Remigius of Rheims, Bishop, Apostle of the Franks, 1 October 530

[ Clotilda, Queen of the Franks, 

3 June 545 ]

A 1987 motion picture, The Big Easy (a nickname for the city of New Orleans), and a 1996 television series of the same name based on it, have as the male lead a Cajun police detective named Remy McSwaine. In the first episode of the series (I am not sure of the film) we are informed that "Remy" is short for "Remington." I fear that this shows that the scriptwriters have not troubled to research Cajun culture. Remi is one of the three great national saints of France (the others are Denis (Dionysius) of Paris and Joan of Arc, or Joan the Maid (Jeanne la Pucelle)), and it is thoroughly natural for a Cajun to be named Remi. How is that for a topical introduction?

[Note: A Cajun (rhymes with "raging") is an Acadian. In 1755, the British, having taken Eastern Canada from the French in a war, expelled the French settlers from the maritime region called Acadia because they were expected to side with France in the next Anglo-French war. Many of them settled in southern Louisiana, where their descendants remain an identifiable group, a majority in many areas, with its own language, music, cuisine, and culture. They have been immortalized for American schoolchildren in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "Evangeline: a tale of Acadia." This is the one that begins,

This is the forest primeval; the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic,

stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

It is the standard example for critics who maintain that the meter of Virgil's Aeneid is not suited to English verse. Present-day Cajuns, by repute at least, are a somewhat less sedate lot than Longfellow's heroes.]

Remi (Latin Remigius) was born about 438 and became bishop of Rheims about 460, at the remarkably young age of 22. (Both he and the city were named for his tribe, the Remi.) In his time, the Roman Empire and the Christian church were jointly faced with a serious practical problem -- the barbarian invasions. A series of droughts in central Asia had driven its inhabitants out in all directions in search of more livable territory. This brought the Goths, for example, across the Danube in the early 300's. Now the Emperor Constantine had died in 337, and during his lifetime the Church had debated the question of whether the Logos, the Word who was made flesh for our salvation in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, was (as Arius taught) the first and greatest of the beings created by God, but nevertheless not eternal, and not God; or was (as Athanasius taught) fully God, co-eternal and co-equal with the Father. At the Council of Nicea in 325, the Athanasian position had been endorsed by an overwhelming majority of the bishops assembled from throughout the Christian world. But the Arians refused to accept the decision, and there were attempts to re-negotiate and find a compromise that would make everyone happy. Then Constantine died, and his Empire was divided among his sons, with Constantius Emperor of the East, and eventually of the whole Empire. And Constantius was an Arian, and made a serious attempt to stamp out the Athanasian position by banishing its leaders and pressuring churches into electing or accepting Arian bishops. During his reign, missionaries, led by one Bishop Ulfilas, were sent to convert the Goths. And naturally, Ulfilas was an Arian. He preached with great vigor and eloquence among the Goths, and translated the Bible into their language (omitting, we are told, the wars of the Hebrews, on the grounds that the Goths were quite warlike enough without further encouragement). In fact, the portions of his translation that have survived are the only material we have in the Gothic language, and as such are highly valued by students of the history of languages. So the Goths became Arian Christians, and so did the Vandals. And these two highly warlike peoples were most of the time either making war on the settled peoples of the Empire or hiring out as mercenaries to defend the borders of the Empire from the next wave of invaders. You may remember that Ambrose, bishop of Milan (died 397, remembered 7 December), was commanded by the Empress Mother to hand over a church for the use of her soldiers, who were Goths and Arians, and that Ambrose refused, and filled the church with members of his congregation, who sang hymns composed by Ambrose for the occasion, and the soldiers did not attack. You may also remember that when Augustine lay on his deathbed in his town of Hippo in North Africa (near Carthage or modern Tunis), the city was under attack by Vandal troops, who had come into Africa out of Spain, and who captured and vandalized (that is where we get the term) the cities of North Africa, and Sicily and Sardinia and Corsica (which they made into bases for piracy) and the southern part of Italy. Long after Arianism had died out elsewhere, it was the religion of the Goths and Vandals and related peoples, and being an Arian was the mark of a good Army man.

Now a new people appeared on the scene, a pagan warrior tribe called the Franks. In the late 400's, they were led by a chief called Clovis, a pagan but married to a Christian wife, Clotilda. His wife and Bishop Remi (remember him?) spoke to him about the Christian faith, but he showed no particular signs of interest until one day when he was fighting a battle against the Alemanni, and was badly outnumbered and apparently about to lose the battle. He took a vow that if he won, he would turn Christian. The tide of battle turned, and he won. Two years later, he kept his vow and was baptized by Remi at Rheims on Christmas Day, 496, together with about 3000 of his followers. (Rheims became the traditional and "proper" place for a French king to be crowned, as we learn from the story of Joan of Arc. It remained so until the French Revolution.) Now Clovis was converted to the Athanasian (or orthodox, or catholic) faith rather than the Arian, and this fact changed the religious history of Europe. The clergy he brought to his court were catholic, and when the Franks as a whole became Christians, which did not happen overnight, they became catholic Christians, meaning in this context that they were Athanasian rather than Arian, and accepted the belief that it was God himself, and not a particularly prominent angel, who came down from heaven and suffered for our salvation. During the preceding century, the Arians had had a near-monopoly on military power, and now this was no longer true. The conversion of the Franks brought about the conversion of the Visigoths, and eventually (about 300 years later) the empire of Charlemagne and the beginning of the recovery of Western Europe from the earlier collapse of government and of city life under the impact of plague, lead poisoning, currency inflation, confiscatory taxation, multiple invasions, and the assorted troubles of the Dark Ages.

As noted above, Clot(h)ilda, a Christian princess of Burgundy, married the pagan Clovis, King of the Franks, thus preparing the way for his baptism by Remi in 496, and for the conversion of the Franks. Their great-grandaughter, Bertha, married the pagan Ethelbert, King of Kent, thus preparing the way for his baptism by Augustine of Canterbury in 601, and for the eventual conversion of southeast England. Bertha and Ethelbert's daughter, Ethelburga, married the pagan Edwin, King of Northumbria, thereby preparing the way for his baptism by Paulinus in 627, and for the eventual conversion of many in the North of England.

Link: http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/home.html 

Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21, K.467 / Yeol Eum Son

El colapso de Venezuela no tiene precedentes

Ricardo Hausmann es el Director del Centro de Desarrollo de la Universidad de Harvard y profesor de economía del Harvard Kennedy School. Hausmann y su equipo hacen un comparativo histórico de la crisis económica de Venezuela con lo que ha ocurrido en la historia del mundo. Recorre la Gran Depresión de los EEUU (1929-1933),  también el declive de Rusia (1990-1994), Cuba (1989-1983), Albania (1989-1993), pasa por Georgia, Tayikistan, Azerbaiyan, Armenia, Ucrania, antiguos estados soviéticos, también fija su mirada en países devastados por guerras como Liberia (1993), Libia (2011), Ruanda (1994), Irán (1981), y mas recientemente Sudan del Sur. Y llega a conclusiones alarmantes tales como que Venezuela hoy es el pais mas endeudado del mundo, y que el colapso de Venezuela no tiene precedentes en el mundo. Mucho mas al interior del articulo. Como corolario podemos decir que este es el legado del socialismo del siglo 21, ese engendro creado en La Habana, cuyos operadores principales en Venezuela han sido Hugo Chavez y Nicolas Maduro. Esto de lo que habla Hausmann ha sido nada mas y nada menos que el saqueo mas monumental de la historia del mundo, saqueo que sigue en curso, y que para ello ahora utilizan las armas para continuarlo. La democracia es el paraguas que nos protege a todos, y para que nos siga protegiendo hay que cuidarla. Cuando se pierde miren lo que puede llegar a pasar, en lugar de la civilidad la barbarie.

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Jerome, Scholar, Translator, and Theologian, 30 September 420.

Jerome was the foremost biblical scholar of the ancient Church. His translation of the Bible, along with his commentaries and homilies on the biblical books, have made him a major intellectual force in the Western Church.

Jerome was born in about 347, and was converted and baptized during his student days in Rome. On a visit to Trier, he found himself attracted to the monastic life, which he tested in a brief but unhappy experience as a hermit in the deserts of Syria. At Antioch, he continued his studies in Hebrew and Greek. In 379, he went to Constantinople where he studied under Gregory of Nazianzus. From 382 to 384 he was secretary to Pope Damasus I, and spiritual director of many noble Roman ladies who were becoming interested in the monastic life. It was Damasus who set him the task of making a new translation of the Bible into Latin -- into the popular form of the language, hence the name of the translation: the Vulgate. After the death of Damasus, Jerome returned to the East, and estabished a monastery at Bethlehem, where he lived and worked until his death on 30 September 420.

Jerome is best known as the translator of the Bible into Latin. A previous version (now called the Old Latin) existed, but Jerome's version far surpassed it in scholarship and in literary quality. Jerome was well versed in classical Latin (as well as Greek and Hebrew), but deliberately translated the Bible into the style of Latin that was actually spoken and written by the majority of persons in his own time. This kind of Latin is known as Vulgate Latin (meaning the Latin of the common people), and accordingly Jerome's translation is called the Vulgate.

Vulgate Latin is classical Latin in the first stages of evolving into such modern languages as Spanish, French, and Italian. It has begun the process of changing from an inflected language (in which words have various endings, or inflections, which are used to show the relation of the word to other words in the sentence) to a separate-word language like English (in which additional words, such as prepositions, are used, along with word order, to show the function of the word). Thus, in classical Latin, "He spoke to me," is DIXIT MIHI or MIHI DIXIT, but in Vulgate Latin it is DIXIT AD ME.

In the second century BC, Jewish scholars in Alexandria, Egypt, had translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. Tradition had it that this translation was the work of 70 (or 72) scholars, and accordingly the result was known as the Septuagint (often written as LXX). The LXX contains six or more books (there is some leeway here) not found in the standard Hebrew text, known as the Masoretic Text (or MT), and sometimes reads differently from the MT in particular verses. The New Testament writers, except for Matthew, when they are quoting the Old Testament, usually quote from the LXX. The differences in readings between the MT and the LXX were formerly explained by assuming that the LXX translators were sometimes not very good translators. However, very ancient Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible, recently found at Qumran and elsewhere, often agree with the LXX against the MT. Accordingly, it is now generally supposed that the LXX is a fairly accurate translation of Hebrew manuscripts available at the time, and that sometimes the manuscripts that the LXX translators worked from differed from the manuscripts that became the basis for the standardised Hebrew text that we know today.

The early Christians, most of whom knew Greek but not Hebrew, were accustomed to use the LXX as their version of the Old Testament Scriptures. (So, for that matter, did most Jews living in the Roman Empire outside of the land of Israel itself.) The Old Latin translation had been made from the Greek. But Jerome was determined to make his translation from the Hebrew, partly because he considered it to be more accurate, and partly because he wanted a text that he could use as a basis for argument with Jewish opponents, without having them object, "But that is not what the Hebrew text says."

Intending a translation from the Hebrew, he ran into a difficulty with the Psalms. They were used regularly in public and private worship, and many Christians knew them well enough to notice and resent any radical changes from the wording they had always used. So Jerome translated the Psalms from the Greek, and salved his scholarly feelings by publishing a translation of the Psalms from the Hebrew in an Appendix.

The history of the Psalms in English is in some ways similar. In 1611, the King James Version of the Bible was published, and generally accepted by English-speakers. However, the Psalms in English were already an established part of public worship in the Coverdale translation of 1536 or thereabouts. For roughly 75 years worshippers in England had been reading, saying, singing, or chanting the Psalms in the Coverdale translation (also called the Prayer Book Version). Their response to the Psalms in the King James Version was: "What is this nonsense! Take away this new-fangled modern translation, and leave me to recite the Psalms in the good old-fashioned version that I learned at the knee of my dear old silver-haired mother, the most magnificent version that the pen of man has ever written, the version that has comforted and sustained me all the days of my life." So, when you attend an Anglican funeral, and you hear the choir chanting,

The LORD is my shepherd, 

    therefore can I lack nothing.

He shall feed me in a green pasture,

    and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.

You are hearing the Coverdale Psalter. And for some of us, at least, it is a great tree, deeply rooted in the soil of English Christianity, and full of complex associations that make reading it a deeply moving experience.

(I have heard rumors that there are versions of the Psalter used in some circles, that are even more modern and trendy than the King James. Hmmph!)

Jerome was intemperate in controversy, and any correspondence with him tended to degenerate into a flame war. (His friendship with Augustine, conducted by letter, nearly ended before it began. Fortunately Augustine sized him up correctly, soothed his feelings, and was extremely tactful thereafter.) His hot temper, pride of learning, and extravagant promotion of asceticism involved him in many bitter controversies over questions of theology and of Bible interpretation. However, he was candid at times in admitting his failings, and was never ambitious for either worldly or churchly honors. He was a militant champion of orthodoxy, a tireless worker, and a scholar of rare gifts.

Link: http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/home.html 

Jurisprudencia y teología en Hans Kelsen

El propósito de este trabajo es doble: por una parte, exponer las tesis fundamentales de la teoría del Derecho y del Estado de Kelsen que sean el antecedente inmediato para los rendimientos doctrinarios sobre el paralelismo entre la Jurisprudencia y la Teología; por otra parte, presentar, de manera esquemática, las tesis fundamentales de tal paralelismo doctrinario. Para realizar este doble propósito es necesario citar en múltiples ocasiones diversos textos de Kelsen, no siempre accesibles en lengua española, con el objeto de hacer comprensibles las tesis centrales en esta materia.

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Ensayos sobre ciencia, teología y fe.

Prólogo

Este pequeño libro es una recopilación de artículos publicados en distintas revistas. Algunos se publicaron en la revista académica INVENIO de la Universidad del Centro Educativo Latinoamericano y sirvieron de introducción a varios de sus números. Otros en la Revista de la Bolsa de Comercio de Rosario. También hay algunos que recién ven la luz en este libro.  La relación entre la ciencia y la religión ha sido siempre un tema de especial interés para mí. Una discusión con mi padre, siendo todavía un adolescente, sobre una polémica entre el tribuno santafesino Lisandro de la Torre y Monseñor Gustavo Franceschi, me llevó a devorar infinidad de libros sobre temas religiosos: libros bíblicos como también libros filosóficos o científicos que tenían relación con la religión.

Me sirvieron de guía en aquellos años dos eminentes sacerdotes: el padre Enrique Nardoni, biblista, y el padre Hector Valla, teólogo salesiano. A través de los años mi posición registró algunos cambios pero no en lo fundamental. Mis juicios fueron siendo cada vez más amplios y he buscado adaptar el mensaje cristiano a los tiempos que vivimos.

Personalmente creo que la relación entre ciencia y religión es uno de los temas más profundos que debe abordar el ser humano. En algunos de los artículos leeremos sobre eminentes científicos que no tienen fe religiosa, pero de los que podemos aprender mucho. En especial me refiero al profesor Steven Weinberg, un distinguido Premio Nobel de física, que se considera no creyente, pero que frecuentemente no se puede separar de la discusión que abordamos aquí.

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LA EXPERIENCIA DE FE Y EL QUEHACER TEOLÓGICO

LA EXPERIENCIA DE FE Y EL QUEHACER TEOLÓGICO:

ENSAYO DE TEOLOGÍA FUNDAMENTAL Y PEDAGOGÍA.

Por DIEGO FERNANDO ROMERO MORALES

Trabajo de grado para optar al título de Licenciado en Teología

RESUMEN

Dentro de la teología ha existido la preocupación por su estatuto epistemológico y el modo como el teólogo realiza dicha labor. El presente trabajo busca dar un horizonte de comprensión colocando la revelación-problema como temática central de su discurso; la teología vista así requiere redefinir sus lugares propios e impropios, resaltando de modo especial, aquellos lugares de donde surge toda su reflexión (fuentes) y observando el horizonte donde se vierten (cauces) con el fin de encontrar en la comunidad de fe su nacimiento como mistagogía y posteriormente como disciplina. Lo anterior por tanto requiere un compromiso intradisciplinar que de sentido a su reflexión y un estudio interdisciplinario que avale su pensamiento y justifique su pretensión de universalidad, para comunicar la fe que le ha sido dada y que otorga idoneidad a su discurso.

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Zarzuela, El barberillo de Lavapies, completa

Zarzuela, El barberillo de Lavapies, completa

El barberillo de Lavapiés es una zarzuela en tres actos en verso, con libreto de Luis Mariano de Larra, hijo del famoso periodista Mariano José de Larra, y música del maestro Francisco Asenjo Barbieri. Se estrenó en el Teatro de la Zarzuela el 19 de diciembre de 1874, consiguiendo gran éxito de crítica y público.

Michael and All Angels, 29 September OT

On the Feast of Michael and all Angels, popularly called Michaelmas, we give thanks for the many ways in which God's loving care watches over us, both directly and indirectly, and we are reminded that the richness and variety of God's creation far exceeds our knowledge of it.

The Holy Scriptures often speak of created intelligences other than humans who worship God in heaven and act as His messengers and agents on earth. We are not told much about them, and it is not clear how much of what we are told is figurative. Jesus speaks of them as rejoicing over penitent sinners (Lk 15:10). Elsewhere, in a statement that has been variously understood (Mt 18:10), He warns against misleading a child, because their angels behold the face of God. (Acts 12:15 may refer to a related idea.)

In the Hebrew Scriptures, it is occasionally reported that someone saw a man who spoke to him with authority, and who he then realized was no mere man, but a messenger of God. Thus we have a belief in super-human rational created beings, either resembling men in appearance or taking human appearance when they are to communicate with us. They are referred to as "messengers of God," or simply as "messengers." The word for a messenger in Hebrew is MALACH, in Greek, ANGELOS, from which we get our word "angel" [Digression:ANGELION means "message, news" and EUANGELION means "good news = goodspell = gospel," from which we get our word "evangelist" used to mean a preacher of the Good News of salvation, and, more narrowly, one of the four Gospel-writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.]

By the time of Christ, Jewish popular belief included many specifics about angels, with names for many of them. There were thought to be four archangels, named Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel. An alternative tradition has seven archangels (see Tobit 12:15 and 1 Enoch 20). Sometimes each archangel is associated with one of the seven planets of the Ptolemaic system (the moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn). Michael is associated with Saturn and Uriel with the Sun. The other pairings I forget, but I believe that you will find a list in the long narrative poem called "The Golden Legend," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (I believe that a pairing is also offered in the opening chapters of the Proof of The Apostolic Preaching, by Irenaeus of Lyons, but I have not the work at hand.)

Michael (the name means "Who is like God?") is said to be the captain of the heavenly armies. He is mentioned in the Scriptures in Daniel 10:13,31; 12:1 (where he is said to be the prince of the people of Israel); in Jude 9 (where he is said to have disputed with the devil about the body of Moses); and in Revelation 12:7 (where he is said to have led the heavenly armies against those of the great dragon). He is generally pictured in full armor, carrying a lance, and with his foot on the neck of a dragon. (Pictures of the Martyr George are often similar, but only Michael has wings.)

Gabriel (the name means "God is my champion") is thought of as the special bearer of messages from God to men. He appears in Daniel 8:16; 9:21 as an explainer of some of Daniel's visions. According to the first chapter of Luke, he announced the forthcoming births of John the Baptist and of our Lord to Zachariah and the Virgin Mary respectively.

Raphael (the name means "God heals") is mentioned in the Apocrypha, in the book of Tobit, where, disguised as a man, he accompanies the young man Tobias on a quest, enables him to accomplish it, and gives him a remedy for the blindness of his aged father.

Uriel (the name means "God is my light" -- compare with "Uriah", which means "the LORD is my light") is mentioned in 4 Esdras.

It is thought by many scholars that the seven lamps of Revelation 4:5 are an image suggested by (among many other things) the idea of seven archangels.

What is the value to us of remembering the Holy Angels? Well, since they appear to excel us in both knowledge and power, they remind us that, even among created things, we humans are not the top of the heap. Since it is the common belief that demons are angels who have chosen to disobey God and to be His enemies rather than His willing servants, they remind us that the higher we are the lower we can fall. The greater our natural gifts and talents, the greater the damage if we turn them to bad ends. The more we have been given, the more will be expected of us. And, in the picture of God sending His angels to help and defend us, we are reminded that apparently God, instead of doing good things directly, often prefers to do them through His willing servants, enabling those who have accepted His love to show their love for one another.

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Angels

The major post-New-Testament source for Christian ideas about angels is a writer (probably a fifth-century Syrian monk) who signed himself "Dionysius the Areopagite." His writings were taken to be those of a convert of the Apostle Paul, mentioned in Acts 17:34. Accordingly, when he wrote on angels (or any other theological subject), he was assumed to know what he was talking about. His writings had a considerable influence on the portrayal of angels in art and in the popular imagination.

What Are The Nine Choirs?

The Apostle Paul writes:

[Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father,] far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion,.... (Eph 1:21)

For by him [the Son] were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him. (Col 1:16)

I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels,nor principalities, nor powers... shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:38f)

For we contend not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against evil spirits in the heights. (Eph 6:12)

...that through the churh the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. (Eph 3:10)

And you are complete in him, who is the head of all principality and power (Col 2:10)

And having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. (Col 2:15)

Early commentators tended to take "principalities, powers" etc. as the names of various kinds of angelic beings. Since demons are considered to be fallen or rebelious angels, the quotations from Ephesians 6:12 and Colossians 2:15 are no problem.

Dionysius states that there are nine orders (or choirs) of angels, three triads of three each, in order from highest to lowest as shown in the following table.

The lowest order, called simply angels, are God's messengers and envoys to (and guardians of) the human race. The highest order, the seraphim, devote themselves to contemplating God, beholding Him face to face, and loving and praising Him. Each order helps to reveal and declare God's glory to the order below.

Pope Gregory I (see 12 March 604), in his Homilies on The Gospel, lists the same nine choirs, but with a different ranking. Dante (see 15 Sep 1321) in the Convivio gives still a third ranking, but affirms the ranking of Dionysius in the Comedy, canto 28 (I am borrowing heavily from the Sayers-Reynolds notes on this canto.) Aquinas discusses the matter in the Summa Theologia, part I, Q 108.

Dionysius         Gregory           Convivio
--------          --------          --------

Cherubim          Cherubim          Cherubim
Seraphim          Seraphim          Seraphim
   Thrones           Thrones           Powers


Virtues           Principalities    Virtues
Dominions         Dominions         Principalities
   Powers            Powers            Dominions


Angels            Angels            Angels
Principalities    Virtues           Thrones

Archangels        Archangels        Archangels

Note that the term "angels" can refer either to all nine orders, or only to the lowest order, just as the term "soldier" can refer to anyone in the army, or only to the enlisted men (as opposed to the officers). For a little more information, see the book The Discarded Image, by C S Lewis.

Some readers will be familiar with the hymn by J Athelstan Riley beginning:

Ye watchers and ye holy ones,           C - C D E C | E F G - - -
Bright seraphs, cherubim and thrones.   C - C D E C | E F G - - -

Cry out, dominions, princedoms, powers, c - c G G F | E F G - - -
Raise the glad strain, Alleluia.      c B A - G - | c B A - G -
 Virtues, archangels, angel choirs.      c - c G G F | E F G - - -

Alleluia.                             F E D - - - | - - C - - -
Oh, praise Him! Oh, praise Him!       F E D - C - | F E D - C -

Alleluia, Alleluia,                   c B A - G - | c B A - G -

You will note that this hymn lists the nine choirs, using the ranking of Gregory.

What is A Seraph?

Seraphim are mentioned in the Bible in Isaiah's vision of the heavenly throne-room (Is 6:1-7), where the LORD is seated between two seraphim. (In Hebrew, most masculine nouns form the plural by adding "-im".) Each has six wings, and with two he covers his face, and with two he covers his feet, and with two he flies. Later writers identify these functions with poverty, chastity, and obedience. 

Poverty, in that he veils his face, a sign of humility. Chastity, in that he covers his feet, a standard Hebrew idiom (or euphemism) for the lower body, including the crotch. Obedience, in that he flies to carry out whatever commission he receives from God. The word "seraph" comes from a root meaning "to burn", and the word is used in Nu 21:6,8; Dt 8:15; Is 14:29; 30:6; where it is translated "fiery serpent." Probably the Hebrews pictured a seraph as a kind of fiery winged serpent or reptile.

What is A Cherub?

Cherubim are first mentioned in the Bible in Gen 3:24, where Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden, and two cherubim are set at the gate to guard it, so that no one may enter. The Psalmist says of God:

He rode upon a cherub, and did fly;

he came flying on the wings of the wind. (18:10)

thou that dwellest between the cherubim (80:1)

he sitteth between the cherubim; let the earth quake (99:1)

From this we infer that they were pictured and thought of as winged creatures flanking or supporting the throne of God.

Ancient Middle Eastern art regularly shows the throne of a king or a god flanked by, or sometimes resting on, two creatures. Typically, each creature has the body of a lion or a bull (often the front quarters of a lion, with claws, and the hind quarters of a bull, with hooves, or vice versa), the head of a man, and the wings of an eagle. For a picture, see the Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., article on "Calah," vol 2, p 731. We see these creatures, not only flanking a throne, but also flanking the gate or doorway of a city or a temple. They appear to be standard figures, performing the function of honor guards or that of guard dogs.

In Ex 25f and 36f, the Israelites are to make a chest called the Ark of the Covenant, and place on the lid statues of two cherubim, with their wings arching over and meeting in the middle. Aside from the fact that they had wings, we are not told anything about their appearance. It was apparently taken for granted that the Israelites already knew what a cherub was supposed to look like. It is a reasonable guess that they looked like the guard figures already standard in Middle Eastern art, as noted above.

The Ark represented the presence of God, and presumably the Israelites thought of the cherubim as guarding or flanking or supporting an invisible throne. Thus, the Ark gave two complementary messages. On the one hand, it said, "The LORD cannot be represented by a picture or statue. He is spirit, He is invisible. He is transcendant. The whole universe cannot contain Him." On the other hand, it said, "Here is the place where the LORD chooses to reveal Himself. This is the place toward which you are to direct your homage, this is the focus of your worship."

The prophet Ezekiel records two visions (Ez 1 and 10) in which the LORD appears to him, enthroned above four figures identified as cherubs. Each is said to have four faces, one facing in each direction, the face of a man, a lion, a bull, and an eagle.

Cherubs, Griffins, and Grimm Shifts

This section is linguistic. Those who dislike being lectured about the history of words and the development of languages may skip it.

I begin by pointing out that the English sound "ch" as in "chair" is unknown in both Greek and Hebrew. Accordingly, names in the Bible containing a "ch" were originally pronounced with the sound of "ch" in the German name "Bach" (or "kh" in the Russian name "Khrushchev"), and will normally be pronounced in English with a simple "K" sound, as in Christ, orchestra, orchid, chorus, and so on. SOME words that have been thoroughly assimilated into English, such as "cherub" and "Rachel" (compare the pronunciation of "Raquel Welch," which is much closer to the Hebrew), have the English "ch" as in "chair", but please note that the Hebrew pronunciation of "cherub" is more like "kerub" or "kherub." (Kh as in "Khrushchev")

In Greek folklore, we have a figure known as a griffin, or gryphon. It is usually portrayed as having the head, chest, claws, and wings of an eagle, joined to the hindquarters of a lion. For a picture, see a copy of Alice In Wonderland, preferably one with the traditional illustrations by Tenniel. The root of the word is G-R-F. (The N is an English suffix not found in the Greek.) Similarly, the root of "cherub" is Kh-R-B. Now these are related roots, related by what is called the Grimm Shift, named for the brothers Grimm, who made a folklore collection known as the Grimm Fairy Tales, but who are also scholars dedicated to the history of languages and the rules that govern their development.

There are twelve sounds known as mutes. They can be placed in a three-dimensional array, 2 by 2 by 3. They are either voiced or unvoiced, either stops or fricatives, either front (labial), middle (dental) or back (palatal).

The fronts are p, b, ph(=f), and bh(=v). They are called labials because they are formed with the lips. P and B are stops, because the breath is stopped completely when they are said (the lips are pressed together). Ph and Bh are fricative, because the air passage is not closed completely, but narrowed so that the breath rubs along the passage (friction=rubbing) and makes a sound. B and Bh are voiced, because the larynx or voicebox vibrates when they are said. P and Ph are voiceless, because they are said with the lips and tongue in the same position as for B and Bh, but without the vibration of the voicebox.

In English, the fricatives Ph and Bh (or, as more commonly spelled, F and V) are really labio-dentals rather than pure labials, because the air escapes between the lower lip and the upper teeth. However, in other languages (Spanish, for example), the air is forced out between the lips. You place your lips as if to say P and then force the air out between them to get Ph--and similarly for Bh.

The middles are t, d, th, and dh. By Th we mean the initial sound of "thin," and by Dh we mean the initial sound of "then." These are called dentals because they are pronounced using the teeth. T and D are stops, while Th and Dh are fricatives. T and Th are voiceless, while D and Dh are voiced.

The back mutes, or palatals, are k, g, kh, and gh. The last two sounds, the back fricatives, are not standard in English. The Kh sound is found in the German name Bach, and in the "ch" sound in Scottish words, like "Loch Ness, Loch Lomond," etc. The Gh is the voiced equivalent, and is found in Spanish in words like "cigarro," and sometimes when an English-speaker says "cigar." That is, the throat is not completely closed, but only narrowed, so that the G becomes a voiced fricative.

All twelve of the mutes occur in Biblical Hebrew, and they are represented by six letters: Beth and Pe, Gimel and Kaph, Daleth and Tau. Each of these is written with a dot (called a dagesh) in the interior when it represents a stop, and without the dot when it represents a fricative. However the reader should be warned of two things:

1. Since the dots and the vowel markings are a later addition to the sacred text, scrolls of the books of the Bible for synagogue use are written without them, and the reader is expected to know the text well enough to manage anyway. Also, since the modern Israeli is expected to know modern Hebrew, and since points are a major nuisance for a typesetter, a book or newspaper written in modern Hebrew will probably be printed without them, unless it is for the instruction of children or beginning Hebrew students.
2. Since until recently most modern Jews spoke either German or Yiddish (a form of German), modern Hebrew contains only those sounds which occur in German. This means that the fricatives th, dh, gh, are replaced by the corresponding stops t, d, and g. The distinction continues in writing (whenever the points are written) but not in the spoken language.

Now, as a language changes, a middle mute is often replaced by another middle mute, but almost never by a front or a back mute. If you are comparing words in (for example) Latin and English, you will see that a front mute in one word will usually match a front mute in the other. For example, the English word "father" comes from the same primitive root as the Latin "pater," and we have the correspondence f=p (two labials) and th=t (two dentals). The English word "head" was "heved" in Old English, and it corresponds to the Latin "caput". The English "h" is as close as we get to "kh", and the Latin C is pronounced K, so that we have kh=k (back mutes or palatals), v=p (front mutes or labials), and d=t (middle mutes or dentals).

Now the Hebrew word "cherub" has the root Kh-R-B, and the Greek word "gryph" has the root G-R-Ph. We see that the G and Kh are both back mutes or palatals, the R is the same in both words, and the B and Ph are both front mutes or labials. Hence a Gryphon, such as you see in Alice In Wonderland and elsewhere has a history connecting both the form of the creature and its name with the Semitic Cherub.

Cherubs in Revelation

Ezekiel saw four winged creatures, each having the face of a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle. John, in the book of Revelation (4:6-8), saw four winged creatures before the throne, the first like a lion, the second like an ox, the third like a man, and the fourth like an eagle.

Some have supposed that these creatures (and also those in Ezekiel) represent attributes of God, such as power, love, justice, and wisdom. A more widespread view is that they represent the four Gospels. What I will call the Old Match associates each beast with the beginning of a Gospel. Matthew begins with the human genealogy of Jesus, and so is paired with the Man. Mark begins with John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness, and so is paired with the Lion, a desert animal. Luke begins with Zecharias in the Temple, and so is paired with the Ox, a sacrificial beast. John begins with the Eternal Word, the Logos, in the heaven of God, and so is paired with the Eagle, which soars toward heaven. How old this pairing is, I do not know. It is found in the ornamented initials of Gospel books as early as 900, but I do not know how much earlier it can be traced. What I will call the New Match considers not the beginning of a Gospel, but its overall tone. Thus, Matthew presents Jesus as the promised Messiah, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Accordingly, Matthew is paired with the Lion. Mark represents Jesus as the diligent servant, always at work, always about his Father's business, never pausing for a moment (Mark's most characteristic word is "straightway" or "immediately"). Hence Mark is paired with the Ox. Luke shows the compassion, the tenderness, the humanity of Jesus (as in the Parable of the Lost Sheep or of the Prodigal Son). Thus Luke is paired with the Man. John presents Jesus as the Eternal Son of God. Hence John is paired with the Eagle. How old this pairing is, I do not know. I suspect that it is no older than 1500. It has the advantage that the order of the beasts as given by John is the same as the standard order of the Gospels.

If the four beasts represent the Four Gospels, it is tempting to ask whether other books of the Bible are represented. Paul wrote letters to seven churches (Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae, Thessalonika). Perhaps the seven torches burning before the throne represent the Pauline Epistles. There are 24 elders sitting on thrones around the central throne of the Almighty. Perhaps they represent the Old People of God and the New, twelve patriarchs and twelve apostles. Again perhaps they represent the 24 courses of priests who served in the Temple under the Law of Moses. But perhaps they represent the books of the Old Testament. The modern Protestant canon has 39 books in the Old Testament, the same books that are recognized by the Jews. But they count them differently. The twelve minor prophets are written on a single scroll, and called the Book of the Twelve. This reduces the number by 11, from 39 down to 28. The books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah are counted as one book each rather than two, and that reduces the count to 24. Some Jewish writers leave it at that, while others reduce it to 22 by considering Ruth an appendix to Judges and Lamentations an appendix to Jeremiah. The advantage of 22 is that it is the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and this permits all sorts of speculations. However, 24 books is a perfectly well established Jewish count, and there is no reason why John might not have used 24 elders to stand for the 24 books of the Hebrew Scriptures.

At this point the reader may say, "But what about Acts? What about the four letters of Paul to individuals? What about the seven non-Pauline epistles (including Hebrews)? What about the Book of Revelation itself?" As for the book of Acts, I suspect that John simply thought of it as the second volume of the Gospel of Luke. As for the book of Revelation, I think some readers might find it confusing to have the book referring to itself as already written. As for the omitted epistles, I think one might make out a case for most of them as not yet written when John had his vision. The exception is the Epistle to Philemon, which shows every sign of having been written and sent with the Epistle to the Colossians. But then, John might for that very reason have treated it as an appendix to Colossians, a sort of enclosed note as it were. But all this is speculation. I am probably about to be inundated by letters from listmembers who will tell me that I have got it all wrong, and who will explain to me the correct interpretation of the Book of Revelation....

At any rate, we can be fairly sure that the imagery of the four beasts (or living creatures) in Revelation 4 is indebted to the imagery of the cherubim in Ezekiel 1 and 10, but beyond that, it is probably a mistake to expect agreement

Link: http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/home.html

Vincent de Paul, Helper of The Poor, 27 September 1660

(from the Roman Calendar)

Vincent de Paul was born in Gascony in about 1580, of peasant stock. He was an intelligent lad, and his father sent him off to be educated. He was ordained at twenty, and at first was interested chiefly in a successful career. But when he was thirty, he accepted a post as chaplain and tutor in the household of Philip de Gondi, Count of Joigny. This brought him into contact with the peasants on the Gondi estate, and he became concerned for their needs, physical and spiritual. A peasant who believed himself to be dying confessed to him that his previous confessions for many years had been dishonest. Vincent began to preach in the local church on confession, repentance, forgiveness, and the love of God. His sermons drew such crowds of penitents that he had to call in a group of other priests to assist him. He took on the pastorship of a neighboring church attended by a more fashionable and aristocratic crowd, and there he likewise drew many of his listeners to repentance and amendment of life. Returning to Paris, he worked among the prisoners destined for the galleys who were being held at the Conciergerie.

1. (A reader asked whether "galleys" was a misprint for "gallows". No, until fairly recently (certainly into the 1820's) French convicts were often sentenced to pull the oars on ships. There is a an essay on the subject by the historian W. H. (Warren) Lewis (brother of C.S. Lewis) in the book Essays Presented to Charles Williams, Oxford U Press, about 1945. The best known account is in the novel Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, which contains several long essays on the galley system. Hugo's novels often have long sections where the action stops completely, while the author explains to the reader some aspect of French culture or history. The novelist Ayn Rand, who considers Hugo the world's greatest novelist, complains that these sections affect her like commercials interrupting a television drama. It seems an odd complaint from the author of Atlas Shrugged, but I digress.)

In 1625 he established the Congregation of the Mission (now known as the Vincentians, or the Lazarists), a community of priests who undertook to renounce all ecclesiastical advancement and devote themselves to work in the small towns and villages of France. In an age not noted for "interdenominational courtesy," he instructed his missioners that Protestants were to be treated as brothers, with respect and love, without patronage or condescension or contentiousness. Wealthy men and women came to him, expressing a wish to amend their lives, and he organized them into a Confraternity of Charity, and set them to work caring for the poor and sick in hospitals and in home visits. In 1633 the Archbishop or Paris gave him the Priory of St Lazare as a headquarters. There he offered retreats six times a year for those who were preparing for the ministry. These lasted two weeks each, and each involved about eighty students. He then began to offer similar retreats for laypersons of all classes and widely varying backgrounds. He said (identifying Lazarus of the Parable with Lazarus of Bethany):

This house was formerly used as a retreat for lepers, and not one of them was cured. Now it is used to receive sinners, who are sick men coveed with spiritual leprosy, but are cured by the grace of God. Nay, rather, they are dead men brought back to life. What a joy it is to think that the house of St Lazare is a house of resurrection! Lazarus, after he had been four days in the tomb, came out alive, and our Lord who raised him up still gives the same grace to many who, after staying here some days as in the grave of Lazarus, come out with a new life.

Out of his Confraternity of Charity there arose an order of nuns called the Daughters (or Sisters) of Charity, devoted to nursing those who were sick and poor. He said of them, "Their convent is the sick-room, their chapel the parish church, their cloister the streets of the city." Many babies were abandoned in Paris every year, and when Vincent saw some of them, he established an orphanage for them, and thereafter often wandered through the slums, looking in corners for abandoned babies, which he carried back to the orphanage.

He complained to the King that ecclesiastical posts were distributed simply as political favors, and that the spiritual qualifications of the appointees were simply ignored. The King responded by creating a Council of Conscience to remedy the matter, with Vincent at the head. On one occasion, a noblewoman of the court, furious with Vincent because he refused to nominate her son for a position as bishop, threw a stool at him. He left the room with a stream of blood pouring from his forehead, and said to a companion who was waiting for him, "Is it not wonderful how strong a mother's love for her son can be?" He died 27 September 1660.