There's a couple of interesting things that have been coming out of Rome the last few weeks dealing with earliest Church History: New Testament-era stuff, in fact. So I thought I would jot them down here for me and whoever of you might deign to read this. I tossed in a CNS article, but the main thing is from Sandro Magister's column:

New Discoveries. Why St. Paul Was Given a Philosopher's Face

The oldest depiction of the apostle has been found just a short distance from his tomb, which is also the object of new investigations. The Church wanted to represent him as the Christian Plato. A daring decision. And still extremely relevant, even today

by Sandro Magister

ROME, June 30, 2009 - The year dedicated to St. Paul, two millennia after his birth, has concluded with two important discoveries announced on the same day, the vigil of the saint's feast.

The first discovery was revealed by Benedict XVI in person, in his homily for vespers on June 28, in the Roman basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls:

"We are gathered at the tomb of the apostle, whose sarcophagus, kept under the papal altar, was recently made the object of a careful scientific analysis. A tiny perforation was made in the sarcophagus, which had not been opened for many centuries, for a special probe that picked up traces of a valuable linen cloth dyed purple, laminated with pure gold and a blue-colored cloth with linen thread. It also detected grains of red incense and of substances containing protein and calcium. Moreover, very tiny fragments of bone, subjected to Carbon-14 dating by experts who were unaware of their origin, were determined to belong to a person who lived between the first and second centuries. This seems to confirm the unanimous and unopposed tradition that these are the mortal remains of the apostle Paul."

So for Paul, too - as also for the apostle Peter, whose tomb has already been identified with certainty beneath the main altar of the basilica of St. Peter at the Vatican - there is important confirmation that he is buried precisely where he has always been venerated: under the main altar of the Roman basilica dedicated to him.

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The second discovery was announced by "L'Osservatore Romano" in its June 28 edition.

It is the discovery of the oldest known depiction of the apostle Paul, dating back to the fourth century: the depiction reproduced at the top of this page.

This image of Paul emerged last June 19, from the excavations that are underway in a catacomb named after St. Thecla, along the Via Ostiense leading from Rome to the sea, a short distance from the basilica of the apostle.

Using laser beams to clean the vault of a niche, the archaeologists saw a rich fresco decoration reemerge. At the center of the vault appeared the image of the Good Shepherd, surrounded, in four arches, by the figures of Paul - the best preserved of the four - of Peter, and probably of two other apostles.

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The big theological news of the day – or the last several days – is really the new social justice encyclical that Pope Benedict has published. While my areas of academic interest and competence are more in the historical and artistic kind of things I mentioned in my last entry, I have to sit up and take notice of something this significant. Already I had some involved conversation about it with Dan at the library tonight, and so I thought I would start to keep more formal track of what's being said, as well as trying to get around to digesting the thing itself. It's very economics-oriented, which I find even less professionally and personally appealing as a subject that ethics, I'm afraid.

Included here I have the following items from The New York Times, the Associated Press, Catholic News Service, and the Vatican website:

Pope Urges New World Economic Order
Pope proposes new financial order guided by ethics
Pope says moral values must be part of economic recovery, development
In new encyclical, pope calls for sharing earth's resources equitably
Economist: UN could create economic body with teeth, as pope suggested
Encyclical breaks new ground on social issues, commentators say
Caritas in veritate (On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth: the new encyclical in English translation)

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