Reflection on Why and Where with Doctors

We are roughly one half through the list of the 33 Doctors of the Church. My limited knowledge of the individual Doctors does prevent me from doing much other than summarizing what someone else has already written about them. I can't think of anything more gruesome for this blog than to be a piece derivative drivel. I'm not giving up on the Doctors, by no means. Yet, they must be done differently.

The reason for taking up the Doctors was to explore their meaning. What I found was that each one is part and parcel of his (and eventually her) secular life. Even the monastics among them had to deal with dicey political situations. Some of it was fascinating, and it made me wonder about the stands they took, they things they wrote, and sometimes the backlash from those stands and writings. But that's not it either, because that's reading into a life lived 1700 years ago. Biography with the author reading his/her own meanings into it. That is not the way to find the meaning of the Doctors.

Then it seemed the wisest course to study their writings in more detail. Good heavens. If anyone tries it they'll be at it for the rest of their lives.

This blog is not a vast community of readers and their comments, so really, I have no audience to please or explain myself to. Yet, I explain this anyway.

Perhaps I need a course in Patristics? Hmmmm.

St. John Damascene

St. John Damascene was born in Damascus, Syria, in the year 675. The world he was born into was already, officially, Islam. The Arab Christians had family roots there reaching back to the time of Christ. John came from a family that held a hereditary position as Chief of the Revenue Department, until the Caliph decided he didn't want a Christian doing that anymore. Then John became a monk.

While a monk he wrote over one hundred fifty works. One of them was the Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. He weighed against the Iconoclasts in that controversy. Iconoclasts were icon breakers, they believed that the veneration of images was idol worship. His support of icons made St. John very unpopular in the Byzantine empire. John didn't live in the Byzantine empire, so he wasn't hounded like so many others were.

"Since some find fault with us
for worshipping and honoring the image of our Savior
and that of Our Lady, let them remember
that in the beginning God created
man after his own image. On what grounds
then do we show reverence to one another
unless it is because we are made
after God's image?"

I think that makes the case rather convincingly for the veneration of Icons. It makes me think of John Donne's poem "The Cross," written against the Puritans who were trying to ban all crosses.

SINCE Christ embraced the cross itself, dare I
His image, th' image of His cross, deny ?
Would I have profit by the sacrifice,
And dare the chosen altar to despise ?
It bore all other sins, but is it fit
That it should bear the sin of scorning it?

That was written sometime in the early 1600s. So more than a thousand years separates the two works, but the same spirit is in both.

For his many works, and his clear defense of veneration of icons, John is a Doctor of the Church.

The Venerable Bede

Bede was referred to as "venerable" since the year 836. He was born in 673 on the lands of the Monastery of Sts. Peter and Paul, in Wearmouth-Jarrow, England. He was given by his parents to the monastery at the age of seven to be educated. While it may be hard to comprehend giving away your seven year old son, the rest of history is grateful that they did.

Bede could easily have been called the Amazing Bede since he wrote the first history of England, the Historia Ecclesiastica. But Bede didn't stop there. He also wrote forty-five books, thirty as commentaries on the Gospels, The Acts of the Apostles, and pretty much the rest of the Old and New Testaments. We also have Bede to thank for the counting of time from the birth of Christ as A.D.. He coined that in his works De Temporibus and De Temporum Ratione.

It should be obvious by now that each Doctor has left us a massive body of writing. Our Venerable Bede did not disappoint. He also lead a quiet life, and rarely left his monastery. That is so unlike most of the Doctors so far. He wasn't embroiled in controversy, or heresy, he just lived his life devoted to study, teaching, and the life of his monastic community.

St. Isidore of Seville

Isidore is another saint who comes from a family of saints. Born in the year 560 into a Catholic family, while Spain was still largely Arian. His older brother Leander is known as the evangelist to the Visigoths, and presided at the Council of Toledo when the Visigoths rejected Arianism once and for all.

Leander was a harsh school master, but Isidore learned everything put before him. In fact, Isidore was down right encyclopedic in his knowledge. He didn't just teach a classical curriculum, but also medicine, sciences, law, Hebrew and Greek. He also introduced the study of Aristotle long before the Arabs brought their knowledge into Spain. And many centuries before Thomas Aquinas found him.

I will end by saying that he wrote mountains of works, taught, wrote a rule for Spanish monks and nuns, and helped to form what is known as the Toledo Liturgy. Where he really shines is in his writing, so I shall let him speak for himself.

If a man wants to be always in God's company, he must pray regularly and read regularly. When we pray, we talk to God, when we read, God talks to us.

All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection. By reading we learn what we did not know; by reflection we retain what we have learned.

St. Gregory the Great

Gregory the Great, pope and saint. Doctor of the Church, and writer of the only known biography of St. Benedict. There is a style of chant that bears his name, and he put together what is now called the Gregorian Sacramentary.

Gregory was born in Rome about 540. He was a patrician who received an excellent education. He studied law and by age thirty was appointed Prefect of Rome. When his father died his mother went to a convent and left Gregory very rich. So, he was rich and in the position of a mover and shaker.

A conversion of some sort must be lurking in the dark parts of history, because he left his career, turned his estates in Sicily into six monasteries, and his home in Rome into a Benedictine Monastery called St. Andrew's. It was there that he became a Benedictine.

Pope Pelagius II ordained him Deacon and sent him to Constantinople to beg the Emperor, Tiberias II, for military help against the invading Lombards. Gregory ended up staying in Constantinople for six years. He moved in with monks there and began to write his "mystical and allegorical commentary on the Book of Job." The quote is from guru Fink.

He went back to Rome in 586 and moved back in with the monks at St. Andrew's. On September 3, 590, he was consecrated pope. Age 50, and the first monk ever elected pope. He finished up the Moral Reflection on Job which he'd begun in Constantinople, and began his monumental work, Regula Pastoralis. About half way down the page you will find the Chapter listings of this work. He wrote "the Dialogues, forty short homilies on the Gospels, twenty-two longer homilies on Ezekiel, two homilies on the Song of Songs, part of a commentary on I Samuel, and about eight hundred fifty letters."

"He, therefore, who sets himself to act evilly and yet wishes others to be silent, is a witness against himself, for he wishes himself to be loved more than the truth, which he does not wish to be defended against himself. There is, of course, no man who so lives as not sometimes to sin, but he wishes truth to be loved more than himself, who wills to be spared by no one against the truth. Wherefore, Peter willingly accepted the rebuke of Paul; David willingly hearkened to the reproof of a subject. For good rulers who pay no regard to self-love, take as a homage to their humility the free and sincere words of subjects. But in this regard the office of ruling must be tempered with such great art of moderation, that the minds of subjects, when demonstrating themselves capable of taking right views in some matters, are given freedom of expression, but freedom that does not issue into pride, otherwise, when liberty of speech is granted too generously, the humility of their own lives will be lost." -- Regula Pastoralis

Leo the Great

Wow, I'm having to use my old get-through-college method of not daring to look up for the end of the tunnel, until I'm almost there. St. Leo the Great takes us up to the thirteenth Doctor. There are thirty-three Doctor's total, so we're not quite half way through the list. The entire purpose of this project is so I could learn something about these men and women who continue to teach the Church in every generation. That other people read this causes me to want to do the series as best I can, but the truth is that what I don't know about any of these Doctors could fill a book.

All that aside, let's get on with St. Leo the Great.

The Doctors of the Church guru, John F. Fink, to whom I turn for instruction, says that considering how much all popes have written, it's amazing that only two are considered Doctors. Also, they are the only two popes to be called 'great.'

Before getting into his ecclesiastical dealings, we should consider two things that would mark him out as 'great' no matter who he was. First, Leo met Attila and talked him out of sacking Rome by offering him an annual tribute. I ask you, who ever talked Attila out of anything? The second is not as good an ending, but powerful still. Genseric and the Vandals showed up at the walls of Rome and Leo went out to talk. He couldn't spare the city totally, but he did get them to agree they wouldn't burn the city or massacre the citizenry. They did pillage the city for fifteen days, and take backs slaves.

Those are significant accomplishments, in both cases. From those alone, without any consideration of religion, we are safe in assuming that Leo was a great man. He must have been very charismatic personally.

Now for matter ecclesiastical. Take a look at this list of letters and sermons. Impressive isn't it? One of the requirements for becoming a Doctor of the Church is a large body of writings. How else can someone dead for more than a thousand years still teach us? Ninety-six sermons and one hundred forty-three letters

Leo dealt with a couple of heresies, Manichaeanism and Priscillianism. And as always there was a couple of troublesome Church Councils. One of which at Ephesus is not considered a council as a result of the Fourth Ecumenical Council. The Fourth Ecumenical Council also raised the Patriarchate of Constantinople to the level of Rome. Leo didn't like that.

Enough about councils and those that manipulate them. Here is a quote from the Tome, a letter he wrote to Archbishop Flavian.

There enters then these lower parts of the world
the Son of God, descending from His heavenly home
and yet not quitting His Father's glory,
begotten in a new order by a new nativity.
In a new order, because being invisible in His own nature,
He became visible in ours, and He whom nothing could contain
was content to be contained:
abiding before all time He began to be in time:
the Lord of all things, He obscured His immeasurable majesty
and took on Him the form of a servant:
being God that cannot suffer,
He did not disdain to be man that can, and, immortal as He is,
to subject Himself to the laws of death.

St. Peter Chrysologus

There is very little online about Peter, so once again I am almost utterly dependent upon John F. Fink and his handy book on the Doctors.

He was born in 406 in the town of Imola. He grew up there, was educated there, and ordained deacon there. When he was 27 years old he was appointed Bishop of Ravenna, by Pope Sixtus III. He stayed there until just before his death in 450.

At that time Ravenna was enjoying being a royal city since the Emperor had moved the court out of Rome to avoid the smörgåsbord of barbarians sacking the city.

Peter was made a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XIII in 1729, because of the many sermons he wrote. They were short, and highly effective. The term Chrysologus means "golden-worded" and by all accounts he was. His sermons were short because he did not want to bore his listeners. Oh, would that more modern preachers would learn that lesson!

From Sermon on the Incarnation.

Why then, man, are you so worthless in your own eyes and yet so precious to God? Why render yourself such dishonor when you are honored by him? Why do you ask how you were created and so not seek to know why you were made? Was not this entire visible universe made for your dwelling? . . . [The creator] has made you in his image that you might in your person make the invisible Creator present on earth.

Cyril of Alexandria

Once again in this series we come across a flawed man, perhaps one who was more aggressive than was good for him. Yet, through Cyril--expeller of the Jews; nephew of the Bishop Theophilus, who helped Empress Eudoxia drive out John Chrysostom; the pillager of the Novatian Churches, those who believed that those who lapsed in the persecutions could not be admitted back to the church. By expelling the Jews he angered the Governor of the region, and that led to the murder of Hapatia, the famous teacher of Platonism.

There was one thing, however, about which to Cyril was absolutely clear.

"That anyone could doubt the right of the holy Virgin to be called the Mother of God fills with astonishment. Surely she must be the Mother of God if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, and she gave birth to him! Our Lord's disciples may not have used those exact words, but they delivered to us the belief those words enshrine, and this has also been taught us by the holy fathers."

It's hard to argue with that. Nestorius taught that Mary could not have been the Mother of God (Theotokos), but only mother of the human Jesus.

Born in 376, in Alexandria, Cyril was probably destined for a life in the Church. His uncle was Pope of Alexandria, after all. His uncle, Theophilus, was not above some underhanded maneuvering. See post on St. John Chysostom, here.
So when it came time to have a show down with Nestorius about the status of Mary as Theotokos, God-bearer, at the Council of Ephesus, we should not be surprised to learn that Cyril leaped to the advantage.

A quote from my guru, John F. Fink.

He convened the council even though many of those invited, especially the bishops of the Church at Antioch, had not yet arrived. Nestorius was in Ephesus but refused to attend the council.

So before everyone else could get to the meeting, Cyril and the Council condemned Nestorius of "distinct blasphemy against the Son of God." That gives the following quote from a Homily Cyril gave at Ephesus, ring a little off key.

I see here a joyful company of Christian men met together in ready response to the call of Mary, the holy and ever-virgin Mother of God.

While we may question his methods, we can't argue with what he has said. Denying Mary of being Theotokos, is to deny the incarnation, and the humanity of Christ. Even though the aggrieved Bishops objected and raised a ruckus, even Pope Celestine found that Cyril was in the right.

In our time it is not unusual to hear the phrase, 'fully human, fully divine.' In Cyril's time there was no consensus, all was in flux. So God used imperfect Cyril to set the Church straight once again. For that he is a Doctor of the Church, and worthy of our respect.

St. Augustine of Hippo

Please notice to the left is a new element to my page. A Poll! Please take the time to vote.

Today is a colossal figure--St. Augustine. [cue trumpets]

I am tempted to just give a link and leave it at that. Augustine is quoted eighty-five times in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. He is excerpted as readings for the Office of Readings eighty-two times. Second place is a tie between Ambrose and Leo the Great with twenty-six readings each. It is safe to say that Augustine has influenced modern Christianity to such an extent that it isn't possible to imagine it without him. With so much said by him, and about him, what can I possibly say that will add anything?

His contribution as Doctor of the Church has this incredible entry. Or here for information on his biography. Clicking here will illustrate the hopelessness of my situation. What can be said about the man who said everything?

113 Books including The City of God and the ever popular Confessions.

218 Letters look at the sidebar on the left for the list.

500 and up Sermons Here is 10. Can you do it?

He was born on November 13, 354 in Tagaste, Numidia, North Africa. His father was a pagan, and his mother was a Christian. Augustine was without doubt the most incredible person anyone who knew him, had ever met. He was lusty, and determined, loving, and tricky. Tricky? Yeah, play this little scene out.
(Augustine and Monica, mom, on the docks.)
St. Augustine: Okay mom, I'll stay here and marry a nice girl. I'll give up my concubine of 15 years and my son. Let me just go on board this boat and tell some people goodbye.

St. Monica: Sure, son.

(St. Augustine gets on the boat and it takes off for Rome. Just as he planned.)

It would be possible to go on and on and on about Augustine's life, because he went on and on and on about it, too. The sheer volume of his output is intimidating.

Yet! And this is very important. Yet, when this horrifying heresy was kicking around, Augustine joined it for 9 years. Manichaean.

At one point, the God of Light sends a representative to battle with the attacking powers of Darkness, which include the Demon of Greed. The original man is armed with five different shields of light, which he loses to the forces of darkness in the ensuing battle. A call is then issued from the world of Light to the Original Man ("call" thus becomes a Manichaean deity), and an answer ("answer" becoming another Manichaean deity) returns from the Original Man to the world of Light. The myth continues with many details of how light is captured into the world of matter, and eventually liberated by entrapping some great demons and causing them to become sexually aroused by "Twelve Virgins of Light", and expelling, against their will, the light from within their bodies. The light, though, is again entrapped in the world of darkness and matter, and the myth continues, eventually arriving to the creation of living beings in the material world, Adam and Eve, and Jesus appearing at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. From Wikipedia.

Wow. Personally, I am not turned on by that at all. It took a few years, but eventually a Bishop named Fausto slipped up somehow and couldn't answer some of Augustine's questions, and that was the end of that.

Thankfully, Augustine got involved, was Baptized by St. Ambrose, and then jumped directly into the fray by writing all these things against Donatists and Manichaeans.

Am I the only one noticing that these heresies don't seem to be gone even today? It's not hard to find people who say Jesus was a good man, a great man, but not God. That is Arianism. Then there are the modern Manichaeans with the Peoples Temple, and the mass suicides. UFO religion is rather Manichaean, I think. And the Donatists. Well, they said, if you buckled under during the persecution, then you can't be a priest anymore, or even come to church. Enough said.

Now, I'm going to quote from a Christmas Sermon by St. Augustine, because it is beautiful.

My brethren, what miracles! What prodigies!
The laws of nature are changed in the case of man.
God is born.
A virgin becomes pregnant with man.
The Word of God marries the woman
who knows no man. She is now at the same
time both mother and virgin. She becomes
a mother, yet she remains a virgin.
The virgin bears a son, yet she does
not know man;
she remains untouched,
yet she is not barren.

St. Jerome

When people think of St. Jerome they think of the Vulgate Bible, that monumental task done by Eusebius Hieronymus Sophronius, a.k.a., St. Jerome. He was a prolific translator of Sacred Texts, as this link will show. Look at the list of letters alone.

Now, according to my Doctors of the Church guru, John F. Fink, one pope upon seeing the portrait to the left, commented "You do well to carry that stone, for without it the church would never have canonized you." He was outspoken, quick to take offense, also quick to get over it. In short, he was irascible. He even made accusations against St. Augustine! He attacked those who disagreed with him, and was involved in almost every controversial issue in the church of his time.

Again and again in this series I have learned how God acts in even the most difficult and least likable people. In light of my recent conversion to Roman Catholicism, it gives me hope even when dealing with the sometimes less than savory hierarchy of the RCC. It also shows how even in our lives God acts beyond our limited ability by the action of grace.

Born around 342 in Stridon in Dalmatia. He was educated in Rome, and because his native tongue was Illyrian, he learned both Greek and Latin. Raised in a pious home, Jermoe lost some of his "piety" in the fleshy city of Rome. However, he often went to the catacombs where he enjoyed translating inscriptions on the walls.

He made some friends and did a lot of travel in their company. However, he had a religious awakening and some time later had a dream where Christ asked him who he was, and he replied he was a Christian. Christ said "Thou liest. Thou art a Ciceronian." It is now that Jermoe begins the true work of his life.

He moved to Chalcis and lived as a hermit for four years. During that time he studied Hebrew. While there he wrote a biography of St. Paul, the first hermit. He also battled temptations against purity. The following quote is from Jerome's letter to St. Eustochium

I many times imagined myself witnessing the dancing of the Roman maidens as if I had been in the midst of them. In my cold body and in my parched-up flesh, which seemed dead before its death, passion was still able to live. Alone with this enemy, I threw myself in spirit at the feet of Jesus, watering them with my tears, and I tamed my flesh by fasting whole weeks.

In 380 he was ordained priest, on the condition that he "wouldn't have to serve in any church." Then he moved to Constantinople and studied scripture with St. Gregory Nazianzen. Although he never truly mastered it, Jerome had studied Hebrew, so a groundwork was prepared for the biggest translation project up that point in the history of the Christian Church. Studying the scriptures with Gregory only further prepared him for the task.

In 382 Jerome went to Rome, where he became the secretary to Pope Damasus, and according to guru Fink, "Jerome was asked by the pope to prepare a revised text, based on the original Greek of the Latin new Testament. He also revised the Latin psalter."

He earned a reputation for learning and holiness, And because our boy Jerome can't help himself earned some bitter enemies. He wrote diatribes against worldly women, and clergy who were far too concerned with their clothing. Needless to say people started being nasty to him.

Jerome ended his life as a hermit in Bethlehem. Between 390 and 410 he finished his complete translation of the Bible into Latin. Yes, it was a flawed translation, but up to that point no one had bothered to do it. Jerome did it. He wrote and wrote and wrote, doing his best to render to God the service that one Eusebius Hieronymus Sophronius could give.

A small sampling of his work.

374. Life of Paulus, the first hermit.
374–79. Jerome copies Gospel of the Hebrews and other books.
379. Dialogue against the Luciferians
381. Translation of Eusebius’ Chronicle.
381. Translation of Origen’s Homilies on Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
383. Translation of Psalms from LXX. and of New Testament.
383. Book against Helvidius (Perpetual Virginity of B.M.V.)
385–87. Translation of Origen on Canticles.
386–90. Translation of LXX. into Latin.
387. Revision of version of New Testament.
388. Commentary on Ecclesiastes. Galatians, Ephesians, Titus, Philemon. And the Book of Hebrew Names. Questions on Genesis, Translation of Didymus on the Holy Spirit.
389. Translation of Origen on St. Luke.
390. Lives of Malchus and Hilarion, hermits.
391. Vulgate version of Old Testament begun.

Jerome, difficult man that he was, truly instructed the entire church.

"O Doctor right excellent, O light of Holy Church, O blessed Jerome, lover of the divine law, entreat for us the Son of God."

St. Ambrose of MIlan

Today we begin to look at the first of the four Latin Doctors. Ambrose was born in Trier, Gaul, now Germany, around the year 340. After the death of his father, his mother took the children to Rome where Ambrose received an excellent education. In 370 at the age of 30, Valentinian I made him governor of Liguria and Aemilia.

When the people of Milan proclaimed him Bishop, he was still a catechumen. How did something like that happen? That a catechumen should be elected bishop? Simple, the Arian bishop of Milan died, and what happened next is a scene straight out of the history books. Half the people wanted an Arian replacement for bishop, the other half wanted a Catholic replacement. As we have learned about those times, violence often went hand in hand with episcopal elections.

Ambrose did not want violence breaking out in the Milan where he was governor, so he went to the Cathedral to plead with the crowds to make a peaceful choice. While he was speaking someone called out "Ambrose for bishop." It must have struck a chord, because everyone else started chanting "Ambrose for Bishop."

When I was in a history class in college, covering this very incident, the professor said that Ambrose presented all the various reasons why he could not become bishop. First, he wasn't baptized yet. Second, he was sinful. And third... the professor then ran out of the room to illustrate what Ambrose did. Now the saga ends with his baptism and then consecration as bishop one week later.

If Ambrose thought he wasn't ready for episcopal office, he set about remedying the situation at once. He started studying the scriptures, reading Origen and Basil, as well as other Church Fathers. Like John Chrysostom, once Ambrose was in office he sold his goods and began to live a life of simplicity, vigils, fasting and prayer. His concern for the poor and for the church itself became legendary. His sermons were largely pastoral, and not overly argumentative.

He wrote a book called Concerning Virginity which he wrote for his sister Marcellina. It seems there were many consecrated virgins influenced by Ambrose. In fact, it has come down to us that mother tried to prevent their daughters from hearing Ambrose preach.

As always, the Arians were a problem and Ambrose becamse a champion of Orthodoxy. It was a catch phrase for Arians when discussing Christ to say "there was a time when he was not." Let's be very clear that the heresy is still alive and well today. The statement "Jesus was a great man, a great teacher, but he was not the Son of God," is Arianism pure and simple.

It's time to skip some parts of the biography so there's plenty of room left for Ambrose's Hymns.

In 390 there was a terrible massacre in Thessalonica. In retaliation ... Theodosius's troops killed seven thousand people. Ambrose wrote a severe letter to Theodosius, telling him that "what was done at Thessalonica is unparalleled in the memory of man," and urging him to penance. Theodosius did the public penance.

That is typical of Ambrose, in standing up for the right thing, and for acting for the right without fear of the Emperor to whom he wrote.

O Splendor of God's Glory

O splendor of God's glory bright,
O Thou that bringest light from light,
O Light of Light, light's Living Spring,
O Day, all days illumining.

O Thou true Sun, on us Thy glance
let fall in royal radiance,
the Spirit's sanctifying beam
upon our earthly senses stream.

The Father too our prayers implore,
Father of glory evermore,
the Father of all grace and might,
to banish sin from our delight:

Sunday

I have to remind myself that from time to time people other than me do read this blog. It makes me want to put a lot more work, and structural elements into each blog entry. In a way, it is a betrayal of the avowed purpose of this blog -- a spiritual journal. On the other hand, it is time for something new. God is reported many times as saying "Behold, I will do a new thing." Well, I take that to mean that things change, situations change, and people change.

God knows that I have changed. In the past year I have undergone significant change. Not the least of which is my giving up cigarettes. I want a cigarette, every day, several times. My faith has grown to where I face the spiritual equivalent of giving up cigarettes without too much fear and trembling. Change has come in my life, both physical, and spiritual. It stands to reason that my blogging life needs to change as well.

So what does that mean? That each of the remaining entries on the Doctors of the Church will be more carefully thought out, and more carefully written. It's as if the subject matter itself is calling out my best efforts. And that's a challenge! To every day bring out my best efforts.

Since St. Isidore is the patron of the Internet, I ask him to carry from me to any readers there may be out there, a promise that I will do my best each day in my entries. If my best is not available, then I will do it anyway. Amen.

No Particular Doctor Day

It is Saturday and I need a reflection break from the list of venerable doctors. They tend to wear my mind down.

Were someone to travel back to the year 344, would they recognize the church?

Sure, there might be buildings identifiable as a churches, but would we recognize the liturgy? And suppose we attended a Church Council, and saw a flock of bishops break in carrying clubs. Or, try this. You want to go to church, and you are a Catholic, after finding a church you go in only to discover that you are in an Arian church. So, the next time to go to church you find a Catholic one, but at the door someone stops you and says "I saw you coming out of the heretics church. You can't come in."

Could you talk yourself out of the situation? If you were a person who cared very little for "intellectual" discussions in your religion, you might not have your own opinion. Just like now, people create an opinion based upon the teaching of a person, or a book. They listened to this guy say Jesus was not really God. And this fellow say, Jesus is really God. Very confusing business for your basic shoemaker.

There was 'the church' before the Edict of Milan made it 'the Church' of the empire. They had existed in hiding for nearly three-hundred and fifty years. The Apostles had been dead a couple of decades over two-hundred years, by the Fourth Century.

We do know that letters did circulate around the churches of the persecutions. Those writings that have come down to us make up the church in persecution. That really means as Jesus friends died, the church was already in persecution, where it would remain, off-and-on, for the next two and a half centuries!

So what can we hope to gain from the tumultuous Fourth Century?

The person of Jesus. Jesus himself. Full God, Full Man.

When Christianity became the Church of the Roman Empire, everyone came out of hiding, and most of them had their own ideas about who Jesus was. Fully human, and fully divine. It can be said about only one person in all of time.

The technical language of the theology of the Fourth Century is Greek. The definitions are tedious. If you've followed the discussion on heresy then you already know how many different views there were on Jesus' human/divine issue. what it seems to me was the bottom line of the whole argument was, again, the person of Jesus himself.

He came down to us, so that we may go up to him. Had he not come, fully human and fully divine, then how can we possibly go up to him? If Jesus was only human with zero divine content, then there is not ascent for sinful humanity. The scope of all this is mind boggling! The idea of God desiring us as much as we desire a lover, would never have come to mean anything had Jesus been only a human being. That's the miracle of the incarnation -- our human flesh was not too icky for God!

The Doctors we have covered so far in this series are due our admiration and thanks.

St. John Chrysostom

John F. Fink and his wonderful book The Doctors of the Church, has provided me with biographies and source material for my entires. In essence it is my textbook on the Doctors.

Although I have not read deeply about the life of John Chrysostom, I am familiar with his liturgical contribution, i.e., the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, that is still used Sunday to Sunday in the Orthodox world. Yet, I knew very little of his life. And, it's in his life that I find the most inspiration.

Had I not begun this series on the Doctors of the Church, I wouldn't have learned anything about these amazing, and brave men who stood up for Christ when it really counted the most. All six of the preceding Doctors were actively involved with dealing with Heresy. They went into exile for their efforts, except St. Ephrem, who went because his city was being given by the Romans to the Persians. John went into exile for entirely different reasons, as we shall see.

We have seven hundred surviving sermons by St. John Chrysostom, [scroll down to his name] and they are the main reason he was declared a Doctor of the Church. However, it is in his biography that I find the most interesting things. For instance, when it was time to select a new Patriarch for Constantinople, several people wanted John. John did not want the job, and the people of Antioch, his home town, did not want him to go either.

One day the imperial legate invited John to a shrine outside the city walls. Once he was in the coach, it took off for Constantinople. Yes, he had been kidnapped. But he took it as a sign of God's will, and he was consecrated Patriarch by a Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria.

As Patriarch he started some badly needed reform. Mr. Fink says,

He cut down expenses for the archbishop's office and living as simply as he did when he was a monk or a priest. he sold the rich furnishings in the palace and used the proceeds to build a hospital for the poor.

Interesting, don't you think? Okay, that's all well and good, but then he started criticizing the rich women in Constantinople. When Empress Eudoxia heard about it, she wasn't happy. There is disagreement whether or not he called her a Jezebel, either way, she believed he had. She wanted to get rid of him.

It turns out that Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria was only too happy to help her in that goal. He came from Egypt with several of his Bishops, and the gathered even more in a house in Chalcedon, across the Bosporus from Constantinople, and declared John deposed for Treason. The treason? For calling the Empress Eudoxia a Jezebel.

Off John goes into exile. The an earthquake strikes the city and Eudoxia freaks out and insists that John be brought back. He wasn't back two months before she was tired of him again, and again, turned to Archbishop Theophilus of Alexandria to help her. He again managed to get John ordered out of town. But

John refused to abandon his flock. On Holy Saturday of 404 imperial soldiers broke into the cathedral and attacked thoe being baptized. John was rescued by his people. . . . Hoping to keep peace, he secretly surrendered himself [after Pentecost] and was conducted by imperial troops to Nicea. When the people learned about it, a riot broke out and, in the midst of a bloody battle, the cathedral was burned to the ground.

I have quoted at length to make John's situation as clear as possible.

There apparently has been a lot of discussion about whether or not John as a rabid anti-Semite. I don't know enough about the argument to weigh in on either side. I will say that if I have learned anything in this study, it is that God acts through flawed human beings.

St. Basil the Great

Today's Doctor is St. Basil the Great, who in his own lifetime was called "the Great." He was an overachiever, par excellence: a monastic rule which is still lived by Orthodox monks and nuns to this day; he preached sermons twice a day, of which nine were on the creation of the world, nine on the Psalms, and twenty-four others on pretty much everything else. There's more. He wrote a book called On the Holy Spirit, three books against a heritic named Enomius; compiled the works of Origen with his friend St. Gregory Nazianzen. On top of that he wrote 366 letters. It's any wonder they made him a Doctor of the Church. Whew!

Basil was born in the year 329. I am beginning to wonder if we will ever get out of the Fourth Century. Basil is the fifth Doctor in this series born during the Fourth Century, and the next six are, too! It must have been a very confusing time to be a Christian, in the 300s. Confusing and dangerous.

The only thing I can think to do for Basil is give some quotes, and let him speak for himself. First a selection from this page.

Nail down our flesh with fear of Thee, and let not our hearts be inclined to words or thoughts of evil, but pierce our souls with Thy love, that ever contemplating Thee, being enlightened by Thee, and discerning Thee, the unapproachable and everlasting Light, we may unceasingly render confession and gratitude to Thee: The eternal Father, with Thine Only-Begotten Son, and with Thine All-Holy, Gracious, and Life-Giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. A Prayer of Basil

Now this one from a letter to his brother Gregory. It's a paragraph that challenges each of us.

This, too, is a very important point to attend to, knowledge how to converse; to interrogate without over-earnestness; to answer without desire of display; not to interrupt a profitable speaker, or to desire ambitiously to put in a word of one’s own; to be measured in speaking and hearing; not to be ashamed of receiving, or to be grudging in giving information, nor to pass another’s knowledge for one’s own . . . One should reflect first what one is going to say, and then give it utterance: be courteous when addressed; amiable in social intercourse; not aiming to be pleasant by facetiousness, but cultivating gentleness in kind admonitions. Harshness is ever to be put aside, even in censuring

St, Cyril of Jerusalem

I found out only this morning that the Pope was covering the Early Fathers of the Church in his Wednesday talks. However, not all the Early Fathers are Doctors.

In yesterday's post on St. Hilary, I was in error when I said the either earliest doctors were involved with battling heresy, specifically Arian heresy. It was only six. A minor mistake, but a mistake none the less.

On to Cyril who was born to wealthy Christian parents in about 315. At that time the city we know as Jerusalem was known as Aelia Capitolina. The article on Cyril at the Catholic Encyclopedia, which I have linked to his name, above, says he was a semi-Arian. Other sources do not agree with that assessment, as we shall see.

Cyril became Bishop of Jerusalem around the time that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Church of the Ascension, were being built in Jerusalem. Those are churches built by St. Helena. As Bishop of Jerusalem he spent time encouraging others to make pilgrimage to the Holy Land. That proved to be a source of trouble between him and Bishop of Caesarea, Acacius.

At that time the Jerusalem church was not considered the most important church in the area. That honor was held by the Church in Caesarea. Acacius, Bishop of Caesarea, was an Arian. Cyril was orthodox. Caesarea was a thriving town with a good religious tourist trade (of the time), and Jerusalem was essentially a backwater. So when Cyril starts touting Jerusalem as a place of pilgrimage, it understandably set the Arian Bishop Acacius' teeth on edge.

And wherever there were Arians and orthodox, there ended up being a Church Council of some sort. In 357 Acacius called a council Arian Bishops to force Cyril to defend himself against charges of insubordination, according to John Fink. Cyril didn't bother to attend, so the Arian Bishops condemned him, and ran him out of Jerusalem and into exile.

Needless to say, this went on back and forth for some times. He was Bishop for thirty-five years, and in exile for sixteen of those years. Jerome accused Cyril of being a Semi-Arian because at the very council where Cyril hoped to clear his name, it was made up only of Arians and Semi-Arians. He sat with the Semi-Arian Bishops because they were nice to him. St. Jerome saw it, and decided that meant Cyril was an Arian. God save us from judgmental people, eh?

Cyril became a Doctor of the Church, chiefly for his Catecheses Lectures, eighteen in all, for the Lenten season as preparation for Baptism. And his five Mystagogic Lectures, for after Baptism. Not only do these discourses give us valuable insight into the early days of Christian worship and ritual, they also are of ravishing beauty.

"If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed." The mustard seed is small in size but it holds and explosive force; although it is sown in a small hole, it produces great branches, and when it is grown birds can nest there. In the same way faith produces great effects in the soul instantaneously. Enlightened by faith, the soul pictures God and sees him as clearly as any soul can. It circles the earth; even before the end of this world it sees the judgment and the conferring of promised rewards.

You might have to read that twice to get the Wow effect out of it. After reading it again, try this on, as someone sitting during the long season of Lent. In those days the catechumen knew nothing of what the faith was all about. And, as always, there were some, like us, who came to the church for less than salutary reasons. This quote is from the marvelous Crossroads Initiative website.

Possibly too thou art come on another pretext. It is possible that a man is wishing to pay court to a woman, and came hither on that account. The remark applies in like manner to women also in their turn. A slave also perhaps wishes to please his master, and a friend his friend. I accept this bait for the hook, and welcome thee, though thou camest with an evil purpose, yet as one to be saved by a good hope. Perhaps thou knewest not whither thou wert coming, nor in what kind of net thou art taken. Thou art come within the Church's nets: be taken alive, flee not: for Jesus is angling for thee, not in order to kill, but by killing to make alive: for thou must die and rise again. For thou hast heard the Apostle say, Dead indeed unto sin, but living unto righteousness. Die to thy sins, and live to righteousness, live from this very day.

Do you start to see why these sermons were remembered?

St. Hilary of Poitiers

While Athanasius was battling Arians in the eastern empire, Hilary battled them in the western empire. Hilary was born in what is now France around the year 315. He was born to pagan parents and did not himself become a Christian until his early thirties.

The emperor was doing his best to crush Athanasius, and of course most of the bishops were falling in line with what the emperor wanted. Constantius would be remembered as the main defender of Arianism. With so much at stake, it's best to just sit down and shut up, right? Not Hilary, he wrote The First Book to Constantius, urging him to bring peace back to the church by coming back to orthodoxy. By all reports Hilary was a humble and holy man. Obviously he was not a frightened man or would never have written the emperor in so bold a fashion. Rather brings to mind the "I can do all things through Christ," of St. Paul. The fact that he did do it, did take that risk, is evidence not just of Hilary's bravery, but of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

We might ask ourselves when was the last time we took a dangerous stand on anything? Maybe faith was stronger back then because the risks were so much higher.

There was another council in 356 at Beziers. The Arian position was defended so strongly that none of the bishops dared oppose it. Our Hilary did, and condemned Arianism in no uncertain terms. For his efforts he was exiled. It was while in exile that Hilary wrote De Trinitate.

Today we all have heard and thought about the concept of the Trinity from our very earliest days. In those days, it was still an open question for much of the church. Not only was it an open question, the debate was dangerous to get involved with, and could turn violent. In fact, here is a quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia, that is most telling.

Then he took part in the violent discussions which took place between the Semi-Arians, who inclined toward reconciliation with the Catholics, and the Anomoeans, who formed as it were the extreme left of Arianism.

It could just be me, but the first part of that quote is a bit ominous. Even though the pagan persecutions were over, the way in which you held your faith became an instrument with which to beat you. That means that Hilary, Athanasius, Ephrem, and the next five Doctors in this series of posts, held that

We believe that the word became flesh and that we receive his flesh in the Lord's Supper. How then can we fail to believe that he really dwells within us? When he became man, he actually clothed himself in our flesh, uniting it to himself forever. In the sacrament of his body he actually gives us his own flesh, which he has united to his divinity. This is why we are all one, because the Father is in Christ, and Christ is in us. He is in us through his flesh and we are in him. With him we form a unity which is God.

Someone might be tempted to say, yeah, so everyone knows that? Ah, but when St. Hilary said it, there were parts of the empire where saying that could get you a solid beating.

As Third Millennium Christians we have lost the reality of the high risk of those early days of the "legal" church. After all, a very long time has passed since then. Still, something of that reality needs to be reclaimed in every generation. Not through violence, but through identification with people who are suffering the same treatment. It doesn't really matter if it's political or religious, what matters is that someone else does violence against another person.

Since this is my spiritual journal, of sorts, then I should add that I'm finding this examination of these early Doctors to be compelling. These are aspects of the faith that I/we take for granted. When we say the Nicene Creed we have forgotten how much blood, sweat, and tears went into the writing. People were driven from their homes, lives essentially ruined. Somehow it makes the Incarnation seem much more vibrant, and real, and believed in to the death. Not just a dreary fairy tale like doctrine. No, it becomes an event in history.

If one thing is learned from all this, it must be that God will act even in the most imperfect of situations, and of people. We can't blame any of these men if they did get in the middle of debates and throw fists with everyone else. What gives me pause to think about is where I would have stood. Would I have dared to speak out? Or would I have gone along with the majority?

That's a scary question.

St. Ephrem of Syria. Doctor of the Church

Born in 306, in Nisibis Mesopotamia. He was among some of the first Christians to make sacred songs part of public worship. It was in the sacred songs that he fought the heresies of the day. Ephrem took popular tunes and sang them with verses expressing orthodoxy. In other words, he was a lyricist. Like any writer of lyrics, he had to express something that is true, in so poetic of a way, that the hearer is struck by beauty and truth at once.

St. Ambrose, himself a songwriter, wasn't born until 340. Ephrem would have been 34 years old when Ambrose was born. It's believable that Ambrose may have heard a tune or two of Ephrem's. Whether he did or not, they were both of the same cloth.

Okay so diving into Ephrem is a joy for me, because I love this man. He is on the same wavelength. In all my life there has only been one person, other than Christ, who I really felt saw things like me, and that was Ephrem.

Ephrem wasn't a hard person to be around. There aren't reports of him carrying baseball bats, or anything. His city was put under siege by the Persians a couple of time, but in the end Rome gave the city to the Persians as part of a settlement. At that time Ephrem went into exile. Athanasius, you'll remember, went five times and never voluntarily.

He was a humble man. A Bishop eventually forced him to be ordained deacon, because Ephrem was sure that he was not worthy to become a priest. He was a songwriter, no doubt a musician as well.

He is diffused through the air,
And with thy breath enters into thy midst.
He is mingled with the light,
And enters, when thou seest, into thy eyes.
He is mingled with thy spirit,
And examines thee from within, as to what thou art.
In thy soul He dwells,
And nothing which is in thy heart is hid from Him.
As the mind precedes the body in every place,
So He examines thy soul before thou dost examine it.
And as the thought greatly precedes the deed,
So His thought knows beforehand what thou wilt plan.

The preceding is vision involving all creation as Eucharist. It is from one of my favorite of his hymns, Against Bar-Daisan. You might ask, "how can something so pretty have come from a hymn against something?" Easy, Bar-Daisan was wrong, but Ephrem didn't attack him with his words. The following quote from here, an excellent source for Eastern Church sources.

It is noticeable too that the author devotes much more space to the exposition of the right belief than to the examination of the errors of his opponent. This is quite in Ephrem's manner; so the very fact that we learn so little about Bardaisan is some evidence that the ascription of the homily to Ephrem is not incorrect.

Ephrem didn't attack Bar-Daisan, he didn't attack Bar-Daisan's ideas. He simply stated 'right belief,' and that is all the refutation he gives.

Tomorrow, "The Pearl."

Arian and Other Heretics

Back in the third and fourth centuries, things were complicated. Many of the earliest Doctors were completely taken up with battling these various heresies, in this or that Ecumenical Council.

Arianism

Such is the genuine doctrine of Arius. Using Greek terms, it denies that the Son is of one essence, nature, or substance with God; He is not consubstantial (homoousios) with the Father, and therefore not like Him, or equal in dignity, or co-eternal, or within the real sphere of Deity.

Marcianism

Heretical sect founded in A.D. 144 at Rome by Marcion and continuing in the West for 300 years, but in the East some centuries longer, especially outside the Byzantine Empire. They rejected the writings of the Old Testament and taught that Christ was not the Son of the God of the Jews, but the Son of the good God, who was different from the God of the Ancient Covenant. They anticipated the more consistent dualism of Manichaeism and were finally absorbed by it. As they arose in the very infancy of Christianity and adopted from the beginning a strong ecclesiastical organization, parallel to that of the Catholic Church, they were perhaps the most dangerous foe Christianity has ever known.

The two quoted sections are found on the linked pages to the New Advent website. I quoted them in full to show the divisions in the early church. Because I do not want to digress into the details of heresies, from this point on when a Doctor has battled heresy, the name of the heresy and a link will be all.

I have to say that the two heresies above are scary enough on their own.

St. Athanasius

I have to start today's post by raising my heart in thanksgiving to God for the voice that came with Beverly Sills. She died last night. May she rest in peace. Goodbye, Bubbles.
When that great master of English music, Henry Purcell died, his friend and fellow composer John Blow set to music an Ode written by the famous poet, John Dryden. In the poem itself he writes that "the matchless, matchless man," rose up through the angel ranks, teaching the angelic choirs to sing. With Beverly Sills now with them all, I can think of nothing greater than to know she has been here, I heard her sing, and now she sings with Blow, Purcell, Dryden, Bach, Handel, all of them in the presence of God.

St. Athanasius. If you look at the wiki article it talks about how he may have used some thug like tactics in his dealing with theological opponents. It is good for us to remember that it was a dangerous time to have any theological opinion, and often a disagreement could turn violent. As this is the beginning of the series it's a good time to say that the Doctors of the Church were not super humans. They were not sinless, nor were they anything other than people who through the grace of God -- who uses whom he will -- contributed a body of knowledge, or writing, that changed the way we think of ourselves as Christians.

Human and sin should go together in any discussion. Therefore, I will not talk about the personal foibles of the 33 Doctors, just what they contributed, which, is all that really matters in the final analysis. What did they teach us?

Athanasius was absolutely certain that Christ had been born in the flesh. The early church was a hotbed of heresy because, in my humble opinion, a church under persecution better play their cards close to the chest. So, once the persecution was over they could more safely come out into the open, only to discover that those people in that town believed Christ had come not in reality but like a hologram. "Nah, he only seemed to be God. God wouldn't really come to our nasty flesh."

Okay, today if someone said that to me, I would defend Christ, by stating that was not the case. The difference is that I would have the advantage of seventeen-hundred years of Christine doctrine behind me. Athanasius did not have that advantage.
Athanasius had to deal with the Arian controversies face to face. Also, both the Orthodox and the Arian side were heavily political, reaching all the way to the imperial palace.

Quote from On the Incarnation.

The Word of God, incorporeal, incorruptible, and immaterial entered our world. . . . Out of his loving kindness for us he came to us, and we see this in the way he revealed himself openly to us. . . . He therefore took to himself a body, no different from out own, for he did not wish to simply be in a body, or only to be seen. . . . If he had wanted simply to be seen, he could indeed have taken another, and nobler, body. Instead, he took our body in its reality. . . . Within the Virgin he built himself a temple, that is, a body; he made it his own instrument in which to dwell and to reveal himself. In this way he received from mankind a body like our own.

All the quotes, and much of what I have learned about the Doctors comes from The Doctors of the Church. John F. Fink. Alba House.

Doctors 101

For basic information the best place to start is at this article in the Catholic Encyclopedia at newadvent.com.

Wiki pages offer this article, which is good enough, and has a chronological list. Here is the alphabetical list.

So we know that doctors of the church are important for their teaching. But the title Doctor of the Church is given by the Church, so there is also a process and a political aspect to the selection of Doctors. Still, if we believe, and I do, that God acts even in the most imperfect of people and institutions, then we must believe that these Doctors have something to teach us.

I can't really account for this interest in the Doctors, except as it connected directly from St. Therese. Getting interested in her came as a result of her becoming a Doctor. It doesn't matter because I'm going to keep looking forward.

Tomorrow, St. Athanasius.