Rebuild Spirit

In Parts One and Two of our examination of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, Question 63, we followed a remarkable theological progression. What Scripture calls the believer’s sealing by the Holy Spirit became, in Aquinas’s system, another kind of “character”: a mark impressed upon the soul through certain sacraments. That character became a “spiritual power,” a participation in Christ’s priesthood, and ultimately a power which Aquinas describes as “coming from without.” He

Welcome back to Part Two of our examination of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, Question 63. In Part One, we worked through Articles I–III, where Aquinas develops sacramental character from a “seal” into a spiritual power and then identifies it as a participation in Christ’s priesthood. We now turn to Articles IV–VI, where he explains where that character resides, why he believes it cannot be erased, and which sacraments are said to imprint it. Article IV — Whether the Char

Part 1 Articles 1-3 Today we turn to Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, Third Part, Question 63, “Of the Other Effect of the Sacraments, Which Is a Character.” This section consists of six articles in which Aquinas develops his understanding of the sacramental “character”: whether such a character is impressed upon the soul, what kind of spiritual reality it is, its relationship to Christ, where it resides in the soul, whether it can ever be erased, and which of the sacrament

The Woman Whose Paths Lead to the Dead There is a puzzle hidden among the Dead Sea Scrolls that becomes more intriguing the longer it is examined. The calendar preserved in the Book of Jubilees, 1 Enoch and numerous texts discovered at Qumran contains 364 days, a number that is mathematically perfect for a calendar governed by the seven-day week because 364 divides exactly by seven, producing precisely fifty-two weeks. Every year can therefore begin on the same weekday, every

Testing the Doctrine of Eucharistic “Re-Presentation” Against Scripture The claim that the Mass does not repeat Calvary but instead “makes present,” “re-presents,” or sacramentally renders present the one sacrifice of Calvary is essential to the mature Roman Catholic response to the once-for-all language of Hebrews. Catholic theology does not ordinarily maintain that Christ undergoes another sacrifice or becomes a new victim every time the Mass is celebrated; rather, it teach

Jerome, Damasus, and the Selective Revision of the Four Gospels Jerome’s Preface to the Four Gospels, addressed to Damasus at Rome in approximately A.D. 383, ought to be read with extraordinary care because it provides something far more valuable than a later historian’s reconstruction of how the Latin Bible developed. Jerome himself explains what he was asked to do, why he considered the undertaking dangerous, what condition the Latin Gospel manuscripts were in, which textua

Letter XV. To Pope Damasus. This letter, written in 376 or 377 a.d., illustrates Jerome’s attitude towards the see of Rome at this time held by Damasus, afterwards his warm friend and admirer. Referring to Rome as the scene of his own baptism and as a church where the true faith has remained unimpaired (§1), and laying down the strict doctrine of salvation only within the pale of the church (§2), Jerome asks “the successor of the fisherman” two questions, viz.: (1) who is the

Bashan, the Rephaim, Rome, Babylon, Isis and the Beast — and the Christ Who Came to Destroy Death There is a remarkable network of ideas running through the Bible and the ancient world that becomes visible only when passages normally studied in isolation are placed beside one another. Bashan is associated with Og and the Rephaim; the Rephaim are both an ancient people and, elsewhere in Scripture, inhabitants of the realm of the dead; Ugaritic texts place cognate rpum or Rapiu

Melchizedek, Jerome, the Christian Sacrifice, and the Missing Biblical Argument for Offering and Worshipping Christ Under Bread and Wine The Eucharistic controversy is far more serious than a disagreement over whether the Lord’s Supper should be treated reverently, whether it is more than an ordinary meal, or whether Christians genuinely commune with Christ when they obey His command to eat the bread and drink the cup. Scripture itself excludes any casual treatment of the Sup

When the Interpreter Begins to Speak Louder Than the Text This second examination of Jerome follows directly from the earlier study of Against Helvidius, in which Jerome’s defence of the perpetual virginity of Mary was tested section by section against the actual words of Scripture. That first investigation exposed a recurring tension in Jerome’s method. He could insist, quite rightly, that doctrine must not be built upon what Scripture does not say, and at times he challenge

Happy Sabbath to the called out assembly. Its a long read so grab a cuppa. This article examines one of the most important questions in Christian history: if Jesus Christ instituted a sacrificial priesthood at the Last Supper, why is that priesthood so difficult to find in the earliest Christian evidence? Beginning with the Didache and moving through Paul, Peter, Leviticus, Hebrews, the early Church, the Vatican and the Council of Trent, the evidence is tested carefully again

Denzinger part 77 Denzinger 2194–2196, reproducing Pope Pius XI’s 1925 encyclical Quas Primas, appears at first to be one of the least controversial sections of Denzinger because much of what it says concerning Jesus Christ is unquestionably true. Christ possesses dominion over creation, He purchased His people by His blood, all judgment has been committed to Him, His kingdom is spiritual rather than worldly, and every human being ultimately stands beneath His sovereignty. Ye

Denzinger part 76 Denzinger 2193, numbered DH 3670 in the later Denzinger-Hünermann arrangement, preserves a passage from Pope Pius XI’s Jubilee bull Infinita Dei Misericordia, promulgated on 29 May 1924 in preparation for the Universal Jubilee of 1925. The passage is important because it brings together several doctrines that must not simply be assumed to be apostolic merely because a pope presents them as established Catholic teaching. It links the Old Testament Jubilee to

Part 2 Before examining Thomas Aquinas’s sacramental theology in Summa Theologiae III, Questions 61–83, one prior question must be settled because it governs virtually everything that follows concerning sacramental power, Eucharistic sacrifice, ordination, sacerdotal authority, the alleged indelible character of Holy Orders, and the claim that an ordained Christian minister possesses a supernatural power essentially different from the priesthood belonging to the rest of Chris

Part 1 This study is being presented in two parts because the subject deserves to be examined carefully rather than compressed into a single argument. The first part will establish the theological and biblical standard by which Thomas Aquinas and the later Roman Catholic use of his theology must be judged, while the second will turn directly to Aquinas’s own sacramental arguments and test them against the Hebrew Scriptures, the words of Christ, and the teaching of the Apostle

Toward the end of the fourth century, Jerome entered into a furious controversy with a man named Helvidius. The subject was Mary, the mother of Jesus, and one question which would eventually become enormously important in Christian tradition: did Mary remain a virgin for the rest of her life, or did she afterwards live with Joseph as his wife and have other children? For Jerome, this was not a minor disagreement. His Against Helvidius is passionate, combative and at times ast

“And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws...”— Daniel 7:25, KJV The question of whether Jesus Christ was crucified on Wednesday rather than Friday is not a minor dispute about counting days. It reaches into a much larger biblical question: who possesses authority over sacred time? God appointed the seventh-day Sabbath. God appointed Passover. God appointed the Feast of Unleavened B

The doctrine of inherited Adamic sin should not be rejected by caricaturing what the Roman Catholic Church actually teaches. Rome does not teach that an infant personally performed Adam's act of disobedience, nor does the present Catechism describe original sin as a personal fault committed by Adam's descendants. Its claim is subtler and, for that reason, requires closer examination. The Catechism teaches that Adam transmitted to his descendants a fallen human nature deprived

Denzinger part 75 The Authority Scripture Never Gives the Magisterium Denzinger 2186, taken from Benedict XV’s encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus of September 15, 1920, deserves unusually close attention because the text does something profoundly significant. It invokes Jerome as one of the greatest witnesses to the supreme authority and truth of Scripture, quotes him as a defender of what is written against what is not written, and then almost immediately places the Roman magist

Denzinger part 74 The Knowledge of Christ’s Human Soul The decree Certain Propositions on Knowledge of the Soul of Christ, issued by the Holy Office on 5 June 1918 and preserved in Denzinger 2183–2185, raises a question considerably larger than the technical Christological problem it appears to address. The central issue is not whether theologians are capable of constructing sophisticated theories about the consciousness of Christ. The central issue is whether those theories