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I had intended to cover a number of subjects related to Platonic Christianity, but it turns out I have a great deal to say on that topic, and I'd rather not attempt to pack it all into one post. Instead, today we're going to discuss some of the possible ways of thinking about God that result when you combine the separate ideas of the Three Primary Hypostases in Plotinus with the Christian Holy Trinity, and then discuss how that then affects the role in the Divine economy of the greatest of Christian saints, the Virgin Mary.
Now, before we begin, I need to say that all of this is at the level of Wild Speculation. I intend nothing I say here as a statement of dogma and certainly not as an attempt to change anyone's views. I enjoy playing with ideas, combining important or powerful thoughts from different traditions, and seeing what results. If that sort of thing appeals to you, welcome aboard! If not, well-- you probably aren't reading this anyway.
The Hypostases, Horizontally and Vertically
As we’ve already seen, the Intelligible Triad of Being, Life, and Intellect (Nous) was borrowed by many of the Church Fathers in order to describe the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In the Christianized Triad, the Father is Being; the Son is Intellect; and the Holy Ghost is Life. Among the pagan Platonists, starting with Porphyry, each term in the Intelligible Triad is a hypostasis represented by a particular God, just as they are for Christians (the Christians also use the term “hypostasis,” though they’d say “three hypostases of One God” rather than “three hypostases, each of which is a God.” I’ll leave it to you to decide how important this difference is). Earlier on, this isn’t the case; Porphyry’s teacher, Plotinus, did not see them as hypostases, but as qualities possessed by the First Principle. For Plotinus, the three Primary Hypostases are Being Itself, Intellect (Nous) Itself, and Soul Itself.
I wonder if it isn’t possible to combine Porphyry’s view with Plotinus’s, and Christianize both. In this case, the First Principle, Being Itself, is the One, or God the Father. Within the One Itself are three terms, Being, Life, and Intellect. The Being of the Father is the Father, within the Father; the Life within the Father is the Holy Spirit, within the Father; the Intellect within the Father is the Son, within the Father.
It's worth noting, by the way, that at least some of the late Platonists wouldn't like that notion very much at all. For Proclus, the One must be preserved exempt from all qualities and all multitude; in the Second Book of his Platonic Theology he calls it "the cause of the Gods," and emphasizes that it is "not the leader of a Triad." Fortunately, we don't have to do what Proclus tells us!
The Second Hypostasis, Intellect Itself, is the Son. Please remember that “Intellect” is not thoughts, but the Ideas which make thought and existence possible; Intellect isn’t a particular Idea or even the sum total of Ideas, but that by virtue of which Ideas come to be. At every level, the First Triad is re-capitulated, so that the Father is the Being of the Son, the Holy Ghost is the Life of the Son, and the Son is the Intellect of the Son.
The Third Hypostasis, Soul Itself, is the Holy Ghost. Remember, here, that Soul Itself is not the same as the World Soul. The World Soul or Anima Mundi is a powerful being-- a God-- but it is still one soul, even if it is the one soul that contains all souls. Soul Itself is that by virtue of which there are any souls at all, including the World Soul. Within Soul Itself, the Holy Spirit, the Father is the Being of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is the Life of the Holy Spirit, and the Son is the Intellect of the Holy Spirit.
Mary and the Hypostases
Mary has a unique role to play in this formulation of the Trinity. She is a creature, but a creature which was able to contain the Second Hypostasis, and thus to contain the First Principle. She is thus the mediating principle between the Primary Hypostases and creatures. In traditional Theology, she is the Daughter of God the Father, the Mother of God the Son, and the Spouse of God the Holy Ghost. As such, she plays a different role with respect to each of the Primary Hypostases.
Here are some of the roles and titles Mary is given in traditional Christianity: 1. Queen of Heaven and Earth; 2. Exalted beyond compare above the Seraphim and Cherubim, the highest of the angels; 3. Mother of God; 4. Her womb contained the universe; 5. Mediatrix of All Graces; 6. Recipient of "hyperdulia," the highest veneration possible for a creature; 7. A creature, that is to say, a being with a definite beginning, and so not eternal; 8. Yet, somehow, able to contain the Eternal.
Picture the arrangement suggested above, in which the three persons of the Holy Trinity each occur at all three levels of being; in a sense the Triad becomes an Ennead.
On this arrangement, Mary would have a different relationship to each of the terms (or Persons) of the Ennead at each of the three different levels.
At the First Level, she is the Daughter of the Father; this means that she receives her Being from the Father (with the Son, his Intellect, and the Spirit, his Life). It might be that although, in Time, her birth comes rather late in human history, because there is no Time for God, the Idea of her, and thus the fundamental spark of her Being, always existed with him. In that case, as she will become the First of Beings, this was always the core of her being, and thus she was always the First; we can thus justifiably call her the First Creature, even if it doesn't appear so to us who live with Time and History. She is the Mother Secret and Hidden.
At the second level, she is the Mother of the Son; this means that, having received Being from the Father (which includes Life and Intellect), she acts as the Kora in Plato's Timaeus, the Formless-Form which brings forth all the Forms; thus she is Mother of the Word, who is the Logos, the Form of Forms. At this level, too, she is Queen of Angels, as these are the Ideas or Noetic Beings (gods, in an earlier way of thinking) that exist at this level.
At the Third Level, she is Spouse of God the Holy Ghost; this means that, in partnership with Soul Itself (the Holy Ghost), she becomes Mother to all particular souls. Would that make her the same as the Soul of the World (Anima Mundi), or would the Soul of the World be one of the particular souls to whom she is Mother? I don't know; what do you think?
The Holy Family and the Divinization of Matter
In the thought of Plotinus, Matter is not and can never be a Fourth Hypostasis; Matter is the source of evil and the prison from which we must escape.
I wonder if the logic of the Incarnation doesn’t change this perspective.
By her birth in time, Mary, the first Creature, becomes incarnate in matter. She then bears the Christ-child, who is the Second (or Third) Hypostasis, become incarnate in matter. The two are cared for by Saint Joseph, an ordinary man who rises to an extraordinary occasion. As a living human family, these three become a material model of the Trinity: Christ, the eternal spiritual power who descends into Matter; Joseph, the mortal man who rises to the occasion and thus rises above mere mortality; and Mary, who has elements of both, at once representing an immortal Idea incarnate in material form and also a perfectly ordinary woman who raises herself to universal heights by submitting absolutely to the Will of God: Be it done unto me according to Thy Word.
But again, this is all speculation. What do you think?
no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 09:32 pm (UTC)1. Queen of heaven isn't a title we use much-- more often we'll call her "Stratego" or General. Like leader of the heavenly troops ;) But she is "mistress of creation" in this bit from the Paraklesis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3hINzdvodU
and just for kicks, here's "ti ipermaho" (O Champion General) which is a liturgical kontakion, but also sort of the national anthem of Byzantium:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECsaJCSrpQU
2. This is the megalynarion (tin timiotera), that we sing every week in Orthros, and also the Axion estin in liturgy! "More honorable than the Cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim...":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ObDw_Px0Co (Axion estin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KifHARYrTY (tin timiotera)
3. "Mother of God"-- also part of the Axion Estin-- "It is truly meet to bless you, o Theotokos, ever blessed and most pure, and the Mother of our God"
4. "More spacious than the heavens" is often painted onto the icon at the front of the church, behind the altar. I think it's the Platytera-- "of the sign". It's in the Akathist Hymn also, because everything nice anybody has ever said about the Theotokos is in the Akathist! "More spacious than the heavens, He made thy body"
5. Mediatrix... it's in the default Kontakion: "O Undisputed intercessor of Christians, O Mediatrix who is unrejected by the Creator..."
6. "Yperagia Theotoke soson imas" (chanted over/under the priest at various points in most services, as a sort of fragment on its own) usually translated "Most holy Theotokos, save us" or "Most holy Theotokos intercede for us" where "Yperagia" is almost literally "hyper-holy" :D
I'd have to think harder to come up with ones for 7 and 8. I'm sure it's there, and like everything else, you can probably find it somewhere in the Akathist, or in the Agni Parthene (more modern, but we all love it anyway).
Definitely, if you ever want to find out how the Orthodox feel about the Mother of God, read through the Akathist service:
https://www.goarch.org/akathisthymn
Or better yet listen to it. It's one of my favorite things to chant. "Awed by the Beauty" is one of the more memorable bits, but it's a very very long hymn, sort of a chanters' marathon. Keeps us in practice for Holy Week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5gLrzzIccs
Totally aside from the music-- which is my wheelhouse-- I feel like you'd flip if you could just familiarize yourself with Orthodox theology, or, like, run this set of musings on Platonism and Christianity by an Orthodox priest. A lot of the stuff you're writing about is not, quite... or it's phrased oddly, or...
(flailing for the right words here)
I'm not a scholar of theology or philosophy. I don't have all the right words and phrases at hand, so it's hard to analyze here, but so often in these posts you're saying things that are so.... Orthodox. Not exactly. There are some things Orthodox would not say. But it's so odd, reading it from the Orthodox side of the street. Like, you're struggling toward something that Orthodoxy *definitely* has the vocabulary for. Trying to think of an analogy that works... it's almost like if you'd never been to a bowling alley, or even heard of bowling, and you were trying to describe to a bowling enthusiast, a game you'd recently thought of, where you could roll a ball down a long lane, and knock things over...
"it suggests that part of the work of the Incarnation of Christ is the Divinization of Matter Itself,"
Well, yes. Theosis. That's the whole point, isn't it?
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Theosis
That article doesn't go into the sanctification of "matter" generally, but there's an element of that woven all through our views on the incarnation. It comes up when we talk about the eucharist, about blessed objects, about icons, about sex, about sacraments, about the resurrection, about relics... it's really pervasive, and there are sort of two sides to it, positive and negative: some people are so holy, so close to God, that even their corpses in some part participate in the divine (thus all the stories about myrrh-streaming relics), and icons are thought to stream myrrh and the scent of roses for the same reason-- sort of a point of contact between matter and divinity/holiness. And on the negative side, there's a... nothing's bad or evil just because it's matter. You can use it in a bad or wrong or evil way, but matter isn't inherently tainted. "All Creation rejoices.."
I don't know if that makes sense. It was one of those things that was sort of revelatory to me as an ex-protestant. Calvinists have definitely absorbed the idea that matter, physicality, *embodiment* is sort of yucky, gross, dirty, and undesirable. That we are pure souls trapped in an evil physicality, and that makes every physical thing suspect: food, sex, dancing, pop culture, anything you get any kind of physical pleasure from: must be evil (except wealth, because that's a sign of God's favor, right? /s). In Orthodoxy, this is completely absent. God became man, and that means matter *can't* be evil. God sanctifies matter by participating in it, yeah? And then he goes on to break death by giving Himself up to it. Notice He didn't break matter! He entered into it. It's His creation.
I've said it badly. I hope you can get some sense of it, though.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-23 02:59 pm (UTC)Not at all; I think I understand you.
One thing I don't know if you realize, though, is that I've spent a fair bit of time studying Orthodox theology. I spent a couple of years listening to nearly everything on Ancient Faith Radio, for example-- and, to be honest with you, it was one of two things that prepared me to understand Platonic philosophy when I finally decided to take the plunge and try to make sense of Proclus a few years back. Now, I'm not going to claim that that makes me an expert on Orthodoxy. In the first case, I'm aware that AFR is basically Orthodoxy filtered through American Protestantism. And in the second case, I haven't attended a Divine Liturgy, and there are certain things that can only be understood through experience. But I think it may be more like someone who has read a number of detailed books about bowling and watched a few matches on TV, trying to talk about a related but not identical game.
Or maybe not. I've said before that, for many people, religion is a set of truths, received once and for always; these sorts of people either never convert or they convert once and for good. For others, it's an identity, like a race or a tribe; these types also convert either never or once, and they stay with their church for the same reason people take their hats off for the national anthem or raise a pint of Guinness on Saint Patrick's Day. But for some of us, it's a journey; one truth is received, understood, and integrated into a larger picture, with the Final Truth remaining ever elusive. My own journey has taken me on more and stranger paths than I ever expected, and I find it best to assume that I'm not the one in the drivers seat. If God intends me to become Orthodox, I suppose He'll accomplish it in His own good time; in the meantime, I believe I can do far more good bringing the Ideas that nourish my own spiritual life both to pagans and occultists (as in the post on Druidry) and to people who want to follow Christ but have good reasons for not joining any of the larger churches (as in the various posts on Esoteric Christianity and the Gospels).
no subject
Date: 2022-09-23 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-23 04:05 pm (UTC)Ultimately, I understood that God was too big to be compartmentalized, and Calvinists have made a science of compartmentalizing Him. The Catholic church just seemed... dead.
So when I finally ran across Orthodoxy, it was revelatory. Didn't know anything about it the first time I went to an Orthodox church, but... God was there, and that's what I'd been looking for all along. So I stayed. Here was the reverence with which God should be worshiped. Afterward, I started learning a bit of the theology that goes with it, and one of the things that appeals to me there is that... it is a very deep well, I will never reach the point (as with Calvinist theology) where I can truly say: "Yeah, I pretty much understand all that". It does more than just pay lip-service to the idea that God is larger than what our human logic can comprehend. Some things must remain a mystery. Theology is only learned through praxis. There's a lot we can describe and explore with reason, and boy has a lot of dense exegesis been written on that! But ultimately, understanding is in doing.
This was a big struggle in the beginning, with my Calvinist training sitting on my shoulder, watching people kiss icons and crosses, hissing "second commandment violation!!" in my ear. Finally, I just did it. And now I understand it better. Action shapes thought. All those little actions, bow, prostrate, make the sign of the cross, fast, cover your head, learn the six psalms and say them again and again... they are tools for the shaping of the soul. I'm not sure Orthodoxy can be understood without those-- the intellectual level is great, and there's a lot to explore there. But it's also superficial.
I am not saying you should join up and become Orthodox ;) --like you, I think if God wants you there, He'll lead you there if/when you're good and ready, and I have seen and heard so many wildly different stories about how people come to God-- you get there however God sees fit to lead you! I don't know what the church's official stance on it is, but I don't think all saints are Orthodox-- or even necessarily Christian. It's the relationship with God that counts, not the intellectual understanding, or "belief" (whatever that is-- the older I get, the less I understand belief as a concept). I think if you diligently pursue truth, love, forgiveness, and humility, that you will find God, one way or another. I'm not at all confident theology as an intellectual pursuit can get you there, though. The thing about Orthodoxy that has holding power, for me at least, is that it has a clear, well-trod path to union with God, one that is neither too inscrutable nor too elementary. As intellectually involved as you want it to be, without excluding on the basis of intellect. For the rest of my life, there will be something further to learn, more progress to make, within its structure. It is enough, and it is plenty.
Here's hoping your own journey toward God is fruitful!