Religious Paradox and Aporia
Keywords:
Paradox, aporia, oxymoron, atopon, thaumazein, mirabilia, religious paradox, Homer, Hesiod, Archilochus, Heraclitus, Plato, Euripides Bacchae, ancient mysteries, Zeno of Elea, the Gospel of St John, Akathistos Hymnos, Virgin Birth.Abstract
Focusing on religious or metaphysical paradox, which is, strangely, a neglected subject, this paper surveys well-known and little known instances in ancient Greek literature and early Christian sources. Religious paradox is highlighted in texts ranging from Hesiod, Archilochus, Heraclitus, and Euripides’ Bacchae to the Gospel of St John, St Paul, and the 6th century Akathistos Hymnos in honour of the Virgin Mary. Aporia in the wake of religious paradox confirms human limitation and points to the transcendence of the divine. Christianity, the religion of paradox par excellence, acknowledges the impossibility of offering philosophical “solutions” to the paradoxes and aporiai of dogma, and resorts to oxymoron and paradox as the only adequate form of expression. The only recourse before the estranging dislocation of order and logic provoked by contact with the divine is “ignorance”, for paradoxically ἐν ἀγνοίᾳ γὰρ γίνεται γνωστὸς ὁ Θεός (“God becomes known/knowable through ignorance”), as St Dionysius the Areopagite states.
Downloads
References
ADOMÉNAS, M. Heraclitus on Religion. Phronesis, Leiden & Boston, v. 44, n. 2, p. 87-113, 1999.
AKATHISTOS HYMNOS = Οἱ Ἐκκλησιαστικοὶ Ὕμνοι εἰς τὴν ὑπεραγίαν Θεοτόκον ἤτοι: Ὁ Ἀκάθιστος Ὕμνος, κ.λπ. Athens: Aster Publishers, 1998.
AUERBACH, E. Literary Language and Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. Engl. tr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.
BOOTH, N. Zeno’s paradoxes. Journal of Hellenic Studies, Cambridge, v. 77, n. 2, p. 187-201, 1957.
BRODERSEN, K. (Tr. & ed.). Die Wahrheit über die Griechischen Mythen. Palaiphatos’ “Unglaubliche Geschichten”. 3rd edn. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2017.
BURKERT, W. Ancient Mystery Cults. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987.
CHRYSAKOPOULOU, S. Wonder and the Miraculous in Ancient Philosophy. In: VASSALOU, S. (Ed.). Practices of wonder. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2012. p. 88-120.
COLLINS, D. Nature, Cause, and Agency in Greek Magic. Transactions of the American Philological Association, Baltimore, v. 133, n. 1, p. 17-49, 2003.
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, ST. On the Divine Names. In: Migne, J. P. (Ed.). Patrologia Graeca, Paris, 1857-66, v. 3: 664C.
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, ST. Mystical theology. In: Migne, J. P. (Ed.). Patrologia Graeca, Paris, 1857-66, v. 3: 1024BC.
DODDS, E. R. Euripides Bacchae. Edited with an Introduction and Commentary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960.
FOLEY, H. P. Ritual Irony: Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides. Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 1985.
FRIESEN, C. J. Reading Dionysus: Euripides’ Bacchae and the Cultural Contestations of Greeks, Jews, Romans, and Christians. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck GmbH & Co., 2013.
GEERTZ, C. Religion as a culture system. In: BANTON, M. (Ed.). Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion. London:Tavistock, 1966. p. 1-46.
GERBER, D. E. Greek Iambic Poetry: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 1999. (Loeb Classical Library).
HACKFORTH, M. T. Solved by Walking: Paradox and Resolution in the Labyrinth, 2012. Dissertation (PhD) – Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2012.
HENRICHS, A. Greek and Roman Glimpses of Dionysos. In: HOUSER, C. (Ed.). Dionysos and His Circle: Ancient Through Modern. Catalogue of an Exhibition. The Fogg Art Museum. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979. p. 1-11.
HUSSEY, E. Heraclitus. In: BRUNSCHWIG, J.; LLOYD, G. E. R. (Ed.). Greek Thought. A Guide to Classical Knowledge. Engl. tr. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2000. p. 631-641.
KAZHDAN, A. P. (Ed.). Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
LLOYD, G.E. R. Polarity and analogy. Two Types of Argumentation in Early Greek Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966.
McKIRAHAN, Jr, R. D. Philosophy Before Socrates. An Introduction with Texts and Commentary. Indianapolis; Cambridge: Hackett, 1994.
NIGHTINGALE, A. W. On Wandering and Wondering: Theôria in Greek Philosophy and Culture. Arion: a Journal of Humanities and the Classics at Boston University, Boston, v. 9, n. 2, p. 23-58, 2001.
OSBORNE, C. Heraclitus. In: TAYLOR, C. C. W. (Ed.). Routledge history of philosophy. London; New York: Routledge, 1997. v. I: From the beginning to Plato, p. 88-127.
OTTO, R. The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational. Engl. tr. Revised with additions. Oxford: Oxford University Press; London: H. Milford, 1950.
OXFORD Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
PATTON, K. C. Religion of the Gods. Ritual, Paradox, and Reflexivity. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
QUINE, W. V. The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays. Revised edn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976.
RUSSELL, D. A.; WILSON, N. G. Menander Rhetor. Edited with a Translation & Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
SEAFORD, R. Euripides Bacchae. With an Introduction, Translation and Commentary. Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1996.
SORABJI, R. Time, Creation and the Continuum, Theories in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1983.
STERN, J. Palaephatus: Περὶ Ἀπίστων, On unbelievable Tales. Translation, Introduction, & Commentary. Wauconda, IL.: Blochazy-Carducci Publishers, 1996.
WEST, M. L. Hesiod, Works and Days. Edited with Prolegomena and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
WEST, M. L. Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, A New Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
WINKLER, J. J.; STEPHENS, S. A. Ancient Greek Novels: The Fragments: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.
YUSA, M. Paradox and riddles. In: ELIADE, M. (Ed.-in-chief). The Encyclopedia of Religion, New York: Macmillan Library Reference; London: Simon & Schuster and Prentice Hall International, 1995. v. XI. p. 194-195.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2018 Ioannis Petropoulos
![Creative Commons License](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.