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The mother [of the seven sons being executed by Antiochus Epiphanes] was especially admirable and worthy of honorable remembrance, for she watched the death of seven sons in the course of a single day, and endured it resolutely because of her hopes in the Lord. Indeed she encouraged each of them in the language of their ancestors; filled with noble conviction, she reinforced her womanly argument with manly courage, saying to them: "I do not know how you appeared in my womb; it was not I who endowed you with breath and life, I had not the shaping of your every part. It is |
Finally, in its own way the Book of Ecclesiastes (11:5) emphasizes the mystery of the beginning of human life: "Just as you do not know the way of the wind or the mysteries of a woman with child, no more can you know the work of God who is behind it all." I have entitled this article "The Wonder of Myself' (Ps 139:14), a wonder that includes within itself a proper respect and love for myself or for one's self. Implicit, too, in this wonder is included a recognition of and a respect and love for my fellowman. This fiillheart |
With all the advances that have taken place in scientific studies of God's truth since the revelations in Scripture, many times it has been remarked how strange it is that the precise moment of each human person's entrance into and exit from life in this world remains somewhat locked away in mystery. I say "locked away" because these two moments are so important in the life of each individual that like precious jewels they seem to be specially protected by our heavenly Father. He seems to be saying to us: "I am reserving the secret of the precise moment of the beginning and end of your earthly existence because they are so precious in my own eyes |
By conception is meant the process of union by which the parental cells (sperm and ovum) unite to become the first cell of a new individual. The action of uniting is not strictly instantaneous. It is rather a process. When we speak of "the moment of conception," we mean the precise time when the process is completed. Molecular biology teaches us that the sperm and the ovum normally meet in the Fallopian tube, which connects the ovary with the uterus. The ovum has been prepared and is pushed along the tube toward the uterus. The sperm that reaches it is one of the few that survive the trip |
The sperm upon reaching the outer membrane of the ovum finds that the ovum is not unresponsive. Rather, the ovum reacts by surrounding the sperm and helping it to come in. The genetic material brought by the sperm and the genetic material present in the ovum are in two individual packets. These move toward each other and unite, so that the full number of forty-six chromosomes is restored, twentythree from the mother's ovum and twenty-three from the father's sperm. The cell which results is in a full sense a fertilized ovum, but it is no longer merely an ovum. The fertilized ovum |
The most momentous moment in the order of creation for any human being is the moment when he is called forth by our heavenly Father to be a unique person "in the image and likeness of God." If we understand at all what the scientists are telling us about ourselves and the evolving continuity of the process as one stage flows smoothly into the next from conception through the various stages immediately after conception through cleavage, morula, blastocyst, embryo, fetus, to infant, to child, we should try to see that the most miraculous moment is the moment of conception. It seems that that is the moment when our heavenly Father endows |
Within the past thirty years molecular biology has made tremendous advances demonstrating that this newly formed zygote or living cell is not just a glob of human stuff but a complex, highly organized, dynamic, and unique individual entity. It is an already developing individual. It is already evolving into that adult human person it will one day be. In the understanding that hominization takes place immediately in the fertilized ovum, along with the human person the human body is also actually present, but only in an embryonic stage. It would also be accurate to speak of the fully formed adult human body as being virtually or potentially contained in the human |
The zygote has been called a blueprint of what the adult human person resulting from this cell will be. But it is not just a static blueprint of an object that must be constructed by others from external materials, as some comparably magnificent and beautiful architectural masterpiece is constructed from external materials by following the blueprint's markings. Rather, it is a dynamic blueprint which, if it receives the proper nourishment and suitable environment, grows and develops from the inside. So true is this that a published report based on the proceedings of the International Conference on Abortion sponsored by the Harvard Divinity School and the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation |
In a remarkable way, modern genetics also teaches that there are "formal causes," immanent principles, or constitutive elements long before there is any shape or motion or discernible size. These minute formal elements are already determining the organic life to be the uniquely individual human being it is to be. According to this present-day scientific equivalent of the doctrine that the soul is the "form" or immanent entelechy of the body, it can now be asserted for the first time in the history of "scientific" speculation upon this question that who one is and is to be is present from the moment the ovum is impregn |
We have seen that...a conflict can arise within the order of creation itself, in the sense that one side of its meaning and purpose-namely, the calling into a personal, responsible relationship with the Creator, which is granted only to man-can come into conflict with another side of its meaning and purposenamely, the created relationship between wedlock and parenthood. There can be no argument here about the fact of this conflict-at least in the simple form here described. For once impregnation has taken place it is no longer a question of whether the persons concerned have responsibility for a possible parenthood; they have become |
We must notice briefly, in response to Joseph Donceel, S.J., that if Thomas Aquinas had been aware of the biological advances to which we have adverted above, namely, that the fertilized ovum is biologically a living organism of the human species with the intrinsic capability of developing into a mature human person, it is reasonable to conclude that he would not have held the Aristotelian theory of mediate or delayed animation. Further, it seems reasonable to judge that the human zygote as we understand it today with DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid) |
Granted that at the start of pregnancy there is not as yet a fully developed human body; it is also true that at the eighty-day stage, and a fortiori at the forty-day stage, there is not as yet a fully developed human body. According to contemporary molecular biology, it becomes increasingly clear that the newly formed ovum is a highly organized, dynamic, and complex cell, which needs only the proper nourishment and environment to develop into a fully developed human being. Indeed, in the first few days of its existence the human zygote provides its own nourishment. There is no qualitative difference between the human zyg |
It would be interesting to see how Aristotle, Thomas, and Avicenna would react to learning that the egg is not a mass of homogeneous menstrual blood but a precise blueprint of the later human adult. It seems safe to surmise that their preference for postponing the advent of the rational soul derived mainly from their understandably meager knowledge of embryology and genetics. Had they been provided with the discoveries of the past several years, it is not unthinkable that they would have altered their standing on the succession of lower forms and seen good reason to believe that, in normal cases, the substantial form of rationality, the human soul, would be |
Nonetheless, some believe that it is relatively easy to explain the origin of the second soul. The individual rational soul, assuming it to be present from the first, remains in one of the separated parts, though it is not possible to determine in which. When the other part of the egg is fully separated from information by the first soul, a new soul is created and infused instantaneously for this second twin. There is no disproportion between form and matter in either case, because the division of the embryo into two parts implies that each part is equally formed and equally able to develop into a human person. It appears, then, that the |
My own personal evaluation of the evidence presented by modem molecular biology, especially within the past thirty years, and by philosophical discussions that have taken place over the many centuries of developing Christian thought, guided also by my studies and understanding of developing Christian theology, is that normally the human person certainly exists in the human zygote from the first moment of conception. But I can also appreciate how another, reviewing the same literature and doing similar or deeper studies, could be in a state of doubt about the precise moment when the new individual begins to exist as a human person. The identical-twin difficulty might lead to this doubt, bolstered maybe by |
For the remainder of this article, on the basis of the evidence and reasoning we have already presented, we shall consider that the opinion which maintains the new human person to be present in the human zygote from the first moment of conception is at least solidly probably true. Whoever, therefore, deliberately and directly causes an abortion in self or in another is choosing an action involving danger of taking an innocent human life. In the remainder of this article, therefore, unless otherwise indicated, abortion is understood as either the deliberate and direct killing of the fetus in the womb from the moment of conception or the deliberate and direct ejection of the fetus |
It is important, to be sure, that we should always see this problem from the point of view of the destruction of human life, but certainly we should not think only of the life of the nascent child, but also of the status of the already existent parenthood. This status means that the "office" of fatherhood and motherhood has been entrusted to the parents and that they are now enclosed in that circle of duties which obligates them to preserve that which has been committed to them, but also endowed with a blessing which is to be received in gratitude and trust-even though it be gratitude expressed with trembling and a trust |
It is somewhat consoling also to note that strictly there is no simply unwanted child. Before each one of us was born, our parents could not have known us specifically as the unique person we really are. Our mother and father, therefore, could not have wanted us as the unique person each of us really is. In general, they could have wanted a child, or a boy or a girl. But our heavenly Father in creating each new human person chooses specifically the person who is to be. Before conception He knows the specific person He chooses to create. He creates him because He loves him and specifically wills him to be. Our |
In its own way Scripture significantly lays stress on the following truths: the dignity of man and the sacredness of human life; that in creating each new human person our heavenly Father knows and chooses and loves specifically the unique person who is to be; that our Father alone has the power of life and death; that our Father by His laws protects the lives especially of the innocent and just; that there is a big difference between the killing of the innocent and the killing of one who has done something criminal; that there is also a big difference between accidental and deliberate killing of the innocent. My reason for referring to these texts of Scripture is to |
Yahweh spoke to Moses and said: "You are to select towns which you will make into cities of refuge where a man who has killed accidentally may find sanctuary If he has manhandled his victim by chance, without malice, or thrown some missile at him not meaning to hit him, or without seeing him dropped a stone on him capable of causing death and so killed him, so long as he bore him no malice and wished him no harm, then the community must decide in accordance with these rules between the one who struck the blow and the avenger of blood In any case of homicide, the evidence of witnesses must |
As we move now from the explicit witness of our Father's revelation into the witness of our Father's Church, I would like to delineate how the one grew out of the other. Respect and love for children in particular was demonstrated and inculcated by our Lord Himself when He taught that "Anyone who welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me" (Lk 9:48). "People brought little children to Him, for Him to lay His hands on them and say a prayer. The disciples turned them away, but Jesus said: 'Let the little children alone, and do not stop them coming to me, |
The compelling precedent of the unborn Christ and the unborn Baptist gave this commandment [of Christian charity] a new and uterine dimension. The Gospel story is simple, a retelling of the conversation of two pregnant women. Mary, shortly after she conceived, visited her cousin Elizabeth, who was finishing the second trimester. At the salutation of Mary, who was "with child of the Holy Spirit," the six-month old fetus in the womb of Elizabeth "leapt for joy." Elizabeth explains this unusual fetal reaction: the embryo, the fruit of Mary's womb, was "blessed" because it was "the Lord |
Gratian's Decretum became the model for ecclesiastical legislation and interpretation for the next five centuries, including the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX (1234). Although he does not say when the fetus is formed, he does maintain that the one who causes an abortion before the soul is in the body is not a murderer. Penalties were assessed according to the degree of fetal formation. New terms entered the discussion: "quasi murder" and "quasi homicide." All abortion was judged to be murder, but the destruction of an unformed fetus was only "quasi murder." Pope Sixtus V |
Since Pope Gregory XIV did not define the precise moment of animation, the question remained dependent upon the evidence science offered. Since canon law and theology always strive to base their directives and insights on the best relevant science of the time, the authors with great unanimity held to the common norm: the fortieth day after conception for males, the eightieth for females. Today we recognize that those previous centuries were centuries of crude biological understanding of the zygote's nature and fetus development. It was inevitable that man should break out of that crude situation, but it happened gradually. Scientific advances, theological discussions, and magisterial directives |
Spallanzani and Wolff demonstrated in the eighteenth century that both the female ovum and the male sperm were necessary for the initiation of human development, which occurred through progressive growth and differentiation. In the 1820's Von Baer's work established the foundation for the biologist's knowledge of the germ layers in embryos. In the 1830's Schleiden and Schwann formulated the cell theory. This knowledge that the adult body is composed entirely of cells and cell products paved the way for a realization of the basic fact that the body of the new individual is developed from a single cell, the cell formed by the union in |
14 Especially with these advances in the science of biology, it became more and more apparent that Aristotle's judgment of the fortieth day of gestation for the hominization of the male and the eightieth day for the hominization of the female was arbitrary and unsupported by modem scientific advance. There seemed to be no scientific reason for distinguishing between the male and female as far as hominization is concerned, and no scientific reason for choosing precisely the fortieth or eightieth day for the hominization of a new individual. As the true significance of the earlier stages of fetal development became better understood, it became |
A few individual theologians had sponsored the opinion that it was permissible, in order to save the life of the mother, either to expel the fetus after animation and before viability or to perform a craniotomy. This never became the common opinion of theologians. Lehmkuhl is an example of a nineteenth-century theologian who at one time sponsored craniotomy. In the later editions of his work he admitted that he had been mistaken, "And in truth," he said, "the reasons which I adduced were specious rather than truly convincing. For the truth is that the fetus himself is primarily and per se the |
It is certain that to expel a fetus, even though it be inanimate, is per se a mortal sin; and the person guilty of it is responsible for homicide... because, although he does not destroy a human life, yet his act has a close causal connection with preventing a human life. The question is raised whether, when a mother is in an extreme illness, it is lawful to give her medicine whose direct effect is to expel the inanimate fetus. One opinion says it is. But a second opinion more commonly held says that, while it is lawful for the mother to take medicines whose direct effect is to cure the |
In 1965 Catholic teaching on abortion is not based on a clarity of vision which reveals the answer to all relevant theoretical questions. But it is based on sufficiently solid foundation for it to maintain in practice that all direct abortion, whether as a means or as an end in itself, is contrary to divine law and admits of no exceptions. It is based on and flows from the truths communicated to man by our heavenly Father-on the human dignity and fundamental right to life of every human person made in the image and likeness of God; it flows from the divine and Christian commandments of love and respect for our fellow man. In an age when |
In carious health, or who is very poor, or who already has more children than she can care for; a mother in a troubled frame of mind, an unmarried mother, a woman raped or involved in incest. Moved by such sympathy and compassion, the Church rejoices that modem science and medicine, sociology and psychology have achieved remarkable new ways of preserving health, well-being, and life itself. She encourages the State and private agencies to make positive efforts to help troubled mothers and to remove the evils that often are the occasion for desiring abortion. Every effort should be made to help the poor and to redeem them from helplessness, |
As the chair of the International Astronomical Union's US committee for membership applications, I can report that we are doing much better than the grand averages would suggest. Sciences unite for Spain's prosperity As Spain's economy recovers, the strategic application of science could help to stimulate prosperity and to attract much-needed investment. In an unusual move in a world of specialization, the Spanish scientific community has formed a meritocratic, all-sciences advisory council within the Gadea Foundation for Science in Madrid, a non-profit body of leading scientists that works to improve Spain's science system. The council's aim is to galvanize politicians and |
The advisory council's first forum was held in October 2017 to develop a strategy for improving this situation. It was framed around four cornerstones: health, life sciences (including philosophy, mathematics and astrobiology), Earth (including materials and water, food and energy, and climate change and biodiversity) and society (including science policy and the economy). The forum's founding declaration emphasizes the importance for advancing society of knowledge, training, talent and academic-industrial interaction in all of these areas. Our view is that science is not just for scientists -it is a human right. Fernando Baquero, Jose A. Gutiérrez |
The distant roots of the term homeostasis go back to Greek antiquity, namely to pre-Socratic philosophy 2, 3 and to Hippocratic medicine 4. Early natural philosophers from the west coast of Asia Minor, southern Italy and Sicily, sought to explain the universe by pure reason. Alcmaeon of Croton introduced the term isonomia. His doctrine concerning the balancing of opposite qualities seems to be the distant ancestor of homeostasis. Empedocles of Agrigentum proposed that the entire universe consists of four basic elements (= rhizomata or racins): earth, water, air |
Hippocrates combined the 6th century BC achievements of the philosophers of Asia Minor with Pythago-ras/ theory, his pupil Alcmaeon´s percepts and Empedocles´ concepts about the equilibrium of dissimilar elements and of opposite qualities, thus developing the humoral theory for human physiology (Figure 1 ). According to this theory, human beings consist of a soul and a body, which contain four humors: blood, phlegm, black and yellow bile, that correspond to the four organs of the body: the heart, the brain, the liver and the spleen. These four humors |
The Nestorian controversy was fundamentally Christological (Nikephoros Kallistos PG 146:1160 -1164, but Mary, the mother of Christ, was the focus of this dispute between Cyril and Nestorius (Evagrius Scholasticus PG 86:2424A-D). The Bishop of Constantinople was an Antiochian in Christology. He was influenced by the teaching of Theodore of Mopsuestia (PG 66:981BC). Early in his reign, he was called upon to give his opinion on the suitability of Theotokos (the woman who |
It is a sickness not small, but akin to the putrid sore of Apollinarius and Arius. For they mingle the Lord's union in man to a confusion of some sort of mixture, insomuch that even certain clerks among us, of whom some from lack of understanding, some from heretical guile of old time concealed within them are sick as heretics, and openly blaspheme God the Word Consubstantial with the Father, as though He had taken beginning of His Being of the Virgin mother of Christ, and had been built up with His Temple and buried with His flesh, and say that the flesh |
It is obvious that, behind the description of Mary as Theotokos, he professed to detect the Arian tenet that the Son was a creature, or the Apollinarian notion that the manhood was incomplete. When Cyril read it, he realised that he had found the scandal he was seeking. The Christological argument was mainly about soteriology, redemption and worship, and this was the reason why Cyril reacted so strongly against Nestorius's teaching. Cyril believed that Nestorius's teaching, epitomized in his attack on Theotokos, presupposed a merely external association between an ordinary man |
With an excellent knowledge of church history, Cyril realised that Nestorius's heretic falsehoods would not be solved by means of discussions or letters between him and Nestorius. A Regional Council or even an Ecumenical Council should be convened. The Patriarch of Alexandria was absolutely certain that Nestorius had made a dogmatic error. Cyril mentioned to Nestorius that he always advocated the same on the Church's doctrine. For fear of misapprehension, he invoked as irrefutable witness the book written earlier about holy and consubstantial Trinity. In this book, which he called "The Treasure", he ref |
They say that God the Word hath taken a perfect man from out the seed of Abraham and David according to the declaration of the Scriptures, who is by nature what they were of whose seed he was, a man perfect in nature, consisting of intellectual soul and human flesh: whom, man as we by nature, fashioned by the might of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin and made of a woman, made under the law, in order that he might buy us all from the bondage of the law, receiving the sonship marked out long before, He in new way connected to Himself, preparing him to make trial of death according |
[H]ear that some are rashly talking of the estimation in which I hold your holiness, and that this is frequently the case especially at the times that meetings are held of those in authority. And perchance they think in so doing to say something agreeable to you, but they speak senselessly, for they have suffered no injustice at my hands, but have been exposed by me only to their profit; this man as an oppressor of the blind and needy, and that as one who wounded his mother with a sword. Another because he stole, in collusion with his waiting maid, another's money, and had always lab |
He took little notice of the words of such people, because ultimately they would give an account to the Judge of all, Jesus Christ (PG 77:44C). The holy doctor also mentioned to Nestorius their obligation that their teaching as bishops should be in accordance with the teaching of the Fathers of our church. They should be in the faith according to that which is written, and conform their thoughts (Cyril and Nestorius) to their honest and irreprehensible teaching (PG 77:44C, 45C). If they did not accurately teach the word and the doctrine of the faith to the people |
Following this letter, Cyril made a short reference to the symbol of Nice -Constantinople. He spoke of the Incarnation of the Son and the Word of God. He explained clearly that the only begotten Son, born according to the nature of God the Father, came down, and was incarnate; he partook of flesh and blood like us; he made our body his own, and there came forth a man from a woman, not casting off his existence as God, nor his generation of God the Father (PG 77:45B). Cyril insisted on the Incarnation, because this was the sentiment of the holy |
As had been the case earlier with the Trinitarian doctrine, Cyril was fully conscious of the necessity of positing the union of Incarnation at the level of person, not that of nature. As in the Trinity, there were not three natures and three persons -which would be tritheism -or one nature and one person in three different modes (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) -which would be modalistic monarchianism. In the Incarnation, there was one person, but two natures. The Bishop of Alexandria tried to explain that neither the divine nature overwhelmed the human nature, nor were |
In Christ's person, there was a true union -hypostatic -of the two natures and this followed from the Exchange of Properties or Communion of Idioms. As such, one could understand that Christ suffered and rose again; not as if God the Word suffered in his own nature (the piercing of the nails, or any other wounds), for the Divine nature is incapable of suffering, in as much as it is incorporeal. However, since that which had become his own body suffered in this way, he is also said to have suffered for us; for he who is in himself incapable of suffering was in a |
The divine Word became true human with flesh and blood "not merely as willing or being pleased" ('οὐ κατά θέλησιν μόνην ἤ εὐδοκίαν) (Cyril PG 77:45C). On this point, Cyril referred to Theodorus of Mopsuestia's teaching, which was adopted by Nestorius. Cyril wrote that it would be "absurd and foolish" to say that the Word that existed before all ages, coeternal with the Father, needed a second beginning of existence as God (Cyril PG 77:45C). Mary |
Rather do we claim that the Word in an unspeakable, inconceivable manner united to himself hypostatically flesh enlivened by a rational soul, and so became man and was called son of man, not by God's will alone or good pleasure, nor by the assumption of a person alone. Rather did two different natures come together to form a unity, and from both arose one Christ, one Son. It was not as though the distinctness of the natures was destroyed by the union, but divinity and humanity together made perfect for us one Lord and one Christ, together marvellously and mysteriously |
On this point, Cyril rejected Diodorus of Tarsus's teaching about the two Sons. Diodorus claimed that the divinity, comprised of the Word and the flesh, formed a substantial (or hypostatic) unity analogous to that formed by body and (rational) soul in man. In his reaction, his own theory made him view the divine and the human as separate, leading him to distinguish the Son of God and the Son of David. He stated that the Holy Scriptures draw 9 a sharp contrast between the activities of the two Sons. Otherwise, why should those who blaspheme against the Son of Man |
In his second letter to Cyril, the Bishop of Constantinople remained steadfast in his dogmatic teaching. He did not reply to "the insults" against him as contained in Cyril's second letter (PG 77:49CD). He believed that these insults would in time be redressed by his patience and by events (PG 77:49D). It is obvious that he referred to the audacity of the Patriarch of Alexandria to challenge the reverence and appropriateness of Nestorius's teaching. He replied to Cyril's accusations of heretic teaching, arguing that everything was based on the previous patristic tradition |
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, and so on until, he became obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Nestorius PG 77:52A) to explain that in Christ, in one person, there were both the impassible and the passible natures, in order that Christ might be called both impassible and passible -impassible in godhead, passible in the nature of his body (Nestorius PG 77:52C). |
The term "conjunction" (synapheia) had been used by the holy Fathers, Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom and by Cyril himself, but now its meaning was heretic. We must not forget that the term "conjunction" was technicus terminus for the Antiochians who supported the two natures of Christ. If the union had the same meaning as the conjunction, then there would be two prosopa of Christ. This was wrong. In the earlier patristic tradition, the term "conjunction" was generally used to explain the perception of |
One therefore is Christ both Son and Lord, not as if a man had attained only such a conjunction with God as consists in a unity of dignity alone or of authority. For it is not equality of honour which unites natures; for then Peter and John, who were of equal honour with each other, being both Apostles and holy disciples [would have been one, and], yet the two are not one. Neither do we understand the manner of conjunction to be apposition, for this does not suffice for natural oneness (πρός ἕνωσιν φυσικήν). Nor yet according to relative participation, as |
Nestorius insisted that each nature had its own prosopon. In order to avoid the assumption that, if the Son had two natures, he would also have two prosopa, he referred the conjunction of the natures to one person, Christ (Nestorius PG 77:52C): "... division of natures into manhood and godhead and their conjunction in one person". He spoke ironically about the Word's second generation from Virgin Mary (Nestorius PG 77:52C). He did not allow the birth of Word as a human, because he supported the fact that Mary gave birth |
The conjunction of Christ's natures resulted in the rejection of the title Theotokos for the Virgin Mary: "... the holy virgin is more accurately termed mother of Christ (Christotokos) than mother of God (Theotokos)" (Nestorius PG 77:52C; PG 77:53B). He quoted biblical passages which were misinterpreted, and referred only to Christ's human nature (PG 77:53B-D; Math. 1:16, 18, 20; Math. 2:13; Jo 2:1; Act. 1:14 |
By this presupposition, the term Theotokos declared the hypostatic union of the godhead and the manhood in one person, Jesus Christ. It is known that from the time of Gregory of Nazianzus at least the bishops of the capital seemed generally to have accepted Theotokos without any doubt (Bethune-Baker 1908:56-59). Theotokos was a powerfully evocative term which belonged to the "language of devotion". Of course, he claimed that the Virgin Mary should be called Christotokos only if this term was related to Theotokos |
He was a perfect man with a body (sarx) and a soul (nous), and he was borne by the Virgin Mary. It was obvious that the holy Virgin Mary did not give birth to a common man in whom the Word of God dwelt (Cyril PG 77:112A), lest Christ be thought of as a God-bearing man. For all this, the holy Virgin should be called Theotokos. If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is God in truth, and therefore that the holy virgin is Theotokos (for she bore in a fleshly way the Word of God become flesh |
For every Christian, Theotokos Mary is not only the mother of God, but also his/her mother. For this reason, Christians beg her with tears in their eyes to help them: "O all-praised Mother Who didst bear the Word, 14 holiest of all the saints, accept now our offering, and deliver us from all misfortune, and rescue from the torment to come those that cry to Thee: Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!" (Akathist Hymn to the holy Virgin, Kontakion 13). In concluding this short essay, we will chant |
In his letters, Cyril explained to Nestorius why the Virgin Mary should be called Theotokos. He stressed that, if Nestorius refuted the title Theotokos for the Mother of God, it would be clear that Christ was not God in flesh (Theos sesarkomenos). Christ would be only a divine person and not the incarnate God. Cyril declared that Christ was at once God and man, and that the union was a real and concrete event, or we might say "a substantive reality", not a cosmetic exercise. In his third letter to Nestorius, Cyril mentioned the hypost |
There was a time in our very recent past when we were told that all-encompassing theories of art were unfruitful. But losing one's perspective in the rich field of particularity in art, or in a narrow analytical focus on art concepts, will no more produce significant understanding than will arid theories apart from experiencing the qualities of individual art works. It is possible to retain the insights of both approaches, into particular works with their distinctive qualities and into the analysis of art concepts, by not treating the two activities as ends in themselves. In the philosophy of art there is a need to take up 'once again the grand scheme |
What better way to do this than to re-examine the grandest of the grand schemes for a philosophy of art? There is good reason to regard Hegel's philosophy of art as a means to overcome deficiencies found in the two approaches considered above. It relates art to other aspects of human experience, nature, culture, and to the world order. At the same time Hegel's philosophy of art emerges from his own extensive acquaintance with the arts. The possibility that his approach to art fulfills the need to relate the particular perceptions and analysis of concepts to each other in the wider scope of human experience is quite strong. There is no |
The German refused to evade the logical exigencies of his system and proclaimed the mortality, nay the very death, of art.... He passes in review the successive forms of art, shows the progressive steps of internal consumption and lays the whole in its grave, leaving philosophy to write its epitaph.2 By a process of sheer dialectical deduction Hegel infers the death of art; it is necessitated by the conceptual determinism of his metaphysical dialectical absolutism. 3 Even those who have indicated their lack of support for the prevailing interpretation -Bosanquet, D'Hondt, Findlay, and Harries |
The very richness and complexity of Hegel's discussion of art, not to mention the relation of the material on art to the larger themes of Hegel's system, make hazardous any attempt to give a final reading of Hegel's view on the place and future of art. The same richness suggests a many-sided gem that cannot be examined sufficiently from a single perspective. My primary objective here is not to refute conclusively the death of art interpretation but to set forth the problem in a form that will generate further discussion and rethinking that will lead to clarification of an important aspect of Hegel's philosophy of art. The paper will develop the |
. Characteristic of the death of art interpretation are applications of the principle of dialectic or development which are in one way or another hostile to the welfare of art. Dialectic can be applied to Hegel's view of art at two levels. It is applied to the relation between art, religion, and philosophy, which are the three modes of disclosing Abso-lute Spirit to man's consciousness. Art is understood to be Spirit's "sensuous manifestation." Religion and philosophy are more "ideal" and more inclusive representations which come closer to the true qualities of Spirit. 8 (HA, 10 1-105 |
Croce, Heller, and Knox base their argument for the death of art interpretation on a mechanical view of the role of dialectic. According to their interpretation, the death of art is a necessary logical consequence of the dialectical unfolding of Absolute Spirit. As the dialectic unfolds at this level we find that beauty in art is a synthesis of the sensuous and the rational, romantic art is a synthesis of symbolic and classical art, and philosophy is a synthesis of art and religion. 9 Art's demise is projected on two levels. The appearance of philosophy as the most complete and definitive presentation of Absolute Spirit is understood to dispense with |
The first line of criticism of the death of art thesis can be made with respect to dialectical development in the progression from art to philosophy. It will be necessary to give a brief explanation of Hegel's view on this point to see where the death of art thesis has gone wrong. The thesis is problematic because it presumes that an advancement in the stages of dialectic evolution from art to philosophy results in the annihilation or uselessness of the previous stages. This view is in conflict with Hegel's explanation of the dialectic. Hegel describes the stages of the dialectic in his Preface to The Phenomenology of Mind |
Hegel does distinguish the points of view of the artist and the philosopher, and he clearly differentiates art from philosophy. The artist's task is to grasp reality and its forms through alert eyes and ears. Although reason acts to enable the artist to relate his perceptions to the idea of Absolute Spirit, the artist does not comprehend experience in propositions and representations (Satze und Vorstellungen) as does the philosopher. Rather, the artist brings to consciousness the inner core of reason clothed in concrete forms and the individualities of real life. His representations are so infused with the stamp of emotional life that they make public a part of the |
Each of the forms is effective in some degree as a representation of Absolute Spirit. Symbolic art, the first, is closest to nature. The sensuous element in art and Absolute Spirit 'are brought into proximity at this level, but they are unable to achieve a unification of the sensuous form and spiritual content of art. 18 (HA, 655) The earliest forms of symbolic art, being close to nature, exhibit the principle of the productive energy of generation. 19 (HA, 641) Phallus and Lingam are examples of organic shapes used in symbolic art. They appear as pillars and columns constructed |
Classical art advances the development. Its sculpture takes its preferred model from the human body. Unlike the other natural animal bodies whose bodily frames are animated by animal soul (Seele), the human form also has a quality of spirit (Geist). 21 (HA, 714-15) Spirit is explained here as "being for itself of conscious and self-conscious existence," together with the emotions, ideas, and purposes of that existence. The universal qualities of the human form are ideally receptive to a unity of form and content by which Spirit enters into the sensuous form of the sculpture, analogous to the receptivity of the human body |
The emergence of romantiC art introduces the last of Hegel's determinate forms of art. A careful understanding of Hegel's view of the romantic form of art is very important to the clarification of the death of art issue. Advocates of the death of art thesis emphasize two themes arising from romantic art. They assert that romantic art consumes the previous forms of art through the workings of dialectic and then point to the alleged disengagement of inner subjective aspects from,outer sensuous form as the definitive evidence for the death of art. But I will show that the synthesis of the previous forms of art into romantic art and the |
The romantic arts of painting, music, and poetry each provide some synthesis of the previous forms of art. Painting takes representations of environments from architecture and uses them as background settings for the human figure which it borrows from sculpture. (HA, 797f) Poetry then combines "essential qualities" of painting and music to embrace the most inclusive perspective of the arts. Hegel's remarks on dramatic poetry offer another example of the dialectic synthesis in a particular romantic art. There, the synthesis shows the "lesser arts -architecture, sculpture, painting, and music-appearing as vital parts in a theater presentation of dramatic poetry. |
According to the death of art thesis, we should expect the workings of dialectic to produce the destruction of the lesser and prior stages of art. But quite a different effect is seen. These representative samples of dialectic synthesis taken from Hegel's discussion of romantic arts show that the lesser arts, or principles derived from them, are retained and used in the context of a larger purpose. On the other hand, neither example suggests any use of these arts that would result in their cancellation apart from the synthesis. Nothing in the painter's use of principles borrowed from architecture and sculpture makes painting an adequate replacement of these two arts. And likewise the |
The development of romantic art signifies a shift of emphasis from the sensuous or visible form and its relation to Absolute Spirit to selfconscious subjectivity-the inner world of the ideal and of emotions, soul, and contemplation, of the subject. (HA, 792-96) Personal subjectivity and its involvement with Absolute Spirit are the main center of interest for this changed point of view. This shift has been understood by the advocates of the death of art thesis as an irrevocable split between two essential elements of art, resulting in art's permanent dissolution. However, an examination of Hegel's discussion of this point suggests that |
The need to communicate the inner workings of imagination suggests another way of looking at the changed role of sensuous form in romantic art. In classical art the visible form acts as a symbol participating as fully as possible in the ontological meaning of Absolute Spirit. But the visible form in romantic art acts more as a sign,' communicating the artistic happenings of subjective life without being the main center of interest. (HA, 795f) The distinction between symbol and sign could be misleading here. It should not be understood to mean simply that the visible has no significance. Hegel is attempting to show that the significance of the visible is not due |
Even those who agree with the first point, that the dialectic argument fails to support the death of art thesis, may puzzle over certain of Hegel's texts that are cited in support of the thesis. The following interpretation of three principal texts will suggest that they do not necessarily uphold the thesis. The texts are taken from representative major divisions of Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics, one each corresponding to the general idea of a philosophy of art, to a particular form of art, and to a particular medium. The first concerns Hegel's justification for a philosophy of art and the limits and place of art relative to religion and |
The larger context of the quotation is the introduction to the Lectures on Aesthetics where Hegel justifies the need for a philosophy of art. Since the statement is a part of his rationale for writing a philosophy of art, it necessarily takes on a function of apology or justification. It shows in part why Hegel is doing philosophy rather than making paintings or poems. More importantly, the statement expresses the larger need for a form of thought to accommodate the deficiencies that he sees in the art of his own age and culture. The statement expresses Hegel's belief that the critical and reflective activities of his own age are not conducive to the |
Finally, it is a part of a much larger aspect of Hegel interpretation to decide whether the forward progress of the dialectic is a process in time. 29 In the Phenomenology, the dialectic is, in part, in time, and the moments in the history of a particular civilization are the movements of the dialectic. Hegel wants to speak in such a way that what he says applies to such moments as when religion or art or philosophy is the dominant voice in a particular historical period, say ancient Greece or modern Germany. But he doesn't necessarily want his categories of art, religion, and philosophy to be tied |
Osmaston's translation of the phrase, "Kunst selbst sich aufhebt," into the English, "Art commits an act of suicide," may have inadvertently served to perpetuate the death of art interpretation, especially among English readers of Hegel. However, insofar as I can determine, Hegel never actually uses the phrase, "the death of art." Osmaston's translation is suggestive only in its fanciful and misleading character. Hegel's text neither benefits from nor requires translation in a manner suggesting the suicide image. The translator ignores the fact that in aufheben he has one of Hegel's most |
I would like to propose an alternative to Osmaston's translation of aufheben based on the idea of dissolve. 'Dissolve' includes both the elements of "cancel" and "preserve," and it expresses the appropriate meanings of both Auseinander/allen and selbst sich aufhebt which are the principal terms in the text that is under consideration here. In this case, to dissolve is not the same as to destroy. The dissolution in romantic art is more akin to the modern cinematic principles of dissolve. In a film, to dissolve is to fade out one shot or scene while simultaneously fading in the next, overlapping |
The results of my application of the principle of dissolve are visible in a comparison of a Greek "Bust of Zeus" with Rembrandt's "Portrait of a Young Man, 1662. "32 The bust acts as an ideal vehicle for reveal-ing Absolute Spirit to man's consciousn~ss, according to Hegel's category of classical art. Its universal qualities of sensuous form are abstracted from the human form, but they retain their independence from personal subjectivity and also from complete unity with Absolute Spirit. By comparison, Rembrandt's portrait shows the dissolve of the natural sensuous qualities of color and line into |
A similar effect occurs in two different pictorial scenes. Monet's "Charing Cross Bridge, 1903" shows sensuous form in the relative absence of its domination by subjective purposes. Monet arranges color and light in a manner of scientific objectivity and shows the surfaces of both the painting and its representation of the scene primarily for their sensory values. Consider also Don!'s "Loch Lomond, 1875." Compared to Monet's "Charing Cross Bridge," "Loch Lomond" displays a strong sense of the artist's subjective vision of the nature scene. Colors and lines are no |
The differences in both sets of examples are between art works that show the sensuous qualities retaining a high degree of independence and exhibiting forms that are simply extensions of the natural qualities, and works where the artist's subjective spirit dissolves the sensuous in a more personal representation. The sensuous element is not lost or abandoned. It simply becomes more evidently a vehicle to express man's inner life. If I have correctly interpreted the text referred to here, those who understand romantic art to be the death of art misunderstand Hegel's view. Romantic art is not the death of art; it is one more stage, and obviously is not the last |
Hegel identifies two principal ways in which poetry is superior to the other arts: in its representational powers and in its greater success at moulding sensuous form to the aims of subjectivity. (HA, 960, 966) Only the latter is important for the death of art thesis because superiority in representational powers does not suggest the dissolution of art. The references to the superiority of poetry are expressed negatively by Hegel and are overstated in order to contrast poetry with the other arts. However, for each statement emphasizing poetry's dispensing with the sensuous materials, there are important qualifications that are applicable to one or |
A second qualification is with respect to changes in the natural materials of the different arts. When Hegel states that poetry ~ill have nothing to do with gross matter as such, he is simply indicating the difference between the external materials of architecture and poetry. (HA, 960) In architecture the artist struggles with nature's raw materials of wood and stone. By the time art reaches the stage of poetry, its external "raw material" is language. Because language is already a product of mind, it requires less "working over" than do the materials of architecture. However, it remains that language is both thought and human speech or inscription |
Itch in, when I behold thy banks again, Thy crumbling margin, and thy silver breast, On which the self-same tints still seem to rest, Why feels my heart the shiv'ring sense of pain? Is it-that many a summer's day has past Since, in life's morn, I carol'd on thy side? Is it-that oft, since then my heart has sigh'd, As Youth, and Hope's delusive gleams, flew fast? Is it-that those, who circled on thy shore, Companions of my youth, now meet no more? Whate'er the |
Dear native Brook! wild Streamlet of the West! How many various-fated years have past, What happy and what mournful hours, since last I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast, Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes I never shut amid the sunny ray, But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey, And bedded sand that veined with various dyes Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way, Visions of Childhood l oft have ye beg |
My conclusion is that Hegel did not intend the death of art. He uses the principle of dialectic to show the limits of art for communicating the highest religious truths of interest to man. The dialectic also shows the respective differences among the symbolic, classical, and romantic forms of art and gives a basis for comparing them according to their common use of sensuous and subjective elements. The sensuous and the subjective elements fall apart in romantic art only in a metaphorical way of speaking, and only to dissolve into a new image that makes the subjective element more prominent for this form of art. The texts that allegedly support the death of art |
Beyond this shared fate of neural machinery, there is little information about Parker himself. My investigations revealed that he had proposed a mathematical theory of cortical folding based on the laws of liquid films and surface tension (see W. B. Benham Nature 55, 619-620; 1897) -ironic, considering that the laws of liquid physics and chemical reactions crumbled his brain. I also found that his conclusions nicely complement a theory put forward a century later (D. C. Van Essen Nature 385, 313-318; 1997 One is the cost of sharing data. Both the Public Library of Science |
1 Birds exist just out of mankind's reach, possessing transcendent qualities in their graceful flight and mysterious song. As a result, shamans and mystics have turned to the feathered beast in search of communication with the gods for centuries. Writers too have turned to them to communicate with their readers. They evoke unique qualities and powerful symbolism that taps into a reader's imagination. By developing knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of different species, writers can convey particular emotions through different types of birds. For my purposes, however, the neverending song of the nightingale soars above the rest. To the modern eye and ear |
The nightingale is an enigmatic symbol that has been transformed from a tragic and remorseful figure into a poetic vision of beauty, but its symbolism evolves and grows through the progression from Ovid to the Romantics. The nightingale can be traced back to the Greek songs of Homer' While the nightingale emerges as the symbol we know today in Roman literature and the story and characters rearrange, the pathos of The Odyssey remains constant across the centuries. Penelope, with her grief, casts sorrow upon the nightingale's melodious call. In place of the word nightingale, Homer uses the word, |
Roman poetry expands Greek myths of the nightingale into a gruesome story of rape and revenge that would captivate generations of authors to come. Ovid Chaucer, Gascoigne, Shakespeare, and the Romantics would build upon and reinterpret Ovid's Philomela. Ovid marked a watershed moment in the nightingale's violent and troubling history because he added narrative details to create a vision and story for Philomela that departs from his predecessors. Centuries later, the early nineteenth-century Romantics like Keats and Coleridge brought the symbolic figure of the nightingale back to life as a touchstone |
One might argue, however, when analyzing the development of tropes that the inconsistency of the nightingale's representation from the Romans to the Romantics may derive from a lack of ornithological knowledge or literary history on the part of the poets or authors that redirect the nightingale's symbolism rather than conscious adaptation of the symbolism. Yet, the very nature of poetry allows for exaggeration for the sake of expression, and through history, we have seen such errors, intentional or unintentional, that altered the direction of the nightingale's symbolism. Critics of Oscar Wilde's short story, "The Nightingale and the Rose |
It is necessary to analyze the ornithology of the nightingale, because its symbolism derives from the unique characteristics of the songbird itself, whose figurative value is captured in its ability to express emotion through physical traits and song. What characteristics of the nightingale make it such a powerful representation of sorrow as opposed to other birds? Ancient Greeks were conscious of many different bird types. As seen through Aristophanes play, The Birds, the common viewer may have been able to distinguish about eighty different bird types by their masks and noises during the play. They no doubt recognized the idiosyncrasies of different species by plum |
The symbolic origins of the nightingale's powerful myth lie in the Roman tragedy of Philomela made known through Ovid's Metamorphoses. As Ovid tells it, the king of Athens, Pandion, offered his daughter, Procne, to Tereus as a reward for his military prowess. From the beginning, however, their marriage was threatened by the presence of the Furies with their funeral torches and the absence of Juno at their wedding. Procne longs for her sister Philomela to visit, 9 Lutwack, Birds in Literature. Pg.7. 10 L |
14 In reality, Vergil was the first writer credited with switching Philomela from the muted swallow into the melancholy nightingale. He noted that Philomela's name means "lover of song," so it fits that she attains voice in her transformation for " [w] hile Philomela sings in the wood, her sister lives under roofs, and Tereus frequents the lonely fields." 15 We know that Ovid frequently referenced the works of Vergil, but Ovid's account of the myth prevailed, primarily because of his numerous narrative additions. 16 Ovid's version of the nighting |
Firmly establishing the male-domination in the first half of the myth, Ovid focuses on the power of Tereus, setting up a contrast between his assumed power and Philomela's innocence and vulnerability. Tereus, as a figurehead in Thrace, feels entitled, even ordained, to quench his sexual desires at the expense of Philomela. Ovid describes the first encounter between Tereus and Philomela for " [t] hat sight was quite enough; the flame of love had taken Tereus…the vice inflaming him is both his own and that dark fire which burns in Th |
Through rape and loss of voice, Ovid immortalizes Philomela as the symbol of female abuse behind the mournful wail of the nightingale. Seemingly evocative of her fateful transformation, in the midst of the rape, "like one who mourns, she [Philomela] beats her arms and then, with outstretched arms, she cries 'What have you done, barbarian!'" The image of Philomela flapping her outstretched arms like wings with her hate-filled cry serves as an image of her sorrow that prevails throughout literature. She mimics the bird in |
24 With this act of losing her tongue the fate of Philomela's violent retali-ation is set into motion. For "the tongue itself falls to the ground; there, on the blood-red soil, it murmurs; as a serpent's severed tail." 25 The object of voice, the tongue, now writhes with the poison of a snake, seeking to kill. Like the act of severing the tongue, Philomela reenacts the violence of the rape through a vengeful act that is designed to punish the male aggressor. Having lost her voice, however, Philomela must act through |
The voiceless Philomela who represents the silenced voices of women in ancient society provides both social commentary and a useful trope for repressed authors. 26 Ironically, Philomela views herself as complicit in the rape regardless of her own victimization. When speaking to Procne after her rescue, "Philomela will not lift her eyes; she sees herself as an adulteress." 27 Philomela's presumed guilt indicates that women viewed themselves as an accessory to the baser needs of men. Removing her tongue, Tereus steals her ability to communicate and her ability to accuse her attacker and thereby avenge the |
By shifting the tone after Philomela's loss of voice, Ovid marks a change in the symbolic view from the nightingale. Many critics of Ovid problematize the extent to which Philomela participates in the violent revenge against Tereus. 29 The tone of her cry loses its innocence once the guilt of Itys' murder is on her chest. In collaborating with Procne, who spearheads the plan for revenge, Philomela regains her voice through action. Like the fire of lust within Tereus, the fire of hatred burns within Procne as "she flames … [she is] |
32 By committing this "distasteful" act, the sisters undergo an emotional and narrative transformation that is a harbinger of their later physical metamorphosis. Thus, the nightingale's song can also be one of triumphant revenge. I would argue that Ovid offers a counter-feminist reading of the actions of the women. When women are spurred to act, they overreact. As such, Ovid both vilifies and praises Tereus just as he praises then vilifies the sisters. Scholar Lutwack observed that Ovid first gives a favorable impression of Tereus as a pious war hero |
In Ovid, the nightingale may be interpreted as a symbol of repression, sorrow, or grief or a sign of revenge, fury, or taunting. From Metamorphoses, it is difficult to tell whether Ovid blames Philomela because of the inconsistency of translations. Some translators view "that her [Procne] chests still bear the signs." 33 The literary interpretation of the nightingale after Ovid, however, seems to take advantage of this ambiguity in interpretation. After studying multiple authors' nightingale references, a majority tend to favor the image of the wronged nightingale more than the |
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