Semper Reformanda Radio recently produced a series of five podcasts on the Roman Catholic view of Mary under the title Roman Catholics and their Queen. The purpose of this blog series is to provide the supporting data behind the podcasts. We hope this will be helpful to those who would like to become familiar with the Roman Catholic claims to apostolicity for their Marian position, and the historical and biblical data showing that the apostles and the Early Church knew nothing of it.

We continue this week with the supporting data for Episode 3.

Episode 3: Mary, the Immaculate Conception

Roman Catholics teach that Mary, at the moment of her conception, in view of the merits of Christ's death on the cross, was preserved free of the stain of sin, and free of concupiscence —the inclination to sin—as well.

• The Roman Catholic support for this teaching stems from the following basic premises:
  1. Typologically, Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant, and as such is holy and pure, just as the Ark of the Old Covenant was holy and pure (Exodus 26:33, 2 Chronicles 35:3).
  2. Typologically, Mary is the New Eve, just as Christ is the New Adam, and in that parallel, Mary's sinlessness is ostensibly revealed.
  3. Biologically, Mary is the source of Jesus' humanity, and because Jesus' flesh was sinless, He must have received it from someone sinless.
  4. The Early Church Fathers are alleged to have taught that Mary was sinless.
• We list them first in summary form, and will now refute them in the same order, below.

Mary as the New Ark of Holiness

• In the allegedly infallible proclamation of Pope Pius IX in 1854, Mary was declared to be sinless "in the first instance of her conception":
  • "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful." (Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (1854))
  • In part, Pius IX based his claim on the belief that "The Fathers and writers of the Church ... celebrated the august Virgin ... as the ark and house of holiness which Eternal Wisdom built."
  • Counterevidence:
  • First, Scripture nowhere makes the Ark|Mary typological parallel.
  • Second, as we noted last week, all the evidence that the Early Church Fathers celebrated Mary as "the Ark of the New Covenant" has proven to be based on documents later found to be forgeries and frauds.
  • In sum, Mary did not become identified as the Ark of the New Covenant until the latter part of the 4th century, at the earliest, and therefore it follows that the Early Church could not have derived a belief in Mary's sinlessness based on this typology before the typology was even proposed.

Mary as the New Eve

• Roman Catholics believe that as Christ is to Adam, so Mary is to Eve, and if the Early Church acknowledged the Eve-Mary parallel, it is implicit evidence of early belief that Mary must have been sinless leading up to her obedience, just as Eve was sinless leading up to the fall. Esteemed Roman Catholic Mariologist, Juniper Carol, sought to find evidence of Mary's sinlessness in Irenæus' discussion of the "Eve-Mary" parallel:
  • "[T]he Eve-Mary analogy is relevant here. Our Lady's consent to the redemptive program implicit in the Incarnation was recognized by St. Irenaeus of Lyons as constituting an act not simply of singular significance but even of exceptional moral value; it was an act of obedience (Adv Haer, lib 3, cap 22, 1; PG 7:958-959)." (Juniper Carol, Mariology, Volume I, p. 138)
  • Counterevidence:
  • Irenæus indeed found a typological connection between Mary and Eve (Against Heresies, Book III, chapter 22) but did not believe that the parallel implied Mary's sinlessness. For example, when expounding on the incarnation, Irenæus saw a long line of sinners between Adam and Christ, Christ being the sole exception:
    • "For if the flesh were not in a position to be saved, the Word of God would in no wise have become flesh. ... He thus points out the recapitulation that should take place in his own person of the effusion of blood from the beginning, of all the righteous men and of the prophets, and that by means of Himself there should be a requisition of their blood. Now this [blood] could not be required unless it also had the capability of being saved; nor would the Lord have summed up these things in Himself, unless He had Himself been made flesh and blood after the way of the original formation [of man], saving in his own person at the end that which had in the beginning perished in Adam." (Irenæus, Against Heresies, Book IV, chapter 14).
    • Needless to say, if "his own person at the end" is the sole exception in a line of descent from Adam, then Mary is not exceptional.
    • Even Juniper Carol, who very much desired to find evidence of Mary's sinlessness in Irenæus' Eve-Mary parallel, acknowledged that the Eve-Mary parallel in the Early Church did not prove that the Early Church believed Mary to be sinless:
      • "Regrettably, Irenaeus' insight into the Second or New Eve is not paralleled by any conclusion in the texts with respect to the state of her soul prior to her fiat. Did the ante-Nicene Fathers glimpse a further consequence from the analogy, an indication of Mary's sanctity? Le Bachelet, for one, surrenders such investigation: 'Who could possibly give a certain answer, one way or the other?'"(Juniper Carol, Mariology, Volume I, p. 138)
      • In sum, even Early Church Fathers who identified an Eve-Mary parallel spoke plainly of Mary being sinful and Christ being the only sinless person, thus showing that an Eve-Mary parallel does not imply that Mary was sinless.

Mary as the Source of Jesus' Sinless Flesh

• Roman Catholics teach that because Jesus' flesh was sinless, He must have received it from someone who was herself sinless. For example,
  • "Mary's sinlessness derives from the fact that she is the human vessel through which God himself became man. It was from her flesh that Christ received his human nature." (Catholic Answers, Mary had to be sinless to pass on a sinless human nature to Christ)
  • Counterevidence:
  • First, the Scriptures do not teach that Mary had to be sinless, and in fact when referring to Jesus' flesh, the Scriptures describe it as the same flesh as the flesh of sinners (Hebrews 2:14-15).
  • Second, even the Roman Catholic arguments for Mary's sinlessness acknowledge that "it wasn't strictly necessary that his mother be sinless for him to receive from her a sinless human nature. God could have done it another way" (See Catholic Answers).
  • Third, the early church did not believe Mary had to be sinless for Christ to be born a sinless man. Irenæus, for example, wrote that in order to save sinful flesh—in order to sum up "human nature in His own person"—He had to take his flesh from "the thing which had perished," and he took that flesh from Mary:
    • "But if the Lord became incarnate for any other order of things, and took flesh of any other substance, He has not then summed up human nature in His own person, nor in that case can He be termed flesh. For flesh has been truly made [to consist in] a transmission of that thing moulded originally from the dust. ... But the thing which had perished possessed flesh and blood. For the Lord, taking dust from the earth, moulded man; and it was upon his behalf that all the dispensation of the Lord's advent took place. He had Himself, therefore, flesh and blood, recapitulating in Himself not a certain other, but that original handiwork of the Father, seeking out that thing which had perished. And for this cause the apostle, in the Epistle to the Colossians, says, 'And though you were formerly alienated, and enemies to His knowledge by evil works, yet now you have been reconciled in the body of His flesh, through His death, to present yourselves holy and chaste, and without fault in His sight.' [Colossians 1:21, etc.] He says, 'You have been reconciled in the body of His flesh,' because the righteous flesh has reconciled that flesh which was being kept under bondage in sin, and brought it into friendship with God." (Irenæus, Against Heresies, Book IV, chapter 14).
    • Needless to say, if Jesus of necessity took His flesh from "that which had perished ... under bondage in sin," then He clearly did not take His flesh from "that which had not perished" and was not "kept under bondage in sin," which of course means that Mary was not exceptional in regard to sin in Irenæus' view, and he did not think Mary had to be sinless for Christ to become incarnate.
    • Notably, Hilary of Poitiers (c. 310 – c. 367 A.D.) also considered Mary to be sinful and “destined to undergo the scrutiny of God’s judgment, of faults that are slight” (see Hilary of Portiers, Tractatus in Ps 118; Patrologia Latina Volume 9, c. 523). Because of this, Hilary believed that Jesus was "unique" in the sense that He "did not come into existence through the passions incident to human conception" and was "not born under the defects of human conception." Such statements of necessity contrast Jesus' conception with Mary's, for Mary was certainly conceived "through the passions incident to human conception":
      • “For Christ had indeed a body, but unique, as befitted His origin. He did not come into existence through the passions incident to human conception: He came into the form of our body by an act of His own power. He bore our collective humanity in the form of a servant, but He was free from the sins and imperfections of the human body: that we might be in Him, because He was born of the Virgin, and yet our faults might not be in Him, because He is the source of His own humanity, born as man but not born under the defects of human conception. … though He was formed in fashion as a man, He knew not what sin was. For His conception was in the likeness of our nature, not in the possession of our faults.” (Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, Book X, chapter 25).
      • The statement is even more remarkable in its implicit denial of what Roman Catholicism teaches as an apostolic truth. Roman Catholicism teaches that Mary is the source of Jesus' humanity, and therefore Mary must have been sinless. Hilary, by way of contrast, thought Mary was sinful, and therefore that Jesus must have been "the source of His own humanity" so that "our faults might not be in Him." Whatever illogic may have driven Hilary to this conclusion, he clearly believed that Mary had faults to pass on, necessitating the unique occasion of Christ's conception in Mary by the Holy Spirit, a material denial of her immaculacy.
      • In sum, the Roman Catholic belief in the necessity of Mary's sinlessness based on Christ having receiving sinless flesh from her is not taught in Scripture, and was not taught in the three centuries after the apostles.

Mary's Sinlessness in the Early Church

Alleged Support from the Church Fathers

• Roman Catholicism claims that Mary's sinlessness was taught in the Early Church. Three primary examples are Justin Martyr, Irenæus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome:
  • Justin Martyr (c. 100 - 165 A.D.) identified the Eve-Mary parallel, as follows:
    • "...He became man by the Virgin, in order that the disobedience which proceeded from the serpent might receive its destruction in the same manner in which it derived its origin. For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled [incorrupt], having conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her..." (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 100)
    • Counterevidence:
    • In context, Justin's parallel does not encompass Eve's sinlessness in the comparison between Eve and Mary but her sexual innocence. All that is observed in the parallel is their respective physical virginity. Even Mariologist Juniper Carol reluctantly acknowledges his own inability to derive Mary's sinlessness from Justin Martyr's Eve-Mary parallel, finding only the "seeds" of later Roman Catholic teachings, not the "full flower":
      • "It is argued that, in St. Justin the Martyr's description of Eve as 'virgin incorrupt' there is question of Eve exempt from all corruption, and so the parallelism demands a similar exemption for Mary. The seeds of future development with respect to Mary's sanctity may be contained in the patristic Eve-Mary analogy, but they are seeds and not the full flower." (Juniper Carol, Mariology, Vol. I, p. 138n)
      • Irenæus of Lyons (early 2nd century - 202 A.D.), as noted above, is also invoked because of the Eve-Mary parallel in his writings.
      • Counterevidence:
      • As also noted above, the parallel does not require that Mary be sinless, something Juniper Carol also acknowledges reluctantly:
        • "Regrettably, Irenaeus' insight into the Second or New Eve is not paralleled by any conclusion in the texts with respect to the state of her soul prior to her fiat." (Juniper Carol, Mariology, Volume I, p. 138)
        • Hippolytus of Rome (170 – 235 A.D.), among others, is said to have used the word "holy" in regard to the Virgin Mary.
          • "...the adjective 'holy' is prefixed to 'Virgin.' Not often; still, it is used. St. Hippolytus of Rome, for example, states, without explanation, that 'God the Word descended into the holy Virgin Mary.' (Contra Noetum, cap 17; PG 10:825)" (Juniper Carol, Mariology, Volume I, p. 139)
          • Counterevidence:
          • First, the Scriptures use the same term "holy" (ἅγιος, hagios) in 1 Peter 2:9 in the context of a "holy nation" comprised of sinful people redeemed from their personal sins, showing that the use of the term holy does not of necessity imply utter sinlessness.
          • Second, even esteemed Mariologist, Juniper Carol, reluctantly acknowledges that Hippolytus' use of the term cannot be taken as proof of belief in the Immaculate Conception in the Early Church:
            • "The difficulty is, such a usage is ill-defined. The word sanctus or hagios has not always been able to boast of a clearly delimited meaning in ecclesiastical use. Does Hippolytus use hagios as a rather vague laudatory epithet, or as a title of dignity, or to imply moral excellence, or to signify the respect reserved for one who is segregated from profane things and belongs to God by some sort of consecration? The answer must, in the state of the evidence, be a confession of ignorance." (Juniper Carol, Mariology, Volume I, p. 139)

Actual Evidence from the Church Fathers

• Pope Pius IX claimed that "illustrious documents of venerable antiquity, of both the Eastern and the Western Church, very forcibly testify [of] this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the most Blessed Virgin" (Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus). In fact, the opposite is the case. The only sure evidence we have of the teachings of the Early Church Fathers reflects a belief in Mary's utter sinfulness:
  • Tertullian (160 – 225 A.D.) has Jesus censuring Mary's faults, and finds in Mary a "figure of the synagogue" of unbelieving Jews, and has Jesus unwilling to acknowledge His mother because of her "offense":
    • “In this very passage indeed, their unbelief is evident. … while strangers were intent on Him, His very nearest relatives were absent. … but they prefer to interrupt Him, and wish to call Him away from His great work. … When denying one’s parents in indignation, one [Jesus] does not deny their existence, but censures their faults. … in the abjured mother there is a figure of the synagogue, as well as of the Jews in the unbelieving brethren. In their person Israel remained outside, while the new disciples who kept close to Christ within, hearing and believing, represented the Church, which He called mother in a preferable sense and a worthier brotherhood, with the repudiation of the carnal relationship.” (Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ, chapter 7)
    • “Besides, His admission of His mother and His brethren was the more express, from the fact of His unwillingness to acknowledge them. That He adopted others only confirmed those in their relationship to Him whom He refused because of their offense, and for whom He substituted the others, not as being truer relatives, but worthier ones. Finally, it was no great matter if He did prefer to kindred (that) faith which it did not possess. ” (Tertullian, Against Marcion, Book IV, chapter 19).
    • Origen (185 – 254 A.D.), based on Romans 3:23, taught that the sword that would pierce Mary's heart (Luke 2:35) was unbelief:
      • “If she did not suffer scandal at the Lord’s Passion, then Jesus did not die for her sins. But, if ‘all have sinned and lack God’s glory but are justified by his grace and redeemed,’ (Romans 3:23) then Mary too was scandalized at that time.” (Origen, Homilies on Luke, 17.6-7)
      • As noted above, Hilary of Poitiers (c. 310 – c. 367 A.D.) also considered Mary to be sinful and “destined to undergo the scrutiny of God’s judgment, of faults that are slight” (see Hilary of Portiers, Tractatus in Ps 118; Patrologia Latina Volume 9, c. 523).
      • Basil (329-379 A.D.) agreed that the "sword" of Luke 2:35 was doubt and that Mary was not healed of her sin until after Christ died for her:
        • “The Lord was bound to taste of death for every man—to become a propitiation for the world and to justify all men by His own blood. Even you yourself, who hast been taught from on high the things concerning the Lord, shall be reached by some doubt. This is the sword. ... after the offense at the Cross of Christ a certain swift healing shall come from the Lord to the disciples and to Mary herself, confirming their heart in faith in Him” (Basil, Letter 260.8-9)
        • John Chrysostom (c. 349 – 407 A.D.) had Jesus healing Mary of her sin of "vainglory," answering her "vehemently" for attempting to take credit for His miracles, and instructing her to correct this sinful behavior in the future—so "superfluous" was she her "vanity":
          • “He both healed the disease of vainglory, and rendered the due honor to His mother” (John Chrysostom, Homilies in Matthew, Homily 44.3)..
          • “For she desired both to do them a favor, and through her Son to render herself more conspicuous; perhaps too she had some human feelings, like His brethren, when they said, ‘Show yourself to the world’ (John 17:4), desiring to gain credit from His miracles. Therefore He answered somewhat vehemently…” (John Chrysostom, Homilies in John, Homily 21.2)
          • “And so this was a reason why He rebuked her on that occasion, saying, ‘Woman, what have I to do with you?’ instructing her for the future not to do the like; because, though He was careful to honor His mother, yet He cared much more for the salvation of her soul, and for the doing good to the many, for which He took upon Him the flesh.” (John Chrysostom, Homilies in John, Homily 21.3)
          • “For in fact that which she [Mary] had [tried] to do, was of superfluous vanity; in that she wanted to show the people that she has power and authority over her Son, imagining not as yet anything great concerning Him; whence also her unseasonable approach. See at all events both her self-confidence and theirs. Since when they ought to have gone in, and listened with the multitude; or if they were not so minded, to have waited for His bringing His discourse to an end, and then to have come near; they call Him out, and do this before all, evincing a superfluous vanity, and wishing to make it appear, that with much authority they enjoin Him.” (John Chrysostom, Homilies in Matthew, Homily 44.1).
          • [We note here for good measure that Chrysostom here has criticized Mary for wanting "to show the people that she has power and authority over her Son," the very thing a Queen Mother would be perfectly entitled to do, as we discussed in part 1 of this series. When Mary appears to act in such a manner toward Christ, Chrysostom not only rejects any inherent claim of Marian authority over Christ but also considers it a gross sin for Mary even to attempt to exercise such. Thus we find that even at the latter part of the 4th century, Mary was still not considered Queen Mother of Christ the King.]
          • In a remarkably candid analysis of why Gabriel announced the incarnation to Mary prior to Christ's conception, but to Joseph afterward, Chrysostom explained that Joseph was sufficiently level-headed to bee able to handle the situation, but Mary, in her "perfect delicacy," was neither so perfect nor so delicate that she could not have entertained killing herself and Jesus with her. So Gabriel gave her advance warning—which is not the kind of thing one writes about Mary if one thinks she was free even of the inclination to sin:
            • “Why then, it may be asked, did he not so in the Virgin’s case also, and declare the good tidings to her after the conception? Lest she should be in agitation and great trouble. For it were likely that she, not knowing the certainty, might have even devised something amiss touching herself, and have gone on to strangle or to stab herself, not enduring the disgrace.  … Now she who was of such perfect delicacy would even have been distracted with dismay at the thought of her shame, not expecting, by whatever she might say, to convince any one who should hear of it, but that what had happened was adultery. Therefore to prevent these things, the angel came before the conception.” (Chrysostom, Homilies in Matthew, Homily 4.9)
            • Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 A.D.) had Mary as ranking lower even than the doubting apostle, reasoning that Mary simply must have doubted. After all, even Thomas doubted:
              • “And Symeon further said to the holy Virgin, 'Yea, a sword shall go through thy own soul also,' meaning by the sword the pain which she suffered for Christ, in seeing Him Whom she brought forth crucified; and not knowing at all that He would be more mighty than death, and rise again from the grave. Nor mayest thou wonder that the Virgin knew this not, when we shall find even the holy Apostles themselves with little faith thereupon: for verily the blessed Thomas, had he not thrust his hands into His side after the resurrection, and felt also the prints of the nails …” (Cyril of Alexandria, Sermons on Luke, Sermon IV)
              • In sum, Pope Pius IX's claim that "illustrious documents of venerable antiquity" testify "forcibly" of Mary's Immaculate Conception is easily refuted. Attempts by Roman Catholics to find Mary's sinlessness in Justin Martyr, Irenæus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome come up empty handed, and what the Early Church writers actually do say plainly is that Mary was sinful—sometimes embarrassingly so. The Roman Catholic encyclopedia acknowledges this early evidence for Mary's sinfulness, but conveniently relegates it to the category of "stray private opinions" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Immaculate Conception). As esteemed Mariologist Juniper Carol wryly acknowledges, the earlier writings touch on the matter of Mary's holiness "with a disinterest which is disconcerting and at times a familiarity which borders on discourtesy" (Juniper Carol, Mariology, vol. 2 (125)). In fact, Carol reports that hard evidence only surfaces three centuries after the apostolic era:
                • "A significant turning point in the Mariological consciousness of the West does not occur until 377 [A.D.], with the publication of St. Ambrose's three books On Virginity, addressed to his sister, Marcellina. ... … the attitude of Ambrose toward Mary is something novel in Latin literature." (Juniper Carol, Mariology, vol 1 (140-2))
                • "...with respect to Our Lady's holiness, the year 431 [A.D.] marks a turning point for Eastern patristic thought. Before Ephesus, Oriental theology is apparently unaware of a problem in this regard." (Juniper Carol, Mariology, vol. 2, 125)
                • The novelty of Mary's sinlessness does not arrive on the scene until 377 A.D. in the West, and even later in the East. That is a far cry from Pius IX's pretentious claim that "illustrious documents of venerable antiquity ... very forcibly testify" of Mary's Immaculate Conception. To arrive at an allegedly apostolic doctrine of Mary's sinlessness, Roman Catholicism has to ignore the early evidence for a widespread belief in Mary's sinfulness, and must import later novelties into earlier Patristic statements that cannot possibly bear the weight of Roman Catholicism's late 4th century novelties.

We will continue this series with part 4, on Mary’s alleged "perpetual virginity."

Semper Reformanda Radio recently produced a series of five podcasts on the Roman Catholic view of Mary under the title Roman Catholics and their Queen. The purpose of this blog series is to provide the supporting data behind the podcasts. We hope this will be helpful to those who would like to become familiar with the Roman Catholic claims to apostolicity for their Marian position, and the historical and biblical data showing that the apostles and the Early Church knew nothing of it.

We continue this week with the supporting data for Episode 2.

Episode 2: Mary, Ark of the Covenant

Roman Catholics teach that the Ark of the Old Covenant is a prefiguration of Mary, and that Mary, having carried in her womb the Heavenly Manna, the incarnation of the Word, and the Rod of Aaron blossoming, is therefore the Ark of the New Covenant, imperishable, holy and pure.

It is important to be familiar with Roman Catholic arguments on the Ark because the belief undergirds other Marian doctrines: Mary's sinlessness (see episode 3), Mary's perpetual virginity (see episode 4), and Mary's bodily Assumption into Heaven (see episode 5).

• The Roman Catholic support for this comes from five basic premises.
  1. Mary was “overshadowed” by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35), just as the Ark was ostensibly "covered" by a cloud in the Old Testament (Exodus 40:34).
  2. The Ark's stay in the hill country of Judæa for "three months" as depicted in 2 Samuel 6 is taken as a prefiguration of Mary’s journey to the hill country of Judæa to visit Elizabeth for "about three months" (Luke 1:39-56).
  3. The Contents of the Ark (Manna, Tablets of the Law, Rod of Aaron) are taken as prefigurations for the contents of Mary's womb, making her the new Ark.
  4. Revelation 11:19 depicts "the Ark of His testament" in heaven, followed immediately by Revelation 12:1 depicting a woman in heaven, crowned with twelve stars. The woman is taken to be Mary, making her "the ark of His testament."
  5. The Early Church ostensibly taught that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant
• Due to the amount of data to be provided under each premise, we list them first in summary form, and will now refute them in the same order, below.

Mary Overshadowed

• According to Roman Catholics, the language describing the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary at the moment of Christ's conception (Luke 1:35) is considered so similar to that used for the glory of God covering the tent of the congregation (Exodus 40:34) that it is assumed that the Holy Spirit intended to link the two. In fact, the word in Exodus 40:34 in the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) is the same word used in Luke 1:35. By way of example, one Roman Catholic apologist attempts to make the connection for us:
  • "It is clear, then, that the angel Gabriel drew a parallel between God's presence in the Sanctuary and in Mary. She is the new, living Ark chosen to bear the God-Messiah; just as the glory of the Lord overshadowed and dwelt in the Old Covenant Ark, the glory of the Lord overshadowed and dwelt in Mary." (emphasis added)
  • Counterevidence:
  • We note first of all that the Roman Catholic apologist has taken the liberty of filling in for us what is actually missing in the text. Exodus 40:34 says "a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD filledthe tabernacle." It says nothing about the cloud covering or filling the ark, and yet the apologist writes, "just as the glory of the Lord overshadowed and dwelt in the Old Covenant Ark...". The text says nothing like this at all, and yet the Roman Catholic apologist informs us of the link on Gabriel's high authority, i.e., "It is clear, then, that the angel Gabriel drew a parallel between God's presence in the Sanctuary and in Mary." But the parallel was not alleged by the apologist to be Sanctuary|Mary or Tent|Mary or Tabernacle|Mary, but rather Ark|Mary, and that specific parallel is precisely what is missing in the attempt to link Exodus 40:34 with Luke 1:35.
  • Second, we note that there was nothing particularly special about the word used in the Hebrew text. In the Hebrew, the Holy Spirit inspired Moses to use the word, ḵāsâ (כָּסָה), for "covered" in Exodus 40:34, the same word used to say that frogs covered Egypt (Exodus 8:8), locusts covered the earth (Exodus 10:5, 15), waters covered the chariots (Exodus 14:28) and quail covered the camp (Exodus 16:13). This shows that the Hebrew word has no intrinsic prophetic meaning apart from context.
  • Additionally, in the Greek the Holy Spirit inspired Luke to use the word episkiazo (ἐπισκιάζω), for "overshadow" in Luke 1:35, the same word used to describe the cloud overshadowing Jesus and the apostles at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:5, Mark 9:7, Luke 9:34). But it is also used in Acts 5:15 to say that Peter's shadow "might overshadow" the sick—again showing that the Greek word has no intrinsic prophetic meaning apart from context.
  • In sum, the Roman Catholic attempt to make a link between Exodus 40:34 and Luke 1:35 to make Mary the Ark is exceedingly difficult because first, in Exodus 40:34 it is not the Ark that is "overshadowed," and second, the words used for "cover" or "overshadow" in the two verses are not used exclusively to describe the manifestation of the presence and glory of God, so the apologist is left trying to construct a link out of nothing by importing events and forcing parallels that are absent from the text.

Mary's Journey

• According to Roman Catholics, Mary's journey to the hill country of Judæa (Luke 1:39-56) is so similar to the Ark's temporary stay in the hill country of Judæa (2 Samuel 6), that it is assumed that the Holy Spirit intended to link the two. By way of example, one Roman Catholic apologist explains the relation:
  • "Mary and the ark were both on a journey to the same hill country of Judea.
    • When David saw the ark he rejoiced and said, 'How can the ark of the Lord come to me?' Elizabeth uses almost the same words: 'Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?' ...
    • When David approached the ark he shouted out and danced and leapt in front of the ark. ... When Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant, approached Elizabeth, John the Baptist leapt in his mother’s womb ... .
    • The Ark of the Old Covenant remained in the house of Obed-edom for three months, and Mary remained in the house of Elizabeth for three months. ...
    • When the Old Testament ark arrived—as when Mary arrived—they were both greeted with shouts of joy. ...
    • The ark returns to its home and ends up in Jerusalem, where God’s presence and glory is revealed in the temple (2 Sm 6:12; 1 Kgs 8:9-11). Mary returns home and eventually ends up in Jerusalem, where she presents God incarnate in the temple.
    • It seems clear that Luke has used typology to reveal something about the place of Mary in salvation history." (Lk 1:56; 2:21-22)." (Steve Ray, Mary, Ark of the New Covenant)
    • Counterevidence:
    • First, David refused to receive the Ark saying, “How shall the ark of the LORD come to me?” (2 Samuel 6:9) and Elizabeth welcomed Mary saying, “And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43). “Refusing” is not a type of, and does not foreshadow, “welcoming.”
    • Second, the Scripture does not say David danced before the Ark, but rather "before the LORD" (2 Samuel 6:14), and John leapt at the sound of Mary's voice, not at the presence of Jesus (Luke 1:44); additionally, David danced after the Ark had stayed "three months" in the house of Obed-edom (2 Samuel 6:11), and John leapt in Elizabeth's womb before Mary stayed "about three months" with Elizabeth (Luke 1:44), showing that there is nothing but a forced parallel to be found here.
    • Third, we note that the Ark and Mary did not both remain in the hill country of Judæa for three months.
      • The “the ark of the LORD continued in the house of Obededom the Gittite three months” (2 Samuel 6:11) and Mary went to visit Elizabeth in the hill country of Judah for “about three months” (Luke 1:56). "Three months" and "about three months" are not the same thing.
      • If such rough equivalents are sufficient for finding a prophetic connection, we can easily use the same flawed Roman Catholic thinking in order to prove that John the Baptist is the Ark. For example:
        • The ark was in the country of the Philistines for “seven months” (1 Samuel 6:1), before it came to the field of Joshua where there was a great stone (1 Samuel 6:14). Elizabeth “hid herself for 5 months” (Luke 1:24), and then in the 6th month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy Mary found out about it (Luke 1:36), and then had to travel about 100 miles to visit her cousin. That would be "about seven months" that John waited in Elizabeth's womb before meeting Jesus, Yeshua, the Cornerstone, and "about seven months" is close enough for the Roman Catholic apologist.
        • The Ark remained in Kirjathjearim for “twenty years” (1 Samuel 7:2), and John the Baptist as a Levitical priest would have waited until he was 20 years old to begin his priestly ministration (1 Chronicles 23:24, 31:17).
        • Thus, the “seven months” the Ark was in the country of the Philistines signified "about seven months" that John waited in Elizabeth's womb to meet Jesus in Mary's womb. Also, the 20 years the Ark spent in Kirjathjearim signified John’s youth until he became a priest, making John the Baptist the Ark of the New Covenant.
        • That is foolishness. Yet the methodology used is the same used by Roman Catholics to conclude that Mary is the New Ark.
        • Fourth, it is true that the Ark was brought to Jerusalem with shouts of joy (2 Samuel 6:15), and Elizabeth greeted Mary in "a loud voice" (Luke 1:42). However, we note that the Roman Catholic argument is a very selective one. Notice that the apologist had drawn a parallel with regard to how David greeted the Ark before its three month stay with Obed-edom (“How shall the ark of the LORD come to me?”, 2 Samuel 6:9) and Elizabeth welcomed Mary before her three month visit ("And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?", Luke 1:43). In that case, David's greeting was of dread, and Elizabeth's of joy. Lacking a sufficient parallel with regard to that greeting, the Roman Catholic apologist instead shifts to the period after the three month stay with Obed-edom, and shows the Ark greeted "with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet" (2 Samuel 6:15), trying to connect it with Elizabeth greeting Mary before the three months. In 2 Samuel the ark is greeted with shouting and joy, including trumpets, but in the case of Elizabeth's greeting, there were no trumpets.
        • Finally, we notice again how selective the Roman Catholic apologist is in his analysis of Mary's journey. When the Ark is returned after its three months in the hill country of Judæa, it is taken directly to Jerusalem and placed in the Tabernacle (2 Samuel 6:17) "where God’s presence and glory is revealed in the temple," but here the Roman Catholic apologist refers to an event that took place nearly 40 years later (1 Kings 8:9-11). When Mary returns from her stay of "about three months" in the hill country of Judæa, she returns not to Jerusalem but to Nazareth (Luke 1:26, 56), and then does not go to the Temple for six more months to present Jesus there. When the Ark and Mary both are depicted going to the hill country of Judæa for roughly equal amounts of time, geography and time were extremely important to the Roman Catholic apologist. But here, lacking a geographic parallel (Jerusalem vs. Nazareth), and lacking a time parallel (40 years vs. six months), suddenly time and geography are of no consequence, and the Roman Catholic apologist settles for both the Ark and Mary returning "home," and the presence of God manifesting in the Temple "eventually." That is a very loose "parallel."
        • In sum, the Roman Catholic attempt to find a parallel between 2 Samuel 6 and Mary's journey in Luke 1 is so presumptuous and selective that one would first have to believe that Mary is the Ark before one could find a parallel in the passages, just as we demonstrated with John the Baptist. That ostensible parallel is only maintained by a highly selective use of the Scriptures, and ignoring the significant differences. Further, nothing is said in the Scriptures about Mary being the fulfillment of the Ark as a type.

The Contents of the Ark

• According to Roman Catholics, having carried in her womb the Heavenly Manna, the incarnation of the Word, and the fulfillment of the Rod of Aaron blossoming, Mary is therefore the Ark of the New Covenant. Roman Catholic apologist, Steve Ray, attempts to make the argument as follows:
  • "Notice the amazing parallels: In the ark was the law of God inscribed in stone; in Mary’s womb was the Word of God in flesh. In the ark was the urn of manna, the bread from heaven that kept God’s people alive in the wilderness; in Mary’s womb is the Bread of Life come down from heaven that brings eternal life. In the ark was the rod of Aaron, the proof of true priesthood; in Mary’s womb is the true priest." (Steve Ray, Mary, Ark of the New Covenant)
  • Counterevidence:
  • We grant that the Heavenly Manna signifies Christ, for the Scriptures inform us of this (John 6:32). Likewise, we grant that the law signifies Christ, for the Scriptures inform us that Jesus is the incarnation of the Word of God (John 1:14). But we cannot grant that the Rod of Aaron signifies Christ, for the Scriptures explicitly rule out the signification. The Rod of Aaron actually signifies a genetic lineage from Aaron:
    • "Thou and thy sons and thy father’s house with thee shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary: and thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood. ... but thou and thy sons with thee shall minister before the tabernacle of witness. ... And I, behold, I have taken your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel: to you they are given as a gift for the LORD, to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation. Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priest’s office for every thing of the altar, and within the vail; and ye shall serve: I have given your priest’s office unto you as a service of gift: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death. ... unto thee have I given them by reason of the anointing, and to thy sons, by an ordinance for ever." (Numbers 18:1-8)
    • What is more, the Scriptures explicitly deny that Jesus is of the genetic lineage of Aaron:
      • “If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar." (Hebrews 7:11-13)
      • In sum, while the Manna and the Law prefigure Christ (for the Scriptures say as much), the Rod of Aaron cannot possibly signify Christ's priesthood (for the Scriptures tell us this), and therefore, the Rod's presence in the Ark cannot possibly signify Christ's presence in Mary, and in fact the Scriptures never identify Christ with the Rod of Aaron. Thus, the attempt to find a parallel between the Ark and Mary based on the Ark's contents is shown to be untenable.

The Ark in Revelation 11

• Roman Catholics observe that the reference to the Ark in Revelation 11:19 immediately precedes the mention of the Woman of Revelation 12, whom Roman Catholics take to be Mary. The close proximity of the mentions of the Ark in heaven and the Woman in heaven is taken to mean that the Ark mentioned in Revelation 11:19 is Mary. Roman Catholic apologist, Steve Ray, makes the connection:
  • "What did John say immediately after seeing the Ark of the Covenant in heaven? "And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child" (Rv 12:1-2). The woman is Mary, the Ark of the Covenant, revealed by God to John." (Steve Ray, Mary, Ark of the New Covenant)
  • Counterevidence:
  • The Woman of Revelation 12 is shown to be "travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered" (Revelation 12:2). Labor pains are evidence of sin (Genesis 3:16), showing that the Woman of Revelation 12 is sinful, something that Roman Catholics cannot countenance if she is Mary, for Roman Catholicism teaches that Mary is sinless.
  • Additionally, the Woman of Revelation 12 is in pain, and thus her physical virginity is being compromised. This, too, is something that Roman Catholics cannot countenance if she is Mary, for Roman Catholicism teaches that Mary's physical virginity was not compromised in Christ's birth.
  • We will address both of these in episode 3, Mary's Sinlessness, and episode 4, Mary's Perpetual Virginity. For now, we simply note that Victorinus (270 – 310 A.D.), below, when commenting on Revelation 11:19, saw the Ark as a prefiguration of Christ and His ministry of evangelism, not Mary.

The Ark of the New Covenant in the Early Church

• According to Roman Catholics, the early church taught that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant. We will first review the evidence provided by Roman Catholics to show that all the  early evidence is based on forgeries, frauds, misrepresentations and anachronisms, and then we will show that the Early Church, until the latter part of the 4th century, was completely unaware of any typological link between the Ark and Mary.

Alleged Support from the Church Fathers

• Hippolytus of Rome (170-235 A.D.)
  • Roman Catholic Apologist, Scott Hahn, claims that the teaching that Mary is the Ark can be traced as far back as the 3rd century. He says, “This application of the Ark of the Covenant to the Blessed Virgin is very ancient. We find that already at the beginning of the 3rd Century in the writings of Hippolytus of Rome.” (Answering Common Objections, A Closer Look at Christ’s Church, Mary, Ark of the Covenant, see “added notes”)
  • Counterevidence: Hippolytus actually taught that Jesus, not Mary, was the Ark:
    • “And, moreover, the ark made of imperishable wood was the Saviour Himself. ” (Hippolytus, Fragments, On the Psalms, Oration on ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’)
    • “And that the Saviour appeared in the world, bearing the imperishable ark, His own body…”(Hippolytus, Fragments, of the visions of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, 6).
    • Gregory Thaumaturgus (c. 213 – c. 270)
      • Roman Catholic Apologist, Steve Ray, compiled “evidence” from the early church fathers in his document, Ark of the New Covenant-Quotes from the Fathers. In that document he claims that Gregory Thaumaturgus taught that Mary is the Ark:
        • "Let us chant the melody which has been taught us by the inspired harp of David, and say, 'Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest; Thou, and the Ark of Thy sanctuary.' For the holy Virgin is in truth an Ark, wrought with gold both within and without, that has received the whole treasury of the sanctuary." (Gregory Thaumaturgus, First Homily)
        • Counterevidence:
        • The Homilies attributed to Thaumaturgus are considered, even by Roman Catholics, to be spurious. Even Thomas Livius, (whom Ray cites) conceded that the Homilies were “of doubtful genuineness” (Livius, Thomas, The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries, p. 48n). Additionally, Philip Schaff, in his Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol 6, lists them under doubtful or spurious works.
        • Dionysius of Alexandria (late 2nd century – 264 A.D.)
          • Steve Ray also cites Dionysius of Alexandria in support of the identification of Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant:
            • “...by the power of God is that tabernacle protected, to be had in everlasting remembrance, Mary, God’s Virgin Mother” (S. Dionysius of Alexandria, Respons. ad Quoest. v. Pauli Samos) (Livius, Blessed Virgin, p. 81).
            • “Not in a servant did He dwell, but in His holy tabernacle not made with hands, which is Mary the Mother of God” (Ib. ad Quoest. vii.) (Livius, Blessed Virgin, p. 81).
            • Counterevidence:
            • The most obvious problem with these citations from Dionysius is that he has Mary as the Tabernacle, not the Ark. But the larger problem, a problem acknowledged by no less than Cardinal Newman, is that Dionysius’ alleged response to Paul of Samosota is a forgery (King, Benjamin J., Newman and the Alexandrian Fathers: Shaping Doctrine in Nineteenth-Century England (Oxford University Press, 2009) 139 – 140). As we noted last week, the forged letter dates to the latter part of the 4th century.
            • Hesychius of Jerusalem
              • Steve Ray also cites Hesychius of Jerusalem in support of the identification of Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant, saying that he lived about 300 A.D.:
                • “The ark is without doubt the Virgin Mother of God (Hesychius, Orat. De Virginis laudib. Biblioth. PP. Græco-Lat. Tom. ii. p. 423) (Livius, Blessed Virgin, p. 89).
                • “Arise, Lord, into Thy rest, Thou and the Ark of Thy sanctification, which is very evidently the Virgin Mother of God. For if thou are the pearl, with good reason is she the Ark” (Serm. V. De S. Maria Deip. Patr. Gr. Tom. 93, pp. 460-4) (Livius, Blessed Virgin, p. 227).
                • Counterevidence:
                • These are citations from Greek sources, and as we noted last week, there is no evidence that the term "Mother of God" was used in Greek sources prior to the latter part of the 4th century. Additionally, even the Roman Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledges that Hesychius was likely from the 5th century, not the 3rd or 4th as Ray places him:
                  • “Presbyter and exegete, probably of the fifth century. Nothing certain is known as to the dates of his birth and death (433?), or, indeed concerning the events of his life.” (Catholic Encyclopedia, Heyschius of Jerusalem).
                  • Hesychius can hardly be used to show an "early" teaching that Mary is the Ark.
                  • The rest of Ray's sources are from the latter part of the 4th century, and beyond. He provided no authentic sources for earlier representations of Mary as the Ark.
                  • Methodius of Olympus
                    • Roman Catholic apologetics organization, Catholicism.org, cites the Oration Concerning Simeon and Anna by Methodius of Olympus in support of the identification of Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant, saying that he lived about 311 A.D.:
                      • "To honor her, few words are more beautiful than those composed by St. Methodius of Olympus (+311): 'God paid such honor to the ark, which was the image and type of your sanctity, that no one but the priests could approach it, open or enter to behold it. The veil separated it off, keeping the vestibule as that of a queen. Then what sort of veneration must we, who are the least of creatures, owe to you who are indeed a queen — to you, the living ark of God, the Lawgiver — to you, the heaven that contains Him Whom none can contain?' (Oration Concerning Simeon and Anna [chapter 5])"
                      • Counterevidence:
                      • The problem is that Methodius’ Oration Concerning Simeon and Anna is so hopelessly compromised that it cannot be trusted. Parts of it appear to have been added later, and possibly have been confused and conflated with the works of a 9th century monk of the same name. Chapter 1 of the Oration actually identifies Jesus as the Ark before attempting to make Mary the Ark later in chapter 5:
                        • "Let no Jew contradict the truth, looking at the type which went before the house of Obededom. [2 Samuel 6:10] The Lord has 'manifestly come to His own.' ... The publican, when he touches this ark, comes away just; the harlot, when she approaches this, is remoulded, as it were, and becomes chaste; the leper, when he touches this, is restored whole without pain." (Methodius, Oration Concerning Simeon and Anna, chapter 1)
                        • Phillip Schaff observed that the work of "Methodius the monkish artist and missionary of the ninth century has been often copied into the works” of Methodius of Olympus (Schaff, General Note on Methodius, AnteNicene Fathers, Volume 6), and even Steve Ray, when citing the same passage as Catholicism.org, correctly places it in the 9th century, where it belongs (Steve Ray, Ark of the New Covenant -Quotes from the Fathers).

Actual Evidence from the Church Fathers

• What is remarkable about the actual evidence from the Early Church is that the Ark is said to signify many different things—Christ, His ministry, His people—but what is conspicuous by its absence is any reference to Mary being the Ark:
  • Irenæus (d. 202 A.D.) taught that the Ark signified "the body of Christ pure and resplendent” (Irenæus, Fragments, Fragment 8)
  • Tertullian (155 – 240 A.D.) taught that Christ was foreseen by the twelve stones “set up for the ark of the covenant” (see Joshua 4:1-10), the stones prefiguring the twelve apostles, the Ark therefore prefiguring Christ  (Tertullian, Against Marcion, Book IV, chapter 13).  Elsewhere, Tertullian writes that “the ark of the testament" is a figure for us, "for we are temples of God, and altars, and lights, and sacred vessels” (Tertullian, De Corona, chapter 9).
  • Hippolytus of Rome (170 – 235 A.D), as we noted above, taught that "the ark made of imperishable wood was the Saviour Himself” (Hippolytus, Fragments, On the Psalms, Oration on ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’), "His own body" (Hippolytus, Fragments, of the visions of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, 6).
  • Victorinus (270 – 310 A.D.) taught that the Ark signified Christ and His ministry of preaching: “‘And there was seen in His temple the ark of the Lord’s testament.’ The preaching of the Gospel and the forgiveness of sins, and all the gifts whatever that came with Him, he says, appeared therein.” (Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse, from the eleventh chapter). Notably, Victorinus was commenting on the mention of the Ark in Revelation 11:19, immediately preceding the mention of the Woman of Revelation 12:1. And yet he does not identify the Ark with the Woman, much less, as Mary. Rather, the Ark represented "Christ" and "all the gifts whatever that came with Him."
  • Gregory Nazianzen (329 – 390 A.D.) taught that when Christ was conceived in Mary, the Ark had finally arrived, or come to rest, which makes the Ark signify Christ’s body, rather than Mary’s, connecting David's and John's leaping to our leaping before Christ, not Mary: “Now then I pray you accept His Conception, and leap before Him; if not like John from the womb, [Luke 1:41] yet like David, because of the resting of the Ark.” (Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 38, On the Theophany, paragraph 17).
  • In sum, it is not until the latter part of the 4th century that we begin to see references to Mary being the Ark. Any evidence alleged to be earlier than that has proven to be fraudulent.

We will continue this series with part 3, on Mary's alleged sinlessness.

Semper Reformanda Radio recently produced five podcasts on the Roman Catholic view of Mary under the title Roman Catholics and their Queen. The purpose of this series of blog entries is simply to provide the data supporting those five episodes for listeners who would like to study the matter further on their own. Under each topic, we provide the Roman Catholic position and supporting data, and then provide countervailing evidence showing that the Roman Catholic position is actually a novelty.

The summary is simple: Roman Catholic beliefs about Mary originate not with the apostles or the Scriptures, but with novelties than can be traced, for the most part, to the latter part of the 4th century and beyond. For the first three centuries of Christianity, the Church believed as Protestants do today about Christ's mother.

Episode 1: Queen Mary, Mother of God

Queen Mother

Roman Catholics teach that Mary, as mother of the King, enjoys powers, prerogatives, privileges and influence in that role, and is legitimately called the Queen Mother, with all the attendant royal honors.

• The Roman Catholic support for this position comes from three basic premises:
  • Davidic Kings are identified along with their mothers in the historical record.
    • counterevidence:
    • Jehoram (2 Kings 8:16) and Ahaz (2 Kings 16:2) were both kings of the Davidic line, and yet were not identified with their mothers at their ascension
    • the term "Gebirah" is a term used of the Queen Mother of the Davidic line in the Old Testament, making Mary the permanent Gebirah.
      • counterevidence:
      • The term occurs only six times in the Old Testament, and four of those six refer to a woman who was not the the mother of a Davidic King:
      • one use refers to the wife of the King of Egypt (1 Kings 11:19); two uses refer to the grandmother of king Asa (1 Kings 15:13, 1 Chronicles 15:16); One use refers to Jezebel, the mother of a king of Israel (2 Kings 10:13, i.e., not a Davidic King)
      • Only two uses refer to the king’s mother in the Davidic line (Jeremiah 13:18, 29:2).
      • politically powerful women served in the royal court, and those women were the mothers of the presiding king. There are six such examples: Jezebel, Athaliah, Bathsheba, Maachah, Hamutal, Nehushta.
        • counterevidence:
        • Jezebel is dismissed from consideration because she was of the house of Israel not Judah (1 Kings 16:31, 2 Kings 10:13), and therefore was not the politically powerful mother of a Davidic King. Athaliah (2 Kings 8:26) is dismissed because her political power is manifested only after her son is dead, not during his reign (2 Kings 11:1-3). Neither would qualify as prefigurations of Mary.
        • The remaining four (Bathsheba, Maachah, Hamutal, Nehushta) are mothers of kings who were not the heirs apparent, but took the throne because of the influence of the mother
          1. Bathsheba’s son, Solomon, was not the next in line (1 Chronicles 3)
          2. Maacah’s son, Abijah, was not the next in line for the throne (2 Chr 11:18-23)
          3. Hamutal's son Jehoahaz was not the next in line for the throne (2 Kings 23:31,36)
          4. Nehushta’s son, Jehoiachin, was not next in line to the throne (2 Kings 24:8-18, 2 Chr 36:9-11)
        • Since Jesus is the legitimate heir to the throne, and did not need His mother's influence to secure the throne, none of these examples qualify as prefigurations of Mary.
        • In summary, we cite the conclusion of a Jewish scholar on the Gebirah in ancient Israel, based on the Old Testament record:
          • “These circumstances lead us to conclude that, as a rule, the gĕbîrâ or queen mother had no official political status in the kingdom, and the mere fact of her being a queen mother did not bestow upon her any official political status beyond the honor due to her by virtue of her position as mother. On the other hand, in those cases in which the gĕbîrâ did rise to a position of power in her son's domain, we confront a purely individual occurrence which is the direct consequence of the woman's character, ambition, and personal abilities. This highly circumscribed evidence can hardly be taken as testimony of the status and prerogatives of the gĕbîrâ. It points out the historical circumstances in which exceptional women were able to secure the royal succession for their sons, thereby themselves laying claim to a position of power in the realm.” (The Status and Right of the Gĕbîrâ: Zafrira Ben-Barak (Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 110, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 23-34))
          • Notably, in passages of Scripture where Mary appears to exercise power or prerogative in her relationship to Jesus, the Early Church took it as evidence of her sin, vaingloriousness and pride rather than evidence of her ostensible queenship. (See Mary's Sinlessness, in episode 3). In any case, since the Assumption of Mary is considered the precursor to her coronation in heaven, and there is no evidence for the Assumption of Mary until after the 4th century (see The Assumption of Mary, in episode 5), we can safely place the origins of the queenship of Mary after the 4th century as well. The Early Church was completely unaware of it.

Mother of God

Roman Catholics teach that Mary, as mother of Jesus, is therefore to be addressed as Mother of God.

It should be stated first that there is an actual Greek term for Mother of God, "μήτηρα τοῦ Θεοῦ," and second that the Early Church did not use the term. The title "Theotokos" (θεοτοκος) was deliberately chosen by the Early Church precisely because it avoided identifying Mary's maternity with Christ's divinity. Rather, early writers went out of their way to declare that in Christ's divinity He was motherless. There is simply no logical means to get from the Early Church's point A ("In Christ's divinity He was motherless") to Roman Catholicism's point B ("Mary is the Mother of God") without significant leaps and theological innovation. As we will demonstrate, that innovation occurred in the latter part of the 4th century.

• The Roman Catholic support from the Early Church comes from the following five sources:
  • Papyrus 470 in the John Rylands Library, on which is found a prayer for the protection of the Theotokos. Based on the opinion of papyrologist Edgar Lobel, Roman Catholics place it in the 3rd century and consider it evidence for ante-Niceæn prayers to Mary (see The John Rylands Library (Manchester), Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri, Volume III, Theological and Literary Texts (Nos. 457-551), ed., C. H. Roberts, M.A. (Manchester University Press (1938) 46-47).
    • counterevidence:
    • It is true that Lobel was "unwilling to place [papyrus] 470 later than the third century," but papyrologist C. H. Roberts, editor of the Catalogue, disagreed in the strongest terms: "...such individual hands are hard to date, and it is almost incredible that a prayer addressed directly to the Virgin in these terms could be written in the third century. The Virgin was spoken of as by Athanasius; but there is no evidence even for private prayer addressed to her (cf. Greg. Naz. Orat. xxiv. II) before the latter part of the fourth century, and I find it difficult to think that our text was written earlier than that" (John Rylands Library, Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri, Volume III, 46).
    • Other sources have it "mostly dated to after 450" A.D.. There is no compelling evidence placing it earlier than the latter part of the 4th century. Even esteemed Roman Catholic Mariologist, Juniper Carol, can only say that it "was written certainly before the close of the fourth century."
    • Hippolytus (170 – 235 A.D) is said to have used the term Theotokos in his third century work, De Benedictionibus Patriarcharum.
      • counterevidence:
      • Roman Catholic scholars acknowledge that "the title Theotokos was an interpolation" in de Benedictionibus, and was not found in the original text (O'Carroll, Michael, Theotokos: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Blessed Virgin Mary (The Liturgical Press, 1982) 172)
      • Origen (185 – 254 A.D.). It is reported by historian Socrates (5th century) that Origen used the term in his Commentary on Romans (Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, Book VII, chapter 32).
        • counterevidence:
        • There are no extant copies of Origen's alleged Commentary on Romans. As the New World Encyclopedia states, Origen "is cited as the earliest author to use the title Theotokos for Mary but the text upon which this assertion is based is not genuine."
        • Dionysius of Alexandia (d. 264 A.D.) is alleged to have used the term "ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ Θεοῦ μου" (the Mother of my God) in his epistle Against Paul of Samosata.
          • counterevidence:
          • Even Roman Catholic apologists agree that Dionysius' letter is a forgery from the late 4th century: "Subsequent criticism has proved that it [the epistle Against Paul of Samosata] is a forgery of the 4th century," specifically a forgery of the Apollonarian era (The Witness of Heretical Bodies of Mariology (Dublin Review, No. XX, (London: Burnes, Oates & Co.) April 1868) 320-361), which "flourished in the latter half of the fourth century" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Apollonarianism). John Cardinal Newman, erstwhile Anglican turned Roman Catholic, also acknowledged that the letter ostensibly from Dionysius of Alexandria to Paul of Samosata is "certainly spurious" (Newman, Select Treatises of St. Athanasius, Volume 2).
          • Roman Catholic Mariologist, Fr. Michael O'Carroll, acknowledges “the first certain literary use of the title [Theotokos] is attributed to Alexander of Alexandria” in about 324-325 A.D., just before the Council of Nicæa (Fr. Michael O'Caroll, The History of the Term Theotókos). We concur with this. The problem for Roman Catholics is that Alexander used the term in a way that Protestants find entirely unobjectionable and that is completely incompatible with the Roman Catholic Latinization, "Mother of God."
            • Alexander's use of Theotokos occurs in his Epistles on Arianism and the Deposition of Arius in which he juxtaposes two terms—theogonias and theotokos—in order to distinguish between Jesus' divine generation by His Father, and His reception of a body from Mary:
              • "...rational beings cannot receive the knowledge of His theogonias (θεογονιας, divine generation) by the Father. ... our Lord Jesus Christ, who in very deed, and not in appearance merely, carried a body, of Mary, theotokos (θεοτοκου, bearer of God)" (Alexander of Alexandria, Epistles on Arianism and the Deposition of Arius, chapter 12).
              • Here Alexander uses Theogonias in contradistinction to Theotokos, separating the concept of Christ's divine generation by His Father (θεογονιας), and His body carried in Mary's womb (θεοτοκου).
              • By juxtaposing the two terms, Alexander effectively ruled out the later Latinization—"Dei Genitrix" or "Dei Mater" (Mother of God)—of the term "Theotokos." Note that the terms "γονιας (gonias)" and "genitrix" are the Greek and Latin roots for the organs of generation in English (gonads, genitals). In other words, in regard to His divine generation, Jesus did not have a mother, but in regards to His flesh, He did. In saying it this way, Alexander avoided linking Christ's divine generation to Mary's physical motherhood. This is consistent with other early writers' expressions:
                • Lactantius (250-325 A.D.): "For in His first nativity, which was spiritual, He was 'motherless,' because He was begotten by God the Father alone, without the office of a mother. But in His second, which was in the flesh, He was born of a virgin's womb without the office of a father...” (Divine Institutes, Book IV, chapter 13,)
                • Eusebius (c. 333) used the term Θεοτοκου in his commentary on Psalm 110:3 (109:4), specifically, "..in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning... ." Commenting on this verse, Eusebius repeatedly emphasizes that the Psalm foresees the generation of Christ's flesh in the womb of Mary by the Spirit, i.e., “της ενσαρκου γεννησεως” and “την ενσαρκον γεννησιν” (Migne, Patrologia Græca (P.G.), vol. 23, cols 1341-1344). The eternal generation of Christ by the Father is not in view.
                • Athanasius (c. 356 A.D.) “[The Scripture] contains a double account of the Saviour; that He was ever God, and is the Son, being the Father’s Word and Radiance and Wisdom; and that afterwards for us He took flesh of a Virgin, Mary, bearer of God (θεοτοκου), and was made man." (Against the Arians, Discourse III, paragraph 29)
                • Augustine (354 – 450 A.D.),  “... without a mother He was God ... . According as He was God, He had not a mother; ... She was the mother, then, of His flesh, of His humanity... .”(Lectures on the Gospel of John, Lecture 8, paragraphs 8-9), paragraph)
                • Such statements as in His divine generation "He was motherless" and "without a mother" and "He had not a mother" are wholly irreconcilable with "Dei Genitrix," "Mater Dei," (Mother of God), the errant Latinization of Theotokos. When the early church used the term Θεοτοκου, it was in view of the generation of His flesh, not His divinity. Lactantius, Eusebius, Alexander, Athanasius and Augustine are consistent on that point, showing just how inappropriate it was to render the term as "Dei Genitrix" later in Latin.
                • That inappropriate Latin rendering of Theotokos (Dei Genitrix, Dei matre, Matrem Dei, etc.) does not actually manifest until the latter part of the 4th century and the early 5th:
                  • Ambrose, de Virginibus (377 A.D.), Book II, paragraph 7: "Dei matre," (Migne, Patrologia Latina (P.L.), vol. 16, col. 209)
                  • John Cassian, de Incarnatione Christi (419 A.D.), Book II, chapter 2: "Matrem Dei," (Migne, P.L., vol. 50, cols. 32, 35); "Dei mater" (cols. 36-37); Book II, chapter 5: "genitrix Dei,""Dei matrem,"  (Migne, P.L., vol. 50, col. 44); Book II, chapter 6 "Dei matrem" (Migne, P.L., vol. 50, col. 46); Book VII, chapter 25: "Matrem Dei,"  (Migne, P.L., vol. 50, col. 254).
                  • In sum, we do not object to the Early Church's use of Theotokos, because the Early Church used it in order to avoid calling Mary the Mother of God. Roman Catholicism is ever eager to find early use of the Greek term θεοτοκος in order to justify the later incorrect Latinization, Dei Genitrix or Mater Dei. However, the earliest confirmed use of θεοτοκος is found in juxtaposition with θεογονιας, and is clearly used to distinguish between Jesus' divine generation by His Father, and His reception of a body from Mary (as in Eusebius), isolating Mary's maternity from Jesus' divine generation. This is consistent with the Early Church's belief and explicit statements that in His divinity, Jesus had no mother. The statement "in His divinity He was motherless" simply cannot be reconciled with the later Roman Catholic innovation, "Mother of God." In fact, that actual term does not arise in Latin until the latter part of the 4th century, and Roman Catholic claims to have found the actual title "Mother of God" in Greek sources are based on a document that was later found to be a late 4th century forgery (Dionysius' letter Against Paul of Samosata).

We hope this raw data will be of assistance to those evaluating and studying the unscriptural Roman Catholic view of Mary. We will continue this series with part 2, on Mary as "Ark of the New Covenant."

Wills, Garry. What Jesus Meant. New York: Viking, 2006. Print.

It's not uncommon for liberal scholars who can read the New Testament in its original language to remain utterly clueless as to what it truly teaches. Garry Wills, a historian and classicist who is proficient in Greek, ironically wrote What Jesus Meant to dispel popular cultural misunderstandings of Jesus, not realizing that his polluted theological presumptions grossly distort Christ's teachings and promote a perverted anti-Christ agenda.

This book is terrible, but it's interesting how Wills, a practicing Catholic--albeit an unorthodox one according to Roman Catholic dogma, though ironically he and Pope Francis seem to have much in common (see Richard Bennett, "Francis: Stalwart Reformer or Diehard Pontiff?", http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=297)--criticizes and rejects the papacy, knowing that Jesus would have too (15), and argues that the New Testament has no sacrificial system of priests like the Roman Catholic church does (67ff.). He also provides his own translations of all the New Testament passages he quotes, which are sometimes, though not always, better than popular translations, such as John 3:16: "Such was God's love for the creation [world] that he gave his only-begotten [unique] Son to keep anyone believing in him from perishing, to have a life eternal" (122). This does a better job of rendering πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων--"everyone believing"--into the present progressive, which delimits "the world" to refer to believers only.

Unfortunately, Wills completely distorts what Jesus really meant.

The Money-Hatin' Jesus

Wills rightly says "that Jesus wore no gorgeous vestments. He neither owned nor used golden chalices or precious vessels. He had no jeweled ring to be kissed" (44); but then he goes too far, claiming that, "though the gospels make it clear that riches are the enemy of the spirit, they raise an even more urgent warning against power, and especially against spiritual power" (44). According to the Bible riches in themselves are not evil; "the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs" (1 Tim. 6:10). Jesus even promised: "There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel's sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life" (Mark 10:29-30).

The Rebellious Ahistorical Jesus

Wills imposes his irrational, mystical unbelief--"Jesus as a person does not exist outside the gospels, and the only reason he exists there is because of their authors' faith in the Resurrection.... So this book...will treat the Jesus of faith, since there is no other. The 'historical Jesus' does not exist for us" (xxvi, xxviii)--and his anti-Christian ethics into the Gospels, resulting in a pro-homosexual, social justice, pacifistic, egalitarian, inclusive, disobedient, rebellious Jesus who

went a different way,...neglecting (no doubt) the family business of cabinetmaking.... Though we are not explicitly told anything about "the hidden years" beyond Luke's description of his running away from his parents when he was twelve, the stance of the rebel who would not be contained in the expectations of his hometown comes out again and again when family ties are mentioned. (6, 7)

In an effort to criticize Christian leaders who "have often rebuked the rebelliousness of young people by offering them a pastel picture of the young Jesus as a model of compliance and good behavior" (7), Wills eisegetes the Gospels. The Bible never says that Jesus was disobedient and ran away from his parents. On the contrary, Jesus "went down with [His parents] and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men" (Luke 2:51-52). Jesus never broke God's law; He is the only person in existence that has kept the law fully and perfectly:

Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.... For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.... For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. (Matt. 5:17, Rom. 5:19; Heb. 5:14)

The Cultic Jesus

Wills also claims that "when [Jesus] moved from the spiritual isolation of the Essenes to the activist denunciations of [John] the Baptist, that would have dismayed his family even more profoundly. They would have felt what families feel today when their sons and daughters join a 'cult' " (11). But the Bible says nothing about Jesus being an Essene, and why would Jesus' family think that He joined a cult with John the Baptist if "everyone considered John to have been a real prophet"? (Mark 11:32) Far from being Essenic, "cultic" leaders, prophets played an integral role in Jewish society.

Additionally, Wills claims that John the Baptist mentored Jesus, though the Bible says that they were almost the same age, and John himself said he wasn't worthy to untie Jesus' sandals: "One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire" (Luke 3:16). Wills promotes the typical Catholic portrayal of Jesus as a weak and frail ascetic, though neither He nor His disciples fasted (Luke 5:33); but He did do the hard work of a carpenter and was strong enough to turn tables over and whip money changers out of the temple (John 2:13ff.). Wills seems to forget that Christ couldn't carry the cross because He was beaten mercilessly beforehand, not because He was naturally weak (23).

The Quixotically Pacifistic Jesus

Next, Wills claims that, "though [Jesus] is opposed to war and violence, he is choosing followers for a form of spiritual warfare.... Jesus consistently opposed violence. He ordered Peter not to use the sword, even to protect his Lord... he never accepted violence as justified" (25, 53-54). Jesus Himself, however, told the disciples to buy swords so that, when the time came, they could defend themselves, not Him:

"Whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one. For I tell you that this which is written must be fulfilled in Me, 'And He was numbered with transgressors'; for that which refers to Me has its fulfillment." They said, "Lord, look, here are two swords." And He said to them, "It is enough." (Luke 22:35ff.)

Wills, furthermore, doesn't believe in demons and tries to explain away certain passages which describe demons possessing people: "Many of Jesus' miracles are worked for outsiders...with whom observant Jews are to have no dealings...with those made unclean by their illnesses (therefore "possessed").... He casts the uncleanness out of one man into forbidden animals, into pigs (Mk 5.13), to show that no person made in God's image should be treated as unclean" (30). But if demons don't exist, then why was Jesus "choosing followers for a form of spiritual warfare"? (25) If Wills was consistent, he would have to say that Jesus was certifiably insane for talking to Satan, who, according to Wills, doesn't actually exist because he is merely evil personified (120).

Wills also argues that the Father's "love is undiscriminating and inclusive, not graduated and exclusive" (29). But doesn't God love Esau and hate Jacob, and prepare vessels of wrath that are fitted for destruction? (Rom. 9) Are not "the wicked reserved for the day of doom" and also "be brought out on the day of wrath"? (Job 21:30, cf. Prov. 16:4) Wills asks:

Why did the payment [of sin] include Jesus' death, and such a horrible death? Was the creditor so exacting? Behind this conclusion lies the imagery of an angry God, hard to appease but by the most terrible of sacrifices. This is a view that some people call 'gruesome.'... If we talk of salvation as sacrificial in the sense of appeasement or propitiation, there is a note of assuaging an angry God. If we talk of it as rescue, the power from which mankind has to be rescued is not God but the forces at work against God--all the accumulated sins that cripple human freedom.... He sheds his blood with and for us, in our defense, not as a libation to an angry Father.... God initiates [Christ's sacrifice] to conquer sin, not to placate himself.... it is a proof of God's love, not his anger. (115, 121, 122)

Here Wills denies the most fundamental doctrine of the Biblical Gospel--propitiation. He tries to impose his passive god into the Bible and fails miserably, completely ignoring all the verses that speak of God's wrath. I would like to see how Wills would reconcile his pathetic, pacifistic Jesus and Father with passages like

Romans 12:19--"Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,' says the Lord" (NASB);

2 Thessalonians 1:7-9--"the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power";

2 Peter 3:7--"But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men";

Jude 14-15--"the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him";

and Revelation 19:11-16--

And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, "KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS."

And let's not forget the passage where Jesus violently whips the money changers out of the temple (John 2). Or this one: "He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (John 3:36). Or this one: "Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (Rom. 5:9-10). This one too: "The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity" (Ps. 5:5). And last but not least: "God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day" (Ps. 7:11).

Wills rejects the doctrine of propitiation, even though it's clearly taught in the Bible, because it means that God is angry with unrepentant sinners, and the only way He could forgive them is by crushing His unique Son: "The LORD was pleased To crush Him [Christ], putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering...whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness" (Isa. 53:10; Rom. 3:25) and to satisfy His wrath, the wrath that we deserve, so "that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3:26).

The Social Justice Jesus

Wills asks another important question but gives another horrible answer:

What are the tests for entry into the reign or exclusion from it? They are very simple. One will not be asked whether one voted, whether one was a good citizen, or even whether one dealt justly. That is not enough.... The simple test is this. Did you treat everyone, high and low, as if dealing with Jesus himself, with his own inclusive and gratuitous love... "Whenever you did these things to the lowliest of my brothers, you were doing it to me." [This] means that...those who despise the poor are despising Jesus. Those neglecting the homeless are neglecting Jesus. Those persecuting gays are persecuting Jesus.... Our test for entry into heaven's reign is whether we fed Jesus in the hungry, clothed him in the naked, welcomed him in the outcast. (58, 137)

Contrary to the Biblical teaching of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone (Eph. 2), according to Wills' social justice Jesus, if we don't love everyone, help the poor, and affirm homosexuals, then we will not be saved. But it gets worse: "How can we tell who among us is securely affixed to the Vine? We cannot. He [Jesus] told us as much" (140). The real Jesus, however, told us, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out" (John 6:37), and John the apostle wrote his letter "to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13, bold emphasis always mine). Wills continuously misapplies verses to make them fit his fictional Jesus. Matthew 25:35-40 does not command Christians to help the poor; it commands Christians to help other Christians--brothers--when they are in need, especially during persecution. Jesus also said,

Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'... For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day. (Matt. 7:21-23, John 6:40)

According to the Bible, salvation is by grace "through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:8-10).

The Unclean Jesus

This is one of the worst parts of the book. Wills asks:

Who are the Jews of our day? Who are the cursed? Some Christians tell us who. At the funeral of a well-known gay man who died of AIDS, a "Christian" group showed up with placards saying "God hates fags." In the San Diego diocese, a Catholic bishop forbade Christian burial to an openly gay man. Is there any doubt where Jesus would have stood in these episodes--where, in his mystical members, he was standing then? He was with the gay man, not with his haters. This is made all the clearer by the fact that gays are called unclean for the same reason as were other outcasts of Jesus' time--because they violate the Holiness Code of the Book of Leviticus. (32)

Unless they become new creatures by repenting of their sins and believing in Christ, God is with neither the gay man nor his haters, "for unless you believe that I [Jesus] am He, you will die in your sins...unless you repent you will all likewise perish" (John 8:24, Luke 13:3). And if gays are called unclean (an abomination, actually, cf. Lev. 18.22, 20.13) because they violate the Holiness Code of Leviticus, then why does God still condemn homosexuality in Genesis 19, Ezekiel 16:50, Romans 1:26-28, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:8-10, Jude 7, etc., none of which are a part of the Holiness Code? Because homosexuality violates God's natural order and is done outside of the Biblical definition of marriage. Wills, however, conveniently leaves these passages out.

The Heretical Jesus and Heroic Judas

Wills also makes a blunder I'd never seen before. He claims that Jesus shared His divinity with the Father, implying that He was not fully divine in Himself:

[Christ's] own divinity is a divinity in the Father, not apart from him. He will not test the Father, because he is too closely identified with him. It would be putting himself on trial. As he says in John's gospel: "The Son, I tell you the truth, can do nothing but what he sees the Father doing. And whatever he does, the Son does in his turn. For the Father loves the Son, and shows him whatever he does" (Jn 5.19-20). (16-17)

Wills distorts this passage, which actually teaches that the Father and the Son are so close that they are united in will, not that they share divinity. Christ Himself is fully God, just as the Father and Holy Spirit are, "For in Him [Christ] all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form...and He is the head over all rule and authority" (Col. 2:9, 10). Wills should read the Athanasian Creed:

We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal.

But Wills doesn't just fictionalize Jesus; he turns the traitorous thief, Judas Iscariot, into a good guy as well:

There must have been some good in the man for Jesus to have chosen him not only to follow him but to be one of the Twelve and the trusted bearer of the common purse (Jn 13.29). Judas is a practical man, who deplores the waste of money on precious oils, but he seems idealistic as well, wanting to save money for the poor (Jn 12.4-5).... Jesus knows that Judas is fulfilling the plan of the Father, which leads to the disgraceful death and burial of both men. He says of his followers in general: "Not one of them is lost but the one marked out to be lost to fulfill the scripture" (Jn 17.12). Judas is involuntarily following the will of the Father, as Jesus does voluntarily. (101)

Wills doesn't believe in radical depravity either, the Biblical teaching that all men are naturally evil and thus unable to do any good (Rom. 3, Rom. 8). Jesus chose Judas to fulfill the prophecy, not because there was something good in him: "I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition [Judas], so that the Scripture would be fulfilled" (John 17:12). Judas was not an "idealist" at all. The reason he didn't want the money to be wasted on precious oils was "not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it" (John 12:6). Judas was not "involuntarily following the will of the Father" because he himself "was intending to betray Him [Jesus]" (John 12:4). He also claims that Judas

killed himself for having killed God. It was an act of contrition that redeems him, makes him a kind of comrade for all of us who have betrayed Jesus. He is our patron. Saint Judas.... I believe the Shepherd [Jesus, when He supposedly descended into hell after He died] was first seeking out his special lost one, Judas. (104)

Aside from the fact that we're saved by grace through faith, not by "acts of contrition," Judas was not redeemed; he was the "son of perdition," which means he was damned to hell for being a wicked, God-hating sinner who betrayed Christ. "Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place" (Acts 1:25 NKJV).

What Jesus Meant is the worst interpretation of the Gospels I've ever read. I find it fitting to conclude with a message for Garry Wills from the historical, complementarian, divinely just, exclusive, obedient, King of kings and Lord of lords Jesus: "You blind guide, who strains out a gnat and swallows a camel!" (Matt. 23:24) That's what Jesus meant.

Rev 5/17

William P. Young, in collaboration with Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings. The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity. Ca: Windblown Media, 2007. Print.

One of William P. Young’s major themes in The Shack is how God relates to people in diverse ways. “For any created being, autonomy is lunacy. Freedom involves trust and obedience inside a relationship of love” (Young 132). Young makes humans incredibly powerful and autonomous when compared to God, to the point where God Himself (or herself, according to Young) must work out His own will “without the violation of one human will” (125). The nature of God, how God relates to man and how He communicates to us, obedience, free will, expectations, election and predestination, submission, and the law of God are some of the Christian doctrines that Young severely, even blasphemously and heretically, distorts in The Shack.

Young seems confused at best when he answers important questions about Christianity. The following quote contradicts the one previously stated: “To force my [Jesus’] will on you [Mack]…is exactly what love does not do… Submission is not about authority and it is not obedience; it is all about relationships of love and respect. In fact, we [the Trinity] are submitted to you in the same way” (145).[1] Young stresses a “relationship of love” with God and claims that submission is not about obedience or authority—even though Christ commanded, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15)[2]—yet he also asserts that freedom is about obedience, so is obedience part of it or not? Despite these contradictions, we will see that Young ultimately does not advocate any type of obedience.

The Shack’s passive and pagan mama-god complex

According to the Bible, God does force or impose His will on people: “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, Like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes” (Prov. 21:1). He has no alternative because “there is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside” (Romans 3:10-12). Moses did not want to stand up to Pharaoh, but God never gave him a choice: “Moses said to the LORD, ‘I am slow of speech and slow of tongue’… Then the anger of the LORD burned against Moses, and He said…‘You are to speak to [Aaron] and put the words in his mouth; and I, even I, will be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will teach you what you are to do” (Exodus 4:10, 14-15). And contrary to what the god of The Shack teaches, the God of the Bible does get disappointed with people, including His own, because He holds all of them accountable for their thoughts, words, and actions, and will judge them according to the standard He has set forth in Scripture:

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent… It is for discipline that you [believers] endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are [bastards] and not sons… For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome…let us [therefore] keep living by that same standard to which we have attained. (Revelation 3:19; Hebrews 12:7-8; I John 5:3; Philippians 3:16)

If a person is not disciplined and rebuked by God, then he is not God’s adopted son, which is the exact opposite of what Papa—Young’s blasphemous and idolatrous portrayal of God the Father as an overweight black woman—tells Mack: “Honey, I’ve never placed an expectation on you or anyone else… And beyond that, because I have no expectations, you never disappoint me” (206). The reality is quite the contrary, for it would be impossible to grieve and disappoint the Spirit of God if He never places any expectations on us as Young alleges: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). God judges unrepentant sinners and condemns them to hell because they are guilty criminals who have broken His righteous, holy law (Psalm 7:11; John 3:36; I Corinthians 6:9-10). The reason repentant, born-again believers are no longer condemned is that they have the blood of Jesus as a propitiation—appeasement of God’s holy wrath—for all their sin. They are thus forgiven and are no longer sinners and criminals in God’s eyes but have been regenerated, washed, and sanctified through the Holy Spirit, and become adopted sons and daughters, and saints of God (Galatians 4:5; Titus 3:5). Contrary to what Papa says about expectations, the God of the Bible expects many things from His people,

for we [believers] are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them… [Jesus] appointed [us] that [we] would go and bear fruit… Therefore, beloved, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless… Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification [holiness] without which no one will see the Lord. (Ephesians 2:10; John 15:16; II Peter 3:14; Hebrews 12:14)

Believers are constantly exhorted throughout the Scriptures to be obedient followers of Christ and to maintain a holy, righteous, loving, and godly standard in their lives. The end of almost every New Testament letter commands believers to do something that God expects of them. Christians are called to be “the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men” (Matthew 5:13).

To choose, or not to choose, that is the question

Just as it was in the Old Testament with Moses having no choice, so it is in the New. God did not give Mary a choice because she was already chosen, and there was nothing she could do to change that: “Behold, you [Mary] will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus… The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:31, 35). God did not ask Mary permission to use her womb, just as He never asked Paul to go to Damascus—He commanded them. In fact, God has never given anyone a choice because He “commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man [Jesus] whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31, cf. Luke 13:3, John 14:15), even though He has already chosen whom He will save:

All that the Father gives Me [Jesus] will come to Me… No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him… You did not choose Me [Jesus] but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit… He [God the Father] predestined us [believers] to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will…having been predestined according to His purpose [not ours]… For many are called, but few are chosen…who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God [alone]. (John 6:37, 44, 15:16; Ephesians 1:5, 11; Matthew 22:14; John 1:13, NASB)

The Bible teaches election and predestination, for God “has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires… So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (Romans 9:18, 16). Ultimately it is up to God to determine whether he will save someone because he has foreordained all things to come to pass according to his will: “and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). God does not consider human free will because it doesn’t exist; the will has been in complete bondage to sin ever since the curse of sin came into the world,

because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God… Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil… The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked… Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned…much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. (Romans 8:7-8; Jeremiah 13:23, 17:9; Romans 5:12, 15; cf. Genesis 3, Romans 3, 8:18-25)

The Jesus of The Shack, however, tells Mack the very opposite: “You’re not supposed to do anything. You’re free to do whatever you like” (89). I’ll address this antinomianism (lawlessness) shortly, but Sarayu—Young’s blasphemous and idolatrous feminine portrayal of the Holy Spirit as a “windy” oriental woman—also tells Mack, “Relationships are never about power… We carefully respect your choices,” and Papa later tells him, “We won’t use you [without your consent]” (106, 123-124). All of this blatantly contradicts the Bible, which states that a person must become a “born-again” slave of righteousness to become a true follower of Jesus Christ:

Most assuredly, I [Jesus] say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God… Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. (John 3:3; Romans 6:16-19)

Do what thou wilt

Concerning the relationship that Jesus wants with His chosen people, the Jesus of The Shack once again tells Mack the opposite of what the real Jesus says in Scripture: “I don’t want slaves to my will; I want brothers and sisters who will share life with me…[but] we will never force that union on you” (146, 149). This is partly based on the assumption that “true love never forces” (190). Yet the Jesus of the Bible says, “No one is able to come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him… If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross day by day and follow Me… No servant can serve [Greek douleuein, derived from doulos ‘slave’] two masters… A pupil is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master… He who has My orders and observes them loves Me” (John 6:44; Luke 9:23, 16:13; Matthew 10:24; John 14:21, MLB; see also Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English). Christians are commanded to “glorify God in [their] bodies” (1 Cor. 6:20) and to present themselves “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God…[for] [they] were bought with a price” (Romans 12:1; I Corinthians 6:20). The Bible commands sinners to repent, deny themselves, and follow Christ, who becomes their Master, “for whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25, cf. 16:24). Young contradicts Scripture when he has Jesus say things like, “I don’t want slaves to my will,” because that’s exactly what God wants.

Moreover, Papa and Sarayu teach Mack antinomianism, or lawlessness:

“The Bible doesn’t teach you to follow rules… Just don’t look for rules and principles; look for relationship…

…………..

“Are you saying I don’t have to follow the rules?”...[Sarayu answers,] “Yes. In Jesus you are not under any law. All things are lawful….”

“Trying to keep the law is actually a declaration of independence, a way of keeping control….”

“Enforcing rules, especially in its more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainty out of uncertainty. And contrary to what you might think, I have a great fondness for uncertainty. Rules cannot bring freedom; they only have the power to accuse.”

“Whoa!” Mack suddenly realized what Sarayu had said. “Are you telling me that responsibility and expectation are just another form of rules we are no longer under? Did I hear you right?”

“Yup”, Papa interjected again.  (197-198, 203)

To Young’s dismay, the Bible does teach you to follow rules and obey commands—obedience is the very mark of a Christian’s love for Christ: “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (I John 2:3-4). Young is promoting the heresy of antinomianism, or, in the words of Jesus, the doctrine of those “who practice lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23). Jesus warns against this kind of false teaching: “Many will say to Me on that day [of judgment], 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness' ” (Matthew 7:22-23). Yet the Jesus of The Shack also tells Mack, “Seriously, my life was not meant to be an example to copy. Being my follower is not trying to ‘be like Jesus,’ it means for your independence to be killed…. But, we will never force that union on you” (149). Young clearly has no regard for what the Bible says, for he is at odds with the Apostle Paul: “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ” (I Corinthians 11:1). It’s no wonder that he attacks and undermines Sola Scriptura—the Bible as the supreme authority in all matters of doctrine and practice—all throughout The Shack:

Try as he might, Mack could not escape the desperate possibility that the note just might be from God after all, even if the thought of God passing notes did not fit well with his theological training. In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while educated Westerners’ access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book. Especially an expensive one bound in leather with gilt edges, or was that guilt edges?  (65-66)

Can’t we all just get saved?

The Shack contradicts the Bible on numerous levels and presents an entirely different God. Young flirts with universalism, the belief that everyone—including unbelievers—will eventually be saved, regardless of their belief about Christ. This is evident when Papa tells Mack, “Son, this is not about shaming you. I don't do humiliation, or guilt, or condemnation. They don't produce one speck of wholeness or righteousness, and that is why they were nailed into Jesus on the cross" (223). It gets worse when Jesus tells Mack:

“I am the best way any human can relate to Papa or Sarayu. To see me is to see them. The love you sense from me is no different from how they love you. And believe me, Papa and Sarayu are just as real as I am, though as you’ve seen in far different ways.”

“Speaking of Sarayu, is she the Holy Spirit?”

“Yes. She is Creativity; she is Action; she is the Breathing of Life; she is much more. She is my Spirit.” (110)

It doesn’t take much to see that the Bible reveals an altogether different God:

The boastful shall not stand in Your [God’s] sight; You hate all workers of iniquity… God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day…God [is] the Judge of all… For the LORD is our Judge, The LORD is our Lawgiver, The LORD is our King; He will save us… God is the Judge: He puts down one, And exalts another… He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God… He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him (Psalm 5:5, 7:11; Hebrews 12:23; Isaiah 33:22; Psalm 75:7; John 3:18, 36)

Problem Seven: A Wrong View of the Way of Salvation

Another problem emerges in the message of The Shack. According to Young, Christ is just the “best” way to relate to the Father, not the only way (109). The “best” does not necessarily imply the only way, which then means that there may be other ways to relate to God. Such an assertion is contrary to Jesus’ claim, “I am the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes unto the Father except through me” (John14:6).  He added, “He who believes in Him [Christ] is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of  the only begotten Son of God” (Jn. 3:18). Jesus is not merely the best way, but He is the only way to God. Paul declared: “There is one God and one mediator between God and Men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).[3]

What’s worse is that Young calls God the Father “Papa” yet blasphemously and idolatrously portrays and embodies Him as an obese black woman:

I am neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from my nature.  If I choose to appear to you as a man or a woman, it’s because I love you.  For me to appear as a woman and suggest that you call me Papa is simply to mix metaphors, to help you keep from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning. (93)

My criticisms are not based on racism or sexism. The problem is that Young wants us to shake off the “religious conditioning” that the Bible itself imposes on us, since it always and only refers to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit with masculine pronouns, and whenever He appeared in human form it was always and only as a man. Not to mention that the reason God expresses and manifests so much wrath and retribution on sinners is because of the rampant idolatry and “humanizing” of God that The Shack shamelessly promotes:

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. (Exodus 20:2-4)

…although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 1:22-25)

Look! It’s the Father! No, it’s the Son! No, it’s the Spirit! No, it’s all three!

Young attempts to affirm the orthodox view of the Trinity when Papa explains to Mack: “We are not three gods, and we are not talking about one god with three attitudes, like a man who is a husband, father, and worker. I am one God and I am three persons, and each of the three is fully and entirely the one” (101). But he disregards this definition by promoting the heresy of patripassionism:

Patripassionism is a theological error dealing with the Godhead which states that the Father became incarnate, was born, suffered, and died on the cross, hence, the Father's (patri) passion (suffer) on the cross.

This is an error because we know that Jesus spoke to the person of the Father, and that it was Jesus who went to the cross. If the Father and Son are the same person, that how is it possible for the Father and Son to speak to one another and have separate wills? It is not. Therefore, the doctrine of patripassianism is incorrect and heretical.[4]

The Shack unabashedly promotes this heresy, such as when Sarayu (Young’s version of the “Holy Spirit”) says, "Haven't you seen the [crucifixion] wounds on Papa too?" (164). But Young doesn’t stop there; he compounds his heresy by including the Holy Spirit in Christ’s suffering for good measure, as if portraying all three persons as humans, two of them as women, wasn’t bad enough:

When we three spoke ourself into human existence as the Son of God, we became fully human.  We also chose to embrace all the limitations that this entailed.  Even though we have always been present in this created universe, we now became flesh and blood… Don’t ever think that what my son chose to do didn’t cost us dearly.  Love always leaves a significant mark… We were there together.  (99; 96)

Patripassionism also presupposes the heresy of modalism:

Modalism is probably the most common theological error concerning the nature of God.  It is a denial of the Trinity. Modalism states that God is a single person who, throughout biblical history, has revealed Himself in three modes or forms. Thus, God is a single person who first manifested himself in the mode of the Father in Old Testament times. At the incarnation, the mode was the Son; and after Jesus' ascension, the mode is the Holy Spirit. These modes are consecutive and never simultaneous. In other words, this view states that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit never all exist at the same time--only one after another. Modalism denies the distinctiveness of the three persons in the Trinity even though it retains the divinity of Christ.[5]

These are illogical heresies because, rather than suffer with Christ, God the Father was pleased to pour out His own wrath on Christ to satisfy His perfect justice, for

it pleased the LORD to crush Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin… (Isaiah 53:10)

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.  (Romans 3:23-26)

It should be obvious that God the Father has no body because “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24), and the Holy Spirit is, well, spirit. Another odd Trinitarian heresy promoted in the book is that all of the persons in the Trinity are equally submitted, not only to each other, but to mankind as well: “Papa is as much submitted to me [Jesus] as I to him, or Sarayu [Young’s “Holy Spirit”] to me, or Papa to her. Submission is not about authority and it is not obedience; it is all about relationships of love and respect. In fact, we are submitted to you in the same way” (145). This denies in the worst possible way the orthodox understanding of the economic Trinity regarding authority and order: that the Father is preeminent—“My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28)—that the Son submits to and proceeds from the Father, and "who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a slave, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 1:6-9). And that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son[6]:

“When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me." (John 15:26)

1. The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.

2. The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten.

3. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. (The Athanasian Creed)[7]

But it’s just fiction...

It’s convenient to say that The Shack is just a novel because it gives Young plausible deniability. Earlier self-defensive poets like Geoffrey Chaucer used dream visions and allegory, partly to detach themselves from their writing and avoid suspicion from church and state:

And afterward the story I engage

To tell you of our common pilgrimage.

But first, I pray you, of your courtesy,

You'll not ascribe it to vulgarity

Though I speak plainly of this matter here,

Retailing you their words and means of cheer;

Nor though I use their very terms, nor lie.

For this thing do you know as well as I:

When one repeats a tale told by a man,

He must report, as nearly as he can,

Every least word, if he remember it,

However rude it be, or how unfit;

Or else he may be telling what's untrue,

Embellishing and fictionizing too.

He may not spare, although it were his brother;

He must as well say one word as another.

Christ spoke right broadly out, in holy writ,

And, you know well, there's nothing low in it.

And Plato says, to those able to read:

"The word should be the cousin to the deed."[8]

Many defend The Shack in a similar way that some defend Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code because they are novels, even though they promote anti-Christian agendas. After all, it’s just a dream, right? It’s just a work of fiction, right? Here’s one prominent example from CBN:

The Shack's depiction of God is an interesting portrait that isn’t meant to be taken literally as much as it is meant to capture many of the attributes of God that we read about in the Bible. These characters’ interactions with Mack show that God is compassionate, loving, and that He desires a close relationship with each of us.

God relates to us in the ways that we will best be able to hear Him. Because of Mack’s painful childhood memories of an abusive dad, perhaps he would not have embraced God the way we typically see Him portrayed, as a Father-figure.[9]

The problem is that the ways in which Young “captures” the many attributes of God are utterly opposed to what “we read about in the Bible.” God relates to us through His Word, and the Word reveals God as a holy, just judge and a Father who rebukes those he loves, so if Young cannot embrace God as a “Father-figure,” then he’s embracing an idol of his imagination, which is what The Shack is a product of.

The Shack is such a wild and synergistic concoction of heresies that new theological terms and categories must be coined to accommodate them. I couldn’t find hardly anything in the book that was Biblical. I marvel how so much heresy, blasphemy, and idolatry can be packed into one book and be marketed as Christian literature and, in the words of Eugene Peterson,[10] author of The Message bible, even be compared to Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, which has virtually nothing in common with The Shack, because The Shack has virtually nothing in common with the Bible. I have never read a book claiming to promote Christianity that is so blatantly blasphemous and offensive. It is no wonder that Scripture warns how “false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect…. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light” (Matt. 24:24; Luke 16:8).

Don't stop here! Put on heresy repellant with these resources:

• The Shack: Uncovered (Full Sermon) - Michael Youssef, https://vimeo.com/4479699

• Paul Flynn’s The Shack: Its Dangerous Theology and Error (Full Documentary Film), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epEQv6-5u0U

• Matt Slick’s book review of The Shack and interview with the author, William P. Young, https://carm.org/the-shack

• Tim Challies’ book review of The Shack, http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/a-review-of-the-shack-download-it-here

• Theology Gals | Episode 5 | The Shack & Christian Discernment, http://biblethumpingwingnut.com/2017/03/07/theology-gals-episode-5-shack-christian-discernment/

• Coleen Sharp, “Why The Shack Isn’t for Christians,” http://biblethumpingwingnut.com/2017/02/23/why-the-shack-isnt-for-christians/

• Tim Hurd, “Is Paul Young (Author of “The Shack”) Really A Universalist?”, http://biblethumpingwingnut.com/2017/03/10/paul-young-author-shack-really-universalist/

• Al Mohler, “The Shack — The Missing Art of Evangelical Discernment,” http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/01/27/the-shack-the-missing-art-of-evangelical-discernment/

• David Ruzicka, http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-shack-book-was-totally-whack-will-the-movie-be-like-that-175857/

• http://inplainsite.org/html/the_shack.html

Notes

[1] Bold emphasis always mine.

[2] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from the New King James Version (NKJV).

[3] “The Shack: Helpful or Heretical?” A Critical Review by Norman L. Geisler and Bill Roach, http://inplainsite.org/html/the_shack.html#Shack4

[4] Matt Slick, “Patripassianism,” https://carm.org/patripassianism

[5] Matt Slick, “Modalism,” https://carm.org/modalism

[6] See Matt Slick’s “What is the filioque clause controversy? Is it biblical?”, https://carm.org/what-is-the-filioque-clause-controversy-biblical

[7]http://reformed.org/documents/index.html

[8] Geoffrey Chaucer, “The General Prologue,” The Canterbury Tales, Translated by Edwin Duncan, Lines 723-742, https://tigerweb.towson.edu/duncan/chaucer/duallang8.htm

[9] Belinda Elliott, “What’s So Bad about The Shack?”, CBN, http://www1.cbn.com/books/whats-so-bad-about-the-shack

[10] “When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a novel on the order of ‘The Shack.’ This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ did for his. It’s that good!” –Eugene Peterson, Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology, Regent College, Vancouver, B.C., quoted in Ken Silva, “STAY AWAY FROM ‘THE SHACK,’” http://apprising.org/2008/09/15/stay-away-from-the-shack/

Updated 11/30/2020

What makes a true Clarkian? How much and what do you have to agree with Clark on? Which of Clark’s protégés carries the truest banner of his legacy? These questions have stirred much controversy and division amongst those who follow the teachings of Reformed philosopher-theologian Gordon Haddon Clark.

But such questions are distractions. What’s far more important than identifying “true” Clarkians is to understand what Clark himself taught, know how to evaluate secondary sources, and develop the maturity to disagree biblically, whether it’s with Clark, Clarkians, or other Christians, without unnecessary denouncements. It's foolish to judge who is or isn't a "true" Clarkian; it only damages Clark's legacy and breeds unnecessary infighting, and the history of some of Clark's followers sadly attests to this even now. All of us who value Clark—especially the coming generation of pastors, preachers, teachers—would do well to get along. There's already too much internal strife as it is, and while Clark’s influence is slowly growing, we’re still a small piece of the Reformed pie.

This isn’t the worst-case scenario we’ve witnessed, but Jason Petersen, a student at Whitefield Theological Seminary, recently denounced Luke Miner, a Scripturalism.com contributor (Jason is also a contributor), as a self-deceived Clarkian. Jason recounts in his blog:

While I have no doubt that Luke believes he is a Clarkian, he is not a Clarkian. Clark never defined knowledge as justified-true belief, yet Luke attempted to articulate (in a different thread) that notion in the Clarkian Apologetics [Facebook] Group (or at the very least, that “true belief” is not enough and that a qualifier is needed. Clark would never agree with this).  Clark instead defined knowledge as true belief, or more specifically, possession of the truth by a mind. This, and my conversation with Luke, is exactly why I proclaimed that he is not a Clarkian. Perhaps he respects Clark and agrees with him on many aspects (such as Clark’s rejection of metaphysics), but he should not call himself a Clarkian.[1]

According to Jason, a "true" Clarkian must at least agree with Clark's epistemology and maintain key terms as Clark defined them, that is, according to Jason's interpretation. Jason is making amends with Luke and others involved, though Luke "and Cjay will remain out of the [Clarkian Apologetics Facebook] group."[2]

We don’t care for petty conflicts, but this illustrates a growing tendency in some. If these little foxes are left unchecked, they will ruin their vineyard. The biblical and productive approach is to simply correct misunderstandings or misrepresentations of Clark, without pronouncements as to who the "real" Clarkian is. Especially because the accuser could be wrong. Those who denounce fellow Clarkians this way resemble Diotrephes,

who likes to put himself first, [and] does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.  (3 John 9-10)

Does Jason "like to put himself first"? Judge for yourselves:

Imagine being a professor and then having a student try to take over the class. Anyone who knows me is aware that I have little tolerance for such antics. It is also worthy to note that the Clarkian Apologetics Group is a direct product of the Gordon Clark Foundation, which, by the way, endorses this [Jason's] website.[3]

Isn’t this the carnal sectarianism that Paul warned against in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, 3:1-4? For when one says, "I am of Clark and you are not," are you not carnal? Is Christ divided? It is a sad but common practice in our day for immature believers to seek online platforms and tout spiritual influence and authority when they’re neither ready nor qualified nor called by God to do so. “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).

A Justified True Clarkian

In any case, is Jason's claim true, that Clark rejected justified true belief (JTB) and "instead defined knowledge as true belief, or more specifically, possession of the truth by a mind"? Not according to Clark himself:

A systematic philosophy must take care of epistemology. Knowledge must be accounted for. It may be that the a priori forms cannot be listed; it may be that botany or some other subject remains obscure; but knowledge of some sort must be provided.[4] ..................................................

What account shall be given of everyday “knowledge” that common sense thinks it silly to doubt? Don’t I know when I am hungry? Can’t I use road maps to drive to Boston to Los Angeles? Indeed, how can I know what the Bible says without reading its pages with my own eyes? It was one secular philosopher criticizing another, who said that knowledge is a fact and that any theory that did not account for it should be abandoned. But all such criticisms miss the point. The status of common opinion is not fixed until a theory has been accepted. One may admit that a number of propositions commonly believed are true; but no one can deny that many such are false. The problem is to elaborate a method by which the two classes can be distinguished. Plato, too, granted a place to opinion as distinct from knowledge; he even admitted that in some circumstances opinion was as useful as knowledge with a capital K. But to dispose of the whole matter by an appeal to road maps that we can see with our own eyes is to ignore everything said above about Aristotle.[5]

Clark then proceeds by arguing that there is no account of this common sense “knowledge,” and is thus not knowledge but opinion. For an opinion to be knowledge it must be both true and accounted for. Clark's unpublished paper on Plato’s theory of knowledge from the Gordon H. Clark Foundation runs along the same lines:

The term “knowledge” is very ambiguous, and, until all its meanings have been revealed, false judgment cannot really be explained. Socrates’ discussion has pointed out some of its meaning. Plato’s analysis of false judgment is included in the Sophist when the Forms have been introduced.

The “pieces of knowledge” stored in the mind are no more than true beliefs. Our attitude toward a false belief is the same as it is toward a true one. Our confidence in belief is not based on reason. Socrates contrasts a jury’s second-hand belief when convinced of the facts to the direct knowledge of the eye-witness who has seen the fact. Even if the jury finds the right verdict, they are still judging without knowledge, only belief. If true belief and knowledge were the same, a juryman could never have a correct belief without knowledge. Therefore, knowledge cannot be defined as true belief.

True belief lacked something which was necessary in order to call it knowledge. So Theaetetus suggests that knowledge is true belief accompanied by an account or explanation. Plato considers the various possible meanings of “account” and finally rejects the suggestion. The account is not enough to raise correct opinion to the level of knowledge.[6]

In Lord God of Truth Clark again concurs with Plato:

Accordingly the knowledge possible for human beings consists of the axioms of and the deductions from Scripture. We can indeed entertain opinions about Columbus, and by accident or good luck they may be true; but we could not know it. Our dear pagan Plato, at the end of his Meno (98b) declared, "That there is a difference between right opinion and knowledge (ōrtheme) is not at all a conjecture with me, but something I would particularly assert that I knew."[7]

While Clark doesn't necessarily use the term justified true belief—likely because it didn’t gain traction til the late 1970’s,[8] and he died in 1985—he clearly affirms the concept. He agrees with Plato on the distinction between belief/opinion and knowledge, as do many of his pupils. So according to his standard of "true" Clarkianism, Jason would also have to denounce Clark himself, as well as Clarkians who are more knowledgeable such as Sean Gerety, Robert Reymond, John Robbins, Gary Crampton, and even his mentor Kenneth Talbot. While Jason claims that "Clark never defined knowledge as justified-true belief,” Sean Gerety

find[s] it strange how many who claim to hold to the biblical epistemology of Gordon Clark fail to understand even the first principles of his theory. For Clark knowledge requires an account. That is, for a proposition to rise to the level of knowledge it has to be justified.[9]

Gerety explains that "knowledge, which is true belief with an account of its truth, or, simply, justified true belief (belief being the operative word), is the gift of God."[10]  In The Justification of Knowledge—the title itself is a dead giveaway—Robert Reymond argues that

Clark is a brilliant Reformed philosopher–theologian. I deeply appreciate the reflection of the Reformed view of Scripture in his assumption, on dogmatic grounds, of the self–authenticating Word of God as his axiom for knowing God or anything else as it ought to be known. I concur with him that unless one begins with God he will not arrive at a knowledge of God, nor will he be able to justify any knowledge claim.[11]

Reymond moreover "would agree that, without innate self–evident truths and without a revelational pou sto as a given, the justification of knowledge is impossible,"[12] and thus concludes:

The Church cannot expect to know the fullest blessing of God upon its evangelistic endeavors until it sets aside all accommodations to the autonomy of unbelieving man and insists, in conjunction with the proclamation of the Reformed gospel, that the authority of the word of the self–attesting Christ of Scripture is the only ground sufficiently ultimate to justify human truth claims, and that until His word is acknowledged as authoritative and placed at the basis of a given human knowledge system, that system remains unjustified and no truth assertion within it can be shown to have any meaning at all.[13]

John Robbins also makes important distinctions regarding knowledge:

There are three sorts of cognitive states: knowledge, opinion, and ignorance. Ignorance is simply the lack of ideas. Complete ignorance is the state of mind that empiricists say we are born with: We are all born with blank minds, tabula rasa, to use John Locke's phrase. (Incidentally, a tabula rasa mind - a blank mind - is an impossibility. A consciousness conscious of nothing is a contradiction in terms. Empiricism rests on a contradiction.) At the other extreme from ignorance is knowledge. Knowledge is not simply possessing thoughts or ideas, as some think. Knowledge is possessing true ideas and knowing them to be true. Knowledge is, by definition, knowledge of the truth. We do not say that a person "knows" that 2 plus 2 is 5. We may say he thinks it, but he does not know it. It would be better to say that he opines it.

Now, most of what we colloquially call knowledge is actually opinion: We "know" that we are in Pennsylvania; we "know" that Clinton - either Bill or Hillary - is President of the United States, and so forth. Opinions can be true or false; we just don't know which. History, except for revealed history, is opinion. Science is opinion. Archaeology is opinion. John Calvin said, "I call that knowledge, not what is innate in man, nor what is by diligence acquired, but what is revealed to us in the Law and the Prophets." Knowledge is true opinion with an account of its truth.[14]

In order to possess the truth, you have to know that your belief is true. That is Justified True Belief, and that is why Gary Crampton, a professor at Whitefield Theological Seminary, argues that

An important part of the Scripturalist worldview is the epistemological distinction between knowledge and opinion. Throughout the history of Western thought, philosophers such as Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle, have correctly differentiated between these two. Augustine and Gordon Clark are just two examples of Christian philosophers who have done the same. There is a difference between that which we “know” and that about which we may have opinions.

In the Scripturalist worldview, knowledge is not only possessing ideas or thoughts; it is possessing true ideas or thoughts. Knowledge is knowledge of the truth. It is justified true belief. Only the Word of God (that which, as the Westminster Confession [1:6] says, “is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture”) gives us such knowledge.

Opinions, on the other hand, may be true or false. Natural science is opinion; archaeology is opinion; history (with the exception of Biblical history) is opinion. In these disciplines we are not dealing with “facts.” In them there is no justified true belief. To “opine” something is not to “know” it. Justified truth is found only in the Word of God.[15]

Crampton also highlights what Jason misconstrues: that Clark's definition of knowledge as a mind's possession of truth is JTB, because possessing the truth requires not just a true belief/opinion, as Jason claims, but also an account of its truth from Scripture. Otherwise it's just an opinion that happens to be true.

Jason claims that Clark defined knowledge as only true belief because he equates “true belief” with “possession of truth by a mind”—which Clark never did. Jason fails to cite where Clark rejected JTB or defined knowledge as true belief; the only source he gives is one of Clark’s obscure encyclopedic articles on knowledge[16] whom hardly anyone knows about, much less read, and the article itself makes no such claim. And from this foundation built on sand he denounces those who disagree, but not without sinking himself. Clark and many of his most prominent followers clearly affirm JTB, so is he ready to denounce Sean Gerety, Robert Reymond, John Robbins, Gary Crampton, and Clark himself as self-deceived Clarkians?

Notitia, Assensus, and…Faith?

There's yet another issue, more theological than philosophical. Throughout many of his writings, Clark emphasizes faith as an important doctrine, biblically clarifies what it means, and refutes deficient views. That’s why he wrote two treatises on it, Fa­­ith and Saving Faith and The Johannine Logos. In Faith and Saving Faith, Clark writes: "Faith and belief have been emphasized. Even apart from these introductory inducements the nature of saving faith is an important division of theology."[17] Clark’s treatment of faith is one of his major theological contributions. To disagree with his view of faith is significant, so much so that, if we follow Jason’s logic, it surely would not make you a “true” Clarkian.

Clark’s definition of faith is simple and biblical. In What Is Saving Faith? he explains that “Faith, by definition, is assent to understood propositions. Not all cases of assent, even assent to Biblical propositions, are saving faith, but all saving faith is assent to one or more Biblical propositions.”[18]

Clark consistently defines faith as understanding (notitia) with assent (assensus) throughout his writings, both published and unpublished. Note the complete absence of “trust” (fiducia). Some groundlessly accuse John Robbins of dishonestly altering Clark’s books—including Jason himself, who unfortunately parrots the views of his mentors from Whitefield Seminary, the president of which is Dr. Kenneth G. Talbot, and they have poisoned the well in Facebook groups to dissuade people from trusting Robbins and The Trinity Foundation,[19] which is by far the best and most reliable source of Gordon Clark’s thought and work. But in one of his unpublished papers on faith from the Gordon H. Clark Foundation—“a ministry of Whitefield College & Theological Seminary”—Clark cites Augustine’s definition of faith:

Augustine was probably the first to define faith. In his treatise Concerning the Predestination of the Saints he said, “Thinking is prior to believing… To believe is nothing other than to think with assent. For not all who think believe… but all who believe think; and they think believing and believe thinking.”[20]

And then agrees with him: “A person may know or understand a proposition and yet not believe it. To believe is to think with assent. Assent is an act of will: it is the voluntary acceptance of the proposition as true.”[21]

Even so, both Drs. Kenneth G. Talbot and W. Gary Crampton diverge from Clark's view of faith. Not only that, but in their book Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism they claim that the “historical” view of faith which Clark believed and taught cannot justify:

First, not all faith is justifying faith. The Bible speaks of several kinds of faith, only one of which is genuine, justifying faith. Historical faith is one kind of non-justifying faith. All that is involved here is an historical assent to the truth claims of the gospel. As taught in James 2:19, even the demons have this kind of faith: “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe — and tremble!”[22]

But how is it that demons “assenting to the truth claims of the gospel” invalidates saving faith as believing—understanding and agreeing with—the gospel? Whether demons believe the gospel or not (they don’t) is irrelevant, because Christ died only for fallen man, not demons. Or is it because Talbot and Crampton debase it as a “non-justifying,” “historical” faith? The verse only says that the demons believe in one God, not that they believe the gospel. Clark repeatedly refuted this misapplication of James 2:19:

[The] argument here is that since the devils assent and true believers also assent, something other than assent is needed for saving faith [e.g. trust or fiducia]. This is a logical blunder. The text says the devils believe in monotheism. Why cannot the difference between the devils and Christians be the different propositions believed, rather than a psychological element in belief? [This] assumes a different psychology is needed. It is better to say a different object of belief is needed….[23]

It is illogical to conclude that belief is not assent just because belief in monotheism does not save. The clearer inference is that if belief in monotheism does not save, then one ought to believe something else in addition. Not assent, but monotheism is inadequate.[24]

And if Talbot’s and Crampton’s “historical” faith and “gospel-assenting” demons weren’t bad enough, they stray further still:

In justifying faith the believer appropriates and rests on Christ alone as Mediator in all his offices, based upon the divine testimony of God’s Word. Therefore, orthodox Christianity teaches that justifying faith involves three elements: knowledge (notitia), assent (assensus), and trust (fiducia). It is not enough to know the truth about Jesus Christ; nor is it sufficient merely to assent to the truth claims of the gospel (as in historical faith), as essential as these are. Saving faith is that which also whole-heartedly acquiesces to the Christ revealed in Scripture. Biblical conversion entails a whole-souled commitment. Justifying faith is a faith that makes a fiducial (i.e., a trusting) response to the gospel promises.[25]

But does not “whole-heartedly acquiesce” mean to “whole-heartedly” accept as true? How is this any different from assent? Merriam-Webster defines acquiesce as “to accept, comply, or submit tacitly or passively.” This is why Clark stressed that adding fiducia to faith is a tautology: “The crux of the difficulty with the popular analysis of faith into notitia (understanding), assensus (assent), and fiducia (trust), is that fiducia comes from the same root as fides (faith). Hence this popular analysis reduces to the obviously absurd definition that faith consists of understanding, assent, and faith. Something better than this tautology must be found.”[26]

Clark is one of very few theologians who tirelessly refuted the “necessity” of fiducia, the extra psychological element that many Protestants add to faith, as confused, meaningless, and redundant. Yet Crampton wrote an article called “Justification by Faith Alone” where he makes the same arguments listed above and heartily approves Jonathan Edwards’ discussion of trust (fiducia):

And clearly for Edwards, saving faith is one that involves trust (fiducia). Saving faith, he wrote, “is the whole soul’s active agreeing, according, and symphonizing with this truth [of the gospel].” It is an “adhering to the truth, and acquiescing in it.” It is an “embracing the promises of God, and fiducial relying on them, through Christ for salvation.” “There is a difference,” preached Edwards, in a sermon on Matthew 16:17, “between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense [taste] of its sweetness.” The same is true regarding saving faith: There is “a true sense of the divine and superlative excellency of God and Jesus Christ, and of the work of redemption, and the ways and works of God.” There is “a true sense of the divine excellency of the things of God’s Word [which] does more directly and immediately convince us of their truth.” When one has this “sense,” he acquiesces to the “light of the glorious gospel of Christ.”[27]

Clark also chided theologians who use analogies involving physical actions to represent “trust,” because faith is a purely internal, mental act of understanding and assenting to propositions. If it were a physical or external act, it would be a work. Here are more examples from Clark’s articles on faith, reason, and knowledge posted on the Gordon H. Clark Foundation:

The element of trust [fiducia], which Protestants emphasize, defies all explanation and remains in utter confusion. Illustrations, such as actually depositing money in a bank rather than merely believing that the bank is sound, depend on a physical action, in addition to the mental act of believing. Such additional external action is inappropriate to represent the thoroughly inner mental act of faith. Knowledge is an integral part of faith, and not its antithesis.[28]

………………………………………………………..

In describing the nature of faith, fundamentalists, evangelicals and even modernists in a certain way stress the element of trust. A preacher may draw a parallel between trusting in Christ and trusting in a chair. Belief that the chair is solid and comfortable, mere intellectual assent to such a proposition, will not rest your weary bones. You must, the preacher insists, actually sit in the chair. Similarly, so goes the argument, you can believe all that the Bible says about Christ and it will do you no good. Such illustrations as these are constantly used, in spite of the fact that the Bible says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”[29]

………………………………………………………..

Is there such a thing as “mere belief,” or “mere intellectual assent?” Indeed, is there such a distinguishable phenomenon as a “mere” act of will? Intellectual assent is itself an act of will; and conversely, no volitional action could possibly take place without belief. If you will to eat ice cream, you must believe at least that there is some ice cream to be eaten. Intellect and will are not two separate “faculties”; rather they so interpenetrate in a single mental state that it is difficult and perhaps impossible not only to separate them in time but even in definition.[30]

Keep in mind that Clark’s published writings are weightier than his unpublished papers; there could be many reasons as to why he didn’t publish them. Nevertheless, Clark’s published material from The Trinity Foundation and unpublished papers from The Gordon H. Clark Foundation reveal the same mind at work—the exact same view of faith as understanding with assent and rejection of tautological trust. Talbot and Crampton have almost completely disregarded their mentor here. So if Jason will denounce Clarkians who affirm JTB and who attribute it to Clark, what’s to stop him from denouncing Drs. Talbot and Crampton who disregard Clark on such a vital issue as faith, and go as far as degrading Clark’s view to a “historical” faith that cannot justify?

Can the Blind Lead the Blind?

Our point is not to denounce Talbot, Crampton, and Jason as pseudo-Clarkians; our point is that Jason’s Diotrephesian demeaner betrays him. Not only did he denounce someone who didn’t accord with his own misrepresentations of Clark—exposing his own ignorance in the process—he has shown himself to be an unreliable source who’s not nearly as familiar with Clark as he claims to be. Jason evidently hasn't read much of Clark because he seems unfamiliar with a basic catalog of his publications. In his response to Luke Miner, for example, he claims that “there is a nature of man, and Clark wrote about this at length in many books, but perhaps most in depth, in his book, “What do Presbyterians Believe?” If one makes ontological statements, one cannot dismiss the term, ‘ontology.’ ”[31]

Jason refers to a 13-page chapter as "perhaps [Clark's] most in depth" discussion on man, even though Clark also wrote a 130-page treatise called The Biblical Doctrine of Man.[32] He rarely quotes Clark directly and misleadingly presents his own views as Clark’s. It’s hard to find primary source treatment of Clark’s works on his website or Facebook posts other than excuses as to why he can’t furnish citations. Jason has much to learn from men like John Robbins, whom he would do well to read rather than malign: “One of the characteristics of a competent historian [and teacher, scholar, etc.] is his practice of citing primary sources for his statements. If he makes an assertion about a person's views, for example, he quotes the words of that person. He does not merely quote or cite someone else, especially an opponent or critic of that person.”[33]

Instead of self-aggrandizing our platforms to lord it over others, and making false, unjustified (pun intended) assertions without substantiating references to push self-promoting agendas and those of schismatic seminary faculties—we need humility to sharpen and be sharpened by our peers.

There’s more to this than a petty Facebook scuffle. It’s about the damage being done to Clark and his followers by self-proclaimed experts who misrepresent and promote factious agendas that slander, defame, and undermine the valuable, edifying work of other Clarkians and their ministries. We can and should seek to be of one mind as Christians, especially if we share similar Reformed convictions and appreciation for one of the greatest Christian philosophers and theologians of all time. But it will not happen until Jason and those like him take heed and repent.

Imperious Presbyterians [and Christians from any denomination] seriously err in their emphasis by behaving as if authority is the essence of ecclesiastical office, rather than service.

Sadly, there is a Scriptural example pertaining to the distorted outlook of the Imperious Presbyterians. It is Diotrephes, who loved “to have the preeminence” (3 John 9) and abused his position to thwart the Apostle John. It is a tragic case when men in our day, professing to be Presbyterian pastors, exhibit more of the spirit of Diotrephes than of the Spirit of Christ and Paul.[34]

Semper Reformanda,

Carlos Montijo and Tim Shaughnessy

Postscript

1/10/2016 - Last night, Jason posted the following on the Clarkian Apologetics Facebook group:

Jason L. Petersen 10 hrs · Pensacola, FL

Thank you all for your support in this group. We are very, very, appreciative of your participation and understanding concerning the rules that we have laid out. At some parts of this post, I will be repeating what has been told to me by the Foundation, and at other parts, I will be speaking for myself.

Unfortunately, the Gordon Clark Foundation has concluded that the format we have chosen for this group will not work either. At first, we allowed for a discussion group that also would allow the admins to post content that we think is informative and edifying for the group. Unfortunately, there were some who just wanted to pick a fight.

After having issues with people who wanted to pick a fight on social media, we decided to change the format so that some discussion would be had. We laid out a very specific and strict set of rules. Unfortunately, some did not wish to adhere to the rules, and instead of respecting the intentions and rules of the group, they sought to teach everyone that the information we provided was not trustworthy. This was set to be a sort of classroom-like setting, but the tools given to us on Facebook is not enough to support such a format.

Now, I personally have made some mistakes in this group. First, I blocked two people that I still maintain respect for when it was not necessary. Second, I publicly stated that John Robbins edited Dr. Clark's work on faith without having the resources immediately at the ready. I personally apologize and repent for both of these things.

I'd also like to say that I am not one that is officially a part of the Gordon Clark foundation. I am endorsed by the foundation, but I simply help out. With all of the feuds that has started with some individuals from the Gordon Clark Discussion Group, it has been determined that a format such as this is not appropriate for the foundation.

At this time, we plan to start a new group. There will be no members (except for admins) allowed in this group. The group will be open to the public. The public may choose to read the content that we post or ignore it. The goal of the Gordon Clark Foundation is to get Clark's writings, published and unpublished out into the open. One issue that surfaces when one is trying to achieve this goal is that there may be some who may add a thought (be it in an apparent agreement or disagreement) that is not exactly what Dr. Clark believed. The main goal of the foundation in starting a group like this was to get the content from the Foundation out there. Ricky W. Roldan and I were the main participants, but the actual members of the Foundation did not participate very much because they did not like the way the format was working out. There are a few very qualified individuals that have expressed a willingness to help out in producing content for the Foundation, but some have held back because they do not want to risk getting involved in a time-wasting social media debate.

Therefore, we will start a new group where people can either choose to read Dr. Clark's articles and our own musings, or ignore us entirely.

As for this group, I will either take it over myself from the Foundation, or I will remove it from Facebook. I am not entirely sure of what I wish to do with it yet (I would appreciate some feedback on it).

Although there have been a lot of people who have speculated that our intention is to censor the ideas of others, and that we are "not teachable," and other bad things, many of you have been very supportive and expressed a desire for the type of format that we have now. I am very sorry that it did not work out. The choice we faced was either to let the group spin out of control and undermine the intentions that we had when we started the group, or to remove people (as we did) for violating the rules, and then allow them to speculate about and misconstrue our intent for removing them. For us, this is truly a no-win situation. The only thing to do is to create a new group and go from there.

I thank you all again. You have been a great encouragement. I will post more information in this group when I have it. Blessings.

Jason’s prompt response appears to be a step in the right direction; we look forward to working things out with him.

4/1/2017 - Jason has reached out to us and made amends, and we're discussing these matters with him in a spirit of brotherly love and hope to interview him on Semper Reformanda Radio soon. He no longer believes that John Robbins altered Gordon Clark’s books and appears to lean towards knowledge as Justified True Belief as well (see http://answersforhope.org/39-distinguish-knowledge-opinion/).

Notes

[1] Jason Petersen, "A Conversation with Luke Miner," Answers for Hope, 30 Dec 2015, accessed 1 Jan 2016, http://answersforhope.org/a-conversation-with-luke-miner/

[2] Petersen, http://answersforhope.org/a-conversation-with-luke-miner/. Jason eventually kicked out Tim Shaughnessy from the Facebook group for questioning his unfounded claim that Robbins allegedly altered Clark’s books.

[3] Petersen, http://answersforhope.org/a-conversation-with-luke-miner/.

[4] Gordon H. Clark, An Introduction to Christian Philosophy, in The Works of Gordon Haddon Clark, Volume 4 (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), p. 300-301. Bold emphasis ours. Quoted in Sean Gerety's comment on 26 April 2007, "Must Clarkians use some Emperical Analysis & Inductive Reasoning?", Puritan Board, http://www.puritanboard.com/showthread.php/20726-Must-Clarkians-use-some-Emperical-Analysis-amp-Inductive-Reasoning/page2

[5] Clark, An Introduction to Christian Philosophy, p. 322. Bold emphasis ours. Quoted in Sean Gerety, "Biblical Epistemology 101," God's Hammer, 27 Jan 2013, https://godshammer.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/ink-marks-on-a-page/

[6] Gordon H. Clark, "Plato's Theory of Knowledge," The Gordon H. Clark Foundation, accessed 1 Jan 2016, http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/platos-theory-of-knowledge-by-gordon-h-clark/

[7] Gordon H. Clark, Lord God of Truth (Hobbs, NM: The Trinity Foundation, 1994), p. 40. Bold emphasis ours. Thanks to CJay Engel for finding this quote. For "a reasonably complete proof that Gordon Clark did, indeed, consistently use the term “knowledge” distinctly from true belief (or true opinion)," see his and Luke Miner’s article, "Gordon Clark and Knowledge: On Justification," http://scripturalism.com/gordon-clark-and-knowledge-on-justification/

[8] See a Google Books Ngram Viewer analysis of "justified true belief" from 1500 to 1985 at https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=justified+true+belief&case_insensitive=on&year_start=0&year_end=1985&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cjustified%20true%20belief%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bjustified%20true%20belief%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BJustified%20True%20Belief%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BJustified%20true%20belief%3B%2Cc0

[9] Sean Gerety, "Biblical Epistemology 101," God's Hammer, 27 Jan 2013, accessed 3 Jan 2016, https://godshammer.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/biblical-epistemology-101/

[10] Sean Gerety, "Ink Marks on a Page," God's Hammer, 24 Jan 2009, accessed 3 Jan 2016, https://godshammer.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/ink-marks-on-a-page/

[11] Robert L. Reymond, The Justification of Knowledge: An Introductory Study in Christian Apologetic Methodology (San Jose, CA: Pacific Institute of Religious Studies, 1998), p. 68, http://www.sgbcsv.org/literature/JustificationOfKnowledge.pdf.

[12] Reymond, Justification of Knowledge, p. 70.

[13] Reymond, Justification of Knowledge, p. 100.

[14] John W. Robbins, "An Introduction to Gordon H. Clark," The Trinity Review (July/Aug 1993), http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=192. Emphasis ours.

[15] W. Gary Crampton, "Scripturalism: A Christian Worldview," The Trinity Review 299 (March/May 2011), http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=276. Bold emphasis ours. See also Crampton’s The Scripturalism of Gordon H. Clark (Jefferson, MD: The Trinity Foundation, 1999), p. 46:

An important part of Gordon Clark’s epistemology is his distinction between knowledge and opinion. There is a difference between that which we know and that which we opine. Knowledge is not only possessing ideas or thoughts; it is possessing true ideas or thoughts. Knowledge is knowledge of the truth; it is justified true belief. Only the Word of God (that which “is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture”) gives such knowledge.

[16] Gordon H. Clark, "Know, Knowledge," The Gordon H. Clark Foundation, accessed 6 Jan 2016, http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/know-knowledge-by-gordon-h-clark/

[17] Gordon H. Clark, "What Is Saving Faith?", The Trinity Review 206 (Jan/Feb 2004), http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=102

[18] Gordon H. Clark, What Is Saving Faith? (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), p. 88, http://www.trinitylectures.org/what-is-saving-faith-p-60.html. Emphasis ours. This book combines Faith and Saving Faith and The Johannine Logos into one volume.

[19] On 26 September 2015, we messaged Dr. Kenneth Talbot privately to inquire about his attacks on John Robbins. He thanked us for expressing our concern but declined to comment. Here’s what Tim asked:

My friend Carlos and I have strongly considered attending your school in the future and I am grateful for your presence in the ministry of Christ. I count you as a brother in the Lord and have benefitted from you personally. That’s why I find this difficult now.

I want to approach this carefully and respectfully, but I feel that I need to say something. I have recently found myself discouraged and even troubled to some extent by the way you speak about John Robbins and the Trinity Foundation. I have heard you speak negatively of Robbins and the TF in the past and have ignored it. Recently on Jason Petersen’s wall you said the following:

View fullsize

This is not the first time I have heard you say something like this and I am disturbed by it. I don’t know anything really about Cheung but I find it surprising that you would say such things about Robbins.

I have benefited greatly from Dr. Robbins’ writings and the Trinity Foundation which has been committed to keeping and defending the legacy of Dr. Clark. I have used Dr. Robbins’ work in my own writings and have a high regard for the man. I don’t share in your assessment of Robbins or the TF and I wanted to know if this is the impression you give your students. I should also tell you that when I first heard of your school I asked Tom Juodaitis about it and he affirmed that it was the only school that was favorable to Clark and he had nothing negative to say about you or your school. I will not have time to reply back to you right now but I look forward to hearing from you.

You can also check out my writing and see if it reflects the type of attitude you have a problem with.

God Bless, Tim

Here’s what I (Carlos) asked:

Dr. Talbot you criticized Robbins publicly so we didn't think you'd have a problem giving details. Isn't the attitude you express against him the same attitude you're accusing Robbins of? Why would you defame a man who loved Clark and dedicated his life to promoting and preserving his legacy? Clark obviously held Robbins in high regard if he asked him to finish his book [The Incarnation] on his deathbed. It sounds like you're slandering him. I don't understand why you defame Robbins and the Trinity Foundation—who defend and promote Clark—while you also affiliate with people who criticize Clark and have no regard for him like Joel McDurmon [listen to “An interview of Joel McDurmon: Researcher and Writer for American Vision”] and Jeff Durban, who had Oliphint recklessly misrepresent Clark and falsely accuse him of heresy on his show (https://www.facebook.com/ApologiaRadio/posts/324063354406639).

These are some of the reasons Tim and I are no longer considering Whitefield Seminary, and no longer recommend it even though they're one of the few seminaries that incorporate Gordon Clark into their curriculum. For more information see Sean Gerety’s “Faith Is Understanding With Assent” and “Whitefield Follies,” as well as Luke Miner’s “Clark on Saving Faith in 1961.” There are still very strong misrepresentations–even slanders–of Clark today, particularly from Van Tilians. Here are a few examples from Scott Oliphint, Apologia Radio, and Reformed Forum:

• https://www.facebook.com/groups/CFDD1/permalink/791646060853020/

• https://www.facebook.com/ApologiaRadio/posts/324063354406639

• http://reformedforum.org/podcasts/ctc163/

• http://www.apologiaradio.com/?p=482

[20] Gordon H. Clark, "Faith," The Gordon H. Clark Foundation, accessed 3 Jan 2016, http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/faith-by-gordon-h-clark/

[21] Clark, "Faith," http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/faith-by-gordon-h-clark/

[22] Kenneth G. Talbot and W. Gary Crampton, Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism: A Theological Primer, 3rd ed. (1990), p. 112. To request the free ebook version, see http://whitefieldmedia.us4.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=2209ac66c06c8383a9ce36dfd&id=f5a1e983ce

[23] Clark, What Is Saving Faith?, p. 152.

[24] Clark, What Is Saving Faith?, p. 153.

[25] Talbot and Crampton, Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism, p. 114. See also John Robbins’ “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith,” http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238. Talbot and Crampton’s view of faith is like Sproul’s.

[26] Gordon H. Clark, "Saving Faith", The Trinity Review (Dec 1979), http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=10

[27] W. Gary Crampton, “Justification by Faith Alone,” A Puritan’s Mind, accessed 31 Dec 2015, http://www.apuritansmind.com/justification/justification-by-faith-alone-by-w-gary-crampton-th-d/

[28] Clark, "Know, Knowledge," http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/know-knowledge-by-gordon-h-clark/

[29] Clark, "Faith and Reason," http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/faith-and-reason-by-gordon-h-clark/. Emphasis ours.

[30] Gordon H. Clark, "Faith and Reason," The Gordon H. Clark Foundation, accessed 6 Jan 2016, http://thegordonhclarkfoundation.com/faith-and-reason-by-gordon-h-clark/. Emphasis ours.

[31] Petersen, http://answersforhope.org/a-conversation-with-luke-miner/

[32] Gordon H. Clark, The Biblical Doctrine of Man, 2nd ed. (Jefferson, MD: The Trinity Foundation, 1992), http://www.trinitylectures.org/biblical-doctrine-of-man-the-p-50.html

[33] John W. Robbins, Can the Orthodox Presbyterian Church Be Saved? (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), p. 13, http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=232

[34] Kevin Reed, “Imperious Presbyterianism,” The Trinity Review (June/Aug 2008), http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=254v

SRR #4 | The New Covenant Kids on the Block

07/19/2016 by Bible Thumping Wingnut

http://biblethumpingwingnut.com/2016/07/20/srr-episode-4-the-new-covenant-kids-on-the-block/

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for an important public service announcement! Your co-hosts Tim and Carlos give their overall impressions of New Covenant Theology and Conversations from the Porch, our fellow podcasters from the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network. We also critique their views of Covenant Theology. Got questions? Comments? Feedback? You can now email us at semper.reformanda.radio@gmail.com!

References (Recommended ones are labeled with a ‘+’)

- https://soundcloud.com/biblethumpingwingnut/cftp-episode-1

- http://crosstocrown.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/NCT-Questions.pdf

+“A Tabular Comparison of the 1646 WCF and the 1689 LBCF,” http://www.proginosko.com/docs/wcf_lbcf.html

+Collection 10: Christian Theology, “What Do Presbyterians Believe?” by Gordon H. Clark, http://www.trinitylectures.org/MP3_downloads.php

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SRR #5 | Quarrels About Systematic Theology and the Law

07/27/2016 by Bible Thumping Wingnut

http://biblethumpingwingnut.com/2016/07/27/srr-episode-5-quarrels-about-systematic-theology-and-the-law/

In this episode, Tim and Carlos recap their criticisms of New Covenant Theology and take on the "NCT gauntlet" thrown down by Christopher Fales in Conversations From The Porch. The challenge is whether the Bible distinguishes the ceremonial, civil, and moral parts of the Mosaic law. They answer with the words of the Master Himself, presenting a Biblical case for the tripartite distinction of the law and discuss the relationship between justification and the law. Questions? Comments? Feedback? You can now email us at semper.reformanda.radio@gmail.com!

References (Recommended ones are labeled with a ‘+’)

+“The Threefold Division of the Law” by Jonathan F. Bayes, http://www.christian.org.uk/wp-content/downloads/the-threefold-division-of-the-law.pdf

+"Biblical Apologetics: Jesus and Logic" by John Robbins, Collection 4: Defending the Faith, Level 1, The Trinity Foundation, http://www.trinitylectures.org/MP3/Biblical_Apologetics,_Jesus_and_Logic.mp3

+"Church History – The Footprints of God" by Tommy Nelson, Denton Bible Church, http://www.dbcmedia.org/sermons/church-history-the-footprints-of-god-volume-1-of-2/

- https://soundcloud.com/biblethumpingwingnut/cftp-episode-1

- http://crosstocrown.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/NCT-Questions.pdf

+“A Tabular Comparison of the 1646 WCF and the 1689 LBCF,” www.proginosko.com/docs/wcf_lbcf.html

+What Do Presbyterians Believe? by Gordon H. Clark, Collection 10: Christian Theology, The Trinity Foundation, www.trinitylectures.org/MP3_downloads.php

- "Consequently, we who overtly advocate new-covenant theology must not repeat the mistake of many in the past and turn any Confession - any Confession, even one of our own ~ into a shibboleth. If any of us should be silly enough to try to capture new covenant theology in some definitive, final statement, so that it becomes, as covenant theology has, set in concrete, then we would be working directly against the very spirit of new-covenant theology. One of its features - to my mind, its leading feature - is that it tries to come to Scripture unfiltered by any system or Confession. Every believer, in a sence, must do this for himself. To turn new-covenant theology into a system would be a contradiction in terms." (David Gay, Redemption History Through Covenants)

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SRR #6 | The Sabbath, Logic, and NCT's Straw Man Army | From Russia, With Love

08/03/2016 by Bible Thumping Wingnut

http://biblethumpingwingnut.com/2016/08/03/srr-episode-6-the-sabbath-logic-and-ncts-straw-man-army-from-russia-with-love/

Tim and Carlos are excited to introduce Owen Paun, missionary to Bulgaria, to the podcast! In this episode, they discuss Russia's draconian, anti-evangelism laws; the Sabbath; quotes by New Covenant Theology (NCT) authors John Reisinger and David Gay; logic; NCT's army of fallacies; confessions; the tripartite distinction of the Mosaic law; and more. “I apologize if I offended anyone when describing the Pharisees as retarded in a previous episode. I was not referring to the mentally handicapped, but to those who willfully deceive themselves and others.” –Carlos

Questions? Comments? Feedback? Email us at semper.reformanda.radio@gmail.com!

References (Recommended ones are labeled with a ‘+’)

+http://www.christusvictornetwork.com/ask-a-millennial-christian/rules-of-rhetoric-or-how-to-win-an-argument-without-even-trying/

+Voddie Baucham, “The Sabbath Before the Command,” http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=410151353280

+Gordon H. Clark, "God and Logic," http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=16

+Michael D. Marlowe, "The Westminster Confession of Faith: According to the Text of the First Edition, and with the Original Scripture Proofs. With Notes Showing the Changes Introduced by Church Synods up to the Present Day," http://www.bible-researcher.com/wescon01.html

+“American Revisions to the Westminster Confession of Faith," http://www.opc.org/documents/WCF_orig.html

+What Do Presbyterians Believe? by Gordon H. Clark, Collection 10: Christian Theology, www.trinitylectures.org/MP3_downloads.php

- David Gay, Redemption History Through Covenants, https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw8DX7Vtr3vJckUza1VQYnFGcE0/view

- John Reisinger, Abraham’s Four Seeds, http://worldwithoutend.info/bbc/books/NC/abrahams_seed/intro.htm

+Tim Shaughnessy, “Christianity and Logic,” http://www.biblethumpingwingnut.com/#!Christianity-and-Logic/c16h1/57a26b2c0cf2fd413b4bf948

+Elihu Carranza, The Logic Classroom, http://logic-classroom.weebly.com/

+Jonathan F. Bayes, “The Threefold Division of the Law,” http://www.christian.org.uk/wp-content/downloads/the-threefold-division-of-the-law.pdf

-Augustine, Contra Faustum, VI.2, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/140606.htm

+Justin Martyr, "Chapter XLV: Those who were righteous before and under the law shall be saved by Christ," Dialogue with Trypho, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.iv.xlv.html

+John Calvin, "Of Civil Government," Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV, Chapter 20, Section 14, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.vi.xxi.html

- Thomas Aquinas, "Of the Precepts of the Old Law," Summa Theologica, 2a, Question 99, Article 4, http://www.ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/FS/FS099.html

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SRR #9 | Hacking New Covenant Theology's Growing Straw Man Army to Pieces | Reformed Use of the Law

08/25/2016 by Bible Thumping Wingnut

http://biblethumpingwingnut.com/2016/08/25/srr-9-hacking-new-covenant-theologys-growing-straw-man-army-to-pieces-reformed-use-of-the-law/

Join Tim, Carlos, and Owen as they clear the air regarding recent interactions with the hosts of “Conversations From The Porch,” a New Covenant Theology podcast, and take a look at the claims and straw mans that Pastor Shane Kastler made on their podcast regarding Reformed Baptists, Covenant Theology, and John Calvin and the Reformed view of the Law.

ADDENDUM: I, Carlos, sincerely apologize to Pastor Shane Kastler. I'm primarily responsible for leading the charge against him. My zeal got out of hand and I apologize for that and for saying he sounded postmodern and that he was sloppy. It was very uncharitable of me. I was confused by his comments on CFTP 16 at around 1:26:00 (https://soundcloud.com/biblethumpingwingnut/cftp-episode-16-special-guest-shane-kastler-comparing-the-confessions-the-1646-the-1689-lbcf) and when he said it doesn't matter if all the 1644 LBCF authors held to covenant theology, but he reached out to us and said he affirms the importance of authorial intent. He was very gracious and even willing to come on the show. We look forward to clearing the air and discussing our disagreements in brotherly love. So stay tuned! Questions? Comments? Feedback? Email us at semper.reformanda.radio@gmail.com!

References (Recommended ones are labeled with a ‘+’)

- https://soundcloud.com/biblethumpingwingnut/cftp-episode-16-special-guest-shane-kastler-comparing-the-confessions-the-1646-the-1689-lbcf

- https://soundcloud.com/biblethumpingwingnut/cftp-episode-17-house-keeping-comparing-the-confessions-the-1646-the-1689-lbcf-pt-2

- http://shanekastler.typepad.com/pastor_shanes_blog/2016/02/refuting-john-calvins-three-uses-of-the-law.html

+Richard C. Barcellos, In Defense of the Decalogue: A Critique of New Covenant Theology, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/467909.In_Defense_of_the_Decalogue_

+“A Tabular Comparison of the 1646 WCF and the 1689 LBCF,” www.proginosko.com/docs/wcf_lbcf.html

+Gadsby’s Catechism, http://www.chapellibrary.org/book/gcat/gadsbys-catechism

+ http://www.christusvictornetwork.com/ask-a-millennial-christian/hermeneutics-the-art-and-science-of-interpretation/

+Gordon H. Clark, What Do Presbyterians Believe?, Collection 10: Christian Theology, www.trinitylectures.org/MP3_downloads.php

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SRR #10 | Where's New Covenant Theology? A Closer Look at the Confessions

09/01/2016 by Bible Thumping Wingnut

http://biblethumpingwingnut.com/2016/09/01/srr-10-wheres-new-covenant-theology-a-closer-look-at-the-london-baptist-confessions/

Take a closer look at the context and content of historic Baptist confessions of faith with Carlos and Owen as they investigate New Covenant Theology's (NCT) attempts to find itself in the 1st London Baptist Confession of 1644/46; NCT’s claims regarding the 2nd London Baptist Confession of 1689 and its authors; and the implications this has on the Law, Evangelism, and Covenant Theology. Questions? Comments? Feedback? Email us at semper.reformanda.radio@gmail.com!

Check out our blog: http://www.biblethumpingwingnut.com/#!semper-reformanda-radio/a0zyx

Rate and Review us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bible%E2%80%A6t/id901586827?mt

 References (Recommended ones are labeled with a ‘+’)

+"A Comparison of the 1644 & 1646 London Baptist Confession of Faith", http://gospelpedlar.com/articles/Church%20History/Bapt%20Conf/index.html

- http://www.ncbcnorcal.com/#!1644/c19o6

+http://www.chapellibrary.org/book/lbco/london-baptist-confession-of-faith-_-1689

+James M. Renihan, "CONFESSING THE FAITH IN 1644 AND 1689", http://www.reformedreader.org/ctf.htm

+"Reformed Resources from a 1689 Perspective: Of New Covenant Theology [Resource Roundup]", includes Dr. James Renihan’s exposition of the entire 1st LBC 1644/1646, http://confessingbaptist.com/nct/

+Richard C. Barcellos, In Defense of the Decalogue: A Critique of New Covenant Theology, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/467909.In_Defense_of_the_Decalogue_

+Reformed Resources from a 1689 Perspective, "Tag: New Covenant Theology", http://confessingbaptist.com/tag/New-Covenant-Theology/

+http://www.1689federalism.com/

+http://www.1689conference.org/

+http://www.chapellibrary.org/

+"A Seventeenth-Century Particular Baptist Covenant Theology", From Recovering a Covenantal Heritage: Essays in Baptist Covenant Theology, ed. Richard C. Barcellos, RBAP, 2014, http://www.unherautdansle.net/by-farther-steps-part-1/

+Micah and Samuel Renihan, "REFORMED BAPTIST COVENANT THEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL THEOLOGY", https://thelogcollege.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/rb-cov-theo-renihans.pdf

+Denault, Pascal, Mac Wigfield, and Elizabeth Wigfield. 2013. The distinctiveness of Baptist covenant theology: a comparison between seventeenth-century Particular Baptist and paedobaptist federalism, https://www.amazon.com/Distinctiveness-Baptist-Covenant-Theology-Seventeenth-Century-ebook/dp/B00QZNH38S/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

+Coxe, Nehemiah, Ronald D. Miller, James M. Renihan, Francisco Orozco, John Owen, and Nehemiah Coxe. 2005. Covenant theology from Adam to Christ, https://www.amazon.com/Covenant-Theology-Christ-Nehemiah-Coxe-ebook/dp/B00YCX8I96/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1470764564&sr=8-2

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SRR #13 | SFE Debriefing and Discussion: Covenant Theology vs New Covenant Theology, Part I

09/21/2016 by Bible Thumping Wingnut

http://biblethumpingwingnut.com/2016/09/22/srr-13-sfe-debriefing-and-discussion-covenant-theology-vs-new-covenant-theology-part-i/

Join Owen, Carlos, and Tim as they debrief the Striving for Eternity Theological Discussion between Carlos Montijo, representing Baptist Covenant Theology, and Louis Lyons (http://www.emmausroadsugarland.org/), representing New Covenant Theology, on the topic of Covenant Theology vs. New Covenant Theology that took place on 19 September 2016. Watch the full discussion @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuuUQ7v1zMw. And thanks to Andrew Rappaport from Striving for Eternity Ministries (http://strivingforeternity.org/), we’re providing the audio of the first half of the discussion! We’ll publish the second half on our next episode so stay tuned. A big shout out to brother Andrew for setting it up and to brother Louis for his willingness to dialogue! Questions? Comments? Feedback? Email us at semper.reformanda.radio@gmail.com!

Our blog: http://www.biblethumpingwingnut.com/semper-reformanda-radio

Rate and Review us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bible%E2%80%A6t/id901586827?mt

 References (Recommended ones are labeled with a ‘+’)

+Voddie Baucham, “The Sabbath Before the Command,” http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=410151353280

+New Covenant Theology, Tom Wells and Fred Zaspel, (Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2002), reviewed by Richard C. Barcellos, http://www.reformedreader.org/rbb/bom/newcovenanttheologycritique.htm

+Sam Waldren, “THEONOMY, A REFORMED BAPTIST ASSESSMENT”, http://www.reformedreader.org/rbs/tarba.htm

+“Was the Mosaic Covenant THE Covenant of Works?” http://www.1689federalism.com/faq/was-the-mosaic-covenant-the-covenant-of-works/

+“Of Marriage, Chapter Twenty-Five of the 1689 Baptist Confession [Audio] – Daniel Chamberlin,” http://confessingbaptist.com/of-marriage-chapter-twenty-five-of-the-1689-baptist-confession-audio-daniel-chamberlin/

+John Greer, “One Day in Seven,” http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?m=t&s=13116514580

+“Covenant Theology Lectures – Sam Renihan”, http://www.1689federalism.com/covenant-theology-lectures-sam-renihan/

+“Reformed Baptist Fellowship and Theology Forum” Facebook Group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/reformedbaptist/

+“A Tabular Comparison of the 1646 WCF and the 1689 LBCF,” http://www.proginosko.com/docs/wcf_lbcf.html

+1689 Federalism Playlist, https://youtu.be/_lKe2VopL9k?list=PL31jRTd9ppYsoclH-9_ZnIoSSoj3IEsvP

- Joel McDurmon, Incest is “holy in God’s sight”?: a Westminster West grad gets consistent with his R2K, http://americanvision.org/9836/incest-holy-gods-sight-westminster-west-grad-gets-consistent-r2k/

- https://soundcloud.com/biblethumpingwingnut/cftp-episode-21-hell-debate-brother-rc-striving-for-eternity-discussion-hangout

- David Gay, “No Confession? Nothing to Debate!”, http://media.sermonaudio.com/articles/da-8261610237-1.PDF

- Louis Lyons, “Proving New Covenant Theology with Only One Bible Verse”, http://www.thepastorspen.org/2016/04/proving-new-covenant-theology-with-only.html

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SRR #14 | SFE Discussion: Covenant Theology vs New Covenant Theology, Part 2 | Response to CFTP

09/28/2016 by Bible Thumping Wingnut

http://biblethumpingwingnut.com/2016/09/29/srr-14-response-to-cftp-sfe-discussion-covenant-theology-vs-new-covenant-theology-part-2/

Join Carlos, Tim, and Owen as they answer the Conversations From The Porch’s (CFTP) marathon episode about SRR, and for the second half of the Striving for Eternity Theological Discussion between Carlos Montijo, representing Covenant Theology, and Louis Lyons (http://www.emmausroadsugarland.org/), representing New Covenant Theology, on the topic of Covenant Theology vs. New Covenant Theology that took place on 19 September 2016. Watch the full SFE discussion @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuuUQ7v1zMw. Thanks to Andrew Rappaport from Striving for Eternity Ministries! (http://strivingforeternity.org/) Questions? Comments? Feedback? Email us at semper.reformanda.radio@gmail.com

Our blog: http://www.biblethumpingwingnut.com/semper-reformanda-radio

Rate and Review us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bible%E2%80%A6t/id901586827?mt

 References (Recommended ones are labeled with a ‘+’)

+New Covenant Theology, Tom Wells and Fred Zaspel, (Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2002), reviewed by Richard C. Barcellos, http://www.reformedreader.org/rbb/bom/newcovenanttheologycritique.htm

+Sam Waldren, “THEONOMY, A REFORMED BAPTIST ASSESSMENT”, http://www.reformedreader.org/rbs/tarba.htm

+“Was the Mosaic Covenant THE Covenant of Works?” http://www.1689federalism.com/faq/was-the-mosaic-covenant-the-covenant-of-works/

+“Of Marriage, Chapter Twenty-Five of the 1689 Baptist Confession [Audio] – Daniel Chamberlin,” http://confessingbaptist.com/of-marriage-chapter-twenty-five-of-the-1689-baptist-confession-audio-daniel-chamberlin/

+John Greer, “One Day in Seven,” http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?m=t&s=13116514580

+“Covenant Theology Lectures – Sam Renihan”, http://www.1689federalism.com/covenant-theology-lectures-sam-renihan/

+“Reformed Baptist Fellowship and Theology Forum” Facebook Group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/reformedbaptist/

+“A Tabular Comparison of the 1646 WCF and the 1689 LBCF,” http://www.proginosko.com/docs/wcf_lbcf.html

+1689 Federalism Playlist, https://youtu.be/_lKe2VopL9k?list=PL31jRTd9ppYsoclH-9_ZnIoSSoj3IEsvP

+Voddie Baucham, “The Sabbath Before the Command,” http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=410151353280

+JD Hall, “Count the Cost of Being a Polemicist,” http://pca.st/COJ6

+JD Hall, “More On Sectarian Minimalism,” http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=9231622801

- https://soundcloud.com/biblethumpingwingnut/cftp-episode-18-new-covenant-theologys-straw-man-army-responds-to-srr-pack-a-lunch?in=biblethumpingwingnut/sets/conversations-from-the-porch

- Joel McDurmon, Incest is “holy in God’s sight”?: a Westminster West grad gets consistent with his R2K, http://americanvision.org/9836/incest-holy-gods-sight-westminster-west-grad-gets-consistent-r2k/

- David Gay, “No Confession? Nothing to Debate!”, http://media.sermonaudio.com/articles/da-8261610237-1.PDF

- Louis Lyons, “Proving New Covenant Theology with Only One Bible Verse”, http://www.thepastorspen.org/2016/04/proving-new-covenant-theology-with-only.html

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Additional Recommended Resources

+David J. Engelsma and Herman Hanko, Be Ye Holy: The Reformed Doctrine of Sanctification, http://www.prca.org/resources/publications/books/item/5005-be-ye-holy-the-reformed-doctrine-of-sanctification

+Logical Belief Ministries, LBM Podcast 0050 | A critique of New Covenant Theology, http://biblethumpingwingnut.com/2016/08/16/lbm-podcast-0050-critique-new-covenant-theology/

+ Richard Barcellos interviewed on upcoming book [AUDIO | Regular Reformed Guys] 02/14/2017 by Jason Web player: http://podplayer.net/#/?id=30743020 Episode: http://media.blubrry.com/regular_reformed/p/www.regularreformed.com/podcast/regreformed021317.mp3 Regular Reformed Guys Podcast: Dr. Richard Barcellos Episode 37: Getting the Garden Right Pastor Richard Barcellos joins the Regular Reformed Guys to talk about his upcoming, as yet unnamed book about the Covenant of Works, the Garden of Eden and a number of other questions in relation to the New Covenant Theology… AUDIO [81-min.]

+ $4 Kindle, The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology: A Comparison Between Seventeenth-Century Particular Baptist and Paedobaptist Federalism [Revised Edition] by Pascal Denault:

The First London Confession of Faith (1644–1646) reveals itself equally as an important source. Although it does not present a covenant theology in substance, it allows us to ascertain that, from their beginnings, the Baptists adhered to the Reformed approach for understanding the Scriptures and salvation in a covenantal fframework. 11 What is more, as we will see, already in 1644 the Baptists had a unique comprehension of the covenant of grace and of the new covenant. Start reading this book for free: http://a.co/55sG6U6

+ $5 Kindle, Renihan, James M. Faith and Life for Baptists: The Documents of the London Particular Baptist General Assemblies, 1689-1694. 2016. This book will help you appreciate true Baptist history:

https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Life-Baptists-Particular-Assemblies-ebook/dp/B01LQZIPN6/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1473331469&sr=1-1&linkCode=sl1&tag=theconfbapt-20&linkId=f618a247ae1d787fd9141189925c4ee4

In part 1 we proposed first that the four-way division of Alexander's empire must have been established after 288 B.C., before which there were still five family lines in contention for his dominions, but prior to 281 B.C. at the Battle of Corupedium, after which only three family lines remained. We proposed, as well, that the four-way division of his empire "toward the four winds of heaven" (Daniel 8:8, 11:4)—would have been established at that time such that Thrace and Asia Minor (within the Taurus mountains) would constitute the northern kingdom, Egypt's territories the southern, Syria and beyond to Babylon the eastern, and Macedonia the western. Historically, biblical scholars in general and eschatologists in particular have struggled with the identification of the territories of Alexander's successors. The cause of the struggle is not difficult to understand. While Asia Minor with Thrace appears, at the outset, to be the Northern kingdom, and Egypt the Southern in accordance with Daniel 11:4, the detailed prophecy of a conflict between the kings of the North and South starting in 11:5 appears to have been fulfilled in the wars between the East and the South—that is, between the Seleucids in Syria and the Ptolemies in Egypt. Neither Daniel nor his angelic narrator pause to explain why.

The Inadequacy of the Shifting Frame

That apparent inconsistency has led to some rather creative cartography in the history of Danielic eschatology through the introduction of a Shifting Frame of Reference. In Daniel 11:4, Asia Minor with Thrace appears to be the northern kingdom in what we might call an Alexandrian Frame of Reference, centered as it is on Alexander's former domains. Then, between Daniel 11:4 and 11:5, the frame of reference suddenly and inexplicably changes, and from that point forward (so the theories go), Syria is the Northern kingdom. We call this the Judæan Frame of Reference, centered as it is on Judæa, with Syria to the North, and Egypt to the South.

Jerome's Use of the Shifting Frame

Jerome (347 – 420 A.D.) was the first patristic writer to attempt to solve the inconsistency between the prophecy and its fulfillment through the introduction of a Shifting Frame of Reference. After identifying "Asia Minor and Pontus and of the other provinces in that whole area" as "the north" in Daniel 11:4, Jerome reasoned that Daniel must have changed his frame of reference in the next verse “because Judaea lay in a midway position” between Syria and Egypt (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, 11:4-5). There is hardly a commentary on Daniel 11 that does not in some way invoke that Judæan Frame of Reference to solve the difficulty.

Calvin's Use of the Shifting Frame

Calvin appealed to that shifting frame of reference in similar fashion. In his commentary on Daniel 8:8, Calvin described the division of the empire in an Alexandrian Frame of Reference. Cassander was to the west in Macedonia, Ptolemy was to the south in Egypt, while "the kingdom of Persia, which was possessed by Seleucus, was towards the east and united with Syria; the kingdom of Asia [Minor] was to the north" (Calvin, Commentary on Daniel 8:8; see Figure 1, below).

But when Calvin commented on Daniel 11, he shifted to a Judæan Frame of Reference. Macedonia was still West and Egypt was still South, but Asia Minor was now East, and Syria had become North, "[f]or Egypt was situated to the south of Judea, and Syria to the north"(Calvin, Commentary on Daniel, 11:4; see Figure 2, below).

The Underlying Invalid Assumption

From Jerome to Calvin, and for many centuries beyond, the Shifting Frame of Reference in chapter 11 has been a staple of Danielic eschatology. We have been told that the frame of reference simply must have changed mid-prophecy, for that is the only way to make sense of wars foreseen to occur between North and South, but apparently fulfilled between East and South.

In truth, however, the difficulty is of our own making. The underlying issue that has made the Shifting Frame of Reference an eschatological necessity is the invalid assumption that the appellation "king of the north" must be dynastic in nature, attached to a family line. If we assume that "king of the north" refers to a family line, then "the north" of necessity must refer only to the Seleucids—making Syria "north" regarding the wars, even though it is "east" regarding the division. However, as we argued in part 1, the appellation should rather be a geographic one, attached not to a family line but to a territory. Under that rubric, the title "king of the north" would only attach to whomever was the rightful king over the northern territory.

The "Northern Period" of the Seleucids

Such a situation as we have described compels us to reevaluate how Daniel 11 is interpreted, for the geographic data invalidate the Shifting Frame that has for almost two thousand years informed our understanding of Daniel 11. To illustrate the significance of such a change, we will walk through the verses that refer to the "king of the north." In doing so we will refer often to the commentary of Jerome because his geographic errors are of great consequence and have had an inordinate influence on the later commentaries. As we have affirmed and will here demonstrate, "king of the north" applies to the Seleucids only when they reign in Asia Minor, i.e., during periods when they hold the double crown, both East and North.

Daniel 11:6

"And in the end of years they shall join themselves together; for the king’s daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement ..."

It is 252 B.C.. The "king of the north" is Antiochus II, the third generation of Seleucid kings to claim the northern territory. The "king's daughter of the south" is Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy II, king of Egypt. Here Jerome committed one of his several geographic mistakes by assuming that Antiochus II must have been ruling in Syria at the time of the fulfillment (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, 11:6). As we noted last week, Antiochus II was actually reigning in Ephesus with his wife, Laodice, when Ptolemy II approached him to offer his daughter in marriage. Antiochus II only relocated to Antioch after the agreement with Ptolemy, in order to set up a second household with Berenice. Antiochus was truly "king of the north," that is, Asia Minor and Thrace, when Berenice was offered to him, and as we noted last week, he maintained a household in Ephesus, and eventually abandoned Berenice in Antioch and returned to his first love in Asia Minor.

Daniel 11:7

"But out of a branch of her roots shall one stand up in his estate, which shall come with an army, and shall enter into the fortress of the king of the north, and shall deal against them, and shall prevail:"

It is 246 B.C.. The "branch of her roots" refers to Berenice's brother, Ptolemy III. Their father, Ptolemy II, had since died, and Berenice and her child by Antiochus II had been murdered at the instigation of Laodice (Appian, History of Rome, The Syrian Wars, 65). Antiochus II, now dead, left his son, Seleucus II, reigning in Ephesus with his mother, Laodice. It is here again that Jerome, following Porphyry, makes significant geographic mistake, assuming under a Judæan Frame of Reference that Seleucus II must have been reigning in Antioch at the time:

"He [Ptolemy III] came up with a great army and advanced into the province of the king of the North, that is Seleucus [II] Callinicus, who together with his mother Laodice was ruling in Syria" (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, 11:7-9)

The truth is, the ascension of Seleucus II occurred not in Syria, but rather in Asia Minor where Antiochus II died, and where Seleucus II had been under the care of his mother, Laodice, since Antiochus' marriage to Berenice (Eusebius, Chronicle [p. 249-51]).

After the murder of his sister, Ptolemy III could not stand idly by, so he launched an all out offensive against the Seleucids. The commentaries typically focus only on Ptolemy III's eastern offensive, in which he "secured for himself the whole country from Taurus to India, without a single engagement” (Polyænus, Strategems, Book 8, Chapter 50.1). That campaign is typically taken to be the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy that the king of the south "shall enter into the fortress of the king of the north, and shall deal against them, and shall prevail," but such an interpretation assumes a Judæan Frame of Reference in which Syria is north. In an Alexandrian Frame of Reference in which Asia Minor is north, Ptolemy would have invaded Asia Minor and Thrace where the Seleucids currently lived. The historical record shows that he did exactly that.

In this war, Ptolemy III launched an invasion not only in the east, but also in the north, subduing major parts of Thrace and Asia Minor. Ptolemy III's offensive is thus described in the historical record as a “campaign against the two lands of Asia” (Canopus Decree, 6), both Major and Minor, East and North. In this campaign against the house of Seleucus, Ptolemy III had "become master of ... Pamphylia and Ionia [in Asia Minor] and the Hellespont and Thrace..." (The Adoulis Inscription, Orientis graeci inscriptiones selectae (OGIS) 54). Truly, the king of the south had "enter[ed] into the fortress of the king of the north," capturing both Sardis and Ephesus in his northern campaign (Eusebius, Chronicle [p. 249-51]).

Daniel 11:8-9

"And shall also carry captives into Egypt their gods, with their princes, and with their precious vessels of silver and of gold; and he shall continue more years than the king of the north. So the king of the south shall come into his kingdom, and shall return into his own land."

It is about 241 B.C., and Ptolemy III the victor returns to Egypt with his accumulated treasures. The commentaries typically refer here to Ptolemy's conquest of the east and the return of eastern treasures to Egypt. We simply highlight here, from the Adoulis Inscription referenced above, that Ptolemy had conquered not only the whole east, but also major portions of the north, returning to Egypt with the treasures from both kingdoms:

“Having become master of all the land this side of the Euphrates and of Cilicia and Pamphylia and Ionia and the Hellespont and Thrace and of all the forces and Indian elephants in these lands, and having made subject all the princes in the (various) regions, he crossed the Euphrates river and after subjecting to himself Mesopotamia and Babylonia and Sousiana and Persis and Media and all the rest of the land up to Bactria and having sought out all the temple belongings that had been carried out of Egypt by the Persians and having brought them back with the rest of the treasure from the (various) regions he sent his forces to Egypt through the canals that had been dug.” (The Adoulis Inscription, OGIS 54).

It is only after invading both the East and the North that the southern king brought back the accumulated treasures to Egypt, and those treasures included the spoils of Asia Minor and Thrace, the northern kingdom.

A Brief Interlude

In Ptolemy III's incursion into Asia Minor and Thrace, the Seleucids had been pushed as far north as Smyrna, where we find Seleucus II in 242 B.C. making his preparations to cross into Syria to recover his Eastern kingdom from Ptolemy III (Bagnall, Roger S., Derow, Peter, The Hellenistic Period: Historical Sources in Translation, Smyrnaean Inscription (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, ©2004) 56-62). The war in Syria does not go well and Seleucus II “despatched a letter to his brother Antiochus" in Asia Minor requesting help. Instead, Antiochus simply usurps the throne from Seleucus II and claims Asia Minor as his own. Seleucus II was forced to secure a hasty truce from Ptolemy III and returned to Asia Minor to deal with his rebellious younger brother (Justinus’ Epitome of the Philippic History, Book XXVII.2). The rivalry ended in catastrophe for the Seleucid line. When all the dust had settled, the Seleucids had been overthrown from the north, and King Attalus of Pergamon "had appropriated all [the Seleucid] dominions on this side of the Taurus" in Asia Minor (Polybius, The Histories, Book 4.48.7). Both Seleucus II, and his younger brother died outside of Asia Minor as exiles (Justinus’ Epitome of the Philippic History, Book XXVII.4).

Quite notably, and very much to our point, the angel completely skips over this brief period of Seleucid exile from Asia Minor, making no mention of these events in chapter 11. When the angel takes up the narrative with the sons of Seleucus II, they are in exile as their father had been, and making plans to take back the northern kingdom from Attalus. As we shall see, the angel withholds from them the title "king of the north" until after Asia Minor is back in the hands of the House of Seleucus.

Daniel 11:10

"But his sons shall be stirred up, and shall assemble a multitude of great forces: and one shall certainly come, and overflow, and pass through: then shall he return, and be stirred up, even to his fortress."

It is now 226 B.C.. Fifteen years have elapsed since verse 9. Seleucus II has died, and his sons are still in exile. Upon taking the crown, the elder son Seleucus III "crossed the Taurus at the head of a great army" to recover his father's former dominions, but soon perished. His kinsman, Achæus, sent immediately for Antiochus III to come to Asia Minor from the East and take his fallen brother's crown and throne.

While he waited for Antiochus III to arrive in Asia Minor, Achæus continued the mission and "recovered the whole of the country on this side of Taurus." In an act of deference, Achæus initially refused to take the crown, "holding the throne for the younger brother Antiochus [III]" (Polybius, The Histories, Book 4.48.6-10). Upon his ascension, Antiochus III "began to reign, entrusting the government of Asia on this side of Taurus to Achaeus and that of the upper provinces to Molon and his brother Alexander, Molon being satrap of Media and Alexander of Persia" (Polybius, The Histories, Book 5.40.6). With his kingdom so arranged Antiochus III turns his attention to Ptolemy III and the task of taking Coele-Syria.

It is now 220 B.C., and Ptolemy III has died, succeeded by Ptolemy IV. Antiochus III has assembled his army and is "ready and eager to invade Coele-Syria" (Polybius, The Histories, Book 5.42.9). But there is a significant matter requiring the king's attention: Ptolemy IV still occupies "Seleucia which was the capital seat and, one might almost say, the sacred hearth of their empire." The Syrian city "had been garrisoned by the kings of Egypt ever since ... the murder of Berenice" (Polybius, The Histories, Book 5.58.1-9). Convinced by his generals of the importance of the city, Antiochus III sets aside his designs on Coele-Syria, and instead takes back Seleucia in 219 B.C. (Polybius, The Histories, Book 5.60-61).

Thus were Seleucus II's sons both "stirred up" to assemble a multitude of forces, but only one actually returned, and was "stirred up, even to his fortress."

Daniel 11:11

"And the king of the south shall be moved with choler, and shall come forth and fight with him, even with the king of the north: and he shall set forth a great multitude; but the multitude shall be given into his hand"

The year is 217 B.C.. After some initial victories in Coele-Syria (Polybius, The Histories, Book 5.70-71), Antiochus III presses on to Raphia where Ptolemy IV destroys his forces in a decisive battle:

"His losses in killed alone had amounted to nearly ten thousand footmen and more than three hundred horsemen, while more than four thousand had been taken prisoners." (Polybius, The Histories, Book 5.86.5)

Antiochus III sues for peace, and turns his attention back to Asia Minor where Achæus has rebelled, but with only moderate success because the army refused to support him against "their original and natural king" (Polybius, The Histories, Book 5.57.6). Antiochus III pursues Achæus to Sardis, captures him, and executes him for his crime (Polybius, The Histories, Book 8.21). The year is 213 B.C..

Daniel 11:12

"And when he hath taken away the multitude, his heart shall be lifted up; and he shall cast down many ten thousands: but he shall not be strengthened by it."

The outcome of Ptolemy IV's decisive victory against Antiochus III yields the opposite of what he expected back home in Egypt. His army, emboldened by its victory, turned on Ptolemy IV and seceded, taking Upper Egypt with them (Polybius, The Histories, Book 5.107.1-3). What is more, his victory at Raphia did not secure his possession of Coele-Syria, for Antiochus III would eventually return and take it from him.

Daniel 11:13

"For the king of the north shall return, and shall set forth a multitude greater than the former, and shall certainly come after certain years with a great army and with much riches."

In the years since his defeat at Raphia, Antiochus III has not been idle. He is still governing as king of Asia Minor, as evidenced by his letters to the people at Sardis in 213 B.C. (Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum: 39.1283-12856). In 205 B.C. he is resettling "two thousand families of Jews" from Mesopotamia and Babylon to Phrygia and Lydia, in the interior of Asia Minor, being "persuaded that they will be well-disposed guardians of our possessions" there (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 12, chapter 147). In 204 B.C., he receives the adulation of the city of Teos on the western coast of Asia Minor "concerning the foundation of the cult in honor of King Antiochos III" and his wife, the queen ("Divine Honors for Antiochos and Laodike at Teos and Iasos," Franciszek Sokolowski, Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies, 13, 171-6 (1972)). It is during this period also that Antiochus III receives the epithet, "Magnus" during his successful expeditions in the east (Appian, Syrian Wars, 1.1).

In his newfound strength and wealth, Antiochus III returns to fight the king of Egypt, still holding both crowns, East and North. This time he utterly destroys the army of the child king Ptolemy V, under the command of Scopas at Panium, and at last takes possession of Coele-Syria (Polybius, The Histories, Book 16.18-19). The year is 200 B.C..

Daniel 11:14

"And in those times there shall many stand up against the king of the south: also the robbers of thy people shall exalt themselves to establish the vision; but they shall fall."

The angelic narrator pauses to describe the general state of affairs for the king of the south and the Jews during "those times." As noted under verse 12, Ptolemy IV's victory at Raphia, rather than solidifying his army's loyalty, instead emboldened them to seek independence from him. As Günther Hölbl, historian of the Ptolemaic Empire, describes, the period after Raphia was defined by instability, rebellion, insurrection and civil war in Egypt:

"In the years following 217, some men of the new military class led a revolt against the Ptolemaic regime in the northern part of the country. ... A papyrus dating to the end of the third century, probably sill during [Ptolemy IV's] reign, describes how Egyptian bandits attacked a military post and a temple precinct; ... From the Rosetta Stone we also know that, at the end of [Ptolemy IV's] reign, civil war raged in the Delta." (Hölbl, Günthner, A History of the Ptolemaic Empire (London and New York: Routledge (2001) 154)

Under the reign of his son, Ptolemy V, who was just a child when he took the throne, Antiochus III and Phillip of Macedon immediately set upon his dominions, "tearing to shreds the boy's kingdom" (Polybius, The Histories, Book 15.20.6). Thus did "many stand up against the king of the south" ... "in those times."

During the same period, the tax-farming, phil-hellenic Jewish Tobiads arose to prominence in Judæa under Ptolemy IV and Ptolemy V, gladly switching sides to Antiochus III after his victory at Panium (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 12, 154-185). The rise of these phil-hellenic Jews set the stage for a watershed conflict that would unfold between the Tobiads and the Maccabees later under Antiochus IV.

Daniel 11:15

"So the king of the north shall come, and cast up a mount, and take the most fenced cities: and the arms of the south shall not withstand, neither his chosen people, neither shall there be any strength to withstand."

Antiochus III is still king in Asia Minor within the Taurus mountains. After his victory at Panium, he quarters for winter and then proceeds to reduce Ptolemy V's fortified citadels along the southern coast of Asia Minor.

The commentaries typically relate that Antiochus III "besieged [Scopas] in Sidon together with ten thousand of his soldiers" (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel 11:15-16). However, no evidence of this siege has ever been found, except the mentions made of it in Jerome's and Porphyry's commentaries on Daniel. No Greek or Roman historian ever made note of it.

The evidence we do have for the fulfillment of the prophecy is from Livius, who describes Antiochus III's naval campaign as it is in progress against Ptolemy V's fortified citadels that dotted the southern coast of Asia Minor, south of the Taurus mountains:

“His object was … to attempt the reduction of the cities along the whole coastline of Cilicia, Lycia and Caria which owed allegiance to Ptolemy... He had so far secured Zephyrium, Soli, Aphrodisias and Corycus, and after rounding Anemurium—another Cilician headland—had captured Selinus. All these towns and other fortified places on this coast had submitted to him either voluntarily or under the stress of fear, but Coracesium unexpectedly shut its gates against him.” (Livius, History of Rome, Book 33.19-20)

Facing resistance, Antiochus III had no option but to surround and besiege Coracesium, one of Ptolemy V's most prized strongholds. Unable to defend his own fortresses, the Romans attempted to intervene and demanded that Antiochus III "restore to Ptolemy [V] all the towns that he had taken from him after the death of Ptolemy [IV]" (Polybius, The Histories, Book 18.1.14)

Loss of the Northern Crown

This concludes the section of Daniel 11 that deals with the Northern Period of the House of Seleucus. As we noted in part 1, the next verses of Daniel 11 address the defeat of Antiochus III at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 B.C., and the eviction of the Seleucid line from Asia Minor and Thrace under the terms of the Treaty of Apamea in 188 B.C.. From that point onward, the northern territory of Asia Minor and Thrace was forbidden to the Seleucids, and they were confined to the east as Kings of Syria. After Antiochus III dies, his sons rule after him in Syria, the younger of whom will "obtain the kingdom by flatteries" (Daniel 11:21) and become a significant figure through Daniel 11:39. Notably, the angel keeps talking about the Seleucids, but simply stops calling them "king of the north." That leads us to a conclusion about Daniel 11 that completely eliminates the need for the Shifting Frame introduced by Jerome at 11:5. The frame of reference appears to have remained static since verse 5.

The Shifting Frame was Unnecessary

As the historical record bears out, the Seleucids actually ruled in Asia Minor and Thrace in the early years depicted in Daniel 11, and whenever the angelic narrator foresees them as "king of the north," the prophecy is fulfilled by Seleucids who are in possession of the north. Then the Seleucids are evicted, ruling thenceforth only the east, and the angel simply stops calling them "king of the north." In other words, what was "north" in Daniel 8:8 and 11:4 remained "north" for the whole prophecy, and there was never a need to impose a Judæan Frame of Reference at all. The single Alexandrian Frame of Reference in which the chapter was apparently written was sufficient all along.

The Eschatological Implications

The implications of approaching Daniel 11 in a single frame of reference are far reaching, but we will address only one of them here. The "king of the north" is mentioned again in Daniel 11:40, and though Porphyry tried in vain to show that Antiochus IV made one last foray into Egypt, the historical record shows otherwise. The reality is that nothing about Daniel 11:40-45 even remotely resembles the career of any Seleucid kings, but the angel just kept on narrating as if foreseeing a continuous history of the Greek empire—start to finish.

Unable to find a clear fulfillment in the Seleucids at the end of the chapter, eschatologists typically resort again to a shifting frame. Some initiate a new frame of reference as early as verse 21, others as late as verse 40. The governing assumption of the new frame is that there must be yet another unannounced discontinuity in the prophecy, causing the latter part of the chapter to be centered on the location of a distant future antagonist. Jerome, for example, suggested that the prophecies after verse 24 "are spoken prophetically of the Antichrist who is to arise in the end time" (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel 11:24).

We suggest, however, that if the Shifting Frame of Reference was unnecessary earlier in the chapter, then yet another frame is also unnecessary at the end. There is a simpler solution than to keep changing the frame of reference to make the prophecy fit historical events. In any case the text (we hasten to add) only mentions one reference frame in the first place.

The solution we offer is a very simple one: if chapter 11 is a continuous narrative written in a single frame of reference (as it appears to be), and the title "king of the north" is geographic rather than dynastic (as the evidence shows), then the answer to the mystery of Daniel 11:40-45 is not to be found in Syria or in the Seleucids or even in a distant future antagonist by importing yet another frame of reference. The answer is rather to be found in Asia Minor and Thrace, to the north. We should simply look there to find out who was "king of the north." It certainly was not the Syrian Seleucids, banned forever from the northern territory by the Romans.

But somebody eventually became "king of the north"—king over Asia Minor and Thrace—years after the eviction of the Seleucids, and that somebody did exactly what he was prophesied to do, fulfilling the entirety of Daniel 11:40-45 before Rome even had her first emperor. The fulfillment has been overlooked, at least in part, because our eyes have been drawn ever eastward—thanks to Jerome and his Shifting Frame of Reference—when we should have been looking north.

We will address the remaining verses of Daniel 11 in a later series.

"… Asia Minor rather than Syria or the East seems [to have been] the chief sphere of Seleucid activity..." — Edwyn Robert Bevan (1902)

When Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C., his family, his generals and his closest friends spent the following decades trying to sort out the future and face of Hellenism in a post-Alexandrian world. It was not a simple undertaking. The process was riddled with murder, backstabbing, betrayal and geopolitical intrigue that spanned four decades and three continents. Alexander's potential successors, the Diadochi, as history would come to know them, were reduced from about 20 in 323 B.C. to just five viable family lines after the Battle of Ipsus in 301 B.C.. The Diodochi were subsequently reduced to four in 288 B.C. when one of the family lines was reduced to obscurity and no longer in contention. In 281 B.C. at the Battle of Corupedium, the Diodochi were reduced to just three. There is a great deal of history to sort through to understand the reduction of the Diadochi, how they related to each other, and how they understood the boundaries of their dominions. However, if we are to take seriously the prophetic implications of the visions of Daniel, the period between 288 and 281 B.C. is of paramount importance, and we should become familiar with it. No eschatology can be complete without understanding it. It is the only post-Alexandrian period during which Hellenism enjoyed exactly four successor kings in Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria and Macedonia—north, south, east and west—respectively. Their identities and territories matter.

Their identities and territories matter to us first because the Book of Daniel repeatedly describes—both explicitly and figuratively—four successor kingdoms after Alexander, "divided toward the four winds of heaven" (see Daniel 7:6, 8:8, 8:22, 11:4). Before 288 B.C., there were too many kings, and after 281 B.C. there appear to be too few. Something significant happened during those seven years in the early 3rd century B.C., and as we shall demonstrate, the contemporary Greek world took note of it. They knew very well that Alexander's dominions had been divided four ways, a status quo that endured even when only three families of the Diodochi remained.

Second, their identities and territories matter to us because the ensuing conflict between the king of the north and the king of the south occupies a significant portion of the narrative of Daniel 11. Each king is repeatedly invading the other's territory. Unless we can identify their territories, we can make no sense of the conflict. What makes the chapter especially challenging is that the nations and boundaries of the warring kings are never explicitly described. The angel refers repeatedly and explicitly to countries, regions, territories, cities and other locations with varying degrees of geographic specificity: Media (v. 1), Persia (v. 2), Greece (v. 2), Egypt (vv. 8, 42, 43), Israel (i.e., the glorious land, vv. 16, 41, 20, cf. Ezekiel 20:15), the Greek Isles (v. 18), Chittim (v. 30), Edom, Moab and Ammon (v. 41), Libya, (v. 43), Ethiopia (v. 43), and the temple mount (v. 45). Yet despite the extensive use of specific geographic designations, the angelic narrator nonetheless refrains from referring to the territories of the warring kings except by the cardinal directions, north and south. Their boundaries are unknown to us except in the fulfillment of prophecy.

Although the text does not actually specify it, the king of the north has traditionally been identified with the territory of Syria. We propose that upon examination of the Scriptural evidence and the historical record, the king of the north should instead be identified with Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) and Thrace. We do not deny that the early prophecies of Daniel 11—from verses 5 to 39—deal exclusively with a Syrian king in conflict with an Egyptian king. In fact we insist that such is the case. What we shall demonstrate, however, is that the Syrian king is called "king of the north" only during the periods when he held both the eastern crown and the northern crown, reigning over both Syria and Asia Minor. Although the Syrian king fulfills the prophecies of Daniel 11:5-39, he is never called "king of the north" unless he is actually ruling over the northern territory of Asia Minor and Thrace.

This, of course, has significant implications for our understanding of Daniel 11:40-45, the last time the "king of the north" is mentioned in Scripture. But let us for now turn our attention to the Diadochi.

Reduction to Five (323 - 301 B.C.)

The most notorious reductions of the Diadochi were performed by Alexander’s own bereaved mother, Olympias, and his general Cassander. Olympias murdered Alexander’s half-brother Aridæus in 317 B.C. (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History,Book 19.11.5), and Cassander then murdered Olympias in 316 B.C, to safeguard his claims to the Macedonian throne (Diodorus Siculus, Book 19.51.4-5). Cassander then put to death Alexander’s mistress, Barsine, and his son by her, Hercules, in 309 B.C. (Diodorus Siculus, Book 20.28.1-3; Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.7.2; Justinus, Epitome 15.2) and eliminated Alexander’s wife, Roxanne, and her son Alexander IV in 310 B.C. (Justinus, Epitome 15.2, Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.7.2).

With Alexander’s mother, wife, mistress, brother and sons removed from the picture, the remaining Diadochi each began to claim the right of succession. Alexander's general, Antigonus, was first to take the crown, claiming it also for his son Demetrius as co-regent (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book 20.47-53; Justinus, Epitome 15.2). Alexander's other friends and generals—Seleucus, Ptolemy, Lysimachus and Cassander—quickly followed suit and took crowns as well (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book 20.53.2-4; Justinus, Epitome 15.2; Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 18:1-2). Fearing the growing dominance and belligerence of the co-regents of the Antigonid line, “Ptolemy and Cassander, forming an alliance with Lysimachus and Seleucus, made vigorous preparations for war by land and sea” (Justinus, Epitome 15.1). Antigonus in turn summoned Demetrius to his side “since all the kings had united against him” (Diodorus, Book 20.109.5).

This was the prelude to the watershed Battle of Ipsus in 301 B.C. where Antigonus and Demetrius together “made war against a coalition of four kings, Ptolemy, son of Lagus, king of Egypt, Seleucus, king of Babylonia, Lysimachus, king of Thrace, and Cassander, son of Antipater, king of Macedonia” (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Fragments of Book 21.4b). At the conclusion of that battle, Antigonus was dead (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 29.5) and Demetrius was on the run with only 5,000 soldiers and 4,000 horses remaining (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 30.1). The remainder of Alexander’s empire was thus left to the victors, Ptolemy, Cassander, Seleucus and Lysimachus (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 30.1). Or so it would seem. But it would be a mistake to count out the Antigonid line so soon. Demetrius had been defeated but he was not dead. He had merely retreated to fight another day.

Defeated but not destroyed, Demetrius retired to Ephesus to regroup (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Fragments of Book 21.4b; Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 30.2; Eusebius, Chronicle (p. 247)), “and gathered up … the remnants of his [father’s] imperium” (Justinus, Prologi, XV). He retained Cyprus and controlled the eastern Mediterranean Sea (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 33.1-4). Within a few years he was a regional superpower again, fielding both an army and a navy almost as impressive as any that Alexander had ever deployed (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 44.1). Ipsus had not reduced the Diadochi to four. It had only reduced them to five:

• The Antigonid Line: Demetrius, son of Antigonus; • The Seleucid Line: Seleucus I “Nicator”; • The Lagid Line: Ptolemy I “Soter,” son of Lagus; • The Lysimachæan Line: Lysimachus of Thrace; and • The Antipatrid Line: Cassander of Macedonia

Reduction to Four (301 - 288 B.C.)

Within four years of Ipsus, Cassander died, leaving his unstable Macedonian kingdom to his three sons, Philippus, Alexander and Antipater. Philippus “died soon after his father,” and the remaining two “were perpetually at variance” (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 36.1), and Demetrius was now threatening the unstable kingdom. Lysimachus, king of Thrace and with vast holdings in Asia Minor, failed to persuade the warring brothers to make peace with each other (Justinus, Epitome 16.1). Demetrius soon had Cassander's son, Alexander, killed (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 36:1-6), and then convinced the people of Macedonia that it would be unfitting for anyone in Cassander’s line—which was responsible for the murder of Alexander’s mother, wife, mistress and children—to occupy Alexander’s former throne. Accepting this rationale, the people made Demetrius king of Macedonia in 294 B.C. (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius 37:2-3; Justinus, Epitome 16.1).

About this time Ptolemy had taken back Cyprus from Demetrius (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 35.3) and maintained control of his territories in “Egypt, with the greater part of Africa, Cyprus, and Phoenicia” (Justinus, Epitome 15.1). Seleucus was firmly entrenched in the eastern provinces “from India to the Syrian Sea” (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 32.7) and Demetrius was king of Macedonia. With Cassander’s line no longer in contention for a crown, the Diadochi had been reduced to four.

With only four left, each of sufficient strength to engage but not dominate the others, new alliances formed. Seleucus married Demetrius’ daughter in an attempt to forge an east-west alliance with Macedonia. Lysimachus and his son each married a daughter of Ptolemy, in an attempt to forge a north-south alliance with Egypt (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 31.5). The alliances did not last long.

Demetrius seized Cilicia from his new brother-in-law, and refused Seleucus’ offer to purchase it back from him (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 46.7). Nor would Demetrius cede to him control of Tyre and Sidon (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 32.7). Demetrius, having now regained his strength (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 31.3) was also “master of Macedonia and Thessaly,” as well as a “great part of Peloponnesus too, and the cities of Megara and Athens” (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 39.1). Attempting to restore the empire of his father (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 43.2), he now set his sights on Asia Minor. He raised an army of 98,000 men and 12,000 horses and was building 500 ships (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 43.3-4), preparing “such an armament for the invasion of Asia as no man ever had before him, except Alexander the Great” (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 44.1).

With Demetrius renewing his belligerence, the others—Seleucus in the east, Ptolemy in the south, and Lysimachus in the north—had no option but once again to form an alliance against him. They invited Pyrrhus, king of Epirus to join them (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 44.1). As Lysimachus invaded Macedonia from Thrace, and Ptolemy sent a fleet from Egypt, Pyrrhus was troubling Demetrius from the west, and in the end, Lysimachus and Pyrrhus divided Macedonia between themselves (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 44.2-3).

Despairing, but not defeated, Demetrius’ hope for a kingdom seemed to be entirely extinguished. "[A]nd yet," Plutarch informs us, "it broke out again, and shone with new splendour. Fresh forces came in, and gradually filled up the measure of his hopes.” Demetrius “collected all his ships, embarked his army, which consisted of 11,000 foot, besides cavalry, and sailed to Asia,” hoping to take some of Lysimachus’ territories in Asia Minor (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 45:4). He marched through Caria and Lydia, and on to Phrygia in Asia Minor “with an intention to seize Armenia, and then to try Media and the Upper Provinces” of Asia Major (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 46.7). Lysimachus’ son, Agathocles, followed at a distance through Asia Minor, cutting off Demetrius’ supply lines, and when Demetrius crossed the Taurus Mountains into Cilicia, Agathocles sealed off the mountain passes, trapping him there (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 46.7-47.2). Seeing Demetrius unable to retreat, Seleucus recognized the opportunity to recover a coveted territory. “Seleucus marched into Cilicia with a great army,” and engaged in multiple skirmishes and battles with Demetrius, and at some considerable cost finally gained the upper hand (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 47.5-49).

Hungry, and without options, his forces diminished by plague, famine, attrition and abandonment, Demetrius finally surrendered to Seleucus, and was held under arrest until his death (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 47-50). In 288 B.C., while in Seleucus’ custody, Demetrius formally abandoned his ambitions, and released his claim to the crown by a letter to his son, Antigonus Gonatas, ceding to him his "cities and all his remaining estates” (Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 51.1). It is at this point that Antigonus Gonatas took the crown in his father’s stead, but was not to regain control of Macedonia for another ten years (Eusebius, Chronicle (p. 237)). After Demetrius’ abdication, a period of chaos resulted as rulership of Macedonia changed hands repeatedly, but finally returned to Antigonus Gonatas, and remained in Antigonid hands for more than 100 years, until Macedonia finally capitulated to Rome in 168 B.C. (Eusebius, Chronicle (p. 239)).

Thus, were the lines of the Diadochi finally reduced to four, and it is here at last that we can identify their respective territories. Lysimachus was in possession of Thrace and the territories within the Taurus Mountains of Asia Minor to the north; Ptolemy was secure in Egypt, Africa, Cyprus, and Phoenicia to the south, also having gained control of the southern coast of Asia Minor, just a sliver of land south of the Taurus Mountains; Seleucus had taken all the territory east of the Taurus range from Cilicia and Syria to Babylon; and Demetrius' son, Antigonus Gonatas, was claiming sovereign rights over Macedonia in the west.

Reduction to Three (288 - 281 B.C.)

Four kingdoms were thus established—north, south, east and west—forged over a 35-year period in the chaotic crucible of a post-Alexandrian world, resulting in what would turn out to be a brief, unsustainable equilibrium. Each king kept his covetous gaze warily focused on his neighbor's territory, and in 281 B.C., the equilibrium collapsed. Seleucus crossed the Taurus Mountains into Asia Minor and engaged Lysimachus at the Battle of Corupedium. He defeated and killed Lysimachus, and shortly thereafter, Seleucus himself was murdered after his conquest of Thrace (Pausianas, Description of Greece, Book 1.16.2). His son, Antiochus I, thus took the crown and ruled over the territory.

The Seleucid Dynasty in Asia Minor (281 - 190 B.C.)

The outcome of the Battle of Corupedium is one of the most remarkable and most frequently overlooked facts of post-Alexandrian Hellenism. From this point forward, until the Battle of Magnesia in 190 B.C., the Seleucids reigned in Asia Minor. They retained their territories in the east, but lived in, and reigned primarily from, the north, holding court in Sardis and living in Ephesus.

Esteemed historian of the Seleucid dynasty, Edwyn Robert Bevan, arrived at precisely this conclusion in his two-volume work, The House of Seleucus. Once Seleucus defeated Lysimachus at Corupedium, the descendants of the Seleucid line made their home quite comfortably in Asia Minor and Thrace, and in fact preferred it over their other dominions. It was the seat of the Seleucid empire until their catastrophic defeat at the hands of the Romans at Magnesia. It is only then that the Seleucids go back to being “Syrian” kings. Of this astonishing fact, Bevan writes,

“… Asia Minor rather than Syria or the East seems, till after Magnesia, the chief sphere of Seleucid activity. One may well believe that it was the part of their dominions to which the Seleucid kings attached the greatest value. It is never so inappropriate to speak of the dynasty as ‘Syrian’ as in these earlier reigns.” (Bevan, Edwyn Robert, The House of Seleucus, vol 1, London: Edward Arnold (1902) 150-51)

“Asia Minor was in fact considered the real home of the earlier Seleucids.” (Bevan, The House of Seleucus, vol 1, 151n)

It is from Asia Minor that the Seleucids administered their vast empire, from 281 B.C. onward, until Magnesia. Shortly after Corupedium, Seleucus was murdered in Thrace (Pausianas, Description of Greece, Book 1.16.2) and his son, Antiochus I stepped in and ruled over the territory. Antiochus I’s activities within the Taurus Mountains were extensive, and we have numismatic evidence that Antiochus I’s rule was recognized as far as Thrace, for coins have been found in Europe bearing his name and image (Ernest Babelon, Catalogue des monnaies grecques: Les rois de Syrie, d’Arménie, et de Commagène (Bibliothèque nationale (1890) XLVIII).

When Antiochus I died (261 B.C.), his son Antiochus II rose up in his place, earning the appellation Theos for rescuing the Bithynians from the tyrant Timarchus (Appian, History of Rome, The Syrian Wars, 65; OGIS 26). At times, Antiochus II is found pressing his affairs well into Europe, as when he “besieged Cypsela, a city in Thrace,” for “he had in his army many Thracians of good rank and family” (Polyaenus, Strategems, Book 4, Chapter 16.1). Antiochus II reigned in Asia Minor until his death in 246 B.C.. His son and grandsons after him would call Asia Minor home, and would continue claiming sovereign rights to the northern territory for another six decades.

The Two Wives, and Two Kingdoms, of Antiochus II

This obscure period during which the Seleucids lived, loved and reigned in Asia Minor and Thrace is significant to us because the 11th chapter of Daniel does not even make mention of the "king of the north" until the reign of Antiochus II (261 to 246 B.C.) by which time the Seleucids had been established in the north for generations. It is only when Ptolemy, "king of the south," arranges the marriage of his daughter, Berenice, to Antiochus II that the "king of the north" is mentioned in the narrative:

"...for the king’s daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement..." (Daniel 11:6)

The year is 252 B.C., and Antiochus II is currently living in Ephesus with his wife, Laodice. But Ptolemy has made an offer that he cannot refuse. Lest his most precious properties in Asia Minor fall into the hands of Berenice by marriage, Antiochus II hastily deeds them to Laodice as part of the terms of divorce, recording the settlement in temples throughout Asia Minor and Thrace (Orientis graeci inscriptiones selectae (OGIS) 225).

His Northern kingdom thus arranged, Antiochus II crossed the Taurus Mountains to Antioch to be with Berenice in the East. The divorce, however, had been but a formality. Antiochus II in reality was maintaining “two wives, Laodice [in Ephesus] and Berenice [in Antioch], the former a love-match, the latter a daughter pledged to him by Ptolemy [II]” (Appian, History of Rome, The Syrian Wars, 65). The arrangement in Syria would not last long. Political necessity had brought him to Antioch, but love brought him back to Ephesus. The Taurus Mountains could not keep Antiochus away from his first love, and before he dies, he is back in the arms of Laodice (Eusebius, Chronicle). But Laodice does not suffer bigamists well, and is believed to have poisoned him (Appian, History of Rome, The Syrian Wars, 65), lest his affections drift eastward again to Syria, and her children lose their crown rights to the interloper queen from Egypt. It is in Ephesus that Antiochus dies.

The King of the North was King of the North

Lest we fail to state the obvious, Antiochus II was living in the north (Asia Minor) rather than the east (Syria) when Ptolemy, king of the south, approached him with the offer of marriage to Berenice. He was in possession of both the northern crown and the eastern crown at the time, but both his heart and his throne were in Asia Minor. He was not living in Antioch when the offer was made, and his marriage and living arrangements with Ptolemy's daughter in Syria were crafted in such a way as to maximize political gain, but minimize the risk of losing his northern kingdom. As Bevan noted above, “Asia Minor was in fact considered the real home of the earlier Seleucids” (Bevan, The House of Seleucus, vol 1, 151n). Asia Minor, with Thrace, was the northern territory of Daniel's narrative in chapter 11, not Syria.

The Eviction of the Seleucids

This matter of the northern king's territory becomes strikingly apparent when a later Seleucid king, Antiochus III, evokes the ire of the nascent Roman republic to the west. His activities in Thrace were interpreted as a threat, but Antiochus III insists that he is simply maintaining Seleucid territories that had been in his family since Corupedium (Polybius, The Histories, Book 18.49-51). Antiochus III underestimates the resolve of the new western republic and advances undaunted into the Greek Isles. It was a momentous miscalculation.

Rome had had enough, moved in to meet him on the field of battle, and "completely defeated Antiochus in the great battle of Magnesia” in 190 B.C. (Livius, History of Rome, Book 38.58). The Seleucid reign in the north was over. According to the terms dictated to them at the Treaty of Apamea in 188 B.C., the Seleucids “must retire from Europe and from all Asia on this side [of the] Taurus” (Polybius, The Histories, Book 21.17.3). After being evicted from his Northern territory, Antiochus III returned to the East and died in Elam (Babylonian King List 6(r); Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book 28.3, Book 29.15)). These events fulfilled the prophecy of Daniel 11:18-19:

"After this shall he turn his face unto the isles, and shall take many: but a prince for his own behalf shall cause the reproach offered by him to cease; without his own reproach he shall cause it to turn upon him. Then he shall turn his face toward the fort of his own land: but he shall stumble and fall, and not be found."

From the East the Seleucids had come. To the East they had returned. But from 281 - 190 B.C., they were truly, and emphatically, kings of Asia Minor and Thrace, the northern kingdom.

Remarkably, from this point forward in Daniel 11, no king of the Seleucid line is ever called "king of the north" again. The Seleucids six times had been styled by the narrator as “king of the north”  (Daniel 11:6, 7, 8, 11, 13 & 15), but when they were evicted from Asia Minor and Thrace, the title was no longer applied to them.

Undoubtedly, with only brief interruptions, the Seleucid kings were truly kings over the Syrian territory throughout the entire period depicted in Daniel 11:5-39. As we noted above, the wars between the king of the north and the king of the south were between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, the kings of Syria and Egypt, respectively. We do not deny it. What is significant to us, however, is that the appellation "king of the north" is a geographic one, not a dynastic one—it follows the territory, not the family. Whoever reigned over Asia Minor and Thrace was "king of the north," and it is for this reason alone that the Seleucids were so designated from Daniel 11:5 to Daniel 11:17. During that period, they wore both crowns, East and North. Once evicted from Asia Minor and Thrace, they lost the northern crown and from that point forward in the prophetic record the Seleucids are no longer identified as "king of the north" (Daniel 11:18-39).

Our conclusion, upon examination of the Scriptural evidence and the historical record, is that "the king of the north" in Daniel 11 should be identified with Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) and Thrace instead of Syria. The prophetic evidence and the historical record support that proposition.

We will examine more evidence in support of this proposition and its eschatological implications in part 2.

Most of us, from a very young age, have been familiar with the great statue of Nebuchadnezzar's dream:

"This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay." (Daniel 2:32-33)

What Nebuchadnezzar had seen was a succession of four empires. A Stone arrives toward the end of his vision and breaks the statue to pieces, "and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth" (Daniel 2:34-35). The meaning of the dream was revealed to the prophet, and the Stone in particular has ever since been of great interest to the Church:

"And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." (Daniel 2:44)

The Stone strikes the statue, the Kingdom of God is established, and "all these kingdoms" crumbled to dust, and "no place was found for them" (Daniel 2:34). There is an emphatic finality in the phrase, "no place was found for them." They are gone, for they have become "like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away."

Daniel's Subtle Clue

The common interpretation is pretty straightforward: after a succession of four empires (Daniel 2:37-44), the Stone is clearly the Church growing up into a global earthly entity, covering the earth like a mountain, the fifth kingdom in a succession of kingdoms. The rise of the Church after the Roman empire is very clearly depicted in the historical record, and the prophetic record seems to indicate exactly that.

Or does it?

Had Daniel only recorded two chapters, there would not be much more to discuss. But in Daniel 7, the prophet records a very subtle observation that has great bearing on the meaning of Daniel 2.

In Daniel 7, the prophet's dream also depicts a series of four empires, after which the saints take possession of the kingdom, just as in Daniel 2:

"These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever." (Daniel 7:17-18)

So far so good. Just like in Daniel 2, there are four empires in a row, and then the saints appear to get the fifth kingdom. And just as the impact of the Stone in Daniel 2 strikes the Fourth Empire, the "body" of the Fourth Empire of Daniel 7 is burned up and destroyed as well. A judgment against the fourth empire seems to be the harbinger of the rise of the Church to global prominence.

But in Chapter 7, Daniel adds an additional detail that gives us pause. He does not say that the Fourth Empire and all the preceding empires with it are utterly removed after the judgment against the fourth empire. Instead he says quite the opposite. Those preceding empires are not immediately destroyed at all, and in stark contrast with Daniel 2, they live on:

"I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame. As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time." (Daniel 7:11-12)

Contrast the finality of the statement regarding the other kingdoms in Daniel 2 after the fourth empire is struck...

"... no place was found for them" (Daniel 2:34).

... with the extension of life for the other kingdoms described in Daniel 7 after the fourth empire is burned up ...

"... yet their lives were prolonged ..." (Daniel 7:11-12)

We suggest that if their lives were prolonged, then clearly a "place" was indeed found for them, and if "no place was found for them" then their lives were not prolonged. The two depictions seem to be at odds with each other, unless we have been looking at it the wrong way.

And there must be another way of looking at it. The Daniel of chapter 2 and the Daniel of chapter 7 received similar revelations from the same source (Daniel 2:28, 7:16). There would be Four Kingdoms on earth, and then "the God of heaven [shall] set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed" (Daniel 2:37-44). There are Four Kingdoms to come on earth, but "the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom" (Daniel 7:17-18). These are very consistent statements.

Then why the subtle discrepancy? Why, after the impact of the Stone against the fourth empire in Daniel 2, are the preceding empires removed, but after the destruction of the fourth empire of Daniel 7, the preceding empires live on?

The Interim Kingdom

There is, of course, no real discrepancy at all. After the fourth kingdom of Daniel 7, an antagonist arises, "a little horn" that comes up from among the remnants of the fourth empire (Daniel 7:8). That "little horn" has an earthly dominion (Daniel 7:21-26), speaks arrogantly against God (Daniel 7:8,11,25), and makes war against the saints and prevails (Daniel 7:21,25). That "little horn" shares the same attributes with the Sea Beast of Revelation 13, which also has an earthly dominion (Revelation 13:7), speaks arrogantly against God (Revelation 13:5), and makes war against the saints and prevails (Revelation 13:7). And most importantly, the Sea Beast of Revelation 13 is comprised of all the preceding empires of Daniel's vision of chapter 7 (Revelation 13:2).

Our point here is that the Little Horn of Daniel 7 is a conglomeration of "all these kingdoms" of Daniel 2:44, the manifestation of "the rest of the beasts" in Daniel 7. It is through the "little horn"—the Sea Beast of Revelation 13—that the lives of "the rest of the beasts" were prolonged. And thus, we have a very subtle but meaningful clue from the hand of the prophet. If the lives of "the rest of the beasts" were prolonged after the judgment against the fourth empire (Daniel 7:12), then Daniel 7:12 must necessarily occur after the impact of the Stone against the fourth empire in Daniel 2:34. And if Daniel 2:35 says the preceding empires are completely and utterly destroyed, then Daniel 2:35 must necessarily occur after Daniel 7:12 which says they were allowed to live on. That places Daniel 7:12 squarely between Daniel 2:34 and Daniel 2:35.

To put it another way, the "little horn" of Daniel 7—which is none other than Sea Beast of Revelation 13—must arise between Daniel 2:34 and 2:35 as the fifth earthly empire in the succession of Daniel's visions, and thus, Daniel 2:34 and 2:35 must depict two separate strikes of the Stone. In fact, the verses are written that way. Daniel 2:34 says the Stone struck and broke only the iron and clay feet to pieces, and Daniel 2:35 and 2:45 say that the Stone broke all of them to pieces at once, grinding them to chaff. Those are two different impacts of the Stone against the statue.

The Earthly Kingdom of the Saints

Part of the reason the Stone has historically been interpreted as the fifth earthly empire in succession is because Daniel 2:34-35 is interpreted as a single strike during the Roman Empire, and the Stone is depicted as filling "the whole earth" immediately following that strike. But what is notable is that the Kingdom the saints inherit after four preceding kingdoms is not earthly, but heavenly. Notice the language used in both chapters to describe the kingdom received by the saints "in the days of these kings" of the feet of the statue:

"And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom..." (Daniel 2:44)

"These ... are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom ..." (Daniel 7:18)

There is no mention of an earthly kingdom for the saints, and we know that the kingdom Jesus came announcing during the fourth empire was "not of this world" (John 18:36). The kingdom the saints receive during the fourth empire is heavenly.

But at the end of the visions, there is a sudden and perceptible shift in the language used to describe the kingdom given to the saints. It is finally earthly, "under heaven," filling "the whole earth":

"... and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth." (Daniel 2:35)

"...and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High..." (Daniel 7:27)

Notably, the kingdom of the saints does not fill "the whole earth" immediately after the Stone strikes the feet, but only after "all these kingdoms" are broken to pieces and consumed and "no place was found for them" (Daniel 2:35,44-45). The saints are not given a kingdom "under the whole heaven" immediately after the fourth beast is destroyed, but only after the dominion of the little horn is consumed and destroyed to the uttermost (Daniel 7:26). Then, and only then, does the Kingdom of Heaven come to earth. Only after the fifth empire's dominion is taken away. The Church will be the sixth earthly empire of Daniel's visions, not the fifth. The fifth earthly empire is the earthly dominion of the Little Horn, not the kingdom of the saints.

Two Strikes of the Stone

By evaluating Daniel 2 and 7 together, we find that chapter 2 depicts an initial strike of the Stone against the fourth empire, and the saints of God receiving a heavenly kingdom, and chapter 7 depicts an initial judgment against the fourth empire, and the Little Horn receiving an earthly kingdom. Revelation 13 depicts that Little Horn as the manifestation of all the preceding empires, which are given a prolongation of life after the judgment against the fourth empire (Daniel 7:12). Only much later, after all the empires are ground to dust by the second strike of the Stone (Daniel 2:35) at the destruction of the Little Horn (Daniel 7:26) do the saints actually receive an earthly kingdom.

In short, the saints of God do not receive the fifth earthly kingdom of Daniel's visions, but rather the sixth. It is not the Church but rather the Little Horn of Daniel 7, the Beast of Revelation 13:2, that receives the fifth earthly kingdom immediately following the Roman empire.

The significance of this to the Christian is that a cursory reading of Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 without first harmonizing them may mislead one into expecting an earthly Christianized kingdom immediately following the Roman empire. Many a student of Scripture and history has stumbled at that very point, thinking that Daniel 2:34-35 depicted a single strike, and thus that the politically influential Roman Church State arising from the fragments of the Roman Empire was the manifestation of the Stone filling the whole earth.

However, when Daniel 2:34-35 are seen to depict two separate strikes of the Stone, it becomes clear that we should not expect or seek an earthy kingdom immediately after the Roman Empire. In fact, to the contrary, Daniel and Revelation warn sternly against that expectation, and admonish us not to seek an earthly kingdom until after the Little Horn is utterly and finally removed from the earth. Only then do the saints receive an earthly kingdom.

And thus, we offer this modest eschatological proposal: Daniel 2 depicts not one, but two, separate strikes of the Stone. The fifth empire of Daniel's visions, therefore, was not the Church but rather the very thing the Church was warned to avoid.

At the time of the Council of Nicæa, Alexandria and Antioch were located together in one diocese, just like Rome and Milan.

The decade from 373 to 383 A.D. is one of the most critical periods in the post-apostolic era, not because of what was happening in the Church, but because of what happened in the Roman Empire. Sometime during those ten years, the civil Diocese of Egypt was created by splitting the Diocese of Oriens in two. As we shall demonstrate, that late 4th century creation of the Diocese of Egypt is one of the most important developments in the history of ecclesiology, and it went almost completely unnoticed until the 16th century. By then, the damage was done, and even today church history, as an academic discipline, struggles to recover from the oversight.

The Formation of the Diocese of Egypt

In 293 A.D., Emperor Diocletian established the tetrarchy, dividing the empire into twelve dioceses, and assigning to each tetrarch capital the administration of three of the twelve dioceses as shown in Table 1, below:

Table 1: The Original Diocesan Division of the Empire

Each diocese was itself subdivided into numerous smaller units called provinces. Evidence for this specific twelve-way division dates to 314 A.D., and is attested by the Laterculus Veronensis.[1] Notably, there was no “Diocese of Egypt” at the time, which left Antioch and Alexandria together in the Diocese of Oriens, as shown in the map at the head of this article. Of similar relevance to our discussion, Milan became the chief metropolis of Italy, being located together with Rome in the Diocese of Italy, also depicted above.

The tetrarchy collapsed over the course of the next century, but the diocesan system endured. Several notable changes occurred in the arrangement and number of dioceses, yielding a final count of thirteen by the end of the 4th century. The Diocese of Moesia had been broken up into the two Dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia. The Dioceses of Gaul and Vienne had been combined into the single Diocese of Gaul. And finally, the Diocese of Oriens had been divided into the two Dioceses of Oriens and Egypt.[2] When the 4th century came to a close, the Roman Empire had been effectively divided into the following thirteen dioceses as shown in Table 2, below:

Table 2: Final Diocesan Division of the Empire

Evidence for this specific thirteen-way division late in the 4th century dates to 400 A.D. and is attested by the Notitia Dignitatum.

Of particular interest to us is the timing of the formation of the Diocese of Egypt. It was not part of Diocletian’s original diocesan division, and the evidence shows that it was a very late element of the reorganization. As late as 373 A.D., we have evidence that Alexandria was still located within the civil Diocese of Oriens, showing that even then the Diocese of Egypt still had not been formed.[3] It is not until 383 A.D. that we have an explicit reference in the civil records to Dioecesis Ægyptiaca, the Diocese of Egypt.[4] Sometime between 373 A.D. and 383 A.D., the Diocese of Egypt had been created.

The Significance of the Diocese of Egypt

The reason the late creation of the Diocese of Egypt is so important to the history of Christianity is because knowledge of the arrangement of the dioceses—and specifically knowledge of the timing of the creation of the Diocese of Egypt—is absolutely necessary to a proper understanding of Canon 6 of the Council of Nicæa (325 A.D.). In Diocletian’s original reorganization of the empire, Milan and Rome were located together in the Diocese of Italy. Milan was the chief of the diocese, but neither Milan nor Rome administered the whole. Likewise, the two cities of Antioch and Alexandria were located together in the Diocese of Oriens. By the time of the Council of Nicæa that status quo remained unchanged, and Canon 6 was written in that specific geographic context. Canon 6 cannot be understood without this information, yet much of it lay hidden in obscurity for over twelve hundred years. It was only in the 16th century that the history of the late formation of the Diocese of Egypt came to light, but by then more than a millennium of canonical interpretation had already transpired. The ostensible meaning of Canon 6 had long since been established in ignorance.

The matter being addressed in Canon 6 was that Meletius of Thebaid in Oriens had presumed to ordain bishops who were within the Diocese of Oriens, but were under Alexandrian jurisdiction. Peter of Alexandria accused Meletius of “entering our parish”[5] to perform the ordinations. Thus, the dispute involved the recognition and enforcement of episcopal boundaries within the Diocese of Oriens. The particular challenge facing the Council of Nicæa was how to define Alexandrian jurisdiction within a diocese that, in the civil realm, was administered from Antioch. Had the Diocese of Egypt already existed at the time, the solution would have been as simple as telling each bishop to stay in his own diocese. But that option was not available at the time. Alexandria and Antioch coexisted together in the same diocese, and a jurisdictional solution would have to be crafted with that in mind.

When we examine the canon in question, it becomes immediately apparent that the Council was compelled to define Alexandrian metropolitan jurisdiction in terms of several provinces of the Diocese of Oriens. Of equal significance, Antioch’s metropolitan jurisdiction was described in terms of the other provinces of the diocese:

“Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also. Likewise in Antioch and the other provinces, let the Churches retain their privileges. And this is to be universally understood, that if any one be made bishop without the consent of the Metropolitan, the great Synod has declared that such a man ought not to be a bishop.” (Nicæa, Canon 6).

It would have been simple enough had the council merely stated that Alexandria should administer a few specific provinces in Oriens and that Antioch should administer the rest, but the council went on and provided its rationale for the decision: “…since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also.” What could this mean? Why was a custom of a bishop in a completely different diocese invoked in order to settle an internal boundary dispute between bishops in the Diocese of Oriens?

The answer to the question is remarkably simple when the contemporary topography is taken into account. Diocletian’s reorganization had placed both Milan and Rome within the civil Diocese of Italy, and had also placed both Antioch and Alexandria within the civil Diocese of Oriens. In Italy, Diocletian had avoided administrative conflicts by making Milan the chief metropolis while relegating to Rome a few suburbicarian provinces adjacent to the city. By the time of Nicæa the church had adapted to the new civil boundaries, so the structural congruency between Alexandria and Rome was obvious to anyone familiar with current events. When boundary disputes arose within Oriens between Antioch and Alexandria, a solution presented itself immediately: just as the Bishop of Rome administered a few provinces within the Diocese of Italy (the rest being administered from Milan), Alexandria could administer a few provinces within the Diocese of Oriens (the rest being administered from Antioch). The solution was as elegant as it was simple.

Evidence for this geographic arrangement in Italy is abundant in the historical record. In the mid-4th century Milan was still being called the “Metropolis of Italy,”[6] and its bishop the “Metropolitan of Italy.”[7] Also at that time writers were still distinguishing between “Italy” and “these parts [of Rome]”[8] or “the city of Rome and the parts of Italy,”[9] as if they were two different administrative regions, “the parts of Italy,” which were administered by Milan, and “these parts” administered by Rome, mirroring the civil order in that diocese. The church had clearly adapted to the civil boundaries established within Italy, and in Canon 6 that same arrangement was applied to Oriens. The earliest Latin translation of Canon 6 recites the limited jurisdiction of the Bishop of the City of Rome—the suburban provinces (in suburbicaria loca sollicitudinem gerat)[10]—showing that in the west, the church had understood exactly why the example of the Bishop of Rome was invoked: not because his jurisdiction was so great, but rather because his jurisdiction was defined in terms of a few provinces of another metropolitan’s diocese. That was exactly the situation Alexandria faced in the Diocese of Oriens, so the council simply recognized Alexandria’s position over several provinces within the diocese on the basis of a similar custom for the Bishop of Rome within the Diocese of Italy.

That solution, of course, left the Bishop of Jerusalem still within the boundaries of Antioch’s portion of the diocese. To prevent any further disputes, the Council simply extended titular honors to Jerusalem in the next canon, leaving the bishop of Antioch as the ranking metropolitan (Nicæa, Canon 7).

As the century wore on, this understanding of what Nicæa had done for Alexandria was retained in the corporate memory of the church. In 347 A.D., Athanasius’ defenders were still describing his jurisdiction in provincial terms (Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis) rather than diocesan terms.[11] In 351 A.D., Athanasius was still identifying his jurisdiction in those same provincial terms even when identifying other bishops by their respective civil dioceses.[12] Clearly, there was still no “Diocese of Egypt” even in the mid-4th century.

But by 381 A.D., something had changed. The Diocese of Egypt must have been formed during that critical decade from 373 to 383 A.D., and knowledge of the newly created diocese had reached the assembled bishops in the capital of the empire. The 2nd canon of Constantinople reflected the new status quo, and Alexandrian jurisdiction was no longer being described in provincial terms, but rather in explicitly diocesan terms. Likewise, Antioch’s jurisdiction was no longer being described in terms of “the rest of the provinces,” but rather in terms of the Diocese of Oriens:

“The bishops are not to go beyond their dioceses to churches lying outside of their bounds, nor bring confusion on the churches; but let the Bishop of Alexandria, according to the canons, alone administer the affairs of Egypt [Ægypto tantum]; and let the bishops of the East manage the East alone [Orientem solum], the privileges of the Church in Antioch, which are mentioned in the canons of Nice, being preserved.” (Council of Constantinople, canon 2)[13]

The bishops at Constantinople had essentially restated the substance of Canons 6 and 7 of Nicæa in contemporary terms, reflecting the creation of a new diocese. A new geographic reality was present to them that had not been available to the preceding council: the existence of the Diocese of Egypt created out of provinces formerly attached to the now smaller Diocese of Oriens.

When viewed through the lens of the contemporary boundary disputes taking place within the diocese of Oriens, the provincial language used by Nicæa to define Alexandrian and Antiochian jurisdiction makes perfect sense. So does the provincial language used by Athanasius and his defenders even past the middle of the 4th century, because the Diocese of Egypt still did not exist yet at the time. Then, when the Diocese of Egypt was created sometime between 373 and 383 A.D., it made perfect sense to start describing the jurisdiction of Alexandria in terms of the new Diocese of Egypt, as well as to describe the jurisdiction of Antioch in terms of the now smaller Diocese of Oriens, which is exactly what Canon 2 of Constantinople did.

The Origin of the Myth

But what did not make sense was to attribute this to the Council of Nicæa. Nicæa could not have assigned Alexandrian and Antiochian jurisdiction in diocesan terms that were five decades ahead of their time. The Council of Nicæa had not assigned Egypt to Alexandria or Oriens to Antioch. It just was not possible. The Diocese of Egypt had not yet been formed, and the Diocese of Oriens still included Alexandria and the several provinces over which its bishop presided.

Nevertheless, after Constantinople, the language of Nicæa was gradually modified in contemporary literature, and the elegant simplicity of Nicæa’s provincial solution was soon lost in the fog of history. It was as if the church had simply forgotten when the Diocese of Egypt had been created. A collective amnesia set in, and they forgot that Nicæa had only solved an episcopal boundary dispute by assigning to Alexandria several provinces of a diocese that, in the civil realm, was entirely under the jurisdiction of Antioch.

The rewriting of Nicæa first manifested in the last years of the 4th century in Jerome’s letter to Pammachius (398 A.D.). “Unless I am deceived,” he insisted, the Council of Nicæa had assigned to Antioch “the whole of the East (totius Orientis).”[14] But Jerome was deceived, for he had assumed that the Diocese of Egypt must have already been in existence at Nicæa and that the council had therefore assigned all of Oriens to Antioch, a historical impossibility.

In 403 A.D., Rufinus of Aquileia perpetuated the error by saying that the 6th of Nicæa had granted to Alexandria “the charge of Egypt (Ægypti),”[15] which was not true. The council had granted to Alexandria several provinces of Oriens—Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis—precisely because there was no Diocese of Egypt to assign.

By 411 A.D., the confusion was advanced by Pope Innocent I in his epistle to Alexander of Antioch. In that letter he explained that Nicæa had established Antioch “over a diocese” (super diœcesim),[16] which was not true. Nicæa did not, and could not, establish Antioch over a diocese for the very simple reason that Alexandria was still located within Oriens at the time, and was in fact presiding over several of its provinces.

By 451 A.D. at the council of Chalcedon, both the eastern and the western bishops were reciting Canon 6 as if Nicæa had done the impossible: assign the Diocese of Egypt to Alexandria. Notably, the West was already appropriating the inaccurate language to advance a case for Roman episcopal primacy:

Western Bishops’ version: “The church of Rome has always had primacy. Egypt is therefore also to enjoy the right that the bishop of Alexandria has authority over everything, since this is the custom for the Roman bishop also. Likewise both the one appointed in Antioch, and in the other provinces the churches of the larger cities, are to enjoy primacy.”[17]

Eastern bishops’ version: “Let the ancient customs in Egypt prevail, namely that the bishop of Alexandria has authority over everything, since this is customary for the bishop of Rome also. Likewise in Antioch also and in the other provinces let the privileges be preserved in the churches.”[18]

We emphasize the phrase, “authority over everything,” to showcase the remarkable historical gloss that occurred since the creation of Egypt as a diocese after 373 A.D.. The last thing the bishops at Nicæa would have ever said of either Alexandria or Rome is that either bishop “has authority over everything.” The council had been in no position to place either Alexandria “over everything” in Oriens, or Rome "over everything" in Italy, since each was located in a civil diocese with another metropolitan bishop—Alexandria with Antioch, and Rome with Milan. All Nicæa could do was say that Alexandria was to “have jurisdiction in all these” provinces of Oriens, just as Rome is over a several provinces in Italy, and assign to Antioch “the rest of the provinces" in Oriens, which obviously carries a much different meaning than “authority over everything.”

Thus, between Nicæa and Chalcedon the prevailing cultural knowledge that Nicæa had set Alexandria over only a few provinces of Oriens gradually became more and more obscure. Absent from the new wording of the Nicæan canons was the limited, provincial language that made sense in the early 4th century topography. Gone was any notion that at the time of the council Alexandria and Antioch had been located together in the same civil diocese, just like Rome and Milan were in Italy. Looking back from Chalcedon, it appeared that the Diocese of Egypt had existed all along, and that Oriens had never included Egypt and Libya, and that the Dioceses of Italy and Oriens had never been so similarly situated, each compelled by geography to share an entire diocese between two metropolitan bishops.

All these men—Jerome, Rufinus, Innocent and the assembled bishops at Chalcedon—assumed that Nicæa in 325 A.D. had granted to Alexandria a diocese that could not have even existed until at least 373 A.D.. Thus, in the dusk of the 4th century and the dawn of the 5th, the die was cast, and the myth was born that of the Diocese of Egypt had been in existence at the time of Nicæa. Nicæa’s simple and elegant solution to an administrative problem in Oriens was lost.

The Expansion of the Myth

The historical error grew larger and more expansive with time. Historians who by then should have known better continued to assume that the Diocese of Egypt had existed at the time of Nicæa and that it had been assigned to Alexandria by Canon 6. The myth manifested in two ways—either by an outright claim that the Council had assigned the Diocese of Egypt to Alexandria, or indirectly by claiming that the Council had assigned the whole Diocese of Oriens to Antioch.

In 1576 A.D., Roberti Bellarmini wrote that Nicæa had assigned all of Oriens (totum Orientem) to Antioch,[19] a historical impossibility.

In 1671, Henrici Justellus claimed that Nicæa had granted “the whole diocese of Egypt” to Alexandria,[20] a colossal anachronism.

In 1855, Carl Joseph von Hefele stated that Nicæa had granted “the whole (civil) Diocese of Egypt” to Alexandria,[21] and further that Antioch’s jurisdiction must have been “the civil diocese of Oriens” at the time,[22] two geographic impossibilities.

In 1880, Fr. James Loughlin was still claiming that the Bishop of Antioch presided “throughout the great diocese of Oriens”[23] at the time of Nicæa, which of course, was impossible.

Not one of their claims was true.

Since the Diocese of Egypt did not yet exist at the time of Nicæa, and Alexandria was at the time located within the Diocese of Oriens, the Council simply did not have at its disposal the option of assigning to Alexandria “the whole diocese of Egypt” or to Antioch “all of Oriens.” It certainly did not place either of them “over everything.” It was geographically and historically impossible. That is precisely why the council had to define Alexandrian and Antiochian jurisdiction in provincial rather than diocesan terms in the first place. Jerome, Rufinus, Innocent, Chalcedon, Bellarmini, Justellus, Hefele and Loughlin were all wrong. The existence of the Diocese of Egypt at the time of Nicæa was nothing but a myth forged in ignorance in the waning years of the 4th century. The true origins of the Diocese of Egypt had lain hidden in obscurity for centuries, while the myth lived on.

The Roman Catholic Implications of the Myth

And it was a myth with legs. It does not take much imagination to realize why the myth is so beloved of Roman Catholic apologists. Upon that myth was built an even larger, and much more insidious, claim. Grant for a moment that the core elements of the myth are true: at the time of Nicæa the Bishop of Alexandria was presiding over the Diocese of Egypt, and the Bishop of Antioch was presiding over the whole Diocese of Oriens. If those are true, Canon 6 of Nicæa says these two bishops were to continue presiding over their own dioceses based on a custom of the Bishop of Rome.

What else could this mean, but Roman episcopal primacy?

What was the canon if not an acknowledgment of the ancient practice of even eastern metropolitans being assigned to their dioceses by the Bishop of Rome?

Even to this day, that is precisely how the myth has been employed by Roman Catholics in their interpretation of Canon 6. We list here a few examples spanning the time from Chalcedon to the present:

Western Bishops at Chalcedon (431 A.D.): “The church of Rome has always had primacy. Egypt is therefore also to enjoy the right that the bishop of Alexandria has authority over everything, since this is the custom for the Roman bishop also.”

Bellarmini (1576): “…because the Roman Bishop, before any definition of the Councils [i.e., from antiquity] used to allow the bishop of Alexandria to govern Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis.”[24]

Loughlin (1880): “[T]he clause in question can bear no other interpretation than this: ‘Alexandria and the other great Sees must retain their ancient sway because the Roman Pontiff wishes it.’”[25]

Unam Sanctam Catholicam (2016): “Let the Bishop of Alexandria continue to govern Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis, since assigning this jurisdiction is an ancient custom established by the Bishop of Rome and reiterated now by this Nicene Council.”[26]

These Roman Catholic interpretations of Canon 6 only make sense if the Diocese of Egypt already existed at Nicæa, and the boundaries of Oriens were already pared back to their late 4th century limits at the time of the Council. But it is just a myth. The diocese of Egypt was not even created until some time between 373 and 383 A.D., and the Diocese of Oriens at the time of Nicæa still included Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis.

Place the Diocese of Egypt back in its native context in the late 4th century, and the original meaning of the 6th of Nicæa is restored as well:

Milan was the chief metropolis of the Diocese of Italy, but Rome had been allowed by custom to preside over a few of its provinces. Antioch was the chief metropolis of Oriens, but Alexandria would be allowed to preside over a few of its provinces, since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also.

What was similar between Alexandria and Rome was not that either had “authority over everything,” but rather that each had limited authority over a subset of provinces within another metropolitan’s diocese. That was the only reason the example of Rome had been invoked at all.

The Relentless Persistence of the Myth

As an example of just how persistent the myth and its implications have been even within academia, we offer the example of Dr. Sara Parvis from her 2007 book, Marcellus of Ancyra and the Lost Years of the Arian Controversy. Dr. Parvis is Senior Lecturer in Patristics at the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, and in her book, she commented on the geographic diversity of the bishops who attended the 335 A.D. synod of Tyre. Notice in her assessment of the council that she places Egypt and Libya outside of the civil diocese of Oriens, an anachronism at least four decades removed from reality:

“[I]t is clear from the list of provinces that it was basically a synod of the civil diocese of Oriens (Cilicia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Arabia, and Palestine) … supplemented by a handful of bishops from the Egyptian provinces (mainly Melitians) and Libya, and few others from further afield.”[27] (emphasis added)

As we have noted, as late as 373 A.D., and certainly at the time of the synod of Tyre, Egypt and Libya were located within the civil Diocese of Oriens. Parvis’ geographic anachronism was largely inconsequential in her analysis of Tyre, but in any analysis of the canons of Nicæa, an understanding of the contemporary topography of the empire is absolutely critical. The persistence of the myth even within academia has greatly hampered and distorted the historical attempts to understand the canons of Nicæa, and has only given license to Rome to claim Nicæan antiquity for Roman episcopal primacy.

Unraveling the Myth

Roman Catholicism’s claims of papal primacy based on Canon 6 of Nicæa are founded entirely upon the myth of the early existence of the Diocese of Egypt. By understanding the events that took place in that critical decade toward the end of the 4th century we can unravel that myth, and with it, the entirety of Roman Catholicism’s Nicæan argument for Roman episcopal primacy. In view of the geographic arrangement of the empire at the time, Nicæa’s reference to a similar custom regarding the Bishop of Rome was not an appeal to his ancient, limitless patriarchal sway after all, but rather to his very limited, provincial jurisdiction within the Diocese of Italy—an arrangement that perfectly mirrored Alexandria’s limited, provincial jurisdiction within the Diocese of Oriens, just as the Latins acknowledged in the earliest translation of the Nicæan canons. The Roman Bishop’s diminutive jurisdiction in a diocese that was otherwise administered from Milan provided just the precedent Nicæa needed to define Alexandria’s limited jurisdiction in a diocese that was otherwise administered by Antioch.

Without knowledge of the creation of the Diocese of Egypt, Roman Catholicism and her apologists run roughshod over the historical record and impose a late 4th century topography on an early 4th century council, and from that anachronism, extrapolate a revision of history that places the Bishop of Rome over all the churches of the world as early as 325 A.D.. However, equipped with the correct dating of the creation of the Diocese of Egypt in the late 4th century, we can completely deconstruct the Roman Catholic revisionism. That makes 373 to 383 A.D. one of the most important periods in the history of ecclesiology—not because of what was happening in the Church but because of what happened in the final arrangement of Diocletian’s diocesan reorganization of the empire.

(For more information on the origins of the myth, see the author's additional articles: False Teeth, "Unless I am Deceived...", Nicæa and the Roman Precedent.)

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[1] Timothy David Barnes, The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 201–208

[2] Gibbon, Edward, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol 2, Appendix 11 “Dioceses and Provinces”, (London: Methuen & Co., ©1901) 548

[3] Pharr, Clyde, The Theodosian Code and Novels, and the Sirmondian Constitutions, (CTh hereafter) 12.1.63, (Princeton University Press, 1952), 351.

[4] Pharr, CTh 12.1.97, 356.

[5] So the Latin fragment indicates: “…sed insuper ingressam nostram parœciam…” (Peter of Alexandria, Fragments, Epistola ad Ecclesiam Alexandrinam, 1. Migne, PG, volume 18, 509).

[6] Athanasius, Historia Arianorum, Part IV, 28 & 33. NPNF-02, volume 4.

[7] Athanasius of Alexandria, Apologia de Fuga, 4. NPNF-02, volume 4.

[8] Athanasius, Apologia Contra Arianos, Part I, 2, 26. NPNF-02, volume 4. See Jacques-Paul Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca (PG hereafter), volume 25 (Imprimerie Catholique, Paris, 1857), 292. “Attamen necessum est vobis significare, etiamsi solus scripserim, non ideo mei solius esse illam sententiam, sed et omnium qui in Italia sunt, et qui in his partibus degunt episcoporum.”

[9] Athanasius, Historia Acephala, 1, 2. See Migne, PG, volume 26, 1443, “Athanasius reversus est ex Urbe, et partibus Italiæ, et ingressos est Alexandriam….”

[10] Cuthbertus Hamilton Turner, Ecclesiae Occidentalis, vol 1, (1899) 120.

[11] Athanasius, Apologia Contra Arianos, Part II, 6, 71. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series NPNF-02 volume 4. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, editors, M. Atkinson and Archibald Robertson, translators (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892); Athanasius, Apologia Contra Arianos, Part I, 1, 19, “Encyclical Letter of the Council of Egypt.” NPNF-02, volume 4.

[12] Athanasius, Apologia Contra Arianos, Part II, 6, 89. NPNF-02, volume 4.

[13] Henry R. Percival, editor, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, volume XIV, The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church, (Oxford: James Parker & Company, 1900), 176.

[14] Jerome, To Pammachius Against John of Jerusalem, 37. NPNF-02, vol 6. See Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina (P.L.), vol 23 (Imprimerie Catholique, Paris, 1854) 389

[15] Rufinus of Aquileia, Church History, Book 10.6, trans. Philip R. Amidon, S.J. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) 14, 44n, “Et ut apud Alexandriam vel in urbe Roma vetusta consuetudo servetur, quia vel ille Ægypti vel hic suburbicariarum ecclesiarum sollicitudinem gerat.”

[16] Innocent I, Epistle XXIV, 1. Migne, P.L. vol 20, 547

[17] Richard Price & Michael Gaddis, The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, vol 3, in Gillian Clark, Mark Humphries & Mary Whitby, Translated Texts for Historians, vol 45 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005) 85

[18] Price & Gaddis,  86

[19] Roberti Bellarmini, Disputationes, Tomus I (1576 ad) (Coloniæ Agrippinæ: Sumptibus Antonij & Arnoldi Hieratorum Fratrum, 1613), Book II, Chapter XIII, 165. “Nam Antiochenus habuit totum Orientem….”

[20] Gulielmi Voelli & Henrici Justellus, Bibliotheca Iuris Canonici Veteris, Tome 1 (Lutetiæ Parisorum, 1671), 71, columns. 1-2. “Haec ἐξουσία est potestas Metropolitani, quam Nicaeni Patres decernunt deberi in tribus provinciis hoc Canone denominatis, Aegypto, Libya, & Pentapoli, quae totam Aegyptiacam diœcesim constituebant tam in civilibus quam Ecclesiasticus.”

[21] Carl Joseph von Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 2nd edition, (Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, 1855), 390. “Die ersten Worte unseres Canons besagen sonach: ‘dem Bischof von Alexandrien soll sein altes Borrecht, wonach die ganze (bürgerliche) Diöcese Aegypten unter seiner (geistlichen) Oberleitung steht, bestätigt werden.’”

[22] Charles Joseph Hefele, A History of the Christian Councils, William R. Clark, translator, (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1871), 393, emphasis added.

[23] Loughlin, James F., “The Sixth Nicene Canon and the Papacy,” American Catholic Quarterly Review, volume 5, January to October 1880, (Philadelphia, PA: Hardy & Mahony, 1880), 237.

[24] Bellarmini,165, “…id est, quia Romanus Episc., ante omnem Conciliorum diffinitionem consueuit permittere Episcopo Alexandrino regimen Ægypti, Lybiæ & Pentapolis.”

[25] Loughlin, 230.

[26]Unam Sanctam Catholicam, “Papal Primacy in the First Councils”, January 31, 2016 http://www.unamsanctamcatholicam.com/history/historical-apologetics/79-history/98-papal-primacy-in-the-first-councils.html.

[27] Parvis, Sarah, Marcellus of Ancyra and the Lost Years of the Arian Controversy 325-345 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) 125.