The Pencil of Christ

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St. Paul writing an epistle in an early 9th century manuscript version of Saint Paul’s letters. The manuscript is said to have been written and illustrated by the scribe Wolfcoz at the Monastery of St. Gallen. The monastery was founded in Switzerland in AD 719.


Do we need a letter of recommendation, as some do, to you or from you? You are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all, because you show that you are a letter of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on tablets that are hearts of flesh. (2 Cor. 3:1-3)

Itinerant preachers needed a letter of recommendation. Wandering prophets who stayed in one place for more than three days were to be rejected. Secular businessmen needed letters of recommendation, as many still do today. St. Paul tells the Corinthian parish that THEY are his letter of recommendation, if anyone needs to know who he is or what he stands for.

Their recommendation is written on his heart, in the very core of his existence. (And in the heart of St. Timothy, his co-worker.) Anyone who knows St. Paul’s heart–anyone who knows him personally–will read the recommendation from the Corinthian church written in his deepest being. St. Paul worked and ministered among the Corinthians and, in return, they wrote him a letter of recommendation.

Evidence of salvation is an epistle itself. The salvation of the Corinthians was in Paul’s heart and in the hearts of those who were with him, for he was always thinking about it….

The things that are promised are eternal and are therefore said to be written with the Spirit of God, unlike temporal things written in ink which fades and loses its power to record anything.

Ambrosiaster, Commentary on Paul’s Epistles (late 4th century)

The letter they wrote was not in ink but “with the Spirit of the living God.” (This is the only place this phrase appears in the Bible.) The spiritual letter they wrote was on St. Paul’s heart, not a tablet of stone–an allusion to the Ten Commandments written on stone by God at Mt. Sinai.

When someone wishes to paint a picture, they first make a sketch with the faint marks of a pencil and outline the proposed figure and insert marks to indicate features to be added later … this preliminary drawing with its faint outline makes the canvas ready to receive the true colors. So it will be with us, if only that faint form and outline is inscribed “on the tablets of our heart” by the pencil of our Lord Jesus Christ …. It is clear, then, that to those who have now in this life a kind of outline of truth and knowledge there shall be added in the future the beauty of the perfect image.

Origen, On First Principles 2.11.4 (second century)

Every priest needs a letter of recommendation if they go to a new diocese. Every bishop needs a letter of recommendation of they go to a new province. The best and most true letter of recommendation that a priest or bishop can have is the parish or diocese they have been serving. The parish is the priest’s letter of recommendation, written on the priest’s heart for anyone to read. The parish–whether in 1st century Corinth or 21st century New York–is the best letter of recommendation a priest or preacher can hope for.

Ink and stone vs. spirit and heart. This contrast or opposition is central to everything that St. Paul ever writes about or says. He stands with Ezekiel and the other prophets who insist that the commandments written on stone are useless if they are not also written in someone’s heart, i.e. the core of a person’s existence.

Aroma of Christ

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Charcoal, incense, and thuribles in the worship of God, who descends as the smoke rises.


But thanks be to God, who in Christ always celebrates his victory over us by a triumphal procession, and through us manifests the fragrance of the knowledge of him in every place. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to the latter a fragrance from death to death, to the former a fragrance from life to life. (2 Cor. 2:14-18)

St. Paul says that the Christians are the fragrance, the aroma of Christ in every place. For those who will be saved at the Last Day, the Christians are like the fragrance of incense; for those who will be damned at the Last Day, the Christians are like the stench of a decomposing corpse.

To unbelievers the preaching of the Cross is the smell of death. On hearing the Word of God they receive it as if it were a plague from which death knocks on the door. But to others it is the fragrance of life. To believers the Word of God is a messenger of eternal life.

… Some things are recognized by their smell, even though they are invisible. God, who is invisible, wishes to be understood through Christ. The preaching of Christ reaches our ears just as an aroma reaches our nostrils, bringing God and his only begotten Son right into the midst of his creation. A person who speaks the truth about Christ is … a good aroma from God, worthy of praise from the one who believes. But one who makes erroneous assertions about Christ has a bad smell to believers and unbelievers alike.

(Ambrosiaster, Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistles; written AD 366-384)

Incense, especially frankincense, is commonly found in the Old Testament. Anytime a prophet sees God or the heavenly court, there is a LOT of smoke (i.e. incense) billowing up around the Throne of God. There is a lot of incense filling the air of the Temple–twice a day several shovelfuls of incense are burnt on the altar that stands in front of the Holy of Holies. And on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the Holy of Holies is itself supposed to be so full of fragrant incense smoke that the High Priest should not be able to see his hand in front of his face.

Put an altar of incense in your innermost heart. Be a sweet aroma of Christ.

… so also the prophetic word is “a sweet fragrance” to those who believe, but to the doubting and unbelieving and those who say they belong to Pharoah, it becomes a detestable odor.

Origen, Homilies on Exodus)

In the New Testament, St. John describes in the Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) how the angels stand swinging thuribles before the Throne of God and that the heavenly throne room is full of billowing clouds of fragrant smoke as the angels and saints offer the incense and prayers to God. Fragrant incense is everywhere God is, according to the Old and New Testaments.

Then another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, rose up before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar ….

Book of Revelation 8:3-5

Christians are both the fragrance of Christ in the world and the fragrance of prayer offered to Christ. The Holy Spirit descends as the smoke/prayer rises. Who would not want to experience that scriptural scent as they bow down to God?

You Forgive=I Forgive=Cheat the Cheater

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The wonderworking physicians Panteleimon (left) with Cosmos and Damian (right) show the doctors offering their patients medicine on a spoon that looks very similar to a priest offering Holy Communion with a spoon (as in the Orthodox Church). The priest offers healing as a spiritual physician. Physicians offer healing–in Greek, the same word as “salvation”–and the miracles of physical healing-salvation in the Gospel are always about healing-salvation on an even more fundamental level in our lives.


Therefore, I beg you to confirm your love for him. For the reason I have written to you is to test you and to know whether you are obedient in everything. The person you forgive, I also forgive. For indeed, what I have forgiven–if I have anything to forgive–I have done for your sake in the presence of Christ, lest we be cheated by Satan; for we are not unaware of his schemes. (2 Cor. 2:8-11)

St. Paul is writing about someone who committed a very serious sin in public and whom the Corinthian parish excommunicated, at his request. (Perhaps it was the man sleeping with his father’s wife.) Now St. Paul is asking the parish to forgive the person. He says that he is testing their obedience, to see if they will forgive at his request as they excommunicated the person at his request. He also promises that if the parish forgives the person, he will also forgive the person. If anyone refuses to forgive, they are being cheated by Satan, the great adversary, whose schemes and plots against the People of God are well known.

The important thing, St. Paul says, is that the parish forgive the sinner. If the parish forgives, then the apostle also forgives. It is the forgiveness of the parish–the entire Church–that cheats Satan of his prey. Forgiveness is always a community event: to be forgiven by one is to be forgiven by all and to be forgiven by all is to be forgiven by one. Forgiveness is never solitary or isolated, done in a corner and unknown.

Confession of sin and forgiveness is always a community act. Although we each confess personally in private to the priest, the priest personifies both Christ and the Church–the Head and the Body together. The priest offers each sinner the forgiveness of both Christ and the Church–the Head and the Body together. If I receive this forgiveness, I cheat Satan of his prey (me); if the priest offers forgiveness on my behalf, we cheat Satan of his prey (the community of the faithful).

Our confession is not about how we sin by “breaking the rules.” Our confession is about telling the spiritual physician–the priest–our symptoms, how the disease of sin afflicts us. The physician doesn’t tell us what we need to do to pay off our punishment for breaking the rules; the priest offers us a prescription of spiritual medicine for how we can recover from the symptoms we have described.

If we ask for-accept-extend forgiveness, we have cheated Satan of his prey. At least for today. Satan deserves to be cheated of his prey because he only snatches his prey because he first cheated us, the human race, by lying and cheating Adam and Eve, our first parents. The cheater is cheated and the world is saved.