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Cardinal Jean Daniélou |
Cardinal Jean Daniélou, S.J. had a deep respect and appreciation for the origins of the Church in the Scriptures, the Sacraments and the liturgy. With Cardinal Henri de Lubac, he was a powerful force within the French ressourcement theology movement, which contended that a return to the early sources of the Scriptures, the Patristic Fathers, the Liturgy and the saints would revivify the pastoral life and theology of the Catholic Church.[1] He has been called “the epitome of ressourcement theology, the purest example of its type.”[2] It is against the background of the ressourcement movement that Daniélou’s book Primitive Christian Symbols must be set. His text ties together the Jewish elements of the Catholic liturgy with both commonly understood biblical symbols (the true Vine, the fish, the Church as ship) and lesser known symbols (the plough and the axe, Elias’s chariot). This work is meant for one interested in a more detailed understanding of some of the finer, more obscure uses of symbolism within Christianity. It relies heavily on an understanding of Jewish culture and liturgical life. For the reader who does not have the familiarity with Jewish and early Christian liturgy that the author presumes, a good Catholic encyclopedia is of great help. Cardinal Daniélou gives copious footnotes to back up his research and build one concept clearly upon another, but his footnotes are corroborative rather than explanatory. Still, for the spiritual reader interested in a deepening understanding of the early symbols used by the Church, the content is both intellectually engaging and spiritually moving. These symbols reveal and illumine the realities of our Christian faith and give sharper focus and deeper meaning to the sacraments and the redemptive love of Christ.
Cardinal Daniélou conveys a sense of wonder and academic curiosity that extends throughout his work. In his research, he is engaged in a genuine search for truth, allowing the facts and evidence to speak more powerfully than preconceived assumptions based on present-day liturgy. For example, in his introduction Daniélou relates, “I was surprised to find baptism compared to a chariot in which man is carried up to Heaven. Moreover, I was led to the conclusion that certain better-known symbols, that of the fish especially, could have other significances than the ones usually given to them.”[3] Each chapter addresses and explores one or two symbols; if two symbols are covered, it is in consideration of their integral relation in meaning, typically because they are drawn from the same Scriptural texts.
The book includes quality photographs of early Christian engravingsJean Daniélou, Primitive Christian Symbols, (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1964), 88 at www.archives.org.
Daniélou draws heavily on his understanding of the Greek texts. Even before his entry into the Jesuits, his academic career at the Sorbonne brought about his “love affair with the Hellenic world” which brought about an intense study of “the Greek fathers and ecclesiastical writers, notably Gregory of Nyssa and Origen of Alexandria.”[4] This Hellenic affection is evident both in his sources and in his continual exposition of the nuances of the Greek words that refer to each of the symbols. This attention to the original Greek allows him to draw connections and references between symbols. For example, in chapter five “Elias’s Chariot,” he first equates Elias’s “chariot” (όχημα, often translated as “vehicle”) with the body as the “vehicle” of the soul in Greek philosophy. Daniélou then furthers this comparison through the writings of Gregory of Nyssa that assimilate “Elias’s chariot to the power of the Spirit,” and finally concludes that “the Holy Spirit…is he who is the vehicle which raises the soul” through the sacrament of Baptism.[5]
Daniélou also exposes the beauty of the liturgy and the interplay of the Jewish and Christian liturgies. This again is a participation in the goals of the ressourcement movement: “The ‘re-sourcing’ Daniélou seeks, then, is not so much the recovery of something lost as the unveiling of a hidden, but present, wisdom – the Scriptural wisdom of the liturgy.”[6] In his chapter on “The Palm and the Crown,” Daniélou traces the various Jewish liturgies and their relation to one another and to the liturgies of the Church. He explains that “Pentecost was associated with the giving of the Law on Sinai,”[7] drawing the connection between the receiving of the ten commandments and the Jewish feast of Pentecost, which allows the reader to connect the Old Covenant of the Decalogue with the New Covenant of life in the Spirit. The remainder of the chapter focuses on the messianic expectancy threaded through each of the Jewish liturgies, highlighting the anticipation that is fulfilled in Christ and the gift of the Spirit.
For the enthusiastic Catholic, the beauty and benefit of this book is a deepening understanding of the origins of these symbols and their roots in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. Even with the occasional feeling of being buried in Greek semantics, the reader’s perseverance is rewarded with a newfound appreciation of the complexity and depth of beauty of the symbols that ultimately point to Christ and his work within our world. The goal of Daniélou’s patristic scriptural exegesis was that the “symbolism of the liturgy [would be] appropriated in the Christian life”[8] and Primitive Christian Symbols progresses that ideal for the Catholic reader of today.
Jean Daniélou, Primitive Christian Symbols, (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1964), 88 at www.archives.org.
Primitive Christian Symbols is out of print
but can be found in pdf
form here
or through used booksellers
online, including here and here.
ISBN 10: 0860120090ISBN 13: 978-0860120094
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