Temple and Contemplation brings together for the first ... - ImagoMundi

THE IMAGO TEMPLI IN CONFRONTATION
time of the Church, writes Annie Jaubert, "a consummation is exploited
which has already been totally realized. There is no higher teaching to be
expected, no other liberator. The world of consummation has been opened
up by Christ's resurrection and one must incorporate oneself into it. We
believe that this, ultimately, is the essential difference not just between
Qumran and Christianity, but between all Jewish theology of the Covenant
and Christian theology". 166 If the writer of these lines is right, the situation is
serious, for it amounts to saying that the Jewish theology of the Covenant
remains open to the future, while Christian theology is closed upon the
past. These lines enable us, in fact, to grasp the moment when Christianity,
having been essentially eschatological as the mysterium liturgicum, succumbed
to the perils of History. If there is nothing left to expect, it means that
hierohistory is over and done with, let us observe in passing that the
denial of this ending to prophetic history or hierohistory is, likewise, all
that differentiates Shiite Islam from Sunni Islam. Islamic prophetology
inherited something from the Judaeo-Christian theology of the Verus Propheta,
but extends the manifestations of the latter up till Muhammad, who
then becomes the "Seal of prophecy". For Shiite gnosis, however, the
closing of the cycle of prophecy marks the inauguration of the cycle of
spiritual initiation. Something is left to expect, which is the appearance of
the twelfth Imam. Ismaili gnosis, moreover, goes as far as to challenge the
closing of the cycle of the manifestations of the Verus Propheta. 167 It is most
important to note the analogy of the positions adopted here. There are
those for whom the past is over. There are those for whom the past is still
to come.
For if there is no higher teaching to be expected, this means that the
New Testament has no literal sense beyond which one can go; that it is
complete, an accomplished and acquired revelation, which one has only to
put to use. This would seem to exclude the idea itself of Christian esotericism,
But, if this is the case, statements such as the following are incomprehensible:
"Therefore speak I to them in parables" (Matt. 13:13).
166 A. Jaubert, op. cit., p. 468. These lines provide a clear description of the situation
as envisaged from the point of view of official Christology—Christology as it has
prevailed "in history". But such a closure is exactly what our authors urge us to
oppose and overcome.
167 Cf. En Islam iranien, op. cit., vol. IV, index s.v. prophete, prophetologie, Verus
Propheta. See also H. Corbin, 'Un roman initiatique ismaelien du Xe siecle', in
Cahiers de civilisation medievale (January-March and April-June 1972), especially
pp. 134 ff.
332
"Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to
others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might
not understand" (Luke 8:10). 168 Where there is a parable, there is a
meaning which is hidden, inner, "esoteric". There is, then, something to
come: the events that will verify the prophetic meaning of these parables.
We have already seen how all events, when they are elevated to "the
meeting-place of the two seas", become parables. This was the line taken
by the hermeneutics of the Joachimites, the followers of Joachim of Fiore. 169
This elevation, however, is not possible without the inspiration of the
Spirit-Paraclete. Must we then say that the mystery of Pentecost is definitively
accomplished, or that it is both jam and nondum? Such a simultaneity
is verifiable only in a time which is other than the time of the history of
accomplished facts : the "subtle time" of the mysterium liturgicum. 170 The
paracletic idea is quintessentially Johannine; and without it, there is no
reason for the recurrences of the Imago Templi. These recurrences are
connected, in one way or another, with the idea of the "Church of John"
as the reign of the Spirit-Paraclete, the final reign which is already being
lived "in the present". These are all elements of the reply to the second
and third questions raised above, which will be completed in what follows.
4. Liturgical theophanies and christophanies. Herein lies the extreme importance
of the researches demonstrating what there is in common between the
lived eschatology of Qumran, on the one hand, and of the primitive
Christian community—or, more precisely, of the "Johannine community"—
on the other. The element common to both these communities is the eschatological
sense of the liturgical mystery. By the term "Johannine community"
is meant what several theologians have designated as the "School of St.
John", 171 the milieu in which the theology and eschatology of the "Gospel
168 Compare Isa. 6:9-10 (following the vision of the seraphim).
169 P. de Lubac, Exegese medievale, III, 459, sadly reproaches them for this hermeneutic,
which he regards as their fundamental error. The opposition could not be
more clearly marked.
170 Cf. above, note 157. On the equivocal, rather than analogical, use of the terms time
and history, see my study 'L'Initiation ismaelienne ou l'esoterisme et le Verbe', in
L'Hormme et son Ange, op. cit.
171 Cf. 1). E. Aune, op. cit., p. 63, note 3 (note: we always use the term "Johannine"
for everything deriving from the teaching that originated in the apostle John, and
the term "Johannite" for everything deriving from the Order of Saint John of
Jerusalem).
333