#Filioque

[apilgrimpassingby]

This sounds thick, but I'm genuinely confused about the filioque. Why is it significant if the Holy Spirit comes from only the Father or both the Father and the Son? Again, sorry for my ignorance

There are a few reasons. I'll list two, because "the filioque" can mean two things - the belief that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, or the clause in the Western Nicene Creed that says so.

As to why Orthodox reject the belief, there are several reasons, but the one I find the most persuasive is that the filioque makes spiration (the cause of procession) belong to the Father and the Son but not the Spirit, making it unlike every other divine attribute, seeing as it does not belong to the Divine Nature (and hence to all the Persons, such as immortality and uncreatedness) or to a Divine Person (and hence to one, such as incarnation for the Son or being unbegotten for the Father). This matters because a clear nature-person distinction is indispensable for good Christology - Christ is one person in two natures, and so while we must affirm statements about the sharing of attributes within the person such as "God died at Golgotha" (to deny this is the heresy of Nestorianism), we must reject statements about the sharing of attributes between the natures such as "the divine nature died at Golgotha" (to affirm this is the heresy of Monophysitism).

As to why the Orthodox reject the clause, it's because it was an addition by the Pope, without consulting and in defiance of the Eastern patriarchs. Some Roman Catholics will try to argue it was fine because the whole section on the Holy Spirit was an addition - but that was an addition by an ecumenical council, not by one patriarch defying the others.

[orthodoxadventure]

The Orthodox tradition firmly teaches two things about the Holy Spirit. First, the Spirit is a person. He is not just a 'divine blast' [. . .], not just an insentient force, but one of the three eternal persons of the Trinity; and so, for all His seeming elusiveness, we can and do enter into a personal 'I-Thou' relationship with Him.

Secondly, the Spirit, as the third member of the Holy Triad, is coequal and coeternal with the other two; He is not merely a function dependent upon them or an intermediary that they employ. One of the chief reasons why the Orthodox Church rejects the Latin addition of the filioque to the Creed, as also the Western teaching about the 'double procession' of the Spirit which lies behind this addition, is precisely our fear that such teaching might lead men to depersonalize and subordinate the Holy Spirit.

The coeternity and coequality of the Spirit is a recurrent theme in the Orthodox hymns for the Feast of Pentecost:

The Holy Spirit for ever was, and is, and shall be; He has neither beginning nor ending, But He is always joined and numbered with the Father and the Son: Life and Giver of Life, Light and Bestower of Light, Love itself and Source of Love: Through Him the Father is made known, Through Him the Son is glorified and revealed to all. One is the power, one is the structure, One is the worship of the Holy Trinity

-- Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way

[cristianesimocattolico]

L'Amore autentico giudicato dalla Verità: la rivelazione del Mistero Trinitario

Perché il Filioque è antidoto all’apostasia della Modernità e baluardo della Verità Cattolica. Continue reading L’Amore autentico giudicato dalla Verità: la rivelazione del Mistero Trinitario

[orthodoxangel]

[ahopefulbromantic]

Yes yes exactly!! By the way, this is also why the Catholic Filioque perspective speaks to me far more (even though I kinda see where the Orthodox are coming from) - if the Holy Spirit is God's Love personified, then it is only fitting that They proceed from both the Father and the Son, as the relationship needs to go both ways.

you believe in the Trinity because you were told to never question the core religious beliefs taught to you by your family and community since a very early age. i believe in the Trinity because it is deeply bizarre, sensual and mysterious. we are not the same!!!

[elucubrare]

someone said this in the tags of this post but i do think it's really interesting that a significant number of people hear "criticism" and immediately think 1) comments made directly to the creator & 2) cruel or bullying comments - it's definitely in line with inability to separate the work from its creator, a phrase that's gotten associated with "defending" oneself from accusations of supporting a creator who's done bad things, but which at its base is fundamentally true: the work is of the creator, for sure, but it is not the creator*: when magazine editors reject my story, they're saying nothing about my character, only that the story didn't work for them. more internet criticism gets personal than i think is good, as a born critic, and that can definitely prime creators to be anxious about it, but separating your work from yourself is pretty necessary if you want to keep creating, unfortunately

[thatsastepladder]

If you don't affirm the entirety of the Nicene Creed you're not a Christian, send tweet.

[apenitentialprayer]

Maybe I should be asking an Orthodox person this, but I do not understand the hubbub with the Filioque. To me it is hair splitting, could you explain why it would not be hairsplitting? Or if there is an aspect I am missing as to why it was the final straw for a schism?

Okay, ah, I think there are two aspects that need to be addressed here. The first deals with the simple fact of its inclusion in the Creed, and I'm going to come off as a traitor here, so let me clarify my personal position; I believe the filioque best represents the reality of the Spirit's procession, but I think it was bad that the Western Church inserted it into the Nicene Creed.

As Henri de Lubac talks about in The Christian Faith, the Church allows for many theologies, spiritualities, customs, and liturgical traditions to coexist; "from one country to another and from one century to another there are many differences in emphasis." What connects all these elaborations and practices of the Christian faith is that they are all anchored in that faith, as revealed by God and distilled in the Creed. That faith is the unity of all Christians everywhere.

And what convinced me that the inclusion of the filioque was not a good move actually came from another Catholic thinker, Karl Rahner, who wrote "the inevitable pluralism met with in theology cannot and must not cause the unity of the creed of faith to disappear from the Church, even in its verbal expression." Except.... that's exactly what the Western Church did. It took the Creed as articulated by two separate ecumenical councils, and unilaterally added words to it. And while there are historical reasons for that inclusion, and while I think the theology behind its inclusion is true, I think modifying what was meant to be the unifying symbol of the Christian faith was not a good move. And I can see why the filioque inclusion seems like a rupture from the Orthodox tradition. Because... we have caused the unity of the creed of faith in its verbal expression to disappear.

And I think that's a bigger problem than the content of the filioque clause itself, to be honest. But, as far as the content goes, let's talk about that, too.

In the Orthodox perspective, the three Persons of the Trinity share a common nature, and there's a kind of symmetry where the traits of any given Person is either held in common by all three, or is reserved for one of Them. So, for example, the state of being uncreated and eternal are traits shared by all Persons in the Trinity, as is the fact that They are almighty and infinite. Those are traits derived from their divine nature. But in terms of traits distinctive to Their individual Personhoods, well: the Father is seen as the Source of the other two, while the Son is the only begotten Member of the Trinity, and the Spirit is the only spirated Member. An Orthodox Christian may argue that the filioque ruins this symmetry of Persons; if the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, the distribution of Personal traits is no longer equal (two Persons have a trait that one Person does not have). This can be seen as a kind of ontological inferiority on the Spirit's end.

From the perspective of the Roman Church and Her western descendants, the articulation of the Trinity doesn't really involve this "common to All or particular to One" logic. Instead, we tend to use a sacramental logic that assumes that how the Persons of the Trinity operate within Their creation also tells us something about how They relate to each other from all eternity. So, the Father sends the Son into the world (John 17:1-4); hence the Father begets the Son. But the Father sends the Holy Spirit to the disciples "in [Christ's] name" (John 14:16-17, 26). So, the Father sends the Spirit, but the Son is somehow involved. The Holy Spirit is believed to still have one origin, but this one origin is the joint act of Father and Son. Part of this may have to do with different starting assumptions. Eastern Christians tend to start their thinking on the Trinity as Three existing in Unity, while Western Christians tend to start their thinking on the Trinity with One existing in Multiplicity.

But this is a super complicated subject, so if someone wants to correct me about either of the perspectives I tried to lay out, please feel free to do so.

[jh-newman-opn]

I'm wondering what's the difference between Catholicism and other denominations, I know the main things are the pipe and the virgin Mary actually being respected, but I like to hear from someone whose passionate.

Also it's really funny to think someone going like "She's Jesus adjacent but she had an epidural from god so it's not that big a deal"

(I say godly epidural because how else is childbirth a silent night)

yoooo hello friend thank you for your message :))) assuming this is continuing in some sense from earlier things said whilst reblogging so I'm gonna approach it with that in mind

So there's two good ways of visualising the difference between various flavours of Christianity:

Firstly, as three paradigms, rather than specific Church Groups per se.

Catholicism is a unity-in-truth-variety-in-practice paradigm: we all believe the same things, united under one leader and a centralised way of forming beliefs. How exactly those beliefs are put into practice (eg in different liturgy styles) is more flexible, leading to a range of "rites".

Orthodoxy is a unity-in-practice-variety-in-beliefs paradigm: the liturgy and iconography and expression of the faith is critically important as practical modes of theology (much less written teaching than catholics!), and they have a sort of nebula of hierarchies that have variable relationships with each other and variable theological approaches to a given topic. Important to note that despite the slightly chaotic organisational structure, they have maintained almost exactly the same beliefs as Catholics, but verbalised differently, which leads people to think they're different beliefs (eg. Filioque, Dormition vs Assumption).

Protestantism is a non-unity-total-variety paradigm, wherein beliefs and practice are both determined on a micro-level, leading to a rather volatile structure where schism is common and somewhat expected-- practically speaking the laity get on with things without paying much attention to the schisms, forming what I affectionately call "the Protestant soup".

This paradigm problem broadly boils down to a problem of authority-- when there is a disagreement between two arguments (which may both be reasonably proven from scripture), who decides? and how can you trust the decision? We'd say that the Catholic Church continues to be guided infallibly by the Holy Spirit, just as the Church of the early centuries was guided to correct belief on 1) the trinity 2) the canon of scripture and 3) whether gentile converts should be circumcised. Protestants reject this but imho never came up with a convincing alternative, leading to the chaotic nature of the paradigm as a whole.

Secondly, and this is a biased opinion as someone who converted to Catholicism from a historically Protestant culture, it seems to me useful to consider how Protestant theology (paradigmatically) developed from Catholicism. I know it doesn't necessarily occur to people from Prot-majority countries that Catholicism is actually the default Christianity, and that they're the innovation, but it's a really elucidating realisation. You have to see Protestantism as inherently a reaction to Catholicism, and something that has to define itself in relation to Catholicism.

To summarise: the various strains of the Reformation (Calvinism, Lutheranism, Zwingliism, Anglicanism, etc) are all based off the assumption that Catholicism somehow had "too many" beliefs, that needed to be reduced to reveal a "purer" form of Christianity.

The truth is that while Catholicism seems very maximalist, and like it has a lot of "extra" things (saints, Marian devotion, feast days, confession, bigger bible, fasting practices, monastic charisms, etc etc etc), the truth is that all of these things form a very rich, interlocking system of theology, where every belief is dependent on every other belief. How you understand Mary's role as Theotokos is dependent on a correct understanding of Christ's dual nature, which depends on a rejection of Gnostic dualism, which then gives you a proper sexual ethic and an understanding of the Incarnation, which then links back to the Immaculate Conception, which gives you the Assumption, which explains why you need to go to confession before receiving the Eucharist, etc etc. It sounds a bit overwhelming but when it starts to fall into place you see that every single thing works in this tightly symbiotic ecosystem of doctrine, all of which works to magnify God. The "extra" things are enriching, not distracting.

So when you get the Reformation, and Protestants start subtracting things willy-nilly, the ecosystem starts to fall apart and mutate in strange ways. Protestant groups then separate and keep mutating based on what each one wants to subtract. The Anglican church is a good example of this-- they started by having Catholicism, but subtracting the idea that marriage is an unbreakable covenant (Henry VIII wanted a divorce). This leads to mutation in the understanding of marriage as a sacrament, leading to 2 sacraments rather than the traditional 7, which then nukes confession, holy orders, anointing of the sick, and confirmation. If you don't have holy orders, you lose the theology of the eucharist, which in a lot of Anglican churches is now seen as symbolic (or near enough). if you lose the real presence in the eucharist, your incarnation theology is now buggered. Similarly, as we were discussing in the other reblogs-- Calvinism and Lutheranism both lose the idea of indulgences, when then loses the idea of purgatory, which means you lose a proper understanding of sanctification (theosis), leading to once-saved-always-saved, meaning the Crucifixion, instead of being this great act of Love, is now a legal transaction of salvation, which reconfigures how guilt and contrition work, and which once again buggers your eucharistic theology because the emphasis on it as a one-time event means you've lost the mystical and constant resonance of calvary through all time. All of this then knocks onto how you build churches-- the altar is now no longer front and centre, because the Old Testament sacrifice is not present anymore, so you have a big-ass pulpit and the service is centred around preaching, not around the sacrifice of the Mass. Ironically, though the Reformers aimed to have a more Christ-centric Christianity, the change in how they fundamentally do church services illustrates exactly how you actually end up with a man-centric church that puts Christ off to the side. And that's not even getting into how Luther removed books from the Bible to support his own theology.

I would say that the continuous nature of Catholicism (and Orthodoxy, to a lesser extent) from a) the Judaism of the Old Testament and b) the church of the first few centuries is really very critical. John Henry Newman's Essay on the Development of Doctrine is the seminal work on this (very readable, 100/10 would recommend). The sacramental priesthood is a continuation of the Levitical priesthood, the sacrifice of the mass is the fulfilment of Temple sacrifice (SUPER important in the OT-- the Torah goes on for pages and pages and pages about it), the Pope is the continuation of figures such as Moses and David, who are also Christ-types. I've got a friend converting to Catholicism from Orthodox Judaism and she keeps pointing out to me similarities that I didn't even know existed. On the Early Church-- you'll see a lot of quote-mining from both sides, but the key points that are really indisputable are 1) the idea that the bread and wine literally transform in some mystical way and 2) that the Church is united in an episcopal structure, with an emphasis on Rome as primus inter pares (the first among equals). What exactly this second point entails is why the East and West split-- my view is that the current fiasco in Moscow proves that the Pope is necessary but that's another essay-length post.

Doctrinally of course there's a lot of haggling over specifics eg. the Virgin Mary, soteriology, eucharistic theology, etc etc etc and my impression is that Protestants generally try to justify their beliefs in two ways: 1) Rome is entirely wrong and we're not related to them in any way (really low church baptists, anabaptists, pentecostals, etc) or 2) Rome is wrong but also we believe the same things as Rome and are completely different to stereotypical Protestants (anglicans, lutherans, presbyterians). Both of these approaches IMO demonstrate the truth of Catholicism, because group 1 are just demonstrably so far away from OG christianity that they cannot reasonably argue that they're more authentically Christian than Catholics-- at best these two are equally bad and group 2 seem to implicitly know that Rome is right, because they justify themselves by disavowing anything that isn't ostensibly Catholic and allying themselves with Catholic beliefs as much as possible. The truth is that we can get really bogged down in the specific details of oh Calvin actually said this or maybe Augustine actually meant that, but it doesn't really matter when the overall paradigmatic approach is so far removed from the first 1500 years of Christianity. The idea that you can have multiple churches believing different things and all being equally authentically Christian is a total invention of the Reformation, and quite frankly, a disservice to the lay faithful who didn't ask to be bogged down in all of this anyway.

Finally, to round off this abhorrently long answer to your question (apologies!!!)-- sacramentality and the concrete motion of grace are really important concepts. For Catholics, the motion of God's grace and divine action are really concrete things. Grace comes through the sacraments, which are literally what they say they are. Mary appears sometimes and tells us things. Miracles literally happen. The saints are part of our community and you can talk to them and ask them for things. Their bones are pieces of that which is holy. The action of God is a very real and close part of the practice of the lay Catholic that can be studied and analysed in quite a scientific manner (look up how the Vatican approves miracles, for example!), and which the lay person interacts with in the same way they'd interact with any other part of their life. There's a quote from someone (Eamon Duffy??) that goes something like: for the mediaeval Catholic, Purgatory, Heaven, and Hell were places as real as Canterbury or Dover. Part of the Protestant paradigm involves spiritualising: Christ is not bodily present in the Eucharist, but spiritually, the saints are just any and all Christians, and heaven stays in heaven until you get there yourself. It's partly why Newman argues that this kind of spiritualised belief naturally tends towards atheism-- it's lost the sense of hard reality.

Hope that's at least somewhat helpful-- as I say, you can get bogged down in long lists of where beliefs differ, but I think given the rather broad and variable nature of Protestant beliefs, it's unhelpful to try to distill them down into A List. Similarly, because Catholic beliefs are so interdependent, it's really difficult to make the case for one belief without bringing in other parts of the network, which is why Prot-Cath dialogue often ends up going in circles quoting scripture or the church fathers and nobody wins. Feel free to ask further about anything if you can face another long answer (probably won't be quite as long as this!), and god bless you. I'll say a Hail Mary for you to find whatever it is that you need to find.

[zerogate]

Byzantium doesn’t fit well in our picture of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, because those categories were created to marginalize Byzantium. We have been taught that Byzantium was the left-over of the fallen Roman empire, slowly declining into insignificance. A decline lasting 1,123 years! Think about it! The reality is that Byzantium was the Roman Empire until the West, having seceded from it, erased it from history. “Byzantium in the tenth century resembled the Roman empire of the fourth century more than it resembled any contemporary western medieval state.” Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages are therefore provincial constructs that are irrelevant from a Byzantine perspective — as they are, of course, from a Eurasian perspective (what does “China in the Middle Ages”, or “India in the Middle Ages” mean?).

Even our Western notion of “medieval Christianity” is seriously biased, Kaldellis argues: “‘medieval Christianity’ is understood to be of western and central Europe, even though the majority of Christians during the medieval period lived in the east, in the Slavic, Byzantine, and Muslim-ruled lands, and farther east than that too.” Not to mention that, until the 8th century, the bishop of Rome was appointed by Constantinople.

Byzantine revisionism also means getting the Byzantine side of the story of its long struggle with the West, acknowledging that the victor’s narrative is deceptive, as it always is. We have been told that the crusades were the generous response of the West to the Byzantines’ plea for help. And if, by some historian’s indiscretion, we hear about the crusaders’ sack of Constantinople in 1204, he at least explains that “the Venetians made them do it”, or that it was a regrettable case of friendly fire caused by the fog of war. Byzantine revisionism clears that fog away. “There was never a greater crime against humanity than the Fourth Crusade,” wrote Steven Runciman.

It is hard to exaggerate the harm done to European civilisation by the sack of Constantinople. The treasures of the City, the books and works of art preserved from distant centuries, were all dispersed and most destroyed. The Empire, the great Eastern bulwark of Christendom, was broken as a power. Its highly centralised organisation was ruined. Provinces, to save themselves, were forced into devolution. The conquests of the Ottoman were made possible by the Crusaders’ crime.

Anthony Kaldellis puts it in the correct perspective:

It was in fact an act of aggression by one civilization against another, in the sense that both the aggressor and the victim were acutely aware of their ethnic, religious, political, and cultural differences, and the extreme violence that accompanied the destruction of Constantinople was driven by the self-awareness on the part of many crusaders of those differences.

It is good that John-Paul II publicly apologized for the fourth crusade 800 years later, but it doesn’t change the fact that his predecessor Innocent III had responded to the news of the conquest of the city with joy and thanksgiving, and immediately tried to mobilize a fresh round of soldiers, clerics and settlers to secure the new Latin empire. In a sermon given in Rome and repackaged as a letter to the clergy accompanying the crusaders, “Innocent describes the capture of Constantinople as an act of God, who humbles the proud, renders obedient the disobedient, and makes Catholic the schismatic. Innocent argues that the Greek failure to affirm the filioque (a Trinitarian error), is akin to the Jewish error of not recognizing Christ’s divinity. And, as such, the pontiff suggests that both Greek error and their downfall were predicted in Revelation.”

[...]

Byzantine revisionism is controversial because it challenges not only the image that Westerners have of Byzantium, but also the image that Westerners have of the West. We are the civilization of the crusades, that have destroyed Byzantium, and have since tried to destroy all civilizations that stood in the way of our hegemony. We should know, at least, that this is the way Russia and much of the world is seeing us. As I have argued in “A Byzantine view of Russia and Europe,” we cannot understand Russia without doing some Byzantine revisionism, because Russia is Byzantium redivivus in many ways.

[...]

The best contribution of Anthony Kaldellis to Byzantine studies is the new light he shines on the true nature of Byzantine civilization, by first pealing off layers of Western prejudice, polemic, and deceit, but also by reading through Byzantium’s own imperial propaganda.

For example, Kaldellis argues that Christianity, although essential to Byzantine identity, was not as central and exclusive in everyday life as we have been led to believe, by reading too many ecclesiastical authors. Even during the reigns of Justin and Justinian, reputed to be an era of intolerant Christian orthodoxy, many officials and intellectuals showed not even nominal Christian faith: such is the case of the historian Procopius, who speaks of “Christians” as if excluding himself from that group, and regards as “insanely stupid to investigate the nature of God and ask what sort it is.” As I have argued elsewhere, the very name given by Justinian to his architectural masterpiece—the world’s greatest building for one thousand years—testifies to his high regard for Hellenism: Hagia Sophia, or Holy Wisdom, is the goddess of philosophers, not theologians.

-- Laurent Guyénot, Byzantine Revisionism Unlocks World History

[sutton-ho]

Great news for you about the Ethiopic Canon

they should put more words in the bible

[caesarsaladinn]

you ask Niketas what faith he follows and he says "I'm Christian" (is there another option? what are you implying?), and if you press him on what that means he'll give you some misremembered Neoplatonist apologetics, and if you press him even further you'll discover he's just a normal orthodox iconophile anti-filioque Chalcedonian who does whatever the patriarch says

[grundtvigenjoyer]

Filioque did this

[sapphosremains]

You've mentioned considering leaving Anglicanism. If you were to do so, would you rather be Orthodox or Roman Catholic, and what's the reasoning?

In short, I remain torn as always. This morning I read a post from a sister I follow who converted from Roman Catholicism to Anglicanism, where she talked about appreciating Anglicanism for its freedom to appreciate and incorporate aspects of other denominations, as we don't claim to be One True Church. This is probably the thing keeping me in Anglicanism right now - there are aspects of Orthodoxy that speak to me, and aspects of RC that speak to me, and I have the freedom to learn from both. However, the failing of this is the presumption that I should be allowed to pick and choose. This is the root of it - why I think I will probably convert in the end - I don't think it should be up to me.

The appeal of both Orthodoxy and RC is the nagging feeling that this Protestant idea of scripture being the highest authority, and that we ought to be free to interpret it as we please, cannot be right. As someone once put it - Jesus did not leave us a KJV and tell us to get on with it! Christ left us His disciples, His Church, and the keys to St Peter. I cannot be Protestant as I cannot reject sacred tradition. Furthermore, I accept that there is a reason why the Pope is the Pope and I am not. Firstly, he is a man! But he is highly educated, called by God, and the vicar of His Church. Why would I not respect his authority? I believe sacred scripture and sacred tradition must come hand in hand - each support the other. While I believe the Bible is inerrant and infallible, I know that I am not. Therefore I am bound to interpret it wrong (do not rely on your own insight etc etc). However, I have sacred tradition to guide me - knowledge passed down quite literally from God himself. Why would I ever abandon that?

Other more specific appeals are in things such as my belief in transubstantiation (not symbols!!!), the communion of God's people (intercession of saints), respect for and veneration of Mary, etc.

Now, the issue of Orthodox or RC. I think most likely RC. Above all else, I feel more called to RC. I think this is the most important part - all the reasoning I might go on to explain might just as easily be called picking and choosing a denomination by what appeals as far as my Anglicanism! The big one, of course, is filioque. I just agree with the RC perspective. The biblical evidence for the Spirit proceeding from the Son makes sense to me, and it seems cohesive. However, of course a lot of modern theologians suggest that it ought not be a cause of schism, as it is a matter of interpretation as opposed to doctrine, and there is little true difference in meaning, more a misunderstanding of each other's interpretations. How true this is, I am not theologically informed enough to say, but, as with many others, I do hope for reunification of the Church. Although the Orthodox presentation of the one form of divine revelation makes sense to me, I prefer the RC explanation of the two forms.

However, the pervasive issue I have which is preventing my conversion so far is the issues I take with some doctrines. And this feels a little more important as a convert. I have plenty of cradle RC friends, say, who support the idea of female priests, and believe homosexuality isn’t a sin etc, but I can’t help but feel I can’t take these same views as a convert, because I’ve chosen this denomination, if that makes sense? So I should accept it in its totality - no Protestant style quibbling of bits I don’t like. The same goes for the opposite - I’ve talked before about how fond I am of the Orthodox view of original sin, but continuing to hold a similar perception if I did convert to RC seems inappropriate. The same issues don’t apply while I stay Anglican. Firstly, we’re renowned for our flexibility - my priest only recently was discussing the freedom of Anglicans to choose any eucharistic interpretation they feel drawn to, between strict symbolism and complete transubstantiation. So, should I wish to say a Hail Mary (in fact, encouraged by my priest quite recently!) or pray my rosary, or appreciate the Orthodox view of original sin, I am quite welcome to. The second aspect of this is that I was raised Anglican - it’s my denomination, and I feel more entitled to mess with it! Anyway, that’s my main issue - any thoughts would be much appreciated!

Thank you for this question - it definitely made me consider a lot of things I hadn't before!

[heresylog]

Heresy.

its kind of cool that "god was a baby for a while" is not only something implied by christianity but *emphasized*. i guess krishna-reverence also does this

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

Submitting some Theophany Matins for your analysis and enjoyment and my enjoyment of your analysis.

At Your epiphany at River Jordan, O Christ, when by the Forerunner, O Savior, You were baptized, the voice from heaven testified that You are the beloved Son. Therefore You were shown to be with the Father beginningless, and the Holy Spirit came down as a dove and alighted on You. In Him we are illumined and cry out, Glory to God in Trinity.

Jordan River, tell us do: What did you see and were amazed? I saw naked Him Whom none can see, and shuddered in fear. And how was I not to shudder at Him and be frightened? The Angels, when they saw Him also shuddered in awe. And heaven was astonished, and astounded was earth. The sea recoiled along with all things both visible and invisible. For Christ appeared in the River Jordan, to sanctify the waters.

You who are God, uncircumscribed, without beginning, and ineffable, came to earth, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, because in Your tender mercy, O Master, You did not bear to see the human race being tortured by the devil; so You came and saved us. We acknowledge Your gift, we proclaim Your mercy, we do not hide Your goodness. You freed the offspring of our nature. By being born You sanctified a virgin womb. All creation extolled You at Your epiphany. You, our God, were seen upon the earth and lived among men. When You sent down Your all-holy Spirit from heaven and crushed the heads of the dragons who were lurking in the water, You sanctified the River Jordan.

You are our God, who by water and the Spirit renewed nature that was worn out by sin. You are our God, who by the flood waters in the days of Noah washed away sin. You are our God, who through the sea by Moses freed the Hebrew people from slavery to Pharaoh. You are our God, who split the rock in the desert, and waters flowed, and brooks flooded, and You gave the people water to drink and satisfied them. You are our God, who with water and fire by Elijah disabused Israel of the deceit of Baal.

You revealed Yourself today on earth, O Master, and Your light was stamped on us, who in the knowledge of the truth, O Lord, extol Your epiphany. You came; You revealed yourself, O unapproachable Light.

Okay so I’m late but everyone knew I was going to be. That said, I really do enjoy these. Analyzing literature is one of my favorite things to do and theopoetics is the best. 

Also spoiler alert: I really enjoyed these.

“At Your epiphany at River Jordan, O Christ-” Okay so I’ve told you this before but this passage in the gospels is so important for me. The Father declaring his love for the Son by the means of the Spirit. This is actually why I am still a trinitarian (I was binitarian for like a week last year), why I don’t believe in the filioque, my answer for the question of “Who is God?” — like I said, very beloved passage of mine. “In Him [the Holy Spirit] we are illumined and cry out, Glory to God in Trinity.” Whoa. That is so cool. Reminds me of Moses on Sinai, glowing after his intimacy with God. 

“Jordan River, tell us do:“ WERE TALKING TO THE RIVER??? AND THE RIVER TALKS BACK!!!! Did not see that coming. Very cool. “The Angels, when they saw Him also shuddered in awe. And heaven was astonished, and astounded was earth. The sea recoiled along with all things both visible and invisible. For Christ appeared in the River Jordan, to sanctify the waters.” I love this. It’s very cosmic. From the angels to the to the river — all of creation trembles at the unveiling of God to the world. Also the seas: very popular biblical metaphor (and one I often use) to talk about the nations. So in the sanctification of the waters is God coming to dwell in all of humanity, Jew and nonjew.

“You who are God, uncircumscribed, without beginning, and ineffable, came to earth, taking the form of a servant” OMG THE KENOSIS!!!!! One of my favorite NT poems. Oh my goodness how could it not be! That God would become man!? The king, a slave!? Son of the Heavenly Father, son of a poor girl and a carpenter?? “taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, because in Your tender mercy, O Master, You did not bear to see the human race being tortured by the devil” okay this is good. I love the juxtaposition of God taking the form of a servant and being called “Master”. Nice. Also the contrast between the “tender mercy” (I will restrain myself but. Chesed.) and our torture at the hands of the accuser. “We acknowledge Your gift, we proclaim Your mercy, we do not hide Your goodness.” Okay this gives me Jonah vibes. I talk a lot about how Jonah found the chesed of God to be so horrifying he’s rather die (mood). But here, we as the church have none of that terror. We receive his gift of love with open arms and proclaim it to the ends of the earth — delighting in it! Because again how could we not: “You freed the offspring of our nature.” “By being born You sanctified a virgin womb. All creation extolled You at Your epiphany. You, our God, were seen upon the earth and lived among men.” I like how this once centers on the incarnation. God redeeming matter via his incarnation; I imagine the beasts surrounding the divine babe as bowing down to him as they do in classical art. This matin really comes full circle in an amazing way: begins by extolling the transcendence of the God Most High; revel in the glory of the kenosis and the magnitude of divine love; delight in the incarnation; and finally "sent down Your all-holy Spirit from heaven and crushed the heads of the dragons who were lurking in the water, You sanctified the River Jordan." Oh my freaking goodness. Idk if i've told you this but i kind of have a thing for dragon imagery in scripture. It’s just really, really cool. Anyway, the “you crushed the heads of the dragon” is a reference to either (or both) the psalms and Isaiah but either way those are riffing on the serpent crusher/dragon slayer from Gen 3:15. I need to meditate on this though. In this matin it links the crushing of dragon’s head to the coming of the Holy Spirit rather than the crucifixion. The only thing that comes to mind is the association of violent empires (i.e Babylon/Rome) to dragons and the fact that at Pentecost (and all the other occasions of mass Spiritual baptism) happen when barriers of nationality and ethnicity are transgressed. Like I said tho, I need to meditate on this. Edit: okay, I’m back, so the connection is between the Jesus baptism, at which the Spirit descended upon him (like at the flood and in Gen 1), and that is when he crushes the heads of the dragon and sanctified the River Jordan . The narrative following this in all of the Synoptics is the tempting in the wilderness (Matthews version is the best. Mark’s version is cool because of the beasts. Luke’s order is weird imo). Interestingly, when the slanderer quotes the psalm (idr which one) he quotes verses 11 and 12 (“the messengers will not allow your feet to stumble upon a stone” etc etc). Conveniently, and hilariously imo, he doesn’t quote the next verse which is about how God will empower the psalmist to crush the chaos monsters (lions and scorpions specifically). Which is ofc what Jesus goes on to do. I still haven’t quite connected this to the rest of the matin but progress 

“water and the Spirit” is this about something other than just baptism? It’s making the chord in my brain go off but I can’t place it. Sounds like a psalm or a latter prophet. Anyway. This might be my favorite because — I’m not gonna quote because I’d have to just quote the whole thing it’s so good — the connection of Jesus baptism with the cosmic baptism of the flood that brought cleansing and the baptism of Israel that liberated them from slavery and then also the splitting of the rock (that phrasing is amazing. Need to meditate on that) — actually let me rest on this bit: the rock is split and the waters flood. This language is creation and decreation language (the waters split in Gen 1). And with that strange mixture the people are given life in the death-land. Something something this is about the cross and the side wound which is split as the water of life pours forth. So, a baptism that brings cleansing, liberation, life by means of death, and then finally Elijah. Who with water and fire (a phrase that speaks of spiritual baptism to me) brings enlightenment to those who are deceived. One final thought because this has been on my mind: the use of “You are our God” (like in the Our Father prayer) gets rid of any feelings of individualism. God is not just “my God” but “Our God”. I’m just pointing this out because of been thinking about this recently. 

“You revealed Yourself today on earth, O Master, and Your light was stamped on us, who in the knowledge of the truth, O Lord, extol Your epiphany. You came; You revealed yourself, O unapproachable Light.” Oh my goodness this reminds me of the “Logos” hymn in John. The emphasis on light and knowledge. But also, this is epiphany and so ofc this is also about Matthew: when that nations followed the light to worship at the City of God (Isaiah 61 I think), who had become a baby boy. “You revealed yourself, O unapproachable Light” reminds me of the kenosis again. Our God and King became a baby and a slave. Word become flesh.