Bible – Page 17 – Jimmy Akin

Did Matthew Abbreviate Mark?

This post presents the results of a test I recently did in my ongoing look at the Synoptic Problem.

In what follows, I will be testing the claim that if Matthew used Mark, he abbreviated the material he found in Mark. Note the “if,” because it’s important. I am not here arguing that he did use Mark. That’s a topic to be discussed elsewhere.

Here goes . . .

The Issue at Hand

An important perception among biblical scholars is that, if Matthew drew material from the Gospel of Mark, he seems to have abbreviated this material.

The presumable reason for this would be to allow Matthew to have space to fit in all the other material he wanted to add to Mark and still keep his own Gospel the size of a single volume (either a single scroll or a single codex).

In The Four Gospels, B. H. Streeter gives several examples of how Matthew (apparently) shortened different sections or pericopes (per-IH-ko-PEES) of Mark. He notes how Matthew’s versions have fewer words in Greek than the corresponding pericopes in Mark.

However, in his book The Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition, E. P. Sanders claimed that Matthew does not consistently shorten material from Mark. If you look at all the pericopes Matthew and Mark have in common, they’re fairly even in terms of overall word count. Matthew’s total word count for these pericopes is slightly shorter than Mark’s, but not by much, and most of the difference is grouped in just a handful of pericopes (see The Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition, 82-87).

This, however, doesn’t strike me as the optimal test: Doing a straight pericope-to-pericope test could be misleading, since Matthew adds material from his own sources to pericopes.

For example, in the account of the Testing in the Wilderness, Mark has only a brief note that the event took place, but he doesn’t describe it in detail. Matthew does; he has the three “temptations” that the devil presents Christ with.

A better test, it occurred to me, would be to eliminate Matthew’s additions (like the three temptations) and see if we find that he shortened what remains.

Unfortunately, Sanders didn’t do this kind of test. Also unfortunately, I don’t know anybody else who has done this kind of test, either.

Why This Is Important

In Synoptic Problem studies, a good deal hinges on whether Matthew would have abbreviated the material he took from Mark, because that gives us a clue to the order of the two Gospels.

It’s much more likely, given the way ancient authors worked, that Matthew would have consistently tightened up Mark’s text than for Mark to consistently expand Matthew’s text in a sentence-by-sentence manner.

Therefore, if Matthew’s material looks like a tightened up version of Mark’s, Mark probably wrote first.

In view of the importance of the question at hand, I wanted to find the answer.

Fortunately, I realized that I had the tools available to do the test myself.

The Tools

Some time ago I began developing a synopsis of the four Gospels that presents both the English and the Greek text of each one in parallel columns.

(It’s not yet published, since I’m still adding new features to it, but I hope to publish it in the future.)

To develop this synopsis, I loaded the Greek and English text into a spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel) and matched the text up verse-by-verse. (Of course, the verse divisions, like the pericope divisions scholars use, are not in the original text, but they are useful.)

The advantage of having the material in a spreadsheet is that I’m able to sort and manipulate the synopsis in various ways that can’t be done with a synopsis printed on paper.

These sorting capabilities, I realized, would let me do the kind of test I wanted to do on Matthew and Mark. Using Excel, it shouldn’t be difficult to isolate the material needed from the two Gospels and then do a word count on the Greek text.

Excel doesn’t have a good word count tool (that I know of), but Microsoft Word does. (N.B. Although Greek has diacritical marks which could, in some character encodings, cause Word to think there were more words than there are, this would have applied to both texts equally and the overall result would remain valid. However, I verified that I was not using one of those character encodings so the word count should be accurate.)

Therefore, all I had to do was isolate the relevant material, paste the Greek text into Word, and see what the resulting word count was.

So I did the test.

Pass 1 of the Test

To isolate the relevant material, I took the following steps:

I made a copy of the spreadsheet so I could manipulate it without harming the original.
I struck all material related to Luke and John.
I struck the longer ending of Mark (since it likely was not original and not what Matthew had in front of him).
I struck all the pericopes in Mark that have no parallel in Matthew (allowing a pericope-to-pericope comparison)
I struck all of the verses that Matthew contained which have no parallels in Mark. This represents the additions that Matthew would have made to Mark (thus allowing a more refined pericope-to-pericope test than the one Sanders did).
I then pasted the resulting Greek text from both Gospels into Word.

Results:

Matthew: 8,114 words
Mark: 10,542 words

If Matthew used Mark, it would seem that he abbreviated the pericopes he used by 2,428 words or 23%, dropping almost one in four words.

Pass 2 of the Test

Although the above results should be the best way to look at the problem, a potential objection occurred to me: The above selection of material includes verses in Mark that Matthew would have omitted entirely.

It seems to me that these verses should be counted in the test (as in Pass 1). There is nothing to say that, in selecting material from Mark, Matthew couldn’t delete entire verses within a pericope. Indeed, the evidence indicates that he would have.

However, just to go the extra mile (to bend a phrase from Matthew 5:41), I decided to do a second pass of the test, eliminating the verses in Mark that had no parallel in Matthew (even though the pericopes that contained them did have a parallel in Matthew).

My prediction, if Matthew was shortening Mark, was that the Matthew material would still contain fewer words (since Matthew was tightening things up within verses as well as by deleting verses) though the result would be less pronounced.

Results:

Matthew: 8,114 words
Mark: 8,569 words

Thus if we compare just the verses that have direct parallels in both Gospels, it would seem that Matthew abbreviated these verses by 455 words or 5%, dropping about one word in twenty as he tightened up the text (aside from the whole verses he dropped).

Summary Thus Far

On both versions of the test, the data supports the conclusion that if Matthew used Mark, he abbreviated the material he took from it.

This is particularly clear on the better version of the test (Pass 1), but also true on the “go the extra mile” version of the test (Pass 2).

The difference in the results of the two passes indicates that Matthew would have done much of his abbreviation by dropping the contents of entire verses, while also tightening up the contents of the verses he retained.

The versions of the test that I did are a pair of rough-and-ready assessments that depended significantly on computers. A more refined, human-based, and scholarly version of this test could be performed in the future, but the results are likely to be the same in substance.

Verses Matthew Would Have Added to Mark’s Pericopes

Let’s complete our look at the issue by examining the verses that Matthew would have added to the pericopes he shares with Mark.

If the hypothesis is correct that Matthew abbreviated what he took from Mark to help make room for the additional information he wanted to add to his Gospel, we should find that most of the verses he added within these pericopes should be independently-sourced, value-added verses, providing new information rather than just restating what should be obvious or paraphrasing Mark in a somewhat wordier way.

By my count, there are 149 such verses. They are listed below, and you can see what they say by hovering your mouse over the individual verse citations.

Prophetic Fulfillments

Matthew is very interested in showing that Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy.

As a result, it is not surprising that he would have added notes regarding how Jesus did so to pericopes he found in Mark. By my count, there would be 16 verses of this material:

Matt. 4:14
Matt. 4:15
Matt. 4:16
Matt. 8:17
Matt. 12:17
Matt. 12:18
Matt. 12:19
Matt. 12:20
Matt. 12:21
Matt. 13:14
Matt. 13:15
Matt. 13:35
Matt. 21:4
Matt. 21:5
Matt. 27:9
Matt. 27:10

For Matthew, these prophetic fulfillment notices counted as value-added content for the audience he was trying to reach, which particularly included Jewish Christians who would be specially interested in how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy.

Double Tradition (“Q”) Material

Additional value-added material is found in what is known as the “double tradition.”

This material also was seen as valuable by the Evangelist Luke, who also included it in his Gospel (hence “double tradition,” because it is found in two Gospels).

One question is where this material came from. Did Luke get it from Matthew? Did Matthew get it from Luke? Or did they both get it from a now lost source? Many modern scholars think the latter, and they have dubbed the proposed, lost source “Q.”

There are about 235 verses of the double tradition material in Matthew and Luke, but only some of them occur in the pericopes that Matthew would have taken from Mark.

To establish which ones, I compared these pericopes with the verses attributed to the double tradition in the International Q Project’s work, The Critical Edition of Q (Robinson, Hoffmann, Kloppenborg, ed.s). This may be deemed a neutral source in that it was not formulated with respect to the hypothesis we are presently testing.

By this reckoning, Matthew would have added about 42 verses of double tradition material to the pericopes he used from Mark:

Matt. 3:7
Matt. 3:8
Matt. 3:9
Matt. 3:10
Matt. 3:12
Matt. 4:3
Matt. 4:4
Matt. 4:5
Matt. 4:6
Matt. 4:7
Matt. 4:8
Matt. 4:9
Matt. 4:10
Matt. 4:13
Matt. 5:13
Matt. 10:6
Matt. 10:7
Matt. 10:8
Matt. 10:15
Matt. 10:16
Matt. 10:19
Matt. 10:24
Matt. 10:25
Matt. 12:27
Matt. 12:28
Matt. 12:30
Matt. 12:32
Matt. 13:16
Matt. 13:17
Matt. 15:14
Matt. 16:3*
Matt. 18:6
Matt. 18:7
Matt. 21:32*
Matt. 24:26
Matt. 24:27
Matt. 24:28
Matt. 24:37
Matt. 24:38
Matt. 24:39
Matt. 24:40
Matt. 24:41

(* The International Q Project lists these two verses as possibly but not definitely being part of Q in their estimation.)

Between this material and the prophetic fulfillments, so far 58 of the 149 verses that Matthew added to Markan pericopes would be independently-sourced and value-added.

Other New Traditions

Of course, the Old Testament and the double tradition were not Matthew’s only sources besides his proposed use of Mark. In addition to the above, there are at least 47 verses in which Matthew seems to have drawn on additional material from his own sources (eyewitness memory or otherwise):

Matt. 5:14
Matt. 5:16
Matt. 10:12
Matt. 10:13
Matt. 10:17
Matt. 10:18
Matt. 10:20
Matt. 10:21
Matt. 10:22
Matt. 10:23
Matt. 12:7
Matt. 12:11
Matt. 12:12
Matt. 12:22
Matt. 13:12
Matt. 14:28
Matt. 14:29
Matt. 14:30
Matt. 14:31
Matt. 15:12
Matt. 15:13
Matt. 16:2 (* This verse is plausibly grouped with a possible double tradition or “Q” saying in Matt. 16:3; otherwise the two verses would both belong to this list.)
Matt. 16:17
Matt. 16:18
Matt. 16:19
Matt. 18:10
Matt. 19:10
Matt. 19:11
Matt. 19:12
Matt. 21:28
Matt. 21:29
Matt. 21:30
Matt. 21:31
Matt. 24:10
Matt. 24:11
Matt. 24:12
Matt. 26:52
Matt. 27:3
Matt. 27:4
Matt. 27:5
Matt. 27:6
Matt. 27:7
Matt. 27:8
Matt. 27:19
Matt. 27:52
Matt. 27:53
Matt. 28:4

Adding these verses to the preceding, 105 of the 149 verses that Matthew added to Markan pericopes would seem to be independently-sourced, value-added material for him.

Possible Extrapolations

We now come to the most problematic of our categories, which consists of material that Matthew may have been able to extrapolate from what he had before him in Mark but that also could have derived from his own sources (including eyewitness memory or other testimony).

Much of this material deals with reactions, such as how different persons or groups reacted to what Jesus said and did.

If Matthew derived it from his own sources, then it would properly be grouped with the material in the other categories we have examined—particularly, the previous category, as independent material that Matthew saw as adding value to his narrative.

If he extrapolated the material from what he found in Mark, this also added value, but in a different way—for example, helping bring out the deeper significance of what happened in particular incidents in Jesus’ ministry.

It would not, however, represent the addition of new material to Markan pericopes in the way the previous three categories would have.

By my count, there are up to 37 verses that could belong to this category.

How many you think should belong to it will depend on how much freedom you think Matthew allowed himself to extrapolate from his sources.

My own feeling is that some of this material was likely derived from independent sources (meaning that, in the ideal, it should be reclassified into one of the above categories, particularly the previous one) but that some of it would have been extrapolated from Mark.

However, for purposes of testing our hypothesis that Matthew abbreviated Mark to include value-added material, I have been as generous as possible with the extrapolation hypothesis, thus erring on the side of Matthew extrapolating from Mark.

Here are the 37 verses:

Matt. 3:2
Matt. 3:14
Matt. 3:15
Matt. 9:26
Matt. 12:5
Matt. 12:6
Matt. 12:23
Matt. 15:23
Matt. 15:24
Matt. 15:25
Matt. 15:31
Matt. 16:12
Matt. 16:27
Matt. 17:6
Matt. 17:7
Matt. 17:13
Matt. 18:3
Matt. 18:4
Matt. 21:10
Matt. 21:11
Matt. 21:20
Matt. 21:43
Matt. 21:46
Matt. 22:33
Matt. 22:38
Matt. 22:40
Matt. 22:46
Matt. 26:25
Matt. 26:44
Matt. 26:50
Matt. 26:53
Matt. 27:21
Matt. 27:25
Matt. 27:26
Matt. 27:43
Matt. 28:2
Matt. 28:3

Because of the ambiguous nature of this material, we cannot establish a definite number of verses that would have independently-sourced, value-added material.

If none of these verses were counted that way, we would still have 105 of 149 verses being independently-sourced, value-added material.

If all of them were counted that way then we would have 141 of 149 verses counted that way.

The truth is likely between these two figures.

Bridging Material

Our final category is what I am calling bridging material. These are verses that are likely extrapolated by Matthew to bridge one section of his narrative with another, based on what he had in front of him in Mark.

For example, Matthew 26:1 reads, “When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples. . . .” This bridges the end of the sayings discourse in Matthew 23-25 with the material that follows it in chapter 26. It is thus something Matthew likely derived neither from Mark (because it isn’t there) nor from other, independent sources but was extrapolated for literary purposes to bridge one section of his narrative with another.

By my reckoning, there are 7 such verses in the pericopes that Matthew would have taken from Mark:

Matt. 8:1
Matt. 13:18
Matt. 14:18
Matt. 15:29
Matt. 22:34
Matt. 26:1
Matt. 27:36

With a high degree of probability, these represent verses that Matthew did not derive from independent sources but used to bridge material he found in Mark with other sections of his narrative.

They do not, however, affect the totals arrived at above: It would still appear that between 105 and 141 of the 149 verses that Matthew added to the Markan pericopes he used came from independent, value-adding sources.

Conclusion

While scholars might argue with the specific numbers offered above, it remains true that Matthew would have added between approximately 105 and 141 independently-sourced, value-added verses among the approximately 149 verses he would have added to the Markan pericopes he used.

In view of this, Matthew would not have extrapolated enough material from what he found in Mark to overturn the conclusion arrived in the first part of our test: It still appears that Matthew significantly shortened the material he found in Mark to include independently-sourced, value-added material.

Future research may change the numbers involved somewhat, but it is unlikely to change the fundamental conclusion.

Is God showing us a fictional past?

Wouldn’t it be great if scientists invented a device that enabled us to have a window into the past–so that we wouldn’t just have to read about the past in books?

Instead, with the new device–let’s call it a Time Window–we could actually see events occurring in the past in real time, with our own eyes?

That would be awesome, wouldn’t it?

The exciting news is that scientists have invented this device!

That’s right! The Time Window is real!

What’s more, they invented it just over 400 years ago, so they’ve had the chance to mature the technology to the point that now it’s really, really good.

For comparison, imagine how good an iPhone would be today if Steve Jobs had invented the first one 400 years ago.

The only problem is that they missed a great marketing opportunity.

Instead of calling it the Time Window ™ they gave it a much more boring name . . . the telescope.

How the Time Window Works

The reason that the Time Window–er, telescope–lets us look into the past and see it with our own eyes is that it takes time for light to reach our eyes. The speed of light is not infinite.

Technically, this means that any time you see anything, you are technically witnessing something that happened in the past.

Since light travels so fast, however, if you see someone across the room pick up an iPhone, that happened only the tiniest fraction of a second ago. In fact, you started seeing it while it was still happening. That’s not long enough ago to make it an exciting glimpse into history.

But things get more interesting when you take a telescope and point it at something really distant.

By Jove!

For example, back in 1609, Galileo Galilei pointed his telescope at the planet Jove–er, Jupiter–and discovered that by it there were several moons.

Now the thing is, depending on where Earth and Jupiter are in their orbits, Jupiter is between 33 and 54 light minutes away from Earth.

Let’s just say it’s an average of 44 light minutes away for the sake of simplicity.

That means, it takes 44 minutes for the light from Jupiter to reach an astronomer on Earth.

So when Galileo looked at Jupiter through his telescopes and saw its moons, he was seeing where those moons were 44 minutes ago.

He was viewing actual history that occurred 44 minutes in the past!

Woo-hoo!

Party Like It’s 1879!

The same thing keeps happening when you look further out.

Back in 2008, scientists used one of their spiffy modern telescopes to capture the light in this image . . .

This is an image of the solar system HR 8799.

It’s got a single star in the middle, and we can see that it has at least three planets orbiting it.

What’s more, it’s 129 light years away from Earth.

That means that this image, which was taken in 2008, is of events taking place in 1879.

This is an image of where those planets were in the year that the apparition at Knock, Ireland took place, that the California Constitution was ratified, and that Thomas Edison unveiled incandescent light to the public.

It’s an image of things happening in that year.

Now let’s look really far into the past . . .

An Earth-Shattering Ka-Boom

Also in 2008, astronomers captured an image of a supernova known as SN 2008D.

Here’s a time-lapse image of the supernova happening, both in x-rays and visible light. Take a moment and watch it:

Hoo-eee! It blowed up real good! (Particularly in x-rays.)

Now here’s the thing: SD 2008D is in the galaxy NGC 2770, which is in the constellation Lynx.

It’s also 88,000,000 (88 million) light years away.

That means that when you’re watching the supernova explode in the images above, You Are Watching an Event That Took Place 88 Million Years in the Past.

That’s right. Dinosaurs were roaming the earth when this event took place. It was the middle of the Cretaceous Era.

So What’s This Have to Do with God?

Historically, many people have thought that the universe was only a few thousand years old, based on the most common understanding of Genesis.

Modern science has suggested that it is much, much older.

If the above picture reveals an event that took place 88,000,000 years ago, then the view that the universe is only a few thousand years old can’t be right.

So what alternatives do we have in resolving this situation?

Here are three . . .

**Option 1: We’re Really, Really Wrong**

One option would be to say that we are really–desperately–wrong in our understanding of science today.

Either light doesn’t travel at the speed we think it does or SN 2008D isn’t as far away as we think it is–or something.

This cannot be ruled out on theoretical grounds. The best scientific thought of the day has turned out to be really, really wrong before.

But how likely is this?

At this point we seem to have very, very good evidence about the age and dimensions of the cosmos, about how fast light travels and how far away things like supernovas are.

Option 2: God Is Showing Us Fictions

Another option would be to say that, when the world began a few thousand years ago, God created light already en route from what appeared to be more distant galaxies.

If that’s the case, then any event we see that appears to be happening more than a few thousand light years away is a fiction.

Beyond a certain point, we’re watching God’s Imaginary Astronomy Show.

Mixed in with God’s Real Astronomy Show that’s taking place closer to home.

Hmmm.

That doesn’t seem consistent with God’s Truthfulness.

At a minimum, an advocate of this view would need to provide an explanation for why God would do this, why it wouldn’t be inconsistent with his Truthfulness.

Some have tried to mount such an explanation by saying that God created the world with an “appearance of age,” the same way that he created Adam and Eve as full-grown adults rather than babies.

That is the way Genesis seems to depict the creation of our first parents, since they are both apparently created on Day 6 of the creation week in Genesis 1, and since they are married as soon as Eve is created in the second creation narrative in Genesis 2.

If you think that God used evolution to make the bodies of the first humans (of course, he made their souls directly and immediately) then this issue doesn’t arise–at least not in the same way.

But what if you think that God literally created an adult Adam out of earth and an adult Eve out of Adam’s side? Does that provide much support for the “appearance of age” explanation of distant astronomical events?

I have never thought so.

It’s always seemed to me that, if God were to directly create the first humans as adults, there would be a very good reason for that–namely: Babies Cannot Take Care of Themselves.

Without the presence of other humans–or near-humans–to take care of our first parents, they would need to be adults (or at least teens). Either that, or God would have to run his own, direct daycare service, and Genesis doesn’t suggest that he did.

So I can see a reason why God would make the first humans as adults. That’s because of the incapacity to care for themselves that human infants have.

But that doesn’t give us any reason why God would need to plant false dinosaur bones in the ground or false astronomical images in the sky, let alone mix them up with real ones.

He could have just let God’s Real Astronomy Show play in the sky each night.

The sky wouldn’t have had quite as much stuff in it each night, but it would all have been true stuff.

**Option 3: God’s Word in the Heavens and in the Bible Is True**

The best approach would seem to be the classic one of saying that God’s word in nature and God’s word in the Bible are both true.

They have to be understood in harmony with each other.

Thus if we have good evidence from God’s word in nature that the universe is quite old then that helps shed light on the meaning of God’s word in the Scriptures.

This is the approach taken by the Catholic Church.

Concerning the creation narrative in Genesis 1, John Paul II stated:

Above all, this text has a religious and theological importance. It doesn’t contain significant elements from the point of view of the natural sciences. Research on the origin and development of the individual species in nature does not find in this description any definitive norm [General Audience, Jan. 29, 1986].

And the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

283 The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man.

These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers.

With Solomon they can say: “It is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements. . . for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.”

And:

337 God himself created the visible world in all its richness, diversity and order. Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine “work”, concluded by the “rest” of the seventh day.

On the subject of creation, the sacred text teaches the truths revealed by God for our salvation, permitting us to “recognize the inner nature, the value and the ordering of the whole of creation to the praise of God.”

Having said that, I’m looking forward to seeing more events from distant history–with my own eyes–through the amazing Time Window! (Er, telescope.)

What’s the relationship between the twelve tribes and the twelve apostles?

A reader writes:

Does the Church teach of any parallel between the 12 Apostles and the 12 tribes of Israel?

I don’t know of a Church document that stresses this connection off the top of my head, though there probably are some that do. It is generally acknowledged among Bible scholars that the New Testament draws clear parallels between the twelve apostles and the twelve tribes–and, more specifically, with the twelve patriarchs (sons of Jacob/Israel) who were the progenitors of the twelve tribes.

By appointing twelve apostles, Jesus clearly indicated his intention to establish the Christian community as a New Israel, without depriving the original Israel of its place in God’s plan.

Does each Apostle represent a separate tribe or a characteristic associated with the tribe?

So far as we know, the twelve apostles correspond to the twelve patriarchs/tribes only in a generic manner. We can’t match each of them up one-to-one.

Also, are the Apostles the inhabitants of the twelve thrones of judgement for the tribes?

Without excluding the idea that there will be other thrones of judgment, Jesus does say that the apostles will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. 19:28, Luke 22:29-30).

Lastly, do many faithful Jewish people still know their tribe ancestry or is that knowledge long gone?

At this point, no. Most Jewish people do not know their specific tribal ancestry, though most would be descended from Judah, Benjamin, or Simeon (the southern tribes).

An exception is the tribe of Levi. Jewish people with names like Cohen (“priest”), Levi (“Levite”), etc., are generally thought to derive from the tribe of Levi and–in the case of Cohens–to be descendants of the priestly line of that tribe. They thus can have special roles in the synagogue liturgy.

Conscience and Communion

There is a good bit of conversation about how conscience may play a role in the question of whether divorced and civilly remarried Catholics can receive Holy Communion.

For example, Chicago’s Archbishop Blase Cupich discussed the subject at a press briefing in Rome during the synod of bishops.

What the archbishop said or was trying to say is not entirely clear to me from the quotations I’ve seen in the press, and I do not wish to speculate based on incomplete press accounts.

I have, however, received a number of queries about the role of conscience in this area, and a brief look at the question may be in order.

1) Acknowledging past abuses

Some people immediately become suspicious whenever the word “conscience” is brought up in connection with controversial moral subjects.

That’s understandable. The concept has been much abused.

After Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae there was a huge push to justify dissent from the Church’s teaching on contraception using conscience as a guise.

Dissidents were turning Jiminy Cricket’s slogan “Always let your conscience be your guide” into “Always let conscience be your guise.”

This is one of the reasons why the word “conscience” appears more than a hundred times in John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor and why the Catechism of the Catholic Church has a lengthy section specially devoted to conscience.

The concept has been profoundly abused.

And it’s no surprise that many become suspicious whenever conscience comes up in a moral controversy.

On the other hand, not every invocation of conscience is contrary to Church teaching. So what does the Church teach?

2) The primacy of conscience

It is often stressed that one must obey one’s conscience. This can be a tactical dodge to justify rejection of Church teaching, but it is not necessarily so.

The Church agrees that one must obey one’s conscience. The Catechism states:

A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself [CCC 1790].

In other words, it is a sin to defy a certain judgment of your conscience. If you are certain that you must not do something and you do it anyway, you are sinning by violating your conscience. You are similarly sinning if you are certain that you must do something and you refuse to do it.

Notice that this applies when you are certain. If you are uncertain, the situation can be different.

Even when you are certain, that doesn’t mean that the judgment of your conscience is right. The Catechism continues:

Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

What happens when a person’s conscience is wrong? Does that mean he’s off scot-free?

3) Personal responsibility and erroneous conscience

The Catechism states:

This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits [CCC 1791].

So saying that you are acting in accord with your conscience doesn’t protect you from the charge that you are sinning—and culpable for doing so. If, through your own fault, you have warped your conscience then you are still responsible.

What if your conscience is mistaken but through no fault of your own?

If—on the contrary—the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience [CCC 1793].

In this case, you aren’t culpable for your actions, but they are still evil.

4) Conscience and Communion

Prior to receiving Holy Communion, every person needs to examine his conscience:

To respond to this invitation we must prepare ourselves for so great and so holy a moment. St. Paul urges us to examine our conscience: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself” [1 Cor 11:27-29]. Anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to Communion [CCC 1385].

This applies to people who are divorced and civilly remarried as much as anyone else.

5) Properly Formed Conscience on Civil Remarriage and Communion

What should a person who has divorced and civilly remarried conclude when he makes this examination of conscience? The Catechism states:

Today there are numerous Catholics in many countries who have recourse to civil divorce and contract new civil unions. In fidelity to the words of Jesus Christ—“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” [Mk 10:11-12]. The Church maintains that a new union cannot be recognized as valid, if the first marriage was. If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God’s law. Consequently, they cannot receive eucharistic Communion as long as this situation persists. For the same reason, they cannot exercise certain ecclesial responsibilities. Reconciliation through the sacrament of Penance can be granted only to those who have repented for having violated the sign of the covenant and of fidelity to Christ, and who are committed to living in complete continence [CCC 1650].

A person with a properly formed conscience will conclude that he cannot receive Communion until he has addressed his situation properly.

6) Erroneous Conscience on Civil Remarriage and Communion

Based on the above, a civilly remarried person not living chastely would be unable to receive Communion, and so his conscience would be erroneous if it told him that he could. What are the implications of this?

As we’ve seen, if “the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him.” He thus would not be personally culpable for receiving Communion. However, “it remains no less an evil” for him to do so (CCC 1793).

However, the ignorance responsible for a person’s erroneous conscience “can often be imputed to personal responsibility. . . . In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits” (CCC 1791).

7) Pastoral Care and Erroneous Conscience

What would appropriate pastoral care be for persons in this situation who have an erroneous conscience?

If the individual is not personally culpable for receiving Communion, it remains objectively evil for him to do so, and thus the Catechism states “one must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience” (CCC 1793). The Catechism’s statement could be taken to mean that one must work to correct one’s own errors, but since the pastors of the Church have an obligation to assist the faithful in forming their conscience, they share in this obligation as well.

If the individual is personally culpable for receiving Communion then the matter is even more urgent. Not only is he committing an objectively evil act but he is culpable for doing so—eating and drinking judgment upon himself, in St. Paul’s words—and the pastors of the Church need to take effective action to address the situation.

Thus in both cases—whether the person is culpable or not—it is not sufficient to simply say, “The person is following his conscience” and leave it at that. If it is an erroneous conscience, the pastors of the Church must work to correct it.

This is particularly so in light of what the Catechism has to say about common causes of errors in moral judgment:

Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct [CCC 1792].

Since “rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching” is one of the known causes of erroneous conscience, pastors of the Church must combat this by issuing calls to accept the Church’s authority and teaching (as well as explaining the reasons for doing so).

Further, simply concluding that a person is acting on his conscience and leaving the matter fosters precisely the “mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience” that the Catechism warns against.

And there is another reason why the matter cannot simply be left up to conscience . . .

8) Civil Remarriage, Communion, and Canon Law

The Code of Canon Law contains a provision which applies in this situation:

Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy Communion [CIC 915].

Note that this canon does not have the qualifier “unless they are acting on their conscience.”

What it specifies for the denial of Communion is “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin.”

Couples who have civilly remarried are presumed to be sleeping together and thus committing grave sin, unless they are known to be living chastely. If their civilly remarried status is known in their community then the presumed state of grave sin is manifest. And if their pastor has warned them about their situation and they do nothing to address it then they are obstinately persevering in it. In such a circumstance—the way canon law is presently written—the pastor is obliged to refuse Communion.

There is thus a canonical requirement constraining pastoral action in addition to the theological ones discussed above.

Who (or What) Was Lucifer?

Recently I got a query from someone wondering about an anti-Catholic video that claimed “the pope’s deacon” invoked Lucifer during the Easter Vigil liturgy and referred to Jesus as his Son.

Of course, that’s not what happened, but to understand what really did happen, you need to know a few things about “lucifer.”

What does the word lucifer mean?

It’s a Latin word derived from the roots lux (light) and ferre (to carry).

It means “light-bearer” or “light-bringer,” and it was not originally used in connection with the devil.

Instead, it could be used multiple ways. For example, anybody carrying a torch at night was a lucifer (light-bringer).

It was also used as a name for the Morning Star (i.e., the planet Venus), because this is the brightest object in the sky other than the sun and the moon. As a result, Venus is the first star seen in the evening (the Evening Star) and the last star seen in the morning (the Morning Star).

Venus is also known—in English—as the Day Star because it can be seen in the day.

Because its sighting in the morning heralds the light of day, it was referred to by Latin speakers as the “light-bringer” or lucifer.

So there was no connection with the devil?

No. In fact, it was used as an ordinary name. Thus in the 300s, St. Lucifer of Cagliari was a defender of the deity of Christ and of St. Athanasius against the Arians.

Another bishop in the 300s—Lucifer of Siena—also bore this name.

Is the symbol of the Morning Star used in any surprising ways?

Yes. The Bible uses it as a symbol for Jesus Christ. In the book of Revelation, we read:

“I Jesus have sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star” (Rev. 22:16).

(Spoiler alert! This is going to play a key role in what we have to say about the liturgy.)

So we shouldn’t freak out just because we see references to the words “lucifer” or “light-bringer” or “morning star”?

No. They have no intrinsic connection to the devil. In fact, they may be used—as in Scripture itself—as symbols of Jesus Christ.

How did this word get connected with the devil?

It’s based on a passage in the book of Isaiah. Chapter 14 of that book contains a taunt (a kind of ancient insult song or poem—like you might find at a modern rap battle) against one of the oppressors of Israel: the king of Babylon.

It predicts his downfall, but it also depicts his pride, which sets him up for the downfall.

Thus we read:

How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low! (Is. 14:12).

In the Latin Vulgate, that’s:

Quomodo cecidisti de caelo,
lucifer, fili aurorae?
Deiectus es in terram,
qui deiciebas gentes.

The king of Babylon thus fancies himself as something high and mighty—like the Day Star itself—but God brings him low in the end.

In this passage the reference to the Day Star/the Morning Star/lucifer is thus an ironic allusion to the king of Babylon’s prideful self-image.

But surely we’re talking about the human king of Babylon—not the devil. Doesn’t the passage refer to him as a man who dies?

Yes. This passage explicitly refers to the king of Babylon as a man (Heb., ’ish) who conquered kingdoms:

Those who see you will stare at you, and ponder over you:

“Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities, who did not let his prisoners go home?” (Is. 14:16-17).

It also refers multiple times to his decay after death and how he will not lie in his own tomb!

Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, the sound of your harps;
maggots are the bed beneath you, and worms are your covering” (Is. 14:11).

All the kings of the nations lie in glory, each in his own tomb;
but you are cast out, away from your sepulcher, like a loathed untimely birth (Is. 14:18-19).

So we’re talking about a human king—at least in the literal sense of the text.

How did this passage get connected with the devil?

Some of the early Church Fathers took it that way.

They compared the pride that the king of Babylon displays in the passage (“I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High”; Is. 14:14) with the pride of the devil.

They also compared the fall of the king of Babylon to Jesus statement that he “saw Satan fall like lightning” (Luke 10:18)—though in context that passage refers to the defeat of the devil in the ministry the apostles just engaged in.

It is legitimate to use the spiritual sense of this text as an application to the devil, but many people have lost sight of the literal sense of the text, which applies to the human king of Babylon.

Worse, in the popular mind “Lucifer” has simply become a name for the devil, and that causes problems when people who only know this use encounter other uses of the term—as in the Latin liturgy.

Is thus just a Catholic interpretation?

No. In fact, the Protestant Reformers Luther and Calvin acknowledged it.

Luther wrote:

12. How you are fallen from heaven, Lucifer! This is not said of the angel who once was thrown out of heaven but of the king of Babylon, and it is figurative language. Isaiah becomes a disciple of Calliope and in like manner laughs at the king. Heylel [the Hebrew word used in the text] denotes the morning star, called Lucifer and the son of Dawn. “Heaven” is where we are with our heads, and that is obviously above the ground, just as that most powerful and extremely magnificent king was once above, but now his lamp is extinguished (Luther’s Works 16:140; Preface to the Prophet Isaiah, ch. 14).

Calvin as quite hostile to the application of this passage to the devil, writing:

12. How art thou fallen from heaven! Isaiah proceeds with the discourse which he had formerly begun as personating the dead, and concludes that the tyrant differs in no respect from other men, though his object was to lead men to believe that he was some god. He employs an elegant metaphor, by comparing him to Lucifer, and calls him the Son of the Dawn; and that on account of his splendor and brightness with which he shone above others. The exposition of this passage, which some have given, as if it referred to Satan, has arisen from ignorance; for the context plainly shows that these statements must be understood in reference to the king of the Babylonians. But when passages of Scripture are taken up at random, and no attention is paid to the context, we need not wonder that mistakes of this kind frequently arise. Yet it was an instance of very gross ignorance, to imagine that Lucifer was the king of devils, and that the Prophet gave him this name. But as these inventions have no probability whatever, let us pass by them as useless fables (Commentary on Isaiah at 14:12).

So what have anti-Catholics claimed about the Easter Vigil liturgy?

Some have claimed that “the pope’s deacon” invoked Lucifer and described Jesus as the devil’s Son.

This claim is based on translating part of the Easter Vigil liturgy this way:

Flaming Lucifer who finds mankind;
I say O Lucifer, who will Never be defeated.
Christ is your Son, who came back from Hell;
shed his peaceful light and is alive and reigns in the world without end.

What’s the real story?

The pope does not have a personal deacon, though deacons can sing the part of the Easter Vigil liturgy known as the Exsultet, Easter Proclamation, or Paschal Proclamation. (Exsultet is its first word in Latin: “Let them exult!”)

You can read about it here.

The Exsultet is part of a ceremony involving the Paschal Candle, which symbolizes the light of Christ.

In Latin, the relevant part of the Exsultet reads:

Orámus ergo te, Dómine,
ut céreus iste in honórem tui nóminis consecrátus,
ad noctis huius calíginem destruéndam,
indefíciens persevéret.
Et in odórem suavitátis accéptus,
supérnis lumináribus misceátur.

Flammas eius lúcifer matutínus invéniat:
ille, inquam, lúcifer, qui nescit occásum.
Christus Fílius tuus,
qui, regréssus ab ínferis, humáno géneri serénus illúxit,
et vivit et regnat in sæcula sæculórum.

In good English (as opposed to the incompetent translation given by the anti-Catholic commentator), this means:

Therefore, O Lord,
we pray you that this candle,
hallowed to the honor of your name,
may persevere undimmed,
to overcome the darkness of this night.
Receive it as a pleasing fragrance,
and let it mingle with the lights of heaven.

May this flame be found still burning by the Morning Star:
the one Morning Star who never sets,
Christ your Son,
who, coming back from death’s domain,
has shed his peaceful light on humanity,
and lives and reigns for ever and ever.

Up to the first reference to the Morning Star, this passage of the Exsultet is asking God to let the Paschal Candle continue to give light, so that it still be burning in the morning (“May this flame be found still burning by the Morning Star”).

Then the prayer pivots to re-conceive of the Morning Star not as the literal one in the sky but as Jesus Christ himself, based on the symbol in Revelation 22:16 (“the one Morning Star who never sets, Christ your Son”).

It is a moving, poetic prayer to God—not an invocation of the devil.

The New Testament authors you rarely hear about

Who wrote the New Testament?

Let’s see . . . there was Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul.

Those are the easy ones.

Anybody else?

If you think about it for a moment, you’ll likely come up with James, Peter, and Jude.

Good. Now, who else was there?

Harder Cases

At this point, your mind might flash to the book of Hebrews, which doesn’t list its author. Some have proposed that it was written by Apollos, Barnabas, Luke, or another member of the Pauline circle, but I’m not talking about it’s unnamed author. I’m looking for named authors.

Depending on how much you read the Church Fathers and some modern authors (like Benedict XVI), you might know that there is a question of whether one or two people named John contributed to the New Testament, but I’m not talking about that, either.

There are three additional men who are named in the New Testament as authors.

So who were they?

The answer is Sosthenes, Silvanus, and Timothy.

“Wait,” you may be saying. “What books did they author?”

In the case of Sosthenes (SOSS-thin-EES), it was one book: 1 Corinthians.

In the case of Silvanus, it was two books: 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

In the case of Timothy, it was a whopping six books: 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and Philemon.

“Wait! Didn’t Paul author those?”

Yes, he did. Paul was the primary author of each letter, and Sosthenes, Silvanus, and Timothy were his co-authors.

You can tell this by the way each book is addressed. In the ancient world, letters were commonly begun with a variant on the formula “X to Y,” where X was the author and Y was the recipient.

Thus 3 John opens with:

The elder to the beloved Gaius (3 John 1).

This tells us that “the elder” is the author and Gaius is the recipient. It presupposes that Gaius knows who the elder is, but other than that it is a fairly standard opening for a first century Greco-Roman letter.

On the other hand, at the beginning of 1 Corinthians, we read:

Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,

To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours (1 Cor. 1:1-2).

The formula “X to Y” is somewhat obscured by the literary-theological elaboration it is given here, but it’s still present. Stripped of the elaboration, it reads:

Paul and Sosthenes to the church at Corinth.

This lists both Paul and Sosthenes as authors, and that’s weird.

Co-authors?

It may be common today to find a book written by more than one person (e.g., the sci-fi classic The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle).

Co-authors are common today when it comes to books, but not with letters. Today most letters are authored by only one person.

The same was true in the ancient world, so Paul’s listing of other individuals as co-authors was startling.

It was one of several unusual things about his letters. (For another, see here.)

What does his inclusion of co-authors mean?

The Role of Authors

Today we think of the author of a work as the person who writes it, but this is not a guarantee.

In the modern world, we have “ghost writers,” who write a work on behalf of the person who is listed as its author.

Even apart from such an extreme case (where one person composes all of a work’s words in the name of another), we have intermediary stages involving editors, copy editors, and proof readers, where various other individuals make some contribution to the composition of the words that the author eventually signs his name to.

These kind of intermediate contributors are, in fact, the norm in modern publishing.

Take it from me as someone who works (in multiple roles) in that industry: No professionally published book comes out without being looked over, and contributed to, by individuals such as these.

And yet it is the author who lends his name to the work and takes responsibility for it.

That’s true all the way up to the pope.

Even the Pope?

Popes—whether they be Francis, Benedict, John Paul, or others—give tons of speeches and issue far too many documents for them to be solely responsible for.

They have helpers, editors, and even ghost writers. Yet they ultimately sign their names to documents and take responsibility for them.

That’s the ultimate mark of an author: Regardless of what role he played in the composition of a document’s words, he lends his name to it and takes responsibility for it when it’s published.

The author is the authority behind the letter.

He’s likely to have played a role in the composition or revision of the text (particularly if it’s an important text), but it’s the ultimate acceptance of public responsibility for the document that makes him its author.

Ancient Authors

The same was true in the ancient world. Authors generally proposed that the work be written and played a role in the process of its composition and revision, but what precisely that role was could vary, depending on how much freedom the author gave to those he was working with.

The author may or may not have asked for changes before the final draft was published, but he was the one responsible for how the process as a whole played out.

Ultimately, he authorized the publishing of the work in his name and so became its author.

Or co-author.

In Paul’s case, he included people like Sosthenes, Silvanus, and Timothy, who lent their names to various letters when they were sent. They took responsibility for them, alongside Paul, and so became his co-authors.

The Role of Paul’s Co-Authors

This did not mean that they made large contributions to the text. In all likelihood, they did not.

It is clear, when we read Paul’s letters, that he has the dominant voice. Paul frequently speaks in the singular (“I”) rather than the plural (“we”). And we don’t read things like, “I, Sosthenes, say . . . ” or “I, Timothy, tell you . . . ” That’s one reason why it’s so easy to mistake Paul as the sole author.

But it’s likely that his co-authors did make contributions alongside his.

Some have suggested, for example, that Paul was more brusque than his co-authors, and that may be why 2 Corinthians 10-13 is so harsh in tone compared to the part of the letter that precedes it (i.e., Timothy was not with Paul when he wrote this part and so couldn’t urge him to tone down his brusqueness, though he was listed as a co-author of the letter as a whole).

However Paul’s co-authors may have contributed in the writing of the letters to which they lent their names, they still played a distinct role.

Authors vs. Secretaries

It’s important to recognize that they were not simply Paul’s secretaries or scribes.

Serving as a scribe in the ancient world did not make you an author.

Scribes had many roles, which ranged from copyist to ghost writer, depending on how the author wanted to use them.

What they did not do is lend their name to the document in the opening address and take that kind of responsibility for it.

Thus in Romans, Tertius—the scribe who Paul employed—merely greets the recipients near the end of the letter, saying:

I, Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord (Rom. 16:22).

He does not have his name listed in the “X to Y” address of Romans 1:1-7, alongside Paul as a co-author.

This is not to say that people like Sosthenes, Silvanus, and Timothy couldn’t have simultaneously functioned as scribes—just that their role was not limited to this.

If they played a scribal function in composing these letters (though this is not at all certain), their role went beyond that, and Paul had them include their names in the address, thus authorizing the letter and becoming its co-authors.

This means that, in a real sense, they are authors of the New Testament!

Yet we rarely hear about them in this capacity.

So who were they? What do we know about them?

That’s the subject of another post.

Did Paul Know He Was Writing Scripture?

Some folks have the idea that the authors of the New Testament did not know that they were writing Scripture.

According to this view, they just thought they were writing Christian literature, and the Church gradually—even a century or more later—recognized that it was Scripture.

Some time ago, I wrote about this issue, and I argued that the authors of several books in the New Testament clearly knew that they were writing Scripture, right from the get-go.

These books were Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and Revelation.

That’s everything in the New Testament except the letters.

So what about them?

The Case Against

If any authors of the New Testament weren’t aware or weren’t clear that they were writing Scripture, it would be the authors of the letters.

There are several things you might appeal to if you wanted to argue for this view:

There isn’t a prior precedent for letters as Scripture. None of the books of the Old Testament are letters. Some have historical accounts that contain letters, but none are letters. As a result, the New Testament authors of letters would have been striking out in new conceptual territory to think of their works as Scripture. Letters in their day weren’t thought of as Scripture any more than letters in our day typically are. What’s more, in their day there was no precedent for thinking of letters as Scripture (whereas, at least in our day, we can look back on the letters of the New Testament).
Many of the letters may have been written before the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation. If so, they were written before the Christian works whose authors have clear scriptural intent. Consequently, they may have been written before it was clear that there would be any Christian Scriptures, which would be another conceptual hurdle for the early letter writers to jump.
The letters often contain material that is local and situational—e.g., Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians about how to discipline a particular man (1 Cor. 5:1-5) or his offer to pay Philemon to compensate him for money or goods that Onesimus may have stolen (Philemon 18-19). Such passages are more specific than the more general matters we find discussed in clearly-recognizable books of Scripture.

Still, this doesn’t mean that the authors of the New Testament letters didn’t recognize that they were writing Scripture.

Here I’d like to suggest one reason which supports the idea that Paul, in particular, did recognize it.

First Century Letters

Most of us don’t have any exposure to first century letters other than those found in the New Testament.

As a result, it’s easy for us to have misconceptions about them and how they were written.

For example, the picture above is the product of later artistic imagination. Paul did not write his letters personally, alone, or at a table!

We can also miss how unique Paul’s letters are. They are not typical of the letters in the ancient world.

One way they are different is very simple: their size.

In his excellent book Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition, and Collection, Randolph Richards writes:

The typical papyrus letter consisted of one or two sheets. Paul’s letters were not typical length. We think of Philemon as a very short letter, but in actuality, it was a fairly typical letter in length, perhaps even a trifle long. Imagine the church’s surprise when Paul’s letter to the Romans arrived! (p. 52)

How long, specifically, were ancient letters?

Writing out a dispatched copy of a letter of Paul was complicated by the fact that Paul’s letters were inordinately long. The typical papyrus letter was one papyrus sheet. In the approximately 14,000 private letters from Greco-Roman antiquity, the average length was about 87 words, ranging in length from 18 to 209 words. The letters of the literary masters, like Cicero and Seneca, were considerably longer. Nonetheless, Paul stands apart from them all. (p. 163)

Cicero’s Letters

Let’s take Cicero as an example. He was one of the most famous letter-writers of the ancient world, and his letters have remained in print to this day.

Here’s an example of a letter from Cicero—the kind he (and his audience) thought worth preserving and publishing in his volumes of collected letters. This one was sent to his friend Atticus in Athens in December of 68 B.C.:

All’s well at your mother’s, and I keep an eye on her.

I have undertaken to pay L. Cincius 20,400 sesterces to your credit on the Ides of February.

Pray see that I receive at the earliest possible opportunity what you say in your letters that you have bought and secured for me.

I should also be very much obliged if you would, as you promised, think over the means of securing the library for me.

My hope of getting the one enjoyment which I care for, when I come to retire, depends entirely on your kindness (The Letters of Cicero, vol. 1, III [A 1, 7]).

This letter is only 97 words long in English (minus the greeting, etc., which isn’t included here). That makes it a bit longer than the average ancient letter (87 words).

It’s a bit short for Cicero, though. His average was 295 words in Latin. But that’s Cicero’s average.

Now let’s compare it to Paul’s shortest letter: Philemon.

Paul’s Letters

Philemon is 335 words long in Greek, which means that Paul’s shortest letter is longer than Cicero’s average one.

By contrast, Paul’s average letter is 2,495 words, which is more than 8 times Cicero’s average and almost 30 times the average ancient letter.

Paul’s letters are huge by ancient standards.

They’re epistolary monsters, and Paul’s longest letter—Romans—runs to 7,114 words in Greek.

That makes it 82 times the length of the average ancient letter, so Romans is the city-stomping kaiju of Paul’s literary corpus.

Richards is right: The Romans would have been shocked when Paul’s letter courier showed up with his letter to them!

(In fact, there’s reason to think that they may have gotten something even bigger and more shocking than Romans alone in the mail, but that’s a story for another time.)

How Much This Cost

Writing letters of Pauline length was not cheap. Paper (papyrus or parchment) was hand-made and expensive.

So were the secretaries who prepared the drafts and final copy for mailing (as well as the copy literary figures like Paul tended to retain for their records).

While it’s difficult to make cross-cultural cost comparisons, by one way of estimating it, Romans would have cost Paul $2,275 to produce (Richardson, p. 169).

This would have been no small amount for an itinerant preacher who eked out a living making tents on the side.

In fact, Paul was almost certainly dependent on the donations of wealthy patrons to be able to produce letters like this.

Implications

Between the impressive length and investment that Paul sank in writing his letters, one conclusion is clear: Paul knew he was doing something extraordinary.

The fact that he so dramatically breaks the literary customs of his day and spends large amounts of money doing so indicates how important his letters were to him.

This, coupled with their theological content, indicates that—at a minimum—Paul thought he was producing highly important works of Christian literature.

Important enough to rank as Scripture?

It’s a distinct possibility, and the length and cost of his works aren’t the only reason for thinking so.

We’ll go into additional reasons in another post, but for now it’s worth noting the implications of the sheer size and cost of his letters.

Learning More

If you’re interested in learning more about the subject, I’d recommend Randolph Richards’ book Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition, and Collection.

It covers not only the length and cost issues but also many other aspects of first-century letter writing that most of us have no idea about—as well as the implications for our understanding of Paul.

I was delighted when this book recently came out on the Logos Bible software platform.

Personally, I use the Catholic version of Logos—Verbum—every day as part of my research, and I highly recommend it, too.

If you’re interested in checking it out, you can click here (affiliate link), and I can save you 15% on their base packages if you use the code JIMMY1 at checkout.

Elijah’s journey: 40 days and 40 nights?

Sunday’s readings contain an interesting illustration of the way that the Bible can use numbers.

In the Old Testament reading, Elijah is on the run from the evil queen Jezebel and he goes out into the wilderness and asks God to let him die.

Instead, God sends and angel who makes Elijah eat and drink two times in order to strengthen him for a journey.

Then we read:

He got up, ate, and drank; then strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.

One of the first things that you learn about the geography of the Holy Land is that it’s tiny by American standards. From north to south, the modern state of Israel is only 290 miles long, and its width varies between 9 miles and 85 miles.

With distances like that, a journey of 40 days and 40 nights is remarkable.

Some Basic Math

The fact that the text says Elijah travelled day and night would presumably indicate at least 10-12 hours a day, leaving time for breaks and sleep.

A normal person can walk around 3 miles per hour, so that would be 30-36 miles a day.

After 40 days of that travel, one would have gone 1,200 to 1,440 miles, which would be enough to take one far outside the Holy Land.

Since the number 40 is used in the Bible to indicate significant periods of time, this raises the question of whether the number is being used here simply to indicate a long journey rather than being meant literally.

Fortunately, we can shed some light on the question

Where was Elijah starting from?

Although the verse we need isn’t included in Sunday’s readings, we know where Elijah was starting from. According to 1 Kings 19:3-4:

Elijah was afraid and fled for his life, going to Beer-sheba of Judah. He left his servant there and went a day’s journey into the wilderness, until he came to a solitary broom tree and sat beneath it.

So Elijah fled from Jezebel (queen of the northern kingdom of Israel) down to Be’er-sheva, which was on the southern border of Judah.

Indeed, the phrase “from Dan to Be’er-Sheva” was proverbial in biblical times as a way of referring to the entire Holy Land, from north to south.

So Elijah has fled to a city in the far south and then gone a day’s journey farther into the Negev desert. That’s where he had his angelic encounter at the broom tree.

Where was Elijah going?

The text tells us that he went to “the mountain of God, Horeb.”

In the Old Testament, Horeb appears to be another name for Mt. Sinai, “the mountain of God” where Moses received the Ten Commandments.

Unfortunately, the location of Mt. Sinai/Horeb isn’t entirely clear.

A prominent tradition identifies it with Jabal Mousa, a tall mountain in the south of the Sinai Peninsula, by St. Catherine’s Monastery.

This is not the only proposed location, however. There are other locations—also in the Sinai Peninsula, as well as outside of it.

The plausible ones are either closer to Be’er-Sheva, though, or not much farther away, so we can use the location of the modern Mt. Sinai to get a reasonable approximation of Elijah’s maximum travel distance.

(Note: You could suppose that the author of 1-2 Kings meant a different and otherwise unknown Mount Horeb—one located 1,200-1,440 miles away—but this is not suggested by the text, which appears to refer to the same mount of God on which Moses received the Ten Commandments.)

How far did he go?

According to Google, the distance from Be’er-Sheva to Mt. Sinai is 417 km or 260 miles.

Of course, that’s along the modern road system, but we’re dealing with an approximation, so 260 miles will do.

How long did it take him?

Since Elijah had already gone one day into the Negev when he had the angelic encounter at the broom tree, and since he travelled another 40 days and 40 nights, that would be 41 days total.

What was his travel speed?

Using the numbers above, Elijah’s travel speed would have been 6.3 miles per day (260 / 41 = 6.3).

If that represents 12 hours of walking a day, that would be half a mile per hour.

That’s painfully slow.

A normal walking speed is around 3 miles per hour, so Elijah would have needed to walk only around 2 hours a day in order to cover the distance in 40 days.

This would hardly be day and night travel, and that suggests that the description of it as taking “40 days and 40 nights” is a stock description meant to indicate a long journey and not meant to be taken literally.

It’s rather like when we say, “Thanks a million”—using a stock number to indicate great thanks.

(Note: You could suppose that Elijah encountered extraordinarily difficult travel conditions that slowed his progress to a crawl—like slogging through sheeting rain or mud the whole time—but this is not suggested by the text. The author of 1-2 Kings would be expected to indicate such extraordinary conditions, and he doesn’t. He just says Elijah travelled, without indicating that it was an unbelievably difficult trip.)

Confirmation from Deuteronomy?

If Elijah was able to travel at a normal walking speed for 10-12 hours per day then he would make 30-36 miles per day.

He would thus be able to do 260 miles in between 7 and 9 days.

A less determined person only putting in 8 hours of walking a day, rather than travelling day and night, could make 24 miles in a day and cover the 260 miles in around 11 days.

That’s very significant, because in Deuteronomy 1:2 we read:

It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea.

The precise location of Kadesh-barnea is also debated, but it is clear that it was on the southern border of Israel, placing it near Be’er-Sheva.

Deuteronomy thus gives us a remarkable confirmation of the approximate time it would take to travel from Be’er-Sheva to Mt. Horeb: It’s something like 11 days under normal travel conditions, not 40 days and 40 nights.

Ancient Expectations

This is also significant because the ancient audience would have known that.

Not only would many in the audience (particularly those from Judea) have known the approximate distances and travel times, many would have known Deuteronomy’s statement!

The same applies to the author of 1-2 Kings (they were originally one book), who was clearly literate and who records the finding of “the book of the Law” in the temple in 2 Kings 22:8-10. The author even refers to the mountain as “Horeb” rather than “Sinai”—which is the way that Deuteronomy overwhelmingly refers to it.

Both the author and the audience were thus in a position to recognize the description of Elijah’s journey as taking 40 days and 40 nights as a stock number representing a long journey rather than a literal description.

This illustrates how ancient expectations differ from modern ones regarding the use of number: The ancients were willing to use numbers in a literary or symbolic way in different circumstances than we do.

Modern Expectations

If we fail to recognize this then, compared to the ancients, we can come off as overly pedantic, like Mr. Spock or Mr. Data—insisting on numerical precision while utterly missing the point.

The point of the text is: God strengthened Elijah for a long journey, not how long the journey literally took.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that numbers are always literary or symbolic in ancient texts—the 11 days mentioned in Deuteronomy isn’t.

But it does mean that they can be, and we need to be sensitive to the context to tell us what the ancient author intended.

This applies, particularly, to skeptics wanting to accuse the Bible of being inaccurate.

Sometimes the Bible just uses numbers differently than we do today, and if we fail to recognize this, the fault is ours, not the Bible’s.

Got that?

Thanks a million.

10 things you need to know about Jesus’ Transfiguration

This Thursday commemorates the mysterious event known as the Transfiguration.

This event is hard to understand. Why did it happen? What did it mean?

Here are 10 things you need to know.

1. What does the word “transfiguration” mean?

The word “transfiguration” comes from the Latin roots trans– (“across”) and figura (“form, shape”). It thus signifies a change of form or appearance.

This is what happened to Jesus in the event known as the Transfiguration: His appearance changed and became glorious.

Before looking at the Transfiguration itself, it’s important that we look at what happened immediately before it in Luke’s Gospel.

2. What happened right before the Transfiguration?

In Luke 9:27, at the end of a speech to the twelve apostles, Jesus adds, enigmatically:

“There are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”

This has often been taken as a prophecy that the end of the world would occur before the first generation of Christians died out.

The phrase “kingdom of God” can also refer to other things, though, including the Church–the outward expression of God’s invisible kingdom.

The kingdom is embodied in Christ himself and thus might be “seen” if Christ were to manifest it in an unusual way, even in his own earthly life.

3. Did such a manifestation occur?

Yes, and it is the very next thing that Luke relates: the Transfiguration.

Pope Benedict states that it has been . . .

. . . convincingly argued that the placing of this saying immediately before the Transfiguration clearly relates it to this event.

Some—that is to say, the three disciples who accompany Jesus up the mountain—are promised that they will personally witness the coming of the Kingdom of God ‘in power.’

On the mountain the three of them see the glory of God’s Kingdom shining out of Jesus. On the mountain they are overshadowed by God’s holy cloud. On the mountain—in the conversation of the transfigured Jesus with the Law and the Prophets—they realize that the true Feast of Tabernacles has come. On the mountain they learn that Jesus himself is the living Torah, the complete Word of God. On the mountain they see the ‘power’ (dynamis) of the Kingdom that is coming in Christ” (Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, p. 317).

We thus may have the key to understanding Jesus’ mysterious statement just before the Transfiguration. He wasn’t talking about the end of the world. He was talking about this.

In fact, Luke notes that the Transfiguration took place “about eight days after these sayings,” thus stressing its proximity to them and suggesting that it was the fulfillment of this saying, concerning the fact that some of them would see the kingdom of God. Mark gives a different number of days, saying it was “after six days” (Mk. 9:2), but these both approximate a week.

4. Who witnessed the Transfiguration?

The three who are privileged to witness the event are Peter, James, and John, the three core disciples. (Andrew was not there or not included.)

The fact that Jesus only allowed three of his disciples to witness the event may have sparked the discussion which swiftly ensued about which of the disciples was the greatest (Luke 9:46).

Click here to watch a video about how Jesus answered this question.

5. Where did the Transfiguration take place?

Luke states that Jesus took the three “on the mountain to pray.”

This mountain is often thought to be Mt. Tabor in Israel, but none of the gospels identify it precisely.

Click here to learn more about Mt. Tabor (though be aware that the gospels do not actually say which mountain it was).

6. Why did the Transfiguration take place?

The Catechism explains it this way:

Christ’s Transfiguration aims at strengthening the apostles’ faith in anticipation of his Passion: the ascent onto the ‘high mountain’ prepares for the ascent to Calvary.

Christ, Head of the Church, manifests what his Body contains and radiates in the sacraments: ‘the hope of glory’ [CCC 568].

7. What does Luke–in particular–tell us about this event?

Luke mentions several details about the event that the other evangelists do not:

He notes that this happened while Jesus was praying.
He mentions that Peter and his companions “were heavy with sleep, and when they wakened they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.”
He mentions that Peter made his suggestion to put up booths as Moses and Elijah were departing.

8. Why do Moses and Elijah appear on the mountain?

Moses and Elijah represent the two principal components of the Old Testament: the Law and the Prophets.

Moses was the giver of the Law, and Elijah was considered the greatest of the prophets.

The fact that these two figures “spoke of his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem” illustrates that the Law and the Prophets point forward to the Messiah and his sufferings.

This foreshadows Jesus’ own explanation, on the road to Emmaus, of the Scriptures pointing to himself (cf. Lk. 24:27, 32).

9. Why was Peter’s suggestion misguided?

The fact that Peter’s suggestion occurs when Moses and Elijah are preparing to depart reveals a desire to prolong the experience of glory. This means Peter is focusing on the wrong thing.

The experience of the Transfiguration is meant to point forward to the sufferings Jesus is about to experience. It is meant to strengthen the disciples faith, revealing to them in a powerful way the divine hand that is at work in the events Jesus will undergo. This is why Moses and Elijah have been speaking “about his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem.”

Peter misses the point and wants to stay on the mountain, contrary to the message the two heavenly visitors have been expounding.

As a seeming rebuke of this, a theophany occurs: “A cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!'”

10. What can we learn from this event?

The Transfiguration was a special event in which God allowed certain apostles to have a privileged spiritual experience that was meant to strengthen their faith for the challenges they would later endure. But it was only a temporary event. It was not meant to be permanent.

In the same way, at certain times in this life, God may give certain members of the faithful (not all of the faithful, all the time), special experiences of his grace that strengthen their faith.

We should welcome these experiences for the graces they are, but we should not expect them to continue indefinitely, nor should we be afraid or resentful when they cease.

They may have been meant only as momentary glimpses of the joy of heaven to sustain us as we face the challenges of this life, to help strengthen us on the road that will–ultimately–bring us into the infinite and endless joy of heaven.

Resolving a Bible Difficulty: What Happened at Paul’s Conversion?

The book of Acts records St. Paul’s conversion in the following terms:

Now as he journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him.

And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

And he said, “Who are you, Lord?”

And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting; but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.

Saul arose from the ground; and when his eyes were opened, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus [Acts 9:3-8].

There are several interesting things here.

No Horse!

One is that there is no mention of St. Paul riding on a horse. You frequently hear people recounting how Paul was knocked off his horse at the time of his conversion, but this is an image that comes from art—not the Bible.

He isn’t likely to have been riding a horse, for at the time horses were more commonly used in warfare—such as for drawing chariots. They were not commonly ridden.

The passage doesn’t mention Paul riding any animal. He was likely travelling on foot, as suggested when the text simply says that he fell to the ground when the heavenly light flashed around him.

It’s also suggested by Jesus telling him to “rise and enter the city” (no mention of getting back on an animal) and by him being “led by the hand” into Damascus by his companions.

If he’d been riding on a beast (e.g., an ass), they presumably would have put him back on the animal and then led the beast—not taken Paul by the hand to guide him.

A Bible Difficulty?

Many people have commented on a Bible difficulty that arises from this passage when it says:

The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one [Acts 9:7].

This is worthy of comment because, later in the book when Paul is recounting his conversion, he says:

Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me [Acts 22:9].

What did they see? What did they hear?

The difficulty that needs to be solved concerns what the men with Paul saw and heard.

The first is not difficult, for the two passages don’t contain any apparent discrepancy.

The first says that they didn’t see anyone and the second says that they did see light. There is no contradiction because one can easily see light without seeing a person.

What the men heard presents more of a difficulty, because the first passage says they were “hearing the voice” while the second says that they “did not hear the voice.”

That looks like a contradiction.

Is it?

Greek to You and Me

Whenever we encounter something that looks like a contradiction, it’s wise to check the original language, which in this case is Greek.

Examining the two passages, we find that both of them use the same two terms: akouō (hear) and phōnē (voice).

This means that we can’t solve the dilemma by appealing to the fact that the passages are using different terms, because they aren’t. They both use the same verb for hearing and the same noun for what is being heard.

That doesn’t mean we can’t resolve the discrepancy, though, because these terms have more than one meaning in Greek.

Akouō can mean hear, listen, understand, obey, know, and other things.
Phōnē can mean sound, tone, voice, cry, solemn declaration, etc.

Since we have a single author (Luke) writing both passages in a single book (Acts), a logical inference is that Luke probably meant the terms to be taken in different senses.

Are there two different senses in which the terms can be taken that would make sense of the passages?

You bet.

The Likely Solution

The most likely solution is that in the first passage, akouō is to be taken to mean “hear” and phōnē is to be taken to mean “sound,” while in the second passage, akouō is to be taken to mean “understand” and phōnē is to be taken to mean “voice.”

On this reading, Acts 9:7 says that the men were hearing a sound but didn’t see anyone while Acts 22:9 says that they saw light but did not understand the voice.

This would parallel John 12:28-29, where the Father speaks to Jesus from heaven and some in the crowd perceive it as thunder: They heard a noise, but they didn’t perceive it as an intelligible voice—the clearer perception being reserved for those God wanted to have it.

This appears to be the most probable solution. Thus some translations render the two passages like this:

The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone (Acts 9:7, NIV).

My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me (Acts 22:9, NIV).

These translations are perfectly acceptable, as “hear” and “understand” are common meanings for akouō, while “sound” and “voice” are common meanings for phōnē.

Be Cautious Beyond This Point

While we have identified the probable solution, we should be careful not to press it too far.

Some have proposed that there is a feature in the Greek that makes the solution even more certain. According to some older grammars and commentaries, the verb akouō’s meaning changes in a way that is relevant here depending on the grammatical form of the noun that follows it.

In Greek, nouns take different forms, known as “cases,” depending on the role they play in a sentence (the same is true of nouns in Latin, German, Russian, and many other languages).

Two of these cases that Greek uses are known as the genitive and the accusative.

According to some, when akouō is followed by a noun in the genitive case, it stresses the hearing of the sound but not the understanding of it.

By contrast, these individuals hold, if akouō is followed by a noun in the accusative case, it highlights the understanding of the sound.

It so happens that in Acts 9:7 the noun phōnē is in the genitive case, and in 22:9 it is in the accusative.

This is then taken as evidence confirming the solution proposed above: In the first passage the companions are said to hear the sound while in the second they are said not to understand it.

The problem is that these claims are not at all clear from the way the verb is used in New Testament Greek.

Daniel Wallace, one of the foremost contemporary scholars of New Testament Greek, writes:

[I]t is doubtful that this is where the difference lay between the two cases used with akouō in Hellenistic Greek: the NT (including the more literary writers) is filled with examples of akouō + genitive indicating understanding (Matt 2:9; John 5:25; 18:37; Acts 3:23; 11:7; Rev 3:20; 6:3, 5; 8:13; 11:12; 14:13; 16:1, 5, 7; 21:3) as well as instances of akouō + accusative where little or no comprehension takes place (explicitly so in Matt 13:19; Mark 13:7/Matt 24:6/Luke 21:9; Acts 5:24; 1 Cor 11:18; Eph 3:2; Col 1:4; Phlm 5; Jas 5:11; Rev 14:2). The exceptions, in fact, are seemingly more numerous than the rule!

Thus, regardless of how one works through the accounts of Paul’s conversion, an appeal to different cases probably ought not form any part of the solution [Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 133-134].

We should thus be cautious of case-based arguments concerning the solution to this difficulty.

This does not mean, however, that we haven’t identified the correct solution. The most likely solution remains that the terms are simply being used in different senses in the two passages.