Book Review: "The Apostles and Their Times" by Mike Aquilina

Even before I was halfway through this book, I was already recommending it to others. Mike Aquilina's The Apostles and Their Times is a stellar example of the way that fine prose, extensive knowledge, and an evangelistic spirit combine to make religious study a joy.


To rediscover the Apostles and the life of the early Church, Mr. Aquilina employs a a simple technique that yields wonderfully surprising results: He asks us to forget, at least momentarily, the history attached to religious vocabulary like apostle, minister, liturgy, martyr, and heresy and rediscover what those words originally meant on the lips of Peter and Paul. Take for example the word "minister." The Greek word is leitourgos, and it refers to someone paid to perform a public work. The leitourgos' work was a leitourgia, or "liturgy." It was a common word applied to any public work (road work, sewage, etc.). The realization is powerful: Christian ministers were those who led the Church in her public work - her Eucharistic worship! Or consider Aquilina's elucidation of the term apostle: "The Greek apostolos means 'one who is sent.' It describes an agent or vicar, an emissary or ambassador. More than a messenger, an apostolos is a representative. Scholars believe the word is a direct translation of the Hebrew shaliah; and the ancient rabbis pronounced that 'a man's shaliah is as himself'" (p.34). 

Such insights abound as Aquilina leads us through the period recounted in the Acts of the Apostles. His thorough knowledge of first century Judaism and the early Church bring the biblical text to life and help readers penetrate it at a deeper level. His chapter on Pentecost - and I do not say this lightly - is perhaps the best treatment of the subject that I have read. Here are few quick insights to whet your appetite: 

Some years before Jesus had said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful" (Luke 10:2). The great harvest began, appropriately enough, at Pentecost, the feast of the harvest - the day dedicated to the gathering and offering of firstfruits (p. 51). 

Over the centuries, Pentecost had grown in importance and had gathered layers of spiritual and historical significance. By the lifetime of Jesus and the Apostles, it had become primarily a celebration of the giving of the law to Moses (p.42). 

The cosmic phenomena, the wind and fire, would have been familiar because of the context of the feast day. They had been prefigured when God gave the law to Moses. In those days, "there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast....And Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke" (Exod. 19:16, 18). Now, on the anniversary, came fire from heaven and a sound like the rush of a mighty wind (p.46).

I have quoted what amounts to a third of one of Mr. Aquilina's pages; this chapter has thirteen pages worth of equally brilliant insights.

I have a confession to make. As much as I enjoyed The Apostles and Their Times, I almost missed out on it. In 2015, NBC ran the miniseries, A.D. The Bible Continues. This book was originally published under the title A.D. Ministers and Martyrs and was advertised as being "Based on the NBC Television Event." I had no interest in NBC's take on Acts of the Apostles so, as much as I admire Mike Aquilina, I never picked up the book.  After reading it, however, I can tell you that Aquilina's work stands completely on its own. Were it not for a little research, I would never have known of its connection to the miniseries. I am grateful that Sophia Institute Press saw fit to re-title and re-release this exquisite work. You’ll definitely want this on your shelf. I can easily see it becoming a classic.

Paul's Conversion - My Favorite Part

Had a conversation with a really good friend this morning about the conversion of Paul.  He had just come from an early morning Bible study where they had read the account and his enthusiasm was totally contagious - we were swapping thoughts fast and furious.  I was still thinking about it an hour later when I realized that I completely forgot to share my favorite part of Paul's conversion - Jesus' first words, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" (Acts 9:5) 

Paul had to be confused; a heavenly voice was accusing him of persecution.  "Who are you, Lord?"  And the voice answered, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."  During His earthly ministry Jesus had told the Apostles, "as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to Me" "(Mt 25:40); and He manifested that truth to Paul in the first moment of his conversion, "Why do you persecute Me?" It was a truth that cut Paul to the heart and shaped his whole theology - the Church is the Body of Christ, a mystical extension of His very Person!

Look at what Paul wrote later in life:

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many … If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” (1 Cor 12: -14,26).

"The gifts [Christ] gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

... speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love." (Eph 4:11-16) 

That first truth that Jesus impressed upon Paul moved him to write things that, were it anyone but the great Apostle Paul saying them, many a Christian would say bordered on the heretical!

“[God] has put all things under Christ’s feet and has made him, thus exalted, head of the church, which is his body: the fullness of him who fills the universe in all its parts” (Eph 1:22)

"If we are unfaithful, [Christ] will still remain faithful, for he cannot deny himself" (2 Tim 2:13)

That is how incredible the union is between Jesus and His Church - you cannot have One without the other!  Mind. Blown.

Hey, so long as I'm at it, I'll throw out one more (one I did a whole post on last week): Paul even identified the Church as "the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Tim 3:15)!  That's a mighty big claim ... but if she is the very Body of Christ, the One Who is "the truth" (Jn 14:6), then it makes perfect sense.

Between Ascenion & Pentecost - Were the Apostles Praying the Rosary?

It sounds like a ridiculous question for me to pose. It's common knowledge that the Rosary didn't take shape for at least another thousand years! Upon reflection however, I hope you will agree that the the "soul" of the Rosary was always present in the Apostles' prayer.

Jesus' instruction at the time of His ascension was, "not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father...before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit." And the Apostles did just that: "All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren" (Acts 1:4-5, 14). That was how they spent the nine days between Jesus' ascension and the descent of the Spirit on Pentecost.

Of what did their prayer consist? Petition, combined with a great deal of meditation (the "soul" of the Rosary) - thinking and rethinking the things Jesus had said to them, the actions and miracles they witnessed, the meaning of His death, resurrection, and ascension. It consisted of reflecting upon Scripture; when Jesus appeared to them on the night of His resurrection, He had "opened their minds to understand the scriptures...the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms" and how they had been fulfilled in Him (Luke 24:44-45). And this meditation was being done in the presence of Mary. She was engaged in it with them. As John Paul II pointed out so beautifully:

Mary lived with her eyes fixed on Christ, treasuring his every word: “She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19; cf. 2:51). The memories of Jesus, impressed upon her heart, were always with her, leading her to reflect on the various moments of her life at her Son's side. In a way those memories were to be the “rosary” which she recited uninterruptedly throughout her earthly life (Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 11).

The Apostles spent nine days engaged in this with her, making the Church's first novena. We can see the fruits that emerged - Peter's move to replace the office left vacant by Judas' defection emerged from his reflection upon the Psalms (Acts 1:20) and then the explosion of Scriptural insights he unleashed up the crowd at Pentecost! (Acts 2:16-41) Isn't it likely that the Holy Spirit had been bringing key points of that first sermon to Peter's consciousness throughout the nine days of prayer?

When we today pray the Rosary, when we recite the Hail Mary while meditating upon the events recounted in the gospels and Acts (the twenty Mysteries), we enter into the Apostles' experience. "With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love" (Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 1). And by doing this regularly, daily, our souls grow and become progressively docile to the movement of the Holy Spirit. We receive not one, but several Pentecosts as our eyes open up onto new spiritual vistas and we find ourselves acting with a freedom and strength we imagined ourselves unable to attain. And rightly so - these things can only take root in souls that have been broken up and seeded, over time, through prayer. These souls are made ready for that moment when the Living Water rains down and causes the new life to burst forth out into the open.

We won't see Pentecost without it. Jesus knows how we are made, and He knows how to "remake" us in His image; that was why He sent the Apostles back to the upper room. They needed to spend that time in prayer, in meditation ... in the company of His Mother. My friends, almost two thousand years may have passed, but the prescription remains the same.

Today is the Memorial of Our Lady of Fatima, and I can't think of a better way to recognize it than honoring our Lady's request to pray the Rosary.

ABC's "Zero Hour"

So I watched the first episode online last night - can't resist me an X-Files-ish hour of television.  The show definitely kept me interested, and believe me you will not see the revelation at the end of the first hour coming.  I will tune in again to see where this is going.

Like many historical conspiracy theories of late, Zero Hour, plays fast and loose with history and its writers are clearly not making any attempts at accuracy regarding the beliefs of Catholic Christians or others.  They're simply grabbing religious terms that people have probably heard, filed away in the back of their minds, and the show's writers are able to throw in to add an air of the mysterious/spiritual to the telling of their story.  I'll give you a few examples:

The Rosicrucians are the secret society at the heart of Zero Hour.  They are portrayed as a group within Catholicism, especially interested in mysticism and the End Times, dating back to the second century.  Alright, historically Rosicrucianism dates back to the early 1600's, and it was actually quite anti-Catholic.  

Zero Hour goes on to reveal that during World War II, "the Church ... without the knowledge of the pope," ordained "twelve new apostles," to save the world from the Nazis.  "The Twelve" were entrusted with guarding some relic hidden beneath a Bavarian cathedral that, if discovered by the Nazis, would set in motion the end of the world.  "The Church" in this case seems to refer to the Rosicrucians within the Catholic Church. (As I finished typing that sentence I realized how completely crazy this show sounds; should I give another hour of my life to seeing where it goes?)

Quick theological reality check:  Within Christianity "the Twelve Apostles" is only and ever used to refer to those men who encountered Jesus after His Resurrection and were established by Him as the unrepeatable foundation stones of His Church (Rev. 21:12-14) - and Peter in an utterly unique way (Mt. 16:17-19).  So any talk of a new group of the Twelve is simply an impossibility.  And "the Church" ordaining without the knowledge of the pope?  What does that even mean?  This transformation of the Rosicrucians into an ancient religious order within the Catholic Church makes for some interesting story telling possibilities, but it it also creates a Christianity with only a passing resemblance to the actual Faith.  Keeping all of this in mind, I was still left scratching my head when a Rosicrucian Catholic priest (in Nazi Germany) lamented, "Not even God can save us now ... only the Twelve." Clearly, not a well-catechized guy.  I don't know what they are teaching in that universe's Rosicrucian Catholic seminaries, but it's nothing I would devote my life to.

The Church - Hypocritical or Holy? My Honest Response

I recently heard a gentleman lambasting his "hypocritical Catholic Church."  His comments were somewhat jumbled but it was clear that he thought the Church was very concerned with money and, although it was a lesser concern for this particular gentleman, the Church does not "encourage people to think for themselves."  Two things I will tell you right off the bat:  1) When I hear things like that it gets my dander up, because I love the Church, and 2) Twenty years ago I frequently said the same kind of things about the Catholic Church.

So what gives, right?  Why would I move from offense to defense?  Well, it all comes down to what we mean when we speak of "the Church."

When people like the gentleman above, or a younger Shane Kapler, level charges against "the Church," they are almost always referring to a particular leader - or group of leaders within the Church - with whom they disagree.  And they may or may not have valid reasons for doing so.  There are priests and bishops within the Church who make terrible decisions, even commit egregious sins.  It has always been so and always will be so - both among the clergy and the laity.  (Do not forget, Judas was one of the original Twelve Apostles.)  We individuals are always in danger of going astray; Jesus didn't establish the Sacrament of Reconciliation on a whim - He knew we were going to need it!  It is not wrong to acknowledge wrongs committed by individuals within the Church, or even wrongs committed by a group of individuals in collusion with one another.  But these sins are not the actions of "the Church"!  Stay with me here; I will explain.

The Christian Faith recognizes "the Church" as the Body of Christ (1 Cor.12:12-27; CCC 792-801).  Jesus Himself is its Head (the Mind),  the Holy Spirit is its Soul (its Heart, or vivifying force), and each of us are Cells (the physical component visible to the world).  Because of this the Church is HOLY (Nicene Creed, Apostles' Creed).  "The Church," understood in this way, understood by faith, does not sin - because it is the Body of Christ, and Christ does not sin.  

Individual members, cells, can and do sin; but these are not the actions of the Body, directed by its Head and made possible through the energy of the Spirit.  They are "rogue" actions - like when a cell in one of our bodies becomes cancerous.  It is still attached to our bodies, but it no longer lives in harmony with the other cells; it is at war with them.  And so it is when individual cells, individual members of the Body of Christ, fall into sin.  These are not the actions of "the Church" but of individuals or groups of individuals (analogous to tumors) afflicting the Body.  But these "cancers" are no more "the Church" than a tumor is the patient being afflicted.

I do not expect the media or people outside of the Faith to make these distinctions.  But if you are a Christian, and you desire to be faithful to the Truth that has come to us from Jesus and the Apostles, then you must.  That desire is what forced me to change my tune.  The Church is Christ's Body.  To speak ill of her, is to speak ill of Him.  We can and must deal with the sins of individuals - ours and others - the cancers afflicting the Body.  But we must never attribute these things to "the Church;" it is slander.

Jesus Appoints a New Prime Minister!

In yesterday's post I wrote about Jesus' bestowal of the name Peter (Rock) upon the Apostle Simon.  I focused my comments upon the first half of Jesus' statement to Peter in Matthew 16.  Today I want to look at the second half of His statement,  “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (16:19). 

First, notice how the words “Church” and “kingdom” were interchangeable in Jesus’ mind. Second, we hear of the power of “binding and loosing.” We see Jesus bestow this authority upon the other Apostles two chapters later in Matthew’s Gospel (18:18). But something unique stands out in the way Jesus bestowed this authority upon Peter.  Jesus granted Peter alone “the keys of the kingdom.” That phrase has to be contended with if we are to understand Peter’s function in the Church, and by extension that of the popes.

The Jewish mind, hearing those words in the first century, would have immediately been transported back to the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The Lord was using a phrase, an image, from those governments. The Protestant scholars, W.F. Albright and C.S. Mann, wrote “[Isaiah 22] undoubtedly lies behind this saying. The keys are the symbol of authority and Roland DeVaux rightly sees here the same authority as that vested in the vizier, the master of the house, the chamberlain of the royal household in ancient Israel. Eliakim is spoken of as having the same authority in Isaiah.”[1] Albright and Mann contend that Jesus’ wording reflects that of Isaiah 22, where the Lord addressed the man serving as the vizier, or Master of the Palace in the Kingdom of Judah: the Lord would remove him from office and install Eliakim, a man who would exercise authority as the Lord wished:

In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father [pope in Italian] to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house. And they will hang on him the whole weight of his father’s house… (Isaiah 22:21-23; emphasis and information within brackets added).

Fortunate for us, theologian Stanley Jaki has done the legwork in investigating what role the vizier, or Master of the Palace, played in ancient Israel:

By the time of Isaiah the office of the master of the palace was three centuries old and the highest of the royal administration which Solomon organized in full. . . Solomon set up the office in imitation of the office of the Pharaoh’s vizier. . .in Egypt as well as in Judah and Israel the master of the palace was the second in command after the king. . . the master of the palace of the king of Israel headed the list of royal officials (2 King 18:18) and he alone appears with the king (1 King 18:3). The importance of the title is particularly apparent when [Prince] Jotham assumes it in his capacity of regent of the kingdom during the final illness of his father King Azariah (2 Kings 15:5).[2]

Given this Old Testament background we are in a much better position to appreciate Jesus’ words. He, the One Who came to sit upon the throne of David and Solomon’s kingdom, revived the office of the Master of the Palace – appointing Simon-Peter to it. Peter was to be the King’s chief minister, and his authority so far-reaching that he could override the policies of other ministers, such was the symbolism of the keys of the kingdom.  It would be meaningless to speak of the authority of other ministers to bind and loose apart from their unity with Peter. The purpose was not to make Peter some type of dictator in regard to the other Apostles; they were brothers charged with the mission of representing Christ to the world. In Christ’s Kingdom the greatest serves the rest. In the Kingdom here on earth this service would involve speaking the final word when matters are in dispute, thus maintaining the unity of the Body. This service would be especially important when those disputing were fellow shepherds.

Jesus’ declaration that “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,” cannot mean that God was bound to rearrange spiritual and temporal realities to coincide with whatever Peter arbitrarily decided.  God is not manipulated.  Peter was but the servant in Another’s Kingdom; he spoke to the Church and the world on behalf of the King.  Jesus’ declaration only makes sense if we recognize a corresponding action on God’s part – that should Peter ever attempt to teach something false, God would intervene to prevent him from doing so.

The last piece we need to consider is also implicit in Jesus’ statement to Peter. Jesus revived the office of the vizier and placed Simon in it. Yet, Peter’s sojourn on earth would come to an end; the Kingdom (or Church’s) survival on earth, on the other hand, was guaranteed by our Lord until the end of time. Because of that fact we should expect there to be successors to Peter, others to hold the much needed keys of service.

For a list of those early successors (composed in 189 A.D.), click here.

---

[1] Albright, William F., & C.S. Mann (Eds.), Matthew (Anchor Bible). (New York: Doubleday, 1971), p.196.  Cited by Scott Hahn in his audiocassette, The Pope: Holy Father, St. Joseph Communications.

[2] Jaki, Stanley, The Keys of the Kingdom: A Tools Witness to Truth (Franciscan Hearld Press, 1987), p.27-28.

"Cephas / Peter" - What's in a Name?

I was honored to pen today's LIFE Runners devotion.  I chose to reflect upon how John's Gospel relates Jesus’ first meeting with Peter, “Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas,’ which is translated Peter” (Jn.1:32).

When I was in college I had a conversation with an evangelist visiting the Baptist Student Union.  (I attended a Bible study sponsored by the BSU.)  This evangelist shared with me how Catholics such as myself had misunderstood Jesus’ words to the Apostle Simon (Peter) in Matthew 16; Jesus was not, as Catholics believed, making Simon the head of His Church on earth (the first Pope).  

He assured me that if I were to study Jesus’ words in Greek, the language of the New Testament, I would be forced to abandon the Catholic position. He elaborated: After Simon had confessed Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus said, “you are Peter [Petros in Greek, meaning “pebble”], and on this rock [petra, Greek for “massive stone”] I will build my church” (Matthew 16:17-18; NIV). The gentleman explained that Simon-Peter was not designated by Jesus as “the Rock” on which the Church would be built; the truth was exactly the opposite! Simon the man was a Petros, an insignificant little pebble. His confession that Jesus was “the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” on the other hand, was the Petra, or “Rock” upon which the Church would rise. He challenged me to study the Greek for myself.

I eventually did, and it turns out that he was greatly mistaken. [1] The reason that Matthew’s Gospel, in Greek, uses two different words (Petros and petra) is surprisingly simple. Anyone who studied French or Spanish in high school will undoubtedly remember that these languages have masculine and feminine nouns; you can tell which gender a given word is by checking the word ending. The same holds true in Greek. “Petra,” or “massive rock,” is a feminine noun and thus has a feminine ending. It would have been improper to give the name to Simon; when applied to him the ending had to be changed, and thus we see “Petros” instead of “petra.”  Now “Petros” just happened to be an already existing word, which in ancient Greek poetry was used to denote “pebble.” By the time of Jesus, however, “Petros” had lost this restrictive meaning and could be used interchangeably with “petra” to denote a “massive rock.”[2]

Thus far I have been discussing Jesus’ words as found in the Greek of Matthew’s Gospel. We have to remember, though, that Jesus would not have spoken those words in Greek. The everyday speech of a Palestinian Jew was Aramaic. (Hebrew was spoken but reserved for religious ceremony.) Jesus’ use of Aramaic is attested to in the gospels. We hear it in the Our Father – “Abba” is Aramaic, not Hebrew or Greek. Matthew and Mark record Jesus’ cry from the cross in Aramaic, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani” (Matthew 27:46). So when Jesus made His statement to Simon He would not have used the Greek word “Petros,” but the Aramaic “Kepha;” and “Kepha” can only mean “massive stone.”

This is the word we saw Jesus use in the verse from today’s Gospel with which I started this post, “'you will be called Cephas,’ which is translated Peter” (Jn.1:32). Cephas is simply the Greek spelling of the Aramaic word Kepha.[3]  Paul always referred to Simon as “Cephas” (see 1 Corinthians 1:12, 3:22, 9:5, and Galatians 2:9, 11, 14). 

Now all these linguistic gymnastics are only meant to bring out the true meaning of Jesus’ words to Simon. He promised a weak, rash man that he would be transformed by grace into the unique foundation of His Church. Some believers still have difficulty accepting this, objecting that Christ is the true Rock (1 Corinthians 10:4). And to this objection Simon-Peter, the current pope, and the Catholic Church would all answer “Amen!” Simon could become the rock on whom the Church is built only because Christ is the Rock on whom Simon-Peter stands. Simon being allowed to share in Christ’s “Rock-ness” is not without precedent: We human beings are allowed to share in God’s act of creating new lives; our participation does not mean that we supplant Him as the Creator. If I am a good teacher it is only because of the One Teacher (Matthew 23:10); if someone is wise it is because of the One Who is Wisdom. And if Simon became a Rock (Kepha/ Cephas/ Peter) for the Church, it is only because Christ made him so. To recognize someone as a parent, or wise, or a good teacher, is not a denial of God the Father or Christ’s fullness and neither is calling Peter the Rock. We are only echoing the Lord; He was the One Who renamed Simon! 

You can read my next post on the papacy, where I look at the passage of Peter's office to others, here.

---

[1]Scott Hahn presents the findings of Herman Ridderbos, R.T. France, W.F. Albright, Gerhard Maier, and Donald Carson in his audiocassette Holy Father: The Pope (St. Joseph’s Communications), the transcript of which is available at <http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/ ~vgg/rc/aplgtc/hahn/m4/pp.html>.

A more in-depth look at the scholarship on Jesus’ words to Simon, can be found in Butler, Scott; Norman Dalgren, & David Hess (Eds.), Jesus, Peter & the Keys: A Scriptural Handbook on the Papacy (Santa Barbara, California: Queenship Publishing Company, 1997) For example:

Gerhard Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1968) is cited, “Petros himself is the petra, not just his faith or his confession…The idea of the Reformers that He is referring to the faith of Peter is quite inconceivable” (p.31);

Craig Blomberg, a Baptist scholar and Professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary says, “Peter’s name (Petros) and the word ‘rock’ (petra) makes sense only if Peter is the rock and if Jesus is about to explain the significance of this identification” (p.32);

R.T. France, a renowned Anglican scholar, in his The Gospel According to Matthew (1985) wrote that, “The feminine word for rock, petra, is necessarily changed to the masculine petros (stone) to give a man’s name, but the word-play is unmistakable (and in Aramaic would be even more so, as the same form kepha would occur in both places)…it is to Peter, not to his confession, that the rock metaphor is applied. And it is of course a matter of historic fact that Peter was the acknowledged leader of the group of disciples, and of the developing church in its early years” (p.36).

[2] James Akin in Surprised By Truth. Patrick Madrid ed. Basilica Press, San Diego. p.68

[3] The technical term for this is transliteration.