Month December 2016

Judith: Chapter 5 Translated

Brian Glass 2 Comments
judith_beheading_holofernes_by_caravaggio

Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1598—1599.

I am pleased to report that I have completed the draft of chapter 5 of Rabanus Maurus’ commentary on the book of Judith.

In chapter 5 we meet Achior, a heathen who seems to know the story of Israel quite well and warns Holofernes and his leaders that they won’t likely be able to defeat Israel. Holofernes and his leaders don’t take kindly to this warning and threaten to kill Achior for suggesting that anyone is greater than Nabuchodonosor (Nebuchadnezzar).

Early in the chapter, Rabanus likens Achior to a heretic who, while he speaks words of truth, also mixes error in with that truth. Later Achior is likened to the ten lepers cleansed by Christ. The white spots intermingled with the healthy skin represent error intermixed with truth, yet Christ cleanses the lepers. By the end of the chapter Achior is related to the man born blind from birth to whom Jesus granted sight. Even further, Rabanus connects the Jews who ejected the blind man from the temple with Holofernes’ phalanxes. But Achior, choosing the discipleship of Christ, and more literally being circumcised in the flesh and joined to the people of Israel, has chosen the correct side, being converted from his heathen ways.

Rabanus compares Holofernes and his men to those who “take pride in worldly arrogance” and who on the one hand:

look down from outside upon “men unarmed and without force,” being unable to look inwardly at the force of spirit and virtue of faith by which they fight invisibly against spiritual enemies; on the other hand these, who with false hope in their own power do not see that they themselves are deluded, give the order to consign the proclaimers of truth to the multitude that is to be destroyed.

Achior and all those like him have joined themselves to those who have a force of spirit and virtue of faith to fight invisibly against spiritual enemies. Perhaps in today’s secular world, Achior is those who, discovering Christ, become marginalized because they take hold of the discipleship of Christ.

For further information about this translation project, please see my series of posts on Judith.

Archimandrite Ephrem’s Translations

Brian Glass 1 Comment

Archimandrite Ephrem (Lash) produced some very useful translations of liturgical and patristic texts. After his repose, his translations disappeared due to hosting issues. I found Archimandrite Ephrem’s contributions to be very useful in my studies and I hate to see such fine work disappear from the world. So I managed to scrounge up a copy of his website and am making his work available once again.

Because of the fact that what I was able to obtain is a collection of HTML files generated by Microsoft Frontpage, I have written a Python script to convert much of his work to Markdown. This is a very simple and easy to use format that Github displays nicely. The script does a pretty good job, but I’m sure there are spots where it does the wrong thing. If you notice something wrong with one of the files, or just have suggestions as to how best to format this work, I am happy to receive comments in this post or pull requests to fix the script.

Archimandrite Ephrem’s texts are available via Github here.

The Ark: Great Feasts

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In our ongoing discussion of how the Church views the Ark of the Covenant, we have examined the Scriptures, apocryphal literature, and the writings of the Holy Fathers. In this post we begin to examine how this rich heritage directly impacts an Orthodox Christian in the ongoing life of the Church, starting with the annual cycle of services.

Entrance of the Theotokos

entrance-theotokosThe feast of the entrance recalls our previous short review of the Infancy Gospel of James. This feast celebrates the events recorded in this gospel and recognizes a connection between Old Testament temple worship and the Holy Mother of God. However, it does not directly connect the Ark with the Theotokos. This feast seems to foreshadow the climactic events depicted during the Feast of the Dormition, which explicitly relates the Ark to the Theotokos. The kontakion below connects the Theotokos to the Tabernacle generally rather than to the Ark specifically.

The all-pure Temple of the Saviour, the precious Bridal Chamber and Virgin, the sacred Treasury of the glory of God, is being brought today into the house of the Lord; and with her she brings the grace of the divine Spirit; of her God’s Angels sing in praise: She is indeed the heavenly Tabernacle.1

Dormition of the Theotokos

Screen Shot 2016-08-24 at 2.02.57 PMThe Dormition of the Theotokos is perhaps the most explicit of the feasts of the Church when articulating the typology of the Ark of the Covenant. In one set of troparia, the story of the Dormition as related by The Falling Asleep of the Holy Mother of God, including the cutting off of the hands of Jephonias, is directly referenced and so affirmed. In these troparia, the Mother of God is explicitly called “the living Ark.”

Knowing you, All-blameless, to be a mortal woman, but beyond nature Mother of God, with fearful hands the illustrious Apostles touched you, as you blazed with glory, gazing on you as the Tabernacle that had received God.

Just punishment intervened to cut off the sacrilegious hands of the presumptuous, for God guarded with the glory of the godhead the reverence due to the living Ark, in which the Word had become flesh.2

The Virgin Mary is referred to as the Ark of Sanctification or Holiness at least four times and likened to the Ark in different ways several other times. In addition, the Theotokos is also identified with several other emblems of temple worship. In the above quote we see that she is likened to the Tabernacle and in the later troparia below, she is related to the pillar of cloud (Exodus 13:21), the table of the bread of life (Exodus 25:30), the lampstand (Exodus 25:31-40), the censer, Aaron’s rod, and the tablets of stone (Hebrews 9:4).

The Suzerain and God of all apportions to you the things above nature; for just as he kept you a Virgin in your giving birth, so he preserved your body incorrupt in the tomb, and he glorified you with him by a divine Translation, gracing you with honours, as a Son his Mother.

Your Offspring, O Virgin, has truly made you dwell in the Holy of Holies as shining Lampstand of the immaterial fire, golden Censer of the divine coal, Jar and Rod and Tablet written by God, holy Ark and Table of the bread of life.3

This latter set of troparia clearly draw your mind from the falling asleep of the Mother of God to her translation into the presence of the Most High God in the Most Holy Place in heaven, where aspects of her role there are typologically represented by each of these ancient artifacts of worship, not the least of which is the Ark. The entrance of the Theotokos into the earthly Temple is clearly a foreshadowing of her entrance into the heavenly Temple.

Other Hymns and Services

The Ark is frequently connected typologically to the Theotokos in various theotokia, as in the following example from Saturday evening Vespers (tone 1).

When Gabriel addressed you, O Virgin, with his ‘Hail’, as he spoke the Master of all things became incarnate in you the holy Ark, as righteous David sang. You were proclaimed wider than the heavens, for you carried your Creator. Glory to him who dwelt in you, glory to him who came forth from you, glory to him who has set us free through your bearing child.4

Theotokia of a similar nature are found often in the regular cycle of services, including Vespers and Matins. We find additional examples in other services such as the Akathist. The following excerpt from the Akathist emphasizes the Temple typology we found above in the feast of the Dormition.

Hail, tabernacle of God the Word
Hail, greater Holy of Holies.
Hail, Ark — gilded by the Spirit,
Hail, inexhaustible — treasure of life.5

Quite frequently in the services of the Church, the Ark is typologically connected to the Theotokos. What is important to note is that, while it is not consistently the central theme of these services, Orthodox Christians are nonetheless very frequently exposed to this typology. It is part of the warp and woof of Orthodox life.

In our next post in this series, we will examine how the iconography of the Church treats the Ark of the Covenant.

1 Archimandrite Ephrem, The Month of November, in Anastasis.

2 Archimandrite Ephrem, The Fifteenth of August, in Anastasis.

3 Ibid.

4 Archimandrite Ephrem, Paraklitiki Period of Tone 1 On Saturday Evening at Small Vespers, in Anastasis.

5 Archimandrite Ephrem, The Akathist, in Anastasis.

The Ark: Cyril, Fortunatus, and John

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In this post we will wrap up our discussion of what the Fathers have to say about the Ark of the Covenant. I will reiterate here that the Church tends to see the Ark as a type of the Holy Virgin Mary.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria

icon_st-_cyril_of_alexandriaSaint Cyril, the twenty-fourth patriarch of Alexandria, lived from 376-444. Saint Cyril seems to hearken back to the tradition exemplified by Saint Irenaeus, but with some additions. The pattern of his statement very closely mirrors that of St. Irenaeus quoted previously, but he inserts some additional commentary that allows us to see the Ark as a type of the Theotokos. He seems to be trying to harmonize the common view of his day with a more ancient tradition.

The Ark would be the type and image of Christ: for if we look back to the way of the Incarnation of the Only-begotten, we shall see that it is in the temple of the Virgin, as in an ark that the Word of God took up His abode. For in Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, as the Scripture saith. But the testimonies in the ark were the word of God, and the wood of it was imperishable, and with pure and choicest gold was it beautified within and without. For the Body of Christ is incorruptible, being by the power and brightness of the indwelling Word, and the nature of life-giving operation of the Holy Ghost, maintained in incorruption [emphasis mine].1

Saint Venantius Fortunatus

Commemorated on December 14, the Latin poet and bishop lived circa A.D. 530-610. His usage of this typology supports a belief in the consistency of its application through later times. The following verse in Latin clearly identifies the Ark with the Holy Virgin.

Beata Mater, munere
Cujus supernus Artifex,
Mundum pugillo continens,
Ventris sub arca clausus est.2

While unpoetic, the following rendering is a relatively literal approximation of the above verse translated by myself.

The Holy Mother, by whose offering
The supreme artificer,
containing in His hand the World,
In the womb, within the Ark, was enclosed.

Saint John of Damascus

1204ajohndamascusSaint John, born in A.D. 676, wrote the famous Canon of Pascha that is sung during the Orthodox Pascha services. In the Canon, Saint John doesn’t seem to commit to a specific typological relationship for the Ark. His intention seems to be to expose the contrast between human experience of the types and human experience of the fulfillment.

God’s forebear David, dancing, leaped before the Ark, mere shadow, but seeing the fulfilment of the types, let us, God’s holy people, inspired, rejoice, for Christ has risen as omnipotent.3

In our next post in this series, we will examine how two of the great feasts of the Orthodox Church portray the Ark of the Covenant.

1 Qtd. in Thomas Livius, The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries, (London: Burns and Oates, Limited 1893), pp. 76–77.

2 Ibid., p. 458.

3 Archimandrite Ephrem, Paschal Canon Noted, in Anastasis, p. 3.