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MEDIEVAL-RELIGION  May 2004

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION May 2004

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Subject:

Re: Atonement (4)

From:

Dennis Martin <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 14 May 2004 07:03:29 -0500

Content-Type:

text/plain

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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

I'm not sure that either of the two hymns carries the idea of ransom.
One needs to consider carefuly the word ransom itself--a prisoner
captured in war is ransomed--medieval writers would have assumed that
the holder of the captive had a right to hold him and thus a right to
ransom, but whether that would even pass muster by Christian theological
standards is one question; but a kidnapper holds a captive by sheer
force and ransom paid for the captive's release is not justly owed; it
may be paid for the sake of the good goal of releasing the captive but
that doesn't make the captive-holder just.  Medieval theologians would
have considered the payment of such ransom an act of charity and it was
regularly done from the late antique period onward by popes and bishops;
even the Mercedarian Order founded to ransom captives from Muslims..  So
the term ransom can signify more than one thing and the context must be
evaluated to determine its significance.  These are some of the issues
lying in the background as Anselm approached these matters.  But in
these two hymns, only the word "price" even approaches "ransom."

Pange Lingua carries the idea of the devil having been tricked, but
implicit here is the idea that the devil got caught on what he refused
to recognize--the Incarnation.  THe baited hook imagery of Gregory of
Nyssa is actually less palatable, in my view, because a fish goes after
the bait not out of any false motive but out of a desire to feed
himself.  So one could view this imagery as the Devil non-culpably being
deceived by God.  Of course the problem is that a fish has no free-will
so going after food can never be his "fault"; whereas humans and angels
(the Devil) are supposed to use reason and will to determine whether an
action (going after food) is a good or bad thing to do.

Pange Lingua refers to the devil as deceiver (he lied to Eve, though she
bore responsibility for not weighing God's word against the serpent's)
but to God's action in the Incarnation as skill, art, not as deception.

In Vexilla Regis we read of the price of the world but not any notion
that this price was owed to the Devil as a ransom.  It could be the
price "owed" to order/justice/harmony--for which a price must be paid if
a new injustice/disorder is not to be perpetrated.  The poem simply
doesn't specify (Ars poetica non omnia dicere est").  Vexilla Regis is
compatible with a variety of atonement  theologies.

Even Gregory of Nyssa does not attribute any immoral/unjust act to God:
the divinity is not externally visible (by definition it could not be),
so the Devil, attacking the visible humanity could be said to have been
taken in not by God's deception but by his own failure to ask himself
what might be involved in this particular person, Jesus of Nazareth.

The question to be answered s whether any of these authors attribute any
action that could be called immoral, unrighteous to God or God the
Father: deception, unjust demands on the Son, letting injustice go
unpunished etc.

Dennis Martin

>>> [log in to unmask] 05/14/04 2:37 AM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
culture

Atonement (4)

Gregory of Nyssa (c. 330 - c. 395 AD) in his 'Oratio Catechetica'
xxi-xxvi, presents the Incarnation in terms of a baited hook. I do not
have his book to hand, but his argument was reproduced by Rufinus of
Aquileia, c. 400 AD, in his 'Commentary on the Apostles' Creed':

"The purpse of the Incarnation ... was that the divine virtue of the
Son of God might be as it were a hook hidden beneath the form of human
flesh ... to lure on the prince of this age to a contest; that the Son
might offer him his flesh as a bait and that then the divinity which
lay beneath might catch him and hold him fast with its hook ... Then,
as a fish when it seizes a baited hook not only fails to drag off the
bait but is itself dragged out of the water as food for others; so he
that had the power of death seized the body of Jesus in death, unaware
of the hook of divinity concealed therein. Having swallowed it, he was
caught straightway; the bars of hell were burst, and he was, as it
were, drawn up from the pit, to become food for others ..."



The idea of the Atonement as a Ransom was repudiated in no uncertain
terms by Gregory Nazianzen (Orationes, xlv.22) who said: "Was it paid
to the evil one? Monstrous thought! The devil receives a ransom not
only from God but of God .. To the Father? But we were not in bondage
to him ... And could the Father delight in the death of his Son?"



But despite Gregory's objections the idea became popular, being
expounded in various forms by Hilary of Poitiers (315-367); Augustine
of Hippo (354-430), who uses the simile of the mousetrap; Pope Leo I
(d. 461), Pope Gregory I (540-604) and by the western Fathers
generally. We find it vividly expressed in the hymns of Venantius
Fortunatus (c. 530 - c. 610), notably in the "Pange, lingua" still used
at the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday:



Hoc opus nostrae salutis ordo depoposcerat,

multiformis perditoris arte ut artem falleret

et medelam ferret indeo, hostis unde laeserat.



In J.M. Neale's well-known translation:



Thus the scheme of our salvation was of old in order laid

That the manifold deceiver's art by ar might be outweighed,

And the lure the foe put forward into means of healing made.



Again in the "Vexilla Regis" Fortunatus writes:



Beata cuius bracchiis

pretium pependit saeculi,

statera facta est corporis

praedam tulitque tartari.



In Neale's translation:



On whose dear arms, so widely flung,

The weight of this world's ransom hung:

The price of humankind to pay,

And spoil the spoiler of his prey.



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