Scholarly record

A PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX HYMNOGRAPHY

N. Tuca

Abstract

The existence of a philosophy in Christianity was regarded as unfounded even by some of the writers of the first Christian centuries. More precisely, the idea presented in some patristic texts was that the Logos the Greeks had been looking for became incarnate and proved His truthfulness to the people. Even though the Greek philosophy may be regarded as a gift from God, namely as a manifestation of the eternal Logos - which manifestation gained a philosophic expression through Heraclitus and Plato - Christianity has introduced itself as a certain and full manifestation of the eternal Logos, thus making any philosophical tradition useless. What would be interesting is not the discovery of the genuine contents of Plato's or Aristotle's philosophy, but especially the use of certain concepts and themes helpful for a deeper understanding of the meanings of the Christian doctrine. An essential contribution to the formulation of the new attitude towards philosophy, which appeared in the 4th century Byzantium, belongs to the Cappadocian Fathers – Saint Basil the Great, Saint Gregory of Nyssa and Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. During the first centuries of our era, the Trinitarian and Christological controversies were also animated by the many ambiguities and confusions related to the terms used for the systematization of the Orthodox doctrine. With the Cappadocian Fathers, the fundamental doctrine of Christianity and also the Trinitarian and Christological terminology become established for good, finding the best formulations to express the dogma. These formulations shall be brilliantly used as well in the Byzantine hymnographic poems. Yet, to search for a philosophy like the one of the Greek Antiquity in the Christian hymns makes no sense. What the Cappadocian Fathers did was to get philosophy involved into something dealing not with the exercise of reason in the pursuit of the truth, but with acknowledging and expressing the revealed Truth. The Holy Fathers dealt with the biblical exegesis first and foremost; their philosophic speculations were quite limited. But, we may say that “if these terms gained power and authority, it is because they were used in the Christian divine service”. The philosophical thinking in the Byzantine hymnography is hard to delineate, though attempts to do so have existed. Generally, the Christological vocabulary from the Byzantine hymnography that we shall present in this study contains lots of terms meant to make Christ's mystery understood. Thus, in theology, we meet terms such as: Logos-Word, hypostatic union, enhypostasiation, of the same being, Incarnation, kenosis, perichoresis, person, substance, nature\ldots But not all these terms were used in the Christian religion, due to the meaning-related difficulties they incurred. The complementariness between philosophy and theology guaranteed their mutual independence and, at the same time, their possibility of co-operation, as well. This “symphony” between the philosophical language and the theological contents of the dogmata represents one of the boldest and deepest spiritual syntheses in the history of mankind, which has led to the receiving of the dogmata by means of the hymnography.

Publication Impact Profile

• Captures
• Mendeley - Readers: 1

PLUMX see details

DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2014/b31/s11.088

Publication details

Back to publication list