I’m starting a new project, involving study of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Compendium Theologiae, which is currently in print as Aquinas’ Shorter Summa. I’ve created a new blog just for this; if you’d like to join in, drop on by. (And please do! I need all of the help I can get.)
I do plan to keep blogging here as well.
This is a fascinating book.
Subtitled, somewhat flamboyantly, “The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome,” Stark’s book takes a quantitative and statistical look at how Christianity spread between Christ’s death and the year 250 AD. That sounds dry, but it’s anything but.
Stark begins by selecting the thirty-one major cities of that time, and then quantifying various facts about them. Did they first have a Christian community by 100 AD? by 180 AD? by 250 AD? Were they port cities or inland? Were they more or less Hellenic in culture? Were they centers of the cults of Isis or Cybele? Did they have sizeable Jewish communities? Then, given these and other data items, he begins to test a number of statistical hypotheses. For example, his results support the hypotheses that Christianity tend to first appear in port cities, and in cities that were part of the Jewish Diaspora. These are obvious conclusions, and most historians would agree with them; but as it notes, if his quantitative method is valid it should give the obvious answer when the answer is really obvious.
It’s his later conclusions that I found most interesting. He spends a great deal of time on the early Christian heresies, especially those which are collectively termed “gnosticism” these days. Some writers, notably Elaine Pagels, have in recent years claimed that there were many Christianities in the early days of the Church, that the Catholic Church suppressed the gnostic Christians, and that perhaps the gnostics had as much right to the name of Christian as those who retained it. Stark investigates this position and finds that it was far otherwise.
A digression. There are quite a few documents found in the last century that have been termed “gnostic”, mostly because it’s a convenient term. Of these, some had sizeable groups associated with them; some had small groups; of others, nothing of their authors or readers is known. The more sizeable groups all tended to share a similar set of beliefs: that the physical universe was not created directly by the One God, but by an evil deity, subordinate to the One God and disobedient to him, called the Demiurge. According to these groups, our souls are creations of the One God, but our bodies and all the things of the physical world are irredeemably evil. This led some groups to extreme asceticism, and others to extreme debauchery—if body and soul are separate, why not let your body do what it likes?—but on the evils of the physical world they were agreed.
Stark compares the locations of known “demiurgist” groups with those of known Christian congregations, and also with those of non-gnostic Christian heresies, the Marcionites and the Montanists. He finds that Marcionite and Montanists groups appeared in the same places as Christian congregations, which is what you’d expect of Christian heresies; they were drawing on the same pool of potential converts, and also from the orthodox groups. The presence of the Manichees and the Valentinians shows a significantly different pattern. These groups are correlated solely with the larger cities (then, as now, more able to support oddball groups), and particularly with those cities in which paganism remained strong the longest. He finds no significant correlation between the presence of Christian and gnostic congregations.
The conclusion is obvious: although the gnostic groups used semi-Christian imagery, they were not really an outgrowth of Christianity at all. On the contrary, they were outgrowths of classical paganism.
As I say, interesting stuff. Moreover, Stark provides all of the numbers (including the correlation coefficients, regression results, and so forth) that underly his conclusions (in an appendix, I hasten to add—the casual reader need not fear). I studied quite a bit of statistics once upon a time, and though I’ve not used it recently I’ve no doubt I could repeat his results with a bit of work, given the data in the book itself.
The book’s not perfect; I had a few quibbles here and there, and being a work of social science it naturally looks only at human-scale explanations and mechanisms, the truly divine being out-of-scope. That’s to be expected, though, and within those limits I think the book is outstanding.
Phil at Brandywine Books has a post on ways to read the Bible, and asks, “How do you read the Bible?” This reminded me of something I’d read recently that I’m trying to put into practice, and that I’ve been meaning to write about anyway.
Pope Benedict meets with many groups, and gets asked many questions. Our Sunday Visitor recently collated quite a few of these into a short book, the aptly named Questions and Answers, which was edited by Amy Welborn’s husband Michael Dubrueil. In one session, a 21-year-old chemical engineering student asks how he can read the Bible and understand it. The Pope answers that there are three ways for the believer to read the Bible, all of which are necessary. He begins,
It must first of all be said that one must not read Sacred Scripture as one reads any kind of historical book, such as, for example, Homer, Ovid, or Horace; it is necessary to truly read it as the Word of God—that is, by entering into a conversation with God…. One should not read Scripture in an academic way, but with prayer, saying to the Lord, “Help me to understand your Word, what it is you want to tell me in this passage.”
A great way to do this is the aptly named practice of lectio divina, which is a slightly more formal technique for doing the above; it involves reading the passage several times, chewing on and meditating on the words, and generally giving the Spirit the opportunity to point things out and make them plain.
So that’s the first way: to understand Scripture with the Lord, in this passage, in this moment. But what about trying to get an appreciation for the Bible as a whole, or to come to understanding of how the Old Testament relates to the New Testament? Benedict goes on,
Sacred Scripture introduces one into communion with the family of God. Thus, one should not read Sacred Scripture on one’s one. Of course, it is always important to read the Bible in a very personal way, in a personal conversation with God; but at the same time it is important to read it in the company of people with whom one can advance, letting oneself be helped by the great masters of lectio divina…. These teachers help us to understand better, and also how to interpret Sacred Scripture properly. Moreover, it is appropriate in general to read it in the company of friends who are journeying with me, who are seeking, together with me, how to live in Christ, to find what life the Word of God brings us.
In short, understanding the Bible is hard: we should rely on good teachers to bring us to understanding.
And then, the third way is read the Bible with the Church as a whole, in the Liturgy. Benedict concludes,
I think we should learn to do three things: To read it in a personal colloquium with the Lord; to read it with the guidance of teachers who have the experience of faith, who have penetrated Sacred Scripture; and to read it in the great company of the Church, in whose liturgy these events never cease to become present anew and in which the Lord speaks with us today.
I find that in my life I’m doing quite a bit of the third, through Sunday mass, and the Liturgy of the Hours every day; and quite a bit of the second, through the various books I’ve been studying, mostly recently Scott Hahn’s A Father Who Keeps His Promises (which I need to review Real Soon Now); the first I’ve been doing much less of, and I’m trying to change that.
Yesterday I said that “to love well is to suffer well.” I was pondering that today in the context of the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, and realized that each of the Joyful Mysteries is shot through with suffering. The events themselves are joyful, indeed, especially in their significance for us, but there is significant suffering for the principles—especially when we remember that suffering is relative, and that little things can sometimes throw us more out of kilter than big ones.
In the Annunciation, we celebrate the coming of the messiah, and Mary’s amazing “Yes” to God. But Mary had to risk censure from her intended, Joseph, and no doubt from both his family and her own. I expect there were some tense moments. No sure does this happen than Mary travels off to her cousin Elizabeth’s house. Note this: Mary went way out of her way to help Elizabeth. Then, about seven months after the birth of John the Baptist, while on the verge of giving birth herself, Mary has to travel with Joseph to Bethlehem, there to be housed with farm animals. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us, I am given to understand, that Mary (being sinless) would have had an easy pregnancy and delivery, not bringing forth her child in pain and tears as Eve did; and if so, one can assume that Mary wouldn’t have had to deal with morning sickness, either. Nevertheless, I can’t imagine that travelling (on a donkey if she were lucky) in the last week of pregnancy can have been all that comfortable. Eight days later, she and Joseph bring Jesus to Jerusalem to be presented in the temple. Travelling with a newborn, what fun. But this time, there’s pain to spread around. Simeon and Anna had been waiting for their entire lives for the messiah to come, and no doubt wondering if he ever would, and of course it all ended in a circumcision. And then, finally, we have the discovery of Jesus in the temple, following days of concern, worry, and anxiety.
Note that in every case, the pain or inconvenience is a necessary part of the event. If Simeon and Anna had not been waiting, they would not have rejoiced so when the messiah was before them.
Now, I admit that we aren’t talking about major torment. In these five mysteries we don’t see Jesus being flogged at the pillar, or carrying his cross to Calvary. St. Therese of Lisieux said that it isn’t necessary to do great things for God; it is simply necessary to do little things with great love. And that’s the key to each of these events: the pain, the inconvenience, the heartache, all are borne with great love, for God’s sake. And so they are ennobled; and so the joy is all the sweeter, because it came at a cost.
Even when Jen is half-baked (her words) she’s worth listening to. Today she quotes several other bloggers, all of whom have noted more or less the same thing: that in our culture, suffering has replaced evil as the thing to be avoided at all costs, and that this has resulted in a decreased respect for human life (as witness the numerous abortions that take place every day, the rise of advocacy for euthanasia, and so forth). She asks,
Why is it that fear of suffering leads to decreased respect for human life?
To which I reply, how can it not?
If suffering is the thing most to be avoided in general, then it follows that my own suffering must be avoided. Given human selfishness, it’s clear that my own suffering must soon take center stage. And suffering is relative. The avoidance of pain soon turns into the avoidance of discomfort, and the avoidance of inconvenience—the avoidance of doing anything at all that would put me out if I can possibly help it. Once one has assumed this attitude, what are other human beings but utilitarian devices to be used to meet my needs, to provide for my comforts and pleasures, and then to be discarded when they no longer serve their purpose?
Love, on the other hand, always involves suffering. To love is to be vulnerable: our loved ones will face trials, will get hurt, will eventually die. We will feel pain on their behalf—and sometimes we will feel pain because they hurt us. The risk is ever-present, and frequently realized.
To love well, we must suffer well. If we choose never to suffer at all, is it surprising that we find it easier to dispose of others rather than to love them?
I found this book interesting and annoying by turns.
The premise is neat. About forty year prior to the action of the present novel, the inhabitants of a planet called Sharona discovered a portal that led to another planet: a planet almost exactly like Sharona in its topography, but completely uninhabited by men. In that universe they found a second portal, to yet another planet, equally like Sharona, but also uninhabited. As the story opens they have colonized widely, running rail lines through the portals and providing ferry links where need be, and they are exploring yet another, the forty-something universe they’ve found. All of them have been uninhabited and open for exploitation.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the multiverse, the inhabitants of a planet called Arcana long ago discovered a portal that led to another planet, a planet exactly like Arcana in its topography, but completely uninhabited. They’ve been exploring the network of universes, colonizing as they go, and as the story opens they are exploring yet another. All of them have been uninhabited and open for exploitation.
Until now, of course, when the two exploration teams collide with disastrous results.
There’s a lot to like about this book. The civilizations of Sharona and Arcana are nicely realized, right down to the global geopolitics of each; neither is truly monolithic, but has a full array of cultures and subcultures. Although Sharona and Arcana are both at a roughly 20th century level of sophistication, they have vastly different technologies. The blurb and the cover leads you to believe that Sharona is a high-tech society similar to our own, while Arcana is based on magic, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. Arcana’s magic is highly developed, and extends to a variety of computer-like gadgets that run “spellware”. In many ways, Arcana feels more like home. Sharona’s technology is larged steam-based…but many of the inhabitants have various telepathy-based “Talents”. Each civilization has its own strengths and weaknesses, but on the whole they are evenly matched.
Another neat touch is that the topography of all of these planets is clearly that of our own Earth; all of the names and cultures are different, of course, but it’s fun to match up places from the little hints that are dropped.
The main problem I have with this book is that the characters are doomed to lose. The authors are setting up a multi-volume epic (as if this volume weren’t big enough, at over 1200 pages), and are clearly going to explore the military and political implications of the two sets of cultures and technologies during the course of a long, drawn out war. And the galling thing is, the war is thoroughly unnecessary. Both sides have a policy of peaceful first contact that is subverted initially by surprise, then by errant and repeated stupidity, and ultimately by malice–but it was clear early on that despite men and women of good will on both sides, Peace wasn’t going to happen. And because there are likable characters on both sides, that’s really a pain.
In short, I liked everything but the plot. I might read subsequent volumes; I’ll have to see what they look like.
I’ve been doing most of my blog-reading via RSS feeds and Google Reader for several months now; it’s extremely cool, if you’ve not given it a try. And one of Google Reader’s features is the ability to tag particularly interesting posts with a “star”. I’ve been using this feature quite a lot, but to date I’ve done almost nothing with the star’d posts. So tonight I thought I’d be a follower and do a round-up post, just like everybody else. Who knows, maybe this will become a regular feature.
The Story of a Friendship: I dunno what’s in the water out Jennifer’s way, but I’d like to get me some of it. Or, what do you do about those kids who keep ringing your doorbell and running away?
The clue in the church bookstore: Or, what the folks at Jeremiah Wright’s church have been reading.
Ipods are Woobies: Or, have you noticed that none of the folks walking around with iPods are dancing like the silhouettes in the ads?
House of Formation: In which Sherry Weddell recalls saying to a flock of Dominican priests,
When you entered the Order, you spent years being educated and formed for your vocation. But I, too, am a preacher of the gospel in my own right – and where is my house of formation? Your parish is my St. Albert’s, the only house of formation I may ever have to prepare me for my vocation as an evangelizing change agent in the world.
I’d like some of the water from Colorado Springs, too.
This book is one of the best I’ve read all year, and maybe longer. I can already tell that it’s one I’ll come back to, time and again–it’s that good. The author, a cradle fundamentalist, converted to Roman Catholicism as an adult, and wrote a book about it entitled Evangelical is Not Enough. Ten years later, he wrote this book, an extended meditation on what it means to be a Christian of the Catholic variety.
Any religion has three components: a moral code, a set of beliefs, and the day-to-day practices. Howard skips over the moral code, which Catholics and other Christians largely agree about it; and he discusses doctrine only to the extent that Catholics and other Christians disagree about it. By far the largest chunk of the book is about the day-to-day Catholic practices that give serious non-Catholics the heebie-jeebies: praying with the saints, for example, but most especially and beautifully the Sacrifice of the Mass. He goes into great and beautiful detail about the Mass, and what it means, and why we Catholics do what we do.
This is not a dry, technical book, I hasten to add. What this is, really, is a love-letter to the Roman Catholic Church, and to Christ its Head, in thanksgiving for all of His many and great blessings. I learned a lot from it, not so much in terms of specific facts, but in terms of how everything in Catholic practice works together. He didn’t just show me the landmarks; he revealed all of the terrain between them.
If you’re a Catholic, and you want to get more out of your faith, I’d suggest reading this book; and if you’re a Protestant who’s worried that his Catholic friends might not be saved, I’d definitely suggest reading this book. And if you’re no kind of Christian at all, you might find it interesting to see what all the noise is about. Highly recommended.
Memorial Day is stretching at our house. The morning of Memorial Day we went off to the local Memorial Day parade, which was an odd aggregation of JROTC, marching bands, local firms, and pre-schools. Lots and lots of pre-schools. I had no idea we had so many pre-schools in the area. Oh, and a handful of local politicians. We even had a fly-over to begin the parade: a C5 Galaxy and a couple of helicopters. There was a fellow in a Navy uniform in the back of one convertible. Someone said, “Hey, there’s a sailor!” and my four-year-old daughter started calling, “Hi, Sailor! Hi, Sailor!” My wife passed on a remark of her father’s: “Little boys play with soldiers and little girls play with dolls. When they grow, up, though….”
Then, that evening, we sat the kids down and put The Longest Day on the DVD player. We watched from the beginning of the movie to the first glider landings, and then had to stop. Tonight we continued from there through the assault on the beaches and “Der Fuhrer”‘s refusal to release the reserve panzers. Tomorrow we’ll wind it up.
We thought our boys should see what courage looks like, and why these men are worth remembering.
Jen at Et Tu has just written a timely post on the dangers of looking for validation in the comments on your blog posts. I link to it because it speaks to some things I’ve been thinking about, and indirectly to one of the reasons why I’ve not been posting much recently: intellectual vanity.
As I noted a while back, I’m currently fascinated by the Dominicans, the “Order of Preachers”. One of the Dominican mottos is to contemplate, and then share the fruits of your contemplation. I’ve been doing a lot of contemplating over the last year, and there are many things I’ve thought might be worthy of sharing. I’ve posted a few of them. But every time I do that, I start waiting and hoping that someone will notice how brilliant I am—that I’ll get buckets of links, and tons of positive comments, and that generally I’ll be regarded as the neatest thing since sliced bread. And while not every such link gets noticed, I’ve gotten just enough encouragement to keep looking for it.
And that means that my goal hasn’t been to teach, or to help others, or to give glory to God, but rather to accumulate glory for myself—which, as I realized some months ago, is intellectual vanity. Consequently, I more or less put myself on a blogging diet whilst pondering this. And I’ve come to a number of conclusions. First is that I need to spend more time with real flesh-and-blood people and less time with pixels (i.e., with people at our parish, with friends, and with family). Second is that blogging about the things I’m thinking about is OK, but I need to watch my attitude.
So, if you liked this post, feel free not to tell me. 🙂
The View from the Foothills 