By Charles A. Sullivan 04/17/2009

Two Church manuscripts on the family of Christ compared. One is purported to be early, the other medieval. They may not be the most faithful of texts but they potentially provide some much-needed clues on Christ’s genealogy.

It is an important comparison to do as many are trying to find the historic Jesus outside of the Bible. Since it is fair game to enlist the use of any literature, regardless of the piece’s historic value or integrity, there has become many controversies regarding Christ’s Mother, brothers, sisters, His last name and personal life.

This modern pilgrimage has produced a variety of conclusions, such as the tortured image in the movie “The Passion of Christ”, the sexually angst Messiah in the controversial “Last Temptation of Christ”, the married Jesus portrayed in the ABC television special, “Jesus, Mary and Davinci”, the illegitimate son of a foreign soldier in the movie “Jesus of Montreal”, and more.

Click here for more…

This document, available at Scribd as a pdf, has been ported to here in html format.

Click here for the article.

Due to some technical limitations, the copy is not paginated and appears as one single, long page. Also the footnotes have major spacing problems which is related to the auto-justifying of the WordPress program. As time permits, these problems will be rectified.

Please note this is still a draft copy and subject to change. Your comments would greatly be appreciated.

ROBERT LOUIS WILKEN is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia. Wilken is interested in the history of Christianity and Christian thought, particularly the use of the Bible, how it was read, and how it shaped culture. I enjoyed one of his books, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought, immensely. In the introduction Willken writes: “The intellectual tradition that began in the early Church was enriched by the philosophical breadth and exactitude of medieval thought. Each period in Christian history makes its own unique contribution to Christian life. The Church Fathers, however, set in place a foundation that has proven to be irreplaceable. Their writings are more than a stage in the development of Christian thought or an interesting chapter in the history of the interpretation of the Bible. Like an inexhaustible spring, faithful and true, they irrigate the Christian imagination with life-giving water flowing from the biblical and spiritual sources of the faith. They are still our teachers today.”

Previous (mid nineteenth century and earlier) interpreters of early Christian thought felt that it was so Hellenized by cultural osmosis that it has been the standard interpretation to view it from the standpoint of Greek thought and not the other way around. The latter, namely that it was Christianity which radically changed the secular world is what Wilken demonstrates in this gem of a book. While the book is informative and authoritative for students of theology, it is also inspiring for those of us who seek lectio divina in readings outside the Bible as well. Here are a listing of the Table of Contents: 1. Founded on the Cross of Christ 2. An Awesome and Unbloody Sacrifice  3. The Face of God for Now 4. Seek His Face Always 5. Not My Will But Thine 6. The End Given in the Beginning 7. The Reasonableness of the Faith 8. Happy the People Whose God is the Lord 9. The Glorious Deeds of Christ 10. Making This Thing Other 11. Likeness to God 12. The Knowledge of Sensible Things

Following my custom, here are reading selections from the book to give you some things I was mulling over as I read it and a taste of what is between the covers.

Christianity and Thought
Christianity is more than a set of devotional practices and a moral code: it is also a way of thinking about God, about human beings, about the world and history. For Christians, thinking is part of believing. Augustine wrote: “No one believes anything unless one first thought it believable…Everything that is believed is believed after being preceded by thought…Not everyone who thinks believes, since many think in order not to believe; but everyone who believes thinks, thinks in believing and believes in thinking”

How God Is Known
When speaking of how God is known, the Bible seldom speaks of insight or illumination or demonstration; rather it says that God appeared, did something, showed something, showed himself or spoke to someone, as in the beginning of the book of Hosea: “The word of God spoke to Hosea” (Hos 1:1). Accordingly, the way to God begins not with arguments or proofs but with discernment and faith, the ability to see what is disclosed in events and he readiness to trust the words of those who testify to them.
By presenting his embrace of Christianity as a conversion to a way of life that is “sure and fulfilling,” Justin let his readers know that the truth of Christ penetrates the soul by means of our moral as well as our intellectual being. The knowledge of God has to do with how one lives, with acting on convictions that are not mere premises but realities learned from other persons and tested by experience.

The Expression “Seeing God”
The expression “Seeing God” is to be understood in the sense of the words from the Gospel of John: ”Who sees me, sees the Father.” …If the logos truly became flesh, there is a sense in which whoever sees Jesus, sees the Logos, whether pure of heart or hard of heart, whether in unbelief or in faith….In the Scriptures, seeing something is never simply beholding something that passes like a parade before the eyes; it is a form of discernment and identification with what is known. What one sees reflects back on the one who sees and transforms the beholder. As Gregory the Great will put it centuries later, “We are changed into the one we see.” There can be no knowledge of God without a relation between the knower an God. To see light is to share in light and to be enlightened. In the words of Irenaeus, “just as those who see the light are illuminated by the light and share in its brilliance, so those who see God are in God and share his splendor.” In the scriptures, says Origen, the term know means “to participate in something” or to be “joined in something.”…in response to Celsus’s mocking question as to why God descended to human beings, Origen says that it was ”to implant in us the happiness which comes from knowing him.”

Christian Thinking
Christian thinking did not spring from an original idea, and it was not nourished by a seminal spiritual insight. It had its beginnings in the history of Israel and the life of a human being named Jesus of Nazareth, who was born of Mary, lived in Judea, suffered and died in Jerusalem, and was raised by God to new life,. That the history was the history of God’s self-disclosure does not make it any less historical, but it does mean that what is seen with the eyes is not the fullness of what there is to see.

Res Gestae and Res Liturgicae
As Christina thinking was grounded in the events that happened in the Bible, the res gestae, the things that had taken place, so it was nourished in worship by the res liturgicae, the things enacted in the liturgy… ”present grace” [a phrase used in res liturgicae] refers not simply to the grace that f lows from Christ’s Resurrection, but to the actual liturgical celebration of the Resurrection…Nothing in the mind can ever have the solidarity and mystery of what is seen and touched. By constant immersion in the res liturgicae, early Christian Thinkers came face to face with the living Christ and could say with Thomas, the apostle, “My Lord and God.“ Here was a truth so tangible, so enduring, so compelling that it trumped every religious idea. Understanding was not achieved by stepping back and viewing things from a distance but by entering into the revealed object itself.

The Holy Scriptures
…the word that came forth from Jerusalem, the “heavenly word’ was the divine Logos who had become flesh in the person Christ and lived on this earth. Through his song men and women had been brought back to life, the eyes of the blind had been opened, the ears of he deaf unstopped, the lame had learned to walk, the rebellious been reconciled to God, and through him.. We were able to “see God.” Generation after generation this Word of God, the Divine Logos had spoken to God’s people in the words of Moses, in the oracles of the prophets, in the exhortations of the proverbs, and finally in the writings of the apostles, particularly the gospels. These writings Clement calls the “holy scriptures” or “divine scriptures” and he sees them as a guide to a holy life and a source of truth. “Free of pretensions of style and elegant diction, of useless and beguiling words, they raise up those who have been drawn down by vice and offer a firm path amidst the treacheries of life.”

Imitation of Christ
Ideas do not exist disembodied from language. When Plato’s “likeness” is paired with the biblical expression “image of God” and interpreted as “imitation of Christ” it acquires a meaning that cannot be found in Plato. Likeness to God has become concrete, visual, human, accessible. No longer is it simply a philosophical ideal; it was embodied in the life of an actual person who lived on this earth, Jesus Christ. The goal toward which human strive has already been reached by someone who shared human life an suffering, and by looking at Christ it is possible to know what likeness to God meant for human beings.

The Bible
The Bible is a book of events with consequences, not only for those who lived through them or were influence by them, but for all men and women. Its meaning turns on the history it records, whether it be God’s creation of all things at the beginning of time, the sin of Adam, the giving of the Law to Moses, Christ’s birth from a virgin, or his resurrection on the third day…”Just as through the disobedience of one man, the first made from the virgin earth, many were made sinners and lost life, so it was necessary that through the obedience of one man, the first born of a Virgin, many should be made righteous and receive salvation.” [Iraneus]

Key To Understanding the Bible
The key to understanding the Bible, then, was what had happened in Christ. In Augustine’s words, the “dispensation of divine providence in time” that is, “what God has done for the salvation of the human race to renew it and restore it.”…It is a story, in medieval theology, of a going out from God, an exitus, and a return to God, a reditus. “This then is the ordering of our faith…God the Father, uncreated, incomprehensible, invisible, one God. Creator of all. This  is the first article. The second is the Word of God, God the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord who was revealed to the prophets…At the End of Times, to sum up all things, he became man among men, visible and palpable, in order to destroy death, and bring to light life, and bring about holy communion with God. And third is the Holy Spirit, by which the prophets  prophesied and the patriarchs were taught about God and the just were led into the path of justice, and who in the end of times was poured forth in a new manner upon men all over the earth renewing man to God.” [Iraneus]

Seeing Oneself In What Is Written
Gregory took he phrase to be an interpretation of the prodigal son, who had journeyed to a far country only to squander his inheritance, When the country was ravaged by a great famine he became so hungry that he would gladly have eaten the slop fed of swine. At that point in the parable he realizes how grievously he has sinned against his father and the evangelist says, “He came to himself” (Luke 15:17). How is it, asks Gregory, that a person who is always with himself can be said to have “come to himself” The phrase, says Gregory, means search one’s soul continuously and see oneself always in the presence God and attend to one’s life and actions. Job came to himself when he heard the words of God, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 28:4)…it is right for us to be brought back to our own hearts by the things that were said to holy Job. For we understand the words of God more truly when we ‘search out ourselves in them’

Reading and Growing With The Scriptures
Gregory’s …statement of the mysterious relation between reader and text occurs in his homily on the famous allegory of the living creatures and the wheels in the first chapter of the prophet Ezekiel. The text reads “Now as I look at the living creatures, I saw as wheel upon the earth beside he living creatures…And when he living creatures went, the wheels went with them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose” (Ezekiel 1:15-19). Gregory took the wheels o be the Scriptures and he living creatures to be readers of the Scriptures…the Scriptures grow with the reader. The more profoundly one understands the Scriptures the more deeply one penetrates into them. The wheels would not be lifted up if the living creatures had not been lifted up. But if the living creature moves and seeks the path that leads to a virtuous life, and through the footsteps of he heart learns to do good works, the wheels keep pace with him. You will progress in understanding the Holy Scripture only to the degree that you yourself have made progress through contact with them.

My Lord and my God!
….at the very beginning of Christianity when Jesus’s disciples were still observing Jewish  traditions yet following Christ. During Christ’s lifetime his followers did not grasp fully who he was. Even though some of his sayings imply that he had a unique relation to God, and he performed miracles and revealed his heavenly glory to his most intimate followers at his Transfiguration on the mount, his disciples did not have eyes to see who he was. They had sound theological reasons for their opacity. They knew by heart the words of the Sh’ma, “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord.”…How could a faithful Jew who had recited the Sh’ma since childhood, whose prayers were addressed to God the King of the universe, address Christ as God or Son of God, as the earliest Christians did?. ..the answer is that the Resurrection of Christ transfigured everything. When Jesus came and stood among the disciples and put his finger in his side, Thomas said, “My Lord and my God!”. When confronted with the risen Christ, one does not say “How interesting.”…

God Is Not Alone: Hilary of Poitiers
Because  of the resurrection Thomas recognized that the one he knew, who had lived among them, was not just an ordinary human being but the living God, “No one except God is able to rise from death to life by its own power.” writes Hilary. But his argument runs deeper…not only that the Resurrection revealed something about Christ to his disciples, namely that he is God…but also caused them to think about God differently…Thomas understood the whole mystery of the faith, for “now” that is, in the light of the Resurrection, Thomas was able to confess Christ as God “without abandoning his devotion to the one God”. .his confession is a recognition that God was not a solitary God or a lonely God. God is one says Hilary [The Trinity] but not alone.

Wisdom
Only after the Resurrection did Thomas and others know what Jesus meant when he spoke of his unique relation to God. In the same way it wa only after the Resurrection that the followers of Jesus knew what to make of passages from the Old Testament on Wisdom. Wisdom leaped, as it were, out of the shadows into the clear light of day. Now Christians were able to identify Wisdom with an actual historical person, with events that had taken place in time and space, and give Wisdom a name, Jesus Christ  As a consequence Wisdom acquired features that were not apparent before the coming of Christ, that is before the economy (Knowledge of the Triune God: Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost in the early Church) and reflection on the nature of wisdom helped Christians to understand the mystery of God.

The New Testament and Divine Relations
Augustine wants to say more than that the gift of the Holy Spirit creates a communion between God and the believer; he insists that “relation” is also characteristic of the divine life. For the spirit is the “bond of love” and the “communion” between Father and Son, and the sending of the Holy Spirit not only reveals the Spirit’s role in bringing human beings into fellowship with God, but also displays to us the love that unites the Father and the Son in a divine communion. In some passage biblical writers speak not only of the work of the Spirit in the economy (Knowledge of the Triune God: Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost in the early Church), but also of the spirit within the life of God. A key text is Corinthians: “…but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:  For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?  But we have the mind of Christ.”…As God is revealed in human beings, so is the life of God. .. The New Testament makes the divine relations constitutive of God…If God is Father, not only creator, and Christ is son, not only redeemer, then the relation between them  is an essential feature of the divine life. If God is not solitary and exists always in relation, there can be no talk of God that does not involve love. Love unites Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, love brings God into relation with the world, and by love human beings cleave to God.

St. Augustine on Seeking God
There can be no finding [God] without a change in the seeker. Or minds must be purified he (Saint Augustine) says and we must be made fit and capable of receiving what is sought. We can cleave to God and see the Holy Trinity only when we burn with love…”Seek as those who are going to find, and find as those who are going to go on seeking.”…“When a man has finished, then it is that he is beginning.”

Christ’s Life Is A New Way
Matthew:  Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
The acceptance of the cup of suffering was Christ’s free act. The salvation that the eternal son had willed “in union with the Father and the Holy Spirit.” …Christ now shows himself to be a new kind of human being. The human will is not less human but more human because it is in harmony with the divine will…Christ’s life was new, not only because it was strange and wondrous to those on earth, and was unfamiliar in comparison to things as they are, but also because it carried within itself a new energy of one who lived in a new way” (Maximus the Confessor)

Creationism
The account in Genesis shows that the world did not come into being “spontaneously as some have imagined” but rather was “brought about by God”. If one is to understand what is seen with the eyes, one must first have eyes to see what the eye cannot see: “Anyone who does not …enjoy fellowship and intimacy with God is unable to see the works of God.”…unless one recognizes that God is the creator of the universre, they will see noting as it truly is…”The starting point says Basil [Basil Bishop of Caeserea], “must be that an intelligent cause stands behind the birth of the world” When it is recognized that the intelligibility of he world is derived from something beyond itself, everything comes into focus. Creation displaces cosmology. When the scripture says that “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” it rules out any form of naturalism. The world is not random or disordered, it came into being not by chance or spontaneously, but by God’s wisdom and love. …But the term arche does not mean beginning in the sense that beginning implies time…beginning means that creation was a single divine act in which matter was created as well as knitted together. Matter does not exist without form. Moses does not say that “God worked” or God formed”, but “God created”…Basil sets forth the Christian teaching that the world was created ‘out of nothing” by a free and gratuitous act of God: The creator of the universe, whose creative power is not bound by one world but transcends all bounds, brought into being the vast extent of the visible world solely by the movement of his will…Creation is the work of God’s wisdom, of “artistic reason”, not a matter of arbitrary chance or power. When the text of Genesis says Spirit of God, it does not mean the movement of air…it refers to the Holy Spirit…The Holy Spirit is like a bird that covers her eggs with her body and by her body’s warmth imparts the vital force that will give them life.

The Nature of God and the Nature of the Human Mind
Let those who reflect on the nature of God ask themselves whether they “know the nature of their own mind.” The mind of man is no less a mystery than the nature of God. We do not know ourselves, said Augustine, for “there is something of the human person that is unknown even to the ‘spirit of man which is in him.’” The mystery of the human mind is evidence that human beings are created in the image of God: “because our mind is made in the likeness of the one who created us, it escapes our knowledge. That is why it is reasonable to think that the human mind accurately resembles God’s superior nature, portraying by its own unknowability that nature is beyond our comprehension.”

Freedom in Christian Thought
Gregory of Nyssa speaks of human freedom as moral freedom, the freedom to become what we were made to be. Freedom, as he puts it, is the “royal exercise of the will,” but will is much more than choice, than deciding to do one thing in preference to another. It is an affair of ordering one’s life in terms of its end, freedom oriented toward excellence (the original meaning of virtue) and human flourishing. As we grow in virtue we delight in the good that is God. Hence freedom is never set forth in its own terms but rather is always seen in relation to God. Because Human beings were made in the image of God, our lives will be fully human only as our face is turned toward God and our actions formed by his love. Freedom is as much a matter of seeing, of vision, as it is of doing. We know ourselves as we transcend ourselves and we find ourselves as we find fellowship with God. Happiness, the happiness that gives fullness to life, will be ours only as our will conforms to God’s will. And that finally is found in Christ.

Intellectual Underpinnings Of Christianity
One of the most remarkable features of the intellectual life in the Roman Empire is not only that the church attracted gifted thinkers from the society but also that the writings became the object of serious criticism of the best philosophical minds of the day…The persistence of argument and debate between Christians and pagans over the course of several centuries lays to rest the view that Christianity undermined confidence in the power of reason [Greek/Roman thought].

Origen of Alexandria On Truth
A desire to know the truth of things has been implanted in our souls and is natural to human beings…When our eye sees the work of the craftsman, especially if the object is well made, at once the mind burns with desire to know what sort of thing it is, how it was made and for what purpose, Even more, indeed incomparably more, does the mind burn with desire and ineffable longing to know the design of those things which we perceive to have been made by God. This desire, this love, we believe, has been implanted in us by God. For as the eye by nature seeks light and sight and our body instinctively craves food and drink, so our mind nurtures a desire, which is natural and proper to know the truth of God and to learn the causes of things. Moreover we have not been given this desire by God in such a way that it should not or cannot be satisfied. For if the love of truth were never able to be satisfied, it would seem to have been implanted in our mind by the creator in vain.

The Reasonableness of Belief
Psalm 19: “[Christ] was born, he grew, he taught, he suffered, he rose, he ascended.” Through these events God was made known, hence the truth of Christianity was dependent on things that took place long ago “in one particular region of the earth” and “in time.” It cannot, however, be established as certain and beyond doubt that the events on which Christian faith rests took place. As John Henry Newman once observed, “It is the same fault to demand demonstration of an historian as to be content with probabilities from a mathematician.”

St. Augustine: Religious Knowledge Acquired by Faith
Augustine wishes to say that the knowledge acquired by faith is not primarily a matter of gaining information. The acquiring of religious knowledge is akin to learning a skill. It involves practices, attitudes, and dispositions and has to do with ordering one’s loves. This kind of knowledge, the knowledge one lives by, is gained gradually over time. Just as one does not learn to play the piano in a day, one does not learn to love God in an exuberant moment of delight. If joy does not find worlds, if it does not exercise the affections and stir the ill, if it is not confirmed actions, it will be as fleeting as the last light out of the black west. The knowledge of God sinks into the mind and heart slowly and hence requires apprenticeship. That is why, says Augustine, we must become “servants of wise men.”

St. Augustine: Authority is Part of Knowledge
By making authority a necessary part of knowing, Augustine shifts the question away from What Should I Believe? that is, What teachings should I accept? to the question Whom Should I believe? That is, Which persons should I trust…There are two ways the soul is led to God, by authority and by reason. Authority invites belief and prepares man for reason…The place to begin is not with the truth or falsity of certain teachings, but with the persons whose lives are formed by the teachings…he is speaking about placing one’s confidence in men and women whose examples invite us to love what they love.

Integrity of Christian Authority
One of the most distinctive features of Christian intellectual life is a kind of quiet confidence in the faithfulness and integrity of those who have gone before…We are sustained by the saints an  trail our thoughts behind the truths of others.

The Nature of Christian Knowledge is Based on More Than What The Eyes See
Historical knowledge is not the primary object of faith…First Epistle of John: THAT which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;  (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)  That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.  And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.  This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.  If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.  If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. …The unusual wording of passage: For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us John saw Jesus with the eyes but he testifies to seeing the eternal word of God, so what he saw with the eyes was not all there was to see.

The Veracity of the Resurrection
Saint Paul’s list of witnesses to the Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 only mentions the followers of Christ. Indeed, he begins with those who knew him best. Celsus [Greek Philosopher who questioned Christianity] challenged the veracity of the Resurrection of Jesus on the grounds that all the witnesses were disciples. ….Origen’s answer is that Jesus appeared only those who wee capable of knowing what they were seeing. .When Christ came into the world he did not simply display himself to men and women as an actor on a stage, “He also concealed himself.” God’s voice is not audible to all. Someone who is hard of hearing in the soul will not hear God speaking. Christ said, “Let those who have ears to hear, hear” (Matt 11:15). It is an interior knowing that transforms the knower. As Origen of Alexandria explains, it is not enough to say “Christ was crucified.” ; one must say with Saint Paul, “I am crucified with Christ.” Likewise it is not enough to say “Christ was raised.” One who knows Christ, says, “We shall also live with him” (Romans 6:10).The witnesses to Christ’s resurrection are not reporters who tell of the interesting things that happened one morning in Jerusalem. Without persons who see and believe, God’s mighty deeds are only ancient prodigies and wondrous tales….The text must pass through the life of the lector so that it becomes a living word to the present not a recitation of what someone said long ago. Only then can the congregation hear the lesson as the Word of God.

St. Augustine on Believing in Christ
It makes a great deal of difference whether someone believes that Jesus is the Christ, or whether he believes in Christ. After all, that he is Christ even the demons believed, but all the same the demons didn’t believe in Christ. You believe in Christ, you see, when you both hope in Christ and love Christ. If you have faith without hope and without love, you believe that he is the Christ but you don’t believe in Christ. So when you believe in Christ, Christ comes into you, and you are somehow or other united to him and made into a member of his body. And this cannot happen unless hope and love come along, too.

Imitation And The Virtuous Life
The elementary activities of fashioning a clay pot or constructing a cabinet, of learning to speak or sculpting a statue have their beginnings in imitation. The truth is as old as humankind, but in the West it was the Greeks who helped us understand its place in the moral life, and in the Roman  period it is nowhere displayed with greater art than in Plutarch’s Lives. “Virtuous deeds,” he wrote, “implant in those who search them out a zeal and yearning that leads to imitation…The good creates a stir of activity towards itself and implants at once in the spectator an impulse toward action.”

Redemption And The Incarnation
At one point in the Paradiso Dante asks Beatrice why God willed “precisely this pathway for our redemption,” namely, the Incarnation. Beatrice begins her response by reminding Dante that what she is about to explain to him “is buried from the eyes of everyone whose intellect has not matured within the flame of love.” Unless we invest ourselves in the object of our love, we remain voyeurs and spectators, curiosity seekers, incapable of receiving because we are unwilling to give. With God irony is blasphemy. Only when we turn our deepest self to God can we enter the mystery of God’s life and penetrate the truth of things. If love is absent, our minds remain childish and immature, trying out one thing and another, unable to hold fast to the truth,. Human beings said Dante, are those creatures who “have intelligence and love.”

Christian Life As a “Holy Desire”
Augustine had described the Christian life as a “holy desire”:  “That which you desire you do not yet see; but by desiring you become capable of being filled by that which you will see when it comes. For you as in filling a leather bag…one stretches the skin…and by stretching it becomes capable of holding more; so as desire increases it stretches the mind, and by stretching, makes it more capable of being filled.”

The Library at Celsus

From The Great Library and Mouseion at Alexandria and the Bodleian at Oxford to the The British Library and the Library of Congress, an illustrated (and linked) tour of “The 7 Most Impressive Libraries From Throughout History” (well, in the Western Tradition, anyway)…

As we rush to renew our library cards, we might recall that it was on this date in 1909 that Colonel Tom Parker, (in)famous manager of Elvis Presley,  claimed to have been born in Huntington, West Virginia.  Elvis’ biographer, Albert Goldman, suggests rather that the Colonel was born Andre van Kuijk in Breda, southern Holland, and entered the USA illegally. It was (and is) widely-believed that Parker never owned a credit card and had no passport– possibly to avoid checks that might expose his lack of genuine ID.

Colonel Tom and the King  (source: Virgin Media)

Celsus Library, originally uploaded by TravelingOtter.

Now that’s what I call a LIBRARY!

Sitter även idag i receptionen på kunskapsskolan och hade fram till lunch en hel del att göra. Nu är det däremot lugnare så jag passar på att läsa lite i min bok. Kom på att jag varit dålig på att presentera vad det är jag läser vilket blir en hel del tack vara all restid. Just nu plöjer jag: Vad hände på vägen till Damaskus? – På spaning efter den verklige Jesus från Nasaret.

Einhorn diskuterar den hypotes som bland annat fördes fram av den grekiske filosofen Celsus redan under det andra århundradet, nämligen att Jesus var född utom äktenskapet och att hans far var en romersk soldat. Boken tar även upp vad som kan ha hänt vid korsfästelsen.

Jag tycker, även om jag är långt ifrån troende – eller just därför, att det är grymt intressant att läsa dessa typer av böcker. Kan rekomenderas!

He closed the book solemnly and stared at me, clearly in anticipation of a reaction. And then the haunting question began to sink in; what if Celsus was right and other magicians in the ancient world were actively engaging in activities similar to those attributed to Jesus in the Gospels? If so, then how are we to separate the miracles of Jesus from the wonders produced by these magicians? It was like a tiny shard of glass lodging itself in my mind. I had to ask for more evidence.

“So what exactly did Jesus do to warrant a charge of magic?” I asked.

Leonard reeled off a number of stories written by ancient writers in which Jesus is portrayed using magical techniques. The titles came too thick and fast for me to provide a comprehensive list here, but one or two names stood out. The fourth-century Christian apologist Arnobius, for example, stated that Jesus was accused of stealing the ‘names of the angels of might’ from the Egyptian temples. And the medieval Toledoth Yeshu, although a polemical report of the life of Jesus, contains a story in which Jesus learns the ‘Ineffable Name of God’ and the knowledge of this name allows its user to do whatever he wishes. I roughly remember the gist of the latter story: Jesus writes the letters of the name on a piece of parchment which he inserts into an open cut on his leg and removes with a knife when returning home. When the people bring a leper to Jesus, he speaks the letters of the name over the man and the man is healed. When they bring a dead man to Jesus, he speaks the letters of the name over the corpse and the man returns to life. As a result of his miraculous powers, Jesus is worshipped as the Messiah and when he is eventually executed he pronounces the name over the tree upon which he is hung and the tree breaks. He is finally hung on a tree over which he does not, or is unable to, pronounce the name.

The lecture had turned into story time and I felt like I should be sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, yawning and asking to go to the toilet. It had been a long time since anyone had narrated a story to me (aside from Alex’s poor excuses for returning home late!). But by now I was firmly wearing my ‘academic theologian’ hat and my questions were much more measured. I braved a few counter questions and suggested that even if it was proven that the Jesus of the Gospels was a magician, this surely does not distract from the fact that he was performing good deeds, such as healing people, using whatever means necessary.

Leonard grinned at my comments which, I had gathered from the course of the afternoon, invariably meant that I was wrong. Standing once again, he reached up to a high shelf and fetched down another book. This one was entitled ‘New Testament apocryphal works’. He retuned to his seat and asked me if I had ever read The Infancy Gospel of Thomas. I replied that I wasn’t even aware of it’s existence. He opened the book and began quoting from a passage in which Jesus is portrayed as a child performing a variety of magical feats, such as modelling sparrows out of clay which subsequently fly away. He was silent for a few moments while he scanned down the page and when he had found his place, he began quoting examples of the young Jesus using his power for destructive ends, such as killing his fellow children and blinding whoever opposes him. In one particularly disturbing passage, the destructive use of Jesus’ power is feared to the extent that no-one dares upset him for fear that they will be ‘crippled’. In another example, Joseph urges his mother not to let Jesus go outside since if anyone angers him then they are killed.

I would dearly have loved to have heard more, no matter how shocking the revelations, but our conversation was cut short by the gentle hum of my mobile phone vibrating in my bag. I apologised to Leonard and urged him to continue, but he insisted that I checked my phone in case it was an urgent call. Searching through the clutter of notebooks, hairbrushes and keys in my bag, I eventually located my phone. It was a text message from Alex asking when I would be home. Apologising once again, I told Leonard that I needed to leave, to which he replied, in a gracious and equally apologetic manner, that he had taken up enough of my time for one day and that he should not be selfish enough to think that he could monopolise so much of my time. As I quickly tapped my reply into the phone, I heard him rip the pages out of his sketch page, fold each carefully in half and sort through a pile of books behind him. I felt instantly guilty that I had distracted him from the purpose of my visit and that I had occupied so much of his time chatting rather than drawing. I thanked him for our conversation, telling him that it was very interesting indeed, to which he laughed and replied that I should dispense with my ‘Alpha courses’ and try his amateur ‘Omega course’ instead…

As I stood to leave he presented me with a large green book. The title was written in Russian and there were no illustrations on the cover, so I had no idea what it was or why he had handed it to me. Mindful that I was in a hurry, Leonard quickly explained that it was a book about Rachmaninoff, the Russian pianist and composer, but since he could not read Russian he had been waiting to meet a musician who would appreciate the vivid photographs and facsimiles of transcriptions inside. It was a lovely gesture, but I was beginning to grow concerned about where I would store all these books!

Since Christmas was upon us, we decided to postpone the start of work until the New Year and agreed that he would call me in January to arrange our next meeting. I made the rare gesture of giving Leonard my address when he asked for it, ensuring to deliberately add that I lived with my boyfriend Alex and he should not be surprised if Alex answers the door. Even though I was sure that Leonard’s intentions were entirely innocent, I made the extra effort to explain that I had been living with Alex for a couple of years now and that we that we had a very close relationship. The mention of a boyfriend usually sufficed to deter any unwanted attention and I knew that this could possibly determine whether I received a phone call from Leonard in the New Year.

When I arrived home, I placed the book on the hallway table and dashed in to greet Alex, who was busily cooking in the kitchen. It wasn’t until I passed by the book a little later that I noticed the corner of a folded manila envelope sticking out from between the pages. Opening the book, I took out the envelope and ripped it open to find three pencil sketches; one of my hands and two very detailed studies of my eyes and mouth. A scribbled note attached to the first sketch simply read:

‘What can I say, except that they mutter for themselves. Love, L.’

I smiled to myself and somehow I knew that Leonard felt me smile. The pictures, our conversation, our friendship. I had certainly been given something very precious indeed.

For the entire of that Friday afternoon I wasn’t entirely sure whether I was learning from a genius or humouring a madman. Don’t get me wrong, it was all very interesting, even I suspect for a non-theologian, but it sounded a little far-fetched at times and for the first half hour I busied myself concocting excuses to leave. But Leonard persevered in spite of my quizzical looks and before long I was suckered in by his enthusiasm and the strength of the evidence that he had prepared to support his case. Although I struggle to remember every precise detail of our conversation, the main points went as follows:

Leonard explained that although both the opponents and followers of Jesus agreed that he was a miracle-worker, they strongly disagreed on the source of his miraculous powers. On the one hand, the early Christians argued that Jesus’ abilities to heal and exorcise resulted from his direct relationship with God. On the other, anti-Christian propaganda denied a divine source of Jesus’ powers and accused him of performing magic. He explained that as Christianity flourished and became increasingly mainstream, the opportunity grew for the new dominant Christian group to distance their hero from allegations of magic and the voices of those who opposed Jesus gradually died away. Nevertheless, the damage caused by these allegations had already penetrated deep into the tradition and even infiltrated the Gospel materials, prompting many a Christian apologist and even the Gospel writers themselves to engage directly with these rumours and address them as serious accusations rather than frivolous conjecture.

I asked, rather rudely upon reflection, for specific evidence of this and Leonard was more that happy to oblige. He cited an intriguing passage in the Babylonian Talmud in which Jesus’ trial is extended to a period of forty days to allow people to step forward and defend him from allegations of magic. As a defence fails to emerge, the passage states that Jesus was hung as a sorcerer. He then gave two further references from the Talmud to Jesus and the practice of magic. The first was a straight forward allegation that Jesus practiced sorcery, but the second stated that Jesus learned magic in Egypt and that he cut magical formulas into his skin.

He then went on to give names of early Christian apologists who referred to the Jewish accusations that Jesus was a magician. We discussed the ancient Christian writers Tertullian and Justin Martyr, both of whom he explained were particularly vocal when discussing the charge in the second-century AD. Tertullian reveals that the Jews called Jesus a ‘magus’ and Justin Martyr writes that the Jewish witnesses to Jesus’ miracles considered him to be a sorcerer. Similarly, the Christian writer Lactantius wrote in the fourth-century AD that the Jews accused Jesus of performing his miracles through magical means.

At a loss on how to respond to this extraordinary information, I asked whether these stories were simply Jewish attacks on Jesus’ character – a kind of biblical bitch-fest, if you like. Although Leonard agreed that some scholars have argued that is the case, he answered that allegations of magic are not confined to Jewish religious texts and it was not only the opponents of Christianity who made these accusations. He referred to a few fragments of magic that have appeared in the literature produced by various cultures which have come into contact with the Jesus tradition. For example, the Mandaean literature describes Jesus as a magician and the Quran describes Jesus’ ability to make birds from clay adding that the disbelievers thought that it was performed by ‘enchantment’.

We had been chatting for around an hour when Leonard suddenly stood out of his chair, walked over to the book shelves on the opposite side of the room and perused his books. He scoured the shelves and pulled out an old battered volume. As he returned to his chair he passed the book to me. I took it from him and carefully held it out at arms length to avoid covering myself in the thick layer of dust in which it was encased. It was a copy of Origen’s Contra Celsum. Origen was a name that I had encountered in my studies, but I had never heard of the title before. Prompted by my blank look, Leonard explained that Celsus was a philosopher writing in the late second-century AD and that he was the most outspoken of Jesus’ accusers. He told me that Celsus called Jesus a sorcerer and claimed that Christians used invocations and the names of demons to achieve their miracles.

Leonard gestured towards the book and I passed it to him. He blew the top layer of dust away from us and towards the window, opened it and began to run his index finger down the contents page. As he did so, he explained that we do not have Celsus’ original text, but that the philosopher and theologian Origen, writing in the third-century AD, quotes generously from Celsus’ text argument in his apologetic work Contra Celsum and it is possible to reconstruct his argument from Origen’s citations alone. Flicking speedily through the pages, he found his place and began to read out loud:

Unsure of how to reply to this reading, I made a general comment that it ‘all sounds terribly blasphemous!’ to which Leonard laughed and agreed. He then continued to quote from a passage in which Celsus compares Jesus to the Egyptian magicians:

Then Leonard bent forward in his chair and continued to quote from the book, only this time reading slowly and following the text with his finger, giving more attention and gravity to each word:

This is a derogatory version of the life of Jesus, growing out of the response of the Jewish community to Christianity. The tradition presented here is most commonly dated to approximately the 6th century CE. The text it self is closer to the 14th c. There is no scholarly consensus on to what extent the text might be a direct parody of a now lost gospel. H.J. Schonfield argued that it was so closely connected to the Gospel of the Hebrews that he attempted to reconstruct that lost work from the Toledoth.

Text from Goldstein, Jesus in the Jewish Tradition, pp. 148-154. Most of the notes are mine, but they are clearly marked ([G] = Goldstein, [AH] = me)

In the year 3671[1] in the days of King Jannaeus, a great misfortune befell Israel, when there arose a certain disreputable man of the tribe of Judah, whose name was Joseph Pandera. He lived at Bethlehem, in Judah.

Near his house dwelt a widow and her lovely and chaste daughter named Miriam. Miriam was betrothed to Yohanan, of the royal house of David, a man learned in the Torah and God-fearing.

At the close of a certain Sabbath, Joseph Pandera, attractive and like a warrior in appearance, having gazed lustfully upon Miriam, knocked upon the door of her room and betrayed her by pretending that he was her betrothed husband, Yohanan. Even so, she was amazed at this improper conduct and submitted only against her will.

Thereafter, when Yohanan came to her, Miriam expressed astonishment at behavior so foreign to his character. It was thus that they both came to know the crime of Joseph Pandera and the terrible mistake on the part of Miriam. Whereupon Yohanan went to Rabban Shimeon ben Shetah and related to him the tragic seduction. Lacking witnesses required for the punishment of Joseph Pandera, and Miriam being with child, Yohanan left for Babylonia.[2]

Miriam gave birth to a son and named him Yehoshua, after her brother. This name later deteriorated to Yeshu. On the eighth day he was circumcised. When he was old enough the lad was taken by Miriam to the house of study to be instructed in the Jewish tradition.

One day Yeshu walked in front of the Sages with his head uncovered, showing shameful disrespect. At this, the discussion arose as to whether this behavior did not truly indicate that Yeshu was an illegitimate child and the son of a niddah[3]. Moreover, the story tells that while the rabbis were discussing the Tractate Nezikin, he gave his own impudent interpretation of the law and in an ensuing debate he held that Moses could not be the greatest of the prophets if he had to receive counsel from Jethro. This led to further inquiry as to the antecedents of Yeshu, and it was discovered through Rabban Shimeon ben Shetah that he was the illegitimate son of Joseph Pandera. Miriam admitted it.[4] After this became known, it was necessary for Yeshu to flee to Upper Galilee.

After King Jannaeus, his wife Helene[5] ruled over all Israel. In the Temple was to be found the Foundation Stone on which were engraven the letters of God’s Ineffable Name. Whoever learned the secret of the Name and its use would be able to do whatever he wished. Therefore, the Sages took measures so that no one should gain this knowledge. Lions of brass were bound to two iron pillars at the gate of the place of burnt offerings. Should anyone enter and learn the Name, when he left the lions would roar at him and immediately the valuable secret would be forgotten.

Yeshu came and learned the letters of the Name; he wrote them upon the parchment which he placed in an open cut on his thigh and then drew the flesh over the parchment. As he left, the lions roared and he forgot the secret. But when he came to his house he reopened the cut in his flesh with a knife an lifted out the writing. Then he remembered and obtained the use of the letters.[6]

He gathered about himself three hundred and ten young men of Israel and accused those who spoke ill of his birth of being people who desired greatness and power for themselves. Yeshu proclaimed, “I am the Messiah; and concerning me Isaiah prophesied and said, ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.’” He quoted other messianic texts, insisting, “David my ancestor prophesied concerning me: ‘The Lord said to me, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.’”

The insurgents with him replied that if Yeshu was the Messiah he should give them a convincing sign. They therefore, brought to him a lame man, who had never walked. Yeshu spoke over the man the letters of the Ineffable Name, and the leper was healed. Thereupon, they worshipped him as the Messiah, Son of the Highest.

When word of these happenings came to Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin decided to bring about the capture of Yeshu. They sent messengers, Annanui and Ahaziah, who, pretending to be his disciples, said that they brought him an invitation from the leaders of Jerusalem to visit them. Yeshu consented on condition the members of the Sanhedrin receive him as a lord. He started out toward Jerusalem and, arriving at Knob, acquired an ass on which he rode into Jerusalem, as a fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah.

The Sages bound him and led him before Queen Helene, with the accusation: “This man is a sorcerer and entices everyone.” Yeshu replied, “The prophets long ago prophesied my coming: ‘And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse,’ and I am he; but as for them, Scripture says ‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.’”

Queen Helene asked the Sages: “What he says, is it in your Torah?” They replied: “It is in our Torah, but it is not applicable to him, for it is in Scripture: ‘And that prophet which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.’ He has not fulfilled the signs and conditions of the Messiah.”

Yeshu spoke up: “Madam, I am the Messiah and I revive the dead.” A dead body was brought in; he pronounced the letters of the Ineffable Name and the corpse came to life. The Queen was greatly moved and said: “This is a true sign.” She reprimanded the Sages and sent them humiliated from her presence. Yeshu’s dissident followers increased and there was controversy in Israel.

Yeshu went to Upper Galilee. the Sages came before the Queen, complaining that Yeshu practiced sorcery and was leading everyone astray. Therefore she sent Annanui and Ahaziah to fetch him.

The found him in Upper Galilee, proclaiming himself the Son of God. When they tried to take him there was a struggle, but Yeshu said to the men of Upper Galilee: “Wage no battle.” He would prove himself by the power which came to him from his Father in heaven. He spoke the Ineffable Name over the birds of clay and they flew into the air. He spoke the same letters over a millstone that had been placed upon the waters. He sat in it and it floated like a boat. When they saw this the people marveled. At the behest of Yeshu, the emissaries departed and reported these wonders to the Queen. She trembled with astonishment.

Then the Sages selected a man named Judah Iskarioto and brought him to the Sanctuary where he learned the letters of the Ineffable Name as Yeshu had done.

When Yeshu was summoned before the queen, this time there were present also the Sages and Judah Iskarioto. Yeshu said: “It is spoken of me, ‘I will ascend into heaven.’” He lifted his arms like the wings of an eagle and he flew between heaven and earth, to the amazement of everyone.

The elders asked Iskarioto to do likewise. He did, and flew toward heaven. Iskarioto attempted to force Yeshu down to earth but neither one of the two could prevail against the other for both had the use of the Ineffable Name. However, Iskarioto defiled Yeshu, so that they both lost their power and fell down to the earth, and in their condition of defilement the letters of the Ineffable Name escaped from them. Because of this deed of Judah they weep on the eve of the birth of Yeshu.

Yeshu was seized. His head was covered with a garment and he was smitten with pomegranate staves; but he could do nothing, for he no longer had the Ineffable Name.

Yeshu was taken prisoner to the synagogue of Tiberias, and they bound him to a pillar. To allay his thirst they gave him vinegar to drink. On his head they set a crown of thorns. There was strife and wrangling between the elders and the unrestrained followers of Yeshu, as a result of which the followers escaped with Yeshu to the region of Antioch[7]; there Yeshu remained until the eve of the Passover.

[8] Yeshu then resolved to go the Temple to acquire again the secret of the Name. That year the Passover came on a Sabbath day. On the eve of the Passover, Yeshu, accompanied by his disciples, came to Jerusalem riding upon an ass. Many bowed down before him. He entered the Temple with his three hundred and ten followers. One of them, Judah Iskarioto[9] apprised the Sages that Yeshu was to be found in the Temple, that the disciples had taken a vow by the Ten Commandments not to reveal his identity but that he would point him out by bowing to him. So it was done and Yeshu was seized. Asked his name, he replied to the question by several times giving the names Mattai, Nakki, Buni, Netzer, each time with a verse quoted by him and a counter-verse by the Sages.

Yeshu was put to death on the sixth hour on the eve of the Passover and of the Sabbath. When they tried to hang him on a tree it broke, for when he had possessed the power he had pronounced by the Ineffable Name that no tree should hold him. He had failed to pronounce the prohibition over the carob-stalk[10], for it was a plant more than a tree, and on it he was hanged until the hour for afternoon prayer, for it is written in Scripture, “His body shall not remain all night upon the tree.” They buried him outside the city.

On the first day of the week his bold followers came to Queen Helene with the report that he who was slain was truly the Messiah and that he was not in his grave; he had ascended to heaven as he prophesied. Diligent search was made and he was not found in the grave where he had been buried. A gardener had taken him from the grave and had brought him into his garden and buried him in the sand over which the waters flowed into the garden.

Queen Helene demanded, on threat of a severe penalty, that the body of Yeshu be shown to her within a period of three days. There was a great distress. When the keeper of the garden saw Rabbi Tanhuma walking in the field and lamenting over the ultimatum of the Queen, the gardener related what he had done, in order that Yeshu’s followers should not steal the body and then claim that he had ascended into heaven. The Sages removed the body, tied it to the tail of a horse and transported it to the Queen, with the words, “This is Yeshu who is said to have ascended to heaven.” Realizing that Yeshu was a false prophet who enticed the people and led them astray, she mocked the followers but praised the Sages.

The disciples went out among the nations–three went to the mountains of Ararat, three to Armenia, three to Rome and three to the kingdoms buy the sea, They deluded the people, but ultimately they were slain.

The erring followers amongst Israel said: “You have slain the Messiah of the Lord.” The Israelites answered: “You have believed in a false prophet.” There was endless strife and discord for thirty years.

The Sages desired to separate from Israel those who continued to claim Yeshu as the Messiah, and they called upon a greatly learned man, Simeon Kepha, for help. Simeon went to Antioch, main city of the Nazarenes and proclaimed toe them: “I am the disciple of Yeshu. He has sent me to show you the way. I will give you a sign as Yeshu has done.”

Simeon, having gained the secret of the Ineffable Name, healed a leper and a lame man by means of it and thus found acceptance as a true disciple. He told them that Yeshu was in heaven, at the right hand of his Father, in fulfillment of Psalm 110:1. He added that Yeshu desired that they separate themselves from the Jews and no longer follow their practices, as Isaiah had said, “Your new moons and your feasts my soul abhorreth.” They were now to observe the first day of the week instead of the seventh, the Resurrection instead of the Passover, the Ascension into Heaven instead of the Feast of Weeks, the finding of the Cross instead of the New Year, the Feast of the Circumcision instead of the Day of Atonement, the New Year instead of Chanukah; they were to be indifferent with regard to circumcision and the dietary laws. Also they were to follow the teaching of turning the right if smitten on the left and the meek acceptance of suffering. All these new ordinances which Simeon Kepha (or Paul, as he was known to the Nazarenes) taught them were really meant to separate these Nazarenes from the people of Israel and to bring the internal strife to an end.

 About 90, BC. [G] Some traditions say ‘Egypt’. [AH] Sexual impurity (incest, adultery, prostitution, etc.). [AH]      

 In one version of this admission, she confesses that not only is Yeshu the product of an illicit union, but she was ritually unclean from menstruation at the time as well (Sexual contact even with a woman’s husband is not lawful during, or, in Rabbinic law, for some time after, menstruation). [AH]

 Salome Alexandra. [G]

 Consistent, apparently, with the general tenor of Jewish criticism of Jesus’ miracles going at least as far back as Celsus (2nd c.) this tradition does not deny Jesus’ ability to perform miracles, accusing him instead of practicing magic. This version even accepts the divine origin of the miracles, attributing them to his misuse of the divine name, with its inherent powers. In the Alphabet of Ben Sira, Lilith is accused of the same crime, using the power of the name to escape from the Garden of Eden. [AH]

 Some traditions say ‘Egypt’. [G]

 In a variation on the story, Judah is able to out-miracle Yeshu in the sign contest without defiling him. Yeshu is discredited and arrested, and, as in this story, his followers are able to break him free, but he still remembers the Ineffable Name. He escapes to Egypt in hopes of learning Egyptian magic as well (regarded as the best magic in the world). Judah comes to Egypt and infiltrates the disciples, posing as one himself. It is from this vantage point that he is able to cause Yeshu to forget the magical Name, resulting in the later’s desire to return to Jerusalem and relearn it. Judah sends warning to the Sages, along with his plan to arrest him. [AH]

 Aramaic: Ga’isa. [G]

 Or cabbage stalk. [AH]

Federal authorities said Thursday they have seized some of an Ohio company’s supplies of contaminated blood thinner containing material from China. U.S. marshals, acting at the request of the Food and Drug Administration, seized 11 lots of heparin from Celsus Laboratories Inc. of Cincinnati, the agency said in a news release.

Click here to read more

‘Their injunctions are like this. “Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near. For these abilities are thought by us to be evils. But as for anyone ignorant, anyone stupid, anyone uneducated, anyone who is a child, let him come boldly.” By the fact that they themselves admit that these people are worthy of their God, they show that they want and are able to convince only the foolish, dishonourable and stupid, and only slaves, women, and children.’

- Celsus, quoted by Origen in Contra Celsum

‘For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.’

- 1 Corinthians 1