Tribune staff reporter Jeremy Manier’s commentary in the June 25 Perspective section, in which he criticizes the American Roman Catholic bishops for changing the words of the English version of the Nicene Creed used in the United States, reminded me of the correspondence between St. Basil of Caesarea and Julian the Apostate, Emperor of Rome. The emperor had criticized an apology of Christianity prepared by the Roman bishops with “I read, I understood, I condemned.”
Good Basil shot back with, “If you did, indeed, read, you did not understand; had you understood, you would not have condemned.”
Not unlike the emperor, Manier has all the pieces in front of him yet fails to understand. He captions his commentary “The word made flesh.”
Yet in his advocacy of plain English, he loses track of the distinction between the historical Jesus, the child who was born of Mary, and the eternal word of God, that part of God who was clothed in flesh and given human form (“incarnated”) by Mary.
As far as a Christian believer is concerned, the answer to Manier’s question, “When Jesus came into the world, was he born or was he incarnated?” is twofold: the word of God was incarnate, Jesus was born, the two perfectly merged with each other and inseparable, a mystery of faith.
It’s good to see the Roman Catholic bishops return to a more accurate English rendition of the Nicene Creed, a declaration of the Christian faith.
Perhaps they were guided not only by the desire to strictly adhere to the language of the new Latin Missal but by Anglican usage, as well, a usage steeped in English with little reference to Latin tropes. The Episcopalians got the incarnation right.
