I am capable of getting quite comfortable, so sometimes I like to give myself a little shock to chase away the complacency and reawaken my desire for holiness and fidelity. In 2016, David Bentley Hart, who at that point had stopped writing for First Things, but was not quite yet known as the combative arch-universalist and scourge of the Neo-Thomists, wrote the article “Christ’s Rabble: The First Christians Were Not Like Us” for the magazine Commonweal. Whether Hart is a theological giant, a guilty pleasure, or a bête noire for you, it is an article worth a read. It was collected in his essay collection The Dream Child’s Progress, a book I dig out every year or so to look over “Christ’s Rabble” again. It is still like putting my tongue on a 9 volt battery.
I was reminded of the subtitle of that article while reading Maximus the Confessor’s work On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture, which is available from Catholic University Press translated by Fr. Maximos Constas. It is a 7th century work made up of 65 questions on passages of scripture asked by Thalassios, a Libyan abbot, to his more famous friend. Thalassios doesn’t have a spot on our liturgical calendar like Maximus has (August 13), but he is no slouch. He is venerated by the Orthodox and one of his works can be found in the Philokalia, the five volume collection of ascetic wisdom assembled by monks of Mount Athos in the 19th century. On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture is Maximus’ longest—557 pages in this translation—though experts in his thought seem to spend more time with the Ambigua, which focuses on answering questions on the earlier patristic authors.
The work is too deep and broad for me to summarize. Maximus is a very deep thinker whose work is just now finding a reception in the Western Church. I did want to share some of the questions Thalassios asks with the readers of this blog, though. I think you will find it very interesting to know what questions the Christian monks of the 7th century were asking about the Bible.
Here is a sampling of the 65 questions.
Question 2: “If in six days the Creator fashioned all the species that completely fill up the world, how is the Father subsequently said to be “working”? For the Savior says: “My Father is still working, just as I am working.” Is He speaking of the ongoing preservation of the species that, once and for all, had been brought into being?”
Question 16: “What is the ‘molten calf,’ and why is it spoken of in the singular, when afterwards it says, in the plural: ‘These are your gods, O Israel’? And what does it mean that this calf was ‘ground into powder and scattered under the water’? And what is the meaning of the ‘earrings’ and the other pieces of jewelry?”
Question 39: “What are the three days during which the crowds remained with the Lord in the wilderness?” [This question is in regards to Matthew 15:32: “Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days, and have nothing to eat; and I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.”]
Question 57: “’The supplication of a righteous man accomplishes much when it is rendered effective.’ What is the meaning of rendered effective?” [This question is in regards to James 5:16.]
Question 64: “What is the meaning of the statement in the prophet Jonah concerning Nineveh, which says: ‘In which more than twelve myriads of men dwell, who do not know their right hand or their left?’ The literal sense provides no solution to the problem. For example, the text did not say ‘children’ so that I might think it is speaking of infants, but rather it says ‘men’. But what kind of man, being of sound mind, is unable to distinguish his right hand from his left? Tell me, then, who these ‘men’ are, and what are the ‘right hand’ and the ‘left hand’ according to an anagogical interpretation?”
I wonder what 65 questions would be asked by the monks of today? Or what questions I would ask?