What is our earliest complete Hebrew copy of the Book of Genesis? We possess some Hebrew fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls that date to the third century BC, but the first complete Hebrew copy of Genesis comes from around 920 AD (the Aleppo Codex). That means the earliest fully preserved Hebrew version is only about 1,105 years old. For perspective, Abraham—whose life is described in Genesis—lived roughly 4,000 years ago. That is a significant chronological gap.
The situation is softened slightly by the fact that we have a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in the fourth century AD, but even this still leaves a substantial distance between the events described and our earliest complete textual witnesses. Some argue that the material was preserved through oral memory, but this claim is complicated by the Old Testament itself, particularly the account in 2 Kings 22, where the written law is rediscovered after being lost. It also raises a broader issue: many Jewish traditions claim an oral Torah was transmitted alongside the written Torah. Yet this idea faces the same difficulties as the written transmission, again illustrated by 2 Kings 22.
I will be covering this topic in an upcoming show in greater detail where I will interact with some of the claims of Rabbi Tovia Singer, including some concerns I have with the notion that an oral Torah has been preserved continuously from the time of Moses to the present. Stay tuned for more.
We all know that many people didn’t have access to the sacraments during COVID, when bishops around the world generally shut things down. But this wasn’t the first time something like that happened.
A lot of us have heard of Pope Innocent III — he’s usually remembered as one of the most powerful popes ever and for his major role in the Crusades. But what most people don’t realize is that he also got into a huge clash with England that led to a major interdict.
An interdict is basically a ban that cuts off a whole region from things like Mass, the sacraments, and church burials. It’s like putting a community in spiritual lockdown to pressure its rulers. Innocent III did exactly that to England for six years because he got into a serious feud with King John.
The whole thing started when King John refused to accept Stephen Langton, the pope’s pick for Archbishop of Canterbury. In response, Innocent III placed England and Wales under what’s called the Papal Interdict of 1208. Starting on March 23, 1208, churches were shut, sacraments were off-limits, and even churchyards couldn’t be used for burials. The interdict dragged on until July 2, 1214, when it was finally lifted.
From Innocent III to Vatican II: Crusades, Religious Freedom, and the Magisterium
By Michael Lofton
I recently read a fascinating paper on the Albigensian Crusade, which shows that Pope Innocent III issued multiple papal documents authorizing the use of force against a group of non-combatant heretics in France. In return, lay participants who took up arms and confiscated property were granted a “remission of sins” equivalent to that offered to crusaders in the Holy Land. This policy was later reaffirmed by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). Compared with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, however, these actions reveal certain tensions. I want to briefly explore those tensions and offer some thoughts on the need for the magisterium to provide further guidance and clarity on the matter.
So, who exactly were the Albigensians? The Albigensians, or Cathars, were a medieval Christian dualist movement centered in southern France that rejected the Catholic Church’s authority and sacramental system, teaching a radical divide between spiritual good and material evil. In 13th-century France they did not constitute a military force, so the campaign against them effectively meant wielding the sword against non-combatant civilians. In the traditional sense, this crusade was not defensive, though Pope Innocent III framed it in defensive terms because he regarded heresy itself as an act of aggression against the social and political order.
In 1204, Pope Innocent III called on France to take up the sword against the Albigensians and to confiscate their goods. In Ad sponsae suae he writes:
“Thus may your Royal Greatness assist you also with our dear sons... the Cistercian abbot, and Peter and Ralph monks of Fontfroide, legates of the Apostolic See, whom we destine specially to this, that the material sword may be sanctioned to supply the defect of the spiritual sword, and you, besides the temporal glory which you will attain from so pious and praiseworthy a work, may obtain that pardon for sins, which we grant as an indulgence for those crossing the sea to bring aid to the Holy Land.”
He attached the benefit of the remission of sins because papal legates continued to report that the faithful were reluctant to take up arms, so Innocent III employed the strongest incentive at his disposal—the keys of the kingdom—to motivate participation in the campaign against the heretics.
The reference to the “two swords” reaches back to Pope Gelasius I in the fifth century, whose doctrine led to the later development that the Church wields the spiritual sword (excommunication) while the state wields the material sword (force and capital punishment), with the latter ultimately subject to the former.
In 1207, Pope Innocent III reaffirmed his 1204 call in Inveterata pravitatis haereticae, urging all the faithful to take up arms against the heretics in exchange for the remission of sins:
“Moreover we wish that all the goods of these heretics should be made public property, and both for you or for the one working in your person, or for the one expending the necessary help, and for the men of your land, who shall have taken up weapons against the perfidious in order to subdue them, let that remission of sins be effective which we have proclaimed is to be granted as an indulgence for those who work for the aid of the Holy Land…”
In 1208, the pope issued Ne nos ejus, a document that once again reaffirmed this position:
“But for those who, inJIarned with zeal for the orthodox faith to vindicate just blood, which ceases not to clamour from earth to heaven until the God ofVengeances shall descend upon the earth, should manfully gird themselves against pestilential persons of this kind who at the same time together fight both peace and truth, you may securely promise the remission of their sins conceded by God and by His vicar, that a labour of this kind for the performance of the work may be sufficient for them on behalf of those offences for which they shall have obtained contrition of heart and true oral confession to the true God.”
Far from being the arbitrary decision of a single pope, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) confirmed the use of force against heretics and granted remission of sins to those who took up arms against them. It states:
“Catholics who take the cross and gird themselves up for the expulsion of heretics shall enjoy the same indulgence, and be strengthened by the same holy privilege, as is granted to those who go to the aid of the holy Land.”
You may have noticed the references linking the Albigensian Crusade to the Crusade in the Holy Land in the quotes above. This connection reflects Pope Innocent III’s view, expressed in Si tua regalis, that heretics posed a greater threat to Christian society than Muslims because they were morally worse. Consequently, crusaders who took up arms against the heretics were to receive, at minimum, the same spiritual incentives as those who fought in the Holy Land.
Did anyone heed the call? Yes—at least 200,000 Albigensians were killed as a result of the crusade.
Naturally, everything above creates a difficulty when compared with the Second Vatican Council, which emphasizes human dignity and rejects the use of force against heretics. It states:
“This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.”
Some have argued that what appears to be a contradiction is resolved by noting that Vatican II was addressing coercion by a secular state rather than a Catholic state wielding the material sword in service of the Church’s spiritual sword. The problem with this interpretation is that Vatican II grounds immunity from coercion in human dignity itself, not in any particular church–state arrangement. It states:
“The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right.”
Notice that the council roots this teaching in the immutable word of God, indicating that this human dignity is constant and therefore excludes any form of coercion. Thus, some Catholic theologians hold that these teachings cannot be fully harmonized and instead represent a reversal in the Church’s non-definitive acts, while others continue to search for ways to reconcile them—ensuring that the debate remains very much alive.
Moving past that debate for the moment, I was struck by a phrase from Pope Leo XIV and Patriarch Bartholomew’s recent joint declaration, signed in Turkey just last week. The part that caught my attention reads: “In particular, we reject any use of religion and the name of God to justify violence.” This is far from a throwaway statement. Pope Leo XIV, like all post-conciliar popes, has repeatedly emphasized this principle, which is firmly rooted in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council cited above.
This raises a challenging question: how does the pope today view the actions of predecessors such as Pope Innocent III in light of this claim? Innocent III used the Petrine power of the keys to grant remission of sins to those who took up arms against non-combatants. For this reason, it is difficult to categorically condemn these acts, yet they do not appear to align with what Pope Leo XIV would endorse.
Perhaps it is time for the magisterium itself to weigh in on the Albigensian Crusade—not only to comment on whether it was morally admissible, but also to explain how it could be reconciled with the Second Vatican Council. And if it was not morally justifiable, how can we understand the use of the keys of the kingdom in such a context? Did the crusaders who took up arms truly receive remission of sins, or did they act for nothing? These are natural questions, and it would be highly beneficial for the magisterium to address them directly, rather than leaving theologians and laypeople to grapple with these issues without guidance from the Church’s teaching authority. Such clarification seems particularly urgent today, as there appears to be a rise among young Catholics on social media advocating a return to the crusades and hoping the Church might sanction new campaigns against both heretics and infidels. This is precisely where the Church could provide much-needed guidance.
There’s a really interesting papyrus fragment called P.Oxy. 5575 that’s been getting attention because it includes sayings of Jesus from Matthew, Luke, and even the Gospel of Thomas. It’s from the late 2nd or early 3rd century, making it one of the oldest Christian manuscripts we have.
What’s cool about it is that it mixes quotes from the gospels with sayings from Thomas, showing that early Christians sometimes collected teachings from different sources, not just the canonical scriptures.
I went through the fragment and compared the quotes to their sources. It talks about things like not worrying about food or clothing (Matthew 6, Luke 12), trusting God’s care for the birds and lilies (Matthew, Luke, and Thomas 36), and even includes a Thomas saying about fasting from the world to find the kingdom (Thomas 27). Seeing all of these together gives a sense of how early Christian communities may have shared and combined these sayings.
It’s a small fragment, but it gives a fascinating look at how early Christian texts weren’t always neatly divided into canonical and non-canonical material.
Here's what it says on the recto and verso:
recto (→)
[…] (the rich man) died. [I tell you, don’t] be anxious about [your life], what you’ll eat, [nor the] body, what [you’ll wear], because I tell you, [unless] you fast from [the world], you’ll never find [the kingdom], and unless you […] the world, [you’ll never …] the Father [… the] birds, how […] and [your] heavenly Father [feeds them …] so you […] much […]
verso (↓)
[…] how [they grow …] Solomon […] in [his] glory […] the Father [clothes] grass which [dries up] and is thrown into the oven, [he’ll clothe] you […] so you […] also […] because [your] Father [knows] your need, [but] look for [the kingdom and all these things will be given …]
Notes
recto (→)
(the rich man) died. Cp. Thomas 63: “a rich man … died.” See also Luke 12:16-21.
[don’t] be anxious. Cp. Matthew 6:25; Luke 12:22; Thomas 36.
[unless] you fast from [the world]. Cp. Thomas 27.
Some people claim the Catholic–Orthodox divide is nearing an end and that the Churches may soon reunite. Is there any truth to this? I’ll be discussing it today.
Reason & Theology
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Reason & Theology
What is our earliest complete Hebrew copy of the Book of Genesis? We possess some Hebrew fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls that date to the third century BC, but the first complete Hebrew copy of Genesis comes from around 920 AD (the Aleppo Codex). That means the earliest fully preserved Hebrew version is only about 1,105 years old. For perspective, Abraham—whose life is described in Genesis—lived roughly 4,000 years ago. That is a significant chronological gap.
The situation is softened slightly by the fact that we have a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in the fourth century AD, but even this still leaves a substantial distance between the events described and our earliest complete textual witnesses. Some argue that the material was preserved through oral memory, but this claim is complicated by the Old Testament itself, particularly the account in 2 Kings 22, where the written law is rediscovered after being lost. It also raises a broader issue: many Jewish traditions claim an oral Torah was transmitted alongside the written Torah. Yet this idea faces the same difficulties as the written transmission, again illustrated by 2 Kings 22.
I will be covering this topic in an upcoming show in greater detail where I will interact with some of the claims of Rabbi Tovia Singer, including some concerns I have with the notion that an oral Torah has been preserved continuously from the time of Moses to the present. Stay tuned for more.
15 hours ago (edited) | [YT] | 29
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Reason & Theology
We all know that many people didn’t have access to the sacraments during COVID, when bishops around the world generally shut things down. But this wasn’t the first time something like that happened.
A lot of us have heard of Pope Innocent III — he’s usually remembered as one of the most powerful popes ever and for his major role in the Crusades. But what most people don’t realize is that he also got into a huge clash with England that led to a major interdict.
An interdict is basically a ban that cuts off a whole region from things like Mass, the sacraments, and church burials. It’s like putting a community in spiritual lockdown to pressure its rulers. Innocent III did exactly that to England for six years because he got into a serious feud with King John.
The whole thing started when King John refused to accept Stephen Langton, the pope’s pick for Archbishop of Canterbury. In response, Innocent III placed England and Wales under what’s called the Papal Interdict of 1208. Starting on March 23, 1208, churches were shut, sacraments were off-limits, and even churchyards couldn’t be used for burials. The interdict dragged on until July 2, 1214, when it was finally lifted.
16 hours ago | [YT] | 92
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Reason & Theology
Is this overblown, or a step towards something else?
The Union of Orthodox Journalists report: spzh.eu/en/news/89386-finnish-church-under-phanar-…
17 hours ago | [YT] | 27
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Reason & Theology
Are you in favor of a NON-SACRAMENTAL female diaconate?
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Reason & Theology
From Innocent III to Vatican II: Crusades, Religious Freedom, and the Magisterium
By Michael Lofton
I recently read a fascinating paper on the Albigensian Crusade, which shows that Pope Innocent III issued multiple papal documents authorizing the use of force against a group of non-combatant heretics in France. In return, lay participants who took up arms and confiscated property were granted a “remission of sins” equivalent to that offered to crusaders in the Holy Land. This policy was later reaffirmed by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). Compared with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, however, these actions reveal certain tensions. I want to briefly explore those tensions and offer some thoughts on the need for the magisterium to provide further guidance and clarity on the matter.
So, who exactly were the Albigensians? The Albigensians, or Cathars, were a medieval Christian dualist movement centered in southern France that rejected the Catholic Church’s authority and sacramental system, teaching a radical divide between spiritual good and material evil. In 13th-century France they did not constitute a military force, so the campaign against them effectively meant wielding the sword against non-combatant civilians. In the traditional sense, this crusade was not defensive, though Pope Innocent III framed it in defensive terms because he regarded heresy itself as an act of aggression against the social and political order.
In 1204, Pope Innocent III called on France to take up the sword against the Albigensians and to confiscate their goods. In Ad sponsae suae he writes:
“Thus may your Royal Greatness assist you also with our dear sons... the Cistercian abbot, and Peter and Ralph monks of Fontfroide, legates of the Apostolic See, whom we destine specially to this, that the material sword may be sanctioned to supply the defect of the spiritual sword, and you, besides the temporal glory which you will attain from so pious and praiseworthy a work, may obtain that pardon for sins, which we grant as an indulgence for those crossing the sea to bring aid to the Holy Land.”
He attached the benefit of the remission of sins because papal legates continued to report that the faithful were reluctant to take up arms, so Innocent III employed the strongest incentive at his disposal—the keys of the kingdom—to motivate participation in the campaign against the heretics.
The reference to the “two swords” reaches back to Pope Gelasius I in the fifth century, whose doctrine led to the later development that the Church wields the spiritual sword (excommunication) while the state wields the material sword (force and capital punishment), with the latter ultimately subject to the former.
In 1207, Pope Innocent III reaffirmed his 1204 call in Inveterata pravitatis haereticae, urging all the faithful to take up arms against the heretics in exchange for the remission of sins:
“Moreover we wish that all the goods of these heretics should be made public property, and both for you or for the one working in your person, or for the one expending the necessary help, and for the men of your land, who shall have taken up weapons against the perfidious in order to subdue them, let that remission of sins be effective which we have proclaimed is to be granted as an indulgence for those who work for the aid of the Holy Land…”
In 1208, the pope issued Ne nos ejus, a document that once again reaffirmed this position:
“But for those who, inJIarned with zeal for the orthodox faith to vindicate just blood, which ceases not to clamour from earth to heaven until the God ofVengeances shall descend upon the earth, should manfully gird themselves against pestilential persons of this kind who at the same time together fight both peace and truth, you may securely promise the remission of their sins conceded by God and by His vicar, that a labour of this kind for the performance of the work may be sufficient for them on behalf of those offences for which they shall have obtained contrition of heart and true oral confession to the true God.”
Far from being the arbitrary decision of a single pope, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) confirmed the use of force against heretics and granted remission of sins to those who took up arms against them. It states:
“Catholics who take the cross and gird themselves up for the expulsion of heretics shall enjoy the same indulgence, and be strengthened by the same holy privilege, as is granted to those who go to the aid of the holy Land.”
You may have noticed the references linking the Albigensian Crusade to the Crusade in the Holy Land in the quotes above. This connection reflects Pope Innocent III’s view, expressed in Si tua regalis, that heretics posed a greater threat to Christian society than Muslims because they were morally worse. Consequently, crusaders who took up arms against the heretics were to receive, at minimum, the same spiritual incentives as those who fought in the Holy Land.
Did anyone heed the call? Yes—at least 200,000 Albigensians were killed as a result of the crusade.
Naturally, everything above creates a difficulty when compared with the Second Vatican Council, which emphasizes human dignity and rejects the use of force against heretics. It states:
“This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.”
Some have argued that what appears to be a contradiction is resolved by noting that Vatican II was addressing coercion by a secular state rather than a Catholic state wielding the material sword in service of the Church’s spiritual sword. The problem with this interpretation is that Vatican II grounds immunity from coercion in human dignity itself, not in any particular church–state arrangement. It states:
“The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right.”
Notice that the council roots this teaching in the immutable word of God, indicating that this human dignity is constant and therefore excludes any form of coercion. Thus, some Catholic theologians hold that these teachings cannot be fully harmonized and instead represent a reversal in the Church’s non-definitive acts, while others continue to search for ways to reconcile them—ensuring that the debate remains very much alive.
Moving past that debate for the moment, I was struck by a phrase from Pope Leo XIV and Patriarch Bartholomew’s recent joint declaration, signed in Turkey just last week. The part that caught my attention reads: “In particular, we reject any use of religion and the name of God to justify violence.” This is far from a throwaway statement. Pope Leo XIV, like all post-conciliar popes, has repeatedly emphasized this principle, which is firmly rooted in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council cited above.
This raises a challenging question: how does the pope today view the actions of predecessors such as Pope Innocent III in light of this claim? Innocent III used the Petrine power of the keys to grant remission of sins to those who took up arms against non-combatants. For this reason, it is difficult to categorically condemn these acts, yet they do not appear to align with what Pope Leo XIV would endorse.
Perhaps it is time for the magisterium itself to weigh in on the Albigensian Crusade—not only to comment on whether it was morally admissible, but also to explain how it could be reconciled with the Second Vatican Council. And if it was not morally justifiable, how can we understand the use of the keys of the kingdom in such a context? Did the crusaders who took up arms truly receive remission of sins, or did they act for nothing? These are natural questions, and it would be highly beneficial for the magisterium to address them directly, rather than leaving theologians and laypeople to grapple with these issues without guidance from the Church’s teaching authority. Such clarification seems particularly urgent today, as there appears to be a rise among young Catholics on social media advocating a return to the crusades and hoping the Church might sanction new campaigns against both heretics and infidels. This is precisely where the Church could provide much-needed guidance.
1 day ago (edited) | [YT] | 128
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Reason & Theology
There’s a really interesting papyrus fragment called P.Oxy. 5575 that’s been getting attention because it includes sayings of Jesus from Matthew, Luke, and even the Gospel of Thomas. It’s from the late 2nd or early 3rd century, making it one of the oldest Christian manuscripts we have.
What’s cool about it is that it mixes quotes from the gospels with sayings from Thomas, showing that early Christians sometimes collected teachings from different sources, not just the canonical scriptures.
I went through the fragment and compared the quotes to their sources. It talks about things like not worrying about food or clothing (Matthew 6, Luke 12), trusting God’s care for the birds and lilies (Matthew, Luke, and Thomas 36), and even includes a Thomas saying about fasting from the world to find the kingdom (Thomas 27). Seeing all of these together gives a sense of how early Christian communities may have shared and combined these sayings.
It’s a small fragment, but it gives a fascinating look at how early Christian texts weren’t always neatly divided into canonical and non-canonical material.
Here's what it says on the recto and verso:
recto (→)
[…] (the rich man) died. [I tell you, don’t] be anxious about [your life], what you’ll eat, [nor the] body, what [you’ll wear], because I tell you, [unless] you fast from [the world], you’ll never find [the kingdom], and unless you […] the world, [you’ll never …] the Father [… the] birds, how […] and [your] heavenly Father [feeds them …] so you […] much […]
verso (↓)
[…] how [they grow …] Solomon […] in [his] glory […] the Father [clothes] grass which [dries up] and is thrown into the oven, [he’ll clothe] you […] so you […] also […] because [your] Father [knows] your need, [but] look for [the kingdom and all these things will be given …]
Notes
recto (→)
(the rich man) died. Cp. Thomas 63: “a rich man … died.” See also Luke 12:16-21.
[don’t] be anxious. Cp. Matthew 6:25; Luke 12:22; Thomas 36.
[unless] you fast from [the world]. Cp. Thomas 27.
[the] birds. Cp. Matthew 6:26; Luke 12:24.
2 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 154
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Reason & Theology
Some people claim the Catholic–Orthodox divide is nearing an end and that the Churches may soon reunite. Is there any truth to this? I’ll be discussing it today.
4 days ago | [YT] | 27
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