The Crisis Of Religious Symbolism

Combined here in one volume are two books, The Crisis of Religious Symbolism and Symbolism and Reality. Although published seven years apart, these two works are integral to one another. Symbolism and Reality represents a kind of sabbath rest--its subtitle says "reflection"--after the mighty works of The Crisis of Religious Symbolism, where the deep structures of three hundred years of Western philosophical and cultural development are brought to the surface, analyzed, and made meaningful in the light of what Jean Borella has termed "the metaphysics of the symbol." Together, these two books represent a cleansing and restoration of a Christian vision of the world. Through Jean Borella's witness to the death and resurrection of religious symbolism presented here, we are given entrance to a world renewed in Christ. "Borella's writing shines with wayside jewels of intuition, as well as proceeding with a rich vein of theological reasoning."--Malachi Martin The French Catholic religious philosopher Jean Borella (b. 1930) taught metaphysics and the history of ancient and medieval philosophy at the University of Nancy II until his retirement in 1995. Besides the present works on sacred symbology, he has also written important texts on charity, analogy, Christian gnosis, mystical theology, and sacred exegesis. His latest work is To the Biblical Sources of Metaphysics (2015).

That sacred art scarcely exists today is all too clear. We can perhaps speak of a "religious," but certainly not a sacred art. True sacred art is not sentimental or psychological, but ontological and cosmological in nature. Sacred art cannot be the result of the feelings, fantasies, or even "thought" of the artist--as with most modern art--but rather the translation of a reality largely surpassing the limits of human individuality. Sacred art is precisely a supra-human art. The temple of former times was an "instrument" of recollection, joy, sacrifice, and exaltation. First through the harmonious combination of a thousand crafted symbols, then by offering itself as a receptacle to the symbols of the liturgy. For the temple and the liturgy together constitute a prodigious formula capable of preparing man to become aware of the descent of Grace, of the epiphany of the Spirit in corporeity. It is a matter of urgency, then, to recall what is true in sacred art, especially since in the cultural wasteland of our age signs of resistance to its anarchy and subversion manifest themselves, and a pressing call is felt to recover the traditional conceptions that must form the basis and condition of any restoration. "Through his research into hidden or lost meanings, Jean Hani has revealed and restored to our attention the most 'initiatic' dimensions of the Christian religion." Jean Borella, author of The Secret of the Christian Way, and The Crisis of Religious Symbolism (forthcoming from Angelico Press) Jean Hani (1917-2012), former professor emeritus at the University of Amiens, was the founder of the Centre de Recherche sur l'Antiquit Classique and a frequent contributor to the journal Connaissance des Religions. After writing his PhD thesis on the influence of Egyptian thought upon Plutarch, he produced annotated translations of the latter's writings for the well-known Collection Bud . Later he became known for his mastery of traditional hermeneutics and exegesis, and his broad knowledge in the field of comparative religion. Hani's writing is sensitive to the predicament of those moderns who seek a firm foundation in traditional Christian values, while striving also to integrate into that foundation whatever of value can be salvaged from the contemporary world. His findings were presented in four important works now available from Angelico Press in translation: the present volume, along with Divine Craftsmanship (Preliminaries to a Spirituality of Work), The Divine Liturgy (Insights into its Mystery), and The Black Virgin (A Marian Mystery).

Excerpt from Symbolism in Religion and Literature: Edited and With an Introduction 6. The Broken Center: A Definition of the Crisis of Values in Modern Literature. Nathan A. Scott, Jr. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

In closely focused essays, a group of anthropologists debate the particular nature of religious concepts and categories.

Symbols of the Sacred gathers four classic essays by Louis Dupr on the role of symbols in our understanding of the sacred and on their fundamental importance to religious consciousness. A leading philosopher of religion, Dupr here discusses the nature of religious symbols, the importance of language for capturing symbolic meaning, the ancient link between art and expressions of the sacred, and the vital relationship between religious symbol and myth. The volume concludes with a powerful reflection on the innate capacity of human minds to grasp the transcendent. Elegantly expressed, conversant with a wide range of thinkers, and marked by a lifetime of reflection on the subject, Symbols of the Sacred offers profound insights into the religious dimension of human life.

Jean Hani, professor emeritus at the University of Amiens - where he taught Greek civilization and literature - has long labored to recover and illuminate various aspects of Christianity. His findings have been presented in several works: Divine Craftsmanship, Symbolism of the Christian Temple, and The Black Virgin (all published by Sophia Perennis), as well as Apercus sur la Messe, La Royaute, Du Pharaon au Roi Tres Chretien, and a collection of articles entitled Mythes, Rites et Symboles. His aim has been to integrate the latest findings in the history of religions with the perennialist spiritual perspective of such writers as Rene Guenon and Frithjof Schuon. If in the first place our book is intended to be a personal homage to the Divine Liturgy, it also has another purpose. Without any doubt, the gravest symptom in the crisis the Western Church is currently undergoing - the effects of which on art we have already denounced in our book The Symbolism of the Christian Temple--is the calling in question of the very meaning and content of the Mass, given that it is the heart and vital center of the Church. And we have made our feeble contribution to its defence. But our intention is not to become involved in theological quarrels. In this study our point of view is that of the historian of religions. What we wish to show is that the Christian mass is illumined in the light of studies concerning the universal schemas of the sacred to which it conforms. Most assuredly, the Christian cult has its specificity, but that is for the theologian and liturgist to spell out. What we are proposing to do is to unravel the characteristics in the Christian cult linking it to the universality of the sacred. From the Introduction