How the Monks Saved Civilization

[Continuing prepping for next school year by doing a chapter by chapter summary of Thomas E. Woods's How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.]

Summary of Chapter 3 “How Monks Saved Civilization”

Woods writes that the “history of monks” can be summarized in “Christ’s words: ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you’” (25).  In seeking Christ first and laboring out of love, the monks reinvigorated Europe by means of a simple life style -- “comparable to that of a contemporary Italian peasant” – devoted to work and prayer (27).

The most notable of monks were the Benedictines founded by St. Benedict of Nursia in the 5^th century (26).  In the West, St. Benedict’s writings, known as “The Rule of Saint Benedict,” became the foundation for western monasticism where according to The Rule all were equal in the eyes of Christ; therefore, St Benedict never took into consideration the worldly status of a perspective monk (27).

Though the main purpose of the monks was to find a way of salvation by retiring from the world, they also had a habit of bringing with them knowledge of the arts, learning technology, and more.   The monks were not stupid and their contributions are many:

·         The monks were agricultural specialists and an agricultural college.  They tamed the wild and make that which is unlivable into a home.

·         Monks embraced difficult tasks and inspired others to labor and that in work there is dignity.

·         Selective breeding of horses and cattle (genetic engineering)

·         Brewing of Beer

·         Raising of bees

·         Orchards

·         Vineyards

·         Corntrade in Sweden

·         Irrigation in Lombardy

·         Routed springs to Paris so the city could have water

·         Used water, rivers and streams, to Mill flower

·         Champagne (Dom Perignon)

·         Pioneers in the making of Wine

·         Cistercians were specialists in metallurgy

·         Monk - Eilmer flew 600 feet with a glider

·         Skillful clockmakers

The monks of then, as well as those of today, were known for their charitable works.  Every person whjo darkened the doors of the monastery was “received as though they were Christ” (38).  Two such actions, hospitals that had the “bell of the wanders”  and the “Bell Rock”, a bell to warn ships of dangerous rocks (33).  Copenhagen is said to own its origin to an Abbot who built a monastery with the specific intention of aiding those who were shipwrecked.

One of the most important contributions the monks made to Western Civilization as well as history is the sharing, copying and keeping of books.  By sharing books, technology, science, and learning could e easily spread to other monasteries and be put to use.  Most copies of classical texts come to us almost exclusively from the monks.  “The fact is, the Church cherished, preserved, studies, and taught the works of the ancients which would otherwise have been lost” (41).  The monks ensued that literacy and culture “would survive political and social catastrophe.

Learning was a central theme to the monastic life.  Where the monk went so too education followed.  They set up schools that would eventually become the foundations for the university (45).

"The monastic contribution to Western civilization, as we have seen, is immense. . . Who else in the history of the Western civilization can boast such a record?  The Church that gave the West its monks also created the university" (45).

A Light in the Darkness

[I am doing brief Summaries of "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization" by Thomas  E. Woods, Jr., Ph.D.   There isn't much to the first chapter, so I am starting with Chapter two.]

How the Catholic Church built Western Civilization

Chapter 2 Summary “A light in the Darkness”

The author begins this chapter explicitly stating that the term “dark ages” was once applied to the time stretching from roughly 500 AD to 1500 AD.  However this is no longer the case, as the more research is done over that time frame the more historians adjust the date of the “dark ages.” 

According to the author there was a “cultural and intellectual retrogression” that occurred during the dark ages.  Thus the darkening was no a luminescence but instead a darkening of the mind.  However, contrary to popular belief, the cause of the darkening was not the on the result of the spread of Christianity.   Quoting Historian Will Durant, the author writes, “The basic cause of cultural retrogression . . . was not Christianity but barbarism, not religion but war” (9).  The author spends much of the rest of the chapter laying out how it was the Catholic Church that acted as a light during dark times, and How it had the task of civilizing a savage world.

The invading barbarian tribes/hordes were little interested in the life of the mind; therefore, they were a very illiterate and learned people who did not care much for literature, sciences, justice,  and art.  The barbarians were a very superstitious people who in many cases did not have much of a true system of belief as was the case with Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.  Therefore, when the church set out to convert the barbarians, they had a much easier time for “It is a fact of missionary history that the Church has found it immensely easier to convert people directly from primitive paganism or animism that to convert them once they have adopted another faith like Arianism or Islam” (12).

The main groups of Barbarians the author mentions are the Goths,  the Vandals, and the Franks.  There are two main tribes or families that were of great importance to the Church during this period of time: the Merovingians and the Carolingians.  The Merovingians entered into an unspoken relationship with the Catholic Church in which the Gaul’s would protect the Church.  This occurred with the conversion of their King, Clovis.  This relationship remained till about the 8^th century.

Once the Merovingians declined in power, the Church was left in want of protection; She the turned to the Franks, specifically the Carolingians, and more specifically Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charles the Great (Charlemange).  The Church peacefully managed the transfer of power from the Merovingians to the Carolingians (16).  During the Carolingian period, Charlemagne “had been so persuaded of the beauty, truth, and superiority of the Catholic religion that he did everything possible to establish the new post-imperial Europe on the basis of Catholicism” (11).  He “strongly encouraged education and the arts, calling upon the bishops to organize schools around their cathedrals” (16).

During the Carolingian education there was a resurgence in classical education with an emphasis on the quadrivium (astronomy, music, arithmetic and geometry) and the Trivium (logic, grammar, rhetoric).  A uniform system of writing was developed  by monks called “Carolingian minuscule.”  This script introduced “lowercase letter, spacing between words “ and proved “crucial to building the literacy of Western civilization” (18).  Moreover, as Europe’s collective intellect plummeted into darkness “The Church, as the Educator of Europe, was the one life that survived repeated barbarian invasions” (20).  It was the unwavering determination of the Catholic Church that kept Europe from falling into an even darker age (21).  Even when monasteries were destroyed and libraries burned and monks killed by the barbarians, a new group of monks could be moved in and learning restored. 

Lastly, Pope Sylvester II, “The most learned man in Europe of his day,” sought out ancient manuscripts.  Pope Sylvester commented on the importance of learning and not simply having blind faith we he said “The Divinity made a great gift to men in giving them faith while not denying them knowledge . . . those who do not posse it are called fools” (23).  The pope’s views on knowledge and learning would go on to influence much of the schooling in Europe for ages to follow (23).

The Hobbit Cover Translated

[Taking a 15 min break from work to post this.  Sorry for the typos.  I did not have time to proof it properly. I also wish I had more time to go into more depth with this.}

The original cover of "The Hobbit" was illustrated by Tolkien, and it had on the cover runes as part of the border. 

Original Cover with Notes

I'm not going into the history of the runes Tolkien uses, but did you know the runes actually say something?  I bring this us because in college the professors would sometimes spend a considerable about of time on the title of the book and sometimes even the cover art.  Their reasoning was that the cover and title is part of the work of literature and should not be glanced over.  For instance if you read "Finnigans Wake" by James Joyce the professor might spend time discussing "Finnigans" and might propose questions such as "Is it only one Finnigan or is there a multiplicity of Finnigans?"  or "Did Joyce mean "Finnigan's"?  Another example is the book "Cane" by Jean Toomer, which was written during the Harlem Renascence and is excerpts of life around the United States as experience by African Americans.  With the proper mindset the title of the book can call to mind slaves working in the sugarcane fiends in the south, the canes slaves were beat with by their owners, as well as a a walking device.

Why does this matter to "The Hobbit"?  Simply put, the book, according to the cover, has a duel authorship.  One Bilbo Baggins who wrote his memoirs, and the other J.R.R Tolkien who wrote "The Hobbit" based on the memoirs of Bilbo's journey.

This matters because if you get a copy of a first edition of "The Hobbit" you will notice several discrepancies that many modern readers of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" are unfamiliar with.  One such instance of this is that in the first edition Gollum loses the riddle game and very peacefully shows Bilbo out of the cave.  Gollum appears to be a much gentler creature.  The obvious reason for the discrepancies is that when Tolkien was writing "The Lord of the Rings" he had to go back and make revision to certain characters and even the ring itself.  However, Tolkien himself is part of the story, so the way the revisions are explained, which I think is part of Tolkien's genius, is that Bilbo told the first edition story himself, and it was only later revealed after the publication of the first edition that the real story of Gollum and the ring was made known.  Therefore it was then revised later by others to be in the current state that we have the book today.

Cover with translated runes
"The Hobbit or There and Back Again being the record of a years journey by Bilbo Baggins of  Hobbiton. Compiled from his memoirs by J.R.R. Tolkien and published by George Allen and Unwin Ltd."

Runes

Tolkien and the Feast of the Annunciation

Happy Tolkien Reading Day as well as happy Feast of the Annunciation.

Some years back the Tolkien Society was asked if there was a day in which Tolkien fans could gather, read, and celebrate Tolkien.  The day the Tolkien Society chose for this is March 25 and is known as Tolkien Reading Day (TRD).  Why March 25th?  It is the day that the Ring of Power in The Lord of the Rings is cast into the fiery inferno from which it was made, Mount Doom.

Of all 365 days of a year, why chose March 25 instead of say, June 3rd?  It is somewhat simple if you are familiar with Tolkien's Catholic imagery in "The Lord of the Rings."  March 25 in the Catholic tradition serves as the feast of the Annunciation, the day the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bear a son by means of the Holy Spirit and he would save the world from their sins.  But there is more, in early Christianity, March 25 was viewed as not only the day God the Son became incarnate, but there was also a tradition that said he also died on March 25th.  That's right, Jesus was made flesh and died on the same day.  This is keeping with a tradition that believed that prophets of God died on the same day they were born or conceived.  In fact, many early Christian churches celebrated Christ's death on this fixed date before Easter and Good Friday became a movable feast based upon the cycles of the moon as with the Jewish Passover.

What am I saying? To the Christian March 25th is the day that Lucifer is defeated by means of the incarnation and death of Christ.  Likewise, the day Sauron is defeated is also March 25th when the Ring was cast into Mount Doom.  One might argue that Tolkien is preparing his reader for Christ by means of a story. After all, he does write of a pre-Christian world.  It would only makes sense that there are foreshadowing of Christ to be found in it like there are in other pre-Christian cultures.



There are other events that are said to have happened on March 25th.  They are:

• The Creation of Adam (Jesus is the New Adam)
• The Passing of Israel through the Red Sea (Prefiguration of the defeat over the enemy as well as baptism)
• The Binding of Isaac (Prefiguration of the Crucifixion of Christ)

Evil in the Hobbit: Conference Paper

Hello Friends,

 I know it has been a long time since I last updated the blog. I haven't forgotten about it. I've just been working hard on other things. A couple of weeks back I had the privilege to read a paper I wrote on the Hobbit by Tolkien at a conference, in honor of the movie release, at the University of Valparaiso.  No there were no participants roaming the lands dressed as elves, orc, or hobbits.  This was primarily an academic conference and less of a fan conference.  However, there were a number of Tolkien fans at the conference: librarians, house wives, teachers, pastors, etc.

The conference itself was enjoyable.  There a number of tolkien scholars present who sat and listened the papers being presented (Douglas A. Anderson, John D, Rateliff, and Verlyn Flieger.)  A Lord of the Rings symphony was performed as well.

I'm currently experimenting with using audio lectures for next school year where the student listen to the lecture at home then we read a primary source in class.  In the educational world this is know as a flipped classroom.  Because of my experimentation, I decided to record the paper I read at the conference and upload it to the blog for others who may be interested.

I will say that the initial paper was 26 pages in length.  This was far too long for the time I was allotted (20 mins).  Therefore I cut, cut, and cut some more until I was in the neighborhood of 8-10 pages double spaced.  As a result, I had to remove some of the sections that I particularly like in order to make the paper more concise. For instance, I removed a section on the Benedictian view of hospitality and how it relates to The Hobbit.


Intro and Philoxenia 0:00 -11:30
Landscape/Environment 11:30 - 12:19
Smaug, Seven Deady Sins; Bilbo and the Seven Virtues. 12:19 - End


Bumper Music:

• House of Tom Bombadil by Nickel Creek
• Betterman by John Butler Trio (the link is to a live performance)

The Lord is My Shep: Psalm 23 Homework Assignment

It's been a while.  Busy at work and busy helping coach the cross country team.  In the mean time, I've decided I wanted my students to memorize Psalm 23.  So this will be the initial assignment.  Feel free to use in your home or classroom or parish.

The Silence of the Creeds on Sola Scriptura

[A certain well know Catholic Apologetics group refuses to reply back to my email regarding the possibility of running this show essay, so I post it for your review and comments.  I for one have not heard Sola Scripture argued from the point of the Creeds of the Catholic Church.]

If sola scriptura, in any form whether it is the strict fundamentalist Christians-must-only-believe-what-is-found-in-the-Bible or the more liberal all-Christian-traditions-and-beliefs-must-be-biblically-based, is true and has been the belief of the Christian faith since the beginning one would expect to find early Christian theology and writing to be saturated with it.  However, this is not the case.

One place a Christian would expect to find the crucial and key tenants to being a Christian is in what the Church believes.  In this case: the Creed.  Through the early church there have been several different, but remarkably similar, statements of belief found amongst the early Christians, and all are silent on the issue of Sola Scripture.

The earliest known example of a creed is the creed by St. Irenaeus (c. 180 A.D.), which is found in his writing Against Heresies.  The creed, summarizing what a Christian believes, is as follows:

. . . believing in one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and all things therein, by means of Christ Jesus, the Son of God; who, because of His surpassing love towards His creation, condescended to be born of the virgin, He Himself uniting man through Himself to God, and having suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rising again, and having been received up in splendour, shall come in glory, the Saviour of those who are saved, and the Judge of those who are judged, and sending into eternal fire those who transform the truth, and despise His Father and His advent.

One would think that if St. Irenaeus truly was a descendent of the apostles in office who was instructed in faith by St. Polycarp who was instructed by St. John the Apostle that what St. John handed on would be well preserved and that St. John himself would have at least instructed his disciples on the importance of scripture alone as the foundation for Christianity.  However, Irenaeus’ creed is silent on the role of scripture. 

A 4^th century Christian writer and historian, Rufinus (c.307-309) writes to a Bishop Laurentius in which he gives not only an exposition of the Creed but also a brief history of the Creed of Rome, known as the creed of Aquileia.  In the course of his commentary, Rufinus draws out the differences between the creeds from the Eastern Churches and the Western Churches.  Though there are differences, the core content is similar in expression indicating a common source.  This common source, according to Rufinus, is the 12 apostles themselves.   Thereby, making this creed the same Creed of the Apostles.

Rufinus states that the apostles formulated the Creed in order to help distinguish the true Christians from the false Christians who sought only fame and fortune by speaking in the name of Christ while ignoring the teaching of Christ and the traditions of the Apsotles.    Drawing on a military analogy Rufinus explains the need for the Creed as follows:

Finally, they say that in civil wars, since the armour of both sides is alike, and the language the same, and the custom and mode of warfare the same, each general, to guard against treachery, is wont to deliver to his soldiers a distinct symbol or watchword . . . so that if one is met with, of whom it is doubtful to which side he belongs, being asked the symbol, he discloses whether he is friend or foe.

Rufinus even adds that the Creed was guarded from the false Christians.  He writes: “the Creed is not written on paper or parchment, but is retained in the hearts of the faithful, that it may be certain that no one has learned it by reading, as is sometimes the case with unbelievers, but by tradition from the Apostles.”  Yet, in the Creed about which Rufinus writes and connects to the 12 apostles themselves, there is no mention to scripture or the role of scripture in the life of the Christian.  His creed is a follows:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, invisible and impassible

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord

Who was born from the Holy Ghost, of the Virgin Mary

Was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and buried

He descended to hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead

He ascended to the heavens; he sits at the right hand of the Father

Thence he is to come to judge the living and the dead

And in the Holy Ghost

The Holy Church

The Remission of sins

The resurrection of this flesh.

Also in the 4^th century (325 A.D.), an ecumenical council was held in the city of Nicea.  One, and perhaps the most famous, of writings to emerge from the council is the Nicene Creed.  This creed was the universal creed of all Christians for many centuries and is still used in the Catholic Church.  In the current formulation, the Nicene Creed makes mention to scripture in passing and only in reference to Christ rising from the dead after three days.  That is, it uses scripture to support one line of the text.  Other than that, the Nicene Creed is silent on the role scripture is to play in the life of a Christian and fails to make any kind of allusion or mention of sola scriptura.

Therefore, if sola scriptura was the rule of faith for Christians since the beginning of Christianity, the question remains, “Why are ALL the creeds silent on the subject?”   History tells us, via St. Cyril of Jerusalem, that the Creed was taught to all those preparing to receive the sacrament of baptism.  If sola scriptura was the foundation of Christianity and the crucial teaching of Christianity from the beginning, one would expect sola-scripture to be the very first thing expressed in the Creeds, or at least mentioned someplace in the Symbol of Faith.  Yet, this is not the case.  The Creeds are silent on the subject of sola scriptura because sola scripture was not and never was a teaching of the early Church.

Lastly, what history reveals is that Scripture was interpreted according to the Rule of Faith (the Creed).  That is, the Creed served as a guide to interpreting scripture.  By using the creed to interpret scripture it safeguarded the interpretation against heresies.  Those who abandoned the creed or did not have the creed fell into heresy.

The Jewish Council of Jamnia and the Christian Canon: Fail

Some non-Catholics, in an attempt to disprove the canonical nature of the Catholic old testament and specifically the deutroconical books, will commonly appeal to the Jewish council of Jamnia, which is said to have happen in the year 90 A.D.  Rabbis met at the council of Jamnia, so the story goes, to set the canon for their book of scriptures.  However, there are several problems when appealing to this council in an attempt to discredit the Catholic Old Testament canon: historical, theological, and canonical.

Historically

The idea that a Jewish council was held in 90 A.D. that set the Jewish canon of scripture did not surface till the 19^th century and was promoted by two German scholars – one being Heinrich Graetz.  There is virtually no scholarly evidence, beyond a few scant rabbinical texts, that supports the historicity of this council.  It is still discussed among some scholarly circles but mostly predicated with “myth” or “legend.”

Marc Zvi Brettler writes that the meager evidence from rabbinic texts informing us of this supposed council where the canon of scripture for the Jews was actually set is based largely on a misunderstanding of those rabbinic texts.  Instead, the council was attempting to justify certain texts already considered canonical.  One such book that was debated was the Song of Songs [1].  Moreover Brettler also indicates that the Jewish cannon was not stabilized until sometime in the second century CE and the process of canonization was a gradual process and not a definitive act at the Council of Jamnia[2].

If this council did occur, then a big question arises as to “Why weren’t all the Jews invited?”  The records show a heavy leaning towards the pharisaic understanding of the books.  It appears that several groups were ignored, even the African Jews who considered the entire Septuagint as canonical.

Theologically

Supposing the council of Jamnia set the canon for the Jewish scriptures in 90 A.D. and thereby Christians, as well as Jews, must follow the same canon raises serious theological questions about the nature of authority.  First what gave this council of Rabbis, sans-Temple and possibly sans-priesthood, the authority to make a binding set of books for the entire Jewish faith?  This is even more so when one wonders if the Sanhedrin and Scribes were present.

A second theological problem arises based upon the date of the council.  Jamnia is said to have happened in about the year 90 A.D.  What kind of authority can or does a Jewish Council, post-resurrection, have on the body of Christianity?  To appeal to this council in an attempt to discredit the Catholic Old Testament canon is to essentially shoot ones self in the proverbial foot, for by discrediting the Canon with appeal to Jamnia is to give a group of Jewish rabbis authority over all of Christianity.  This is a belief that is far from Christian.  For Christ, from the Christian perspective, came to fulfill Judaism thereby rendering parts of Judaism nonbinding, or binding in a new way, to Christians. 

Canonically

If the Council of Jamnia occurred, as once thought, what it does tell us is that the Jewish Canon was not a unified, settled, definitive work before the year 90 A.D.  Examples of this can easily be found through history. The Ethiopian Jews had a different Canon by accepting all of the Septuagint.  The Sadducees only accepted the books of Moses and authoritative scriptures, while the Pharisees accepted more. More recently, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been shedding light on the history of the Jewish canon to a further degree with a now incomplete book of Psalms, which appears to have been used in a fashion similar to modern prayer books.  The Dead Sea Scrolls also have a canon more akin to the Septuagint except written in Hebrew instead of Greek.

Therefore, for a non-Catholic to appeal to the Council of Jamnia as proof that the Catholic canon is not the Old Testament for Christians is to hang one’s coat on a broken hook.  It ignores history, promotes bad theology, and disregards Jewish culture and the multiplicity of Jewish canons in existence at the time of at the time of the Apostles and the very early church.

[1] Berlin, Adele, Marc Zvi. Brettler, and Michael A. Fishbane. "The Canonization of the Bible." The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. 2072-077. Print.

[2] ibid

Upon This Rock I Will Build . . . You Didn't Build That

You Hate Chick-Fil-A? You Must Be Anti-Christian

The article ran in the Baptist press initially on July 7 and was rerun by the Baptist press on July 17.  The article itself covered a number of topics including the sunday closure.  What I don't get is how does this . . .

"We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that. 

"We operate as a family business ... our restaurants are typically led by families; some are single. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that," Cathy emphasized.

And this . . .

"I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,'" Cathy said. "I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about." [A personal opinion expressed on a media show.] 

 get interpreted as "Chick-Fil-A hates gays" or "Chick-Fil-A is anti-gay"? Using the same logic . . . well, I'll just let Wonka speak for me.