The real Bellarmine on Chemnitz

"Martin Chemnitz is, in the Examen Concilii Tridentini, so rich in lies, that in four short sentences he is capable of encompassing five."

"Martinus Kemnitius in examine concilii tridentini, ita dives mendaciorum est, ut quatuor sententionlis, quinque mendacia comprehenderit [(will/may have included)]."

     Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, Disputationes de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos 2 (1588) =Robert Cardinalis Bellarmini opera omnia 2 (Neapel, 1857), 10a, as quoted by Theodor Mahlmann in "Der zweite Martin der lutherischen Kirche:  zu einem Martin Chemnitz beigelegten Epitheton," in Rezeption und Reform: Festschrift für Hans Schneider (Darmstadt: Verlag der Hessischen Kirchengeschichtlichten Vereinigung, 2001), 122n97 (99-136).  Vol. 3 (1593) =vol. 3 (Neapel, 1857), 616b =vol. 4 (Paris, 1873), 481b:

Chemnitz is always, self-consistently [?], a calumniator, and mendacious.

Kemnitius semper est sui similis calumniator[,] et mendax.

Mahlmann thus destroys the notion, dear to a number of Lutheran theologians (in this case Johannes Fecht, writing no. 25 in 1725), that Chemnitz was greatly admired by his Catholic opponents; indeed that one of them was the very source of the epitheton "Si alter Martinus non venisset, primus non stetisset" (and variants):  "Yet [the later] Rehtmeyer’s version [('Ipsimet Pontificii ad hunc virum digitum intendentes dicere solent:  "Vos protestantes duos habuistis Martinos, si posterior non fuisset, prior non stetisset"' (Historiae ecclesiasticae inclytae urbis Brunsvigae pars III.  Oder:  Der brühmten Stadt Braunschweig Kirchen-Historie Dritter Theil (Braunschweig, 1710), 524))] is rightly called historically false.  Roman theologians never—[not] even 'with raised forefinger'—said what Rehtmeyer makes them say [(Dennoch ist Rehtmeyers Version genau genommen historisch falsch.  Römische Theologen hatten nie gesagt, was Rehtmeyer sie, sogar 'mit erhobenem Zeigefinger,' 'sagen' läßt)]" (123-124).  Etc.
     This does not make Bellarmine right or even fair, just Rehtmeyer and the Lutherans wrong on the reputation of their champion among his opponents, whether contemporary or otherwise, the one exception being, possibly, the unnamed but theologically sophisticated Cardinal sympathetic to Catholic reform fingered enigmatically by the Lutheran pastor Johannes Gasmer in 1588 (Mahlmann, 126, 101-104 (no. 3), and throughout, insofar as this was thought by the Lutherans to be Diego Payva de Andrade (103), Bellarmine, and so forth; cf. also the references to Bossuet (118-124), Du Pin (124 (no. 27) and 125 (no. 31)), etc.)

"purity of life is part of religion"

"Religious virtue is divided into two parts, into that which pertains to the Divine and that which pertains to right conduct (for purity of life is part of religion)."

Διχῆ δὲ τῆς κατ' εὐσέβειαν ἀρετῆς διῃρεμένης, εἴς τε τὸ θεῖον καὶ τὴν εἰς τὴν τοῦ ἤθους κατόρθωσιν (μέρος γὰρ εὐσεβείας καὶ ἡ τοῦ βίου καθαρότης ἐστί), . . .

     Gregory of Nyssa, The life of Moses 2.166, trans. Everett Ferguson and Abraham J. Malherbe (Gregory of Nyssa:  The life of Moses, Classics of Western spirituality (New York; Mahwah, NJ:  Paulist Press, 1978), 96).  The footnote at this point reads, "This fact was not commonly recognized by the Greeks of the pre-Christian centuries.  See A. D. Nock, Conversion (Oxford, 1933), pp. 215 ff." (179n206).  Greek from the 3rd rev. & corr. (1968) ed. of SC 1, 212, 214.  Cf. GNO 7.1, p. 88 ll. 5-7.

"Before those who stood by | thou wast my helper and didst deliver me"

ἔναντι τῶν παρεστηκότων ἐγένου βοηθὸς καὶ ἐλυτρώσω με

     Sir 51:2 RSV.  Or "in the presence of those who stood by".  51:2-3 NETS:  "against those who stand by | you have been a help, and you have redeemed me".

The sacraments as an education in the use of things temporal

Source

"Grant, O Lord, we pray, that, benefitting from participation in heavenly things, we may be helped by what you give in this present age and prepared for the gifts that are eternal.  Through."

"Fac nos, quaesumus, Domine, caelestium rerum frequentatione proficere, ut et temporalibus beneficis adiuvemur, et erudiamur aeternis.  Per."

Cause us, we pray, O Lord, [so] to profit from the frequentation of things celestial, that we may be both helped by benefits temporal, and educated in [benefits] eternal.  Through.

     Prayer after Communion, Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Roman Missal. 

Grace both prevenient and sequent

May your grace, O Lord, we pray, at all times go before us and follow after and make us always determined to carry out good works.  Through.

     Collect for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Roman Missal.  According to Bruylants (Corpus orationum seems to have overlooked it), this one is present already in Paris, B. N. lat. 12048 (8th century, at 244.2) and others.

Tua nos, quaesumus, Domine, gratia semper et praeveniat et sequatur, ac bonis operibus iugiter praestet esse intentos.  Per.

My rendition:

May your grace, O Lord, we pray, always both precede and follow us, and keep [us] constantly intent upon good works.

The execrable translation of 1973, according to Fr. Z:

Lord, our help and guide, make your love the foundation of our lives. May our love for you express itself in our eagerness to do good for others.

A voluntary subjection

      "What is being referred to is that subjection about which the divine apostle spoke, when the Son subjects to the Father those who freely accept subjection [1 Cor 15:28].  This subjection will be voluntary, and through it the last enemy, death, will be destroyed.  That which is in our power, our free will, through which the power of corruption entered into us, will surrender voluntarily to God and will have mastery of itself because it had been taught to refrain from willing anything other than what God wills. . . .
     "Do not be disturbed by what I have said.  I have no intention of denying free will.  Rather I am speaking of a firm and steadfast disposition, a willing surrender [(θέσιν . . . τὴν κατὰ φύσιν παγίαν τε καὶ ἀμετάθετον, ἤγουν ἐκχώρησιν γνωμικὴν)], so that from the one from who we have received being [(τὸ εἶναι)] we long to receive being moved [(τὸ κινεῖσθαι)] as well."

     St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum 7, trans. Blowers & Wilken (On the cosmic mystery of Jesus Christ:  selected writings from St Maximus the Confessor, trans. Paul M. Blowers and Robert Louis Wilkin, Popular patristics series 25 (Crestwood, NY:  St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), 51-52).  Greek from PG 91, col. 1076B.

"Time, in which we have found nothing to offer up to God, is lost for eternity"

      "Every offering has value only insofar as one snatches it away from one's own benefit and dedicates it to God through this self-conquest. One loves and gives precisely because one loves, and because one considers what is given as a good, as a treasure. Love of creatures must be subordinated to the love of God, whom one is pledged to love above all things.
     "Time, in which we have found nothing to offer up to God, is lost for eternity. If it is only the duties of our vocation that we fulfill with dedication to the will of God; if it is the sweat of our faces that, in resignation, we wipe from our brow without murmuring; if it is suffering, temptations, difficulties with our fellowmen—everything we can present to God as an offering and can, through them, become like Jesus his Son. Where the sacrifice is great and manifold, there, in the same proportion, is the hope of glory more deeply and more securely grounded in the heart of him who makes it."

     St. Francis Xavier Seelos (1819-1867), Letter, as translated for the Liturgy of the hours, 5 October, Archives of the Redemptorists of the Baltimore Province, (variously (?) translated and) published now, presumably, in Sincerely, Seelos:  the collected letters of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, ed., trans., and introduced Carl Hoegerl, C.Ss.R. (New Orleans:  Seelos Center, 2008).