Comments on: Iconoclasm and the Threefold Body of Christ

By: Michael J. Iafrate

Michael J. Iafrate — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:56:27 +0000

sure. hoping to have a draft by tomorrow…

By: Halden

Halden — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:18:12 +0000

Michael, could you send that to me as well, perhaps?

halden@wipfandstock.com

By: Nate Kerr

Nate Kerr — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 02:28:50 +0000

Thanks, Michael. I look forward very much to your thoughts on the book as well. I think we have some intersecting interests, and I am sure I will learn much from your engagement.

By: Michael J. Iafrate

Michael J. Iafrate — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 02:06:49 +0000

Hi Nate,

Sure, I can do that. I probably won’t be posting the entire thing online; just wanted to give a taste.

Looking forward to checking out your book, Nate.

By: Nate Kerr

Nate Kerr — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:33:41 +0000

Michael:

Would you mind sharing a copy of that paper with me when it is complete? I know that you are posting it online, but I would like to be able to read the document as a whole, if you would be so kind. You can email me at nathan.r.kerr@gmail.com if that works. Thanks.

By: Halden

Halden — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:51:21 +0000

I saw that Michael, and I’m very interested to see the rest of it. I think what you’re doing re: the totus Christus and the church of the poor is very important. It prods my own thoughts about an apocalyptic construal of the totus Christus that is missional in nature.

By: Michael J. Iafrate

Michael J. Iafrate — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:58:04 +0000

Nice to see this. I’m writing a paper right now on Augustine’s totus christus christology and Sobrino’s christology of the “crucified people.”

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:54:32 +0000

I don’t particularly like the phrase, ‘he’s left behind his body as…’ as though Christ was somehow absent from his own body in the Eucharist or in the Church. In this thought there is a hierarchy in the threefold body of Christ, and the real body seems to be in heaven while the Eucharist and the Church are of a lesser order. The result of this view is that Christ is not as present in the sacraments or in the Church as he is in heaven (which is understood to be somewhere out there). It seems that this entails what I would consider a deficient sacramental theology, and typically low sacramentalists shy away from icons. Even Calvin’s sacramental theology did not abstract the presence of Christ from the Eucharist in this way. Christ was simply present spiritually. But if one struggles to imagine how Christ is really present in the loaf and the cup or in the ecclesial body, how can we expect them to see icons as windows into heaven.

Side note: Leithart does not seem to be dealing with icons so much as icons of Christ. Why is this the case?

By: errol

errol — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:42:00 +0000

Every time I hear Peter Leithart’s name, I can’t help but think of the subterranean neo-confederate ideologies alleged to be associated with him, Doug Wilson, the CREC, and New Saint Andrews. I’ve read a few articles on the web, including this one by the SPLC: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=645

Do you know what the deal is? Can’t tell what’s reliable.

By: Hill

Hill — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:23:11 +0000

I know that the Black Madonna of Czestochowa is attributed to Luke:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Madonna_of_Częstochowa

http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/meditations/olczest.html

I think there may be others of supposed apostolic origin, but I don’t have any information on them.

By: Halden

Halden — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:08:57 +0000

Which ikons is he supposed to have written?

By: Ilyas

Ilyas — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:05:20 +0000

To echo Hill’s remark, why should the veneration of the image of God in human beings necessarily preclude the veneration of this same image symbolically depicted in icons? In the Orthodox liturgy (and the Catholic one as well), the deacon or priest venerates both types of images by incensing the “man-made” icons as well as the “the living, breathing, stinking, often troubled and often troubling” congregation–which I think says a lot.

By: Hill

Hill — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:47:04 +0000

As distinct from the “a priori” claim that “we can’t know what Jesus looked like” presumably because he lived “a long time ago.” I’m just saying that that is by no means obviously true and our knowledge of what Jesus looked like and our knowledge of what Napoleon looked like differs in degree and not in kind, at least in principle.

By: Hill

Hill — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:45:25 +0000

Tradition holds that St. Luke himself wrote certain icons. I’m not comfortable disputing that. That’s all I’m saying. It’s empirical in that sense.

By: kim fabricius

kim fabricius — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:41:40 +0000

Evidently Leithart is among those exegetes who would restrict the touton ton adelphon mou ton elachiston of Matthew 25:40 to believers, as if the anonymous Christ were to be found only in the church, in poor Christians but not in poor people. His body of Christ needs another fold.

As for Napolean’s face, we have portraits and death masks. By all mean appeal to the Holy Spirit working through the iconic traditions, but “empirical”? The Turin shroud, anyone?

As to the general thrust of Leithart’s argument, it is rather reductionist, isn’t it?