Athanasius quotes Dionysius regarding the perichoretic relation of word and intelligence: “For word is an efflux of intelligence, and, to borrow language applicable to men, theintelligence that issues by the tongue is derived from the heart through the mouth, coming out different from the word in the heart. For the latter remains, after sending forth the other, as it was. But the other is sent forth and flies forth, and is borne in every direction. And so each is in the other,... Read more
Slusser ends his article on prosopological exegesis by noting that the Spirit “does not appear as an interlocutor within the texts we have examined by prosopological exegesis.” But that is because “the Spirit is the source of all the utterances of Scripture, even those in which the Father or the Word express themselves ‘in their own person.’” He elaborates: ”As the one who speaks all the words, including those spoken as by the persons of Father, Son, the people of Israel,... Read more
How did prosopon (“face” or “mask”) become the accepted term for the “persons” of the Godhead in the East. In a 1988 article in Theological Studies , Michael Slusser examines what other scholars have called “prosopological exegesis,” exegesis done with attention to the variety of speakers in a biblical text. He quotes this from Justin: “But when you listen to the words of the prophets spoken ‘as from a person’ ( hos apo prosòpou ), do not suppose that they... Read more
Another student, Jesse Sumpter, summarized an article by one Kathryn Walls on the axe in Sir Gawain. She connects the axe with the words of John the Baptist in Matthew 3: The axe is already laid at the foot of the trees. That fits the setting of the Green Knight’s first appearance – during the Christmas season, when not only the coming of Jesus but the coming of John would be celebrated. Walls also points to Augustine’s interpretation of Matthew... Read more
“Kitsch” has become a key category in critical evaluations of the aesthetics of “mass society.” Thomas Kincaid, Hummels, sentimental novels and manipulative Hallmark movies are all branded with the label. I think it’s a useful label, but a student paper on the subject left me with some suspicious. 1) The student, David Dalbey, noted how paranoid people become when confronted with the question of kitsch: “Did I get something kitschy for my mother for Christmas last year?” they ask, anxiously.... Read more
Augustine said that knowing and willing were inseparable. Knowledge is “a thing discovered,” and “discovery is often preceded by a search which aims at resting in its object. Searching is a striving ( appetitus ) for discovery.” He continues: “We may say that the mind’s ‘bringing forth’ is preceded by a kind of striving, by which, in the seeking and finding of what we desire to know, knowledge is born as offspring. It follows that this striving, whereby knowledge is... Read more
In a very stimulating presentation on “divine poetics” in Thomas, my colleague Jonathan McIntosh pointed to this very intriguing statement from Disputed Questions on Truth : “The one first form to which all things are reduced is the divine essence, considered in itself. Reflecting upon this essence, the divine intellect devises (advenit ) - if I may use such an expression—different ways in which it can be imitated. The plurality of ideas comes from these different ways.” Read more
More from Mark McIntosh’s Mystical Theology . The Word, he notes, is the “expression of the Father’s ecstatic love which causes there to be an ‘other’ in God.” That same love not only leads to the begetting of the Son, but “leads to the eternal filial response of the Son towards the Father.” The Father is identified – McIntosh hints we might even say “constituted” – by “his eternal desire to pour out the divine life for the Other-in-God (the... Read more
What is the resurrection like? Paul says, like a tree that grows from the planted seed of our body; like the glory of a brighter star. Or this, as Hamann puts it in his London notebooks, in a comment on Genesis 2:21-23: “Adam awakes as the dead of which David says, in order to praise the Lord (Psalm 88:10). With this joy will we from deep death-sleep ( Todensschlaf e ) awake and see the transformation of our bones and... Read more
Mark A. McIntosh ( Mystical Theology: The Integrity of Spirituality and Theology (Challenges in Contemporary Theology) ) offers a profound and moving pneumatological response to what he describes as the “mythological” and “Cartesian” Trinitarian theology in Moltmann and La Cugna. The Spirit, he affirms, elicits from people who hear the message of Jesus “the only real response that one can make to God’s self-communication in Jesus, namely a willingness to participate in Jesus’ own life and mission.” Thus, “the strain... Read more
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