Papyrus in the Rylands Library, Manchester UK
Posted on 11/06/2015 11:30:07 AM PST by NYer
Papyrus in the Rylands Library, Manchester UK
One of the things that maddens and amuses me about Protestants is something called “primitivismâ€. I’ve written about it here. “Primitivism†is the ambition to return the church to the simplest form as it was in the “early churchâ€.
The little fundamentalist church in which I grew up worked on this assumption. They were going back to basics and getting rid of all those “man made traditionsâ€. They were cutting out the denominations and prayers read out of books and all that fancy stuff and it would be just the Bible.
Their idea of the “early church†was, of course, what their church was like. They were actually ignorant of the facts about the early church, which is understandable as they were Bible only Christians. Consequently they assumed that the early church was just a group of Christians meeting in someone’s home or a simple building to sing songs and have a Bible study.
One of the things they definitely did NOT have was any devotion to the Mother of God. That was a late, Catholic, man made abomination! That was a much later pagan interpolation into the simple Bible based religion!
Except it wasn’t. This blog post outlines the fascinating discovery of the manuscript of the oldest hymn to the Blessed Virgin.Their idea of the “early church†was, of course, what their church was like. They were actually ignorant of the facts about the early church, which is understandable as they were Bible only Christians. Consequently they assumed that the early church was just a group of Christians meeting in someone’s home or a simple building to sing songs and have a Bible study.
One of the things they definitely did NOT have was any devotion to the Mother of God. That was a late, Catholic, man made abomination! That was a much later pagan interpolation into the simple Bible based religion!
Except it wasn’t.
Thisoutlines the fascinating discovery of the manuscript of the oldest hymn to the Blessed Virgin.
The earliest text of this hymn was found in a Christmas liturgy of the third century. It is written in Greek and dates to approximately 250 A.D.In 1917, the John Rylands Library in Manchester acquired a large panel of Egyptian papyrus including the 18 cm by 9.4 cm fragment shown at left, containing the text of this prayer in Greek.
C.H. Roberts published this document in 1938. His colleague E. Lobel, with whom he collaborated in editing the Oxyrhynchus papyri, basing his arguments on paleographic analysis, argued that the text could not possibly be older than the third century, and most probably was written between 250 and 300. This hymn thus precedes the “Hail Mary†in Christian prayer by several centuries.
Here's the text:
On the papyrus:
.ΠΟ
ΕΥCΠΑ
ΚΑΤΑΦΕ
ΘΕΟΤΟΚΕΤ
ΙΚΕCΙΑCΜΗΠΑ
ΕΙΔΗCΕΜΠΕΡΙCTAC
AΛΛΕΚΚΙÎΔΥÎΟΥ
…ΡΥCΑΙΗΜΑC
MONH
…HEΥΛΟΓ
Here it is set to music:
Turns out the hymn to the Theotokos (the God Bearer) dates from 250 AD.
What is very interesting about these comparatively recent documentary and archeological discoveries is not only what we can gather from the scraps of text themselves, but how they become part of a much larger puzzle. We can piece things together to build up a better picture of the true facts.
The hymn is clearly a prayer to the Blessed Virgin asking for her intercession and assistance in time of trouble. This shows continuity with the belief of the church down through the ages. I’m thinking “Mary Help of Christians.â€
Therefore, if this hymn to the Virgin dates from 250 AD we can deduce that it must be a written record of an earlier practice. Think about it, by the time something is written down for use in the liturgy it must already have been in use for some time. Furthermore, if this prayer is part of a document that is a copy of another document, then this also indicates that the actual practice is earlier than the manuscript itself.
In addition to this, if the hymn-prayer is included in the liturgy, then it must be something which is approved by the church and in practice on a fairly widespread basis. If it is included in the liturgy, then the term “theotokos†was not simply a theological term or a theological concept, but something which was integrated into the worshipping and devotional life of the church from the earliest days.
That argument also goes the other way: if the term “theotokos†was used in a hymn-prayer venerating the Blessed Virgin, then a high view of her significance in the plan of redemption must also have been prevalent in the theology of the early church.
You want primitive Christianity? You want to worship like the “early church†then Marian devotion had better be part of it!
It does remind me of circular logic sometimes.
It’s not about smart people? Then how come in nearly every post you make on almost every RF thread you repeat this same accusation? Could you ever acknowledge that people can spend their lifetimes seriously studying Christian theology that have gone through great personal and difficult journeys but come to the unmistakable conclusion that Roman Catholicism is wrong?
You’ve never indicated in all the many back and forths we have gone through discussing this very point that you can. To me it comes across as snooty bigotry. I doubt I am alone.
You’re not alone.
He/she has one main talking point. Take that away and there’s nothing there.
Do you seriously imagine there was no heresy prior to the Reformation? Did no assortment of “contradictory sects” exist before Luther came into the scene? Did Catholicism’s monopoly of the Christian faith prevent schisms and sects prior to “Protestantism”?
Not so. The genitive as used here is just a possessive in an exchange between three people, Jesus, Mary and John. It is only showing a new relationship between John and Mary. It does not exclude other possible relationships. See Mark 6:3 for the use of the possessive applied to Jesus' brothers.
Peace,
SR
Amen.
Yes poor Joseph. What does the Catholic version of the marriage of Joseph and Mary teach Catholic couples? That a platonic marriage is ideal? That marital relations are deep down lustful as some early theologians thought?
I pinged some Christian ladies to opine on this.
Do we really want to hear an answer to the above? Before the Reformation the Roman Church "took out" any opposition to the Pope and Magesterium. I guess we as American Protestants and Evangelicals are being asked "why don't you do anything about the false teachers running about the country."
It is programmed in orthodox Romanism to literally eliminate any and all opposition. But here in the US there is something denying them the purging of opposition. It is the Constitution and laws of the land. Early Protestants also used the Roman model. But we don't desire that today. The NT tells us to take up the Word of God to defend the faith not the sword.
Actually, the changing use of the genitive is excellently demonstrated here to make the Catholic point of view.
οá½Îº οὗτός á¼ÏƒÏ„ιν ὠτέκτων ὠυἱὸς ΜαÏίας ἀδελφὸς δὲ Ἰακώβου καὶ Ἰωσῆ καὶ Ἰούδα καὶ Σίμωνος
The genitive exists before “Maria,” but not before “adelphos.”
Because while James, Josa, Juda and Simon have many brothers, Mary has only one child.
Even the Greek Orthodox who refuse to accept that adelphos is a mere translation of an Aramaic word, and so insist that James, Joseph, Judas and Simon are brothers of Christ, nonetheless they insist that Mary has only one child. The others, they reason, must be children of Joseph from a previous marriage.
Ah-HA!
Sorry, I’ll translate from the original text’s Swedish:
Hunting High And Low, Ch.1, vs. 1-4
1. We’re talking away
I don’t know what
I’m to say I’ll say it anyway
Today’s another day to find you
2. Shying away
I’ll be coming for your love, OK?
3. Take on me, (take on me)
Take me on, (take on me)
4. I’ll be gone
In a day or two
But then, that’s the Lutheran version.
The start of "The Lord's Prayer" teaches us that God is so holy that even His name is holy. That alone gives us much to ponder but one of His names proves the point above "The Lord Our Righteousness". What a awesome name which shows us that our righteousness is not ours and has nothing to do with us. There is nothing left for us to complete when we believe in The Lord.
Even when we are asleep and dreaming we sin constantly. Sin is not individual events, it's the continuous state of a sinner which we still are after we are saved.
I’ve not waded into this until now and I just chose this post to respond to because it was lacking in any acrimony ,.. which I’m not really interested in starting or continuing.
I only wanted to point out that the title is not the full Marian doctrine, as there is more to the latter than just a title.
I see no issues with the title.
It’s other notions that are the issue: immaculate conception in particular.
Consider that a number of guys, Abraham etc, got the promise concerning their seed. This was given with the clear understanding that it would actually be a descendant, and not just only appear to be. Joseph, to those living around his family, only still appeared to be His father. Mary was certainly His mother. But if Mary wasn’t herself truly a daughter of those who had received the promise before her their their link to Him is broken and the promise to them concerning their seed undone.
Immaculate conception merely put off any potential problem from Christ to Mary. If she needed to be special in that way so he could why didn’t her mother likewise? That sort of thing.
It is much simpler to maintain that God has so arranged things that people in general inherit their spiritual natures from their father, a view that is actually fairly easy to support from Adam being said to beget children in his own image to the idea that it is in Adam that all have sin.
There is no physical need for the doctrine of immaculate conception as in any normal pregnancy the placental barrier keeps all blood from the mother out of the baby.
It would seem that “legally” and “spiritually” Adam was responsible for sin: not just for what is said later but we may take note that the woman didn’t see either her or his nakedness before he ate ... in the past I’ve gone on about the text not showing God ever directly telling the Woman about not eating the fruit of tTotKoG&E which means she could have only learned that command later from Him or from Adam ... scripture is silent on which; but, that she didn’t become aware of nakedness till Adam ate may argue that the command was really only given to Adam and that it was later Adam who told her, presuming that she should obey it too.
This seemingly odd observation might help account for how human beings are set up to inherit their natures from their fathers. Thus in His humanity Christ would not have needed Mary to be more than what Scripture plainly says she was and could arguably have great need for her to be a very literal daughter of everyone before her who got the promise concerning Him, their seed and (logically as His mother) the last to receive that very special promise, for without her being their seed then He isn’t either.
So the title remains and it’s sad it seems so problematic.
But that it, the title, appears in a relatively early hymn doesn’t mean that the rest of Marian theology was involved in same song ... for you can have the one without the other.
But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.
And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
Well, you know, there is this thing of early papas traditions. Eve is called the mother of the living, because it was through her that began the ‘seed’ line to Christ. Mary fulfilled the prophecy in bearing the ‘flesh’ child. But hey again man’s traditions make the Words of God null and void.... And it sure does appear that only the return of Christ will set the truth straight.... I cannot find any place wherein Mary has a role in that return to perform a harvest.
Hebrews 2:14, does not mention Mary as part of the plan.
John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
Yes good point. They are talking points like Debbie Wasserman Shultz uses.
Anything yet?
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