Christmas. Adam C. English
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and subverted the traditional forms of wassailing and thomasing as vehicles for subtle protest. In the same way, one should hear in the “God bless you” of the two tunes quoted above a clang of sarcasm and feigned piety. The ironic blessing appears in both the traditional wassailing song of the British and the John Canoe songs of North Carolina as a barb. The miserly listener who refused to give should feel the sharp stab of shame and chastisement.
Love sometimes needs a prod and a push. Love sometimes needs to be put on the spot. And when push comes to shove, love sometimes needs the shame of youthful catcalls. The lesson of the wassailers is the lesson of accountability for words and deeds of love.
10. DK 22 B110, 85, 123, 53.
11. Ibid., B 91.
12. Ibid., A1.
13. Ibid., B 89.
14. Ibid., B 41.
15. For the most part, Heraclitus believed that the organizing pattern of the cosmic logos would forever elude human effort and human knowledge. Even “though all things come into being in accordance with this logos,” he recognized that people “always fail to comprehend it, both before they hear it and when they hear it for the first time.” Ibid., B 1. Robinson, Early Greek Philosophy, 94.
16. 1 En 14:24; Wis 9:4, 18:15; Sir 15:2, 24:3, for instance. See Keener, Gospel of John, vol. 1, 343–63.
17. See the work of the “John, Jesus, and History” SBL group. For example, Anderson, and Thatcher, eds., John, Jesus, and History, vol. 2.; Thatcher, ed. What We Have Heard from the Beginning.
18. Henri Cazelles, “Johannes: Ein Sohn des Zebedäus,” Internationale Katholische Zeitschrift Communio 31 (2012), 479–84; cited in Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 224–25.
19. Albinus, Didaskalikos 11, in The Platonic Doctrines of Albinus, 47.
20. Hannah’s jubilant prayer over the birth of her son Samuel makes sense of the topsy-turvy logic of divine action expressed in Isaiah. Hannah exults that while the bowstrings of the mighty snap, the feeble strap on shoes for battle. While she who has given birth to many children goes about forlorn, the barren maid pops them out like corn from a popper (1 Sam 2:4–6)—“for the Lord is a God of knowledge” not of appearances or expectations or privilege. “By him actions are weighed” (1 Sam 2:3). Theologically speaking, the logos is the ultimate knowledge of the Lord and in it the final action weighed.
21. Milbank, Being Reconciled, 196.
22. Ibid., 197.
23. Ibid., 196.
24. Francis Church, “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus,” The New York Sun, September 21, 1897. For an online reprint, see http://www.newseum.org/exhibits/online/yes-virginia/ (accessed July 28, 2015).
25. Ibid.
26. Nissenbaum, Battle for Christmas, 88.
27. Lewis, “Introduction,” in Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 6.
28. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 25.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., 26.
31. Lash, Holiness, Speech and Silence, 66.
32. Saint Benedict’s Rule, 6.1.
33. de Lubac, Exégèse Médiévale, II.1, 196–7. This passage translated by Andrew Louth, Discerning the Mystery, 101. Also see, de Lubac, “Commentaire du preamble et du chapitre I,” La revelation divine, vol. 1, 296.
34. The four weeks of Advent in ancient symbolism stood for the four comings of God’s Son: the first in the earthly body, the second in the hearts of believers, the third at the resurrection of the dead, and the fourth at the day of judgment.
35. The length of the Saturnalia varied from three days to seven, depending on the edicts of the emperors, who sometimes tried to shorten the time in which courts and commerce were closed.
36. Lucian, “Saturnalia,” 2, in The Works of Lucian, vol. 4, 108.
37. Chrysostom, In Kalendas, Patrologia Graeca, 48:953–62. For a comparison of the perspectives of John and Libanius, see Graf, “Fights about Festivals,” 175–86.
38. Mather, Grace Defended, 20.
39. Ibid.
40. Nissenbaum, Battle for Christmas, 261–2.
41. August Hermann Franke, “Rules for the Protection of Conscience and for Good Order in Conversation or in Society,” in Erb, ed., Pietists, 111–12.
42. Clement, Paedagogus 2.5.
43. Ibid.
44. Severus, Vita S. Martini 27.1.
45. Saint Benedict’s Rule 4.8. Benedict teaches “not to be given to empty laughter on every least occasion because: ‘A fool’s voice is forever raised in laughter’ (Sirach 21:23),” 7.17.
46. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 2.2,