Disputationes: Tradition

Tradition

The Catholic Church has invented several doctrines, and has added the "traditions of men" to the Word of God.

Let's cut out the ipse dixit's (lit. "he said it," or paraphrastically, "I said it, so it's true") - I could just as effortlessly make the same charge of the Baptist denomination. Let's start with your definition of "the Word of God" - what do you mean by that?

The Bible.

I would contest that statement. The Scriptures themselves do not limit the "Word of God" to mean the written word alone.

But the Bible is the only divinely-inspired source of infallible teaching.

Two-minute penalty for using another ipse dixit. Why don't you offer some Scriptural support for that statement?

2 Timothy 3:16-17: "All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

You know, I agree with that passage 100%! All of Scripture - every last word of it - is inspired by God, and it most certainly is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. But you know, there's one very important word missing from that passage: the word "alone."

What do you mean?

I mean you're reading more into that verse than is there in the text; all the text says is that a) Scripture is inspired by God, b) it is "profitable" for reproof, etc. The text does not say "Scripture alone is inspired by God, and it alone is to be used as a basis for reproof, correction, etc."

No, look at the end of the verse: "that the man of God may be complete." If the Bible can make a man "complete," then obviously you don't need any other source.

That's incorrect. You've confused the "goal" with the "instruments" that get you to that goal. The goal here is "that the man of God may be complete," and in particular, "equipped for every good work." In getting the man to that goal, St. Paul says the Scriptures are "profitable." Again, not "solely sufficient," not "exclusive," not "alone."

Look at the verse just prior. Paul says that the Bible is "able to instruct you for salvation." He says nothing about any pope, bishops, oral traditions, and so on.

There's another interesting word, eh? "Able." My car is "able" to get me to work in the morning - if I put gas in it and keep the oil changed; my weekly paycheck is "able" to
support me and my family - if I budget well, spend carefully, and balance my ledger. Yes, the Scriptures are "able" to instruct us for salvation - if they are interpreted correctly and taught to us truthfully. Remember the Ethiopian Eunuch to whom St. Philip was sent to evangelize? He was reading the Scriptures, and St. Philip said "do you understand what you are reading?" The Ethiopian responded, "how can I, unless someone instructs me?" (Acts 8:29-31)

That's a different situation. The Ethiopian was only reading the Old Testament (see vs. 28), and the Gospel wasn't well-known yet.

That's rather an arbitrary argument, isn't it? What "scriptures" do you think St. Paul was talking about when he said (in the passage we were just discussing) that "the scriptures are able to instruct you for salvation?" The New Testament hadn't been written yet, so apparently St. Paul - if your interpretation is to be held - was teaching Sola Old Testament - the sole sufficiency of the Old Testament to instruct us in salvation. I don't think either of us will accept that proposition.

What you mean to say by your argument, then, is that Sola Scriptura wasn't being practiced by either the Ethiopian or St. Philip - you implicitly admit that there was a period of time when Sola Scriptura was not being practiced by the apostles.

Yes, I would admit that. There was obviously a period of inscripturation, while the New Testament was being written and oral revelation was still being given, during which no one could practice SS.

Well, now wait a minute. When did this non-SS period of inscripturation end?

With the death of the last apostle.

So, in other words, no one could practice SS until St. John died sometime around 90 AD. That's very interesting, because we were just arguing about 2 Tim. 3:16-17 - do you know when that epistle was written?

Sometime before 66-67 AD.

Right, because that's when St. Paul was martyred. Let's be generous and say as late as 70 AD; that leaves at least 20 years from the time St. Paul wrote 2 Tim. 3:16-17 and the time St. John died, thus ending the period of inscripturation.

What's your point?

My point is that - as you said - no one could even practice SS until at least 90 AD; but yet you're saying St. Paul was teaching it 20 years before that. You've only got a few options here:

1) St. Paul was teaching Sola SCriptura in 70 AD, but his audience was unable to practice it for another 20 years - certainly a novelty in all of the Scriptural commandments

2) St. Paul was not teaching SS in 70 AD, but the words that he wrote suddenly changed their meaning in 90 AD, so that after 20 years they meant "SS is true," even though they didn't mean that 20 years prior

3) St. Paul was not teaching SS in 70 AD, the text does not change its meaning with the passage of time, and thus, 2 Tim. 3:16-17 still does not teach SS today

I don't like any of those options.

Changing your beliefs is an act of mental martyrdom - nobody "likes" going through that. But let's take this a bit further: 2 Tim. 3:16-17 wasn't the only NT passage to be written prior to 90 AD (the end of the inscripturation period). All of the New Testament was written prior to 90 AD. So basically you're going to have to admit that a) all the passages in the New Testament commanded Christians to practice something they could not practice for several more decades, b) all of the passages in the New Testament meant one thing in 50-70 AD, but changed their meaning with the passage of time into 90 AD, or c) no passage in the New Testament teaches SS, because no passage of Scripture changes its meaning with the passage of time.

Alright, it looks as though I'll have to admit that the New Testament doesn't teach SS. That's the least painful of the three choices. But that doesn't mean SS isn't true.

How do you reason that? If it's not taught in Scripture, then it's an invented "tradition of men," and you should reject it!

It is taught in Scripture, but only implicitly - by default, if you will.

Go on ...

2 Tim. 3:16-17 teaches that the Bible is the inspired and infallible Word of God. We agree on that, right?

Yes, absolutely.

But the Bible does not point us to any other inspired or infallible source of teaching, so by default, then, we are left with Scripture Alone as our sole source of infallible teaching.

I see two problems with that line of reasoning. 1) The Bible does point us to another infallible source of teaching, and it insists that we obey it, and 2) you're arguing from your conclusion before you've proven the conclusion.

Explain that last point.

You've already presumed that the Bible is inspired, and based on that presumption, you let the Bible serve as its own witness to its own inspiration. I could just as easily (and legitimately) say that the Church Herself teaches that She is infallible, therefore we have identified two infallible sources.

Well, just because the Church says it's infallible doesn't mean it's true! I'm not going to take the Church's word for it.

That's precisely my point. You won't let the Church witness to Her own infallibility, you won't take Her "word for it"; but you expect me to do precisely that with the Bible. You expect me to accept the Bible's infallibility just because the Bible says it's infallible.

But you already agreed with me that the Bible is infallible.

That's completely beside the point. The point is that you're being inconsistent: you'll accept the self-testimony of Infallible Claimant #1, but you will not accept the self-testimony of Infallible Claimant #2. That's completely arbitrary. Not much I can do about that, I just wanted to point out that the playing field isn't level here. You have no more solid basis for accepting the infallibility of Scripture than you have for not accepting the infallibility of the Church - it's an arbitrary decision on your part. All the same, since we do both accept Scripture as infallible, I'll argue from Scripture.

Yes, you said the Bible points us to another infallible source. Prove it.

How's your Greek?

Rusty.

The word for "inspired" in 2 Tim. 3:16-17 is Theopneustos - literally, "God-breathed."

Ok.

Well, so is the apostolic college.

What?

Remember, Pneo has a triple-meaning. It means "breath," it means "wind," and it means "Spirit." Consider this passage from St. John's Gospel, where all three words are used:

The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)

If you see that passage in Greek, you can see that the same root word is used for all three English words:

The wind [pneuma] blows [pnei] where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit [pneumatos]. (John 3:8)

We have the same thing in English, really. "Inspired" comes from the Latin, in spirare, "to breath into." But again, the word spirare can mean "to breath," but spiritus means "Spirit." So the Scriptures are God-breathed, meaning that God breathed (pneuma, spirare) His own Spirit (pneuma, spiritus)into the Sacred Writers as they wrote.

Ok, that's all very interesting. But where does Scripture show us another God-breathed source of teaching?

In the very same Gospel of St. John:

Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit [pneuma]." (John 20:20-22)

God quite literally breathed His Holy Spirit into His apostles. For what purpose? For infallibility: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth." (John 16:13) If "infallible" means "without error," then certain "all the truth" is synonymous with "infallible."

I'm not so sure. The apostles were infallible when they wrote Scripture, but ... infallible all the time?

As teachers and guardians of the Deposit of Faith, absolutely. Their infallibility was not limited to their writings alone. So intent was Our Lord upon giving them His inspiration, His God-breathed-ness, that He could say to them, "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me."

You see, this all stems from the Divine Pattern, and the unity that Jesus gave to His apostles. Read St. John's Gospel, and a certain pattern appears: what the Father does, the Son mimics, and the Son does nothing apart from what He sees the Father doing. The Son is not an improviser - He sees, He repeats:

... the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise. (John 5:19)

Likewise, the Spirit is not an improviser, but only mimics what He observes in the Son:

... he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. (John 16:13)

Finally, the apostles themselves are not improvisers, but mimics. Jesus prays:

As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth. (John 17:18-19)

This phrase is repeated, you know, the idea of "just as the Father has sent me, so likewise I am sending you." The Son sends out the apostles because He is mimicking what He saw the Father do: He sent the Son. So there is this established pattern of the subordinate merely mimicking the superior: The Son does what He sees the Father doing; the Spirit only speaks what He hears the Son saying; the apostles are delegates of the Son who speak, not on their own authority, but with His authority (he who hears you is really hearing me).

Ok. How does infallibility fit into that picture?

Well, I wasn't finished yet. I also said this stems from the unity of the Father and the Son, and the Son with the Apostles.

I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom thou hast given me ... Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. (John 17:9, 11)

You see, the Apostles enjoyed complete and total unity with Our Lord, a unity that was identical to the union of Father and Son. That is why He could say, "he who hears you, hears me," and so on. They now speak with the same voice - and His voice is infallible. They are not infallible in themselves, but because they speak with His voice, the speak infallibly.

Your logic seems sound, but I'm having a hard time accepting that the apostles were infallible even in their oral teaching.

If you accept written Scripture as infallible, then you have to accept that the Apostles taught infallibly in their oral teaching as well. At the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, when the Church officially declared that circumcision was no longer necessary to be initiated into the Covenant, St. James said that this decision "seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." (Acts 15:28) Rather a presumptuous statement, wouldn't you agree? He certainly appears to be saying that they speak with the very voice of the Holy Spirit - which is exactly what Jesus promised them.

Likewise, St. Paul wrote:

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. (1 Thess. 2:13)

You see? St. Paul explicitly equates their oral preaching with "the word of God."

I'm going to have to think more about that. But for now, let's just say I accept your reasoning here, and admit that the apostles were infallible both when they wrote and when they taught orally. So what? The apostles are dead now.

True.

But where in Scripture (or Tradition, for that matter) do you ever find an indication that this Divine Pattern of sending and mimicking was scheduled to change? If Jesus only does what He sees the Father doing, and if the Apostles only do what they see the Son doing, what would make you think that the next generation after the Apostles would suddenly decide to improvise? If the Apostles didn't feel free to deviate from the Divine Pattern, certainly their inferiors would not feel any more liberated to do so.

Yeah, I can see what you're saying - but that doesn't answer my question. What evidence do you have that the second generation of pastors were, like the Apostles, infallible?

Let me get you to step back for a moment and take another look - try to get a slightly different perspective on the question. I feel like you're almost treating infallibility as though it were some kind of magic trick, you know? Something the Apostles could pull out at parties, or whatever. In this case, the source of Truth is God; the protector or guardian of that Truth is the Church, or the Apostolic College.

What's the difference between infallibility and guardianship? You're still claiming the Church is infallible.

But not in the way you're probably thinking. Remember what Jesus said about the Spirit? He will not speak on His own, but only what He hears me saying. The Spirit's function is not to reveal new truths to the Church in every age, but merely to remind them of the Truth already transmitted. So when I say the Apostles and their successors are "infallible," I mean that they perfectly protect the Truth which has already been revealed.

Think of it this way: infallibility - to be 100% truth and without even the slightest taint of error - is an attribute of the teaching, of the message; the teacher is only infallible to the extent that he transmits the message, part-for-part, without deviation or invention. So the question here is whether or not the Church's teachers are given the gift of being able to preserve and pass on the infallible teaching, without adding to it or subtracting from it.

I mean, for that matter, we're both "infallible" in a sense. If I say, "Jesus is God," I have just spoken infallibly. But when you look at that way, maybe it's easier for you to see how infallibility is not an attribute of mine, but of the teaching which I merely repeated.

Let me try to sort this out, then. You're saying the the Apostles, their successors, their successors' successors, etc., are infallible in the sense that they perfectly transmit the original teaching of Jesus, without any deviation?

That's correct.

That's impossible. Fallible men are always prone to embellish, fudge the facts, elaborate the details, and corrupt the truth.

You're right - it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. Humans are always prone to error, but to say that they can err is not the same as saying that they will err. On a human level, yes, the Church could err, but we have God's promise that She will not err - so in that sense, it's impossible for Her to err, or else God is a liar.

I'm waiting, then - show me from Scripture that the Apostles and their successors were given the gift of infallibility.

Fine, as long as we understand that "infallibility" means that God grants them the gift of protecting the Truth from error. It's not so much a positive function as it is a negative function: it's not adding new revelation to the Faith, it's preventing error from creeping in.

St. Paul wrote to St. Timothy:

I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands ... Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus; guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. (2 Tim. 1:6, 13-14)

Ss. Paul and Timothy had been given a special gift or "charism" by the Holy Spirit, namely, they had been "entrusted" with the Truth, and enabled to "guard" that which was entrusted to them. Actually, it would appear that St. Timothy was given this charism specifically by St. Paul, through a special laying-on-of-hands ceremony when St. Paul appointed St. Timothy to be a bishop in Ephesus.

Also, this seems to be a mark of the Church as a whole. St. Paul wrote:

If I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth. (1 Tim. 3:15)

You've got to deal with the fact that it is the Church which Scripture itself points to as the "pillar and bulwark of the truth."

Now wait a minute. The Church is the "pillar" of the Truth, not the source of Truth. A pillar simply holds up something else. So this doesn't rule out Scripture as being the sole source of the Truth.

No, we'll deal with the "source" question later. For right now, just recognize the implications of what you just admitted. A pillar holds something up. What is the pillar holding up, in this case? The text says "the truth."

Now if you're suggesting to me that the Church can (and has) taught error, or that there is no infallible Church that only teaches Truth all the time, then guess what? This text of Scripture is a lie.

What is the polar opposite of Truth?

Error.

Exactly, so if this "pillar" whose function is to hold up the Truth also holds up errors - well, these two things cancel each other out. By definition "Truth" excludes error, just as "white" excludes any shade of gray or black. If the Church, the pillar of Truth, can't hold up the Truth then this is an extremely weak pillar indeed.

But the "truth" which it holds up is Scripture, the only source of Truth.

So you're admitting that the Church infallibly interprets Scripture now?

Hey ... now ...

Well, that's the implication there. Again, if the Church holds up errors with regard to Scripture and its interpretation, then the Church is not a pillar of Truth at all, and St. Paul was mistaken (and say good-bye to your infallible Scripture as well). I'm willing to say that "the Truth" which the Church holds up certainly includes Scripture; I'm just not willing to say that Scripture alone is included in this phrase "the truth."

Right, of course, you include all sort of man-made traditions.

Traditions, yes. Man-made? I don't think so. Remember, you already admitted that sola scriptura isn't taught in Scripture, so let's not start throwing the "man-made tradition" grenade around just yet.

What I have to get you to see is that you're actually violating Scripture by insisting that God's Word only comes to us in the written medium.

I've already asked you, show me another inspired body of teaching and I'll follow it.

And I've already showed you that the Apostles themselves were "God-breathed," that their successors were given the charism of guarding the Truth, and that the Church can then rightly be called the "pillar of Truth."

But beyond that - and you knew this verse was coming - the Scriptures teach:

So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter. (2 Thess. 2:15)

Please notice (and do not side-step) the fact that St. Paul explicitly names two modes of transmitting the Faith: "by word of mouth" and "by letter." Oral and written. Scripture and Tradition.

Ok, then you should be able to show me an official list of what these "traditions" are that I'm supposed to follow.

Oh brother, here we go ...

Well, if you want me to follow St. Paul's advice here, then show me one of these so-called traditions that is not contained in Scripture, but is part of the Apostolic Teaching.

I've been down this road before, and it's a dead-end - you'll see why in a minute. Ooooo-kay, you want an example of an Apostolic Tradition not found in Scripture? How about the understanding of Mary as a partner with Our Lord in the Redemption?

In accordance with this design, Mary the Virgin is found obedient... But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she... having become disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the entire human race; so also did Mary, having a man betrothed [to her], and being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience, become the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race ... And thus also it was that the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3:22:4)

There's a tradition for you. Are you going to start believing it?

Sorry, but Irenaeus is appealing to Scripture here. He's contrasting Mary with Eve - this is not a valid example of an extra-biblical tradition.

This is why this is a dead-end argument. No Catholic worth his salt would try to say that we believe certain dogmas based purely on oral tradition, with absolutely zero support from Scripture. Scripture and Tradition flow from the same Divine Source - what is implicit in one is explicit in the other.

Of course, St. Irenaeus appeals to Scriptural types - but the point is, you believe his teaching is un-Scriptural, so it's rather disingenuous of you to say that this is not an example of a non-Scriptural tradition.

What you fail to appreciate here is that St. Irenaeus' interpretation of Scripture is part of that Tradition. You want a completely extra-biblical tradition? How about:

1) The Tradition of interpreting Mary as the New Eve

2) The Tradition of interpreting Scripture in support of the Eucharistic Sacrifice

3) The Tradition of interpreting Scripture in support of the Papacy

And so on and so on and so on.

But back to my point: you profess to be willing to submit to these Traditions, but what have you just done? You've just asked me to produce a written list of oral Traditions!

How is that in keeping with St. Paul's command to believe the teachings regardless of what form they come in, whether written or oral?

Of course I'm going to ask for a written list - how else am I supposed to verify the existence of these Traditions?

You ask the Church, the living voice of the Apostles, the pillar of Truth. There is really no excuse for your attitude here, which is precisely the opposite of what St. Paul commands. He says "hold to the teachings whether by word of mouth or letter," but you turn around and say, "I will hold to the teachings, by word of mouth only if also found in the letters." You have already rejected out of hand, before you even come to the table, one of the mediums which St. Paul commends to you.

In other words, your deep suspicion of anything oral, of anything not found written in Scripture, is completely the polar opposite of what St. Paul said: accept the teachings regardless of whether it comes orally or written down.

Well, like I said, you show me an official list of these traditions and then we'll talk.

There you go asking for written evidence again. This is really, really disingenuous. You act as though you can't know what this "list of traditions" is unless you see an inspired list. I have two responses to this:

1) You know darn well what this "list of traditions" is. Sit down with a piece of paper and write down all of the "man-made traditions" of the Catholic Church which you reject as unbiblical - there's your silly "list of traditions." See? Don't pretend like you don't know what they are; somehow you've managed to find out about them and commit them to memory, even though you're not even in the Church.

2) If you want to go down this road of "I can't know it unless I have an inspired list," then let's go there, but I'm going to turn the tables: show me your inspired list of which books belong in the Bible.

Somehow I knew you'd eventually bring up the Canon of Scripture argument.

Well, it's something you're going to have to deal with. You want to know how I can know the dogmas of the Church and the Traditions of the Apostles without an infallibly-defined list - I will say I learned it the same way you did: by word of mouth (fancy that!). I learned it further by watching the Church and observing how She behaves Herself in Her liturgy, in Her devotions, in Her prayers, in Her councils, and so on. Somehow both you and I ended up with a knowledge of what those teachings are, because they are the very things teachings that separate us: those dogmas which I believe, which you reject.

Now, I say back to you, how do you know which books belong in the Bible if you don't have a God-breathed, inspired list of those books?

The same way the Jews knew what their Old Testament Canon was without having to have an infallible Church council tell them.

And this is what we call "begging the question." You assume the Jews had a fixed Canon of Scripture, because you must somehow presume that they practiced a form of sola scriptura.

They most certainly did have a Canon. How else could Jesus hold them to the standard of Scripture, saying things like "search the Scriptures," or "have you not read the Scriptures," and so on?

I'm not denying that they had a certain core collection of writings that they accepted as authoritative - I am denying that they had a fixed Canon that was agreed upon by everyone. The Sadducees, for example, only held the first five books (Moses' books) as inspired by God.

But let's be honest: the New Testament writers quoted from an awful lot of literature, some of it pagan, some of it inspired, some of it what you would call "apocryphal." St. Paul quotes from Wisdom, St. Jude quotes from the Assumption of Moses and the Book of Enoch, and St. James quotes from Sirach. So apparently "quoted by a New Testament writer" is no kind of criterion by which to measure inspiration.

You know as well as I do that the Canon of Scripture is something external to Scripture - it is a "function" of Scripture, not part of the Divine Revelation.

This sounds like a lot of smoke and mirrors; you haven't dealt with the question of how you determine which books are inspired and which ones aren't.

That's just the point: I don't determine that. God does. The criterion is simple - whatever is God-breathed is Canonical; whatever is not God-breathed is not Canonical. The Church does not give Scripture its authority, it merely stands back and recognizes that authority.

You still haven't answered the question. Whatever is God-breathed is Canonical, whatever isn't is not Canonical? Great! Now you've just moved the question back a step: which books are God-breathed?!

I agree with you: human authority does not "authenticate" or "determine" which books are inspired, in the sense that the Church can say, "Ok, Jude is inspired," and then - zap! - now that book is inspired. The Epistle of St. Jude was inspired the moment it was written; but who authoritatively recognizes that fact?

The Canon was something agreed upon by the universal church from the time of the Apostolic age. There was no question of whether Matthew's Gospel was inspired, or whether John's Gospel was inspired.

That doesn't help you, though. There are three problems here:

1) The early Church - so you claim - had agreed as to which books were inspired, and so you accept those books as inspired; but the early Church also agree about certain doctrines, such as the Eucharist, Infant Baptism, the Primacy of Peter, etc., and you refuse to accept those things.

2) The early Church also generally accepted the books of the Old Testament which you called "apocryphal," and had them removed from your Bible.

3) The early Church was not nearly as unified on the question of the New Testament books as you seem to imagine; in fact, they were more in agreement about the "apocryphal" books than they were on the New Testament.

That's nonsense. The Gospels were always accepted in the Church.

I'm not talking about the Gospels. The Gospels only make up four of the 27 books which you accept. The early Church remained uncertain of several of those books, especially 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Revelation, Jude, and Hebrews. On the flip side, we have historical witness that the churches in the area of Corinth (the Corinthians) were reading an epistle from Pope St. Clement of Rome as though it were Scripture (i.e., they regularly read from it alongside the other liturgical readings from Scripture); the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas were both considered canonical by certain churches in the early days.

Again, there was much more unanimity on the so-called "apocryphal" books - but you reject those out of hand!

Nonsense! When Luther removed those books from the Canon, he was acting on the precedent set by the council of Jamnia as early as 90 AD.

The council of Jamnia was a Jewish council held by anti-Christian Jews some 60 years into the Church's existence. They didn't like the fact that the Christians were using these books to demonstrate that Jesus was the Messiah, and since these books were not as ancient as the others, the Jews had them removed.

But I thought we were looking to follow the example of the early Church here, not the early Synagogue?

Still, even in the early Church, these apocryphal books were rejected from the start.

Again, only someone who didn't know Church history could say that. Just read the Apostolic Fathers alone - St. Clement, St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus, St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp, St. Barnabas, etc. What books do they quote from? Much like the New Testament, they quote from well-known OT texts, a few outright apocryphal works, and several of the so-called "apocryphal" works which Catholics have always accepted.

That's just not true.

Well, I'm not going to do your homework for you - you'll have to dig into those writings and find out for yourself, but I promise you that what I've just said is completely verifiable. Certainly by the 4th and 5th century, the Canonical lists were identical to the ones enumerated by the Council of Trent.

A quote from St. Francis de Sales is in order here:

I would chiefly lay stress on the authority of those books which exercise you the most. St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and the rest of the fathers consider Ecclesiasticus canonical. St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, St. Basil, honor Tobias as Holy Scripture. St. Cyprian again, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Ambrose, believed the same of the Machabees. St. Augustine protests that: "it is the Catholic Church which holds the Books of the Machabees as canonical, not the Jews." What will you say to this? That the Jews had them not in their catalogues? St. Augustine acknowledges it; but are you Jews, or Christians? (The Catholic Controversy)

I still maintain that Luther was acting on ancient precedent in removing the seven books which the Catholic Church had added.

I can't stop you from believing that - but it's just not true. Do your historical homework: check the Council of Rome, the Council of Hippo, the Council of Carthage, Pope Gelasius' decree de libris canonicis, and Innocent I's Epistle to Exuperius. For that matter, observe the fact that the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament), which dates back to before Christ's birth, contained those seven books. It's a fact of history that the Apostles used this Septuagint! St. Paul especially, when he quotes from the Psalms, almost always quotes the Septuagint Greek version instead of the Hebrew version. And there are just certain sections of the New Testament that - it cannot be denied - quote or allude to passages in the seven books.

Give me a few examples.

St. Paul in Romans 1:18-29 borrows almost word-for-word from Wisdom 13:1-18; St. James' Epistle 3:1-12 sounds an awful lot like Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 5:11-6:1; Matthew 27:42-43 is, again, almost word-for-word a replica of Wisdom 2:12-20; St. Paul again in 1 Cor. 15:29ff uses the same argument and language that is used in 2 Macc. 12:43-44); St. Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews 11:35 seems to refer to the story of the mother who loses seven sons to martyrdom in 2 Macc. 7.

I'll take a look at those. We seem to have gotten rather off the topic.

Yes, I agree. I'll just wrap it up by summarizing: Scripture itself never claims a "sola" status for itself, but it does point to a Church which is the "pillar of truth"; it does teach us to hold fast to all the traditions, without any sort of prejudice to whether those traditions are written or oral; and it does show us that Jesus intended to commit His own authority to the Apostolic College, to allow them to speak with His own voice; there is every indication that a Divine Pattern was begun - the pattern of sending the next generation out with your own power and authority, while mimicking the previous generation and improvising nothing - and that this pattern was not intended to be broken; and the evidence is strongly in favor of a Divinely-protected Church which is the authorized guardian of the Faith.

But what good is your infallible Church? Don't you have to fallibly interpret whatever the Church teaches? Didn't you have to engage in fallible private interpretation to come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church is the true Church?

Epistemology is fun, isn't it? Yes, I have to fallibly interpret whatever the Church teaches me. And yes, I had to fallibly reason my way through the Scriptures and Church History in order to arrive at the fallible decision that the Catholic Church is the one true Church.

As to the first question: you seem to suggest that the Church serves no purpose, because no matter what She teaches, I have to fallibly interpret it. But what you forget is that the Church has the advantage over "Scripture Alone" precisely because the Church can continue to speak, continue to clarify, correct and judge where necessary. If I fallibly and erroneously interpret something the Church has taught, She has only to issue a clarification in the future. If that clarification isn't clear enough, there can be yet another clarification.

In any case, the advantage here is that we follow the Biblical pattern: there is an authoritative Voice to whom we defer when theological disputes arise; and rarely does the Church exercise Her charism to root out error unless a dispute has arisen.

As to the second question: I know where you're going with this. You will say that my future certainty in the infallible Church is only as certain as my first decision - the decision to listen to the Church. And, since that first decision was fallible, well, then I can have no real certainty about any future "infallible" Church teaching.

Now we've gotten into the issue of faith versus reason, and where certitude fits into the discussion. Suffice it to say that the Catholic Faith is still, after all these years, founded upon just that: faith. The evidence and Reason strongly point us towards the Church, but ultimately we leave evidence and Reason at the doorstep of Faith, and cross over without them.

You, in fact, have the same dilemma: you rest upon your infallible Scriptures, but you have fallibly reasoned your way to the conclusion that Scripture is infallible in the first place. Perhaps they are fallible after all, and thus your future choices are just as wrong as your first choice.

For that matter, your choice to believe in this person named "Jesus" was a fallible choice, and thus, the entirety of your religion rests on sand for certitude. And yet, you are certain of your choices, are you not?

Well alright, then, let's bring the question to a realistic plane - it's not as though I'm claiming Catholicism is based 100% on empirical evidence and scientific fact, while Protestantism is based on a wish and a prayer. Both are based on faith, ultimately; and both have a certain number of facts to recommend them. But I do claim that the majority of the facts are clearly on the side of Catholicism; history points to the Catholic Church, Scripture points to the Catholic Church, the Church Fathers point to the Catholic Church, and so on.

Alright, let me think some of this stuff through.

Fair enough - we'll talk again. I want to raise the issue of authority and Apostolic Succession with you.

Sounds good.

Requiescat in Pace, Michael Davies

Michael Davies has passed on. No firm details just yet, except that he has, in fact, passed away.

Davies was one of the grandfathers of the Traditionalist Movement, a brilliant, articulate, well-read, and lucid writer who did more than his fair share to present the world with a defense of Traditional Catholicism.

His list of published books and pamphlets include:

* Cranmer's Godly Order
* Pope John's Council
* Pope Paul's New Mass
* Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre (3 volumes)
* The Order of Melchisedech
* Partisans of Error
* Religious Liberty and the Second Vatican Council
* The Tridentine Mass
* The Roman Rite Destroyed
* St. Athanasius: Defender of the Faith
* The Liturgical Revolution
* Mass Facing the People
* The Reign of Christ the King
* Liturgical Shipwreck
* Newman Against the Liberals

Add to that list several hundred articles, essays, lectures, tapes, etc., and you have a life well-spent in the defense of the faith.

He has now gone on to receive his eternal reward for his hard work; many of us have benefitted from his work - let us show our appreciation by praying for Michael today, and tomorrow, and the next day, that his soul will find eternal rest, and that he will stand at his particular judgment.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine;
Et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi;
Dona eis requiem sempiternam

I Swear Myself to Thee ... Divorce and Remarriage

It's taken months and months of thinking through this issue, but I think I've finally reached a position that I can defend with conviction.

I've been thinking a lot about weddings, and "strange" weddings in particular: Protestant weddings, "Catholic" weddings that take place outside the parish, and "re-marriage" weddings.

The Church has taught that we cannot actively participate in a Protestant wedding: that would include singing (hymns or solos), reception of communion (if it is offered), standing as part of the wedding party, liturgical prayer, etc.

In fact, the "spirit of the law" here is to refrain from attending such weddings altogether. It's potentially an invalid sacrament (depending on the individuals getting married - but more on that later), being administered by a man is pretending to be a minister of God's One Church while - in reality - rebelling against Her, performed outside the embrace of Mother Church. In short, it's a mockery of one of the seven sacraments - would you attend a service that mocked any of the other sacraments?

But in some cases it would cause more harm to not attend; such as when the party getting married is a brother or sister, or very close friend, and refusing to attend would damage your relationship and/or reflect badly upon your Faith. That's some really gray area - which is why I usually just stick with black and white: I won't go. Hate me if you must, but my Faith comes first.

It gets sticky when the sacrament is doubtful. If it's a Protestant couple, do they truly intend to get "married," in the true sense of that word? That is, do they intend to have children? Are they going to contracept? Do they both know and believe that there is no such thing as "divorce," and that even if the state says they're divorced, in reality they are still married and are not free to remarry? If these two people coming together are intending to contracept, maybe have 1.5 kids in about 10 years, and hit the divorce court the minute things start to get difficult - I'm not sure that's a valid marriage. Note: I'm not sure. I can't say yes or no with any certainty - so I steer clear.

When it comes to re-marriage, though, the issue is clear for me now. I am, of course, referring to one of the many cases in which a man marries a woman, they get a divorce, and five years later he's remarrying some other woman and wants me to attend his wedding.

Forget it.

The teaching of Our Lord, the Church Fathers, and the Holy Church down through the centuries is that marriage is really and truly "until death do us part." We don't just say that phrase at weddings because it's a nice poetic thing to say. That's our solemn oath that we swear before God.

Now, I can violate that oath; I can leave my wife before death has parted us, and I can even legally marry another woman - but violating my oath doesn't change reality. In reality that new woman is not my wife, I'm still married to my first wife, and thus, every time I climb into bed with this new woman (regardless of whether or not we're "legally married") I am committing adultery against my first wife.

Millions and millions of "Christians" are doing this every single day, and their "pastors" could care less. That's diabolical.

So here's why I won't even attend such a wedding - and this system of thought came to me while I was reflecting upon oaths, covenants, swearing to God, and sacraments in general.

A sacrament is an oath; an oath is what you swear; when you swear an oath, you make a covenant; in this covenant, you swear upon God's own Name in order to invoke His divine help; you also implicitly swear a curse upon yourself if you should ever violate that oath.

Marriage is all of that. It is a sacrament; in it, you solemnly swear a sacred oath to your wife, and she swears one to you as well; the reason - the very reason - why this solemn oath-swearing ceremony takes place in the church is because you are swearing that oath in the Presence of God - the real Eucharistic Presence; thus, you are calling God Himself as your witness, which is another way of saying you are invoking His Name upon this oath; the people who attend your wedding are more than guests, they are also witnesses to the oath, which is why the wedding ceremony includes the words "before God and these witnesses"; therefore, to be a guest at a wedding party is to lend your own implicit testimony to the truth of what is happening before you.

There is no such thing as simply attending and observing a wedding. Your presence indicates your approval, and more than that, it is an implicit oath on your part that you are reading to vouch for this marriage - you do solemnly swear that this couple did get married, and you are ready to testify to that fact before both God and Men.

But if that couple is, in reality, two divorced (but still truly married) individuals, then there is no marriage taking place. It's a sham, it's a game, it's a mockery. Therefore, I cannot stand in the presence of such a play-act and serve as a witness - because I would be bearing false witness, and thus violating one of the Ten Commandments.

The man who divorces his wife and attempts to remarry is also violating the Ten Commandments, because at his first wedding he swore in God's Name to be faithful to this woman until death - if he violates that oath, he has taken God's Name in vain.

This is serious stuff, but our society has turned it into yet one more meaningless social activity - albeit a very important, momentous, and emotional activity, but ultimately just another activity at the end of the day. I wonder if anyone really considers the staggering importance of what they're doing - the guests, the minister, the bride, the groom, the parents.

I firmly believe that at the Last Judgment, John Doe is going to be called to stand there with his 4th wife, and God will ask the witnesses who stood at his first wedding, "Do you give testimony against this man, that that woman is the one he married, and not the woman he now stands with?" And those witnesses will indeed say, "Yes, we were there, we saw him swear an oath to that woman, and not the woman he is now with."

But likewise, those witnesses who stood at his fourth wedding will be called to account, and will be judged for bearing false witness.

Something to consider, isn't it?

Feast of St. Linus

Pope St. Linus was, according to the lists of the Church, the second pope after St. Peter. He is mentioned several times in the writings of the early Church Fathers:

"Peter was succeeded by Linus, Linus by Clement, Clement by Anacletus ... " (St. Augustine, Letters, 53:1:2)

"The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy." (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3:3:3)

The passage St. Irenaeus is referring to here is 2 Timothy 4:21:

According to the history books, Pope St. Linus reigned anywhere from 64/67 - 76/79. He is said to have made official the decree that women must wear veils in the Church; he is said to be buried next to St. Peter; Ss. Mark and Luke were martyred during his reign; he alledgedly wrote an account of the martyrdoms of Ss. Peter and Paul; and he is said to have died a martyr himself.

Now, of course, modern historians question all of the above - but then again, what don't they question? The decree about women, they say, is nothing more than St. Paul's decree concerning the same, simply misattributed to St. Linus; there is no proof that he is buried next to St. Peter; the account of St. Peter's martyrdom, they say, is from at least the 6th century, so St. Linus couldn't have written it; and, since there were no wide-spread persecutions from Nero to Domitian, these historians doubt St. Linus' martyrdom as well.

At any rate, he is celebrated today as a martyr, because in the Roman books his martyrdom was recorded as September 23. So we celebrate Pope St. Linus, martyr and pope.

Let them exalt him in the Church of the people: and praise him in the chair of the ancients ... Thou shalt make them princes over all the earth: they shall remember Thy name through-out all generations. Alleluia. (Ps. 106:31-32, 44:17-18; Gradual, Mass of St. Linus)

If thou lovest Me, Simon Peter, feed My lambs; feed My sheep. Alleluia, alleluia. (John 21:15-17; Introit, Mass of St. Linus)

Prayer
O Eternal Shepherd, do Thou look favorably upon Thy flock, which we beseech Thee to guard and keep for evermore through the Blessed Linus, Thy Martyr and Supreme Pontiff, whom Thou didst choose to be the chief shepherd of the whole Church. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who livest and reignest with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, forever and ever. Amen. (Collect, Mass of St. Linus)

Casting Shadows, Part 9: The OT in Romans 2

While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? For, as it is written, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." (Rom. 2:21-24)

It goes without saying that if you do not understand the substance of a man's argument, or his purpose in arguing the way he does, you will certainly not understand his conclusions.

An argument is usually made up of several logically connected points, each point building on the one that preceded it, until finally you reach the conclusion. If you don't know what those individual steps in the argument are - if you can't follow the roadsigns - you will not arrive at the intended destination.

I emphasize this because this defect is precisely why so many people today misinterpret St. Paul's writings, especially his epistle to the Romans. The epistle to the Romans is bursting at the seams with quotes from the Old Testament - 52 explicit quotes (71% of which occur in chapters 9-16) in just 16 chapters. As is hopefully becoming clearer to you, understanding the context of those OT quotes is absolutely necessary if we are to understand St. Paul's meaning.

However, since most people don't know the Old Testament very well, they have no idea what context St. Paul is evoking; and since they don't know the larger context of which he is trying to remind us, they don't understand the point he is trying to make; and since they don't understand his individual points, they end by misinterpreting his writings completely.

The epistle to the Romans, like the epistle to the Galatians, was written to defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ against the heresy of the Judaizers. Understandably, then, it draws heavily on the historical events of Israel's past, and the Old Testament texts that evoke the memory of those events.

By the time we reach the passage above (Rom. 2:24), St. Paul's argument is already well under way. Here is a brief outline of that argument.

In 1:1-7, St. Paul introduces himself as a preacher of the "gospel of God"; he emphasis that this gospel is "concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh"; he prepares his reader for the onslaught of OT texts that are coming in the next 15 chapters by saying that this gospel was "promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures"; finally, St. Paul's purpose is to "bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations."

In 1:16-18, St. Paul says he is "not ashamed of the gospel." He alludes here to an entire prophetic tradition found in the Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc. - the constantly-repeated theme of the righteous man who trusts in God and is not "counfounded" or "put to shame." Already he is appealing to Israel's history, for it was Isaiah who prophesied in these very terms, saying that Israel's enemies would be "put to shame and confounded," but that "Israel is saved by the LORD" and "not ... put to shame or confounded to all eternity." (Is. 45:16-17). In fact, a quick glance at these two verses in Romans reveals several parallels with the words of Isaiah:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation [soterian] to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness [dikaiosune] of God is revealed [apokaluptetai] through faith for faith. (Rom. 1:16-17)

Listen to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation; for a law will go forth from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples [ethnon]. My deliverance [dikaiosune] draws near speedily, my salvation [soterion] has gone forth, and my arms will rule the peoples. (Is. 51:4-5)

The LORD has bared [apokalupsei] his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations [ethnon]; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation [soterian] of our God. (Is. 52:10)

St. Paul then goes on in 1:18-32 to describe the wickedness and depravity of men. What most readers will miss here, however, is that St. Paul is not just describing mankind in general (although certainly what he says applies to mankind), but a particular slice of mankind: the Jews. Compare these texts:

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse ... they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. (Rom. 1:19-20, 22-25)

They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a molten image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass ... Then they attached themselves to the Baal of Peor, and ate sacrifices offered to the dead; they provoked the LORD to anger with their doings, and a plague broke out among them. (Ps. 106:19-20, 28-29)

For all men who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know him who exists, nor did they recognize the craftsman while paying heed to his works; but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water, or the luminaries of heaven [i.e., all created things] were the gods that rule the world ... from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator. (Wis. 13:1-5)

Already, then, we can see that the first chapter of Romans is directed specifically at the Jews; St. Paul draws on their prophecies of deliverance ("justification"), salvation, and freedom from "shame"; he also reminds them of their past history, when they "became fools," "exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling animals," and "exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator."

This litany of accusation does not stop as we move into chapter 2. He begins with these stinging words to his Jewish interlocutor: "Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, when you judge another; for in passing judgment upon him you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things ... Do you suppose, O man, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God?" (Rom. 2:1-3)

Once more he calls upon the Jewish prophetic tradition when he employs a stock phrase found in the texts of Isaiah and Deuteronomy: "There will be tribulation [thlipsis] and distress [stenochoria] for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek." (Rom. 2:9)

This echoes God's prediction of Israel's future exile: "And you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege [stenochoria] and in the distress [thlipsei] with which your enemies shall distress [thlipsei] you." (Dt. 28:53)

It also echoes Isaiah's judgment: "They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry; and when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will curse their king and their God, and turn their faces upward; and they will look to the earth, but behold, distress [thlipsis] and darkness, the gloom of anguish [stenochoria]; and they will be thrust into thick darkness." (Is. 8:21-22)

The effect of all of this is obvious: ever since chapter 1:18, St. Paul has been walking the Judaizers through their own checkered past, reminding them of their exile; he is reminding them that even though they presume to act as judges and teachers of the heathen Gentiles, they themselves are judged by their own words because they have not listened to their own teaching. That is where we arrive at vss. 21-24:

... you then who teach others, will you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? For, as it is written, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." (Rom. 2:21-24)

The questions above are all rhetorical, of course; the answer to all of them is an implied "yes." Do you steal? Yes. Do you commit adultery? Read Ezekiel 16, where the Jews are called a "harlot" and/or accused of spiritual adultery some twenty times in 63 verses. Do you break the law and so dishonor God? St. Paul's answer to this question is in his use of the Old Testament.

The key concept that St. Paul mentions here, the profaning of God's name before the Gentiles, cannot help but remind the Jewish reader of Ezekiel 36, where this concept is repeated several times in short succession:

I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries ... But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that men said of them, 'These are the people of the LORD, and yet they had to go out of his land.' But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel caused to be profaned among the nations to which they came ... Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations will know that I am the LORD ... (Ezek. 36:19-23)

This is an interesting textual twist. You would think that God sent Israel into exile because they profaned His name; but that's not what Ezekiel says. Rather, it was after Israel went into exile that they profaned His name - and actually, this makes a lot of sense. God is speaking here of His covenant Name - "By myself I have sworn," He said to Abraham, or, "By my own Name" - the Name by which He swore on oath to bless Abraham and to bless the Gentiles through Abraham's seed.

And what does the presence of Israel in exile among the Gentiles say to the Gentiles? Yeah, right, some great God you've got there; He swore to bless you, and then bless us through you, and now here you are without even a plot of land to call your own.

The minute Israel goes into exile is the minute God's Covenant Name begins to be profaned. So what does that mean? Well, why was Israel in exile to begin with? Because they were rebellious and wicked. So if we work backwards from effect to cause - if we deduce from the present circumstances what got us to this point - we come up with this: God's name is being profaned, which must mean that Israel is in exile, which must mean that Israel was rebellious and wicked.

Or, to take the shortcut: If God's name is being profaned through Israel's exile, this is proof that Israel was and is wicked and rebellious.

You see St. Paul's logic, then? He asks them, do you steal? Do you commit adultery? Do you break God's law? And the answer, through Ezekiel, is well, you're in exile, aren't you? What more proof do we need? Of course you're still rebellious and wicked - you're enslaved to Gentile Rome, aren't you?

But there is another reason why St. Paul reaches for this passage from Ezekiel. Read the next few verses of Ezekiel 36:

I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. (Ezek. 36:25-27)

What do we see in these verses? Clean water. A new heart. A new Spirit. Keeping the law ("ordinances") of God. Where in the New Covenant do we find clean water, a new heart, and the Spirit of God?

Baptism.

And what is Baptism in relation to the Old Covenant, according to St. Paul?

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ ... buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Col. 2:11-12)

So, for St. Paul, Baptism is the new circumcision. And he's just finished quoting a passage in Ezekiel that strongly suggests Baptism, with its mention of clean water, a new heart, and a new Spirit. So where does he go next with his argument in chapter 2? Right where you'd expect, if he's thinking in terms of Baptism as the new circumcision:

Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law; but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision ... Then those who are physically uncircumcised but keep the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal. His praise is not from men but from God. (Rom. 2:25-29)

Interesting, isn't it? Ezekiel talks about a new heart, a new Spirit, clean water, and keeping the law; Baptism is the New Circumcision; so what do we find St. Paul talking about next? True circumcision vs. false circumcision, keeping the law, true circumcision as a matter "of the heart" (as in Ezekiel's "new heart"), and true circumcision as "spiritual" (as in Ezekiel's "new spirit").

By playing off the passage in Ezekiel, St. Paul has just contrasted the Judaizers' literal circumcision with the New Covenant spiritual circumcision; he has made the segue from circumcision to Baptism.

And in speaking of an inward circumcision of the heart, he is not engaging in any kind of innovative teaching. The Jews knew this teaching well, for it was taught to them by their own law and prophets.

But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers ... if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled ... then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. (Lev. 26:40-42)

Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will punish all those who are circumcised but yet uncircumcised - Egypt, Judah, Edom ... for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart. (Jer. 9:25-26)

This brings us to the end of Romans 2 and sets us up to understand the arguments that St. Paul mounts in Romans 3 and 4. He continues to demonstrate that Israel/Judah is no better than the Gentile nations in heart, even though they have circumcision and the Mosaic Law, while the Gentiles do not. The force of his argument will be, essentially, you insist on Christians receiving circumcision and you place such a high value on this Old Covenant rite - but why? What good has it done you? It is an only an external sign meant to point you to an inward reality; the circumcision of your flesh is meant to remind you of your need for circumcision in the heart - but for 700 years none of you have been learning that lesson, and you're still stuck on the outward sign, as though that sign had some kind of power to make you holy. Obviously it doesn't, because, in case you've forgotten, you've been just as wicked as all the other nations.

This will be his argument in 3:1-20, before he finally introduces faith as the cause of justification, over and against circumcision and the works of the Mosaic Law.

Casting Shadows, Part 8: St. Paul and the OT in Galatians 3 and Romans 4

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so many things in vain? - if it really is in vain. Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?

Thus Abraham "believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham. (Gal. 3:1-7)

This text, a quote from Genesis 15:6, is a favorite of the New Testament writers when dealing with the subject of justification and faith vs. works of the law. St. Paul spends an entire chapter on the subject, namely, Romans 4; hence, I thought it would be best to cover both of these chapters at the same time.

Galatians 3 and Romans 4 are remarkably similar in their usage of this Genesis quote. Both chapters quote Genesis 15:6, and both are preceded by chapters in which faith is contrasted to works of the law:

We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified ... Thus Abraham "believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham. (Gal. 2:15-16, 3:6-7)

For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law ... For what does the scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." (Rom. 3:28, 4:3)

St. James also uses the phrase in his discussion of justification:

You see that faith was active along with [Abraham's] works, and faith was completed by works, and the scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness"; and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. (Jas. 2:22-24)

There is another place in the Old Testament that this phrase is used, and I note it here for the purposes of future discussion:

Then [Israel] attached themselves to the Baal of Peor [Num. 25], and ate sacrifices offered to the dead; they provoked the LORD to anger with their doings, and a plague broke out among them. Then Phinehas stood up and interposed, and the plague was stayed. And that has been reckoned to him as righteousness from generation to generation for ever. (Ps. 106:28-30)

While Israel dwelt in Shittim the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods ... So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel ... And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping at the door of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas ... saw it, he ... took a spear in his hand ... and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman, through her body. Thus the plague was stayed from the people of Israel. (Num. 25:1-8)

Keep this in the back of your mind while we return to St. Paul's use of the Genesis 15 text. The passage which he so frequently quotes is as follows:

And Abram said, "Behold, thou hast given me no offspring; and a slave born in my house will be my heir." And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir." And he brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be." And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. (Gen. 15:3-6)

Now, there are two ways of approaching Galatians 3 and Romans 4; there are two ways of interpreting St. Paul's use of this quote; and there are two ways of understanding St. Paul's major argument against his Judaizer opponents.

The first way of understanding these things, the understanding of most Reformed readers, is as follows:

1) St. Paul is arguing for a dichotomy between faith and works
2) St. Paul quotes Gen. 15:6 because it shows Abraham being credited with righteousness for an act of faith, not for a work
3) Therefore, Galatians 3 and Romans 4 are saying that justification is by faith alone, apart from works

The second way of understanding these points is like this:

1) St. Paul is arguing, contrary to the Judaizers, that circumcision is not a requirement for justification before God
2) St. Paul quotes Gen. 15:6 because it shows Abraham being counted as righteous in God's sight, before he ever received circumcision
3) Therefore, Galatians 3 and Romans 4 are saying that justification is found in the New Covenant of Grace, not in the Old Covenant of the Mosaic Law

In this second view, what I am arguing is that Gen. 15:6 is quoted by St. Paul, not so much because it specifies the cause of Abraham's righteousness (an act of faith), but more because it specifies the chronology of Abraham's righteousness.

To understand what I am advocating, we have to step back and take a bird's-eye view of Abraham's life, and then we have to see where the quote from Gen. 15:6 fits into that history.

1) Abraham is called by God to leave Ur and go to a land which he does not know (Gen. 12)

2) Abraham has faith in God, and in faith he obeys God's call (Gen. 12; Heb. 11:8)

3) Abraham goes down to Egypt (Gen. 12)

4) Abraham leaves Egypt, and he and Lot stake their territory in Canaan and Sodom/Gomorrah (Gen. 13)

5) Lot is captured in a raid on Sodom; Abraham rescues him and is blessed by Melchizedek (Gen. 14)

6) God promises a son to Abraham; Abraham believes the promise and is reckoned as righteousness; God swears His first covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15)

7) Abraham takes Hagar as his wife, and she bears him Ishmael (Gen. 16)

8) God swears a second covenant with Abraham, and is given the covenant sign of circumcision (Gen. 17)

9) Isaac is born; Ishmael is disinherited and cast out, along with Hagar (Gen. 21)

10) Abraham offers Isaac as a sacrifice; God swears His third covenant with Abraham, and according to St. James, Abraham is justified by his works in offering Isaac (Gen. 22; Jas. 2:14ff)

To reiterate: the reason St. Paul cites Gen. 15:6 is because it proves, chronologically, that circumcision is not necessary for salvation. This is precisely what the Judaizers were claiming, as I have shown many times already: "But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brethren, 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.'" (Acts 15:1)

St. Paul could have appealed to Genesis 12, because Abraham obeyed God out of faith at that point as well, and certainly St. Paul sees that as a salvific moment in Abraham's life (Heb. 11:8 and its context proves this). But such a view could be disputed by his opponents; he could be accused of reading into the text of Gen. 12, since it does not explicitly say that God considered Abraham righteous at that point. The reason he can exercise his exegetical license in Heb. 11 to say that Abraham was saved in Gen. 12 is because Hebrews was not written as an apologetic against Judaizers; as an epistle to Hebrew Christians, St. Paul can get away with reading Abraham's salvation into the text of Gen. 12 - he does not have that luxury with his opponents in Galatians and Romans.

Thus, he reaches for a more explicit text that still falls, chronologically speaking, prior to the giving of the Covenant of Circumcision in Genesis 17.

That St. Paul is arguing chronologically can be shown by an appeal to the early Church writers. Apparently this argument was understood by the early Church, for St. Eusebius employs the same argument in an even more explicit manner. In his Church History, he begins by showing that the faith of the patriarchs before Moses was truly the Christian faith; that is, he proves that the Christian faith is not a novelty or innovation introduced by Christ late in history.

He writes:

[The patriarchs] did not care about circumcision of the body, neither do we. They did not care about observing Sabbaths, nor do we. They did not avoid certain kinds of food, neither did they regard the other distinctions which Moses first delivered to their posterity to be observed as symbols; nor do Christians of the present day do such things. (Church History, Book I, 4:8)

What he says next is of great importance, for he anticipates the objection of Jewish opponents - the very same objection raised against St. Paul - and he answers the objection in the same way St. Paul did, with an appeal to the very same Genesis text:

If it is said that Abraham, a long time afterward, was given the command of circumcision, we reply that nevertheless before this it was declared that he had received the testimony of righteousness through faith; as the divine word says, "Abraham believed in God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness."

And indeed unto Abraham, who was thus before his circumcision a justified man, there was given by God ... a prophecy in regard to those who in coming ages should be justified in the same way as he. (ibid., 4:11-12)

St. Eusebius understands the argument in precisely the same way that St. Paul first understood it. Even apart from the testimony of St. Eusebius, we can still prove that St. Paul's argument is chronological by looking at the very same chapter of Romans:

We say that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received circumcision as a sign or seal of the righteousness which he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. (Rom. 4:9-11)

It is precisely because St. Paul is arguing for faith over and against circumcision that St. James can later write, without destroying St. Paul's argument, "Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?" (Jas. 2:21)

For St. James, the argument is no longer against Judaizers who insist on circumcision, but against Christians who believe that faith alone justifies. Thus, in St. James' case, he has to point to a justifying work of Abraham's that takes place after his act of faith in Genesis 15 - and so he refers to Abraham's action in Genesis 22.

I raised the issue earlier of Phinehas, and the Psalmist's inspired commentary on Phinehas' righteous act. The same phrase is applied to Phinehas as was applied to Abraham. His righteous work (not faith, in this case) "has been reckoned to him as righteousness from generation to generation for ever."

This, too, proves that St. Paul is not arguing specifically for the cause of Abraham's righteousness. If he had argued - as some claim he is arguing - that righteousness is only reckoned to a man for his faith, the Judaizers could have simply quoted this Psalm to show that righteousness is also reckoned to a man for his good works.

Why does St. Paul not quote this Psalm in his argument against the Judaizers? The answer to that question depends on how you interpret St. Paul's argument. If you take the Reformed interpretation, that St. Paul is arguing faith vs. works, then you would answer this question like John Murray answered it:

If Paul had appealed to Psalm 106:31 in the matter of justification, the justification of the ungodly, then the case of Phinehas would have provided an inherent contradiction and would have demonstrated justification by a righteous and zealous act." (Commentary on Romans, Vol. I, 131)

But this explanation attributes to St. Paul a gross kind of dishonesty: that is, he knows of Ps. 106, and he knows that this text contradicts his own argument, so he simply ignores that text and does not quote it - perhaps hoping to slip a fast one over on his Judaizer opponents. That is, quite frankly, a very unconvincing argument, especially when we have already seen concrete examples of St. Paul's mastery over the Old Testament, not to mention his pitbull-like tendency to grab the very texts his opponents might use in their favor, and use those texts to refute them.

St. Paul does not shy away from texts that might potentially be harmful to his argument; he siezes those texts and executes, in the words of Richard Hays, "hermeneutical jujitsu."

If you take the approach that I am suggesting, that St. Paul is actually arguing faith vs. circumcision, then it becomes clear why he doesn't quote Ps. 106: Phinehas was reckoned as righteous for a work, but this work was performed after his circumcision. Thus, this text does not prove anything for St. Paul - but neither does it disprove his argument, because no matter how many times Phinehas (or anyone else, for that matter) was reckoned as righteous for acts done after circumcision, it does not remove the fact that Abraham was reckoned as righteous before his circumcision.

Thus, my view allows St. Paul's argument to stand irrefutable, without requiring St. Paul to have to avoid certain texts that would damage his position. The view I am advocating preserves the integrity of St. Paul's argument, regardless of the existence of Ps. 106 or Jas. 2.

In summary, then, St. Paul quotes from Genesis 15:6 because he has to prove that circumcision is not a requirement for salvation, and the historical context of Genesis 15:6 shows that Abraham was justified before he received his circumcision in Genesis 17.

To the Head and to the Members

"Here we speak, here our Head speaketh for us. Manifestly both the devil persecuted the Soul of Christ and Judas the Soul of his Master: and now too the same devil remaineth to persecute the Body of Christ, and one Judas succeedeth another ... Do we not see plainly the transition from the Head to the members, from the members to the Head?" (St. Augustine, On the Psalms, Psalm 143, 4-5)

What happens to the members of the body is first experienced by the head of the body. This is the principle that St. Augustine implicitly refers to in the quote above, and it is a principle that we can see being played out in Scripture.

I wish to draw a sort of triple-parallel here: a parallel from head-to-members, members-to-members, and head-to-members again. Confused yet? Let me make it more plain: I wish to highlight the parallels between the experience of Abraham as head of Israel and the corporate body of Israel itself, between Israel as a corporate body and the Church as a corporate body, and between Jesus as head of the Mystical Body and the members of the Mystical Body itself.

The lines do get criss-crossed, but the parallelism is most instructive. Israel is a type of the Church; what happens to Israel first happens, on a micro-scale level, to Abraham; and what happened to Our Lord is happening and will happen to His Body, the Church.

First, we look at the life of Abraham:

1) He went down to Egypt in order to escape the hardships of a famine: "Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land." (Gen. 12:10)

2) When he left Egypt, he left much richer than before he went down, having de-spoiled Egypt in a sense: "And for [Sarai's] sake [Pharaoh] dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, he-asses, menservants, maidservants, she-asses, and camels." (Gen. 12:16)

3) The riches that he brought up out of Egypt led to lack of faith and sin on Abraham's part: "Now Sarai ... had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar ... and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife ... And Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael." (Gen. 16:1, 3, 15)

These experiences are repeated by the corporate body of Israel, hundreds of years after Abraham:

1) Israel went down to Egypt to escape the famine: "There was famine in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread ... all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth ... When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons ... 'Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt; go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live, and not die.'" (Gen. 41:54, 57; 42:1-2)

2) Israel left Egypt richer than when they went down, de-spoiling the Egyptians like Abraham had done: "The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked of the Egyptians jewelry of silver and of gold, and clothing; and the LORD had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they despoiled the Egyptians." (Ex. 12:35-36)

3) The riches that Israel took from Egypt led them into lack of faith and sin: "When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, 'Up, make us gods ... as for this Moses ... we do not know what has become of him.' And Aaron said to them, 'Take off the rings of gold ... and bring them to me.' ... And he received the gold at their hand ... and made a molten calf; and they said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" (Ex. 32:1-4)

That the corporate body of Israel is a type of the Church is made explicit by St. Paul:

I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Now these things are warnings for us, not to desire evil as they did. (1 Cor. 10:1-6)

In summary:

1) Israel was baptized into Moses
2) Israel was baptized in the cloud and the sea
3) Israel ate supernatural food (the manna from heaven)
4) Israel drank supernatural drink (water from the rock, which was Christ)

Likewise:

1) The Church is baptized into Christ
2) The Church is baptized in water and the Spirit (John 3:5)
3) The Church eats the supernatural food of the true manna from heaven, the Eucharist
4) The Church drinks the supernatural drink of Christ's Precious Blood in the Eucharist

All of this brings us to a simple consideration: to what extent will the Church continue to parallel Israel's history? To what extent will the experience of Our Lord, the Head, be repeated in His Body?

Our Lord began as an infant; the early Church is often called "the infant Church."

Our Lord's infancy was marked by the bloody martyrdom of the Holy Innocents in Bethlehem; the Church's infancy was also marked by many martyrdoms and much bloodshed.

Our Lord lived a hidden life for many years, quietly growing up in Nazareth; the Church also spent many decades underground, quietly growing up and branching out across the world.

Our Lord's life reached a sort of popular high point in His three year ministry, the end of which was marked by a decline in popularity; this could be analogous to the Middle Ages, when the world was Catholic through and through, only to be followed by the Reformation, Englightenment, etc., during which time the Church became less and less popular.

This raises the question: if the Head of the Church had to undergo a bloody Passion, will not the Body also have to experience a bloody Passion?

At His Passion, Our Lord was deserted by 9/12 (or 3/4) of His disciples, betrayed by 1/12 of His disciples, and outright denied by St. Peter, His vicar. Only 1/12 of His disciples stayed with Him through the entire ordeal, standing close by His Mother.

I look at this current stage of the Church's History and wonder how close to the Church's Passion we have come. In many ways, Our Lord's modern-day Apostles - the hierarchy of the Church - have deserted Him in fear, while a small-but-significant portion of them have denied Him outright. Once again, St. Peter is absent from the scene, with the promise that 1) Christ prays for him specifically, 2) that he will deny the Christ, 3) but that he will turn again and strengthen his brethren.

Meanwhile, a small remnant - represented by St. John - stay close to the cross and to Our Lady, willing to ride out the storm and suffer whatever comes as a result.

Studying Israel's history seems absolutely necessary at this point. Ezekiel heard from God (Ezek. 20:25) that, in the Deuteronomic Covenant, Israel was purposefully given "laws that were not good, by which they could not live," so that they would finally collapse under the weight of these laws and once-for-all beg God for mercy and grace.

[I note with interest that Ezekiel gives a specific example: God allowed them to defile themselves with bad sacrificial laws - see vs. 26. The law referred to here is detailed in Dt. 12, and I note again with interest that this law of sacrifice was not mandatory, but optional. An Israelite could, if he wanted, continue to follow the older Levitical laws of sacrifice, instead of following the newer Deuteronomic laws. What does that remind you of?]

Those laws served to defile Israel, and sealed their fate: they would be exiled and scattered to the four winds.

How closely does this typify the Church today? Has God allowed us to be handed laws that are not good, by which we can not live, in order to break us and scatter us until we beg for His mercy?

At least we know how this ends. The Head gave His life, as it appears the Body will have to do as well - but He rose again in a new and glorified state; and She will as well. St. Peter denied Him; but St. Peter turned back and was rehabilitated, punctuating his recovery by preaching to thousands of Jews at Pentecost that they had crucified their Messiah, and that they must repent and be baptized.

Given the state of the Jewish-Church relationship today, I don't think it takes a lot of imagination to see that very scenario replayed again in the future - verbatim, as it were.

Feast of St. Matthew

Saint Matthew was a Galilean by birth. In the Gospel he humbly relates the story of his own conversion. To the glory of an apostle he adds that of an evangelist. He wrote his Gospel in Aramaic, and it was afterwards translated into Greek. The Aramaic text has perished. This Gospel is a divinely inspired work included in Sacred Scripture.

He gives the line of ancestors from whom Jesus descended as a man, and on this account is presented by the animal with a human face in the symbolical vision of Ezekiel.

Little is known of his life; the Fathers in general say that he died in Persia. St. Paulinus of Nola asserts that he died amongst the Parthians. When his remains were discovered at Velia and brought to the Cathedral of Salerno, Pope Gregory VII began his journey there, but died on the way, and was buried near the tomb of St. Matthew.

Os justi meditábitur sapiéntiam, et lingua ejus loquétur judícium (Introit, Mass of St. Matthew)

[The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom, and his tongue shall speak judgment]

May we be assisted, O Lord, by the prayers of the blessed apostle and evangelist, Matthew, that what our effort obtaineth not, may be granted us by his intercession. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, forever and ever. Amen. (Collect, Mass of St. Matthew)

At that time, Jesus saw a man sitting in the custom-house, named Matthew; and He said to him, "Follow Me." And he rose up, and followed Him. And it came to pass, as He was sitting at dinner in the house, behold many publicans and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and His disciples. And the pharisees seeing it, said to His disciples, "Why doth your master eat with publicans and sinners?" But Jesus hearing it, said, "They that are in health need not a physician: but they that are ill. Go, then, and learn what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice. For I am not come to call the just, but sinners. " (Matt. 9:9-13; Gospel Reading, Mass of St. Matthew)

"Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could..." (Fragments of Papias, 6)

Casting Shadows, Part 7: St. Paul to the Galatians, continued

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them." Now it is evident that no man is justified before God by the law; for "He who through faith is righteous shall live"; but the law does not rest on faith, for "He who does them shall live by them." Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us - for it is written, "Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree" - that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Gal. 3:10-14)

This short block of text shows us a technique that is uniquely Pauline: the jackhammer-like use of Old Testament quotes, in rapid-fire succession. In the space of four short verses, St. Paul manages to quote four Old Testament passages, strongly imply a fifth Old Testament passage, and evoke the memory of an entire era in Israel's redemptive history.

The four explicitly quoted passages are as follows:

1) "'Cursed be he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'" (Dt. 27:26)
2) "Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith." (Hab. 2:4)
3) "You shall therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances, by doing which a man shall live: I am the LORD." (Lev. 18:5)
4) "And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is accursed by God; you shall not defile your land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance." (Dt. 21:22-23)

Of course, merely showing these four passages does little to help us understand the logic of St. Paul's argument, or why he chose to quote these four passages (and these four specifically) in this specific order. Once more, we must explore the historical context in which these verses were originally written if we are to understand St. Paul's point.

At first glance, we notice one particular fact immediately: this four-link chain of verses begins and ends with the book of Deuteronomy. The significance of this fact will become clearer as we press forward.

First, however, we must look more closely at the passage that is not explicitly quoted by St. Paul, but is strongly implied - and is actually the key to unlocking these four other textual doors.

When St. Paul quotes the Old Testament text that says, "He who does them shall live by them," it is most immediately apparent that he seems to be referring to Lev. 18:5. However, this phrase from Lev. 18:5 appears elsewhere in the prophets as a kind of refrain:

And thou didst warn them in order to turn them back to thy law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey thy commandments, but sinned against thy ordinances, by the observance of which a man shall live, and turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey. (Neh. 9:29)

This refrain appears, most significantly it would seem, no less than three times (in a very short span of verses) in one prophetic book in particular: the book of Ezekiel.

I gave them my statutes and showed them my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live. (Ezek. 20:11)

But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness; they did not walk in my statutes but rejected my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live. (Ezek. 20:13)

But the children rebelled against me; they did not walk in my statutes, and were not careful to observe my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live. (Ezek. 20:21)

Three times in Ezekiel 20 the phrase "by whose observances man shall live" is used - a dense, triple-repetition of the phrase found nowhere else in the Old Testament. For this reason, some scholars argue (rightly, I think) that St. Paul is not quoting Lev. 18:5, but rather, he is quoting Ezekiel 20, who is in turn quoting Lev. 18:5. That is, St. Paul is quoting Lev. 18:5, but in the same manner and with the same meaning given to it by Ezekiel 20.

Thus, Ezekiel 20 is the chapter in the Old Testament in which we will find the necessary context for understanding Gal. 3:10-14 and St. Paul's use of this quote.

Before we delve any deeper in Ezekiel, however, I want to raise one last issue: the structure of Gal. 3, and the apparent discontinuity of St. Paul's argument in vss. 10-14.

In Gal. 3:1-5, St. Paul sets up the dichotomy between "works of the law" and "faith," and between "the Spirit" and "the flesh."

In vss. 6-9, he begins to argue for his position from the story of Abraham, and the Genesis narratives:

Thus Abraham "believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." [Gen. 15:6] So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you [Gen. 12:3] shall all the nations be blessed [Gen. 22:18]." So then, those who are men of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith.

I will quickly note that St. Paul does splice together two quotes from Genesis in the above text: he conflates Gen. 12:3 and Gen. 22:18. In Gen. 12:3 Abram is told "by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves." But in Gen. 22:18, Abraham is told, "in your seed shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves." The Greek in the Septuagint of Gen. 12:3 is pasai ai fulai ("all tribes/families"); the Greek in the Septuagint of Gen. 22:18 is panta ta ethne ("all nations"), which matches the Greek of Gal. 3:8 word-for-word. In brief, St. Paul chooses to include the Gen. 22 version of the blessing because Gen. 12:3 relates the promise of a world-wide blessing, while Gen. 22 relates the occasion when God elevated that promise to the status of a covenant oath: "By myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you ... and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves." (Gen. 22:16-18)

In Gal. 3:10-14, as we have seen, St. Paul begins to argue - using four Old Testament texts - that faith is opposed to the works of the law.

But in vss. 16-18, he returns to Abraham and the Genesis narratives, finally concluding in the last verse of Gal. 3, "And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise."

It does appear, at first glance, that vss. 10-14 mark a momentary departure from St. Paul's overall argument; he argues from Abraham's story consistently throughout chapter 3, but seemingly leaves that argument behind for a few verses while he contrasts faith and works of the law.

This departure is an illusion, however, and the illusion fades away upon close inspection of St. Paul's logic and the main point of his argument in vss. 10-14. To that question, then, we now return.

In order to understand the full meaning behind vss. 10-14, we have to examine Ezekiel 20. The section of verses spanning from 5-26 is what interests us, because this section of Ezekiel 20 recounts the tainted history of Israel. It may be divided up into three sections, as is shown below. Following Dr. Scott Hahn's excellent analysis of this text, we note the repeating themes in these verses: A divine oath; the saying, "I am the Lord"; Israel's rebellion; the threat of judgment; divine restraint. These parallels are underlined in the text:

Section 1: Israel in Egypt

On the day when I chose Israel, I swore to the seed of the house of Jacob, making myself known to them in the land of Egypt, I swore to them, saying, I am the LORD your God. On that day I swore to them that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands. And I said to them, Cast away the detestable things your eyes feast on, every one of you, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the LORD your God. But they rebelled against me and would not listen to me; they did not every man cast away the detestable things their eyes feasted on, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt. Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they dwelt, in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt. (Ezek. 20:5-9)

Section 2: The First Generation (Sinai)

So I led them out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness. I gave them my statutes and showed them my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live. Moreover I gave them my sabbaths, as a sign between me and them, that they might know that I the LORD sanctify them. But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness; they did not walk in my statutes but rejected my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live; and my sabbaths they greatly profaned. Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them in the wilderness, to make a full end of them. But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out. Moreover I swore to them in the wilderness that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands, because they rejected my ordinances and did not walk in my statutes, and profaned my sabbaths; for their heart went after their idols. Nevertheless my eye spared them, and I did not destroy them or make a full end of them in the wilderness. (Ezek. 20:10-17)

Section 3: The Second Generation (Deuteronomy)

And I said to their children in the wilderness, Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, nor observe their ordinances, nor defile yourselves with their idols. I the LORD am your God; walk in my statutes, and be careful to observe my ordinances, and hallow my sabbaths that they may be a sign between me and you, that you may know that I the LORD am your God. But the children rebelled against me; they did not walk in my statutes, and were not careful to observe my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live; they profaned my sabbaths. Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the wilderness. But I withheld my hand, and acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out. Moreover I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them through the countries, because they had not executed my ordinances, but had rejected my statutes and profaned my sabbaths, and their eyes were set on their fathers' idols. Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life; and I defiled them through their very gifts in making them offer by fire all their first-born, that I might horrify them; I did it that they might know that I am the LORD. (Ezek. 20:18-26)

If we read these three sections carefully, we can pick out unique elements that show us the historical sequence being recounted by God through Ezekiel:

1) "I led them out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness." (v. 10)

2) "I gave them my statutes and showed them my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live." (vs. 11, referring to Sinai)

3) "But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness ... rejected my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live." (vs. 13, referring to the Golden Calf)

4) "Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them in the wilderness, to make a full end of them." (v. 13, referring to Ex. 32, when Moses interceded for Israel)

5) "I swore to them in the wilderness that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them." (v. 15, referring to the bad report given by the 10 spies in Numbers 13 and 14, when God condemned the first generation to die in the wilderness)

6) "I said to their children in the wilderness..." (vs. 18, now speaking of the second generation)

7) "But the children rebelled against me ... and were not careful to observe my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live." (vs. 21, referring to the worship of idols at Baal-Peor in Num. 25)

8) "I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the wilderness." (vs. 21, see Num. 25, where God sends a plague to destroy Israel, and only by the zealous act of Phineas is the plague lifted)

9) "I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them through the countries." (vs. 23, referring to the covenant sworn with Israel in Deut. 27-32, where their exile is assured)

The triple-repitition of the phrase "my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live," is countered in verse 25 by the phrase, "Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life." We will come back to the meaning of this verse in a moment.

The three uses of the phrase "I swore" in Ezek. 20 actually correspond to the usage of the same phrase in those three stages of Israel's history, thus strongly supporting this "chronological" interpretation of Ezekiel 20.

Ezekiel 20	Israel's History
Out of Egypt
I swore to them that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt (vs. 6)	I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD. (Ex. 6:8)
First Generation
I swore to them in the wilderness that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them (vs. 15)	As I live [oath formula], says the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you ... not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. (Num. 14:28, 30)
Second Generation
I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations (vs. 23)	I will stir them to jealousy with those who are no people; I will provoke them with a foolish nation ... I will heap evils upon them; I will spend my arrows upon them ... the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly ... For I lift up my hand to heaven, and swear. (Dt. 32:21, 23, 35, 40)

Now we return to the question: what does God mean when He says, through Ezekiel, "I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life?" The answer is as simple as pointing out where in the chronology of Israel's history this verse falls. It is verse 25, which is at the end of Ezekiel's third stage of Israel's history, the Deuteronomic renewal of the Mosaic Covenant.

The following verse (v. 26) bears this out: "I defiled them through their very gifts in making them offer by fire all their first-born, that I might horrify them." The meaning of this verse is disputed, and most of the commentaries that I have read interpret this verse to mean Israel's offering their children in sacrifice to the god Molech. That interpretation is not convincing, however, for a few reasons: 1) God says that He is the one who "made them offer" the "first-born," and God would certainly not sanction child sacrifice to a false god; 2) the text only says "first-born," it says nothing about human children; 3) the god Molech was not particular about receiving only first-born sacrifices, thus making the "first-born" stipulation in this verse superfluous if it is referring to Molech.

If what we have been saying about Ezekiel's chronology is true, and if this third stage of Israel's history is in view (the Deuteronomic stage), then we should expect to find something about first-born sacrifices in the Deuteronomic Law - and we do.

In the original Levitical Law, God said that "firstling of animals ... as a firstling belongs to the LORD." (Lev. 27:26) There was something intrinsically special about a first-born, even a first-born among the animals, such that it was considered the possession of the Lord. Such an animal could not be exchanged or substituted: "If it is an animal such as men offer as an offering to the LORD ... He shall not substitute anything for it or exchange it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a good ... no devoted thing that a man devotes to the LORD ... shall be sold or redeemed." (Lev. 27:9-10, 28)

In the Deuteronomic Law, however, this requirement was lifted:

And before the LORD your God, in the place which he will choose [i.e., The Jerusalem Temple] ... you shall eat the tithe of your grain ... and the firstlings of your herd and flock ... if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to bring the tithe ... then you shall turn it [the tithe] into money, and bind up the money in your hand, and go to the place which the LORD your God chooses, and spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen, or sheep, or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves; and you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. (Dt. 14:23-26)

This is a rather drastic change! The first-born animals, which Leviticus says belong to the Lord precisely because they are first-born, can now be exchanged for some other offering - that is, the Israelite could redeem his first-born animal with money, choosing instead to purchase some other kind of offering at the Temple ("oxen, or sheep, or wine or strong drink").

This is an example of a law given in Deuteronomy that God says was "not good."

One brief word about the text as I have quoted it from the RSV: though the RSV has the words "making them offer by fire all their first-born," the oldest manuscripts do not appear to have these words. St. Jerome's Vulgate, using Hebrew manuscripts dating back to at least the 5th century, simply has pollui eos in muneribus suis cum offerrent omne quod aperit vulvam propter delicta sua et scient quia ego Dominus, that is, "I polluted them in their own gifts, when they offered all that opened the womb, for their offences: and they shall know that I am the Lord."

The pollution of the gifts appears here as simply a pollution pertaining to the offering of "all that opened the womb," without any reference to an offering made by fire.

To tie all of this back to Gal. 3:10-14, we can say something like this: the phrase "my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live," which is quoted by St. Paul in Gal. 3 and quoted three times by Ezekiel 20, is meant to evoke that triple-repitition of the phrase in Ezekiel as well as the counter-statement in Ezekiel 20, "I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life" - a statement that refers directly and specifically to the Deuteronomic Renewal of the Mosaic Covenant.

Thus, with Deuteronomy firmly fixed as the focal point of Gal. 3:10-14, we begin to see why St. Paul began and ended his series of quotations in 10-14 with explicit quotes from Deuteronomy. He quotes from the book of Deuteronomy at the beginning and at the end, forming a set of textual bookends that frame his implicit quote from Ezekiel 20, in order to already get the reader thinking in terms of the Deuteronomic Law - and to prepare the reader to recall Ezekiel 20 and its detailed references to those laws which were "not good."

The first quote, from Dt. 27:26, is a summary verse which represents all of Deuteronomy 27 - and all of the chilling words contained therein.

The chapter in question contains instructions for a covenant swearing ceremony to be performed by the Israelites after they cross the Jordan. Six tribes were to stand on Mount Ebal and six were to stand on Mount Gerizim (27:12-13), while the Levites called out a series of twelve curses - that is, covenant oaths.

And the Levites shall declare to all the men of Israel with a loud voice: 'Cursed be the man who makes a graven or molten image, an abomination to the LORD, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret.' And all the people shall answer and say, 'Amen.'

'Cursed be he who dishonors his father or his mother.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.' (Dt. 27:14-16)

And on it goes, until we reach the summary verse, quoted by St. Paul: "'Cursed be he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'"

But this is not the end. The following chapters, 27-32, demonstrate that these twelve curses were not "maybe" curses, but were in fact certain and sure predictions.

Deuteronomy 28 begins, "all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God," and then goes on from vss. 3-14 enumerating the blessings for obedience. Verse 15 begins "if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God ... then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you." It then goes on from vss. 16-68 enumerating all of the covenant curses. Recognize the lack of balance: eleven verses of blessing; fifty-two verses of curses, ending with words that promise a future exile: "the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. And among these nations you shall find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot; but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart, and failing eyes, and a languishing soul." (vss. 64-65)

Chapter 30 begins with words that presume Israel's future failure: "And when [note: not "if"] all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, and return to the LORD your God, you and your children ... then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes, and have compassion upon you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you." (Dt. 30:1-3)

Exile is a given at this point. It is inevitable. Israel will fall, and they will be scattered to the nations, because in His mercy (!) God gave them laws by which they could not live, and laws which were not good. In essence, He gave them the laws they thought they wanted, which would eventually drive them to utter collapse - and eventually, when they had received their fill of everything they thought they wanted, they would wake up in exile and finally "return to the LORD your God."

It is this promise of inevitable curse and exile, curses which were part and parcel of the very Deuteronomic Laws given to Israel - I say it is all of this that St. Paul is calling to mind when he quotes the summary verse of Deut. 27, the verse which says in essence, "you will be thoroughly cursed."

St. Paul then goes on to say, after reminding his opponents of the built-in failure of the Deuteronomic Law, "Now it is evident that no man is justified before God by the law; for 'He who through faith is righteous shall live.'" (Gal. 3:11) This quote comes from the prophet Habbakuk.

Habbakuk's prophecy begins with God saying, "lo, I am rousing the Chaldeans [i.e., Babylon], that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize habitations not their own [i.e., Jerusalem]." (Hab. 1:6)

The prophet complains to God, "why dost thou look on faithless men, and art silent when the wicked [i.e, Babylon] swallows up the man more righteous than he [i.e., Jerusalem]?" (vs. 13) In other words, how is it just and right for God to use Babylon as His chastening rod, when Babylon Herself is in need of serious chastening?

God answers in chapter 2 that Babylon will be punished for Her wickedness, but not before She first enslaves Israel; justice will be done, but it will seem for a period of time that injustice reigns. In that interim period, the righteous man will have to live by faith and not by sight, for what he sees will seem contrary to what he knows: "For still the vision awaits its time ... wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith." (2:3-4)

Why does St. Paul contrast this to his capsule summary of the Deuteronomic Law? Because the situation described in Habbakuk - the exile of Israel, all of the curses of the covenant, etc. - is still the situation when St. Paul is writing to the Galatians. Israel/Jerusalem is still enslaved to a Gentile nation, only now it's not Babylon, but Rome. Babylon was only the beginning of the exile period; it was the prophet Daniel who foresaw the true duration of the exile:

I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years which, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes ...

"As it is written in the law of Moses [i.e., Deuteronomy], all this calamity has come upon us, yet we have not entreated the favor of the LORD our God, turning from our iniquities and giving heed to thy truth. ... O LORD, forgive; O LORD, give heed and act; delay not, for thy own sake, O my God, because thy city and thy people are called by thy name."

While I was speaking and praying ... the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight ... and he said to me, "O Daniel, I have now come out to give you wisdom and understanding ... Seventy weeks of years are decreed concerning your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity ... (Dan. 9)

Seventy weeks of years, or 70 x 7 years, translates to 490 years of exile - bringing Israel right up to the time of Christ, and to the period in which St. Paul was writing.

Thus, the message to Habbakuk is the same message to the Jews of St. Paul's day: the righteous man will live by faith during the years that the covenant curses are being enforced, and, as St. Paul says, this life of faith is in contrast to living by the "works of the law" of the cursed Deuteronomic/Mosaic Covenant.

Taking all of this background context into account, we may paraphrase St. Paul in vss. 10-11 this way: "For all who rely on the works of the Deuteronomic/Mosaic Covenant are under the curses of that covenant; for it is written in Deuteronomy that we Jews would inevitably fall under God's curse and go into exile. Now it is evident, even now as you look around you at your Roman exile, that no man is justified before God by that cursed covenant; for just as the Jews in Habbakuk's time went into exile and had to live by faith, and could no longer follow the Mosaic Law, so also we today are still in exile and must live by faith - and not under that cursed covenant."

From this he moves effortlessly into his target text of Ezekiel 20 - again, we could paraphrase this way: "but the Deuteronomic Law does not rest on faith, for as Ezekiel said, we were given laws in Deuteronomy by which we could not live, and whose purpose was to ultimately send us into exile until we begged for mercy - which exile we are still living under today."

So what is the solution to this situation? Everything we have said so far sets us up perfectly to understand St. Paul's next words: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us - for it is written, 'Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree.'" (Gal. 3:13)

That quotation comes from no other book than Deuteronomy. The text is as follows: "And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is accursed by God; you shall not defile your land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance." (Dt. 21:22-23)

But wait a minute, St. Paul! The man who hangs on a tree is accursed by God. Jesus was God, so are we saying here that God was cursed by God? Exactly. And this is precisely why Gal. 3:10-14 is in no way disassociated with St. Paul's main argument in the rest of Gal. 3, the argument from Abraham's story.

It was to Abraham that God swore - by His own Holy Name - to bless all the nations through Abraham's seed. A covenant is a two-sided thing, you see; it comes with a curse attached to it, a curse that goes into effect if the party who swore fails to hold up his end of the covenant. God, in effect, said to Abraham, "I swear by my own Name that I will bless you and your seed, and all the nations along with you - even if it means bearing the curse when your seed, Israel, violates my covenant."

And so, after recounting in vss. 10-14 how Israel failed miserably and fell under the covenant curse, it is only logical for St. Paul to exclaim, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law" - the Deuteronomic curses - "having become a curse for us!" He bore the very curse detailed in Deuteronomy by hanging on a tree, thus lifting the curse from Abraham's seed and opening the way for all of the blessings - justification itself - that was promised to Abraham, to his seed, and to the nations.

There is, even in this statement, a bit of Old Testament typology at work. In Joshua 9, Joshua is tricked by the Gibeonites into swearing a covenant of peace with them:

And Joshua made peace with them, and made a covenant with them, to let them live; and the leaders of the congregation swore to them. At the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them, they heard that they were their neighbors, and that they dwelt among them ... But the people of Israel did not kill them, because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the LORD, the God of Israel. Then all the congregation murmured against the leaders. But all the leaders said to all the congregation, "We have sworn to them by the LORD, the God of Israel, and now we may not touch them. This we will do to them, and let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of the oath which we swore to them." (Josh. 9:15-20)

Later in Israel's history, this covenant with the Gibeonites was violated. King Saul, in his zeal, slaughtered the Gibeonites, and thus brought a curse upon Israel.

Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the LORD. And the LORD said, "There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death." So the king called the Gibeonites. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to slay them in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. (2 Sam. 21:1-2)

So how do the Israelites atone for their violation of the covenant and thus lift the curse?

And David said to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you? And how shall I make expiation, that you may bless the heritage of the LORD?" The Gibeonites said to him, "It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel." And he said, "What do you say that I shall do for you?" They said to the king, "The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, let seven of his sons be given to us, so that we may hang them up before the LORD at Gibeon on the mountain of the LORD." And the king said, "I will give them." ... and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before the LORD, and the seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest. (2 Sam. 21:3-9)

The curse of the violated covenant was lifted - redeemed - by the putting to death of the sons of the man who violated the covenant. When viewed in this way, the typology stands out clearly: God lifts the curse of the violated Israelite/Deuteronomic covenant by putting to death His own Son, but first He makes His Son to become a Son of Israel, born of Jewish blood. Thus, just as the hanging of Saul's sons atoned for the violated covenant, so also the hanging on a tree of Israel's Son atones for the covenant violation which Israel committed.

This is why St. Paul can continue with his Abrahamic argument, after quoting Deuteronomy 21: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us ... that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles." (Gal. 3:13-14)

To summarize, then, St. Paul has leveled an irrefutable argument against his Judaizer opponents. They desired to impose circumcision and the Mosaic Law upon the New Covenant Christians, saying, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." (Acts 15:1) St. Paul reminds them, through careful and strategic use of four - or rather, five - Old Testament texts, that the Mosaic Covenant is under a curse, and that to place yourself under that Law is to place yourself back under the Deuteronomic curses.

The Levites who shouted the covenant curses on the plains of Moab in Deuteronomy 27, then, become an institutional reminder of the curse. Even in St. Paul's day, the priests of the temple had to have been a reminder to the Jews of this Deuteronomic curse - but apparently they had forgotten this, and thus St. Paul has to remind them by quoting from Deuteronomy 27 itself.

His argument is irrefutable because the curses of the Deuteronomic covenant were still visible at the time St. Paul was writing: the Roman enslavement of Jerusalem was only a continuation of the Babylonian enslavement that had begun in Habbakuk's time. If Christ had redeemed them from that awful curse, by bearing the Deuteronomic curse of hanging on a tree, why - asks St. Paul, in effect - would they ever desire to leave the New Covenant of grace and freedom and place themselves back under covenant of curse and slavery? This freedom/slavery dichotomy is a seedling argument that St. Paul initially plants here in chapter 3, and returns to develop it more fully in chapter 4 by way of the Hagar/Sarah allegory.