A Dissertation on Schlatter

With thanks to Cliff ‘I’ll have DCH out this Week’ Kvidahl for the tip.

Zwingli: On Sin

The flesh, or the old Adam, I say, rebels, scorning everything but itself; for it would rather that all things should serve its own lust to their own destruction than put any limit to its greed and its passion for glory and pleasure.

Hence anger against the Law and the Lawgiver, hatred and machinations—hatred, because it cannot avoid or escape the Law or the Lawgiver, for if it ascendeth into heaven, He is there, if it descendeth into hell, He is there [cf. Ps. 139:8]; machinations, because it struggles with all its might to deceive Him who yet cannot be deceived; it ponders, devises, schemes, hustles about, and after many attempts comes to this conclusion: “He is a tyrant who demands these things, for how is it possible for anyone to love another as much as himself? Nevertheless, since He makes such severe demands, His vengeance must be guarded against. You will do, therefore, as crafty slaves are wont to do with good and ἀδόλοις [guileless] masters—think up some clever dodge to blind Him so that He will not see your design.”

Hence the usurer endows a priesthood or some sacred office, the whoremonger keeps a season of thoroughgoing fasting in honor of the Virgin, the betrayer puts up trembling and desperate prayers. By this more than silly cajolery they hope, forsooth, to overwhelm their unsuspecting Lord, or to throw dust in His eyes, so that they can indulge with impunity in adultery, usury, and betrayal.

Thus was the Law no more listened to, nor men’s ways modeled upon it, nor the things that cause dishonor put away, but man became a god unto himself; for though the Law might slay, yet man none the less made himself alive in his wiles and hopes. Hence impiety gradually increased to such an extent that it said in its heart: “There is no God” [Ps. 14:1]; though by disguising its face it was openly posing as piety itself.

Eckart Otto’s Lectio magistralis at The Pontifical Institute

We are pleased to invite you to the Lectio magistralis of Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Eckart Otto: “Deuteronomy. A Prophetic Book in the Torah and its Relation to the Books of the Corpus Propheticum”. Pontifical Biblical Institute (Rome). Friday Oct. 24th; 11.25 – Aula Magna.

When in Rome, go to Eckart’s lecture! Via Jack Sasson.

Mr Duncan Misrepresented his Status When He Boarded the Plane…

Days before he became the first person diagnosed with Ebola on American soil, Thomas Eric Duncan answered “no” to questions about whether he had cared for a patient with the deadly virus. Before leaving Liberia, Duncan also answered no to a question about whether he had touched the body of someone who died in an area affected by the disease, said Binyah Kesselly, board chairman of the Liberia Airport Authority. Witnesses say Duncan had been helping Ebola patients in Liberia. Liberian community leader Tugbeh Chieh Tugbeh said Duncan was caring for an Ebola-infected patient at a residence in Paynesville City, just outside Monrovia.

This is reprehensible.

John Owen: Provocateur

If you judge a person dead, you neglect him, you leave him. But if you judge him in a swoon, though never so dangerous, you use all means for the retrieving of his life. So ought we to do to one another and our own souls. – John Owen

But don’t Worry, It Won’t Spread in America…

CNN reports

Health officials are monitoring not only the people the Dallas Ebola patient had contact with while he was contagious and not isolated, but also dozens of people that they subsequently contacted, Dallas County Health and Human Services spokeswoman Erikka Neroes said today.  Eighty people — the patient’s contacts, plus people with whom they had contact — are now being monitored for Ebola in the Dallas area, Neroes said.

Yay!  That’s just the way every plague in every Zombie movie has ever started.  Welcome to the Black Death of 2015.  But go ahead, believe the CDC…

The Theological Colloquy at Marburg, Cont.

Day Two

The general discussion took place on Saturday, the 2d of October, in a large hall (which cannot now be identified with certainty). The Landgrave in plain dress appeared with his court as an eager listener, but not as an arbitrator, and was seated at a separate table. The official attendants on the Lutheran side were Luther (dressed as an Electoral courtier) and Melanchthon, behind them Jonas and Cruciger of Wittenberg, Myconius of Gotha, Osiander of Nuernberg, Stephen Agricola of Augsburg, Brentius of Hall in Swabia; on the Reformed side Zwingli and Oecolampadius, and behind them Bucer and Hedio of Strassburg: all men of eminent talent, learning, and piety, and in the prime of manhood and usefulness.

Luther and Zwingli were forty-six, Oecolampadius forty-seven, Bucer thirty-eight, Hedio thirty-five, Melanchthon thirty-two, the Landgrave only twenty-five years of age. Luther and Melanchthon, Zwingli and Oecolampadius, as the chief disputants, sat at a separate table, facing each other.

Besides these representative theologians there were a number of invited guests, princes (including the exiled Duke Ulrich of Wuerttemberg), noblemen, and scholars (among them Lambert of Avignon). Zwingli speaks of twenty-four, Brentius of fifty to sixty, hearers. Poor Carlstadt, who was then wandering about in Friesland, and forced to sell his Hebrew Bible for bread, had asked for an invitation, but was refused. Many others applied for admission, but were disappointed.

Zwingli advocated the greatest publicity and the employment of a recording secretary, but both requests were declined by Luther. Even the hearers were not allowed to make verbatim reports. Zwingli, who could not expect the Germans to understand his Swiss dialect, desired the colloquy to be conducted in Latin, which would have placed him on an equality with Luther; but it was decided to use the German language in deference to the audience.

John Feige, the chancellor of the Landgrave, exhorted the theologians in an introductory address to seek only the glory of Christ and the restoration of peace and union to the church.

The debate was chiefly exegetical, but brought out no new argument. It was simply a recapitulation of the preceding controversy, with less heat and more gentlemanly courtesy. Luther took his stand on the words of institution in their literal sense: “This is my body;” the Swiss, on the word of Christ: “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life.”

Luther first rose, and declared emphatically that he would not change his opinion on the real presence in the least, but stand fast on it to the end of life. He called upon the Swiss to prove the absence of Christ, but protested at the outset against arguments derived from reason and geometry. To give pictorial emphasis to his declaration, he wrote with a piece of chalk on the table in large characters the words of institution, with which he was determined to stand or fall: “Hoc est corpus Meum.”

Oecolampadius in reply said he would abstain from philosophical arguments, and appeal to the Scriptures. He quoted several passages which have an obviously figurative meaning, but especially John 6:63, which in his judgment furnishes the key for the interpretation of the words of institution, and excludes a literal understanding. He employed this syllogism: Christ cannot contradict himself; he said, “The flesh profiteth nothing,” and thereby rejected the oral manducation of his body; therefore he cannot mean such a manducation in the Lord’s Supper.

Luther denied the second proposition, and asserted that Christ did not reject oral, but only material manducation, like that of the flesh of oxen or of swine. I mean a sublime spiritual fruition, yet with the mouth. To the objection that bodily eating was useless if we have the spiritual eating, he replied, If God should order me to eat crab-apples or dung, I would do it, being assured that it would be salutary. We must here close the eyes.
Here Zwingli interposed: God does not ask us to eat crab-apples, or to do any thing unreasonable. We cannot admit two kinds of corporal manducation; Christ uses the same word “to eat,” which is either spiritual or corporal. You admit that the spiritual eating alone gives comfort to the soul. If this is the chief thing, let us not quarrel about the other. He then read from the Greek Testament which he had copied with his own hand, and used for twelve years, the passage John 6:52, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” and Christ’s word, 6:63.

Luther asked him to read the text in German or Latin, not in Greek. When Christ says, “The flesh profiteth nothing,” he speaks not of his flesh, but of ours.
Zwingli: The soul is fed with the spirit, not with flesh.
Luther: We eat the body with the mouth, not with the soul. If God should place rotten apples before me, I would eat them.
Zwingli: Christ’s body then would he a corporal, and not a spiritual, nourishment.
Luther: You are captious.
Zwingli: Not so; but you contradict yourself.
Zwingli quoted a number of figurative passages; but Luther always pointed his finger to the words of institution, as he had written them on the table. He denied that the discourse, John 6, had any thing to do with the Lord’s Supper.

At this point a laughable, yet characteristic incident occurred. “Beg your pardon,” said Zwingli, “that passage [John 6:63] breaks your neck.” Luther, understanding this literally, said, “Do not boast so much. You are in Hesse, not in Switzerland. In this country we do not break people’s necks. Spare such proud, defiant words, till you get back to your Swiss.”
Zwingli: In Switzerland also there is strict justice, and we break no man’s neck without trial. I use simply a figurative expression for a lost cause.

The Landgrave said to Luther, “You should not take offense at such common expressions.” But the agitation was so great that the meeting adjourned to the banqueting hall.

The discussion was resumed in the afternoon, and turned on the christological question. I believe, said Luther, that Christ is in heaven, but also in the sacrament, as substantially as he was in the Virgin’s womb. I care not whether it be against nature and reason, provided it be not against faith.

Oecolampadius: You deny the metaphor in the words of institution, but you must admit a synecdoche. For Christ does not say, This is bread and my body (as you hold), but simply, This is my body.
Luther: A metaphor admits the existence of a sign only; but a synecdoche admits the thing itself, as when I say, the sword is in the scabbard, or the beer in the bottle.
Zwingli reasoned: Christ ascended to heaven, therefore he cannot be on earth with his body. A body is circumscribed, and cannot be in several places at once.
Luther: I care little about mathematics.
The contest grew hotter, without advancing, and was broken up by a call to the repast.*

____________________
*History of the Christian church (Vol. 7, pp. 638–642).

Jesus and Nationalism

Crossley’s latest foray in the Historical Jesus and modernity is online here at the group blog he’s attached himself to-

Following on from the post on the term ‘revolutionary’, I want to look at another term that is commonly used in historical Jesus research but which may also raise problems: ‘nationalism’. It is common enough to read phrases such as ‘nationalistic movement, ‘Jewish nationalism’, ‘nationalistic associations’, ‘nationalistic tendencies’ etc. Of course, as with any definition, people may be using it in ways that are based on ancient understandings but terms relating to ‘nationalism’ are not always defined and carry problematic connotations when studying the ancient world.

Etc.

Around Town

This gallery contains 6 photos.

The Hawarden OT in the NT Conference- 2015

From the Conference organizer-

I am writing to confirm the arrangements for the next Annual Seminar on the Use of the OT in the NT, to be held at Gladstone’s Library Hawarden (http://www.gladstoneslibrary.org/), from the evening of Wednesday 25th to lunch time on Friday 27th March 2015. The library have reserved 20 rooms for us in the first instance, so if you are able to participate in this year’s seminar, please contact the booking office directly to book your room by telephone on 01244 532350 or by email to enquiries@glad.lib.org; please note that you cannot reserve your place via the online booking system, as we have made a group booking.

You can then make your individual arrangements for en-suite or ground floor rooms etc. or book to stay extra nights, and will be charged accordingly, but please let the staff know when booking that you are part of the OT in the NT Seminar group, so that they can allocate you to one of our reserved rooms. The overall cost will be in the region of  £175, depending on what “extras” you opt for, and a small deposit will be required at the booking stage. Please let me know also when you have booked so that I can keep an up-to-date list of confirmed seminar participants.

Offers of papers are welcome, so please send me the proposed title and a short abstract by 10th December 2014. I’ll confirm the papers selected in mid-January, and provide further details of the timings and running order then. There is no one overall theme to this year’s conference, so all offers of papers which relate to the general field of the OT in the NT will be considered.

I shall shortly be advertising the seminar more widely (through the BNTS mailing list etc.) so please do pass on the dates and details of the conference to anyone you know who may be interested in joining us.

Looking forward to seeing many of you at Hawarden in March,

Best wishes,

Susan

Dr. Susan Docherty
Reader in Biblical Studies and Head of Theology
Newman University Birmingham