25 December 2004

On the Sunday before Christmas, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper published a major article by Biblical scholar Geza Vermes claiming the Matthew's Nativity is a "Jewish Myth". The central point of the piece is that in the phrase "a virgin shall give birth" (from a prophecy of Isaiah quoted by Matthew's Gospel) the word "Virgin" is derived from the Greek Septuagint translation of Isaiah and not from the Hebrew of the prophet himself, which may have meant in its original context simply "young (pregnant) woman".

It was a shame to see such an article given such prominence at such a time. Many readers will have wrongly assumed that it implies the falsity of the traditional teaching that the mother of Jesus Christ was in fact a virgin, which in turn (they might think) would demolish the authority of the Catholic Church and even of the Koran (which also teaches the virginal conception of Jesus). That is not the case, for several reasons.

We have, of course, the Gospel of Luke which gives us more detail concerning the virginal conception of Christ, probably derived from Mary's own personal testimony. Matthew and Luke both emphasize the virgin birth and were presumably delighted to find that it seemed to fulfil an earlier prophecy as that was understood by many in the Jewish tradition. It is important to remember that many scholars do still hold "virgin" to be a possible meaning of the Hebrew word almah. It has the same ambiguity as the English "maiden" (an example of such usage can be found at Gen 24:43). The Jewish Septuagint translation of the second century BC, which uses the unambiguous Greek word parthenos (virgin), has also long been held to have been inspired. If so, the words chosen by the seventy-two translators, far from distorting the text may actually have added truth to that which it contained in the original Hebrew (or discerned it, in the case of a mere ambiguity).

An even more interesting point is that the perpetual virginity of Mary in believed on the authority of the Church, which for Catholics is protected by the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit. Even if the tradition of Mary's virginity were originally derived exclusively from a (mistranslation) of the prophecy of Isaiah, or on some other argument from false premises, its adoption as official dogma would nevertheless imply its truth. In other words, the Church's infallibility (or divine protection from error) applies to her conclusions, not to her means of arriving at them.

We hope all our readers had a very happy Christmas, secure in the faith that the father of Our Lord is none other than God himself. G.K. Chesterton wrote about the Nativity on many occasions, and a poem called "The House of Christmas" (Collected Works, X, p. 140) concludes as follows:

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place were God was homeless,
And all men are at home.

November/December

Recently Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger expressed profound concern over the spread of "radical secularism" in Europe.  "We are in a very grave moment in which radical secularism may destroy humanism," he said (according to the news service Zenit), reducing everything to mere materialism, trade and the "predominance of the market."  "The Second Vatican Council stated that the Church wishes to dialogue with the modern world, and the Church today desires it even more," Cardinal Ratzinger emphasized.  But in recent months, John Paul II and several officials in the Roman Curia have clarified the difference between a healthy separation of church and state, and a secularism, or laicism, which seeks to deny all public manifestation of religion - a denial that will logically lead to the repression of religion in the name of freedom.  These views are echoed in a brilliant analysis by the Orthodox Bishop Hilarion which we have placed on our web site, and which we recommend to your attention.  (If anyone reading this site is unconvinced about the importance of religion, or the credibility of Catholic belief in particular, we welcome debate and hope you will correspond with us.)

As you will see from the announcement at the top of this page, we are offering a free membership in an online Community so that readers can discuss among themselves and with the Editors any issues raised by items on this site or arising from our conferences or publications.  It is at present only an experiment, so if people don't use it (or if they abuse it) it may be discontinued later.  But in view of the fact that our readership is international and not easily able to come together face-to-face it seemed worth trying, and we are grateful to Steve Law for getting it started.

Last month saw our celebration in London of the 30th anniversary of The Chesterton Review.  Stratford Caldecott's speech on that occasion is available here. The UK distribution of the Review has without warning recently left the hands of Continuum.  If people are concerned with delivery or want to subscribe for the first time (do try it for a while!) the best thing to do is contact the editors at [email protected] or [email protected].  Meanwhile the sixth issue of our other journal, Second Spring, has been printed and is on its way from Canada.  If you are a subscriber and want faster delivery next time, please let us know that we should invoice you for airmail delivery.

Some years ago our summer conference was on the theme of Liturgy. It attracted more attention than anything else we did, and was even mentioned by Cardinal Ratzinger as a "sign of hope". The reform of the Catholic liturgy after Vatican II was one of the most divisive processes in the history of the modern Church, and Catholics still argue over what should be done to improve the situation. A very important new statement by Cardinal Ratzinger takes the form of a review of Dom Alcuin Reid's excellent book, The Organic Reform of the Liturgy. Here is an extract from that review: "The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose will is law, but is the guardian of the authentic Tradition, and thereby the premier guarantor of obedience. He cannot do as he likes, and is thereby able to oppose those people who for their part want to do what has come into their head. His rule is not that of arbitrary power, but that of obedience in faith. That is why, with respect to the Liturgy, he has the task of a gardener, not that of a technician who builds new machines and throws the old ones on the junk-pile." The full text of the new article by Cardinal Ratzinger may be found by following the link.