Month: May 2006

There’s an interesting discussion going on over the blog Connexions about atonement theory. I think Richard is right to point out that penal substitution should be considered one theory among several and not as an essential Christian belief as some evangelicals insist. The universal church has never deemed one account of Christ’s work to be binding in the way it has certain understandings of, say, the Trinity, or Christ’s two natures, or Mary’s status as Theotokos.

I also have a suspicion that bad atonement theories are often the result of defective Christologies. The most objectionable versions of penal substitution are those which portray God as taking his wrath out on poor innocent Jesus instead of us. This makes God sound like a tyrant and Jesus his victim. But a proper Christology and Trinitarianism shows us that it is God taking the consequences of sin upon himself, and that this is motivated by God’s love for us.

Likewise, that other much-maligned atonement theory, that of Peter Abelard, is pretty weak if you think of Jesus as just a great saint or martyr who provides an example that we should emulate, as some of the more liberal theologians present it. It certainly doesn’t seem to take sin seriously and makes you wonder why Christ’s death was necessary. But once you get your Christology straight and see it as God suffering in solidarity with us, it’s much more powerful. And Abelard himself thought that it was the very love of God manifested in the Incarnation which effects reconciliation between humanity and God.

This suggests that the church was smart to devote so much attention to Christological questions because so much else depends on getting that right.

I don’t know if it has to do with being away from electronic media for over a week and out of touch with the varied gyrations and conniptions of the ‘blogosphere,’ but I just can’t muster the wherewithal to comment on the latest bad news out of Iraq, the GOP’s cynical resurrection of the anti-gay-marriage amdendment just in time for election year, or the hoopla over The Da Vinci Code (I had the rare – and pleasant – experience of attending a Memorial Day barbeque where no one present had read the DVC or seen the movie!). My intention for this site has always been to be more reflective and dialogic rather than getting caught up in ephemera and snarky tit-for-tat, and being away from it for a while has reinforced that desire. (Not to mention that a visit to the Eternal City puts a little perspective on the transience of a lot of things!)

Unfortunately, real life events in the near future, including a move from Philadelphia to the Boston area, may put the kibosh on thoughful reflection for a little while. We’ll see how things go…

Another big highlight of the visit to Florence were trips to the Uffizi and Academia Galleries, which house some of the most important works of late Medieval and Renaissance art. The Uffizi is full of works by Giotto, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo and Caravaggio. It was truly breathtaking.

The Academia, of course, houses Michelangelo’s David and while we were there they had a special exhibit of the paintings of Lorenzo Monaco, a Gothic artist as well as some of his manuscript illuminations. These are my favorite periods of art, so I was like a kid in a candy store.

Another place of arty goodness that we visited was the Convent of Saint Mark, which has, I would estimate, at least two dozen beautiful frescoes by Fra Angelico. The convent was under the patronage of Cosimo the Elder de’ Medici and played host to the religious firebrand Girolamo Savonarola. They still have some of Savonarola’s personal effects in the cells where he stayed.

More images from Florence:

This last image is of Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze, the principal Franciscan church in Florence which contains the funerary monuments fo Galileo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli.

After four days in Rome we took the train up to Florence.

On the streets of Florence (apparently with a car about to run me down!):

First stop in Florence was the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral or Duomo as it’s called. The Duomo was constructed over a period of over a hundred years on the site of Saint Reparata, a church dating back to the 5th century.

The Duomo was the largest cathedral in Europe when it was completed, but now ranks behind St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s in London, and the Milan Cathedral.

Facade and bell-tower:

Interior (a bit blurry):

Views from the top of the dome:

Next to the Duomo is the Battistero di San Giovanni (Baptistry of St. John), a structure dating to the 4th or 5th century, and a place where several famous Florentines, including Dante, were baptized:

On Sunday we went to the Catacombs of St. Callixtus which are south of the center of Rome, down the old Via Appia and out in the countryside a bit. This particular network of catacombs, one among several in the area, is around 12 miles long and contains the tombs of over 500,000 Christians, about ten per cent of which remain intact and unopened. The tombs were established around the middle of the second century by land grants from private landowners who had converted to the faith. By the third century they had fallen under the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome.

Contrary to earlier legends, we now know (or at least think we know) that the early Christians didn’t flee to the catacombs to worship in safety from persecution. They were simply established as cemeteries separate from the pagan burial places of the day. It was, however, a place where martyrs were laid to rest, though our tour guide pointed out that about half of the people buried there were infants and children.

Notable occupants of these catacombs were several Popes as well as St. Cecilia (martyred in 117), though her remains were later removed to the basilica established in her honor in Trastevere.

While not a haven from persecution, Christians did apparently worship in these catacombs, and there are some amazing 3rd-century frescoes on the walls of the “Cubicula of the Sacraments” illustrating baptism and the eucharistic meal, and which served as a kind of visual catechism. You weren’t allowed to take photos in the catacombs so I don’t have any images of these. But visiting them was a very moving experience. To reach back almost to the very beginnings of Christianity and see the burial places of our forefathers and mothers in the faith created a sense of connection that I didn’t really experience elsewhere in Rome (however magnificient places like St. Peter’s may be).

After that we trekked back up the Via Appia to the Gate of San Sebastian, one of the best preserved parts of the wall that used to surround the city:

Making our way up toward the Colosseum we passed the old Circus Maximus, which is now basically a park in a valley:

We ended up in Trastevere, on the west bank of the Tiber and south of Vatican City. Here in the Piazza de Santa Maria in Trastevere is the Church of Santa Maria which is built on the site of the oldest “official” place of Christian worship in Rome as well as being the first church in Rome dedicated to the BVM:

The current structure dates to the 12th century and you can make out a wonderful mosaic near the top of the facade. Happily this remains a vibrant congregation and we were prevented from exploring the interior becasue there was a Mass being celebrated. For some images of the interior see here.

Dear Blog-Friends,

Discuss: Can one ever have too many books?

Lee is packing box number 7 as we speak and is not half-way done. He did allow me to give away a couple of William F. Buckley’s spy novels and a few George Will books, but that’s about it.

Abby

As I mentioned, my friend Patrick lives in Berlin and knows his way around Rome pretty well. Here we are outside of his favorite trattoria near the Colosseum:

Here’s the Colosseum at night:

Rome is for … romance!

Enjoying a late-night beer at an outdoor cafe:

Here’s a view of the dome of St. Peter’s from the museum:

Spiral staircase exiting the musuem:

St. Peter’s Square:

Inside St. Peter’s Basilica:

This picture really doesn’t convey how enormous and awesome the Basilica is.

Here’s a view from up in the dome (not a terribly easy climb I might add!) that may give a better feel for the scale:

Outside views from the top of St. Peter’s:

Castel d’Angelo, a fortress near St. Peter’s built by the Romans and later used by various popes during politically turbulent times:

As a Protestant I naturally have mixed feelings about the Vatican. On the one hand, St. Peter’s and the museum are undeniably amazing acheivements and it’s impossible not to be awed by them. On the other hand, they do seem to represent a certain papal opulence that would raise the hackles of any true-blue Prot.

I actually found St. Peter’s itself to be a bit overwhelming aesthetically. It may be so big and with so much going on that you can’t really take it all in. Sublime rather than beautiful, in Edmund Burke’s sense. Not sure what that means in terms of the proper theology of a place of worship.

Let’s split this into a few posts. First, pics from Rome. Keep in mind that this was our first trip to Italy, so this is Italy 101.

Your scribe arriving in Rome last Thursday morning on roughly one hour of sleep. This day consisted of a lot of bleary-eyed wandering around the area near our hotel.

Trevi Fountain

The Victor Emmanuel monument, commemorating the unification of Italy and constructed in the 1800s. My friend Patrick derided its “fascist aesthetic.”

The Pantheon, one of the architectural marvels of Rome, built around 125 A.D. under Hadrian. Later converted from a Roman temple to a Christian church. Unfortunately, you can’t actually see the dome, its most distinctive feature, in this picture.

Piazza del Poplo. The obelisk in the center, which is obscured by the scaffolding for some work they’re doing on it, was taken from the Egyptians by Augustus in 10 B.C.