Words on the Word
Erik Varden is a monk and bishop, born in Norway in 1974. In 2002, after ten years at the University of Cambridge, he joined Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in Charnwood Forest. Pope Francis named him bishop of Trondheim in 2019.
Please find below a selection of homilies:
Translation Praised ‘Then, of course, there is Artificial, or Inhuman, Intelligence. Thanks to it, translation is mechanised. Feed in some verses by, say, Li Bai, a Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty, and you find them spewed out in the twinkling of Read More
Desert Fathers 45 
You can find this episode in video format here – a dedicated page – and pick it up in audio wherever you listen to podcasts. On YouTube, the full range of episodes can be found here.
A man hunting wild beasts Read More
A man hunting wild beasts Read More
Norway of the Year At about this time of year in 1865, Emily Dickinson wrote to her sister, Mrs. J.G. Holland, after an update on family news: ‘It is also November. The noons are more laconic and the sundowns sterner, and Gibraltar lights make Read More
Liminal Encounter One sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus spoke to the lawyers and Read More
Herod, that Fox Some Pharisees came up to Jesus. ‘Go away’ they said. ‘Leave this place, because Herod means to kill you.’ He replied, ‘You may go and give that fox this message: Learn that today and tomorrow I cast out devils and Read More
Sts Simon and Jude In the tenth chapter of the book of Genesis, we are told how, once Noah’s Ark was settled on firm ground, his sons scattered over the face of the earth. So closely were various parts of the inhabited world linked Read More
Desert Fathers 44 You can find this episode in video format here – a dedicated page – and pick it up in audio wherever you listen to podcasts. On YouTube, the full range of episodes can be found here.
At a certain point Abba Read More
At a certain point Abba Read More
Translation Praised
‘Then, of course, there is Artificial, or Inhuman, Intelligence. Thanks to it, translation is mechanised. Feed in some verses by, say, Li Bai, a Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty, and you find them spewed out in the twinkling of an eye in colloquial American, contractions and all. AI does not limit itself to rendering a given ‘foreign’ language into another. It offers to translate even the vaguest notions that arise out of our fancy’s pond-fog into cogent speech. As a result, we can increasingly dispense ourselves from coming up with our own words. There are, here and there, pragmatic advantages to this. But they come at the cost of catastrophic loss. For what will man turn into as he, formed in the image of the Word, surrenders poetry to algorithmic patterns, logos to digits, with everyone’s speech, everywhere, sounding the same?’
From this year’s Erasmus Lecture, to be published on the internet and in First Things in mid-December.
From this year’s Erasmus Lecture, to be published on the internet and in First Things in mid-December.
Desert Fathers 45
You can find this episode in video format here – a dedicated page – and pick it up in audio wherever you listen to podcasts. On YouTube, the full range of episodes can be found here.
A man hunting wild beasts found himself in the desert. He saw Abba Antony at recreation with the brothers, and was scandalised. The elder decided to make him understand that now and again one has to encounter the brethren at their own level. He said to him: ‘Take an arrow, put it to your bow, and pull!’ He did just that. Then he said again: ‘Pull more!’ And he pulled. And again [Abba Antony] said: ‘Pull!’ But the hunter replied: ‘If I pull beyond measure, I will break the bow.’ Abba Antony said to him: ‘It is exactly the same when it comes to the work of God. If we stretch the brothers excessively, they will be shattered. So now and again we must encounter them at their own level.’ Hearing this, the hunter was filled with compunction. He went away greatly profited by the elder. As for the brethren, they returned to where they lived with new strength.
Early on in The Sound of Music, the wise old abbess asks a few nuns for advice on the postulant Maria. A senior, uppety sister says, ‘She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee, her dress has got a tear’, with disapproval, not expecting an aspiring nun to be out doing enjoyable things. Secular observers also curiously sense a kind of incongruity. That is why they are tickled by pictures of nuns on rollerblades or eating ice-cream; or of monks tobogganing.
Such images seem, I suppose, emblematic of transgression at some subliminal level. The religious habit makes the stakes more emphatic; so people snigger and think, reassuring themselves, ‘Ah, so they are up to it, too.’
That is what the hunter thought who, on the look-out for bush-meat, found Antony and a group of brothers having a pleasant time. I do not suppose the monks were playing badminton. Most probably they were just sitting around on the ground in lively conversation, taking pleasure in each other’s company. The hunter was disedified. He had heard about monks. He expected them to be austere, world-weary, forbidding-looking creatures who gaze at skulls while scourging themselves. He was not prepared to find them cheerfully at ease. His ‘Tut!’, whether spoken or expressed by some gesture, must have been evident enough for Antony to pick it up. Instead of being upset, or of making a sarcastic remark about the world’s hypocrisy, Antony resolved, ever forthcoming, to help the man reach freeing insight.
There is gentle humour in the exercise he proposes. He, who will speak about the need to encounter the brothers ‘at their own level’ (the Greek verb means ‘to condescend’, but it has not the pejorative ring of its English equivalent), meets the hunter where he is. Instead of launching into complicated explanations about the search for balance in life, he sets out from something the other man will naturally grasp, asking him to consider how he uses his equipment. Antony gives the man time, considering: ‘How can I make him understand?’
This encounter shows how the attentive kindness which people saw in him when at last he came forth from twenty years of seclusion mellowed over time, and did not shy back from a little comedy.
We can imagine the hunter standing there, before a half-circle of monks, now suddenly looking deadly serious, pulling and pulling at his bow with sweat pouring down his forehead while thinking, ‘One millimetre more and this old thing will snap!’ Antony waits for him to reach his limit and unwittingly to speak words that will answer his own perplexity. Uninterrupted tension is unbearable for any created thing. There is a pattern in nature and relations, as in speech and music, of give-and-take. Relaxation need not be a sign of weakness. It may spring from self-knowledge, which is a form of humility, which is a great, albeit paradoxical, form of strength.
Antony, for being humane, was far from soft. He used to say: ‘God does not permit the enemy to wage war on this generation as he did on those of old. For he knows that people now are feeble, so would not endure it.’ We know the warfare he himself endured. He admitted, though, that rest has its part to play in the spiritual life, and was not ashamed to admit it. The idea of holy leisure, otium sacrum, is deeply rooted in monastic tradition.
Can we then enjoy leisure without being idle? Yes, we can. The distinction matters. To be idle is to avoid what needs to be done, to shun work and duty for selfish reasons, to waste time. To savour leisure, on the other hand, is in itself a high form of attention. It is a matter of being intensely present; of resting deliberately; of turning away from self towards the other, towards God and the world, in a state of receptivity, marvelling at the gift of it all, giving thanks. Such an attitude is intrinsic to contemplative living. It is something monks should foster as second nature. I would even say it is something they should be good at and enjoy.
In monastic vocabulary, scheduled times of rest are known as ‘recreations’. The word has slipped into worldly usage. We speak oxymoronically of ‘recreational activity’. It is useful, though, to hang on to the primary sense. To be a Christian is to let oneself be constantly re-created in Christ. Times of conscious rest are given us as opportunities for conscious consent to this divine work. For how can God fashion his image in us if we are always furiously busy, shaping our existence in ours?
A man hunting wild beasts found himself in the desert. He saw Abba Antony at recreation with the brothers, and was scandalised. The elder decided to make him understand that now and again one has to encounter the brethren at their own level. He said to him: ‘Take an arrow, put it to your bow, and pull!’ He did just that. Then he said again: ‘Pull more!’ And he pulled. And again [Abba Antony] said: ‘Pull!’ But the hunter replied: ‘If I pull beyond measure, I will break the bow.’ Abba Antony said to him: ‘It is exactly the same when it comes to the work of God. If we stretch the brothers excessively, they will be shattered. So now and again we must encounter them at their own level.’ Hearing this, the hunter was filled with compunction. He went away greatly profited by the elder. As for the brethren, they returned to where they lived with new strength.
Early on in The Sound of Music, the wise old abbess asks a few nuns for advice on the postulant Maria. A senior, uppety sister says, ‘She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee, her dress has got a tear’, with disapproval, not expecting an aspiring nun to be out doing enjoyable things. Secular observers also curiously sense a kind of incongruity. That is why they are tickled by pictures of nuns on rollerblades or eating ice-cream; or of monks tobogganing.
Such images seem, I suppose, emblematic of transgression at some subliminal level. The religious habit makes the stakes more emphatic; so people snigger and think, reassuring themselves, ‘Ah, so they are up to it, too.’
That is what the hunter thought who, on the look-out for bush-meat, found Antony and a group of brothers having a pleasant time. I do not suppose the monks were playing badminton. Most probably they were just sitting around on the ground in lively conversation, taking pleasure in each other’s company. The hunter was disedified. He had heard about monks. He expected them to be austere, world-weary, forbidding-looking creatures who gaze at skulls while scourging themselves. He was not prepared to find them cheerfully at ease. His ‘Tut!’, whether spoken or expressed by some gesture, must have been evident enough for Antony to pick it up. Instead of being upset, or of making a sarcastic remark about the world’s hypocrisy, Antony resolved, ever forthcoming, to help the man reach freeing insight.
There is gentle humour in the exercise he proposes. He, who will speak about the need to encounter the brothers ‘at their own level’ (the Greek verb means ‘to condescend’, but it has not the pejorative ring of its English equivalent), meets the hunter where he is. Instead of launching into complicated explanations about the search for balance in life, he sets out from something the other man will naturally grasp, asking him to consider how he uses his equipment. Antony gives the man time, considering: ‘How can I make him understand?’
This encounter shows how the attentive kindness which people saw in him when at last he came forth from twenty years of seclusion mellowed over time, and did not shy back from a little comedy.
We can imagine the hunter standing there, before a half-circle of monks, now suddenly looking deadly serious, pulling and pulling at his bow with sweat pouring down his forehead while thinking, ‘One millimetre more and this old thing will snap!’ Antony waits for him to reach his limit and unwittingly to speak words that will answer his own perplexity. Uninterrupted tension is unbearable for any created thing. There is a pattern in nature and relations, as in speech and music, of give-and-take. Relaxation need not be a sign of weakness. It may spring from self-knowledge, which is a form of humility, which is a great, albeit paradoxical, form of strength.
Antony, for being humane, was far from soft. He used to say: ‘God does not permit the enemy to wage war on this generation as he did on those of old. For he knows that people now are feeble, so would not endure it.’ We know the warfare he himself endured. He admitted, though, that rest has its part to play in the spiritual life, and was not ashamed to admit it. The idea of holy leisure, otium sacrum, is deeply rooted in monastic tradition.
Can we then enjoy leisure without being idle? Yes, we can. The distinction matters. To be idle is to avoid what needs to be done, to shun work and duty for selfish reasons, to waste time. To savour leisure, on the other hand, is in itself a high form of attention. It is a matter of being intensely present; of resting deliberately; of turning away from self towards the other, towards God and the world, in a state of receptivity, marvelling at the gift of it all, giving thanks. Such an attitude is intrinsic to contemplative living. It is something monks should foster as second nature. I would even say it is something they should be good at and enjoy.
In monastic vocabulary, scheduled times of rest are known as ‘recreations’. The word has slipped into worldly usage. We speak oxymoronically of ‘recreational activity’. It is useful, though, to hang on to the primary sense. To be a Christian is to let oneself be constantly re-created in Christ. Times of conscious rest are given us as opportunities for conscious consent to this divine work. For how can God fashion his image in us if we are always furiously busy, shaping our existence in ours?
Norway of the Year
At about this time of year in 1865, Emily Dickinson wrote to her sister, Mrs. J.G. Holland, after an update on family news: ‘It is also November. The noons are more laconic and the sundowns sterner, and Gibraltar lights make the village foreign. November always seemed to be the Norway of the year.’ Like Sadie Stein I have loved those lines since I first came across them, I can’t remember when. Stein speculates about the source of Dickinson’s association: Asbjørnsen and Moe? Immigrants’ tales? One can but speculate. What we can say is this: November, as well as being a time when nature, through processes of death, prepares for sleep is also a time when fields are prepared for next spring’s crops, when the air has a blessed freshness that intensifies breathing, and when subtle symphonies of colours can make you gasp with wonder before dusk.
Liminal Encounter
One sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath, or not?’ But they were silent. Then he took him and healed him, and let him go. And he said to them, ‘Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well, will not immediately pull him out on a sabbath day?’ And they could not reply to this. Luke 14.1-6.
There is incongruity in this account.
Jesus is invited out on a sabbath. The setting is formal, a society dinner: his host is a ‘leading Pharisee’. The atmosphere is tense. All watch him closely, curious to hear his singular teaching, no doubt; but also set on ‘catching him out’, as the Pharisees do, more and more, as the Gospel plot thickens.
Then we are told there was ‘in front of him a man with dropsy’, his limbs painfully swollen by trapped fluid. A smart scholar would surely not have included such an inelegant personage in his seating plan; furthermore, the abrupt ‘in front of him’ suggests the sick man’s appearance as an obstacle. It seems most likely he approached Jesus at the entrance to the house, blocking his entry, seeking attention first.
It is an encounter ad limina, then, taking place on the threshold between two worlds: that of the ailing riffraff of the streets and that of contemplative academe. Jesus brings the two together by means of a question. He asks the Pharisee & Co: ‘How does your learning, so sublime, engage with this affliction, this impurity?’
They have no answer.
Faith, ‘the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen’ (Heb 11.1) is tested by the visible and palpable, by what, and whom, we find in front of us.
What is concrete does not cancel out what is spiritual, but calls for it to be embodied, that the two may become one. Obstacles impeding our entry to the sanctuary of contemplation are not always an affliction; they may just be a summons not to think ourselves more sublime than God, who took flesh entirely, drinking the cup of the human condition to the dregs, tasting both its exhilaration and its bitterness.
After his dinner at the Pharisee’s house, Jesus told the crowds: ‘whoever of you does not renounce all he has cannot be my disciple’ (Lk 14.33).
The ‘all’ includes our certainty of having the totality of answers before life has finished putting its questions to us.
Miracle of the man suffering from dropsy, Mount Athos, Iviron monastery, MS. 5, fol. 299v.
There is incongruity in this account.
Jesus is invited out on a sabbath. The setting is formal, a society dinner: his host is a ‘leading Pharisee’. The atmosphere is tense. All watch him closely, curious to hear his singular teaching, no doubt; but also set on ‘catching him out’, as the Pharisees do, more and more, as the Gospel plot thickens.
Then we are told there was ‘in front of him a man with dropsy’, his limbs painfully swollen by trapped fluid. A smart scholar would surely not have included such an inelegant personage in his seating plan; furthermore, the abrupt ‘in front of him’ suggests the sick man’s appearance as an obstacle. It seems most likely he approached Jesus at the entrance to the house, blocking his entry, seeking attention first.
It is an encounter ad limina, then, taking place on the threshold between two worlds: that of the ailing riffraff of the streets and that of contemplative academe. Jesus brings the two together by means of a question. He asks the Pharisee & Co: ‘How does your learning, so sublime, engage with this affliction, this impurity?’
They have no answer.
Faith, ‘the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen’ (Heb 11.1) is tested by the visible and palpable, by what, and whom, we find in front of us.
What is concrete does not cancel out what is spiritual, but calls for it to be embodied, that the two may become one. Obstacles impeding our entry to the sanctuary of contemplation are not always an affliction; they may just be a summons not to think ourselves more sublime than God, who took flesh entirely, drinking the cup of the human condition to the dregs, tasting both its exhilaration and its bitterness.
After his dinner at the Pharisee’s house, Jesus told the crowds: ‘whoever of you does not renounce all he has cannot be my disciple’ (Lk 14.33).
The ‘all’ includes our certainty of having the totality of answers before life has finished putting its questions to us.
Miracle of the man suffering from dropsy, Mount Athos, Iviron monastery, MS. 5, fol. 299v.
Herod, that Fox
Some Pharisees came up to Jesus. ‘Go away’ they said. ‘Leave this place, because Herod means to kill you.’ He replied, ‘You may go and give that fox this message: Learn that today and tomorrow I cast out devils and on the third day attain my end. But for today and tomorrow and the next day I must go on, since it would not be right for a prophet to die outside Jerusalem. Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you refused!’ Luke 13.31-35.
I love this passage.
While the Gospel texts do permit us to know many things about Jesus, we rarely get the sense of his temperament, of the sort of things that might have made him smile, the jokes he might have made.
For, surely, when the Church assures us that the Son of God was made fully man, that means he will also have had a sense of humour.
One can catch a twinkle in the Lord’s eye when he refers to Herod as ‘that fox’.
He, ‘who knew what was in man’ (John 2.25) had seen through this blustering kinglet, ambitious and lustful, yet not insensitive to matters of ultimate importance. After all, Herod had listened to John ‘gladly’ (Mark 6.20).
In Aesop’s Fables, the fox is a sly fellow, at times likeable, too; and time and again proven to be less clever, poor thing, than he holds himself to be, as in the tale that speaks of a fox’s intrigues against a cock and a dog, out of which he comes the loser, to prove the moral: ‘They who lay traps for others are often caught by their own bait’.
It is hard not to be struck, however, by the juxtaposition of the image of the fox with that of a brood of chickens in the simile that follows: ‘Jerusalem! How often have I longed to gather your children as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.’
An apparently amiable rogue is a rogue nonetheless, and can be dangerous. The king who flattered the Forerunner with friendly attention had John’s head chopped off in a trice when his own pride was at stake.
There’s a lesson in that.
Photograph: Wikimedia.
I love this passage.
While the Gospel texts do permit us to know many things about Jesus, we rarely get the sense of his temperament, of the sort of things that might have made him smile, the jokes he might have made.
For, surely, when the Church assures us that the Son of God was made fully man, that means he will also have had a sense of humour.
One can catch a twinkle in the Lord’s eye when he refers to Herod as ‘that fox’.
He, ‘who knew what was in man’ (John 2.25) had seen through this blustering kinglet, ambitious and lustful, yet not insensitive to matters of ultimate importance. After all, Herod had listened to John ‘gladly’ (Mark 6.20).
In Aesop’s Fables, the fox is a sly fellow, at times likeable, too; and time and again proven to be less clever, poor thing, than he holds himself to be, as in the tale that speaks of a fox’s intrigues against a cock and a dog, out of which he comes the loser, to prove the moral: ‘They who lay traps for others are often caught by their own bait’.
It is hard not to be struck, however, by the juxtaposition of the image of the fox with that of a brood of chickens in the simile that follows: ‘Jerusalem! How often have I longed to gather your children as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.’
An apparently amiable rogue is a rogue nonetheless, and can be dangerous. The king who flattered the Forerunner with friendly attention had John’s head chopped off in a trice when his own pride was at stake.
There’s a lesson in that.
Photograph: Wikimedia.
For Many
Romans 8.26-30: The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness.
Luke 13.22-30: But he will reply, ‘I do not know where you come from. Away from me.’
In the Gospel narrative of the institution of the Eucharist, we read: ‘This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many’, in Greek: hyper pollōn.
The sense is unambiguous, but has caused a headache for liturgists seeking to render it in vernacular translations of the Eucharistic Prayers.
For is the ‘for many’ not somehow exclusive? Does it not limit the reach of the Eucharistic sacrifice effectively foreshadowing Christ’s Passion?
May our Blessed Lord have spoken, in distraction, out of turn?
In some national contexts this view has prevailed. So the Germans hang on to their ‘für alle’, the Italians to their ‘per tutti’ — one does not quite see how, given that the Latin editio typica has ‘pro multis’, which simply has to be, ‘for many’.
‘God desires all men to be saved’. This is axiomatic to the New Testament (1 Tim 2.4). God does not, though, force his saving on anyone. We are free to embrace or reject it: this awesome privilege is inscribed on our iconic nature.
The pouring out of Christ’s Blood on the cross is a wholly gracious dispensation, It cannot be fathomed by any merely juridical category.
A grace is a gift. A gift proposed calls out to be received. Should it not be, the dynamic of grace and thanksgiving, ēucharistia, is incomplete.
The ‘for many’ recalls that receptivity is no matter of course: such is God’s immense regard for our freedom.
Today’s Gospel reminds us sternly of this fact. It is possible to have eaten and drunk with Christ, yet to make oneself unfit for his redemption, effectively to be locked out, if eucharistic grace is not allowed to saturate and transform our being.
Redemption, as renewal and recreation, is not improvised. It is made ready in an organic process of growth. This process is not realised despite us. We must say yes to it, cooperate.
Let us keep alive, then, our wish to be saved, and for others to be, too; let us keep looking for the narrow door, and direct others towards it.
The phrase ‘for many’ does not exclude ‘for all’, only does not take it for granted.
‘The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness’. If only we let ourselves be helped. Amen.
Luke 13.22-30: But he will reply, ‘I do not know where you come from. Away from me.’
In the Gospel narrative of the institution of the Eucharist, we read: ‘This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many’, in Greek: hyper pollōn.
The sense is unambiguous, but has caused a headache for liturgists seeking to render it in vernacular translations of the Eucharistic Prayers.
For is the ‘for many’ not somehow exclusive? Does it not limit the reach of the Eucharistic sacrifice effectively foreshadowing Christ’s Passion?
May our Blessed Lord have spoken, in distraction, out of turn?
In some national contexts this view has prevailed. So the Germans hang on to their ‘für alle’, the Italians to their ‘per tutti’ — one does not quite see how, given that the Latin editio typica has ‘pro multis’, which simply has to be, ‘for many’.
‘God desires all men to be saved’. This is axiomatic to the New Testament (1 Tim 2.4). God does not, though, force his saving on anyone. We are free to embrace or reject it: this awesome privilege is inscribed on our iconic nature.
The pouring out of Christ’s Blood on the cross is a wholly gracious dispensation, It cannot be fathomed by any merely juridical category.
A grace is a gift. A gift proposed calls out to be received. Should it not be, the dynamic of grace and thanksgiving, ēucharistia, is incomplete.
The ‘for many’ recalls that receptivity is no matter of course: such is God’s immense regard for our freedom.
Today’s Gospel reminds us sternly of this fact. It is possible to have eaten and drunk with Christ, yet to make oneself unfit for his redemption, effectively to be locked out, if eucharistic grace is not allowed to saturate and transform our being.
Redemption, as renewal and recreation, is not improvised. It is made ready in an organic process of growth. This process is not realised despite us. We must say yes to it, cooperate.
Let us keep alive, then, our wish to be saved, and for others to be, too; let us keep looking for the narrow door, and direct others towards it.
The phrase ‘for many’ does not exclude ‘for all’, only does not take it for granted.
‘The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness’. If only we let ourselves be helped. Amen.
Sts Simon and Jude
In the tenth chapter of the book of Genesis, we are told how, once Noah’s Ark was settled on firm ground, his sons scattered over the face of the earth. So closely were various parts of the inhabited world linked with them and their descendants that geography and ethnography become one in later biblical narrative, exactly as it would a many centuries later, when Israel’s sons inhabited the Land of Promise. Personal names are irrevocably connected with places.
In the early Church, lists of Jesus’s Apostles evoked similar associations. We associate Rome with Peter, Egypt with Mark, India with Thomas, Malta with Paul, and so forth. True to Christ’s commandment the Apostles scattered to the north and south, east and west. Like Noah’s children, and Jacob’s, they represented a new humanity. That new humanity had to spread everywhere, lest the light of Christ should be hidden under a bushel.
It is fashionable these days to say we not know nothing about the later life of the apostles, that these men, so characteristically present in the Gospels, vanish into thin air after the Ascension. That is what sceptics maintain who have no time for tradition.
But perhaps we need not be quite so reductive?
The Apostles we celebrate today, Simon and Jude, are in very ancient sources associated with a mission to the East. A venerable document of early Church history, the Doctrine of Addai, tells us how Jude, also known as Thaddeus, or Addai in Syriac, was despatched by St Thomas to Edessa in modern-day Turkey. There his preaching and works of healing brought about the conversion of the city. Let the doubter doubt. The fact remains that Christianity was established in that part of Mesopotamia by the early second century with a firm claim to Apostolic origins. Someone must have brought it there, and Thaddeus’s name is connected with the mission from the first.
An impressive feature of the Doctrine of Addai is the Apostle’s serene self-consciousness. He knows he is carrying an infinitely precious message; at the same time he is entirely uninterested in any honour for himself. He does not even bother to make a display of his humility. So obvious is it to him that his person is of no consequence. What matters is the word entrusted to him, the spiritual power he dispenses. At one point, King Abgar of Edessa wants to pay Thaddeus gold and silver for his benefits to the city. Thaddeus calmly retorts, ‘If we have left our own property behind, how can we accept other people’s?’
It is not strange that this humble man should gradually disappear in the mist of history. He was concerned to bestow Christ, not to leave traces of himself. He lived out the principle of all Christian mission: ‘He must increase, I must decrease.’ He was determined to remain poor and transparent, to be a voice crying in the wilderness, not a protagonist accumulating thousands of ‘likes’ on Facebook. In that respect he remains a timeless example to us all.
The Mandylion of Edessa. The foremost relic of the evangelisation of Edessa is an image of the face of Christ, not an ‘I was here’ signature of the Apostle. That says something.
In the early Church, lists of Jesus’s Apostles evoked similar associations. We associate Rome with Peter, Egypt with Mark, India with Thomas, Malta with Paul, and so forth. True to Christ’s commandment the Apostles scattered to the north and south, east and west. Like Noah’s children, and Jacob’s, they represented a new humanity. That new humanity had to spread everywhere, lest the light of Christ should be hidden under a bushel.
It is fashionable these days to say we not know nothing about the later life of the apostles, that these men, so characteristically present in the Gospels, vanish into thin air after the Ascension. That is what sceptics maintain who have no time for tradition.
But perhaps we need not be quite so reductive?
The Apostles we celebrate today, Simon and Jude, are in very ancient sources associated with a mission to the East. A venerable document of early Church history, the Doctrine of Addai, tells us how Jude, also known as Thaddeus, or Addai in Syriac, was despatched by St Thomas to Edessa in modern-day Turkey. There his preaching and works of healing brought about the conversion of the city. Let the doubter doubt. The fact remains that Christianity was established in that part of Mesopotamia by the early second century with a firm claim to Apostolic origins. Someone must have brought it there, and Thaddeus’s name is connected with the mission from the first.
An impressive feature of the Doctrine of Addai is the Apostle’s serene self-consciousness. He knows he is carrying an infinitely precious message; at the same time he is entirely uninterested in any honour for himself. He does not even bother to make a display of his humility. So obvious is it to him that his person is of no consequence. What matters is the word entrusted to him, the spiritual power he dispenses. At one point, King Abgar of Edessa wants to pay Thaddeus gold and silver for his benefits to the city. Thaddeus calmly retorts, ‘If we have left our own property behind, how can we accept other people’s?’
It is not strange that this humble man should gradually disappear in the mist of history. He was concerned to bestow Christ, not to leave traces of himself. He lived out the principle of all Christian mission: ‘He must increase, I must decrease.’ He was determined to remain poor and transparent, to be a voice crying in the wilderness, not a protagonist accumulating thousands of ‘likes’ on Facebook. In that respect he remains a timeless example to us all.
The Mandylion of Edessa. The foremost relic of the evangelisation of Edessa is an image of the face of Christ, not an ‘I was here’ signature of the Apostle. That says something.
Desert Fathers 44
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At a certain point Abba Poemen went into the land of Egypt to dwell there. It happened that there was, living next to him, a brother who had a woman. The elder knew about it, but did not put the brother to shame. It came to pass that one night the woman gave birth. Knowing what was going one, the elder summoned a young brother and said: ‘Take a jug of wine and give it to the neighbour, for today he has need of it.’ His brothers did not know what was going on. The brother [next door], though, was greatly profited. He repented. After some days he sent the woman away, giving her absolutely everything she needed. Then he came to the elder and said: ‘Abba, from today I will begin a new life.’ He came and built a cell for himself right next to that of the elder, going to see him often. And the elder shed light upon him. Pointing out the way that leads to God, he gained [his brother].
We have all faced this dilemma in one way or another. Someone close to us, someone we care for, does something reprehensible. We wonder whether we should try to put him right. If we decide to have a go, the still thornier question arises: how?
For our own sake the temptation is to bulldoze in and lay down the law. It is, after all, satisfying to be in the right. By making our point strongly, without mincing words, we affirm ourselves; what is more, we sense that justice is done to high principles. But will the other person receive what is given?
A correction made with anger, be the passion ever so subliminal, is likely to call anger forth, and resistance. There is a chance the door will be slammed in our face. We may then think: ‘At least now he knows!’ But will there be benefit ensuing? Do I correct my brother to feel good about it, or because I hope for his change of heart? If my intervention causes a hardening instead, I shall be responsible, and answerable, for it.
Special care must be taken when trespasses observed concern matters of the heart. We are vulnerable in this area, where all sorts of interconnections overlap. A slight slip of the surgeon’s scalpel risks affecting a vital function. Further, in such matters there is often a second party involved, who may carry no guilt at all, indeed, who may be the situation’s victim. Their integrity must be respected.
Poemen’s course of action is exemplary. It provides us with a paradigm applicable in a range of circumstances. In the story Poemen arrives abroad into a settlement where people are living with established habits. His move may be connected with bandit raids we know caused havoc in Scetis in the early fifth century, driving a number of monks to seek a new home elsewhere. Having found a convenient spot for his cell, Poemen observes the monastic neighbourhood. He sees that the next brother is living a double life. Outwardly a solitary, he is conducting an affair. The text says he ‘had a woman’. Poemen, a revered authority, could have raised an outcry: ‘Brothers, in our midst is one who brings shame on our profession!’
He does not do that. When a religious or priest fails in celibacy, there is often great sadness involved: loneliness, a sense of purposelessness, a loss of direction. Poemen is not satisfied to upbraid his neighbour; he is concerned for his salvation. In addition he cares for the woman, great with child. None of the other brothers knew what was going on. The couple were good at concealing their relationship. Poemen, meanwhile, was a true monk with eyes trained to see beyond appearance, into the secrets of the heart. He bided his time, waited for the opportune moment.
The day came for the woman to give birth. Poemen asked his assistant to call next door with a gift of wine. For us today, a bottle of wine in a smart gift bag is a gesture of celebration. I do not think this was the intent of Poemen’s gift. He sent it to his brother ‘for today he has need of it’. The wine was intended as sustenance after labour; it may have served hygienic purposes, as when the Good Samaritan poured ‘oil and wine’ on the wounds of the beaten-up man in the ditch, by way of first aid. Be that as it may, the erring brother received it as a sign of tenderness. He, who had thought his fault was secret, realised that Poemen, the great ascetic, has known about it long, yet had not spoken a censorious word or given an angry look. Instead he graced him, in his hour of testing, with a kind, much-needed gift. This was the impetus he needed to renounce duplicity and return to the path of his profession.
And the woman? We are not told much about her. She will have had her own tale to tell, her own wounds to be bound up. The monk did give her ‘everything she needed’, trying to provide for her justly. Should he have followed her into town? She may not have wanted it. He could have made her unhappy. There is material here for a Tolstoyan novel. We must content ourselves with what we know, however. The monk, having learnt the hard way what may happen when a man directs himself, entrusted himself to Poemen. Poemen, alive with the Spirit, ‘shed light upon him’, tracing out for him the way that leads to God. That way he ‘gained’ him, a turn of phrase that makes us think of the parable of the Prodigal Son. That is the end fraternal correction must always seek to reach. May we never forget it.
Francis Hayman, The Good Samaritan. Wikimedia Commons.
At a certain point Abba Poemen went into the land of Egypt to dwell there. It happened that there was, living next to him, a brother who had a woman. The elder knew about it, but did not put the brother to shame. It came to pass that one night the woman gave birth. Knowing what was going one, the elder summoned a young brother and said: ‘Take a jug of wine and give it to the neighbour, for today he has need of it.’ His brothers did not know what was going on. The brother [next door], though, was greatly profited. He repented. After some days he sent the woman away, giving her absolutely everything she needed. Then he came to the elder and said: ‘Abba, from today I will begin a new life.’ He came and built a cell for himself right next to that of the elder, going to see him often. And the elder shed light upon him. Pointing out the way that leads to God, he gained [his brother].
We have all faced this dilemma in one way or another. Someone close to us, someone we care for, does something reprehensible. We wonder whether we should try to put him right. If we decide to have a go, the still thornier question arises: how?
For our own sake the temptation is to bulldoze in and lay down the law. It is, after all, satisfying to be in the right. By making our point strongly, without mincing words, we affirm ourselves; what is more, we sense that justice is done to high principles. But will the other person receive what is given?
A correction made with anger, be the passion ever so subliminal, is likely to call anger forth, and resistance. There is a chance the door will be slammed in our face. We may then think: ‘At least now he knows!’ But will there be benefit ensuing? Do I correct my brother to feel good about it, or because I hope for his change of heart? If my intervention causes a hardening instead, I shall be responsible, and answerable, for it.
Special care must be taken when trespasses observed concern matters of the heart. We are vulnerable in this area, where all sorts of interconnections overlap. A slight slip of the surgeon’s scalpel risks affecting a vital function. Further, in such matters there is often a second party involved, who may carry no guilt at all, indeed, who may be the situation’s victim. Their integrity must be respected.
Poemen’s course of action is exemplary. It provides us with a paradigm applicable in a range of circumstances. In the story Poemen arrives abroad into a settlement where people are living with established habits. His move may be connected with bandit raids we know caused havoc in Scetis in the early fifth century, driving a number of monks to seek a new home elsewhere. Having found a convenient spot for his cell, Poemen observes the monastic neighbourhood. He sees that the next brother is living a double life. Outwardly a solitary, he is conducting an affair. The text says he ‘had a woman’. Poemen, a revered authority, could have raised an outcry: ‘Brothers, in our midst is one who brings shame on our profession!’
He does not do that. When a religious or priest fails in celibacy, there is often great sadness involved: loneliness, a sense of purposelessness, a loss of direction. Poemen is not satisfied to upbraid his neighbour; he is concerned for his salvation. In addition he cares for the woman, great with child. None of the other brothers knew what was going on. The couple were good at concealing their relationship. Poemen, meanwhile, was a true monk with eyes trained to see beyond appearance, into the secrets of the heart. He bided his time, waited for the opportune moment.
The day came for the woman to give birth. Poemen asked his assistant to call next door with a gift of wine. For us today, a bottle of wine in a smart gift bag is a gesture of celebration. I do not think this was the intent of Poemen’s gift. He sent it to his brother ‘for today he has need of it’. The wine was intended as sustenance after labour; it may have served hygienic purposes, as when the Good Samaritan poured ‘oil and wine’ on the wounds of the beaten-up man in the ditch, by way of first aid. Be that as it may, the erring brother received it as a sign of tenderness. He, who had thought his fault was secret, realised that Poemen, the great ascetic, has known about it long, yet had not spoken a censorious word or given an angry look. Instead he graced him, in his hour of testing, with a kind, much-needed gift. This was the impetus he needed to renounce duplicity and return to the path of his profession.
And the woman? We are not told much about her. She will have had her own tale to tell, her own wounds to be bound up. The monk did give her ‘everything she needed’, trying to provide for her justly. Should he have followed her into town? She may not have wanted it. He could have made her unhappy. There is material here for a Tolstoyan novel. We must content ourselves with what we know, however. The monk, having learnt the hard way what may happen when a man directs himself, entrusted himself to Poemen. Poemen, alive with the Spirit, ‘shed light upon him’, tracing out for him the way that leads to God. That way he ‘gained’ him, a turn of phrase that makes us think of the parable of the Prodigal Son. That is the end fraternal correction must always seek to reach. May we never forget it.
Francis Hayman, The Good Samaritan. Wikimedia Commons.