Commemoration of St. Paul

Today we commemorate St. Paul. According to Butler:

ST. PAUL was born at Tarsus, of Jewish parents, and studied at Jerusalem, at the feet of Gamaliel. While still a young man, he held the clothes of those who stoned the proto-martyr Stephen; and in his restless zeal he pressed on to Damascus, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of Christ." But near Damascus a light from heaven struck him to the earth. He heard a voice which said, "Why persecutest thou Me? " He saw the form of Him Who had been crucified for his sins, and then for three days he saw nothing more. He awoke from his trance another man—a new creature in Jesus Christ. He left Damascus for a long retreat in Arabia, and then, at the call of God, he carried the Gospel to the uttermost limits of the world, and for years he lived and labored with no thought but the thought of Christ crucified, no desire but to spend and be spent for Him. He became the apostle of the Gentiles, whom he had been taught to hate, and wished himself anathema for his own countrymen, who sought his life. Perils by land and sea could not damp his courage, nor toil and suffering and age dull the tenderness of his heart. At last he gave blood for blood. In his youth he had imbibed the false zeal of the Pharisees at Jerusalem, the holy city of the former dispensation. With St. Peter he consecrated Rome, our holy city, by his martyrdom, and poured into its Church all his doctrine with all his blood. He left fourteen Epistles, which have been a fountain-head of the Church's doctrine, the consolation and delight of her greatest Saints. His interior life, so far as words can tell it, lies open before us in these divine writings, the life of one who has died forever to himself and risen again in Jesus Christ. "In what," says St. Chrysostom, "in what did this blessed one gain an advantage over the other apostles? How comes it that he lives in all men's mouths throughout the world? Is it not through the virtue of his Epistles?" Nor will his work cease while the race of man continues. Even now, like a most chivalrous knight, he stands in our midst, and takes captive every thought to the obedience of Christ.

Leo the Great; Ireneaus, Bishop, Martyr

Today we commemorate Leo and Irenaeus. According to Butler:

He (Leo) was by birth a Silician, eminent for his piety, and perfectly skilled in the Latin and Greek tongues, in the church music, and both in sacred and polite literature. Pope Agatho dying on the 1st of December, 681, he was chosen to fill the pontifical chair. He confirmed, by the authority of St. Peter, as he says, (writing to the zealous emperor Constantine Pogonatus, the sixth general council held at Constantinople, in which his predecessor St. Agatho had presided by his legates. In the censure of this council we find the name of Honorius, joined with the Monothelite heretics, Theodorus bishop of Pharan, and Cyrus, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter of Constantinople. Pope Leo II. in his first letter to the bishops of Spain, gives the reason, because Honorius “did not extinguish the flame of the heretical doctrine in its rise, as it became the apostolical authority, but fomented it by negligence.” And in his letter to king Ervigius he makes the same distinction between Honorius and the others. It is evident from the very letters of Honorius himself, which are still extant, from the irrefragable testimony of his secretary who wrote those letters, and from others that he never gave into the Monothelite error; though had he fallen into heresy, this would have only hurt himself; nor is the question of any other importance than as an historical fact. Favourers are sometimes ranked with principals. Honorius had by unwariness, and an indiscreet silence, temporized with a powerful heresy, before his eyes were opened to see the flame which he ought to have laboured strenuously to extinguish when the first sparks appeared. St. Leo reformed the Gregorian chant, composed several sacred hymns for the divine office, and did many things for the advancement of religion, though he was only pope one year and seven months. He pointed out the path to Christian perfection no less by the example of his life, than by his assiduous instructions, and zealous exhortations; and was in a particular manner the father of the poor, whom he diligently relieved, comforted, and instructed with a most edifying tenderness, charity, and patience. He passed to a better life on the 23rd of May, 683, and was buried in the Vatican church on the 28th of June...

According to Butler:

THIS Saint (Irenaeus) was born about the year 120. He was a Grecian, probably a native of Lesser Asia. His parents, who were Christians, placed him under the care of the great St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. It was in so holy a school that he learned that sacred science which rendered him afterward a great ornament of the Church and the terror of her enemies. St. Polycarp cultivated his rising genius, and formed his mind to piety by precepts and example; and the zealous scholar was careful to reap all the advantages which were offered him by the happiness of such a master. Such was his veneration for his tutor's sanctity that he observed every action and whatever be saw in that holy man, the better to copy his example and learn his spirit. He listened to his instructions with an insatiable ardor, and so deeply did he engrave them on his heart that the impressions remained most lively even to his old age. In order to confute the heresies of his age, this father made himself acquainted with the most absurd conceits of their philosophers, by which means he was qualified to trace up every error to its sources and set it in its full light. St. Polycarp sent St. Irenæus into Gaul, in company with some priest; he was himself ordained priest of the Church of Lyons by St. Pothinus. St. Pothinus having glorified God by his happy death, in the year 177, our Saint was chosen the second Bishop of Lyons. By his preaching, he in a short time converted almost that whole country to the Faith. He wrote several works against heresy, and at last, with many others, suffered martyrdom about the year 202, under the Emperor Severus, at Lyons.

Crescens, Martyr; Cyril of Alexander, Bishop, Confessor

Today we commemorate Crescens and Cyril. Crescens was a disciple of the Apostle Paul. He converted many in Gaul through the preaching of the Gospel and served as a bishop in Galatia. He was martyred under Trajan.

Cyril was the Patriarch of Alexander from 412 to 444.He defended orthodox Christology against Nestorius. Gnesiolutheran has some quotes from Cyril on the doctrine of justification.

I'm My Own Grandpa Vs. The Obedient Rebels

Benjamin Kurtz was one of the leading promoters of a movement known as "American Lutheranism." "American Lutheranism" cast aside the historic teachings of Lutheranism and adopted the new measures of revivalism. "American Lutheranism" thought that what Luther did was good but that the "revolution" must continue. Benjamin Kurtz wrote:

"The Fathers--who are the 'Fathers'? They are the children; they lived in the infancy of the Church, in the early dawn of the Gospel day. John the Baptist was the greatest among the prophets and yet he that was least in the Kingdom of God, in the Christian Church was greater than he. He probably knew less, and that little less distinctly than a Sunday-school child, ten years of age, in the present day. Even the apostle Peter, after all the personal instructions of Christ, could not expand his views sufficiently to learn that the Gospel was to be preached to the Gentiles, and that the Church of Christ was to compass the whole world. A special miracle was wrought to remove his prejudices and convince him of his folly. Every well-instructed Sunday-school child understands this thing without a miracle, better than Peter did. Who then are the 'Fathers'? They have become the Children; they were the Fathers when compared with those who lived in the infancy of the Jewish dispensation; but, compared with the present and advanced age, they are the Children, and the learned and pious of the nineteenth century are the Fathers. We are three hundred years older than Luther and his noble coadjutors, and eighteen hundred years older than the primitives; theirs was the age of infancy and adolescence, and ours that of full-grown manhood. They were the children; we are the fathers; the tables are turned." --Benjamin Kurtz, "The Fathers", Lutheran Observer November 29, 1849 (original emphasis)

Throughout the New Testament the Old Testament saints are regarded as our "fathers" in the faith. But according to Kurtz they are the children. If you search the internet you'll find lots of people with Kurtz's attitude. They tend to regard church fathers like Augustine either as infants in the faith or perhaps even as unbelievers. They provide a list of short snippets from their works to prove how heretical and infantile these church fathers are that often reveals just how spiritually shallow the person making the list is and how much the person making the list is acting like a rebellious teenager who thinks he knows so much more than his stupid parents. The quotes are often taken out of context and do not teach what the person making the list thinks they teach. Often what the church father says is true but because the person making the list holds to false teaching they regard the truth as false. On a small number of occasions they actually find a false teaching in one of the church fathers. But finding out that your father makes mistakes hardly makes you his father.

A friend of mine asked a professor at a Calvinist seminary why the seminary did not study the church fathers very much. The professor said that Calvin had preserved all the good teachings of the church fathers in his own writings so we don't need to read the church fathers anymore. But this creates a rather strange situation where for all practical purposes Calvin becomes the more-mature one who is able to sift through the writings of the immature church fathers. Calvin becomes father to the church fathers. Then the favorite, more recent theologian of the particular group becomes father to Calvin. I heard a professor from another Calvinist seminary make the claim that if theology does not continue to grow and mature in a church body that church body will die. But this results in every generation essentially becoming "father" of the previous. This process of becoming fathers of the fathers is evident in every branch of the church.

In liberal circles, this "maturity" is used as a reason for the ordination of women and homosexuals. In pietist circles this "maturity" is used as a reason for why we don't think baptism and the Lord's Supper are what the church fathers thought they were. Rome is constantly maturing. Papal infallibility was rejected by previous popes but the church has matured and now knows better.

But when we start reading the early church fathers, they don't seem to exhibit the immaturity that we would expect if all this "I'm My Own Grandpa" language were true. Instead we find a depth of faith that is lacking in modern writings. The best of the theologians in our day do not compare to someone like Athanasius. Athanasius made mistakes but lived the Apostolic faith in a way that Christian writers today do not. The church fathers were willing to die for what they believed. What passes for worship in the average evangelical church hardly looks more mature than the historic liturgy but that doesn't keep people from thinking that modern worship is better--whether it's revival hymns or praise and worship songs.

Some in Lutheranism seem to understand Luther as a revolutionary. They envision a Luther who became more "mature" than the church around Him. But Luther was no revolutionary. He was not a father to the church fathers. He was a child of the church fathers. He came to realize that the Apostolic faith had been perverted by those who thought that they were more mature. Even when he gave his "Here I Stand" speech, he was quoting Pope Innocent III. He was calling the church back to the Apostolic faith. He was calling the church to repentance for thinking that they were the fathers and the church fathers were the children.

Although it appears on the surface that Martin Luther was not honoring father and mother, he most certainly was. "Fathers" in the faith are not limited to those who are still living. Luther was being obedient to the true Apostolic fathers and rejecting the innovations that developed in the generations just prior to Luther.

Even while the Apostle were still living, there were people in Corinth and elsewhere who thought that they had matured beyond the Apostolic faith that was handed down to them. They regarded those who did not accept their innovations as immature children. Soon the innovation becomes its own tradition. Such is the case with Rome and such is the case in evangelicalism. The altar call, belief the rapture, handing out tracts, street-corner preaching, and many other things not only are considered as acceptable but as being requirements for a "real" church regardless of the newness of these things. It's as if history begins when I am born and if something is happening in my church today that must be what happened in the church at the time of the Apostles.

The church is healthiest when it regards itself as being a spiritual child of the church fathers who faithfully handed down the Apostolic doctrine. The Apostolic doctrine is all about Jesus. The historic liturgy is all about Jesus. In the sacraments we receive Jesus. If we think that we are too mature for this stuff, what we are really saying is that we are too mature for Jesus. We have found something better than Jesus. It doesn't matter if it's papal infallibility, revival hymns, praise and worship songs, or the rapture. These are all innovations that leads us away from Jesus.

Jeremiah, Prophet

Today we commemorate Jeremiah. Jeremiah was one of the four major prophets of the Old Testament. He lived through the Babylonian siege and destruction of Jerusalem. He communicated God's anger toward His people and suffered persecution and rejection. Although Jeremiah's writings in the books of Jeremiah and Lamentation are filled with proclamations of harsh judgment, Jermiah also reminds us of God's faithfulness. Jeremiah prophecied of the "New Covenant" in Christ when the need for punishments will cease and all will be made right. Jeremiah 31:31-34 says, "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Some traditions say that Jeremiah was stoned to death.

Sosipater, Saint; Prosper of Aquitaine, Confessor; Presentation of the Augsburg Confession

Today we commemorate Sosipater, Prosper and the Presentation of the Augsburg Confessions. Sosipater was from the city of Berea, he accompanied Paul along with Aristarchus and Secundus the Thessalonians, Gaius of Derbe, Timothy, and Trichicus and Tromphimus of Asia, out of Macedonia after a group of Jews began to plot against him. They sailed from Philippi to Alexandria Troas where they met Paul who had gone by land.

Prosper of Aquitane was a bishop who well-known both for his learning and his piety. He fought against the Pelagians in defense of the Christian faith.

The Augsburg Confession is the principal doctrinal statement of the Lutheran Church. It confesses the justification of sinners by grace alone, through faith alone, for the sake of Christ alone. It was signed by the leaders of several German cities and provinces and presented to Emperor Charles V on June 25, 1530.

Basil the Great, Bishop, Confessor

Today we commemorate Basil the Great. Cyberbrethren has a nice article about Basil.