Monday, July 25, 2011

The Afterlife of Theological Formulae

Proposition: Once a theological formula is published, its interpretation cannot be limited to its original purpose and context.

Exhibit 1. The Nicene Creed was formulated to rule out Arianism. This is made explicit in the final section, which anathematizes those who employ Arian formulae and terminology:
Those who say, ‘There was when he was not’, and ‘Before being begotten he was not’, and that he came into being from things that are not, or assert that the Son of God is from another hypostasis or substance or is changeable or alterable, these the catholic and apostolic church anathematizes.
But once that heresy had been extinguished (at least in the eastern Mediterranean – it hung on among some German tribes for another three centuries), the anti-Arian creed was not set aside. Rather, it became a touchstone of Orthodoxy. Its most prominent exponent, Athanasius, was elevated to sainthood as his generation’s paragon of orthodoxy, while Arius became forever the archetypal heretic. Adherence to “the faith of Nicaea” came to distinguish orthodox Christians not only from Arius, but also from later heretics, like Eunomius, Apollinarius, and Nestorius.

Since the Arian controversy had begun as an intra-Alexandrian affair before it spread abroad, certain assumptions shared by Arius and his local Alexandrian opponents were embedded in the arguments of both sides, as well as in the Nicene resolution. Athanasius’s successors Cyril and (especially) Dioscorus tried to interpret Nicaea not just as a negative statement ruling out Arianism, but as a positive statement enshrining the local peculiarities of Alexandrian Christology for the entire Church. (This might explain why Cyril was a stickler for the exact creedal formula approved by Nicaea, in opposition to the many other “Nicene” creeds in use in the early fifth century, which assimilated key Nicene phrases to existing local baptismal creeds.)

Exhibit 2. In his Letter to Acacius of Beroea (Ep. 33), Cyril of Alexandria defended his Twelve Anathemas by insisting that they were to be read only in opposition to Nestorius:
But the force of the statements was written only against the teachings of Nestorius. For they throw out what he said and wrote in error. Those who anathematize and deny his evil teaching will cease to object to the documents which have been written by us. For they see that the meaning of the statements only goes against his blasphemies. (John I. McEnerney, trans., St. Cyril of Alexandria: Letters 1-50, The Fathers of the Church 76 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1985), 133.)
But neither his theological allies nor his opponents read Cyril’s Anathemas in such a circumscribed, negative way. They read the Anathemas as a more general Christological statement with positive implications, seeing them either as an essential supplement to the Creed of 325 or as a revival of the heresy of Apollinarius (on whose writings Cyril had unwittingly drawn in formulating them). After the Reunion of 433, though Cyril never explicitly renounced the Anathemas, neither did he continue to emphasize them, and they faded into the background for the last decade of his life. But after his death, those who proclaimed themselves loyal to the memory of Cyril (a very selective memory that ignored the historical Cyril’s commitment to the Reunion of 433) denounced the terms of the Reunion and revived the Anathemas as a litmus test of orthodoxy. Eventually, long after the Nestorian heresy had been driven out of the Church, the Second Council of Constantinople (553) elevated Cyril’s Third Letter to Nestorius with the Twelve Anathemas to dogmatic status in an unsuccessful attempt to placate the enemies of Chalcedon.

Exhibit 3. In an appendix to his Tome to the Armenians, Proclus of Constantinople condemned selected passages from the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia. When he demanded that the Syrian bishops formally endorse both the Tome and the appended condemnations, they objected that the passages from Theodore had been removed from their proper literary, historical, and theological context. In his polemics against the Arians, the Syrian bishops said, Theodore had been driven to a
certain great distinction (i.e., between the natures in Christ), not coming to it from a depraved understanding, but deciding to use that mode of expression more efficaciously against the heretics, and he was not ignoring nor denying the total unity, far from it, for all his books are full of this mode of expression, but he was dividing the properties of the natures more fully as the fight which he had against the heretics dictates that he should do. (Nicholas Constas, Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity: Homilies 1-5, Texts and Translations, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 66 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 117.)
But some Antiochene bishops, like Ibas of Edessa, did not restrict their reading of Theodore’s polemical extracts to an anti-Arian context any more than his enemies did.


This idea was a by-product of my thesis on the Formula of Reunion (433). It might find its way into my thesis in some form.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

County 4-H Fair

Last Sunday, while I was visiting my parents in Indiana, I attended the local 4-H fair. There was an open house at the agricultural museum with demonstrations including soap making, rope making, and a 19th-century one-room school. I went back again the next day for the annual gathering of my mom's family at the fair. We had lunch in the ag museum and then talked until well into the afternoon. I took some photos, mostly of old tractors.

My uncle's 1920s John Deere tractors
My uncle's 1950s Ford tractors, modified with V-8 engines
Art deco tractor #1: 1952 Oliver
Art deco tractor #2: 1956 Cockshutt
1940s Allis-Chalmers
1939 McCormick-Deering Farmall
Tractor ride for the kids
1935 Silver King

Other modes of transportation on display in the ag museum.
Small covered wagon
1901 Oldsmobile

Forty years ago my cousins dominated the dairy barn at the fair. Today their kids dominate . . . the small animal barn.
My cousins' chickens
My cousin's rabbits
Newly hatched chicks in the incubator

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Changes

From the beginning, I have blogged under my long-time on-line alias Roland. In fact, I originally planned to name my blog Oliphant: The Horn of Roland. I was pretty upset when I found the name Oliphant was already taken. The resulting frustration launched me into a small crisis in which I questioned the purpose and content of my intended blog. I realized it would have a primarily religious/theological focus, and I came up with a more fitting title. But it did not then occur to me to switch to a different alias.

I first used the name Roland my first summer in grad school. It was a hot summer, with frequent record-breaking, triple-digit temperatures, and I was living in a cheap room without air conditioning. So I spent my afternoons studying in the comfort of a lounge in the student union. Every once in a while, for a break, I would go the basement and play the video game Tutankham. When I got a high score and had to come up with a name, I spontaneously chose Roland, inspired by the Warren Zevon song, “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”. Years later, I revived the name for my high scores in Tetris on a friend’s computer and subsequently began using it in various on-line contexts.

About a decade ago, not long after 9/11, I read The Song of Roland, the medieval French epic poem based loosely on the 778 Battle of Roncesvalles, and I began to assimilate my on-line persona more to this older Roland by choosing appropriately medieval-looking avatars, or by using the name Roland778 when Roland was already taken.

At the same time, in other on-line contexts I was using the alias Arimathean. Long before my chrismation, when Joseph of Arimathea formally became my patron saint, I had considered him my patron. Within a year of starting my blog, I realized this would have been a more appropriate alias (thus my avatar, which is a mosaic image of Joseph of Arimathea), but I had already begun to establish myself in the blogosphere as Roland. So I decided to wait for a more opportune time to make the switch.

For the past two years while I have been studying theology, I haven’t had much time for blogging (or recreational reading or TV or movies . . .). In the few forums where I have been active, I have mostly been using Arimathean, so Roland is now less likely to be missed. So, as of today, my handle in the blogosphere is changing to Arimathean (though I will continue to go by Roland in some non-blogging contexts).

Speaking of recreational reading . . . My first post-seminary novel brought together both of my on-line personae. The hero of Judith Tarr’s Kingdom of the Grail is Roland, who is a descendant of Merlin and Nimue. Nimue, in turn, is the sister of Parsifal, the Grail King, whom one can infer to be descended from . . . Joseph of Arimathea (though he is not mentioned by name in the book). The novel’s execution was not as good as the concept – it too often followed the conventions of the romance genre rather than historical fantasy.

I am also adopting another change. I recently read a Slate article about “logical punctuation”. Until now, for my whole literate life I have slavishly followed the convention of placing commas and periods inside quotation marks. Unlike nearly all other grammar and punctuation rules, this one never made sense to me, and I was always ready to disparage it whenever the opportunity arose, even while following it scrupulously and enforcing it as an editor. In the Slate article, I learned that this is not the universal English language rule my teachers would have me believe. Rather, it is a peculiarly American rule. The rest of the English-speaking world follows the more logical convention of placing commas and periods after the closing quotation mark (unless the punctuation is logically a part of the quote). On-line, it appears that most Americans are now punctuating like Brits. Wikipedia and other sites have adopted logical punctuation as their standard. And even the old guard has conceded that when quotes enclose a URL any following punctuation should be placed outside the closing quote so that no one tries to paste it into the address bar of his browser as if it were part of the address. For now the conflict continues, but it is already clear that the prescriptivist-traditionalist American copy editors are doomed. I’m happy to join the winning side.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Albanian Iconography

Last year when I posted my photos from Albania, I promised a follow-up post focusing on iconography. Reading about the Albanian adventures of this year’s missiology class inspired me to resume work on that post.

As with my previous Albania post, I drew heavily on the photos taken by other members of the expedition. The pictures will be organized roughly in the order of our itinerary in Albania. My narration will be minimal.

In addition to iconography in the narrow sense, I will feature other aspects of church art, particularly wood carving. And besides traditional ecclesiastical iconography, I will include some less traditional religious art. You can click on any picture to see it full-size.

Our first stop was Annunciation Cathedral, Tirana.


St. Anastasios

The archbishop’s throne

The baptistery chapel


St. Constantine

The Theotokos

St. Panteleimon

Two days later, we stopped at two schools on our way to Shen Vlash Monastery.





The Resurrection of Christ is a popular subject in new Albanian iconography.



At Shen Vlash

The refectory

The monastery chapel





Shen Vlash (aka St. Blaise)

The chapel at the diagnostic clinic.


Framed art at the student center

Nazareth Center houses various ecclesiastical arts, including the creation and restoration of icons and wordworking.




On our way to Korça we stopped for a fish supper at this restaurant in Shen Naumi.

The next day we visited the Metropoly.

Then we spent the rest of the morning sightseeing in Korça, starting with this church.

St. Haralambos


Inside a small shrine

The old cathedral





Monastery of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, Voskopoja




St. Ignatius

St. Nicholas

St. Katherine


Monastery of Ss. Peter & Paul, Vithkuq



The new cathedral in Korça

Church of St. Anna



Shen Naumi (St. Nahum)

Prophet Elijah

Chapel of St. Elijah, high above Korça

Church of the Resurrection, Pogradec

St. Marena


The Last Judgment

Exaltation of the Holy Cross