Louis Bouyer, The Meaning of Sacred Scripture

Osee [Hosea] and the God of Mercy

1. According to Fr. Bouyer, how does Hosea's teaching complement in an important way that of Amos?

2. Fr. Bouyer points out that Hosea "was providentially led into a completely personal experience in which the secret of the conduct of God towards men, toward His people, would illuminate a soul, a heart intimately prepared to understand it."  What is Hosea's story?  And what does Hosea discover through the experience of his own heart?

3. According to Fr. Bouyer, how does Amos's idea of "medicinal punishment" reappear in the thought of Hosea?

4. According to Fr. Bouyer, in order to describe the new divine intervention which shall repair and complete the history of God's people, Hosea introduces an extremely important image.  What is it?

5. Fr. Bouyer notes that, in using nuptial (or marriage) imagery, it is not merely the act of physical copulation which arrests the attention, but the union of persons.  Explain what he means, and explain how this imagery eventually effected the human idea of love.

6. "Starting from the basis for the whole relationship of man with God set forth by Amos," says Fr. Bouyer: "the initial recognition of the state of sin, of injustice in which man finds himself – in this light proper to Hosea, which now renews our understanding of this state, we see more clearly also the attitude of God."  What is that attitude?

7. According to Fr. Bouyer, if God does not wait for us to be just in order to love us, it is because what must be true of His love?  (Note: The answer is NOT merely that it is given freely.  I am looking for something else here.)

8. What, according to Fr. Bouyer, is the "supreme creation of God" that truly expresses God's unique, truly creative power?  How is this idea taken up and echoed in later prophets such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel?

9. What is the relationship Fr. Bouyer sees between God's gift of Himself in love and the readiness to accept suffering?