XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox
From: hayesmstw@hotmail.com
On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 10:26:47 -0500, Larry Swain
wrote:
>Steve Hayes wrote:
>> It was the post-Conquest bishop, Anslelm, who wrote "Cur Deus homo?" which
>> marked the biggest and most significant divergence from Orthodox theology.
>>
>
>What are you reading as "Orthodox" theology? Have you not read Aelfric?
Hardly an Orthodox
>theologian. Or Bede if we go to the beginning of the period? Anglo-Saxon
England's church was
>Roman through and through and proud of it. As I said, the creed for example
that exists both
>in Latin and in Old English from manuscripts of the period includes the
filioque clause, one of
>the key differences between Roman and Byzantium. So I have to wonder where
your
>characterization of the church in England as Orthodox comes from and on what
points, what are
>your sources and so on.
For the record, since this is before the period we were originally discussing,
the "filioque" was introduced in Rome itself some time after 1000.
"Byzantium" is an anachronism, a term introduced by tendentious Western
historians with an axe to grind. The city was then called Constaninople, and
it, and its church, regarded themselves as Roman. They would have been post
surprised to discover that some people of a later age regarded them as not
Roman but "Byzantine". Those who promoted the "filioque" were Franks. The
schism of 1054 was caused by ignorant Frankish legates from the Pope of Rome
excomunicating the Patriarch of Constantinople for allegedly removing the
"filioque" from the Symbol of Faith. Such was their ignorance that they were
not aware that it was not originally part of the Symbol of Faith, but had been
added by the Council of Toledo.
Until 1054 the Churches of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and
Jerusalem were in communion with each other, and were part of what the Symbol
of Faith refers to as the "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church". Thus any
who were in communion with the bishops of any of those cities were regarded as
being part of the Orthodox Church.
The spat in 1054 was originally between Rome and Constantinople only.
Alexandria, for example, was still in communion with Rome, and indeed with
Canterbury and York.
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem eventually aligned themselves with
Constantinople, and as time went on the schism became more difficult to heal.
What had originally been a rather silly misunderstanding developed into a real
theological and cultural divide, which was not only about the filioque.
My point, which was a hypothesis, was that one of the things that made it more
difficult to heal the schism was Anselm's soteriology, which became widespread
in the West, but was hardly heard of in the East, partly because of the schism
of 1054. Another, which I have not mentioned before, but which may be
relevant, is the Crusades, which began at the same time.
The other point, which is more germane to this thread, was that there were
changes in Western Eucharistic theology at about this time (11th-12th
centuries) which may have been related to the Grail stories that became
popular at the same time. I really cannot see the relevance of Bede or Aelfric
to this.
This can be illustrated by a coment from an Orthodox theologian:
"The uniqueness of secularism, its difference from the great
heresies of the patristic age, is that the latter were provoked
by the encounter of Christianity with Hellenism, whereas the for-
mer is the result of a "breakdown" within Christianity itself, of
its own deep metamorphosis... At the end of the twelfth century a
Latin theologian, Berengarius of Tours, was condemned for his
teaching on the Eucharist. He maintained that because the
presence of Christ in the Eucharistic elements is "mystical" or
"symbolic," it is not real. The Lateran Council which condemned
him - and here is for me the crux of the matter - simply reversed
the formula. It proclaimed that since Christ's presence in the
Eucharist is real, it is not "mystical." What is decisive here is
precisely the disconnection and the opposition of the two terms
verum and mystice, the acceptance, on both sides, that they are
mutually exclusive. Western theology thus declared that that
which is "mystical" or "symbolic" is not real, whereas that which
is "real" is not symbolic. This was, in fact, the collapse of the
fundamental Christian mysterion, the antinomical "holding
together" of the reality of the symbol, and of the symbolism of
reality. It was the collapse of the fundamental Christian under-
standing of creation in terms of its fundamental sacramentality.
And since then, Christian thought, in Scholasticism and beyond
it, never ceased to oppose these terms, to reject, implicitly or
explicitly, the "symbolic realism" and the "realistic symbolism"
of the Christian world view" (Schmemann 1988:128),
Among the Inklings, the theme of the Grail was taken up most by Charles
Williams, and hardly at all by Tolkien. Williams also made his own
contribution to the Arthurian cycle, and Lewis did in a smaller way (eg Merlin
in "That hideous strength") but Tolkien hardly at all. But, as others have
pinted out, these may be more a mythology for Britain than for England.
I also find it interesting that Lewis, in "The lion, the witch and the
wardrobe", appears to support the soteriology that Anselm rejected.
--
Steve Hayes
E-mail: hayesmstw@hotmail.com
Web: http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/books.htm
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* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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