St. John Of Damascus

[Carson Weber]

St. John Damascene, one of the greatest defenders of the Church's iconography and an important source for the Christology of Saint Thomas Aquinas, wrote:

"I do not worship matter. I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honouring that matter which works my salvation" ([i]De imaginibus[/i] 1:16).

What a great quote for the truth of the sacramentality of the divine plan of salvation!

I gleaned this from Fr. John Saward's [u]The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty[/u] (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 92.

[Bruce S]

This sounds VERY GNOSTIC, almost denying the PHYSICAL reality of Jesus.

If Jesus did not know this would become a reality, later on, knowing how men are, we would NOT have the "put your finger in my side" comment, or his eating of bread and broiled fish.

You DO worship matter, for that matter, if it matters at all....

[Carson Weber]

Bruce,

I believe you're protesting a bit too quickly and without discernment.

You said, "This sounds very gnostic, almost denything the physical reality of Jesus."

How so?

John Damascene bespeaks of how God became matter for his sake, inhabiting matter, and worked salvation through matter.

I do not know how he could be more emphatic with regard to the physical reality of Jesus, and your response seems to be entirely irrational, at least from my feeble, limited perspective.

[Bruce S]

OK, dyslexia hit me, grin.

[Carson Weber]

Thanks Bruce. I was sure that there was a misunderstanding involved!

The point of this post is to emphasize the goodness and instrumentality of matter (of hard, raw "things") in God's plan of salvation, which entails an [u]incarnational perspective[/u], seeing how the incarnation provides the principle for the sacramentality of the Church: how water cleanses us from sin in Baptism, how oil heals in the anointing of the sick, and how bread feeds us with Christ's own flesh in the Eucharist.

This is extended even to the pope, wherein Christ rules chiefly and infallibly through a visible, sinful, aging, and fallible man.