Archaeology magazine gives us a distressing follow-up story on the recent threats to the cultural heritage of Iraq’s Assyrian and Chaldean Christians. We’ve discussed that heritage often (see, for example, here and here). The threat we discussed most recently here. Pray for Iraq. Pray for these Christians, that they may know safety and peace, and that the memories they guard for us will not be lost.

UPDATE: CNS reports on the dangers and displacement faced by Chaldean Christians. According to Joseph Kassab, head of the Chaldean Federation of America, Chaldeans have been targeted for violence because “the Iraqi Christians are a peaceful people. They are not divided into tribes. They don’t have a militia to protect them like the Shiites or the Sunnis or the Kurds.”

Who’d a thunk it? Google maps can now help you get more out of the preaching of the Fathers.

Check out the remarkable pages for The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Pharos (lighthouse) at Alexandria, for example, is a place and a metaphor you’ll encounter fairly often. Cassian uses it metaphorically. So does Basil, in a warm tribute to his friend and correspondent Athanasius: “You see everything in all directions in your mind’s eye like a man looking from some tall watchtower, while at sea many ships sailing together are all dashed one against the other by the violence of the waves.”

Among the Seven Wonders of the Medieval World, you’ll find the Mother Church of Byzantine culture, Hagia Sophia, whose story we told here.

Hat tip: Junior.

The St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology has posted audio of Robert Louis Wilken’s outstanding 2005 address “‘Bread From Both Tables’: Scripture and Tradition in the 21st Century Church.” Dr. Wilken delivered the address as the Center’s inaugural Father Ronald Lawler Memorial Lecture. The dean of American patristic scholars, he is author of many books, including The Spirit of Early Christian Thought. (You’ll find my effusive review of that book here.)

This year’s Lawler Lecturer is another hero of mine, the noted theologian and Capuchin Father Thomas Weinandy. Father Weinandy will speak on “St. Athanasius of Alexandria and the Divinity of the Holy Spirit.” His lecture will be the culmination of the Center’s annual Letter & Spirit Conference.

Father Weinandy taught at Oxford University for more than a decade, and he is the author of a dozen books, including The Theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria: A Critical Appreciation. He is the chief doctrinal official with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The theme of this year’s Letter & Spirit Conference is “Love and Sacrifice.” The event will take place October 27-28, 2006, at St. Paul Seminary, near Pittsburgh. Other speakers include:

• Dr. David Fagerberg of Notre Dame, on “Divine Love and the Divine Liturgy.”

• Dr. Brant Pitre of Holy Cross College, on “Jesus, the Bridegroom-Messiah.”

• Tim Gray of St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver, on “The Sacrifice of Thanksgiving in the Cult of Ancient Israel.”

• And, of course, the Center’s founder, Dr. Scott Hahn.

Registration costs $69 and includes all meals and talks as well as a copy of the Center’s journal, Letter & Spirit. You can register or get more details right here. Scholarships are available for Catholic seminarians. Call (740) 264-9535 for details.

If you can travel to Pittsburgh, you don’t want to miss this conference. And you really can’t beat the price.

KVSS Radio has already posted my morning interview on St. Augustine. You can download it here. Just scroll down to the bottom of the Aquilina page.

Where to begin to recognize St. Augustine on his feast day? He makes regular appearances in these pages, and on the sites of other patristibloggers. Father Z has been accused of favoring an “All Augustine, All the Time” format; and he has not contested the charge. Phil from Canada credits the man from Hippo with his conversion.

I’m inclined to agree with the judgment of Pope Pius XI, who said that “of all those who have lived since the beginning of the human race until today … almost no one, or certainly very few, can be compared” to Augustine. Apart from the biblical writers, he is the author most frequently cited in the teachings of the Catholic Church. His ideas on governance shaped the political development of the West through the Middle Ages. Literary scholars say he practically invented the genre of autobiography. He established the foundations of western monasticism, which Benedict would later build upon. He can even be seen as one of the early practitioners of what today we call scientific method. He conducted experiments on peacock flesh to see if it was truly resistant to decay, as common wisdom had it.

But it was all for the sake of souls. He told his congregations that he didn’t want to be saved without them. And he worked and prayed so that, if they somehow avoided salvation, they couldn’t blame any lack of effort on Augustine’s part. He preached constantly. (He even preached about his experiments with peacock flesh!) He wrote letters prodigiously. He composed massive theological works that are, still today, the standard equipment in any true theological education: “On the Trinity” (De Trinitate), “City of God” (De Civitate Dei), “On Christian Doctrine” (De Doctrina Christiana).

And I haven’t even mentioned his books on philosophy, scriptural interpretation, and morals. His surviving works fill many volumes and even entire library shelves. And long-lost pieces still turn up occasionally — sermons, letters, and such.

Nevertheless, no one gets to be such a giant without having detractors; and Augustine has had his share in every age. To modern secularists, he seems a fideist, a simp who would stop an argument in its tracks just because Rome said so. On the other hand, some Eastern Christians (a vocal minority) have accused him of rationalism. Augustine revered both faith and reason as gifts from God, each having its place in Christian life, each complementing and strengthening the other. To intellectuals who were struggling with faith, Augustine would say: Believe, that you may know. To fideists who denigrated philosophy he would say: Know, that you may believe.

I’ll be talking about St. Augustine today on the KVSS “Spirit Morning Show” with Bruce and Kris McGregor. The show runs 6:30 to 9 a.m. (central time). You can listen to a live feed here. In the days afterward, KVSS usually archives my interviews on its Mike Aquilina page.

There’s lots of Augustine to read online, in every language. And he is readable. He’s the guy who said: “I prefer to be criticized by the grammarians rather than not to be understood by the people.” You can find good pictures for screen-savers here.

In his Sunday Angelus address, Pope Benedict discussed Saints Monica and Augustine.

Regular visitors to this blog know that, early in life, St. Monica was fond of visiting the graves of the saints and celebrating their feast days there. Since today’s her memorial, isn’t it the least we can do for her? She’s entombed at the church named for her more famous son, St. Augustine, not far from Piazza Navona in Rome.

Listen, if we can’t make it to Rome by midnight, let’s at least meet at Fr. Z’s place, where he’s posted wonderful photos and information about this great and holy lady. When I’m in Rome, her church is the place where I habitually go to pray. I probably picked up the habit just because I was staying next door. But there are no accidents, and it’s a habit I’ve made no effort to shake. I have six kids. If I could learn parenting from anyone, it would be St. Monica.

Though she was probably only minimally literate, Monica appears in Augustine’s autobiographical works (Confessions and Dialogues) as a teacher of theologians. The lady prayed. Over the course of decades, she prayed her wayward son back into the Church. She went to Mass daily, and she attended funeral Masses of strangers, again almost daily, just so she could hear the Word of God proclaimed once more. No one better exemplifies the maxim of Evagrius: A theologian is one who prays, and one who prays is a theologian. I count her farewell to Augustine in the Confessions among the most beautiful passages in world literature. At the trinket shop in the back of Sant’Agostino, I bought my wife a sturdy image of the scene, as it reminded me of my own lovely lady and our son, our firstborn. (The painting’s titled “Ecstasy at Ostia.” I don’t remember the artist. Amy Welborn has it up at her blog today.)

Another place to visit on St. Monica’s feast: St. Monica Institute for Patristic Studies.

At Thoughts on Antiquity, Ben C. Smith is just starting a series that promises to be very interesting. He’s covering the formation of the New Testament canon — that is, the official list of books accepted as Sacred Scripture, the books that could be read in the liturgy and cited as authorities. His first posting is up, and it covers the Marcionite canon. You might want a little background first…

Marcion was one of the most notorious — and devastatingly successful — heretics of the early Church. He believed that the creator of the Old Testament was not the same deity as the New Testament’s good God, the Father of Jesus Christ. In fact, Marcion set the two “gods” in opposition to one another: There was the evil creator who trapped and tormented humans in this vale of tears, and there was the good God who wanted to rescue his faithful from the clutches of the creator.

Marcion was fabulously wealthy, a shipbuilder. Think of George Steinbrenner, if he wanted to go one better than buying the Yankees, and start a church instead. Marcion was the son of the Bishop of Sinope (in modern Turkey), born around 110 A.D. As a young man, he led a devout life, but managed to get himself into trouble with a young woman who was consecrated to virginity. This infuriated his bishop-father, who excommunicated him. Marcion begged to be taken back, but his father feared the gravity of the scandal. So Marcion packed his moneybags and left for Rome.

To his credit, he seems to have sincerely repented of his sin and led a chaste life afterward. But there are worse sins, and Marcion soon fell to one in particular: the pride that makes a brilliant theologian want to reinvent Christianity or edit out the difficult parts. In Rome, Marcion attracted disciples by preaching against the Old Testament and its “god,” by impugning the Jews and their law, and by railing against marriage and childbearing, which only trapped more souls in this material world. His Bible, which was quite small, consisted of parts of Luke and the Pauline letters, with most of the Old Testament references clipped out.

Marcion’s money enabled him to get the word out, borne no doubt by his own ships to lands far away. Around 150, St. Justin Martyr wrote that Marcion’s heresy had already spread everywhere. A church so far-flung needed a structure, so the son-of-a-bishop set up his own clergy and hierarchy. Only the unmarried were allowed to be baptized.

Irenaeus reports that his own master, St. Polycarp (who was himself a disciple of the Apostle John), once met Marcion during a trip to Rome. Marcion asked the old man: “Don’t you recognize me?” Polycarp answered: “Of course I recognize you. You’re the firstborn of Satan.”

Tertullian tells us that Marcion eventually went penitent, and the Church accepted him back, but only on the condition that he should lead his wayward flock back with him. Death, however, prevented him from completing his penance. We don’t know when he died.

Marcion’s heresy continued to spread after his death, until Constantine made it illegal in the fourth century. Yet pockets of Marcionites remained in the hinterlands as late as the ninth century.

Even today, we find hints of Marcionism in otherwise devout Christians. They say, “I’m a New Testament Christian,” and they dismiss the teachings of the Old Testament. Or they speak of the law of Moses as if it’s the very antithesis of the Gospel — something Jesus never did. They act as if they have nothing to learn from the prophets or from Abraham and Isaac, Moses and David. Their religion is “me and Jesus,” but — like Marcion — they’re missing the religion of Jesus.

Interesting little note on the fifth-century Christian poet Sedulius and his use of Vergil — and the instances where the Roman liturgy incorporated Sedulius’s resonant lines. Very Marian.

Today’s the feast of two martyrs named Genesius.

Our warm-up act is Genesius the Comedian (d. 286 or 303). With a name like that, who can resist? Genesius was the leader of a theatrical troupe in Rome, performing one day before the Emperor Diocletian The script called for these wise guys to make fun of the Christian rites, and Genesius was supposed to pretend to receive the Sacrament of Baptism. But a funny thing happened on the way to the punch line: When the water had been poured out on him, he proclaimed himself a Christian. Diocletian at first thought it was all part of the joke. But gradually it became clear that Genesius meant it. Suddenly, the emperor was not amused. For spoiling the party, Diocletian ordered the comedian to be tortured and then beheaded. Genesius must have had quite a following, though. We know that he was venerated at Rome as early as the fourth century: a church was built in his honor very early, and was repaired and beautified by Gregory III in 741.

And now for something completely different: Genesius of Arles was a notary martyred under Maximianus in 303 or 308. At first a soldier, this Genesius became known for his proficiency in writing, and was made secretary to the magistrate of Arles. While performing the duties of his office the decree of persecution against the Christians was read in his presence. As he himself was a catechumen, he was outraged at the injustice. He threw down his tablets at the feet of the magistrate and fled. He was captured and executed, and so received baptism in his own blood. His veneration must be very old, as his name is found in the ancient martyrology ascribed to St. Jerome. A church and altar dedicated to him at Arles were known in the fourth century.

Phil, the Canadian Anglican patristiblogger, tells how the study of Augustine at a secular university led him to take his first steps toward Christian faith.