God’s Will (Shakespeare)
It can be difficult to discern God’s Will, but here are ten pointers:
1) Keep God in first place in your life
2) Never besmirch His good name.
3) Go to church every Sunday. Sanctifying Grace has a half-life of 168 hours, and needs topping up that often.
4) Obey your parents when young, and look after them when they are old. They deserve both.
5) Never deprive an innocent human being of their life.
6) Only your spouse is worthy to receive your sexual love. You forsook all others, remember!
7) There is no wealth without work.
8) Honesty is always the best policy.
9) Bless your neighbour’s good fortune in relationships and goods, rather than envy them.
10) See (9)
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
What is God’s will? To know Him , to love Him, to serve Him in this life so as to be happy with forever in the next. Easy answer if you ask me. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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Quite right, Ginny, and Br Burrito’s laundry list is a good one when thinking about how to know, love and serve Him.
God bless you too.
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If I had any doubts about Jabba’s intellectual accuracy, his ill-informed post on the Imperial Prayers confirms them.
He references the below Blog (not, of course, any kind of academic source) to claim (erroneously) that the Imperial prayers were said:
…NOT “from Apostolic times” and NOT until 1955 — until 1806.
http://acatholiclife.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-long-forgotten-prayer-to-emperor-in.html
The Blog merely extracts from Wikipedia – see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exsultet
You can readily see that it cites no beginning for the Imperial prayers at all and, as regards the end, only says this:
“Until 1955, the Exsultet ended with a long prayer for the Holy Roman Emperor”
i.e. exactly what I said.
There you have it: “until 1955” and from Jabba’s own source!
Jabba, whilst himself relying upon Wikipedia, conveniently ignores this.
Or, to put it the charming way that Jabba himself put it he is “in fact presenting direct falsehoods as if they were ‘a matter of fact’”.
In short, the unfortunate Jabba calls me a liar in terms that actually apply only to himself, not me.
The Wikipedia quote continues:
“The head of the Holy Roman Empire alone could be prayed for with this formula, and the resignation in 1806 of the prerogatives of that position by Emperor Francis II of Austria, left that position unfilled thereafter, so that the prayer was in practice not used. And so, after 1804, the prayer actually ended with the immediately preceding petition for the members of the Church”
Actually, the prayer remained in the Roman Missal and rite, and continued to be used, particularly in the lands of the Austrian Emperor, as is clear from the fact that it continued to be printed in missals and prayer books there (and elsewhere).
I have a copy of a missal printed in Belgium in 1911 which contains the Imperial Prayers, with Gregorian chant setting (Belgium had been a former Habsburg territory) clearly intended for use every year in Holy Week.
Dom Prosper Gueranger OSB, the great French expert liturgist, re-founder and Abbot of Solesmes and reviver of the Roman rite, himself recognised that the Imperial prayers continued to be used as is clear from his reference thereto in his monumental L’Annee Liturgique.
Moreover, the Imperial prayers continue to be used even today – I have myself heard them in use (but of course referring only to the head of the Habsburg family, being the heir presumptive).
Jabba then further embarrasses himself by pretending that I said that the Emperor was prayed for in the Exultet “from Apostolic Times”.
I was careful NOT to say that (but – hey! – what is that to Jabba? He’s not going to let the facts stand in the way of a good rant).
What I said was this:
“It is a matter of fact (as you would know if you had read the Roman Christendom Blog) that the Catholic Church so supported the idea of the Roman imperial monarchy that it instituted, from the beginning, special prayers for the Emperor, in the most sacred parts of the liturgy (e.g. Good Friday intercessions, the Exultet on Holy Saturday). These imperial prayers remained part of the official liturgy of the Church right up until 1955 when the Holy Week services were changed by Mgr Bugnini.”
And earlier:
“Here is a part of the prayer for the Emperor in the Great Intercessions for every Good Friday from Apostolic times until 1955”
Jabba then goes off on a tangent about the origins of the Exultet, not the Great Intercessions.
In fact, it is the general view of Roman rite scholars – not least Dom Prosper Gueranger – that the Sacred Triduum of Holy Week is the oldest extant liturgy in the Church and that most of its prayers (as they stood up until changed in 1955), including the Great Intercessions, were almost certainly part of that original rite.
It is also probable that the Imperial prayers were included therein, not least because the first Pope, St Peter, himself ordered that the Roman Emperor, even the pagan Roman Emperor, should be given his due honour and, for Christians, that means in prayer as well as actions.
St Peter, in his first Epistle (or encyclical letter) wrote, at 1 Pet 2:13-17:
“[13] Be ye subject therefore to every human creature for God’s sake: whether it be to the Emperor as excelling; [14] Or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of the good: [15] For so is the will of God, that by doing well you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men[16] as free, and not as making liberty a cloak for malice, but as the servants of God. [17] Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the Emperor.”
This is sometimes translated as “King” but the Koine Greek word used in the New Testament Greek text is “Basileus”, thus in verse 17:
πάντας τιμήσατε, τὴν ἀδελφότητα ἀγαπᾶτε, τὸν θεὸν φοβεῖσθε, τὸν βασιλέα τιμᾶτε.
“Basileus” was, in Roman times, the “Koine or “common usage” title of the Roman Emperor.
Before Jabba flogs off to Wikipedia, let me help him by quoting from its article on “Basileus”:
“Under Roman rule, the term basileus came to be used, in the Hellenistic tradition, to designate the Roman Emperor in the everyday and literary speech of the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean…”
Prayers for the Roman Emperor were amplified and extended once the Emperor and Empire became Catholic under the Emperor Theodosius.
A view of the wider extent of other imperial prayers can be gained from these scholarly articles:
http://www.apostoliki-diakonia.gr/en_main/catehism/theologia_zoi/themata.asp?cat=leit&NF=1&contents=contents.asp&main=texts&file=5.htm
http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/history3.aspx
So, yes, Jabba, “Imperial prayers from Apostolic times”. I’m sorry if that upsets you but there it is.
As for the rest of Jabba’s ill-informed post, he is clearly unaware that Catholic monarchy was expressly, openly and deliberately based upon that of the Roman Empire and that with the blessing and concurrence of the Church.
Jabba, however, thinks the Roman Empire was “radically unlike Catholic monarchy”, clearly oblivious of the fact that all the emperors from Theodosius I in 347 to Romulus Augustulus in 476, and then in the East until at least the Photian schism in 863-7 and, at least nominally, until the Great Schism of 1053, were Catholic monarchs (apostates excepted).
So, yes, Jabba, the early Christian Roman Empire was not only “a” but “the” “Catholic monarchy”. I’m sorry if that upsets you but there it is.
There was no “Prayer to the Emperor” as Jabba wrongly writes but only “Prayers for the Emperor” and they, as we have seen, were Apostolic in origin, and were amplified and extended once the Emperor became Catholic – richly so in the Byzantine Empire.
Jabba is simply wrong, therefore, to say that Imperial prayers were “strictly reserved for the Monarch of the Holy Roman Empire which was an entirely different political entity”.
The Holy Roman Empire, far from being an “entirely different political entity” was expressly and consciously a continuation of the early Christian Roman Empire and both Pope and Emperor considered it so.
Most fatuously of all, Jabba writes:
Indeed, your bizarre notion that the pagan Emperors of Rome who ordered the mass persecutions of Christ’s Church were prayed for every Easter in Apostolic times is mind-bogglingly weird.
The simple fact is that this is precisely what happened. The early Christians were in the habit of praying for their enemies.
And, one might add, with great success, too, since the Emperor and Empire eventually became Christian and Catholic and in a truly remarkable and semi-miraculous way.
The Emperor Constantine miraculously saw, in the sky, the Chi-Rho symbol of Christ (from Christos in Greek) with the Greek motto underneath Ἐν τούτῳ νίκα, meaning “in this [sign] conquer” and caused it to be painted upon the shield of each of his soldiers before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.
When Constantine won the battle he was so impressed that he liberated Christianity throughout the Empire and, eventually, himself became a Catholic.
I’m sorry, Jabba, if you find this “mind-bogglingly weird” but perhaps you haven’t yet quite understood the truly radical nature of Roman Catholic Christianity.
Jabbawocky, anyone?
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If I had any doubts about Jabba’s intellectual accuracy, his ill-informed post on the Imperial Prayers confirms them.
He references the below Blog (not, of course, any kind of academic source) to claim (erroneously) that the Imperial prayers were said:
…NOT “from Apostolic times” and NOT until 1955 — until 1806.
http://acatholiclife.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-long-forgotten-prayer-to-emperor-in.html
The Blog merely extracts from Wikipedia – see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exsultet
You can readily see that it cites no beginning for the Imperial prayers at all and, as regards the end, only says this:
“Until 1955, the Exsultet ended with a long prayer for the Holy Roman Emperor”
i.e. exactly what I said.
There you have it: “until 1955” and from Jabba’s own source!
Jabba, whilst himself relying upon Wikipedia, conveniently ignores this.
Or, to put it the charming way that Jabba himself put it he is “in fact presenting direct falsehoods as if they were ‘a matter of fact’”.
In short, the unfortunate Jabba calls me a liar in terms that actually apply only to himself, not me.
[CONT]
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Reblogged this on Laus Deo.
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If I had any doubts about Jabba’s intellectual accuracy, his ill-informed post on the Imperial Prayers confirms them.
He references the below Blog (not, of course, any kind of academic source) to claim (erroneously) that the Imperial prayers were said:
…NOT “from Apostolic times” and NOT until 1955 — until 1806.
http://acatholiclife.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-long-forgotten-prayer-to-emperor-in.html
The Blog merely extracts from Wikipedia – see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exsultet
You can readily see that it cites no beginning for the Imperial prayers at all and, as regards the end, only says this:
“Until 1955, the Exsultet ended with a long prayer for the Holy Roman Emperor”
i.e. exactly what I said.
[CONT]
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If I had any doubts about Jabba’s intellectual accuracy, his ill-informed post on the Imperial Prayers confirms them.
He references the below Blog (not, of course, any kind of academic source) to claim (erroneously) that the Imperial prayers were said:
…NOT “from Apostolic times” and NOT until 1955 — until 1806.
http://acatholiclife.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-long-forgotten-prayer-to-emperor-in.html
The Blog merely extracts from Wikipedia – see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exsultet
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[Jabba]… references a Blog … , which in turn cuts straight from Wikipedia, to claim (erroneously) that the Imperial prayers were said:
…NOT “from Apostolic times” and NOT until 1955 — until 1806.
You can readily see that it cites no beginning for the Imperial prayers at all and, as regards the end, only says this:
“Until 1955, the Exsultet ended with a long prayer for the Holy Roman Emperor”
i.e. exactly what I said.
There you have it: “until 1955” and from Jabba’s own source!
The Wikipedia quote continues:
“The head of the Holy Roman Empire alone could be prayed for with this formula, and the resignation in 1806 of the prerogatives of that position by Emperor Francis II of Austria, left that position unfilled thereafter, so that the prayer was in practice not used. And so, after 1804, the prayer actually ended with the immediately preceding petition for the members of the Church”
Actually, the prayer remained in the Roman Missal and rite, and continued to be used, particularly in the lands of the Austrian Emperor, as is clear from the fact that it continued to be printed in missals and prayer books there (and elsewhere).
I have a copy of a missal printed in Belgium in 1911 which contains the Imperial Prayers, with Gregorian chant setting (Belgium had been a former Habsburg territory) clearly intended for use every year in Holy Week.
Dom Prosper Gueranger OSB, the great French expert liturgist, re-founder and Abbot of Solesmes and reviver of the Roman rite, himself recognised that the Imperial prayers continued to be used as is clear from his reference thereto in his monumental L’Annee Liturgique.
Moreover, the Imperial prayers continue to be used even today – I have myself heard them in use (but of course referring only to the head of the Habsburg family, being the heir presumptive).
Jabba then…[claims]… that I said that the Emperor was prayed for in the Exultet “from Apostolic Times”.
I was careful NOT to say that ….
What I said was this:
“It is a matter of fact (as you would know if you had read the Roman Christendom Blog) that the Catholic Church so supported the idea of the Roman imperial monarchy that it instituted, from the beginning, special prayers for the Emperor, in the most sacred parts of the liturgy (e.g. Good Friday intercessions, the Exultet on Holy Saturday). These imperial prayers remained part of the official liturgy of the Church right up until 1955 when the Holy Week services were changed by Mgr Bugnini.”
And earlier:
“Here is a part of the prayer for the Emperor in the Great Intercessions for every Good Friday from Apostolic times until 1955”
Jabba then goes off on a tangent about the origins of the Exultet, not the Great Intercessions.
In fact, it is the general view of Roman rite scholars – not least Dom Prosper Gueranger – that the Sacred Triduum of Holy Week is the oldest extant liturgy in the Church and that most of its prayers (as they stood up until changed in 1955), including the Great Intercessions, were almost certainly part of that original rite.
It is also probable that the Imperial prayers were included therein, not least because the first Pope, St Peter, himself ordered that the Roman Emperor, even the pagan Roman Emperor, should be given his due honour and, for Christians, that means in prayer as well as actions.
St Peter, in his first Epistle (or encyclical letter) wrote, at 1 Pet 2:13-17:
“[13] Be ye subject therefore to every human creature for God’s sake: whether it be to the Emperor as excelling; [14] Or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of the good: [15] For so is the will of God, that by doing well you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men[16] as free, and not as making liberty a cloak for malice, but as the servants of God. [17] Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the Emperor.”
This is sometimes translated as “King” but the Koine Greek word used in the New Testament Greek text is “Basileus”, thus in verse 17:
πάντας τιμήσατε, τὴν ἀδελφότητα ἀγαπᾶτε, τὸν θεὸν φοβεῖσθε, τὸν βασιλέα τιμᾶτε.
“Basileus” was, in Roman times, the “Koine or “common usage” title of the Roman Emperor.
…[the] Wikipedia… article on “Basileus”:
“Under Roman rule, the term basileus came to be used, in the Hellenistic tradition, to designate the Roman Emperor in the everyday and literary speech of the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean…”
Prayers for the Roman Emperor were amplified and extended once the Emperor and Empire became Catholic under the Emperor Theodosius.
A view of the wider extent of other imperial prayers can be gained from scholarly articles about the Byzantine liturgy and its imperial prayers.
So, yes, Jabba, “Imperial prayers from Apostolic times”.
As for the rest of Jabba’s … post, he is clearly unaware that Catholic monarchy was expressly, openly and deliberately based upon that of the Roman Empire and that with the blessing and concurrence of the Church.
Jabba, however, thinks the Roman Empire was “radically unlike Catholic monarchy”, clearly oblivious of the fact that all the emperors from Theodosius I in 347 to Romulus Augustulus in 476, and then in the East until at least the Photian schism in 863-7 and, at least nominally, until the Great Schism of 1053, were Catholic monarchs (apostates excepted).
So, yes, Jabba, the early Christian Roman Empire was not only “a” but “the” “Catholic monarchy”.
There was no “Prayer to the Emperor” as Jabba wrongly writes but only “Prayers for the Emperor” and they, as we have seen, were Apostolic in origin, and were amplified and extended once the Emperor became Catholic – richly so in the Byzantine Empire.
Jabba is simply wrong, therefore, to say that Imperial prayers were “strictly reserved for the Monarch of the Holy Roman Empire which was an entirely different political entity”.
The Holy Roman Empire, far from being an “entirely different political entity” was expressly and consciously a continuation of the early Christian Roman Empire and both Pope and Emperor considered it so.
Jabba writes:
Indeed, your bizarre notion that the pagan Emperors of Rome who ordered the mass persecutions of Christ’s Church were prayed for every Easter in Apostolic times is mind-bogglingly weird.
The simple fact is that this is precisely what happened. The early Christians were in the habit of praying for their enemies.
And, one might add, with great success, too, since the Emperor and Empire eventually became Christian and Catholic and in a truly remarkable and semi-miraculous way.
The Emperor Constantine miraculously saw, in the sky, the Chi-Rho symbol of Christ (from Christos in Greek) with the Greek motto underneath Ἐν τούτῳ νίκα, meaning “in this [sign] conquer” and caused it to be painted upon the shield of each of his soldiers before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.
When Constantine won the battle he was so impressed that he liberated Christianity throughout the Empire and, eventually, himself became a Catholic.
I’m sorry, Jabba, if you find this “mind-bogglingly weird” but perhaps you haven’t yet quite understood the truly radical nature of Roman Catholic Christianity.
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Jabba, on the “What was Catholic monarchy like” page, after ranting for several posts about being the sorry victim of ad hominems then proceeded to produce numerous random ad hominems of his own, rather spoiling his own case.
Then he wrote this in the comment box on the Monarchy page:
I strongly hope that Tribunus could put his antagonism elsewhere, where it belongs (and I mean that quite literally — the enemies of the Faith are elsewhere)
Catch that, folks? “Enemy of the faith”, he now calls me, merely for disagreeing with him.
And apparently that is not an ad hominem.
Well, it’s a point of view!
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God’s Will?
Well Genesis and the Fall of Adam and Eve and their self consciousness. Self centred is the opposite of the Trinity. What binds the Trinity? Selfless Love. The Father’s Love of the Son. The Son’s Love of the Father. The Holy Ghost the Love of the Father and the Son.
God is Love so God’s Will is that we lose Self.
This world is a altar to God where Self must be sacrificed. Man created in the image of God means we see God in ALL men. Understand this and Free Will. We are bound to pray for Our neighbour hence rulers/presidents etc..
The Apostacy of this world has thrown of Christ thats secular as well as increasingly religious. This rejection of Christ is an attempt to return man to a state before the Passion. The madness is this false claim that God is to be excluded from His Creation. False Masonic free thinking of the separation of state and religion. Completely false.
Here is the folly of this world the folly of Babel or Sodom and the flesh pots of Egypt. If you reject Love then what is left? Hell!
God’s Will is that through the sacraments that fallen Adam puts on Christ and inherits Heaven. Thats God’s Will.
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Ginnyfree at 1613; Something vaguely familiar about what you have to say. Now I remember, that’s what My Wife teaches our grandkids…. So Sad to say, they don’t get anything like that at our local Catholic School….ILYS….”I Like Your Style
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“Enemy of the faith”, he now calls me
No I jolly well did not — as a proper use of reading skills should make obvious.
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Tribunus at 1004 Am on the 8th… Now I get It. You have trouble sleeping…ITSOTWDIM. A free trip to West Australia, accommodation included and your own kangaroo to cuddle for the duration of your stay, to the one that works that one out. Open to everyone accept Mr Toadspit.
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PS.. Its 2001 hours on the 8th here at the moment. BTW Accommodation is, under the bridge on the Swan river in the Swan Valley with a bottle of the best Swan Valley red thrown in
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Hey – thanks for the invitation Geoff! Might scare you by taking you up on that offer one day… just as soon as I can ‘let my hair down’ from so many ties and chores. 🙂 I’ve always wanted to visit Oz… it sounds really wonderful! But I think I’d prefer a koala bear to cuddle please, rather than a boisterous, jumpy-kicky, kangaroo.. (lol).
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@ Tribunus
That was an interesting background you give to the “imperial prayers” – thank you.
Going off on a bit of a tangent, I have a beautiful old missal in my possession, printed before the changes of Vatican II. Not only are the ancient prayers themselves absolutely exquisite – as befitting a love-offering to God as good as anything Man could compose – but they are focused totally towards giving glory to God. Some modern prayers, both within the Liturgy of the N.O. Mass and personal prayers, are so man-centred and uninspiring.
By the way Tribunus, I am certain Jabba’s words: “and I mean that quite literally — the enemies of the Faith are elsewhere”, were not referring to you. No way. In fact he then says as much himself at 11:46.
It is clear (to me anyway) that he was talking about the real enemies traditional Catholics have nowadays, both at ‘home’ and ‘abroad’. And I know you don’t need me to list who or what these “enemies” are, do I? 😉
We are being attacked viciously on all sides in our Faith, and on our Faith. What Jabba was insinuating was that we need to stick together instead of wasting our breath fighting among ourselves. He’s right and I completely agree with him.
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That was an interesting background you give to the “imperial prayers”
It’s inaccurate historically, kathleen — though very much of what he says is correct.
The prayers to the Emperor were instituted during the Holy Roman Empire, and they effectively ceased to be said in 1806, although their text was only removed from the Exultet in 1955. The prayer to the Emperor was not said between 1807 and 1954 — because there was no such person.
Actually, the prayer remained in the Roman Missal and rite, and continued to be used, particularly in the lands of the Austrian Emperor
You paint a very confusing picture — because after having first claimed, erroneously, that the Prayer to the Emperor was said (implicitly, throughout Christendom) from Apostolic times until 1955, you are now using the existence of particular prayers for particular monarchs as if they were the same Universal prayer for “the Emperor”, which they were and are not.
And I say this as someone who has often prayed at Mass for our own Catholic Sovereign.
And I have no doubt whatsoever that should another Catholic Emperor arise in the future, then the Prayer would be said again.
Jabba, however, thinks the Roman Empire was “radically unlike Catholic monarchy”, clearly oblivious of the fact that all the emperors from Theodosius I in 347 to Romulus Augustulus in 476 … &c.
You have a strong tendency to willfully misinterpret the words of anyone disagreeing with you — I was quite obviously referring to the Roman Empire and Emperors “in Apostolic times“.
So, yes, Jabba, “Imperial prayers from Apostolic times”
So you think that Apostolic times include the mid-4th Century and later ???
Bizarre.
Jabba then goes off on a tangent about the origins of the Exultet, not the Great Intercessions
The Great Intercessions were a part of the Exultet — separate Prayers for a Catholic Monarch are, in my experience, said or sung separately.
St Peter, in his first Epistle (or encyclical letter) wrote, at 1 Pet 2:13-17:
“[13] Be ye subject therefore to every human creature for God’s sake: whether it be to the Emperor as excelling; [14] Or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of the good: [15] For so is the will of God, that by doing well you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men[16] as free, and not as making liberty a cloak for malice, but as the servants of God. [17] Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the Emperor.”
This is sometimes translated as “King” but the Koine Greek word used in the New Testament Greek text is “Basileus”, thus in verse 17:
πάντας τιμήσατε, τὴν ἀδελφότητα ἀγαπᾶτε, τὸν θεὸν φοβεῖσθε, τὸν βασιλέα τιμᾶτε.
“Basileus” was, in Roman times, the “Koine or “common usage” title of the Roman Emperor.
I do, at least, completely agree with this — and you neglect to mention Christ’s own command to render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar — except that none of it constitutes evidence either pro or contra regarding the earliest date of these prayers.
There was no “Prayer to the Emperor” as Jabba wrongly writes but only “Prayers for the Emperor”
I could just as well waste time nit-picking your typos and everyone else’s too — but I don’t, as such activity bores me to tears.
The early Christians were in the habit of praying for their enemies
All true Christians, Ancient, Mediaeval, Modern, and Future.
This is not evidence either pro or contra regarding the earliest date of these specific prayers in their very specific form — which were introduced during the Holy Roman Empire.
You could, of course, backtrack your argument so far into generality that you’d end up retreating into the domain of the general truths of the Catholicity — but this would hardly serve to demonstrate the specific points of yours that are either inaccurate or exaggerated.
I’m sorry, Jabba, if you find this “mind-bogglingly weird” but perhaps you haven’t yet quite understood the truly radical nature of Roman Catholic Christianity
If I hadn’t, I would not now be either Baptised or a Catholic — it is the specific claims that you have made about that specific prayer that have been challenged,
The Holy Roman Empire, far from being an “entirely different political entity” was expressly and consciously a continuation of the early Christian Roman Empire
I do not understand why you think that making such a clearly false statement should lead anyone to agree with it.
Sure, at its foundation it was certainly an attempt to provide such a continuation — but I’ve not read a single expert on that period saying anything other than that the attempt to recreate the previous political entity ended up creating something very different — not least because the Frankish/Germanic notion of Kingship was so foreign to the Latin notion of the Caesar/Imperator.
The underlying feudal structures of the Holy Roman Empire, at least in its origins, have little resemblance to the more military structures of the Western Empire, and I would doubt that they much resembled the structures of the Hapsburg Empire either, except that’s not one of my periods, as stated, so a doubt is all that it remains ; though the structures of the Hapsburg Empire cannot have resembled those of the Western Roman Empire in Antiquity.
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Some modern prayers, both within the Liturgy of the N.O. Mass and personal prayers, are so man-centred and uninspiring
In their trite English translations, certainly … 😦
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“Enemy of the faith”, he now calls me
Yes, you jolly well did — as a proper use of reading skills should make obvious – and despite Kathleen’s implausible (but very well meant) attempt to save you from your own ad hominem insults.
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Jabba persists:
It’s inaccurate historically, Kathleen — though very much of what he says is correct.
So, Jabba. It’s both correct and incorrect, right? Err, no, Jabba. It’s one or the other.
And let’s not forget that you have already admitted that this is not “your” period and you know little about it. But as usual you pontificate without providing anything by way of a proper source for your pontifications. Let’s face it, Jabba. You are merely advancing your own unsupported opinion.
Since, despite my giving you evidence to the contrary, you persist with your falsehood that “the prayer to the Emperor was not said between 1807 and 1954 — because there was no such person”, let me QUOTE you those sources verbatim:
“The Church of Rome, in the following prayer, had in view the emperor…this prayer is now omitted, excepting in those countries which are subject to Austria.”
[Gueranger OSB, Dom Prosper, L’Annee Liturgique1841-1875, Vol VI “Passiontide and Holy Week”, re-published by Loreto Publications, Fitzwilliam NH, 2000, p.482]
Good Friday – Great Intercessions. Feria VI in Parasceve: “Oremus et pro Christianissimo Imperatore nostro N. [Si non est coronatus, dicitur electo Imperatore]…”
Holy Saturday – Exultet. Sabbato Sancto. Benedictio Cerei: “Respice etiam ac devotissimum Imperatorem nostrum N. [si non est coronatus, dicitur electum Imperatorem]…”
[Missale Romanum, Ratisbonae, Romae, Neo Eboraci et Cincinnati, sumptibus et typis Friderici Pustet, typographi S. R. Congregationis, 1911, pp.211 & 231]
I cannot for the present find my Belgian Missale but this is from a German Pustet edition from 1911.
Friedrich Pustet established his liturgical press in Regensburg (Ratisbon). The success of Friedrich earned for him in 1870 the title “Typographus S. R. Congregationis“and the Vatican commissioned Pustet to print the editio typica of all the liturgical works. Branch firms were established in New York (1865), Cincinnati, Ohio (1867), and Rome (1898).
Quite clearly, then, Jabba, you are simply wrong. The Imperial prayers continued to be said after 1806, both in the 19th and 20th centuries, and for the Austrian Emperor as successor of the Roman Emperor.
If you don’t believe me then look it up for yourself. I have given you the references.
As for your claim –
prayers to the Emperor were instituted during the Holy Roman Empire, and they effectively ceased to be said in 1806, although their text was only removed from the Exultet in 1955.
you are wrong there, too.
They were not “prayers to the Emperor”, but prayers to God “for the Emperor”, as I have already told you but you simply ignore. As I prove above, they did not cease in 1806. Moreover, they were not only removed from the Exultet in 1955 but also from the Great Intercessions and from the Missa pro Imperatore.
Lastly, you provide not a skerrick of evidence for your claim that they were instituted during the Holy Roman Empire and you are wholly unable to rebut the obvious fact that the Imperial prayers were said for the Byzantine Emperor, and, indeed, are still part of the Byzantine liturgy, even today (albeit transferred to the Russian Caesar, the Tsar – that is, his heir presumptive).
Since almost all General Ecumenical Councils of the Roman Catholic Church were called by, and presided over by, the Roman Emperor from Nicea I in 325 to Constantinople IV in the 9th century, i.e. for the first 1,000 years of the Church, it is unsurprising that the Church prayed for the Emperor in a most prominent part of the Sacred Liturgy.
You paint a very confusing picture — because after having first claimed, erroneously, that the Prayer to the Emperor was said (implicitly, throughout Christendom) from Apostolic times until 1955, you are now using the existence of particular prayers for particular monarchs as if they were the same Universal prayer for “the Emperor”, which they were and are not.
No, that, too, is wholly wrong.
I am speaking of prayers for the Roman Emperor and always was – not “particular prayers for particular monarchs”. You need to go back and read, Jabba.
And imperial prayers were, indeed, said for the Roman Emperor from Apostolic times, and, as I said, most scholars say that the Great Intercessions come from Apostolic times.
It is you who are getting confused.
And I say this as someone who has often prayed at Mass for our own Catholic Sovereign.
Excellent, Jabba. I am glad to hear it.
And I have no doubt whatsoever that should another Catholic Emperor arise in the future, then the Prayer would be said again.
I agree with you, there, Jabba. Indeed, as I say, I have been to Holy Week services where the prayers are sung (naming Archduke Otto, whilst he was still alive, and now naming his heir presumptive).
I was quite obviously referring to the Roman Empire and Emperors “in Apostolic times”.
And? That makes no difference to the fact that you were wrong to say that the “political structure of the Roman Empire…was radically unlike that of a Catholic Monarchy” when, as a matter of historical fact, it simply was not “radically unlike” but, in fact, directly modelled thereon – Roman emperor, senate, comitia, consuls, praetors, tribunes, Roman military rank structure, Roman titles of nobility, Roman law, Roman land tenure, Roman city government etc etc and so it remained for centuries and centuries.
Don’t tell me that I am “misinterpreting” your words. You as good as accused me of lying (“presenting direct falsehoods as if they were ‘a matter of fact’ ” – remember?) and, as you can see, I was, in fact, right. You should be withdrawing that ad hominem calumny.
So you think that Apostolic times include the mid-4th Century and later ???
No, Jabba.
I think that Apostolic times were the times when the Apostles were still alive and when, according to the most reputable liturgical scholars of the old Roman rite, that the Great Intercessions on Good Friday were first confected, the Sacred Triduum of the Roman rite being the oldest liturgy in the Christian world.
Don’t take my word for it. Read what the great scholars like Dom Prosper Gueranger OSB and Rev Adrian Fortescue say about it.
It is your persistence in error which is “bizarre”, not me.
The Great Intercessions were a part of the Exultet
No, Jabba. That is quite wrong.
The Great Intercessions are not part of the Exultet. They are sung on Good Friday, not Holy Saturday.
They are sung directly after the Passion has been sung, when the Church intercedes for the necessities of the whole world (including, for example, the prayers for the Jews – you must have heard of those, no?).
Do yourself a favour. Don’t pretend to pontificate about a subject you know very little about. No-one minds you not knowing. It is when you pontificate and accuse others of lying that they tend to mind.
separate Prayers for a Catholic Monarch are, in my experience, said or sung separately.
Your experience is, I fear, too limited. There are certainly some separate prayers for monarchs. That is probably what you are used to under the modern liturgy in the UK, or Luxemburg or Liechtenstein or wherever you live. Also in Britain, we sing the Domine salvum fac for the Queen at the end of the main Sunday mass.
The Imperial prayers, however, were an integral part of the Sacred Triduum. As I say, don’t take my word for it. Look it up in the references I have given you.
As to St Peter, in his first Epistle (or encyclical letter) wrote, you say:
I do, at least, completely agree with this — and you neglect to mention Christ’s own command to render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar
Thank you. I could also have mentioned the obedience of the Holy Family to the decree of the Roman Emperor that everyone should be enrolled.
— except that none of it constitutes evidence either pro or contra regarding the earliest date of these prayers.
I didn’t offer it as proof, Jabba. I offered it as collateral support to the proof I had already given.
The difference between us, Jabba, is that whilst I have offered a lot of proof, you have offered nothing more than your own unsupported opinion or feeling.
Fortescue tells us that the Sacred Triduum, including the Great Intercessions, originated in Apostolic times and Gueranger tells us that it was held in the greatest veneration in the early 3rd century, by the testimony of St Denis, Bishop of Alexandria (Epistola ad Basilidem, canon i) and of St John Chrysostom in the next century (Homilia xxx in Genesi).
…which were introduced during the Holy Roman Empire
You persist, mulishly, in this claim with not one jot of proof.
Are you seriously suggesting that there were no prayers for the Christian Roman Emperor in the liturgy before the Holy Roman Empire e.g. under Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian and the many other emperors?
You found it “mind-bogglingly weird” that Christians prayed even for the pagan Roman Emperor but now you admit that they prayed even for their enemies.
Next you persist in your further error of continuing to claim that the Holy Roman Empire, was an “entirely different political entity” and not expressly and consciously a continuation of the early Christian Roman Empire.
Indeed, you again as good as call me a liar and say that I am making a “clearly false statement”.
Where is your evidence, then, Jabba, that the statement is false?
You have none. All you can say is that you would “doubt it” even though it is not “one of my periods”. Aren’t you being a little arrogant, there, Jabba? Not your period but you claim to pontificate?
Let me, on the other hand, provide you with evidence from a recognised and unbiased source, James, Viscount Bryce DCL, in his work The Holy Roman Empire, MacMillan, London, 1925, pp.1-3:
“Of those who in August 1806, read in the newspapers that the Emperor Francis II had announced to the Germanic Diet his resignation of the imperial crown there were probably few who reflected that the oldest political institution in the world had come to an end. Yet it was so. The Empire, which a note issued by a diplomatist on the banks of the Danube extinguished, was the same which the crafty nephew [Octavian, later Augustus] of Julius [i.e. Caesar] had won for himself, against the powers of the East, beneath the cliffs of Actium; and which had preserved, almost unaltered, through eighteen centuries of time…Nothing else so directly linked the old world and the new…From the days of Constantine till far down into the Middle Ages it was, conjointly with the Papacy, the recognised centre and head of Christendom, exercising over the minds of men an influence such as its material strength [alone] could never have commanded….We shall see the old Empire…we shall mark how the new religion, rising in the midst of a hostile power, ends by embracing and transforming it…”
To be sure, the Empire waxed and waned and underwent many changes and transformations but what never changed was its claim to be, expressly and consciously, a continuation of the early Christian Roman Empire with a Christian and Catholic Caesar at its head. As Bryce demonstrated, all other Christian monarchies looked to it as their model and deferred to the Emperor as the doyen of the sovereigns.
Even after 1806, the Austrian Emperor was regarded as the successor of the Roman Caesars, so much so that it took Bismarck some 3 days and night of non-stop haranguing to get his own sovereign, the Prussian Frederick William, to agree to take on the title of Kaiser, i.e. Caesar, because even the Protestant Frederick William felt it was irreverent and wrong to usurp a title which so clearly belonged to the Catholic Austrian emperors.
The Roman imperial idea was, and always had been, from the very beginning, the cornerstone of Roman Catholic Christendom.
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Jabba,
You might also read Charles V by the late Dr Otto von Habsburg (HIRH Archduke Otto of Austria).
It will give you chapter and verse on the ever-renewed Roman imperial antecedents of the Empire.
You might also like to go my Blog and see the famous anklopfzeremonie (“door knock” ceremony) in which the coffin of a deceased Habsburg is received at the Capuchin Church in Vienna by the friars.
After all the titles of the deceased are laboriously read out, the Friar-custos refuses entry saying “we do not known him”. Only on the 3rd time when the chamberlain announces “Otto, a mortal, sinful man” do the friars let the coffin into the church.
It is a very moving ceremony, as I can testify, having seen it both for Archduke Otto and for Empress Zita (in 1989).
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Kathleen,
By the way Tribunus, I am certain Jabba’s words: “and I mean that quite literally — the enemies of the Faith are elsewhere”, were not referring to you. No way.
I am touched by your ability to see the best, Kathleen, even when someone is being deliberately offensive. It is an enviable quality.
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Geoff,
Thanks for you kind offer. Swan valley red sounds very nice.
But we don’t tend still to be in bed on Sundays at 10.00am. Apart from anything else, there’s mass to get to.
But perhaps that’s what Swan valley red does to one…
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Jabba at 1956Hours. “In their trite English translations, certainly” I think, once ‘man centred and uninspiring, always ‘man centred and uninspiring. Regarding translations, no amount of ‘tinkering’ with can change that. Sadly for the NO Missea. things can never improve . A Banal and fabricated rite is an apt description… WST?….’Who Said That?’
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What is God’s will?
Possibly a new crusade?
After all: Deus vult!
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JabbaPapa,
Since you decided to reply to Tribunus, I have decided to responded on the very topic to you.
Firstly, “the Frankish/Germanic notion of Kingship was so foreign to the Latin notion of the Caesar/Imperator.”
Hilaire Belloc in his wonderful but flawed book, Europe and the Faith, explains that the whole notion of Kingship of the Franks (and that of everyone contemporary) was that of a military ruler (From Proto-Indo-European *h₃rḗǵs [“ruler”]) under the sovereignship of the Roman emperor. It only acquired its modern sense of absolute head during the Protestant revolt. Now this is exactly how the kings of the Franks thought of themselves, until Charlemagne received the Imperium from Leo III, the last emperor having been murdered by his mother Irene. From that time the Emperors approved by the Pope have succeeded him, including the Hapsburgs, starting with Rudolf I of the Blessed Sacrament.
“The Holy Roman Empire, far from being an “entirely different political entity” was expressly and consciously a continuation of the early Christian Roman Empire
I do not understand why you think that making such a clearly false statement should lead anyone to agree with it.”
Is it so false? Ever since the great Constantine transubstantiated the Pagan Roman empire there has been a continual line of emperors approved by the Pope and ordained into the clergy until 1918.
“Basileus” was, in Roman times, the “Koine or “common usage” title of the Roman Emperor.
I do, at least, completely agree with this — and you neglect to mention Christ’s own command to render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar — except that none of it constitutes evidence either pro or contra regarding the earliest date of these prayers.”
But it is pro Divine-approval of the Roman Emperor in his Catholic duties for the unified Christian world.
“The underlying feudal structures of the Holy Roman Empire, at least in its origins, have little resemblance to the more military structures of the Western Empire, and I would doubt that they much resembled the structures of the Hapsburg Empire either, except that’s not one of my periods, as stated, so a doubt is all that it remains ; though the structures of the Hapsburg Empire cannot have resembled those of the Western Roman Empire in Antiquity.”
The very foundation of feudalism was military protection. Once again I turn to Belloc (and to Ann Carroll’s wonderful book, Christ the King the Lord of History, as well as to Chesterton), and I find that the very names Comes, Dux, Rex, are names of the military officers of the Roman Empire. Austria (Noricum of Old, the first outside nation to join the Roman Civilization) was created by Otto III as a military border (Marchia Orientalis) against the invading easterners, and Rudolf I used it as such after he defeated the seditious Ottokar II, who threatened the very foundation of the Empire which protected him. And this is only a small part of the vast knowledge I have gained in carefully researching this subject.
Please remain a “Truly Radical” Roman Catholic and as always:
AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO
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Hapsburg Restoration Movement:
I notice on one of the Links on your site, ASK ABOUT THE CHURCH, under the tag ‘related links’ a Father Barron site rates a mention. Is this the Same Father Barron that said, ‘we can have a reasonable expectation that all will be saved?’
I have problems with that comment as should any informed Catholic. The teachings and doctrines of the Holy Catholic Church would refute that claim, and the scripture are replete with examples to the contrary.
Is this representative of what we can find on your site?
If not, your may want to reconsider the link, after all we don’t want to be seen and promoting heresy do we. If it is representative, then you do have some problems, and the use of the word Catholic should not be referenced anywhere on you site.
I have written to the Fr Barron Site and await a reply. As to the HRM, just what are you trying to restore?
Kathleen, I still cannot receive your site (CPS)
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Sic. Respond (not responded)
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Geoff Kiernan,
What you find on my site that is written by me is representative of my site.
Father Barron has not said anything that contradicts the Church’s infallible teaching. That I personally disagree with the point he made does not change this. If Fr. Barron does commit heresy, I will be one of the first to remove my link to his website.
As to what I am trying to restore, I suggest you buy the three-part book series THE WAR FOR CHRISTENDOM, as soon as it is published. In the meantime, here is a quote as to that subject:
There shall arise in the last times, a Prince, sprung from the Kaiser Karl who shall recover the land of promise and reform the Church, and by whom the ancient glory of the Empire shall be restored…
-Aystinger the German
AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO
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. Is this the Same Father Barron that said, ‘we can have a reasonable expectation that all will be saved?’
Barron was drawing on Dare we Hope by Hans Urs Von Balthasar, one of the great Theologians of the last Century and the (modern) theologian who Benedict XVI has been most influenced by. – In fact he delivered a eulogy at Balthasar’s funeral. Not to say he is necessarily “right”, but he’s certainly not “dodgy”
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What is God’s will?
Apparently that there be sin in the world.
He made the Devil, whom, we are told, is responsible for man originally sinning. (See Lecto Divina post for Sunday.)
….Just as God knew Satan would from eternity.
So God must be “happy” with the idea of sin in the world. Part of His plan, maybe?
It feels like the game is “rigged,” somehow. I find all this very odd and puzzling.
Or I would, if I believed it.
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Thanks for your post, HRM. It makes a change from Jabba’s incessant and unsupported pontificating about a subject upon which, by his own admission, he knows but little.
Risibly, Jabba thinks that the Good Friday Great Intercessions take place on Holy Saturday at the Exultet.
But he won’t be backing off any time soon, I’ll warrant. He’ll come back with some equally pontificating statement to tell us that it was “obvious” that he meant nothing of the kind and it was my inability to read that is to blame. Then he’ll call me “obnoxious”, “mind-bogglingly weird” and an “enemy of the faith” because I have tried to correct him. I’ve got used to it, now. It’s his style.
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So, Jabba. It’s both correct and incorrect, right? Err, no, Jabba. It’s one or the other.
Oh deary me — I am unlikely to want to carry on discussing very much with someone who insists on viewing things in such unrealistic black & white terms.
The Imperial prayers continued to be said after 1806, both in the 19th and 20th centuries, and for the Austrian Emperor as successor of the Roman Emperor.
I have not disputed that the prayers were said locally — but it is quite naturally untrue that they were said “for the Austrian Emperor as successor of the Roman Emperor”, because there was no such person as the successor to the Roman Empire at that time.
They were not “prayers to the Emperor”, but prayers to God “for the Emperor”, as I have already told you but you simply ignore
Poking fun at your pedantic nit-picking is hardly to have ignored it — “simply ignoring” is what you have engaged in after I pointed out that that was a simple typo.
Lastly, you provide not a skerrick of evidence for your claim that they were instituted during the Holy Roman Empire
You completely ignored the evidence that I provided in a previous post — presumably because it didn’t fit your radical imperialist scenario.
Since almost all General Ecumenical Councils of the Roman Catholic Church were called by, and presided over by, the Roman Emperor from Nicea I in 325 to Constantinople IV in the 9th century, i.e. for the first 1,000 years of the Church, it is unsurprising that the Church prayed for the Emperor in a most prominent part of the Sacred Liturgy.
I fail to see that a period from the 4th century onwards can be accurately described as constituting the first 1000 years of the Church — wouldn’t there be around 400 years missing there ?
And I’ve no doubt that the earliest Christian Emperors were prayed for — but you have provided not one scrap of evidence that this particular prayer with those specific words was in use prior to Mediaeval times.
accuse others of lying
????!!??
Whom have I accused of lying ? I cannot recall doing so.
The Great Intercessions are not part of the Exultet. They are sung on Good Friday, not Holy Saturday.
Actually no, your talk about the Great Intercessions was confusing — and I let myself be confused.
That a Monarch should be prayed for at that time is of no particular liturgical nor political significance.
And take note, the Holy Friday celebration is NOT the Mass, so that even here, a prayer for an Emperor would not be a part of the Liturgy of the Mass proper — so : separately, just as the Domine salvum fac is said or sung separately.
The only prayer for an Emperor that forms a part of the liturgy of the Mass proper, as far as I can see, is the prayer pro Imperatore of the Exultet as it was introduced during the Holy Roman Empire, as stated clearly and unambiguously in the sources that I provided and that you chose to completely ignore and which was removed from the liturgy de facto after 1806, and formally in 1955.
That a sitting Austrian Emperor should have been prayed for in Austria on the Holy Friday should come as a surprise to no-one ; can you not get it into your head that it is NOT any sort of point of disagreement that a sitting Monarch should be prayed for by his or her local Church ???
Are you seriously suggesting that there were no prayers for the Christian Roman Emperor in the liturgy before the Holy Roman Empire e.g. under Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian and the many other emperors?
I am certainly NOT suggesting that no prayers were said for these Emperors — I am contesting your claim that the specific prayer pro imperatore that was formally removed from the Exultet in 1955 can be dated back to “Apostolic times”, particularly given that every source I have seen suggests that its introduction into the liturgy as such occurred under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire.
I think that Apostolic times were the times when the Apostles were still alive and when, according to the most reputable liturgical scholars of the old Roman rite, that the Great Intercessions on Good Friday were first confected, the Sacred Triduum of the Roman rite being the oldest liturgy in the Christian world.
hmmmmm as for the oldest liturgy, I’d tend to think it’s the liturgy of the Last Supper and of the Holy Eucharistic Sacrifice personally, mais Que sais-je ? — but there obviously can be no prayer for a Catholic Monarch either in the Great Intercessions or in the Exultet when there is no such Monarch.
you have offered nothing more than your own unsupported opinion or feeling
This is incorrect — but you decided to simply ignore anything in the sources I provided that disagreed with your views.
And? That makes no difference to the fact that you were wrong to say that the “political structure of the Roman Empire…was radically unlike that of a Catholic Monarchy” when, as a matter of historical fact, it simply was not “radically unlike” but, in fact, directly modelled thereon – Roman emperor, senate, comitia, consuls, praetors, tribunes, Roman military rank structure, Roman titles of nobility, Roman law, Roman land tenure, Roman city government etc etc and so it remained for centuries and centuries.
Sorry, but that’s just absurd — the core political entity of Western Europe in Mediaeval times was the fief, whereas local rule in the Roman Empire as such was assured by Governors and by various local rulers. Feudal Law governed all aspects of political life, from each simple family up to the Monarchy — whereas Roman Law was applicable for Roman citizens only, whilst the local affairs of non-Romans subjected to the Empire were governed by various native, local legal systems.
The Catholic Monarchs of England, Spain, France, etc. had no senates, no Governors, no Praetors, no Tribunes, and the titles of Prince and Knight bore only a superficial resemblance to their Roman equivalents.
The texts of Roman Law did, it’s true, continue to hold sway in some places, whether regionally or locally, except of course in those domains where the Feudal Law and the Canon Law had completely supplanted them ; but the rule of family life and the governance of family property and similar did continue to follow the basic principles established during Imperial times ; and this is generally true of Southern Europe and to some extent Northern France but not so much elsewhere, and not at all where the Roman Law had never been in force in the first place.
The Emperor Charlemagne himself cut up the Empire into three separate parts that he left to his three sons for their personal inheritance — which is BTW the origin of Austria — this is utterly incompatible with anything of Roman Law or Roman origin.
you again as good as call me a liar
No, I jolly well do not.
You’re the one who persists on calling people names.
The Empire, which a note issued by a diplomatist on the banks of the Danube extinguished, was the same which the crafty nephew [Octavian, later Augustus] of Julius [i.e. Caesar] had won for himself, against the powers of the East, beneath the cliffs of Actium; and which had preserved, almost unaltered, through eighteen centuries of time…
Just because Viscount Bryce writes it down doesn’t make it true.
It is, in fact, a completely absurd statement ; though one can tell that it’s one you wish to believe.
The Roman imperial idea was, and always had been, from the very beginning, the cornerstone of Roman Catholic Christendom
It’s obvious that you believe so — personally, I take the Lord Christ, His Holy Church, and God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, His Angels and His Saints and the Eucharistic Miracle of the Holy Mass as my cornerstone.
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Toadspit,
Your question is nothing new and has been fully answered more than a 1,000 years ago. No doubt you will consider that “antiquated gibberish” (I wonder if you think that antiquity automatically renders everything “gibberish”?).
However, the solution is quite simple.
As Aquinas put it so well: “God neither wills sin to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but He permits it to be done, and that is good”.
We distinguish between the permissive will of God and the active will of God. God permits sin but does not actively will it, as He actively wills, say, the creation of man or the Incarnation.
The reason this is good is because of Free Will, God’s gift to man which most makes us like Him. But, unlike God, we can, and, since the aboriginal catastrophe of Original Sin, are apt to, sin. Nevertheless, our freedom to choose remains and is the most God-like part of our created being. Everyone values and cherishes the freedom he or she has, even though man often abuses it. No-one sane says “I wish I had no freedom at all, ever”.
So, yes, God foresaw that, when He created Lucifer as the greatest being ever created, that he would fall and become the most evil, and that, when God created man in His image, both flesh and spirit, that man would fall and sin. But He also knew that He, God, would repair that fall and make far more glorious than ever, those men who responded to God’s act of reparation, the most superlative example being His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Indeed, both God and Satan foresaw this, and God foresaw that Satan would be very angry that man, created well below Angels like him, would be raised by Grace well above them, the more so after man had fallen, because God chose to repair the damage and restore man to an even higher place than he would otherwise have enjoyed, because it is a property of God that he can draw good out of evil.
So, yes, it was all part of God’s plan – and a most excellent plan it was and is.
Satan’s plan, on the other hand, is to persuade man that it is all nonsense and to disbelieve it and reject God.
Which he seems to have done successfully, in your case, since you write:
“It feels like the game is “rigged,” somehow. I find all this very odd and puzzling. Or I would, if I believed it.”
And, yes, the game is “rigged” – rigged firmly in man’s favour, if you are willing to take up the favour. But, sadly, you aren’t. But that’s your free choice by free will. God, being the ultimate liberal (in the proper sense of that much-abused word), is not going to stop you, albeit He will offer you every encouragement to choose wisely and well.
And, moreover, though your sins be scarlet, they can never be scarlet enough for God to refuse His pardon and embrace the sinner, because no amount of sin can ever be bigger than the God who created everything.
As Scripture says: “there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine of the just who need not penance” [Luke 15.7] and “charity covereth a multitude of sins” [1 Peter 4.8] and, referring to His active, rather than permissive, will, “As I live, saith the Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live. [Ezech 33.11].
Or, I suppose, one could just call it “antiquated gibberish”. The choice is ours.
I appreciate that my reply is likely to result in you vomiting abuse and obscenity back at me (with the Moderator’s full permission) but I’ll take the risk anyway.
Trib.
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Hilaire Belloc in his wonderful but flawed book, Europe and the Faith, explains that the whole notion of Kingship of the Franks (and that of everyone contemporary) was that of a military ruler (From Proto-Indo-European *h₃rḗǵs [“ruler”]) under the sovereignship of the Roman emperor.
I don’t really agree with that — though I can see his point, and it’s an arguable case.
The Frankish kings or warlords had been Christianised by missionaries prior to their invasion of the Empire, and subsequent conquest of roughly half of the Western Empire ; but it is to be noted that much of the vexation that led to this assault was the Emperors of the period repeatedly refusing to annex those Kingdoms under the Rule of Roman Law.
So yes, there was certainly such a desire amongst the Frankish Monarchs — but it’s neverteless my opinion that the fact of the matter was that the Frankish legal system ended up supplanting the Roman in all conquered territories ; and that the subjection of those Monarchs to the Roman Emperor as such never really took place, Charlemagne and sundry Successors notwithstanding.
The very foundation of feudalism was military protection
erm, no, not really — feudalism is exactly centred on the household, called the “household fire” in the Feudal Law.
It is based on the principle of families banding together and choosing a leader among themselves for all kinds of mutual benefit, the military benefit being only one of these things. The hereditary principle is of course central to such a family-centric political organisation.
There is nothing of the sort in the Roman Law.
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Kathleen,
Remember these from Jabba:
Your openly aggressive and near-systematically obnoxious representations
Outright fantasies… are risible
To name but two.
I think even you would have some difficulty construing such in a benevolent light, and certainly as anything other than “personal insult” supposedly not allowed on this Blog.
But, hey ho, I’ve come to recognise that in here there is one rule for some and quite another for others.
Take, Toad, for instance…
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Mine of 1155 hours on the 8th.
I must confess I made the whole thing up…ITSOTWDIM means In The Scheme Of Things What does It Matter. A Reference to Tribunus’ long winded record breaking diatribes. BTW Jabbapapa seems intent on breaking his record.
No one was ever going to work it out anyway (my attempt at modern speak) There was never a free trip in it for anyone …
BTW Kathleen, ISCRCPSR. ‘I Still Cant Receive Catholicism Pure and Simple Reports’ CYHP… Can You Help Please
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BTW Jabbapapa seems intent on breaking his record
Hah !! HAH !!!
So you say — but my latest was a paltry 1325 words, far indeed from our current recordman …
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Tribunus, negative commentary about your posts and their contents does not constitute insults against your person.
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Well, I suppose I should be grateful that I haven’t simply been given another “facepalm” by the querulous Jabba.
Oh deary me — I am unlikely to want to carry on discussing very much with someone who insists on viewing things in such unrealistic black & white terms.
Black and white are more your line than mine, Jabba.
You claimed what I wrote was both “inaccurate historically” and yet “very much…correct”. It can’t be both, Jabba.
In any case, you provide not one jot of evidence to support your pontificating.
I have not disputed that the prayers were said locally
Yes, Jabba. That’s exactly what you did. I quote:
The prayer to the Emperor was not said between 1807 and 1954
Nothing there about them being said “locally”. At all. Period.
— but it is quite naturally untrue that they were said “for the Austrian Emperor as successor of the Roman Emperor”, because there was no such person as the successor to the Roman Empire at that time.
Wrong again.
The Church itself transferred the prayers to the Austrian Emperor as successor of the Holy Roman emperors. It did not abolish them or forbid their being said and they were sung, in Austrian lands and elsewhere, for the Austrian Emperor, as a matter of simple fact.
Indeed, I quoted you the precise words from an authorised editio typica 1911 missal, formally approved by the Sacred Congregation for Rites. It even makes provision for the possibility of an emperor not having been elected – “imperatore electo.
Habsburg (and other) Holy Roman emperors had, time out of mind, also been sovereigns of Austria and the Holy Roman Emperor was regularly referred to as “the Austrian Emperor” long before the dissolution in 1806. Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, also called himself Emperor of Austria.
The Austrian emperors also retained all the titles and honours of the Holy Roman emperors, again with the full concurrence of the Church, as well as the title of “Apostolic King of Hungary”.
So, no, Jabba – not untrue, let alone naturally so.
In any case, you provide not one jot of evidence to support your pontificating.
And, as I said, they were not “prayers to the Emperor”, but prayers to God “for the Emperor”, as I have already told you now 3 times because you made the same mistake thrice.
It is important because, in pagan times, there were prayers “to” the Emperor, as to a god, clearly incompatible with Christianity.
However, those prayers were changed, by the authority of the Church, into prayers “for” the Emperor. Hence the origin of the imperial prayers.
As I said, you provide not a skerrick of evidence for your claim that imperial prayers were only instituted during the Holy Roman Empire.
Yet, you now say:
You completely ignored the evidence that I provided in a previous post —
What evidence?
If you had such evidence, Jabba, you would remind us what it was but you don’t, so you can’t.
Your next solecisim is fairly typical.
I fail to see that a period from the 4th century onwards can be accurately described as constituting the first 1000 years of the Church — wouldn’t there be around 400 years missing there ?
No, Jabba.
It’s simply that there WERE no Ecumenical councils before the 4th century (excluding the Council of Jerusalem of the Apostles when the Church was in the catacombs).
And, anyway, since Nicea I was in 325, it wouldn’t be 400 years, would it?
And I’ve no doubt that the earliest Christian Emperors were prayed for —
Well, hurrah!
He finally admits it.
Thank you, Jabba. About time.
but you have provided not one scrap of evidence that this particular prayer with those specific words was in use prior to Mediaeval times.
You, yourself, Jabba, claim they were instituted during the Holy Roman Empire!
It began in 800AD, long before the Middle Ages.
I need but quote yourself against yourself, Jabba.
But I also gave you 2 references – Gueranger and Fortescue, to say that the Great Intercessions of Good Friday, as much else of the Sacred Triduum, is considered of Apostolic origin, as well as references to St John Chrysostom and St Denis of Alexandria.
Whom have I accused of lying ? I cannot recall doing so.
Your recollection is very conveniently selective, Jabba.
What I said was this:
“You as good as accused me of lying (“presenting direct falsehoods as if they were ‘a matter of fact’” – remember?) and, as you can see, I was, in fact, right. You should be withdrawing that ad hominem calumny.”
What is a “direct falsehood” so presented, if not a lie, Jabba?
I notice that you do not withdraw your ad hominem but simply remain in denial about it.
But you are very quick to accuse others of ad hominems, Jabba!
What you next said, Jabba was this:
The Great Intercessions were a part of the Exultet
You were wrong. Flat wrong. You should just admit it and move on.
But, no.
Instead we get this:
Actually no, your talk about the Great Intercessions was confusing — and I let myself be confused.
“Let [yourself] be confused”?
Yeah, right, Jabba.
Confused, indeed!
So says the man who accuses others so readily of being confused!
That a Monarch should be prayed for at that time is of no particular liturgical nor political significance.
This is such an absurd statement, it needs but to be re-stated for its absurdity to be self-evident.
The Great Intercessions are ranked according to a clear hierarchy, beginning with the Pope, then the clergy, confessors, virgins and widows etc.
Then comes, singled out from all the Faithful, except the Pope, the Roman Emperor, by name.
And then, during the Easter Vigil, being the most holy of the year, only the Pope and the Emperor are prayed for, personally, by name, one after the other, in that most sublime of prayers, the Exultet.
And you say this is of “no particular liturgical nor political significance”?
Was it just accidental, then, Jabba?
Let’s face it – you find yourself reduced to such a clearly absurd statement, “presumably because it didn’t fit your” rather pedestrian, un-radical and inaccurate scenario.
And take note, the Holy Friday celebration is NOT the Mass, so that even here, a prayer for an Emperor would not be a part of the Liturgy of the Mass proper — so : separately, just as the Domine salvum fac is said or sung separately.
No, Jabba. Not “separately” at all.
It is an integral part of the most ancient and most sacred liturgy of Holy Week, the Mass of the Pre-sanctified on Good Friday and the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday.
On the other hand, the Domine salvum fac is completely outside the mass or the liturgy and thus IS separate.
Wrong, again, Jabba.
Stick to what you know, Jabba. Then you’ll be less likely to err.
The only prayer for an Emperor that forms a part of the liturgy of the Mass proper, as far as I can see, is the prayer pro Imperatore of the Exultet as it was introduced during the Holy Roman Empire, as stated clearly and unambiguously in the sources that I provided and that you chose to completely ignore and which was removed from the liturgy de facto after 1806, and formally in 1955.
What sources?
Do you mean the “A Catholic Life” article lifted straight from the Wikipedia article that actually contradicted you?
Or had you conveniently deleted that from your memory, Jabba?
Or did you mean the article by Fr Jerome Gassner OSB on EWTN which is about the Exultet and not about the Great Intercessions and which does not deny that imperial prayers existed in the Sacred Triduum long before the Holy Roman Empire?
I suggest that you are getting confused, again, Jabba, between the Exultet and the Great Intercessions.
That a sitting Austrian Emperor should have been prayed for in Austria on the Holy Friday should come as a surprise to no-one ; can you not get it into your head that it is NOT any sort of point of disagreement that a sitting Monarch should be prayed for by his or her local Church ???
What, you mean like your present monarch is, eh Jabba?
In the Great Intercessions, eh, Jabba?
Wrong, again, Jabba?
Can you not get it into your head, Jabba, that, when you said, as you did:
NOT until 1955 — until 1806
and
The prayers to the Emperor…effectively ceased to be said in 1806
You were simply WRONG.
Accept it and move on, Jabba.
I am certainly NOT suggesting that no prayers were said for these Emperors —
Well, finally.
I am contesting your claim that the specific prayer pro imperatore that was formally removed from the Exultet in 1955 can be dated back to “Apostolic times”, particularly given that every source I have seen suggests that its introduction into the liturgy as such occurred under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire.
No, Jabba.
It is the Great Intercessions that are said to date back to Apostolic times.
I’ve pointed this out to you several times, now. You ignore it, as it demolishes your claims.
The actual words of the imperial prayers undoubtedly changed over time but what is significant is that they were, from so early, included in the Holy Week services, or what we now call the Sacred Triduum.
To say that prayers have changed over time is a truism that no-one is going to disagree with.
The debate here is over the liturgical importance allocated to the Emperor and the imperial prayers for the Emperor.
Your case was to lampoon the whole idea as “mind-bogglingly weird” and, after they had been pointed out to you, to insist, pontifically, that they existed only in the Holy Roman Empire and then only until 1806.
You now admit that, err, no, they were, in fact, continued after 1806 and that for the Austrian Emperor.
Just as I said.
And, let us not forget, you accused me of presenting “direct falsehoods” as a “matter of fact”, as good as calling me a liar – an ad hominem</i that you have still not retracted even though you were clearly wrong and offensive to make it.
Do as you would be done by, Jabba, and retract and apologise.
…hmmmmm as for the oldest liturgy, I’d tend to think it’s the liturgy of the Last Supper and of the Holy Eucharistic Sacrifice personally, mais Que sais-je ? —</i.
The form of the Sacred Triduum was, more or less, the early form of the Mass, as you would know if you read the liturgical scholars like Fortescue et al, especially the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Maundy Thursday and the Easter Vigil.
That’s another point you keep missing, Jabba.
but there obviously can be no prayer for a Catholic Monarch either in the Great Intercessions or in the Exultet when there is no such Monarch.
Not for a Catholic monarch, until there is a Catholic monarch, certainly – and he arrived in the person of Constantine I the Great in the 4th century.
But there were prayers for the Roman Emperor before then, even when he was a pagan.
In any case, you provide not one jot of evidence to support your pontificating.
Your reference to Wikipedia contradicted you and your reference to the EWTN site was about the Exultet, not the Great Intercessions. It was also not referenced.
It is you, Jabba, who have ignored sources and you also ignore my references because they do not suit your views.
the core political entity of Western Europe in Mediaeval times was the fief, whereas local rule in the Roman Empire as such was assured by Governors and by various local rulers.
Fiefdom originated, in part, from, the Roman system of patronage, allied with the clan system of the German clans.
In Late Antiquity, and in Byzantium, the system spread far and wide and the Roman nobility used this patronage system on their estates, called then (as now in many Latin countries like Spain and Latin America) Latifundia, exercising local jurisdiction over their patrons who held beneficia (later feoda) from the Roman lord. Thus clients owed duty to the Roman lord through land allocation, as in the Feudal system generally.
Don’t take my word for it. Try reading these for starters:
Ranke, Giesebrecht, Richter, Zeller, Gregorovius, Waitz, Hegel, Schroeder, Hauk and Milman and of course, our own Gibbon, Hodgkin, Bury and Fisher.
Roman law, moreover, was the basis of almost all continental European legal systems right up until the Code Napoléon was imposed on Europe and even that Code is based upon Roman law.
The Catholic Monarchs of England, Spain, France, etc. had no senates, no Governors, no Praetors, no Tribunes, and the titles of Prince and Knight bore only a superficial resemblance to their Roman equivalents.
More pontificating without a shred of evidence from ill-informed Jabba.
Let me help you out, Jabba.
The first Catholic monarchy, that of the Roman Empire, had all of those ancient titles, and more, both under Constantine and Theodosius and well after, in the East as well as the West.
The title of Prince, from the Latin princeps and the order of Knights, Chevaliers, Cavalieri, Caballeri derive directly from the Roman order of Knighthood, eques.
Until well on into the first millennium of Christianity, the Roman Emperor was still, in theory, elected by the nobles, clergy and people of the City of Rome, just as the Pope was.
This right of election only later devolved to the cardinal-princes for the Pope, and the prince-electors for the Emperor.
Senators, governors, praetors and tribunes continued to be used as titles for centuries and a Senate continues in the Congress of the USA, the parliaments of Australia, Canada and many other countries, as also in Scotland where there is a judicial Senate whose members are, among other titles, called “Senators”.
All Catholic kingdoms and principalities, with almost no exceptions, based themselves upon the Roman Empire as the fount and source of Christian monarchy.
As Bryce puts it (The Holy Roman Empire, MacMillan, London, 1925, pp.12-13):
“Christianity as well as civilisation became conterminous with the Roman Empire. To be a Roman was to be a Christian and this idea soon passed into the converse. To be a Christian was to be a Roman.”
And later [p.312-313]:
“In its essence the Empire rested on the feeling of the unity of mankind; it was the perpetuation of the Roman dominion by which the old nationalities had been destroyed, with the addition of the Christian element which had created a new nationality that was also universal. By the extension of her citizenship to all her subjects heathen Rome had become the common home, and, figuratively, even the local dwelling-place of the civilized races of man. By the theology of the time Christian Rome had been made the mystical type of humanity, the one flock of the faithful scattered over the whole earth, the holy city whither, as to the temple on Moriah, all the Israel of God should come up to worship. She was not merely an image of the mighty world, she was the mighty world itself in miniature. The pastor of her local church is also the universal bishop; the seven suffragans who consecrate him are the overseers of petty sees in Ostia, Antium, and the like, towns lying close round Rome: the cardinal priests and deacons who join these seven in electing him derive their title to be princes of the Church, the supreme spiritual council of the Christian world, from the incumbency of a parochial cure within the precincts of the city. Similarly, her ruler, the Emperor, is ruler of mankind; he is chosen by the acclamations of her people: he can be lawfully crowned nowhere but in one of her basilicas. She is, like Jerusalem of old, the mother of us all.”
Blessed John Henry, Cardinal Newman, also supports this thesis in his Development of Christian Doctrine, the writing of which coincided with his conversion to the Roman Catholic faith.
Newman writes (1878 edition, Ch.6, section 3, pp.279-84) that the term “Roman” was co-terminous with “Catholic” and the two were used interchangeably, and separately, to refer to orthodox Catholics in communion with the Pope.
Even in England, where the Common Law held as much sway as Roman Law, there was a movement called “the Reception” to make Roman law the predominate law of the kingdom and in Scotland it already was (hence the different legal system in Scotland).
Canon law never supplanted the Roman law, even in the Papal States, and, in any event, Canon law is, itself, based upon Roman law.
Even in places which the Romans had not conquered, Roman law still was highly influential e.g. Ireland.
The High Kings of Ireland, particularly Brian Boru, regarded themselves as kings on the Carolingian model and High Kings even began to be called Chaesar in Gaelic.
The old Irish Jacobite song Mo Ghile Mear refers to Prince Charles Edward Stuart as mo Chaesar, “my Caesar”.
The Swedish name “Magnus” came from the son of the Swedish king being named after Carolus Magnus, Charlemagne.
The Emperor Charlemagne himself cut up the Empire into three separate parts that he left to his three sons for their personal inheritance — which is BTW the origin of Austria — this is utterly incompatible with anything of Roman Law or Roman origin.
Not so.
Roman Emperors did just that when the Empire itself was divided into East and West. Moreover, according to Einhard, Charlemagne’s biographer, that was what Charlemagne had in mind when he split his own empire.
You’re the one who persists on calling people names.
And I suppose you now deny writing this, do you, Jabba:
Your openly aggressive and near-systematically obnoxious representations
Outright fantasies… are risible
Nice, Jabba. Nice.
Just because Viscount Bryce writes it down doesn’t make it true.
No, of course, You, Jabba, who admit that this is not your field, know so much better than a famous scholar who wrote a whole book, over 500 pages long, on the subject.
Bryce, besides being a widely-acclaimed historian, was an alumnus of Belfast Academy, the University of Glasgow, the University of Heidelberg and Trinity College Oxford, a barrister, Oxford Regius Professor of Civil Law (i.e. Roman law), Professor of Jurisprudence at Owen’s College, Manchester, a Liberal MP, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under Gladstone, President of the Board of Trade, a Privy Councillor, Chief Secretary of Ireland, Ambassador to the USA, and a chair of government was named in his honour at Glasgow University, among his many other distinctions.
But “just because he wrote it down”, what the heck would he know, eh Jabba?
Indeed, says Jabba:
It is, in fact, a completely absurd statement/i>
Jabba, without a single source to back him, knows so much better than the great British scholar of the period, Lord Bryce!
How?
Well, because he’s Jabba.
‘Nuff said, eh Jabba?
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And I suppose none of these constitute “insults against the person”, either, eh Jabba?
Toad can “…write like a civilised human being.” He just doesn’t want to, on CP&S.
He will know exactly whereabouts, and at which level, to stick his insults.
tedious, monomaniacal, windbags
vomiting up great gouts of this kind of irrelevant, pompously self-applauding, antiquated gibberish
interminable, insane, and irrelevant, “War and Peace” length, Habsburg-glorying, twaddle on CP&S – if that is what the unwashed canaille clearly demand.
obsessive, bee-in-the-bonnet, crackpot, commentators
Regardless, it was certainly the silliest – by several million miles, which is a considerable achievement.
stupefying the gobshite
dreary, repetitive, old windbag.
boring other people into catalepsy
what he has already excreted here
ugly and detestable approach
crashing, bloviating bore
no-one sane would invite you to sit down and eat with them
No personal insult there, eh, Jabba?
All from that nice chap Toad, whom you are so anxious to defend.
And then there are you insults to add, too, eh Jabba?
Interesting sense of balance you have there, Jabba.
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@ Geoff @ 11;41
I’m really sorry you are still having these problems, Geoff – it is a real mystery! I have mentioned in more than once to our more techno-savvy ‘boys’, but they haven’t found where the problem lies yet. I’ll be on to them straight away again. We’ll get there in the end I hope and pray! 🙂
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Hapsburg Restoration Movement
You see what I mean about Jabba?
So yes, there was certainly such a desire amongst the Frankish Monarchs — but it’s neverteless my opinion that the fact of the matter was that the Frankish legal system ended up supplanting the Roman in all conquered territories ; and that the subjection of those Monarchs to the Roman Emperor as such never really took place, Charlemagne and sundry Successors notwithstanding.
He seems blissfully unaware that the legal system in almost all European countries was almost entirely Roman – what English lawyers call “Civilian” from Roman Civil Law.
Then trying to challenge your perfectly valid point that Feudalism was as much a military construct as anything, he pipes:
feudalism is exactly centred on the household, called the “household fire” in the Feudal Law. It is based on the principle of families banding together and choosing a leader among themselves for all kinds of mutual benefit, the military benefit being only one of these things. The hereditary principle is of course central to such a family-centric political organisation. There is nothing of the sort in the Roman Law.
Nothing in Roman law, apparently, about the paterfamilias (head of the family) principle, I suppose, or the hereditary principle, or the household, the domus, or the leader – dux, princeps and above all, of course imperator Caesar Augustus.
Really, it’s becoming embarrassing for poor old Jabba….
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JabbaPappa,
“The Frankish kings or warlords had been Christianized by missionaries prior to their invasion of the Empire, and subsequent conquest of roughly half of the Western Empire”
What invasion and conquest?
Charlemagne was legitimately declared sole Emperor by the Pope. Centuries previously, the Frankish Rex Clovis received baptism at the behest of his wife. At this point the Emperor in Constantinople simply could not directly participate in the administration of his western provinces, and so the local Rex was given direct rule. As to there not being Roman law, the same Clovis (here I will pause to make a statement completely irrelevant: the Hapsburgs claimed descent from him) codified in the proper Roman legal fashion laws regarding his dominion known now as Lex Salica.
‘The hereditary principle is of course central to such a family-centric political organization.”
The hereditary principle is central to the human race, as in that we are all the heirs of Adam in the dominion of the world. The defense of the Household, one might almost say of the Holy Family, is the basis of Christo-Roman civilization and without this any civilization falls into degeneration.
“Charlemagne and sundry Successors”
Those sundry successors were the Great defenders of Christendom; Otto I, Rudolf I, Charles V, Ferdinand II, Maria Teresa, Franz Josef, Karl I and many others. Without them, Europe would not exist, in spite of them Christendom has been brought to the edge of ruin. Yet it would have been worse if they had not believed in the Catholic Empire and fought valiantly to preserve it.
You are free to disagree with any or all of this comment, however, historical truth, in particular, Catholic Historical truth remains unchanged.
AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO
P.S. to Tribunus,
You and I share a common vision (or as others might put it, delusion). However, a little more courtesy to, shall we say, our Comrades At Arms, would do more to merit our cause in their eyes.
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P.P.S.
“The Emperor Charlemagne himself cut up the Empire into three separate parts that he left to his three sons for their personal inheritance — which is BTW the origin of Austria”
Austria originally existed as the Germano-Celtic twelve kingdoms of Noricum, who accepted the Roman Civilization as a protection from outside barbarism. Thus being the first to willing accept Roman Civilization, in modern times it was the last to surrender it.
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Black and white are more your line than mine, Jabba
This is an objectively false statement (oooooh, see if you can spot the irony)
You claimed what I wrote was both “inaccurate historically” and yet “very much…correct”. It can’t be both, Jabba.
This is because it’s an inaccurate understanding of what I posted.
In any case, you provide not one jot of evidence
I’m hardly to blame if you selectively ignore what’s posted for you.
Yes, Jabba. That’s exactly what you did.
Nope. You cherry-pick one line from a post where I exactly mentioned the local prayers in order to support your own errors.
“as successor of the Holy Roman emperors”
You’ve provided not a jot of evidence to support this claim.
The very fact that the French Church was authorised by the Pope to sing/say these prayers for Napoleon III Buonaparte calls your whole narrative of “legitimate” succession “from Apostolic times” into serious question.
long before the dissolution in 1806.
… of no relevance then to events of 1806 and later.
The Austrian emperors also retained all the titles and honours of the Holy Roman emperors
Which is quite irrelevant to your preposterous claim that these prayers had their origin “in Apostolic times”, given that the Holy Roman Empire did not exist in those times.
you provide not one jot of evidence
False — you’ve simply chosen to willfully ignore any and all evidence that is contrary to your imperialist narrative.
And, as I said, they were not “prayers to the Emperor”, but prayers to God “for the Emperor”, as I have already told you now 3 times because you made the same mistake thrice.
This statement simply demonstrates your near-pathological inability to comprehend what is said to you.
For the third time now — that was nothing more than a typo.
It is important because, in pagan times, there were prayers “to” the Emperor, as to a god, clearly incompatible with Christianity.
See ? This is the sort of false notions that one comes up with who is incapable of properly reading what is written.
However, those prayers were changed, by the authority of the Church, into prayers “for” the Emperor. Hence the origin of the imperial prayers.
An evidence-free assertion.
you would remind us what it was
It’s highly ironic that the man who expects his interlocutors to absorb every minute detail of his thousands and thousands of words -long postings should be so unwilling to properly read the detail of what others have written to these postings in reponse.
your claim that imperial prayers were only instituted during the Holy Roman Empire
I made no such claim — I deny your claim that the specific prayers pro imperatore that you have ranted on about at great length were introduced “in Apostolic times”.
*I* have not claimed that the specific prayers in the Exultet were introduced under the Holy Roman Empire — every source except yourself makes that claim, which I have simply reported.
Do stay focussed, tribby old salt !!!
Your next solecisim is fairly typical.
I fail to see that a period from the 4th century onwards can be accurately described as constituting the first 1000 years of the Church — wouldn’t there be around 400 years missing there ?
No, Jabba.
It’s simply that there WERE no Ecumenical councils before the 4th century (excluding the Council of Jerusalem of the Apostles when the Church was in the catacombs).
And, anyway, since Nicea I was in 325, it wouldn’t be 400 years, would it?
Need we solicit any further demonstration that you are de mauvaise foi ?
Having first claimed imperial authority over the Ecumenical Councils, by mentioning a Council of the early 5th century, you now seek to “justify” this (false) notion by referring to an earlier Council summoned by the Pope.
The failure of logic is blatant.
(BTW have you noticed that I’ve stopped even trying to take you seriously ?)
It began in 800AD, long before the Middle Ages
FYI the 9th century belongs to the Middle Ages.
I also gave you 2 references – Gueranger and Fortescue, to say that the Great Intercessions of Good Friday, as much else of the Sacred Triduum, is considered of Apostolic origin, as well as references to St John Chrysostom and St Denis of Alexandria.
None of which provide any evidence either pro or contra as to the allegations that you have made concerning the prayers pro Imperatore.
You as good as accused me of lying (“presenting direct falsehoods as if they were ‘a matter of fact’” – remember?)
That is not an accusation of lying — if I thought that anyone were lying, I would not use such phraseology to tell you so. I’d simply say so in so many words.
It is, instead, a statement that you have presented certain direct falsehoods to be of a factual nature. I have made no remarks whatsoever regarding your belief or otherwise in those falsehoods, so that no accusations of “lying” have been made.
What is a “direct falsehood” so presented, if not a lie, Jabba?
Not every statement of the factually inaccurate is a lie.
I notice that you do not withdraw your ad hominem but simply remain in denial about it.
To say that one of your statements is false is NOT an ad hominem — I’ve even taken the trouble to explain that figure of rhetoric to you.
Though I can see that you paid not the slightest attention.
So says the man who accuses others so readily of being confused
So says the man who denies that he can be.
The Great Intercessions are ranked according to a clear hierarchy, beginning with the Pope, then the clergy, confessors, virgins and widows etc.
Interesting that for the so-called “Mass for the Catechumens”, you leave them out of your list — quite apart from this statement of yours being of no relevance to your bizarre claim that the prayer pro Imperatore that was added to the Exultet in Mediaeval times was of an “Apostolic” origin …
The Great Intercessions were a part of the Exultet
You were wrong. Flat wrong. You should just admit it
I already have, as you would have noticed if you were to take more care to accurately understand what you read.
and the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday
Whatever happened to your claim that the prayer belonged to Holy Friday and not the Saturday ?
You shifty your narrative so frequently that you really should not be surprised when people mention “confusion” as a result of reading your prose.
And you say this is of “no particular liturgical nor political significance”?
Yep.
Have you at all thought about the meaning of the word “particular” ?
Do you mean the “A Catholic Life” article lifted straight from the Wikipedia article that actually contradicted you?
a) The “lifting” went obviously in the opposite direction, from a Catholic source, possibly the Catholic Encyclopedia though I have not checked.
b) Your notion that the article contradicted me is erroneous, because you are labouring under a false understanding of what I said.
c) … and no, at this stage I simply can’t be arsed (whooops typo ; I mean “asked” of course !) to come in and correct every little detail of your massively false interpretations.
You were simply WRONG.
Accept it and move on, Jabba.
You are the only person I have seen making your particular claims.
I can’t help it if you think that the burden of proof of your statements should be borne by others.
It is the Great Intercessions that are said to date back to Apostolic times
Then why, in your original claims, did you quote the prayer pro Imperatore from the Exultet, and make such a big deal about the official removal of this prayer in 1955 ?
And — can you please provide a 1st century text of the Great Intercessions that includes prayers for the pagan Emperors of Rome who ordered so many persecutions and murders of Christians ?
I mean — if it’s a fact that these existed, you must surely be capable of demonstrating it, right ?
The debate here is over the liturgical importance allocated to the Emperor and the imperial prayers for the Emperor.
No it’s not — the debate is about your manifestly false claim that the prayer pro Imperatore had its origin “in Apostolic times”.
The actual words of the imperial prayers undoubtedly changed over time but what is significant is that they were, from so early, included in the Holy Week services
You have failed to support this claim with any actual evidence.
You now admit that, err, no, they were, in fact, continued after 1806 and that for the Austrian Emperor.
Whichever local prayers are of little universal extent, unlike the prayers pro Imperatore that had been decreed throughout the Western Church but were discontinued, for the Universal Church, after 1806.
Why is it that you fail to spot the difference between the Universal and the Local ?
And, let us not forget, you accused me of presenting “direct falsehoods” as a “matter of fact”, as good as calling me a liar – an ad hominem
I can’t help it if you do not understand what constitutes an ad hominem and what doesn’t.
The form of the Sacred Triduum was, more or less, the early form of the Mass, as you would know if you read the liturgical scholars like Fortescue et al, especially the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Maundy Thursday and the Easter Vigil.
Not really accurate, but that’s of very little relevance to my actual problems with your bold claim about Emperors.
But there were prayers for the Roman Emperor before then, even when he was a pagan.
Unless you can provide contemporary documentary evidence for this claim, I cannot see that I should have any reason to accept it.
Can you provide a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd century text of a Christian Prayer for a (pagan) Roman Emperor ?
In any case, you provide not one jot of evidence
You’ve provided nothing but references to 3rd-party opinion to support your narrative — you’ve not provided a single reference to any actual text of Christian Antiquity.
It is you, Jabba, who have ignored sources and you also ignore my references because they do not suit your views.
You have provided no Ancient sources, and I most certainly have not “ignored” your references or statements.
Ranke, Giesebrecht, Richter, Zeller, Gregorovius, Waitz, Hegel, Schroeder, Hauk and Milman and of course, our own Gibbon, Hodgkin, Bury and Fisher
A role call of tardy 3rd-party opinion — do you have no 1st, 2nd, or 3rd century sources to support your allegations ?
The title of Prince, from the Latin princeps and the order of Knights, Chevaliers, Cavalieri, Caballeri derive directly from the Roman order of Knighthood, eques.
Oh good GRIEF, do you really think that I would specifically mention the Roman origin of those titles without being aware of it ???
And have you noticed, yet, that I’m no longer even pretending that this is any sort of actual discussion ?
Fiefdom originated, in part, from, the Roman system of patronage, allied with the clan system of the German clans.
Nice try, attempting to “inform” me of what I posted myself …
Roman law, moreover, was the basis of almost all continental European legal systems
Nope. I’ve already pointed out the extent and the limits of the Roman Law after the Fall of the Roman Empire (whoooops-a-daisy inconvenient historical facts, eh ?)
Until well on into the first millennium of Christianity
Good old meaningless adverbials, eh ? When was that then ? 75 AD ?
This right of election only later devolved to the cardinal-princes for the Pope, and the prince-electors for the Emperor.
This has exactly the same relevance to the conversation as the sentence “Humpty-Dumpty fell off the wall”.
Your view of History appears to be devoid of any reference to the destruction of the Western Empire at the hands of sundry barbarian hordes.
Senators, governors, praetors and tribunes continued to be used as titles for centuries and a Senate continues in the Congress of the USA, the parliaments of Australia, Canada and many other countries, as also in Scotland where there is a judicial Senate whose members are, among other titles, called “Senators”.
No doubt that the pedants who devised such titles are of similar fabrick as yourself … (and oooooh look, it’s an actual honest-to-goodness ad hominem !!! )
The Presidents of the USA style themselves as “Commander-in-Chief”, which is a direct translation of the Latin “Imperator“‘ — do you then fatuously suggest, following such “logic”, that Barack Obama is the direct inheritor of Catholic Imperial Rome ?
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P.P.P.S.
“The Eucharistic Miracle of the Holy Mass as my cornerstone.”
You probably wouldn’t be surprised to know, Jabba, that the Holy Eucharist was the cornerstone of the Hapsburg family, starting with Rudolf I’s intense personal devotion to it, a devotion carried out faithfully in most of the family.
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a subject upon which, by his own admission, he knows but little
If you were capable of understanding what people say, I merely stated an unfamiliarity with the History of the Hapspurg Imperial period specifically.
I made no such statement of general ignorance as you unpleasantly claim for me.
—
And now, I really think I should act upon my conclusion that talking with you is a complete and utter waste of time.
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You probably wouldn’t be surprised to know, Jabba, that the Holy Eucharist was the cornerstone of the Hapsburg family
No I wouldn’t, HRM.
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What invasion and conquest?
o..O
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+fall+of+the+roman+empire&oq=the+fall+of+the+roman+empire&aqs=chrome.0.0l6.7074j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8
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JabbaPappa,
“If you were capable of understanding what people say, I merely stated an unfamiliarity with the History of the Hapspurg Imperial period specifically.”
I have a specific familiarity with that particular history and family (albeit gain through cross checking and sifting through truth, falsehood, and half-truth). I’d be glad to clarify another confusion on your part regarding the Hapsburgs.
AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO
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I have a specific familiarity with that particular history and family
Good for you !!
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ME TRANSMITTE SURSUM, CALEDONI
Captain Kirk
___
Did the Romans use punctuation like we do? They do on Star Trek.
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JabbaPapa,
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+fall+of+the+roman+empire&oq=the+fall+of+the+roman+empire&aqs=chrome.0.0l6.7074j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8
This link is completely worthless. In general simply linking to a general search in a search engine usually is. The so called fall of the Roman Empire never occurred. It is a historical fiction based on the anti-Catholic bias of Edward Gibbon. Its proponents have spread contradictory theories in an effort to explain how something so unthinkable could have happened. The “Pirenne Thesis” is a lot closer to the truth, but it still fails in the assumption that the Roman Empire fell in the end. Or does it fail? Remember the events of 1918.
AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO
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johnhenrycn,
THEROMANSWROTELIKETHIS
Which is why they read aloud. LATER.THEY.STARTED.WRITING.LIKE.THIS
It was Charlemagne’s court that created punctuation.
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The so called fall of the Roman Empire never occurred
Is this like one of those 9/11 “inside job” conspiracy theory thingies ?
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It was Charlemagne’s court that created punctuation
Alexandrian scholars, actually.
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Charlemagne himself was an uneducated illiterate just FYI.
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“Is this like one of those 9/11 “inside job” conspiracy theory thingies?”
The conspiracy theory is Edward Gibbon claim that horrible Christianity destroyed the Roman Empire and held the world in slavery until the “enlightened” came to earth and saved everybody.
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The conspiracy theory is Edward Gibbon claim that horrible Christianity destroyed the Roman Empire and held the world in slavery until the “enlightened” came to earth and saved everybody.
True enough — but the destruction of the Western Empire at the hands of (Christian) barbarian hordes was not invented ex nihilo by Gibbon and then universally accepted as the “new truth” by all and sundry except for various imperialist defenders of whichever secret truth.
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“It was Charlemagne’s court that created punctuation
Alexandrian scholars, actually.”
Correction: It was Charlemagne’s court scholars who created modern punctuation.
“Charlemagne himself was an uneducated illiterate just FYI.”
Charlemagne himself was highly educated and took a great interest in his subject’s education. He was not illiterate as he could read, but he was unable to write due to a deterioration of the fine motor skills of his hands at the time he betook himself to learn to write.
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He was not illiterate as he could read, but he was unable to write due to a deterioration of the fine motor skills of his hands at the time he betook himself to learn to write.
huh !! interesting, I’ll keep that notion in the back of my mind and look it up.
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JabbaPapa,
Which Barbarian hordes? The period in which the Roman empire supposedly fell was in fact characterized by massive troop movements of the Roman auxiliary armies, with each Roman Rex militarily establishing the old Roman boundaries of their subject provinces. Barbarian invasion was almost constant, but it accomplished nothing except to rally the Roman converts from Barbarianism to arms. The real danger was from the Islam invasions, which would have succeeded had there been no empire to turn them back.
There is no secret Truth. There is Truth and Falsehood, and the whole universe is caught up in a war between them.
AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO
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The period in which the Roman empire supposedly fell
Your reassurances are no doubt of much posthumous comfort to Romulus Augustus …
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*Romulus Augustulus actually Jabba :-).
Anyway, on with the show HRM! Tell us more
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Romulus Augustus was installed by his father Orestes, one of those supposed barbarians. He was deposed by the Roman Rex Odoacer, who them turned Rome into a province while acknowledging the sovereignship of Emperor Zeno, delivering to him the Imperial insignia. Even as late as Odoacer’s successor Athalaric, the sovereignship of the emperor at Constantinople was acknowledge and coins were minted in his image. This period of the abnormal regency of Italy continued until the last valid emperor at Constantinople was murdered, and Pope Leo III proclaimed Charlemagne his successor.
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What has all this got to do with God – or His Will?
And why is there a pic of The Bard on here? he was an Atheist, I believe. (Only a theory, mind you.)
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So Tom, (at 0401 on the 9th) we CAN have a reasonable expectation that everyone is saved.
Wow That is good news. To God and to everyone else, you can stick your religious crap that imposes so greatly upon my ‘enjoyment’ of life.
I don’t happen to like that Chap down the street. I can solve that problem with a well aimed shot between his eyes. To his beautiful wife, I can have my way with her and if she doesn’t like it I can dispose of her the same way. But not before I have my way….But then again I might have my way with her after that well aimed shot.
That Black mass down the road, hmmm, sounds interesting…The only way to find out is to partake.
Paedophilia is something I have abhorred. Maybe I should see what the attraction is for some.
Hey this is something else again. A whole new world has opened up for me now that I am saved. Am I the only one that sees how patently stupid that concept is???
Sometime I think that the likes of Von Balthasar, Fr Barron, Kung, Teilhard ( and a few others ) are too impressed with there ability to think that when they start thinking foolishly or erroneously they cant see the difference between themselves and the God Head.
Sure Benedict XVI (and others) may have agreed with some of his work, but that doesn’t necessarily extend to everything he said
” Sometimes too much learn’n will weaken ya.”….WST?…. Who said that?
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PS; And to HRM… DIUTWH……Dare I Use The Word H ERETICAL
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“I don’t happen to like that Chap down the street. I can solve that problem with a well aimed shot between his eyes. To his beautiful wife, I can have my way with her and if she doesn’t like it I can dispose of her the same way. But not before I have my way….But then again I might have my way with her after that well aimed shot.”
Be careful Geoff. You might find your self locked up if you carry on like that. These sound like the ravings of a lunatic, you know.
But perhaps you’re just drunk.
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Hi Geoff, I’m not a theologian, and I’m not endorsing the view, I was just saying that some people who have been taken pretty seriously in the Church have explored the possibility that we can be optimistic.
Pax
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It was Charlemagne’s court that created punctuation
Quite so HRM, and on here CP&S we are also very fond of Carolingian minuscule, MOST OF THE TIME AT LEAST.
I’d appreciate it if HRM would go right back to basics, and explain his view of the Western Empire between, say, 300 and 600 A.D. To a lot of people (including many alive at the time) it has appeared that there was a significant breakdown in central authority, economic cohesion, military security, political stability, and classical culture in the West during that period. — A complex process that some of us are still old-fashioned enough to call “The fall of Western Roman Empire”.
If you think that we should abandon the concept (by NO means invented by Gibbon) I would be interested in hearing more from you
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” Sometimes too much learn’n will weaken ya.”….WST?…. Who said that?”
WST? Well, the guy whose pic tops this “thread,” said, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” But that doesn’t seem to be your problem Geoff. Posssibly “When ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise,” is nearer the mark?
Since you seem inordinately fond of this sort of thing (Are they acronyms? No.) – WDYGASYHIABODP?
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Toad at 06:03 — dragging the Pope into this maybe?
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WDYGASYHIABODP
Toad!!! Clearly you mean:
Why Don’t You Go Shove Your Head In A Basket Of Deadly Pandas
And THAT is a very rude thing to say.
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Alexander, Tom? No, it’s Gray.
And I always misquote him – it’s “Where ignorance is bliss, etc,”
(If that’s what you meant.)
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Brilliant, Tom!
(but I’m Toad, and it was dog poo, not deadly pandas. But perhaps you knew that, too.)
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Alexander, Tom? No, it’s Gray.
And I always misquote him – it’s “Where ignorance is bliss, etc,”
(If that’s what you meant.)
It is what i meant, isn’t it Alexander Pope? maybe not.
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Poor old Geoff’s gone off his head, hasn’t he?
That paragraph I quoted at 5.48 indicates a seriously unbalanced mind.
“Sure Benedict XVI (and others) may have agreed with some of his* work, but that doesn’t necessarily extend to everything he said”
Whoever “necessarily” suggested it did?
Why should it?
* Von Balthazar’s work, we must suppose – it’s not at all clear.
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@ Toad 06:38. — Taken in isolation from the rest of his rather startling remarks, Geoff does have a fair point in the sentence you quote. Joseph Ratzinger (BXVI) was profoundly influenced by Hans Urs Von Balthasar, but he does not accept Balthasar’s extremely optimistic soteriology. It’s also worth noting that Ratzinger disagree with regret that he cannot be as optimistic as Balthasar.
As to the rest of Geoff’s remarks, I hope and trust that it is not fear of damnation that keeps him from committing such crimes, I’m sure he would never behave that way even if (an extreme case) he lost his faith.
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What a kind and charitable chap you are, Tom. I’d like to have been like you, if I’d ever grown up. Too late now.
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the Roman Rex Odoacer
… a rather unique take on the nature of this germanic gentleman from lands that were not subjected to Roman rule.
And let’s all pretend that most of France and much of Spain weren’t conquered and divvied up among several tribal warlords who set up their own petty kingdoms, eh ?
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Jabba, I am not sure if HRM is arguing a “historical” point (Meaningful political continuity and survival of the Western Empire into modern times) which I think is false, or a “theological” point (an empire with divine sanction and a continuous spiritual mandate through history), upon which I would not be qualified to comment
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TOAD at 0512 hours on 10th. Really depends which Bard you are talking about. We have a LOMBARD living in the Next Suburb ( Lots Of Money But A Real D… head). He is a Catholic but like you I’m not sure about the other one.
Toad of 5 28 hours….Toad this is not like you. You usually ‘read’ ALL one has to say… What happened this time? You weren’t thinking about that Bottle of red were You? Just the thought has sent you to sleep, before you had finished with the key board. The old days are no longer with us, are they? Toad, careful, I am the only friend you have left on this site. Upset me and it will be curtains…. TINFLAOF. And believe me ignorance, in your case, is Bliss.
Ravings of a lunatic??? Lunatic springs mind every time I read one of you Posts. LYGRYSTALHSon.
IATYWALSTT…. I Always Thought You Were A Lot Sharper Than That
WHISH … What have I started here… Just a thought Toad, it will get the moderator off your back
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or a “theological” point (an empire with divine sanction and a continuous spiritual mandate through history)
Several Emperors, Byzantine mostly, sought to subject the Papal Authority to the Imperial from about 5th century onwards, as if the Imperial Throne were endowed of the same sort of Divine Mandate from God that the pagan Emperors had claimed for themselves.
This eventually led to a period of rival Councils, and to certain Emperors claiming that they and only they had the right to summon an Ecumenical Council ; which led to a sitting Pope eventually denouncing one of those Imperial Councils, refusing to provide the Papal Assent to its proclamations, and calling an Ecumenical Council that denounced as heretical several of the teachings suggested by that Imperial Council.
This was BTW a significant deterioration of the relationship between the Eastern and Western Provinces of the Church, as the Eastern Patriarchs had a certain degree of loyalty to their Emperor and also resented the Authority of the Pope over both themselves and the Emperor, whilst they viewed the Pope as being simply another Patriarch (which he is too, of course, as Patriarch of Rome).
This religious imperialism is also the origin of the very tight relationship between the Russian Orthodox and the rulers at the Kremlin, as it is founded on these very same Eastern pretensions of their Emperors to enjoy a religious Authority upon the Church.
Charlemagne attempted to impose the same sort of relationship upon the Pope, and whilst he was somewhat successful at a general political/military level, the ideological war for the supremacy of the Pope’s Authority in all religious matters had already been won by previous occupants of the See of Peter, so that the personal submission of that one particular Pope to that one particular Emperor was never a submission of the Papal Authority proper to the Imperial ; and that Pope’s successor refused to confirm his own submission to the Imperial Throne.
One major contributing reason for the temporary displacement of the Papal Court from Rome to Avignon was BTW to remove the Pope from military/political subjection to those claiming the Imperial Roman Authority.
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There has been some (enjoyable) banter on this thread in the last few hours. But I am very interested in HRM expanding on his previous remarks, so I repost what I wrote earlier in case it was missed:
I’d appreciate it if HRM would go right back to basics, and explain his view of the Western Empire between, say, 300 and 600 A.D. To a lot of people (including many alive at the time) it has appeared that there was a significant breakdown in central authority, economic cohesion, military security, political stability, and classical culture in the West during that period. — A complex process that some of us are still old-fashioned enough to call “The fall of Western Roman Empire”.
If you think that we should abandon the concept (by NO means invented by Gibbon) I would be interested in hearing more from you
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@ Jabba re 09:13. Thanks for that, and it certainly matches (and expands upon) my understanding.
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Moderator, at the risk of being uncivil, may I point out that you seem to be posting my posts into the “Spam Folder” again.
Have I said something you disagree with, again?
Yours wondering about the “open discussion” said to be a feature of CS&P.
Trib
[Moderator – it is happening automatically and needs to have one of the Moderators looking in to then free them!]
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Tribunus, It was probably a glitch, since I can see your post of 09:38 (I’m not a moderator nor do I have any editing powers) I suggest reposting your original comment?
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I sincerely believe that there is a worthwhile conversation on this thread, so I am “bumping” it back to the top of the ‘comments thread’
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Well, Jabba, with this your latest you are clearly sending in the white flag – however ungraciously.
If you wish to think it’s all down to misunderstanding what you really meant, Jabba, you think that. Fine by me, particularly if it makes you feel better.
Gueranger and the Roman missal itself clearly show that the Imperial prayers were continued for the Austrian emperor and, since those were prayers for the Holy Roman Emperor, it follows that the Church considered the Austrian Emperor the successor.
The clue’s in the prayer, Jabba:
Imperatore Romano electo
“Roman”, Jabba. You know – pertaining to the City of Rome, Jabba.
Authorised by the Church – not Wikipedia.
But you go on thinking this is not one “jot” of evidence if it makes you feel better.
I don’t want you to feel crushed or hurt, Jabba. Just corrected.
The Imperial prayers were introduced and maintained, voluntarily and confessedly, by the Church for most of 2 millennia, Jabba.
And, no, the Imperial prayers were not sung for Napoleon as your own preferred Wikipedia entry explains.
It contradicts you. See here:
“However, by the decree Imperii Galliarum of 10 September 1857, Pope Pius IX allowed Emperor Napoleon III of France to be prayed for in the Exsultet from 1858 to 1870, not with the formula reserved for the Holy Roman Emperor, but only by adding “necnon gloriosissimo Imperatore nostro N. to the preceding petition, which became:
Precamur ergo te, Domine: ut nos famulos tuos, omnemque clerum, et devotissimum populum: una cum beatissimo Papa nostro N. et Antistite nostro N. necnon gloriosissimo Imperatore nostro N. quiete temporum assidua protectione regere, gubernare, et conservare digneris.”
So NOT the Imperial prayers for the Roman Emperor, Jabba. That’s N-O-T, Jabba.
What was that about being “unwilling to properly read the detail of what others have written”? “Highly ironic”, indeed, Jabba.
Which calls into serious question your claim that it “calls [my] narrative of ‘legitimate’ succession ‘from Apostolic times’ into serious question”.
Your next gem:
preposterous claim that these prayers had their origin “in Apostolic times”, given that the Holy Roman Empire did not exist in those times
Are you suggesting that there was no Roman Empire in Apostolic times, Jabba?
Not one jot of evidence for it, Jabba?
Poor old Constantine, Theodosius and all the emperors thereafter must have been under a collective hallucination, I guess.
But then (according to you) I have “willfully ignore any and all evidence that is contrary to your imperialist narrative..
Because of my – what was it again? – near-pathological inability to comprehend what is said.
Nice.
And noad hominem there, eh Jabba. Perhaps my computer “wilfully” did it of its own accord, Jabba?
But perhaps you didn’t mean it and it was just a “typo”?
And, of course (according to you), I am making “evidence-free assertions”. Unlike you, eh Jabba?
But now you tell us that you made no claim that the “imperial prayers were only instituted during the Holy Roman Empire”.
But you said this:
…which were introduced during the Holy Roman Empire.
Your words, Jabba. Remember?
Do try to stay focused, old salt, won’t you?
Then you say that “every source except yourself makes that claim, which I have simply reported.” You mean ONE source which was about the Exultet, not the Great Intercessions.
And only one source, namely yourself, thinks that the Great Intercessions are on Holy Saturday and do not date back to Apostolic times.
Spot the deliberate mistake, Jabba? Is that it?
But if I show why you are wrong, you say I’m ranting, and if I don’t show you say I have no evidence.
But, heck, you’re just “reporting”…
Well, it’s a point of view, Jabba!
But, then you tell me that I am demonstrating that I am de mauvaise foi.
For you non-French speakers, what Jabba is saying here is that I am in “bad faith” – not bad Catholic faith (although he perhaps thinks that, too), but that I am not serious about my arguments and evidence and am merely arguing for the sake of it or, perhaps, to annoy Jabba, and knowingly making statements that I know are not serious.
It is, of course, a massive ad hominem, although Jabba will deny it and say that, actually, he’s only talking about my words and arguments, not me.
But how can words and phrases have “bad faith”, folks?
Only the writer of the words can have “bad faith”.
It’s a massive ad hominem from the man who loudly protests about ad hominems.
Are you getting this, Kathleen and Moderator? Jabba calls me “wilfully” ignorant, “near-pathological” and now “in bad faith”. That all goes through on the nod from the Moderator, whilst my relatively innocuous responses get censored. And that on a Blog “for Christians who are well-disposed towards Catholicism, and for genuine enquirers. We are orthodox yet open to constructive debate; we are serious in our approach”
And, then, you next claim that my mention of a Council “of the early 5th century” (no, Jabba, Nicea I was 325 AD – do try to stay focused) involves seeking to “justify this (false) claim” that there was “imperial authority over the Ecumenical Councils” because I mention, also, the Council of Jerusalem, in Apostolic times, in the catacombs, when the Emperor was still a pagan, and that the “failure of logic is blatant”.
Eh?
Jabba. Have you been at the cooking sherry, old thing?
No, Jabba. Not illogical. Historical fact.
The following Ecumenical councils were all called by, and presided over by, the Roman Emperor:
Nicea I – called by Emperor Constantine I and presided over by him. Pope Sylvester I was not present but ratified.
(PS. Constantine was not even a Christian at the time, but so great was the Christian respect for the imperial office, he nonetheless called it – see how that works, Jabba?)
Constantinople I – called by Emperor Theodosius and presided over by him. Pope Damasus I was not present but ratified.
Ephesus – called by Emperor Theodoius II and presided over by him. Pope Celestine I was not present but ratified.
Chalcedon – called by Emperor Marcian and presided over by him. Pope Leo I was not present but ratified.
Constantinople II – called by Emperor Justinian I and presided over by him. Pope Vigilius was not present but (eventually) ratified.
Constantinople III – called by Emperor Constantine IV (albeit also authorised by Pope Agatho) and presided over by him. Popes Agatho and Leo II did not attend but Leo ratified. Pope Leo II also condemned Pope Honorius I for negligence in the face of heresy.
Nicea II – called by the Empress Irene (as Regent for her son Constantine VI) and presided over by her delegate. Pope Hadrian I did not attend but ratified. The Council condemned Iconoclasm which was associated with the Eastern Church and its increasing hostility to Rome – this is ironic given the veneration that the Eastern Orthodox now have for icons.
Constantinople IV called by Emperor Basil and presided over by him. Pope Hadrian II was not present but ratified. This Council condemned the Photian schism which rejected enforced clerical celibacy, the filioque and the crowning of Charlemagne as the new Roman Emperor in the West.
In 1054, the schism re-surfaced and Archbishop Michael Cerularius of Constantinople closed the Latin churches, casting out the Blessed Sacrament and having it trodden underfoot and refused to see Pope Leo IX’s delegates, whereupon the Pope excommunicated him and the split was final.
That being so, the Eastern Emperor, who followed Cerularius, was no longer recognised as Caesar Augustus Imperator Romanorum or Roman Emperor (Greek: “Kaisar”) and the Empire subsisted thereafter only in the West.
But, hey Jabba, what would I know? It’s all just a blatant “failure of logic”, no?
(BTW have you noticed that I’ve stopped even trying to take you seriously ?)
Yes, Jabba. I have. I noticed it in your very first reply to me.
I, however, am doing my best to try to take you seriously. It’s not easy, I must confess.
Particularly if you think that the Great Intercessions are part of the Exultet!
None of which provide any evidence either pro or contra as to the allegations that you have made concerning the prayers pro Imperatore.
Allegations? What is this? A criminal trial, now?
Errm, no Jabba, the prayers for the Emperor are part of the Great Intercessions, Jabba. You know, the prayers that are said by scholars to date back to the Apostolic era.
Even if the Great Intercessions cannot be proven to go back quite that far, there is no doubt that the early Christians prayed in the liturgy for the Roman Emperor – a proposition that you previously characterised as “mind-boggling weird” but now seem to accept.
“presenting direct falsehoods as if they were ‘a matter of fact’ “
is, you now say,
not an accusation of lying
“Direct falsehoods” are not lies, Jabba? The law does not agree but thanks for the clarification, Jabba…
That only leaves all your other ad hominems.
your bizarre claim that the prayer pro Imperatore that was added to the Exultet in Mediaeval times was of an “Apostolic” origin …
Not my claim, Jabba, as you have already been forced to admit.
It is the Great Intercessions that are said to be of Apostolic origin. But clearly you still think that the Great Intercessions are part of the Exultet.
Or perhaps you think Medieval times includes the Apostolic period?
Well, you believe whatever, Jabba, if it makes you feel better.
But perhaps you should “take more care to accurately understand what you read”?
And it is clearly YOU who “really should not be surprised when people mention ‘confusion’ as a result of reading” your convoluted back-trackings.
And if you think that praying for the Roman Emperor at the most sacred times of the year is of “no particular liturgical nor political significance”, then I suspect you will find the number of Doctors of the Church who agree with you can be counted on the fingers of one foot.
And, as we have just seen, the “A Catholic Life” article contradicts you twice, now. But perhaps you now think that it and Wikipedia are “massively false interpretations”?
Can you, Jabba, provide contemporary medieval evidence for your claim that the Imperial prayers were only introduced in the Holy Roman Empire?
Since there is extant liturgical evidence from that time, it should be no problem for you.
And can you provide evidence for your assertion that the claim that there were Imperial prayers during Apostolic times is “manifestly false”?
I mean, if it’s “manifestly false” then you can prove it is, Jabba, with a primary sources showing the introduction of all the Imperial prayers during the Middle Ages, no?
So far, you have wholly failed to support this claim with any actual evidence.
And we have already seen how wrong you were over the Great or General Intercessions and over your claim that the Imperial prayers were not used after 1806.
Even now, you still seem to be in denial, despite my producing the evidence, properly referenced, that the Imperial prayers remained in the universal and approved text of the Sacred Triduum of the Roman rite, right up until 1955.
And despite being proven wholly wrong, you accused me of presenting “direct falsehoods” as a “matter of fact” – something you have still yet to retract.
There is contemporary evidence of prayers for the Emperor Constantine – a pagan. If I have time I will find it for you.
But you should already be aware of this, in which St Paul requires Christians to pray for the rulers who were, at that time, all pagan:
“I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men: For kings, and for all that are in high station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and chastity. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour.”
[1 Tim 2.1-3]
But perhaps you think the early Church simply ignored St Paul?
And we have already seen that St Peter specifically enjoined prayer for the Roman Emperor.
Is that “contemporary” enough for you?
Your next gem:
You’ve provided nothing but references to 3rd-party opinion to support your narrative — you’ve not provided a single reference to any actual text of Christian Antiquity.
Says the man who has not even provided 3rd party opinions!
Is the Bible not contemporary enough for you, Jabba?
It is you, Jabba, who have ignored sources and you also ignore my references because they do not suit your views.
And absurdly, you write off the great historians of the period as “tardy 3rd party opinion”.
Compared to what, Jabba?
Compared to nothing from you.
And then you suggest that I am making “allegations”?
“Allegations”? Eh?
And have you noticed, yet, that I’m no longer even pretending that this is any sort of actual discussion ?
Yes, indeed! On your side, Jabba, it seems never to have been.
I’ve already pointed out the extent and the limits of the Roman Law after the Fall of the Roman Empire (whoooops-a-daisy inconvenient historical facts, eh ?)
Really?
Better tell that to the Emperor Justinian whose Code of Justinian became the locus classicus of Roman law ever after.
That was in the 6th century, Jabba.
Umm, AFTER the fall of Rome in 476, Jabba.
Errm, “whoooops-a-daisy inconvenient historical facts, eh ?”.
Actually, you have supported none of your fanciful statements with any evidence whatsoever.
But perhaps you think this has all the relevance of “Humpty-Dumpty fell off the wall”?
No doubt that the pedants who devised such titles are of similar fabrick as yourself … (and oooooh look, it’s an actual honest-to-goodness ad hominem !!! )
Yes, indeed. The latest of many ad hominems from Jabba, the man who protests so loudly against them.
Actually, Jabba, these titles never went away and remained as memorials of the Roman Empire all over Europe.
But don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story, Jabba, will you?
Since they seem to bring you such joy, Jabba, I shall leave you to your insouciance toward facts and your charming ad hominems.
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Another four hundred yards of lame invective interspersed with gibberish.
I suppose we’d just better get accustomed to scrolling though it swiftly and unread, as it clearly isn’t going away.
Kathleen, I’ve been having far too much fun in the last few days on here, and have apparently caused you even more headaches than usual, for which I’m a bit conscience-stricken, so have decided to ban myself for a few days, ’til Friday maybe.
The rest of you will continue to enjoy the ramblings of Tribunus.
Best of luck.
[Moderator writes: Watch it Toad, no uncalled for rudeness or you will be put back into pre-Moderation again toute suite.]
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Oh Toad….and I wrote it with you in mind!
And surely you mean “antiquated gibberish”, don’t you?
Or was it “stupefying the gobshite”…”bloviating”…and “excreted”…etc etc
I bet you now wish you’d not mocked my disdain to enter into your “civilised” little world, eh Toad?
But consider it a special gift from me to a real charmer such as you!
Enjoy wherever it is you are going off to croak! May all your insects be delicious and nutritious…
Trib
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Yes, yes, Moderator, I know already.
Toad is allowed but I’m not…Toad is a friend of the team and I’m not…etc etc etc ad infinitum, ad nauseam…
It’s OK. You needn’t worry. I’m done now.
Enjoy your lovely friends, Toad and Jabba.
I wish you the joy of them!
[Moderator writes: For the umpteenth time, your comments are going automatically into our spam folder. If there is noone on the blog at the time you write them, they stay there until one of us notices and can “approve” them. We apologise for this inconvenience, which is not our doing.]
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“I’d appreciate it if HRM would go right back to basics, and explain his view of the Western Empire between, say, 300 and 600 A.D. To a lot of people (including many alive at the time) it has appeared that there was a significant breakdown in central authority, economic cohesion, military security, political stability, and classical culture in the West during that period. — A complex process that some of us are still old-fashioned enough to call “The fall of Western Roman Empire”.”
The situation of the Roman Empire in this period I think is comparable to France in the Hundred Years War, save that Rome faced no single civilized enemy. To state that the Fall of France occurred at some point during the Hundred Years War is blatantly ahistorical. Or to be more accurate, comparable to a combination of the Hundred Years War and the English War of Roses.
All the while through the breakdown of the communication, rival Roman Rexes fought to maintain or even expend the military authority of their provinces, their multiethnic legions bearing the names of the Rex’s original Barbarian tribes from which he claimed descent. Authority was no longer centralized, as it was no longer possible for one man to control the complex military structure developed to accommodate the “converts” from barbarianism to Roman Civilization. The Slavic tribes in the North East, the Persians and later the Muslims in the South and Far West created a constant pressure on the Imperial Capital. The Arian schism created a period in which the Ruling class of Emperor and Rexes in the main brought themselves into schism with the bulk of the Empire. Oft times capable (or not so capable) unscrupulous men would insure their own succession to the Imperium. However, throughout all of these crises, the office of Emperor remained, and was never abrogated. To even speak of “The Western Roman Empire” is historically incorrect in that there exist only one Roman Empire, at some points ruled by Co-Emperors given jurisdictions roughly corresponding to East and West, however, even then there existed only ONE OFFICE OF ROMAN EMPEROR, though two men or even four men equally held it.
“the Roman Rex Odoacer
… a rather unique take on the nature of this germanic gentleman from lands that were not subjected to Roman rule. And let’s all pretend that most of France and much of Spain weren’t conquered and divvied up among several tribal warlords who set up their own petty kingdoms, eh?”
As it is the view he and his contemporaries took, it is not so unique. Half-descend from the Scirian tribes living in the Roman territories around the Black Sea, Odoacer never would have thought of himself as Germanic, indeed, to him the Germans were an uncivilized and petty enemy that had been conquered by Roman in the 2nd Century B.C. France and Spain were ruled by Roman officials of Barbaric stock calling themselves by the completely Roman military title of Rex, as I have already stated.
The main reason for the Byzantine imperialism is the heretical (Arian) and Schismatical (Eastern Orthodox) emperor’s attempt to cement their authority in the eyes of their own subjects and prevent revolt in favor of the Pope’s condemnation of them.
“One major contributing reason for the temporary displacement of the Papal Court from Rome to Avignon was BTW to remove the Pope from military/political subjection to those claiming the Imperial Roman Authority.”
The true major reason for the Papal Court’s displace was that court’s complete submission to and domination (unlawful I might add) by the French Crown.
AUSTRIAE EST IMPERARE ORBI UNIVERSO
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P.S.
The entire talk about a Germanic or Teutonic race is very confusing in that certain so called Slavs are Germanic and some so called Germans are Slavic, and in any case there were no such Racial theories in Catholic Roman and Medieval Europe.
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Dear Tribunus,
Believe me, your troubles with getting your comments to appear on our blog is something that is not being perpetrated by any of us here who run the blog [you can see who we are by our avatars on the sidebar above]. As far as I can make out, one of the Team members found a couple of your comments unacceptable a few days ago and put them into the spam folder. One of them was a comment you made to Tom; I don’t know what the other one was. From then on, for some unknown reason, all your comments now go straight into ‘spam’ and have to be rescued by any one of us who happens to be on-line and looks into the folder. Most first time commenters have to go through pre-Moderation, but we are alerted to these comments and can press the link “approve” if they are OK (which most of the time they are of course), but unlike the comments sitting in the pre-Moderation folder – we are not ‘alerted’ to the ones sitting in spam.
You have contributed greatly to the discussions on various threads of comments, given us lot of fascinating background information on the history of Holy Christendom, and you shall be always very welcome to comment on here again if you so wish.
I must add though, that it is a shame so many of what could have been enriching debates have been derailed by a useless squabbling banter of accusations all round.
Perhaps you are right that we have been over-indulgent with Toad – I can’t deny it – and he often seemingly gets away with murder, the old rogue. But believe me, Toad has been banned completely from commenting a few times here, has been stuck in pre-Moderation for long periods too, and has had many of his comments trashed! He isn’t deterred and keeps coming back for more ‘punishment’ – mind-boggling! I’ve had loads of cyber ‘bun fights’ with Toad, sometimes he drives me crazy, but we always seem to somehow make it up in the end. I suppose that is what happens when you know people well – you get used to their annoying ways until they no longer annoy you so much… well, most of the time anyway! 🙂
If you were to take everything he says with a pinch of salt (which is what I do now) he can be mostly ignored.
Sorry for the length of this explanation – it’s the best I can do.
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And just to get the talk back on topic, and referring to the question as to whether William Shakespeare was an atheist or not (as Toad wickedly stated somewhere way above ^^), this is what the Bard wrote in his “Last Will and Testament”:
“In the name of God, I William Shakespeare…God be praised, do make and ordain this, my last will and testament in manner and form following. That is to say, first I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my saviour, to be made partaker of eternal life, and my body to the earth whereof it is made.”
Doesn’t sound like an atheist talking, does it? The far more appropriate question would be: “Was Shakespeare a closet Roman Catholic… or did he succumb to the New Protestant religion imposed on the realm??”
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Oh, all right then – I’ll unban myself for a minute or two. Can’t let this go unremarked.
1: Kathleen’s quote might well be “standard form” for an Elizabethan will and testament, for all I know. Maybe you had to sign boilerplate like that to get buried in a church at all.
2: “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
If that’s not the greatest statement of Atheistic thinking ever written, I’d like to be told what is.
Of course, Shakespeare may not have believed a word of it himself: We don’t know, and are likely to, now.
I But I think he did.
…Might be completely wrong, of course.
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Toadspittle,
http://christianshakespeare.blogspot.com/2012/12/ken-colston-on-macbeth-and-what-play.html
This addresses that quote of yours.
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The clue’s in the prayer, Jabba
Howsabout stopping preaching down your nose to us semi-morons ?
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You see what I mean about Jabba?
That’s the ad hominem figure in its very essence.
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Kathleen,
What a lovely creature you clearly are!
If I weren’t already married, I’d send you a Valentine this week.
Instead, ma chere, I shall leave you in peace (Toad will be delighted – not to mention poor old Jabba the Hutt!).
Fare thee well, sweet maid, and may all your best dreams be realised!
Trib
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Well, Jabba, with this your latest you are clearly sending in the white flag
I do not own any such object.
I don’t want you to feel crushed or hurt, Jabba
Crikey — whatever floats your bloated inferiority complex, I guess …
Are you suggesting that there was no Roman Empire in Apostolic times, Jabba?
/face-palm/
But now you tell us that you made no claim that the “imperial prayers were only instituted during the Holy Roman Empire”.
Your comprehension of grammar appears to be extremely poor.
And you willfully ignore my multiple clarifications that I’m rejecting your preposterous claims that the specific prayer pro Imperatore of the Austrian Empire was of “Apostolic” provenance historically — and NOT anything else.
Prayers said in other periods of History, or indeed in the present, for these or those monarchs fail to demonstrate that prayers for “the Emperor” (who he ? Ed.) had any sort of “Apostolic” origin.
only one source, namely yourself, thinks that the Great Intercessions are on Holy Saturday
Your reading skills are also seemingly quite insufficient. You insist on continuing to rant on about previous errors as if they hadn’t been explicitly and clearly admitted.
“Direct falsehoods” are not lies, Jabba?
No.
They are false claims that are directly contrary to the contents of reality — lies are the portion of those claims that are made knowingly, whereas I have not accused you at any time of having knowingly spread any falsehoods.
(cripes, this is tedious)
your bizarre claim that the prayer pro Imperatore that was added to the Exultet in Mediaeval times was of an “Apostolic” origin …
Not my claim, Jabba, as you have already been forced to admit.
No I haven’t, and yes it was, and you continue to have provided exactly zero evidence to support your claims about that prayer (to wit, general comments about the nature of Catholic prayers do not demonstrate any particulars).
That only leaves all your other ad hominems
Your repeatedly stated false notions about the nature of this figure of rhetoric are laughable.
Particularly given the frankly massive amounts of ad hominem “argument” that you have provided for this website over the past week or so.
clearly you still think that the Great Intercessions are part of the Exultet
I can’t help it if you do not know how to read in an accurate manner.
Or perhaps you think Medieval times includes the Apostolic period?
Are you so incapable of original thinking that you imagine that simply firing back at me my critique of your own flawed methodology might be somehow meaningful to me ?
Can you, Jabba, provide contemporary medieval evidence for your claim that the Imperial prayers were only introduced in the Holy Roman Empire?
I am not responsible for your willfull refusals to utterly ignore what has been lain before you.
—
And frankly, it is extremely tedious to even try carrying on my end of any civil conversation with you.
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Shakespeare made his living in the theatre, and was legally restricted from dealing with matters of religious controversy too overtly in his work. More importantly it is ridiculous for Toad to quote Macbeth as if that grants us access to Shakespeare’s own convictions. — It does not.
On the other hand, Shakespeare was an integrated member of a thoroughly Christian society. The piety of his will quoted by Kathleen does not grant us access to his inner convictions either.
IF Shakespeare was the most devout man in England he might have written Macbeth just as it is, and IF Shakespeare was a private sceptic his will would probably be just as it is.
We know he was familiar with Montaigne, and clearly enjoyed his work, and Montaigne had sceptical leanings. — But people make too much of that, I enjoy reading Bertrand Russell but I’m not an atheist.
Unless we find some secret cache of private documents we can say only this: Shakespeare was a communicant Christian, inner beliefs known to God.
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So Tom, (at 0401 on the 9th) we CAN have a reasonable expectation that everyone is saved.
Fr. Barron uses the word “hope” — NOT “expectation”.
I disagree with him, but to hope is hardly unchristian, is it …
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He seems blissfully unaware that the legal system in almost all European countries was almost entirely Roman
a) No it jolly well wasn’t, as I have BTW explicitly explained
b) Once again with one of your trademarked “almost entirely” totally unrealistic black & white exaggerations
c) Anyway, Carry On imagining your imperialist fantasy life as reality !!!
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Toad, do you seriously think that Macbeth is Shakespeare’s alter ego on matters of religion – the character, above all others, he would choose to express his true feelings and beliefs on such things? I think you just went to the BrainyQuote website and picked something to be clever. I know I can say that to you without hurting your feelings. Some others are so thin-skinned, they scream with pain at every slight – even minor or imagined ones.
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The following Ecumenical councils were all called by, and presided over by, the Roman Emperor
How “interesting” of you to “apprise” me of the detail of something that I pointed out myself.
What next ? Will you teach me the colour of the sky ?
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Last one for Toad.
The baptismal and confirmation record of Shakespeare’s father, John, are apparently extant – likewise for his Arden mother, the Ardens being a recusant Catholic family of a conspicuous and determinedly Catholic spirit in Warwickshire.
In 1606, his daughter Susanna was listed as one of the residents of Stratford who failed to take (Anglican) Holy Communion at Easter, which bespeaks Catholicism.
Either way, his plays are full of very Catholic imagery and the Puritans are almost universally mocked by him (e.g. Malvolio).
To be fair, the Catholic clergy are not always portrayed very brilliantly, either, but as simple ordinary folk, rather than villains.
For my money, he was probably bought up Catholic, conformed to Anglicanism but not with any great conviction, and, although remaining somewhat bemused by the religious tergiversations of his time, did not entirely shake off the Catholicism of his up-bringing and perhaps later returned to it. The thing about being a Catholic is that you can continue to be one even when you aren’t being one with much conviction. The Catholic Church, unlike many other religions, is very forgiving.
Let us not forget that staunch Catholics like Tallis and Byrd remained in good favour with Queen Elizabeth, even though she knew they were Catholic. She turned a blind eye where it suited her, like Hitler with the Jews he promoted to high ranks in his Armed forces (2 field marshals and 16 generals).
Clare Asquith’s book on the subject of Shakespeare’s religion is very interesting. she thinks he remained a Catholic – clandestinely.
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But how can words and phrases have “bad faith”, folks?
Only the writer of the words can have “bad faith”.
de mauvaise foi
precisely
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It’s blue, Jabba. At least most of the time.
Oh, and no, you didn’t point out that most councils were presided over by the emperors. At all.
Do try to focus on the programme, Jabba…
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de mauvaise foi, precisely.
ad hominem, Jabba?
Oh, but you don’t like ad hominems, do you, Jabba?
Oops.
Pots and kettles, perhaps?
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No it jolly well wasn’t, as I have BTW explicitly explained
Yeah, right, Jabba.
In a parallel universe, perhaps.
Where you were also a Professor of Civil Law, eh Jabba?
Don’t mind me, Jabba. I only lecture on the subject.
I am sure you know better! I feel it!
Go, Jabba!
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Toad : If that’s not the greatest statement of Atheistic thinking ever written
“Atheistic” ??? What on Earth is “atheistic” about it ???
Not only is this a character in a work of fiction speaking, and BTW not one that is being propped up for role-model purposes ; but also, the contents of that monologue are a deliberate parody of the central nihilism of all atheistic “thought”, tha
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… of all atheistic “thought”, that any sensible spectator should understand as being utterly risible.
You fatuously comprehend a condemnation of this sort of vacuous “thinking” as if it were some kind of approval !!
Have you failed to understand that Shakespeare was portraying the thoughts of a madman ?
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Some others are so thin-skinned, they scream with pain at every slight – even minor or imagined ones
LOL
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Jabba,
For a bloke who says that he is not taking this discussion seriously any more you are doing so very energetically.
Very, err, energetic of you, Jabba.
And you willfully ignore my multiple clarifications that I’m rejecting your preposterous claims that the specific prayer pro Imperatore of the Austrian Empire was of “Apostolic” provenance historically — and NOT anything else.
Well, of course, Jabba. I am very wilful. You have told me so. It must be right, no?
But hurrah! Finally Jabba concedes! (Albeit with multiple retractions, err, sorry, “clarifications”).
But, again, for the record, I have not claimed that the Exultet prayers were of Apostolic origin. Only the Great or General Intercessions.
But, again, for the record, I have not claimed that the Exultet prayers were of Apostolic origin. Only the Great or General Intercessions.
But, again, for the record, I have not claimed that the Exultet prayers were of Apostolic origin. Only the Great or General Intercessions.
Umm, I think that’s enough or I shall begin to sound like Jabba parroting….
Getting it, now, Jabba?
But, hush my mouth. You have conceded that you contest nothing else. Let us be grateful for what we have got.
“the Emperor” (who he ? Ed.)
Oh, right. You don’t know?
Let me help.
Well, he was the sovereign of the Roman Empire – in Rome, then in both West (Rome) and East (in Constantinople), then in the Holy Roman Empire, with Charlemagne and his successors, until 1806. Thereafter, the rump of the Empire was the Austrian Empire and its Emperor – until 1918.
Are you getting it now, Jabba, or am I going to fast for you?
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Jabba, I can no longer figure out whether your comments are addressed to Romulus or to Remus, the Siamese twins from…er…never mind; but I think I can safely say no one else but you and them are reading the exchanges between you.
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…but I’m glad that you correctly interpreted my comment at 22:39 😉
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I can no longer figure out whether your comments are addressed to Romulus or to Remus, the Siamese twins from…
I’ve honestly nothing against HRM, who takes disagreement with his views in stride … 😉
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I’ve honestly nothing against HRM, who takes disagreement with his views in stride
I second that. I asked him to expand on his views re the collapse of the Western Empire, … and he did… without insulting anyone! 🙂
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Jabba and Tom,
So glad we could talk without Ad-Hominem-ing each other.
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Jabba says:“I’ve honestly nothing against HRM…who takes disagreement…in stride.”
Yes, that seems true. I made special note of his advice yesterday (22:31) to Romulus:
“You and I share a common vision…However, a little more courtesy to, shall we say, our Comrades At Arms, would do more to merit our cause in their eyes.”
But my point is that I can’t follow the “argument” between you guys anymore, and I doubt anyone (with the possible exception of Tom) can or even cares to. Consider your comment at 22:24, which is quite typical of the past few days.
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So glad we could talk without Ad-Hominem-ing each other
QFT 🙂
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Tribunus: you inform us (22:39) that Hitler, turning a blind eye, promoted Jews “to high ranks in his Armed forces (2 field marshals and 16 generals)”
I’m keen to read more about these high ranking Jewish officers in Hitler’s armed forces – for example: their names, their Jewish lineage (especially their degrees of consanguinity), their ranks, when they were promoted, what happened to them…
…and I’m curious to know how you come to be knowledgeable about so many periods of Teutonic history. Not to suggest that you’re an ultracrepidarian – and indeed, I’ve heard of Jewish officers serving with allies of Germany during WWII who, without concealing their identities, were entitled to receive salutes from German troops, and even one (or two) who were awarded the Iron Cross (I’ll show you my link if you show me your’s) – but your recondite knowledge about German General Staff Jews after 1932 is counterintuitive to say the least.
I look forward to receiving your (less than) 1000 word reply from Spam-A-Lot, or wherever.
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ultracrepidarian
I had to google that, what a fantastic word! — I fully intend to drop it into offline conversations with the casual air of someone who’s used it all his life.
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Ha, ha, Tom! You’re welcome to it, and as you might have guessed, I’ve had it stored in my ammo box waiting for the opportunity to use it for some time too. But it’s getting late over here…
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For my money, he was probably bought up Catholic, conformed to Anglicanism but not with any great conviction, and, although remaining somewhat bemused by the religious tergiversations of his time, did not entirely shake off the Catholicism of his up-bringing and perhaps later returned to it.
Tribunus, I think that is quite possible. It’s close to my own view. — We can’t be certain of course, I think (guess) he may have been intrigued by the murmurings of scepticism that were around at the time, but probably remained a believer. It’s pleasant to agree with you at last! 🙂
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Jabba, at 2355……. ‘QFT’ ????….., don’t tell me, don’t tell me, I’m sure it’s on the tip of my tongue somewhere…. Quick Fox Trot? Quit Following trai….. No…Quite foreign …. Ok I give In.
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Geoff, I had no idea either, but my wife told me it means “Quoted For Truth” — is an expression popular amongs the ‘yoof’. (She knows because she teaches the yoof)
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Tom: Thanks for that but, IRSBTH ( It Really Shouldn’t Be That Hard) and IWHTIWCO, ( I Was Hoping That It Wouldn’t Catch On……Too late it seems, but then again think of the savings. Time, Space, Effort etc….
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For a bloke who says that he is not taking this discussion seriously any more you are doing so very energetically
Nope.
Finally Jabba concedes!
Nope.
Getting it, now, Jabba?
What — so you think that after several days of your failing to see the limited extent of what I’ve been saying, your sudden and unexpected brainwave signifies that **I** am the one who’s just “got it” ??? LOL
“the Emperor” (who he ? Ed.)
Oh, right. You don’t know?
Forgot to switch on the sarcasm detector again, did you ?
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What – no /face-palm/, Jabba?
…that the specific prayer pro Imperatore of the Austrian Empire was of “Apostolic” provenance historically…
It’s nice to know, then, Jabba, that since you now go so far as to describe the Imperial prayers for the Holy Roman Emperor as a prayer “of the Austrian Empire“, that you no longer cling to your claim that the prayers were never officially said or sung after 1806.
(You’ll recall that you produced the Catholic Life/Wikipedia entry in alleged support of your claim – although it actually said otherwise).
I’m sure you’ll come back and tell me that it’s just my bad grammar, or my “sarcasm detector” is not working, or whatever etc etc,
Never mind.
Here’s wishing you well, either way, Jabba.
Have a nice time in your Kingdom of wherever you are, and keep praying for the King whose confessional you share, and, indeed, for the rest of us, if you have any prayers to spare.
And perhaps you might spare a prayer for the Habsburg family, too, if that is not too big an ask.
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John Henry,
It’s on the Spam-a-lot website, under ultracrepidarian.
Or you could just go here:
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/jewishnazi.html
I hope that’s not too counter-intuitive for you.
Trib.
PS. Yes, I know. It says 15 not 16 generals but, according to Rigg, therre is another who’s a doubtful.
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https://rafzen.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/jewish-senior-officers-in-hitlers-army-erhard-milch-wilhelm-keitel-walther-von-brauchitsch-erich-raeder-and-maximilian-von-weichs/
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@ Tribunus
I’ve just spent a while on the Spam-a-lot website deleting the pages and pages of spam. There were no recent comments from you there, but it should be a bit easier from now on to rescue any of your future comments that WordPress might still annoyingly send into that folder. 🙂
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Tribunus/Toad: So nice to think that it was little ole me who brought about your rapprochement (16:05 and 16:49). This must be the most amazing reconciliation since the 25 year long feud between the Everly brothers ended with Phil Everly’s death. But I must say that my counterintuitive doubts about Tribunus’s original assertion regarding the German Jewish officer class during WWII have not been assuaged, and quite frankly, I’m relieved that is so. The links both of you have provided appear to be anti-semitic Holocaust Denier websites. Tribunus should look at the background of Michael A. Hoffman II, the author of his link – although I’m getting this queasy feeling that Tribunus already knows about it – and Toad might look at the homepage of Gawronski Rafzen’s blog, from where his link comes. I’m not going to provide links and I’m sorry I followed your links, if only because I don’t want my identity connected with their websites in any way. Must remember delete my browsing history (for all the good that will do).
___
Tribunus, are you a Holocaust Denier? There’s no reason for me to ask that question of Toad, but I’m a bit unsure about where you stand.
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Kathleen: having just read your comment at 17:57 (after posting mine at 18:09), my respectful suggestion is to keep Spam-a-Lot available for further use. I suspect there’s something fishy, but hope that my suspicions are unfounded.
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Tribunus should look at the background of Michael A. Hoffman II, the author of his link –
Quite right Johnhenry, I spent some time exploring the site and associated links. — Very unpleasant stuff – I normally avoid the dark and grubby corners of the internet.
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It’s a fact that Holocaust Deniers, like many conspiracy theorists, are known to publish extremely long blog comments. Why that thought occurred to me just now, I’m hesitant to say.
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johnhenrycn,
I’d put mark that down in this category of correlations:
http://www.tylervigen.com/
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Hapsburg:
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
But let’s see what Tribunus has to say for himself, hmm?
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“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”
Ah, but if it looks similar to duck, swims similarly to duck, and is chasing you, it’s more probably a goose (I say this out of personal experience).
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…and you will note that I’ve been scrupulous in not making formal accusations.
Your friend likes to be prompt and loquacious in defending his honour and dignity, but it’s been 5 hours since I asked for clarification from him (not you) about his Holocaust views. Is he unable to communicate here?
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Tribunus: …tick, tick, tick…? It’s been 6 hours now.
Since you cannot or will not reply, I must be excused. Personal matters of some consequence will keep me from replying to you anytime soon. I do hope that you’re not a Holocaust Denier, and beg apologies if my questions have hurt your feelings. Or have made you expose them.
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It’s a fact that Holocaust Deniers, like many conspiracy theorists, are known to publish extremely long blog comments. Why that thought occurred to me just now, I’m hesitant to say.
…and you will note that I’ve been scrupulous in not making formal accusations.
Your friend likes to be prompt and loquacious in defending his honour and dignity, but it’s been 5 hours since I asked for clarification from him (not you) about his Holocaust views. Is he unable to communicate here?
…although I’m getting this queasy feeling that Tribunus already knows about it.
Actually, John Henry you’d be less of a creep if you did make formal accusations. Tom Fisher is no better.
If you think either of you have effected any kind of rapprochement between anyone here, you have now more than done the reverse.
Actually, I’m a Jew.
From a long line on my maternal side (and Jewishness passes through the mother).
And proud of it.
You’d have know this if you had, as you claim, read what I have written on this Blog. Clearly you didn’t read “every leaden word”, as you falsely claim, or anything like it.
Some of my family died in the Shoah. That, by the way is what we Jews call it.
So, no, I don’t deny it. I have personal proof of it.
Indeed, one of the reasons I have come to appreciate the Habsburg dynasty is precisely because of their benevolent attitude to the Jews and the obvious fact the disappearance of their Empire at the hands of fanatical nationalists, is what opened the door to vicious anti-Semitism in inter-war Europe.
But people who fail to see the significance of the fall of that Empire, and its consequences, are all too often those who never suffered directly from those consequences.
And it will no doubt surprise you to learn that I have other things to do in life besides jumping to respond to your vulgar insinuations or to answer to people like you.
Try reading the book:
Rigg identifies himself today as Jewish, and studied in Israel at the “Ohr Sameach” yeshiva. He also joined a short volunteer program at the Israeli army.
I am pretty confident that you will not, any time soon, be summoning up the moral courage to retract or apologise for your thoroughly odious insinuations.
If I had any doubt about the quality of some of the people on this Blog, you have now put the matter beyond doubt.
I leave you (for good) with this thought:
תחשוב היטב לפני שאתה מאשים את האחרים באופן כוזב. זה ישקף קשה רק על עצמך
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Tribunus: …tick, tick, tick…? It’s been 6 hours now.
Johnhenry,
Just a couple of thoughts in the interests of fairness. I’ve had the misfortune to come across Michael Hoffman before, he’s a pseudo-intellectual anti-semite and I have no time for him. — Even when he does do fragments of actual research, his work is utterly undermined by the vile agenda that governs his interpretation of history. And his website is a cornucopia of trash. — BUT having said that, I think that you might be treating Tribunus too harshly here. — I agree that his choice of link was very ill-advised, but I think he deserves a certain presumptive good will. Unless he explicitly says something about the topic, I think it is unfair to “put him in the dock” re the Holocaust, a topic that he hasn’t actually mentioned (I may be wrong, his comments are too long to read fully). After all, Toad, who (as you know) is most certainly not a holocaust denier or anti-semite, foolishly provided a link to a disreputable site because it came up when he googled the topic. — So I think we shouldn’t b too harsh on Tribunus when he hasn’t actually said anything offensive (to my knowledge)
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Must, in view if this, unban myself yet again.
Toad has now made more farewell appearances than Adelina Patti.
Tom is right – that’s xcactly what I did. I had no idea of any nastiness involving some fellow called Rafzen.
In fact, I then read it all, and none of it struck me as being intrinsically anti-Semitic in itself.
Or I think I might have noticed. Though I’m very naive, as we all know.
It certainly was an extraordinary claim to make.
But I took it to mean no more than that Hitler and Co. could be pragmatic about race – and cheerfully defenestrate their cherished racial purity “principles” – if, and when, it suited them to do so.
Rather more anti-Nazi than pro, in fact.
But then I’m thick.
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Toad,
In fact, I then read it all, and none of it struck me as being intrinsically anti-Semitic in itself.
Or I think I might have noticed.
When you discover a site via a search engine link to a particular post, it’s generally a good idea to go back to the home-page of that site and have a look around.
For example: https://rafzen.wordpress.com/2015/02/11/judeo-satanists-creates-fourth-reich-to-destroy-russia-english-pravda-ru/
I took it to mean no more than that Hitler and Co. could be pragmatic about race – and cheerfully defenestrate their cherished racial purity “principles” – if, and when, it suited them to do so.
Quite right. Not only was their ideology depraved, they also ignored it whenever it was convenient to do so. There was an especially silly attempt (during the alliance) by Nazi “scholars” to put together a case for the Japanese being eastern-Aryans.
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Actually, John Henry you’d be less of a creep if you did make formal accusations. Tom Fisher is no better.
I want you to give me ONE piece of evidence that I have accused you of anything, even by implication. I ripped into the SITE that you linked to — and SPECIFICALLY said you should be given the benefit of the doubt —- see my comment of Feb 12 06:06.
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Tribunus, I addressed this issue four times prior to this post. My comments are there for all to see:
February 11 18:20
February 12 06:06
February 12 07:20
February 12 07:36
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I’ve just realised that Tribunus’ comment has only recently been rescued from moderation and was in fact made some time ago. Which goes some way towards explaining things
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This is very upsetting. Am I the only one here to be appalled and mortified by the horrible insinuations made against Tribunus yesterday? (No OK, not “formal accusations”, but insinuating something as serious as this is just as bad.)
There is absolutely nothing he has written over these few last days on this blog – and yes, I have read everything – on various threads of comments, that could lead anyone to such a conjecture, that he, Tribunus, might be a Holocaust Denier. In fact, quite the opposite if one were to have read his earliest comments and his frankness in telling us that he himself was a Catholic of Jewish race.
Can anyone imagine what it must have been like to have lost your family in the ‘Shoah’ and then now to be accused of denying that the Holocaust ever happened? It would be like being stabbed right in the heart.
@ Tribunus,
I apologise for the offense given, and thank you once again for all you have contributed to those fascinating subjects that originally brought you here to CP&S.
Btw, it is true that Tom did not make any allegation against you personally, if you take a look at what he says in his comments – only towards the link you gave.
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Kathleen, Thank you for acknowledging that. I gave my view on this on Feb 12 06:06, before Tribunus’ comment emerged from moderation. I appreciate his justifiable anger, but I won’t stand accused of insinuations I never made.
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Am I the only one here to be appalled and mortified by the horrible insinuations made against Tribunus yesterday? (No OK, not “formal accusations”, but insinuating something as serious as this is just as bad.)
Johnhenry inferred far too much from far too little evidence, and got very accusatory. Tribunus is right to be angry. But from what I’ve seen Johnhenry is essentially a pretty decent guy. This topic gets the blood boiling.
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Kathleen and Tom, I generally agree.
It struck me JH was illogical in drawing any such inference from what Trib wrote. (See my response above on the Jewish Nazi soldiers issue link.)
Still, he didn’t accuse him of anything specific.
But people often do jump to unwarranted conclusions. That’s why we have “miracles,” and theories about Shakespeare’s beliefs.
At least that’s a conclusion I’ve – probably unwarrantedly – jumped to.
(As did my beloved Montaigne, (re: miracles) I suspect.)
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Forgive me for digressing but is not the lead banner, “What is God’s Will?”
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“But from what I’ve seen Johnhenry is essentially a pretty decent guy.”
Yes Tom, I agree, and I know he knows that I know he certainly is! (Oops – that’s a terrible sentence!) All the same, I hope he won’t be offended that I stand by what I said above… and with what both you and Toad have expressed as well. It was an awful thing to insinuate, especially when that someone has suffered the consequences of the genocide against his mother’s people.
And Toad – did you read that fascinating link that HRM gave you yesterday dealing with that quote from Macbeth that you gave? (I think this is what Geoff is referring to also… though I can’t be sure! 😉 Most of the titles to our Brother Burrito’s posts have more than one meaning.)
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Read it with interest Kathleen. It didn’t really address my “theory” if I can call it that. But it made some interesting points of its own. I’m not going to budge from my perticular theory until more convincing persuades me I am mistaken. It doesn’t matter, anyway.
Because it’s all idle, but amusing, speculation. I might also have adduced Hamlet’s famous ramble as “evidence” that Shakespeare had considered the possibility of annihilation, rather than Heaven or Hell, after death. Did he really? Haven’t got a clue.
We don’t know, so we make up what suits us.
We want immortality more than anything, says Unamuno, so we make sure we write it into our script.
Most religions do. Most people do.
We want the good rewarded, and the bad punished, (quite rightly) so we decide that’s what’s going to happen in The Great Hereafter.
…And so on. And who can blame us?
Oh, shut up, Cracked Record Toad. You keep promising you will, but you never quite do.
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Tribunus (01:10) – It’s unfortunate that your reply to my question was posted exactly one minute after I signed off yesterday evening. I see that you are a Jew and I’m relieved to read that you are proud of it. Although being a proud Jew is not complete insurance against holocaust denial, had I been aware of that fact, it would have led me to assume that your link to the notorious “historian”, Michael Hoffman, was due to simple carelessness (as I did in fact assume vis-à-vis Toad’s link) and nothing more. But I did not know. There is no mention of your ethnicity that I can see from your postings on CP&S, but I haven’t read your “every leaden word” (your words, not mine) since you’ve arrived, and have never claimed to have done so. There’s simply not enough time for that, which is also one reason why I’m not a follower of your personal blog.
I’ve known Toad for about 5 years. I’ve known you for about 5 minutes.
It would have been wiser for you to have simply provided a link to Bryan Rigg’s book, as you have now done, instead of linking to an article by a well known Holocaust Denier, as you did yesterday. Rigg’s “research” is not without its scholarly critics, but what is one to make of your first link to a revisionist whose concluding sentence (in the link) reads: “So what happens to the claim that Hitler sought to exterminate all Jews, when he allowed some of them to join in his struggle…?”
In light of the foregoing, my opening question to you yesterday evening: “Are you a Holocaust Denier?” was reasonable enough. What was unreasonable was my ensuing impatient indirect hectoring of you for an answer. That is regrettable, and I do regret it.
There is no need for me to “summon up the moral courage to retract or apologise” for asking you to explain yourself. Now that you have done so, I’m satisfied that your ill-advised link to Hoffman’s piece was inadvertent rather than culpable.
As for you, perhaps “summoning up the moral courage to apologise” to Tom Fisher for labelling him no better than a “creep” would be in order, but that’s up to you.
I really shouldn’t have started blogging today, as there’s some pressing business that needs attending, but I did owe you the above explanation for my comments yesterday, and hope it meets with your acceptance if not approval. Since I’m here, I shall read the new Roger Scruton piece:Music and the Transcendental, so as to give you an opportunity for follow-up, if you so choose, but do try to keep your temper in check, hmm?
___
Toad (06:36): You’re correct that your link (16:49 yesterday) to the précis of Rigg’s book is unobjectionable, but given the remarkable information that précis promised to reveal, my antennae warned me to look at the blog owner’s homepage, which is full of references to Judeo-Satanists, which in turn caused me, reasonably I’d say, to give short shrift to your link.
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“My” link now, is it? OK.
…That’ll learn me.
“Judeo-Satanists.” Coo-er.
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I refer to your link in the sense of a link provided by you, not in the sense of ownership by you. No need to be intentionally thick.
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Just gently pulling your pudding,* JH.
No need to go all Habsburg on me.
*Jesting.
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It struck me JH was illogical in drawing any such inference from what Trib wrote
hmmm, to be fair — not illogical, just mistaken.
Trib is, for quite obvious reasons, involved in the particulars of the Shoah — so it’s not illogical of jh to have made the link between that horrid genocide and the member in question ; it was of course utterly mistaken to have made the actual connection in the exact 180° wrong direction …
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Yea, all right, Jab.
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Yes, Jabba, it seems that I was mistaken in my concerns about Tribunus’s opinions of Hitler’s regime, and I’m happy they were resolved in his favour. If Tribunus was a Hitler apologist as I feared (but did not conclude), he would not have been the first Jew to have fallen into the honeypot of Hitler’s charisma. Here’s a snippet from a 1922 article in The New York Times, then owned and published by the great Adolph Ochs, an observant religious Jew married to a rabbi’s daughter:
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…I’ll also add in my perhaps unhelpful brief for the defence, that Catholics have been burned before by association with a certain segment of people who affect a traditionalist Catholic stance to mask an underlying animus against Jews, and so the original question asked by me that started this kerfuffle was not without merit, especially (again) as I didn’t know that I was addressing a Jewish convert.
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…oops…did I say he was a convert? A mere slip. I don’t know if he’s a convert or not.
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…I’ll also add in my perhaps unhelpful brief for the defence, that Catholics have been burned before by association with a certain segment of people who affect a traditionalist Catholic stance to mask an underlying animus against Jews, and so the original question asked by me that started this kerfuffle was not without merit, especially (again) as I didn’t know that I was addressing a Jewish convert.
Yes, I think that’s a fair point JH.
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