torsdag 19 juni 2014

Now, that was true: "If the Papacy is not the Antichrist, then there is no point to the Reformation separation from Papacy."

On a list over Reformers who considered Papacy to be Antichrist, the compiler* ended with these remarks:

The Papal reaction — the "Counter Reformation." In an attempt to divert the undermining influence of the Protestant Reformation, a two-pronged counter attack was made.

Praeterist school of interpretationFuturist school of interpretation
founded by Alcazar, a Spanish Jesuit in 1614.founded by Francisco Ribera and Robert Bellarmine
The fulfillment of Revelation is in the past with the Fall of Jerusalem or the Fall of Pagan Rome, before the Popes ever ruled Rome.The fulfillment of Revelation is in the future with an individual man as the Antichrist, Man of Sin, and a literal rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem.


Around 1590, Francisco Ribera published a 500-page book on Revelation. The first chapters of Revelation he applied to the time of the early church. From Revelation chapter 4 onward he applied literally, to a literal 3-1/2 year reign of an individual man, Antichrist. He taught that Antichrist would rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, deny Christ, pretend to be God, and conquer the world.

Robert Bellarmine, one of the most renowned Jesuit cardinals, taught that the Antichrist would be an individual Jew, who would reign a literal 3-1/2 years in Jerusalem, in whom would dwell all the power of the devil.

Paving the way for Papal-Protestant Union. The Evangelical Fundamentalist interpretation of Antichrist and Man of Sin as follows Ribera's and Bellarmine's Futuristic viewpoints. Not only has the Futuristic interpretation negated the powerful Reformation interpretation against Papacy, but it also allows room for ecumenism between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. If the Papacy is not the Antichrist, then there is no point to the Reformation separation from Papacy.


I agree heartily that there is no - godly** - point to the Reformation separation from Papacy.

It has indirectly served good, but not directly.

Kent Hovind and C. S. Lewis have done part of the work of the Lord, both separated from Rome, but neither of them has done it because he was separated from Rome. Gilbert Keith Chesterton started out that way too, but became a Roman or "swam the Tiber" as the modern phrase goes. When Kent Hovind does something good about defending Biblical inerrancy, he often does so (I have found from a limited experience of either) in agreement with one Calmet, who was a Catholic priest and a Frenchman. But nevertheless he also thinks it is his duty to take a distance from Rome. Not just or even primarily the present day Rome of Modernism, but the historical Rome.

That flaw I do put down to his having been influenced by the Reformation.

It is a baleful thing. It was a bloody atrocity.

One of the last Spanish Inquisitors estimated that from 1480 to 1808 the Inquisition had executed 31.912 people. He may have been right. Or he may have been wrong because misreading some of the evidence. Or, he may also have been misquoted. But those are 328 years and that adds up to 97 per year. Reformations all over Europe - or what is Protestant of it - would have been at work over a much shorter time before they cut off populations from Catholicism. But typical of those times, the very times when Protestant culture was being formed (except insofar as it consisted of heritage from Catholic periods of the same countries) were bloodbaths perpetrated on Catholics.

Sure, Catholics did some killing too.

But their doctrines were not made while killing. They had inherited a Truth and defended it - any honest historian who even may not be Catholic and even may not agree that they held THE Truth would agree to that. He would agree that they had inherited what they conceived as a truth and that the time of their defending it did not involve adding new things to it not there before the Reformers came along, or not as much as among Reformers, and not in the sense of adding completely new things, rather in the sense of uniformating things previously debated.

That is why it is difficult to be other than dedicated fanatic of this Protestant fad of identifying historic papacy with Antichrist - and still cling on to it. Reformers are more clearly anti-Christian than Catholics. Bellarmine is a better Christian than James I.

The anonymous compiler - no, actually not, he is John Class*** and not anonymous - cites James I (or VI and I) as one godly and learned man who considered the Papacy as Antichrist. But James I was culpable of violently settling Protestant invaders in Ireland, like later Cromwell. He was culpable of wanting it both ways as to Holy Eucharist (or what he could get of it, i e a sham resemblance), agreeing with Reformers to deny Transsubstantiation or at least not to allow any direct defense of it, agreeing with Catholics who bow and kneel down to the species and give divine honours to Our Saviour who is present under them. This shilly-shallying involved him in demanding that one should bow and kneel down for what one considered bread and just as symbol of Our Lord or His Crucifixion - and rightly so, since a priest, even if validly ordained, who heartily agreed with the Reformation on this point would certainly NOT consecrate validly. He was also culpable of continuing the Inquisition of the English type of 1401 up to 1612 - same year before which he had issued a new Bible translation. How culpable? Because, not having the truth itself, Anglicanism was in no position to impose its "truth" on anyone. Because, attacking Catholicism for the Inquisition since many decades back (Foxe had Book of Martyrs published in 1563, same year the Council of Trent ended) it was rank hypocrisy to continue executing people for heresy oneself. Which James I as well as John Calvin did. Perhaps it was in the end lucky, perhaps it slowed down the advent of the later confusions, but nevertheless they could not do so with as clean a conscience as the Spanish Inquisition could.

Together with his brother Thomas, he° was put in prison for heresy in 1611. Thomas died in Newgate Prison, London, but Bartholomew's imprisonment was not a rigorous one. James I argued with him, and on several occasions he was brought before the Consistory court of London, but without any definite result. Eventually, after having threatened to bring an action for wrongful imprisonment, Legate was tried before a full Consistory Court in February 1612, was found guilty of blasphemous heresy, and was delivered to the secular authorities for punishment. Refusing to retract his opinions, he was burnt at the stake at Smithfield on 18 March 1612. Legate was the last person burned in London for his religious opinions, and died just three weeks before Edward Wightman, who was burned at Lichfield in April 1612, the last to suffer in this way in England.


That was Bartholomew Legate. "Oh, sure, we are all sinners, the Reformation was done by sinful men" ... was not someone just recently accusing Papacy and specifically because of Inquisition precisely to be, not so much sinful men as man of sin?

No, it is true, Reformation was a bad fix, the separation of Reformers from Papal Rome was a crime, and this is because Papacy as historically known up to now or pretty recently is NOT the Antichrist.

I have a hunch that perhaps Bergoglio is. And I have an apprehension, because he is promoting, very actively, a Papal-Protestant union. You see, though I like Kent Hovind and Jonathan Sarfati and a few more, I would very certainly not change Catholicism as it has traditionally been one whit just to suit them. I would like their conversion to Catholicism. But Catholicism does not need to convert to Creationism, since it has never left it. One other bad thing with Bergoglio is he is not exactlty stopping Catholics and even parts of his hierarchy from treating Creationism as if Catholicism had apostasised from it and it needed to go to suit their apostasy, mislabelled as that of the Church. I could very certainly use some intellectual in part support and in part simply pleasant company for this. Bergoglio, on the other hand, is being "sensitive" to the criticisms of the Reformers.

As to my love for certain Protestants, it is not because of their loyalty to the Reformation I love them. The Bible - and what they ar defending about the Bible - did very well without the Protestant Reformation, thank you.

So did the Futurist (with Bergoglio perhaps no longer all that futurist) view of Apocalypse (or of the chapters referring to end times tribulations and persecutions). It was there in St Thomas Aquinas or St Augustine well before it was championed by St Robert.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Feast of Corpus Christi
19/VI/2014

* No offense meant on that account, compiling is a thing that sometimes needs to be done and which I have done myself. Some use the word as an insult, I do not. I am sometimes myself a compiler as much as or in some few blogposts much more than an author.

** Some ungodly points, on the contrary, as in overemphasising work and company, and as in disparaging begging and solitude (Chesterton considered that even a normal man - married and working - needed to be half a hermit and I am sure he was right), and as vulgarising not so much the Bible as certain verses with certain misconceived interpretations (including a gratuitous insult to the Papacy).

*** In certain chapter studies he identifies the "I" of the apocalypse (St John the Gospeller) with "John Class". This might then be a pseudonym.

° http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomew_Legate

Quoted item on which I commented:

Reformers' Interpretations
of Anti-Christ
http://www.revelation-today.com/a6reform.htm


It can be added that the list includes Isaac Newton, who was an Anti-Trinitarian (like Bartholomew Legate) and a Sorcerer or Soothsayer. It also includes Savonarola, but that may be an error. It is pretty certain that its including Dante is an error. At least to me, as long as that is not documented. From his writings rather than from assessments like the list here.

It can also be added, my mother did not share this prejudice, at least not as to saying Catholics would need to leave Catholicism, while I was a child. I was allergic to it when other Protestants more decdidedly such forwarded it. One reason why I came to detest the Reformation was knowing Luther and the rest had come to this conclusion which is as unhuman as it is unbiblical. It is unbiblical because 3 1/2 years are NOT 1200 plus years. It is unhuman because it involves Satan making all nations HIS disciples (not during a few years or during paganism past, but during the time of grace), and it is ungodly because in doing so it implies a failure of God's orders to the 11 Apostles./HGL

tisdag 17 juni 2014

Mark Shea getting Liturgic History Wrong

Blog post from today:

Vernacular Masses Before the Vatican Council…
June 17, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/06/vernacular-masses-before-the-vatican-council.html


... and he meant the First Vatican council (which really has a claim to be called Vatican Council). When he speaks of Ephesus, does he feel obliged to be precise he means First Ephesus (Second Ephesus being the classic example of Robber Council, at least in Latin Church).

Now, what he describes is not a Vernacular Mass, or rather the description he quotes:

Mark, a 1710 letter from the Jesuit superior for New France (modern-day Quebec) describing a specific mission among the Hurons: “All are present in the morning at the sacrifice of the mass, which is celebrated in behalf of the whole village. Nearly all assist at the mass of a second priest, and not a few at another if there be a third celebrant. While the first mass of all, which is called “the Mission Mass,” is being said, they sing sacred Hymns written in the vernacular tongue, and adapted to the feasts which are then being celebrated, — with a harmony truly beautiful, and not at all barbarous.” (page 149)


This, my dear Mark, does not mean Mass was vernacular. If a lady not knowing Latin prayed a Vernacular Rosary during Latin Mass, you would not call that a Vernacular Mass, would you?

"While the first mass of all, which is called “the Mission Mass,” is being said,"

Note "while".

"they sing sacred Hymns written in the vernacular tongue"

The hymns were vernacular. The Mass was obviously said silently in Latin while the choir sung the vernacular hymns.

Here’s another article from traditionalist web-journal New Liturgical Movement which I helped fellow traditionalist (faithful to the Church) Shawn Tribe to found several years ago. In it, the author provides actual pages of pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic liturgies celebrated in the languages of North American First Nations peoples


Even before clicking the link, I have a hunch that it will be not a Huron Te igitur clementissime Pater said by the priest, but a Huron hymns sung while the priest was saying Te igitur in Latin.

Not quite, now that I clicked it. There has been a translation of propers of the Mass (like Dies Irae) into diverse first nations languages.

NLM : American Indian Requiem Masses from the Book of the Seven Nations
by Shawn Tribe Monday, November 21, 2011
www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2011/11/american-indian-requiem-masses-from.html


These Masses come from the Tsiatak Nihonon8entsiake, or Book of Seven Nations, published in Montreal in 1865 for the American Indian mission of Lake of Two Mountains, which contained both Mohawk-speaking and Algonquin-speaking Catholics. This mission, like others in the area, was permitted to use the vernacular for the sung propers and ordinaries of the Roman Mass.

The Requiem Mass was called in Mohawk, Iako8entaon Akohasera. It is the first one featured in the Book of Seven Nations and, judging by its prominent position and the inclusion of the chant notation, seems to have been the main Requiem in use at Lake of Two Mountains.


Now, the priest still said Te igitur silently in Latin - after the Mohawks had sung Sanctus in Mohawk. Or while they were doing so.

I could otherwise have provided a real example of Vernacular Mass previous to the real Vatican Council as much as to the other one. Glagolitic Mass. The text of the Latin Mass in Croatian or Slavonic, written not in Cyrillic but in Glagolitic writing.

Now, some think that Latin is the main point with Latin Mass. It is one point. But not the one which makes certain Trads and most Sedes suspect or even feel certain that Novus Ordo is invalid. After all, there is a Novus Ordo in Latin as well.*

Christmas Carol in Huron, courtesy of Mark Shea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=BN4Vi9SPs8s


And all the while Calvinists were doing nothing to convert Hurons or Iroquois. And there was this Prot who was complaining that Cloistered people do not evangelise ... to top it, he was French, and it were precisely French Jesuits who came to Hurons and Iroquois. Even the spelling of Iroquois is an éloquent témoignage that they were not Spanish.** Nor were they German. Or Swiss. Or Dutch. Actually even less so than Spanish, I would say.**

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
Two Hundred Sixty Martyrs
of Via Salaria
17 / VI / 2014

* Some Vernaculars previous to Benedict XVI / Ratzinger had erroneous translations of it.

** The Swedish name of a person of that tribe seems to remind of Spanish version: Iroqués / Irokes.

fredag 13 juni 2014

London 1665

I think every English speaking reader knows there was a Fire in London in 1666.

Did you know that the year before that a book printed in London had predicted ROME would perish in 1666?

Look here:

Abominationes papatus, seu invicta demonstratio papam romanum esse antichristum, excerpta ex libro cui titulus: Romae ruina finalis anno Domini 1666, excuso Londini 1665. 1692 * Romae ruina finalis


Index Librorum Prohibitorum, 1948 edition
http://www.cvm.qc.ca/gconti/905/babel/index%20librorum%20prohibitorum-1948.htm


1692 is the year when the book was put on the Index of Forbidden Books. 1665 is when it was printed in London.

God revenged the honour of the Papacy./HGL

tisdag 10 juni 2014

Against Arians on John 14:28

I expressed myself with some apparent irreverence about the Son on the Cross, as being the "Little Boy" (eternally) of the eternal Father.

This does not mean I believe the Son is lesser than the Father, it means I believe the kind of Love they have is such as we see here on earth when a little boy "flies on the wings" of his "bird play" towards his father also opening arms to hug him.

And that this Sonship was in Him on the Cross too. I believe I have here earned acquittal of the charge of real irreverence.

Some may have been concerned I was being Arian, which is not the case, and so I found on CMI a rebuttal against the JW sect. It included a reference to their three prooftexts. Or supposed such. I will first give the Haydock comment on each and then add a personal note on John 14:28.

Colossians* 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature:

16 *For in him were all things created in heaven, and on earth, visible, and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and in him:

17 And he is before all, and by him all things consist.


First of all, if he "is before all" he is as little part of Creation as He would be a person ultimately dependent on Abraham whom instead He preceded in His Divinity.

But since some Arians have not denied every kind of divinity to Christ, only such as is equal to the Father and have therefore said the Father created Him and then created the rest for and through Him, I will give the Church Fathers through the Haydock Comment:

Ver. 15. The first[2] born of every creature. St. Chrysostom takes notice against the Arians, that the apostle calls Christ the first-begotten, or first-born, not the first created, because he was not created at all. And the sense is, that he was before all creatures, proceeding from all eternity from the Father; though some expound the words of Christ as man, and that he was greater in dignity. See Romans viii. 29. (Witham)

Ver. 16. Thrones, &c. are commonly understood to refer to the celestial hierarchy of Angels, though as to their particular rank, &c. nothing certain is known. We may here observe, that the Holy Spirit proportions itself and speaks according to our ideas of a temporal kingdom, in which one authority is subject to another. In the same manner the Angels seem subordinate to one another. (St. Dionysius in Calmet)

All things were created by him, and in him, and[3] consist in him. If all things that are were made by him, he himself was not made. And his divine power is also signified, when it is said all things consist or are preserved by him. (Witham)


One can of course add that the angels carrying sun, moon, planets and stars would probably be in the orders here referred to: ... whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers ...

Isaias* 9:6 For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.

Ver. 6. Child. The Messias, whom the son of Isaias prefigured.

Shoulder. Where the badges of royalty were worn. (Calmet)

Christ bore his cross. (Tertullian, &c.)

Wonderful. In his birth, &c.

Counsellor. From whom all good advice proceeds. Grotius falsely translates, "the consulter of the strong God," meaning Ezechias. Though he deemed the Socinians unworthy of the Christian name, (Ep. ad Valleum.) he too often sides with them. Johets always means one who "gives counsel," chap. xl. 13. Ezechias was at this time ten years old, and he did not always take advice, nor was his reign peaceful, &c.

God. The three Greek versions maliciously render El "the strong," though it be uncertain that it ever has that meaning, as it certainly has not when joined with gibbor, "mighty." Why should two terms of the same import be used? The Septuagint copies vary much. Some read only, "he shall be called the angel of the great council, for I will bring peace upon the princes and his health." St. Jerome thinks they were afraid to style the child God. But this reason falls to the ground, as other copies have, (Calmet) after council, "Wonderful, Counsellor, God, the Mighty, the Potent, exousiaszes, the Prince of Peace, the Father of the world to come, for, &c., (7.) His." Grabe (de Vitiis lxx. p. 29.) asserts that the former is the genuine version, and that the inserted titles are a secondary one; so that there must have been two version before the days of Aquila, as the text is thus quoted at large by Clement and St. Iræneus, the year of the Lord 180; Kennicott adds also by St. Ignatius, the year of the Lord 110. (Haydock)

The omnipotent God became a little child, and without violence subdued the world, which he still governs. (Worthington)


St. John* 14:28 You have heard that I said to you: I go away, and I come again to you. If you loved me, you would indeed be glad, because I go to the Father: for the Father is greater than I.

Ver. 28. The Father is greater than I.[3] According to the common exposition, Christ here speaks of himself, as made man, which interpretation is drawn from the circumstances of the text, Christ being at that time, going to suffer, and die, and shortly after to rise again, and ascend into heaven, all which agree with him, as man, and according to his human nature. But the Arians can take no advantage from these words, (though with divers of the ancient Fathers, we should allow them to be spoken of Christ, as the Son of God:) the Father may be said in some manner to be greater than the Son, if we consider the order of the divine processions, that is, that the Father is the first person, and proceeds from no other; whereas the Son proceeds from the Father. If any one, says St. Chrysostom, will contend, that the Father is greater, inasmuch as he is the cause, from which the Son proceedeth, we will bear with him, and this way of speaking: provided he grant that the Son is not of a different substance, or nature. St. Athanasius allows the same, and takes notice, that though the Father is said to be greater, yet he is not said to be better, nor more excellent, than the Son; because they are one and the same in substance, nature, and other perfections. (Witham)

The enemies of the divinity of Christ here triumph, and think they have the confession of Christ himself, that he is less than the Father. But if they would distinguish the two natures of Christ, their arguments would all fall to the ground. Jesus Christ, as man, and a creature, is inferior to his Father, the Creator; but, as God, he is, in every respect, equal to him. (St. Basil, St. Augustine, &c.)

Others, likewise, answer it thus: Following the confused opinion of the world, and even of the apostles themselves, who as yet only considered Christ as a prophet, and as a man, eminent in virtue and sanctity, he was less than the Father. (St. Chrysostom; Leont.; Theophylactus; Euthymius)

And likewise the title of Father, (as we generally use the word) is greater, and much more honourable, than that of Son; and in this respect, Christ is inferior to his Father. (St. Athanasius; St. Hilary; St. Epiphanius; St. Gregory of Nazianzus; and St. Cyril)

But this appellation, though really true, does not destroy the equality of the persons, because Christ has declared, in numerous other places, that he is equal to the Father; that he is in the Father; and that he and the Father are one. The apostles ought to have rejoiced that Christ was going to the Father, who was superior to him, considering him in his human nature; because, then, would the Son shew forth his honour and glory to be equal to the Father's, in heaven. This would have been a mark of a pure, solid, and disinterested love, which ought to have inspired the apostles, if they truly loved their divine Master. (Calmet)

Protestants assume to themselves the liberty of making the Bible only, the exclusive rule of faith, yet refuse this privilege to others. Thus Luther insisted, that his catechism should be taught, and followed. Calvin burnt Servetus for explaining his faith, by his own interpretation of the Bible, particularly of these words, the Father is greater than I. The Church of England compels every clergyman to swear to the Thirty-nine Articles, and has inflicted the severest penalties on such as interpreted the Bible according to the principles of Socinus; and on Catholics, who understand the words of Jesus Christ, This is my body: this is my blood, in the literal and obvious sense of the words. As long as each individual is at liberty to expound Scripture by the private spirit, it is a great injustice to compel any one, by penal laws, to yield his judgment to any authority, that is not less fallible than his own.


Now for my personal note. I totally agree that Christ is here speaking about His human nature. In His Divine Nature He neither goes away from them nor comes back to them. Nobody and nothing can exist a moment without it. But He is speaking specifically as the Son of David too. Chapter is 14, verse is 28 = 2*14. And David is Daleth - Vav - Daleth = 4+6+4 = 14.

So, Heaven is here also called a Davidic kingdom. And in the Davidic court, the Mother of the King is Queen. Not "malkit", I think, but (certainly) "gebirah". That means that the Blessed Virgin Mary is indeed Queen Mother in the full Davidic sense of Heaven.

I got notice of this from CMI** in an article which also clears Young Earth Creationists from the charge of being disciples of JW:

As I approached she commented on the lovely day and a pretty section of our garden. This was her opening from which to launch about the creator of these things. As JW’s do not believe in a biblical creation, but in a combination of ‘day age’ and Genesis 1:1 as an indeterminate amount of time within which to fit ‘true science’, this seemed a bit impertinent.


Might seem familiar to some who may have a preference for Catholics being into Georges Lemaître ...? And in case Mark Ambler be accused of having invented this, I took an Awake! from their stand and got a Watchtower inside it.*** The March 2014 issue of Awake! does contain their confession of Old-Earthism and therefore does clear Young Earth Creationists of a suspicion of being JW or unduly influenced by them.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Pentecost Tuesday
10 / VI / 2014

* All Bible quotes and commentary quotes from Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition.

COLOSSIANS - Chapter 1
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id212.html


ISAIAS - Chapter 9
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id1229.html


ST. JOHN - Chapter 14
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id107.html


** CMI : Creation and a cult
Challenging a Jehovah’s Witness with creation
by Marc Ambler
Published: 10 June 2014 (GMT+10)
http://creation.com/creation-and-a-cult


*** I usually do not touch Watchtower at all, if I can avoid it. This sample was however of some interest. But their March number for 2014 for Awake! - to get back to it - on pages 4 to 7 in the French edition repeatedly state the days were not necessarily 24 hours long. Meaning they do not agree with me thereon, and thus I should not be blamed for "agreeing with them" when in fact I do not.