History lesson

John Henry Cardinal Newman once wrote "To know history is to cease to be Protestant." What Newman meant was that to anyone who read the Church Fathers, who was familiar with Scripture, who knew of Roman history and the history of Europe the truth of the Tradition of the Catholic Church was obvious.

The Bible itself is primarily the story of Salvation History. As such it has depth. I've written about compenetration before. Compenetration refers to the fact that biblical prophecy has an immediate fulfillment while simultaneously having a more ultimate meaning as well. So when Jeremiah talks about the return of Israel from the Babylonian exile he is also talking about the ultimate return to God which will come though the salvation of Christ.

A different kind of depth in Scripture is the way in which ordinary objects, things and concepts in the mortal world reflect or mirror things either spiritual or Divine. The relationship between God and his people, Israel in the Old Testament and the Church in the New Testament, is mirrored in marriage. Some would even go so far as to say that marriage is a sacrament because it mirrors God's relationship to his Church. So we see in the Song of Songs the relationship of a lover as the relationship of God to his people. We see in Hosea Israel compared to an unfaithful wife, who takes other gods to the sorrow of the true God.

The Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies in which it was kept was believed to mirror Heaven, or at least the Holy Throne Room of God.

Israel itself was to mirror the Heavenly Kingdom. Remember in Scripture God originally did not give Israel a king, even though Moses made allowances for a king in the Law. God was their king. As a matter of fact when the people asked the prophet Samuel to anoint a king for them Samuel was angry. He knew God was their King. But God knew what was best for the people. So he gave them their way, because he knew ultimately he would get his way.

So as God often does he wrote strait with crooked lines. He took many bad and some good kings and paved the way for the Eternal King, Himself.

Along the way he used the trappings and traditions of Jewish royalty to model his Eternal Kingdom and his Church. So a careful reading of the two Book of Kings shows that in the ancient kingdom the king ruled, but the other power in the kingdom was not his wife, for the ancient kings had many wives, but his mother. Read 2 Kings. Note that for every king there is an entry identifying the queen mother, for the queen mother had real authority in the kingdom.

In Isaiah 23 the prophet describes the office of the steward, second only to the king. In Matthew 16:18 Jesus uses the same words when appointing his steward, Peter, the first pope.

So the concept of Mary as the Theotokas and Queen of Heaven are Scriptural in origin, not some post Roman innovation. Likewise the Magisterium and the power of the Pope to bind and loose is a legal concept based on the Scriptural description of the officer of steward in the ancient kingdom of God's people, not some offshoot of Roman government or Catholic power grab.

As Christ said Let those who have ears hear, and I might add let those who have eyes read.