Coredemptrix

[William Ryan]

With regard to Daniel's Q.E.D., "Alice through the Looking Glass" 
springs to mind:

    `When /I/ use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful
    tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
             ...
    `That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a
    thoughtful tone.
    `When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty,
    `I always pay it extra.'

The bonus that Daniel is paying "deity" must be of Goldman Sachs 
proportions!/ /

Will



On 09/09/2010 21:10, Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote:
> Dear Wayles,
> Thank you for bringing this linguistic clarity to my original question when you wrote:
>
>> the discussion has also made me think about a more linguistic topic: the multiple meanings of the prefix co-. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary says it rather clearly:
>> "1: with; together; joint; jointly<coexist>  <coheir>
>> 2: in or to the same degree<coextensive>
>> 3a: one that is associated in an action with another; fellow; partner<coauthor>  <coworker>  b: having a usually lesser share in duty or responsibility: alternate; deputy<copilot>
>> ..."
>> The prefix wasn't used much in classical Latin in meaning 3a or 3b; there are many nouns beginning with com-, con-, col-, cor-, and co-, but very few of them mean 'fellow anything'. A conservus was indeed a fellow slave, but a corruptor was by no means a fellow breaker. So these 'together; same; associated; deputy' meanings must have become more widely used in medieval Latin and then spread to modern languages.
>>
>> If I am somebody's coauthor or coworker, that person is also my coauthor or coworker; but if I am a copilot to a pilot, the pilot is not my copilot. 3a is about symmetrical relationships whereas 3b is about asymmetrical relationships.
>>
>> In the religious context, it is evidently necessary to reject the view that Mary is a co- anything to Jesus in meaning 3a, but seemingly co- in sense 3b could be used with various agent nouns to tell about her roles?
>
> This is correct, for most of the sources listed among the references in the footnote I provided are careful to stipulate that Mary had a "subordinate" role.  Also, "coredemptrix" (or its equivalents in other languages) goes back to the fifteenth century at the earliest, according to Laurentin (the leading Catholic mariologist of the twentieth century).
>
> That is language.  Now, religion.  Since there has been a proliferation of religious discussion about this matter on this list, I will contribute by simply quoting from my book THE JOY OF ALL WHO SORROW (Moscow, 2005).  It appears that the Russian Orthodox Mary is as much a deity as is the Roman Catholic coredemptrix.  (But this would not be surprising in view of the Orthodox notion of theosis):
>
>
>> Mary�s death, like Christ�s, is temporary, for she, too, rises up bodily into heaven according to Orthodox belief: �The Church has always believed that Her body was taken up into heaven� � to quote a standard Russian Orthodox reference work.[i]  Thus the Dormition or Assumption of Mary (�Uspenie�) is rather like the Ascension of Christ (�Voznesenie�).   Georgii Fedotov speaks of Mary as �having ascended into the divine world to the point of indistinguishability from the heavenly God.�[ii]  Metropolitan Sergii utilizes the same word -- �ascension� � to characterize Mary�s Assumption as is ordinarily applied to Christ�s postmortem ascent.  He goes on to say: �The flesh of the Mother of God, having become like the flesh of the Resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, had already undergone that change from decay to non-decay which will come to all other people only after the general resurrection.�[iii]
>>
>> The transformation of Mary from dead flesh to a resurrected, ascended body means that she is divine.  As Sergii Bulgakov says, Mary is a �totally divinized creature.�[iv]  Leonid Uspenskii speaks of her �divinization� (�obozhenie�).[v]  In Vladimir Lossky�s words, she is �the sole human person deified.�[vi]
>>
>>
>> [i] .  Polnyi pravoslavnyi bogoslovskii entsiklopedicheskii slovar� (1992 [1913]), vol. 2, col. 2206.   Cf. Brianchaninov 1995 (1886), 436.
>>
>>              Among Orthodox Christians it is widely believed that Mary also descended into Hell, just as Christ did (for example: Strotmann 1959, 191; Hubbs 1988, 108).  She is sometimes shown on icons of the Last Judgement, and appears in the songs about the Last Judgement.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> [ii] .  Fedotov 1991 (1935), 49.  Fedotov does recognize that some of the (theologically incorrect) spiritual songs represent Mary�s body as remaining on earth in the form of her relics (51).
>>
>>
>>
>> [iii] .  Sergii 1989 (1932), 118.  Cf. Bulgakov 1927, 124.
>>
>>
>>
>> [iv] .  Bulgakov 1927, 128 (cf. 130).
>>
>>
>>
>> [v] .  Uspenskii 1989, 28.
>>
>>
>>
>> [vi] .  In Ouspensky and Lossky  1982, 76.  In the West too Mary is sometimes divinized or otherwise aggrandized.  She is Mater Gloriosa, �the Woman Clothed with the Sun,� �Queen of Heaven,� and so forth.  See, for example: Pelikan 1996.
>>
>>
>
> So, back to language: if she is "deified," as Lossky says, I think it is safe to say that she is a "deity."
>
> Q.E.D.
>
> DRL
>
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