A very yin and yang day. I spent most of my day arranging to turn in a domestic client on a couple of counts of simple assault, the result of what we like to euphemistically call “the estrangement of the parties”. These charges are misdemeanors, but my State has a very ugly law which requires people arrested for domestic violence related charges — like these — to spend 48 hours in jail without bond…unless…unless…they’ve got a lawyer who knows the loophole and is willing to go deal with the DA and find a judge. So tomorrow at 12:30, I’ve arranged for the presence of a judge, the sheriff, the warrants, my client and the agreement of the DA that she be given an unsecured bond. In other words, she walks in, she walks out. We all go home. Cool.
At the other extreme, I’ve been tweaking a final exam I’ve been working on. My seminary weekend was postponed for a week — rats — so I’m using the time to keep working on the test. In particular, tonight I’ve been dealing with the two great schools of Orthodox exegesis. One is the allegorical method, which tends toward the mystical. A few weeks ago, I wrote about a wonderful example of this in St. Gregory of Nyassa\’s Life of Moses.
Tonight I’ve been focusing on the typological method. This searches for foreshadowings of the truths of Christ in the Old Testament. While it is a very wide ranging school, the two best known examples of type analysis are those of Christ and of the Theotokos, the Mother of God. For example, in the scripture readings for the Feast of the Annunciation, we find three such types:
a. Jacob’s Ladder (Genesis 28:10-17): As Jacob traveled from Beersheba to Haran, he made camp for the night. As he slept, he had a dream in which he saw a ladder, stretching from Heaven to Earth, and angels traveled up and down between the two. The ladder was the way that the divine and the heavenly came to and from earth. This vision is a type of the Theotokos, since by consenting to the message of Gabriel, she became the conduit through which the Incarnation took place. In order to bring salvation to all people, it was necessary that Christ assume humanity. As St. Athanasios said “what has not been assumed has not been saved”.   By lending flesh to the Christ child, the Theotokos provided that passage which allowed the divine to come to earth.
b. The Unopened Gate (Ezekiel 43:27 - 44:4): In a passage which is virtually impossible to decipher without reference to the Theotokos, the prophet relates a vision involving an entrance to the sanctuary. Facing east, the Lord tells Ezekiel that the gate will be opened only for the Lord. It is a plain reference to the perpetual virginity of Mary. At the Annunciation He entered in, He stayed in her womb as any other child does, nourished by His mother’s body (”he may sit in it to eat bread before the Lord”), and finally He went out. Other than that one entrance and exit, “This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter by it”.
c. The burning bush (Exodus 3:1-8): The third type read on that Feast comes from the story of Mose’s encounter with God, as manifested in the burning bush. For purposes of the Theotokos, it is the characteristics of the bush that we focus on. The bush held within it the fire of God, yet the bush was not consumed. The bush was also a common thing of earth, yet it was sanctified for the purposes of God. The same observations can be made about the Theotokos. She held within her the very Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, yet she did so without being destroyed herself. Similarly, the Theotokos, while perhaps the most extraordinary person to ever live, was but a person. As Orthodox, we do not subscribe to the notion that Mary was born without sin, the idea of the immaculate conception. Instead, Mary was a person like any of us, yet a person who despite her humanity loved God so greatly that she, and she alone, could serve as the chosen vessel.
It’s wonderful stuff. I love both schools, depending on my mood and the subject. Even more than I love pulling an end run on the law.
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