No abstract

The structure of the pre-Christian book of Daniel as newly edited in Palestine in the first century B.C. is coherent, often symmetrical, and meaningful and was the version used by Jesus and the early Christians. Origen's and Jerome's reordering of the fourteen-chapter book in conformity with the extant Hebrew, however, vitiated that structure. Susanna's account opened the pre-Christian Palestinian version. That account inaugurates the themes of wisdom and judgment and provides the restoration of right order within the community in exile, a restoration essential for what transpires thereafter. Her experience is the first of four holy ordeals placed symmetrically in the first half of the book and framing the book as a whole. Significantly, the two chapters of Daniel most quoted in the Gospels are the ones that open the two halves of the book: Susanna, and the first vision of Daniel. Those two chapters are linked thematically and by diction, including the pair of unique phrases '[one grown] ancient of evil days' and 'Ancient of Days'. Susanna exemplifies the experiences of the saints -suffering and then vindicated -and also, for the writers of the synoptic Gospels -the experiences of Jesus in his passion.

No abstract

Classic studies of the Trinity explain that doctrine and draw widely on Scripture to illustrate it (see, e.g., Gilles Emery). Supplementing these works, this study explores how, when and to whom God revealed His Three Persons, for this can teach us more of how we are to respond to Him. The Virgin Mary has always been recognized as our uniquely perfect model of theosis, with her maternity an analogy for the individual Christian's openness to God and fruitfulness for Him. At the Annunciation, ὁ Ευαγγελισμός, in her conversation with the angel Gabriel two momentous events occurred: God revealed to her -first of all mankind -His Three Persons, and then she -first of all mankind -voiced her assent to God's will. These two events were the necessary prelude to the actual moment of the Son's beginning His Incarnation. Moreover, Mary exemplifies the new autonomy ushered in by Christianity, by being the first person to assent overtly to God. Recognizing all this is a development in doctrine as defined by John Henry Newman. This analysis also affirms in more detail how the Theotokos is a model for everyone in living in relation to God.

No abstract