In 1517, Ulrich von Hutton published a German translation of Lorenzo Valla’s demonstration that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery. Luther read it early and said in a 1520 letter, “Good heavens! what darkness and wickedness is at Rome. I am in such a fit that I scarcely doubt that the Pope is Antichrist expected by the world.” Read more
What makes the Spirit Holy? Holy in Scripture means “claimed by indwelling glory.” The tabernacle is consecrated as holy space by the indwelling glory of Yahweh. Saints are those claimed by the indwelling of the Spirit. The Spirit is Holy because the Spirit is claimed, by Father and Son. He is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. The Spirit is Holy because the Spirit is indwelt, by Father and Son. He is claimed by the indwelling of the... Read more
The Donation of Constantine includes a reference to the legend that Constantine was cured of leprosy by Pope Sylvester sometime in the 310s, and then baptized. Constantine is recorded as saying “on the first day after receiving the mystery of the holy baptism, and after the cure of my body from the squalor of leprosy, I acknowledged that there was no other God save the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as preached by the most blessed Sylvester... Read more
Emery says that for Aquinas the diversity of creation is founded in the personal plurality of the divine relations: “One cannot emphasize more forcefully the positive value of the multiplicity of creature; Saint Thomas does not conceive of plurality as a decline from unity, but to the contrary, as a participation in the fullness of the trinitarian life of God. This theological audacity expresses the consequences of the revolutionary idea of a ‘transcendental multitude’ that Saint Thomas recognizes in the... Read more
Thomas’ Trinitarian account of creation has not only a Christological but a pneumatological dimension, Emery argues. Thomas’ Augustinian pneumatology is rooted in his recognition that within the “God who loves himself,” there is a God who is loved and a love that is God. Especially in his later work, he works out a dynamic conception of the Spirit as love. Love is no longer “a kind of informing of the will by the good,” but an “affection toward” ( affici... Read more
Emery points out that Thomas’ Trinitarian account of creation makes the Word the art of God: “The Word is . . . the reason of creatures from a double point of view, that of exemplar causality (the expression, the conception of creatures) and that of efficient causality (the accomplishment of results, the production of creatures in being). In this way, the name Verbum signifies first of all the divine person of the Son in his relation to the Father, but,... Read more
According to Gilles Emery, Aquinas provides a Trinitarian account of creation. The processions within the being of God are the uncreated exemplars of the acts of creation. Emery (in a contribution to The Theology of Thomas Aquinas ): “In God, procession signified the essential communication of the fullness of divinity: the Father eternally communicates the fullness of divinity to the Son, and together with the Son, he communicates it to the Holy Spirit.” (more…) Read more
Anna Wilson has a stimulating essay on the rise of biography after the conversion of Constantine, the Vita Constantini of Eusebius being the leading model. The rise of biography manifests the change in the fortunes of the church, as bios replaced martyrion as the leading subject of Christian biographical writing. Living in the Christian empire, Christians need to have exemplars of life, not only of death. At the same time, the gospel narrative as a whole, and Old Testament narratives... Read more
An anonymous homily of the late 4th century: “Scripture has taken the Sabbath to mean rest . . . . So also the Lord having wrought the consummation, having suffered on Friday and finished his works for the restoration of fallen man, rests the seventh day and abides in the heart of the earth, having finally given to those in Hades the release his passion affords. As to the fact that he rests now from all his works, when the... Read more
Barnes notes an incident recorded by Sozomen that represents the typical relationship between church and emperor under Constantine. Basil of Ancyra, along with a number of other bishops, was deposed by the Council of Constantinople in 360. It was alleged that Basil”gave orders to the civil authorities to sentence clergy from Antioch, from the area by the River Euphrates, from Cilicia, Galatia, and Asia, to exile and other penalties without a hearing, with the result that they endured iron chains... Read more
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