Today the pope turned his attention to St. Athanasius. This is the summary he presented in various languages. I’ll post the full text, once it’s up.

Continuing our catechesis on the great teachers of the ancient Church, we turn today to Saint Athanasius of Alexandria. Athanasius is venerated in East and West alike as a pillar of Christian orthodoxy. Against the followers of the Arian heresy, he insisted on the full divinity and consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and defended the faith of the Church as expressed in the Creed of the Council of Nicaea. The Arian crisis did not end with the Council; indeed, for his resolute defence of the Nicene dogma, Athanasius was exiled from his see five times in thirty years. His many writings include the treatise On the Incarnation of the Word, which defends the full divinity of the Son, whose incarnation is the source of our salvation: “he became man so that we could become God”. Athanasius also wrote a celebrated Life of Anthony, a spiritual biography of Saint Anthony Abbot, whom he had known personally. This popular book had an immense influence in the spread of the monastic ideal in East and West. Like Anthony, Athanasius stands out as one of the great figures of the Church in Egypt, a “lamp” whose teaching and example even today light up the path of the entire Church.

Maria Lectrix has posted more John Damascene (on icons) and Gregory the Great (on personality types). I sure hope you have your iPod loaded with this stuff. It’s good.

Kevin is, and several folks have joined the discussion.

One of the most frequently asked questions I get through this blog is: “What’s a good book on the canon of the Bible?” I’ve hemmed and hawed in response, suggesting some big books from a century ago. But, as one scholar pointed out to me, there really hasn’t been a book that takes into account the archeological and other discoveries made since then.

Till now! I just today received a copy of Gary Michuta’s long-awaited Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger: The Untold Story of the Lost Books of the Protestant Bible. This is the most exhaustively documented history of the canon I’ve seen, with abundant examples (full text) from early Jewish sources, the Fathers, and on through the Protestant Reformation. Especially interesting is Michuta’s treatment of the Apostolic Fathers’ use of the Old Testament deuterocanonicals.

Whether you hold to “sola scriptura” or “prima scriptura” (to steal a phrase from my friend Scott Hahn), the question of the canon — the very contents of authoritative Scripture — must be answered. Gary Michuta has given us all the data we need to formulate an answer.

Here’s what a top-flight scholar, Dr. Brant Pitre of Our Lady Of Holy Cross College, New Orleans, has to say about Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger:

For years I have wished that someone would write an up-to-date Catholic study of the questions: How did we get the Bible? And did the Catholic Church really “add” books to the Old Testament? Now we finally have one! In this excellent new book, Gary Michuta provides a detailed explanation of the origin of the Old Testament and why Catholic and Protestant Bibles are different. In it, he shows the indispensable role played by the Catholic Church in gathering and declaring which books belong to the canon of Sacred Scripture. Scholars and laity alike will learn a great deal from this fascinating analysis of a critical issue in apologetics and Church history.

An archeological expedition in Bulgaria just discovered a labyrinth, similar to the famous labyrinth on the island of Crete.

This find gives us another window into the world of the Fathers. It must have been a labyrinth like this one that inspired St. Gregory of Nyssa to write of the “maze of life.” The following passage (included in my book The Fathers of the Church) comes from comes from St. Gregory’s “Great Catechism,” which he wrote as a training manual for Christian teachers, around the year 385.

People lost in the corridors of mazes can navigate the twists and turns and blind alleys, if they happen to find someone who has been through it all before. They can get to the end by following behind — which they could not do, if they did not follow their leader step by step. So I beg you to listen: our human minds cannot thread the maze of this life unless we pursue that same path as He did. He was once in it, yet He got beyond the difficulties that hemmed Him in. By the maze I mean that prison of death that leaves no exit and encloses the miserable human race…

He, the Man from above, took death upon Himself. He was buried in the earth, and He returned back to life on the third day. So everyone who is joined to Him by virtue of His body may look forward to the same happy ending.

I think the air in Steubenville has made Danny Garland go mad. He posted this “Patristic Melody” (to the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious”):

Superchristological and Homoousiosis
Even though the sound of them is something quite atrocious
You can always count on them to anathemize your Gnosis
Superchristological and Homoousiosis

Um diddle diddle um diddle ay
Um diddle diddle um diddle ay

Now Origen and Arius were quite a clever pair.
Immutable divinity make Logos out of air.
But then one day Saint Nicholas gave Arius a slap–
and told them if they can’t recant, they ought to shut their trap! …

And there’s still more. Go see for yourself!

Zenit has posted its translation of the full text of yesterday’s papal audience on Eusebius.

In the heart of Erevan, capital of Armenia, the Matenadaran houses seventeen thousand manuscripts and 30,000 documents, some dating back to antiquity. Texts on very varied subjects, written in Arabic, Persian, Syriac, Greek, Latin, Amharic, Japanese and certain Indian languages, are stored together in this museum-library, created at the same time as the Armenian alphabet in 405. Today the Matenadaran is entering the digital age thanks to UNESCO.

Read the rest of the story here.

See the stunning images here.

Thanks to PaleoJudaica.

From Zenit:

Pope: Church History a Lesson in Awe

Reflections on Eusebius of Caesarea

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 13, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI says contemplating the history of the Church should lead the faithful to be awed by God’s great work of salvation.

The Pope said this today when dedicating his reflection at the general audience to Eusebius of Caesarea, the first to write a history of the Church.

Eusebius was born around the year 260 and lived during the first years of peace for the Church under Constantine. He was one of the main protagonists at the ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325.

The Holy Father explained: “Eusebius […] sought to reflect upon and take stock of the three centuries of Christianity, three centuries lived under persecution. He consulted, for the most part, the original Christian and pagan sources that had been preserved in the great library of Caesarea.

“He was the first to write a history of the Church, and to this day his work is still foundational, mainly due to the sources Eusebius puts forever at our disposal. His ‘History’ preserved from sure oblivion numerous events, people and literary works of the ancient Church. His work is therefore a primary source for knowing the first centuries of Christianity.”

The Pontiff showed that Eusebius covered various topics in his 10-volume “Ecclesiastical History”: “apostolic succession, as the structure of the Church, the spreading of the Message, errors, persecutions by pagans, and the great testimonies which constitute the shining light of this ‘History.’ Amid it all, shine the mercy and goodness of the Savior.”

He added that Eusebius’ writings have a “‘moral intent’ that gives direction to the narrative. Historical analysis is never an end in itself; it seeks not only to get to know the past, but it firmly points toward conversion and to an authentic witness of Christian life on the part of the faithful.”

Scandal?

Benedict XVI contended that Eusebius’ work and the style of his “Ecclesiastical History” invites Christians of today to self-examination.

He said: “[Eusebius] questions us too: What is our attitude toward the vicissitudes faced by the Church? Is it the attitude of someone who is interested out of mere curiosity, looking for sensationalism and scandal at all costs? Or is it rather the loving attitude, open to mystery, of one who because of faith knows that he can discern in the history of the Church the signs of God’s love and the great work of salvation he has accomplished?”

The Holy Father added that Christians “should feel invited to offer a more coherent and generous response, a more Christian testimony of life that will leave an imprint of God’s love for future generations as well.”

“Many centuries later,” the Pope continued, “Eusebius of Caesarea still today issues an invitation to believers. He invites us to be awed by and to contemplate the great work of salvation that God has accomplished in history. And with the same vigor, he invites us to a conversion of life. In fact, before a God who has loved us so much, we cannot remain unaffected. The very demand of love is that all of life be oriented toward the imitation of the Beloved.”

The Vatican’s summary notes that the pope also paid tribute to the great patrologist Jean Danielou.

Very cute — Augustine now has a page on MySpace. Knowing what we know about the correspondence between Jerome and Augustine, do you think Jerome would be added to young Augustine’s album of friends?

WASHINGTON (CNS) — St. Augustine of Hippo just got a whole lot hipper.

The fifth-century doctor of the church, perhaps known best for “Confessions,” an autobiographical account of his conversion to Christianity, now has a MySpace page.

Michael Dolan, the director of communications for the Augustinians of the Province of St. Thomas of Villanova, said he started the page on St. Augustine’s behalf as an engaging way to introduce visitors to St. Augustine and the Augustinians.

“The focus of the page is to give people a deeper sense of who Augustine was, but also to get them engaged in Augustinian spirituality,” Dolan told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview.

The popular social networking Web site myspace.com allows users to post pictures and information about themselves on their personal pages. All users — and now St. Augustine — can add other users to their list of friends.

St. Augustine’s Myspace profile can be viewed at www.myspace.com/saintaugustineofhippo.

As of the afternoon of June 12, St. Augustine had 87 MySpace friends, including two named Pope Benedict XVI; two fellow saints, Sts. George and Brigid; some guy named Josh; and Canadian singer Celine Dion.

Since the site launched in early May, Dolan said the page has had about 500 hits. Most of St. Augustine’s friends requested his friendship. Users can either request friendship from a user or accept a friendship. Dolan said he doesn’t know the true identity of the saint’s online friends and guessed they just happened upon the page or heard about it from another venue.

St. Augustine’s page features a picture of the saint and a welcoming message to visitors of the site. If the volume is turned up on the computer, St. Augustine’s page will play The Who’s hit “Who are You.” St. Augustine is, according to his page, 42 years old, single, a Scorpio and looking for networking and friends. His interests include praying, writing and hanging out with friends.

St. Augustine is 42, Dolan said, because that was his age when he wrote “Confessions.” Starting Aug. 28 — the saint’s feast day — St. Augustine will begin a Web log, or blog, about his “Confessions” on the site. The small print at the bottom of the area where the blog will be promises that entries will be an English translation, even though St. Augustine wrote in Latin. His entire book should be blogged over the course of the next school year.

Dolan hopes visitors to the site will include students and professors. He suggested they could post comments to the blog as part of classroom exercises.

To the best of his knowledge, Dolan said, none of the Augustinians he knows have MySpace pages. But the order seems to have embraced St. Augustine’s page, he said.

“People are enthusiastic and love the concept of it,” Dolan said.

Has St. Augustine rejected any friend requests?

A few, Dolan admitted, because the users appeared either inappropriate or fraudulent. But Dolan said the occasional strange friend request seems normal for MySpace.

As for St. Augustine’s future on MySpace, Dolan said he has no concrete plans about adding features beside “Confessions.” But he said more photos, links and videos will probably be added to provide additional information about Augustine and the Augustinians to MySpace surfers.

Tiber Jumper posts his rendition of “Old Tyme Religion” — and when he says “old,” he means OLD. He’s citing Ignatius, Justin, Augustine, and all our other faves. Give it a listen.