Ioannis D.
Karavidopoulos
From
Jesus Christus als die Mitte der Schrift. Studien zur Hermeneutik des
Evangeliums. Herausgegeben von Christof Landmesser, Hans-Joachim Eckstein
und Hermann Lichtenberger, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-New York, 1997
III. Tradition and revival
In our times, there has been a gradually increasing
awareness, on the part of workers with the word of God who toil either in
the field of the Church or in the field of academic discipline, that there
is a need for revival of the biblical message while at the same time
emphasizing the value of fidelity to the Tradition. These two are found to
be contending against each other. Fidelity to the Tradition should not be
confused with a sterile or fruitless conservatism or of formal adherence to
inflexible formalities of the historical past. Indeed this fidelity to the
Tradition demands its continuous revival. The rehashing of traditional
interpretations without any contact with modern reality is a poor
representation of Orthodoxy and poorly serves the Christian Gospel. Behind
the label of ‘conservatism’ are concealed laziness and weakness, and even
lack of experience of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has never ceased
acting within the Church and illuminating its members, since it "sets up the
whole of the institution of the Church".
"My Father works hitherto, and I work", says Jesus
himself (John 5,17). And so the responsible interpreter and each
conscientious Christian also ‘works’, toils so that he takes possession of
the revealed truth and the benefits of the redemptive sacrifice of the cross
of Christ. The Christian truth is offered, it is ‘revealed’ as a gift from
God, but it is also then conquered by man. Whoever rejects the revelation,
the manifestation of truth, actually rejects Christianity; and whoever does
not accept the toil for its conquest, refuses the worth of the creation of
God; he also rejects God Himself. This, in the area of biblical
interpretation means that the Orthodox interpreter on one hand accepts the
valuable legacy of his Tradition but, on the other hand, he does not reject
the human toil of recent scientific research, but after critical dealing
with it, points out its positive achievements.
We have previously dealt with the conquest of truth by
man, for the Bible is not a book of the past but of the present of each
successive era, and the members of the "body of Christ" which continuously
lives and increases, especially the members that have a particular function,
e.g. the interpretive one, may not, in the name of fidelity to the
Tradition, evade the painstaking task of interpretation within the framework
of the conditions of their times and within the contemporary data.
This latter feature of the Scripture is very
effectively analysed by Fr. G. Florovsky: "Revelation is preserved in
the Church. Therefore, the Church is the proper and primary interpreter of
revelation. It is protected and reinforced by written words; protected but
not exhausted. Human words are no more than signs. The testimony of the
Spirit revives the written words. We do not mean now the occasional
illumination of individuals by the Holy Ghost, but primarily the permanent
assistance of the Spirit given to the Church, that is ‘the pillar and
bulwark of the truth’ (1Tim 3,15). The Scriptures need interpretation. Not
the phrasing, but the message is the core. And the Church is the divinely
appointed and permanent witness to the very truth and the full meaning of
this message, simply because the Church belongs itself to the revelation, as
the Body of the Incarnate Lord. The proclamation of the Gospel, the
preaching of the Word of God, obviously belongs to the esse of the
Church. The Church stands by its testimony and witness. But this witness is
not just a reference to the past, not merely a reminiscence, but rather a
continuous rediscovery of the message once delivered to the saints and ever
since kept by faith. Moreover, this message is ever re-enacted in the life
of the Church. Christ himself is ever present in the Church, as the Redeemer
and head of his Body, and continues his redeeming office in the Church.
Salvation is not only announced or proclaimed in the Church, but precisely
enacted. The sacred history is still continued. The mighty deeds of God are
still being performed. Magnalia Dei are not circumscribed by the
past; they are present and continued, in the Church and, through the Church,
in the world. The Church is itself an integral part of the New Testament
message. The Church itself is a part of revelation -the story of ‘the Whole
Christ’ (totus Christus:caput et corpus, in the phrase of St.
Augustine) and of the Holy Ghost. The ultimate end of revelation, its
telos, has not yet come. And only within the experience of the Church is
the New Testament truly and fully alive. Church history is itself a story of
redemption. The truth of the book is revealed and vindicated by the growth
of the Body"6.
Based on the facts presented above, we may conclude
that the theory of Interpretation and the action of the Orthodox Church were
and continue to be interwoven with the pursuits and challenges of each era,
always to the measure, of course, of feasibility. The traditional
interpretation of the Bible, as it was imprinted mainly in the works of the
Fathers and in its various expressions (e.g. hymnography, iconography,
sermons etc.) clearly contains within itself the historical dimension as
well, the incorporation of scientific knowledge and all those things that we
mentioned above as its particular features, because the Orthodox
interpretation of the Bible, considered properly, was always in harmony with
the needs of its times, not in the sense, of course, that it draws its
content from each era -it draws that from the Church and from its Head, that
is Christ- but in the sense that it is neither possible nor permissible for
the Church not to take the vital needs of its times under consideration. The
same applies to major contemporary problems (e.g. war and peace, famine and
super-abundance of goods, loneliness and society, underestimation of women
in certain societies and theoretical feminist excesses in others and so on).
These cannot remain outside the interest of the interpreter. If that is what
happens, then the interpreter is not doing his work properly, that is, in an
Orthodox way, and is found outside the cultural development of his times.
Each era has change as a main feature, while the
biblical message has durability as its feature. However, what is changeable
does not by itself form theology, but causes its intervention. On the other
hand, the firm biblical foundation, firmly experienced in the life of the
Church, has already formed a theology. But this theology remains inactive,
if it does not seriously take under consideration the changeable conditions
of the times.
Orthodox Biblical interpretation takes into serious
consideration the historical, social, cultural and the rest of the related
circumstances of the times of the interpreter, for exactly this reason, that
it is traditional. Furthermore, since it draws its content from the living
tradition, it continues this tradition by being contemporary and by not
ignoring the problems of each era.
Προηγούμενη σελίδα /
Εισαγωγή
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NOTES
6 G. Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern
Orthodox View, 1972, 25f.
ΘΗΣΑΥΡΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΚΑΙΝΗΣ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗΣ
