PDF Copies of Handouts from Epic of Gilgamesh & Noah's Flood Program

We linked .jpeg images of the handouts from yesterday's lectures on Noah and the Flood, but we now have PDFs available here:

http://instituteofcatholicculture.org/docs/JEDP%20-%20Noah's%20Flood.pdf

http://instituteofcatholicculture.org/docs/Epic%20of%20Gilgamesh%20Handout.pdf

What Did Jesus Know and When Did He Know It?

Did Jesus not realize that Noah was a mythical person?
That peculiar question arose last week in the comment thread on David B. Hart’s OTS article where I defended the historicity of Noah. Several readers expressed shock that any purportedly educated Christian could believe that the ark-builder had actually existed. They were truly incredulous that anyone could truly believe such Sunday School nonsense.
One reader that took issue with my “silly childish fundamentalist column” and expressed shock that a “fundamentalist” like me would be allowed to work at First Things. Another commenter joined in the mockery and was certain that the Church Fathers would have disagreed we me about the literal existence of the Antediluvian patriarch. (When I asked them to provide support for that contention, my critics fell silent.)
Foolishly, I thought I could settle the issue with an appeal to authority. I pointed out that Jesus himself had referred to Noah as an actual person who existed in history:

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Good Queen Isabella

Isabella Catholica
Castellae Regina
Serva Dei
† 26 Nov. MDIV

From her Last Will and Testament, Codicil, Chapter XII:

When the Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea, discovered or yet to be discovered, were given to us by the Holy Apostolic See..., that granted us this concession, our main intention was to make an effort to procure and to draw their people and convert them to our Holy Catholic Faith, and to send to those Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea prelates, and religious, and clerics, and other people with knowledge and fear of God, to instruct their residents and inhabitants in the Catholic Faith, and to teach and guide them with good manners, and to put in it due diligence, according to what is broadly established in the Letters of said grant, for which I request the King, my Lord, with great affection, and I charge the Princess and said Prince her husband that they thus do it and fulfill it, and that this be their main end, and that in this they may place great diligence, and that they do not consent or permit that the Indians living in and inhabiting those said Indies and mainland be persecuted in their persons and in their properties; but instead I order that they be treated well and justly. And if they have received any distress, that it be remedied and corrected, so that in nothing may the Apostolic Letters of such grant be exceeded in what it is placed upon us and established.

Notes: 1. Image: Eduardo Rosales (1864), Doña Isabel la Católica dictando su testamento, Museo Nacional del Prado.

2. Website of the Commission for the Beatification of Isabel la Católica, of the Archdiocese of Valladolid (in Spanish) - Cause of the Servant of God (in English)

 

roratecaeli@blogspot.com

The Jewish Preparation & the Byzantine Liturgical Tradition

I came across this nice piece and thought about our many attendees who are of the Roman or Latin tradition and who will be introduced to a new translation of the Novus Ordo Liturgy this Sunday.  This also dovetails nicely with our recent program on Feasts of the Jews.

In the Extraordinary Form, the West retains the Psalms of Assent and many of the older generation will remember with fondness the opening words of the Mass: Introibo ad Altare Dei . . .

Psalm 42: Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man.
For thou art God my strength: why hast thou cast me off? and why do I go sorrowful whilst the enemy afflicteth me? 
Send forth thy light and thy truth: they have conducted me, and brought me unto thy holy hill, and into thy tabernacles. 
And I will go in to the altar of God: to God who giveth joy to my youth. 
To thee, O God my God, I will give praise upon the harp: why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou disquiet me? 
Hope in God, for I will still give praise to him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God.

I hope all will enjoy this well prepared article.

In the Old Covenant economy, the Jewish people would come into the presence of the Creator in a special way through pilgrimages to the temple in Jerusalem for high holy days such as Yom Kippur. To worship at the Temple was the paramount way of worshipping the Creator. The Temple offerings of animal sacrifices, incense, wheat, wine and oil all were given to the Creator, especially on high holy days that celebrated the mystery of the Jews’ salvation, which were accompanied by Jews not native to Jerusalem making a pilgrimage to the Temple. On this pilgrimage from other parts of Jerusalem, special Psalms from among the Psalter (specifically Psalms 119-133, LXX) were especially appropriate for singing along the journey. These songs of ascent speak of a journey up to the mountain of Jerusalem. Incidentally, in the Byzantine Tradition, these same Psalms make up the typical Kathismata for Friday Evenings, which is a fitting parallel to mark the start of the Sabbath.

Dr. Cuddeback's Quotation Handout on Music & the Soul

Music and the Soul: Destroying or Restoring the Inner Man

John A. Cuddeback, PhD., Institute of Catholic Culture

November 17, 2011

Some Quotations on MUSIC

Plato (4^th century BC):

“As Damon says, and I am convinced, the musical modes are never changed without change in the most important of a city’s laws.” Republic 424c (Trans. Grube. Hackett Publishing, 1992)

“Aren’t these the reasons, Glaucon, that education in music and poetry is most important? First, because rhythm and harmony permeate the inner part of the soul more than anything else, affecting it most strongly and bringing it grace, so that if someone is properly educated in music and poetry, it makes him graceful, but if not, then the opposite. Second, because anyone who has been properly educated in music and poetry will sense it acutely when something has been omitted from a thing and when it hasn’t been finely crafted or finely made by nature. And since he has the right distastes, he’ll praise fine things, be pleased by them, receive them into his soul, and, being nurtured by them, become fine and good. He’ll rightly object to what is shameful, hating it while he’s still young and unable to grasp the reason, but, having been educated in this way, he will welcome the reason when it comes and recognize it easily because of its kinship with himself.” Republic 401d-402a

P. Benedict XVI - Homily - Friday, 11 June 2010

“Your rod and your staff – they comfort me”: the shepherd needs the rod as protection against savage beasts ready to pounce on the flock; against robbers looking for prey. Along with the rod there is the staff which gives support and helps to make difficult crossings. Both of these are likewise part of the Church’s ministry, of the priest’s ministry. The Church too must use the shepherd’s rod, the rod with which he protects the faith against those who falsify it, against currents which lead the flock astray. The use of the rod can actually be a service of love. Today we can see that it has nothing to do with love when conduct unworthy of the priestly life is tolerated. Nor does it have to do with love if heresy is allowed to spread and the faith twisted and chipped away, as if it were something that we ourselves had invented. As if it were no longer God’s gift, the precious pearl which we cannot let be taken from us. Even so, the rod must always become once again the shepherd’s staff – a staff which helps men and women to tread difficult paths and to follow the Lord.

The Devil’s Deception & the Power of God: Dominion, Domination & Deliverance - Summary

The Devil’s Deception & the Power of God: Dominion, Domination & Deliverance

“And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness, and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moves upon the earth.  And God created man to his own image; to the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Gen. 1:26-27)

God created Man in His image and likeness.  And because of we are made in God’s image and likeness, Man is different from every other creature in all creation, explained Bishop Nicholas Samra on Sunday Nov. 13^th in his talk entitled The Devil’s Deception & the Power of God: Dominion, Domination & Deliverance.  What does it mean to be created in God’s image and likeness?  While we normally think of image and likeness being the same thing, Bishop Samra made a distinction between the two. To be in God’s image means that we look like God; we have reason and are able to make choices.  To be created in the likeness of God means that we can be creative and dynamic and relate to people. In other words, we can act like God and exercise personhood. 

God created Man to be perfect, but Man’s creation is incomplete.  That is why Saint Basil could say “we are still being created.”   As we grow in perfection and ultimately closer to God, the image of God grows in us.  We were also created with three basic tasks.  First God made us stewards of creation.  We are to care for it according to the rules laid out by God.  Second, we were created as prophets to discern the will of God in and for creation. Finally, according to Bishop Samra, we were created as priests to live in a sacramental way using creation in the way that God intended. 

The failure of Adam and Eve was that they desired to be like God immediately and as a result they failed to fulfill their three basic tasks.  They failed as steward because they desired to use creation for their own purpose. They failed as prophets because they did not discern what God wanted when the followed the voice of the serpent.  And finally, they failed as priests because they misused the holy things of creation. 

Adam and Eve sinned and threw chaos into creation.  Humanity became scattered and separated, “trying to live our own way apart from the clan of God,” as Bishop Samra noted.  We still are in the image of God, but now that image is blurred and distorted.  The distortion comes about through the misuse of our nature, and this is called sin. Each sin is a rebellion against the Lord and an abuse of the nature that was created in His image.

After the fall of Adam and Eve, God had a new plan for creation, to send His Son, the second person of the blessed Trinity, to restore all creation to its natural goodness and harmony.  “The Word of God became one of us. He takes our broken human nature and heals it. He becomes the new Adam and brings us back in line with the original plan God had intended.”

St Nicholas Cabsilas said, “God is not content to remain where he is and to summon like a slave the one he loves so dearly. He comes down and seeks for himself; the Almighty stoops to the lowliness of our poor nature …he takes on himself all these humiliations and dies. This is what we call the incarnation…the high point of God's plan for creation.”  Bishop Samra ended by exhorting his listeners to “radiate the divine nature in which God has chosen us to share.”

Submitted by James Blankenship

Use your talents for God

THE PARABLE OF THE TALENTS AND THE GOAL OF EXISTENCE

VATICAN CITY, 13 NOV 2011 (VIS) - The provisional nature of earthly life and the call to experience it as "a pilgrimage" towards God, Who "represents our final destination and gives meaning to our lives", were the central themes of the remarks Benedict XVI addressed to faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square before praying the Angelus today.

In the Parable of the Talents, as related in today's reading from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, "Jesus speaks of the three servants whose master departed on a long journey and entrusted them with his money. Two of them behaved correctly and redoubled the wealth they had received, but the third hid the money in a hole. When the master returned he asked what had become of his riches and, while he was pleased with the first two servants, he was disappointed with the third, ... because he had behaved as if his master would never return, as if the day of reckoning would never come.

"With this parable", the Holy Father added, "Jesus wished to teach His disciples to make good use of His gifts. God calls each one of us to life and gives us talents, at the same time entrusting us with a mission to accomplish. It would be foolish to think that these gifts are our due, just as refusing to employ them would be to fail in the goal of our lives. Commenting on this Gospel episode, St. Gregory the Great notes that the Lord does not stint His gift of charity and love to anyone".

"Let us accept the invitation to be watchful, as reiterated in the Scriptures. This is the attitude of those who know that the Lord will return and will wish to see in us the fruits of His love. Charity is the fundamental good which no one should fail to practise and without which all other gifts are in vain".
ANG/ VIS 20111114 (330)

The Philosophers On Music

Even thousands of years ago, philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates understood the tremendous influence music has on its listeners.

Over 2300 years ago, Aristotle spoke about music and its ability to communicate the emotional states of humans:

Music directly imitates the passions or states of the soul...when one listens to music that imitates a certain passion, he becomes imbued withthe same passion; and if over a long time he habitually listens to music that rouses ignoble passions, his whole character will be shaped to an ignoble form.ⁱ

Introduction to Salvation History by Dr. Brendan McGuire

INTRODUCTION TO SALVATION HISTORY

Modern-day Catholics who explore the writings of such 20th-century thinkers as Christopher Dawson, G.K. Chesterton, and Henri Daniel-Rops do not have to go far before coming across the notion of "salvation history."  Starting from a perspective of faith, and juxtaposing the study of Sacred Scripture with the insights of modern historical science, archaeology, linguistics, and anthropology, these thinkers helped flesh out a sophisticated vision of God's providential operation in man's history, especially in preparing the world for the Incarnation of Christ and the spread of the Gospel.  It is crucial for modern Catholics to be familiar with salvation history; as Chesterton was so fond of pointing out, the Christian faith is unique precisely because it is founded on belief in the real, historical figure of Jesus Christ.

Every Christian believer is familiar with the idea that Christ's incarnation represents the fulfillment of Old Testament promises.  Christ, after all, was a Jew, and the New Testament presents him as the long-sought heir of King David, spoken of by generations of Hebrew prophets.  Nevertheless, Christ was also born into a world that was held together by Roman statecraft, and a world in which Greek culture formed the basis for a worldview and intellectual idiom common to all educated men.  Indeed, the ancient Mediterranean as it existed at the time of Christ was ideal for the evangelizing mission of the early Church; Roman political power had established a peace that extended from Mesopotamia to Britain, while Greek language and ideas provided a medium through which the Gospel could be communicated universally.  The historical context in which the Incarnation occurred was what allowed Christianity to become a great world religion, rather than a purely provincial phenomenon in a small corner of the world.

It is therefore crucial for Catholics today to understand the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman contributions to the formation of the Western world.  Not only is ancient history intimately bound up with our Faith, it provides us with the foundation of our identity: to be a Christian is to be a Roman, a Greek, and a Hebrew as well.  Stay tuned to the Institute of Catholic Culture On-Line Learning Center as we explore salvation history, beginning with the history and thought of the ancient Hebrews, and proceeding from there to the foundations of Greek civilization, the spread of Hellenistic culture, and the unification of the Mediterranean world under the sway of the Roman Empire.

-Brendan J. McGuire, Ph.D.  

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
 
John Dryden. 1631–1700

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687
 
FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony,
      This universal frame began:
  When nature underneath a heap
      Of jarring atoms lay,
    And could not heave her head,          5
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
    'Arise, ye more than dead!'
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
  In order to their stations leap,
     And Music's power obey.   10
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
   This universal frame began:
   From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.   15

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
    When Jubal struck the chorded shell,
  His listening brethren stood around,
    And, wondering, on their faces fell
  To worship that celestial sound:   20
Less than a God they thought there could not dwell
    Within the hollow of that shell,
    That spoke so sweetly, and so well.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

    The trumpet's loud clangour   25
      Excites us to arms,
    With shrill notes of anger,
      And mortal alarms.
  The double double double beat
      Of the thundering drum   30
      Cries Hark! the foes come;
  Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat!

    The soft complaining flute,
    In dying notes, discovers
    The woes of hopeless lovers,   35
Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute.

    Sharp violins proclaim
  Their jealous pangs and desperation,
  Fury, frantic indignation,
  Depth of pains, and height of passion,   40
    For the fair, disdainful dame.

    But O, what art can teach,
    What human voice can reach,
      The sacred organ's praise?
    Notes inspiring holy love,   45
  Notes that wing their heavenly ways
    To mend the choirs above.

  Orpheus could lead the savage race;
  And trees unrooted left their place,
    Sequacious of the lyre;   50
But bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder higher:
When to her organ vocal breath was given,
  An angel heard, and straight appear'd
    Mistaking Earth for Heaven.

GRAND CHORUS.


As from the power of sacred lays   55
  The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
  To all the Blest above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,   60
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky!

St. John Chrysostom, Homily on Psalm 41

“David formerly sang songs, also today we sing hymns. He had a lyre with lifeless strings, the church has a lyre with living strings. Our tongues are the strings of the lyre with a different tone indeed but much more in accordance with piety. Here there is no need for the cithara, or for stretched strings, or for the plectrum, or for art, or for any instrument; but, if you like, you may yourself become a cithara, mortifying the members of the flesh and making a full harmony of mind and body. For when the flesh no longer lusts against the Spirit, but has submitted to its orders and has been led at length into the best and most admirable path, then will you create a spiritual melody.” (Chrysostom, 347-407, Exposition of Psalms 41, (381-398 A.D.) Source Readings in Music History, ed. O. Strunk, W. W. Norton and Co.: New York , 1950, pg. 70.)

St. John Chrysostom, Homily on Psalm 149

“A few say, to be sure, that the tambourine signifies the mortality of our flesh and the psaltery means a heavenward gaze. For this instrument [the tambourine] is played with a downward motion, not with an upward one, as is the cithara. But I would prefer to say that they [the Jews] played these in times past on account of the dullness of their understanding and so that they might be drawn away from idols. As he [God] conceded sacrifices to them, so he also allowed them this, for he accommodated himself to their weaknesses.” Chrysostom, Homily on Psalm 149, 2 (PG 55, 494). Cited in Johannes Quasten, Music and Worship in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (National Association of Pastoral Musicians, 1983).

Summary of Original Sin w/ Fr. Thomas Hofer, OP

When we look at the world around us, we see that something is just not right.  People grow old and die.  Arguments break out between family members.  Every sort of lying, deceit, deception and immorality happens on a daily basis.  Fr. Hofer began his lecture by apologizing for his tardiness and recounting his hellish 2 hour trip in traffic to get to St Timothy, chalking up traffic to original sin.  Think about all the evil in the world and you get a real sense of original sin. 

Original sin is a reality that we all live with on a daily basis, but it wasn’t always this way.  Adam and Eve were created in original justice and enjoyed paradise in the Garden of Eden.  One can only wonder why Adam committed the original sin.  But alas, the Original Sin is a truth of our Faith and the topic of discussion for Thursday’s presentation by the ICC.

The scholastics, like St. Thomas Aquinas, considered Original sin in two parts: Peccatum Originale Originans (Original Sin originating) and second Peccatum Originale Originatum (Original Sin having been originated).  In other words, the personal effect that original sin had on Adam and the effect that original sin had on all creation.

Peccatum Orginale Originans, or the Original Sin originating, speaks about the personal effects that original sin had on Adam and Eve.  As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states “The tree of knowledge of good and evil symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creation, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his creator and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom” (CCC 390).  The tree tempted Adam and Eve to decide for themselves what was good and evil rather than recognizing the laws of creation and ultimately the law of God.  Adam and Eve no longer wanted to respect God and His laws; they wanted to be like God.  After their sin, they shamefully hid themselves, recognizing their state and their sin.  As a result of their sin, death became a part of the human reality.

That leads us to the consideration of the result of original sin on humanity as a whole (Pecattum Originale Originatum).  The Catechism says “Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the over whelming misery which oppress men and their inclination toward evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam’s sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the ‘death of the soul’.”  Original does not have the character of personal fault.  Rather it affects our nature.  Beyond the spiritual death of the soul, the Catechism states “certain temporal consequence of sin remain in the baptized such as suffering, illness, death and such frailties inherent in life as weaknesses ofcharacter and so on as well as an inclination to sin that Tradition call concupiscence…the tinder for sin” (CCC 1264).

Why would God allow us to suffer these effects?   God will always bring a greater good out of evil.  Because of our sin, Christ became our divine physician for our spiritual malady.  God created us perfect to enjoy paradise.  But by allowing Adam to use his free will and freedom to sin, God gives us something even better, redemption by the blood of His only Son, the second person of the Blessed Trinity.  The paradise that God created for Man was good, but our reward for “fighting the good fight” is even better.  At the Easter vigil, the Church joyfully sings “O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!”

Submitted by James Blankenship

St. Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrneans - On Bishops

"See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God." Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate an agape; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and proper.
Moreover, it is in accordance with reason that we should return to soberness [of conduct], and, while yet we have opportunity, exercise repentance towards God. It is well to reverence both God and the bishop. He who honours the bishop has been honoured by God; he who does anything without the knowledge of the bishop, does [in reality] serve the devil. Let all things, then, abound to you through grace, for you are worthy. You have refreshed me in all things, and Jesus Christ [shall refresh] you. You have loved me when absent as well as when present. May God recompense you, for whose sake, while you endure all things, you shall attain unto Him."

 

Summary - Evolution or Creation w/ Fr. William Saunders

“And God created man to his own image” … or did we evolve from apes?  That was the topic at hand for tonight’s lecture given by Fr. Saunders, Pastor at Our Lady of Hope in Potomac Falls, Virginia and frequent lecturer for the Institute of Catholic Culture. What does the Church teach about the story of Creation and the theory of Evolution?

In this day and age the modern tendency is to separate Faith from reason and reason from Faith. But Father Saunders argued that Faith and reason cannot be separated and that they must remain linked.  When considering the question of Creation versus Evolution, the Church takes the middle of the road approach and maintains the possibility of evolution under the divine direction.

The story of Genesis is the unfolding of creation: a movement from the formless wasteland to an ordered and designed creation that is good.  Each day a new part of creation was ordered and created until finally on the sixth day, God created Man in His own image.  The creation story spans over seven days.  But Fr. Saunders rhetorically asked where the Bible says that a day was a 24 hour period as most Protestants believe.  Referring to the Psalms and other parts of the scriptures, a day to the Lord is like a thousand years (Ps. 90:4; 2Peter 3:8).

What truths then are conveyed by the book of Genesis?  First and foremost, the truth expressed by the creation story is the truth that Man is created from nothing by an all powerful and loving God and that we are created in His image.  This simple yet profound truth leads to other deeper and more profound insights.  Fr Saunders pointed out six basic truths of Genesis:  1) the dignity of the human person 2) life is sacred from conception to natural death 3) marriage is sacred 4) a child has a right to a mom and dad and to be raised into a family 5) all people have a right to basic things that will help improve themselves 6) that we care for the suffering and dying.

Turing our attention to evolution, Fr. Saunders simplified the evolutionary process into big bang, formless matter, primordial slime, simple animals, complex animals, and then finally Man.  The key points of evolution are mutation, chaos, chance, natural selection, and selection of the fittest.  Each of these points is essential to the evolutionary process.  The modern evolutionary system proposes a system bereft of God.  If Darwin is correct and survival of the fittest is the nature’s modus operandi, than it makes sense to “get rid of the imbecile.”  Darwin was a proponent of eugenics and eugenics is the logical conclusion of the Darwinian evolutionary moral system.  The best and fittest must survive.

But as Fr. Saunders points out, evolution requires a certain amount of specificity for it to work.  The planets have to be just right so that each spins around the sun.  The earth has to be tilted on its axis perfectly, otherwise it would be too hot or too cold to support life.  There has to be the right amount of oxygen and plants and animals, or Man would not survive. Nature has to be precise or it would not amount to life as we know it. It has to be ordered and directed by God

When we observe nature and the world around us, we do not see chaos. Rather, we see a world that is perfectly designed and ordered by God.  The world does not operate by chance.  Pope Benedict said “only where God is seen does life truly begin; only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know when life begins.  We are not the meaningless product of chance or chaos; we are willed by God.” When considering the topic of Creation vs. Evolution, it must be remembered that the truth must be sought and that truth must include God.

Submitted by James Blankenship

Catechism of the Catholic Church , On the Fall of Man

 Paragraph 7. The Fall
385 God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil. Where does evil come from? "I sought whence evil comes and there was no solution", said St. Augustine,²⁵⁷ and his own painful quest would only be resolved by his conversion to the living God. For "the mystery of lawlessness" is clarified only in the light of the "mystery of our religion".²⁵⁸ The revelation of divine love in Christ manifested at the same time the extent of evil and the superabundance of grace.²⁵⁹ We must therefore approach the question of the origin of evil by fixing the eyes of our faith on him who alone is its conqueror.²⁶⁰

St. Ephrem, On The Mother of God & the Curse of Eve

"Because there are those who dare to say that Mary cohabited with Joseph after she bore the Redeemer, we reply, 'How would it have been possible for her who was the home of the indwelling of the Spirit, whom the divine power overshadowed, that she be joined by a mortal being, and gave birth filled with birthpangs, in the image of the primeval curse?' If Mary was blessed of women, she would have been exempt from the curse from the beginning, and from the bearing of children in birthpangs and curses. It would be impossible therefore to call one who gave birth with these birthpangs blessed."
(Saint Ephrem's Commentary on Tatian's Diatessaron)