The "Left Hand of God"

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A theological problem that has tormented me… If Jesus rightly sits at the Right Hand of God (Matthew 22.44), metaphorically-symbolistically, then naturally the question arises: Who sits at the “Left Hand of God”?

Are there any specific scriptural sources on this issue?

I have heard everything from “the Holy Spirit” to “Satan as God’s Shadow-Avenger” and “Gabriel as Angelic Dispenser of God’s Punishment”… Is there anything remotely resembling a remotely “official” position?

Thanks in advance. Sincerely, a Catholic seeker
 
You might know this already anyway but I’ll just remind you that the references to ‘the right hand of God’ is not to be taken literally, as in Semitic idiom, the right hand denotes power and authority - so being a “right-hand man” (which I guess is the closest approximation of this expression in modern English) means to be in a position of authority.
 
patrick457 said:
You might know this already anyway but I’ll just remind you that the references to ‘the right hand of God’ is not to be taken literally, as in Semitic idiom, the right hand denotes power and authority - so being a “right-hand man” (which I guess is the closest approximation of this expression in modern English) means to be in a position of authority.
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Thank you patrick457–Yes I indeed am well-aware it is a figure of speech–that is why I tried to emphasize the “symbolic” character of the description… Nevertheless, the question is still there…

I have one person on another forum convinced that Lucifer-Satan is the undeniable answer. He is arguing Satan is really God’s “hidden” aspect, or dark side, like a sort of “secret agent” in modern terms… I am unsure what to think… Left has always had sinister and luciferian connotations, that’s for sure…
 
Hakathriel said:
Thank you patrick457–Yes I indeed am well-aware it is a figure of speech–that is why I tried to emphasize the “symbolic” character of the description… Nevertheless, the question is still there…

I have one person on another forum convinced that Lucifer-Satan is the undeniable answer. He is arguing Satan is really God’s “hidden” aspect, or dark side, like a sort of “secret agent” in modern terms… I am unsure what to think… Left has always had sinister and luciferian connotations, that’s for sure…
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I would simply argue that it would be the Holy Spirit, after all, we do believe it is the Holy Trinity which created all that is, seen and unseen.
 
Cruxis,

Thank you very much. You present a plausible theological hypothesis I myself am leaning to personally.

At least Christologically, it would make clear sense: God the Absolute Father, with Jesus His Incarnation at His Right Hand and the Holy Spirit/Holy Ghost at His Left Hand… Very seemingly theologically on target! 🙂

If this is so, then the “left-sinister-lucifer” theme would have no relevance whatsoever; nor would the left side reserved for Gabriel, or any other Archangelic Hypostasis, etc. as Ultimate “Avenger-Angel” have a place…

I still wonder! Where are our modern Thomas Aquinases? 🙂
 
Hakathriel said:
Thank you patrick457–Yes I indeed am well-aware it is a figure of speech–that is why I tried to emphasize the “symbolic” character of the description… Nevertheless, the question is still there…

I have one person on another forum convinced that Lucifer-Satan is the undeniable answer. He is arguing Satan is really God’s “hidden” aspect, or dark side, like a sort of “secret agent” in modern terms… I am unsure what to think… Left has always had sinister and luciferian connotations, that’s for sure…
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Which is really not compatible with Christian theology - in fact it seems to reek more of Dualism. Satan is not the exact opposite or some hidden ‘evil aspect’ of God as some might think, but a creature of His that fell from grace due to pride: God after all has no equals.
 
I agree–the Dualistic undertones are there…

But on the other hand, the “left-sinister-lucifer” meta-theme is undeniable…

Gabriel in “dark avenging angel” guise as aspect of God’s justice I do not see as necessarily quasi-heretical or dualistic however… And so many sources do indeed testify to Gabriel as sitting at the Left Hand of God–as a symbol of the Holy Spirit?..
 
Hakathriel said:
Cruxis,

Thank you very much. You present a plausible theological hypothesis I myself am leaning to personally.

At least Christologically, it would make clear sense: God the Absolute Father, with Jesus His Incarnation at His Right Hand and the Holy Spirit/Holy Ghost at His Left Hand… Very seemingly theologically on target! 🙂

If this is so, then the “left-sinister-lucifer” theme would have no relevance whatsoever; nor would the left side reserved for Gabriel, or any other Archangelic Hypostasis, etc. as Ultimate “Avenger-Angel” have a place…

I still wonder! Where are our modern Thomas Aquinases? 🙂
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The Dominicans have them locked up in a dark room somewhere writing The Summa part 2 😦

Those pesky Dominicans hogging all the good theologians :D.
 
I saw this on the net-

“I AM THE LORD and there is none else. I form the light(right hand) and create darkness(left hand); I make the peace(right hand) and create evil(left hand); I THE LORD do these things.” Isaiah - 45 v.7
 
I read someplace of a little girl who thought it wonderful that the Father could do all those things using only His left hand. When asked why she thought He used only His left hand, she explained that it was because Jesus was sitting on His right hand. 😃
 
Paul_theApostle said:
I saw this on the net-

“I AM THE LORD and there is none else. I form the light(right hand) and create darkness(left hand); I make the peace(right hand) and create evil(left hand); I THE LORD do these things.” Isaiah - 45 v.7
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Well, this is a really significant passage here actually.

If God is in ultimate transcendent control, the “evil left hand” must not be another “god” of course but a part of God and servant of God too, the God Who is beyond our merely human notions of “duality”.

And this returns us to the “Satan as God’s secret agent” idea…connecting smoothly with the “left hand of God” concept… But Satan has been eternally forsaken from God’s presence, right? Can he still somehow surreptitiously function as God’s super double triple secret agent…? I am mentally boggled…

WHO KNOWS! 🙂 Somebody perhaps take a lot of Caffeine and study all night all the wealth of pre-modern Catholic theology for answers here maybe, I don’t know… 😛 🙂
 
Hakathriel said:
They should learn to share. 😛
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What can ya say, they don’t like sharing their secrets, you know between the Dominicans and the Jesuits, there is a cure for most diseases in the world, they just like to keep these things secret 😉
 
Surpised no one brought it up…

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee approached him with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something. He said to her, “What do you wish?” She answered him, “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.” Jesus said in reply, "You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” They said to him, “We can.” He replied, “My cup you will indeed drink, but to sit at my right and at my left , this] is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” (Matthew 20-23)

I have no comment of my own other than pointing out the passage and speculating that sitting at both the right and left of the king must have been positions of authority and/or honor.

-Tim-
 
TimothyH said:
Surpised no one brought it up…

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee approached him with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something. He said to her, “What do you wish?” She answered him, “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.” Jesus said in reply, "You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” They said to him, “We can.” He replied, "My cup you will indeed drink, but to sit at my right and at my left , this] is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father." (Matthew 20-23)

I have no comment of my own other than pointing out the passage and speculating that sitting at both the right and left of the king must have been positions of authority and/or honor.

-Tim-
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Would it be foolish to note that it is possibly the Queen Mother who sits on the other side? (The Blessed Virgin Mary). Just a thought.
 
TimothyH said:
Surpised no one brought it up…

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee approached him with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something. He said to her, “What do you wish?” She answered him, “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.” Jesus said in reply, "You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” They said to him, “We can.” He replied, "My cup you will indeed drink, but to sit at my right and at my left , this] is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father." (Matthew 20-23)

I have no comment of my own other than pointing out the passage and speculating that sitting at both the right and left of the king must have been positions of authority and/or honor.

-Tim-
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Given the running theme of dramatic irony in the Gospels, this pericope finds its unlikely fulfillment here:

And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him. And the superscription of His charge was written above: “The King of the Judaeans.” And with Him they crucify two bandits, one on the right and one on His left.
 
Hakathriel said:
Thank you patrick457–Yes I indeed am well-aware it is a figure of speech–that is why I tried to emphasize the “symbolic” character of the description… Nevertheless, the question is still there…
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Well no, the question isn’t there. We in English do not have the phrase “to be someone’s left-hand-man,” unless we are making some sort of pun. Seeing that we are not talking about the Father’s physical right and left hands, we have no reason to expect that theology ought to have discerned who is sitting at the Father’s left.
 
Um, the Fathers of the Church and other sacred theologians didn’t think it was beneath them as a meaningless triviality to discuss with dignity the manifold theological, spiritual, and ethical-philosophical meanings and significances of the symbolic scriptural language employing descriptions of God’s “left and right hands” (as with God’s “face” and “back”, and so on).

Are we moderns so much more wise? Really?

newadvent.org/fathers/1801090.htm

St. Augustine, Exposition of Psalm 90:

The right hand of God may also be understood in this sense, as that by which He will separate His saints from the wicked: because that hand becomes well known, when it scourges every son whom He receives, and suffers him not, in greater anger, to prosper in his sins, but in His mercy scourges him with the left, that He may place him purified on His right hand. (Matthew 25:33: “And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left.”)

Thomas Aquinas has a whole section dedicated to the “hands of God” and their theological meaning:

Question 58. Christ’s sitting at the right hand of the Father

newadvent.org/summa/4058.htm
 
You would be right only if “speculative theology” was an illicit subject in Christian philosophy and metaphysics. Yet it is not.

According to one viewpoint, speculative intellectual questions relating to the “left hand of God” are mere mental silliness and waste of time.

I do not believe so, as Holy Scripture shows there are distinct and important meanings given to the notional concepts of “the Left side” and “the Right side” throughout the Bible and the early Fathers.

Let’s start here perhaps, at Matthew 25:

And when the Son of man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the seat of his majesty. And all nations shall be gathered together before him: and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the king say to them that shall be on his right hand: Come, you blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world … Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels.

–Okay, to the deniers who think I am only an obfuscater and misguided dolt and there is no possible theological meaning to “the Right side” and “the Left side” in Christian teaching, please explain how you interpret the above crucial words from Jesus.
 
Well, not exactly related to the topic, but since you asked about Matthew 25, I’ll quote what I wrote a while ago:
Of course, the separation of the sheep from the goats are probably based on the actual practice where sheep and goats are herded into separate folds. The assignment of roles is probably also on the basis of color: sheep are usually envisaged to have more whiter wool than Palestinian goats - which have long, black and coarse hair. Sheep wool tended to be used more for clothing than goat wool, which was made into tent cloths.
And probably also their general behavior: goats tend to fend on their own while sheep are generally dependent on the shepherd to care for them - without shepherds, sheep are defenseless.
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Sheep were generally seen as more valuable in an economy that depended on both agriculture and flock-tending: they were raised primarily for their wool than for their meat, and slaughtering a sheep for a visiting guest was seen as generous hospitality. Both sheep and goats were cud-chewing and thus considered ritually clean (or kosher), meaning that their meat and by-products are edible. 😛
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BTW, we would divert into their dairy products: back then, men normally never drank milk, it being reserved for women, children, the weak and the infirm. They instead ate products like curds, yogurt and cheese, especially goat’s cheese (the Greek feta cheese is a good example of this), and if they do drink milk, it would be goat milk. Moreover, women and children milked the goats, but milking the sheep were the men’s job. Often, a shepherd will have to wash his hands after intercourse before milking the sheep, but unmarried men were generally preferred when milking ewes.
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And as LilyM pointed out, there is a difference between their use in sacrifices: the ‘honorable’ sheep was generally the animal of choice, but the animal designated for Azazel which carries the sins of the sons of Israel is the ‘shameful’ goat. It all boils down to the honor and shame culture of the Ancient Near East: sheep were honorable and were associated with men, virility, silence, courage, and the outdoor pastures; in some cultures, sheep were sacred to honorable gods (say, the ram to Zeus, Apollo or Poseidon). Sheep suffer in silence - they do not make noise when they are shorn or even when death is imminent, and thus became a symbol of honorable manliness, of silent endurance. Also, one ram can service a flock of at least fifty ewes. Shepherds have to be careful if the ewes dwindle, in order to prevent a fight from breaking out between two rams - which would happen if one ram tries to encroach on the ewe of another. Hence, sheep - particularly the ram - was also seen as a symbol of virility, strength, bravery and fierceness. Kings, princes and other honorable people were applied the very word.
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