Many of the members of the Inklings wrote regular book reviews for publishing and literary journals. They frequently wrote glowing reviews for each others works to help them along. C.S. Lewis praised Tolkien. Tolkien pulled strings for Lewis, and so forth. From Charles Williams though, he was sometimes more likely to find a review like this one for The Screwtape Letters:
My dearest Scorpuscle: It is a dangerous book, heavenly-dangerous. I hate it, this give-away of hell.’ He signed the review ‘Your sincere friend, Snigsozzle’, and added as a postscript: ‘You will send someone to see after Lewis? – some very clever fiend?’
-Charles Williams, Time & Time, 1942 no.12, (Inklings p.176)
A few weeks ago was the 250th birthday of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns. Shame of me for letting the day pass without mention. I must say, my first exposure to Burns (besides the “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” routine) is the musical adaptation of Now Westlin Winds by Dick Gaughan. I just listened to this again yesterday and it’s excellent.
Now Westlin Winds
(Robert Burns)
Now westlin winds, and slaught’ring guns
Bring August’s pleasant weather;
The moorcock springs, on whirring wings,
Amang the blooming heather;
Now waving grain, wide o’er the plain,
Delights the weary Farmer;
The moon shines bright, as I rove at night,
To muse upon my Charmer.
The Pairtrick lo’es the fruitfu’ fells;
The Plover lo’es the mountains;
The woodcock haunts the lanely dells;
The soaring Hern the fountains:
Thro’ lofty groves, the Cushat roves,
The path o’man to shun it;
The hazel bush o’erhangs the Thrush,
The spreading thorn the Linnet.
Thus ev’ry kind their pleasure find,
The savage and the tender;
Some social join, and leagues combine;
Some solitary wander:
Avaunt, away! the cruel sway,
Tyrannic man’s dominion;
The Sportsman’s joy, the murd’ring cry,
The flutt’ring, gorg pinion!
But Peggy dear, the ev’ning’s clear,
Thick flies the skimming Swallow;
The sky is blue, the fields in view,
All fading-green and yellow:
Come let us stray our gladsome way,
And view the charms o’ Nature:
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn
And ilka happy creature.
We’ll gently walk, and sweetly talk,
While the silent moon shines clearly;
I’ll clasp thy waist, and fondly prest,
Swear how I lo’e thee dearly:
Not vernal show’rs to budding flow’rs,
Not Autumn to the Farmer,
So dear can be, as thou to me,
My fair, my lovely Charmer!
Leithart says that the Bible speaks not only of spiritual things, but also hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation, and genital emissions. Theologians on the other hand (except for perhaps Augustine) rarely make any mention of these. It’s a blanket statement intended to shock, of course, but is it true nonetheless? Are theologians from another planet? Let’s find out…
Photo of Winchester Cathederal by Flickr User shemacgo. Used via Creative Commons License.
I want to make it clear up front this this is NOT a piece, (not even a little piece) of serious scholarship. I counted things by hand, eyeballed references, and often did not compare apples to oranges. This was nothing more than a fun exercise to satisfy my curiosity. If you were very interesting in biblical linguistics (I’m not), you might consider this a quick, informal, initial investigation into the subject to see if it might warrant further attention.
Anyway, after all my word counting and writing samples, here is what I came up with for the challenge:
Hair
Sweat
Entrails
Menstruation
Genitals
Barth
64
19
0
1
11
Origen
3
14
5
1
2
Niebuhr
7
10
1
0
0
Calvin
58
95
9
6
40
Borg
5
6
0
1
2
Kung
6
5
1
3
3
Augustine
68
25
13
4
45
The Bible
135
3
20
16
11
Now, using my secret and entirely unscientific analysis, I came up with the following “language similarity” scores, sorted in ascending order, including links to their original post:
Augustine really does score the highest, just as Leithart said he would.
Calvin’s writing is often an extension of further development of Augustine, so it winds up being remarkably similar.
Barth is off by himself, but the scope of his writing was grand. He didn’t pass over much.
Kung is mostly a popular theologian who likely didn’t feel it appropriate to spend much time on topics that included these words.
Borg is a gnostic who denies the bodily resurrection of Christ. It’s fitting he would see God as not particularly interested in anatomy.
Niebuhr wrote a lot on ethics, justice and war (in the abstract). Sex, blood, and guts wasn’t on his radar.
I was a little disappointed in Origen. I guess (having not read him before) I had assumed he would be a bit more like his closest historical peer, Augustine.
To finally restate Leithart’s challenge:
9. Theology is a “Victorian” enterprise, neoclassically bright and neat and clean, nothing out of place. Wheras the Bible talks about hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation and genital emissions.
10. Here’s an experiment you can do at any theological library. You even have my permission to try this at home.
Step 1: Check the indexes of any theologian you choose for any of the words mentioned in section 9 above. (Augustine does not count. Augustine’s theology is as big reality, or bigger.)
Step 2: Check the Bible concordance for the same words.
Step 3: Ponder these questions: Do theologians talk about the world the same way the Bible does? Do theologians talk about the same WORLD the Bible does?
So do these theologians talk about the world the same way the Bible does?
(My) Answer: Sometimes they do. Some more than others. Frequently though, theologians have chosen the language of philosophy, which the Bible rarely employs. By doing so, they have gained some powerful vocabulary and put it to good use. I believe they have also been inadvertently trapped by it – right where the world wants them. God’s special revelation of himself didn’t have much use for this language. It is more coarse, like God himself perhaps?
Do theologians talk about the same WORLD the Bible does?
(My) Answer: Well, most of the time, but they are frequently enough on another planet to warrant the accusation. Know what I’m talking about?
Methodologically the result of this shift in starting point from doctrine to data, from metaphysical system to narrative, is a reordering of trinitarian theology that points to a radical revision of the whole ordo doctrinae of Latin Catholic theology. Such a revision is arguably more appropriate to contemporary more empirically-oriented culture and sensibilities.
-Anne Hunt, The Trinity and the Paschal Mystery, Ch.6:Methodological Shifts and Their Meta-Methodological Significance
What’s ironic is that this article is actually advocating a shift AWAY from talking theology like this and appreciating the Bible more for it’s large-scale story.
As for out-of-the-world experiences, look no further:
Having styled ‘limited atonement’ as a key determinative doctrine in a subsequent ‘distortion’ of Calvin’s theology into the ‘rigid’ and ‘legalising’ system of the experimental predestinarians, we now find that te doctrine of universal redemption could be firmly embraced by one of Kendall’s own experimental predestinarian case studies without, it seems, any alteration to the doctrine of conversion and assurance in that tradition.
-Jonathan D. Moore, English Hypothetical Universalism, p.222
Nice, eh? I’m sure he THINKS he’s talking about Jesus, but really folks…
OK. OK. It’s easy to make fun of academics. “I is one” if you pick the right topic.
Back to the point. I think Leithart’s real point is found in this earlier passage:
All that remains within the realm of theology are (perhaps) ecstatic and “timeless” encounters of the soul with God, God with the soul. Theology keeps Christian teaching at the margins and ensures that other voices, other languages, other words shape the world of temporalities. Politics is left to politicians, economics to economists, sociology to sociologists, history to historians, and philosophy to madmen.
Theology ensures that Christians have nothing to say about nearly everything.
-Peter Leithart, Against Christianity, Ch.2 Sec. 4
The “word challenge” I’ve been exploring here is to support this larger point. It’s a case of, “Here, you don’t believe me that Christians have been stuffed in the closet when it comes to talking about the real world? Well I’ll prove it. Take a look at this!” And of course it’s hyperbole, but it proves the point well.
I have a bit more to say about this, but it belongs in another post. It’s been fun!
Leithart says that the Bible speaks not only of spiritual things, but also hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation, and genital emissions. Theologians on the other hand (except for perhaps Augustine) rarely make any mention of these. It’s a blanket statement intended to shock, of course, but is it true nonetheless? Are theologians from another planet? Let’s find out…
In this round: The Canon of Scripture
According to the multi-version concordance on BibleTab.com, these words occur X number of times in the Bible:
hair – 135
sweat – 3
entrails – 20
menstruation – 16
genital emissions -11
All right, the whole basis of this challenge is we need something to compare the language of theologians to. The bible is the standard.
Much of the Bible is a narrative. In it, there are a surprising number of people with hair worth mentioning: Eusa, Sampson, David’s men who had their beards cut off, John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, etc.
The word is also used abstractly quite a bit:
Neither shall you swear by your head, for you can’t make one hair white or black.
Matthew 5:36
I was a little bit bummed that the theologians I studied mentioned sweat so rarely. However, it turns out the Bible almost never mentions it either. This oft-quoted passage is one of the few exceptions:
By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Genesis 3:19
Entrails show up a fair amount. For example, in this story illustrating why it was generally a bad idea to lie to the apostles:
Now this man obtained a field with the reward for his wickedness, and falling headlong, his body burst open, and all his intestines gushed out.
Acts 1:18
Menstraution is usually mention in the OT Law, but occasionally is used to describle how valuable idols are:
Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence.
Isaiah 30:22
Speaking of the law, in an OT fight, hitting below the belt was taken very seriously:
“If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.
Leithart says that the Bible speaks not only of spiritual things, but also hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation, and genital emissions. Theologians on the other hand (except for perhaps Augustine) rarely make any mention of these. It’s a blanket statement intended to shock, of course, but is it true nonetheless? Are theologians from another planet? Let’s find out…
Of all the fathers of the church, St. Augustine was the most admired and the most influential during the Middle Ages… Augustine was an outsider – a native North African whose family was not Roman but Berber… He was a genius – an intellectual giant.
-Norman Cantor, The Civilization of the Middle Ages
According to Google Books, these words occur X number of times in his printed works:
hair – 68
sweat – 25
entrails – 13
menstruation – 4
genital emissions – 45
For the challenge of theological language, Leithart asserts that Augustine doesn’t count:
Augustine’s theology is as big reality, or bigger.
And indeed, he scores high across the board in this little word game.
He speaks of proper hair-style being a prerequisite to instruction on humility:
Nor am I concerned with those who seek to please, either with dress more elegant than the needs of their high calling demand, or with a bandeau conspicuous whether with protruding knots of hair or with veils so thin that the hair-nets lying below become visible. These people are not yet to be instructed on humility, but on chastity itself or on virgin purity. Give me one who proclaims lifelong continence, and who is free of these and all such vices and blemishes of behavior.
-Augustine, On Holy Virginity, Sec. 34
Sweat is mentioned in a passage on people with special, um, skills. Now where is the last theology book you saw farting addressed?
I myself have known a man who was accustomed to sweat whenever he wished. It is well know that some wep when they please, and shed a flood of tears…Some, so accurately mimic the voices of birds and beasts and other men, that, unless they are seen, the difference cannot be told. Some have such command of their bowels, that they can break wind continuously at pleasure.
-Augustine, The City of God, Ch.24
Finally, this passage takes the cake, especially with it’s connection to this entire exercise.
In Paradise [before the fall], in such happy circumstances and general human well-being we should be far from suspecting that offspring could not have been begoten without the disease of lust, but those parts, like all the rest, would be st in motion at the command of the will; and without the seductive stimulus of passion, with calmness of mind and wit no corrupting of the integrity of the body.
We must believe that the male semen could have been introduced into the womb of the wife with the integrity of the femail genital organ being preserved, just as now, with the same integrity being safe, the menstrual flow of blood can be emitted from the womb of a virgin. To be sure, the seed could be introduced in the same way through wit the meses can be emitted.
And this last line here is important:
We speak of things which are now shameful, and although we try, as well as we are able, to conceive them as they were before they became shameful, yet necessity compels us rather to limit our discussion to the bounds set by modesty.
-Augustine, The City of God, Ch.26
Augustine had a problem with sex. Here (and for many more pages), he goes on about how before the fall, sex must have been something entirely different than what it is today, even in the best of circumstances. He goes so far as to say the physical mechanics must have been entirely different as well. Having sex for any sort of fun is very much frowned upon. This is exactly what Hans Kung was talking about in the last round when he accused Augustine of contributing to the low view of marriage and sexuality in the church for many centuries.
What’s ironic about this excercise, I think, is that Augustine is partly responsible for it. He himself spoke of the messy aspects of sex, but he did so to tell us that we SHOULD NOT speak of them. They were corrupted and had no place in holy spirituality. Has this not contribute to theologians avoiding these subjects and sticking to metaphysical things? It is theologians neglecting to wrestle with the physical world we live in that prompted Leithart to issue this little challenge in the first place. Augustine may not count, but his spiritual children do.
I’ll say one more thing. I agree with Augustine that these kinds of messy subjects should indeed be spoken of with modesty. It really is not appropriate to speak loudly of genital emissions with your friends at the cafe. It is likely not appropriate for a Sunday sermon. It would not normally be something I’d mention on this blog even. The point is, the subject should never be outside the realm of “stuff God cares about” so much that the secular and godless are always in the driver’s seat.
Leithart says that the Bible speaks not only of spiritual things, but also hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation, and genital emissions. Theologians on the other hand (except for perhaps Augustine) rarely make any mention of these. It’s a blanket statement intended to shock, of course, but is it true nonetheless? Are theologians from another planet? Let’s find out…
According to Google Books, these words occur X number of times in his printed works:
hair – 6
sweat – 5
entrails – 1
menstruation – 3
genital emissions – 3
Kung was a bit hard to place. His writing is usually popular, not academic. His writing on theology is generally a lot more accessible. He makes frequent references to pop culture, movies, books, and so forth. Add him to the list of Roman Catholics worth reading. I would certainly file him in the “real world” box, despite his low scores. The scores are still low though.
This is an interesting passage about how Augustine’s belief’s about sex contributed to all kinds of silly ideas about marriage during part of the medival age:
Augusting’s negative evaluation of sexuality had meanwhile established itself completely in medieval penitential moraility: original sin was transferred by the sexual pleasure of the marital act. A rigorism in sexual morality broke through on a broad front. Sexual continence was required of the clergy, and of the laity no contact with such holy men. Male semen, like blood at menstruation and in giving birth, caused ritual uncleanness and excluded those involved from receiving the sacraments. But married people were also to abstain from sexual intercourse on every Sunday and high fest day together with their vigils and octaves, on certain weekdays (Fridays), and in Advent and Lent. Thus there was rigorous restring of marital sexual intercourse, which in part went back to widespread archaic, magical notions.
-Hans King, The Catholic Church: A Short History, p.72
Next, we’ll get to the big daddy himself, Saint Augustine of Hippo.
Leithart says that the Bible speaks not only of spiritual things, but also hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation, and genital emissions. Theologians on the other hand (except for perhaps Augustine) rarely make any mention of these. It’s a blanket statement intended to shock, of course, but is it true nonetheless? Are theologians from another planet? Let’s find out…
According to Google Books, these words occur X number of times in his printed works:
hair – 5
sweat – 6
entrails – 0
menstruation – 1
genital emissions – 2
Borg likes his Jesus to be very spiritual, not physical, so it’s no surprise he doesn’t score well in our challenge.
“Hair” shows up several times in his book Jesus and Buhdda: The Parralell Sayings. Unfortunately, it’s nearly always Buhdda who is saying it. Hmmmm.
As we’ve seen in our previous theologians, almost nobody ever uses the word “sweat” unless they are quoting Genesis 3:19. Borg’s use of the word is no exception. Apparently, it just doesn’t show up very often in our English vocabulary in recent centuries.
Still, Borg doesn’t completely strike out:
The menstrual cycle of a woman makes her impure, in the technical sense of the word, until she has undergone a ritual of cleansing and, of course, until the menses have stopped.
When [the Apostle] Mark says that all Jews washed their hands for purity reasons, it’s an exaggeration. The Bible commands only priests to do so, although the Pharisees advocated the ordinary people to take upon themselves priestly obligations.
Leithart says that the Bible speaks not only of spiritual things, but also hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation, and genital emissions. Theologians on the other hand (except for perhaps Augustine) rarely make any mention of these. It’s a blanket statement intended to shock, of course, but is it true nonetheless? Are theologians from another planet? Let’s find out…
According to Google Books, these words occur X number of times in his printed works:
hair – 336
sweat – 95*
entrails – 19
menstruation – 6
genital emissions – 40
Wow, high numbers for Jean, but this is actually misleading. Apparently people who dig Calvin like to publish books, because there were 10x the amount of different editions in Google books as there were for most of the other theologians I looked into. So a lot of these references are redundant. Nevertheless, he does seem to have addressed everything on the list at least more than once.
Hair is mentioned often as he believes it important that men not wear it long, lest they project effeminancy. However, he certainly acknowledges that this is a cultural thing that changes with the times:
For long hair was not always regarded as a disgraceful thing in men. Historical works relate that long ago, i.e. in the earliest times, men wore long hair in every country. Thus the poets are in the habit of speaking about the ancients and applying to them the well-worn epitet ‘unshorn’.
John Calvin, Commentary on I Corinthians 11:14
He’s not afraid to use somewhat colorful language when describing sin:
For we know that men are so attached to their gold and silver that it grieves them to be torn from what thy so much love: no less than if you tore away their entrails.
John Calvin, Commentary on Ezekiel 7:19
Nor does he shy away from using these words in discussing some of the prophetic passages where they appear as imagery.
The prophet seems to be alluding to menstruation women who try to hid their uncleanness as much as they can; but heir efforts do not work, for nature must have its course. In short, the prophet intimates that the Jews had become so filthy that their uncleanness could be seen on their skirts.
John, Calvin, Commentary on Lamentation 1:9
And he doesn’t fall back on spiritual language when taking on critics of Christianity either:
He [Menno] argues that a man who ejaculates semen is said to be unclean, and he foolishly implies that an unclean flow has no relevance to women. By this reasoning, women would no have that innate uncleanness which only men were given circumcision to prevent.
John Calvin, Polemic against Menno
That sounds more like the real physical world Calvin is living in, and not an imaginary one. I was surprised to not find much in the way of anti-Platonism or anti-Gnosticism though. Apparently he had other favorite topics. (I’ve yet to ever read anything major by Calvin yet. Only excerpts.)
Leithart says that the Bible speaks not only of spiritual things, but also hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation, and genital emissions. Theologians on the other hand (except for perhaps Augustine) rarely make any mention of these. It’s a blanket statement intended to shock, of course, but is it true nonetheless? Are theologians from another planet? Let’s find out…
According to Google Books, these words occur X number of times in his printed works:
hair – 7*
sweat – 10*
entrails – 1
menstruation – 0
genital emissions – 0
Niebuhr wrote quite a bit of theology and philosophy. His most frequent topic was “just war” theory. He doesn’t do well in our challenge though.
He has a few references to hair, but further examinations reveals these are all due to his frequent use of the phrase “hair’s breadth”, meaning “barely”. One time he mentions a hair shirt, but no real hair.
Sweat is the same story. Nearly all his uses of it are in direct quotes or references of either Genesis 3:19 (“By the sweat of his brow shall he eat bread…”) or Luke 22:44 (“His sweat was like drops of blood”).
He does use the word sweat to describe the effort the godless use to try and fix the problems in the world. This sounds to me like most modern socialism and the state of diplomacy in the middle east.
Thus the saints are tempted to continue in sin that grace may abound, while the sinners toil and sweat to make human relations a little ore tolerable and slightly more just.
-Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, p.197
He does take a noble swipe at Platonism at one point, knocking some of the silly gnostic notions about what creation was like before the fall.
In common with Platonism and Hellenic Christianity, Boehme believes that bisexuality is a consequence of sin. Furthermore, he thinks that Adam’s perfection must heave meant that he had a body which was “without intestines and witout stomach,” a rather vivid symbol of the mystic aversion to the physical basis of life.
-Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, p.91
Leithart says that the Bible speaks not only of spiritual things, but also hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation, and genital emissions. Theologians on the other hand (except for perhaps Augustine) rarely make any mention of these. It’s a blanket statement intended to shock, of course, but is it true nonetheless? Are theologians from another planet? Let’s find out…
In this round: Origen Adamantius (185 – 254 AD)
According to Google Books, these words occur X number of times in his printed works:
hair -3
sweat -14*
entrails -5
menstruation – 1
genital emissions -2
Not very high for Origen, though he does make at least a passing reference to just about everything.
Hair is a built in clothing for animals, so they have no need to sew their own:
For the irrational animals have their food provided for them, because there is not in them even an impulse towards the invention of the arts. They have, besides, a natural covering; for they are provided either with hair, or wings, or scales, or shells. Let the above, then, be our answer to the assertions of Celsus, when he says that “we indeed by labour and suffering earn a scanty and toilsome subsistence, while all things are produced from them without their sowing and ploughing.”
-Origen, Contra Celsum, p.245
Origen mentions sweat a fair amount, but further investigation shows that when doing so he is always just quoting from Genesis 3:19:
In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, till you return to the ground; for out of it were you taken: for dust you are, and to dust shall you return.
Entrails are ridiculed for their lack of fortune telling ability. Or more to the point, astrology is ridiculed for having the same track record as entrails:
If, therefore, it is known – conceding such knowledge for the sake of the argument – that events can occur because of the means by which they are known, why should they occur because of stars but not, say, because of birds, or because of sacrificed entrails or because of shooting stars? These arguments will suffice for the moment to refute the idea that the stars are responsible for human affairs.
-Origen, Commentary on Genesis
Finally, the only mention of private parts I could locate was part of an explanation of how the Greek myths that involved a “virgin” birth or incarnation were not really at all like the birth of Jesus. The Christian story of Christmas was not derived from them in the least.
…Apollo, free from an earthly body, passes into the so-called prophetess seated at the Pythian cave through her genitals. But we hold no such opinion about Jesus and his power; the body born of a virgin consisted of human substance, capable of suffering wounds and death like other men.
-Origin, Contra Celsum, p143
Well, that’s it for the first of our two early church fathers.
My wife says these posts are kind of disturbing. True! These don’t go over real well in casual discussion, and rightly so.
