On Tuesday this past week, I went to see the movie “WALL-E.” I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to be in an environment where people did not argue over the Filioque, and I highly recommend the movie.

Over the past months, it has become increasingly clear to me that this blog is not fulfilling the original purpose for which I started it. That is, it has not greatly furthered my work towards finishing my book on John Bekkos; by and large, it has been a distraction from that purpose. It may be that the blog has served other legitimate purposes. It has helped to make Bekkos, and my work on him, a little better known, at least to readers of the internet; it has helped former students of mine to get in touch with me, and allowed me to meet persons with similar interests; it has, perhaps, served as a vehicle for defending the idea of Christian reconciliation. I hope that, overall, it has generated more light than heat. Recently, however, I have begun to have my doubts.

In rereading my own foregoing post, I find nothing in it that I would particularly want to retract. It is, I think, an honest statement of where I stand as an Orthodox Christian who is unhappy with the present state of the division of the Churches, and who would like to see that division end. Perhaps it is even a bit too honest. I thought that, since the accusation had been made that I do not recognize any “exclusive claim to truth,” I ought to clarify how far this accusation was or was not valid. I thought, in other words, that it was one of those occasions when I was being asked to give “a reason of the hope that is in” me (1 Peter 3:15). At the same time, I do not hold the general, blog-reading public to be a theological judiciary court, qualified to decide upon such matters. I closed the post to comment, in part because I thought it was beneath my dignity to subject the question of my sincerity as a Christian to any further discussion or debate, and in part because the quarrel that occasioned the post has become utterly tedious to me, and I would like simply to terminate it. As I have said to Photios Jones, if I have misread him, I apologize.

The medium of the blog, I have come to recognize, has its own peculiar set of rules and social assumptions. It encourages theoretical discussion; at the same time, the discussion it encourages often resembles a sort of hybrid between text messaging and talk radio. It is an essentially democratic medium, and it exhibits both the virtues and the defects of democracy. It is open to everybody. It allows anyone to express his or her views on any topic under the sun, or over it. Amazingly, it allows me, from my home in New Jersey, to carry on conversations with a young scholar in Malaysia, a Catholic priest in Greece, a graduate student in Texas, a pseudonymous writer in Great Britain, an Orthodox priest in South Africa, and many other people, sometimes with all of them simultaneously. Most of the people I correspond with on the blog I have never met, and probably never will meet. At the same time, when I hear that the religious opinions of many people today are formed largely through what they read on the internet, I seriously have to wonder about this, whether this is a good thing or a bad, a blessing or a curse.

St. Gregory the Theologian, in his First Theological Oration, has a passage that I think should be memorized by every Christian who is tempted to write a theological blog:

“Not to everyone, friends, does it belong to philosophize about God, not to everyone; the subject is not so cheap and low. And, I will add, not before every audience, nor at all times, nor on all points; but on certain occasions, and before certain persons, and within certain limits.”
(Gregory of Nazianzus, or. 27.3; PG 36, 13 C-D.)

In view of this quotation, I have to question whether St. Gregory would have seen much value to the internet as a vehicle for communicating theological truth. I wonder whether he would not have seen blogging as essentially a waste of time, an exercise of the self-regarding ego, an excuse, all too often, for neglecting one’s proper responsibilities. Certainly I have had my own questions about this of late.

To Photios Jones I say: live long and prosper. I bear no burden of rancor towards you. To Wei Hsien Wan, and the Pontificator, and Fr. Paul, and the author of Eirenikon: thank you for your encouragement and for the example you have given of intelligent Christian writing. There are friendships I have made through this blog that I hope will continue.

To all my readers: a happy Independence Day. “Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbor; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates: and let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbor; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD…. Thus saith the LORD of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace” (Zechariah 8:16-17, 19).

For the time being, I am resolved to put this blog aside. I have other work that I urgently need to do; at such time as I have accomplished some of it, perhaps I will reconsider participating again in the blogosphere, though I probably will avoid its major slugfests. Until then, I think my primary responsibilities are to finish my book, to publish articles in scholarly journals, to find a job, to pray, and to “study to be quiet” as St. Paul recommends (1 Thes 4:11). May God grant mercy to all of us who hope to find mercy in his presence at his glorious appearing.

Last week I was informed by one of the readers of this blog that he questions whether I “actually believe any exclusive claim to truth.” And, he says, because he suspects that it is the case that I do not “actually believe any exclusive claim to truth,” he sees no reconciliation between himself and me, and will always oppose me.

Let me simply say, first, that my love of truth, and my belief in its reality, ought to be sufficiently clear to any unbiased reader of this blog. Likewise, my belief in the articles of the Christian faith as enounced in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and my acceptance of the authority of Holy Scripture and of the teachings of the ecumenical councils cannot, I think, be seriously questioned by anyone who knows me. I endeavor to be a faithful Christian, and, at the same time, a thinking one. I do not think that having faith excludes asking pointed questions. I do not think that studying John Bekkos, and thinking that, on certain matters, he got things right, is inconsistent with being an Orthodox Christian. In truth, I do have questions about the origin of Christian divisions, and the justifiability of their continuation, and what implications these things have for me personally in my attempt to live a Christian life. If I did not have real questions, I would be, I think, a very poor scholar, and a pretty arrogant, small-minded human being. But those are issues I prefer to take up with my father-confessor rather than with the blogging public, and most Orthodox priests to whom I have asked the question have encouraged me to persevere with my studies.

As for believing in any “exclusive claim to truth”: it is true that those Orthodox hierarchs and theologians for whom I have the greatest respect — men like Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, Metropolitan John Zizioulas, Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana, Archbishop Demetrios of New York, and Patriarch Bartholomew — do not generally go about, beating their breasts, affirming that the Orthodox Church possesses exclusive claims to truth, as though, by virtue of being Orthodox, one automatically regarded all Catholics and Protestants as heretics. Most of these aforesaid bishops tend rather to say that the Orthodox Church possesses the fulness of saving truth, that it possesses Jesus Christ, who is the truth, and that, where Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic Church. Most of them would further affirm that the Orthodox and Catholic Churches are, in some sense, sister Churches, that their separation has impoverished both of them and brought incalculable damage to Christianity, and that, just as the Catholics are asked, in charity, not to proselytize the Orthodox, so also the Orthodox ought not to present the Orthodox faith to Catholics in such a way as to imply that, unless they cease to be Catholics and become Orthodox, they cannot be saved. Most of these men would acknowledge that there is some legitimate sense in which the Bishop of Rome exercises a Petrine primacy; they would like to see that primacy clarified so that its exercise, at least with respect to the Christian East, corresponds more to the manner in which it was exercised during the first Christian millennium when the Churches were, for the most part, in communion. Most of them are understandably worried that, without such clarification, the Orthodox would, in any future union, be subject to the same sort of harassments and liturgical deformations as have been suffered by Eastern Catholics over the centuries in their various unions with the See of Rome. All of these bishops and theologians see Orthodoxy as revealing the truth of God, in a definitive and saving way that speaks directly to the human condition. All of them see Orthodox theology as possessing peculiarly valuable resources for addressing contemporary problems in areas like the environment; none of them, I suspect, would wholeheartedly agree with Cardinal George Pell of Sydney when he affirms that concern over issues like global warming is a manifestation of “pagan emptiness.” All of them see the fundamental emphasis of Orthodox theology on the truth and freedom of the person as essential and non-negotiable and as vital for authentic Christian life.

I agree with them on all of this. And, because I agree with them on all of this, I remain an Orthodox Christian. I remain an Orthodox Christian, in spite of the fact that, on many issues, I tend to think that the Catholics are probably right. I often find that my intellectual perception of agreement with the Catholic position is counterbalanced by a dislike of the spirituality, or at least, a sense of its foreignness. (This perception is, I should note, not less palapable in the case in most Eastern Catholic churches I have visited, and in some respects more so.) I do not think I could leave the Orthodox Church without experiencing permanent spiritual homesickness. By leaving, I might achieve a kind of intellectual consistency, and perhaps might even find a job, but I would be an unhappy man.

For reasons like this, I am content to allow the ecumenical process to take its glacial course, rather than to take the unilateral action of leaving the Orthodox communion, an action that would bring me no joy, but the deepest regret and misgivings. But I endeavor to speed up the glacial motion of ecumenical dialogue, if at all possible, by applying the heat of intellect to points of especial dogmatic frozenness. Perhaps foolishly, I retain some hope of a reconciliation.

The frozen dogmatic assumption to which I have sought to apply especial warmth is the assumption that the local Constantinopolitan synod of Blachernae of 1285 was right in condemning John Bekkos as a trinitarian heretic, a man who taught two causes in the Trinity. I am convinced that that synod misrepresented his actual views. At the same time, I would agree with those contemporary scholars, like Dr. Alexandra Riebe, who question the extent to which Bekkos can be said to have “converted” from Orthodoxy to Catholicism. That he changed his mind in some essential way about the justifiability of the division is undeniable; that he altered and transfered his fundamental ecclesiastical allegiance is not. I do not claim that Bekkos was faultless, or that the Orthodox Church should now be expected to discard its dogmatic teaching in order to accommodate his views. Yet I do think that Orthodox thinkers ought to be able to recognize that the Orthodox dogmatic teaching, to the extent that it crystallized around the views of Gregory of Cyprus, represents a fairly narrow interpretation of the patristic evidence, an interpretation that, whatever its current usefulness for ecumenical discussion, was originally meant to exclude Latin triadology, not to encompass it. Gregory the Cypriot made his own “exclusive claim to truth”; it was, effectively, that the Greeks had the truth, and the Latins could be damned. Bekkos’s claim was, rather, that the Greeks had the truth, and the Latins did too, and that there was therefore no reason, except for blind pigheadedness, why they should not be in communion with one another. Somehow I tend to think that Bekkos still deserves a hearing.

“Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible for you, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” (Romans 12:17-18 )

I think it is important for me to recognize that St. Paul’s words here apply to bloggers as well as to other people. If I am unable to treat Photios Jones as a fellow Christian, what good is it for me to treat Catholics as such? Although I think his way of expressing his opinions is unnecessarily confrontational, and that it does constitute “badgering tactics,” I do not deny that he has some legitimate point. I should, in fact, read Siecienski’s dissertation, along with all the various other things I need to do. And that Orthodox Christians have the right and duty to proclaim the gospel, according to the traditional dogmatic understanding of the Orthodox Church, is not something I would want to deny. But there are different ways of understanding Orthodox dogmatic tradition, and different ways of proclaiming it, as a glance at contemporary Orthodox literature would quickly make apparent. Not all these ways exclude an honest attempt at understanding the theological positions of other Christians; indeed, some would say that, without such effort, the Orthodox position itself inevitably becomes falsified (as I think it was falsified in the case of Fr. Justin Popovic). At any rate, in my own scholarship, I have sought to engage in that effort at mutual understanding, and I don’t think it disqualifies me from being a faithful Orthodox Christian. If Mr. Jones thinks otherwise, he is entitled to his opinion; but he is no longer entitled to express that opinion freely on my blog.

I was away most of the past two weeks in Chicago and Washington, D.C., attending two conferences: in Chicago, the annual meeting of the Orthodox Theological Society in America (June 12-14); in Washington, D.C., the twelfth annual Orientale Lumen conference (June 16-19). There is much that could be said about these two conferences, and, since I took over 50 pages of notes at them, I have a fairly good recollection of what took place. But let me leave that for some other occasion.

During my absence, I found another comment from Photios Jones on the post St. Maximus on the filioque. In his comment, Mr. Jones supplies a link to a translation, on his blog, of a passage by Anastasius the Librarian (a ninth-century Latin writer, sometime papal librarian and translator of Greek, deeply involved in ecclesiastical politics at the time of Photius); he further informs me that Anastasius the Librarian supports his reading of St. Maximus’s passage as against mine, and that “it seems odd that he would contradict his own tradition if Maximus wasn’t quite getting them right.”

I should note that the passage from Anastasius the Librarian is also cited by Jean-Claude Larchet, in his critique of the 1995 Vatican “Clarification” on the Filioque (the “Clarification,” it seems, can no longer be found on the internet). It serves as the clinching text in support of Larchet’s claim that the common doctrine of the Churches, during the first millennium, was Photius’s: if the Holy Spirit can be said to “proceed,” in any way, “from the Son,” this refers strictly to a temporal sending.

I don’t agree with this reading of the patristic evidence. But that disagreement obliges me to give some account of why Anastasius the Librarian says what he does.

First, before I give my own reading of the evidence, let me translate a couple of passages from an old warhorse of Catholic polemic, Fr. Martin Jugie. He was one of the great scholars of Eastern Christianity of the twentieth century, although, by current-day standards, he would be judged insufferably hostile and condescending towards the Orthodox Church, which he routinely referred to as “ecclesia graeco-russa” since he denied that it was in fact theologically orthodox. He wrote in French and in Latin; except for a book on Purgatory, nothing of his has been translated into English. Perhaps that is just as well. But let me, in any case, render a couple of passages here, in which Jugie comments upon Anastasius the Librarian’s text.

Martin Jugie, De processione Spiritus Sancti ex fontibus revelationis et secundum Orientales dissidentes (Rome 1936), p. 185, n.:

By another method the Greeks and Russians [Graeco-Russi] endeavor to draw St. Maximus to their own side. For an interpretation of Maximus’s words in the Epistola ad Marinum has come down to us from Anastasius the Librarian, which, in the published editions, goes like this:

“Furthermore, we have translated, from the letter of the same St. Maximus addressed to the priest Marinus, a passage concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, wherein he notes that the Greeks had brought up a charge against us to no purpose, since we do not claim that the Son is cause or principle of the Holy Spirit, as they suppose; but, being not unaware of the unity of substance of the Father and the Son, we say that, in just the way he proceeds from the Father, in that very same way he proceeds from the Son, taking ‘procession,’ doubtless, in the sense of ‘mission.’ By this pious interpretation Maximus instructs those who are unlearned* in the two languages to be at peace, since in fact he teaches both us and the Greeks that, in one way, the Holy Spirit does proceed from the Son, and, in another way, he doesn’t, while he points out the difficulty of expressing the idiom of one language in that of another.” Collectanea ad Joannem Diaconum, PL 129, 560-561 and PG 91, 133.

From Anastasius’s words, “taking ‘procession,’ doubtless, in the sense of ‘mission,’” certain Greek and Russian theologians infer: (1) the Latins at that time, namely, from the seventh to ninth centuries, understood the formula a Patre Filioque procedit not as applying to the Spirit’s eternal procession, but as speaking of his temporal mission; (2) Maximus himself accepted the formula a Patre per Filium in that very sense. In truth, so far as Maximus is concerned, his own words sufficiently cry out against such an interpretation. And, among the Latins, it is only Anastasius whose words lead him into danger, if in fact he is confusing procession and mission, which, from the aforecited passage, is in no way certain. For, from the things which he immediately subjoins, namely, “in one way, the Holy Spirit does proceed from the Son, and, in another way, he doesn’t,” he shows that he has understood St. Maximus’s own explanation correctly. For this reason Combefisius, the editor of Maximus’s works, conjectures that it is very likely that, in place of missionem (mission), one ought to read emissionem (emission), by which word Anastasius would have wished to render the Greek word προϊέναι, from which comes the word πρόοδος, corresponding to the Latin word processio.

*This is Jugie’s reading. The Migne text reads “learned.”

In his Theologia Dogmatica Christianorum Orientalium, vol. 2 (Paris 1933), p. 441, Jugie comments more simply: “Textus sane est obscurus et talis qui suspicionem ingere possit de scientia theologica Anastasii,” “the text indeed is obscure and such as might well raise a doubt about Anastasius’s theological competency.”

Jugie points out that the passage is cited by the early-modern Orthodox writers Theophanes Prokopovitch (Tractatus de processione Spiritus Sancti, Gotha, 1772) and Adam Zoernikavius (De processione Spiritus Sancti a Patre solo dissertationes theologicæ decem et novem, Königsberg 1774-1776); like the editors at Energetic Procession today, these men sought to infer from this ninth-century text the existence of a continuous, anti-Augustinian triadological tradition in the Latin West. Jugie thinks the evidence is inadequate to prove that claim; I agree.

To give my own reading of the evidence: I think it is worth pointing out, first of all, certain historical facts about Anastasius the Librarian. What is chiefly remarkable about Anastasius’s ecclesiastical career is that he combined deep erudition with utterly unscrupulous ambition; in that respect, he was not unlike his Greek contemporary, St. Photius the Great. He was the greatest Greek scholar in Rome of his day; and, although he had been excommunicated twice, once for having had himself elected antipope, and once on the charge of being an accomplice to a murder, he was nevertheless an indispensable man to the popes of the 860s and 870s, who had no one else they could turn to for maintaining diplomatically sensitive communications with the Byzantine Church and State. He took part in the anti-Photian council of Constantinople in 869-870, and his Latin translation of that council’s proceedings is the only version that has survived. He was, at first, a virulent opponent of Photius; but, when the political winds changed, and Pope John VIII proved willing to recognize Photius in order to solicit Byzantine help against the Arab threat upon the Italian mainland, Anastasius changed his tune, and maintained with Photius a friendly correspondence.

So the first thing to bear in mind, when assessing this text by Anastasius the Librarian, is that it is not a text by your average hoi polloi Latin. It is a text by a grecophone Latin, who had a fairly good knowledge of what contemporary Greeks thought of things. The second thing to bear in mind is that, according to Arthur Lapôtre, De Anastasio Bibliothecario sedis apostolicæ (Paris 1885), p. 332, the Collectanea ad Joannem Diaconum, from which this passage is taken, was written by Anastasius after the year 874. This was at a time when John VIII was already pope; presumably, attitudes towards the Greek Church were already changing.

The combination of these factors seems to me sufficient to account for Anastasius’s language in this letter. Anastasius is the representative here of those Latins at Rome who are concerned to patch things up with the Greek Church as soon as possible. It may be that Jugie is right, that Anastasius really wrote emissionem, to correspond to Maximus’s word προϊέναι. In that case, Anastasius would be simply glossing Maximus’s point, that προϊέναι (”coming-forth”) is how one should translate the Latin procedere — procedere, when used of the Spirit’s relationship with the Son, does not mean ἐκπορεύεσθαι, to “proceed” in the sense of deriving ultimate origin, but “proceed” in the sense of “existing through.” Or it may be that Anastasius in fact wrote missionem here. In that case, it seems to me, he is giving John the Deacon the current Greek interpretation of what is theologically acceptable: i.e., he is echoing Photius, with whom, by this time, he was on better terms.

In any case, the text from Anastasius the Librarian does not prove the existence of a longstanding body of Latin opinion that considered St. Augustine a trinitarian heretic. And if Anastasius were in fact condemning an Augustinian reading of the procession here, he would also be condemning all those popes who, for centuries, had on many occasions affirmed the Augustinian view. Here, for instance, is a text by St. Leo the Great:

“Spiritus Sanctus Patris Filiique … Spiritus non sicut quaecumque creatura quae et Patris et Filii est, sed sicut cum utroque vivens et potens, et sempiterne ex eo quod est Pater Filiusque subsistens.” “The Holy Spirit belongs to the Father and the Son… The Spirit is not like this or that creature which belongs to the Father and the Son, but [exists] as one who, with both of them, is living and powerful, and who exists eternally from that which the Father and the Son is.” (Sermo LXXVI, PL 54, 400).

In a letter to St. Turibius, bishop of Astorga in Spain, Pope Leo writes:

“…primo itaque capitulo demonstratur quam impie sentiant de Trinitate divina, qui et Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti unam atque eandem asserunt esse personam, tamquam idem Deus nunc Pater nunc Filius nunc Spiritus Sanctus nominetur; nec alius sit qui genuit, alius qui genitus est, alius qui de utroque procedit.” “Thus, in the first chapter it is shown what impious notions they hold concerning the divine Trinity, when they assert that there is one and the same person of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as though the same God should at one time be named Father, at another time Son, at another time Holy Spirit; and as though there were not one who begat, another who is begotten, another who proceeds from both.” (Ep. xv; PL 54, 680).

Pope Leo III, at the beginning of the ninth century, writes the following to the Eastern churches:

“Leo episcopus servus servorum Dei omnibus orientalibus Ecclesiis. Hoc symbolum orthodoxae fidei vobis mittimus ut tam vos quam omnis mundus secundum Romanam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam rectam et inviolatam teneatis fidem. Credimus sanctam Trinitatem, id est, Patrem, Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum, unum Deum omnipotentem, unius substantiae, unius essentiae, unius potestatis, Creatorem omnium creaturarum, a quo omnia, per quem omnia, in quo omnia: Patrem a se ipso, non ab alio; Filium a Patre genitum, Deum verum de Deo vero, lumen verum de lumine vero, non tamen duo lumina, sed unum lumen; Spiritum Sanctum a Patre et a Filio aequaliter procedentem, consubstantialem, coaeternum Patri et Filio. Pater plenus Deus in se, Filius plenus Deus a Patre genitus, Spiritus Sanctus plenus Deus a Patre et Filio procedens….”
“The bishop Leo, servant of the servants of God, to all the Eastern Churches. We are sending you this symbol of Orthodox faith so that both you and all the rest of the world may hold to the right and inviolate faith in accordance with the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. We believe in the Holy Trinity, that is, Father Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, all-mighty, of a single substance, of a single essence, of a single power, Creator of all creatures, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things: the Father, from himself, not from any other; the Son, begotten of the Father, true God of true God, true light of true light, not two lights, however, but one light; the Holy Spirit, proceeding equally from the Father and from the Son, consubstantial, coeternal with the Father and the Son. The Father, complete God in himself, the Son, complete God begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit, complete God proceeding from the Father and the Son….” (Cited from H. B. Swete, On the History of the Doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Apostolic Age to the Death of Charlemagne, Cambridge and London, 1876, p. 230.)

Texts like this could easily be multiplied. Thus, anyone who is going to maintain that Anastasius the Librarian counted St. Augustine as a trinitarian heretic is also going to have to admit that he counted Pope Leo the Great and many other subsequent popes as trinitarian heretics as well. Given the zeal with which the Roman Church guards its reputation for doctrinal purity, is it likely that, under those circumstances, Anastasius would have kept his job?

And the idea that the doctrine St. Maximus was defending in his letter to Marinus was a Photian one, not an Augustinian one, falls by the same token. If an eternal derivation of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is the doctrine popes like St. Leo had been teaching, then that is the doctrine St. Maximus, who was defending Rome against its Eastern detractors, had to defend.

I would strongly recommend that those persons who continue to propose the thesis that Photian monopatrism was the universal and unquestioned doctrine of the undivided Church of the first millennium, except in those isolated places where the teaching of the impious Augustine muddied the pure streams of doctrine with heretical pravity, should read H. B. Swete’s aforementioned book, On the History of the Doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Apostolic Age to the Death of Charlemagne. Although it is nearly a century and a half old, it is still, in many ways, the best thing on the subject in the English language. It makes it very clear that the idea that the Son had some essential role in the eternal origination of the Holy Spirit from the Father was pretty much common currency among Christians, East and West, until about the middle of the fourth century. By the end of the fourth century, a differentiation was starting to occur in the Greek-speaking East: while an essential connection of the Spirit with the Son in the Spirit’s origination was being affirmed even more strongly than before among theologians connected with Alexandria, theologians of the school of Antioch, followers of Diodore of Tarsus, reacted against this, and began issuing statements directly denying that the Son was in any sense the origin of the Holy Spirit’s hypostasis. Photian monopatrism could be said to make its first unambiguous appearance in the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia. This is not theory; one simply has to look at the texts to see that this is true. Swete’s book gives a good, balanced collection of them; if one cannot read the Greek and Latin, then read instead his book The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church (London 1912), which gives most of the same texts in translation. But the theory that holds that the Latin West was latently anti-Augustinian, or that it was some anti-Augustinian “true believers” that St. Maximus was defending when he defended the Filioque usage in his Letter to Marinus, is about as empty-headed a reading of Christian history as any I have yet encountered, and the single testimony of Anastasius, the librarian, Greek interpreter, schemer, and would-be pope, does not suffice to change my mind.

I have been in Chicago most of this week, and will be in Washington, D.C., most of next week, attending conferences. I did not bring a laptop, and my access to computers during this time is very limited. Accordingly, for the time being, I do not plan to post to this blog, or to answer comments, or to comment on anyone else’s blog; also, my e-mail correspondence will necessarily be at a minimum. I intend to celebrate Pentecost tomorrow at a Greek church in Aurora, Illinois, and to spend Sunday night and most of Monday on a train.

Wishing readers of this blog a blessed feast.

A bumper sticker, seen today in New Jersey:

Angry?
Need a Weapon?
Pray the Rosary.

What is unclear to me is whether the owner of this car sees the rosary to be a weapon to be directed against anger or a weapon to be directed against the object of one’s anger. That is to say, was this driver advising me to pray the rosary so that I might more effectively get back at my enemies by enlisting, in my support, the Mother of God? Or was he or she telling me that “the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (James 1:20), and that I need, accordingly, to beseech the Mother of God to remove from my soul this dangerous and destructive passion?

I did not have an opportunity to ask the driver of this car, since it turned onto an exit and headed south on Interstate 287.

Perhaps, because the Ave Maria, of which the rosary is largely composed, beseeches the Mother of God to “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death,” the driver of this car was saying that, if I pray this prayer, I will get a two-fold cure of anger: on the one hand, the objective situation about which I am angry will be referred, through Mary, to the God of justice, who, whether by exacting vengeance upon the wicked or by bringing them to repentance, will one way or another rectify the situation about which I am aggrieved; on the other hand, by acknowledging that sin is a universal condition in which I too share, I remove my own grounds for feeling self-righteous and vindictive against my personal or political enemies. As St. Paul writes: “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19).

I will assume that some such thing is the bumper sticker’s intended message.

A postscript. As I was exiting the parking lot in which I wrote down these notes, I heard, and then saw, on the train tracks below, some men scuffling. I drove slowly by the scene; looking back, I saw two young men walking away towards the rail yard; a Hispanic man stood yelling at them. I drove backwards and parked; the man walked over. I offered him the use of my cellphone, so he could call the police. He showed me his hand, which had a cut, and asked if I saw anything on his face; one side of it did look a little puffy, but no cuts. He returned the phone, and said, in broken English, that calling the police was not an option, which I took to mean that he was probably in the country illegally. He shook my hand, and I drove away.

Perhaps that man, or someone close to him, will pray the rosary this night. And who is to say what will happen, in God’s providence, to the thugs who beat him up, or to the country which cynically employs illegal workers as a way of avoiding paying minimum wage and benefits to the people who do its menial labor?

Please pray for the healing of my sister, Ann, who was recently found to have cancer on her liver. Pray also for her husband, Vinny, and their three sons, Michael, Nick, and Dan.

A brief preface to the following post is in order. First, by now the news of Metropolitan Nicolae of Banat’s reception of communion at a Catholic liturgy in Timisoara this past weekend (first reported in English by Catholic World News) has become widely known. Secondly, some months ago I suggested to an English Catholic priest, now serving in Greece, who goes by the internet name of “Fr. Paul,” and who is also now working on John Bekkos, that he become a second author on this blog. In response to the controversy surrounding the incident in Timisoara, he has finally taken up that offer.

I would only add that, when Fr. Paul compares Metropolitan Nicolae’s actions, and the probable reasons behind them, with those of John Bekkos seven hundred years ago, I am fully in agreement with him. Bekkos saw the division between the Churches to be based on a reading of patristic tradition that, in the end, did not stand up to scrutiny; he did not see union as calling for a repudiation of his own Church or of its theological inheritance. He saw a continuation of the status quo as, first and foremost, an offense against God, and, secondly, disastrous to his own community. Doubtless Metropolitan Nicolae of Banat has come to some similar conclusions.

bekkos

Some reflexions on the “Timisoara incident”

In choosing this title for this post I am reminded of an incident which shook the Anglican Communion in 1913. The “Kikuyu” incident, which led to the defection of very many Anglican clergymen of the High Church party for the Roman Catholic Church, involved the practice of “intercommunion” between Anglicans and non-conformists at a large gathering in what was then British East Africa. The High Church party saw this as a betrayal of the Anglican claim to catholicity and apostolicity in faith and Church order. A commission set up by the Archbishops of the Church of England to rule on the matter came to a conclusion which Ronald Knox, yet an Anglican, famously summarized in this satirical manner: “What happened at Kikuyu was eminently pleasing to Almighty God and must on no account be repeated”.

On 25th May, it appears that the Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Banat received Communion at a Greek Catholic Liturgy in Timisoara. Reading some internet reactions, one is led to think that both the confusion and the anger aroused by the Kikuyu incident are being repeated in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches today. On a much-read RC blog one can read that it is a “scandal” that “our” sacrament is being given to “heretics and schismatics”. I have not yet read some of the more extreme Orthodox internet zealots on the question, but even so fair-minded and irenical a commentator as the respected Fr Gregory Jensen says he finds the Metropolitan’s actions inappropriate. Perhaps it is appropriate, in this blog dedicated to the “union of the Churches”, to reflect on the meaning and implication of such a gesture for the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, and for the ecumenical dialogue between them.

First of all, it must be acknowledged that the event is of a great deal of significance, at least as far as it concerns the ecclesiological position of Metropolitan Nicolae himself. Those who have reacted in whatever manner to the incident have recognized at least the very grave (in the sense of “weighty” or “significant”) import of such an act. As they and the Anglicans who reacted to the Kikuyu incident realize, and as many – maybe most – of the practitioners and advocates of the more casual “intercommunion” we witness in much of Western Europe and North America, for example, fail to realize, it is not just a matter of being “nice”, or “tolerant” or “non-judgemental”, or of corresponding to any of the other fuzzy, touchy-feely catch phrases which muddy the ecumenical waters today.

It is not even a matter of “charity”, at least not in the vaguely sentimental acceptation of that word which has made it so suspect in the minds of many who today present themselves as champions of the truth. The latter will not fail to remind us that charity cannot be served at the expense of truth. Let us not forget however that – as the latter day zealots so often forget – abusus non tollit usum. The fact that charity is a much abused concept does not entitle us to presume that we may set aside all appearance of respect, courtesy and fairness to those with whom we disagree, on the pretext of combating indifferentism and the intellectual sloth and sleight-of-hand which are so often the latter’s companions in arms. We may – we must - suppose that the metropolitan of Banat is neither a knave nor a fool, and that he is aware of the ecclesiological implications of his gesture. We should suppose too, I think, that he is aware of its implications for himself personally, and that he is not only willing to face the controversy, dismay and indeed opprobrium which it will certainly bring upon him, but that he considers that these things are lesser evils in comparison with a greater evil which he believes that he may be helping to overcome.

First, as a Catholic, and before I venture on the less safe ground of speculating what this event might mean in the context of Orthodox involvement in ecumenical outreach with the Catholic Church, let me say some words on what it means from the Catholic point of view. Metrpolitan Nicolae was admitted to communion at a Liturgy celebrated by a bishop in communion with Rome, and indeed, by all accounts, in the presence of the Papal Nuncio to Romania. The Catholic Church has in recent years modified its discipline on “intercommunion”; under the 1917 code of Canon Law it was specified (Canon 731 §2) that no-one not in communion with the see of Rome could receive the Eucharist from a Catholic minister without first making a formal adhesion to the Catholic Church. The 1983 code (Canon 844 §3) admits to Communion (and to Penance and Anointing of the Sick) any Christian who is a member of an Eastern Church not in Communion with Rome, who spontaneously asks for it and is “properly disposed”. In the case of Christians belonging to ecclesial bodies which the Catholic Church considers not to have valid sacraments (apart from Baptism of course), they may be given Communion if they fulfil the afore-mentioned conditions, if there is “danger of death or some other, pressing need” and if they adhere to the Catholic teaching on the Eucharist (ibid. §4). It is forbidden to local hierarchies to draw up their own norms on this (as would be normal whenever universal norms require adaptation to local circumstances) without consulting the hierarchies of the separated Church or Churches concerned, at least at local level.

It is easy to see that the reception of Communion by Metropolitan Nicolae is within these norms. The Catholics who disagree with his having been given Communion cannot deny that. The good Metropolitan is a member of an Eastern Church, he spontaneously asked, and we must suppose that as an Orthodox bishop he was properly disposed to receive the sacrament, since he celebrates it for his own flock regularly. Since it was an isolated act, there is no necessity according to the letter of the law for the local Orthodox hierarchy to be consulted; but since he is the legitimate local Orthodox hierarch, we may even opine that the spirit of the law was perfectly observed. It is certainly within the rights of those Catholics who object to believe that Canon 844 is a bad law, but they cannot deny that it is the law of the Catholic Church, and that here it was applied.

They might, however, wish that the position of the 1917 Code had been maintained. That position is – in point of fact – also more or less the position of the Orthodox Church, whose Canons, as I understand it (but on this I am woefully ignorant and thus cannot quote them precisely – will readers please correct or complete my information here?), forbid not only an Orthodox receiving a sacrament from a non-Orthodox minister, but also any participation in non-Orthodox worship (forbidden also, mutatis mutandis, by the RC 1917 Code as communicatio in sacris).

All three of these canonical disciplines, of course, reflect an ecclesiology. The ecclesiology of the 1917 Code has it that there is on earth one visible Church of Christ, and you are either in or out of it, and that Church is formally identical with the Catholic Church – that it to say, with the Churches in communion with the bishop of Rome. There is only black and white. There are no shades of grey. This is the ecclesiology of the bull Unam Sanctam. It is the ecclesiology of Vatican I, and therefore quite logically of the Code of Canon Law promulgated almost fifty years after that Council.

The new Code was promulgated in the wake of another Council; and it is therefore quite logical that it should reflect the ecclesiology of Vatican II. Now, I am not at all an advocate of what Benedict XVI has called termed the “hermeneutic of discontinuity”. I do not believe that Vatican II was a “new Pentecost”, at least not if that means it was a new start which overthrows and obliterated all that went before. I am a Catholic priest, and I believe that I am intellectually honest, and so I will remain in the Catholic Church only as long as I believe it to be the Church of Christ. Since that Church is indeed one, and since it has to be visible on earth if Christ’s will is to have been efficacious, then you are either in it or you are not. The question, however, is how you are in it, and what makes you outside it.

I am convinced that the ecclesiology of Vatican II is in substantial continuity with the previous teaching, but that it is not identical with it. I believe that it preserves everything in it which is divinely revealed, while it renews it by bringing out better than was done for centuries its deeper and more authentic context in the wider Tradition. It does this notably by enriching an understanding of the Church which is incomplete, because excessively, indeed almost exclusively juridical. I believe that Christ wished there to be in His Church an authority of binding and losing, that that authority resides in the apostles and the college of bishops who are their successors, and that He wished the bishop of Rome to be the universal primate, exercising within that college a true authority as an indispensable reference point of unity and truth. I believe that this is what was implied by the practice of appeal to Rome as practiced in the first millennium, and that the language of universal jurisdiction and infallibility has been the historical expression of this truth in the second millennium – although not always an expression couched in the most felicitous terms. Lastly, I believe that if one did not believe at least this much, it would be dishonest to remain in the communion of the Roman Church.

What Vatican II does is to remind us that the juridical determination of ecclesiastical communion is logically and ontologically posterior to sacramental communion, and that this in turn presupposes a communion in Faith. If our Faith is substantially the same in Jesus Christ as God incarnate and in our salvation in Him, then we have already a certain communion, and if we are baptised then that communion has a firm sacramental basis. I believe in ONE Baptism we say; since there is only one, anyone who has received this Baptism in Faith is already in some sense a member of the Church. Since the Church is One, then anyone who belongs to it is already in an ontological sense in some sort of communion with the other members. If that person belongs to a community which has Priesthood through Apostolic Succession, then that communion is made ontologically much stronger through participation in the Eucharist, which is likewise one, although its celebrations may be divided by time and place, and indeed by schism.

Vatican II speaks of separated Christians as being in imperfect Communion, and teaches that they are not altogether cut off from the Body of Christ, even though this Body is perfectly realised only in the Catholic Church. It says that in the case of the Eastern churches, the reality of apostolic succession means that this communion is almost perfect. I do not think, by the way, that this teaching is in any way repudiated or rescinded by Dominus Jesus or even by the recent Roman clarification which says that the famous subsistit in of Lumen Gentium is not to be interpreted as denying that the RC Church is the Body of Christ. I regret that some opportunities were missed in these documents and some one-sided language used, there is nothing in it to which I cannot subscribe even as I write the above: the RC Church, for the Catholic who believes in His Church, is that Body in its fullness. This does not prevent other Churches from belonging to that Body in truth, even though they may lack all that is required for their belonging to be perfect.

I apologise for the length of the above. It may seem like a digression but it is necessary to understanding my point. Admitting Metropolitan Nicolae, or any other Orthodox Christian who asks for it, to the Holy Eucharist is the practical and sacramental expression of the ecclesiological convictions outlined above. As a Catholic who believes in ecumenism, and in the ecclesiology of Vatican II, which makes ecumenism a Christian imperative, I can only approve and applaud the fact that he was allowed to receive the Body of Christ from our altar. That Body does not belong to us, we belong to it; and so do our Orthodox brethren in Christ.

What then of those Orthodox who demure, who are shocked, maybe even scandalised. Are they wrong? Is their protestation of scandal even pharisaical? I have absolutely no right to chide them or to decry their adherence to the Canonical discipline of their own Church, venerable as it is. The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church will doubtless be the right forum for discussion of the matter, and indeed for a ruling, at least in the first instance. What I can do is to speculate a little – it can only be that – on what the Metropolitan may have been trying to accomplish, and to express some hopes. I hope my Orthodox brothers will allow me to do so, and that they will afford me the kindness of giving these reflexions a thoughtful consideration.

I wrote above that a Church’s discipline on intercommunion reflects its ecclesiology. The discipline of the Orthodox Church reflects its self-understanding. It believes that it IS the Church of Christ, quite simply. There can be, in the context of this belief, no doubt that there exists no such thing as “intercommunion”. There is only communion. You are in the Church or you are outside it. But are we sure that the Orthodox Church has ever committed itself irrevocably as a Church to any opinion about who is in and who is out?

I will admit to have been a little irritated by some Orthodox reactions to the Roman documents mentioned above. I thought that they were indulging in a certain ad hominem type of argument, playing as it were to the gallery of the ambient relativism, by protesting outrage about the RC Church’s claim to be the one true Church, while failing to come clean about the fact that, mutatis mutandis, they make the same claim for their own Church. There is nothing outrageous about making this claim in fact. There must, as we have said, be a true Church, and it must be One. But the Orthodox Church, as far as I am aware, has never defined in an Ecumenical Council that we Latins are heretics. There exists schism between us, that much is an observable fact. The Latin doctrines of Filioque, Papal supremacy, et cetera are not accepted by the Orthodox Church. There is no doubt that the majority of her theologians, clergy and faithful have, throughout the second millennium, considered them as heresy. Does that suffice, however, to render them such?

This blog is dedicated in the first place to making known the thought of Patriarch John Bekkos. He believed that the schism between the Churches was not justified. He was not some sort of proto-uniate, even less a convert to Roman Catholicism. He did not believe he was leaving the Church of his baptism to join another Church. Quite simply, he became convinced that the arguments purporting to demonstrate that the Latin Church was heretical, for all that they had attained by his day the status of a truism for the immense majority of his countrymen, were unfounded. He was convinced that this conviction in turn implied that the broken communion should be restored, that it should be expressed liturgically through commemoration of the bishop of Rome, and juridically by recognition of the right of appeal to Rome as it had been practiced by his Church in the first Christian millennium. He was unable to convince his contemporaries of his case, and he died in prison rather than renounce his conviction.

Might it be that the gesture of the Romanian Metropolitan expresses a similar conviction? It goes doubtless against the Canons of his Church, but might it be meant to provoke discussion within Orthodoxy and raise the question, in a way which expresses more vividly than mere words could ever do, the same question as Bekkos raised? It does not imply that the Metropolitan has accepted the disputed Latin doctrines. In the present state of the case to do so would be tantamount to conversion to Roman Catholicism. Might it mean that he wishes to imply that one can remain Orthodox while considering that the Latin dogmas, while they might be considered eccentric, indeed erroneous opinions of the Western patriarchate, are not in se heretical? Would not such recognition imply the urgent necessity of restoring communion between us? (Catholic readers who may be incredulous about the feasibility of restored communion without Orthodox acceptance of Latin dogmas should be reminded that the present Pope suggested just such a path in a famous statement when he was Cardinal Ratzinger.)

It is plainly not realistic to hope that such an understanding of the nature of the schism admission be adopted as the official attitude of the Orthodox Church in any presently foreseeable future. Might it be nonetheless an acceptable opinion within Orthodoxy, one capable of being accepted by a significant and influential number of Orthodox thinkers?

To my fellow Catholics, especially those who are shocked or angered by the event at Timisoara, or by my own apologia for it, I will say the following. It is a significant fact, and indeed quite a curious one in its way, that the Catholic Church has never termed the Orthodox Church as heretical. In spite of the Filioque and Papal infallibility having been proclaimed by Councils deemed ecumenical, Rome has never accused our Eastern brethren of anything other than dissidence and schism. Is this mere ecclesiastical diplomacy, a reluctance to pour oil instead of water on the flames of conflict? Rome before Vatican II was not given to diplomacy, yet the “dissident” Eastern bishops were summoned to attend at Trent and Vatican I – recognition if ever there was one of their status as Churches. (Ironically, they were not summoned to Vatican II – because they made it clear beforehand that they would only send the observers which Rome solicited if she refrained from so peremptory an affirmation of her claim to primacy.) Are we sure we have appreciated fully the dogmatic implications of this fact?

Another question which “the Timisoara incident” brings to the fore, this time on the Orthodox side is that of their recognition of Catholic sacraments. In receiving a Catholic sacrament, Metropolitan Nicolae has unambiguously signalled that he, as an Orthodox bishop, recognises it as just that: a sacrament.

Ecumenically minded Orthodox and Catholics on internet are used to ironising about loaded protestations of the graceless character of the Latin Church. Orthodox in the diaspora are wont to see these as almost a prerogative of converts; residence in Greece has taught me that it is by no means considered an eccentric position by the mainstream clergy in Orthodox countries. Not only are converts wishing to join the Athonite communities obligatorily baptised, it is an almost routine practice in the Church of Greece. A senior university professor of theology in Greece a few years ago told a nationwide television audience that he had re-baptised his own Catholic mother. Recently in Giannitsa a young Greco-Catholic layman was re-baptised in view of his coming marriage to an Orthodox girl. Such incidents are not part of a marginal phenomenon. John Paul II was received in Greece only on condition he refrained from wearing any liturgical, priestly insignia in public.

I am aware that the theology of sacramental validity is not the same among Orthodox as among Catholics, and that it is in fact indissoluble from the question already posed about who is in the Church and who is outside. Is it too much to hope, however, that the practice of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and others in receiving convert Catholics without rebaptism might one day become the officially sanctioned practice of all the Orthodox Churches? I am not unaware of the difficulties currently surrounding the possibility of a pan-Orthodox position being defined on any issue at all; but it is difficult to imagine any real progress towards unity without there being recognition by all the mainstream Orthodox Churches that the Latin Church is a Church with true sacraments.

When the Pope was at the Phanar last year (where he was commemorated in a Litany as “bishop of Old Rome”, and received with honours which plainly showed he was viewed there as bishop of a true canonical Church with valid sacraments, as the Athonite community did not fail to notice and to protest at) Patriarch Bartholomew mentioned — almost furtively I thought — an unspecified, concrete initiative in favour of progress towards unity which he would shortly be putting forward. Might it be that the initiative in question is in some sense foreshadowed by the personal initiative of Metropolitan Nicolae? Is it too much to hope that, in spite of the difficulties posed by the internal tensions within Orthodoxy, there might be some progress towards a reciprocal agreement on some limited sacramental expression of our fundamental union in professing the Faith of the (first) Seven Ecumenical Councils, and mutual recognition of ministries?

This little essay is already too long on matters of its author’s opinions, as it has been too short on precise references. I have speculated on the intentions which may have led the Orthodox Metropolitan of Banat to do what he did at Timisoara. It has been my intention to suggest some ways in which his action has raised questions which need to be faced up to by both Catholic and Orthodox. I do not pretend to know if it was really the intention of bishop Nicolae to raise precisely these questions. Doubtless the Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church will want to hear his explanation; and perhaps if he is allowed to deliver it publicly it might become clear which questions he did intend to raise. There can, however, be no reasonable doubt that he did intend to raise questions.

It is not my place to say whether it was in the event helpful to the cause of ecumenism for the Metropolitan to choose this course of action. It is even less my place to say whether it was right from an Orthodox point of view to infringe the discipline of his Church in view of what, as I said at the beginning, we must presume he believed to be a greater good. I have said why, as a Catholic, I believe that it was right for his request to receive communion from a Catholic altar to be granted. Some will see his gesture as a prophetical sign destined one day to bear fruit by the very reason of its provocative nature. Others will say it is well-intentioned but in reality premature and counter-productive. Others still will think it scandalous and sacrilegious. It is not given to me to know which judgement is correct. Only let those who cry “scandal” remember that scandal in its theological meaning is not, as in common parlance, the shock which an action causes to our sensibilities and our comfortable presuppositions, but that which causes us to sin. And let them ask themselves whether complacency in the face of a divided Christendom is not a sin, however much it hides behind rhetoric about not sacrificing truth to gain unity. In the end, truth and unity are the same thing; sin against unity damages our ability to see the fullness of truth.

Maybe the upshot of it all will not be all that far from the wry summary which Ronny Knox gave of the Anglican archbishops’ verdict on Kikuyu. Perhaps the Metropolitan’s motives will be judged eminently pleasing to God, but his action on no account to be repeated, at least for the foreseeable future. If, in spite of this, it manages to make more of us ask ourselves whether our assumptions about the other need to be challenged, just as John Bekkos’ reading and reflection made him ask himself the same question more than seven hundred years ago, then it will not have been entirely fruitless. Similarly, if this reflexion of mine can help provoke a serene and gentlemanly conversation with some Orthodox friends and brethren, then it will have achieved its aim.

Fr Paul

Holy Resurrection Monastery of Newberry Springs, California, a Byzantine Catholic monastery led by Archimandrite Nicholas Zachariadis and including, among its fellowship, Hieromonk Maximos, the author of the Anastasis Dialogue blog, has announced that it plans to sell its property in the Mojave Desert to a nearby Coptic monastery and is seeking to acquire monastic property in the town of Belvidere in western New Jersey, near the Delaware River. The reasons for the move are described here. Essentially, after trying for some years to support themselves by running a bakery, which required them driving two hours each direction, the monks have come to the conclusion that some other means of economic support, more in keeping with their monastic calling, is necessary to the monastery’s survival and well-being. Their goal is to operate a conference center and retreat house, which would be also a center for Christian dialogue and for the “spiritual ecumenism” the monastery endeavors to promote and embody. The monks hope that the property in western New Jersey, with its proximity to both New York City and Philadelphia and to many Eastern Christian parishes, both Catholic and Orthodox, may allow them to fulfill such a vocation.

I have met the monks a number of times; they are good people and have a strong liturgical life, and I am glad to hear that they may soon be my neighbors. I urge readers of this blog to support them financially and with your prayers.

While waiting for a file to download at the library where I can get a fast internet connection, I will write down a few thoughts this evening. Today is my birthday; I was born 49 years ago. I spent most of this day trying to get a Linux distro installed on an aging computer, and finding out, by the end of the day, that the distro is a bit too flashy and sophisticated for my old hardware, and that, if I’m not careful, the whole thing is likely to turn into a useless pile of junk. When last I tried it out, the boot loader was terminally confused, and wouldn’t start. I sympathize with the old machine; sometimes I feel terminally confused and superannuated myself.

An old friend of mine, Brian Keena, telephoned this morning to wish me a happy birthday. Brian these days has his own radio show; he is the “Jazz Messenger” of Charlottesville, VA (WTJU, 10:30 a.m. to noon Eastern time, streaming live on the internet at http://www.wtju.net). If you enjoy jazz, you will undoubtedly enjoy his show. Brian is another New Jersey expatriate whom I have known for something more than 40 years.

I also received e-mails today from my goddaughter, who is expecting her first baby, and from Alan Gordon, who read my last post and suspects that I am the first person ever to have used the word “Brooklyniensis.”

I had intended to celebrate my birthday today by going into the city; instead, having wasted most of the day in computer repair, I went out late in the afternoon, had a cup of tea, and spent an hour or so in a used bookshop (the Chatham Bookseller — see the sidebar). After sorting through possible purchases, in the end I bought three books:

• Seamus Heaney, tr., Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (New York 2000).
• Lawrence W. Levine, The Opening of the American Mind: Canons, Culture, and History (Boston 1996).
• John A. Kouwenhoven, The Columbia Historical Portrait of New York: An Essay in Graphic History (New York 1972).

Total cost: $14.98.

* * *

Having finished my download, I left the library and returned home. On my way out, a librarian was standing by the exit, and various people were standing outside, looking at the sky. The librarian told me to stop and look at the rainbow; I obliged her. It seemed to me that God has his own way of sending e-mails. And I thanked him.

In urbem heri introii amicum videndus veterem Gordium qui (sicut dixi) nuper librum edidit, ex quo exempla esset legiturus in bibliopolio quodam non multum distante ab Aula Civitatis. Adventus ante horam praesignificatam, perambulavi aliquantisper super pontem Brooklyniensis, de quo majesticum urbis poteram aspectum contemplari, aedificia eius procera quam plurima, et, infra, fluvium magnum navibus onustum in mare effluentem. Bibliopolio invento vidi amicum, audivi lectionem, librum emi, quem Gordius amiciter inscripsit; cum illo eiusque familia in taberna coenavi; postea via ferrea electronica Novam in Caesaream et in domum reditus hanc narrationem scripsi.