit of information about St. Justin’s life.

Who was this man whose writings we’ve been studying?

Searching For Truth

What we know about St. Justin mainly comes from his own writings. He was born in about AD 103 to Pagan parents in Flavia Neapolis, modern day Nablus on the West Bank. He had a great love of philosophy and studied various philosophical systems:

“…I surrendered myself to a Stoic Philosopher…but when I had not acquired any further knowledge of God (for he did not know himself, and said such instruction was unnecessary)…I left him…

A Peripatetic Philosopher… asked me for money. For this reason I left him, believing him to be no philosopher at all….

I came to a Pythagorean Philosopher, very celebrated – a man who thought much of his own wisdom… He said, ‘What then? Are you acquainted with music, astronomy, and geometry?’ Having commended many of these branches of learning, and telling me that they were necessary, he dismissed me.

In my helpless condition it occurred to me to have a meeting with the Platonists, for their fame was great. I thereupon spent as much of my time as possible with one who had lately settled in our city…and I progressed, and made the greatest improvements daily. And the perception of immaterial things quite overpowered me, and the contemplation of ideas furnished my mind with wings, so that in a little while I supposed that I had become wise; and such was my stupidity, I expected forthwith to look upon God, for this is the end of Plato’s philosophy.
– Dialogue With Trypho, Chapter 2

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Justin Time!

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Justin MartyrYesterday I identified some of the common features recognizable by Catholics in St. Justin’s description of the Second Century liturgy. There were two other comments I wanted to make about the extract we studied last night in the JP2 Group from Justin’s First Apology.

Accept no imitations

It is popular these days to assert that Christianity just stole ideas from all the other religions around it. It is fortuitous, therefore, that we have the testimony of Justin asserting that it was the Mithras cult which imitated the Christian Eucharist and not the other way around:

“This the wicked devils have imitated, commanding the same thing to be done in the mysteries of Mithras. There, in the mystic rites of initiation, bread and a cup of water are placed amid certain incantations. This you already know or can discover”

Now, whether you choose to believe Justin’s assertion is another matter, but it is significant that we have a Christian writing to a Pagan Emperor trying to set the record straight.

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Justin Martyr’s Worship

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Justin MartyrFor the next three weeks in the JP2 Group we’re going to be looking at the worship in the Early Church.

The following text is an extract from the writing of Justin Martyr (c AD 100 – 165). The document is known as his First Apology, which was written to the Emperor Antionius Pius around AD 150-155. Various English translations were used in the rendering of this extract.

We will be studying this text as a group tomorrow.  At the weekend I’ll do another post about this text, together with a little bit of commentary…

Chapter 65: Baptism & Eucharist

After we have washed someone who has been convinced and has accepted our teaching, we bring him to the place where those who are called “brethren” are assembled. Together, then, we offer hearty prayers: for ourselves, for the illuminated person, and for all others in every place. We pray that we may be counted worthy, now that we have learned the truth, by our works be found good citizens and keepers of the commandments, so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation.

Having ended the prayers, we greet one another with a kiss. Then bread and a cup of wine mixed with water are brought to the president of the brethren. Taking them, he gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and he offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things.

And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying “Amen”, the Hebrew for “so be it”. And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called “deacons” give to each person present a portion of the bread and the wine mixed with water, over which the thanksgiving was pronounced. To those who are absent, they carry away a portion.

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Polycarp – Something I didn’t initially notice…

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I was looking at my post from a couple of days ago and noticed something about the icon of Polycarp that I didn’t initially notice…

If you look carefully, you will see on the left the emblem of a bird, peaking out from underneath Polycarp’s robes. I believe this bird is the Phoenix. If you don’t know the mythology surrounding the Phoenix, it is described in the letter of St. Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (96 AD):

“Let us consider that wonderful sign [of the resurrection] which takes place in Eastern lands, that is, in Arabia and the countries round about. There is a certain bird which is called a phoenix. This is the only one of its kind, and lives five hundred years.

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Parallel Consequences

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Unanswered Questions

Yesterday I outlined the various parallels which can be found between Jesus’ Passion and Polycarp’s Martyrdom. I ended the entry by asking:

“But what does this all mean? Why are there these similarities between the deaths of Jesus and Polycarp?”

The martyrdom account itself ascribes these similarities to the providence of God:

“By almost every step that led up to Polycarp’s martyrdom, the Lord intended to show us anew the type of martyrdom narrated in the Gospel…” – Mart. Pol., 1.1

But that then raises the question: why might God wish to present to His Church a death like that of Christ?

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