Symbol and Glory

We have lost the Byzantine sense of symbol and pageantry. Symbol in Syriac is raza, which means ‘secret,’ ‘mystery,’ ‘symbol’—all together at once (Brock, 1985: 41). A symbol is a mystery in the sense that it is inscrutable. It does not satisfy the question: What does it mean? How does it happen? Symbol is aporia (ἀπορία, ‘difficulty of passing’). It does not transport you to somewhere else from it or to something else it is not, like metaphor (μεταφέρω, ‘carry over,’ ‘transfer’). Reason runs into a dead end in a symbol. Yet, in a symbol (συμβάλλω, ‘jumble up together’) the two diametric opposites, irreconcilable and incongruent to each other, are ‘dash[ed] together’ to form a sensible thing, such as God-man, bread-Christ’s Body, God’s act/work (ἔργον)-human act/work/history, etc. The divine reality is hidden forever, never to be disclosed, never to be fully revealed. The Eucharist is a symbol, just as is the Incarnation of God-man in history. The divine reality of these symbolic events are hidden mysteries, aporias, paradoxes, and impossible to explain as to the question of how and what. The Bread and Wine are the divine Mysteries (raze), full of contradiction and, yet, they are Christ’s real Body and action, just as they are real bread and wine. In the eucharistic rite Christ Himself is offering and is being offered on the altar by the work of the Holy Spirit, who transforms the Elements as well as those who partake of Him.

Symbol is the reality of the divine mystery. The hidden is present therein in its full reality. Something is, something happens, in the visible and the sensible. The symbol contains the Uncontainable, like Mary’s womb. This is the strong sense of the word raza (symbol) in Syriac.

From the real and strong sense of the word ‘symbol’ its meaning have degenerated to being a sign. This is due to the Greek word σύμβολον, which means primarily ‘sign.’ A sign refers to or represents something or somewhere else, e.g., road signs, a king’s scepter, or a flag. A symbol in contrast does not refer or represent. It is in itself, intrinsic and enigmatic. It is itself the presence of the Mystery.

We have lost the strong sense of the word ‘symbol’ nowadays. In the liturgical commentaries, the loss is visible in the records dating back as early as at least the sixth century. For example, Philoxenus of Mabbug (ca 500), who served as Metropolitan at Mabbug between 485 and 519, explains the meaning of the partaking the Eucharist as follows:

As you have made me worthy to approach you and receive you—and see, my hands embrace you confidently—make me worthy, Lord, to eat you in a holy manner and to take the food of your body as a taste of your life. Instead of the stomach, the body’s member, may the womb of my intellect and the hand of my mind receive you. May you be conceived in me as [you were] in the womb of the Virgin. There you appeared as an infant, and your hidden self was revealed in the world as corporeal fruit; may you also appear in me here and be revealed from me in fruits that are spiritual works and just labors pleasing to your will.

As quoted in Taft, 2018: 97; Mabbug was the “capital of the Roman Province of Euphratensis in the Diocese of Orient, located west of the Euphrates half way between Edessa and Antioch on the road from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean” (96).

The Bread in my hand, as Philoxenus interpretats, represents my receiving of Christ’s body. My eating of It represents my tasting of the eternal Life. My digesting of It represents my noetic (intellectual) assimilation of Him, resulting in my good works. This kind of illustrations might work well for cultivating eucharistic piety. But is the Eucharist a means to an end, a tool of our edification? Our piety and good work resulting from the partaking of the Mysteries would be the effects of our participation in It. But where does the transformation within us come from, if not from the Thing Itself, the presence of the Mysteries (raze), to which we “draw near in [awesome] fear, faith, and love,” and by which we are transformed?

It is in the strong sense of the word ‘symbol’ that Pseudo-Dionysius (500, plus or minus 20 years) prays to the Eucharist as follows: “O most divine and holy Initiation [τελετή, ‘rite’], uncover completely the enigmatic veil of your Symbols” [συμβολικῶς] (Ecclesiastical Hierarchy (EH) 428C; translation mine)).

Besides the strong sense of the word ‘symbol,’ we have also lost the Byzantine sense of pageantry.

… just as in the procession of a great king, the lesser come first, and the greater and more dignified come after them in turn, and those who are even closer to the king are more regal, and those next even more honored. After all these, the Great King suddenly reveals himself, with the people praying to him and prostrating themselves, at least those who have not already left, thinking that it was enough to see those who preceded the king.

Plotinus, Enneads 5.5.3; 2018: 586.