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Niggi Hardare 🏳️‍⚧️ /
npub1mmf…w4rk
2024-07-09 20:41:52
in reply to nevent1q…egt8

Niggi Hardare 🏳️‍⚧️ on Nostr: It’s the same word in Hebrew too. St. Ephraim is mistaken here, I think, he’s ...

It’s the same word in Hebrew too. St. Ephraim is mistaken here, I think, he’s missing context because the same imagery is used to describe God coming into Solomon’s Temple. The wind is literally the physical presence of YHWH.

Something the early Fathers might not have picked up on is that semitic divinities in pre-Babylonian times are attached to a specific location. When the Syrian visits Elijah, he has to physically bring dirt from Israel back to his land to keep his connection to YHWH.

To explain the connection to Eucharistilogy you just need to be vaguely aware of the iconoclastic debate. The iconoclasts opposed images because the Eucharist was the ultimate icon for them, it’s a place where a material and an immaterial reality meet. The wafer really is Christ, but when you eat it, are you grinding and injuring Christ in your mouth?

No, because it’s just the substance of flesh. The same is true of wind and God’s presence, or “spirit”, and that’s the same idea as the Confucians are presenting. For both traditions, the wind and the spirit are the same thing in the same way that, when you kiss an icon of a Saint, you are actually kissing that saint. I’m avoiding the prototype language from St John of Damascus bc I’m not sure if that applies to something with a transcendent essence but itiggt be helpful if you’re familiar with the controversy.

(The iconodules agree with this btw, it’s just easy to understand in the context of a debate involving what symbols are.)
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