j.random hermeneut

@johnhalton again

Re: Melanchthon’s John Hancock to the SA —

And we are sort of halfway there. Consider his remarks (in the context of a friendly but pointed critique to Kasper the Friendly Cardinal’s criticism of a CDF document which came during his tenure):

Thus Ratzinger: “The church of Rome is a local church and not the universal church — a local church with a peculiar, universal responsibility, but still a local church. And the assertion of the inner precedence of God’s idea of the one church, the one Bride, over all its empirical realizations in particular churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the problem of centralism.

Once this has been made clear, another question arises: why does this same association keep coming up everywhere, even with so great a theologian as Walter Kasper? What makes people suspect that the thesis of the internal priority of the one divine idea of the church over the individual churches might be a ploy of Roman centralism?”

Well, with all due respect, Ratzinger, what makes people suspect that the “thesis” (creedal truth is what I’d prefer to call it) is put to surreptitious use is… umm… historical experience and a certain notorious track record.

But still, the all-important point is made: Rome is “a local church with a peculiar, universal responsibility, but still a local church.” On this, the primacy of honour, there was anciently a certain consensus. But Melanchthon alone brings the $1,000,000 question? Whence the primacy? iure divino or iure humano? We’ve got the East (I think) helping to hold down the fort on this one (if, that is, we’re still even manning the fort; my suspicion is “Lutheranism” in its various manifestations is by-and-large not much more than sustained navel-gazing these days, hence my roughly thrice-daily paroxysms of despair).

@johnhalton

Because sometimes 140 characters are not enough.

Has given me occasion to revisit his remarks in the Ratzinger Report of 1996. (He is clearly not ignorant of the fact that the restriction laid upon the secular clergy of the Latin rite is church discipline, not dogma.  And, being a solid exegete would be aware of the force of arguments against the restriction built upon such texts as 1 Tim 3 and the fact that his predecessor Peter kept a spouse in tow - giving Paul occasion for rather hilarious “low blow” in 2 Cor). But to the point…

He acknowledges and refrains from articulating an “absolute” position.

To the question Can one say, then, that you do not believe that one day the Catholic Church will have married priests?

“At least not in the foreseeable future. To be quite, honest, I must say that we do have married priests, who came to us as converts… … but they are just that: exceptional situations. And I think that these will also remain exceptional cases in the future.”

However, he is very careful how he frames his opinions on this. Because just prior he is clear to say [forgive me for bold texting it but it must be done]:

“One ought not to declare that any custom of the church’s life, no matter how deeply anchored and well founded, is wholly absolute. To be sure, the church will have to ask herself the question again and again.”

So there you have it. From the words of the now-present pope. It is custom. And this custom is not wholly absolute.

Pieper is an ignorant knuckle-dragging, uneducated Neanderthal (I paraphrase)...

Die Art, wie Theologen der alten Orthodoxie aller Kirchen das aristotelische Weltbild als angeblich biblisches verteidigt haben, ist eines der traurigsten Kapitel der neueren Kirchengeschichte. Inzwischen hat man sich mit Kopernikus abgefunden, selbst Franz Pieper, der im Band I der Christlichen Dogmatik seine Diskussion mit dem tröstlichen Satz schließt: “Übrigens drohten vor etwa einem Jahr die Zeitungsschreiber, daß Einsteins Relativitätstheorie dem Kopernikanismus ans Leben gehen werde” (S. 578). So etwas wurde 1924, in einem Werk, das auch viel Gutes enthält, in Amerika gedruckt, wo man sich in jeder Bibliothek über die Lehren der modernen Physik unterrichten kann. Was würden die Väter des vierten Jahrhunderts, die nicht nur große Theologen und fromme Christen sondern auch gebildete Menschen waren, über diese barbarische Theologie gesagt haben?

— Herman Sasse, Sacra Scriptura, p. 53.

Herman Sasse on Missouri Pitchfork Theology

“Ich bin auch so ein alter Vierundzwanzigstünder”, sagt ein älterer Pastor in Amerika. Gewiß, das kann sich ein Farmer oder Pastor im Mittleren Westen leisten. Aber würden sie auch von ihren Kindern, von ihren Studenten und ihren Hochschullehrern diese “Orthodoxie” erwarten, die im Grunde ja gar keine Rechtgläubigkeit, sondern nur Gedankenlosigkeit ist? …

Die Lutherische Kirche hat Luthers Anschauung von den Schöpfungstagen nicht dogmatisiert. Erst under dem Einfluß des amerikanischen Fundamentalismus droht der Schöpfungstag von 24 Stunden bei manchen Lutheranern ein articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae zu werden.

Herman Sasse, Sacra Scriptura: Studien zur Lehre von der Heiligen Schrift, pp. 88-89.

Execration for an Unfaithful Husband

O may the girfriend of your nightmares stalk

you on the Internet, and “need to talk,”

and may no Xanax lessen your despair

as you obsess about what she will share,

and may her many messages explain

why your restraining orders are insane!

—- A.M. Juster, (First Things, October 2009, p. 40)

Martin Luther on How the Game is Played

In short, thievery is the most common craft and the largest guild on earth. If we look at the whole world in all its situations, it is nothing but a big, wide stable full of great thieves. This is why these people are also called armchair bandits and highway robbers. Far from being picklocks and sneak thieves who pilfer the cash box, they sit in their chairs and are known as great lords and honourable, upstanding citizens, while they rob and steal under the cloak of legality.

Yes, we might well keep quiet here about individual petty thieves since we ought to be attacking the great, powerful archthieves with whom lords and princes consort…

In short, this is the way of the world. Those who can steal and rob openly are safe and free, unpunished by anyone, even desiring to be honoured. Meanwhile, the petty sneak thieves who have committed one offence must bear disgrace and punishment to make the others look respectable and honourable. …

The poor are defrauded every day, and new burdens and higher prices are imposed. They all misuse the market in their own arbitrary, defiant, arrogant way, as if it were their privilege and right to sell their goods as high as they please without any criticism.

— Large Catechism of Martin Luther, Explanation to the Seventh Commandment

Martin Luther: On Big Business, Global Corporations and Government Collusion Therein

On the trading companies I ought to say a good deal, but the whole subject is such a bottomless pit of avarice and wrongdoing that there is nothing in it that can be discussed with a good conscience. Who is so stupid that he cannot see that the trading companies are nothing but pure monopolies? Even the temporal laws of the heathen forbid them as openly harmful to the whole world, to say nothing of divine right and Christian law. They control all commodities, deal in them as they please, and practice without concealment all the tricks that have been mentioned. They raise or lower prices at their pleasure. They oppress and ruin all the small businessmen, like the pike the little fish in the water, just as if they were lords over God’s creatures and immune from all the laws of faith and love.

So it happens that all over the world spices must be bought at whatever price they choose to set, and they vary it from time to time. This year they raise the price of ginger, next year that of saffron, or vice versa; so that in the end it all comes out the same: they do not have to suffer any loss, injury, or risk. If the ginger spoils or they have to take a loss on it, they make it up on saffron, and vice versa, so that they make sure of their profit. All this is contrary to the nature, not only of merchandise, but of all temporal goods, which God wills should be subject to risk and uncertainty. But they have found a way to make safe, certain, and continual profit out of unsafe, uncertain, and perishable goods; though because of it all the world must be sucked dry and all the money sink and swim in their gullets.

How could it ever be right according to God’s will that a man in such a short time should grow so rich that he could buy out kings and emperors? They have brought things to such a pass that everybody else has to do business at the risk of loss, winning this year and losing next year, while they themselves can always win, making up their losses by increased profits. … Is it any wonder that they become kings and we beggars?

Kings and princes ought to look into this matter and forbid them by strict laws. But I hear that they have a finger in it themselves, and the saying of Isaiah [1:23] is fulfilled, “Your princes have become companions of thieves.” They hang thieves who have stolen a gulden or half a gulden, but do business with those who rob the whole world and steal more than all the rest, so the proverb remains true, “Big thieves hang little thieves.” As the Roman senator Cato said, “Simple thieves lie in dungeons and stocks; public thieves walk abroad in gold and silk.” What will God say to this at last?

— Martin Luther, Trade and Usury (1524) AE:45 p.271-272.

Martin Luther: The Profit Motive

Among themselves the merchants have a common rule which is their chief maxim and the basis of all their sharp practices, where they say: “I may sell my goods as dear as I can.” They think this is their right. Thus occasion is given for avarice, and every window and door to hell is opened. What else does it mean but this: I care nothing about my neighbour; so long as I have my profit and satisfy my greed, of what concern is that to me if it injures my neighbour in ten ways at once? There you see how shamelessly this maxim flies squarely in the face not only of Christian love but also of natural law. How can there be anything good then in trade? How can it be without sin when such injustice is the chief maxim and rule of the whole business? On such a basis trade can be nothing but robbing and stealing the property of others.

— Martin Luther, Trade and Usury (1524), AE:45, p.247—248.

"Finance" - an etymological factoid

“Fynantze” had, in the sixteenth century, according to Grimm’s Deutsches Wörterbuch, III, 1639-1640, “not the neutral meaning of modern times but carried exclusively the evil connotations of usurious intrigue, fraud, and deception on the part of unscrupulous profit-minded dealers.”

So, what’s changed? The word, or Western civilization’s moral compass?

Martin Luther: Economist

The rule ought to be, not, “I may sell my wares as dear as I can or will,” but, “I may sell my wares as dear as I ought, or as is right and fair.” For your selling ought not to be an act that is entirely within your own power and discretion, without law or limit, as though you were a god and beholden to no one. Because your selling is an act performed toward your neighbour, it should rather be so governed by law and conscience that you do it without harm and injury to him, your concern being directed more toward doing him no injury than toward gaining profit for yourself. But where are there such merchants? How few merchants there would be, and how trade would decline, if they were to amend this evil rule and put things on a fair and Christian basis!

You ask, then, “How dear may I sell? How am I  to arrive at what is fair and right so I do not take increase from neighbour or overcharge him?” Answer: That is something that will never be governed either by writing or speaking; nor has anyone ever undertaken to fix the value of every commodity, and to raise or lower prices accordingly. The reason is this: wares are not all alike; one is transported a greater distance than another and one involves greater outlay than another. In this respect, therefore, everything is and must remain uncertain, and no fixed determination can be made, anymore than one can designate a certain city as the place from which all wares are to be brought, or establish a definite cost price for them. It may happen that the same wares, brought from the same city by the same road, cost vastly more in one year than they did the year before because the weather may be worse, or the road, or because something else happens that increases the expense at one time above that at another time. Now it is fair and right that a merchant take as much profit on his wares as will reimburse him for their cost and compensate hime for his trouble, his labour, and his risk. Even a farmhand must have food and pay for his labour. Who can serve or labour for nothing? The gospel says, “The labourer deserves his wages” [Luke 10:7].

But in order not to leave the question entirely unanswered, the best and safest way would be to have the temporal authorities appoint in this matter wise and honest men to compute the costs of all sorts of wares and accordingly set prices which would enable the merchant to get along and provide for him an adequate living, as is being done at certain places with respect to wine, fish, bread and the like. But we Germans have too many other things to do; we are too busy drinking and dancing to provide for rules and regulations of this sort.

—- Martin Luther, “Trade and Usury” (1524), AE:45 p.249-250.

Jacob Milgrom on Ellipsis

Ellipsis … is a dangerous principle. It can prove anything. I am reminded of the quip: How can it be proven from the Torah that Jews must wear a yarmulka (sklull-cap)? It is written: “Jacob left Beer-sheba” (Gen 28.10). Now would a pious Jew like Jacob go anywhere without a yarmulka?

quote from “Impurity is Miasma”, JBL 119/4 (2000) p.729