John Paul II suggests that Adam’s wedding song, celebrating Eve as “flesh of flesh” and “bone of bone” should not be understood merely as a statement of derivation. Even is “flesh of flesh” not merely because she was taken from flesh; the phrases are superlatives, like “holy of holies” or “Song of songs.” Eve is not just more human flesh; she is the perfection of flesh. Read more
In one of the early meditations in his Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body , John Paul II mused on the anthropological import of Adam’s initial solitude in the garden. He notes that the story of Adam’s naming the animals points to the fact that “self-knowledge goes hand in hand with knowledge of this world, of all visible creatures, of all the living beings to which man has given their names.” This is self-knowledge, and... Read more
In one of the early meditations in his Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body , John Paul II mused on the anthropological import of Adam’s initial solitude in the garden. He notes that the story of Adam’s naming the animals points to the fact that “self-knowledge goes hand in hand with knowledge of this world, of all visible creatures, of all the living beings to which man has given their names.” This is self-knowledge, and... Read more
The word “seed” is used six times in Genesis 1, twice each in verses 11, 12, and 29. None of these refers to a human being. The first use of the word for a human being comes in 3:15, which is the next time the word is used after chapter 1. Again the word is doubled: “enmity between your seed and her seed .” The distinction and analogy between “seed” and “seed” is important. Fruit trees bearing seed are types... Read more
Bonaventure works up to a description of the Trinity by contemplating what it means for God to be good. Good is self-diffiusive, and the highest good must be supremely so. Supreme self-diffusion must involve the complete gift of one’s entire being to another, which is what the Father diffuses to the Son. Perfect goodness must produce what is “actual and substantial, and a hypostasis as noble as the producer. Following Richard of St. Victor, he says that this must have... Read more
In his book on Bonaventure (Great Medieval Thinkers) , Christopher Cullen argues that Bonaventure does not separate the treatise de deo uno from one de deo trino . Cullen’s explanation would not, I suspect, satisfy Rahner, since he distinguishes two approaches, one which “fixes the soul’s gaze primarily and principally on Being Itself” leading to the “first name of God,” namely “He Who is” from a second approach in which the soul gazes “on the Good Itself, saying that this... Read more
Acts 10:28: Peter said, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean.” Peter summarizes all the hubbub of the New Testament in this one verse. This is what most of Paul’s conflicts were about, and what the book of Acts was about, and what the book of Revelation is about.... Read more
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, John says. We often think that the Word is concealed behind His flesh. But that is the opposite of the truth. In the Old Testament, Yahweh was hidden within the temple veils, but in the incarnation He comes out of hiding. This is what John says in the next sentence: The Word became flesh, and we saw His glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father. The flesh of Jesus... Read more
Citing the Oresteia , Kass points to the “tragic” character of sibling relations in heroic societies. Though he does not mean the word “tragic” in this sense, it seems that this is bound up with the essentially backward-looking character of brotherhood. Cain and Abel are bound only by their common origin; everything else, Kass points out, diverges – occupation, names, birth order, Eve’s enthusiasm at their birth. Nothing beckons from the future, drawing them to comic cooperation and co-belligerency. For... Read more
In his meditation on the births of Cain and Abel ( The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis ) , Leon Kass notes the difference between male/female and brother/brother relations. Man and woman “are defined relative to each other, and their relationship is incited by desire seeking fusion, which in turn points forward toward offspring.” Brothers are not complementary; though they share the same parents, they are not oriented to each other: “the relation of the sons to one another [is]... Read more
Leithart
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