SYMBOLISM, THEOLOGICAL

This topic touches two vast areas of development in the history of theology. The first is typology, which involves the rich Christian symbolism growing out of the comparison of the New Testament with the Old. The second is sacramentalism: the study of the efficacious symbolism of the Christian rites themselves. Both of these developed out of the Pauline "mysterion," which can be defined as the secret hidden in God from eternity and now revealed through Christ (Rom 16.25–26; Eph 3.1–6). In this definition the "mysterion" does not refer to God's invisible nature as such, but rather to the divine plan of salvation, hidden in God before the foundation of the world and then gradually manifested to the world, first in the Old Testament and subsequently at the fullness of time in Christ. Thus the Pauline "mysterion" is intimately connected with the economy of salvation. But it also contains the twofold idea of its hiddenness and of its visible manifestation in Christ and the Church.

Johannine Thought. This rich theological idea is found also in Johannine writings. Throughout the Fourth Gospel the figure of Moses and the events of Exodus stand in typological comparison with Christ and the spiritual events of His life (1.17, 45; 3.14; 6.31–32; 7.21–24). The manna in the desert is sign of the true bread from heaven given by the Father (6.31–32). Moses lifting up the serpent in the desert prefigures Jesus lifted up on the cross (3.14). The Revelation to John, describing the Christian liturgy as a heavenly cult centered around the Lamb, takes place in a heavenly temple while angels ascend and descend in constant communication between heaven and earth. In this imagery, taken over from Jewish apocalyptic literature, there is a connection between the heavenly and the earthly.

Epistle to the Hebrews. To explain this relationship, theologians turned to the dualism of sensible sign and spiritual reality, as witnessed by the use of typically Jewish symbolism in the Letter of Clement I to the Corinthians and in the Pseudo-Barnabas. The Epistle to the Hebrews is the earliest canonical document to make use of this dualism in an explicit way. The contrast between the heavenly and the earthly, the spiritual and the tangible, the perfect and the imperfect runs throughout the Epistle (see Cambier, 535–38). Although indirectly influenced by Greek thought, the dualism of the Epistle is not one that contrasts the concrete "shadows" of the sensible world with the abstract "realities" of the world of ideas. It is rather a dualism relating the Old Testament events and institutions to Christ and His unique salvation event. The former are sensible, imperfect "shadows" of the latter. By His death and exaltation Christ, our high priest, entered once and for all into the heavenly holy of holies, the immediacy of God's presence. Christ then instituted a new, spiritual cult. The arrangements of the old dispensation were only an imperfect "figure" of this perfect heavenly cult. Thus the Epistle's dualism reflects Judeo-Christian thought and is very close to the method employed by philo judaeus who had an evident influence on many later Greek and Latin Fathers.

The Greek Fathers. Much the same can be said of the Greek Fathers. origen, for example, whose thought was certainly influenced by Platonism, defined a sign as a visible thing that evokes the idea of another and invisible thing (In epist. ad Rom. 4.2; Patrologia Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne, 14:968). The examples that he gives to illustrate this definition indicate that his thought is much more deeply rooted in Scriptural typology: Jonah, coming out of the belly of the whale, is the sign of Christ's Resurrection. Circumcision, which God imposed on Abraham, is the sign of circumcision of the heart mentioned by Paul in Philippians 3.3. Origen's thought here is representative of the Alexandrian Fathers, whose speculations on the great Christian mysteries—Christ, the Church, the Christian—were cast in the framework of typological reflection on the economy of salvation.

The typology, having quickly become traditional among the Fathers, centers around the major Old Testament personages and events: Adam and paradise, Noah and the flood, Isaac and his sacrifice, Moses and the Exodus, Joshua and the crossing over into the Promised Land. Noe prefigures salvation in Christ. As the only just man spared from the flood's destruction, he became head of a remnant of purified humanity and thus pointed toward Christ, head of the community of the saved. The flood waters, cause of both destruction and salvation, foreshadowed Baptism's saving waters (Daniélou, From Shadows to Reality 69–103). Exodus is also a shadow of man's true liberation in Christ. Just as God miraculously delivered the Jews from Pharao's tyranny through Moses, so, also, through Christ the spiritual tyranny of Satan was shattered for the new people of God. In the day-to-day life of the Church, the Sacraments renew the Mirabilia Dei of the Exodus. In Baptism, the rite of purification and initiation, the reality foreshadowed by the Jews' wondrous passage through the Red Sea is witnessed. In the Eucharist the true manna of the desert is consumed (ibid. 153–217). The Jewish religious institutions also prefigured Christian mysteries. The Jerusalem Temple with God's presence looked ahead to the true spiritual Temple, which is either Christ Himself, the Christian community, or the individual Christian united to Christ.

In the Alexandrian writers, such as Clement, Origen, and Cyril, this typology develops very often into exaggerated allegory, while it is masterfully handled by Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom. But typology is not restricted to the Alexandrian school. It is found in Cyril of Jerusalem and Theodore of Mopsuestia, and, in the West, in such writers as Hilary, Ambrose, and Augustine (ibid. 1–7).

The Greek Fathers also made use of non-Biblical imagery for their sacramental theology. clement of alex andria, for example, is conscious of pagan mystery rites when he describes the Eucharist as the "mysteries of the Logos" (Protrept. 118; Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte 12.83). The Fathers describe Baptism by analogy with the seal (sphragis), an allusion to the baptismal rite of marking the forehead with the sign of the cross (see Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy 54–69). Clement of Alexandria informs us that Christians had several other "seals" (sphragides) or symbols, which today would be classified as sacramentals. He mentions the dove, the fish, the ship (Paed. 3.11; Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte 12:270). For further explanation of these symbols and others, such as the palm and crown, the vine and the tree of life, the living water and fish, see Daniélou, Primitive Christian Symbols.

Western Sacramental Theology. In the West the idea of the sacred military oath (sacramentum) was applied to Baptism, and exerted considerable influence on subsequent sacramental thought. Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, and Optatus were especially responsible for this development (see Michel, 508–19). Furthermore, the controversy over donatism focused attention on the external rites themselves and forced the Church to elaborate her sacramental theory. The change of perspective from East to West can be seen in Saint augustine. He borrowed his theory of signs from Origen: "For a sign is a thing which, over and above the impression it makes on the senses, by itself causes something else to come into the mind" (De doctr. christ. 2.1.1; Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne, 34: 35). But the way he illustrates this definition shows how he differs from Origen. The traces of an animal are the sign of its passage. Smoke is the sign of fire. The sound of the trumpet indicates the movement of an army. These examples are taken not from Bible history, but from natural symbolism. So, also, in applying this theory to the Sacraments, it is the natural religious symbolism of the rites that reveals the hidden meaning. "The water of the Sacrament is visible, … it washes the body, but signifies what takes place in the soul" (In epist. Joannis ad Parthos 6.11; Patrologia Latina 35:2026). Bread and wine "are called Sacraments, because in them one thing is seen, another understood" (Sermo 272; Patrologia Latina 38:1247). Here Augustine merely develops in an explicit way the implicit natural symbolism of the Sacraments. Therefore, in Augustinian thought the Sacrament is seen as a natural religious sign evoking the idea of a religious thing, of which it is the image.

Saint Thomas. As regards the dualism of sensible sign and spiritual reality, Saint Thomas provides a synthesis of sacramental theology. His theory begins with Augustine's definition of sign, which he interprets in such a way as to account for both typology and sacramentalism. The sign, precisely as sign and not as event, can signify past, present, and future. The Christian Sacrament, therefore, signifies: (1) the Passion of Christ, the past salvation event; (2) grace, the present spiritual reality in the soul; and (3) glory, the future eschatological state (Summa theologiae 3a, 60.3). The "sacraments" of the Old Testament merely prefigured those of the New without effecting what they symbolized, for they did not contain the reality, namely, Christ Himself or His priestly power.

Following the Augustinian tradition, the Council of Florence's Decree for the Armenians (1439) contains a short summary of Western sacramental doctrine spelling out the natural religious symbolism of the seven Sacraments. This document employs a dualism contrasting the natural with the supernatural. The birth, growth, and death of the natural living organism becomes an analogy for the supernatural life of the individual living in the Church. Thus Baptism symbolizes the Christian's spiritual birth; Confirmation, his spiritual fortification; the Eucharist, his spiritual nourishment; Penance, his spiritual healing; and Extreme Unction, the last healing of the soul, if not of the body, before his trip to heaven. Holy Orders and Matrimony are described more functionally: by Orders the Church is governed and multiplied spiritually; by Matrimony it is multiplied physically (H. Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum, ed. A. Schönmetzer, 1310–27).

Contemporary Theology. Western sacramental theology, by focusing its attention on the natural signs—water, bread, oil, baptizing, feasting, anointing—tended to interpret the meaning of the Sacraments more or less exclusively in terms of their natural significance. In modern theological investigation, however, the attempt to rediscover the full riches of Biblical and patristic symbolism indicates the growing awareness of the Church as a divine mystery in the Pauline sense. The Church, situated in the economy of salvation, is seen as the continuation of the Incarnation in and through the members of Christ's mystical body. As for the Sacraments, the analysis of the phenomenon of religious experience has shown that religious symbolism engages the whole person totally and existentially; the Sacraments are not merely "signs" to the intellect of an abstract theory, but rather a concrete means of personal encounter with a transcendent Deity. The Sacraments, then, are efficacious symbols that make the glorified Christ present to man here and now in a very human way.

See Also: exegesis, biblical

Bibliography: j. cambier, "L'Épître aux Hébreux," a. robert and a. feuillet, eds., Introduction à la Bible (Tournai) : v.2, Nouveau Testament (1959) 2:531–54. a. cody, Heavenly Sanctuary and Liturgy in the Epistle to the Hebrews (St. Meinrad, Ind. 1961). j. daniÉlou, The Bible and the Liturgy (Notre Dame, Ind. 1956); From Shadows to Reality, tr. w. hibberd (Westminster, Md. 1960); Primitive Christian Symbols, tr. d. attwater (Baltimore 1964). b. leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology (new ed. Westminster, Md. 1960). a. michel, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant et al., 15 v. (Paris 1903–50) 14.1:485–655. e. h. schillebeeckx, Christ: The Sacrament of the Encounter with God (New York 1963). a. vonier, A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist (1925; reprint Westminster, Md. 1956). j. h. miller, Signs of Transformation in Christ (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1963). h. r. schlette, h. fries, ed., Handbuch theologischer Grundbegriffe, 2 v. (Munich 1962–63) 2:606–13.

[g. l. coulon]