I confess to you, my brothers and sisters…I was a total slacker this morning and slept in when I ought to have been singing the morning office in honor of Michael and all angels. Here’s my penance:

Archangel Michael, great protector
Shield us from the demons’ wrath;
Of the angels, great director
Keep our feet from error’s path.

True defender of the Chosen,
Mighty prince of Israel
In the burning wastes and frozen
Kept the Lord’s own people well.

Now the nations call upon thee,
Leader of the heavenly band,
Hail the hosts with weapons fiery
Lead them forth by thy command

Furthermore this day we honor
All the heavenly hosts abroad;
Messengers of His high Splendor,
Those who do the will of God.

Burning seraphs tend the altar
Voices hymning in accord
Chant the song that shall not falter,
“Holy, holy, holy, Lord.”

Fire-formed spirits of the Maker,
God-breathed race of wind and flame,
Servants of the high Creator,
Do the will of that great Name

Blessed Michael, we beseech thee,
And thy nine-choir’d kin,*
May our supplications reach thee,
Keep us pure and free from sin.

To the High World-Shaper glory
And to Christ, His only Son,
Of the Spirit tell the story,
While the ages ever run.

* This is a line of spondees thus the beat goes |And thy | nine | choir’d | kin.

It’s iambic tetrameter. I have no clue what tune to put it too but there are plenty out there–pick one! ;-)

* Things are off-the-hook busy around work these days and I’ve been applying my few blasted brain cells to juggling matters there. If you’re expecting correspondence from me it may be a couple of days…

* Restructuring of chapter 2 is stalling. I feel like I’ve got a buch of wooden blocks, I’m trying to build the right shape with them but I also know I need to saw/sand and otherwise change the shape of several of them to get it to work right.

* I was home over the weekend which was nice and much needed. (I go there most weekends but it was particularly nice this past week-end as a respite.) At one point Lil’ G was playing in my bag and pulled out my Office book. She started paging through it and saying “Amen…Amen…Amen…Amen” When M asked her what the book was she said “the God is Great book.” (The mealtime prayer there is always “God is great, God is good…” so that’s apparently become her short-hand for prayer.

* Intelligent Design meets…well, it’s hysterical. Hat tip to Dr. Cook at Ralph the Sacred River.

*Anastasia tagged me for the five idiosyncracies meme. Umm…still working on it. Do I have idiosyncracies? My ways of being are natural to me–sometimes it’s hard to say what’s odd… I’m sure Dave and others will be happy to suggest some lest I miss them… ;-)

* More later as brain cells regenerate.

Last night I wrote one of the best paragraphs I think I’ve written for the diss that absolutely grabs the heart of chapter two. Here it is:

The interpretation of a text is fundamentally shaped by the circumstances within which it is normatively encountered. The Gospel of Matthew was normatively encountered by early medieval monastics within the context of the liturgy, Mass and Office. The reading of Matthew within these liturgies was understood as a means of direct communication between Christ—made present as mediated by the Gospel-book—and the community at prayer. The reading of Matthew was the presentation of authoritative teachings on life, death, morals, and doctrine by Christ to His people. Complex levels and layers of meaning were teased from the text and presented for the edification of the gathered community by the preacher with the assistance of the Tradition—understood to agree but not be univocal—also presented and transmitted through the liturgy. To understand early medieval monastic exegesis and the catechetical hermeneutic, then, is to understanding the process of learning for and learning through the liturgy that grounded this encounter and the communal interpretation of Matthew.

The bad news is, now I need to rethink and restructure chapter 2 in light of this new moment of clarity. Dang. Much will be accomplished by the use of cut and paste during this period, but shuffling sections is always an awkward process compositionally since you’re no longer heading in exactly the same direction so topic sentences need revision, paragraphs must be revised in light of their topic sentences, etc.

Classical, we make the distinction between invention, arrangement, and style (mewmory and delivery are the other two since rhetorical composition was originally for oral delivery). Cicero and others imply that these are concrete–but not for me. One of the accurate criticisms that my director had as we struggled through my proposal is that the act of writing rather than abstract conceptualization is where a lot of my thoughts arise. It’s when I’m writing the actual document that I get cool new insights; my arrangement and style become my invention. That’s wonderful, but in order to make a coherent presentation I ought therefore to go back and re-arrange. That’s what this dissertation has been a process of doing. I reconceptualized and re-outlined chapter one at least three or four times and I’ve been doing the same with chapter two. With one it wasn’t until I had about 75% of the text that things really clicked. Hopefully this paragraph should fully cement the structure of 2 but we’ll see if that turns out to be the case in the long run.

Hmm. reading it over I’m not completely happy with the prose styling… The concepts are there but some of the expressions could use work…

At Mass last night the lector read a section of 2 Timothy 3 as the Epistle for the feast of St Matthew. This inlcudes good ol’ 3:16 which actually is a favorite verse of mine:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

I suppose I have a medieval view of this passge. Every little jot in the text has some sort of meaning–even if you have to reach for it–and that a moral or theological teaching about how to grow in righteousness and virtue is secreted away where you would least expected it.

But the thought that came to mind last night was, “Huh–that’s odd, some how *proof-texting* got left off the list. Wonder how that happened…”

I. Introduction

Early medieval service books—sacramentaries, collectars, psalters, etc.—often began with kalendars (the ‘k’ is a convention used to identify this particular genre). Various kinds of information are collected within these documents. They cover twelve pages—one for each month. At the top of each month is collected information. This can be as simple as the month’s name, but most kalendars give the name of the month in several languages, the signs of the Zodiac that fall within the month, and identify the number of days in the month. The number of hours contained in the day and night are often found either at the top or bottom of the page.

Below this introductory material, the days of the month are laid on in a single column following the Roman reckoning (counting days until the Nones, Ides, and Kalends of each month). Letters and/or numbers typically appear here for the sake of calculating the days of the week. There is an adequate space for notes after each day. Saint’s days or other fixed occasions appear here. Other seasonal information especially notes of an astronomical or astrological nature are noted here as well. Sometimes the deaths of local or national notables were entered into kalendars. An example may be found here, taken from the Leofric Missal, folio 39r.

The Menologium is an Old English poem written in heroic meter that summarizes the key points of the Kalendar, noting the beginning days of each month and the important liturgical observances that fall within it. Clearly, its author had a kalendar before him as he worked; the purpose of the composition is less clear. Perhaps it served as a method for teaching young monks the basics of the kalendar. Perhaps it served to instruct those destined to be parish priests in the feast-days that they must observe. Certainly in an age of limited clerical literacy a memorized form would have been a helpful pedagogical tool. Its original purpose notwithstanding, it gives us an important window onto the way that the Anglo-Saxon clergy constructed time.

II. Methodology

I have chosen to be extremely literal and wooden in this rendering into English—I hesitate to call it a translation. I opted to do this for a number of reasons. First, translating poetry into prose changes the entire shape of the document and how a reader approaches it. To alter the form is to change the text in ways that need not occur. Second, translating poetry into prose forcibly resolves certain ambiguities built into poetry. Part of the art of poetry is poetic multivalence—a disjunctive phrase can mean a couple of different things within a poem; to turn it into prose is to resolve the ambiguity, normally selecting one and only one of the many possible options. Third, by maintaining the line structure of the poem, someone with little or no knowledge of Old English can compare my rendering with the original (found here) and gain a sense of what the original text was like and—furthermore—cite line numbers that correspond to the standard modern edition (of course, the original was written without line-breaks; these are a modern editorial convention).

The work below will seem very stilted and choppy; that’s partly because it’s quick-and-dirty. It’s partly due, however, to the nature of OE verse. Thus, a quick intro to OE verse is necessary. First, OE poetry is distinguished by heightened diction and, pre-eminently, by patterns of alliteration. This will seem odd to our ears and eyes at first—OE poetry did not rhyme but instead shared a pattern of repeating initial sounds. Second, each line is split by a caesura—a pause—effectively dividing it into two half-lines. Alliteration links the two half-lines together. Each of these half-lines tends to be quite short ranges from two to five words. Furthermore, the OE heroic verse tradition will often break the narrative flow of a poem by inserting epithets (a descriptive term linked to a proper name), antinomasia (a distinctive term without a proper name), or kennings (descriptive poetic neologisms that are essentially one or two word riddles). (For more info, see the standard introductory work, Mitchell and Robinson’s Guide to Old English or—better yet—the third book of Snorri Sturlson’s Prose Edda which contains the only treatise on Germanic poetics that survives from the Middle Ages).

Thus, here are the first four lines in OE with some markings. The alliterative sounds are bolded; antinomasia are in italics.

Crist wæs acynned, cyniga wuldor,
on midne winter, mære þeoden,
ece ælmihtig, on þy eahteoðan dæg
Hælend gehaten, heofenrices weard.

[æ= ‘a’ as in cat; þ= ‘th’ as in think; ð = ‘th’ as in this]

So, some of the odd English below is a result of keeping closely to the patterns and conventions established here. A few of the phrases I’m really unsure about–they’re set off with brackets.

III. Rendering into (Modern) English

Christ was born, the king of glory
in the midst of winter, sublime prince,
eternally almighty. On the eighth day
the Savior was named, the guardian of the heavenly kingdom.
So the same time a great company,
a countless people, have the new year,
because the month comes, we think,
on the same day to town:
the first month, which the great people
formerly called Ianuarius
and after the fifth night, that baptism-time
of the eternal Lord comes to us,
his famous twelfth-day,
the battle-brave hero, observed in Britain
here in this land. Likewise after four weeks
that Solmonath (Feb) comes to town
without two nights, as you count them,
fair Februarius, wise warrior,
old law-learned one. And after one night
we celebrate the mass for Mary,
mother of the King, because she Christ on that day,
the Son of the Ruler, brought to the temple.
Then after five nights, over is
winter in the camp. The warrior then
after seventeen numbered nights
suffered death, the thane of the Savior,
the glorious Matthias, as I have heard.
Then Spring has been brought to town,
to men in the camp. Likewise as is well known
after three and two (days), to men everywhere
comes the month to commoners and lords
(except when the extra day is announced properly
every fourth year; then it comes further
one night later to our town),
adorned with ice, it brings hailstorms
around the earth, cruel Martius
proud Hlyda (Mar). Then the saint
after eleven nights, the shining noble,
Gregory, in the faith of God,
glorious in Britain. Likewise Benedict
after nine nights thus sought the Savior,
hardy and brave, then praised well
in wise writings, servant of the Ruler,
by rule-fast men. Likewise also by counting-craft
in the same time the equinox is observed,
for the Lord God created at the beginning
on this same day the sun and moon.
Ho, after four nights the Father sent,
from when the equinox the lords observe,
his archangel, salvation was announced
to the great Mary, that she the Creator should
bear, the best of kings, as it is known
throughout the earth; it was a glorious event,
well-known to the people! Likewise after four and three
nights-counted, then the Savior sent
the month Aprelis, in which frequently comes
that glorious time, to the joy of men,
when the Lord arose; then rejoicing is fitting
everywhere wide abroad as the prophet sang:
“This is the day when the Lord for us
the Wise One acted, for the nations of men,
to all happy earth-dwellers with joy.”
We cannot this time calculate by counting
the number of days, nor the Ascension of the Lord
up into the heaven, because it ever changes
with the reckoning of the wise but shall the wise-with-winters
in the cycle find with skill the holy days.
We should nevertheless yet
the remembrance of the martyrs hereafter reckon,
Advancing forth with words, to sing the matter,
that after nineteen nights and five,
then in Eastermonath (Apr) comes to us
when men the relics of saints begin to lift up,
with holy adornment; that is an exalted day,
the famous Great Litany. Likewise in the city quickly
after six more nights, elegant in ornaments,
with trees and herbs, comes radiant to move
gloriously into town. Brings with benefit,
great Maius everywhere around the host.
On the same day, the coming of the nobles,
Philip and James, who gave up their lives,
the bold vassals, for the love of the Creator.
And after two nights then God showed
the more blessed Elena the most noble cross,
on which suffered the Lord of Angels
for love of men, the Creator on the gallows
by leave of the Father. Likewise after the first week
less one night then it brings to men
sun-bright days, summer to town.
with warm weather. Then the fields quickly
flower with blossoms, likewise happiness rises
around the earth among many classes
the living people, speaking praise
to the manifold King, honoring his excellence,
the Almighty. Then after eight and nine
days are counted, then the Lord received
into the other light Augustine
cheerful in heart, who when he was here in Britain
the lords obeyed him in following
the will of God, as the wise one commanded him—
Gregory. Nor have I ever heard of a man of old
any before, who ever brought
over the salty sea better teachings than
the famous bishop. Now in Britain he rests
in Canterbury near the throne,
in the famous minster. Then the month brings
after two and four, a long time
before Litha (Jun) to us to town
Iunius in former times, in which the jewel rises
up in the heavens, the highest in the year,
the brightest of the stars, and descend to its station,
going down to its seat. Then it will the wide 
earth behold and go about slower
over the earthen world the fairest light
of the creations of the world. Then the thane of glory
after thirteen, the favorite of the Lord,
John, in former days was born,
and ten nights also. We that time keep
in mid summer greatly with nobility.
Widely is honored, as is well-fitting
the time of the saints around the heroic men,
Peter and Paul. Lo, the apostles
faithful to their Lord, suffered in Rome
after mid-summer, as is greatly known,
five nights further, terrible tribulation,
a famous martyrdom; they had formerly many
wonders worked among the nations
such that they after accomplished countless
manifestations and signs through the Son of the Creator,
the chief retainers. Then at once comes
after two nights the time to us,
Julius month, in which Jamesa
fter four nights, giving his life,
and twenty, secure in his heart,
wise and steadfast teacher of the people
son of Zebedee. And then the feast comes
after seven nights when the summer brightens,
Weodmonath (Aug) to town everywhere comes
Augustus to the mighty people
Loaf-mass Day. So the harvest comes
after this time without any lack
beautiful, fruit-laden; prosperity is revealed
fair in the fields. Then forth is known
after three (?) nights, the people are strengthened
through the martyrdom of, famous deacon,
Laurence, had now life after
with the Glory-Father, from afflictions to a reward.
Likewise then after five days, the fairest maiden,
the wife of Glory, sought the Lord of Hosts
for the peace of her Son, a victorious home
in paradise; the Savior had then
a fair foster-reward, a recompense to the woman
forever and ever. Then indeed is,
after ten nights the time when honored
Bartholomew is, here in Britain,
an event well-honored. Likewise also widely
by lords is uttered the death of the noble one
after four nights, who the Fair One formerly
sprinkled with water, the royal child of glory,
the man fittingly. Concerning him the Ruler said
that no man greater upon earth
from a woman and man would be born.
And then after three nights among many men
then Haligmonth (Sep) appointed for men
comes to the people, as it by the prudent,
the ancient most wise, formerly was founded,
fair Septembres and that on the seventh day
then was born the greatest of queens
the mother of the Lord. Then a number of days
after thirteen, an honorable thane,
the wise evangelist, offered his spirit
Matthew to his decree of fate,in eternal joy.
Then altogether comes
after three nights thus to the people widely
the day of equinox, to the oldest men.
Lo, we honor widely around the earth
the archangel’s time at the harvest,
Michael so that many know
five nights after when to the people
by the lords announced the equinox.
And after two nights then the Teotha month (Oct)
comes to the people, to the wise in thought,
October into town to us in abundance,
Winter-filled, as they widely say
on the island of the Angles and Saxons,
men with wives. Likewise the time of warriors
after twenty, the two heroes,
and seven nights, namely together
in one day. We then of the nobles
of old learn, that the illustrious
Simon and Jude, are feasted,
dear to the Lord; because they obtained their doom,
the blessed ascent. And then speedily comes
after four nights to the abundance of the people
Blotmonath (Nov) to town, as men know,
Novembris, down to men
blessedness, as no other does
a month more of the mercy of the Lord.
And on the same day we all keep
the feast of the saints who in death or before it
worked in the world the will of the Lord.
Afterward the day of winter widely comes
on the sixth night, [sun-bright receives
a harvest with praise] of ice and snow
fettered with frost, by the command of the Master,
that we might not dwell in green lands,
adorned fields. Then after four nights
then Martin, the famous death-date,
a man without error sought the Ruler,
Lord of Angels. Then after eight nights
and four then went to God,
sunk into the sea-ground, a victorious man,
thrown into the sea, who formerly many men
upon Clement often called upon when in need.
And then after seven nights, dear to the victory-Lord,
noble Andrew up on a cross
gave up his ghost in the faith of God,
eager in the journey. Then is brought to the people
morning to men, a month to town,
Decembris, to the men of the armies,
formerly Yula (Dec). Likewise after eight and twelve
counted-nights then the Savior himself
with braveness gave Thomas
with hardships the eternal kingdom,
with boldness the hero-man his blessing.
Then after four nights then the Father of Angels
sent his Son into this vast creation
to comfort the people. Now you may find
the times of the saints which a man shall keep
as the command was commanded around the British kingdom
by the Saxon kings at this same time.

IIII. Brief Commentary

In a preliminary comparison between the Menologium and two early eleventh century kalendars from Winchester (BM Cotton Ms. Titus D. xxvii, ff. 3-8b and Cam. TC Ms. R. 15.32 pp. 15-26 [Wormald’s 9-10]) shows that the Menologium is correct except for a single odd error and that, in the main, it contains the feasts in the kalendars that have vigils appointed for them. (Important medieval feasts can be ascertained in two ways: 1) they have octaves—additional celebrations one week after the original date, and 2) they have vigils.) Of course, it must be noted that the two kalendars (the only ones I have on hand) are defective and have no vigils marked until The Nativity of St John the Baptist (June 24). Nevertheless, here are the observances of the Menologium in order. Feasts with vigils in these two kalendars are in bold:
Christmas (Dec 25)
Circumcision (Jan 1) [not listed but the vigil would have to be marked on Dec 31]
January 1
Epiphany (Jan 6)
February 1
Purification of the BVM (Feb 2)
Spring begins (Feb 7)
St Matthias (Feb 24)
March 1
St Gregory (Mar 12)
St Benedict (Mar 21)
Spring Equinox (Mar 21)
Annunciation of the BVM (Mar 25)
April 1
Easter (no date given)
Ascension (no date given)
Rogation Days/Letania Maior (Apr 25)
May 1
Sts Philip and James (May 1)
Invention of the Holy Cross (May 3)
Summer begins (May 9)
Augustine of Canterbury (May 26)
June 1
Nat. of John the Baptist (Jun 24)
Sts Peter and Paul (Jun 29)
July 1
St James (Jul 25)
Lammas Day (Aug 1)
Laurence (Aug 10)
The Assumption of the BVM (Aug 15)
St Bartholomew (Aug 25)
Decollation of John the Baptist (Aug 29)
September 1
Nat. of the BVM (Sep 8)
St Matthew (Sep 21)
Autumn Equinox (Sep 24) [Roman]
St Michael and All Angels (Sep 29)
October 1
Sts Simon and Jude (Oct 28)
November 1
All Saints (Nov 1)
Winter begins (Nov 7)
St Martin (Nov 11) [no vigil in these kalendars, but it does have an octave]
St Clement (Nov 23)
St Andrew (Nov 30)
December 1
St Thomas (Dec 20)
Christmas (Dec 25)

The odd error is the dating of the feast of St Laurence. The Menologium gives a space of three nights after Lammas; it ought to be nine instead. The three is certainly original in the text as the alliterative pattern depends upon the ‘þ’ in “þreo” and “þeodne” (l. 144). Either a “six” dropped out somewhere, there is a transcription error, or the text is defective here. The next feast—the Assumption of the BVM—is reckoned five nights later which is correct (Aug 15) based on the proper date for St Laurence.

V. Summary

In conclusion, this text gives us a valuable look at the English-language reception of the Latin liturgy. In connection with two other vernacular documents, Seasons for Fasting and Ælfric’s sermon for Trinity Sunday (Pope XIII), the Menologium represents both the importance attached to the kalendar and the means for its propagation among illiterate priests and laity alike.

Dr. Adam (aka AKMA) has posted some of the material he presented at a clergy day. The first part* is an excellent overview of the problems of interpretation in an ecclesial context and maps some of the very real issues at work in our Anglican debate. What he leads to without saying in so many words is a spirit of generosity and hospitality when it comes to other peoples’ readings of Scripture. I think he has absolutely hit the nail on the head.

The perennial Christian problem, though, is courage. How do we maintain the courage and conviction to be open-minded, hospitible and generous even when we suspect heartily that our readings and sometimes our very person will be met with close-mindedness or even hatred? As I see it, this perspective reopens the age-old debate about Christian attitudes to abuse. What is the texture of the specturm from being abusive in turn (which clearly is bad) to playing the role of the Christian door-mat (which is equally bad). I’ve always envisioned that there is a place somewhere on that spectrum where vulnerability and openness pass through the paradox of the cross that transforms weakness into strength where the very meekness and innocence of the lamb standing as if it had been slain is transformed into the eschatological power of the conquering lion of the tribe of Judah (cf. Rev 5:5-6). Of course, finding that place can be a real trick…

The Menologium is translated; I hope to post it later tonight.

*I’m attempting a trackback…we’ll see if it works. [Update: Didn’t work…hmmm.]

Ok, a bit overdue but…

Wednesday night was great. You know, just a regular weekday mass with 20+ servers, 7 priests and a presiding bishop. I was the second torchbearer from the right. Literally. A wonderful time was had by all despite it being a tremedous hot and humid day for mid September in NY. The church certainly lived up to its nickname (Smokey Mary) and used two thuribles for the procession of a relic of the True Cross. I didn’t know they had one of those there but wasn’t terribly surprised.

The PB seems like a nice guy. He hung out and chatted with folks in the sacristy before and after the service, stayed out of the way when we were bustling around with various items, etc. I introduced myself to him; no huge chat, just a quick hi. He’s fairly soft-spoken though. This was especially evident when he was out chanting the prayers–I could barely hear him and I was in the chancel choir…I hope the sound system in the main nave carried better. He preached a fine sermon. Wasn’t stellar but it was decent and contained no heresies (for those keeping track of such things…).

Now–after observing tens if not hundreds of priests doing their thing in various situations, places, etc. I have come to a personal test to determine whether a priest is High Church. Of course this has *absolutely nothing* to do with how good of a priest, who pious of a priest, or how faithful of a priest a person is. Lots of Low Church people are these things; several High Church folks aren’t. This only determines worship style–and separates the practitioners from the posers. Anyway, the way to tell is how they cense the altar. Proper technique is about wrist action. A priest unfamiliar with this task tends to hold their wrist stable and they gingerly wave the thurible around. A more practiced priest will snap the wrist (this also causes the proper *clank* on the down-swing as it hits the chain on the rebound). The PB is a gingerly waving kind of guy. You could tell even before we hit the nave, though that he isn’t High Church. He didn’t do anything wrong, didn’t pretend otherwise–you could just tell that he wasn’t in his native environment. And that’s totally fine with me. We needn’t all be High Church…

Overall–seems like a nice guy; soft-spoken. The right leader for the church at this time? Who knows. We all have to play the cards we’re dealt.

Last night was the New York Medieval Liturgy group. The presentation was on decorative schemes in a 14th century missal from Saint-Denis in reference to the feasts of St Denis and connections with the royal court. Good scholarly discussion all around.

* A Blessed Exaltation of the Holy Cross, y’all.

* Pontifical High Mass tonight at Smokey Mary! The Presiding Bishop will be celebrating. Maybe I’ll get a chance to meet him… Check for a report tomorrow.

*From the Well That Clears That Up Department: Peter Akinola has clarified what’s going on in Alexandria; it’s not a business meeting, it’s just a Bible study. Alright then…(Hat-tip to Thinking Anglicans)

*Dissertation: Things are busy at work and campground–I’m switching rooms within the current domicile. Between that and the High Mass I fear that not much dissertation work will be done tonight. Chapter 2 is rockin’ along (we’re at 19 or so pages). Good pages. With dense nasty footnotes.

*Menologium on the horizon: As part of my research for the latter part I’m doing a translation of the Menologium. I figured I’d go ahead and translate it since I haven’t run across a ModE version anywhere else. I’ll post it up once I get it done, then King Alfred can tear it apart if he feels so inclined… ;-)

Note: This is a long post so I broke it up between Part I here and Part II below.

The Benedictine liturgies of the Divine Office and the Anglican liturgies that are their spiritual heirs are fundamentally about the disciplined encounter with Scripture. In the Benedictine liturgies, the Psalms are prayed in their fullness every week and the Bible is read through in community every year. In the Anglican system, the Psalter is prayed every month and the Bible is read through—more or less—every year or two through the Office and daily Mass readings. Throughout this process, Scripture is constantly being re-examined through a process of contextualization. That is to say, Psalm 4 means one thing read on the morning of the first day of the month and other when it was read at Compline the night before. It means one thing to read the Passion of Christ on a somber Good Friday; it means something else to read it in an evening in the autumn. Neither of these contextualizations exhaust the meanings of the respective texts. Instead, the contextualizations bring their own meanings, deepen, and fill out certain parts of the text.

Vespers as read from the ’79 BCP has an odd piece missing. On a “normal” day, three readings are prescribed. Yet there are two slots for readings at Matins, and two at Vespers. The empty slot is filled in with a variety of options according to local practice. At Smokey Mary’s, we are finishing a continuous reading of the book of Job as the locally determined first reading. Here, in September of 2005, a special context has been provided for the reading of this book. Job sounds different—Job reads different this week—in the face of Hurricane Katrina and in this Sunday’s commemoration of September 11th here in New York City. With this context in mind, I shall offer some reflections on the end of Job in September, 2005.

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
“Gird up your loins like a man;
I will question you, and you declare to me.
Will you even put me in the wrong?
Will you condemn me that you may be justified?
(Job 40:6-8)

Job is a difficult book. A long poem with a prose beginning and ending, many interpreters have sought to understand its lessons about God, humanity, and the issue of suffering while grappling with questions and teachings about a good God who cares for humanity and who answers prayer. Some have found solace; others, have found only more questions. Some have even been disgusted with what they found there and have left having found a god there whom they can no longer worship. Katrina and 9/11 ask for answers. Some look to Job—but some do so with trepidation, fear what they might find—or never find.

Glossing the first many chapters quickly, Job sits and debates with his friends. They start off strong: “And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great” (Job 2:13), but then everybody starts talking and things go down-hill in a hurry. There are some great speeches tucked in here (4:1-5:27 is a favorite of mine though I won’t agree with everything in there). To over-generalize and caricature, the speakers in Job operate out of the perspective found in Hebrew wisdom literature and, indeed, in wisdom literature from across the globe. Essentially, the argument boils down to a few key points. The main one, and one that you will find throughout the wisdom literature of the Bible (especially Proverbs, certain Psalms and Ecclesiasticus/Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach), is that actions have consequences.

The way that this concept shakes out is that good things happen to good people; bad things happen to bad people. As Proverbs envisions it, God is not necessarily directly involved. Instead, the world itself has retribution built into it. Treat people like crap and you’ll receive it in spades. Common laments in the Psalms recommend that the evil who have dug pits and laid traps might fall into their own snares (Pss 9:16, 35:8, 69:22, etc.). Many of the short, pithy wisdom sayings in Proverbs state that the wicked will face punishment for their bad deeds, the righteous will receive rewards for their good deeds. This is the worldview that both Job and his friends are trying to reconcile. His friends say, “Look—your world’s gone to hell; you must have done something wrong.” Note Job’s response. His argument is, “No! I haven’t done anything wrong and this shouldn’t be happening to me!” Both camps are working from the same paradigm, they’re both just arguing different sides of it. Essentially—they’re both trying to put God into the same box. They’re both using the same mechanistic understand of how God and the world act. And, as it turns out, they’re both wrong.

The problem is—there’s quite a lot to recommend this line of thought. Overall, this basic concept of good will receive good and bad will receive bad actually has a lot going for it. We can think of numerous examples where this is the case. The wicked get what they deserve, the good are exonerated. Or even, the wicked live with turmoil and distress, the good in quietness and peace. This view isn’t always wrong. The problem, however, as 9/11 and Katrina point out, it leaves an awful lot unexplained. My take on it is this: overall, this wisdom way of thinking is a good way to live and a good way to pattern one’s life. Do good, hope for good. Learn to love the good and do it. Avoid the bad, don’t be jealous of their ill-gotten gains (Prov 11:3-4, 28; 22:1, etc.). While it provides a good pattern for life and morals, it does not ultimately answer the question of theodicy—why bad things happen to good people.

The best way that I have found to think through this is to return to the thought above: actions have consequences. This is in the same line as good=good/bad=bad but it doesn’t go nearly as far and it doesn’t make promises. Instead, it means that both good and evil actions have consequences many—perhaps most—of which are not immediately comprehensible to the actor. What do I mean by this? A stock, rather facile, example might clarify things. Let’s say we have a drug dealer. He’s a bad dude. As part of his way of making a living he kills some folks. These folks, in turn have living friends with guns. As the drug dealer hangs out on a street corner one night, the living friends come by and shoot him dead. So far, so good, right? Actions have consequences. He made choices and committed actions. The inevitable result of these choices visited themselves upon him. In one sense, then, this validates the wisdom notion of bad=bad.

But let’s say—as we occasionally hear—a stray bullet flies into a nearby house killing a child asleep in bed. How do we explain this? Because a bad thing happened, is it the result of the child’s sin? Some would say yes. Some would remind us that everyone sins, thus the child had sinned, thus he has received death which are the wages of sin. At which point I give them the look that says—you’re an idiot. I would explain it differently. I would reiterate that actions have consequences. The actions of the drug dealer had consequences that went far beyond what he could see or imagine. Yet these actions of ours have consequences, even—especially—ones that we cannot foresee or know.

Others might say, “Well, it was just his time to go,” or, “God just needed him more than we did” both of which are a variation of the “It’s all part of God’s plan” answer to tragedy. I suppose this answer works for some people—it must based on how frequently I hear it—but this view makes me furious. I simply don’t buy it. It is unworthy of the God that we worship because it presents a god who is insensitive and completely uncaring towards suffering on a massive scale. When this logic is taken to its logical conclusion than it requires that God be responsible for the Shoah (the heinous crime formerly known as the Holocaust), the genocide of the Armenians, and ethnic cleansing in various parts of the world all because—well, God felt that it was part of His plan. No. It wasn’t. They weren’t. I’ll tell you what they’re part of—human sin. Unadulterated, unalloyed human sin. 9/11 was not God’s plan but sin working itself out in fire, blood, and twisted steel.

Human sin has consequences far beyond what we can see. Some things in this world that appear to be impersonal forces are, in fact, the effects of human sin working themselves out on a grand scale. I, personally, have never poisoned a stream. But my participation within a system of economic production perpetuates slovenly and sometimes down-right evil behavior towards the environment. I have never raped or killed anyone. Yet, as an Anglo-Scandinavian, I am the product of a race that has elevated rape, pillage, murder and wars of conquest to an art form. My over-privileged, over-educated ass sits on the Upper East side in an apartment built on bones. Did I create a racist, oppressive system? No. Am I the beneficiary of one? Yes. These are the consequences of sin writ corporate and writ large, institutionalized into national ways of being contrary to God’s commands and God’s call on our lives.

Could God stop the tragedies of 9/11, the Shoah and a host of others besides? Is God powerful enough to halt them? Yes. But God doesn’t. God does not act in these circumstances—I believe—because He has chosen to impose limits on His own power in order to preserve human freedom. Freedom to do good—and also to do evil. I do not believe that God manipulates us like so many marionettes. God has created us and enabled us to be autonomous agents. We take that freedom and we mess it up and pervert it, but we have the choices. The upshot of this is that in order for human evil to be checked, other humans must act to check it. Some of these actions will be good but even some of these will be evil. But those are the breaks. This is because—as I understand it—humans are two things: first, we are willful and thus tend toward evil, and second, we are limited. The first is because of sin—but the second isn’t. God’s creation—including humanity—is good. But we are good—not perfect—and there’s a difference. Due to our material nature we are necessarily limited…it just comes with the embodied territory…but that created nature in and of itself is not evil.

To return to Job, at the end of the whirlwind speech (Job 38:1-41:34), Job speaks in repentance (42:2-6). Here Job realizes that his stance has been wrong and he backs off from blaming God. He repents of the rashness of his words but even here Job is not repenting of sin—nor should he! What he is doing is acknowledging the fact of his created limitations in the face of a God who is without limitations—except for those He has chosen to impose upon Himself.

So, to recap, Job and his friends were working with a model of God and God’s relationship with humanity that was incorrect because it was over-determined and mechanistic. While Job’s friends insisted on his guilt and he insisted on innocence they were all playing with a flawed construct of God. [This is a good point to note that Job is a fictional character. Yes, everybody sins, but the story is framed in such a way that Job is portrayed as thoroughly righteous. It is as if he did not sin—at least, nothing serious enough for God to consider a real sin. No it’s not realistic, it’s not supposed to be, that’s why the whole thing is set up as a folktale—especially the prose frames to the story.]

Instead of going that over-determining step, we can (and should) take a step back and affirm with Job and his friends that actions have consequences. But, we disagree with them by attempting to specify exactly what these are. Furthermore, not all consequences can be laid at the feet of God—many of them more properly belong at our own feet—but we’d rather have some one else to blame.

So—that answers part of the problem. For me, at least, that addresses the whole 9/11 issue. Why did bad things happen to the people on the planes and in the towers? Because of human sin. The primary cause, of course, is the sin of the hijackers and those directing them. Lurking in the background, of course, are the sins committed by governments, institutions, and people who place oil and the money it brings ahead of people. Were the civilian casualties on 9/11 responsible for these background sins? Well, no. Or, certainly no more than the rest of us. But what about Katrina? German Green Party members aside, I don’t think that human sin or environmental policies were responsible for the hurricane earlier this month or the tsunami late last year or any number of other natural disasters. So—what gives? Can Job help us with this one? I think so…

It’s interesting to note that the book of Job never really wrestles with the question of evil. Think about it—take a hard look—and you’ll notice that evil is never really addressed. The thing that trips up many Christians is the presence of a certain character in the prose frame especially at the beginning: Satan. More properly, however, this character is ha-satan, which is Hebrew for “the adversary.” This fellow is a member of God’s court and acts something like God’s DA; he’s the prosecutor for the State and brings people up on charges—they then have to defend themselves. This is not the devil of the Christian tradition and of the Christian Bible. He is not in opposition to God but instead works for God. He may be in opposition to humanity, but he works for God. That’s not to say, however, that there are not forces arrayed against God portrayed within this book. This gets a little complicated, but bear with me…

Genesis 1 is often considered the creation story. It’s not. It’s a creation story. There’s another one that follows right after it, Gen 2-3, that wrestles with different questions from a different perspective. There’s another one tucked into Proverbs that’s heavy on architectural motifs (Prov 8:22-30). Note that phrases recalling it pop up in odd places elsewhere in Scripture (like the “pillars of the earth” notion found in 1 Sam 2: 8 [the Song of Hannah], Job 9:6; 26:10-11, and Psalm 75:3). Well, there’s yet another creation story in the Hebrew Bible which is most clearly laid out in Ps 74:12-17. It has parallels in other Ancient Near Eastern cultures, especially those that had a direct bearing on the Hebrew peoples, the Canaanites and the Babylonians. Essentially, in these stories a storm god in a more or less human shape battles another god who is dragon-shaped who is or who represents the waters of chaos. The anthropomorphic god kills the other and rends its body apart to create the world as we know it: order is created out of chaos. [Necessary note: this version depends more heavily on the Babylonian version, the Marduk-Tiamat struggle. The Canaanite version between Ba’al-Lotan is heavily fragmentary—we cannot be sure that a creation event happened in this version—and some versions suggest that Anat, Ba’al’s sister/wife/some sort of female relation either fights with him or perhaps in place of him. As I said, it’s fragmentary…]

I bring this up because the book of Job has a high count of references to dragon-esque beings [another necessary note: references to dragons in the KJV are actually mistranslations, though; read instead “jackal” which is really close], Leviathan, and a critter called Rahab which is another name for Leviathan. Notably, Job begins the poetry section of the book with an invocation to those who invoke Leviathan (Job 3:8) that they should…invoke him. In plain English, Job is asking them to summon up a great chaos-beast to undue the part of creation in which he was born. That is to say, good and evil are not the primary dualities in the rhetoric of Job but instead order and chaos. Here, Job takes the side of chaos—Leviathan—against God who brings order. The tension between order and chaos permeates the book but nowhere as heavily as in the whirlwind speech. The most memorable images from the whirlwind speech are the characterizations of Behemoth (40:15-24) and Leviathan (41:1-9). Some interpreters suggest that these are actually a hippo and a crocodile. They would be wrong. Yes, the aforementioned critters may be based on such animals, both kinds of which inhabited the Nile and would have been known to the Ancient Near East, but they are not natural beings. Instead they are chaos beasts—chaos personified as two great mythological beasts. It is in this identification that the rest of the whirlwind speech makes sense and builds up to these two beings.

Before I totally launch into this, I must give credit where it’s due—the insights on the whirlwind speech presented here are drawn from the work of Carol Newsom, a tremendous OT scholar, a great teacher for the church, and a heck of a nice person. Did I mention she’s an Anglican? Of course, this is my faulty appropriation of her work etc.

Although Job 40-41 get the most press (because they’re cool), the speech actually starts back in chapter 38. It starts with an overview of the architectural version of creation and questions whether Job has knowledge of these things (Job 38). Then it moves into a relatively odd section on animals and moves through the lion, raven, mountain goat, wild ass, wild ox, ostrich, horse, and hawk (Job 39). There is a significance to the choice of these animals; they are animals of the waste places. Check out Isa 34:8-18, one of the classic destruction oracles. Here Edom is laid waste and the sign of that is desert/wasteland creatures moving back into the ruins of the desolate city including the hawk, raven, and ostrich. The creatures described in Job 39 are essentially natural chaos beasts that lead up to the crescendo which is the presentation of the supernatural chaos beasts in 40 and 41.

The point, then, is this. God asks Job if he knows how creation happened and how things were done. He doesn’t. Then, God asks him if he knows all about and comprehends the place, nature, and role of various natural chaos beasts. He doesn’t. Then, God asks him if he is powerful enough to restrain—not necessarily destroy but restrain and domesticate—the great mythological chaos beasts. He can’t. According to this reading the point that God is making is that chaos is an inherent part of the created order. That is, even the duality between chaos and order that Job tries to set up in Job 3:8ff is a flawed one based on incomplete data. All of Job’s theological models are but flawed constructs in the face of the Living God. Not because of his evil—because narratively-speaking he’s sinless—but because of his created limitations and through his limited yet overly certain theological understandings Job has erred. He properly repents of these things not because of any fault but because he cannot, in fact, comprehend these things.

So—to recap again, what’s the author of Job suggesting with all of this? What’s the answer to why natural disasters and such occur? Because chaos is a part of creation; it’s built into the system. Is that an entirely satisfying answer? Well…no. But also notice what else it’s saying. It’s saying that natural events are not necessarily God “zapping” people. [Does God ever use natural events to zap people? Um…I’ll get back to you on that but I lean toward no…] Bad things don’t happen because somebody’s rules said they should nor do terrible circumstances indicate personal or social guilt. I think that it’s more important what is not being said here than what is being said.

So where does this leave us at the end of the day? Well, it leads us back to Luke. Yep—Luke 13:1-5. This is where the question is specifically put to Jesus—do bad things happen to bad people. His answer? Yes—bad things happen. But these should not be occasions for pointing fingers at the victims but to carefully consider the state of our own lives. Repentance is the appropriate response in the face of tragic human sin and natural/impersonal disasters alike. Did our sin cause them? No, not necessarily—but they still serve as great opportunities, as reminders, to repent. To our nation’s shame, the TV cameras have been doing a good job of keeping death daily before our eyes (RB 4.47). Our appropriate response should not be to blame God for letting such things happen but to repent of our sins, of our inaction, of our racism, of our classism, and of all other things that we do to sow hatred. Life is uncertain; death is inevitable. Let us do what we may do while the light of day yet shines upon us that, when night falls, we may be brought to the unceasing brilliance of the light eternal that shall never dim nor fade.