Tag: Augustine

Jesus’ birth, the pagan calendar, and Scripture’s

Yesterday on Fox & Friends Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New  York, said:

We don’t absolutely know the date that Jesus was born, but it surely made eminent sense for the early Church to say, why don’t we do it at the darkest time of the year, when the sun is about to rise and the Son, Jesus, the Light of the World, is born.

Of course, the English homonyms “sun” and “Son” weren’t available to anyone in the 4th-century, when certain Church leaders officially conformed the Christian’s calendar to the pagan’s. His Eminence might have been remembering Augustine’s rendering of the metaphor:

Hence it is that He was born on the day which is the shortest in our earthly reckoning and from which subsequent days begin to increase in length. He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us up chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase. Sermon 192

But should poetic sense trump the seasonal facts Scripture records? It would have made the opposite of eminent sense for Caesar to have ordered “the whole world” to be taxed in the dead of winter or for shepherds to be tending their flock under those conditions.

Or for a pregnant woman to be traveling in them. Continue reading “Jesus’ birth, the pagan calendar, and Scripture’s”

I believe that I may avoid absurdity and foolishness

The “motto” that summarizes my understanding of the relationship between faith and reason is not Tertullian’s Credo quia absurdum est (“I believe because it is absurd”).

It is, rather, a corollary of Anselm’s subjunctive Credo ut intelligam (“I believe that I may understand”) or Augustine’s imperative Crede, ut intelligas (“Believe that you may understand”).

It is: Credo ut evitam absurditatem somniumque. I believe that I may avoid absurdity and foolishness.

Absurdity and foolishness are the fruit of “philosoph[izing] after the elements of this world” (Colossians 2:8). In those elements is rooted the opposite of wisdom, “every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV). The term “misosophy” marks off that discourse from philosophizing “after Christ.”

“We will hear again of this matter” (Acts 17:32) was the lame response of the Areopagite misosopher to the preaching of the Apostle Paul.

“He who is not with Me is against Me” (Luke 11:23). Non-Christians are not disinterested observers. What God says about them is what matters, and He denies the possibility of their neutrality.

The non-Christian who claims to be neutral about Christ may think he makes good on his claim if he only refrains from ridiculing Christians. They, however, may not (at least not integrally) take the non-Christian’s self-representation at face value.

In Proverbs 8 Wisdom is a person who was with God at Creation. John 1 elaborates upon and complements that picture: the Wisdom of God is the Word of God.

There is a dual promise: “For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death.” (Proverbs 8:35-36; ESV).

It’s safe to assume that he who loves death does not love wisdom. To remove all doubt, God says that such a man hates Wisdom.  He is, therefore, a misosopher.