2 John 9 read in the light of contemporary theological "progressivism"

"Anyone who is so 'progressive' [(Πᾶς ὁ προάγων)] as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ [(καὶ μὴ μένων ἐν τῇ διδαχῇ τοῦ Χριστοῦ)] does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching [(ὁ μένων ἐν τῇ διδαχῇ)] has the Father and the Son."

     2 John 9, NABRE.

2 John 9 OL Sabatier (1751)

     On the basis of 1) an Old Latin version of the passage (qui recedit, incl. departs from, abandons, separates or withdraws from, rather than the qui praecedit of the Vulgate, in Lucifer of Calaris), plus 2) three apparently regressive military uses of προάγω (in company with μένω) in Polybius (208-125 BC) and Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC), Terry Griffith, seeking to "put a brake on progressive interpretations running away with themselves", argues that "2 John 9a is . . . best translated in a more neutral way as 'Anyone who goes forth [or leaves] and . . . does not remain in the teaching of the Messiah'" (144):  "2 John 9. . . . need not reflect . . . a value judgment of 'progressiveness'" (142) considered "as a description of those holding to gnosticising or docetic trajectories of development" (144).  Terry Griffith, "The translation of Ο ΠΡΟΑΓΩΝ in 2 John 9," Tyndale bulletin 67, no. 1 (2016): 137–44, which, however, I find more cautionary than decisive.  I mean, my initial reaction to the first of his military examples in particular—But what if, in context (and having defeated Demetrius), Ptolemy had already started for Egypt, at least in intention?  Wouldn't the decision be, in that case, to proceed with the former plan of returning to Egypt?—is echoed later by Griffith himself when he says, "In these examples, the context alone determines whether the movement is viewed as a negative or a positive outcome, but the verb hardly means 'advance' and is probably better translated as 'proceed'" (143), in which case we would be back to a root sense without ruling out a metaphorical usage.
     Note, however, that the best critical edition of the Old Latin ed. Thiele (Epistulae Catholicae (Freiburg:  Verlag Herder, 1956-1969), 389-392), not cited by Griffith, presents a far more complex picture of the text than he does, with (though I have not mastered the apparatus) plenty of the Old Latin sources and church fathers opting for praecedit.
     Cf. Pope Francis to the German bishops:

The Pope further warns - with reference to a book by Pope Benedict XVI - against the 'temptation of the promoters of Gnosticism' who 'have always tried to say something new and different from what the Word of God has given them. ... What is meant by this is the one who wants to be ahead, the advanced one, who pretends to go beyond the "ecclesial We".' The passage from the Second Letter to John (2 John 9) mentioned in the text is revealing here: 'Any one who goes ahead, and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ, has not God'. The pope [adds] that there is 'a temptation by the Father of Lies …, who … ultimately dismembers the Body of the holy and faithful people of God'.

That from the "Schreiben von Papst Franziskus an das pilgernde Volk Gottes in Deutschland" 9, dated 29 June 2019, and composed originally in Spanish.  The reference is to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Der Gott Jesus Christ:  Betrachtungen über den dreieinigen Gott =The God of Jesus Christ:  meditations on God in the Trinity, trans. Robert J. Cunningham (Chicago:  Franciscan Herald Press, 1979), 104-105, underscoring mine.

     John formulated quite knowingly these affirmations within the struggles of his own time as a sign that distinguished the Spirit from the anti-Spirit.  The great teachers of gnosis were interesting because of what they said in their own name, and they created a reputation for themselves.  They caused a sensation because they had something new and different to say that went beyond the Word.  For example, they claimed that Jesus in fact was not dead at all, but that he was dancing with his disciples while people believed him to be hanging on the cross.  The fourth Gospel opposed such gnostic novelties and some of their statements that were binding on on those who made them by using the ecclesiastical plural—this disappearance of the one who speaks behind the ecclesiastical 'we' really gives to the person who is speaking his true countenance and keeps it from dissolving into nothingness.  In John's epistles the same model was followed:  the author simply called himself 'the presbyter' [elder].  His adversary was the proagon, the one who advances (2 John 9).  The whole gospel of John as well as his epistles sought to be only a mobilization of memory, and in this respect it is the Gospel of the Holy Spirit.  To the extent that the Gospel does not invent something new but recalls its subject by meditating on it, it is fruitful, new, and deep.  The nature of the Holy Spirit, which is the unity of the Father and the Son, is forgetfulness of self (in which memory consists).  It is the true renewal.  A Church of the Spirit is a Church that, by remembering, penetrates more deeply into the Word, and thus becomes more alive and richer.  True forgetfulness of self and a detachment from self in order to reach Everything—this is a sign of the Spirit and a copy of his trinitarian nature.

McKnight on Jesus on same-sex relations

"when the term porneia is used in a general sexual immorality sense, it refers for the Jew to Leviticus 18, which means it includes same-sex relations as one kind of sexual relation prohibited. In other words, it can mean 'sexual immorality' in general, with no particular boundaries in mind, but for a Jew it is more likely it has a Leviticus 18 context in mind....
"The categories at work in what a Jew in the 1st Century meant by porneia were shaped by the Torah, and that means Leviticus 18.
"For Jesus, then, there are no instances where a reference to same-sex relations is certain; there are two texts that are possible, but with the term porneia same-sex relations are undoubtedly entailed if the term is general and refers to Leviticus 18."

     Scot McKnight, "Did Jesus talk about homosexuality?," Jesus Creed, 6 April 2015, underscoring mine.

Feast of Zenas the servant (manumitted slave) and his master Zenon, Martyrs, Philadelphia, Arabia (the Roman province) =modern Amman, Jordan, 22 June 304

Bibliography (in progress):

• Acta sanctorum June 5, pp. 405 ff., where the Greek (Ζηνᾶς (Ζηνᾶς ὁ δοῦλος)) matches that of Tit 3:16, which is where my middle name comes from, via my uncle Zenas Arthur and my grandfather Zenas Elias Perisho, whose parents were promised that if they would name their son after him, the Quaker missionary to Cuba Zenas L. Martin, who, according to Hiram L. Hilty in Quaker history 59, no. 2 (Autumn 1970):  84 (81-97), was fond of the tailored suit, would bestow one upon him.  (No suit, or so the story goes, was ever forthcoming.)
• Butler's lives of the saints:  no entry.
• Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (Oxford).  Down when I last tried.

"When the cares of my heart are many, thy consolations cheer my soul."

When the cares of my heart are many, thy consolations cheer my soul.

     Ps 94(93):19 RSV.

בְּרֹ֣ב שַׂרְעַפַּ֣י בְּקִרְבִּ֑י תַּ֝נְחוּמֶ֗יךָ יְֽשַׁעַשְׁע֥וּ נַפְשִֽׁי׃
in multitudine cogitationum mearum quae sunt in me intrinsecus consolationes tuae delectabunt animam meam
κύριε, κατὰ τὸ πλῆθος τῶν ὀδυνῶν μου ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ μου αἱ παρακλήσεις σου ἠγάπησαν τὴν ψυχήν μου.
secundum multitudinem dolorum meorum in corde meo consolationes tuae laetificaverunt animam meam

Accidentally "natural" to a given individual, and therefore vicious

"in man, nature can be taken in two ways. First, inasmuch as intellect and reason is the principal part of man's nature, since in respect thereof he has his own specific nature [(secundum eam homo in specie constituitur)]. And in this sense, those pleasures may be called natural to man, which are derived from things pertaining to man in respect of his reason [(secundum rationem)]. . . .  Secondly, nature in man may be taken as contrasted with reason [(secundum quod condividitur rationi, as distinguished from reason)], and as denoting that which is common to man and other animals, especially that part of man which does not obey reason [(rationi non obedit)]. And in this sense, that which pertains to the preservation of the body, either as regards the individual, as food, drink, sleep, and the like, or as regards the species, as sexual intercourse, are said to afford man natural pleasure. Under each kind of pleasures, we find some that are 'not natural' speaking absolutely [(innaturales, simpliciter loquendo)], and yet 'connatural' in some respect [(connaturales secundum quid)]. For it happens in an individual [(individuo)] that some one of the natural principles of the species [(speciei)] is corrupted, so that something which is contrary to the specific nature [(contra naturam speciei)], becomes accidentally natural to this individual [(per accidens naturale huic individuo)]. . . .  And this corruption may be either on the part of the body—from some ailment; thus to a man suffering from fever, sweet things seem bitter, and vice versa—or from an evil temperament; thus some take pleasure in eating earth and coals and the like; or on the part of the soul; thus from custom [(propter consuetudinem)] some take pleasure in cannibalism or in the unnatural intercourse of man and beast, or other such things [(in comedendo homines, vel in coitu bestiarum aut masculorum, aut aliorum huiusmodi, in consuming human beings, or in coitus with beasts or males, or others of this kind)], which are not in accord with human nature [(quae non sunt secundum naturam humanam)]."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II.31.7.Resp.  Latin from Corpus Thomisticum.  I have followed the entry on "Homosexualité" in the Dictionnaire de philosophie et de théologie thomistes, by Margelidon and Fluocat (2016), in correcting the FEDP translation of that penultimate Latin phraseology.  For "aut" doesn't, I think, mean "and" (while the Dictionnaire renders the genitive—as in "bestiarum aut masculorum, aut aliorum"—with "avec," "with").  And, indeed, Eric D'Arcy translates this as follows on p. 25 in vol. 20 of the Blackfriars Summa:

He may be ailing physically. . . .  He may be ailing psychologically, as some men by habituation come to take pleasure in cannibalism, or in copulation with beasts or with their own sex, or in other things not in according with human nature.

     Most striking, in my view, though, is that distinction between what may be [2] "accidentally natural" to an individual" "in some respect", though [1] "contrary to the nature of the species" or "unnatural, simply speaking", and therefore vicious.
     12 October 2021:  This, by the way, is said to be the passage upon on which the thesis of Adriano Oliva O.P.'s Amours:  l'église, les divorcés remariés, les couples homosexuels (Paris:  Le Cerf, 2015) is based.  See Thibaud Collin, the five Dominicans (also First things), Carlos A. Casanova, and so forth.

"the image of the Trinity is in the mind primarily and mainly, in so far as the mind knows God".

"following St. Augustine, St. Thomas maintains explicitly that the image of God in man resides primo et principaliter in the knowledge and love of God, that is to say, in the participation in the knowledge and love that God has of his own mystery.  The knowledge and love of self constitutes a secondary aspect of the image of God (secundario), to the degree—and only to the degree—that the human mind that knows and loves itself is borne towards God."

     Gilles Emery, "La théologie trinitaire spéculative comme exercice spirituel suivant saint Thomas d'Aquin," Annales theologici 19, no. 1 (2005):  127-128 (99-133), citing ST I.93.8, I.93.4, and De veritate 10.7, which see!  From the latter, Resp.:

the likeness of the Trinity is clearer in mind, as knowing God, than as knowing itself. Therefore, properly speaking, the image of the Trinity is in the mind primarily and mainly, in so far as the mind knows God, and it is there in a certain manner and secondarily, in so far as the mind knows itself, especially when it considers itself in so far as it is the image of God. As a result, its consideration does not stop with itself, but goes on to God. There is no image in the consideration of temporal things, but a kind of likeness of the Trinity, which can partake more of the character of vestige.

Theology as a science that aims at "consent to the good that God would do us"

"the doctrine of sacred Scripture contains matters not only for speculation [(speculanda)], as in geometry, but also matters to be accepted [(approbanda)] by the will [(affectum)]. . . .  Therefore, in the other sciences it is enough that they perfect man’s intellect, but in this one it is required that he be perfected in intellect and will [(perfectus secundum intellectum et affectum)]. . . .
     ". . .  because the things taught in sacred Scripture pertain to the will and not only to the intellect [(pertinent ad affectum, et non tantum ad intellectum)], a person must be perfect in both."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, In ad Hebr. 5:14 =no. 2073, as trans. the Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine.  Schütz' Thomas-Lexikon on affectus; Deferarri's Lexikon of St. Thomas Aquinas on affectus.  According to the latter, to approbate (approbare) something is to assent to it as a good.  The phrase in the heading is Diogenes Allen's.