Posted on 08/22/2009 4:27:02 PM PDT by NYer
St. Augustine said that "the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old is fulfilled in the New." Like other Church Fathers he distinguished between the outer "literal" and the inner "spiritual" meaning of Holy Scripture. And like the others, he often preferred spirit to letter.
The categories into which various Fathers divided the spiritual sense need not concern us here, only their zealous attempts to read the figurative meanings of the Bible. They saw the New Testament foreshadowed in the Old through several devices. Types are persons, things, or events taken as historical (Adam is a Type of Christ); prophecies are predictions (the Messiah will be born of a virgin); and allegories are poetic comparisons, not limited to strict personifications (Holy Wisdom is a gracious woman). Our discussion will move freely across all these categories.
The Fathers saw every part of the Scriptures as linked to every other part. They believed that God had encoded patterns of similarities and contrasts into his Word to produce flashes of illumination. Making cross-comparisons rounds out our picture of what Salvation is--and is not. For instance, innocent, devout Abel is a Type of Christ while jealous, murderous Cain his Antitype.
Mary entered this web of associations early, when St. Justin Martyr (d. 165) contrasted her obedience with Eve's disobedience immediately after referring to Christ's symbolic titles in prophecy. His insight was repeated a generation later by St. Irenaeus of Lyons (d. ca. 200): "What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith." Thus Mary came to be called the New Eve and the Latin pun Eva/Ave for the reversal entered Christian lore.
Eve is the mother of all according to the flesh, but Mary according to the spirit. As universal spiritual mother and first Christian, Mary is also a Type of the Church, a parallel first noted by St. Irenaeus. Therefore, the same Biblical imagery used for the Church can also apply to Mary: she is the living Ark of the Covenant, the ultimate Temple, the new Jerusalem, and the perfected Israel as Bride of God.
These Old Testament prefigurations are brought forward into the Book of Revelation and amplify the Woman Clothed in the Sun (Rev 12:12), the "great sign" manifested immediately after the scene of the Ark in the celestial Temple. The pregnant Woman's body carries the Messiah as the Ark once held the Divinely sent Tablets of the Law, Aaron's rod that flowered, and a pot of manna Moreover, she is also the mother of all Christians. But this Woman flees from the threatening Satanic Dragon, unlike Eve who fatally lingered when the Serpent spoke.
The Woman does not, however, grapple directly with the Dragon, though some Marian devotees wish it were otherwise. Direct engagement with the Foe is left to other Marian Types. Deborah rallies the Israelite army (Jgs 4:4-16), Jael smashes the head of an enemy general (Jgs 4:17-22), Judith beheads Holofernes (Jdt 13), and Esther maneuvers Haman onto the gallows (Est 7), in each case saving their people from certain destruction.
Besides the typology of specific characters, Messianic Psalm 45 has been traditionally taken to represent Christ as the king with Mary as the queen who stands beside him adorned "in gold of Ophir". This Psalm is often quoted in the liturgy, including texts of Marian feasts such as the Assumption. There it refers to Our Lady's entrance into heaven and justifies showing her enthroned beside her Son.
The queen in the Psalm is the king's bride but the normal structure of a Semitic court gave the king's mother far more power than any wife. This situation, demonstrated by the relationship between Solomon and his mother Bathsheba (1 Kgs 2:12-25) does fit Mary, so Bathsheba was used as a Type of Mary. In the incident shown, however, Bathsheba's intercession gets the petitioner executed. The only other queen mothers shown in action, idolatrous Maacah (1 Kgs 15: 18) and murderous Athalia (2 Kgs 11), could be called Antitypes of Mary.
The Old Testament also gives many poetic images for Mary that have proven important in art and prayer. These cluster around several themes that illustrate doctrines. Her Divine Maternity is the ground of everything else, shown in metaphors for fruitfulness and containment. As a Virgin Mother, Mary is unpenetrated, an impossibility miraculously possible. As a unique partner in Redemption, she is a passage, source, or signal. As a perfectly sinless being, things beautiful and unblemished reflect her.
Some of the imagery preceded the dogmas. The Immaculate Conception and Assumption were only defined in modern times while Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix are still commonly believed without dogmatic definition.
Although these images developed more quickly in the East than the West, this essay is limited to European examples. The anonymous eighth or ninth century Latin poem Ave Maris Stella, which would enter the Breviary, is an early Western example that builds on Patristic insights. It begins:
Ave maris stella, Hail,Star of the Sea,
Dei Mater alma, Loving Mother of God,
Atque semper Virgo, And ever-Virgin,
Felix coeli porta. Happy gate of heaven.
Sumens illud Ave Receiving that "Ave"
Gabrielis ore, From Gabriel's mouth,
Funda nos in pace, Secure us in peace,
Mutans Hevae nomen. Changing Eve's name.
Star of the Sea, mistaken for the Hebrew meaning of the name Mary, and Gate of Heaven, paralleling Jacob's ladder to heaven (Gn 28: 10-12, 16-17), later became invocations in the Litany of Loreto.
In the West during the first millennium, the Madonna and Child motif was meant to defend the Incarnation. Only towards the end of that period does it become a devotional object in its own right as Mary herself loomed larger in European Christian consciousness.
By the year 1000, a new style of Madonna emerged, first in southern France, that came to be called the Majesty of Mary. Enthroned as a queen, the Mother presents to the world her Child who holds a book. This is also the visual formula for another Litany title, Seat of Wisdom. With her lap doubling for her womb, Mary is the living throne of the New Solomon. (Good examples from the twelfth century are carved above entrances to Notre-Dame of Chartres and Notre-Dame of Paris.)
Relying on earlier collections of Patristic ideas, such as the Glossa ordinaria, typological thinking dominated Biblical interpretation in the High Middle Ages. It shaped art from Austria to England. Major cycles of images survive in the glass of Canterbury cathedral and the Verdun altar, a masterpiece of enameled gold. In these works Mary appears in Gospel scenes matched with Old Testament parallels such as the Annunciation of Jesus paired with the Annunciations of Issac and Samson.
One striking new motif that originated in twelfth century France was the Tree of Jesse, taken from Isaiah's prophecy of the lineage of the Messiah: "A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom" (Is 11:1). The tree sprouts from the lions of David's father Jesse bearing the ancestors of Christ. As time went on, Mary received more emphasis to appear in a flower atop the Tree holding Jesus, the final fruit.
As devotion to Our Lady blossomed in medieval times, so did the range of Marian typologies. Honorius of Autun (d. 1152) expounded a set of images that soon turned up on the new Gothic cathedrals of France. The most complete expression of Honorius' ideas was carved around the Mary-portal at Notre-Dame of Laon in the thirteenth century.
These stone reliefs at Laon depict prefigurations of Mary's virginal conception: Gideon's fleece, wet by dew when the ground stayed dry and vice versa (Jgs 6: 36-38); Moses' Burning Bush unconsumed by its fire (Ex 3:1-14); Daniel miraculously fed by the prophet Habakkuk while sealed in the lions' den (Dn 14: 28-42); the Ark of the Covenant, a womb-equivalent, which contained Aaron's flowering rod (Num 17:1-11); Ezekiel's Shut Gate that only the Lord may enter (Ez 44:2); the Stone Not Cut by Hands (Dn 2:34-35); and the Three Young Men in the Fiery Furnace, unharmed by flame (Dn 3)
The Laon reliefs also show Daniel killing a dragon worshipped by the Babylonians (Dn 14: 23-27), a fate the Eden Serpent will share thanks to Mary (Gn 3:15), and Balaam's prophecy of the Messiah's lineage, "a star shall rise out of Jacob" (Num 24:17) that was joined to Mary's title Star of the Sea to make her the guiding star of mankind.
Medieval books of typologies were extremely popular as aids to meditation among the literate. Two famous examples (both available in modern replica editions) are the illustrated Biblia pauperum (Poor Men's Bible) and the Speculum humanae salvationis (Mirror of Human Salvation) from the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries respectively. Originally hand-copied, these works got into print in the fifteenth century carrying woodblock illustrations.
The Biblia consists of carefully structured sets of one New Testament event flanked by two Old Testament comparisons tied together with four prophecies and captions. For example, the Coronation of the Virgin is matched to the enthronements of Bathsheba and Esther.
The Speculum shows one Biblical or legendary scene with three separate parallels from the Old Testament or secular history, plus explanations. The comparisons themselves can function as commentaries as when the Birth of Mary is paired with the Tree of Jesse (her lineage), the Shut Gate (her virginity), and the Temple of Solomon (God's presence in her)
Meanwhile, a new repertoire of Marian symbols was developing from the thought of the Mellifluous Doctor, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1153). Thanks to his four volumes of sermons of the Song of Songs, Mary came to be showered with fresh and even sensuous metaphors.
Although the Song of Songs--which ostensibly celebrates Solomon's love for his Bride the Shulamitess--continued to be read in the traditional way as an allegory of Christ's love for the Church or God's love for the human soul, it now had lovely Marian connotations.
As in Psalm 45, the Lover is Christ and the Bride Mary. Erotic language is spiritualized to signify total contemplative union between God and his most perfect creature. "I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go . . . ." (SoS 3:4)
Comparing the Virgin to flowers, gardens, foodstuffs, spices, perfumes, gems, and precious metals mentioned in the Song of Songs is lush but fitting. Seeing her as she who comes forth "as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array" (SoS 6:9) has the cosmic flavor of the Apocalyptic Woman (Rv 12:1)
But modern sensibility flinches at calling the Blessed Mother a grape (uva) or cluster of grapes (botrus) as in SoS 7:7 although the milk of her breasts "sweeter than wine" was transformed into the Sacred Blood of her Son and thence into the Eucharist. Neither are we comfortable seeing her as a marriage bed (thalamus) or couch (triclinum) as in SoS 1:15 although her womb was the chamber in which God's romance with the human race was consummated. Yet these shocking epithets were used in a late medieval Missal from Evreux, France.
The Cantica canticorum, a book of woodblock images made in the Netherlands before 1465 spread daring metaphors to a wider audience. For instance, "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall abide between my breasts" (SoS 1:12) is quite an audacious image to apply to Our Lord and Our Lady. Surprisingly, it is taken to mean the Sorrowful Mother clasping the dead body of her Son.
This style of similitude reaches a lovely peak in a Book of Hours printed in Paris in 1505. The figure of the pre-existent Immaculata stands praying beneath the gaze of God who says: "Thou are fair, my love, and there is not a spot in thee." (SoS 4:7) She is surrounded by her symbols which are mostly from the Song of Songs (marked *): "bright as the sun,"* "fair as the moon,"* "gate of heaven," "exalted cedar" (Sir 24:17), "planted rose" (Sir 39:13), well of living water,"* "enclosed garden,"* "city of God," "sealed fountain,"* "spotless mirror" (Wis 7:26), "tower of David,* "lily among thorns,"* "precious olive (Sir 24:19), "star of the sea."
Such poetry survived the Council of Trent's purifications to influence the beautifully mysterious titles in the Litany of Loreto, the official Litany of the Blessed Virgin (1575). Notice that nearly all are metaphors for Mary's sinless body--her lap, womb, vagina, and neck (by extension signifying her whole figure). These phrases are:
Mirror of Justice: As "unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness (Wis 7:26) Mary would necessarily reflect Divine justice.
Seat of Wisdom: She is the living throne of Christ who is Divine Wisdom.
Cause of Our Joy: She is the means through which the Joy of the Redeemer came into the world.
Spiritual Vessel, Vessel of Honor, Singular Vessel of Devotion: "Vessel" can stand for body, Mary's body being uniquely graced for "containing" Christ. Possible allusion to a virtuous High Priest as "a vessel of beaten gold, studded with precious stones" (Sir 50:9) because Mary offers Christ to us.
Mystical Rose: This is an ancient symbol of love, beauty, and femininity, Our Lady's favorite flower. cf: (Sir 50:8).
Tower of David, Tower of Ivory: These citadels are both well-guarded (SoS 4:4) and splendid (SoS 7:4) images of the Bride's beauty.
House of Gold: Solomon's Temple was richly adorned with gold.
Ark of the Covenant: Mary is the blessed resting place of God.
Gate of Heaven: Through the Incarnation in her virgin body, the Shut Gate (Ez 44:2) and the Jacob's Gate of Heaven (Gn 28:17) are opened to us.
Morning Star: Mary signals the coming dawn of Salvation (Sir. 50:6 and SoS 6:9).
And so it was. We used to learn our Marian theology through symbols. They shaped our art and inspired our prayer. Surely the time has come to reclaim that heritage, to reconstruct a culture described by art historian Emile Male in which "everything in the world admired by man is only a reflection of the Virgin's beauty."
Great post. It goes along with the thread I posted about the Queenship of Mary.
HOMILIES PREACHED BY FATHER ALTIER ON THE SOLEMNITY OF THE QUEENSHIP OF MARY
What About Mary as QUEEN OF AMERICA?
Mary Is Queen of Heaven, Not Pope (part 2)
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XII: ON PROCLAIMING THE QUEENSHIP OF MARY [AD CAELI REGINAM]
Some points to consider about the Queenship of Mary
What authority do you attribute to Augustine?
On a related note, doesn’t the premise of seeking intercession from those labeled saints profane the premise of there being one and only one Intercessor?
Where did he contradict the Bible?
“On a related note, doesn’t the premise of seeking intercession from those labeled saints profane the premise of there being one and only one Intercessor?”
Likely. I understand Catholics officially view it as asking someone to pray for you. The problem is, the Bible says those who are dead are “asleep”. Doesn’t sound like they can here us. There’s an example in the OT of someone who tried to talk to the dead. Didn’t work out well for him.
“Where did he contradict the Bible?”
If Mary was an Eternal Virgin, where did the (biologically) brothers of Jesus come from?
hear = here
Read all you want but the Bible forbids private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20). Can there be more than one interpretation of the Bible? No. The word "truth" is used several times in the New Testament. However, the plural version of the word "truth" never appears in Scripture. Therefore, there can only be one Truth. That is why there are more than 30,000 christian denominations today and the number continues to grow (ELCA, for example). The assertion that individuals can correctly interpret Scripture is false. Even the "founder" of Sola Scriptura (Martin Luther), near the end of his life, was afraid that "any milkmaid who could read" would found a new Christian denomination based on his or her "interpretation" of the Bible. Luther opened a "Pandora's Box" when he insisted that the Bible could be interpreted by individuals and that It is the sole authority of Christianity.
What is the basis for asking a saint for intercession when we are told in Thessalonians 4 that the dead are asleep to us?
Eph. 3:14-1 tells us that we are all one family in heaven and on earth, united together, as children of the Father, through Jesus Christ. Our brothers and sisters who have gone to heaven before us are not a different family. We are one and the same family. This is why, in the Apostles Creed, we profess a belief in the "communion of saints." There cannot be a "communion" if there is no union. Loving beings, whether on earth or in heaven, are concerned for other beings, and this concern is reflected spiritually through prayers for one another. In 1 Tim 2:1-2, before Paul's teaching about Jesus as the "one mediator," Paul urges supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people. Paul is thus appealing for mediation from others besides Christ, the one mediator. Why? He explains this in 1 Tim 2:3 - because this subordinate mediation is good and acceptable to God our Savior. Because God is our Father and we are His children, God invites us to participate in Christ's role as mediator.
Do you remember what happened to Saul when he tried to talk to a dead Samuel?
Recall 2 Macc. 15:12-16, where the high priest Onias and the prophet Jeremiah were deceased for centuries, and yet interact with the living Judas Maccabeas and pray for the holy people on earth.
In Matt. 17:1-3; Mark 9:4; Luke 9:30-31 – deceased Moses and Elijah appear at the Transfiguration to converse with Jesus in the presence of Peter, James and John (these may be the two “witnesses” John refers to in Rev. 11:3). Nothing in Scripture ever suggests that God abhors or cuts off communication between the living in heaven and the living on earth. To the contrary, God encourages communication within the communion of saints. Moses and Elijah’s appearance on earth also teach us that the saints in heaven have capabilities that far surpass our limitations on earth.
I want to thank you for the quality of the articles you post. As a Catholic convert, I am trying to catch up on information that wasn’t in my frame of reference as a Protestant.
This is an especially good article about Mary, and your reply about the communion of saints was excellent.
Thanks again!
Following the death of JPII, then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in his capacity as Dean of the College of Cardinals, said the 'Pro Eligendo' Mass that preceded their entrance into the conclave to select the next pope. In his homily, Cardinal Ratzinger, referring to Ephesians 4, said:
How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth. Every day new sects spring up, and what St Paul says about human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error (cf. Eph 4: 14) comes true.
Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.
Full Text
It is always a great comfort for Catholics to have a Holy Father navigating the Barque of Peter.
Wishing you a Blessed Sunday!
It is all based on Scripture from Genesis through the Book of Revelation. Perhaps it is time for some deeper reflection.
“Read all you want but the Bible forbids private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20). “
It does not. 2 Peter 1:20 does no such thing.
It is a passage referring to the divine inspiration of the Old Testement, not that we were to submit to a “public” understanding of it. It is speaking of prophecy and that such came from God. I know this was RC practice - that until relatively recently, even OWNING a Bible was discouraged by many - but it is NOT the Message.
There is only one Truth, I agree. However, individuals and should read, understand, and interpret scripture ourselves. We do not need a modern Pharisee. In most cases, the denominations of Protestantism differ in style. Rarely is it a doctrinal schism (politically correct groups like the liberal ELCA and the Marxist-leaning US Catholic Bishops (not all) notwithstanding). That Pandora’s Box is the freedom from the oppression of men under the cover of faith. Freedom is messy. It is also healthy. Error like the ELCA’s actions gets weeded out. It loses in the marketplace of ideas. Something that can’t happen in a rigid, top-down structure the Catholic Church once was pre-Reformation. I would argue the Reformation was good for the RC too.
“This is why, in the Apostles Creed, we profess a belief in the “communion of saints.””
The “saints” mentioned are not the saints of Roman Catholic teaching - good people who are canonized long after death. That was not practiced at the time. The “saints” so referenced are believers today - alive and not asleep. When Paul wrote to the Ephesians, he addressed the letter to the saints at Ephesus. Was he writing to the dead?
“Recall 2 Macc. 15:12-16, where the high priest Onias and the prophet Jeremiah were deceased for centuries, and yet interact with the living Judas Maccabeas and pray for the holy people on earth.”
The Apocrypha are apocryphal. They are not Canon and are not in the Protestant Bible. The Protestant Bible contains only the Canon.
“To the contrary, God encourages communication within the communion of saints.”
Again, the “communion of saints” are the “fellowship of believers”, not the dead. Certainly not the dead chosen in a political process by men in Rome. The dead are as if they are asleep to us. Your example of the Transfiguration just points to the obvious - they are not asleep to God.
“Perhaps it is time for some deeper reflection.”
We did that in the 1500s.
You do not dishonor your mother by being honest about her. Mary was blessed to be the vessel, but Jesus didn’t suffer adoration of her (Luke 11). And it is worth pointing out that the REASON she was there with the brothers of Jesus was because they thought he had gone mad, and they had come to take him back.
“Read all you want but the Bible forbids private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20).”
Not true. 2 Peter 1:19-21 says, “19 And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
From a sermon by John MacArthur:
“...So, Peter says...Look, the writers of Scripture are not like those prophets. The writers of Scripture speak for God...so he says in verse 20, “But know this...” Here is a truth of primary importance linked with that phrase in verse 19, “You do well to pay attention.” “But know this,” what do you mean this? What he’s about to say. Know this fact, “First of all...this is bottom line, point number one, basic lesson, if you’re going to be confident about Scripture, if you’re going to be certain about Scripture, the first thing you have to know is this, basic lesson, “That no prophecy of Scripture,” now that’s designating all Scripture, Old Testament and by implication all New Testament, all the holy writings, the graphe, all of it, “is,” notice that word, “No prophecy of Scripture is genneti(?),” and the word means “comes into being.” “No prophecy of Scripture comes into being, or originates, or arises, or comes into existence from one’s own interpretation.” That was true not of a true prophet but of...what?...a false prophet. The false prophet spoke of his own things, spoke out of himself. But no prophecy of the writing of God’s truth arises from someone’s own epilusis. Now this word epilusis is translated “interpretation.” In some ways that’s an unfortunate translation because I think it tends to make people think that it’s talking about how you interpret Scripture when it’s really talking about the very source of it. The word means a releasing. It can mean a solving or an explaining. Some feel it actually has the idea of inspiration. The genitive case in the Greek indicates source. He’s not talking about how you interpret Scripture, he’s talking about where it came from, how it originated, what its source was. And so he says the first thing you need to know if you’re going to trust the lamp that lights the dark place is that no prophecy of Scripture ever came from some human source. It isn’t like the teaching of the false prophets. No prophecy of Scripture has originated in the prophet’s own understanding.
Peter is concerned with the source of Scripture. Prophets didn’t invent it. They didn’t invent the Word. Not at all. the same God who spoke at the transfiguration about the deity and humanity of Christ, the same God who spoke of the perfection of His Son is the same God who authored Scripture. You do well, he says, to give heed to this holy Scripture like a night light in the midst of worldly darkness because what is in it is not the result of human inventions like the myths of false teachers. The NIV, I think, has an excellent translation, it says, “No prophecy of Scripture ever came about by a prophet’s own ideas.” He couldn’t be talking about interpretation or verse 21 would make no sense. Verse 21 says, “For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” That explains what he means in verse 20. Quite the contrary to Scripture being of human origin, it is of divine origin...for NO prophecy, NO word of Scripture, NO word from God, not any was ever absolutely never...notice how emphatic this is...no prophecy was ever at any time made by an act of human will. The Bible is not the product of men.”
(http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/61-15)
We are not told to pay close attention to the Bible in one verse, then told we cannot understand it in the next, and that God wrote it in the third. The idea that the Bible is incomprehensible is an insult to God. The idea that men in the Catholic Church can explain God’s thoughts better than God Himself is blasphemy.
Also, there are NOT 30,000 Protestant denominations. The book that claim is based on says A) there are perhaps 8000 Protestant denominations and B) there are nearly 3000 Roman Catholic denominations.
Unless you want to confess to having 3000 Roman Catholic denominations, I suggest admitting the author’s idea of a ‘denomination’ differs dramatically from yours and mine.
And please do not use the ELCA as an example. They have gone into apostasy, not because they have trouble interpreting the Bible, but because they believe the Bible isn’t authoritative. It is hardly fair to use someone who rejects the Bible as the basis for saying what happens when people follow the Bible!
Shouldn't even have to be said!
They're hoping..........
John MacArthur is not an authority for me anymore. Can you reference anyone more qualified. Perhaps someone with an “St.” before their name.
Disliking someone doesn’t refute their arguments. And I have now read enough of the ‘church fathers’ to know they disagreed on a great many issues.
But consider this...”“Read all you want but the Bible forbids private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20).”
If that is true, how could any of the ‘saints’ or ‘church fathers’ write commentaries on the Bible? Many did, you know. The Cardinal who acted as Martin Luther’s accuser wrote a commentary on the entire Bible - except the Apocrypha.
If we are forbidden to make a private interpretation, then how could they write commentaries that offered their interpretation?
If the Catholic Church alone holds the corporate interpretation, where is it found? Why doesn’t the Church save everyone a great deal of bother writing “private interpretations” and write an authoritative public one?
And how stupid must the Holy Spirit be! For when He breathed the Word of God, he didn’t do so clearly. Maybe God didn’t know enough Greek! Maybe God is slow of speech, like Moses! Good thing the Catholic Church is there to clean up His mess...except it hasn’t done so.
But what does the scripture SAY? “...we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
John MacArthur has explained the Greek behind our English translations. If he is wrong, point out his error. No scripture CAME from anyone’s private thoughts or interpretations of God’s will, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
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