I Clement

Today the Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran Churches all commemorate Pope St. Clement (Orthodox Christians celebrate him later this week, depending on the patriarchate).  He is noteworthy because it is his first letter to Corinth that is the earliest Christian document outside of the New Testament.  There are subsequent writings that are by Pseudo-Clement, but the epistle to Corinth is deemed authentic.

Because of the importance of I Clement, here is a link to the Roberts-Donaldson translation of the Greek text: I CLEMENT.

 

Christ the King: An ecumenical festival

Today is the Feast of Christ the King.  As I mentioned in my previous post “A November Spirituality,” Pope Paul VI in 1969 moved the celebration from the final Sunday in October to that of November, making it the final Sunday of the year.  In so doing, he also altered the importance of the day from a I Class Double to a Solemnity.  Since then, the celebration has moved beyond just the Roman Church and is recognized in some form or another in Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Moravian, United Churches of Christ, and Methodist Churches.*  Today is a feast in which some level of traditional identity has been abandoned/modified in order to celebrate the sovereignty of the Son with other Christian communities.  I say this because even though the Roman tradition had an earlier version of Christ the King, these other traditions did not, but chose to adopt it, making today one of the few days that the Christian West celebrates together across denominational lines.

And now, I’d like to share some of the different Collects for the day.

First, here is the Collect for Christ the King in its earlier form before the reforms of Paul VI:

Almighty and everlasting God, Who in Thy beloved Son, the King of the whole world, hast willed to restore all things anew, grant in Thy mercy that all the families of nations rent asunder by the wound of sin may be subjected to His most gentle rule.  Who with Thee liveth and reigneth.

The Monastic Diurnal (St. Michael’s Abbey)

The previous Collect, with some adaptation, is that which is present in Anglo-Catholic books of hours such as The Anglican Breviary and Lancelot Andrewes Press’ version of the monastic breviary, both of which follow the pre-reform version of the feast in October.  Next, here is the current Roman Catholic Collect for Christ the King:

Almighty and merciful God, you break the power of evil and make all things new in your Son Jesus Christ, the King of the universe.  May all in heaven and earth acclaim your glory and never cease to praise you.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Liturgy of the Hours IV: Ordinary Time Weeks 18-34

Here, once again, is the Collect from the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer for Proper 29:

Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all
things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of
lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided
and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together
under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Lastly, I’d like to share the Collect for Christ the King (Year B) from the Lutheran (ELCA) tradition:

Almighty and ever-living God, you anointed your beloved Son to be priest and sovereign forever.  Grant that all the people of the earth, now divided by the power of sin, may be united by the glorious and gentle rule of Jesus Christ, our Saviour, and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Evangelical Lutheran Worship

It is worthy of note that the Collects from the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have more in common with the Catholic Church’s former version.  Common Worship in the Church of England has the following Collect which has less in common with the others in that the first petition is for the Church:**

Eternal Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven
that he might rule over all things as Lord and King:
keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit
and in the bond of peace,
and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Whatever your tradition, have a blessed feast.

——-

*In The Episcopal Church “Christ the King” does not exist per se, though the Collect was intentionally adapted from the Roman Catholic version and the readings to support it.  Many of the Mainline Protestant churches celebrate the festival in some fashion by way of the Revised Common Lectionary.

**The 1662 BCP’s Collect “stir up…” for this Sunday has been maintained as the Post Communion Prayer for Christ the King Sunday with the notation that it may be used as the Collect for the rest of the week at Morning and Evening Prayer.

 

Schism, CORE, & ELCA

From the Associated Press: “New Lutheran body to form after gay pastor vote“

It seems that schism within the ELCA is all but inevitable at this point which is sad as the ELCA is one of The Episcopal Church’s closest partners in ministry.  Although written within the context of Anglicanism, this essay on heresy and schism by the Rt. Rev. Pierre Whalon, Bishop of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe, is a good starting point, I repeat starting point for anyone discerning the pros/cons, moral weight, etc. of heresy and division: “Heresy versus Schism: Which is Worse?“

 

 

Saintly witness and our ancient adversary

Scenes from the martyrdom of St. Edmund, K.M.

Today is the feast of St. Edmund of East Anglia, but I must admit this post is only tangentially related to this blessed martyr of England.  Just like many of the other biographies in Lesser Feasts and Fasts, what struck me was not St. Edmund’s life per se, but the description of how we have come to know it:

The principal source of information about the martyrdom of the young king is an account by Dunstan, who became Archbishop of Canterbury ninety years after Edmund’s death.  Dunstan had heard the story many years before from a man who claimed to have been Edmund’s armor bearer. . .  According the Dunstan’s account, Edmund was tortured, beaten, shot through with arrows, and finally beheaded.

Lesser Feasts and Fasts: 2006, p. 462

St. Edmund’s story is one that quite easily could have passed into obscurity.  The fidelity to his witness by his armor bearer who then transmitted the life and martyrdom of Edmund to Dunstan is how we have come to know so much about this very young king who suffered terribly rather than renounce Christ.  The end of his brief hagiography in The Anglican Breviary captures the incredible quality of Edmund’s offering thusly: “Holy Edmund offered himself to God as a burnt offering of a sweet savour on November 20th, 870, and was crowned with martyrdom in the dying of the Lord Jesus, which he had so eminently borne in his body” (p. 1916).  This offering of self is valuable whether or not anyone a generation later remembers it.  But it is a wonder that through the witness of his servant and the Archbishop of Canterbury, nearly a century later, it was finally written down by Abbo of Fleury for posterity.*

In addition to the incredible witness to Christ of Edmund and witnesses to Edmund’s martyrdom we have a Collect that includes a unique element.  To back up a second, we have more than one Collect, but both refer to the same thing: our adversary.  First, the Collect from The Anglican Breviary:

O God of unspeakable mercy, who didst give thy blessed Saint King Edmund grace to overcome the enemy by dying for thy Name: mercifully grant to us thy servants; that by his intercession we may be found worthy to conquer and subdue the temptations of our ancient adversary.  Through.

P. 1916

Now, the Collect from Lesser Feasts and Fasts:

O God of ineffable mercy, who didst give grace and fortitude to blessed Edmund the king to triumph over the enemy of his people by nobly dying for thy Name: Bestow on us thy servants, we beseech thee, the shield of faith, wherewith we may withstand the assaults of our ancient enemy; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

P. 463

Edmund’s Collects are in the minority by so directly referring to Satan (with the language of Rev 12:9-10).  It is also, therefore, one of the rarer prayers of the Church that so directly connects earthly conflicts with spiritual ones.  I think it an interesting coincidence or, perhaps, the mysterious work of God, that the Collect which mentions our adversary in this manner is for a saint whose story we might have lost.  The accuser is something Christianity has never given as much attention as the culture does.  The Church, rightly so, neither focuses on it nor ignores it.**  Even in the renunciations at Holy Baptism, Satan is renounced but no attention is given to its identity or modus operandi.  In fact, nowhere in the Book of Common Prayer does the Church specify anything more about Satan than that it rebels against God and tempts us.

Today we have the example of St. Edmund the king and martyr.  We also have those of his servant, St. Dunstan, and Abbo of Fleury who worked to preserve his memory and example.  With them all, we have the whispers of our spiritual ancestors about our enemy who continues to strive against us.  With so much work to be done in the name of Christ, it is perhaps fitting that whispers are all it gets.

——-

*St. Dunstan, three years before his death, recounted the story to Abbo of Fleury who recorded it in a book.  See the Medieval Sourcebook: Abbo of Fleury – The Martyrdom of St. Edmund.

**Following M. Scott Peck’s example in People of the Lie, I prefer to use the neuter pronoun for Satan because it does not imply any sense of identifiable humanness that either the masculine or feminine might.  Satan is wholly other and apart from us and not a ‘person’ in the sense that we are.

 

Christian Obedience

This is a medieval image of an elder monk giving a younger one his tonsure after having taken his monastic vows.  Though the tonsure has faded as a familiar site in the West, even among monastics, the vows represented by the unique hair cut have not faded in importance among monks, friars, nuns, and religious sisters.  The traditional vows for monastics are poverty, chastity, and obedience or, as at my induction as a Dominican postulant, “simplicity, purity, and obedience.”

Obedience is hardly considered virtuous in American life.  American culture is, by most evaluations, one that promotes self-reliance, individuality, individual rights, personal choice, and so on.  Obedience in American life is constricted to the lives of children, soldiers, employees, and citizens under the law.  Obedience in all of these cases, though, is not treated as a virtue so much as a necessity, or even a necessary evil, for the greater good which ultimately comes around to reward the individual.  For lack of a better word, the American focus on “freedom” (however this is conceived) prohibits a buying into a concept of virtuous obedience.

There is, however, a problem with this.  Freedom, as is conceived of by the culture, is more a phantom than a virtue.  Before you accuse me of cultural treason, hear me out.  There is a woeful misunderstanding by many Americans today about their rights.  ”Freedom of speech” is touted as a rationale for the right to speak one’s mind any time at any place and any opposition to this is treated as a violation of personal rights.  What has been forgotten is that the right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights is the freedom of speech without restriction by the government, not an open-ended free ticket to speak at all occasions.  I use this example because it shows the decline in understanding that a person’s freedom ends somewhere around where it begins for someone else.

We can also look at the problem of freedom by way of the philosophy of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory.  They argue that it is impossible for a society to achieve economic freedom and political freedom simultaneously, but that in fact one must give in order to more greatly achieve the other.  The line of thought is that if a society chooses to have an open policy toward economic/corporate activity, this will invariably mean that businesses will control human lives via employment policies and (coercive) advertising so as to undermine free politics.  On the other side, a society that chooses to have a push toward political freedom will inevitably run into corporate opposition and will have to choose how to restrict business opposition to the political system.  Anyone observing the American electoral system will notice that this tension between political and economic freedom is very real.

Moving the lens to Christian teaching, we see an even harsher indictment of freedom as we conceive of it.  The Book of Common Prayer’s Collect for Peace uses the phrase, “whose service is perfect freedom” in Rite I and “to serve [God] is perfect freedom” in Rite II.  The Prayer Book unequivocally asserts that freedom is impossible apart from obedience.  The Prayer Book’s assertion is thoroughly Scriptural.  St. Paul writes to the Christians in Rome, “Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (6:16).  He goes on by making things even more clear describing Christians as “free in regard to righteousness” (6:20) and concluding that being set free comes by way of becoming a slave of God (6:22).  Or, for those who prefer Jesus’ imagery to the prescriptive writing of St. Paul, one can turn to one of the Prayer Book’s readings for Compline:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;
for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for
your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus describes the human condition as inescapably burdensome and himself as the only way of relief.  In other words, the only way to escape the oppression of the world and become free is to take on servitude to Christ.  Slavery to the Son is the way of gentleness and rest.  Slavery to him is the only way to live a life free from the despotism of the world.  As contrary to instinct as it sounds, a life of obedience is an easy and light bondage.

I chose this topic for today’s reflection because today the Episcopal Church celebrates Hilda, Abbess of Whitby.  Among the many lessons her life in Christ has taught those of us who follow is one of obedience.  She was present at the famous Synod of Whitby where the divisions caused by the concurrently existing Celtic and Roman orders and traditions of Christianity were rife.  As Lesser Feasts and Fasts records:

Hilda favored the Celtic position, but when the Roman position prevailed she was obedient to the synod’s decision.  Hilda died on November 17, 680, surrounded by her monastics, whom, in her last hour, she urged to preserve the gospel of peace.

Lesser Feasts and Fast: 2006

Here the Church is, rightly, linking Christian obedience with a life of peace.  After all, as the Collect for Peace teaches us, God is the author of peace and through service to Jesus Christ we come to know it in our lives.

 

River Thames Beach Party

A couple of weeks ago I received an email proposing a blog that would serve as a meeting place for Anglicans of different stripes who all share a devotion to the inheritance left to us in the English Reformation.  I’ll spare you all the details of the goings on of the planning because, after all, these things tend to evolve over time (which is something all the authors recognize).  In any case, the proposal is now a real life project.  The blog has been lovingly called the “River Thames Beach Party” because, in case you are not aware, converts among the catholic churches (Catholicism, Anglicanism, Orthodoxy, etc.) are often described as having “swam the <insert appropriate river here>.”  A former chaplain of mine, for instance, took advantage of the pastoral provision of Pope John Paul II and became a Catholic priest thus having “swam the Tiber.”

The River Thames Beach Party’s authors represent both the Anglican Communion and the Anglican Continuum.  The latter designation is shorthand for those who belong to churches who have maintained the Anglican heritage though are not in Communion proper.  The authors also represent both the United States and England.  There are currently six authors on board though that, like so much of this, may change over time.

Anyway, without further ado I present the River Thames Beach Party.  The first topic is introductory in nature: 1) how I came to Anglicanism and 2) what the tradition has meant to me.

 

Guestbook added

As the readership of O God, come to my assistance has grown and diversified, I have decided to add a “Guestbook” page.  It’s nothing special, just a way to leave a generic comment, let me know who you are, where you are from, and to share anything else you feel like.  As always, I just ask that posts be courteous.

 

A word on incense

Ceremonial Pictured in Photographs, Project Canterbury

Yesterday at Trinity Church the newly renovated chancel was dedicated, blessed, and thoroughly smoked out with incense.  Trinity Church is representative of Anglican Ritualism from the nineteenth century with regular use of a chasuble (now standard in the Episcopal Church), lights (candles, also fairly standard) on the altar, unleavened bread, mixing of water in the chalice with the wine, making signs of the cross, bowing at the name of Jesus, bowing for the Sanctus, bowing during the Creed in reverence to the incarnation, elevations during the Eucharistic prayer, and the occasional use of incense.

Incense, like so many other things in Christian worship, has a mixed history.  Initially, Christians were reluctant to use incense as it was associated with pagan (Greco-Roman) worship and, in fact, denounced it.  John Chrysostom knew no incense in the Divine Liturgy celebrated in Antioch (Antiochian worship’s first confirmed witness to incense was Theodoret [393-466]). Earlier witnesses (fourth century) describe incense’s liturgical use in Jerusalem at the weekly Sunday vigil.  The earliest account, though, comes from Alexandria at the funeral procession of Peter of Alexandria in 311.  Incense became fairly standard by the fifth century.  Standard, that is, until the Reformation.  Incense disappeared in churches effected by the Reformers.  In Anglicanism, though, it returned with the second generation of the Oxford Movement (“Ritualists”)*  and directions for proper use of incense exist not only in the liturgical manuals favored by Anglo-Catholics (Ritual Notes, Parson’s Handbook, Priest’s Handbook), but are now even included in broad-church ones.

A joke that is not mine, but that I love to spread, is that the only parts of Scripture Anglo-Catholics read literally are the verses in Revelation describing incense in heaven.

In closing, I would like to share a picture I found online.  I don’t really have a smooth transition except to say that it too has something to do with liturgy:

—–

*The first generation Tractarians, notably, focused on theological writing and continued to celebrate the Eucharist at the north side of the table vested in surplice and black scarf.  Dr. Pusey was the only such Tractarian to survive into the Ritualist generation and was not sympathetic with liturgical preoccupation.  It should be noted, though, that when some ritualists began to face legal prosecution, he was quick to defend them.

 

Bestowal of the American Episcopate

I know I’m a day early, but I do so rarely post anything substantial on weekends, so there you go.  Beside, it may do well to think about this important occasion a day early – keeping vigil is an ancient practice after all.

November 14 is the day that Lesser Feasts and Fasts commemorates as the Consecration of Samuel Seabury, First American Bishop.  The Anglican Breviary includes it in the appendix: Supplement of Feasts for Certain Places.  This section also includes the feast of Charles I, K.M (Jan 30), All Anglican Saints (Nov 8), and other festivals necessary to thoroughly ‘Anglicanize’ the Universal Kalendar.  November 14, in the Breviary is The Bestowal of the American Episcopate (Double of II Class).

Readers familiar with the hagiographies by James Kiefer will know that he quite eloquently captured the importance of the day which can be read HERE along with the updated Collects from General Convention 2009.  The updated Collects, by the way, I consider vastly superior to the former ones.  As a supplement to Keifer’s well written summary of the occasion’s importance, below I have provided the lessons from II Nocturn.

Lesson iv

The English Colonists who settled in Virginia brought with them priests to minister in the new land, and from this beginning the ministrations of the Church spread somewhat throughout all the original thirteen colonies.  But the Revolutionary War drove many of the faithful and their priests from the said Colonies, and caused the Church to be hated because of its connections with the English Crown, and its buildings and estates to be confiscated or stolen.  In which time of need there was no bishop to shepherd the scattered flock, because no diocesan organization had been set up in the new land; and the bestowal of the episcopate thereto seemed more unlikely than ever before, since it involved an oath of allegiance to the British Crown which no American could take.  But, lest the Church become extinct through the loss of Catholic order, in Connecticut ten priests, out of the fourteen who still remained after the war, gathered secretly at Woodbury on Lady Day, 1783, and took counsel as to the election and consecration of a bishop.  Which same, they determined, must needs be not only a man of godliness and learning, but ready to suffer humiliations in England and persecutions on his return home.  And the choice fell on Samuel Seabury, priest of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and a man of strong convictions as to Catholic order.

Lesson v

Some sixty years before this, namely, in 1722, the Puritan Colony of Connecticut had been unbelievably stirred up by an event of great import.  for it was then that the Rector of Yale College, the chief seat of learning in that Colony, and other Puritan ministers, in the presence of George Pigot, priest of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, whose presence had been procured to represent the Church, did publicly, according to the latter’s report to his superiors of that venerable Society, declare themselves in this wise, namely, that they no longer could keep out of the Communion of the Catholic Church.  These men, after they had been ordained priests in England, returned to foster the Church in New England, and their self-sacrifice and courage was blessed with many converts.  Of these was one Samuel Seabury, father of the aforesaid Samuel Seabury who was elected in 1783, by priests brought up in this great tradition, to be the first bishop of the American Church.  The same, when he finally arrived in England, found many difficulties.  For one thing, an Act of Parliament was required to dispense with the oath to the Crown; but at last, after twelve months, there was introduced into Parliament an Act to empower the Archbishops to consecrate as bishops persons being subject or citizens of countries out of him Majesty’s Dominions.  Later, when this Act was finally passed, it led to the extension of the English Church throughout the world.

Lesson vi

Meanwhile, poverty of resources, and the prospect of interminable delay, moved the Bishop-Elect of Connecticut to seek consecration at the hands of the Catholic remainder of the Church of Scotland (as certain of the faithful there called themselves), for this course had been previously agreed upon in case his consecration was blocked in England.  In Aberdeen, therefore, on November 14th, 1784, he was consecrated by the Primus, Robert Kilgour, Bishop of Aberdeen, assisted by two other bishops, in the sight alone, as they said, of those known to be supporters of the old and persecuted Faith.  With them he signed a Concordat, the tenour of which was: that they would maintain the Common Faith once delivered to the Saints; and that they believed the Church to be the Mystical Body of Christ; and that they held the Eucharist to be the principal Bond of Union among Christians, as well as the most solemn Act of Worship, for which reason there should be as little variance in this matters as possible.  And hence the newly consecrated bishop was asked to endeavor to have the Rite of the Scottish Church used as the basis of the new American liturgy.  On his return to America he suffered many trials, but from his example the clergy of the Middle and Southern States took courage, and in 1786 sent two of their number, William White, Bishop-Elect of Pennsylvania, and Samuel Provoost, Bishop-Elect of New York, to be consecrated under the new Act of Parliament.  In the Convention of 1789, Bishop Seabury united with them to authorize the General Ecclesiastical Constitution of the American Church; and after the Archbishop of Canterbury had consecrated a third bishop, James Madison of Virginia, he joined with these three other bishops in the consecration of John Clagget as Bishop of Maryland.  Thus by the bestowal of the episcopate on Samuel Seabury was finally founded the Church in the United States of America.

 

The Apocryphal Waters

 

The Episcopal Church has turned to I Maccabees in it’s Daily Office as of today.  Much of the book will not be read, in fact only the first four chapters will be.  It is one of several occasions in which the books of the Apocrypha are part of the church’s reading (Sirach being the most thoroughly read).  For the Bible study in which I am engaged, I have been reading through some selections from II Maccabees.  So, to refer to my post’s title, I am deep in the Apocryphal waters as it were.

I remember being in Sunday school some ten years ago when the associate rector leading gave a presentation on the Apocrypha – many of the people had never really experienced these hidden books.*  Without spending too much time rehashing the issues pertaining to the Canon of Scripture as it varies across Christendom, here’s a quick summary.  Protestants accept the Old Testament with the fewest books, identical in content with the Jewish Scriptures (commonly called Tanakh), that of the Masoretic Text.**  Roman Catholics accept the Old Testament with a larger Canon, that of the Septuagint.  The Orthodox Churches (both those called Eastern and those called Oriental) read from even larger Canons with the Ethiopian Church claiming the title of largest Bible.

Anglicans, though, have a different view of the Apocryphal books considered Canonical by Roman Catholics.  Here I refer to the Articles of Religion: “And the other Books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine” (Article VI).  John Henry Newman, toward the end of his life in the bosom of Anglicanism, wrote the following about Article VI in his (in)famous Tract 90:

And next, be it observed, that the books which are commonly called Apocrypha, are not asserted in the Article to be destitute of inspiration or to be simply human, but to be not Canonical; in other words, to differ from Canonical Scripture, specially in this respect, viz. that they are not adducible in proof of doctrine. “The other books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners, but yet doth not apply them to establish any doctrine.” That this is the limit to which our disparagement of them extends, is plain, not only because the Article mentions nothing beyond it, but also from the reverential manner in which the Homilies speak of them, as shall be incidentally shown in Section 11. [The compatibility of such reverence with such disparagement is also shown from the feeling towards them of St. Jerome, who is quoted in the Article, who implies more or less their inferiority to Canonical Scripture, yet uses them freely and continually, as if Scripture. He distinctly names many of the books which he considers not canonical, and virtually names them all by naming what are canonical. For instance, he says, speaking of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, "As the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the Maccabees, without receiving them among the Canonical Scriptures, so she reads these two books for the edification of the people, not for the confirmation of the authority of ecclesiastical doctrines." (Praef in Libr. Salom.) Again, The Wisdom, as it is commonly styled, of Solomon, and the book of Jesus son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias, and the Shepherd, are not in the Canon." (Præf ad Reges.) Such is the language of a writer who nevertheless is, to say the least, not wanting in reverence towards the books he thus disparages.]

In short, Anglicans will say that the Apocrypha is more than thoughtful writing, but less than Scripture.  It is worth pointing out that the Books of Homilies do cite the Apocryphal books quite a bit and a rule of thumb for these books is that they are to be read because they amplify what we read elsewhere, but do not stand alone.

Finally, though it is most often said that the Canon of Scripture falls into three categories: Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox, things are more complicated and interesting than that.  As evidence, I offer this handy chart I found.

What’s in your Bible?

——-

*Pardon my pun, “apocrypha” means “those having been hidden away.”

**”Tanakh” is a combination of the first consonants from the three divisions of Scripture in Judaism: Torah, Nevi’im, & Ketuvim; that is, Law/Instruction, Prophets, & Writings.  On another note, Martin Luther believed that even the vowel points in the MT were inspired.