God-Eater: In Defense of the Fish-Hook Theory of Atonement, Sort of (Part Two - Patristic Contexts)
Patristic Contexts
As with many things Patristic, the Fish-hook is often badly
misunderstood because its formation contexts have been overlooked. For example
placing Divine deception into a category of “lying” so as to disqualify it is
to overlook the fact that even Augustine did not make this connection. In fact,
as David Satran has argued, deceit has since classic antiquity been seen as a
legitimate strategy in certain contexts.[1]
While this is not uncontroversial, it falls into the category of perennial
Biblical puzzles like the midwives lying to the Egyptians (Ex. 1:17-19). Here
in particular Constas points out the parallels Patristic authors drew between
Odysseus feigning weakness to beat an opponent and Christ’s kenosis,[2] or
how many like Plato deliberately blurred the lines of truth and falsehood for
pedagogical purposes.[3]
Some will then no doubt object that this parallel makes the
incarnation Docetic: an appearance or a gambit designed to feign fleshliness
while in no real way attaining it. Just the opposite is meant. More theologically,
therefore, we must note the primarily anti-Arian context of the Fish-hook
analogy which is meant to emphasize the reality of Christ’s humanity as an
expression of God’s power, love, and wisdom. Arian theology often circulated around the
accusation that Christ’s suffering was an obvious indication of his inferiority
to God the Father.[4]
Constas notes the usual refrain justifying the Fish-hook analogy is precisely
that the Arians, in saying the incarnation displays weakness, divide God’s
power from His love and wisdom.[5]
Christ’s weakness—the psalmic wormhood—is here not the antithesis to God’s
power, but its very display. The Fish-hook analogy is in this sense entirely
Chalcedonian.
It moreover combines Isaiah’s claim that Christ had no form of loveliness to compel (53:2) with the Dionysian apophatic tradition where God only reveals Himself through a simultaneous concealment.[6] As Jon Robertson puts it, this is not to prioritize the apophatic over the cataphatic, but it is to note the intrinsic logic of the incarnation itself as Christ is the visible sign of the invisible God.[7] Or, in Morwenna Ludlow's terms, in the Catechetical Orations, for example, Gregory of Nyssa is at pains to show “the means of salvation is consistent with all of the divine attributes, notably justice, wisdom, and power.”[8]
It moreover combines Isaiah’s claim that Christ had no form of loveliness to compel (53:2) with the Dionysian apophatic tradition where God only reveals Himself through a simultaneous concealment.[6] As Jon Robertson puts it, this is not to prioritize the apophatic over the cataphatic, but it is to note the intrinsic logic of the incarnation itself as Christ is the visible sign of the invisible God.[7] Or, in Morwenna Ludlow's terms, in the Catechetical Orations, for example, Gregory of Nyssa is at pains to show “the means of salvation is consistent with all of the divine attributes, notably justice, wisdom, and power.”[8]
Moreover, we must consider the context of being eaten. This is not something that (thankfully)
strikes most of us in our day to day lives. Yet, this was still an active anxiety
of the ancient world. As Caroline Walker Bynum writes in her magisterial study
on the doctrine of resurrection: “the literature of late antiquity throbs with
fear of being fragmented, absorbed, digested …”[9]
Here the Fish-hook as an atonement model and metaphor was related to
resurrection as a solution to dissolution. Resurrection was in turn frequently
displayed as “reassemblage and regurgitation”[10]. In other words:
as God’s superabundant answer to Hell’s devouring putrefaction of the body in
death. It runs in parallel to the traditions similar imagery regarding Christ’s
harrowing of Hell.[11]
In addition to all of this, “deception” should not be seen
in an isolated context in terms of God merely telling the truth as opposed to being
deceptive. The Patristic concept of “recapitulation”[12]—namely
the idea that Christ must re-live and re-perform the course Adam (and Israel)
failed to take—is the proper context. Thus “deception” is meant to be a
non-identical repetition of Satan’s deception of Adam and Eve: here where Satan
originally deceived, he is now deceived to be undone. So, Constas: “In this stunning typological
juxtaposition, the devil becomes a serpent, coiled around a tree, in order to
seduce Eve, in response to which the deity becomes a worm writhing on the
cross, the tree of life, in order to seduce the devil.”[13]
Further, it should be read as a species of “accommodation”
theory where God manifests Himself to the capacity others have to receive Him.[14]
As such, Constas also notes, “deception” as a moniker is by itself wrong
(deceptive?) because it overlooks the fact that God “adjusts” Himself even to
the Devil’s capacity.[15]
But shouldn’t God have been recognized by the Devil, just as the demons scream
out unbidden that He is the Son of God (e.g. Lk. 4:41)? Here the deception is
not meant to be at the level of identity but
oikonomia or economy. Where the Devil
tries to tempt Christ with the Kingdoms of the world, with bread, or tempting
Him to display His Godly prerogative by having Angels attend to Him in a moment
of distress (Mt. 4:1-11), so too does the Devil want to put Christ into the
utmost temptation of violent, grotesque death. But like a fish lured to bait,
Satan does not understand the true nature and activity of Christ, even if he
knows the Son of God when he sees Him.
Conclusion
Our brief study here may not have proven the necessity of
the Fish-hook metaphor, nonetheless we feel it has demonstrated it place
amongst the plethora of images demonstrating the super-abudance of Christ’s
atonement. Not only is it a recapitulation of the Devil’s deceit of Adam and
Eve, it fulfills the sign of Jonah, and also rides along the caressing wave of
Biblical and Dionysian apophaticism, where God as “worm” and other figures is
only signified by images that reveal by also concealing. The image of
“Fish-hook” does not consign God to some necessity (of “feeding” Satan), but it
does reveal that His love, wisdom, and justice are one and the same, and take
the same course of action.
[1]
David Satran, “Pedagogy and Deceit in the Alexandrian Theological Tradition,”
in Origeniana Quinta (Leeuven:
Peters, 1993), 119-124. I owe knowledge of this source to Constas, “The Last
Temptation of Satan,” 142.
[2]
Constas, “The Last Temptation of Satan,” 151.
[4]
See: Paul Gavrilyuk, The Suffering of the
Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004), 101-134.
[5]
Constas, “The Last Temptation of Satan,” 161.
[6] On
this tradition, see the fantastic study of David Williams, Deformed Discourse: The Function of the Monstrous in Medieval Thought
and Literature (Ontario: McGill-Queens University, 1999).
[7]
Jon M. Robertson, Christ as Mediator: A
Study in the Theologies of Eusebius of Caesarea, Marcellus of Ancyra, and
Athanasius of Alexandria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 132.
[8]
Morwenna Ludlow, Gregory of Nyssa:
Ancient and Postmodern (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 116.
[9]
Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection
of the Body in Western Christianity: 200-1336 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1995), 112.
[10] Ibid., 117-156.
[11]
Hilarion Alfayev, Christ the Conqueror of
Hell: The Descent into Hades from an Orthodox Perspective (New York: St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009).
[12] For
example, see: John Behr, Irenaeus of
Lyon: Identifying Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
[13]
Constas, “The Last Temptation of Satan,” 154-156.
[14] See:
Arnold Huijgen, Divine Accomodation in
John Calvin’s Theology: Analysis and Assessment (Connecticut: Vandehoeck
& Ruprecht, 2011), esp. 47-106 for the historical development.
[15]
Constas, “The Last Temptation of Satan,” 144.
Comments