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Papers by Olivier-Thomas Venard
Modern Theology
This essay begins with a phenomenological outline of the interchangeability of the terms ‘form’ a... more This essay begins with a phenomenological outline of the interchangeability of the terms ‘form’ and ‘matter’, and the transitivity of their relationship in metaphysics and aesthetics, when placed in the context of linguistic deconstruction. It then argues for an operative, rather than resultative, approach to ‘form’, pointing out that in a created cosmos created minds only ever approach substantial (metaphysical) forms by making use of language, i.e. by inventing linguistic forms. From there, the argument turns to the special language of the Scriptures, when read both in their historical relativity and as vehicles of the transcendent divine Word, and explores the analogy between the paradoxes of the matter‐form pair and several features of the Scriptures, such as the Möbius strip‐like enunciative structure, in which human and divine voices are reciprocally interwoven. Christ, the principle of the unity of the divine and human voices of the Scriptures, appears as the source of all th...
Peeters Publishers eBooks, Jan 2, 2020
A Poetic Christ makes available for an English-speaking audience, in condensed form, the wide-ran... more A Poetic Christ makes available for an English-speaking audience, in condensed form, the wide-ranging explorations of Olivier-Thomas Venard into language and aesthetics, Scripture and Christology, semiotics and sacramental theology, all done in dialogue with the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Translating sections chosen, in consultation with the author, from Venard's three-volume work, Thomas d'Aquin poète théologien, Kenneth Oakes and Francesca Murphy have provided a work that can well stand on its own as an overview of Venard's thought, as well as serve as an entrée into the larger body of Venard's work. Venard, a Dominican Friar, currently serves as Deputy Director at École Biblique et Archéologique in Jerusalem, the institution founded by Marie-Joseph Lagrange in 1890 that is probably best known for producing the French translation of what is known in English as The Jerusalem Bible. Lagrange distinguished himself during the Catholic Modernist crisis of the early twentieth century by embracing modern historical and philological approaches to the Bible without ever stepping beyond the bounds of Catholic orthodoxy, and offering astute and acute criticisms of Alfred Loisy's theology and biblical criticism that probed far more deeply than the somewhat panicked condemnations issuing from Catholic officialdom. The historian Marvin O'Connell has suggested that at least part of the reason for Lagrange's intellectual equanimity during those fraught times was his thorough grounding in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, learned not as a sclerotic system of propositions, but as a living tradition of inquiry. Perhaps this is to make too much of an accidental institutional connection, but it is tempting to see the spirit of Lagrange living on in the work of his confrere Venard, who rigorously engages with non-theological and even anti-theological discourses without either embracing them uncritically or treating them simply as foes to be defeated, all the while keeping one eye on the thought of St. Thomas, whose work "links art, wisdom and friendship" (167). Oakes and Murphy organize their volume into four main parts and a conclusion. The first section, titled "Scripture," consists of two selections from Venard's third volume, Pagina Sacra (2009), and shows his engagement with biblical hermeneutics, recast as an "aesthetics of encountering Christ" in the biblical text (64). In a striking image, he compares the relationship between Christ and the Gospel texts to a mobius strip (84), in which the interior is simultaneously the exterior, such that the evangelical proclamation of Christians is simultaneously "exterior" to the words of Jesus-he remains the master and they the disciples-and "interior" to those words: "the gift of the Holy Spirit. .. comes not only to illuminate remembrance of Jesus' ministry but to deepen and develop his message" (86). Christological faith is therefore distinct and yet inseparable from ecclesial faith: "the New Testament, as a rule of faith, is structured in such a way that at the same time when I offer acts of faith in Christ, I offer acts of trust in the cultural and linguistic mediations which make him known to me and vice versa" (99). The second section, titled "Theology and Literature," contains material drawn from Venard's first volume, Litérature et théologie (2002), the subtitle of which, Une saison en enfer, signals the unlikely presence of symbolist poet Artur Rimbaud as a major theological interlocutor for Venard. There is in modern literature, Venard claims, a hidden and even repressed theological investment, and this is what draws our attention. Rimbaud embarked upon a devout, if profane, quest for what lies at the heart of language and therefore at the heart of the self. The young Rimbaud wrote in a letter, "Je est un autre"-"I is an other" and Venard does not flinch from identifying this "other" with Christ, and "the voice that the poet hears resonating in the depths of language with the voice of God" (132). But at the same time, he realizes that this is a hard sell in the contemporary literary world, which sees "the 'voice' of God [as] nothing but an illusory effect of the
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 31, 2016
Peeters Publishers eBooks, Nov 25, 2021
Revue thomiste, 2001
RefDoc Bienvenue - Welcome. Refdoc est un service / is powered by. ...
This first volume of a future edition of the Bible presents the text in its diversity, framed by ... more This first volume of a future edition of the Bible presents the text in its diversity, framed by an annotation divided into three main registers. “Text” includes notes dealing with the linguistic and literary description of the text. “Context” groups notes dealing with archaeology, history, and geography. “Reception” contains the most important readings of the text throughout history, in Christian and Jewish tradition.
Textes et Etudes du Moyen Âge
Peut-on recevoir en litterature aujourd'hui une œuvre comme la somme de theologie de Thomas d... more Peut-on recevoir en litterature aujourd'hui une œuvre comme la somme de theologie de Thomas d’Aquin ? 1. Nous decrivons l'entreprise litteraire de Thomas composant sa theologie au XIIIe s. , en rappelant son œuvre poetique (decrite par A. Michel) et les principes de son esthetique (etudies par Eco) ; inversement, nous soulignons la dimension (a) theologique de la grande poesie moderne et contemporaine depuis Rimbaud et Mallarme. Pour composer une somme de la theologie, Thomas disposait de la faculte de dire la realite telle qu'elle est (metaphysique), et de l'acces a la langue meme de l'ineffable (revelation) ; leur disparition empeche les poetes d'avoir son ambition aujourd'hui. 2. Nous envisageons l'aspect linguistique et litteraire le discours metaphysique aristotelicien assume par Thomas : loin de rechercher une transparence de l'intellection, que les modernes ont eu l'illusion d'atteindre, il conserve au langage toute son epaisseur ve...
Radical Orthodoxy est le mouvement theologique dont on parle outre-Manche et outre-Atlantique. Al... more Radical Orthodoxy est le mouvement theologique dont on parle outre-Manche et outre-Atlantique. Alors que les premieres traductions francaises commencent a paraitre, cet article decrit a grands traits les propositions les plus interessantes de ses principaux auteurs et souligne quelques questions cruciales qu'ils ont le merite de poser aux theologiens et aux philosophes de notre epoque.
Foreword Introduction 1. The Eucharist I - Structure of the Eucharist II - Song and Sin III - Scr... more Foreword Introduction 1. The Eucharist I - Structure of the Eucharist II - Song and Sin III - Scripture and Word of God 2. The World of Jesus I - The Sacred Library II - Galilee 3. The Gospels II - Synoptic Gospels 4. Life of Jesus I - The Fulfilment of the Scriptures II - The Accounts of the Infancy of Jesus III - Baptism of Jesus IV - The Passion V - Public Life of Jesus Appendix I: Ancient Texts Appendix II: The Slavonic Version of Josephus' War of the Jews Bibliography.
Modern Theology
This essay begins with a phenomenological outline of the interchangeability of the terms ‘form’ a... more This essay begins with a phenomenological outline of the interchangeability of the terms ‘form’ and ‘matter’, and the transitivity of their relationship in metaphysics and aesthetics, when placed in the context of linguistic deconstruction. It then argues for an operative, rather than resultative, approach to ‘form’, pointing out that in a created cosmos created minds only ever approach substantial (metaphysical) forms by making use of language, i.e. by inventing linguistic forms. From there, the argument turns to the special language of the Scriptures, when read both in their historical relativity and as vehicles of the transcendent divine Word, and explores the analogy between the paradoxes of the matter‐form pair and several features of the Scriptures, such as the Möbius strip‐like enunciative structure, in which human and divine voices are reciprocally interwoven. Christ, the principle of the unity of the divine and human voices of the Scriptures, appears as the source of all th...
Peeters Publishers eBooks, Jan 2, 2020
A Poetic Christ makes available for an English-speaking audience, in condensed form, the wide-ran... more A Poetic Christ makes available for an English-speaking audience, in condensed form, the wide-ranging explorations of Olivier-Thomas Venard into language and aesthetics, Scripture and Christology, semiotics and sacramental theology, all done in dialogue with the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Translating sections chosen, in consultation with the author, from Venard's three-volume work, Thomas d'Aquin poète théologien, Kenneth Oakes and Francesca Murphy have provided a work that can well stand on its own as an overview of Venard's thought, as well as serve as an entrée into the larger body of Venard's work. Venard, a Dominican Friar, currently serves as Deputy Director at École Biblique et Archéologique in Jerusalem, the institution founded by Marie-Joseph Lagrange in 1890 that is probably best known for producing the French translation of what is known in English as The Jerusalem Bible. Lagrange distinguished himself during the Catholic Modernist crisis of the early twentieth century by embracing modern historical and philological approaches to the Bible without ever stepping beyond the bounds of Catholic orthodoxy, and offering astute and acute criticisms of Alfred Loisy's theology and biblical criticism that probed far more deeply than the somewhat panicked condemnations issuing from Catholic officialdom. The historian Marvin O'Connell has suggested that at least part of the reason for Lagrange's intellectual equanimity during those fraught times was his thorough grounding in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, learned not as a sclerotic system of propositions, but as a living tradition of inquiry. Perhaps this is to make too much of an accidental institutional connection, but it is tempting to see the spirit of Lagrange living on in the work of his confrere Venard, who rigorously engages with non-theological and even anti-theological discourses without either embracing them uncritically or treating them simply as foes to be defeated, all the while keeping one eye on the thought of St. Thomas, whose work "links art, wisdom and friendship" (167). Oakes and Murphy organize their volume into four main parts and a conclusion. The first section, titled "Scripture," consists of two selections from Venard's third volume, Pagina Sacra (2009), and shows his engagement with biblical hermeneutics, recast as an "aesthetics of encountering Christ" in the biblical text (64). In a striking image, he compares the relationship between Christ and the Gospel texts to a mobius strip (84), in which the interior is simultaneously the exterior, such that the evangelical proclamation of Christians is simultaneously "exterior" to the words of Jesus-he remains the master and they the disciples-and "interior" to those words: "the gift of the Holy Spirit. .. comes not only to illuminate remembrance of Jesus' ministry but to deepen and develop his message" (86). Christological faith is therefore distinct and yet inseparable from ecclesial faith: "the New Testament, as a rule of faith, is structured in such a way that at the same time when I offer acts of faith in Christ, I offer acts of trust in the cultural and linguistic mediations which make him known to me and vice versa" (99). The second section, titled "Theology and Literature," contains material drawn from Venard's first volume, Litérature et théologie (2002), the subtitle of which, Une saison en enfer, signals the unlikely presence of symbolist poet Artur Rimbaud as a major theological interlocutor for Venard. There is in modern literature, Venard claims, a hidden and even repressed theological investment, and this is what draws our attention. Rimbaud embarked upon a devout, if profane, quest for what lies at the heart of language and therefore at the heart of the self. The young Rimbaud wrote in a letter, "Je est un autre"-"I is an other" and Venard does not flinch from identifying this "other" with Christ, and "the voice that the poet hears resonating in the depths of language with the voice of God" (132). But at the same time, he realizes that this is a hard sell in the contemporary literary world, which sees "the 'voice' of God [as] nothing but an illusory effect of the
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 31, 2016
Peeters Publishers eBooks, Nov 25, 2021
Revue thomiste, 2001
RefDoc Bienvenue - Welcome. Refdoc est un service / is powered by. ...
This first volume of a future edition of the Bible presents the text in its diversity, framed by ... more This first volume of a future edition of the Bible presents the text in its diversity, framed by an annotation divided into three main registers. “Text” includes notes dealing with the linguistic and literary description of the text. “Context” groups notes dealing with archaeology, history, and geography. “Reception” contains the most important readings of the text throughout history, in Christian and Jewish tradition.
Textes et Etudes du Moyen Âge
Peut-on recevoir en litterature aujourd'hui une œuvre comme la somme de theologie de Thomas d... more Peut-on recevoir en litterature aujourd'hui une œuvre comme la somme de theologie de Thomas d’Aquin ? 1. Nous decrivons l'entreprise litteraire de Thomas composant sa theologie au XIIIe s. , en rappelant son œuvre poetique (decrite par A. Michel) et les principes de son esthetique (etudies par Eco) ; inversement, nous soulignons la dimension (a) theologique de la grande poesie moderne et contemporaine depuis Rimbaud et Mallarme. Pour composer une somme de la theologie, Thomas disposait de la faculte de dire la realite telle qu'elle est (metaphysique), et de l'acces a la langue meme de l'ineffable (revelation) ; leur disparition empeche les poetes d'avoir son ambition aujourd'hui. 2. Nous envisageons l'aspect linguistique et litteraire le discours metaphysique aristotelicien assume par Thomas : loin de rechercher une transparence de l'intellection, que les modernes ont eu l'illusion d'atteindre, il conserve au langage toute son epaisseur ve...
Radical Orthodoxy est le mouvement theologique dont on parle outre-Manche et outre-Atlantique. Al... more Radical Orthodoxy est le mouvement theologique dont on parle outre-Manche et outre-Atlantique. Alors que les premieres traductions francaises commencent a paraitre, cet article decrit a grands traits les propositions les plus interessantes de ses principaux auteurs et souligne quelques questions cruciales qu'ils ont le merite de poser aux theologiens et aux philosophes de notre epoque.
Foreword Introduction 1. The Eucharist I - Structure of the Eucharist II - Song and Sin III - Scr... more Foreword Introduction 1. The Eucharist I - Structure of the Eucharist II - Song and Sin III - Scripture and Word of God 2. The World of Jesus I - The Sacred Library II - Galilee 3. The Gospels II - Synoptic Gospels 4. Life of Jesus I - The Fulfilment of the Scriptures II - The Accounts of the Infancy of Jesus III - Baptism of Jesus IV - The Passion V - Public Life of Jesus Appendix I: Ancient Texts Appendix II: The Slavonic Version of Josephus' War of the Jews Bibliography.