St. Ignatius of Antioch

October 17 is the feast day of St. Ignatius of Antioch, an early second-century martyr of the Church. As one of the Apostolic Fathers, and a disciple of St. John the Apostle, he provides an invaluable view into the nature of the early Church. Ignatius was the third Bishop of Antioch, and as Theodoret tells us, he was appointed to this see by the Apostle Peter.

En route to Rome to be fed to the lions, he penned six letters to the churches in his region, as well as a letter to St. Polycarp. Cardinal Newman writes that "the whole system of Catholic doctrine may be discovered, at least in outline, not to say in parts filled up, in the course of his seven epistles." His Letter to the Smyrnaeans is the oldest extant document that we know of to use the word Catholic to describe the Church. Beyond this, his letters contain many beautiful teachings of the Church, such as expositions on the Eucharist and the importance of bishops. He also writes on the unity and hiearchical nature of the Church, as well as exposing the errors of the Docetists, who denied Christ's humanity.

Remarkably, he instructed his readers to not interfere with his impending martyrdom:

Allow me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ.

[Letter to the Romans, Chapter 4]

His writings on the Eucharist show that he clearly believed in the Real Presence:

They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again.

[Letter to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter 7]

He also referred to the Eucharist as "the medicine of immortality" in Chapter 7 of his Letter to the Ephesians. Furthermore, he instucts us that bishops are stewards of the Eucharist:

Let that be deemed a proper Eucharst, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it.

[Letter to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter 8]

Indeed, Ignatius speaks clearly on the role of deacons, priests, and bishops.

For, since you are subject to the bishop as to Jesus Christ, you appear to me to live not after the manner of men, but according to Jesus Christ, who died for us, in order, by believing in His death, you may escape from death. It is therefore necessary that, as you indeed do, so without the bishop you should do nothing, but should also be subject to the presbytery, as to the apostle of Jesus Christ, who is our hope, in whom, if we live, we shall [at last] be found. It is fitting also that the deacons, as being [the ministers] of the mysteries of Jesus Christ, should in every respect be pleasing to all. For they are not ministers of meat and drink, but servants of the Church of God.

[Letter to the Trallians, Chapter 2]

St. Ignatius, pray for us. 

Links to his letters:

Letter to the Ephesians

Letter to the Magnesians

Letter to the Philadelphians

Letter to the Romans

Letter to the Smynaeans

Letter to the Trallians

Letter to Polycarp

The Catholic Contribution to Western Civilization

The Catholic contribution to Western Civilization has been immense. In this entry I want to focus on three areas where everyone recognizes the Catholic contribution: music, art, and exploration. Many of the giants in these areas were members of the Catholic Church. And their contributions flowed from a Catholic view of the world and reality. (Biographical details coming soon)

Some Famous Catholic Composers:

• Ludwig von Beethoven (1770-1827) - Wrote many religious works, including the Mass in C Major and Missa Solemnis
• Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) - Deeply religious composer who wrote Stabat Mater and a Mass in D Major
• Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) - Wrote 14 Masses, 1 Stabat Mater, 2 Te Deums, and 34 offertories and anthems
• Franz Liszt (1811-1886) - Franciscan tertiary who has been called the "greatest pianist in the annals of music"
• Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) - Composed the Selve morale e spirituale and the Vespers of 1610, and became a priest later in life
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) - Composed more than 60 pieces of sacred music
• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594) - "The greatest composer of liturgical music of all time"
• Franz Schubert (1797-1828) - Wrote no less than 30 pieces of sacred music
• Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) - Known for his Four Seasons and for being called the "Red Priest," Vivaldi also composed dozens of pieces of sacred music

Some Famous Catholic Artists:

• Fra Angelico (c.1395-1455) - Domincan friar who made invalubale contributions to religious art
• Sandro Botticelli (c.1445-1510) - Renaissance painter who is best known for his Primavera and The Birth of Venus, but who also created many religious works, including frescoes in the Sistine Chapel
• Caravaggio (1571-1610) - Baroque painter who painted many biblical scenes including The Calling of St. Matthew
• Salvador Dali (1904-1989) - Spanish surrealist artist whose most famous religious painting is the Christ of Saint John of the Cross
• Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) - Renaissance master known for his Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, as well as other religous works
• Donatello (c.1386-1466) - Renaissance sculptor who created many religious works
• El Greco (1541-1614) - Religious works include The Opening of the Fifth Seal and the Holy Trinity
• Jan van Eyck (c.1395-1441) - Flemish painter known for his Annunciation, Madonna and Child, and Ghent Altarpiece
• Giotto (1266-1337) - Founder of the Italian school of painting who dedicated his life to creating religious works
• Michelangelo (1475-1564) - Renaissance giant who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and who sculpted the Pieta
• Raphael (1483-1520) - Renaissance master who has been called "the most famous name in the history of painting"
• Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) - Flemish Baroque painter known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, and landscapes
• Titian (c.1490-1576) - Has been called "the greatest of Venetian painters"

Some Famous Catholic Explorers

• Vasco Núñez de Balboa (c.1475-1519) - First European to reach the Pacific from the New World
• John Cabot (c.1450-c.1499) - Discovered parts of North America
• Samuel de Champlain (c.1567-1635) - Explorer who founded New France and Quebec City
• Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) - Discovered the Americas
• Francisco Vásquez de Coronado (1510-1554) - Explored the southwestern United States
• Bartolomeu Dias (c.1451-1500) - Led the first European expedition to sail around Africa's Cape of Good Hope
• Vasco da Gama (c.1460-1524) - Discovered an ocearn route from Portugal to the East
• Louis Jolliet (1645-1700) - Explored the Mississippi River with Marquette
• Juan Ponce de León (1474-1521) - Led the first European expedition to Florida
• Ferdinand Magellan (c.1480-1521) - His expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe
• Jacques Marquette (1637-1675) - Jesuit priest, who along with Louis Jolliet, mapped the northern portions of the Mississippi River
• Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) - Started the first school for oceanic navigation
• Marco Polo (c.1254-1324) - One of the first Europeans to travel into Mongolia and China
• Robert de LaSalle (1643-1687) - Explored the Great Lakes region of the United States; earlier in his life he had been a member of the Jesuits
• Hernando de Soto (c.1496-1542) - First European to cross the Mississippi River; also explored the southeastern United States
• Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) - America was named after Vespucci in 1507; first to discover that the Americas were separate from the continent of Asia

Did Constantine Found the Catholic Church?

The erroneous idea that Constantine created the Roman Catholic Church comes up again and again in my conversations with non-Catholic Christians. It seems that the main points of contension are the Council of Nicea (with Constantine supposedly presiding and determining doctrine, or so they say), the introduction of pagan practices into Christianity, and Constantine's involvement with the building of the old St. Peter's Cathedral. But usually the allegation is made without any mention of the particulars of history.

I think there are two larger issues at play here, however. The first is closed-minded anti-Catholicism. Any fact (true or manufactured) that seems to undermine Catholicism is accepted without question. The second issue is that too many non-Catholics seem to think that the early Church is amorphous and unknowable. But this doesn't have to be so. Indeed, there are hundreds and hundreds of extant works from the first few centuries of the Church. As a matter of fact, the Apostolic Fathers were contemporaries of the Apostles themselves, some even being their disciples. Perhaps they have some valuable things to say about the nature of the Church?

Let us return to the subject at hand. What was Constantine's role in the Council of Nicaea? Answer: He was mostly a facilitator. Firstly, he provided one of his summer houses to act as the host site. Secondly, he provided transportation on the Roman road system for all the bishops of the Council. But his involvement in the Council itself was minimal. "The emperor himself delivered an address in Latin, urging the restoration of peace in the Church," as the Arian heresy was ravaging the Church at the time. "Otherwise Constantine took no substantive part in the deliberations; it was an affair of the Catholic bishops." (From Kenneth D. Whitehead's One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: The Early Church was the Catholic Church)

Several other rhetorical questions can also refute this myth. If Constantine founded the Catholic Church, why did he move the imperial seat to Byzantium (later Constantinople, and now Istanbul) in 330? If Constantine founded the Catholic Church, why didn't he make it the official religion of the Roman Empire? (Constantine merely made it legal; Theodosius I made it the official religion in the late 4th century.) And why did Constantine wait until the end of his life to convert?

The antidote to this myth is to be found in the writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. These writings come before the Council of Nicaea (and usually before the Edict of Milan by Constantine in 313 AD). These early Church Fathers speak of a Faith that is distinctly Catholic: they believed in the Real Presence, the hierarchy of the Church (deacons, priests, bishops), the Primacy of Peter, Marian devotion, infant baptism, and many other Catholic teachings. This can be explained with one simple fact: the early Church was the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church and Time

The Catholic Church has always had a deep interest in the philosophy and measurement of time. In the early Middle Ages, Augustine and Boethius made important contributions to the philosophy of time. Augustine may have been the first to grasp and explain the relative nature of time. In response to a question about why God waited so long to create the word, Augustine wrote that time is a component of creation and that before the beginning there was no time. The question, therefore, was superfluous. Boethius expanded on this concept by giving a proper definition of eternity. In his Consolation of Philosophy, he defined eternity as "the complete, simultaneous and perfect possession of everlasting life."

Another important contribution from the early Middle Ages was the B.C./A.D. schema invented by the monk Dionysius in the sixth century, and popularized by Saint Bede the Venerable in the eighth century. As Fr. Christopher Rengers writes in his book The 33 Doctors of the Church, after Dionysius and Bede made the birth of Christ the centerpiece of history, this reckoning of time soon took root in England. From there "it went via English missionaries and teachers, and Bede's own works, to the Continent. Adoption by Charlemagne, and in the century following him by the Popes, brought it into universal use in the West."

The first clocks were invented by churchmen in the Middle Ages, and they were in common use in cathedrals, monasteries and town halls by the thirteenth century. Thomas E. Woods describes a few of the first clocks in his book How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization:

The first clock of which we have any record was built by the future Pope Sylvester II for the German town of Magdeburg, around the year 996. Much more sophisticated clocks were built by later monks. Peter Lightfoot, a fourteenth-century monk of Glastonbury, built one of the oldest clocks still in existence, which now sits, in excellent condition, in London’s Science Museum.

He continues:

Richard of Wallingford, a fourteenth-century abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Saint Albans (and one of the initiators of Western trigonometry), is well known for the large astronomical clock he designed for that monastery. It has been said that a clock that equaled it in technological sophistication did not appear for at least two centuries. The magnificent clock, a marvel for its time, no longer survives, perhaps having perished amid Henry VIII’s sixteenth-century monastic confiscations. However, Richard’s notes on the clock’s design have permitted scholars to build a model and even a full-scale reconstruction. In addition to timekeeping, the clock could accurately predict lunar eclipses.”

The Church's most notable contribution to timekeeping, however, was the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in the late sixteenth century. The commission to reform the calendar was organized by Pope Gregory the VIII and the main architect of the project was the Jesuit priest Christopher Clavius. When it was all said and done, ten days were removed from the month of October in 1582, and the calendar was again in line with the solar year. Catholic countries quickly adopted the reformed calendar, but Protestant and Eastern Orthodox countries were remarkably slow in implementing it. For example, England did not adopt the calendar until 1752, and many of the Eastern Europeans waited until the early 20th century!

On The Terms Catholic & Protestant

"Where is the word Catholic found in the Bible?" This apparent critique is a favorite of Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians who seek to discredit the Catholic Church as a later development in Christian history. Many non-Catholic Christians believe they are part of a pure Bible church stripped of all the so-called man-made traditions added by the Catholic Church. What they do not realize, however, is that many Protestant views of the world find their source in the nominalism that preceded the Reformation. Nominalists denied the existence of universals, and were the opposing school of the realists (Thomas Aquinas being foremost among the realists, although Nominalism developed after his death). The rhetorical question found above is nominalism stripped of its intellectualism.

What is not fully apparent to these individuals is that Christ established a Church in objective reality. While names are important and should signify the ultimate reality they are attached to, they can never capture that reality completely. This is why Jesus was given many names in the New Testament. But sometimes names do not signify their underlying realities. For instance, naming a particular church the Church of Christ does not make it so. And calling someone a bishop in a fly-by-night church does not make that person a bishop. The office of bishop has a universal reality outside of its name. (In the city in which I live there are dozens of individuals who think they are bishops simply because of the title).

The Church established by Christ was built on the foundation of the Apostles, is marked with holiness, has a mandate to be universal in scope, is fundamentally one, and has both visible and invisible aspects. It is this Church that is now called the Catholic Church (catholic means universal). The name matters much less than the objective reality.

I have a different set of observations about the term Protestant. I see a couple of problems using this term to describe non-Catholic Christians. Firstly, how effective is it for a body to define itself by what it is not (i.e. not Catholic)? That is something for its opponents to do. Being against something is only a means to the end of being for something. Secondly, it is disingenuous to group together under the the umbrella of Protestantism the thousands of non-Catholic Christian sects that have populated history in both space and time. What does the 16th century Lutheran church have to do with 19th century fundamentalism? Very little I would answer. In fact, the 16th century Lutheran church was much closer to Catholicism than it is to 95% of the sects that have come into existence since the Reformation. Another important point is that the early reformers (i.e. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli) never intended to set in motion a continuously dividing and subdividing Protestant world. They thought (wrongly) that they were each restoring the true Church founded by Christ. This is why the early reformers had contentious relationships and often called the teachings of their opponents heresies.

The Four Marks of Church Fathers

The Church Fathers are an invaluable resource for learning about the history and doctrine of the early Church. But what makes one a Father of the Church? Just as the Church has four marks, so do the Fathers as well. In the words of the William A. Jurgens in Volume 1 of his three part series The Faith of the Early Fathers:

The Church, we learned as children, has four marks by which it may be known. Coincidentally there are four marks also by which a writer is recognized as a Father of the Church: a) orthodox doctrine, b) sanctity of life, c) antiquity, and d) approval of the Church. Antiquity is easily decided. The patristic age, by common agreement, ends in the West with the death of St. Isidore of Seville in the year 636 A.D., and in the East with the death of St. John Damascene in 749 A.D.

The antiquity of the writer is easier to establish than the other three marks. Orthodoxy does not mean that all writings must be free from error. It simply means that a writer was devoted to orthodoxy and attempted to adhere to the Faith of the Church. As for sanctity of life, holiness does not mean the same thing as impeccability. Indeed, many who have become saints lived very imperfect lives before their conversions (as can be seen in Augustine's Confessions). Finally, approval by the Church is the most difficult mark to define. Most Church Fathers established their authority as their writings were used throughout history.

There are two more categories to consider: Apostolic Fathers and ecclesiastical writers. The Apostolic Fathers are a subset of the larger group of Church Fathers. The Apostolic Fathers are those writers who lived in the Apostolic Age, that is, before the death of the Apostle John (i.e. St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Clement of Rome, St. Polycarp of Smyrna). Ecclesiastical writers, on the other hand, are those who lived in the patristic age but lack one or more of the other marks. Ecclesiastical writers include heretics such as Arius and Novatian.

Who, then, are the Doctors of the Church? According to Fr. Christopher Rengers in his book The 33 Doctors of the Church:

There are three requisites for this highly distinguished title: holiness of life, importance and orthodoxy of writings, and official recognition by the Church.

As can be seen, Doctors share many similarities with the Fathers. There are key differences, however. For instance, a Doctor of the Church did not have to live during the Patristic Age, although many were from the first centuries of the Church. The other key distinction is that the Doctors have been recognized by the Church because of the volume of their writings and significance of their teachings.

It is not the case, therefore, that what the Church called a Father became a Doctor later on in time, so as to be inclusive to women. That they are not the same can be proved through example. For instance, some writers are both Fathers and Doctors (Augustine, Jerome, Athanasius, etc.), some are only Fathers (Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus, etc.), some are only Doctors (Francis de Sales, Teresa of Avila, Aquinas), and some fall into neither camp (the remaining 99.999999%).

Who will be the next Doctor of the Church? The two names I hear most are Irenaeus and Duns Scotus. But I think the next Doctor of the Church should be Ignatius of Loyola, as he founded the Jesuits, composed the Spiritual Exercises, was a missiorary of the Church, and changed the course of European and Church history.

My Favorite Passages from Mere Christianity

Here are some of my favorite passages from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis:

We believe in decency so much that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behavior that we find all these explanations. It is only out bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good behavior down to ourselves.

In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get neither comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and in the end, despair.

Some people put up as version of Christianity suitable for a child of six and make that the object of their attack. When you try to explain the Christian doctrine as it is really held by an instructed adult, they say it’s all too complicated and that if there really were a God they are sure he would have made religion simple. Notice their idea of God making religion simple, as if religion were something God invented, and not his statement to us of certain unalterable facts about his own nature.

Repentance is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if he chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like. If you ask God to take you back without it, you are really asking him to let you back without going back.

The belief in the immortality of the human person has a connection with the difference between totalitarianism and democracy. If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilization, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilization, compared with his, is only a moment.

Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature.

How could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life—namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.

When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off guard. I had not time to collect myself. Surely what a man does when he is taken off guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: It only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only show me what an ill-tempered man I am.