For the Tropology of the Veil of Truth in Christian Thought

Abstract

With respect to philosophical and theological thought, in this article tropology is understood as the unity of tropes (symbols, similes, metaphors, etc.), images, charged with a clearly defined meaning and connotation when used to render a certain worldview. To this extent it has the value of a term. Tropology also refers to a sense which a word acquires when used as a trope in a particular system of worldview.

The article deals with symbols signifying the veil of truth in Christian thought: σκότος (darkness), κάλυμμα (veil), παραπέτασμα, καταπέτασμα (curtain, veil) and other related terms. I will discuss these symbols with respect to their origin, interrelations and tropological interpretations. I will also dwell on the development of their meaning and their function in the works of such prominent authors of the Eastern Christian world as Gregory of Nazianzus on the one hand, who is among the Church Fathers credited with the creation of Christian theological language and Ioane Petritsi on the other hand, who represents a trend in medieval thought directed towards the new epoch.

Naturally, the Christian tropology of the Veil of Truth is based on the Holy Scripture – texts from the New Testament which fill the stories, expressions and symbols of the Old Testament with a new meaning. While each of the terms – Darkness, Veil and Curtain– has tropology of its own, they are interrelated and may even substitute one another. The analysis of their tropology shows that their original symbolic meaning would gradually become metaphorized and allegorized.

Σκότος (Darkness), which is the opposite of God, i.e. the light of Truth, and is allowed by God Himself for some purpose, acquires an allegorical sense of man’s departure from God; later it signifies the inability of human mind to perceive God and lastly, the inability to understand theological nuances. Thus, from denoting God’s revelation of the truth to men owing to the incarnation of the Word of God, i.e. the possibility for a man to understand the truth by the grace of God, the emphasis is shifted to the importance of personal, intellectual efforts and faculties of mind for the enlightenment of men.

Κάλυμμα (Veil), which was the symbol of concealing from ordinary mortals the truth inaccessible to them, transforms into a metaphor of concealedness ofthe truth from a man who is not converted to God. It also acquires an additional sense of sinfulness, the liberation from which is a pre-requisite to seeing the truth. Gregory of Nazianzus offers the following tropological innovation: he associates the metaphorical interpretation of veil in 2 Cor. 3,16 (περιαιρεῖσθαι τὸ κάλυμμα) with the likewise metaphorical understanding of circumcision in Col.2,11-12 (περιτομὴ ἀχειροποίητος) and Rom. 2,2 (περιτο¬μὴ καρδίας νπνεύματι) and creates a new metaphor for re-birth through baptism – κάλυμμα περιτέμνουσα (“circumsizer of the veil”), which signifies purification from the innate carnal vice, shedding the light of the truth by means of spiritual birth through baptism. It is likewise remarkable that George the Hagiorite’s Georgian version of the New Testament evidently reflects the reputed patristic interpretations.

As concerns the παραπέτασμα (curtain, veil), which used to be the symbol of the veil covering the sacral truth, it becomes a metaphor (and even a technical term) for figurative expressions in general.