www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Scripture and Patristic Writings Reincarnation of Elias?

Dear RayK,

John is right - your interpretation is certainly a modern one and flies in the face of the understanding of the Eastern Churches who have always highly venerated the bodily taking up of Elias into heaven, as the liturgical tradition bears out.

I've also come across modern RC scripture scholars who deny the Feast of the Entrance into the Temple of the Mother of God etc.

We cannot and are not called to second-guess the Church's own tradition of interpretation.

You yourself said as much in responding to an earlier point about papal authority.

Alex

Brethern,

May I humbly submit Matthew 11: 13-14 " For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John; and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come ".

In Christ,
james

Dear James,

Niech bedzie pochwalony Jezus Christus!

I guess some aren't willing to accept it . . .

Alex

Bro Alex,

I just happened to read that passage last night from the OCA lectionary for the Forerunner,being a Latin in flux with brain-freeze :rolleyes: .

I think my spiritually side is over loading,Roman Catholic,Eastern Catholic,Eastern & Western Orthodoxy .......

Pokoj,
james

Dear James,

That's why I like to focus on the Ethiopians alone at times . . .

Alex

Bro Alex,

Just finished my swing into Western Rite Orthodoxy, read " Lux Occirentalis" , The Rites of St. Tikhon & St. Gregory, a brief on St. Tikhon and are grabbing a Bud Light to cool the brain cells.

james in recluse

OK.

-ray

Rather than sifting through these things it is easier for me to say "OK".

-ray

Dear RayK,

You are entitled to your view as were my RC religion teachers !

But, to make a long story short, (and I know how little tolerance you have for my long posts ), what you wrote denies the full Tradition of the Church with respect to Elias, and so we simply don't accept it.

Is that O.K. too?

Alex

Dear RayK,

You are entitled to your view as were my RC religion teachers !

But, to make a long story short, (and I know how little tolerance you have for my long posts ), what you wrote denies the full Tradition of the Church with respect to Elias, and so we simply don't accept it.

Is that O.K. too?

I'm not saying you are a heretic. But you might want to think about your position in the next sixty days or so . . .

Alex

Christ's warning about the endtimes has two layers, it was partly fulfilled in the destruction of the Temple, and also refers to the end of the world. Similarly the prophacy about Elijah coming before Christ was partly fulfilled in John the Baptist who prepared the way for the First Coming, and will be fully fulfilled when he and Enoch come to preach against the Antichrist to prepaire the way for the Second Coming.

Dear CopticOrthodox,

Has Pope Cyrillos VI been formally canonized yet?

Alex

Millenarianism - sometimes called Dispensationalism or Messianism - so called because it holds that in general there will be a second coming of Christ into world history and the concept is most often associated with that event being followed by a 1000 year rein of Christ - but the concept varies in many forms - it is also sometimes derived from a concept that the history of the world is divided into four divisions of 1000 symbolic years or aeons each.

Those who hold that some but not all of the so-called prophecies were fulfilled or partially fulfilled in the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70AD but not yet the Great Judgment or the return of Christ - are the sometimes called Preterists.

For the Orthodox� millenarianism was condemned with the in the Second Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople were the Council refuted chiliasm or millenarianism. This heresy, based on a misunderstanding of chapter 20 of the Apocalypse, taught that after Christ's Second Coming He would reign on earth with His saints for a thousand years. The Second Council then added to the Creed the words "and of His Kingdom there shall be no end." to reiterated that the kingdom of God began with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that kingdom is nether interrupted nor ended hence being no need to either establish it or re-establish it in history.

For the Catholic, millenarianism was further condemned within the Fourth Lateran Council (Middle Ages) when the fundamentalist concept of millenarianism really took hold with the Protestant reformation. Before that time - there had always been a fundamentalist side to Christianity and members of the church.

The book of Revelations almost did not make it into the cannon because fundamentalist were giving it a literal interpretation that Jesus was to come a second time in the flesh preceded by one or two resurrected old testament prophets and many were using it to prove their claims.

Tell me - where did Christ go - that he needs to come again into history in some physical way? Is that not his physical body and blood under the appearance of bread and wine? Is he not still with us? Was not the coming of Jesus Christ in his crucifixion and resurrection - a complete revelation? Of is there something further to be revealed of Christ that he need step into history again? And how do you square that with - his never having left?

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10307a.htm gives the essential items of millenarianism as �

Here is a good paper outlining the several branches.
http://mb-soft.com/believe/text/millenar.htm
And from Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of World Religions, 1999
http://www.mille.org/people/rlpages/millennialism-mw-encyl.html

Catholic links�
http://www.catholicdoors.com/faq/qu29.htm
http://www.carleton.ca/~jopp/24299/
http://www.firefromheaven.net/2000/roots.html
http://www.allbookstores.com/book/0253340136

Orthodox links�
http://www.roca.org/OA/15/15h.htm
http://www.sisqtel.net/~williams/future-of-russia.html
http://home.att.net/~kguin/hiseng2.html
http://webmail.earlham.edu/archive/opf-l/October-2002/doc00000.doc

Think me a heritic if you wish - but I understand "Christ coming again" to be not within history - but beyond or outside of history - a spiritual event. In avery similar way as Vladimir Lossky (The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church p234) where it is an event of the consiousness... an enlightement of the spirit or mind.

There was only one revalation of Jesus Christ into history - and a second 'coming' entails our acceptance and transformation within that.

For those who might accept it, John fufilled the office of Elias when he said "Behold the Lamb of God" - if you look for Elias to physically decend from heaven at some future date, and say it again - you missed it the first time.

One thing God really likes is self honesty - it is better that you say "I am not really sure I understand the Second Coming - then it is to say "what you wrote denies the full Tradition of the Church with respect to Elias,". The office of Elias as precursor to the coming of Christ - already took place... and the physical body of it - was John's.

Dear RayK,

Actually, you did deny the full tradition of the Church with respect to Elias in terms of his bodily taking up into heaven.

As for Christ's Second Coming, you appear to be denying the full tradition of that as well.

It's a free country, after all.

But the Presence of the Lord Jesus is in Holy Communion, in the Scriptures and where two or three gather together in His Name etc.

His Second Coming is an eschatological event for purposes of the Final Judgement and the Transfiguration of all there is.

I'm sorry, I'm trying to understand you. Perhaps it is my lack of formal education in things theological that is preventing me from doing so and if I'm imputing things to you wrongfully, I ask for your forgiveness.

But somehow my own sense of the faith, which I believe every Catholic and Orthodox has, feels threatened by some things you write.

But I probably am misunderstanding you. Please forgive me for any offense I have given and I'll remove myself from this debate!

Alex

I can take any offence I may think I have been targeted with. The accusation of heresy means nothing outside of the authorities Church issuing it to a specifically named individual. Cannons exist covering this East and West. Your suggestion to me merely indicates I have made you - uncomfortable - near the foundations of your own beliefs and current understanding.

I know full well that a literal interpretation of Revelations has become most popular with European and American Catholics and Orthodox people. At the same time, the Protestants (who championed it for the Protestant Reformation and applied it against the Pope and Rome as a reason to rip way from Rome) are leaving it as useless and giving Revelations more and more of a personal and spiritual interpretation.

You do have a lack of formal theological training - so do I - but I consider that good! You have what the Orthodox call a - �the freedom of the laity� - which seminary students and official classes do not have. If you do not adopt current academic teachings (errors along with good ones) then you get no degree. And while you may be closer to the truth - your time at school was wasted as far as a credited position in society is concerned.

And you are definitely not lacking in intelligence or I would not engage you in debate the way I have if I thought so. Nor do I think your heart is in the wrong place - your head - maybe - but not your heart.

There is a Jewish saying from God �You may not rip down another man�s temple - least he have no where in which to worship God� and that is the particular Jewish Law that now prevents Jews from ripping down the Dome of The Rock in order to build the Third Temple. But it means that that one should be a bit cautious when debating with someone else. What a man believes about God - takes place in a personal and highly symbolic conversation that the man and God is having. It is a �language� of words and concepts less of the intelligence and more of the heart and all expereinces of the man - that God is making use of and some progress within. God allows - this personal language between himself and a man - and one should not mindlessly destroy nor hider that progressive �conversation�.

I think you are very capable to come to understand, at some time, what I am saying - and where I am pointing. As a man crosses a river - the rock he steps on in front of him is his way to progress - but at some point he must leave that same rock behind in order to step on one even further ahead - or he goes no further.

Instead of Jesus coming again, into history and time - think of it as really being the event that the saints called the mystical marriage in the Unitive Satge. And if not attained before death - think of God does us the favor of ripping away from us our obsession with things of the senses - so that we may be forced to see him �face to face� at the moment of death.

The body is the world of time and space, human history and events, and the opportunity to change. When the body ends - so too ends time and space as a human experience and the opportunity for us to voluntarily change. What movement we have chosen (life in cooperation with God or life without God) continues forever unchangeable in its direction. What personality is formed in us by events (Providential action) and our response and cooperation with Providence or not - comes with us (personality is not removed with the body) to forever be the �house� in which we live.

There is nothing in this world that God need change. He uses it very well in order to bring to each of us - events and situations by which he would like us to cooperate in his efforts to form us into saints. If God �saved� the world - what then would he use to save us??

Time is nothing to God. It is as if it were all laid out - past - present - future - on a table in front of him and he may reach his hand anywhere within it and do whatever he pleases. And he is pleased to use it in his efforts to bring us to union with himself. As God looks down on all time at once - the spot that is most important to him - is the moment within time in which Jesus was crucified and resurrected. God came not to change the world - but to re-direct men�s hearts back to himself and his day to day actions of Providence which he arranges for us. Within that �day� - Jesus Christ was completely and fully revealed to human history - and it shall not happen again and there is nothing further . Jesus will not come again into human history in any similar way. His - coming - into human history took place 2000 years ago - his coming - to each man - takes place in the event of the mystical marriage before death - or in the force of the Judgment after death when time is stripped away from us and our obsession with things of the body no longer hide the presence of Jesus Christ as the author and Logos of Providence from us.

As I said elsewhere - neither scriptures nor tradition nor the opinions of the early fathers of the church - comes before or in place of the offcial teachings of the magisterium of the church. Without understanding the offcial teachings first - all other (tradition and scriptures) is like being lost in the woods.