Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 09-17-2011, 03:22 PM

On the use of the term 'symbol' in the early attempts at compromise at Nicaea:

Quote:

the debates began and as the discussion between the Arians and the Orthodox gradually became more and more intense, there soon arose a middle party, to which Athanasius gives the name of Eusebians which strove to save Arianism by smoothing over its formulas, and especially by refraining from dogmatic declarations that would have been too positive and explicit. The leader of this party was /Eusebius of Nicomedia, one of the most intelligent and skilful, but also one of the ambitious and unscrupulous prelates of this time. Eusebius of Caesarea belonged to the same party; but his attitude was more cautious. A first symbol was proposed by the Bishop of Nicomedia. (Theodoret, Hist, eccl., I, 7, combined with St. Ambrose, De fide, III, 7. The order of the following events is more or less hypothetical : it is impossible to reconstruct the exact sequence of the discussion). It was rejected as being too favorable to the Arians. Another, which was perhaps the baptismal creed of the Church of Caesarea, was proposed by its Bishop, Eusebius.38 The Word was declared to be " God of God, light of light, life of life, the only Son, the first born of every creature, begotten of the Father before all ages, by whom all things were made." This formula would not have settled the controversy. However, we learn from Eusebius that Constantine would have been satisfied with it, had the word ὁμοούσιον been added to it. But the Orthodox were more exacting. While accepting the symbol of Eusebius, they insisted on defining its term with accuracy." [Joseph Tixeront, History of Dogma Vol 2 p. 33, 34]

stephan huller · 09-17-2011, 03:36 PM

Quote:

"But perhaps you may say: 'I do not see the appearance of blood.' But it [the wine] is the likeness of the blood. Just as you have received the likeness of the death, so you drink the so you drink the likeness of the precious blood, so that there may be no disgust provoked by flowing blood and yet the price of redemption may have its effect. You know (didicisti), therefore, that what you receive is the body of Christ. " [Ambrose De Sacramentis 4.20]

The "likeness" is not the visible element of the sacrament; the word for the external or visible element is species, to which, in fact, "likeness" is opposed. The "likeness" is rather the invisible element of the sacrament and can be known only through instruction (didicisti)

The phrase ratio sacramentorum, which is the object of mystagogy, has an interesting parallel in Origen, in whom, as in Ambrose, we find an identity between exegetical method and mystagogical method. As for Ambrose, who must "explain the ratio sacramentorum," so for Origen

"liturgical ceremonies contain a ratio which can be revealed (patere), explained (explicare), and reached by the understanding (adsequi). It is probable that in his Latin version Rufinus translated logos as ratio. Among its many meanings, the word logos, when applied to the mystery, signifies the intelligibility of the latter. . . . We may infer by analogy that the ratio of liturgical ceremonies expresses the intelligibility of the mystery which they contain. . . . Origen's sacramental and liturgical mystagogy is, therefore, not so much an initiation into the mystery of the liturgy as it is an introduction to the one mystery with the liturgy as point of departure."

St. Maximus the Confessor inherits the same conception and makes it the basis of his mystagogy. '0 Pseudo-Dionysius, too, inherits the same perspective from Origen; in the Areopagite, this perspective can in fact be formulated in a way very like that which we find in Ambrose. Theoria, which is a means of union with God, has two points of departure:

The two points of departure are scripture and the sacramental rites. We contemplate the mysteries in the scriptures through sensible symbols, and we reach the divine archetypes of the sacraments through sensible symbols, and we reach the divine archetypes of the sacraments through their visible manifestations. ... In Pseudo- Dionysius, as in Origen, sacramental theoria and scriptural theoria are closely related with one another. [Enrico Mazza, Mystagogy p. 23]

What I have difficulty accepting is that the liturgy and scriptures developed completely independent of one another with respect to the reference to Jesus saying 'the symbol of my body and blood.' Are we really supposed to believe that all the gospels originally recorded Jesus saying that 'this is my body' but that later interpreters EVERYWHERE in the Christian world just imposed the Platonic distinction between symbolic reality and physical reality. Or as I suggest that in the early third century the existing gospels were 'vulgarized' to purge them of Alexandrianisms.

Iskander · 09-18-2011, 04:33 AM

Jesus must have spoken Aramaic, the Galilean variety. Only a few of his words were reported in the language he spoke. At the moment of death he said: Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani (Ηλει Ηλει λεμα σαβαχθανει).

Oral stories about the life of this obscure nobody preaching in the wild fringe of the Empire must have circulated among his people as one more of the many instances of this type of man; the story was embellished and loved by those who followed him .

Men educated in an alien culture wrote down fragments of this story in a foreign language and they told about the dream of the Man of the land of Canaan as they understood his dream to be. Now 2000 years later men and women born in Mars (almost) and speaking in tongues (almost) argue the minutiae of texts written by the Yahoos that the Palestinian Gulliver discovered in his travels (almost): disagreements?, yes, of course

The Lord’s Supper is central to the concept of the Real Presence-- Shekinah. - But what men and women wish to understand by that is their privilege.

stephan huller · 09-18-2011, 12:24 PM

I am not so convinced of von Harnack's claim that “symbol” in antiquity was indistinguishable from reality. I was just reading Philo and noticed that he calls the mercy seat the “symbol” of God. I know that to contemporary religious Jews the mystical relationship or representation was accepted but there was still must have been an unspoken acknowledgment that a chair is just a chair

stephan huller · 09-18-2011, 12:38 PM

I am going through all the references to “symbol” in the writings of Philo (via the Brill Philo Index). Von Harnack is full of hooey. The Alexandrian use of “symbol” means just about the same thing as it does today

Iskander · 09-18-2011, 12:58 PM

Harnack is no longer in the good book??

Harnack says: post #36

“The symbol is the mystery and the mystery was not conceivable without a symbol. What we now-a-days understand by "symbol" is a thing which is not that which it represents; at that time "symbol" denoted a thing which, in some kind of way, really is what it signifies; but, on the other hand, according to the ideas of that period, the really heavenly element lay either in or behind the visible form without being identical with it”

This Delphian paragraph I take it to mean that the symbol was to be treated with the same respect as the thing it represented while being different from it. The chair was a chair but if that was the symbol of god then it was compulsory to treat the chair with the same respect. God saw to it.

Harnack may have had this event in mind:
2 Samuel 6:2-7

When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The Lord's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God

Philo is not antiquity; he belongs to a culture where the godhead Zeus turned himself into a swan to mate with a woman.

stephan huller · 09-18-2011, 01:57 PM

I never claimed that von Harnack was divinely inspired. He is very knowledgeable and very authoritative but even the best drivers have their blind spots. Philo is absolutely essential to understand Clement's use of the term σύμβολον. I don't want to cite all the 205 examples of Philo's use of σύμβολον to demonstrate that he used the term in the same way we do - i.e. 'symbol.' I'd rather cite an example which is closest to what must have been in Clement's gospel - i.e. the 'symbol of my blood.' Look at how he references the mercy seat in the temple. Philo thought of the mercy seat as σύμβολον τῆς ἵλεω τοῦ θεοῦ δυνάμεως, ‘a symbol of the gracious power of God’ (Mos. 2.96; cf. Fug. 100). Philo couldn't have meant that the chair was the gracious power of God - i.e. the hypostasis described throughout his writings. He means that it is a representation of the power of mercy, something that participates in its presence but which is ultimately distinct from that divinity. Perhaps that is what von Harnack meant but a number of theologians cite his work to blur the subtle original distinction. Perhaps I am reacting against that.

Iskander · 09-18-2011, 02:27 PM

Theology is about ‘blurring’ the subtle ‘original’ meaning of whatever.

Barnes is not blurring anything and his interpretation is also my adopted interpretation of the Lord’s Supper.

Barnes’ comments:

“In remembrance of me. This expresses the whole design of the ordinance. It is a simple memorial, or remembrancer, designed to recall, in a striking and impressive manner, the memory of the Redeemer. It does this by a tender appeal to the senses—by the exhibition of the broken bread, and by the wine.”

mountainman · 09-18-2011, 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

Yes, Christianity is 2000 years old and an object of interest in the mind of billions of men and women spread over the span of five continents.

The Council of Nicaea, the centralized monotheistic state religion of Imperial Christianity, with its distinctive Christian Laws and distinctive Christian architecture is only 1686 years old. And the earliest New testament Canon is 42 (the Douglas Adams number) years younger than this. So let's not get too hasty.

As to the OP question Was Jesus Recorded as Saying 'This is my body' or 'This is the Type of my body'? it might be answered if we knew whether Jesus had read Plato theories of forms.

stephan huller · 09-18-2011, 07:24 PM

And I was just saying to myself 'the thing this thread sorely lacks is input from a fourth century conspiracy theorist. If only we can trace everything back somehow to Eusebius of Caesarea and Constantine, we just might be able to solve this mystery ..'

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09-18-2011, 04:33 AM	#43
Iskander Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 3,619	Jesus must have spoken Aramaic, the Galilean variety. Only a few of his words were reported in the language he spoke. At the moment of death he said: Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani (Ηλει Ηλει λεμα σαβαχθανει). Oral stories about the life of this obscure nobody preaching in the wild fringe of the Empire must have circulated among his people as one more of the many instances of this type of man; the story was embellished and loved by those who followed him . Men educated in an alien culture wrote down fragments of this story in a foreign language and they told about the dream of the Man of the land of Canaan as they understood his dream to be. Now 2000 years later men and women born in Mars (almost) and speaking in tongues (almost) argue the minutiae of texts written by the Yahoos that the Palestinian Gulliver discovered in his travels (almost): disagreements?, yes, of course The Lord’s Supper is central to the concept of the Real Presence-- Shekinah. - But what men and women wish to understand by that is their privilege.

09-18-2011, 12:24 PM	#44
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	I am not so convinced of von Harnack's claim that “symbol” in antiquity was indistinguishable from reality. I was just reading Philo and noticed that he calls the mercy seat the “symbol” of God. I know that to contemporary religious Jews the mystical relationship or representation was accepted but there was still must have been an unspoken acknowledgment that a chair is just a chair

09-18-2011, 12:38 PM	#45
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	I am going through all the references to “symbol” in the writings of Philo (via the Brill Philo Index). Von Harnack is full of hooey. The Alexandrian use of “symbol” means just about the same thing as it does today

09-18-2011, 12:58 PM	#46
Iskander Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 3,619	Harnack is no longer in the good book?? Harnack says: post #36 “The symbol is the mystery and the mystery was not conceivable without a symbol. What we now-a-days understand by "symbol" is a thing which is not that which it represents; at that time "symbol" denoted a thing which, in some kind of way, really is what it signifies; but, on the other hand, according to the ideas of that period, the really heavenly element lay either in or behind the visible form without being identical with it” This Delphian paragraph I take it to mean that the symbol was to be treated with the same respect as the thing it represented while being different from it. The chair was a chair but if that was the symbol of god then it was compulsory to treat the chair with the same respect. God saw to it. Harnack may have had this event in mind: 2 Samuel 6:2-7 When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The Lord's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God Philo is not antiquity; he belongs to a culture where the godhead Zeus turned himself into a swan to mate with a woman.

09-18-2011, 01:57 PM	#47
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	I never claimed that von Harnack was divinely inspired. He is very knowledgeable and very authoritative but even the best drivers have their blind spots. Philo is absolutely essential to understand Clement's use of the term σύμβολον. I don't want to cite all the 205 examples of Philo's use of σύμβολον to demonstrate that he used the term in the same way we do - i.e. 'symbol.' I'd rather cite an example which is closest to what must have been in Clement's gospel - i.e. the 'symbol of my blood.' Look at how he references the mercy seat in the temple. Philo thought of the mercy seat as σύμβολον τῆς ἵλεω τοῦ θεοῦ δυνάμεως, ‘a symbol of the gracious power of God’ (Mos. 2.96; cf. Fug. 100). Philo couldn't have meant that the chair was the gracious power of God - i.e. the hypostasis described throughout his writings. He means that it is a representation of the power of mercy, something that participates in its presence but which is ultimately distinct from that divinity. Perhaps that is what von Harnack meant but a number of theologians cite his work to blur the subtle original distinction. Perhaps I am reacting against that.

09-18-2011, 02:27 PM	#48
Iskander Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 3,619	Theology is about ‘blurring’ the subtle ‘original’ meaning of whatever. Barnes is not blurring anything and his interpretation is also my adopted interpretation of the Lord’s Supper. Barnes’ comments: “In remembrance of me. This expresses the whole design of the ordinance. It is a simple memorial, or remembrancer, designed to recall, in a striking and impressive manner, the memory of the Redeemer. It does this by a tender appeal to the senses—by the exhibition of the broken bread, and by the wine.”

09-18-2011, 07:24 PM	#50
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	And I was just saying to myself 'the thing this thread sorely lacks is input from a fourth century conspiracy theorist. If only we can trace everything back somehow to Eusebius of Caesarea and Constantine, we just might be able to solve this mystery ..'

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