Xavier Zubiri, Christianity, trans. Joaquin Redondo (Part 2 of 2)

The copyright notice (2001-2008, Joaquin Redondo) states that "Permission to republish in any form is hereby granted, provided this source is acknowledged." This was retrieved from the Internet Archive of catholicphilosophy.com. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (261-271) --------------- {261} § 3 THEOLOGIC CONCEPTIVENESS In his divine filiation Christ has constituted the integral and total fundament of the religious life of mankind, of those that believe in Him and even of those that do not believe, as we shall see further on. Here we have, therefore, the grandiose ascending and progressive march in five or six centuries from the New Testament data to the dogmatic formulations of the Church. A progressive march, which has constituted in all its unfathomable richness the Christological dogma. But let us understand that in the end all this says no more than what was said in that simple discourse of St. Peter to the Israelites we have seen above. It says it in a more precise, more rigorous, and clearer form, but in the end it says no more. And if it says something else it does not belong to dogma, but to the metaphysical philosophy of those who have formulated it. It is a kind of metaphysical dialectic about God, which always starts, of course, from a certain idea of reality and then understands what the reality of God is. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that here, just as in the case of the Trinity, an enormous abyss separates the language and concepts of the dogmatic definitions of the Church, from the concepts and terms used in the New Testament. If the New Testament had been written in terms of person and phúsis, who would have been able to understand it? There is an unfathomable abyss. This abyss has led to the thought that they are two completely different perspectives, which in a certain sense is true. The New Testament and Biblical perspective, called “functional”, expresses the divinity of Christ in this {262} case, and in general in all theological matters, within the dimension of functions of religious life. Next to it we have this other dimension, which is not illegitimate, but just different. It would be a speculative dimension adopted by the Church precisely after Adoptionism and at the start of Nestorianism. In a certain way all this is true, but it is not the radical truth. From my point of view this is simply so because of two reasons. One, because it may be said with clarity and truth that the metaphysical system the Church has used in its expression of dogmas is a Greek metaphysical system, and as such is not canonized at all. This precisely leaves open to human ways a different metaphysical answer than the one left to us by the Greek world concerning what reality may be. On the other hand, less pleasing to those in favor of the functional dimension, is it true that the content of the New Testament, by not being speculative, only provides us with a functional perspective? And what is meant by functionality? No one tells us. It should have been made explicit when two theologies are going to be confronted the speculative theology, and the critical theology. The abyss that separates these two theologies essentially depends on a fundamental question. What is understood by that functionality? Will try to face this issue with three points. I. In the first place, what is the person of Christ? Christ is the Son of God. This is the first issue we must develop. II. In the second place, what is the life of Christ? In what did the personal life of Christ consist since He had an internal life while He was on Earth? This question is reduced to just one concept, from my point of view radical and ultimate, Jesus Christ is the filial subsistent religation. III. In the third place, what did He do with that life? What was the work of Christ? What He did with his life was to mold that filial religation into a filial religion. It was the beginning and the foundation of Christianity. {263} I. THE PERSON OF CHRIST Who is Jesus Christ? Obviously, when we speak of Jesus Christ as man it is necessary to keep in mind something that is often forgotten, or at least ignored when reflecting. That the man we are talking about is not an individual of the human species like any other man, but an absolutely concrete man, historically and geographically. The son of a carpenter, walking in Palestine on a certain year, etc. This is what we are talking about. To incarnate “into humanity” is a supreme abstraction. To incarnate means that this particular human individual is the Son of God, walking through the streets of Bethlehem or Jerusalem with all His historical and biographic concretion. He is not just a singularity of the human species, but an absolutely concrete individual. The question is who is this absolutely concrete individual? In what does this concrete man consist? Who is the person of Christ? The answer to this shall be accomplished in three successive steps. A) The question of who he is, who is the one doing and performing what the Gospels tell us about him? B) How does this man know he is the Son of God? This is no small matter. We shall see that this is one of the serious difficulties of current Christology. C) And in third place, by virtue of his divine filiation, not only real, but also known, what is the position, which the person of Christ has in the whole of creation? A) Who is He? Who is the person of Christ taken by itself? Of course, this who involves two steps internally connected. {264} In the first place, who is, that is to say, what are the Gospels in the New Testament telling us the person of Christ was? It is the case of telling us who Jesus Christ is in the sense of what kind of substantive being is constructed throughout his own life like any other man. And in the second place, who is Christ as substantive reality that activates that kind of substantive being. Certainly these two questions are not unconnected, and we shall see throughout this exposition that they are internally and intrinsically connected, but they are two different steps. I. In the first place, who is Christ from the point of view of the substantive being he builds in his life? In order not to complicate the exposition let us call this substantive being simply “I” (Sp. Yo). This is not a kind of amusing philosophical vagary, but is presented in order to obtain a theological apprehension of the problems we face here. Jesus Christ just like any man on Earth goes on living, and precisely in his life builds that I, his I. Certainly, this I is being constructed by the multiple acts he is performing throughout his life like anyone else, a life in which he is always the same, but never that same. Christ is building his substantive I throughout his life. It was important to insist Christologically on this point, and not take the life of Christ as if it were a kind of external dumping of the eternal Word upon a single member of the human species. That is not the case at all. It is the case of a man of flesh and bone that lives and is making his own life, that annoys his parents because one day he stays behind in Jerusalem, etc. This is what is all about. Christ is constructing the figure of his own life. And in this case, just like the case in any other man, we have to state that what we call the I is not primarily a subject. That in addition it may also be a subject is another question. But {265} primarily it is not a subject of attribution. It is very easy to say that the human actions of Christ are divine because the subject to which they are attributed is the Word. Let us not be too hasty. Christ performs his actions just as I perform them; one day he is sleepy, and he sleeps in a boat; another day he is hungry, he is sorry for those who are hungry; has a friend, he loses him, cries, etc. It is not a subject of attribution or subject of inhesion. Just like any other man he performs his own acts. But what is primary in the acts man performs is not that they are inherent to a subject that performs them, but precisely to be the configurating moment of the I. I am not only the subject that writes or speaks, but to my moment of speaking I add the feature, hic et nunc, of being a speaking I. Precisely in this speaking characteristic is where the formal characteristic of the I resides, and not in the fact that I may perform an act called to speak. Consequently, Christ, just as any other man on Earth, is configuring his own being. A configuration which is not primarily to be subject of attribution or subject of inhesion, but consists in having an intrinsic configuration that is being constructed throughout life. In other words, the I is above all, and primarily a configuration; the configuration of the substantive being in which man consists. I am obviously my substantive being, and reciprocally, what I call my substantive being is what I am. Christ constructed his own substantive being throughout his whole life just like any one of us. It will be necessary to remember, because it will be important afterwards, that the acts of the life of Christ, and therefore, the configurational features on which he is molding his substantive being have different characteristics. I have just mentioned some. Generally they are only mentioned when dealing with the mysteries of the life of Christ; it is pointed out that the subject of attribution, of course, was born, lived, died, etc. But there is something much more radical, and profound, {266} the figure itself. And as a figure, the figure of the I of Christ is not only a divine figure; it is also a human figure. The I of Christ is not only the I that receives a revelation from his Father, but is the I that weeps, that walks, that is hungry, that sleeps. There is no doubt at all. He is not more of an I in one case than another. Certainly, these characteristics that compose the I are quite complex indeed. But, regardless of their type, all the characteristics are immersed in that figure we call I. And the figure of an I, in the case of Christ as well as in the case of any man, is not a mere addition of features, but these features always imply each other. The divine features that compose the figure of the I of Christ are intrinsically united and forming a unity with the other human features. It is not the case that He may be a man subject to sadness, sorrow, hunger or sleepiness, and that the same man may be the subject of a revelation from the Father. It is the case that the entire figure is, at one and the same time, a human figure and a divine figure. Now that we have established our perspective on this matter we should recall what it is that we have hastily called the I. The I is not a characteristic of the substantive being of man initially and radically lived, and built up as an I. Man begins by constructing his I with characteristics much more modest than those we might find in an I solemnly enunciated. For example, the man himself eats an apple; I myself eat an apple. That myself is the medial form. I do not say that the act may be medial, but that the form in which that act is lived is precisely the medial-ness, it is a myself. Naturally, this myself is not a reflection; man is and senses himself a myself medially. Upon this myself, medially, the substantive being continues to acquire a more express and explicit characteristic, which is precisely the my. One can say, it is {267} my toothache, my hunger, my stomach, my leg, etc. In that case man performs a series of acts that move from the medial form in which he has lived to the form of the my in the sense of appropriation or property. And, in third place, upon this my, the most solemn and radical explicitness is based. That would be precisely the I we indicated above. That does not mean that this I, founded on the my, and the my founded on myself, may be considered in its fullness something given immediately, not at all. That I, insofar as I, is being configured throughout life. And this configuration is not merely additive because the I continues to be more of an I throughout all that life or at least continues to be a more complex I in its form of being. It is an autopossession. In reality this is what constitutes the personality of man, the configuration of his own I. And an I in which man not only steps from myself to my, and from my to the I, but within the I it is not the same I that says “I want to go for a walk” when it is a boy, and the I that later confronts great problems facing the entire cosmos. That I, even though it is the same, has undergone a development that has taken it from the I of childhood to the I who meditates on the great problems. None of this was alien to Christ, definitely not. Christ makes no exception at all to what we have just indicated. Throughout his life he continues to configure his own substantive being from myself to my, from my to the I, and in addition that same I continues to develop. In this fashion the two moments that compose his substantive being are never separated. The divine moment and the human moment constitute one very selfsame figure in which his different moments are essentially and intrinsically implicated. This is quite clear. The testimony of the Gospels, the place from which we must start and not from abstract speculations, tells us several times, for example when {268} Christ performs miracles, when he argues with the Pharisees or when he addresses his closest disciples, that the people sensed he spoke with an authority no one else had (cf. Mt 7:29; Mk 1:22-27; Lk 4:32-36). This characteristic of authority and power is neither human nor divine, it is precisely the intrinsic unity of what the substantive being of Christ is, at one and the same time human and divine. Theologians have usually distinguished in the actions of Christ those they called merely human, for example, eating and sleeping. Clearly, to do this it is not necessary to be Son of God. On the other hand, it is mentioned that in order to perform a miracle, to resurrect someone, it would be, at least to perform it with his own authority. Then, if the first actions were called human, the second were said to be “theandric”. However, this may be true from the point of view of the actions of Christ as performed by him. But as figure of his I it is absolutely insufficient. The figure of his I is intrinsically, formally, and constitutively a theandric configuration. There is no separation of the features. Distinctions yes, as many as desired, but separations, never. It is an essentially theandric configuration. From this follows precisely that as the substantive I of Christ (in his case as in the case of any other man, regardless of how different that substantive being may be) is acquired throughout his life, it is then necessary to insist that the theandric I of Christ is a relatively absolute I. Absolute like no other because it has a divine moment. But relative because it is acquired throughout life. It would be chimerical to think that Christ, when he was two months old, had the fullness of what he was as Son of God in the actual vision of his intelligence. This is illusory, and is not suggested anywhere. The I of Christ is an acquired I. {269} In what does that I consist in the case of Christ as in the case of any other man? The I that I am constructing throughout life I fabricate with the acts I perform. Some will be free, others will be imposed by necessity, and others will be channeled through the living maze in which I have to live. But these performed acts; in what do they consist hic et nunc? They consist in the conformation of my I. What I call the I is the real truth of what I am myself as substantive reality at the moment in which I am activating my substantive I. As I mentioned above, the substantive I is not the subject of attribution or the subject of inhesion, it is an intrinsic configuration. And as intrinsic configuration it is the real truth in which my substantive reality consists with which I am constructing my substantive I. Therefore, this is what happens to Christ. The I of Christ is precisely his own real truth, which he realizes as Son of God. And it is a real truth in a double sense. In the first place, because that I (where the characteristic of his divine moment is) reveals what the Father tells him, but in addition reveals it by being it. In other words, what is radical in what the Gospel tells us is not his being revealer, but his being the real truth of the Father. At least that is how I view the problem. The I of Christ consists in being the real truth of what he is as son of Mary, and of what he is as Son of God, in the sense we shall have to explain immediately. The I of Christ is the real truth of his substantive reality. What we call substantive reality is the second act in which my substantive reality consists. It is precisely the figure of my substantive being, which I give to my reality. Reality does not consist in being, and being is not reality. But being is precisely the second act of that in which, as first act, the substantive reality that performs it, and produces it consists. Because of this, to say that in the case of Christ his I is the real truth, is to say that {270} it is in second act. Therefore, here resides the inexorable and intrinsic unity of Christology, and not simply in the duality of perspectives arbitrarily assembled, as many present day exegetes pretend. Of whom is it a second act? What is the first act of whom that second act is second act? Therein lies precisely the intrinsic unity of Christology. And that step from the I as second act to the first act is definitely not a vain speculation. It is precisely the great event of the entire life of Christ in the Gospels. The miracles of Christ, all his cures, made in whatever circumstances (it is not a question of making a historical criticism of the Gospels), his prodigious life, what he inspired as moral elevation, etc., were not for him true demonstrations of his divine quality. They were simply, as the Gospel tells us, semeía, signs (cf. Jn 2:11-23, passim). They are signs that promoted what he asked of his disciples, which was not metaphysical or theological erudition, but purely and simply an adhesion to his person. And the adhesion to his person is just the subjective ambit wherein is realized the transit from the second act to the first act, the step from what is the life of a man to what is his radical, profound intimacy. It has been said often (I pointed to it some pages back while referring to the Gospel of St. Mark) that Jesus imposed on his disciples the “Messianic secret”, i.e., he tells them not to mention to anyone what they have seen in the transfigurations, in certain cures, etc. There has been much speculation over the character of this Messianic secret. From my point of view, and quite modestly (I am not going to make a critique of all the speculations that have been proposed) that Messianic secret is inscribed in the very reality of Christ. It is precisely the stepping from the second act of his I to what is the hidden, and {271} transcendent reality of his own substantive reality. That is the place where Christ lodged those that believed in him. It follows that the immediate interpretation of Christology, from the point of view of the Gospels (at least from my perspective) is not, as has been said numerous times, a functional theology to which is added a metaphysical, and speculative theology. It is not functional theology; it is something much more radical, and important. It is precisely the theology of the substantive being of Christ, the theology of the I of Christ. This is not functionality, it is a different thing; it is the real truth in which the substantive being consists. Because it is not the case, in the first place, that Christ may be the revealer of the Father. Obviously, any other prophet could have been that. It is the case of something greater, that he is the truth of the Father, being such really, and actually, i.e., as real truth. It is the case then, not of the function of Christ, but of the very quiddity of Christ, and certainly in his I. That is the question. It follows that the intrinsic step from the second act, in which the substantive being consists, to the first act, in which the substantive reality of Christ consists, is not a vague metaphysical speculation. One could say that Greek metaphysics is speculation, and is not consubstantial to the faith, agreed. But what can never be done is to deny that to make an authentic Christology it will be necessary to replace that metaphysics by another one, and not avoid the problem. The unity of the problem is given precisely by the fact that the I of Christ is the formal topic of the Gospels, and not simply the revealing function that Christ has performed on Earth. The unity is based on the fact that this substantive being is the second act. As second act it necessarily involves, in the form of problem that of personal intimacy. It also involves what the substantive reality in which Christ consists is in first act. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (272-285) --------------- {272} II. We now have to deal with the problem of what the reality of Christ is in first act, as substantive reality. And we do not have to depend on a speculation, but just to proceed with the considerations we have started. Anything else would be a Christology hanging from the clouds. Man is an open essence. And as such open essence it consists ecstatically in being a molding ad extra of the Trinitarian life. What God intended when creating man was not to create a rational animal, but to create precisely the finitude of the Trinitarian life outside itself. We shall begin by affirming that Christ in his first reality is Son of God. That is the fact of the Incarnation. But this is precisely what we must face. Who has incarnated in Christ? Theologians are quite fond of great and subtle speculations based on the Council of Chalcedon. They affirm that the only thing the second person of the Trinity has given to this concrete man, son of Mary, is what they call the personal subsistence, the character of the Word. Of course this is true, but it seems radically insufficient to me. Let us take in the case of the Trinity the fullness of the reality of the person, while removing the impropriety that this term incorporates, as we explained in Chapter two. It is impossible to reduce any of the three persons in their integral reality (neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit) to the formal reason for paternity, filiation, or spiration, not at all. The persons are physical persons in their integrity. The fact is they are not really three different persons that would be a tri-theism. Therefore, there is no doubt that what has incarnated is precisely the physical person of the Word, and not only his reason for filiation. From my perspective, it was essential to strongly maintain this point of view. It is the incarnation of the physical person of the Word. {273} Furthermore, [all of us incorporate the molding of the Trinitarian life]1, and consequently, this physical reality of the Word, just as the general physical reality of the Father or the Holy Spirit. The fact is that this version ad extra can have several degrees. 1) There is a first version that is consubstantial to creation by virtue of which the reality of God, and therefore, his three his-ownnesses in the unity of his reality are fontanally subjacent to the whole created work. That is the fontanal presence, the fontanality of God in creation. Obviously, in this case the physical person of the eternal Word is fontanally subjacent to the reality of Christ, just as he is to my reality and all the others. 2) There is a second degree that consists precisely in this person and the other two, to which it is constitutively referred (there would be no Son without a Father, and without a spiration of the Holy Spirit), being there not just fontanally. This is so, because I am a reality that consists in the molding of a Trinitarian life ad extra or at least the outline in which the Trinitarian life is going to exist. In addition, that molding is positive and not aversive as in the case of the sinner. Therefore, the Trinitarian presence, and consequently the presence of the Son, is much more profound. This is precisely the presence by grace; more intimate and more radical as the justice and sanctity of the man who lives that way may be more profound and real. Undoubtedly, in the case of Christ it had an exemplar and exceptional reality, no doubt about it. However, he would not have been the Son of God only because of this, that was the error of the Adoptionists. 3) There is yet a deeper and more profound degree, which is not only the fontanality, and the grace founded {274} on fontanality, but something more. It is the case of a presence through something I would call ultimate intimacy. In the first place, the intimacy is so great that the man to which the physical person of the Word is present in that form is the very manifestation of that physical presence of the Word. All Docetisms have been founded on this, and because of that in the Christological and Trinitarian errors, we must not only look at the error, but also to that coefficient of truth that must be inexorably captured in any theology. The human individual, the man called Christ is through intimacy something unique, and like no other man. He is the very manifestation of the Son of God, of the second physical person of the Trinity. And not just that, but in second place it is a vital, living manifestation. Precisely not to have maintained the integrity of this life was the error of all the Apollinarians. However, what doubt can there be that precisely by maintaining it was the case of a living act, and a vital manifestation they were holding to one of the greatest truths it was necessary not to have forgotten or ignored in theology. 4) But in fourth place, there is something even much more profound that is not only a presence through personal intimacy, but also something much more radical than a mere presence. There is a true filial reality, where filial reality cannot be understood just as the mere presence of God in man, but something much more radical and profound. It can be described by regarding this from the point of view of God, from the physical person of the Word, and from the point of view of the man, son of Mary. From the point of view of God, it consists in the physical person of the Word being immanent to this man in an intrinsic, radical, and ultimate way, which is necessary to explain. It is immanent to the human. But reciprocally, what we call the man is pierced, and penetrated by the divine reality, which is immanent in him. {275} This means that if we continue elevating gradually (as we have done) that unity through immanence and immersion of the divine condition and the concrete man, this presence and unity can reach such heights (here is precisely where the mystery lies) that man no longer belongs to himself. The his-ownness comes to him precisely from the Word. Of course, it has been received. His intimacy has reached towards receiving this singular man into the intrinsic structure of the generational process in which the eternal procession of the Word consists. In this case the man does not belong to himself. Not in the sense of being obedient or holy or just, but metaphysically. He lacks his usual his-ownness, and a complete one is given to him from the his-ownness in which the eternal and generating procession of the Word consists. He does not belong to himself any more. Therefore, this is the sense in which the New Testament revelation transcends all the senses that the term “son of God” had in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament itself when the matter has not been presented thematically. Yes, the just, the holy, the people of Israel were sons of God. And more the sons of God as they were more just and holy. But no one has ever reached to this level, which seems like an evanescent characteristic, but however, incorporates the ultimate secret of the person of Christ, which is precisely to be part of the Trinitarian generating procession. He is Son of God in a transcendent sense. And to have pointed to it this way is precisely in what the Messianic secret consists. This man has no his-owness. It will be noted that theology has pointed out that the subsistence of that human individual is owed to the Word. Yes, but neither in the case of the Trinity or in the case of men or in the case of Christ I believe the first and radical characteristic is subsistence. Subsistence is the consequence of his-owness. A person is subsistent precisely {276} in the measure it is person, i.e., that it is his-own. And precisely the man Christ, the concrete individual Christ, this young carpenter that walks on the streets of Jerusalem has no other his-owness than the one conferred to him by the eternal generation of the Word in which he is immersed. This man does not belong to himself. He has subsistence, but a subsistence consequent to the his-ownness of the Word. Because of this, the presence of God in Christ is not a union it is a unity. It is the intrinsic, and radical unity, theological, and unique in creation, between the procession ad intra, which is the eternal generation of the Word, and the man who in a mysterious way is immersed, and inserted not only in what God is, but in the very manner of being of God, i.e., in His own eternal generation. Because of this, in this sense, the divine reality of Christ does not annul his humanity, but on the contrary, sublimates it. Therefore, we must now answer three important questions. In the first place, in what does his-ownness consist? In second place, what relationship does it have with the I we mentioned above? And, in third place, what do the other persons of the Trinity do in that structure? a) Let us see what his-ownness entails. This his-ownness, I said above, is precisely the last degree of immersion of man in God, and reciprocally of immanence of God in man. Therefore, in order to find out what this his-ownness is it can be described from the point of view of God, and from the point of view of man. aa) From the point of view of God. Let us recall what I mentioned when I expounded the Trinitarian mystery. That in the case of God his nature, his essence or his reality (all languages are inadequate when dealing with God) is intelligent and volitional precisely {277} because it is his own. It is not his own because it is intelligent and volitional. Having intelligence and will is the radical way of realizing his very his-ownness. Then, if we wish to make a distinction, even though it may only be virtual, and from reason, between the his-ownness, and that which belongs to him (intelligence and will) we will have to say that the radical metaphysical priority is held by the person. To be a person because one is intelligent, and volitional is what happens in the case of man, but not in the case of the infinite person, which God is. Therefore, based on the above we must say that the divine nature (let us call it that using common practice) is the form into which is molded and realized, through the identity of properties, the his-ownness in which each one of the divine persons consists. However, the his-ownness of the Word does not mold itself exclusively in a divine intelligence and will. It molds itself also, through a mysterious act, in a finite intelligence and will. This is the case of Christ. It is the sense present in the kénosis St. Paul mentions (cf. Phil 2:7). A theme much disputed during the Protestant Reform and present day theology. It is a kind of suspension (becoming empty), at least ad extra, of the divine qualities Christ would have had as Son of God. Doing this in order to take not only the morphé, the human form, but also the schéma, the concrete human characteristic of this poor carpenter circulating on the streets of Jerusalem. From the point of view of his kénosis we must say that the his-ownness of the Word is realized not only in the infinite and consubstantial intelligence and will with the reality of the Father. It is also realized in this form, in this organism, in this soul, in this finite intelligence and will, which belong to the son of Mary, descendant of David. bb) This can also be described from the point of view of this man, the son of Mary. Then we must {278} say that the reality of this son of Mary (to have stomach, brain, psyche, passions, sentiment, will, intelligence) does not proceed directly from the Word. But that all these things may be his (his-ownness) does come from the Word. In other words, if by reality we understand as we should what belongs to himself, all the reality of Christ the man insofar as his is precisely the same as the Word. From the first point of view the Word appeared conferring his very his-ownness to a particular concrete man. Here this concrete man appears not belonging to himself, but having his whole reality, insofar as his own, in the Word to whom he is intrinsically and essentially united. Therefore, the identity of these two affirmations is, to my way of thinking that in which the person of Christ formally consists. Twenty years ago I wrote, “the person of Christ ‘realizes’ his divine personality in a finite and singular nature” 2; “the person of the Son in a certain way renounces to only realize himself in a divine form”3; “in Christ, the Son of God realizes himself in a human nature”4. It is the case that the Word may realize himself in a finite individual, and that in turn, from the other point of view, this finite individual may have all his reality (in the sense of his own) precisely in the Word. Because of this we must say not only that this man is man divinely, but also that the Word is God, but humanly. And in this intrinsic unity is where all the reality of the person of Christ is found. One may ask why the one incarnated was precisely the second person of the Trinity. Why not the {279} first or the third? We could reply that in fact that was the way it happened. Yes, but probably there is a deeper reason. The fact is that if the substantive I this man is going to realize throughout his life has the function to be the real truth of the Father, within the Trinity the his-ownness of the Son consists precisely in being the real truth of the Father. Therefore, it is not something arbitrary, but somewhat fitting due to the very type of the facts of the case that it may be precisely the subsisting truth in which the eternal Word consists to be the one that incarnated. And confer his personal his-ownness in the form of real truth to the person of Christ. However, here the expression “real truth” appears twice. It appears like a case of Deus ex machina. “Real truth” appeared when we discussed the I with respect to the substantive reality of Christ. “Real truth” now turns out to be the entire reality of Christ with respect to the Father. Are there two real truths? What do we mean by real truth? Is it a device? b) That is the second question, the relationship of the substantive reality of Christ as Son of God with the I of his own substantive being. Indeed, they are not two real truths, but two moments of just one real truth, that is the question. In the end something similar to what happens in the case of each man. My I is my real truth, but that real truth is real truth of my substantive reality, which is true in the sense that it is not reducible to another. But it is not the case of two truths, the real truth of my own substantive reality, and (in the case of Christ) of his unity as Son in the physical person of the Word. This real truth is the real truth that concerns the substantive reality of Christ, i.e., the first act. On the other hand, the other truth, the truth of the I is a truth, but in second act. Therefore, this means that the real truth in first act is precisely called to mold, and expand itself in reality as second act, in {280} the case of Christ inasmuch as in mine or in any one of us. And reciprocally (limiting ourselves for a moment to the case of Christ) the real truth in which his I consists (his substantive being) is nothing but the display in a certain way integral of that in which initially, radically, and fundamentally his real truth consists as Incarnation of the Word. Nevertheless, this step (I have used the term “display” intentionally) is precisely the entire life of Christ. It is precisely the stepping from his real truth as substantive reality to his real truth as the substantive truth of his I. From my point of view we can now understand the text of St. Paul at the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans when he tells us he preaches the Gospel “of his Son, born of the family of David according to the flesh, and horisthéntos (constituted) Son of God in power according to the Spirit of sanctity by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:3-4). Precisely “born”, here is where his substantive reality resides, not only the human, but also the divine, born of God and born of Mary. But in second place “constituted”. Constituted precisely in second act. It is not the case that he was given the ability to act with a power he lacked. In this problem the exegetes have been rather easygoing saying that for whatever reason because of his kénosis Christ did not wish to manifest himself fully as God, but did so after the resurrection. Of course, this is true, but there is a much more radical truth where this truth is inscribed, precisely the stepping from real truth in first act to real truth in second act. Here is where the horisthéntos resides. The fullness with which real truth in first act has been displayed and constituted in second act is that in which the fullness of filiation precisely consists. Hence, St Paul tells us it is “with power”. And that term “power” is {281} what the fullness of real truth in second act expresses with respect to truth in first act, which is the very reality of Christ. It is not the case that Christ was not the Son of God, but that he did not have power. Not because he radically lacked it (how could we possibly say that?), but because that power was not yet in action since it had not been made explicit and displayed in its entire richness. It would be so when his I had been constructed, his substantive being. However, St. Paul adds, “according to the Spirit of sanctity”, which is the Holy Spirit. Now we face the problem of what the other persons of the Trinity are doing in the reality of Christ. c) When I was discussing man and his position in creation I was saying that every open essence is the molding ad extra of the Trinitarian life. Insofar as a substantive reality man is with respect to his own life what the Father can be with respect to the divine life. The I is precisely his real truth, the figure of his substantive being. And the reversion by way of identity of the I to the substantive reality is what constitutes the metaphysical intimacy. This scheme is applied to Christ without any exception. One might then ask, was the Father the substantive reality of Christ? Yes, and no. Because certainly insofar as divine qualities these also belonged to the Father. If not, we would have three gods. This reality is identical in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. Through what he had of physical characteristics in the sense of intelligence and will, when God incarnated in Christ in the way I have described, what exists in Christ is the very divine nature in which the Father is molded, and the Holy Spirit is molded. What is different is the his-ownness. It is the exclusive his-ownness of the Word, but the same reality of the Father. In the end, the divine reality of Christ is possessed by Christ in a filial way. That is what is essential. And, reciprocally, it is necessary to add that this reality is not {282} only received and lived by Christ in a filial way, but in addition (here is where the I appears) it is going to revert through intimacy on his own substantive reality. This means that his intimacy is precisely inscribed in that radical metaphysical and theological intimacy in which the Holy Spirit consists. The Holy Spirit in Christ is precisely the Spirit of his intimacy. That is why the Holy Spirit by being the Spirit in which the intimacy of Christ is inscribed, through the reversion by way of identity between the substantive I, and his substantive reality, is the deepest item of the Messianic secret. In addition, it is what constituted the fountain of the Biblical tradition where Christ incorporated and transmitted himself to his disciples by means of a personal adhesion. That was the effusion of his intimacy. The sending of the Holy Spirit is nothing but this, both to individuals and to history. The effusion of the very intimacy of Christ, i.e., of the Spirit in which his intimacy consists. For this reason, even though only the second person incarnated, there is no doubt that this second person, with respect to the nature it has, and with respect to the Spirit where its intimacy is inscribed, is an absolutely Trinitarian reality. Trinitarian because it is strictly a filial one. And precisely by being filial the life of Christ was able to be not only a declaration, but also a manifestation in actu exercitu of the very Trinity. The reality of Christ is essentially Trinitarian. It is the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit the one who effectively, and really confers his-ownness to the finite nature into which it molds itself. On the other hand, it is in the person of the Son where, in a Trinitarian way, the finite nature in which man consists is realized. The Monophysitisms have not been entirely wrong. They confused the his-ownness with what belongs to him. This has to be completely avoided. But what is also untenable is to dichotomize Christology, and propose {283} on the one hand, the idea of a hypostatic union, and on the other, the idea of a divine nature and a human nature. From my point of view, this is what definitely constitutes the answer to the question of, who is Christ? He is the Son of God in the way I have just explained, as incarnation of the physical person of the Word, which confers to him a his-ownness that is identical to the his-ownness the human individual has by his theological immersion in the reality of God. And in that his-ownness is realized the real truth in which the I consists, in an intimacy inscribed in the Holy Spirit. Of course, we now face the question, How did Jesus Christ know he was the Son of God? B) How does He know himself as Son of God? After all, Jesus Christ walked the streets of Jerusalem just like anyone else. If he got lost in the Temple (quite a few surely did), how did he know he was the Son of God? It is a problem that medieval theology never addressed at all. It was proposed at the beginning of the XXth century in a way, from my point of view completely unfortunate, from the perspective of consciousness, “what is the foundation for the filial conscience Jesus Christ has?” There have been two kinds of replies to this question. Those clinging to the classical theory have said that into this conscience ultimately in one form or another (since we do not know how) God has introduced the notion that He is the Son of God. Others, somewhat less chimerical, have said that since Christ sees God even on Earth he knows himself clearly in God, Son of God. But that is the question, is it the case that the divine filiation is known by Christ in a way similar to looking into a mirror, and seeing oneself in an objective manner? This appears to me radically untenable. And {284} the fact is that we are accustomed to consider (which is true up to a point) that his-ownness is never a principle of action and operation. Obviously, no one acts or behaves except through the properties one has. One’s own being is not a principle of operation, no doubt about it. It is not an operational principle, but it is precisely the very principalship in which the properties consist, which is a different matter. From this follows that in the performance of all his acts every man knows himself precisely as his own in the triple form of myself, my, and I, but not in an objective way as an object or a reality on which man reflects, and becomes aware it is his own. Also, not because others do tell him since that obviously would not be sufficient. Man knows himself as a person, which is provided with a his-ownness, through the physical exercise of his myself, his my, and his I. It is truly a lived knowledge. It is the very life in which the activation of the real truth of the second act consists. Therefore, it must be interpreted from that point of view, which is precisely the origin and fundament that the son of Mary possessing a divine his-ownness may perfectly know himself as Son of God. He knows himself as Son of God simply because he is such; because in his internal and intrinsic reality he is performing, and therefore living in an intrinsic way that characteristic of myself, my, and I. For this reason the exposition of a great theologian with whom I am not going to compare myself, Karl Rahner, seems to me completely insufficient. For him Christ knows himself as Son of God through a Grundbefindlichkeit, through a radical way of finding himself5. Yes, but what is that radical way, in what does this Sichbefinden, this self- finding, consist? It was necessary to have pressed the concepts, in order to precisely reach the idea of the myself, of a my, and {285} of an I. Because the I is not riding on itself, but rather on a my, and in turn the my rides on a myself. And the myself is lived in the very act of exercising its own reality. The second act is constituted in a vital way. And this vital constitution is precisely the modest, and radical way in which knowing myself as of my own precisely and accurately consists. I say “modest and radical” because the step from the myself to the my, and from the my to the I is a kind of progress to which, evidently, the human reality of Christ, and his reality as Son of God was subjected. But in addition his own I has developed throughout the whole length of his life. The I as second act has been increasing with new features throughout the life of Christ. Indeed, we shall have to ask in the next section in what the personal life of Christ consists. However, one thing is quite obvious, that we should not imagine that Christ came to this world with a kind of glorious vision of what he was as Son of God. Also, that anything else was just a set of organic vicissitudes that he adopted only to make himself accessible to all men. This is completely chimerical. If that had been the case, the life of Christ would have been a gigantic fiction. That is a kind of gigantic biographic Docetism, as I have called it numerous times, as if the biography of Christ had nothing to do with his reality. This is absolutely inadmissible. At any rate, Christ knows himself as Son of God purely and simply in that rudimentary, obscure, but inexorable form, which consists in the myself, the my, and of the I insofar as it is founded on the myself, and the my. In the case of man this is not a psychological experience, it is something more. It is a metaphysical experience, the experience of my own self, mine. And in the case of Christ it is more than a metaphysical experience, it is a theological experience. It is the theological experience through which he knows himself, as a myself, insofar as Incarnate Word. _______________ 1 This phrase is taken from the 1967 seminar in order to clarify the corresponding passage, somewhat obscure, of the 1971 seminar. 2 X. Zubiri, Nature, History, God, op. cit., p. 512. At that time I used the term “personality” in the etymological sense of personalitas, that I would not use today (note by X. Zubiri). 3 Ibid., p. 512. 4 Ibid., p. 517. 5 Cf. K. Rahner, “Dogmatische Erwägungen über das Wissen und Selbstbewußtsein Christi”, in his Schriften zur Theologie, vol. 5, Einsiedeln, 1962, pp. 222-245. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (286-298) --------------- {286} C) What is His place in creation? All this points ultimately to the exceptional place, which Christ has in all of creation. One might even think that the person of Christ is a kind of great exception. Obviously, this is so in the sense of being unique. But what takes place in that person is precisely the incorporation of the Triune God to history, and to the whole of creation. Yet, this incorporation is not an irruption. It is just the opposite of an irruption because it is the very culmination of the molding ad extra of the Trinitarian life. This molding makes that a concrete individual may enter Trinitarian life. Enter that generating procession in which the Word radically consists via paternity, and that spiration in the Holy Spirit. Consequently He is the molding ad extra of the Trinitarian life, and at the same time the molding ad extra of the very divine Trinitarian reality. In this sense we must say that incarnation makes of Christ precisely the paradigm of the creation of every open essence. And, from my point of view, that is just the way we should interpret the Pauline phrase “the firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:15). Firstborn precisely because that is the radical paradigm of what every open essence is. For this reason the Epistle to the Colossians could say that he is not only the first born of all creatures, but in addition “the image” (in the singular), the authentic image “of the invisible God” (Col 1:15), clearly two sides of only one reality. And precisely because he is the authentic image of God He is the paradigm of every open essence. What was the real and personal life of this famous individual? What was his substantive religation while he lived on this Earth? That will be the subject of the next section. {287} II. THE PERSONAL LIFE OF CHRIST In the previous section I presented the first of the three points I had resolved to develop after the exposition of the Christological dogma, from the Gospels to the Third Council of Constantinople. In what does the person of Christ consist? Who is Christ? And I mentioned that the one who has incarnated is not the Word merely as Son of the eternal Father, but as full physical reality, with his intelligence and his will identical to those of the Father. These form, though by way of identity, that reality the Nicene Creed calls consubstantial (we wonder why the bishops in Spain have eliminated that term, and written “of the same nature as the Father” since the text says homooúsios, consubstantial). At any rate, that Person incarnates. And that Person gives itself to creation, to the creation of a concrete man to whom in its physical reality that Person is now physically immanent. Or, putting it from the other point of view, this human reality is constitutively immersed in the divinity. Nevertheless, in this immanent presence of God in creatures (after all the humanity of Christ is a creature like any one of us) there are many degrees. In the first place, we do have the reality of the divine presence in all of creation by reason of the very fontanality with which God has produced all things, and is in the depths of them after being created. That is the fontanal presence. But there can be even deeper presences. For example, the presence the Trinity has (the One and Triune God) in the depths of the soul of the just. Of course, with degrees of internal presence more or less intimate in accordance with the degree of sanctity (let us put it that way) of a particular person. Naturally, this is not {288} only an external verification. Theologians, above all the Spanish theologians of the XVI and XVII century, speculated on this problem, and indeed some said a few things that appear somewhat quaint to me. According to Vázquez the presence of God in the soul of the just is nothing more than a greater or lesser modality of the universal presence of God in the depth of all creatures1. Also, that God does not have a greater presence in Palestine, in his house, than in any other thing present in the world... This, of course, is true from a certain point of view. However, is it the only truth? We had a great Spanish Jesuit theologian that insisted on the opposite. That the presence of the Trinity in the soul of the just is of such a caliber that He would be present with that special mode in the depth of the soul of the just and the holy2. And this would be so even if God were not present in creatures by any reason due to creation. This may seem a somewhat exaggerated thesis. After all, are we going to say that the presence of God in the soul of the just has nothing to do with the fontanal presence of God in all creatures? At any rate, there have been theologians that have maintained that the one is founded on the other3. Be that as it may, it is a presence different from the fontanal one, which increases with the increase of sanctity. In that case sanctity consists in an immersion of the soul of the just in the divinity. And reciprocally, in the degree of immanent presence of the divinity in the soul of the just. Now, let us imagine that we are rising from immanence to greater immanence, from intimacy to greater intimacy. To such an extent that this man becomes not only immersed in the reality of God who has produced it, but has really {289} been incorporated into the very generating procession by which the Word is Word in the bosom of the Holy Trinity. In that case we encounter an exceptional situation right from the outset. This man does not belong to himself; he actually belongs to the Word who possesses the his-ownness conferred to him by the fact of being incorporated to the generating procession of the Word as such. Reciprocally, let us start from what we have expounded when dealing with the Trinity, i.e., that in God the reason for person is anterior (if you will, a conceptual anteriority) to the reason for nature in which that person is realized. And this in such a way that God (the One Triune God) is intelligent and volitional because he is his own, and not the other way around (that he may be his own because he is intelligent and volitional). Then, we must say that the human individual who is immersed in that generating procession is of such a quality that the his-owness of the Word is realized, not only in the physical infinitude in which the very divinity consists, but also in a mysterious way (here is where the mystery resides) in that finite nature of man who is intelligent and volitional. And instead of being a person because he is intelligent and volitional he is a person because his intelligence and will are immersed in the generating procession in which the Word consists. Therefore, to say on the one hand that the Word is realized in a finite nature, and to say on the other that this finite nature does not belong to itself, but belongs to the Word is to say the same thing. And precisely in this identity, from my point of view, the formal reason for the divinity of Christ consists. After having said this we must now retake the question in a more concrete manner. Because after all, this person, the person of Christ was born, lived on Earth, died on a certain day, resurrected, appeared, etc. He did have a life. Then {290} we ask, what is that personal life Christ has had from the point of view of what he is, i.e., Son of God? That is the problem of the personal life of Christ, which we must now engage. A) In the first place, it will be necessary to refine what it is that I wish to ask when I articulate the question, in what does the personal life of Christ consist, since it is not that obvious. It is a problem that affects not only theology, because the sense in which I modestly intend to ask, theology in all its amplitude has never asked. Furthermore, it is something that the New Testament exegesis is clamoring for, having only remained at the door of the problem. Actually, the New Testament critical studies have gone through several phases. 1) At the beginning of the century, until 1914 or 1920, New Testament critical studies fundamentally consisted in textual and literary criticisms centering on the problem of the sources. Obviously, the fourth Gospel, written towards the end of the first century, and therefore, relatively distant from the first three, and with quite different characteristics from them remains apart, it is something special. It was enough to read the first three Gospels to see that they have identical phrases and paragraphs, and also different phrases and a different order. Then the question arises; these three Gospels called the Synoptics, what are they founded upon? Obviously their relationship cannot be limited to a mere oral tradition. After much discussion a solution was proposed overcoming all kinds of internal and external difficulties (including the Roman Curia) by saying the Synoptic Gospels ultimately rely on two sources. One source is the Gospel of Mark itself, which would be the first source of the other two Gospels. And the second, a collection of sayings and words of the Lord that were not allocated to that Gospel, and {291} probably were current for the use of the primitive community. This source was called “Q” from the German Quelle. That is the theory of the two sources. 2) The theory of two sources has had a great modification, not because the two may not be accepted, but because many are admitted now. The collection of sayings and doings is much more than a collection. At this point the New Testament criticism began a second phase. An attempt was made to take all the multiple sources that can be listed under the “Q” title as absolutely independent things. For example, there is no doubt there are sections showing it is the case of a liturgical hymn; others, that it is a catechesis; others, that it is a kérygma, a preaching; etc. Thus, the first intent of criticism was to place these different accounts in their proper living context (Sitz im Leben) so that as loose accounts they were able to make, and did make the rounds in the primitive community. That way, by placing these accounts in the life of the community, the continuity of the life of the community allowed (at least, in principle) to reach from these sporadic Gospel writings, from tradition to tradition, up to the very person of Christ. That was the second phase. 3) The third is more or less the present phase. That with all these elements each evangelist proposed to present a different logos of Christ. These are precisely the several “Christologies”, a multiplicity I have already mentioned before. Still, I maintain that with all of the above, the theology and exegesis has remained at the door of the problem without entering into what I believe is the essential problem. In all modesty I do think this is the case. a) In the first place, the very exegesis. Biblical exegesis with all its Sitz im Leben, despite all its history of the redaction of the Gospels, from the point of view of Christology encounters great difficulties, and problems {292} when it tries to descend to details. For example, the outstanding case is the one that concerns the knowledge of Christ, that Christ knew everything. But yet he did say, “But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mk 13:32; Mt 24:36). The Roman Curia insisted that Christ knew everything. The exegetes replied that he had said he did not know it. The exegesis since then has changed course, and taken up the problem from very different points of view. b) Of course, the problem of the knowledge of Christ became quite complicated because the theologians, on their own, had assigned to Christ several knowledges, not one, but several. In the first place, the knowledge he has as Son of God insofar as Word. This in the end presents no problem, as the eternal Triune God. But it does present a problem from the point of view of the human intelligence of Christ. On the one hand we are told that he had a plenary vision, a beatific vision. As Son of God he could see everything in God, he had an absolute knowledge. On the other hand, he had a knowledge called acquired, because obviously, he learned things in life. Still, on another hand, knowledge called infused, which revealed or manifested to him the mission he had to accomplish in this world. Of course, one may ask, can we turn Christ into some kind of skyscraper of knowledge? Be that as it may, this was a problem from the exegetical side, and also from the theologic side. But both approaches have remained at the limits of what for me is the essential point, the very mystery of the life of Christ. Certainly theology (it goes without saying) has been quite fertile with splendid treatises in great profusion, such as the ones from Suárez, on the mysteries of the life of Christ, the annunciation, the incarnation, the visit to the Temple of Jerusalem, etc., up to the resurrection and the ascension. This is in the {293} plural, the mysteries of the life of Christ. But I am referring to something more profound, that the very personal life of Christ upon Earth is in itself a mystery. In what does it consist? That is the problem that underlies every consideration of the mysteries of the life of Christ. And it is a problem with a door, which the exegesis faces and does not open. How many times when reading these books about New Testament exegesis I have received the happy impression that the problem was going to be taken up. Not quite, the book would end there. And one wonders, is this problem not worth investigating? Certainly not as a theologic problem, but as something much more radical, as a theological problem. In what did the theological knowledge consist, the manner of being of the personal life of Christ? After all, Christ realized himself biographically. Naturally, of the biography of Christ many things can be said; for example, how he served others. Obviously, from what he taught at the Temple of Jerusalem until his death on the cross, and the conversations before the ascension, all those acts served mankind. It goes without saying. But the question is different, he realized himself as Word biographically, as Son of God. The question surfaces, what sense does this biography have, not for others, but for him? This is the question, which from my point of view, should have been asked. It is a theological question, what the personal life of Christ was, not for others, but for himself who was actually living it. It will be enough to remember some of the doings in the life of Christ to understand the profound, and important sense this question has. For example, there is no doubt that Christ performs psychophysical acts just like anyone else; he eats, sleeps, smiles, etc. It can be said, well, Christ had a human nature, he was hungry, and he had to eat. The matter is not that clear, but anyway let us continue. The fact is that he performs {294} other acts that should have been included in the Christology. For example, not only is he hungry, but in addition he is surprised when they tell him that Lazarus is dead4. Was that a fiction? Christ performs acts of thinking, and volition, of will. There is no doubt about that. These acts, not only the psychophysical and sensitive, but (in the medieval terminology) the superior acts, what did they mean to him? He is surprised, asks, becomes sad, one day he becomes angry, and expels the merchants from the Temple... What does this mean to him? But the question rises to another level, of course, if one realizes that Christ lived in a very particular society as an indefectible member, like anybody else, as it happens in other societies. And this society has its internal regulations. For example, in order to fulfill (not him personally, but his parents) a civil law, and having gone to register, Christ was born in Bethlehem. Clearly we have a whole set of regulations there. What did they mean for his own life? And not only this, but something more important, Christ performed acts that were strictly, and specifically religious. What sense does it make that Christ performs religious acts if he is the very Son of God? He did perform these acts, and we may recall some of the crucial scenes in the Gospel. No need to refer to the circumcision, since he was clearly taken by his parents in this case. But when he was twelve years old he was taken to the Temple of Jerusalem, and there he discusses and interprets Sacred Scripture with the doctors of the Law. We may ask, what did Christ intend with this? Only teach others? {295} Furthermore, at approximately thirty years of age (we are not exactly sure of his age at this time), he decides to be baptized at the Jordan River. What does the baptism in the Jordan mean to Christ? Does it mean that he goes to ask forgiveness for his sins? That is impossible for the Son of God. Besides, he said it expressly in the Gospel; “can any of you charge me with sin?” (Jn 8:46). Christ did not approach baptism to be forgiven for sins. What was he trying to do? That others may find out he was the Son of God according to the text of the Gospel (cf. Mt 3:17)? I will not attempt here a long exegesis of this Gospel passage. Who heard the voice? How many heard it? What was the meaning? This is a complex matter. At any rate, the initial move to receive the baptism of John at the Jordan came from Christ’s own initiative. What sense did it make to him? In addition, let us now look at the end of the life of Christ. At the cross Christ issues one of his seven words, “My God, my God, why have thou forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34). The question is what kind of forsaking? It has been suggested that it is a kind of dissociation of what Christ has as a human from what he has as the Word5. Yes, but is this exegesis acceptable? Because actually that is the first verse of a psalm, and Christ in all probability recited the entire psalm. A somewhat long psalm, which after the first two verses of the initial phrase it says, “you dwell in the Holy Place, the praise of Israel” (Ps 22:4). That is to say, even from the cross Christ invokes Yahweh present in the Temple of Jerusalem (Christ {296} on the cross was only two or thee hundred meters away from the Temple of Jerusalem). The psalm continues, and against what might be expected when the New Testament is read in a hurry, the psalm ends its second part with a song of hope (cf. Ps 22:23-32). Christ did not just allow himself to be brought low, he also had a song of hope. But then, what was the abandonment of Christ? Undoubtedly, it was his being abandoned as Son of God (no doubt about it). The psalm does not say who abandoned him, but that he has been abandoned to his enemies. What did these enemies mean to him, to his personal life? The same question that surfaced at the moment of baptism appears here, what did this mean to him and his life? The problem, therefore, stems from the very life of Christ. What did his biography, as a biography of the incarnate Son of God, mean to him personally beyond what it meant to others. The question should have been, in what does the theological conditioning of the biography of Christ consist? It should have appeared necessary to face the issue squarely in all its amplitude, without limiting it, for example, to merely asking about the knowledge of Christ, the parousía, etc., as I have indicated. Of course, this problem may appear somewhat fictitious to some theologians. It may seem difficult, but I have had the occasion of observing this reaction in some great theologians. On the one hand it is said, “By the fact that he was the Son of God Christ had on Earth the beatific and plenary vision, the vision of God; what would have been the meaning of his biography to him?”. If that were so, then the life of Christ upon Earth would have been a perfect comedy. What does it mean that this man, who sees everything in God, and knows everything in a divine way under the light of lumen gloriae, may play the game (which it is, if he knows everything) so that he ignores some {297} things, knows others, asks questions, etc.? Is it the case then that the biography of Christ only has a pedagogical characteristic in order to educate others? That would be what I have called numerous times a biographical Docetism. The Docetism of the primitive Church believed that the body of Christ was fictitious. In the end, they believe that his biography, in what it has of biographical, is somewhat fictitious. That it is a biographical Docetism. The same theologian would say to me, “fine, but that Christ may pray, is a thing that can be understood. After all, his humanity is a finite humanity as creature of God; it is normal for this humanity to render the homage that every finite person must render to God”. But that is precisely what we are asking, is it really the case that when Christ prays it is humanity that prays to the Father or is it the Son of God insofar as incarnated? Of course, from the point of view of the beatific vision, there has been a great theologian, Rahner, who has had a fruitful intuition, to distinguish on the basis of the immediate vision of God by reason of the divinity he had. That would be a Grundbefindlichkeit, as I mentioned above. But this vision could not be a beatifying one. Because it would be chimerical to pretend, for example, that Christ felt quite happy at the cross; what does this mean? I agree completely with Rahner, but with one observation, that inasmuch as the immediate vision is not beatifying, it means it is not a fullness. If not, how could it not possibly be beatifying? Then, we return to the same question, in what does this non-fullness of the immediate vision consist for the very biography of Christ? The problem remains outstanding. Years back modernism, for example with Loisy, has affirmed that throughout the Synoptic Gospels Christ only appears as a Messiah, and that his filial conscience has been forming progressively. He did not know he was the Son of God, and was finding it as he went along. Clearly, the Church refused this posture. {298} How could we possibly admit this? But, in the end, throughout all these oscillations, the problem has been posited in its entire rigor. For me the rigor of this problem resides precisely in having an integral vision of what the incarnation is. Sometimes it seems that the incarnation has consisted in God conferring his Personal reality to a singular individual of the human species. That is true, but it is absolutely insufficient. After all, the man Christ who walked on the streets of Jerusalem was a man with clear qualifications as a perfect Israelite, son of a carpenter, etc. He was not a singulum of the human species, but a perfectly definite individual. But in addition this perfectly definite individual had social determinants. He belonged to a social stratum, a social class, etc. He had these qualifications not only as an individual taken in the abstract, of a principle of individuation of the usual metaphysics, but a concrete individuality. What I would call principles of concretion. This is clear, but is that all? We would have to lengthen the issue, and say that the Word incarnated not only as a particular singular and social individual, but incarnated precisely as a human reality constituted biographically. The problem begins here. In what does this biographical incarnation consist? That is the problem that should have been faced, because now what is clearly posited is the problem of what the meaning of the biographical incarnation of the Son of God was insofar as biographical for the very Son of God. This is the problem of the personal life of Christ. For this reason I was saying that the problem is not as obvious as it might seem at first sight. ________________ 1 Cf. G. Vázquez, S.J. (1549-1604), Pars prima Summae Theologiae S. Thomae Aquinatis cum commentariis et disputationibus, disp. 30, ch. 3, nos. 11-13. 2 Cf. F. Suárez, S.J. (1548-1617), De Trinitate, bk. 12, ch. 5, nos. 10-13. 3 Cf. John of St. Thomas, O.P. (1589-1644), Cursus Theologicus, disp. 37, art. 3. 4 “When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled” (Jn 11:32-33). 5 That is the solution proposed by St. Hilary of Poitiers facing the Arian interpretation of this text, cf. his De Trinitate, lib. 10, c. 62, in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina, t. 10, Paris, 1845, p. 391. -------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (298-305) --------------- {298} (cont’d) B) In order to answer this question, which is the second point of the problem (and to begin dealing with it), it will be necessary to consider two things. {299} 1) In the first place, what is a biography, any biography? A biography, to put it simply, consists in that particular way, and for any reasons whatever, whereby the substantive reality of each one of us is being realized through all the acts that shape ones own life. No doubt at all. Nevertheless, what man is realizing, his biographical dimension, in some measure is something that belongs to what we might call, in a more classical readily available terminology for rapid understanding, the second act. The first act is my own substantive reality. And the second act is whatever I make of myself. That is my life, what I make of myself. Then, what I make of myself is precisely my substantive being, my “I”. A biography is, in the first place, the construction or the performance (the term is not important at this moment) of what we call my substantive being. This substantive being is not juxtaposed on my substantive reality, rather when I have my life I have a particular vital state, I have the living experience in the his-ownness. That which I have made of myself I make it from me, that is to say, I revert by way of identity to my own substantive reality from which I have activated my own substantive being. I have already explained this before. Now it will be necessary to add a further consideration, which was present there before, but one I did not address topically. This identity is not a quiescent identity, but consists in the fact that in the substantive being in which I have realized myself, I possess myself. In that consists precisely what I have said so many times, that to live is to autopossess oneself1. Life is autopossession, and biography is precisely the construction (sit venia verbo) of the substantive being, in which I am autopossessing myself. {300} Therefore, this autós of autopossession has different characteristics. Man may possess himself in many ways. For example, he can autopossess himself when he says, “it is I myself that buys an apple, it is I myself who eats an apple, it is I myself who feels the pain of a toothache”. Obviously there is an autós. But an autós that is lived in a way I would call “medial”. However, myself is not a personal pronoun. Am simply trying to say that the way the autós is lived is precisely as a medial autós. At other times there is something more profound. When someone says for example, “it is my toothache“, “it is my tooth”. Then the autós is lived in a different way. Not in that prior and prereflexive form expressed by the myself, but in a more direct and thematic form, which is precisely the my. The autós is lived in a form of my. Naturally, there can be one more degree, man can possess himself in an autós, in a different form of autopossession, which is precisely the I. When I say “I think this“, “I do this”, it is I who is doing it. And here we have that radical and express form in which the I consists. Let us understand carefully that this would not be possible if the I were not supported by the my, and in turn the my were not supported by the myself. Consequently, man can have this lived experience of autopossession in the myself, purely and simply because he is an autós. The living experience is just that. In fact when any act is performed at certain living levels, that act is lived in what one is as a self, what one is oneself, namely, that one is ones own. Thus, I eat an apple myself, it is my toothache, I can say that it is I who says it. In the first place, certainly none of these three stages really adds anything to the previous one. To live myself as a my adds no real properties to the myself in which I am living medially as an autós. Obviously, the same can be said about the I. {301} It does not add real properties, but it definitely affects a certain way of possessing oneself; the same properties are held, but in a different way. It is the same initial his-ownness lived in a different way. In the second place, this triplicity of terms is really fundamenting, and is also discursive. The I is founded on the my, and the my on the myself. Now, it is clearly undeniable that this is what the essence of any biography is. It is autopossession in this dynamic form by which one is passing from a myself through a my to an I. And that I reverts by way of autopossessive identity to that substantive reality, which comprises my own individual reality, my reality as a his-ownness. 2) Indeed, Christ in his standing as incarnate Word makes no exception to what we have just mentioned. Absolutely not. Because it would be absurd to pretend that the Word, as second act, is the subject of attribution of human acts. He is subject of attribution, but secondarily, because primarily, and fundamentally what Christ does in his life is to build his substantive being as incarnate Son of God. As I mentioned previously, not all actions of Christ are theandric, but his I, his myself, and his my are constitutively theandric. Obviously, it is precisely the second act of what he is as Son of God in first act. Furthermore, precisely in this autopossession as Son of God he is subject to this biographic condition present in every man. That he may sense himself, and know himself really and effectively as Son of God in the form of a myself, in the more radical form of a my, and in the much more thematic and solemn form of an I. It is the same theandric his-ownness lived three ways, which at one and the same time have their “his-ownness”. However, what cannot be claimed is that the form of the I is a form, so to speak, innate and primary, neither in my case nor the case of Jesus Christ, there is no {302} doubt this was not the case. And in order to understand that this was not the case, that it was the case of a history, it will be enough to remember the virginal conception of Christ, his primary conception. I have always held the opinion, and still do, that in the first moment of the conception of a man he not only has his nucleic acids, his chromosomes, etc., but also has everything we call (the term is not important at this moment) psychism, soul, etc. However, it is quite clear that this psychism only proceeds to act as the germinal matrix develops. There is no doubt that the germinal matrix does not have the necessary and sufficient conditions for the psychism to perform any acts. Quite the opposite, the germinal matrix is the one giving shape to what has been called the vegetative dimensions of the psychism. Consequently, it would be quite improper to suggest that the soul of Christ (that soul) was able to have a full vision of the I, of an absolute I as Son of God. Perhaps this will seem like a difficult construction. But there is an event that is quite forceful as event where this situation appears again, the death of Christ on the cross. The dead Christ on the cross was a cadaver. How could he possibly have performed an act of his substantive being, of having an I? However, the body of Christ nailed on the cross and dead is divine. Obviously, it is not necessary that the filial reality of the nature has to be plenary, and in act at every instant. It was produced, and was born in a certain way, and it was dissolved in a certain way, which was precisely at the cross. Let us leave aside the fact that it was remade, which is a different question. What we are concerned with at this moment is the fact that he was destroyed on the cross. This definitely clarifies that the biography of Christ, just like the biography of others (Christ is not just another because he was the Son of God), consists precisely in attaining a substantive being through the external, and internal circumstances in which that {303} substantive reality is constructing its life. There is a phrase in St. Luke after the return of the child lost in the Temple of Jerusalem, where we are told Christ, “advanced in wisdom, and age, and favor before God and man” (Lk 2:52). That is the problem, what does it mean to advance before God? From my point of view it simply means an increase in the configuration of his substantive being. If we rather use the dualism of personhood, and personality, I would say that the personhood of Christ, from the first moment of his conception, has been consubstantial to God (at least hypostatically consubstantial to Him). But his personality has not been consubstantial; he had to construct it throughout his whole life. And this is precisely what the text of St. Luke would reveal. I shall return to this text presently. C) Of course, we now have to ask how does man realize his own biography? Because it is very simple to say that I perform an act as myself, as my, as I. To say that I have a history reaching from the my to the I, which perhaps may fall from the I on the my, on the myself, fall into a coma and die... Yes, all this is obvious, but the question remains, how has man performed all that throughout his life? How is a biography constructed? 1) Let us be clear that man in every one of his acts finds himself among those things with which he makes his life. He is with some friends, with a table, with a meal... Yes, but in addition to being with all these things man also finds he is in reality. Man is formally located in reality with things, and among them. Things may change and change again through all vicissitudes. What does not change is the fact that man is, and has to be in reality necessarily. For this reason, reality is, in the first place, the very ultimateness {304} of things, and of the reality of man. The most ultimate and radical thing that can be said is that they are real. In the second place, this reality is the root and the framework where we find inscribed all the possibilities that man may be able to use in order to build his life. Reality itself insofar as reality is his ultimate, and greatest possibility. And in third place, this reality is at the same time, that which precisely impels him to be. Man cannot cease to build himself. And he cannot cease to make himself because reality itself drives him to it. Together as one, these three characteristics (the ultimateness, the possibilitation, and the impellence) constitute what I have called the the fundamentality of my person2, insofar as realized in my substantive being. And this fundamentality is expressed through one concept only. By ultimateness, by ultimate possibilitation, and by impellence reality manifests itself as an enormous power, the great power, the power of the real. That is what constitutes the fundamentality of my life, what precisely impels me to construct my own biography. Christ is no exception to this condition, but rather (just the opposite) sublimates it. I have made reference to the fact that what we call the power of the real is precisely the deity3, i.e., that characteristic, which things have that reflect the presence of that absolute reality upon which they are resting. And so, for Christ, just as for anyone else, the fundamentality of his life rests upon the power of the real. Except that in his case what is real is lived in a direct, immediate way as a manifestation of the initiating procession with which the divinity has created all things. In that case there is a magnificent coincidence between what things are as real, and what they are as the terminus of the will of his Father. {305} That is what constituted the fundamentality of the unique, and exceptional existence of Christ upon Earth. Because it is not that he dismissed things, but that things were formally the very will of his Father. It is the will of his Father, which is not (I repeat once more) outside of things, but on the contrary, it is things themselves that constitute the will of his Father. Consequently, for Christ the power of the real with which he is constructing his substantive being is none other but this will of the Father, with which in a free manner, but really and effectively, has made that the Trinitarian processions have an initiating terminus ad extra. 2) That is necessary, but it is not sufficient neither in the case of Christ nor my own. It is not sufficient because, undeniably, what we have called the fundamentality of my being belongs to my being. That reality may be something ultimate, possibilitating, and impelling is something that concerns me formally. If I were not to exist, if there were no persons, reality would be real, but it would neither be ultimate (at least in the sense I have given to the term here), nor possibilitating, nor impelling. The fundamentality that makes me be in one form or another, belongs to my own being since that is what precisely makes me a being. The fundamentality belongs to me in a radical and ultimate manner. We must now keep this in mind as we apply it to the case of Christ. In what does fundamentality consist for him when all of it is assigned to the fact that the concrete reality of things is not different from the will of his Father, but is formally the very will of his Father as a moment of his own being? This question involves the ultimate root of what the personal biography of Christ meant for him. I shall answer it with three concepts. ________________ 1 Cf. X. Zubiri, Inteligencia sentiente, Inteligencia y realidad (Sentient Intelligence, Intelligence and reality), op. cit., pp. 210-212. 2 Cf. X. Zubiri, El hombre y Dios (Man and God), op. cit., pp. 81-84. 3 Cf. ibid., pp. 156-157; see also El problema filosófico de la historia de las religiones (The Philosophical Problem of the History of Religions), op. cit., pp. 45-53. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (305-319) --------------- {305} (cont’d) a) The first will be mentioned through something, which is in the New Testament itself. St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Philippians tells us {306} about Christ, “becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name“ (Phil 2:8). Obedience, it might appear that in this case the fundamentality of Christ with respect to his own being would formally consist in obedience. Indeed, St. Paul does not say that it belongs fundamentally; he said he was obedient, which is more than sufficient. But there is the possibility of thinking that even though it is true that Christ was obedient to the point of death on the cross (no doubt whatever), however, that obedience did not constitute the radical dimension of his fundamentality. Simply for one reason, every act of obedience presupposes someone who commands, and someone who is commanded. And this is the question, in what did the capacity of Christ consist for obeying as Son of God? Certainly, there is an internal condition through which fundamentality belongs to my own being. That is what religation is. And only because I am religated I may have obligations that, for example, morality may impose. Therefore, in the case of Christ we would have to say that only because he is immersed in the generating procession of the Word, his biographic realization is precisely the subsisting religation. And precisely by being subsisting religation is the reason why he can have obedience. Fundamentality belongs to the very personal being of Christ precisely because he is the subsisting religation. Religation, the same in the case of Christ as in my own, does not belong to nature, it belongs to the person, or if you will, to the personalized nature. And because religation is a personal dimension it is being molded in a series of acts that, in the end involve only one, to acquiesce. And precisely in this subsisting acquiescence in which the biography of Christ consisted as religated, is where the secret resides of what the meaning for him was of the religious acts he performed throughout his life. {307} He was acquiescing to the will of Yahweh; he accepted the religion of Yahweh precisely because it was the religion of the Father. And precisely because in that religion of the Father is molded the acquiescence in which Christ constitutively consists, insofar as subsisting religation. From this point of view, the biography of Christ for him was, above all, the unfolding of his constitutive and subsisting religation. For this reason I mentioned that the incarnation as a terminus did not have a singular of the human species exclusively or a human individual or even a concrete individual socially qualified. It had as a formal terminus precisely a biographic human reality. And precisely because the Word was realized in a humanity not simply abstract, but in a biographic humanity is the reason why the incarnate Word, the Son of God, is constitutively religated; he is the subsisting religation. And because he is subsisting religation this is a theological concept, anterior to any theology, and at the frontiers of the exegesis. That is what exegesis is asking for. Finally, with all its Sitz im Leben, and with all the multiplicity of Christologies, are we told in what the biography of Christ consisted precisely as subsisting religation? From my point of view it was worth having posed that problem. This realization is, in the case of Christ as in the case of any man, an experience. Experience in the sense of physical proof of reality1. In us it is the experience of the power of the real. In Christ it was an experience of the subsisting religation in which he consists. It was a subsisting religation, which he was testing through experience throughout his own life. He realized in an experiential way what being the Son of God consists. Son of God incarnate goes without saying. The other side happened to {308} Christ right in front of him on at least two occasions in his life, as far as we know. In one, the last, on the cross, when they told him, “come down from the cross, and we shall believe in you” (cf. Mk 15:29-32). He refused to do it. It would have been an absurd theophany. The other, regardless of the literary genre, the moment, and the way in which the Messianic temptations occurred when he was faced with the idea of manifesting himself in all his splendor to the whole world in order to be adored by the whole world (cf. Mt 4:1-11). He did not do it because he wished to know actually through experience what it is to be Son of God by religation. And in this experience, Christ, just as any man, has been activating the possibilities to make his own personal being, and in this case the divine being of Christ. b) The second concept is an answer to the first. The first was Christ, subsisting religation. The second is that human experience is always a manifesting experience. It is the physical proof of reality, and what is real manifests itself to me. I understand by manifestation the actualization of the richness of the real through any type of unfolding. With respect to the case of Christ, in what does this manifesting characteristic of reality consist? Or, what does the experience manifest? Precisely his richness as Son, and as Son it involves the Father. Consequently, the entire life of Christ, from the most modest of his physical acts to his supreme act on the cross has been purely and simply the manifestation of what he is as Son, and therefore, of what the Father is as Father. In other words, Christ is the subsisting revelation. Subsisting religation, and subsisting revelation belong to each other in an essential way. And, precisely because Christ was the subsisting revelation, this revelation is a biographic datum, it is an experiential moment throughout the whole of life. Now the questions {309} we had at the beginning of this section begin to acquire some sense, for example, the case of his baptism, and the case of the solitude at the cross. But first it is necessary to say that I have chosen these two cases because they have some importance. The truth is that the experience of the life of Christ had, from the Jordan to the cross, several phases in which he, obviously, knew himself as Son of God, but in a different way, and with a much greater richness. When he reached the Jordan what he knew was precisely that he was the Messiah. That he was going to have solidarity with sinful humanity. He had no sin, but his baptism was the act, which for him constituted the explicitude of a myself in the shape of a Messianic I. Certainly, his incorporation to sinful humanity was the last note needed to fully understand incarnation. As I pointed out, the incarnation is not only the realization of the Word in a singular of the human species or in a human individual or in a socially qualified individual or even (I would now add) in a human individual biographically considered. It is something more; it is the realization in an individual biographically considered who has a biographic solidarity with sinful humanity. That was precisely the act at the Jordan, to know himself as someone with no sin, which said nothing to him he did not already know (indeed he had a myself), but making it explicit in a first degree of richness, only a first degree. Because shortly thereafter he was going to perform his Messianic function in Galilee. While he was there he had a real and authentic experience, not merely fictitious, of failure. He did not achieve his purpose. And this failure made him think that to be the Messiah of a sinful humanity would have to be accomplished not by limiting himself to the world of Israel or supporting himself on it, but by always being open to all including the gentiles. After this a new phase certainly followed. Christ knows that on a certain {310} day (he is not blind to social reactions, much less than anyone else) he is going to be apprehended and killed. Christ accepts his death. Let us clearly understand this, he accepts it. That is where the obedience lies, he does not impose it on himself. To think that he has come to the world to die on the cross is absurd. He has come to this world to redeem humanity, which is a different thing. The fact is that the Father sent him to accept everything the world might give him including death if it was necessary, and he accepted it with obedience. But that was not the last phase, because (even though it is difficult to determine the exact chronology of these things) on a certain day at the last moment Christ discovers he is going to die. Not only that he is going to die, but is going to die to expiate for that sinful humanity, which he joined in solidarity at the Jordan. That is the expiatory characteristic of the sacrifice on the cross. Right there Christ senses his total solitude as Son of God. As Son of God whose Word is realized in a humanity loaded with sin with which he is in solidarity, and for which he is going to die to expiate its sins, but without abdicating his character as Son of God. Just the opposite, manifesting it precisely from the cross. The sacrifice on the cross, in what it has of sacrifice, is not present certainly in the mere crucifixion. That was something imposed on him by those who killed him. It was not an act of his. That would have been a suicide. It was an oblation, the internal oblation with which he offered his life, now being taken away, to his Father. I do not believe an oblation is sufficient to have a sacrifice. I believe immolation is needed. At any rate, the sacrifice consists in the terminus of the immolation (his life) being made into an offering that in this case is offered to God. And now the question is, how did this biography take place, this progressive elucidation of what the biographic conditions of Christ were as Son of God? The answer immediately comes to mind that he had revelations. Obviously, this cannot {311} be excluded, he did have revelations. But, what do we mean by revelation? We think of revelation as a great spark, a great interior flash. Fine, we do not know what actually happened in the intimacy of Christ. What we do know is that in his intimacy, Christ, just like any other man, and more than any other man could, reflected on what was happening on Earth, and the things that surrounded him. These second causes, which were the will of his Father, contributed in no small measure (how could they have not contributed?) to what Christ was seeing under the light of what he was as Son of God. In the intimacy of Christ we find conjoined in a unitary way, within his own personality as incarnate Word, what comes from God, and what comes from human reflection realized within the lights that come from God. Nevertheless, in this intimacy Christ is seeing, with an ever greater explicitness, the richness which consists, in second act, to be the real truth of what in first act he is as incarnation of the Word. That he is Christ, subsisting religation and subsisting revelation. c) But there is another essential concept, from my point of view. Christ is a subsisting religation, and a subsisting revelation, yes, but how? Precisely in the integral reality of his humanity. And this humanity, because it is the humanity of an incarnate Word, is sacred, if there is anything sacred in the world; it is a constitutive sacredness. That is precisely the etymological meaning of the term sacramentum, sacredness. A sacredness that in this case incorporates a second element, that for Christ his own human vicissitudes were the terminus of a reflection. Therefore, he had to see in them the signs of the will of his Father. Sacredness in the form of sign is precisely what constitutes a sacrament specifically and formally. Christ was not only subsisting religation and subsisting revelation to himself; he was also {312} subsisting sacrament. For that reason Christ performed signs rather than miracles. In addition, what he asked for was not a logical argument concerning the miracles he was performing, but a personal adhesion. We can then understand that the very Messianic secret was not just a pedagogical attitude of Christ, how could it be? Also, it was not a kind of progressive revelation he has been dissolving from above his humanity. The Messianic secret has been the internal condition of his biography. The fact is that Christ has been building his personal being as Messianic being, and from the inside he has been clarifying what the reality of being Son of God consists in second act in his own perfect intimacy. The three concepts at one and the same time (subsisting religation, revelation in act, and subsisting sacramentality) are what from my point of view precisely constitute the ultimate and radical sense of the biography of Christ. For Christ, who actually lived it, this biography was the theological, human, and biographical experience of his own divine filiation. Christ wished not only to be Son of God, but also to know in a formal and positive way what it was to need God, to ask for his help. In the end, to know humanly and down to his bones what it means to be Son of God humanly. That is, from my perspective, the sense of the biography of Christ. At this point we can return to the text of St. Luke and understand it. When St. Luke told us, “Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and favor before God and man” (Lk 2:52), what Christ did was to progressively enrich the theological experience of the biographic fullness, concerning what was happening to him humanly as Son of God. To be Son of God is not simply that the Word may be informing an individual substance. It consists precisely in realizing through internal experience his own biography insofar as Son {313} of God. And it was precisely this biography what constituted the soul and the secret of the living tradition he transmitted to his immediate disciples. Still, this transmission included not only the transmission of what he was, but also the transmission of what actually in him consisted the internal life in the intimacy of his Father. The transmission of this life was precisely the rise of Christianity, i.e., the work of Christ. III. THE WORK OF CHRIST The incarnation appears within a process in which, I was saying, the Trinity is projected ad extra in its own life. And this means that creation and the created entities have a condition I call deiformed. Not deification because that involves the idea of making gods. That is not the point, but that in themselves insofar as made and created they are deiformed. In second place, this process, I was saying, culminates with the personal incorporation of God in his second Person to this creation. An incorporation that has several characteristics, out of which I chose three of them as important. In first place, a biographical characteristic, in second place, a historical characteristic, and subjacent to biography and history, a religious characteristic within the religious history of humanity. Naturally, I would have to add that the question does not end here. Indeed, we have to add that this process of deiformity, which culminates in the personal incorporation of Christ to the reality of the world and history, occurs precisely by and for the human deiformity. Classical theology formulated a similar problem with a different title, but in the end intrinsically touching lightly on the subject I just mentioned, namely, what was the reason that motivated {314} the incarnation in creation? Theologians have divided into three positions. On one side the classical groups, inspired (needless to say) by numerous quotations from the Fathers of the Church with their point of view canonized in the maximum theology of St. Thomas. It consists in saying that Christ became man to redeem humanity, i.e., that the formal reason for incarnation is the redemptive salvation of man2. Another opinion is represented by Duns Scotus who had a different vision. He thought that the formal reason for incarnation consists in the very perfection that intrinsically and theologically concerns the incarnate Word as such. What moved God (speaking anthropomorphically) to incarnate was precisely the intrinsic perfection of the incarnate Word. That as a result he would also be redeemer is something else3. The third opinion is by Molina, a Spanish theologian, who was not in exact agreement with the other two opinions. His opinion was that certainly God has incarnated because of the intrinsic perfection called for by the reality of the Son of God made flesh, that is clear. But he thought God never “decreed”4 the incarnation independently from sinful humanity, which Christ was going to join. And, therefore, according to Molina, the two other points of view are associated in the decree of the incarnation5. Personally, with all my clumsiness, I cannot agree with any of the three opinions. The one I might find somewhat acceptable is {315} the opinion by Molina, but with a fundamental difference. In every discussion of the opinions the incarnate Word is placed on one side, and on the other sinful humanity. But we ask, is that humanity, by virtue of which and for which the Word incarnated, necessarily and formally the humanity insofar as sinful? This would have to be proven, and I believe it is an absolutely erroneous supposition. The destiny of men was included in the formal reason for incarnation, but of men insofar as deiformed, not as sinners. To be sinners and redeem them will come afterwards, as I will point out immediately. The formal reason for incarnation is precisely the human deiformity. Men are covered by the decree (in scholastic terms) of incarnation; but not insofar as sinful humanity, but insofar as deiform humanity. Consequently the incarnation is a giving of itself ad extra in the deiformed creature. The incarnation took place as the fundament of this deiformity. And since this fundament and this foundation is (as I will present immediately) the molding of religation itself, it means that the position of Christ in creation is identically the foundation of a religion. That is the way in which the issue should have been presented. The position of Christ in creation is, at least from this point of view, to be the fundament or the foundation of religion. However, it is not enough to say it, it has to be explained. And we are going to explain it in at least three consecutive steps. A) What do we understand by founding? In the first place, Christ founds religion for the deiformation of man. We can and must ask this question, what do we {316} mean here by founding? This is a question classical theology has never asked. However, it was worth having thought about it thematically even if briefly. What do we understand by founding? Let us begin by remembering what I said with respect to man in general. In the first place, man is a substantive reality, which has to make his own I, in other words, his personality (not relevant at this point), which is his relatively absolute substantive being. In the second place, man finds himself dominated and given possibilities by the power of the real in the form of religation. Religation belongs formally to the dimension of personalized nature insofar as it is going to realize its own substantive being. In the third place, this religation takes us, as we observed, to the admission of the absolutely absolute and personal reality, which God is. And, in fourth place, the surrender of the whole man to this absolutely absolute reality, insofar as true reality, is precisely what constitutes faith. Finally, the configuration of the entire I in this faith is in what religion formally consists6. The foregoing has to be considered in order to answer the question of what it was to found religion on the part of Christ. So far, it appears quite clearly that religion is not an external adjunct, but actually a configuration of the substantive being in its surrender to God. Now we must ask, in what did the founding of Christianity consist from the part of Christ? Of course, the first thing we must say is that the founding of Christianity was a personal action of Christ. This seems like a platitude, but it is not. I leave aside the eternal question whether Christ did {317} or did not have the intention of founding a Church. That is not the question at all. The issue here is to consider really and effectively, not the hypercriticism of some sources, but what the texts say. Therefore, it is clearly the case of an action performed by Christ, and consequently, of a personal action of his. To say, then, that Christ is the deiformity of man is the same thing as saying that Christ has incarnated in, by and for this deiformity. Therefore, it is incumbent on the substantive being in which Christ consists (that being, which is formally theandric), on the I of Christ, in some of his essential dimensions, and by virtue of the formal reason for the incarnation, that he should found a religion. Certainly, that substantive being, Christ, made the decision (after all Christianity was not founded by the eternal Word, but by the incarnate Word, which is different) in his absolute intimacy. And this intimacy, as I have just pointed out, was the subsisting revelation. Understanding by revelation not a kind of dictation ad extra that came to him from the Father, but purely, and simply the human reflection that Christ realized about the situations of his life, the events in it, and the things surrounding him. All this considered under the light, which only he possessed about the will of the Father, of which the reality of things is the formal expression for Christ. The knowledge Christ acquires in that intimacy cannot be divided between what he could have had of pure human intellection and reflection, and what he could have had of divine illumination as will of the Father. That is absolutely impossible, and it is also completely absurd to attempt to divide it. Therefore, a knowledge of this type, and acquired that way is the one, from my point of view, that should answer the much bandied about concept in theology (and poorly treated by all sides), concerning the infused knowledge of Christ. We never get to know the exact role the infused knowledge of Christ plays (in that skyscraper of types of knowledge invented {318} by the medieval theologians). Present day theologians say, since that does not have sufficient tradition I shall ignore it. No, that is also completely absurd. This knowledge is infused, not because it may be a dictation from the outside, from the Father, but because it was acquired in the unique, and exceptional intimacy that Christ had with his Father, in the intimacy of his experience of divine filiation. At least that is the way I see the problem, the infused knowledge is the reflection of Christ in the intimacy, and under the light precisely of the will of his Father. At one and the same time with the characteristics of things, the will of his Father becomes manifest to Christ, of whom these things are termini. The infused knowledge is, therefore, purely and simply the knowledge of the substantive being of Christ as founder of religion. Christ has a personality in this dimension, the personality of founder of religion. And this founding is precisely an action of Christ, and as such, an action that belongs to the very life of Christ. Of course, we have to be told in what this action consists. We could have several possibilities. It was possible for Christ to institute a religion. That is something known although with different characteristics. The founding of Christianity would be the transmission of a set of teachings, of a series of disciplines, of a series of rites, of a series of moral precepts, and if you will, also of a series of possible liturgical dimensions of the religious life. It is in the end (but done in an infinitely more perfect way), what the other founders of religion did, such as Mohammed, Zoroaster, Buddha, and even Moses. Nevertheless, this was not the possibility and the way Christ chose to found Christianity. There was a different possibility. Christ does not institute Christianity, but he takes the men around him, and makes Christians out of them. That is a different matter. Here to found means to mold, not simply institute. It means {319} to mold, to configure religion in these men, and in those upon whom these men are going to have an action (more about this later). To configure and mold our substantive I, the substantive I of man. From the point of view of his personal action, the founding action of Christ consisted in this precisely. He is the Son of the Father, and his molding consists in really and effectively making sons of the same Father out of the men who receive his founding action. Christ founds religion by making the religion in us, by making Christians out of us. It is not the case of a mere institution; it is the case of an effective action. Now the second step appears, how is that action realized? What type of action is it? _______________ 1 On experience as physical proof of reality please refer to X. Zubiri, Inteligencia y razón (Intelligence and Reason), Madrid, 1983, pp. 222-257. 2 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, III. q. 1, art. 3. 3 Cf. Duns Scotus, O.F.M. (1270-1308) Reportata parisiensia, lib. 3, disp. 7, q. 4. 4 That is the language of scholastics, a language half juridical, and half scholastic, difficult to understand, and useful to mislead those listening. It makes it appear as if a great consortium has taken place, and it has been decided that the Word will come down to Earth to extricate humanity from its difficulties; this is absurd, but nevertheless that is their language (X. Zubiri note). 5 Cf. Luis de Molina, S.J. (1535-1600) Liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, providentia, predestinatione et reprobatione concordia, in 1, q. 3, a. 4-5, disp. 1. 6 Zubiri presupposes here what was presented about faith in El hombre y Dios (Man and God), op. cit., pp. 222-304; and about religion in El problema filosófico de la historia de las religiones (The Philosophical Problem of the History of Religions), op. cit., pp. 85-113. -------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (319-329) --------------- {319} (cont’d) B) How is that action realized? There were several possibilities, and since classical theology has never presented these problems from this point of view I have no other choice but to deal with them in greater detail. One possibility was to say that Our Lord Jesus Christ on Earth, like any other man, performed numerous actions, and one of them was to found Christianity. It would just be one more act among the many that constituted the life of Christ. This would tell us that the life of Christ had two types of acts. Some would be the acts in which he lives for himself, as I mentioned above. Others, those acts through which he makes Christians out of others, instituting others as sons of God, and Christians. Is this what Christ did? No, Christ chose a completely different way. Just as he made Christians, and not simply instituted Christianity, the actions with which he made Christians out of others were not any different from the actions {320} of his own life. He incorporated into humanity the actions of his life, and through those very actions of his life humanity was molded. The personal actions of the life of Christ were the actions that founded Christianity. The acts of configuration of Christianity were numerically identical to those acts that constituted the life of Christ. In the first step I have shown that the founding is a personal action of Christ. Now I must point out, in the second, that this personal action of Christ is not different from the actions that constitute his own personal life. As such what those actions impress or what they configure and mold in other men is in first place something which concerns their being, and not their substantive reality. Through Christianity Christ does not confer a stomach or psychism or a will or necessary dispositions of the will to other men, but confers upon them the configuration of a being. And confers it through an incorporation to him. Incorporation to a reality, to the reality of the incarnate Word. An incorporation in which the root or one of the fundamental dimensions of the incarnation consists, as we have explained. In order to make this clearer we shall concentrate our attention, right away, on the two supreme actions in which the personal life of Christ culminates his death and resurrection. Of course, the things I am saying are already known. The only thing man can do is to make an effort to provide a conceptual structure to apprehend, in a more or less obscure way, what the reality of Christianity is. 1) In the first place, the death of Christ. As a personal action, what was his own death for Christ? St. Paul tells us clearly, he was hupékoos (obedient) until death {321} (Phil 2:8). As I said above, obedience is not the formal reason for religation, but the other way around, obedience presupposes a religation. For the time being we must say that subsistent religation inexorably leads, in Christ, to an act of supreme obedience. An obedience to precisely acquiesce to the will of the Father being manifested to him throughout the whole of his life. However, this death has two different aspects. In the first place, it has the aspect of being an event of his substantive reality. Then, the death of Christ, as the death of anyone else, means a de-animation of his organism or reciprocally a de-corporation of his soul1. But this is not what constitutes the profound reality of the death of Christ. The profound reality of the death of Christ does not concern his substantive reality, but his substantive being. Concerns that being Christ attains throughout his life, which is formally and precisely theandric. This formally theandric I is not an I that might be a subject of attribution or even subject of inhesion of his acts, but is the very figure of his substantive being. And in this figure is where his death is precisely inscribed, not simply the de-animation of an organism or the de-corporation of a mind, of a soul, but the configuration of his substantive being. Let us remember then that Christ is incorporated to humanity in a biographic way, in a historic way, and also in a religious one. Incorporated to a humanity socially concretized, but in addition to a sinful humanity. What does it mean to be incorporated to a sinful humanity? We can answer quickly; Christ loaded himself with the sins of humanity. Of course, as long as we give an {322} authentic meaning to the verb “to load”. What does it mean that Christ loaded himself with our sins? We also have to explain that. We cannot say, formally speaking that it is the case of a load in the trivial sense of the term. The truth is that the answer to the question of what the incorporation to sinful humanity meant was given by Christ when he was apprehended at Gethsemane. He said to those accompanying Judas that it was, “the hour of the power of darkness” (he hóra kai he exousía toú skótous, Lk 22:53). To incarnate into a sinful humanity means, in one form or another, to live on a land, in a society, and in a world in which “the power of darkness” exists. “The darkness” here is an expression for sin, the power of sin. What do we understand by power? St. Luke uses the term exousía, which has several meanings. On one hand it means a power (Sp. potestad), for example, a juridical power. On the other, it may be equivalent to a potency (Sp. potencia), a dýnamis. Actually, the term exousía formally means a power that has a certain amount of juridical power. It is more than juridical power, but less than the physical meaning of the term dýnamis. Certainly, this exousía, this power, is not a mere value, not at all. But also it is not a cause in the sense of the efficient causality of a dýnamis. It is precisely the dominance of the real insofar as real, precisely the power2. Being a power that is the dominance of the real insofar as real it has to be founded in some characteristic faculties, which constitute reality in its capacity of founding a power, i.e., in their condition. Therefore, this dimension of reality in which the power of sin is founded is {323} precisely the will of men standing in malice3. Precisely because men stand in the will to malice there exists in the world what is called the power of sin. That Christ may have incarnated in a sinful humanity means, however, that he has incarnated in a world where the malice of men constitutes a power. What is that power? Clearly, men are not only individuals they live among each other. And they decant through their socializing and coexistence on the world, their thoughts (their noémata), and their decisions (their boulémata). They are constructing a world. The world is neither each one of the individuals nor the sum of all of them, not at all. The world is something that certainly does not exist outside the individuals living in the world, but is not identified with them. The world has precisely that impersonal characteristic (consequently different from each of the individuals) of being precisely a tópos. The reality of the world is essentially and constitutively topical. Nevertheless, this topic weighs, of course, on the individuals living in it, and not only as some sort of current exigency. The world, in a certain sense (sociologists love stories like these) is that which composes the thoughts, the decisions, the norms, etc, that have currency at a certain particular moment. This is quite true, but there is something much more radical. The fact is that this world, as arché of the individuals living in it, is not only a world in which there are things that have exigencies for the individuals, but is something more. It is a world that makes individuals live, at least inchoatively, the way it is, the way the world is. In this sense, there is not only an exigency, but also a power, {324} the power of the world over the individuals living in it. The world as power is essential to our problem. Humanity has been depositing its amartémata on this world, its sins. The power the world has in which these sins have been deposited is formally the power of sin. The incorporation of Christ to a sinful humanity consists, in the first place, in living in a world of sin. And to live in a world of sin is, in one form or another, to be under the power of sin. We need to ask, in what sense? Certainly Christ is not under the power of sin as a sinner, not at all. Also, the power of sin is not something that necessarily forces or impels making the individuals living in it formally sinful. The sin consists in living aversely, but before each will on its own performs a personal act of living aversely it is immersed in a world, which is a world in aversion to God, i.e., a world of sin, of the power of sin. The power of sin hovers over the person of Christ without reaching his ultimate radical intimacy. Hence, to live in a world where the power of sin exists without personally being a sinner in any way at all is what formally constituted the incorporation of Christ to sinful humanity. This incorporation was precisely the death of Christ. The death of Christ that, on the one hand, was the result of sin, and on the other, left him unharmed in his very filial reality. But his body and soul were harmed. He was left unharmed in his condition as Son of God, and precisely in the oblation of his life, an oblation that has a triple characteristic. In the first place, the characteristic of obeying the will of the Father, it is an act of adoration. In the second place, of beseeching him for what he said on the cross, “forgive them because they do not {325} know what they are doing” (Lk 23:34). Finally, of expiating the sins of humanity where expiating concretely means that next to the power of sin he has introduced a new power, the power of God. For this reason the supreme act of religion in Christ was his death because it was the supreme act of religion as Son. Then we have to ask, what was that death of Christ as founding action of Christianity for the rest of mankind? First, I will say that the power of sin has functioned in a different way for the rest of all men than the way it functioned for Christ. In Christ the power of sin had an internal limit. Christ did not become a sinner by living in a world of the power of sin; men, taken historically just as they are, definitely did. Needless to say, we live in a world in which the power of sin transfuses with intrinsic sinfulness the reality of all that live in it. Man is internally abandoned to the power of sin, but why? Is it because of malice in some cases? Is it because of a radical weakness of its make up in others? Be that as it may, it is a fact. Each one of the sins that humanity performs in one way or another continues to increase the power of sin. Or, at least, if it does not increase it definitely consolidates it. All the sins of humanity are in this sense equivalent without exception. They constitute the many contributions to the power of sin, which hovers as an integral element of the world in which humans live. This is no metaphysical spinning. Sufficient to read chapter 6 of Genesis on the account of the deluge where we are told that, “all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth” (Gn 6:12). The sin of humanity had reached all of humanity. And then we find the phrase, which I will not address {326} now, “I am sorry that I made them” (Gn 6:7). Nevertheless, it is the explicit manifestation that the power of sin with all the sins of all men continues to expand like an asphyxiating wave throughout human history. All sins, in this sense, are included in this power. Clearly, Christ died for all the sins of mankind not just one. It is said that there was a first sin. I already referred to original sin when dealing with creation. However, in what does the original sin consist, and its originating characteristic? Certainly it is not an inherited sin. The idea of an inherited sin is something completely alien even to St. Paul. When St. Paul describes the situation of man he begins with Christ not with Adam. This is essential, he sees Adam from Christ, he does not see Christ from Adam. He tells us that just as Christ has brought to us redemption from sin by the unique action of his life, which his death was (at least it culminated in his death), in the same way, “through one person sin entered the world” (Rom 5:12). It does not say that men inherited that sin. It is not the case of a hereditary epidemic. Original sin has its originating characteristic by being the first sin of humanity, i.e., the sin that established on Earth, on the world, the power of sin. If Adam had not sinned any other sin of those committed in humanity would be in the same condition. The original sin established the power of sin upon Earth. And the seat of this sin is precisely the world as such. The domination of the power of sin consists in the fact that all individuals born immersed in a world of sin find themselves in the moral impossibility of being subtracted from it. Original sin is a reality of the moral order; {327} it is not a kind of chromosomal ingredient we are always inheriting. We find ourselves in the moral impossibility of subtracing ourselves from that sin. And this happens with the sin of Adam, and with the rest of the sins of humanity. There are no differences between the sin of Adam, and all the other sins of men. The sin of Adam was the first. It is the one that brought the power of sin, which in that sense facilitated the entry of all the other sins. However, essentially, all the sins of humanity are on the same plane. The whole of humanity continues sinning, most of the time increasing (at other times consolidating) the power of sin, and the power of evil. Nevertheless, this does not mean that if we find ourselves in the moral impossibility to avoid having sin, whose power is present in the world, from hovering over us we are sinners. It is not the case that we are committing sin, but that we are in a sinful condition that may lead to sin (Sp. empecatados), which is a different thing. To be in a situation leading to sin simply consists in belonging to a world where the power of sin exists confronting which, when the time comes, each one of the individuals that perform acts subject to responsibility will not be able to subtract himself from the power of sin. Before living aversely in a personal sin man lives subject to sin in a world where the power of sin resides hovering over each individual, a power by virtue of which each man lives deprived of God. This is the reason why man, in his deepest reality (regardless of what may be thought), is intrinsically subject to the power of sin, and therefore, intrinsically and formally in need of a redemption or a salvation. Man is in need of salvation, and of redemption. Of a redemption that for him means not only the moral forgiveness of sins. {328} Clearly, this is true, but we have the right, and the obligation to ask what is true forgiveness. To forgive is not simply to forget or to think, “well, he has done it, but as if he had not done it”, absolutely not. In order for forgiveness to have a real and effective sense it must produce an internal transformation in the one that is forgiven. Probably because of this, forgiveness (in the strict sense of the term) is an exclusive attribute of the divinity. The rest of us can forgive in a very wide sense; even help the transformation of the other. Only Christ is capable of intrinsically transforming humanity, and to transform it, not in its substantive reality, but in its being. That transformation consists in the fact that the power of sin has been subjected to the power of God. That is in what redemption consists. The power of sin is nothing but a situation leading to sin, which will produce personal sins when its time comes. The power of God also is a power radically conferred to the being of man, which will not produce its effects except when that man performs personal acts. Because of this the death of Christ (that is the first act we had to consider) for him was that numerical identity between the personal life of Christ and the transformation of man. Man has been molded as a reality in the power of God precisely and formally by the very act with which Christ gave his life on the cross numerically for each one of us. In that supreme act of religion that for him was his death Christ molds the substantive being of all other humans. And he molds it not symbolically, but really and effectively. He places really and effectively the being of man within the orbit of the power of God. And in this sense placed under the orbit of God we are liberated of the power of sin at least as a subjugating power. We always have in our own being the intrinsic possibility by our {329} incorporation to Christ of being realities that are more under the power of God than under the power of sin. _________________ 1 On the opinion of Zubiri about death please refer to his article “El hombre y su cuerpo” (Man and his body), Asclepio, no. XXV (1973), p. 8. 2 On the power of the real in Zubiri please refer to El hombre y Dios (Man and God), op. cit., pp. 84-91; Inteligencia sentiente. Inteligencia y realidad (Sentient Intelligence. Intelligence and Reality), op.cit., 195-200. 3 On the concept of malice in Zubiri please refer to Sobre el sentimiento y la volición (On sentiment and volition), op. cit., pp. 262-277. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (329-340) --------------- {329} (cont’d) 2) The second act I wanted to consider is an act intimately connected with the death of Christ, his resurrection. We then ask analogously, what was the resurrection of Christ in itself? And also, what was it for men insofar as an act that founds religion, an act through which Christianity is molded in the spirit of men? Certainly, there is a detail in the resurrection that has been the subject of much speculation, the well-known detail of the third day. Actually it is not the only place in the Bible where the third day appears connected to life and death. To die and resurrect on the third day is mentioned in the prophet Hosea, “He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up” (Hos 6:2). In the time of Hosea the parable of Jonas who lived three days in the belly of the whale had not been written yet. Christ refers to the signal (the account does mention it is indeed a symbol) of Jonas (cf. Mt 12:39-41; 16:4; Lk 11:29-32). That expression can even be traced outside the Bible throughout the surrounding cultures, for example, concerning the death and resurrection of Hadad and Tammuz in spring. To say that he is going to resurrect on the third day means he is going to resurrect quickly, and that this short time is the only one allowed to the power of evil. We now ask, in what does the resurrection of Christ consist? The first thing we must consider is that the resurrection of Christ is exactly the opposite of what we imagine. We all imagine Christ resurrecting doing to himself what he did with Lazarus or the daughter of Jairus, someone dead who is reanimated, and returned to life, and walks on the streets of Jerusalem. To resurrect would be the reanimation of a cadaver. {330} This reanimation would consist on that cadaver, and the human being dead as a cadaver, returning to this world as if nothing had happened, so to speak. He has died, yet he is returned to life. And life is the reanimation of a cadaver. Nevertheless, this is absolutely not what happened in the resurrection of Christ. In the first place, what is important and essential in the resurrection of Christ is not to say he was dead, but that he is alive. That is the essential matter, Christ alive after Holy Saturday. In the second place, that it is not the case he may be alive as Lazarus was on the streets of Jerusalem. No, the fact is he is alive for always. The power of sin, and of death will no longer have access to Christ. It is a different life. And in third place, the Christ that is alive is a life in the plenitude of power, and not one simply subject to the historical contingencies of humanity, and the power of sin. a) Hence, if we wish to express more accurately in what the resurrection consists, composed (sit venia verbo) of these characteristics we find, in the first place, that the resurrection does not consist in a reanimated cadaver returning to this world. It is just the opposite; it goes to the other world. That is precisely the question, to proceed to another world, to that world where Christ at the right hand of the Father —as the Creed says symbolically, anthropomorphically, and cosmically— precisely has the fullness of powers in a life that will never be taken from him. b) Certainly, in this condition he is not exempt from corporeity. But the resurrected body of Christ is not an ordinary body; it is a different body. St. Paul called it sóma pneumatikón, a “spiritual body” (1 Co 15:44), which definitely is the condition of a glorified body. The body of Christ goes through walls, appears at the Cenacle, and disappears again (cf. Jn 20:19-29). It is not an ordinary body. Consequently, it would be chimerical to think that the resurrected Christ {331} could return to his life in Nazareth. The place that belongs to the resurrected Christ is precisely the center of creation and history, something entirely different. The resurrection of Christ is definitely not the reanimation of a cadaver that now walks on earth. It is precisely the opposite, the internal transformation of a cadaver that places Christ in the other world. However, it has characteristics of corporeity, because the primary function of corporeity is not precisely to have a carnal characteristic. I have mentioned this numerous times and will repeat it again; the body has in first place, the condition of being the present actuality of that of which it is a body. In the second place, in one form or another, it confers an internal consistency to that of which it is a body. And, in addition, it corporally expresses what that of which it is body constitutively is1. Therefore, to say that the resurrected Christ has the same body means it has the same actuality, the same consistency, and the same expression. But this does not mean that he may have an identical structure. The resurrected Christ does not have a stomach, just as no man will have in glory after the resurrection; it makes no sense. It is not a question of sameness through structural identity in his substantive reality; it is a question of sameness of presence, consistency, and expression. When Christ says to St. Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side” (Jn 20:27), Christ does not have scars. That is something different, he expresses precisely in his reality, through the form of scars, what the internal condition of the passion and death of Christ is, by way of expression, not by way of an anatomical and physiological structure. {332} It is precisely because of this that the resurrection not only had no witnesses, but also could not have had any. Exegesis has sometimes said (and rightly so) that if someone had been present with Christ in his sepulcher he would not have seen what we imagine a resurrection is. He would have seen what the Apostles saw at the Cenacle, suddenly Christ disappeared (cf. Lk 24:51). At best a kind of volatilization (sit venia verbo) of his cadaver. The resurrection of Christ was not the reanimation of a cadaver, but the glorious transfiguration of a body, which confers actuality, consistency, and expression to what Christ is. c) Of course, this resurrected Christ goes to another world, does not return to this one. However, he manifests himself in this one. This is precisely the issue of recognition. Of the accounts of the apparitions of Christ the oldest, and the one that has to be considered carefully is the text of St. Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. St. Paul mentions the apparitions with only one verb in the passive voice óphthe “was seen” (1 Cor 15:5-8). It really means “Christ made himself to be seen”. This means that for St. Paul it is not the case of a subjective illusion, but that he made himself visible. Therefore, the manifestation of Christ has an objective and real characteristic. Consequently, this is a manifestation that has its initiative with Christ himself. It is not the case that Christ is walking and the others are seeing him. If I were to walk down the street without others seeing me it would require a miracle. That the resurrected Lazarus was seen on the streets of Jerusalem is not a miracle; the miracle will be his walking on the streets of Jerusalem. But if he walks it would be perfectly normal to be seen. The miracle would be not to be seen. That is not the question here, it is just the opposite. Here we have Christ’s own personal initiative. He makes himself visible in his condition with a glorified body. And he makes himself visible to whom he pleases, when he pleases, and how he pleases. {333} But he does it to be recognized, at least in the form of expression. Nevertheless, this recognition is also not the recognition of a person I meet on the street, and say, “yes, it is so-and-so”. Among the passages referring to the apparitions it will be enough if we select the encounter of the two disciples with Christ on the road to Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-35), it is a slow and progressive recognition. This is surprising; don’t they see his face? And if they were disciples, had they not seen him before? The fact is it was not that way at all. It is a progressive recognition, in the first place, he seemed to be an ordinary man walking on the road. Afterwards, he seemed to be someone who was not aware of what had happened in Jerusalem, and more or less became interested. They began talking about it, and was able to explain its meaning. Of course, it is a group communication, a group recognition. And finally at the breaking of bread (having nothing to do with the Eucharist in his case, but is purely the way of distributing bread at the table) he is recognized. At that point Christ disappears. The recognition of Christ has been progressive. It is not the immediate recognition of a face on the street. And it is not only a recognition in which the manifestation comes by an initiative of Christ, and has a progressive characteristic from the part of those receiving it. The apparitions of Christ have never had the characteristic of simply saying, “they killed me, but here I am”, of course not. In the same way that the miracles in the life of Christ were not teratological prodigies to overwhelm those facing the prodigious events (which does not mean they were not prodigious), anlogously the apparitions of Christ were not simply teratology. That enormous wonder that someone who is dead may appear on {334} Earth. It was more than a prodigy (needless to say), but it had a framework. Miracles were framed in the mission to forgive sins. I refer to the case of the cure of the paralytic where Christ says, “Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins (...) Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home” (Mt 9:4-6). That was the framework of all the miracles of Christ. Hence, analogically the resurrection has a perfect framework, which is the mission of propagating Christianity upon Earth. Now we ask, and what has it been for men? Because here we try to see the resurrection of Christ insofar as it is a numerically single act of molding Christianity into each of the persons it reaches. St. Paul describes it perfectly when discussing baptism (cf. Rom 6:3-11). What he means to say is that with the death of Christ we have died to sin, and have passed precisely to a different and superior life. It is the molding of this transit from Earth to the right hand of the Father (in which the resurrection formally consisted) in the being of each one of us. The resurrection of Christ is in itself, as a personal action of Christ, a molding of the being of man. And what does that molding produce? Precisely that this being, which in a radical way was aversive to God by being under the power of the world, now is converted into a being that in a radical way is, or at least can be, conversely towards God. It is, in the forceful phrase of St. Paul, a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17); Gal 6:15). It is the “new man” (cf. Eph 2:5; 4:24; Col 3:10). Man, St. Paul says using a term borrowed from the mystery religions, should “put on” (endúei) Christ (cf. Rom 13:12-14), of course, by incorporation. {335} And we ask, in what does this “putting on” consist? It is exactly what happened in the resurrection. St. Paul tells us —regardless of the origin of his ideas, which is a different question— there is a sóma psychikón, and a sóma pneumatikón, there is a “psychic body” (not animal, but animated), and a “spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:44). And he says the first is earthly and the second celestial. The first is precisely the body of Adam, the second is the body of Christ (cf. 1 Cor 15:47). And he calls the body of Christ spiritual (pneumatikón) because it is “vivifying” (zoopoioûn, cf. 1 Cor 15:45). However, the psychism is for St. Paul purely and simply animating. The body of Christ, by his resurrection, gives us precisely a spirit we did not have through Adam, who only provided us with animation. The body of each one of us is not transformed because of this, but is radically destined to have, precisely in the resurrection of the dead, the pneumatic characteristic the body of Christ has. It is an eschatological notion, but absolutely real. The resurrection of Christ is not a mere symbol of what may happen to the body of man. It is the very enunciation (the arrabôna, the down payment, as St. Paul says, cf. 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5) of what really, and effectively happens by virtue of what Christ has given to it. And how is this molding produced by virtue of the resurrection? St. Paul answers with only one concept full of richness, it is paliggenesía, regeneratio (cf. Ti 3:5). What is this regeneration? Certainly, it is not the molding ad extra of the Trinitarian life, not that at all. In the very exordium of creation, and as its formal reason we find there precisely the deiformity of man. The paliggenesía is not a “remolding”, that makes no sense. It is something different. I mentioned it already; it is to give this very Trinitarian molding ad extra the capacity of being within the power of God. The paliggenesía is a “re-generation”. {336} In other words, the being of man is taken out of its condition of being subjected to the power of sin, and is now subjected to the ambit of the power of God. It is that in which, in a non-symbolic manner, but absolutely real, the resurrection of Christ consists as molding of Christianity into the spirit of men. Then, what it places in the one regenerated is precisely the power of God in him. And the power of God in him is that, which (from this point of view) deserves to be called cháris, grace. Grace is not a kind of shower that comes from the outside; it is the intrinsic insertion inside the Trinitarian molding in which the reality of man consists (although he may be condemned), while he is in this world. Precisely inside that molding the power of God is inscribed, which, as any power, is precisely something dynamic. Scholasticism thought, with a very Aristotelian notion, that grace is the quality of a substance, a habitus. There is no reason to think that grace is the quality of a substance. It is something richer, it is the power of God in the real and effective life of man, the power with which man continues to build his own substantive being. The power of God in us makes us be deiform. This power of God is not an assistance that comes from the outside. It is something that the resurrection of Christ has molded in the depths of the spirit of man, in a pneumatiké (spiritual) way, i.e., the presence of that Trinity in whose molding consists the formal reality of man, as fountain of that power of God in each one of us. By virtue of this, it deserves that we may be called, strictly speaking, sons of God. That is why the life of grace is not a psychological experience. This is something the psychologists rush to demand, but it is not a psychological experience. No one has a psychological experience of grace. But not because of metaphysical reasons as scholastic theology believed, which always advanced the argument that {337} it was the case of a hidden habitus. It is not the case of a psychological experience or a mere habitus, but is something different. It is an experience that certainly involves a moral ingredient, and is a moral experience, but is not merely moral. It is a moral experience lived under the light of a faith. In this sense it is a theological experience2. Man has a theological experience of grace, not at a certain moment, but throughout the whole of life or at least certain periods of it. That is what the moral is in faith. 3) The foundation of Christianity consists in these two concrete acts (the death and the resurrection), which are not just like any other acts, but two supreme acts of the life of Christ. In other words, they are the answer to the second question, how is the founding of Christianity realized? The actions with which Christ has molded Christianity in men are not a few numerically added, and different from the actions of his personal life. They are the very actions of his personal life, which by incorporation of humanity have molded in men that which is their ultimate and radical meaning. I have mentioned two acts. The truth is that the New Testament when in a thematic way wishes to speak about the true problem of the redemption of man never speaks of two acts, but one, he was crucified and resurrected. That “and” is not a copulative “and”. It is an “and” that expresses the intrinsic unity of two acts apparently so different as the death by crucifixion and the resurrection. It is not a case of symbolism; it is the case of a real happening in our being, to place us under the power of God through an internal regeneration in grace, and through incorporation. And for this {338} the acts with which Christ has molded Christianity in the spirit of man and the acts he lived on Earth are absolutely identical. What exists between the death to sin and the death on the cross is not an external symbolism, but it is identically one same act. So identically that we have seen that for Christ not even death was a pure destruction of the substantive reality, but it was a transposition, and an oblation. And the resurrection was not a return to this world with a carnal body, but just the opposite; it was a transfiguration towards the other. With this I have responded, more or less, to what I asked in the second step. The first was to ask, what is to found Christianity? I have shown that for Christ to found Christianity is to perform the personal action of molding it really and effectively in the spirit of those men. In the end, to make them Christians, and not simply institute a religion more or less juridically elaborated. I asked in the second step, what is this action of the personal life of Christ? I replied that they are the very personal actions of Christ, death and resurrection. It is through them that we are molded. Naturally, I repeat, these acts are not symbolic they are real acts. And now surfaces a third step. These acts, did they take place once? Therefore, we must reply that these acts did not happen just once; they are being repeated continuously throughout the history of humanity. Precisely by taking at one and the same time those three dimensions, i.e., the act, which is a personal action of Christ, that this personal action of Christ may be the actions of his own life, and that those actions of his own life may be repeated constantly is what constitutes the plenary definition of what I understand by sacrament. {339} Classical theology has always understood the sacraments from the point of view of Aristotelian causality as something that is in ratione signi. Obviously, Christ does not return to die at Golgotha bloodily. But it is something more than a mere sign, something more than just a symbolized death. In the Council of Trent there was a reaction (reasonably so) against nominalist theology by saying that in order for man to receive the grace of a sacrament it is enough not to place obstacles (cf. DS 1606). It would seem that grace acts by itself like a kind of aspirin tablet. A sad idea that four centuries after the Council of Trent it has been current in the books of Catholic theology. Certainly that is not the meaning of sacrament. When the Council of Trent decided to say something else (and said it well) it was infallible. However, there were at least two great Spanish theologians (Melchor Cano and Francisco Suárez) that thought that the sacraments had a moral reality, that they were moral actions of Christ3. However, although this is necessary it does not seem sufficient to me. It is not enough to say that the actions as sacramental actions are moral actions of Christ. It is necessary to add that these moral actions are formally the very actions of his personal life, and that these actions of his personal life were the action with which Christ molded, and formed Christianity on Earth. Only by taking at one and the same time these three dimensions is how we shall have (from my point of view) the integral notion of what an authentic sacrament is. At any rate, we need to ask, in what does this repetition {340} of the personal actions of Christ in the molding of Christians consist? That is the third step. _______________ 1 On a later text Zubiri systematically presents his conception of corporeity, cf. “El hombre y su cuerpo” (Man and his body), Asclepio, op. cit., pp. 3-15. 2 On the experience of God and grace please refer to El hombre y Dios (Man and God), op. cit., pp. 319-334. 3 Cf. Melchor Cano, O.P. (1509-1560), Relectio de sacramentis in genere, pars 4, nos. 59-78, in his Opera theologica, vol. 3, Roma, 1900, pp. 253-257. The position of F. Suárez, S.J. (1548-1617) can be seen in his Comentarii et disputationes in tertiam partem Divi Thomae, q. 62, art. 4, disp. 9. The idea of a moral causality was defended by P. de Ledesma, O.P. (1544-1616), G. Vásquez, S.J. (1549-1604), and J. de Lugo, S.J. (1583-1660). --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (340-351) --------------- {340} (cont’d) C) The repetition of the actions of Christ We have seen, in the first place, that to found Christianity does not consist for Christ to institute a series of precepts, of codes for a religious and moral life. For Christ to found consisted in making Christians, i.e., to mold Christianity in the souls of those surrounding him. In the second place, in that personal action of Christ, which consists in making Christians, what those actions accomplish is nothing numerically different from the very actions in which the personal life of Christ consists. The death and resurrection are precisely the two actions whose numerical identity with that which makes men Christians constitutes the very foundation of Christianity. In the third place, these actions are not actions that occur at some time, and are transitory. As historical actions, obviously, they finished at some time, but insofar as founding Christianity these actions are not transitory, but permanent. That is the third point we must cover. These actions are not transitory actions, i.e., it is not something that happened once and the consequences lasted throughout history. It could have been that way, but in fact it was not. The actions with which Christ molds Christianity in the souls of those surrounding him were actions that did not just happen once, they happen in a permanent way, at least in the sense of repetition. They repeat continuously, and do not exhaust themselves. Then, we have to answer three questions. {341} In the first place, why are these actions permanent? In the second place, in what does their permanence consist? And in third place, how are they made permanent? 1) Why are these actions permanent? Obviously, they might not have been. Then, we could say, they are because he wanted it so, that is the way he instituted it. True, but here now appears a juridical term with little charm, not quite able to designate that which is being named, the term “instituted”. It is not quite the case of an institution; it is something much more radical and profound. It is something that precisely consists in the permanence, in the repetition of that first foundational act of making Christians. It is not the case, therefore, purely and simply that Christ instituted the permanence or the permanent repetition of some acts of his life, but that there is an internal reason. It is a reason that strictly refers to the very structure of the foundation of Christianity. A question (I repeat once more) that from this second point of view classical theology has never investigated. For Christ to found Christianity is not to transmit some norms (it might have been that way, but it was not), but consists in molding, in making. Of course, since Christ could not mold Christianity except on those persons who surrounded him (this is obvious), it means that if he wanted this founding action to be of the molding type it had to be repeated permanently. That is the profound reason why the actions of Christ (for example his death and resurrection) are essentially and constitutively permanent. The Christian has to make others Christian. And he has to accomplish this doing effectively what Christ did. For this reason his actions have to be permanent in repetition. The unity of Christianity is not a simply objective unity or a {342} merely specific unity. Not all men are Christians, but even if they were, the unity of men insofar as Christians is neither a specific nor an objective unity. It is a historical unity; they continue making each other Christian. It is a vital and historical unity. And precisely because of this, is the reason why the death and resurrection of Christ, with which he molded Christianity on those first beings surrounding him, have to be permanent actions if it is actually designed that Christians have to make others Christian. That this is what he wanted he clearly demonstrated as he went along precisely making Christians out of those surrounding him. 2) Then, we ask, in what does this permanence consist? In what does it consist for the foundational acts of Christianity to be repeated permanently, that is, the death and resurrection? I mention these two acts for reasons I will soon mention, but it should not be taken in an exclusive sense, but merely assertive. The permanence we are discussing does not consist in a monotonous repetition of something that occurs. There is nothing less monotonous theologically than the life and actions of Christ. Actually, since these actions consist in the molding and formation of some men into Christians the repetition has a characteristic essentially and constitutively progradient1 (Sp. progrediente). That is the question. The Christian is not only made in conformity or participates in the death and resurrection of Christ at a certain moment. This making is not simply a static making. It could be interpreted that way with Aristotelian metaphysics, but that is not the case. The Christian must continue to realize these acts throughout his life, dying to the power of sin more and more, putting on Christ more and more. That is why the paliggenesía (the regeneration) {343} in which the participation in the death and resurrection of Christ consists is not something with a mere extrinsic characteristic. It consists that in us, in a progressive manner, the presence of the power of God continues as a consequence of an intrinsic presence of the very divinity. The characteristic of permanence and repetition these have formally consists in being something progradient. It does not simply consist in having died once to sin and resurrected to another life. To live a Christian life consists in actually continuing to die ever more to the power sin, and putting on Christ more intimately each time. Consequently, the participation in these acts is ever essentially gradual. And this gradualness has an absolutely specific name, it is sanctity. From the mere fact of lacking serious guilt to the supreme forms of sanctity, there are degrees of intimacy with which man continues to realize his death to sin and his putting on Christ. They are the same actions of Christ whereby through them we put on Christ. Their characteristic of permanence precisely consists in this progradient and vital characteristic of the actions. 3) We now face the third question, somewhat longer and more complex, how are they realized, how are these acts repeated? We have just indicated it, some Christians continue to make others Christian. For the moment we shall put the question aside as to whom the ones or the others are. How are they doing it? They do not do it by themselves. That would be absurd and impossible. If it were merely a question of a philosophic or theologic doctrine one could teach it to the rest, no doubt about it. But it is not the case of the actions of Christ. In the case of the actions of Christ some are making {344} Christians out of others, i.e., they continue to impress on others, and realize in others the actions of Christ, but not by themselves, but precisely by Christ himself. The actions with which some Christians make others Christian are from the start, formally and intrinsically, the very actions of Christ. Indeed, what these actions perform is precisely his death and resurrection. This means that since some Christians make others Christian they do so mediately. The repetition of the actions of Christ according to which some Christians continue to make others Christian is formally and constitutively mediated. Mediated repetition consists (from my point of view) not only in that the actions are realized in the name of Christ, and not even by an authority Christ may have conferred and has actually conferred, but in something that is somewhat more intimate and profound. Obviously, these actions are performed mediately, but with a specific and distinctive characteristic, i.e., they are performed signifyingly (Sp. “signitivamente”). But then we must explain. In the first place, in what does this signifying characteristic consist? In the second place, in what does producing the action signifyingly consist insofar as producing? And in third place, how is signifyingly produced that which the actions have to produce? a) What is meant here by “signifyingly“? Take any case, for example, the water, and symbol of purification in the case of baptism. Or take the imposition of hands for the transmission of sacerdotal powers in the sacrament of Holy Orders. They are signifying actions that actually signify something. But then, what does “signify” mean here? In the first place, signifying is something more than the merely symbolic. It is not the case of a mere symbol. The vocabulary can be more or less variable {345} as long as we understand by symbol something more than what might be understood when we are told, for example, that a flag is the symbol of a nation. It is not that, the actions with which some Christians make others Christian are much more than symbolisms. They not only symbolize something, but also produce it really and effectively. b) In the second place, they produce it signifyingly. And that means that these actions do not produce their effect by themselves; that would be a magical interpretation of the actions. That is not the case at all. It is not symbolism or magic, but it is something that is a reality, it is a signifying. Signum facere, to make something that is a sign, and in that something, in a dynamic way, the signified is produced. To realize the actions signifyingly consists in these actions performing, with a dynamic and productive characteristic, that which they intrinsically signify. The classical conception of sacrament in theology has only addressed this characteristic. For example, Suárez, who undoubtedly has the most complete idea, tells us, “sacramentum est signum sensibile ad sanctificationem aliquam conferendam, et veram animae sanctitatem significandam institutum” 1. The sacrament is a sensible sign instituted to confer a certain sanctity, and to signify the true sanctity of the soul. As I have just indicated, this is obviously true. But then, is this sufficient to conceptualize what we call a sacrament? From my point of view it is not sufficient. We need to explicitly present (it is not enough to say it is implicit) the three moments that constitute the essence of what we are describing. In the first place, that they are actions of Christ. In the second place, that these actions are numerically {346} identical to the actions that Christ performed in his life. And, in third place, that these actions are being repeated in a permanent way, signifyingly. Only the unity of these three moments is what, from my point of view, constitutes the very essence of a sacrament. If this is what the signifying production is, we then move to the next question, what is this production that “re-produces” the passion and death of Christ? I did mention that above all it is an action by Christ himself, an action in which Christ re-produces his passion and death. Because, in the first place, it is Christ who produces it. Therefore, as an action performed by Christ, it is not formally (or at least radically) an action performed by the one who administers the sacrament. In this sense, the sacraments produce their effect (as has been said in that rough Scholastic terminology) ex opere operato (cf. DS 3844), by the work and the action produced, provided we do not think this is like taking an aspirin tablet. Certainly, the sacraments produce grace ex opere operato, and this means that ultimately, and radically they are actions of Christ, and not actions of the minister or actions of the ones that receive them. Nevertheless, a sacrament is not administered to a log of wood. That is the second part of the question, the reception of a sacrament is a formally personal act. Therefore, it requires, ex parte recipientis, something more than not opposing the action of Christ. A positive condition is needed, which is precisely pístis kaí metánoia, faith and conversion of heart (cf. Mk 1:5; Hb 6:1). Without this a sacrament is not received. The unity of these two dimensions (ex opere operato and ex opere operantis) is the only thing that constitutes the personal action of the production of a sacrament, something that present day theologians are fortunately recognizing. The molding on me of the death and resurrection of Christ is a personal {347} and intrinsic transformation of my being. It requires, therefore, my internal and intrinsic collaboration. Certainly, the primary power resides in the very action of Christ (that is what ex opere operato means), but there would not be an operatum without an operation on the part of the one that receives it. The sacrament does not act on my substantive reality, but acts intrinsically and formally on my substantive being. It is in my I, insofar as dead to sin and putting on Christ, where the action of Christ is molded, his death and resurrection. c) What remains is the question as to how this reproduction is signifyingly produced. Classical theology has always thought that this is a problem of causality. It has always handled these questions from the point of view of the Aristotelian categories. Only two types of causality have been presented. One type was called physical; for example, those who consider themselves Thomists2 insist that the water in baptism, insofar as water, is precisely what instrumentally produces the purification of the soul. Others, for example Melchor Cano and Francisco Suárez, as I pointed out, thought that it was the case of a moral causality. They say that in these actions and through them it is Christ who produces in an intrinsic way the purification of the soul, taking the case of baptism. Obviously, the second group says the first group has a magical interpretation of the sacrament. And the first says that the second has a purely occasionalist interpretation, something rejected by the Council of Trent. These scholastic arguments really do not matter. What seems essential to me is the radical and first problem, is it true that this is a problem of causality? Certainly, the {348} Council of Trent has said about the sacraments everything that can be said (cf. DS 1600-1613), that they contain the grace they produce, that they produce it effectively (although it does not say they are actions of Christ), etc. All this is true, but the Council of Trent never said that the sacraments were the cause of grace. The Council avoided using the term “cause” for quite an accidental reason, to leave an opening for the theology of Duns Scotus. Nevertheless, the avoidance is a fact. If the manuals of theology have repeated that it is a case of causality, only those responsible are accountable. The Council of Trent never said this. Personally, I consider this production, this ex opere operato, which by reception in faith and in conversion of heart produces the reproduction of the death and resurrection of Christ is not a problem of causality, but a problem of dominance. It is the domination of God, of the power of God, where the power of God is precisely the dominance of the real insofar as real. It is a problem of dominance. It is not purely and simply a problem of causality. And this dominance, precisely because it is a power, continues deiforming the one upon which this power is being exercised. When some men administer a sacrament to others, these men in their actions realize the actions of Christ through which he is deiforming and configuring, in the form of his death and resurrection, those other Christians. These actions of Christ are, on the one hand, his own personal actions, and on the other, are identically the actions of his life. And in addition, he is the one who produces their molding in a mediated, but absolutely real and primary way, in the soul of Christians. In the unity of these three moments is where the radical unity of Christ as subsisting sacrament consists. As subsisting sacrament, Christ is, as I mentioned, the constitutive sacredness. In the second place, the vicissitudes {349} of the life of Christ are for him, and therefore for all the rest, signs of the will of the Father. Christ had to learn throughout all his vicissitudes what the Father wanted of him. And in third place, Christ realizes on others those same signs that make of ourselves, in our being, an alter Christus. To be a Christian is precisely to be another Christ. That is precisely the characteristic of the subsisting sacredness of Christ insofar as it continues to repeat his death and resurrection in the spirit of all others, i.e., as he continues to make others Christian. Because of this I believe the theory of sacrament has to be built on these two supports. In the first place, the subsisting sacredness of Christ, and in second place, the dimension of dominance and power. In which, and according to which, the presence and the very figure of the passion, death, and resurrection continues to be reproduced in the being (not the reality) of all other Christians, and in each of their own personal modalities. I do not refer to the moral circumstances, which may be different, but precisely to the modes of being. After all, what Christ produces is the configuration in the death and resurrection of what my substantive being is. What is radical is the configuration. Therefore, all the actions of Christ are involved in this molding. I have been repeatedly mentioning the death and resurrection of Christ. Actually, this is not completely true because Christianity is the entire life of Christ, and not only his death and resurrection. Let us remember, for example, that phrase in the Gospel where Christ tells us, “Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there {350} am I in the midst of them." (Mt 18:19-20). Certainly, “in my name” means something more than just invoking the recommendation of Christ so that the Father may concede something. Absolutely, “in my name” means something more, that we are united to him precisely in that act through which he is praying for others to the Father. In other words, the very prayer of Christ is definitely that prayer, which is efficacious when two or more are united in his name. At the baptism in the Jordan, for example, Christ performed a personal action. Identical in some dimension to that one, the characteristics of which are going to be shared by other men in a formal and constitutive way. Clearly, the baptism at the Jordan was the first presentation of his Messianic characteristic. Indeed, to be the Messiah precisely means to be the anointed one to his people. All the other anointed were co-anointed in this first presentation of the Messianity to Christ. The action was numerically identical. When Christ wished the common people to understand him more simply, he tells us, while talking about mercy, that in the next world when he judges us, he will say, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink”. And they will ask him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?” And he will tell them, “As long as you did it to each one of my least brethren next to you, you did it to me.” (Mt 25:35-40). The very action of mercy by Christ is the same action by men. Reciprocally, the action of men, insofar as Christians, is identical to the very life of Christ. Actually, all the other actions of the life of Christ (in fact that was his whole life) would culminate precisely in his death and resurrection. It follows that all the other actions of Christ mold the substantive being of each one of all other men inasmuch as his death and {351} resurrection are radically molded in them. This “and” is not copulative, but is the same action in two acts and two phases, the phase of the cross, and the phase of the transit to the next life. The death and resurrection constitute one single action, which resumes in itself the entire life of Christ. And this entire life of Christ, taken in such a way, is the one he molds really and effectively into the first Christians, and through them, in the manner we have just explained, into all the others. This life is precisely that in which Christianity consists. The essence of Christianity consists purely and simply in being a Christian. However, this has been presented in somewhat general terms. Since it is something that belongs to life, and does attempt to conform and configure it, we must consider two moments and two termini in this life. In the first place, the initiation to this life. In the second place, its fullness. ________________ 1 [Tr. note: Zubiri neologism, progress + gradient, progressing upwards] 2 F. Suárez, Comentarii et disputationes in tertiam partem Divi Thomae, q. 60, art. 3, disp. 1. 3 This is the position of Cajetan (1469-1534), Bellarmine (1542-1621), and Ripalda (1594-1648) among others. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (351-363) --------------- {351} (cont'd) I. The initiation The initiation, from the point of view of a repeated action such as a rite, is what we call baptism. Baptism is the initiation of Christian life as reproduction of the death and resurrection of Christ in each one of us. Baptism has a rite, it uses water as its standard form (when it is not the case of baptism of desire or baptism of blood), the Trinity is invoked, etc. It is not a question of blessing the water, regardless of what Tertullian, and even St. Augustine believed. That the water may or may not be blessed has no importance at all. It is the case of simply invoking the Trinity expressly or, at least, as involved in the very person of Christ. To receive this rite it will be necessary to have pístis kaí {352} metánoia, faith and conversion, without them there would be no sacrament. Actually, every adult that is going to be baptized is asked whether he has faith, and what he is asking for. The reply is eternal life, which is radically the conversion of his sins. It is from the adult that the baptism of children has to be understood, and not the other way around, as if it consisted on a physiological operation provided to adults from their infancy. This action is described by the New Testament, and the Fathers of the Church as a loutrón paliggenesías, i.e., as a lavacrum regenerationis, as a “bath of rebirth and renewal” (Ti 3:5). A terminology clearly taken from the mystery religions, but in a completely different sense, because here it is a case of the sacramental reactualization of the death, and resurrection of Christ, which is in what baptism consists. A) Baptism is an initiation. And we first ask what do we understand by initiation? It is a question that classical theology has never asked. Initiation does not mean something esoteric. The initiations of the mystery religions had much of the esoteric. Those not belonging to the mystagogy were not told what the mysteries meant. Here it is not the case of something esoteric. Also, it is not the case purely and simply of a new form of life. That the Christian obtains a new form of life at his initiation is obvious. It is the case of something more radical and profound. It is not the case of a new form of life, but of a new manner of being. This way of being formally affects my I. It does not affect my substantive reality, or my stomach, my brain, my intelligence, or my will. Those things are not, insofar as psychic and psychophysical dimensions of my reality, something that is directly, and formally affected (at least in this world) by the initiation. It is the case of something that affects my substantive being, my I. Initiation, in this sense, {353} is the formal act of my incorporation to Christ. That is precisely what the initiation is. To be initiated into Christianity is to be initiated into what Christianity consists. Christianity consists in the reproductive action of the death and resurrection of Christ, and therefore, my initiation consists in my incorporation to the dead and resurrected reality of Christ. It is to proceed vitally to another way of being, to another way of being I. In other words, it is my I inasmuch as it acquires consistency in Christ. B) Nevertheless, this initiation has an internal structure. It is also regrettable that classical theology has never addressed the question of the structure of this initiation. Certainly, among the points I am going to consider there is one, the first, upon which theology has insisted, I should say not at length, but somewhat morosely. But it has done so in an isolated manner without making it the first structural moment of the action of initiation. The initiation from my point of view has four moments. 1) The first (which I have just mentioned) is precisely the incorporation to Christ. St. Paul abundantly uses the term sphragís (cf. 2 Cor 1:22; Rom 4:11; 1 Cor 9:2; Eph 1:13; 4:30; 2 Tm 2:19), which means sigilum, seal. Of course, it has several senses. The sphragís (a term also taken from the mystery religions) meant the consecration to a divinity, which conferred a certain right to ask for help and protection. It was a sign of ownership throughout Hellenism. Hence, St. Paul referred to sphragís as possession of the Holy Spirit, it means that we are sealed with the seal of the Holy Spirit. Now, if we take the incorporation, not in the sense of the complete baptismal rite, but formally insofar as incorporation then here is precisely where the first {354} structural moment of the initiation is. If we take in baptism not only the totality by which we are sealed, but also its first moment (the incorporation as such) then this is what in a more or less pertinent way, classical theology has called charaktér, character. The concept was introduced into theology by virtue of the polemic with the Donatists in Africa. The question was what happens with those that receive baptism from the hands of a heretical or apostate minister? Donatus (and St. Cyprian followed him) thought they had to be baptized, not because baptism can be reiterated, but because he estimated it was not a true baptism. It is well known that St. Augustine reacted energetically and forcefully against Donatism. Clearly, the Donatists were wrong because (it is said) baptism produces an indelible sign. Certainly, as an indelible sign it cannot be reiterated, not only when it is received licitly, but it cannot ever be reiterated if it is received validly. This is what classical theology called character. But we must be told in what this character consists. The Council of Trent only says that there are three sacraments, which impress character in the soul (putting aside for the moment the vague meaning of the term “impression”), and that this character is indelible (cf. DS 1609). There is, however, the right and duty of posing this question. Classical theology did it, and culminated in St. Thomas estimating that character signifies the participation in the priesthood of Christ1. Nevertheless, even not ignoring this dimension of the question, I personally consider that character is something prior and radical. It is purely and simply the fact of my incorporation to Christ. Christ is the subsisting sacredness. By virtue of baptism, {355} the first structural moment of initiation is to be a “con-sacratus”. Consecration, in this sense, is the incorporation qua incorporation, the naked incorporation. Therefore, the character consists in a belonging to Christ not extrinsic, as Durandus thought2, but intrinsic. It is not the case that one may be attached to some kind of political function, that one may be a secretary or belong to a civic order. It is an intrinsic belonging, which involves in one form or another I will not say a formal similitude, but indeed a manner of being that in some way participates of the body of Christ. In the second place, the character is not only a belonging to Christ, but is a manner of being. Not of my life, but is a manner of being, as I mentioned. And in third place, the character is a manner of being on a certain dimension, precisely in that primary and radical dimension through which the I makes itself an I, namely, through the power of the real, precisely in the form of religation. The character is the sacramentality of religation. It is the character of my being insofar as religated, not of my substantive reality. From my point of view this is what sphragís consists of, and precisely because of this it is indelible. Without doubt, grace can be acquired or lost. What cannot be lost is that religated version to Christ once it has been validly produced. 2) In the second place, besides the incorporation characterized by the sphragís, by the character, there is a second moment, which is the forgiveness of sins. It is, after all, what we pray at all Masses when at the end of that long Creed (more or less correctly translated) we say, “I confess one Baptism for the remission of sins”. Certainly, not all the sins in the life of a man are going to be {356} remitted with baptism. One can be, and unfortunately is a sinner after being baptized. But, clearly, the forgiveness par excellence, radical and primary, the liberation from the power of sin, occurs at baptism. Precisely for this reason what we call the sacrament of penance was then called by classical theology (and rightly so) poenitentia secunda. It is the second penance because the first and radical one is precisely the one of baptism. The forgiveness of sins is an intrinsic transformation of my being, of my I. Not of my reality, but indeed of my I. 3) In the third place, with this forgiveness of sins, with this intrinsic transformation, the presence of the power of God in me is produced, and with it, the very Trinitarian presence, which in that very power is proclaimed. That is what grace is. Let us not consider grace simply from the point of view of an Aristotelian category, as a kind of quality of the soul, which in some way asks for the Trinity to come. I would say it is just the opposite, the Trinity is the one who comes, who can modify me, and who actually modifies me. Its arrival is precisely what we call “grace”. That is what classical theology has called “uncreated grace”. Precisely because of this third moment we can say, strictly speaking, that Christ lives in the one that validly receives baptism as St. Paul says (cf. 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15). Incorporation, forgiveness of sins, first presentation of grace, implantation, each moment is founded on the previous one. {357} And the structural unity of these four moments is that in which the rite of initiation consists. Baptism is the vital permanence of the death and resurrection of Christ in such a way. However, this is just the initiation. This vital permanence is the permanence of the very life of Christ. Nevertheless, the very life of Christ is nothing but the construction of his own being insofar as this being (the I) is theandric. And therefore, he has actualized in it his substantive reality insofar as he has the his-ownness of the Son, of the Word. In fact, if the entire life of Christ is molded in the soul of Christians by virtue of a rite of initiation it means that in one form or another this molding leads towards a greater fullness. It leads to have in oneself, not the entire life of Christ, but his real person, the one who lives that life. That is what the Eucharist is. II. The fullness The Eucharist is the plenitude of the life of a Christian. Naturally, the fullness of this life is not the donation of some vital actions, but the very donation of a person, of Christ dead and resurrected. For this reason baptism is intrinsically ordered to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist is nothing but the consummation of baptism. Baptism represents just the initiation, and the Eucharist the fullness of only one thing. And that is precisely Christianity. Now we must center our attention on what the Eucharist is. I shall divide the subject into three parts. In the first place, the very institution of the Eucharist. In the second place, what the Church dogmatically understands, and forms part of the faith of the faithful. In third place, the theologic conceptiveness of this reality. {358} A) The institution of the Eucharist. Let us eliminate right from the start a rather convoluted chronological question from the point of view of New Testament exegesis, i.e., when and how was the Passover meal celebrated in which Christ instituted the Eucharist. The Synoptic Gospels insist that Christ went to celebrate the Passover, and said, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says, ‘Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’” (Mk 14:13-14 and par.). On the other hand, St. John tells us that the Jews did not enter Pilate’s praetorium in order not to be defiled, because on the afternoon of Friday they had to celebrate the Passover (cf. Jn 18:28). Was the Last Supper a Passover meal or not? On this subject there have never been positive solutions. For a variety of reasons there have been many opinions. There has been one that at the beginning caught much attention, but also does not solve the question. It appealed to the Qumran texts from the Dead Sea where they followed a different calendar, according to which the Passover would not have taken place on Thursday, but Tuesday. The external arguments that could be added to this have some value. Because, it is clear that from Thursday evening to Friday noon too many things happened for such a short time. But others reply saying that from Tuesday to Friday there is plenty of time and these things are just too few. Both statements are true. We eliminate this chronological question because what is certain is that Passover meal or not, Christ celebrated that supper with a Passover rite. That is the important point for us here. It will be convenient to remember the different stages of that meal such as can be reconstructed not only from the Gospels, but also from the statements in the Talmud, and the targumim of the Old Testament. When they enter to celebrate the Passover the {359} participants sit down in a certain order with the father of the family at the head. It was precisely an argument about this order that motivated the intervention of Christ. He said that the last would be the first, and the first the last, and above all, that there is no one above the one who renders a service to the rest (cf. Mk 37:43; Mt 20:20-28; with a variation in Lk 14:7-11). Before sitting at the table they washed their right hand, and Christ added something else, he washed their feet (cf. Jn 13:1-17). The washing of the feet, removing the characteristic of any order of preference at the table as something that would not matter in the Passover he was going to institute, was the beginning of this meal that had, like all the Passover meals, four stages. 1) In the first place, the father of the family would bless the first cup of wine. The text is preserved for us in the Talmud, and probably was the same formula that Christ used, “May you be praised, Yahweh our God, King of the world, who has created the fruit of the vine”. It was followed by, “May you be praised, Yahweh our God, King of the world, who has given Israel this feast day for jubilation and remembrance. May you be praised, Yahweh, who sanctifies Israel and all times”3. Here it is not just the case of giving thanks for something that has happened (“Who has created all things...”), but precisely that “You sanctify Israel, and all times”. It is the case that in one form or another that act refers to a present reality. It is not simply a remembrance of the past. That is the essence of the matter. The Passover rite, for an Israelite, was not simply a remembrance (an anámnesis in the merely remembering sense of the term), but it was a reactualization. The crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus was reactualized and made real in what it had of Covenant and Pact with Yahweh, at each of the Passover meals. It is {360} the reactualization of the Covenant, of the very presence of Yahweh as a contractual part, as father and fundament of the Covenant, and of Israel as terminus which continues to turn its religious sight upon Yahweh. At that point, immediately after these blessings of the cup, the legumes with a sauce are served, which is what the feast of Exodus formally remembers. Certainly, what the text of Exodus relates is a fusion of two independent feasts, the exodus from Egypt, and the spring festival, the harvest feast. They were fused into one, which is the Israelite Passover that has continued later in our Christian Paschal celebration. This moment is remembered, and the Passover is realized, the first real and formal Covenant with which Yahweh protects Israel, and is united with it. According to this Covenant, if Israel is faithful to Yahweh it will have all his real and actual protection. “You sanctify Israel and all times” we are told by the text we have just read. 2) Now the second part of the meal begins. In it the lamb with the bitter herbs is served, and a second cup is blessed. As a benediction for this cup the first two Psalms of the Hallel are read. The Hallel is a set of six Psalms (Ps 113-118), and it means “to laud”, “to praise”, and is the origin of the term “alleluia”, “Hallelujah”, i.e., “praise to Yahweh”. They are the Psalms for blessing. Immediately the lamb is eaten, and afterwards Christ inserts the consecration of the bread. The oldest text of this consecration is provided by St. Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians where he says, toutó moú éstin tó sóma tó hypér hymón, “this is my body, which shall be delivered for you” (1 Cor 11:24). St. Luke expressly adds the didómenon, “delivered” (cf. Lk 22:19). At any rate, this phrase is a phrase that involves the verb “to be”. It has been argued here whether the real presence is affirmed or not. There have been some theologians, like Suárez, who have suggested that for Jesus Christ to best emphasize it was his body he decided to use the verb “to be” in order to mean what we believe, that it really was his body4. However, he could still have done something better, which is what he actually did, to suppress the verb “to be”. Because the phrase was nominal in Aramaic, da besari, “this, my body”. Obviously, the realism is much more accentuated in the nominal phrase than in the merely copulative one5. Besides, he does not say sóma, which is a very Pauline term, but besar, flesh. And the proof is in the Gospel of St. John. When he repeats that “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you” (Jn 6:53; cf. 6:51-56), he uses the term sárx, flesh, and not the term sóma. This has importance for the definition of the dogma. It is an absolutely realist phrase, da besari, “this, my body”. 3) Then the third part of the meal began, which was the blessing of the third cup, “praise our God who provides everything we have enjoyed”6. The rest of the participants would repeat a similar formula in tune with this. And the father of the family would give two blessings in thanksgiving. Their text has not come down to us. At this point Christ inserts the consecration of the wine, with a similar nominal formula, da dami, “this, my blood”. Obviously, this double use of bread on the one hand, and of wine in the other is important from the point of view of realism. Because the Semites believed that in the blood is where the vital principle of the soul resided, and that {362} the rest was the body. The fact that Christ consecrated the bread and wine separately consisted in telling us that, on the one hand, we have what we would call body, and on the other, its life. And the fact that they were separated was precisely the symbol of his death. It was a Semitic idea. But what is important here is the fact that to utilize these two species to indicate his death symbolically —involves clearly, and formally the allusion to two ideas of the Old Testament—. On the one hand, the idea of berit, Covenant. What Christ is going to seal is a new Covenant, different from the one that the classical Israelite Passover is celebrating, which was the Covenant of Yahweh with Israel at the exit from Egypt in the Exodus. It is a New Covenant, kainé diathéke (cf. 1 Cor 11:25; Lk 22:20). On the other hand, it is a Covenant sealed with his blood. In other words, there is the direct and explicit allusion to the “Servant of Yahweh”, to the Messiah that suffers and dies, as presented in the Deutero-Isaiah (cf. Is 42:1-9; 49:1-6; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12). An idea that had remained almost unnoticed by the Israelites, including the Apostles themselves. Afterwards would follow a long conversation of the father of the family with the participants during which the characteristics of the Passover would be commented upon. To this would correspond more or less the chapters from 13 to 16 of St. John’s Gospel. 4) The father of the family, after that lengthy conversation to animate the spirit, prayed the second part of the Hallel, comprising Psalms 115 to 118. Christ probably recited that Hallel. And this would be the place for the priestly prayer of Christ in chapter 17 of St. John. Here Christ asks his Father for the indefectibility of the Apostles, with the express exclusion of Judas, “none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled” (Jn 17:12). And in second place, he not only prayed for them, “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word” (Jn 17:20). “Through their word”, i.e., Christians making Christians out of {363} others (and not simply out of those who may be taught theology). Christ, with his sacerdotal prayer, has the precise idea he has instituted the new Hallel of the New Covenant. Hence, if we take in retrospect what constituted the structure of this meal we find it has three elements indissolubly united. In the first place, it is a thanksgiving for the past, i.e., an anámnesis, a remembrance. But in second place, a remembrance that reactualizes, which makes present in its reality the ancient Covenant. And in third place, it is a blessing for the future. So that Israel and Christianity may continue being what they would have to be. In the first case, the Covenant of Yahweh with Israel, and in the second the New Covenant of Christ with humanity. And in these three elements at one and the same time (the anámnesis, the reactualization, and the blessing or promise for the future, i.e., the dimension of the past, the dimension of the present, and the eschatological dimension) is what the very essence of the Eucharistic presence consists. The problem of the Eucharist unfortunately has been treated, above all in the theology of the last few centuries, as if it were a problem of cosmology, what happens to the substance of bread, which afterwards turns out to be the substance of the body of Christ? But, what happens to all the rest? What about the purpose for making it, and what is it that conferred to it precisely its supreme dignity in the history of creation, and in the internal structure of Christianity? It seems as if these things have only been appendices. Nevertheless, we now embark on the second part of the question. What the Church formally requests as belief in the Eucharist. ____________________________ 1 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, III, q. 63, art. 3. 2 Cf. Durandus of Saint-Pourçain, In Sententias Theologicas Petri Lombardi Commentariorum libri quator, lib. 4, disp. 4, q. 1. 3 Cf. H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrash, vol. 4/1, Munich, 1969 (5th ed.), pp. 60-63. 4 Cf. F. Suárez, Commentarii et disputationes in tertiam partem Divi Thomae, q. 75, art. 1, disp. 46. 5 Cf. X. Zubiri, Inteligencia y logos (Intelligence and Logos), op. cit., pp. 151-171. 6 Cf. H. L. Strack, and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testamentum aus Talmud und Midrash, vol. 4/1, op. cit., p.72. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (363-376) --------------- {363} (cont’d) B) What the Church formally requests as faith in the Eucharist. I have shown that in the Jewish rite it was not only the case of a remembrance of the Exodus. And therefore, here likewise it is not purely and simply the case of a remembrance {364} of the passion and death of Christ, but also it is a renewal of the Covenant and a renewal in a most special form, which must be emphasized, through eating. Regardless how elemental and brutal this act may appear to us, the renewal is through eating. And in the first place, in this rite of manducation Christ has established a New Covenant, which has, as I have just mentioned, a present reality. It is a reactualization, and not simply a remembrance; but it involves, of course, a remembrance and a promise of future. The unity of these three moments is precisely the one Christ expressed in other passages of the Gospel of St. John, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (Jn 6:54). Which means that in one form or another the whole of baptism is ordered towards the Eucharist. It is not the case, then, simply of a problem of cosmology. In the second place, that in which the reality of the Eucharist consists is a type of alimentary reality (I refer only to bread to avoid saying constantly bread and wine, but the wine should always be presupposed). This reality means that from the immediate point of view of the institution of the Eucharist, the reality of bread, which is the normal food and sustenance of man, stops being a carnal food to change into a different food, a celestial or spiritual food. Not in a symbolic way, but precisely in a real way. I have already indicated that the sóma pneumatikón, the spiritual body, mentioned by St. Paul and the Gospels to describe the resurrection, is a real body although it is not a carnal body. To confuse corporeity with carnality has been one of the great mistakes through which medieval theology stumbled. The new bread preserves all the properties of earthly bread, but is another kind of food; it is a celestial food. Just like the very reality of {365} Christ who dies on the cross and proceeds to the Father, it is a bread that, on one hand, belongs to this world, but on the other, has a more profound being. A being, which is the body of Christ in Heaven, his sóma pneumatikón, his spiritual body. And in third place, it is not only a reactualization of an alimentary type to nurture the life of the Christian, but its result is the very life of Christ in man. Christ himself, in the Eucharist, is precisely death and resurrection. Based on this, it has been advanced several times that the Eucharist as sacrament is one thing, and as sacrifice something else thus creating an artificial formula for use in deficient catecheses. Because what is certain is that there is no possibility at all of separating neither in reality nor by its intrinsic reason any of the two parts. The matter is quite clear; there is no Mass without a communion. Not everyone at Mass receives communion, but the communion of the priest is a communion made for all present. Reciprocally, one can receive communion, and not attend the whole Mass, but in that communion one receives a bread consecrated in a Mass that was celebrated, and therefore, is the last act of a Mass. The dimension of sacrament and the dimension of sacrifice can never be separated. Not only can they never be separated, but also it must be said that even in that unitary reality that constitutes the Mass nothing is being made. The Mass does not make the sacrifice of the cross, not even bloodlessly. Theology has offered many types of opinions about what is done at the Mass, and I join the opinion of those who believe that in the Mass the only thing that is done is to make actual the sacrifice of the cross, sacramentally present. The Mass consists in that, and not in a kind of symbolic immolation that has no sense whatsoever, from my point of view. This is the way we have the realism of the Eucharist, the Eucharistic realism, a realism of the body of Christ as nourishment for the soul, and sacramental presence of his death and {366} resurrection. But then, as I mentioned above, the double dimension of the body of Christ (as sóma, and as flesh) brought serious consequences. 1) Back in the IX century there was a theologian who acquired a certain importance because of the history I am now going to recall, his name was Ratramnus. Ratramnus considered it is correct to say that the body of Christ is in the Eucharist. Ratramnus did not deny this. But he affirmed we must distinguish, on the one hand, the historical body of Christ, the one conceived in the flesh by the Virgin Mary, who walked on the streets of Jerusalem, who bled, who died on the cross, and resurrected. This is the carnal body of Christ, the flesh of Christ. The vital body, the spiritual body, is something completely different. What happens here is that Ratramnus understood by spiritual body, not what St. Paul understood, but something different, which he called virtus, a kind of deific power the body of Christ had, which should not be identified with his carnal reality such as it was when he lived in Palestine. And actually he tells us, “tegumentum corporalium rerum virtus divina secretius salutem accipientium fideliter dispensat”1 (“by the covering of corporeal things those who faithfully receive the sacrament are given a divine power for their salvation and for their health”). However, this dynamic characteristic consisting purely of a presence of divine power was what caused the strong reaction in a contemporaneous theologian of his, Paschasius Radbertus. Radbertus properly insisted that it was not the case of a mere virtus divina, but of the reality of the body of Christ, therefore, of the carnal reality of the body of Christ. 2) With that the discussion ended. But two centuries later Berengarius of Tours rehabilitated the dynamic idea of the Eucharistic presence {367} of Ratramnus. And then it was none other than Pope Nicholas II in 1059 who intervened, and imposed on Berengarius, who accepted it, a profession of faith. Among other things, he had to affirm under oath that “the bread and wine that are placed on the altar after the consecration are not only sacramentum (i.e., signs), but also the true body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and sensualiter, not only in sacramentum, but in truth, and are touched and broken with the hands of the priest, and are masticated by the teeth of the faithful” (DS 690). Of course, today we feel the same reaction the great theologians of the XIII century felt. None other than St. Bonaventure says, with respect to the profession of faith demanded from Berengarius, “this kind of language should not be upheld”2. Let us not forget it was the Pope who imposed it. And St. Thomas says that the very body of Christ is not broken or divided, since this only concerns the sacramental species, and that is the way the profession of faith imposed on Berengarius should be understood3. St. Thomas, always the great conciliator, tried to present the Pope’s words in the best possible light. Nevertheless, this was just his attempt to correct the language, and probably many did not quite see the distinction. And St. Thomas comments about all those reported miracles of bleeding hosts saying that he does not know what those prodigies are, but certainly they are not the body and blood of Christ4. Nevertheless, what is at stake here is precisely the very idea of body. The body has been simply identified with the flesh, i.e., with the sóma sarkikón, the carnal body. {368} And when the spiritual body has been mentioned it has only been thought of as virtus, power, quite forgetting it is a sóma, a body. This ignores the mysterious, but real problem, of what is a sóma that may not be a sóma sarkikón, but a sóma pneumatikón. 3) Some centuries later the Council of Trent defines, in the second canon concerning the sacrament of the Eucharist, the terms of the faith in the following manner, “If anyone says that in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, or denies that wonderful and singular change of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and the whole substance of the wine into the blood, the appearances or species only of bread and wine remaining, a change that the Catholic Church most aptly calls transubstantiation, let him be anathema” (DS 1652). In this definition of the Council of Trent there are different elements. In the first place, it concerns and implies a physical presence. In the second place, it is a physical presence obtained by conversion. In the third place, it is a physical presence in the form of a substance. In the fourth place, the appearances or species are preserved. This may seem like a very precise definition, but not as much as it may appear at first sight. Let us take the last term, the Church (neither the Council of Trent or anyone else) has ever said what the Eucharistic appearances or species are. The same thing happens with the term “character” I mentioned above. When one awaits among numerous dogmatic definitions to be told what “character” is, we are merely told it is indelible. Here we are dealing with the “species”, but we are not told what is understood by species. Unfortunately, this pattern has been perpetuated throughout the history of the Church. At any rate, there are three points to be considered. {369} In the first place, he is present “physically”5. What does the Council mean in that definition? That it is something just the opposite of a pure virtus, of intellectually understanding it as merely a dynamic presence of the virtus or power of the body of Christ. The Council affirms it is really the body of Christ. Therefore, it is not the case of a concept of phúsis, as presented in the manuals of scholastic theology. Here “physical” means purely and simply that it is something anterior to the virtus, that something from which every possible virtus derives, and has as its source. In the second place, it affirms it is by conversion. Here, the only thing stated is that it is no longer bread. No longer bread, of course, because of the reason bread is called bread, i.e., insofar as food. It is definitely not the case that the molecular structure of bread on the consecrated table may have changed. In the third place, it says that it is substance and transubstantiation. What is meant here is that this presence, and this conversion are really and actually, real. That reality may be substance in the Aristotelian sense of the word is something not defined by the Council of Trent. The proof of this can be detected in the fact that with all the emphasis placed on the term transubstantiation, it still says, “aptissime, most aptly calls transubstantiation”. The Council of Trent never pretended, not even remotely, to canonize the Aristotelian conception of substance, and whatever the substantial transformation might be. What the Council simply wanted to say was that something, which was purely carnal food is now, through the real presence of the body of Christ (the body of Christ present, not dynamically, but in its reality) {370} a really different food, a real food, but a purely spiritual food. Obviously, it is very easy to say transubstantiation should not be understood physically, but metaphysically. Yes, but that is a term. In what does the concept designated by that term consist? The Council of Trent only intended to say what aptissime was. We again encounter that abyss, which separates the formulation of dogmas, if they are taken literally in their philosophical covering, from what was the immediate revelation in the Gospel. We found that abyss while discussing the Trinity, when the intention was to say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are only one God, and the Council used the term homooúsios, consubstantial. The idea of ousía has a philosophical origin, and it may have served to express what the Council wanted to say. But nothing could have been further from the mind of the Council than to canonize the concept of substance. What the Council wanted to say purely and simply was that if someone asks who the Father is, and who the Son is the reply is that they are two. And if someone asks what the Father is, and what the Son is, the reply is that they are one. This is all the Council wanted to say, and nothing more. All the rest is a way of expressing it. We find the same situation in the Council of Chalcedon. When dealing with the person of Christ we are told there are two natures, and one person, the hypostatic union. What is meant by this concept of phúsis and hupóstasis? Did the Council intend to canonize these philosophical concepts? No, it did not, it merely intended to say purely and simply who Jesus Christ is (the Word of God), and what Jesus Christ is (God and man), nothing else. That it may express this in philosophical terms or not is beside the point. For this reason let us not be stubborn, and insist (regardless of the source) that whoever places these philosophical concepts in crisis is placing the dogma in crisis. {371} We now encounter the same situation with respect to the Eucharist. We encounter the idea of substance, and transubstantiation, when in reality the only thing the Council imposes on the faith of the faithful is to believe that the body of Christ is really there. That reality does not depend on the theory one may have about reality, i.e., whether it is or is not an Aristotelian substance. Hence, the theologic conceptiveness of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the entire reality of the Eucharist can now be taken up in full freedom (as long as the dogma is preserved), which is not simply a problem of cosmology. How can we achieve a theologic conceptiveness of the Eucharist as instituted by Christ in the Passover meal we indicated above? That is the task I shall undertake next. C) The theologic conceptiveness of the Eucharist6. The Council of Nicea and the Council of Chalcedon put aside the philosophical sense of the terms they employ, and therefore, open the field where theologic conceptiveness may legitimately attemp several ways to intellectually understand the revealed event, and the defined dogma. The same also happens with the idea of transubstantiation. It may be the most apt terminology, but it cannot be taken philosophically. This leaves the field open where anyone may (obviously with many possibilities for failure, but at least sincerely and with loyalty) attempt an intellectual understanding of what the characteristics of the revealed event are. In order to do this we must place ourselves at the point of departure. In the first place, in the Eucharist we have a donation of the very person of Christ. Here the incorporation, in {372} which the initiation to the life of Christ consists, acquires a most special characteristic; it is a donation. In the second place, this donation has a characteristic dimension; it is plenary. It is fullness, not simply an initiation, as in the case of baptism. And fullness means that God not only introduces a life, but also makes it to live. And inasmuch as this life is intrinsically made to live we must talk (not in a very elegant way, but the only one at our disposal) about food. The generic reason for the Eucharist as plenitude of life, death, and resurrection of Christ is precisely to be something that functions as food. And in third place, this donation, through a food, of the body and soul of Christ is given to us in the form of bread and wine. This is essential. It is the case of the body in the form of bread. That is the problem. The body is given to us in the form of bread; therefore, what is meant is that this donation is an action of Christ by virtue of which what was a banquet is converted into a sacrament by that action of Christ. A sacrament because it has the characteristics that, from my point of view, constitute a sacrament. It is a personal action of Christ. And it is a personal action in which the numerically identical action of Christ in his death and resurrection is given. In addition, it is given to us in a permanent way through a rite, which produces what it signifies. Precisely because of this there is a moment of permanence instituted by Christ when he said, “do this in memory (anámnesis) of me” (1 Cor 11:24-25; Lk 22:19). At the end of the chapter I will indicate what this anámnesis might mean. In the second place, what is given to us in that permanence is not simply the life of Christ, but the very reality of Christ in the form of bread and wine through an action that is his, and that mediately is the action of others. The others do what {373} Christ did. This is what is called generically con-sacrare, a consecration. Therefore, the whole problem consists in understanding what kind of internal structure this consecration has. Certainly, it is a con-sacrare; he makes it sacred. But he makes it sacred in such a way that when making it, while making it, and inasmuch as he makes it he converts what is profane into the sacred really, and physically. It is a conversio, a conversion. In what does the internal structure of this consecrating conversion or converting consecration consist? That is the problem. However, this problem has different strata that must be studied in their proper order because each one is based on the next; each one of the strata will take us to a deeper one. From my point of view, it is absolutely essential to take each of these strata thematically one by one. 1) The first stratum, which is the essential one in this problem, is the consideration that we are dealing with food, as I have mentioned. The stratum in which this converting consecratio occurs is precisely something inscribed in the formal reason for food. Therefore, in the first place, it is not the case of a mere problem of cosmology, of a kind of transmutation of realities. It is the case, above all, of something that regardless of what it may turn out to be (this is what has to be investigated) is inscribed within the formal reason for food. It is essential to remember what that food was. In the first place, in the Passover meal it was the case of the Covenant (berit) of Yahweh with Israel. However, here it is the case of something more profound, the union of Christ with his faithful, with each one of them, and in addition, with all of them, and the whole of humanity. It is important not to forget that. This union, in the second place, does not originate purely and simply in a benevolent Covenant such as the berit. It is the case of something {374} more profound, of something sealed with blood. Therefore, it is a Covenant that is not only moral, juridical and theological, in the somewhat vague sense of the term, but is also a physical Covenant, a physical union. It is a physical union with all men, precisely because it is with all of them, and with each one taken individually. As physical union, this Covenant and this union, is what sustains and makes possible the life Christ wants to transmit with his person. Therefore, the formal reason for food consists in this transmission, and this maintenance of life. In the third place, Christ tells us especially in the Gospel of St. John, that this food is food for eternal life (cf. Jn 6:27; 6:54). The first problem to be undertaken for conceptiveness is simply this, what is food? It will only be possible to proceed if we achieve agreement on this. Food is not simply a set of substances in the world. Without them there would be no food, but the fact they are in the world is not the formal reason for being food, definitely not. Take something else in the world, for example, a cavern in a mountain. Certainly that is a geological phenomenon. However, it is not another dwelling place unless man wishes to live in it. The formal reason for that to be a dwelling place is not the same formal reason for that to be a geological phenomenon. To conceptualize the difference I introduced (fortunately or not) the two terms “reality-thing” (Sp. “cosa-realidad”), and “meaning-thing” (Sp. “cosa-sentido”). For example, wheat is meaning-thing by reason of being food. Wheat as reality-thing is its molecular, biological, genetic, etc., structure. The meaning-thing is not necessarily an artificial thing. I used the example of the cavern because it is a natural phenomenon. However, a reality-thing is not the same as a meaning-thing. {375} Nevertheless, food belongs to the domain of meaning-things. Which means that not only bread, but also the very reality of the body of Christ enters first and above all (in the problem we are examining) insofar as it is a meaning-thing. The action of Christ consists above all in making out of a meaning-thing that is earthly food, a different meaning-thing that is spiritual or heavenly food. Therefore, the converting consecration that takes place in the Eucharist is, above all, a converting action within the realm of meaning-things. A meaning-thing that is earthly food is converted into a meaning-thing that is heavenly food. And Christ makes this conversion first by taking the bread to himself, and then distributing it to the others. We must not forget that in this conversion of meaning, which the donation of the Eucharist is, there enters formally the characteristic of that, which constituted the collective act in which it was instituted, the agape. The agape is not simply a meal, but a fraternal meal, a meal where there is an expansiveness, a certain unity, etc. This is essential in the problem. It is a case precisely of a unity of persons. And this unity, material and personal at the same time, is what constitutes the agape. The action of Christ consisted purely, and simply in converting consecratorily (or consecrating conversionally, equivalent terms here) the earthly food, which served as the start, and beginning of the establishment of the agape, into heavenly food that constitutes the consummation, and the ultimate meaning of this agape. In this Covenant, and in this agape is realized the formal incorporation to the body of Christ of all who receive that food. Christ said it is an incorporation, “I am the vine, you are the branches” (Jn 15:5). It is the case of a strictly physical relationship, and therefore, the conversion is the conversion of a {376} meaning-thing such as the bread into a different meaning-thing such as the different body. The body of Christ also functions, by itself, as meaning-thing. Present day theology tends to believe that with this the problem we have been considering has been resolved. The Dutch theologians basically have not gone beyond this point in their analyses. And also affirming, indeed, that this conversion of the meaning-thing comprises a real donation. Yes, but the real is not the how7. _______________ 1 Ratramnus, De corpore et sanguini Domini, num. 48, in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina, vol. 121, Paris, 1852, col. 147. 2 Bonaventure, Commentaria in quatuor libros sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi, bk. 4, dist. 12, q. 1. 3 “Et ideo ipsum corpus Christi non frangitur, nisi secundum speciem sacramentalem. Et hoc modo intelligenda est confessio Berengarii”, in his Summa Theologica, III, q. 77, art. 7. 4 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa thologica, III, q. 76, art.8. 5 The Council uses the term realiter in DS 1636 and DS 1651, which is what Zubiri appears to translate as “physically”. In the oath taken by Berengarius we read “in proprietate naturae” (DS 700). 6 At the end of this chapter we offer as an appendix the conceptiveness of the Eucharist that Zubiri presented in 1981, ten years after having dictated the present seminar. 7 Zubiri probably refers to the book by E. Schillebeeckx, Christus’ tegenwoordigheid, Bilthoven, 1967. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (376-388) --------------- {376} (cont’d) 2) Leaving polemics aside, I say this conversion on line with meaning-things takes us to a deeper stratum, simply because every meaning-thing has two dimensions. First, the set of real properties through which something actually has meaning or makes sense. For example, in the case of bread everything, which the bread is and by virtue of which it can be food. And second the formal reason for being food, which is a different thing. It is not the case of a subtle distinction. Every meaning-thing has to be founded, in order to be meaning, precisely and formally in a set of real properties that meaning-thing has. Hence, from this point of view, not every real thing has the necessary and sufficient properties to be any meaning-thing. For example, stones by virtue of their real properties cannot be food for man. Consequently, the capacity a reality has through its real properties to be established as meaning is what I have always called condition. The problem of the meaning-thing in the Eucharist sends us, therefore, to a deeper stratum, to the problem of condition. Bread as meaning-thing certainly has, by virtue of its real properties insofar as bread, the condition of being food {377} for man. On the other hand, it does not have it by itself to be food in another sense, a spiritual food. In order to be so it must acquire a new condition. And this new condition is acquired precisely by the very action of Christ. To the real properties that constitute the condition of normal bread, by virtue of that action, it is added (sit venia verbo) a set of properties (let us put it that way) by virtue of which the bread has, once consecrated, the condition of being spiritual food. Here the conversion is not limited to the line of the meaning-things, but is in a much deeper stratum, which exists, in the very dimension of the condition. This conversion is essential. The new condition does not annul the previous condition. The whole condition bread has to be food for the body remains integrally preserved after the conversion on the line of condition. Certainly, that which, by virtue of the action of Christ, is added to the bread in its material properties in order to be able to have the condition of spiritual food does not function ex aequo with the rest of the properties. It is not the case that bread may have twenty-five properties and now one more added by Christ, but that the action of Christ, and therefore, that by virtue of which the bread acquires this new condition, is merely signitive. The real properties that bread has as condition of earthly food are preserved precisely as sign of the new condition. In other words, the conversion on the line of condition is formally sacramental, something it was not from the point of view of food. Hence, here there is no conversion in the meaning, but conversion in the condition. The conversion is strictly sacramental. And this condition means, in the first place, that Christ serves as spiritual food. In the second place, it means that the bread serves so that Christ may formally be our spiritual food. {378} Christ could have done everything de potentia Dei absoluta, but normally if Christ had not had or not made use of the properties of bread and wine he could not have given himself to us as our food. Evidently, the need the real properties of bread have for an action of Christ to acquire, even signifyingly, a new condition, and the necessity Christ has for the properties of bread to give himself to us as food are not of the same sign. They have a different sign, but their unity is precisely what makes that this totum, once consecrated, may have that new condition. A condition by virtue of which it is no longer something that has the condition of being earthly food, but rather has real properties by virtue of which has the condition, the capacity, of being heavenly food. 3) The conversion on the line of meaning has taken us to a deeper stratum, which is the conversion on the line of condition. But this is not the ultimate and radical point. Because, as I have just said, every meaning-thing has to be based, in one form or another, on the real properties the thing has in its naked reality. Otherwise, it could not be meaning-thing. Bread, by virtue of its simple or compound molecular structure (to say bread is a substance is a fantasy the ancients believed, in reality it is composed of millions of substances) has certain physical properties, and by virtue of them has the condition of serving as earthly food. Hence, this essentially depends on the real properties bread has. In other words, if Christ wishes to change the condition of bread somehow he has to alter in some measure what we improperly call the real properties of bread. Here we proceed to a deeper stratum. Now, it is not just the case on the line of meaning, not even the line of condition, {379} it is the case on the line of naked reality. The condition by which the consecrated bread gives us the body of Christ as food, the bread does not have on its own, but needs an action of Christ, which necessarily involves the change of properties of the real structure bread has as reality-thing. This is what many years ago I called “transrealization”; the reality of bread changes to something else where one of its ingredients is the very body of Christ. There are, therefore, three conversionary strata; one, the conversionary stratum on the line of meaning. The second, more profound, on the line of condition. And the third, deeper still, on the line of reality. It is immediately seen that each one is founded on the next. Further down I shall refer back to the characteristics of this fundamentation. Now we face the problem of the conceptiveness in which this third stratum consists, the conversion on the line of reality. To do this we must ask five successive questions. In the first place, what do we understand by reality? In the second place, what is converted, and into what is it converted? In the third place, what is it the Council and the theologians have been calling the species? In the fourth place, in what does the unity consist (regardless how different the species of the body of Christ may be), which unquestionably the consecrated bread has qua consecrated on the table? And in the fifth place, what is it that we are really given in the sacrament of the Eucharist? a) What is reality? Classical philosophy has understood that reality is radically and fundamentally substance. Taking the Aristotelian notions, more or less elaborated, reality is divided into two great regions, the region of substance, and the region of accidents. By accident is understood everything {380} that in order to be real needs to be based on something else. For example, color, at least taken descriptively, needs a colored substance. However, a lion or a stone (at least this is the way the ancients believed it) do not need a subject in which to exist. Reality would be divided essentially into substance, and accidents understanding substance as the root from which the accidents emerge. Based on it they emerge, and constitute the outermost part of reality. Personally I have never been satisfied by this conception of reality, and clumsily, in On Essence1 I have tried to explain why, and in what measure this conceptiveness is insufficient, trying to attain another. From my perspective, in reality we do not have a case of substance, and accidents, rather it is a case of system of notes. I understand by notes not only the properties, and qualities, but also the constitutive parts of something. For example, all parts and all chemical substances that compose an organism are notes. And these notes constitute a system. A system not only means that some realities depend on others, but something more, that in their physical and concrete reality each of the notes of that system is not a note except as a moment of the system, that is an absolutely intrinsic characteristic. Consequently reality is composed of notes, and may have notes with quite different characteristics. For example, an organism may suffer externally the action of other realities, and because of that influence it may have some adventitious notes, not relevant at this point. What is important is the series of notes the reality in question has by its own reality, by its own systematic and internal characteristics. That is what I call the constitutive notes. Hence, the system of constitutive notes, i.e., of those notes whose system has sufficiency to be an autonomous constitution is what I have called {381} substantivity. The total and closed system of substantial notes is a substantivity. And this sufficiency in the constitutive order is what constitutes the simplicity or, at least, the radical characteristic of reality. Substantivity is not identical to substantiality, not at all. There are millions of substances that are rigorously substances, and are rigorously unsubstantive. For example, any of the things I eat. The glucose in my organism does not lose any of the characteristics it had in a laboratory retort. However, it has lost an essential thing, the substantivity. While the glucose in a retort has the substantivity proper to a body or a molecular structure present there, insofar as it is in my organism, without the molecular characteristic of that glucose being altered in the least, it has lost the substantivity. The whole organism is what possesses the substantivity. Substantivity is not only different from substantiality, but in addition is superior to it. The formal reason by which something can be substance in the Aristotelian sense of the term is because it has the internal structure of a substantivity. That is why substantivities not only have additive properties, but have many properties (and these are the decisive ones) that are not obtained by addition, but are inherent to the whole system. Let us take a trivial example, potential energy. Potential energy in any physical system cannot be distributed additively into the potential energy that each one of the parts that compose that physical reality. On the other hand, the kinetic energy can be distributed. The kinetic energy of a locomotive in motion is the sum of the kinetic energy, which each of the parts of the locomotive has in the absence of internal interactions. Potential energy is a systematic property. Living organisms are composed {382} essentially of systematic properties, and not of additive properties. Hence, these constitutional notes that constitute substantivity are not independent, but are founded on each other. For example, albinism is a constitutional note, but is founded on more elemental notes such as the structure of the genes, and therefore, of the nucleic acids. Therefore, the system of necessary and sufficient notes for the existence of a substantivity provided with constitutional sufficiency is what I have called the system of notes, not constitutional, but constitutive. And this is what I have called essence. What is proper of an essence is that the notes that compose it are “notes-of” each other. The physical reality of anything (of a particular nucleic acid) certainly has a molecular structure. But in re, such as it is in an organism, it could not have the reality it has except by being a moment of my organism, for example, as component of a chromosome. All notes are intrinsically and formally “notes-of”. And that moment as “-of” concerns its reality. That is what the Semitic languages express in a linguistic form called “constructed state”. We say “house of Peter”, and the “of” is referred to Peter, Domus Petri. The Aramean would say something different, bet kefa’, “house-of Peter”. The house is “declined”; it is something that by itself is referred to Peter. It is precisely a constructed state, which has a genitival characteristic in the grammatical sense of the term. And this constructed state is the one that allows us to apprehend what the ultimate characteristic of the reality of something is. Each note is a “note-of”; and to what do all the notes belong? They belong to each other, i.e.; they are notes of the unity {383} of the system. The unity of the system is a primary coherent unity, and all the notes it has belong to it. And in them is what the reality simpliciter of a thing consists, in that primary unity. From the point of view of notes I am a man because I am a rational animal. I say “rational animal” to understand clearly, because this concerns all the notes that compose my own reality, and not only those specific notes. But from the point of view of the metaphysical and constitutive unity in which I consist it is precisely the opposite. I am a rational animal because I am human. Humanity represents (in the dog it will be doggishness) the reality simpliciter of something. Unity is not a simple relationship of some notes with others, but is the primary one. I am rational animal because I am human, i.e., the unity in which being human consists is actualized in the multiple notes that compose, not only the human species (that would elicit little concern), but all and each of the concrete individual notes that compose my modest personal reality. This unity is expressed in the “-of”. Each note of mine is “note-of”. Which means that the unity is something that is neither under the notes nor is a kind of support for them, definitely not. It is clearly something that intrinsically belongs to the notes, and is in them in a demanding and dominating way. Demanding because each “note-of” demands other notes in order to have reality. And in addition dominating because the unity certainly has a priority over the notes. The actuality of this unity of the notes is in what the radical characteristic of every reality consists. This constitutive substantiality can be acquired and lost. It can be lost, I have mentioned the example of the glucose, and it is enough to ingest it in my organism. But it can also be acquired; the glucose itself has acquired a new substantivity by the mere fact of my ingestion into the organism. Hence, the way {384} how the substantivity may be acquired and lost can be quite varied. Let us not delve into this question at this point. In the end, therefore, the radical reality of something is its primary coherent unity. And there is reality where this unity exists, and there is no reality where this unity is lacking. That is precisely the reality of something. b) Now we can posit the second question, in the case of the Eucharistic consecration, what is converted, and into what is it converted? It is a conversion of reality. Therefore, if reality were substance then the conversion of reality would be transubstantiation. The term may be as apt as it could be, but no one can force me to accept that theory of reality. The Eucharistic conversion is on the line of reality; it is not transubstantiation. Transrealization is not transubstatiation purely and simply because substance is not the characteristic simpliciter of reality. Reality is not substance; it is unity of substantivity. And therefore, instead of having transubstantiation what we have is transubstantivation. That is the problem; it is a transubstantivation. Which means, above all, that negatively transubstantivation does not affect the substantial qualities at all of that, which acquires a new substantivity. Definitely not, glucose, regardless how much I may inject into my organism, as long as I am alive, it has not lost any of its characteristics. The physiochemical structure of glucose remains untouched despite having lost that substantivity. In transubstantivation the physiochemical characteristics of the substances, which compose the bread remain untouched. And thus, how does this transubstantivation occur? Here is where the mystery begins to appear. In the case of glucose the transubstantivation occurs because in one form or another {385} that total and closed system, which comprises the substance called glucose opens to connect to the rest of the substances that comprise the organism. Each one of these substances is unsubstantive, but all of them constitute a unique substantivity, the substantivity of the organism. In this sense the substantivity is acquired or lost by aperture or closure. Nevertheless, this is not the only way to acquire and lose substantivity. But this other way has nothing natural about it, and it is here precisely where the mysterious action of Christ is present whereby the substantivity is lost and acquired not by aperture or closure, but by elevation. That is the question. From my point of view it is the case of a loss of substantivity through elevation. And this means in the first place, that the body of Christ, such as it is going to be as a moment of the reality of the consecrated bread, is not the body of Christ with all the properties that constitutionally compose his substantivity. It will not surrender them, but that is not in what the terminus of the Eucharistic conversion consists. That is absurd, and there is no theologian, no matter how obtuse, that would propose it. That is not the case at all. From my point of view it is clear that the notes that compose the body of Christ are not formally in the consecrated bread. They are concomitantly there, which is something different. What is present in the consecrated bread is that, which constitutes the reality simpliciter of the body of Christ, his primary coherent unity. Therefore, when through elevation is produced this conversion of a physical reality such as the bread into a new substantivity such as the substantivity of the coherent unity of Christ, it is the case of a physical conversion. Here “physical” means that it is real, that it is not merely intentional, and in addition it is not simply a change of meaning, but {386} is something, which affects the very reality of the thing2. So much so, that it is precisely a change in what constitutes the characteristic simpliciter of reality, such as its primary coherent unity. All the substances that comprise the bread remain intact. And not only this, if they were not to remain intact they could not serve as sign to the body of Christ. Of course, it is a mysterious action, we cannot imagine in what that elevation consists, but we can definitely ask how it occurs. To do this we do not need great speculations; it will just be sufficient to take the text of the institution of the Eucharist. The text says, “Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them...” (Lk 22:19). He took it that is the essential point. Never has theology insisted on the characteristics of this gesture of Christ, his taking the bread in his hands. Christ takes the bread to himself; that is what has to be said first. In the canon of the Latin Mass this is clearly and expressly mentioned, “accepit panem in sanctas ac venerabiles manus suas”. Took the bread in his hands. This taking is not simply that he took bread to distribute in the meal, but has a much deeper meaning. It is a taking in view of its consecration; it is taking the bread, in one form or another, to himself. But, what is that form? That action of taking is a personal action, a personal action in view of its consecration. And therefore, done in order to incorporate it in some form into the primary coherent unity in which Christ consists. That is precisely the way in which he makes of the bread, as he takes it, his body. Or at least, makes of the bread the form of his body. The system of the substantivity of bread, as system, remains in a certain way open to a higher substantivity, but not through a physical aperture, through an internal rupture of the system, but through elevation. {387} I shall next proceed to explain what I mean by elevation from my point of view. The Eucharistic conversion is a mysterious aperture. Regardless of the efforts of theologians it will always be a mystery. But even considering it exists we can say that the new substantivity is the primary coherent unity of the body of Christ. Which certainly does not mold itself in the notes of the bread, but makes of them the form in which the body of Christ is present and communicates. Evidently it does not mold itself. Christ does not convert the molecular structure of the bread into properties of his own body, absolutely. It is not the case of making of the notes something in which the body of Christ molds itself, but rather (supposing this conversion occurs) of the presence of the primary coherent unity of the body of Christ in the bosom of the notes that comprise the bread. And since the primary coherent unity is precisely the reality simpliciter of something, it means that by virtue of this conversion the body of Christ is really present in the bread. This viewed from the bread, means that it preserves all its substances. There are no physiochemical alterations whatsoever in the structure of bread. However, these substances are not the reality of the body of Christ because, through elevation, they are deprived of the primary coherent unity in which they exist by virtue of the action of Christ. Viewed from Christ the body of Christ with all its properties is not the formal terminus of the conversion, absolutely. The body of Christ may be, and is (Christ cannot be broken into twenty pieces) there, but the formal terminus of the conversion are not the real properties of the body of Christ, but purely and simply his primary coherent unity. Therefore, the unity of consecrated bread is, for the moment, a unity as sign. The notes of the bread are just the sign of the presence of the primary coherent unity {388} in which the body of Christ consists. And they are so because Christ has converted the earthly substantivity of the bread into the substantivity of the primary coherent unity of his own body. It has been a conversion of unity. This is, from my perspective, the essential point of the question. Consequently, the body of Christ in the Eucharist is not a sóma sarkikón, such as Pope Nicholas II understood with poor language when he imposed that profession of faith on Berengarius of Tours. And it is not the case simply of a sóma pneumatikón, as Ratramnus tended to say believing it was the case of some sort of a purely spiritual entelechy. It is neither the case of a carnal body or of a spiritual body. It is the case of something completely different because it is common and anterior to that division, which is what the very idea of body indicates. Corporeity formally consists in conferring to the reality of whatever is body an actual presence, an internal consistency, and an expression. Hence, the body in this sense precisely constitutes the primary coherent unity, which is the one that is present, through the Eucharistic conversion, in the consecrated bread. ________________ 1 (Tr. note: This refers to Zubiri’s book Sobre la esencia, 1962, translated by A. Robert Caponigri, On Essence, Catholic University Press, 1980) 2 Concerning the sense of the term “physical” in the philosophy of Zubiri, please refer to the “general note” in Sobre la esencia (On Essence), op. cit., pp. 11-13. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (388-396) --------------- {388} (cont’d) c) This takes us to a third question, barely mentioned in theology books, but in reality essential. We have a question, what are these substances that comprise the bread doing while being there? This is the third problem, what are the so-called species? Classical theology relying simply on the fact that when certain propositions of Wyclif were condemned at the Council of Constance (a condemnation with obviously no dogmatic characteristics), and mention had been made of accidents (cf. DS 1152), proceeded to identify the species with the accidents. The Council of Trent never said that the Eucharistic species are accidents, that is something proposed by theologians, but not by the Council of Trent. Similarly it {389} never said what the sacramental character was. It affirmed its existence saying it is a signum quoddam spirituale impressed on the soul, and that it is indelible (cf. DS 1609). But it did not say in what it consisted. Consequently, if the classical theory is admitted then the Eucharistic conversion is a transubstantiation. And since the substance into which it converts is not the substance from which the properties of bread originate then it means that the species identified with the accidents are purely and simply containers of the body of Christ. To me this has always appeared as something of an enormous theologic and metaphysical poverty. How can we possibly say purely, and simply that the consecrated bread, in its properties (called accidents or whatever), does nothing but contain the body of Christ? This appears absolutely insufficient to me. Let us remember what I said above concerning reality. That it is the case of a system of notes in which the primary and coherent unity in which reality constitutively consists is found actualized in the multiple notes that comprise the system. I am human unitarily considered, and because of that I am a rational animal. In other words, animality and rationality are the notes in which this primary coherent unity is actualized in which my human reality consists. The primary coherent unity, independently of any Eucharistic considerations is actualized in the multiple notes that comprise the constitutive system in which the essence of something consists. And these notes are precisely those that provide its figure to that, which they constitute. The internal unity, insofar as emerging from an internal coherent unity is precisely what the Greek called eídos, and the Latin species. Species is nothing but the actualization of the primary coherent unity in the system of the multiple notes, which intrinsically constitute that reality. Obviously, that actualization can assume multiple forms. {390} In the first place, it can be an actualization in which the unity is actual in the notes. It is the general case, for example, in the case of any man, of any dog, of any plant. It is an actualization by virtue of which the unity is formally molded in the notes that comprise it. I am not man simply because I have animality and rationality, but rather because I am man, I am animal and rational. That is to say, my primary coherent unity is molded in the system of notes that comprise my reality. Certainly, the unity of these notes is exigent and dominant, but its exigency and dominance is molded in the notes. By virtue of which each note is note-of the rest. They form a constructed state, which has a genitive characteristic. It is a formal and intrinsic actuality because it is genitive construct. There can be a different type of actuality. For example, a unity that is contained, or contains notes that in one form or another refers to it. This would be the poor intellectual understanding (from my point of view) that metaphysics and classical theology have had of what the species of bread and wine are, a container with respect to a content, because that is simply a merely extrinsic actuality. Nevertheless, it is still possible to ask whether there are other possible types of actualization between a formal intrinsic actualization, and a merely extrinsic actualization. This question should have been asked. In the case of the Eucharist we find that the diverse notes of the consecrated bread not only contain the body of Christ, but also convey it. They are not simply containers, but are something that conveys; they are vectors or conveyors of the unity of the body of Christ. In this case we certainly have an intrinsic actualization, but one not from a formal molding. It is precisely the case of the Eucharistic species; they convey the body of Christ, and not simply {391} contain it, as one would have a book in a drawer. But then, what does “to convey” mean there? It means something quite concrete. In order not to lose our way we must return to the idea of agape. To convey means specifically that the body of Christ is not there because he has performed some kind of metaphysical display converting one unity into another, but is there precisely to give himself to men. At the consecration he took the bread to himself, and with the consecration what he does is to give it to all men. Therefore, the notes precisely have the function of being the actualization of this give-to. They would be, if I may be permitted the expression, a unique, exceptional, gigantic, but authentic case of dative construct. They are not notes-of, but “notes-to”, notes of the unity of Christ to each of all the others that receive it. Consequently, the Eucharistic species, as actualization of the primary coherent unity in which the reality of Christ radically and formally consists are the dative actualization of that unity. Obviously, it is not by chance, because certainly the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is a donation. And just because it is a donation its actuality has to be intrinsically dative. This is what I called above the aperture by elevation. It is a mysterious aperture, but it consists in introducing this kind of mysterious dative construct, in which the unity of the notes with respect to the very reality of the body of Christ consists. Therefore, the consecration is the unity of two dimensions, of a conversion, realized at the moment in which Christ takes the bread to himself, and of a donation in which Christ becomes present to be communicated to men. And the intrinsic unity of this taking, and this giving is precisely what from my point of view constitutes the metaphysical, theological, and theologic unity of what we call consecration. {392} d) This takes us to the fourth problem, in what does the unity of consecrated bread consist? With the classical conception that the body of Christ is contained in the species it seems there are two things, a container, and what is placed in it. This is not like that, but from my point of view the Eucharistic species are the dative actuality of the reality of the primary coherent unity in which the body of Christ consists. This means that by virtue of this actualization the bread has some unity. In what does that unity consist? Here we must take a look back. Starting precisely from the idea of this physical conversion of a unity of notes we begin to understand in which sense the conversion of reality is the necessary fundament for the conversion of condition. And at the same time the conversion of condition is the necessary fundament for a conversion of meaning. Certainly, by having changed the substantivity of this reality (the bread already has a different substantivity) it is formally another reality (taking reality as substantivity). And by virtue of this it has a condition, it has the capacity, precisely by virtue of that substantivity, of being another kind of food. And by being another kind of food it has the meaning of being an eternal food. The reality of consecrated bread on the line of meaning-thing is founded on the line of condition-thing, and this one on the line of conversion of reality. Furthermore, in a reverse sense, the conversion of reality as transubstantivation is something that fundaments the conversion on the line of meaning, and therefore, the conversion on the line of food. And, I repeat, it is only because the Eucharistic species, and their structure are preserved that the body of Christ can be converted into our food. Yet, it has been said many times that this unity is sacramental bread. This seems to me, not that it is not true, but that it is a purely extrinsic denomination. It is not saying {393} what the bread is, but how it is given to us or how it exists. This is another question, and the truth is that to say something like this requires no great intellectual effort. I have not seen a poorer book on theology than the pages of cardinal Billot on the Eucharist. It has considerable metaphysics, but a minute amount of theology1. It would have been sufficient to appeal to the very words of Christ when he told us precisely that what he was going to give us was his body and his flesh as bread of eternal life (cf. Jn 6:32-35). This is formally the unity of bread, to be bread for eternal life, and not simply to be sacramental bread, which is an extrinsic denomination. And this bread of eternal life is something that precisely sustains the fullness of the life of a Christian that receives the Eucharist. In the first place, because it incorporates it into our being, not to our substantive reality, but incorporates our being to the being of Christ. And it incorporates it fully, not only inchoatively as in the case of baptism. In the second place, not only incorporates it, but in addition assimilates it. It makes, in a manner quite hidden and mysterious, but very real, that our being may become theandric in some measure similar to the way it was in a formal and explicit way in the case of the I of Christ. The I of the one that receives the Eucharist is in its own way a theandric I. Certainly, not as in the case of Christ, but rather as an internal assimilation. And what it has of theandric comes precisely from its incorporation to the body of Christ. And, in the third place, not only incorporates and assimilates, but also is precisely what makes that the life of the one that has received the Eucharist may become a formally Christic life. In other words, since Christ consists in a subsistent religation, it is the formally and theologically religious life. {394} Consequently, when we say in the Our Father “Give us this day our daily bread” (Mt 6:11; Lk 11:3), that bread in reality has three characteristics. On the one hand, it is the bread of our material sustenance, needless to say. But there is a different second dimension in the bread. The one that even Christ invoked when recalling a text from Deuteronomy about the temptations in the desert, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4; Lk 4:4; Dt 8:3). This is the very essence of revelation, Christ insofar as revealer of the truth of the Father. That is the second meaning of bread, not only the material sustenance. But there is, deeper still, the bread that consists in the personal reality of Christ Eucharistically given. And the unity of these three breads is the authentic bread we ask for in the Our Father. e) In the end, what is it that we are really given in the sacrament of the Eucharist? It is obvious that until now we have discussed nothing but the constitution of the consecrated bread. But to the one that receives it with sufficient opus operantis (with pístis kaí metánoia, with faith and conversion of heart) what is given is what the ancients called the res sacramenti. Classical theology has understood that this is an effect of the Eucharist. It is an effect of validity, which presupposes that each one will receive it validly, with full sacramentality. The effect consists that all men who receive communion in the same Eucharist feel themselves united in one form or another. And, needless to say, one feels united to the very Christ from whom he has received the Eucharist. This conception of the res as effect of the sacrament has always seemed absolutely poor to me. I believe the problem is much deeper and radical. Let us understand that at least in the conceptiveness of the Eucharistic conversion, which so clumsily I have ventured {395} to present here, the reality of the consecrated bread, and of Christ in the very Eucharist is its primary coherent unity. In other words, the reality of Christ in the Eucharist, the consecrated bread, is formally unity not by reason of effect, but formally. In the second place, to receive the Eucharist is a unity with the body of Christ because it is an intrinsic and formal reference to his unity. The presence of the body of Christ in the Eucharist as unity precisely unifies my being in him. And in third place, for the same reason, all other men are unified. Unified as remembrance, as anámensis, of what he did, but as a permanent reality, as a reactualization, and in addition as a promise of future. Therefore, in this case the unity is not an effect of the Eucharistic conversion, but the reverse, it is the formal characteristic in which the very Eucharist consists. The Eucharist is formally the sacrament of personal unity. And it is so formally, not by reason of effect. And precisely for being so formally is why it can be the fundament of the unity of the life of each and all the others. The Epistle to the Ephesians says that Christianity consists in, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5). And St. Paul also said, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a communion in the blood of Christ? And the bread that we break, is it not a communion in the body of Christ? Because we, though many, are one bread, and one body, for we all partake of one bread” (1 Cor 10:16-17). This one and radical sameness is founded in the formally unitary and unitive characteristic, which the Eucharist has formally, not as effect, but as formal reason of its own constitution, and of its own existence. In this fashion we are remitted at the end of this slow exposition to the point of departure. We found ourselves there with a Covenant (the Covenant of Yahweh with Israel), which was a union. Now {396} we can see that this union has been converted into something more profound, it has been converted into unity. And it has been converted into unity precisely because the very Incarnation was a unity, not simply a union of the Word with a human individual. And precisely because it is the case of a unity, Christianity, such as it was founded by Christ, does not consist but in this incorporation to him. An incorporation through baptism, and the Eucharist (which in the end are just one thing) by virtue of the action of the Holy Spirit in order to immerse us in the Father. Christ founded Christianity by making Christians, and in addition making that those Christians make Christians out of others. However, this making of others by some is not adventitious. They were precisely the two emphatic expressions of Christ in the Gospels. One, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19). The other, “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11:24-25; Lk 22:19). If by the first one he gave capacity to make Christians out of all men on Earth, by the other he instituted the sacrament of order. By virtue of this sacramental reality granted by Christ a coherent unity among all men has been established, that unity we call Church. It shall be the subject of the next chapter. ________________ 1 Cf. L. Billot, De ecclesiae sacramentis. Commentarius in tertiam partem S. Thomae, Roma, 1931 (7th ed.), pp. 311-661. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (397-411) --------------- {397} APPENDIX THEOLOGIC REFLECTIONS ON THE EUCHARIST The Eucharist is the supreme form of the life of Christ in each one of us. It is a mystery. As such it is something which cannot be “explained”. Nevertheless, it can be “treated” conceptually in order to determine the precise point of origin for the mysterious, in the mystery. That is what theology does. Therefore, one thing is the mystery and faith in it, and another the theological conceptualization. Obviously, theological concepts are not requisite for a belief in the Eucharist. Theologic conceptiveness can be quite diverse. In this study I will limit myself to a properly metaphysical conceptiveness. In this kind of conceptiveness, theologies differ according to the table of metaphysical concepts to which they refer. Here I will follow a fairly simple metaphysical course, one that holds to the naked facts of faith. Needless to say, I will do this in a highly elementary manner, tracing only an outline of what subsequent conceptual developments should be. I do not claim to say anything new about the Eucharist, but rather I intend to conceptualize in my own way things, which are already known. This conceptiveness is the formal theme of this presentation. It is very possible that such conceptiveness may seem insufficient to many, but insufficient for what? Certainly for the mystery, but this insufficiency {398} is essentially inherent to every theologic conceptiveness of the mystery, insufficient metaphysically? It all depends on what idea one has of metaphysics. I will not go into that issue here. It will be enough for me if this apparent metaphysical insufficiency adequately allows the faith in its integrity to shine through in the revealed fact, and ecclesiastic dogma. The Eucharist poses many essential problems. In this conference I will limit myself to three of them, which are intimately connected with each other, as we shall see in the course of the exposition. A. The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. B. The mode of this presence. C. The formal reason for the Eucharist. A) The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist Let us proceed step-by-step. 1) First, the very fact of the real presence. a) For the oldest written text we are indebted, as it is well known, to Saint Paul, toûtó moú estìn tó sôma, “this is my body”. To simplify the exposition, I will only refer to the bread, leaving aside the wine. That phrase has three parts. Firstly, sôma, which Latin translated as corpus, body. But Christ did not express himself in either Latin or Greek, but in Aramaic. Sôma translates the Aramaic guph, or also basar, which certainly means body, but not only as the material part of man (that is, not the body as distinguished from the soul), but rather designating the complete entire man, “I, myself”. We shall later discuss the rigorous conceptiveness of this linguistic fact. Even in Greek, the word sôma expresses at times this “I, myself”, as we see in some passages {399} of St. Paul. Then the phrase of St. Paul should be translated: “this is I, myself”. The phrase has as subject toûtó, “this”. The Aramaic da and the Hebrew ze mean “this”, but at times they can also denote “here”. The two possibilities do not exclude each other, because in my view, we are always dealing with “this, which is here”. Whatever translation one adopts, the phrase says, “this (here) is I, myself”. Finally, in the Greek phrase we find the verb “to be” esti. However, in Aramaic and in Hebrew there is no verbal copula; the sentence is purely nominative. All discussion of the meaning of “is” in the words of the Eucharistic institution is wasted effort. Consequently, it should actually be translated: “this (here) I, myself”. The nominative phrase expresses the reality itself with much more force than the verbal copulative phrase. I will return to this later. Christ himself, then, in His own concrete reality, is (Sp. está) present in consecrated bread. All this is well known, but it is convenient to recall it here in order to begin the conceptiveness. b) What is this bread in which Christ is present? The very fact that Christ should invite one to eat the bread, already tells us that here “bread” does not signify a physiochemical reality. It is not a matter of the reality of the bread in and of itself, but of the bread insofar as food, i.e., bread sub ratione alimenti. The ratio of food and the ratio of physiochemical reality are not the same. As early as the thirteenth century, St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure discussed this problem without reaching agreement. For St. Bonaventure, there is no presence of Christ except when the bread is food. He believed that mice are not nourished by bread, and affirmed in consequence that Christ is not present in consecrated bread if the rodent eats it; such bread does not have ratio alimenti for the mouse. St. Thomas, on the other hand, thought that the presence of Christ is a presence in the bread qua reality, in and of itself. In all modesty, I think that St. Bonaventure {400} was right. In the Eucharist, bread is bread as food, and not as the physiochemical reality of bread. Food is principle of life; to be food is to be principle of life. Because of this, Christ is present in the bread as food, as principle of life. The presence of Christ in the food signifies that Christ is principle of life. c) The Church has not limited itself to ratifying this fact, but has accentuated the presence, speaking of it as a conversion, mirabilis conversio. Let us ask conversion of what? If bread is food, then the conversion consists in a transformation of material food into spiritual food. Hence the bread of life, the living bread, the life-giving bread, and other such translations are possible for the expression St. John puts on Christ’s lips regarding spiritual food, after the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, “I am the vine, and you are the branches”. After Christ himself that which makes Christ present in the bread is the sacramental power of the priest who, acting in the name of the person of Christ, not only “recalls”, but also “repeats” the events of the Lord’s Supper. d) This presence of Christ in consecrated bread is real. That is, it is not a metaphor or a mere symbol. But, in addition, the reality of this presence is not merely moral, nor yet a kind of dynamic virtue, but a physical reality. I have already indicated this, the nominative phrase expresses not only being, but also the physical reality, with much greater force than the predicative phrase. If I say, “you, my son”, I say much more than if I say, “You are my son”. Because of this, in terms of place, the nominative phrase expresses the reality “here”. Of the bread, Christ said to us, “this (here) I, myself”. In many cases (among them the phrase we are studying), if one wishes to express the reality with a verb, one must use, not the verb to be (Sp. ser), but the verb to be here and now (Sp. estar). To be here and now (Sp. estar) involves {401} a connotation of proper physical reality, “here am I, myself”. 2) But then the question is inexorable, what are the consequences for the bread of this real presence of Christ, which makes of this bread spiritual food? The answer to this question must clarify three points. What is it to be real? What is bread as real food? And what is the reality of the presence of Christ in the bread? a) First point, what is it to be real? Classical metaphysics has resorted to the concept of substance. The real is thus substance. None of its properties has reality except in dependence upon substance as on its subject. The properties are accidents of the substance. The substance is the subject to which the properties are inherent as accidents. However, I find this unacceptable. Radically and formally, the real is not substantiality, but substantivity. Among other things, our philosophy needs a metaphysic of substantivity. Let me explain. Substantiality and substantivity are very different things. As I see it, things are formally constituted by properties, signs, qualities (the terminology is unimportant now) which cohere with each other; each one, as a property, is a property of all the rest, is a “property-of”. This is what I call the “constructed state”, taking the term from the grammar of Semitic languages. In the constructed state, the terms among themselves, and therefore that which they designate, formally constitute a proper intrinsic unity. And this unity of the constructed state is what I call “system”. The constructed state is the intrinsic and formal unity of two nouns, and therefore of two things. If I say, in any Indo-European language, “son of Peter”, I have two nouns and two realities, son and Peter, the one dependent on the other. But in the constructed state I have, {402} as it were, but one noun and one thing, constructed in two of its moments, as if I were to say “son-of-Peter”. I fully realize that one of these moments is called the “absolute state”, but this term is absolute because it is the base on which the whole thing is constructed. Applied to our problem, the idea of the constructed state is what I have called “system”. Each of the moments of a system is built upon the system’s own unity. Radically and primarily, then, things are systems of properties; each property is a “property-of” the system. This system has two moments. One is that by which the properties in themselves are something “complete” in the order of properties; each property is a property of the others, in a sense, cyclically. But there is another moment. Taking the thing by itself, this complete characteristic of the system is a closed and total unity. It is not a unity by reason of the properties, but a unity with its own characteristic, a characteristic by which the already complete has the sufficiency to be a closed and total unity. By virtue of this second moment, the properties of the thing are not only complete, but they also have the sufficiency to determine the thing as “one” thing. This sufficiency is what I call substantivity. Substantivity is the sufficiency to be a closed, total unity. Both moments, that of being complete and that of being a closed and total unity, are not independent. Complete properties modalize the systematic unity of the substantivity. And this modalization is what I call “constitution”; it is the manner of being “one” by virtue of the complete properties. It is the manner by which “one” thing is “this” thing. Unity, insofar as it is constitutional unity, is not a subjacent subject; rather it is constitutional sufficiency, i.e., the capacity of a thing to constitute its own proper unity. The properties, in a substance, are inherent to a subject. But in a {403} substantivity they are inherent to nothing; rather, they are coherent among themselves in a unity of sufficiency. The two moments to which I refer (I repeat, being complete in its properties and being a substantivity) are not identical. The unity of substantivity can be opened without destroying the complete character of the properties. This opening is what allows substantivity to change without changing the properties. Substantivity can be acquired and lost in many ways, and always formally without changing properties. Thus, glucose in a jar is something, which classical metaphysics called “substantial”, but at the same time it is something substantive. On the other land, when it is ingested by an organism (apart from the metabolic alterations), despite preserving whole its presumed substance and its properties, it has nevertheless lost its substantivity. Substantivity is had only by the whole organism; only the organism is the closed and total system. For this reason, the substance itself of the glucose is, in the organism, perfectly unsubstantive. The radicality and primariness of things is not, then, substantiality, but substantivity. And the transformation of substantivity is not even remotely a transformation in substantiality; it is not a transmutation of realities. The transformation of substantivity consists in that the system of properties loses its constitutional unity. It is an opening of the unity of substantivity in favor of a unity of a superior order. Then the properties no longer totally modalize the substantive unity. This substantive unity then has a different mode, a different constitutive unity. In the case of the organism, this is a substantive unity, which is not constitutionally modalized only by the properties of the glucose. In turn, the new unity does not necessarily constitute a new property of the glucose. Thus, the unity of the organism is not a new property, but only a different unity, which is merely {404} functional, etc. The opening of the unity of substantivity can take place, then, in many different ways. Ingestion is no more than one of them, there are others. This substantivity is, then, what formally constitutes what I shall call the “naked reality” of things. b) Second point, what is bread as food? Bread, as food is not the same as bread as naked reality, as substantivity. Bread is only food with respect to human life; but bread, as a mode of reality, as substantivity, has nothing to do with life. What is bread as food? To understand this let us observe that many real things not only have a constructed state in their properties, but are also found in a constructed state with respect to human life, such as, for example, a table, a chair, a room, etc. By virtue of this, the properties of this other constructed character do not formally belong to the naked reality of the thing. By its naked reality a thing acts upon other things only by the properties which its naked substantivity possesses, but not by what constitutes its relation to life. Thus a chair acts upon the earth not as a chair, but insofar as it has a certain matter, mass, shape, weight, etc.; consequently being a chair does not belong to the naked reality of what we call a chair. “Chair” is the meaning that a real thing has with respect to living. I call a thing in its naked-reality a “reality-thing”; things in their relation to life I call “meaning-things”. They are not the same. A cavern is, as a cavern, a purely geological phenomenon, a property of the naked reality of a mountain; but being a human habitation makes of this reality-thing a meaning-thing. Obviously, these two modes while quite distinct, are not independent. That a reality-thing should also be a {405} meaning-thing depends, at least, on the properties it has as a reality-thing. Not all real things have the capacity to be meaning-things, and even when they do have the capacity, they have it in different degrees. The capacity of a thing in its reality to constitute a meaning-thing is what I call “condition”. Thus there are things, which because of the mode of their naked reality are, nevertheless, of good or bad condition. When the naked reality, that is, the substantivity, is of such condition as to be capable of constituting a meaning-thing, we may permit ourselves, by extension, to call that meaning-thing substantivity, and apply to the meaning-thing what we have said about the substantivity of the naked reality. Given this, bread, as naked physiochemical reality is a reality-thing. Bread, as food is a meaning-thing, since it is a principle of our life. And that reality-thing is of such condition that it can be constituted as food. Because of this I call bread as food “bread-food”. Substantivity, as I have said, can be acquired and lost without changing properties. The properties of bread as naked substantive reality do not change as it is constituted food or ceases to be so constituted. When constituted food the systematic unity of the properties is not broken; rather its closed and total substantivity is opened to a superior unity, by which it acquires a new condition for being a meaning-thing. This, then, is what occurs in consecrated bread. c) Third point, what is the reality of the presence of Christ in consecrated bread? Christ is principle of our spiritual life. As such, he belongs in the constructed mode to the class of meaning-things, since he is food. Hence, bread does not have the condition of being able to constitute spiritual food. But the presence of Christ, leaving the properties of the naked reality of bread intact, confers on the bread a new condition. He opens the {406} closed and total unity of the substantivity of this bread-food to a superior unity, to the unity of himself. Then the bread, preserving what was classically called “substance”, has lost its substantivity and its condition and has acquired a condition of nourishment, which it previously lacked, the condition of being spiritual food. The unity of the body of Christ is what now constitutes the unity of substantivity of the bread-food. The substantivity of consecrated bread is thus the divine substantivity of Christ himself. In the consecration, nothing happens to the bread as physiochemical reality; rather it loses its former alimentary substantivity. This previous material substantivity has been converted, by the mere presence of Christ, into a spiritual one, into the divine substantivity of Christ. The real presence of Christ has changed the condition of the bread. Consequently, the conversion of consecrated bread is not transubstantiation, but transubstantivation. Certainly, this is not an “in-breadification” (analogous to In-carnation), because Christ and the bread, by virtue of the consecration, constitute a single substantivity. Thus, we must ask ourselves what relation there is, so to speak, between this conversion of substantivity, and the real presence. Classical metaphysics has thought that the real presence is a consequence of the conversion. Since there can be no accident without substance, the substantial conversion determines the presence of the substance of Christ in the bread. Whether this conversion is understood as a formal conversion (according to St. Thomas) or as an equivalent conversion (according to Suárez), the basis of the real presence is always seen as the conversion. With all due respect, I propose a different view. I believe that the conversion is the consequence of the real presence of Christ in the bread-food. The real presence is the basis of the conversion. Only because Christ is present in the bread, this bread, as food substantivity, has lost its material substantivity, and acquired a substantivity {407} of spiritual food. By the real presence of Christ the bread is converted ratione alimenti. The conversion formally affects the condition of the bread. Here we have, then, the fact of the real presence of Christ conceptualized as transubstantivation. But, inevitably, it presents us with a very serious problem: In what does the real presence of the body of Christ in the bread consist? This is the second of the three problems I formulated earlier. B) The mode of the real presence In the fact of the real presence of Christ in consecrated bread, we deal with the question of the bread being Christ himself, or, expressed in New Testament terms, of the bread being the body of Christ, this is transubstantivation. Transubstantivation is founded on the real presence of Christ in the bread; consequently, transubstantivation presupposes the real presence of Christ in the bread. What is this real presence as presence? That is our problem. Christ becomes actual in the bread, and we ask ourselves what this actuality is. The meaning of the “meaning-thing” is founded on the “condition”, and in turn the condition is founded on the “actuality” of the presence. What does this mean? The Latins called actualitas, “actuality”, to the fact that something is in act that, which it is. Being a dog in act consists in being the fullness of what constitutes its “doggishness”, as it were. But precisely because of that I call the same thing actuity, the characteristic of being with formal fullness the reality one is. On the other hand, actuality is the characteristic, not of being “act”, but rather of being “actual”. Actuity and actuality are not the same; to be in act is not the same as to be actual. As I see it, this is essential for the understanding of what sôma, body, is. In my opinion, this is the only way {408} we can understand why “body” can signify “I, myself”. And consequently, this is essential to understand the mode of presence of the body of Christ in consecrated bread. The mode of the presence of Christ in consecrated bread through transubstantivation is “actuality”. We are led here to carefully examine three points. What is actuality? What is the human body? And what is the mode of the real presence of the body of Christ in consecrated bread? 1) First point, what is actuality? Actuality is always the characteristic of one reality with respect to another, and this relation is the “presence” of something in something. This presential respectiveness can be of various kinds. First of all, it can be an extrinsic presence to the real thing, which is present. This is “extrinsic” actuality. Thus, viruses have possessed actuity for millions of years, but only in this century do they have actuality, that is, an actual presence for us. Clearly it is an actuality extrinsic to viral reality. But it is not always that way; actuality can be “intrinsic” to the reality present. When a person “makes itself present” in some place or among other people, its actuality is intrinsic to the reality of the person in question. What does “intrinsic” mean here? It means that actuality does not consist in the mere presentiality before someone, in mere presentness, but in “being present”. Its actuality does not consist in the “present” of being, but in the “being” itself of the one present. It is this, the very reality of the person, which upon making itself present “is” present; it has an actuality intrinsic to its reality. The person is making itself present from its very self, from its own reality. This actuality is the result of a “making”. But the person in question might not make itself present. It is clear that the actuality of making oneself present does not formally involve the modification of any of one’s own properties. Certainly, in the case {409} of man, making oneself present does involve a modification of properties. But this modification does not belong to the state of being present as such; rather it is only something which leads to making oneself present. Just as the complex processes of perception do not form part of the state of being present of the perceived as such, so the potencies and chemical reactions are not present formally in the green color, which is present before me. Something could make itself present without modification of its properties; such is the case with God. But actuality may be even deeper. It can be a being present that does not depend on any “making”, but formally belongs to the reality of what is present. This is not mere presence from one’s own reality, but in one’s reality qua reality. It is actuality not “from” one’s reality, but “in” one’s very reality. This is “intrinsic and formal” actuality. Then, to be present is a characteristic of the real by the mere fact of being real; the reality is present eo ipso by simply being real, and not by any “making” or anything similar. It belongs to the very reality of what is present. Clearly, in such case actuality does not involve any modification of properties. This is the case of God with regard to creation. As we shall soon see, such is also the case of man with regard to his body. Man does not “have” a body; rather he “is” corporeal. Hence, his corporeal actuality belongs to human reality itself, not only intrinsically, but also formally. Man does not “make” himself present to his body; rather he “is already” present to his body. And, in other dimensions, this type of intrinsic and formal actuality is proper to all reality as such; this is being. It is a subject I cannot address here. Will only assert, for the record, that we are also in need today of a metaphysic of actuality; a metaphysic of act is not sufficient to us. {410} Every intrinsic actuality and especially every intrinsic and formal actuality has characteristics proper to it, and a proper formal structure. First, let us examine the characteristics proper to actuality. a) Actuality is a real moment; it is not something merely symbolic or something similar. b) Actuality is a physical moment, not a moral presence or even a presence of dynamic virtualities. This physical characteristic is what the verb “to be” (Sp. estar) expresses1. “To be” (Sp. estar) in this context means not the mere “to be” (Sp. ser), but rather “to be here and now” (Sp. estar siendo). The verb “to be here and now” (Sp. estar) is a verb which always denotes something physical. That is why it is a copula in Latin, but as the linguists say, in the strong sense. However, they do not tell us in what the strong sense consists. Indeed, I would add, the strong sense is, from my perspective, physical actuality. c) Actuality is a moment, which admits occurrence. Above all, the occurrence of actuality is not the occurrence of a property, but it is, nevertheless, a physical occurrence. Actuality is acquired or lost without the least change of properties in the one who is actual; the occurrence of actuality is not an occurrence of actuity. This occurrence is a moment of the actuality itself, not only on the part of the one, in whom something is made actual, but above all on the part of the very thing, which is made actual; it is reality itself, which becomes actuality. Thus, to give a theologic example, God is actual in the Incarnation, in the just man, etc. God has a strict occurrence in the order of actuality. Not only in the Incarnate Word (who is Christ) does humanity acquire divine actuality, but God himself also, in his divine reality, freely acquires an actuality, a human actuality. It is the Word himself who was made flesh; it is the Word who acquires actuality. Not only was the flesh made Word, but also the Word himself was made flesh. {411} The same should be said of the indwelling of God in the just man. It is God himself who becomes actual in the just man, and it is God himself who ceases to be actual in the man who sins. Actuality has, in addition, a proper structure. A single reality can have various actualities, not only successively, but also simultaneously. The fact is that actuality has a radical principle by which the real is here-and-now present. In man this principle, as I have already indicated and we shall presently see, is the body. But grounded in its radical principle, the real can have many other actualities, which I will call here “subsequent actualities”. So man, through his radical principle, through his body, has the subsequent actuality of being present, for example, as father, as brother, as doctor, etc. It is a matter of subsequent actualities grounded in a radical principle of actuality. These are different modes of the radical actuality; that is, they are its modalizations. As such, they are formally diverse. These diverse modes can be simultaneous. God is actual in the Incarnation, and at the same time in grace; man is actual as father, and also as brother, as doctor, etc. These modalizations are the real and physical expression of the radical richness of the principle of actuality. But this makes us reflect further on human actuality. I have said in advance of the idea, that the intrinsic and formal principle of human actuality is the body. This requires a concise explanation. It is the second point. ____________ 1 [Tr. note: In Spanish the single English verb “to be” is rendered by two verbs, namely ser and estar. This would lead to an awkward direct translation of “estar siendo” such as “to be being”] --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 4 (411-421) --------------- {411} (cont’d) 2) Second point, what is the human body? The human body is an intrinsic and formal moment of the human reality; man “is” corporeal. This moment has, however, various sub-moments, among which, in my opinion, it is necessary to discern carefully. To simplify, I will call them moments also, instead of sub-moments. {412} a) The body is a system of properties, each of which has a rigorously determined “position” with respect to the other properties. This structural positioning is, in my view, what constitutes organization. It is according to this moment, in my estimation, that the body is an organism. b) By its organization, the body is a proper complex, a compago (Tr. joining together), all of whose parts are in solidarity with one another, and give the body its proper configuration. This moment of configuration is clearly distinct from the moment of organization; the body’s highly diversified organic functions maintain the same configuration, which is arrived at, so to speak, by very different ways. c) In its organization and in its proper configuration the body determines the real and physical presence of man in reality. According to this moment, then, the body is a corporeity. That man is corporeal means that corporeity is the very radical principle of being here-and-now present in reality: the body is sôma. This is, as I see it, how “body” has been able to signify “I, myself”, it is I myself who is present “here”. Let us not, then, confuse body and organism. Body is corporeity, and as such, is the intrinsic and formal principle of actuality. The body has, then, three moments, organization, configuration, and corporeity. They are essentially distinct. The somatic function cannot be identified with either the configurational or the organizational function. But each one of these moments in man is the foundation for the next. Man’s radical principle as corporeity, as sôma, establishes a configuration, and this configuration is what establishes an organization. If I may be permitted the expression, configuration and organization are modes of realizing corporeity. In fact, these three moments or functions are not separable. {413} But this is so only in fact. To be a principle of actuality does not imply its being so “of its own” (Sp. de suyo) nor having configuration or organization. Let us say in passing that this moment of principle of actuality, with neither configuration nor organization, is what constitutes, from my perspective, the “glorified body”. The glorified body will be neither an organism nor a configuration; rather it will be, from my point of view, purely and simply a principle of actuality in God, and in the rest of those glorified. How? We do not know. Let us not lose ourselves in fantasies and imaginings. It is enough to have conceptualized it. Evidently, the body as corporeity, that is, as principle of actuality, is not a principle of localization. Localization is always something derived from the pure state of being here-and-now present, from the principle of actuality. By reason of his organism and his configuration, man cannot be here-and-now occupying space in many places at once; but by his corporeity he can have actuality in many parts of reality at once without ceasing to be here-and-now in himself by doing so. This granted we now approach the third point. 3) Third point, the mode of the real presence of Christ in the bread. Stated in the form of a thesis, Christ takes bread as the principle of his personal actuality here, and therefore, is really present in the bread. To explain this affirmation it will suffice to appeal to the concepts I have just expounded. a) Christ is present in the bread as actuality and not as act. Christ is not localized in the bread as if He were something enclosed in it; rather, he is actualized in it. Stated more precisely, it is not a matter of substance and accidents (this would be “act”), but of actualization. This actualization is a moment of what is actualized itself, but without this implying any modification of its properties. Neither the properties of the bread nor those of Christ change due to the actual presence of Christ {414} in the bread. For this reason, the whole classical difficulty with how the body of Christ can be in so many consecrated hosts at once seems to me useless, it is not a matter of localization, but of actuality of presence. b) Christ is here-and-now in the bread formally as actuality from his own personal reality. His actuality is thus a real and physical being present, but this actuality is not formally identical to the naked reality of Christ in and of himself. Just as in the person that makes itself present, its making itself present is not formally identical to its own naked reality. Christ is Christ even without the Eucharist. c) In this actuality, Christ makes himself present in himself, from himself. The actuality is intrinsic to Christ. In other words, Christ is the intrinsic principle of his actuality. But because of the mode in which Christ chose to make himself present, this actuality is the bread; he takes the food-bread as the principle of His actuality. And thus, since the principle of actuality in man is the body, it is corporeity (and Christ is a man), it turns out that the food-bread, as the principle of Christ’s actuality, is the body of Christ. It is Christ himself. His body is his “I, myself”. Here we have the mode of the presence of Christ in the bread as real presence. d) Christ takes the bread. The presence is a making himself present. Taking is to make oneself present. Therefore, to the actuality of Christ in the bread formally belongs its manner of being taken, his mode of making himself present, i.e., the state of soul (if I may so express it) that Christ had at the Last Supper. This state of soul was that of his passion and death, “This is the body, which will be given up for you” (1 Cor 11:24; Lk 22:19). This is the sense in which the real presence is an anámnesis, a repetition of the passion and death. And therefore, like the passion itself, it is for the remission of sins. {415} e) While taking bread as the principle of Christ’s actuality, it turns out that the actuality itself is common to Christ and the food-bread; it is the food-bread which is assumed to be the principle of actuality, and it is Christ who is actual in the bread. Seen from the first aspect, Christ says, “this is my body”, i.e., “this (the bread here) (is) the body of Christ (is I myself)”. Seen from the second aspect, he says, “my body is this”, i.e., “my body (Christ himself), (is) this here”. This community of actuality is precisely the essence of the real presence. f) Christ takes bread as the principle of his actuality, but it is bread as food, which he takes. Hence, “this is my body”, is a way of saying, “the food is Christ himself”; and “my body is this”, is the same as saying, “I myself am the food”. This is, as I said before, what constitutes transubstantivation. Therefore, now we see that the essence of trans-substantivation is this actuality of the bread made Christ’s actuality, it is trans-actualization. The “trans” itself is one of actuality; it is an occurring of actuality and not an occurrence of actuity. g) But there is also something essential to add in order to describe this structure. Body is not only the intrinsic, but also the formal principle of Christ, because of this, sôma can signify “I myself”. But by virtue of this formal and radical principle Christ can “extend” (if you will pardon the term) his own formal actuality, he can afterwards modalize his principle of actuality, incorporating the food-bread as principle of actuality. This is a modalization, but a subsequent one; Christ would have his body even if there were no Eucharist. The bread as food-bread is not the formal body of Christ. Christ, by his own formal reason, is not food-bread. What is modally identical to the body of Christ is the food-bread as principle of Christ’s actuality. The food-bread as the moment of intrinsic actuality is grounded in Christ’s body as the {416} formal moment of Christ’s reality. It is the same actuality, but modalized as food. This “extension” is, from my point of view, the precise point of the Eucharistic mystery as mystery. Christ is as actual in the bread as in his own person, but he is actual in the bread because he is already actual in his person. It is, I repeat, the same actuality, but modalized in the bread as food. For Christ to “take” bread signifies, then, that he makes of the bread’s actuality the principle of His own actuality. By virtue of this, the real presence of Christ in the bread, i.e., this common actuality, from my perspective, constitutes what has been called the sacramental presence. The actuality of the bread as bread “signifies” actually the actuality of Christ in the bread as food. Here we have the reality of Christ in the bread. It is, so to speak, the essential and radical moment of the Eucharist. But only radical, because the Eucharist is not exhausted in this real presence. The Eucharist is the supreme form of the life of Christ in each of us. The formal essence of the Eucharist is not exhausted, then, in the real presence. Without it there would be no Eucharist, but the real presence alone is not the formal reason for the Eucharist. What is this formal reason? That is the third problem, which I proposed to examine. C) The formal reason for the Eucharist This is not a matter of speculation, even a true speculation, but of something revealed by Christ himself. Christ said to us: “He who does not eat my flesh and drink my blood will not have eternal life” (cf. Jn 6:53-54). Therefore, we are not only dealing with the reality of Christ in the bread and wine, but also with the reality {417} of Christ as principle of life for all of us: “Take this, all of you, and eat of it” (cf. Mt 26:26). The verbs “take” and “eat” are an imperative to all those at the table. This is the formal reason for the Eucharist. In what does it consist? I have already pointed to it when studying the real presence. Christ “is” here-and-now actually present in the bread, and by this presence the bread has been converted to spiritual food. And as such consecrated bread is something, which should be eaten. This terminology may seem a bit coarse to our mentality, but to the Jews of the time it was not. Christ is, then, principle of life by manducation. But here the problem arises, what in fact is this manducation? The response to this question is already given in the very institution of the Eucharist; Christ gave the consecrated bread to be eaten at a “supper”. Hence, the manducation has two moments, both of which are essential, but perfectly distinct. One is the naked fact of “eating“, as one eats bread, etc. The other is the fact of eating gathered at a supper, that is, gathered at a “meal”. Obviously, without the fact of eating, what we call a supper with various people would not be possible. But in order to have a supper with various people it is not enough to eat. For simplicity, instead of the word supper I will use the equivalent term “banquet”, agape. The Church herself has spoken of the Eucharist as a celestial banquet. Hence, the bare fact of eating is only the radical essence of the banquet; something more is needed. And so, the Eucharist is a “banquet”. That is its formal essence. In order to conceptualize this, we must consider two points, what a banquet is, and in what does the Eucharist as banquet formally consist. 1) First point, what is it to be a banquet? To a banquet, I constantly repeat, eating is essential. But the fact of eating {418} is not what formally constitutes a banquet. A banquet has that proper unity which is the community of the table-companions. They may gather in the unity of a special occasion as the Israelites gathered every year to commemorate the exodus from Egypt. But the companions may also be gathered around a person, as in the case of an honor banquet, or out of friendship for a person. Thus, the community of banqueters is established around the person who is the object of the banquet. What the banquet adds to the bare fact of eating is the unity of eating around a person, in his honor or in friendship with him. Because of this there can be a banquet even if only that person, and a single table-companion are present. At a banquet, the table-companions have a common actuality, since they are all present to each other, and to the person who is, as it were, the object of the banquet, and being here-and-now present is, as we have seen, actuality. And it is this common actuality, which formally constitutes a banquet. Conversely, the common participation in the agape is what constitutes the formal, and not only the radical reason for the banquet. But what is this community? Community is not mere collectivity. Community is not an additive moment, but a unity determined by something, which is rigorously common to all the persons, who constitute community only because of this, which is common to them. In a mere community of persons, the persons enter into it solely insofar as some are not others. There can be, and there are in every community, differences which are, in a sense, qualitative, but persons form a community only as others. Actuality is common to the others as others. But persons can have another type of common actuality. They can have common actuality, not as “others”, but as “persons”, each being in itself what it {419} personally is. In reality, persons enter into community in an impersonal mode. Impersonality is a thing, which excludes personal realities; the other realities are not impersonal but a-personal. On the other hand, there is another type of unity of persons into which persons enter each being in himself what he personally is. Thus the common actuality of all of them is more than community; it is personal communion. Without community there is no communion of persons, but community is not the same as personal communion. Given this, we ask ourselves what the formal essence of the Eucharistic banquet is. 2) Second point, the formal essence of the Eucharistic banquet. First of all, the Eucharist is formally a banquet, agape. Spiritual food is not eaten as material food is eaten. In other words, it is not the fact of the bread in and of itself that matters, but the fact that it is eaten by each one in that real unity which is established between spiritual food as food and the person of Christ. It is a banquet to Christ, of Christ, and with Christ. It is essential, I believe, to insist on this aspect of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is not only a question of the real presence of Christ in the bread; it is also formally a question of the one who receives the Eucharist with Christ. This unity is a unity of actuality, Christ becomes actual in me, and I become actual with Christ. It is not a matter of a communication of substances or properties, but a unity of actuality. In what does the common of this actuality consist? That is the question. The common actuality of Christ and his table-companions is not mere community; it is communion. Here is an essential point of the formal reason for the Eucharist, communion with the person of Christ. The essence of the Eucharist is communion. This may appear to be a tautology because of the indiscriminate use of both concepts in the common term “communicate”. But it is not a tautology; rather, communion is a moment of the formal essence of the Eucharist. Food {420} as such is proper to community; communion is a personal unity in and by alimentation. The Eucharist is banquet, it is agape, and this agape consists in a personal communion with Christ, and derivatively in the personal communion with the other persons. The common actuality of the table-companions at the Eucharistic banquet is the personal unity of all of them in the personal actuality of Christ. But communion is only one moment of the formal reason for the Eucharist; we need to ask ourselves, in what does the unity of this personal communion consist? This unity is in man a unity of actuality. And the principle of human actuality is what constitutes corporeity. The body is formally a principle of actuality. Hence, it follows that in the personal communion of the participants in the agape with Christ, Christ is actual in each one of them through His principle of formal actuality, i.e., through His body. The participants in the agape, upon acquiring an actuality in Christ, thereby form a body with him, and by its virtue their personal communion with Christ is precisely, and formally an incorporation into the body of Christ. And since all form a single body with Christ, it follows that, as St. Paul tells us, we are all co-corporeal in Christ. The idea of the body of Christ, of incorporation to Christ, and of co-corporeity is expressed in St. Paul. The formal essence of the Eucharist is personal communion, and the essence of personal communion is incorporation to the body of Christ. And since body is the actuality of the “I, myself” in reality, it follows that this incorporation consists in the fact that each participant in the agape is “I, myself”, being I in, and by the I of Christ. Every Christian is another Christ. The Eucharist is the supreme form of the mystery of the life of Christ in each one of us. This life constitutes itself sacramentally above all in the Eucharist. {421} I indicated at the beginning that I do not pretend to say new things about the Eucharist, but conceptualize in my own way those already known. This conceptiveness appeals to three concepts: substantivity, actuality, and corporeity. And these concepts take us directly to all the Pauline ideas. The life of Christ in us is a life that emerges from Christ (food) through transubstantivation, in the form of corporeal actuality, which formally consists in the incorporation to Christ. When Christ taught us to pray, he taught us to ask the Father for daily bread. The bread Christ was thinking of —let us not fantasize— is certainly the bread of material sustenance. But Christ reminded us at other moments of his life, reaching for a phrase from Deuteronomy (cf. Dt 8:3), that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (cf. Mt 4:4). And shortly before he died he tells us that, “who does not eat my flesh, and drink my blood will not have eternal life” (cf. Jn 6:53-54). Material sustenance itself is not foreign to the life of Christ in us. Because of this, although in a literal sense “daily bread” may mean material sustenance, its sense is not falsified by asking the Father to “give us this day our daily bread, the bread of your Holy Word, the bread of the Holy Eucharist, and the bread of material sustenance”. The intrinsic unity of these three moments of bread constitutes the formal structural essence of the life of Christ in us, the formal structural essence of the Eucharist. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 5 (423-438) --------------- {423} CHAPTER 5 CHURCH1 In the previous chapter I have considered the person of Christ, his biographic life (primarily for him), and what that same biographic life was with respect to the founding of Christianity. I considered this founding of Christianity to be in numerical identity with his life because that founding consisted, in the first place, in making Christians, and not simply instituting some norms and disciplines. In the second place, in making them by precisely repeating in identity his own life, above all his passion, crucifixion, death and resurrection. And in third place, doing this in a permanent way, i.e., making that some Christians make others Christian. The subject of the founding of Christianity leads us to a different point from what we have considered up to now. What is all this about some making others? When I studied religions in another work2, I insisted that every religion, as the molding of a religation, has two great parts. On the one hand, it has a certain idea of God. In the case of Christianity this idea is precisely the idea of the Trinitarian God, as I have shown. And on the other hand, it has a vision of the world on three points. In the first place, has a vision of the world resting on God as the fundament and origin of all things. In the case of Christianity we saw that actually it was the case of projection ad extra of the very Trinitarian characteristic of God, if you will in two aspects, in a general one, which creation is, and consisted in the finite way of being God. And creation culminates in a second aspect, the personal incorporation of the reality of God himself to creation, which is the person of Christ. But besides this fundament and origin of all things in God there is, in second place, the unity of all believers in that religion. And this is what in a generic way (I will have to explain what the content of this term is) we call ekklesía. Finally, in the third place every religion has some ideas about the ultimate destiny of all men, an eschatology. These are the three ingredients of every religion. We have seen in the previous pages (and at some length) what the case is with respect to God insofar as creator, fundament of all things, and incarnated among them through Jesus Christ. Indeed, this reduces to only one concept, which will have to be making its somewhat monotonous appearance in this chapter, the deiformity. From the creation of the most elemental matter to the incarnation of Christ there are different degrees, and different forms (essentially different with respect to Christ) of deiformity. Now we directly face the problem of some in reference to others, an ecclesiology, and an eschatology. I shall undertake this problem in a much more succinct manner than the way I dedicated to the other point. Precisely by the characteristic of Christianity, which {425} consists in Christ making Christians out of men, and those to continue by making others Christian, a great part (indeed the essential) of what the ekklesía is has been mentioned already in the previous chapter. Nevertheless, we must now address these problems. {426} § 1 WHAT IS THE CHURCH? There is a first problem we must at least recall. What is the original and radical fundament for what we call “the turning of some to others”? And in second place, in what does the very characteristic of some turning to others consist? A) What is the fundamental basis for the turning itself of some to others? Obviously, it is the case of a certain kind of unity. Some continue to make others Christian, and therefore, men, inasmuch as they form part of this movement of Christianization and deiformation, constitute in some way a certain unity we must define now. This goes back to Christ himself; it will be sufficient to recall the passages where Christ says, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mk 16:15-16). Or also the phrase with which after the institution of the Eucharist, at the Last Supper, instituted the sacrament of order in his apostles saying, “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11:24-25; Lk 22:19). Consequently, above all, the origin and fundament of the unity for Christians to make Christians out of others is formally constituted by sacramentality. I understand by sacrament, in the first place, a personal doing by Christ. In the second place, a doing in which the same thing is done numerically as Christ did his life. And in third place, something that Christ makes that it be done permanently. Precisely that permanence is provided {427} in the command to baptize, and in the command to make the consecration of the bread in remembrance of him. Consequently, everything that must be said about the Church is essentially, fundamentally, and radically resting on the idea of sacramentality. Because of this it is now usual, above all in present day theology, to say that the Church is the radical sacrament3. But that seems to me to be absolutely false. The radical sacrament is Christ who is subsisting sacrament. And the Church is radical sacrament inasmuch as the life of the Church (at least in the idea) is the same life of Christ. The sacraments are identically the actions of the very life of Christ, and therefore, the Church, insofar as sacramental, and the depository of the sacraments does nothing but constitute the very life of Christ. And in the measure this is so there is Church. The rest are external considerations to the matter. The Church, certainly, is the life of Christ as present. But then, how is that presence given? This is essential to the issue. And precisely because there is no dissociation between the formal institution of the Church and what the life of Christ was it is necessary to recall what his personal life was. The personal life of Christ was the constitution of a theandric I, which expresses and refluxes back at the same time on the theandric characteristic of his substantive reality. This reflux is that, which in the case of all men I have called intimacy. In Christ it was an ultimate and radical intimacy in which Christ lived through identity (of nature, using the Chalcedonian language) with the Father. In an intimacy in which he had the lived truth of his own reality, and of his relationship with the Father, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit. Hence, the sacramentality of the Church, the fact that the Church is nothing but the very life of Christ, means {428} that she constitutes purely and simply the effusion of the Spirit of Truth in which the intimacy of Christ consists. This effusion of the Spirit of Truth is constitutive of the Church, and in addition (as I shall explain immediately) is dynamic. And precisely that effusion of the Spirit of Truth is what constitutes the feast of Pentecost. Pentecost is one of the three most important feasts of ancient Israel together with Passover and Tabernacles. It is one of the feasts in which Israel presents itself to Yahweh at a chosen and particular place who makes his name to dwell there. In Christianity this effusion of the Spirit of Truth constituted (according to the description of St. Luke, who in all probability is the writer of the Acts of the Apostles) an act accompanied by a great theophany, there is a great wind, tongues of fire, etc. (cf. Acts 2:1-13). This is more or less a remembrance of the literary style of the theophanies in the Old Testament. The wind is the great symbol in the account of creation of the Spirit of ‘Elohim (cf. Gn 1:2). The tongues of fire contain allusions to Isaiah (cf. Is 6:6-7), and to a passage of the prophet Joel (cf. Jl 2:27-3:3), etc. It is the case of a literary style proper to theophanies, and from this point of view, is more or less a haggadic Midrash. The fact itself is a different matter. Here what is being addressed, beyond all of the allusions to the Old Testament theophanies, is the effusion of the very intimacy of Christ in the Holy Spirit, who is precisely the Spirit of Truth. And that this Spirit is going to constitute from this moment on, the new creation which it had been already constituting from old in the whole of humanity, the Church. This is the reason for the words of Christ, “I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Mt 28:20). It is the same thing to say that Christ is present than to say his Spirit is there because the Spirit is nothing but the emission and effusion {429} of the Spirit of Truth in which the intimacy of Christ consists. From this it is clear that the effusion of Pentecost is, in the first place, the culmination of Passover. Certainly, if the Passover is the resurrection of Christ, and here what we are given is precisely the Spirit of Christ it definitely means that the effusion of the Holy Spirit is in some way the last act of the life of Christ. If the first was everything that took him to the Cross, and the second was the resurrection, the third is the effusion of the intimacy of his Spirit. It is the culmination of the Passover of resurrection. In the second place, the effusion of Pentecost is the constitution of the unity by virtue of which some Christians make others Christian in this assisting presence of the Holy Spirit, which is nothing but the Spirit of the intimacy of Christ. And in third place, the effusion of Pentecost is not only something constitutive, but as I mentioned, is a dynamic presence because it consists precisely in conferring the mission that Christians continue making others Christian with all the appropriate universality required. It is a universality, which is being realized historically, first in Jerusalem afterwards in Antioch, and later in Rome. And I use these terms, not from the point of view of sees of St. Peter, but as regions for Christianization. Because St. Peter, underneath his being Pope, was evidently an Apostle and a Christian. No matter how much a Pope is a Pope, he would never be one if first he were not a Christian. B) This well established, we now ask, if this is the origin and fundament of the Church, in what does the very internal characteristic of this Church consist? Certainly (I have just indicated it) the Church is a unity. Some Christians continue to make others Christian and what all are making of each other is precisely to be Christians. Then, to ask what is the characteristic of the {430} Church is the same as asking what is the characteristic of this unity. Is the same as asking about the characteristic of this hén (one), that Christ asked of the Father in his priestly prayer shortly before leaving for Gethsemane, “so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us” (Jn 17:21). In what does this unity consist? From my point of view, this unity is expressed in three concepts, each one founded on the previous one. 1) While addressing religions I was saying that every religion involves an ecclesiology. But let us understand that here ekklesía does not mean an ecclesiastic community. There are many religions that have no ecclesiastic community. The point is to find out what it might mean when we employ that term, for example, to refer to all the inhabitants of Athens going to offer to Pallas Athena their acts of devotion. It simply means that they participate in the same faith, in the same beliefs, and in the same activity of the divinity. But they do not constitute a collective community. The first concept that from my point of view constitutes that, which we call the hén, the one in which the Church consists, is precisely what I have just mentioned. And in this sense Christianity shares with all those religions, that it is a sameness. Christians have a sameness. The Epistle to the Ephesians says it graphically with a sharp phrase, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5). Christians have only one Lord, Christ; only one faith, which is the surrender to the person of Christ; and only one baptism, which is only one initiation in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. It is the case, therefore, that all Christians have the same faith, the same Lord, the same reference to Christ, and the same baptism. Not only have “sameness” in that initiation to the Christian life by reason of baptism. St. Paul insists on a deeper dimension, which refers to the Eucharist, “The cup of blessing that we bless, {431} is it not a communion in the blood of Christ? And the bread that we break, is it not a communion in the body of Christ? Because we, though many (the Greek text says hóti, many) are one bread, and one body, for we all partake of one bread” (1 Cor 10:16-17). Here it is the case of a sameness not only of initiation, but a sameness of fullness. Men are, first and above all, by virtue of their living and vital inscription and admission into Christianity, in which some make others Christian, a hén, a one, because they have a dynamic sameness in and by Christ. It is not the case that simply by mere chance many individuals all have the same faith, the same baptism, the same participation of the Eucharist, and refer to the same Lord. It is the case of a dynamic unity precisely because Christians make others Christian. It is not the case of a merely quiescent and converging unity; it is an internal unity, of a life that is being transmitted from some to others. The sameness of life, which exists in all of them, is from my point of view the first characteristic of the hén, of the unity in which the Church consists. 2) However, it is necessary to enter into a deeper and more profound concept. Certainly, Christianity is a religion, and as such it is a molding of religation. This religion, by the character of Christ, and by the character of what Christ makes us when making us (that is, others like Christ), is what the religation of the Son is doing upon Earth. Nevertheless, let us be clear that religation is a dimension essentially and constitutively personal of man, even of the most atheist of men. Religation is a dimension formally constitutive of the substantive reality of man insofar as personified. And in this radical sense all religation involves an essentially personal dimension. But, in {432} second place, this religation molds itself in religion. And this molding in religion, as I mentioned in another work4, precisely consists in the surrender of the total reality of man to that reality of God to which man reaches through his intellection as terminus and fundament of his religation. And in this personal surrender, which is at the same time the configuration of his reality through faith, and the configuration of faith by the human reality that surrenders, is what the molding of a religation into religion clearly consists. In this sense, not only is religation constitutively personal, but in addition all religion is essentially personal. Yet, there is a third moment in this molding that poses an important problem. Because we may ask, how does a religion mold itself in many men? In each one of them it is personal, no doubt about that, as I have just mentioned. However, a profound difference may occur among religions. Because religion itself might be nothing but an objective body, i.e., a type of union among men who have that same life considered from a collective and social point of view. I shall soon return to this point. Religion would constitute in a certain way, even in the presence of an ecclesial community a kind of objective body. By objective body we understand that persona may not be related to me insofar as persons, but insofar as having certain qualifications independently that these qualifications may or may not be formally theirs (constituted in their-ownness, and therefore in the person of the other). Then we would have an objective unity of religion, but purely from the point of view of an objective body. {433} That is not the case of Christianity. The case of Christianity is completely different. It is not the case of an objective body. There is an interest to use the term “objective” to indicate that this is not a falling into the subjective arbitrariness of each man, but it is not actually the case of an objective body, but of a personal body. It is not only personal by virtue of religation or molding, but its content is intrinsically and formally personal. It is a personal body. From this follows that the hén, the one, is not only sameness, but (using a term I will immediately cancel) community. In what does the community of Christians consist? If we only use the term community this is not a novelty that Christianity brings to history. I prescind from comparing with other extra-biblical religions, but I take the religion of Israel. Not only at the time of Exodus, where there might be all kinds of ethical reasons mixed with the idea of community, but precisely during its final portion, in the texts from Qumran at the Dead Sea. In these texts we are told that the community is a holy house for Israel, and house of perfection and truth for Israel5. Here the community has a very different characteristic from the one it might have had at the time of Moses or the prophets. And here the idea of Covenant enters much more deeply into the spirit of those that live it. However, the characteristic of community, in the case of Christianity, is radically different. In the first place, because here the unity of mankind is not founded on a Law (in the Torah), but is founded on a person, the person of Christ. And in second place, because the truth is not the value of the Law, but the faith in Christ. Now we face a question that surfaces with even greater intensity and importance, in what does it {434} consist that, which we poorly and clumsily call the community of Christians, the Church as community. Let us take a step backwards. When I dealt with the characteristic of objective body many religions have, I briefly mentioned what the objective body was. That each person lives with others, and is affected by other persons. And to be affected by other persons with whom someone lives is what I generically called a héxis, a habitude. In this sense, society is not a thing that floats on itself, but is the habitude the members have by being members. In other words, they have in themselves the habitude determined by the others. Up to this point the matter is quite simple. But, who are those others? Those that affect me and the way I am affected may have two very different characteristics. On the one hand, those others are persons like myself. And, certainly, the others and myself are persons because we are our own, because the things we have and the things we do, are not only things we have as properties, but we have them formally and reduplicatively as ours. I not only have some properties on my own, but I belong to myself. In other words, I consist on a his-ownness and precisely because of that I am a person. This occurs in all other persons. Therefore, if we ignore in the other persons (and in some measure in myself) that we have this his-ownness, then the result is that the héxis, the habitude, by which some persons affect others does not affect others insofar as persons, but simply insofar as others. This is just what we call a social body. A social body is radically and constitutively something depersonalized. Without arguing with sociologists what they mean by community, we have to differentiate the social community from what I am going to present next. Namely, the fact that I may allow to be affected by {435} others in my reality as mine, in my his-ownness. And to allow to be affected by what the reality of others has of its own, in their his-ownness. In that case the habitude belongs to a different order. It is not the habitude of the other insofar as other, but the habitude of another person insofar as person. And precisely then that other habitude does not constitute a community, but constitutes something much more profound, what we call a communion of persons. From the point of view of the merely objective héxis, of the other as other, what we might call the unity of men constitutes itself into a system, and an organization. From the second point of view, the unity of men is a personal communion, which is resting essentially and formally in that, which makes possible the personal communion insofar as personal. Consequently, against everything that is being repeated quite clumsily by those who are not too interested in religious matters, and by those who being interested in religious matters (even by their profession) allow themselves to be updated by mixing with ideas that have no bearing in the matter, the Christian religious community is not primarily a social community. No sociologisms or hypersociologisms, it is a communion of persons, a personal communion. And what is a personal communion? What is this héxis, this habitude, in which I allow to be determined as person by other persons insofar as persons? Needless to say it is a determination as person. And therefore, all of it is at stake in the dimension of what we would call the surrender of one person to another. Just as the objective body is founded on the organized system, and more or less on a certain solidarity, the personal communion is founded on the dimension of surrender. And the dimension of personal surrender of a person to another is built upon an ultimate and radical fundament, {436} which is what constitutes the very essence of that communion. In what does this fundament consist? In the case of Christianity the fundament is quite clear, it is Christ himself. Because of this the unity of Christians, the hén, is not simply a sameness of Christianity, but is definitely a personal communion in and by Christ, precisely in his life. Now then, the life of Christ is subsisting sacrament, and this means that the personal communion of all persons in the Church is constitutively and formally a sacramental communion in the most generic sense of the term. This is what is essential in what we call the Christian community. It is not a social community. With an illustrious teacher of mine I argued many years ago on this idea that the communion of saints is the great sociological dogma of the Church. The communion of saints is not a sociological dogma; it is the supreme expression of personal communion, which is a different matter. This does not mean, of course, that this communion of persons does not have an organizational aspect. But everything it may have of organization is constitutively built upon what it has of personal communion. Anything else would be a falsification of the matter. Certainly, that aspect of organization refers back to Christ, who made Peter the fundament of his Church. Yes, but he makes him fundament taking him from the group of twelve. There is no Pope that is fundament of the Church because he is so-and-so, because he is a certain person, but first and above all because he is a member of the Church. So much so, that if he did not belong to the Church, and his faith deficient eo ipso he would cease being Pope. The reason for the supreme power in the Church is essentially of the same type than the reason for us being Christian, by belonging to a sacramental sameness in personal communion. An organization is essential to the Church. What happens is that we are quite accustomed to hearing this organization being called with {437} a more or less appropriate term for uses more or less common, but without the necessary theologic precision, the concept of service. Obviously, St. Peter served the Apostles, but is the concept of service what constitutes the formal reason for his authority? Not at all, it is something more radical. The possibility for being a hierarchical authority in the Church, the power of orders, is received directly from Christ, and passes through Christianity. Neither the bishops are governors of the Pope, nor the Pope is a Chief of State, nor the priests are partisans of bishops. The ecclesiastic hierarchy with all its importance is founded on sacramentality, and not the reverse. Prior to making a Pope out of St. Peter, Christ conferred on him the sacrament of order. The communion of the Christians is what, from my point of view, constitutes the formal and precise subject of the very exact expression that circulates without a proper definition in the current books, the people of God. People of God means purely, simply, and formally personal communion. Certainly, it is a common saying that the people of God is a continuation of the people of Israel. This is evident; historically there is continuity. But continuity is not the essence of history. The people of God is something different. In the Old Alliance it was just a Covenant of Yahweh with Israel, and therefore, of Israel with Yahweh. Here it is not the case of being a people of Yahweh or God, but of being a people of Christ. In other words, a people in which each of its members is another Christ, and whose unity of communion is the personal communion among them and with Christ. The people of God, understood this way, is essentially different than understood in Israel. From my perspective, it is absolutely essential to introduce this concept of personal communion in order to understand in what measure the hierarchical organization of the Church, indispensable {438} and necessary with all its prerogatives, however, is built upon the personal communion. Not only on a vague feeling of being people of God, but rather that it is the personal communion of Christians among themselves, and of all with Christ. The unity of persons, from this point of view, does not constitute a society. It is not just purely and simply to be faithful to Yahweh, but it is precisely a personal communion with Christ as subsisting sacrament what perdures in the Church. ______________ 1 From this point on we again follow the text of the 1971 seminar. 2 Cf. X. Zubiri, The Philosophical Problem of the History of Religions (El problema filosófico de la historia de las religiones), op. cit., pp. 98-111. 3 Cf. O. Semmelroth, Die Kirche als Ursakrament, Francfort, 1963 (3rd. ed.). 4 Cf. X. Zubiri, The Philosophical Problem of the History of Religions (El problema filosófico de la historia de las religiones), op. cit., pp. 87-94. 5 Cf. 1QS VIII, 5-6, in F. García Martínez (ed.), Textos de Qumrán, Madrid, 1992, pp. 58-59. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 5 (438-453) --------------- {438} (cont’d) 3) However, this concept is not sufficient. There is a third concept we must clarify. Just as the concept of communion made the concept of the dynamic sameness of Christianity more precise, we now have a third concept that will sharpen the concept of personal communion. Because, even after a brief consideration the concept of personal communion is not a vague metaphor. I have mentioned that personal communion is communion of the persons among themselves, but in addition personal communion with Christ. I have used these two expressions ex aequo. But there is an important nuance we must emphasize. That the communion of persons among themselves, insofar as Christians, does nothing but reproduce, and be numerically identical to the very life Christ had. That is why the communion of persons is founded precisely on a reference, not only repetitive, to what the life of Christ was, but rather numerically and formally identical. And this numerical and identical belonging of the communion of persons to the reality of Christ is precisely what the concept of body expresses. The Church is an unum, a hén, but a hén constituted into sameness, into community and corporeity. The Church is the incorporation of the whole of humanity to Christ. And then Christ has a very precise function within that corporeity. St. Paul clearly mentions it, to be kephalé, to be head (Cf. 1 Cor 12:4-31; 11:3). And then we ask, {439} what is this corporeity? That the idea of body may be applied to the Church is no invention of St. Paul. To apply it to Christ, yes, obviously. But to use sóma in this sense is not his invention. In the whole of Hellenism the term sóma has always meant what we might call the internal dependency and coherence of persons among themselves. But this concept of sóma is merely social and political. Here it is a question, not of a solidary organization, but something much more profound. From my perspective (I already insisted on this, but I think it is essential), a sóma, primarily if this Greek expression is used by someone who is not Greek, but an Israelite as St. Paul was, means three things. In the first place that something confers an actuality of presence to that of which it is a body. In the second place, not only does it confer an actuality of presence, but in addition gives it internal consistency, it impedes that something may be diluted in a kind of circumjacent vagueness. And in the third place, not only confers a consistency and gives an actual presence, but is a moment formally pertinent to the very reality of which it is a body, that reality is somatic. In this sense, the body primarily and radically consists in being expression. With respect to the Church as body of Christ, this is rigorously exact. It is rigorously exact because, in the first place, the Church is the actual presence of Christ who is constantly present in the Church. Christ is, in second place, what gives it consistency; the communion of persons would not exist if it were not founded precisely on the fundament Christ is. And it is, in the third place, the expression. Because, actually, the expression either in the case of Christ (in a substantial manner) or in the case of the Church (in a participated manner), consists in being sanctity. That is why the Church constitutes a true body with Christ. {440} This term and this concept of body have appeared in different contexts throughout these pages. In the first place, when we considered Christ. It goes without saying, when he was in this world he had a body just like ours. On the other hand, when he resurrected I mentioned that the body of Christ has a different character. It is a sóma pneumatikón, as St. Paul said. He can enter a room with all the doors closed, and leave through the walls, something the bodies of this world cannot do, etc. And as a body that formally belongs to Christ, regardless how spiritual it may be, it is what confers to him a particular actual presence. In the second place, it confers to Christ an internal consistency. And in third place, it is an expression, the wounds on his side and from the nails are not scars in the resurrected body of Christ, they are an expression of what the oblation had been on the cross. On the other hand, we have the Church as body of Christ. Here the body of Christ appears in a second dimension. It is the body of Christ because, in one form or another, in and through the community of the Church, Christ has an actual presence. In the Church Christ also has a consistency throughout history. And in third place, the Church expresses as sanctity what the presence of Christ is. All this is true. Will these concepts cease being different? What is the relationship between these two concepts, the body that constitutes Christ, and the Church as body of Christ? Is it the case of a mere metaphor in the spiritual order or in the purely mystical order? Definitely not, between both senses of the term body (which are not senses, but dimensions) there is an intrinsic, radical, and profound unity, given by Christ himself, precisely his Eucharistic body. Inasmuch as the personal sóma of Christ is present {441} in the Eucharist it fundaments the characteristic of corporeity the Church has with respect to Christ. That is why I mentioned that the sacrament of the Eucharist is formally a sacrament of unity, by being the primary coherent unity in which the body of Christ consists. It is the unity of sameness, of personal communion, and of incorporation to Christ, which he confers to the Church. It is in addition, a unity that consists in referring the body of the Church to the body of Christ. This is the reason why the body of Christ, insofar as Eucharistic, is what confers its unity and its sameness to the ecclesial body. Reciprocally, the ecclesial body is what constitutes the ambit of the theological possibilities (sit venia verbo) that Christ has to be present among men, in humanity itself. The body of the Church from this point of view is the system of possibilities that Christ has available, insofar as corporeal, to exist among men. That is why it is not a mere metaphor. Of course, Paul said it was a case of sóma pneumatikón. Shall immediately point out what this means more concretely. But at least we understand from now on that the sóma of Christ, his strictly corporeal body, that in which he consists, is precisely the spiritual place of all men insofar as vivifying for them. The Eucharistic body expresses, therefore, the deiformity in which Christ consists, and the deiformity in which the Church exists through its incorporation to Christ. The Church is nothing but that, Christ and the Christianity of some for others, and of some through others. The unity in Christ is a strictly and formally sacramental unity through the effusion of his intimacy. And this unity is expressed in three concepts. It is sameness of Christianity, it is communion of persons founded on Christ, and it is corporeity. In the end, the Church is purely and simply the derived deiformity of Christ. {442} Certainly, it is a deiformity that as every deiformity the first line refers to the I, the substantive being, which man makes. Each one of us is I in the measure in which we live with our stomach, with out brain, with our psychism, with our free decisions, etc. We live with all this, but what we do, if we are Christians, is the deiformity as a character of the I, of our own substantive being we acquire in the course of our own life. Therefore, this deiformity is a deiformity of an essentially vital order. It is something, which I acquire, which I can increase, diminish, and can ultimately lose. But, in second place, precisely because it is the case of a substantive being, the substantive being of the I reverts by way of intimacy to the substantive reality of whom this I is its being. And this reversion makes that in one form or another the characteristics we have described with respect to the I come to be characteristics that affect my own substantive reality. At any rate, this deification as a vital process is not simply the deiformity; it is something in which the unity of all Christians consists, that by which some make others Christian in the same Christianity. It is that through which they have personal communion with others, founded on Christ; and that through which this fundament is possible, by the incorporation to Christ. And in this sense, the deification certainly is something real. But it is something that will be consummated in the individual and also in the personal communion. Precisely this “is real”, and this “will be consummated” (as everyone now loves to say, the synthesis of the “is already” and the “not yet”) is what constitutes the essence of eschatology. {443} § 2 ESCHATOLOGY This is the second aspect of the question, in what does it consist, and what is this éschaton, this eschatology? The ecclesial process, as vital process (a process of Christian living), which reverts on the substantive realities, but is acquired in a life of sameness in personal communion, and in corporeity with Christ, is precisely a process. Hence, Christ repeated constantly, and it appears primarily in the Gospel of St. Mathew (not by chance, but because it is the one that most refers to the Israelite community before Christ) that he had come to preach the basileía ton ouranón, the Kingdom of Heaven, actually the Kingdom of God. Indeed, the Kingdom of God is the dominion of God over man. Therefore, the Church cannot be identified with the Kingdom of God at all. There is no formal identity. The Church is not the Kingdom of God, but is precisely the process by which the Kingdom of God is made, which is a different matter. The Kingdom is present processably in a certain way realized, but inchoated, in many individuals. It still needs a consummation. In the same manner that the initiation to the body of Christ, and to Christianity in general by baptism is ordered towards Eucharistic fullness, likewise the processable presence of the Kingdom of God inchoated in the Church is called to consummation. The processable unity of both moments (of Kingdom of God and of presence) is given at two very precise points of the New Testament. One was given at the institution of order, and {444} Christ might not have repeated it, but he did, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained” (Jn 20:23; cf. Mt 16:19; 18:18). This exousía, the power of the keys, given with the power of order is precisely one of the aspects of the unity between the Church and the Kingdom of God. The Church, insofar as personal communion that has one Christian sameness, and is incorporated in Christ has the power of being the one to open the right ways towards the constitution of the Kingdom of God, and leaving aside what does not fit those ways. There is another passage in the New Testament, equally significant, where St. Paul tells us, writing about the resurrection, that the bread of which we all participate is precisely a token or promise of eternal life1. St. John in his Gospel repeats this constantly when writing, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (Jn 6:54). There is this intrinsic and sacramental unity between the personal communion of the people of God, and the Kingdom of God. It means that the effective and factual realization of the Kingdom of God is a realization essentially and constitutively historical. Creation constitutes the first phase of the constitution of the Kingdom of God; it is the projection of the Trinitarian life ad extra. In the second place, there is the living experience of this Trinity ad extra in the form of sin. In the third place, there is the form of a berit, of a Covenat with Israel. In the fourth place, there is a different fundament for that Covenant, the life of Christ, which afterwards continues in the Church, constituted first by twelve persons where some are making others Christian, with a universal mission. {445} Creation is the first historical act of the process of the people of God, and the Kingdom of God. What is the structure of this process? A) History, at least from my point of view, it is not just a succession of realities. History is an opening and closing of possibilities, which is a different matter. That is why history is not formally constituted by facts; facts will be the actualization of capacities things have. History is constituted by events, which are the realization or the failure of possibilities. History is in this sense constitutively successive and eventual. Hence, the characteristic of unity between the people of God and the Kingdom of God is precisely what constitutes the intrinsic historicity of the Church. History as history is nothing but the event of the possibilities of the Kingdom of God. Possibilities that are not always increasing, many times they fail where one might least expect them to fail. Consequently, to say that the realization of the Kingdom of God upon Earth has to be consummated means that the final terminus of this historical process, its éschaton, is precisely the Kingdom of God. Here we have the first dimension of eschatology, the Kingdom of God is the communion of the in the body of Christ, and therefore, the deiformity of all men in the unity of Christ. B) Have not written the word “all” in vain. Certainly, not all men are going to enter the Kingdom of God. But it is not because they have not been baptized. The famous phrase “there is no salvation outside the Church” that gave so much trouble and pain to the medieval theologians does not mean that the only ones that will be saved are those who have explicitly belonged to the Church. Not at all, what is meant {446} is that all who are saved (belonging to the Catholic Church or not) are saved ultimately because since they derive from Christ, they also derive from the Church. Every salvation is Christic (Sp. crística), which does not mean that all those Christically saved belong to the Christian faith. The good Buddhist is saved Christically precisely because he is a good Buddhist, and not despite having been a good Buddhist. Therefore, there is a universal moment that is essential. The Kingdom of God is, in the first place, the éschaton, the terminus towards which the historical process of the people of God tends. In the second place, it has a characteristic of unity, of a unity, which is the deiformity of all men. And this means that historically the Kingdom of God is the historical unfolding of that, which radically constitutes the very origin of humanity, the projection ad extra of the Trinitarian life. Needless to say, the Kingdom of God (and therefore, the communion that formally constitutes the Church) is purely and simply the deiformity of the personal communion in and by the Trinity. C) But this éschaton must be reached. And this only occurs in a personal manner. Precisely because it is the case of a personal communion it only occurs if it occurs in each of the persons that are in that communion. For that reason this éschaton has to be reached through the process by which each one realizes in himself that in which the Kingdom of God consists. The deiformity in Christ is initiated by baptism, and made into fullness by the Eucharist. And the Eucharist is, in the first place, a full incorporation to Christ. In the second place, it is an intrinsic and formal assimilation of the reality of Christ. And in the third place, a deiformation, which makes us live religiously. Therefore, in these three dimensions, taken at the same time, is what consists in each individual the processable characteristic through which {447} each person makes its own éschaton, its own ultimateness. 1) Of course, this makes us reflect upon what we are individually. In the first place, each human being is one of the finite ways God has designed to make that his Trinitarian life may exist outside of him. Each man is a finite way of being what God is. And there is no exception to this at all, not even for the lowest of the condemned. We all are a molding ad extra of the Trinitarian life, which consists in being finitely what God is. 2) But there is a second aspect that belongs to the question, but is another side of it. The projection ad extra of the Trinitarian life is not simply to be finitely what God is, but also to be like God. And the finite way to be like God is precisely the freedom. That is why freedom is essential to the projection ad extra of the Trinitarian life. And here is where that internal drama is played, which consists in the different possibilities man has of Trinitarially having an éschaton. Man, by virtue of his liberty, can live in this world in two ways. He can live conversely (sit venia verbo) towards God, i.e., immersed in the Trinitarian life. And he can live in an aversive way, turned away from God. Sin, even the one that most separates us from God, never stops being a kind of negative likeness of the Trinitarian life; it is to live the very Trinity aversively. Conversio and aversio are the two modes of the substantive being determined by freedom in the formal structure in which every man consists, i.e., in the projection ad extra of the Trinitarian life. 3) However, this life is not only made freely in conformity with these two modes, but it has an essential {448} and unappealable characteristic, which is precisely its limit, death. What is death? What is that limit? One might simply think that it is a limit, and that life ends there. This may or may not be from natural reason, but from the point of view of Christianity that is not the case. That limit is not a limit, but a limitation, something different. It is a limitation of the state of life here on Earth. Therefore, as a limitation, which man is, man has an intrinsic and formal characteristic, immortality; he does not die in that death. Certainly, this is a truth purely of faith. At least, I agree with the theologians that have thought that way. I mentioned many years ago that man is immortal because his life is eternal. And his life is eternal because it is Trinitarian. For this reason it is a truth of faith, because it is founded precisely on the Trinitarianism of that in which the very creation of man consists. Death is not a limit, but a limitation of a state of life in this world. It is a limitation of the processability. Therefore, death has a second characteristic; it is fixation. Death is fixation to the manner of being that one has definitely acquired and has freely achieved. The éschaton, what is last and final, is something decided through freedom. What will happen to me in the next world is what I have desired to be (through an efficacious will, of course) in this world. It is an éschaton, which consists in a fixation into that, which I am now engaged in wishing to be. Nevertheless, fixation is not some kind of stubbornness because that, which constitutes the presence of God in the human spirit (whether conversely or aversively) is, as I mentioned when discussing the baptism and the life of Christ, a power, the power of God. Therefore, that in which man is fixated is in the seizure that man {449} suffers, bears or experiences of that which seizes him. Fixation is seizure. The fact of the matter is that this fixation and this seizure are not univocal. That is the question. Death as limitation, as fixation in the éschaton, and as seizure, does not have a univocal sense for the one who dies seized conversely or for the one seized aversively. The phenomenon is univocal from the point of view of an organism that disintegrates; that is another question. But from the point of view of the characteristic with which it affects my personal reality it is essentially different. The power that seizes the one living aversively towards God, and is fixated in the aversion is precisely the power of sin. That is why the éschaton of these persons is precisely what we call hell. Hell is not a jail where sufferings and punishments are imposed. God does not impose sufferings or punishments on anyone, not even the condemned. That is absurd. The sufferings of someone condemned are something different. The fact is that the one condemned is really and actually wishing with all his freedom, but also with his entire fixation the seizing of sin in which his situation consists. If someone condemned could say, “well, the truth is that I have been an imbecile, why have I done these things? If God would only forgive me...”, at that moment God would forgive him, and he would enter heaven. What happens is that he cannot say it, simply because he is seized by the power of sin. The one condemned does not suffer pains that have been imposed on him, but suffers the pains in which his situation consists. That paradoxical situation is to live Trinitarially the aversion to the Trinity, and therefore, to be really and actually wishing to be in the situation he is. The case of the one that dies conversely, i.e., of the one that dies seized by the power of God is different. Then, death has a different sense; it is an incorporation to the very death of Christ. The sacrifice of the Cross precisely consisted {450} in that, in overcoming the power of sin, which had taken him to the cross, by the power of God, to whom he made the oblation, and the offering of his life as expiation for all sins. For the one that accepts death seized by the power of God, Christ took on himself that death, and made and makes for each one, what his own death was for him, a step from Earth to Heaven. But, in what does Heaven consist? Heaven consists purely and simply in being fully and eternally what we have wished to be in and for Christ. After all, condemnation or Heaven does not consist in anything but giving us the being that really, actually, and freely we have acquired and are wishing. In the case of Heaven it is the full and positive deiformity. That deiformity is expressed, from my perspective, in three concepts. a) In the first place, to know God. This is mentioned clearly by St. John, “Now this is eternal life, that they should know (ginóskosin) you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ” (Jn 17:3). But here ginóskosin translates a Hebrew and Aramaic verb, yada’, which means to know, but in a very radical sense as when it is said “I have not known sickness”; “I have known misfortune”; “I have known woman”. Here to know is not an intellectual gnosis, but a knowledge through intimacy with a personal reality. And certainly to know God as intrinsic and formal moment of Heaven is not an objective vision, but a knowledge through intimacy. It is an intimacy, which is the effusion of the Holy Spirit of the Son to the Father. This immersion in that radical Trinitarian structure is what constitutes the intimateness in which Heaven, in the first place, consists. b) But, in second place, it is not only to know God, but in addition to be happy in that knowledge. It has generally been understood that beatitude is to feel happy, the fruition. It is the old argument between Scotus and St. Thomas Aquinas {451} on whether the ultimate root of Heaven is a knowledge (according to St. Thomas) or an act of fruition, an act of the will (for Scotus). I prefer to shade these two ideas with something more profound and radical, because Heaven as beatitude does not consist in feeling happy, not at all, but in something infinitely more radical. Let us remember what the term eudamonía meant for a Greek. A Greek would not call a child eudaímon, he would say he is fine or feels good. He would call eudaímon the mature man, the expert politician, the virtuous man, Socrates, for example. Talking about the gods a Greek would still use a more extreme term like makários, blessed, which Christ would apply to all the poor on Earth. In the end, happiness for a Greek, described in these terms, means to arrive to the plenitude of form, to what formally constitutes the morphé of man, to what is his nature. And this form displayed in the fullness of its formality is just what the Greek eudamonía would be, to be the fullness of what one is, and in this case, man. Nevertheless, I do not think that is the case of a Christian in Heaven. In the case of Christianity it is the case of something completely different. The one that lives and dies seized by the power of God not only tends towards one thing, but has a deiformity in himself. Consequently, beatitude in the next world does not consist only in being contented, happy and joyful. It consists, first and above all, in the full unfolding of the deiformity with which one has entered the next world. Man, in Heaven, not only feels happy for having a God one can possess and live, but for knowing oneself as deiform, for being a small god. That which had constituted the radical sin of pride as exordium of life, here it consists in a donation through the life and death of Christ, of the beatitude in the next world. Beatitude consists {452} in being formally and reduplicatively deiform in act, in being small gods. c) In the third place, Heaven is not only knowledge through intimacy and beatitude in the sense of plenitude of deiformity. In addition, this beatitude is integral; it has a moment of integrity. The fact is that actually the I of man seized by God is an I in its own way theandric because it is deiform. That I is something that reverts, through the identity of the substantive being, which the I is, over my own substantive reality. Then, my substantive being, through the death and resurrection of Christ, and sacramentally in fullness through the Eucharist, is a regenerated and deiform being. Its reversion to my substantive reality makes in its own way of this substantive reality, through identity, a regenerated and deiform substantive reality. To put it more exactly, it is resuscitated. The repercussion of the deiformity of the being of the I upon the substantive reality in Heaven is precisely a resurrection. And here is where the character of the sóma pneumatikón appears. When I referred to the sóma pneumatikón in St. Paul (with respect to the resurrection of Christ, and now with respect to the resurrection of the dead) it might appear that one is referring to a kind of spiritual phantom. Nothing of the kind, sóma pneumatikón does not mean a sóma made of spirit (that would be a kind of phantasmic evanescence), but a sóma determined to be a body, and it is determined precisely by a spirit, something entirely different. This determination is to be a body vivified with eternal life, and not animated with terrestrial life. Of this body St. Paul said the Eucharist was a token or promise2. We will all resurrect with Christ because Christ has resurrected, and we precisely receive {453} the token or promise of our resurrection in the incorporation to the body of Christ through the ecclesial body. And this is precisely the éschaton, to be what we freely have willed to be, in aversion to God or immersion in God. And the unity of all men in the immersion of the Church is precisely the Kingdom of God in this world, and also in the next. Thus, we have seen here what the Church is in its origin and fundament, what the Church is in the structural characteristic of its unity, and what the Church is insofar as a way to an eschatology. But we might leave a question hanging if we were not to say, in what follows, that Christ not only had promised to be with men, but that he had promised to be with them even to the consummation of the world (cf. Mt 28:20). This presents one last problem, in what does this permanence of Christ consist in the heart of the Church, a permanence, which has as an essential moment the evolution of revelation, and the evolution of dogma? _______________ 1 Zubiri probably refers to 1 Cor 11:26, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes”, although here the context of the resurrection is missing. Other related texts are Rom 6:4, and 1 Cor 15:20-28, but in them the Eucharistic subject is missing. 2 The token down payment or promise of future payment is referred by St. Paul to the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 8:23; 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; Eph 1:14), to Christ (cf. 1 Cor 15:20; 15:23), to Israel or the Church (cf. Rom 11:16; 2 Tm 2:13), or to specific persons (cf. Rm 16:5; 1 Cor 16:15). --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 5 (454-467) --------------- {454} § 3 HISTORY OF DOGMA Up to this point I have mentioned what the Church is as something founded by Christ. I indicated that the Church is constitutively a dynamic sameness in Christ, and transmitted from some men to others, a personal communion with Christ, and also a communion, which exists in the form of incorporation to him. The problem then appears concerning what are in a more precise way the characteristics of this presence of Christ in the heart of the Church considering that the people of God, and therefore the Church, is a constitutively historical reality. At first sight this would appear to present no problem at all because, obviously, that things may be in history is something common to the Church and to the stars. But it is not the same to be in history than to be historically in it. The sun, for example, is in history, but is not in it historically, just physically. On the other hand, Christ is not only present in history because the Church is historical, but is in it in a most precise manner, historically. This presents a problem, I repeat, concerning what the presence of Christ may be in the very history of the Church. It is the case of a Church composed of men in which Christ can be and is present to all those men in a manifestative experience of what is present to them. Manifestation (shall follow with more details) is precisely revelation. Therefore, the problem of how Christ is present historically to the Church is just to determine what is that intrinsic and {455} formal historical characteristic revelation has. This demands that we ask the following questions. In the first place, what is revelation? In the second place, how does revelation occur? In the third place, to whom is this revelation made? And in fourth place, in what does the intrinsic historicity of revelation consist? I. What is revelation? Revelation, above all, is a donation from the part of God. It is God giving of himself his own real truth. In the second place, this donation is certainly a knowing, but a knowing through intimacy, as the Hebrew verb yada’ mentioned above expresses. This is the knowing of a friendship, the intimacy of a person. It is not a speculative and theoretical knowing, but a knowing through intimacy. And this donation through intimacy of God as real truth is principle of life. It is essential not to forget this, that it is intrinsically necessary for revelation, as its own constitutive ingredient, to be principle of life. The rest is speculation. And in third place, precisely by revelation being a principle of life, it is in the life of man with all its dimensions where this donation is clearly manifested. Manifestation is in what revelation precisely consists. This is the reason we shall never be able to understand the donation of God to man based on revelation, but (the reverse) we have to understand the revelation of God from the donation he makes of himself to man. And he can make it precisely because man is constitutively and formally a religation. Therefore, in his religation man has {456} the manifestative experience of that to which he is religated. In the first place, man is religated to the power of the real. This is a fact common to all men. In the second place, in that power of the real is discovered, through intelligence, the reality of God. In that case, it is manifestative experience, in one form or another, of the reality of God. And in third place, through an option of faith, if one thinks that God is the Christian God, then it is not only the manifestative experience of the power of the real, and the reality of God. It is but a special and concrete manifestative experience of that, which thematically we shall call revelation. This revelation is a manifestation, a phanérosis, and it is such regardless of the form it may take. There is no necessity for it to take one form only. It can have many. Patently, the way many of the books of the Old Testament are compiled demonstrates this quite well. They begin with creation, the interest of the first chapter of Genesis is not to provide a theory of the origin of things, but precisely to make of creation the first manifestative act of God in creatures. The second great stage is the constitution of the very history of Israel, which is based on two concepts. In the first place, to the constitution of the people of Israel corresponds the concept of election; it is the chosen people. And, in second place, the type of the historical progress of that people, which is summarized in fidelity or infidelity. And at one and the same time, the election and the fidelity constitute the very essence of what the Old Testament calls berit, Covenant, Alliance. This is why the reality and the historical progress of the people of Israel are the reality and the historical progress of the Covenant. This is known in the stages that the Deuteronomic writer puts in his theology, such as, the Covenant of Yahweh, the fidelity or infidelity to Yahweh, the anger of Yahweh, and the repentance. The third great moment is the life of Christ, who is the subsisting revelation. {457} And there is also a subsisting revelation, which is given to us precisely in the Spirit of Truth, constitutive of Pentecost. Therefore, revelation is a manifestation under many forms. With this base established, we now ask how this revelation occurs. II. How does revelation occur? We tend to think that revelation is a dictation. This is simply absurd; there is no such dictation. Obviously, God could dictate a revelation in Hebrew or Greek. He has not done so, no doubt about that. Revelation is not a dictation; it is simply an illumination of intelligence regardless of the form it may take. This illumination can be direct, obviously. Isaiah has a vision resembling the one anyone might have had seeing an Assyrian king seated on his throne with the seraphim, etc. (cf. Is 6). But regardless of how, revelation is not that. Revelation consists in the light this person receives to apprehend something through the human means he has and sees, but under a light different than the one these human means can provide. Because of this, revelation not only is not a dictation, but even reflection and positive work is not excluded from it (including deficient positive work). Revelation in this sense not only is not a dictation, but it does not even have to be a miracle in all its details, not at all. The man who receives the revelation is making his reflections, is judging the events occurring in life under a light and a criterion that, certainly, does not come from the events themselves. In this sense this special illumination should be called revelation. {458} III. To whom is this revelation made? Certainly, revelation has to be made involving within it the intelligence of those receiving it. The contrary would not be a manifestation or a revelation. This is true as long as it is not said, in the first place, that the revelation is exclusively and formally a revelation to the intelligence. That would be completely false. Revelation is a donation as principle of life regardless how manifestative it may be. But as principle of life it is something not limited to the intelligence. Revelation is not a kind of illumination to have an interesting knowledge, and perhaps even useful, but in and of itself it would only be nothing more than knowledge. Revelation involves intelligence, but is not directed exclusively to it. The contrary would be an absolutely insufficient notion of revelation. And in the second place, there is a dimension very usual in theology books, but formally false. It consists in saying that the intelligence receiving that revelation is the intelligence that judges and emits propositions and enunciations, the revealed enunciations. This is completely false. It is not the case here of a judicatory intelligence or the enunciative intelligence. It is the case, from my point of view, of intelligence in a much more real sense, and much more modest. What I have called numerous times the intelligence as apprehension of the real as real. Be that as it may, to understand something as real is precisely what constitutes intelligence. Precisely because it is revealed to some men, to realities endowed with intelligence, revelation from the part of God is something that in one form or another, involves the receiver of the revelation. Certainly, if not there would be no revelation. Revelation, one way or another involves the receiver of revelation in a very concrete form; it is given {459} so that man may give his heart to what he receives. Cor dare is the origin of the term credere, to fully believe. Actually, revelation is made to be fully believed by those who receive it. Those who receive it can be individual men, but it should be well understood that their individual revelation is to be communicated to others. And above all, those who receive it may be taken as a certain unity, but this unity is not an extrinsic unity. Precisely because man belongs intrinsically to the notion of revelation itself, and man is essentially historical, revelation is also historical or at least, in an essential way, a certain historicity belongs to it. IV. In what does the historicity of revelation consist? This is an important problem we must now consider. To say that revelation is historical is equivalent to say that the subsisting revelation, Christ, is a historically constituted truth. But this does not mean that it is a progressive truth. I believe it is one of the great exact audacities Suárez ever proposed was to think that it is not excluded from the history of revelation that during the course of the Church there may have been real partial obscurities of the revealed truth. This is evident. With a somewhat exaggerated expression, but a basic undeniable truth, St. Jerome wrote, “the whole world groaned and was astonished to discover it had become Arian”1. At any rate, the whole world is somewhat difficult, but Arianism certainly had an unbelievable extent within the Church and human society. There can be, of course, an obscurity, {460} which means that revelation, even while being the subsisting truth of Christ, is a revelation that at least is offered to man to be believed and accepted. But it is an offer. Thus we find that this offer is, above all, an offer to accept revelation. And what is offered to us in revelation is precisely the power of God. It is a power that is destined to be accepted by man and therefore, to seize him. The offer is a going through the seizure. And this seizure enters the concept of power. Cause is not the same as power. While cause is the functionality of the real qua real, power is the dominance of the real qua real. Revelation dominating the man that accepts it seizes him. Therefore, the historicity of revelation is nothing but the dialectic of this seizure. Still, this dialectic of seizure has very different strata. A) There is a stratum that is, in a certain way, the most obvious, revelation seizes man, an intelligent being. And this intelligent being, naturally, tries to understand in an adequate or inadequate way that, which is given to him and has seized him. It is the case of a seizure in which he has made a personal surrender of his human reality. Then the historicity of revelation as dialectic of the seizure consists in that the seizure, with which revelation seizes the intellect, this intellect understands better that which has been offered. In this sense revelation has a progress. Historicity means a progress, but a progress on the line of a better intellection. It is, what in a more or less generic way, I would denominate a theologic progress. {461} B) Nevertheless, there is a deeper stratum, anterior to the theologic progress. And it consists in the fact that the seizure, with which revelation seizes man, not only carries with it that intelligence conceptualize that which is offered to it, perhaps in a richer or more exact way theologically, but also that it may assimilate it better vitally. Here resides the dimension of donation in revelation. That which is offered to man can be assimilated vitally in a richer way in some moments more than in others, in some persons more than in others, perhaps in some eras more richly than others. Here the progress of revelation is not a progress at the conceptive level; it is formally a progress at the religious level. Revelation as fountain of riches seizing man and transforming his whole religious life does not coincide with theologic progress. But it is subjacent to the theologic progress, and without revelation there would be no such progress. Nevertheless, this progress is not the same as the theologic, but is a deeper progress, which we could call theological progress. It is not theologic; it is theological, it is the whole life of man in its theological dimension. C) But there is still a deeper stratum. Because, in this seizure man not only can better conceptualize that which is given to him (progressive revelation theologically), but can have more assimilation of revelation, and in this sense can have a greater discovery of the internal riches, which compose the revelation that seizes him. But there is also something apparently more modest, but quite crucial. The fact is that revelation itself, which is given and seizes man, becomes more manifest than it was before. This progress is not simply a theologic progress. Also, it is not a theological progress; {462} it is a much deeper progress. It is a real progress, which affects revelation itself. That is the question. Suffice it to remember, for example, one of the dogmas defined in the last era, the Immaculate Conception. Up to the IV century there are no testimonies that anyone believed it. By the time just before the definition of the Immaculate Conception there was an enormous school of theologians pressuring Pius IX to make the declaration. St. Thomas was wrong, together with other saints, with respect to the deposit of revelation; he believed the Blessed Virgin was not immaculate. Neither St. Thomas believed it, or St. John Chrysostom, or someone of the standing of St. Bernard despite being the one who wrote the Salve Regina2. Nevertheless, revelation has had a real progress. And in this real progress is where we precisely find the important difficulty concerning the historical existence of revelation. Because this third stratum of the real progress indicates to us that revelation, insofar as a manifestation and donation of God, is a manifestation that intrinsically has a progress. Therefore, from the point of view of God, revelation has an intrinsic historicity. What does this mean? So far it means that if revelation is intrinsically historical as revelation, i.e., in its very reality, then, revelation is not given to men in an ordinary way, for example like a treatise or something instituted that can be read, the way the catechism is given to men. Revelation is given to men in a different way; it is given to some so that they may transmit it to others. Which means that, in the end, the unity of those many to whom revelation is given is not a specific unity, but historical. It is not the case of men insofar as rational animals, but of some men that are continually receiving the revelation from others, and so on successively; it is a historical unity. And {463} because of this revelation, in this sense, is called, for example, euaggélion, the good news that is being announced from some to others; or rather, kérygma, preaching, etc. As I mentioned earlier, the foundation of Christianity from the part of Christ is to make Christians, and transmit what Christ has made with some to others. Hence, history is nothing but revelation in act. In an act through which, in the doing, what is truly done is being manifested. Since it is a manifestation that is being transmitted from some men to others in a historical manner, it means that the doing itself consists in a fixed way of giving, from some men to others, something that remains fixed in those receiving the revelation. This donation is what has been called parádosis, tradition. Tradition not in the sense that it may be something old and traditional, but in the sense of tradere, of something that is delivered. Therefore, the historical unity of revelation consists, first and above all, in being a living tradition where some men (Christ first and afterwards the rest) are communicating to others, in a manifestative experience of their life with Christ that, which constitutes the content of revelation. To ask, therefore, for the content of the intrinsic historicity of revelation consists, in the end, to ask for the content of the structure of this living tradition. Consequently, as I said with respect to religions in general3, there are three decisive moments in every tradition that we must specify in regard to Christianity, leaving other religions aside. 1) There is, in first place, an originating seizure. When revelation occurs, it remains fixed in those {464} that receive it as a donation. This is what forms the constituting moment of tradition, or the constituting tradition. This constituting tradition impresses a special characteristic upon those constituted in it. Above all, the constituting tradition is a giving from one to another, for example, Christ to the Apostles. And it is a positive giving, therefore, what is given is a positum, something placed there. But it is not only given to satisfy human needs; it is given for something different, precisely so that man may live from it. Hence, what is placed and given is placed and given to be kept. What is given in revelation not simply has the characteristic of a positum, but the characteristic of a de-positum. That is what the revealed deposit is. The revealed deposit is not simply something fixed by transmission, but something fixed by and to be kept in the vital intimacy of those who receive it. That is why the deposit is, in its radical and constituting moment in Christ, a delivery by Christ made in the effusion of hs own intimacy in the Spirit of Truth, in the Holy Spirit. The type of fixation can be varied. It can be written. In that case, fixation is associated with a theological characteristic such as inspiration. Inspiration does not consist in having a clever idea, not even of this type. Inspiration in theology has a very precise meaning; it is an action that is received. And second, it is received in order to write, not for any other purpose. It is received only for writing. And third, it is received for writing, but in order to teach without error in what is written. That is the crucial question. To teach without error, in the first place, what the author wishes to teach. It is not stipulated anywhere that what is taught should be things to be offered as models for man. There can be inspired texts, such as hundreds of pages in the Old Testament, where there is {465} no intention of teaching anything from this point of view. They only consign some traditions and legends from the history of Israel. That is something different, the aim is to present those things that were believed or had happened in Israel. There is no intention of teaching that what Israel believed in those days should be repeated. In the second place, it is the case of a motion to teach without error what the author wishes to teach, and the way the author wishes to teach it. This is another question. We are inundated with the idea of literary genre. I believe the literary genre is a subterfuge to avoid the fundamental problem. It is not the case only of literary genre; it is a question of intellectual and conceptual styles. The mental way of conceptualizing things for an Israelite from the time of the prophet Isaiah or the time of St. Paul is not the same compared to our time. Not only is there a literary genre, but also a genre we might call intellectual. It is the case of a motion to write and teach without error what the author wishes to teach, the way he wishes to teach it, and in third place, to those he wishes to teach. That is the third part of the question. It is not enough to distinguish the literary genre. The revealed books have been characterized as circumstantial numerous times. Yes, but this seems to me quite an external characterization even through I may have used it many times. More than circumstantial they are circumstantiated, i.e., in some particular circumstances, from a certain particular author, for some particular goals. What the revealed books contain of this circumstantiated mode is something that will have to be discovered through an interpretive way. However, revelation can be fixed through writing or any other way. Nevertheless, despite the way revelation may be fixed, it is above all an absolutely concrete revelation. In the second place, in that concretion, the purpose is to help those who receive the revelation from others. In this sense, from the point of view of its constitutive moment, {466} every revelation is a paidagogía, a pedagogy, as St. Paul said (cf. Gal 3:24-25; 1 Co 4:15). And in third place, it is a pedagogy to transcend the limits of what has been taught in a certain way towards truths that perhaps may be taught in other ways, and of course, reach further beyond the circumstances that required the previous revelation. 2) The second moment of tradition is a seizure of others, but not by the depositum. Let us take, for example, the case of Christ. Christ, as man, disappeared from the surface of the Earth a long time ago. His deposit has remained. And then that deposit is transmitted to other persons. What seizes each one is the deposit he has received from those that initially received the deposit of revelation. In this case we do not have the merely constituting tradition, but we have the tradition in a second dimension; it is the continuing tradition. Certainly, in it we have the depositum. But it is not a depositum received simply to be kept, but a deposit that has permanence from delivery to delivery. Therefore, it is the case of something that is offered to man as a depositum, but a depositum with a characteristic in a certain way reduplicative, and the second power of the depositum; that is what I would call the propositum. It is proposed to man, to believe that, which constituted the deposit of the first revelation. It is a propositum, not simply a depositum. This propositum is not (I repeat) a new communication of teachings, but establishes the possibility for a personal life. As such, the propositum is not different from the depositum, but is purely and simply (and this was essential never to have forgotten it) the reactualization of the primary deposit. The propositum consists precisely in reactualizing it at later moments and circumstances, and obviously with a particular {467} perfectly determined direction. If in the constituting moment that direction was called paidagogía, here the direction has a more complex characteristic, it is didaskalía, teaching. Christ not only was at the beginning of tradition, but is also contained in its depth, continuing it precisely as great didáskalos, as the great master in the bosom of the people of God. 3) But tradition has a third moment. In the seizing with which the revealed deposit seizes the intelligences of those receiving it, and the successive ones of those that have it as proposed, what is given to revelation can be made more manifest. Then tradition is not simply constitutive or continuing, but also has a third dimension. It is a progradient tradition. That is the real progress of revelation. Of course, this real progress of revelation impresses a special characteristic upon that, which progresses. Certainly, revelation is not going to be altered with this, but there will be a real progress. Then, this means that the depositum does not function here purely and simply as propositum, but as a suppositum (as a supposition, in the etymological meaning of the term) of what is going to come next. It is a suppositum of progress. We then face the crucial point of the question, and we must ask the following. In the first place, what is this characteristic of supposition revelation has in the progradient tradition? In the second place, in what does progress consist? And in third place, what is the structure of this progress? _______________ 1 “Ingemuit totus orbis, et arianum se esse miratus est”, in St. Jerome, Dialogus contra luciferianus, no. 19, in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina, vol. 23, Paris, 1845, col. 172. 2 [Tr. note: Based on legend. Contemporaries and companions of St. Bernard (1090-1153) never mentioned it. Modern scholarship attributes the Salve Regina to either Herman Contractus [1013-1054] or St. Peter of Mezonzo, Bishop of Iria Flavia and Compostela (985-1003) in Galicia, Spain. William Durandus [1237-1296], famous French canonist and expert liturgical writer assigned it to St. Peter of Mezonzo in his Rationale divinorum officiorum written in 1286. Presumably, pilgrims to the tomb of Santiago in Compostela (discovered in 829), spread it widely throughout Spain and Europe] 3 Cf. X. Zubiri, The Philosophical Problem of the History of Religions, op. cit., pp. 108-111. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 5 (467-478) --------------- {467} (cont’d) a) What is the characteristic of the suppositum? For reasons that would be too lengthy to explain here I have never been satisfied with two concepts, which theology has used to conceptualize in what the progress consists. {468} Theology does not mention suppositum, but what I call suppositum has been conceived, in the first place, as a germ. A parable is brought in, which Christ used not for this problem, but in general for the entire history of the Church, saying that “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed (...) it is certainly the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of herbs and becomes a tree...” (Mt 13:31-32). Another concept, taken also from a parable of Christ that has been used by some theologians, is the yeast, which ferments the bread dough, and gives it a greater volume (cf. Mt 13:33). Germ and ferment, this would be the progress of revelation1. However, I tend to believe that the characteristic of supposition for the progress of revelation does not have the characteristic of ferment or germ, but is something different. And it is different because that is the substratum upon which progress is riding. A substratum does not have to be a germ necessarily, not at all. Furthermore, the characteristic of substratum is precisely what impedes that the thing acting as supposition may acquire the characteristic of an internal and intrinsic increment. Certainly, all the abilities of the germ are given in the germ, but it is quite easy to project on the germ ideas that would be completely alien to the progress of revelation. But then, it seems that to say it is a substratum is to enunciate the most obvious fact in revelation. This is not true because, for example, all the revelation of the Old Testament does not have the characteristic of substrate. It is a revelation in which there is, not only a substratum, but also a real {469} progress. The revelation of the Old Testament is progress insofar as revelation, and not only a progradient tradition. The content of revelation keeps increasing, which means that each stage is imperfect. It keeps increasing, and in addition it is always open. Yet, in the New Testament just the opposite occurs. Certainly, in the life of Christ and the Apostles revelation was imperfect, it kept increasing and it was open. And it was open in the very person of Christ. Christ received his Messianic mission at the baptism in the Jordan and only afterwards, after leaving Galilee, he thought he had to die. And only later thought that death had to be expiatory. Needless to say with the Apostles, who even after the resurrection of Jesus Christ had asked him “are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). Of course, Christ told them no. Anyway, revelation in the New Testament has not had the characteristic of a substratum; it has been much more than a substratum. What is certain is that with the death of the last Apostle revelation was finished, which means purely and simply that revelation as deposit, proposition, and supposition merely has a characteristic of substratum. That is another question. However, in some manner this substratum is destined to have more internal ingredients. Certainly, this characteristic of substrate has a negative moment; there are no more new revelations. But a second characteristic is often forgotten, which is essential to the question. There are no more new revelations, but with those we have there is an exigency to have a real progress. Then, in what does this internal exigency consist? This internal exigency, so far, affects the totality of revelation, what I might call its synoptic moment. Nevertheless, it is the exigency for the revealed to be revealed more. This is the second point. What is it to progress? {470} b) What is it to progress? To progress is, of course, to give of itself. And what it gives of itself is the real truth of God, which consists in Christ. Christ is not only at the beginning of tradition, he is not only continuing the tradition, but he is there revealing more of that, which he revealed once. And therefore, that which is being constituted in this progress of revelation, more than the revelation in it, is that compact characteristic of this substratum that has been revealed to us. It is precisely what St. Irenaeus called the sóma tes aletheías, the body of truth2. The progress is the progress of the substrate. The revealed deposit cannot, at certain moments, continue to be the same except by progressing. And precisely that is the essence of progress. It is not only the case that there may not be new revelations, this would only be a merely statistical question. The important point is that there are moments in which the initial revelation cannot continue being same to itself except by progressing. And then, in that necessary moment of progressing towards identity is in what the very essence of the progress of the substrate consists. It is the actualization of sameness. For example, it will be enough to remember what the Council of Nicea was. With its philosophical concepts inherited from Alexandria and Antioch the Council of Nicea defined the consubstantiality of the Father with the Son. However, there is no doubt that these philosophical concepts did not form part of the dogmatic definition. What is certain is that at that moment what constituted the essence of revelation (that the Father and the Son may be the same thing, the same what) could not be expressed except using the concept of “consubstantial”. The same happened afterwards in the Council of Chalcedon. This council {471} tells us that in Christ there are two natures and one person. Undoubtedly, these concepts do not form part of revelation. Christians during the time of the Apostles would have never had an idea of the difference between nature and person. However, at that moment it could not have been possible to maintain the reality of Christ as only one who and two what’s except by using the philosophical concepts of nature and person. We have seen that something similar took place at the Council of Trent. It was not possible to enunciate the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, facing the nominalist controversies, except by using the concept of substance. The only way to maintain on certain occasions and under certain conditions the identity of the revealed deposit, of the propositum and the suppositum, consists precisely on having this progress of definition. Therefore, historicity is not only extrinsic to revelation, but in one form or another belongs to it intrinsically. Progress is an actualization and reactualization of the sameness in different forms, which in addition always leave open a problem of adequation. There is no dogma defined in history (even taking the entire history of mankind at the end of time) with which the sum of all the dogmas may adequately enunciate the content of revelation. In conformity with revelation, all of them, but adequately, none. If we now take tradition unitarily in its three dimensions we then find that it is nothing but the perennial actuality and reactualization of revelation. Tradition is purely and simply the actualization of the presence of Christ in the Church. Because of this, tradition and Scripture do not constitute two fountains of revelation, but two forms of revelation. Hence, it is essential to underline that the concept of tradition {472} we have used here is not an historical concept; it is a theologic concept. From the point of view of a historical science tradition is understood as the continuity of a documentary proof. Is there a tradition that Pythagoras may have discovered the mathematical theorems attributed to his name? Not an extensive one, some have said no, and others have said yes. However, they are in the Elements of Geometry of Euclid, and clearly we do have an historical continuity of this. However, this is not the concept of tradition we are discussing here. The concept of tradition here is purely theologic; it is the reactualization of the revealed deposit. Let us take the case of the Immaculate Conception. Even though during many centuries it may have been unknown and denied by many, this privilege of the Blessed Virgin, there is no doubt indeed, belongs to tradition. Because (whether known or not known by man) it forms part of that, which was in the revealed deposit, and therefore, is reactualized at each moment. Tradition does not consist in having testimonies of the Immaculate Conception, but in that, which is reactualized identically throughout history, involving or not involving the idea of the Immaculate Conception, which is a different matter. Hence, this is the case of a theologic concept, not historical. Thus, revelation insofar as terminus of a progress is precisely what is called dogma. For example, the dogma defined at Nicea, the dogma defined at Chalcedon, the dogmas defined at the Council of Trent. And to ask what this dogma is simply takes us to the third point. c) What is the structure itself of progress? To answer this question it will be necessary to raise an issue, the most difficult. How are dogmas brought out from the revealed deposit? That is the central issue. One of the most representative positions (I am merely {473} enunciating them) was offered in a book by Newman at the end of the XIX century, which made history in the theology of the evolution of dogma, on the development of dogma3. To me it seems like an error, not because I think everything Newman says is incorrect, but because it has been characterized as a theology book, and it is really a book on apologetics. The book tries to justify all the definitions that have been given, and does not refer to the inner mechanism of a dogmatic definition, which is a different matter. And in second place, because there is an incorrect point. Newman throughout his entire book (despite all the enormous variations) assembles the legitimacy of dogmatic progress around the idea of what an organism is, something developing from a seed towards its fullness. Basically, it is the idea of the biological germ. This is not correct. That which leads to a dogmatic definition, does it have to be necessarily the development of a germ? I do not think so. The other point of view, much more classical, belongs to the speculative theologians from the XV to practically the XIX century. These have thought that what leads to a dogmatic definition is a reasoning in which the major premise (arranging the case in syllogisms) enunciates a dogma of faith. There is a minor premise, and if from faith, the conclusion is also from faith. This is obvious. But more frequently the minor premise is not from faith, but a proposition merely from philosophical reason. For example, Christ is really present in the Eucharist. Minor premise, it is the case that the radical reality is substance. Conclusion, therefore, there is transubstantiation; Christ is present by way of substance. But then, is this conclusion definable as a dogma of faith? Thomists, always quite confident, have answered yes. But this is more than problematic by fact and {474} by right. Problematic by fact, when or where has the Church ever defended substantiality as the structure of reality and transubstantiation insofar as defined? To have faith this is so, and that even the Pope may believe it, is a different matter. For the Pope, does this function as a revealed truth? Evidently, at the present time, no. There is no doubt about that. And in second place, it is problematic not only in fact, but also by right. Even if that were the way (and it clearly was at the Council of Trent) to reach the definition of a dogma (in this case, that Christ is really and not apparently present in the Eucharist), this way does not form part of the definition itself. The same happens with the definition of the saints. Regardless of the number of miracles listed, none belongs to the canonization, which is purely and simply the indefectible act of a Pope who says that so-and-so is in the catalog of saints. The reasons that lead to define a dogma do not form part of the definition, unless it is expressly mentioned, and that case has never existed. Because of this, from my point of view, Suárez was perfectly right when he affirmed that what has been called theological conclusions are not definable4. They would be defined purely and simply by a special act of God who assists the Church, which Suárez considers as a kind of equivalent revelation. The equivalent revelation appears to me as the height of unacceptability, but on the other point Suárez was right. Actually, the dogmatic progress is not the case of a biological germ or a logical conclusion, but of something else. aa) It is the case, in the first place, that the dogmatic progress always occurs within a perfectly determined human situation. A particular situation of the whole man, {475} not only his intelligence. And of the whole man in a completely religious situation. The matter is quite clear, for example, in the same case of the Immaculate Conception. Thomist theologians attempted to lock into a syllogism the definition of this dogma. Not in the famous enthymeme attributed to Duns Scotus, but probably by Eadmer of England, according to which potuit, decuit, ergo fecit, but in a syllogism with the major starting with kecharitoméne (Lk 1:28). At any rate, with hindsight anything can be fitted into a syllogism, including reading these pages. But this does not mean it was the way to discover it. The great masters of speculative theology did not admit the Immaculate Conception. On the other hand, a few poor Franciscans felt the devotion to the Blessed Virgin as the Immaculate Conception. And it is there where the truth of the deposit of revelation was. The revealed deposit, and therefore, the progress, is inscribed in a situation of the whole man, and also in a religious situation. bb) In the second place, this situation is a situation of seizure. Revelation is offered precisely to be admitted by man and therefore, to seize him. By virtue of this, revelation is offered to man as a system of possibilities, which may seize him or not, depending on whether he accepts the revelation or not. The seizure belongs to the order of possibilities, not the order of germs or logical conclusions. cc) Among these possibilities, since they are manifestative, they all carry as an ingredient a possibility of comprehension. But it is of comprehension under certain completely determinate situations. In the ancient world revelation had to be made understandable to Greek reason. Afterwards the issue could be amplified, as I will show next, addressing what we might call the European or Western reason. But, {476} is it the case that with these the capacities and situations for the comprehensibility of a revelation that seizes man are exhausted? How can anyone say that other mentalities, other civilizations, other ways of thinking with a different religious tradition may not be the elements to which the revealed deposit directs itself in order to have a richer and obviously progressive comprehension, compared to what we have? How can we deny there are many mental and intellectual elements in the Brahmana texts to be able to apprehend in what the Incarnation consists? Nevertheless, these possibilities involve possibilities of comprehension. And all these possibilities of comprehension are destined for man to appropriate some of them. Yet, in this appropriation there can be mistakes. The list of possibilities may be rather large and some possibilities may be suitable while others may not. What this means is that if we take the body of the Church as a set, it does not have a teaching infallibility, but it does have an infallibilitas credendi (infallibility of belief). If man appropriates some possibilities he has to investigate if they fit in the revealed deposit, if they do not there would be an error, and not a true progress. However, in order to fit we must have some criteria. Personally I tend to solve this problem in the following manner. In the first place, there is a criterion for sameness, that they all may attest the same thing. It is the case, of course, of the original witnesses of the revelation. For example, for all to attest that they saw Christ resurrected. No contemporary of ours has ever seen him. Even though someone today may be blessed with a revelation, that revelation would happen today, and not during the day it happened, which leaves the question standing. It is sameness, a criterion for sameness. {477} In the second place, there is a criterion of permanence. In this case we might consider sameness not only as testimony for what happens, but for the genuineness of the revealed deposit. From my perspective this is what constitutes the much handled testimony of St. Vincent of Lerins, “quod ubique, quod semper, quod ad omnibus”5, “that, which is believed everywhere, always, and by all”. The curious thing is that St. Vincent used that criterion against the concept of original sin of St. Augustine, which later became a dogma of faith. The fact is that this criterion is an assertive criterion, as a scholastic would put it. Certainly, what is believed always, everywhere, and by all can be definable. However, what is not said anywhere is that to be definable it has to be believed by all; assertive, yes; exclusive, not at all. There has to be a third criterion. Together with the criterion of sameness, and the criterion of permanence or genuineness we would have to introduce a third criterion, what I would call the unity of “con-spiracy”, of cum-spirare6. Let us be clear about this, a conspiracy in which the entire body of the Church conspires. It is a spirare, and therefore, a way of sensing the life of Christ through the Spirit in their individual and collective hearts. But, in addition, it is a cum-, that is, that it leads to the same thing. And it leads to the same thing not by a mere material coincidence, but through a formal coincidence, precisely knowing it leads to the same thing. Indubitably, this con-spiratio has to be taken throughout long periods of history. Otherwise the contrary would be absurd, and would lead us to believe that Arianism was true during the time {478} of St. Jerome. The Church has, from my point of view, a con-spiratio, a conspiracy, a common aspiration. And in it is manifested not only the sameness of the revealed deposit, and its constant genuineness by everyone and everywhere, but something different, the very fertility of the revelation of Christ in the Spirit of Truth. _______________ 1 Zubiri refers to the well known work by Cardinal J. H. Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, London, 1897 (10th ed.), specially pp. 73-74. 2 Cf. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus haereses, bk. 1, ch. 9, no. 4, in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series graeca, vol. 7, op. cit., col. 548. 3 Zubiri refers again to the book quoted above An Essay on the Development of Christian Dogma. 4 Cf. F. Suárez, Tractatus de fide, disp. 3, sec. 11, nos. 1-12. 5 St. Vincent of Lerins, Communitorium primum, no. 2, in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina, vol. 50, Paris, 1846, col. 640. 6 The concept of conspiracy is used by Zubiri with respect to the dynamism of the social body in his Estructura dinámica de la realidad (Dynamic Structure of Reality), 1989, op. cit., pp. 265-266. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Chapter 5 (478-486) --------------- {478} (cont’d) Of course, these criteria are purely moral criteria. And it is necessary to know if these possibilities, even satisfying these criteria, are actually fulfilled or not fulfilled in the deposit of revelation. The fulfillment of a possibility is what I call an event. And therefore, the fulfillment of a possibility in the order of comprehension is a truth, but a truth that has the characteristic of event. It is an historical truth. The fulfillment of some possibilities of comprehension, in this case the deposit of revelation, is historical1. Consequently, the dogmas of the deposit of revelation are not brought out from it via the biologic way of evolving germination or via logical conclusion. They are brought out in a completely different manner, historically. In other words, through the richness of the internal possibilities that revelation itself offers. Because of this, strictly speaking, I do not believe the evolution of dogma exists, what exists is the history of dogma. Dogmas are what has been revealed before, but more revealed through the intellective seizure of man by the real truth already revealed. Then we can ask how were these dogmas present before they were brought out? After what we have just said, I do not believe they are there virtually. This matter of virtualities is something never clearly defined in theology. I do not believe they are there implicitly. What do we mean by implicit? Do we mean, for example, that in the kecharitoméne the Immaculate Conception is implicit? {479} Why implicitly? I do not believe it is there virtually or implicitly. It is there in a different way. It is there as possibilities are in the reality that has properties, which makes that these possibilities may exist. The air, metals, engines have real properties dating back for a long time. Only recently a few years ago these properties have been the fundament of a possibility, aviation. Are the possibilities of aviation contained in the metals germinally, virtually or implicitly? This seems absurd to me. Does this mean metals have nothing to do with that reality? This also seems absurd. The possibilities are in the reality from which they emerge and of which they are possibilities in a different way that I might call fundamental. Every possibility is founded on real properties, and this is precisely what fundamentality is. Hence, dogmas are in the deposit of revelation inasmuch as revelation is fundamenting its own properties of being more and better revealed. Because of this the history of dogmas is, ultimately, a stepping march towards them, but through a historical way, not through germination. Thus, when one places his faith on the Church at a certain moment, it is not the case that one implicitly believes the dogmas not yet defined. One may believe implicitly in the sense of saying “I believe everything that will be said later”. But that is not the case, the purpose is to know what this means objectively. And what is believed is that these dogmas not yet defined are in the deposit of revelation fundamentally (in the sense I have just explained), but undiscerningly2. And what does undiscerningly mean? Here, it is not the case they may or may not be in act, but that they are not as act in historical actuality. {480} Before its definition the Immaculate Conception had no historical actuality. The dogmas are revealed, they are contained in revelation as possibilities are contained in that, which fundaments their possibilities. That is the reason why the definition itself, as I have said, is not a new revelation. Not even on its own, because with the death of the last Apostle revelation is finished and concluded. And not even in an equivalent way, as Suárez argued, a great theologian, but unfortunately the heir of the syllogistic prejudices of the XV century. It is not the case of a revelation, formal or equivalent. Let us return to the starting point. All the history of revelation is purely and simply something that occurs in the body of the Church qua body of Christ, and personal communion with him. In other words, occurs with Christ present in the depth of the Church. Which means that just as the sacraments are the actions of Christ, which continue repeating the actions of his life in the persons that receive them, analogously the definitions revelation continues to experience in the course of history are really his actions. Certainly, men construct them, but with reference to Christ. Just as baptism is an action of Christ, also the dogmatic definitions that take place in history are his action. An action of his, which has a most precise characteristic, a dogmatic definition is not an action in which the Church defines revelation, but is purely and simply Christ defining himself, which is a different matter. We have first class examples of this in the evangelical history. Under some particular circumstances the Pharisees told Christ, “We are descendants of Abraham” (Jn 8:33). And Christ answered them, “Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad” (Jn 8: 56). They told him, “You are not yet fifty years old and you pretend {481} to have seen Abraham?” (Jn 8:57). And he answered them, “before Abraham came to be, I AM” (Jn 8: 58). They tried to stone him, but Christ left. Obviously, Christ defined himself here due to the pressure of external circumstances. That was not a simple question they were making so that he might respond theoretically. It was pressure that made him define himself. There are other examples. At the Last Supper, when Philip said to Christ, “show us the Father, and that will be enough for us” (Jn 14:8). And Christ answered him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip?” (Jn 14:9). He defined himself there in his consubstantial filiation. Pressure made him define himself. Practically at the same time, when he said, “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me” (Jn 16:16), the Apostles made him define in what his divine preexistence consisted (cf. Jn 16:17-28). And then they told him, “Now you are talking plainly, and not in parables” (Jn 16:29). Furthermore, when hours later Caiphas tells him in the name of the entire history of Israel, “I order you to tell us under oath before the living God whether you are the Messiah, the Son of God” (Mt 26:63). And he answered, “You have said so” (Mt 26:64). That was an act of definition by Christ. The questions they addressed were not questions for him to respond, but questions that forced him to define himself. All this was a definition by Christ. The history of the Church with all its dogmatic definitions precisely continues this history. Christ is defining himself throughout the historical circumstances. This is why the definition is an act of Christ just like the sacraments. Then we may ask how do we achieve the definition? Precisely by that, which constitutes the presence of Christ in the bosom of the Church, the Spirit of Truth. This is the reason I mentioned above the infallibility of belief (infallibilitas credendi) in the entire body of the Church {482} taken historically. In some of its hierarchs there is the infallibilitas docendi, but the truth is that this second infallibility is granted and is real inasmuch as it forms part of the first. They are not two different infallibilities. To think that an ecumenical council receives its infallibility from the Pope is chimerical. It would not be infallible without the Pope, but it is not such because of the Pope. That was a bad theory of conciliarism, to believe that the Church is the Pope, the cardinals, and the bishops, while the rest of us join in. Not at all. The fact is that taken at one and the same time the infallibilitas docendi and the infallibilitas credendi constitute only one thing, the infallibilitas corporis Christi, the infallibility of the body of Christ. This infallibility is not merely negative, i.e., it is not assistance in order not to err, but in addition it is an interior illumination. Certainly, not in the form of a new revelation, but in an interior illumination that will allow us to be able to define accurately the identity of the revealed deposit. This is why infallibility is not something extrinsic, like a kind of guillotine, which falls on the history of revelation, but precisely the opposite. Infallibility is the organ of the historical identity of revelation. It is an organ of historicity. And this is precisely what makes it possible that there be a progress. The opposite would be to leave revelation in the hands of a motion, without knowing what it is going to give of itself in the course of history. Clearly, there is no progress except where we have a substrate of identity, whether in revelation or anything else. The progress of revelation is, therefore, essential to revelation. In the first place, because the history of dogmas is not only the history of the vicissitudes of revelation in the bosom of human history, but that history is something that belongs to the very constitution of revelation. They are not external vicissitudes that befall it as if revelation might be better {483} without those great historical vicissitudes. Revelation is constitutively historical. History belongs to it. And what is constituted in it is precisely the body of truth. The body of Christ is what gives its consistency to the sóma tes aletheías, whose actuality, consistency, and expressivity are conferred to the dogmatic evolution by the presence of Christ. In the second place, historicity not only intrinsically belongs to revelation, but also belongs to it in a formal way. With this I mean, in the first place, that revelation is not historical simply because it is submerged in history. Of course it is. But revelation is historical, in the second place, because it is affected by history, just as Christ was affected by history. But there is something else. Revelation is not only historical because it is submerged in history, and affected by history, but because history belongs to it intrinsically. It is not simply revelation and Christ in history, but his presence in it historically. Revelation is in history, but historically. Christ revealed himself not only in history, but has revealed himself historically. From this point of view the Spirit of Truth is nothing but the very history of revelation insofar as history. Progress is the revelation of the seizure of man in the Spirit of Truth. And precisely because of this it is an action of Christ, the action of being constituted as sóma into the body of the Church. That is what happened to Christ in his biographical and personal life. His entire biography was the theological experience of his own divine filiation. It can be said without fear of error that the history of dogmas is nothing but the theological and historical experience of the revelation Christ has, and with him, his Church. This historical moment is essential to Christianity. Christianity in the modern world found itself facing, in first place, {484} a form of reason, scientific reason. She found herself facing scientists. This was the occasion for a lot of noise, but it had little effect on theology. In the second place, she faced philosophical reason. That was more serious. It was a philosophy that had an idea of intelligence and concepts quite different than the one the Greek world had. The Church debated, not with great success, because it did not have much, but it was not a total disaster. But at the same time Christianity had to present the content of revelation facing a third type of reason, historical reason, which acquires its great plenitude in the philosophy of Hegel. Historical reason presents, from my perspective, a problem that is not usually considered in theology, but it should. Theology books, when they discuss dogmatic progress understand it in a way similar to the question, for example, whether the dogma of Chalcedon was or was not in the Synoptic Gospels. Or if transubstantiation is or is not in the account of the Last Supper, etc. They try to justify each dogma. Of course, this is essential, and without it there would be no question, but I believe the question must be approached from a different point of view. We must approach the history of dogmas in the totality of the constitution of the sóma tes aletheías, the body of truth. Not each dogma, but the set of all dogmas in their internal connection, unfolding and constituting themselves during the course of history. That is the question, history as a whole. The history of dogmas is not purely and simply the history of one or twenty dogmatic definitions; it is precisely the very historicity with which revelation lives historically in the bosom of the Church. Because of this I believe the problem is much more important than justifying, as Newman did, each one of the dogmas. The history of dogmas, from the point of view of the present, is the confrontation of Christianity {485} with the entire theological history as a whole. For some, God in his history is dead, that was the phrase of Nietzsche. For others, like Hegel, God lives. The life of God consists in God making himself, is becoming a being. It is a becoming in himself. In that case, the historicity of Christianity as a becoming of God himself would be purely and simply the absolute reason, the idea, which is being molded in finite concepts through the course of history. It was, for example, the method introduced into the history of dogmas by F. C. Baur precisely at Tübingen3. Nevertheless, in all modesty I do not believe that is the structure of the historical totality of the dogmas. In the first place, the history of dogmas is not the life of God. It is not the life of a God who is making himself, and is reaching to be, but is the life of a God who is making being by donation, something quite different. He is not making himself, but is making that creatures be. Therefore, the occurrence to which revelation is subjected in its most intimate and deepest strata is purely and simply God giving of himself, i.e., occurring in another, in this case, in the body of humanity. This occurrence, in the second place, is a projection ad extra of his Trinitarian life. And this projection manifests. The history of dogmas is the history of this revelation, and not the history of the physical reality of God himself. But still, in a deeper dimension, God not only gives himself ad extra to creatures, but also gives himself concretely and historically in the person of Christ. Therefore, God is not only in history, but in addition he is in it historically. And this historical being-there (Sp. estar) is a theological experience of the possibilities for manifestation of Christ. The dialectic of revelation is not the conceptual unfolding {486} of an idea, but the theological experience of God, historically, ad extra. However, historicity is not what is most radical in Christianity. What is radical is that historicity is a giving of himself by God. And this giving of himself really and formally consists in deiforming that, which he creates, and that in which he is going to be realized. Because of this, above and below of history is precisely the personal deiformation of each man. Each man has to make his own substantive being religated by the power of the real. In this religation a problem formally occurs, which is the problem of the reality of God. And to this God that the intelligence discovers as personal reality, living and unique, man can surrender. And this action of surrender is precisely what we call faith. Molded in the entire reality of man, individual and collective, it is what we call religion. And, in the option of Christianity, it is precisely Christ and Christianity, as person and also as history. _______________ 1 The historicity of rational truth and its relationship with logical truth have been discussed by Zubiri in Inteligencia y razón (Intelligence and Reason), op. cit., pp. 301-307. 2 In the seminar of 1967 Zubiri said “undefinably”. 3 Cf. F. C. Baur, Lehrbuch der christlichen Dogmengeschichte, Stuttgart, 1847, especially pp. 6-57. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Appendix (487-496) --------------- {487} APPENDIX EVOLUTION OF DOGMA1 Primarily, “dogma” means a truth expressly and formally revealed by God to men. As such, it is said to be an object of “divine faith”, where faith means a morally firm mental state of belief that involves by its own essence a strictly intellectual assent. It is said this faith is “divine” as much by its object (an immediately revealed truth by God) as by its fundament (the authority of God). “Evolution of dogma” expresses that the initial revelation made by God to men is something that continues to develop in the course of history, providing in it a great flourishing of religious truths. These are truths that the Church defines infallibly as contained in one form or another in the initial revelation, and because of this they are also dogmas. As such they are called “divine-Catholic” truths of faith. To distinguish them from those of the initial revelation we shall call them “defined dogmas”. Except when noted to the contrary or by the context of the phrase, when discussing dogmas we usually refer in general to the defined dogmas. {488} In this concept is contained the problem of the evolution of dogma together with the essential topics it covers. The problem of the evolution of dogma consists in determining with rigor the articulation of the dogmas the Church is defining with the initial revelation, or if you will, with the initial dogmas. This articulation is expressed in a very precise concept; the articulation is “evolution”. The structure of this evolution as articulation of the defined dogmas with the initial dogmas is precisely the problem of the evolution of dogma. In the previous definition there are involved two questions the clarification of which constitutes the structure of the evolution of dogma, namely the following. § 1. What are the initial dogmas, i.e., what is the initial revelation out of which the defined dogmas are developing by evolution? § 2. Why and in what form is this revelation evolving?2 § 1 THE INITIAL REVELATION Revelation is the manifestation (phanérosis) of God or of something he communicates to men. This manifestation is made to the whole man. By virtue of this, it involves above all a moment that is essentially and strictly intellectual and it is in this moment that the formal reason for revelation consists. But nothing is exhausted in its formal reason; this is why revelation is also not exhausted in a “mere” manifestation to the intelligence, but other moments not exclusively “theoretical”, so to speak, do constitute an essential part of it. A) First, revelation as intellectual manifestation. As such, it occurs in an illuminatio, and it concerns something supernatural, it is an illuminatio supernaturalis. Insofar as reality is manifested to the intelligence the revealed should be called “truth”. Therefore, revelation is formally the manifestation of a truth to men by God; it is a divine truth. But this truth is not primarily and formally the truth of the intellectual act in which I apprehend it, but that, which is manifested insofar as reality. That which is revealed is a truth, but understanding by truth the true “reality”, the reality in its condition of truth or, what I might call, the “real truth”. What revelation gives us is “manifest reality”. Therefore, the manifestation itself must be understood from the reality manifested, and not the reverse. From the point of view of reality, the manifestation is something more than a merely objective and intentional moment. It is a gift, a “donation” {490} of reality to the intelligence. Formally “manifestation” is nothing but the intellective mode of the donation, a divine donation of light. The manifestation must be understood from the donation. Either by its terminus or by its own proper character, revelation is, therefore, a question of reality; it is the reality that is given or manifestly communicated by God to man. In order to understand this correctly some fundamental observations are needed. 1) Revelation is a question of reality. But this reality is not the integral reality of the thing as it is, in and by itself. Not everything the thing is becomes manifested when the thing manifests itself to us. God manifests himself to us as Trinity, and in this revelation the reality of God is manifested; but this does not mean that God may have exhaustively revealed to us in the Trinity everything He is (aside from considering this would be intrinsically impossible). Revelation as manifestation has a precisely delineated ambit; revelation is essentially “preciseness”. What does not fit in this ambit, although real and might be surmised by man on the basis of the revealed, is not eliminated by this from being something real or a revealed truth. The only thing we wish to say is that what God reveals is a moment of the thing insofar as reality. This will be essential to us later. 2) Revealed truth is not identified with the proposition or true judgment, which enunciates it or expresses it. The proposition has, of course, a truth of conformity or adequation with the revealed, but the revealed truth does not consist primarily or formally in the true proposition as such, but in the revealed truth as manifest reality. And this, either by what concerns the copula of judgment or by what concerns its conceptual termini. With respect to the copula “is”, the illuminatio is not originally the light under which God makes us {491} see the convenience of a predicate with a subject, but the light, which manifests before our eyes the revealed truth. The light of the copula is only the enunciative expansion of the manifesting truth. This is with respect to what concerns the conceptual termini, because these termini do nothing but expose the manifest reality, but in a non-exhaustive way, and rather much more poorly than it is. Because concepts do not always completely adequate themselves to the reality of what is revealed, but sometimes are only analogical. And also because every concept has a formal content (the ancients would say a “formal supposition”) much poorer than the reality in which they are realized despite not being but their realization. The conceived reality is much richer than the concepts with which we express it mentally. This is why the revealed reality leaves open an indefinite field of propositions and true judgments that will never exhaust it. This does not mean that the predicative proposition may not exist always in one form or another or not have a very important function. It always exists because in one form or another it is consubstantial to human intelligence to conceive reality manifested to it and to express it in true judgments; we shall return to this presently because it will be essential to us. But the function of the predicative formula, although most important, is not primary in the issue that concerns us. On the one receiving the revelation directly from the part of God, the function of judgment is, as I have just mentioned, derived; it is fundamented on a previous illumination in which the “presentation” of the reality occurs, its manifestation. Therefore, the proposition is nothing but a “re-presentation” of the reality already manifested; it has a truth, but fundamented, not the originating and fundamenting truth. And in one receiving the revelation in the form of mere transmission, the proposition does not formally have an “enunciative” function, but rather a {492} “presentative” function of the reality that enunciates. The proposition transmits to us the first line of presence of a reality, which is eo ipso infinitely richer than what the said proposition enunciates formally and with truth about it. Revelation does not consist, therefore, in a series of true theses, but in the truth insofar as manifested reality, such as the Incarnate Word, his redemptive death, the sanctification by the Holy Spirit, the dispensation of grace by the sacraments of the Church, etc. The manifest realities in revelation can be called dogmas. But in general these realities are called such insofar as expressed in enunciations, in formulas. In other words, dogmas are the true formulas, which enunciate manifest reality. If they immediately enunciate the initial revelation, the formulas are called “articles”; if they enunciate the defined dogmas they are more properly called “dogmatic formulas”. Sometimes we also designate all enunciations with the latter name, even though they may be articles. Therefore, the articles and the dogmatic formulas are true, but they do nothing but enunciate the strict truth of the revealed truth, fundamented upon it and never exhausting it. 3) Although the manifestation of reality qua reality may be always anterior secundum rationem to the dogmatic formulas, however, it formally contains a strict “knowing”; it is not the mere presence of an inert block facing intelligence. The fact is that to know is not primarily and formally to judge predicatively. The lover “knows” about love and the beloved with a knowing prior to any enunciative predication, and infinitely richer than the sum of all imaginable predicative propositions. It is a strict knowing, but an “ante-predicative” knowing that is intrinsic to communicating with manifest reality. In the one receiving the revelation directly this knowing involves an “acceptance”, also ante-predicative, of such {493} reality, a “belief” (Sp. “creencia”) in the most etymological sense of the term, cor-dare. Reciprocally, every belief involves a moment of strict ante-predicative knowing; it is a belief that “knows” what it believes. And the judgment does nothing but to express in the form of a predicative adhesion this primary knowing belief, which serves as a base for it. Because of this revelation is not made necessarily in the form of a propositional “dictation”. Thus, for example, the Apostles did not enunciate the divinity of Jesus Christ in forms conceptually as precise as the councils, but they dealt with it and pointed to it as God. They had a knowledge, an infuse and ante-predicative sense of the plenitude of the divine realities, a knowing that, although not always encased in formulas positively rigorous, however, was much richer than the one the conciliar formulas give us in the course of the post-Apostolic history. A knowing, also, that as infuse knowledge it was exhaustive; so much so, that all the subsequent formulas are nothing but its expression. And Suárez himself tells us that Christ did not need “to say” with words what his Mother was; it was sufficient to show her and honor her the way he did in order to allow us to understand what she was. Thus, when transmitting to us the manifest reality, in its very manifestation is transmitted that primary and radical knowing, the “initial” knowing. Of course, the ante-predicative knowing does not exclude its enunciative predication; furthermore, if it has to be transmitted with fidelity it inexorably needs some enunciation. And in fact, the Apostles bequeathed to us the manifest reality as reality, in a knowing not only ante-predicative, but in numerous formal enunciations that the Church will do nothing else but explain. However, it will always be the case that the ante-predicative knowing is richer than the enunciative, and it is to the former that we have to appeal to explain the latter. Therefore, because of its own formal reason, revelation is {494} the donation or communication by God to men of a real truth, i.e., of a manifest reality. But this does not yet constitute the whole formal reason of revelation as intellective manifestation. I insisted, actually, that manifestation is nothing but the intellective mode of something more radical, of a donation to intelligence. Consequently, manifestation is not only donation, but also an intimate possession of the intellectively understood reality, a possession certainly only intellective, but yet a strict possession. Something better, therefore, than the mere objective and intentional presence of what is manifested. Reality is, in every intellective act, not only “donating”, but also “bringing intimacy” (Sp. “intimante”)3; and in every intellective act manifestation is, at one and the same time, the intellective mode of donation and possession. And this intimate possession of reality in its manifestation is what the Hebrews called yada’, “to know”. It is the fullness of that ante-predicative “knowing” intrinsically inscribed in the intimacy with the manifest reality. The intellectual act, because of its own essence, is never a mere and (in a certain way) extrinsic vision of what is conceptually understood. And this radical unity of donation and intimacy in manifestation is the complete formal reason of revelation. B) But, as I warned in the beginning, nothing is exhausted in its pure formal reason; the formal reason of something is one thing, but its integral reality another. From this follows that the integral reality of revelation is not exhausted in the formal reason we have just exposed, the integrity of what revelation is covers something much vaster. Revelation, actually, is made to the whole man and not only to his intelligence. It is not only an objective “notification”, but it is also a donation and something with intimacy precisely so that in the manifest reality and from it, man may realize his own life. In this sense of integrity, the revelation, {495} the dogmas are manifest and vivifying realities, verba vitae, and the illuminatio itself is lumen vitae. Obviously, revelation on this line may remain dead because of man, without ceasing to be revelation for that reason. We should understand that to be vivifying “in actuality” is something that does not belong to the integral reality of revelation since its vivification may remain impeded. But impeded or not revelation is always “inchoatively” vivifying; revelation is the inchoation of divine life in men. It is intrinsically “principle” of life. And this characteristic, although it may not constitute a moment of the formal reason of revelation it is a necessary part of its integral reality. Every intellectual act actually is, as we have pointed out, a possession, an intellective intimacy of what has been intellectualized. When that, which is intellectualized has nothing to do formally, by the fact of being intellectualized, with the very man that intellectualizes it, this possession is nothing but an intellective experience of the thing, a contemplative fruition in its manifestation. But when that, which is intellectualized is manifested precisely and formally to be principle of life, then, its characteristic of principle is nothing but the inchoative expansion of what is formally the manifest reality as manifest; it is an expansion of the intellective intimate possession in vital intimacy. In that case, the characteristic of principle is not an appendix or an extrinsic adjunct to manifestation; it is something that despite not being its formal reason with respect to the type of what is manifested, it is a necessary property of the manifestation through the reason for its existence. In short, revelation, through its own formal characteristic, is {496} a manifesting donation and intimacy of the revealed truth as reality, and in its integrity it is a manifestation inchoatively expanded into a “principle” that can be impeded of human life, and from that reality. This is what the initial revelation is. We shall add that by its own character revelation has an evolving characteristic, i.e., it provides for a series of defined dogmas, why and in what way? That is the second question we must examine. _______________ 1 The text we present here, typewritten by Zubiri, comes from 1967 and has the following dedication: “To my dear Fr. Ellacuría this intimate memento with a deep sense of friendship, gratitude and hope (Jan. 29, 1967)”. Zubiri had dealt with the problem of the evolution of dogma in the 1965 seminar, as can be seen in The Philosophical Problem of the History of Religions, op. cit., pp. 305-321. The same subject was undertaken again in December of 1967, and in the 1971 seminar, to which the previous pages belong. This chronological difference must be considered when studying the pages that follow. 2 Zubiri intended to cover four questions. (1) How are the defined dogmas pre-contained in the initial revelation? (2) How are the defined dogmas brought out from the initial revelation? (3) What is the organon of this dogmatic evolution? (4) In what does the definition itself consist? Actually, he only covered the first two. 3 (Tr. note: Zubiri neologism) --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Appendix (497-508) --------------- {497} § 2 EVOLVING CHARACTER OF TRADITION That the initial revelation expands into a series of “defined dogmas” in the course of history, i.e., which possesses a characteristic that, in order not to prejudge future questions we shall call progradient, is above all a verifiable fact. But it is also a doctrine that the Church has constantly claimed for itself. In the first place, the Church has always applied to itself in some sense (we shall see, which one) what Christ said to his Apostles, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when He comes, the Spirit of Truth, he will guide (hodegései) you to all truth” (cf. Jn 16:12-13). And in second place, it is a constant affirmation in the whole of tradition. Suffice it to recall, for example, two contemporary Fathers of the Church. First, a Greek Father, St. Gregory Nazianzen (329-389), who insists that God is declaring little by little to the faithful the truths discreetly enunciated in the beginning. Second, a Latin Father, St. Augustine (354-430), for whom the Church is only acquiring the full understanding of its doctrine in the course of time. At almost the same time, St. Vincent of Lerins (V cent.), the great theoretician of tradition, formally and expressly teaches the dogmatic “growth” (crescat) and “progress” (proficiat) in a famous passage that the First Vatican Council reproduces literally, and makes its own1. Further historical details would be superfluous. {498} But it is not enough with a verification of the fact or this doctrinal affirmation. We need to know why revelation is progressive, and what is the formal characteristic of this profectus. Indeed, revelation is progressive “constitutively”, and its profectus, its progress, is formally “evolution”, as it is commonly said. I. REVELATION IS “CONSTITUTIVELY” PROGRESSIVE The initial revelation is “constitutively progressive”; in other words, it is such by its own character. In such a fashion that the progress is not only a fact, but also an inexorable intrinsic necessity. We have seen, actually, that in its integral reality revelation is not something merely notified and contemplated, but a vivifying “principle”. If revelation is constitutively progressive its progradient characteristic must be inscribed in the way revelation is principle. The whole point centers on accurately detailing the characteristic that makes this a principle. A) Considered in itself, revelation is “principle”, but only inchoatively, since it can be impeded. Under this aspect, revelation is principle out of which a life “can” be brought out, and therefore, as principle it seems it might be a simple “potentiality”. But it is something more, because revelation is not there waiting as a dormant potency, but is something “donated-for” vivifying. Its way of being there, so to speak, is to be a positive candidate for vivifying, i.e., its mode of being there is to be there as “offered”. By virtue of this, it is principle {499} in a much deeper sense than “potency”; it is “possibility“ of life. Therefore, what man does when impeding it or not impeding it, is to accept or refuse it, i.e., to “appropriate it” positively or negatively. Let us just consider the positive, it is an “appropriation” of possibility. With this possibility appropriated, it is incorporated to us in a most precise way, conferring a “power” to us, something quite different than a “faculty”. In other words, the possibility appropriated by man “seizes” him. It is the essential cycle of every possibility as such. The thing “manifested” in “donation”, and “intimacy” is “offered” as possibility that man “appropriates”, and when appropriated it “seizes” him. This difference between potency and possibility is essential. It is not enough for a thing just to be real in order to be offered in the form of possibility. From time immemorial the resistance of air had been known together with its real properties. However, it has only been known for almost the last hundered years that the atmospheric air offered a possibility for travel. Hence, reality as principle of acts of the naked human potencies is something that by virtue of its properties has an active or passive potency for those acts to be performed. But reality as principle of actuation, not of naked potencies, but a particular “use” of them, is something that possibilitates that use. And in this precise sense we say it is possibility; its mode of actualizing this use is “seizure”, and its very actuation is the “occurrence”. We shall soon discuss these structures with a somewhat greater precision. Intellective intimacy, I mentioned above, expands into inchoative principle of life. Therefore, the inchoation is possibilitation, and the expansion is offering. Seizing man, revelation, as possibility of his life, possibilitates it in accordance with its structures and their concrete situation. Consequently, when seizing man, it molds the structures in a divine way, and revelation then unfolds its inner wealth, or indeed, the multiple {500} possibilities included in the global possibility of revelation. Let us consider only the manifestative aspect of revelation. Depending on the intellective situations of man, revelation expands, i.e., manifest reality is there in a richer way than in its initial manifestation; it has progressed. We shall soon discuss in greater detail how this happens. Nevertheless, because it is something that seizes man, revelation as possibilitating principle is constitutively progradient; it is not only a fact. In order to correctly understand this progradient characteristic of revelation we must distinguish in it several planes or aspects. 1) Revelation seizes human intelligence. And this seizure itself exerts a kind of pressure to which intelligence responds with a personal reflection, properly and formally human, on the manifest reality in order to apprehend its internal coherence and its articulation with the rest of the knowledge and the manifest realities. This is what “theology” is. The most modest human reflection of this type is already theologic. Its “scientific” structuralization constitutes theologic science. In this dimension, the progress of revelation is merely a theologic progress. As the work of personal reflection, exclusively, it is a constitutive progress, which can never fail to be performed by each one. When seizing man revelation expands into theology. 2) Another progress is quite different and fundamentally much deeper. When seizing intelligence, manifest reality forces it to assimilate it better, i.e., to progress in accordance to different ways of apprehending it on our part. In his faith a child apprehends distinctly, for example, the articles in the Creed, but not many other truths, which are simply gathered together in the act with which he believes “everything the Church teaches” (cf. DS 3011), even though not knowing with precision what {501} it teaches. As an adult perhaps he will acquire a more detailed knowledge of revelation. There has been a progress, which not only concerns the way of codifying the revelation among other knowledge, but also is a progress that concerns revelation itself. It is not a theologic progress, but dogmatic. But it is a progress concerning the way we reach to comprehend manifest reality. And this not only happens to children, but in one way or another to all men. To be aware of revelation, to be conscious of it, is a painful effort never concluded not even for the greatest of thinkers and the greatest of saints. We shall call it dogmatic-cognitive progress, a progress in our way of knowing revelation. By its constitutive characteristic, insofar as it is something that seizes man, the content of revelation expands with different degrees and modes of being assimilated, that is, apprehended and known. The purpose is to unravel revelation, in other words, the reality already manifest exactly and just the way it is manifested. 3) But there is, finally, a progress still much more profound. When seizing man, revelation not only forces man to assimilate it better each time, but this progressive effort of discovery may even have a repercussion on the revelation itself making it something more manifest than it was before. It is a progress that concerns revelation also, but not to our way of knowing and unraveling it, but to the very way the revelation is made, as it were, to man. Revelation in itself is manifest reality, but there are many different ways of being manifest. For example (nothing more than just “one”), there are real truths that God himself has manifested, but in a veiled way. When seizing the intelligence and the whole man they can remain manifest in a direct way and not veiled. That which {502} had been proposed to faith before, but only in a veiled way, now it is proposed directly. Regardless of the degree of knowledge we may have of the revelation, this revelation, before being unraveled cognitively by me and independently of my cognitive effort, has been presented in two different forms, reality in itself has been manifest in two different ways. For example, the Immaculate Conception, which up to a century and a half ago had only been manifested in a veiled way, now it is manifested directly, and expressly. There has been a progress, but it has been in the very mode the reality is revealed; it is not only a difference in the way of knowing it and unraveling it. By seizing human intelligence revelation has to be able to continue opening itself by its own form of manifestation. Since it is different than the previous one, we shall call it dogmatic-real progress. Its result is not a greater consciousness of revelation, but a greater mode, so to speak, of being revealed. This is the emergence of a “defined dogma”. Of course, in order for what we have just said to be true, it is not necessary that this happen in every intelligence seized by revelation; but sooner or later it has to take place, precisely and formally because manifest reality seizes man through its own mode of being manifested. It is a case of a necessary progress in principle. Therefore, three types of progress exist, a theologic progress, a dogmatic-cognitive progress, and a dogmatic-real progress. The three are constitutively necessary; because revelation is a possibility that appropriated by man seizes him and forces him in this triple way. On the one hand, pressing our intelligence until achieving a greater reflection and greater consciousness, and on the other, revelation at the same time opening itself in the very way of being revealed because of this pressure. These are three progresses of different qualitative and formal types, {503} but are, however, congeneric as a result of the intrinsically seizing characteristic of revelation. Hence, these three progresses almost always actually appear blended. And thus, what we must underline here is that when we mention dogmatic progress we refer strictly and formally to the dogmatic-real progress, to the progress in the very mode of revelation, to the very way reality is manifested there. The dogmatic-real progress is an inexorable consequence, I repeat, of the integral reality of revelation as something that seizes man. Since God makes revelation, precisely and formally to be a reality that seizes man, it follows that in the economy of revelation this moment of progress entered as an essential determinant of the mode of revelation. In other words, God has made manifest reality in a form initially quite varied, precisely “to be” able to allow for a real progress. The economy of revelation has been the economy of a real progress in the ways of manifestation. Therefore, by its own constitutive type the initial revelation is progressive. And this is made even clearer through a further consideration. B) Revelation, actually, was not made only to possibilitate the life of its direct benefits, but also to possibilitate “human life”, i.e., the life of all men from all times. And this involves new aspects of the question. We have already considered reality manifest “to” intelligence, i.e., to an intelligence that might belong to only one. But now we consider that reality is manifest to all. And this constitutes a new dimension of manifestation as such. Because the fact that reality may be manifest to all does not mean that each and every man, {504} distributively considered may have the same manifestation of reality than the rest. If it were only this, it would mean that among men there is a mere coincidence or material equality in the manifestation made to them. But here it means something more; it means that to each one, not only is the reality in question manifest, but it is also manifest that the same reality is manifest to all the rest. And this is no mere material coincidence, but a formal coincidence; it is a unity that is known formally and expressly as “one”, in a certain way a manifestation reduplicatively so, a manifestation of the manifestation. This new dimension of manifestation constitutes what is called “publicity”. Revelation is constitutively “public”, and it is so because it is a truth that can be reached by men. Truth is in and of itself, and in principle constitutively public. And the concrete way this public manifestation is accomplished is “kérygma”, in the primary sense of “annunciation” (only secondarily it came to mean “preaching”, the physical act that realizes it). Truth in the abstract is “denunciation” (which sometimes can take the form of “enunciation”; every enunciation is founded on denunciation). On the other hand, truth as public manifestation is “annunciation”. It is lamentable that the usual logic is only the logic of enunciation. Insofar as annunciation of something good, i.e., of good news, it was called “euaggélion”, Gospel. Nevertheless, precisely because the publicity is annunciation, it unifies the minds in what is announced. Men form a unity, but always being one “in” something. And one of those something “in” which men are formally one is precisely the truth. The truth is a constituent of a special unity among men, unity in the reality; every truth, every reality is, by the mere fact of being such, unifying. And this means, on the one hand, {505} that men are one inasmuch as they have “communion” in the truth. On the other hand, it means that precisely because it is a formal unity, in the sense just explained, men know each other as one in the truth, i.e., they constitute “community”. Their subjectual2 character is expressed in the “we”. The community is fundamented, in this case, upon the communion in reality. When the public revelation as such seizes the “community”, this community in the “communion” of revelation is the “we” as “faithful” (hoi pistoí). In the end, preaching as “annunciation” constitutes “publicity”, and published truth constitutes the “unity” of the “we”. Hence, revelation is constitutively progradient not only as denunciative manifestation, but also as annunciative manifestation. The annunciation, actually, could have taken place in multiple ways, but above all in the two ways that correspond to the two types of human unity that undiscernibly are involved in the expression “all men”. The “all” is, in first place, a specific unity. From this point of view, the “whole” of humanity is nothing but the mere “set” of all the members of the species throughout time. But, in second place, men also have another kind of unity. All those that surround each one constitute, actually, a social system of possibilities of life for this one member, a system that forms his “social body”. And each one, together with his social body also receives from the previous ones a system of possibilities for life. In this dimension, men have a unity, which is not specific; it is a historical unity, processual. In this process the possibilities for life are illuminated or darkened. And in this consists the formal reason for history, the historicity as such. Of course, the formal reason for history does not exhaust the integral historical reality. In it there are also, {506} or at least there can be, transmission of realities; but only the delivery of possibilities is what, in that transmission of realities, constitutes the formal reason for the historical. Let us point out, once and for all, that here “historical” does not mean historical science, but mode of reality. And as mode of reality it does not mean something ephemeral, decrepit and relative, but only the mode of reality proper to real and effective occurrences. To occur does not formally consist in reaching existence as a mere actualization of natural potencies, but in reaching existence as realization of appropriate possibilities. As mere actualization of potencies the fieri is a “motion”, something “natural”, and the result is a “fact”. As actualization of possibilities, the fieri is an occurrence, something historical, and the result is an “event”. In this metaphysical sense, “historical” and “history” are a mode of reality, nothing that may possibly suggest relativism. Assuming the above, from the first of those two points of view, the revelation made to one or several men could only be true for all men from all times. That would be so, if it had been made to those men not insofar as men of their time, but precisely the reverse, as men from any time. If we wish to use the metaphor of “elocution”, we will say that from this point of view, God would have talked for all times precisely because he would not have talked for any time in particular. And this would have been possible only if revelation were something that might be able to emigrate and float abstractly throughout time as an erratic block unaffected by time. Such would be the case of a revelation constituted by articles or theses like a supernatural code that would only be there to be understood or applied. But actually that was not the case. God revealed himself to all men from all times by revealing himself to some men precisely and formally as men of their own time, and in the form {507} of their time, constituting that way, in a temporally concrete way, the possibility of their lives. Therefore, this manifest reality must continue to be the possibility of life for the rest, for men belonging to other times, while it is also their own. In that case, then, this possibility must be delivered by the former, and received by the latter, in the proper form of their own time, as possibility of life granted to them. The predecessors leave us facing the same manifest reality as possibility of our lives. And in this is what history precisely consists. Its integral reality is the transmission of manifest reality as possibility of life, and its formal reason is the transmission of these possibilities; its seizure by those receiving them is formally an occurrence. Therefore, manifest reality is for all men from all times, but in unity and in a historical form. In the case of a mere specific unity, revelation would cover all times simply by being outside time. History would only be but a mere “vehicle” of a revelation made once and for all. And the economy of revelation would formally be “information”. On the other hand, in the case of a historical unity, the revelation would be in all times covering their totality by an intrinsic insertion in time. In that case, history is not a vehicle for revelation; it is not a mere occasion or clothing of revelation, but an intrinsic moment of it, an intrinsic moment of the manifestation of reality as manifestation, its very mode of being manifest. Because of this, the moment and the supreme form of revelation were precisely the Incarnation, whereby eternity has been inserted into time. Revelation is not an abstract principle without historicity, but just the opposite, because it is intrinsically principle of life. In the history of revelation, history is not an extrinsic vicissitude to revelation; {508} but is the actuality of revelation as such, the revelation in act. Let us clarify this affirmation. _______________ 1 “Crescat igitur oportet et multum vehementerque proficiat tam singulorum quam omnium, tam unius hominis quam totius ecclesiae, aetatum ac singulorum gradibus, intelligentia, scientia, sapientia: sed in duo dumtaxat genere, in eodem scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu, eademque sententia”, St. Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium primum, no. 23, in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina, vol. 50, op. cit., col. 668. The passage from Vatican I can be found in DS 3020. 2 (Tr. note: Zubiri neologism for the subject being affected by an apprehended reality in its first moment of reality, different from “subjective”, which denotes a second moment of the apprehended reality in the subject. Naked reality is the first, intellectualized reality the second) --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Appendix (508-519) --------------- {508} (cont’d) This actuality of revelation, like any other actuality that refers to the human being, can be considered from two points of view, as we indicated above. First, as actualization of natural potencies, and then, as I mentioned, the fieri is a movement, and its consequence a “fact”. In the case of revelation, it means it is an actualization of the human intelligence by the manifestation of divine reality (in one sense or the other). But the actualization may be understood from another point of view, as actualization of some possibilities; the fieri is then occurrence, and its result an “event”. And so, every possibility is rooted on a human condition according to which man is in every situation “super-posed” (Sp. sobre-puesto) to himself, and therefore, “put-before” (Sp. ante-puesto) that, which he is going to do in it, to the acts in which man is going to occur. Because of this, what we have called possibilities is something that has a double dimension. On the one hand, possibilities are those, which man has to make his own life, they are “his” possibilities. On the other hand, possibilities are those that things offer to him by reason of the “sense” they have by and for what man is going to make with them in his life. Therefore, possibilities belong to things, since things as such, through their real properties, offer possibilities for certain ways of occurring. It is not necessary to delve on the radical structure of the two aspects of possibility; suffice it to say that it is found on the “super-position” of man. By virtue of this, the offer of possibilities by things is rooted in the possibilities man has of confronting things in a certain way, so that only because man has possibilities of facing things in a particular way, these can offer to him their own possibilities. And since the actualization {509} of certain possibilities is an occurrence, it turns out that in the human act the reality of man occurs, but also the real things occur as moments of the human action. In the case of revelation this means that, as pure manifestation of divine reality facing any intelligence, revelation would be nothing but a simple communication or notification of divine reality through an illumination of the intelligence. But in fact it is not the case of a pure intelligence, but of a perfectly individual intelligence, which has, therefore, a limited repertory of possibilities to perform this act of intellective apprehension of certain realities. Consequently, there is no possibility that at any time or in any man, any reality may be manifested to him, much less a divine reality. It is not the case I mentioned above, of revelation as possibilitating principle of the divine life in man, but of what possibilitates the intellective manifestation as such. The necessary possibilities for it are, above all, those that concern the use of intelligence in a certain way in the order of manifestation of divine reality. But in addition, possibilities that in this order and according to that “possible” use, the very manifest reality may be offered to be known intellectually in one “stage” of manifestation or another. By virtue of this, the act of manifestation as manifestation is at the same time actualization of human possibilities and actualization of possibilities offered by the revealed reality itself. In its unity, therefore, this act is an occurrence of the human intellection of this manifest reality. In other words, revelation is in itself a historical act; history is the revelation in concrete and ultimate act. Of course, the possibilities in question do not always exist positively and formally; otherwise, there would not be any mystery for man that could be formally and essentially supernatural. {510} But in that case, the revelation of the mystery, besides the donation of the divine reality qua reality, involves the mobilization of human possibilities, a mobilization, which is a strict “elevation” to the order of divine reality qua manifest. The elevation consists, above all, in a “potentiation” of the naked intelligence, i.e., in its pure “illumination”. But it is also a “possibilitation”, i.e., the illumination of all the possibilities that intelligence had already acquired previously. Since the one cannot be given without the other, it turns out that, as concrete act, that illumination is a light internally qualified by the repertory of previous possibilities, i.e., an “historicized light”, a light that makes it possible to see the divine reality in a certain particular way. That is precisely the system of human possibilities of being able to move in the revelation. Therefore, revelation is a parte rei an occurrence of divine reality in that historicized light, something that occurs in ultimate concrete act. Once revelation has occurred in the one that receives it directly, he transmits this revelation to the rest, and is transmitted in the same form it has been constituted. Hence, he is transmitting the possibilities in order to receive the actuality of the divine reality, in other words, collaborating so that God may grant him those possibilities through elevation. That way each transmitting stage is, at the same time, an occurrence of manifestation, and a production of possibilities for transmission. Therefore, the very transmission is not a repetition of enunciations, but “conduction” (ágesthai), introduction of men to the actuality of manifest divine realities; not only “shows” God to men, but “takes” men to God. It is not an economy of information, but an economy of “pedagogy” (paidagogía), as St. Paul said (cf. 1 Cor 4:15; Gal 3:24-25). History takes us to revelation precisely because it is the very way in which revelation occurs. And the constitutive characteristic of this {511} transmitting occurrence is to be “delivery”, parádosis, traditio, tradition. Actually, in the history of revelation, as I said, history is the revelation in act of this occurrence, inasmuch as manifestation as in transmission, in tradition. Consequently, because it is tradition, revelation continues seizing men in their historical unity. Since history is a process, each man seized by revelation is like a new moment in the seizure of humanity by revelation. This gives rise to a progradient pressure on intelligences, but with an original quality. Tradition is, actually, the delivery of the manifest reality as possibility of manifestation, and of divine life to a social body (in order to simplify, I leave aside the fact that tradition is transmitted not only to one, but several social bodies more or less independent among themselves). Through tradition, revelation continues to seize men not only personally and individually, but also in their connection either inter-individual or social. This empowers and qualifies the inexorably consecutive progress to seizure. The pressure exerted by the seizure upon a person turns eo ipso into pressure of the intelligence of this person on the intelligences of the rest who had been previously seized individually by revelation, and exerted pressure over them. Hence, the pressure that the seizure exerts on each one is composed of his own and individual appropriation, and of the pressure that reaches him through the appropriations of the rest. Progress has been empowered and modulated; as such it is a progress in the social body. But there is more to be considered. Because, when revelation is delivered it is delivered in the concrete form it has taken on in the social body. Consequently, the seizure is happening through time, and the consecutive progress {512} acquires a historical character. The progradient efforts, which revelation produces constitutively are also taking on a form, which is constitutively historical. Of course, progress is not produced at the same time and equally in its three dimensions (apprehensive, theologic, dogmatic-real) in any time and place. That would be a fantasy. Progress has the slowness of historical time. Like any effort, it continues to be produced with a different rhythm in each dimension. It is not produced homogeneously in all men and all societies. When progress is lacking or despite little progress in some men, in some locations, and at certain times, inexorably, there will be some progress sometimes, at some places, and in some men. Where and how and in who is a secret that belongs to Providence. The only thing important to our question is that revelation is constitutively progradient, and that this progress is historical. Because revelation is seizing men in the processual unity of their history, i.e., because the history of revelation is in this respect the revelation in act and this act is constitutively progradient. In other words, revelation is constitutively progradient because it seizes men under the form of tradition. Tradition is revelation historically seizing all men. In order to avoid false interpretations from now on, we must now make the characteristics of tradition more precise as act of revelation. Tradition has three dimensions whose unity is its essential structure. I. Constitutive tradition. Tradition is above all, revelation, the manifest reality insofar as it is constitutively something to be “guarded”. Insofar as manifest reality, and nothing more, revelation is “posited” truth; it is a positum. But insofar as “guarded”, so to speak, {513} revelation is formally something different; it is not a positum, but a depositum, something that has to be guarded and protected. It is what we shall call constitutive tradition, the constituting dimension of tradition. Its constituting formality is, in one form or another, “fixation” into deposit. And this is more complex that it might appear at first sight. Revelation (positum) and fixation (depositum) are really distinct moments. But actually, since every revelation is fixated and has been realized in fixation, it turns out that both moments constitute only one real fact. Because of this, we shall take this fact as a single unit and will refer to it inasmuch for what it has of revelation as for what it has of fixation. 1) In the first place, the formal characteristic of fixation into deposit. While revelation as mere positum, regardless how public it may have been, is always granted to an individual and received by him, the fixation into depositum, i.e., as something that has to be guarded and protected, requires its own organon. Since Jesus Christ it is the Church in its hierarchy. It is the Church who is formally the depository of tradition. But “depository” is not the title of a merely passive and extrinsic relationship of the Church towards the deposit that has been left to her care. Just the opposite, it is an intrinsic relationship. The way revelation has been deposited in the Church is most precise. It has been deposited forming a body with it. The depositing as such is an action of Christ in the Church through which he made manifest not only what he revealed, but maintains it as positively manifest in the Church by the fact of being incorporated to it as its mystical body. As such the deposit is the actual and active presence of the “donating-God” through intellective manifestation. Thus, the action of Christ and the action of the Church are in a certain way only one action. And this is what being deposit is. For this reason, whatever we may say {514} about the dogmatic-real progress, it does not occur and cannot occur except “through” the hierarchical Church, but it occurs “in” the mystical body of the entire Church, and in a certain way, in Christ himself as present in its mystical body. 2) In the second place, concerning that, which is fixated. We mentioned it above. Revelation is not primarily a set of true propositions, but of true realities, i.e., of manifest realities insofar as real. That is what is fixated, and once fixated, forms the constitutive tradition. It is not only the case of propositions or historical fact insofar as mere documentary or folkloric confirmations or liturgical rituals or private and public devotions. Tradition certainly encompasses all this and does not exist nor would be able to exist without it; but it does not consist in this formally. All that is nothing but modes of fixation; but fixation as such is about the manifest realities on all that, regardless of the mode of fixation. What tradition fixates is the presence of the divine realities facing human intelligence for the whole man. Let us immediately add that there is an especially important mode of fixation, scripture. Its importance justifies a few comments about it. The character of scripture, as a mode of fixation of the deposit, is formally “inspiration”; it is a motion, an illumination and a divine assistance so that the hagiographer may conceive and write without error everything and only what God wished to be written. By virtue of this, and only because of this, God is the author of the book. That is essential. The author, in the sense of being the one who composes the book is the hagiographer; inasmuch as he is inspired, the notion of author is transferred to God, but only in the sense of being the inspiring author. To reverse this, to start from God as author of the book would be practically to make of the hagiographer, not a true author, but a mere scribe of the divinity. {515} Clearly, inspiration is not revelation. Revelation is fountain of knowledge and teaching. Formally, inspiration is mere fixation; it is not fountain of knowledge; knowledge is acquired by the hagiographer by purely human means often laborious, sometimes with poor results, as the Biblical text indicates (cf. 2 Mc 2:19-32; 15:37-39). It is not formally a teaching; it could be, but it is not so necessarily. It could simply be the fixation of traditions, including legends, the remembrances of natural and supernatural things, of mediocre ideas about God, which point to the vicissitudes of the stepping march of revelation. In other words, it might be simple information or, at best, a kind of “lesson” the historical experience gives to us. Therefore, inspiration is quite different from revelation. Not everything that is inspired is revelation; as a matter of fact, only the smallest part of the Bible is revelation. Not every revelation is necessarily consigned to the inspired book; it may be consigned to the organ that is the depository of revelation, to the Church. With respect to our question, let us limit ourselves to Biblical revelation. From this perspective, Sacred Scripture has two functions that must be carefully distinguished. One is just to be that, scripture. As such, it is only “one” mode, without doubt an excellent one, but only one mode of fixation of revelation. The other is formally fixating, so to speak, which is the naked presentation of manifest reality in the writing, and through the writing, but independently of the mode of fixation. And this is its primary and radical function with respect to revelation. Consequently, Sacred Scripture is only one moment of the constitutive tradition. So much so that it is the Church and only the Church that was given the responsibility to decide which of the religious writings were inspired, i.e., which ones were “sacred” scripture. 3) In the third place, the intrinsic historical characteristic of revelation and its fixation into deposit. I already anticipated this; {516} historicity is the concrete act of revelation; for revelation, history is revelation in act. It is such as simple manifestation or as tradition. Since we are going to use the term profusely it may now be convenient to avoid confusion and equivocation, to explain that “historicity” is used at least in three senses, whether it refers to “reality”, to the “narrative” or to the “narration” itself. In the first place, “historicity” designates a characteristic of “reality”, that characteristic we call occurrence through which “historical” reality is distinguished, for example, from “natural” reality. It is a mode of reality. In the second place, “historicity” may designate the characteristic of a “narrative”. We say that a narrative is historical when that to which it refers is true. Here, historicity is not a mode of reality, but a characteristic of the narrative, its truth; historicity is “veracity”. Finally in the third place, “historicity” can signify a characteristic, not of the narrative, but of the “narration” itself in which it is narrated; it is that characteristic, which the narration possesses, as a function of the men of an era, of the mentality with which they write, talk, etc. This triple characteristic of historicity as “reality”, as “truth”, and as form of “narration” is essential. To make this clearer, and anticipating what I am going to explain next, I should say that the historicity of the initial revelation as characteristic of reality that occurs is “transcendence”. The historicity of the “narrative”, its written fixation, is what I shall call “circumstantiality”. Historicity in the sense of veracity is the supposition of all this investigation, since it is the divine veracity. “Transcendence” is a structure of revelation, which has three moments. The first is a moment of “manifestation” of the divine truth. It is a manifestation made according to certain concepts with which the man who receives the revelation intellectually understands {517} the reality. To be manifest according to these concepts is what constitutes what I have called the concrete characteristic of revelation; revelation is a concrete manifestation of the divine truth. The second is a moment of “support”. The mind that receives the concrete manifestation of divine truth has, on the same line of the concepts with which he intellectually understands reality, his own limitations and imperfections. These, without ever contradicting what God is going to manifest, however, reduce him and diminish him. Hence, God not only “permits” these limitations, but also “supports” himself on them expressly and formally. In such a way, that scholastically we might say assertive sed non exclusive, so as to lead men to the fullness he wishes to manifest. To transcend is not simply to replace a truth by a superior one, but to reach for the latter through the former. And this reaching for is not merely a “conceptive” structure, but is a strict “being-lead-to” (Sp. “ir-llevando-a”) in the form of an occurrence; it is a structure with a processable characteristic, historical. It is a moment of transcendence insofar as it leads us to a superior terminus. But, insofar as it is a formation or capacitation of the very man to access this superior terminus, it is what St. Paul called “pedagogy”. Revelation in act, as any full human action, presupposes, as we saw above, not only potencies, but also possibilities. Therefore, each stage of revelation, not only leads to the next superior stage (transcendence), but also in order to accomplish it, supplies the possibilities for reaching that superior stage. This dialectic of possibilities insofar as possibilities is “pegagogy”; its actualization, i.e., the apprehension of manifest reality in a superior mode, is an occurrence, and this occurrence is “transcendence”. Transcendence is the actualization of pedagogy as effective apprehension of divine reality. {518} The third is a moment of “elevation“. In the fullness of manifestation the limitations remain not actually abolished, but rather overcome, absorbed into the superior truth; they are preserved through “elevation”. Transcendence is not only that the superior truth may contain the inferior, it is also a special mode of containing it. It is not necessary, actually, for the inclusion to be formal, i.e., for the inferior to be a mere particular case of the superior or only an aspect of it. It is the case of a relationship between two formally different modes of being, in such fashion that the inferior is realized in the superior, but in a different way, in a precisely “superior” way. It is a relationship of two formally different modes of being, but where one is “richer” than the other one, which is “poorer”. It is a relationship of richness to poorness, not of aspect or particular case to totality. By its richness the superior contains, through virtuality and eminence, whatever the poorer reality formally is. This mode of inclusion is what I call “elevation”. Manifestation, support, elevation, these are the three moments whose structural unity is what I understand as transcendence. It is not a merely relative quality, the mere superiority of one thing over another, similar to saying, for example, that the religion of Israel transcends other religions. It is a quality intrinsic to the very revelation in act. It is only because it has transcendence in itself, in the sense I have explained that it can have transcendence in a comparative or relative sense. In order to avoid confusion let us observe that many times I shall call transcendence a potiori only to the “elevation”, i.e., to the third moment of the whole transcendence. The whole transcendence understood as such is the structure of the historical concretion of the initial revelation; it is the initial revelation as concrete historical act. In such fashion that historicity is not an external vicissitude of the initial revelation, but the concrete act {519} in which it occurs, its own mode of constitution. This act is the transcendence. When revelation is already constituted, its progress is historical, but historicity is not necessarily transcendence. On the other hand, transcendence is the historical concretion of the initial revelation. In order to justify this affirmation let us analyze from this point of view, the constitution of revelation in the Old and New Testaments. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Appendix (519-530) --------------- {519} (cont’d) In the Old Testament God is going to manifest himself in his truth. For all Semites, truth is “fidelity”. It is the concrete concept according to which God is going to manifest his reality to the Hebrews; the God that reveals himself to them is the only one that is faithful, true. In order to show this, he reveals himself to Abraham, but without eliminating in one stroke his meager ideas that God is always a family God who prefers to reside in certain places, etc. Quite the opposite, as we shall see further on in more detail, God inserts himself in these limited ideas, and reveals himself to Abraham as being “his” God, the God of the fathers in order to take the Israelites throughout the centuries to universal monotheism. To accomplish this he provisionally “accepts” that limited idea of God, and restricts his “fidelity” to just one initial point, to fulfill what he has promised. Consequently, he establishes a covenant with Israel in one Law, the Torah. God will inflexibly fulfill the Alliance or Covenant over all other peoples; “their” God is the only one that fulfills what he promises. Because of this, for the Israelite, his entire history is nothing but the actual occurrence of the fidelity of God for “his” people, and the fidelity or infidelity of the people towards “their” God. This is the actual occurrence of fidelity, of the divine truth in the limitation of the Covenant. By virtue of this, the only one that penetrates into the essential structure of history is the one that penetrates into the designs of God, the nabi’, the prophet to whom God has manifested them. As such, to prophesy is not to predict, but to preach, to announce the word of God, although this word may sometimes predict what is going to occur. {520} Accordingly, history is nothing but the very occurrence of prophecy. That is the reason why the Law and the Prophets are the two handles of the Israelite, as much in his personal life as in his religious practices and history. Also holding on, in some way, to the Law and the Prophets, God is going to take them higher. Because if “their” God is the only one that is going to be faithful, that is true, he is no longer just “their” God. Thus, the Law and the Prophets lead to the full manifestation of God. In this occurrence of the truth of God, the limitation according to which God is only “their” God is absorbed and surmounted. God is a “unique” God in the world. Here is transcendence as the formal structure of the initial revelation of the Old Testament in concrete historical act. History is not an external vicissitude, but an intrinsic characteristic of revelation. The same happens in the New Testament revelation. God does not reveal his truth in the abstract, but through incarnation in a young Jewish carpenter of that time, in Christ. And this provides revelation with a double characteristic. On the one hand, it is something that occurs concretely, i.e., in humanity. And on the other, it is something that occurs supported by the limitations proper to any Jew living at that time. Above all, it occurs concretely, he has concretely incarnated in a man. Precisely because of this, Christ is teaching not only “in” his life, but also “with” his life. Between the teaching and the life of Christ there is an intrinsic radical union because Christ is not “in possession” of the truth, but “is” the very personal subsistent Truth, the Person-Truth of God. Consequently his humanity, including in it his biographic course, is not in itself a mere covering, and a temporal and external medium for the communication of truth, but is really and physically the very occurrence of this Truth, the Person-Truth, the Word, in concrete historical act. The unity of occurrence {521} and the plan of God, i.e., the unity of history and prophecy acquires in Christ its maximum degree. The occurrence is the personal incarnation of Truth itself. That is why the life, including everyday life, of Christ is subsistent teaching, constitutive epiphany of Truth. To do this he supports himself on the limitations proper to the Judaism of his time, so that through them, he may take the Jews to have faith in his personal divine condition. The Jew takes the written revelation, the Law and the Prophets, literally. Christ takes the same revelation, but with a different spirit; the Law as “filial obedience”, and the Prophets as “historical fullfilment”. It was the double way of supporting himself on the limitations of Judaism to suggest his double condition of Son of God and Messiah. It was a teaching, a revelation by transcendence. To be a man was the temporal concretion of the manifestation of divine Truth; to be a Jew was the way of showing his divine truth by transcendence. Humanism and Judaism were the two dimensions of revelation in historical act, history as concrete act of the occurrence of the Truth of God in men. Only in this historical concretion he seized the world. As “Truth” of God, the life of Christ shows it to our intelligence, in that form common to every truth, it leads to assent. But as the Truth of God “in person”, his life is more than mere intellective showing, mere proposal for assent; it is a force towards personal attachment. It is “religation” or religion. To religate everyone he supports himself precisely on the limitations of his disciples, in their majority rough men from his society and his era, his “friends”. Personal intimacy was the form of expressing human limitations. Supporting himself on the limitations, he makes them transcend their mere human condition making of his “intimate” his “agents” and his personal “witnesses” other Christ’s. This double quality is the one that constitutes the {522} essence of the “Apostle”; friendship is transcended into “power” and “witnessing”. By having the very “power” of Christ, the actions of the Apostle in the order of revelation are not actions simply “authorized” previously by Christ, but are the “actions of Christ himself”. By being his personal “witnesses” these friends are his “envoys”, his “missionaries”. As such, they did not limit themselves to disseminating, to give “testimony” of his doctrine (that would simply have been “propaganda”), but they “testify” personally, with their life and death. It was a “propagation” of the religation to Christ. The Apostolic preaching, the kérygma, was the occurrence in concrete historical act of the truth of Christ by transcendence in power and witnessing. That is the rise of the Church. Theologically, the history of the Church is not pure history, but historical epiphany of the Truth of God by the work of Christ. Because of this, its historical course is theologically the very transcendence of history in God. Similarly to the old revelation, the New Testament revelation is transcendence as constituted in historical act. Historicity is not mere external vicissitude, but intrinsic quality of revelation. And this, which is true in reference to the initial revelation and its constitution into deposit, is also true for its written fixation by inspiration. The books of Sacred Scripture are not “treatises” of religion, morals or history. They are “circumstantial” in the strictest conception of the term. Transcendence is the form of historical concretion of the original revelation; circumstantiality is the form of historical concretion of its fixation into writing. Circumstances are not something external; a mere “opportunity” for writing a book, but something intrinsic to it, a characteristic that affects its own internal quality. More than “circumstantial” the books might be called intrinsically “circumstanced” in the {523} etymological sense of the term. These are books written by certain men, at a very particular moment of their era, of their society, and even of their family and their life. They are written with a very particular mentality and very particular modes and literary styles, with their very own particular idea of history and even of truth, in order to fixate teachings or very particular narrations also. This is quite patent in the Old Testament and is also true for the New Testament. The Bible of the Hebrew canon, the sæfer, the book par excellence, is above all a book that contains the Covenant of God with Israel, the Torah, the Law. It has a second part where the occurrence of revelation is contained, an occurrence whose characteristic is to be the concrete historical act of that revelation. Consequently, there is no radical duality here, which does exist for us between the historical book and the prophetic book, because the concept of history is different for Israel and for us. For us, history is the articulation of the events taken in and of itself, in its mere temporal and causal connection. For Israel, history is the occurrence of fidelity, of divine truth, it is theological history. The historical itself is live preaching of God. Therefore, prophecy and history are nothing but the same thing as seen from two points of view. History is not “narrative”, but “lesson”, to know what God does with his people and what the people does with its God. It is, therefore, a manifestation of the very design of God, i.e., “prophecy”. History is the Covenant as seen in and from the people, i.e., in “fulfillment”. Actually, as it is well known, authors imbued by the spirit of Deuteronomy and the Prophets wrote these books we call historical; therefore, they are circumstantial works. Which is no obstacle for the truth of the “narrative”, but does eliminate details and selects the events in view of the purpose the author has. Similarly, {524} what we call prophetic knowing is nothing but the “word that manifests” the design of God in the concrete form of the situation in which this word occurs. The prophetic preaching is not only a “saying”, but also an “elocution” that “occurs”. Therefore, it includes the situation itself, the “history”. By virtue of this, the books we call prophetic are also circumstantial works. Actually, large historical tracts are found precisely in these books. It is the Covenant, i.e., the qualifications and requirements of the divinity as seen in and from God. Because of this, all these books, those we call historical and those we call prophetic, were called by the Jews “prophetic books” without distinction, the books where the designs of God are manifested. Such is the second part of the Hebrew Bible, the sæfer nebi’im, the Book of the Prophets. There is still a third part, which is vaguely called the “Book of Writings”, sæfer ketubim. It incorporates compounded books or documents compiled in the form of books after the canon of the first two parts were closed, which in reality the title would mean “Book of other writings”. But its content suggests, from my point of view, a perfectly defined internal unity. The circumstance of being posterior writings to the first two parts is not accidental, but qualifies them internally; it is a response just at the immediately consecutive moment to the constitution of the birth of Judaism. These writings represent the personal life, the liturgy of the Temple and the new situation (Judaism), seen and nurtured from the Law and the Prophets, from the first two parts. Some of these writings, actually represent, on the one hand, the faith revealed by the Law and the Prophets (expressly quoted or not), set in motion in the prayers (Psalms, Lamentations) or inspiring Wisdom, the reflection about personal experience {525} of life. On the other hand, these writings serve as “edification” for the great liturgical celebrations (the megillot1). Other writings wish to clarify the new historical situation, Judaism. Some of them (Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah) do this, more than in a purely historical form, by justifying Judaism under the light of the Law and the Prophets. They see in Judaism the point of departure towards which the Law and the Prophets mysteriously converge (something that takes away from these books much of what today we call “objectivity“). As it is well known, it is a new literary genre, the Midrash, the interpretation of the past in order to adapt it to the present. Therefore, in their own way they are also prophetic books. And the same might be said of that other writing (Daniel), not properly historical, but combining the Midrash with an apocalyptic view of history. Taken at one and the same time, these features constitute, from my point of view, the essence of the ketubim; they are the Law and the Prophets in the soul and situation of the “faithful Jew”. That is the maximum of circumstantiality. That is the way, from my point of view, how the intrinsic unity of the three parts of the Hebrew Bible appears, sæfer torah nebi’im uketubim, Book of the Law, of the Prophets, and of the Writings. Their content is the unity of the Covenant, the word of God, and the life of the faithful Jew as occurrence of the truth of God. As a book, it is the written fixation in a circumstantial way of this occurrence from Adam to the first Jews2, going through the Patriarchs, Moses, and the Hebrew monarchy. That same circumstantial characteristic is present in the books of the New Testament. They are writings of apostolic origin, if not always {526} written by an Apostle, at least written by their direct collaborators. They are circumstantial works, primarily and for a somewhat general and obvious reason, because the Apostles are men with a Jewish mentality and their own language, who are going to preach before men, many of whom have a different language, mentality and education (Greco-Roman, etc.). But in addition they are circumstantial by the very form of the apostolic work. They are writings that fixate in writing the preaching of a witness in front of the community. Witness (mártus), community (ekklesía) and preaching (kérygma), these are the three elements that constitute the concrete situation in which the New Testament writings are born, and what makes of them circumstantial works. They are such by each of the three elements. In order to see this it will be sufficient to recall, placed under our present theological perspective and with our concepts, the most firm results of the New Testament criticism. Primarily, let us consider the Gospels. They consign the truth about Christ personally witnessed by the Apostle. Therefore, they contain historical truth, but they are not biography, nor history, nor pure teaching in the sense these terms have in our mentality. The fact is that historicity means the reality of the entire person of Christ as occurrence of the Person-Truth of God. Hence, history as literary genre means narrative of the fact, but not the way we understand it as mere “bare” fact, but also of its sense and in its real “truth”. And this true sense is that the facts are acts of the entire person of Christ, of the personal Truth of God subsistent in Christ. Consequently the history the Gospels manifest, is not simple facticity or pure doctrine, but doctrinal fact and doctrine in concrete historical act. That is why the Gospel constitutes an especial literary genre. It is the essential unity of what for us are two literary styles, the historical {527} and the doctrinal. The Gospel is, at one and the same time, biography and apology. Because this is so, a witness is always something perfectly circumstantial. Also circumstantial because the gatherings of the community have different characteristics, they can be liturgical, catechetical, and missionary. Finally, the very preaching of the Apostle is circumstantial. He preaches, actually, to achieve just one thing, to nurture the faith of the community with remembrances and doctrine, not enunciated in the abstract, but resolving the concrete problems of the life of the faithful, and the communities. These different preaching’s were fixated in written units with different characteristics such as sayings, acts, apothegms, etc. It is well known that on the basis of these circumstantial units, the four Gospels were completed each with a different orientation as a function of the different preoccupations of their readers. St. Matthew to demonstrate to the Jews that in Christ “the Scripture was fulfilled”. St. Mark (reproducing the catechesis of St. Peter) concerned about the formation of the Apostles. St. Luke (reproducing the catechesis of St. Paul) paying attention to the geographic expansion of the Kingdom of God. St. John to witness the Person of Christ as personal Truth of God (against the Gnostics), and as really incarnated (against the Docetist). The same circumstantiality is observed in Acts and the Epistles. In these writings the circumstance that determines their composition is the missionary condition of the Apostle. The “history” of Acts is not only “narration”, but also “lesson” of the Truth of God. The formation of Christianity is like a historical witness of its divine truth. No need to insist upon the circumstantial characteristic of the Epistles. Finally, the Apocalypse is a writing destined to animate and strengthen the early Christians in a very precise situation, in the persecutions of the Roman Empire. It presents the definitive triumph of Christianity opening over the Roman Empire {528} the horizon of an eschatological perspective. It is a theology of history written from a circumstantial and circumstantiated perspective. The New Testament writings, with such diverse origins, were approved by the Apostles themselves and received in that form by the communities. This ecclesiological act was the one that conferred all its value as inspired Scripture to these writings, and was formally the constitution of the revealed deposit in a written form. Quite definitely, the New Testament is the written and circumstantial fixation of the occurrence of the Truth of God in concrete historical act, from Christ to the end of time. Because of this, it is the intrinsic unity of biography, history, doctrine, apology, and eschatology. We can now understand that the Christian Bible, which comprises both the Old and New Testaments, constitutes the written circumstantial fixation of the revelation in concrete historical act. Because of this, its books are not fully intelligible except for those to whom it is immediately destined. For the rest, it is necessary to have an exegesis whose characteristics would be essentially determined by the circumstantial characteristics of the books themselves, and by the historical concretion in which their content occurs. Let us present this once and for all in order to avoid a repetition of the same question. There are two great ideas that must serve as a basis to any exegesis. In the first place, as we have seen when discussing inspiration, God is the author of the book, but only in the sense of inspiration, not in the sense of composition. Therefore, we must start from the book itself. God has wished to say and teach precisely (no more and no less) what the human author has wished to say and teach. Therefore, every exegesis has to consist on an investigation of the precise sense the author gave to his book. Since this book is a circumstantial work, in the form we have just explained, {529} it turns out that every exegesis of the sacred book (including qua sacred, qua inspired) has to be through constitutive necessity an historical exegesis. In the second place, since what has been written in the book has an intrinsic historical constitution, i.e., since history is not an external covering to the content, it turns out that the sense the text has is primarily and strictly historical in its literalness. If the historical concretion were to be a mere external dressing to what God had wished to communicate, all that historical concretion would be nothing but a gigantic “symbolism”, an “allegory” of abstract teachings all by themselves. Everything, even to the simple fixation of remembrances, would be a veiled teaching standing behind the facts. That was the idea of allegorical teaching that culminated at Alexandria. What was important for me at this point was to render precise its strictly theologic origin, its idea of the history of revelation. Consequently, this idea of allegorical teaching is inadmissible, and therefore, so is the allegorical exegesis. Allegory as literary genre certainly exists in the Bible. But one thing is allegory as a literary genre among many others, and quite another allegory as formal literary structure of the truth of the Biblical text. The latter is false, because historical concretion is an intrinsic moment of revelation in act. Needless to say that the spiritual sense must not be confused with the allegorical sense, a question we do not need to discuss here. Historical method and literal exegesis, these are the two great principles of Biblical exegesis. Only through an historical interpretation of the literal sense of the hagiographer is how we are going to discover the truth God has wished to fixate in Sacred Scripture. As orientation of the exegesis they are now almost commonplace. What I considered important was to frame them in their exact theologic fundament, and therefore, refer to them as proof of the firmness of such fundament. {530} Hence, revelation and its fixation into deposit is intrinsically historical, they are something that occurs. In the history of revelation, I pointed out, history is the revelation in act, the concrete act of its occurrence. Since it is the case of revelation as such, this act is transcendence; considering its fixation, primarily its written fixation, it is circumstantiality. Definitely, it is fixation in historical act of the divine manifest realities. Such is the constitution of the deposit, the constitutive tradition. _______________ 1 “Megillot” is the name given to the five books (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther) read at the five great Jewish celebrations. 2 Zubiri refers to the definitive fixation of the canon of Judaism at Jamnia, Israel after the year 70 AD. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Appendix (530-541) --------------- {530} (cont’d) II. Continuative tradition. But this revelation is fixated to be delivered. That is the continuative tradition, the continuative dimension of tradition. Insofar as something given to be kept, revelation is depositum. Insofar as it is something that is kept in order to be delivered to the rest, i.e., insofar as it is something that is “delivering”, the very deposit is a pro-positum. In other words, it is what the Church proposes as true reality to all men, as a historically perennial recourse of possibilities for the divine life in man. Let us be precise. 1) Tradition is not simply the transmission of what has been revealed from generation to generation. The transmission, in this sense, is the reality in a certain sense “material” of the continuative tradition. But its formal reason is this transmission of the revealed qua possibilitating truth of the divine life in man. Revelation is delivered qua possibilitating truth. And this formal reason is what constitutes the formally historical characteristic of the continuative tradition. The mere transmission of the revealed bloc at best would only be to perdure, something quite different than tradition. Tradition is not “to perdure”, but actual “offering” of divine life, which implies and supports itself naturally in a transmission of the very revelation. The Church does not limit itself to guarding tradition, but its essential {531} function on this point is to propose it perennially as possibility of divine life. And this proposition is, above all, “offering”. 2) What is delivered and proposed, is the deposit of revelation. Therefore, let us repeat it, the continuative tradition does not consist in “delivering” Sacred Scripture, formulas of revelation, practices and institutions of apostolic origin, etc. All that can be transmitted and is in fact transmitted. But it is only as “mode” of transmission and of “pro-position”. The primary and formally proposed object is the presentation of manifest reality to the view of intelligence and the whole man. It is the complete difference between “making” a proposition and “enunciating” a proposition. Continuative tradition consists in making a proposition of revealed realities. Of course, “to enunciate” a proposition can also be the mode of “making” a proposition; but the reciprocal is not exact, because there can be and there are many ways of making a proposition without making it an enunciation of the proposition. To make a proposition is to present or place before the intelligence the very revealed divine reality insofar as reality. This “place-before” (Sp. “presentar-ante”) is precisely the “pro-position”, and not the reverse, as if the proposition consisted in the true enunciation insofar as enunciation. The proposition thus understood consists, therefore, in again having before our eyes the same manifest reality. In other words, the continuation formally consists in being “reactualization” of the manifest divine reality in its pristine freshness and inexhaustible richness. Thanks to it, men from all eras find themselves with respect to revelation in an identical situation than the ones that received it originally. Of course, we already covered it, this presence of manifest reality is unitarily donation and intellective intimacy, and as such involves an ante-predicative “knowing”. Therefore, this “knowing” intrinsically belongs to the {532} presence of manifest reality. Consequently, the continuative tradition is also and constitutively the reactualization of a knowing. The mere incorrupt transmission of the deposit would make of tradition in the end something merely negative. But tradition is something essentially positive; it is a reactualization. 3) This reactualization is not necessarily a mere inert repetition and in a certain way mechanical, but just the opposite. As we indicated, revelation and its fixation into deposit happen to men of “their” time, as much for what they have of simple manifestation of reality as for what they have of ante-predicative knowing. Hence, because continuative tradition is a strict reactualization it preserves that characteristic of historical concretion, but in an original form of supreme importance. Because if it were nothing but the case of fixating a revelation as if it were the first time, the problem, although complex, would not offer a new difficulty. But now it is the case of reactivating a previous revelation, i.e., a revelation that not only is materially the same, but also formally affirms its own sameness. Thus, the initial revelation was made to men of their time and in the form appropriate to their time. Its reactualization will also be made to men of their time, however, of “another” time. Consequently, the reactualization will have to tear off the divine realities from some manifesting characteristics proper to that first time in order to adopt in some measure other more congruent, and in this sense, new manifesting characteristics. It is not the case of always adopting and abandoning concepts as if they were external coverings, or that the concepts of one time are derogated in others. It is the case of something simpler. a) It has often been necessary to tear off with more precision the previous teachings to give them a form at least more exact and more precise. {533} b) This new form is made possible through concepts and forms of manifestation existing at that moment. c) This operation is, in principle, inexhaustible in such fashion that it always remains open to the possibility of repeating the same operation. Therefore, when referring to novelty there is no prejudice against its type, it can range from a mere translation, so to speak, or a mere exposition adapted to certain new circumstances, to a strict unreformable definition for all time. But the manifestation, by being essentially intimate, intrinsically involves, we repeat, a strict ante-predicative knowing. Therefore, when reactivating manifest reality this knowing is also transmitted. But on this point what is even more radical, if at all possible, is the historical concretion of the men of an era. If revelation were nothing but a set of enunciative propositions or a treatise, at best it would be enough to “translate it“. But that is not the case, revelation is a manifest reality in a concrete historical form. Therefore, the depository organon of revelation, the Church, in order to reactualize the manifestation of the same divine realities in men of other times, has no other remedy but by adapting herself to them, to train them, so to speak, in order to receive the revealed deposit. To receive, dékto (“he received”), gave us the factitive didásko (etymologically, “make to receive”), and the Latin doceo, to teach. It is a taking of men by the hand to receive the revelation. It is a type of reactualization, certainly hierarchical, but from “man to man”, like the preaching of Christ. In the first Christian generations this reactualization, actually, had an exceptional form. The apostle was a “witness” of Christ, and in the first Christian generations there were some who had lived with the Apostles, and therefore, were witnesses of them and of their concrete teaching. This is the “argument” still invoked by {534} St. Irenaeus of Lyon towards the end of the II century1. But this condition quickly disappeared. What remained was precisely the very mode of reactualization by the witnesses, the teaching. The mode of “pro-position”, of reactualization in concrete historical situation, is constitutively “teaching”. That is why the Church, which as órganon of the revelation already fixated is primarily “depository”, as órganon of reactualization is formally “teacher”. The continuative tradition is formally “live magisterium” where the adjective “live” means that the magisterium teaches through direct reflection upon the reality itself reactualized in its manifest being. To propose by teaching is the inexorable condition of each continuative tradition by way of reactualization, i.e., in historical concretion. When founding his teaching Church, Christ did nothing but to accept a condition that is quite natural. I mentioned above, that due to the fact that the continuative tradition is reactualization, men from all eras are in the same situation with respect to revelation. Now we add that due to the fact that the form of reactualization is live teaching, the different men from different eras can apprehend a selfsame and identical revelation. Also, they can deal with it in a way that despite the identity of revelation, it has its own irreducible physiognomy in each era and even in each person. Because it is reactualization through teaching, as we shall immediately see, the content of tradition is comprised throughout the eras not only of the initial revelation, but also of the teaching of the Church about it. It is not a mere repetition of teaching formulas; to put it better, what there is of repetition in them consists in being a fuller reactualization of the revealed deposit. {535} Offering, reactualization, and teaching, such are the moments of the continuative tradition. Clearly, the continuative tradition is the Church teaching the possibilities of divine life through reactualization of the manifest realities, which are offered in the revealed deposit. Because of this, the primary and radical form of the continuative tradition was in the end just one thing, “catechesis” in the widest sense of the term. The term comes from the verb katécho, which means to firmly maintain something, to hold on to something physically or morally (cf. 1 Cor 11:12, “hold on to the traditions”). In this concept are also included all the essential aspects of the continuative tradition. This catechesis is nothing but the reproduction of the apostolic catechesis. But the postapostolic catechesis is the only one, which is exclusively continuative; the apostolic was constitutive. And that postapostolic catechesis was what we have mentioned, teaching by reactualization as offering. Concerning this catechesis we have a text with an exceptional importance since it belongs to the end of the first century or beginning of the second, therefore, it is a text born practically in the middle of the apostolic era, the Didaché or Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles. While the apostolic catechesis was the exclusive work of the apostles or those formally charged for it, the continuative catechesis was the effort of the whole Church. The effort of the faithful was initiative, suggestion, occasion and also collaboration to the effort by the teaching magisterium. But the last word, the one that “makes the faith” (in the most literal sense of the expression), was always and only the one belonging to the hierarchical magisterium. III. Progradient tradition. Revelation is fixated and delivered so that it may “give of itself” whatever it already is as manifest reality. This is the progradient tradition, the progradient dimension of tradition. Insofar as something given to be kept revelation is, as we saw, depositum, and insofar as {536} something, which is given to be delivered to the rest is pro-positum. Hence, insofar as it is something delivered to “give of itself” from what is already, it is sup-positum of that give-of-itself. In this dimension tradition is deposit, but “live deposit” of the divine truth. We already insinuated this when discussing the continuative tradition. In it, I had said, there is a fuller reactualization of the revealed deposit. “Fuller”, here we have the progradient characteristic of tradition in its integral historical reality. It is impossible to completely divide the unity of tradition by separating the progradient from the continuative. But, despite its integral unity, we can and we must, for the sake of an analysis, discern both dimensions and make of each the object of a detailed consideration. 1) Revelation is a donation and an intellective possession, i.e., manifestative of the divine reality qua reality. We have seen that as intimate intellective possession it expands as offering into possibility of divine life; and this is a moment that intrinsically belongs to the integral reality of revelation. Thus, when the whole man appropriates it, this possibility seizes him. And it is here where the progradient characteristic of revelation is inscribed. The appropriation takes place in the whole man. It follows that in the seizure, the very intelligence sees itself seized by the manifest reality as a possibility offered to the intelligence itself. Possibility, not in the sense of potentiality, but in the sense we had explained, the one that appears, for example, when we mention the possibilities someone has or does not have in a particular situation. Hence, that reality may offer itself to intelligence, as possibility of its own manifestation is something that may occur in different orders and directions. It may occur in the order of a greater apprehension of what is manifest such as it is already manifest. The result would be that appropriation {537} of intellective possibilities we might call “exposition”. It may occur in the order of a better understanding and comprehending what is already manifest; the result would be an appropriation of possibilities we call “theology”. But it can occur in the order of being manifest itself. In such case it is the very reality that offers itself to us as a possibility to enter more deeply into the manifest reality in its manifest condition. It is reality itself that possibilitates, and through seizure leads us to another mode of being manifest. It is not the case that “we” may have this possibility in the sense of something produced by us alone (this occurs in exposition and in theology), but that reality itself, reality and not us, is reality and at the same time possibility, the possibility of being manifest in another way. Manifest reality, by being manifest in one mode, offers itself to us as possibility to be manifest in another. It is a moment of reality insofar as manifest. For this reason, manifest reality is “auto-possibility”. With it, the reactualization of manifest reality in the constitutive tradition and in the continuative tradition brings about a constitutive consequence. That divine reality, already donated and intimately possessed in the simple actualization of the initial revelation, may somehow change into possibility for greater donation and intellective possession. In other words, it may become an auto-possibility of giving more and better of itself. It is not a new donation, but rather a kind of “redonation”, this second time as possibility of posterior manifestation. And this is precisely what constitutes the “giving of itself” in the intellective order. It is a “giving”, but is not the initial donation because this one is already supposed; however, it is a giving since what was given initially, is and continues to be in it as supposition of this posterior auto-donation. By virtue of this it is a giving, which is “of itself”. The structural unity of the second donation with the first is “possibility”; it is a case of the first as possibility for the second. The {538} actuality of manifest reality will continue to realize itself more and more in different modes of being manifest. And by being actualization of possibilities, this actualization is formally an occurrence. On the other hand, this giving of itself is not something that only occurs in each isolated individual, but rather each one is affected by the pressure of what occurs in all the others. The consequence is that the giving of itself is something that occurs in the social body of the Church. This body is not only “social”, but in its social corporeity has a theological characteristic rigorously defined, it is the “mystical body”. Therefore, the giving of itself is something that occurs not only in some teaching or learning minds, but also occurs in the whole mystical body. Of course, it occurs in different ways depending on the type of its multiple “components”. The collective effort of the faithful as such in this body does not properly have a dogmatic characteristic. The only one that has this characteristic in the mystical body is the magisterium. But here we are not concerned with the problem of knowing which one is the órganon of the dogmatic occurrence, but only the problem of knowing the subject in which it occurs. Thus, taken in its totality of members, the subject in which the deposit gives of itself is the mystical body. Given this supposition, when the occurrence, i.e., the actualization of possibilities, is given in a social body then such an occurrence is properly historical. The auto-donation of possibilities in the Church is such an occurrence. And a giving of itself that is historical, is precisely what constitutes that, which we call profectus, progress. Therefore, in the Church revelation, insofar as it is a giving of itself, is progradient. 2) Progress is a giving of itself. But only by being a realization of one or several possibilities, which “are” the reality itself, in the sense I am going to explain. As such, it does not take us out of the suppositum itself, but just the opposite. What it does is to submerge us {539} deeper into it, in its condition of manifest reality. Therefore, it is a progress, but “towards the same”. In other words, it is not only a giving of itself, but a “taking to itself”, a kind of “giving of itself” in the sense of “remaining in itself”. Manifest “reality”, actually, is the supposition of a posterior manifestation and continues being in it as an intrinsic moment of it in the order of its being there manifest, but in a very special mode. Because certainly, every possibility is fundamented on a reality, but in “auto-possibility” this fundamentality has a peculiar characteristic. Reality not only “fundaments” possibility in one form or another, but possibilitates it by “being it“, i.e., not only fundaments it, but “is” the possibility itself. Because of this it is autopossibility. Consequently the intrinsic presence of the same anterior reality in its new mode of being there manifest, makes of this novelty a true unfolding of such reality. It follows that this progress “towards the same” is, in the most rigorous sense of the term, a “reflection”, and in a double aspect. First, of course, it is an entry of the intelligence into itself. The intelligence goes to the manifest thing, and reflecting itself on it, as if in a mirror, returns upon itself. In this aspect progress is profectus intelligentiae. Second, and above all, because it is reality itself, which when being there manifest before the intelligence and seizing it, reflects itself on it as if in a mirror, and turns upon itself, but in another mode of being manifest; it is the same, but present in another way. It is a reflex characteristic of the revelation itself, which when seizing the intelligence opens itself before it by reflection. In this aspect the progress is profectus dogmatis. The unity of these two aspects is what constitutes the profectus fidei, an integral reflection of the truth of revealed things. The dogmatic-real progress is a progress by reflection. {540} This is summarized in a rigorous concept. If revelation were to be nothing but a deposit transmitted by reactualization, tradition would be nothing but a tópos, a “place” of revelation, something where revelation is. Melchor Cano elevated this concept to the category of science, a kind of propaedeutic to theology, the science De locis theologicis2. Just as Aristotle wrote his Topica, the study of the places where we can find the premises for reasoning (leaving aside the fact that he called them “probable” reasoning) necessary for any problem, also Cano, with full knowledge of his own parallelism with Aristotle decided to write a theologic Topica. It would be a method and a place to find the necessary premises to deal with the problems of theology, primarily of speculative theology. As a concept, this concept of tópos is insufficient for our problem. Because revelation by being a reality that gives of itself in a progress that takes us towards itself, tradition is no longer a place it is something else, it is “fountain”, fountain of revelation. There is no identity between the concepts of “theologic places” and “fountains of revelation” despite being used as synonymous. “Fountain” means that revelation, as deposit, i.e., tradition, is origin of its own posterior being there manifest. If revelation were to be only a set of propositions no progress would be possible except in that form of combination of propositions, which reasoning is. And then tradition would be the “place” where the revealed premises are located in order to the conclusion, a logical kanón of the inferred truth. This might occur, but it is not necessary for it to occur, even if it may happen that this is the formal reason for the progradient tradition. It is not necessarily logical concatenation, but real dynamism; because of this it is not only canon, but also “fountain”. {541} Progradient tradition is formally the reactualization of manifest reality insofar as reality, which from itself and by what it has of manifest reality (not necessarily “enunciated”) is fountain of a greater being there manifest. Fontanality refers primarily and formally to the intellective intimacy of man towards manifest reality, and therefore, to the ante-predicative knowing. Tradition, i.e., the reactualization of manifest reality is fontanal and progradient. _______________ 1 Cf. St. Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus haereses, bk. 3, ch. 1-3, in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series graeca, vol. 7, op. cit., cols. 844-851. 2 Cf. Melchor Cano, De locis theologicis (Salamanca, 1563), in his Opera theologica, vols. 1-3, Roma, 1900. [Tr. note: Melchor Cano (1509-1560), famous Spanish Dominican bishop and theologian who contributed to the formulations of the Council of Trent, 1545-1563] --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Appendix (541-551) --------------- {541} (cont’d) 3) But in addition it is such constitutively, because this progradient and fontanal characteristic of revelation is not a mere vicissitude which happens to it accidentally. The form in which this occurs may not be constitutive, but the fact that it may occur sometimes and in some form is something constitutive. Because every intellection of something that brings with it consequences that affect the being and life of man opens a progress and is not an accidental vicissitude, but a structural characteristic. It is the seizure through appropriation of possibilities. Revelation cannot make exception to this. Therefore, if it has to be maintained just as it has been deposited when delivered to man, its preservation in sameness cannot be accomplished except by making that the progress is “towards the same”. The progress is, consequently, a constitutive moment of revelation in its integral historical reality. The diversity of truths that inexorably appear in the very form of the ante-predicative knowing cannot involve an identical supposition except by making that they issue from it those aspects in the form of a giving of itself, of a progress by reflection. In other words, seeing in those truths what manifest reality gives of itself. The concept of “fontanality” expresses this intrinsic constitutive characteristic. That is why I mentioned that in this respect tradition is a “live deposit”. We indicated that “live” means reactualized, but the reactualization is constitutively fontanal. Consequently, the living characteristic means the fountain is a fountain of “living water”, an {542} item not alien to the Gospel. If the parable of the mustard seed or the leavened bread has been applied, as we shall see, to the dogmatic progress there is no reason why we should not also apply to it what Christ said to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, that they are “living water” (Jn 4:10). 4) This fontanal progress, this progradient reactualization is, as I mentioned, an occurrence, something historical. This means that, as realization of possibilities, it is an intrinsically and constitutively concrete progress; it occurs in men of their era, and in the form proper to that era, the same as revelation, and its fixation into deposit. As we mentioned, this does not mean a diminution of the absolute truth of revelation, but its mere concretization. The concrete should not be confused with the relative. The historical concretion of revelation is revelation in act. Hence, this giving of itself proper to manifest reality, this self-enlightenment as autopossibility of a further state of being there manifest, would have occurred in a very different historical concretion if revelation had happened, for example, a hundred centuries before or in another region of the globe; or if simply its historical expansion had not been preponderantly occidental, but oriental. The problem of the universality of the Church is the problem of the historical concretion as intrinsic moment of revelation; by virtue of this, historicity is an important problem not only theologic, but also dogmatic. Because that universality that belongs to it does not consist in prescinding from any form of historical concretion, but in transcending it by “remaining” in the deepest intrinsic part of it, i.e., absorbing by transcendence all forms of historical concretion. The progressive tradition is constitutively historical, and the progress takes place, similarly to continuation, by a concrete “man-to-man” action. By virtue of this, its first steps also acquired {543} a characteristic of catechesis. The catechesis was not only a continuative tradition, but also a progressive one. Because of this fact, and not just from a mere historical curiosity, we regret not knowing what the catecheses of the various Apostles was, for example, that of St. Thomas in the Middle East. In the West we have, as I see it, the perfect example of this conception of the catechesis towards the end of the II century with St. Irenaeus. His catechesis was, on the one hand, “exposition” of the faith including in it the Biblical exegesis. It was also an outline of “theologic reflection”; and ultimately, a “defense” and a “precision” of the faith, thus taking a first step in the dogmatic-real progress. In other words, it was the primordium of tradition in its triple dimension as reactualization of manifest reality insofar as reality. That and not just a mere rational apologetic is what the title “demonstration” (epídeixis) means, of a work discovered at the beginning of this century. It is not primarily a work of argumentation, but a showing display of divine reality, an ostensio, as the Latin translators quite properly wrote. Sr. Irenaeus tells us, “truth makes us acquire faith because faith is founded on the reality of things“1. 5) It is in this historical concretion how the progress of revelation occurs. The stepping march towards the same is not a formal and abstract identity, but a concrete sameness. It is such, because it is not the case of reality in and of itself, but of “manifest” reality insofar as reality. Hence, the sameness of reality is a subjacent (suppositum) sameness to the various ways of being manifest. And since these modes are historically progressive, it turns out that the very sameness, {544} so to speak, can only exist in a manner that is also concrete. It does not stay outside the progress as a mere extrinsic support for it, and is not diluted during the course of history. At each step it is being preserved in the only concrete way possible, i.e., justifying its sameness at every moment and in every situation. This is the mode of preservation called “self-definition”. The definition is certainly a true enunciation concerning the defined divine reality, but this is not what is primary and formal in it. It is in the definition where primarily and formally this unfolding of a mode being manifest in another occurs, remaining in the same reality. This unfolding and not its mere propositional enunciation is what is called “self definition”; it is the only concrete way of being the same in different situations that affect it intrinsically. Therefore, in the definition we have manifest reality defining itself. Of course, a set of manifest realities is not something capable of performing actions on its own, and self-definition is an action. But let us first recall that the being there manifest of these truths is the intellective form of the terminus of an action, the action of the revealing God (in casu, of Christ); and in second place, that the Church is not a mere external depository of this action. The Church is something in which Christ himself is, through his actions and his presence, “incorporated” (it is the mystical body) in such fashion that being manifest is at one and the same time, although in different form, action of God and of the Church. Hence the self-definition of revelation is a self-definition of the Church insofar as body of Christ in the formal aspect of intellective manifestation. In a certain way it is Christ defining himself in and through the Church and defining himself in his being manifest, i.e., in the very form of being there revealed. The organon through which the reality manifested by God is defining itself is the teaching Church; but where it is defined is in the mystico-social body taken integrally. The dogmatic formula is {545} the concrete, true, and unreformable enunciation of the magisterium in this self-defining. Because of this and only because of this it is “defined dogma”. The dogmatic progress is that progress in which the manifest reality continues to define itself. The stepping march towards the same, the reflection, is a progress in defining itself. And fontanality is concretely an inexhaustible fountain of definition; it is the inextinguishable fountain of this form of “definition”. 6) Because it is the case of the ways divine reality is manifest, it is the case of a real progress in the way the very deposit is manifest. Therefore, it is a progress that affects the totality of the Church inasmuch as teacher or learner. It is not exclusively the case, as it is often suggested, of the indispensable correction the teaching Church would impose on the errors or deviations of the learning Church, i.e., it is not the case of a process in three stages, orthodoxy, error, and reaffirmation of the primitive orthodoxy. This would not be a real progress in the full sense of the term, because it would give the impression that the teaching Church already knew what is going to be reaffirmed, therefore, that the progress was not in the Church, but in the faithful. It is undeniable that this has happened many times, but not most of the time or only just that. It has not always been the case, because even when it concerned a reaffirmation of the orthodoxy, the definition has not been a mere repetition, but at least a greater precision of what was manifest already, and therefore, there has been a progress in being there manifest. Yet, this also has not been happening always because not every dogmatic definition has been a rectification of errors. The entire Church, including the teaching Church, before the definition was in a state of ignorance with respect to what afterwards and after a mature reflection on the manifest reality was going to be defined by the very magisterium. Because it is not the case here of a progress in the mere subjective knowledge {546} of manifest reality, but of a progress in the way of being manifest, in the very way of being in the deposit. 7) Revelation, accordingly, deposited and delivered in tradition, is something that “gives of itself”, i.e., it is a living and inexhaustible fountain, which by reflection continues to define itself in subsequent ways of being manifest in the form of historical concretion. Thus, progress is not only a fact, but also a constitutive necessity. But, what is the characteristic of this constitutive necessity? I had mentioned it at the beginning; revelation was deposited and delivered “for” revelation to “give of itself”. In other words, the progress of revelation is not only a fact and a necessary result of historical vicissitudes. If it were such, necessity would simply be that of a result, and progress would enter the historical economy of revelation only in the order of prescience and at best of providence. But it is more than that. We say, on the contrary, that progressivity is a “foreseen” characteristic and desired for its own sake as a moment formally, intentionally, and intrinsically inscribed in revelation. In other words, God has revealed himself the way he has precisely “for” revelation to have a progress, “for” revelation to give of itself; it is a terminus not only accepted, but also positively and formally “foreseen” by God. Hence, fontanality expresses not only to be fountain “of” new modes of being there manifest, but it means it is fountain precisely “for” providing these new modes. If the parable of the mustard seed is applied to the dogmatic progress, it cannot be denied that the superabundant expansion of its foliage in the course of time is more than a mere result; it is a “foreseen” principle. And the matter acquires a firmer footing if we recall that Christ promises the Holy Spirit precisely to lead to the fullness of truth. It is true that the text refers to the apostolic college primarily, in which, as we shall see, {547} revelation comes to a close. Indeed, how could we not consider in this action of the Holy Spirit, and therefore, as moments of truth, its new modes of being there manifest? And even further, if we consider that the mustard seed refers to the whole history of the Church. Revelation, therefore, is progradient not only in fact, but also through constitutive necessity, a necessity from its own characteristics, not as a result, but “foreseen”; it has taken place precisely and formally “for” the purpose of having progress. Why? And, above all, in what does the progradient tradition consist by virtue of this characteristic? In the first place, why was revelation deposited in order to progress? The reason is quite clear. It was necessary that it should arrive in a historically concrete form to men of all ages, and this could not have happened, as we pointed out, but in a progradient form. However, this affected the very form of the initial revelation. God initially manifested all the truth he wished to reveal, but only in a form adapted to minds still with little capability to receive it in a conceptually different and expressed form, and “for” transmission through personal contact. It was done in such fashion so that only through history that truth would acquire its full and formal manifestation, its plenary way of being there manifest. In other words, by reason of its own being the initial revelation was deposited and delivered precisely and formally “to be” progradient. Therefore, progress was not only a result that was planned and accepted, but also something expressly “foreseen”, and therefore, inscribed in the initial revelation as such. This is the origin of the characteristic of progradient tradition in this respect. In its progress towards new modes of being there manifest, what revelation does, as we have seen, is to define itself. Thus, since this progress is real, it turns out that prior to being defined, what was going to be defined did not belong expressly and formally {548} to the revealed deposit. Consequently, the definition has been the form of expressing the integrity of the revealed deposit. Revelation is only “fulfilled” in the former. That is, progress has its own formal characteristic; it is “consummation” of revelation in its mode of being there manifest. Definition is consummation and fontanal reflectivity is progress, stepping march towards consummation. Revelation was deposited and delivered to be consummated in and by definition. History, in all its concretion is inexhaustible, and it will only be exhausted with the end of time, i.e., with the “consummation” of the ages. But in the history of revelation, I was saying, history is revelation in act. Hence, this act is formally “consummation”. Only in the historical unity of men is revelation consummated. The whole progradient tradition, until the consummation of the ages will have done nothing but one thing, consummate the revelation. The consummation of the ages will be the act of the ultimate consummation of revelation. Such is the ultimate characteristic of the progradient tradition. Here we have, then, the three dimensions of tradition, constitutive, continuative, and progradient. As constitutive, it is the actuality of the manifest reality in deposit. As continuative, it is the reactualization of the manifest reality in the deposit. As progradient, it is the fontanal actuality of the manifest reality in the deposit. In its unity, therefore, tradition is perennial actuality of manifest reality insofar as reality for all men of all ages in an intrinsic historical concretion. This is revelation in act. And, taken in its historical totality, it is the consummation of revelation. Tradition understood in this manner is not identical to what is understood by tradition as historical phenomenon. The historical concept of tradition is identified with a written transmission or, {549} primarily, with an oral one; its content is constituted by something, which is nothing but mere survival; and its value depends on a documentary proof in the widest sense of the term. However, the tradition we are discussing here is not that at all, neither by its object nor by the mode of transmission or the basis for its value. Its object, actually, is not something that survives, but something that was, is and will be; it is a tradition at one and the same time constitutive, continuative, and progradient because it is “actuality”, the actuality of the manifest divine reality. Its transmission is not repetition, but reactualization, i.e., continuation in actuality. Its value, finally, does not depend on a documentary proof. The existence of a document is fortuitous and fragmentary, and its interpretation almost always problematic. But here we are dealing with the very action of God, who initially manifested some realities and continues acting on the Church, certainly not revealing more realities, but acting so that perennial actuality and full consummation may be achieved of those he initially revealed. This mode of activity is summarized in a very precise concept, divine “assistance”. We shall be dealing with it further down. Now we shall only repeat what we mentioned in the beginning. Revelation as manifestation is a donation; it is an action of God, an action that continues in the Church through the incorporation of Christ in it as in its mystical body. In such fashion, that the activity of the Church is, in a certain way, the very activity of Christ. In the problem we are dealing with, this activity, the side that involves Christ is called “assistance”. It is not a new manifesting donation, but the positive action through which the initial donation is perennial and indefectible. From the side that concerns the Church, it is “tradition”. “I am with you even to the consummation of the ages” (Mt 28:20), this is the essence of tradition. By virtue of this, tradition, together with revelation, is terminus of faith not of historical science. The latter can and should help; {550} but it will never constitute neither faith nor tradition. Clearly, history is a moment of tradition, but in a very different sense, which we have explained at length, as that mode of human reality, which formally consists in “occurring”, and therefore, as moment of intrinsic temporal concretion. Let us say in closing that there is a part of the revealed deposit in a written form, the Bible. As something inspired by God it has its own value. The Bible is deposit through inspiration, tradition through assistance. But this presents no obstacle to what we have been explaining. First of all, the Bible is not identified with a mere historical tradition. One thing is the Bible as a historical document, and another the Bible as deposit of revelation. These are two aspects that are not separable, but quite discernible. As a historical document it is the terminus of a scientific investigation. And this investigation may be necessary, as we mentioned, for the exegesis of the Biblical text. But as deposit of revelation, its own sense is delivered to the authority of the Church, and it is as such only one mode, with its own value, but only one mode of fixation of the revelation made and delivered to the Church; therefore, one moment of the constitutive tradition. But since tradition is also continuative and progradient, it turns out that taken integrally it is identified formally neither with the Bible nor with the whole initial revelation. But tradition comprises every kind of progress in the way the revealed deposit is manifest and even the theologic efforts of the faithful, in a sense we need not discuss at this point. In this sense two fountains of revelation can be distinguished, Sacred Scripture and Tradition, but not as if the finality of the latter was directed towards filling the lacunae and deficiencies of the former. Actually, there is only one fountain of revelation, the integral tradition. To summarize, then, revelation is constitutively progradient. It is such in itself, insofar as manifestation of {551} divine reality to men. And it is such insofar as delivered in tradition for all men of all the ages. A tradition that maintains that reality in perennial actuality as inexhaustible fountain continuing to define itself progressively in its mode of being there manifest and finding expression in a doctrinal body, the “body of truth” (tó tés aletheías somateíon) as St. Irenaeus2 was already calling it, which is nothing but the mode of the reality being there more manifest than it was in the initial revelation. It is a same reality in constitutive progradient characteristic of manifestation. We had asked what was the constitutive mode of articulation of the defined dogmas with the initial revelation. And we say this mode is “progression”. We then ask, what is the formal characteristic of this progress, and we say it is “evolution”. This is the second point we must examine. ______________ 1 Irenaeus of Lyons, Démonstration de la prédication apostolique, Ch. 3, translation from the Armenian by J. Barthoulot in R. Graffin and F. Nau, Patrologia orientalis, vol. 12, op. cit., p. 758. 2 Cf. Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus haereses, bk. 1, ch. 9, no. 4, in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series graeca, vol. 7, op. cit., col. 548. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Appendix (551-561) --------------- {551} (cont’d) II. THE DOGMATIC PROGRESS AS EVOLUTION Not every progress has to be evolution. Evolution is more than progress; it is a tighter and more special concept of progress. Therefore, it is necessary to start by at least delimiting the concept of evolution. Taken in its widest meaning evolution implies three essential points. There is, in the first place, something similar to a substrate, so to speak, of evolution, which evolves. We call it substrate in order to understand it is not the case of the extrinsic support of a motion that may occur on the surface, but rather it is such a reality that in the {552} order in which evolution exists, it is internally affected by it. That is, the substrate is something that by virtue precisely of the structures it actually has, and thanks to which it is what it is, gives place to something new (in one form or another) with respect to these actual structures. The structures that make this reality what it is make it become another structure. But there is a second aspect. These structures give place to something new by being immersed in a situation. This situation has an essential function. Only because of it the structures of the substrate lead to the new, in such fashion that, strictly speaking, the entire progress has, as adequate integral subject, the totality of substrate and situation, if you will, the situated substrate. But, thirdly, the situation has a very precise function. The situation does not necessarily add anything alien to the structures of the substrate; the only thing the situation does is to unveil the “richness” the structures actually have. This actual richness of the substrate is constituted not only by what is already actually manifested in them, but in addition by all the actualizing or manifestative potentialities together with the notes already manifest. Here I take the term “potentiality” to designate the expansion in any order and form whatever, but not as something precisely contradistinguished from the possibilities. The situation produces a novelty, but its whole novelty consists purely and simply in “manifesting”. This is the properly evolutive moment. Its essence is just the sameness in diverse manifestations. Evolution, actually, is not mere change, but only novelty in the order of manifestation; therefore, the opposite of a true structural change. It is clear, then, why not all progress has to be evolutive. It would be enough to have a different kind of structure in the substrate or have a situation with a different function. {553} This concept of evolution is, so to speak, the most common. It was introduced into biology precisely to show that a live reality gives place to others, which are specifically different only in appearance, i.e., to show the radical specific sameness of the living. But in order to do this it has been necessary to tighten the general concept of evolution further, arriving to a special conceptiveness of it, evolution as transformation. We shall soon cover this. From the confusion of these two concepts of evolution we have had painful equivocations, not only in biology, but in the matter that concerns us most here, in the concept of dogmatic progress. Furthermore, the general concept of evolution we have just described is not limited to the realities with biological characteristics, but leaves the door open to further absolutely necessary precisions if we wish to be faithful to a minimum of intellectual rigor; this is just the problem of the formal characteristic of the situated substrate. Therefore, if we wish to investigate whether the dogmatic progress is evolution, and in what sense it is evolution we shall have to examine two questions. A) The characteristics of the substrate, i.e., the substrative characteristics of revelation. B) The function of situation in the temporal concretion of revelation1. This will force us to make some repetitions, which are inevitable when dealing with things so convoluted as progress and evolution. Already when discussing progress I have mentioned things that strictly speaking are more than just progress; when discussing evolution it will be necessary to gather them again under the perspective of the new problem. {554} A) Substrative characteristic of revelation That revelation has the characteristic of substrate is, after what we have just mentioned, something undeniable. In the first place, revelation is not a series of abstract theses, but the manifest actuality of divine realities insofar as realities, an actuality, which acquires the characteristic of historical concretion. By virtue of this, I had mentioned, revelation is constitutively progradient in a very precise form, to give “of itself”. Therefore, it is not something that only “supports” the course of history, but is something that in one form or another is affected by it. But, in second place, the progress in question is not only given in the order of apprehension (dogmatic-cognitive progress) or comprehension (theologic progress), but is a progress in the very mode revealed reality is being there manifest (dogmatic-real progress). It follows that revelation is not only affected by the course of history in general, but is affected by it in a very precise dimension, insofar as revelation, insofar as the way revealed reality is being there present. Consequently, the very revelation has an intrinsic substrative characteristic. Insofar as deposited and proposed in constitutively progradient tradition, revelation is suppositum of what it is going to give of itself. This suppositum can be of two types. It is mere “subject” or mere “substrate”. Hence, revelation as suppositum is no mere “subject-of” mental vicissitudes extrinsic to it, but substrate, which in the order of manifestation is progressing “from itself”. Its own formal structures are the ones that take it not to be what it is in itself, except by making itself new (in one sense or another, we shall soon see about this). In order to avoid false interpretations I shall repeat what I mean by substrate. It is not a kind of rudimentary germ or vague outline, which by further intellectual reflection, primarily philosophical, {555} may be giving place to new truths. It is an authentic actual body of truths and manifest realities, indeed a kind of body that by virtue of its own actual structures, i.e., from itself, gives place to further “definitions”, not by mere intellectual reflection, but by infallible magisterium. Leaving aside the problem of this infallible magisterium, I say, that in the sense I have just detailed, revelation has a formally substrative characteristic. This is something that requires some explanation. Revelation, we say, has a substrative characteristic. However, which revelation? Because, has revelation always had the same formal structure throughout history? Evidently, no. Therefore, it will be necessary to further elucidate the structure of revelation in this respect. Indeed, revelation has not always had the characteristic of substrate; each step has leaned on the previous one, but has not always advanced beyond. Such happens in revelation from Abraham to the death of the last apostle. In a different way, but no less real, as much in the Old Testament as in the apostolic era, including the public life of Christ, revelation has been increasing in its real content through new actions of God, new manifestations of reality. Each stage of revelation has been a point of support for the others, but nothing more, these other stages are new steps that add something to the content of revelation of the previous stages. God has been the promotive cause of the historical enrichment. Under these conditions revelation has been constitutively progradient, but progress has not been formally evolution because revelation has been subject, but not substrate of its own progressive development. This is what forces us to distinguish in revelation the question of progress from the question of evolution. We need to underline this rigorously, it is the first failure of precision that {556} is made when talking, as it is usually done, about the evolution of revelation and dogma, for example, in the Old Testament. The historians and exegetes do not have to be censured on this account, they do not have to use formally precise concepts always; their value resides in the history of revelation that under the term of evolution they offer us. But the moment theological issues are undertaken rigorous care is indispensable; it is inadmissible to talk theologically about the evolution of revelation in the Old Testament. Until the death of the last apostle revelation has progressed constitutively, but through a different mechanism, through “accretion”, because revelation did not have a purely substrative characteristic. I. This is clear, above all, in the revelation of the Old Testament. Not considering that in these centuries revelation is almost exclusively a means to know truths that in themselves are almost always purely natural, revelation in the first place has been “additive”. That is, it has been increasing the field of manifest realities. Thus, for example, the revelation of a personal Messiah has been many centuries posterior to Moses. The Yahwist gives us an account in paradise of the struggle between the race of the woman and the race of the serpent, and in it appears a divine promise of victory for the race of the former (cf. Gn 3). But all this occurs at an impersonal level. Centuries later the Messiah appears as a perfectly individual personage who is going to assume the Messianic function. There has been “addition”. Similarly, the revelation of an intermediate state of expiation between death and blessedness did not take place until the era of the Maccabees (cf. 2 Mc 7:28-29); it was a revelation “added” to the previous ones. The examples are numerous. Besides being “additive” this revelation is “imperfect” in itself, in its internal quality (so to speak), and is perfecting itself {557} during the course of the history of Israel. It is a revelation adapted in its beginnings to mental structures that are still poor, and only through further and new interventions of God will be acquiring its true physiognomy. This is clearly seen precisely in the two central ideas of the entire Old Testament, the idea of God and Messianism. Primarily, the idea of God. The religion of Israel is monotheist. But it is a “religious” monotheism. In other words, monotheism does not consist only in the numerical unity of a first being, but is the case of a true God, terminus of all moral and religious life. And as such, this God has three characteristics; it is a reality that is unique, universal, and moral. Therefore, the idea of this God of Israel has been acquiring perfections on each of these three lines. 1) In the patriarchs there is certainly only one God whose name is ‘Elohim or perhaps ’El, but festooned with stereotyped epithets (‘El-šadday, etc.). This name for a Semite expresses everything that properly belongs to the divine nature; as such it is a generic name, his reality is found dispersed among the Semitic religions in many individual gods. But in Abraham the divine nature is found concentrated in only one individual reality, in only one God, in ’Elohim. With it this name is converted into a proper name, just as it had been, for example in Canaan, ’El. But what it had of generic had not been forgotten yet; after all, the fathers and the ancestors of Abraham, and therefore, himself in his beginnings were polytheists, probably adoring the Moon (Sin). Because of this, the divine oneness appears in the patriarchs with a characteristic that is merely affectionate and practical. He is unique in the sense that he is the only one of the gods that is invoked in his family, calling him “My God!”, independently from the fact that other gods may or may not exist. It is a phenomenon that {558} already existed in full polytheism including the religion of the old Babylonian empire (henotheistic monolatry). But some other times it clearly surpasses this characteristic and expresses a real uniqueness, “physical” (monotheism). He is a “solitary” God, with no goddess. A uniqueness, however, clearer in what it affirms than the rigor with which it denies the other divinities of polytheism. Because the divine was for all the Semites, including the patriarchs, if not identical simply to the supernatural, it was the strictest form, but poorly defined, of the supernatural. Hence, the gods were nothing but the supreme form of the divine, of the supernatural. For the patriarchs, certainly, there is no other “God”, in the strict sense of the term, except ‘Elohim; he is the “living God” who lives with them and shares in a superior and divine mode, but real and concrete, their own vicissitudes. But the other “divinities”, even dispossessed of the proper and strict characteristic of gods, still continue to exist in the mentality of these primitive Israelites, at least as supernatural realities, superhuman if you will. They continue as something merely “divine” without being God, and as such have social power, which is invoked in the contracts together with the patriarchal God. This difference will continue to be made more precise later, and the breach to be wider that separates ’Elohim from these “divinities“. With Moses, actually, God, with the new name of Yahweh, is revealed as a God that exists and is with the people of Israel. And he begins to expressly monopolize for himself the divine nature in a concrete form. This is the “exclusivism” in the double form of “invisibility” (interdiction of the images of God), and “jealousy” (does not tolerate alien gods before his face), a ritual and moral expression of uniqueness as the exclusiveness of Yahweh. Only centuries later, with the prophets and Deuteronomy, will Yahwism definitely break with the primitive framework in this respect, and will declare simpliciter the non-existence of {559} these other “divinities”, which are called, perhaps playing with the term ‘Elohim, simply as ‘ælilim, trifles, trivia (cf. Is 10:11). But the Septuagint translation sometimes preserves the denomination daimónia (cf. Ps 95:5), which probably corresponds to the prior moment when they still were granted a degraded real existence. This uniqueness of Yahweh is shown in his omnipotence, in the power with which he defeats Dagon in his own temple, in the fire with which he consumes the Baals and their false prophets, and with which he affirms his life facing the rest of the gods, reduced to the condition of mere statues or idols. Because it is only slowly that they were being dissociated, in the idea of God, his physical reality and his merely vague supernatural character, on the one hand, and his moral exclusivism and mere social power on the other. 2) On this last line, not only the characteristic of uniqueness is being purified, but also the characteristic of the universality of God. In its beginnings, ‘Elohim is above all a family God (the “God of the fathers”). As such he has preferences for certain places of his life, consecrated by theophanies, he communicates with the fathers through dreams or apparitions and the fathers live together with their God. It is not the case that ’Elohim may exclude the rest of the Earth and the rest of other men, since he searches for Abraham in remote countries, promises the land of Canaan to him, and blesses all men in him. But it is always through a geographic and social incorporation of the rest of the world to the family of Abraham. With Moses, Yahweh is now the God who has dominion over the rest of all the peoples, and over nature, since he delivers Israel from Egypt with prodigious deeds. He leads their steps through the desert, making (“cutting”) an “Alliance” or “Covenant” with the people, which makes of the people “his” people, the chosen people, symbolized by a betrothal of Yahweh with Israel (the “betrothals of the desert” of Hosea and Jeremiah). Finally he takes the people to Canaan, the Promised Land and the seat of Yahweh. Yahweh is no longer the family God, he is a national God, {560} the God of a whole nation, the “God of Israel”. Only because of the collision between the great empires that have conflicts with the monarchy of Israel and Judah, do the prophets manage to reveal a clear and explicit concept of the universality of God; Yahweh has dominion over all peoples and is the “God of the heavens and earth”. Eventually all will adore him. 3) Following the thread of this progress, the characteristic of God as transcendent with respect to the rest is being perfected; this is his personal transcendence. Certainly, in the patriarchs ’Elohim already has a personal and moral characteristic, since he is a living God and demands interior obedience and trust. But only with Moses does Yahweh acquire a full moral figure. His fundamental characteristic is “goodness and fidelity”. The initiative for the Covenant was his out of pure goodness, to which he will be unmovably faithful. But it is not a Covenant based on blood, it is a moral pact. As such he dictates the moral precepts (Decalogue) and rituals, whose infraction is “sin”; but Yahweh is God of “forgiveness”. One more step has to be taken. In the prophets and Deuteronomy the transcendence of God is neither “physical” nor only “moral”, concretely it is “sanctity”. The divine transcendence now culminates in sanctity. God is three times “holy”. By virtue of this, it is something not only “superior” to everything else, but “separate” and “separated” from everything, it is the absolutely “pure” facing everything else, which is constitutively “impure”, “stained”. Because of this, his relationship with Israel acquires a special characteristic, it is “tenderness” (love through benevolence, hæsæd, it inclines towards men), it is “sanctification” (which purifies the just), it is “justice” (which punishes to cure), it is “mercy” (which forgives with liberality). Correlatively, religion, from mere submission to the “lord” of the family, and simple legal and ritual internal fidelity, has changed into something more intimate and personal. It is now a religion of love and piety (hæsæd) for Yahweh and the neighbor, of rectitude of heart {561} and interior penance (sin is now considered a moral fault), of sanctity. In this progress we palpably see that the God of the clan of Abraham already was from its beginnings a true unique, universal God and endowed with moral transcendence. But these characteristics were revealed and conceived quite poorly and imperfectly. Only with the Mosaic revelation first, and with the one of the prophets and Deuteronomy later, it was perfected slowly until reaching the fully purified idea, which is presented in the postexilic era. God, again called ‘Elohim, is, on the one hand (and the idea has its classical expression in the priestly Code and the last prophets) a God creator from nothing, director of nature and of history with wisdom, moral and religious legislator (Torah). But on the other hand (and the idea expressly animates the rabbinical piety), he is a God that is father, loving and holy. With this, monotheism breaks the framework of an exclusive religion of Israel. Everyone that believes in ‘Elohim and accepts him is already a spiritual Israelite. This is how the Diaspora began and with it “proselytism”. Reciprocally, and Zechariah points this out (cf. Zk 14:9-20), the universality and the transcendence of ’Elohim divides, not only Israel but also the entire humanity into two camps, just and sinners without distinction of race or people. Such was the progressive revelation of monotheism through perfectibility, through perfective accretion. The same occurs with the idea of personal Messiah, the second great idea of the religion of Israel. _______________ 1 Zubiri had planned, in third place, to examine the question of “the formal structure of the situated substrate, i.e., the precise modal characteristic of dogmatic evolution”. However, he only had time to cover the first two questions. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Appendix (561-572) --------------- {561} (cont’d) II. In good measure, the same thing occurs in the New Testament revelation, as much for what concerns the revelation made by Christ, as for what refers to the apostolic revelation. Thus, for example, Christ progressively revealed his condition of Son of God. Progressively {562} to his own apostles; first to a select group at Mount Tabor, afterwards more clearly to all in certain confidences each time more precise, which some could not fully understand, such as Philip (cf. Jn 14:8-9). Progressively to the rest of the Israelites. Not only insinuating with words (“I exist before Abraham”, cf. Jn 8:58) his strange condition, but attributing to himself with his actions prerogatives that for a good Israelite were exclusive to Yahweh, for example, to forgive sins through his own authority. Prophet, Messiah, Son of Man..., such other aspects he is revealing gradually, until the solemn declaration before the High Priest in a process, which was the theological process of the whole religious history of Israel, when Christ declares himself formally Son of God. However, he did not say everything, he called himself Son of God, but not God. He declares that his revelation is not finished, and that he will send the Holy Spirit to his apostles in order to finish it by teaching them new things (cf. Jn 16: 12-13). And within the apostolic circle there are clearly additive novelties. However, this progress is not evolution. Each progradient step supposes the previous one and supports itself on it, but does not originate from it completely; it comes from a new positive intervention of God manifesting. This intervention has two dimensions. One is retrospective, to be complement and fulfillment of the Old Testament. The other is prospective; each step prepares the next. Regardless of the point of view taken, the New Testament revelation is, in its own constitution, progradient, but the progress is an accretion in continuity; it is not an evolution in which each step comes out of the previous one. Therefore, from the internal perspective of the New Testament, revelation also does not have a “substrative” characteristic, but a “subjectual”1 (Sp. “subjectual”) one. III. The revelation of the Old Testament and the one from the era of the New Testament is what has been fixated as deposit in the {563} Church. What is the formal characteristic of this fixation? For us now this is the essential question. The deposit comprises, above all, the Old Testament. Separated from the Synagogue, the Church, indeed, claims for itself the whole Old Testament. But claims it in a particular way, which corresponds exactly to the type of progress by accretion. On the one hand, actually, the New Testament accrues the Old Testament, but in a very precise form, by “transcendence”. Consequently, the New Testament revelation is something “new”, a New Covenant or New Alliance between God and men; by virtue of this, it has its own value in and of itself. Hence, the Law anterior to Christ is nothing but a stepping march towards the transcendence of the New Law. It is preserved as a moment of this stepping march, but nothing more; its content is abolished. That was the attitude of the apostles facing Judeo-Christianity, which, in the name of transcendence, defended the necessity of passing through Judaism in order to enter Christianity. On the other hand, the New Testament transcends the Old Testament, but also in a very precise form, as “complement and fulfillment”. It is an accretion, but formally prepared, awaited, and “foreseen” as terminus of a long continuous process. In the Old Testament not only there is a Law, but also a revelation. And in this respect, the transcendence of the New Testament is not simpliciter an annulment of the Old. The old revelation remains preserved and absorbed in the new. The New Testament God is, actually, identical to ‘Elohim and Yahweh. To counterpose them, seeing in Yahweh the God of terror, a kind of simple demiurge, facing the God of the New Testament, the God of love, would lead to a rejection of the whole Old Testament and a good portion of the New, that was the thesis of Marcion. The reaction of the Church facing Marcionism was forceful; the Church firmly holds the unity of revelation. {564} Therefore, insofar as transcendence, but as complement and fulfillment, the Old Testament forms a strict part of the deposit. What might be its extent, i.e., the fixation of the Old Testament canon, was a delicate and laborious problem that only in modern times has received a complete solution in what concerns the deuterocanonical books. The other element of the deposit is the revelation of the apostolic era, the New Testament revelation. This revelation is, as we pointed out, the work not only of Christ, but also of the apostles as taught by the Holy Spirit. It is what in a general way we have called the “living magisterium”. And since this magisterium is what leads to the fixation of part of its content in the writings of the New Testament, it turns out that the crucial problem centers on the type of action by the Holy Spirit. The characteristic of the action of the Holy Spirit depends on the type of action. If it continues to be what it was up to now, i.e., if the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church is teaching, as it was in the Old Testament and in the apostolic era, the deposit will continue growing. But if that action has ceased, the deposit will no longer accrue, but at best it will only give of itself what it has already become once and for all; the deposit will be a substrate and its progress the dawn of a dogmatic evolution. Therefore, the problem of the type of action by the Holy Spirit is nothing but the problem of the formal characteristic of the revealed deposit. The difficulties of the question began to be forcefully perceived during the apostolic era itself. Saint Paul clearly tells us about the exuberant effusion of charismata by the Holy Spirit among the early faithful. Many of the fortunate ones with the “gift” of prophecy tended to believe themselves the vehicles of new revelations; these were the “wandering charismatics”, mentioned in the Didaché. The attitude of St. Paul was {565} adamant. On the one hand, positive acceptance of the charisms, “do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophetic utterances, test everything; retain what is good” (1 Thes 5:19-21). How to discern this? By its conformity with the apostolic preaching, with the integrity of the deposit. That is his order to Timothy, “guard the deposit” (1 Tm 6:20). Towards the end of the II century the same situation appears. Montanus in Phrygia unleashes an important movement where his disciples gather presenting collective phenomena of exaltation, etc., affirming that the Holy Spirit descends over him and his disciples and communicates new revelations. Despite having brought Tertullian to his ranks the Church rejected Montanism for just one reason, what he teaches is not in the preaching of the apostles. Finally, already from the end of the apostolic age Gnosticism also defended a new fountain of knowledge, the gnosis, superior to simple faith, and fountain of new truths. The attitude of the Church was the same. If by this superior knowledge new revealed truths are understood, the Fathers of the Church forcefully rejected Gnosticism for the same reason they rejected Montanism. But if by superior knowledge is meant a deeper and more organic knowledge of the apostolic truths, then the Church not only accepts the gnosis, but also sponsors it, that was the dawn of the Alexandrian theology. In this fashion the action of the Holy Spirit has been understood more precisely. It is an action that, with respect to our problem, encompasses five forms. First, the action as effusion of the “gifts” (dóron, chárisma) of the Holy Spirit in all Christian souls. This action only concerns the perfection of living, i.e., in the man already seized by revelation. Second, it concerns one of those gifts, particularly the gift of science that leads to a better comprehension of revelation, to a reflection or theologic “gnosis” (gnósis). Third, an effusion {566} in the form of “inspiration” to fixate in writing the revealed deposit (pása graphé theópneustos, 2 Tm 3:16). Fourth, it is an effusion in the form of “revelation” (apokálupsis, phanérosis). Against all the forms of illuminism (charismatics, Montanists, Gnostics), the Church considers this action closed with the death of the last apostle. It lead, already at the end of the III century, to the fixation of the canon of the New Testament with the exclusion of the writings of the Montanists, to which there is an allusion in the Muratori canon. But this does not eliminate another action of the Holy Spirit, a fifth action, the action of “assistance” to keep the revealed deposit. The action of the Holy Spirit thus clarified, what is important to us here are obviously the last two moments. With the death of the last apostle, we have mentioned that the action of God as fountain of revelation has finished. In other words, the formal characteristic of the revealed deposit is “conclusiveness”. What does this characteristic mean explicitly? It means, first, that revelation has a strict “unity”. Above all, a “fontanal” unity, the God revealer of the Old Testament is (as we mentioned with respect of Montanism) the same as the God revealer of the New Testament and of the apostolic preaching. In order to simplify, I call “apostolic preaching” that part of this preaching not consigned to writing in the books of the New Testament. But revelation also comprises an “intrinsic” unity, the content of each of the “three revelations” (if I may be permitted this expression) remains preserved in the next as an intrinsic and formal element of it. But in addition, and finally, revelation comprises a “historical” unity and not merely a “synoptic” one, so to speak. The three revelations are nothing but the unfolding of only one manifesting action of God; each one not only precedes the following, but also leads to it. The Old Testament leads to the New Testament and the New to the {567} apostolic preaching. And leads, not in an external manner, as if it were the case of a mere step whose only reason for being is to make possible the access to the next. An access to the next in such fashion, that once this one is accomplished the previous one would be nothing but a memory, alien to the content of the new step. It is not that at all. The three revelations are not three floors or three “strata”, but three “stages” of only one revelation. In such a way that each stage is with respect to the following, an “intrinsic” preparation, and with respect to the previous one is a complement, but in a fulfillment that is also “intrinsic”. Hence, with respect to this intrinsic and historic fontanal unity, we say it is a “concluded” unity. What is this conclusion? The conclusion has two essential moments that we must underline separately. 1) One is the moment of “exclusion”; there is no more revelation. But, stated this way, it might appear that this is the case of a merely negative note, it is not. That negation expresses something true, but only something that is derived. The primary case is something positive, revelation does not continue, but it is not because of a simple arbitrary stoppage, but because what God wished to manifest as necessary for supernatural life.is already fully revealed. What God wished to manifest was not, therefore, a kind of absolutely arbitrary selection of supernatural realities, but an organic plan of supernatural living. And this is precisely the positive element; conclusiveness is “fullness”. In order to understand what this fullness means, let us recall again that revelation does not consist, in the first place, on a list of true enunciations. These enunciations exist, of course, in the deposit of the initial revelation. But this revelation primarily and formally consists in the presentation of reality, i.e., in the manifest reality insofar as reality; this is what we have called “real truth”. And this presentation of reality is what a “donation” of God is. In such fashion that the fullness of {568} revelation does not consist in a complete list of true enunciations, but rather that in the apostles God has given himself fully, as manifest, to men. The fullness of this manifesting donation of God to men; this is what the formal characteristic of fullness is. To say there will be no more revelation means there will be no more manifesting donation, that there will be no more manifest reality insofar as reality. But it does not mean that this full manifestation has been made in the form of a closed list of true enunciations; there have been some, but nothing else. Every enunciation is manifestation, but not every intellective manifestation is necessarily enunciation. For this reason the knowledge intrinsically involved in the manifestation as such is an ante-predicative knowing, not an enunciative knowing. And this ante-predicative knowing is the one that the apostles exhaustively had, namely, the fullness of the infused sense of the supernatural realities, which were given to them manifestly. 2) But, by the same reason it excludes any increase of reality, the conclusion of revelation confers to manifestation a positive characteristic of “exigency” for a subsequent manifestation. The conclusiveness is not only “exclusion”; it is also at one and the same time “exigency”. The conclusion confers to revelation its own modal characteristic. By being complete it has to initiate, so to speak, a “stepping march” all on its own. Using a biological metaphor, it is now an elemental, but complete organism on the line of vital autonomy. The closure, when conferring this complete characteristic to revelation, makes it fall back on itself (reflectivity), and this reflection is not something hermetic, but quite the opposite. It is a kind of internal pressure to give of itself from itself. Hence, the progress of this giving of itself is not something added or simply “tolerated” by the identity of revelation, but something that emerges from it precisely due to its closing. The fullness {569} of manifesting donation demands from itself the inexhaustible stepping march towards subsequent enunciation. And in this is what the fifth action of the Holy Spirit consists; not in an illumination of new realities, but in an “assistance” to discern what is primarily and fully given in the visual field. The assistance is not, therefore, something “merely” negative. It is negative insofar as it does not give more manifest reality, but is positive insofar as it is something like an increase, if not of light, at least of visual sensibility. Finally, conclusiveness is manifestative fullness as intrinsic exigency for a better formal manifestation. By virtue of this, the deposit proposed since the apostles is a suppositum, but it does not have the characteristic of subjectum, but of substratum. This revelation, the one from the post-apostolic deposit, and not any other, is the one that has a formally substrative characteristic. And it has it precisely and formally because it has a conclusive characteristic, insofar as intrinsic and historic fontanal unity. In other words, conclusiveness is substrativity (Sp. substratualidad2). And, therefore, the subsequent progress is no longer accrual, but evolution. Crescat igitur et proficiat3... But, how? Through the situation. B) The function of situation Revelation as substrate does not float in a vacuum, but seizes men in a certain personal and collective situation. This is what we express by saying that revelation is in concreto and in every instant “situated”. This situation has several aspects, belief, devotion, liturgical rituals, etc. {570} But all these aspects are relevant to our problem only in the measure they involve an intellective moment and reach an intellection. Hence, in the situation we are only going to refer to what is intellective in it. With that in mind, it is this situation, which makes that the substrate may give of itself what it can and must give of itself. The function of situation is precisely to make possible that the substrate give of itself. If it were not for the situation revelation would be an inert deposit in this order; and we have already seen it is not, but it has to give of itself constitutively. What makes it give of itself is the situation. But precisely because of this, the action of the situation on the revealed substrate could be of a very different type. Therefore, we need to ask what the “precise” function of situation is as possibility for the giving of itself, i.e., of the dogmatic progress. I. The situation could, from itself, act on the substrate in such a way that it might constitute, with the elements the situation contributes, a tertium quid. This is precisely the case of all religious syncretism with a Christian base. Antiquity gives us, among others, two important examples, Gnosticism (besides the new revelations it may introduce), and Manichaeanism. The Church firmly opposed any syncretism. Because, strictly speaking, this would not be to “give of itself”, but “give place” from itself to “another”. We can only talk about “give of itself” when the given not only comes out of the substrate in some fashion, but when in the bottom, i.e., as reality, what is given is the very substrate. Therefore, the function of situation in the progress of the substrate is rigorously to make that the substrate may keep its identity. This is the first moment of the function of situation. This is why progress is evolution. Evolution is neither accretion nor syncretism, but identity. But identity in “another form”, because this identity, as we saw, is not the invariability {571} of a bloc, but identity in the sense of “live” actualization. And precisely the diversity of forms of actualization is the inexorable condition of the preservation of identity. This identity is, of course, of the “elements” of revelation; so to speak the identity of each one of the manifest realities. But it is something else. Because the revealed deposit is concluded in the sense of fullness, i.e., as fontanal unity, intrinsic and historic, it is the unity of an organic plan of supernatural reality. Hence each of the manifest realities is nothing but an element, which only acquires a reason for being manifest in the primary and originating unity of revelation. The revealed is not a mosaic of realities, but an intrinsically single reality, a complete system of manifest realities in order to supernatural life. Consequently, what remains identical is, above all, that primary unity. Certainly, for us not even after revelation is every detail of this unity patent. But precisely here lies what is essential. The function of situation, while maintaining the identity of the deposit, is not to dislocate revelation. In general, dogmas support each other, and the unitary whole is “the” revealed reality. Any modification of an element would alter the unity of the corpus of truth. And many times this has been the criterion for evolution. Thus, the dogma that Christ has a real body and not only an apparent one (as Docetism held) is united to the dogma of the redemption of the body. In the same condition is the dogma that Christ has a human soul. Apollinarianism held that it was the Word who constituted the soul of the body of Christ. If this were so, the human soul would not have been redeemed. The Christological dogmas support themselves on the Soteriological and reciprocally. This is the case of all dogmas. I believe it is necessary to underline this idea, which almost always has usually remained unnoticed in our problem, revelation {572} forms a “body”. Not only in the sense of a body of doctrine (this is the sense in which the term sóma was preferentially used by St. Irenaeus and Origen); this would be, strictly speaking, “theology”. Here I am not referring to the doctrinal body, but to revelation itself. Revelation forms a body, i.e., something, in which its elements or moments are reciprocally united in the primary unity of “the” revelation. It is not the case of a logical connection or, if you will, “objective”; it is not the case that dogmas as true enunciations form a coherent system of objective implications. It is true that partially they form it; but this objective unity is not the primary one. What is primary is the unity of the manifest realities qua realities. And this “real” unity is not an objective system of implications, but a real system of “com-plications”, so to speak, in the etymological sense of the term; something that is “placed-with” another something together when the latter is placed. It is a corpus reale and not a corpus objectivum. And the difference is clear. First, because the corpus objectivum is nothing, in the best of cases, but the true enunciative system of the corpus reale. But second, and most of all, because the objective body cannot be coextensive with the real body. Not all dogmas, actually, are or cannot be implicated in logical connection; there are some that are completely independent among themselves in the order of objective connection. However, in re they are not “independent”, but just the reverse, they are united in the structural unity of a body, in the “corporeal” unity of revealed reality. To make possible the identity of this body in the diverse situations by means of an evolutionary progress, is the first note of the function of situation in that progress. ________________ 1 [Tr. note: cf. “subjectual”, Man and God, p. 103] 2 [Tr. note: Zubiri neologism] 3 This is from the text, already quoted, of St. Vincent of Lerins that the Vatican I council took for its own. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Appendix (572-585) --------------- {572} (cont’d) II. But this identity is not yet sufficient to adequately tighten the function of situation. So far, one thing {573} is clear, if there is no accretion or “crasis” and if, however, there is evolution of manifest reality, this evolution can only affect reality, but only in its mode of being there manifest. That in being there manifest we may find progress is something we have already seen. Revelation, complete and concluded in fullness with respect to what concerns its content, is not yet full, but imperfect with respect to its way of being there manifest. This progress is a determination of the substrate by the situation without the latter affecting the content of the substrate at all. Because of this it is evolution, and the imperfection in the mode of being there manifest is the formal characteristic, inasmuch of the substrate as of the situation. Revelation, actually, is substrate insofar as it is concluded reality, which does nothing but give of itself; but this giving of itself is formally a giving of itself in the mode of being there manifest. Therefore, revelation is substrate precisely and formally, on the line of being there manifest as such. Correlatively, the substrate being affected by the situation is purely and simply “making” that revelation give of itself in the order of being there manifest. Any other actuation would be syncretism. The situation is not the one that manifests, but the one that makes that there be manifestation. Its function is reduced to just this. The situation enlightens the auto-possibilities of manifestation. But the one that manifests is the deposit itself, because that manifestation (we already saw it) is Christ defining himself in and by the Church. Therefore, the progress determined by the situation in the order of the substrate being there manifest, will be a strict evolution if it maintains in this progress the identity of the revealed deposit. Hence, everything centers on determining in what the identity of the deposit consists in the order of being there manifest. To understand that the question is not a sterile subtlety, it will be enough to think that the “situation” is not a kind of indifferent light, {574} achromatic, doing nothing but illuminating the revealed substratum. It is not that; the situation is rather, if we wish to continue the metaphor, a chromatic light with a quality and tonality perfectly defined. It is a series of very concrete intellectual questions with concepts more or less precise, but always quite concrete. It does not matter at all that these concepts may proceed from the revelation itself or from natural reason. Because of this, the question about what is the meaning of the identity of the body of revelation in these conditions is more than justified. Let us think, actually, that if we had asked the apostles if the divinity of Christ was hypostatic or physical they would not have replied yes or no, but simply that they did not understand the question. The Church itself had to think quite a lot before answering, and did not answer all at once, but through measured steps at Ephesus first, and at Chalcedon afterwards. What is, then, the identity of the body of revelation in the progress towards an improved being there manifest? Since the situation is, so to speak, a questioning, what it does on the body of revelation is to make it respond, but on the precise line of a perfectly qualified question. For this reason, the reply itself has an intrinsic concretion; it is a reply given by the deposit itself, from its own structures, but on the precise line in which the questioning has placed it. The intellectual and pious labor of individuals and communities gives revelation quite varied and rich intellectual developments. A moment arrives in which they turn towards revelation itself, insofar as revelation, to question it about the adequation with which these developments represent the revealed deposit as such. Indeed, we have already seen that the reply is only a better mode of being there manifest. This means that in the novelty of this mode there are two moments. One, according {575} to which the content of the reply emerges from the deposit as substrate, i.e., from its own constitutive structures, it is the moment by which we say it is a “giving of itself”. Another, the moment according to which this donation is oriented on the precise line of the question; by this moment we say that the “giving of itself” has a precise “sense”, the sense in which the questioning concepts make it give of itself. The unity of these two moments is what we have called “aspect”. An aspect is only a new mode of being there manifest of what was already real and was there manifested, but in another form. It is not an accretion of reality, but a greater unveiling of something already complete and concluded in its content as reality. In the new way of being there manifest, reality manifests itself in its new aspects. This unity between the aspect and the naked mode of being there manifest is what constitutes the concretion of progress in the order of manifestation. By virtue of this, the question as to what the identity of the revealed body consists in its evolving progress towards a better being there manifest is not a vain subtlety. It is the most important point of this matter, the problem of the real identity of the body of revelation in its multiple aspects. It might be thought that since the aspects depend on the point of view, i.e., of some concepts perfectly contingent and variable in the course of time, the aspects would also continue to change in the course of time. But in a peculiar way. The concepts, actually, are or can be derogated with the stepping march of intelligence and are substituted by others. Correlatively, the aspects would also be derogated. And “revelation” would take new impetus to survive under new aspects that would have nothing to do with the previous ones. With this, that “revelation” would be a kind of spiritual impulse with an indefinite content, a great “x” that would be molding itself historically in radically heterogeneous contents and senses. {576} Its presumed identity would be nothing but the oneness and mere continuity of a movement that perdures only by absorbing and abolishing precarious senses and engendering new ones. Evolution would be transformation of sense, it would be an aspectualization by transformation. Revelation would only subsist by transforming itself at the tempo of history. That was the thesis of liberal Protestantism and Modernism. But this is impossible in the case of the revealed deposit. Primarily, for an initial reason. If this were so, we would not have a revealed “deposit”, but a vague divine impulse in the depth of the human spirit. Because if it is said, and obviously is the least that can be said, that this impulse has a certain orientation since the course of history is not simply fortuitous, certain notes would have been included in the impulse, notes that qualify it internally. And it is these notes and not its vague thrust that would constitute the identity of revelation; this would be the deposit. But then, this thrust encompasses the entire man. Therefore, it does not encompass the intelligence with the exclusion of the rest of the human dimensions, but neither this with the exclusion of intelligence. And some notes made manifest to the intelligence are, by definition, the antithesis of what is proposed in Modernism. Otherwise, we might have to conclude that this divine vague and dynamic impulse would not be exclusive to Christianity, but common to every religion. Because in the end from this point of view, the movement of men towards God, which is one of the moments of unity in the history of religions, is nothing but a palpitation of God in the depths of the human spirit. However, this is not sufficient for the diversification of religions. Religions, in what they differ radically is more than in the so-called “religious feelings” they inspire (a point of convergence more than it appears at first sight) in the very idea of God. Finally, in this conceptiveness, {577} either it is only preserved in an amorphous nisus, or it is provided with intrinsic manifest notes. In the first case, it evaporates because history is constituted by precise moments and qualities; and in the second place, that conceptiveness destroys itself. But let us put aside this reason, and pay attention precisely to the history of Christian revelation. Has the evolution of the revealed deposit been as described in this thesis? The transformist thesis is, in the end, a return to progress by accrual or, at least, an evolution in syncretism. To progress by accrual, in that subtle form, which is the production of new senses, alien in their own content to the initial revelation. To evolution by syncretism, because it interprets the situation as a series of concepts that like ingredients are going to compose something new by their “crasis” with the body of revelation. However, we have already seen that this is not the case. For what concerns our problem (I do not refer to much wider topics, such as the mentality of an era or a country, without doubt very interesting, which despite their wide range do not touch our problem, more restricted, but much more important), the doctrinal developments, the concepts, are not “elements”, which are going to enter into composition with revelation, but questions, as precise as you will, but mere questions. They are not the one’s that define, but the one’s that “make” that the deposit, the revealed substrate, define itself. The very reply, on the other hand, is given by the substrate from what it already was, and in which the content of the reply had been precontained, although in another form. It is true that without the situation the evolution would not have been produced, but once produced, what is produced is only a new mode of being there manifest what it already was. It is true that in this reply the definition is given precisely and formally on the conceptual line {578} outlined by the question, i.e., that it has a concrete sense pending on the questions. But, what is that sense? The term is ambiguous. Sense may mean, on the one hand, the characteristic of something being “foreseen” from a certain point of view. But it may mean, on the other hand, the structure itself that the thing discovers while being “foreseen” from that point of view. In the first meaning, the sense is something perfectly contingent. If Christianity had been born in other eras or if it had developed first through other civilizations different than the Greco-Roman, there is no doubt that the points of view, the intellectual situations would have changed, and therefore, the sense, as mere “foreseen” would have been different, and significantly so. But the second, i.e., the structure the revealed body discovers, “foreseen” from a certain point of view, is contingent as fact, i.e., manifestation might not have taken place; but once manifest the manifested is now an intrinsic moment of the deposit, because it is nothing but manifestation of what was there before. It is just what the term “aspect” expresses. By virtue of this it belongs to the deposit and only to it. Therefore, evolution proceeds, not by derogation and innovation, but just the opposite, it is aspectualization by preservation of the aspects. The situation makes that some aspect be unveiled; this aspect is now preserved in the revealed body or substrate. And from it, with all its aspects, can extend itself to other situations and give of itself a further manifestation; but it will be by “extension” of the first, not by abolition. As such, for the sake of a further evolvable progress, the body of revelation is comprised not only by the initial revelation, but by all aspects that, by being substrate, has been giving of itself in previous definitions. Therefore, evolution as aspectualization is the opposite of a “transformation”; {579} it is a “conservation” of sense. The fact is, let us recall it once more, the deposit is not primarily a list of true enunciations that are repeated, but the actuality of manifest reality qua reality before the intelligence. The definition is not made through an examination of previous propositions, but through a new inspection of these realities. By virtue of this, although the questioning concepts enter into the definition, they enter it only to determine the vision of reality that is being faced, and therefore, with an unreformable sense the way we have explained. In order to simplify the exposition, from now on I shall call aspectualization by transformation simply “transformation”, and I shall reserve the term “aspectualization” for conservation. With this we have now tightened rigorously the precise function of situation in the dogmatic evolution. It is simply making that the identity of the substrate be maintained. Making that the identity of the revealed body be maintained through a “procedure” that is an unveiling of aspects. The identity of the revealed body does not consist in the mere transforming continuity of senses, but in the corporeal solidarity in and with all of the aspects. And the subsequent evolution, i.e., after the acquisition of some aspect, consists not only in continuing to show new aspects in the way of being there manifest, but also many times in the “extension” of the previous. Evolution, therefore, has a moment of crescat igitur et proficiat, but it is quite precisely added, in eodem sensu, in eadem sententia, in eodem dogmata (DS 3020)1. Such is the how of evolution, the unreformability of the sense of the definition. Unreformability does not mean perfection, and therefore, a cessation of every evolution on this line, just the opposite. The {580} defined sense can be in many cases “incomplete” in its elements. Thus, for example, it has been defined that despite the Eucharistic transubstantiation the “species” of bread and wine are preserved; but what the species are has not been defined. At other times the sense is defined, but in its general direction, so to speak, without further precision, i.e., in a sense that is still “imprecise”. In such manner Ephesus defined the “natural unity” (hénosis physiké, DS 254) of the Word and man in Christ, but only insofar as “natural unity” is greater than mere “moral union”. More than anything else it was a direction of intellection, because the positive characteristic of that “natural unity” remained imprecise. It was not known if it was “physical”, i.e., in nature, or merely “hypostatic”, in person, concretely in the person of the Word. The Council of Chalcedon was needed to make the definition of Ephesus more precise. Similarly, it is defined that the Mass is a true sacrifice, but what has not been defined at all is where the reason for sac rice may be found in the Mass. When it is said, therefore, that the definition is unreformable it is not meant that it may be perfect as complete or as precise. It only means that any subsequent definition will necessarily have to be in line with the previous definition, in such fashion that it may remain extended and more precise, but never derogated. In other words, although revelation, the substrate, may have given of itself it can still give “more of itself” on the same line. Because what is defined is not only an enunciation that is repeated, but also a reality qua reality, always present before our eyes. Finally, revelation constitutes a body or integral corporeal substrate, i.e., concluded and unreformable. Its solidarity is not only quiescent like a statue, quite the contrary. We already saw that revelation is made by God the way it is, precisely and formally “for” progressing in the form of evolution and not despite evolution. This is why its corporeal {81} solidarity is not only what links its initial elements as in a statue, but is also the dynamic solidarity of a body with all the aspects it is “demonstrating” by a kind of intrinsic agility. The body is solidarity not only in the structure of reality such as it is in itself at a given moment, but in the structure of reality such as it is there manifest, and in its mode and aspects of being there. It is solidarity in the occurring, a historical solidarity, a reality, which is somatic occurring. By being concluded, revelation is corporeal substrate because it is something that has to “give of itself”. By being immersed in situation, this makes it manifest itself better, makes it aspectualize itself from itself, in aspects with which it maintains solidarity in a concrete way, through unreformability of what it has already given of itself. And clearly, with the possibility of continuing to give more of itself, including on the very line in which it has already given something of itself. Everything else is either syncretism or transformation, but not pure evolution. Paradoxical as it may seem, when affirming the in eodem sensu, what is affirmed is the pure evolution. But this requires some further explanation because it involves an important problem. III. Actually, as I already pointed out, the concept of evolution is equivocal. In its most general meaning, evolution consists in the fact that a substrate immersed in a situation may give from itself, from its own structures, something new by the action of the situation. In a certain way, therefore, evolution is the contrary of a true structural change. Understood this way, evolution is a characteristic that may affect any type of reality, whether biological, historical, etc. Let us limit ourselves for the moment to the biological domain. The curious thing is that in it, the very concept of evolution has evolved. In its first attempt, evolution is what served to explain how and why, {582} despite very profound configurational differences, the structural substrate remains identical, i.e., that the former are nothing but configurations of the latter. Thus, the formation of an embryo would be a true evolution. And this very concept was useful later to demonstrate that, despite its radical specific diversity in a biological sense, the so-called species are nothing but variable “forms” of only one vital structure, i.e., they are not true species in the old metaphysical sense. Little by little the accent was overloaded, placing it not so much on the principle, but on the result. Away from the sameness of the live structural substrate, and putting it precisely on it’s different conformations or biological speciations. With this, the fundamental problem of evolution now was to find the mechanism of this diversification. Since each species is nothing but one “form” of an identical substrate, the diversification was eo ipso a “transformation”. In the end, the result was that evolution became synonymous with transformation, and therefore, all the embryogenetic processes have been left outside of it. No one would say today, simply, that a normal germinal cell evolves, but that it develops; yet, it is commonly said that due to evolution one day the birds evolved from the reptiles. That has been the difference between “development” and “evolution”. We do not need to enter here into a more rigorous metaphysical conception of what evolution is in this sense. It will be enough for us with the following brief, but strict indications. In a development, the same structural substrate, immersed in a particular medium is acquiring different configurations. And precisely because the structural substrate is the same, the embryogenesis does nothing but “develop” what it already was in a pure germinal form. The initial structure is “germ” and the development mere “germination”. On the other hand, in the “evolution” or “transformation”, regardless of its mechanism, what is produced is an alteration of the initial structural substrate, a speciation. Evolution {583} is “speciation“. Evolution, which originally had meant “conservation”, has ended by meaning just the opposite, “transformation”. For this reason there is the risk of important confusions when speaking about evolution outside the strictly biological domain. With the present biological concept, where there is evolution there is transformation, and where there is no transformation, there is no evolution, but simple development. From this point of view, it is clear there is no dogmatic-real evolution, because clearly there is no transformation, but just the opposite, an aspectualization in the conservation of sense. However, strictly speaking, I prefer to avoid the term “development”; it has, of course, the advantage of eliminating the idea of transformation, but on the other hand it has the serious inconvenience of narrowing the problem at hand too much. It is preferable, therefore, to return to the primitive concepts and speak simply of “evolution” in the primary sense of the term, which covers not only “development”, but also other structures alien to the biological. Hence, in this primary sense, we say that evolution means a substrative sameness that by its own roots gives of itself a diversity of new modes of manifestation of what it already was. Of course, after these indications there is no objection in using the term “development” sometimes without risk of equivocation, as synonymous to pure evolution in order to contradistinguish it to transforming evolution. With this, we can understand one of the important problems that, under these conditions, the evolution of dogma posits. Actually, given a doctrinal evolutionary progress we need to know if it is “legitimate” or not. That is the problem of “legitimacy”. With what we have said we shall be able to understand with precision what this means. The novelty, which the evolutionary progress brings to the substrate might have a characteristic of its own, either merely aspectual {584} or transformative. Since revelation is a fontanal unity, intrinsically and historically finished and unreformable, it turns out that any transformation is in this order “de-formation”, corruption. Only aspectualization answers the exigencies of the problem. This is why I have said that to affirm the in eodem sensu is just to affirm pure evolution. With this we have managed to obtain a precise concept of legitimacy. “Legitimacy” is precisely and formally “aspectualization”. This also provides us with the precise formula for the problem of legitimacy. To discern in each case the types of evolution, i.e., if the novelty in question is aspectualization or transformation. Difficult problem, because it is not the case of finding out, which evolution is the legitimate one (we have already solved this), but to know if the evolution that is happening in front of our eyes is or is not legitimate. The first is a purely theological problem; the second, on the other hand, is a historical problem2. However, it is not a purely historical problem, just the opposite. Because, when we ask if the evolution in question is or is not legitimate, we have already placed the historical reality in the field of theological truth; and this, not because of an arbitrary operation of ours, but because of the real historicity of revelation, by its own historical occurrence. Correlatively, when converting itself into luminosity of historical discernment, the theological truth of revelation converts itself eo ipso into a logos of “dis-cerning”, i.e., into a “criterio-logy” of evolution. Therefore, the problem of legitimacy is posited by the necessities of the “historical reality” of revelation (it is history “re-assumed” in the theological); but it is dealt with by the {585} theological truth of history (it is the theological “re-incarnated” in history). Let us examine these two points separately. _______________ 1 Again, this is from the text of St. Vincent of Lerins we have quoted in a previous note. 2 Here I take the term “theological” in the sense of a property of God or the divine as such, different than “theologic”, which aims rather to a property of theologic science or of the divine insofar as terminus of it (note by Zubiri). --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Appendix (585-596) --------------- {585} (cont’d) 1) The historical reality of revelation makes this problem spring from its own reality. If revelation consisted only of a series of true enunciations it would be enough with their faithful repetition to transmit it. But we have already seen that revelation is primarily manifest reality insofar as reality, and its transmission consists in “re-actualization”, i.e., in maintaining in act, before the intelligence and the whole man, this manifest reality. Its historicity is not an external vicissitude, but its intrinsic concretion, the very form of its actuality, an actuality that is, at the same time, an intrinsically possibilitating principle of supernatural life. It is something, which in its own integral reality is made to be appropriated by man. As principle of life, revelation is such in the form of actuality of manifest reality; and this actuality as possibilitating principle is eo ipso “historical”. These two moments, taken at one and the same time, characterize the concrete reality of revelation. As possibility appropriated by man, it seizes him, not as a simple idea or a mere program, but as an actual reality, which is the inchoation, in some form “physical”, of a supernatural life. It is true that on this line revelation is a principle that can be impeded; but only for isolated individuals, never for the entire Church. And only insofar as they still belong to it, they can contribute, however, to the dogmatic progress. Hence, when seizing man, manifest reality is empowering the possessional (Sp. posidente) dimension of the intellective manifestation. This is the dawn of a strict supernatural intellective “life” (gnósis). By virtue of this, we shall say that the entire man “flourishes”, so to speak, in revelation and revelation also flourishes in man. I use the term “flourishes” so that the “real” aspect of actuality {586} and the subsequent process to it may echo in the phrase. Man flourishes in revelation because it is not only an idea that orients life, but also a reality whose actuality “really” molds man at all levels. Making use of the Evangelical parable, revelation is the yeast that ferments the entire dough. But, at the same time, revelation itself flourishes in man, because by being an actual reality qua reality, engenders in man a “connaturality”, an intimacy, which makes that revelation, the revealed substrate, may uncover for him new aspects, aspects he is expressing in ideas and concepts. Revelation has modified man making of him a “new” man, but man continues to discover an incessant novelty in revelation because of the inexhaustible fertility in it; man never finishes knowing well the totality of everything he believes in. And in this sense, modifies revelation. This flourishing, which is at one and the same time a flourishing of man and of revelation, is the “real” structure of a seizing on the part of a strict actualized reality and, I repeat, this occurs realiter in the very intelligence, in its possessional dimension. In order to avoid confusion please allow me to make a terminological clarification. Until now, I have distinguished several times the dogmatic-real progress from the mere theologic progress I have called “doctrinal progress”. But there is an intermediate state of development, the one in which a doctrine is still not yet defined as a dogma, but is capable of being defined and is on its way to be defined or to be definitely eliminated as a possible dogma. Insofar as not yet defined as a dogma, this development is still merely doctrinal; but insofar as it refers to a point formally definable, it is different than the other merely theologic developments. Hence, since in this work we are not concerned ex professo with theology, we shall reserve from now on (except when we indicate otherwise or by the sense of the context) {587} the name of doctrinal developments or developments of doctrine for those particular types of development; these are the dogmas in fieri. Thus, the flourishing is not brought about except by trials, which are sometimes painful. Man indeed expresses in ideas and concepts, taken from the possessional inspection of manifest reality, the aspects it is discovering in it. This reality, in its original simplicity easily reabsorbs the idea it has produced. However, even in its first steps the matter becomes complicated. Because the idea in a certain way is being incorporated to the perception of reality precisely by the reabsorption that reality is performing on the idea. And, when expressing this “whole” in subsequent ideas, these others are not only ideas of manifest reality, but of “conceived” manifest reality; in good measure they could be ideas of ideas. In this manner a great doctrinal development is accomplished (here I am referring only to the aspect of development). The simple actuality of manifest reality continues, however, exercising its reabsorbing tension. And this operation is no longer as simple as before. The doctrine expresses, or at least tries to express, manifest reality; but the traversed road has been long; the doctrinal result accomplished is a system of complex enunciations, which will never exhaust the reality, and often seems to distance itself from it. In this mutual interaction between intelligence and revelation the risk has been great of a deformation of the reality manifested by the doctrine, in such fashion that if it were not by the assistance of the Holy Spirit the revelation in history would have been suffocated. As such the unity of doctrine with the initial revelation has remained, not broken, but indeed, distended. In other words, attracted by the initial revelation in its primary simplicity, doctrine, however, remains floating by distention over revelation due to the intelligence that has reached it just by having appropriated the revelation. And this {588} “floating” is precisely the form of intellective apprehension we call “problem”. It is not the case of a purely speculative interrogation, of a mere “posing”, but of “energy”, i.e., of a “real” process that surges and occurs by the real structures of revelation seizing the intelligence. This is the problem as form of reality. The seizure of intelligence and the whole man by the actuality of manifest reality, is what by its own flourishing leaves undecided realiter in the intelligence, the unity between doctrine and revelation. And this unity is precisely the legitimacy. The problem thus activated realiter is nothing but the problem of legitimacy. This process is not only individual, but also collective. In the body of the Church the doctrinal flourishing of revelation has taken place in different directions. Inchoatively, perhaps all of them may stem from manifest reality being known intellectively, by the very richness of this reality, irreducible to any miserly uniformity. But this is only inchoatively, because in its doctrinal development the situation has become more acute if at all possible. Up to what point is this diversity the normal richness of an inexhaustible substrate in its ineffable simplicity? And even if it were, we do not know at first sight if it is the case of developments that revelation arouses, but do not formally belong to it, and are nothing but plausible things, pious possibilities, etc. On the other hand, it might be the case of false modifications, accepted in the beginning perhaps in good faith or through ignorance or through the disorientation inexorably produced by something still not yet clearly explored. The social body of the Church also tries to reabsorb these doctrinal developments. And the real indecision in which it finds itself is a real problem of legitimacy, the legitimate reality in the form of problem. {589} Therefore, individually or collectively there is a “natural” process of reabsorption. It is a strict “reflection”, not primarily a logical reflection, but a real reflection. The reflection of an intelligence that in the grasp of a manifest reality qua reality is under the weight of a doctrine aroused, at least in principle, by the flourishing of such a reality, which this reality makes it revert upon itself by the attraction of its actuality. If this reversion is achieved in effective reabsorption of the doctrine by the reality, i.e., by the substrate, the flourishing has been aspectualization. If the absorption is not possible, it has been a transformation, a corruption, the doctrine is an alien body to the revelation. The indecisive floating of the doctrine in its reversion to the manifest reality is formally a problem of aspectualization or transformation; i.e., it is legitimacy as problem. Thus, we have not “reached” it through speculative sharpness, but rather on the contrary we “have been taken” to it by the historical structure of revealed reality. That is, on the strength of a real occurrence, which by its own characteristics, also real, places history in the field of light of revelation. This is revelation trying to reassume in its simple theological truth the doctrinal evolution, the history. 2) But then, the very theological truth is seen “occurring”, i.e., incarnated in history. Let us not forget, in order to avoid false interpretations, that history is a mode of reality, that mode we call “occurrence”, and that occurrence formally consists in the realization of possibilities. Theological truth incarnated in history means the theological truth as characteristic of a reality, manifest reality, which offers itself as possibility at any levels, and especially in the order of self comprehension (auto-possibility). Incarnation is not, therefore, extrinsic incorporation, but occurrence as mode of actuality. Theological truth is absolute truth, but {590} in the historical concretion as an occurrence, in the sense I have just defined. Consequently, in the occurrence the imprint of theological truth is molded. Reciprocally, this imprint is the theological logos of history and what allows “discerning” in it its theological truth. This is the “criterion” of theological truth. What is the characteristic of this imprint, i.e., of every theological criterion? We have just seen that the flourishing of revelation into “doctrine” leaves the latter floating indecisively over the former. This indecision is nothing but the distension of the unity of doctrine with the simplicity of the initial revelation. The imprint of theological truth in the occurrence is “theological unity”, the theological unity of the occurrence (hína ósin teteleoménoi eís hén, Jn 17:23). Legitimacy is theological unity. And all the developments that may maintain this unity are legitimate, they are aspectualizations. I mentioned above that the initial directions of all the doctrinal developments perhaps are inchoatively suggested in the substrate, in the body of the initial revelation, but only inchoatively. The fact is that the reality of the revealed substrate has numerous auto-possibilities of being intellectively known. The question is that its realization, i.e., the occurrence, may be correct. It will be, if there is a strict unity with the initial revelation, i.e., if the occurrence is the very realization of the unity. Therefore, every “criterion” is nothing but a “signal” (semeíon) of unity in the realization of the auto-possibilities of intellection of revealed truth. Which one or which ones are these signals? That is the problem. a) It is a case of unity (hén). Manifest reality has as its first and closest auto-possibility the fact of being affirmed and intellectively known in the belief as something real and true. The unity of doctrine with the initial revelation is what confers to that doctrine the characteristic of a truth of faith, i.e., of a truth contained in one form or another in the revealed deposit. Consequently, since the deposit is constituted in the Church as such, {591} it turns out that in the deposit faith is not only a community, but a “communion” of the entire Church in the revealed reality. And then, reciprocally, the unanimity of faith in the entire Church is the imprint or the signal of theological truth in the body of the faithful; it is the very occurrence of the unity of doctrine with the initial revelation. The hén is concretely mía pístis, “one same faith”. And the occurrence of this sameness is the unity of universal “con-sensus”. Of course, I am not referring to a truth already defined by the teaching Church, but to the moment prior to the definition, i.e., to what may serve as criterion for the definable. And this criterion is the unanimous consensus of the faithful in the learning Church. This Church evidently does not have the capacity to teach by its own authority, and much less to define the revealed deposit; but it does have the capacity to believe in it. Furthermore, it is to this belief, that in the end the very existence of the deposit is ordered. Consequently, the body of the faithful is indefectible when there is in it a strict corporeity , i.e., a strict unanimity of faith in a doctrinal point. The contrary would be to admit a formal error into the whole Church in a matter of faith, something impossible because of the very assistance of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, Christ, after having prayed to the Father for the indefectible unity of the Apostolic College of the teaching Church (“keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are”, Jn 17:11), prays also “for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one” (Jn 17:20-21). By virtue of this, lacking an infallibilitas docendi, the body of the faithful has an undeniable infallibilitas credendi. Therefore, the unanimity in believing that a doctrine is revealed truth, i.e., the unanimity of believing in the unity of a doctrine with revelation is a logos that allows the discernment of theological truth as different from a transformation. The “unanimity” of “con-sensus” is an indefectible signal {592} of real “unity”; it is the aspectual occurrence of this unity. Thus, for example, St. Augustine appeals to the unanimous consensus of faith in order to defend his doctrine of original sin against Pelagius. This unanimity is not a mere “voice” of the people (murmur the Pelagians would say ironically to St. Augustine), but quite the reverse, it is the theological “logos” resonating as faith. That is why it is a “signal” of faith. Be that as it may, it is a signal with a very difficult and limited application. A most difficult application simply because there must be a patent unanimity of consensus in the whole Church, a unanimity with such a characteristic that to reject it would be equivalent to admitting a formal error of faith into the whole Church. Where there is a reasonable diversity of opinions, this theological unity no longer exists; at best there would be, depending on the case, suggestions of possibility, of plausibility, of greater or lesser probability, etc., but nothing else. In addition, this criterion is very limited. It can only serve for those points, which are within reach of the intelligence of all, and where they can find immediate resonance. Such was the unanimity with which the faithful rejected the errors of Nestorius because he denied Mary the strict title of “Mother of God” (theotókos). It would be chimerical, on the other hand, to ask for unanimity in knowing, for example, whether in the Trinity the principle of spiration is singular or not. In general, unanimity is produced as a consequence of the definition, and not prior to it; in other words, generally it is not a wide criterion. When there is unanimous consent it is really a criterion of evolution of the substrate by aspectualization. It is a theological signal of unity between a doctrine and revelation, and is the very occurrence of this unity. b) This consensus is in a certain way “direct”. It directly concerns whether the doctrine belongs to the revealed deposit or not. However, it may adopt a somewhat “indirect” form. I shall {593} explain. Since the apostolic preaching constituted the revealed deposit, in order to know if a particular doctrine belongs to the revealed deposit it will be enough to ask if it was preached by the apostles. The object of faith is reached, the deposit, by way of the apostolic preaching. This is the sense in which I speak of an “indirect” way of using the unanimous consent. It would be a more properly historical dimension of it. The revealing “voice” of the apostles would still be resonating in history. It is another auto-possibility of manifest reality. At an earlier time, this reality had affirmed its reality as “sameness” in the consensus of the minds. Now reality affirms its reality as “permanence” of something identical in time. The occurrence of this unity would formally be a “continuation” of the primitive body of the Church (tó archaíon tés ekklesías sústema), as St. Irenaeus said1. We have thus reached the point of view of the great theoretician of tradition, St. Vincent of Lerins. Having put the question in this perspective, we must then ask which are the signals of this continuation. Above all, the unanimity in firmly maintaining themselves in the same “received” teaching, the unanimity with which “all” (quod ab omnibus) believe that the apostles taught the doctrine in question. Where and how can we find this unanimity? First geographically, it is that which is believed by all “in all places” (quod ubique). When there are discrepancies, it will have to be examined which of the affirmations is the oldest one, the one that has “always” (quod semper) been believed, the one that reaches back to the time of the preaching of the apostles without interruption. This is the famous tryptic of St. Vincent of Lerins, quod semper, quod unique, quod ab omnibus. In the previous criterion we had a case of {594} formal unanimity in what was believed insofar as believed reality; it was unanimity of consensus. But here it is a case of unanimity of continuation. It is faith as historical “fidelity”. Of course, the continuation is not a mere mechanical repetition, nor could it be. Much less since the preaching has taken place in order to live by it. And one moment of this life is precisely its intellection. But this intellection is nothing but “better intellection” of what was taught in the original preaching. The aspectualization would only be assimilation; any innovation with respect to what was expressly taught by the apostles would be a corruption. In this sense, the essence of aspectualization would be a continuation of the expressly manifested. This continuation is undoubtedly one of the auto-possibilities of manifest reality. Without it the entire Church would also fail in its faith. How could unity exist in the Church if there is no continuity in the expressly revealed? For this reason, when that triple unity that St. Vincent proclaims exists, its value is unexceptionable. But this does not exhaust the question, because what we have just mentioned, does it mean that where this triple unity is lacking there is no unity between the doctrine and the initial revelation? It would be absurd to presume this. Because, above all, it is a fact that in he course of time there have been expressly revealed truths that have been “obscured”. It is true that this obscuration can never reach the level of constituting a formal and strict negation in the entire Church; but in some part of it, at some time, and in some men it has been possible to reach a negation or at least an ignorance of it. The subjective possibilities, which are open to intelligence, can also be negative. St. Vincent does not consider this situation. The strict continuity of the apostolic teaching may admit some caesura in the sense of an obscuration of the expressed. But, in addition and above all, it is completely false that the identity of the revealed deposit {595} is only permanence in continuation of what is taught in an express form. Because, in the first place, there is no true enunciation that may adequately exhaust the reality it enunciates; it is true in the sense of a conformitas with reality, but not in the sense of an adequation with it. In this case, without reduction of the continuity it is necessary a dogmatic progress that does not only consist in a better assimilation of the expressly enunciated, but in defining with more rigor and even more extensively the manifestation itself. It is not mere continuation. And, in second place, something more important, that not everything taught by the apostles was under the form of something expressly enunciated. Certainly, they taught many things expressly. How could it have been otherwise? But they did not teach everything in this form. One thing is to manifest something to the intelligence, and quite another to express the manifest in formal enunciations. The apostles taught many things in an inexpressive way, by simple actualization of reality in an antepredicative knowing. Therefore, progress consists not in a better assimilation or a stricter precision, but in expressing the inexpressible. Under these conditions, any attempt to reach the express apostolic preaching in order to find in it the doctrine to be defined, makes no sense at all, something, by the way, in which the great majority of people believe. Because given that it is the case of an inexpressible doctrine, it is known beforehand that there does not exist nor can there exist a prior express enunciation of it. When expressing it, it is true that there continues to be identity and conclusiveness in the revealed deposit, but in the deposit qua manifest reality and in the antepredicative knowing of it, but not in the fact of being there expressly enunciated. By limiting himself to these enunciations, the criterion of St. Vincent of Lerins fails at its base, what has been taught has been confused with what is expressed. For this reason, when he writes his well-known eodem sensu, what he says is only “better intellection”, a more {596} precise intellection of what has been expressly enunciated. However, today we use this phrase applying it to the body of the very manifest reality, regardless of whether it is expressly enunciated or not. The profectus of St. Vincent of Lerins is a profectus intelligentiae, while in many cases (recalling the dogma of the Immaculate Conception) it is a case of profectus fidei, a true evolution in the substrative deposit, not in its content, but in the way of being there manifest. This is just aspectualization, i.e., pure evolution. Taken in the sense of St. Vincent, we must say that the “con-tinuation” of the expressly enunciated is only one auto-possibility among others of the manifest reality. “Con-tinuation” of the expressly manifested, fidelity to it, is only one mode of occurrence of the theological unity of doctrine with the initial revelation. ________________ 1 Cf. Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus hæreses, bk. 4, ch. 33, no. 8, in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series graeca, bk. 7, op. cit., col. 1077. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Appendix (596-604) --------------- {596} (cont’d) c) Let us return, then, to the point of departure. Manifest reality can affirm its reality not only as sameness and permanence, but also as “internal richness”. Doctrine is the expression of this richness; it is nothing but the manifestation in an express form of the richness that was already there inexpressively in the manifest reality of the initial revelation. Therefore, here the unity of doctrine with the initial revelation is unity of “manifestation”. Doctrine is not enrichment of substrative reality, but enrichment on the line of being there manifest. There is no “more reality”, but reality is “more manifest”, there is more express manifestation than before. Here we touch upon the very fieri of being there manifest. In doctrine manifest reality reaches the fullness of its manifestation. And this stepping march towards fullness of manifestation qua manifestation is the unity of the fieri; it is what constitutes, from this point of view, the theological truth of doctrine. Doctrine is truth because it is full manifestation of what it already was. This fieri occurs in the entire body of the Church in the form {597} of a deep unraveling effort; but as such it only exists “physically” in the individuals. Because of this there can normally be, and there are in the Church divergent directions that lead to doctrines not only diverse, but sometimes even contradictory or at least in opposition about which may be the true richness of the substrate of the initial revelation. No matter, all are animated by an identical aspiration, to express the inexpressible in the substrate, in the deposit. Because of this, in the course of time after groping and vacillations, the differences are reduced. Slowly and little by little an outline of a direction is being drawn in the social body of the Church and with it a dominant doctrine. It is not the case that necessarily the other doctrines may have been discarded unanimously; on the contrary, they may still persist. But they have ceased being the dominant ones. This dominant direction is the one I would call the unity of “con-spiracy”. I take this term in the original meaning of unity in accordance with aspirations, of tendency towards something. The aspiration is on its own a phenomenon with a dynamic characteristic. In the unity of conspiracy there is conspiracy from the initial revelation towards a same doctrine, i.e., to the unity of doctrine with the initial revelation. As such, it constitutes the theological imprint of the fieri of the deposit. It is the occurrence of the theological unity of the fieri. By virtue of this, the occurrence serves as “criterion” for the legitimacy of the evolution, i.e., of the aspectualization of the substrate. To deny this absolutely would be to admit that in the course of history the Church would eventually conspire towards something false on a point of faith. But then the problem of “criterion” becomes more complicated. Because, since in “conspiracy” it is the case of an effort, therefore, of something dynamic, but still dispersed in multiple directions, inevitably a problem will appear. The problem of discerning in the “coactive” efforts of the Church those that really constitute {598} the authentic unity of conspiracy, i.e., those that will end with an aspectualization and not with a transformation. That is the problem of the “notes” of the true dogmatic evolution. With this and thanks to the rigorous concept of the unity of conspiracy we have we reached, by another way and perhaps with a different meaning, to the point Newman debated with Anglicanism in his brilliant book on the development of dogma1. For Newman there are seven signals, which he says certify the unity and identity of an idea with itself from beginning to end through all the degrees of its development. First, the “preservation of the type”. A boy may change considerably; however, as an adult he preserves the same type he had when he was a child. It is true that an idea may appear in different forms; but when it preserves the same one against all odds it is a proof that in its development it has substantially preserved the same one. Second, the “continuity of principles”. The life of doctrines consists in the law or fixed principle that animates them and gives them body. Both aspects must be preserved faithfully throughout time. Any discontinuity in this order is a proof of corruption. Third, “logical consequence”. Every doctrine develops through a “vital” process. It begins by making itself familiar; it discovers relationships with other ideas, etc. When all this process, once it has been completed, may appear to display a logically coherent form, i.e., when it seems to be the logical development of the point of departure, the result in question represents a legitimate development. Fourth, “power of assimilation”. A power of development is a proof of life; and when something is alive it proceeds to assimilate the foreign materials surrounding it and transforms them into its own substance, {599} while always remaining the same. Fifth, “anticipation of the future state”. In a real development there begin to appear sporadically and sometimes precociously loose traces that are like premonitions of that, which in the course of time will be the future state. When the future fulfills these premonitions it is proof that the development has been legitimate. Sixth, “actions that preserve the past”. A true development does not break with the past, but on the contrary preserves it; the additions illustrate and corroborate it, but do not correct it. Finally, the seventh, “chronic vitality”. When, despite of all the vicissitudes through time and even adversities the idea survives and perdures fresh and vigorous and continues to develop against all odds, it is proof the developments are legitimate because they show the vitality of the one same life. Preservation is a signal of truth; error is not perdurable. These characteristics must not be taken in isolation, but together. And together they constitute for Newman the unequivocal signal that the development has been legitimate, because they are signals that the identity of the initial idea with itself has been preserved. Here, as we just indicated a moment ago, we have reached Newman, but through another way and with a completely different meaning. Newman argues against Anglicanism, therefore, he takes the initial revelation on the one hand and the doctrinal development already defined by the Church of Rome on the other, and what he has to do is to “justify” this development facing the point of departure. It is a problem of apologetics. Here, however, we take the doctrinal development in its actual fieri prior to any definition, and we try to find the type of road that leads to the definition. It is a theological problem. By virtue of this, Newman tries to save the theological through a particular idea of history, while here we try to see how the theological {600} is incarnated in history through a precise idea of revelation as a reality that occurs. In a certain way we try to save the historical theologically. The notes in Newman are a characteristic of the historical that allows us to reach the initial revelation; they are historical criteria that try to bring us close to the theological truth of the first revelation. For us they are a characteristic of the historic occurrence of theological truth; they are theological criteria that, already installed in theological truth, allow us to draw closer to a subsequent manifestation of it. For Newman and anyone else, every development that preserves the sameness is legitimate. But the reasoning of Newman runs as follows. A development that, for example, preserves the type is a development that preserves the sameness; therefore, it is legitimate. On the other hand, we say, a development that preserves the sameness has to preserve the type; therefore, it is legitimate if it preserves it. The initial revelation, according to Newman, is assimilating the foreign elements without ceasing to be the same, i.e., transforms foreign elements into its own substance; therefore, the development is legitimate. On the other hand we say, a development is legitimate if it preserves the sameness; therefore, if it assimilates the foreign, it does so in such a way that it may preserve the sameness. If the future fulfills the premonitions the development has been legitimate for Newman. For us, the premonitions are traces that preserving the sameness prefigure the doctrine to be defined, etc. And the difference is fundamental. Because, for example, the type may be preserved and we may not be facing a dogmatic development, but only a theologic one or one in the order of mere apprehension. On the other hand, here we are already installed within the dogmatic development. Likewise, an assimilation of foreign elements can preserve the theologic sameness and not necessarily preserve the dogmatic sameness. Because the initial revelation cannot assimilate foreign elements unless it is under {601} a very especial form, i.e., not incorporating them, but only manifesting itself better by their action; otherwise, there would be accretion and with it possibly theology, but not mere expression of revelation. The same with all the other notes. In other words, Newman tries to see how and when the developments maintain the substrative unity, i.e., when is there evidence of what I here call unity of conspiracy (apologetic problem). On the other hand, we try to see how the dogmatic substrative unity expands through unity of conspiracy into development (theological problem). For Newman, the unity of conspiracy is a problem, for us it is a supposition. Consequently, the value of the knowledge provided by the notes is quite different in both cases. In both cases, we shall soon see, it is only knowledge by approximation. But in Newman it is the approximation of the historical to the theological as such; it starts from the historical in order to finish with a dogmatic development. Here, on the other hand, we move within the theological, and the notes give us an approximation to the pure manifestation of the theological. With Newman it is the case of comparing two definite stages of revelation, the initial stage and the final stage; here it is a question of recognizing the way by which the initial stage takes us to a final stage, which is not presupposed, but is the one searched for. Of course, this theological aspect is not quite alien to Newman, just as the apologetic is not alien to us. It could not be otherwise. For this reason his considerations and ours do overlap in some measure, but only in the measure in which apologetics and theology can overlap, each starting from one of the two aspects. We take the notes that Newman so brilliantly describes as characteristics of the unity of conspiracy of the revealed deposit, towards its subsequent manifestation. The initial revelation occurs as unity of conspiracy in the body of the Church. {602} A conspiracy that preserving the substrative deposit concluded and unreformable when manifesting it subsequently, has to preserve the type, the system of principles, and the logical continuity. Also, at the same time, has to preserve the past, assimilate it to the present, and have a premonition of the future in an inexhaustible vitality in the order of manifestation. This granted what value does the examination of the unity of conspiracy under the light of these notes have from the strictly theological point of view? Legitimacy is simple aspectualization. And on this line, the unity of conspiracy as criterion of aspectualization has an even more difficult application than the previous criteria. Because in the previous cases it was at least feasible in principle to corroborate if those criteria were or not applicable to a particular stage. It is possible, for example, to know if at a certain moment there is or there is not a strict universal consensus. The fact is that even if it is difficult to ascertain, the theological reflection falls upon a stage that is already there in front of us as a stage. The same can be said about the criterion of St. Vincent of Lerins. The unity of consent and continuation refers to stages before our mind. Not quite so with the unity of conspiracy, because this one by its own characteristic, is the dynamic unity of an effort during the course of time, and therefore, its reality is not fully present at any of its particular moments. That is why the difficulties of application of this criterion are incomparably much greater than in the other two cases. Perhaps in the eve of a dogmatic definition there may not be great difficulties; but then, we no longer need criteria because the decision has been taken and announced by the magisterium. The criteria must have application at much prior moments; what we ask from the unity of conspiracy is that it may serve as criterion for the definable. To do this, we have to take a moment of the doctrinal development as such and not its {603} final moment. If we place ourselves facing those moments in which it is being elaborated, and the unity of conspiracy is found to be in fieri, we might be victims of great errors. The conspiracy is actually something that only painfully and through vacillation and counterpositions continues to acquire the form of the dominant direction of doctrine. Which means that at a given moment erroneous doctrines acquire, perhaps by the weight of important authorities, a volume and a prestige that will only be corrected in posterior eras. Limiting ourselves only to the study of this moment, we will easily take as dominant direction in the whole Church a doctrine that, despite the prestige of their supporters, may represent from a historical perspective nothing but one of those inevitable vacillations and counterpositions of the conspiring effort. In other words, we take as direction of the course of history what is only the preponderance of some great doctors at a particular transitory moment. Of course, this does not radically invalidate the value of the unity of conspiracy as theological criterion; it only limits its application. The fact is that conspiracy, as we say, by its own characteristic is a dynamic phenomenon, and will be more authentically apprehended in its reality as the lapse of time considered is longer. As this lapse of time is shortened, conspiracy loses its reality. At the lower limit, when only a particular moment is being considered, what we have in front of our eyes is not even “conspiracy”, but only “stage”, and then the objections we have been making acquire their full value. But, on the other hand, as we widen the temporal field of our vision, conspiracy acquires more reality and more value. At the superior limit we have conspiracy as it reaches its final terminus. That is the very threshold of definition. Then, the value of conspiracy is absolute; but now it is not {604} conspiracy any more. Between these two extreme limits conspiracy displays the dominant direction more clearly as the interval of time contemplating it increases. With this we only acquire an approximation, the character of which we now recognize with more precision. This is the approximation that inside the unity of conspiracy the doctrine towards which we conspire is being traced. ________________ 1 Cf. his already quoted book An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Appendix (604-613) --------------- {604} (cont’d) With this we have sketched the great outline of critical theology. The initial revelation entrusted to the deposit is a substrate that incarnated in historical concretion maintains its identity in the form of actuality of the manifest reality as such. This is theological truth. Its historical incarnation is, therefore, an occurrence, i.e., the realization of the possibilities of affirming itself as identical to itself, when giving of itself in the order of manifestation. Because of this the occurrence carries within itself the very imprint of theological truth; and this imprint is what allows discerning the pure giving of itself, the aspectualization, from any transformation and corruption. This is “criterion”, the logos of discernment. The formal characteristic of this criterion is the unity of doctrinal development with the substrative deposit, with the initial revelation. And in turn this unity occurs in several forms, depending on the different possibilities with which manifest reality affirms itself as reality. Manifest reality can affirm its reality above all as “sameness” in the occurrence of a “con-sensus” in a same belief. Manifest reality can also affirm its reality as “permanence” in the occurrence of the “con-tinuation” of a same received teaching. Finally, manifest reality can affirm its reality as “internal richness” in the occurrence of a “con-spiracy” towards the fullness of manifestation. Sameness, permanence and richness are the three dimensions of manifest reality insofar as reality. Since this reality {605} is temporal, the sameness is identity “in” all the moments of time; permanence is identity “of” transmission; internal richness is identity “towards” fullness. The fact is that manifest reality has a substrative characteristic. To affirm itself as reality in each of these dimensions is a possibility that among others this reality has. The realization of these possibilities is the occurrence. In it goes the imprint of the unity of reality as such. This unity of the substrate is a hén, a primary unity. It is a unity, above all, of the “initial dogmas” with themselves. But, at one and the same time, unity of all of them in the solidarity of the “body” of revelation, in the unity of its somatic joining together (Lt. compago). It is the unity of this body, which in the last instance always “occurs”. Including when apparently it is the case of only one dogma. In reality it is occurring to the whole revealed body, because the corruption of any of its elements has a corruptive effect upon the entire body. And reciprocally, the unity of the revealed body assures the intact identity of each of its elements, of each dogma. Thus, in the occurrence of this primary unity as such there is a unity that is the imprint of that primary unity, i.e., its ratification, the ratification of its hén. This other unity of ratification is the unity of the “with” (Gr. sín, Sp. con). It is the unity of con-sensus, unity of con-tinuation, unity of con-spiracy. These are three modes of the “con”, three modes of occurrence of the unity of doctrine “con” (with) the unity of the initial revelation. By virtue of this the three modes of occurring are three criteria of theological truth. Every theological criterion is simply criterion of unity. Every corruption is a rupture of unity and reciprocally. Let us be more precise. The constitutive joining together of the soma, of the corporeity of revelation is, in accordance with what we said above, not only solidarity of reality such as it is in reality, but also as it manifests itself in the whole historical concretion {606} of the occurrence. It is solidarity and a historical corporeity, the corporeity expressed in the “con”. It follows that the consensus, the continuation, and the conspiracy do not consist in one merely material unity (so to speak), but constitute one strictly formal unity, i.e., a unity that is not only in fact, but knows itself to be such, a kind of unity formally and reduplicatively “one”. This is publicity. Consensus, continuity and conspiracy are three means of publicity. Publicity constitutes the community of the faithful in communion, in revelation. The occurring as actuality of manifest and public reality, as occurrence of actuality in a “con”, impresses the community, insofar as founded on communion in the manifest reality with a triple characteristic. The community in the actual manifest reality (in the temporal sense), i.e., the consensus, is not only coincidence in a same belief, but is belief that is known as shared, co-sensed, and is professed as such. This elevation of material coincidence to formal consensus constitutes a dimension of the community; it is “unanimity”. Unanimity is formally and expressly consensus co-sensed and professed. “We”, the faithful, are above all the ones that have a unanimous spirit, the ones that make profession of unanimity in manifest reality. The unanimity is certainly a “physical” characteristic of intelligence, but founded on the fact that a reality is actually manifest to it publicly. This is the publicity of the present as such, as fundament of community. The same occurs with continuation. It is not mere inert permanence, but a continuation, which knows and professes itself as such, a formal unity of continuity. This is the community of the faithful by its communion in the actual reality insofar as formally received from the past. It is the publicity of the received reality, insofar as received, as fundament of community. By virtue of this, that community has a specific characteristic, {607} the “genuineness”. Etymologically it is the characteristic that a son has formally been recognized by his father. It is also a physical characteristic of intelligence, but inasmuch as a reality is publicly manifest to it, which remains being what it was before. A characteristic of community founded in publicity with respect to the past. Finally, the same occurs with conspiracy. It is not only the fact that it may have a tendency towards a truth, towards an express subsequent manifestation, but that it is an aspired and professed convergence as such. It is publicity with respect to the future. By virtue of this, the community of the faithful in their communion with its future has a particular characteristic; it is “fertility”. It is a physical characteristic of intelligence, but only insofar as its convergence in the expression of reality is publicly manifest. Unanimity, genuineness, and fertility are the three dimensions of the somatic solidarity or community of the faithful insofar as founded on the communion with revealed reality, i.e., in the publicity of the body of revelation in itself. Revelation is actual and actualized presence in the Church. As such, confers to it a “physical” characteristic founded on such actualization. This actualization in its three public dimensions of consensus, continuation, and conspiracy make of the Church a “body” comprised of unanimity, genuineness, and fertility. In other words, the “con”, on the one hand, expresses the occurrence of the primary unity (hén) of the body of revelation, according to its three possibilities. On the other hand, it expresses eo ipso, the joining together of the community of the Church, its “mystical body”, the corporeity, which the occurrence of the body of revelation impresses on the community of the faithful. The mystical body is the body of the faithful minds insofar as communion with the body of revelation. The unity of consensus, continuation, and conspiracy I mentioned above, are criteria of theological truth because they are the occurrence {608} of the primary unity of revelation. We now see that in reality they are theological criteria because they are the expression of the mystical corporeity as unanimity, genuineness, and fertility. Corruption as rupture of unity is concretely scission, adulteration, and sterility. Of course, this will be true if actually the “con” is the real occurrence of the primary unity of revelation. This takes us to a deeper point, to the problem of the fundament of every criterion. Undoubtedly, left to itself, the body of revelation might evolve on its own in such a way that it could give the wrong impression of a unity of the doctrine with the initial revelation that would simply be illusory, that would not be aspectualization, but transformation. However, this does not occur precisely because the body of manifest reality is not abandoned to itself in the historical occurrence; it is deposited in the Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. By virtue of this, it is impossible that the entire Church would err as such in a belief of faith, in a continued transmission or in a unitary conspiracy. Therefore, when guaranteeing the truth of this “con”, the Holy Spirit is the theological fundament of every criterion as such. The fundament that in the “con” there occurs, really and effectively, the primary unity of the body of revelation, and that in this occurrence the unanimity, the genuineness, and the fertility of the mystical body as such is constituted. The three enunciated possibilities are three auto-possibilities of intellection of manifest reality. But they are only possibilities, dimensions according to which manifest reality can affirm its reality in occurrence; but it does not mean that necessarily the three have to be occurring. The only thing we say is that as possibilities they belong intrinsically to the substrate, to the revealed deposit, to the body of {609} manifest reality as such. Also, we do not say that they may be the only ones. We do not know. But there is no impediment to leave the door open to other possibilities, which perhaps only in a remote future may appear and be realized; with them we would have other forms of occurrence, and therefore, new criteria of theological truth. By simply thinking of the first Christian generations it will be seen this is not impossible. In them, the only possibilities of occurrence were just the universal consent, and the continuity of the apostolic preaching, i.e., the possibility of revealed reality to affirm itself in its reality as sameness and permanence. Only afterwards was the possibility of affirming reality as internal richness in unity of conspiracy activated. Until that moment no one would have suspected there was a third possibility. There is no reason, therefore, to think we have already exhausted all the possibilities with which the initial revelation affirms its identity as manifest reality. The occurrence of revelation in accord with these three possibilities is, as we mentioned above, unity of doctrine “con” (with) the unity (hén) of the initial revelation. Because of this, reciprocally, taken as characteristics of occurring, the historical reality of consensus, continuation, and conspiracy are criteria of theological reality of a pure evolution, of an aspectualization. As criteria they do not exclude each other. On the contrary, they may help each other because they are nothing but the occurrence of a selfsame primary unity of manifest reality. Consequently, in the end, more than three different numerical criteria, they are three aspects of only one criterion or signal of theological truth, the unity of occurrence with the revealed deposit. Their actual application, we have already seen it, only provides us with approximations, in greater proximity to a true doctrine as the circumstances for their application may be favorable. {610} It is impossible to find one criterion that will automatically allow us to solve the problem of the legitimacy of a development. Not even the magisterium, despite having the assistance of the Holy Spirit has considered it can do without having recourse to human means with all their limitations. The three criteria, taken together and handled with prudence provide at the beginning a verisimilitude that in the middle of possible fluctuations continues to grow until reaching a true moral certainty that we are before a truth that can be a “defined dogma”. Since in general we only have a moral certainty, it is reserved to the magisterium assisted by the Holy Spirit to take the final step, i.e., to define the doctrine as dogma, as a truth that was there inexpressively contained in the manifest reality of the initial revelation. It has been an evolution by aspectualization. This intervention of the magisterium is not in general, as it is frequently mentioned, of a purely formal character, i.e., an intervention by which something already known as a truth with absolute certainty through purely human means is ratified by the Church as a truth of faith. In general, the intervention is deeper because we do not always have through purely human procedures the absolute certainty of the truth of a doctrine, but only a moral certainty. By virtue of this, the intervention of the Church is not limited to “ratifying” the truth in question as a truth of faith, but “completes” the mere moral certainty into absolute certainty by the indefectible assistance of the Holy Spirit. Let us summarize the general lines of this investigation. We saw at the beginning that revelation is constitutively progradient, i.e., that by its own characteristic it has to give of itself that, which the “defined dogmas” are. The question is, how? That was the second step; the way of the progress is formally “evolution”. What is it? {611} Evolution, above all, presupposes that whatever progresses has a substrative characteristic, i.e., it is not only a subject that supports progress, infected by it, but something that is involved in the progress because it is something that gives of itself something new but from itself, through its own structures. The revelation of the Old Testament and the New in the time of Christ and the apostles did not have this characteristic. Its progress was an accrual, and because of this it did not give of itself from itself, but through a new action of God. It was not substrate and there was no evolution. Only the post-apostolic revelation has a strictly substrative characteristic. It is a fontanal, intrinsic unity, and of historical concretion, which has its own formal characteristic, it is concluded. This means fullness of the manifesting donation of God to men, but because of this has the exigency of a better manifesting itself in the historical occurrence, therefore, a stepping march towards the fullness it already was as reality (reflexivity) in the order of manifestation. In other words, revelation is substrate precisely because it is concluded. Conclusiveness is subtrativeness. However, in order to evolve this substrate is immersed in a situation. We then asked what was the function of the situation in the evolution of the substrate. We saw that, in general terms, it consists in “making” that the substrate may give of itself from itself. Without the situation, the substrate would not be such, it would be a mere inert deposit and there would be no evolution. In what does this making consist? Of course, it is not a kind of interior assimilation of foreign elements into its own substance; that would be “crasis” and its result “syncretism”. The fact is that the substrate remains identical in every situation. It is an identity not only of each one of its elements, but in the real body, which by intrinsic solidarity they constitute. The “making” of the situation is, therefore, of another type. It is to make that the substrate give from itself what it already was in itself. Therefore, it is a “making” that does not affect but the {612} order of manifestation, a making that the revealed reality manifest itself better. It is what we here call pure evolution. Therefore, the situation is a kind of interrogation or internal pressure to make that the substrate may define itself on the line in which it has been placed. What is given of itself already was, regardless of the form, in the substrate. The form of manifestation, according to the formal line of the situation is the “sense”. The unity of these two moments is what I have called “aspect”. The aspect emerges from what the substrate already was, and therefore, it is not added to it. Evolution is not accretion, but aspectualization. By virtue of this, aspectualization maintains the identity of the revealed substrate in all situations. But, how? In other words, in what does this identity consist? It is not the identity of a mere amorphous impulse, which goes on acquiring and abolishing senses (aspectualization by transformation). Since aspect comes from the substrate as something that was already in it, the identity of the body consists in the preservation of the sense in the course of history, i.e., it is unreformability (aspectualization by preservation). The solidarity of the real body of revelation is not only a quiescent solidarity, but also a historical solidarity of all the aspects it goes on offering. Unreformable aspectualization, this is the precise function of situation in the evolution of the substrate. And this is evolution in the primary and proper sense of the concept. It is not necessarily a biological phenomenon of transformation, but pure evolution, i.e., a sameness that by its own structures gives from itself a diversity of new modes of manifestation, of new aspects of what it already was. And in this sense (and only in this one) the concept of evolution can and should be applied to human history. With this an important problem surfaces, the problem of the legitimacy of the occurrence of the revealed body, i.e., the legitimacy of the doctrinal development in each case. Is it a transformation {613} or aspectualization by preservation? It is the problem of the critical theology of occurrence. Since occurrence is the realization of possibilities, there will be as many types of criteria as types of possibility manifest reality may have qua reality of affirming its own reality, i.e., as many types of auto-possibility it may have. It can affirm it as sameness of “con-sensus”, as permanence of “con-tinuation, as internal richness manifested in “con-spiracy”. It is the triple form in which up to now the identical unity of the body of the initial revelation occurs. By virtue of this, the very occurrence carries the imprint of this unity; it is the “con”. The “con” is the aspectual occurrence of the primary unity of the body of revelation, of theological truth. By virtue of this, the communion of the faithful in the body of revelation confers to the very community the characteristic of a body by unanimity, genuineness, and fertility. Consequently, the possibility of seeing in the occurrence of “con” the criterion of theological truth. A limited criterion, which only provides moral certainties that only the magisterium through the indefectible assistance of the Holy Spirit can define as absolute truth, as “defined dogma”. With this we have clarified the function of situation in the evolution of the revealed substrate; to make that this substrate manifest and realize its auto-possibilities through a simple and unreformable aspectualization in the occurrence of a unity of consensus, continuation and conspiracy. Pure evolution is “unveiling”. --------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri ------------------------------------- Conclusion (614-617) -------------- {614} GENERAL CONCLUSION In the end, Christianity does not appear to us as one more religion, but as the very structure of all religions, as the supreme truth of every religion. All religions are true inasmuch as they are, in one form or another, Christianity. This is what I have called the theological problem of man. Of course, I do not have the capacity to have solved it, only to have handled it modestly along these monotonous pages1. A) Above all, I have tried to show that man is a personal substantive reality whose personality, i.e., whose being, whose “I” has to be constituted and configured throughout life possibilitated by reality and supported ultimately on it; this is the religation to the real. In it a problem formally appears, the problem of the reality of God. This configuration, actually, is in good measure the work of freedom. And in this free configuration man finds himself inexorably facing, by reality itself, a radical option with respect to the ultimateness and possibilitating characteristic of reality; this option is what constitutes the faith. It is not only that freedom may lead us to face this problem, but that in the end human life “is” precisely and formally the optative configuration of the human being, of the personality, i.e., an option with respect to God. Human life is velis nolis the unfolding of this option. The option, this having to opt, {615} is found, therefore, inscribed in the very being of man. This is just what I have called the theological dimension of man. Because of this, human life in its fullness is ultimately and radically, theological experience of the person. Here experience means physical and manifestative proof of something real in our option, in our case, of God. The option not only opts, but also configures optatively, and therefore, manifests what God is for the person2. B) This option embraces the whole being of man, i.e., molds and configures its being in all its dimensions, individual and collective. This molding of the theological dimension of man in the totality of his dimensions is a molding of religation. It is religion in the widest and most precise sense of the term. Religion is the molding of religation. And in it is expressed a vision of God, of the world and of man. This vision has multiple forms throughout history. It is not the case of cataloging them, but of seeing how their own diversity is something essential to history. In it, actually, man has been giving a different figure to his theological experience. This means that the historical diversity of religions, i.e., the history of religions, is the theological experience of humanity about the truth of God. In the radical option in which religion consists, humanity has been molding its experience about the truth of God and the being of man. In this experience Christianity is inscribed in a radical and ultimate way. Because Christianity does not appear in front of us as one more religion, but as the very structure of every religion, and therefore, as the supreme truth of all of them. All religions {616} have “their” truth; but they are true inasmuch as, in one form or another more or less fragmentary, deformed and anonymous, they are Christianity. This is the transcendence not historical, but theological of Christianity. The theological experience of humanity is the theological experience of the transcendence of Christianity. This theological experience of humanity is the “way” from which intellection starts3. C) This theological experience, personal and historical, expresses, since it belongs to man formally, the theological, and therefore, in a certain measure, the divine itself. It is, from my point of view, what is primary and radical in Christianity, the deiform man. Deiformity is not an attribute or property of man, but rather, to my way of thinking, is what formally constitutes man. Man is the projection ad extra of the very life of God. To be man is a finite manner of being God. It is to be God humanly. What we call “human nature” is nothing but this moment of finitude. Therefore, although transcendent to the world, God is incorporated to the universe and especially to man. Incorporated, above all, because of His life; every man is deiform. But in addition incorporated humanly, i.e., by reason of His very reality. This is the personal incorporation of God to man in the reality of Christ. By virtue of this, every deiformity is founded on Christ, every personal life is an option with respect to Christ, and the entire history is a process towards Christ and from Christ, this is Christianity. Christianity is nothing but the “Christic” characteristic of deiformity. Christianity is human life as theological experience of deiformity. This is the experience that teaches {617} how man can become God seeing how God has become man. Only because man freely separates himself from Christ, and therefore, from God, is Christianity a religion of salvation, in itself and formally it is a religion of deiformity. Christianity is deiformity as intrinsic and formal moment of the human being, as decisive and learning moment of his personal life, and as an intrinsically historical moment. The unity of these three moments is the very structure of deiformity. Therefore, in his free option with respect to religious truth, with respect to the truth of God, man has played the card of his own freedom and his own being. “The truth shall make you free” (Jn 8:32), Christ told us4. These three moments constitute the unitary unfolding of one selfsame and unique movement in which each stage is founded on the previous one, and at the same time explains it; God, religion, and Christianity, inscribed in the theological dimension of man. _______________ 1 This first paragraph is taken from the end of the 1971 seminar. The rest of the “general conclusion” comes from the text on the “theological logos”, which has been used as the introduction to this book. 2 Zubiri refers here to the theme he discussed in the first part of the 1971 seminar, which corresponds in its fundamental contents to what was published in Man and God (El hombre y Dios). 3 Zubiri refers in this paragraph to the second part of the 1971 seminar, which corresponds in its fundamental contents to what was published in The Philosophical Problem of the History of Religions (El problema filosófico de la historia de las religiones). 4 This third point is the one addressed by the writings collected in this volume of unpublished texts. -------------------------- CHRISTIANITY by Xavier Zubiri -------------------------------------- Contents Expanded -------------------------- CONTENTS EXPANDED (Tr.: Have added further secondary alpha-numeric divisions present in the text that were not included in the "Contents" page of the book. Some have an italicized first sentence and these have been incorporated. For those without an explicit title I have provided one in square brackets "[ ]" abstracted from the corresponding section) OUTSIDE BACK COVER ---{ 0 } TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION --- { // } EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION ---{9} CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCTION THE THEOLOGICAL LOGOS ---{15} § 1 THE TERMS OF THE DIALOG: PRESENT DAY MAN AND CHRISTIANITY ---{16} § 2 THE CHARACTER OF THE DIALOG: THE THEOLOGICAL PROBLEM OF MAN ---{20} I. The logos that reveals ---{20} II. The theologic logos ---{21} A) [The kerygmatic logos] ---{22} B) [The ostensive or epideitic logos] ---{22} C) [The scientific logos] ---{24} ---1) [The speculative logos] ---{24} ---2) [The historical logos] ---{25} ---3) [The hermeneutic logos] ---{26} D) [The common root of the three theologies] ---27 ---1) [The problematic character of the three theologies] ---{28} ------a) [Concepts of speculative theology do not form part of dogma] ---{28} ------b) [Biblical theology. Literary genre and intellectual genre] ---{28} ------c) [Historical theology] ---{30} ---2) [The three theologies mutually overlap] --{31} III. The theological logos ---{35} A) [The apprehended logos] ---{35} B) [The revealing logos is based on the ---human personal logos and occurs in it] ---{36} C) [The theological dimension of man] ---{36} D) [Deiformity] ---{37} E) [Theological logos as something we are] ---{38} CHAPTER 1 THE ACCESS TO GOD IN CHRIST ---{41} § 1 GOD IN CHIRST ---{46} A) The problem of credibility ---{47} B) The scandal for the Jews ---{48} C) Madness for the Greek ---{52} D) The reality of Christ ---{54} ---1) [Personal adhesion to Christ] ---{56} ------a) [Faith] ---{57} ------b) [Forgiveness of sins] ---{57} ------c) [The moment of the cure] {58} ------d) [He was glorified] ---{58} ---2) [The life of Christ is a subsisting sacrament] ---{59} E) The encounter with God in Christ ---{60} § 2 CHRIST AND MAN ---{65} I. Incorporation of Christ to mankind ---{65} ---A) Revealing presence through the word ---{67} ---B) Mystical corporeity ---{71} ------1) [Incorporation in the life of each person] ---{73} ------2) [Incorporation of history to God] ---{74} ---------a) [All men historically considered find in Christ ------------their access to God] ---{75} ---------b) [Christ is the historical fundament of history] ---{76} ------3) [God somehow incorporates all nature] ---{77} II. Promotion of man ---{77} ---A) Promotion of human life ---{78} ------1) [Christ as the only way to know what the possession of the ---------very reality of God is]---{78} ------2) [Christ as possibilitating reality] ---{79} ------3) [The impelling dimension] ---{79} ---B) Promotion of history ---{84) CHAPTER 2 TRINITY ---{87} A) [Christianity is the work of Christ] ---{88} ---1) [Christianity is not a result of what Christ did, Christ ------made Christianity] ---{88} ---2) [Christianity is not an ideology or spiritual movement started by Christ, ------but was the work of Christ] ---{89} B) [How is Christianity the work of Christ?] ---{89} ---1) [The work of Christ is historical] ---{89} ---2) [Christ not only did things, but also taught by word] ---{89} ---3) [Christ said he would send the Spirit of Truth to provide ---the sense of what he had done and taught, and to do what was left ---to be done and taught] ---{91} C) [First characteristics of Christianity] ---{91} ---1) [Universality facing the gentiles] ---{91} ---2) [Encounter with Greek wisdom] ---{92} § 1 THE MYSTERY OF GOD IN REVELATION ---{96} I. What is God according to the New Testament text? ---{96} ---A) [The Trinity] ---{97} ---B) [Three persons] ---{98} ---C) [Three termini] ---{99} II. The dogmatic definition of what God is ---{101} A) [Functionality] ---{101} ---1) [Revelation as fundament and formal structure of all religious life] ---{102} ------a) [Individual characteristic] ---{103} ------b) [Historical characteristic] ---{104} ------c) [Cosmic characteristic] ---{104} ---2) [The functionality is essential] ---{104} B) [Transcendence] ---{107} ---1) [Trinity prior to any time] ---{108} ---2) [Pretemporal anteriority proper to the three termini] ---{108} ---3) [Internal structure of the Trinity] ---{109} C) [Consubstantiality] ---{114} ---a) ["Persons" never mentioned at Nicea] ---{116} ---b) [What is God? Who is God?] ---{117} ---c) [Word is begotten not created] ---{118} § 2 THE CONCEPTIVENESS OF THE MYSTERY ---{120} I. The formal reality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ---{122} II. In what does the processable order of their reality consist? ---{125} III. In what does the processable structure of their reality consist? ---{127} A) [The principle of the Trinity is the Father] ---{128} ---1) [The Father has a his-ownness] ---{129} ---2) [His-ownness because He is intelligent and volitional] ---{129} ---3) ["What" the Father is, an open reality] ---{130} B) [Everything intellectually understood acquires actuality] ---{131} ---1) [Actualization confers to intellectually understood reality ------its characteristic of truth] ---{131} ---2) [Consubstantiality is not principle of procession, ------but the result of it] ---{132} ---3) [The Son is "begotten"] ---{133} C) [The Holy Spirit is the completion of the Trinity] ---{135} ---1) [Why the procession of the Holy Spirit is not generation] ---{136} ---2) [Who activates the spiration of this third his-ownness?] ---{137} ---3) [Procession of the Holy Spirit a procession by the Spirit of Truth. Love is the ------consequence of the Spirit of Truth] ---{138} IV. In what does the Trinitarian life of God consist? ---{139} ---A) [The persons implicate each other] ---{140} ---B) [Interpenetration of the persons] ---{141} ---C) [One Trinitarian life of God, a unity of respectivity] ---{143} CHAPTER 3 CREATION ---{149} a) [The Father produces a second person, a Son] ---{149} b) [The personal life of God is a Trinitary life] ---{150} § 1 WHAT IS CREATION? ---{152} I. The formal characteristic of the creative act ---{154} A) [The oldest account of creation] ---{157} ---1) [First, God creates man, who has body and life] ---{159} ---2) [Second, creates a certain enclosed territory] ---{159} ---3) [A paradise for nomads] ---{159} ---4) [God creates woman] ---{159) B) [The priestly account] ---{160} ---1) [First, the chaos, the tohu-bohu] ---{161} ---2) [Second, light and darkness] ---{161} ---3) [Third, the great storm over the waters] ---{161) C) [The transcendence of God] ---{166} ---1) [First, creation as principle of all reality] ---{167) ---2) [Second, a creation beyond time] ---{167} ---3) [Third, God's domination through His logos] ---{169} II. The structure of the creative act ---{172} A) What is creation from the part of God? ---{174} I. [The vital characteristic of the creative act] ---{175} ---1) [The Father as principle of the Trinitary reality] ---{175} ------a) [The world as procession of otherness] ---{177} ------b) [Procession of otherness as initiating] ---{178} ---2) [Creation, procession of otherness as divine initiative] ---{179} ------a) [God does not take initiatives, but has initiatives] ---{179} ------b) [The freedom of God] ---{180} ------c) [The effusion of God] ---{181} ------d) [Creative initiative lived like God, eternally] ---{184} II. [The open essence of God] ---{185) III. [The infinitude of the divine essence] ---{187} ---1) [First, omnipotence] ---{187} ---2) [Second, omniscience] ---{188} ---3) [Third, providence] ---{188} B) What is creation from the part of the world? ---{190} ---1) [Reality of the things of the world, meaning-thing ------and reality-thing] ---{190} ---2) [Goodness, the real as real, the glory of God] ---{191} ---3) [The real in the world as respective] ---{192} ---4) [Open world] ---{193} C) The integral reality of creation ---{196} § 2 THE MODES OF CREATION ---{200} I. Closed essences ---{202} II. Open essences ---{204} A) [Man "image" of God] ---{205} ---1) ["Making"] ---{205} ---2) ["Let us..."] ---{205} ---3) ["Image"] ---{206} ------a) [Image that reflects the configuration of 'Elohim] ---{207} ------b) [Image as dominion and ownership of the entire world] ---{208} ------c) [Image as personeity] ---{209} B) [Two questions we must ask] ---{209} I. What is the structure of human reality? ---{209} ---1) [The molding into finitude of the absolute reality of God] ---{210} ------a) [In man the person is a consequence of his substantive reality] --- {210} ------b) [The I of man is his real truth] ---{211} ------c) [Man, in his substantive reality makes his own being, ---------which reverts by identity in the intimacy ---------of his own internal life] ---{211} ---2) [We need to explain this] ---{213} ------a) [First, the Trinitarian fundament of this radical structure of man] ---{213} ------b) [Second, the moment of finitude cannot be deduced] ---{213} ------c) [The human person is the finite form of being like God and living ---------like the Trinity] ---{213} ---3) [The creation of man as open essence is the will ------to deiformation of his life in freedom] ---{214} II. In what does the real and effective ------sequence of his life consist? ---{216} ---1) [The fontanal presence of divine reality in man ---------is expressed in the concept of grace] ---{216} ------a) [Will to goodness] ---{219} ------b) [Will to approval] ---{219} ------c) [Will to permissiveness] ---{219} ------d) [Biographic will] ---{220} ---2) [Historical will] ---{220} ---3) [Will to origination] ---{224} ------a) [Man in body and soul is the product of evolution, taking soul ---------in the radical and basic sense of sensitive psychism] ---{224) ------b) [Creation by divine way of evolution to reach deiformation] ---{225} III. The unity of creation ---{228} CHAPTER 4 INCARNATION ---{233} § 1 THE PRESENTATION OF THE FACT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT ---{235} A) [A first, primitive, archaic form of Christology] ---{238} ---1) [Preaching of St. Peter to the gentiles] ---{238} ---2) [Beginning of the Epistle to the Romans] ---{238} B) [The unfolding of this Christology] ---{240} ---1) [Gospel of St. Mark] ---{240} ---2) [Gospel of St. Matthew] ---{240} ---3) [Gospel of St. Luke] ---{241} ---4) [Gospel of St. John] ---{241} C) [St. Paul] ---{242} ---1) [Divine preexistence] ---{242} ---2) [Historical existence] ---{243} ---3) [Glorious existence] ---{243} ---4) [The first-born of all creation] {243} D) [The divine filiation of Christ] ---{246} § 2 THE PRECISION OF THE FACT IN TIME ---{247} A) Christ as manifestation of God ---{248} B) The unity of Jesus Christ ---{249} C) The divine filiation ---{251} D) The physical filiation ---{252} ---1) [The Word is the eternal Son of God] ---{252} ---2) [Union of natures] ---{255) ---3) [The mysterious personal unity of Christ] ---{257} § 3 THEOLOGIC CONCEPTIVENESS ---{261} I. The person of Christ ---{263} A) Who is He? ---{263} ---I) [Christ from the point of view of the substantive being ------who makes his life] ---{264} ---II) [The reality of Christ in first act, as substantive reality] ---{272} ------1) [The physical person of the Word is fontanally present subjacent to ------the reality of Christ] ---{273} ------2) [The Trinitarian presence in Christ] ---{273} ------3) [Ultimate intimacy of the Word in Christ] ---{273} ------4) [True filial reality in Christ] ---{274} ---------a) [His-ownness in Christ] ---{276} ------------aa) [His-ownness from the point of view of God] ---{276} ------------bb) [His-ownness from the point of view of man] ---{277} ---------b) [The relationship of the substantive reality in which Christ consists ------------as Son of God with the I of his substantive being] ---{279} ---------c) [The divine reality of Christ is held by Christ in a filial way] ---{281} B) How does He know himself as Son of God? ---{283} C) What is His place in creation? ---{286} II. The personal life of Christ ---{287} A) [Phases of New Testament criticism] {290} ---1) [Textual and literary criticism of the sources] {290} ---2) [The proper vital context] ---{291} ---3) [The multiple Christologies] ---{291} ------a) [Biblical exegesis from the point of view of Christology faces ---------great difficulties] ---{291} ------b) [The problem of Christ's knowledge] ---{292} B) [The biography of Christ] ---{298} ---1) [What is a biography?] ---{299} ---2) [Primarily what Christ makes is his life as his substantive being, ------as Incarnate Son of God] ---{301} C) [How does man realize his biography?] ---{303} ---1) [Man is in reality with real things] ---{303} ---2) [The fundamentality of the reality of Christ] ---{305} ------a) [Christ is subsistent religation] ---{305} ------b) [Christ is subsistent revelation] ---{308} ------c) [Christ is subsisting sacrament] ---{311} III. The work of Christ ---{313} A) What do we understand by founding? ---{315} B) How is that action realized? ---{319} ---1) [The death of Christ] ---{320} ---2) [The resurrection of Christ] ---{329} ------a) [Resurrection is going to the next world] ---{330} ------b) [The "spiritual body" of Christ] ---{330} ------c) [Christ resurrected goes to another world, does not return to this one, but ---------manifests himself in it] ---{332} ---3) [Death and resurrection of Christ as foundation of Christianity] ---{337} C) The repetition of the actions of Christ ---{340} ---1) [The actions of Christ are permanent] ---{341} ---2) [The permanence is something progressive] ---{342} ---3) [The repetition of the actions of Christ mediated ---------signifyingly by Christians] ---{343} ------a) [Meaning of "signifyingly"] ---{344} ------b) [Production of what is signified] ---{345} ------c) [Sacraments as actions of Christ] ---{347} I. The initiation ---{351} A) [Baptism is an initiation] ---{352} B) [Internal structure of baptism] ---{353} ---1) [Incorporation to Christ] ---{353} ---2) [The forgiveness of sins] ---{355} ---3) [Grace as presence of the Trinity] ---{356} ---4) [Regeneration] ---{356} II. The fullness ---{357} A) The institution of the Eucharist ---{358} ---1) [Blessing of the first cup of wine] ---{359} ---2) [Second part of the meal] ---{360} ---3) [Third part of the meal] ---{361} ---4) [Praying the second part of the Hallel] ---{362} B) What the Church formally requests as belief in the Eucharist ---{363} ---1) [Ratramnus, IX century theologian] ---{366} ---2) [Berengarius of Tours, XI century theologian] ---{366} ---3) [The Council of Trent] ---{368} C) The theologic conceptiveness of the Eucharist ---{371} ---1) [Food and consecration] ---{373} ---2) [Conversion into spiritual food, conversion at level of condition] ---{376} ---3) [Conversion at the level of reality] ---{378} ------a) [What is reality?] ---{379} ------b) [What is converted?] ---{384} ------c) [What are the species?] ---{388} ------d) [The unity of consecrated bread] ---{392} ------e) [The Eucharist is formally the sacrament of personal unity] ---{395} APPENDIX THEOLOGIC REFLECTIONS ON THE EUCHARIST ---{397} A) The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist ---{398} ---1) [The fact of the real presence itself] ---{398} ------a) [The oldest text (1 Cor 11:24)] ---{398} ------b) [The bread] ---{399} ------c) [The presence through conversion] ---{400} ------d) [Real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread] ---{400} ---2) [What becomes of the bread?] ---{401} ------a) First point, what is it to be real? ---{401} ------b) Second point, what is bread as food? ---{404} ------c) Third point, what is the reality of the presence of Christ in ---------the consecrated bread? ---{405} B) The mode of the real presence ---{407} ---1) First point, what is actuality? ---{408} ------a) [Actuality is a real moment] ---{410} ------b) [Actuality is a physical moment] ---{410} ------c) [Actuality admits occurrence] ---{410} ---2) Second point, what is the human body? ---{411} ------a) [The body is a system of properties] ---{412} ------b) [The body has its own complexion] ---{412} ---3) Third point, the mode of the real presence of Christ ---------in the consecrated bread ---{413} ------a) [Christ present as actuality not as act] ---{413} ------b) [Christ present from his own personal reality] ---{414} ------c) [In this actuality Christ makes himself present ------------in himself from himself] ---{414} ------d) [Christ takes the bread] ---{414} ------e) [Christ actual in the bread] ---{415} ------f) [Christ takes the bread as food] ---{415} ------g) [Sacramental presence, bread-food as principle ------------of actuality of Christ] ---{415} C) The formal reason for the Eucharist ---{416} ---1) First point, what is it to be banquet? ---{417} ---2) Second point, the essence of the Eucharistic banquet ---{419} CHAPTER 5 CHURCH ---{423} § 1 WHAT IS THE CHURCH? ---{426} A) [The turning of some to others] ---{426} B) [The Church is unity] ---{429} ---1) [Sameness of life] ---{430} ---2) [Personal communion with Christ] ---{431} ---3) [The Church is Christ and the Christianity of some for others, ---------and of some by others] ---{438) § 2 ESCHATOLOGY ---{443} A) [The Kingdom of God is the communion in the body of Christ] ---{445} B) [Deiformity of personal communion in and by the Trinity] ---{445} C) [Three personal dimensions to reach the ultimate] ---{446} ---1) [We all are a molding ad extra of the Trinitary life] ---{447} ---2) [Finite manner of being like God] ---{447} ---3) [What is death?] ---{447} ------a) [The Glory is to know God] ---{450} ------b) [Beatitude] ---{450} ------c) [Resurrection] ---{452} § 3 HISTORY OF DOGMA ---{454} I. What is revelation? ---{455} II. How does revelation occur? ---{457} III. To whom is this revelation made? ---{458} IV. In what does the historicity of revelation consist? ---{459} ---A) [Revelation seizes man] ---{460} ---B) [Vital theological progress] ---{461} ---C) [Tradition is something that is delivered] ---{461} ------1) [Constitutive moment of tradition] ---{463) ------2) [Continuative tradition] ---{466} ------3) [Progressive tradition] ---{467} ---------a) [Characteristics of the suppositum] ---{467} ---------b) [Progress as giving of itself] ---{470} ---------c) [The structure of progress] ---{472} ------------aa) [Progress is inscribed in a situation of the whole man] ---{474} ------------bb) [Seizure belongs to the order of possibilities] ---{475} ------------cc) [Criteria. Sameness, permanence, and con-spiracy] ---{475} APPENDIX EVOLUTION OF DOGMA ---{487} § 1 THE INITIAL REVELATION ---{489} A) [Initial revelation as intellectual manifestation] ---{489} ---1) [Revelation as reality] ---{490} ---2) [Revealed truth as manifest reality] ---{490} ---3) [The complete formal reason of revelation] ---{492} B) [Integral reality of the initial revelation] ---{494} § 2 EVOLVING CHARACTER OF TRADITION ---{497} I. REVELATION IS "CONSTITUTIVELY" PROGRESSIVE ---{498} A) [Revelation as "principle"] ---{498} ---1) [Revelation expanded into theology] ---{500} ---2) [Dogmatic-cognitive progress] ---{500} ---3) [Dogmatic-real progress] ---{501} B) [Tradition is revelation historically seizing men] ---{503} I. Constitutive tradition ---{512} ---1) [The formal characteristic of the fixation into deposit] ---{513} ---2) [Fixation of manifest realities as real] ---{514} ---3) [The intrinsically historical characteristic of revelation and its ------fixation into deposit] ---{515} II. Continuative tradition ---{530} ---1) [Tradition is transmission of the revealed as making possible the truth ---------of the divine life in man] ---{530} ---2) [Presentation as reactualization of manifest reality to the intelligence ---------and the whole man] ---{531} ---3) [Reactualization of previous revelation] ---{532} III. Progressive tradition ---{535} ---1) [Revelation as a giving of itself is progressive in the Church] ---{536} ---2) [Tradition, the reactualization of manifest reality is fontanal ------and progressive] ---{538} ---3) [Progress is a constitutive moment of revelation in its integral ------historical reality] ---{541} ---4) [The historical concretion of revelation is revelation in act] ---{542} ---5) [Dogmatic progress is a progress in which manifest reality continues ------to define itself] ---{543} ---6) [Real progress in the being there manifest of the deposit itself] ---{545} ---7) [Definition is fulfillment, and fontanal reflectivity is progress, stepping ------march towards fulfillment] ---{546} II. DOGMATIC PROGRESS AS EVOLUTION ---{551} A) Substrative characteristic of revelation ---{554} I) Revelation in the Old Testament ---{556} ---1) The idea of God ---{557} ---2) The moral and social power of God ---{559} ---3) The transcendence of God ---{560} II) The idea of personal Messiah ---{561} III) The revelation of the Old and New Testament era has been fixated into ------deposit in the Church ---{562} ---1) Revelation concluded. The moment of exclusion ---{567} ---2) Exigency of subsequent manifestation ---{568} B) The function of situation ---{569} ---I. [Identity of the body of dogmas in different situations ------through evolutive progress] ---{570} ---II. [Revelation constitutes a body or integral corporeal substrate, concluded and ------unreformable] ---{572} ---III. [Pure evolution] ---{581} ------1) [Revelation trying to reassume in its simple theological truth the ---------doctrinal evolution, the history] ---{585} ------2) [Legitimacy is theological unity] ---{589} ---------a) [Unity of universal "con-sensus"] ---{590} ---------b) [Continuation of the primitive body of the Church] ---{592} ---------c) [Unity of "con-spiracy"] ---{596} GENERAL CONCLUSION ---{614} A) [Man is a personal substantive reality whose personality, i.e., whose being, whose “I”, has to be constituted and configured throughout life made possible by reality and supported ultimately on it; this is the religation to the real] ---{614} B) [The theological experience of humanity is the theological experience of the transcendence of Christianity] ---{615} C) [Christianity is deiformity as intrinsic and formal moment of the human being, as decisive and learning moment of his personal life, and as an intrinsically historical moment] ---{616}