CONVERSATIONS ON THE MOUNT, VOL. I

[littyfam 790]

 

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C O N V E R S A T I O N S

O N   T H E   M O U N T

 

V O L .   I

O N   T H E   C O N S T I T U T I O N   O F

T H E   P R I E S T H O O D   A N D

R E L A T E D   M A T T E R S

 

A S   T R A N S C R I B E D   B Y

Ilia Aeneth de Ekain

 

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I

F O R E W O R D

 

This is the first of what I hope to be many recountings of discussions upon Lemon Hill. Much of the conversation has been altered from its form as it happened: some very minor points have been removed, phrases have been clarified (and bracketed where my presumptions are more distant from the individual’s spoken word), and points have been combined and reordered for sake of clarity.

Here, I (being Ilia Aeneth, in text as [I]) discuss two matters, the composition of the priesthood, and Gospellian provisions of priestly anointment, with an aside on the oral composition of Gospel, with Fr. Adolpha, Vicar of Lemon Hill [A], Fr. Elim, Bishop of Lemon Hill [E], and Fr. Albert [Al].

 

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II

P O I N T S   &   D I S C U S S I O N S

 

O N   T H E   C O M P O S I T I O N   O F   T H E   P R I E S T H O O D

 

As first introduced by Fr. Adolpha.

 

[A] I have been drafting a more polished architecture for female priesthood. The present protocol aims to directly symmetrical to the man’s ordainment when it had ought be syzygial: a balance of the Lord’s sefirots; male, female, and neither.

[I] I recall Everard VI’s original permittance of it.¹

[A] I think that is precisely the issue: it is merely permittance. It is silly to call a woman-priest ‘mother’ simply because that is the equivalent to the man-priest’s ‘father’.

[I] I recall of the first two legally ordained women,² one referred to herself as presbyter.³

[E] How is presbyter any different to ‘father’ or ‘mother’? In Akritian, it is simply ‘elder’.

[A] The ambiguation of both terms to presbyter is problematic. The clergy should occupy paternal and maternal dimensions, and equivalent responsibilities.

[E] They precisely do; thereby the ‘father’ and the ‘mother’.

[A] It seems that, now, the woman-priest takes the title of ‘mother’ because it the rational equivalent to ‘father’, despite her lacking distinct [maternal] responsibilities. Ergo, the clergy occupies two paternal dimensions, and neglects the maternal dimension.

[I] If the priest is [paternal] ‘father’, the nun ‘sister’ and later [maternal] ‘mother’, what of the ‘brother’, as in the monk? 

[A] The monk does not fit into the syzygy. He has no place in the family hearth; he does not belong to the house, only the threshold.

[E] Why do you say that? A monk is not necessarily ordained. Only a few are: the hieromonk.

[A] Because he reminds us that not all members of the [Churchly?] body are vital. The syzygy is not a complement. I think [the syzygy] more so a [maternal-paternal] tension, a dialectic within the body of the Church.

[Al] So you say that my monastic status is subservient to my clerical role? I thought of my status as that of equal parts: my monastic oaths bind me equally as my ordained duties.

[A] Perhaps [the monastic and clerical] are equal parts that do not make the same thing. The monk is not confused for the priest, nor the sister for the mother. They are combined, but distinct; not a union.

[Al] You are correct - the path of a monastic is not a direct path to the priesthood.

[I] I refute that the ‘sister’ and ‘mother’ are so distinct. The ‘sister’ and ‘mother’ are more alike to acolyte and priest: the sister is given to become a ‘mother’, should she serve dutifully [unlike the monk and priest].

[A] I reject that. It is not a path; proximity is not progression. ‘Sister’ is a distinct place, as ‘mother’, ‘father’, and ‘brother’ are.

[I] You have convinced me; the ‘mother’ holds a definably alternate role to the ‘sister’.

[A] Indeed; alternate, but not interchangeable. Definably and yet not distantly different. These are different bearings.

[Al] It reminds of the earliest formations of monastic life: keepers of ashen urns. Perhaps it served to delineate the roles within the keepers of faith.

[A] Then it is right that they were differentiated; not to divide, but to define [their distinct roles].

 

¹ Everard VI, On Female Priesthood, 1849.

² One must note the illegally-ordained Fr. August; August Cardinal Providentia, A Public Letter From Cardinal Prvidentia, 1950.

³ This was Presbyter Ileana, later to become Pontifical Secretary.

 

 

 

O N   G O S P E L L I A N   A N O I N T M E N T

 

As first introduced by Ilia Aeneth.

 

[I] The foremost provision of ordination in Gospel is that of the state of ‘freedman’ and virtue. This is the only explicit reference to ‘freedmen’ in Gospel.

[A] [In contemporary times] not all the freed are called, nor all the virtuous ordained. It seems that Gospel distinguishes between those fit to serve, and those chosen to serve. One must wonder what constitutes the condition of ‘freedman’.

[I] It seems that it refers to the freed subjects of the Harrenite lords [in the context of Gospel].¹ One must note that the term ‘men’ carries broader meaning than its conventional usage throughout Gospel: it appears to refer to all of the Horenic Tribe [inclusive of women].

[A] There seems to be a symbolic dimension to freedom from the Harrenite occupation, that deserves its own inquiry.

[I] Indeed. It seems ‘free’, ‘freed’, and ‘freedom’ are terms used exclusively in association with Harren: in the episodes of the freedom of the virtuous subjects, the freedom of Joren, and so on.

[A] That would mean that the freedman is not free in essence, but by circumstance; not a state of nature, but of conferred dignity, as the term is not disambiguated past that use. ‘Freed’ as a condition of belonging where bondage is presumed, as in the Harrenic case of exile and sin. This is rarely the language of the altar, and never the language of the tabernacle: when we speak of the priest, he is never freed, but ‘called’ or ‘chosen’.

[I] There is also some worth in comparing the latter verses of Owyn, and the earlier verses of Silence. Both speak of the anointment of the first priests.

 

Here is an aside on a potential episodic delivery of Gospel.

 

[I] It seems a strange redundancy that the subsequent episodes of Owyn and Silence both speak of the anointment of the first priests as separate matters. Could this indicate a multi-sessionary delivery?

[A] The [preface of the] Jamesian translation allows us to infer that it was one session.

[I] Indeed. It refers to ‘a direct dialogue’, and not ‘direct dialogues’; there remains other evidence for an episodic delivery. This seems a matter that deserves its own inquiry.

 

A return to the topic of discussion.

 

[A] The earliest reference [in Gospel] may suggest the opportunistic formation of the priesthood. They were freedmen, but distinctly those that remained. I refute this idea, that God does not operate by opportunity. Rather, I think this suggests other dimensions that have been overlooked or otherwise not tabulated in Owyn or preceding histories. 

[I] However, Gospel characterises God in ways unfamiliar to the contemporary Canonist: think to references to His wrath, a convention different from unemotional depictions of God as are presently common.

[A] Certainly, but opportunism bypasses His design. The remainder of Gospel indicates the opposite: an architectural logic.

[I] I concur, but in the instance that it is read as opportunism, I think this is one of those aforementioned contrivances that enable mortal understanding [alike to the case of God’s wrath], for that understanding is the purpose of Gospel.

[A] I concede to you on that point. It would naturally track that there are other dimensions and conditions unclear to us because they are out of orbit with mortal understanding [and so go unmentioned or uncontrived in Gospel].

[I] Some others are explicitly mentioned, however, in Gospel. There is that where the Lord bids Owyn to ‘anoint servants in [his] lineage.’²

[A] The meaning of ‘lineage’ is ambiguous in Gospel: it can refer to either tribe or leviticus from Owyn. Scattering uses the same term to describe the three kingdoms and tribes of men [hence the potential reference to tribe, rather than conventional understandings of ‘lineage’].

 

Here the discussion is dissolved, to be returned to in later conversation or as written material.

 

¹ There remains possibility here for the discussion of this provision as relates to the ordination of temporal lords. I urge any theologian to look to Gospel 4:47-61 if the topic does interest them.

² Note here that this provision could be argued to apply only to Evaristus and Clement, that it is only returned to at the verse noting their specific anointment.

 

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