It’s suddenly chic to look at St. Augustine in a positive light. First came Paula Fredriksen’s Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism. Now the New York Times gives us the news, gleaned from The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II, that Augustine was a little bit of a Show Boat.

It might be noted that while his characters were often simple and uneducated, Hammerstein himself was anything but. He got the idea for “Ol’ Man River” from Tennyson’s “The Brook” (“For men may come and men may go,/But I go on for ever”), and swiped its most famous lines, “Ah’m tired of livin’/An’ skeered of dyin’,” from St. Augustine.

He just keeps rolling along.

Kevin points the way to a most remarkable online patristic resource: “Biblindex: Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions in Early Christian Literature.” The site is still in development — which is actually temporarily suspended for lack of funding — but looks promising. Kevin’s brief review gives us the skinny on its current status and limitations.

The Society of St. John Chrysostom Youngstown-Warren Chapter launches 2009 in an auspicious way with an address by Father Gregory Jensen, whom you probably know as the author of Koinonia blog (whose URL is “Palamas,” which I always read as “pajamas” — I am so utterly and irremediably Western). Father Gregory’s topic is “What Psychologists Can Teach Us About the Spiritual Life.”

The event takes place Tuesday, January 13, 2009, at St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church, 7782 Glenwood Ave., Boardman, Ohio.

Father Gregory is himself a psychologist, and the SSJC is great company. If you’re driving distance from the Youngstown, Ohio, area, don’t miss it!

Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., died today, on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He was 90 years old. I’ve benefited much from his writing, especially the essays he’s produced over the last fifteen years. His hallmarks were humility, clarity, and comprehensiveness. See his online work on the Filioque controversy, justification, capital punishment … it’s a long list. See the bibliography (with links) here. He always paid due attention to the ancient Fathers � and, remarkably, every generation of their offspring!

May he rest in peace.

Celebrate in a Milanese way. Consider, for example, a Pepperidge Farm Milano Cookie Collection 60 Count Variety Pack.

Or read his Exposition of the Holy Gospel According to Saint Luke (with Fragments on the Prophecy of Isaias), in a fairly new English translation.

Just a thought for a Sunday in Advent.

Interesting piece on St. Anthony’s Monastery…

Modernity Meets Monasticism in Egypt’s Desert

By Will Rasmussen 


Al Zaafarana, Egypt – A speck of green in a sea of sand, St. Anthony’s Monastery in Egypt welcomes those seeking God in silence broken only by the whisper of the wind.


Monks at what is considered by many to be the world’s oldest active Christian monastery still rise before dawn to chant and pray just as their predecessors did for more than 1,500 years. 


Now, they also carry mobile phones, send e-mails and maintain a website (http://www.stanthonymonastery.org), embracing modernity that has helped sustain the ancient monastery, nestled beside a spring where Egypt’s eastern desert meets the craggy Red Sea mountains. 


But the changes have sent some monks fleeing to a more austere existence in nearby mountain caves. 


”There is nothing wrong with microwaves or mobile phones — they save time,” Egyptian monk Ruwais el-Anthony, who has lived at the monastery for more than 30 years, said through a bushy white beard. “But God will ask you what you have done with the time that was saved.” 


The monastery, which was founded in 356 AD, has survived Bedouin raids, the Islamic conquest of Egypt, and wars between Egypt and Israel that turned the area into a combat zone. 


Almost all the monks here are Egyptian Coptic Christians, a minority faith in the most populous Arab country, which is about 90 percent Muslim. Most Christians in Egypt belong to the Coptic Orthodox church, which gives allegiance to its own Pope in Egypt, Shenouda III. 


Once closed off from marauding Bedouins behind towering white stone walls, the monks now open iron doors, engraved with Coptic writing, to busloads of tourists and pilgrims.


The monks raise chickens, grow fruit, and lead tour groups through the compound’s 15th century church, which is built above the oldest monk cells ever discovered, dating from the fourth century, the monks say.


Monks believe a recently discovered grave under the church is that of St. Anthony himself.


”When I came here, it was very primitive and totally isolated,” monk Athansious el-Anthony, 62, said. 

When he first arrived in the late 1960s, the only visitors were Egyptian soldiers demanding water during Egypt’s war with Israel. The monastery was near the front-lines of fighting in the war, which began in 1967.


Now, a new road through the desert brings busloads of visitors, most from Europe and Russia.


Only the most gregarious of the 120 monks at St. Anthony’s deal with visitors. The others isolate themselves in their rooms or spend their days praying in the caves.


One Australian monk is said to live in a cave above the monastery, only coming down for an hour or two a week.


FOLLOWING ANTHONY 

Described as the earliest Christian monk, St. Anthony set off into the desert around the year 280 A.D. and settled in the mountain caves around this desert oasis. 


He is considered to be one of the first Christians to withdraw completely from society, living in the desert with only animals for company.


His followers also find solace in the desert’s solitude.


”I love the silence and I don’t want to serve anything but God,” says Domadios el-Anthony, a black-bearded Egyptian who has lived for the last five years in the monastery. “My life began when I came here.”


”We hear so much about the wars and awful things in the world … People now just want a relationship with God.”


The monastery, about 155 km (100 miles) southeast of Cairo, is now attracting so many prospective monks that it plans to turn everyone down for now, in part to ensure that only the most dedicated actually join.


Only about five new monks a year are accepted, out of dozens who express interest, Ruwais says.


”Not having a job, not finding a wife, escaping family problems — these are not reasons we accept,” he says. “We put our novices under the microscope for three years, to make sure they are obedient.”


At the monastery, bearded monks in black robes lead visitors through narrow paths between stone churches, monk cells, an ancient refectory monks say was built by the Roman emperor, Justinian, and a library containing over 1,700 manuscripts.


”It doesn’t matter if we are modern monks or classic monks,” says Ruwais, who coordinates tourist visits with a battered mobile phone. “What’s important is the purity of your heart.”


The “classic” monks only come down from the jagged mountains after the sun sets, the tourists leave, the chatter subsides, and only the howling of the wind across the sand can be heard.

Lots of patristibloggers have already told you the news that Peter Brown has been named co-winner of the 2008 Kluge Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Study of Humanity. Since everyone’s weighing in with favorite Brown titles, I can’t resist. Mine are Augustine of Hippo (second edition) and The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (The Haskell Lectures on History of Religions). What are yours?