www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Christmas = Feast of the Incarnation???

I think we forget that seperate feasts that attempt to correspond historically to this moment and that moment were rather later additions. The early Church simply celebrated a mystery and that was it. The early Church celebrated Pashca as one mystery. It did not seperate Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Resurrection, the Ascension or Pentecost. All were celebrated at Pascha as these encompassed the main mystery of Pascha, the Lord has become our Passover, death is defeated, we are granted life and wait for the Second Coming in Glory. Theophany was much the same early on the Annuncaition, Nativity, Adoration, of the Magi, and the Lord's Baptism were all celebrated at Theophany. The Lord is revealed to us, both the Godhead as Trinity and the Son as True God and True Man. So the Annunciation, The Visitation (in the Latin Church) and the Nativity are all feasts of the Incarnation so to speak. Affirming one does not deny the other.

Also before we condemn the Scholastics for error about the infusion of souls, science has shown that from conception till about 14 days afterwards the initial cell may split causing twins or split and recombine. I beleive both the Orthodox and Catholic Churches teach that the soul is not divisible. So what to make of this spliting and recombining? The soul does not split and recombine? Is the soul infused later than fertilization? Given the teaching of the Church it looks probable. Perhaps conception should then be defined as the cell being infused with the soul rather than the egg being fertilized by the sperm? However, since we can not know when this occurs we must protect the unborn person from the moment of fertilization. Yet the Scholastic idea of infusion does not seem so far of the mark. Scripture is there to teach the faith not science.

In Christ,
Lance

I like to compliment Lance's thoughful post.

Pope John Paul II gave a remarkable address, "Truth cannot contradict Truth", that ties together in a thoughtful way theology and natural philosophy. http://www.newadvent.org/docs/jp02tc.htm

The quest of the Scholastics ISTM was a laudable one - even as they ventured off into seeming minutae. I am surprised when I see dismissive or even derisive comments on the Scholasticism - but I am uneducated in this area and would like to understand this attitude better.

Certainly, some of their ideas missed the mark; they were limited in their understanding of nature. There is a good lesson here in realizing that our understanding of scientific "truth" is a progressive one, in which old ideas are elaborated or even overturned in the face of new experiments and discoveries. On the other hand, any suggestion that there is no cross-talk between scientific truth and theological truth strikes me as being more post-modern, new-age mysticism than orthodoxy. In any case, the core issues on the propagation of the human condition that ultimately led to the questions about the moment of "animation" date back to the Patristic age.

A.J. Rubis: I really like your equation and your use of "soul". I reminds, me however, of a comment by Fr. Romanides that to understand Byzantine theology you must know the Greek. In English, your distinction is a bit like Carrol's Humpty-Dumpty. I was looking at bunches of texts, and comparing usages: while "soul" is often used in a way that could be your psyche or id"(?), it often used simply for "spirit".

I don't disagree at all with you about "full human identity from the moment of conception"
(especially with the comments of Lance) but don't see the connection with your equation with its particular word-usage. The quickening idea would simply mean that "psyche" obtains after the conception of the body upon receiving the spirit. The problem with quickening idea is not that it violates your equation, but that it was motivated by and grounded in the limited understading of developmental biology available in medieval times.

Dear Lance,

Thanks for your enlightening remarks. I apologize if I've been too hard on the scholastics. I really don't mean to question their motives.

"Dummy me" did not even know that Annunciation was also part of the original "Theophany complex." I really enjoy this forum. Was Circumcision of the Lord ever a part of this "complex" or moved at all?

I think that you raise a good point regarding splitting and recombining, and come to the correct conclusion. However, what you've left open is the window for science to discern that time of splitting and recombining and thus allow intervention (abortion) at that point. For example, learning that capitation of the sperm takes 0-72 hours, they have convinced people that the "morning after pill" is not abortifacient.

Again scripture drags us back to where we should be. I've forgotten the citation (from Psalms Proverbs, Wisdom of Solomon?) for this paraphrase 'who knows how life comes to the child in the womb?' In other words we can't know how (He won't let us) and so we treat all life as precious.

Really, I can't speak at all of infusion of a soul. A soul/life is the sum of two things (body + spirit). Remove one and it (the soul) is gone. Only poetically does it "go down to sheol/the grave." Technically, it doesn't go anywhere. Often, of course, we don't speak so bluntly or technically out of pastoral concern and emphasize (for the grieving family) instead the recombination of body and spirit at the resurrection and the return of the life/soul.

Nonetheless, you are 100% right that scripture is a lesson book concerning our faith, not a science book, sports page, history book, etc. So many problems in interpretation occur just because people start out with the wrong premise about the scriptures.

Dear djs,

As you can tell, I'm a bit of a stickler for the equation and it was revealed to me only in Greek because I couldn't make heads or tails out of the conflicting English & Albanian translations. It really happened because the Theotokos helped me through my devotion to her Magnificat. Her Magnificat is correct in most English translations:

"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior."

In Albanian they were translating it something like this:

My spirit magnifies the Lord, and my mind rejoices in God my savior."

Wow!!! Only in Greek did I find the answer. The brilliant Dr. Romanides was right! One really must use the Greek to see that it works consistently. The English, Albanian, and Russian liturgical and scriptural languages don't distinguish adequately between the two.

With love on the Eve of the Circumcision.

Regarding my post above and my own question concerning the Feast of the Circumcision:

Dumby me is now realizing that if the Nativity was moved from the 6th of January to the 25th of December, then the Circumcision was also moved from the 13th of January to the 1st of January because it was "on the eighth day."

In Christ.