Most
Southern Christians, being the evangelical, Protestant kind, hold to this view
of Holy Scripture:
VII. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in
themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to
be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and
opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the
unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient
understanding of them (Westminster
Confession, http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/index.html?body=/documents/wcf_with_proofs/ch_I.html,
accessed 9 June 2015).
But
with such a view ‘the centre cannot hold’.
Unity of faith will fly apart as individual interpretations multiply, as
pride and delusion give birth to schism after schism. Indeed, the very need for a Church disappears
if one believes that the Bible is the one thing needful for a person’s
salvation. With the Church thus rent
apart and sore weakened by arguments over what is true and what is not, souls
become disordered, and vice tramples virtue underfoot in secret and in the
open.
If
the South wants to keep same-sex ‘marriage’, transgender rights, pornography,
no-fault divorce, theft, rioting, and all the rest of it from flooding into
every corner of her land, she will have to show humility by returning to the
Ancient Faith of her forebears and learning from the Holy Mothers and Fathers
of the Church how to rightly interpret the Scriptures. Without the unifying, life-giving effects of
the Orthodox Faith, Dixie will remain
defenseless before the march of ‘Progress’.
As it has been elsewhere in the West, so will it be here.
So
let us once again listen to Elder Cleopa Ilie of Romania:
. . .
Holy
Scripture contains within it unanswerable passages or, as Saint Gregory of
Nyssa puts it, strong bones. Some would like to break these bones of Scripture
with their wisdom teeth as of yet still only suitable for sucking milk.
However, such a thing they would never be able to manage. All who have desired
to plunge into the depths of Scripture have drowned in the fathomless ocean
that is the wisdom of God. Such was the portion shared by Origen, Arius,
Macedonius, Nestorius, Sabellius, Dioscorus, Eutyches and all the other chiefs
of the ancient heresies who have been swallowed up in the unfathomable sea of Holy
Scripture. The profundity and depth of Scripture
was not the cause of their fall and drowning, but rather they themselves were
the cause, due to their own insufficiencies, of being drowned in the depths of
the mysteries of the Scriptures.
Holy
Scripture is like a fountain or an endless spring, of the wisdom of God in
which we must be steeped and partake in accordance with our level of wisdom and
spiritual maturity. Just as we take water from the well with a bucket, empty it
into our pitcher and then into our glass in order to quench our bodys thirst,
so must we also do with our spiritual thirst when we are urged to drink of the
deepest ocean of wisdom, the Holy Scriptures. Thus, spiritually speaking, if we
draw more water from the well of Scripture than is drinkable (out of desire for
the purity of our intellect (νούς) and heart), due to our pride and
inquisitiveness we will be destroyed in our attempt to grasp the
incomprehensible with our limited human faculties. If, for example, we were to see
a child from the first grade trying to learn and to teach others that which is
taught at the university, how much laughter and amusement would it provoke in
us! The same and worse happens to those who desire to scrutinize and unravel
the incomprehensible mysteries of the Scriptures with an intellect
inexperienced and unenlightened by the Holy Spirit.
The
divine Prophets and Apostles, as well as the holy Fathers of the Church, while
by the purity of their lives attaining to the simplicity and innocence of
infants, at the same time also, on account of their wisdom, became as perfect
spiritual men (Eph. 4:13). Nevertheless, they were never so bold as to delve
into the impenetrable mysteries of the wisdom of God. Before these elevated
notions and expressions they remained as if enraptured saying, How great are
Thy works, O Lord, exceeding deep are Thy thoughts, (Ps. 91:6) and Great is our
Lord, and great is His strength, and of His understanding there is no measure
(Ps. 146:5). Still further, in another place, it is said: Hast thou not known?
Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the
ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his
understanding (Is. 40:28). Listen also to the vessel of election, the Apostle
Paul, as he says with wonderment; O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom
and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements, and his ways past
finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his
counsellor? (Rom.
11: 33-34).
You
understand, therefore, my friend, that this fathomless depth of the wisdom of
God cannot be approached by any intellect among His creatures, neither those
found in the heavens, nor those on earth. Much more difficult is it for those who,
without purifying their intellect (νούς) and heart from the passions, and being
bereft also of divine enlightenment, presume on their own to penetrate the
unbounded abyss of the Scriptures.
. . .
Source: The
Truth of Our Faith, http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/ec_salvation.aspx,
accessed 9 June 2015
He
says elsewhere in the same book,
. . . Each
Christian has the need to read Holy Scripture, yet each Christian does not also
have the authority or ability to teach and interpret the words of Scripture.
This privileged authority is reserved for the Church via its holy clergy and
theologians, men who are instructed in and knowledgeable of the true faith.
When we consider how our Saviour gave the grace of teaching to His Holy
Apostles (Mat. 28:20) and not to the masses it is easy for us to see that the
prerogative to teach is held only by the bishops, priests and theologians of
our Church. It was the Apostles who were sent by Christ to teach and to
celebrate the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments). Our Apostle Paul says: How shall
they preach, except they be sent? (Rom. 10:15). Accordingly, the bishops are
the lawful successors to the Apostles and those sent for the preaching
(κήρυγμα) to the people. Paul entrusts the heavy burden of the instruction of
the people to Timothy and not to the faithful. He speaks of this elsewhere: Are
all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? (1 Cor. 12:29) Again he says
to Timothy that the clergy must be apt to teach others (1 Tim. 3:2). He does
not, however, say the same thing for the faithful. He makes a distinction
between shepherd and sheep, between teacher and those taught. Still, the
teachers cannot teach whatever they would like, but that which the Church
teaches universally. They teach in the name of the Church and of Christ. Not
everyone has the intellectual ability and the requisite divine grace necessary
to expound Holy Scripture correctly. The Apostle Peter also says this in his
second epistle, referring to the epistles of the Apostle Paul. He says the
following: There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant
and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures (2
Peter 3:16).
. . .
Source: The
Truth of Our Faith, http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/ec_holy_scripture.aspx,
accessed 9 June 2015
Gabe
Martini adds,
. . .
As
Orthodox Christians, we believe the proper context of scripture is the
life of the Church.
Rather
than isolating scriptures from the life of the Church and taking them “on their
own,” we recognize that the life-giving Spirit inspiring the authors of holy
writ is the same life-giving Spirit indwelling, guiding, and preserving the
holy Church through history; the same life-giving Spirit that creates and
perpetuates this “thing” we call holy tradition. After all, holy tradition is
little more than the life of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church.
As
a consequence, understanding the scriptures depends more on a person’s unity
with God than it does education. Deification or theosis—an acquisition of the Holy Spirit through ascesis,
prayer, almsgiving, mercy, and the sacred Mysteries—is the path laid before us,
and it’s a path every single person in the Church is called to follow (i.e. it
is not for the super-spiritual alone). This is one of the reasons why
on the Great Feast of Pentecost, we sing of simple, illiterate fishermen who
became great apostles through the sending of the Holy Spirit.
Discovering
the true context of scripture is not really all about the best exegesis or
commentaries, but rather embracing the Mind of the Church.
Isolation Begets Schism
Going
back to taking passages of scripture “on their own,” history paints a rather
graphic picture of what happens when enough individual Christians adhere solely
to this maxim.
Influenced
largely by humanism and other concepts of individual liberty, the key
architects of the Reformation paved the way for an uncontrollable revolution—a
revolution in which anyone could
be the final arbiter of truth. Instead of a single, corrupt papacy, there were
now thousands of individual “popes,” all serving as the head of their own unique movement.
And today we now have dozens of different English translations of the
scriptures, each with its own “spin” on the text and various liberties taken to
massage one passage here or there in a certain, doctrinal direction.
The
goal of escaping every presupposition has failed—indeed, it is impossible—and
we’re left with a choice of which
presupposition. Left to our vices, discovering the “original context” of the
Bible becomes an exercise in dividing the people of God.
Embracing the Body of Christ
For
Orthodox Christians, the choice should be rather clear: we believe
“in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church,” as our Creed demands we
acknowledge. A prerequisite to partaking of the very Body and Blood of Jesus
Christ is a confession of this fact. And through that Mystery of Mysteries, we
truly become the Body of Christ.
The
Church is, of course, the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), but
this has little to do with us individually, and everything to do with her sole
Head: Jesus Christ (Eph. 5:23; Col. 1:18). In Christ is truth personified, and
so by following the words of his apostles and their successors, we
embrace a continuation of Christ through the ages.
Additionally,
we know that the Church is built on a foundation of the apostle and prophets,
with Christ the chief cornerstone (Eph. 2:20). This is not a structure in
need of linguistic or historical analysis in order to discover the hidden
meaning behind words penned two thousand years ago (or more); she is
rather a Body that lives and breathes through history, with a “great cloud of
witnesses” (Heb. 12:1) alongside us each and every step of the way.
We
are not Deists, believing that God has left us on our own until he decides
to return—we are children of the Incarnation, of a God named Immanuel (“God
with us”); of a personal and loving God that sends a Helper to guide us into
all truth (John 14:26); of a long-suffering and merciful God that gives us his
very Body and Blood for sustenance and communion in him (John 6:55ff). This is
not a God merely of ideas and books, but of flesh and blood—of matter and
substance.
Rather
than facing the impossible task of discovering the “original context” of
cultures and societies long past, we look to the Body of Christ. We look to the
Saints and martyrs, the hymns and divine services, the iconography and sacred
Mysteries. We look to our bishops and priests, men ordained in faithful
succession from one of Christ’s apostles.
In
the end, discovering the original context of the Bible is not a question of
epistemology; it is a question of ontology.
And as faithful Christians, we belong—body, mind, and spirit—to the all-holy
Trinity. It is through our union with Christ and in his Body that we are
guided into all truth.
Source: ‘How to Read the Bible and Divide the
Church’, http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/onbehalfofall/how-to-read-the-bible-and-divide-the-church/,
posted 2 June 2015, accessed 9 June 2015
And
finally St Gregory of Sinai warns,
. . . For to act on
one's own and not on the advice of those who have gone before us is overweening
presumption - or, rather, it engenders such presumption. If the Son does
nothing of His own accord, but does only what the Father has taught Him (cf.
John 5:19-20), and the Spirit will not speak of His own accord (cf. John 16:3),
who can think he has attained such heights of virtue that he does not need
anyone to initiate him into the mysteries? Such a person is deluded and out of
his mind rather than virtuous. One should therefore listen, to those who have
experienced the hardships involved in cultivating the virtues and should
cultivate them as they have - that is to say, by severe fasting, painful
self-control, steadfast vigils, laborious genuflexions, assiduous standing
motionless, constant prayer, unfeigned humility, ceaseless contrition and
compunctive sorrow, eloquent silence, as if seasoned with salt (cf. Col. 4:6),
and by patience in all things (ch. 15, ‘On Stillness: Fifteen Texts’, The Philokalia, Vol. IV, http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Philokalia.pdf,
p. 1069, accessed 9 June 2015). . . .
Be
humble, O Souþron, be humble.
No comments:
Post a Comment