et Vetera Nova Summer 2018 • Volume 16, Number 3 The English Edition of the International Theological Journal Co-Editors Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary Thomas Joseph White, O.P., Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Associate Editors Holly Taylor Coolman, Providence College Gilles Emery, O.P., University of Fribourg Paul Gondreau, Providence College Scott W. Hahn, Franciscan University of Steubenville Thomas S. Hibbs, Baylor University Reinhard Hütter, Catholic University of America Christopher Malloy, University of Dallas Bruce D. Marshall, Southern Methodist University Charles Morerod, O.P., Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg John O’Callaghan, University of Notre Dame Chad C. Pecknold, Catholic University of America Michael S. Sherwin, O.P., University of Fribourg Board of Advisors Anthony Akinwale, O.P., Dominican Institute, Ibadan, Nigeria Khaled Anatolios, University of Notre Dame Robert Barron, Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles, CA John Betz, University of Notre Dame Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P., Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Christopher O. Blum, Augustine Institute Stephen Brock, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross Peter Casarella, University of Notre Dame Boyd Taylor Coolman, Boston College Michael Dauphinais, Ave Maria University Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P., Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Douglas Farrow, McGill University Anthony Fisher, O.P., Archbishop of Sydney, Australia Simon Francis Gaine, O.P., Blackfriars, University of Oxford Timothy Gray, Augustine Institute Nicholas J. Healy, Jr., Pontifical John Paul II Institute (Washington, DC) Russell Hittinger, University of Tulsa Paige Hochschild, Mount St. Mary’s University Andrew Hofer, O.P., Dominican House of Studies Dominic Legge, O.P., Dominican House of Studies Joseph Lienhard, S.J., Fordham University Steven A. Long, Ave Maria University Guy Mansini, O.S.B., Saint Meinrad School of Theology Francesca Aran Murphy, University of Notre Dame Thomas Osborne, University of St. Thomas (Houston) Michał Paluch, O.P., Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Trent Pomplun, Loyola University Maryland Christopher J. Ruddy, Catholic University of America Richard Schenk, O.P., University of Freiburg Michele Schumacher, University of Fribourg Janet Smith, Sacred Heart Major Seminary Christopher Thompson, St. Paul Seminary Thomas Weinandy, O.F.M. Cap., Capuchin College William Wright, Duquesne University Instructions for Contributors 1. Address all contributions, books for review, and related correspondence to Matthew Levering, mjlevering@yahoo.com. 2. Contributions should be prepared to accord as closely as possible with the typographical conventions of Nova et Vetera. The University of Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition) is our authority on matters of style. 3. Nova et Vetera practices blind review. Submissions are evaluated anonymously by members of the editorial board and other scholars with appropriate expertise. Name, affiliation, and contact information should be included on a separate page apart from the submission. 4. Galley-proofs of articles are sent to contributors to be read and corrected and should be returned to the Editors within ten days of receipt. Corrections should be confined to typographical and factual errors. 5. Submission of a manuscript entails the author’s agreement (in the event his or her contribution is accepted for publication) to assign the copyright to Nova et Vetera. Nova et Vetera The English Edition of the International Theological Journal ISSN 1542-7315 Summer 2018 Vol. 16, No. 3 Commentary A Tribute to Fr. Francis Martin (1930–2017)........ William M. Wright IV How to Bring Theology Back to Its Unity. . . . . . . . . . . . Mauro Gagliardi 687 693 Articles “This is a Profound Mystery”: Union and Distinction between Christ and His Church in Johann Adam Möhler and His Twentieth-Century Successors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alec Arnold Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning . . . . . . . . Paul Clarke, O.P. Augustine’s Attack on Apocalypticism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bernard McGinn New Perspectives on Paul: A Reflection on Luther’s Contribution to the Doctrine of Christian Grace on the Occasion of the Fifth Centenary of the Reformation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paul O’Callaghan Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cyril O’Regan St. Thomas on Adoration: Some Reflections. . . . . Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P. Christ as Deus Absconditus in Thomas Aquinas’s Theology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mateusz Przanowski, O.P. 705 739 775 797 835 861 881 Symposium: Incarnation and Immutability Two Problems concerning Divine Immutability and the Incarnation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Gorman Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability with a Mutable, Incarnate God. . . . . . Timothy Pawl 899 913 Symposium: Messianic Judaism The Mystery of Israel: Jews, Hebrew Catholics, Messianic Judaism, the Catholic Church, and the Mosaic Ceremonial Laws. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gavin D’Costa Jew and Gentile in the Church Today. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Douglas Farrow 939 979 Review Essay The Return of the Theological in the Thought of Jean-Luc Marion: A Reading of Givenness and Revelation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cyril O’Regan 995 Book Reviews A Trinitarian Anthropology: Adrienne von Speyr and Hans Urs von Balthasar in Dialogue with Thomas Aquinas by Michele M. Schumacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew DuBroy 1009 Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul by Simon Gathercole... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ty Kieser 1015 Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition by Benjamin D. Sommer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew Levering 1019 The Hermeneutics of Knowing and Willing in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas by Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joshua H. Lim 1024 Contemplative Provocations and The Contemplative Hunger by Donald Haggerty.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew McLean Cummings 1028 From Passion to Paschal Mystery: A Recent Magisterial Development concerning the Christological Foundation of the Sacraments by Dominic M. Langevin, O.P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Roger W. Nutt 1031 Mary’s Bodily Assumption by Matthew Levering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew D. Swafford 1035 The English edition of Nova et Vetera is published quarterly and provides an international forum for theological and philosophical studies from a Thomistic perspective. Founded in 1926 by future Cardinal Charles Journet in association with Jacques Maritain, Nova et Vetera is published in related, distinct French and English editions. The English edition of Nova et Vetera welcomes articles and book reviews in theology, philosophy, and biblical studies that address central contemporary debates and discussions. We seek to be “at the heart of the Church,” faithful to the Magisterium and the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, and devoted to the work of true dialogue. Nova et Vetera (ISSN 1542-7315; ISBN 978-1-947792-98-2) is published quarterly by St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, 1468 Parkview Circle, Steubenville, OH 43952. Nova et Vetera is distributed to institutional subscribers for the St. Paul Center by the Catholic University of America Press. Institutional subscriptions, notifications of change of address, and inquiries concerning subscriptions, back issues, and missing copies should be sent to: JHUP Journals Division, PO Box 19966, Baltimore, MD 21211-0966. All materials published in Nova et Vetera are copyrighted by St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. © Copyright 2018 by St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. All rights reserved. POSTMASTER: Please send address change to Nova et Vetera, 1468 Parkview Circle, Steubenville, OH 43952. Periodical Postage Paid at Steubenville, OH. This periodical is indexed in the ATLA Catholic Periodical and Literature Index® (CPLI®), a product of the American Theological Library Association, 300 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 2100, Chicago, IL 60606, USA. Email: atla@atla.com, www.atla.com and is indexed and abstracted in the Emerging Sources Citation Index. Nova et Vetera Subscription Rates: • Individuals: one-year $40.00, two-year $75.00 International: one-year $60.00, two-year $115.00 • Students: one-year $30.00, two-year $50.00 International: one-year $40.00, two-year $70.00 • Colleges, Universities, Seminaries, and Institutions: one-year $110.00, one-year print + electronic subscription $150.00 International: one-year $135.00 To subscribe online, please visit http://www.nvjournal.net. For subscription inquiries, email us at novaetvetera@stpaulcenter.com or phone 740-264-9535. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 687–691 687 A Tribute to Fr. Francis Martin (1930–2017) William M. Wright IV Duquesne University Pittsburgh, PA Fr. Francis Martin , a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC, and retired professor of Sacred Scripture, went to meet the Lord face to face on August 11, 2017. I was greatly blessed to have been a friend and colleague of Fr. Francis for almost twenty years. I first met Fr. Francis at the annual meeting of the Catholic Biblical Association in 1999. I was about to start my graduate studies in Scripture, and Fr. Francis was then launching a task force at the CBA devoted to the integration of historical criticism with the doctrine of the spiritual sense. After working with Fr. Francis for several years in this working group, I collaborated with him to produce two coauthored books: The Gospel of John in the series “The Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture” and the forthcoming Encountering the Living God in Scripture: Theological and Philosophical Principles for Interpretation.1 Fr. Francis made innumerable contributions to the life of the Church through his priestly ministry, role in the Catholic charismatic renewal, pastoral and spiritual direction, classroom teaching, and efforts to help clergy become better preachers of God’s Word. By way of a memorial tribute, I would like to reflect on four areas that I believe stand out as particularly important contributions of Fr. Francis Martin to the study of Scripture. Francis Martin and William M. Wright IV, The Gospel of John, The Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015); William M.Wright IV and Francis Martin, Encountering the Living God in Scripture: Theological and Philosophical Principles for Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, forthcoming 2018). 1 688 William M. Wright IV First and foremost, Fr. Francis was intellectually and personally in touch with the capacity of Sacred Scripture to mediate a genuine encounter with God to properly disposed readers. When he was twenty years old, Francis entered a Trappist monastery and spent his next fifteen years living the monastic life. As he himself attests, it was through the monastic life and the place of Scripture within it that he came to realize intellectually and experientially this capacity of Scripture.2 Given this setting of Cistercian monasticism, Bernard of Clairvaux had a particularly important influence on Fr. Francis in this regard. In a number of places, Bernard speaks of God coming to indwell the soul through the prayerful contemplation of Scripture.3 Fr. Francis recognized that what Bernard spoke of in terms of his mystical experience was ingredient to the doctrine of the fourfold sense of Scripture (theologically articulated by Henri de Lubac). After receiving the STL in Thomistic theology from the Angelicum, Fr. Francis went on to receive the SSL and SSD from the Pontifical Biblical Institute. He was well-educated in the methods and scholarship of modern biblical criticism and was very much appreciative of how modern exegesis can increase our understanding of Scripture. At the same time, Fr. Francis remained ever convinced of the essential value of the doctrine of the fourfold sense and sought to integrate ancient and modern interpretation in his own teaching and writing. Second, Fr. Francis had a long-standing appreciation for the literary and narrative dimensions of Scripture. Literary criticism is now a fixed feature on the landscape of biblical studies. But Fr. Francis was introduced to this valuable approach to Scripture before its rise to current prominence. He was a student, collaborator, and translator of Fr. Luis Alonso-Schökel, S.J., a forerunner in Catholic circles of this mode of interpretation.4 Fr. Francis likewise wrote his SSD thesis (“Encounter Story: A Characteristic Gospel Narrative Form”) under the direction of Donatien Mollat, S.J., Marie-Émile Boismard, O.P., and Francis McCool, S.J. Among Fr. Francis’s published works, three pieces stand out as voicing his thought on the importance of narrative Francis Martin, “Introduction: The Story of a Pilgrimage,” in Sacred Scripture: The Disclosure of the Word (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2006), ix–xvi. 3 See, for instance, Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs 74, as well as Advent Sermons 3, 5. 4 See Luis Alonso-Schökel, S.J., The Inspired Word: Scripture in the Light of Language and Literature, trans. Francis Martin, O.S.C.O. (Montreal: Palm Publishers, 1965). 2 A Tribute to Fr. Francis Martin (1930–2017) 689 and literary theory for biblical interpretation. In The International Bible Commentary, he contributed to the essay “Truth Told in the Bible: Biblical Poetics and the Question of Truth,” in which he discusses how and why narrative is particularly apt for mediating divine revelation.5 Next, his essay “Literary Theory, Philosophy of History, and Exegesis” uses Mark 14:32–42 as a case study to reflect on the theological dimensions of narrative disclosure with reference to work of Paul Ricoeur.6 Finally, Fr. Francis writes generally about narrative and the application of narrative theory to ancient Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman texts in the introduction to his Narrative Parallels to the New Testament.7 The third area of significant contribution is that Fr. Francis was deeply interested in the theological and philosophical premises of biblical exegesis. He recognized that all exegesis was informed by philosophical and theological principles of one sort of another. Accordingly, if Scripture was to be read and received as the Word of God, its interpretation needed to be set on sound conceptual footing that facilitates (not obstructs) an encounter with the Word. Fr. Francis was especially critical of two trends in modern thought that have had a deleterious (and often underestimated) effect on biblical exegesis. The first was the tendency to conceive of the world as a closed system that can be satisfactorily understood apart from its relationship to the Creator. This account entails a denial of transcendent causality in the world and contributes to the notion that biblical texts and realities can be understood adequately in terms of immanent, this-worldly causes.8 The second trend was the far-reaching influence of Kantian epistemology and the critique of theoretical, metaphysical knowing.9 Kant’s so-called “Copernican revolution” made the Francis Martin and Sean McEvenue, “Truth Told in the Bible: Biblical Poetics and the Question of Truth,” in The International Bible Commentary, ed. William R. Farmer et al. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998), 116–27. 6 Francis Martin, “Literary Theory, Philosophy of History, and Exegesis,” The Thomist 52 (1988): 575–604; reprinted in his Sacred Scripture: The Disclosure of the Word, 21–41. 7 Narrative Parallels to the New Testament, ed. Francis Martin, SBL Resources for Biblical Study 22 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1988), 1–24. 8 See Francis Martin, “New Testament Teaching on the Imitation of Christ,” in Sacred Scripture: The Disclosure of the Word, 43–71, esp. 55–63. This article first appeared in Anthropotes 6 (1990): 261–87, and in French in Revue Thomiste 93 (1993): 234–62. 9 While he speaks to these issues throughout his writings, a good sense of his thinking can be found in Francis Martin, “Reflections on Professor Bock5 690 William M. Wright IV individual knower to be determinative in the act of knowing. That is, instead of the human knower as being embedded in a community of fellow knowers and receptive to the intelligible voice of being, the human knower (on the Kantian account) is isolated and imposes intelligibility on the world. Both of these trends obstruct thinking about Scripture’s capacity to put people in vital, present contact with the Word of God. For, if the transcendent God is not (or cannot be known to be) actively present to the world, and if the isolated human mind imposes intelligibility on the world (and does not receive it), how can the human being receive the Word of the living God mediated through the words of Scripture? The fourth and final area of Fr. Francis’s impact was that, in his thinking and writing, he displayed a fruitful integration of different modes of theological and philosophical thinking. For instance, one finds in Fr. Francis’s works a strong Thomistic component. But he also makes extensive use of teachings from other patristic, medieval, and modern writers, as well as figures associated with the ressourcement (e.g., de Lubac, von Balthasar, and Ratzinger). Fr. Francis also saw the value in phenomenology, such as the philosophical and theological contributions of his friend Robert Sokolowski and the hermeneutical writings of Paul Ricoeur. Moreover, Fr. Francis also had a great love for Judaism and knew well Jewish traditions of biblical interpretation. He was very alert to what Jewish tradition, with its mystics and saints, can teach Christians about Scripture and living a life according to God’s Word. My sense is that Fr. Francis was able to integrate the wisdom from this eclectic group of resources—ancient and modern, theological and philosophical, Christian and non-Christian—because he viewed them all as ways for human beings to come to a better understanding of the Word of God. They helped foster a deeper, richer understanding of that Word by which God created the world, revealed himself at Sinai and in Jesus, and brought about the salvation of all humanity. In the introduction to his edited volume on Acts of the Apostles in the “Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture,” Fr. Francis wrote the following as to why the Fathers of the Church are called fathers: “Their faith brought them into living and experiential contact muehl’s ‘Bible versus Theology,’” Nova et Vetera (English) 9 (2011): 49–74. Also important is Francis Martin, The Feminist Question: Feminist Theology in the Light of Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 54–62, 168–98. A Tribute to Fr. Francis Martin (1930–2017) 691 with the realities spoken of in the sacred text which they then serve through their often vast learning: thus, they transmit life, they are Fathers.”10 This statement, I believe, also holds true for Fr. Francis Martin himself: a learned and holy priest-scholar who knew the Word of God and through whom the life-giving power of this same Word was transmitted to so many. May he rest in peace. “Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” N&V —Daniel 12:3 (NRSV) “Introduction,” in Acts, ed. Francis Martin, Ancient Christian Commentary on Sacred Scripture: New Testament 5 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), xxii. 10 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 693–703 693 How to Bring Theology Back to Its Unity Mauro Gagliardi Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum Rome, Italy In his unfinished book The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) pointed to fragmentation as one of the symptoms of the crisis experienced by European sciences in the early twentieth century. Fragmentation is manifest in the innumerable fields of specialization into which most disciplines have been divided in the modern era, something that prevents them from being brought back into a unitary vision. When this happens, one consequence is the accumulation of an incredible amount of data that can be managed only in very restricted areas of speculation and by a few specialized scholars or scientists for each area. Sciences thus become a matter of working on small segments of knowledge while losing sight of the shape of reality as a whole. Husserl adds that such an accumulation of parceled information, since it cannot be governed effectively, also becomes prey to pragmatism. According to the German thinker, the crisis of the sciences has its roots in the crisis of philosophy. And we can in fact add that, in the present technocratic world, philosophy is not considered an interesting subject unless it provides a “practical” outcome somehow. Theology has not been preserved from such a Zeitgeist. In the last century, Christian theology, in all its denominations, has experienced a wide process of renewal, but also a process of specialization in different areas, which represents certainly an enrichment in many cases but has also contributed to its fragmentation. The process, anyway, is not completely new. It dates back, at least in a germinal way, to the fifteenth century. Up to the Scholastics, every theologian would have been a comprehensive scholar. He could teach and write 694 Mauro Gagliardi biblical commentaries and about dogmatics, morals, spirituality, and what we now call fundamental theology. The great summae would develop many of these subjects without the anxiety for specialization that theologians acquired later. In the fifteenth century, the tendency to separate fields began: from that moment on, dogmatics would be studied by dogmaticians and moral theology by specialists of that area. Still, up to the last century, a dogmatician could teach and write about every topic of dogmatics, such as the Trinity, Christology, Mary, and so on. This is true of moral theologians as well. In the twentieth century, this has often been considered not possible anymore: one can be an expert on the Trinity, or on Christ, or on Mary, but not on all of the above. Specialization and fragmentation have not stopped here, though. Within every one of these topics, other distinctions have been made. Up to a few decades ago, a scholar could have claimed to know Christology very well. Now, he would probably describe himself as an expert in the Christology of the eleventh century or in the “third quest” about the historical Jesus. Priestly intellectual formation is now provided through many small courses (in Italy, for a bachelor’s degree in theology, one needs to pass roughly sixty exams, about twenty-four of which are in philosophy). Every professor is an expert in a precise sector. In addition, the method in theology has changed greatly. Catholic theology has always had different views and stances about what is freely disputable, but in the past, the Scholastic method would have dominated theological teaching and writing. In the twentieth century, the renewal of Christian theology has seen the introduction of a large variety of methods that turn out to be present not only at the highest level in academic disputes but also in theological teaching at the lowest degree. To state this more clearly, every professor uses the method that he prefers and teaches (almost) what he likes. The positive consequence is that the most talented students can compare different lines of thought and receive more information. The negative outcome is that the average student, after years of theological classes, usually does not possess a comprehensive, synthetic view of the science of the faith into which he has been introduced. Theological institutions are aware of the problem and try to contain it by offering seminars of synthesis at the end of each stage of studies. Also, for the bachelor’s degree and for the licentiate, comprehensive exams must be taken by the candidates. In my opinion, what these seminars and exams do in most cases is simply have the student repeat what he has learned in the How to Bring Theology Back to its Unity 695 previous years without really providing a unitary view of theology. Though repetita juvant (repeating does good), nothing new is added to the students’ mind through this kind of repetition: they will merely be asked to explain themes or theses, recalling what each different professor has taught them about those topics in the previous years. Another aspect of the problem is that, since the mid-twentieth century, many theologians have refused to write handbooks. The monograph has become the preferred literary genre, probably among most scholars. These theologians have considered it not only their duty but also the only reasonable thing to do to write about a short segment of a topic, but never about the matter as a whole. In recent times, though, the trend is slowly changing, and we can see, at least in Italy, but also in some other places, more than one publisher sponsoring a series of handbooks in theology. This change in the trend should be welcomed as a positive sign. What I notice, nonetheless, is that, though there are some remarkable works among the most recent textbooks, the series in which they are issued often lack a unitary view. These series try to cover all the topics that are currently taught in theological institutions, but one could hardly find a fil rouge (common thread) to unite the different books that make up the series. So, far from being solved, the problem of fragmentation finds only yet another way to manifest itself, and maybe even to reinforce itself. For this and for other reasons, I decided to write a one-volume comprehensive dogmatic theology in which the principle of unity could be easily visible for most people. The decision to write such a book took me a while. As I mentioned, in our time, it is commonly believed that no one can achieve a sufficient level of specialization in all fields of theology so as to be in a position to write a comprehensive theology. Besides, I am only forty-three years old! On June 9, 2017, Vittorio Messori presented my book to the public in the beautiful town of Verona. In his enthusiastic presentation of my work, he said that he was surprised also by the fact that an author of such a young age could demonstrate an erudition that is usually achieved only at sixty, or beyond. Despite this impressive compliment, I do not think that personal knowledge (whether I really possess it or it is just Messori being kind) is the key point of a comprehensive treatise. In the end, as erudite as one can be, that is never enough! The unity of theology cannot be based on what a scholar knows, though he should be well-informed. The unity of the science of faith should rest on a much more solid and objective ground. I am convinced that such a ground exists and that it is both 696 Mauro Gagliardi philosophical and theological. My proposal consists basically in developing the inner bipolar or “synthetic” character of Christianity in all its forms and elements. First, we need a philosophy that professes objective knowledge. It is possible to choose among different systems, because Thomism, though the preferred and probably the best one, is not a mandatory philosophy for Catholics. But the philosophy that one chooses as his or her intellectual mindset for doing theology should always be a system of thought that acknowledges objectivity, as Jacques Maritain recalled on more than one occasion. This implies that, in theology, we need a philosophy that respects logic and is open to truth and reality. Skepticism is not allowed in Christian theology, nor indeed in any form of Christian thought. We need to have recourse to a philosophy that considers the apprehension of truth as something that stays within the possibilities of the human mind. Truth is reality insofar as it has entered into a human mind, as the epistemologies of correspondence show. So, truth and reality are always connected, and yet they are not exactly the same thing. This prevents us from falling into ideology (the claim to be able to incorporate everything into an intellectual system, up to the point of denying the existence of whatever does not fit into the scheme) while keeping our mind open to what exists in reality. A sound philosophical approach is “synthetic” because it puts together objectivity and subjectivity: the reality existing out there and my personal “I” that grasps it through the processes and categories of human understanding. The two elements stay together in the same act of comprehension without annulling each other: distinct and yet united at the same time, forming a harmonic synthesis. Let us just recall here that, according to St. Thomas, the faculty of judgment, the highest point in the human process of knowing, is a synthetic faculty: the ability to conjoin (in a positive judgment) or disjoin (in a negative one) a being and an attribute in an affirmation such as “this is/is not red.” The synthetic character of a sound philosophical approach will impress its mark on theological reflection too, but in ways that cannot be explained here. Second, a “synthetic” approach to theology should find also and foremost a theological foundation. Such a foundation is actually very strong and clear when we look at the very center of the faith that we call “Christian,” Jesus Christ being both its foundation stone and, permanently, its very center. Jesus Christ is in fact the real Synthetic Principle of the faith. It is well known that, for all the more How to Bring Theology Back to its Unity 697 important Christian denominations, Jesus is both God and man. The ecumenical councils of the first millennium, facing many Trinitarian and Christological heresies, shaped accurately the way in which we express categorically the mystery of Jesus Christ, true God and true man. The councils availed themselves of the reflections of the Fathers of the Church. The terminology of synthesis has been developed by some important authors in the sixth and seventh centuries. The context is the wide discussion about the reception of the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), which condemned the Monophysites, who believed that Christ had one nature, the divine. Chalcedon, while of course affirming the full divine nature of Christ, stressed the importance of his whole humanity, specifying also the way in which the two natures of Christ are related: united and distinct at the same time. Problems in accepting the teaching of Chalcedon put the Church under stress for about 100 years thereafter. Influential theologians of the time, known now as “neo-Chalcedonians,” strove to develop an interpretation of Chalcedon that could be acceptable for different theological parties. Among other aspects, the neo-Chalcedonians interpreted the hypostatic union in Christ (“hypostasis” meaning “person” at Chalcedon) as the “synthetic union” of the two natures, divine and human, in the one Person of Jesus. This synthetic Christology was received by the following Council, the fifth ecumenical Council and the second one held at Constantinople, in the year 553. So, the Church has approved that, in Christ, the personal union of the two natures is a synthesis: the synthetic union of God and man, simultaneously both united and distinct in the one Person of the Son of God (Second Person of the Trinity, the Logos). For reasons that we will consider later, it is important to notice that the Second Constantinopolitan Council also stressed that, though the two natures persist intact in the one Christ, they should not be understood as having the same value. God is greater than man, and so, in Jesus Christ too, the divine nature is ontologically superior to the human essence. But this does not imply that the human nature of Christ is optional. Christ is the Foundation and the Center, or the Principle, of the Christian faith, and therefore the latter must retain the imprint of its Principle. The Christian faith is synthetic. Christ is also the Truth (see John 14:6), and therefore the Truth is synthetic. How are we to express theologically what has been stated above? Actually, this part of the work in writing my latest book was easier than I had imagined, since there is already in the Catholic Tradition a theological principle that has been identified through the centu- 698 Mauro Gagliardi ries. This classic principle is expressed in Latin with the words et–et (“both–and”). The et–et principle marks the very nature of Catholic doctrine (both dogmatic and moral, but also Catholic canonical discipline), as opposed to the classic Protestant principle of the aut–aut (“either–or”). It is well known that Martin Luther had a passion for the Latin word solus (“only”; “alone”). For him, justification is sola fide, “by faith alone,” while for Catholics, it is et–et: by both faith and works. For Luther, the Word of God comes to us through the Bible only (sola Scriptura), while for Catholics, both the Scriptures and Apostolic Tradition are the channels through which we receive God’s Revelation. For the German Reformer, the liturgical celebration of the Lord’s Passover can have only one meaning, according to the aut– aut principle: it will be either the Sacrifice of Christ or the congregation of the faithful (convivium; “meal”). For Catholics, though, both aspects are true. And so on. The ontological constitution of Jesus Christ teaches us that the Truth is synthetic, that there is what we can call a fundamental “bipolarity,” due to which most Christian doctrines are made up of two elements that can sometimes even appear as opposing each other but that stay harmoniously together in synthesis. For example, that Mary is both mother and virgin could appear at first sight impossible. And in fact, on a purely natural level, it is. We should not forget, nonetheless, that here we are dealing with revealed mysteries in which things that are naturally impossible become possible because of God’s grace: “Nothing will be impossible for God” (Luke 1:37). This does not entail that we can have a synthesis of contradictory elements. What is opposed can be put into synthesis, which is not true for elements that are in logical contradiction. Theology is a science, a human science that treats a supernatural object (Revelation). The fact that the content of this science goes beyond human reasoning implies that theology cannot provide her object by herself. She receives it from above, from God. But theology remains a science: human reasoning that uses and respects logic. Therefore, though theology is a science sui generis (of its own kind), the principle of non-contradiction should always be respected, or theology will end up making no sense or will end up in relativism and—applying to the Church’s life what Husserl said of sciences in general—theology will become prey to pastoral pragmatism. Truly, we cannot say that, in theology, twenty plus twenty makes fifty instead of forty. Jesus used human logic while debating with his opponents, and he defeated their arguments through sound human How to Bring Theology Back to its Unity 699 reasoning. That is why they could not find any way to answer him, and people were amazed at His teaching. Though the Lord never taught rationalism, he did not allow fideism either! A synthetic theology is a theology that respects all this. It respects first of all the Synthetic Principle of the faith: Christ. Note that such a principle is not created by the theologian; the theologian finds it both in reality and in the Word of God. Far from crafting it as one of the many existing ideological structures, the theologian learns the et–et principle from what is out there, both in nature and in the history of salvation. As a consequence, a Catholic theologian can and should notice the et–et wherever he finds it (and it shows up at almost every corner!), but he has no right to impose this principle when it is not present. Synthetic theology is not ideology. It is a way to foster the intellectus fidei, a rational and defensible understanding of what Catholics believe. Since it is a traditional principle, we do not need to create the et–et: we receive it and try to hand on what we have received. And we can say that we want to retrieve it from a period of oblivion. But is there anything original in my own treatment of this principle? Though in none of my books and articles have I looked for originality as my first aim, perhaps here and there something new can be found. In the case of the et–et principle, I can say that I have not found anywhere else such a systematic treatment of the principle as that which I propose in the first chapter of my book, which is also the longest chapter, at about 100 pages. At least, I have not found it in recent literature. Two other points are more important. (1) The et–et principle is present in almost every dogmatic doctrine of the Catholic Church, and though I do not treat the matter in my book, I am confident in saying that the same is true for morals and discipline too. Therefore, almost every Catholic doctrine harmoniously unites two elements that stay together in an inseparable way without losing the distinction between them, as is the case with the two natures in Christ. The individual chapters of my book document the et–et in the individual dogmatic areas such as creation, redemption, Grace, the Trinity, Mary, the Church, the sacraments, and so on. (2) I recall what Constantinople II said about the different value of the two natures in Christ by noticing that, in the harmonic synthesis of every et–et, there is always one element that is primary and another that is secondary. Just as, in Jesus, human nature is secondary but is in no way whatsoever optional, so it is wherever the et–et appears in doctrine. Of the two elements that synthetically make up a doctrine, one is principal 700 Mauro Gagliardi and the other comes second, though the latter could never be canceled or ignored. Maybe this second point is the most original observation and application that I offer about the et–et, something that I have not found even in those authors who have written about the et–et. This latter point leads us to notice something that is both true and, at the same time, very relevant. Heresy is first of all the negation of the synthesis. As is well known, heresy comes from Greek hairesis, which means “choice.” A heretic is somebody who chooses between the two elements of a doctrine, someone who breaks the harmonic synthesis of the et–et. In the ecumenical context, it is important to notice that “heretic” designates a doctrinal status and is not to be understood as a personal offense. If I observe that my sister is ill, this does not imply that I hate my sister or that I want to humiliate her. Though she is in bad health, I love her very much (maybe even more). A heretic is anyone who says, “this, but not the other.” For Catholics, such way of choosing is heretical. We cannot say, for instance, that Mary is either Mother or Virgin. This is clear in our Tradition. But, using my observation about the internal order of the elements that make up the et–et, we can understand something more: heresy can occur also when the synthetic principle is not denied, but simply inverted in its inner hierarchy. Yes, there is a hierarchy between the two elements that combine in every doctrinal and moral bipolarity. And an error in the faith can also arise by merely inverting the order of precedence, by considering as primary what is secondary, or vice versa. This form of doctrinal error is very common in our time, in which only a few churchmen would deny directly and formally doctrinal elements as such, but when many of them often invert the internal hierarchy of Catholic doctrine. For example, probably no Catholic would say today that Jesus is not really present under the appearances of the consecrated Host and Wine, but many would simply skip the subject by not wasting many words on it, focusing their homilies and catecheses rather on the symbolic aspect of Christ Who accompanies his Church in this life, or on the proximity of Jesus to those who suffer, even stressing his presence in the suffering flesh of the poor. Not that all this is false; rather, it is true. The problem is that all this is secondary when compared to the dogma of the true, real and substantial presence of the Body and Blood of Christ under the Eucharistic species. Simply to invert the hierarchy, even without denying bipolarity, is enough to commit error—and to teach error—in the faith. How to Bring Theology Back to its Unity 701 It is very common to make such a mistake about morals. In the evaluation of moral cases, objective and subjective elements come into discussion: objective elements such as the law of God, intrinsece malum (intrinsic evil), and actions performed or omitted and subjective elements such as the circumstances (which, by the way, can be not only mitigating but also aggravating), the weight of cultural background, and the real consent given to an action. If this is true, it is also true that there is a hierarchy in which the objective elements play a more important role than do the subjective ones when it comes to judging a moral act. In order to fall into error or to teach an error in morality, it is not necessary to break completely the et–et; it is enough to say that personal conscience, special circumstances, or the present culture have a greater weight than the objective law of God on the scale of moral theology and in the practice of hearing confessions and of accompanying the faithful in their moral and spiritual discernment. Therefore, in my book, I have tried to give attention to the internal hierarchy of the synthetic principle: along with identifying many doctrinal bipolarities, I have also signaled the order of importance of the two elements of every doctrine. For all these and other reasons, we need to train future priests especially and the Catholic faithful in general according to a unitary vision of doctrine, and this can be done with the help of a synthetic theology, though I do not pretend that synthetic theology is the solution to all problems. The fragmentation at present in the intellectual formation of both priests and pastoral coworkers has shown its fruits abundantly, especially in what it is said daily through preaching and weekly through catecheses in a large number of Catholic parishes and communities worldwide. The lack of a comprehensive vision encourages priests and catechists to share fragments that show no connection with each other, making the preaching of the Gospel much weaker. In addition, fragmentation does not put Catholics in the position of accomplishing what St. Peter asked for when writing that we should be always “ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope” (1 Pet 3:15). Where there is no unitary vision, but just a communication of feelings and personal experiences of life (which is the content of many, many homilies and catecheses in our time), there can be an exchange of sentiments but not of arguments, and so there is no room for real and sound discussion and debate. Speaking of debate, I would like to conclude with a last point about dialogue, proclamation, and ecumenism. The Church has decided, after the Second Vatican Council, to walk the path of dialogue. It 702 Mauro Gagliardi was Paul VI who introduced the new terminology in the Church and fostered the new practice, especially through his first encyclical letter, Ecclesiam Suam, issued in 1964, when the Council was not yet concluded. Since then, dialogue has become a sort of rallying cry for almost everything in the Church. Not that dialogue is wrong in itself, but it is important to remember that dialogue goes hand in hand with proclamation, as the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue recalls in its 1991 Dialogue and Proclamation: “It is 25 years since Nostra Ætate, the Declaration of the Second Vatican Council on the Church’s relationship to other religions, was promulgated. The document stressed the importance of interreligious dialogue. At the same time, it recalled that the Church is duty bound to proclaim without fail Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, in whom all people find their fulfillment” (§1). This is said about interreligious dialogue. The reader has probably noticed that what I have been saying in this article expresses the traditional Catholic view much more than that of other Christian denominations. This could lead to the false impression that I am not interested in ecumenical dialogue. Synthetic theology is absolutely interested also in ecumenism from the original Catholic perspective, of which many have lost sight lately. It will be sufficient to quote the Second Vatican Council’s decree on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, §11, a text often quoted by ecumenical theologians. First of all the Council states: “The way and method in which the Catholic faith is expressed should never become an obstacle to dialogue with our brethren.” These words are often interpreted as if the Council wanted us to transform our doctrine into a form that is acceptable to our interlocutors. So, for instance, if Catholics enter into dialogue with Protestants, they should not maintain that the Holy Mass is the sacrifice of Christ, or that there are two distinct priesthoods in the Church, because these doctrines obviously represent an obstacle. But the Council immediately continues: “It is, of course, essential that the doctrine should be clearly presented in its entirety. Nothing is so foreign to the spirit of ecumenism as a false irenicism, in which the purity of Catholic doctrine suffers loss and its genuine and certain meaning is clouded.” According to the Council, then, the real obstacle to the ecumenical dialogue is not saying clearly what we believe, but avoiding saying it. A synthetic theology has an ecumenical sensitivity because it likes clarity of argumentation and of speech. Real ecumenism is that in which we dialogue and also debate (yes, debate!) while having How to Bring Theology Back to its Unity 703 esteem for each other. Nor is it a sign of appreciation for our separated brethren to hide our faith from them, rather it is an obstacle. Clarity, if respectful, is never an obstacle; ambiguity, even when polite, is an obstacle. In the ecumenical discussion, we need to say clearly what we think and believe. Only then do we talk like brothers. Another mistake would be that of considering ecumenism just a matter of fraternal sentiments and/or of doing things together. While these aspects are worthy of our attention, they are not the most important ones. We want to share the same faith, not just to perform some social work together. Working together is not excluded, but here comes another et–et with its hierarchy: faith and work stay conjoined, but the primary element is faith, while the secondary element is action. The purpose of the present article has been to offer a brief presentation of the content and the aim of my latest work, a dogmatic theology in one volume (of nearly one thousand pages), published under the title Truth is Synthetic (La Verità è sintetica: Teologia dogmatica cattolica, published by Cantagalli in Siena, Italy, in 2017 and now, 2018, in its second revised reprinting). In doing so, I have tried to explain why I consider a “synthetic” approach to theology important—indeed, necessary—in our time. Synthetic theology reminds us that the future of the Church has much to do with the place that we give to truth. In a view determined by the et–et, truth comes always first and charity—never excluded—comes next, as a consequence of truth. Doctrine, so much set aside lately, should come back triumphantly, for only the triumph of truth can mark the beginning of a real renewal of the Church both in people’s souls and in our society. Though some say that “doctrine” is a bad word because it brings with it the image of the hardness of stone, this is exactly why we need it. Jesus did not say that he would build his Church upon soft, chaotic, ambiguous ground, but that he would build it on the rock of Peter and his profession of solid, clear, undoubted faith: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” N&V (Matt 16:16). Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 705–737 705 “This is a Profound Mystery”: Union and Distinction between Christ and His Church in Johann Adam Möhler and His Twentieth-Century Successors Alec Arnold Saint Louis University St. Louis, MO Modern Roman Catholic ecclesiology is indebted to the work of Johann Adam Möhler (1796–1838). His creative synthesis of diverse historical, philosophical, and ecclesial influences refreshed post-Enlightenment Catholicism with a view of the Church defined less by abstract, Scholastic assertions and more by the living, historical reality of the community of faith.Yet Möhler by no means resolved all the questions he raised by taking this tack. This essay focuses on one such question that has been especially fecund for Möhler’s successors: how are the union and the distinction between Christ and his Church to be understood? The apostle Paul set the terms of this question most provocatively in his letter to the Ephesians. After citing the Genesis passage concerning Adam and Eve’s nuptial union—“the two shall become one flesh”—the apostle goes on to comment: “This is a profound mystery, but I am speaking of Christ and his Church” (Gen 2:24; Eph 5:32). Aside from whatever Paul meant by this exactly, Möhler I am grateful to Grant Kaplan and Hans Boersma for providing helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article, and to Matthew Levering, Mark Johnson, and the participants of Mundelein Seminary’s 2017 graduate student conference “The Nouvelle Théologie: Sources, Range, Influence” for their interaction with it. Thanks also to the participants of Saint Louis University’s graduate seminar on Möhler, led by Dr. Kaplan (Spring, 2017). 706 Alec Arnold at least came to interpret this one-flesh union between Christ and Church as being somehow realized through the Incarnation itself, as will be shown.1 By the end of his career, however, Möhler had not clarified sufficiently how, despite its union with Christ, the pilgrim Church on earth could still be seen as ontologically distinct from him. But, as I will explain, some of Möhler’s twentieth-century successors turned to Mariology to remedy this point of confusion, hoping to retain the Tübingen theologian’s organic view of the Church as a living communio united by the Spirit while illuminating the “profound mystery” in which Christ and Church become one (though remaining distinct) in the dialogical freedom of what Scripture pictures in terms of spousal love. After describing Möhler’s place within modern Catholic ecclesiology, I will recount the historiography concerning “Möhler’s shift,” his shift from a “pneumatocentric” account of the Church’s divine– human communion to a more “incarnational” account. For some scholars, Möhler bequeathed a bifurcated ecclesiology that remains unsettled, according to which the visible Church on earth is fundamentally constituted either by its receptivity to the Holy Spirit or by its ongoing exercise of the visible authority given directly by Christ incarnate. In a third section, I will query this either–or by assessing the contributions of a trio of Möhler’s successors who sought to deal with this particular problem. For Hans Urs von Balthasar, Joseph I do not mean to suggest that Möhler focused his ecclesiology on this particular Pauline concept. But he does refer to it in a crucial section of Symbolik, which corroborates my presentation here. After emphasizing the Word’s desire to come to humanity not merely in an inward manner, but outwardly, in the flesh, and thus to establish a permanent, visible community, Möhler writes: “The administration of the sacraments, as well as the preaching of the word, was entrusted by the Lord to the apostolic college and to those commissioned by it; so that all believers, by means of this apostolic college are linked to the community, and in a living manner connected with it. The fellowship with Christ is accordingly the fellowship with his community—the internal union with him a communion with his Church. Both are inseparable, and Christ is in the Church, and the Church in him (Eph. v, 29–33)” (Johann Adam Möhler, Symbolism, or Presentation of the Dogmatic Differences of Catholics and Protestants, §37, trans. James Burton Robertson [New York: Crossroad Herder, 1997], 261; originally Symbolik oder Darstellung der dogmatischen Gegensätze der Katholiken und Protestanten nach ihren öffentlichen Bekenntnisschriften, ed. Josef Rupert Geiselmann [Köln: Jakob Hegner, 1958], 392; all citations of German from Symbolik will come from Geiselmann’s critical edition; unless otherwise noted, all English translation comes from Robertson’s edition). 1 “This is a Profound Mystery” 707 Ratzinger, and Henri de Lubac, a deeper consideration of Mary overcomes the apparent dualism between a “pneumatological model” of the Church and an “incarnational model.” More specifically, by attending further to Mary’s role in the mystery of the Incarnation, Balthasar, Ratzinger, and de Lubac resituate the visible authority of the Church within a deeper communio ecclesiology, but in a way that does not diminish the sacramental character of the hierarchical ministry. Möhler’s Place in Modern Catholic Ecclesiology Möhler is widely acknowledged as the most significant theologian to have been associated with the so-called “Catholic Tübingen School,” which he is also credited for cofounding, along with his teacher, Johann Sebastian Drey.2 This “school” took its bearings when the faculty of Ellwangen seminary joined the University of Tübingen in 1817. From here, the faculty became more active in the German Catholic renewal following the culture shock of the French Revolution and the intellectual challenges of the German Enlightenment (Aufklärung).3 The philosophical resources supplied by romanticism were amenable in some ways to Catholic attempts to modernize, but Drey and Möhler (who went from student to teacher in 1823) were adaptable, drawing as much from the early Church Fathers, historical theology, and the katholische Aufklärung as from Lessing, Schelling, or Schleiermacher, and their notable colleagues Johannes Kuhn and Johann Baptist Hirscher were likewise adaptable.4 Michel Deneken’s recent biography notes this interdisciplinary theological dialogue: “What moved Möhler and his friends at Tübingen was their love of the Church and Christ. Their The question of whether the first generation of Catholic scholars at Tübingen constituted a “school” is a subject of debate. See Rudolf Reinhardt, “Die Katholische-Theologische Fakultät Tübingen im ersten Jahrhundert ihres Bestehens: Faktoren und Phasen der Entwicklung,” in Tübinger Theologen und ihre Theologie: Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Katholish-Theologischen Fakultät Tübingen, ed. Rudolf Reinhardt (Tübingen: Mohr, 1977), 1–42. See also Bradford Hinze, “Roman Catholic Theology: Tübingen,” in The Blackwell Companion to Nineteenth-century Theology, ed. David Fergusson (Oxford: Blackwell, 2010), 187–213. 3 Gerald A. McCool, Nineteenth-century Scholasticism: The Search for a Unitary Method (New York: Fordham University Press, 1996 [originally 1977]), 30–31. See also Grant Kaplan, Answering the Enlightenment: The Catholic Recovery of Historical Revelation (New York: Crossroad, 2006). 4 Hinze, “Roman Catholic Theology: Tübingen,” 191. 2 708 Alec Arnold research was stimulated by their adoration of a Catholicism in so much need of renewal.”5 On this score, Möhler’s most enduring point of influence has been his contribution to modern ecclesiology.6 Two years after joining Tübingen’s faculty, his exercises in patrology, his engagement with Schleiermacher, and his tutelage in the thought of Johann Michaël Sailer7 led to his groundbreaking 1825 Die Einheit in der Kirche (Unity in the Church),8 which opened up a new atmosphere of thought concerning the nature of the Church, one quite different from the regnant accounts derived from the counter-Reformation. In the latter context, polemical debates with Protestants led the Catholic Church to draw stringent lines around its social identity, lines such as those embedded in Robert Bellarmine’s influential definition: “The Church is the assembly of believers that is held together by their profession of the same Christian faith and by the fellowship of the same sacraments and is placed under the care of their legitimate shepherds, especially the one Vicar of Christ on earth, the Bishop of Rome.”9 Over and against this more bounded “sociological” definition, Möhler’s Einheit revived a deeper vision of the Church’s spiritual “Ce qui a mû Möhler et ses amis au sein de l’école de Tübingen etait leur amour de l’Église et du Christ. Leur recherche a été aiguillonnée par leur vénération pour un catholicisme qui avait tellement besoin de renouveau” (Michel Deneken, Johann Adam Möhler [Paris: Cerf, 2007], 47; my translation). 6 “The great glory of Möhler shall always be his sublime conception of the Church in its internal and external structure. Few men have loved the Church as passionately and lovingly as he, and it was this deep and abiding love of the Church which drove him on to seek the depths of her mystery” (Peter Riga, “The Ecclesiology of Johann Adam Möhler,” Theological Studies 22 [1961]: 563–87). 7 Deneken, Johann Adam Möhler, 58. 8 Die Einheit in der Kirche oder das Prinzip des Katholizismus dargestellt im Geiste der Kirchenväter der drei ersten Jahrhunderte, ed. Josef Rupert Geiselmann (Darmstadt: Wissenschatfliche Buchgesellschaft, 1957); English translation: Unity in the Church or the Principles of Catholicism: Presented in the Spirit of the Church Fathers of the First Three Centuries, ed. and trans. Peter C. Erb (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996). Unless otherwise noted, all English translation of Einheit will be from Erb’s edition. 9 Robert Bellarmine, “On the Councils and the Church” 3.2, in Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei adversus hujus temporis haereticos, 3 vols. (Ingolstadt: Sartorius, 1586–1593); English translation in Joseph Ratzinger, “The Nature and Limits of the Church,” in Fundamental Speeches: From Five Decades, ed. Florian Schuller, trans. Michael J. Miller, J. R. Foster, and Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2012 [Original German, 2005]), 111–32, at 114. 5 “This is a Profound Mystery” 709 communion that, in the twentieth century, became “the departure point for the ecclesiological renovation that would end with the Second Vatican Council.”10 Of course, Möhler’s place in modern ecclesiology must not be reduced to the impact of just this one work. His 1832 Symbolik was far more influential in its immediate setting than was Einheit and remained so until the middle of the twentieth century.11 Symbolik is unique in the way it joins rank with a distinctly Protestant, and specifically Lutheran, genre of theology according to which the differences between Christian confessions were systematically presented for the sake of doctrinal comparisons.12 Despite claiming an irenic intent, it was also a provocation that led to a notable public dialogue in print between Möhler and Ferdinand Christian Baur.13 More importantly here, Symbolik’s constructive conclusions about the divine institution of Catholic ecclesial structures remained influential for Catholic ecclesiology in the years after his death in 1838,14 until roughly the time Yves Congar edited a new translation of Einheit a hundred years later.15 In Symbolik, the inward vitality of the Church described in Einheit is shown to be cultivated by a loving adherence to the outward forms of Tradition, Scripture, doctrine, and liturgy, all of which are “sealed and safeguarded by the hierarchy.”16 For a Church already struggling to navigate the forces of Louis Bouyer, “The Ecclesiology of Moehler,” in The Church of God: Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit, trans. Charles Underhill Quinn (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1982 [original French, 1970]), 91–105, at 93. 11 Michael Himes, “Introduction to the 1997 Edition,” in Robertson (trans.), Symbolism, xi. 12 Grant Kaplan, “What Has Prussia to Do with Tübingen? The Political-Ecclesial Context of Möhler’s Symbolik,” Pro Ecclesia 27 (2018): 81–112. 13 See Ferdinand C. Baur, Der Gegensatz des Katholizismus und Protestantismus nach den Prinzipien und Hauptdogmen der beiden Lehrbegriffe (Tübingen: Dues, 1834), to which Möhler replied with his Neue Untersuchung der Lehrgegensätze zwischen den Katholiken und Protestanten (Mainz: Kupferberg, 1834). 14 Möhler moved to the University of Munich in 1835 for a position in New Testament exegesis, developing a rather unlikely friendship with Ignaz von Döllinger. The next year, he contracted cholera, eventually suffering a pulmonary infection from which he never recovered, dying in 1838 at the age of thirty-nine (Deneken, Johann Adam Möhler, 38–42). 15 Johann Adam Möhler, L’Unité dans l’Église, ou le principe du catholicisme: d’après l’espirit des pères des trois premiers siècles de l’Église, trans. Pierre Chaillet (Paris: Cerf, 1938). 16 James C. Livingston, Modern Christian Thought: The Enlightenment and the Nineteenth Century, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2006), 193. 10 710 Alec Arnold modernity, such emphases were better received than the romanticism of Einheit. Hence, from the latter half of the nineteenth century into the start of the twentieth, Möhler was incorporated into the general tenor of an ascending neo-scholasticism and the specific influence of the Roman School, led by Giovanni Perrone, that eventuated in the declarations of the First Vatican Council in 1870.17 Interpreting “Möhler’s Shift” As already indicated, a notable transition took place between the ecclesiology supplied in the 1825 Einheit and that of the later Symbolik, the details of which have been carefully documented by Michael Himes.18 The overall substance of this move, from a pneumatocentric to a Christocentric ecclesiology, has been a source of ongoing debate about Möhler’s formative influence on modern Catholic ecclesial identity. Thus, in this section, I will review the crux of the difficulty, first as it emerges from within Möhler’s own writing, relying largely on Himes’s outline, and then by exploring its interpretation by Protestants and Catholics alike. In Einheit, the concept of the Church as a living communion of believers has priority, such that the visible structure of the Church and its hierarchical ministry is interpreted as a logical consequence following from the community’s more original sphere of spiritual experience.19 The institutional Church comes after the fact: the invisible spirit of the community (Gemeingeist) precedes its external, visible manifestation and brings the latter to being. Möhler thus speaks of how the visible structure of the Church “formed itself.”20 He does not deny that Christ anticipated his followers would adopt this particular form of community (i.e., the Roman Catholic Church), yet the See Michael J. Himes, “The Development of Ecclesiology: Modernity to the Twentieth Century,” in The Gift of the Church: A Textbook on Ecclesiology in Honor of Patrick Granfield, O.S.B. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), 45–67. See also C. Michael Shea, “Ressourcement in the Age of Migne: The Jesuit Theologians of the Collegio Romano and the Shape of Modern Catholic Thought,” Nova et Vetera (English) 15, no. 2 (2017): 579–613. 18 Michael J. Himes, Ongoing Incarnation: Johann Adam Möhler and the Beginnings of Modern Ecclesiology (New York: Crossroad, 1997). 19 See Möhler, Unity, §50: “Without a determined, ordered, and continual teaching office one could not in any way think of a continuing tradition, which . . . is fully necessary to demonstrate the identity of the higher consciousness of the Church throughout all moments of its existence” (Erb, 214). 20 Möhler, Unity, §50 (Erb, 214). 17 “This is a Profound Mystery” 711 ecclesia’s visible, structural constitution is explained as “the external production of an inner forming power, as the body of a spirit creating itself [als der Körper eines sich selber schaffenden Geistes].”21 Such lines reveal the influence of Schleiermacher,22 but as Himes points out, in the course of further engagement with the Protestant thinker, Möhler came to perceive a danger embedded in thinking of the visible Church as the outward manifestation of a communal spirit. Specifically, it became impossible for Möhler to articulate theologically how the community’s shared experience of its own communion—its Gemeingeist, the “one spirit” of Ephesians 4:4— could be seen in proper distinction from the divine hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, who also fills the Church.23 That is, Church and Spirit were so united that no analogical difference remained between them. Consequently, starting with his book on Athanasius (1827) 24 and up through Symbolik, Möhler demonstrates a marked concern to curb the unintended implication in Einheit that the pilgrim Church on earth is, in effect, something like an incarnation of the Holy Spirit.25 His attempts to clarify how this is not the case are most evident in sections 36–38 of Symbolik when he comes to discuss “differences in respect to the doctrine on the church.” Here, the “body” of the Church is no longer the necessary outworking of a self-creating spirit, but rather a consequence of Christ’s earthly ministry and the Möhler, Einheit, §49: “. . . als äussere Produktion einer inner bildenden Kraft, als der Körper eines sich selber schaffenden Geistes” (Geiselmann, 170). 22 Dennis Doyle sees the overlaps between Möhler and Schleiermacher as so significant that the latter’s The Christian Faith “might conceivably have been given the same title as Möhler’s book: Unity in the Church” (“Möhler, Schleiermacher, and the Roots of Communion Ecclesiology,” Theological Studies 57 [1996]: 467–80, at 471). 23 See Himes, Ongoing Incarnation, 120: “Möhler has distinguished between the Holy Spirit and the Christian communal spirit on the basis of his panentheist Weltanschauung, but in practice they become indistinguishable. He has stated the difference between himself and Schleiermacher, but in the elaboration of his ecclesiology that difference tends toward the vanishing point. Once again, the Gemeingeist is the only Holy Spirit that matters.” 24 Johann Adam Möhler, Athanasius der Grosse und die Kirche seiner Zeit besonders im Kampfe mit dem Arianismus, 2 vols. (Mainz: Florian Kupferberg, 1827). 25 Himes, Ongoing Incarnation, 189–90. See also Michael Himes, “Divinizing the Church,” in The Legacy of the Tübingen School, ed. Donald Dietrich and Michael Himes (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 95–110, at 103: “[Möhler] became acutely sensitive to the danger implicit in his formulations in Einheit in der Kirche of interpreting the church as a hypostatic union of the Spirit and the community.” 21 712 Alec Arnold first followers’ receptivity to the Word of Christ in the Spirit.26 As concerns the nature of the hierarchy, for example, Möhler writes: “Since Christ wanted to be the sufficient authority for all ages, he created something similar to it [schuf er durch dieselbe etwas ihr Gleichartiges], and thus something witnessing to and representing the same, eternally destined to bring his authority before all generations.”27 Himes recalls that section 37 was added to Symbolik precisely to erase all ambiguity that may have remained from Einheit. Möhler makes plain that the Christian community does not get to “fashion Christ in its own image,” for were this the case, Möhler would be subject to the same criticism he had finally leveled against Schleiermacher.28 But, in taking this new tack of intentionally seeking to connect the body of the Church with the incarnate Christ’s ministry, Möhler now struggles to explicate how the Church’s authority on earth can be representative of Christ, since the hierarchical Church is his own creation that he willed to represent him, but not identical with the divine hypostasis of the Son who was made flesh. The most crucial passage in this regard is well known: Thus, the visible Church, from the point of view here taken, is the Son of God himself, everlastingly manifesting himself among men in a human form, perpetually renovated, and eternally young—the permanent incarnation of the same, as in Holy Writ, even the faithful are called the “body of Christ.”29 As these words demonstrate, the ecclesial body carries a univocal referent to the body of the incarnate Word. Such formulae supplied easy fodder for the ascending sense of authority possessed by the See Möhler, Symbolik, §36 (Geiselmann, 389–90). Möhler, Symbolik, §37.2: “Indem Christus die zureichende Autorität für alle Zeiten sein wollte, schuf er durch dieselbe etwas ihr Gleichartiges, eben darum sie Bezeugendes und Darstellendes, das ewig die seinige den Geschlechtern der Menschen nahezubringen die Bestimmung hat” (Geiselman, 398; my emphasis; English translation here is my clarifications of Robertson’s). 28 Himes, “Divinizing the Church,” 101. 29 Möhler, Symbolik, §36: “So ist denn die sichtbare Kirche, von dem eben entwickelten Geschichtspunkte aus, der unter den Menschen in meschlicher Form fortwährend erscheinende, stets sich erneuernde, ewig sich verjüngende Sohn Gottes, die andauernde Fleischwerdung desselben, so wie denn auch die Gläubigen in der heiligen Schrift der Leib Christi genannt warden” (Geiselmann, 389; Robertson, 333). 26 27 “This is a Profound Mystery” 713 Magisterium in the context of Vatican I and have inspired a host of further interpretive discussions, both within and without the Catholic communion. Protestant readings of Möhler have criticized his exaltation of a human institutional structure into an authoritative role perceptibly indistinct from Christ incarnate without proper scriptural or theological justification. Again following Himes’s lead, I consider the representative insights supplied by David Strauss and Karl Barth.30 According to Barth: The real importance of Möhler’s thinking did not consist in his identifying of what ultimately became the complex of Scripture and tradition with revelation, with the incarnation of the Word, with Jesus Christ, but in his attempting to understand the whole divine dignity and authority ascribed to this complex only as a predicate of the Church, the present-day Church, as the living bearer of the apostolate, the representative of Jesus Christ.31 Himes complains that Barth does not adequately contextualize his reading of Möhler, since he cites from Einheit and Symbolik indiscriminately.32 It is not clear why this ultimately matters, since Barth’s problem rests with Möhler’s failure to preserve the analogical distance between divinity and humanity as concerns the Church, with his taking for granted that the Christian community on earth simply is the visible manifestation of redemptive divinity. Whether such divinity is that of the Son or the Spirit would be of secondary importance. As we have seen, in Einheit, the (visible) body of the Church comes logically after its (invisible) spiritual communion, whereas in Symbolik, the (visible) body of the Church comes after its (invisible) reception of Christ’s Word. Despite Möhler’s concern to connect the Catholic Church’s visible communion directly to the Incarnation, the Church’s “flesh and blood” logically comes after Christ’s own Incarnation, a position that obviously raised some eyebrows on the part of See Himes, “Divinizing the Church.” Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. I/2, The Doctrine of the Word of God, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, trans. G. T. Thomson and Harold Knight (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1978 [originally 1938]), 564–65. Hereafter, this work will be cited simply as “CD.” 32 Himes, “Divinizing the Church,” 96. 30 31 714 Alec Arnold his Protestant interlocutors: how can Möhler both allow for this gap between Christ and Church and then go on to say that the visible, Roman Catholic Church is the permanent manifestation of Christ? From the perspective of this essay, Barth’s critique is perspicacious. Möhler failed to perceive a distinction, or at least he failed to articulate the grounds of that distinction, between the “present-day Church, as the living bearer of the apostolate,” and the whole “complex” of Christ’s revelation. Consequently, in the way he identified them, Möhler was unable to articulate precisely how the hierarchically constituted Roman Catholic Church is not hypostatically united to the divine Word in the same way as was the humanity of Jesus. Anachronistically perhaps, it could be said that Möhler supplies no logic by which to distinguish the visible Church, as the sacramental sign (sacramentum) of Christ’s presence in the world, from its res, as Lumen Gentium would later do, for example.33 To the contrary, making the Christological definition of Chalcedon the ground of a generalized ecclesiology preserves the terms of representation exactly.34 Thus, the same problem he faced in Einheit persists, but instead of the Holy Spirit being confused with the community’s Gemeingeist, the divinity of Christ is perceptually indistinguishable from the visible Church. And, in this schema, that which is “most divine” in the visible Church is the hierarchical structure of ministry, the apostolic succession.35 Cf. Lumen Gentium, §1: “The Church, in Christ, is like a sacrament—a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men” (The Documents of Vatican II, ed.Walter M. Abbott, trans. Joseph Gallagher [New York: Guild Press, 1966], 15). 34 Möhler, Symbolik, §36: “Wie in Christo Göttliches und Menschliches wohl zu unterscheiden, aber doch auch beides zur Einheit verbunden ist, so wird er auch in ungeteilter Ganzheit in der Kirche fortgesetzt. Die Kirche, seine bleibende Erscheinung, ist göttlich und menschlich zugleich, sie ist die Einheit von beidem [As in Christ, the divinity and the humanity are to be clearly distinguished, though both are bound in unity; so is he in undivided entireness perpetuated in the Church. The Church, his permanent manifestation, is at once divine and human—she is the union of both]” (Geiselmann, 389; Robertson, 333). See also Himes, Ongoing Incarnation, 260. 35 Möhler, Symbolik, §43: “Der Episkopat [die Fortsetzung des Apostolates] wird hiernach als seine göttliche Institution verehrt; desgleichen nun auch, und eben deshalb, der Einheitspunkt und das Haupt des Episkopates, der Papst [The episcopacy, the continuation of the apostleship, is accordingly revered as a Divine institution: not less so, and even, on that very account, the Pope, who is the centre of unity, and the head of the episcopacy]” (Geiselmann, 451; Robertson, 377). 33 “This is a Profound Mystery” 715 Along this line, David F. Strauss made the more strident critique of Möhler’s path of reasoning: “Möhler could derive the sole-redemptive Popish Church with no greater difficulty from the Christian consciousness than Schleiermacher could His Redeemer. He could give the Christian consciousness a form, in which it seemed interchangeable with the modern principle of progress.”36 In other words, if Schleiermacher was guilty of asserting an identity between his Christ of faith and the historical Jesus, Möhler made the same move by asserting an identity between his infallible, idealist church, permanently united with Christ, and the visible structure of authority, headed by Rome. Barth had no patience with Strauss on this score, but this has more to do with Barth’s intention to kill two birds with one stone. By considering Möhler a genuinely “Catholic improvement” on Schleiermacher, Barth was attacking both German liberal Protestantism’s “idealistic interpretation of Christian history” and Roman Catholicism’s inflated sense of itself.37 For Barth, the former was a derivation of the latter.38 Strauss’s observation nevertheless cuts to the heart of the matter. Apart from a deeper consideration of the “one-flesh” union shared by the incarnate Christ and his Church, Möhler’s formulations in Symbolik tend toward an actual identification between the visible Church constituted by believers and the divinity of Christ himself, such that any perceptual distinction between them is erased: In the same way as the living foundation of this unity is divine, so shall it be attended with divine effects: by this unity the world shall recognise the heavenly mission of Christ. The David F. Strauss, Gesammelte Schriften, 12 vols. (Bonn: Emil Strauss, 1876–1877), 2:222 (English translation by Thomson and Knight in Barth, CD I/2, 563). 37 Barth, CD I/2, 563: “It was really a waste of time for Protestant critics of Möhler’s system to accuse him of ‘Schleiermacherising’ and to charge him with transmuting Catholic doctrine. Möhler himself had already given the answer:Why should we not speak rather of a catholicizing of Schleiermacher?” 38 Barth, CD I/2, 563: “The Catholic and the idealistic interpretation of Christian history both do go back to the same conception. They are at one in what ultimately emerges and is expressed in Möhler: in the identity of the Church and its faith and its Word with the revelation which is its basis. The only point is that the Catholic is the original and proper form of this understanding, and the idealistic a derivative form, which (in a preliminary self-misunderstanding) at first contradicted the former. Aware of its identity with Christ, the Catholic Church can in the last resort, if at all, only be interpreted idealistically.” 36 716 Alec Arnold unity must be a visible unity—obvious to the eyes, perceptible by the identity of doctrine, by the real mutual relations and communion of all the followers of Christ with each other; for otherwise the consequences adverted to could not be deduced from it.39 Statements such as these go some way to justifying Himes’s conclusion that the threat of Monophysitism looms large if the Chalcedonian definition is applied to the Church without further qualification.40 Hence, the substance of Strauss’s critique is the following. As if by fiat, Möhler “gave form” to Christian consciousness by collapsing the Catholic principle of Tradition into the institutional teaching office of the earthly body of Christ, giving it license for autonomous, self-possessing “progress.”41 As we will see, at least some of Möhler’s successors were keen to ask whether perhaps another “form” of Christian consciousness had already been given in the person of Mary, such that the archetypal “form” of the Church vis-à-vis Christ is inherently dialogical in terms of both spirit and body, that which is invisible and that which is visible, despite the certainty of union between this Church and its Savior. To summarize thus far: in Einheit, we are given a romantic ecclesiology of spiritual communion in which the ideal must necessarily become reality; in Symbolik we are instructed that the Incarnation ultimately justifies this reality. But, at just this point, Möhler’s ecclesiology remains confused about, on the one hand, how the human members, while in union with Christ’s body, are not thereby absorbed by the divinity of the Son and, on the other hand, how the Word of Christ found its way into humanity in the first place in order for the believing Church subsequently to “take shape” after the fact and, through the episcopate, “put on flesh and blood” of its own.42 It is worth citing Himes’s summation of the issue: Möhler, Symbolism, §37.3 (Robertson, 345). Himes, “Divinizing the Church,” 105: “Making that formula the foundation of ecclesiology will tend, however much one tries to preserve the integrity of both the divine and human elements in the church, to eclipse the latter.” 41 See again Strauss, Gesammelte Schriften, 2:222. 42 Möhler, Symbolik, §36: “Indem das von Christus gesprochene Wort (dieses in seiner weitesten Bedeutung genommen) mit seinem Geiste in einen Kreis von Menschen einging und von demselben aufgenommen wurde, hat es Gestalt, hat es Fleisch und Blut angenommen, und diese Gestalt ist eben die Kirche, welche somit als die wesentliche Form der christlichen Religion selbst von den Katholiken betrachtet wird [Since the Word spoken by Christ 39 40 “This is a Profound Mystery” 717 In Symbolik Möhler employed the incarnation as the framework in which to understand the church so that he could affirm both the integrity and the interaction of the divine and the human. But he clearly did not wish to claim the church as an instance of hypostatic union. Indeed, he became acutely sensitive to the danger implicit in his formulations in Einheit in der Kirche of interpreting the church as a hypostatic union of the Spirit and the community. But how the church can be a fit instrument for the continuance of Christ’s work, i.e., a society which reflects the proper God-man relation, without itself being the relationship established in Christ, i.e., hypostatic union, remains unresolved in Möhler’s work.43 For Himes, the unresolved tension pervading Möhler’s work (again, the tension between a more pneumatological, communal, “bottom-up” view of the Church, à la Einheit, and a more incarnational, hierarchical, “top-down” account, as in Symbolism) goes a long way toward explaining the Tübingen theologian’s longstanding influence on subsequent discussions of the Church within Catholicism.44 Quite apart from the question of whether Möhler himself can be read synthetically, the divergences between Einheit and Symbolik are often taken as a historical-theological point of departure from which two distinct views of the Catholic Church are said to have developed alongside one another without ever really converging, even despite the attempts made at Vatican II to restore a proper balance. As a case in point, Bradford Hinze defaults to a two-track reading of just this sort in service of his own project of “releasing the power of the Spirit in a Trinitarian ecclesiology.”45 Thus, as Hinze reads (taken in its widest significance), with his Spirit, entered into a circle of men and was absorbed by it, it has taken on flesh and blood, and this form is itself the Church, which is thus regarded by Catholics as the essential form of the Christian religion]” (Geiselmann, 389–90; my emphasis; my translation). 43 Himes, “Divinizing the Church,” 103. 44 Himes, Ongoing Incarnation, 71: “Two profoundly opposed ways of understanding the church are found side by side in Möhler’s work at the outset of his career. The tension between them may be one important reason why he has exerted such influence on subsequent Catholic theology and especially on ecclesiology.” 45 Bradford E. Hinze, “Releasing the Power of the Spirit in a Trinitarian Ecclesiology,” in Advents of the Spirit: An Introduction to the Current Study of Pneumatology, ed. Bradford E. Hinze and D. Lyle Dabney (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2001), 347–81. 718 Alec Arnold the sources, the “advocates of the forgotten Spirit” can be cleanly identified over and against the proponents of an incarnational-Christocentric approach.46 The first group includes Yves Congar, Heribert Mühlen, and Karl Rahner, whereas the second group consists of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Joseph Ratzinger, and Henri de Lubac. These latter figures “are not considered trailblazers of a renewed pneumatology,” states Hinze, for they are instead “the rightful heirs and defenders of Johann Adam Möhler’s later incarnational ecclesiology.”47 Their collective fear of “excessive pneumatism” leads them to buttress the sacramental character of the Church’s hierarchical institution and the centralization of its authority, leading Hinze to question whether they do not recapitulate the later Möhler’s “overcorrective.”48 To be sure, Hinze voices appreciation for both sets of figures (especially for Balthasar), but the initial classification is still misleading. For one thing, it risks obscuring the full range of constructive efforts made by Möhler’s nouvelle successors, in general, to resolve the tensions they perceived in Möhler’s work.49 More specifically, and more importantly for this essay, the association of Balthasar, de Lubac, and Ratzinger with a rather rigid incarnational-Christocentrism-cum-hierarchical-clericalism ignores the most crucial contribution these particular thinkers bring to Möhler’s later “incarnational ecclesiology”: a robust theology of Mary. Consideration of this theology destabilizes this opposition between a mystical Church manifesting the unity of the Spirit and a visible Church representing Christ’s authority, as I will show. This is not to deny the attention paid to Mary by the “advocates of the forgotten Spirit.” Quite the opposite, in fact, for these too ought to be read with their Marian presuppositions in mind (however else we might appreciate their contributions to pneumatology).50 But Balthasar, de Lubac, and Hinze, “Releasing the Power of the Spirit,” 353–66. Hinze, “Releasing the Power of the Spirit,” 364. 48 Hinze, “Releasing the Power of the Spirit,” 366 (cf. 348). 49 Hinze acknowledges that “by the end of the twentieth century the exploration of the origins, nature and mission of the church in terms of the trinitarian economy of salvation, and the analogy between the Trinity and the church had moved far beyond that of Möhler and his contemporaries” (“Releasing the Power of the Spirit,” 349). This being the case, how Balthasar, de Lubac, and Ratzinger could be said to remain so neatly aligned with Möhler’s later thought already appears suspicious. 50 See below for my discussion of Yves Congar. See also Peter Fritz, “Karl Rahner’s Marian ‘Minimalism,’” in Mary on the Eve of the Second Vatican Council, 46 47 “This is a Profound Mystery” 719 Ratzinger are most insistent: the Marian dimension of the Church has become theologically and pastorally indispensable following the developments of the nineteenth century.51 As such, these successors do not fit nicely on either side of the two-track account. They do not recapitulate the later Möhler so much as they complete the trajectory of his thought. As we will see, just as Möhler was led to locate the Church’s original union with Christ as part and parcel of the Incarnation, Balthasar, Ratzinger, and de Lubac illuminate the ecclesiological implications of Mary’s role in this event, thereby qualifying the points of identity Möhler had drawn between Christ and the Church. In so doing, they also clarify where the crucial debate with Protestantism truly lies, which is not first with the audacity of the visible and hierarchical Church to represent Christ, but rather with the deeper and more fundamental claim of the capacity of postlapsarian humanity per se to cooperate in the divine mission of redemption.52 This latter concern was far more consonant with the overall impetus animating Symbolik as a whole, however much attention has been paid to the now-legendary few pages on the Church’s authority.53 The Marian Contributions of Balthasar, Ratzinger, and de Lubac “What is most obviously missing from Möhler’s work,” writes Himes, “is any reference to the life of Jesus.”54 This is surely an overstatement,55 ed. John C. Cavadini and Danielle M. Peters (Notre Dame, ID: Notre Dame University, 2017), 156–78. 51 Balthasar notes: “It is not without significance that . . . the Marian definitions and those of the First Vatican Council on the place of Peter occurred at the same period; they each support the other and elucidate their real purpose” (Hans Urs von Balthasar, “The Contemporary Experience of the Church,” in Explorations in Theology, vol. 2, Spouse of the Word, trans. A. V. Littledale with Alexander Dru [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999; original German, 1961], 11–42, at 23–24). 52 The most famous of encounters in this regard is Balthasar and Barth’s extended dialogue. See D. Stephen Long, Saving Karl Barth: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Preoccupation (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2014). 53 “The core problem with Protestantism according to Möhler is that it fundamentally misunderstands the human being” (Himes, “Introduction,” xvi). 54 Himes, “Divinizing the Church,” 104. 55 In his Kirchengeschichte, Möhler does in fact devote attention to Jesus’s life and his foundation of the Christian community. The historical tone of such work is rather different, of course, from the theological explorations in Einheit and 720 Alec Arnold and yet Möhler did not take many cues from the events of Christ’s incarnate ministry for the sake of his constructive ecclesiology. Himes points toward the irony: “The incarnation plays a decisive role in the working out of the God-man relation in Möhler’s thought, but appeal is always made to the fact of Jesus, not his career.”56 As I hope to make clear, Balthasar, Ratzinger, and de Lubac each insist that, even before Christ’s earthly career, Mary’s conception of the Word by the Holy Spirit already presents us with the archetypal form of ecclesial existence: the perfect, human, creaturely response to divinity. By appealing to this original form of the Church, these successors thought they could properly order the Petrine, hierarchical office within the life of the communio shared by all the faithful. “Those who think that the Church started later,” quips Balthasar, “have already missed the heart of the matter.”57 At the risk of oversimplification, the trio’s contributions can be typified as follows (though there are obvious overlaps and nuances that must be made). Balthasar underscores the pastoral necessity of emphasizing a Marian form of ecclesial consciousness for the modern Church, the Church after 1870. “In Mary,” he quips, “the Church is embodied even before being organized in Peter.”58 Ratzinger supplies the scriptural justification for such a statement, explaining how Mary and Christ are united by “the dynamism of a unity that does not abolish dialogical reciprocity,” such as we find in the one-flesh passage of Ephesians.59 De Lubac, in turn, demonstrates Tradition’s testimony of the Mary–Church typology, thus underscoring the Symbolik. For instance, see Johann Adam Möhler, Vorlesungen über die Kirchengeschichte, ed. Reinhold Rieger (Munich: Erich Wegel, 1992), 61–65 (“Zweck der Ankunft Christi. Seine Geschichte”). 56 Himes, “Divinizing the Church,” 104. 57 Hans Urs von Balthasar, “The Catholicity of the Church,” in Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger, Mary: The Church at the Source, trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 157–76, at 164 (the original “Das Katholische an der Kirche” was a lecture given on September 13, 1972, for the Vocations Week of the Archdiocese of Cologne, ed. the Archdiocesan Press Office in Kölner Beiträge 10 [Cologne: Wienend, 1972]). 58 Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Die marianiche Prägung der Kirche,” in Maria heute ehren: Eine theologisch-pastorale Handreichung, ed. Wolfgang Beinert (Freiburg: Herder, 1977), 263–79, at 276; English translation in “The Marian Mold of the Church,” in Balthasar and Ratzinger, Mary: The Church at the Source, 125–44, at 140. 59 Joseph Ratzinger, “Thoughts on the Place of Marian Doctrine and Piety in Faith and Theology as a Whole,” in Balthasar and Ratzinger, Mary: The Church at the Source, 19–36, at 26. “This is a Profound Mystery” 721 Virgin’s incontrovertible place in “the defense and exposition of the whole Christian mystery.”60 “The links between our Lady and the Church are not only numerous and close,” writes de Lubac, “they are essential and woven from within.”61 Balthasar: Pastoral Necessity Of the three, Balthasar is perhaps best known for the Marian character of his theology, especially as he emphasized it after Vatican II.62 The Council marked a demonstrable shift away from the Marian “maximalism” that had been fomented throughout the nineteenth century as a result of Marian apparitions and consequent popular piety.63 Despite the need for correction, Balthasar feared what would be lost in the heart of the Church if the significance of Mary, the Kirche im Ursprung, would be occluded: “Without Mariology, Christianity threatens imperceptibly to become inhuman. The Church becomes functionalistic, soulless, a hectic enterprise without any point of rest, estranged from its true nature by the planners.”64 Although much of the substance of Balthasar’s writing about Mary reflects what he gleaned from Adrienne von Speyr, the eclectic nature of his thought also indicates his indebtedness to the Church Fathers, theological anthropology, and Ignatian spirituality.65 Balthasar draws special attention to Möhler in his 1974 The Office of Peter and the Structure of the Church, but the English title obscures what his original German title made quite plain as far as his authorial intent, the literal translation of Der antirömische Affekt: Wie lässt sich das Papsttum in der Gesamtkirche integrieren being The Anti-Roman Affect: Henri de Lubac, “The Church and Our Lady,” in The Splendor of the Church, trans. Michael Mason (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2006 [original French, 1953]), 314–79, at 315. 61 De Lubac, “The Church and Our Lady,” 316. 62 See Aidan Nichols, “Divine Handmaid: The Mother of the Lord,” in Divine Fruitfulness: A Guide through Balthasar’s Theology beyond the Trilogy (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 229–237; Brendán Leahy, The Marian Profile: In the Ecclesiology of Hans Urs von Balthasar (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000). 63 John W. O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican II (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2008), 188. 64 Hans Urs von Balthasar, “The Marian Principle,” in Elucidations, trans. John Riches (London: SPCK, 1975), 72. 65 See Johann Roten, “The Two Halves of the Moon: Marian Anthropological Dimensions in the Common Mission of Adrienne von Speyr and Hans Urs von Balthasar,” in Hans Urs von Balthasar: His Life and Work, ed. David L. Schindler (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1991), 65–86. 60 722 Alec Arnold How Can the Papacy be Integrated in the Church as a Whole? 66 Möhler appears in the middle of a chapter titled “The Petrine Office as the Concrete Representation of the Church,” in which Balthasar develops his interpretation of how the sacramental ministry relates to the deeper spiritual communion of the faithful while also being shared amongst the primate and the episcopate. After discussing some Patristic views of the topic, Balthasar turns to Möhler’s Einheit, in which the issue was put in its “most convincing form.”67 He first exposits the Church according to Möhler as a spiritual communion of love out of which visible authority emerges organically. He then goes on to admit his appreciation for Möhler’s early vision, just so long as the key qualifications are kept in view, qualifications that Möhler himself came to make over the course of his career regarding the sacramental character and Christological institution of the hierarchical office: Provided we note that in the end Möhler explicitly recognizes that the primacy was established by Christ, i.e., no longer understands it merely as the creative act of ecclesial love under the inspiration of the Spirit [as in Einheit], we can accept his basic principle: “The entire system of the Church is therefore nothing but the embodiment of love.”68 Balthasar shares the “mature” Möhler’s sense that, if this communio is to hold together properly in the way Christ intended, then the visible authority of the Church cannot be simply the result of a spirit of a body creating itself, as in the bare text of Einheit; it must be Christological in origin. At this point, Balthasar turns to Augustine, claiming that the vision for such a Christologically mediated communio was put better by the bishop of Hippo than by the Church historian of Tübingen. He does not fail to mention that Möhler himself had directed his readers to Augustine, for whom office in the Church “can only represent unity, can only reconcile those who have fallen from the unity of love and can only receive new members through baptism because this Church Hans Urs von Balthasar, Der antirömische Affekt. Wie lässt sich das Papsttum in der Gesamtkirche integrieren (Freiburg: Herder, 1971); English translation in The Office of Peter and the Structure of the Church, trans. Andrée Emery (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986). 67 Balthasar, The Office of Peter, 167–72. 68 Balthasar, The Office of Peter, 172 (citing Einheit, §64). 66 “This is a Profound Mystery” 723 of love really does exist, despite all her questionable earthly aspects.”69 Balthasar here supplies a longer treatment of the bishop of Hippo’s emphasis on ministry being “established within the all-embracing, holy, immaculate, truly loving Church.” 70 And yet, the Swiss thinker concludes, Augustine failed to clarify an idea that emerges with frequency throughout his work, the idea “that the segment of the civitas Dei that is on pilgrimage through historical time becomes the immaculate Bride-Church only in eschatological time.” 71 This interpretation of the Church is a problem for Balthasar, who thinks Augustine dislocated the eschatologically pure, spotless bride improperly from its historical point of origin, which is the moment of Christ’s Incarnation. The kind of Platonizing Balthasar was loath to endure is here in full effect, as Augustine overextended his commitment to an eschatological ecclesia awaiting its consummation. When faced with the perceptual irreconcilability between the pervasiveness of sin in the midst of believers, on the one hand, and on the other, the mystical communion of love in which the exercise of ministry is always Christ’s own, Augustine located the Church’s purity in the eschaton. Balthasar opposes such a move. Ecclesiology leads us in the opposite direction, back to the mystery of the Incarnation: “The realized Idea of the Church comes at the beginning; everything subsequent, even ecclesiastical office with its sacred functions, is secondary.” 72 This, as we have seen, is the ecclesiological direction that Möhler himself initiated, but without entirely clarifying how. Importantly, Balthasar makes precisely this point, saying that, beginning with Einheit and leading up through Symbolik, Möhler properly led his reflections on office in the Church “to a certain point,” but that “there a further step becomes necessary.” 73 The further step, of course, is into the mystery of Mary, consideration of which can situate the sacramental ministry once again within a deeper, spiritual communio, but one that Balthasar, The Office of Peter, 172 (cf. Einheit, appendix 13). Balthasar, The Office of Peter, 183. 71 Balthasar, The Office of Peter, 180. 72 Balthasar, “The Marian Mold of the Church,” 140. 73 Balthasar, The Office of Peter, 167: “The question that claims our attention [i.e., the question of how the “juridical dimension” of the Church relates to the “unanimity of a lived communio”] was developed in the most convincing form by Johann Adam Möhler. From his early Die Einheit in der Kirche to his mature work, Symbolik, he carries it to a certain point, but there a further step becomes necessary.” 69 70 724 Alec Arnold is undoubtedly visible, human, and perfectly correspondent to the incarnate Word: Once we grasp that Mary, the Mother and Bride of the Lord, is the only member of the pilgrim Church to correspond to the Church’s attribute immaculata (Eph 5:27) and that Peter’s office is founded on the “Church of love” (Augustine), must we not assume that Mary becomes just as really present in the visible Church at all times within Peter’s presence in the current officebearer and within the presence of the Twelve (and of Paul) in all the holders of office?74 To rephrase the force of this discussion: if, on the one hand, Möhler eventually located the Church’s ideal embodiment (the moment it takes “flesh and blood”) in the disciples’ receptivity to the Word of Christ in the Spirit, and if, on the other hand, Augustine was driven to locate this same ideal Church in the eschaton, then Balthasar sides with Möhler but self-consciously takes “a further step.” The disciples receive the Word, to be sure, and are called to obey him by representing his authority for the sake of Christ’s own mission, but as Balthasar says, “the Marian experience existed prior to the apostolic experience, and it thus wholly conditions it, for Mary, as Mother of the Head, is also Mother of the Body.”75 Balthasar’s reasoning is resolutely pastoral. Even without a full treatment of the Marian spirituality he develops elsewhere, the significance of Mariology for the Church’s self-understanding is clear: “Primarily our aim is to understand as clearly and as fully as possible the Catholica as she has legitimately understood herself, both objectively and historically (disregarding any deviations), and as she still must understand herself today.”76 The “today” of which Balthasar speaks is the historical moment following the promulgation of both the Marian dogmas and the infallibility of the Pope. Hence, he makes a plea for a proper restoration of Mariology in relation to the Petrine office: “Let us face the fact . . . [that] balancing Petrus with Maria-ecclesia is primarily an internal concern of the Catholic Church.” 77 Balthasar, The Office of Peter, 180. Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, vol. 1, Seeing the Form, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2009 [original German, 1961]), 353. 76 Balthasar, The Office of Peter, 184. 77 Balthasar, The Office of Peter, 184. 74 75 “This is a Profound Mystery” 725 Ratzinger: Scripture’s Justification If Balthasar discerned a pastoral need for seeing the ideal Church of Möhler’s Einheit as being visibly and truly consummate in the person of Mary, Ratzinger supplied the scriptural justification for making this move. Ratzinger shared with Balthasar and de Lubac a concern to correct the confusion, before and after Vatican II, about the meaning of the “Mystical Body.” After World War I, Ratzinger notes, new directions for Catholic ecclesiology opened up through this concept: “Like a force of nature, it broke through centuries of ossification.”78 The lineage for the concept of the “Mystical Body” began with Möhler, but it was shaped by its reception into the Roman School, in which it was mapped onto a false relation between visible and invisible.79 The Mystical Body was taken to refer to an invisible Church without tangible earthly substance, thus allowing the Bellarminian definition of the Church to pervade. Conversely, the visible Church, made up of real human members, was not seen as “Mystical” so much as a sociological reality defined by membership and external adherence to the hierarchy. Ratzinger notes that, between the world wars, an ecclesiological collision course had been set: Theologians had heaped upon the image of the Mystical Body all the glories of the supernatural and thereby created an extremely unrealistic concept. . . . But who could forget for long that the mystical glory remains meaningless, empty talk if the concrete Church presents herself to us as something so completely different? 80 Each in their own way, then, Balthasar, Ratzinger, and de Lubac discerned that something had slipped from vision: the visible reality of the Mystical Body, no mere metaphor or eschatological hope, but the Church in its flesh and blood. To right the balance, Ratzinger joined Balthasar’s mission to resuscitate another metaphor that might put the union between Christ and the veritable community he came to save back in perspective, Ratzinger, “The Nature and Limits of the Church,” 116. See Henri de Lubac, “The Two Aspects of the One Church,” in The Splendor of the Church, 92–93. De Lubac traces the widely accepted path of Möhler’s reception to Perrone, Passaglia, Schrader, Franzelin, and Scheeben. See also Walter Kasper, Die Lehre von der Tradition in der römische Schule: Giovanni Perrone, Carlo Passaglia, Clemens Schrader (Freiburg: Herder, 1962). 80 Ratzinger, “The Nature and Limits of the Church,” 117. 78 79 726 Alec Arnold the nuptial metaphor of the Church as bride, which enjoyed a much earlier provenance owing to its use throughout the Old Testament for the people of God, to which Yahweh routinely refers as his bride.81 The deeper resonances in the New Testament have already been insinuated, as appears in Paul’s use of the Genesis “one-flesh” passage. Rightly or wrongly,82 the bridal metaphor retrieved by Ratzinger and Balthasar served as a reminder that “what is most authentically ecclesial about the ecclesia” is not its exercise of authority, but its spiritual receptivity and dialogical openness to Christ.83 Thus, without going so far as to say that Mary is the singular hypostastis of the ecclesial bride, Ratzinger sees Mary as the most fitting exemplar for this imagery: The Church is the body, the flesh of Christ in the spiritual tension of love wherein the spousal mystery of Adam and Eve is consummated, hence, in the dynamism of a unity that does not abolish dialogical reciprocity. By the same token, precisely the Eucharistic-Christological mystery of the Church indicated in the term “Body of Christ” remains within the proper measure only when it includes the mystery of Mary: the mystery of the listening handmade who—liberated in grace—speaks her Fiat and, in so doing, becomes bride and thus body.84 As shown here, the logic of Mary becoming body is doubly significant. She becomes Christ’s body by becoming part of his Church, but in her particular case, she becomes his body by receiving the Word. The question lingers: is Mary primarily “bride” or “mother”? Ratzinger wants to say both, but the intelligibility of saying both means we have to read Mary’s physical maternity in its theological dimensions, and for Ratzinger, this entails a particular approach to Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Who Is the Church?” in Spouse of the Word, trans. Littledale and Dru, 143–92, at 148–49: “[A] time came when the bride image became blurred and lost its hold on men’s minds, and this is true today for the general consciousness of the Church. The analogy of the body has been resuscitated and is again in vogue, but this has not happened to the analogy of the bride.” 82 See Karen Kilby, “Gender and ‘the Nuptial’ in Balthasar’s Theology,” in Balthasar: A (Very) Critical Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012), 123–46. 83 Ratzinger, “Thoughts on the Place of Marian Doctrine and Piety,” 25. 84 Ratzinger, “Thoughts on the Place of Marian Doctrine and Piety,” 26. 81 “This is a Profound Mystery” 727 Scripture: “We must avoid relegating Mary’s maternity to the sphere of mere biology. But we can do so only if our reading of Scripture can legitimately presuppose a hermeneutic that rules out just this kind of division and allows us instead to recognize the correlation of Christ and his Mother as a theological reality.”85 Toward this end, Ratzinger presupposes a gender dualism in his reading of Scripture, such that a “masculine line” and a “feminine line” are distinguished in salvation history, running alongside each other and somehow merging in the mystery of Mary’s conception of Christ.86 Mary is bride according to Israel’s calling; she is mother according to the Christological mystery of redemption. Ratzinger has been criticized by feminist scholars for reading Scripture this way, since it requires essentializing spiritual dispositions on the basis of biological sex.87 That is, Ratzinger takes for granted the incarnate Christ’s identification with the masculine line of the Old Testament, which leads him to identify Mary’s culmination of the feminine line according to her receptivity, passivity, and submission to the incarnate Word of God. And so, for Ratzinger, the emphases most proper to the creature as such, when located here in the Christological mystery, are identified with Mary’s gendered existence as a woman: “Just as the Adamic line gets its meaning from Christ, the significance of the feminine line, in its indivisible mutual immanence with respect to the mystery of Christ, becomes clear in Ratzinger, “Thoughts on the Place of Marian Doctrine and Piety,” 29. See Mary Frances McKenna, Innovation within Tradition: Joseph Ratzinger and Reading the Women of Scripture (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2015). 87 See Heike Harbecke, “Mary and Woman/en: Some Aspects of Joseph Ratzinger’s (Benedict XVI’s) Mariology in the Light of Gender-Difference Feminism,” in The Many Faces of Mary, ed. Diego Irarrazabal, Susan Ross, and Marie-Theres Wacker (London: SCM Press, 2008), 126–40; Sidney Callahan, “Ratzinger, Feminist?” Commonweal 131 (2004): 9–10; and Sarah Jane Boss, “Francisco Suárez and Modern Mariology,” in Mary:The Complete Resource, ed. Sarah Jane Boss (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007): 256–78. For feminist readings of Mary in general, see Elizabeth Johnson, Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints [New York: Continuum, 2003); Johnson, “The Symbolic Character of Theological Statements about Mary,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 22 (1985): 312–35; Johnson, “Mary and the Eternal Face of God,” Theological Studies 50 (1989): 500–526; Rosemary Radford Ruether, Mary: The Feminine Face of the Church (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1977); A Feminist Companion to Mariology, ed. Amy-Jill Levine with Mario Mayo Robbins (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2005). 85 86 728 Alec Arnold light of the figure of Mary and of the role of the ecclesia.”88 Again, the “true center of all history,” Ratzinger notes, is the single figure of Christ-and-Church, such that “Church” here means “the creature’s fusion with its Lord in spousal love, in which its hope for divinization is fulfilled by way of faith.”89 Mary is undoubtedly the archetype of such creaturely fusion, but for Ratzinger, she is such by virtue of her femininity rather than her humanity, since she necessarily shares this with Christ. The substance of the criticisms against Ratzinger’s gender dualism needs to be taken seriously, but it need not delay discussion here. The question of whether biology determines spirituality can be set aside because, in the end, Ratzinger intends to underscore the reality of Mary’s motherhood, but without neglecting its theological dimension: If, therefore, Christ and ecclesia are the hermeneutical center of the scriptural narration of the history of God’s saving dealings with man, then and only then is the place fixed where Mary’s motherhood becomes theologically significant as the ultimate personal concretization of Church. . . . She is the personal concretization of the Church because her Fiat makes her the bodily Mother of the Lord. But this biological fact is a theological reality, because it realizes the deepest spiritual content of the covenant that God intended to make with Israel.90 Put differently, Mary is a unique fulcrum in the history of salvation, for though she stands in continuity with the rest of the members of Israel and is thus called to be Yahweh’s bride in the same manner as they, she is utterly unique in relation to all other Old Testament types by virtue of being theotokos, of physically bearing God in the world. This uniqueness also pertains to the spiritual order of Christian ecclesial obedience. And on this score, Mary’s spiritual receptivity to the Word is necessarily of the same quality as that of any other human believer, even if her mission in the Church was radically unique and exclusive, because unrepeatable. This is precisely what makes her exemplary. Joseph Ratzinger, “The Sign of the Woman: An Introductory Essay on the Encyclical Redemptoris Mater,” in Balthasar and Ratzinger, Mary: The Church at the Source, 37–60, at 43–44. 89 Ratzinger, “Thoughts on the Place of Marian Doctrine and Piety,” 30. 90 Ratzinger, “Thoughts on the Place of Marian Doctrine and Piety,” 30 (my emphasis). 88 “This is a Profound Mystery” 729 With this in mind, Ratzinger maintains that Mariology cannot be fully integrated within Christology or ecclesiology, but is rather a unique sphere of reflection guarding against two extremes that should sound familiar. On the one hand, says Ratzinger, Mary guards against an ecclesial Christomonism in which the believer is absorbed into Christ and loses his personal, creaturely autonomy in the order of grace, as if an ontological identity could be postulated between the Church and Christ. This is not what Paul intends when saying we are the “body of Christ.” On the other hand, Ratzinger also wants to resist the tendency to reduce Christ’s appearance on the stage of history, as if his redemptive work excluded the cooperation of the creature in the order of grace. Such a solus Christus soteriology is, in many ways, one of the sad results bequeathed upon theology since the Reformation.91 Indeed, Luther stated quite plainly that Christ’s salvific activities took place “by the grace of God alone and the sole working of the Holy Spirit, without any human action.”92 Against this account, and against the idea of creaturely “absorption,” Ratzinger’s Mariology points us toward a “dialogical reciprocity” between creature and Creator that is always kept open, but without undermining the reality of the ontological union effected by Christ’s Incarnation.93 To sum up, Ratzinger suggests that a rightly understood Mariology clarifies and deepens the concept of Church by opening up the “feminine dimension,” by which he really means the affective, receptive disposition of the believer, the inward commitment of loving trust and faith. This dimension “points beyond sociology” to a “dimension wherein the real ground and unifying power of the reality Church first appears.”94 The Church cannot be considered solely according to its institutional structure because, for Ratzinger (as for Balthasar), this would be to see it as essentially “masculine.”95 Again, the inherently gendered spirituality here has caused problems for some,96 but the crux of the issue ought not be overlooked: as a Ratzinger, “The Sign of the Woman,” 43. Cited by Henri de Lubac in “The Church and Our Lady,” 314. 93 Ratzinger, “Thoughts on the Place of Marian Doctrine and Piety,” 26. 94 Ratzinger, “Thoughts on the Place of Marian Doctrine and Piety,” 25. 95 Ratzinger, “Thoughts on the Place of Marian Doctrine and Piety,” 25. 96 See Sarah Boss, “Francisco Suárez and Modern Mariology.” From my reading of Boss, Suárez’s views appear consonant with those of Louis Bouyer, who also draws attention more to Mary’s virginal motherhood than to her spousal relation with the Word. This direction proffers similar conclusions about union/ distinction between Christ and Church that Ratzinger makes, but without 91 92 730 Alec Arnold result of this theological interpretation of Paul’s original imagery, the apostolic institution is necessarily relativized and shown to be subordinate to the deeper dimension of a spiritual communion shared by the entire visible Church. De Lubac: Tradition’s Testimony Finally then, if Ratzinger supplies the scriptural justification by which to locate the bridal and maternal Church first and foremost with the person of Mary, de Lubac corroborates this typology through his exhaustive collation of Tradition’s testimony.97 In his history of Vatican II, John O’Malley observes that de Lubac’s “The Church and Our Lady” (1953) provided “an attractive paradigm” by which to justify the Council’s eventual decision to put its statements on Mary within its document on the Church, rather than supply an independent treatise.98 The decision was hotly debated, since many of the bishops were at least sensitive to, if not direct proponents of, the “high Mariology” characterizing Catholic faith and piety in the century prior to Vatican II.99 Such exalted views of Mary were part and parcel of the confused alignment of the visible/invisible dichotomy with the mystical/ sociological dichotomy. For his part, de Lubac insists: “If we talk of a ‘sociological Church,’ we only accentuate a dichotomy already suspect, without avoiding anything unpleasant in so doing. We must remember that the human element itself, as something essential to the structure and life of the Church as Christ willed her to be, is divine in its foundation.”100 Such comments bring de Lubac’s Marian contribution into direct conversation with Möhler’s attempt to apply the Chalcedonian definition of Christ to the Church without qualification.101 More specifically, as Möhler strove to apply the communicatio idiomatum of Christology to the Church, he understandably, but mistakenly, identified the hierarchy established by Christ as most essentializing gender differences. See Bouyer, Woman and Man with God: An essay on the Place of the Virgin Mary in Christian Theology and Its Significance for Humanity, trans. A. V. Littledale (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1960). 97 I focus most explicitly on de Lubac’s chapter “The Church and Our Lady” in The Splendor of the Church. 98 O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican II, 188. 99 Timothy J. Sauppe, “Decoding Vatican II’s Marian Paradigm Shift,” Homiletic & Pastoral Review, June 26, 2014, hprweb.com/2014/06/decoding-vatican-iis-marian-paradigm-shift/. 100 De Lubac, “The Two Aspects of the One Church,” 102. 101 See Himes, Ongoing Incarnation, 261. “This is a Profound Mystery” 731 representative for the “divine side” of the exchange of attributes within the divine and human Church. De Lubac’s testimony modifies this idea significantly. Precisely in whom, de Lubac asks, is this Church most divine and human, “without division and without confusion,” like Christ himself, “whose body she mystically is”?102 In his final chapter of The Splendor of the Church, he supplies a cascade of responses from the Tradition that summarily point us not to the papacy or to the hierarchical ministry, but to Mary, the Church’s “type and model, her point of origin and perfection.”103 Whereas Möhler applied the Chalcedonian definition to the Church as such, de Lubac refocuses attention instead upon the reciprocal correspondences throughout Tradition between the Church and Mary. The substance of such testimony supplied crucial material for resituating the hierarchical ministry within the more primary idea of the Mystical Body of all the faithful in union with Christ. For example, in an earlier chapter of The Splendor of the Church, de Lubac lavishes extravagant praise on Matthias Scheeben, who, “like Möhler, died too young to give all that he had in him.”104 Nevertheless, de Lubac notes, despite Scheeben’s failure to unite the hierarchy and the Mystical Body in proper conjunction, his Die Mysterien des Christentums (1885) “stood for a tendency in the right direction,” even if, he laments, “the lead was not very much followed.”105 What he means is that the Council fathers of Vatican I and the subsequent Thomistic movement of the twentieth century emphasized “the metaphorical character of the expression, to the point of watering down the realism of the doctrine it contained.”106 By reconnecting the doctrine of the Mystical Body with the human exemplar of Mary, de Lubac modified any exaggerated sense of the Mystical Body as an abstract-yet De Lubac, “The Two Aspects of the One Church,” 102. De Lubac, “The Church and Our Lady,” 320. It should be mentioned that de Lubac freely concedes that the early Church’s ecclesiology was itself impersonal and not identifiable with Marian contours. Balthasar and Ratzinger both concede the point as well. But this does not mitigate for any of them the conviction by which the Church was led to see this impersonal ecclesiology as perfectly refracted in the person of Mary. See Troy Stefano, “Catholica Mater: The Marian Insights of Henri de Lubac,” in Cavadini and Peters, Mary on the Eve of the Second Vatican Council, 179–203. 104 De Lubac, “The Two Aspects of the One Church,” 93. 105 De Lubac, “The Two Aspects of the One Church,” 93. 106 De Lubac, “The Two Aspects of the One Church,” 95. 102 103 732 Alec Arnold somehow-“divine” hypostasis of Spirit or Christ underwriting the hierarchy’s activities. It was to Scheeben’s credit, suggests de Lubac, that he discerned a “perichoretic” relationship between the dogma of infallibility and the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.107 The two belong together, lest the more original form of the Church be lost in abstraction. Finally, given the importance of de Lubac’s Eucharistic theology for ecclesiology, it should not be missed that he draws an intriguing parallel between Mary’s maternity with respect to Christ and the Church’s maternity with respect to the Eucharist.108 Even if the sacramental priesthood has indeed been divinely instituted by Christ himself to perpetuate his living presence in the sacraments, the Marian dimension nevertheless re-situates the sacramental hierarchy within the body of all the faithful. As he puts in another chapter of The Splendor of the Church: Let it be said once more, therefore, that the institution of the priesthood and the sacrament of Orders do not create, within the Church, two degrees of membership of Christ and two different species of Christians, as it were. This is a fundamental truth of the faith. The priest is not, in virtue of his priestly ordination, more of a Christian than the ordinary believer; the Order he has received is for the sake of the Eucharist, but the Eucharist is for the sake of everyone. All are called, as from this present world, to the same divine life.109 Toward that end, Mary is undoubtedly “a member of the Church, but she is the first, principal, and highest member, and this uniquely and in so eminent a sense that we may also say . . . that the Church belongs to her.”110 Receiving Möhler in a Marian Key The historiography concerning Möhler’s reception by the nouvelle théologie and the ecclesiology of Vatican II is incomplete if it fails to attend to the Marian theology presupposed by this movement’s repre De Lubac, “The Church and Our Lady,” 328. De Lubac, “The Church and Our Lady,” 334–35. 109 De Lubac, “The Heart of the Church,” in The Splendor of the Church, 126–60, at 143. 110 De Lubac, “The Church and Our Lady,” 334–35. 107 108 “This is a Profound Mystery” 733 sentative thinkers. Certainly, in the case of the three discussed above, the Marian dimension problematizes a “two-track” hypothesis about Catholic ecclesiology by relocating this false dichotomy within a theological dimension that Möhler himself did not consider, even as it resolves a number of his tensions. At one point in Himes’s review of said tensions, it sounds as if he might open up this dimension when he observes that, for Möhler, “the manner of the Son’s relation to humanity determines the manner of the church because the moment of his union with humanity is the moment of the church’s birth.”111 But no further comment is directed toward the question of Mary’s conception of the Word in the Incarnation. At any rate, this lack of scholarly attention to the Marian presuppositions in which the nouvelle thinkers received Möhler is surprising, for the Marian aspect also resolves questions about other figures besides those discussed here. In the case of Möhler’s most important twentieth-century disciple, Yves Congar, Mary is indispensable to the historical-theological puzzle of his overall project in ecclesiology. For instance, despite the value of James Lee’s recent article on Möhler’s reception by Congar, no attention is given to the way Mary affects Congar’s ideas about the Church in general, to say nothing of how Mary affects his reception of Möhler specifically.112 Some consideration in this regard would fruitfully complicate Lee’s overall thesis that, although Congar initially thought the ecclesiology of Einheit could harmonize with the already well-received account of Symbolik, he eventually came to see these as incompatible, in the sense that, as far as Congar was concerned, “ecclesiology must be pneumatologically and not incarnationally centered.”113 “For the mature Congar,” Lee contends, “the church is not the continued incarnation of Christ, wherein the hierarchy function as the essential link between Christ and the present day church.”114 I would argue that such a reading obfuscates the fact that, as early as 1952, Congar had already identified and dissociated himself from Himes, Ongoing Incarnation, 257. James Ambrose Lee II, “Shaping Reception: Yves Congar’s Reception of Johann Adam Möhler,” New Blackfriars 97 (2016): 693–712. See also the work beyond which Lee seeks to advance: Thomas F. O’Meara, “Beyond Hierarchology: Johann Adam Möhler and Yves Congar,” in The Legacy of the Tübingen School, ed. Donald Dietrich and Michael Himes (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 173–91. 113 Lee, “Shaping Reception,” 709 (cf. 696). 114 Lee, “Shaping Reception,” 709. 111 112 734 Alec Arnold the problems inherent in both Einheit and Symbolik. As he wrote in Christ, Our Lady and the Church: We must not think of the Church . . . simply as a kind of incarnation of the Holy Spirit comparable with that of the Word made Flesh, nor even, properly speaking, as the extension of the Incarnation. Both these modes of thought . . . need qualification if a due proportion is to be accurately maintained in the elements of which the Church, as such, is composed. For by its very nature it is ever compacted of that which is human and that which is divine, reflecting thereby the likeness of Christ.115 Considering the terms of the present essay, it is crucial to observe that, in context, these words follow from what Congar had just written about Mary: [She] is purely human, and her glorified humanity, a ground of hope that ours will one day be like hers, carries back our understanding to the sacred and glorified humanity of Christ, in the likeness of which hers was victorious over sin and death. So far from lending itself, when properly understood, to any tendency to Monophysitism, Catholic belief about the graces conferred on our Lady serves to confirm the Apostolic faith clearly proclaimed by the Council of Chalcedon.116 Indeed, prior to de Lubac’s Splendor of the Church (1953), with its influential chapter on “The Church and Our Lady,” Congar had already reflected his own appreciation for how a Mary–Church typology overcomes the theological pitfalls of an unqualified account of the Church as either the Incarnation of the Spirit or the extension of the Word made flesh. Hence, Christopher Ruddy is right to suggest that, although Congar was “more reactive than constructive” with regard to Mariology as a distinct theological locus, we should also appreciate that he was quite constructive in an explicitly Marian direction with the ecclesiology he inherited from Möhler.117 In a review from 1950, Congar Yves Congar, Christ, Our Lady and the Church, trans. Henry St. John (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1957; [original French, 1952]), 55. 116 Congar, Christ, Our Lady and the Church, 54. 117 Christopher Ruddy, “‘A Very Considerable Place in the Mystery of Christ and 115 “This is a Profound Mystery” 735 wrote of there being good reason to insist “sur la nécessaire jonction de la mariologie et de l’ecclésiologie, clef, à notre avis, de bien des difficultés [on the necessary conjunction of Mariology and ecclesiology, the key in our opinion, to many difficulties].”118 Furthermore, if Congar stands in basic agreement with the Marian augmentation of Möhler’s later ecclesiology described above, as I suggest he does, then it was entirely fitting for him to discourage Marian “maximalism” going into the Second Vatican Council.119 Such insistence makes sense when we consider (a) his concerns about the possibilities for ecumenical dialogue and (b) his insistence, early and late, that Mary is first and foremost the ecclesia’s human exemplar par excellence, the model of the believing creature, corresponding perfectly in her humanity to “the sovereign action of the Spirit in Christ.”120 the Church’? Yves Congar on Mary,” in Cavadini and Peters, Mary on the Eve of the Second Vatican Council, 113–32, at 126. 118 Yves Congar, “Mariologie” [review of a 1947 republication of P. Terrien’s La Mère de Dieu, La Mère des hommes], Bulletin de Théologie Dogmatique, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 34 (1950): 640 (my translation). 119 See for instance, Yves Congar, My Journal of the Council, trans. Mary John Ronayne and Mary Cecily Boulding (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012 [original French, 2002]), 315 (entry for September 18, 1963): “The mariological zelanti would like ‘to add new flowers’ to Mary’s crown. This maximising theology is not healthy. IT WOULD BE MUCH BETTER TO DO NOTHING.” 120 Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3 vols., trans. David Smith (New York: Crossroad, 2015 [originally 1979–1980]), 1:164. Despite the brevity of his discussion of Mary in this volume, Congar hardly backs away from his commitment to Mary as “the model of the Church,” as can be found throughout his career. In his mature opus on pneumatology, then, he flatly admits the validity of Protestant concerns about Catholic extravagances with regard to Mary, especially as if she could replace the Holy Spirit, but then he goes on to insist: “The Christian mystery would lack an important dimension if it excluded or passed over the part played by Mary. Mary is the first recipient of grace and the first to have been associated with the sovereign action of the Spirit in Christ. Protestants are right to reject an attribution to Mary of what belongs only to God, but they are wrong if they remain closed to the witness borne by Catholic and Orthodox Christians to the benefit in their lives in Christ of a discreet Marian influence” (1:164). In his Journal, Congar recorded his immediate impressions after Pope Pius XII’s speech in which he rather ambiguously announced Mary as the Mother of the Church (Mater Ecclesiae). Congar notes: “The enthusiastic applause was very strongly supported by the mob of insignia-bearers and the various members of the papal court. They gave the impression of believing that the Pope had just made a dogmatic definition. But a definition OF WHAT? What is the CONTENT of ‘Mater Ecclesiae’???” (My Journal of the Council, 696 [entry 736 Alec Arnold Barth, it should be noted in conclusion, saw all these connections quite clearly. In the same volume of his Dogmatics in which he calls Möhler’s reading of Schleiermacher a genuinely “Catholic improvement,” mentioned above, the Swiss thinker also explains that Mariology is the Catholic solution to all the difficulties regarding the role of humanity, and the earthly Church specifically, with respect to the divine work of redemption. Or, as he puts it somewhat less favorably, Mariology constitutes “the one heresy of the Roman Catholic Church which explains all the rest.”121 Why “heresy”? Because, for Barth, “the problem to which the Roman Catholic doctrine of grace and the Church, to which Mariology in particular is the so-called answer, i.e., the problem of creaturely co-operation in God’s revelation and reconciliation, is at once a spurious problem, the sole answer to which can be false doctrines.”122 Of course, if the problem is not spurious, then Barth’s comment is perhaps still perspicacious: Mariology “explains all the rest.” It is at least telling that de Lubac used Barth’s objection to introduce his own chapter on Mary, conceding the point freely: “Catholic faith regarding our Lady sums up symbolically, in its special case, the doctrine of human cooperation in the Redemption and thus provides the synthesis, or matrix concept, as it were, of the dogma of the Church.”123 Conclusion Were we to exclude consideration of Mariology after Möhler, a two-track hypothesis of Catholic ecclesiology might be feasible. However, by retracing Möhler’s own developments in the first section, I have shown that the theologian of Tübingen himself never posited two tracks, since he actively attended to problems emerging from his fresh explorations in the way the pilgrim Church on earth re-presents and extends Christ’s saving work for all of humanity. Subsequently, I have shown that Balthasar, Ratzinger, and de Lubac were most true to Möhler’s own trajectory when they pressed ecclesiological reflection into the mystery of Incarnation, taking the “further step” of elaborating the significance of Mary for the Church today. for “Strasbourg, 22 November 1964”]). See also O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican II, 283. 121 Karl Barth, CD vol. I/2, 143. 122 Karl Barth, CD vol. I/2, 146. 123 De Lubac, “The Church and Our Lady,” 316. “This is a Profound Mystery” 737 Generally speaking, the literature concerning Möhler and his significance for modern Catholic ecclesiology rarely connects his work to the Marian contributions of his twentieth-century successors, despite the fact that each of the thinkers discussed here pointed to Mariology as the only way to make sense of both the unity and the necessary distinction between the identity of Christ the Head and the body of his pilgrim Church on earth. This scholarly oversight is unfortunate for two reasons. First, excluding the Marian augmentation of Möhler’s overall ecclesiology makes it far too easy to perpetuate a false dichotomy between a “top-down,” pejoratively “hierarchical” Church, rigidly fixed in place, and a “bottom-up,” laudably “progressive” Church, flexibly moved by the Spirit. Simply put, this dualism is not Catholic. Secondly, a failure to appreciate why Möhler’s successors developed the Mariology they did makes it far too easy to judge them for making too much of Mary’s place in the nuptial metaphor of the Church as the bride of Christ, despite this metaphor being clearly found in Scripture. It is somewhat ironic that, by explicating Mary’s place in the “profound mystery” of ecclesial unity with Christ precisely so as to subordinate the hierarchical ministry properly, Balthasar and the others bequeathed such a theological and pastoral knife-edge. That is to say, theologically, it can be admitted that Balthasar and Ratzinger failed to make clear that Mary is not the unique hypostastis of the ecclesial “bride” any more than any other believer, since her exclusive calling pertains to her virginal motherhood, and this surely ought not imply some kind of mystical, sexual union on her part, as a human woman, with God. Pastorally speaking, the obvious confusion surrounding this topic has prompted a strong reaction from feminist scholars disturbed by the gender implications of this line of thought. And yet, again, the historical-theological context that would most assuage some of this fallout has been forgotten, as well as what animated, for example, Balthasar’s ressourcement of a Marian ecclesiology after Möhler in the first place. In sum, if Balthasar, Ratzinger, and de Lubac succeeded in advancing the Church’s sense of identity beyond Möhler, resolving his basic tensions, they undoubtedly provoked new questions for the Church in the process. Such is the way of theological reasoning N&V when engaged from within a living communion of faith. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 739–773 739 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning Paul Clarke, O.P. Dominican House of Studies Washington, DC In Search of Lament Despite the last century’s resurgence of interest in lament as a vital topic for theological reflection, there remains a troubling ambivalence about its place in the Church’s life and theology, one that arguably betrays deeper, more systemic confusions. Notwithstanding efforts to rehabilitate lament, particularly in pastoral and practical theology, Christian mourning continues to be characteristically ambivalent, apologetic, and almost furtive, as if forbidden by faith except in extreme cases of death and loss, when it is permitted, if not endorsed. This raises the possibility that these more pragmatic approaches have overlooked deeper theoretical questions, ambiguities, and issues.1 Additionally, if we lack the conceptual—and theological—resources to explain why Christians can mourn, the joy of the Christian life can begin to ring false, to smack of mere optimism rather than the radical hope of the Gospel. For insightful essays from German and Anglophone authors that address this issue, see those in Evoking Lament: A Theological Discussion, ed. Eva Harasta and Brian Brock (London: T&T Clark, 2009), and Lament: Reclaiming Practices in Pulpit, Pew, and Public Square, ed. Sally Ann Brown and Patrick D. Miller (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2005). For a history of the decline of the lament in the Christian West, see Richard A. Hughes, Lament, Death, and Destiny (New York: Peter Lang, 2004); Walter Brueggemann, “The Costly Loss of Lament,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 11, no. 36 (October 1, 1986): 57–71. 1 740 Paul Clarke, O.P. There is need, then, to develop a robust Christian realism that can explicitly address the lurking theoretical and historical issues and show that hope and anxiety, or joy and sorrow, are not opposed or merely dialectically compatible, but in fact indispensable parts of the Christian life. This article proposes the work of Richard Schenk as a guide toward just such a Christian realism.2 Schenk has devoted significant attention to the theme of mourning, although Anglophone reception of his work has been remarkably sparse to date.3 Themes of his work include the post-conciliar reception of Gaudium et Spes and historical and contemporary debates concerning human finitude, suffering, grace, and hope. In sympathy with Schenk’s work, I argue for a Christian retrieval of the prophetic lament as a contribution My use of realism in this essay does not refer so much to a particular metaphysical or epistemological position concerning, for instance, extra-mental reality, but instead indicates a stance of human beings toward the world, viewed as (a) not of our own making and (b) the source and standard of human cognition and interpretive judgments. Such a realism is, at the same time, the subjective flowering of a genuinely metaphysical realism. Specifically, this describes a stance toward reality that is both expansive, in that it maintains a principled openness to reality in all its grandeur et misère, and critical, in that it seeks, through the making and harmonizing of distinctions, to articulate judgments about the nature of reality. This depends on a dynamic interplay of the qualities of truthfulness, by which one remains open to reality as the primary given to which the person attempts to conform his interpretive judgments, and hope, by which one strives toward difficult human goods and resists the extreme tendencies of pessimism or optimism. As I will argue, such a realism must play a foundational role in shaping the form of the Christian answer to the question “what may man hope for?” 3 See Richard Schenk: “‘And Jesus Wept’: Notes toward a Theology of Mourning,” in Soundings in a History of a Hope: New Studies on Thomas Aquinas (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2016), 102–30; “Gaudium et Spes: The Task Before Us,” Nova et Vetera (English) 8, no. 2 (2010): 323–35; “Officium Signa Temporum Perscrutandi: New Encounters of Gospel and Culture in the Context of the New Evangelization,” in Called to Holiness and Communion: Vatican II on the Church, ed. Steven C. Boguslawski et al. (Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 2009), 69–105. In addition to these works, I will also be drawing on draft versions of the following essays by Fr. Schenk that will appear (in translation from German originals) as chapters in his Revelations of Humanity, trans. Michael J. Miller (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, forthcoming): “Factus in agonia: On the Agony of Christ and of Christians”; “Hoping to be a Person: Theological Reflections on the Discontinuity of Promise and Trust”; “Can and Should We Avoid Theological Talk about God’s Suffering? Reflections about the Dispute between Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar.” I wish to express my thanks for advance access to this material. 2 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 741 toward his call for a differentiated approach to theology, an approach that attends to both gaudium et spes (joy and hope), on the one hand, and luctus et angor (grief and anxiety), on the other.4 My argument will converge with the trajectory of his proposals, reinforcing his conclusions from a scriptural point of departure. Any genuinely Christian theology of mourning should be nourished by its Old Testament roots. The prophetic lament, notably that of Jeremiah, is a fertile source for understanding and deepening Schenk’s theology of mourning. Relying on (but also amplifying) Yochanan Muffs’s study of prophetic intercession, I argue that lament is actually thoroughly, albeit darkly, hope-filled and that, furthermore, it offers a rich typology that can inform authentic Christian sorrowing. Moreover, in its thematization of truth, providence, suffering, eschatology, sin, and human subjectivity, the prophetic lament has much to offer toward the development of a robust theology of mourning and an expansive Christian realism. Since my goal is to situate a retrieval of the prophetic lament within the context of Schenk’s broader project, my argument will begin with a summary of the capital features of his theology of mourning. The next and longest section of the present article will pull together the main threads of my proposal that Jeremiah’s lament in chapter 20 is fruitfully read as a form of his intercession, which has a unique coloration by virtue of his prophetic vocation. After a close reading of the lament and an analysis of its inner logic and significance, I will briefly sketch the New Testament’s witness to the Christological reconfiguration of the prophetic lament. The concluding section will summarize the convergences between Schenk and this study and offer four theses on their implications for contemporary theology in the Church. Richard Schenk’s Theology of Mourning It is at the risk of simplification that I confine myself to summarizing only the main features of Schenk’s theology of luctus et angor. The initial “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ” (Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern Word Gaudium et Spes [December 7, 1965], §1). This article follows Schenk’s practice of using the Latin terms as shorthand to evoke a constellation of semantically related terms (e.g., luctus et angor would include not only grief and anxiety but also sorrow, lament, mourning, suffering, and so on). 4 742 Paul Clarke, O.P. problem, he notes, is that the tradition lacks clear indications of what a genuinely Christian theology of mourning can and should be. The ambivalence of the inherited tradition reveals unresolved and often unremarked tensions in the philosophical and theological views that shape our approach to death and mourning.5 Broadly speaking, Schenk has focused on developing resources within the tradition, particularly in Thomas Aquinas, setting them in dialectical engagement with modern and contemporary accounts of sorrow, suffering, and death. The central thrust of much of his work is to establish the goodness and rationality of mourning as an authentic response to the experience of evil. This puts him in conversation with classical Platonist and Stoic views, as well as their modern heirs. In Schenk’s estimation, Christian attempts to formulate a theology of mourning have been bedeviled by the presence of a Stoic indifference, on the one hand, and a Platonic spiritualism, on the other. Against the dualistic approach of Platonism, which views death in a positive and enlightened way as the liberation of the soul from its bodily prison, Schenk has stressed the negativity of death as a rupture, a destruction of genuinely human possibilities.6 In his view, this insight is not limited to the privileged perspective of theology, but is accessible to philosophical investigation as well.7 The So, for instance, the legacy of Platonic and Stoic thought, the individualistic soteriologies in the Reformation period, and subsequent sociopolitical and existential theologies of suffering and secular, progressive ideologies has made the task of articulating a genuinely Christian theology of mourning all the more difficult and urgent. 6 Note that death is, for Aquinas, a complicated reality, given the sort of composite being that man is. Death is a natural consequence with respect to the corruptible nature of the body, but it is unnatural with respect to the incorruptible, spiritual nature of the soul. It is unquestionably an evil introduced into the world only through sin, and it can be overcome only through the grace of Christ. See, for example: Summa theologiae [ST] I, qq. 75–77; I-II, q. 85, a. 5; III, q. 50. There has been a recent explosion of interest in Aquinas’s view of death. For a sampling of the arguments between the camps of “survivalism” and “corruptionism,” see Turner C. Nevitt, “Aquinas on the Death of Christ: A New Argument for Corruptionism,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 90, no. 1 (2016): 77–99; Patrick Toner, “Personhood and Death in St. Thomas Aquinas,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 26, no. 2 (2009): 121–38; Eleonore Stump, Aquinas (London: Routledge, 2003), esp. 51–54; David S. Oderberg, “Survivalism, Corruptionism, and Mereology,” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4, no. 4 (2012): 1–26. 7 The Platonic legacy persists, Schenk observes, in the tendencies of contemporary Christian theologians to “spiritualize (at times by ‘existentializing’ or ‘historicizing’) hopes for perfection generally, even for postmortal salvation,” 5 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 743 anthropology undergirding this claim regards embodiment as integral to human nature: the human person is a unity, a body–soul composite. The legacy of Stoic thought is also inhospitable to mourning, since the disturbance mourning causes can compromise the soul’s rationally calibrated equilibrium. The Stoic strategy is “to view suffering distantly from the perspective of the entire cosmos,” and “from this self-distancing perspective, the Stoics attempted to view their own sufferings as if they were the sufferings of another, rather than, quite to the contrary, to view the sufferings of others as if they were one’s own sufferings.”8 To the extent that it has admitted this influence, Christian theology has been hampered in developing its reflections on the “programmatically anti-Stoic” virtue of compassion. Schenk’s response is to the point: “The goal of Christian mercy is not to shut one’s eyes to the suffering that is inflicted by nature or choice.”9 A recurrent feature of Schenk’s theology of mourning is his attention to theodicy and the implications of suffering for the life of faith. Neither Christian life nor theology are well served by approaches that deny or downplay the presence of evil and suffering in the world or the questions that this presses upon the believer. Schenk has criticized attempts to dissolve the problem of evil. Despite their differences, both Hans Urs von Balthasar’s proposals of “divinized suffering” and the “fatalistic-optimistic” perspective of Karl Rahner’s transcendental theology attenuate the real negativity of death and suffering, and hence obviate the need for a theology of mourning.10 Yet, because death and its accomplices are instances of real evil and negativity, Schenk argues, the response of mourning is actually rooted in a cleareyed attitude toward both the human desire for immortality and the destructiveness of death. Of vital importance here is the Christian but against this, he argues that “philosophy knows the immortality of the soul but not its beatitude; it knows of hope, not its fulfillment” (“‘And Jesus Wept,’” 128, 108). 8 Schenk, “‘And Jesus Wept,’” 128. 9 Schenk, “‘And Jesus Wept,’” 128. 10 See Schenk, “Can and Should We Avoid Theological Talk about God’s Suffering?” Schenk’s ability to integrate perspectives both old and new is evident in his brand of transcendental theology, which incorporates Aquinas and Kant in order to defend human finitude against an idolatry of transcendence and to explain human nature’s capacity for perfection through the undeserved gift of grace. See also Jeremiah Alberg, “The Antinomy of the Heart and the Search for True Transcendence,” in Habitus Fidei: Die Überwindung Der Eigenen Gottlosigkeit, ed. Jeremiah Alberg and Daniela Köder (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2016), 365–77. 744 Paul Clarke, O.P. virtue of hope, which is, on Schenk’s view, the grounds for or condition of mourning. Convergent to this point, the Second Vatican Council plays a crucial part in Schenk’s theology. Schenk’s study of the reception of Gaudium et Spes points to the need to clarify the conditions for the possibility of Christian anguish, mourning, and anxiety. In the ongoing task of receiving the full and genuine teaching of the Council, there is particular need to harvest the Council’s complex presentation of the Church’s place in and responsibilities toward the world. As shown in the first fifty years after the Council, Gaudium et Spes— particularly its memorable opening statement and its watchword of “the signs of the times”—proved susceptible to widely divergent interpretations that often reflected equally divergent views of the condition of man and society as a whole. The first wave of post-conciliar reception and interpretation of Gaudium et Spes was marked by a programmatic but profoundly unrealistic optimism that failed to recognize in the signs of the times anything other than straightforward indications of God’s presence and action in the world. While this phase eventually collapsed under the weight of its own ponderous naïveté, it nevertheless demonstrated the need for a differentiated approach to the facticity of human nature and society. As Schenk has argued, this involves adopting a theological hermeneutic that does not limit itself—as did initial interpretations of post-conciliar theology—to the signs of gaudium et spes, but rather confronts the luctus et angor as well. Developing and grounding such a hermeneutic, Schenk argues, will prove to be a significant step toward actually receiving and putting into practice the hermeneutical strategy envisioned by the Council. In fact, “a historically adequate retrieval of the Council and of the two waves of its post-Conciliar reception points towards a more highly differentiated theology, one that can well be described in the dual call to holiness and communion.”11 In Schenk’s view, then, reorienting theology toward its twofold goal provides an indispensable framework for understanding the Councils teaching and the polyvalent signa temporum. This teleological perspective illuminates the significance of a theology of mourning for the New Evangelization and the Church’s engagement with the broader culture. Concerning the Church’s vocation to holiness and communion, Schenk writes: “This vocation to holiness and communion, as rightly ambivalent as it might be, is a Schenk, “Officium Signa Temporum Perscrutandi,” 75. 11 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 745 timely reformulation of the age-old task to be in this world but not— at least not merely—of it. The self hood of the Church and her critical relationality to the non-Christian world will grow hand-in-hand, or not at all.”12 Under the rubric of holiness and communion, Schenk contends, the Church’s growth, both ad intra and ad extra, becomes possible and intelligible as activity consonant with the truth of her mission. The signs of the times must be approached in light of the call to holiness and communion, which entails a stance that is simultaneously open and critical. The occasionally tragic aspect presented by the signs of the times can, on this view, be catalysts for conversion, and thus avenues toward holiness and communion. The act of interpreting and the “dual program of affirmation and admonition” that it engenders take place not at a distance, but in close proximity. This point is at the heart of Schenk’s theology of luctus et angor: The Church can share in the aspirations of the world only by participating in its spoken and its anonymous tears and fears, recognizing alongside obvious signs of its progress, the symptoms of its fatal traps and hopeless dead-ends. If the Church of today cannot share in the spiritual and physical luctus et angor of the men and women of our day, it will soon cease to share in their gaudium et spes.13 In light of the ultimate goal of the Church’s mission, Schenk holds that it is imperative for Christians to both enter into the joys and sufferings of the world and retain an attitude of ambivalence. The Church teaches not merely from above, but also from beside the men and women of our day. This precarious balancing act requires constant struggle, both in theology and in praxis, to ground forms of life and thought in a compassionate, vigorous, and faithful Christian realism. Schenk approaches the questions posed by suffering and mourning from a Thomistic point of departure. His approach is Thomistic in two important ways. First, he sees in Aquinas a model for addressing the ambivalence of our tradition and our times with regard to mourning. Aquinas’s contributions toward a theology of mourning arose out of his “programmatic interest in showing the compatibility and unexpected correspondence between the Gospel and an anthropology that would not only situate human being at the ontological Schenk, “Officium Signa Temporum Perscrutandi,” 104. Schenk, “Officium Signa Temporum Perscrutandi,” 105. 12 13 746 Paul Clarke, O.P. border (horizon et confinium) between angels and animals, but also would correct the frequently all too spiritualistic reading of humanity by a new stress on the animal basis of human life.”14 Aquinas’s view of the seriousness of death follows from his philosophical and anthropological considerations, then, but this view is further developed and clarified within the context of his theological reflection on the tristitia Christi in his commentary on John’s Gospel. Aquinas develops his account of mourning in conversation with a slew of intellectual and cultural interlocutors, thereby exemplifying the sort of circumspect, dialectical approach that Schenk holds is indispensable. Second, Schenk’s approach is Thomistic not only by method but also in content. In his philosophical and theological syntheses, Aquinas has drawn resources for precisely the sort of differentiated theology the Church needs. Like Aquinas, Schenk grounds his theology of mourning in a rich metaphysics of the human person that emphasizes the integral unity of body and soul in the human being. The negativity of death is due to the rupture it causes to this unity. Schenk maintains the goodness of created nature and resists modern tendencies to blur the line separating nature and supernature and their distinct conditions and tasks. For this reason, further development of a Christian theology of mourning within the context of post-conciliar theology should involve comparison between the “anguish of the followers of Christ” and the “anguish of the men of our time.”15 The distinction between nature and grace, which is a major theme of Thomas’s thought, would be of critical importance in this regard for preserving the inherent goodness of nature and the perfection—not annihilation—that grace effects. Schenk is keen to emphasize that “Grace does not abolish nature and its weaknesses, but rather presupposes them, preserves them, and weaves them into a more costly fabric.”16 Lastly, Schenk’s use of Scripture exhibits a deep sympathy with Thomas’s thought. Throughout his work, Scripture plays a decisive role not only for the answers it provides but also and especially in shaping the questions that he pursues systematically. As noted above, one major objective of the present essay is to deepen the biblical roots of Schenk’s theology of mourning. I suggest that much of Schenk’s work implicitly points to the prophetic dimension of the Church. His Schenk, “‘And Jesus Wept,’” 107. See Schenk, “Factus in agonia.” 16 Schenk, “Factus in agonia.” 14 15 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 747 significant references to admonition, affirmation, interpretation, and critical relationality all highlight characteristically prophetic tasks. The following discussion turns to the lament of Jeremiah as a crucial scriptural source that can accompany Schenk’s theology of mourning by making explicit its prophetic form and reinforcing it with a biblical grammar and typology. The Grounds for Prophetic Lament In the first twenty chapters of the book of Jeremiah, we find five complaints, or laments, by the prophet.17 Jeremiah’s fifth and final lament, found in chapter 20, comes “as the climax, or rather the nadir, of a series of such confessions in Jeremiah.”18 Here we immediately confront the issue of the lament’s darkness and despair. How are we to understand and profit from a passage that opens with a searing accusation of God and ends with the prophet cursing his birth? At first blush, Jeremiah’s lament seems both to indicate an absence of the patience and steadfast hope that should mark the Lord’s prophets and to offer little of “positive” theological value. One might well ask how his lament is anything other than the private, agonized cry of a soul that has reached its breaking point. One burden of my argument, then, is to provide an alternative view of the lament as distinctively prophetic and essentially, profoundly hopeful. These two claims interlock, however: the hope inherent in the prophet’s lament emerges when the lament is understood not only as an act of a prophet, but in light of the prayer he is commissioned to offer. The lament, I will argue, is not merely something done by a prophet, but rather, in the context of his vocation, takes on a distinctively prophetic character as part of his task of intercession. Reading the prophetic lament as intercession foregrounds its intrinsic relationship to the wider community, which suggests already a resonance with the important social and ecclesial concerns of Schenk’s theology of mourning. The first step, then, is to establish that intercession is constitutive of the prophetic mission. All citations of Scripture are from the NABRE translation. Erhard Gerstenberger distinguishes between lament and complaint: “A lament bemoans a tragedy which cannot be reversed, while a complaint entreats God for help in the midst of tribulation” (“Jeremiah’s Complaints,” Journal of Biblical Literature 82, no. 4 [December 1963]: 405n50). The semantic distinction is useful, but for the purposes of this article, I will continue to use the more standard “lament,” although with the meaning he assigns to “complaint.” 18 J. Gerald Janzen, “Jeremiah 20:7–18,” Interpretation 37, no. 2 (April 1983): 179. 17 748 Paul Clarke, O.P. Double the Burden: Yochanan Muffs on Prophetic Intercession In his essay “Who Will Stand in the Breach?: A Study of Prophetic Intercession,” Muffs argues that a proper understanding of the prophetic task must take into account not only the prophet’s messenger function, whereby he represents God to man, but also his intercessory function, whereby he brings the cause of the people before God.19 His argument draws its central image from the characterization of the intercession of Moses, the paradigmatic prophet, in Psalm 106: “[God] would have decreed their destruction, had not Moses, his chosen one, / Withstood him in the breach to turn back his destroying anger.”20 Muffs proposes that the prophet is called by God both to carry the divine message and to beg God to rescind it, to serve justice and yet also to summon the Lord back to his merciful ways: The first function of the prophet is to announce the punishment and to call on the people to repent. In this role, the prophet acts as the messenger of the Lord. But if the people does not heed the prophet’s words and does not mend the “fence” of its moral being, the Lord will come as an enemy through the “breach.” The function of the prophet is now to go up in the breach, to build a protective wall, and to prepare for the battle against the Lord. The prophet is like a mighty warrior, but his only strength is his eloquence, the strength of the prayer, which may deflect the Lord from destroying his people.21 This dual mission is possible, Muffs argues, because the Lord’s calling does not eradicate the prophet’s freedom and subjectivity: “Prophetic prayer is the most characteristic indication of the prophet’s total intellectual independence and freedom of conscience. The divine strong hand does not lobotomize the prophet’s moral and emotional personal- Yochanan Muffs, “Who Will Stand in the Breach?: A Study of Prophetic Intercession,” in Love & Joy: Law, Language, and Religion in Ancient Israel (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992), 9–48. 20 Ps 106:23. This is referring to the incident recounted in Exod 32:7–14. See also Ezek 22:30 and Ezra 13:5. See also the use of the breach image in the crucial messianic texts Amos 9:11, Isa 58:12, and Isa 61. There is also a citation of Ps 106:30 in the Hebrew text of Ben Sira 45:23, in manuscript B (15v:2) that recounts how Phineas “took his stand in the breach of his people” (yʿmḏ ḇp̱rṣ ʿmw). 21 Muffs, “Who Will Stand in the Breach?” 31. 19 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 749 ity.”22 Rather, the Lord “factors in” the freedom of his servant and relies on his prophet to play an active part in the divine plan of salvation. In Abraham Heschel’s memorable phrase: “The prophet is a person, not a microphone.”23 Human freedom is implicated in the very exercise of the prophetic office. On this reading, prophetic intercession is rooted in the prophet’s subjectivity, his “autonomous personality,” which provides the natural basis for the prophet to stand in opposition to the Lord’s wrath.24 Even as he recognizes the people’s guilt and disobedience, the prophet must represent Israel and appeal to the Lord’s mercy. By manifesting his own fidelity in prayer, the prophet both challenges the Lord to be true to his own promise and attempts to put him in a double bind in which he will lose his righteous servant if he executes his program of destruction. The prophet’s subjectivity is an essential precondition for assuming the double burden of intercession, yet it is not undertaken on his own initiative. It is the Lord who commissions the prophet to oppose him in the breach. It is a mistake to disconnect intercession from the divine commission by which the prophet is entrusted with the word of God and empowered to stand mano a mano with the Lord. For instance, Jeremiah stands in the breach to oppose the Divine Warrior neither by popular acclaim nor by personal desire, but by his consecration to the Lord ( Jer 1:4–5). In addition to being a free agent, then, the prophet is also set apart, totally claimed by and for the Lord: he remains an active subject but is, at the same time, entirely subjected to the Lord’s strong hand.25 This tension puts tremendous strain on the prophet’s strength, to the point of provoking a crisis of hope. The prophet remains true to his calling by patiently waiting on the Lord, even in the midst of anguish and doubt. Muffs, “Who Will Stand in the Breach?” 11. I am wary of following Muffs in his use of the term “independent.” The prophet does not seem to exhibit so much an independence in his relationship with the Lord as an unfettered freedom to speak to the Lord “as one man speaks to another.” Independence—Muffs also uses “autonomy”—is too strong, in my view, and implies that the prophet does not, in fact, depend radically on the Lord to sustain him in his onerous task. 23 Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), x. 24 Muffs, “Who Will Stand in the Breach?” 31. Heschel writes: “The prophet is no hireling who performs his duty in the employ of the Lord. The usual descriptions or definitions fade to insignificance when applied, for example, to Jeremiah” (The Prophets, 25–26). 25 In making this point, I am going beyond Muffs, though not, I think, against the main thrust of his proposal. 22 750 Paul Clarke, O.P. The following distills this discussion into five capital features of prophetic intercession. (1) The prophet has a double burden: he represents God to the people, and the people to God. (2) The prophet is a free and active subject. (3) The prophet stands in opposition to the divine wrath and pleads for compassion. (4) The prophet is set apart, claimed exclusively for the Lord. (5) The prophet’s fidelity is manifest in his steadfast trust in the Lord. Muffs’s account stresses the inherent tension between the active and passive dimensions of the prophetic office. In order to grasp what makes the prophetic lament distinctive and relevant to our purposes, it is crucial to recognize its neuralgic point of origin in the double burden entailed by the prophetic vocation. This inherent and foundational tension gives rise to and determines the unique voicing of the lament that we find in Jeremiah, for instance. The historical context for the lament illuminates the conditions of Jeremiah’s intercession. As Babylon rises as the major power player in the Near East and begins to bear down on Judah, a theme of Jeremiah’s preaching is his appeal to the people to look to the Lord rather than attempting, through alliance with Egypt, to evade their fate.26 This charged international situation in which Judah found itself intensifies the prophetic double burden in a way that complicates and enriches Muffs’s account (as Jeremiah’s lament brings into relief ). At a basic level, the breach metaphor implies that the moral and spiritual edifice of the people lies in ruin and the task of the prophet is to take his place in this breach on behalf of the people. Jeremiah, however, must confront not only the righteous wrath of the Lord but also the treachery and hatred of his own people. The people he represents in the breach are far from being passive spectators to his intercession; they actively seek to discredit him, if not destroy him. If it belongs to the prophet, as Muffs argues, to be “the agent of the defendant,” then the defendant in this case has not only rejected representation, but has attempted to kill the court-appointed counsel.27 Assaulted from all sides, Jeremiah feels most acutely the tremendous suffering involved in taking up the prophet’s position, alone and exposed, “in the breach.” Against this background, I will argue that Jeremiah’s lament is an intercessory act of a prophet. I will first offer a focused reading of the passage, attending especially to those key features of the prophet identified above. The next section will develop in detail the themes See, for example, Jer 42:7–22. See Muffs, “Who Will Stand in the Breach?” 30. 26 27 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 751 unearthed by the textual analysis and probe the theological significance of the prophetic lament. The third section’s discussion of the Christological reconfiguration of the lament pivots attention toward the convergence of Schenk’s theology of mourning and this study of prophetic lament and toward the practical and speculative gains of this convergence for today. Analysis of Jeremiah’s Lament Jeremiah’s lament in 20:7–18 is a particularly compelling instance of a prophet “pitched past pitch of grief ” (to borrow a phrase from Gerard Manley Hopkins). The passage can be broken down as follows: 1) The Prophet’s Reproach (20:7–10) v. 7: Seduction and Deceit v. 8: Bitter Fruits of Prophecy v. 9: A Painful Necessity v. 10: True Prophet, False Friends 2) The Prophet’s Trust (20:11–13) v. 11: The Divine Warrior28 v. 12: The Divine Justice v. 13: The Divine Compassion 3) The Prophet’s Curse (20:14–18) v. 14: The Day of His Birth vv.15–17: The Messenger of His Birth v. 18: Why? The verses immediately preceding this passage detail Jeremiah’s beating and imprisonment at the hands of the priest and false prophet Pashhur (20:1–6). This is in response to his symbolic shattering of the potter’s flask and prophecy of the imminent destruction of Jerusalem by Babylonian forces (19:1–14). When he is released from the stocks, Jeremiah gives his tormentor a new name from the Lord: “Instead of Pashhur, the LORD names you ‘Terror on every side.’ For thus says the LORD: Indeed, I will hand you over to terror, you and all your friends” (20:3–4). Jeremiah reveals the reason for his targeted prophecy: Pashhur has prophesied lies to his friends. This scene is highly charged by its references to the people’s infidelity, divine justice, true and false prophecy, and the See Jer 21:3–10 for a depiction of the Divine Warrior against whom Jeremiah is commissioned to stand. 28 752 Paul Clarke, O.P. prophet’s sufferings, and it forms the immediate background for the lament to which we now turn. The passage has a tripartite structure, tracing a movement from dark to light to dark. The accusation in verse 7 determines the theme of the lament: Jeremiah lays a charge against the Lord.29 The nature of the accusation is deception, seduction, domination, and abandonment. There almost seems to be no parallel in Scripture for this complaint, except perhaps the cry “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Ps 22:2).30 Jeremiah’s suffering provokes a bitter and reckless outcry. Against what? At first glance, God himself appears to be the object. The Lord has not dealt fairly with the servant he chose and consecrated even before he was born. Divine chicanery, Jeremiah alleges, led him on, and divine power overcame him. He now stands exposed and vulnerable in an increasingly unbearable situation, and all on account of the word of the Lord (vv. 7–8). He is not merely abandoned by his friends; they “watch for any misstep” he makes and scheme a way to wreak vengeance on him for his unpropitious prophecies. The actions of his adversaries in this passage are notably vocal. They laugh, mock, reproach, deride, whisper, and scheme to trap and destroy him. Jeremiah is ambivalent; because his speech has brought him only “reproach and derision,” he attempts silence. But it is too painful: the divine wrath burns like fire within him, “imprisoned” in his very bones (see 6:11). In Jeremiah’s futile attempt to constrain the divine message, we are given an image of his profound interiorization of the word and its power over the prophet. Yet it is this identification with the Lord’s word that lands him in an excruciating dilemma: if he speaks, he incurs hatred, reproach, mockery, and violence, but silence is a struggle of its own—“I grow weary holding back, I cannot!” (20:9). Samuel E. Balentine, “Jeremiah, Prophet of Prayer,” Review and Expositor 78 (1981): 338. There is disagreement as to whether the Hebrew verbs (here translated as “seduce” and “prevail”) have sexual connotations. I follow Balentine and others in interpreting this passage in terms of its connotations of seduction and rape (“Jeremiah, Prophet of Prayer,” 338). For an alternative interpretation and discussion, see Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1–20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 21A (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 854–55. 30 See William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, Chapters 1–25, ed. Paul D. Hanson (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1986), 551. 29 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 753 The following verse sets up a comparison between Pashhur and Jeremiah in which the issue of true and false prophecy emerges. “Terror on every side,” the nickname given by Jeremiah to Pashhur, is here cast back in his face as a taunt.31 This mockery goes beyond the messenger. Michael Avioz writes: “Jeremiah . . . speaks not only for himself, trying to prove that he is God’s prophet, but also in the name of God: It is the honor of God that is at stake, so if they despise Jeremiah, they are really despising God. Hurting the messenger means hurting the sender.”32 This juxtaposes two sorts of prophet: one prophesies lies to his friends and keeps peace; the other prophesies the word of the Lord and turns friends into enemies. In the background is Jeremiah’s condemnation of the false prophets who promise an empty shalom: Small and great alike, all are greedy for gain; prophet and priest, all practice fraud. They have treated lightly the injury to my people: “Peace, peace!” they say, though there is no peace. (6:13–14) The true prophet, commissioned by the Lord “to uproot and to tear down, to destroy and to demolish, to build and to plant” ( Jer 1:10), cannot offer such soothing falsehoods. The portrayal of a true prophet—revealed by his dedication to truth even at great personal cost—is thus a key concern of the lament. What distinguishes the true from the false prophet, according to Muffs, is the false prophet’s indifference to the people’s plight and moral disrepair. He thus has no motive to “stand in the breach to push away the divine enemy by means of the power of prayer in his mouth.”33 Jeremiah, however, stands watch over the people and, by his admonition and prayer, attempts to mediate their conversion. Because of his consecration to truth, he cannot conveniently avoid proclaiming “violence and outrage” when this is the Lord’s message. In fact, as a form of inter For useful discussion of how the figure of Pashhur lends precision and depth to the form of Jeremiah’s lament, see Patrick D. Miller, “Trouble and Woe: Interpreting the Biblical Laments,” Interpretation 37, no. 1 (January 1983): 32–45. 32 Michael Avioz, “The Call for Revenge in Jeremiah’s Complaints (Jer xi–xx),” Vetus Testamentum 55, no. 4 (2005): 434. 33 Muffs, “Who Will Stand in the Breach?” 35. 31 754 Paul Clarke, O.P. cession, lament is a deep sounding in the mission of the prophet: it not only calls for healing, but explores the wound itself. The searing pain of the lament’s outcry shows that it is as much a visceral exploration of suffering as it is a plea for relief. Thus, the prophet’s lament is not concerned merely with accusing God. The cause for Jeremiah’s anguish includes the foes and false friends who surround him and the apparent failure of his mission, and thus, by implication, of the word of the Lord. It is important to see this broad sweep of the prophet’s lament while also noting that the prophet traces all of his anguish to its root in the Lord’s dealings with him. The language of 20:10 evokes 20:7, where the Lord is accused of deceiving Jeremiah and then prevailing over him. In 20:10, Jeremiah “overhears” his enemies’ hopes to deceive him so as to prevail over him. This thematic parallel highlights the centrality of deceit and truth in this passage and points to an ambiguity that erodes attempts at understanding. Deception is presented in both cases as the condition for prevailing. From his standpoint in the prophetic breach, Jeremiah perceives his human and divine assailants wielding similar weaponry: deceit and power. The malice of his enemies, while disturbing in its own right, is more agonizing as a manifestation of what Jeremiah sees as the Lord’s duplicity. The Lord had promised to make Jeremiah a “fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of bronze” that could withstand the assaults his preaching would provoke (1:18). “They will fight against you, but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you—oracle of the LORD” (1:19). Yet Jeremiah feels himself to be in danger of being overcome by his enemies and finds the Lord not at his side as support, but before him as enemy. The crisis of the prophet and his mission has called into question the very truthfulness, and therefore identity, of the God who has commissioned him. J. Gerald Janzen proposes that we are shown here that Jeremiah’s “dilemma lies in the tension between ‘I am with you’ and ‘I send you.’”34 There is a tension between divine presence and absence that belongs to the nature of the prophet’s commission. This is exposed by the ambiguity in God’s promise to be with Jeremiah (here recalled by Jeremiah’s declaration of confidence): is it as comforter, or as enemy? The present one, or the entirely other? This ambiguity lies at the heart of the lament’s oscillation between the very darkest despair and the light of hope. Jeremiah’s confession of hope is given a central place Janzen, “Jeremiah 20:7–18,” 181. 34 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 755 in the eleven verses comprising the lament’s 4-3-4 structure. In verses 11–13, he expresses his confidence and trust: the Lord is with him “like a mighty champion.”35 Yet this does not mark a hasty resolution to the prophet’s crisis. As an expression of hope, it reaches toward the day of vindication by Israel’s champion, but it does not thereby turn a blind eye to threats posed by enemies without and human weakness within. Nor does it signify a decisive departure from seeing the Lord’s power as wielded against the prophet himself. The hope in verses 11–13 is meant not to exclude despair, but to refocus the lament by embedding it within the scope of the action of the Lord, as defined by his power (v. 11), justice (v. 12), and mercy (v. 13). The turn to praise then suffers a devastating reversal in 20:14, where Jeremiah curses the day of his birth. Even at the formal level, this is a shocking move.36 In his discussion of lament in the Psalms, Claus Westermann writes: “What is of theological importance in the structure is that it exhibits an internal transition. There is not a single psalm of lament that stops with lamentation. Lamentation has no meaning in and of itself.”37 Jeremiah seems to be veering ominously close to settling in despair. In his reading of the lament, Joep Dubbink accurately asserts that the nerve center of this passage is the prophetic office, the inherent tensions of which prompt a distinctly “theological temptation.”38 The curse is integral to the meaning of Jeremiah’s lament, since its juxtaposition with the prayer of confidence and praise is characteristic of Jeremian theology, which consistently exploits stark contrasts and rejects facile resolutions of tensions. Praise and curse, according to Dubbink, “critically explain each other, but do not neutralize each other in advance.”39 The NRSV translates the Hebrew g̱ ibbôr ʿārı̂ ṣ as “dread warrior,” which aligns with Muffs’s image of the prophet facing the wrath of the Divine Warrior in the breach. 36 Indeed, some deny that these verses are part of the lament for this very reason. This subordinates the meaning of the passage and its thematic continuity to overly schematic considerations of form. For a summary of the dispute and an incisive response, see Joep Dubbink, “Jeremiah: Hero of Faith or Defeatist? Concerning the Place and Function of Jeremiah 20.14–18,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 86 (December 1999): 67–84. 37 Claus Westermann, “Role of the Lament in the Theology of the Old Testament,” Interpretation 28, no. 1 (January 1974): 26 (italics mine). 38 Dubbink, “Jeremiah,” 81. Dubbink’s article is a lucid presentation of the problems with detaching the curse of vv. 14–18 from the lament. See also Westermann, “Role of the Lament,” 35–36. 39 Dubbink, “Jeremiah,” 82. 35 756 Paul Clarke, O.P. The fact that Jeremiah’s lament seems to receive no response poses an interpretive problem. Interpreting the conclusion as “deafening silence” from the Lord, Samuel Balentine has argued that response is non-essential to prayer and that Jeremiah’s lament is therefore simply his “way to cope with the circumstances, a way to reorient himself towards the presence of God in times of crisis.”40 While there is certainly no additional word from the Lord in response to Jeremiah’s “why?” of agony, it is not clear that we need to take this lack of verbal reply as the sort of barren silence that Balentine suggests or agree with his interpretation of Jeremiah’s prayer as therapy or “reorientation.” In verses 11–13, Jeremiah proclaims his confidence in the Lord, who “has rescued the life of the poor.” Jeremiah’s “why?” is the conclusion of four verses (14–18) that reveal Jeremiah to be precisely the one who needs the hand of the Lord: he is the poor man, persecuted and in danger. The order of question and answer, it seems, has been inverted, and the answer already given. The silence of the Lord is in fact a pregnant silence, one that forms part of the prophet’s suffering, to be sure, but nevertheless bears fruit in his continued mission.41 The point at issue in the passage is not that there is no answer, but that the answer proclaimed in verses 11–13 does not all at once remove the agony to which Jeremiah’s prophetic office has led him. The Lord, no less than his prophet, will not “lightly heal” a wound.42 In Janzen’s view, the bitter conclusion of the lament reveals Jeremiah “enacting a Joban steadfastness in which doubt and patience define one another and in which even the momentary wish for non-existence is but the dark coloration of the light of faith and unquenchable vocation.”43 At the heart of the lament, in other words, is the prophetic office and Samuel E. Balentine, “The Prophet as Intercessor: A Reassessment,” Journal of Biblical Literature 103, no. 2 (1984): 340–41. 41 Pope Benedict XVI observes: “God’s silence prolongs his earlier words. In these moments of darkness, he speaks through the mystery of his silence. Hence in the dynamic of Christian revelation, silence appears as an important expression of the word of God” (Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church Verbum Domini [September 30, 2010], §21). 42 Dubbink points out: “Importantly, the book does not end with ch. 20 but resumes in 21.1, in the only possible way: ‘The word that came from YHWH to Jeremiah.’ The prophet goes his way to the end as one called. The word that almost crushed him by the great force it exudes, also takes him along on the way where he is going” (“Jeremiah,” 81). 43 Janzen, “Jeremiah 20:7–18,” 180. 40 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 757 task of intercession. This is the source of the prophet’s struggles and pain, but also, as Janzen rightly notes, the source of light and strength. The Logic of Lament This reading of Jeremiah’s lament has surfaced several themes that call for closer examination. I have already proposed that Jeremiah’s lament is, in a strong sense, intercessory. To some extent, this runs against certain currents in modern considerations of biblical lament, which typically take the Psalms as their touchstone. The lament psalms can then determine the interpretation of the laments of the prophets, with the result that the features peculiar to the prophet’s lament are often obscured or missed altogether.44 This section will consider Jeremiah’s lament in terms of its inner meaning and broader theological significance, focusing on those features that show it to be integral to the task of prophetic intercession. As will be seen, this holds significant implications for a biblical elaboration of key themes of Schenk’s theology, especially with respect to the genuinely theological hermeneutics and critical relationality that should characterize the Church’s engagement with the broader culture. In Walter Brueggemann’s view, the form of Israel’s lament is characterized by petition, which shows it to be “boldly dialogical”: “the one who hears or is expected to hear is not addressed in hopeless despair but in passionate expectation.”45 Westermann likewise declares: “The true function of the lament is supplication; it is the means by which suffering comes before the one who can take it away. Seen from this perspective, we can say that the lament as such is a movement toward God.”46 On this reading, Jeremiah’s outcry is best Hermann Gunkel’s form-critical analysis gave tremendous precision to the concept of lament and has been influential in shaping subsequent interpretations of the relationship between the complaint psalms and complaints elsewhere in Scripture; see Hermann Gunkel and Joachim Begrich, Introduction to Psalms:The Genres of the Religious Lyric of Israel (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998), 121–98. See also Claus Westermann, Praise and Lament in the Psalms, trans. Keith R. Crim and Richard N. Soulen (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1981). As a general interpretive strategy, overemphasizing a prophet’s dependence on the genre of complaint psalm can be problematic, as when attempts to carve up Jeremiah’s lament are based on a priori considerations of form and genre, rather than on the content and thematic continuity of the text at hand. 45 Walter Brueggemann, “Formfulness of Grief,” Interpretation 31, no. 3 (July 1977): 270. 46 Westermann, “The Role of the Lament,” 32. 44 758 Paul Clarke, O.P. understood as an impassioned expression of his total and utter dependence on the Lord, a supplication for divine support to vindicate (a) his righteous servant, (b) his prophetic mission, and (c) the promise and fidelity of the Lord. But this analysis would be incomplete without attention to the communal dimension of the lament configured uniquely in the vocation of the prophet.47 At stake is the truthfulness of the Lord, which recalls Exodus 32:7–14 (cited earlier) as a key instance of Moses “standing in the breach.” Here, arguably, Jeremiah stands squarely in the lineage of Moses as a bold intercessor for the people.48 This reading is not unanimously shared, however. Balentine, for instance, holds that Jeremiah’s laments are not intercessory (i.e., on behalf of others), but merely “the personal (private) prayers of Jeremiah, prayed by him for himself.”49 Jeremiah’s prayer, he argues, has no clear communal interest. This reading, however, neglects what Sheldon Blank terms the “manifestly juridical” form of the laments.50 In both language 2 Maccabees 15 is interesting as an early Jewish interpretation of Jeremiah as a monumental figure of intercession for God’s people. As Judas Maccabeus is preparing the Jews for battle, he relates a dream in which Jeremiah appears, interceding for the Jewish people: “This is a man who loves his fellow Jews and fervently prays for the people and the holy city—the prophet of God, Jeremiah” (2 Macc 15:14). 48 Recall that Moses’s strategy of intercession was to challenge the Lord to preserve his reputation for mercy and fidelity and to prove himself true to his promises. For an interesting study of Jeremiah’s prophetic “lineage,” see William L. Holladay, “The Background of Jeremiah’s Self-Understanding: Moses, Samuel, and Psalm 22,” Journal of Biblical Literature 83, no. 2 (1964): 153–64. 49 Balentine, “Jeremiah, Prophet of Prayer,” 334. 50 Sheldon Blank, “The Confessions of Jeremiah and the Meaning of Prayer,” Hebrew Union College Annual, no. 21 (1948): 336. Brueggeman has also insisted on the essential communal aspect of the lament. In his view, the form of the lament defines its function: “It tells the experiencer the shape of the experience which it is legitimate to experience” (“The Formfulness of Grief,” 265). The lament does not express isolation from the community. Rather, by its form, the lament locates the sufferer in a communal context where meaning can be found and the suffering made bearable. The lament form is thus concerned with enhancing and limiting the experience of suffering. While I find Brueggemann’s argument to be lopsidedly sociological, his form analysis indicates the mistake involved in dislocating the lament from its communal context. Also on this point, Ellen Davis observes that “verse 13 might be seen as a sort of editorial warning against a privatized reading of the lament (one that is, perhaps, more necessary for twentieth-century readers than their predecessors)” (“Arguing for Authority: A Rhetorical Study of Jeremiah 1:4–19 and 20:7–18,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32 [June 1985]: 116). 47 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 759 and procedure, Blank sees strong similarities between Jeremiah’s confessions and the law court. On this view, Jeremiah is arguing his case before God and before the people. The thrust of his argument is a plea for God to act, to vindicate him and punish the guilty, rather than a plea to receive power to vindicate himself. This underscores the public nature of what is nonetheless a deeply personal prayer. The lament of the prophetic mediator lies at the intersection of personal and national lament, as Westermann indicates: “The individual brings before God not his own personal suffering but, through his mediation, the suffering which affects the nation.”51 Interpretations that attempt to see this lament in terms of a mutually exclusive either/ or, either private or public/social, overlook the complex mediation inherent in the prophetic task. Arguably, then, Jeremiah is in fact praying on behalf of others: his persecutors (he prays for justice to be done); the poor (with whom he identifies); and, indirectly, God himself (whose honor is contested by the mockers). We can also grant that Jeremiah is praying for himself, but we must deny that this undermines the intercessory dimension, since Jeremiah’s deep identification with the people through his office indicates that this prayer may be understood as personal, but not private.52 Jeremiah’s lament is integral to his prophetic proclamation. As Ellen Davis has suggested, his outcry exposes before the people the prophet’s own argument with God, which he has undertaken on their behalf.53 Jeremiah’s ongoing prayer for the people, which he offers from the breach opened by their infidelity, thus attests to his loyalty to the people. Insofar as they signify a failure of hope before God and compassion toward the people, the prophet’s curse in verses 14–18 and the despair it uncovers seem to undermine the prayer’s claim to be prophetic intercession. On the other hand, if the curse can be read (as Janzen suggests) as the “dark coloration” of the prophet’s faith as he wrestles with the suffering imposed by his vocation, then it is here that the distinctively Westermann, “The Role of the Lament,” 34. The lament of the mediator is “a rare but important intermediate form” that “reaches a high point in the laments (or confessions) of Jeremiah.” Moses and Elisha are also cited as precedents, and the songs of the Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah are also related. 52 Underlying the lament, Westermann points out, is an anthropology for which “the existence of an individual without participation in a community (a social dimension) and without a relationship to God (a theological dimension) is totally inconceivable” (“The Role of the Lament,” 28). 53 Davis, “Arguing for Authority,” 117. 51 760 Paul Clarke, O.P. prophetic dimension of the lament comes to the fore. I submit that the lament expresses the distinctly human voice of the prophet, who has identified so closely with the people and with the Lord that the internal tension shifts prophetic intercession into a new, plaintive register. To fail to mourn or lament would imply acquiescence to evil and foreclosure on the Lord’s plan of salvation—and thus a failure of hope. The prophetic office demands that the subjectivity of the prophet submit to the Lord but also resist him, but as Jeremiah shows, the resistance must be rooted in a deeper submission to and identification with the one who sends him out. This submission is in fact the condition for the resistance, since it gives the prophet access to the Lord’s compassion for his people and the warrant to approach the bench and plead on their behalf. It is precisely Jeremiah’s faith in the Lord’s care for his people that moves him to such vehemence. Michael Widmer observes that “Jeremiah is so rooted in God and His ways that his prayers often reflect the pathos of the Lord.”54 In other words, the prophet’s forthright speech mirrors the intensity of the Lord’s compassion. Jeremiah’s lament serves a specifically prophetic function in three ways: first, it protests the rule of evil and suffering; second, it witnesses to the (concealed) compassion and justice of the Lord; third, it refuses to drive a wedge between the mercy and justice of the Lord, in contrast to the false prophets of shalom.55 While its opening salvo attacked the Lord’s truthfulness and fidelity, the lament as a whole displays a profound trust in the Lord. This serves as a corrective to interpretations that read the duality of mercy and justice in God (as expressed in and exploited by prophetic intercession) as opposition. Jeremiah presumes that the mercy and justice of the Lord are in reality one. His lament is in fact simultaneously a challenge to and defense of God’s abiding fidelity and truthfulness (contra the false prophets). It is the people who have given themselves over to treachery and deceit, not God ( Jer 4:2–5). Moreover, Jeremiah’s Michael Widmer, Standing in the Breach: An Old Testament Theology and Spirituality of Intercessory Prayer (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015), 330. Widmer’s point follows a reading of the prophets found in Heschel, whose approach parallels that of Muffs. Heschel understands the prophet in terms of sympathy with the divine pathos and notes: “[Jeremiah] was a person overwhelmed by sympathy for God and sympathy for man. Standing before the people he pleaded for God; standing before God he pleaded for his people” (The Prophets, 121). 55 See Davis, “Arguing for Authority,” 115–17. Davis argues for the integral connection between this lament and the ongoing controversy over true and false prophecy. 54 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 761 unpopular prophecies, which often interpret the religious, political, social, and moral signs of his time, find their hermeneutic precisely in divine truth. Jeremiah’s encounter with the Lord enables him to discern what his contemporaries could not—or, in many cases, would not. Heschel’s characterization of prophecy describes well Jeremiah’s prophetic mode: “exegesis of existence from a divine perspective.”56 In this light, it is possible to read Jeremiah 20 as a commentary on the prophetic office, in which lament holds a crucial place in its service to the Word. This Deus veritatis, however, may also be a Deus absconditus. The prophet must therefore, in his turn, be faithful to the experience of abandonment. Balentine’s insight seems correct: “God’s presence could not be manipulated; it could only be expected.”57 Jeremiah’s experience in the breach reflects an important truth concerning the nature of the world and of God’s manner of dealing with his people. God’s sustaining power and governance of the world is constant, but not necessarily obvious. The divine presence cannot be controlled or even predicted by a purely human calculus. In other words, God’s presence is not a function of our awareness, but surpasses it and occasionally eludes it. For this reason, we should see in Jeremiah’s outcry the element of expectation, of hope. Lament points toward a deeper understanding of the divine absence that was keenly experienced by Jeremiah, understood not as opposed to the Lord’s presence, but as the Lord’s presence in its otherness, which involves both an intimate presence and an experience of distance.58 Something like this is expressed by Augustine: eras mecum, et tecum non eram (“You were with me, and I was not with you”).59 In Jeremiah’s case, the divine concealment is Heschel, The Prophets, xiv. Balentine, “Jeremiah, Prophet of Prayer,” 337. 58 Janzen asks: “Is it possible that only in the blackness of his own sense of isolation from both people and Yahweh can Jeremiah enter most deeply into an incomprehensible fellowship with God in suffering for the people? And is not the depth of such suffering and the refusal to heal it lightly (15:18a; cf. 6:14) the measure of Jeremiah’s loyalty both to the people and to Yahweh? Conventionally, ‘witness’ connotes presence and ‘sending’ absence. Is it possible that the two in this instance are one? That the sense of absence communicates, strangely, a presence?” (“Jeremiah 20:7–18,” 181). 59 Augustine, Confessions 10.27, Loeb Classical Library 27 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1912); translation mine. Augustine’s statement is obviously retrospective, but it arguably reflects the same reality: an excruciating experience interpreted as divine absence is seen from a later perspective to be more truly described as an absence of the creature from his Creator. 56 57 762 Paul Clarke, O.P. not a result of personal sin, but rather indicates his own inability, as a creature, to be fully present to God in every dimension of God’s mysterious providence. There is, however, a further point to this experience of abandonment. In his place in the breach, the prophet assumes the burden of the people, including, to a degree, their distance from God. Muffs affirms that “only boundless spiritual bravery allows the prophet to suffer the great loneliness of one who stands in the breach and at the same time to call on the people that does not listen.”60 The breach, then, is the locus of an acute tension between the divine presence and absence, and the costs of mediating between the Lord and his people are given voice in the prophet’s desperate defense of truth and his protest against the false and shrunken hope that would foreclose on the divine power—and promise—to save.61 The lament is paradoxically, it seems, deeply imbued with hope. To overlook the prophet’s abiding trust in the Lord’s power and protection is to miss the precise motive and the poignancy of the lament. It is even possible to see Jeremiah’s hope as the precondition of his lament. In contrast to that of the false prophets, Jeremiah’s hope does not take its bearings from auspicious signs of political, social, or religious development, nor does it receive its impulse from a personal optimism. He remains clear-eyed about the threats of exile and the destruction of Jerusalem even as he endures persecution by the very people for whom he intercedes. Jeremiah’s trust is anchored by and set within the horizon of saving truth, particularly the Lord’s promise to be with him, and is thus not merely compatible with tremendous grief; rather, such grief is made possible by the very profundity and resilience of Jeremiah’s hope. On the strength of his contact with the truth of God—indeed, with the God of truth—the prophet can have the courage and trust necessary to hold his ground in the face of fierce opposition.62 The prophetic office, which, in Jeremiah’s case, is explicitly portrayed as a consecration to the truth, is thus seen to have an essential orientation to hope. Muffs, “Who Will Stand in the Breach?” 32. There is a significant pedagogical dimension of the lament, as well. The tensions and movement alike of Jeremiah’s prayer reveal how Jeremiah himself learns through suffering, or more precisely, by bringing his suffering and that of the people before the Lord. 62 See Kathleen M. O’Connor, “The Prophet Jeremiah and Exclusive Loyalty to God,” Interpretation 59, no. 2 (2005): 130–40. 60 61 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 763 The shape of Jeremiah’s hope reflects the eschatological dimension of the prophetic lament. His painful knowledge of the depths of his people’s wound compels him to recognize just how radical the remedy must be. The healing must be nothing short of total. The final verses of the lament are surprisingly illuminating on this point. Jeremiah’s subversion of the lament form and the imagery of his curse signal a subtle but decisive rejection of any kind of immanent solution to the problems facing the poor, needy, and persecuted. The object of Jeremiah’s curse is crucial: the day of his birth. The significance of the image is suggested by the common saying “Where there’s life, there’s hope.” In this case, the text derives its unsettling force by calling to mind that great source of hope: new life. Jeremiah is writing in large and startling figures for a people whose spiritual vision has become increasingly myopic. Precisely by targeting birth, the emblematic experience of human hope, the prophetic curse in these final verses is deliberately excoriating a hope in the future that remains simply and exclusively human and, in this case, pursued through political and religious maneuvering. This target is the life born not under the star of fidelity to the Lord, but in the shadow of self-interest, fear, and idolatry. The life born of such hope can expect only devastating sorrow, pain, and shame. For the poor to be rescued and the righteous vindicated—the great theme of biblical intercession—in short, for all of suffering Israel to be saved, human efforts will be unfailingly inadequate. There will have to be a different sort of birth. Jeremiah’s temptation to despair of his prophetic mission dovetails with this reading. The final verses appear to call into question the adequacy, or even the point, of lament as a response to suffering: “Why did I come forth from the womb, / to see sorrow and pain, / to end my days in shame?” ( Jer 20:18). Implicit, of course, is the realization that, considered in itself, his act of lament is insufficient as a therapeutic strategy; it simply fails to remedy the situation or to resolve the tensions it confronts. Yet, in the act of contesting the purpose of lament, Jeremiah exposes both its limits and its foundation. His confrontation with the abyss stems from his discovery of the radical failure that awaits even authentic human projects so long as they are not born of and borne up by God. It is a mark of Jeremiah’s extraordinary honesty that he brings this question to light. Only because he addresses his question to the Lord does his lament bring him insight and greater trust. 764 Paul Clarke, O.P. From this discussion of Jeremiah, we can sketch out a working definition for the prophetic lament as the intercessory act of a prophet that confronts suffering and refocuses hope within the horizon of the saving truth of God’s revelation and action.63 In the New Testament, this undergoes a dramatic reconfiguration in the person of Christ. The Lament Christologically Reconfigured This section exposes the Christological framework within which the distinctively Christian form of the lament is to be found. My contention is that the Jeremian lament, once transposed into the key of the New Testament, is reconfigured as a participation in the prophetic munus of Christ through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, by which we are made sons and heirs to eternal life.64 In this formulation, four motifs are at play. First, in Christ, the root of the prophetic office is revealed to be essentially filial. Here I follow Joseph Ratzinger’s brief but illuminating comments on Christ’s prophetic identity, according to which Christ stands in fundamental continuity with the Old Testament prophets even as he renews the prophetic office by giving it a new clarity and orientation.65 Recalling the portrayal in Exodus and Deuteronomy of St. Thomas’s treatment of prophecy in ST II-II, qq. 171–77, bears on this discussion. In his view, the gift of prophecy is a “gratuitous grace,” specific to certain persons for the benefit of others. It primarily has to do with knowledge: “Prophecy is a kind of knowledge [cognitio] impressed under the form of teaching on the prophet’s intellect, by Divine revelation” (q. 171, a. 6). St. Thomas places stress on the revelatory dimension, the inspiration by and perception of Divine Truth that gives the recipient access to the “remote,” or hidden, things of God. Particularly relevant to my argument is Thomas’s discussion of how the supernatural light enables one to discern, interpret, and judge concrete historical realities by a new “coordination of species” (q. 173, a. 2). While Thomas locates the grace of prophecy within the category of charismatic graces, he nonetheless allows for grades of prophetic inspiration and revelation, thus discreetly leaving open the possibility of “ordinary Christians” receiving prophetic graces to do or say things that they do not fully understand (see q. 173, a. 4). The present article’s argument concerning prophetic lament would thus be descriptive of such graces at work precisely in the context of the obscurity and tragic sufferings of wounded nature. (The above translations from ST are my own, from the Latin at corpusthomisticum.org.) 64 For an in-depth study of Jesus’s laments, see Rebekah Eklund, Jesus Wept: The Significance of Jesus’ Laments in the New Testament (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). 65 To the extent that Jesus’s prophetic identity has received explicitly theological attention, discussions have often focused more narrowly on issues such as his eschatology or a possible Moses or Elijah Christology at work in the Gospels. 63 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 765 Moses as the paradigmatic prophet, Ratzinger finds the “root of the prophetic element in that ‘face to face’ encounter with God, in ‘talking with Him as with a friend,’” and it is within this frame that Christ’s prophetic identity must be understood: “The true and greater Moses is, therefore, Christ himself, who really does live ‘face to face’ with God because he is his Son.”66 If it is on the strength of this relationship, as Ratzinger suggests, that the prophet lives and speaks, then the prophetic lament takes place precisely within the Son’s communion and intimate dialogue with the Father. Furthermore, the Christian is a prophet by participation, such that his prophetic activity—including lament—takes as its model and decisive point of reference the person, deeds, and words of the Christ.67 In short, the shift in the New Testament form of the prophetic lament centers on its new Christological and filial core. Second, it is by Christ’s gift of the Holy Spirit that we share in his messianic anointing as prophets. The prophetic lament involves an important pneumatological dimension, since it is by the outpouring of the Spirit that the Christian is made a son with the Son (and thus a sharer in Christ’s prophetic munus).68 The Christian’s adoptive sonship and prophetic mission intersect here. The Holy Spirit not only makes us sons but also continues to form Christian life and prayer, and this Underlying any attempt to grasp his prophetic identity, however, are more basic conceptions of the essence of the prophetic office. Some presume the prophet to be a soothsayer, essentially concerned with foretelling future events, or a radical and outspoken social critic, or an apocalyptic figure. For influential arguments, see N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1996), esp. part II (“Profile of a Prophet”); Ben Witherington III, Jesus the Seer: The Progress of Prophecy (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2014). For less sweeping treatments, see J. Severino Croatto, “Jesus, Prophet like Elijah, and Prophet-Teacher like Moses in Luke-Acts,” Journal of Biblical Literature 124, no. 3 (2005): 451–65; John C. Poirier, “Jesus as an Elijianic Figure in Luke 4: 16–30,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 71, no. 2 (2009): 349–63. 66 Joseph Ratzinger, foreword in Niels Christian Hvidt, Christian Prophecy: The Post-Biblical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), viii. See also Deut 18:15; Exod 33:7–23; Matt 17:5; Acts 3:22. 67 Christopher Rowland suggests that Paul views his own prophetic mission in this way (“Prophecy in the New Testament,” in Prophecy and Prophets in Ancient Israel: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar, ed. John Day [New York: T & T Clark, 2010], 410–30). 68 As Peter declares in his Pentecost preaching, citing the prophet Joel: “‘It will come to pass in the last days,’ God says, ‘that I will pour out a portion of my spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17, quoting Joel 3:1). 766 Paul Clarke, O.P. holds implications for the lament. We find in the parrhesia of the New Testament the Spirit’s seal on the divine warrant to lament.69 This term, which signifies boldness of speech, an audacity that continues to speak, preach, and pray even in the face of obstacles or danger, is critical for understanding how the lament shifts from the candor of a trusted servant to the boldness of a child.70 From the Spirit comes the encouragement to employ even “stormy prayer” with the parrhesia of a son who can lament, “Abba, Father!” (Rom 8:15). Confident that the Father hears him, the Christian is free to cry out, to give voice to the suffering of creation (see Rom 8:26). From this pneumatological perspective, the lament exhibits a fundamental (positive) concern for life and, as its (negative) corollary, a radical opposition to death and to whatever threatens to destroy genuine human goods. Third, sonship and obedience mutually define one another in Christ. This is possibly the most striking aspect of the reconfiguration, and it brings into view the soteriological significance of the lament. “In the days when he was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death [ek thanatou], and he was heard because of his reverence” (Heb 5:7). If death entered the world by Adam’s disobedience, here the new Adam’s obedience, manifested by his reverence and attested by his tears, reverses the curse: God saves him ek thanatou.71 The lament thus plays a crucial role in Christ’s redemptive action, precisely as a manifestation of his perfect filial obedience. The connection established by the sacred author between the Savior’s “loud cries and tears” and his filial reverence (eulabeias) pushes to the foreground the radical statement being made about the redemption So, for example, Heb 4:16: “So let us confidently [meta parrhesias] approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.” See also Heb 3:6, 10:19; Eph 3:11–12. 70 See the entry for parrhesia in Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, trans. James D. Ernest (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 56–62. 71 It is important to see the rich scriptural backdrop of this passage: Jesus’s agony in Gethsemane (Matt 26:38–44 and parallels), the cry of abandonment from the Cross (Matt 27:46 and parallels), Jesus’s weeping over the death of Lazarus (John 11:35), and, less proximately, the laments over Jerusalem (Luke 11:34–35, 19:41–44); not to mention the lament psalms such as Pss 22 and 45. See Eklund’s discussion of the prophetic dimension of Jesus’s laments in Jesus Wept, 91–108. For a critical response to studies of lament in the New Testament, see D. Keith Campbell, “NT Scholars’ Use of OT Lament Terminology and Its Theological and Interdisciplinary Implications,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 21 (2011): 213–26. 69 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 767 of mankind: it is accomplished through the humanity of the Son.72 In other words, by assuming flesh, by descending to the depths of man’s darkness and fear, Jesus identifies completely with suffering Israel, and thus demonstrates his perfect obedience. The grounds of the Christian lament are revealed in the obedience of a son whose confidence in being heard discloses the lament’s decisive prophetic orientation toward salvation. The fourth motif, then, is the goal toward which the lament strains. The dynamism of the lament reaches out toward life, and in the events of the Paschal mystery, Christ reveals the true destination of humanity: life in abundance, eternal communion with God. While it was not without its shadows and images, the hope that girded the Old Testament laments could not foresee the astounding novum of the resurrection. It is within this transcendent horizon that the perspective of the lament is enlarged. To paraphrase Pope Benedict XVI, the one with hope grieves differently.73 This sheds light on the second beatitude’s promise of comfort to those who mourn. Christ gives the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, only after he has defeated death ( John 14:16). As the Church continues in via ad patriam, it is sustained by the grace won by the resurrection, the firstfruits of the Spirit.74 The eschatology of the second beatitude does not, therefore, eviscerate the present world of its significance by reducing the promised comfort to a merely other-worldly realization. Quite the contrary. Christian life is, in Pierre Benoit’s phrase, char This is indicated here by the term eulabeias, “reverence” or “fear” (see the entry in A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, ed. Walter Bauer, et al., 3rd ed. [BDAG] [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000], 407). This is the complementary quality to parrhesia (boldness). Harold Attridge notes that this scriptural text’s depiction of Christ’s prayer tracks closely with Philo’s presentation of the ideal prayer of Moses (The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews [Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1989], 150–52). 73 Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter on Christian Hope Spe Salvi (November 30, 2007), §2. 74 Paul’s reflection on this in Romans makes explicit the connections between divine adoption, Christian hope, and eschatological groaning: “We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved” (Rom 8:22–24; see also Gal 4:1–7). For recent work on Paul’s use of the lament, see Channing L. Crisler, Reading Romans as Lament: Paul’s Use of Old Testament Lament in His Most Famous Letter (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2016). See also Eklund, Jesus Wept, 130–35. 72 768 Paul Clarke, O.P. acteristically “amphibious,” involving man in both this perishable world and the eschatological world to come.75 The act of mourning opens a space for the Lord to enter, to act, and to heal. As Benedict puts it, “those who do not harden their hearts to the pain and need of others, who do not give evil entry to their souls, but suffer under its power and so acknowledge the truth of God—they are the ones who open the windows of the world to let the light in.” 76 Lament in fact strengthens and refocuses hope in light of Christ’s victory over death. Made sons with the Son, Christians dare to hope: “If we have died with him, we shall also live with him” (2 Tim 2:11). It is from this terra firma afforded by theological hope that the Christian can also dare to lament. Implications for Theology Today In conclusion, I want to make explicit the convergence of the foregoing discussion of the prophetic lament with Schenk’s theology of mourning and then point to the advantages that a retrieval of prophetic lament holds for contemporary theological discourse. Even within Scripture, the lament is not a univocal term. Jeremiah’s lament displays features that uniquely belong to his prophetic calling and task of mediation. The theologically complex and vital individuality of the prophetic lament makes it a fertile source for further reflection. Yet the prophet and his lament are not mere exempla for narrating a theology of mourning.77 Scripture not only concretizes our concept of lament but also “universalizes” it through typology.78 The connection between Old and New Testaments involves relationships between types (or prefigurations) and their fulfillment, such that their linkage requires us to attend to both if we are to understand Pierre Benoit, “‘We too groan inwardly . . .’ (Romans 8:23),” in Jesus and the Gospel, vol. 2 (New York: Herder and Herder, 1974), 43. Benoit observes here that these two worlds “meet and intersect in man, and the result is an intermediate state, with a wholly original ‘amphibious’ character in which is to be found the ‘tension’ proper to the Christian life.” The essay is an illuminating analysis of Paul’s language of divine adoption and its implications for a correct grasp of Christian eschatology. 76 Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 87. 77 This can be easily forgotten, particularly in the settings of pastoral and practical theology, with their interest in capturing the moral imagination of their audience through concrete experiences and vivid storytelling. 78 For valuable essays on the current status and future of typological and spiritual interpretations of Scripture, see Modern Theology 28, no. 4 (October 2012). 75 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 769 either. Viewing the prophetic lament through the Christological prism, then, we find a rich typology that can shape our patterns of thinking and acting in the face of anxiety, sorrow, and suffering. Read typologically, the prophetic lament broadens the theological horizon opened by Schenk’s study of mourning and helps to clarify further what his proposals entail. Schenk submits that the Church’s theology needs to be characterized by a studied ambivalence in its relationship to the world. This is an ambivalence not toward mourning as such, but toward the signs of the times, the mesmeric power of which can lead to one-sided programs of affirmation or rejection. Without a more basic and considered ambivalence, the lament easily becomes mere handwringing, a sign of despair over and departure from a world going to hell in a handbasket. A proper ambivalence is the essential condition for genuine lament, giving it a clear interpretive and practical role. Locating the prophetic lament in the context of a systematic theology of luctus et angor enriches our understanding of Schenk’s thesis of the Church’s critical relationality. Schenk’s theological hermeneutic generates in the practical order a robust Christian realism capable of striking the difficult balance of compassionate involvement and eschatological reserve. The present article has indicated the mutually beneficial relationship of systematic and biblical reflections on mourning. Schenk’s systematic approach secures the theological interpretation and retrieval of the prophetic lament, while the lament explicates the scriptural underpinnings of his theology of mourning. We might put the relationship this way: Schenk’s principles illuminate the prophetic lament, which in turn functions as a typology that can further his project by relating his proposals to the essential conditions and tasks of the prophetic munus of the Church. The following four points draw out the implications and advantages of this for contemporary theology in the Church. First, Schenk has articulated the need for a differentiated approach to the signs of the times. The lament shows how the realism of the prophets is both critical and expansive. It can hold the existence of real evil, corruption, and injustice in tension alongside the existence and providence of a good God. It is axiomatic for the prophetic stance toward the world that “tears and fears” signify a legitimate response to the human condition. In fact, the prophet can lament only because his “theological hermeneutics” permit the kind of truth telling about the world that goes beyond the extremes of dismissal and approbation, beyond flight and conformity. Because its bedrock conviction is that 770 Paul Clarke, O.P. this world is ruled by a God of justice and mercy, the prophet’s lament can confront suffering and evil and still express hopes for conversion, renewal, and restoration. The very profundity of the hope made possible in Christ deepens, rather than diminishes, the intensity of the Christian’s lament. Yet, because it takes its bearings from Christ, the hermeneutics of prophetic lament are not ultimately grounded in mere human calculation. The significance of the vicissitudes of humanity are discerned in light of Christ, and thus in signo crucis, and this basis can distinguish true and false griefs and joys. Jesus’s prophetic lament over Jerusalem points to this: “If this day you only knew what makes for peace!” (Luke 19:42). Christian mourning must involve a constant purification of its notion of “what makes for peace” through encounter with the living Word of God. Second, the prophetic lament underscores the indispensability of mourning. Jeremiah’s lament indicates the need to stress theologically the importance of (voiced) sorrow as an entry point for God’s action in the world. Schenk notes that “although there are types of mourning inconsistent with the ideal of Christian life, there could be no completely Christian existence without a genuine sense of mourning.”79 This mourning is not limited to contrition over personal sin, nor even over sin more generally. The lament’s concern for all forms of suffering is a corrective to views that too quickly spiritualize suffering and privatize mourning. In mourning, one acknowledges one’s suffering and vulnerability and makes that a premise of the argument addressed to God. The Christian must become more, not less, vulnerable, and for this reason, his lament must necessarily extend outward to include all of creation. All of creation groans, and the eschatological lament is itself both a part of and a response to this groaning. Third, prophetic lament offers an example for how the Church is to understand herself as in but not of the world. Schenk’s incisive comment that “the self hood of the Church and her critical relationality . . . will grow hand-in-hand, or not at all” sets in relief the Church’s double burden. Muffs’s analysis of prophetic intercession shows that the prophet’s representation of the people is integral to his vocation. Likewise, in her prophetic dimension, the Church is, by divine mandate, implicated in the sorrows of the world.80 The Schenk, “‘And Jesus Wept,’” 127. In its clear-eyed recognition of the world’s luctus et angor, however, prophetic lament does not collapse into protest, because at the heart of its stormy prayer 79 80 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 771 call to shoulder one another’s burdens (Gal 6:2) is normative for the life of the Church, not only within but also, importantly, beyond her visible borders. Thus, the Church admonishes and affirms in close and uncomfortable proximity. The lament’s relevance for evangelization and cultural engagement consists, at one level, in the welcome nuance it can bring to bear on evangelization strategies. The joy that rightly defines New Evangelization efforts retains its authenticity only in polarity with the sorrow of being in via, where disappointments and tragedies continue to threaten. By its frank acknowledgement of the Church’s wayfaring state, the prophetic lament chastens intemperate enthusiasm over “systematic” approaches and solutions that betray their bureaucratic origin. In contrast, the response to Pope Francis’s “art of accompaniment” has shown the significant evangelical benefits of a more “proximate” approach, as well as the need for grounding it theologically so that it is neither co-opted by “liberal” assimilationist ideologies nor rejected out of hand by alarmed “conservatives.”81 Theological reflection on the scriptural grounds for and typology of the Church’s prophetic mission sheds light on the complexities of accompaniment. Read as a type of the Church’s prophetic office, Jeremiah embodies the mode of being in-yet-not-of through his lament. The dual-perspective (toward God and toward man) characteristic of the prophet’s vision is the precondition for the Church’s critical relationality and, consequently, the “eschatological reserve” that she must show toward the variegated historical situation in which she finds herself. Theological attention to “social facticity” cannot, without serious costs, filter out the voices of luctus et angor that are themselves signs of the times pointing toward the need for more radical conversion. Fourth and finally, a word about prophecy and theology today is in order. Recovering a sense for the prophetic life of the Church is important for theological discourse in at least two ways.82 First, it serves as a salutary reminder that Christian theology does not aim at is the rock-like trust and obedience of a son. By its insistence on the primacy of the theological (rather than political or sociological) interpretation of suffering, prophetic lament rejects the common reductionisms that would dictate that the Christian respond to injustice and evil in purely sociopolitical terms. The Christian response is not limited to the possibilities of activism and protest. 81 See Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation on the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today’s World Evangelii Gaudium (November 24, 2013), §§169–73. 82 For extended discussion of this topic, see Hvidt, Christian Prophecy. 772 Paul Clarke, O.P. building consensus, but at the conversion of minds and hearts to the truth revealed by God. The prophet who has come in contact with the living Word has an abiding conviction that truth enjoys a certain priority over goodness. The evangelical dynamism that should characterize theology comes from the prophetic impulse.83 Both the integrity of theology and its relevance to social existence hinge upon its ability to associate itself with the anguish of man, not merely with his joys and positive developments. On the one hand, this entails developing the theological grammar and resources to mediate saving truth to the world at large in an intelligible, faithful, and attractive manner. On the other, and as a strategy for encountering the world of the day, this translates into what Schenk terms the Church’s “dual program of affirmation and admonition.” So, for example, the development of a theology of conversion would provide clarity about the means and ends of the New Evangelization. Greater attention to a theology of tragedy—and here Schenk’s work is on point—can also aid in recovering a healthy appreciation of the reality of the losses suffered in human life.84 Second, theology articulates the framework within which prophecy operates. It is an essentially prophetic task (as we see vividly in the case of Jeremiah) to recognize and speak to the signs of the times and to confront the gaudium et spes and angor et luctus of the world within the horizon of saving truth. For an age that faces a crisis of hope, there will necessarily be a corresponding struggle to find the theological grounds for mourning, and a thin theology of mourning will secure only a flimsy hope. Schenk captures this correlation with the following programmatic statement: A hope for goods whose loss would not be mourned would be hollow. A Church that could not mourn is one that could not hope, but also, a Church that could not hope is one that could In an interview with the English title “The Problem of Christian Prophecy,” originally published in 30Giorni in 1999, Ratzinger observes that “Theology, as theological science in the strict sense, is not prophetic but may only truly become living theology under the thrust and illumination of a prophetic impulse” (catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=6439). 84 See Schenk: “Factus in agonia”; “Hoping to be a Person”; “The Epoché of Factical Damnation?: On the Costs of Bracketing Out the Likelihood of Final Loss,” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 1, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 122–54. 83 Audemus Lugere: The Prophetic Hope of Christian Mourning 773 not mourn for long. The future vitality of Christianity will depend on the revival of these twin virtues.85 The integral and mutual connection between hope and mourning demonstrates the inadequacy of developing a theology of gaudium et spes that does not align itself with a theology of luctus et angor. The retrieval of the prophetic lament can play an instrumental role in re-inscribing a theology of mourning into contemporary theological discourse. N&V Schenk, “‘And Jesus Wept,’” 130. 85 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 775–796 775 Augustine’s Attack on Apocalypticism Bernard McGinn University of Chicago Chicago, IL The Roman city of Salona , the birthplace of the Emperor Diocletian, is on the Dalmatian coast not far from Split in modern Croatia. The city boasts the remains of no less than three early Christian basilicas. The ruins of the fifth-century church of St. Domnius, the local martyr and patron, still contains the remains of the original lintel stone, which has the inscription “Deus noster propitious esto rei publicae romanae” (“May our God be favorable to the Roman State”), a phrase that is an apt summation of the providential theology of history linking the destinies of Rome and Christianity. This lucky survival is a striking coincidence because it was to Hesychius, the early fifth-century bishop of Salona, that Augustine of Hippo addressed one of his two most extensive treatments of the end of history, the treatise De fine mundi, or Letter 199.1 The other major treatment, of course, is in the De civitate Dei, especially books 18–20, which deal with temporal eschatology.2 Augustine’s Epistle 199 can be found in PL, 33:904–25. There is a translation in Saint Augustine: Letters, vol. 4, Letters 165–203, trans. Sister Wilfried Parsons (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1955), 356–401. 2 The De civitate Dei (hereafter, DCD) is found in many editions. I will use that of Sancti Aurelii Augustini Episcopi De civitate dei Libri XXII, ed. B. Dombart, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1877). For English translation, see The City of God by Saint Augustine, trans. Marcus Dods et al. (New York: Random House, 1950). The literature on the DCD is vast, so here I mention only the helpful introduction by Gerard O’Daly, Augustine’s City of God: A Reader’s Guide (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), and the essays in The City of God: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Dorothy F. Donnelley (New York: Peter Lang, 1995), and Augus1 776 Bernard McGinn Augustine’s theology of history, more than two decades in the making, was crafted to respond to two popular fourth-century views that attempted to deal with one of the most remarkable changes in Western society of the previous two millennia: Constantine’s conversion and the subsequent growing alliance between the Roman Empire and the Christian Church.3 Thus, in slightly more than a century (303–427 CE), three major Christian theologies of history were created. The first was due primarily to Constantine’s court theologian, Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260–340), while the second was the work of the Christian rhetor Lactantius (ca. 250–325), who educated Constantine’s son, Crispus. The Eusebian imperial theology of history was providentialist and optimistic, even messianic, in its view of Constantinian Rome as the fulfillment of prophetic texts of both the Old and the New Testaments. In his Divinae institutiones, Lactantius, on the other hand, took a pessimistic view of the future of the Roman Empire by combining elements of early Christian apologetics and apocalyptic expectations into a new synthetic format. Augustine was familiar with the writings of these two theologians4 and, at least up to about 400, shared some of their views. But the bishop’s maturing thought on the nature of temporality,5 his explorations of the proper exegesis of scriptural prophecy, and his meditations on the shock of the sack of Rome in 410 led him away from what he came to think of as facile solutions to the meaning of history,6 hence the long composition of the De civitate Dei (ca. 413–427) and his epistolary exchange with Hesychius around 418–419. I will tine’s “City of God”: A Critical Guide, ed. James Wetzel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 3 Augustine’s view of history has been much written about. A classic book is R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). 4 Augustine explicitly refers to Lactantius in DCD 18.23. On the connection of the two, see Michael P. McHugh, “Lactantius,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 489–90. On Augustine’s knowledge of Eusebius, see Andrew Carriker, “Eusebius of Caesarea,” in Fitzgerald, Augustine through the Ages, 339–40, as well as O’Daly, Augustine’s City of God, 263–64. 5 Augustine’s thoughts on the nature of time and temporality, an important part of his theology of history about which so much has been written, are too complex to be taken up here. 6 For an overview of the attitude of early Christians toward Rome, see R. A. Markus, “The Roman Empire in Early Christian Historiography,” Downside Review 81 (1961): 340–53. Augustine’s Attack on Apocalypticism 777 look at Augustine’s responses to Eusebian providentialism and to the apocalypticism of Lactantius and those who believed that the Bible provided a clear and predictable account of the course of history and its imminent end, especially his response to the latter.7 To see how Augustine positioned himself in the great fourth-century debate over sacred history, we can start with a brief account of his reaction to the imperial theology of history pioneered by Eusebius.8 From the late second century on, Christian thinkers had begun trying to fit the sacred history of the Bible into the secular chronology of classical historians in order to demonstrate the greater antiquity of God’s people and to show the superiority of the Christian view of universal history based on the centrality of the Incarnation.9 The creation of a Christian theology of history involved first of all establishing a framework for universal history, something that Eusebius worked out in his Chronica, a book that became the basic source for world history for centuries to come.10 In the second place, such a theology required a theological vindication of God’s providential plan for salvation, especially in the last age initiated by Jesus Christ. This was something Eusebius explored in several works, but especially his Historia ecclesiastica. Throughout his writings, notably in his Vita Constantini and De laudibus Constantini (the Tricennial orations of 335/336), Eusebius lauds the manifest destiny that had led to the unifying of Rome and the Church, often adopting messianic texts, especially from the Old Testament, to demonstrate that the promised reign of God on earth is the triumph of Christian Rome realized by Constantine and handed on to his descendants. As he put it in the Sixteenth Oration: Some of what follows relates to my earlier treatment in “The Development of Christian Theologies of History,” in The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1985), 51–73 (ch. 1). 8 For an account of Eusebius’s theology of history, see Glenn F. Chestnut, The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977), chs. 3–6. See also Chestnut, “The Pattern of the Past: Augustine’s Debate with Eusebius and Sallust,” in Our Common History as Christians: Essays in Honor of Albert C. Outler, ed. John Deschner, Leroy T. Howe, and Klaus Penzel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 69–95. 9 For a summary, see Jaroslav Pelikan, The Finality of Jesus Christ in an Age of Universal History: A Dilemma of the Third Century (London: Lutterworth, 1965). 10 Eusebius’s Chronica consisted of two parts: the Chronographia summarizing the history of the ancient peoples and the Canones chronologicae synchronizing the dates of these peoples from the time of Abraham to 325 CE. The latter was translated and extended to 378 CE by Jerome. Augustine used Jerome’s version (see DCD 4.6 and 18.8). 7 778 Bernard McGinn But two great powers—the Roman Empire, which became a monarchy at that time [the reign of Augustus], and the teaching of Christ—proceeding as if from a single starting point, at once tamed and reconciled all to friendship. Thus each blossomed at the same time and place as the other. . . . For at one and the same time that the error of the demons was refuted, the eternal enmity and warfare of the nations was resolved. . . . Thus, the predictions of the ancient oracles and utterances of the prophets were fulfilled, . . . including those which said of the saving Logos that “He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth” (Ps. 71:8).11 Eusebius did not deny traditional Christian teaching about the coming end, but he also did not consider the last times to be near. Like his hero Origen, he opposed any literal reading of the images of John’s Apocalypse, such as the thousand-year earthly kingdom of the saints in Apocalypse 20. Eusebius’s pro-Roman theology was popular in both East and West, being found, if in a modified way, in Ambrose, Rufinus, and Prudentius. We should not be surprised, then, that the young Augustine seems to have shared it. Although his early study of the six ages of the world led him to see that the whole of the final age should be considered as a single period without inner divisions,12 he hailed the Theodosian outlawing of paganism as a providential moment predicted by the Bible. In his De consensu evangelistarum of circa 400, for example, he says: “Now the God of Israel is everywhere destroying the idols of the heathens. . . . Through Christ the King he has subjugated the Roman Empire, by whom the Jews were conquered, . . . and he has converted it to the defense and service of the Christian faith.”13 In a later passage, he speaks of how “in Christian times” Eusebius, Oration 16, in In Praise of Constantine: A Historical Study and New Translation of Eusebius’ Tricennial Orations, trans. and ed. H. A. Drake (Berkeley: University of California, 1975), 120–21. See also Vita Constantini 3.33. 12 On Augustine’s doctrine of the world ages, see: Auguste Luneau, L’Histoire de salut chez les Pères de l’Eglise: La doctrine des âges du monde (Paris: Beauchesne, 1964); Karl-Heinz Schwarte, Die Vorgeschichte der augustinischen Weltalterlehre (Bonn: Habelt, 1966); R. Schmidt, “Die Weltalter als Gliederungsprinzip der Geschichte,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 67 (1955–1956): 287–317. 13 Augustine, De consensu evangelistarum 1.14.21: “. . . nunc ipse Deus Israel ubique delet idola gentium. . . . Et Romanum imperium, a quo gens illa victa est, per Christum regem suo nomini subjugavit, . . . Christianae fidei robore 11 Augustine’s Attack on Apocalypticism 779 (temporibus christianis) God has brought the prophetic utterances to completion.14 In the contemporary De catechizandis rudibus, like Eusebius, Augustine emphasizes the legibility of the events of the day as seen through the lens of Scripture: “For all the things that you now see happening in the Church of God, and in the name of Christ throughout the whole world, were already foretold ages before. And even as we read them, so also do we see them, and thereby we are edified unto faith.”15 We could almost be listening to Eusebius. Turning to Lactantius and his apocalyptic theology of history, we need to back up and take a brief look at the role of apocalypticism from the beginnings of Christianity.16 Apocalyptic eschatology involves a teleological and deterministic belief in God’s control over history considered as a structured succession of ages down to the end times, which are seen as in some way imminent. As the creation of Second Temple Judaism in reaction to the traumas that the Jewish people endured in the last centuries BCE, apocalyptic revelations (at least some of them) saw the present age as a time of crisis in which the forces of evil were mounting their last and most serious attack on the remnant of believers. The faithful were counseled to endure perseac devotione convertit” (PL, 34:1051). On Augustine’s brief adherence to providentialism, see Markus, Saeculum, ch. 2, as well as: A. Mandouze, “Saint Augustin et la religion romaine,” Recherches augustiniennes 1 (1958): 187–223; T. E. Mommsen, “St. Augustine and the Christian Idea of Progress,” Journal of the History of Ideas 12 (1951): 346–74 (reprinted in Donnelley, The City of God, 353–72); F. E. Cranz, “The development of Augustine’s Ideas on Society before the Donatist Controversy,” Harvard Theological Review 47 (1954): 255–316. 14 Augustine, De consensu evangelistarum 1.34.52. Goulven Madec shows that Augustine used this term in at least four different ways, not all of them triumphalist (“‘Tempora Christiana’: Expression du triomphalisme chrétien or recrimination païenne?” in Scientia Augustiniana: Studien über Augustinus, den Augustinismus und den Augustinerorden [Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1975], 112–36). 15 Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus 27.53: “Omnia enim quae nunc vides in Ecclesia Dei, et sub Christi nomine per totum orbem terrarium geri, ante saecula jam praedicta sunt, et sicut ea legimus, ita et videmus; et inde aedificamur in fide” (PL, 40:346; translation in St. Augustine: The First Catechetical Instruction, trans. Joseph P. Christopher [Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1946], 84). 16 Two good surveys of the development of early Christian eschatology and apocalypticism are Brian E. Daley, The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), and Charles E. Hill, Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001). 780 Bernard McGinn cution in expectation of a coming divine intervention to judge the wicked and reward the just, in both an earthly and a heavenly way, with both a time of peace and plenty on earth (i.e., the millennium) and the resurrection of the body and eternal felicity beyond this life.17 The apocalyptic mindset was a part of the Jewish matrix in which Christianity was born, whether we want to conceive of Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher or not. A number of early Christian leaders, such as Paul, were apocalyptic in outlook, although this label does not exhaust their religious identity. But the imminent and futurist emphasis of early Christian apocalyptic thinking was already being modified in the New Testament, especially in the Johannine texts that immanentized expectations about the future and its events, such as expectations of the appearance of Christ’s final nemesis, the “Antichrist,” into a message about the current life of the believing community. The quarrel between futurist and presentist apocalyptic expectations goes back to the first century of the followers of Jesus. Despite the claims of some scholars that the delay of Jesus’s expected Parousia led to the abandonment of literal apocalypticism in the second and third centuries CE,18 there is good evidence that aspects of apocalyptic beliefs remained strong, not only among the literal-minded who looked forward to the proximate return of the Lord but also, if in a revised way, among the writers who were willing to give a more spiritual and non-chronological interpretation to apocalyptic images, such as those found in the Apocalypse of John. These writers still insisted that all believers should live “in the shadow of the Second Coming,” with the conviction that the Christian outlook on life and history was based on expectation of the coming end. In this latter camp, those we may describe as more broadly eschatological than properly apocalyptic, we can number the mature Augustine.19 For an introduction to the beginnings of apocalypticism, see the essays in The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, vol. 1, The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity, ed. John J. Collins (New York: Continuum, 2000). 18 See, e.g., Martin Werner, The Formation of Christian Dogma (Boston: Beacon, 1957), and John Gager, Kingdom and Community:The Social World of Early Christianity (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975). 19 There are a number of surveys of Augustine’s eschatology, such as Michael J. Scanlon, “Eschatology,” in Fitzgerald, Augustine through the Ages, 316–18, and Hermann Häring, “Eschatologie,” in Augustin Handbuch, ed. Volker Denning Drecoll (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 540–47. On Augustine’s influence on later eschatology, see Thomas Fliethmann, “Eschatology,” in The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, 3 vols., ed. Karla Pohlmann, et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 2:942–46. 17 Augustine’s Attack on Apocalypticism 781 Lactantius is the best example of a Latin theologian who took up the challenge of keeping apocalyptic expectations alive in the new context of the Christian Roman Empire, the Respublica Romana. This North African thinker’s Institutiones, written between 303 and 314 and later dedicated to Constantine, was, on the one hand, the last and most ambitious Latin apologia—that is, defense of Christianity against its pagan opponents20 —and on the other, an apocalyptic summa, as set forth in book 7.21 The first six books deal with typical apologetic themes (an attack on Roman religion, a refutation of the philosophers, treatments of the wisdom of Christ, justice, and true worship). The first half of book 7, on “The Blessed Life” (chs. 1–13), shows how the creation of the world for the sake of humanity reveals that immortality is the highest good and that this ultimate prize can be gained only by virtuous behavior. Thus, there is a divine design for history, a teleology based on God’s providential dispositio.22 In order for virtue to be rewarded and vice punished, God has ordained a just judgment at Christ’s Second Coming: “The providence of Almighty God has ordained that this unjust age should reach an end after the course of the ages at a time when every evil shall be instantly destroyed and the souls of the faithful called back to a blessed life.”23 For Lactantius, the last judgment and the events leading up to it are witnessed to not only by the Hebrew prophets but also by all the sages of the Gentiles, especially the Sibyls.24 Like Augustine and many other early Christians, Lactantius adhered to the “world week” schema, according to which the course On the importance of Lactantius as an apologist, see Nicholas L. Thomas, Defending Christ: The Latin Apologists before Augustine (Turnhout, BE: Brepols, 2011), ch. 5. 21 For the text of the Divinae institutiones, see the edition of S. Brandt in Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 19.1 (Vienna, AT: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1890), 580–672. The translation is my own from my Apocalyptic Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 25–80. Helpful studies of Lactantius can be found in Lactance et son temps, ed. J. Fontaine and M. Perrin (Paris: Beauchesne, 1978). 22 Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 7.1 and 7.4. 23 Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 7.2. 24 Lactantius had a particular fondness for the Sibylline Oracles, quoting them fifty-one times across his works, with twenty-five citations in bk. 7. Divinae institutiones 1.6 contains a handy summary on the Sibyls much used by later authors. In bk. 7, Lactantius also cites other pagan prophetic sources that he believes agree, at least in part, with scriptural prophecy (Vergil nine times, Hermes Trismegistus four times, and the Iranian Oracle of Hystapses twice). 20 782 Bernard McGinn of history, mirroring the Genesis creation account, would consist of six ages of a thousand years each, to be followed by the millennium of the reign of the returned Christ and the saints on earth, as predicted in Apocalypse 20.25 Following Hippolytus’s chronology of the world week, he held that Christ’s Incarnation came in the middle of the sixth age, which meant that, by his own time, there might still be as much as two hundred years remaining before the last events.26 Nevertheless, the exact time was up to God and the scriptural theme of the “shortening of the weeks or days” (see Dan 9:24; Matt 24:22) meant that Lactantius had a strong sense that the end was near: “The voices of the prophets of this world [i.e., the pagans] agree with those of the other world and announce the proximate end and destruction of all things [ finem rerum et occasum post breve tempus].”27 Although Lactantius explicitly refers to John’s Apocalypse only about eight times, his scenario of the last events parallels that of John with the addition of some events that had become traditional in early Christian hopes and fears for the last age, such as the distinction between two Antichrists. The first Antichrist is described as “a mighty enemy from the far North” who will destroy and co-opt the ten kings who will divide world rule after the decline of Rome (based on Dan 7:2–8, 23–25; Rev 13 and 17). “He will afflict the world with unbearable tyranny,” according to Lactantius.28 The second, or Antichrist proper, comes after the return of Elijah and will be a king arising from Syria who destroys the first king, slays Elijah, and fulfills the job description of Antichrist found in the Apocalypse and early Christian apocalyptic traditions.29 However, God will heed the pleas of his persecuted people and send “the Great King” to rescue them.30 Thus, according to Lactantius, Christ will return on Easter night, overcome the Antichrist in a series of four battles, and bring universal peace.31 After On the “world week,” see the works cited in note 12. Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 7.25. 27 Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 7.14. There are other expressions of the proximity of the end in, for example, 7.14 (“cuius iudicii propinquare tempus ostendam [I will show that the time of its judgment is near]”) and 7.25 (“. . . et iam propinquare summum illum conclusionis extremae diem [. . . and the final day of the last end is already drawing near]”). 28 Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 7.16. 29 Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 7.17. 30 Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 7.17, based on Rev 19:11–21. 31 Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 7.19. 25 26 Augustine’s Attack on Apocalypticism 783 this victory, the dead who died for Christ will arise in the first resurrection32 and reign with Christ for a thousand years, while the Devil will be bound in hell for the same period, along with all evil people, as described at length in Divinae institutiones 7.20–23.33 In chapter 24 of book 7, Lactantius goes into detail about the millennial kingdom, including the descriptions of peace and plenty of this “golden age” that the poets wrongly thought had taken place in the past, rather than still being awaited in the near future. He also advances the theologically suspect notion that the just will enjoy “great sex”: “Those who live then will not die, but will propagate an infinite multitude through those thousand years. Their offspring will be holy and beloved by God.”34 At the end of the thousand years, Satan will be freed and summon all the nations to make war on the Holy City (Rev 20:7–8). God will then destroy the nations while his people “hide in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains” (Rev 6:15). At that time, the second resurrection, the public resurrection of all people, will take place and God will renew the earth, change the just into “the likeness of angels,” and allow them to offer sacrifices forever in his sight.35 Lactantius ends by noting that the account he has given is generally not publicly taught because “God has commanded that we peacefully and silently keep his secret hid within our conscience.”36 Finally, we should underline the fact that, although Lactantius himself served Constantine and hailed the advent of Christian rule over the empire, he had no doubt that the end of Rome was near: “Roma delenda est” is a crucial aspect of his apocalyptic theology.37 Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 7.20, based on Rev 20:5–6. In 7.20–23, Lactantius mingles Sibylline and biblical witnesses. He also makes use of the philosophers and poets, like Vergil, but admits that they often confused the divine truths about the end. 34 Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 7.24: “. . . sed per eosdem mille annos infinitam multitudinem generabunt et erit suboles eorum sancta et deo cara.” Eusebius refers this highly physical, or “carnal,” reading of Rev 20 back to the heretic Cerinthus in Historia ecclesiastica 3.28. For an account, see Jean Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity, trans. John A. Baker (Chicago: Regnery, 1964), ch. 14. 35 Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 7.26. 36 Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones 7.26: “Deo iubente ut quieti ac silentes arcanam eius in abdito atque intra nostram conscientiam teneamus.” 37 On the necessary, if fearful, approach of the coming collapse of Rome, see Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones 7.15–16 and 7.24. 32 33 784 Bernard McGinn Millenarianism of various kinds was fairly widespread in the fourth century, and we need not be surprised to find even the sober-minded Augustine indulging in it.38 Augustine’s Sermon 259 was preached probably in 393.39 The purpose of the homily was to encourage Christians to set their minds on the future life (“In futuram vitam esse debet Christianorum intentio”) by learning to be merciful as God has had mercy on us. Given that the sermon was preached on the octave of Easter, Augustine introduces a section on “The Mystery of the Seventh and the Eighth Day,” in which “the eighth day signifies the new life at the end of the age, while the seventh [marks] the future rest of the saints on this earth [in hac terra].” God’s earthly reign in his saints is presented as a scriptural teaching (Rev 20) dealing with how the Lord will purge the Church from all ill so that it “will appear in great brilliance and justice.”40 After a description of the Church as the grain winnowed from all imperfections, Augustine concludes with a reference to the scheme of the world week, noting that, “as the sixth day passes, there will come a rest after this winnowing, and the saints and just ones of God will enjoy the Sabbath [et sabbatizabunt sancti et justi Dei].”41 After this will come the end of all history. Augustine is sparing of details about the nature of the earthly millennium, but as he himself admits in De civitate Dei 20.7, this was once his teaching, On expectations of the end of the world ca. 400, see B. Kötting, “Endzeitprognosen zwischen Lactantius und Augustinus,” Historisches Jahrbuch 77 (1957): 136–38. 39 Sermon 259 (PL, 38:1196–201) was studied by G. Folliet, who dated it to ca. 400 (“La typologie du sabbat chez saint Augustin: son interprétation millénariste entre 388 et 400,” Revue des études augustiniennes 2 [1956]: 371–90). Martine Dulaey’s detailed analysis of all Augustine’s “millenarian” texts dates it to 393, thus indicating he gave up his millenarian expectations fairly early (“A quelle date Augustin a-t-il pris ses distances vis-à-vis du millénarisme?” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 46 [2000]: 31–60). 40 Sermon 259: “Octavus ergo iste dies in fine saeculi vitam significat; septimus quietem futuram sanctorum in hac terra. . . . Nam ecclesia hic primo apparebit in magna claritate et iustitia [The eighth day signifies the new life at the end of the age, while the seventh the future rest of the saints on this earth. . . . For the church here will first appear in great splendor and justice]” (PL, 38:1197; my translation). The key millennialist phrase in hac terra appears in other works from the period, ca. 390–394, such as Diversae quaestiones 57 and Sermo Mai 94. For a listing and discussion of millennial and non-millennial texts, see Dulaey, “A quelle date?” 41 Sermon 259: “Sextus autem dies iste cum transierit, veniet requies post illam ventilationem et sabbatizabunt sancti et justi Dei” (PL, 38:1198; my translation). 38 Augustine’s Attack on Apocalypticism 785 although he had not indulged in the “carnal” aspects of endless feasting and propagation of children.42 Up to the last decade of the fourth century, then, Augustine was mildly millenarian and perhaps not-so-mildly Eusebian in his views. This all changed over the next two decades, as he created a theology of history that rejected the view of the conversion of Rome to Christianity as a singular proof of divine providence, criticized the Christian Respublica Romana as God’s visible agent on earth, and came to adopt an agnostic view of biblical prophecies as guides to current history and the proximity of the end. As Paula Fredriksen put it, the bishop’s confrontation with the shock of the fall of Rome in 410 and those who saw it as a sign of the approach of the end, or who blamed the Christian God for abandoning the sacred empire, “led to Augustine’s definitive and daringly original reformulation of orthodox apocalyptic belief in the closing books of the City of God.”43 To be sure, Augustine never denied that the prophets of the Old Testament had foretold the coming of Christ in detail, as he laid it out in De civitate Dei 18.26–35. Nor did he deny that the predictions of the New Testament about the end of history found in the Synoptics, Paul, and the Apocalypse were true prophecies of what would someday come to pass.44 What he did reject with consistency and exegetical ingenuity was that these prophecies gave believers any information about how to read the “signs of the times” (the mounting crises of the early fifth century) or that they could provide any handle about when the end itself might come. Surrounded by pessimistic apocalyptic calculators like the good, but rather slow, Hesychius of Salona, Augustine strove to achieve a difficult goal: to keep Christian hope in the coming of the Lord fervent (something the apocalypticists could easily do) while, at the same time, observing the injunction the Lord gave to the Apostles at the Ascension when they asked him when he would return to restore the Kingdom of Israel: “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own author Dulaey summarizes the dating of the transition in Augustine’s thought in saying that, if Augustine the recent convert and Augustine the priest were millenarian, Augustine the bishop no longer was (“Si chez Augustin le recent converti et le prêtre furent millénaristes, l’évêque ne l’était plus”; “A quelle date?” 57). She also argues that Augustine’s abandonment of millennialism was an internal development of his thought and not due to the influence of Tyconius, as has been sometimes claimed. 43 Paula Fredriksen, “Apocalypticism,” in Fitzgerald, Augustine through the Ages, 49. 44 DCD 20.6–20. 42 786 Bernard McGinn ity” (Acts 1:7). This and similar expressions in the Synoptics and elsewhere in the New Testament (e.g.: Matt 24:36; Mark 13:32–33; 1 Thess 5:1–3) formed the exegetical core of the bishop’s attack on apocalypticism, with Acts 1:7 being cited ten times in Epistle 199.45 In 418, Bishop Hesychius, probably influenced by the turmoil descending on the Roman world, and perhaps worried about an eclipse of the sun on July 14 of that year, wrote to the bishop of Hippo asking for advice about reading biblical prophecies in relation to current events. Apparently (the letter is lost), Hesychius was particularly concerned about the meaning of the prophecy of the seventy weeks in Daniel 9, because Augustine responded by sending him a brief missive and excerpts from Jerome’s Commentarium in Danielem, in which Jerome laid out seven different readings of this crux interpretationis but refused to decide among them. Hesychius was not happy with this, complaining that Jerome left him hanging (suspendit lectorem), and also widening his ambit of questions about how to interpret biblical end-time prophecies (Epistle 198).46 Augustine responded with Epistle 199, his most detailed rebuttal of apocalyptic literalism.47 Throughout the letter, Augustine remained polite to the well-meaning Dalmatian bishop, but one can sense his exasperation creeping through in a number of places. In analyzing Augustine’s position, it may be best to start with the three last chapters of the fifty-four that make up the letter-treatise. Here Augustine identifies three groups of “servants of the Lord” who are earnestly waiting for his return. From their reading of biblical prophecy, those in the first group are sure that Christ is coming quickly, and from this perspective, they and their hearers have no difficulty in keeping hope of the end alive. The second group believes that Christ’s coming is far off, but they still try to live in fervent hope, though with difficulty. The third, among whom Augustine numbers himself, are the agnostics who admit that they simply do not know Augustine references Acts 1:7 ten times in Epistle 199 (see chs. 1, 4, 6, 9, 10, 13, 18, 22, 33, and 35). There are a number of studies of Augustine’s attitude toward apocalypticism, e.g., the summary by Fredriksen, “Apocalpyticism,” 49–53, as well as the essays in “Part II: Apocalypse,” in History, Apocalypse, and the Secular Imagination: New Essays on Augustine’s “City of God,” ed. Mark Vessey, Karla Pollmann, and Allan D. Fitzgerald (Bowling Green, OH: Philosophy Documentation Center, 1999), 133–233. 46 Hesychius’s letter is Epistle 198 (PL, 33:901–4). 47 Augustine refers to Epistle 199 in DCD 20.5, demonstrating its importance and allowing us to date it. 45 Augustine’s Attack on Apocalypticism 787 whether Christ is coming sooner or later. The problem with the first group (Hesychius and his allies) is that if people believe them and the promised Parousia does not eventuate they “may begin to think that the Lord’s coming is not so much delayed as non-existent.”48 Hence: “For those who love the manifestation of the Lord, it is sweeter to listen to the first group, safer to believe the second, but the one who admits that he does not know which of these views is true hopes for the first, is resigned to the second, and is wrong in neither of them, because he neither affirms nor denies any of these things.”49 The letter lays down the reasons for this sober agnosticism through a careful analysis of the many biblical texts used by Christian apocalypticists to predict the time of the end. In the course of his argument, the bishop of Hippo advances a number of principles, both theological and exegetical, to undercut literalist readings. Theologically, the believer does not know the time of the end, although he or she should always love it,50 saving one’s fear for the imminent personal end, for the day of one’s own death, when each will be judged individually.51 Exegetically, Augustine recognizes the frequent obscurity of prophetic texts,52 something that God designed to test our minds. He is also aware that different authorities have taken different views of many of these passages, a fact he feels should lead to humility rather than self-assuredness in anyone bold enough to try to interpret such texts. Augustine constructs his anti-apocalyptic argument from common sense, from the context of the biblical texts in question,53 and from careful attention to the Augustine, Epistle 199, ch. 53. Augustine, Epistle 199, ch. 54: “Ac per hoc ab eis qui diligunt manifestationem Domini, ille auditur suavius, isti creditur tutius: qui autem quid horum sit verum ignorare se confitetur, illud optat, hoc tolerat, in nullo eorum errat, quia nihil eorum aut affirmat aut negat” (PL, 39:925; English in Parsons, 367). 50 On loving the end, whether near or far off, see Augustine, Epistle 199, ch.15: “Non ergo ille qui diligit adventum Domini, qui eum asserit propinquare, aut ille qui asserit non propinquare; sed ille potius qui eum, sive prope sive longe sit, sinceritate fidei, fimitate spei, ardore caritatis exspectat [Therefore, it is not the one who asserts that He is near nor the one who asserts that He is not near who loves the coming of the Lord, but the one who waits for Him, whether He be near or far, with sincere faith, firm hope and ardent love]” (PL, 33:909; Parsons, 367). 51 Augustine, Epistle 199, chs. 2–3. 52 E.g., Augustine, Epistle 199, chs. 10, 45. 53 See Epistle 199, ch. 42: “. . . sed quoniam Scripturae scrutandae sunt, ne earum superficie debemus esse contenti, quae ad exercitionem nostram ita modificatae sunt, ut aliis se penetrari velint, diligenter sunt inspicienda sequentia [. . . but 48 49 788 Bernard McGinn meaning and tenses of words. Thus, in confronting his first problem, the seeming contradiction between Acts 1:7 (“It is not for you to know the times”) and the announcement in 1 John 2:18 (“It is the last hour”), Augustine easily shows that, in the Bible, “hour” can mean any extended period of time, even the whole time of the Church.54 He also gives rules about how to interpret the generic predictions of portents in the skies and impending wars that undercut attempts to read them as relating to specific current events.55 His basic contention is that many of the signs announced in Scripture pertain to the whole life of the Church on earth as reminders that we must always live in expectation of the end.56 Epistle 199 moves through biblical prophecy, starting with some general principles (chs. 1–6), then turning to the exegesis of Pauline texts from 1 and 2 Thessalonians (chs. 7–11) and Romans (chs. 22–24), and on to correcting Hesychius on Daniel’s Prophecy of Weeks, which Augustine insists pertains to Christ’s first coming, not his second (chs. 12–21). The bulk of the letter (chs. 25–45) is a consideration of the “little apocalypse” of the Synoptic Gospels. Here Augustine is guided by two principles. First, the Synoptic accounts, though different, are meant to supplement each other in predicting three events: (1) the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE; (2) Christ’s constant coming in the life of the Church, which is where the bishop’s main interest lies (see ch. 45); and (3) the future Second Coming (ch. 25 and throughout). It is noteworthy that this approach allows Augustine to defuse apocalyptic understandings of even the “abomination of desolation” (see Matt 24:15–19; Mark 13:14). Many Christians saw this mysterious text as a reference to the final Antichrist, but Augustine argues that it more probably refers to the siege of Jerusalem and not to the end of the world.57 as the Scriptures are to be closely studied, and we are not to be satisfied with a general view of them, since they yield a changed meaning to our effort and demand a deeper insight, the sequence of passages must be closely examined]” (PL, 33:920; Parsons, 390). 54 Augustine, Epistle 199, chs. 1, 7, 17–18. 55 Augustine, Epistle 199, chs. 34–35. 56 Augustine, Epistle 199, ch. 45. 57 Augustine, Epistle 199, chs. 28–30. In ch. 31, Augustine admits that the “abomination of desolation” is difficult to understand: “Quanquam ipsa desolationis abominatio propter obscuritatem dicti non uno modo ab omnibus potuerit intelligi [However, this abomination of desolation is such an obscure saying that it could be understood by men in more than one way]” (PL, 33:916; Parsons, 381). Augustine’s Attack on Apocalypticism 789 Augustine’s second principle is his contention that in this central prophetic narrative, while some things are certainly clear, much is and will remain obscure until the actual events unfold.58 At the end of his treatment, Augustine takes up differing views of the prediction that the end will not come until the Gospel has been preached throughout the world (Matt 24:14). Hesychius seemed to think this prophecy was about to come true. Augustine demurs, noting that the whole world extends well beyond the Roman Empire.59 Hesychius, naïve if sincere apocalypticist that he was, seems to have agreed with Lactantius that the destruction of Rome had to mean the end of the world. Augustine, polite as always to a fellow bishop, begged to differ, especially in the De civitate Dei, whose final books he was working on while writing to Hesychius. As one of the great monuments of Christian theology, it would be foolish to think of giving any substantive account of the De civitate Dei here. Nevertheless, a few general reflections on the character of the work and its specific response to apocalyptic expectations are important for understanding this aspect of Augustine’s theology of history. Although Augustine never abandoned the “world week” scheme,60 in the De civitate Dei, the meaning of history shifts away from this external chronological model and toward the internal drama of the two cities: “Therefore, two loves built two cities; the earthly by the love of self even unto the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God even unto the contempt of self.”61 The two loves are instantiated across history in the lives of myriad humans, such that the inner story of the opposition between caritas and cupiditas becomes the true meaning of history, not the rise and fall of earthly realms. To be sure, the two cities pursue a joint course: “The mortal course of the two cities, the heavenly and the earthly, . . . are mingled together from the beginning down to the end,” Augustine says. He continues: “Yet both alike either enjoy temporal goods, or are afflicted with temporal Augustine, Epistle 199, chs. 26–27. Augustine, Epistle 199, chs. 46–51. 60 The early Augustine held to the “world week” scheme of history, as can be seen in De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.23.35–41 (PL, 34:190–193) and a number of other texts. This pattern does not play a large role in the DCD, although it is summarized in DCD 22.30. What Augustine does decisively reject are pagan cyclical notions of time and history (see DCD 12.21). 61 DCD 14.28: “Fecerunt itaque civitates duas amores duo: terrenam scilicet, amor sui usque ad contemptum Dei, caelestem vero, amor dei, usque ad contemptum sui” (Dombart ed., 2:56). 58 59 790 Bernard McGinn evils, but with diverse faith, diverse hope, and diverse love, until they must be separated by the Last Judgment.”62 The story of the two cities is resolutely teleological: they are known only by their ends or goals. This is brought out especially in book 19, which discusses the supreme good (summum bonum). After briefly treating Varro’s analysis of philosophical views of the summum bonum,63 Augustine sets forth the Christian position that “life eternal is the supreme good, death eternal the supreme evil, and . . . to obtain the one and escape the other we must live rightly,”64 a position close to that of Lactantius. True happiness, then, is possible only in eternal life. It is nothing else but “peace in eternal life, or eternal peace in life [vel pax in vita aeterna vel vita aeterna in pace].”65 Augustine extends his discussion of peace and the kinds of peace through the remainder of the book, concentrating on the relation between the peace of the earthly city and that of the heavenly. Earthly peace, “the well-ordered concord of civic obedience and rule,” is a good thing, but it is always merely instrumental in the life of the heavenly city. “Even the heavenly city,” says Augustine, “while in its state of pilgrimage, avails itself of the peace of the earth.” But the true and lasting peace is the real goal of the heavenly city: “In its pilgrim state the heavenly [city] possesses this peace by faith; and by this faith it lives righteously when it refers to the attainment of that peace every good action toward God and man; for the life of the city is social [vita civitatis utique socialis est].”66 Living in the world (in hoc saeculo) is not to have a fixed abode, but to be on pilgrimage toward the full realization of the City of God in the age to come.67 In book 20, Augustine relates this pessimistic view of earthly life to the statement in Ecclesiastes, true for both good and evil people, that all of life is nothing more than “vanity of vanities” (Eccl 1:2), summarizing the message with a neat turn of phrase: “This wisest man devoted this whole book to a full exposure of this vanity, evidently with no other object than that DCD 18.54: “. . . quisnam sit duarum civitatum, caelestis atque terrenae, ab initio usque in finem permixtarum mortalis excursus. . . . Ambae tamen temporalibus vel bonis pariter utuntur vel malis affliguntur, diversa fide, diversa spe, diverso amore, donec ultimo iudicio separentur” (Dombart ed., 2:345). 63 DCD 19.1–3. 64 DCD 19.4. 65 DCD 19.11. 66 DCD 19.17. 67 The notion of life in hoc saeculo as a peregrinatio (see Heb 13:14) is omnipresent in the DCD (e.g., 17.20, 18.54, 22.23). 62 Augustine’s Attack on Apocalypticism 791 we might long for that very life in which there is no vanity under the sun, but verity under Him who made the sun [quae vanitatem non habet sub hoc sole, sed veritatem sub illo qui fecit hunc solem].”68 From this perspective, the Roman Empire loses any transcendental value or direct connection to the goal of history. It is just one more manifestation of the civitas terrena, no different from Assyria or Babylon.69 Toward the end of book 19, Augustine even argues that Rome was never a true res publica, because it did not render justice to its citizens, or just worship to the one true God.70 Thus, over the course of the writing of the De civitate Dei, Augustine became more and more convinced that any progressive optimistic view of the union of the Roman Empire and the Christian Church was a serious error. It was not that he did not think that divine providence was not active in the world of external history, even in the case of Rome.71 It was rather that he had come to realize that there was no evident relation between the events of secular history and the inner story of the progress of love that constitutes the development of the City of God. In De civitate Dei 4.33, he noted that God gives earthly kingdoms both to good and to bad rulers, fortuitously, from our perspective. Nevertheless, he acts “according to the order of things and times, which is hidden from us, but thoroughly known to himself.” 72 In 5.24–25, Augustine mentions the Christian emperors, noting Constantine as a good ruler who had a happy reign. His point, however, is the same: “Such Christian emperors, we say, are happy in the present time by hope [not by worldly success], and are destined to be so in the enjoyment of the reality itself, when that which we wait for shall have arrived.” 73 As Glenn Chestnut put it, “Augustine’s City of God was a work of anti-patriotism.” 74 This agnostic, and we might even say secularized, view of exterior history lays the basis for the bishop’s reaction against apocalypticism evident throughout the De civitate Dei.75 It is especially strong in book DCD 20.3. The pairing of Babylon and Rome is another frequent theme of the DCD (e.g., 18.2, 18.22). 70 DCD 19.21. 71 See, e.g., DCD 18.27 and 18.51. 72 DCD 4.33: “. . . sed pro rerum ordine ac temporum occulto nobis, notissimo sibi . . .” (Dombart ed., 1:188). 73 DCD 5.24. 74 Chestnut, “The Pattern of the Past,” 89. 75 The debate over how far it is legitimate to speak of Augustine’s view of history as “secular” in the sense of expressing some neutrality among competing reli68 69 792 Bernard McGinn 20.76 Since one cannot really correlate the events found in the historia of the Greek and Roman historians with the meaning of history that God had partly revealed in the Old Testament and that was now being realized in secret in the time between Christ’s Ascension and his return in glory, Augustine rejected the concordism by which some Christians had tried to work out parallels between the “ten persecutions” of the Jews in Egypt and ten persecutions of Christians under the Roman Empire. About such calculations, Augustine says: “I do not think the persecutions were prophetically signified by what was done in Egypt, however nicely and ingeniously those who think so seem to have compared each with the other in detail, not by the prophetic spirit but by the conjecture of the human mind, which sometimes reaches truth and sometimes fails.” 77 Thus, the “concordist mentality,” an important feature of much apocalyptic and eschatological thought, is a delusion, according to Augustine.78 Immediately after the rejection of concordism, Augustine broadgious claims in the arena of public life continues. This line of interpretation, fostered by Markus in his Saeculum, has seen a push-back in recent studies, such as Wetzel’s “Introduction” in Augustine’s “City of God,” 3–4, and the literature cited there. For a detailed study of Augustine’s views on the saeculum, see Paul J. Griffiths, “Secularity and the Saeculum,” in Wetzel, Augustine’s “City of God,” 33–54. 76 DCD 20, the most eschatological book of the work, has been analyzed by Marco Rizzi, who says concerning the conclusion of the book: “…e con esso ritenere liquidate la legittimità di ogni forma di millenarismo e di decifrazione dell’approssimarsi dei tempi ultimi, a vantaggio della consapevolezza che già qui ed ora Dio ha operato il suo giudizio giusto e definitivo, per quanto inperscrutabile [. . . and with this the legitimacy of every form of millenarianism and the deciphering of the approach of the last times is considered liquidated from the perspective of the recognition that God has already worked his just and definitive judgment, although it is inscrutable]” (“Il libro XX del De civitate dei: Cronologia ed Escatologia,” in Lettura del “De civitate dei” Libri XVIII-XXII [Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2012], 85–103; my translation). 77 DCD 18.52: “Sed ego illa re gesta in Aegypto istas persecutiones propheticae significatas esse non arbitror; quamvis ab eis, qui hoc putant, exquisite et ingeniose illa singula his singulis comparata videantur, non prophetico spiritu, sed coniectura mentis humanae, quae aliquando ad verum pervenit, aliquando fallitur” (Dombart ed., 2:338). On these calculations, see Joseph Vogt, “Die Zaehling der Christenverfolgerungen im Römischen Reich,” La parola del passato: Rivista di studi classici 9 (1954): 5–15. 78 Bernard McGinn, “The Concordist Imagination: A Theme in the History of Eschatology,” in Revealed Wisdom: Studies in Apocalyptic in Honour of Christopher Rowland, ed. John Ashton (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 217–31. Augustine’s Attack on Apocalypticism 793 ens his attack with a chapter (18.53) emphasizing the hiddenness of the final persecution of the Antichrist. Picking up on Acts 1:6–7, the text cited throughout Epistle 199, Augustine says: “In vain do we attempt to compute definitely the years that may remain to this world, when we hear from the mouth of the Truth that it is not for us to know this.” 79 At this point what remains to be done for Augustine is to vindicate his agnosticism about the end in terms of an investigation of the scriptural prophecies concerning the Last Judgment, which is the task of book 20. The book is divided into three parts: chapters 1–4 introduce the notion of judgment in general; chapters 5–20 concern the New Testament texts about the events of the end, especially from the Apocalypse; and finally, chapters 21–30 take up the Old Testament texts on the Judgment. As in Epistle 199, Augustine provides some general exegetical principles for dealing with prophetic texts.80 For example, he twice notes that “prophetic expression loves to mingle figurative things into proper words and thus in a certain way to veil what is said.”81 Hence, one must always be attentive to which sections are to be taken literally and which not. Augustine is also willing to admit several possible readings of difficult and obscure passages,82 and he uses readings from the Septuagint (which he considered inspired) when they seem to make more sense than the received Latin text.83 With regard to the Book of Revelation, Augustine notes the many obscure passages in the text and says that there are few places so plain as to assist us in interpreting the others. (Quot verba, tot sacramenta, as Jerome once put it.) He also recognizes the hermeneutical principle of recapitulation, first advanced by the late-third-century bishop Victorinus: “This difficulty [i.e., obscurity] is increased by the repetition of the same things, in forms so different that the things referred to seem to be different, although in fact they are only differently stated.”84 DCD 18.53: “Frustra igitur annos, qui remanent huic saeculo, computare ac definire conamur, cum hos scire non esse nostrum ex ore Veritatis audiamus” (Dombart ed., 2:340). Acts 1:6–7 is also cited in DCD 18.50 and 22.30. 80 Earlier in the work, in DCD 17.3, Augustine had distinguished three kinds of Old Testament prophecies: those that pertained to the earthly Jerusalem; those that announced the heavenly Jerusalem; and those that referred to both. 81 DCD 20.16: “. . . sicut amat prophetica locutio propriis verbis translata miscere ac sic quodam modo velare quod dicitur. . .” (Dombart ed., 2:446). 82 DCD 20.25. 83 DCD 20.29. 84 DCD 20.17: “. . . maxime quia sic eadem multis modis repetit, ut alia atque alia dicere videatur, cum aliter atque aliter haec ipsa dicere vestigetur.” Augustine 79 794 Bernard McGinn It is well known that Augustine’s reading of the Apocalypse was influenced by his study of the Expositio Apocalypseos of the Donatist Tyconius, which marked a major turning point in the exegesis of John’s mysterious Revelation by giving it a thorough spiritual interpretation, a message about the moral struggle between good and evil in the life of the Church, rather than a prophecy of historical events up to and including the end.85 This influence is certainly seen throughout the bishop’s reading of the Apocalypse, especially the promise of the thousand-year reign of the saints on earth from Revelation 20, which he interprets as a description of the reign of the saints in the whole time of the Church from Christ’s first coming until his second.86 Augustine’s spiritualizing reading goes even further in book 22, where he interprets the seventh day and the life of the resurrected saints as taking place in heaven, not on the transformed earth.87 Indeed, it is to be realized in the just themselves. At the end of the De civitate Dei, after once again citing Acts 1:7, Augustine says: “After this time God will rest, as it were, on the seventh day; and he will cause us, who are the seventh day, to find our rest in him. . . . This seventh day will be our Sabbath, whose end will have no evening.”88 also refers to recapitulatio in 2.14. He may not have taken the principle of recapitulatio directly from Victorinus, but from its reprisal as regula 7 of Tyconius’s Liber regularum, which we know he read. On the importance of Victorinus, see Bernard McGinn, “Turning Points in Early Christian Apocalypse Exegesis,” in Apocalyptic Thought in Early Christianity, ed. Robert J. Daly (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 81–105. 85 On the eschatological thought of Tyconius, see Paula Fredriksen-Landes, “Tyconius and the End of the World,” Revue des études augustiniennes 28 (1982): 59–75. For his influence on Augustine, see Paula Fredriksen, “Tyconius and Augustine on the Apocalypse,” in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, ed. Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), 20–37, and Fredriksen, “Tyconius,” in Fitzgerald, Augustine through the Ages, 853–55. See also Paul B. Harvey Jr., “Approaching the Apocalypse: Augustine, Tyconius, and John’s Revelation,” in Vessey, Pollmann, and Fitzgerald, History, Apocalypse, and the Secular Imagination, 133–52. 86 DCD 20.9. For Tyconius’s reading of Rev 20:4–6, see the edition by Roger Gryson, Tyconii Afer Expositio Apocalypseos (Turnhout, BE: Brepols, 2011), 7.19–22 (pp. 219–20). 87 DCD 22.4–5 and 22.11. 88 DCD 22.30: “Post hanc tamquam in die septimo requiescat Deus, cum in eundem diem septimum, quod nos erimus, in se ipso Deus faciet requiescere. Haec tamen septima erit sabbatum nostrum, cuius finis non erit vespera” (Dombart ed., 2:635). Augustine’s Attack on Apocalypticism 795 Now that we have a critical edition of Tyconius’s Expositio,89 it would not be difficult to compare Augustine’s reading of the figures and events of the last book of the Bible with that of the Donatist exegete to spell out the similarities and dependences in more detail, but that is not a task for the present. What is worth noting, however, is that, at the conclusion of his long analysis of the biblical predictions about the end time, Augustine provides a summary of the events awaited by the faithful, but also a final caution about their interpretation: “All these things, we believe, shall come to pass; but how, or in what order, human understanding cannot perfectly teach us, but only the experience of the events themselves.”90 Conclusion The late Patristics scholar Gilles Quispel once spoke of Augustine’s “demythologized eschatology.”91 Perhaps it would be more accurate to see Augustine’s view of the end as a “de-secularized eschatology,” in the sense that it had only a peripheral relation to what was going on in the realm of external politics in hoc saeculo, whether for good or for evil. It was also “de-historicized” in the sense that it did not indulge in calculating the years, weeks, or decades that make up the course of external affairs in order to make history and its end somehow “legible,” capable of being read by those with the correct know-how. For Augustine, the realm of inner history (not the external events, in which he had little interest) was not a message written in invisible ink, but was the realm of learning to practice love: “Two loves built two cities.” Augustine rejected the two most popular theologies of history of his time (the Eusebian and the Lactantian) to create a distinctive third option. His anti-triumphalist and anti-apocalyptic reading of history, pessimistic as it is, may continue to give food for thought. The bishop of Hippo expected little from rulers, no matter how good their Along with his edition of Tyconius’s Expositio, Gryson has also produced a series of important articles on the history of early Latin Apocalypse exegesis. 90 DCD 20.30: “Quae omnia quidem ventura esse credendum est; sed quibus modis et quo ordine veniant, magis tunc docebit rerum experientia, quam nunc ad perfectum hominum intellegentia valet consequi” (Dombart, ed., 2:486). The events in the order that Augustine thinks will happen are: (1) the coming of Elijah; (2) the conversion of the Jews; (3) Antichrist’s persecution; (4) the Last Judgment; (5) the resurrection of the dead; (6) the separation of good and evil; and (7) the conflagration and renewal of the world. 91 Gilles Quispel, “Time and History in Patristic Christianity,” in Man and Time: Papers from the Eranos Jahrbuch (New York: Pantheon Books, 1957), 98. 89 796 Bernard McGinn intentions. Past history was mostly a succession of failures, tragedies, and sinful behavior; it would be naïve to expect anything better in the future. The “manifest destiny” reading of Rome’s history was an illusion, and to anyone promising “to make Rome great again,” Augustine would have responded that Rome was never great and did not promise greatness in the future. This was not exactly an encouraging or patriotic message. Augustine’s view of history was theologically deep and consistent, but given its pessimistic cast, it is no surprise that it was often disregarded or misunderstood over the centuries. The bishop of Hippo would probably not have been surprised to learn that millions of believers still use faulty biblical exegesis as the basis for expectations of their imminent rapture and the coming end of the world while others expect the dawning of an earthly millennium of restored greatness for later faux-Christian imperia. He might well have responded to both camps with one of the most famous passages from the De civitate Dei: “Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia?”—“When justice is removed, what are kingdoms but N&V great acts of thievery?”92 DCD 4.4. 92 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 797–833 797 New Perspectives on Paul: A Reflection on Luther’s Contribution to the Doctrine of Christian Grace on the Occasion of the Fifth Centenary of the Reformation Paul O’Callaghan Pontifical University of the Holy Cross Rome, Italy This study will deal with different ways (or “perspectives”) in which Paul’s central teaching on justification, faith, grace, and works have been interpreted in the context of the Reformation, and especially in the teaching of Martin Luther. It is made up of three parts.The first briefly considers Luther’s own interpretation of Paul and its applicability or otherwise to the situation of the Church in society five centuries ago. The second part presents an interpretation of Paul commonly called the “new perspective,” which has consolidated over the last fifty years or so, a perspective that recontextualizes Luther’s view, situating it within challenges of an ethical and ecclesiological kind typical of the late-twentieth-century Christian world. The principal authors involved include E. P. Sanders (especially his work Paul and Palestinian Judaism), N. T. Wright, and James D. G. Dunn.1 In the third place, we shall consider how the “new perspective” has been contested in different ways of late, and not only by classical Lutheran authors who insist on the perennial value of Luther’s intuition. We shall pay special attention to the recent work of the Anglican exegete John Barclay, Paul and the Gift.2 For a historical introduction to the interpretation of Paul, see S. J. Haefmann, “Paul and His Interpreters,” in Dictionary of Paul and his Letters, ed. G. F. Hathorne, R. P. Martin, and D. R. Reid (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 666–79. 2 John M. G. Barclay, Paul & the Gift (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015). 1 798 Paul O’Callaghan Luther’s Perspective on Paul’s Doctrine of Justification by Faith Luther consistently envisaged his understanding of the Gospel as centered on the doctrine of justification by faith alone,3 without works, as a rediscovery of St. Paul’s fundamental and determinative intuition as regards the justice of God. For Luther, iustitia Dei, the “righteousness of God,” is not the justice by which God judges our actions and rewards (or punishes) them accordingly, but rather the justice by which God accepts the believer as being truly just. That is to say, justification is by faith, not by works: humans cannot win justification by their good deeds; they can only accept it gratefully in faith. Although the Christian is meant to carry out an abundance of good works, the latter are of no use in winning or maintaining divine favor. This, of course, decisively influences Luther’s understanding of salvation, of the Church, and of ethical life. The context in which Luther’s revolution took place, as he saw it, constituted an almost exact replica of the situation Paul found himself in when faced with the Judaizing movement within nascent Christianity. He applied the Pauline tension between “faith” and “works” (especially present in Galatians and Romans)4 to the tension that existed between his personal situation as a conscience-smitten monk seeking a merciful God and the late medieval Church enslaved (as he saw it) to a religion of works far-removed from the original Gospel message of simplicity and freedom. The comparison Luther made between the two historical situations, in spite of obvious religious and cultural differences that not even he denied, is highly significant. If Luther’s contention was right, his would be an epoch-making rediscovery of authentic Christianity, and by insisting on “justification by faith alone,” he would be paying signal service to the Church’s evangelizing mission. His doctrine, as expressing anew Paul’s authentic teaching, would necessarily constitute a living statement of the permanent and perennial core of Christian life and doctrine, in his own time as well as five hundred years after the Reformation began. See Paul O’Callaghan, Fides Christi: The Justification Debate (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997), 19–69. 4 On the tension between the negative vision of the law in Galatians and the more positive one in Romans, see J. W. Drane, Paul, Libertine or Legalist? A Study in the Theology of the Major Pauline Epistles (London: SPCK, 1975), 5–6, 132–36; J. Gnilka, “La dottrina paolina della giustificazione: legge, giustificazione, fede,” Annales Theologici 10 (1996): 93–108, especially 94. 3 New Perspectives on Paul 799 And on the same account, the medieval Church Luther encountered could well be accused of having severely prejudiced, at least in practical terms, the core belief of Christians that God, in his mercy, had sent his only Son to save his people from their sins. However, in attempting to re-present authentic Christian teaching in terms of the doctrine of justification by faith, Luther made two assumptions, both of which need to be carefully appraised.5 Paul’s Conversion and Luther’s Firstly, Luther took it for granted that Paul underwent the same experience he (Luther) had undergone before discovering the true meaning of iustitia Dei, the “righteousness of God,” the justice by which God makes the believer truly just. Before encountering Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul had, in Luther’s mind, suffered long with a distressed conscience. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24), he cried out. This anguished confession contained in Romans 7 has been commonly applied by Lutherans to Paul’s situation before his conversion.Yet contemporary biblical exegesis is quite contented to apply this passage from Romans to the situation of the converted Christian6 and does not exclude the possibility that, for Paul, it may not have been entirely autobiographical.7 The fact is that Paul elsewhere does explicitly describe his personal situation and mindset before conversion took place. In the letter to the Philippians, he boasts that he was “as to righteousness under the law blameless” (Phil 3:6), and to the Galatians, he exclaimed that he “advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I” (Gal 1:14). There is no reason to think that Paul was riddled with anxiety and scruples before encountering the risen Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. In fact, he seems to have I have studied the theology of Luther in Fides Christi, 19–69, and in God and Mediation: A Retrospective Appraisal of Luther the Reformer (Minneapolis: Fortress 2017). 6 For a complete overview of the different positions, see James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8, Word Biblical Commentary 38A (Dallas, TX: Thomas Nelson, 1988), 374–413, especially 404–13. 7 For a comprehensive overview of the bibliography on the matter, see E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1977), 443, 479 (in notes): “The fact that Paul can express the pathos of life under the law as seen through Christian eyes does not mean that he had himself experienced frustration with the law before his own conversion” (443n4). 5 800 Paul O’Callaghan been very sure of what he was doing in persecuting Christians. It has therefore been suggested that: “The Protestant reading of Paul was a reading back of Luther’s own experience into Paul. It was a retrojection back into Paul’s first-century self-testimony of what Krister Stendahl has called ‘the introspective conscience of the West.’”8 In spite of Stendahl’s thesis9 being vigorously rejected by authors such as Ernst Käsemann and considered as a serious threat to Protestantism,10 it has come to be widely accepted over recent decades.11 In the words of Heiki Räisänen: “We can safely subscribe to the now common opinion that Paul’s critique of the law was not born out of any personal moral difficulties. Paul was no Luther before Luther.”12 James D. G. Dunn and Alan M. Suggate, The Justice of God: A Fresh Look at the Old Doctrine of Justification by Faith (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1993), 14. This work provides a useful summary of the question. 9 See Krister Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” Harvard Theological Review 56 (1963): 199–215. This essay is reprinted in Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1987), 78–96. 10 See Ernst Käsemann, Perspectives on Paul (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1971), 60–78. Stendahl’s later, more extensive treatment of the question is to be found in his Paul among Jews and Gentiles, 1–77, as well as his reply to Käsemann in 129–33 of the same volume. Käsemann in fact holds to a clearly Lutheran view of justification by faith alone: “The true adversary of Paul is the pious Jew . . . as the realization of the religious man” (“Paul and Israel, ” in New Testament Questions of Today, trans. W. J. Montague [Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1969], 183–87, at 184). However, on the basis of the biblical texts, Käsemann holds two positions not typical of Lutheran authors: that the basis for justification and faith is creation and that justification does not involve a mere imputation of God’s justice, but a transformation of the believer who is filled with divine power (dunamis). 11 The roots of Stendahl’s position are to be found in, among others, the works of the liberal Protestant scholar F. C. Baur, Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi: Sein Leben und Wirken, seine Briefe und seine Lehre: Ein Beitrag zu einer kritischen Geschichte des Urchristentums (Stuttgart: Becher & Müller, 1845); English translation in Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ: His Life and Works, His Epistles and Teachings (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007). 12 H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1986), 231: “Luther’s doctrine of justification is not the Pauline one.” W. Heitmüller, Luthers Stellung in der Religionsgeschichte des Christentums (Marlburg: Elwert, 1917), 19: “It is obvious that the difficulty of Luther is not that of Paul” (my translation). O. Kuss, Der Römerbrief (Regensburg: Pustet, 1957), 134: “In no case can we any longer take as obvious that Luther can be made equal with Paul, nor rest on such a presupposition, nor much less can we explain Paul with Luther and Luther with Paul” (my translation). See also H. Pohlmann, Hat Luther Paulus entdeckt? Eine Frage zur theologischen Besinnung (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1959), 147–48. 8 New Perspectives on Paul 801 Judaism in the Time of Nascent Christianity The second reason that Luther’s self-identification with Paul may have been misplaced lies in the fact that the former took it for granted that the situation of the medieval Church was akin to that of Judaism in the time of Paul, that the two were steeped in the same legalistic religious mentality based on an exacting performance of works and obtaining merits.13 Whether Luther’s appraisal of medieval Christianity was accurate on a global scale need not be looked into at the present moment.14 But he was convinced, at least on the basis Paul’s own testimony, that Judaism of the first decades of the Christian era was the epitome of narrow legalistic religious institutionalism.15 Of course, Jesus’s far-from-commendatory depiction of the hypocritical legalism of many priests and leaders of the people as found in the Gospels only serves to confirm Luther’s impression. Yet recent studies on the fundamental spiritual traits of Judaism at the time of nascent Christianity—E. P. Sanders’s groundbreaking Paul and Palestinian Judaism comes especially to mind—have shown quite clearly that Judaism in the time of Paul was not in the main a religion This negative evaluation of first-century Judaism, substantially rejected by Sanders (Paul, 1–12, 33–59) and others, can be traced back to highly influential works of authors such F. W. Weber, System der altsynagogalen palästinischen Theologie aus Targum, Midrasch und Talmud (1880), revised as Jüdische Theologie auf Grund des Talmud und verwandter Schriften (Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke, 1897), and those who followed on from him, for example: J. Wellhausen, E. Schürer, R. H. Charles, and W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter (Tübingen: Mohr, 1966 [originally 1925]). Through Bousset, Rudolph Bultmann and his school undoubtedly take up many of Weber’s findings; see, for example, Bultmann, Primitive Christianity in a Contemporary Setting (New York: Living Age Books 1957). For a classical influential defense of the antithesis between Judaism and Paul’s doctrine in the English-speaking world, see H. St. John Thackery, The Relation of St Paul to Contemporary Jewish Thought (London: Macmillan, 1900). 14 On the theological situation of the fifteenth century that prepared the way for Luther, especially via Gabriel Biel, see H. A. Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963); Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: a History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 15 On Luther’s anti-Semitism, see H. A. Oberman, Wurzeln des Antisemitismus: Christenangst und Judenplage im Zeitalter von Humanismus und Reformation (Berlin: Severin and Siedler, 1981), 123–83. See specifically the following works of Luther: Von den Juden und ihren Lügen (1543); Von den lezten Worten Davids (1543). See also B. Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2011), 336–45. 13 802 Paul O’Callaghan of “works” in the Lutheran sense, but rather one of mercy and faith in God as savior.16 Not only Old Testament spirituality expressed in wisdom literature (particularly the psalms) but also intertestamentary spirituality present and expressed in rabbinic-Tannaitic literature,17 Qumran documents drawn from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha from the period between 200 BC and AD 20018 may be characterized in terms of what Sanders called “covenantal nomism”: The “pattern” or “structure” of covenantal nomism is this: (1) God has chosen Israel and (2) given the law. The law implies both (3) God’s promise to maintain the election and (4) the requirement to obey. (5) God rewards obedience and punishes transgression. (6) The law provides for means of atonement, and atonement results in (7) maintenance or re-establishment of the covenantal relationship. (8) All those who are maintained in the covenant by obedience, atonement and God’s mercy belong to the group which will be saved. An important interpretation of the first and last points is that election and ultimately salvation are considered to be by God’s mercy rather than human achievement. . . . By consistently maintaining the basic framework of covenantal nomism, the gift and demand of God were kept in a healthy relationship with each other, the minutiae of the law were observed on the basis of the large In support of Sanders’s position, see also G. F. Moore’s then-neglected 1921 “Christian Writers on Judaism,” Harvard Theological Review 14 (1921): 197–254, and its voluminous follow-up, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of Tannaim, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950). The same position, though less developed, is to be found in the 1969 study of G. E. Howard, “Christ and the End of the Law: the Meaning of Romans 10 4ff,” Journal of Biblical Literature 88, no. 3 (1969): 331–37. 17 The Tannaites were teachers, Pharisaic in inspiration, active from the foundation of the Grand Council of Jamnia (ca. AD 75) until the third century AD. 18 The possible exception is 4 Ezra, according to Sanders, Paul, 409–18: “On the whole, . . . the author of IV Ezra without doubt gives us a correct presentation of the repercussion of the belief in the future judgment on the religious expressions of individual Jewish piety. All the many expressions of belief in God’s grace and mercy appear to be denied.” See also J. Köberle, Sünde und Gnade im religiösen Leben des Volkes Israel bis auf Christentum: ein Geschichte des vorchristlichen Heilsbewußtseins (Munich: C. Beck, 1905), 657. Sanders pays little attention to Sadducean and Pharisaic literature, in all probability because little of it is available (Paul, 426–28). 16 New Perspectives on Paul 803 principles of religion and because of the commitment to God, and humility before the God who chose and would ultimately redeem Israel was encouraged.19 According to Sanders, God’s merciful call to Israel, the subsequent covenant, and the ultimate salvation of God’s people are all by grace, and obedience to works of the law simply “maintains one’s position in the covenant, but does not earn God’s grace as such.”20 In other words, grace comes before law. Nomism, observance of the law, is covenantal: it is a posterior expression of fidelity to an anterior covenant. And the Jews were fully aware of this, Sanders argues. It cannot be held, therefore, on the basis of available documentation of the intertestamentary period “that Judaism necessarily tends towards petty legalism, self-serving and self-deceiving casuistry, and a mixture of arrogance and lack of confidence in God . . . according to which one had to earn the mercy of God by minute observance of irrelevant ordinances.”21 God did not expect or require, under pain of punishment, a sinless perfection from his people. The whole sacrificial system, deeply rooted in the social and liturgical life of Israel, should be seen, according to Sanders, as a God-given means of conveying forgiveness to sinners. In that sense, little or no fundamental contrast may be perceived between Paul’s doctrine of justification and the Old Testament message of God’s graceful and merciful generosity. God’s fidelity is directed principally toward the “commitments” he acquired, as it were, in establishing a covenant with Israel, rather than toward punishing infractions of the law for its own sake.22 A New Perspective on Paul: Sanders, Dunn, and Wright Sanders’s position has given rise to what has come to be known as the “new perspective” on Paul. It has been noticeably popular over recent Sanders, Paul, 422, 427. Sanders, Paul, 420. 21 Sanders, Paul, 427, 419. Sanders substantially retains and develops this position in his recent ample work, Paul: the Apostle’s Life, Letters, and Thought (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2015). 22 Alister E. McGrath asserts that Luther does not hold to a “covenantal” view of reality, seeing in it an obscuring of grace (The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation [Oxford: Blackwell, 1987], 77–85). The covenantal view in fact was characteristic of the via moderna. 19 20 804 Paul O’Callaghan decades, particularly in the works of Dunn,23 Räisänen,24 R. Liebers,25 Wright,26 R. Penna,27 and many others.28 But, of course, an important question needs to be considered. If Judaism and Christianity shared a more or less common theology of justification, sin, grace, and faith, then where do the differences lie?29 Why did Jesus berate the scribes For a good summary of the debate about the “new perspective,” see Dunn and Suggate, The Justice of God, 7–48. Of Dunn’s own works, see especially: James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians (London: SPCK, 1990), esp. 183–206 (“The New Perspective on Paul”) and 215–36 (“Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law”); Dunn, “The Justice of God: A Renewed Perspective on Justification by Faith,” Journal of Theological Studies 43 (1992): 1–22; Dunn, “Paul and Justification by Faith,” in The Road from Damascus: the Impact of Paul’s Conversion on His Life, Thought, and Ministry, ed. R. N. Longenecker (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 85–101; Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 334–89; Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul: Collected Essays (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007). 24 See Räisänen, Paul and the Law. 25 See R. Liebers, Das Gesetz als Evangelium: Untersuchungen zur Gesetzeskritik des Paulus (Zurich, CH: Theologischer Verlag, 1989). 26 See N. T. Wright, Paul in Fresh Perspective (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2005). See also: Wright, Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), in which he takes J. Piper’s critique of the “new perspective” to task (see note 83 below for Piper); Wright, Pauline Perspectives: Essays on Paul, 1978–2013 (London: SPCK, 2013); Wright, The Paul Debate: Critical Questions for Understanding the Apostle (London: SPCK, 2016). See the critique of S.Westerholm, Justification Reconsidered: Rethinking a Pauline Theme (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013), 52–58, and that of Barclay in Paul and the Gift, 162–64. 27 See R. Penna, “Le ‘opere della legge’ in s. Paolo e 4QMMT,” Ricerche Storico-Bibliche 9 (1997): 155–76; Penna, “Il tema della giustificazione in Paolo: Uno status quaestionis,” in La giustificazione (Associazione Teologica Italiana), ed. G. Ancona (Padua, IT: Messaggero, 1997), 19–64; Penna, “Presente e futuro della giustificazione nella Lettera di Paolo ai Romani,” Protestantesimo 71 (2016): 213–26. 28 Others include: N. A. Dahl, “The Doctrine of Justification: Its Social Function and Implications,” in Studies in Paul (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1977), 95–120; W. D. Davies, “Paul and the People of the New Testament,” New Testament Studies 24 (1977–1978): 4–39; L. Gaston, “Paul and the Torah,” in Antisemitism and the Foundations of Christianity, ed. A. T. Davies (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 48–71. See also the extensive work Justification and Variegated Nomism, ed. D. A. Carson, M. A. Seifrid, and P. T. O’Brien, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001–2004), the first volume of which is titled The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism. 29 Critiques of Sanders’s theory generally take him to task on this point; see, e.g., M. D. Hooker, “Paul and ‘Covenantal Nomism,’” in Paul and Paulinism: Essays in Honour of C.K. Barrett, ed. M. D. Hooker and S. G. Wilson (London: SPCK, 1982), 47–56. 23 New Perspectives on Paul 805 and Pharisees for their legalism and hypocrisy? And more specifically, why did Paul convert? Why was his conversion such a radical one? What did he convert from? What did he convert to? Defenders of the new perspective explain these issues in a variety of different ways, but substantially as follows. Covenant and Jews, Gentiles and Sinners Indeed, the Jews did not doubt God’s merciful generosity toward them, nor the grace of the covenant, nor their obligation in gratitude to fulfill the law as a necessary sign of their recognition of God’s goodness. The theology of election, followed by observation of the law, the Torah, was and is at the very heart of Jewish spirituality and life.30 Thus, the “sacred” and not just “practical” significance of male circumcision, of avoiding “unclean” foods, of protecting the holiness of the Temple, and so on. An important corollary, however, tended at times to result from this outlook and spirituality: Israel came to consider itself as a people set apart, as God’s own people, his favorites. Of course, this was true in an important sense. By inference, however, the other peoples of the ancient world would be considered not only as different or distinct, but by the very fact that they were not under God’s special protection and care, as Gentiles, as “sinners,” non-fulfillers of the Torah. The existence of the covenant would have bound Israel to observance of the law as a kind of defensive barricade surrounding and protecting it from defilement,31 but in practice, it also induced the Israelites to take it for granted that the Gentiles were situated in some way outside the reach of God’s favor and consideration.32 It is understandable that certain questions would spontaneously arise in the hearts of the Israelites. “Why did God choose my people See the interesting reflection in L. Klenicki, “Exile and Return: Moments in the Jewish Pilgrimage to God (Responding to the Shoah),” Annales Theologici 10 (1996): 485–503. 31 W. A. Meeks takes up Philo thus: “Israel cannot be harmed by its opponents so long as it is a ‘people dwelling alone’ (Num 23:9), ‘because in virtue of the distinction of their peculiar customs they do not mix with others to depart from the way of their fathers’ (Philo, Life of Moses 1:278)” (The First Urban Christians [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983], 97). For an incisive anthropological reflection on “the social function of the Law,” see Dunn, “Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law,” 216–19. See also J. Neusner, Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 72–75. 32 Several New Testament texts show this tendency to confuse “Gentile” and “sinner”: Eph 2:11–12; Luke 6:33; Matt 5:47. 30 806 Paul O’Callaghan to enter into a covenant with them and not others, more powerful, more numerous, perhaps even more faithful and virtuous?” “Why were we invited and others excluded?” “Could it be that God has now abandoned us as a result of our not being faithful to the covenant?” At heart: “What was the purpose of the covenant?” Perhaps some light can be shed on these questions by reflecting on the real motives of Paul’s conversion. Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, and the “Works of the Law” Paul was quite clear on the matter: he was converted from being a persecutor of Christians, the followers of Jesus, and not as such from being a faithful Jew, an “observer of the law.” “Then they cast him [Stephen] out of the city and stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. . . . And Saul was consenting to his death. And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem” (Acts 7:58, 8:1).33 Clearly, Saul persecuted Christians but fulfilled the law. Memories of his earlier life in Judaism brought to Paul’s mind in the first place his violent persecution of those who were later his brothers and sisters in the faith (see Gal 1:13; 1 Cor 15:8–9; Acts 9:4, 22:7, 26:14), not a negative attitude toward Judaism (see Rom 9–11). Some things had not changed. He persecuted out of “zeal” (zēlos: Phil 3:6; see also Acts 22:3), but now he preached the good news with unabated vigor (see 2 Cor 8:7; Phil 1:14). Yet the object of his zeal had certainly shifted. Perceiving that Israel’s covenant status and distinctiveness were under serious threat (see the discourse of Stephen in Acts 7), Saul, the ardent Pharisee, took it that he was under strict obligation to defend the covenant and the law, and thus safeguard the God-willed privileges, prerogatives, and distinctive quality of Israel.34 He saw that, though Christians considered themselves as being in continuity with the people of Israel, they admitted Gentiles into their assemblies without requiring them to become Jews or to observe the On the nature and significance of Paul’s conversion, see the works of Dunn, and in particular “The Justice of God” (see note 23 above) and “Paul’s Conversion: A Light to Twentieth Century Disputes,” in Evangelium, Schriftauslegung, Kirche, ed. O. Hofius (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1996). 34 On the delicate socio-political situation confronting Judaism in the years of early Christianity that induced the Jews, understandably, to believe that their distinctive religious and national prerogatives were under serious threat, see Dunn, “The Incident at Antioch (Gal. 2.11–18),” in Jesus, Paul and the Law, 129–74, especially 133–36. 33 New Perspectives on Paul 807 prescriptions of the law. And Saul thought that this was unacceptable. In fact, Paul does not speak of his “conversion” as a turning away from personal sin, an obtaining of personal mercy and forgiveness, as Luther taught. His new life did not look inward, but outward; his fault was not personal, but “ecclesial.” His was not so much, at least apparently, a personal change-about, but rather a change in mission.35 The effect of Christ’s appearance on the road to Damascus was one of constituting him as an apostle or missionary to all peoples (see Gal 1:15–16; 1 Cor 9:1–2, 15:8–10). The sin he turned from, which made of him “the least of the apostles,” was to have persecuted the Church of God (see 1 Cor 15:9), to have attempted frustrating God’s universal saving will. This provided Paul with a new way of looking at Scripture. God had not chosen Israel for its virtues or moral superiority to other peoples or for any such reasons. The benefit of the Gentiles was ever in view.36 The original promise to Abraham was ultimately directed toward the Gentiles: “by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves” (Gen 12:3). Deutero-Isaiah had already expressed the notion in proclaiming who Israel was and what Israel was for: it would be “a light to the nations [goyim], that my [God’s] salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isa 49:6; cf. Isa 6; Jer 1:4–5, 31:31–34).37 That Paul’s conversion was essentially a kind of “commissioning,” an apostolic vocation rather than a moral conversion, was clearly established by Eduard Pfaff: “Paul never spoke of his conversion but almost always of his vocation, connecting that event with his mission as an Apostle” (Die Bekehrung des hl. Paulus in der Exegese des 20. Jahrhundert [Rome: Officium Libri Catholici, 1942], 169). See also: J. Knox, Chapters in a Life of Paul (London: Black, 1954); J. Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (London: SCM, 1959), 11–35; M. Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul (London: SCM, 1983), 53; Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, 7–12; J. Blank, Paulus: von Jesus zum Christentum (Munich: Kösel München 1982); S. Kim, The Origins of Paul’s Gospel (Tübingen: Mohr, 1983), 56; Dunn, “‘A Light to the Gentiles,’ or ‘The End of the Law’? The Significance of the Damascus Road Christophany for Paul,” in Jesus, Paul and the Law, 89–104; G. Pini, “Vocazione di Paolo o conversione,” in Atti del I Simposio di Tarso su San Paolo Apostolo, ed. L. Padovese (Rome: Istituto francescano di spiritualità, 1993), 47–63; and many other authors. “Again and again we find that there is hardly a thought of Paul’s which is not tied up with his mission. . . . The ‘I’ of his writings is not ‘the Christian’ but ‘the Apostle to the Gentiles’” (Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles, 12). 36 See Rom 1:1–2; 3:29–31; 9; Eph 4:6; 1 Tim 2:4. 37 Emphasis added. See P. R. Williamson, “Covenant,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed.T. D. Alexander and B. S. Rosner (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006), 426–29. 35 808 Paul O’Callaghan In other words, Paul’s insistence on justification “by faith alone,” without “works of the law,” was an expression of the fact that God was ready to accept Gentiles as his children with the same privileges and promises as Jews, yet without requiring them first to “become” Jews, to adopt a new culture, to observe the Torah down to the last detail, to subscribe to ritual laws of purification, male circumcision, and so on. In the words of Dunn: “The Christian doctrine of justification by faith begins as Paul’s protest not as an individual sinner against a Jewish legalism, but as Paul’s protest on behalf of Gentiles against Jewish exclusivism.”38 When Paul criticizes the Jews for “boasting,” he is not referring only to personal complacency in respect of the “works” they performed. Rather, he rejected Jewish insistence on an undeserved, open-ended special status before God in respect to other peoples (see Rom 2:17, 23). The boasting of the Jews in “seeking to establish their own [righteousness]” (Rom 10:3) might seem to mean that God is Lord of Jews only (see Rom 3:27–30).39 Käsemann and Rudolf Bultmann, following the classical Lutheran stance, understood this “boasting” principally in an individualistic and personally self-confiding sense, as an expression of an attitude of self-relying achievement before God.40 But this does not respond exactly to the mind of Paul or to the circumstances faced by nascent Christianity. When Paul hits out against “justification by works,” there is no evidence that he is attempting to run down good deeds, faithful obedience, or sincere and persevering striving in fulfilling the law understood as “covenantal nomism” (Sanders), “service of the law” (Ernst Lohmeyer),41 or “nomistic service” ( Joseph Tyson).42 Accord Dunn–Suggate, The Justice of God, 25. See Dunn, “Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law, ” 221–22. 40 See Rudolph Bultmann, “καυχάομαι, καύχημα, καύχησις,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1965), 648–54. See also: Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, trans. Kendrick Groble, 2 vols. (New York: Scribner, 1951–1955), 1:242–43; Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), 102. Bultmann’s position is also held by H. Hübner, Das Gesetz bei Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1980), 102. See also “καύχησις,” in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis, ed. M. Silva (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 2:651–54. 41 See Ernst Lohmeyer, Probleme paulinischer Theologie (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1955), 67. 42 See J. B. Tyson, “‘Works of the Law’ in Galatians,” Journal of Biblical Literature 92 (1973): 423–31. 38 39 New Perspectives on Paul 809 ing to the defenders of the “new perspective,” the “works of the law” that Paul rejects refer to an important degree to ceremonial laws of different kinds, especially to male circumcision and food laws, and not to moral prescription or observance as such: “The phrase [‘works of the law’] refers not to an individual’s striving for moral improvement, but to a religious mode of existence . . . which demonstrate[s] the individual’s ‘belongingness’ to the people of the law.”43 When Paul speaks of living “in the flesh” (see Rom 2:28), he is not referring to a merely exterior, sinful, and materialistic lifestyle and attitude over against one that is interior, holy, and spiritual, “in the spirit.” Rather, he refers to the people of Israel taken in terms of their physical identity and racial kinship.44 Thus, not being “in the flesh” is equivalent to “not of works” (see Rom 9:8, 11) in the sense that “works of the law” demonstrate national identity, constituting not so much individual righteousness, but “collective righteousness, to the exclusion of the Gentiles.”45 It should be noted that the precise technical term “works of the law” may also be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which portray the lifestyle and religious practice of the Qumran communities.46 As we Dunn, “Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law,” 220. Here Dunn treats especially Gal 2:16, but 221–22 treats the same issue in Romans. This whole section of Dunn, entitled “Works of the Law” (219–25), is of particular interest, as is 225–30. See also: K. Kertelge, “Zur Deutung des Rechtfertigungsbegriffs im Galaterbrief, ” Biblische Zeitschrift 12 (1968): 211–22; Räisänen, Paul and the Law, 259. See also Dunn’s “A New Perspective on Paul,” in Jesus, Paul and the Law, 183–206, and especially the symposium published as Paul and the Mosaic Law, ed. James D. G. Dunn (Tübingen: Mohr, 1996), particularly the papers of H. Lichtenberger and M. Hengel. 44 See Dunn, “Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law,” 222–23, and James D. G. Dunn, “Jesus—Flesh and Spirit: an Exposition of Romans 1.3–4,” Journal of Theological Studies 24 (1973): 44–49. 45 Howard, “Christ and the End of the Law, ” 336. 46 See, for example, 1 QS 5:21, 23; 6:18; 11:2–4; 4 QFlor 1:1–7; 4 Q; and the analysis of Lohmeyer, Probleme paulinischer Theologie, 33–74. This position is held by: S. Schultz, “Zur Rechtfertigung aus Gnade in Qumran und bei Paulus,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 56 (1959): 155–85; Dunn, Romans, 154; J. Jeremias, The Central Message of the New Testament (London: SCM, 1965), 49–51; B. Estrada, “La fede e le opere a confronto con il giudaismo,” in La giustificazione in Cristo, ed. J. M. Galván (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 67–76. Several texts from the 4QMMT Qumran manuscript indicate quite clearly that common usage of the Pauline syntagma ergōn nomou (“works of the law”) refers not so much to fulfillment of ethical actions as such, but rather to particular prescriptions of the law that require obedience and serve as “identity markers” (see E. Quimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4-V 43 810 Paul O’Callaghan saw above, these communities can be said to have practiced what Sanders calls “covenantal nomism.” They did certainly not think that they could earn God’s favor or mercy by their works.47 Rather, for them, “doing the law is the condition for remaining elect, . . . of remaining in the covenant.”48 However, the concrete existence of the members of the Qumran communities was marked by an attempt to separate themselves consciously from other peoples, even from Israel itself, with a view to avoiding being tainted by the power of sin and the defilement that surrounded them.49 Thus, by persevering in the practice of the “works of the law,” they were distinguished to some extent from other Jews as a specially chosen part of Israel,50 and certainly from the Gentiles, their “enemies” and God’s,51 who were destined to destruction at the end of time.52 Remaining within the covenant by persevering in good deeds, in other words, was their way of maintaining and affirming a privileged status, of defining themselves as members of the covenant people.53 It would seem that their fulfillment of the “works of the law” gave them special access to God’s favor and grace, and by implication, conditioned his merciful will to save all humanity. And this is precisely what Paul’s conversion or newly found mission consisted of: to announce to the whole world that the time had come for God’s promises of universal salvation to be fulfilled. Dunn summarizes his apostolic mission and understanding of “works of the law” in the following terms: [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994], especially 27–30; F. García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated:The Qumran Texts in English [Leiden: Brill, 1994], 113–17). Of course, a perfect distinction between ceremonial and moral laws cannot be made; see E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief (London: SCM, 1992). On the significance of the Qumran texts in this regard, see James D. G. Dunn, “4QMMT and Galatians,” New Testament Studies 43 (1997): 147–53, and Penna, “Le ‘opere della legge.’” 47 See especially Sanders, Paul, 305–12. 48 Sanders, Paul, 312, 320. 49 Sanders, Paul, 312–16. 50 Sanders, Paul, 247. 51 See Sanders, Paul, 248–57. On the notion of the hatred of wicked outsiders as a form of imitatio Dei, see A. Jaubert, La notion d’alliance dans le judaïsme aux abords de l’ère chrétienne (Paris: Du Seuil, 1963), 186–89. 52 See Sanders, Paul, 257. 53 The documents of the Qumran community MMT “preserve a vocabulary and manner of theologizing which left its mark on a wider spectrum of Jewish thought and practice, and it was just this sort of theologizing and practice which confronted Paul in Antioch and which he wrote Galatians to counter” (Dunn, “4QMMT and Galatians,” 153). New Perspectives on Paul 811 The law serves both to identify Israel as the people of the covenant and to mark them off as distinct from (other) nations. . . . “Works of the law” refer not exclusively but particularly to those requirements which bring to sharp focus the distinctiveness of Israel’s identity. It is because they have such a crucial role in defining “Jewishness,” membership of the covenant people, that circumcision and food laws feature so prominently in discussion of works of the law and righteousness. What lies behind so much of the debate is the identity crisis which Paul’s work among the Gentiles precipitated among his fellow Jewish Christians.54 The Significance of Jesus’s Condemnation of Hypocrisy and Legalism The following fact is also worth noting. Jesus’s forceful recrimination of the Jews, in particular of the “scribes and Pharisees,” seems to respond to his perception of a hypocritical exterior legalism, a disregard for weightier matters of the law, an attitude that would, in fact, eventually be instrumental in his execution.55 Paul’s outright rejection of “works of the law” for the sake of true “faith in Christ Jesus” would seem to confirm this message, condemning all human self-righteousness in God’s sight. However, a closer look at the Gospel texts shows that Jesus’s resolute Dunn, “Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law,” 223. Recent investigations in the area of comparative studies of Judaism and Christianity commonly tend to redress the predominantly negative image that the Gospels seem to offer of “the Jews,” and especially of the Pharisee party, whose life and spirituality, it is said, have been consistently misrepresented in Christian theology; see W. D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 256–315; J. König, Jews and Christians in Dialogue: New Testament Foundations (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1979), chs. 4 and 6; F. Mussner, Traktat über die Juden (Munich: Kösel, 1979). Some authors, often Jews attempting to “reclaim” Jesus, would go so far as to say that the Pharisees took no part in the death of Jesus. See, for example: H. Maccoby, The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986), 45–49; E. Rivkin, What Crucified Jesus? Messianism, Pharisaism, and the Development of Christianity (New York: UAHC Press, 1984). Others suggested that Jesus himself was a Pharisee, for example: John T. Pawlinkowski, Christ in the Light of Christian-Jewish Dialogue (New York: Paulist, 1982); H. Maccoby, Jesus the Pharisee (London: SCM, 2003); E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (London: SCM, 1985). Despite the real coincidence between Jesus’s teaching and that of the Pharisees on many fronts, Christians generally do not see the latter position as tenable; see S. Westerholm, Jesus and Scribal Authority (Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1978), esp. 128; Dunn, “Pharisees, Sinners and Jesus,” in Jesus, Paul and the Law, 61–86. 54 55 812 Paul O’Callaghan condemnation of the hypocritical exteriority of the scribes and Pharisees did not respond only to the possibility that they might be seeking after divine approval of their good works, but rather also to the fact that they sought approval “from men” (Matt 6:2–5). His insistence on the preponderance of interior rectitude (see Matt 5–7) did not imply that his disciples should not fulfill the law (Matt 5:17–20), but rather that their actions and thoughts should be turned in all sincerity and simplicity toward their “Father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:16). Such sincere interiority was by no means lacking in Old Testament spirituality (see, for example, Deut 6:5), nor is it absent in the spirituality found in intertestamentary literature, as we have seen. Jesus’s indignant remonstrances toward “the scribes and Pharisees” was motivated, so it would seem, by the way in which they relied on a scrupulous exterior fulfillment of the law, even to the point of neglecting the “weightier matters,” while excluding from God’s favor those who did not fulfill the law with such exactitude. It was the legalistic “exteriority” of their behavior that showed that they were excessively interested in impressing on others that they were God’s favorites, the true Israel, and the rest were not. They attempted to “stay in” by acting the part of the true Israelite. Jesus gives the reason for his remonstrances: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in” (Matt 23:13).56 John the Baptist had already said something of the kind to the Jews: “do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; . . . Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 3:9–10).57 Though contemporary studies have certainly made a most welcome contribution toward taking the sharp edges off the negative understanding many Christians have had of the frame of mind and spirituality of the Pharisees,58 the same message comes across in both Emphasis added. Emphasis added. 58 For a good overview, see Dunn, “Pharisees, Sinners and Jesus,” who comes to the following conclusions: “The purity of the meal table was an important concern among many of the Pharisees of Jesus’ time” (65); “In the middle decades of the first century, Pharisees were characterized by zeal for the law and concern to practice that pattern of life which maintained the righteousness of the covenant and Israel’s status as people of God” (69); “That there were at the time of Jesus a number of Pharisees, and probably a significant body of Pharisees, who felt passionately concerned to preserve, maintain, and defend Israel’s status as the people of the covenant and the righteousness of the law 56 57 New Perspectives on Paul 813 the teaching of Jesus and that of Paul:59 the saving power of God is not limited to a restricted group of individuals who establish a boundary between themselves and the rest by insisting on the strict observance of a series of burdensome statutes and ceremonial regulations. Israel was chosen as God’s people so that his grace and salvation would reach to the ends of earth (see Acts 1:8). As we shall see now, there is a clear continuity between the message of Jesus and that of Paul and that this continuity is not unrelated to that which exists between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. Paul, Apostle of Jesus Christ Paul’s calling or “commissioning” brought him to realize that he could no longer consider himself “in” by attempting to keep others “out.”60 He could not truly remain a Christian believer were he not to strive to bring others, everybody else, “in” with him: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16). However, in the context of the debate about the “new perspective,” it is at times suggested that Paul’s vocation did not consist primarily of a commission to evangelize the whole world. Such a conviction would have arisen afterward, somewhat contingently.61 The nucleus . . . must be regarded as virtually certain” (71); “The more that members of the Jewish community departed from the standards which the Pharisees as a rule saw to be necessary to maintain covenant righteousness, the more likely these Pharisees would be to dub them ‘sinners’” (77); “It is very likely that the portrayal of Pharisees, sinners, and Jesus in passages like Mark 2 and 7 accords very closely with the historical realities of Jesus’ ministry and may not be discounted as a retrojection of later controversies into the period of Jesus’ ministry” (80); and finally: “Far from being left with an uncomfortable wedge between Jesus and Gentile Christianity, the overall perspective we have gained . . . enables us to recognize an important line of continuity between Jesus and his successors [Paul for example]. For behind the particular objections and charges leveled against Jesus was the central fact that Jesus was ignoring and abolishing boundaries which more sectarian attitudes had erected within Israel. . . . [This] helps us see how a Christianity which broke through the boundaries of Israel’s own distinctiveness sprang from a Jesus who posed such a challenge to the boundary between Pharisee and sinner” (80). Dunn concludes: “In other words, the recognition of the Jewishness of Jesus need not separate Jesus from the Christianity he founded, just as the recognition of the Christian significance of Jesus need not separate him from the faith of his own people” (80–81). 59 See Jeremias, The Central Message of the New Testament, 51–52. 60 The terminology is from E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1983). 61 See, e.g.: J. Dupont, “The Conversion of Paul, and Its Influence on His Understanding of Salvation by Faith,” in Apostolic History and the Gospel: Biblical and 814 Paul O’Callaghan of his vocation that resulted from the Damascus Christophany should be considered, rather, in terms of a special union with and knowledge of the crucified and risen Lord, who is the expected Messiah.62 His new faith and calling lay in the identification of the Messiah with the one who had been crucified.63 Of course, the claim is substantially valid. The occasion and res of Paul’s conversion was undoubtedly his singular encounter and subsequent union with the crucified one who had risen from the dead by God’s power, and on account of whom he knew “nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). Paul’s whole life became a “being with Christ,” and as a result, an acting in conformity with this “new being,”64 a mystical vision of all things “in Christ.” But it should also be said that Paul’s “commissioning” to evangelize was a consequence, and a very direct one, of his personally turning toward Jesus Christ and coming to belong to his “body.” The true, personal object of his calling was indeed the risen Lord Jesus Christ, whom he encountered on the road to Damascus and whom he had previously persecuted in his members (see Acts 9:4–5). Yet turning away from persecuting the Christians and turning toward evangelizing the Gentiles did not result, for Paul, simply from a new understanding of the full meaning of the Scriptures and of the law, the culmination perhaps of an extended reflection on the extent of God’s universal saving will, at best occasioned or consolidated by his encounter with Christ. Rather, his calling to universal evangelization was the direct and necessary consequence of his encounter with the risen Lord. “He who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that [hina] I might preach him among the Gentiles” (Gal Historical Essays Presented to F. F. Bruce on His 60th Birthday, ed. W. Ward Gasque and Ralph P. Martin (Exeter, UK: Paternoster, 1970), 176–94, at 193; M. S. Enslin, Reapproaching Paul (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1972), 64–65. 62 See, e.g.: H. G. Wood, “The Conversion of Paul: Its Nature, Antecedents and Consequences,” New Testament Studies 1 (1954–1955): 276–82; P. H. Menoud, “Revelation and Tradition: The Influence of Paul’s Conversion on his Theology,” Interpretation 7 (1953): 131–41. 63 It has sometimes been noted that Sanders’s theory of associating Jewish and Pauline “covenantal nomism” does not take the centrality of Christ sufficiently into account; see R. H. Gundry, “Grace, Works, and Staying Saved in Paul,” Biblica 66 (1985): 1–38. 64 See Paul O’Callaghan, “The Mysticism of Paul of Tarsus,” in In Dialogue with God: Mystics in World Religions, ed. K. Acharya, U. Vaidya, L. Namjoshi, and M. Iturbe (Mumbai and New Delhi, India: Somaiya, 2009), 161–82. New Perspectives on Paul 815 1:15–16).65 These two elements that defined Paul’s new life—being with and belonging to Christ and preaching the good news everywhere—belong inseparably to one another, explain one another, and require one another.66 However, the intimate link between the content (“being with Christ”) and consequences (universal evangelization) of Paul’s conversion may be understood in two possible ways. Some authors67 suggest that, since Christians before Paul had already posed “salvation through faith in Christ” and “salvation through works of the law” as distinct alternatives to one another, his encounter with Christ and subsequent faith in him meant simply that observance of the law was no longer a viable way to salvation and had to be resisted with the same energy (zēlos) with which Christians had previously been persecuted. In this sense, the coming of Christ would mark in time “the end of the law [telos gar nomou], that everyone who has faith may be justified” (Rom 10:4): the law would have no more effect. Thus, Paul’s encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus would come to mean “the bankruptcy of the law and the all-sufficiency of Christ,”68 the rejection of the law and its substitution by Christ. Likewise, it is argued that, according to Paul, since Christ had been crucified—“cursed by the law” (see Gal 3:13)—but had been vindicated by God, the law had lost all power of being God’s instrument of salvation.69 This is, of course, a restatement of the classical Lutheran position: justification by faith simply excludes seeking salvation through fulfillment of the works of the law. Emphasis added. The fruitful tension between them may be perceived in Paul’s words to the Philippians: “To live is Christ, and to die is gain. If it is to be life in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account” (Phil 1:21–24); emphasis added. 67 For example: Ulrich Wilkens, “Die Bekehrung des Paulus als religionsgeschichtliches Problem,” in Rechtfertigung als Freiheit: Paulusstudien (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag 1974), 11–32; P. Stuhlmacher, “‘Das Ende des Gesetzes’: Über Ursprung und Ansatz der paulinischen Theologie,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 67 (1970): 14–39; H. Weder, Das Kreuz Jesu bei Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1981), 187–93. 68 Dunn, “‘A Light to the Gentiles’, or ‘The End of the Law’?” 92. 69 Dunn, “‘A Light to the Gentiles’, or ‘The End of the Law’?” 92–93, and in greater detail: Dunn, “Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law”; Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 25–26; Räisänen, Paul and the Law, 249–51; Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel, 268–311. 65 66 816 Paul O’Callaghan Other authors argue that this position, though plausible from an exegetical standpoint, does not hold up when it is observed that, in all probability, most Christians in Paul’s time “did not see any antithesis between faith in Christ and a life regulated by the Torah.”70 Besides, for Saul the Jew, before his conversion, the crucifixion of Jesus confirmed purely and simply that God had rejected and disavowed him, excluding him from the covenant, in keeping Deuteronomy’s injunction: “Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree” (Gal 3:13; cf. Deut 21:23). On this account, he took it that Christianity itself had been repudiated by God and its members thenceforth excluded from the divine promises. However, Paul’s encounter with the risen Lord, “the Damascus road Christophany, must obviously have turned such a line of reasoning completely on its head, for it indicated clearly that God had accepted and vindicated this one precisely as the crucified.” 71 “The curse which was removed by Christ’s death . . . was the curse which had previously prevented [the covenant] blessing from reaching the Gentiles, the curse of a wrong understanding of the law. . . . It was that curse which Jesus had brought deliverance from by his death.” 72 That the Gentiles came to be accepted by God is not, therefore, a historical accident occasioned by excessive Jewish attachment to the letter of the law and subsequent falling from divine favor. Rather, it fit into God’s eternal design that came to fulfillment in Christ, whose fidelity to “the law,” to doing the will of his Father, brought about his execution on the perceived charge of blasphemy, and thus his exaltation (see Phil 2:6–11). Belief in the crucified one as the Christ, or God’s Anointed One, therefore, did not require the repudiation of the law as such, Christ’s own “pedagogue” (Gal 3:24), but rather meant that man could not be saved by a mere external observance of the law, conditioned furthermore by a desire to demarcate God’s favor and restrict his saving will.73 Dunn, “‘A Light to the Gentiles’, or ‘The End of the Law’?” 99. Dunn, “‘A Light to the Gentiles’, or ‘The End of the Law’?” 100. See also Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Crucifixion in Ancient Palestine, Qumran Literature and the New Testament,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40 (1978): 493–513. 72 Dunn, “Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law,” 229. 73 The following text of Dunn’s is worth citing: “Christ in his death had put himself under the curse and outside the covenant blessing, . . . that is, put himself in the place of the Gentile! Yet God vindicated him! There, God is for the Gentiles; and consequently the law could no longer serve as a boundary dividing Jew from Gentile. In short, Christ in his death had effectively abolished this disqualification, by himself being disqualified. It is the out-working 70 71 New Perspectives on Paul 817 Living “in Christ” and living “off Christ,” Paul saw clearly that the purpose of God’s special election of Israel (see Isa 6, 49:1–6; Jer 1:4–5) was the salvation of all peoples and, inseparably, that this universal saving will culminate in the coming of the long-awaited Messiah “according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations” (Rom 16:25–26).74 The coming of the Messiah coincides directly with the fulfillment of God’s will and promise, the salvation of all peoples, and thus Christ is the “end,” or “fulfillment” and culmination (telos; Rom 10:4), of the law.75 And so, Paul’s two primary convictions (that Jesus Christ is the crucified-risen Lord in whom God has provided for the salvation of all mankind, and that he [Paul] was called to be Apostle to the Gentiles) go hand in hand, explain one another, and even require one another.76 The faith of Paul is no longer directed, as a zealous Pharisee, to the words of prophets already defunct or toward the impersonal Torah, which must be studied, understood, correctly interpreted, and defended at all costs, but rather toward the living Christ, risen Lord and universal Savior, Image and Wisdom of God made visible.77 It is of its very essence a fides Christi, a faith directed toward and determined by Christ, a faith in him. And it was none other than this newly found, personally lived faith that spurred Paul on to evangelize all peoples without exception (see 2 Cor 5:14). Made a son of God in of this train of thought which we see unfolding in the incidents described in Galatians 2, and climaxing in 2.21: ‘If righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.’ Christ’s death was effective, in Paul’s view, precisely because it broke through the restrictiveness of the typical Jewish understanding of God’s righteousness, and demonstrated that the grace of God was not to be experienced apart from the law” (“Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law,” 230). 74 Emphasis added. 75 This is the common Patristic, Scholastic, and Reformed reading of Rom 10:4 up to, though excluding, liberal Protestant authors such as A. von Harnack. The notion of telos as the temporal end (cessation, abrogation of the law) is found, for example, in Conzelmann, Käsemann, and others; see M. A. Tabet, “Rm 10,4 nel dialogo ebraico-cristiano,” in Galván, La giustificazione in Cristo, 89–106. 76 See Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind, 41, 66–70; Sanders, Paul, 439–42. Paul’s determining, driving faith in Christ is linked besides, to an important degree, to his conviction of the nearness of the end of the age. 77 See especially Kim, The Origins of Paul’s Gospel. 818 Paul O’Callaghan Christ,78 incorporated into him and becoming a member of his body, Paul perceived directly and almost intuitively that “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. . . . [Therefore, ‘in Christ’] there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26, 28).79 And Paul saw that “the Gospel which [Christians] took as their common starting-point . . . [would be] distorted in its fundamentals if . . . the outworkings of the gospel and Christology were not followed through,”80 if Judaizing Christians were to have their way in reinstating strict observation of the law in order to ensure salvation. One final observation to tie up the question is in order. The “end of the law” in Christ does not mean its abrogation for Christians. Linguistically, the term telos, as referred to the Law (Rom 10:4), may mean either “termination” or “fulfillment,” conclusion or goal.81 George Howard writes: “Whatever explanation scholars give, the general consensus is that the law, so far as man is concerned, has come to an end. Either it has been terminated completely or man finds its fulfillment in Christ. Whichever the case, the result is the same. The system of law, as known before, has been ended by Christ, and the new eon of grace and faith now prevails.”82 But neither did the coming of Christ involve a mere quantitative improvement on the Jewish way of fulfilling the law.83 If such were the case, then the A. Pitta maintains that the theological center of Galatians is that of our divine sonship in Christ (Disposizione e messaggio della Lettera ai Galati [Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1982]). See also: B. Byrne, Sons of God, Seed of Abraham: a Study of the Idea of the Sonship of God of all Christians in Paul against the Jewish Background (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1979); Paul O’Callaghan, Children of God in the World: An Introduction to Theological Anthropology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2016), 247–77. 79 Emphasis added. 80 James D. G. Dunn, “The Theology of Galatians, ” in Jesus, Paul and the Law, 242–64, at 248. 81 On Rom 10:4, see Howard, “Christ and the End of the Law”; R. Badenas, Christ the End of the Law: Romans 10.4 in Pauline Perspective (Sheffield, UK: JSOT Press, 1985), 7–37; James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16, Word Biblical Commentary 38B (Dallas, TX: Thomas Nelson, 1988), 596–98; Tabet, “Rm 10,4 nel dialogo ebraico-cristiano,” 91–95. The discussion on Romans 10:4 has been centered, understandably, on the two possible meanings of the term telos, “termination” and “fulfillment.” 82 Howard, “Christ and the End of the Law,” 332. 83 This is the position held in: C. E. B. Cranfield, “St. Paul and the Law,” Scottish Journal of Theology 17 (1964): 43–68; Cranfield, “Has the Old Testament Law a Place in Christian Life? A Response to Professor Westerholm,” Irish Biblical 78 New Perspectives on Paul 819 action of Christ’s Spirit would be at the service of the law, which would retain its primacy. Fulfillment of the law for Christians finds its roots in their belonging to Christ in such a way that the law is carried out primarily by God through Christ’s Spirit in the Christian, not so much by the Christian.84 Howard concludes: “The very aim and goal of the law was the ultimate unification of all nations under the God of Abraham according to the promise. In this sense Christ is the telos of the law; he was its goal to everyone who believes. . . . Rom 10:4 is one of the greatest of Paul’s statements concerning his doctrine of the inclusion of the gentiles.”85 The “New Perspective”: A Summing Up and a Rapprochement86 According to Sanders, Dunn, Wright, and others, Paul’s teaching on “justification by faith and not by works of the law” means that we Studies 15, no. 2 (1993): 50–64; T. R. Schreiner, The Law and its Fulfillment: A Pauline Theology of the Law (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998), esp. 149–78. 84 See L. E. Keck, “The Law and ‘the Law of Sin and Death’ (Rom. 8:1–4): Reflections on the Spirit and Ethics in Paul,” in The Divine Helmsman: Studies on God’s Control of Human Events, ed. J. L. Crenshaw and S. Sandmel (New York: Ktav, 1980), 41–57. 85 Howard, “Christ and the End of the Law,” 336–37. 86 Reviews on the debate we have considered abound: R. H. Gundry, “Grace, Works, and Staying Saved in Paul,” Biblica 66 (1985): 1–38; B. Riecke, “Paulus über das Gesetz,” Theologische Zeitschrift 41 (1985): 237–57; John M. G. Barclay, “Paul and the Law: Observations on Some Recent Debates,” Themelios 12, no. 1 (1986): 5–15; Barclay, Obeying the Truth: A Study of Paul’s Ethics in Galatians (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988); J. Lambrecht, “Gesetzesverständnis bei Paulus,” in Das Gesetz im Neuen Testament, ed. K. Kertelge (Freiburg: Herder, 1986), 86–127; D. J. Moo, “Paul and the Law in the Last Ten Years,” Scottish Journal of Theology 40 (1987): 287–307; F. F. Bruce, “Paul and the Law in Recent Research,” in Law and Religion: Essays on the Place of the Law in Israel and Early Christianity, ed. B. Lindars (Cambridge, UK: James Clarke, 1988), 115–25; G. Klein, “Ein Sturmzentrum der Paulusforschung,” Verkündigung und Forschung 33 (1988): 40–56; S.Westerholm, Israel’s Law and the Church’s Faith: Paul and His Recent Interpreters (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988); T. R. Schreiner, “The Abolition and Fulfillment of the Law in Paul,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 35 (1989): 47–74; B. L. Martin, Christ and the Law in Paul (Leiden: Brill 1989); R. Penna, “Il problema della legge nelle lettere di San Paolo,” in L’apostolo Paolo: studi di esegesi e teologia (Cinisello Balsamo, IT: Edizioni paoline, 1991), 496–518; Penna, “Il tema della giustificazione in Paolo. Uno status quaestionis,” in Associazione Teologica Italiana, La giustificazione, ed. Giovanni Ancona (Padua, IT: Messaggero, 1997), 19–64; M. A. Seifrid, Justification by Faith: the Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme (Leiden: Brill, 1992); as well as the works of the principal authors, Dunn and Wright. 820 Paul O’Callaghan are justified or saved by faith in Jesus Christ, God’s Son and our Savior, being incorporated into his “body,” the Church, and not by good works, not by remaining within a privileged community through the observation of certain exterior precepts that in some way could localize and ensure God’s favor and grace toward humanity. Hence, justification is not only a personal question for a Christian with implications of a predominantly individual and interior kind, but an essentially ecclesiological, indeed apostolic, one.87 Certain “works,” or more exactly, certain forms of behavior incompatible with faith in Jesus Christ, should be avoided. But the works to be avoided are not, as such, those in which the individual strives to express gratitude to God and obedience to his will, but rather “works” that, in their intentionality and performance, attempt in one way or another to reinforce one’s belonging to the community of the saved to the exclusion of others from such a community, works of a ceremonial and social, perhaps “ecclesiastical,” kind that condition the apostolic mission of Christians. As was noted earlier on, many contemporary authors maintain a more classical (Lutheran) approach to this vast and complex exegetical question, holding that the Pauline “works of the law,” insofar as they are opposed to “faith in Christ,” refer to the law in general,88 and not only to mere ceremonial laws as boundary conditions that reinforce covenant identity. Perhaps in real terms, the positions are not as far removed from one another as it might seem at first sight.89 The classical Lutheran On the question of the ecclesiological aspects of justification among biblical exegetes, see especially: W. Klaiber, Rechtfertigung und Gemeinde: Ein Untersuchung zum paulinischen Kirchenverständnis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1982); A. von Dobbeler, Glaube als Teilhabe: Historische und semantische Grundlagen der paulinischen Theologie und Ekklesiologie des Glaubens (Tübingen: Mohr, 1987), 97–100; J. Roloff, Die Kirche im Neuen Testament (Göttingen:Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1993). See also O’Callaghan, Children of God, 340–74. 88 See especially: Hübner, Das Gesetz bei Paulus; J. Reumann, “Righteousness” in the New Testament (New York: Paulist, 1982); J. Piper, The Future of Justification: a Response to N. T. Wright (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007); J.-C. Maschmeier, Rechtfertigung bei Paulus: eine Kritik alter und neuer Paulusperspektiven (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2010). Westerholm says that “there is more of Paul in Luther than many twentieth-century scholars are inclined to allow” (Israel’s Law and the Church’s Faith, 173). 89 Westerholm in particular has maintained that behind the “social function of the law” (Dunn) is to be found the more fundamental issue of the relationship between personal salvation and human activity (see Israel’s Law and the Church’s 87 New Perspectives on Paul 821 position rightly hits out at those who complacently seek to live lives pleasing to God on the basis of their own self-given justice, as if their “good behavior” was capable of winning divine favor. However, does it really matter whether this attitude comes across as, on the one hand, an individualistic striving to cross the divine favor barrier by the abundance or self-centered rectitude of good works or, on the other, as an endeavor before society to show that one is worthier than the rest of humanity to receive and retain God’s gifts? Putting the same thing in positive terms: the sense of personal unworthiness and mistrust in one’s own person and works resulting from the faith-perceived awareness of the abundant and merciful goodness of God necessarily expresses itself in the joy of communicating that goodness to the whole of sinful mankind, not retaining it jealously for oneself. “You have without pay, give without pay” (Matt 10:8). Conversely, should God’s gifts be monopolized or consciously withheld from others, this can only mean that one considers oneself naturally worthy coram Deo of having received such gifts in the first place, while others are not considered to retain such a standing. As Dunn comments: It is important to appreciate that both emphases are rooted in a fundamental assertion of the sufficiency of faith; both protest against any attempt to add or require something more than faith on the human side when computing what makes a person acceptable to God. The difference which becomes apparent in earlier chapters [of Galatians] is that the added factor against which Paul himself was protesting was not individual human effort, but the assumption that ethnic origin and identity is a factor in determining the grace of God and its expression. Ethnic origin and identity is a different way of assessing human worth, but one more fundamental than the question of ability to perform good works. What Paul protested against was even more insidious—the assumption that the way people are constituted by birth rules them in or rules them out from receiving God’s grace. Paul’s protest was not against a high regard for righteousness, against dedicated devotion to God’s law. It was rather against the corollary to such devotion: that failure to share in that devotion meant exclusion from the life of the Faith; “Paul and the Law in Romans 9–11,” in Dunn, Paul and the Mosaic Law, 215–37). 822 Paul O’Callaghan world to come, and that the majority of peoples of the world were in principle so excluded.90 It is not mistaken for a Christian to strive to fulfill God’s commandments with all the God-given energies he or she has received. Besides, it is impossible for a Christian not to belong to the saved community, the Church, Christ’s own “body.” However, to be faithful to the inner truth of this “incorporation,” every Christian must strive to communicate the Gospel of Christ to the whole of humanity, to be an apostle. A Recent Perspective on Paul: John Barclay’s Paul and the Gift Forty years have gone by since Sanders penned his influential Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Although his analysis has left a clear mark on Pauline studies as a whole, several authors, principally of the Lutheran tradition, have opposed it.91 On the whole, they have insisted on a classical Lutheran reading of Paul, according to which “good works” were not to be considered as mere ceremonial boundary conditions for belonging to God’s people, but as attempts sinful creatures make to win God’s favor on their own terms. It is fair to say that this was the fundamental intuition Luther found in Paul’s letters. However a recent, major book by the Anglican biblical scholar John M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift,92 has changed the framework of the debate in more ways than one,93 mainly by taking Sanders’s position to task and challenging the “new perspective.” Interestingly, the structure of the work is not unlike that of Sanders. After an extensive introduction to the anthropological notion of gift and grace in Greek thought, Roman jurisprudence, Jewish religion, and modern sociology/anthropology, Barclay considers how grace has been understood by important Christian authors (mainly Protestants): Marcion in the James D. G. Dunn, “The Influence of Galatians in Christian Thought,” in The Theology of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 133–45, at 143–44. 91 See note 83. 92 See Barclay, Paul and the Gift. This work will be subsequently cited parenthetically by page number in the text. 93 Among many reviews, see C. K. Rowe, “Grace’s Perfections,” First Things, April 2016, 49–52; T. R. Schreiner, “Paul and the Gift: A Review Article,” Themelios 41, no. 1 (2016): 52–58; P. O’Callaghan, in International Journal of Systematic Theology 18, no. 4 (2016): 474–77; C. T. Holmes in Review and Expositor 115, no. 1 (2018): 132–4. 90 New Perspectives on Paul 823 context of Gnosticism, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Barth, Bultmann, Käsemann, J. Louis Martyn, Alain Dadiou (a professed atheist who is a student of Paul), and especially Sanders. The notion of divine gift is then considered extensively in the context of Second Temple Judaism: the Wisdom of Solomon, Philo of Alexandria, the Qumran Hodayot, Pseudo-Philo’s work Liber antiquitatum biblicarum, and 4 Ezra (many of these works were studied likewise by Sanders, who refers to this period with the term “Palestinian Judaism”). Barclay’s own contribution to the debate may be found in the two extensive and detailed exegetical chapters that attempt to explain Paul’s view of gift and grace in Galatians (ch. 3) and Romans (ch. 4) mainly in terms of what he calls the perfection of “incongruity,” quite in line with Luther. The Complexity and Perfections of “Grace” Barclay accepts Sanders’s major thesis to the effect that Second Temple Judaism, contemporaneous with nascent Christianity, did not deny the priority of divine grace among the Jews and that it thus was not in direct opposition to Paul’s view of justification by faith as found in Romans and Galatians. This does not mean, however, that one and all had the same idea of what divine grace itself meant in the first place. “Grace is everywhere in Second Temple Judaism but is not everywhere the same. Instead of uniformity, a careful examination of the texts indicates diversity in their representations of divine beneficence” (6).94 He observes that Sanders “unwittingly created a spurious uniformity within Judaism” (564). In fact, Barclay shows that Christian “grace” is a more complex issue than either Luther or Sanders would allow. According to the former, God’s grace is “incongruous” or underserved for fallen human beings and reflects simply the total unworthiness of the receiver, who is a sinner. According to Sanders’s interpretation of Paul and Second See the comment of Schreiner: “Barclay rightly notes, however, a crucial mistake in Sanders’s work, for Sanders understands the priority of grace as if it also entails the incongruity of grace. But, says Barclay, it is clear that the Rabbis believed grace was given to those who were worthy (in accord with the view of gift in antiquity). Sanders operates as if the Augustinian view of grace is shared by the Rabbis. Since he fails to define carefully what grace means, he lumps together priority with incongruity. . . . One major conclusion Barclay draws . . . is that interpreters often disagree because they do not realize that they are operating with different conceptions of grace” (“Paul and the Gift: A Review Article,” 54). 94 824 Paul O’Callaghan Temple Judaism, grace, besides being “incongruous,” is also “prior,” in the sense that it is offered to humans before being demanded: grace comes before law and works. Luther and “new perspective” interpreters may disagree on the outworkings of Paul’s teaching on grace, but according to Barclay, neither have taken fully into account the real meaning of grace in all its richness and complexity, reducing it rather to certain basic aspects of God’s loving self-giving to humans, approaching Paul with a “master concept” of grace, as it were. On the basis of several philosophical and sociological studies of gift that emphasize the notion of reciprocity between giver and receiver (especially Marcel Mauss’s influential work Essai sur le don, written in the 1920s), Barclay insists on the complexity and polyvalence of the terms “gift” and “grace” in Scripture and Christian theology. He describes six “perfections” (or “conceptual extensions”) of gift, all of which are to be found at different moments of the theology of grace and Christian spirituality (69–75): (1) “superabundance,” or lavishness, which refers to the scale or permanence of the gift with respect to the receiver (one might think of the disproportionate quality of the gift of “eternal life” for those who believe [ John 6:47; see also 2 Cor 9:8]); (2) “priority,” the time frame within which the gift is given, in the sense that gift-giving is initiated without a previous gift having been obtained from the recipient and is undeserved, an aspect that may be seen, for example, in the association Paul establishes in Romans (8:29) between predestination and justification; (3) “singularity,” which reflects the motivation behind the gift, the goodness or benevolence that motivates the giver, such as in John’s affirmation of “God as love” (1 John 4:8, 16); (4) “incongruity,” which indicates that the gift is simply undeserved on account of the unworthiness of the receiver, a central tenet of Paul’s teaching, especially in Galatians; (5) “efficacy,” insofar as the giving of grace achieves a transformation of the receiver, as found in Paul’s doctrines of “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; etc.) and “regeneration” (1 Cor 6:11; Titus 3:5); and lastly (6) the perfection of “non-circularity,” which refers to the absence of response to the gift offered, suggested, for example, in 1 Corinthians 4:7 (“What have you that you did not receive?”). Barclay observes that “the perfections are not exclusive to particular authors”: “They can coexist and overlap with one another. To perfect one facet of gift-giving does not imply the perfection of any or all of the others” (75). In this way, he strives to maintain the semantic latitude of the term “grace.” Barclay goes on to explain that “different scholars assume different perfections of grace” (175), New Perspectives on Paul 825 and in describing the unfolding of grace’s conceptual history, we discover that it is a highly complex reality. Philo of Alexandria, for example, insisted upon its superabundance and singularity. The gnostic Marcion emphasized the singularity of grace and sought to distance the good God from any form of judgment. So did the Stoic Seneca, who insisted also on the perfection of efficacy. Augustine found three of these perfections in grace, which he combined richly with one another: priority, incongruity, and efficacy. In Calvin, “singularity” is absent in that he allows for the possibility of predestination to condemnation, but differing from Luther, he includes “efficacy” as a perfection of grace. Barclay holds that Luther gave particular attention to two perfections of grace: incongruity, the fact that it is completely undeserved by humans, and non-circularity, in that believers are never in a position to give anything back to God (except gratitude and praise). Although many other issues in Paul and the Gift could be profitably considered, Barclay’s dialogue with Luther’s understanding of grace is of particular interest. The “Incongruity” of Grace in Luther On the one hand, Barclay finds Luther’s notion of incongruity deeply present in the letter to the Galatians: here the Gospel “stands or falls” (370), to use the classical Lutheran expression. The reformer’s preaching, he says, “constituted a brilliant re-contextualization of Pauline theology in the conditions of the sixteenth-century church” (572). “The achievement of Luther was to translate Paul’s missionary theology of grace into an urgent and perpetual inward mission, directed to the church, but especially to the heart of each believer. . . . Paul’s theology is re-preached to effect the perpetual conversion of believers, who need to learn over and again to receive the gift of God and banish the false opinion that their works will merit salvation. The gospel consists of a mission to the self and a daily return to baptism” (571). Barclay specifies the perfection of grace “as a permanent incongruity that makes the Lutheran theology of grace stand out from its context” (102). For Protestants, “the object of Paul’s critique is not the content of the works, but the ‘doing’ of them, not the criteria by which worth is measured, but the purported achievement of worth” (572). This coincides with the position of Sanders, who emphasized that the covenant is unmerited and observance of the law follows on from it, which is what he means by “covenantal nomism.” Paul insists that “the Christ-gift, as the definitive act of divine beneficence, is given without regard to worth” (350). In Antioch, 826 Paul O’Callaghan Paul opposed Peter neither because observance of the law could earn salvation (the old perspective) nor because the Torah involved ethnic or covenantal exclusivity (the new perspective). Rather, the Christian Gospel is based on a gift that has inverted one and the other, both circumcision and uncircumcision. Hence, those who observe the Torah are not necessarily the ones marked out for salvation, but rather those who are “marked by faith in Christ” (377). For this reason, Barclay holds that the much-discussed Pauline expression pistis Christou does not refer to any personal “faith” or trust of Christ in the Father, but rather to our faith in him (the objective genitive reading), a position that coincides with classical Lutheranism. He concludes that “faith is not an alternative human achievement nor a refined human spirituality, but a declaration of bankruptcy, a radical and shattering recognition that the only capital in God’s economy is the gift of Christ crucified and risen” (383–84). In contrast to Wright’s covenantal reading of justification by faith, Barclay states: “What arrives at ‘the fullness of time’. . . is not a ‘shock’ at the end of a ‘many-staged’ plan, but God’s counter-statement to the previous conditions of the possible, a new creation in the midst of the present evil age” (412). He observes further that “Paul’s theology of grace is coherent with emphasis on the necessity of human obedience not so much via the efficacy of grace (with God as the acting agent in believers’ action) as via its incongruity (with human righteousness as the product of a divinely created life that is wholly at odds with the normal human condition)” (503). That is to say, Paul’s insistence on priority and efficacy does not mean believers should act in a purely passive way. In any case, with Galatians’ emphasis on “incongruity,” the Reformation reading of Paul is vindicated to an important degree. But that is not the whole story. The “Non-Circularity” of Grace in Luther On the other hand, Luther radicalizes the incongruity of grace by insisting on its non-circularity. Once received, it remains forever undeserved and provides no means of giving anything “back” to God. Thus, “human praise and obedience are never instrumental in Protestant theology, never part of a repeatable pattern of gift and return” (56). Barclay observes that “Luther attempted to sever completely the pattern of interested circularity by which human works, offered to God, were understood and intended to elicit future benefit or reward” (106). He notes that “one of the fundamental principles of Greek social relations, New Perspectives on Paul 827 both among humans and in the relationship between humans and gods, was the expectation of reciprocity in gifts, favors and ‘good turns’” (24). Yet he observes that the popular notion of “grace” understood as a pure, non-reciprocated gift has been successfully deconstructed by the philosopher Jacques Derrida (61–63): “Derrida’s construction of the impossibility of the gift is based on the premise that the gift by definition should be free of reciprocity or return” (63). Derrida concludes that Mauss’s “‘monumental work’ speaks of everything but the gift in this sense, for it deals with economy, exchange, contract, it speaks of raising the stakes, sacrifice, gift and countergift” (62). Barclay’s observation is an important one: the notion of non-reciprocated gift is a modern construction, not a Pauline one.95 A completely “free” gift would, in fact, eliminate all human solidarity, reinforce individualism, and make giving and taking simply irrelevant (63). Barclay situates the modern roots of this idea precisely in Luther, who “offered a new theological definition of gift whose ramifications continue to be felt today” (116). From Luther, it passes on to Kant: the notion of “one-way gift . . . may have its roots in Lutheran theology, but was universalized in Kantian ethics with its resistance to externally imposed obligation” (185). Yet “that particularly modern presumption [of non-reciprocity] does not correspond to the assumptions of antiquity and should not be allowed to determine what Paul or his fellow Jews might have understood by the grace or gifts of God” (185). “Kant provides a powerful ideological (and easily secularized) sanction for the one-way, non-obliging, and preferably anonymous gift” (58). As a result, “gift-exchange—in which persons and things, interest and disinterest are merged—has been fractured, leaving gifts opposed to exchange, persons opposed to things, and interest to disinterest” (59, citing J. Parry).96 Luther’s combination of Barclay also notes that first century Jews did accept the idea of reciprocity (39–45). Giving to the poor was seen as a form of “giving” back to God: “Since giving to the poor was closely connected to religious piety, both giver and recipient could figure benefaction as receiving its most important return not from the human recipient but from God” (43); “Return of the gift is both human and divine. . . . Doing good to the poor will result in blessings from God” (44); “Jewish giving to the poor is fully enmeshed in the expectation of reciprocity, and its distinctive elements are justified not by an ‘anti-reciprocal’ ethos but by the modulation of the reciprocity-ethos into the expectation of reciprocity from God” (44). 96 See J. Parry, “The Gift, the Indian Gift and the ‘Indian Gift,’” Man, n.s. 21, no. 3 (1986): 453–73, at 458. Barclay pays particular attention to this article. 95 828 Paul O’Callaghan the incongruity and non-circularity of grace establishes a net distinction between relationships humans establish with God, on the one hand, and with other humans and society, on the other. This idea is well developed in Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms.97 And Barclay observes: “If Luther ‘horizontalises’ good works (making them no longer part of an ongoing transaction with God), he also renders them all, in principle, of equal worth” (115). In other words, “good works” are useful and necessary in our relationship with other humans (coram mundo), but before God (coram Deo) they are useless, for only faith obtains. Indeed a unilateral understanding of grace in terms of strict non-circularity would imply that Christian grace does away with the subtleties (or perfections, or complexities) of gift dynamics in human life, relationships, and work. If gift, in its supreme (divine) manifestation, is nothing other than disinterested self-giving that involves no possible meaningful response, then the reality of Christian grace has little or no anthropological weight, since divine self-giving would no longer be in a position to shed light on or interact with created self-giving (and taking). Grace thus becomes irrelevant to human life and may even be an interference, as Hans Blumenberg suggested in his attempt to legitimize modernity.98 Human giving and taking become a purely secular (or better, secularized) reality, of little religious significance. Doubtless, divine self-giving is supreme and unsurpassable and is deeply mysterious, but it should be in a position to reveal the ultimate meaning of all created gift-dynamics, the fruit of divine creation, what might be called “first grace.”99 For that very reason, grace should not exclude, but rather confirm, indeed purify and elevate, the value and meaning of human gift dynamics. But Luther’s position seems to exclude this. Situating the “Old” and the “New” Perspective All in all, Barclay’s Paul and the Gift has placed the “new perspective” in a situation of crisis. His critique of Sanders and others is incisive and solidly biblical, but he is convinced of the fundamental validity of the See C. E. Braaten, Justification: the Article by which the Church Stands or Falls (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1990), 64–65; Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology, 314–24. 98 See Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, trans. Robert M. Wallace (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985 [originally 1966]), 73, 137. 99 See F. R. Hittinger, The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2003). 97 New Perspectives on Paul 829 principle enunciated by Sanders, Dunn, Wright, and others that “the context for Paul’s theology of justification is the Gentile mission and the construction of communities that crossed ethnic (as well as social) boundaries” (572). Thus, “the reading of Paul offered in this book may be interpreted either as a re-contextualization of the Augustinian-Lutheran tradition, returning the dynamic of the incongruity of grace to its original mission environment where it accompanied the formation of new communities, or as a reconfiguration of the ‘new perspective,’ placing its best historical and exegetical insights within the frame of Paul’s theology of grace” (573). Barclay insists that the doctrine of grace is directed not only inward, toward personal conversion, but also outward, to the establishment of new Christian communities. The living context of Paul is different from that of Luther, as is Luther’s from our own. As a result, “Paul’s theology does not remain encased within its first-century context” (573). But, for Barclay, the need for proper contextualization does not mean pure adaptation and ultimate irrelevance—thus the importance of Luther’s fundamental insight. “It is Paul’s theology of the Christ-gift that shapes his appeals to the Abrahamic promises, to the experience of the Spirit, and to the oneness of God. . . . It is the incongruous grace that Paul traces in the Christevent and experiences in the Gentile mission that is the explosive force that demolishes old criteria of worth and clears space for innovative communities that inaugurate new patterns of social existence. It is because grace belongs to no one that it goes to everyone” (571). Barclay goes on to explain: The language of grace that had once served to detach new communities from their previous cultural allegiances was now applied to believers with little or no consciousness of a break with their past and to communities whose external boundaries were either non-existent (in a solidly Christian culture) or already obvious. Their criteria of worth . . . were already strongly “Christianised.” Paul’s theology of grace became a tool for the inner reform of the Christian tradition, its critical edge turned against believers, undermining not their pre-Christian criteria of worth but their pride or purpose in achieving Christian worth. (570) Thus, Paul’s vision is still highly relevant in the present age. In fact, “one might be struck by the similarities between Paul’s missional context and the social context of many churches today” (573). But 830 Paul O’Callaghan it is relevant not only in terms of personal salvation, “but also in its original dynamic accompanying the creation of innovative, countercultural communities of faith” (573). Barclay promises another book that will address the rest of Paul’s letters, especially 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philippians, and Philemon (574). In Paul and the Gift, he did not develop a clear theory or thesis about what divine grace actually is and how it interacts with human giving and taking (the question of efficacy, deeply present in Paul), but rather attempted to amplify our discussion of divine grace at a wider level by considering a series of perfections that describe its complex yet divine dynamics. All this augurs well for the future volume. Two final observations are in order in respect of Barclay’s contribution to a more systematic reflection on grace, the first regarding method, the second content. Theological Method: An Ecumenical Biblical Theology It is instructive to see how Scripture is used in Paul and the Gift. Of course, the work is almost entirely biblical in character. Nearly 250 pages go into Barclay’s analysis of Galatians and Romans. But he avoids the biblicist idea that it is possible to return to the biblical sources, the original and pure biblical text, as if nothing had happened in the meantime, and in this way, he recognizes that the principle of sola Scriptura, strictly applied, can easily become a source of impoverishment for theology.100 “A historical perspective is, therefore, necessary for contextualizing every discourse on gift/grace” (64). “No contemporary interpreter of Paul can afford to remain ignorant of the history of interpretation, which influences us at levels deeper than we tend to recognize” (80). Luther is not a replica of Paul; if he were, his contribution would, literally, be inexistent, meaningless. Luther reads Paul and applies his inspired vision to the world in which he lives, which is very different from Paul’s. What makes Luther’s reflection on Paul enriching, contextualized, and limited is the fact that it takes place in a different setting: in the late Middle Ages, within a particularly challenging social On the notion of sola Scriptura in a Lutheran context, see Paul O’Callaghan, “Sola Scriptura o tota Scriptura? Una riflessione sul principio formale della teologia protestante,” in La Sacra Scrittura, anima della teologia, ed. M. Tabet (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1999), 147–68. Westerholm states, however: “To lift Paul out of his first-century context is to distort him” (Justification Reconsidered, 1–2). 100 New Perspectives on Paul 831 and religious context. After all, Christians had been attempting to live out their life in the light of the Gospel for 1500 years already. Not everything was decadence and sin. This is why Barclay, I believe, pays special attention to such a wide variety of Paul’s commentators from the earliest times: Marcion, Augustine, Calvin, Barth, Bultmann, Käsemann, Martyn, as well, of course, as Luther and Sanders. One and all made their contributions in clarifying and applying Paul’s inspired (and therefore perennial) teaching to the epoch they lived in. Above all, they widened and explained in different circumstances the potential richness of the notion of grace, its multiple perfections. Barclay mentions six, and he’s aware that seven is the perfect number (5), but who knows if others may eventually be suggested. For all Christian believers, of course, only Paul’s writings are inspired and only his teaching may be considered to contain the fullness of the Christian understanding of grace.101 The same thing may not be said of Augustine, of Luther, or of any other author. However, theological reflection throughout the centuries has done the inestimable service of bringing Paul’s often inscrutable writings into close and meaningful contact with the life of the Christians. They do not share in the divine inspiration that made Paul’s vision insuperable and definitive, but their understanding, though limited, brought the light of the Gospel into the minds and hearts of believers of the epoch they lived in. Of particular interest is Barclay’s analysis of the second-century gnostic Marcion (80–85). For the gnostics, of course, the God of Scripture (the Old Testament) has been displaced by that of the New Testament, the God of justice replaced by that of grace and mercy. But Irenaeus and others who opposed Marcion and the gnostics understood that Scripture was always the point of departure for theological reflection and that no part of it may be superseded, adjusted to taste, or simply set aside. Just as doctrinal development does not require the elimination or complete reinterpretation of the word of God, neither does fidelity to the word of God involve a literalist understanding of In reviewing Barclay’s book, Schreiner writes: “For those who think that Paul’s writings are the inspired word of God, the Pauline conception of grace is superior to construals of grace that depart from his understanding. Obviously, there is not space to defend here what I am suggesting. Still, it is questionable to think that a strictly historical framework is to be preferred over a theological stance that accepts Paul’s theology as the word of God. Most recognize that there is not any neutral place to stand in doing history or exegesis” (“Paul and the Gift: A Review Article,” 56). 101 832 Paul O’Callaghan Scripture, as if the hagiographers were already completely aware of all the possible theological difficulties and implications that would arise throughout the centuries. Barclay’s approach therefore provides a living, ecumenical theological reflection that does not attempt to monopolize the word of God, but rather render it relevant and present in each period of history. Perhaps the future volume promised may consider other positions such as those of John Chrysostom, Thomas Aquinas, and the decree of the Council of Trent on justification. The Meaningfulness of a Dialogue between Grace and Gift Barclay’s work makes a significant contribution to theology by taking the philosophical and sociological underpinnings of human gift dynamics fully into account, not only from the standpoint of method, but also from that of content. Second Temple literature is no longer presented as the exclusive lens by which we understand Paul: the vital, secular context of first-century gift dynamics is also given considerable weight. This is what made it possible for Barclay to reflect on the variety of “perfections” of grace. Paul and Second Temple Judaism may suggest these perfections, but philosophers and sociologists are the ones who made them explicit. As a result, seen in the light of God’s grace received in faith, human gift dynamics (as expressed in economics, commerce, work, and human relationships) takes on a whole new color. Polar opposites that have traditionally been placed side to side in theological structures of a dialectic kind—for example “freedom and debt, choice and obligation, interest and disinterest” (64)—can now dialogue with one another. The reality of everyday life, of family, of society, specifically the founding of “new communities,” becomes fully a part of the dynamics of Christian grace. This issue needs systematic development:102 “Anthropology offers no model of ‘the gift’ and provides no single definition, but it alerts us to the dynamics of reciprocity, power, and obligation that have been common in gift-relations, but are easily missed or misconstrued. Studies in gift-giving in pre-modern societies are of particular heuristic value in raising questions worth testing against ancient sources” (183–84.) However, an objection may be raised to this way of focusing things. It is fully to the point to allow God’s “prior” and “incongruous” gift to illuminate, inform, and purify human giving and receiving, the warp and woof of human life. But could it not be I attempt to develop these ideas in my work Children of God, 340–568. 102 New Perspectives on Paul 833 that, in doing so, we may be projecting our ideas and experiences of gift taking and giving onto God? In general terms, we are happy to say that God is the ultimate source of all gift, but at the moment of appreciating the dynamics of divine grace, it may happen that we portray God’s gift-giving as simply an enlarged version of our own. A complete separation between the two, as we already saw, may give rise to a secularized Christianity. An excessive assimilation of divine and human giving and taking may find expression as idolatry. After all, early Christians resolutely condemned the veneration of idols precisely insofar as they were seen as representatives and agents of giving and taking between humans and the gods, since this was unthinkable for Jews and Christians, who believed in God as the unique creator of the universe. Conclusion The Israelite and Christian Apostle Paul, on the basis of his direct encounter with God in Jesus Christ and his call to evangelize the whole world, has provided Christians of all ages with an unparalleled vision of the doctrine of divine grace and justification. Theologians and reformers from every period in history have drawn deeply on his writings, guided by the same Spirit who inspired them in the first place and attentive for that very reason to challenges of the period and society they lived in. Irenaeus reflected on the position of Marcion and other second-century gnostics. Augustine faced down Pelagians and Donatists with the help of Paul. Luther identified consciously with the Apostle to the Gentiles in his attempt to reform the medieval Church and (what he perceived) as a semi-Pelagian spirituality and ecclesiology. More recent authors have attempted to rectify the individualistic and intimistic leanings present in a lot of modern Christian anthropology, insisting on the ecclesial and apostolic outworkings of divine grace and justification by faith—hence, the so-called “new perspective” promoted by Sanders, Wright, Dunn and others. Barclay’s Paul and the Gift goes even further than his predecessors in what might be called an “anthropological amplification of the category of divine grace.” No aspect of human life, no human activity (except sin, of course, which is diametrically opposed to grace), may be situated outside the dynamics of divine grace by which, in Christ, God is “reconciling the world to himself ” (2 Cor 5:19). Barclay makes it clear, however, as Luther tirelessly taught, that only God is God, and that no human being is capable N&V of conditioning his gentle power. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 835–859 835 Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension Cyril O’Regan University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN Here I pursue the question of what role—if any—imagination can play with respect to theology. This is not only a modern issue, as can be seen in, for example: Origen’s entertaining questions beyond what is probative in the teaching of the Church, such as the question of universal salvation; the risky explorations of Eckhart in his vernacular German sermons when it comes to God, creation, Christ, self, and Mary, in which he suggests alternatives to the received tradition; and John of the Cross’s improvisations on mystical theology offered in the Ascent to Mount Carmel and anagogic reading of Scripture presented in the Dark Night and the Spiritual Canticles. Still, the question of what role imagination can play in theology has become increasingly more urgent and reflective in the modern period, when the limitations of received tradition and reason in the construction of theology come under scrutiny and the notion of talent, and even that of genius, comes to be applied to theological construction. Obviously, Friedrich Schleiermacher is the central figure, but it is also true that this move was repeated in more modest ways by thinkers in the nineteenth century as different as Soren Kierkegaard and Johann Sebastian Drey,1 and in John Thiel, who is one of the three main subjects of this essay, has provided the best account of the shift of authority from the churches to the individual theologians in the modern period based on the appeal to the creative or imaginative capacity of the theologian. See his Imagination and Authority: Theological Authorship in the Modern Tradition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1991). Thiel’s specific interest is in confessional theologians, both Protestant and Catholic, and accordingly, there is no discussion of Kierkegaard, who considers himself 1 836 Cyril O’Regan the twentieth century by theologians as different as Paul Tillich, David Tracy, Sergei Bulgakov, and Hans Urs von Balthasar.2 The very different theological styles of these thinkers, and specifically their very different use of imagination and the authority they accord it, is a fascinating area for the most part to be a “kind of poet.” However, he does discuss Friedrich Schleiermacher (see Imagination and Authority, 33–62) and Johann Sebastian Drey (see 63–96) in some detail. 2 Paul Tillich is significantly dependent on German romanticism and idealism for his view of symbol that undergirds his entire theology. Of course, symbol, which is irreducible to concept, is correlative of imagination considered as productive, rather than re-productive. As is well-known, for Tillich also, symbols are also crucial in the formation and preservation of culture, and it is also through reference to the priority of symbols that Tillich constructs a non-confessional theological identity. David Tracy, who is significantly influenced by Tillich, but even more by Paul Ricoeur’s explorations of the symbolic on the one hand, and hermeneutic theory on the other, famously typifies Catholicism as the “analogical imagination.” The choice of words is apt: the point is not simply that, in contrast to Protestant theology, Catholic theologians proceed more under the banner of “both–and,” rather than “either–or,” but rather also that the horizon of the “both–and” is not itself a conclusion, but already projected beforehand. Unlike Tillich and Tracy, Bulgakov does not underscore the relation between art and religion as a means of legitimating imagination in theology. Nor does he appeal to the notion of imagination. Instead, on the basis of the need to penetrate deeply in the biblical grounds of faith, which requires an openness to more experimental modern religious thought, especially that of Soloviev and ultimately Schelling, throughout his work, Bulgakov performs an imagination, and nowhere better than in his eschatological speculations in Bride of the Lamb, which has the Book of Revelation as its governing text. Bulgakov goes to the side of or underneath the Orthodox tradition by opening up and contemplating the biblical symbols in their depth of reflection and their intricate interrelations. The Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar famously elaborates a theological aesthetics, Herrlichkeit, over 3,000 pages, based on the analogy between beauty and divine glory. In this respect, his thought bears an analogy to that of Tillich and Tracy, even if, in the end, unlike these two theologians, there is no sense in which extra-scriptural beauty proves foundational to his theology. At the same time, the exercise of imagination is not confined to Herrlichkeit. Balthasar is persuaded that all genuine retrieval of Christian thought and practices involves more than reproduction. And it should be pointed out that in the second part of his trilogy, not only is there once again a productive analogy between the non-theological and theological spheres, this time between drama and reflection and Christian reflection on the Cross and its ultimate meaning, but it is also very much like what we find in Bulgakov’s reflection on “last things,” as discussed in Balthasar’s Theo-Drama, vol. 5 (The Last Act), which is influenced in its turn in a deep way by the emergent priority of the Book of Revelation (see Theo-Drama, vol. 4 [The Action]). Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension 837 of research, although it will not directly be pursued in this article. Here I would like to deal more narrowly with the role imagination plays in Catholic theological reflection on “last things” and, more specifically, in Catholic theology’s articulation of postmortem existence. A number of things need to be said about the overall horizon of this article. First, the main authors I deal with here, both contemporary and traditional, are Catholic. Second, for ecumenical reasons, the article will focuses exclusively on heaven. I have basically put aside (without prejudice) the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which is not shared by the other Christian confessions, and although a doctrine of hell is found in all confessions, I put the representation of hell in parenthesis on the grounds that, in all confessions, there exist minority reports questioning its reality. Third, while I do not put Catholic doctrine of the intermediate state entirely in brackets,3 I treat it in a highly qualified way: insofar as it looks forward to the resurrected body.4 Fourth, and finally, the overall horizon of the article is contemporary and the criteria of adequacy when it comes to representation are not exclusively dependent on the representations generated in the premodern Catholic tradition, even if these representations prove to be both useful and orienting. One major feature of this study is a critical examination of two Catholic thinkers, John Thiel and Paul Griffiths,5 who have provided two very different accounts of heaven. Both are aware of the current anemia when it comes to the representation of the blessed state, and both suggest that the doctrinal under-determination in evidence Arguably, still the best contemporary defense of the Catholic account of the intermediate state is that of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in Eschatology, Death and Eternal Life, trans. Michael Waldstein (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988). Since death involves the separation of the soul from the body, it is the soul that finds itself in a state of punishment or bliss before the eschaton and the final judgment. 4 While both Augustine and Aquinas very much supported the doctrine of the intermediate state, it also should be recalled that they were by no means Platonists. The soul was separated from its body, but it is the ensouled body or corporeal soul that will experience bliss or torment. It is a central aspect of the Christian grammar of the afterlife to speak of the resurrected body. This is a point made with considerable power, eloquence, and sophistication by Brian D. Robinette in Grammars of Resurrection: A Christian Theology of Presence and Absence (New York: Crossroad, 2009). 5 John Thiel, Icons of Hope: The “Last Things” in Catholic Imagination (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013); Paul J. Griffiths, Decreation: the Last Things of All Creatures (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014). 3 838 Cyril O’Regan opens up the space for responsible symbolic or iconic extension beyond the received tradition. Neither is willing to take the convenient out of substituting the kingdom of God for heaven6 and then proceeding to interpret the kingdom in terms of the transmogrification of the individual or society and/or the transmutation of the cosmos. But only the first part of this study focuses on what I am calling “eschatological poetics” in its modern Catholic forms, meaning forms of theology that involve an iconic extension of and beyond the standard Christian eschatology. In discussing these very different forms of eschatology, I will examine whether and how these eschatologies complement, supplement, or replace influential representations within the broader Christian tradition, whether there are rules for iconic extension, and whether the rules are biased toward either continuity or discontinuity. I will also attempt to isolate as much as possible the assumptions about the negative states of existence that heaven putatively overcomes and those positive states it enhances and puts into the order of “forever.” While I commend each in turn and recommend certain aspects of each of these eschatologies, as I see it, there are three main issues: (1) the degree of fidelity to the broad theological tradition and not simply an isolated part of it; (2) the need of greater balance between discontinuity and continuity in iconic or symbolic extension; and (3) the need for a richer phenomenology of human existence in terms of its positives and negatives that decisively influences imaginative projection of the afterlife. It is with these issues in modern eschatological poetics in mind that I will turn in the second part of the article to Dante’s depiction of heaven in the Paradiso as being a significant part of the solution to the problems evident in Thiel and Griffiths. The Paradiso is not only a literary exercise in which Dante the poet tries to outdo depictions of paradise by classic Latin authors, just as he had tried to outbid them when he provided the architecture and the basic characteristics of the A good example of this strategy is provided in Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, trans. M. Kohl (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), and The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology, trans. M. Kohl (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1996). Although Moltmann does not express skepticism with regard to the afterlife, neither does he spend any time analyzing it. He is dependent to a significant extent on the Marxist Ernst Bloch, whose three-volume Das Prinzip Hoffnung exerted extraordinary influence on his thought. It might be noted that, throughout his famous Eschatology, Ratzinger criticizes this substitution (58–59). The point is important enough for him to repeat it in Spe Salvi, §§31–32 and 44. 6 Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension 839 denizens of hell. The Paradiso is also a text in which Dante’s representation of heaven self-consciously operates in terms of the theological constraints of the Catholic tradition while bringing to full capacity its representational resources by putting into circulation biblical and non-biblical images and by manufacturing images from the frequent guesses that attended Catholic confessions of the afterlife. In light of my criticisms of Thiel and Griffiths, I want to argue that, in the Paradiso, Dante provides not only a classic example of iconic extension but also an eschatological poetics superior to those of Thiel and Griffiths in terms of: (1) its understanding of the plural nature of the Catholic tradition, and thus its capacity to use it; (2) its masterful balance between continuity and discontinuity in iconic extension; and (3) its much greater insight regarding the negatives and positives of the pre-eschatological situation that allows a richer canvas of both individual and community in the eschatological state. The Return of Imagination in Contemporary Eschatology: John Thiel and Paul Griffiths With respect to the eschata relative to other theological topics, the call on imagination is exaggerated since the eschata are fully rendered in neither Scripture nor the theological tradition and, correspondingly, their depiction is more vague and their hold on belief more tenuous. The call for imagination is arguably the most memorable aspect of Hans Küng’s otherwise forgettable Eternal Life,7 which, on the one hand, has a somewhat chilling effect on the status of the symbols generated and, on the other, seems to suggest that symbols generated outside the Church enjoy the same kind of pertinence as those generated within. Still, Küng is intellectually honest enough to speak to the afterlife from which “no traveler returns,” as Shakespeare puts it, and does not take the easy way out of ambiguating between the kingdom being either an intra-historical or post-historical state. He differs in some relevantly positive ways, therefore, from the process of theologian Paul Fiddes, who, in his book The Promised End, makes the most concerted appeal to the necessity of imagination when it comes to rendering the eschata and suggests that it is literature, rather than theology or philosophy, that best exemplifies imagination in the modern period.8 Hans Küng, Eternal Life: Life after Death as a Medical, Philosophical, and Theological Problem, trans. Edward Quinn (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1985), 3–6. 8 Paul S. Fiddes, The Promised End: Eschatology in Theology and Literature (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). 7 840 Cyril O’Regan Fiddes proves capacious as he enlists Shakespeare (ch. 3), Doris Lessing (ch. 4), T. S. Eliot (ch. 5), Virginia Wolf (ch. 5), and Samuel Beckett (ch. 6) in his articulation of an eschatology that is communitarian and life-enhancing, but only indeterminate at best about the blessed state in the afterlife. In The Promised End, the ecstasies of Thomas Traherne and the kairotic moments of the Four Quartets are not sorted out from participation in the relations between Trinitarian persons (ch. 9), which participation is in turn ambiguous since it is not clear whether such participation is a feature of postmortem existence or simply a privileged moment in time. In Icons of Hope, Thiel responds to the pastoral need in the Catholic Church to imagine or re-imagine the eschata, the basic premise being the dominance of mere notional assent accorded to the afterlife. Thiel makes it clear the requirement of imagination is a requirement of the Church as Church and that the task cannot be subcontracted out to literature or the arts. Nothing he says, however, suggests that artistic depiction, whether in literature, painting, music, or film, cannot be taken on board by the Church, although all images about the afterlife require critical vetting if they are to become part of the Church’s theological, and specifically eschatological, poetics. Even more than did Küng, Theil thinks that the root cause for what is nothing less than a representational crisis regarding the afterlife is to be found in the Church’s commitment to a Kantian epistemology that proscribes categorial speech about the state of human existence in the afterlife.9 Thiel might perhaps have been advised to make a distinction between the current social imagination, which appears to behave in In the first chapter of Icons of Hope, Thiel essentially puts the blame on Kant’s prohibition of extrapolating from our space-time-determined experience to God, who lies outside by definition. Thiel might have also—but did not in fact—mentioned Kant’s pre-critical dismissal of visionary eschatologists such as Lavater and Swedenborg. His specific interest is in how Kant’s strictures against speculation in the Critique of Pure Reason, as well as his strictures in the Critique of Practical Reason as to how we are to talk ascetically regarding the afterlife, is taken up in Catholic theology, especially in the very influential theology of Karl Rahner (Icons of Hope, 6–12). Thiel focuses in particular on Rahner’s famous essay “The Hermeneutic of Eschatological Assertions,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 4, More Recent Writings, trans. K. Smith (Baltimore, MD: Helicon Press, 1966), 323–46. In this essay, Rahner clearly demonstrates a distinct bias against the visionary, or what Thiel refers to as the “sacramental,” and the worries are pastoral as well as epistemological. In addition, Rahner expressed the same worries in other essays from this period, such as “Question of the Future” (1969), which launches an attack against vision and apocalyptic. 9 Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension 841 the proscriptive pattern he describes, and the kind of philosophical arguments used by Kant in the latter half of the eighteenth century to the effect that knowledge in the strict sense is not possible with regard to this sphere. Even by his own standards, Kant was over-determined on this particular point. As is well-known, in his critical period, Kant did not encourage such speculation, even if he came to renege on his own asceticism by suggesting in the Critique of Practical Reason that postmortem existence would be forwarded as a postulate and that, in addition, it would necessarily evince progress. However, it is worth mentioning that before the period of the three Critiques we find a polemical Kant lambasting esotericists such as Lavatar and Swedenborg,10 who, in his view, pretend to have had visionary access to heaven and the epistemic capacity to speak in minute detail to its constitutive properties and arrangements. Whatever the need for greater genealogical subtlety on this point, since it is obvious that most Catholics have not read Kant, in any event, it is important for Thiel that breaking down the Kantian barrier does not mean that just any imaginative projection will suffice. Kant’s embargo against iconic extension is wrong only because it is absolutist. Epistemic limitation is real in the area of eschatology, 11and scruple in representation is a must. This scruple is satisfied in what I have named “rules of iconic extension,” in which all representation must pay heed simultaneously to both continuity and discontinuity between the eschatological and pre-eschatological state. The foundational rule, according to Thiel, is that for Christians, the afterlife is a state of embodied existence,12 even if it is difficult to imagine what the resurrected body looks like—beyond the formality of being incorruptible—vis-à-vis the mortal bodies that decompose at death. With respect to resurrection, there is, then, continuity and discontinuity with respect to the earthly perishable body. To have a resuscitated body would speak too much to continuity; to have no body or to be a hologram is too little. Interestingly, as Thiel states his “embodiment” rule with regard to heaven, he seems to depart from the standard Augustinian escha Kant does this in Träume eines Geistersehers (1766). In terms of philosophical style, this text (whose title translates as “dream of a spirit seer”) is quite different from just about everything else Kant wrote, and especially what he wrote in his critical period. It is essentially an exposé of Lavater and Swedenborg as charlatans. 11 Thiel, Icons of Hope, 21. 12 Thiel, Icons of Hope, 17. 10 842 Cyril O’Regan tology of the intermediate state—defended most ably by Ratzinger in his classic Eschatology—although, despite this, Thiel does hold on to a principled distinction between individual and general resurrection.13 Now, Thiel may or may not be critical of Dante here, whose depiction of heaven parlays the classical Augustinian–Thomistic envisioning of the intermediate state. Even if he was being critical, the difference between Dante and his own recommendation can be alleviated by drawing attention to the fact that Dante, like Augustine and Aquinas, believed that embodiment is constitutive of human identity and that the final heavenly state involves the resurrected body, the soma pnumatikon of 1 Corinthians. Thiel, however, is almost certainly being critical of Dante’s iconic extension into the afterlife of the beatific vision of God as being constitutive of the blessed state.14 In making this extension, Dante renders fully what both Augustine and Aquinas had previously sketched, thereby providing a classic example of eschatological poetics. The grounds of Thiel’s objections are hardly unusual: the iconic extension of beatific vision is too individualistic and too static and fails to do sufficient justice to the communitarian and dynamic nature of human existence. Thiel might be saying no more than that the Western depiction of the heavenly state is unbalanced and could be modified to also render community in its perfection, as well as an ordered and regulated dynamism to which human beings aspire. It is far more likely, however, that he is being unilateral and that individuality and rest are not goods he puts on the same level as community and dynamism. Icons of Hope provides no excavating of the Augustinian or Dantesque reasons that the individual person’s vision of the triune God and Christ are irradicable goods in a situation in which a human being is inscribed in family, tribe, army, and Church and that all of these provide incentives for sin and can lead to deformation. In addition, Thiel simply has no ear for the pathos of Augustine’s longing for rest against the backdrop of his perception of the restlessness and aimlessness and of the pre-eschatological embodied self. Thiel’s swerve from Western theological poetics at a very formal level suggests the familiar Eastern Christian option of a more communitarian and ecstatic experience in heaven. Substantively, however, this is not the route that he takes. Instead, he prefers the imaginative Thiel, Icons of Hope, 31. Thiel, Icons of Hope, 34–35. 13 14 Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension 843 model of the modern Reformed theologian Jonathan Edwards.15 Here the state of beings in heaven is both active and communitarian, and one because the other:16 each and all are involved in the business of mutual enhancing and community formation that, among other things, will involve repentance and mutual forgiveness. Thiel makes it clear in and through his historical analysis of purgatory in chapter 3 that he is not prepared to endorse purgatory as one of the eschatological states.17 Not only does this suggest that Thiel does not feel the constraining power of Catholic doctrine,18 but the discounting of purgatory also has the unintended consequence of heaven itself taking on a purgatorial form. As Icons of Hope elaborates this particular choice, it approaches at the very least the kind of position that John Hick elaborated under the form of “Irenaean theodicy,”19 even Thiel, Icons of Hope, 33–37. Although Thiel does not make anything of it, it should be pointed out that Edwards is one of the few theologians in modernity who operates in an aesthetic key, and he is singular in the Reformed tradition. It is revealing that in texts where Edwards is performing an iconic extension, the overall theological frame is that of God’s beauty. 16 The emphasis on activity is perhaps the primary reason why Thiel characterizes Edwards’s model of heaven as “ethical,” although it is true that acts of mutual forgiveness might also be cast as “ethical,” even if, in some sense, they transcend it. 17 Thiel, Icons of Hope, 57–106. 18 Although he is very much an ecclesial theologian, in chapter 3 Thiel very much deconstructs the doctrine of purgatory. His argument is essentially twofold: (1) this is not a doctrine promulgated at the first seven councils; (2) one can supply a sociological explanation as to its promulgation at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). Thiel’s analysis depends heavily on the sociological analysis of Jacques Le Goff. See The Birth of Purgatory, trans. A. Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), in which Le Goff argues that changing social conditions in the twelfth century, in which social relations complexified and the perceptions of virtues and vices shifted, led to a less absolutist division between the good and the damned. While Le Goff ’s book is undoubtedly instructive and useful, it could be argued that Thiel makes it far too foundational for his argument. There are two main problems with Le Goff ’s analysis: (1) his relativization of any and all material prior to the twelfth century that would indicate something of a longue durée in the popular religious tradition; (2) his ignoring of the theological problem of the absolutization of two states in the afterlife (heaven and hell) in Augustine and the theological problem of squaring the mercy and justice of God to which it leads and that sooner or later has to be addressed. What is the postmortem fate of the vast population of mediocre Christians, and also perhaps of the saintly who have fallen and the reprobate who appear to have converted? 19 John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (San Francisco: Harper, 1966). 15 844 Cyril O’Regan if this labeling is confused, since Irenaeus did not speak to existential, noetic, and ontic development in heaven, and even in spite of the fact that, indeed, most of what Hick writes in Evil and the God of Love recalls the Kant of the Second Critique.20 Although it is not difficult to impute to Thiel, at some level, the Kant-like theodicy requirement of the squaring of divine justice and mercy,21 more to the fore in this text is Thiel’s perception of privileged moments of mutual understanding and community and privileged moments in human existence of the display of energy, as these can and should be plotted against the backdrop of common human experiences of fragmentation and existence in its tendency to move toward entropy. These imbricating experiences give impetus to Thiel’s particular iconic extension, which, depending on whether one emphasizes the positive or negative experiences, is more nearly continuous or discontinuous: continuous—although, in any event, hyperbolic—if the emphasis falls on epiphanies; discontinuous if it falls on either actual experiences of evil or the quotidian state in which community is at best notional and where the equilibrium within self and society is more nearly entropic than dynamic. By and large, epiphanies seem to be in the foreground in Icons of Hope. This is just the reverse of the emphasis in his God, Evil, and Innocent Suffering. One of the most salient aspects of Thiel’s poetic extension is the relative marginality of Christ and the triune God, although this is significantly more true of the triune God than it is of Christ.22 It is an abiding part of the theologies of both East and West that relations in this life between ourselves and others need to be threaded through our relation to Christ, and through Christ, with the triune God. It is comprehensible that Christians might puzzle and even worry about some expressions of the absolute secondariness of human relations, So-called “Irenaean theodicy” is defined by progress in the afterlife, or what Hick calls “soul making.” Given both the claim that progress is possible in the afterlife and the individualistic conception of the acquired perfection, it is not unfair to associate Hick with Kant. 21 See John Thiel, God, Evil, and Innocent Suffering: A Theological Reflection (New York: Crossroad, 1971). This is not to say that Thiel is structurally dependent on Kant, but he does affirm the Kantian question, which, it so happens, is also Job’s question. 22 It is not clear whether Thiel’s concern about the individualism of the beatific vision leads him to marginalize the Trinity, since the triune God is the object of the vision. To be fair to Thiel, he is considerably more forthcoming about Christ, whose resurrection is the grounds of our own (Icons of Hope, 41–52). 20 Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension 845 such as the kind that might either be enshrined in or be extrapolated from Augustine’s famous uti–frui distinction. Yet it is an ingredient in both Eastern and Western theology that the primary relation of the community, as well the primary relation for each individual, is with God: if not in this life, then in the next, God is experienced, enjoyed, known, and loved in an incomparably intense, satisfying, and imperturbable manner. One might easily imagine that the secondariness of human being in its individual or communitarian state is exacerbated in the afterlife. Yet it might also be the case that heaven is heaven precisely because the love of God and the love of neighbor are no longer contrastive in any way and have come to be absolutely complementary. As we shall see later, perhaps this is one of the ways in which the poetic extension of Dante goes beyond that of Augustine, even if the correction is internal to the Christian theological tradition. In contrast, Thiel’s view in which God is something of an “idle wheel”—to invoke the hoary locution of Wittgenstein— represents a massive overcorrection, first in a Christological direction, but secondly and ultimately in an anthropological one.23 The second of the two contemporary texts on which I want to comment is Paul Griffiths’s experimental Decreation. This is a text that not only effectively embodies rules of iconic extension after the manner of Icons of Hope, but self-consciously reflects on them.24 Griffiths speaks to the double context of poetic extension, the doctrinal and the speculative.25 By “doctrinal,” Griffiths means what the Church—that is, the Roman Catholic Church—teaches about the eschata in general and heaven in particular,26 and by “speculative,” he denotes an individual intelligence operating in a projective and imaginative mode.27 Formally, then, what the Church teaches on the Thiel, Icons of Hope, 40. Griffiths is clear that he is engaging in a thought experiment in which definition of the eschata is crucial. In Decreation, the central concept of novissimum is generated in and through an absolute contrast with what can be found in pre-eschatological state. 25 Griffiths, Decreation, ix, 35. 26 Griffiths has a fairly expansive view of “doctrinal.” It includes the thought of magisterial thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas on the double creation of angels and humans and the double fall (Decreation, 55–57). 27 Decreation, 37. Griffiths admits here: “The work done here is mostly speculative, but always, in intention at least, in accord with and in response to the content of Christian doctrine about the last things.” Paradoxically, his book, while more doctrinal than Thiel’s, is less ecclesial. His is a thought experiment for its own sake. 23 24 846 Cyril O’Regan eschata sets constraints on the theologian. In contrast to Thiel, who undermines the Catholic doctrine of purgatory and is silent on the doctrine of hell, Griffiths happily embraces the full gamut of Catholic constraints.28 But, as a matter of fact, he points out that, with respect to the eschata, Church doctrine is relatively under-determined, and so the scope for speculation, or as I have been calling it, iconic extension, is considerable. His book has considerably more range than Thiel’s: hell is admitted into discussion,29 as are the prospect of annihilation30 and the question of whether creatures other than angels and humans can become denizens of heaven.31 Because of the requirement of poetic extension beyond formulated doctrine, Griffiths concedes that the status of what he has to say is hypothetical rather than categorical, and thus enjoys persuasive rather than juridical authority. Like Theil, Griffiths insists that the minimum degree of continuity between the pre-eschatological and the eschatological state for human beings is that they are embodied.32 For Griffiths, this is an ineluctable Christian belief. For him, serving as a starting point rather than a result, this assumption is calculated to block any number of other projections into the afterlife, such as the state of being a disembodied mind or being alive in the memory of a personal God or some pan-cosmic consciousness. While Griffiths realizes that the belief is the fruit of interpretation of Scripture, in which 1 Corinthians is crucial, is asserted by the early Church Fathers in their opposition to spiritualizing views of the afterlife, and is pivotal in Augustine and Aquinas, the recording and interpreting of this long history is not a burden he takes on. Nonetheless, for the most part, the operative logic in Decreation is that of discontinuity. This is indicated by the text’s pivotal concept of novissimum to define “last things.” Lexically, novissimum is novelty in superlative or absolute form. Materially, novissima eschatological states, and the eschatological state of heaven in particular, cannot be extrapolated from some positive state of My point here is formal. Griffiths also seems to give up on the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. He stipulates: “There is no intermediate category between glorious and inglorious last things” (Decreation, 10). 29 Griffiths, Decreation, 241–50 (no. 25). 30 Griffiths, Decreation, 191–213 (no. 23). 31 Decreation, 273–312 (nos. 28–30). Griffiths specific question is whether animals and plants are possible features of postmortem existence. He answers with a qualified “yes.” 32 For Griffiths, this is an invariant lexical item of a Christian eschatological grammar. See Decreation, 4. 28 Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension 847 pre-eschatological existence. Now, to come clean, this is probably a narrower definition than Griffiths intends, since, in principle, the radical otherness implied in the notion of novissimum does not distinguish between extrapolating from the positive and extrapolating from negative experiences in the pre-eschatological state. I think that there are good reasons for accepting the narrower rather than broader, but obviously more formal, definition. Arguably, Griffiths tips us off to this asymmetry when he uses as an epigraph the following passage from Wallace Stevens’s famous “An Ordinary Evening in New Haven”: “Among time’s images, there is not one / Of this present, the venerable mask above / the dilapidations of dilapidations.” The place where one can see the narrower definition most clearly in operation, however, is when Griffiths argues against epektasis.33 While Griffiths could have attempted to warrant the denial of epektasis on grounds of doctrine, since Western Christianity by and large has not accepted “eternal becoming” in the afterlife, this is not what he does. Rather, he thinks it can be rejected in terms of a persuasive use of speculation or poetic extension. From a “logical” point of view, “eternal becoming” is not viable as an eschatological extrapolation. Now, the only reason why this is so is that Griffiths has already determined that the kind of stasis, here “repetitive stasis,”34 is not characteristic of pre-eschatological human existence. What, then, are the presumed characteristics of human existence in the pre-eschatological state? Given his Augustinian pedigree, it is hardly being wildly speculative to suggest that Griffiths largely accepts Augustine’s account of the structural restlessness of the self that takes the forms of curiosity and concupiscence, which are, in turn, characterized by instability and insatiability. With this as phenomenological ground-zero, it makes sense that in heaven there would be no trace of such kinetic features, since heaven is the overcoming of all negative features of existence. Thus, the notion or symbol of epektasis that seems to assume some of these kinetic features, even if the kinesis is coherent and the motion ordered toward the incomprehensible triune divine, would be excluded. It cannot be doubted, therefore, that the logic of discontinuity in Decreation resolves itself on crucial occasions into the logic of contrast. This is not a problem in itself, for at least one dimension of all poetic extension is contrast. For such contrast not to function as a narrowing, however, a full rendering of the Griffiths, Decreation, 25–27 (no. 6). Griffiths, Decreation, 21–23 (no. 5). 33 34 848 Cyril O’Regan existential situation in the pre-eschatological state is required. And here Griffiths Augustinian-inspired phenomenology—incidentally a phenomenology authorized by no less than the early Heidegger35 — fails, or at the very least requires a supplement. There are two vistas in and through which we can come upon such a supplement. The first is by looking at texts from other thinkers in the Christian tradition who isolate other features of human existence as dominant, and thus prepare us for a different account of the eschatological state that would represent the overcoming of existential states deemed to be systemic and to be pathological in significant respects. The second involves looking more carefully at Augustine with a view to seeing whether he has been short-changed when he is read univocally as having insisted on stasis in the afterlife and never to have provided notice of other states of existence necessarily overcome in the afterlife and/or positive experiences or states, merely episodic in this life, that can be extrapolated into the heavenly state, where they both are enhanced and become constitutional. When speaking of epektasis, it is impossible not to recur to the Greek theologian Gregory of Nyssa, who is more responsible than any other for the view of human existence characterized in the next life as “eternal becoming.” Given that The Life of Moses provides the most extensive account of the “stretching” requisite to the infinity of God, whether in the next life or this,36 it should come as no surprise that it is in this text that Nyssa gives a phenomenological account The notes from Heidegger’s 1921 lecture course on Augustine, which attempts to sift what is phenomenologically retrievable in Augustine’s thought from what is not, are presented in “Augustinus und der Neuplatonismus,” in Phänomenologie des religiӧsen Lebens, ed. Claudius Strube, Gesamtausgabe 60 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1995). In his lectures, Heidegger underscores that Augustinian “restlessness,” especially as presented in the Confessions, is an important philosophical discovery. He complains, however, that Augustine is insufficiently radical in that restlessness is ordered toward its overcoming in rest. According to Heidegger, the constraining power of Neoplatonism proves vitiating. 36 Although they have very different theological agendas and theological methods, both Michel Barnes and David Bentley Hart feature epektasis in their accounts of Nyssa’s conception of God: Michael Barnes, Power of God: Dynamis in Gregory of Nyssa (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001); David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite (Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans, 2004), part 2. I agree that the triune God is constitutive for the understanding of epektasis, but I simply want to underscore that it is a desired existential state and one constitutively blocked in a life marked by sin. 35 Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension 849 of the human condition that provides the essential motivation for considering the afterlife contrastively. The key discussion is to be found in book 2. There Nyssa uses the image of a human being trying to make his/her way in a sand dune, which, of course, turns out to be frustratingly impossible: He is like those who toil endlessly as they climb uphill in sand: Even though they take long steps, their footing in the sand always slips downhill, so that, although there is much motion, no progress results from it.37 This experience serves as a background condition for imagining the next life as a kind of constant stretching toward the triune God. Against the phenomenological backdrop of empty motion and retarded development, to underscore rest and the constancy of the vision of God in the eschatological state would come across as an unwelcome repetition, and thus more nearly like hell than heaven, perhaps the kind of hell of claustrophobia and catatonia that Samuel Beckett routinely presents in plays such as Endgame. Thus, Nyssa, too, avails himself of a logic of contrast to project what the state of human existence in heaven is to be like, but the dominant phenomenon of the pre-eschatological state of human existence to which he attends is the opposite of that attended to and prioritized by Augustine. Now, in making this case, I do not mean to suggest that the ontological surplus character of the triune God as infinite and infinitely incomprehensible does not play an important role in Nyssa’s making his case for epektasis,38 but at the very least, this kind of metaphysical consideration is reinforced by the phenomenological analysis of the human situation for which one can project constitutive relief in the afterlife. I turn now to the second supplement, the one supplied in Augustine’s texts themselves. It is fair to say that in major texts by Augus Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses 2.244, trans. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press, 1978). Now, it is true that Nyssa frames the passage Christologically and insists that movement is possible if, and only if, feet are set on “the rock of Christ.” Still, no matter how ultimately contextualized, it is obvious that Nyssa is suggesting that lack of progress is an invariant feature of the human condition. 38 Without underscoring the distinction between the pre-eschatological and eschatological domains, both Barnes and Hart rightly grasp that it is the superlative reality of the triune God that causes the stretching of human knowing (as loving) that will never issue in full comprehension. 37 850 Cyril O’Regan tine such as the Confessions, De Trinitate, and The City of God, rest and (by association) peace are the required cure for the restlessness and agonism of a life beset from within by lust and from without by hazard and uncontrollable forces. As it is taken up in both theology (Aquinas) and literature (Dante), Augustine’s iconic extension becomes the one favored in the Catholic tradition. There is good reason, then, why Griffiths, whose poetic extensions are based on this tradition and who is also an eminent scholar of Augustine,39 could suppose that Augustine offers the Western alternative to the Eastern Christian view of epektasis. Still, even if we ought to accept the above view as the majority report, there are good reasons to ask the question of whether Augustine himself ever suggested otherwise. One has to answer this question in the affirmative. In his sermons, Augustine sometimes sounds more like Nyssa than he does like the desperate lover of rest and peace of many of his better-known texts, as he strikes the note of a human being in the next life being carried everlastingly deeper into the mystery of God. Again, one might explain Augustine’s entertaining dynamism in the next life after the fashion of the common explanation of Nyssa’s embrace of epektasis: the ontological constitution of the triune God as infinite demands it. Contrariwise, one could conjecture that, even if only peripherally, Augustine also grasps the human spirit in its mode of acedia, and thus, when the logic is functioning as the logic of contrast, a figuration of more dynamic existence is permitted. That such a minority report exists in Augustine is first suggested by Erich Przywara in his famous anthology of Augustine’s work in the 1930s.40 Przywara marks those statements in the sermons in which Augustine is thinking dynamically of entering into the mystery of God,41 Augustinian Two of the many examples of how important Augustine is for Griffiths are Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010), and Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Grammar (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2009). 40 Przywara’s German text published in 1934 was called Augustinus: Die Gestalt als Gefüge. An English translation appeared within two years from Sheed and Ward. For a reprint, see An Augustinian Synthesis, arranged by Erich Przywara, trans. C. C. Martindale with introduction (Eugen, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014). 41 Erich Przywara, Analogia Entis: Metaphysics: Original Structure and Universal Rhythm, trans. John R. Betz and David Bentley Hart (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014). Augustine is a central figure in Przywara’s classic 1932 text. Redolent of the Augustine anthology that he provided a few years before the publication of Analogia Entis, Przywara underscores Augustine’s contribution 39 Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension 851 statements that are also underscored by Balthasar, who is, of course, also no stranger to the work of Gregory of Nyssa, while at the same time being no hater of the beatific vision. Thus far, we have been talking only about the logic of contrast that is the specific substantive form of Griffiths’s more formal logic of discontinuity. What about the logic of hyperbole, the exaggeration of those features into the eschatological state that we experience episodically in this life, such as a sense of divine mystery or divine presence or a sense of communion with other human beings? Surely, there are also two logics of iconic extension in operation here. Could they be crossing each other? And is it not possible to say that while images generated by each of the logics can be in tension with each other, they can also prove to be complementary and mutually reinforcing? Surely Nyssa’s reading of Moses’s ineffable experience of the divine in Exodus 33 as a perfection repeated in the Christian mystic inclines him in the direction of its higher-order repetition in the next life. This could likewise be true with Augustine, who also insists on the experience in this life of the mystery of God, although the register of becoming in the afterlife is considerably more mute. In light especially of the supposed East–West divide on this issue, perhaps it should be marked how the philosophical and theological anthropology of transcendental Thomism in its wide varieties of forms, from Maréchal and Rousselot to Rahner and Lonergan,42 also prepares the way in Roman Catholicism to seriously qualify the standard Catholic iconography of the beatific vision, given that this dynamism toward the true, the good, and the beautiful is so definitional of human being that it necessarily will be prolonged and amplified in the next life. toward a reduction in mysterium by recurring to Augustine’s use of Ps 130:11 (“so that he who is to be found is to be sought, he is hidden”) (Analogia Entis, 176–77, 183, 231–32). 42 Let me take Rahner as exemplary here. It is not difficult to infer from Rahner’s earliest work concerning the intrinsic dynamism of the human spirit and his concomitant renouncing of Heidegger’s finitism that his phenomenological description of the created subject is transferrable into the eschatological state. Later essays gathered into Theological Investigations seem to strengthen the argument. A good example is Rahner’s essay on “Hiddenness of God,” in which the dynamism of the intellect is regarded as the subjective correlative of the inexhaustible reality of God that is invariant between the pre-eschatological and eschatological states. The connection between Rahner and Nyssa is clear here, but if I have got Augustine right, the connection between Rahner and Augustine is also fairly close. 852 Cyril O’Regan The Necessity of Dante’s Eschatological Poetics On the basis of my critical reading of Thiel’s and Griffiths’s contemporary exhibitions of Catholic eschatological poetics, I suggest a return to Dante’s Paradiso.43 On the surface, this is an odd suggestion, and the obstacles to its useful theological deployment are considerable.The first major problem is that the genre of the Paradiso, as with the genre of the Divina commedia in general, is poetry. Poetry is not theology, and poetry and theology often have different subject matters and have different obligations. In general, whatever its particular subject matter, whether Christ, Church, or the eschata, theology operates with a limited number of forms: hermeneutic, discursive-argumentative, hortatory, and doxological. Theology usually does not take the form of terza rima, nor does it find itself obliged to draw attention to image and felicity of language with delight more nearly in view than truth. Nor does theology usually take on the responsibility of inserting its production in a literary history, demonstrating a command of classical literature while attempting also—and Harold Bloom is right here—not only to make room for novel production but to outdo previous epics with respect to the importance of theme and beauty of language. Dante is completely self-conscious regarding the latter, and is as convinced of the truth of the classical Neoplatonic aesthetic theory of splendor and measure as he is that beauty is a transcendental. And with respect to theme, the Divina commedia is the story of salvation that applies to everyone, not simply to the heroes of Greek states and Rome. Moreover, this form of salvation is both real and eternal; it transcends as well as subverts ephemeral human glory, all too subject to fragile human memory, which, as Plato espied at the very beginning of philosophy, is salvation in name only. The point here is that while Dante’ s outbidding of classical literature in the order of representation definitely involves Christianity, it can also be seen to have a measure of independence from his prioritization of it. Moreover, the literary framing in which an alive “hero” visits Hades, Tartarus, or the Elysian fields and comes to experience and describe the particular geographies of the lands of the dead and the correlative existential states belongs to a literary cornucopia that is more than a little unlike anything that had been intended in the theological field in its Western trajectory from Augustine to Aquinas. There is, then, no reason to deny the presence of a poetic eschatology in the Divina commedia in general and in the Paradiso in particular, Although others are more poetic, the preferred translation of the Paradiso is by Robin Kirkpatrick (London: Penguin, 2007). 43 Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension 853 and every reason to accept the analytic distinction between a poetic eschatology and an eschatological poetics in principle. The question is whether, in the Paradiso (and in the Divina commedia in general), the one excludes the other. Or does the text, rather, demand a double reading, best understood when seen to offer both a poetic eschatology and an eschatological poetics? A perfectly good reading of the Divina commedia is that it is a literary extravaganza in which Dante tests his literary prowess in image, narrative verisimilitude, and scope against contemporary authors, but even more importantly against the entire classical tradition, and Virgil in particular. Nonetheless, it is evident that another reading is not only possible, but necessary, what I have been calling an eschatological poetics. An eschatological poetics can be defined as consisting of complex iconic extension into the postmortem states of human being. A general condition for such extension is that the eschata are doctrinally under-determined, and that at times there is a felt pressure for a poetics that marshals all the resources of the biblical, popular, and theological tradition to make the extension. As Dante enacts his iconic extension, he has from theology the schema of the medieval Latin, post-Augustinian ordinance of the three eschatological states of heaven, purgatory, and hell, but not a great deal more. While this reading is now essentially ignored by the Dante guild, which in principle admits only of a poetic eschatology, for much of the history of reception of Dante’s classic, the second reading was presupposed. Questioning the Divina commedia as a theological text is a modern phenomenon, depending, as T. S. Eliot suggested, on the emergence of the idea or prescription of literature as autonomous. Of course, Eliot, no less than Dorothy Sayers and C. S. Lewis, was alive to the anachronistic projection of this hardly self-evident “truth” of poetry back onto a late medieval text. I think that there is good reason to accept the genius of the Divina commedia, especially the Paradiso, as an essential part of Dante’s epic is that it manages to be two different things at once: it serves as an example of a poetic eschatology, casting projections on the afterlife within the ordinance of poetry and its obligations, while also serving as an example of an eschatological poetics, and thereby extending the reach of theology. Without denying that the Divina commedia should be read as a literary masterpiece in general and as a masterpiece of poetic eschatology in particular, the focus here is on Dante’s masterpiece to the extent to which it articulates an eschatological poetics. In the case of the Paradiso, the specific claim is that Dante energizes the entire Western 854 Cyril O’Regan Christian tradition of reflection on the heavenly state by reference to canonic or non-apocalyptic apocalypses in which there is not only the prospect of an extraordinary vision that overcomes the general biblical reserve about the afterlife but also the trope of an otherworldly journey44 and that he does so by taking seriously the popular Christian tradition of seeing beyond the grave and by putting into play and greatly developing the more nervous extrapolations of the magisterial theological tradition, hedged with apophatic clauses, in which notions of beatific vision of the triune God, absolute peace and communion, and the realization of absolute joy and delight are prominent. Now, keeping in mind that the key in which I read the Paradiso is a key in which denizens of heaven are seen not so much as shades or phantoms of their prior embodied lives as they are anticipations of their fully resurrected states, I think we can say that the persuasiveness of Dante’s eschatological poetics depends on both the amplitude of the iconic extension displayed in the Paradiso and the complementarity of the logics of continuity and discontinuity Dante deploys. With regard to amplitude, heaven has both an individual and a communal register. In its individual register, heaven involves a mode of knowing in which everything that was a matter of faith in the earthly life, whether creation (cantos 2 and 29), the fall (cantos 7 and 19), the Incarnation (canto 33), salvation through Christ (cantos 7 and 14), or the triune God (cantos 10, 13, 14, and 33), is now a matter of knowing. Moreover, this form of knowing is not a form of discursive knowledge, which preserves the distance of subject and object (canto 11), but trans-discursive. Dante does not tire in the early cantos of specifying that, by contrast with its earthly modality, in the eschatological state, knowledge is experiential and intuitive and functions with the immediacy of sense (cantos 2 and 4). If Augustine and Aquinas are being called on to make this extrapolation plausible, as they undoubtedly are, then Dante’s promiscuous deployment of the image of light and the illumination of intellect that it makes possible (canto 4) suggests that he is calling on the larger “catholic” tradition. Light supersaturates heaven (cantos 5, 7, 13, and 33, among others). Light is a biblical image for God, and especially a Johannine image. At the same time, it is the Christian Neoplatonic For a precise synoptic account of Dante’s dependence on canonic and non-canonic apocalypses, see Ronald B. Herzma, “Dante and the Apocalypse,” in Irenic Apocalypse: Some Uses of Apocalyptic in Dante, Petrach, and Rabelais, ed. Dennis Costa (Saratoga, CA: Anma Libri, 1981), 398–413. 44 Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension 855 image par excellence, and its use in the Paradiso perhaps intimates the figure of Pseudo-Dionysius more than Augustine and Aquinas, although the image is to be found in both, and for the same biblical reasons. Moreover, to the extent to which one finds a particularly deep connection between light and the transcendental of beauty, whose reality is now as fully, if not more fully, disclosed than the transcendentals of goodness and truth, it is once again more than possible that Pseudo-Dionysius is more responsible than Aquinas and Augustine in Dante’s continued reiteration of this point. Pseudo-Dionysius, a figure shared by Eastern and Western Christianity, receives something of an apotheosis in canto 33 when light, and thus beauty, is associated with the triune God. No less an authority on medieval aesthetic than Umberto Eco points out that Pseudo-Dionysius is both pivotal for the general aesthetic views of Bonaventure and Aquinas and crucial in its theological riveting in the Trinity, and in particular in Christ.45 Unsurprisingly, given Dante’s own troubled life, peace is a determinate property of heaven (cantos 2 and 3), such that, when he speaks almost pleonastically of “heavenly peace” (canto 3), we are supposed to recognize that it is a state of being and relation greatly prized in this life because of its unavailability. As I have suggested elsewhere,46 cantos 2 and 3 provide only the protocols of peace in the Paradiso, whereas cantos 11 and 12, in which we have the staging of Dominicans and Franciscans lavishing praise on each other, enact it. On the face of it, the doxological enactment seems trivial. Yet here Dante is concerned not only with painting an alternative to the violence in all sins that sunder the community, whether theft, murder, or lies, but also with suggesting the overcoming of the residual, socially acceptable rivalries of those who are more or less good and who self-consciously serve the Christian cause. Heaven means the removal of the last trace of rivalry that would put the actuality of communion at risk. The enactment of peace in heaven in the form of doxologies speaks also to the deepening and elevation of all interpersonal relations. There is a staircase of personal relations in heaven that Dante climbs, from his deep relation with Beatrice, in which he comes to appreciate her beyond his own desire as a medium of See Umberto Eco, The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, trans. Hugh Bredin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 1–61. 46 Cyril O’Regan, “The Paradiso and the Overcoming of Rivalry,” forthcoming in Dante, Mercy, and the Beauty of the Human Person, ed. Leonard Delorenzo and Vittorio Montemaggi (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2018). 45 856 Cyril O’Regan grace and agape, through his relation to Mary, who is a higher order of mediation of this grace and solicitude, to the Trinity as the fontal source of unmerited divine love. The above is just a sketch of the amplitude of the gifts of heaven, and I will put others into circulation on an as-needed basis when I turn to reflect on the two logics deployed by Dante in making his poetic extension. Even on the basis of the above sketch, however, I think we can say that heaven involves an enhancing of the threefold estate along three axes or dimensions: the personal, the communal, and the interpersonal as an intermediary between the two. This is important, since it was noticeable in our survey of contemporary Catholic attempts at eschatological poetics that there tended to be a contraction to either the communal or social dimension (Thiel) or the individual (Griffiths). While one can easily imagine how and why a contemporary theologian might want to balance these three dimensions in a different way than Dante, the Italian poet seems to be persuasive in insisting that Christian eschatological poetics demands a synthesis of all three. With this, I turn to Dante’s deployment of both logics, continuity and discontinuity, when it comes to iconic extension regarding heaven, as well as their principled complementarity, a mark of which is that each of the three dimensions of which we have spoken can be keyed as being continuous with moments of experienced grace and experiences of longing for what is not given in our fallen world. This is a key point. It illustrates, on the one hand, that Dante has a much richer phenomenology of human existence in operation than either Theil or Griffiths and suggests, on the other, that the division according to a logic of continuity or a logic of discontinuity is more or less pragmatic: in every continuity, there is a measure of discontinuity; in every discontinuity, a measure of continuity. This should be kept in mind throughout my discussion of continuities and discontinuities. I will begin with the exercise of the logic of continuity in the Paradiso, but before reflecting on what Dante might highlight as continuities between the earthly and heavenly states, one should remember that Dante underscores the miracle of his being brought before death to the other side and draws attention time and again to the inadequacy of all language, even when stretched most violently, with regard to the new reality. Now, one fundamental continuity between this life and the next is embodiment. While this runs in the face of the very obvious “intermediate-state” eschatology deployed by Dante, I wish to underscore Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension 857 that he takes as a given that the final state of the heavenly departed is corporeal. Another obvious continuity is the exclamation point heaven seems to give to the “spiritual senses,” modes of apprehension connected with the senses that actually transcend the sensory apparatus. It is evident that Dante is not thinking that the spiritual senses are mere metaphor when he speaks of deep spiritual seeing (cantos 7 and 14), hearing (canto 7), and tasting (canto 10). In Dante’s perceptual economy, seeing is supereminent. It is extremely interesting, then, that he seems to sanction a kind of synesthesia between seeing and hearing (canto 7), perhaps suggesting also that music is a central part of the tissue of heaven and that chorale hymning is emblematic. This is good news and invites us to listen to Mozart (The Magic Flute), as wells the entire range of Oliver Messiaen’s music intimating the “other than time.”47 To be fair to Griffiths, he more than occasionally suggests that he has a sense of this, but he usually fails to make much of it, given the dominance of the logic of contrast in his enormously civilized book. Of course, the most salient continuity between this life and the next in the Paradiso is human love. It is Dante’s love for Beatrice in all its ambiguity, and the responsive love of Beatrice in the heavenly realm, that makes possible Dante’s journey into the afterworld. Dante recognizes that human eros is ambiguous in direction: it can draw in and down, as witnessed in the case of Paulo and Francesca, or draw upward, as happens in his own case with the assistance of grace. In heaven, human love is affirmed as a good, but only a love sublimated and purged of traces of the acquisitive is concordant with heaven. Crucially, however, just as in the case of the three dimensions of the heavenly state we previously discussed, discontinuity is associated with continuity: if we admit the resurrected body as the final state, then, as imperishable, such a body, strictly speaking, is unimaginable; if we think of the spiritual senses continuing their operation in heaven, the level of operation and the synesthetic component is such as almost to involve a metabasis eis allos genos; and a fully agapeic love is notional for humanity in the earthly state, despite the model of It is somewhat ironic that the leading authority on Oliver-Eugène-ProsperCharles Messiaen (1905–1992) is also named Paul Griffiths, although this one is a musicologist and historian of music. See his Olivier Messiaen and the Music of Time (London: Faber and Faber, 2009). Messiaen’s music is religious through and through. Among his many pieces dealing with a breakthrough to the beyond are an opera on Saint Francis (1975) and pieces on the colors of the celestial city (1966) and the resurrection of the dead (1964). 47 858 Cyril O’Regan Christ, and so, despite purification and sublimation, a gap is traversed in the heavenly state. Perhaps something similar can be said with respect to features of heaven in which the note of discontinuity is struck. There are a number of obvious discontinuities between the earthly and heavenly states. First, there is the overcoming of distraction such that a complete focus of the self and the community on the triune God is not only possible but actual. Stillness, focus, and permanence are constitutive properties of the beatific vision. One could think of this contrast as being one of the many victories of Augustine’s eschatology in Dante’s masterpiece. Second, heaven is doxological all the way through in a way that pre-eschatological existence is not. It is not simply that there is much ingratitude in this life, but that a fundamental characteristic of human existence is the reluctance to praise and celebrate the gifts so prodigally given to oneself and others. One could think of Griffiths in his highly doxological construction of heaven as supporting this feature as discontinuous.48 Third, there seems to be discontinuity between the great White Rose at the center of heaven and the Eucharist it so obviously recalls, as if what merely has temporal value simply gives way to a reality whose value is eternal. Still, it seems evident that just as the continuity was by no means pure in the three cases that illustrated continuity, so neither is the discontinuity pure in these three cases that illustrate discontinuity. Starting from the bottom, while the White Rose can be understood to replace the Eucharist, it can also be seen to be its translation into a heavenly idiom. Similarly, there is plentiful illustration of doxology on earth in liturgy, prayer, and reading of the Psalms, even if not all of it is sincere and spiritually effective. In addition, gratitude finds more than occasional illustration in disposition, action, and voice in this life. Thus, the transformation is not only transformation from but also translation of a phenomenon that is patchy and haphazard into universality and permanence. And finally, Dante well recognizes that the attention and focus on the triune God is anticipated in the monastic and contemplative forms of existence in this life. The mystical aspects of Augustine, Aquinas, and, above all, Bonaventure would make no sense unless it were supposed that the true purpose of mystical experience is that it anticipates and, thereby, validates what properly belongs to the next life. This is an important point made throughout Decreation, but see in particular no. 6 (Repetitive Stasis) and no. 16 (Time Healed: Liturgy, Systole, and Fold). 48 Eschatological Poetics: The Rules of Iconic Extension 859 It would seem, then, that, in the case of all the features that constitute iconic extension into the afterlife, both the logic of continuity and that of discontinuity apply. I would like to end this article by complicating matters further. The test case is the vision of the triune God in heaven that, as we pointed out, illustrates both continuity and discontinuity with our earthly state of existence. For purposes of making the point, I left unqualified the presumed stillness of the beatific vision. For Roman Catholic readers, as well as non-Catholic readers, such a reading seems the only proper one and confirms Dante’s dependence on the Augustinian tradition for this point, which is, in effect, coextensive with the Latin tradition. Now, the beatific vision in the Paradiso serves as the pivot for other phenomena, such as doxology, that Griffiths suggests qualify rather than subvert stasis.49 The beatific vision as rendered in canto 33, however, is far more paradoxical than it is usually taken to be. The vision of God in the afterlife is a vision of a perichoretic Trinity that is infinite motion, in which the circle is invoked both to reinforce infinity and to avoid the notion of the measureless that moves in the mode of the et cetera. To see is to experience the ecstasy of being absorbed in the infinite love and delight of the Trinitarian persons, an ecstasy, motion, and delight that will last forever. The image of the Trinitarian dance qualifies the received picture of the beatific vision considerably. It suggests that the experience of the Trinity may well be more nearly the experience of the coincidentia oppositorum of movement and rest, each in their perfection and each infinitely qualitatively superior to the earthly forms of motion and rest, as well as their contrastive relation to each other. Now, one way to think of what Dante has achieved is that he has managed—albeit in terms of the Western Christian tradition—to synthesize Eastern and Western Christian emphases on participation in the triune God in the afterlife. Another way is to suggest that Dante’s genius is to manage to join major and minor Augustinian chords, the emphasis upon rest and stillness of his major texts with the emphasis upon dynamism occasionally struck in his sermons and his elucidations of the Psalms. Nor should we think that this correction is mere whimsy without phenomenological justification. The paralysis of which Nyssa speaks, and which Augustine at least occasionally supposes, needs to be overcome in heaven, just as the experienced perfection of moments of real progress need to be absolutized. N&V Decreation, no. 6. 49 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 861–879 861 St. Thomas on Adoration: Some Reflections Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P. Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Rome, Italy As he begins his treatment of adoration in Summa theologiae [ST] II-II, q. 84 (a question that has been much-neglected in scholarship on the Summa), Thomas points out that the aim of adoration is to reverence the person who is adored. He has already demonstrated during the course of his question devoted to the virtue of religion in general, ST II-II, q. 81, that “it is proper to religion to show reverence to God.”1 In the fourth article of this earlier question, he explains that we show honor or reverence to someone on account of some excellence that he possesses. A unique honor is due to God, however, on account of his singular excellence, since “He infinitely surpasses all things and exceeds them in every way.”2 The preceding article had highlighted the basis of this “singular excellence”: the fact that God is “the first principle of the creation and government of all things.”3 Stated in Trinitarian terms, “the three Divine Persons are the one principle of the creation and government of things.”4 Gilles Emery, O.P., writes: “Creation . . . finds its foundation in the trinitarian mystery of personal communication or communication of being. God’s activity in the world is rooted in the intra-divine activity of the processions.”5 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (ST) II-II, q. 84, a. 1. All English translations from ST are taken from Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 5 vols. (New York: Benziger, 1948). 2 ST II-II, q. 81, a. 4. 3 ST II-II, q. 81, a. 3. 4 ST II-II, q. 81, a. 3, ad 1. On this point, see Gilles Emery, O.P., Trinity in Aquinas (Ypsilanti, MI: Sapientia Press, 2003). 5 Gilles Emery, O.P., “Trinity and Creation,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. by Rik van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2005), 61. 1 862 Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P. The doctrine of creation is thus presupposed in the first article that Thomas devotes to adoration, as also is a metaphysics of participation. The first section of my present article therefore aims to elucidate ST II-II, q. 84, a. 1, in the light of Thomas’s reflections on creation and on the basis of his metaphysics of participation. Exegesis of this text reveals that Thomas’s construal of adoration is fundamentally rooted in Trinitarian faith, and the response to the final objection, which hints at an understanding of human nature as hylomorphically constituted, is important to this construal. ST II-II, q. 84, a. 2, asks whether adoration denotes an action of the body. An understanding of Thomas’s hylomorphic construal of human nature hinted at in the previous article is necessary if one is to appreciate his reflections concerning the role of the body in adoration. Thomas’s anthropological hylomorphism spills over into the final article (ST II-II, q. 84, a. 3), which deals with whether adoration requires a definite place. The presence of the doctrine of creation and of a participatory metaphysics continues, however, in an article that ends on an eschatological note. It is to a treatment of creation and participation that the next section therefore turns in the first instance. Creation, Participation, and Adoration The idea that “God’s activity in the world is rooted in the intradivine activity of the processions” is implicit in the sed contra to the first article of the first question in the treatise on creation in the Prima Pars, where Thomas writes: “It is said (Rom. xi. 36): Of Him, and by Him, and in Him are all things.”6 This point receives extended attention in Thomas’s commentary on Romans. In his own summary of his discussion, he states: “All things are from him, i.e., God as from the first operating power. All things are through him, inasmuch as He makes all things through his wisdom. All things are in him as in their preserving goodness.”7 Thomas goes on to note that power, wisdom and goodness are common to the three Persons and that the phrase “from him and through him and in him” can therefore be applied to each of Them. Nevertheless, power is appropriated to the Father because it involves the notion of principle, since the Father is the principle of the entire Godhead. In a like manner, wisdom is appropriated to the Son, “Who ST I, q. 44, a. 1, sc. Thomas Aquinas, Super Romanos 11, lec. 5 (no. 949), in Commentary on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans, trans. Fabian Larcher, O.P. (Lander, WY: Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012). 6 7 St. Thomas on Adoration: Some Reflections 863 proceeds as Word, which is nothing else than wisdom begotten,”8 and goodness is appropriated to the Holy Spirit, “Who proceeds as love, whose object is goodness.”9 Thus, concludes Thomas, “by appropriation we can say: from him, namely, from the Father, through him, namely, through the Son, in him, namely, in the Holy Spirit, are all things.”10 This sed contra has a crucial significance for how we understand the treatise on creation. At the very outset of his reflections, Thomas affords us a clear indication that it is to be read in the light of the doctrine of the Trinity that he has just elaborated in the preceding seventeen questions (ST I, qq. 27–43). It is in this light that the notion of participation arises immediately in the response of ST I, q. 44, a. 1, where Thomas argues that no being apart from God is its own being, but rather a being by participation.11 Clearly, this participation is in the being of the one God Who is also a Trinity of Persons: God is related to all that exists apart from him as creative cause to effects, and these effects are similar to their cause according to a certain analogy.12 Thomas elaborates this point in ST I, q. 45, a. 7: “Every effect in some degree represents its cause, but diversely.” He explains that some effects “represent only the causality of the cause, but not its form.” The example he offers of this kind of representation is smoke, which represents fire but not the form of fire. This kind of representation is known as a “trace,” for a trace indicates that someone has been present but does not reveal his identity. Other effects, Thomas tells us, “represent the cause as regards the similitude of its form.” Again Thomas offers the example of fire: fire that is generated represents Aquinas, Super Romanos 11, lec. 5 (no. 949). Aquinas, Super Romanos 11, lec. 5 (no. 949). On the appropriation of essential names to the divine Persons, see ST I, q. 39, a. 7. 10 Aquinas, Super Romanos 11, lec. 5 (no. 949). 11 “It must be said that every being in any way existing is from God. For whatever is found in anything by participation, must be caused in it by that to which it belongs essentially, as iron becomes ignited by fire. Now it has been shown above . . . when treating of the divine simplicity that God is the essentially self-subsisting Being; and also it was shown . . . that subsisting being must be one; as, if whiteness were self-subsisting, it would be one, since whiteness is multiplied by its recipients. Therefore all beings apart from God are not their own being, but are beings by participation. Therefore it must be that all things which are diversified by the diverse participation of being, so as to be more or less perfect, are caused by one First Being,Who possesses being most perfectly.” 12 On this point, see Rudi te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 95–102. 8 9 864 Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P. fire that generates. Another example is a statue of someone: the statue represents that person. This kind of representation is known as the representation of “image.” In the case of creation, “image” pertains to rational creatures: since they possess intellect and will, they represent the Trinity by way of image. Just as, in the Trinity, the Son proceeds “as the word of the intellect” and the Holy Spirit proceeds “as the love of the will,” so the image represents the Trinity inasmuch as it possesses intellect and will, whereby there is found in it “the word conceived, and the love proceeding.” The important point is: “In all creatures there is found the trace of the Trinity, inasmuch as in every creature are found some things which are necessarily reduced to the divine Persons as to their cause.” Thomas goes even further and relates substance, form, and relation to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, respectively. Inasmuch as a creature is a created substance, it represents its cause and principle, and thus, in that way, “it shows the Person of the Father, Who is the principle from no principle.” With regard to its form and species, it represents the Word, “as the form of the thing made by art is from the conception of the craftsman.” Finally, Thomas argues that, according as it possesses relation of order, it represents the Holy Spirit, “inasmuch as He is love, because the order of the effect to something else is from the will of the Creator.” It is precisely the notion of participation that is central to Thomas’s reasoning in ST II-II, q. 84, a. 1, ad 1, concerning adoration as an act of latria. This term is employed to denote the special kind of reverence that is paid to God alone, which differs from the reverence (dulia) that we pay to creatures on account of whatever excellences they possess. The latter possess whatever excellence they boast “according to a measure of proportion”: their excellence is proportioned to their finite mode of being. These participated excellences are received from God, Whose excellence, in contrast, is proportioned to his infinite uncreated Being. Creatures receive their being and whatever excellences they possess from the infinity of the uncreated God. Catherine Pickstock rightly comments that “a creature more fully participates in Being by growing towards God, without ever departing from its own specific creaturehood.”13 Adoration of Catherine Pickstock, After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 129. She continues here: “Such an ecstatic actuality, whilst it might seem to deny a creature’s own essence, in fact holds open a horizon of the ever fuller realization of that essence.” 13 St. Thomas on Adoration: Some Reflections 865 God is bound up with these dynamics of increasing participation in the divine life. The reason for this is that adoration is an external act of religion and the virtue of religion “approaches nearer to God than the other moral virtues, in so far as its actions are directly and immediately ordered to the honor of God.”14 The authority of Augustine is invoked in support of the observation that, among the external tokens of reverence offered to creatures of excellence, the chief is adoration. Thomas is nevertheless at pains to highlight the radical difference in the nature of the adoration given to creatures (which pertains to dulia) and that which belongs to God alone (which pertains to latria). Thus, while it was with the reverence due to an excellent creature that Nathan adored David, “it was the reverence due to God with which Mordechai refused to adore Aman fearing lest he should transfer the honor of his God to a man (Esther 3:14).”15 The greatest sin against God is to “give God’s honor to a creature.”16 The honor afforded to creatures is bound up with the finite degree to which they participate by virtue of their excellences in God’s infinite uncreated Being. It ought not to be confused with the singular honor or reverence that is paid to God, a point made in the sed contra, in which the words of Christ himself in Matt 4:10 are cited: “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore and Him only shalt thou serve.”17 These words, emanating from the lips of Christ, clearly situate Thomas’s treatment of adoration in a specifically Christian context. The Christian context is further established by the objection that adoration is not an act of latria on account of the fact that, at the veneration of the Cross on Good Friday,18 the faithful genuflect at each separate invocation of the three Persons. Hence the three Persons are not adored with the one adoration owed to the unity of the divine substance.19 In response, Thomas explains that one honor and excellence is indeed due to the three Divine Persons on account of the one excellence that is common to them and that, consequently, one adoration is paid to them. The triple genuflection does not ST II-II, q. 81, a. 6. ST II-II, q. 84, a. 1, ad 1. 16 ST II-II, q. 94, a. 3. 17 ST II-II, q. 84, a. 1, sc. 18 A note in the 1981 Christian Classics edition of the Dominican Fathers’ translation of ST informs the reader concerning this point. 19 ST II-II, q. 84, a. 1, obj. 3. 14 15 866 Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P. denote “a difference of adoration,” but rather “represents the Trinity of Persons.”20 Representation constitutes a mode of participation in the reality of what is represented—in this case, participation in the life of the Trinity. Also central to the Thomas’s treatment of the triple genuflection is the psychosomatic nature of human beings, a fact that explains Thomas’s insistence in both this question on adoration and the following question, devoted to sacrifice, on external bodily acts as a manifestation of interior acts. Thus, argues Thomas, “exterior adoration is offered on account of interior adoration”21 and “the sacrifice that is offered outwardly represents the inward spiritual sacrifice.”22 Clearly, in the case of the triple genuflection, the external acts of the physical body are, in effect, structured by faith in the Trinitarian God. Although Thomas does not put it this way, the one human body makes three genuflections in adoration of the one God Who is Three Persons. This point in effect presages what immediately follows in the next article (ST II-II, q. 84, a. 2), which addresses the question of whether adoration denotes an action of the body. The next section of the present article will consider Thomas’s treatment of this question, and as will become evident, human adoration of God (latria) is the act of a being who is psychosomatically constituted. Indeed, the psychosomatic unity of the human person means not only that the body expresses attitudes of mind but also that the life of mind is affected by bodily actions. A dynamic interaction obtains between body and soul. Adoration and the Human Person as a Psychosomatic Unity As is well known, Thomas inherited his hylomorphic understanding of the human person from Aristotle. Nevertheless, Aristotle is not referred to in this article. Rather, St. John Damascene’s De fide orthodoxa furnishes Thomas’s point of departure in dealing with the implications of human nature for how we adore God. Damascene argues in his De fide orthodoxa that adoration is twofold—spiritual and bodily—on account of our twofold nature, which is both intellectual and sensible, and Thomas concludes: “We offer God a twofold adoration; namely, a spiritual adoration, consisting in the internal devotion of the mind; ST II-II, q. 84, a. 1, ad 3. ST II-II, q. 84, a. 2. 22 ST II-II, q. 85, a. 2. 20 21 St. Thomas on Adoration: Some Reflections 867 and a bodily adoration, which consists in an exterior humbling of the body.”23 Thomas goes on to contend that the external and corporeal refers to and serves the internal and spiritual as being more important: “Since in all acts of latria that which is without is referred to that which is within as being more foundational, it follows that exterior adoration is offered on account of interior adoration.”24 This contention receives support from the accounts of the relationship between the rational soul and the body that Thomas offers from the very beginning of his career, in his commentary on the Sentences, through to his magnum opus, the Summa theologiae. Thomas’s understanding of the human body is inseparable from his teaching concerning the intellectual soul as man’s sole substantial form.25 “The soul is the very nature of the body,”26 he proclaims provocatively in his commentary on the Sentences, thereby emphasizing the intrinsic and intimate connection that obtains between soul and body. We can well assert that the body’s actuality derives from the intellectual soul, an assertion that is in accord with Thomas’s metaphysical teaching to the effect that matter “has actual existence by the substantial form, which makes it to exist absolutely.”27 Completely ruled out in this view is the possibility of experiencing ST II-II, q. 85, a. 2, referencing St. John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa 4.12, which reads: “Seeing that we are composed of a visible and an invisible nature, that is to say, of a nature partly of spirit and partly of sense, we render also a twofold worship to the Creator; just as we sing both with our spirit and our bodily lips, and are baptized with both water and Spirit, and are united with the Lord in a twofold manner, being sharers in the mysteries and in the grace of the Spirit” (English translation taken from http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/0675-0749,_Ioannes_Damascenus,_De_Fide_Orthodoxa,_ EN.pdf). 24 ST II-II, q. 85, a. 2. I depart from the Dominican Fathers’ translation here in rendering principalius as “more foundational,” rather than “of greater import.” The noun principium conveys the notion of “principle.” This noun in English has no corresponding adjective, much less a comparative adjective. Yet it is precisely the latter grammatical form that Thomas employs in Latin (principalius), thereby implying that latria cannot be construed as a purely spiritual phenomenon devoid of any corporeal constitution. As will be demonstrated below, the body itself plays a constitutive role in the act of adoration. The reason for this state of affairs is the psychosomatic constitution of human nature. 25 See Bernardo C. Bazán, “La corporalité selon saint Thomas,” Revue Philosophique de Louvain 81 (1983): 369–409. 26 In I sent., dist. 3, q. 2, a. 3, ad 1: “Anima enim est natura ipsius corporis.” 27 ST I, q. 76, a. 6. 23 868 Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P. one’s body from within as though it were a “thing” separate from one’s true self. Marie-Joseph Nicolas expresses well Thomas’s understanding of the human body when he describes it as “the expressive field of the soul.”28 It is the visible and material index of an invisible and immaterial principle. The body is so united to the intellectual soul that it constitutes the soul’s somatic manifestation.29 The body is the exterior face of this being whose interior principle is the soul.30 A radical consequence follows from conceiving the intellectual soul as the root principle that issues forth into all the various expressions, both rational and somatic, of our human nature: human rationality and human embodiment can in no way be divorced from one another. Platonic and Cartesian dualisms are rendered impossible. The human body is not external to the intellectual soul; rather, Aristotle’s description of man as a “rational animal” must be taken to mean that our animal condition is suffused with rationality and that rationality is informed by our animal condition. A treatment of the emotions would be required in order to appreciate this point better. Nevertheless, as G. J. McAleer expresses the point just made: “The normative structure of the Thomistic body is for spirit and flesh to be interinvolved, for spirit to be suffused by flesh and for flesh to be suffused by spirit.”31 Matthew Levering is quite striking in his summary statement of this idea: “Human flesh is rational flesh.”32 The point just briefly delineated refers simply, of course, to the idea that the human body is an external manifestation of the demands of the rational soul. The implications of this idea can nevertheless be extended to bodily actions. The body is not something separate from one’s true self, and so cannot be regarded as some kind of corporeal See Marie-Joseph Nicolas, “Le corps humain,” Revue Thomiste 79 (1979): 357–58: “Saisi du dedans, le corps n’apparaîtra donc pas comme une ‘chose’ mais comme le ‘signe d’un sujet’ ou comme ‘le champ expressif de l’âme’ [Grasped from within, the body will therefore not appear as a ‘thing,’ but rather as the ‘sign of a subject’ or as ‘the expressive field of the soul’]” (my translation). The human body can, of course, be validly regarded as an object, as when, for example, a surgeon operates on it. 29 See Nicolas, “Le corps humain,” 358. 30 See Nicolas, “Le corps humain,” 377: “Le corps est . . . la face ‘extérieure’ de cet être dont l’âme est le principe ‘intérieur’ [The body is . . . the ‘external’ face of this being whose ‘interior’ principle is the soul]” (my translation). 31 G. J. McAleer, Ecstatic Morality and Sexual Politics: A Catholic and Antitotalitarian Theory of the Body (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 32. 32 Matthew Levering, “Natural Law and Natural Inclinations: Rhonheimer, Pinckaers, McAleer,” The Thomist 70 (2006): 200. 28 St. Thomas on Adoration: Some Reflections 869 instrument at the behest of the rational soul. A bodily action is thus not some kind of effect on the basis of which we can infer some rational intention that ultimately causes it and logically precedes it. An intention does, of course, logically precede an act, but it is the intention of an agent who is psychosomatically constituted. In effect, rationality suffuses the bodily act itself and is to be read in it, rather than from it. A bodily act is therefore not simply an index of reason’s operation, but rather is literally its embodiment. Thus, bodily acts are not guided by reason as by an external agent, but informed by reason in their very constitution. They are intrinsically rational. It is precisely in the light of this construal of man’s psychosomatic unity that we are to understand the assertion that “in all acts of latria that which is without is referred to that which is within as being more foundational.” The spatial metaphor employed by Thomas could be read in a Platonic or Cartesian manner by anyone not familiar with his radical commitment to the notion that we are body–soul composites. Familiarity with the Thomas’s thinking on matters anthropological from the beginning through to the end of his career, however, precludes such an interpretation. The bodily acts that Thomas mentions as acts of latria, acts of exterior adoration offered on account of interior adoration, concern humility. Humility, “a part of temperance, as a virtue annexed thereto,”33 tempers and restrains the mind so that it does not tend immoderately to lofty things: “It belongs properly to humility, that a man restrain himself from being borne towards that which is above him.”34 Knowledge, enters into the constitution of humility, since, in order to restrain oneself from straining toward some excellence or other that lies beyond one’s capacities to attain, one must first of all recognize the disproportion between one’s capacities and this excellence. This knowledge of one’s deficiency therefore “belongs to humility, as a rule guiding the appetite.”35 The appetite in question is the rational appetite, the will.36 While knowledge enters into the constitution of humility, this virtue nevertheless resides essentially in the appetite itself, the movement of which it moderates. The appetite in question, however, is intrinsically rational in nature; it is not rooted in our sensible nature. However, it does express itself ST II-II, q. 143, a. 1. ST II-II, q. 161, a. 2. 35 ST II-II, q. 161, a. 2. 36 See ST II-II, q. 143, a. 1. 33 34 870 Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P. in our sensible nature, as has already been pointed out, on account of the psychosomatic unity of the human person. Thomas offers the example of lowered eyes: they literally embody an attitude of fear and respect toward persons, as though one dared not to compare oneself with them. They constitute an instance of what Levering means by “rational flesh,” since they embody reason’s judgment of one’s deficiency. These outward manifestations of humility are secondary; they constitute, as Thomas tells us, “signs of the inward movement of the appetite.”37 While relationships between human beings give rise to occasions for the exercise of humility, it would seem primarily to denote our subjection to God. Reason can ascertain by various argumentative routes that God is our first beginning and our final end, such that our being is completely dependent on him. The proofs for the existence of God in ST I, q. 2, a. 3, bear out this point. When Thomas proceeds to deal with the divine attributes, he demonstrates that, while the existence of all things apart from God is distinct from their essence, his essence is his existence: it is in God’s very nature to exist; he cannot not exist. All other (finite) being apart from God participates in his infinite being.38 The utter dependence of all finite being on God is underscored in Thomas’s treatment of creation in the prima pars of the Summa, as has been emphasized above. He not only translates the notion of the contingency of all being apart from God to the plane of creation, arguing that it is necessary that every being be created by God and tend to him alone as to its final end; Thomas also impresses upon the reader that “to create is to make something from nothing,”39 understanding “nothing” to mean “not-being.”40 In the face of our absolute dependence on God’s creative act for our existence and on his maintaining us in existence at every moment in time, there is no room for presumptuous hope on our part:41 no one ought to ascribe to himself “more than is competent to him according to the position in which God has placed him.”42 The bodily gestures of genuflection and prostration furnish external expressions of the humility that are fitting to human beings in the ST II-II, q. 161, a. 2, ad 4. See ST I, q. 3, a. 4. 39 ST I, q. 54, a. 1, sc. 40 ST I, q. 54, a. 1. 41 See ST II-II, q. 161, a. 4: “Hope . . . is the movement of a spirit aiming at great things.” 42 ST II-II, q. 161, a. 2, ad 3. 37 38 St. Thomas on Adoration: Some Reflections 871 presence of their Creator. This position is in keeping with Thomas’s response to an objection that is based on 1 Corinthians 14:15: “I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the understanding.”43 The objection concludes that “adoration does not denote an act of the body,” because “what is done in spirit has nothing to do with an act of the body.”44 In his response, Thomas writes: “When we genuflect we signify our weakness in comparison with God, and when we prostrate ourselves we profess that we are nothing of ourselves.”45 These gestures bear within themselves the stamp of reason’s judgment of man’s nothingness before the divine majesty, a judgment that is formed in the light of what the Christian faith teaches us about creation. The mention of creation connects us with the reflections above on ST II-II, q. 84, a. 1. Creation pertains, of course, to the specifically theological aspect of Thomas’s thought. Discourse about creation is primarily the discourse of faith. As Rudi te Velde explains, “creation is not so much a philosophical as a religious notion, inextricably bound up with the biblical religion of the one, unique God who has revealed himself as the almighty Creator of heaven and earth, guiding his creatures towards the good which He himself is.”46 Of course, it ST II-II, q. 84, a. 2, obj. 2. ST II-II, q. 84, a. 2, obj. 2. 45 ST II-II, q. 84, a. 2, ad 2. 46 Rudi te Velde, Aquinas on God: The ‘Divine Science’ of the Summa Theologiae (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006), 123–24. In a footnote, te Velde explains: “Thomas does think that creation is present, at least implicitly, in the texts of Aristotle and Plato. This is not of course creation in time, but creation understood as causal dependence or, in Platonic terms, participation” (142n4). As te Velde adds, however, Thomas never attributes the language of creation to the pagan philosophers. On this point, John F. Wippel concludes a study of Thomas on creation as follows: “It is clear that Thomas thinks that creation taken strictly as the production of something from no pre-existing subject and as distinguished from creation with a temporal beginning can be demonstrated by natural reason, and that it should be regarded as another preamble of faith. It also seems clear from this study of Thomas’s various references to the views of Plato, Aristotle, and Avicenna that in at least some texts Thomas held that some philosophers had arrived at a knowledge of God as the universal cause of esse and also at a knowledge of creation” (“Aquinas on Creation and Preambles of Faith,” The Thomist 78 [2014]: 33). Mark Johnson and Lawrence Dewan also deem Thomas to attribute views of creation to Plato and Aristotle. See Mark Johnson, “Did St. Thomas Attribute a Doctrine of Creation to Aristotle?” The New Scholasticism 63 (1989): 129–55; Johnson “Aquinas’s Changing Evaluation of Plato on Creation,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 66 43 44 872 Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P. is within the context of creation that God communicates his salvific will to all men in the Incarnation of the Word. This communication of himself to human beings by the Incarnation is rooted in the essence of his goodness, since “it belongs to the essence of goodness to communicate itself to others.”47 The bearing of the Incarnation on the reality of embodied worship is thrown into greater relief in the next article, ST II-II, q. 84, a. 3, which deals with spatial aspect of worship. Thomas’s treatment of whether adoration requires a definite place continues his emphasis on adoration as proportioned to the psychosomatic reality of human beings. Embodiment and the Spatial Aspect of Worship As just intimated, Thomas’s reflections on the spatial aspect of adoration in ST II-II, q. 84, a. 3, develop from the beginning on the basis of the logic of human embodiment that has been the concern of the last article: “As stated above (a. 2), the chief part of adoration is the internal devotion of the mind, while the secondary part is something external pertaining to bodily signs.” Harking back to his discussion of the divine simplicity in ST I, q. 3, Thomas points out that spatiality can play no part in the mind’s internal apprehension of God: “The mind internally apprehends God as not comprised in a place.” In the main body of his response in ST I, q. 3, a. 7, which asks whether God is absolutely simple, Thomas summarizes the conclusions of the articles that precede it: “There is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His suppositum; nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident.” His argumentation up to this point of ST I, q. 3, has thus clearly established that “God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple.” Being altogether simple, God utterly transcends the category of spatiality. He does not exist in a place. Since God does not exist in place, continues Thomas in ST II-II, q. 84, a. 3, it follows that he can be apprehended by reason alone. (1992): 81–88; Lawrence Dewan, O.P., “Thomas Aquinas, Creation, and Two Historians,” Laval théologique et philosophique 50 (1994): 363–87. Referring to Johnson’s article in New Scholasticism, Dewan begins: “Recently Mark F. Johnson has shown convincingly that Thomas Aquinas always attributed to Aristotle and eventually to Plato as well, a doctrine of creation” (“Thomas Aquinas, Creation, and Two Historians,” 363). 47 ST III, q. 1, a. 1. St. Thomas on Adoration: Some Reflections 873 However, he is apprehended by reason precisely “as not comprised in a place.” But bodily signs cannot be extricated from their expression in place and position. On account of the psychosomatic constitution of human nature, a certain rationality can be ascribed to bodily signs. As noted above, for example, lowered eyes embody reason’s judgment of one’s deficiency. Since “bodily signs must of necessity be in some definite place and position,” it follows that place and position in turn enter into the constitution of these signs. Consequently, place and position too are informed by the dynamics of human rationality, with the result that they communicate something pertaining to the adoration of God. Like other bodily signs, a definite place is not essential to adoration, but is required “by reason of a certain fittingness.” Bodily signs are fitting because they are proportioned to the exigencies of human nature as psychosomatically constituted, on account of which constitution “it is connatural to us to proceed from the sensible to the intelligible.”48 Thomas elaborates this point in his response to the third objection in article 3 with reference to the symbolism of place, whereby the sensible points to an intelligible reality. The objection points out that the same God is adored in both the New Testament and Old Testament. In the dispensation of the Old Testament, adoration was toward the west because, according to the Exodus 26:18–25, the door of the tabernacle faced east. Therefore, the objection concludes, “we ought now to adore towards the west, if any definite place be requisite for adoration.”49 The first reason offered by Thomas in his response to the foregoing objection is cosmic in its scope: “The Divine majesty is indicated in the movement of the heavens which is from the east.”50 Neither Scripture nor any source from the Tradition is explicitly invoked here, but underlying Thomas’s reason is the doctrine of creation and his participatory view of reality, his understanding of the created universe as participating according to its finite mode in God’s uncreated being. Also operative is his theory of analogy. As an effect of God’s creative causality, the universe reflects in an analogous way something of the ST II-II, q. 84, a. 2. For a number of other objections against Mass being celebrated ad orientem, see Br. Evagrius Hayden, O.S.B., “Convertere, Israël, ad Dominum Deum Tuum,” http://media.newliturgicalmovement.org/pkwas/Evagrius,%20Con vertere%20Israel.pdf. Hayden follows these objections with three sed contra arguments. After then offering his own response, he finally addresses the individual objections. 50 ST II-II, q. 84, a. 3, ad 3. 48 49 874 Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P. divine being, just as any effect tells us something about its cause.51 In the example under consideration, the movement of the heavens from the east is caught up in an analogical and participatory relationship with God. This movement of the heavens is, as indicated above, a “trace”: just as smoke represents fire, so too the movement of the heavens represent the causality of the divine cause, but not the divine nature itself.52 Although Umberto Eco is correct in discerning less appeal to a symbolical attitude in Thomas than in preceding thinkers on account of Thomas’s appreciation of “the ontological and formal reality of things,”53 metaphysical symbolism nonetheless remains a reality in his thought.54 His fusion of a Platonic metaphysics of participation with an Aristotelian metaphysics of substance prevents any metaphysical symbolism from being a mere flight of fancy. A participatory understanding of reality is nevertheless necessary for apprehending its true meaning: while one can enquire into the structure of substantial being in isolation from its dependence on God as its ongoing creative cause, questions concerning its meaning can be answered only in reference to God as its creative cause and final end. Continuing with his explanation, Thomas says that revelation serves to throw further light on the fittingness of facing toward the east in adoration.55 According to the Septuagint version of Genesis See ST I, q. 93, a. 6. See ST I, q. 45, a. 7. See also ST I, q. 93, a. 6: “A trace . . . represents something by way of an effect, which represents the cause in such a way as not to attain to the likeness of species. For imprints which are left by the movements of animals are called traces: so also ashes are a trace of fire, and desolation of the land a trace of a hostile army.” 53 Umberto Eco, The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, trans. Hugh Bredin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 141. 54 Eco’s judgment seems extreme and dogmatic: “In Aquinas—that is, in the person who gave most complete expression to the philosophical and theological thinking of the age—all of this [symbolical outlook] has vanished” (The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, 140). Thomas’s treatment of the rite of the Mass in ST III, q. 83, is replete with symbolic understandings. For a commentary on this question, see David Berger, Thomas Aquinas and the Liturgy (Ann Arbor, MI: Sapientia Press, 2004), 27–41. 55 See Hayden, “Convertere, Israël, ad Dominum Deum Tuum”: “From the inspired testimony of Sacred Scripture we also have several passages that indicate the preeminence of worshiping towards the east. These are of two kinds, either they indicate that Christ departs into and returns from the east, or else that certain geographical locations are to be found in the east that are known for the eminent nobility of their symbolism.” Hayden illustrates the use that the Fathers in general made of these passages. 51 52 St. Thomas on Adoration: Some Reflections 875 2:8, paradise was located in the east. In asserting that facing toward the east thus signifies our desire to return there, Thomas introduces an anthropological element that augments the first reason’s focus on non-rational creation: the heavens. He also appeals to teleology when he talks about “our desire to return to paradise.” Thus, both protology and eschatology are operative in this second reason: to talk of our desire to return to paradise is a metaphorical way of expressing our desire to return to God as our creative cause. One element of Neoplatonist metaphysics accepted by Thomas helps us to understand this point. Fran O’Rourke points out: “Aquinas accepts from Neoplatonism the principle that every effect is converted to the cause from which it proceeds; the reason is that each thing desires its good, and the good of an effect derives from its cause. It seeks its cause, therefore, as its own good.”56 As proceeding from God, we bear within ourselves a directing tendency by virtue of which we aim at conversion to and assimilation with our Origin, the God of Judeo-Christian revelation. Reference to the revelation of Christ brings Thomas’s argument to its climax. In ST II-II, q. 84, a. 3, ad 3, Thomas discerns “a certain fittingness in adoring towards the east” on account of Christ, Who is “the light of the world.”57 Here, Thomas interprets the reference in Zechariah 6:12 to “the Orient” Christologically in the light of this reference to Christ as “the light of the world,” as also he also does with Psalm 67:34, where he understands Christ to be the one “Who mounteth above the heaven of heavens to the east” (a common Patristic interpretation) and, therefore, expected to return from the east, as Matthew 24:27 confirms: “As lightning cometh out of the east, and appeareth even into the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” The words of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI coincide with and express well the idea that Thomas highlights here: “The fact that we find Christ in the symbol of the rising sun [or, as in the last example, lightning] is the indication of a Christology defined eschatologically. Praying toward the east means going to meet the coming Christ.”58 Fran O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 235. 57 This quotation is from John 8:12 and 9:5. 58 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 69. 56 876 Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P. Conclusion In ST II-II, q. 160, a. 2, Thomas remarks that humility moderates “the movement of the mind towards some excellence.”59 Prostration before God offers a symbolic expression of humility: when we prostrate ourselves before God, “we profess that we are nothing of ourselves.”60 Such corporeal signs as prostration have, in turn, an impact on our affections, and thereby move us to submit to God, since “it is connatural to us to proceed from the sensible to the intelligible.”61 As Diana Fritz Cates explains, “as long as a human being is alive—as long as his or her intellectual soul functions as the form of his or her body—all of his or her intellectual operations will engage the brain-body complex in one way or another, directly or indirectly.”62 According to Thomas, humility pertains to choice, which in turn involves both the will and the reason: it is materially an act of the will but formally an act of the reason.63 In a sense, the act of reason precedes that of the will and orders it: reason presents its object to the will, and the will tends it. Thomas relates the acts of the will and reason to each other as matter and form, respectively. Choice is therefore substantially an act of the will, for it is “accomplished in a certain movement of the soul towards the good which is chosen,” and on this account, Thomas concludes that choice “is evidently an act of the appetitive power.”64 With regard to humility, this act of the appetitive power restrains an individual from pursuing that which is above him. This material aspect, however, presupposes knowledge of the disproportion that obtains between him and whatever lies beyond his ability to attain. In other words, “knowledge of one’s deficiency belongs to humility, as a rule guiding the appetite.”65 Nevertheless, humility pertains to the appetite itself in that it moderates its movement. In all of this, however, we can never leave behind the dynamic influence of the corporeal aspect of our nature, as Thomas suggests ST II-II, q. 160, a. 2. ST II-II, q. 84, a. 2, ad 2. 61 ST II-II, q. 84, a. 2. 62 Diana Fritz Cates, Aquinas on the Emotions: A Religious-Ethical Enquiry (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2009), 88. It would of course be more correct to refer to the “body–soul” unity that is the human person, rather than to the “brain–body complex,” since the brain is, after all, simply a physical organ. 63 See ST I-II, q. 13, a. 1. 64 ST I-II, q. 13, a. 1. 65 ST II-II, q. 161, a. 2. 59 60 St. Thomas on Adoration: Some Reflections 877 when he maintains that “we exhibit signs of humility in our bodies in order to incite our affections [affectus] to submit to God.”66 Cates gives negative expression to this idea when she writes: “It is . . . a mistake to think of the intellectual acts of humans, such as . . . choosing, and experiencing affections, as if they were acts of a spirit that inhabits a body but does not really use it—or uses it in a way that is not determined (to some extent) by the body itself, such that one could engage in intellectual acts in much the same way if one were to slip free of the body.”67 Adoration, an external act of the virtue of religion that consists in “an exterior humbling of the body,”68 is a particular instance of the dynamic expressed by Cates. In brief, the character of the internal devotion of the mind that constitutes spiritual adoration is determined to some extent by the signs of humility effected in our bodies. The triple genuflection that represents the Trinity of Persons is a case in point: 69 they arguably cultivate devotion to the one God Who is three Persons. While Thomas does not develop this point, one could reasonably argue that place and position also have some bearing on the character of the internal devotion of the mind that is proper to adoration. To face toward the east is a symbolic gesture that can enkindle and communicate a humble recognition of devotion to the Creator God Who has ordained the movement of the heavens from the east and to Christ Our Savior, Who “is expected to come from the east.” 70 Thomas would arguably concur with Benedict XVI’s exhortation that “we should definitely take up again the apostolic tradition of facing east, both in the building of churches and in the celebration of the liturgy.” 71 Going beyond Thomas’s own assertions, but in keeping with them, one could argue that ecclesiastical architecture, music, art, and liturgical practice have a role to play in cultivating the internal devo ST II-II, q. 84, a. 2. Robert Miner argues convincingly that, for Thomas, affectus pertains to the rational appetite, in contrast to passio, which belongs to acts of the sensitive appetite (Thomas Aquinas on the Passions: A Study of Summa Theologiae 1a2ae 22–48 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009], 35–38). 67 Cates, Aquinas on the Emotions, 88. 68 ST II-II, q. 84, a. 2. 69 See ST II-II, q. 84, a. 1, ad 3. 70 ST II-II, q. 84, a. 3, ad 3. 71 Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 70. On this point, see Uwe Michael Lang, Turning Towards the Lord (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009). 66 878 Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P. tion of mind that pertains to adoration.72 They do, after all, engage sense, and are thus capable of inciting adoration of God by fueling internal devotion of the mind.73 Various elements of Enlightenment rationalism that have, to some extent or other, informed liturgical reform since the Second Vatican Council have, however, served to quench the spirit of adoration in the faithful. Among these elements is a non-participatory construal of reality that undermines the ability to appreciate symbolic significance, particularly insofar as a particular symbol communicates an experience of the divine. Reality comes to be seen rather in linear-historical terms.74 Anthropological dualism has also undermined the capacity of man to appreciate the significance of symbols, for it cultivates a disembodied spirituality, whereas symbols are physically instantiated realities. Moreover, anthropological dualism lies at the basis of the idea that this-worldly reality furnishes raw material that human beings may freely manipulate as much as they possibly can. The implications of this dualism are, I contend, what Ratzinger characterizes as “a widespread dissolution of the rite, which must now be replaced by the ‘creativity’ of the community.” 75 The seriousness of this development becomes apparent in an argument that Stratford Caldecott attributes to the anthropologist Mary Douglas: “Contempt for ritual forms leads to the privatisation of religious experience and thereby to secular humanism.” 76 In other words, a non-participatory and dualistic approach to liturgical For a development of this point, see Aidan Nichols, O.P., Looking at the Liturgy: A Critical View of Its Contemporary Form (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 87–114. 73 For the development of a Thomistic aesthetic theory that is attentive to the implications of his hylomorphic anthropology, see Kevin E. O’Reilly, Aesthetic Perception: A Thomistic Perspective (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007). 74 Making this point with reference to Scotus and how one understands the nature of history, Matthew Levering writes: “While participation remains in Scotus, it does so in a deracinated form. . . . Lacking a rich account of participation and analogy, reality is ‘desymbolized’: human time is no longer understood as caught up in a participatory relationship with God, and history becomes a strictly linear, horizontal, intratemporal series of moments” (Participatory Biblical Exegesis: A Theology of Biblical Interpretation [Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008], 19). 75 Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 163. 76 Stratford Caldecott, “Liturgy and Trinity: Towards and Anthropology of Liturgy,” in Looking Again at the Question of the Liturgy with Cardinal Ratzinger: Proceedings of the 2001 Fontgombault Liturgical Conference, ed. Alcuin Reid, O.S.B. (Hampshire, UK: Saint Michael’s Abbey Press 2003), 39. 72 St. Thomas on Adoration: Some Reflections 879 worship not only undermines adoration of God but also conduces to the exclusion of God from the rest of human life. A full substantiation of these claims with regard to contemporary Catholic liturgical worship is not possible within the confines of this present article. I have introduced them in order to suggest that the neglect of Thomas’s reflections on adoration in ST II-II, q. 84, informed as they are by the doctrine of creation, by a participatory metaphysics, and by a hylomorphic anthropology, ought to be remedied not only for its own sake but also because this question provides rich resources that can help liturgical theologians and practitioners, as well as architects, musicians, and artists, to understand, to reappraise, N&V and to impart a new direction to the current state of affairs. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 881–898 881 Christ as Deus Absconditus in Thomas Aquinas’s Theology Mateusz Przanowski, O.P. Thomistic Institute Warsaw, Poland The relationship between the two natures in Christ is the subject of one of the greatest theological disputes. The way in which this relationship is defined determines the perception not only of Christ himself and his mission but also of the mystery of the divine nature and the Trinity and numerous other fundamental issues. For example, the statements that the Word’s assumption of human nature causes changes in his divine nature and that whatever happens in Christ’s human nature has an actual impact on his divine nature are obviously remote from what is called a “classical theism,” known from the works by Augustine, Aquinas, Bonaventure, or Duns Scotus. Martin Luther was perfectly well aware of this when he put forward a new understanding of the communicatio idiomatum principle, making way for radical redefinitions not only in Christology but also, as a direct consequence, in the theology of the Trinity.1 This trend, timidly introduced by Luther, was strongly reinforced by nineteenth-century kenoticists and later prevailed in a number of twentieth-century Christological and Trinitarian concepts. Some See: Marc Lienhard, Luther: Witness to Jesus Christ (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1982), 337–45; Dennis Ngien, “Chalcedonian Christology and Beyond: Luther’s Understanding of the Communicatio idiomatum,” Heythrop Journal 13 (January 2004): 54–68; Bernhard Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1999), 228–31; Klaas Zwanepol, “A Human God: Some Remarks on Luther’s Christology,” Concordia 30 (2004): 40–53; Thomas G. Weinandy, Does God Change? The Word’s Becoming in the Incarnation (Still River, MA: St. Bede’s, 1985), 101–10. 1 882 Mateusz Przanowski, O.P. of the key elements of this process were: introduction of a weaker notion of the divine transcendence, negation of the incarnate Logos’s immutability, and redefinition of the relationships within the Holy Trinity. Some truly “human” characteristics were assigned to the triune Creator: he “became” mutable and passible, full of passions and experiencing history in his divine being. The general direction of these changes may be briefly characterized as a radical increase in blurring the ontic boundary between the Creator and the creation, the boundary that was “heroically” defended by classical and Thomistic Christology. But this modern and contemporary process of transforming the Trinitarian theology began with reflection on the Incarnation and was an attempt to find a new answer to the question on the nature of God and its relation to the human nature assumed in the Incarnation. I do not intend in this article to discuss or criticize these new theologies of the nature of God and of the Trinity. This has been done many a time by Thomists, and to good effect.2 I treat these contemporary trends only as a background that helps to emphasize one of the significant themes in Aquinas’s Christology: the theology of the incarnated God as the God who hides himself, the Deus absconditus. This expression was derived from Isaiah 45:15: “Truly, thou art a God who hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior!” (“Vere tu es Deus absconditus, Deus Israel salvator”). It is worth it to note at the outset that, for Aquinas, Deus absconditus refers almost exclusively to Christ, to the incarnated Son of God. It is thought-provoking in itself that St. Thomas, who was so sensitive about accentuating divine incomprehensibilitas, very rarely uses this name in connection with the mystery of God’s nature in se and limits its use mainly to the description of Jesus Christ, the God enfleshed. The name Deus absconditus plays a significant role in Aquinas’s Christology, as it defines the identity of the incarnated Son of God, who remains the “God who hides himself ” despite the fact that he assumed human nature and allowed its unimaginable union with See: Michael Dodds, The Unchanging God of Love: Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Theology on Divine Immutability (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008 [originally 1986]); Matthew Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004); Thomas G. Weinandy, Does God Suffer? (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000); Weinandy, Does God Change?; Thomas Joseph White, The Incarnate Lord: A Thomistic Study in Christology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2015). 2 Christ as Deus Absconditus in Thomas Aquinas’s Theology 883 himself. For, even though “per carnem Filius Dei visibilis apparuit [through flesh, the Son of God became visible],”3 still, as Aquinas states: The divinity of Christ is covered over [occulta], and it is apart [separate] from every creature because of its excellence: “God who is over all be blessed for ever” (Rom 9:5); “Truly, you art a God who hides yourself ” (Isa 45:15).4 And in another place, he writes: For the assumption of humanity . . . took place in a unity of person, not in a unity of nature, which might result in our agreement with those who held that God is not exalted above all things [super omnia exaltatum], and said that God was the soul of the universe, or something of the sort.5 Therefore Jesus Christ, the incarnated God, may be called Deus absconditus because his divine nature remains immutable and transcends the creation even in its hypostatic union with the human nature. I am convinced that this theme of Aquinas’s Christology is definitely worth analyzing, especially when one has in mind the above-mentioned trends in modern theology. How Does God Hide Himself in Christ? When do we say that something is concealed (abscondo) from us? It may be “concealed” when our intellect is too weak to recognize it. Summa theologiae [ST] III, q. 5, a. 3, ad 1, in Summa Theologiae: Tertia Pars, 1–59, trans. Laurence Shapcote, O.P. (Lander, WY: Aquinas Institute for the Study of the Sacred Doctrine, 2012), 70. All further English translation from the tertia pars of ST will come from this edition. 4 Super Ioanmem 20, lec. 1 (no. 2483), in Commentary on the Gospel of St. John: Chapters 9–21, trans. Fabian R. Larcher, O.P. (Lander, WY: Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2013), 459. All further English citations of the commentary on John will be taken, depending on location in the Gospel, either from this volume or from Commentary on the Gospel of St. John: Chapters 1–8, trans. Fabian R. Larcher, O.P. (Lander,WY: Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2013). 5 Summa contra gentiles [SCG] IV, ch. 55 (no. 3938), in On the Truth of the Catholic Faith Contra Gentiles, Book Four: Salvation, trans. Charles J. O’Neil (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1957), 235–36. All further English of SCG IV will be from this edition. See also De unione Verbi incarnati, a. 2, ad 15. 3 884 Mateusz Przanowski, O.P. Or perhaps some veil (velamen) separates us from the object of our cognition. Thus, the candle cannot be seen because of one’s blindness or because it is covered and hidden from view.6 These are precisely two ways in which, in Christ, the incarnated Word of God, “are hid [sunt absconditi] all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:3). These treasures are concealed from us both by the illness of our eyes and by the fact that they are covered (velatum) with two veils. The first of these veils is that of creatureliness (see Rom 1:20): “At this time our intellect cannot come to this knowledge [knowledge of God] except through the likeness of creatures.”7 The second is being veiled in flesh (velatum in carne), for the Word “became flesh” (John 1:14). So, even if we do partially see God, we cannot see him in his entity, for he exists as Deus absconditus (Isa 45:15).8 God hid himself in the infirmity of humanity (occultus in infirmitate humanitatis):9 Christ is called a fish insofar as his divinity is hidden, for it is characteristic of fish to remain hidden in the water: “Truly, you are a God who hides yourself ” (Isa 45:15).10 Such concealment is characteristic of the Lord’s first coming, while his second coming will be evident.11 The nature of this concealment may be described in various ways. In the beginning, we may distinguish between what is being hidden and what hides it, between what has been veiled and the veil itself. Considering the assumption of human nature in the Incarnation and See Super Colossenses 2, lec. 1 (no. 82), in Commentary on the Letters of Saint Paul to the Philippians, Colossians,Thessalonians,Timothy,Titus, and Philemon, trans. Fabian R. Larcher, O.P., ed. John Mortensen and Enrique Alarcón (Lander, WY: Aquinas Institute for the Study of the Sacred Doctrine, 2012). Further English from these commentaries of Thomas will be taken from this volume. 7 Super Colossenses 2, lec. 1 (no. 82), 104. 8 See Super Colossenses 2, lec. 1 (no. 82). 9 See Super Psalmos 49, no. 2, in Commentaire sur Les Psaumes, 628 (because the French edition of the Latin of the commentary on the Psalms is considered to be much better edited and more faithful to Thomas’s manuscript than the other major editions, such as Parma [which corpusthomisticum.org uses for the commentary], I provide the French edition page numbers in parentheses for all subsequent citations of the commentary). 10 Super Ioanmem 21, lec. 2 (no. 2599). 11 See Super Psalmos 9, no. 1 (French ed., 113). See also: Super Psalmos 49, no. 2 (French ed., 628); In IV sent., d. 47, q. 1, a. 1, qcl. 3, ad 1; Super Matthaeum 16, lec. 1 (no. 1358). 6 Christ as Deus Absconditus in Thomas Aquinas’s Theology 885 the humiliatio of the Cross, in both these events were hidden: God himself;12 his great dignity (maiestas);13 his face (vultus);14 his glory (gloria);15 and the divinity (divinitas or deitas)16 and claritas of the Son of God ( John 17:1).17 Meanwhile, the cover or veil itself is the weakness (infirmitas) of the assumed human nature,18 meaning the infirmity of humanity (infirmitas humanitatis)19 and its smallness (parvitas).20 This weakness may be further specified as weakness of flesh (infirmitas carnis),21 which is a “veil of divinity” (velamen deitatis),22 such as mortality23 or the weakness revealed by experiencing hunger, thirst, physical pain, and sadness.24 In other words, the Son of God and the true God, by assuming the smallness and weakness of the human nature, has hidden himself “according to [with respect to] divine nature” (secundum Divinam naturam).25 Aquinas therefore refers Ezekiel 32:7—“I will cover the sun with a cloud”26 —precisely to the Incarnation: Origen says: . . . “the light [that] shines in the darkness,” is Christ coming into the world, having a body capable of suffering and without sin, but “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom 8:3). The light is in the flesh, that is, the flesh of Christ, which is called a darkness insofar as it has a likeness to sinful flesh. As See Super Isaiam 9, vv. 110–15. See: Super Isaiam 53, vv. 71–79; Super Ioanmem 13, lec. 1 (no. 1746). 14 See Super Isaiam 53, vv. 71–79. 15 See Super Psalmos 9, no. 1 (French ed., 113). 16 See: Super Psalmos 9, no. 1 (French ed., 113); Super Ioanmem 5, lec. 1 (no. 708); 20, lec. 1 (no. 2483); Super Hebraeos 10, lec. 2 (no. 502). 17 See SCG IV, ch. 8 (no. 3434a). 18 See Super Ioanmem 5, lec. 1 (no. 708). 19 See Super Psalmos 49, no. 2 (French ed., 628). 20 See Super Ioanmem 13, lec. 1 (no. 1746). 21 See: Super Isaiam 53, vv. 71-79; SCG IV, ch. 8 (no. 3434a). 22 Super Hebraeos 10, lec. 2 (no. 502). 23 See Super Ioanmem 13, lec. 1 (no. 1746). 24 See Super Isaiam 53, vv. 71–79. 25 SCG IV, ch. 8 (no. 3434–35): “Filius est occultus secundum divinam naturam: nam Patri et Filio commune est quod dicitur Isaiae 45,15: Vere tu es Deus absconditus, sanctus Israel, Salvator [the Son also is hidden according to the divine nature, for common to both Father and Son is the saying of Isaias (45:15): ‘Verily Thou art a hidden God, the God of Israel, the savior’].” 26 The whole verse goes as follows: “When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens, and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light” (Ezek 32:7). 12 13 886 Mateusz Przanowski, O.P. if to say: The light, i.e., the Word of God, veiled about by the darkness of the flesh [circumvelatum tenebris carnis], shines on the world; “I will cover the sun with a cloud” (Ezek 32:7).27 Of course, the fact that the divine nature is hidden in the “cloud” of the human nature does not mean that there has been any change in the former. The assumption of human infirmitas did not cause the integrity (integritas) of the Word’s divine nature to lose its perfection,28 or the Word to abandon his greatness (magnitudo)29 and diminish his dignity (dignitas).30 The Logos is unchanged in his divine nature, though he is hidden behind the veil of flesh. This mysterious concealment may be explained only by the theology of the hypostatic union: although the divine and human natures are most widely apart, they “come together” (conveniunt) in one suppositum.31 Jesus Christ is thus a union of two natures, and the existence of suppositum allows us to predicate of him both divine and human properties, even if they are contrary to each other: mortal and immortal, corruptible and incorruptible, simple and composite, and so on. Still, the properties of the two natures do not mix, as both remain themselves:32 It is impossible for contraries [opposite] to be predicated of the same in the same respects [secundum idem], but nothing prevents their being predicated of the same in different aspects [secundum diversa]. And thus contraries are predicated of Christ, not in the same, but in different natures.33 Super Ioanmem1, lec. 3 (no. 105). See also: Super Psalmos 17, no. 11 (French ed., 203); 49, no. 2 (French ed., 628). 28 See SCG IV, ch. 41 (no. 3791). 29 See: SCG IV, ch. 34 (no. 3715c); De unione Verbi incarnati, a. 1, ad 14. 30 See ST III, q. 5, a. 1, ad 2. 31 See ST III, q. 16, a. 1, ad 1. 32 See De unione Verbi incarnati, a. 5, ad 9. 33 ST III, q. 16, a. 4, ad 1 (obj. 1 reads: “Impossibile est enim opposita de eodem praedicari. Sed ea quae sunt humanae naturae, sunt contraria his quae sunt propria Dei: Deus enim est increatus, immutabilis et aeternus; ad humanam autem naturam pertinet ut sit creata, temporalis et mutabilis. Non ergo ea quae sunt naturae humane, possunt dici de Deo [For contrary things cannot be said of the same. Now, what belongs to human nature is contrary to what is proper to God, since God is uncreated, immutable, and eternal, and it belongs to the human nature to be created temporal and mutable. Therefore what belongs to the human nature cannot be said of God]”). 27 Christ as Deus Absconditus in Thomas Aquinas’s Theology 887 If we take these properties—for instance, man as “mortal,” “passible,” and “sad”—in the abstract (in abstracto),34 in isolation from the hypostatic union, then we can by no means apply them to God. It would be a blasphemy and derogatory to his honor.35 However, if these properties are predicated of one hypostasis in which the human nature was assumed, then it is not a blasphemy and not ungodly to predicate them in concreto.36 Therefore, predicating human properties of the suppositum of the Son of God is not a blasphemy, though it does not change the fact that this one suppositum exists in two natures whose properties are completely separate; the Word “assumed flesh too, which is something far removed (elongatus) from the simplicity of his nature.”37 Thus, it is right to say that the divine nature is indeed hidden in the human nature, for the properties of the latter, especially the defects (defectus) 38 assumed by the Logos, are radically different from the properties of the former. Therefore, it is the theology of the hypostatic union that allows us to recognize that the properties of the unified natures remain different even in the unimaginable union in which human nature becomes the very own nature of the Word.39 Due to this theology, it is also valid to state that some of the properties of the human nature assumed by the Word cover the See ST III, q. 16, a. 5, corp. See ST III, q. 16, a. 4, ad 2. 36 See ST III, q. 16, a. 2, ad 2; a. 5, corp. 37 Super Ioanmem 1, lec. 7 (no. 169). 38 See Super Philipenses 2, lec. 2 (no. 60): “. . . defectus omnes et proprietates continentes speciem, praeter peccatum, suscepit. Et ideo habitu inventus ut homo, scilicet in exteriori conversatione, quia esuriit ut homo, fatigatus fuit, et huiusmodi [. . . he assumed all the defects and properties associated with the human species, except sin; therefore, he says, and in habit found as a man, namely, in his external life, because he became hungry as a man and tired and so on].” See also ST III, q. 14, q. 15. 39 See: SCG IV, ch. 34 (no. 3703): “Ipsi igitur Dei Verbo corpus aptatur, ut scilicet sit proprium corpus eius. Quod dici non posset nisi esset eadem hypostasis Dei Verbi et illius hominis [It is, then, to God’s very Word that a body is fitted; namely, so as to be His own body. And one could not say this if the hypostasis of God’s Word were not identified with that of the man]”; SCG IV, ch. 41 (no. 3794): “Verbum in humana natura sicut in sibi propria facta per incarnationem, subsistere ponatur; ut et corpus illud vere sit corpus Verbi Dei; et similiter anima; et Verbum Dei vere sit homo [Let the Word be set down as subsisting in a human nature as in one made His very own by the Incarnation; and in consequence that body is truly the body of the Word of God, and the soul in like manner, and the Word of God is truly man].” 34 35 888 Mateusz Przanowski, O.P. properties of the divine nature like “a veil” (velamen deitatis).40 However, it would be wrong to assume that the weakness of the human nature in which God hides himself is something essentially hostile and contrary to him, ontologically excluding the possibility of any union with God. The human nature assumed by the Logos is a creation, and thus comes from him and is dependent on him. The Logos is the pattern of the whole creation, the original exemplar of the created order, like the conception of the product of art in the intellect of the artist.41 Created things are the expression of what is contained in the Logos himself, and therefore represent the Word in a created way. Certainly, the created human nature of Christ is different from the nature of the Creator, but this fundamental difference has been willed and established (instituta) by the Creator and is essentially ordained (ordinata) to his goodness.42 God, who is uncreated, immutable, and incorporeal himself, produced mutable and corporeal creatures for his own goodness. The evil of punishment (malum poenae) was also introduced by God’s justice for God’s glory.43 Hence, the created nature of Christ in its deepest essence is good and ordained to God’s goodness. Consequently, even though any union of the human nature with the divine, which takes place in persona, is a grace given gratis,44 radically exceeding the natural abilities of human nature, the two realities this union concerns are not essentially and invincibly hostile to each other. It is malum culpae, or the evil of fault, that is truly hostile to God,45 and this fault is committed by withdrawing “from the art of the divine wisdom” (ars divinae sapientiae) and breaching the order of the divine goodness.46 Consequently, while it was by no means fitting to the Word to assume the evil See Super Hebraeos 10, lec. 2 (no. 502): “. . . oportet intrare per carnem Christi, qui fuit velamen deitatis. Isa XlV, 15: Vere tu es Deus absconditus [. . . must enter through Christ’s flesh, which was a veil of his divinity: ‘verily, you are a hidden God’ (Isa 45:15)]” (Commentary on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Hebrews, trans. Fabian R. Larcher, ed. John Mortensen and Enrique Alarcón [Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012], 219; all further English from Thomas’s commentary on Hebrews will be from this edition). This is a commentary on Heb 10:20: “The new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain (velamen), that is, through his flesh.” 41 See SCG IV, ch. 42 (no. 3803). 42 See ST III, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3. 43 See ST III, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3. 44 See ST III, q. 6, a. 6, corp. 45 See ST III, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3. 46 See ST III, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3. 40 Christ as Deus Absconditus in Thomas Aquinas’s Theology 889 of fault, it became him to assume a nature that is created, mutable, corporeal, and subject to penalty.47 These remarks play a significant role in explaining the essence of God’s concealment in Christ. The divine nature of Christ is indeed hidden in the human nature, but this concealment does not consist in “hiding the goodness in something hostile and sinful,” but in “hiding the uncreated goodness in the created goodness.” It is worth it here to indicate one more characteristic of this concealment: it may be more or less intense, depending on the nature of a given mystery of the life of Christ. In other words, the degree of manifestation (manifestatio) of the Savior’s divinity may vary, being conditioned by the role of a given mystery of his life in God’s salvific plan. For example, in the mystery of Christ’s nativity, his divinity was not supposed to be proclaimed to all, but rather be hidden in the defects of infancy.48 However, when the Savior attained to the perfect age and began his mission of teaching and working miracles, then the Father’s clear testimony attesting Christ’s Godhead was needed to draw people to him ( John 5:37).49 The degree of the concealment of Christ’s divinity varied according to the mystery: his temptation by the devil in the desert differed from the later mysteries of his life such as his Passion and resurrection; 50 his discussions differed from his performance of miracles; 51 and the Cross differed from the Transfiguration, where the claritas of the divine nature and Christ’s soul overflowed into his body.52 Thus, whether the divinity of Christ was manifested in his human nature more or less clearly depended on certain divine dispensation (dispensatio).53 For, the incarnated Son of God had power over the degree to which the grace derived from his divine nature and the dignity of his soul had an impact on his See ST III, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3. See: ST III, q. 39, a. 8, ad 3; q. 36. 49 See ST III, q. 39, a. 8, ad 3. 50 See ST III, q. 44, a. 1, ad 2. 51 See ST III, q. 13, a. 4, corp.: “Alio modo voluit aliquid ut implendum virtute divina: sicut resuscitationem proprii corporis, et alia huiusmodi miraculosa opera. Quae quidem non poterat propria virtute: sed secundum quod erat instrumentum divinitatis [Second, He wished things to be brought about by the Divine power, as the resurrection of His own body and such like miraculous deeds, which He could not effect by His own power, except as the instrument of the Godhead].” 52 See ST III, q. 45, a. 2, corp. 53 See ST III, q. 45, a. 2, corp. and ad 1. 47 48 890 Mateusz Przanowski, O.P. body.54 Hence, he was able to hide his divinity more or less effectively, depending on the intended salvific impact of a given mystery of his life, Passion, and resurrection. I am aware of the fact that the above description of the grounds for the theology of Christ as Deus absconditus is a very perfunctory one. Still, I am convinced that this brief summary outlines the main ideas behind such theology: in the Incarnation, the Son of God assumes the human nature, which is united with his divine nature in persona, but this kind of union does not blur the differences between the two natures. Since the created human nature possesses properties different from those of the uncreated divine nature, one may say that the latter is hidden in the former, and this concealment has its own dynamics: Christ’s divinity is more or less visible, depending on the stage of his salvific plan. The Meaning of Concealment The fact that God has covered himself with the veil of flesh entails a number of significant theological consequences. The divine absconsio is not some “by-product” of the hypostatic union, but an intended way in which God redeems men. Now I shall analyze more closely this salvific meaning of God’s concealment. Three Main Objectives of Concealment There are three reasons for Christ’s existence as Deus absconditus that may be considered as central. They can be recognized by analyzing the degree of manifestation (manifestation) of Christ’s divinity in the mystery of his nativity.55 In other words, when we look at the way in which Christ’s nativity was proclaimed to the world, we can recognize three main meanings of God’s concealment, meanings that can then be referred also to other mysteries of Christ’s life, though it is obviously necessary to take into account the level of manifestation in the specific mystery. (1) Had God not hidden himself, the redemption of man, accomplished by means of the Cross, would have been impossible.56 According to St. Paul: See: ST III, q. 7, a. 1, corp.; q. 13, a. 3, corp.; q. 14, a. 1, ad 2; q. 45, a. 2, corp. and ad 1. 55 See ST III, q. 36. 56 See: ST III, q. 36, a. 1, corp.; Super Ioanmem 8, lec. 8 (no. 1292). 54 Christ as Deus Absconditus in Thomas Aquinas’s Theology 891 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom [sapientia abscondita] of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Cor 2:7–8) The crucifixion of “the Lord of glory,” or the work of redemption, would not have been possible if “the rulers of this age” had clearly recognized Christ’s divinity,57 but they did not understand this divinity, for it was unified with a human nature marked by weakness.58 “The Lord of glory” became a man capable of suffering (homo passibilis),59 and thus he hid his divinity. For our redemption, the Son of God became Deus absconditus, hiding his divine nature, in order to make man’s redemption through the Cross possible. Therefore, this concealment is especially visible in the mystery of the Passion. According to the Vulgate of Isaiah 53:3: “Quasi absconditus vultus eius et despectus [His look was, as it were, hidden and despised].”60 The countenance of the Son of God and his glory have been hidden in the corporeal weakness and signs of his lowering: physical pain and sadness.61 (2) The second reason is that, had God not hidden himself in Christ, the merit of faith would not have been possible.62 John 5:3–4 speaks of an angel who descended into the pond, moving its healing waters. Only the movement of the water was visible, not the angel who set it in motion: There are some necessary distinctions to be made with regard to the issue of recognizing Christ as the Messiah and God. We have to distinguish between the reasons for ignorance in the cases of both the Jewish elders and the ordinary followers. The first could have recognized clear signs of Christ’s divinity but been unwilling to believe them due to their culpable ignorance. See: ST III, q. 47, a. 5, corp.; In III sent., d. 19, q. 1, a. 1, qcl. 2, ad 5; In IV sent., d. 9, q. 1, a. 3, qcl. 4, corp.; Super Ioanmem 15, lec. 5 (no. 2049); 7, lec. 3 (no. 1054); Super Romanos 9, lec. 5 (no. 812); Super Psalmos 34, no. 11. 58 See Super Ioanmem 8, lec. 5 (no. 1227). 59 See ST III, q. 46, a. 12, ad 1. 60 ST III, q. 36, a. 1, sc. 61 See Super Isaiam 53, vv. 71–79. 62 See ST III, q. 36, a. 1, corp.: “Si enim manifestis indiciis, Christo nascente, eius nativitas omnibus appareret, iam tolleretur ratio fidei, quae est argumentum non apparentium, ut dicitur Heb. 11[:1] [For if, when Christ was born, His birth had been made known to all by evident signs, the very nature of faith would have been destroyed, since it is ‘the evidence of things that appear not,’ as stated, Heb. 11:1].” 57 892 Mateusz Przanowski, O.P. So Christ was not known as to his divinity, for “If they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8). For as Isaiah (45:15) says: “Truly, you are a hidden God.” And so the motion of the water was seen, but not the one who set it in motion, because, seeing the weakness of Christ, the people did not know of his divinity. And just as the one who went into the pool was healed, so a person who humbly believes in God is healed by his passion.63 Because of God’s concealment in the human weakness, a humble faith is needed to accept truth about Christ, both in his divinity and in his humanity. However, two things might obstruct the presence of faith: either a thing might be perfectly manifest (totaliter manifestum), and then faith is unnecessary because it is transformed into seeing, or the thing might be entirely unknown because there are no witnesses who could spread it, making faith absent because nothing is proposed for belief.64 And so, Christ as Deus absconditus reveals the truth about his divinity in a way that does not destroy the merit of faith by making it redundant of sight but, of course, also does not prevent men’s access to this faith. This motive was beautifully developed in the third stanza of the Adoro te devote hymn, where it was also tied with the Eucharistic theology: On the Cross lay hidden but thy Deity, Here is hidden also Thy Humanity: But in both believing and confessing, Lord, Ask I what the dying thief of Thee implored. (3) Finally, had God not hidden himself in Christ, the truth about his humanity could have come into doubt.65 The faith that leads to salvation should take into account both his divinity and humanity. Without recognizing the authenticity of Christ’s humanity, this faith would be imperfect.66 And recognition of Christ’s humanity is a path to recognition of his divinity: “Christ wished to make his Godhead known through his human nature.”67 For, just as the priest of Israel entered the holy of holies through the veil, we too reach salvation— Super Ioanmem 5, lec. 1 (no. 708; citation from the Vulgate). See ST III, q. 36, a. 2, ad 1. 65 See ST III, q. 36, a. 1, corp. 66 See: ST III, q. 14, a. 1, corp.; q. 36, a. 4, corp.; Super Ioanmem 7, lec. 2 (no. 1027). 67 ST III, q. 40, a. 1, ad 1. 63 64 Christ as Deus Absconditus in Thomas Aquinas’s Theology 893 or the holy of glory—through the veil (velamen deitatis) that is Christ’s flesh (Heb 10:20): 68 The infirmity assumed by Christ did not impede, but greatly furthered the end of the Incarnation. . . . And although these infirmities concealed His Godhead, they made known His Manhood, which is the way of coming to the Godhead, according to Romans 5:1–2: “By Jesus Christ we have access to God.”69 It is worth adding that there is also an opposite danger of such focus on Christ’s humanity, the danger that his divinity would be forgotten, since the flesh of the incarnated Word was manifest but his Godhead was hidden.70 And this is the reason it was becoming for the Son of God to lead a needy and private life in this world: this propelled people to consider the mystery of his divinity instead of focusing them on his humanity.71 It was also wisely ordained that the incarnated God should not stay among the people unto the end of the world, which would make it possible for men to esteem him nothing beyond themselves: men began to revere Christ more when he withdrew his presence from them, since the ongoing visibility of the human nature could cause the people to erroneously overlook the divinity of Christ.72 Trinitarian Sources of Concealment The incarnated Son of God is Deus absconditus, for he is also hidden in the inner life of the Trinity. Thus, his concealment in the Incarnation See Super Hebraeos 10, lec. 2 (no. 502). It is worth noting that this passage contains a reference to the Eucharistic theology: “. . . per velamen, id est, per carnem suam datam nobis sub velamento speciei panis in sacramento. Non enim proponitur nobis sub specie propria propter horrorem, et propter meritum fidei [. . . through the veil, i.e., through his flesh given to us under the veil of the appearance of bread in the sacrament. He is not offered to us under his own form because of dread and to obtain the merit of faith].” 69 ST III, q. 14, a. 1, ad 4. 70 See ST III, q. 36, a. 5, ad 1: “Illud manifestatione indiget, quod de se est occultum; non autem illud, quod de se est manifestum: caro autem eius, qui nascebatur, erat manifestum, sed divinitas erat occulta [That which of itself is hidden needs to be manifested, but not that which in itself is manifest. Now, the flesh of Him who was born was manifest, whereas the Godhead was hidden].” 71 See SCG IV, ch. 55 (no. 3945b). 72 See SCG IV, ch. 55 (no. 3943). 68 894 Mateusz Przanowski, O.P. is a continuation of his concealment within the Trinity. There are three New Testament passages that are of crucial significance for this motive. The first is 1 Timothy 3:16, with special emphasis on the following part: “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion [pietatis sacramentum]: He was manifested in the flesh [manifestum est in carne].” Sacramentum means “the sacred secret” or “the sacred mystery.” 73And nothing is more secret/mysterious than what we keep in our hearts. In the case of God, it is likewise, but of course to an incomparably higher degree (1 Cor 2:11; Isa 24:16; 45:15), and what he keeps in his heart is secret/mysterious and sacred.74 And what God the Father keeps in his heart is the Word of God, his Son, who is a secret/ mystery of the Father comprehended only by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 2:11). Thus, the Son is a Deus absconditus also in the inner life of the Trinity.75 This inner-Trinitarian characteristic of the Son has not been made invalid by the Incarnation. The Son appeared visibly, but only secundum carnem; as for secundum deitatem, he is invisible, just as the Father is.76 The second biblical passage is John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father [in sinu Patris], he has made him known.” What does the word “bosom” (sinus) mean in this context? It indicates the secret things of the Father, for what we carry in the bosom remains hidden. And secret things of the Father refer to His infinity, surpassing all power and knowledge.77 In that bosom, or in the most secret things of the Father’s nature and essence, is the Only Begotten Son, consubstantial with the Father.78 From this bosom of the Father, his uterus (Ps 110:3), or “the inmost secret things of [God’s] essence,” is the Son begotten, who—as consubstantial with the Father—is of the same nature, power, virtue, and knowledge.79 So, the incarnated Son of God remains in the hidden things of the Father: We should note that the phrase, “who is in the bosom of the Father,” rejects the error of those who say that the Father is Super I Timotheum 3, lec. 3 (no. 130). See Super I Timotheum 3, lec. 3 (no. 130). 75 See Super I Timotheum 3, lec. 3 (no. 130). 76 See SCG IV, ch. 8 (no. 3429c). 77 See Super Ioanmem 1, lec. 11 (no. 218). 78 See Super Ioanmem 1, lec. 11 (no. 218). 79 See Super Ioanmem 1, lec. 11 (no. 218). 73 74 Christ as Deus Absconditus in Thomas Aquinas’s Theology 895 invisible, but the Son is visible, though he was not seen in the Old Testament. For from the fact that he is among the hidden things of the Father [in abscondito Patri], it is plain that he is naturally invisible, as is the Father. So it is said of him: “Truly, you are a hidden God” (Isa 45:15). And so Scripture mentions the incomprehensibility [incomprehensibilitas] of the Son: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son” (Matt 11:27), “What is the name of his son, if you know?” as we read in Proverbs (30:4).80 Thus, the Son of God is absconditus by his very nature because he is consubstantial with the Father, who is invisible, infinite, and incomprehensible. The Son’s concealment is by no means diminished by his Incarnation, for his assumption of human nature does not make any changes in his divine nature. The fact that the Son became visible in flesh does not mean that he ceased to be Deus absconditus in the bosom of the Father. The third passage is John 17:1: “Father, the hour has come; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee.” Neither the Father nor the Son needs to “be glorified” (clarificatio) in the sense of giving each other some new glory. For, both the Father and the Son remain eternally in perfect and immutable claritas.81 How then can the Son speak of being glorified by the Father and of glorifying the Father? 82 The Son wants it because it is necessary for his glory, “hidden under the weakness of the flesh” (sub infirmitate carnis occultata), to be manifested “in the faith of peoples believing” by the glorification of the flesh and the working of miracles.83 Thus, “to glorify” is to reveal the glory and to manifest it to the people. Similarly, the Son “glorifies” the Father by manifesting him to the world. The Father is not hidden sub infirmitate carnis, but by the invisibility of his nature, being—just like the Son—the eternal Deus absconditus, Sanctus Israel, Salvator.84 So, the Son “glorifies” the Father by manifesting his name to the world ( John 17:6). The Son reveals the Father, in a way taking the Father Super Ioanmem 1, lec. 11 (no. 220). SCG IV, ch. 8 (no. 3434a): “Non enim Filius clarificatione indiget quasi de novo claritatem accipiens, cum eam profiteatur se ante mundum habuisse [For, the Son needs no glory as one who receives new glory, since He professes that He had it ‘before the world was’ (Jn 17:5)].” 82 See Super Ioanmem 17, lec. 1 (no. 2181). 83 See SCG IV, ch. 8 (no. 3434a). 84 See SCG IV, ch. 8 (no. 3434f). 80 81 896 Mateusz Przanowski, O.P. out of hiding. Therefore, the concealment concerns not only the Son who exists in sinu Patris, but also God the Father. However, the Son’s concealment is a double one, for not only is he invisible, like the Father, but he has also hidden himself in the weakness of the human nature assumed in the Incarnation. The Concealment and Kenōsis John is the only evangelist to leave a description of the scene in which Jesus laid aside his garments, girded himself with a towel, and washed the feet of his disciples. Christ, the incarnated God, performed a surprising and mysterious act of humiliatio.These three actions of Christ (rising from supper, laying aside his garments, and girding himself with the towel) may be regarded as a mystic reference to his Incarnation and Passion. Christ “rose from supper”: he rushed to help mankind, for to a troubled man, it seems that “God is sitting down,” but when a man is rescued from his troubles, it seems to him that “God rises.” Thus, in the Incarnation, God ceases to “sit down” and comes to man’s rescue.85 In the context of God’s emptying himself (exinanitio), done in the Incarnation, Christ’s action of “laying aside his garments” is equally symbolic: It indicates that he emptied himself: not that he abandoned his great dignity, but he hid it [occult] by taking on our smallness [parvitas]: “Truly, thou art a God who hidest thyself ” (Isa 45:15: “Vere tu es Deus absconditus”). This is shown by the fact that he “laid aside his garments”: “He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant” (Phil 2:7).86 The Son of God is immutable in his divine nature, so by no means can he abandon “his great dignity.” His emptying himself in the Incarnation consists in hiding his great dignity by taking on the smallness.87 This See Super Ioanmem 13, lec. 2 (no. 1746). Super Ioanmem 13, lec. 2 (no. 1746). 87 This passage—Super Ioanmem 13, lec. 2 (no. 1746)—contains a phrase parvitatem assumendo, or “taking on the smallness” (also parvitatem suscipere in Super Romanos 9, lec. 5, [no. 805]). This may also mean taking on something “minor,” “weak,” “insignificant,” “poor,” or “low.” In another passage, Aquinas states: “Christ made himself little [Christus se parvum fecit] by taking on our littleness” (Sermo Puer Jesus, nos. 79–80 [Leonine ed., 44/1:104; English in The Academic Sermons, trans. Mark-Robin Hoodland, C.P. [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010], 90). There are also other expressions 85 86 Christ as Deus Absconditus in Thomas Aquinas’s Theology 897 smallness refers, of course, to human nature, subjected to suffering and death. Therefore, the theological motive of God’s hiding himself in the Incarnation may shed additional light on the issue of God’s kenōsis. Of course, it is crucial to take into account the statement characteristic for the doctrine of the hypostatic union that the exinanitio of the Son of God consisted in allowing human nature into the in persona union. However, there is a new aspect to be considered: the assumption of human nature to some extent involves the concealment of the divine nature. Only when this is understood is a fuller insight into the theology of kenōsis possible. Though God remains in the undisturbed fullness of his existence, in his exinanitio, he becomes Deus absconditus somehow more fully. Thus, God’s concealment in the Incarnation should be understood as a kenotic act. It is worth it to note that although God is a hidden God in his kenōsis, at the same time it allows him to reveal many of his attributes in a new way. In the mysteries of exinanitio (Phil 2:7) and humiliatio (Phil 2:8), the Son of God took on human infirmitas, and thus was able to perform on the Cross the work of redemption. On the one hand, of course, Christ’s assumption of human nature and his “crucifixion in weakness” (2 Cor 13:4: “crucifixus est ex infirmitate”) were possible due to such concealment (1 Cor 2:8), but on the other hand, they also served to reveal God’s nature. For, in a new way, they referring to kenosis that are worth mentioning. These phrases are meant to clarify such terms as incarnation or descensio (“descent from heaven”). For, the notion of exinanitio, found in Phil 2:7, is not the same as depono, or “giving up,” “abandoning,” and “putting off.” The meaning of depono, just like that of the verb evacuo, does not fit with the constancy of the subject of the Pauline hymn. Meanwhile, the expression minoratus est, or “made lower,” derived from Heb 2:9 (“Qui modico ab Angelis minoratus est”), is consistent with the meaning of the hymn. This “lowering” of the Son is expressed also in John 14:28: “Pater maior me est” (SCG IV, ch. 8 [no. 3430]). Thus, exinanitio can also be understood as minoratio, or “a lowering” (In De Trinitate II, q. 3, a. 4, ad 1), since the verb minoro means “to lower” or “to cut short,” though it should also be taken into account that the noun minoratio may actually be used to denote “a diminution” or “an abasement.” Exinanitio consists also in a breviatio: “a shortening” or “an abbreviation.” The use of this latter word is based on an association between Isa 10:22–23 in the Vulgate and a Latin translation of Rom 9:28, in which the expression verbum breviatum (“word abridged”) may be found. Therefore, this expression can be referred to the Incarnation and exinanitio: the Son of God became “emptied” (exinanitum) and “abridged” (breviatum) by assuming the “weakness and smallness” (Super Romanos 9, lec. 5 [no. 805]). 898 Mateusz Przanowski, O.P. disclosed that God’s love consists in love for the friends88 and revealed God’s mercy,89 justice,90 goodness,91 wisdom,92 some aspects of his power (the Incarnation itself 93 and forgiveness of sins94), and many other of his attributes. Therefore, hidings himself in the weakness of human flesh, which was necessary to lay down his life “for his friend” ( John 15:13), God also reveals himself in a new way. Conclusion I am aware of the fact that this issue deserves to be discussed in a much more comprehensive way. This article is a survey of the ideas that form the theology of Christ as Deus absconditus in the works by Aquinas. Certainly, this theology does not constitute the most important part of Aquinas’s Christology, but that does not mean it is wholly marginal. For, as I have sought to show, it appears quite often in his analysis and is developed in full awareness of its place and significance. I believe that if we do not take it into account and give it some more consideration, we miss a truly important aspect of Aquinas’s Christology that is of crucial N&V importance for his reflection on God’s kenosis. See Super Ioannem 15, lec. 2 (no. 2009); Quodlibet V, q. 3, a. 2, corp.; Super Romanos 5, lec. 2 (no. 399); In symbolum apostolorum, a. 4 (no. 56). 89 See ST I, q. 21, a. 3, corp. 90 See: ST I, q. 21, a. 4, ad 1; ST III, q. 41, a. 1, ad 2. 91 See ST III, q. 1, a. 1, sc, corp., and ad 2. 92 See ST III, q. 1, a. 1, sc. 93 See ST III, q. 1, a. 1, sc. 94 See ST I, q. 25, a. 3, ad 3. 88 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 899–912 899 Two Problems concerning Divine Immutability and the Incarnation Michael Gorman The Catholic University of America Washington, DC Introduction Central to the Christian message is the procla- mation that the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son, became human for our salvation. But also central to Christianity is its understanding of the divine nature, an understanding that has traditionally included the idea that God is immutable. There are some tensions here. At least at first glance, the doctrine of divine immutability raises problems for the doctrine of the Incarnation. If Christ is divine, and therefore immutable, how can he go through changes, such as walking down the street or being nailed to the Cross? And there is a prior difficulty: if the divine persons are immutable, how can a divine person have become incarnate in the first place? Mutability, Immutability, and the Incarnate Word We can think of the first difficulty as taking the following form. On the one hand, it seems right to say that Christ is divine and that everything divine is immutable, and from these, it would seem to follow that Christ is immutable. On the other hand, it seems right to say that Christ changes, as the Gospel accounts show him walking, becoming sad or angry, and so forth. But how can Christ be both something immutable and something that changes? I would like to thank Teresa Bippus and Anne-Marie Gorman for comments on an earlier draft of this article. 900 Michael Gorman One possible way of solving the problem is as follows. I call this solution “Tomeistic” because it draws inspiration from the so-called Tome of Pope Leo, a work incorporated into the acts of the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Tomeistic Christology, in a rough-and-ready version, looks something like this.1 Christ is one person with two natures. Some things are true of his human nature, while others are true of his divine nature. For example, his human nature is mutable, while his divine nature is immutable. Is he, Christ himself, both mutable and immutable? Yes. He is mutable insofar as that means he has a nature that is mutable, and he is immutable insofar as that means he has a nature that is immutable. Those specifications of what “mutable” and “immutable” mean are important. “He is mutable and immutable” might sound contradictory, but on the Tomeistic understanding, it is not: when it is said that Christ is mutable, what is meant is that he has a nature that is mutable, and when it is said that he is immutable, what is meant is that he has a nature that is immutable. There is nothing contradictory about that. I am bringing up Tomeistic Christology mostly so it can serve as a contrast with the position I will myself be taking. Although I cannot here give anything like a full account of what is wrong with the Tomeist view, I can at least convey the gist of my concern by saying that I think it bad metaphysics. Natures are not mutable or immutable, and thinking otherwise is a category mistake. Things, substances, are mutable or immutable. If there is any sense to saying that a nature is mutable or immutable, it is this: a nature is mutable or immutable insofar as it is a principle in virtue of which this or that substance is mutable or immutable. Nor is the point restricted to the case of mutability and immutability. It is true pretty generally of features that they are had by substances, not natures, and likewise true pretty generally of actions that they are performed by substances, not natures.2 Natures are not the bearers of features or the performers of actions so much as they are principles in virtue of which substances For the state-of-the-art version, see Timothy Pawl, In Defense of Conciliar Christology: A Philosophical Essay, Oxford Studies in Analytic Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), esp. 190–191. Naturally, Pawl’s account is far more sophisticated than the toy version of Tomeistic Christology that I present here. 2 Why “pretty generally” and not “universally”? Because there might be special features that apply to natures and not substances, like “assumed.” See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST] III, q. 16, a. 4, ad 3. 1 Two Problems concerning Divine Immutability and the Incarnation 901 have features, perform actions, and so on. A nature is a principium quo, not a principium quod.3 If this approach is problematic in the way that I have suggested, what would be a better one? The first thing to do is to reverse the priorities of Tomeism and put substance (person) into the driver’s seat, where it rightly belongs. Instead of saying that Christ’s human nature is mutable and that his divine nature is immutable, let us accept that, if anything here is mutable or immutable in the primary sense, it is going to be a person: not Christ’s humanity or divinity, but Christ himself. He is the principium quod that we need to deal with, and his natures are not principia quae but principia quibus. With respect to the person of Christ himself (not to any nature), then, let us start by affirming the most obvious relevant thing: he is mutable. He walks, he talks, he carries a cross. Then let us affirm what most obviously follows from his being mutable: that he is not immutable. (We will have reason to qualify or clarify this below.) Third, let us face our problem: is he not divine? Of course he is. So it must be that we were mistaken when we thought that his being divine prevented him from being mutable. Let us say that it is not true, after all, that every divine being is immutable. We can say it on the basis of the following argument: Christ is divine, and Christ is mutable, so therefore some divine person is mutable. (Here too we will soon have reason to qualify or clarify what has been said.) Apparently, then, some divine person is mutable. If that seems wrong, perhaps it is because we sense that there is some important connection between being divine and being immutable. The Father and the Spirit are immutable, and surely their immutability is profoundly connected to their being divine. The feeling of unease here is quite legitimate and can be dispelled only by thinking more carefully about what it means to say that immutability is a property of divinity. Let us note that, if either the Father or the Spirit were to assume a human nature (as Aquinas says they could), then they would be mutable too.4 That suggests the following: when we say For a contrast between interpretations of Aquinas that makes him sound something like a Tomeist and an interpretation that construes his thought more along the non-Tomeistic lines just sketched out, see my Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), ch. 6. I think that Aquinas as I there present him has the right idea. I should mention as well that, although I reject Tomeistic Christology, I do not, of course, reject Leo’s Tome; I interpret it other than as Tomeists do. 4 For Aquinas on the possibility of the Father or the Spirit becoming incarnate, see ST III, q. 3, a. 5. 3 902 Michael Gorman that a divine person is immutable, what we really mean (or at least should mean) is that a divine person is such that, if it has no other nature, then it will be immutable. And indeed, Christ himself was immutable prior to the Incarnation. So there is still a strong connection between immutability and divinity. Any being that is divine, and only divine, will be immutable. This even applies in a certain way to Christ, who is not immutable: if he were not human, then he would be immutable. The point can be stated positively as well: Christ has a nature such that, if he had only that nature, he would be immutable. If we wanted on this basis to stipulate a special sense of immutability—quasi-immutability, or whatever—then of course we could do so, and in that special sense, a sense compatible with mutability, Christ would be “immutable.” But that is a merely verbal matter. The substantive points are these: first, every solely divine person is immutable in the straightforward sense; and second, Christ, although mutable, still has it in common with the other divine persons that he possesses a nature such that, if he possessed only that nature, he would be immutable in the straightforward sense. Nor is this a trivial claim. It is true of no human being other than Christ. No human other than Christ has a nature such that, if it were his only nature, he would be immutable. We should perhaps add one nuance. If mutability is the ability to be changed or affected, and if any divine person can become incarnate, then someone might argue as follows: “You have been trying to maintain the view that solely divine persons are immutable. But if a divine person is able to become incarnate, and if incarnate divine persons are able, say, to be crucified, then every divine person is able to be able to be crucified, which is no different from being able to be crucified. But then every divine person, even a solely divine person, is mutable.” The answer to this objection is to say that it is wrong to dismiss as unimportant the difference between being able to be crucified and being able to be able to be crucified. It makes a difference that Christ is able to be changed here and now, while the Father and the Spirit are able to be changed or affected only once they assume a created nature. Christ is, we might say, proximately mutable: he already has a nature in virtue of which he can be changed. The Father and the Spirit, by contrast, are only remotely mutable: they do not have a nature in virtue of which they can be changed, although (ex hypothesi) they can acquire such a nature. And being only “remotely mutable” is unproblematically compatible with being immutable, because being remotely mutable is not a way of being mutable. Two Problems concerning Divine Immutability and the Incarnation 903 To conclude this section of the article, the question of whether Christ’s divinity prevents him from being mutable can be handled in a straightforward manner: first, we affirm his mutability; then we say that he is not immutable; and finally, we say that what divinity implies is not immutability, but having a nature such that, if that is one’s only nature, then one will be immutable. Setting things up in this way removes the threat of contradiction from Christology while preserving a clear connection between divinity and immutability: no divine person that is solely divine is (proximately) mutable.5 But How Did the Word Become Human in the First Place? We have seen that Christ’s being divine does not prevent him from being mutable, and doing so has created the space for saying that, because he is human, he is mutable. In other words, his being divine does not prevent him from being mutable; if he is not solely divine, but human as well, then he will be mutable. But how did he come to be human in the first place? This question has, in a way, already been raised. Earlier, I distinguished remote mutability from proximate mutability in order to have a way of understanding how it is that non-incarnate divine persons are not already mutable. And I relied, in making that distinction, on the obvious fact (obvious given Christian revelation) that a non-incarnate person can assume a nature of the relevant sort. But to point to a fact in order to distinguish it from another is not yet to understand the ground of that fact. To say, even with the assurance of faith, that a non-incarnate divine person can become incarnate is not to say how this is possible. It is not simply that a question has been raised without being answered; it is that the way in which it was raised might seem to prevent its being answered. The whole point of the remote/proximate distinction was, again, to avoid having to say that the Father and the Spirit are mutable: to talk about “remote mutability” is not to talk about a kind of mutability, but instead to talk about the fact that something that is not mutable can come to be mutable. To put the point more strongly, to say that a non-incarnate divine person is “remotely mutable” is, effectively, to deny that a non-incarnate person is, at the time at which it is remotely mutable, mutable. But For a more detailed presentation of the general approach taken in this section, examining different cases, see my “Classical Theism and the Christological Coherence Problem,” Faith and Philosophy 33 (2016): 278–92. 5 904 Michael Gorman how can something come to be incarnate if it is not mutable? Does not the ability to become incarnate presuppose mutability? Indeed, is the notion of merely remote mutability not incoherent, since it is simply impossible for anything to become mutable? If it is not already mutable, surely it cannot become anything, and so a fortiori it cannot become mutable! 6 Our goal, then, is to explain how the Son, or any solely divine person, can become human without being mutable. But what does it mean to say that something is mutable, that it can undergo change? Anyone who understands change and mutability very broadly, such that anything that exists first in one way and then in another has “changed,” and therefore must have been “mutable,” will have to say that our goal is unattainable: on such a broad understanding, incarnation is a case of change and any divine person that became incarnate was already mutable. By setting the bar for change so low, the broad understanding sets the bar for immutability too high, almost in a way that begs the question against Christianity. So, when it is said that solely divine persons are “immutable” and that they can become human without “changing,” it must be that some narrower and more technical sense of “change” and “immutability” is in play. Aquinas can help us understand what these more technical senses are. For him, something undergoes a mutatio only if it has a potency that gets actualized, and only if it comes to exist in a way in which it did not exist before.7 A white door that gets painted blue really does change in the technical sense: it begins with a potency to be blue, a potency that gets actualized, and thereby it comes to exist in a way in which it had not existed before, as blue. Let us ask whether either of these two conditions is fulfilled in the Incarnation, and if so, how. Because the two conditions do not provide us with a complete theory of mutability, but only two necessary conditions of it, doing so will not give us a complete understanding of how the Incarnation is related to immutability. It will, however, enable us to see that the Incarnation does not transgress This question is raised, albeit in the broader context of a discussion of divine timelessness, by Thomas Senor, “Incarnation and Timelessness,” Faith and Philosophy 7 (1990): 149–64. 7 For a discussion of Aquinas on change that partly overlaps with my discussion here, and partly does not, see my Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic Union, ch. 3. For discussion of temporality as yet another aspect of mutability, see Eleonore Stump, Aquinas (New York: Routledge, 2003), 154–56. 6 Two Problems concerning Divine Immutability and the Incarnation 905 divine immutability, and it will further enable us to gain at least some positive insight into the nature of the Incarnation. Let us begin with potentiality and actualization. Here I will follow Aquinas to a significant extent. If change requires the actualization of a potency, it is easy enough to see why a divine person—or rather, a solely divine person—cannot change, and is therefore immutable. To be divine is, among other things, to be utterly and infinitely actual, and thereby free of all potentiality. If mutability involves the ability to undergo mutation, the actualization of a potentiality, then nothing that is free of all potentiality can be mutable. It must, in short, be immutable. Now there are at least two ways in which incarnation might seem to involve actualization. First, it might seem to involve the actualization of a potential on the Son’s part to be human. Second, it might seem to involve the actualization of a potential on the Son’s part to be related to the human nature that he assumes. The first of these worries is rooted in a confusion. Because a human nature is not an accident, but instead a substantial nature, it never actualizes a potency in anything; this is what is at stake when Aquinas says that a substantial nature does not have a subject. Human nature in Socrates does not actualize any potency, and neither does human nature in Christ.8 The second worry, on the other hand, is very serious. The point can be put as follows. Presumably, there is a real relation between Christ and his human nature, not merely a conceptual one: it is not just that we hold Christ and a certain human nature together in our minds for some purpose of our own, but that there really is some attachment between them out there in the world, independent of how we think of them. If we adopt the medieval way of thinking about relations (as we should), what this would normally mean is that each of the two related items has a relational accident in virtue of which it is related to the other. For example, if Socrates is the son of Sophroniscus, and if that is an ordinary real relation, then Sophroniscus (as subject) has a relational accident “father of ” connecting him to Socrates (as term), and Socrates (as subject) has a relational accident “son of ” relating him to Sophroniscus (as term). What is more, accidents actualize their subjects. And so, in the example just given, “father of ” actualizes a potency in Sophroniscus and “son of ” actualizes a potency in Socrates. But if we try to apply this model to the For discussion in the context of interpreting Aquinas, see my Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic Union, 25–27, 67, 77. 8 906 Michael Gorman Incarnation, we will run into trouble, since divine persons have no potencies and cannot be actualized. While it might well be acceptable to say that the assumed human nature has an accident relating it to the Son, we cannot say that the Son has an accident relating him to the assumed nature. From Aquinas’s point of view, this difficulty is not unique to the Incarnation. A similar problem arises with any issue about how God is related to creatures. If God really, and not just conceptually, is the creator or governor of every creature, then does that not mean that there is a relational accident in each creature and, for each creature, a corresponding relational accident in God? For Aquinas, the way to avoid this unappealing conclusion involves seeing that there is a middle ground between a purely conceptual relation (a situation in which two things are “related” only in the sense that we think of them in connection with one another) and a paradigm case of a real relation (a situation in which each of the related things has a relational accident to the other as term). In between, there is what can be called a “mixed” relation, which is like a conceptual relation with respect to one related thing but like a real relation with respect to the other. Imagine that Socrates is thinking of Xanthippe. In him, there is a relation of “thinking of ” with Xanthippe as term, but in her, there is no corresponding relation “being thought of ” with Socrates as term. We can say that Xanthippe is being thought of by Socrates, but all the metaphysical machinery will be on Socrates’s side. Aquinas encourages us to think of creation and similar matters along these lines. There can be no relational accident in God in virtue of which he is, say, the creator, but there are relational accidents in creatures in virtue of which they depend on him, and this is sufficient for his being their creator.9 Not only does Aquinas use this kind of thinking to make sense of creation; he also uses it for the Incarnation. There is no relational accident joining the Son to the assumed human nature, but there is a relational accident in the assumed human nature joining it to the Son. On this way of thinking, although there is a relation between the Son and the assumed nature, the establishing of this relation does not involve any actualization of a potency in the Son, and therefore it is not a mutation of the Son, and therefore it does not violate divine immutability.10 See, for example, ST I, q. 45, a. 3. Other discussions of this approach to the Incarnation—discussions that vary in how highly they value the approach—include the following: Marilyn McCord 9 10 Two Problems concerning Divine Immutability and the Incarnation 907 It is important to realize that the relation between an ordinary creature and God is not entirely the same as the relation between the assumed human nature and the Son. God creates a cow, and the cow is related to God by a mixed relation, but God does not therefore become bovine. When a bovine nature comes to be, it comes to make some substance bovine, but its coming to be is concomitant with the coming to be of the substance that it makes bovine, a substance distinct from any divine person. The Incarnation has to be different from this. In the Incarnation, a human nature comes to be, but instead of giving rise to some non-divine human person, it makes a divine person human. Indeed, what else could it do? The assumed nature is a principle of a person, and of course, the person of whom it is a principle must be the person to whom it is joined to “in person,” the Son.11 Or, to put it differently, if the assumed nature is joined in person to the Son, the only alternative to seeing it as constituting him as human is seeing it as metaphysically otiose, a principle that accomplishes nothing, which seems wrong. So, the assumed nature is joined to the Son in such a way as to make it (the nature) a principle of existence and action for the Son himself. It is a principle in virtue of which the Son personally exists and acts. In the Incarnation, then, we have to do not merely with a mixed relation, but with a special kind of mixed relation. What comes to be is not a being, but a principle of a being, not an agent, but a principle of agency, not a principium quod, but a principium quo. The assumed human nature really does constitute the Son as human. This leads us to our next question, one for which Aquinas seems not to offer us much help. As we saw earlier, something’s changing involves its coming to exist in a new way, and likewise, something’s mutability involves its ability to come to exist in a new way. And this aspect of change and mutability seems, at least at first glance, to be found in the Incarnation. It seems that, if a solely divine person Adams, Christ and Horrors:The Coherence of Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 126–28, 141–43; Oliver Crisp, Divinity and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 128–30; Richard Sturch, The Word and the Christ (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 32–34, 175–76; Thomas Weinandy, Does God Change? The Word’s Becoming in the Incarnation (Still River, MA: St. Bede’s, 1985), 67–100. 11 By a union “in person,” I mean what Aquinas means: a union that results in just one person, as distinct from a union between two persons (see my Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic Union, 46–52). 908 Michael Gorman is going to become incarnate, then that person will thereby come to exist in a way that he did not before. And, indeed, it seems obvious that, in the Incarnation as it has actually occurred, the Son did come to exist in a way in which he had not existed before: as human. Now, the fact that the Incarnation seems to share something with ordinary cases of mutability is not itself a problem. As noted, change and mutability involve at least two necessary conditions: actualization and coming to exist in a new way. Since we already know that the Incarnation does not involve actualization of a divine person, that is enough to conclude that divine immutability is preserved. And yet we have a difficulty nonetheless. Prior to the Incarnation, the Son was divine. Does not every divine person, in virtue of being divine, already possess the fullness of being? How, then, could the Son, or any divine person, come to exist in a new way? Is not any possible way of existing a way that every divine person already has? How can a solely divine person come to have something new if it already has everything? When considering actualization, our approach was to flat-out deny that the Incarnation involves the actualization of a divine potentiality. Here, our approach has to be more nuanced, since it seems problematic simply to deny, without qualification, that the Incarnation brings it about that a divine person exists in a new way. If we say that, in the Incarnation, a new human nature comes to be and that it comes to be joined to a divine person by a mixed relation, and if we then add that this makes absolutely no difference to the way in which the divine person exists, then, although we will have saved divine immutability, we will have pretty much abandoned the truth of the Incarnation (even if we have not abandoned the verbal formulations thereof ). To handle this problem, we should begin by granting that there is indeed a crucial sense in which the Incarnation does not “add” anything to God. It really is true that God already has the fullness of being, and so there is no sense in talking about his having more than he had before. So, any sense in which we say that the Incarnation involves God’s “coming to exist in a new way” will have to be a sense that is compatible with the fact that God already has every perfection. Let us reflect more thoroughly on the fact that a solely divine being exists in a completely unlimited way, on the fact that there are no borders to the divine nature, no line such that one can say, for example, “the Father’s divinity goes thus far but no farther.” Things are otherwise with creatures: to exist in virtue of a created nature is Two Problems concerning Divine Immutability and the Incarnation 909 to exist in a limited way. To be canine, for example, is (among other things) to lack wings, to lack gills, and so forth: having a canine nature or any other created nature is inseparable from having limits ( fines), from being finite. But it is precisely a created, and therefore finite nature, that the Son assumes in the Incarnation. What is “new” in the Incarnation, then, is that, in addition to possessing all the fullness of being in a completely unlimited way, the Son also comes to have a limited nature. And since, for him, to have this nature is for him to exist in virtue of it, then, in some sense, it is for him not only to exist in an unlimited way, but also now to exist in a limited way. Before, there was no sense in which his being was limited; now, although he retains his infinite being, he also has a mode of being that is limited, kept within borders, finite. For example, insofar as he is God, the Son is able to act at any location in the universe. After the Incarnation, he is still able to do this, but it is now also true that he has a set of powers—his human powers—that cannot be exercised except in one location. Christ cannot, for example, humanly make physical contact with just anyone or anything, regardless of its location. Insofar as he is exercising his human powers, he can make physical contact only with people or things that are sufficiently near him. If he is to touch the little children, they must first be brought to him. Or, to pick another example, as God, Christ has a divine mind, but in the Incarnation, he also comes to have a human mind, a mind in virtue of which his knowledge is limited. He can therefore think in two ways, one unlimited and the other limited. This human knowledge is, in one sense, nothing new: it does not give him access to any truths he did not already have access to. And yet there is something new here, for in the Incarnation, Christ has and exercises a limited mode of knowledge, a cognitive faculty that gives him access to some things and not others.12 Some number of years ago, there were TV advertisements meant to raise awareness of the plight of asthma sufferers, advertisements in which the voice-over said, “It’s like breathing through a tiny straw.” In the Incarnation, one might say, the Son comes to exist and act through a tiny straw, meaning a created nature. The difference between the Incarnation and asthma is that someone suffering from For exploration of Christ’s human and divine knowledge, see my “Personal Unity and the Problem of Christ’s Knowledge,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 74 (2000): 175–86. 12 910 Michael Gorman an asthma attack does not simultaneously breathe freely, whereas Christ exists in a limited way while simultaneously existing in an unlimited way, as God. Or, for another similitude, think of keys in a corporate or academic building. Often some building administrator has a master key, a key that can open all the locks, while other users of the building have what are called “change keys,” keys that open only one lock. A solely divine person is like someone with a master key: he has unlimited door-unlocking power. A creature is like someone with a change key: he has limited door-unlocking power, a power that is confined to one specific lock. An incarnate divine person is like someone with a master key who also comes to have a change key. He still has a master key and can still open any door, but he also has a particular change key with which, if he so chooses, he can open one particular door. The building administrator who had a change key to my office could choose to enter my office with that change key rather than with the master key (we can imagine that he might do so in order to show solidarity with me, or out of humility). Obviously this is only distantly related to the situation we are really discussing in this article, the Incarnation. One important difference between this case and the Incarnation is that, in the key example, the administrator who humbly uses a change key must use it instead of the master key. In the Incarnation, by contrast, Christ always acts by his divine power, but sometimes he acts by that power alone, and at other times he acts by that power and also by his human power, in such a way that the human power is an instrument of the divine. One last remark about the question of existing in a new way is in order. When we say that a solely divine person has all perfections, we mean that he has them eminently, in a mode that is free of imperfection. In the Incarnation, the Son comes to have one of those perfections in a non-eminent way as well. While retaining his infinite possession of whatever is perfect about being human, Christ comes also to possess humanity in a finite way. To sum up: the main question of this section, the second main question of the article, was how divine immutability is compatible with the Incarnation. To answer that question, I laid out two necessary conditions of change or mutation: being actualized and coming to exist in a new way. With respect to the first, I adopted Aquinas’s proposal that, in the Incarnation, the assumed nature is related to the Son only by a mixed relation, which ensures that the Son is not actu- Two Problems concerning Divine Immutability and the Incarnation 911 alized by the relation with the assumed nature. If the Son is not actualized, then the Incarnation is not a case of mutation, and therefore divine immutability is preserved. With respect to the second condition, I granted that, in some sense, the Son has to come to exist in a new way, since, otherwise, the Incarnation would be at best nothing different from creation, and at worst metaphysically otiose. Then I raised the question of how the Son could come to exist in a new way, given that he already has the fullness of being in virtue of his divinity. To handle that problem, I pointed out that the Son comes to “exist in a new way” not by coming to have access to types of perfection that he did not have before, there being no such types, but instead by coming to have one particular type of being in a created, limited fashion. Of course it is crucial to insist at the same time that this happens in such a way that he retains his unlimited mode of being. A divine person is necessarily divine. When he emptied himself, he remained full. Conclusion Divine immutability raises two distinct problems for the Incarnation. The first is that it seems that divine persons are immutable but that Christ, a divine person, is mutable once he has become incarnate. I addressed this concern by saying that it is not actually true that all divine persons are necessarily immutable. Instead, we should say that all divine persons have a nature such that, if that were their only nature, they would be immutable. So Christ is mutable and divine, and there is no inconsistency here at all: there would be an inconsistency only if Christ were solely divine. The very humanity that raised the problem by giving rise to mutability is also the solution to the problem, inasmuch as it makes Christ not a solely divine person. The second problem concerns not whether it is acceptable to say that Christ is mutable consequent upon the Incarnation, but whether it is acceptable to think of Christ becoming incarnate in the first place, given that becoming incarnate seems like a change, while the immutability of a solely divine person (which Christ was before the Incarnation) obviously rules out change. I addressed this concern by saying that the Incarnation involves no actualization of the Son, and therefore no change in him, and I further proposed a way of thinking how the Son could “come to exist in a new way” in spite of the fact that he already has every possible perfection. There is more to ask and more to say about the Incarnation and 912 Michael Gorman divine immutability. In future papers, I may find it possible to say more of it. But, of course, the world is not big enough to hold the papers that would be needed to say it all. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 913–937 913 Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability with a Mutable, Incarnate God Timothy Pawl University of St. Thomas Minneapolis, MN Introduction Consider the seven ecumenical councils that both Catholics and the Orthodox view as protected by the Holy Spirit and unrevisable in their teaching: two held at Nicaea (in 325 and 787), three held at Constantinople (in 381, 553, and 680–681), and one each at Ephesus (in 431) and Chalcedon (in 451).1 These councils, or a subset of them, enjoy some level of support from many Protestant groups as well. In fact, most confessional Protestant groups would be unwilling to part I thank Matthews Grant, Michael Rota, and Mark Spencer for helpful comments on this article. I also thank the John Templeton Foundation for funding the Classical Theism Project, which I co-led with Dr. Gloria Frost. The discussions at the workshops hosted by that project also helped shape the results of this research. 1 For statements of the unrevisability of these councils according to the Catholic Church, see error 23 in the Syllabus of Errors promulgated by Pope Pius IX, in Heinrich Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma (hereafter, DH) (Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto, 2002), no. 1723; and the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, §25. For Orthodox statements, see Hilarion Alfeyev, “The Reception of the Ecumenical Councils in the Early Church,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 47, no. 3-4 (2003): 413–30; Alfeyev, Orthodox Christianity: Doctrine and Teaching of the Orthodox Church (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012); Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (New York: Penguin Books, 1964), 28. 914 Timothy Pawl ways with the theology of the first four ecumenical councils.2 These councils provide the bedrock of the orthodox and universal teaching on the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity. Let us call the conjunction of claims made at these seven councils concerning the Christ “conciliar Christology.” Conciliar Christology teaches that Christ, being divine, is immutable. And yet, according to the same conciliar Christology, Christ, being man, changed. For instance, that immutable, divine Person went from being born, to being baptized, then crucified, and finally resurrected. How can this be? For it seems that nothing immutable can go from being one way to another, a point argued by many thinkers both recent and ancient.3 I have argued elsewhere See, for instance, John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1845), IV, ch. 9, no. 8; the Anglican Church in North America, “Jerusalem Statement,” no. 3, https://www.gafcon.org/resources/the-complete-jerusalem-statement; another statement form Anglican Church in North America website, http:// www.anglicanchurch.net/index.php/main/Theology/; and the Episcopal divine, Henry Percival, who wrote at the turn of the twentieth century, “I wish to declare in the most distinct manner that I accept all the doctrinal decrees of the Seven Ecumenical Synods as infallible and irreformable” (The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church [New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1900], ix). For more discussion of the councils and their authority among the different Christian groups, see Christopher Bellitto, The General Councils: A History of the Twenty-One General Councils from Nicaea to Vatican II (New York: Paulist Press, 2002); Joseph Kelly, The Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church: A History (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009), 64; John R. T. Lamont, “Determining the Content and Degree of Authority of Church Teachings,” The Thomist 72, no. 3 (2008): 374–407; Norman Tanner, The Councils of the Church: A Short History (New York: Crossroad, 2001), 3–4, 7, 13; Christian Washburn, “St. Robert Bellarmine on the Infallibility of General Councils of the Church,” Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum 42, no. 1 (2010): 171–92; Jordan Wessling, “Christology and Conciliar Authority,” in Christology: Ancient & Modern, ed. Oliver D. Crisp and Fred Sanders (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013). 3 For discussions of the logical compatibility of immutability and incarnation, as well as closely related discussions of the compatibility of incarnation with both impassibility and atemporality, see Douglas Blount “On the Incarnation of a Timeless God,” in God and Time: Essays on the Divine Nature, ed. Gregory E. Ganssle and David M. Woodruff (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 236–48 (see also the other essays in this edited volume); Daniel Castelo, “Moltmann’s Dismissal of Divine Impassibility: Warranted?” Scottish Journal of Theology 61, no. 4 (2008): 396–407; Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation:Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus (New York: Oxford University Press, 2 Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability 915 that such reasoning from immutability to the denial of Incarnation is flawed.4 I have also, in the same place, gestured toward a metaphysics that could help us understand, to the extent that we are able, an immutable, incarnate God. The goal of this article is to flesh out that initial understanding of incarnational immutability. The method I employ to attain this goal is to consider cases of predications from the texts of conciliar Christology. I show potential ontological truth conditions for those predications being true that do not require the truth conditions I propose for immutability to be unsatisfied. Put otherwise, I show ontological truth conditions for predications that imply Christ’s mutability 2005), 215; Cross, “The Incarnation,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, ed. Thomas P. Flint and Michael Rea (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 452–75, at 464; Geoffrey Dunn, “Suffering Humanity and Divine Impassibility,” Augustinianum 41, no. 1 (2001): 257–71; Dunn, “Divine Impassibility and Christology in the Christmas Homilies of Leo the Great,” Theological Studies 62, no. 1 (2001): 71–85, Gilles Emery, O.P., “The Immutability of the God of Love,” in Divine Impassibility and the Mystery of Human Suffering, ed. James F. Keating and Thomas Joseph White, O. P. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 27–76; Ronald Feenstra, “A Kenotic Christology of Divine Attributes,” in Exploring Kenotic Christology, ed. C. Stephen Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 139–64, at 142; Colin Gunton, “Time, Eternity and the Doctrine of the Incarnation,” Dialog 21, no. 4 (1982): 263–68; Jonathan Hill, “Incarnation, Timelessness, and Exaltation,” Faith and Philosophy 29, no. 1 (2012): 3–29; Richard Holland, God, Time, and the Incarnation (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2012); Adrio König, “The Idea of the ‘Crucified God’: Some Systematic Questions,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 39 (1982): 55–61; Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1973), 214–15; Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom:The Doctrine of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 22–23; John O’Keefe, “Impassible Suffering? Divine Passion and Fifth-Century Christology,” Theological Studies 58, no. 1 (1997): 39–60; T. Evan Pollard, “The Impassibility of God,” Scottish Journal of Theology 8, no. 4 (1955): 353–64; Herbert Relton, A Study In Christology (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1917), 54; Thomas Senor, “Incarnation and Timelessness,” Faith and Philosophy 7, no. 2 (1990): 149–64; Senor, “Incarnation, Timelessness, and Leibniz’s Law Problems,” in Ganssle and Woodruff, God and Time, 220–35; Richard Sturch, The Word and the Christ: An Essay in Analytic Christology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 33–34, 100–106; Thomas Weinandy, Does God Change? The Word’s Becoming in the Incarnation (Still River, MA: St. Bede’s, 1985); and Frances Young, “A Cloud of Witnesses,” in The Myth of God Incarnate, ed. John Hick (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press,1977), 13–47, at 27. 4 Timothy Pawl, In Defense of Conciliar Christology: A Philosophical Essay (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). 916 Timothy Pawl and Incarnation that are also consistent with the truth of “Christ is immutable.” Since the truth conditions for the incarnational texts do not require the falsity of the claim that “Christ is immutable,” the incarnational claims do not require the rejection of immutability. In other words, the Incarnation is no reason to deny divine immutability, and vice versa. In this article, I will defend neither the claim that God became man nor the claim that God is immutable. Similarly, I will not view myself as beholden to answer challenges to either claim on its own, such as challenges to the possibility of Incarnation regardless of whether God is immutable or not. No doubt, if such challenges succeed and the Incarnation is impossible, then any conjunction of claims including the Incarnation is impossible too. You cannot remove a contradiction by adding more propositions to it. Be that as it may, such objections are not my target in this article, though they have been my target elsewhere.5 Rather, I will target objections that begin with either Incarnation or immutability and say that the one rules out the other, that you cannot have both.6 For objections to immutability, see Timothy Pawl, “Divine Immutability,” in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. James Fieser and Bradley Dowden, 2009, iep.utm.edu/div-immu/. For objections to Incarnation, see Pawl, “A Solution to the Fundamental Philosophical Problem of Christology,” The Journal of Analytic Theology 2 (2014): 61–85; Pawl, “Conciliar Christology and the Problem of Incompatible Predications,” Scientia et Fides 3, no. 2 (2015): 85–106; Pawl, “Temporary Intrinsics and Christological Predication,” in Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, vol. 7, ed. Jonathan L. Kvanvig (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 157–89; Pawl, In Defense of Conciliar Christology; Pawl, “Truthmaking and Christian Theology,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 89 (2015): 181–94; and Timothy Pawl and Kevin Timpe, “Freedom and the Incarnation,” Philosophy Compass 11, no. 11 (2016): 743–56. 6 It is a bit hard to spell out the exact sort of objections I am trying to rule out here. Consider the sentence to which this footnote is appended. It is not quite right. For, one could start with incarnation and rule out immutability as follows, if one thought incarnation were impossible. Begin with incarnation. That is contradictory. So anything follows from it. So the denial of immutability follows from it. Thus, incarnation rules out immutability. Such an objection is not the sort of objection I want to consider in this article. I want to consider objections that say, in a more straightforward sense, that something about incarnation rules out immutability, where that something is not mere contradiction in the concept of incarnation. Likewise, one cannot simply begin by supposing that both incarnation and immutability are possible and then ask whether they are compossible. For, to many in the debate, God’s nature is necessarily as it is. So, if divine immuta5 Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability 917 I begin in my second section with a brief overview of the orthodox teaching of the immutability and Incarnation of Christ found in conciliar Christology. Then, in my third section, I present some interpretations of immutability.7 I do all the preceding in order to stage my fourth section, which provides metaphysically illuminating ontological truth conditions for some predications found in conciliar Christology. In the fifth section, I generalize from the cases I consider in the previous, providing a general account of how to deal with predications truly said of Christ, according to conciliar Christology, in a way that does not impinge on divine immutability. Since the world could be set up, I argue, such that the truth conditions for both “Christ is immutable” and “Christ suffered before he died” are true, it is false that Christ’s immutability, on conciliar Christology, implies his inability to become incarnate. And it is likewise false, then, that his Incarnation precludes his immutability. The Witness of Conciliar Christology The conciliar texts say that Jesus Christ is one person of the Holy Trinity and has two natures: the one divine nature shared by all three divine Persons; and a particular human nature, which the councils claim to be composed of body and soul.8 And, according to conciliar Christology, that human nature, the body and soul composite, has certain contingent features. For instance, Leo the Great, in his Tome to Flavian, which was accepted at the council of Chalcedon, states that the nature “was hung, pierced with nails.”9 And again, the Church Fathers at Constantinople III write that “each nature wills and performs the things that are bility were possible, it would be necessary. And if it is necessary, then God is immutable in every world, including the possible world(s) where incarnation occurs. So incarnation and immutability are compossible. Such an argument, again, misses the mark. It makes it too easy for the proponent of immutability and incarnation. My hope is that the reader can see what sort of objection I am after in this article. 7 For instance, see Pawl, “A Solution,” “Conciliar Christology,” In Defense of Conciliar Christology, and “Temporary Intrinsics.” 8 For conciliar texts claiming that Christ is a person of the Trinity, see Norman P. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990), 5 and 86. For texts claiming that Christ had the two natures in question, see Tanner, Decrees, 41, 44, 69, and 86. For texts claiming that Christ had both a human body and a human soul, see Tanner, Decrees, 41, 44, 55–56, 69, 86, and 115. For discussion of this textual evidence, see Pawl, In Defense of Conciliar Christology, chs. 1–2 and section II.b. 9 Tanner, Decrees, 81. 918 Timothy Pawl proper to it in a communion with the other.”10 The conciliar authors, then, are not afraid to predicate certain contingent states and activities of the human nature itself.11 The human nature is “hypostatically united” to the divine nature in the person of the Son, is “assumed” by the person of the Son.12 That hypostatic union is itself ineffable, on conciliar Christology.13 We cannot exhaust an analysis of what it is, but we can understand what it does, at least in some circumstances. One thing it does is be that thing in virtue of which the two natures are truly united together in the person of Christ. In virtue of this true uniting, some true predications of the human nature are true also of the divine Person. For instance, because the human nature is hung, it is true to say of Christ, the person, that he is hung. This is the ancient doctrine of the “communication of idioms.” The texts of conciliar Christology teach that the Second Person of the Trinity, the Word, Jesus Christ, was immutable even in the context of his Incarnation. There are multiple texts that one could point to in support of this claim, but I will provide just two of them.14 First, Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria and the chief mover at the Council of Ephesus, wrote in his Third Letter to Nestorius:15 Tanner, Decrees, 129. This is true not only of the conciliar fathers but also of very many people in the tradition. For instance, Athanasius (see Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius [New York: Routledge, 2004], 70–72, 140), Cyril of Alexandria (see Bellito, The General Councils, 24, and Relton, The General Councils, 56), Pope Leo the Great (see Bronwen Neil, Leo the Great [New York: Routledge, 2009], 110), Martin Chemnitz (see The Two Natures in Christ [Saint Louis, MO: Concordia, 1971], 191, 216), and Thomas Aquinas all predicate of the human nature thus. Aquinas calls the assumed human nature visible (Summa theologiae [ST] III, q. 8, a. 1, ad 3), passible (ST III, q. 14, a. 1, ad 2), corporeally defective (ST III, q. 14, a. 3, ad 2), etc. 12 On assumption and hypostatic union being different, see Aquinas, ST III, q. 2, a. 8. 13 Tanner, Decrees, 72, 117. 14 For a more thorough discussion of conciliar Christology’s teaching of divine immutability, as well as the teaching of divine immutability in other confessional statements, see Pawl, “Divine Immutability,” and In Defense of Conciliar Christology, 16–18, 181–84. 15 This letter was accepted at the Council of Ephesus, and so is part of conciliar Christology. For more on the interesting topic of the acceptance of this letter in ecclesial history, see Thomas Graumann, “‘Reading’ the First Council of Ephesus (431),” in Chalcedon in Context: Church Councils 400–700, ed. Richard Price and Mary Whitby (Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 2011), 10 11 Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability 919 We do not say that his flesh was turned into the nature of the godhead or that the unspeakable Word of God was changed into the nature of the flesh. For he (the Word) is unalterable and absolutely unchangeable and remains always the same as the scriptures say. For although visible as a child and in swaddling cloths, even while he was in the bosom of the virgin that bore him, as God he filled the whole of creation and was fellow ruler with him who begot him.16 Here we see Cyril affirming that the person of the Word, the person who became incarnate, even while incarnate, was “unalterable and absolutely unchangeable.” In addition, Cyril writes in a letter to John of Antioch that was also accepted by conciliar Christology in the Definition of faith from the council of Chalcedon:17 God the Word, who came down from above and from heaven, “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,” and was called son of man, though all the while he remained what he was, that is God ( for he is unchangeable and immutable by nature).18 Here we see that God the Word, the very same Person as Jesus Christ, while incarnate, remained God, being “unchangeable and immutable by nature.” Both of these texts teach that the Word became incarnate. Furthermore, both teach that, while incarnate, he was immutable. This is not merely a claim about the divine nature, as both texts make clear that the term is predicated of the incarnate person of the Word (that said, the divine nature is also called immutable on the same page as the immediately preceding quotation). 27–44, at 36; Edward R. Hardy, Christology of the Later Fathers (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster John Knox Press, 1954), 349; Edward Landon, A Manual of Councils of the Holy Catholic Church, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1990), 1:201; Richard Price, “The Council of Chalcedon (451): A Narrative,” in Price and Whitby, Chalcedon in Context, 76, 85; Price and Whitby, Chalcedon in Context, 11–22; Tanner, Decrees, 37–38; On the Person of Christ: The Christology of Emperor Justinian, trans. Kenneth Paul Wesche (Crestwood, NY: St.Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997). 16 Tanner, Decrees, 51 (emphasis added). 17 Tanner, Decrees, 85. 18 Tanner, Decrees, 72 (the parenthetical is in Tanner’s translation, but the added emphasis mine). 920 Timothy Pawl How, then, might one understand immutability and Incarnation such that conciliar Christology is not contradicted and yet we have a stable metaphysical interpretation of how an immutable Christ can go from being one way to being another? In the next section I discuss multiple ways one might understand immutability. Some Understandings of Immutability To my mind, there are two errors to avoid when considering what these councils intend to teach when they teach that Christ is immutable. One view that I have argued against elsewhere is that immutability requires that anything immutable cannot in any way, in any fashion, no matter what, change. Call such a view super-duper immutability. On the other end of the spectrum, weak immutability can be understood as the view that the only sort of immutability that the divine Persons have is immutability with respect to moral constancy.19 Christ, then, in being immutable, is not fickle or morally inconstant. Weak immutability denies any stronger immutability of the person in question. In the following paragraphs, I argue that both of these views of immutability fail as an interpretation of the conciliar texts. As an interpretation of the conciliar teachings, super-duper immutability is wrong-headed, as it is inconsistent with explicit teachings taught at every ecumenical council. Those teachings are included in the Nicene Creed, which states that Christ suffered, died, and was buried. Suffering, though, implies change, as does death. Thus, it is false that he did not change in any way, in any fashion, no matter what. The aptness conditions for being super-duper immutable, then, are not met by Christ, though they are met by the divine nature, since that thing, on conciliar Christology, cannot change in any way. Thus, super-duper immutability is not what the conciliar fathers intended to teach when, in the same texts, they taught that Christ was immutable. Consider, then, weak immutability. It is no doubt true of Christ that he was morally constant. But weak immutability does not For discussions of weak immutability, see Isaak Dorner, Divine Immutability: A Critical Reconsideration (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994); Jay W. Richards, The Untamed God: A Philosophical Exploration of Divine Perfection, Simplicity, and Immutability (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2003), 198–99; Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 219; Robert R. Williams, “I. A. Dorner: The Ethical Immutability of God,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 54, no. 4 (1986): 721–38. 19 Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability 921 capture the full intent the councils had when asserting that Christ was immutable. We can see this clearly if we reconsider the work the claim of immutability was put to in the councils. For instance, in the passage from Cyril’s letter to Nestorius quoted above, he uses immutability as evidence for the falsity of the claim that the divine nature or the Word turned into a human nature, or vice versa. If immutability were only a claim to moral constancy, this would be a lousy inference, as moral constancy is insufficient as a reason for thinking that such transformations did not occur.20 Weak immutability, then, is also not what is being taught in the conciliar texts. Elsewhere, I have provided what I call “revised truth conditions” for the predicate “immutable,” suggesting that we ought to understand a thing’s being immutable in the following sense: “S is immutable when S has a nature that is unable to change.”21 We can then give a similar understanding of mutability: “S is mutable when S has a nature that is able to change.” This revised truth condition for immutability avoids the pitfalls of both the super-duper and the weak versions of immutability. Consider them in turn. As we saw above, the super-duper understanding of immutability is at odds with the conciliar texts because it precludes Christ’s going from, at an earlier point, being baptized to, at a later point, being crucified. The revised view, however, has no such implication. Christ can have a nature that is unable to change, which is the divine nature, and yet still have a nature that is able to change in the relevant ways, his human nature. Thus, he can be aptly characterized by both the predicates “mutable” and “immutable,” on the revised truth condition. Similarly, as we saw above, the weak view of immutability is at odds with the conciliar texts because it fails at supporting the inferences to which the fathers put the concept of immutability. The revised view, however, has no such difficulty. On this view, Christ’s divine nature is precluded from being able to change. Thus, the following two inferences are comprehendible: (1) from divine immutability it follows that the Word cannot be changed into a human nature; (2) from divine immutability it follows that the divine nature I make this argument in more detail in In Defense of Conciliar Christology, 108–9. 21 Pawl, In Defense of Conciliar Christology, 174. These truth conditions are “revised” from a standard contemporary interpretation of the term that does not include a reference to a nature of the entity in question. 20 922 Timothy Pawl cannot be changed when the divine person assumes human nature. Neither the super-duper nor the weak view of immutability, then, is a view that is consistent with the conciliar texts. In what follows, I will assume the revised truth conditions for immutability. I will not at every turn repeat that long phrase, “the revised truth conditions for immutability.” Rather, I will simply suppose that the reader is keeping in mind the understanding of the terms I stipulate, with an occasional reminder here or there. As I have presented the truth conditions for something’s being immutable, they require that thing’s having a nature that is unable to change. For the remainder of this article, then, I invite the reader to keep a hand atop the ontological buzzer. If I say something that implies that the divine nature goes from being one way to being another, push it. In having said such a thing, I will contradict my intention of providing an account of an immutable, incarnate person. In other words, the reader is invited to be on the lookout for any instance in which I deny, or say something that implies the falsity of, the super-duper immutability of the divine nature.22 (The divine nature fulfills the conditions for being super-duper immutable, even though the Second Person of the Trinity does not.) My goal is to spell out the truth conditions of conciliar claims such that none of them require some change in the divine nature. If I can succeed in that, I can show that affirming the truths required for the Christian Incarnation story does not imply that the incarnate person was not immutable. Since that is the thesis that I wish to defend, I will have made my case. Incarnational Predications and Their Truth Conditions One useful way to proceed, which I will follow in this section, is by examples. After giving examples, I will move on in the next section to provide a general theory of how to go about answering challenges to the immutability of the Word that arise from incarnational claims that are part of conciliar Christology. We can get a sense of the ways of understanding predications that are apt of Christ by looking at the things said of him in creedal statements from the ecumenical councils. Consider, for instance, the The divine nature counts as having a nature that is unable to change in virtue of being a nature that is unable to change, and so fulfills the revised truth conditions for immutability as well. 22 Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability 923 Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed 23 (which is often called simply the Nicene Creed today, though it includes elements first introduced at Constantinople I). Here are thirteen things that council says of Christ that we can use as test cases to give an account of what sort of predications the Incarnation requires to be true: (1) Christ is the only-begotten Son of God; (2) Christ is born of the Father before all ages; (3) Christ is true God; (4) Christ is consubstantial with the Father; (5) Christ is creator of all things; (6) Christ came down from heaven; (7) Christ became man; (8) Christ was crucified; (9) Christ suffered; (10) Christ died; (11) Christ rose again; (12) Christ ascended into heaven; and (13) Christ will come again in glory. If these predications can all be true of something that fulfills the revised conditions for immutability, then it seems to me that we will have a good framework for determining how to deal with other objections that arise specifically from the conjunction of divine immutability and incarnation. The first four predications are true of Christ without reference to the Incarnation. (The fifth is as well, but I save that claim for a separate discussion.) Even if Christ had not become incarnate, he would still be the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father, true God, and consubstantial with the Father. Perhaps we could not say that Christ was born “before all ages” if there were no ages at all, and so that claim, as stated, requires there to be some temporal creation. Even still, temporal creation does not imply incarnation, and so this claim does not require the Incarnation to be true. Moreover, “prior to” need not be understood in a temporal sense.24 In fact, as we will Tanner, Decrees, 24. For some discussion of this point, see, for instance, St. Ignatius of Antioch in his Letter to Polycarp (see John R. Willis and M. J. Rouët de Journel, The Teachings of the Church Fathers [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002], 343), Gregory the Theologian (see M. H. Alfeyev, Orthodox Christianity: Doctrine and Teaching of the Orthodox Church [Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012], 275), and St. Leo, who speaks of the Son, when becoming incarnate, beginning to exist in time, though remaining before time (ante tempora) (Tanner, Decrees, 79). For contemporary authors discussing the historical and systematic case for divine immutability, see M. H. Alfeyev, Orthodox Christianity, 142; Brian Daley, Gregory of Nazianzus (New York: Routledge, 2006), 133; Leo Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787): Their History and Theology (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990), 49, 52; Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 4th ed. (St. Louis, MO: Herder, 1960), 36–37; Joseph Pohle, God: His Knowability, Essence, and Attributes: A Dogmatic Treatise Prefaced by a Brief General Introduction to the Study of Dogmatic Theology (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder, 1911), 306–13; Eleonore Stump, The God of the Bible and the God of the Philosophers (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2016). 23 24 Timothy Pawl 924 see below, there is good reason from the Nicene Creed itself not to understand Christ’s begetting from the Father in a temporal or mutable sense. Some might argue that the content of the first four predications requires a mutable God. For, to be begotten, the claim goes, requires change. And to beget, which the Father does to the Son, requires change too. And to be begotten prior to something else requires a temporal difference. I think these claims are false. The authors were intent on theories of the divinity that included immutability. They did not take their understanding of the term “to be begotten” to imply “to be changed.” In fact, they explicitly take up this very point in the Nicene Creed in an original anathema that was included in that first ecumenical creed of the Church: And those who say “there once was when he was not,” and “before he was begotten he was not,” and that he came to be from things that were not, or from another hypostasis or substance, affirming that the Son of God is subject to change or alteration—these the catholic and apostolic church anathematises.25 The goal here is to ward off interpretations of Christ’s divine begetting that include change: from non-being to being, from before to after, or from contingent things as its source. It seems clear to me from this anathema that any reading of divine begetting that does require change is a reading the Fathers would vehemently reject. If the last sentences of a creed (these condemnations) explicitly rule out an interpretation of begetting, we should not force that very interpretation of begetting onto the first sentences of the creed. To do so is exegetically irresponsible. Even still, suppose one were to argue that begetting necessarily requires change, whether the Fathers like or accept that or not. Let the Fathers say that their concept of “begetting” does not imply change until they are blue in the face; they will succeed no more than someone who reiterates continually that his concept “bachelor” does not imply being unmarried. Even if this objector were right and begetting does imply change of the divine nature, whether the Fathers like it or not, what this argument would show is not that Tanner, Decrees, 5. 25 Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability 925 there is a special contradiction lurking in the conjunction of an incarnation and the doctrine of divine immutability. For this alleged contradiction is neutral on whether or not Christ, in addition to being begotten by the Father, is also begotten by Mary. Rather, this conceptual argument that begetting requires change would show that the doctrine of the Trinity is incompatible with divine immutability. That is a different charge, one I am not on the hook for answering in this article, though I do see the importance of someone answering it. Consider the fifth claim, that Christ is the creator of all things. This claim must be modified by some “except” clause. For he did not create himself or the other divine Persons.26 Many modify it by claiming that he created all non-divine things. Some who believe in non-divine, necessary entities except further, claiming that he did not create anything necessary, which might include platonic forms, propositions, or other types of abstract objects. We might say, in an attempt to be neutral to these different exception clauses, that the fifth predication tells us that some things are created and that anything that was, in fact, created was created by Christ. As parenthetically noted earlier, this claim neither precludes nor entails an incarnation. Now, it might be that there is a contradiction lurking in conciliar Christology insofar as it requires Christ to create and be immutable. For, one might argue, creation requires change in the creator, and so a creator cannot be immutable. That, again, is a different sort of objection, one that I am not required to answer here,27 since it does not target or employ the Incarnation.28 Mark Spencer points out to me that perhaps these divine entities do not count as “things,” and so do not fall under the domain of discourse here. 27 For discussion of such objections, I again point the reader to my “Divine Immutability” and ch. 8 of my In Defense of Conciliar Christology. 28 Yes, but suppose God is immutable. Creation is contingent. So, in some situation, you have an immutable God and creation, and in another possible situation, you have an immutable God and no creation. What explains why God creates in some situations and not in others? What explains his creating this and not that in any situation in which God does create? How can immutability and creation make sense? In reply, look down. Do you see your feet? Do you see what they are resting on? It might look like carpet, or cement, or wood, or a sofa cushion. But it is really a cleverly disguised trail. You have been following it for some time now, you know.You may have passed Bugs on the way to Albuquerque, adeptly dodged a beast from Caerbannog, thumped with Thumper, etc. No doubt you are tired, and rightly so, after this prolonged escapade. Hop in. I will take you back to the main thoroughfare. 26 926 Timothy Pawl Let us move on, then, to the remaining seven claims, which are not neutral with respect to incarnation. Each of these claims is an incarnational claim. Thus, each requires some explication of how an immutable person could do that. Such an explication must safeguard the super-duper immutability of the divine nature, the revised immutability and mutability of the divine Person, and the mutability of the human nature. Consider the seven claims in order. Claim 6 from above is that Christ came down from heaven. Did that require any change on the part of his divine nature? I think it did not. We can give an ontological account of what happened in the following way. God created both the human nature and the hypostatic union itself. The hypostatic union is a created thing in virtue of which the Word assumes the human nature and unites it to himself hypostatically, in his person. For a divine person to “come down from heaven,” at least in this context, is for that person to be thus united to a created nature. In creating the human nature and the particular hypostatic union that unites it to the divine nature in the person of the Word, God has brought it about that the truth conditions for “Christ came down from heaven” are fulfilled. And all this without our having to say or imply any change in the divine nature. Put otherwise, if an immutable thing can create at all, it can bring about the ontological conditions for the truth of the claim “Christ came down from Heaven.” Next, claim 7 is that Christ became man. What are the truth conditions for this assertion? To become anything, do I have to first exist and not be it, or is it enough for there to have been a time at which I was not it, even if I did not exist to be it at the time? Or perhaps no prior time is needed at all. Suppose God creates the universe to have an angel in it at the first instant. Did that being become an angel at that point? It does not matter for my purposes whether we understand “became man” in a way that allows the predicate to be apt of others (e.g., me) or not. But it would be good to have a case in which the term is said of Christ because he is human but cannot be said of any of us mere humans, even though we are human. So I will treat the predicate “became man” to require that whatever becomes man must exist as a non-man prior to (in some sense of “prior to”) its becoming man. Now, Christ did exist prior to his becoming a man. And then he began to have a human nature in the manner I spelled out above. That is, he began to fulfill the aptness conditions for the claim Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability 927 “Christ is man” in virtue of the creation of the hypostatic union and the assumed human nature. Again, as stated above, such fulfillment of the truth conditions does not require any change in the divine nature. The person changes in the acquisition of a human nature, since the person now, unlike previously (whether in eternity or in time), has a mass and shape. Moreover, that mass and shape continually change. That, though, is no problem on this view. For Christ to go from having a certain mass and shape to another mass and shape is for his assumed human nature to go from fulfilling the ontological conditions in which a person with that nature would be one shape to fulfilling the ontological conditions in which a person with that nature would be another shape, and similarly for mass. And those changes on the part of the assumed nature can all happen without the proponent of divine immutability having to say anything at all about the divine nature changing. So, Christ can become man, constantly changing man, without his divine nature changing. So, even when gaining or losing weight, or when going from standing to sitting, he fulfills the truth conditions for being immutable. And he fulfills the truth conditions for being mutable. He is both, but without contradiction.29 The next claim to consider is 8, that Christ was crucified. To become crucified, Christ’s human nature would have to go from fulfilling the ontological conditions in which a person with that nature is one way (not-crucified) to fulfilling the ontological conditions in which a person with that very nature is another way (crucified). Such an ontological story requires change in a human nature, just as the ontological story for the thieves at his right and left require change in different human natures. In all three cases, the human nature goes from having one inhering accident to having another, but no change in the divine nature is necessitated. Again, the revised notion of immutability is not contrary to incarnation. Claim 9 is that Christ suffered. Does this render him not immutable? On the revised truth conditions, the answer is “no.” True, suffering involves being affected, or perhaps being affected in a negative manner, as Christ was when he was crowned with thorns. That suffering, though, is explainable in terms of his human nature and the features it has, in much the same way being crucified is. To see the logic of how such predications that are seemingly contradictory work on my view, see my “A Solution” and In Defense of Conciliar Christology. 29 928 Timothy Pawl Claim 10 is that Christ died. What are the ontological aptness conditions for the predicate “died”? Perhaps we could say, as many in the tradition do, that for something to die is to have its animating soul separated from the matter that it informs. In such a case, Christ dies when his soul and body are separated. If that ontological condition is met, then it is true to say that Christ dies. But this death does not change the divine nature. And so again, we have no problem for incarnation and immutability. Think of it like this: mere humans die, but the ontological conditions for their deaths do not involve any change in the divine nature. We can explain the aptness conditions for predicating “dies” to mundane humans solely in terms of the relations between the body and soul that those mundane persons have. Likewise, then, for Christ. What of claim 11, the claim of rising again? This is a predicate we can say of more than just Christ. Lazarus, for instance, rose again. On the ontology of human persons I have been assuming here, to rise again can be understood as having one’s soul reanimate a body. For Lazarus, we can explain the whole case without recourse to anything divine in Lazarus, like a divine nature. Similarly for Christ, we can give the ontological conditions for resurrection without having to appeal to his divine nature. What of claim 12, his ascension? The ascension took place by local motion of the body, at least in the first moments. (Do we know what happened next to the human nature after it was obscured by a cloud [Acts 1:6–11]?) To explain the local motion, we explain it in the way we explain any local motion of a typical human: the human moves through space, gaining or losing features as she goes. Likewise for Christ, he moved through space, gaining features (and altitude) as he went. It should be clear, though, that the changes he underwent were changes in his human nature, not his divine nature. Finally, claim 13 is that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead. The ontological story here includes some aspects not revealed to us. But whatever those aspects are, there is no reason to believe that they will include the divine nature’s going from being one way to another. And so there is no reason to think this part of the Incarnation, still yet to come, is contrary to immutability. In short, then, no incarnational aspect of the Nicene Creed requires us to claim that Christ is not immutable. And, in fact, as we have seen, the Nicene Creed itself includes anathemas for those who claim that Christ was subject to alteration or mutability (when referring Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability 929 to his divine begetting), but the Creed also states that Christ was mutable when incarnate. In the next section, I go from treating these cases individually to a general theory of how to treat cases of incarnational change in Christ in a way that preserves divine immutability in the revised sense. A Theory from the Cases Building on the cases discussed in the previous section, I now develop some general strategies for dealing with different types of predications true of Christ. The first strategy is to distinguish between accidental and essential predications.This distinction is drawn in various ways, and one understanding of essential predications is modal: The Modal View: o is F essentially if and only if o is F accidentally if and only if o is F, and o does not lack F in any possible world in which it exists.30 o is F, and o does not lack F in some possible world in which it exists. But I mention this distinction (the modal view of the predications) only to leave it to one side, and I do this for a few reasons. First, I think it is not the best way of drawing the distinction between essential and accidental predications, since some predicates are traditionally taken to be accidental and yet had by a thing in any situation in which it exists. I am thinking of propria, the features of a thing that are not of its essence but do “flow from” its essence, such that just in virtue of having that essence the thing must be that way.31 The classic example When I refer to possible worlds here, I mean ways that all of existence could have been. The reader can think of them as maximally complete and exhaustive stories, such that, if you were to tell the story to God, he could truthfully respond, “I can add nothing to that story without reiteration, and nothing you said involves anything impossible.” Possible worlds are useful heuristics for modal reasoning, just as Venn diagrams are useful for categorical reasoning. The reader should have as much worry about the ontological commitments and import of possible worlds, when I discuss them here, as the reader has for Venn diagrams when discussed in an introduction to logic class. 31 See, for instance, Michael Gorman, “The Essential and the Accidental,” Ratio 18, no. 3 (2005): 276–89. 30 930 Timothy Pawl is risibility. Humans are risible, and necessarily so, but that is not an essential feature of humans. Rather, we are essentially rational, and that rationality brings with it a concomitant feature of risibility. Furthermore, I think essential predicates are predicates that are apt of a thing by virtue of an essence a thing has, and not by any accidental features a thing has. It is true to say of me that I am human, and that is true because of the essence I have. I am sitting as I type this, and that is true of me, but due to some accidental features that I have, rather than to my essence.32 So, one reason I set this modal understanding of essential features to one side is that I think it mischaracterizes the distinction. It no doubt draws a useful distinction, but not a distinction that ought to be labeled the “essential/accidental” distinction. That distinction should have more to do with a thing’s essence and accidents than with the modal resilience of the predicate as applied to the thing. A second reason to set aside the modal distinction, a reason suitable even for those who disagree with me that the modal distinction is mislabeled, is that it does no good distinguishing work in this case. For, since the Word need not have become incarnate, every attribute he has in virtue of his Incarnation will be accidental to him on the modal understanding of the distinction. For instance, it is true that he is a true man, but that is an accidental predication on the modal understanding of the terms, since in at least one possible scenario, he did not become incarnate at all. Thus, anything true of Christ solely in virtue of being incarnate will be a truth that is contingent, and so it is accidental in the modal interpretation of the world. In the modal sense, then, this distinction will do no work in distinguishing the problematic cases. What to put in the place of the modal distinction? In this article, I will draw on a Scholastic understanding of essences and accidents. In particular, I will understand “essence” as synonymous with “nature.” Things have individual, distinct natures. My human nature or essence and yours are distinct. But the nature includes only that which is of our essence, that which is settled by our shared genus and difference. That is, while I may be bearded and you not, such attributes are not parts of our essences, since being bearded (or not) is not I have worked out this view of the truth conditions for essential and accidental predications in more detail in section 2 of my third chapter in “A Thomistic Account of Truthmakers for Modal Truths” (PhD diss., St. Louis University, 2008) and in In Defense of Conciliar Christology, 60–62. 32 Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability 931 determined by the genus and difference under which all humans fall. I will take the distinction between essential and accidental features in the following sense: The Scholastic View: o is F essentially if and only if o is F accidentally if and only if o is F, and “o is F” is true merely in virtue of some essence (or other) had by o. o is F, and “o is F” is not true merely in virtue of some essence (or other) had by o. On these definitions, Christ is human essentially, since that predication is true and it is true merely in virtue of some essence that Christ has: his human essence. “Christ is risible” is true accidentally, since Christ is risible but it is not true merely in virtue of an essence he has. Rather, on the traditional picture, it is true in virtue of some accident that he has. It is true that a woman’s having a human nature will imply that it is true that she is risible. This might lead some to think that it is the human nature in virtue of which she is risible, and so the predication ought to be essential. In response, the “in virtue of ” language I use here is not intended to include implication. It is meant to refer to that ontological bit in virtue of which the thing is that way. Similarly, it may be true that all things with the faculty of intellect are things with the faculty of will. So, having an intellect will imply having a will. Nevertheless, the thing in virtue of which “I have a will” is true is not my intellect, but my will. The same can be said in this case of essence and risibility. A perhaps surprising point to make here is that, on the Scholastic view, some essential predicates can be lacked by the things of which we aptly predicate them.33 Christ is human, and that predicate is an essential predicate. Nevertheless, he might not have been, since it is not necessary that God create any human natures at all, and so it is For helpful discussions of Thomistic views of essential predications, see Jeffrey Brower, Aquinas’s Ontology of the Material World: Change, Hylomorphism, and Material Objects (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 291, 297–304; Gloria Frost, “Thomas Aquinas on the Perpetual Truth of Essential Propositions,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 27, no. 3 (2010): 197–213. 33 932 Timothy Pawl possible that there be no humans, and so possible that the Word is not human. On the modal understanding of essential and accidental predications, a true, essential predication that a thing could lack is a contradiction in terms. If a predication is essential, then it is true in all worlds in which the thing exists; if it is had but lackable, then it is true in at least one world, but false in at least one world too. The surprise is mitigated, though, if we couple this understanding of the distinction with the orthodox doctrine that Christ freely and gratuitously took on a new essence in the Incarnation. In such a case, what else would we expect than that that essence would make true of him different predications? Such predications fit the bill for being contingent, essential predications. In short, we can think about the four types of predications I am discussing in this section in the following way. Type of Predication: Necessary, Essential: Necessary, Accidental: Contingent, Essential: Contingent, Accidental: Required Ontological Conditions: The predication is true at every world and is true merely in virtue of some essence (or other) had by the subject of that predication in every world. The predication is true at every world and is not true merely in virtue of some essence (or other) had by the subject of that predication in every world. The predication is not true at every world and, where true, is true merely in virtue of some essence (or other) had by the subject of that predication in that world. The predication is not true at every world and, where true, is not true merely in virtue of some essence (or other) had by the subject of that predication in that world. Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability 933 These four types of true predications are defined to be exclusive and exhaustive—any true predication will be of one and only one type. I will focus on each type of predication with respect to Christ, show its ontological truth conditions, and argue that they do not require a change in the divine nature. Consider these four types of predications and some Christological examples from the list of thirteen predications from the Nicene Creed above: Essential Necessary (3) Christ is true God (4) Christ is consubstantial with the Father Contingent (7) Christ became man (*) Christ is a mammal Accidental Nothing (8) Christ was crucified (12) Christ ascended into heaven Consider first the top-right box. I write there that there are no true predications in which Christ has a necessary yet accidental feature. To see why, consider the following argument. No contingent accident would go in that box, since a contingent accident is one that is lacked in some possible world. And, if it is lacked in a possible world, then it is not necessary. Such accidents go in the bottom right box. Since the examples we are looking for are necessary yet accidents, they must be necessary accidents, otherwise known as propria. Does Christ have any propria with respect to his divine nature? (Propria due to his human nature would not count here, since none of that is necessary to him, as the Incarnation is not necessary to him.) It would seem not. A proprium is an accidental feature that a thing has in virtue of its essence. Now, the divine Persons have no accidental features, at least if a Thomistic version of divine simplicity is true. So, if such a view of divine simplicity is true, Christ has no divine propria. But then, he has no necessary yet accidental features. On the other hand, if one denies a Thomistic view of divine simplicity, then one could claim that the divine Persons are composed of substance and accident, and so claim that some features of Christ are not essential to him and yet are necessary to him. Even if one did this, though, the resultant features would not be anything particularly 934 Timothy Pawl tied in to the Incarnation, for again, the Incarnation is contingent and these purported features are necessary. Moreover, since propria are necessary accidents had in virtue of a thing’s nature, and since all three divine Persons share the same divine nature, whatever proprium one divine Person has would be had by the other divine Persons too. In such a case, what would be the utility of stating that such features, since they are had by all three divine Persons in all possible scenarios, are not essential to the persons? I see traditional reason to deny that anything goes in that box (from simplicity), and, even aside from that, reason to think there to be no motivation to put anything in that box. As so, I mark it as containing nothing. Nevertheless, if someone thinks, say, that the divine nature is that in virtue of which Christ is God, and some other thing is that in virtue of which he is begotten, or only-begotten, then the first predication, “Christ is the only-begotten Son of God,” could go in that box. If one said that, then that in virtue of which Christ is the only-begotten Son of God (that is, the divine nature and whatever the other thing is) would be the ontological conditions for the predication in question.34 Those conditions need not change in the Incarnation. For instance, just suppose the other bit is a mode, or a trope, or a property, or something like that. Then the thing in virtue of which “Christ is the only-begotten Son of God” is true is the nature and the mode together. Christ’s becoming incarnate does not strip him of that mode. And even if it did, such an ontological stripping would not be a change in the divine nature; it would be a change in the mode. So it would not render divine immutability problematic. Even if one populated the top right box, then, it would not lead to problems for immutability and incarnation. The other thing in question here need not be an accident, given the definition I have given of a necessary-accidental predication. But, then, why is not my definition of “accidental” misleading, just as I claimed the modal interpretation of “essential” is misleading? I claimed in that previous discussion that the truth conditions for essential predications should have something to do with essences. Why not think that the truth conditions for accidental predications should have something to do with accidents? In reply, “accident” is used in many ways. In one sense, it is a name of a category of being, and it is true that the extra ontological thing in question here need not fall under that category. But in another sense, the term, “accident,” refers to something that is outside of the essence of a thing in question. And any other thing added here for necessary accidental predications would be an accident in that sense. I thank Mark Spencer for this question. 34 Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability 935 Consider next the necessary-essential predicates, the top-left box of examples in the above table. These predications are true in virtue of the divine nature. That is, in truthmaker language, the divine nature is the truthmaker for the predications “Christ is true God” and “Christ is consubstantial with the Father.”35 Such predications do not require the divine nature to change. It does not, for instance, go from being had by the Father alone at an earlier time to being had by the Father and Son at a later time—to say that it does would be to run afoul to the Nicene anathemas cited earlier. Such claims, then, do not require the falsity of divine immutability. And no Christian who affirms a traditional view of the Incarnation would want to say that such views imply the falsity of the content of the original Nicene Creed, which contained those anathemas. Thus, no traditional Christian should say that the necessary-essential attributes of God are what makes the Incarnation and divine immutability inconsistent.36 Predications true of Christ in virtue of his divine nature are such that they do not change. Insofar as Christ always has that divine nature, it will always be the case that he is aptly predicated by the predicates true of him in virtue of that nature. Even the kenosis theorist should agree with these statements at the current level of generality. For, the sophisticated kenosis thinker will say that the predicates apt of Christ in virtue of his divine nature are not things like “omnipotent” and “omniscient,” but rather things like “omnipotent-unless-incarnate” and “omniscient-unless-incarnate.”37 Those What of predicates like “is begotten”? Is the truthmaker again just the divine nature? The Father and Spirit have that same nature, and yet they are not begotten. Good question; wrong venue. If I were forced to gesture at a response to this question, which is most decidedly not concerning the compatibility of incarnation and immutability, I would note that truthmakers make true whole propositions. That same divine nature can make true multiple propositions about different entities. That is what is happening here. My claim is not that anyone who has that nature has “is begotten” apt of him. My claim is that the divine nature makes it true both that “Christ is begotten” and that “the Spirit is not begotten.” 36 Again, at this point someone might object that the essential, necessary attributes of God include God’s mutability, and so the essential, necessary attributes of God do make the conjunction of divine immutability and incarnation impossible. This, though, as I have noted earlier, is not the sort of objection I have my eye on in this article. This person is really arguing for the falsity of divine immutability based on her philosophy of God. Such an argument might have ramifications for my project, but they are later downstream. 37 Thomas V. Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University 35 Timothy Pawl 936 things remain true of him even when incarnate. It is only if he divested himself of his divine nature entirely that we would be able to deny the predicates of him that are apt of him in virtue of that divine nature. Conciliar Christology precludes such a scenario. And so, generally speaking, whatever predicates are apt of Christ in virtue of his divine nature will be predicates that do not change. Thus, they will not be predicates that imply that the divine nature is not superduper immutable. Your hand remains hovering over the buzzer. Third, consider the contingent-essential predicates. These are predicates apt of Christ in virtue of his assumed human nature, not predicates apt of Christ in virtue of his assumed human nature along with other ontological components he has, such as accidents. We have seen predications of these types previously in discussing the Nicene Creed. It is because he has assumed a nature that is as it is that he is aptly called a man. I include another predicate in the examples, the predicate “mammal.” The point to make about these essential predications made true by the assumed human nature is that their ontological truth conditions do not require a change in the divine nature. Since Christ does have an essence that makes it true that he is a mammal—his human nature—it follows that Christ fulfills the aptness conditions for being predicated by “Christ is a mammal” (the terms “essence” and “nature” traditionally co-refer on some of their disambiguations). We have said all this, though, without having to say anything about his divine nature, and without having to say anything that implies a change in the divine nature. Your hand remains hovering over the buzzer. Finally, consider the bottom-right predications, taken from the Nicene Creed. Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. Does any of this require a change in the divine nature? I argued that it does not in the previous section. Here, I think we can give a general account as to why. The truth conditions for many of the contingent-accidental predications apt of Christ are also apt of mere humans. And mere humans do not have a divine nature to do truth-making work for predications formed with those predicates. So a divine nature, whether static or changing, is not a needful thing to fulfill the truth conditions for such predications. Its presence, absence, mutability, or Press, 1987), 97–101. Conciliar Christology and the Consistency of Divine Immutability 937 immutability are not necessary conditions for the predicates in question to be apt of a thing. And so the predications in question do not entail a mutable divine nature. Conclusion In conclusion, I have considered a prima facie difficulty with conciliar Christology that stems primarily from the third and fourth ecumenical council—Ephesus and Chalcedon—but can be motivated even from the very first ecumenical creed of the undivided Church, the Nicene Creed. The problem is that the texts appear to claim that Christ is both immutable and changed. I then showed that the texts not only appear to say that Christ is immutable and changes; they in fact say that. Next, I distinguished three understandings of immutability, arguing that two of them are incongruent with the conciliar teachings. After that, I considered the claims made of Christ in the Nicene Creed and gave a piecemeal account of the truth conditions for those claims, arguing that none of them required change on the part of the divine nature. Finally, from the cases discussed from the Nicene Creed, I formed a general account of how to provide truth conditions for predications of four exhaustive types. I have provided from these types a strategy for responding to claims that immutability implies the falsity of an incarnation or that, equivalently, incarnation implies the falsity of N&V immutability. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 939–977 939 The Mystery of Israel: Jews, Hebrew Catholics, Messianic Judaism, the Catholic Church, and the Mosaic Ceremonial Laws Gavin D’Costa University of Bristol Bristol, England Introduction Bruce Marshall has argued that there is a deep tension in the recent doctrinal teachings of the Catholic Church regarding the Jewish people. The Catholic Church holds two claims about God that are difficult to reconcile with one another, and these conflicting claims generate confusing signals to Jews and Catholics on Jewish–Catholic matters. The two claims are: (1) that the saving mission of Christ and his Church is willed by God to be universal, extending to every human being; and (2) that God’s covenant with Israel, with the Jewish people according to the flesh, is irrevocable. Both claims seem to be essential to Catholic faith because they are unpacking the nature of revelation. “But the consistency of the one with the other is less than obvious.”1 I am grateful to Rusty Reno of First Things and Professor Douglas Farrow for inviting me to participate in a colloquium that helped birth this paper. Thanks to the participants of the colloquium, in particular: Dr. Larry Feingold, Fr. William Goldin, Rabbi Mark Kinzer, Dr. Matthew Levering, Prof. Bruce Marshall, Rev. Dr. Gerald R. McDermott, and Fr. Thomas Joseph White. I also thank Roshan De Stone and Dr. Isaac Chenchiah for their critical comments on a draft of this essay. 1 Bruce D. Marshall, “Christ and Israel: An Unsolved Problem in Catholic Theology,” in The Call of Abraham: Essays on the Election of Israel in Honor of Jon D. Levenson, ed. Gary A. Anderson and Joel S. Kaminsky (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), 330–50, at 332. See also Marshall, 940 Gavin D’Costa If the first is true, the second cannot hold, as it would imply that God wills for Jews to remain Jews, while the first holds that God wills for all to be in the Church. If the second is true, the first cannot hold, as it shows an exception to an alleged universal: that God wills for all to be in the Church. However, some theologians have argued that the claim about God’s irrevocable gift to the Jewish people according to the flesh is so under-defined by the magisterium that, without substantial further explication, the tension that Marshall sees may well only appear as such and not be real. The claim certainly has magisterial status, but it could be interpreted in different ways. (1) It could mean that the first-century Jews who accepted Jesus Christ continued in the irrevocable covenant that is being designated by Paul, such that, for instance, Romans 11:29 speaks about God’s fidelity, not about unfaithful Jews who have rejected him and the covenant by rejecting Jesus Christ. Those who accept it are the shoot of the Church, which is made up of gentiles and Jews. This is Origen’s interpretation and one that is often named “supersessionist,” whereby Israel’s covenant is transferred to the new Israel, the community who follow the Messiah, Jesus Christ. I will call this the “supersessionist” position. (2) Alternatively, it could mean that the first-century Jews who rejected Jesus Christ are not rejected by God, who is faithful to his covenantal promises to his chosen people, the Jews. However, that covenant is not salvific per se: its grace and blessings instead come to fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the source of all grace. This view can, but does not need to, assume that Romans 11:25–26 suggests that the Jewish people will eventually, after “the full number of the Gentiles has come in,” recognize Jesus Christ as their saving Messiah. This may happen through exclusive divine action or a combination of both human and divine action, and either in human history or in an eschatological age. This is a move away from supersessionism, but it still contains elements of that view insomuch as it holds that, ultimately, the Jewish covenant is “lacking,” for it does not recognize the longhoped-for Messiah, Jesus Christ. I will call this the “fulfillment” position. (3) Finally, it can be construed as saying that the first-century Jews, as well as contemporary Jews, are in an irrevocable covenant that is sufficient in itself, since God instituted this covenant, is faithful “Religion and Election: Aquinas on Natural Law, Judaism, and Salvation in Christ,” Nova et Vetera (English) 14, no. 1 (2016): 61–125. The Mystery of Israel 941 to it, and is followed faithfully through it. The Jewish covenant per se is sufficient for salvation.2 Therefore, there are two covenants that are salvific and inaugurated by God. I will call this the “two-covenant” position. Of course, there are extensive and complex variations within each interpretative category. For instance, in the supersessionist position, one can argue that not all Jews can be accused of rejecting Jesus Christ and that, therefore, not all are guilty of deicide, and so not all are rejected by God. In the fulfillment position, one might argue there should be no institutional mission related to the Jewish people, a characteristic shared by the two-covenant view. As it stands, only the two-covenant position is strictly incompatible with the doctrine that God desires all to be saved through Christ and his Church. Supersessionism and fulfillment are not incompatible with that doctrine. However, supersessionism is contrary to the Catholic Church’s inchoate teaching since 1965, and more explicitly contrary to the magisterium since 1980. St. Pope John Paul II spoke to the Jewish community in Mainz, Germany, in 1980 with two significant claims, that the covenant with Israel was irrevocable covenant and that it applies to contemporary Judaism: The first dimension of this dialogue, that is, the meeting between the people of God of the Old Covenant, never revoked by God [cf. Rom. 11:29], and that of the New Covenant, is at the same time a dialogue within our Church, that is to say, between the first and the second part of her Bible. . . . A second dimension of our dialogue—the true and central one—is the meeting between present-day Christian Churches and the presentday people of the Covenant concluded with Moses. 3 This teaching then migrated to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:4 Such a position is taken by Catholic Rosemary Radford Ruether in Faith and Fratricide: Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York: Seabury, 1974) and by Protestant theologians like Paul van Buren. 3 Pope John Paul II, Address to Representatives of the West German Jewish Community, November 17, 1980, http://ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/documents-and-statements/roman-catholic/pope-john-paul-ii/297-jp2-80nov17. 4 There were also contrary or unresolved currents within the Catechism. See, for example, §580, §710, and §762. See also Anti-Defamation League, Catechism of the Catholic Church: Catholic and Jewish Readings (New York: Anti-Defamation League, 1994). 2 942 Gavin D’Costa §121: The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture. Its books are divinely inspired and retain a permanent value, for the Old Covenant has never been revoked. §839: “Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways.” The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People [Nostra Aetate §4], “the first to hear the Word of God” (Roman Missal, Good Friday 13: General Intercessions, VI). The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God’s revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews “belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ” (Rom 9:4–5), “for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). Popes Benedict and Francis have repeated this teaching regarding Romans 11:29. In a speech in the Great Synagogue of Rome on January 17, 2010, Benedict directly quoted §839 of the Catechism.5 Most recently, in §247 of Evangelii Gaudium (2013), Francis taught: We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). The Church, which shares with Jews an important part of the sacred Scriptures, looks upon the people of the covenant and their faith as one of the sacred roots of her own Christian identity (cf. Rom 11:16– 18). As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion; nor do we include the Jews among those called to turn from idols and to serve the true God (cf. 1 Thes 1:9). With them, we believe in the one God who acts in history, and with them we accept his revealed word.6 Pope Benedict XVI, Address at the Great Synagogue of Rome, January 17, 2017, https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2010/january/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20100117_sinagoga.html. 6 Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (2013), http://w2.vatican.va/content/ francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html. 5 The Mystery of Israel 943 But there is a serious objection to the fulfillment reading that would suggest supersessionism is the only possible interpretation. The objection is this: the affirmations about Judaism in fulfillment views are incompatible with the settled doctrinal teachings of the Church magisterially defined in Cantate Domino (1442) and reiterated in Mystici Corporis (1943), which teach that the Jewish ceremonial law is dead and deadly.7 Fulfillment (or any affirmation of the validity of the covenant with the Jewish people now) is not permissible.8 I will first attend to the serious objections of contrary earlier magisterial teachings to current magisterial teachings and show that the earlier teachings exclude only two-covenant views, not fulfillment views. I will then turn to Marshall’s conundrum to show how fulfillment best keeps intact the coherence of Catholic doctrinal teachings and its development9 and how it opens a door toward a constructive theology of Israel understood as contemporary Judaism. If I achieve these two goals, there is much further work to be done, but this is a kind of ground-clearing exercise to facilitate a doctrinally coherent and robust approach to “Israel of the flesh” in Catholic theology, those who are born Jewish or have been accepted as Jewish converts by the requisite Jewish authority. My argument in this essay is that fulfillment is the most likely candidate for what the magisterium intends and that holding the fulfillment view also interestingly diffuses Marshall’s conundrum. The fulfillment view, as I develop it, also overcomes the objections that these new teachings go against the settled doctrinal teachings Douglas Farrow puts the case very cogently, although he does not argue it himself (Theological Negotiations: Proposals in Soteriology and Anthropology [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, forthcoming 2018]). See also William B. Goldin, “St. Thomas Aquinas and Supersessionism: A Contextual Study and Doctrinal Application” (PhD diss, Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 2017). Neither Farrow nor Goldin advances supersessionism; rather, they constructively show problems with fulfillment and two-covenant views. Goldin’s excellent thesis deserves a publisher. 8 Canons 66–70 of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) are typical of prohibitions on Jews, but none are strictly doctrinal and 70 seems aimed at stopping Jewish converts falling back to Judaism. The Catholic Church could consider formally rescinding these canons as a gesture (for they are inoperative now). 9 The other strength of Goldin’s dissertation is his employment of Newman’s criteria regarding doctrinal development to show how the two-covenant view is not a genuine development, but an error. He successfully shows that Cardinal Walter Kasper and Mary Boys propound this erroneous view (“St. Thomas Aquinas and Supersessionism,” 402–19). 7 944 Gavin D’Costa found in Cantate Domino and reiterated in Mystici Corporis. The further benefit of the fulfillment position is that it also sheds helpful light on two related issues concerning Israel “of the flesh” that have arisen in the recent debate: those Jews who have become Catholics and wish to retain a Jewish identity compatible with their Catholic faith (see for example, the Association of Hebrew Catholics10 ); and those Jews who have become Messianic Jews, following Jesus but sometimes distancing themselves from a gentile religion (Christianity) to maintain and retain their Jewish identity. For purposes of clarity, I shall use the following phrases while being aware of vast internal plurality and diversity within each group: “biblical Jews” designates Jews up to the time of Jesus; “rabbinic Judaism” designates Jews after the time of Jesus, when the oral and written Torah became normative; “Hebrew Catholics” designates those in the Association of Hebrew Catholics and likeminded Jewish Catholics who wish to retain some elements of their Jewish heritage (there are significant variations within this group, and I am not arguing that Jews who have no connection with their religious and cultural heritage who become Catholics should in any way be required to follow and associate with “Hebrew Catholics”—this is akin to a calling or vocation); and “Messianic Jews” designates those Jews who usually wish to remain apart from the gentile church as they see it and follow Yeshua/Jesus as Israel’s Messiah. Many in this last group believe that the gentile church fails to accommodate Jewish followers and hold that any successful and appropriate witness to the Jewish people should be undertaken by Jewish followers of Yeshua. All four groups might feasibly claim to be Israel “of the flesh.” This certainly complexifies Marshall’s quandary. Admittedly, most of rabbinic Judaism contests the claim that Messianic Jews or Hebrew Catholics can be considered Jewish. They are considered apostates and lose some of the privileges of being Jewish (the right to return to Israel, for example), but they remain Jewish (in some sense), just as someone excommunicated remains Catholic by virtue of their baptism.11 Hence, treating these four See Lawrence Feingold, The Mystery of Israel and the Church, 3 vols. [Figure and Fulfillment; Things New and Old; The Messianic Kingdom of Israel] (St. Louis, MO: Miriam, 2010). There are variants within this group. See, for instance, Nechama Tec, In the Lion’s Den:The Life of Oswald Rufeisen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). 11 David Novak, Talking with Christians: Musings of a Jewish Theologian (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 161; see also 221, on the law of return. 10 The Mystery of Israel 945 categories equally as I do in this article might jeopardize dialogue between Catholics and rabbinic Jews.12 This is not my intention. I seek to clarify for Catholic theology the issues regarding “which Israel” is intended by Paul and the magisterium and to what end. There is a further linguistic point to be registered: the “Catholic Church” calls itself the “new Israel,” although not of the flesh. This reflects Paul’s teaching that the gentiles are grafted onto the natural roots and shoot of Israel of the flesh (Romans 11:19–24). This point takes on more significance below. Do the Magisterial Teachings of the Church Exclude the Fulfillment View? The importance of Cantate Domino is twofold. Its authority is that of a solemnly binding doctrinal teaching: the Church “firmly believes, professes, and teaches.” This took place at a formally recognized Church council (Florence) convened by Pope Eugene IV. Regarding belief, it represents a clear prohibition against the practice of the ceremonial Mosaic law, both within and outside the Catholic Church, that is continuous with a long theological tradition that is developed through two key figures among Doctors and Fathers of the Church, Augustine and Aquinas.13 This concerns both doctrine and discipline. Novak employs halakhic grounds for arguing for the apostate status of Jews who follow Jesus (Talking with Christians, 223). See also Matthew Levering, Jewish-Christian Dialogue and the Life of Wisdom: Engagements with the Theology of David Novak (London: Continuum, 2011), 12–46. As a Catholic theologian, Levering agrees with Novak’s position and argues that accepting Messianic Jews is disrespectful toward rabbinic Jewish autonomy and undermines its authority to identify who is a Jew. He does not consider Hebrew Catholics, but he has additional and persuasive Catholic theological reasons for questioning the legitimacy of Messianic Jews. 13 For the textual elaboration of this position, see Goldin, “St. Thomas Aquinas and Supersessionism,” 39–48, 133–93, and 194–356. On Aquinas, see also Matthew Levering’s brilliant study in Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple: Salvation According to Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002) and Matthew A. Tapie, Aquinas on Israel and the Church: The Question of Supersessionism in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2014), who criticizes Levering. Tapie and Levering have been in debate; see Matthew Levering, “Aquinas and Supersessionism One More Time: A Reply to Matthew A. Tapie’s Aquinas on Israel and the Church,” Pro Ecclesia 25, no. 4 (2017): 395–413. The disagreement finally revolves around the fact that, for Levering, Israel’s Torah is not negated, but rather fulfilled in the rites of the gentile Church. I think Levering’s analysis in Christ’s Fulfillment stands when applied to gentile followers of Jesus. When applied to Jewish 12 946 Gavin D’Costa The Catholic magisterium cannot reverse or overturn solemn doctrinal magisterium teachings without self-contradiction. Doctrines can develop, but they cannot flatly contradict previously held teachings. That is error, not development. Matters of discipline are subject to change when deemed appropriate by legitimate ecclesial authorities. What precisely does Cantate teach?14 I will the cite the paragraphs that are said to represent a prohibition of both the fulfillment and two-covenant views: [The Church] firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord’s coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors. Therefore, it commands all who glory in the name of Christian, at whatever time, before Catholics, it leaves the question of continuing Jewish practices unresolved, other than that they cannot be practices required for salvation. With him, I would agree that there can be no replacing the new dispensation of Christ, his seven sacraments, and his Church. Jewish Catholics must find their place within this universal Church. Tapie’s position is textually problematic in arguing from silences and not dealing adequately with the dynamic of fulfillment. See also Holly Taylor Coolman, “Book Review: Matthew A. Tapie, Aquinas on Israel and the Church: The Question of Supersessionism in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas,” Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 11, no. 1 (2016): 1–3. 14 English translation of Cantate comes from Norman P. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 1 (London: Sheed and Ward, 1990). The Mystery of Israel or after baptism, to cease entirely from circumcision, since, whether or not one places hope in it, it cannot be observed at all without the loss of eternal salvation. . . . It believes firmly, professes, and proclaims that “every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving” [1 Tim 4:4], since, according to the word of the Lord [Matt 15:11], “not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man,” and it asserts that the indifference of clean and unclean foods of the Mosaic law pertains to the ceremonials which, with the rise of the Gospel passed out of existence and ceased to be efficacious. And it says also that the prohibition of the apostles “from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood and from things strangled” [Acts 15:29] befitted that time in which one Church arose from the Jews and the Gentiles, who before lived according to different ceremonies and customs, so that even the Gentiles observed some things in common with the Jews, and occasion was furnished for coming together into one worship of God and one faith, and ground for dissension was removed; since to the Jews, by reason of an ancient custom, blood and things strangled seemed abominable, and they could think that the Gentiles would return to idolatry because of the eating of things sacrificed. But when the Christian religion is so propagated that no carnal Jew appears in it, but all passing over to the Church, join in the same rites and ceremonies of the Gospel, believing “all things clean to the clean” [Titus 1:15], with the ending of the cause for this apostolic prohibition, the effect also ended. Thus it declares that the nature of no food, which society admits, is to be condemned, and no distinction is to be made by anyone at all, whether man or woman, between animals, and by whatever kind of death they meet their end; although for the health of body, for the exercise of virtue, for regular and ecclesiastical discipline many things not denied should be given up, since, according to the Apostle, “all things are lawful, but all things are not expedient” [1 Cor 6:12; 10:22]. It firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart “into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels” [Matt 25:41], unless 947 948 Gavin D’Costa before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church. In literature that cites this Council, three separate and related claims are made. First, it is claimed that the Council teaches (following Augustine and Aquinas and a long established theological tradition) that, after the Gospel has been preached, the ceremonial ritual law of the Mosaic covenant is invalid: both dead and deadly. Augustine’s doctrine of the tria tempora had corrected Jerome’s duo tempora. Jerome posited simply “before” and “after” the passion of Christ, which was the ontological turning point of the history of salvation. Augustine accepts this ontological turning point but correlates it to epistemological conditions as well, thus making it more nuanced. For Augustine and Aquinas, who follows Augustine in this, the first period is the time before Christ, when the ceremonial laws were, valid, preparatory of Christ, and when undertaken with a sincere heart, grace-giving. There was variance among the Fathers as to whether this grace should be classed as sacramental, quasi-sacramental, or purely signifying, but all viewed it positively and as proleptically efficacious before the time of Christ.15 They held it to be efficacious because of its Christological telos. The second period of the tria tempora is the era after Christ’s Passion but before the Gospel had been preached to the world. This allows for the ontological and epistemological correlation. It also considers the biblical accounts, especially in Acts, that indicate Aquinas does in one instance view circumcision as operating ex opere like the sacraments, but in later writings, he abandons this view. Consistently, the ceremonial laws play a proleptic and pre-figurative function in Aquinas. For Aquinas’s texts and discussion of this, see Goldin, “St. Thomas Aquinas and Supersessionism,” 333–43. For the possible quasi-sacramental significance and in figura, see articles in Nova et Vetera (English) 7, no. 2 (2009): Bruce D. Marshall, “Quasi in Figura: A Brief Reflection on Jewish Election after Thomas Aquinas” (477–84); Trent Pomplun, “Quasi in Figura: A Cosmological Reading of the Thomistic Phrase” (505–22); and Emmanuel Perrier, O.P., “The Election of Israel Today: Supersessionism, Post-Supersessionism, and Fulfillment,” (485–504). My position is similar to those of Pomplun and Perrier. 15 The Mystery of Israel 949 followers of Jesus continuing with ceremonial law after the Passion. Both Augustine and Aquinas acknowledge these practices, and the latter argues that they were permitted to indicate to gentiles the special nature of God’s acting in history through the Jewish people and to block the sanctification of gentile rites that might have taken place otherwise.16 The third period, in which Augustine and Aquinas believed they themselves lived, is after the Gospel has been preached to all, marking the decline of the Jewish followers of Jesus, and thus the end of the validity of the ceremonial Mosaic law. The objection to the Jewish ceremonial law/practice is that it originally pointed to something in the future that has now come. To practice it after Christ is to deny the coming of Christ, which is to deny the truth of the Gospel, which is to sin mortally. Hence, in the third period, there can be no place for the ceremonial law theologically, even if it could be permitted during the second period. This prohibition did not relate to the Mosaic ethical law, which is still valid for Augustine and Aquinas. As the civic Mosaic law had ceased with the cessation of a Jewish state, that element of the Mosaic law was irrelevant. The second claim in subsequent discussion of Cantate is that there is the claim the dispute about ritually impure foods indicates the same judgement: that ceremonial laws are now invalid, just as circumcision and Shabbat should not be practiced. And third, it is asserted that the exclusion of the Jew from salvation in the final paragraph cited above indicates the logic of this position and that, while being worked out in relation to an internal ecclesial dispute (those who “glory in the name of Christian”), that logic is then related to external groups (“those not living in the Church”), including the Jews, from whom these practices originated. Since they have rejected the Gospel, they have rejected salvation. If these three claims about Cantate hold, then fulfillment and two-covenant views are not permissible and it is very likely that supersessionism would represent the most plausible trajectory of the magisterium’s recent teachings. I shall be arguing that, while the two-covenant view is not permissible after Florence, the fulfillment position is. But how are these objections against fulfillment views to be overcome? Contextually, Cantate is dealing with the Egyptian Coptic Church, sometimes known as the Jacobite church, and so Cantate See Thomas’s commentary on Galatians at 4:3 and 4:9, http://dhspriory.org/ thomas/SSGalatians.htm. 16 950 Gavin D’Costa is also known as the “Decree on the Jacobites.”17 The Council was part of Pope Eugene’s consolidation of papal power and a concern for the unity with Eastern Christian communities with the Latin West. The Council had already issued decrees of unity with the Greeks and Armenians prior to this document, but it had admittedly failed in attaining such unity with them, or with the Copts.18 The central focus, regardless of the outcome, was intra-Christian unity, not interreligious relations. The Egyptian Copts were represented by Abbot Andrew, who himself represented the Patriarch of the Copts, John, who lived in Cairo. Andrew was interrogated by Cardinals Cesarini, Le Jeune, and Torquemada regarding the beliefs of the Copts. The main problems related to “certain practices” such as circumcising male children, the practice of Sabbath on Saturday, and the enforcement of certain food regulations. These practices were regarded as following the old ceremonial law that was now invalid—dead and deadening. Unity could thus be attained, but only if these practices ceased. Andrew expressed agreement with this solution.19 There is some dispute as to whether circumcision derived from Muslim, rather than Jewish, influence from the seventh-century Islamic conquest of Egypt.20 Even if the context of Cantate is not Jewish converts to Christianity or Jews per se, it still arises from the earlier theological tradition regarding Jewish practices before and after the Gospel promulgation. This latter tradition does pertain to our question. Hence, while it is illegitimate to claim that the dispute about Jewish practices clearly indicates a teaching “about the Jews,” Israel of the flesh, especially since Cantate contextualizes its own teaching as referring to those who “glory in the name of Christian,” we do need to recognize that the presuppositions embedded in Cantate’s teachings about the Copts do illuminate our question and that the final paragraph does refer to rabbinic Judaism, and the previous two paragraphs (possibly analogically) to Hebrew Catholics. See Jill Kamil, Christianity in the Land of the Pharaohs: The Coptic Orthodox Church (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2002), for a historical overview of the Coptic Church. 18 See the definitive study by Joseph Gill, S.J., The Council of Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959). 19 Gill, The Council of Florence, 322–26. Some unity was finally attained in the eighteenth century, establishing a Catholic Coptic Church. 20 See Dioscoros Boles, “Circumcision and the Copts: A History,” Glasfront, no. 122 (2012), http://britishorthodox.org/glastonburyreview/issue-122-circumcision-and-the-copts/. 17 The Mystery of Israel 951 If we accept that Augustine’s and Aquinas’s assumptions are being given magisterial status regarding the ceremonial law, there are still three hermeneutical questions or objections that arise that should make us pause in applying this material to Israel of the flesh, especially rabbinic Judaism, in this instance. The first regards the epistemological assumption that the third period, the preaching of the Gospel, has objectively occurred for all people and for all times. There is no question against or doubt about the ontological import: Christ’s Passion, death and resurrection are the exclusive cause of salvation for all people everywhere. Indeed, this ontological point undergirds the major line of criticism in Cantate: if a person thinks that any other practices than the sacraments or belief other than “faith in Christ” are “necessary for salvation,” they are in grave error. This teaching has been consistent and is biblical and has been reiterated as recently as Dominus Iesus (2000; see further below).21 The question to be raised relates to the epistemological conditions under which the ontological can be seen to be understood as epistemologically operative. Can we be confident that rabbinic Jews really know the truth of the Gospel and have rejected it? Collectively and individually? Did every Jew in the twelfth century, for instance, know that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah and knowingly reject this truth? The answer is that, while this might apply to some Jews, it could not be said with certainty to apply to all collectively, given what we know about the period, that there was a deep mutual antagonism, with the sociopolitical power lying with the Christians. Hence, rabbinic Jews of the flesh are not subjectively existing in the tria tempora, but quite possibly subjectively exist in the first or second period of time, which would constitute their subjective sense of objectivity. This is very significant. The Catholic Church developed a term for this state of affairs: Chapter 1 of Trent’s Decree on Justification (“On the Inability of Nature and of the Law to justify man”; session 6) states: “The holy Synod declares first, that, for the correct and sound understanding of the doctrine of Justification, it is necessary that each one recognize and confess, that, whereas all men had lost their innocence in the prevarication of Adam having become unclean, and, as the apostle says, by nature children of wrath, as (this Synod) has set forth in the decree on original sin, they were so far the servants of sin, and under the power of the devil and of death, that not the Gentiles only by the force of nature, but not even the Jews by the very letter itself of the law of Moses, were able to be liberated, or to arise, therefrom; although free will, attenuated as it was in its powers, and bent down, was by no means extinguished in them” (www.thecounciloftrent.com/ch6.htm). 21 952 Gavin D’Costa “invincible ignorance.”22 Hence, while an objective truth now exists—the Messiah has come and is Jesus Christ—those who do not accept this truth may be invincibly ignorant and are not therefore culpable of “rejecting” truth and salvation. “Invincible ignorance” denotes inability to rid oneself of a false viewpoint, despite the exercise of moral diligence, undertaking all that is possible and obligatory to discover the truth.23 It is difficult to judge individuals and groups at all on this question, let alone after many centuries. However, given the animosity that developed between Jews and Catholics, it is not difficult to conceive of a Jewish person conscientiously following the law given by God in the Torah and later mediated by rabbinical Judaism rejecting Jesus on conscientious religious grounds: Jesus does not conform to Israel’s Messiah, since the world is still full of strife; the Incarnation is idolatrous and has been authoritatively deemed such by competent religious authorities; and, if the Incarnation is false, so is the Trinity. This person may be reinforced in their view by certain objective facts: a long history of anti-Jewish practices by those who follow Jesus Christ; Christians’ seeming commitment to the extinction of Jewish practices (as seen in the Council of Florence), and thus to Jewish identity; and so on. Admittedly, invincible ignorance depends on the individual and their precise circumstances. Aquinas allows for different gradations of culpability among the Jews, expecting far more from the learned than from the ignorant and manually busy.24 One might argue that a particular individual could have read the Gospels, studied the Councils, read the great Fathers of the Church, seen that there were pluriform views of the “messiah” in the bible, and studied philosophy to see that the Incarnation is not technically idolatrous, and thus that the See: Stephen Bullivant, “Sine Culpa? Vatican II and Inculpable Ignorance,” Theological Studies 72, no. 1 (2011): 70–86; Gavin D’Costa, Vatican II: Catholic Doctrines on Jews and Muslims (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 62–73. 23 See Gerald O’Collins and Edward G. Farrugia, A Concise Dictionary of Theology (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2000), 123. Gaudium et Spes §16 warns of a permissive reading: “Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin.” 24 See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae [ST] III, q. 47, a. 5: The elders, maiores, were culpable even if they feigned non-culpability, but the common person, the minors, had not grasped the mysteries of the Scriptures and cannot be blamed. 22 The Mystery of Israel 953 Trinity may be true. They could also have been conscientious enough to transcend their historical circumstances and see that Christian anti-Judaism might be later condemned by Christians and forgive Christians despite having to live with the martyrdom of forefathers and mothers at the hands of Christians. They could have consulted a learned Catholic to discuss all these matters. Whether all this would be considered as reasonably following their duty to the truth is open to discussion. But should such Jews, even after they have done all this, be reconciled to the view that God’s promises to fleshy Israel, and thus themselves, are now abrogated, dead, and even deadly? Should they accept that Jewish extinction is required for Christian practice, even though this occurred in the second phase and even though Jesus, his first disciples, and his mother and father all faithfully practiced Jewish ceremonial rituals? I think it is fair to argue that many Jews in the past and present, and certainly Jews as a collective, could be considered as invincibly ignorant. From that, a lot else follows that begins to show how fulfillment might be the most viable solution. Raising the objection of invincible ignorance is not novel. The presumption of the operative condition of the third period of the tria tempora was questioned with the discovery of the so-called “new world” in the sixteenth century, when whole cultures were discovered that had never heard the Gospel.25 Christian theologians like Francisco de Vitoria (ca. 1492–1546) and Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484–1566) deployed Aquinas’s concept of invincible ignorance to address the question of the invincibly ignorant non-Christian. They developed an interesting insight (repeated in Gaudium et Spes §19) not registered in the earlier doctrine of invincible ignorance: a person (in their case, American Indians) may be invincibly ignorant even after hearing the Gospel if there is scandalous behavior on the part of those “preaching the Gospel.”26 Las Casas argued that the missionaries, See Francis A. Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church?: Tracing the History of the Catholic Response (London: G. Chapman, 1992),44–62. 26 See Francisco de Vitoria, De Indis recenter inventis, et de jure belli Hispanorum in barbaros, ed. Walter Schötzel (Tübingen: Mohr, 1952 [originally 1539]), 76 (q. 2, a. 4), where de Vitoria cites Cardinal Cajetan: “It is rash and imprudent of anyone to believe something (especially in matters such as these, concerning salvation) unless one knows it to be from a trustworthy source.” Vitoria calls into question Aquinas’s distinction between the Gospel’s “fame” and its “effects” in a historical Church. The latter was problematized in a way that Aquinas had not allowed for in his discussion. 25 954 Gavin D’Costa who now act like wild beasts and wolves, are scandalously “bearded messengers armed to the teeth with terrible weapons.”27 Invincible ignorance was extended and applied to areas where “missionary activity” was operative, applied in relation to people who had “heard” the Gospel but for whom the hearing had been obscured through no fault of their own, and even through the behavior of Catholics. Furthermore, we see the ascendency of the invincible ignorance teaching in magisterial documents in such a way that it is constantly linked to the extra ecclesiam nulla salus (“no salvation outside the Church”) teaching found in Florence. This first happens in Pope Pius IX’s encyclical Singulari Quadam (1854),28 then again in his Quanto Conficiamur Moerore (1863) §7: It is known to Us and to you that those who labour in invincible ignorance concerning our most holy religion and who, assiduously observing the natural law and its precepts which God had inscribed in the hearts of all, and being ready to obey God, live an honest and upright life can, through the working of the divine light and grace, attain eternal life.29 Finally, in the Second Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium, the conditions for that teaching are repeated.30 Lumen Gentium specifies that “no salvation outside the Church” can be applied only to those who know (epistemologically) that the Church is the truth of Jesus Christ (ontologically). Hence, to employ the category of “invincible ignorance” in relation to Jews, as I have urged, does not entail a novelty, but rather a prudential consistency, and it in no way undermines previous doctrinally authoritative teachings. Nor am I suggesting a lazy way out of the problem, for it seems quite plausible that these conditions exist. The term “invincibly ignorant” is often understood negatively by those whom it designates and has caused offence to some Jews who Bartolomé de Las Casas, History of the Indies, trans. and ed. Andrée M. Collard (New York: Harper, 1971 [originally 1552]), 194. 28 Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quadam, http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/ encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_24091912_singulari-quadam.html. 29 Pope Pius IX, Quanto Conficiamur Moerore: Italian original at http:// w2.vatican.va/content/pius-ix/it/documents/enciclica-quanto-conficiamur-10-agosto-1863.html; English translation at ewtn.com/library/encyc/ p9quanto.htm. 30 See D’Costa, Vatican II, 62–79. 27 The Mystery of Israel 955 claim that it treats them as infantile.31 This was not the purpose of the term, but there are good apologetic reasons to employ different terminology to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings. This first objection against applying Cantate to Israel of the flesh (“invincible ignorance”) begins to reconfigure the landscape considerably without undermining either the authority or doctrinal intention of Florence. It allows that ceremonial practices of the Mosaic law were providentially instituted in the first period. Augustine, Aquinas, and Cantate maintain the teaching that these practices were ordained by God, even though their status as signs or quasi-sacramental or sacramental acts is not clarified by Cantate. In Cantate’s language, they “were suited to the divine worship at that time” and were “efficacious” at that time. Hence, understanding fulfillment to refer to rabbinic Judaism under the conditions of invincible ignorance is not quite the problem it first appeared to be. As Emmanuel Perrier states it: “From the subjective point of view, each Jew following in good faith his tradition is led toward Christ and receives Christ’s grace in the measure to which this tradition conserves its right orientation toward Christ. He cannot remain in good faith if, arriving at explicit knowledge of Christ, he continues to prefer what he henceforth perceives as being only a figure of Christ.”32 Rabbinic Judaism’s practices can be understood as God-given and their covenant as intact, God’s fidelity to it “objectively” operating to those who are subjectively living in the first period, epistemologically before the coming of Jesus. The fact that biblical Israel and rabbinic Judaism are simultaneously discontinuous and continuous with each other and that, under the first period, the ruling applies to biblical Judaism, we can see that, objectively speaking, under the conditions specified, the ruling applied to biblical Judaism could be analogically applied to rabbinic Judaism. Hebrew Catholics—if we take Lawrence Feingold’s three-volume work as indicative of Hebrew Catholicism for the sake of convenience—do not maintain that the ceremonial practices are salvific per se, but that they are practices that were followed by Christ However, C. Montefiore notes this same conceptual concern in the rabbinic tradition: “For if the heathen knew no better, and had never heard of the one true God, how could their doom be justified?” (C. G. Montefiore and H. M. J. Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology: Selected and Arranged with Comments and Introductions [Cleveland, OH:World, 1963], 576). He shows how the rabbinic literature explains why this is unlikely given the theory of the “seven prophets” and then the law so that all could see and hear the truth of the one God. 32 Perrier, “The Election of Israel Today,” 493. 31 956 Gavin D’Costa and have a salvific power through him, but not in the manner of opus operatum, which is attributed purely to the seven sacraments.33 Feingold, as a Hebrew Catholic, thus does not cross the line that Cantate draws: he upholds that only faith in Christ is strictly necessary for salvation. But faith in Christ would not in itself exclude Jewish practices that are reconfigured in a messianic way. We must recall that Jesus Christ continued in these practices all the days of his life, from circumcision, to preaching at the synagogue as a male Jewish adult, and through to the preparations at his death and entombment. He came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. That there can be differing practices within the one Church, formed and reconfigured by the Jewish Messiah, does not detract from full unity. It did not in the early Church, and it need not in the contemporary Church as long as the conditions just specified are respected. In fact, and this is most significant, Cantate lends credence to a different practice within the Church were there to be Jews of the flesh within the Church. It recognizes that, rather than creating two churches, the teaching of Acts 15:29 served to unify the Church by providing “for coming together into one worship of God and one faith, and ground for dissension was removed.” Acts 15:29 lost its value in the third period with the disappearance of carnal Israel within the Church. Cantate says that, “when the Christian religion is so propagated that no carnal Jew appears in it, but all passing over to the Church,” it is fitting that the rites and ceremonies of the old Law be prohibited. Does the converse hold: when there are carnal Jews within the Church, then it may be appropriate that the “rites and ceremonies of the old Law” are permitted again? 34 This is important because Hebrew Catholics today testify to the reality that “carnal Jews” of the flesh have reappeared within the body of Christ. Modern Hebrew Catholics testify to the reality of the second period, when such practices were permitted and expressly accepted as legitimate as long as that legitimacy was not construed to indicate that such rites See Feingold, Mystery of Israel and the Church, 1:12–84. See also Elias Friedman, Jewish Identity (New York: Miriam, 1987), the classic foundational text for Hebrew Catholics. 34 See the remarkable testimony of Channah Bardan’s The Bride, preface by Kathleen Moss (St Louis, MO: Miriam, 2017), which tells of an Orthodox Jew who is a Catholic and shows how her traditional Jewish practices serve and strengthen her Catholicism. Her work also indicates the significance of Mary as illuminating both her Orthodox practices and her Catholic theology and devotion. 33 The Mystery of Israel 957 were salvific per se apart from Jesus Christ and it did not in any way act against the unity of the Church and an equal sharing of Jesus’s mission and adoption as God’s children. It is also interesting to note that, in the fifteenth century, as evidenced by Cantate, and we will see below in the seventeenth century, certain Jewish rites were present and practiced within the Eastern churches. Sometimes they were obligatory (for gentile Christians), as in the East, but they had been eradicated as obligatory in the Latin West and viewed as optional advice or good counsel (again, ironically for gentile Christians). This is true of circumcision, Saturday Sabbath and some dietary laws. Below, we will see a later pope arguing that the Church has the power to allow for such practices within the Church, so long as they do not contravene the intention of Cantate. The implication of Cantate for Messianic Jews, from the standpoint of Catholic theology, is slightly more complex for two reasons. The internal plurality of Messianic Jews means that there are some groups who, in their rejection of Christ’s divinity and the Trinity, and thus the creeds of the Church, are more closely related to rabbinic Judaism, although their acceptance of Jesus as Messiah of course distinguishes them sharply from rabbinic Jews. Some Messianic Jews accept baptism; others do not practice it.35 Others accept the Incarnation and Trinity, and thus can doctrinally agree, in principle, with the Nicene Creed. This means that they are akin to non-Catholic Christians. But which non-Catholic Christians? Since their acceptance of seven sacraments is rare, they are more akin to Protestant Christians, from which most historically derive, as opposed to Eastern Orthodox Christians, who accept seven sacraments. Cantate condemns only those who know the Messiah has come and hold that the ceremonial law is necessary for salvation. In the writings and typologies of Messianic Jews, I cannot find any groups or theologians who would stipulate the matter in this way, although Mark Kinzer would argue for the obligatory nature of the Mosaic ceremonial law. However, Kinzer does not claim this is “necessary for salvation” for gentiles, nor does he claim it is See: Richard Harvey, Mapping Messianic Jewish Theology: A Constructive Approach (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2009); Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Messianic Judaism (New York: Continuum, 2000). This is when David Novak’s critique of Messianic Jews breaks down because of excessive generalizations in Talking with Christians, 218–29. He thinks they all accept the Incarnation and the Trinity. He also thinks they all have set views on the definition of the messiah. This is not the case. 35 958 Gavin D’Costa “necessary for salvation” apart from faith in Christ as the Messiah.36 Hence, a tentative conclusion regarding Messianic Jews is that they be split into Messianic Jews 1 (who accept the Incarnation, Trinity, the Nicene Creed, and baptism) and Messianic Jews 2 (who accept Jesus as Messiah, but not the beliefs of Messianic Jews 1). Catholics should consider both as serious partners in dialogue: Messianic Jews 1, under similar conditions to those designated as “ecclesial communities” rather than “churches” (in “churches,” the seven sacraments are accepted); and for Messianic Jews 2, similar conditions to those designated “other religions,” given that they do not accept baptism, the Incarnation, and the Trinity. Admittedly, Messianic Jews 2 sit uncomfortably in that category, given their acceptance of the New Testament and Jesus as Messiah, so this requires further attention, since the Council did not consider their case when discussing differing forms of ecumenism. At present, the Vatican is involved formally with messianic communities through the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, under the auspices of the Commission for Promoting Christian Unity.37 As a brief aside, we may ask what the above shows us about the two-covenant view. Even on the subjective level, assuming invincible ignorance, it would be difficult to argue for the two-covenant position that the Jewish people today are in an irrevocable covenant that is salvifically sufficient in itself, and thus sufficient for salvation without Jesus Christ. This would also contradict Marshall’s (1), that Christ alone is the cause of salvation. However, if it were argued that Jewish practices are ordered toward that salvation that is attained by Christ’s Passion and that such an ordering would provide grace that did not exclude such Jews from salvation, which is the position taken by the early Church regarding the righteous of Israel who died before See: Mark S. Kinzer, Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement with the Jewish People (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2005), and Searching Her Own Mystery: Nostra Aetate, the Jewish People, and the Identity of the Church (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2015). In the latter, Kinzer seeks fuller union with the Catholic Church, which is new amongst Messianic Jews and a most helpful sign. 37 See Cardinal Schönborn’s preface in Kinzer’s Searching Her Own Mystery, as well as Peter Hocken, Azusa, Rome, and Zion: Pentecostal Faith, Catholic Reform, and Jewish Roots (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2016), who participated in the Vatican’s informal talks with Messianic Jews (Cardinal Schönborn also adds a preface to Hocken’s work). That this group is under the wing of “Christian unity” perhaps resolves the problem of “Messianic Jews 2.” 36 The Mystery of Israel 959 Christ came to his people, this would surely be acceptable to the intention of Cantate. It is included in Cantate’s acceptance of the first period, which it assumes as past. One way the early Church reconciled the question of how righteous Jews before the time of Christ, in the first period, were saved was by arguing that, in Christ’s descent into the “underworld,” the Jewish righteous before his Incarnation were redeemed.38 They had been waiting in the limbo of the fathers (limbus patrum). What we learn from this solution is the necessity of explicit faith in Christ that is represented in this event. It also amounts to holding the fulfillment view, not the two-covenant view. The fulfillment view seems to be the position that is taken up by the 2015 statement of the Council for Religious Relations with the Jews entitled “The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable” (Rom 11:29): A Reflection on Theological Questions Pertaining to Catholic–Jewish Relations [hereafter, Gifts].39 Let me return to the main argument. The second objection against viewing Cantate as excluding the fulfillment view is that the word “Jews” in the final paragraph cited must mean that all Jews are considered damned, as they have not accepted Christ. Some theologians argue that Vatican II constitutes a reversal on this matter: in Cantate, the Jews were damned; at Vatican II, they are not.40 Since I have attended to this problem elsewhere, I will only repeat the basic See Gavin D’Costa, Christianity and World Religions: Disputed Questions in the Theology of Religions (Oxford:Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 161–211, and the subsequent discussion of D’Costa’s argument in Jakob Wirén, Hope and Otherness: Christian Eschatology and Interreligious Hospitality (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 122–29. 39 Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, “The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable” (Rom 11:29): A Reflection on Theological Questions Pertaining to Catholic-Jewish Relations (2015) [hereafter, Gifts], http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/relations-jews-docs/rc_pc_ chrstuni_doc_20151210_ebraismo-nostra-aetate_en.html. The two-covenant view is rejected by Gifts §35: “Since God has never revoked his covenant with his people Israel, there cannot be different paths or approaches to God’s salvation. The theory that there may be two different paths to salvation, the Jewish path without Christ and the path with the Christ, whom Christians believe is Jesus of Nazareth, would in fact endanger the foundations of Christian faith.” Marianne Moyaert rightly notes that the two-covenant position can take on different forms, and it is not always clear which forms are being condemned in Dominus Iesus; see Marianne Moyaert, “‘The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable’ (Rom 11:29): A Theological Reflection,” Irish Theological Quarterly 83, no. 1 (2018): 24–43. 40 Gerald O’Collins, Second Vatican Council on Other Religions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 204. 38 960 Gavin D’Costa outlines of my attempted refutation of this reading of contradiction in magisterial teachings.41 First, the word “Jews” (sed nec Iudeos) in Cantate assumes those who know the truth and have willfully rejected it. They are not invincibly ignorant. This is clear by their textual assimilation and lining up with pagans, heretics, and schismatics, all of whom are viewed as knowing the truth and either rejecting it, as do pagans, or perverting it, as do Jews, heretics, and schismatics. Second, “Jews” (Iudaeis) in Vatican II are considered ignorant of the truth, and thus invincibly ignorant, as in the treatment offered in Lumen Gentium §16.42 The word “Jews” is not used in Lumen Gentium, only in Nostra Aetate (eleven times). Lumen Gentium refers to them through their Pauline title in Romans 9:4–5: “that people to whom the testaments and promises were given [populus ille cui data fuerunt testamenta et promissa].” Thus, one can properly conclude that the “Jews” of Vatican II are a differently predicated object from the “Jews” of Cantate. While the word used is the same, the assumed invincible ignorance in the referent “Jews” in Vatican II means that the referents in the two works are incommensurable regarding culpability. Once this is recognized, it cannot be argued that there is a reversal in magisterial teachings. Rather, there is a difference of contexts in the references to “Jews,” which allows the same doctrinal intention (no salvation apart from Christ) to be specified in both cases, which is an unchanging doctrinal teaching and now applied in practice in the context of prudential judgement. If this is so, it also refutes the two-covenant view and supports fulfillment, for the two-covenant view could not be true for Cantate, even under the conditions of invincible ignorance, which is the only changed condition between Cantate and Vatican II. The third objection against viewing Cantate as excluding fulfillment is the magisterial commentary on some of the central issues of Cantate found in the Pope Benedict XIV’s encyclical Ex Quo Primum (1756). Pope Benedict is here explaining why some changes D’Costa, Vatican II, 113–19. Lumen Gentium §16 reads: “Finally, those who have not yet [nondum; assuming a time when all will] received the Gospel [those prior to the third period of the tria tempora] are related [ordinantur] in various ways to the people of God.” A note here refers to ST III, q. 8, a. 3, ad 1. Ordinantur means they are related to the truth of Christ and oriented toward it. Thomas argues that this group who are ordinantur are still required to make a profession of faith but are on the right path toward making this. For my reading of this line and note, see D’Costa, Vatican II, 89–99. 41 42 The Mystery of Israel 961 have been introduced into the Roman-permitted form of the Greek Euchologion (the liturgical missal for priests and deacons) for those in communion with Rome. They are concerned with blessings that remove impurities, some related to dietary laws (Acts 15:29) and some related to women and purification (deriving from Lev 12). Here again we find evidence that, right up to the eighteenth century, in Eastern communities, some of the strictures placed by James as head of the Jerusalem community on gentiles at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:29) were being honored, even in the third period, and even when there were no Jewish Christians practicing within these churches.43 That these traditions were honored is important for my overall argument. I cite the conclusion of Ex Quo Primum in full, where it deals with this issue by reaffirming the teachings of Cantate, which is to be expected.44 But Ex Quo Primum also adds further clarification: even at the objective level of the third period, practices of the second period may be permitted, not to affirm the legitimacy of the ceremonial law that is now illegitimate (assuming they are being practiced by Jews who have rejected the truth of Christ and are thus culpable), but acknowledging that their intention in use and their being authorized by a competent authority would grant legitimacy to them in acts of worship. The argument is entirely prudential, not doctrinally conceding an inch of ground established by Cantate. But Ex Quo Primum allows complicating factors to be considered carefully: §67. The third and final point suggested by the text of the fourth admonition [regarding blessings that purify suggesting uncleanness by standards of the old ceremonial law] is that Greek priests are not forbidden to use any of the prayers or blessings which are in their Euchologion by reason of references to matters which were subject to the ceremonial precepts of James proclaims in Acts 21:29: “It is my judgment, therefore, that we ought to stop troubling the Gentiles who turn to God, but tell them by letter to avoid pollution from idols, unlawful marriage, the meat of strangled animals, and blood.” For the complexity of reconstructing this early community and discerning the practices and existence of the Church of the Circumcision, see Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik, Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 55–240 (dealing with the first community). 44 I use the English translation of Ex Quo Primum at ewtn.com/library/ ENCYC/B14EXQUO.HTM. 43 962 Gavin D’Costa the Old Law. They should, however, do everything with the intention not of obeying the precepts of the old Law, which has now been abrogated, but of respecting the new Law of the Church or canonical custom made strong by long and unbroken observance. . . . Certain schismatics have tried to calumniate the Latin church by saying that it judaizes by consecrating unleavened bread, observing the Sabbath, and retaining the anointing of kings among the sacred rites. But Leo Allatius counters their rash claim in his splendid work de perpetua consensione Ecclesiae Occidentalis et Orientalis, bk. 3, chap. 4. He refutes them particularly by arguing as follows: “Since Jews observe Sabbaths, a man who observes Sabbaths acts in Jewish fashion: therefore the man who does not eat the flesh of strangled animals acts in Jewish fashion since the Jews are forbidden by the Law to eat such food: but the Greeks do not eat such food: therefore, the Greek judaize” (loc. cit. n. 4). Then to Our purpose he concludes (n. 9) that it cannot be absolutely asserted that that man judaizes who does something in the Church which corresponds to the ceremonies of the old Law. “If a man should perform acts for a different end and purpose (even with the intention of worship and as religious ceremonies), not in the spirit of that Law nor on the basis of it, but either from personal decision, from human custom, or on the instruction of the Church, he would not sin, nor could he be said to judaize. So when a man does something in the Church which resembles the ceremonies of the old Law, he must not always be said to judaize.” Seven paragraphs later, regarding laws in Leviticus 12 related to ritual cleanliness and childbirth, which relates to Eastern practices, the encyclical outlines the practices that have been constant in the Greek tradition on these matters and the discussion had by experts. It endorses the outcome of that discussion: §74. But others remarked wisely that some, surely, of the ceremonial rites of the old Law could be observed under the new Law if only they were not done as obligations of the old Law, which was abrogated, but as a custom, or lawful tradition, or as a new precept issued by one enjoying the recognized and competent authority to make laws and to enforce them, as Vasquez observes (vol. 3, in the 3rd part of the Summa, disp. The Mystery of Israel 963 210, quest. 80, art. 7). It was decided that there was no real ground for surprise that the observance of a period after childbirth should be simply a counsel for Latin women, but obligatory law for the Greeks. Moreover, since the Greeks perform the rite in a different way than the Jews of old in not making an offering to the priest in the Jewish way, and since they sanctify the rite with suitable prayers, beseeching God to forgive any sins the woman has committed, and since the patronage of the Virgin Mother of God is invoked for this very purpose, it was decided on January 8, 1747, by those whom We had placed in charge of the revision of the Euchologion, to make no changes in this section. We subsequently approved their decision. There are three important advances in this authoritative encyclical. First, intentionality is vital in assessing any liturgical act. For example, a Jew from rabbinic Judaism praying a prayer—let us say the first prayer of the morning, the Modeh Ani—cannot simply be equated to a Hebrew Catholic praying that same prayer: “I am thankful before You, living and enduring King, for you have mercifully restored my soul within me. Great is Your faithfulness.”45 While they utter the same words, their intentions are different, as well as overlapping, because the clusters of beliefs within which this prayer is now embedded are different. To assume similarity just because the words and gestures are the same when conducted by rabbinic Jews and Hebrew Catholics excludes the vital intentionality of the person/community. The same could be said if we introduced a Messianic Jew saying this prayer. We would have three different sets of intentionality, excluding the view of a straightforward act practiced in common. This example is easy, since the words are the “same,” but some prayers that look exclusively forward to the Messiah, rather than acknowledging he has come and is yet to come again, would have to be modified. Such would be the case for a prayer from the Yigdal that is sometimes said in the morning and, for Maimonides, said to be an article of Jewish faith: “I believe with complete faith in the coming of Moshiach [Messiah]. And though he may tarry, I shall wait anticipat- “Modeh Ani: What and Why,” Chabad.org, Chabad-Lubavitch Media Center, accessed July 12, 2018, https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/ aid/623937/jewish/Modeh-Ani-What-and-Why.htm. (original Hebrew: :ָ‫ רַבָּה אֱמוּנָתֶך‬,‫ מודָה לְפָנֶיךָ מֶלֶךְ חַי וְקַיָּם שֶהֶחֱזַרְתָּ בִּי נִשְׁמָתִי בְחֶמְלָה‬:‫)מוֹדֶה אֲנִי האשה אומרת‬. 45 964 Gavin D’Costa ing his arrival each day.”46 Even if this prayer was not changed, since it could represent a Christian view of the second coming, the intention of someone praying it in rabbinic Judaism and that of somebody praying it in Hebrew Catholicism could not be said to be the same. It is possible that some change might be required when prayed by a Hebrew Catholic or, indeed, a Messianic Jew. The extent to which prayers are changed varies within the latter, as is evident from Richard Harvey’s typological study of different forms of Messianic Judaism.47 In one sense, the changing of prayers is of greater concern to Hebrew Catholics, who live under the authority of Cantate, whereas Messianic Jews do not. Second, such acts as described above, with their different intentionality, can also include “worship” and “religious ceremony” without detriment or contradiction to earlier teachings. Benedict XIV is very clear that he is keeping with the intentions of Cantate by explicitly citing it by name (ten times) and also directly quoting it. In a section that I have not quoted above, §61, as with Cantate, Benedict accepts the Acts 15:29 settlement as legitimate because it “was ordained to remove all occasion of disagreement between Jewish and Gentile converts to Christ.” It is clear that two forms of practice were not seen as impeding the deep unity within the Church. Immediately after, it shows that this legitimate ordination was conditional on the existence of Jewish converts, for it adds: “Since this reason [ Jewish converts] has long since vanished, its consequence should also be said to have vanished.” It can be argued mutatis mutandis that, since these conditions now obtain again, there is good reason for the competent authorities to restore both Acts 15:29 and its concomitant ruling that Jewish practices within the ecclesia are as perfectly legitimate now as they were in the early liturgical life of the church. As long as such practices do not inhibit full communion within the Church, since Jews and gentiles are one in Christ’s body, or indicate different grades of holiness or closeness to God, for through Jesus, both Jew and gentile are united around his table together as his children. But difference as such should not be viewed as contra-communion. “Praying for Our Messiah,” JewishRoots.Net, accessed July 12, 2018, http:// jewishroots.net/library/prayer/praying_for_our_messiah.html. 47 That this is not always the case is evident from Harvey’s and Cohn-Sherbok typological studies of different forms of messianic Judaism. In one sense, the changing of prayers is of greater concern to Hebrew Catholics, who live under the authority of Cantate. But the practices of Messianic Jews are also a challenge to them. 46 The Mystery of Israel 965 While Paul argues in Galatians 3:28 that, in Christ, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female,” this did not mean that, in his view, women and men have exactly the same role. For the Catholic Church, it has not meant that sexual difference and certain roles related to that difference are eradicated in the pilgrim Church. Likewise, the Jewish Catholic may undertake some practices that a gentile Catholic may not, in the same way that a male Catholic might undertake some practices (ordination to the priesthood) that a female Catholic may not undertake. In fact, the latter are differences that are more deeply inscribed into Catholic cosmology, whereas the differences between a Jewish and a gentile Catholic that I am outlining do not require obligatory exclusive practices for Jewish Catholics. The plurality among Hebrew Catholics is fully acknowledged by the group and reflects the differing ways of being Jewish before coming to accept Jesus.48 This is important for recognizing the legitimacy and distinctly free choice of the vocation of Hebrew Catholics, analogical to difference in vocation of the male and female. In fact, Hebrew Catholics would have a much stronger case than the Greeks who are being addressed in this encyclical, since Hebrew Catholics are “Israel of the flesh.” The Eastern gentile communities were not. Hebrew Catholics thus reconstitute the second period of the tria tempora. Third, the Pope is clearly indicating the Church’s authority to affirm such practices that were earlier deemed as Judaizing: “Nevertheless the Church of Christ has the power of renewing the obligation to observe some of the old precepts for just and serious reasons, despite their abrogation by the New Law” (§63). This is quite remarkable, for it clarifies the thrust of Cantate and makes room for a renewal by the Church of the Circumcision within the body of Christ, prefiguring Gifts on this matter: “In the early years of the Church, therefore, there were the so-called Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians, the ecclesia ex circumcisione and the ecclesia ex gentibus, one Church originating from Judaism, the other from the Gentiles, who however together constituted the one and only Church of Jesus Christ” (§15).49 Hebrew Catholics are slowly coming into focus as a group See Bardan, The Bride, xii (preface by Kathleen M. Moss). See also Gifts §43: “It is and remains a qualitative definition of the Church of the New Covenant that it consists of Jews and Gentiles, even if the quantitative proportions of Jewish and Gentile Christians may initially give a different impression.” The mission of Israel must be now undertaken equally by both Hebrew Catholics and gentile Catholics, together, as one body. 48 49 966 Gavin D’Costa concomitant with the fulfillment thesis, not a logically necessary one. This should be carefully qualified to avoid misunderstanding. Ex Quo Primum stipulates that those “precepts whose main function was to foreshadow the coming of the Messiah should not be restored, for example, circumcision and the sacrifice of animals” (§63). It is immaterial whether circumcision is properly understood primarily as an act of foreshadowing the coming of the Messiah within biblical and rabbinic Israel or better understood as a tangible mark of belonging to a people. But the stipulation’s intention is clear: since the Messiah has come, one cannot act and pray and worship as if he had not. It does not speak about modifying prayers or ritual acts that do anticipate the Messiah as their sole function and leaves this matter unclarified, although we have seen above, it does require clarification and resolution for Hebrew Catholics. One further point is the acceptance of internally differing practices within the Catholic communion: these ceremonial acts of the Mosaic law can be maintained either as obligatory, as in the East, or as counsel, in the West. Perhaps when these acts took place in a gentile-only Church, they were foreshadowing the return of the time when the Jewish witness would one day return to the Church. This allows that, within the one body, significant differences of liturgical practice may exist, as they do today. One has only to visit Eastern churches that are in full communion with Rome, such as the Maronite, Byzantine, Alexandrian, Armenian, and Eastern Syrian churches, to witness profoundly differing liturgical celebrations, related both to the seven sacraments and to feast days and pilgrimages that are sometimes unique to those communities. This is important for recognizing the legitimacy of Hebrew Catholics, again on an analogical basis to the early first-century apostolic community. In voluntary fashion, that community may meet to celebrate Shabbat on Friday/Saturday before the Eucharistic feast of Sunday.50 If, for example, some Messianic congregations desire fuller communion with the Holy See, it is difficult to predict what shape they might take and what may or may not be permissible concerning their current practices, or how they would eventually relate to current Hebrew Catholics. Does the above analysis effect our view of rabbinic Judaism in any way? On the one hand, no: Ex Quo Primum continues with the assumption of an objective third period that has affected all Jews. On See Bardan, The Bride, 28–68, for a most moving account of this integration of para-liturgical services with the Eucharistic feast. 50 The Mystery of Israel 967 the other hand, yes: none of the conclusions derived from recognizing invincible ignorance in interpreting Cantate are called into question in interpreting Ex Quo Primum, in which one might recognize that rabbinic Judaism under the condition of invincible ignorance is protected by God, marked by his gifts and promises and his fidelity. This denotes Israel of the flesh indicated in the fulfillment thesis. Through this analysis, we have unexpectedly come to see the shape of Hebrew Catholics and Messianic Jews when examining the shape of “Israel” in Paul’s theology as being expounded by the magisterium. This unexpected dimension can only count as a blessing, for it deepens the Catholic appreciation of the ecclesia and offers an opportunity to come closer, analogically, with the earliest Church without in any way cancelling the shaping of the Church that has taken place between the third and twenty-first centuries. Before concluding this section, a brief comment about Mystici Corporis (1943) §§29–30 and Dominus Iesus (2000) §14 is in order. Mystici Corporis reiterates the tradition expressed in Cantate, and in notes 31 and 36, it indicates this tradition arises from Jerome, Augustine, and Aquinas and is taught in Cantate. In that sense, it reiterates the key point of Cantate: the ceremonial law has no power to save per se, for salvation is exclusively from Christ. The encyclical does not deal with the tria tempora, and is therefore not quite so sophisticated as Cantate or Ex Quo Primum. Its concerns are very different, so this is understandable. By referencing this venerable theological tradition, Mystici Corporis signals the complexities that we have examined above. The exclusive salvific efficacy of Jesus Christ is reiterated in Dominus Iesus §14. While it does not address rabbinic Judaism as such and some have claimed (without sufficient textual warrant) that it excludes rabbinic Judaism from its scope,51 it (1) clearly reiterates the exclusive salvific causality of Christ’s Passion and resurrection and (2) accepts, only within this context, that there are “participated mediations” that lead one to Christ and participate in his powers. The second of these, has been a source of much controversy, as the term “participated mediation” was used of Mary in Lumen Gentium §62, which has a long tradition, but was then applied in a quite novel See Walter Kasper, “Dominus Iesus” (comments presented at the seventeenth meeting of the International Catholic–Jewish Liaison Committee, St. Joseph’s University Center for Religious Relations with the Jews, New York City, May 1, 2001), http://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/documents-and-statements/roman-catholic/kasper/497-kasper01may1. 51 968 Gavin D’Costa manner to those outside the Church in Redemptoris Missio §5. I have offered an exegesis of Dominus Iesus elsewhere,52 but here I want to suggest that its teachings rule out the two-covenant thesis and allow for the fulfillment thesis. This could be argued from Dominus Iesus §14, which reads: It must therefore be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith that the universal salvific will of the One and Triune God is offered and accomplished once for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God. Bearing in mind this article of faith, theology today, in its reflection on the existence of other religious experiences and on their meaning in God’s salvific plan, is invited to explore if and in what way the historical figures and positive elements of these religions may fall within the divine plan of salvation. In this undertaking, theological research has a vast field of work under the guidance of the Church’s Magisterium. The Second Vatican Council, in fact, has stated that: “the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude, but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a participation in this one source” [Lumen Gentium §62]. The content of this participated mediation should be explored more deeply, but must remain always consistent with the principle of Christ’s unique mediation: “Although participated forms of mediation of different kinds and degrees are not excluded, they acquire meaning and value only from Christ’s own mediation, and they cannot be understood as parallel or complementary to his” [ John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio §5]. Hence, those solutions that propose a salvific action of God beyond the unique mediation of Christ would be contrary to Christian and Catholic faith.53 This first section might be summarized as arguing the following: the fulfillment thesis is permissible, with the qualifications made in the Gavin D’Costa, “Christian Orthodoxy and Religious Pluralism: A Response to Terrence W. Tilley,” Modern Theology 23, no. 3 (2007): 435–46. Also in response to Tilley, see D’Costa, “‘Christian Orthodoxy and Religious Pluralism’: A Further Rejoinder to Terrence Tilley,” Modern Theology 23, no. 3 (2007): 455–62. 53 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Iesus (2000), http:// www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_ cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html. 52 The Mystery of Israel 969 argument so far; the two-covenant thesis is not permissible; and the supersessionist thesis is possible. Dominus Iesus does not address these three options explicitly or engage with the recent emerging magisterial utterances regarding Israel of the flesh. The fulfillment thesis might be better expressed (with more nuance and clarity in the light of the discussion above) as proposing that the Jewish people who rejected Christ are not rejected by God, who is faithful to his covenantal promises to his people, even when his people are disobedient. But it is not possible to view all Jews as willfully rejecting Christ, and for those invincibly ignorant Jews, one might see them as subjectively operating in the first time period of the tria tempora, such that, analogically, rabbinic Judaism might be seen to be in the same position as biblical Judaism, as existing before the coming of Christ. This does not detract from the discontinuity between biblical Judaism and rabbinic Judaism. The promises and gifts and covenant are all operative for both groups under these conditions. While these practices, when done sincerely, are oriented toward the Messiah and participate in his effects, we are unable to establish the precise status of these rites in magisterial statements except negatively: they are insufficient for salvation per se; they are instituted by God and efficacious; but knowledge of Christ is required for the fullness of salvation. This redefinition of fulfillment in relation to rabbinic Judaism means that the question of mission to the Jewish people also requires further analytical attention. I signified some options in my original specification that God’s action alone brings about rabbinic Judaism’s recognizing Jesus as the Messiah in the eschaton and/or that the Church’s actions are required as well here in history in bringing about this final “coming in.” Furthermore, we might add to the fulfillment thesis that Hebrew Catholics represent a resurfacing of carnal Israel within the Church. Just as, during the second time period of the tria tempora and here again, the tradition allows for the possibility, following Acts 15:29, of Jewish practices within the Church, but their intentionality and their authorizing means these acts are not identical to those carried out by rabbinic Judaism, but they do have enough commonality to establish Hebrew Catholics as also part of carnal Israel. Finally, Messianic Jews were distinguished as Messianic Jews 1 and Messianic Jews 2, the first bearing closer resemblance to ecclesial communities, the second to other religions—based on present criteria. When the fulfillment thesis was formulated as an interpretation of 970 Gavin D’Costa the magisterium’s affirmation of God’s fidelity to his covenant with his people, carnal Israel, it did not explicitly involve Hebrew Catholics or Messianic Jews. However, fifty years after Nostra Aetate §4, in Gifts §§15 and 43, we discover a recognition of Hebrew Catholics appearing within official documents, and within that same time span, official ongoing dialogue with Messianic Jews. It is no longer possible to speak of “carnal Israel” without attending to these three different but related phenomena. Doctrines develop, since history is contingent and doctrines are always related to the very specific circumstances. When those circumstances change, the skill is to recover the truth of the doctrine and relate it to sometimes very different circumstances and, in that process, discover organic development. Some doctrines illuminate later issues that, in their original germination, were not existent for the formulators or for the immediate audience. We have seen this in the above discussion in noting how extra ecclesiam nulla salus began to be understood and qualified by the doctrine of invincible ignorance. This allowed for a deeper understanding of the original doctrine and how to apply it with its positive meaning, rather than falsely by excluding anyone from salvation who was not a Catholic. The fate of Fr. Leonard Feeney is well known: he was excommunicated for applying “no salvation outside the Church” to Hindus and Protestants.54 But the writers and audience are not the only two actors in the formulations of authoritative doctrines. There is a third: the actions of the Holy Spirit leading the Church into deeper appreciation of the truth that has been given to it in Christ. This does not exclude the possibility of false developments being proposed by theologians. This may well be the verdict of the reader regarding my proposals. Let me now turn to the compatibility of Marshall’s two theses that he proposed as potentially unresolvable. Resolving Marshall’s Conundrum through the Fulfillment Thesis Marshall’s claim of the apparently irreconcilable tension within two Catholic doctrines is this: “One [1] is that the saving mission of Christ and his Church is willed by God to be universal, extending to every Geertjan Zuijdwegt shows the trajectory from the Feeney incident leading into the formulation of Lumen Gentium in “Salvation and the Church: Feeney, Fenton and the Making of Lumen Gentium,” Louvain Studies 37, no. 2–3 (2013): 147–78. 54 The Mystery of Israel 971 human being. The other [2] is that God’s covenant with Israel, with the Jewish people according to the flesh, is irrevocable. Both claims seem to be essential to Catholic teaching and Catholic faith. But the consistency of the one with the other is less than obvious.”55 In the light of the discussion above, I want to revisit Marshall’s conundrum and outline some steps that I can only briefly explicate but that will allow Catholics to reconcile Marshall’s tensions, keep within the parameters of Cantate and subsequent teachings from the magisterium and the offices of the Holy See, and engage positively with rabbinic Judaism without sending out mixed messages, which was Marshall’s rightful concern. The first step in this resolution is to correlate invincible ignorance, not as a comfortable way of easing the embarrassment of Catholic truth claims when in company with Jews, but in terms of explicating Paul’s teaching of pōrōsis in Romans 11:25–6: “So that you may not claim to be wiser than you are, brothers and sisters, I want you to understand this mystery: a hardening [pōrōsis; also translated “blindness”] has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, ‘Out of Zion will come the Deliverer; he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.’”56 The interpretation of these two verses has been construed in radically different ways in the history of exegesis and is far from resolved amongst Catholic exegetes.57 In the aula at Vatican II, the fathers had very different interpretations reflecting this unresolved exegesis.58 However, we now have two authoritative texts to limit the parameters of possible interpretation of this text: §674 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the liturgy of the Church in the shape of the Missale Romanum. The first reads: The glorious Messiah’s coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by “all Israel,” for “a hardening has come upon part of Israel” in their “unbelief ” toward Jesus. Marshall, “Christ and Israel,” 32 (my added brackets). New RSV Catholic Edition. 57 See: Joseph Sievers, “A History of the Interpretation of Romans 11:29,” Annali Di Storia Dell’Esegesi 14, no. 2 (1997): 381–442; Mark Reasoner, Romans in Full Circle: A History of Interpretation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2005), 121–29. 58 For an excellent English translation of the aula discussion, see Second Vatican Council Coordinating Commission, “Nostra Aetate Deliberations,” September 1964, http://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/documents-and-statements/ roman-catholic/second-vatican-council/na-debate/1017-draft1964sept. 55 56 972 Gavin D’Costa St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.” St. Paul echoes him: “For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?” The “full inclusion” of the Jews in the Messiah’s salvation, in the wake of “the full number of the Gentiles,” will enable the People of God to achieve “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” in which “God may be all in all.” The Ordinary Form (2011) of the ICEL third edition of the Missale Romanum (1970), reads: Let us pray also for the Jewish people, to whom the Lord our God spoke first, that he may grant them to advance in love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant. (Prayer in silence. Then the Priest says:) Almighty ever-living God, who bestowed your promises on Abraham and his descendants, hear graciously the prayers of your Church, that the people you first made your own may attain the fullness of redemption. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.59 From these two texts, it is, for our present purpose, clear that “Israel” is understood as rabbinic Judaism and that rabbinic Jews will finally come to know Christ (the manner is unclear), although the number of such Jews is unspecified (whether some, all, a minority, or a majority). Within these parameters, could pōrōsis be understood as a form of invincible ignorance? That is, rabbinic Judaism as a group cannot be blamed, are not culpable, in remaining as rabbinic Jews, but this can be said without denying that some biblical Jews and even post-biblical rabbinic Jews were culpable and knowingly rejected This leaves ambiguous the process of attaining the “fullness.” These prayers have undergone a number of modifications related to this issue. See Hans Hermann Henrix, “The Controversy Surrounding the 2008 Good Friday Prayer in Europe: The Discussion and Its Theological Implications,” Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 3 (2008): 1–19. 59 The Mystery of Israel 973 the truth, as Nostra Aetate stated.60 Catholics cannot judge this issue of culpability in any specific case not related to biblical revelation. This is left to God and the person or group of persons. My argument here is different. It requires Catholics, in their exegesis of pōrōsis, to legitimately explore whether this reading of pōrōsis as invincible ignorance might help illuminate the meaning of Scripture. This is not an argument for eisegesis, but for the common Catholic teaching that Scripture is read by the rule of faith. Invincible ignorance and pōrōsis may have a strong correlation. It certainly fits with the argument of Paul. If they do, then fulfillment is even easier to defend and uphold along with the thesis (Marshall’s [2]) that God’s covenant with rabbinic Judaism is irrevocable. The second step to secure this argument would require a questioning of the presuppositions underlying Marshall’s claim, not to negate it, but to clarify it. It is clear from St. Paul that God has chosen this hardening, this “partial blindness,” so that the “gentiles” might be included. In Marshall’s terms, God wills [2] so that [1] may come about. In so doing, [2] entails that rabbinic Judaism’s covenant remains intact. However, Marshall’s [2] suggests something stronger than permissive will. God positively wills, not just permissively wills, that carnal Israel remain practitioners of Torah, faithful to his covenant, even after the coming of Christ. Marshall rejects the position I am advancing here because: What starts out as a theological effort to honor the election of Israel and the divinely willed integrity of Judaism ends up (inadvertently, to be sure) as a curious inversion of the traditional idea that the Jews must wait until the eschaton for the gift of salvation God promised to their forefathers. For the tradition this exclusion of the Jews from the Church was a punishment, while in the current version it seems to become a kind of gift, given for their own good.61 Nostra Aetate 4: “As Holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation, nor did the Jews in large number, accept the Gospel; indeed not a few opposed its spreading. Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues—such is the witness of the Apostle. . . . True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.” 61 Marshall, “Christ and Israel,” 342. 60 974 Gavin D’Costa Marshall’s own tentative solution is to accept that rabbinic Judaism’s eschatological hope in the Messiah unites them to Jesus Christ, who is the Messiah. In this way, it relates rabbinic Jews to the Church’s salvific role. He cites the Catechism §840 in support of this attempt to reconcile [1] and [2]: When one considers the future, God’s People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend toward similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah. But one awaits the return of the Messiah who died and rose from the dead and is recognized as Lord and Son of God; the other awaits the coming of a Messiah, whose features remain hidden till the end of time; and the latter waiting is accompanied by the drama of not knowing or of misunderstanding Christ Jesus.62 Marshall immediately admits that this solution generates considerable problems, not least because it seems to compromise [1]. This solution invokes something very close to the two-covenant solution, which he explicitly disallows. His candidness is admirable, but Marshall’s solution also fails to explain why implicit faith is to be preferred over explicit faith or how such a situation could be positively willed.63 Could God positively will one people, his chosen, to know him only implicitly until the end days? More significantly, Marshall also fails to attend to the clear assumption of invincible ignorance in the last part of the sentence that he uses to provide his solution: “not knowing” and “misunderstanding” are both characteristics of invincible ignorance, not a positively willed objective truth or state of affairs. The objective truth is that the Messiah has come. The subjective truth of rabbinic Judaism is that he has not. The Catechism’s rendition requires the employment of invincible ignorance, and thus necessarily undercuts the notion of positive willing. God permits “invincible ignorance,” which is the condition of rabbinic Judaism’s legitimate path of following God faithfully. God’s fidelity to his promises might be said to be an attribute of God, such as his truthfulness, and not part of the question of his positive or permitting willing. To be fair to Marshall, his solution is offered very tentatively and briefly and he is very alert to the critical problems. Marshall, “Christ and Israel,” 343. Marshall, “Christ and Israel,” 346. 62 63 The Mystery of Israel 975 Can Marshall’s irreconcilable tension between [1] and [2] be overcome? Yes, following my revision and clarification of his terms, but clearly in a way that is problematic for him. If the fulfillment thesis is correct, as I have argued above, and the evidence of Hebrew Catholic re-emergence prompts a rethinking of ecclesiology such as a Hebrew Catholic presence requires, then the gifts and the promises made to biblical Israel are not annulled and invalid, nor dead and deadly, but rather positively willed for Israel “of the flesh.” This then works out differently, as we have seen, in relation to rabbinic Judaism, Hebrew Catholics, and Messianic Jews. This solution keeps intact Marshall’s formula of God positively willing [1] and [2], but [2]’s apparent contradiction is fully resolved through the existence of Hebrew Catholics and it becomes permissively willed when applied to rabbinic Judaism. The fulfillment thesis resolves Marshall’s tensions, but in somewhat different terms than his. In that sense, it does not solve Marshall’s problem at all, as it changes the terms of the two theses. It suggests that Marshall has incorrectly rendered [2], for as it stands, it contradicts Cantate. It requires the job that I have tried to carry out above to ensure that it does not contradict Cantate, but continues its positive teachings. But what of Marshall’s objection to my type of solution? Do I simply invert what was understood as “punishment” into a “kind of gift”? “Kind of gift” signifies precisely why this solution actually has so many advantages, for the “gift” is nothing less and nothing more than that of God’s promises and gifts to fleshy Israel, which are irreversible and irrevocable. The foreground theme is not punishment, as it had been in most of Christian history, but rather rabbinic Judaism’s gift to the world and to gentile Christians. To explicate the nature of the gift is precisely what the magisterium is slowly attending to with the help of Catholic theologians, but that rabbinic Judaism is “gift” cannot be doubted. Rabbinic Judaism’s existence is part of God’s plan, even if, at some stage, “all [pas] Israel will be saved.” Then some or all of rabbinic Judaism will come to recognize Jesus Christ as Messiah. The presence of Hebrew Catholics also shows that the gift of the Torah and the ceremonial laws that come from it need not be consigned to oblivion, but can also have a place of honor within the Church, whose very root and existence lie in biblical Israel, the very life root of rabbinic Judaism. One further point: does this discussion about Marshall impact Messianic Jews? Yes, although I have not foregrounded the matter in 976 Gavin D’Costa this section, for it was not Marshall’s concern. However, by distinguishing between different Israel’s of the flesh, as I have done, it is possible to see that the Catholic Church is genuinely challenged, for it is called to attend to Israel of the flesh as part of God’s plan, as part of the Church’s own mystery. It has done so, rather paradoxically, in Cantate and Ex Quo Primum. I say “rather paradoxically” because these documents have often been read negatively, rather than positively, as I have done, regarding Israel of the “flesh.” Tentative Conclusions This is an area that requires tentative conclusions, as the Catholic Church’s teachings here are only about fifty years old and still evolving. I hope to have shown the most fruitful thesis, fulfillment, that best grasps the elements of doctrinal development regarding Israel of the flesh. I have also shown how, in that evolution, new issues have arisen because Israel “of the flesh” opens doors on minority Jewish groups, both within and outside the Church.They are part of the root as well as the stem and branches that Paul talks about. Their presence, alas, destabilizes mainstream dialogue between rabbinic Judaism and Catholics. The fulfillment thesis best explicates the minimal statements made by the contemporary magisterium, such as they are, and best balances them with the previous teachings of the magisterium. The fulfillment thesis also manages to balance Marshall’s two apparently irreconcilable teachings that have emerged from the magisterium. However, for the reconciliation of his [1] and [2], his [2] must be understood permissively with regard to rabbinic Judaism. This is not acceptable to Marshall, but I suggest it is more appropriate for keeping alive the creative tensions within the teachings of the magisterium and grasping them without contradiction. The two-covenant thesis has been seen to be incompatible with the magisterial tradition. The supersessionist thesis is difficult to reconcile with modern magisterial teachings that do seem to teach Marshall’s [2], even if it is minimally articulated. If supersessionism was correct, it would involve the magisterium intentionally misleading the modern Jewish community by apparently uttering statements about them in their presence when the statements are not intended about the modern Jewish community at all. While magisterial teachings until 1980 could possibly be read as supporting supersessionism, after 1980, supersessionism seems ruled out. The further benefit of the fulfillment approach is that it opens up a very positive dialogue among the Catholic Church, rabbinic The Mystery of Israel 977 Judaism, and Messianic Jews without ceasing to preach the truth of Marshall’s [1]. It creates a space for Hebrew Catholics within the Catholic Church that is central to understanding better the nature of the ecclesia. Finally, it creatively allows for doctrinal development without contradiction of the previous magisterium. Rather, as proper development requires, it builds on the earlier truths contained in the N&V Church’s magisterial teachings. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 979–993 979 Jew and Gentile in the Church Today Douglas Farrow McGill University Montreal, Canada We know the Jews today as a gathered and not merely a scattered people. This is one sign that the times of the Gentiles are running out. Another is the increasing hostility toward Jews and Christians around the world, as well as the appearance in history of empires of evil that systematically assault both them and the worldview they represent.The advance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ toward the furthest corners of the world, the great apostasy that has been taking place for some centuries now in the remnants of Christendom, and the turmoil in the Church itself are also important signs, not to speak of the global assault on the unborn and on children, an assault of demonic power and proportions that cries out for judgment. But if the times of the Gentiles are beginning to run out, the prospect also appears of a new openness to the Gospel among Jews themselves, and this itself, insofar as there is evidence of it, is a crucial sign. There is some evidence of it, whether of the kind recounted by Roy Schoeman in Salvation is from the Jews, or of the kind that appears in messianic Judaism, or of the kind that brings Jews and Christians together, despite their differences, in circles such as those created around First Things. There is evidence of it in the academy also, where figures such as Jesus and Paul are examined in their first This article draws on a very long chapter in the author’s forthcoming book, Theological Negotiations: Proposals in Soteriology and Anthropology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2018), “For the Jew First: Reaffirming the Pax Paulinica.” Material borrowed or adapted from that chapter is used by permission of the publisher. 980 Douglas Farrow century Jewish context by Jews and Christians together, continuing a path signposted by Pius XII’s Divino Afflante Spiritu and made more promising by the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls. And, though we are only in the early stages of that emerging openness, real questions are being raised for the Church. Is it not confronted with the need to reckon with something that, for many centuries, it has been convenient largely to ignore, that the Gospel of God concerning his Son, and the power of salvation at work in that Gospel, is “for the Jew first and then also for the Greek”? Is it not faced, in a more pressing manner, with matters related to the faith of Jews and with questions about the flourishing again of the natural branches of the cultivated olive tree, the tree into which the wild branches of the Gentiles have slowly been grafted for some 2000 years now? Must it not give thought to the prophecy of Paul that only thus is “all Israel” to be saved? But how is the Church to reckon with it? Some say that the right way is simply to make itself much more friendly to the Jews, as indeed it has been doing, and to build on St. John Paul II’s apology in 2000 for Christian complicity in crimes against Jews, precisely by defending them instead and (pace John Paul) by not trying to convert them. Jews in general tend presently to be happy with that, of course. Others say that it behooves the Church to be much more intentional, in a thoughtful and sensitive way, about the conversion of the Jews. Still others have begun to focus on how Jewish believers in Jesus can be properly integrated into the Church as Jews and on how the Church itself needs to adapt to and benefit from their presence and participation. This last, the Church from Jews and Gentiles (to borrow the title of Erik Peterson’s pre-Holocaust exposition of Romans 9–11), is what chiefly concerns us here, though the exercise I have in view is little more than some ground clearing that still seems to be necessary. * The ground clearing in question is related to the premature death of supersessionism. Horror at the Holocaust and a wounded conscience, newly cultivated friendships with Jews, scholarly and religious dialogue with Judaism, the cultural circumstances of the emergent messianic Judaism movement, and the postmodern elevation of identity politics have combined to produce a climate, particularly in the Protestant sphere, of anti-supersessionism. This climate is also felt in the Catholic Church and must be addressed in a Catholic way. Jew and Gentile in the Church Today 981 Let us recall, with Schoeman, the Postulatum pro Hebraeis that was presented at the First Vatican Council, having been signed by a majority of its bishops. It is significant that this document presents the goal of the mission as a “completing and crowning, not changing, [of ] the Mosaic religion” through Jewish embrace of Jesus as the Messiah. It thus acknowledges that the Gospel belongs to the Jewish people first of all, though it does not pass over the fact that they have, partly of their own volition, endured a wait “no less futile than long” for their proper share of its benefits. This Postulatum was itself an early sign of the times. A century later, the Second Vatican Council, occupied as it was with ressourcement and with putting the Church in a new and more positive relation to fellow travelers in the modern world, produced Nostra Aetate, in which it reaffirmed “the bond that spiritually ties the people of the New Covenant to Abraham’s stock.” This declaration, like Dignitatis Humanae and much else from that Council, was and remains controversial, and one of its controversial aspects lies in the fact that some of it drafters and not a few of its interpreters wished to make use of it to lay much more stress on the Postulatum’s “not changing” than on its “completing and crowning.” Some of them have gone so far today as to suggest that there is no need for Jews to embrace Jesus, not at least until the Parousia, whenever that may be. Like their Protestant counterparts, they too regard traditional supersessionism as a fault. Traditional missions they regard as a fault, at least where Jews are concerned. Facilitating respect for the Jewish people is enough. Supersessionism, or replacement theology, is disavowed for presenting the Church as the new people of God, a people that, like Jacob, has snatched away the inheritance of Esau—that is, of the “perfidious Jew.” It is disavowed for providing the germ cell line in the history of ideas and cultures that leads eventually to the horror of the Holocaust. In the Protestant sphere, though not ordinarily in the Catholic, it is now attacked with abandon. Take, for example, a recent article by Joel Willitts entitled “Jewish fish (ΙΧΘΥΣ ) in Post-Supersessionist Water.” On one level, it is an unremarkable product of a certain kind of new-perspective scholarship, the kind that insists that we must read the New Testament without the distorting spectacles of law–Gospel dualism, spectacles that taught us to see Torah observance as a kind of Jewish Pelagianism. When we do that, we will recognize instead that Torah observance is just what God always requires of Jews, including Christian Jews. 982 Douglas Farrow The Jewish Christian lives under the Gospel of Moses as well as the Gospel of Jesus, while the Gentile Christian lives only under the latter. The renewed covenant effected by the Messiah is enjoyed differently by the believing Jew and the believing Gentile. On another level, it displays an astonishing vigilantism with a postmodern twist. Willitts speaks of the need to receive the New Testament as an ethnic document that, read as such, will “correct a deep seated sin within the Christian tradition” and lead to “a universal ecclesiology that celebrates diversity, fights cultural hegemony and supports diverse ethnic expressions of faith in Jesus.”1 He thinks even Protestant repentance of supersessionism half-hearted, since most still suppose that “the ritual requirements of the Torah have been either annulled or rendered irrelevant and ultimately unnecessary.” Thus, the Jew is excluded, qua Jew, from Christian community. This deepseated sin of exclusivity, and the law–Gospel dualism that underlies it, goes back all the way to the Fathers and to the apologists before them. The real Reformation has yet to happen. From a Catholic perspective, this radical anti-supersessionism appears highly hubristic. It attempts to “out-Luther” Luther, positing itself as finally recovering the true Gospel, which has been buried under the said sin for 1900 years. The Catholic, for his part, is not looking for some lost truth that long ago was replaced by a lie. He is all for a respectful ressourcement and a prudent aggiornamento, but he cannot accompany those who are on a vain quest for the historical Jesus, the real Paul, or the authentic church of some hoary past or freshly imagined future. In the Eucharist, he is already in the company of Jesus and all the saints, past and present. But what of the anti-supersessionism that does not carry this postmodern baggage or share the same hyper-Protestant instincts? In Searching Her Own Mystery,2 the messianic rabbi Mark Kinzer has recently attempted a more respectful exchange with Catholics on matters ecclesiological. Kinzer also wants to see an ecclesiological revolution, one based on a properly Jewish view of the Messiah and on the primacy of the ecclesia ex circumcisione. The ecclesia ex circumcisione Joel Willitts, “Jewish fish (ΙΧΘΥΣ) in Post-Supersessionist Water: Messianic Judaism within a Post-Supersessionistic paradigm,” HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 72, no. 4 (2016), researchgate.net/publication/306529323_ Jewish_fish_ICHTHYS_in_post-supersessionist_water_Messianic_Judaism_ within_a_post-supersessionistic_paradigm. 2 Mark S. Kinzer, Searching Her Own Mystery: Nostra Aetate, the Jewish People, and the Identity of the Church (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2015). 1 Jew and Gentile in the Church Today 983 is the firstfruits of Israel as it enters upon its promised destiny, while the ecclesia ex gentibus is the firstfruits of the Gentiles as they are joined to Israel and participate in its inheritance. This distinction, which is adopted from the Catholic Church’s Commission for Relations with the Jews, is (in Kinzer’s scheme) governed by five principles: 1. the perpetual validity of God’s covenant with the Jewish people; 2. the perpetual validity of the Jewish way of life rooted in the Torah as the enduring sign and instrument of that covenant; 3. the validity of Jewish religious tradition as the historical embodiment of the Jewish way of life rooted in the Torah; 4. the bilateral constitution of the ekklesia, consisting of distinct but united Jewish and Gentile expressions of Yeshua-faith; 5. and the ecumenical imperative of the ekklesia, which entails bringing the redeemed nations of the world into solidarity with the people of Israel in anticipation of Israel’s—and the world’s—final redemption.3 In Postmissionary Messianic Judaism, Kinzer already argues that “the Jewish ekklesia serves the wider Jewish community by constituting its eschatological firstfruits, sanctifying the whole and revealing the eschatological meaning of Jewish identity and destiny,” and conversely by “linking the redeemed of the nations to Israel’s corporate life and spiritual heritage, thereby enabling Israel to fulfill its mission as a light to the nations.”4 The Catholic’s difficulty with all of this begins at principle 2. The Catholic does not believe that “the Jewish way of life rooted in the Torah” is, in the sense Kinzer intends, “the enduring sign . . . of [God’s covenant with Israel].” He does not believe there have ever been two materially distinct ecclesiae or two peoples in one ecclesial body, or that there ever could be. He does not see the Church as centered on Torah-observant Jewish Christians who have effectively replaced Torah-observant Jewish Jews as the true representatives of the commonwealth of Israel. Needless to say, he does not believe that the Jerusalem Council established or approved such a view. He does believe that Jew and Gentile in the Church bear witness together, both to the wider Jewish community and to the wider Gentile world, as one people with one covenant and one set of covenantal Mark S. Kinzer, Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement with the Jewish People (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2005), 264. 4 Kinzer, Postmissionary Messianic Judaism, 264. 3 984 Douglas Farrow obligations. He believes what the Church believes. And the Church, as Nostra Aetate says, “believes that by His cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles, making both one in Himself ” (§4). * Kinzer’s more complex proposal invites a more complex response. But first, we should pause to take account of the complexities in antisupersessionism as such. On one approach, the new covenant is seen as a more perfect form of the old covenant, an alteration or mutation that is operative within it, not alongside it or in place of it. The old covenant remains in force; the “new” covenant simply redirects it from within to the fulfillment accomplished by Jesus. On the basis of the achievements of Jesus, it is a covenant in which Gentiles may now participate as Gentiles, but with their own distinct covenantal arrangements. (That, or something like it, would seem to be Kinzer’s view.) On another approach, the new covenant is complementary to the old, rather than an alteration. In other words, there are two parallel covenants, one applying to Jews who do not believe in Jesus and one applying to anyone, Jew or Gentile, who does believe in Jesus. The believing Jew participates in both, while the believing Gentile participates in the latter only. As regards the believing Jew, he must live according to Torah and should, as far as possible, respect rabbinic custom. (This view is not, in its practical effects, very different from the first.) On a third approach, it is supposed that there is no new covenant, at least not for Jews. The new covenant that Christians refer to is, at best, a complementary Gentile way of talking about and exercising faith in the God of Israel, and Jews who take up with it are forsaking Judaism. (That is the view from outside.) It is still more important, before going further, that we make distinctions between supersessionisms. The right way to do that is to talk about covenants first and peoples afterward. For, in the biblical sense, it is a covenant that makes a people. The debate about supersessionism or replacement theology is bedeviled by an unfortunate reversal of the proper order here. If supersessionism is taken (with Bruce Marshall, among others) “to denote the belief that the church has taken the place of the Jews as the elect people of God”5 and that Bruce Marshall, “Christ and the Cultures: The Jewish People and Christian Theology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine, ed. Colin Gunton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 81–100, at 82. 5 Jew and Gentile in the Church Today 985 the Jews, qua Jews, are therefore no longer elect, the whole conversation gets off on the wrong foot. Or rather, it does not really get off at all, for this contradicts the fact that the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable, and so it must be rejected. What makes a Jew a Jew? It is being a physical descendent of Abraham, called to walk according to Torah so as to inherit the promises made to Abraham, Moses, and David. It follows that Jews, Christian or otherwise, are called to walk according to Torah. Case closed. We will have, somehow, to fit the Gospel of the new or renewed covenant into that. But this is wrong. It is the covenant itself, and the Gospel in its covenantal dimensions, that must come first. Only then can we answer questions about the people of God. Now, we may call “hard” supersessionism the view that the Mosaic covenant has been abrogated in such a fashion that its beneficiaries, the Jews, are today without a covenant and are no longer God’s people. In its harshest form, they are regarded as deserving of both divine and human disapprobation in perpetuity. We may call “soft” supersessionism the view that the old covenant has been renewed in Christ and, in the process, thoroughly revised. The “old” here is understood first of all as the Abrahamic covenant, which, for a time, took the Mosaic form, but has now been fulfilled and transformed in a messianic way. Because this fulfillment and transformation is eschatological, inaugurating but not yet fully delivering the kingdom of God, the Mosaic form, though superseded, does not disappear from history completely, but continues (sans temple and cult) to shape the life of Jews who are not baptized, preserving them as a people until they are baptized. It does not further shape the life of baptized Jews, however, except in the same way that it shapes the life of baptized Gentiles, by virtue of that which it supplies for messianic transformation. As for these Gentiles, they are full and equal members now of the people of God. In its softest form, the last part of this looks a bit different: because God wills to preserve the Jewish people as such, and because Jewish Christians continue to belong to that people—to Israel according to the flesh as well as to Israel according to the Spirit—the Mosaic form of the covenant may continue to shape even baptized Jews in a manner distinct from baptized Gentiles, albeit not in an obligatory fashion or in any way that effectively divides them from the latter. This is the sort of thing one finds in Lawrence Feingold, for example, who allows that Jewish ceremonial law has not been deprived of all utility in the present age: “The obligatory quality of those rites 986 Douglas Farrow has passed away, but their prophetic, typological, and revelatory value remains”6 and may, or even should, be deployed in suitable ways. Matthew Levering, more cautiously, also makes allowances here (see below). Of hard supersessionism, we must admit that individuals and cultures have adopted this view across the gamut of Christianity, but the Church never adopted it in any valid doctrinal or moral decree, nor could it. Of soft supersessionism, we must say that it is simply Catholic orthodoxy, though its softest form has at times been forbidden, notably by the Council of Florence. (That forbidding was not directed against Christian Jews per se, mind you, but against Judaizing practices among Gentiles; likewise in the more lenient Ex Quo Primum of Benedict XIV.) Of anti-supersessionism, we must say that it is being urged on the Church in contradiction of orthodoxy. That some Catholics who are zealous for Nostra Aetate have joined the anti-supersessionist camp changes nothing on that score. Why must we say that it contradicts orthodoxy? Because the teaching of the Church leaves no doubt about the fact that the Gospel and law of Jesus supersede the gospel and law of Moses, rather than merely existing within or alongside the latter. Similarly, it leaves no doubt that the unity of Jew and Gentile in the Church is the kind of unity to which N. T. Wright refers when he insists, against his anti-supersessionist Protestant colleagues, that “Abraham has one family, not two or more.” 7 There are not, and cannot be, in that one family, some who are under the law and some who are not. For, in Christ, all have died to the law and passed beyond its reach by passing into the fullness of him who has made himself its true expression—no, into the fullness of him of whom the law itself was merely a partial and preliminary expression. Their unity is not a unity in spite of their differentiated ritual obligations, but rather a unity that removes such differences. To insist on Torah observance as that which continues to mark out the Jew qua Jew, even in Christ, is tantamount to insisting that the Jew has not, like the Gentile, received the benefits of baptism. Lawrence Feingold, The Messianic Kingdom of Israel, vol. 3 of The Mystery of Israel and the Church (St. Louis, MO: Miriam Press, 2010), 239. 7 N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2013), 1432. 6 Jew and Gentile in the Church Today 987 * Against this, appeal is made to the Jerusalem Council, the results of which are said to be that Gentiles were permitted to live for the most part as Gentiles, adherence to basic biblical morality and separation from idolatry aside, while it was presumed that Jews would continue to live as Jews, keeping to the old patterns of Torah observance, table fellowship with Gentiles aside. Paul, it is further said, kept to these patterns himself, though doggedly insisting on the exception clauses. Was that not the point of his public exercise in purification as recounted in Acts 21? Let me offer a brief rejoinder with regard to Paul first. Paul did not, as his enemies charged, “teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs” (Acts 21:21). He did, however, tell them that they were not under the law, that no one is saved by the works of the law, and that circumcision in itself is no longer a sign of salvation. It is not possible to confine the purview of these claims to Gentiles, which means that there was a moment of truth in what his enemies were saying. Had there not been, the whole business would certainly have blown over. Indeed, pursuing him back to Jerusalem with charges that he himself had, and likely would, violate the laws and the customs would never have made any sense. Moreover, it is noteworthy that, in Paul’s various formal defenses against the charges brought against him from Jerusalem, he makes no attempt to present himself as Torah-observant, but appeals rather to the resurrection of Jesus as being the decisive factor in the whole dispute. And, writing to the Romans during his imprisonment, he says of the turmoil there: “I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened” (Rom 10:2). As for the council, the apostles and elders in Jerusalem made no pronouncement about what Jewish believers ought to do, the question being what Gentile believers ought to do. Yes, of course, if the former were not still living according to Torah, the question would not have arisen, at least not in that form. But the Jewish Christians, especially in Jerusalem, were living, as the Fathers later observed, through a transitional period, the period between the resurrection of Jesus and the destruction of Jerusalem prophesied by Jesus. The temple still stood and witnesses were required in its precincts. Paul’s successful argument about the liberty of the Gospel and the radically new situation under the new covenant notwithstanding, and Peter’s 988 Douglas Farrow own argument about the passing of the distinction between clean and unclean notwithstanding, no one was yet requiring Jewish believers to resettle themselves entirely in circumstances and in a situation that could be fully manifest only to the next generation, the generation in which the prophecy of Jesus was fulfilled. For now, they were only being asked to set aside whatever got in the way of acknowledging that the people of the new covenant were to be a people and a church ex gentibus as well as ex Iudaeis. There is nothing here at all about an ecclesia gentium and an ecclesia Iudaeorum. This is the line followed up to the Council of Florence, and the line still being followed today. What was already clear to Paul, at least, and beginning to become clear to Peter, would soon become clear to all. According to Cantate Domino (1442): [The Church] firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord’s coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation.8 This last remark does not address the situation of people outside the Church, but of people inside it, people who turn back from what has become clear. Nor does it mean that the old precepts cannot be observed by anyone for any reason. It means that they cannot be observed as necessary for the sake of salvation or in any fashion that competes with the precepts of the new law. Or so the Church went on to say. While “the Church of Christ has the power of renewing the obligation to observe some of the old precepts for just and serious H. Denzinger, The Sources of Christian Dogma, no. 712. 8 Jew and Gentile in the Church Today 989 reasons, despite their abrogation by the new Law” (Ex Quo Primum, §63), the old precepts have no force in the Church in their own right. In other words, the abiding content of the Jerusalem Council was distinguished from its temporary or transitional content. The abiding content was the unity and equality of Jew and Gentile in Christ, and the need for Gentiles to acknowledge Christ by separating themselves from pagan worship and immorality, yet without taking up the burden of the ceremonial and juridical law of Moses. All this was directly stated. The temporary or transitional content was not stated, but implied. Jewish believers also could live to a large extent as they were accustomed to living, though they must give up one of the very things that the ceremonial law was designed to effect, their separation from Gentiles. From Paul’s point of view, as Acts 21 suggests, there was good prudential reason for this compromise. In Jerusalem, while the old temple stood, there was need for Christian witness in its precincts; and in every synagogue in the empire, as in every Jewish home or quarter, there was need for Christian witness by Christian Jews willing and able to live freely for Christ’s sake in the pattern of life Jews had learned from Torah while belonging primarily to that community of holy fear and joyful expectation that was the Eucharistic community of the apostles. Viewed in the Pauline way, of course, there still are good prudential reasons, and mistakes were made in later centuries through a failure to recognize that. These mistakes were sometimes grave mistakes, alien to the Gospel and injurious. But their correction does not lie, as the anti-supersessionists would have it, in the theologically devastating error of telling Christians that there are two forms of the covenant simultaneously in force and that Jews are subject to both while Gentiles are subject to but one. Whether this is construed as the privilege of the Jew or the bondage of the Jew makes no difference. It is rightly forbidden by Florence. There has been a change of mediator, and hence a change in the covenant. There has been a change in the priesthood and a change in the law. There is a new temple and a new offering, and a new way of realizing the deepest aims of the law. The Mosaic form of the covenant has been superseded. * But have the people of Israel been superseded by the Church? Here we must not be hasty. Yes, in that the earthly city or commonwealth has been superseded by the heavenly, and the longed-for peace of Jeru- 990 Douglas Farrow salem by the peace of what Augustine called “that most orderly and harmonious society to be enjoyed with God and mutually in God.”9 This societas includes the people of Israel—or will do, when all believing Israelites, having passed under the rod that is now in the hand of Jesus rather than Moses, have been saved—but it is not limited to them. But the people of Israel have not been superseded by the Church in the sense that, while this commonwealth is now spiritual Israel, the Israel of God, the true seed of Abraham, the royal priesthood and proper kingdom of God, it is not this in replacement of Israel kata sarka any more than it is this merely as an extension of Israel kata sarka. Israel kata sarka is still being called to it and still being gifted with the pattern of life derived from Torah that is able to, and ought to, prepare it to welcome its true messiah. God, as the Postulatum insisted, as Erik Peterson also insisted,10 is still waiting for the Jews. This is not so very difficult to understand. Since it pleases God to inaugurate his kingdom in a fashion that permits not only a transitional period before the temple is removed but also an entire missionary age—an age in which what is old, though it is always becoming obsolete, persists alongside what is new—in the times of the Gentiles, the Mosaic form of the covenant still bears directly on those Jews who have not yet come into the Church. It has been deprived of its legal force, but it has not been deprived of its instructive power. It no longer determines the people of God as such, but it still marks the Jews as those with a vocation to be the people of God and to share in his kingdom. To say that it still has work to do outside the Church is entirely orthodox. To say that, inside the Church, it binds Jewish Christians as the proper form of their covenant faithfulness is, and for a very long time has been, heretical. As for Jews who are disciples of Jesus, they are indeed the firstfruits of Israel kata sarka in and for Israel kata pneuma. But they are not themselves (as Kinzer seems to think) that in which Israel kata pneuma essentially consists. It consists in Jesus Christ and in the imagebearing humanity, Jew and Gentile, that is shaped around him by the Spirit of glory through and for the great thanksgiving. It consists in the Church. There is, I fear, a debilitating eschatological deficit in the antisupersessionism that teaches obligatory Torah observance, a deficit that 9 De civitate Dei 19.13.1 (translation mine). Erik Peterson, Theological Tractates, ed. and trans. Michael Hollerich, Cultural Memory in the Present (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), 52. 10 Jew and Gentile in the Church Today 991 is also a sacramental one. For, where there is lacking a proper Eucharistic theology—one that acknowledges that the stuff of this world, bread and wine, is actually transubstantiated into the body and blood of him who is the very ground of the world to come—there is also lacking a solution to the problem. How shall we deal with the new covenant in the blood of Christ, except to say that it either abrogates the old covenant entirely or somehow reduplicates it for Gentiles, who receive it in a watered-down form? The former is rejected as the evil of supersessionism. The latter leads to talk of twin ecclesiae, in one of which the precepts of the old law remain binding and necessary for the fulfillment of Jews, while in the other, they remain either the disdain of Gentiles or, perchance, that which makes Gentiles jealous. Where the eschatology is Eucharistic, however, it is understood that Israel kata sarka and Israel kata pneuma—the Church of Jesus Christ—coexist. They coexist in the overlap of the ages, which intersect in the Eucharist. One is appearing, the other disappearing. Here, abrogation and non-abrogation are not mutually exclusive alternatives; both are real, but in their different ways. Abrogation belongs to the Church because, in the Church, the old has given way to the new. Non-abrogation belongs to Israel according to the flesh, while God waits. Now, that may leave more room for peculiarly Hebrew forms of Christianity than some have supposed, more than the Church itself has yet seen fit to recognize, but only on the premise on which Levering insists: that the Jew, like the Gentile, is fulfilled by sacramental union with Jesus; that Jew and Gentile both share, and in the same way, in the living Torah that Jesus is; and that both are equally beyond the reach of the old law.11 As Feingold also reminds us, the Mosaic law was never meant to be an end in itself. Even the Jew “can no longer be bound by a ceremonial law partially designed to separate Israel from the nations until the Messiah had come, as well as to prefigure His coming.”12 Continuing to incorporate such prefiguring as is compatible with his coming, and only such prefiguring, is the room of which I speak, and there is room for healthy theological and liturgical debate about what that entails in practice. Neither Feingold nor Levering, if I understand them, means to sublate the Jew in a Gentile culture; nor do I, since the Church is not Matthew Levering, “Aquinas and Supersessionism One More Time,” Pro Ecclesia 25, no. 4 (2016): 397n5, 400–401. 12 Feingold, Messianic Kingdom, 219. 11 992 Douglas Farrow a Gentile culture. The Eucharist is not a Gentile version of Pesach or of Shabbat, any more than baptism is a Gentile version of circumcision. The Eucharist is Pesach, and its celebration is Shabbat. Baptism is circumcision, a “circumcision” of the whole person through putting off the old man and putting on the new. The one rite cannot be laid alongside the other as if both were mere cultural artifacts. Their coexistence is not of that sort. The one can be produced only out of the other, taking up the other in transformation. The same must be said of the people of the covenant. There are not two peoples who coexist alongside each other in the Church, and the Church does not simply coexist alongside Israel kata sarka. The Church exists in a glorious conversio. It exists eschatologically. Is that not what the soft supersessionist wants to say? * So much for ground clearing. The times of the Gentiles, I repeat, are running out. God has unfinished business with the Jews, whose time ran out already in AD 70, or rather it would have but did not, because God prepared for them a place in the desert so that he could take up that business. He intends now, so Paul tells us, that the Jews should be made jealous of his mercy to the Gentiles, of his riches in the Church he has formed from Jews and Gentiles. He also intends, in his own good time, or so the prophets tell us, that these newly jealous Jews should be tested and proved a second time, with a different outcome. The venomous hatred that sought in the Holocaust to destroy them utterly did not and will not prevent that. In this context, questions are rightly being asked, though they are not always being asked rightly, about the role of Jews who already believe in Jesus and who already belong to the Church. One role, surely, is to help reform and revitalize the Church, as Thomas Aquinas suggests, and another is to welcome fellow Jews into the Church. Yet this they cannot do by attempting to be fully Torah-observant in the old and ordinary sense, when they are called to a new and different observance as Christians. Those who try to contribute in that way are likely only to remain isolated both from non-Christian Jews and from Christian Gentiles, from their own people kata sarka and from their new people kata pneuma. They can and should contribute, rather, by embracing their Christian liberty to be, like Paul himself, all things to all people, with the hope and privilege of using all means to save some. Jew and Gentile in the Church Today 993 I dare say this is what they are aiming at, where they are Catholic, or mean to be Catholic. If so, they should have the encouragement of the Church, encouragement to make use of the precepts of the old law in properly Christian ways, though not in the sub-Christian way of those who forget that they have died and risen with Christ in baptism and that they do so again and again in the Eucharist. Together with their Gentile brethren who never had the law, they are released from it through participation in the new law of Christ and of the Spirit, the law of liberty. Once the nature of this encouragement is clear, it need not and should not exclude circumcision, as it did in an earlier era. It need not exclude an approved Eucharistic rite for Hebrew Catholics and a sacramental practice that is still more attuned to the old Shabbat sensibilities and to the rich symbolism (already present but sometimes muted) of the old covenant feasts and other sacramentals (not sacraments) than is either the Novus Ordo or the traditional Latin Mass. This sort of thing can serve the whole Church, combating the Marcionism that still assaults her, though I think it must somehow (I do not know how) be distinguished from the liturgical rites that accommodate various graftings from the Gentiles if it is to do that effectively. It must also, as far as possible, rise above the controversies that still swirl around the Novus Ordo. There must be nothing Ebionite about it, of course, and it should tend to the dignity of the Tridentine Mass, but in a manner that is accessible to those whose habits of prayer were formed in the synagogue. By the grace and power of God, it may serve also for the conversion of Jews and the completion of “all Israel.” That certainly is my own hope. For, it is not the gathering of Israel back to the land that ultimately matters, but the gathering, there and everywhere, of Israel to her God and N&V his Christ. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 995–1007 995 The Return of the Theological in the Thought of Jean-Luc Marion: A Reading of Givenness and Revelation Cyril O’Regan University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN G ivenness and R evelation , which is the book form of the 2014 Gifford Lectures, is at once both a small book and one that is accessible because it applies rather than argues for difficult notions such as “givenness,” “revelation,” “icon,” “anamorphosis,” and of course, “saturated phenomenon,” which have been the fruit of exhausting phenomenogical excavation carried out by Jean Luc Marion over the past twenty-five years.1 At the same time, it would be a mistake to assume either that this text does not cut as deep as Marion’s texts usually do or that it does not make a number of important contributions. As do all of Marion’s books, Givenness and Revelation corresponds to Goethe’s injunction that, in great work, surface is depth, but I would also suggest that its blinding clarity is in the last instance Pascalian, rather than Cartesian.This is not only because Marion follows Pascal in elucidating the order of love that is opposed to the order of reasoning, but also because, while the movement of the text is “logical” in that it can be followed, its economy is everywhere illustrative of a kind of finesse that is sure of when to elaborate, when to be silent, and when to suggest and tease and allow the reader to complete. If there are other French thinkers who perform with a similar finesse, such as Jean-Louis See Jean-Luc Marion, Givenness and Revelation, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). This work will be cited parenthetically in the text. 1 996 Cyril O’Regan Chrétien and Jean-Yves Lacoste, it is because Marion has been the model. As I have indicated, Marion too has a model, even if a very distant, seventeenth-century one. If there is a more proximate model, I strongly suspect that the model belongs more nearly to the field of literature than either theology or philosophy—and that it is, of course, French. I cannot help but think of Paul Valéry, or at least his model of mind, Monsieur Teste. Now, as for contributions, I can think of this little book making quite a few. When it comes to reflection on Christ as “icon” (ch. 3), Marion cements the structural importance that Cusa’s de vision dei has for him. Similarly, the prominence of the Trinitarian reflection of William of Saint Thierry is noticeable. Indeed, the mystical Trinitarianism and/or Trinitarian mysticism of Saint Thierry (chs. 1 and 2) seems now to occupy a space once occupied by Bonaventure. One can only hazard a guess as to why this might be so: perhaps Saint Thierry is thought to combine the best insights of both Aquinas and Bonaventure. In this text, the critical dialogue with Heidegger continues, and there are some ways in which one could think of the text as a do-over and riposte to Heidegger’s famous essay “Phenomenology and Theology” (1928). If there is a particular point of contention in the text, then it concerns the relation between Heidegger’s notion of truth as disclosure (alethe) and Marion’s notion of revelation (34, 37). If the contrast in one sense invites thinking through again important distinctions made by Franz Rosenzweig between manifestation and revelation in The Star of Redemption, it also invites placing Marion’s text alongside quite similar resistances to Heidegger’s stipulative finitism exhibited in Catholic thinkers such as Edith Stein, Erich Przywara, and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Crucially, and not entirely unrelatedly, Givenness and Revelation implies crucial decisions regarding the nature of Scripture, revelation, and their relation that involve both proximity and distance from, on the one hand, Ricoeur, who tends to make revelation and Scripture a function of a general hermeneutic (language, text, meaning, meaningfulness, and truth), albeit with a number of “regional specific features,” and on the other, the not-so-philosophically-attuned Barth, who, if he denies the regulation of Scripture by a non-scriptural discourse, is in danger of forgetting that it is Christ the icon who can be said to be both the subject and “cause” of Scripture. Within this broadly hermeneutical manifold, the references to Schleiermacher’s Reden and the Glaubenslehre (95) are intriguing, precisely because of the different The Return of the Theological in the Thought of Jean-Luc Marion 997 ways they parse the relation between speech and phenomenon, such as, in the former case, suggesting that all language—including biblical language—is resolvable to a more fundamental non-linguistic experience, and in the latter case, biblical language seeming to occupy the same level as experience. I am totally persuaded of the merits of each of these contributions, even if some of them are in the end questions demanding resolution. Nonetheless, it seems obvious to me that the two main contributions of the text lie in, on the one hand, the articulation of the link between phenomenology and Trinitarian theology, which has been more or less absent since Marion’s very “early” work, and on the other, the apologia on behalf of Augustine, who throughout this text, in implicit as well as explicit ways, is being recommended to our phenomenological and theological attention. The Trinitarian interest is not confined to chapter 4. This chapter, which involves quite specific reflection on the Holy Spirit, depends on the previous analysis of Christ as “icon” in chapter 3, and both of these chapters are set up by chapters 1 and 2, whose main purpose appears to involve clearing away interpretive and conceptual hindrances to thinking and experiencing the triune God aright. The elevation of Augustine, however, is not an independent variable with regard to the main task of Givenness and Revelation, which, in my view, is to elaborate the Trinity within the horizon of what we can vaguely and generally refer to as “phenomenality,” but which more technically and nearly can be characterized as “givenness” and/or “revelation” as long as we do not define the latter in terms of brute fact, to which Kant, Fichte, German Idealism, and Liberal Protestant theology in general objected. Although Marion calls on a wide and varied theological cast, both East and West, Augustine is the main player, especially the Augustine of the early books of De Trinitate and his commentaries on both the Psalms and John. Accordingly, I will fold Augustine, who is elevated both indirectly and directly above all other thinkers, into what Marion has to say about the proper mode of access to the Trinity and what conceptualities (we might challenge ourselves also to think of practices and forms of life) might get in the way. The overall lesson to be drawn from this text is that it constitutes a return of the theological in the thought of Jean Luc Marion after a long hiatus in which he has struggled with recalibrating phenomenology as “a rigorous science” in order to remove what, in his view, has been the “accidental” hostility to theology. In any event, having secured 998 Cyril O’Regan his phenomenological conceptuality, Marion feels more confident to open out phenomenology to theology without fear of confounding two discourses that have each their own protocols and limits. Trinity within the Horizon of Phenomenality One sees with Givenness and Revelation as a whole the operation of a complex strategy to position or reposition the self and/or community aright before the triune God as given in the horizon of phenomenality. There are two complementary aspects of this approach. (1) The first aspect, or first tactic, is more negative in kind and involves removing interpretive-conceptual obstacles that impede access to the Trinity as the saturated phenomenon or network of saturated phenomena (a corollary of Christ as the saturated phenomenon). (2) The second, and more important, aspect is positive and presentative: it follows the New Testament unveiling of the triune God who breaks into and corrugates the phenomenal field and stretches the self; it also addresses theological interpretation (East and West) faithful to the givenness rendered in the New Testament and avoidant of the doctrinaire pseudomorphosis or distortion that is coeval with fidelity. Negative Aspect: Genealogical Unrubbishing Let me begin with the negative aspect of Marion’s complex strategy, what we might call the line or tactic of “genealogical unrubbishing.” By this, I mean to denote patterns in the first two chapters of historical remarks that point either to (1) difficulties regarding accessing the phenomenality of the Trinity generated largely within Christian theological discourse or to (2) the difficulties that arise regarding Trinitarian discourse without Christian theological discourse due to an emergent circumambient discourse laying down rules of intelligibility regarding a God presumed to exist and to be pertinent. With regard to the difficulties of access generated within Christian discourse, Marion’s genealogical remarks have something of a Rahnerian stamp. Certainly, the two featured elements of Rahner’s genealogy in the first two chapters of Marion’s extraordinarily influential little book on the Trinity are recorded: (1) the neoscholastic (perhaps Scholastic) methodological or “epistemological” separation of de uno and de trino (ch. 1) in which the persons of the Trinity function as additions to the unitary essence of God laid forth in de uno; (2) the segregation of the discourse on the Trinity into operationally distinct discourses concerning immanent Trinity, or the Trinity in se, and the economic Trinity, the mission of the Trinity in and as constituting salvation history. More needs to be The Return of the Theological in the Thought of Jean-Luc Marion 999 said about the nature and limits of Marion’s recollection of Rahner’s genealogy, which itself is a collection of genealogical remarks and does not exhibit a sustained argument with a clear categorical thesis, and I will address these issues shortly. What needs to be put on the table first, however, is Marion’s non-Rahnerian genealogical supplement to Rahner’s genealogical sketch. This concerns the conceptual pressures that bear on the prospects of Trinitarian discourse generated in the broader cultural-social field of discourse. Marion distinguishes between two different species of interference: the first sponsored by straightforwardly aggressive rationalism (e.g., Tindale and Tolland; ch. 2, pp. 30–31), which dictates that the Trinity cannot be a sanctioned item of Christian discourse; the second, the more subtle and sophisticated (and more effective) marginalization of Trinitarian discourse effected by Fichte, Kant, and Schleiermacher (ch. 2, pp. 31–34). I think it would also be good to reflect on these remarks a little more, and again, I will do so in due course. Perhaps the only thing that should be said at the moment is that this second, non-Rahnerian genealogical indication should not necessarily be regarded as anti-Rahnerian. For instance, Walter Kasper, who, if far more historically inclined than Rahner, still fundamentally operates in terms of Rahner’s Trinitarian ground axiom that the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity and vice versa, has spent considerable energy painting the distortions of the Trinity not only subsequent to but consequent to the interference run by the rationalistic, ethical, and aesthetic discourses of modernity. Comments on the Rahnerian Aspects of Marion’s Genealogical Remarks With regard to Marion’s recollection of Rahner’s genealogical remarks concerning the obstacles generated within the Christian Trinitarian tradition, we can perhaps say the following. (1) Rahner’s remarks are considered by Marion to be useful in that they draw attention to the way theological reflection on the Trinity can both distort and unveil the saturated phenomenon. Marion evinces a recognition of the pragmatic, rather than theoretical, value of Rahner’s genealogical remarks, and also perhaps a recognition of their indicative, rather than fully fleshed out, character that would demand a far more detailed and historical analysis than provided by Rahner in his book on the Trinity. Moreover, Marion’s judgment would in all likelihood not change even if Rahner’s genealogical account were supplemented by his essays in Theological Investigations on God and mystery and his reflection on Trinity and 1000 Cyril O’Regan the New Testament. (2) There seem to be slight variances between Marion and Rahner when it comes to the degree of the implication of the magisterial tradition regarding the two binaries that Marion and Rahner believe to be problematic. Of the two, it is Marion who is more explicit in naming Suarez as the main culprit (21–24, 92–93). As is well known, in important footnotes in The Trinity, Rahner raised the question as to whether magisterial figures such as Aquinas and Augustine were implicated in the “tragic” demise of the experiential relevance of the Trinity. Of course, whether it was a sign of real scruple or simply a lack of forthrightness, Rahner did not definitively answer his own question. Subsequently, in writers on the Trinity who were broadly in his line such as Catherine LaCugna, it was answered: it is central to her argument in her well-known text on the Trinity and spiritual life, God for Us (1991,) that not only are Aquinas and Augustine implicated, but they bear a singular responsibility in the “defeat” of the doctrine of the Trinity. Now, it is important to note that Marion does not exactly exonerate Aquinas. In terms of both what Marion says and the tone in which he says it, Aquinas might be culpable, although clearly not necessarily so. In any event, it seems to me that we are called to examine Aquinas’s reflections in questions 26–43 of Summa theologiae I and elsewhere in order to come to a determination as to whether Aquinas’s Trinitarian discourse obscures in significant ways a phenomenological rendering of the Trinity. One could say that Marion assigns theologians a task, perhaps a task that Matthew Levering and Gilles Emery have taken on and for the most part carried out. (3) Importantly, Marion’s embrace of Rahner’s ground axiom is formal rather than material (here he might profitably be compared with Emmanuel Falque). He is simply approving the re-positioning of the Trinity in the horizon of phenomenality. Marion does not offer a verdict even in passing as to whether Rahner’s own constructive articulation of the Trinity within the economy is itself adequate to a Trinity that breaks and corrugates the phenomenal plain and stretches and repositions the self. It is clear, however, that he would reprove any neo-Rahnerian view that would readjust the immanent–economic distinction in a Kantian direction that would make the immanent Trinity belong to the reality of the “thing in itself ” and the economic refer to the phenomenal field to which alone we have access. This would, we can infer from Marion, have the calamitous effect of depriving the economic/phenomenal field of ontological vehemence and, correlatively, of constituting the immanent Trinity as absolutely nothing to do with the phenomenal The Return of the Theological in the Thought of Jean-Luc Marion1001 field, thus moving toward the condition of a Deus otiosus, which would not correspond to scriptural witness and would be out of sync with the mainline theological tradition. Comments on the Non-Rahnerian Aspects of Marion’s Genealogical Remarks We return to those indications supplied by Marion of a genealogical discourse that points to how the broader discourses of modernity have exerted particular pressure on the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. In Givenness and Revelation, attention is drawn to English and German forms or moments of this discourse. Still, it is safe to say that the German discourse provides, by far, the more sophisticated of the two forms of discursive interference on Christian presentation of the Trinity, with particular inflections provided by Kant and Schleiermacher with the object of providing grounds, practical or experiential, for the rules that have to be followed by Christian discourse if it is to be assessed as valid. The interiorizing of the rules of practical reason and experience (feeling) lead in each case to dismissal of the Trinity as a possible object of a discourse. Of course, we could say more about this cultural-social phenomenon that continues to have effect in contemporary theological discourses, serving in many cases as the argumentative ground for Trinitarian proposals (e.g., Moltmann, Jüngel, and Jenson). This would be valuable insofar as it would thicken Marion’s historical/genealogical observations. Yet it would also get in the way of truly marking in genealogical fashion those discourses in modernity that were precisely a reaction to the Kantian and Schleiermacherian refusal of the Trinity. I am referring to the Trinitarian discourses of Hegel (32, 33) and Schelling (33, 96, 97), which are marked ambiguously in Marion’s text, or perhaps marked as ambiguous, as representing an opening that is a return to pristine roots or a closing by other means. That these discourses are important to Marion is confirmed by the fact that, in the French edition of the Gifford Lectures, he has added an extra chapter on manifestation and/or revelation in Hegel and Schelling. Still, even on the basis of what we can see of the English edition before us, Marion seems to agree with the overall conjugation by the greats in French Communio interpretation of German Idealism and the “later” Schelling (Chapelle, Léonard, Bruaire, Tillette, Brito) that the emphases on revelation and/or manifestation essentially marks these discourses as different in kind from the discourses of Kant and Schleiermacher, and also as having a different hospitality ratio vis-à-vis the Christian construction of the Trinity. Once again, Marion does not provide a 1002 Cyril O’Regan verdict as to whether, in the end, either or both discourses will prove hospitable to Christianity as constituted by its response to the corrugation or irrigation of the phenomenal field, but instead proposes a question and a line of investigation that those more genealogically inclined than he can pursue. It is appropriate to draw attention to his ambivalence regarding the discourse of German Idealism, and perhaps also to a worry about the ambiguous character of the Trinitarianism of the discourse of German Idealism, a discourse that recalls the Christian discourse that both operates within the horizon of phenomenality and, at the same time, distorts it. Marion seems to suggests that, if distortion is to occur, it will be evident in the case of the operation of the Holy Spirit. More specifically, it will be evident in the case of the eclipse of the transcendence of the Holy Spirit when its operations come to be identified with a subjectivity that extends its autonomy over the entire phenomenal field. This subjectivity will thereby not have been lanced or constituted as heteronomous or have been permitted the anamorphosis that constitutes it as truly ecstatic and truly epektatic. In the soft edges of this genealogical indication, one can see the connection with Marion’s remarks in God without Being on the idolatrous figuration of the Eucharist in which community reception substitutes for the non-conceptualizable reality that is given. Positive Aspect: Elucidating the Phenomenality of the Trinity I have spent so much time following the tracks laid down by the genealogical crumbs in Givenness and Revelation that I may have given the impression that Marion’s most important contribution lies in its genealogical speculations. This would be to misunderstand the text and to misconstrue Marion. It is true that the overall achievement of the text has to do with elucidating givenness in general and the saturated phenomenon now rigorously defined to open up a pathway to theology while avoiding two constitutive dangers that turn out to be two sides of the same coin, either structurally theologizing phenomenology or reducing theology to phenomenology. Arguably, however, the specific achievement of the text is to have pressed the investigation in and through beyond Christ as icon and, in so doing, to have returned to Marion’s earliest explorations of Trinitarian de-constitution and re-constitution of a subjectivity that would affirm and enhance itself. I have in mind in particular the luminous essays in Idol and Distance on Hӧlderlin and Pseudo-Dionysius, respectively. On Marion’s account, the theological fulcrum of Trinitarian theology—precisely because it serves as the phenomenological pivot—is Christ. Christ as rendered in The Return of the Theological in the Thought of Jean-Luc Marion1003 the New Testament is the visibility of the invisible Father, and thus the icon. Since this has been laid out with some degree of detail in chapter 3 with deft references to the Synoptic Gospels and John, as well as Paul, whose reflections on Christ as icon functions as summary, the burden or burdens of chapter 4 are different: how to give an account of one’s “placing” before the icon such that the icon can have an anamorphic effect; how to be convinced of the reality of the Holy Spirit who precisely does not appear. Treating these phenomenological questions with due rigor has decidedly important theological implications, just as the issues in the theological tradition regarding the status of the Holy Spirit, such as the reflections by Basil and Gregory of Nazianzen, require a phenomenological correlative. Of course, both questions are rooted in the accounts of the Holy Spirit in the biblical text, in which the Spirit’s identity is constituted by relation to the Father and Christ, and in which we have the systemic difficulty of distinguishing between human workings and the workings of the Spirit. Allowing myself to be led by the problematic of the non-appearance of the Spirit, and after the manner of the kind of interpretive strategy followed throughout, which functionally elevates the theological over the phenomenological register and tracks down theological indications in the text, I would like to do two things: (1) address the way that Marion uses both Eastern and Western Fathers when it comes to the Trinity in general and the Holy Spirit in particular, and especially the way in which he suggests (a) the fundamental equivalence between East and West (weaker thesis) and (b) that Augustine might be regarded as primus inter pares (stronger thesis; not demonstrated); (2) say something about the horizonal presence of de Lubac and especially von Balthasar in Marion’s reduction of the Trinitarian reflection of the Church Fathers to phenomenality, which affects not only his holding of the weaker thesis of the equal negative capability of East and West for reduction to phenomenality but also his preference for Augustine. I begin with the first point, the capacity for reduction to phenomenality in the Christian Trinitarian tradition. Although it should be remembered that we are talking merely about observations made in passing or embedded in the footnotes, Marion seems to want to make the point that the Trinitarian tradition has the capacity to be reduced to phenomenality when it comes to both the Trinity in general and the Holy Spirit in particular. In addition, he wants to say that both Eastern and Western forms of Trinitarian and pneumatological thought have historically demonstrated this capacity. 1004 Cyril O’Regan There are moments, however, in which he seems to support a slightly stronger view, something like a thesis of “equiprimordial” capacity (or equipotentiality), which means that, logically, any differences between East and West regarding the Trinity in general and the Holy Spirit in particular can be regarded as superficial. Tactically, Marion focuses on theological constructions that antedate dogmatic divisions between East and West on the Trinity and on the Holy Spirit in particular, focusing particularly on Basil, Nazianzen, and Augustine. Now, the making equivalent of Eastern and Western Trinitarianism is hardly uninteresting. In addition to the farrago of complaints in contemporary scholarship on Augustine’s lack of attention (unfair) to the Bible and the overly conceptual and philosophical thrust of De Trinitate, there is the general assumption of the advantage of the Greek East when it comes to the articulation of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps not surprisingly, given his deep reading of Augustine’s corpus, and De Trinitate in particular, neither the complaints nor scholarly preference (found among Western as well as Eastern theologians) are sanctioned. This I call Marion’s weaker Trinitarian and/ or pneumatological thesis. There are a few moments in chapter 4, however, where Marion seems to suggest the stronger thesis: while Basil, Nazianzen, and Augustine are fundamentally equal in their capacity for reduction to phenomenality, on an analogy with Louis Althusser’s view of “overdetermination,” Augustine is superior, even if only “in the last instance.” We have a suggestion—no more, but also no less. Moreover, we can grant that, in the kind of text that Givenness and Revelation is, Marion is under no obligation to produce his warrants. Still, the suggestion is too intriguing not to speculate about what relative advantages Augustine might enjoy; I say “relative” because the equality thesis is primitive and the very fact that Marion does not press Augustine’s advantage leaves it open that he can tolerate a different preference, albeit one that is not fundamentally hostile to that of Augustine. Against the backdrop of Marion’s comprehensive analysis of Augustine in The Self’s Place: An Approach of Saint Augustine (2012), Augustine might plausibly be thought to have two advantages, one quite general and the other more specific. Augustine’s general advantage would have to do with his continual insistence that the identity of the Holy Spirit is a function of its relation to Christ as the icon around whom the entire phenomenal field is ordered or better reordered. Augustine’s second and more specific advantage is his recognition that it is the Holy Spirit who positions the self before The Return of the Theological in the Thought of Jean-Luc Marion1005 the icon in order that the self sees through the icon to the Father, and thus also to the Son, who is intrinsically invisible. One might see here the reversal of “placing” that Marion addresses in his Augustine book (no. 38) when speaking of the Confessions as admitting of a specifically Trinitarian rendition supplied elsewhere, such as De Trinitate and Enarationes in Psalmos, the two most cited texts other than the Confessions (and perhaps also Augustine’s commentaries on John’s Gospel and 1 John). We come to our second issue, which is to what extent Communio theology in general, and the Trinitarian theology of von Balthasar in particular, forms a horizon for Marion’s reduction of Trinitarian thought in general to phenomenality, and also and more specifically for his preference in the last instance for Augustine. Marion provides definite clues that Balthasar is a conversation partner when he speaks of “stage” (109) and of the Holy Spirit as “director” (106). These, as every scholar of Balthasar knows, are important lexical and conceptual items in his Theo-Drama. Obviously, the more specific “director” image is the more important of the two, since it reinforces the point that the Holy Spirit is behind the scenes and never directly appears on the stage. Translated into Marion’s terms, the Spirit is not the object of a gaze, whether reordered or refigured or not. Should we take our distance from the text and fundamentally telescope it, I think we might discover other affinities. Notice the title of the chapter “The Logic of Manifestation.” As Marion reads manifestation or revelation, which defies the logic of formal deduction and the more informal logic of expectation, we know that “logic” here is not being used in the usual sense. This logic cannot be the logic of German Idealism, the logic of Erscheinung that dictates that manifestation is truly such only to the extent that contingency and gratuity can ultimately be explained or explained away. Marion seems to accept a critique of Hegel that is articulated by Derrida and Henry, among others, but also fairly central to a band of distinguished Communio philosophers and theologians. If there is a logic of manifestation or revelation, then it is otherwise than that of Hegel, maybe also otherwise than the looser logic of the “later” Schelling’s Philosophie der Offenbarung. But then which philosophical-theological Communio thinker most clearly advocated and exhibited in his Trinitarian thought this alternative “logic”? The answer is necessarily Balthasar, who devotes three volumes (English translation) to the elaboration of a “theologic.” In his elaboration, Balthasar moves from a general dialogue with both Hegel and Heidegger on manifestation, which breaks open 1006 Cyril O’Regan the self to a depth in appearance that it cannot command (volume 1), to an account of Christ as truth, as the appearance with unsurpassable authority (exousia) and ontological vehemence, who is exegeted by the Holy Spirit (volume 2), and finally to considerations of the Holy Spirit in Eastern and Western Christianity both patristic and non-patristic (volume 3). As I register this, although I am making no suggestion of genetic dependence here, I think that we can see that the phenomenological transversal of Givenness and Revelation is accompanied, or at least shadowed, by a “theo-logical” double. This theo-logic double involves serious reflection on the “incognito” character of the Holy Spirit, since the Holy Spirit always seems to be a function of relation, and thus is “between,” or metaxu, or ingredient in, a “we” (volumes 2 and 3), but this logic also addresses the issue of the relative advantage or disadvantage of Western and Eastern Trinitarian thought and thought on the Holy Spirit in particular. Balthasar advances the following position that should be set side by side with the one advanced by Marion. First, wishing to relativize dogmatic differences between East and West on the Trinity while respecting basic differences in emphases, Balthasar argues for a functional equivalency between Eastern and Western Trinitarianism. It should be noted, however, that Balthasar’s elaboration of the thesis of equivalency is somewhat broader than that of Marion in that it does not apply uniquely to the Patristic period. Still, the overlap is striking. Second, against the backdrop of this equivalency, Balthasar suggests that it is legitimate for a community or individual theologian to exercise a preference for a Western or Eastern emphasis. On the surface, this seems decisionistic, since Balthasar fails to provide any guidance with regard to such a choice, let alone protocols for it. Of course, even the failure is useful in that it tells us that the exercise of preference is not on the same level as the posited equivalency. Still, within the context of the triptych, it is possible to backfill. There are good theological reasons, but even better historical ones, why contemporary Catholic thinkers might stick to the classical Western Trinitarianism inaugurated by Augustine, and more specifically its rendition of the relation of the Holy Spirit to Christ and the Church. Balthasar seems to be of the opinion that Western theology grasps better the incognito quality of the “person” of the Spirit, as well as the defining characteristic of Spirit as referring to Christ. The clincher, in both Balthasar’s case and de Lubac’s, is that the classical Augustinian position, which was displaced by Joachim de Fiore, is required as a bulwark against the excessive pneumatization The Return of the Theological in the Thought of Jean-Luc Marion1007 of theology from the nineteenth century on that goes hand in hand with immanentization. And both Balthasar and de Lubac think that constructing the Holy Spirit as a free radical is one of the means in and through which Christian thought participates in its own negation. Conclusion The Order of Love: Hors-Texte As the famous poem of Robert Frost has it, two roads divide in the wood, here the phenomenological and the theological. I have chosen the latter and remain considerably more vexed about the validity of my choice than he was. The choice has been made, however, and in full knowledge that allowance for revelation as the epitome of the saturated phenomenon does not belong to the order of constitution. All anticipation is of the “unanticipable,” to use Balthasar’s term with Marion’s meaning. As the presence of the inalienably alien, as used by Marion, “revelation” does come across as “dialectical” after the manner of the early Barth. The implied distinction between appearance and reality is not simply intended as a courtesy. Appearances can be deceptive, although again, not necessarily so. Marion clearly has an elective affinity for Pascal’s order of love, and Givenness and Revelation continues to be a homage to Augustine. There are traits in each that can be called on to support the Barthian attribution.Yet, I am persuaded that they do not do so in fact. The Pascal of the order of love is not, for Marion, the Pascal of Jansenist leanings, but the one commended by de Lubac and Balthasar alike. In addition, the Augustine affirmed is also one who, if he insists on the irreducibility of grace, is not making pronouncements regarding who is saved or condemned. Marion’s Augustine and Pascal, like their great ressourcement promoters, insist on grace as promoting wonderment, awe, gratitude, and worship, but against a backdrop of a nature that is thickly textured, ambiguously wrought, and full of wonderful stretching, as well as Promethean grasping and Dionysian substitution. One can attend to the dark side of human nature, and thus sinfulness, as Pascal and Augustine often do. Yet one does not need to do it exclusively, or even mainly, to come to the conclusion that the reaching out and stretching, which is both sign and enactment of virtue and the good, will move toward, but never touch, the source that made reaching and stretching possible. Should reaching and stretching touch their source, then all would be nature and nature would be all. Like Michelangelo’s Adam, we reach and stretch toward the source but never touch, and thus grace is inalienably N&V different and everything. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018): 1009–1040 1009 Book Reviews A Trinitarian Anthropology: Adrienne von Speyr and Hans Urs von Balthasar in Dialogue with Thomas Aquinas by Michele M. Schumacher (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014), xii + 451 pp. There has long been appreciation of the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar, but lately there has been a growing criticism of his work, often by disciples of St.Thomas Aquinas. Adrienne von Speyr has received little attention in the discussion of Balthasar’s work outside of the notes that critics have made that, at key, highly questionable points, Balthasar follows Adrienne. Adrienne von Speyr was a mystic whose works Balthasar, her spiritual director, editor, publisher, interpreter, and stenographer, considered more important than his own, and whose works he largely intended to translate into a more technical expression within his own oeuvre. In fact, Balthasar “maintained that ‘her work and mine are neither psychologically nor philologically to be separated; two halves of a single whole’” (7). Schumacher’s book is a welcome addition that brings together Balthasar, Adrienne, and St. Thomas. The goal of this book is to present the theological anthropology of Adrienne in systematic terms supplied by Balthasar’s own theological anthropology. By doing this, Schumacher wants to accomplish at least three things. First, she wants to show that Adrienne’s mystical insights have theological value. Since Balthasar and Adrienne thought a mystic should be judged based almost entirely on objective content, Schumacher also intends to provide a basis for theologians to judge the objective value and the inspiration of Adrienne’s works. Schumacher herself is convinced of their worth and authenticity, finding in her the genius that many think originates in Balthasar’s work. Second, Schumacher aims to help readers of Balthasar be more aware of Adrienne’s profound influ- 1010 Book Reviews ence on him and to show their unity. Third, and finally, Schumacher intends to initiate a dialogue between disciples of Balthasar and those of St. Thomas. She does this by responding to Balthasar’s critics (mostly Thomists) and by showing the harmony between the work of Balthasar and Adrienne, on the one hand, and Aquinas, on the other. She chose St. Thomas as an interlocutor largely because she is concerned with reconciling the doctrine of Balthasar and Adrienne with the Catholic theological tradition. Schumacher is suited well for this work, since she is both sympathetic with Balthasar and Adrienne and a diligent reader of St. Thomas with the aid of important Dominican theologians (Bernhard Blankenhorn, Gilles Emery, JeanPierre Torrell, and Michael Sherwin). In the first chapter, Schumacher compares Aquinas’s understanding of how analogy works in theology with Balthasar’s and Adrienne’s understanding, doing so by arguing for different but complimentary Trinitarian analogies: Aquinas using the psychological analogy and Balthasar/Adrienne using the analogy of freedom. In addition to using analogy, which is characteristic of Aquinas, Balthasar’s perspective is often largely katalogical, “a perspective proceeding downward from the revealed archetype to the image” (15–16). Then, in chapters 2–6, Schumacher deals with a particular tension, a difference-inunity that is found within the Balthasarian/Speyrian corpus. Tension (Spannung) is not meant to imply conflict, but rather “unity, communion and love,” and it is ultimately resolved in the Trinitarian love of God (64). Seen from the perspective of Trinitarian love, the whole and, as a consequence, the inner coherence of the parts is made more manifest. It is not simply Trinitarian love, but “Trinitarian love in the form of the reciprocal surrender of the divine Persons” that sheds light on everything (375). “Surrender” renders the German Hingabe and means “an active letting go (or letting be) by way of a generous outpouring, as it were, or a passive but nonetheless willful letting be or letting go by way of availability, consent, and receptivity” (308). The Trinity itself, then, is a difference-in-unity and sheds light on the other differences-in-unities, and therefore the notion of surrender unites the various tensions, just as it does in the Trinity. Chapter 2 concerns the tension between faith’s objective content and the subjective act of faith and, within that the tension, between theology and prayer. Chapter 3 considers the difference-in-unity of nature and grace. Surprisingly, the consideration of nature and grace in this chapter is considered “not so much ontologically as vocationally: within, that is to say, the context of one’s God-given Book Reviews 1011 mission” (119). Here Schumacher brings to the fore the differences between Ignatian and Dominican spirituality. Chapter 4 elucidates the body–spirit difference-in-unity, outlining a theology of the body. In chapter 5, Schumacher considers the difference-in-unity of the individual and the community. Noticing a genuinely problematic notion in Balthasar’s theology of redemption by substitution, she concludes by offering a re-interpretation of Adrienne’s experiences on which Balthasar’s teaching on Christ’s abandonment by the Father are based. More faithful to Adrienne’s experiences, she turns the abandonment of the Son by the Father into the rejection of God by sinners: the Son was “‘abandoned’ by the Father into the hands of those who will crucify him” (241). In fact, she finds that it is more faithful to Balthasar’s own work of interpreting Adrienne’s visions to find a better way to understand them in light of traditional doctrine. In chapter 6, Schumacher deals with the tension between man and woman. The sexual difference sheds light, through masculine and feminine forms of surrender, on the relationship of the Father and Son, as well as that of Creator and creature. After considering the many differences-in-unities in chapters 2–6, Schumacher, in chapter 7, critically appraises Balthasar’s own reading of Adrienne. In doing so, she outlines many of the Thomistic objections to his theology, especially on points where it is thought that Adrienne leads him astray. She proposes many objections (multiple wills in God [tri-theism]; receptivity, obedience, surrender, distance, and surprise in God; divine immutability; ​ability to distinguish the divine and human in Christ; nature as a vacuole for grace; descent into hell) and responds to them from the principles of Balthasar and Adrienne. She mostly does well articulating the objections, albeit in summary form, and she notes a potential point of contact or similar shared goal with the viewpoint of Aquinas. However, she is not always altogether fair with regard to the objectors. Two examples should suffice. She attributes to Matthew Levering an interpretation of Balthasar that says the hypostatic union is an analogy for the Trinitarian union (319). However, there is no direct citation of Levering’s supposed interpretation. The closest reference is to a chapter in which Levering’s interlocuters are Reinhard Hütter, Norris Clarke, and John Zizioulas and the text directly cites no one other than Aquinas. Second, she faults Blankenhorn’s interpretation of Balthasar’s and Adrienne’s teaching that Christ deposited or laid up his divinity in becoming man (321). But Blankenhorn merely quotes Balthasar on the matter and actually gives no comment one way or 1012 Book Reviews the other as to whether he thinks Balthasar means this laying up of divinity in becoming man means Christ is no longer divine or is still divine in some way. Moreover, at times, the response to Balthasar’s critics are too brief and insufficient. She could have considered the texts and the metaphysics of Christ depositing his divinity in a deeper way. Even if Balthasar does not mean to suggest that Christ’s depositing his divinity or laying up his divinity to the Father means that Christ is no longer divine (which is how Schumacher understands the objection), it does seem to suggest that Christ loses or refuses to “use” some divine characteristics (like knowledge: “his divine knowledge is ‘laid up’ with the Father out of obedience. ‘Everything can be laid up with the Father except obedience itself ’” (Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, vol. 5, The Last Act [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998], 259 [quoting Adrienne]). Her responses seem to show well how Balthasar would see himself fitting with Aquinas but are not sufficient to show the actual harmony. A deeper engagement with his interlocuters would be necessary to show such harmony. Nevertheless, she does indicate a way forward on many points, and to be fair, she recognizes her work as a beginning to this dialogue (it is a very serious beginning). Another reason some responses are too brief is that there are contradictory strains of thought in Balthasar whereby he holds both a traditional or Thomistic position and some novel position together. For example, in response to Steven A. Long’s interpretation that, for Balthasar, nature is a vacuole for grace, Schumacher fails to account for the contradictory evidence in Balthasar (338). Long notes up front that Balthasar seems to affirm the truth of the matter at some points but deny it at other points. If Balthasar indeed says contradictory things, it is not a sufficient response to point to the traditional or Thomistic strain of thought to show that Balthasar is in fact harmonious with the tradition of St. Thomas. She not only responds to the Thomistic critics in this chapter but also takes issues with interpreters of Balthasar who, to her mind, falsely attribute to him doctrines that are clearly problematic in light of Aquinas, such as Nicholas Healy’s understanding that God is receptive of creatures (317). She does not, however, spend much space defending her position on Balthasar vis-à-vis other interpreters at this point. Finally, in the extensive conclusion, she invites disciples of Balthasar and St. Thomas to dialogue. She issues two challenges, Book Reviews 1013 one to the disciples of Balthasar and the other to his Thomistic critics. The disciples of Balthasar are challenged to consider “the often very pointed and well-placed questions of his critics—most of which address (at least indirectly) his appropriation of Adrienne’s experiences or teaching” (394). The major issue that Balthasarian scholars need to contend with, according to Schumacher, is the quantity of images and metaphors in the teaching of Balthasar and Adrienne, many of which seem to be at odds with Catholic teaching. Therefore, in order to situate the Balthasarian teaching within the tradition, it is necessary for these metaphors and images to be articulated with metaphysical terms. It is not sufficient to refer to it as a mystery whenever such metaphors or images are criticized. Metaphor is helpful for the handing on and receiving the faith, but it cannot be used as an explanation of faith. The Church in fact uses “metaphysical language . . . for expressing and preserving the doctrinal truths of her faith” (382). Her choice of Thomism as a dialogue partner is in fact also due to its metaphysical precision, which is the precise thing lacking in Balthasar and Adrienne according to many critics. Schumacher’s own work in this book begins to render the images given by Balthasar and Adrienne a better metaphysical foundation so as to clear away any misunderstandings. Balthasar himself, Schumacher argues, would support such a cause, since he recognized the need for metaphysics. Moreover, this purging or purifying of certain images or concepts that lead to misunderstanding would serve Balthasar’s theology well, especially with respect to those aspects of his thought that seem to be in contradiction with Catholic teaching: “To be sure, this would entail not so much a ‘purging’ of language, as (more importantly) a vigorous theological interpretation of Adrienne’s mystical formulations which Balthasar perhaps too quickly takes up into his own work without first calming, as it were, the metaphorical language, or without attempting to explain it” (388–89). Schumacher helpfully lays out how Balthasarian scholars should go about purifying the images and metaphors through metaphysics. She wants them (herself included) to consider certain questionable phrases and understand them within the whole of Balthasar’s and Adrienne’s common work and within the whole of the Catholic tradition, especially the Thomistic tradition (390). This fits with the four standards that Balthasar proposes for judging whether Adrienne’s mystical experiences are authentic: (1) that her teaching be subject to magisterial scrutiny, (2) that it originate within the Church, (3) that it contribute to the Church’s edification, and (4) that it be in consonance with 1014 Book Reviews canonical revelation. Schumacher is open to the fact that Adrienne may have misinterpreted her own experiences: “From this perspective, one might question whether, in interpreting her (presumably) mystical share in the consciousness of Christ, Adrienne—theologically uneducated as she was—did not often pass too quickly from this experience (that of Christ’s human consciousness, regardless of the supernatural means of her participation therein) to her doctrine of his divine consciousness and thus also to the divine nature” (392–93). If we allow her experiences to interpret her doctrine and vice versa, we are able to see that Adrienne’s intention here is “that of clarifying the Son’s unity with the Father (their common divine will, which she— mistakenly, I would argue—presents as a commonality in suffering) and the adherence of Christ’s human will to the divine will despite the terrible experience of ‘estrangement’ from God” (393). The challenge to Thomistic critics is to reconsider Balthasar’s teaching in light of Adrienne’s experiences and teaching. It is Schumacher’s hope that their critics would see this teaching as genuinely rich, even if metaphysically imprecise. Schumacher does not mean to cease the helpful task of bringing to light errors or misunderstandings, nor does she mean to be less metaphysical. Rather, she sees it as in the Catholic spirit to not condemn “all that is not immediately graspable by human reason in theological formulations of Adrienne and Balthasar” (395). I wonder whether this is really a strawman. Have theologians simply condemned certain propositions of Balthasar and Adrienne because they are not immediately graspable by human reason? Her own presentation of Thomistic objections did not consider this as the main source of their objections. Nevertheless, it is fair to encourage those who object to Balthasar’s and Adrienne’s teachings to carefully consider them because, when certain teachings seem to be clearly at odds with traditional teaching, it can be very easy to dismiss them. Schumacher’s work displays an impressive knowledge of the three authors at hand, each of which are particularly prodigious. The unique skill set of being able to move around in the world of Balthasar/Adrienne just as well as in that of St. Thomas makes the book a very effective start to a dialogue. She ably clarifies Balthasar’s thought on many points, especially with respect to certain metaphysical imprecisions, and she takes a very balanced view of the relationship among the doctrines of all three thinkers. This book is well worth reading. It is for anyone interested in delving deeper into Book Reviews 1015 the work of Adrienne von Speyr and how she influenced Balthasar. Every lover of Balthasar should read this book, for it brings together the real insights that Balthasar was trying to express from Adrienne’s work and gives the lover of Balthasar a very precise challenge. Every critic of Balthasar should read this book as well to help him appreciate the difficulty of what Balthasar was doing in bringing Adrienne’s mystical experiences into theology and to help Balthasarians refine the metaphysics to better express the genuine insights of Adrienne N&V von Speyr. Matthew DuBroy Dominican House of Studies Washington, DC Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul by Simon Gathercole (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015), 128 pp. Simon Gathercole , senior lecturer in New Testament studies at the University of Cambridge, has previously written on the “new perspective” on Paul, the Christology of the Synoptic Gospels, and gnostic gospel writings. His expertise in soteriology, Christology, and biblical literature is brought together in Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul. Gathercole provides the reader with a brief (a mere 128 pages) biblical defense of the concept of “substitutionary atonement” from the Pauline corpus. In this book, Gathercole argues that Christ’s death “for our sins in our place, instead of us, is a vital ingredient in the biblical . . . understanding of the atonement” (14). Christ ought to, therefore, be seen as a substitute for us and for our sins. He states that this does not exclude or supplant other concepts in atonement (i.e., representation or participation), but he believes that substitution can “coexist” along them (14). He underlines the importance of this central claim by stating that a right understanding of Christ’s death as a substitutionary act is integral to the “Christian’s relationship with God and their communication of the gospel” (14). Gathercole begins the book with an introduction that helpfully defines and distinguishes his terms. He defines “substitutionary atonement” as “Christ’s death in our place, instead of us.” This means that, in his death, Christ “did something, underwent something, so that we did not and would never have to do so” (15). He carefully nuances this definition of substitution from related—and 1016 Book Reviews often conflated—concepts. In each case, Gathercole argues for and provides examples of “penalty,” “representation,” “propitiation,” and “satisfaction” as concepts separate from substitution. In distinguishing “penalty” and “substitution,” for example, he says non-penal substitution exists in the live scapegoat of Leviticus 16:21, which was sent into the wilderness as a substitute for the people (but not put to death). Herein, the sins of Israel are borne away in the goat, not punished. These distinctions, therefore, are not meant to present any one concept as superior to another, but to present the concept of substitution—as distinct from the above concepts—as a viable motif in our understanding of the atonement apart from the complexities of these other concepts. Gathercole also shows awareness of various theological, ethical, and philosophical objections to this doctrine. He introduces and briefly addresses the objections that substitution implies a legal fiction and that it advocates for “divine child abuse,” as well as Kant’s objection that guilt is too personal to be taken upon another. Yet, for Gathercole, the “most important” criticism of substitutionary atonement is actually that it is unbiblical (28). His response to this final and most important objection constitutes the substance of this book. In chapter 1, rather than immediately developing a positive account of substitution, Gathercole begins by explicating three of the most compelling explanations of non-substitutionary approaches to the atonement. He aims to show not that these are totally wrong, but that they are mistaken in denying substitution. The first approach (which he associates with Germany) is the Tübingen view propounded by Hartmut Gese and Otfried Hofius. On their account, atonement is undertaken by Christ as the representative of the people. Through Christ’s identification with corrupted people, he opens up to them fellowship with God. Second, (associated with Britain) is Morna Hooker’s “interchange in Christ”: Christ does not swap places with his people, but rather “goes to the place where they are and takes them from there to salvation” (39). Finally, he surveys the model of “apocalyptic deliverance,” which is “gaining currency . . . in North America” (42) through the theology of J. Louis Martyn. For Martyn, humanity’s plight does not consist of sins that need forensic forgiveness, but of slavery that requires deliverance and liberation, a deliverance and liberation that Christ provides. While he gives at least three evaluative comments to each proposal, Gathercole notes that they all share in minimizing “sins” (individual transgressions of the divine will) in favor of “sin” as universal human Book Reviews 1017 plight. He shows the need for a remedy of these “one-sided” perspectives through the Pauline emphasis on plural acts of disobedience and even references to individual acts of transgression. He says that the solution to the various perspectives on the human plight is not an “all-encompassing” theory, but rather a variety of perspectives (e.g., representation, sacrifice, redemption, and reconciliation) that ought to include Christ’s death as substitutionary. Chapters 2 and 3 are dedicated to Paul’s understanding of Christ’s death as substitutionary in order to add “substitution” to the list of various concepts in the atonement. Chapter 2 focuses primarily on the claim in 1 Corinthians 15:3 that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” He begins his exegesis of the passage by noting the primacy of “the gospel” in Paul, within which Christ’s death “for our sins” is central. Rather than a marginal thought, this message is the proclamation of the breadth of the apostolic witness (1 Cor 15:11) and is “according to the Scriptures” (i.e., the Old Testament). To support this latter claim, he engages with several specific Old Testament texts while treating in depth Isaiah 53 and Pauline references to it. Specifically, he uses Isaiah 53 to support the presence of substitution in 1 Corinthians 15. Rather than viewing Christ’s death as merely a historical consequence of sin (“he died because of our sins”), he states that the purpose of Christ’s death is to deal with sins. Therefore, the death of Christ was “for our sins” in the sense that it was a “consequence of our sins and not his own” (85). He says that the default Old Testament position would be “he died for his sins” or “we died for our sins,” yet “the miracle of the gospel . . . is that he died for our sins” (73). Therefore, “Christ’s substitutionary death and his resurrection, is primary in Paul’s proclamation” of the Gospel (78). Chapter 3 focuses on the vicarious death of Christ in Romans 5:6–8 and parallel deaths in classical literature. Gathercole claims that, in Romans 5, Christ’s death “for us” (Rom 5:8) is in contrast to other heroic deaths in his cultural environment, to which Paul alludes in Rom 5:7 (86). He introduces literary and historical examples of vicarious deaths (e.g., Alcestis, Phintias and Damon, and Philonides), some of which were “part of the common culture” in Paul’s day (97). He then breaks these down into three main contexts for “vicarious or substitutionary deaths” in the Greco-Roman world: conjugal love, friendship, and family ties (103). The common ground between these ancient figures and Paul’s presentation of Christ’s death is that: “There is a death of one person for others. The sacrificial death of the one aims at rescuing the other from death” (104). In contrast to these 1018 Book Reviews figures, however, Paul emphasizes the uniqueness of Christ’s death as creating a relationship where there had once been enmity (106). Thus, in Romans 5 (alongside the ancient examples), the death “for another” is not merely “for the benefit of another” or “for their sake,” but a death that averts the death of another (106–7). Gathercole concludes the book with brief summaries of each chapter that together make the case for the death of Jesus “in our stead” (109). “In sum, substitution can and should be regarded as integral to the biblical picture of atonement” (111). He does not view the atonement as an either–or choice between substitution, representation, or liberation. Rather, we can recognize the way various perspectives resolve the various facets of the human plight because of sin(s). By way of evaluation, I think this book does provide a clear and helpful defense of “substitution” as a viable way of understanding Christ’s death. At just 128 pages, its brevity is its greatest asset, but also its greatest downside. Gathercole’s logical and exegetical precision, his clear prose, and his careful argumentation make the reading experience quite enjoyable and readily understandable for a variety of audiences. He carefully and charitably positions his arguments in relationship to other studies of Pauline atonement theology and returns to these conversations in the conclusions of his own positions. Yet, omissions abound in a 128-page book, as Gathercole is well aware (10). The two elements that I would have found most helpful if he had added another few dozen pages to the book for them are both introduced in the essay, but neither is elaborated on further. The first is his interdisciplinary engagement. The introduction of the book interacts with (primarily Protestant) historical theologians such as Calvin, Luther, and Barth, contemporary dogmaticians such as Holmes, Crisp, and Zahl, and philosophers such as Kant, yet this interdisciplinary dialogue all but disappears as the book proceeds into its primary chapters. Therefore, the vast majority of his interlocutors are contemporary biblical theologians and his method of investigation largely focuses on the historical and literary context (with some helpful canonical references) to the exclusion of larger dogmatic and ecclesial contexts. He displays an awareness of the historical and theological issues in the introduction, but he rarely (likely for the sake of space) reconnects his exegetical conclusions to discussions outside of contemporary biblical studies. Secondly, Gathercole argues for “substitution” alongside representation, liberation, sacrifice, and so on but does not come to a synthetic conclusion that draws them together or explicates their relationship (although he briefly acknowl- Book Reviews 1019 edges a few possibilities [111–12]). For example, if substitution is an important aspect of atonement, is it foundational to sacrifice? Does representation logically precede substitution? How do penalty and propitiation fit within this understanding of substitution? However, these omissions do not evidence shortcomings as much as they illustrate that Gathercole’s ultimate aim was not to develop a comprehensive defense of substitutionary atonement in all its complexities, but to make room at the table for the concept of substitution in our discussions of atonement. Toward this primary and N&V worthwhile aim, Gathercole’s book is a success. Ty Kieser Wheaton College Wheaton, IL Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition by Benjamin D. Sommer (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), xviii + 419 pp. Benjamin Sommer’s new book raises a host of fascinating questions. In my review, rather than unfolding his argument chapterby-chapter, I will focus on the two central proposals that he makes. I will describe his proposals and offer a preliminary response to each of them. My responses concur with Sommer’s appreciation for the approaches of Franz Rosenzweig and Abraham Joshua Heschel, while also proposing that their approaches should moderate the bolder conclusions reached by Sommer. The first central proposal made by Sommer in Revelation and Authority has to do with “minimalist” interpretations of the cognitive content contained in the revelation at Sinai. Could it be that, at Sinai, God revealed a commanding sense of his presence but no actual propositional or cognitive content, no teaching or commandment? Sommer describes the minimalist position of the nineteenth-century Rabbi Mena ḥem Mendel of Rymanov as follows: “The ears of the Israelites, then, did sense a noise, but, by itself, it was nothing other than that: a pure noise, without any meaning—a rush of air without even a consonant. At Sinai, Israel heard nothing specific, but it did experience a revelation, a wordless signification of God’s commanding presence” (90). In this case, Israel’s cognitive participation in the experience would have had very minimal cognitive content—“I hear a noise” or “that’s wind.” In Revelation and Authority, this minimalist view of divine revelation is Sommer’s position (although during a 1020 Book Reviews panel at the 2016 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Sommer modified his position to accentuate the presence of some cognitive content). I note that, for Israel to identify that “rush of air” as “God’s commanding presence,” a simultaneous revelatory cognitive event would need to have taken place—for example, an infused cognitive (and thus, in the broad sense, propositional) apprehension that “this rush of air is God’s commanding presence.” Since this is so, minimalism of the kind that Sommer favors in Revelation and Authority does not work. On these grounds, I suggest that the early Rosenzweig, as presented by Sommer, follows a more persuasive path, even if, in my view, divine revelation contains more cognitive content than Rosenzweig thinks. Explaining Rosenzweig’s portrait of the Sinai event in The Star of Redemption, Sommer notes: “Rosenzweig’s formulation allowed two fundamental elements of content: God’s self-identification, ‘I am the Lord,’ and God’s command, ‘Love Me’— that is, the content found in various biblical verses including the opening of the Decalogue (Exodus 20.1 and Deuteronomy 5.6) and the beginning of the central text of Judaism’s daily liturgy, recited each morning and evening, the Shema (Deuteronomy 6.5)” (104). The revelation of precisely this cognitive content would indeed be a divine revelation that communicates God in a way in which humans can understand and participate. It is important to add that, although Sommer suggests that divine revelation may have had almost no cognitive content, he certainly does not argue that there was no divine revelation. He finds that the reconstructed original authors P, E, J, and D attest to the Sinai revelation in quite distinct ways, with D responding to and correcting the diverse versions of P, E, and J. But he holds firmly to a historical revelation to Israel at Sinai: “The event that transpired at Mount Sinai some three months after the Exodus belongs to the threefold cord that is fundamental to all Jewish existence. Along with the redemption from slavery and the gift of the Land of Israel, the experience at Sinai created the amalgam of religion and ethnicity that we now call Judaism” (30). Sommer does not challenge the historical grounding of this threefold cord. He does not propose that these events were simply invented by the ancient authors. Indeed, he points out that “the Pentateuchal sources speak with one voice in regard to the centrality of divine command in the religion that the event at Sinai created,” a way of phrasing the matter that makes sense only if there was an “event at Sinai” (9). In this regard, Sommer observes that “there are no archaeological Book Reviews 1021 or historical reasons to doubt the core elements of the Bible’s presentation of Israel’s history,” among which elements he includes the following: “that the ancestors of the Israelites included an important group who came from Mesopotamia; that at least some Israelites were enslaved to Egyptians and were surprisingly rescued from Egyptian bondage; that they experienced a revelation that played a crucial role in the formation of their national, religious, and ethnic identity” (17; cf. 204 and 349n67). He grants that the lack of evidence against these “core elements” does not “prove that one should believe them” (17), but he himself does believe them. Thus, he cautions firmly against an exegetical “reductionism” according to which “the Priestly texts and Deuteronomy are not really about religion or God at all,” but instead “merely encode social, political, and economic claims” (18). Indeed, his advocacy throughout Revelation and Authority for a “participatory theory of revelation” has to involve the action of the living God, or else there could be only human authors constructing things, rather than a participatory “dialogue between God and Israel” (2) whose definitive locus is Sinai. Let me now turn to the second central question of Sommer’s book. This question is whether there is or should be a distinction between Written Torah (Scripture) and Oral Torah. Sommer persuasively demonstrates that later authors of Scripture were interacting with earlier ones in ways characteristic of Oral Torah: “Modern biblical scholarship (especially in its analysis of the composition, redaction, and transmission of biblical texts and in the study of inner-biblical exegesis) recovers the Bible’s multivocality and thus helps us to see the way that scripture behaves like Orah Torah” (181). The conclusion that Sommer draws is an intentionally strong one: “Biblical criticism and the work of theologians like Rosenzweig and Heschel prompt the realization that for modern Judaism, there is no such thing as Written Torah; there is only Oral Torah, from which the Bible itself emerges and to which it belongs” (182). I grant that at least some, and perhaps many, of the authors of the diverse texts of Written Torah (Scripture) were writing according to the modes of Oral Torah. Am I therefore compelled to grant, as a corollary, that “all of Jewish tradition, including the Bible itself, constitutes what the classical rabbis call Oral Torah” and that we should “[do] away with the distinction between the two Torahs of classical Judaism” (146)? I think that the answer is no, but without denying the fruitfulness of Sommer’s raising of the question. Granted that divine revelation 1022 Book Reviews actually happened in history at Sinai, then it seems to me that the Written Torah, insofar as it contains the primal narratives that describe this historical event of divine revelation, has a privileged status vis-àvis the texts of Oral Torah. These primal narratives, certainly, bear the marks of internal “Oral Torah.” They bear the marks of interpretation and re-interpretation. In this sense, there are no narratives that stand outside the traditioning process of the community. But these primal narratives are nonetheless distinct from the later “Oral Torah” because their testimony to the historical event of divine revelation at Sinai serves as an anchor for other interpretations in a manner that reflects the unique historical specificity and decisiveness of the Sinai event itself. The “Written Torah” that includes and builds upon these primal narratives contains a great deal of “Oral Torah,” as do the primal narratives themselves. But I think that retaining the status of “Written Torah” or “Scripture” is a necessary and appropriate way of retaining the historicity, specificity, and determinedness of Judaism as arising from an actual Sinai event (and from other less fundamental but also important revelatory events involving the prophets, building upon and further interpreting the Sinai event). To reiterate for the sake of clarity, the distinct status of “Written Torah” does not mean that we can extract it from the characteristic processes and modes of “Oral Torah.” There are no texts that lack the imprint of human interpretation and traditioning. In this specific sense, certainly, everything can be said to be “Oral Torah.” There is no Scripture outside the Tradition. And we can also still affirm, with Heschel, that “parts of Oral Torah are older than parts of Written Torah” and that, from the standpoint of Judaism, “the sages responsible for the Oral Torah complete and perfect the Written Torah” (183). With Rosenzweig, too, we can still affirm from the standpoint of Judaism that Scripture is “the Oral Torah’s version of the Written Torah” and that “what matters most is the Written Torah as learned through the Oral Torah” (183). From this standpoint, Oral Torah even has a certain “priority” (183) of its own to match that of Written Torah, a priority found in the fact that Written Torah (Scripture) does not contain its own definitive interpretation, but relies upon Oral Torah for that interpretation. But in my view, Written Torah (Scripture) is still rightly distinguished from Oral Torah because of the historical specificity and decisiveness that Sommer himself upholds with regard to Sinai, even if the meaning of Sinai requires unfolding in Oral Torah and even if the texts of Written Torah bear the characteristic marks of Oral Torah. Book Reviews 1023 Arguably, the grounding of the historical specificity of Sinai in Written Torah is what gives Written Torah its privileged status in the Jewish liturgy, even though (as Sommer points out) the Jewish liturgy proclaims Written Torah in a manner deeply shaped by Oral Torah (see 159 and 220–21). Arguably, too, the distinctive function of Written Torah explains why both Rosenzweig and Heschel continue to insist upon two Torahs rather than contending (as does Sommer) that “there is only Oral Torah” (181). As Sommer observes, Rosenzweig “does not subsume the Written Torah under the Oral Torah; he avers that both are wonderful, not that they must be taken as a unity to be seen as wonderful” (183). Regarding Heschel, Sommer similarly notes: “Heschel comes closer to acknowledging that all Written Torah is Oral Torah in his famous assertion, ‘As a report about revelation the Bible itself is a midrash.’ Midrash, after all, is a form of Oral Torah. But even here Heschel does not write that the Bible has the same status as rabbinic literature” (183). I think that Heschel does not do so because the biblical narratives ground the actual event of divine revelation at Sinai (no doubt in modes characteristic of Oral Torah). In saying this, I am affirming—not denying—the truth of Sommer’s point that, from a Jewish perspective, one constantly sees “the fluidity of the border separating the Torahs” (156). I think that the distinction between Written Torah and Oral Torah also supports the distinction—important both for Sommer and for me—drawn by Rosenzweig and Heschel between “the historical fact that revelation occurred at a particular moment in the past” (200), on the one hand (this aspect is upheld by the category of Written Torah), and the contemporary “presence of that moment in the life of a Jew” and “the fact that divine command must occur in a person’s present” (200), on the other hand (this aspect is upheld by the category of Oral Torah). The point is that the play of interpretation is not its own ground, but rather is grounded concretely in particular historical revelatory events. Sommer’s book, even if I would modify his proposals a bit, makes a fruitful contribution to Jewish–Christian dialogue. His efforts to show that his proposals fit the Catholic view of Tradition are generous and inspiring. For a Catholic, it is crucial to insist that believers inherit not only biblical texts, but the living community in which these texts have been written and lived. Texts themselves would not be enough; we need to be immersed in the “subject” of these texts, the ongoing people that, according to the texts, has been called forth by God in relationship with God and from whose participatory 1024 Book Reviews relationship with God these texts and their true interpretations have arisen over the centuries. Catholics and Jews disagree, of course, about the correct interpretation of the “Written Torah” and about whether God’s people Israel has been reconfigured around the Messiah (so as now fully to include the Gentiles who believe in Christ), but Catholics today affirm that God has not revoked his covenants with the Jewish people, as though God had ceased to love the Jewish people. In making his argument, Sommer quotes Joseph Ratzinger: “These authors are not autonomous writers in the modern sense; they form part of a collective subject, the ‘People of God’ from within whose heart and to whom they speak. Hence, this subject is actually the deeper ‘author’ of the Scriptures. And yet likewise, this people does not exist alone; rather, it knows that it is led, and spoken to, by God himself, who—through men and their humanity—is at the deepest level the one speaking” (143–44, citing Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian J. Walker [New York: Doubleday, 2007], xx–xxi ). All those who, like myself, are indebted to Ratzinger will find significant benefit in Sommer’s book. He has indeed accomplished the ambitious goal that he set for himself, a goal that all Christian theologians and exegetes should emulate within Christian contexts: to create a “dialogical biblical theology, which compares, contextualizes, and contrasts the Bible with postbiblical N&V Jewish tradition” (5). Matthew Levering Mundelein Seminary Mundelein, IL The Hermeneutics of Knowing and Willing in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas by Kevin E. O’Reilly, O.P. (Leuven, BE: Peeters, 2013), 309 pp. In the realm of contemporary Thomistic moral theology, Kevin O’Reilly notes a “tendency on the part of some theologians to question what John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor describes as the ‘intrinsic and unbreakable bond between faith and morality’” (19). In particular, O’Reilly singles out Jean Porter’s works for failing to substantially incorporate Thomas’s Trinitarian theology and Christology into “the fabric of her ethical deliberations.” O’Reilly’s own treatment can be understood as an alternative to such treatments, offering an account of moral theology more faithful to Thomas and reflecting more deeply Book Reviews 1025 the interrelatedness of his thought by recourse to hermeneutics. Contemporary hermeneutics has highlighted the failure of the Enlightenment ideal of “pure reason.” O’Reilly quotes Hans-Jorg Gadamer’s important recognition that there is, in Enlightenment thought, “prejudice against prejudice itself ” (20). It is thanks in part to hermeneutics that Enlightenment “neutrality” has been brought into question. Positively, what is hermeneutics? O’Reilly understands hermeneutics, most generally, as “the idea that human understanding is conditioned by factors that lie beyond its control” (1). Typically, hermeneutics focuses on the interpretation of texts, but O’Reilly wants to take Gadamer’s insights and apply them to “the text of life and of reality in general” (4). It is here that Thomas’s teaching on knowing and willing enter the picture. O’Reilly appeals most of all to the circulatio (105) between the intellect and will (the act of understanding being conditioned by the will and vice versa) that appears in Thomas’s work. The “dynamic interaction” between intellect and will forms a way to understand the hermeneutical circle in a way that is formed by Thomas’s thought. To be clear, O’Reilly does not think Thomas himself would have considered his project in the Summa theologiae to fall under modern hermeneutics, but he nevertheless believes that it is a worthwhile endeavor to see whether certain insights can be gleaned from the work of the Angelic Doctor. For those interested, O’Reilly has already treated Gadamer explicitly as a dialogue partner for Thomas in another work. In the present monograph, he attempts only to explore how the Thomistic conception of knowing and willing, framed within the nexus mysteriorum (the interconnection between the various mysteries of the faith), provides a fresh insight into Thomas’s theological synthesis in the Summa theologiae (12). By an appeal to Thomas’s teaching on knowing and willing, O’Reilly is able to find an entry point into the Summa theologiae that does not require the bracketing of Aquinas’s teaching on Trinity or Christology. Rather, to speak of the rational creature’s knowing and loving at the same time involves the entirety of Thomas’s theological thought, and explicitly so. It is precisely because the rational creature knows and loves that he can be said to be created ad imaginem Dei, to the image of God. More than this, insofar as the rational creature knows and loves God, he can be said to be created to the very image of the Trinity. O’Reilly highlights the dual aspects of the human creature’s likeness to the triune God: there is the likeness of analogy and the likeness 1026 Book Reviews of conformity. The two cannot be separated, as the former is the basis of the latter and the latter is the goal of the former. As O’Reilly writes, “the image of God in man is the ineradicable capacity in man for participation in the life of the Holy Trinity and that this capacity is realized in so far as the soul imitates the inner life of the Trinitarian God in the activities of knowing and loving God” (44). This means that any discussion of the human capacity for knowing and loving (i.e., likeness of analogy) that precludes the formation of the creaturely subject to attain to the supernatural object through knowledge and love (i.e., the likeness of conformity) is incomplete. More radically and controversially, O’Reilly holds that the human knower is rendered more or less enlightened based upon his likeness of conformity to the triune God: “The greater the degree of charity with which the believer is blessed, the greater the degree of his intellectual enlightenment” (281). Let us discuss two significant ramifications of O’Reilly’s reading of Aquinas, the first having to do with Christology and the second to do with grace. Both show how the theme of knowing and loving can be used to bring together all of Thomas’s theological thought, the nexus mysteriorum. First, likeness of conformity to the Trinity takes on a concrete shape in light of the Incarnation of the Word. As O’Reilly notes, “human attainment of Beatitude can be accomplished only Christologically” (131). It is through the imitation of Christ that “we habituate our ways on knowing and loving not to any kind of human exemplar but rather to the perfect human exemplar.” O’Reilly’s understanding of the importance of the likeness of conformity highlights concretely the importance of imitatio Christi. One cannot attain to beatitude apart from the human model of knowing and loving provided by the Word Incarnate. This habituation to Christ, however, is not merely dependent on Christ as moral exemplar; it is first based upon the gift of grace through the Holy Spirit. Thus, the second ramification is that one’s conformation to God, and therefore one’s degree of “objectivity” in judgment, corresponds to the degree to which one is graced: “Objectivity in judgements concerning reality and human conduct is directly related to the degree to which a person is animated by the Gift of Wisdom” (282). This does not mean that one without grace cannot know any truth, but that “living faith . . . intensifies reason’s metaphysical vision” (287). What the practical consequences for such a view are or how this plays out concretely is not entirely clear. Does one with charity necessarily know more about reality than one who does not? Book Reviews 1027 One might, at this point, pose the question of the significance of Thomas’s teaching on the habit of faith in question 4 of Summa theologiae II-II. In article 4, Thomas argues (against the opinions of William of Auxerre and Alexander of Hales) that a living faith and a lifeless faith remain nevertheless the same habit precisely because faith, considered in itself, pertains to the intellect while the distinction of its being living versus lifeless belongs to the will. In which case, it does not appear that one’s “objectivity in judgment” must necessarily be affected by the absence of charity. Moreover, in the realm of ethics, Thomas teaches that it is possible to have virtue that is ordered to particular goods. This does not contradict O’Reilly’s purpose, but it does indicate a place for more overtly “philosophical” examination on questions of morality and ethics within Thomistic scholarship. In this vein, the attempt to capture the unified theological aim of Thomas’s thought, while certainly worthwhile, sometimes appears to too quickly run over the important and careful distinctions that Thomas makes between the natural and the supernatural. These are a few questions that arise from O’Reilly’s text that might have been dealt with at greater length. Whether one agrees with all of O’Reilly’s emphases or conclusions, he has certainly shown possibilities latent in a “theological hermeneutics” based on Thomas’s Summa theologiae. It would be a mistake to consider his monograph as aimed solely at those interested in the crossroads of Thomism and philosophical hermeneutics. While this is O’Reilly’s primary focus, he also creatively and impressively synthesizes major elements of the Summa theologiae under the broader theme of knowing and loving. In the process, he also displays his familiarity with a great deal of the secondary literature while offering his own interesting insight on Aquinas’s teaching on the image of the Trinity in creatures, Christological questions, and grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Finally, and most importantly, O’Reilly highlights the importance of the unity of the Christian life: one must strive, by lived faith, to be more and more like Christ according to the likeness N&V of conformation. Joshua H. Lim University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 1028 Book Reviews Contemplative Provocations by Donald Haggerty (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2013), 200 pp. The Contemplative Hunger by Donald Haggerty (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2016), 259 pp. Imagine that you had the opportunity to spend a few months with an authentic starets, only he was not a bearded hermit from the Russian steppe, but a middle-aged American priest serving in Manhattan. Suppose, further, that you managed to take copious notes of his wise sayings, which you later arranged in as orderly a manner as possible. You would have something very like these two precious volumes written by Father Donald Haggerty, Contemplative Provocations (CP) and Contemplative Hunger (CH). One phrase seems representative of the whole work: “Taking God seriously is costly, of course” (CP, 67). In these seven words, we get a sense of the author’s audience, purpose, and style. The audience is anyone wishing to take his or her faith “seriously,” to live out the full consequences of being offered, really and truly, a relationship with the almighty and infinite God. Clear, then, is the purpose: to help such a person enter into this friendship as profoundly as possible. While not hiding the cost of a deep spiritual life—a cost that is no less than total self-emptying—the author does not frighten away the would-be contemplative, but indicates that the path is open to all. So his style is unassuming, simple, and straightforward: his goal is to attract and encourage, but without hiding the daunting nature of the quest. Arguably, there is no more urgent or important task than to kindle the desire and support the progress of contemplatives in the modern world. Nor, perhaps, is there a more challenging one. Yet it is performed masterfully and seemingly effortlessly by Fr. Haggerty. A diocesan priest, he has also served as professor of moral theology, missionary in Ethiopia, and spiritual director and retreat master, especially for the Missionaries of Charity. He speaks from experience, but not necessarily his own. The author is an observer, a connoisseur of souls, who has an artist’s eye and the wisdom to perceive essential realities. As the image of the starets indicates, the word “I” rarely appears in these books, for the author wishes to remain hidden. Rather, “we” is used a great deal. There is not the expected author–reader relationship in which the former tries to instruct or persuade the latter in a systematic fashion. Rather, it is a sharing of insights and musings with Book Reviews 1029 a certain diffidence (“it may be that”; “perhaps”; “often”; “it seems”; etc.) that, nevertheless, does not allow the reader room for doubt. Fr. Haggerty seems confident that the evident truth of his statements will suffice to convince those who are able to grasp them. There is no effort to argue, marshal authorities, or make a case. He speaks with the authority of a spiritual director, justified by the fact that you have come to listen. The two books are clearly one work, and perhaps a work that is ongoing. While they are treated here together, Contemplative Provocations should definitely be read first and could be considered complete by itself. This first book focuses on the “paradox central to all contemplative life” (CP, 46): that God can be known only “as one who is unknown.” This is possible through the obscurity of faith and the intensity of love. Love can grasp what the mind in this life cannot. Especially chapter 3 invites the reader toward “the different mode of awareness [that] is a form of knowing” (CP, 54). It is a great tragedy (“one of the more hidden tragedies in the Church”; CP, 72) when the “concealment” of God becomes the occasion for those serious about prayer to give it up. The book aims, therefore, at encouraging perseverance: “One of the necessary tasks of prayer is to persevere in an interior offering to Our Lord in the silence of prayer, even if the meager results of our scattered efforts outside prayer incline us to a periodic discouragement” (CP, 181). Fr. Haggerty also encourages the reader with the thought that, in some way, the hiddenness of God increases along with our love for him (CP, 54). Despite the fact that it is in nowise a systematic work, there is an order. Moreover, it is evident that the author has a clear and profound knowledge of the material. For instance, while he never goes through St. John of the Cross’s three signs of the beginning of contemplative prayer, they are subtly presented in chapter 4 (“Contemplative Beginnings”), where he admits that “the early symptoms of contemplative prayer are so common and regular that they amount to a fixed, predictable pattern” (CP, 68). Both books have the word “contemplative” in the title, which indicates the author’s interest in leading souls toward higher states of prayer, “mystical” states in the technical sense of the word, even if that word never appears. Again, without ever indulging in academic discourse, the author reveals that he has a very clear and precise idea of contemplation. It is neither meditation nor centering prayer; it is a gift from God for which the soul can dispose herself, but no more. 1030 Book Reviews Subsequent chapters continue to address general themes relevant to the quest: the role of emotion in prayer and that of the mind, aberrations that may arise, the need for self-denial, and the purpose of suffering and trial. It is remarkable to find a work on contemplation containing so much material on life outside the chapel, especially on relations with the poor. That the poor will be always with us is interpreted as Christ’s promise to be with us until the end of time (CP, 160). “If we do not realize [that Jesus] waits for our answer even in small sacrifices toward the poor, we soon forfeit the path toward a deeper love for God” (CH, 107). The author makes clear that the seeker of God must also become a poor beggar. “It is the only way we can pray, trusting that he waits on every sincere word released from our heart” (CP, 52). It not an easy path to be emptied and purified, but we are reassured: “Impoverishment in prayer means always to fall more deeply under the loving gaze of God” (CP, 64). Indeed, “this poverty is what God loves most in our soul” (CP, 112). The second book, Contemplative Hunger, focuses not so much on the concealment of God luring a soul to seek him as on the desire of every soul to go in search of God. This desire or hunger is under attack especially today in a culture that leads to “self-imposed restrictions on intelligence [with the consequence] that God is never sought, never encountered” (CH, 48). However, as indicated in the introduction to the volume, God seems to be calling many lay persons to deeper prayer precisely because of the secularism that one is bound to breathe. Thus, while consecrated persons will be a natural audience for Fr. Haggerty, he is not writing for religious only. Rather, he addresses himself to all those who are “serious” about God. It is an elite group, but not an exclusive one: all are called to strive for union with God, and there is no other path than contemplative prayer. The seeker of God is hoping for a gift. “The idea that contemplation could be at one’s personal disposal and available on demand is an obvious misconception” (CH, 92). The one who receives the gift will never feel a “sense of success or achievement.” Rather, “the contemplative life requires . . . the abandonment of all pretense of personal accomplishment” (CH, 92). Costly, indeed. The second volume also speaks of the poor and their vital role in the life of a contemplative soul, dedicating two chapters to the topic. Other chapters treat of surrender, silence, and the “deportment” of Book Reviews 1031 soul suitable for encountering God. The book concludes with discussions of obstacles to prayer and of its effects on the rest of one’s life. These books are to be considered spiritual reading, books to be read slowly, a little bit each day, as a nourishment for the spiritual life. They will be usefully reread in this manner many times. Certainly, this is not a work about prayer that can be read to gain information about the subject in a detached manner. Rather, it is designed for use, to accompany the one serious enough to search out the starets and enter his hut. Either the reader will view it as a personal challenge and invitation, discovering therein the help that he was seeking (perhaps unconsciously), or he will put it aside. Many, surely, will be attracted and sustained by statements such as this: “The vast separation between the good life and the holy life is always far more than we realize. . . . The good life will always be observable to some degree, but whether or not a life is truly holy can easily be concealed in its essential truth” (CH, 252). Reading through Contemplative Provocations and The Contemplative Hunger, one may have the impression that one has never read a book like them, at least not one recently authored. As one of the commendations on the back cover of the first volume aptly states: “The work has the feel and style of a spiritual classic.” We must thank Ignatius Press for having published them. They can never be bestsellers, because the number of those who are “serious about God” will never be great. Nonetheless, among those fortunate few, the work of Fr. N&V Haggerty will become well known and well loved. Andrew McLean Cummings Director of Spiritual Formation Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary From Passion to Paschal Mystery: A Recent Magisterial Development concerning the Christological Foundation of the Sacraments by Dominic M. Langevin, O.P. (Fribourg, CH: Academic Press Fribourg, 2015), vii + 403 pp. It is common for theologians and historians of religion to document the ebb and flow of doctrinal, moral, and spiritual accents throughout the history of the Church. Sometimes by accident and sometimes by necessity, the treasures of one epoch can be underappreciated or neglected by a later one. It goes without saying that, as St. Paul insists in 1 Corinthians 15, without the doctrine of Christ’s 1032 Book Reviews resurrection from the dead (and the Ascension into heaven) the Christian faith is null. Accepting the centrality that the resurrection has for the Christian profession of faith, however, does not of itself make it evident today how the resurrection relates to the Church’s doctrine of the seven sacraments and the significance of the sacramental life in the economy of salvation. In From Passion to Paschal Mystery, Dominican theologian Fr. Dominic Langevin wrestles with the question of the efficacy of the Church’s sacramental worship in relation to the major events of Christ’s life. That the risen Christ acts in the Church in and through the sacraments is hardly an object of theological dispute. What is more difficult to explain, however, is which events of Christ’s life on earth established the sacraments of the New Law as ex opere operato causes of grace. In pursuit of answers to questions such as these, this book “explores [the] appreciation granted to the Paschal mystery by the Second Vatican Council and the succeeding magisterium” (1). It is important to note that Langevin’s work is not simply a liturgical consideration without reference to the Church’s sacramental doctrine. Rather, he seeks to track identifiable emphases in magisterial teaching precisely with reference to the sacraments. By means of this sacramental focus, he documents a development in magisterial teaching: “The magisterium over the last fifty years has emphasized that the sacraments are founded upon and communicate the entire Paschal mystery of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection” (1). Furthermore, by accentuating the recognition of both the Passion and resurrection in more recent magisterial teaching in relation to the sacraments, Langevin provides a “contrast with an earlier focus upon the Passion of Christ as the proper locus of sacramental attentions” (1). The book is divided into two sections. Part I identifies the teachings of the magisterium in Pius XII’s Mediator Dei, the Second Vatican Council’s Sacrosanctum Concilium, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Part II provides a reflection on this data through the resources of speculative, historical, and dogmatic theology. The first three chapters make up part I and document “a transformation with regard to” the teaching of the magisterium in “its understanding of the foundation of the sacraments in the life of Christ” in the fifty years between Mediator Dei and John Paul II’s promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (225). The transformation that Langevin uncovers pertains to the precise manner in which the sacraments are related to Christ and his incarnate life. In Mediator Dei, the Church’s liturgy is cast in relation to the virtue of religion, by which the Church shares in Christ’s worship of the Father. As a Book Reviews 1033 result of this ordering, “the Passion of Christ is the event of greatest importance for human salvation, both objectively and subjectively, including in the sacraments’ participation in that salvation” (225). Vatican II’s Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, provides an implicit nod, Langevin demonstrates, toward viewing the sacraments in relation to the entirety of the Paschal mystery. For example, he points to §61, which teaches that “divine grace [flows] from the paschal mystery of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ, from which all of the sacraments and sacramentals derive their power” (227). This affirmation stands as an important springboard from Mediator Dei to post–Vatican II magisterial teaching. Moreover, Langevin demonstrates that the Catechism takes Vatican II’s advertence to the entirety of the Paschal mystery further by indicating that “in the liturgy of the Church, it is principally his own Paschal mystery that Christ signifies and makes present” (CCC §1085, cited at 227). What the Catechism adds, therefore, to the relation between the sacraments and the saving events of Christ’s life is, Langevin argues, that they “do not just benefit in ‘their power’ from the Paschal mystery,” as indicated by Sacrosanctum Concilium, but rather also “‘signify and make present’ the Paschal mystery” (227). The end result of this developmental sequence is the argumentative conclusion that “the sacramental aspects of the Passion have been retained, and the Resurrection has been retrieved from relative obscurity” (233). There is more at stake here, however, than mere evidentiary considerations about which events happen to be mentioned in particular Church documents. Langevin’s careful study of the recent magisterium, which cannot be fully recounted here, uncovers a theological ratio for the soteriological significance of the Church’s sacramental liturgy. Without this wider connection to the Paschal mystery, the saving power of the sacraments would not be fully intelligible in light of the Christian kerygma. What is to account for this subtle but significant development in Church teaching? Langevin argues convincingly that a broad theological ressourcement—broad in the sense that it included a Thomistic component—took place in the period leading up to the Council. This work of ressourcement helped to unearth a previous tradition accentuating the relationship between the sacraments and the Paschal mystery. In particular, Langevin identifies four broad theological initiatives that contributed to this clarified awareness: the liturgical movement, Patristic studies, works on the theology of Christ’s resurrection, and Thomistic studies on sacramental theology. 1034 Book Reviews Part II of From Passion to Paschal Mystery comprises two chapters in pursuit of a speculative account of the causal efficacy of the sacraments in relation to the Paschal mystery. After carefully documenting a general causal soteriology of the Passion, Langevin observes: “A further step is necessary. What has been made available by Christ in general must be conveyed to an individual person” (245). It is precisely at this juncture that Langevin, by focusing primarily on baptism and the Eucharist, incorporates the sacraments formally into a soteriological argument. With reference to the Eucharist, for example, Langevin appropriates both Trent and Aquinas to draw parallels between the general effect of the Passion “in the world” and the specific effects associated with the Eucharist “in man” (253). What of the resurrection in this account? In relation to baptism, to cite just one example, it is worth quoting Langevin at length: By the fact that baptism justifies, baptism appropriates the Resurrection. Within this justifying effect of baptism, we may locate its effect of filial adoption. Being baptized into Christ’s Resurrection, being united to the Son of God as a member of his Body, the person receiving this sacrament becomes derivatively a living son of the living God. Although the symbolism of baptism . . . and its imaging of the Paschal mystery . . . suggest a baptismal priority for the negative effects of the Passion (i.e., forgiveness of sin), the positive baptismal effect of justification suggests a reversal of baptism’s signification. (267) The operative power of the grace of the Eucharist on the soul likewise produces a “delayed effect,” in Langevin’s words, that is fully consummated with the resurrection of the body (285). The Catholic theologian is one who is accountable to a good many things, at least when the Catholic theologian consciously works as a Catholic theologian. By following the thread of engagement with the relationship between the Paschal mystery and the sacraments in recent magisterial teaching, Langevin models the theologian’s accountability to a hierarchy of sources and the fruit that can be harvested when theology is practiced in this way. He realizes no small accomplishment in the carefully reasoned and researched pages of this book. By tracing the teaching of the Magisterium on the relation of the Paschal mystery to the sacraments from Pius XII’s Mediator Dei through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Langevin indicates a noteworthy Book Reviews 1035 development in magisterial teaching. Discovering and documenting a development in Church teaching is no small accomplishment, and Langevin makes a convincing case that this development has most certainly taken place. Moreover, in addition to vindicating his central thesis and exploring the speculative dimensions of this doctrinal development, the book has other benefits too. The chapter on Mediator Dei, while not treating every aspect of the encyclical’s teaching, provides careful commentary and interpretation on a large number of important passages. The Latin text of the key passages is reproduced in the book, and Langevin provides important insights into the document’s teaching by means of this careful textual analysis. The same is true with the treatment of Sacrosantum Concilium: Langevin’s interpretation is informed by an advanced knowledge of the evolution of the draft schemas and important written and oral interventions by the Council fathers. Thus, in addition to its argumentative originality, the book can also be used as a scholarly guide by those wishing to carefully study Mediator Dei and Sacrosanctum Concilium. Finally, by focusing his argument on the sacramental implications of the Paschal mystery, Langevin’s work provides a needed theological counterweight to the regnant liturgical studies that often supplant sacramental doctrine with historical accounts of Christian worship. Scholars and advanced students who teach and research in the area of sacramental and liturgical theology would be negligent not to familiarize themselves with this work. The author’s careful research, focus, clear-minded prose, and speculative acumen have provided a tome of lasting significance that fills a niche and points the way to future studies. There is indeed little to disagree with in this volume N&V and much to be learned from it. Roger W. Nutt Ave Maria University Ave Maria, FL Mary’s Bodily Assumption by Matthew Levering (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015), 152 pp. Matthew Levering’s treatment of Mary’s Assumption into heaven, body and soul, is a welcome contribution to Catholic theological discourse, not least because it is the first work to appear in English on the subject in some thirty years (2). Levering engages the topic from the inner heart of the Church’s faith, but in a way that frankly acknowledges the difficulty non-Catholics have in seeing the 1036 Book Reviews grounds for this Marian dogma. Thus, Levering seeks to unpack the principles underlying the Church’s faith—a truth not just about Mary but also about how Mary uniquely exemplifies God’s plan for human participation and glorification in and through the work of the Son. Three principles underlie the Church’s faith and also provide the structure of the book: the importance of typological exegesis; the importance of the Church as interpreter of divine revelation, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; and the fittingness of the Assumption within the entire economy of salvation (2). The book functions in two parts. In the first, Levering treats twentieth-century magisterial teaching on Mary’s Assumption by recourse to Pius XII’s Munificentissimus Deus, the Second Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium, and John Paul II’s Redemptoris Mater (ch. 1), then treats early to mid-twentieth-century theologians on the topic, such as Garrigou-Lagrange (ch. 2), and then turns to ressourcement theologians such as Bouyer, Balthasar, Ratzinger, and even Rahner (ch. 3). Part II seeks to demonstrate the legitimacy of typological exegesis (ch. 4), the authority of the Church as interpreter of revelation (ch. 5), and the fittingness of the Assumption within the whole plan of salvation (ch. 6). Because of a lack of early historical evidence for this belief, Levering writes: “Rather than being manifested publicly in a manner accessible to historians, Mary’s Assumption was an event whose historical reality the Holy Spirit taught the Church over time. For this reason, the testimony proper to Mary’s Assumption is to be in Scripture and no new public testimony is required” (1–2; emphasis original). Similarly: “Mary’s Assumption was a hidden event, one that becomes knowable with the eyes of faith through the New Testament’s typological portraits of Mary as interpreted by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit” (47). The first and third of the three principles listed at the outset (typological exegesis and fittingness) readily come together in Levering’s analysis: just as the New Eve, Mary, participates in the work of her Son on the Cross, as anticipated by Simeon (Luke 2:35), so it is also exceedingly fitting that she would participate in her Son’s glorification. Thus, Mary goes before us as the first fruits of redemption, receiving what we all hope to receive at the end of time, the resurrection of the body: “The Assumption of Mary does not compete with her Son’s Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection, but instead displays for us the goal of these mysteries in which Mary uniquely shares” (144). And similarly: “The doctrine of Mary’s Assumption Book Reviews 1037 teaches that Mary, continuing her holy and unique participation in the mysteries of her Son, shares uniquely in Christ’s victorious suffering and thus also uniquely in Christ’s Resurrection” (136). Adverting to the second and third principles above (the Church as interpreter of revelation and fittingness), in criticism of certain ressourcement movements, Levering is quick to note: “Biblical-typological arguments cannot stand alone; they require an appreciation of doctrinal fittingness as well as a sense for the Church’s role as ‘the pillar and bulwark of truth’ (1 Tim 3:15), guided by the Holy Spirit ‘into all truth’ ( Jn 16:13)” (32). Similarly: “By themselves, the typological connections in Scripture could not have sufficed for the dogma of Mary’s Assumption. The reality of her Assumption had to be confirmed by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit” (129). Here Levering sees the abiding value in certain strands of neoscholastic Marian theology that do not ignore typological exegesis, but rather tend to emphasize both the importance of the authority of the Church and the mystery of grace unfolding in Mary: “Garrigou-Lagrange’s . . . greatest strength is perhaps [his] account of Mary’s predestination and [his] insight that her motherhood has to do with the ‘hypostatic order’” (47), an order that transcends even that of grace and glory, whereby Mary “has a unique relation—the relation of motherhood—to the Son” (142). Levering of course sees the weakness of Garrigou-Lagrange’s treatment in his historical analysis (47). While utilizing many of their typological arguments, Levering criticizes ressourcement thinkers on the Assumption principally for flattening out the mystery of Mary by pointing to her as undergoing merely what happens to all human beings when they die. In other words, Mary’s “Assumption” became, in some circles, simply an anthropological truth, wherein each human being receives the resurrection of the body immediately upon death, with no need of an intermediate state whereby each of us (Mary excepted) awaits the full flowering of redemption in the resurrection of the body at the end of time. Levering writes: Fruitfully, many of them [ressourcement thinkers] explored Mary’s Assumption through typological exegesis of Scripture. . . . Less fruitfully, some of them explored the notion that the Church’s traditional teaching on the intermediate state between death and bodily resurrection could be changed so as 1038 Book Reviews to hold that all humans, of whom Mary would be the exemplar, enter at the moment of death into resurrection life. (51; see 55–59 for Rahner and 63–64 and 66 for Balthasar) Levering treats Ratzinger’s criticism of this analysis. Among other points, Ratzinger brings out the tension between this account and the biblical narrative of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Levering explains: “It would seem that Jesus’ death would accomplish his resurrection immediately on the eternal level. . . . His burial and ‘descent into hell’ would have no real meaning. By contrast, for the New Testament, Jesus does indeed undergo an intermediate period between his death and resurrection” (73). Overall, Levering does a tremendous job honing the precise principles that underlie the Church’s thinking on the Assumption: typology; the Holy Spirit leading and guiding the Church ever deeper into the fullness of revelation; and the coherence of each aspect of the faith in light of the whole, meaning the way in which one aspect sheds light upon another (fittingness). Again, for Levering, the Assumption is not something that the Church came to historically per se, but is rather a development based upon what was already implicit within Scripture itself. It is a theological development, not a merely historical one, and one that took flight especially after the Theotokos pronouncement in 431 at the Council of Ephesus (see 126). Nonetheless, Levering maintains that the Assumption is implicit in the apostolic deposit of faith (15). On the whole, Levering gives us a tour de force on the makings of a biblical theology pertaining to Mary and her Assumption, taking us through (among others) the likes of: Genesis 3:15; 2 Samuel 6:14–16; Psalms 45:13–15 and 132:8; Exodus 25:10–16; Isaiah 60:13–14; Song of Songs 3:6, 11; Proverbs 8:22; 9:1–11; Luke 1:28, 42; 2:35; John 14:26; 16:13; 19:25–27; 1 Corinthians 15; Ephesians 5:27; 1 Timothy 3:15; and Revelation 11:19–12:6, 17; not to mention a treatment of the Elijah narrative in 1 Kings 19 (118) and the connection between holiness and life in the early chapters of Genesis (132–37). In addition, Levering’s discussion is eminently ecumenical, interacting with, for example, Richard Hays, Peter Enns, Peter Leithart, Kevin Vanhoozer, Jaroslav Pelikan, and Hans Boersma. This leads to a very careful and honest discussion—one no doubt chastened and refined by his interlocutors. One can only laud Levering’s attempts here, especially since the topic has been virtually ignored by Catholic thinkers in the post- Book Reviews 1039 conciliar period. But one might raise the question as to whether Levering has conceded too much. For example, as he notes, by the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, the liturgical celebration of Mary’s Assumption had spread far and wide, both to East and West. Is it not fair to assume that there must be some historical cause that led to such universal celebrations, more than simply the theological sanctioning of the title Theotokos? Levering seems willing to concede the standard critical account of Christian origins, but he appeals to development as a way to rescue the project: Many scholars today do not think that the first Christians worshipped the Son. . . . The reality of God’s triunity cannot be demonstrated by historical research. What is needed instead is an appreciation for the Church’s ongoing life as the authoritative matrix in which Trinitarian doctrine developed. (125; see also 151) What Levering says is no doubt true: the Trinity is a revealed doctrine of faith, and as Newman demonstrated so clearly, doctrine develops over time. Yet there is a danger if we overdo this dynamic: Catholic thinkers might buy into the standard critical account so readily that the supposed development becomes something foreign to the earliest Christian witness. In other words, development notwithstanding, Catholic thinkers need to show that such developments are organically rooted in the apostolic faith. Similarly, the Assumption is certainly a development in theological thinking about Mary, but if it is just that—a theological development, with no historical basis—it seems to me we have gone too far. This is simply a difficulty with respect to the Assumption, since early testimony is fairly thin. But the rise of liturgical celebrations— celebrations which are generally conservative and do not introduce a novum, but express a pre-existing faith—and the absence of Marian relics (from an early Church that was absolutely absorbed by the importance of gathering relics) suggests to me a historical foundation at the origin of this theological development. Admittedly, we do not have as clear historical witness to the Assumption as we do the resurrection (see 77). But there must be an adequate cause for this widespread liturgical development. The essential historicity of the Assumption is part of the Church’s faith. Levering does not deny this, but he generally steers clear of it. He is quick to note that the 1040 Book Reviews Church’s faith did not arise from legendary/apocryphal treatments: “Rather, the Church’s faith generated the legends” (1). The epistemic and theological principles underlying the Church’s faith are excellently articulated by Levering, but the essential historicity of the Assumption must be maintained. Again, Levering does not deny this, but I think it needs more emphasis than his treatment provides, even if the public, historical witness in the early centuries is somewhat lacking. As Catholic theologians, we must still defend the historical happening of Mary’s bodily Assumption, even if witnesses are few and far between. Nonetheless, Levering’s text is an absolutely welcome addition. The Church needs theologians to reclaim our Marian past in a N&V manner as faithful and rigorous as he does here. Andrew D. Swafford Benedictine College Atchison, KS