Resurrected Christ Crucifixes

[Cecilianus]

I kind of agree with Gurney Halleck - it shouldn’t be either/or. Neither Byzantines nor Latins (or Orthodox) ever really make it either/or. My spirituality manifests an emphasis on the Resurrection; theirs on the Passion. But we each have both. Both were necessary for the Redemption (with or without the Anselmian deal - being Byzantine I’m certainly not an Anselmian). Both were part of the Incarnation - you can’t “chop up” Christ’s life and ask which part redeemed us from our sins, any more than you can parse the syllables of the Anaphora and ask which sound performs transubstantiation (the proper Eastern view is not that it happens at the epiklesis AS OPPOSED TO the Words of Institution, but rather simply that the whole Anaphora confects the Eucharist - see Cardinal Ratzinger on this in The Nature and Mission of Theology). The whole life of Christ saved us from our sins and deified us; His life story climaxed in His death and Resurrection.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I think the Orthodox (Eastern) focus too much on the conquering of death and not enough on the sacrificial nature and the journey of the Cross. It has always struck me how Roman Catholics value the Stations of the Cross so much and the East does not. Each lash of the whip, each drop of spit thrown toward our Lord, each mocking word, each thorn in the head, each rejection, each hateful word from the crowd, it all played a part in the Atonement. God made this happen this way for a reason. Otherwise, Jesus could’ve just died a natural death then resurrected Himself to just “conquer death.” Death was conquered by the Sacrifice that Christ made…He died in our places. I’m an Anselmian, what can I say? It’s a whole holistic journey, not just one part being salvific, it all is…

I kind of agree with Gurney Halleck - it shouldn’t be either/or. Neither Byzantines nor Latins (or Orthodox) ever really make it either/or. My spirituality manifests an emphasis on the Resurrection; theirs on the Passion. But we each have both. Both were necessary for the Redemption (with or without the Anselmian deal - being Byzantine I’m certainly not an Anselmian). Both were part of the Incarnation - you can’t “chop up” Christ’s life and ask which part redeemed us from our sins, any more than you can parse the syllables of the Anaphora and ask which sound performs transubstantiation (the proper Eastern view is not that it happens at the epiklesis AS OPPOSED TO the Words of Institution, but rather simply that the whole Anaphora confects the Eucharist - see Cardinal Ratzinger on this in The Nature and Mission of Theology). The whole life of Christ saved us from our sins and deified us; His life story climaxed in His death and Resurrection.

 

[patrick457]

Also during the Easter Season, its mandatory in the Roman Church to have a statue of the Resurrected Christ by the altar. So I don’t see the need for a “Resuri-fix”. But if the parish feels they want this, go ahead. As long as it doesn’t replace the Crucifix which unfortunately some do.

Is it? I know that the custom is practiced in the Philippines (and maybe in other Hispanic-Mediterranean cultures, but I’m not sure) - you have this as an example - but I haven’t heard of anything that suggests it being ‘mandatory’ or not in the Roman Rite. What I do know is that it is customary to have the Paschal Candle in the sanctuary by the altar throughout Eastertide.

 

[patrick457]

that’s very much a Latin view.

The Byzantin emphasis is on the resurrection… the sure sign that the sacrifice had value.

The infamous Cardinal Humbert, when he went to Constantinople, was shocked when he saw some Byzantine depictions of the Crucifixion and complained (admittedly in a rather ambiguous way, given his Latin): “you (i.e. the Greeks) affix the image of a dying man to the crucified image of Christ, so that a kind of Antichrist is seated on the cross, showing himself to be adored as though he were God.” (Hominis morituri imaginem affigitis crucifixae imagini Christi, ita ut quidam Antichristus in cruce Christi sedeat ostendens se adorandum tanquam sit deus.)

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

What does he mean? Affixing a dying man over the image of a dying man? I’m lost here?

The infamous Cardinal Humbert, when he went to Constantinople, was shocked when he saw some Byzantine depictions of the Crucifixion and complained (admittedly in a rather ambiguous way, given his Latin): “you (i.e. the Greeks) affix the image of a dying man to the crucified image of Christ, so that a kind of Antichrist is seated on the cross, showing himself to be adored as though he were God.” (Hominis morituri imaginem affigitis crucifixae imagini Christi, ita ut quidam Antichristus in cruce Christi sedeat ostendens se adorandum tanquam sit deus.)

 

[Cecilianus]

I think the Orthodox (Eastern) focus too much on the conquering of death and not enough on the sacrificial nature and the journey of the Cross. It has always struck me how Roman Catholics value the Stations of the Cross so much and the East does not. Each lash of the whip, each drop of spit thrown toward our Lord, each mocking word, each thorn in the head, each rejection, each hateful word from the crowd, it all played a part in the Atonement. God made this happen this way for a reason. Otherwise, Jesus could’ve just died a natural death then resurrected Himself to just “conquer death.” Death was conquered by the Sacrifice that Christ made…He died in our places. I’m an Anselmian, what can I say? It’s a whole holistic journey, not just one part being salvific, it all is…

Christ couldn’t have “just died a natural death” into to undergo the Resurrection. “By death you conquered death, and to those in the tombs you granted life”, as we sing. The Resurrection came through His death as its cause and not just a necessary preliminary.

The Western emphasis does lead to a very real danger of falling into sentimentalism - dwelling on the details of His Passion through your imagination, and weeping sentimentally for the death of Christ rather than for your sins.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

One cannot get sentimental enough about God becoming man and bearing the brunt of our sins, the shame, rejection, and hurt. I am PROUDLY sentimental about my Saviour.

The opposite danger is that someone IGNORES the pains and rejections and the road to Calvary and instead just sanitizes it into focusing on the resurrection without the path to get to it! It’s almost a religious version of “I don’t want to see or know how the sausage is made, I just want to eat it.” The Western emphasis plays true to Isaiah, the “suffering servant” and it brings the prophecies alive. It’s not just rising from the dead and being a divine physician, it is the suffering servant, “despised and rejected” and “by His stripes we are healed.” I guess I’m crazy. I like to be consistent with Scripture and believe that His stripes healed me.

I find your last statement an extreme oversimplification and totally irrelevent. I have yet to know a Catholic, a practicing Catholic, who just weeps for Christ’s wounds and not his own sins? Easterners need to make up their minds. On one hand the Latins are supposedly guilt-mongers trying to make everyone feel low and horrible about their sins, “Catholic guilt” stereotype they call it. Yet now you’re saying Catholics get hung-up in the West with Christ’s wounds and don’t focus on their own. Can’t have it both ways. Here’s what I observe and have always observed about my fellow Catholics—they weep on Good Friday (as they should) for Our Lord’s wounds and pains, and as they do so, they realize He died in our place, took on the wounds we should have borne, and they give great thanks, kissing his crucifix with great love. I don’t see the odd dichotomy you’re trying to present. Catholics can walk and chew gum a little better than you present them…

Christ couldn’t have “just died a natural death” into to undergo the Resurrection. “By death you conquered death, and to those in the tombs you granted life”, as we sing. The Resurrection came through His death as its cause and not just a necessary preliminary.

The Western emphasis does lead to a very real danger of falling into sentimentalism - dwelling on the details of His Passion through your imagination, and weeping sentimentally for the death of Christ rather than for your sins.

 

[Cecilianus]

One cannot get sentimental enough about God becoming man and bearing the brunt of our sins, the shame, rejection, and hurt. I am PROUDLY sentimental about my Saviour.

The opposite danger is that someone IGNORES the pains and rejections and the road to Calvary and instead just sanitizes it into focusing on the resurrection without the path to get to it! It’s almost a religious version of “I don’t want to see or know how the sausage is made, I just want to eat it.” The Western emphasis plays true to Isaiah, the “suffering servant” and it brings the prophecies alive. It’s not just rising from the dead and being a divine physician, it is the suffering servant, “despised and rejected” and “by His stripes we are healed.” I guess I’m crazy. I like to be consistent with Scripture and believe that His stripes healed me.

I find your last statement an extreme oversimplification and totally irrelevent. I have yet to know a Catholic, a practicing Catholic, who just weeps for Christ’s wounds and not his own sins? Easterners need to make up their minds. On one hand the Latins are supposedly guilt-mongers trying to make everyone feel low and horrible about their sins, “Catholic guilt” stereotype they call it. Yet now you’re saying Catholics get hung-up in the West with Christ’s wounds and don’t focus on their own. Can’t have it both ways. Here’s what I observe and have always observed about my fellow Catholics—they weep on Good Friday (as they should) for Our Lord’s wounds and pains, and as they do so, they realize He died in our place, took on the wounds we should have borne, and they give great thanks, kissing his crucifix with great love. I don’t see the odd dichotomy you’re trying to present. Catholics can walk and chew gum a little better than you present them…

I apologize for my harsh comments. They were out of place and extremely oversimplified. I do think some of the insipid sentimentalism of late 19th-century Roman devotion can be counterproductive, however - an aesthetic point which was made by plenty of Roman Catholic theologians (Edward Ingram Watkin, for example).

The point I was getting at was that the focus of Eastern spirituality is kenosis of the self - the Desert Fathers warn heavily against the use of the imagination in prayer because the pictures or visualizations we see in our imagination come from ourselves and therefore cannot unite us to God. I would actually like to see how the Roman Catholic meditation practices can be reconciled to the Eastern spiritual teaching, since I am in union with Rome.

I also don’t think the East has ever attacked the West for being “guilt-mongerers” - we’re pretty into this whole guilt and repentance thing ourselves. If any Orthodox have, I suspect it comes more from Protestant influence.

I don’t think the Orthodox practice sanitizes the Passion. But our Liturgy presents everything from the viewpoint of transfigured reality and the Resurrection - hence, icons rather than 3-dimensional statues (which would represent earthly reality), and standing rather than kneeling. Even today, the Sunday of the Holy Cross when the icon on the tetrapod is replaced with a cross before which we prostrate ourselves before Liturgy, we still sing “O Christ our God, risen from the dead, save us who sing to you: Alleluia!”

(The “risen from the dead” is replaced with “crucified in the flesh” on the Feast of the Triumph of the Life-Giving Cross in the fall, if the feast falls on a weekday. But every Sunday is the feast of the Resurrection.)

The Protestant emphasis on the Resurrection is indeed sanitized, a denial or ignoring of the Passion. Being a Protestant who converted to Orthodoxy (in union with Rome - Greek Catholicism) passing first through the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, I think I can be pretty confident that the East does not fall into the problems of the Protestants. I notice a difference, at any rate.

 

[patrick457]

What does he mean? Affixing a dying man over the image of a dying man? I’m lost here?

Admittedly, as I’ve said, Cardinal Humbert’s comment was rather ambiguous and hard to understand, but one way of interpreting it is that he found the portrayal of the crucified Christ as having vestiges of suffering (gasp!) offensive. But there are also some problems with this reading: this would mean Humbert was ignorant of the Western images of the same kind, which had already existed in northern Europe for at least two centuries.

Moreover, in his more extensive treatment of the zeon, the warm water added to the consecrated wine to symbolize the water flowing from Christ’s side, Humbert argued against Greek theologian Niketas Stethatos’ hypothesis that if Christ’s body was vivified by the Spirit (as the words, “The fervor (or warmth!) [of faith, full] of the Holy Spirit” are recited when the zeon is poured onto the chalice) even after death, then He did not really die; and if He did not die, there was no resurrection and no redemption. Moreover, he argues, the flow of warm water would be an additional miracle: why did the evangelist not explicitly mention it? Finally, the water that flowed from Christ’s side was a symbol of Baptism, not of the Eucharist (while in the East the Eucharist was referred to as “drinking from the side of Christ”).

It is of course possible that Humbert was being inconsistent: that he wished to insist on the actual death of Christ as a dogma, but objected to an image that actually showed it!

 

[Holly3278]

My local Catholic hospital has Resurrected Christ Crucifixes. While I can see how it would be an uplifting thing to see, I myself, as a Catholic, would identify more with a regular crucifix because then I can identify with Christ’s suffering on the cross while I am suffering in the emergency room or in a hospital bed.

 

[Archangelic]

…we were redeemed by his death, not his resurrection.

“Dying he destroyed our death, rising he restored our life”

 

[ConstantineTG]

Is it? I know that the custom is practiced in the Philippines (and maybe in other Hispanic-Mediterranean cultures, but I’m not sure) - you have this as an example - but I haven’t heard of anything that suggests it being ‘mandatory’ or not in the Roman Rite. What I do know is that it is customary to have the Paschal Candle in the sanctuary by the altar throughout Eastertide.

Maybe you’re right. Maybe its mandatory in the Philippines. Parishes there tend to have a full complement of statues for all feasts and thus you’d be hardpressed to find a parish who doesn’t have the resurrected Christ statue, or even the Christ in a glass coffin, which is usually used for Good Friday procession. But the parishes I’ve been to here in North America also have them.

 

[ConstantineTG]

My local Catholic hospital has Resurrected Christ Crucifixes. While I can see how it would be an uplifting thing to see, I myself, as a Catholic, would identify more with a regular crucifix because then I can identify with Christ’s suffering on the cross while I am suffering in the emergency room or in a hospital bed.

Amen! Some people think having the image of a dying man on a cross is morbid. But of course if you understand the reason for it, that Christ died so that we don’t have to (not necessarily not die physically but we have a chance for eternal life), then it brings a far more positive message to those who are suffering and facing their mortality.

 

[Waiting]

Amen! Some people think having the image of a dying man on a cross is morbid. But of course if you understand the reason for it, that Christ died so that we don’t have to (not necessarily not die physically but we have a chance for eternal life), then it brings a far more positive message to those who are suffering and facing their mortality.

The crucifix is a symbol of love. It should draw a similar sentiment from the one looking at it. When you think no one cares, one look at the crucifix shows you how wrong you are!

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I can think of five churches I’ve been to in the Philippines in Baguio, Manaog, and Manila and none of them had one?

Maybe you’re right. Maybe its mandatory in the Philippines. Parishes there tend to have a full complement of statues for all feasts and thus you’d be hardpressed to find a parish who doesn’t have the resurrected Christ statue, or even the Christ in a glass coffin, which is usually used for Good Friday procession. But the parishes I’ve been to here in North America also have them.

 

[Madaglan]

I think the Orthodox (Eastern) focus too much on the conquering of death and not enough on the sacrificial nature and the journey of the Cross. It has always struck me how Roman Catholics value the Stations of the Cross so much and the East does not. Each lash of the whip, each drop of spit thrown toward our Lord, each mocking word, each thorn in the head, each rejection, each hateful word from the crowd, it all played a part in the Atonement. God made this happen this way for a reason. Otherwise, Jesus could’ve just died a natural death then resurrected Himself to just “conquer death.” Death was conquered by the Sacrifice that Christ made…He died in our places. I’m an Anselmian, what can I say? It’s a whole holistic journey, not just one part being salvific, it all is…

The East early on had a “stations of the cross” of sorts, in Jerusalem, where Christians would go from one holy site to another and offer liturgies at each site.

I understand what you mean by the Roman Catholic emphasis on the sufferings of Christ. The sufferings of Christ have their place in the Church. It is a great consolation to know that God, like his holy Mother, perfectly partakes in our sufferings and understands our struggles. In the East, the suffering and death of Christ is in fact prominent during Holy Week, when all the accounts of his Passion are read, and the suffering Christ icon (the Slavic name eludes me at the moment) is nailed to the cross in the middle of the reading of the gospel accounts of Christ’s Passion.

Just a thought: if God needed propitiatory Sacrifice, Christ could have died in a much less gruesome manner and still have made the same Sacrifice of himself. The Jews, by way of example, did not scourge and crucify their sin offerings before offering them up to God.

As I understand the events of the Passion, they are the fulfillment of prophecy, and show the strength of God in utmost humility. What is considered weakness, defeat and ignominy by the world is power, victory and majesty in God.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

What was the point of the scurging, the intense suffering, the crown of thorns, the rejection, the spit in the face, the stinging hurt? What was the point then? Isaiah is played out here and I think the Catholic viewpoint gels with the Bible far better. Of course Jews did not scourge and inflict suffering on their offerings. And their offerings, we are told by the Scriptures themselves, were a million miles short of adequate to save or truly heal the Jewish people. They prefigured sacrifice that was to come, imperfectly. Crucifying a goat would’ve been a touch goofy as well? Just some passages to meditate upon when thinking of the Atonement and the walk to calvary:

***Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering, ***

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities

***Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes[c] his life an offering for sin, ***

For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

This all is congruent with what the Church says about Our Lord’s journey, and I believe fits well with Anselmian views.

I’d like to know why you think Jesus suffered so much. Were the floggings in vain? Was the crown of thorns just part of the drama? Why these sufferings and pains?

I think the Church has it right on this. And because of the Eastern view of the Atonement, which I feel in my bones is wrong, I don’t find Orthodoxy the least bit compelling. They’re dead wrong on this IMO.

Blessings brother!

The East early on had a “stations of the cross” of sorts, in Jerusalem, where Christians would go from one holy site to another and offer liturgies at each site.

I understand what you mean by the Roman Catholic emphasis on the sufferings of Christ. The sufferings of Christ have their place in the Church. In the East, the suffering and death of Christ is in fact prominent during Holy Week.

Just a thought: if God needed propitiatory Sacrifice, Christ could have died in a much less gruesome manner and still have made the same Sacrifice of himself. The Jews, by way of example, did not scourge and crucify their sin offerings before offering them up to God.

As I understand the events of the Passion, they are the fulfillment of prophecy, and show the strength of God in utmost humility.

 

[Cecilianus]

What was the point of the scurging, the intense suffering, the crown of thorns, the rejection, the spit in the face, the stinging hurt? What was the point then? Isaiah is played out here and I think the Catholic viewpoint gels with the Bible far better. Of course Jews did not scourge and inflict suffering on their offerings. And their offerings, we are told by the Scriptures themselves, were a million miles short of adequate to save or truly heal the Jewish people. They prefigured sacrifice that was to come, imperfectly. Crucifying a goat would’ve been a touch goofy as well? Just some passages to meditate upon when thinking of the Atonement and the walk to calvary:

***Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering, ***

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities

***Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes[c] his life an offering for sin, ***

For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

This all is congruent with what the Church says about Our Lord’s journey, and I believe fits well with Anselmian views.

I’d like to know why you think Jesus suffered so much. Were the floggings in vain? Was the crown of thorns just part of the drama? Why these sufferings and pains?

I think the Church has it right on this. And because of the Eastern view of the Atonement, which I feel in my bones is wrong, I don’t find Orthodoxy the least bit compelling. They’re dead wrong on this IMO.

Blessings brother!

I don’t know why the Passion happened. All I know is that none of the explanations are compelling.

If you follow the idea that an infinite God needs infinite retribution for sins against Him, a retribution which only the suffering of an infinite God can satisfy, then any amount of suffering would have sufficed - a stubbed toe of the infant Jesus would be (is) sufficient suffering for the redemption of all of our sins. Yet if the whole thing were merely unnecessary suffering performed as to show us His love, we can quite reasonable shrink back in horror at the unnecessary suffering. Suffering is not a good in its own sake; suffering done for others out of love is only done out of love when it provides a real good which could not have been attained without the suffering.

The sufferings of Jesus were of a finite measure. As God is infinite, you cannot measure the amount of suffering necessary for the Atonement by a finite measure - either any amount of suffering (a stubbed toe, or an upset stomach) was enough because of the infinite dignity wounded, or no finite amount of anguish and torture could have been enough to bridge the infinite gap. The Atonement theory simply does not explain why all of the tortures of Christ were “necessary”.

 

[Cecilianus]

Also, gurneyhalleck1, please don’t label the Western or Anselmian viewpoint as the “Catholic” viewpoint. Eastern Catholics (such as myself) who by virtue of being Eastern follow Eastern rather than Western theological persepctives are just as fully Catholic as you are. In fact, for me to argue that I am as fully Catholic as you are is about as silly as to argue that you are as fully Catholic as I am - we take our Catholicism for granted, just as you take yours. Please show us the same courtesy.

The dispute is not between the “Catholic” viewpoint and some non-Catholic one, but between the Western viewpoint and the Eastern one. Catholicism is not Western, but rather comprises the totality of the Church. The Eastern viewpoint is just as much the “Catholic viewpoint” as the Western one is. To be sure, most Eastern Christians are not in communion with Rome - just as a very significant minority and in many places such as America the majority of Western Christians are not in communion with Rome (they are called Protestants). But the Orthodox are in schism from Rome; they are not regarded by the Church as heretics, and can’t be regarded as such - we Eastern Catholics hold their same faith and same theological viewpoints. To equate the Eastern viewpoint with schism or to treat it as something other than Catholicism is simply wrong; it’s as fallacious as the Eastern temptation to see anything other than Protestantism in the Roman Church (a very easy error for us to make, since relative to us they look the same, and all the errors of Protestantism can be seen in a less consistent or watered-down manner in the Roman Church).

 

[Madaglan]

What was the point of the scurging, the intense suffering, the crown of thorns, the rejection, the spit in the face, the stinging hurt? What was the point then? Isaiah is played out here and I think the Catholic viewpoint gels with the Bible far better. Of course Jews did not scourge and inflict suffering on their offerings. And their offerings, we are told by the Scriptures themselves, were a million miles short of adequate to save or truly heal the Jewish people. They prefigured sacrifice that was to come, imperfectly. Crucifying a goat would’ve been a touch goofy as well? Just some passages to meditate upon when thinking of the Atonement and the walk to calvary:

***Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering, ***

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities

***Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes[c] his life an offering for sin, ***

For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

This all is congruent with what the Church says about Our Lord’s journey, and I believe fits well with Anselmian views.

I’d like to know why you think Jesus suffered so much. Were the floggings in vain? Was the crown of thorns just part of the drama? Why these sufferings and pains?

I think the Church has it right on this. And because of the Eastern view of the Atonement, which I feel in my bones is wrong, I don’t find Orthodoxy the least bit compelling. They’re dead wrong on this IMO.

Blessings brother!

No, all the suffering of and contempt for Christ was not in vain. Christ suffered and died so that we, in fully partaking of his Life, Death and Resurrection in the mysteries, may be conformed to the image and likeness of God. Christ suffered and died not to change God (as appease his anger, or make satisfaction for an injured honor) but to change us, so that in becoming humble and pure as God is humble and pure, we may once again have communion with Him. .