World Crier

Friday, January 20, 2006

Submission to God or to Religious Authorities?

I intend to introduce you to a lost Christianity: The Christianity of the first century which came to an end at the close of the fifth century (so that modern scholars have to deal with the end of Ancient Christianity and then try to detect a bridge to the current edition of Christianity) and to give you a sense of how we got from there to here. The crucial difference is that initially Christians had an unmediated contact with God Himself and eventually with the emergence of the modern issue of Christianity, people ended up with an utterly mediated form of a State Religion in which it is not even necessary for God to exist, because the whole system works so perfectly without Him…



I am going to study, today, in a sketchy reconstruction, the transition from the unmediated contact with God Himself to this particular form we currently experience in our life, which is Christianity without God,-because the agents of God have become so powerful, that we have substituted them for Him - and then to ask the question whether any human being can really substitute for God. I will start by reminding you of three well-known parables in the Gospel, which enable me to ask the fundamental questions leading us into the core of the subject. “Ye are the salt of the earth but if the salt have lost his savour wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men”. This is a very well known passage. Of course, we always accept that Christianity is the salt of the earth and if the salt is to loose its quality what is going to happen? Have we ever asked ourselves though what would happen if the earth itself were to become salt? There are two extremes: One is to have the salt disappearing, and becoming tasteless and itself in need of salt and the vital substance not to be found anywhere. The other extreme, which we do not usually imagine of, is that the earth itself should become salt. In this scenario, there would be no real need for salt. It would be superfluous.



“Ye are the light of the world”. This presupposes that there is darkness in the world, so that the light is meaningful. Supposing for a moment that the world itself becomes divine light, what is the point for anybody, even for Christ, being the light of the light, i.e. being the light of the world?



Thirdly, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid into three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened”. The fermentation cannot expand beyond the three measures of flour and thus no “leavening” occurs once all three measures of flour become dough…



In all these examples it is obvious that in order that Christianity remains meaningful there must be a certain background, something else which is NOT whatever Christianity is, or whatever Christianity brings about and so Christianity makes sense as long as the unsalted earth receives the salt, the darkened world enjoys the light and the unleavened flour absorbs the leaven.



There are two dangers. First, that the salt may loose its savour. However, there is another danger, which apparently happened in the history of the church: the temptation to christianize the world thoroughly and entirely, so that, as it were, the earth itself becomes salt, the world becomes entirely light and the leaven finds no more flour to ferment. This can turn into an undesirable situation, a negative outcome, if we were to cause it ourselves hic et nunc, as indeed happened in the course of historic Christianity, and if is done by force, by coercion, it certainly results in tragedy. Secularity, atheism, indifference, profanity, anything that is not Christian is most likely to emerge if we were to force the whole earth to become salt, the whole earth to become light, or all the flour to become leaven. It is important that the salt, the light and the leaven remain active within something else, which is not identical with them, or –paradoxically- they become useless.



Let us see how a modern historian, Peter Brown, has traced such a mentality through historical evidence he drew from early Christian sources: “The avoidance of pollution by pagan rites, and not the spread of the gospel through the total suppression of pagan worship, weighed most heavily with the average Christian of the post-Constantinian age”. You see, the early Christians (of the faith which is lost to us now), were not so much concerned with spreading the word, preaching the gospel, converting the world into salt or light or leavened bread or whatever, as they were preserving themselves from pollution by the rites of the pagans who surrounded them, from whatever was not Christian, as if they sensed that they had to keep a balance: “A strong sense of pollution, focussed on the act of pagan sacrifice and its associated ritual was framed in such a way as to imply both that paganism lay outside their own community and that it was there to stay”. Initially, there were no plans to eradicate paganism. You could be a perfect Christian without intending to impose Christianity on everyone else. This was unthinkable at that period. Paganism could be permanent but at the same time, you had to keep clear of it. It was a different attitude.



This perception was based on the fact that Christ was Master of the cosmos, of the universe, and he had really achieved EVERYTHING by His victory on the cross. He was not in need of our support or of our collaboration in order to accomplish His work. The famous phrase, which he addressed Himself to the Father on the last night before his Passion was “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do”. If we believe that this work still remains unfinished (implying that He needs our collaboration in order to finish it), then we have a completely different understanding of Christ Himself. Christ is either the victor over this world, completely and definitely by His cross and resurrection, having accomplished everything as He said to His Father, or He is an extremely weak human being, not divine at all, who can do nothing without our co-operation. This Christ is one who could be intimidated at any time if we were to strike against this co-operation.



Therefore, early Christianity could never imagine that Christ was not the Master of the Cosmos, and saw Him as eternally with a cosmic role. His role was conceived before the beginning of the world and fully achieved and accomplished before all ages. There was nothing at all before or after His incarnation that could become an obstacle to His divine plan for the salvation of the world. That is why it is important to see that Christ can only be a cosmic Christ and not the Christ of the individual, because salvation in the early period of Christianity was perceived as the salvation of THE WORLD only and never as the salvation of particular individuals. The individual could be saved simply and merely because they were part of the world. The modern idea of privacy and individuality that prevails in our society, especially in civilised and advanced societies, was unknown in the past. Reality was seen and understood as totality. Human beings were seen as extant only in their interconnections within the cosmos, within the world, and saved as such. That is why Jesus Christ is seen as the “lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”. It would have been quite different if the Bible had stated, “This is the lamb that takes away the sin of each one of us”. Superficially, it sounds the same but makes a tremendous difference in the way that we visualize reality. In the terms of early Christian understanding, salvation in Christ does not apply to individuals. It applies only to the world. Because we are inseparable part of the world, we can be saved. God loved the world so much that he gave his Son, but he has never given his Son just to open up personal relations with each individual; to become, as it were, our private property. We are saved altogether as part of the world or we are lost and perished altogether as part of the world. This is the cosmic understanding, which comes very close to modern scientific perceptions of the cosmos, the way we were created, the Big Bang. We hear that scientists have found in our cells remnants of this original explosion of the Big Bang. It still survives in our DNA through generations and generations. Everything makes sense when we perceive ourselves as part of the Cosmos, and Christ as the Saviour of the world, the Saviour of the totality of what He has created in His Image and Likeness rather than as the paticularizer, that choosy Person, the choosy God, who picks up here the elect person but rejects the other one over there. He is not like this.



“The particular idea, as Oscar Cullman has put it, adopted by modern, (especially Western) theologians is that Redemption is not a thing that occurs in time but rather an abstract teaching. However, Christ can only redeem us within time and space as He has created us in time and space from the very beginning and the Bible begins with the Creation: the Creation of the Universe by God. All these things are so interwoven, that we cannot perceive redemption outside space and time”.



The modern historian Peter Brown, again, has found connections with this idea in examining the relationship between early Christianity and the pagan world: “Not only was the triumph of Christ preordained: each manifestation of it was instantaneous. As a result, the immediate human consequences of that victory could be taken for granted. The gods were thought to have passed away from all regions, much as, in the Christian rite of exorcism, the demon was believed to have passed out of the body of the possessed in a single, dramatic spasm, that left the sufferer free to return, immediately, to normal health of mind and body. Narratives of the end of paganism-such as the dramatic destruction of the Serapeum of Alexandria in around 392- follow an analogous brisk rhythm. It was enough that Serapis should be seen to have been driven from the shrine that he had “possessed” for so many centuries, by the power of Christ, made palpable through the successful violence of his servants. It was assumed that Alexandria had been “healed” by the passing of its greatest god and could henceforth be treated as a Christian city. More important still, such an otherwordly narrative even enabled the devotees of the old gods to accept what was, often, a brutal fait accompli. The worshippers of Serapis declared that, in a manner characteristic of the gods of Egypt, their god had simply withdrawn to heaven, saddened that so much blasphemy should happen in his favoured city”.

You see, it was a matter of “keeping within your borders” in a sense, but not trying necessarily to destroy your opponents. Christ had destroyed the gods. It was His business so to do. He did not need their help, their support or their assistance in order to do this.



Therefore, the non-Christianized parts of the cosmos were never a problem for early Christians. Peter Brown once more: “In the 420s Shenute of Atripi observed that the provincial governor, a man with a reputation for being wise, had taken to wearing a jackal’s claw tied to his right toe. The governor informed him that he did this on the recommendation of a holy Great Monk. A leading Christian ascetic had validated what appeared to Shenute to be a blatantly non-Christian occult remedy. Shenute’s reaction is interesting. Faced by the thoughtful governor, he did not think of denying the existence of a universe sharply divided between upper and lower powers. (The lower powers are the demons, the devils. You can find evidence of that. In the New Testament, we can find the Principalities, the Archons who crucified the Lord. Therefore, even in the New Testament it has been accepted that there is a lower region belonging to the devil. This does not contradict the existence of Christianity on earth.) Shenute countered, rather, with an exaltation of the power of Christ, as the one being Who was uniquely able to bridge the imaginative fissure that ran across the universe, separating its highest from its lowest reaches. The power of Christ was able to reach down to touch all aspects of daily life in the material world: “Try to attain to the full measure of this Name, and you will find it on your mouth and on the mouths of your children. When you make high festival and when you rejoice, cry Jesus. When anxious and in pain, cry Jesus. When little boys and girls are laughing, let them cry Jesus; And those who flee before barbarians cry Jesus; those who see wild beasts and sights of terror, cry Jesus; those who are taken off to prison cry Jesus; and those whose trial has been corrupted and who receive injustice cry the Name of Jesus.” This was the way to face the pagan world.



The final example from Peter Brown is very characteristic: “Even the symbols of the new, Christian dispensation - the Christogramm, the labarum, a little later, exquisite ornamental crosses -, appear in places allotted to them by the common celebration of the reparatio saeculi, of the felicitas saeculi, of a world restored and at ease, despite potential chaos. They appear on almost any prestigious or significant object connected with the new elites, -on milestones, on mosaic pavements, on sets of luxury cutlery,even, indeed, on the iron dog-collar of a slave, with the inscription: Arrest me for I have run away and bring me back to the Mons Caelius, to the palace of Elpidius, Vir Clarissimus”….(All references are from “Authority and theSacred”Cambridge,1995) You could be a Christian and still have a slave, even wearing dog collar decorated with the sign of the cross!

In the middle of all this, Augustine appeared and created a new kind of Christianity, sort of Christian culture that aimed at annihilating the pagan culture. Christianisation suddenly was seen (and ever since is being seen), no longer as the decisive victory of the cosmic Christ upon the authorities and principalities of this world and the demons, but as conversion to a distinctive mannerism of speech and worship, of habits which composed compulsory ascetic standards for all human beings, thus turning ascetic life from spontaneous dedication and submission to God to a conventional Christian fashion. This was the great shift that emerged at the end of the fifth century through the influence of Augustine. Before Augustine, Christianity was construed by its followers as the best way to enjoy divine intimacy. It had much more to do with recreation and entertainment, than with strict discipline and self- mortification... The latter was a degradation of what originally had been pursued as a solemn and lifelong act of gratitude towards the One who, as if not content with being the Creator of Man, also made Himself Man’s Saviour before all ages, further granting Mankind, apart from Being, Well-being and, finally, Everlasting Being, namely, ultimate union with Himself.

Augustine, instead, discovered that sin, the enemy of humanity, had overcome Christ’s victory and nothing at all could ever eradicate it, not even baptism, as concupiscence remains active after it. Up to Augustine, the enemy was outside man, it was a challenge out there and the Christian world had only to protect themselves from its pollution. However, with Augustine and after Augustine sin becomes a tangible reality and the enemy within. So the borderline between Christian and non-Christian worlds suddenly becomes very significant as Christ’s universal and unique victory over the powers and principalities of this world was being gradually relativized in so far as sin still prevailed in all human beings. Therefore, whatever had been considered to be peculiar to Christianity looses its particularity from now on and Christians must collaborate with and help Christ to accomplish what (out of weakness or unwillingness) He left unaccomplished in us…



All this is only background. Merely an introduction to a sermon by John Chrysostom, which was delivered in the year 387, a unique example of the unmediated intimacy with the divine in a period, which was not going to last for long. In the following extracts, you can really witness this intimacy with the divine and their understanding of Christianity, which is so different from ours. The sermon was addressed to both Catechumens and baptised people: “…You are called to a wedding, beloved. Do not go in wearing stained clothing but take the proper apparel. People invited to a wedding, however poor, will often borrow or buy clean clothing before meeting those who invited them. But as you are called to a spiritual wedding and an imperial feast, bear in mind that the clothes you buy should be extraordinarily proper. There is, however, no need to shop for them. The host

Himself gives them to you as a gift, so that you will not have poverty as an excuse. Guard then the clothing you received, since, if you ruin it, you will not be able to borrow or buy it again, for it is not for sale anywhere…” You see, the intimacy with God is obvious. God provides for everything even for your spiritual clothing. You put on Christ by baptism. This is the meaning of the phrase. He does not need agencies. Himself provides for everything. He acts immediately without any mediators: “Notice that it is the same with grace as with virtue. If anyone is lame , if he has lost his eyes, if he is disabled in body, if he has fallen into debilitating chronic illness, by none of these is grace hindered from coming upon the soul, for grace seeks only the soul eager to receive, and neglects all such outer things. In the case of earthly soldiers, those about to induct them into the army examine both their bodily size and physical health, and not only these are required of the recruit, but he must be free as well. If anyone is a slave, he is thrown out. The King of heaven, however, does not examine such criteria, but will accept into his army without shame slaves and the aged and those feeble in limb.” You see, the problem that there are slaves, as the one reported above by Peter Brown with the chain, is not a problem for the King of heaven. This is how they faced slavery. “What could be more philanthropic than this? What more beneficial? He seeks only what is in our control, while they seek what is not in our control. [This was going to be reversed in the next two centuries and the church would seek whatever was not in our control. However, look, at this point in time, this distinction is clear; those in power in this world are seeking things that are not in our control. God seeks whatever is in our control.] “… To be slave or free is not our decision, nor again is it in our control to be tall or short, nor old nor young, nor such things. To be gentle or good, however, and things like these, belong to our will. God asks of us only the things over which we are master, which stands to reason, because it is not from any need of His but from beneficence that He calls us to His grace. Yet kings recruit for the service rendered them; and while they lead into a physical war, God leads into a spiritual battle. One can see the same analogy, not only in the case of worldly wars, but also in the case of the games. Those who are about to be led into that arena, do not immediately go down to the events until the announcer takes them and leads them before everyone’s eyes, calling out, “Does anyone accuse this one?” Yet indeed these are not bouts involving the soul, but bodies. Why then do you demand an account of his lineage? Here, however, there is none of this, but everything is different, the bouts not involving wrestling grips with the hands, but involving philosophy of the soul and virtue of the will. The commissioner acts differently, too. He does not take him, lead him around, and say, Does anyone accuse this one? Instead he calls out, “If all people, - if all demons arrayed with the devil himself accuse him of the most unspeakably dire crimes, I will never dismiss him nor disdain him. Instead, delivering him from the accusation and freeing him from this base condition, in this way do I lead unto the events”. This also stands to reason .There the commissioner does not help the contestants to victory, but stands in the middle. Here, however, the commissioner of the contests of piety is an ally and aid joining with them in the fight against the devil. That God forgives our sins, is not the only amazing point. But also that he does not disclose them nor make them plain and clear, nor require a public appearance to confess one’s offences. [Despite what we used to believe of the ancient church, that it was customary to confess their sins in public, in the year 387 this was utterly unknown. Nobody would do that.] “…To Himself alone he requires an accounting and before Him a confession. Among the secular judges, indeed, if anyone offered to some captured thief or tomb-robber that he could admit his offences and be forgiven the penalty, he would certainly admit it eagerly, discounting the shame in his desire for safety. But here there is none of this. Instead, He forgives the sins and does not require that they be paraded before others. One thing only He always seeks, that the person who himself enjoys the forgiveness might know the greatness of the gift…”



This is an eloquent example of divine intimacy. It is an exquisite description of what Christianity meant to be.

Now, in order to help you see what you already know, I will take you nine hundred years later to examine where we stand on exactly the same issue. Here is a passage from John of Paris; Jean Quidor was his real name. He lived in the second part of the thirteenth century and wrote a book On Royal and Papal Power: “According to the gospel, six powers were granted to the apostles and disciples of the Lord and so therefore to their successors, the ministers of the church. One is that power of consecration, sometimes called the character or power of order, which the Lord gave to his disciples at the Last Supper when, in giving them his body in the form of bread, he bade them “Do this in remembrance of me”. Another, the second, is the power of administering the sacraments and especially the sacrament of penance.” [the power of absolving sins is the most important sacrament in the Middle Ages, not the Eucharist.] “… This is the power of the keys or of spiritual jurisdiction in the sphere of conscience, consisting in the authority of judging between leprosy or non-leprosy. (Deuteron. 17: 8) in the power of absolving from guilt and changing the condition of the guilty from deserving the punishment of eternal damnation to being punishable by temporal punishment. The third power is the authority of the apostolate or preaching which the Lord gave them as is recounted in Matthew 10. The forth power is judicial, the power to coerce in the external forum by which things are corrected by fear of punishment especially sins in scandal of the church. The concession of this power is in Matthew 18. The authority to judge in this form, has been given to the church when it is said: Tell the church, that is, so that it might have cognizance, and also the authority to coerce and punish through ecclesiastical censure when it is said: If he will not hear the church let him be to thee as the heathen etc. The confirmation of this is added with the words: Truly, I say to you whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven etc and the gloss: by the bond of anathema. It is especially to be reflected upon that in these three acts, illumination through doctrine, purification through correction, perfection through the sacraments, priests have the full power of priestly rule over the community of the faithful.” [Christ has no such power because all Christ’s powers have been transmitted fully to the priests. Thus, the initial immediacy, the intimacy with God Himself has been definitely lost.]

“Fifth prerogative: The fifth is the power according to the opinion of some of distributing ministers by establishing ecclesiastical jurisdictions, so that confusion be avoided. For the power of the keys and the power of jurisdiction were given to all equally without establishing boundaries, and each could use it effectively on any sinner at all, since the sinner is the proper subject of which the action of the jurisdiction, the absolution, calls, in the same way as wheaten bread, without qualification, is the matter on which falls the exercise of the power of order.



Sixth prerogative. The sixth power would seem to spring logically from all the foregoing: it is the power to receive what is necessary to maintain a suitable standard of living from those to whom they minister spiritually. This power was given to Peter and the Apostles and declared obligatory when, in Matthew 10, after Christ had begged them to go out and preach, he added instruction as to how they should conduct themselves towards temporal possessions. You received without pay, give without pay, and the gloss: Just as I give you such power without pay do you also give freely lest the grace of the gospel be corrupted. and again in the text: Take no gold, no silver etc You who exhort others to despise riches; and again in the text: no bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor a staff, gloss: He deprives them of the mere necessity of the help of a stick lest they who teach them that all things are ruled by God should take heed for the morrow. The text goes on about their power to accept: For the labourer deserves his food. Here is why he ordered them to carry nothing since all is their due… These six privileges then are the powers, which the Apostles receive from Christ. They receive no other except that of working miracles to confirm faith.” Listen to that: “There is no necessity for bishops and priests to follow them here, for the confirmation of our faith is so manifest as no longer to need confirmation by miracles.”!!!



You can make the comparison and see how full power has been transmitted to agents and, Christ the Victor, who in Chrysostom’ s catechism does everything Himself to everyone, has simply been put aside. Had He never existed, it would make no difference, for the system ever since works by itself…



I will conclude by reading out to you a small passage from the letter to Galatians in order to provoke your reaction. It is from the fourth chapter: “This is what I mean: so long as the heir is a minor, he is no better off than a slave, even though the whole estate is his. He is subject to guardians and trustees until the date set by his father. So it was with us. During our minority, we were slaves, subject to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the appointed time came, God sent his son, borne of a woman, borne under the law, to find freedom for those who were under the law in order that we might attain the status of sons. And to prove that you ARE sons, God has sent into our hearts the Spirit of his Son crying Abba, Father”. But what really happened in history is that the trustees would never accept or recognise anybody coming to adulthood, because this would be to their detriment. It would restrict their prerogatives, the six powers granted to them by Christ! Therefore, we have to remain slaves for life -this is the latest edition of Christianity we are familiar with - we are not familiar at all with the edition of Christianity described by Chrysostom… Therefore, we have to remain minors for life because our spiritual adulthood is a real threat to the people who have been granted the six powers. This is the edition of Christianity that has prevailed since Augustine’s time. The rest of it can be deduced: How salvation was privatised, how Christ ceased being the cosmic Saviour of every human being that comes into the world, how Satan was established on the throne of Christ in all churches and why we are where we stand today. ..

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