Picked up some kind of bug and have been feeling (in the words of my 4yo daughter Treesie) “Gwoss.” Even with such minor discomfort, a Christian’s thoughts naturally turn to the cross. And it seems more and more likely that it’s always been that way. Consider the recent discoveries:

* In Syria, archeologists have found two cruciform cemeteries from the third century (here and here).

* In the Basque region, archeologists unearthed a town that had been covered by a third-century landslide; and in one home they found a crudely drawn crucifix, complete with corpus.

* Scholars have begun to reconsider the dating of some gems engraved with the crucifix, placing them, too, in the third century.

* Larry Hurtado has catalogued the occurrences of staurograms and other crypto-crosses in manuscripts as far back as the early second century. He says that the staurogram — usually an embellished rendering of the Greek letters tau or chi or the Coptic ankh — “obviously refers to the crucifixion/cross of Jesus, and so (along with the abundant textual evidence) reflects an importance given to Jesus’ crucifixion in Christian faith/piety, from at least as early as the late second century.”

All this, of course, runs counter to what I learned in school, and probably to what most people learn in school today. It has, for generations, been commonplace to say that there were no crosses before Constantine. The standard current textbook in Christian archeology states flatly that there was “no place in the third century for a crucified Christ, or a symbol of divine death.”

If cruciform figures appeared in digs, they were dismissed as random scratches, mere geometric ornamentation, or later “contaminations” in early strata. The argument followed a circular logic:

1. We know there were no crosses before 300 because we’ve never found any.

2. When we seem to find crosses, we know they’re late or not really crosses, because of course there WERE no crosses before 300.

3. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Hurtado points out that preachers and letter-writers in those early years often refer to the cross of Christ. Other scholars point to this very early anti-Christian graffito, which portrays a donkey hanging on a cross. It’s unlikely that bigots would seize upon that symbol unless it had already been widely used and cherished by the Christians.

My money’s with the vanguard in this controversy. It seems that when we suffer and we survey that wondrous cross, we’re very likely doing what the earliest Christians did.

Today is the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Apostle.

Jeff Ziegler gives us these links:

— Today’s readings at Mass.
— Tintoretto, The Conversion of Saul (1545).

It’s a big day for me and my colleagues at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. We’re celebrating with our annual St. Paul Mass at noon in Steubenville, Ohio.

Please consider honoring our patron by making a donation. We’ll send you a free audio CD, which I think you’ll enjoy.

Here’s our friend Jerome on the life of Paul:

Paul, formerly called Saul, an apostle outside the number of the twelve apostles, was of the tribe of Benjamin and the town of Giscalis in Judea. When this was taken by the Romans he removed with his parents to Tarsus in Cilicia. Sent by them to Jerusalem to study law he was educated by Gamaliel, a most learned man whom Luke mentions. But after he had been present at the death of the martyr Stephen and had received letters from the high priest of the temple for the persecution of those who believed in Christ, he proceeded to Damascus, where constrained to faith by a revelation, as it is written in the Acts of the apostles, he was transformed from a persecutor into an elect vessel. As Sergius Paulus Proconsul of Cyprus was the first to believe in his preaching, he took his name from him because he had subdued him to faith in Christ, and having been joined by Barnabas, after traversing many cities, he returned to Jerusalem and was ordained apostle to the Gentiles by Peter, James and John. And because a full account of his life is given in the Acts of the Apostles, I only say this, that the twenty-fifth year after our Lord’s passion, that is the second of Nero, at the time when Festus Procurator of Judea succeeded Felix, he was sent bound to Rome, and remaining for two years in free custody, disputed daily with the Jews concerning the advent of Christ. It ought to be said that at the first defence, the power of Nero having not yet been confirmed, nor his wickedness broken forth to such a degree as the histories relate concerning him, Paul was dismissed by Nero, that the gospel of Christ might be preached also in the West. As he himself writes in the second epistle to Timothy, at the time when he was about to be put to death dictating his epistle as he did while in chains; “At my first defence no one took my part, but all forsook me: may it not be laid to their account. But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me; that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and that all the Gentiles might hear, and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion”—clearly indicating Nero as lion on account of his cruelty. And directly following he says “The Lord delivered me from the mouth of the lion” and again shortly “The Lord delivered me from every evil work and saved me unto his heavenly kingdom,” for indeed he felt within himself that his martyrdom was near at hand, for in the same epistle he announced “for I am already being offered and the time of my departure is at hand.” He then, in the fourteenth year of Nero on the same day with Peter, was beheaded at Rome for Christ’s sake and was buried in the Ostian way, the twenty-seventh year after our Lord’s passion. He wrote nine epistles to seven churches: To the Romans one, To the Corinthians two, To the Galatians one, To the Ephesians one, To the Philippians one, To the Colossians one, To the Thessalonians two; and besides these to his disciples, To Timothy two, To Titus one, To Philemon one. The epistle which is called the Epistle to the Hebrews is not considered his, on account of its difference from the others in style and language, but it is reckoned, either according to Tertullian to be the work of Barnabas, or according to others, to be by Luke the Evangelist or Clement afterwards bishop of the church at Rome, who, they say, arranged and adorned the ideas of Paul in his own language, though to be sure, since Paul was writing to Hebrews and was in disrepute among them he may have omitted his name from the salutation on this account. He being a Hebrew wrote Hebrew, that is his own tongue and most fluently while the things which were eloquently written in Hebrew were more eloquently turned into Greek and this is the reason why it seems to differ from other epistles of Paul. Some read one also to the Laodiceans but it is rejected by everyone.

The kids and I trekked to the March for Life yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed the adventure. I came home to find a generous link from newly hatched patristiblogger Felix Culpa. I liked what he had to say about The Way of the Fathers. In fact, I think he understands what I’m doing better than I do myself!

Mr. Aquilina’s site is the closest thing to a patristic news source on the web: he regularly links to posts on other sites that concern the Fathers, as well as regularly announces the publication of new books on Patristic theology which otherwise receive virtually no publicity and the reviews of which won’t appear in specialized journals for at least a year or two after publication.

That’s it in a nutshell (which is where a nut like me belongs). I’m not doing scholarship here. Nor am I doing devotions. But I like the idea of providing a Patristic News Service. (No, no, I certainly won’t trademark and abbreviate that one.) Such a service can be helpful to both scholars and history buffs — and, like all things patristic, it should feed our prayer.

And if I break the story of great books a year or two before the journals can, I know I’m doing something useful with my life.

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us / To see oursels as others see us.

Thanks, Felix.

It wouldn’t take long for the Fathers — if they were miraculously transported to our time — to recognize America’s moral and political landscape for what it is. Our world is not so different from the world where they lived — the world they converted and healed.

But who belongs to our society? Who belongs to our world? For the last generation, Americans have tried to place certain classes of humans beyond the protection of the law, outside the definition of personhood. It began with the fetus, the preborn child. Court decisions placed arbitrary limits — at the first trimester, or second, or birth. But does anyone take these seriously? What is it about a day of development — or a week or two weeks — that changes the baby so radically as to make her a different sort of being? Which is the event that confers personhood?

Again, different ethicists propose different answers: self-consciousness, the ability to feel pain, sensitivity to light and sound, and so on. But these, too, fail. The most honest pro-choice thinkers put the matter baldly: what confers personhood is the will of the mother.

The Church Fathers were familiar with this line of thinking. In pagan Rome, a child did not achieve personhood until recognized by the head of the family, the father. When the mother had given birth, a midwife placed the child on the floor and summoned the father. He examined the child with his criteria of selection in mind.

Was the child his? If the man suspected his wife of adultery — ancient Rome’s favorite pastime — he might reject the child without so much as a glance.

If the child was an “odious daughter” (the common Roman phrase for female offspring), he would likely turn on his heel and leave the room.

If the child was “defective” in any way, he would do the same. As the philosopher Seneca said: “What is good must be set apart from what is good for nothing.”

Life or death? It all depended upon the will of a man. Human life began when the child was accepted into society. A man did not “have a child.” He “took a child.” The father “raised up” the child by picking it up from the floor.

Those non-persons who were left on the floor — while their mothers watched from a birthing chair — would be drowned immediately, or exposed to scavenging animals at the town dump.

Against these customs, the Church consistently taught that life begins at conception and should continue till natural death. In such matters, Christianity contradicted pagan mores on almost every point. What were virtuous acts to the Romans and Greeks — contraception, abortion, infanticide, suicide, euthanasia — were abominations to the Christians.

The papyrus trail is especially extensive for abortion, which is condemned by the Didache, the so-called Epistle of Barnabas, the apocryphal Apocalypse of Peter; by Clement of Alexandria, Athenagoras, Justin, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Hippolytus, Origen, and Cyprian. And that partial list takes us only to the middle of the third century.

The earliest extrabiblical document, the Didache, begins with these words: “Two Ways there are, one of Life and one of Death, and there is a great difference between the Two Ways.” The Fathers converted their world from one Way to the other, and they were judged righteous.

Our last generations have perverted our world from one Way to another, and we too will be judged. But we can still do something, as our earliest Christian ancestors did, and we must.

That’s why tens of thousands of people are thronging the streets of Washington, D.C., today, on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that protected the practice of child-murder from any possible legal sanction — while leaving children without any protection at all.

The Fathers have a new friend in the blogsophere, a blogger who goes by the name of Felix Culpa and posts at Ora et Labora. Here’s an interesting bit on the origin of the Septuagint.

Today is the feast of St. Agnes of Rome, virgin and martyr. I have a special devotion to little Agnes. Both my mom and my eldest daughter are named for her. I visit her relics whenever I’m in Rome. One of Agnes’s two Roman churches is the subject of a beautiful recent book, The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church. Agnes is remarkable among the early martyrs because of the abundance of testimony that appears so soon after her death. Ambrose, Augustine, and Prudentius all tell the story of her life. Constantine built a basilica as her memorial. What great witnesses.

I agree, for sentimental reasons, with the historians who speculate that it was the public torture of this lovely, innocent little girl, from a noble family, that turned the tide of public opinion in favor of the Christians. In that act, pagan Rome saw itself clearly and didn’t like what it saw. It was the tipping point. (There’s no way to prove such an hypothesis, of course. But if you’d like to step outside…)

Jeff Ziegler gives us these links:

— St. Agnes (d. c. 303), virgin and martyr.
— St. Ambrose on St. Agnes (De Virginibus: see chap. 2).
— Today’s readings where the memorial is kept with special devotion, 1 Cor. 1:26-31 and Mt. 13:44-46.
— Vicente Marsip, “Martyrdom of St. Agnes” (1540s).

I posted links, too, last year, including an MP3 interview (scroll down toward the bottom).

UPDATE: Maureen, too, has posted good stuff.

The kingdom of Jordan has posted a brief history of the Byzantine era in their lands. It’s illustrated with some nice pieces of ancient Christian art. Hat tip: PaleoJudaica.

Maureen has posted a fine translation of “Inventor Rutili,” the first three verses of Prudentius’ “Hymn for the Lighting of the Lamps.”

Today is the Memorial of St. Anthony of Egypt, honored as the “Father of Monasticism.” Jeff Ziegler gives us these links:

— St. Anthony (251-356), abbot, Patriarch
of Monks.
— The classic Life of St. Anthony by St. Athanasius.
— Today’s readings at Mass: 1 Sm. 4:1-11; Ps. 44:10-11, 14-15, 24-
25; Mk. 1:40-45.
— Hieronymus Bosch, Triptych of the Temptation of St. Anthony (1505-6).

Last year I posted many Anthony links myself, along with my own reflections on his life (and my own). My KVSS interview is up on my audio page, way down toward the bottom.

The Holy Father went back to Augustine in today’s audience. Teresa Benedetta translated:

Dear brothers and sisters!

Today, as last Wednesday, I wish to speak of the great Bishop of Hippo, St. Augustine.

Four years before he died, he wanted to name his successor. So on Sept. 26, 426, he assembled the faithful in the Basilica of Peace in Hippo, to present his choice to the faithful.

He said: “In this life we are all mortal, but the last day of life for anyone is always uncertain. Nevertheless, in our childhood, we expect to reach adolescence; in adolescence, young age; in young age, adulthood; in adulthood, maturity; in maturity, old age. We are not sure of reaching all these stages, but we hope. Old age, on the other hand, has nothing more to look forward to, and its own length is uncertain… By the will of God, I came to this city in the vigor of my life, but now my youth has passed, and I am an old man” (Ep 213,1).

At this point, Augustine gave the name of his designated successor, the priest Heraclius. The assembly erupted in approving applause, repeating twenty times, “Thanks be to God! Praise be to Christ!”

With other acclamations, the faithful greeted what Augustine said about his intentions for his future: he wanted to dedicate the years left to him to a more intense study of Sacred Scriptures (cfr Ep 213, 6).

In fact, there followed four years of extraordinary intellectual activity. He was able to finish important works, he undertook some more which were less demanding, and he held public debates with heretics – he always sought dialog – and intervened to promote peace in the African provinces besieged by barbarian tribes from the south.

This is the context in which he wrote to the Count Darius, who had come to Africa to repair a dispute between Count Boniface and the imperial court, which the Mauritanian tribes were taking advantage of to make their incursions.

“The greatest title of glory,” he wrote, “is to kill war itself with words, instead of killing men by the sword, and to obtain and maintain peace with peace, and not through war. Certainly. even those who fight wars, if they are good men, want peace, but at the cost of spilling blood. You, on the contrary, have been sent here precisely to prevent that anyone should seek to shed the blood of others” (Ep 229,2).

Unfortunately, the hope for a pacification of the African territories was destined to be disappointed: in May 429, the Vandals, invited to Africa by Boniface himself out of spite, went beyond the Strait of Gibraltar and poured into Mauritania. The invasion quickly spread through the other rich provinces of Africa.

In May and June 430, “the destroyers of the Roman Empire” as Possidius described the barbarians (Vita, 30, 1), had surrounded Hippo, which they besieged.

Boniface had sought refuge in Hippo, having reconciled too late with the court, and now he tried in vain to keep the barbarians at bay. Possidius describes the sorrow of Augustine: “More than usual, tears became his bread day and night, and having now reached the end of his days, bitterness and mourning marked his old age” (Vita 28,6).

He explained: “In fact, he saw, this man of God, the massacres and destruction in the city; the houses in the countryside levelled and their inhabitants killed by the enemy, or forced to flee in confusion; the churches deprived of priests and ministers; the sacred virgins and the religious dispersed all over – some of them placed under torture, others killed with the sword, others made prisoner, losing the integrity of body and soul and even their faith, reduced to a long and sorrowful slavery at the hands of the enemy” (ibid., 28,8).

Even if he was old and tired, Augustine nevertheless stayed on the job, comforting himself and others with prayer and meditation on the mysterious designs of Providence. He spoke at this time about the “aging of the world’ – and the Roman world at that time was old – he spoke of this aging, as he did years earlier to comfort the refugees who had come from Italy, when the Goths under Alaric invaded Rome in 410.

In old age, he said, ailments abound: coughing, colds, blindness, anxiety, exhaustion. But if the world grows old, Christ is perpetually young. Thus, his invitation: “Do not refuse to be rejuvenated in union with Christ, even in an old world. He tells you, Do not be afraid, your youth will be renewed as that of the eagle” (cfr Serm. 81,8).

Therefore, the Christian should not allow himself to be knocked down even in difficult situations, but to adapt himself in order to help those who are in need. It is what the great Doctor suggested, responding to the Bishop of Tiabe, Honoratus, who had asked him if, under pressure from the barbarian invasions, a bishop, a priest or any man of the Church could flee to save his life: “When the danger is common for all – for bishops, clergy and laymen – those who have need of others should not be abandoned by those whom they need. In this case, they should all transfer to safer places. But if anyone has to remain, they should not be abandoned by those who have the duty to assist them with the sacred ministry, in such a way that either they are saved together, or together suffer what our Father wills them to do” (Ep. 228,2).

He concluded: “This is the supreme test of charity” (ibid.,3). How can we not recognize in these words the heroic message that so many priests, in the course of centuries, have grasped and made their own?

Meanwhile, the city of Hippo resisted. The monastery-house of Augustine had opened its doors to welcome his fellow bishops who had asked for hospitality. Among them was Possidius himself, who was already one of his disciples, and therefore he was able to leave us his eyewitness account of Augustine’s last tragic days.

“In the third month of that siege,” he wrote, “he was laid up in bed with a fever. It was his last ailment” (Vita, 29,3).

The sainted old man used his finally free time to dedicate himself more intensely to prayer. He used to say that no one – bishop, religious or layman – no matter how irrepressible in life, could face death without adequate penance. That is why, weeping, he always repeated the penitential psalms that he had recited so many times with his flock” (cfr ibid., 31,2).

The more his condition worsened, the more the dying bishop felt the need for solitude and prayer: “In order not to be disturbed during his meditations, he asked – about 10 days before his soul finally left his body – not to let anyone enter his room outside of the times the doctors came to visit him or when his meals were brought in. His wishes were followed to the letter, asnd all that time, he spent in prayer” (ibid., 31,3).

His life ended on August 26, 430. His great heart finally rested in God. “For the deposition of his body,” Possidius tells us, “the Sacrifice was offered to God, which we attended, and then he was buried” (Vita 31,5).

His body, at an unknown date, was transferred to Sardinia, and from there, around 725, to Pavia, at the Basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d’oro, where he rests today.

His first biographer had this concluding judgment of him: “He left the Church a numerous clergy, as well as monasteries for men and women that were full of persons who had vowed chastity and obedience to their superiors; and libraries filled with books and the discourses by himself and other saints – from which we can see his merit and greatness, by the grace of God, in the service of the Church, and in which the faithful will always find him alive” (Possidius, Vita, 31,8).

It is a verdict we can share: in his writings, even we can “find him alive’. When I read the writings of St. Augustine, I do not have the impression that this is a man who has been dead 1600 years, but I feel him as a man of today: a friend, a contemporary who speaks to me, who speaks to us, with a faith that is always fresh and actual.

In St. Augustine who speaks to us, who speaks to me, in his writings, we see the permanent actuality of his faith, the faith that comes from Christ, eternal word incarnate, Son of God and son of man.

We can see that this faith is not a thing of the past, even if it was preached in the past. It is always of today, because Christ is – yesterday, today and always. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

In this way, St. Augustine encourages us to entrust ourselves to this Christ who is ever living and to find thereby the way of life.

The Great and Powerful Maureen has been busy with patristics on both her blogs. She’s been posting her very own translation of Prudentius’ Psychomachia, and it’s true English poetry. Read it, and you’ll know why his Latin poems made him immortal (in the literary and human sense). I’m no professional critic, but I have to say: Until now I knew the lines of this saint as historical and cultural artifacts. For the first time, now, I think I’ve known them as poetry. (Here’s hoping Maureen will go on to Paulinus next!)

On her other blog, she’s been reading aloud: Basil the Great, Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature; more from Origen On Prayer; and soon-to-be-Blessed Newman On the Development of Christian Doctrine.

I have two unofficial consultants on matters Coptic. One is my friend Fr. Mark Gruber, an anthropologist who lived among the monks of the Egyptian desert. The other is a Copt catechist (and long-distance runner) named Nader, who has just entered the blogosphere with reflections that are richly patristic. Please drop in on and welcome him at Sneakers and Books.

Readers of this blog might be interested in a new online offering, The Journal of Late Antique Religion and Culture, published by Cardiff University. Volume 1 is available for your browsing right now. Some samples:

“Poets, Prophets, Critics, and Exegetes in Classical and Biblical Antiquity, and Early Christianity,” by Josef Lössl

“The Rhetoric of Antiquity: Politico-Religious Propaganda in the Nestorian Stele of Chang’an,” by Max Deeg

“From Sophistopolis to Episcopolis: The Case for a Third Sophistic,” by Alberto Quiroga (esp. interesting if you’re devoted to St. John Chrysostom)

Check it out!

The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan: The Trinitarian and Cosmic Order of Salvation, by Kilian McDonnell — and at what a price! Treat yourself for the feast day!