That’s interesting about Portuguese, I didn’t know that!
Yes, the Liturgy of the Hours derives from the same tradition, but I think in a simplified form and with less of a performative emphasis (to the best of my understanding ).
Btw Quakers also traditionally called the days "the First Day", etc (and the months likewise) in order to avoid using pagan nomenclature. I think they sometimes still do.
Clerical attitudes to astrology are an interesting subject in their own right. The idea that astrology is impermissible because it can't be reconciled with free will came to be held in the Catholic West too. This still left room for predicting things that weren't dependent on free will, such as a person's health. It was also believed that it was acceptable to predict the behaviour of *large numbers* of people through astrology because, while each individual among them had free will, it was reasonable to say that general patterns of behaviour would assert themselves across a population. So, for example, you could use a horoscope to predict whether a nation would launch a rebellion. You could also use a birth chart to make *broad conjectures* about a person's actions, as long as you didn't claim that they were definite predictions. This is all a classic example of the pedantry of Catholic moral theology, and it would be interesting to know if Orthodox clerics descended into this level of hairsplitting.
There are similar arguments in many Orthodox treatises, and they tend to circle round to the same points. The degree of pedantry depends on the individual, but there are two main patterns: that seen in the two depictions re the place of the zodiac in the cosmic hierarchy (that’s straight out of pseudo-Dionysius) and the course of the seasons; and the emphasis on free will. There is almost no doctrine held to more firmly: human free will cannot be compromised by anything, and that’s also one of the key sticking points with regard to convergence with other Christian obediences. Catholicism sort of accepts it but adds a whole lot of strictures, Protestantism argues it was effectively destroyed by the Fall (OK, Calvinism especially). This is a point I’m investigating at the moment (the whole free will thing) which is a direct adoption from Jewish thought upheld within Orthodoxy.
Thanks for this. I believe the numbering system for days is also employed in Portuguese, a break from the other Latin languages.
That sense of spirality suggests the unfolding of Logos, his continual disclosure in time and space.
Are there any correspondences or resonances here for, say, the Liturgy of the Hours? Thanks again.
That’s interesting about Portuguese, I didn’t know that!
Yes, the Liturgy of the Hours derives from the same tradition, but I think in a simplified form and with less of a performative emphasis (to the best of my understanding ).
Btw Quakers also traditionally called the days "the First Day", etc (and the months likewise) in order to avoid using pagan nomenclature. I think they sometimes still do.
Clerical attitudes to astrology are an interesting subject in their own right. The idea that astrology is impermissible because it can't be reconciled with free will came to be held in the Catholic West too. This still left room for predicting things that weren't dependent on free will, such as a person's health. It was also believed that it was acceptable to predict the behaviour of *large numbers* of people through astrology because, while each individual among them had free will, it was reasonable to say that general patterns of behaviour would assert themselves across a population. So, for example, you could use a horoscope to predict whether a nation would launch a rebellion. You could also use a birth chart to make *broad conjectures* about a person's actions, as long as you didn't claim that they were definite predictions. This is all a classic example of the pedantry of Catholic moral theology, and it would be interesting to know if Orthodox clerics descended into this level of hairsplitting.
There are similar arguments in many Orthodox treatises, and they tend to circle round to the same points. The degree of pedantry depends on the individual, but there are two main patterns: that seen in the two depictions re the place of the zodiac in the cosmic hierarchy (that’s straight out of pseudo-Dionysius) and the course of the seasons; and the emphasis on free will. There is almost no doctrine held to more firmly: human free will cannot be compromised by anything, and that’s also one of the key sticking points with regard to convergence with other Christian obediences. Catholicism sort of accepts it but adds a whole lot of strictures, Protestantism argues it was effectively destroyed by the Fall (OK, Calvinism especially). This is a point I’m investigating at the moment (the whole free will thing) which is a direct adoption from Jewish thought upheld within Orthodoxy.