Historic-critic method, accepted by Divino Afflante Spiritu?

Here is the link to the encyclical.

I once thought this bad, since at variance with Tridentine confession of faith:

nec eam umquam nisi iuxta unanimem consensum Patrum accipiam et interpretabor. - Neither will I ever take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.

Then I used it myself about an enigmatic usage of the word Jews in the Gospel of St John:

4:22 vos adoratis quod nescitis nos adoramus quod scimus quia salus ex Iudaeis est - You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know; for salvation is of the Jews.

vs:

20:19 cum esset ergo sero die illo una sabbatorum et fores essent clausae ubi erant discipuli propter metum Iudaeorum venit Iesus et stetit in medio et dicit eis pax vobis - Now when it was late that same day, the first of the week, and the doors were shut, where the disciples were gathered together, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them: Peace be to you.

What I do of it - by that method - is: the Gospel was written by a man remembering how Christ himself used the word. But he wrote it after the Rabbinic synod or Sanhedrin of Jamnia had given the word a different sense.


Once (as I have seen) however He used it Himself in the new sense, before Pilate:

18:36 respondit Iesus regnum meum non est de mundo hoc si ex hoc mundo esset regnum meum ministri mei decertarent ut non traderer Iudaeis nunc autem meum
regnum non est hinc - Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now my kingdom is not from hence.

There the Jews had already fallen. So, have I sinned against rule of Tridentine confession hereby, by this attempt of historic-critical scholarship? Or have I given a proof of traditional dates of the Gospels (Synoptics before destruction of Jerusalem, St John's after his writing Apocalypse)?

Obviously, I cannot judge my own case. At least, one accusation against Pius XII I have "eaten up", the one concerning Divino Afflante Spiritu.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mouffetard/Paris V
17/IV/2010

This man (click title for link) ...

...defended the Gospels against an apparent discrepancy between Synoptics and St John. His take might imply a supplementary historic justification for Eastern practise.

Old News, New News, Good News (link)

ChesterTeens: The Man With Two Beards

Is John the Author of His Gospel? same essay, alternative link Mark Shea argues brilliantly. I will add that the Gospel is written by someone who has come to use "Jew" as synonym for the pharisaic sect rejecting Christ, and yet remembers that Christ himself way back when he walked on earth used the word purely as an ethnonym referring to his own, to the people he stemmed from and whose rightful king he was and remains.

A quote that will be a favourite: "In sum, if an ancient Jewish tentmaker could be a theologically-well-educated polyglot, so could an ancient Jewish fisherman."

Jews tend to be polyglots and theologically well-educated, whatever their religion or the age they live in ... even if very Gentile in ancestry.

You may of course add - if you're getting serious - that all the twelve, except Judas Ischariot, that is the eleven, were instructed in the scriptures by Christ when he rose from the dead and appeared to them. And four at least of them - Peter, Andrew, James and John - had been disciples to St John the Baptist, who was a prophet and also a son of a high priest. And John had also been foster son of the blessed Virgin and Theotokos for all the years between her Sons Crucifixion and her blessed Dormition. And he had received further instruction on Patmos - as set down in his Apocalypse - before writing his Gospel, possibly before the Epistles as well.

Others, grasping at straws, may claim that Mark 10:38-39…

But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" And they said to him, "We are able." And Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized."

…implies that both James and John suffered a martyr's death, contradicting John 21:22-23.

It actually "only" implies both suffered martyrdom. St John was martyred by boiling oil, but survived it miraculously before going to Patmos. He has a martyr's merit, but not a martyr's death. As is also true for his second mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose martyrdom was watching the crucifixion: both survived by miracle something which would otherwise have killed them (at least that is what I read in The Glories of Mary, by Alfons Liguori).

Here is a link on the difficulties faced by a faked Christianity, if that had been the case. Sorry, here it is.