Going through some old rubbish the other day, I came across a document which was embellished with episcopal seals ... plastic, not wax ... do RC bishops seal in red plastic? Or is it part of the Patrimony?
It gave me a shock. Proddies among you may be aware that among papists and those traitors to the Reformation in the Church of England who ape them, Mary is referred to as "Mother of God". Nonsense, as you will remind me; for how can God have a Mother? But in the Diocese of Exeter, he has a Father too. The document begins: "I JOHN by Divine Permission Bishop of Plymouth under the authority of the Right Reverend Father of God MICHAEL ..."
And there is some superb gibberish at the end. "In Testimony whereof I have hereto set my hand on the Episcopal Seal The Bishop of Exeter as hereunto affixed this 11th day ...".
I have sometimes been unfriendly about the ignorance, within the Latin Church, of Latin. In all fairness, I should admit that, in the English Church, the English language is very imperfectly known.
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Textual Criticism of ancient texts is often bedevilled by the fact that in some scriptoria a text was read aloud to be taken down by a room full of slaves. Sometimes a rather thick slave didn't understand what he heard, and wrote down nonsense. Exactly the same has happened in this document. Readers with time to waste might like to have a go at emending the corrupt text beginning "In Testimony ...".
"In Testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and the Episcopal Seal of The Lord Bishop of Exeter is hereunto affixed this Eleventh day ..."
ReplyDelete''Proddies among you may be aware that among papists and those traitors to the Reformation in the Church of England who ape them, Mary is referred to as "Mother of God". Nonsense, as you will remind me; for how can God have a Mother?''
ReplyDeleteIf God can have no Mother, then He can also not become Man. Which is the logical conclusion most Protestants have in fact drawn. Indeed, inspite offiical adherence to the Nicene-Constaninopolitan Creed, most protestants are in fact arians or semi-arians. Hence thier dislike of and disbelief in the concept ''Mother of God''. The Original Reformers - for all their heresies - at least did not doubt that our Blessed Lord was truly God, and, quite consequently, accepted without reserve the titles - and the doctrines thereby conveyed - of Ever-Virgin and Mother of God. Catholics infested with Modernism, in their obsession to please and imitate protestants -also avoid referring to our Lady as Mother of God (actually, they prefer not to refer to Her at all!), and, like most protestants, they think of Jesus Christ as a mere man, and avoid ascribing divinity to Him, claiming that the Trinity is a late invention. They are Unitarians - i.e. modern-day arians, like the protestants they so seek to imitate.