Historicism Debunked, Pt. 1

Historicism is the popular Protestant interpretation of the Book of Revelation which applies all of the prophecies somehow, conveniently, to the Catholic Church. It is heretical, obviously enough, but it also has significant flaws and fails to even fit neatly into history. Historicism understands the days to be an allegorical reference to years and much of it hinges on this symbols for if these symbols aren't correct, then their whole entire theology collapses. We'll get into the problems with where the apostasy begins and the 1260 "years" in another part, but to open up, I just wanted to point out the glaring flaws in the interpretation first and foremost as well as a little bit about my own background.

When I was younger, I was always attracted to the beauty of Catholicism. I thought of the tranquility of lighting a candle during the church "service" (which I now realize is actually properly called a Liturgy in the East and more frequently called a Mass in the West). I grew up non-denominational. We were charismatic, pietistic, and Arminian. We absolutely despised Calvinists as evil for denying the obvious. But that was the only basic doctrine we seemed to have. I didn't learn things like the Trinity. I learned the basic part but I didn't learn very much in terms of systematic theology or why it was important. There was no deification of the soul through grace, no working out our own salvation. We came across the text, "Not everyone who says, 'Lord, Lord!' will make it into Heaven" but we understood it to mean "only if you say, 'Lord, Lord!' will you make it into Heaven". There was no essence of Christianity. We had people who were formerly Catholic. I wonder why now but based on the debasement of modern Catholic thought, there may be an answer to that. They felt Catholics were only really "quasi-Christian" at best. It seemed strange I couldn't get a definite answer.

Then, my senior year in high school, I discovered some very nasty interpretations of the Book of the Revelation toward the Catholic Church. Some of these interpreted the apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel and Revelation as being about the unfolding events of history and identified the Papacy as the Antichrist and the Catholic Church as the Whore of Babylon. I was very shocked at this but being young and naïve, I thought it a reasonable interpretation. Though this led to an objectively good thing. I began to forge an interest in both history and historical theology and I wanted to know more about the teachings of the Catholic faith too. I am grateful for the Catholics who tolerated my silliness back then and I ask for the forgiveness of any one I led astray in all this.

It was in studying history, I realized soon enough that the historicist interpretation of the Scriptures was a whole bunch of garbage. It was an exercise in eisegesis of the Scriptures and an abuse of shoehorning history to fit an agenda. Namely, the agenda to remain anti-Catholic and in error. We'll get into more detail later but first, I want to focus on the more asinine interpretations of the historicist school to show how contradictory and what a load of bull-hockey it truly is.

The first one to take note of is the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod's (WELS) statement of faith that the Pope is the Antichrist based on the teaching of the Man of Sin appearing in the Scriptures. You can read their full statement here. Obviously, this is ludicrous for multiple reasons. The first of which is that said "Man of Sin" will proclaim himself as God in the Temple of God and direct worship toward himself. Even if we do not understand the Temple of God as the Jewish Temple as it would have been understood at the time St. Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians, if the Man of Sin is standing in the Christian Churches showing himself to be God, then it is better to remain Catholic. For to abandon the Church is to abandon Christ. So WELS refutes its own doctrine on the subject. Secondly, the Pope never shows himself to be God but always directs the faithful's worship to the true God. So for WELS to say the Papacy fulfills this is nuts.

The second one to take note, and we'll be going after this one throughout this series, is the Seventh Day Adventist doctrine which can be found on multiple official SDA websites and SDA off-shoot websites. They teach that the four beasts in Daniel 7 are the Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks, and Roman Empire. That the 10 horns are 10 Barbarian tribes that sacked the Western portion of the Roman Empire. That Justinian's crowning of the Pope in 538 (source???) started 1260 years until Napoleon Bonaparte's abuse of the Papacy in 1798 resulted in the "fatal wound". This theory can be guffawed at so badly that one wonders why waste a series of blog posts writing a refutation of it? Because it's fun and riveting to write about actual history as an historian. I'll go over the flaws more in-depth obviously but to begin with...

1. The 10 horns are on the beast's head. They cover symbolically the whole beast by being on his head. The Roman Empire did not collapse in 476 A.D. as modern Pagans claim but in 1453 A.D. as historians claim. Therefore, there was no rooting up of three horns that could have even possibly happened in 538 A.D.!

2. The fatal wound came before the beast's 1260 day reign so to insist that a fatal wound occurred after is just forcing historical data to match your heretical theology.

3. The SDA position also insists that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon, the woman that is ultimately devoured by the beast and the 10 horns. So how can the Catholic Church be both Antichrist and then devour itself?

It was probably the absurdity of the SDA position being forced into my head to consider so much that made me break away from it. But the more and more I consider, the more I realize that there is an agenda behind those who back this ludicrous interpretation. When I was an Arian heretic, I claimed this interpretation because it did justify my Arian beliefs. I fell back on this interpretation in debates with Catholics online because I didn't want to accept the teachings of the Church. As this series continues, I hope people realize and can see what I eventually realized myself about this historicist nonsense. It is nothing more than a mask to keep you from seeing and realizing the beauty of Holy Mother Church. But as this mask is removed, as real history is discovered, we will eventually say with St. John Henry Newman, "To be steeped in history is to cease to be a Protestant."

Honor Your Father and Mother

St. Habakkuk's mother pleads for him to convert to
Islam to extend his earthly life.

That's not a question. There is no dispute about it. Our Lord even states that for those who do not honor their father and their mother, God has commanded that they be put to death (Matt. 15:4). But it is not so easily done for those whose parents are not even Christians. My parents made a bad decision. They bring this text up to me every time they see me depart further and further away from their decisions. Am I to follow them in their bad decision? Is that honoring my mother and father? Actually, it is a dishonor to my mother and father. The same Lord who said, "honor your father and mother" also said, "my mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it in practice." (Luke 8:21)

It is difficult for people to live with non-Catholic parents. Sometimes parents who can be overtly hostile to the Catholic faith. I discussed this once with a priest at my parish who converted from irreligion to the Catholic faith last Summer. We talked about how it is difficult for people to grasp sometimes that being a Catholic does not entail that one does not practice their faith in public discourse. Far from it. Public discourse is the very means by which the faith is practiced. It is where people can examine as to whether you are a hypocrite or not by your actions. When you are a Catholic, you have a spiritual mother and a spiritual father whom you heed. The Church becomes your mother. God adopts you as His son through baptism. St. Cyprian tells us that "He can no longer have God for his Father who has not the church for his mother." Our Lady, the Mother of Our Lord and the archetypal image of the Church, becomes our mother through the Church.

It must be noted, according to St. Symeon the New Theologian that, "[The enemy] often uses this one means, attachment to one's kinsfolk, like a lasso to drag them off." (The Discourses, VII.2) Many times people perceive family get-togethers as beneficial times to honor their parents but care must be guarded not to become attached to one's kinsfolk. This means that obedience must always be yielded to the Lord first and foremost. Obedience can never be yielded to the parents or to the kinsfolk for when the human authority that God has subjected you to is opposed to the spiritual life, one must oppose them as well. It is a difficult subject when people live with non-Christian family members and yet practice Christianity. One need not parental permission to go to Church and observe the Feast Days. One need not partake in blasphemous activities with Pagan or heretical relatives either. And Pagan and heretical kinsfolk may attempt to lure you inward. My godfather advises me that as long as they are not worshiping a dragon, I can partake in the things they do. Obviously, if my lesbian sister were to attempt to "marry", I would inform my kinsfolk that I will not attend nor give credence to such a blasphemous mockery of the sacrament.

For this reason, St. John Chrysostom tells us, "when parents oppose us in the spiritual life, we must not even know them, so when they do not hinder us, we ought to give them their due, and prefer them to others, because they gave birth to us, raised us, and endured a thousand sorrows for us." (Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homily 85) Our Lord in fact backs the Gold-mouthed Preacher on this and says, "Do not suppose I have come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother...a man's enemies will be the members of his own household" (Matt. 10:34-36). Yes, there are times in the spiritual life where the members of your own household will oppose your spiritual development. It is wonderful when they assist your spiritual development, but when they do not, opposition to their will is owed. This is why I always hold my godparents in higher regard than my biological parents. For as long as my biological parents remain opposed to the Christian faith, there will be times when they oppose my spiritual growth.

St. Alphonsus de Liguori teaches us the precepts and the limitations of obedience that is owed to our parents.

"It must be here observed that the Apostle says, 'obey your parents in the Lord,' that is to say, in those things that are pleasing to the Lord, but not in those that are displease Him. If, for example, a mother were to command her son to steal, or to injure another, would he be obliged to obey? Certainly not....Again, St. Thomas teaches that children are not obliged to obey their parents when there is a question of the choice of a state of life." (St. Alphonsus de Liguori, The School of Christian Perfection, ch. 7)

In all obedience, we must ultimately obey God. As long as our biological parents instruct us to hold fast to morals in accordance with the Divine mandate, we may follow them and ought to follow them. But if they ever tell us to disregard the Faith for the sake of our lives or social standing, we must, with St. Habakkuk of Belgrade, say, "My mother, thank you for your milk, but for your counsel, I thank you not: a Serb is Christ's; he rejoices in death!"

St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, Monarchy is the Best Form of Government

Much time is typically spent by monarchists refuting and countering the arguments of democracy. With good reason. Democracy is a sham system of government that has proven to divide people. But perhaps it is also best to provide a strong argument for the case of monarchy. St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, in his massive work, On the Roman Pontiff, covers the topic of monarchy first. He spends a devoted amount of time addressing John Calvin's arguments against monarchy because the Catholic Church holds to the doctrine of papal primacy. The Pope reigns and governs supreme over the entire Catholic Church as God's visible head. He argues that this must be so because God wanted His Church to be modeled after the best form of civil government: monarchy.

"Among the Greek [Fathers], blessed Justin teaches that the rule of many is harmful, and on the contrary, the rule of one is more useful and beneficial: 'The rule of one is freed from wars and dissensions and is usually free.' Also St. Athanasius, 'Truly we have said that a multitude of gods is a nullity of gods: so also, necessarily a multitude of princes makes it that there should appear to be no prince: however where there is no prince, there confusion is born.

"Among the Latin [Fathers], St. Cyprian teaches the same thing, and he proves it best and most eminently from the very fact that monarchy should be the best and most natural government, because God is one. 'For the divine authority, let us borrow from an earthly example: In what way has an alliance of power ever begun with trust, or ended without blood?' St. Jerome says: 'One emperor, one judge of the province. When Rome was built, she could not have two brothers as kings at the same time.' Lastly, one can consult St. Thomas." (Bk. I, ch. II)

He continues his argument citing the classics. According to Plato, "One dominion has been arranged for good laws, the law of these is best; that governance in which not many command, we ought to esteem as the middle: the administration of many others is weak, and also frail." Aristotle, who was Plato's student, repeats, "[a] kingdom is the best of these, a republic the worst." Seneca, commenting on the assassination of Caesar, "[T]he best state of citizenry is to be under just one king." Bellarmine is able to recruit the moral philosopher Plutarch, "[i]f the choice of electing were conceded, one should not choose anything else than the power of one." Finally, Homer's statement that "[i]t is not good that there be many; in war there must be one chief and one king." These philosophers build the rational argument to the case for monarchy that Bellarmine makes but Bellarmine is a theologian first and foremost. He doesn't stop with the human but ascends to the divine.

In accordance with the Divine law "God made from one every kind of man, as the Apostle says." He draws from this the same conclusion made by St. John Chrysostom "that this is so that there should not be democracy among men, but a kingdom." Not only that but in nature, we see that monarchy is the most natural form of government. For St. Cyprian tells us that "[t]here is one king for bees, one leader among flocks, and one rule among rams" and St. Jerome adds that "cranes follow one by the order of the litter."

We observe in Scripture how easily a monarchy formed.

"He did not (as Calvin says but cannot prove), make the government of the Hebrews an aristocracy, or a government of many, but was plainly a monarchy. The princes among the Hebrews were first of all patriarchs, as Abraham, Jacob, Jude and the rest; thereupon generals, as Moses and Joshua; then judges, as Samuel, Sampson, and others; afterwards kings, as Saul, David, and Solomon; thereafter again generals, as Zerubbabel and the Maccabees."

And Bellarmine is not without evidence or examples of this. The confusion is of course is a titular confusion. People think monarchy means having a king but a monarch need not be a king but any sort of ruler. Bellarmine points to the examples set by Abraham, Judah, Moses, and the Judges of Israel. Abraham waged war against four kings with no consultation from any senate, Judah judged his daughter-in-law accused of adultery, with fire, and consulted no senate. Moses commanded thousands of the Jews to be killed for idolatry with no consultation from any senate. The judges only answered to God.

Monarchies have provided untold stability in leadership in countries throughout history. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine states, "[t]here cannot be any doubt, whether that form of ruling the multitude would be better that more fittingly and easily acquires its proposed end. The end of government, however, is the unity of the citizens among themselves, and peace, which that union appears principally to be centered on that all might think the same, wish the same and follow the same." Of the four greatest Empires of the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans, only the Romans did not emerge to power under a monarchy. But there was much civil war going on inside the Roman Empire until the Triumvirate of Julius Caesar, Marcus Brutus, and Mark Antony. After Caesar’s assassination, the Empire was left entirely to his son Augustus. Under Augustus began the Pax Romana (peace of Rome) as the civil wars and strife were ended. The monarchy of the Assyrians lasted 1240 years, the Scythians were the oldest monarchy in Bellarmine’s day, and the Roman monarchy lasted for 1495 years until the Turks toppled Constantinople. We might also add the longevity that was experienced by the Persians and the Ethiopians. Republics evaporate and if they survive, are typically held hostage to civil wars and strife as we observed in the Roman Empire.

There cannot be a doubt, Bellarmine, in one fell swoop, provides the most extensive and comprehensive argument in favor of a simple monarchy.

Jesus Christ, King of Republics?

Abp. Marcel Lefebvre's contributions to the Catholic Church's theology cannot be underestimated nor tossed to the side. Though many neo-conservatives and liberals will cringe up to this, he is among the most important theologians of the 20th century and his orthodoxy is unquestionable. His comments and challenges to Vatican II cannot be easily dismissed when looked at. He is the Great Enunciator of the Faith and his intercession will guide us through the most confusing time in the Church. To toss him aside would be an egregious error to commit. One of the resounding condemnations Abp. Marcel Lefebvre gives is against the democratic ideology that has sprung up in the world today. Especially when we see a so-called Catholic President claiming so much devotion toward this democratic ideology, it has become a form of modern day idolatry.

Lefebvre differentiates between the democratic ideology and the democratic regime. Rousseau's doctrines is summed up subsequently as a "total transfer of every associate, with all his rights, to the whole community" (They Have Uncrowned Him, 47). It is this "liberal postulate of the individual-king...the necessary popular sovereignty" which illegitmizes "every regime that does not have as a basis the popular sovereignty, or that in which governors assure them that they receive power from God" (ibid). Stemming from this comes a crusade to establish the democratic ideology and to do away with the "old regime". It is an ideology that is inspired against, not just monarchical rule, but against the sovereignty of God. Catholic political doctrine acknowledges that all government has been instituted by God to govern and exercise the sword of His wrath (Rom. 13:1-4). This does not mean government is owed unswerving obedience for if the government goes against the divine prerogative, then it must be resisted. This is because government comes from God that it is not an act of rebellion to resist such a government.

Lefebvre shows that this idea of popular sovereignty has been condemned by the Church. Citing Pope Leo XIII, "[a] good number of our contemporaries, walking in the footsteps  of those who, in the last century, bestowed upon themselves the title of philosopher, pretend that all power comes from the people; that, as a consequence, authority does not properly belong to those who exercise it, but only by virtue of a popular mandate....Catholics separate themselves from these new teachers; they want to seek in God the right to govern, and they make it derive from Him as from its natural source and its necessary principle." (Diuturnum). Government derives its full authority from God, not from the people who are governed. It is this ideology which Pontius Pilate first invoked. St. Philaret of Chernigov writes, "Pilate now acted in a way that was a clear insult to common sense: he asked for a decision from the people, who had no right to make such a decision." (Homily 41 On the Passion Of Our Lord Jesus Christ) Jesus did not say the people were given authority over Him but that Pontius Pilate was given authority over Him!

The democratic ideology is the ideology of popular sovereignty. This does not mean the democratic regime is necessarily anathema. The democratic regime is the idea of "the participation of the people in the power" (They Have Uncrowned Him, 49). "Without preferring democracy, the [St. Thomas Aquinas] considers that concretely, the best political regime is a monarchy in which all the citizens have a certain part of the power, for example in choosing those who govern under the monarchy. This is, says St. Thomas, 'a government that combines monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy." (ibid)

So what would be an approved democratic regime? The Great Enunciator provides the following considerations: the principle of popular sovereignty is limited to the democratic regime and respects the legitimacy of a monarchy, never asserting itself as the derivative of all power as in the Rouseauist philosophy but acknowledging that God is the final source of authority and the rulers only governing as vicars of the people in accordance that the idea is the people who choose them are choosing them for the reason that they themselves cannot govern. The rights of God and the decalogue are the principle basis of the Constitution and are set down in the Constitution. The government is instituted by God and rules according to the laws of God. Ultimately, democracy "must, all the same, have a King: Jesus Christ" (50-51).

The inherent moral superiority of monarchies

"Many authors glorify war and revolution, bloodshed and conquest. Carlyle and Ruskin, Nietzsche, Georges Sorel, and Spengler were harbingers of the ideas which Lenin and Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini put into effect."

Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, Part Four, ch. XXIII

Monarchies are inherently morally superior. What more is there to substantiate from this? We have the existence of the revolutionaries who do not care to discriminate over those they slaughter. They have sent women to the guillotine, shot children, looted stores. Does it matter whether they even have a "good" cause? For the degenerate revolutionaries, their only concern is to reap death, intimidate, so that they can hold the power they want. Starting with the French Revolution, barbarism has prevailed among the deranged opponents of monarchism. While one could insist the Colonists were the civilized traitors to His Imperial Majesty but the Founding Fathers of America also intended for a blend of monarchy with aristocracy. The degenerate revolutionaries in France took their treasonous vampire-like activities a step further than we've probably yet to come across even today, but don't worry, the revolutionaries are trying to think up new sordid activities!

"We are told that in this sadistic se orgy, pregnant women were squeezed out in fruit- and winepresses, mothers and their children were slowly roasted to death in bakers' ovens, and women's genitals were filled with gun powder and brought to explosion. We cannot continue to dwell on these unspeakable horrors and should not be surprised that Sade was invoked in whose pornographic writings long passages are devoted to philosophical (and antireligious) reflections." (Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, The Myth of National Defense, 90)

To emphasize the civilized and generous nature of monarchies, it is important to reflect on the nature of their restraint in punishing those who have come against humanity. The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia cites the First Statute of English Parliament under Her Majesty Mary Tudor as stating,

That the state of every King consists more assuredly in the love of the subjects towards their prince than in the dread of laws made with rigorous pains; and that laws made for the preservation of the Commonwealth without great penalties are more often obeyed and kept than laws made with extreme punishments.

The philosopher and historian Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn details and compares the usage of capital punishment in Russia during the Tsarist regime and then during the Soviet regime. Capital punishment figures of 87,000 at a low understatement for the years of 1918-1919 alone. In Tsarist Russia, in the years of 1826 to 1906, the numbers of those sentenced to death were 1,397. 233 of those had their sentences commuted and another 270 were sentenced in absentia. (The Gulag Archipelago, Part 1, ch. 8)

"Capital punishment has had an up-and-down history in Russia. In the Code of the Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich Romanov there were fifty crimes for which capital punishment could be imposed. By the time of the Military Statutes of Peter the Great there were two hundred. Yet the Empress Elizabeth, while she did not repeal those laws authorizing capital punishment, never once resorted to it. They say that when she ascended the throne she swore an oath never to execute anyone—and for all twenty years of her reign she kept that oath....And one can very easily blacken Elizabeth's reputation too; she replaced capital punishment with flogging with the knout; tearing out nostrils; branding with the word "thief"; and eternal exile in Siberia. But let us also say something on behalf of the Empress: how could she have changed things more radically than she did in contravention of the social concepts of her time?" (Solzhenitsyn, ch. 11)

It is true that while St. John Chrysostom upholds the right of the State to wield the sword of God's vengeance against its obstructers, the same Chrysostom also

"Secular judges indeed, when they have captured malefactors under the law, show their authority to be great, and prevent them even against their will from following their own devices: but in our case the wrong-doer must be made better, not by force, but by persuasion. For neither has authority of this kind for the restraint of sinners been given us by law, nor, if it had been given, should we have any field for the exercise of our power, inasmuch as God rewards those who abstain from evil by their own choice, not of necessity." (On the Priesthood, Bk. II)

While it is not of necessity for a State to restrain itself from the usage of capital punishment, the State that does successfully restrain itself is certainly rewarded. This is why the Tsars never formally abolished capital punishment even as Empress Elizabeth never executed anyone. Mary Tudor, whom Protestants taint as "Bloody Mary", put to death a total of 277, and that was due to the nature of heresy and treason being interconnected during her reign. That is far less than the numbers totaled by the Soviets!

Naturally, when the power is handed down to the masses, the masses divide themselves against each other. They desire to subdue the other. This creates demonization of the other and there is lack of unity and headship as people compete to rule and lord over each other. This is why we see mass deaths and mass bouts of immorality in revolutionary societies. They are governed not by civilization, creed, or family, but by blood-lust, power, greed, money, and evil. After all, monarchy is the best form of government that money cannot buy! So naturally, mob mentality is invoked among the revolutionaries and they turn upon each other, demonizing each other, and subduing one another. They take turns doing this as there is an inherent instability in ideology but the degradation is all the same. The downward devolution of society persists as revolutionaries take to the streets demanding whatever form of justice they foolishly believe they're not getting at a given moment. This does not happen in monarchies. Monarchies are civilized, stable, and governed by the rule of love. We are united as children to the monarch. He is not our comrade but our father and friend!

Catholic - Orthodox schism?

The blogger, Aidan Kimel, who is not a theologian but a blogger, dammit (as also am I), wrote a humorous post the other day commenting the Pope's beard. While it is definitely entertaining and shows that he still possesses a creative edge in his writing, I actually thought it would be interesting to consider on a more serious note the question of Catholic and Orthodox unity. Obviously, a lot of people are deeply passionate about this issue in both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. But let's begin first from the Traditionalist perspective of the Catholic Church. According to the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia,

After a series of wanton aggressions, unparalleled in church history, after [Michael Caerularius] had begun by striking the pope's name from his diptychs, the Roman legates excommunicated him (16 July, 1054). But still there was no idea of a general excommunication of the Byzantine Church, still less of all the East. The legates carefully provided against that in their Bull. They acknowledged that the emperor (Constantine IX, who was excessively annoyed at the whole quarrel), the Senate, and the majority of the inhabitants of the city were "most pious and orthodox". They excommunicated Caerularius, Leo of Achrida, and their adherents.

The same New Advent entry also highlights at the beginning of the article that the present schism could be said to date from the year 1472, not the year 1054, and that the Orthodox and Catholic schism must not be looked at as a single event but rather as a series of contributing factors, one leading to another. But as can be seen, the Byzantine Church was never formally excommunicated in toto by the Roman Church! The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia was a publication from 1912 indicating this is the most Traditionalist perspective on the issue.

This is in concurrence with Met. Kallistos Ware's position from his monograph The Orthodox Church. Even up until the collapse of the Roman Empire in 1453, Crusaders and Orthodox Christians would hold joint services together. Something that would have been repudiated had, in fact, the Orthodox been excommunicated by the Latins! If the present schism dates only with the repudiation of the Council of Florence by the Orthodox bishops in 1472 then it is reasonable to suggest that not only were the Crusaders Latin and Catholic, they were also Latin and Orthodox! They would have been the first Western Rite Orthodox visitors of Eastern Rite Orthodox parishes.

The terms Catholic and Orthodox were essentially regional terms at first used to describe Christians. As the term Catholicus became more synonymous with the word Orthodox. The Latin describes general, universal, upholding all things, and the Greek word describes right glory. The two words have slightly different meanings but Catholicus came more and more to meaning the latter term and almost virtually met the Greek meaning. To describe the Latin Church in the West as Orthodox is not theologically invalid if it is indeed an Orthodox Church! I once was asked by two of the daughters of one our deacons at my parish if I was a Roman Catholic or an Orthodox Catholic to which I replied, "of course I'm an Orthodox Catholic! All Catholics are Orthodox! Unless they're bishops, then they're heretic Catholics!"

On the schism, my own priest has also stated the inherent difficulty involved in ascribing the schism at any point in time since there are severe theological nuances, not just in the Catholic Church but also in the Orthodox Church, of what would constitute a valid unity. Current canon law upholds the validity of Orthodox sacraments and legal practices. A Catholic can in an emergency, go to an Orthodox priest for the Eucharist or Confession or to receive any other sacrament. Whether the Orthodox priest is willing is another story all together. My own priest has concelebrated a Divine Liturgy with, if I recall the story correctly, a Romanian Orthodox priest before. Since their bishops were both named the same, he only commemorated their bishops by name but omitted the name of the Pope.

The Blessed Theophylact, Bishop of Ohrid, is another primary example of the problems in dating the schism to 1054 AD. He wrote numerous commentaries on the New Testament and is referenced as a Greek Father in St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine's De Controversiis. Theophylact lived from 1050-1107 and his commentaries on the New Testament were included in Latin theological manuals. Theophylact upheld the doctrine of the Petrine primacy. I include this note because one problem that Aidan Kimel brings up in his article is the obvious issue of Papal primacy. A little known fact is how the Orthodox have traditionally upheld it. The contention is that Rome fell into apostasy. Essentially, one could reasonably argue that the schismatic Orthodox were the first sedevacantists but that's another discussion. Bp. Athanasius Schneider has even commented that in a meeting he had with an Orthodox priest and a theologian, the theologian said to him, "I believe in the dogma of the primacy of the pope....But we Orthodox could never accept the papacy in the form which it is now lived and practiced by Pope Francis....We could even accept Vatican I, the primacy and infallibility, but as it was practically lived out by Leo the Great and Gregory the Great, for instance." (Christus Vincit, 140)

I think this is the primary issue for Traditionalists in both the Orthodox and Catholic Church as Traditionalists place the stronger emphasis on the consensus patrium. While the Pope is infallible, it is only an infallibility in defining already existing doctrine. Being a final arbiter in legal disputes, etc. But the primacy and infallibility has been bloated into this nonsensical idea that every word that flows from the mouth of the Pope is dogma and every action he does is orthopraxy. That's nonsense and it never would fly. Until then, I greatly appreciate the humor from Aidan Kimel!

St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite - On Sight

St. Nicodemos's Handbook of Spiritual Counsel continues on the idea of the mind and goes now to sight. Sight is the most reliable sense. I remember when I was younger, the pastor at our non-denominational church once talked about how many of us would be fine losing our hearing but our sight, if we lost our sight, we would lose so many images of beauty. We can certainly all recall the healing of the man born blind. We think of him as blind for he could not see but we see that his spiritual vision was much better than many of us. Jesus doesn't talk about the deaf leading the deaf, he speaks of the blind leading the blind. When a blind man leads a blind man, it is inevitable they will bump into things.

Not too long ago, a blind man stepped into our parish with his cane looking for the entry to the nave. We have three doors of entry into the nave. One on the side, the main doors, and a set of doors in the baptistry. The former and the latter have been locked lately. This man tried to get into the nave through the door on the side. Another parishioner and I had to help him find the entry into the nave. Many of us cannot imagine being without our gift of sight because it provides a guide for us. But when we have become slaves of our bodies, it can destroy us too. The sight, for this reason, fuels the mind and the thoughts of the mind the most.

St. Nicodemos is no opponent of vision. He describes sight as "the most regal of all senses". As mentioned, it is both dependable and most knowledgeable. It gathers information and feeds it to our mind. This is why it is important we guard our sense of sight so strongly for if we are feeding ourselves with sights of immorality, we are feeding our mind nothing but immorality and negativity. Whether this be porn, a lustful glance, or violent imagery, we are sending negative images to our minds. Sight is how we touch things that we cannot touch with our hands is how St. Basil describes sight. St. Gregory the Theologian tells us that the "[l]amps of the eyes touch the untouchable".

The eyes both serve us but they can lead us away from God. Some may have seen my comments about flashing shoes in church. St. Nicodemos says, "[t]he eyes can distract the mind very quickly and cause it in a flash to slip into the place of sin." This is why when we are in church, it is very important not to dress in such a way that would cause our brother to stumble and not to create a spectacle of ourselves leading people away from the right worship of God. Because the eyes absorb so much information that is fed to our minds, the eyes can become both a primary cause of sin and a spiritual benefit for our souls. When we look toward an icon, we fill our mind with holiness, but when we look away from the icon we are led away from that vision of holiness. Eyes, according to Our Lord, can even lead into the sin of adultery (Matt. 5:27-30). We even observe how when Lot was fleeing from the city of Sodom with his wife and daughters how a glance upon the city turned her into a pillar of salt!

Looking at the tree led the woman into sin (Gen. 3:6). Looking at the daughters of men led the sons into fornication (Gen. 6:2). The angels who led Lot out of Sodom guarded their eyes (Gen. 19:1). David saw Bathsheba and was led into adultery (2 Sam. 11:1). The same Holy King also cries out to God "turn my eyes away from seeing vain things!" (Ps. 118:37) O, how sight can betray us so easily! Alexander the Great refused to look upon the daughters of Darius! St. Syngletike, the Holy Mother who wrote so much on guarding the thoughts of the mind and how to conquer these thoughts, tells us:

"If ever by thought an inappropriate fantasy comes to us, it must be expelled by reason. Thus, shut your eyes to this image. Remove from it the flesh of the cheeks, cut away the lips and imagine then a mass of bones which is deformed."

St. Syngletike's advice on governing the mind is employed here to show us how intricately linked the sense of sight is to that of our thoughts. All the moral theologians agree, sin begins in the mind and with the thought.

My friend Michelle gives us an example of
St. Syngletike's discipline in action

We can see how reliable the sense of sight is but from looking can come lusting while no-looking comes no-lusting. This is why the blind man who was healed by Our Lord retained such perfect spiritual vision. He never, at any point in his life, was feeding his mind negative imagery. He could not lust. And while St. Nicodemos mentions how women can easily lead men into sin, he also notes how we can lead ourselves into sin through our own attraction to ourselves. He comments on the hierarchs and priests who have fallen into sin by looking through mirrors! They fill their minds with the image of themselves and are distracted with how they appear to others so much that they fall in love with themselves. We can all recount the story of Narcissus who began to gaze upon the image of himself in the water and fell in love with his own beauty. Narcissus would then be drowned as a result of his shameful act of self-love! Let us guard ourselves from lusting after ourselves.

St. Nicodemos gives a final warning about sleep. For in sleep, many visions in the mind are fed and we must be cautious not to be attached to sleep. It is important to govern our sleep patterns such that we do not end up becoming dreamers. We see in this final warning about sleep how much more intricately connected the sense of sight is to the sense of the mind. It is no wonder St. Nicodemos starts with the mind and proceeds immediately from sight to the mind! There is a lot more that could easily be said about sight and its connections to our sense of thought, but for now, what I will say is let us guard our sight so that we may govern our thoughts!