Good morning! As Christmas approaches, you're bound to see memes on social media with references to the legend that St. Nicholas struck the heretic Arius at the Council of Nicaea. I've heard this for years, but I could never find the primary source on this - in other words, what's the earliest reference to the story and where does it come from?
As a patristics scholar, I knew there was nothing about it in any document from the early Church. So, keeping in mind that the Council of Nicaea was in 325 AD (and by the way, I think it is true that St. Nicholas of Myra, the real St. Nick, was actually there at the council) - there was no reference to the great saint giving the great heretic the opportunity to turn the other cheek until the middle ages.
Well, with the help of a Eastern Orthodox friend, I found the reference. It's from a story of the life of St. Nicholas that's included in a medieval collection of lives of the saints called the Synaxarion. Here's the original excerpt:
I'm back, up and running, and ready to go - I should have a new JOURNEY episode within the next week or so - and because you are my loyal peeps, here is an exclusive, just-for-you, behind the scenes SNEAK PEEK into my new office:
This was for March 24th, recorded for the Ascension App
Thanks for your patience - here is our next installment of The Journey - it's session # 96, but I'm also calling it PART 1 of a "miniseries" on John chapter 6.
Whoever watches it first, please let me know if it looks good or if there are any problems with it - I get through the first two sections of the text on the feeding of the 5,000.
Enjoy!
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
I've seen some YouTube posts lately by some of the Catholic apologists, apparently talking about the best Bible translations (and/or offering rebuttals to Protestant videos on the same topic). I don't actually watch these videos, mind you, because I'm not interested in entering into any debates over it (and I suspect a lot of it has to do with the deuterocanonical books anyway, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a non-issue, since the Church fathers DID read them, and Jesus DID quote them), but as you know, I do have my favorite translations, and some that I feel pretty strongly are no good. In the early days of the Original Church videos, I did a video about this, and I talked about how I have certain test verses, that I use to check a translation. I'll post my video and my test verses later, in case you want to refresh your memory.
For now, those of you who have been following The Journey from the beginning know that when I started, I was using the NABRE as my starting point (and then ...
So here are the verses I look at to check whether a Bible translation is a good one:
These are mostly in the NT, but with regard to the OT, I don't want a Bible to minimize the phrase "Son of Man" so for me a Bible cannot render "son of man" or even "one like a son of man" in Daniel 7:13 as something like "human being" - that's a paraphrase and while it may convey the correct meaning for SOME OT passages, it does not convey the correct meaning for all of them, and you lose the connection to Jesus' own self-identification as the Son of Man in the NT, especially in Matthew 16:13-15.
Matthew 6:7 - better not say "vain repetition" or imply that repeated prayers are bad - Jesus was criticizing going on and on extemporaneously, not memorized prayers. The word "vain" is nowhere in the Greek!
1 Cor 11:2, and 2 Thess 2:15, 3:6 - better not render the word "teachings" just to avoid the positive connotation for tradition(s), especially if Col 2:8, which has a negative connotation (human traditions) is...
