Maronite Meditations

This is a short and selective review of Jonathan Bernier’s 2022 volume, Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament . His fundamental conclusion is that the dates of the New Testament documents are earlier than is usually thought. He states that it is a sort of successor to Robinson’s 1976 study Redating the New Testament . Bernier confirms someof Robinson’s conclusions, disagrees with others, and p...

I examine the question of the “Only-Begotten Son of God,” from a Syriac perspective. I am going to suggest that there is an ambiguity in the English phrase the “Only-Begotten Son of the Father” to speak of Christ. Further, there is a richness in the Syriac concept of the yee. Hee.dō.yō which is not easily captured in English, Greek, or Latin. I am going to suggest that, just as there can only be o...

We examine the sins of gossip, detraction, and calumny. What are they? Why are they wrong? How can we make our consciences more sensitive to these sins?

A very good rule of life is to not talk about, to not even mention, other people, unless we have a good reason . This rule follows from basic moral principles of Christianity, and from psychological considerations. It is particularly well-suited totoday’s world, and includes not only use of the tongue but all forms of communication, including social media.

We are going to work through some of Sebastian Brock’s invaluable book The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and theSpiritual Life . It is an anthology of materials from Syriac writers,beginning at the very start with Aphrahat, although not including the Odes of Solomon . Little is known of Aphrahat, “the Persian Sage,” who: “… was evidently a prominent figure inthe Christian Church in the Persian Empire …...

We now consider the significance of what Blosius has to say about life, and how that melds into what he wrote about the oneness of God, and how that unfolds in the world.

We do a simple breathing meditation based on this statement by Blosius: "When he is occupied with conversation and business, if he is unable to attend freely to God, he must yet beware of entirely leaving the inner chamber of his heart, thus going away from God Himself, but he must continue tobreathe out some secret affection to Him, so that directly this outward occupation is over he may ret...

Blosius says that we can divide our attention when working in the world: we are aware of what we are doing and “must yet beware of entirely leaving the inner chamber of (our) heart.” Yet we must return to contemplation of eternal light, which we cannot unless we are free of attachment to externals. Further, God can allow us to suffer dryness of heart to realise our dependence of God. Also, sweet s...

Blosius said that even when we are occupied with conversation and business, we are able to attend to God, not entirely leaving the inner chamber of our hearts. He suggested two prayers or aspirations. First, one suited to the Illuminative Way: “…Grant me to dwell with Thee in the sanctuary of my soul ; grant that by steadfast thought, clear knowledge and fervent love, I may always be able to flow...

Blosius said that just as the three Persons of God work together in inseparable union, so do those three powers of the mind. The memory recalls nothing without the intellect and the will ; the intellect does not understand or know anything without the memory and the will ; and the will desires nothing without the intellect and the memory. Blosius says that union with God, is Introversion, and cons...

The editor of Blosius' book distinguishes ordinary andextraordinary contemplation. He wrote: “…ordinary contemplation means a close union with God in intellect and will, which is the result of faithful correspondence to the grace he bestows according to the ordinary laws of his providence in the supernatural life.” “Extraordinary contemplation is a singular and miraculous union of mind with Go...

We meditate upon the teachings of contemplative teachings of Blosius: Francois-Louis de Blois, Blosius the Venerable, was born in October 1506.   He has been called “the Doctor of the presence of God.” It is said that “Union with God was the theme of his life … he knew that such was to be obtained only by prayer and self-discipline.” Healways spoke of the “spiritual ascetic,” asceta spiritualis ....

Meditation, contemplation, and mysticism are conceptsthe meaning of which is forever changing. They have meant different things in different religions throughout the world. Even within one faith in one place and at one time, practitioners may be engaged in very different types of meditation and contemplation. Many religious sub-cultures  have no concept of mysticism. The diversity of prayer and ac...

I critique the notion that we can use the Q hypothesis to reconstruct the distinctive theology of Ss Matthew and Luke.

The arguments given for the Q hypothesis (that Ss Matthew and Luke used a document which St Mark probably did not have) is not so firmly grounded as assumed. Certainly, I would say, the case for Q has to be made out with strong arguments as to why Matthew or Luke cannot have had the other’s Gospel. If that was so, there is no need for the Q hypothesis. But as we shall see, there are in fact severa...

Many academics assert that the names of the Gospels are not originals, and the evangelists were anonymous. I suggest this goes far beyond the evidence. The Gospels were produced in a specific historical context: the early Church. They are the documents of the early Church, in a very real sense. I am not even sure that contemporary ideas of anonymity apply here: the Gospels were written within the...

Prof Bart Ehrman dogmatically states as a fact that the books of the New Testament were written “to different communities …” We have recently seen that some, at least, of the evidence presented for this theory could be described as “quiteweak.” But many of the epistles were anciently known as the catholic epistles, that is, the letters written to all churches. We examine and critique some of Ehrma...

We continue last week's critique of Ashton's argument that there was a "Johannine community" for which the Gospel was written (as opposed to for all Christians." We explore, along the way, the "fallacy of the fatal possibility," the invalid argument that a thesis must be wrong because another thesis could be right.

We consider a question which most people may not realise is contentious: the assertion that the Gospel of St John was theproduct of a so-called “Johannine Community.” I consider what the late John Ashton said about it in the second edition of his Understanding the Fourth Gospel , because there he self-consciously attempted to rise to recent challenges against that theory. In my treatment, I am aim...

For the lecture notes: https://www.fryuhanna.com/2026/05/05/maronite-meditation-74-internal-evidence-for-the-authorship-of-the-gospel-according-to-st-john/ We continue with our examination of how the late George Beasley-Murray handled the authorship of the Gospel of St John. Last week we saw what he made of the external evidence, that is, the testimony of ancient writers about St John and the Four...

For the lecture notes: https://www.fryuhanna.com/2026/04/29/maronite-meditation-73-did-st-john-write-his-gospel-external-evidence/ We shall begin to examine the evidence around the authorship of the Gospel of St John. We now take one manageable portion, an argument made by George Beasley-Murray, who wrote the commentary for this Gospel in the “Word Biblical Commentary” series in 1991. From what I...

The lecture notes are at: https://www.fryuhanna.com/2026/04/22/maronite-meditation-72-the-date-of-the-epistle-of-st-jude/ It is often asserted that the very earliest Books of the New Testament are the letters of Saint Paul, and in particular either his first Epistle to the Thessalonians or his Epistle to the Galatians. This inclines towards a purported reconstruction of an evolving Christianity, w...

See fryuhanna.com for the text https://www.fryuhanna.com/2026/04/15/maronite-meditation-71-contemporary-scholars-on-luke-2/ We are going to commence by clearing the ground. We will look at how Scripture is read according to what I call the “Bible studies establishment,” that is, the method taught in universities today. And when we see where and why that sometimes makes great contributions to our u...

Had the monks of the monastery of St Maroun beensupporting Patriarch Acacius against the Pope as some suggest? That may be the impression which Pope Hormisdas had. One would think that he could not have been utterly unjustified, but the fact that the monks were attacked by Monophysites indicates that they were sincere in their Chalcedonian confession. A middle path is possible: it could be that th...

We examine the further three letters of 517-520: first, from Pope Hormisdas to the Monks of St Maroun, from those monks and others to the bishops of Syria, and from the priests of Antioch and the monastery of St Maroun to the Patriarch John II. They give us a firm foundation for Maronite history history but many of the details are still shrouded in darkness.