Was Re: [SEELANGS] Coredemptrix

Fri Sep 10 21:29:02 UTC 2010

Sorry but in Russian "обожествлять" someone means only to admire.
Deity cannot be made of anyboby. Deity would either exist or not, and
nothing more can be added to this.

Sincerely,

Edward Dumanis

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 4:10 PM, Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
<darancourlaferriere at comcast.net> 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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