Dear Friends of the Kolbe Center,
Glory to Jesus Christ!
As we prepare to celebrate Our Lord’s glorious Resurrection, I would like to inform you of an important article that three members of the Kolbe leadership team have published in the March issue of Culture Wars magazine as an appeal to Nick Fuentes and his followers to repent of certain errors that Mr. Fuentes has propagated which contradict Catholic doctrine and foment racism. You can obtain the March issue of Culture Wars in digital or print format at this link.
I am also delighted to announce the publication of our English translation of Cornelius a Lapide’s Commentary on Chapters Four through Ten of the sacred history of Genesis. Cornelius a Lapide was a contemporary of Rene’ Descartes who saw in the naturalism of Descartes and the so-called Enlightenment philosophers the fulfillment of St. Peter’s prophetic warning in the third chapter of his Second Epistle:
Scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own passions and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation.” They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago, and an earth formed out of water and by means of water, through which the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished (2 Peter 3:3-7).
The Kolbe Center has been accused of misinterpreting St. Peter’s prediction which, according to one of our critics, refers exclusively to those who would deny the imminent Second Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In reality, Fr. Cornelius à Lapide, who knew all the Biblical languages and was familiar with all of the greatest commentators on the Bible in Hebrew, Latin and Greek, confirms that we are correct in our interpretation of St. Peter’s amazing prediction. In his commentary on St. Luke’s Gospel 18:8 which states: “But yet the Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on earth?” Fr. Lapide writes:
Our dear friend, shall He find faith—perfect faith, that is; faith formed by certain confidence (fiducia) and charity. “This,” says S. Augustine (tract xxxvi), “is scarcely found on earth, for the Church of the faithful is full of imperfect faith, and is, as it were, half dead.” For only a perfect faith strengthens a man to pray always, and to overcome all tribulations bravely. Christ Himself explains it so in Matthew (24:12), saying, Because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold. But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved.
This will happen more especially at the end of the world, before the coming of Christ to judgment, when men shall eat and drink and give themselves over to pleasure and think not of the judgment, as Christ said, (Luke 17:26 ff). Thus Bede says that when Christ appears, the number of the elect shall be very small, indeed, at that time many will not have the orthodox faith. For there shall arise false christs and prophets and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect (Matthew 24:24) And as S. Peter says in his second epistle (3:3-4), In the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts, saying: Where is his promise or his coming? That is, they will deny that Christ is coming to judgment, even when His coming is near at hand; and they give their reason: For since the time that the fathers slept, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. As if they had said, “Nature has made the world: the same Nature continues to guide the world along the same course, and always will continue it. Therefore, there is no God to put an end to it: no Deity who will judge our works and punish them” (emphasis added).
The words underlined and bolded perfectly describe the fundamental premise that undergirds all of the naturalistic uniformitarian accounts of the origins of man and the universe that have been proposed since the time of Descartes, and that are now all but universally accepted by the intellectual elite of the Western world. Reasoning from their false uniformitarian naturalist premise, Descartes and the so-called Enlightenment philosophers imagined that things in nature had progressed through a natural process from simpler to more complex forms and that human societies had similarly progressed from primitive to more complex forms of economic and social life as men had advanced in their knowledge of the natural world. Readers of this newsletter know that cutting-edge genetics has actually demonstrated that this Cartesian idea of progress is not only false—it is the opposite of the truth, as genetic mutations build up and degrade all genomes, including the human genome.
Writing in 1615, Lapide was able to anticipate the findings of 21st century genetics by holding fast to the literal historical truth of the sacred history of Genesis with its account of the steady decline in the lifespans of the Patriarchs in Genesis 1-11. Thus, in his Commentary on Genesis 5:5, “Adam lived 930 years and he died,” Lapide writes:
Note first: from Adam up to the Flood, through Seth, there are ten generations, and this is the first age of the world.
Note second: these years were of twelve months, as are ours, as is clear from Genesis 8:5. For if they had been monthly, as some wish, namely if one year had been only one month, containing thirty days, it would follow that those who are read here to have begotten [children] in the 75th year begot [them] in the 75th month: and consequently begot [them] in the 7th year of their age. Finally, all would have died before the 82nd year of age, which even today not a few exceed. Thus Saint Jerome, and Saint Augustine in Book 15, On the City [of God], Chapter 15. I admit that the ancient Egyptians had a monthly year, for Diodorus Siculus reports this in Book 1, Varro [reports it] in Lactantius, Book 2, Chapter 13, Plutarch in [the life of] Numa, Saint Augustine in Book 12 of The City of God, Chapter 20, and Proclus in the Timaeus, Book 1, page 33. Αἰγύπτιοι, he says, μῆνα ἐνιαυτὸν ἐκάλουν, “The Egyptians called a month a year.” But you will find nothing of this sort about the ancient Hebrews.
Third, from the Hebrew text, and from our Latin version it is clear that from Adam up to the Flood 1656 years flowed by. Thus Saint Jerome, Bede, and Saint Augustine above. Therefore, in the Septuagint, which counts 2242 years (according to the edition corrected by Cardinal Caraffa), an error has crept in; for this number exceeds the truth by 586 years. Saint Augustine suspects that some scribe changed the number in the Septuagint because he thought that monthly years should be accepted here; for it seemed unusual and paradoxical that men then lived 900 solid years. But since he himself saw that it could be objected to him: if the years were monthly, then those who are said to have begotten [children] in the 100th year begot [them] in the 8th year according to us: hence to escape this, [the scribe] put 200 in place of 100.
Fourth, Adam died in the 57th year of Lamech, father of Noah, 726 years before the Flood, and he saw the propagation and corruption of his entire human race. Irenaeus adds, in Book 5, Chapter 32, that Adam died on the sixth day, Friday; because on the same day Adam was created and sinned. For God had said to him: On whatever day you eat from it, you will surely die: therefore, he died on Friday on which he also sinned. But that threat of God has another meaning, as I said above. Eve, if we believe Marianus Scotus, lived ten years after her husband, and died in the year of her life and of the world 940.
Fifth, the tradition is that Adam was buried in Hebron. Jacobus Edessenus, who was the teacher of Saint Ephrem, reports in Barcepha, Book 1, Chapter 14, that Noah religiously took up Adam’s bones into the Ark, and after the Flood distributed them among his sons, and gave Calvary of Adam to Sem, whom he preferred to the others, and with it Judea. So great was the care and honor of burial to the fathers, on account of the immortality of souls, which they proposed to themselves with certain faith and hope. Hence the common opinion of the Fathers is that Adam’s skull was buried on Mount Calvary, so that it might be watered, washed, and vivified there by the Blood of the crucified Christ. Hear among others Tertullian in Book 2, Carmen against Marcion, Chapter 4:
Golgotha is a place, Calvary once;
There lay the bones; there is a venerable skull.
There the ancient keeper of the laws reposed,
There the first man lies buried after his fall.
There the earth is wet with pious blood,
So that the dust of Adam after the old with new blood
Might be sprinkled, dripping with the power of the Redeemer.
Finally, Adam and Eve’s sin was forgiven them, as Wisdom 10, verse 2 suggests. Understand insofar as this sin was personal to them, but not because the sin was of nature, or of our entire race; for thus this sin is original to us, and by birth is poured into all Adam’s descendants; and for this reason it is irremissible. Add that the tradition is that Adam and Eve were saved; which is so certain that Epiphanius, Philastrius, Augustine and others condemn the Encratites who deny this as erroneous. See Alphonsus de Castro under the word “Adam.” Therefore, among others, indeed before other Saints, Adam rose with Christ, Matthew 27:53, teach Saint Athanasius in his Oration on the Passion, Augustine here in Question 161, Origen in Tract 35 on Matthew, and others.
You ask, why were men then so long-lived? Pererius gives various causes: First, was the goodness of the pristine constitution and temperament of the body in the first men. Second, sobriety, which was so great that they used neither meat nor wine. Third, was the first vigor of the earth, fruits and foods, which at the beginning of their creation were far more life-giving and succulent and efficacious than now when they are worn out. Fourth, was Adam’s knowledge, which he communicated to others, by which he knew the power of herbs, fruits, metals, etc. better than our doctors.
Is it not remarkable that at the very time when the so-called Enlightenment philosophers re-imagined the history of the world as one of progress from the primitive to the more advanced, by fidelity to the inerrant sacred history of Genesis Lapide anticipated the discoveries of cutting-edge 21st century genetics which confirm that the first human beings and the first created plants and animals must have been superior in longevity and fitness to those of recent centuries which have accumulated a great number of harmful mutations since the Fall of mankind.
Through the prayers of the Holy Theotokos and all the Holy Angels and Saints, may the Holy Ghost guide us into all the Truth, this Easter and always!
In Domino,
Hugh Owen
P.S. We are pleased to announce that Levi Pingleton’s new book Keep Me as the Apple of Thine Eye: A Theological Reflection on the Absolute Primacy of Christ will be available in a printed as well as a digital format by the second week after Easter.
P.P.S. Today is a First Saturday, but anyone who went to confession during Holy Week or in the week to come will fulfill the confession requirement. Our Lady’s other First Saturday requests can be found at this link.
