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„Scăunel” sau „sub”? Cât de exact citează autorii NT din VT?
4 May
Sursă imagine: http://www.hullcc.gov.uk/museumcollections
Parcurgând astăzi Evrei 10 în detaliu, am avut din nou prilej să observ lejeritatea cu care citează Scripturile veterotestamentare unii autori ai NT.
De pildă, un Psalm mesianic (109 în Septuaginta/110 în textul ebraic), citat atât de Sinoptici, cât și de autorul epistolei către Evrei, apare în forme ușor diferite.
Termenul care mă interesează de fapt este ebraicul הֲדֹם (
de la Manu
"Dacă vă rog frumos, aţi putea să mă ajutaţi cu 50 de bani?"
3 May
Eram pe strada Meţianu, denumită astfel după cel ce a fost cîndva episcop ortodox. Cum este o zonă pietonală aici îşi fac concurenţă tot felul de oameni cu pretenţii de “fund raising”. Apar persoane cu cele mai oribile şi vizibile boli, malformaţii, operaţii sau pur şi simplu cu un copil în braţe. Azi era şi un bărbat cu un copil, aşa că m-am mirat “cum s-a diversificat piaţa muncii, domle!” Ba în urma mea o doamnă a cumpărat un salam ieftin pentru cîinele ce aştepta răbdător în stradă.
de la Alexandru
Agnostic or Atheist: Does It Matter?
29 Apr
I haven’t forgotten. Well, I have forgotten far too many things in recent years, but I didn’t forget my recent “promise” to address the challenging subject of the distinction between agnosticism and atheism. Last week I wrote: “I suspect that the intimately personal nature of God’s love for us is one of the things that moves some people from agnosticism to atheism.”
Remember, Radu Muresan
25 Apr
Pentru mine au fost doar 3 săptămâni în care am fost foarte aproape de Radu, adică am dormit în aceeasi cameră, am mâncat la aceeasi masă, am avut activităti comune în timpul zilei, si mi-e asa de greu să mă despart de el. Ce să zică atunci cei care i-au fost alaturi ani de zile la RVE Cluj sau înainte de 1995 la A.C.C.
Un om cu care m-am intalnit
24 Apr
Uneori cumpar carti asa…aproape intamplator. O iau, o rasfoiesc si, dupa ce am citit doua sau trei fraze, gata. M-am inselat de multe ori, recunosc. Sunt carti care ocupa doar spatiu in biblioteca mea si care nu vor ocupa niciodata vreun loc in viata mea si n-o sa le las sa-mi muste din timp.
Pe Antonie de Suroj l-am intalnit intr-o librarie din Arad si l-am luat cu mine in drum spre Cluj.
Jurnal de Uganda - ultima săptămînă!
21 Apr
Miercuri, 22 februarie
Imediat după micul dejun am sunat pentru întâia dată la AltFm si am intrat în direct la ”Matinal” pentru a le vorbi de lucrarea ce o facem aici, dar si despre problemele de sănătate a lui Radu. Am urcat apoi cu Radu la pilonul de antenă pentru a ne întâlni cu reprezentantii firmei care administrează statia antenei. Ei ne-au indicat locul de unde să facem racordul în instalatia electrică, pentru alimentarea echipamentelor noastre.
Radu Mureșan în misiunea africană
Hristos a înviat!
15 Apr
Χριστὸς ἀνέστη ἐκ νεκρῶν θανάτῳ θάνατον πατήσας καὶ τοῖς ἐν τοῖς μνήμασιν ζωὴν χαρισάμενος
Hristos a înviat din morți cu moartea pe moarte călcând și celor din morminte viață dăruindu-le.
Doi tâlhari
13 Apr
La dreapta și la stânga Mântutorului, sufereau pedeapsa păcatelor lor, cei doi tîlhari. La mijloc, suferea Mântuitorul pentru păcatele lor. La un pas era veșnicia tuturor. Vor intra în ea în câteva ore după suferința îngrozitoare a crucificării.
În fața crucii Mântuitorului, cei doi colegi de fărădelegi se vor despărți definitiv. Nu-i vor despărți faptele pe care le-au făcut. Ținând cont de crimele și fărădelegile comise ar fi trebuit să fie împreună nu doar în moarte ci și în veșnicia ei.
Despre Crucea lui Hristos
Cei doi tâlhari
12 Apr
Trei cruci stau între cer și pământ. Vina tâlharilor e pe înțelesul oricui. „Acesta este regele iudeilor” nu e o vină de înțeles. E nevoie de cunoaștere și de interpretare…
Asistând câteva ceasuri la proces și la execuție, se vede cu ochiul liber că se-ntâmplă ceva neobișnuit din cauza unui „vinovat” neobișnuit.
Dar uitându-ne doar la tâlhari, nu este nimic care să-i diferențieze.
The Beauty of Shyness
1 AprThere is something beautiful about shyness, even though in our culture shyness is not considered a virtue. On the contrary, we are encouraged to be direct, look people straight in the eyes, tell them what is on our minds, and share our stories without a blush.
But this unflinching soul-baring, confessional attitude quickly becomes boring. It is like trees without shadows. Shy people have long shadows, where they keep much of their beauty hidden from intruders’ eyes. Shy people remind us of the mystery of life that cannot be simply explained or expressed. They invite us to reverent and respectful friendships and to a wordless being together in love.
Yours, Jack (3)
27 Mar 
1929
Sometime in the spring (Trinity Sunday was May 22 that year) Lewis
came to believe in God, though not yet in Christ:
You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night
after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second
from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him of
whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly
feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I
gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed:
perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in
all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining
and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a
convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked
home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love
which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought
in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every
direction for a chance of escape? The words compelle intrare,
compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men
that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb
the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder
than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.
(Surprised by Joy, Chapter 14)
Cum ne raportăm la suferinţă ?
4 Jan
Fiindcă Hristos a pătimit cu trupul, înarmati-vă și voi cu gândul aceasta: că cine a suferit cu trupul a isprăvit cu păcatul
Suferinţa, boala este un semn al păcatului în viaţa credinciosului, pentru aceia care propovaduiesc evanghelia prosperităţii. Nu ştiu din ce Scripturi îsi construiesc teologia, fiindcă autorul Epistolei către evrei arată că eroii credinţei au avut parte atât de minuni şi izbaviri din partea lui Dumnezeu cât şi de încercări, persecuţii ,şi martiriu.
Asta ne spun şi Evangheliile : slava nu vine decât după suferinţă . Învierea şi slava vine după Cruce.
Asta i teologia, cum stăm cu viaţa ? Am văzut copii care sufereau dîn fragedă copilărie de boli incurabile. O fetiţă care făcea dializa de la 13 ani, iar acum era la vârsta când alte fete de vârsta ei erau cu gândul la căsătorie, iar ea se resemna cu soarta nefericită. Sau mame care îsi îngrijea de-o viaţă copii. Oare la ei se referă Evanghelia când fericeste pe cei care plâng şi cei care suferă? Cu ce suntem noi, cei haruiti cu sănătate şi bunăstare decât aceşti nenorociţi?
Interesant în Evanghelii că cei păcătoşi, oropsiţi, osrtacizati,cei în suferinţă au văzut în Hristos pe Mântuitorul, mai degrabă decât religiosii şi oamenii din partea “lumea bună”. Pentru ce ar avea nevoie un Pilat de Adevărul lui Hristos, când Evanghelia Lui e pentru acei care umblă pe calea strâmta, şi sunt fericiţii fiindcă vor fi badjocoriti ,umiliţi şi chiar omorati în Numele Lui?
Iubirea lui Dumnezeu si vrajmasia oamenilor
1 Jan
Adam şi Eva vorbeau cu Dumnezeu într-un mod privilegiat , dialogul lor nu necesita mijlocirea lui Hristos, sau a îngerilor . Odată cu căderea în păcat relaţia omului cu Dumnezeu se schimbă. Omul se înstrăinează de Creatorul lui, însă Yahweh a plănuit din vecii răscumpărarea fiilor lui Adam. Dumnezeu oarecum este mai interesat de Cain decât de Abel. Scriptură ne relatează dialogurile lui Yahweh şi Cain, iubirea Dumnezeului iertator revarsată asupra păcătosului. Cain se înstrăinează de Dumnezeu, construindu-şi o cetate. Se îndepărtează de semeni ucigandu-şi fratele. De atunci omul investeşte energie, timp şi bani pentru a se apăra şi a se înstrăina unul de altul. Dumnezeu investeşte tot pentru a ne uni unul de altul prin dragostea Lui jertfitoare .
Mihail Tal
24 Aug
A Young Master
1956 began with my first appearance in the Final of the USSR Championship, which on this occasion was unfortunately rather weakened. At that time all our leading players would normally take part in the Championship, but this was the year of the Candidates Tournament, and so all those seeking the chess crown, with the exception of Spassky, preferred to rest.
I started well; in particular, one of my victories, that over Simagin, appeared in all chess periodicals, although there was only one move in it which proved difficult.Tal- Simagin
USSR Ch, Leningrad 1956
Black is trying to drive the knight away, but White does even think of retreating: 12.Nxf7 Kxf7 13.f5 dxe5 14.fxe6+ Kxe6 15.Rb1!! It was after finding this move in his preliminary calculations that White decided to sacrifice the Knight; on 15…Qa6 there can follow 16.Qg4+ Kd6 17.dxe5+ Kc7 18.Bf4 and on 15…Qa5 simply 16.Rxb7.
15…Qxb1 16.Qc4+ Kd6 17.Ba3+ Kc7 18.Rxb1 Bxa3 19.Qb3! Black has adequate material compensation for the Queen, but White’s advantage in development makes his attack irresistible.
19…Be7 20.Qxb7+ Kd6 The return journey! 21.dxe5+ Nxe5 22.Rd1+ Ke6 23.Qb3+ Kf5 24.Rf1+ Ke4 25.Re1+ Kf5 26.g4+ Kf6 27.Rf1+ Kg6 28.Qe6+ Kh7 29.Qxe5, and in addition to his initiative, White has also gained a material advantage.
It was here that the one-sided nature of my play revealed itself. Instead of a quiet, purely technical realisation of my advantage, I decided to include my King in the attack, planning to march him along the route g1-f2-g3-h4-h5-g6. In the end this was successful, but on the way Simagin could have gained a draw.
In the sixth round came the important encounter with Spassky. It was clear that on his “home ground”(the Championship was held in Leningrad) it was Boris who had the support of the spectators; I did not like this, and I played somewhat strangely: first limply(in the opening), then over-sharply(in the middlegame). Spassky won very “cleanly”.
After this my play deteriorated. I won one game, drew a few, and lost one, but there were practically no good games. I say practically, because in the final round I nevertheless succeeded with a rather complicated combinative attack.extras din cartea The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal, de Mihail Tal.
Despre Smerenie
15 Jul
Vreau astăzi să-ţi fac cunoscută iarăşi din aceleaşi dumnezeieşti Scripturi insuflate de Dumnezeu înălţimea şi siguranţa dumnezeieştii smerenii plăcute lui Dumnezeu, pentru ca, recunoscând deosebirea celor două, de reaua mândrie să fugi şi la dumnezeiasca smerenie să alergi şi pe cât îţi este cu putinţă, să te ţii de ea până la sfârşit. Adu-ţi aminte, ticăloase suflete, de fericitul David care prin smerenie l-a doborât pe trufaşul Goliat cel cu gânduri înalte, şi care a arătat ca o prefigurare şi anticipare a dumnezeieştii economii şi pogorâri a lui Hristos, căci acelaşi lucru l-a făcut şi Domnul prin smerenia Lui iubitoare de oameni şi de bunăvoie faţă de noi: fiindcă aşa cum prorocul David l-a omorât pe trufaşul Goliat prin arma lui proprie, tot aşa şi Domnul l-a omorât pe vicleanul şi trufaşul diavol, care-l scosese prin lemn din raiul desfătării pe omul întâi plămădit, lovindu-l în inimă prin cinstitul lemn al crucii şi ne-a răscumpărat din robia vrăjmaşului în felul în care prorocul (David) i-a răscumpărat pe israeliţi din robia celor de altă seminţie.
Aşadar mare agoniseală cu adevărat este smerenia plăcută lui Dumnezeu, căci ea este postamentul, asigurarea şi rezumatul tuturor virtuţilor. De aceea şi Domnul în dumnezeieştile Lui fericiri o fericeşte mai întâi pe ea şi apoi celelalte virtuţi; căci aşa cum un zidar înţelept pune mai întâi temelia şi aşa începe să zidească, tot aşa şi Domnul, vrând să fericească dumnezeieştile virtuţi, o pune mai întâi pe aceasta prima şi spune: „Fericiţi cei săraci cu Duhul, că a lor este Împărăţia cerurilor” (Mt 5, 3), şi în altă parte, când au venit la El ucenicii Lui şi L-au întrebat: „Cine este oare mai mare în Împărăţia cerurilor?”, nu aminteşte altă virtute, nici postul, nici privegherea, nici culcatul pe jos, ci o aminteşte numai pe prefrumoasa şi plăcuta lui Dumnezeu smerenie, pe care El Însuşi a luat-o asupra Sa din nespusa Lui iubire de oameni; căci chemând un copilaş şi arătându-li-l, le-a spus: „De nu vă veţi întoarce şi nu vă veţi face ca aceşti copilaşi, nu veţi intra în Împărăţia cerurilor. Deci cine se va smeri pe sine însuşi ca şi copilaşul acesta, acela este cel mai mare în Împărăţia cerurilor” (Mt 18, 3-4). Vezi, suflete, că nimeni nu poate să intre în Împărăţia cerurilor fără aceasta? Lipeşte-te deci de ea şi primeşte-o soaţă şi în tot locul în care umbli să meargă împreună cu tine şi nu te va stăpâni nici un rău; căci nimic altceva nu calcă în picioare uneltirile şi cursele diavolului ca această atotvenerată smerenie, cum a vestit tuturor şi fericitul Antonie văzând-o cu ochii minţii.
Aşadar, suflete, să fie cu tine în toată vremea şi în tot locul şi în tot ceasul, şi ziua, şi noaptea, şi la rugăciune; şi dacă eşti chemat la masă, nu căuta şederea în faţă, ci ocupă întotdeauna ultimul loc, precum eşti invitat de Domnul, ca nu cumva căutând întâietatea să fii trimis cu ruşine pe ultimul loc, căci zice Domnul: „Oricine se înalţă pe sine însuşi va fi umilit, şi cine se umileşte/smereşte pe sine însuşi se va înălţa” (Lc 14, 8-11); spune însă şi Solomon: „Nu te trufi înaintea regelui, nici nu sta în locurile pentru cei puternici, căci mai bine este să ţi se zică: „Urcă la mine!” decât să fii umilit în faţa celor puternici” (Pr 25, 6-7).
MURRAY SILBERLING
17 JunHistorical Background of Sacred Dance
Sacred dance is widely acknowledged as an important historical dimension of ancient biblical worship. But today, dance does not have any role in the worship services of the traditional synagogue and church. Since dance has become non-essential to our worship, both in the synagogue and church, we need to go back in history to see how it got this way. Did sacred dance continue in the synagogues beyond 70 c.e.* when the Temple was destroyed? How did the church react to this Jewish expression of worship? Did the church always resist finding a place for dance in worship and liturgy?
Communal dance in worship began with the earliest celebrations of Israel’s existence as a nation, at the deliverance from Egypt. During the entire history of Jewish worship until the early Mishnaic period (2nd–3rd centuries c.e.) the people of God celebrated before him in dance.“A vision of heaven throughout the Talmud and Midrash includes the communal dance.”
Sadly, the use of dance as a religious practice declined with the destruction of the Second Temple and the end of Sanhedrin authority in 70 c.e., Following the disastrous Bar Kochba rebellion against the Romans, around 132 c.e., sacred dance in Judaism virtually ceased. The significant reason for the decline was the Jewish trauma at being powerless and finally exiled from Jerusalem. After the destruction of the Temple and defeat at the hands of the Romans, Judaism saw itself again as the object of disapproval and judgment by God.
Again, as in the earlier exile to Babylon, the sounds of joy, mirth, song, and dance were abandoned. Sacred religious dance within the Jewish community did not return until the 1700’s. The celebrations during Simchat Torah (Joy of Torah), at the end of the feast of Sukkot (Tabernacles), were an exception. The traditional dancing with the Torah scrolls has continued to this day.
Yet, as a secular folk or cultural expression of communal joy and Jewish life-cycle celebrations, dance has continued throughout history within the Jewish community. Weddings and Bar and Bat Mitzvahs are examples of these types of life-cycle observances where dancing is an integral part of Jewish life today.
The first signs of the popular renewal of sacred dance, beginning in the 18th century, lead us back to the scattered remnant of the Jewish people in Eastern Europe. In Judaism, sacred dance had virtually been suppressed after the Bar Kochba rebellion. But during the early 1700’s a revivalist movement in Judaism sprang up in Poland called Hasidism. A defining characteristic of this movement was the expression of joy and intimacy with God through ecstatic dance. This movement quickly spread throughout the region, revolutionizing the Jewish community.
The founder of this movement was called the Baal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name). Hasidism reintroduced joy, simcha, into the religious service. The Baal Shem Tov recaptured the use of dance to experience an intimate relationship with God. He taught that the dynamic of dance would fill a person with the joy of the Lord. Renowned for his stories, he recounted how he learned to dance in order to aid a jailed Jewish friend to gain his freedom. He claimed that if one could dance well, he or she would be freed from bondage.
Dancing is still a central part of worship in Hasidic circles. At the Western Wall in Jerusalem, as Friday evening draws near, you can see the exhilarating sight of orthodox Jewish students streaming out of their schools to welcome Shabbat, the Sabbath, with dance. Hasidism was the impetus for dance to slowly move back into other orthodox Jewish sects.
Philosophically, the Jewish people always connected sacred dance to their identity as God’s chosen people. Dance continued in Jewish imagination as a primary expression of the Messianic age—when Israel would be restored as the head of the nations and peace would rule on earth.
We will now see how Christianity dealt with sacred dance. Most people assume that dance has not been a tradition of mainstream Christianity. They surmise that it must have ceased after the church’s final separation from its Jewish roots, around the 3rd or 4th century. However, this is not the case. Dance was an essential part of Christian worship and liturgy up until the 1700’s.
Dance was a part of the worship of the first followers of Yeshua and withstood the radical changes that transformed the earl Messianic communities. These early believers, Jews who believed in Yeshua as the Jewish Messiah, had retained their Jewish lifestyle as the cultural framework for their faith. It was not until the late second and early third centuries with a preponderance of gentiles in leadership roles within the church that more radical changes occurred. Originally the question facing the believers had to do with whether the gentiles could be included in the community of believers, and if so, how (Acts 15). As early as 160 c.e., the issue was reversed, and the question became whether Jews were now excluded from the community of faith.
The primary ancient source of Christian liturgy and worship was the Temple service and later the synagogue service, in particular, the services of the Messianic synagogues. We often fail to appreciate how the early Messianic believers maintained their attachment to the Temple. The book of Acts repeatedly reminds us that the Temple was central for the community life and worship of Yeshua’s first followers (Acts 2:46; 5:42; 21:27).
Two significant factors affected the use of dance in the development of the early Messianic synagogue service. The first was the destruction of the Temple in 70 c.e., which permanently altered the worship practices of the community. The problem was practical—lack of space.
The Messianic believers met in small synagogues and private homes. The loss of the Temple and its spacious courtyards meant that there were no ample places available for sacred dance. In their small synagogues and house meetings, space was at a premium. Dance, therefore, became a persistent, practical problem as the number of believers grew.
The second factor affecting the use of dance among early believers was the tendency to spiritualize elements of Jewish tradition. The early Messianic community in Jerusalem was Torah observant. Acts 21:20 reads, “Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law.” But over the next two centuries, the Messianic Jewish world went through some radical changes in cultural expression. Although all the early believers until around 45 c.e. were Jewish or converts to Judaism, the large numbers of gentiles coming into the faith brought with them crucial differences in cultural expression and identity.
Change within the Messianic community intensified in the 2nd century, after the Bar Kochba rebellion. In the ultimate act of Roman anti-Semitic fervor, Jews were banned from living in Jerusalem and massive deportations displaced the Jewish populace. One of the results was that the new leadership of the Messianic community in Jerusalem became fully gentile. The far reaching changes they brought in separated the body of believers from their Jewish roots and led to a process of de-Judaization.
History records the problems that the new gentile leaders had in weaning the remaining Messianic believers away from the synagogue. Gentile leaders found it difficult to claim equal authority with their Jewish counterparts in matters concerning the Jewish Scriptures, since few of them were fluent in Hebrew. These non-Jewish leaders, who had very little understanding of the Jewish traditions, found it increasingly difficult to hold authority over their community. Many people, including some gentiles, were looking to Judaism for their foundational beliefs and life-cycle practices. Because the new leaders were unfamiliar with traditional Judaism and Hebrew, they reinterpreted the Bible in their own context and established new practices and theologies.
Following such teachers as Origen, Justin Martyr, John Chrysostom, the historian Eusebius, and the famous theologian, Augustine, church theology changed to reflect the leaders’ Hellenistic culture. Church theology reinterpreted itself in line with their Neo-Platonic philosophy, and a mounting tension developed with anything that was Jewish. Allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures was a tool that enabled the church leaders to spiritualize elements of Jewish teaching and tradition. This set up a paradox in Christian theological development. While the church attempted to remain true to its biblical roots, which were Jewish, it was trying to separate itself from the culture, authority, and beliefs of the Jews.
Although one might suspect that the de-Judaized church would have succeeded in eliminating dance completely from the worship service, that is not the case. The church underwent a cultural transitional process over an extended period of time that affected every aspect of belief and behavior. One can see the hand of the Holy Spirit protecting dance during this precarious period of change within the church.
In spite of the de-Judaization process, sacred dance continued to flourish within the church. From the time of the first Messianic community, dance was described as an experience of heavenly joy, an act of encountering and adoring the divinity of God. Both the Messianic believers and the divine angels in heaven were depicted in adoration of Yeshua through dance. Two of the earliest liturgies record in detail the use of dance within the service. Justin Martyr (100–165 c.e.) and Hippolytus (200 c.e.) both describe joyful circle dances as a part of the order of worship.
By applying the Platonic concept that things on earth are a reflection of the true pattern that is in heaven, the Hellenized theology of the church integrated the Jewish traditions of sacred dance. The scriptural tradition of dancing in heaven gave sanction for the church to use dance in liturgical worship. In the famous Shepherd of Hermas, as early as the first third of the second century, dance was perceived as part of the celestial bliss. Clement of Alexandria (150–216 c.e.) in his Address to the Heathens, says, “When persons dance on earth, they also dance with the angels.” The idea of dance as spiritual worship copying heavenly worship is further established by an apocryphal text from the second century c.e., in which Yeshua is depicted as the leader of the dance.
In the apocryphal Acts of John, there is a long hymn called the “Hymn of Christ,” where the ritual calls for the people to respond by circling the dancing figure of Yeshua. He commands his followers, “Answer to my dancing. See thyself in Me who speak and dancing what I do…” This hymn goes on to speak about dance. “To the universe belongs the dancer—Amen. He who does not dance does not know what happens—Amen.” This hymn is describing a spiritualized dance that enables the dancer to know God better.
With the political-ecclesiastical alliance forged by the influencial church historian, Eusebius Pamphilius, and the Emperor Constantine (306–337 c.e.), the role and significance of Jewish culture was greatly diminished. After this time, the Jewish people lost the rights of full citizens in the Roman Empire. No longer was the Jewishness of dance an issue.
Despite the transformation in church culture, the early Church Fathers supported the use of dance as prayer and worship in various forms. While some tried to spiritualize or eliminate dance from worship, many Church Fathers expressed that dance was an important part of the believer’s relationship with God. John Chrysostom and Augustine were in agreement that dance brought one’s bodily members into accord with the love of God.
Some early leaders, like Epiphanius (315–403 c.e.), sought to spiritualize dance. Like others he used the allegorical method of teaching Scripture, in which the physical aspects of the kingdom were primarily interpreted as representing spiritual or heavenly reality. Epiphanius taught that dance was to consist of symbolic movements of the soul, rather than actual physical movements, thereby giving credence to dance, without allowing it to be performed.
Dance was incorporated in the church, yet controlled by transforming it into liturgical processions and elaborately choreographed eucharistic celebrations. An example of the official place of dance and processions in the church is the Eastern priestly installation rites. The church established a ritual practice in which a new priest would circle the altar with his congregants as a part of his installation. This was a way to show the equality of the priest with his congregation and knit them together as a body. This practice persists today in the Orthodox Church.
Tensions developed within the church due to a desire for dance to enhance sacred worship on one hand, and the fear of abuse by newly converted pagans on the other. Dance was widely popular in pagan celebrations and rituals. When they became believers, sometimes their sensuous pagan dances came with them into the new faith. Bizarre dance practices within graveyards are recorded that revolved around the “dance for the dead.” You can imagine how macabre and occult-like some of these dances might have been. Nevertheless, the new converts were encouraged to convert the dances from their pagan roots.
Throughout church history the official assaults on dance continued, along with efforts to free dance for proper use as an official expression of worship. There has not been a period when there was not some form of dance associated with the practice of Catholicism. Over the years, the church tried to allow dance into worship while keeping it in check through various council decrees. Their attempts were made, not in order to squelch dance altogether, but to ameliorate the abuses. For the first seventeen centuries, dance was an integral part of the church service in one form or another.
According to Louis Backman, a noted historian of dance, the Reformation, beginning in 1525, single-handedly brought about an almost total demise of dance within the Protestant churches. There are two major reasons behind the cessation of dance.
Unusual as it may seem, the first reason for the curtailment of dance over the next century and a half was the invention of the printing press. Along with fostering the spread of critical attitudes toward traditional church customs, the invention of the printing press had a considerable effect on all the arts. The printing press multiplied the publication of an enormous variety of tracts, pamphlets and books which were quickly and cheaply published. In 1545, the Council of Trent was convened to deal with the resulting religious confusion felt by the people. The decisions by this council sounded the eventual death-knell for liturgical dance, for processions, and for most visual arts within the church. Only the arts of printing, preaching, and music survived intact after the Reformation.
Martin Luther (1483–1546), the leading voice of the Reformation, had a very negative attitude towards dance. He saw no reason for dance within the service of the church. The effect of the Council of Trent and Martin Luther’s influence prevented even dancing by the clergy and all dance was virtually suppressed by the late 1700’s. Still, even with this suppression, one can see small glimmers today of the earlier traditions.
The second reason for the cessation of dance in Protestantism was the entrance of rationalism with its more critical view of the arts. This philosophy held the notion that the mind had priority over the body. During this time, there was a resumption of the de-Judaized, Hellenistic, mind-body dualism that had hindered the use of dance in the early years of the Church. The theology of the period stressed the rational over the experiential. Dance was determined to be too subjective to be appropriate for church liturgy.
For all intents and purposes, dance is barely recognizable today in Christianity. Sacred dance is submerged in the various liturgical movements of the body by the clergy. Token movements such as raised arms, upturned palms in the benediction, bowed head, kneeling and genuflecting, are all that remain of the richness of dance within the church. Dance processionals, eucharistic and festival dances, became a shadow of former practices. Eventually many of the movements that were a part of liturgical dance by the congregation were assumed by the clergy.
Within the Roman Catholic church, the Mass itself came to be perceived as the only appropriate form of dance. The minimal body movements by the priests during the Mass along with the limited movements of the congregants were the sum total of what was left of its rich Hebraic dance heritage.
Georges Florovsky
4 Apr
Alexander of Alexandria
During the period of the Arian controversies the Church was faced with problems of a philosophical nature and, in answering the heretics, theologians developed systems of philosophical conceptions and terminology. In the words of the Church historian Socrates, Alexander of Alex-andria “theologized like a philosopher” in his refutation of Arianism. Alexander’s theology is mainly concerned with the problem of time. His basic doctrine is also that the Divine is immutable and unchanging, and for this reason he stresses the complete indivisibility of the Father and the Son. “God has always existed and the Son has always existed; the Son and the Father are together; the Son coexists with God.” αμα and αει: this definition excludes the idea of gradation within the Trinity. “The Father does not precede the Son by the slightest instant.” He has always and unchangingly been the Father of His Son. The Son is generated “absolutely from the Father” and is His “indistinguishable Image.” He is completely and exactly the Image of the Father and is perfectly similar to Him in everything. It is only “unoriginateness” which is the attribute and “personal property” of the Father alone and which does not extend to the Son. But since the Son’s generation is eternal, this does not abrogate the complete inherence of the Son in the Fa-ther.
Alexander was also an Origenist, but he developed different aspects of Origen’s system. He ignored cosmological problems and tried to understand and explain the being of the Son as an internal event within the Divinity, and not as a moment or act of “generation.” From his theological creed it is clear that the problem of time and eternity was connected with his doctrine on the being and essence of God. This was tremendously significant at the beginning of the Church’s struggle against Arianism. The anathemas appended to the Nicene Creed reject all definitions of the Divinity which suggest any limitation in relation to time, such as “there was a then, when He did not exist,” or “(He has being) out of things which do not exist,” or which involve the concepts of mutability or a created nature. The Nicene Creed also rejects the idea of origina-tion “from another essence or hypostasis.” Socrates reports that Ossius (Hosius) of Cordova, who was sent by the emperor to Egypt to settle the Arian conflict, was the first to raise the question of essence and hypostasis, making these the subject of a new controversy.
Georges Florovsky, Origen’s System and Arianism
7 Mar 
Thus, the problems of Arian theology can be understood only in terms of the premises of Origen’s system. Origen’s fear of Modalism can also be discerned among Arian theologians. Since the Arian movement was possible only on the foundation of Origenist theology, the struggle against Arianism was actually a struggle against Origenism. However, the teacher’s name was rarely mentioned in this controversy because the opponents of Arianism, especially Alexander, were Origenists themselves. Origen was not an Arian but it is easy to see how the Arians reached their conclusions not merely from misunderstandings of his teachings but from his actual premises. Historically, therefore, the defeat of Arianism proved at the same time to be a defeat of Origenism, at least in trinitarian theology.
At that time the system of Origen as a whole had not yet been subjected to debate and the general question of its validity was raised only at the very end of the century. Origen’s trinitarian doctrine was silently renounced, and even such a consistent Origenist as Didymus was com-pletely free from Origen’s influence in his dogma of the Trinity. He was even further from Origen than Athanasius. Thus, Origenism was not only rejected but overcome, and this is the posi-tive contribution which the Arian controversy made to theology.
Arius bases his theology on the conception of God as a perfect unity and a self-enclosed monad. For him this Divine monad is God the Father, and everything else in existence is alien to God in its essence. The absolute nature of the Divine Being makes it impossible for God to give or endow His essence to anyone else. Therefore, the Word, the Logos, the Son of God, as an hypostasis and as one who has actual existence, is unconditionally and completely alien and unlike the Father. He receives His Being from the Father and by the will of the Father, just as all other creatures do, and He comes into being as a mediator for the sake of the creation of the world. Thus there exists a certain “interval” between the Father and the Son, and the Son is not coeter-nal with the Father. If He were, there would be two “eternals” or two ultimate principles, and the truth of monotheism would be abrogated.
In other words, “there was a then, when the Son did not exist.” He did not exist, but He came into being and had an origin. This means that the Son comes into being “out of things that do not exist,” εξ ουκ οντων. He is a creature, something which is generated and therefore like all generated things He has a “mutable” nature. He is endowed with Divine Glory in advance, from outside, “by grace” and by God’s foreknowledge of the future.
Such are the general features of the teaching of Arius, as much as we are able to judge by the fragments of his compositions which have survived and by the evidence of his contemporaries. His doctrine is basically a rejection of the Divine Trinity. For Arius the Trinity is something derived and generated. It has an origin and its members are separated by “temporal intervals,” διαστημα. Its hypostases are not coeternal and are not similar but alien to each other. “They are eternally dissimilar.” It is a type of diminishing Trinity, a union or, in the words of St. Gregory the Theologian, an “association” of three essences which are not alike. It is a union of three hypostases which are united by essence. It is three essences and three coexisting wills which are distinguished by essence.
In his theology Arius is a strict monotheist, almost a Judaizer, and for him a Trinity cannot be a single God. There is a one and only God, and that is the Father. The Son and the Spirit are the highest and first-born creatures who are mediators in the creation of the world. In this doc-trine Arius approaches Paul of Samosata and the Dynamic Monarchians, but he is even closer to Philo. It is not difficult to understand why his arguments found supporters among the Alexandrians and Origenists.
The connection between Arius’ dogma and the problems of time and the creation of the world are immediately evident. Creation implies origination. That which is created is that which has a beginning, which exists not from itself or through itself, but from another. It is that which does not exist before it comes into being. In Arius’ system “creation” is indistinguishable from “generation” because for him both entail origination, which in his understanding can only take place in time.
This difficulty arises because of the ambiguity of the conception of “origination.” That which is generated has an origin, a reason for its being outside of and before itself. But “origin” can have two meanings: it can be the cause or source of being, or else it can be a moment in time. For Arius both meanings coincide. For him “eternity” or timelessness means ontological primacy, and therefore he refuses to grant that the existence of the Son is “without beginning” or eternal. This would be a denial of His “generation” and the fact that He is begotten, and, if this were not true, then the Logos or Word would be a second and independent God. If the Word is from the Father, then He must have been begotten. Otherwise, He is not from the Father. From tradition Arius knows that the Word is the God of revelation and the most immediate cause of creation. But a creature is subject to change, since it is temporal, and this gives him another reason to connect the existence of the Word with time.
It thus seems that Arius was in sharp disagreement with Origen. In Origen’s doctrine the generation of the Word is eternal and this proves that the Divine Being is immutable. However, Origen inferred too much from this. Because he believed that origination is incompatible with the immutability of God, he posited that the creation of the world is also eternal. In his system the generation of the Son and the creation of the world are united by the concept of origination, and to protect the immutability of God Origen essentially denied that any origination ever takes place. There is nothing in existence about which he was willing to say “there was a then, when it did not exist.”
In this way Origen concluded that all existence is eternal and that everything coexists with God, a dogma which is similar to Aristotle’s doctrine of the eternity of the world. For Origen the world was not a created thing. This conclusion was unacceptable to his followers who, although they rejected his conclusions, did not deny his premises. Arius also reasoned in this way. He de-nied that the world is eternal, and the entire emphasis of his system is in affirming the temporal character of everything which is generated or which has the “origin” of its being in another. However, from this he concluded that the Son also is generated in time. Arius differed from Origen in his conclusions but agreed with him in his premises. Within the bounds of Origen’s system there was an inescapable dilemma: it was necessary to either admit the eternity of the world or to reject the eternal generation of the Son. This dilemma could be avoided only by denying Origen’s premises. For this reason Arius’ system attracted those disciples of Origen who did not accept his idea of an eternal world.
Tomáš Špidlík, credinţa vie
25 Feb
“Cei care răspund chemării lui Dumnezeu se numesc „credincioşi”, adică sunt aceea care cred. În Biblie credinţa este centrul vieţii religioase. Lucrării de mântuire pe care Dumnezeu o realizează în istorie, omul îi răspunde cu credinţă. Pe urmele lui Avraam, „tatăl tuturor credincioşilor” (Rom 4, 11), personajele fundamentale ale Vechiului Testament au trăit şi au murit în credinţă (Evr. 11). În Noul Testament discipolii lui Isus sunt „cei care au crezut” (F.A. 2, 44), cei „care cred” (1 Tes. 1, 7).
Atitudinea plină de credinţă se manifestă sub diverse aspecte. Se spune mereu că pentru catolici credinţa înseamnă mai ales conţinutul, totalitatea adevărurilor revelate, care sunt rezumate în catehism; pentru protestanţi, dimpotrivă, credinţa indică un act de încredere personală în Hristos, decizia de al urma oriunde El ne va conduce. Exagerând această distincţie se separă ceea ce în realitate este indivizibil. Cu atât mai mult, Sfântul Chiril din Ierusalim scria despre credinţă că are un dublu aspect: primul este cel de a avea o deplină încredere în Hristos; dar cel care are încredere într-o persoană acceptă ca adevărate toate cuvintele ei, ceea ce revelează, ceea ce formează conţinutul de credinţă.
Primul aspect se realizează prin încrederea în Hristos şi prin dialogul personal cu El, cel de al doilea prin mărturisirea Crezului, a adevărului eclezial. Încrederea în Hristos găseşte în scrierile Sfinţilor Părinţi o exprimare metaforică: Biserica-Mireasă a lui Hristos. Dialogul cu Hristos şi practica în rugăciune. “
Preluat din Tomáš Špidlík, Cateheză despre Biderică ,Editura Galaxia Gutemberg, 2005.
