21 March 2009
Patristic Quote of the Day
It [the catholic faith] says to the Pelagians, "The infant that you look upon 'was conceived in iniquity, and in sin its mother nourished it in the womb.' Why, as if in defending it as free from all mischief, do you not permit it to be delivered by mercy? No one is pure from uncleanness, not even the infant whose life is of one day upon the earth. Allow the wretched creatures to receive remission of sins, through Him who alone neither as small nor great could have any sin." -- St. Augustine, Contra Julian, IV:4
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Augustine was a pretty good Lutheran, that's all there is to it.
Luther was a good Augustinian after all... To each his own.
A pox on you both! ;)
Augustine was simply a faithful hearer and teacher of the Sacred Scriptures. And for that matter, so was Blessed Martin Luther.
On the matter of original sin and its consequences upon all mankind (even from the womb), there was full agreement between the reformers (be they from Wittenberg, Geneva, or Canterbury). Consider the opening prayer to “the Order for the Ministration of Holy Baptism” from the Book of Common Prayer-1662.
DEARLY beloved, forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin: and that our Saviour Christ saith, None can enter into the kingdom of God, except he be regenerate and born anew of Water and of the Holy Ghost: I beseech you to call upon God the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that of his bounteous mercy he will grant to this Child that thing which by nature he cannot have; that he may be baptized with Water and the Holy Ghost, and received into Christ's holy Church, and be made a lively member of the same.
Thomas Cranmer
Although it agrees with Augustine, the reason for baptsim according to this reading is not an Augustinian quote, but a Jesus quote.
And a hearty amen, Fr.! Nothing like a Jesus quote to build one's faith and life upon. "But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son!"
I had the pox when I was, like, 8 years old, so I'm immune.
Christopher,
Not fair! ;)
Actually, I wonder what "pox" are being referred to in that old saying.
I have several citizens of the British Isles in my congregation who still use the expression "pox". I asked them what it meant once, and they said "the pox" is the old name for a venerial disease. It is said that Henry VIII died of the pox.
"A pox on both your houses" is actually a common misquotation of the actual line in 'Romeo & Juliet', which is "A plague o' both your houses".
But, "Mercutio's famous line might not be exactly the one Shakespeare wrote: instead of "a' both your houses," various old editions have "on your houses," "a' both the houses," "of both the houses," and "a' both houses." The line as I've given it here is merely editorial reconstruction—in other words, a good guess at what the "original" might have looked like, if there was only one original. This whole passage is muddled in the early texts, and in this it is not unique; what you read on the page of a modern edition of Shakespeare, let alone what you see at the theater, may not be what Shakespeare himself wrote. You're brushing up not only your Shakespeare, but also Shakespeare's editors."
So, it would seem the pox is meant as a synonym for plague. Fr. Carlos is correct, however, that pox was a common synonym for what we more commonly refer to as the French disease: syphilis.
Just to clarify, I have never had either syphilis or the plague, just the chicken pox.
Fatefully, this curse comes to fruition later as it is the plague in a quarantined town that keeps Friar John from delivering his letter thus leading to the deaths of Romeo & Juliet.
I should read more Shakespeare. I highly recommend seeing a production at the recreation of the Globe in London. Very interesting, open sky, etc.
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