Gospel titles and artwork in Codex Alexandrinus

I did some browsing yesterday through an online edition of Codex Alexandrinus at the artwork and titles at the end of each Gospel.

Mathew has the urn and concatenated line at the bottom (as in the title to Acts):

Mark has a framing line at the top and in the left margin:

Luke also has a framing line at the top and in the left margin with a wider and more intricate criss-cross design. The title is written horizontally rather than vertically (as in Matthew and Mark) and it has three leaf figures:

John's is the simplest, scrunched in at the end of the column. A tight stylized framing with the title written veritcally and a space between each word:

JTR

On Amateurs and Experts and the Text of Scripture

 

Last week I was asked to do a Zoom lecture to a group of staff, leaders, and deputation speakers from the Trinitarian Bible Society giving my take on the current state of academic text criticism and the current popular resurgence of interest in the TR. On the latter topic I noted the following:

Just as the Reformation was aided by the printing press, this movement has been aided by the internet (blogs, websites, FB groups, and podcasts), which has allowed advocates for the TR to put forward their message and get around the normal “gatekeepers” (seminaries, mainstream book publishers, etc.).

In other words, the TR is promoted by “amateurs” and resisted by “professionals.”

I thought of this when I listened to the recent podcast on the new biography of Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, who was also an “amateur”, working outside the professional guild, laboring in the iron works by day and doing text criticism by night (though, in his case, he worked against the TR).

One thinks as well of someone like James Snapp, Jr. who often has a knack of seeing things that the “professionals” do not. Or, consider that when we were exploring Ephesians 3:9 it was an “untrained” college student (“CC”) who kept finding texts with the TR reading and not a “trained” man with a respected doctorate.

Then, this morning I happened to be reading the little booklet by media analyst Marshall McLuhan and graphic designer Quentin Fiore (co-ordinated by Jerome Agel), The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (Bantam, 1967) [Note in the title it is “Massage,” a play on McLuhan’s better known The Medium is the Message]. The point being that the electronic media “shapes, works over, alters—massages—every instant of our lives” (148). And this was written in 1967 mainly in reference to the advent of television, but eerily predictive of the internet.

More to the point, the book has an intriguing discussion of the “amateur” in this brave new world.

It begins with a paragraph on Michael Faraday, a self-taught amateur, “who had little mathematics and no formal schooling beyond the primary grades” but who became a celebrated “experimenter who discovered the induction of electricity” and thus became “one of the great founders of modern physics” (92).

McLuhan and Fiore then add this interesting paragraph:

“Professionalism is environmental. Amateurism is anti-environmental. Professionalism merges the individual into patterns of total environment. Amateurism seeks the development of the total awareness of the individual and the critical awareness of the groundrules of society. The amateur can afford to lose. The professional tends to classify and specialize, to accept uncritically the groundrules of the environment. The groundrules provided by the mass response of his colleagues serve as a pervasive environment of which he is contentedly and unaware. The ‘expert’ is the man who stays put” (93).

JTR

Eusebius, EH.10.4 (part two): The Panegyric of Eusebius (part two)

This is an occasional series of readings from and brief notes and commentary upon Eusebius of Caesarea’s The Ecclesiastical History: Book 10, chapter 4 (part two).

Notes and Commentary:

This section continues the lengthy chapter 4 which records the Panegyric of Eusebius dedicated to Paulinus of Tyre at the end of persecution under the tyrants and the rise of Emperors sympathetic to the Christians.

In this section Eusebius recalls the pagan attacks on the Christians, and especially how the “books [no doubt, including Bibles] they destroyed and set on fire the sanctuary of God” adding “they profaned the dwelling place of His name to the ground.”

He also notes that this trial served as divine chastisement for the church, as discipline from “a careful father.” The end result was that the church emerged even stronger.

Paulinus is also highly praised as “our new and goodly Zerubbabel.” Taking Christ as his “Ally and Fellow-worker”, who alone can quicken the dead, Eusebius says that Paulinus “raised up her who had fallen.”

Eusebius next gives a detailed description of the church building that had been restored by Paulinus. It was built on the foundations of the previous building and expanded. Oulton calls this “the earliest account that we possess of the structure and furniture of a Christian church” (421, n. 2).

He begins by describing an outer porch, “great and raised aloft,” so that “even strangers to the faith” could gaze inside. The building thus served as an “evangelistic” tool to encourage pagans to enter. Between the entrance and the temple were “four traverse colonnades, fending the place into a kind of quadrangular figure.” An open space let in the sun and fresh air and fountains supplied “copious streams of flowing water.”

Within the temple were the “innermost porches,” adorned with “rich materials” including “costly cedars.” One entered through three gates, the central one of which was larger and ornately decorated.

The building was ordered with “perfect wisdom and art” leaving those who saw it in awe of “the surpassing beauty of every part.”

The temple was also fitted with thrones, “very lofty, to do honour unto the presidents”, and with benches.

In the midst was the “holy of holies,” an altar, protected “with a fence of wooden lattice-work.”

The pavement was of “fair marble.” Various chambers and buildings were also erected outside the temple.

After the description of the church building, Eusebius says its beauty is fitting since Christ had taken the church (both people and building) and changed its “foul body” into “His splendid and glorious body.” This also anticipated what will happen at the resurrection, when believers receive their glorious resurrection bodies.

Conclusion:

This panegyric is essentially a building dedication speech or sermon. As Oulton points out it serves as the earliest written description of an early Christian church building. Whereas, according to the book of Acts and the letters of Paul, the church of the first century met in the homes of believers or in rented school buildings (cf., e.g., Acts 18:7-8; 19:9; Rom 16:5) the Christian movement of the early fourth century meets in spacious and prominent public buildings. The church building is described in terms taken from the OT temple. There is a strong emphasis on the pleasing aesthetics of the architecture of the building. The early Christians are concerned that their churches be places of beauty and order. They are taking a new place in the Roman public square.

JTR

When Restoration Goes Wrong

Image: The original depiction of Mary by Bartolome Esteban Murillo before its "restoration"

The story broke this week of yet another botched art restoration (read this article).

A priceless seventeenth century Baroque depiction of Mary by Bartolome Esteban Murillo was “cleaned and repaired” by a private art collector, but the restoration effort was something of a failure. A second attempt did not make things any better. Here are the two restoration efforts below:

This brought to mind the botched effort to restore a fresco titled Ecce Homo in a Spanish church eight years ago and now dubbed the “Monkey Christ.” See here:

Readers of this blog probably know where I am going with this. Can we draw an analogy from these recent calamitous attempts to “restore” master works of visual art  with parallel effort to "fix and repair" the traditional text of Scripture, leaving a masterpiece mangled and distorted? Food for thought.

JTR

Incorporating the CJ (and other traditional texts) into the liturgy and visual art of the churches

Image: The meeting house of Five Solas OPC, Reedsburg, Wisconsin, with the CJ printed on either side of the pulpit.

It is certain that there are parts of the traditional text that are particularly vulnerable to the withering attacks of modern criticism. One of those parts is, without doubt, the Johannine Comma (1 John 5:7-8), now routinely removed from many modern New Testaments (both Greek and versions). In some modern translations it is not even mentioned in the footnotes. See my recent presentation on the CJ.

Our defense of this and other disputed texts should not make us fainthearted, since we defend them as Gamaliel did the apostles, “for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought, but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God” (Acts 5:38b-39).

I was recently discussing this circumstance with a couple of likeminded pastors and, aside from the obvious that we might do to defend these words, including using translations that incorporate them and preaching and teaching from them, other ideas were also mentioned, including incorporating them into the worship liturgy and even into the visual art of a church meeting house.

Here are two examples:

First, with respect, to singing, in Grantley McDonald’s Biblical Criticism in Early Modern Europe, he notes a Trinitarian hymn composed by the Puritan William Barton (c. 1598-1678) in response to Owen’s defense of the CJ (p. 133):

Three witnesses there are above,

     And all these three are one:

The father, Son and sacred dove,

     One deity alone.

The Living father sent the son,

     Who by the Father lives:

And unto them that ask of him

     The holy Ghost he gives.

Note: This is the text as printed by McDonald. I assume it is faithful to the original punctuation and capitalization. The footnote and bibliography notes this as hymn XC in Barton’s A Century of Select Hymns. Collected Out of Scripture (London, 1659). It is set to the common meter tune (same as "Amazing Grace", "O God Our Help in Ages Past" etc.) and could be easily incorporated into worship.

Second, with respect to visual art, the Five Solas OPC Church in Reedsburg, Wisconsin has recently added a tasteful gold-leaf lettering of the CJ in its meeting house (see above), on each side of the pulpit,  a helpful visual reminder of the doctrine of the Trinity (WCF 2:3) and that worship is directed to the Triune God alone (WCF 22:2).

There are, no doubt, similar and even more creative ways in which things like this might be done in use and defense of the sacred text.

JTR

Eusebius, EH.7.18-19: An Early Jesus Statue & the Throne of James

Image: Fresco in the Catacomb of Callixtus in Rome (c. third century), depicting Christ as the Good Shepherd.

This is an occasional series of readings from and brief notes and commentary upon Eusebius of Caesarea’s The Ecclesiastical History: Book 7, chapters 18-19. Listen here.

Notes and Commentary:

These chapters are interesting in that Eusebius describes early examples of Christian art and objects of religious devotion.

Chapter 18 describes a statue configuration at Caesarea Philippi, supposedly placed as a memorial at the home of the woman with the issue of blood who touched the hem of Jesus’s garment and was healed. Eusebius said it included a “lofty stone” at the gates of the woman’s house with “a brazen figure in relief of a woman” on bended knee stretching out her hands. Opposite of this figure was another of the same material depicting Jesus. Eusebius says, “This statue, they said, bore the likeness of Jesus.” Also growing at the foot of the statue of Jesus was an herb supposedly with healing powers. Eusebius claims to have seen these objects with his own eyes when visiting the city.

He also makes reference to other such objects, including colored painting depicting the apostles Paul and Peter, as well as Jesus himself, and he suggests that such things were according to “pagan habit.”

Chapter 19 describes the “throne (thronos) of James,” the brother of Christ and first bishop of Jerusalem as a religious object. Eusebius claims that this throne or seat had been preserved to his day and that the brethren gave honor to it. He mentions this approvingly seeing it as evidence of the esteem in which James was held both by the ancients and contemporaries.

Conclusion:

These notes are intriguing in that they give evidence of the development of Christian visual art, as well as the veneration of religious objects. Eusebius himself sees it as related to pagan (rather than Jewish) tendencies, but he does not necessarily denounce it and even seems to offer approval. Such things will become matters of greater controversy in later years, including in the controversies over icons and other religious objects. Such controversies will continue even up to the Protestant Reformation and beyond.

JTR

St. Luke Window at the University of Virginia Chapel

In my NT class lecture on Luke, I've come often to mention the "St. Luke" window at the University of Virginia chapel. I went by the other day and took a few pictures, at least one of which I might add to my Power Point presentation on Luke.

The chapel was not part of Jefferson's original non-sectarian plans for the Grounds (campus) but was added in 1890. It is used for various ecumenical services and is a popular wedding chapel for UVA students and alumni.

This closeup shows the dove at top right, perhaps a reference to the fact that Luke alone mentioned the Spirit descending in "bodily shape" as a dove at Jesus' baptism (Luke 3:22). The flowers on the outside with serrated leaves and red berries look like a holly. The flower on the inside with four cruciform petals looks like a dogwood. To the left of Luke is the winged ox, a traditional symbol for the third Gospel, and to the right the staff with two snakes, meant to be a medical symbol given Luke's traditional identity as "the beloved physician" (Col 4:14).

This close-up of the window dedication shows two more doves, as well as more holly and dogwoods. There is also what looks like some yellow dandelions to the left of Luke's feet and another yellow flower (lily?) on the right. The benefactor is Dr. John Staige Davis and his wife Volumnia Staples Davis, so the choice of Luke is fitting, and the dedication is to their parents. BTW, you have to love the name "Volumnia." Any expecting parents out there ought to consider this one for their daughter.

JTR

Tom Wolfe on Modern Art

For all of you who, like me, have ever looked at a piece of modern or abstract art and scratched your head because you just didn't get it, I recommend listening to the lecture below by novelist and essayist Tom Wolfe given at Washington & Lee University in 2011 in which he describes the movement toward "de-skilled" art: