What the Saints Said, Part iii (Bible Edition)

Part 3 in a series we're calling "What the Saints Said" at St. James. This time, collecting the wisdom of those before us with respect to Holy Scripture.

Irenaeus: If anyone reads the Scripture carefully, they will find some word, some hidden treasure in the field, which is Christ (Against Heresies 3:5:1).

Clement of Rome: Look carefully into the Scriptures, which are the true utterances of the Holy Spirit.

Hippolytus: (170-236 AD): Sacred Scripture is God’s gift to us and it should be understood in the way that he intends: We should not do violence to it by interpreting it according to our own preconceived ideas.

Rachel Held Evans: The truth is, you can bend Scripture to say just about anything you want it to say. You can bend it until it breaks. For those who count the Bible as sacred, interpretation is not a matter of whether to pick and choose, but how to pick and choose. We’re all selective. We all wrestle with how to interpret and apply the Bible to our lives. We all go to the text looking for something, and we all have a tendency to find it. So the question we have to ask ourselves is this: are we reading with the prejudice of love, with Christ as our model, or are we reading with the prejudices of judgment and power, self-interest and greed? Are we seeking to enslave or liberate, burden or set free?

John Chrysostom (Paraphrased): The Scriptures sing of Christ in every passage, if we have ears to hear the tune, and the Lord opened the minds of the Apostles to understand them. 

The holy scriptures were not given to us that we should enclose them in books, but that we should engrave them upon our hearts.

Augustine (354-430): For we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7); but faith will start tottering if the authority of Scripture is undermined; then with faith tottering, charity itself also begins to sicken. (The fruit of faith is love, which is the measure of faithful reading of scripture: does it grow our love?)

The 39 Articles: (an historical document in the back of the Book of Common Prayer): "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”

Rowan Williams: For when you see a group of baptized people listening to the Bible in public worship, you realize that Bible-reading is an essential part of the Christian life because Christian life is a listening life. Christians are people who expect to be spoken to by God.

C.S. Lewis: It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true Word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him. We must not use the Bible as a sort of encyclopedia out of which texts can be taken for use as weapons. 

Karl Barth: The Bible tells us not how we should talk with God but what he says to us; not how we find the way to him, but how he has sought and found the way to us; not the right relation in which we must place ourselves to him, but the covenant which he has made with all who are Abraham's spiritual children and which he has sealed once and for all in Jesus Christ. It is this which is within the Bible. The word of God is within the Bible.

We have found in the Bible a new world, God, God's sovereignty, God's glory, God's incomprehensible love. Not the history of man but the history of God! Not the virtues of men but the virtues of him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvelous light!

Barbara Brown Taylor: The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become living words in the world for God's sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink back to blood is the full substance of faith.

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

The Book of Common Prayer.

What the Saints Said, Part ii (Eucharist Edition!)

 The Church and Communion (The Gift of the Eucharist)

1Co 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

1Co 10:17 For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.

St. Ignatius of Antioch – Bishop, martyred in 107 AD

Meet together in common – every single one of you – in grace, in one faith and one Jesus Christ (who was of David’s line in his human nature, son of man and son of God) that you may obey the bishop and priest with undistracted mind; breaking one bread, which is the medicine for immortality, our antidote to ensure that we shall not die but live in Jesus Christ for ever.

St. John Chrysostom – Bishop of Constantinople – 350 AD

For what is the bread? The body of Christ. And what do they become who partake of it? The body of Christ: not many bodies, but one body. For as the bread, consisting of many grains, is made one, so that the grains nowhere appear; they exist indeed…so are we, joined with each other and with Christ: there not being one body for you, and another for your neighbor to be nourished by, but the very same for all.

St. Augustine of Hippo – 350 AD

Recognize in the bread what hangs on the Cross; recognize in the chalice the water and blood trickling from his side.

St. John Vianney – 1850 AD

Do not say that you are sinners, that you are too wretched, and that is why you dare not approach the Eucharist. You might just a well say that you are too ill, and that is why you will not try any remedy nor send for the doctor.

He is not content with showing himself to us. He puts himself into our hands, into our mouth, mingling his substance with our substance, that we may become one spirit with him. We ought to visit him often.

St. Therese the Little Flower – 1880 AD

It is not to remain in a golden ciborium that He comes down to us each day from heaven; it’s to find another heaven, infinitely more dear to Him than the first: the heaven of our soul, made to his image, the living temple of the adorable Trinity.

Oh, my darling, think, then, that Jesus is there in the Tabernacle expressly for you, for you alone; He is burning with the desire to enter your heart.

Justin Martyr, c. A.D. 150

There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water. He takes them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at his hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying Amen. … 

And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion. (First Apology 65)

What does the poor man do at the rich man's door, the sick man in the presence of his physician, the thirsty man at a limpid stream? What they do, I do before the Eucharistic God. I pray. I adore. I love.

Francis of Assisi

Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament … There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth.

J. R. R. Tolkien

"In each of our lives Jesus comes as the Bread of Life - to be eaten, to be consumed by us. This is how He loves us. Then Jesus comes in our human life as the hungry one, the other, hoping to be fed with the Bread of our life, our hearts by loving, and our hands by serving. In loving and serving, we prove that we have been created in the likeness of God, for God is Love and when we love we are like God. This is what Jesus meant when He said, "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." - St. Teresa of Calcutta

1 Cor 11:27-34

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink[g] without discerning the body eat and drink judgment against themselves. For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined[j] so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If you are hungry, eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation. About the other things I will give instructions when I come.

Be present, be present, O Jesus, our great High Priest, as you were present with your disciples, and be known to us in the breaking of bread; who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever.  Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer)

BAPTISM: ABIDING IN GOD’S LOVE

 BAPTISM: ABIDING IN GOD’S LOVE

“Happy is our sacrament of water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life. . . . But we, little fishes after the example of our [Great] Fish,  Jesus Christ, are born in water, nor have we safety in any other way than by permanently abiding in water. So that most monstrous creature, who had no right to teach even sound doctrine, knew full well how to kill the little fishes—by taking them away from the water!” —Tertullian, Baptism 1 Date: 203 A.D.

St. Vincent Ferrer ~ Every baptized person should consider that it is in the womb of the Church where he is transformed from a child of Adam to a child of God. 

“The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.”― Julian of Norwich

Aphrahat/Aphraates Demonstration VI (Of Monks) par 14.1 [280-367 AD]

"From baptism we receive the Spirit of Christ. At that same moment in which the priests invoke the Spirit, heaven opens, and he descends and rests upon the waters, and those who are baptized are clothed in him.

Cyprian of Carthage epistle 58.6 (200-270 ad)

And therefore, dearest brother, this was our opinion in council, that by us no one ought to he hindered from baptism and from the grace of God, who is merciful and kind and loving to all. 

Barnabas Epistle of Barnabas ch 11:1–10 [10-70 AD]

"'Blessed are those who go down into the water with their hopes set on the cross.' Here he is saying that after we have stepped down into the water, burdened with sin and defilement, we come up out of it bearing fruit, with reverence in our hearts and the hope of Jesus in our souls" (Letter of Barnabas [A.D. 74]).

BAPTISM: HOW TO DO IT

St. Hippolytus of Rome (“The Apostolic Tradition,” 215 A.D.) “Baptize first the children; and if they can speak for themselves, let them do so. Otherwise, let their parents or other relatives speak for them.”

“After his resurrection he promises in a pledge to his disciples that he will send them the promise of his Father; and lastly, he commands them to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, not into a unipersonal God. And indeed it is not once only, but three times, that we are immersed into the three persons, at each several mention of their names” —Tertullian, Against Praxeas 26 Date: 216 A.D.

Someone sent to know whether it was permissible to use warm water in baptism.  The Doctor replied, “Tell the blockhead that water, warm or cold, is water.” (Luther’s Table Talk – related in Dictionary of Illustrations for Pulpit and Platform, by Walter Baxendale, Moody Press)

BAPTISM: A CALL TO CARRY FORWARD

Cyril of Jerusalem Catechetical Lecture 16 par30 (315-386 ad)

And other texts thou heardest before, in what was said about Baptism; Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and the rest; a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and then immediately, And I will put My Spirit within you. And again. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord.

“So baptism means being with Jesus ‘in the depths’: the depths of human need, including the depths of our own selves in their need – but also in the depths of God’s love; in the depths where the Spirit is re-creating and refreshing human life as God meant it to be.”

― Rowan Williams, Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer

BAPTISM: A CALL TO COMMUNION AND COMMUNITY 

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. 1 Cor 12:13

I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. Ephesians 4:1-6

New Creation * Commitment * Community in Christ