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The Word Is an Angel of the Mind: Angelic and Temple Imagery in the Theology of John Mansur, the Damascene

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The Word Is an Angel of the Mind: Angelic and Temple Imagery in the Theology of John Mansur, the Damascene Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Dissertations (2009 -) Dissertations, Theses, and Professional Projects The orW d Is An Angel Of The indM : Angelic And Temple Imagery In The Theology Of John Mansur, The aD mascene. Elijah Nicolas Mueller Marquette University Recommended Citation Mueller, Elijah Nicolas, "The orW d Is An Angel Of The indM : Angelic And Temple Imagery In The Theology Of John Mansur, The Damascene." (2014). Dissertations (2009 -). Paper 354. http://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations_mu/354 THE WORD IS AN ANGEL OF THE MIND: ANGELIC AND TEMPLE IMAGERY IN THE THEOLOGY OF JOHN MANSUR, THE DAMASCENE. by Elijah Nicolas Mueller A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Milwaukee, Wisconsin May 2014 ABSTRACT THE WORD IS AN ANGEL OF THE MIND: ANGELIC AND TEMPLE IMAGERY IN THE THEOLOGY OF JOHN MANSUR, THE DAMASCENE. Elijah Nicolas Mueller Marquette University, 2014 This dissertation looks at the scriptural images of angel and temple, as they occur in key works by John Damascene: on the Heresies, chapter 100 “On the Ishmaelites;” Three Treatises on the Divine Images, and on the Orthodox Faith. Angelic and temple imagery forms an important core which holds together liturgy, ascesis, and theophany. These types of images constitute a consistent mode for understanding theology and anthropology. As part of revelation, they are important in the early Islamic context. Angel and temple imagery were used by John Damascene to push back against Islamic revelation claims and Islamic challenges to the centrality of these images from an older, more developed and ascetic way of dealing with the imagery of Jewish and Christian revelation. As such, John Damascene must argue in a way which reinforces both the biblical images and the sense of the hermeneutic propriety of worshipping Christ through images and other sacramental means. Christ himself as divine, and God expressed in his Will creating and provident, is defended by the claim for the Image within the Trinity. In the context of both Islamic and Iconoclastic claims to a better understanding of Divine Law, either through Quran or Old Testament, John Damascene consistently tries to show Christian belief and practice as adhering to the Law as properly understood in Christ. In doing so, he ends up more powerfully affirming matter, sense (especially vision), and the body. As regards the body, John Damascene consistently moves in the direction of asserting something bodily about God, definitely proclaiming angels as in some sense bodily and focusing on the theological import of Christ’s incarnate enthronement and theophany. For John Damascene, both angel and temple work in tandem as icons, meeting places, and accompaniment of theophany for the Christian. These images help to emphasize human refinement and purification through ascesis and virtue, understood as movement to greater vision and participation in the place of God’s appearance and human exaltation, in Christ. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Elijah Nicolas Mueller Above all, I would like to thank my wife Rebecca for all her support, love, and her continually challenging me in our common intellectual and spiritual labor throughout my doctoral work… my sons Gabriel and Isho for their long-suffering with my work and its ups and downs. I like to thank my newly departed mother (memory eternal!) for her quiet but warm support in my work, and my father for his support and proofreading of the dissertation (all mistakes are mine!). Thanks are also due to Bishop Alexander Golitzin as my teacher, dissertation director, confessor and bishop; and to Dr. Deirdre Dempsey in her most productive zeal in moving me along with the dissertation. I would like to thank my parish, St. Makarios in Hyde Park, for all its support, prayers and toleration of the distraction from my pastoral duties. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…...……………………………………………………….…..i CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………................1 Returning His Name: John Damascene, “Mansur”………………..………….…...1 Mansur's Biography in Recent Research……………….……………………...….3 Mansur’s Argument In Social Context: Islam, Challenge for Christian Israel....…7 Question of Angels, Icons, and Temple: Remarks on Recent Scholarship…...…10 Glenn Peers’ Subtle Bodies………………….…………………………………...11 Moshe Barasch’s Icon………………………………………………….…..…….16 Jaroslav Pelikan’s Imago Dei…………………….……………………..…..........20 Works Treated: The Word is an Angel of the Mind………………..……...........23 Scriptural Interpretation: the Image as the Shape of Meaning……………..……26 Thesis: The Image is God and Human, Thus Also Where They Meet—Temple and Angel…………………………………….…………………………………..27 The Purpose(s)…………………… …………………………...……………...…28 Plan………………………………………………………………………………29 Implications of this Investigation……………………………….……………..…30 Why the Title: “The Word is an Angel of the Mind?”………....………………..31 II. ON HERESIES, CHAPTER 100, “ON THE ISHMAELITES.”………………….....32 The Missing Icon of the Will: Mansur's Icon Theology and Ascetic Angelology in his Critique of Muhammad's Revelation……………………............………...…33 “On the Ishmaelites,” the 100th chapter of On Heresies in its Literary Context....34 Prophet as Image of Ascesis …………………………………………….………36 iii Revelation as Vision and Icon, not Book……………………………….…….….38 The Prophet as Icon: the Revelation Must be Witnessed………………………..39 Why the Contention over Revelation?...................................................................43 Moses vs. Muhammad: Where’s the Glory?..........................................................51 Will and Icon in Movement………….………………………………………..…54 Dreams: Movements of Weakness, and the Demonic………...…………....……56 Topos: Placing God in Liturgy and Ascesis………………...……………...........59 Human and Divine Icon: Sight in Trinity…………………...…………………...61 Summary of Mansur’s Critique………………...………………………………..62 Conclusion: Seeing the Word Integral to the Ascetic Prophet and his Liturgical Revelation…………………………………………...…………………….……..63 III. THREE TREATISES ON THE DIVINE IMAGES: A THEOLOGY OF THE MESSIAH OF ISRAEL IN THE LIVING TEMPLE OF THE ANGELS AND THE SAINTS….........................................................................................................................64 Introduction to Chapter III………………………………….…………………....64 Iconoclasm, Islam and the Need for an Old Testament-Based Theology…...…...67 Overview of Major Concepts: Angels as Architecture and Icon of Theophany....68 Types of Arguments Made by Mansur……………………...………….………..71 Excursus: Third Apology, Textual Problems…………………………………….72 Analysis of Each of the Three Treatises on the Divine Images: Treatise 1 of Divine Images……………………………………………………………………73 Cherubic Prayer: Ornament or Thematic Image?..................................................74 iv “Flesh Became Word:” Visual Interpretation of Law……………………...….…76 Periodization of Revelation and God’s Transcending Formlessness………...…..77 Architecture of Images: Theophany and Temple Iconography………..………...78 Proskynesis: Law and Pilgrimage to Place Where God’s Feet Stand………...…81 Overshadowing: Glory, Not Absence…………………………...…………..…...82 Priest and Israel: Hierarch and Communal-Liturgical Iconography......................85 Materiality and Memory………………………………………………………....86 Saints as a Council of Gods and Kings: a Fleshly Heavenly Host………………88 Vision and Material Consequences of the Resurrection………………………...90 Seeing and Salvation: From Soul to Body………………………………………91 Boundaries: Marking the Practices of Angels and Humans…………………......92 Unwritten Tradition: Visual Liturgical Practice………………………………....92 Demons and Kingdoms: Idols or Image of Cosmic Icon and Kingdom……........93 Fulfilling Moses and Aaron’s Priesthood: Bowing to the Material Word………94 Florilegia: Glory in the Saints……………………………………………………95 Analogy of Faith and the Measuring of Grace…………………………………...96 Holiness and Longing to See…………………………………………………....99 Overshadowing: Worshipper as Image of Worship…………………………….100 Icon as Apocalypsis: Saints and Divine Regime Change………………………103 Icon as Victory Over Demons…………………………………………………..104 v Summary of Treatise One of Divine Images……………………………………105 Treatise Two: Satan’s Jealousy of the Image…………………………………..106 Icon as the Divine Enigma of Scripture………………………………………...108 Exorcising the Iconoclast……………………………………………………….110 Torah: Mystery of Sacramental Materiality…………………………………….112 Unwritten Image and Holy of Holies………………….………………………..114 Conclusion: the Ruling Image of Heavenly Kingdom………………………….116 Treatise III…………………………………………………………………..…..117 Icon: Temple of Risen Life……………………………………………………..119 Icon: Longing for the Body………………………………………......................120 From Oikonomia to Higher Patterns……………………………………………122 Making the Bodiless Seen by its Clothing……………………………………...123 Lo,goj A;ggeloj and the Hierarchy of Images......................................................124 The First Type of Image………………………………………………………..125 Short Excursus on the Lo,goj A;ggeloj: Pre-Nicene Motif used by Mansur……125 Return to Treatise III: Icon as Will, the Second Type of Image………………..132 Imitating the Will of God: the Third Type of Image …..………………………133 Analogies, Past and Future and Angels: the Fourth Type of Image…….……...134 Fifth Type of Image: Prefiguration……………………………………………..135 Memory: Sixth Type of Image………………………………………………….135 vi Lo,goi and Angels: Noetic Images…………….………………………………..136 Prophetic Noetic Perception of Christ………………………………………….138 Worship and Veneration:
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