Answers to Your E-Questions and Phone Calls

1. Dr. Brown,
   Thank you so much for your brave stand.
   Here are two really good articles about the Charlie Hebdo attack and its relation to Islam. Have you read these? I think you’d find a lot to agree with here, and we’re talking NY Times (David Brooks) and a Harvard Fellow (Ayaan Hirsi Ali).
   http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/david-brooks-i-am-not-charlie-hebdo.html?referrer&_r=0
   http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/08/ayaan-hirsi-ali-our-duty-is-to-keep-charlie-hebdo-alive.html

2. Keith,

   An excellent defense of the Catholic faith in your spirited exchange with Dr. Brown. God bless you.

3. Also, I am not sure that I understand the connection that Dr. Brown was making, (I may not have understood correctly), since Catholic anti-Semitism is not a theological issue, but a cultural one. The fathers of Protestantism, Luther and Calvin, proposed dogmas, like sola fide and sola scriptura, which Dr. Brown embraces, and they were notorious anti-Semites, and he has pointed this out many times.

4. Hi Nicholas,

   Have you read Dr. Brown’s “Our Hands Are Stained with Blood” yet? You will have a much better understanding of where he is at if you do. You can’t get a complete picture by listening to his radio show.

   http://www.amazon.com/Our-Hands-Are-Stained-Blood/dp/1560430680/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1421176390&sr=8-1&keywords=Our+Hands+are+stained+for+blood

   Another good book for you would be “Preparing for Eternity” by Mike Gendron.

   http://www.amazon.com/Preparing-Eternity-Mike-Gendron/dp/0971700931/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421176671&sr=8-1&keywords=mike+gendron

   Praise Jesus!

5. I haven’t read it yet, Amy, but I’ll try to make time for it. I understand that he discusses the history of both Catholic and Protestant anti-Semitism with equal treatment.

   Thanks. 🙂

6. Amy,

   I spent a great deal of time answering you on the Xmas debate thread. I assume that you haven’t seen my answers.

   Here is a link:

   http://www.lineoffireradio.com/2014/12/23/the-annual-christmas-debate-3/#comment-1543539

   Shalom

7. Regarding praying to the Holy Spirit, the closest thing related to it is found within the Gospel of the Hebrews, at least according to the version which Origen and Jerome had.

   Even so did my mother, the Holy Spirit, take me by one of my hairs and carry me away on to the great mountain Tabor. (Origen, Commentary on John 2.12.87)

   And it came to pass when the Lord was come up out of the water, the whole fount of the Holy Spirit descended upon him and rested on him and said to him: My Son, in all the prophets was I waiting for thee that thou shouldest come and I might rest in thee. For thou art my rest; thou art my first-begotten Son that reignest for ever. (Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah 4)

   This is also a great quote to show that Miriam is not the mother of the divinity of Christ, but only his humanity. The Holy Spirit transferred Christ’s pre-existing divinity into the incarnated Christ within the womb of Miriam.

8. David Roberts,

   The Virgin Mary gave birth to the union of divinity and humanity in the person of Christ Jesus, the God-man. When Christ the Lord exited her sanctified womb, he came into the world fully God and fully man, thus the Virgin bore the eternal God who assumed her human nature. The quote above is from a spurious source anyway, but, in any event, it is not even relevant to this issue.

9. Nicholas,

   Origen and Jerome are spurious sources? The way you talk, the Holy Spirit was not involved AT ALL in the incarnation, but Miriam brought in the God-man into the world by herself!

   But we know from the scriptures what the angel Gabriel said to Miriam,

   The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born[a] will be holy; he will be called Son of God. Luke 1:35 – New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

   Also Matthew 1:18,

   Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

   Miriam did not will the God-man into the world of her own volition, rather Christ’s mother, the Holy Spirit brought the Eternal Word into the womb of Miriam. Miriam was mere vessel only.

10. David,

    Let me point out that Origen held to some unorthodox beliefs. Nevertheless, his commentaries can be valuable. Spurious was a poor choice of words. As with Tertullian, whose use of philosophical language profoundly influenced the articulation of the Trinity, we find certain concepts which do not always comport with mainstream theology, because these men were thinkers in an age of infancy, before certain points of view were formally set down as dogma after the Council of Nicaea. Referring to the Holy Spirit as “Mother,” this did not fly very far. Besides, it offers a somewhat bizarre view of the Trinity, does it not? It is not God the Father, God the Mother, and God the Son. Such a notion borders on heresy, if you ask me.

    The Virgin’s will was involved, actually. She said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word,” indicating her consent in her cooperation in God’s action. This is very significant. What does Simeon say to her? He prophesies, “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.” She has a unique relationship with Christ. The scriptures demonstrate this.

    Are those italics for my benefit? Of course I know that the Holy Spirit was the one who brought Christ into the womb of the Virgin.

    The Holy Spirit is not the mother of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of Christ. He (note the pronoun, please) is the expression of the Father’s love for the Son and the Son’s love for the Father.

    The Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin, and the incarnation of God Almighty took place in her holy womb. Of her own flesh Christ received his, of her own humanity Christ received that which he used to ransom us, namely his body. She is not “mere vessel.” Is your own mother merely a vessel? Let us give credit where credit is due.

    Really, when it comes down to it, isn’t this Protestant rejection of the rather innocuous title “Mother of God” nothing but a reaction against Catholicism?

11. Nicholas,

    I respect why the bishops in the Church started using the title “Mother of God” at that time. We had the heretics saying that Jesus wasn’t fully God and that Mary only gave birth to a man called Jesus. Using the title ‘Mother of God’ was a way of asserting the Orthodox position of the full divinity of Christ. I respect that, however over the years, the very thing they tried to protect us from, heretical ideas, has come about because of the title.

    You said,

    Referring to the Holy Spirit as “Mother,” this did not fly very far. Besides, it offers a somewhat bizarre view of the Trinity, does it not? It is not God the Father, God the Mother, and God the Son. Such a notion borders on heresy, if you ask me.

    Now we know from Papias (AD70–155) that Matthew wrote his original autograph manuscript in Hebrew. Now listen to what the Saint Jerome had to say about that original Hebrew autograph.

    In the Gospel which the Nazarenes… use which we have recently translated from Hebrew to Greek, and which most people call The Authentic Gospel of Matthew” Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 2

    Also

    Matthew, also called Levi, who used to be a tax collector and later an apostle, composed the Gospel of Christ, which was first published in Judea in Hebrew script for the sake of those of the circumcision who believed. This Gospel was afterwards translated into Greek (and the Greek has been lost) though by what author uncertain. The Hebrew original has been preserved to this present day in the library of Caesarea (in the land of Israel), which Pamphilus diligently gathered. I have also had the opportunity of having this volume transcribed for me by the Nazarenes of Beroea, Syria, who use it. It should be noted that wherever the Evangelist — whether on his own account or in the person of our Lord and Saviour — quotes the testimony of the Old Testament he does not follow the authority of the language of the Septuagint but the Hebrew. Jerome, On Illustrious Men 3, De Santos 18)

    If that is true about Matthew’s original gospel and Jerome and Origen were quoting true extracts from it, that’s means Christ truly did call the Holy Spirit, “His Mother”, if that’s the Orthodoxy of Christ, who are we to argue against it?

    As for correct gender for the pronoun used with Spirit, in Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac she’s feminine, in Greek it’s neuter, in Latin and German he’s masculine. We know from the last 100 years of archaeology in Israel that Yeshua would have primarily have spoken Hebrew and Aramaic, and thus would have called the spirit a “she”.

    But I do agree that protestants don’t give Mary enough credit. If it wasn’t for her, the Messiah never would have been born and we’d all still be estranged from God and dead in our sins. She truly is blessed for whom she brought into the world!

12. David,

    Yes, “she truly is blessed for whom she brought into the world!” God chose her, and he blessed her. She did not merit her role by herself. She was only the handmaid of God. On this point we agree.

    Since the version of the Gospel of Matthew that appears in the authoritative New Testament does not explicitly speak of the Holy Spirit as “Mother,” I would have to go with that.

    I know that “Ruach” can be feminine in certain contexts. I have heard this argument before, that the Holy Spirit is a feminine aspect of God, as is the “Shekinah,” but this is really just conjecture. I do not see any femininity in the Godhead, looking at the scriptures from an orthodox perspective. There are poetic allusions to the Word of God, the Wisdom of God, which make him feminine, as well, but, because Christ was a man, we have to take for granted that God is male, not that he has “gender” like a human, of course.

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