(2 Cor 12:7-10)

 2Corinthians 12:7 So that I would not mount up in pride because of the greatness of the revelations, a thorn was put into my flesh, an envoy of Satan charged with slapping me, so that I would not go into pride.

It is always easy for a man to become haughty because of all that the Lord does in him that is great, but a man of God can never become haughty, he would cease to be a man of God.

Paul uses the word 'apokalypsōn' (= 'revelations'). Given the great revelations, Paul was in danger of becoming haughty. There must be a weakness in his flesh as great to balance this greatness. Divine greatness and human humiliation must go together; the greater the manifestation of God, the greater still must be the humiliation of men. This is the rule. So that he would not fall into the risk of insuperbidity, the Apostle was put a thorn in the flesh. The thorn in the flesh is a metaphor, it is a way of speaking of a difficulty he had. We know what discomfort a thorn in the flesh gives, even when it is only a small thorn; it stings and you can always feel it and, naturally, the first desire you have is to remove it - it is logical.

Here, however, we are not talking about a material thorn, but about an envoy of Satan, an 'angelos Satanas', the text literally says. Rivers of ink have been spilled on this difficult issue. One has thought of a physical illness of Paul, or a temptation of a sexual nature, or demonic harassment. Another hypothesis identifies the thorn in the flesh with one or more of the Apostle's opponents. In this case, the slapping gesture would recall the outrages Paul received from his adversaries. But these are all inferences. Certainly, the two metaphors of the thorn and Satan's envoy mean the same thing, and the most likely hypothesis remains that of some illness that must have been well known to the Corinthians.

We cannot go further than this, because Paul leaves in the indefinite the severe trial from which the Lord did not deliver him. What Paul wants to remain veiled must remain veiled. If he had wanted to be clearer, he would have been. Why was he not? Because this is a personal thing, it belongs to man's relationship with the Lord, it does not belong to man's relationship with man. The ways of humiliation are not the subject of revelation. The rule that governs man's relationship with God, which is that of not exalting oneself, is revealed and manifested, but how in practice this happens is not revealed.

Even in the biographies of the saints we must always have that sacred, reverential fear not to add or reveal things that belong strictly to the soul. Even of Christ some things are said, other things are withheld. That which is the object of revelation and useful for the salvation of the world, has been said; that which belongs to his personal relationship with the Father, or with certain persons such as his Mother, or St Joseph, is kept silent. Only the public life is known of Christ. The other years are shrouded in mystery and secrecy. Here, then, Paul's rule applies: each one must judge the other by what he sees and by what he hears, but not by what he imagines or supposes.

Since the trial is something personal, we could be led into the error of judging ourselves superior or inferior to the other by reason of the diversity of the trial they undergo or suffer.

Paul is self-critical, he realises his own limitations, his own character and also his own faults, and he is reasoning that perhaps that situation where he was humiliated and slapped did him good. What hurts, somehow can also do good. And Paul has the ability to understand this. It is necessary for each one to understand it for himself, because no one can go and tell another. One can also say it, but one is hardly successful. When one finds oneself in a situation of pain, or of injustice, the fact that someone else goes and says to him, 'you will see that this too can be of use to you', does not make one happy. It is not someone from the outside who can convince: each person must come to understand personally that, in his own situation, God continues to work, despite everything, despite appearances to the contrary.

That is why Paul realises that his situation has not escaped God's control and, in this polemic of his, he manages to be self-critical and implicitly say that his situation has been good for him so that he does not become insolent. 

This is not a work done out of antipathy towards Protestantism, or resentment towards evangelicals, but to defend the true faith, without warlike aspirations. I spent much of my life in the Protestant world, and late in life I discovered that I did not know the Catholic Church I was criticising at all, and it is this ignorance that leads many Catholics to allow themselves to be convinced or influenced by Protestants.  

These are divided into a myriad of denominations, some of which do not like to be called 'Protestant', but would like to be referred to only as 'Christian'. We also know that for Protestants, Catholics are not Christians, but idolaters and pagans; it follows that evangelicals in wanting to be called only 'Christians' aspire to the implicit recognition that they are the only 'true Christians'.

The problem is that only very few Protestants know the history of the Church; a great many only accuse by hearsay, but have never opened a book on Christian history over the centuries. All they need is what the pastor on duty says, a few pamphlets, and the internet to form their anti-Catholic 'culture'.

Many Protestants and/or Evangelicals, rather than being ashamed of their ignorance about Christianity, are proud of it, saying the classic phrase 'I am only interested in the Bible', a phrase that is already a whole programme. People's biblical-historical ignorance is essential in order to be able to guide them. A serious Protestant who would study the history of Christianity would have a good chance of ceasing to be a Protestant. 

In all Protestantism there is a do-it-yourself faith! The Holy Spirit guides us to understand the Bible well, it is true, but in the Protestant world, this pretext is used to cover an unrestrained and in some ways arrogant presumption, which leads every pastor to become a kind of infallible 'pope' in teaching people.

Presumption and arrogance are not immediately apparent - no one shows these faults so easily. They all seem God-fearing, observant of the Word and full of love for their neighbour. Too bad that their neighbour in most cases is the one who listens passively and does not contradict their biblical teachings. Those who dare to dissent are then no longer loved, often no longer greeted, and sometimes slandered. 

For a long time, thanks to Luther, the pope was considered the antichrist, therefore hated and accused, and so were all Catholic bishops and priests. Observant individual Catholics were also included in this climate. 

Protestants criticise papal infallibility, but in fact behave as infallibles; each in their own community, free to invent whatever they want, pulling the jacket on the Holy Spirit, as a guarantee of their doctrines! The result? A myriad of denominations with doctrines that often conflict heavily with each other.  

The problem lies in the great ignorance mixed with presumption that so many Protestants and/or Evangelicals have. Are Catholics less ignorant? No, most Catholics, unfortunately, are very ignorant in biblical matters, but at least they do not set themselves up as teachers to anyone who happens to be within their reach. The average Catholic is aware of his own ignorance, the average Protestant, on the other hand, is very presumptuous in biblical matters.

A Protestant who truly loved, as he says, the truth, would go and see for himself what the early Christians, our ancestors in the faith, wrote and how they lived, in order to understand if and how the Catholic Church is wrong, or where the Protestants are wrong in their interpretation of the Bible.    

Logically, rather than trusting a pastor who explains the Bible 2000 years later, it would be better to trust the early fathers, who learned Christian teaching directly from the voice of the apostles. Unfortunately, many Protestants do not use logic, but only anti-Catholic ideologies, cultivating a visceral dislike for everything Catholic, because they dismiss a priori the evidence of how the very first Christians lived, who lived after the apostles but before Constantine.  

The Christian faith is one, because the Spirit of God is one! So many take the wrong path, and we have a duty to understand who is in the right one and who is in the wrong one. Unity is the cohesion of the elements, of the parts that make up an entity (e.g. the cohesion between the parts of a car such as the body, the wheels, the engine, etc.) as Plotinus already said; if unity is lacking, that entity is also lacking and others may result, but no longer the entity it was before [if the cohesion of the body, wheels and engine is lacking, there is no longer the car entity, but rather the entities body, wheels, engine]. Here, Protestantism looks so much like the pile of sheet metal that a car once was. There is much criticism of the Catholic Church, but how many people know, for example, that Bultmann, a famous Lutheran Protestant theologian and exegete, reduced the resurrection to a theological symbol? Indeed, he did not consider it possible that physically Jesus was resurrected. In order to compare different biblical interpretations, one must have one's mind as clear as possible of ideologies and preconceptions. One must be open to any hypothesis if it is properly motivated and proven. If we rely on ideological prejudices that bind us to our doctrinal beliefs, we can do without reading or listening to any text or person; it is useless anyway. Our pride will prevent us from learning truths other than 'our own'. We often defend our biblical error with an impenetrable shell, we keep our truth, rejecting any other, which bangs on the shell and slips away. As soon as one touches the religious/spiritual plane, strangely enough, it is as if many pull the switch off their own mind, or at least a part of it. When Protestants converse with a Catholic, for example, they receive no information at all, only sounds that slip over their eardrums, but do not reach their brains. They do not listen.   

The history of Christianity means nothing to them, it is of no importance, except in the events to be held against them - see crusades, inquisitions, etc. - without knowing the true history of these events, and without knowing that the Protestants also had their wars, and also had their inquisitions, which were much bloodier than the Catholic ones.

They claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, but strangely enough there are many groups that receive different and contradictory information from the same Holy Spirit, inexorably losing credibility. 

I realise that the Catholic Church has neglected the problem of Protestant proselytism. Evangelicals have been successful not because they are right, but simply because they find the Catholic people very ignorant in biblical matters, incapable of defending their faith properly, taking refuge behind the classic "I have no time to lose"; perhaps they even lose their faith... but time cannot be touched.   

Many Catholics claim to have faith in Jesus Christ, but this faith of theirs is only seen in times of need: when everything runs smoothly, Jesus is forgotten, and the Bible is of no interest to anyone to read. In contexts like these, evangelicals find a people who really need to be evangelised, by them. Many Catholics do not resist this proselytism because they have no biblical answers to give, only ignorance to hide. In such terrain the Protestant conquest is easy, and it is as if they were facing an unarmed army.   

But those who study the Bible and strive to deepen their understanding of the meaning of God's word realise that in reality Protestants are not at all the biblical teachers they appear to be, but are profoundly ignorant historians and biblical scholars, plagiarised by their sect of membership. By calling them ignorant I do not mean to offend them, for otherwise I would call them "false and liars". By calling them ignorant I acknowledge their good faith, they believe in some wrong doctrines, not realising that they are wrong.  

The point is that the Holy Spirit cannot contradict Himself, and so certainly the conflicting interpretations of different denominations cannot all be true, nor all inspired. Clearly, it is not possible for the same Spirit to suggest different doctrines to each. This creates watertight compartments, each Protestant group believing it is in the truth more than the others, isolating itself and preaching its own gospel. For example, according to the Adventists, all other Christian churches have abolished the Sabbath commandment by worshipping on Sunday, and therefore everyone except them is doomed to hell if they do not abolish Sunday as the Lord's Day. Of course, they justify these accusations of theirs with certain Bible verses, interpreting them in their own way. Here, this is the point that escapes all Protestants, classical and modern: the Bible cannot be interpreted subjectively, because the Truth is not subjective at all.

But being divided into watertight compartments, not communicating with one another, it is difficult for any of them to notice the doctrinal differences with other Protestants. If anyone does notice them, they pretend that they do not, or do not give them the proper weight, just believe in Jesus as our personal saviour. Their attention is only turned towards the Catholic Church, the enemy to be defeated! It is all too convenient to proudly claim that "I understand what is written in the Bible because the Holy Spirit guides me. God has hidden the truth from the wise and revealed it to the humble'. Here, every good Protestant uses such phrases to reject the interpretative authority of the fathers and doctors of the Church.In this context, we witness scenes in which any Protestant, of any degree of culture, scoffs at the writings of Irenaeus, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and does so casually, because in interpreting the Bible he feels humble enough to be guided directly by God, but at the same time he is blind enough not to realise that too many 'humble' Protestants then profess very different doctrines. They despise the Catholic, but elect a "do-it-yourself" that prides itself and says: "I do not need to read the writings of the church fathers, the Bible alone is enough for me", so the teachers of which the Apostle Paul speaks would be of no use: "It is he who established some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers" (Eph 4:11). 

One only has to read the history of the heresies that have affected Christianity throughout the centuries to realise that heretics based and always base their theses on the Bible, explaining it in their own way. People are unlikely to go poking around intertwined doctrinal and theological issues. It is easier to find a priest who has committed some human error and choose him as a target, in order to corroborate anti-Catholic theses and consider the Catholic Church as the enemy of Christianity and truth, allied with Satan to mislead souls and lead them to hell. Not even the archangel Michael flaunted such confidence in branding or judging the devil, yet it was the devil (Jd 1:9):  

The archangel Michael, when in dispute with the devil over the body of Moses, did not dare to accuse him with offensive words, but said: You condemn the Lord!

The truth is that the accuser par excellence is Satan himself; the saints do not accuse anyone, not out of respect, but because they defer to God's judgement. For a Protestant, on the other hand, it is normal to say that Catholics go to hell because they are idolaters. They set themselves up as judges, believing they know the hearts, and misunderstand the concept of worship. Any Christian should ask himself questions, to verify what he believes, and should be able to discern whether his beliefs in matters of faith are just the result of autosuggestion, induced fantasies, or whether they find confirmation in the history of Christianity and in the Bible.   

Argentino Quintavalle

 author of the books

 Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

The prophetic discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

 Catholics and Protestants compared - In defence of the faith

(Buyable on Amazon)

(2Cor 8,7.9.13-15)

2Corinthians 8:7 And as you distinguish yourselves in all things, in faith, and in speech, and in knowledge, and in all zeal, and in charity, which we have taught you, so also distinguish yourselves in this generous work.

2Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: for though he was rich, he became poor for your sake, that you might become rich through his poverty.

2Corinthians 8:13 For here it is not a question of making you poor in order to lift others up, but of making equality.

2Corinthians 8:14 For the present let your abundance make up for their destitution, that their abundance also may make up for your destitution, and there may be equality, as it is written:

2Corinthians 8:15 He that gathered much did not abound,

and he who gathered little did not have less.

Paul compliments the Corinthians by acknowledging that it is a community rich in many gifts. The Corinthians have a life that is grounded in the word, in faith, in science, in zeal, in charity. What do the Corinthians still lack? Paul seems to be saying: since you know the things, now is your chance to put them into practice. These virtues listed by Paul are either nurtured through our constant growth, or we gradually forget about them and return to our old world. It is right that we constantly question ourselves about our growth, also through our daily examination of conscience.

In fact, Paul urges them to add to their already good spiritual journey what he calls "this generous work" (v.7). They must complete the collection in favour of the church in Jerusalem, but they must do it not lightly, in a good way, giving that little just to say that they have participated. Paul wants them to be distinguished in this work, and the distinction only occurs in the abundance of the fruit, in a heartfelt participation.

This is not a test of faith, but a real examination of the consistency of their Christianity. Christianity is not the practice of a doctrine, it is not even a more or less excellent morality. Christianity is above all else the following of Christ in imitation of Him. Whoever wants to be a Christian must not only walk after Christ, he must also imitate Him, for it is in the imitation of Him that moral excellence is achieved.

Who is Jesus Christ? Paul chooses to define Jesus as a rich man who became poor. "From being rich that he was, he became poor for your sake, that you might become rich through his poverty." This is an exceptional sentence. The Christian community can become rich through Christ's poverty. Jesus was rich as God, therefore all-powerful. By renouncing this condition that was proper to him by divine nature, he made himself obedient, he made himself weak, he made himself submissive - and by this attitude, which Paul calls the 'poverty of Christ', we have the possibility of becoming rich, of taking on the quality of being divine. Bringing this example of Christ, Paul says that the Corinthians are called to imitate Christ, thus to strip themselves of themselves; they are invited to renunciation, they are put in the position of voluntarily giving up something, so that some other needy brother can benefit from their wealth.

"For here it is not a question of making you narrow in order to lift others up, but of making equality." Paul steps out of the rule of charity here, and enters the rule of justice. When one steps out of charity and enters into justice, then there is no longer goodwill that governs and determines the work, there is a much more objective rule which is that of giving and having. When there is justice to be done, one does not look at whether one is poor or whether one is rich, one looks at that there is an obligation one must fulfil and one is not just until it is fulfilled. This rule of justice, this doing of equality, demands that one does not look at the work of the collection merely as a free gift, but looks at it as the fulfilment of a debt incurred towards the church in Jerusalem.

This cannot be understood unless one starts from the real communion that reigns in the church. The church in Jerusalem gave the Corinthians the spiritual goods, the truth and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is only right that the Corinthian congregation should give as much to the church in Jerusalem as it can so that it may survive in a time of great need.

The Jerusalem church is in spiritual abundance, and this abundance is poured out upon the spiritual destitution that accompanies the Corinthian community. The community in Corinth, on the other hand, is in the abundance of material goods and must support the material destitution in which the brothers in Jerusalem have found themselves. It is this equality that Paul demands, and it is according to this equality that one must act. To do equality is not a work of charity, it is a work of justice: a duty to those who have enriched us.This principle of faith must go beyond the historical situation of Paul's time. It is perennial law in the church of God. For this principle of faith demands that he who receives spiritual goods, reciprocates with material goods.

"He who gathered much did not abound, and he who gathered little did not have less". The goal of equality is a principle taken from the book of Exodus chapter 16, regarding the manna. The rule for manna was to gather it every day and in the amount needed to eat. Everyone was to gather the amount of manna they needed to eat that day; the next day, there would be more manna and again it would be gathered. The verse serves Paul as a theological principle, and he applies these words to Christians, showing that charity must produce a certain equality among them so that all have what is needed. Both in spiritual and temporal things, they must therefore help one another.

It is only right that if one has gathered more one day, he should help with this 'more' the one who has gathered less on that day. This is the equality that Paul intends to see lived out in the Church among Christians.

Only by faith and only in faith can this teaching be lived out. 

This is not a work done out of antipathy towards Protestantism, or resentment towards evangelicals, but to defend the true faith, without warlike aspirations. I spent much of my life in the Protestant world, and late in life I discovered that I did not know the Catholic Church I was criticising at all, and it is this ignorance that leads many Catholics to allow themselves to be convinced or influenced by Protestants.  

These are divided into a myriad of denominations, some of which do not like to be called 'Protestant', but would like to be referred to only as 'Christian'. We also know that for Protestants, Catholics are not Christians, but idolaters and pagans; it follows that evangelicals in wanting to be called only 'Christians' aspire to the implicit recognition that they are the only 'true Christians'.

The problem is that only very few Protestants know the history of the Church; a great many only accuse by hearsay, but have never opened a book on Christian history over the centuries. All they need is what the pastor on duty says, a few pamphlets, and the internet to form their anti-Catholic 'culture'.

Many Protestants and/or Evangelicals, rather than being ashamed of their ignorance about Christianity, are proud of it, saying the classic phrase 'I am only interested in the Bible', a phrase that is already a whole programme. People's biblical-historical ignorance is essential in order to be able to guide them. A serious Protestant who would study the history of Christianity would have a good chance of ceasing to be a Protestant. 

In all Protestantism there is a do-it-yourself faith! The Holy Spirit guides us to understand the Bible well, it is true, but in the Protestant world, this pretext is used to cover an unrestrained and in some ways arrogant presumption, which leads every pastor to become a kind of infallible 'pope' in teaching people.

Presumption and arrogance are not immediately apparent - no one shows these faults so easily. They all seem God-fearing, observant of the Word and full of love for their neighbour. Too bad that their neighbour in most cases is the one who listens passively and does not contradict their biblical teachings. Those who dare to dissent are then no longer loved, often no longer greeted, and sometimes slandered. 

For a long time, thanks to Luther, the pope was considered the antichrist, therefore hated and accused, and so were all Catholic bishops and priests. Observant individual Catholics were also included in this climate. 

Protestants criticise papal infallibility, but in fact behave as infallibles; each in their own community, free to invent whatever they want, pulling the jacket on the Holy Spirit, as a guarantee of their doctrines! The result? A myriad of denominations with doctrines that often conflict heavily with each other.  

The problem lies in the great ignorance mixed with presumption that so many Protestants and/or Evangelicals have. Are Catholics less ignorant? No, most Catholics, unfortunately, are very ignorant in biblical matters, but at least they do not set themselves up as teachers to anyone who happens to be within their reach. The average Catholic is aware of his own ignorance, the average Protestant, on the other hand, is very presumptuous in biblical matters.

A Protestant who truly loved, as he says, the truth, would go and see for himself what the early Christians, our ancestors in the faith, wrote and how they lived, in order to understand if and how the Catholic Church is wrong, or where the Protestants are wrong in their interpretation of the Bible.    

Logically, rather than trusting a pastor who explains the Bible 2000 years later, it would be better to trust the early fathers, who learned Christian teaching directly from the voice of the apostles. Unfortunately, many Protestants do not use logic, but only anti-Catholic ideologies, cultivating a visceral dislike for everything Catholic, because they dismiss a priori the evidence of how the very first Christians lived, who lived after the apostles but before Constantine.  

The Christian faith is one, because the Spirit of God is one! So many take the wrong path, and we have a duty to understand who is in the right one and who is in the wrong one. Unity is the cohesion of the elements, of the parts that make up an entity (e.g. the cohesion between the parts of a car such as the body, the wheels, the engine, etc.) as Plotinus already said; if unity is lacking, that entity is also lacking and others may result, but no longer the entity it was before [if the cohesion of the body, wheels and engine is lacking, there is no longer the car entity, but rather the entities body, wheels, engine]. Here, Protestantism looks so much like the pile of sheet metal that a car once was. There is much criticism of the Catholic Church, but how many people know, for example, that Bultmann, a famous Lutheran Protestant theologian and exegete, reduced the resurrection to a theological symbol? Indeed, he did not consider it possible that physically Jesus was resurrected. In order to compare different biblical interpretations, one must have one's mind as clear as possible of ideologies and preconceptions. One must be open to any hypothesis if it is properly motivated and proven. If we rely on ideological prejudices that bind us to our doctrinal beliefs, we can do without reading or listening to any text or person; it is useless anyway. Our pride will prevent us from learning truths other than 'our own'. We often defend our biblical error with an impenetrable shell, we keep our truth, rejecting any other, which bangs on the shell and slips away. As soon as one touches the religious/spiritual plane, strangely enough, it is as if many pull the switch off their own mind, or at least a part of it. When Protestants converse with a Catholic, for example, they receive no information at all, only sounds that slip over their eardrums, but do not reach their brains. They do not listen.   

The history of Christianity means nothing to them, it is of no importance, except in the events to be held against them - see crusades, inquisitions, etc. - without knowing the true history of these events, and without knowing that the Protestants also had their wars, and also had their inquisitions, which were much bloodier than the Catholic ones.

They claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, but strangely enough there are many groups that receive different and contradictory information from the same Holy Spirit, inexorably losing credibility. 

I realise that the Catholic Church has neglected the problem of Protestant proselytism. Evangelicals have been successful not because they are right, but simply because they find the Catholic people very ignorant in biblical matters, incapable of defending their faith properly, taking refuge behind the classic "I have no time to lose"; perhaps they even lose their faith... but time cannot be touched.   

Many Catholics claim to have faith in Jesus Christ, but this faith of theirs is only seen in times of need: when everything runs smoothly, Jesus is forgotten, and the Bible is of no interest to anyone to read. In contexts like these, evangelicals find a people who really need to be evangelised, by them. Many Catholics do not resist this proselytism because they have no biblical answers to give, only ignorance to hide. In such terrain the Protestant conquest is easy, and it is as if they were facing an unarmed army.   

But those who study the Bible and strive to deepen their understanding of the meaning of God's word realise that in reality Protestants are not at all the biblical teachers they appear to be, but are profoundly ignorant historians and biblical scholars, plagiarised by their sect of membership. By calling them ignorant I do not mean to offend them, for otherwise I would call them "false and liars". By calling them ignorant I acknowledge their good faith, they believe in some wrong doctrines, not realising that they are wrong.  

The point is that the Holy Spirit cannot contradict Himself, and so certainly the conflicting interpretations of different denominations cannot all be true, nor all inspired. Clearly, it is not possible for the same Spirit to suggest different doctrines to each. This creates watertight compartments, each Protestant group believing it is in the truth more than the others, isolating itself and preaching its own gospel. For example, according to the Adventists, all other Christian churches have abolished the Sabbath commandment by worshipping on Sunday, and therefore everyone except them is doomed to hell if they do not abolish Sunday as the Lord's Day. Of course, they justify these accusations of theirs with certain Bible verses, interpreting them in their own way. Here, this is the point that escapes all Protestants, classical and modern: the Bible cannot be interpreted subjectively, because the Truth is not subjective at all.

But being divided into watertight compartments, not communicating with one another, it is difficult for any of them to notice the doctrinal differences with other Protestants. If anyone does notice them, they pretend that they do not, or do not give them the proper weight, just believe in Jesus as our personal saviour. Their attention is only turned towards the Catholic Church, the enemy to be defeated! It is all too convenient to proudly claim that "I understand what is written in the Bible because the Holy Spirit guides me. God has hidden the truth from the wise and revealed it to the humble'. Here, every good Protestant uses such phrases to reject the interpretative authority of the fathers and doctors of the Church.In this context, we witness scenes in which any Protestant, of any degree of culture, scoffs at the writings of Irenaeus, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and does so casually, because in interpreting the Bible he feels humble enough to be guided directly by God, but at the same time he is blind enough not to realise that too many 'humble' Protestants then profess very different doctrines. They despise the Catholic, but elect a "do-it-yourself" that prides itself and says: "I do not need to read the writings of the church fathers, the Bible alone is enough for me", so the teachers of which the Apostle Paul speaks would be of no use: "It is he who established some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers" (Eph 4:11). 

One only has to read the history of the heresies that have affected Christianity throughout the centuries to realise that heretics based and always base their theses on the Bible, explaining it in their own way. People are unlikely to go poking around intertwined doctrinal and theological issues. It is easier to find a priest who has committed some human error and choose him as a target, in order to corroborate anti-Catholic theses and consider the Catholic Church as the enemy of Christianity and truth, allied with Satan to mislead souls and lead them to hell. Not even the archangel Michael flaunted such confidence in branding or judging the devil, yet it was the devil (Jd 1:9):  

The archangel Michael, when in dispute with the devil over the body of Moses, did not dare to accuse him with offensive words, but said: You condemn the Lord!

The truth is that the accuser par excellence is Satan himself; the saints do not accuse anyone, not out of respect, but because they defer to God's judgement. For a Protestant, on the other hand, it is normal to say that Catholics go to hell because they are idolaters. They set themselves up as judges, believing they know the hearts, and misunderstand the concept of worship. Any Christian should ask himself questions, to verify what he believes, and should be able to discern whether his beliefs in matters of faith are just the result of autosuggestion, induced fantasies, or whether they find confirmation in the history of Christianity and in the Bible.   

Argentino Quintavalle

 author of the books

 Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

The prophetic discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

 Catholics and Protestants compared - In defence of the faith

(Buyable on Amazon)

(2 Cor 5:14-17)

2Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ impels us, thinking that one has died for all, and therefore all have died.

2Corinthians 5:15 And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again for them.

2Corinthians 5:16 So that now we know no man according to the flesh: and though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him not so.

2Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, behold new things are born.

"For the love of Christ impels us". Who moves Paul to act is the love of Christ. The love of Christ is the gift of his life for the salvation of the world. The love of Christ is his cross. Christ's love is self-sacrifice, it is making himself a servant of others. Christ's love for us impels us to reciprocate it. The fact that Christ loves us impels us, spurs us on. This is the motor of all Paul's action: 'agapē tou Christou', the love of Christ. If Paul is driven by the love of Christ, he loves like Christ, he loves with a love that knows how to make itself a sacrifice.

"...at the thought that one died for all". To think that one died in your place cannot leave you indifferent. Think of the plight of that prisoner in Auschwitz who was spared because Maximilian Kolbe died in his place. He who then returned home, cannot have forgotten that it was he who should have died, that there was another who died in his place and so he was able to continue living. Surely his life was marked: I live because another has died in my place! Paul has this profound idea and has assimilated it so deeply that it has become the driving force of his existence.

"...and therefore everyone is dead". Returning to the example of Auschwitz, somehow that other also died. Having been spared, his life is now a 'more' and what is more is a grace. The moment that one person represents everyone, and dies in the place of the others, everyone who feels represented by him also dies, participates in that situation. Since, however, that person who died for everyone has not remained in death, but has attained the fullness of life; and those in solidarity with him also experience that fullness of life.

When this process breaks down because the love of Christ is no longer impelling in someone, the Christian life grows cold. When salvation is not produced around us, it is a sign that our love has grown cold and that Christ no longer lives in us. If we are not in him, if we do not die his death, we cannot generate his life.

To be of Christian faith we must profess that Christ, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, became incarnate, suffered the passion, died and rose again for us. What many Christologies ignore is Paul's other statement: 'that those who live may no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again for them'.

Every true Christology must therefore consist of two truths: that of Christ who died for all; and the other that all must now live for Christ. Faith is complete if these two truths are together. If these two truths are separated, one proclaimed: the first; the other left: the second, we do not have a true and authentic Christology.

There is therefore a very interesting change of perspective. Those who live no longer live for themselves, but live for Him. He has taken their place, their place in death, and they realise that they owe their lives to Him so that somehow they no longer live for themselves, but live for Him. Not simply because of him, rather having him as their end: they live for him as their goal, their objective.

Christ died for all, all must live for Christ. They must give their life to Christ, so that Christ may turn it into an instrument of salvation for all men. The Church must go over land and sea to proclaim salvation, the great gift of God's love in Christ Jesus. When there is a decline in mission, when the Church loses impact and momentum in its mission, it means that there has been a decline in faith in Christ, there has been a loss of truth, a loss in the principles of salvation.

Today, no attention is paid to the claim that all those for whom Christ died - and Christ died for all - live and die for him. This is the result: an anthropology of salvation without true spirituality, which does not orient life towards an ever more perfect configuration to Christ. 

 This is not a work done out of antipathy towards Protestantism, or resentment towards evangelicals, but to defend the true faith, without warlike aspirations. I spent much of my life in the Protestant world, and late in life I discovered that I did not know the Catholic Church I was criticising at all, and it is this ignorance that leads many Catholics to allow themselves to be convinced or influenced by Protestants.  

These are divided into a myriad of denominations, some of which do not like to be called 'Protestant', but would like to be referred to only as 'Christian'. We also know that for Protestants, Catholics are not Christians, but idolaters and pagans; it follows that evangelicals in wanting to be called only 'Christians' aspire to the implicit recognition that they are the only 'true Christians'.

The problem is that only very few Protestants know the history of the Church; a great many only accuse by hearsay, but have never opened a book on Christian history over the centuries. All they need is what the pastor on duty says, a few pamphlets, and the internet to form their anti-Catholic 'culture'.

Many Protestants and/or Evangelicals, rather than being ashamed of their ignorance about Christianity, are proud of it, saying the classic phrase 'I am only interested in the Bible', a phrase that is already a whole programme. People's biblical-historical ignorance is essential in order to be able to guide them. A serious Protestant who would study the history of Christianity would have a good chance of ceasing to be a Protestant. 

In all Protestantism there is a do-it-yourself faith! The Holy Spirit guides us to understand the Bible well, it is true, but in the Protestant world, this pretext is used to cover an unrestrained and in some ways arrogant presumption, which leads every pastor to become a kind of infallible 'pope' in teaching people.

Presumption and arrogance are not immediately apparent - no one shows these faults so easily. They all seem God-fearing, observant of the Word and full of love for their neighbour. Too bad that their neighbour in most cases is the one who listens passively and does not contradict their biblical teachings. Those who dare to dissent are then no longer loved, often no longer greeted, and sometimes slandered. 

For a long time, thanks to Luther, the pope was considered the antichrist, therefore hated and accused, and so were all Catholic bishops and priests. Observant individual Catholics were also included in this climate. 

Protestants criticise papal infallibility, but in fact behave as infallibles; each in their own community, free to invent whatever they want, pulling the jacket on the Holy Spirit, as a guarantee of their doctrines! The result? A myriad of denominations with doctrines that often conflict heavily with each other.  

The problem lies in the great ignorance mixed with presumption that so many Protestants and/or Evangelicals have. Are Catholics less ignorant? No, most Catholics, unfortunately, are very ignorant in biblical matters, but at least they do not set themselves up as teachers to anyone who happens to be within their reach. The average Catholic is aware of his own ignorance, the average Protestant, on the other hand, is very presumptuous in biblical matters.

A Protestant who truly loved, as he says, the truth, would go and see for himself what the early Christians, our ancestors in the faith, wrote and how they lived, in order to understand if and how the Catholic Church is wrong, or where the Protestants are wrong in their interpretation of the Bible.    

Logically, rather than trusting a pastor who explains the Bible 2000 years later, it would be better to trust the early fathers, who learned Christian teaching directly from the voice of the apostles. Unfortunately, many Protestants do not use logic, but only anti-Catholic ideologies, cultivating a visceral dislike for everything Catholic, because they dismiss a priori the evidence of how the very first Christians lived, who lived after the apostles but before Constantine.  

The Christian faith is one, because the Spirit of God is one! So many take the wrong path, and we have a duty to understand who is in the right one and who is in the wrong one. Unity is the cohesion of the elements, of the parts that make up an entity (e.g. the cohesion between the parts of a car such as the body, the wheels, the engine, etc.) as Plotinus already said; if unity is lacking, that entity is also lacking and others may result, but no longer the entity it was before [if the cohesion of the body, wheels and engine is lacking, there is no longer the car entity, but rather the entities body, wheels, engine]. Here, Protestantism looks so much like the pile of sheet metal that a car once was. There is much criticism of the Catholic Church, but how many people know, for example, that Bultmann, a famous Lutheran Protestant theologian and exegete, reduced the resurrection to a theological symbol? Indeed, he did not consider it possible that physically Jesus was resurrected. In order to compare different biblical interpretations, one must have one's mind as clear as possible of ideologies and preconceptions. One must be open to any hypothesis if it is properly motivated and proven. If we rely on ideological prejudices that bind us to our doctrinal beliefs, we can do without reading or listening to any text or person; it is useless anyway. Our pride will prevent us from learning truths other than 'our own'. We often defend our biblical error with an impenetrable shell, we keep our truth, rejecting any other, which bangs on the shell and slips away. As soon as one touches the religious/spiritual plane, strangely enough, it is as if many pull the switch off their own mind, or at least a part of it. When Protestants converse with a Catholic, for example, they receive no information at all, only sounds that slip over their eardrums, but do not reach their brains. They do not listen.   

The history of Christianity means nothing to them, it is of no importance, except in the events to be held against them - see crusades, inquisitions, etc. - without knowing the true history of these events, and without knowing that the Protestants also had their wars, and also had their inquisitions, which were much bloodier than the Catholic ones.

They claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, but strangely enough there are many groups that receive different and contradictory information from the same Holy Spirit, inexorably losing credibility. 

I realise that the Catholic Church has neglected the problem of Protestant proselytism. Evangelicals have been successful not because they are right, but simply because they find the Catholic people very ignorant in biblical matters, incapable of defending their faith properly, taking refuge behind the classic "I have no time to lose"; perhaps they even lose their faith... but time cannot be touched.   

Many Catholics claim to have faith in Jesus Christ, but this faith of theirs is only seen in times of need: when everything runs smoothly, Jesus is forgotten, and the Bible is of no interest to anyone to read. In contexts like these, evangelicals find a people who really need to be evangelised, by them. Many Catholics do not resist this proselytism because they have no biblical answers to give, only ignorance to hide. In such terrain the Protestant conquest is easy, and it is as if they were facing an unarmed army.   

But those who study the Bible and strive to deepen their understanding of the meaning of God's word realise that in reality Protestants are not at all the biblical teachers they appear to be, but are profoundly ignorant historians and biblical scholars, plagiarised by their sect of membership. By calling them ignorant I do not mean to offend them, for otherwise I would call them "false and liars". By calling them ignorant I acknowledge their good faith, they believe in some wrong doctrines, not realising that they are wrong.  

The point is that the Holy Spirit cannot contradict Himself, and so certainly the conflicting interpretations of different denominations cannot all be true, nor all inspired. Clearly, it is not possible for the same Spirit to suggest different doctrines to each. This creates watertight compartments, each Protestant group believing it is in the truth more than the others, isolating itself and preaching its own gospel. For example, according to the Adventists, all other Christian churches have abolished the Sabbath commandment by worshipping on Sunday, and therefore everyone except them is doomed to hell if they do not abolish Sunday as the Lord's Day. Of course, they justify these accusations of theirs with certain Bible verses, interpreting them in their own way. Here, this is the point that escapes all Protestants, classical and modern: the Bible cannot be interpreted subjectively, because the Truth is not subjective at all.

But being divided into watertight compartments, not communicating with one another, it is difficult for any of them to notice the doctrinal differences with other Protestants. If anyone does notice them, they pretend that they do not, or do not give them the proper weight, just believe in Jesus as our personal saviour. Their attention is only turned towards the Catholic Church, the enemy to be defeated! It is all too convenient to proudly claim that "I understand what is written in the Bible because the Holy Spirit guides me. God has hidden the truth from the wise and revealed it to the humble'. Here, every good Protestant uses such phrases to reject the interpretative authority of the fathers and doctors of the Church.In this context, we witness scenes in which any Protestant, of any degree of culture, scoffs at the writings of Irenaeus, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and does so casually, because in interpreting the Bible he feels humble enough to be guided directly by God, but at the same time he is blind enough not to realise that too many 'humble' Protestants then profess very different doctrines. They despise the Catholic, but elect a "do-it-yourself" that prides itself and says: "I do not need to read the writings of the church fathers, the Bible alone is enough for me", so the teachers of which the Apostle Paul speaks would be of no use: "It is he who established some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers" (Eph 4:11). 

One only has to read the history of the heresies that have affected Christianity throughout the centuries to realise that heretics based and always base their theses on the Bible, explaining it in their own way. People are unlikely to go poking around intertwined doctrinal and theological issues. It is easier to find a priest who has committed some human error and choose him as a target, in order to corroborate anti-Catholic theses and consider the Catholic Church as the enemy of Christianity and truth, allied with Satan to mislead souls and lead them to hell. Not even the archangel Michael flaunted such confidence in branding or judging the devil, yet it was the devil (Jd 1:9):  

The archangel Michael, when in dispute with the devil over the body of Moses, did not dare to accuse him with offensive words, but said: You condemn the Lord!

The truth is that the accuser par excellence is Satan himself; the saints do not accuse anyone, not out of respect, but because they defer to God's judgement. For a Protestant, on the other hand, it is normal to say that Catholics go to hell because they are idolaters. They set themselves up as judges, believing they know the hearts, and misunderstand the concept of worship. Any Christian should ask himself questions, to verify what he believes, and should be able to discern whether his beliefs in matters of faith are just the result of autosuggestion, induced fantasies, or whether they find confirmation in the history of Christianity and in the Bible.   

Argentino Quintavalle

 author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

The prophetic discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

 Catholics and Protestants compared - In defence of the faith

(Buyable on Amazon)

(2 Cor 5:6-10)

2Corinthians 5:6 So, then, let us always be full of confidence, knowing that as long as we dwell in the body we are in exile away from the Lord,

2Corinthians 5:7 we walk in faith and not yet in vision.

2Corinthians 5:8 We are full of confidence and prefer to go into exile from the body and dwell with the Lord.

Man was created to live in communion with the Lord. It is not just a spiritual communion, but a communion of the whole man, of his body and soul. Man was called to dwell with God, in his garden. Because of sin we are as in exile, we are far from the Lord. Not spiritually speaking, for spiritually this cannot happen for a Christian, being a temple of the Holy Spirit. We are far from the Lord with the body. The mind, the spirit, the heart, the soul taste God; they feel him. The senses, on the other hand, are not. They are far from God, because they do not see him, they do not hear him, they do not contemplate him; they do not taste his beauty.

This exile is not man's calling; exile is the fruit of sin and its consequence. This exile must come to an end. Paul's 'confidence' stems from the fact that the exile is momentary, transitory. God will usher us back into his eternal abode and we will be with him forever.

Our condition is that we 'walk in faith and not yet in vision'. We must wait for the glory of heaven by faith. Man must not see the glory of heaven, he must instead believe that it exists and that it is his highest good. But why must we walk in faith and not in vision? For if man walked in vision he would have no relationship with God; he would do a thing because he sees it; he would do it because of himself he would judge it to be good or not good. He would be the principle of discernment, of truth, of good and evil, of his present and his future. God would only be the end point, the end of everything.

Instead, God wants to be the beginning; he wants to be placed at the beginning of the journey through a relationship of faith. God asks man to trust Him. The relationship with God must be based on a relationship of transcendence, of welcoming the One who comes to us through the Word. He places his Word at the beginning of our journey and with it shows us the way.

Then Paul tells us something huge. "We are full of trust and prefer to go into exile from the body": it means to die! We know that as long as we dwell in the body we are in exile away from the Lord, and so Paul prefers to go into exile from the body and be with the Lord, rather than live in exile from the Lord and dwell in his body.

This does not mean, however, that he regards the body as something unimportant, or something from which we can free ourselves whenever we wish. Even the departure of the soul from the body is an exile, therefore a suffering, a forced departure, a compulsion. The soul is made to inhabit the body and the body is made to be inhabited by the soul. So much so that we speak of an incarnate soul and an animate body. Paul may prefer to go into exile from the body because this too is a momentary, transient exile; one leaves the body for a short time and meanwhile lives in the eternal joy of heaven together with God.

While enjoying eternal joy, one awaits the return to the body, one awaits the resurrection. If this trust were not there, Paul, like every other man, would have become attached to earthly life and would not have left it even for a moment.

When one lacks trust in the Word of God, one has a very sad view of death. Either one lives it as a return to nothingness, in which case living one day more or one day less is of no value to man, especially if this extra day must be lived in suffering and pain. Or one experiences it with despair, as something that comes to rob us of our most cherished possession - so one does everything one can to remain even a minute longer on this earth.

From this view of death arise many wrong attitudes of man and many sins. Just think of euthanasia.

Life, on the other hand, is love, gift, communion, solidarity, sharing, service, availability. The value of life is this. That life which is sacrificed to love has value; it is given to God so that he may make it an instrument of good and service to good. In this vision of faith, however, there is a moment in which one must untie the sails and depart; one departs in faith and in full trust of the resurrection. It starts with the truth that death is an exile for us, which the Lord will bring to an end on the last day.

Love for the Lord, the desire to be with him gives comfort and relief in this exile; hope makes us live it according to truth; truth makes us live it in the hope of the resurrection. 

 Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

Jesus' prophetic discourse (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

 Catholics and Protestants compared - In defence of the faith

(Buyable on Amazon)

(2 Cor 4:13 - 5:1)

2Corinthians 4:13 Animated, however, by that same spirit of faith of which it is written: I believed, therefore I spoke, we also believe and therefore we speak,

2Corinthians 4:14 Convinced that he who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and place us beside him with you.

2Corinthians 4:15 For all things are for you, that grace, even more abundant through greater numbers, may multiply the hymn of praise to the glory of God.

Paul begins by showing what motivates him to speak. He quotes Ps 115:10 'I believed even when I said: I am too miserable'. The psalmist emphasises that he believed even when he was in the situation of saying: 'I am too miserable', and goes on to say: 'every man is deceitful' (Ps 115:11). Even in that situation where I experienced that nobody helps me, I believed. Paul in the psalm that says: I believed "even when" I spoke, reads: I believed, "therefore" I spoke.

In the original form of the Hebrew there is an ambiguous expression that can be developed as causal or as temporal. The Greek developed it as causal, i.e. I believed "therefore" I spoke: "I am too unhappy". As if to say: 'I am too miserable precisely because I have believed'. Trusting in God brought me into a situation of suffering. Paul puts himself in the shoes of the ancient psalmist and says: the same thing happened to me, I live in that spirit of faith, I also believed and therefore I spoke. I am in a situation of misery precisely because I have believed and spoken.

Had Paul remained silent, he would have avoided the risks involved in his ministry, but faith and speech go together, for only those who are convinced of the truth of their message can afford to make it known. There would have been no church in Corinth if when Paul visited the city he had remained silent.

It habitually happens that when one makes an effort to be truthful and speak, they are made to pay for it. That is the price of truth; when one tries to be true and sincere and tries to help others to the truth, they make them pay. When one speaks, one must accept the consequences of what one says. I have believed, therefore I have spoken, and therefore I am too unhappy.

We are convinced that God, 'who raised Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and place us beside him'. Paul says here that just as the risen Christ is glorified by the Father, so shall it be for believers. It is a very concrete discourse. Paul is absolutely firm in his conviction that God will give him reason and satisfaction by placing him alongside Jesus, but 'together with you', not against you. The Father who is in heaven, who raised Jesus Christ, will also raise us. There is only one action: the resurrection of Christ; in this resurrection the Father will raise every other man, indeed the resurrection of every man is the continuation of that one act performed by God upon the body of Jesus Christ.

We will not be separated from Christ, we will be with Christ. This will be our eternal joy, our joy that will never know an end. Paul waits for nothing more than this moment, which will be the moment of victory over death. Living by this faith for Paul means spending one's life so that all men may come to know this truth, so that they too may make it the principle of their life and the rule of their earthly existence.

On this I think we should all be a little more committed. Both by fulfilling Christ's resurrection in us through the holiness of life; and by using our energies to invite every man to let himself also be conquered by this faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Only that life which is brought back in this beginning has value.

"For everything is for you, that grace, still more abundant by the work of a greater number, may multiply the hymn of praise to the glory of God." Everything is for the disciples of Jesus, everything happens for their benefit, everything is accomplished so that they may grow and abound in the truth of salvation. It is necessary, however, that the disciple of Jesus always knows how to discern the signs, how to read and interpret them; how to discover in them the truth that God puts into them. If he to whom grace is given, knows how to discern and receive it, a hymn of praise rises from his heart for the Lord, a hymn that celebrates and magnifies the glory of God.

What Paul wants us to understand is this: the duty to raise the hymn for the glorification of the Father must not be one's alone, it must be both those who have been instruments for the gift of grace and those who have received grace. One and all must glorify the Lord, must bless and exalt him.

We are all as one, bound to one another, walking on the one road that leads to eternal life, so that the grace given to one may be passed on to the others and so that thanksgiving to the glory of God may grow. Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

Jesus' prophetic discourse (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

 Catholics and Protestants compared - In defence of the faith

(Buyable on Amazon) 

(Ex 24:3-8)

 Exodus 24:3 Moses went and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the regulations. All the people answered together and said, "All the commands that the Lord has given, we will perform them!"

Exodus 24:4 Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord, then rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, with twelve stelae for the twelve tribes of Israel.

Exodus 24:5 He instructed some of the young men among the Israelites to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice heifers as communion sacrifices, to the Lord.

Exodus 24:6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in many basins and poured the other half on the altar.

Exodus 24:7 Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the presence of the people. They said, "What the Lord has commanded, we will do and perform!"

Exodus 24:8 Then Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying, "Here is the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you on the basis of all these words!"

Moses is a figure of the faithful servant who reports to the people all the words of the Lord, without adding anything and taking nothing away. Man broke away from God because in Eden he judged his words; now he is allowed to draw near again to the extent that he allows himself to be judged by his words. What words does Moses relate to the people? These are the words of the Law, specifically the Ten Commandments. The people listen to the Law and commit themselves to obedience: "All the commands that the Lord has given, we will perform them. The Law is proclaimed, heard, lived in obedience.

He is part of the chosen people who together with the chosen people, with one voice, openly manifests his willingness to obey the commandments of the Lord. Whoever has reservations, even if he should keep them to himself, sits in the community abusively - and the falsity of his heart will soon be manifested. Israel had to listen not only to the "words", but also to the "norms" (v. 3). The rules are the concrete explication of the commandment. The commandment is invariable. The norm changes as history and circumstances change.

Moses writes down all the words of the Lord, so that nothing may be changed. And so that God's manifestation would not be forgotten, he built an altar at the foot of the mountain and also placed twelve inscriptions on it bearing the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. What God has said has value for all the children of Israel. Thus the altar is both a sign of God and of the people. God and the people are represented by the one sign. This is the purpose of the Covenant: to make God and the people one.

A sacrifice of communion to the Lord is offered by the young men of Israel at the command of Moses. The young man is a guarantee of a longer-term memory than the old man destined to die sooner. In the holocausts, the total consummation of the victim took place. This passed through the fire and was burnt to a crisp. In the communion sacrifice, however, only the fat part was burnt. The lean portion was eaten by those who offered the sacrifice.

The part of the blood of the sacrifices placed in the basins is for Israel; the other is poured on the altar for the Lord. Blood is life. There must now be only one life between God and his people. The visible sign of this oneness of life is the one blood that bathes God and the people. God is bathed in the blood that is poured on the altar. Since the blood is one, one is also the life. By sprinkling the altar with blood, God is ready to make himself one life with his people.

There is only one life if there is only one will. The will shall not be that of the people, but that of God. No one among the people will have his own particular will to impose on the other. Instead, all will let themselves be guided by a will that is above them, that transcends them all: the will of the Lord. The will of the Lord is contained in the book of the covenant that Moses reads in the presence of all the people. But reading and listening is not enough: there needs to be a promise of obedience from the whole community. It is not enough to read the book. It is not enough to know what the Lord says. It is not enough to know the will of God. One must make a public commitment to live according to God's will. 

Having read the book of the Law, all the people commit themselves to perform what they have heard. Without this commitment of listening and obedience the covenant can never be made. The blood is the sign of this unity, but unity is not in the rite of blood. Unity is in the will of the man who commits himself to live in the will of God.

"Then Moses took the blood and sprinkled it upon the people, saying, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you on the basis of all these words!"

It is only after the reading of the word and the promise of obedience that the other half of the blood, that which was not shed on the altar for God, is sprinkled on the people. Thus the covenant between God and Israel is sealed: not just any way, but with blood, the symbol of life.

Moses reiterates that the covenant was concluded on the basis of the words heard, to which the people also committed themselves. Israel pledges to observe God's will, the Lord pledges to be the life of his people. As long as Israel remains in the word of its God, nothing can disturb Israel's path through time. As long as the Church remains in the word of Christ, nothing can disturb the Church's journey through time.   

 Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

The prophetic discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

 Catholics and Protestants compared - In defence of the faith

(Buyable on Amazon)

(Mt 28:16-20)

Matthew 28:16 Meanwhile the eleven disciples went into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them.

Matthew 28:17 When they saw him, they prostrated themselves before him; but some doubted.

Matthew 28:18 And Jesus drew near and said to them, "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Matthew 28:20 Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Behold, I am with you all days, even unto the end of the world".

The passage opens with a historical connotation: "The eleven disciples", since the twelfth, Judas, was lost. The fact that it is remarked that there are eleven of them may remind one of something unpleasant: Judas is absent because he betrayed, and he betrayed because between God and money he chose money, which destroys all who worship him. There is also a theological reason. We know that the number 12 represented the whole of Israel, now there are eleven and the number 12 is not recomposed, because there is no longer a country to which Jesus is addressed with his message, but it is directed to the whole of humanity: the dimension of the Risen Christ is universal. 

They are called 'disciples', not apostles. The word disciple comes from "discere": one who learns. The fool is distinguished from the wise man because the fool always knows everything and will never know anything more than he knows; the wise man is the one who always learns very modestly. The term "apostle" means "sent". The disciples, before being sent, are disciples; when they go out to others they are apostles.

This means that the church is now called to retrace the adventure of its Lord, creating a kind of spiritual continuity between Jesus' mission and its own. A continuity that is also emphasised in v. 20: "Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you". The teaching that the disciples must now take on is closely linked to that left to them by Jesus, thus creating a close and inseparable continuity between history and meta-history.

They "went to Galilee, to the mountain that Jesus had appointed for them". Galilee is the place where Jesus recruited his first disciples and from which he first evangelised and from which he set out on his mission; it is the place where he fixes the appointment with his own after his resurrection; it is the place, therefore, of the discovery and reconstitution of the first messianic community around his Lord. Galilee, then, rather than a geographical place, becomes a theological place. Jerusalem had ceased to be the centre of worship and religiosity. Access to God, to the true temple, was no longer confined to a place, but to a person, to the person of Christ.

The appointment in Galilee finds its summit on the mountain, which Jesus had fixed for them. It is not just any mountain, but "the mountain", a place that is qualified both by a determinative article and by a command that concerns it; it is a mountain that does not have a name, because it is not a geographical place, but a theological indication, which is linked to other mountains in Matthew's account [traditionally the mountain has been identified with Tabor].

Jesus' preaching activity began precisely on a mountain, that of the Beatitudes. He, there, had shown himself as the new Moses who imparted the new law to the new believer; the God who sat again in the midst of his people and taught them. And here, the mountain, in the plurality of its meanings, reappears for the last time. The disciples are summoned to the mountain, God's dwelling place, where the Risen One associates his own, now in a new way. It is from here that he restarts his mission, the mission that the Father had entrusted to him and that he now entrusts to his own, so that they may be witnesses of his glory. From the Father to Jesus, from Jesus to his own.

"They prostrate themselves", that is, they see Jesus and recognise in him a new condition, that is, the fullness of the divine condition, and they adore him, but they "doubted" and this seems a contradiction; they see Jesus, they prostrate themselves to him, so it means that they recognise in him a different condition from the one he had, but they doubted. Doubted what? Not that Jesus was risen, they saw him! What did they doubt?

The translators, they write "some doubted", it is not so! The Greek says all who see, all who doubt: "hoi de edistasan". There is a Hebrew rule of interpretation: when you want to relate two episodes and make it clear that they are connected, just put the same word or verb [only in these two episodes]. Well, the verb "doubting" in Matthew's gospel is only here and when Jesus walks on water. 

The evangelist presents a Jesus walking on water because the waters were considered chaos and the only one who could dominate the waters was God, and Jesus thus manifests his divine condition. Then Peter says: I want to come too, and Jesus says: come! He takes a few steps and begins to sink, i.e. Peter thought the divine condition was an easy walk. When Peter sees the difficulty he begins to sink. Then Jesus stretched out his hand, seized him and said to him: man of little faith, why did you doubt? So Peter thought that the divine condition was granted by Jesus, and did not understand instead that it is obtained through a journey that also passes through the fact of the cross. So let us now understand what they doubted. In Peter's case, doubt indicates a divided mind caused by a lack of an adequate measure of faith, not a lack of total faith.

They do not doubt that Christ is risen. If their faith was too little, it was because they were in a state of uncertainty as to what recent events would mean for the future. They did not doubt Jesus, but themselves. What happens now? Are we capable of this? They are in a state of cognitive dissonance. Do we remember the supper? Jesus says: I will now be taken and you cannot follow me, and Peter: I am ready to die with you! And they all tell him the same thing. They were just in time to see the guards all running away from a distance, and they left him. So will they who were so unable to follow Jesus be able now? 

Let us ask ourselves: why does 1) Matthew take the trouble to include the reference to their doubts, and 2) Matthew does not report any solution to their uncertainty? It seems clear that Matthew wanted the members of his community to apply this situation to themselves. The oscillation between adoration and indecision is the struggle of every disciple. To these people, far from being perfect, Jesus entrusts the task of making nations disciples.

For Jesus will not be lost behind their doubts. These will disappear. Before the light of the sun, the eyes may be uncertain as soon as they open, but then everything returns to normal. So it is with the disciples. There is still some scales in their faith that make it imperfect, but this will soon fall away. The full light of the Lord's resurrection will triumph over them. 

 Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

The prophetic discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

 Catholics and Protestants compared - In defence of the faith

(Buyable on Amazon)

(Mk 16:15-20)

 Mark 16:19 The Lord Jesus, after speaking with them, was taken up into heaven and seated at the right hand of God.

The Ascension is the elevation of Christ into heaven by His power in the presence of His disciples on the fortieth day after His resurrection. It is narrated in Mk 16:19, Lk 24:51, and in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.

Although the place of the Ascension is not explicitly stated, it is inferred from Acts that it was the Mount of Olives, since after the Ascension it is said that the disciples returned to Jerusalem from the "mountain called the Mount of Olives, which is as near to Jerusalem as the journey allowed on a Sabbath day". Tradition has consecrated this place as Ascension Mount and Christian piety has commemorated the event by erecting a basilica on the site.

St Helena built the first memorial there, which was destroyed by the Persians in 614. It was rebuilt in the 8th century, only to be destroyed again, but rebuilt one more time by the Crusaders. This too was destroyed, by the Mohammedans, and only the octagonal structure enclosing the stone bearing the imprint of Christ's feet was left, which is now used as an oratory.

The fact of the Ascension is not only referred to in the above-mentioned passages of Scripture, but is also foretold and stated elsewhere as an established fact. Thus, in Jn 6:62, Jesus Christ asks his disciples: "What if you saw the Son of Man ascending where he was before?" and in Jn 20:17 he says to Mary Magdalene: "Do not hold me back, for I have not yet ascended to my Father and your Father, my God and your God". Again, Eph 4:8-10 and 1 Tim 3:16 speak of Christ's Ascension as an accepted fact.

Catholics have always regarded this event as literal and miraculous. But the dogma has also had its detractors. Some scoffed at this, comparing the 'flying' Jesus to the Apollo spacecraft. This was a common joke among atheists in the 1970s. Others deny the possibility of the miraculous event altogether. Still others, interpret the ascension as not literal but symbolic... since he who rises from the earth does not go to heaven but goes into orbit. Given such criticism, how can Catholics defend the reality of Christ's Ascension?

Since St Luke is our primary source, how can we know that he is telling us a story and not an allegory? Well, the evangelist clearly states in the prologue of his Gospel that his intention is to tell a real story. Moreover, when Luke describes the ascension there is no hint of literary embellishment, which is really strange if he did not mean it literally. In the Gospel account it simply tells us that Jesus "departed from them and was taken up to heaven" (Lk 24:51). In Acts he writes that Jesus "was lifted up on high before their eyes and a cloud removed him from their gaze" (Acts 1:9). Coldly, like a serious historian interested only in facts, Luke simply tells us what happened and that is all. It is also noteworthy that since the Gospel accounts were written only a few decades after Jesus' crucifixion, there would have been eyewitnesses of Jesus still alive to correct or oppose Luke's account. But there is simply no trace of such an objection.

Indeed, the Gospel accounts are extraordinarily accurate, and Luke in particular is a first-rate historian. Therefore, when the New Testament authors describe the bodily ascension of Jesus into heaven, regardless of faith, we have every reason to believe that they are reporting a real story.

At this point a question arises. It is not difficult to understand why we should celebrate Good Friday (Jesus atones for our sins on the cross) or Easter Sunday (Jesus rises again, conquering death). But why celebrate the Ascension? Why is Jesus leaving the earth something to celebrate?

It is easy to misinterpret the Ascension as Christ abandoning his disciples. Furthermore, we misunderstand the Ascension if we imagine that Jesus is returning to heaven, as if he had ever left heaven. As St Augustine said, Jesus 'did not leave heaven when he descended among us; nor did he depart from us when he ascended again into heaven'.

If Jesus, in his divinity, was always in heaven, what is it that he ascended? His humanity! And that is why the Ascension is important. For many people, Christianity has become too disembodied, so that it can be seen as good news for souls but not for bodies. This is a problem, because Christianity does not make much sense if the body is not made to last forever. After all, why did John Paul II concern himself so much with the 'theology of the body', and why do we care for the bodies of the dead? Because Christianity is good news for both body and soul. In fact, the Catechism teaches: 'The flesh is the cornerstone of salvation. We believe in God who is the Creator of the flesh; we believe in the Word made flesh to redeem the flesh; we believe in the resurrection of the flesh, the fulfilment of creation and the redemption of the flesh" (CCC 1015).

In Eden, there was an intimate union between God and the earthly creation, symbolised by the fact that "the Lord God walked in the garden in the day breeze" (Gen 3:8). This union between heaven and earth was broken with sin. The rupture was healed first by the Incarnation (in which God assumed earthly humanity), then by the Cross (in which he offered his flesh for the life of the world), then by the Resurrection (in which Christ rose again with a glorified body), and then by the Ascension (in which Christ ascended physically to take his seat on the heavenly throne). Before the Ascension, heaven was a purely spiritual realm. Not any more.

That of Jesus Christ is the first body in heaven, but not the last. He is immediately followed by his mother, which is why the Assumption is celebrated. And one day, God willing, we too will be there. Hence, the angel's message on Ascension Day is far-sighted: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from among you into heaven, will return one day in the same way as you saw him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11). The union of heaven and earth has begun and is irrevocable. Our journey now is to prepare for that union to be completed in us and with us.

 Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

The prophetic discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

 Catholics and Protestants compared - In defence of the faith

(Buyable on Amazon)                                                                           

(Jn 15:1-8)

John 15:1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.

John 15:2 Every branch in me that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit.

John 15:3 You are already worlds because of the word which I have spoken to you.

John 15:4 Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so also you unless you abide in me.

John 15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing.

John 15:6 Whoever does not abide in me is cast out like the branch and dries up, and then they gather him up and throw him into the fire and burn him.

John 15:7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask what ye will, and it shall be given you.

John 15:8 In this my Father is glorified: that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

v. 1 presents the two main actors of what could be called, with a Hebrew term, a "mashal", that is, a sort of sapiential reflection that starts from life experience: Jesus, the true vine, and the Father, the vinedresser, in a relationship in which Jesus, as the vine, acts as the place where the Father makes a judgement on the believers, all born from this vine, but only some become worthy of it and are able to bear fruit, while others merely vegetate, disowning their origin and therefore detaching themselves from it.

The expression 'I am' in John's Gospel acquires a theological significance of enormous importance. It is a reference to Yahweh's name and manner of being [revealed to Moses] and defines the divinity of Jesus, as if to say that that Yahweh who met Moses on Sinai is now back among his own in the person of Jesus. An "I am" that is defined here as a "vine", i.e. as the unique and exclusive place from which the branches are generated, which not only belong to it, but are an offshoot of it; from this vine the divine life-blood flows to the branch-believers. This is an image that defines the indefinable divinity of Yahweh, of which Jesus becomes the historical site of his unveiling to men.

v. 2 completes the image introduced by v. 1 and presents a new figure, that of the branch, which by its very nature has been generated by the vine and is bound to it, and feeds on its own life. Two types of branches are presented here: those that do not bear fruit and those that do bear fruit. This last category is also subjected to pruning. To remove and to prune are two traumatic verbs, to which both types of branches are subjected; if on the one hand they recall the action of a judgement, which is placed on all, on the other hand they hint at how the instrument of this sorting is the moment of trial, which will discriminate those who remain and those who do not, alluding to the faithfulness or otherwise provoked by persecution (Jn 15:18-19).

v. 3, taking up the theme of cleansing, here understood in the sense of purifying, adds a new note: purification is not only through trial, but is also measured by the faithful reception of Jesus' word, which possesses in itself a regenerative power. This is why it is a purifying and transforming word. This concept is effectively expressed by the Greek particle "dià" which means "by means of", assigning to the word the role of instrument through which the very life of God flows. It is no coincidence, moreover, that John opens his Gospel by placing in the absolute principle of God precisely his Word (Jn 1:1-2), from which all life then flows (Jn 1:3).

v. 4 introduces the theme of "abiding in", which here presents the double face of the disciple in Jesus and of Jesus in the disciple, opening up a game of reciprocity that becomes a communion of life, the initiative for which is here in the hands of the disciple, because the abiding of Jesus in the disciple is consequent to the abiding of the disciple in Jesus. If being branches does not depend on us, but on the vine, of which we are part, remaining depends on us. The word "abide" does not indicate an ephemeral, temporary "being there", but a persistent and persevering one. It means to dwell long, always. It means making that vine, which is Christ, our habitation. It is ultimately an existential fidelity to Jesus, which constitutes the "conditio sine qua non" of Jesus' remaining in the disciple, so that life can flow from the vine to the branch.

The first consequence of not remaining or remaining is that of not bearing or bearing fruit. What does "bearing fruit" mean? John always uses the singular, 'fruit', and never the plural, 'fruits', in which case the reader would be led to think that these are the good works. But here we are not talking about good or bad behaviour; The background is not moral, but Christological, understood as an existential response to being or not being in Jesus. The term in the singular, 'bearing fruit', refers more to a condition of life than to works, which v. 4 defines as a mutual 'abiding in', an interpenetration between Jesus and disciple, expressing a communion of life and such that they become one.

Bearing fruit", therefore, excludes reference to works, defining, instead, a condition of life that touches the very ontology of the believer, who is in Jesus with his whole being and is in turn interpenetrated by him, so that the two become one, as are the vine and the branch, which feed on the same life-blood and in some way belong to each other. Here, then, that 'abiding' is not a static 'being in something', but a dynamic interpenetration between Christ and us, so that we are constituted as one with and in Christ; it means being christified. It is, in the final analysis, a reproduction in us of the same relationship that exists between Christ and the Father 

 Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

The prophetic discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

(Buyable on Amazon)

(Jn 10:11-18)

John 10:11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

John 10:12 The hireling, however, who is not a shepherd and to whom the sheep do not belong, sees the wolf coming, abandons the sheep, and runs away, and the wolf seizes them and scatters them;

John 10:13 he is a hireling and does not care for the sheep.

John 10:14 I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep, and my sheep know me,

John 10:15 As the Father knows me, and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.

John 10:16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold; These also I must lead; They shall hear my voice, and become one flock, and one shepherd.

John 10:17 For this is why the Father loves me: because I lay down my life, and then take it up again.

John 10:18 No one takes it away from me, but I offer it of myself, for I have power to offer it and power to take it back again. This command I have received from my Father".

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep". The fullness of life that the sheep enjoy is not inherent in them, but is a gift that comes from the very life of the Shepherd, who offers it to them. Implicit in this offering is the sense of sacrifice lived as a mission spent on behalf of the sheep. The figure of the Shepherd is qualified as 'kalos', which literally means 'beautiful'; but when this 'kalos' is aimed at a specific purpose, it also takes on the meaning of 'good'. The attribute that qualifies this Shepherd as 'good' rather than 'beautiful' thus underlines the meaning of his working and spending himself on behalf of the sheep.

This is the greatest truth in history. For the sheep, the Shepherd consumes himself, gives all of himself, spares himself in nothing. This is its truth. This is its beauty. This is his goodness. The whole life of Jesus testifies and certifies this truth.

The text then presents another figure: the 'hireling', who 'is not a shepherd'. Two terms that indicate all those who devote themselves to community life motivated not by a spirit of service, but for reasons unrelated to it or for personal gain. Their mercenary and indifferent nature to the sheep comes to light in the moment of trial, when the wolf comes.

The sheep do not belong to the hireling, they do not belong to him. The moment he sees the wolf coming, the sheep no longer matter to him. He abandons them and flees, leaving the sheep at the mercy of the wolf, who kidnaps and scatters them. This man thinks only of his life. Having saved his life, everything is saved for him, even if all the sheep are lost. He certainly does not risk his life for what he does not consider to be his own. One cannot be a shepherd of God's flock for shameful interest, for vile money. The mercenary, however, only knows how to work in this way: profit is the sole purpose and interest of his life. Gratuity, on the other hand, belongs to God and to all those who want to work holily in his fold. Gratuitousness is the strength of the credibility of the gospel.

The shepherd knows his sheep; the sheep recognise his voice. Shepherd and sheep are united by a common knowledge, which in biblical language is synonymous with an intimate experience that interpenetrates the two in a profound communion of life, which has its benchmark of comparison in that which binds Jesus to the Father. However, here we are not dealing with a simple comparison between two types of relationship in which the former is in some way modelled on the latter, but because of the nature of the relationship that binds the Father to the Son and the profound communion of the Two, it becomes inescapable that the relationship that the Son has with the sheep reproduces, by its very nature, that of the Father-Son. There is therefore no imitation, but extension of the divine relationship to that which Jesus holds with the sheep.

How this extension of divine life can be realised is indicated: "I offer my life for the sheep"; and as an offering, it is sacrificial. But we are confronted with a life that on the one hand is offered sacrificially, yet on the other hand it is taken up (v. 17). This addition qualifies this life as divine life since, although passing through the experience of death, it never ceases to exist. In fact, dying is proper to man, but not to God, who although passing through the experience of death in Jesus, nevertheless returns to life because death cannot extinguish the life of God.

Significant in this context is the adverb 'palin' ('again', v. 17) attributed to the Shepherd's ability to self-generate back to life, thus indicating him as an inexhaustible source of life, continually self-generating, thus configuring him as 'the Lord of life'. The offering of one's life is therefore in function of a full and definitive life that is passed on.

At the time of Jesus, the sheepfold was the children of Israel, the descendants of Abraham. Throughout the Old Testament, only the descendants of Abraham were considered sheep of the Lord, his fold. However, the universal perspective was always present in God's revelation, especially through the prophets. Jesus' first sheep are all drawn from the fold of Israel. Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Apostles, the other disciples, the entire first community, the newly conceived and born Church, are all from the fold of the children of Israel. These, however, are not all his sheep. There are the sheep that come from the Nations, the Pagans, the Gentiles. These sheep, too, Jesus must lead. They too must listen to his voice and join those in the fold and become one flock and one shepherd. One is the fold. One is the flock. One is the Shepherd. One is the voice to be heard.  

 Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

The prophetic discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

(Buyable on Amazon)