Editor's Note: The following article was originally posted at Ancient Faith Radio but many interested viewers were not able to access there. We've reposted here for their benefit. The article also includes many helpful clarifying comments. We have posted some from Fr. Stephen that expand on the article.
A recent conversation on the blog seemed worth a full article. The question centered around the problem of the historical character of the Biblical record. I’ll let the question speak for itself:
I have a question to ask about the historicity of the New Testament, one that’s been gnawing at me for quite some time. Paul was wiling to interpret Scripture allegorically, as his treatment of Galatians makes clear. How, then, do we treat 1 Corinthians 10:1-11? As far as I can see, Paul considers the events of the Exodus as literal history, especially in verse 11: “Now these things [the events of the Exodus] happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (NASV). Isn’t Paul implying there was a literal Israel, who literally left Egypt through a parted sea? And what if there was no Exodus, as some scholars maintain? Or even a period of bondage in Egypt? How would this affect the Christian faith?
This isn’t my field of expertise, but most scholars agree that Jewish writers constructed a ‘mythistory’ around the 6th century BC. Events were reconstructed or even invented to help the Jews understand their current plight. For instance, Shlomo Sand contends the united kingdom of David never existed, that it was a later invention by Jewish writers. Such a theory is is not a problem for me per se; Jewish writers in the 6th century were not doing Oxford history 101! However, Paul seems to believe they did. Do you see the bind I’m in?
Any advice would be appreciated.
+++
St. Paul would have had no reason to question the historical character of an Old Testament story. Those who use such a fact to establish that he “thought” it was historical – and therefore it is historical – are making a primary mistake in logic. What counts as “historical” in the mind of the first century and what counts as “historical” in the mind of the 20th or 21st, are very different things. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the first century mind was not capable of conceiving what we think of as “historical.” And this is a extremely essential part of understanding the Scriptures, as well as acquiring an Orthodox mind.
I’ll expand on that.
We are secularists. We think things are just things and are nothing other than things. We conceive of the world as existing apart from God, even as self-existing. We thing that if things “mean” anything, it’s only because we “think” of them in a certain way, but that “truth” is only a flat, secular, historical thing. It’s “what happened” and nothing more. Protestant (and later modern) thought changes the nature of truth into this secularized notion. It is an objectification of reality, so that it would be independently and scientifically verifiable as true. Thus, when a modern says that something is “historical” he means what “objectively happened” in such a way that it could be proven were there enough evidence. It is true apart from God and is therefore just a “fact.” The truth is thus just a collection of facts. “History” is the collection of the “facts” of the past.
This notion of truth is no older than about the 17th century. It’s a modern version of truth. What this version of truth cannot understand is allegory. And allegory is essential to both the Scriptures (particularly the New Testament) as well as the Christian faith when it is rightly taught. St. Paul writes in Galatians:
But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are an allegory. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar– for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children–but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. (Gal 4:23-26)
Modern readers do not grasp what St. Paul is actually saying. All we can hear in the assertion of allegory is that one thing “mentally symbolizes” something else. Because it is a mental symbol (and nothing more), it only exists in the mind of the reader. However, St. Paul actually means quite the opposite. He means that the truth and reality of Hagar is Mt. Sinai, etc. And he means this in a way that staggers the modern mind.
St. Paul (and all of the New Testament writers) does not think of any “historical” event as “historical” (in our modern way of thinking). Rather, he thinks everything actually is allegorical. And he thinks that this is the real truth of things. There is a sense in which the truth is dwelling within, beneath, and in history and that events, when they are properly discerned, reveal this greater, deeper truth. Again, this is no mere mental exercise. We might say that the allegorical view of reality is a sacramental view of reality.
Modern secular thought (and therefore modern Christian thought) is anxious to know about the “historical” character of a Biblical event, but only in the modern meaning of “historical.” It wants to know this because it thinks that’s how truth is known. Any assertion of something less than this secular, objectivity “facticity” creates doubts about the “truth” of the thing. But this is not how truth is known and never has been. If someone knows the “facticity” of something, they still do not know its truth.
The gospels, for example, make it clear that the disciples do not understand the ministry of Jesus, nor His resurrection (even though they are seeing it with their eyes) until the eyes of their understanding were opened. St. Paul is clear about this:
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1Co 2:14)
Secular versions of knowledge hold that “objective” things are where truth resides and that they are “objectively” known, meaning anybody who looks at something in a disinterested manner can see its truth. But this is not the Scriptural witness.
What we have in the Scriptures, is a “Scriptural” account, rather than a “historical” account. Sometimes “Scriptural” and “historical” coincide, but not always. Frequently, the story has a theological shape in order to reveal its inner meaning (its <em>allegory</em>). The Exodus, as it is written, reveals Pascha (or Christ’s Pascha reveals the true meaning of the Scriptural Exodus). In point of fact, we cannot get behind the Scriptural account of the Exodus to know “exactly” that the modern “historical” events might have been. What we have is an account given us that we might know the truth.
This kind of thinking makes many people nervous. And that is because they have a modern consciousness. I get attacked, occasionally, by some well-meaning Orthodox who are, in fact, modernists, but don’t know it. They have a modern theory of meaning that they read back into Scripture and into the Fathers, but in doing so they make the Fathers say things they did not mean, nor could not have meant. The Fathers were not modernists and did not hold to a modern theory of meaning.
The word “literal” is an interesting example. We think “literal” is the same thing as “historical.” But, properly, “literal” means “according to the letter,” that is, “What does thetext actually say.” A text, that is fully allegorical, always has a “literal” meaning as well. If the text says a “lampstand,” it means “lampstand,” even though the truth of the lampstand might very well be the Mother of God (for example). The relationship between the “letter” of a text and what a modern means by “historical” is often very questionable. Often, the only answer (that is honest) is “we don’t know.”
A primary case of correlation between allegorical, literal, and historical (in every sense), is the resurrection of Christ. St. Paul, in 1Cor. 15, recites a very “historical” account of the resurrection to which the gospels bear some resemblance. It is clearly a very primitive, creed-like recitation of the historical facts of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. The gospels, on the other hand, have a clear literary form with regard to these facts, and those literary forms have their given shape in order to reveal the truth of the resurrection. St. John says, “These things are written so that you might believe,” and he means something far greater than merely believing the “facts.”
God is a poet. The world is His poem. It often needs to be read poetically in order to be understood. Protestants and modernists want the world (and God) to be prose. It is not.
The life of an Orthodox believer includes struggling to acquire the mind of the fathers, which includes losing the mind of modernity. In that mind, I would generally say, the “historical” character of the Exodus (or other stories), in a precise, objective form just doesn’t matter, inasmuch as it’s the wrong question asked by a wrongly shaped mentality. That doesn’t mean nothing happened. The assertion that the Exodus is nothing more than pure fiction is both wrong and implausible.
We “believe” the account in Exodus as Scripture – it is the account as we need to know it, so that in the light of Pascha, we might know the truth. Everything(!) is about Christ’s Pascha. Everything is relative to Pascha. The whole universe, rightly understood, is “read” in the light of Christ’s Pascha. It is only in that manner that we know the truth of anything.
Additional comments by Fr. Stephen
The event-for-event concept is itself an inherently secular perception of the world. I do not deny the event. I’ve witnessed the births of my children, had a wedding, etc. That they “happened” is crucial. However, now that I’m 40 years down the road from my marriage, I see better what that event was – not just what I think about it – but what it actually was when it occurred, and I absolutely did not see it when it happened, nor did anyone else who witnessed it. Its “truth” was hidden. I see much of it now (or more of it). What it shall be will only be made known when all things are made known, at Christ’s appearing (which is also “Christ’s revealing”).
I in no way mean to demean or diminish that something happened in the stories of Scripture. But the Scriptures are not written in order to convey historical, secular understanding. They are written to convey that hidden truth and have what we would sometimes call a “literary” shape. It’s a unique literary shape, itself formed and shaped by Pascha. Pascha is God’s “hidden hand” (cf. Exodus 17:16 in the LXX).
But I would also caution readers that the literary, revealing account is, in fact, a step “removed” (or some such word) from the secular concept of “what happened.” That secular concept fails to convey the truth of the thing. Thus Exodus (to stay with that example) includes lots of references to what God was thinking and doing. But no one (with the possible exception of Moses) would have seen that “hidden hand” as the events themselves were happening. We certainly don’t see the events in our lives like that – no even our Chrismations, Baptisms, etc. Only discernment can reveal that – only God can make them known to us. But the Scriptural accounts take at least one step towards that revealing in their shape and formation – how they are told and written.
The difference here, and it is difficult to understand what I am saying, is that the “literary,” the “true,” the “allegorical,” etc., is not a mental exercise, the product of later reflection (and nothing more). I am saying that those things indwell the events themselves. This is a characteristic of the “one-storey universe.” And, I am saying that understanding this is essential to a proper understanding of the Orthodox life. Otherwise, we’re just Orthodox secularists – not people who believe secular things, but people who try to believe Orthodox things in a secular manner.
* * * *
“Those who reject the historical meaning in the God-inspired Scriptures as something obsolete are avoiding the ability to apprehend rightly, according to the proper manner, the things written in them. For indeed spiritual contemplation is both good and profitable; and, in enlightening the eye of reason especially well, it reveals the wisest things. But whenever some historical events are presented to us by the Holy Scriptures, then in that instance, a useful search into the historical meaning is appropriate, in order that the God-inspired Scripture be revealed as salvific and beneficial to us in every way.”
+ St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Prophet Isaiah 1.4, PG 70.192AB
I do not suggest rejecting the historical meaning. However, I suggest that even St. Cyril means by the word “historical” something that no modern actually means. The failure to actually understand such things leads to a wrong reading of the fathers. A radical change in consciousness occurs in the advent of modern thought. But moderns generally don’t recognize this. In doing so, they re-read history and turn everybody into a modern and judge them accordingly. The “mind of the Fathers” isn’t a collection of opinions, is an actual consciousness that modernity does not possess.
Only the spiritual man can read the Scriptures rightly. They cannot be read rightly, even on a so-called “historical” manner by the unspiritual man. Modernity thinks this is false. St. Cyril is not agreeing with modernity.
* * * *
By “historical” is certainly meant “things that happened.” But not precisely in the way we moderns think “things that happened” (quasi-scientific). A primary thing in this lies within allegory itself. They do not think that allegory is merely “in the mind’s eye.” It somehow indwells in the very thing and event itself. Much like the sacraments. The Bread and Wine do not make us merely think about Christ’s Body and Blood, they are indeed and truly His Body and Blood.
Again, in Irenaeus’ refutation of the Gnostics, he is battling a runaway “make-believe” interpretation of Scripture, in which any connection to occurring events is destroyed. That is the nature of the problem he is addressing. He, of necessity, must stress the space-time nature of the events. The “literal” story is a controlling device on the allegory itself. They are writing in a world that had been shaped by Hesiod and Homer, the land of Zeus and Leta and the Swan, etc. In that world, the OT just becomes another set of literary accounts of “pure fiction.” This runs counter to the incarnation and the whole direction of the Christian revelation.
But there easily becomes a false dichotomy: pure myth versus pure fact. That’s a false choice. Even St. Irenaeus recognizes that the stories can only be rightly read by someone formed in the Tradition.
What we have in the modern world is a false dichotomy: inaccurate mythic make-believe versus pure fact. This is just a false choice.
Where in either false dichotomy is there proper room for real allegory? The Gnostics believed in false allegory – that the realities were only in their minds and that reality itself was only a Mind.
The Christian contention is in none of these things. It holds to space-time events (some of which clearly have a literary shape to them) but says that those very events contain a proper and true allegory that actually dwells within the events themselves. Christ is the Rock that followed the Israelites. The Rock was not “like” Christ, did not make us “think about” Christ. The Rock was Christ.
However we explain all of this, however we understand the fathers, we have to give an account of how they could say such things in a manner that was not “mere allegory, fantasy or fable.” That’s the very heart of what I call the “One-Storey Universe.” It is a sacramental/iconic view, not only of Scripture, but of reality itself. The trees I see outside my window right now as I write are not just trees. They are more. The Cross of Christ indwells them. They proclaim the glory of God. They actually proclaim the glory of God whether I know it or think about it. They declare God’s glory independent of a human mind.
I don’t mind that various Orthodox believers have a greater confidence in certain historical details (the Flood, etc.). But, I think they will get lost in endless losing arguments with the modern scientific mind that falsely thinks it knows anything. I think it is an invitation to a waste of time. Obviously, certain historical details are essential as “historical” details.
What is incorrect, I think, is to make of Christianity a house of cards. An “either/or.” Either every detail of every Biblical story is a literal (modern understanding) historical fact, or none of it is true at all. And that everything in the Fathers says this is true, etc. I think this is incorrect and not faithful to the fathers.
What is the “evidence” to suggest that the fathers had a different understanding of history? Well, for one, they ask different questions than we do. Another, they can say allegorical things and mean them in a way we (moderns) do not. The house of cards approach is, I think, a breeding ground for disbelief in our modern period.
I think, by the way, that Fr. Irenei, whom I hold in high regard, overstates the case on “actuality.” I would say that the “actuality” indwells history, and that the Church has a canonical way of speaking about that actuality – it is found in the Scriptures. But the Scriptures do not speak as they do because they are trying to record facts in a scientific/verifiable/objective manner. They speak as they do because they are the very oracles of God. There are dangers in stating this incorrectly. It could, for example, be saying to a Christian that he may not consider any evidence of a different manner of human origins (perhaps involving our having had a form other than what we think of as “human” today) because it’s not in the Bible. That, I think, is a false, modern consciousness. I don’t think Fr. Irenei thinks that. But I would have to have a private conversation with him on the topic. He is a very good scholar and monk.
* * * *
What I am saying is that “historical,” used by moderns, has a subtle, but deeply important different meaning than when used by the Fathers, or in antiquity.
St. Cyril, for example, as well as St. John Chrysostom in the passage quoted, are addressing something very different than modern historical critical questions. Their adversary is an abuse of allegory. That abuse saw meaning where you would never dream of them, not unlike the “gematria” of the Rabbis, in which you could add up the number of letters and try to find things. It was an allegory in which the historical and the literal text completely disappear and are obscured by a profusion of speculative allegory. These interpreters did not hesitate to do this even to very straight-forward stories in the gospels.
Now, mind you, even the fathers do interesting things with the stories in the gospels. The story of Zachaeus, in which he restores “four-fold,” what was taken from him, is taken to mean not just 4 times what he had extorted from others, but also the 4-fold “height, depth, breadth, etc” of spiritual understanding. I use this just as one example.
But as they defend the notion of “historical,” they are not arguing about the pure, secular, “just the facts” notion of historical writing (in its modern, quasi-scientific form). First, viz. the Exodus, there clearly is an event, and the Fathers would say that to comment on the event with no regard for it as an event, but only as a collection of related words that seek to convey some other meaning, is false. But that is their argument.
It is, I think, entirely mistaken, to take statements from that argument and conversation, and put them in the context of a conversation about the modern notion of quasi-scientific history.
What I am alleging, is that there is a wide-spread misuse of this very thing and that it is widespread and misused because those who do so do not understand the nature of the consciousness of the Fathers and antiquity and are largely guilty of creating arguments that are anachronistic. This, I think, demonstrates a lack of historical understanding and can foster a false spiritual consciousness.
I also despair for the large part of convincing those who are deeply and unconsciously married to the modern consciousness. I fear they will always assume that I’m some sort of crypto-liberal. I’ve heard such rumors and accusations. They only tell me that those who make them don’t yet understand what I’m saying. But I guess that’s a reason to keep writing.
* * * *
Historically, in the modern sense of the word, the most important passage on the resurrection of Christ in the NT is St. Paul in 1Cor. 15. He there cites some form of a creed, which he describes as a “paradosis,” something “traditioned.” (And he is saying this in around 55 a.d). What he cites is a creedal description of the resurrection of Christ:
3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.
6 After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.
7 After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. (1Co 15:3-7 NKJ)
This “Tradition” is older than any of the written gospels, though clearly known by the gospels. I would even contend that something like St. Mark’s gospel is known, word for word in oral form, by the Apostles and the early pre-NT evangelists of the Church. What is written had existed already as “paradosis” from the near beginning of the Church. I think one of the better presentations of the “historical” evidence on the resurrection can be heard in Gary Habermas’ The Resurrection Evidence that Changed Current Scholarship, that can be watched on Youtube. He does a very excellent presentation.
But, back to my point, the gospels, as written, go very deeply beyond that 1 Cor. 15 creed, and give us a more “literary” account that has the purpose of teaching the whole depth and meaning of Christ’s Pascha. St. John’s gospel is the best example. He has a very different arrangement of the stories (for example, the cleansing of the Temple is set at the beginning of Christ’ ministry instead of in Holy Week). He also has many stories not found anywhere in the other gospels, and lacks the frequent references to “Kingdom of God” and many other things. But, St. John says, “These things are written so that in reading them you might believe.” There’s even some evidence that the gospel is arranged as it is for the purpose of mystagogical catechesis (instructing the newly Baptized). It begins with a series of water and cleansing stories, followed by bread stories (eucharist), etc. Introducing the understanding of the sacraments that was not taught until you were baptized at Pascha. And, in the Church even to this day, it is the gospel of John that is read during the Pascha season.
But there is a nervousness, begotten of the modern “historical” attacks on the veracity of Scripture. Many Orthodox have taken the bait and believe that this is where the battle front is. And since some Orthodox have taken the bait and found their faith shaken by the historical attacks, this is not surprising. But what is not recognized is that the attacks on the veracity of Scripture presuppose a modern consciousness. And when we get in the battle within that same consciousness, we fail to see that we have already lost – for what is secured is our own modern consciousness – only in a conservative flavor.
I want to shout from the rooftops, “Change your mind!” Repent (metanoia)! You cannot understand any of these things with a modern consciousness. It is a false mind. Christianity is not a modern mind that believes certain facts versus a modern mind that doesn’t believe or doubts certain facts. The Christian mind has a completely different understanding of what would constitute a fact, or believing it. And there are over 1500 articles here that seek to help people understand this very thing.
Fortunately, I don’t have to succeed in this mission, because what I am saying is true. God will make it known. (Phil. 3:15).
* * * *
I think that before any seminarian is allowed to comment and write on the historical/non-historical character of Scripture, he should first be required to study and report on the consciousness and perception of the Fathers versus the consciousness and perception of moderns. And he should be instructed how to examine his own consciousness to see how his own world-view is itself modern and consider carefully whether he should repent and let it go.
Instead, I see tons of material from people who do not understand these things, and they simply multiply modern arguments. Why would an Orthodox consciousness be no different than a very conservative evangelical consciousness regarding the Scripture, other than that he uses the fathers to support his own conservative evangelical consciousness? The reason is because evangelicals are moderns and that many modern Orthodox are moderns as well. But because their “modern” holding of things that “liberals” don’t believe seems “Orthodox” (meaning only “conservative”), they think they are being Orthodox. They are mistaken.
A first question to consider: How is it possible for allegory to be true in a manner that is not merely “in the mind’s eye”? The modern understanding cannot give an answer to this. It is, if you will, a diagnostic tool for the disease of modernism. We are all infected. Myself included.
I will suggest that articles in this present vein are among the most controversial things I ever write. And they are so because they are the most “anti-modern.” They are so anti-modern that they smoke out even the modernity in our own Orthodox minds. It should make our hair hurt.
* * * *
Not all allegories are equal. We needn’t fall into an all or everything system here. The liturgy is, on the one hand, what it is. The Great Entrance is clear the bringing of the Bread and Wine into the altar. It is, also, an entrance with holy angels, and a number of other things. The kind of “symoblizing” that began to arise in certain circles actually isn’t true allegory. It is just a form of cheap symbolic acting out – which is not the truth of the liturgy at all. There are layers in this.
But, I would say very quickly for a modern, that it is very, very difficult for us to ever get beyond the literal in anything. And when we do, we tend to be completely gnostic about it, in which the “beyond the literal” is only in the mind’s eye. We think it only to be imaginary.
Everything in the Liturgy is sacrament – just as much as the Body and Blood of Christ is sacrament. For that matter, the whole world is sacrament, only most people don’t know how to receive it. Our modern minds should utterly crash and burn against such an assertion. And then over the ashes, we can begin to bring the truth into realization. But it’s very important to crash and burn.
* * * *
The problem, as I see it, is that moderns conceive of “facts” in a manner that differs from the Fathers (and most of the ancients). Fr. A. Schmemann pushed the change in thinking in the West to a much earlier time than I do. I think the most fundamental change should be seen as evolving after the Reformation and coming into a prominence in the 17th century.
A secular world-view conceives of everything as self-existing. A self-existing “fact” is only itself and can only be itself. We could press things a bit and say that this is essentially Nominalism, and not be incorrect. But only with the advent of Protestantism, and an anti-sacramental world-view does Nominalism become the dominant popular way of thinking.
But, if I do not think that anything is self-existing, then a “fact” is never just itself, but always more. The difference this makes can be somewhat minor to completely different. In the OT, not giving the land its Sabbath rest is said to result in the “land casting the people of Israel forth.” It’s not stated as a necessary punishment, but the land itself doing something. The Deuteronomic theory of history (as its called) is also quite different than mere facts.
Moses builds the Tabernacle and directs everything in it “according to the pattern that was shown him on the holy mountain.” They are not self-existing – they are related to something else. Man is not a self-existing fact. He is made “according to the image.”
This is also the problem with those who take the creation accounts in Genesis to primarily be information about God created the world we live in. It would be interesting if our world were self-existing. But since it’s not, the creation story is also a story about what creation allegorizes. And, I would contend, that “something allegorized” is more interesting and more important for the content of the Christian faith.
Thus, Adam sleeps on the 6th day and Eve is taken from his side. Christ is crucified on the 6th day and the Church is born from His side (blood and water flow). God rests on the Sabbath day (not because He is tired) but because Christ rested on the 7th day (Saturday) and defeated the powers of death and Hades. I could go on. This treatment is common throughout the fathers and is hymned in the liturgical hymns of Holy Week.
Re: Salvation History: the phrase “salvation history” is a 19th century invention of German theology. It is not a historical Christian expression. It is modern, not ancient.
Re: Progressive Revelation: revelation is not progressive. Christ is, from the beginning, the fullness of knowledge. There is nothing more to be known of Him than has been known from the beginning. There may be increased articulation of what was known in silence (such as the Trinity) but not a progressive revelation.
* * * *
I would say that every event is an icon, or that there is an “iconicity” to all of creation and all that happens. First, everything is a gift from the Giver. I could “paint” the icon of Christ creating, Christ giving the gift. What that would look like in my daily life would be depicted yet again differently. But an icon “does with color what Scripture does with words,” according to the Fathers of the 7th Council. In the same manner, everything in creation does with its materiality and action what Scripture does with words. Everything is revelation, icon and sacrament. The purpose of all creation is to make God known, but to make Him known in a manner that allows us to have true communion with Him.
Everything is gift. And because this is true, right living is to dwell in a state of constant thanksgiving, for all things at all times. This right living (thanksgiving) is a key to “opening up” the mystery of the icon of all creation.
Only the grateful heart can ever see the truth of anything.
When someone reads a secular history, seeking the “facts.” They largely separate themselves from God. Much that we do in our secularized lives separates us from God. In most of the things we say and do, we are not seeking communion with God. But history, true history, particular as we find it in Scripture, is given to us that we might have communion with God.
So then, the modern darkened heart asks, “But did it really happen in exactly that way?” And why do we ask this? Do we ask this in order to have communion with God. I don’t think so. Of course, it’s a possible question, but it is largely beside the point. If, as the Church bears witness, Scripture is inspired by God, then it is inspired so that we might have communion with Him, not so that we can smash the naysayers with our divine-inspired facts.
Facts known in the darkness of our hearts only yield the fruit of darkness. I have seen many Christians, utterly convinced of every literal detail in the Scriptures, who were so deeply in darkness that hell itself would have seemed like light. I’m simply not impressed by such questions, much less with such conclusions.
* * * *
I think that it’s easy to get disconnected around the “did it happen question.” It’s not unimportant, only it’s important for reasons that are different from those supposed by the modern Christian mind. And so, I push a bit against that, which immediately feels that I’m disparaging the reality of what happened. I would say that the telling of the event (Scripture) has a shape that makes its deeper (allegorical, iconic, etc.) reality more clearly present. The Pascha from Egypt is told in a way (though the writer could not have known) so that its relationship with Christ’s Pascha can be discerned. It might have been possible to related the first Passover in a very different manner – and, I suggest that a scientific historian might have recorded it in a very different manner indeed. An ear that is rightly tuned to the Scriptures will also hear its poetry and hear what it is about, which, frankly, will not waste a great deal of concern for its scientific historical nature.
But modernity has elevated the assumptions and practice of so-called scientific historical records and analysis to a place that equates it with “what really happened.” This is false. But that elevation is strong even in contemporary Christian (including many Orthodox) minds. Therefore any questioning of it sounds like you don’t believe it actually happened, or that it doesn’t matter.
We are also in a culture in which liberal Christianity, following the modernist historical-critical path very carefully has made an alliance with a very secularist reading, jettisoning many doctrines and events along the way. Orthodox Christians, for whom those doctrines and events are very much at the heart of the faith, therefore make a strong alliance with conservative contemporary Christianity (which is also modernist in its view of history) and defend doctrines and events in the wrong manner.
Modernity is not our playing field. It is tilted against the truth and if you stay on it too long, you’ll lose the whole match.
What I am doing (and I admit it is hard to follow) is putting us back on our proper playing field and deconstructing the modern playing field and showing why its assumptions are not true. And then we begin to relearn the process and manner of reading that is proper to our Orthodox life and understanding.
I am assuming that a lot of people will misunderstand what I’m doing. But some won’t. Some will find it a drink of cold water in a dry desert.
I have a very strong reading of allegory (which has a very broad meaning when used by the fathers). For deeper reading, I recommend Fr. Andrew Louth’s Discerning the Mystery: An Essay on the Nature of Theology. It’s a very fine piece of work, a thorough treatment of how the Fathers do theology. Modernity has the most extreme possible weak reading of allegory, “close to fable,” as you say. I even have a much higher view of fables, btw. Another name for allegory, I think, is “the Kingdom of God.” It dwells beneath, within, and through all things, and all events. It is the truth of all things. How any specific thing relates to the Kingdom is its truth. What might seem insignificant to a scientific historian can be the pivotal point in history.
From a scientific historical point of view, Christ’s Crucifixion, and reported resurrection, are only important because of the historical consequences of the followers who gathered around that belief and their subsequent influence on society, economics, politics, etc. However, from the point of view of its truth, and the Kingdom of God, its importance is found precisely where we say it is when we sing: “Christ has trampled down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowed life.” But not scientific historian can find any “historical” evidence of Christ harrowing hell and taking captivity captive or raising the dead. He might even argue that it therefore didn’t happen. But it did happen. One of its “proofs” from within the faith are the many “allegories” throughout the Scriptures that point to it. The Passover as told in the Scriptures is the primary one, but we could multiply that. Adam’s sleep and Eve coming from His side is another Paschal allegory. So is Jonah coming forth “like a bridegroom in procession” (what an incredible mix of allegorical metaphors!). We read 15 lessons from the OT during Holy Saturday (the Great and Holy Sabbath). Those readings are all “paschal” readings, and are read because of that reason.
The Church, in its liturgical life, is doing precisely what I am here describing. The reason contemporary Christians engage in the sort of nonsense that surrounds their Easter celebrations is because they are clueless. They would never dream of talking about Jonah at Easter, or realize that they should.
The longer you immerse yourself in the services and language of the Church’s worship, the more evident what I’m saying will become. It is the grammar of Orthodoxy.
Check out this passage from Donne's _Devotions_, "Expostulation XIX": "My God, my God, thou art a direct God, may I not say a literal God, a God that wouldst be understood literally and according to the plain sense of all that thou sayest? but thou art also (Lord, I intend it to thy glory, and let no profane misinterpreter abuse it to thy diminution), thou art a figurative, a metaphorical God too; a God in whose words there is such a height of figures, such voyages, such peregrinations to fetch remote and precious metaphors, such extensions, such spreadings, such curtains of allegories, such third heavens of hyperboles, so harmonious elocutions, so retired and so reserved expressions, so commanding persuasions, so persuading commandments, such sinews even in thy milk, and such things in thy words, as all profane authors seem of the seed of the serpent that creeps, thou art the Dove that flies. O, what words but thine can express the inexpressible texture and composition of thy word, in which to one man that argument[Pg 125] that binds his faith to believe that to be the word of God, is the reverent simplicity of the word, and to another the majesty of the word; and in which two men equally pious may meet, and one wonder that all should not understand it, and the other as much that any man should. So, Lord, thou givest us the same earth to labour on and to lie in, a house and a grave of the same earth; so, Lord, thou givest us the same word for our satisfaction and for our inquisition, for our instruction and for our admiration too; for there are places that thy servants Hierom and Augustine would scarce believe (when they grew warm by mutual letters) of one another, that they understood them, and yet both Hierom and Augustine call upon persons whom they knew to be far weaker than they thought one another (old women and young maids) to read the Scriptures, without confining them to these or those places. Neither art thou thus a figurative, a metaphorical God in thy word only, but in thy works too. The style of thy works, the phrase of thine actions, is metaphorical The institution of thy whole worship in the old law was a continual allegory; types and figures overspread all, and figures flowed into figures, and poured themselves out into farther figures; circumcision carried a figure of baptism, and baptism carries a figure of that purity which we shall have in perfection in the new Jerusalem. Neither didst thou speak and work in this language only in the time of thy prophets; but since thou spokest in thy Son it is so too. How often, how much more often, doth thy Son call himself a way, and a light, and a gate, and a vine, and bread, than the Son of God, or of man? How much oftener doth he exhibit a metaphorical Christ, than a real, a literal? This hath occasioned thine ancient servants, whose delight it was to write after thy copy, to proceed the same way in their[Pg 126] expositions of the Scriptures, and in their composing both of public liturgies and of private prayers to thee, to make their accesses to thee in such a kind of language as thou wast pleased to speak to them, in a figurative, in a metaphorical language, in which manner I am bold to call the comfort which I receive now in this sickness in the indication of the concoction and maturity thereof, in certain clouds and recidences, which the physicians observe, a discovering of land from sea after a long and tempestuous voyage."
There's so much much going on here. The pertinent thing for this convo is that he speaks of "God's works" in history as "metaphorical." He doesn't mean to say that these events were fictional, but that they had a metaphorical shape. So historical reality is not only one thing happening after another in linear succession. It's also one thing leading to/from another typologically, allegorically, synecdocheically, metonymically, etc. The tropes are not added to what exists. They bear the very shape of existence.
Posted by: Sean Davidson | January 04, 2016 at 10:24 AM