"The song of songs is the New Testament written in ancient times": what a great observation! This lovely essay goes some way towards demonstrating exactly this, unveiling what is on the other side of our encounter with Christ, who stands at the door and knocks.
It is a mystical reality, full of the substance of heaven which can only be related in allusions of beauty, joy, comfort and grandeur.
Thank you Peter for another immersive exploration.
For a moment, I realized that *holy mystery is elevating - in a whole different league to "ideals." To the extent that I am ignorant because most of this is way over my head - allusions and relations I would never have conceived - perhaps it can actually be said that, "ignorance is bliss." In my case, in that limited sense.
I think it's all part of the same thing: all expressions of holiness share the same substance in a certain way, whether poetry, music, art, architecture, ways of behaving towards each other, virtues or ideals
Cautionary note: the Prosopon school is firmly denounced as a weird, heretical cult by the great majority of Orthodox iconographers. They say that nearly all his ideas where the creation of icons is connected to theological teachings are made up. Just straight up fabrications, and that quite a lot of his icons are heretical.
I did some further reading, and there's not the slightest doubt: Prosopon is a plague. It's massively popular and wildly heretical. Its cult leader just made up a ton of fake theology that is cobbled together out of genuine patristic terminology, but gives the terms entirely false meanings and rearranges them into a weird new esoteric metaphysical system that bears very little resemblance to the theology of the Fathers he claims to be following. Thousands of people have been led astray by it. It might be a good idea to put a disclaimer on there, and read this: https://www.sacredmurals.com/texts/prosopon_iconology.htm
"The song of songs is the New Testament written in ancient times": what a great observation! This lovely essay goes some way towards demonstrating exactly this, unveiling what is on the other side of our encounter with Christ, who stands at the door and knocks.
It is a mystical reality, full of the substance of heaven which can only be related in allusions of beauty, joy, comfort and grandeur.
Thank you Peter for another immersive exploration.
For a moment, I realized that *holy mystery is elevating - in a whole different league to "ideals." To the extent that I am ignorant because most of this is way over my head - allusions and relations I would never have conceived - perhaps it can actually be said that, "ignorance is bliss." In my case, in that limited sense.
I think it's all part of the same thing: all expressions of holiness share the same substance in a certain way, whether poetry, music, art, architecture, ways of behaving towards each other, virtues or ideals
Cautionary note: the Prosopon school is firmly denounced as a weird, heretical cult by the great majority of Orthodox iconographers. They say that nearly all his ideas where the creation of icons is connected to theological teachings are made up. Just straight up fabrications, and that quite a lot of his icons are heretical.
Fair enough. I don't think any of the passages I shared were problematic that way, though.
I did some further reading, and there's not the slightest doubt: Prosopon is a plague. It's massively popular and wildly heretical. Its cult leader just made up a ton of fake theology that is cobbled together out of genuine patristic terminology, but gives the terms entirely false meanings and rearranges them into a weird new esoteric metaphysical system that bears very little resemblance to the theology of the Fathers he claims to be following. Thousands of people have been led astray by it. It might be a good idea to put a disclaimer on there, and read this: https://www.sacredmurals.com/texts/prosopon_iconology.htm
Thank you for this note and link.
If you want to know the true theology of the icon, the place to start is St. John of Damascus. https://ccel.org/ccel/damascus/icons/icons.i.html
Of course. And St. Theodore the Studite.