Question about Russian Orthodox liturgical text

Thu Feb 10 01:48:37 UTC 2011

Dear David,

The association of Mary with Sophia does seem stronger in the Orthodox East than in the Catholic West (as for the Protestant West after the reformers passed away, there has been relatively little interest in Mary).  I dealt with Sophia ikons to some extent in my book The Joy of All Who Sorrow.  In liturgical texts, however, the specific association I referred to seems to be a primarily Catholic phenomenon.  In the old Hapgood Service Book I do not find it, nor can I find it in the Filimonov Polnyi pravoslavnyi Molitvoslov.  However, R. M. Cleminson has posted this observation on this list: "if the Annunciation falls on a Saturday, Sunday or during Easter Week, Prov. viii 22-30 is read."  I am grateful for this information, and it looks like I need to obtain a more complete Russian/Church Slavonic liturgical sourcebook.  Any suggestions from the list?

The approach outlined in my original message is not my own, but goes back to the research of some Western mariologists who took the idea of Mary as created before the ages rather seriously:

> Although these pre-Christian Jewish texts could not possibly have referred to one Miriam of Nazareth, who did not yet exist, some Christian mariophiles have nonetheless felt free to appropriate Wisdom for their own use.
> 
> For example, in various Catholic liturgical texts for marian feast days, one or the other of the above-cited verses has been given as part of the lection.  Thus in a tenth-century mass honoring the birth of Mary one of the readings included Proverbs 8:22, and the gospel reading for the same mass was the genealogy of Jesus which immediately precedes the narration of the birth of Jesus in Matthew (1:1 ff.).  This suggested not only an equation of Mary with the ancient Hebrew figure of Wisdom personified, but also an affirmation that Mary, like her son, somehow pre-existed the fleshly human being.  After all, the prologue to John’s gospel refers to Jesus in the following terms: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God” (1:1), and it was only later that this Word “became flesh” (1:14).  Sarah Jane Boss comments: “As Christ was present from eternity, and in the fullness of time became flesh in his mother’s womb, so Mary was in some manner present from the found!
 ations of the world, and likewise was born when the time was right for her part in the fulfilment of God’s plan.”[1]  Boss notes that it became the norm for Proverbs 8:22-31 to be read at masses for the feasts celebrating Mary’s birth and Mary’s conception, and that these readings probably contributed to the establishment of the doctrine of the immaculate conception.[2]
> 
> I find Proverbs 8:22 still being quoted in the mass for the feast of the immaculate conception in my dog-eared daily missal from the 1950s.[3]  The same missal contains the so-called Litany of Loretto (approved by Sixtus V in 1587) which includes the verse: “Seat of wisdom, pray for us.”[4]  This latter epithet – Sedes Sapientiae in the Latin – makes more sense than Sapientia alone for those who do not wish to elevate Mary entirely to the status of a pre-existing deity, but instead view devotion to her as a means of approaching Christ himself.  In fact Mary is never explicitly personified as Wisdom in the New Testament, but Christ is.  Paul writes that, despite the seeming foolishness and scandal of the cross, Christ is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24).  Indeed, according to the great mariophile Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, Christ is “Wisdom incarnate [la Sagesse incarnée]” because of the suffering, humiliation, and death which he welcomed!
  on the cross:
> 
> 
> [1] Boss 2007, 170.  Cf. Catta 1961, 695-696, 802-803.
> 
> [2] Among the many useful sources about Mary as Wisdom (or the Seat of Wisdom) in Catholic tradition, see also: Catta 1961; the entry, “Wisdom, Seat of” in O’Carroll 2000 (1982), 368-369; /Marienlexikon/.
> 
> [3] Lefebvre 1956, 597.  I have not been able to find Proverbs 8:22 quoted for the feast of the immaculate conception in any (non-reprint) missals published since Vatican II, the ecumenical council which concluded in 1965.
> 
> [4] Lefebvre 1956, 1117.

This is only work in progress.  As for the Burning Bush connection you mention, it is known in both East and West, and Bulgakov wrote an entire book titled Neopalimaia kupina.  It originated with Gregory of Nyssa in the fourth century as part of the "eternal virginity" ("aei-parthenos")  fantasy about Mary.  As Moses was required to remove his sandals before God who was speaking to him from the bush, so ancient Christian ikons represent Moses removing his sandals before the Virgin Mary perched in the bush.  Later, in East Slavic ikons, the Jewish patriarch is actually kneeling before Mary, and still later he disappears altogether in the Burning Bush/Virgin Mary ikons.  This is no "scrub vegetation," but a supersessionist image which is offensive to Jews.  Ditto for stereotyped references to Mary as "Ark of the Covenant" and "Daughter of Zion" (or TRUE Daughter of Zion, as the current Pope likes to say, implying that the previous one was somehow false).

Thanks again to members of the list who responded (some privately) to my query.

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere

On Feb 8, 2011, at 11:29 AM, David Borgmeyer wrote:

Daniel (if I may),

I’ll let others who know more speak to specific Orthodox
liturgical texts, and you already doubtless know about the use of Marian feasts
and Marian icons respectively as the titular feast days and icons of churches
named for Sophia/Wisdom.  The association
of Mary with Sophia, if anything, seems to me stronger in the Orthodox
tradition than the Roman Catholic one.

That said, the approach you outline to these selections of
Wisdom literature seems like an over-reading of Marian texts and contexts.  To argue a reading from Proverbs 8 or Sirach/Ecclesiasticus
24 on a Marian feast creates an official teaching that Mary is an uncreated
being is analogous to saying that an icon of the Bogomater neopalimaia kupina creates
an official teaching that Mary is scrub vegetation.  

You will draw your own conclusions, of course, but it strikes
me as implausible.

Best,

DB

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------