Running with the buffaloes

     “There was an anchorite in the desert grazing with the buffaloes and he prayed to God, saying:  ‘Lord, let me know if I am falling behind in anything.’  A voice came to him, saying:  ‘Enter this coenobion and, if they tell you to do anything, do it.’  He went into the coenobion and stayed there, but he had no idea how to serve the brothers.  The junior monks began teaching him how to serve, saying:  ‘Do this, idiot; do that, crazy old man.’  Hurt, he began to say to God:  ‘I have no idea how to serve men; release me back to the buffaloes.’  Released by God again, he went to a village to graze with the buffaloes.  Men used to set traps [in which] they caught buffaloes and the elder was caught [in one].  The thought suggested itself:  ‘Put your hand out and release yourself’, to which thought he said:  ‘If you are a man, release yourself then go to the men.  If, on the other hand, you are a buffalo, you do not have hands’, and he stayed in the trap, safe and sound, until dawn.  The men were alarmed on seeing the elder caught when they came to take the buffaloes.  For his part, he said nothing.  They released him and let him go; out he went into the desert, running with the buffaloes.”

     Ἦν τις ἀναχωρητὴς ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ βοσκόμενος μετὰ τῶν Βουβάλων καὶ ηὔξατο τῷ Θεῷ λέγων·  Κύριε, ἔι τι ὑστερῶ, δίδαξόν με.  Καὶ ἦλθεν αὐτῷ φωνὴ λέγουσα·  Εἴσελθε εἰς τόδε τὸ κοινόβιον, καὶ εἴ τι ἐπιτάσσουσι σοι, ποίησον.  Εἰσελθὼν δὲ εἰς τὸ κοινόβιον ἔμεινε καὶ οὐκ ἤδει τὴν ὑπηρεσίαν τῶν ἀδελφῶν.  Καὶ ἤρξαντο οἱ μοναχοὶ οἱ μικροὶ διδάσκειν αὐτὸν τὴν ὑπαρεσίαν λέγοντες·  Τοῦτο ποίησον, ἰδιῶτα, καὶ τοῦτο ποίησον, σαλὲ γέρων.  Καὶ θλιβόμενος ἠρξατο λέγειν πρὸς τὸν θεόν*·  ^†Οὐκ οἶδα τὴν ὑπερεσίαν τῶν ἀνθρώπων·^†  ἀπόλυσόν με πάλιν εἰς τοὺς βουβάλους.  Καὶ ἀπολυθεὶς πάλιν ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἀπῆλθεν εἰς χωρίον βοσκηθῆναι μετὰ τῶν βουβάλων καὶ ἔστησαν παγίδας οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἐκεῖ καὶ ἐπίασαν βουβάλια.  Ἐπιάσθη δὲ καὶ ὁ γέρων καὶ λέγει αὐτῶ ὁ λογισμός·  Βάλε τὴν κεῖρα σου καὶ λῦσον σεαυτόν.  Εἴπεν δὲ πρὸς τὸν λογισμόν·  Εἰ μὲν ἄνθρωπος εἶ, λῦσον σεαυτὸν καὶ ὕπαγε πρὸς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, εἰ δὲ βούβαλος εἶ, οὐκ ἔχεις χεῖρας.  Καὶ ἔμεινεν εἰς τὴν παγίδα σῶος ἕως πρωΐ.  Ἐλθόντες δὲ οἱ ἄνθρωποι πιᾶσαι τοὺς βουβάλους καὶ ἰδόντες τὸν γέροτα πεπιασμένον ἐφοβήθησαν.  Καὶ αὐτὸς οὐκ ἐλάλησεν οὐδέν.  Καὶ λύσαντες αὐτὸν ἀφῆκαν, καὶ ἐξῆλθε τρέχων ὀπισω τῶν βουβάλων εἰς τὴν ἔρημον.

* S:  Κύριον

^† C omits Οὐκ οἶδα τὴν ὑπερεσίαν τῶν ἀνθρώπων·

     Anonymous saying of the Desert Fathers no. 516.  The anonymous sayings of the Desert Fathers:  a select edition and complete English translation, ed. & trans. John Wortley (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2013), 348-351.
     No. 62, on p. 55, is very similar:

     "There was an anchorite grazing with the antelopes [(Βουβάλων)] and he prayed to God saying:  'Lord, teach me in what I am lacking.'  A voice came to him saying:  'Go to such-and-such a coenobion and do whatever they order you.'  He entered the coenobion and stayed, but he did not know how to serve the brothers.  The junior monks started instructing him how to serve the brothers, saying to him:  'Do this, stupid' and:  'Do that, crazy old man.'  Distressed, he prayed to God saying:  'Lord, I do not know how to serve men; send me back to the antelopes again.'  Released by God, he went off again into the countryside to graze with the antelopes [(Βουβάλων)]."

     Why does Worley translate these so differently?  The French translation by Lucien Regnault (Les sentences des pères du désert:  série des anonymes, Spiritualité orientale 43 (Solesmes & Bellefontaine, 1985), pp. 188-189 and 34 respectively) seems more consistent.

Bossuet on the priesthood of all believers

"When one speaks in the presence of the faithful either of the duties of the priesthood or of the powers of ecclesiastics, they think that these discourses touch upon them not at all, and refer the whole practice of these duties either to the sacerdotal order or to consecrated persons.  But it is a Christian truth that, a spiritual impression of the character of the pontificate of our Lord Jesus Christ [(Heb 7-8)] being made on us by Holy Baptism, all those who are honored to be his members are also participants of his priesthood; and that, by consequence, they must take part, according to the measure that is given to them, in the Spirit and in the functions of his priesthood.  This is what the learned Saint Chrysostom explains very excellently by the very order of sacrifice, in which the people are united with the priest in [the] company of the same Spirit; in which the priest, although appearing alone at the altar, nevertheless carries [to it] the desires of all and speaks in the name of the entire holy congregation, instructing the children of God by this holy ceremonial that they are truly united with him in a priestly and apostolic Spirit [(Hom. 18.3, on 2 Cor 8:16)].  This is why I am persuaded, Messieurs, that what I have to say today on the holy pontiff [Saint Charles Borromeo], whose memory we honor, although regarding the ecclesiastical state above all, will not, however, be irrelevant to the rest of my auditors.  And as I intend to help you see that the Spirit of the priesthood obliges all Christians to consecrate themselves to God as victims, I hope that the faithful, whom the blood of the Savior of the world has made both priests [of] and sacrificers to the living God, will understand by this doctrine that they are obliged to present themselves as holy, living, and acceptable oblations through Jesus Christ to the eternal Father [(Rom 12:1)].  But as Saint Paul assures [us] that this sacrifice must be consummated in the Spirit of the same Jesus, and because I learn from the same apostle that this Jesus offered himself to his Father by the Holy Spirit [(Heb 9:14)], let us ask this same Spirit to produce the abundance of grace in our hearts in order that they might be transformed into living victims; but let us request this grace via the intercession of Mary, by addressing her [as follows]:  Ave [Maria]."

     From the first installment in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade I've ever had the good fortune to own (i.e. pick up used).  It came down to me from the library of John P. O'Connell.  Fr. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, "Panégyrique de Saint Charles Borromée" (Paris, 4 November [1656]), in Bossuet:  oraisons funèbres, panégyriques, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade 33, ed. the Abbé Bernard Velat (Paris:  Librairie Galllimard, 1951):  674-675.  1656 is the date suggested by the Abbé Velat, who nevertheless admits that "On peut hésiter entre 1656, 1659 et 1661."  Bossuet was not a bishop until 1669.

"Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source. . . . They are creatures who can't hear the music of the spheres."

     Albert Einstein to an unidentified person, 7 August 1941, as quoted in The ultimate quotable Einstein, ed. Alice Calaprice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 337.  Calaprice cites Einstein Archives 54-927 (Hebrew University, Jerusalem).
     Einstein was of course not a believer in any traditional or confessional sense.

"Physical Science is the richer, Theology the more exact; . . ."

     John Henry Newman, The idea of a university defined and illustrated, Discourse VII.6, "Christianity and physical science:  a lecture in the School of Medicine" (ed. I. T. Ker (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1976), 356).
     "richer" in the sense of having "its own [(I hesitate to say more)] exuberant sylva of phenomena" "to handle, weigh, and measure"; "more exact" in the sense that Theology operates via deduction from "certain truths, communicated directly from above" ("The argumentative method of Theology is that of a strict science, such as Geometry, or deductive; the method of Physics, at least on starting, is that of an empirical pursuit, or inductive" (355-356)).
     Cf. this with, say, the more complicated account of "Physics" given by Ernan Mcmullin.

"Resist the devil", and he will make his presence known

"A brother told some elder:  'I do not see any battle in my heart.'  'You are a building open on all four sides', the elder said to him.  'Whoever wishes comes in and out through you and you are not aware of it.  If you have a door and close it, refusing entry to wicked logismoi through it, then you will see them standing outside and doing battle.'"

     Anonymous saying of the Desert Fathers no. 270 = N.57/11.101.  The anonymous sayings of the Desert Fathers:  a select edition and complete English translation, ed. & trans. John Wortley (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2013), 183.

Non-overlapping magisteria

"we may wait in peace and tranquillity till there is some real collision between Scripture authoritatively interpreted, and results of science clearly ascertained, before we consider how we are to deal with a difficulty which we have reasonable grounds for thinking will never really occur."

     John Henry Newman, The idea of a university defined and illustrated, Discourse VII.5, "Christianity and physical science:  a lecture in the School of Medicine" (ed. I. T. Ker (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1976), 355).

"Polytechnic utiliversity" (Hütter)

"In the current situation, as far as I can see, one could make a case that the faculties of the secular university are divided roughly along the lines of the Kantian antinomy between determinism and freedom. Predictably, the proponents of determinism are by and large at home in the hard sciences, the defenders of freedom by and large in the humanities.

"The proponents of determinism are increasingly embracing a posthumanist outlook (especially in the biological sciences) in that they see the human being as a highly developed animal bent on maximizing the success of its species (an endeavor driven primarily by the study and technical application of the natural sciences). The proponents of freedom are increasingly embracing a transhumanist outlook by epitomizing freedom in the existentialist sense of freely designing one’s own essence with the assistance of biotech­nology. Thus, human beings become their own designer choices. Human nature is subjected to techne, a Promethean liberation from our own nature—an exercise of a most radical freedom.

"And here the extremes meet. For transhumanism is nothing but the most consistent instantiation of posthumanism, especially when the design is collectively applied and socially enforced. . . . It is a dire picture, which also Aldous Huxley, in Brave New World, Hans Jonas in The Imperative of Responsibility, Jürgen Habermas in The Future of Human Nature, and Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae have warned against."

     Reinhard Hütter, "Polytechnic utiliversity:  putting the universal back in university," First things (November 2013), .