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T he D iv in e C hild in P aschasius R a d b ertu s’ uD e C orpore et

Sanguine D om in i,” C h apter X IV

Zirkel, Patricia McCormick, Ph.D.

Fordham University, 1989

C op yright © 1 9 8 9 b y Zirkel, P a tricia M cC orm ick. A ll righ ts reserved.

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 THE DIVINE CHILD IN PASCHASIUS RADBERTUS'
DE CORPORE ET SANGUINE DOMINI, CHAPTER XIV

BY

Patricia McCormick Zirkel

B.S. Ed., St. Thomas Aquinas College, June 1966
M . A . , St. John's University, January 1978

DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT
OF THEOLOGY AT FORDHAM UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK
March, 1989
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ......................................... 1

Germanic Religion ...................... 6

M e t h o d o l o g y ............................. 11
S o u r c e s .................................. 14
Outline of C h a p t e r s .................... 17

CHAPTER

1. THE THEOLOGICAL SETTING OF PASCHASIUS

RADBERTUS' DIVINE CHILD ...................... 21

Introduction ............................. 21
Sources and Central Ideas ............. 27
Radbert's Historical/Eucharistic
Body of C h r i s t .................... 35
Eucharistic Spirituality in
De C o r p o r e ......................... 45

2. PSYCHOLOGY AND V I S I O N S ....................... 59

The Concept of the Miraculous in

the Early Middle A g e s ............. 60
Approaches to the Issue of Visions . . . 66
A Psychological Approach ................ 74
Archetypal Vision as Symbol ........... 91

3. THE INDIVIDUATION PROCESS AND THE

EMERGENCE OF THE S E L F ......................... 99

The Child A r c h e t y p e .................... 104

The Christ Archetype ................... 113
The Divine C h i l d ....................... 129

4. WOUNDED GODS AND SACRED P O W E R ................ 138

O d i n / W o d a n ............................... 146
D i o n y s o s .................................. 151
Sacrifice Revisited .................... 157
The Primal C h i l d ........................ 168
The Divine Child in R a d b e r t ' ........... 174
5. PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION IN A CHANGING
WORLD .................................. 176

Ninth Century S a x o n y .................... 180

The Divine Child and the
Individuation Process .............. 184
Sacrifice, Transformation,
and the S e l f ...................... 189
Sacrifice and Divinization ............. 200

APPENDIX ONE: DE CORPORE E T SANGUINE D O M I N I ,

CHAPTER X I V ........................................ 207

SOURCES CONSULTED ................................. 225

 THE DIVINE CHILD IN PASCHASIUS RADBE RT U S1
DE CORPORE ET SANGUINE DOMINI, CHAPTER XIV
 INTRODUCTION

This dissertation will be concerned with an early

medieval eucharistic spirituality as this is presented by

Paschasius Radbertus in his ninth century work De Corpore

et Sanguine Domini. More specifically, the dissertation

will deal with the transfer of religious sentiment from the

pagan gods of Saxony to the figure of Christ. I will show

that Radbert cultivates such a transfer by presenting as

part of his document a series of visions of Christ present

in the eucharist as a child.

Traditionally, medieval eucharistic thought has been

understood as concentrating attention on the change in the

elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of

Christ.1 Doubtless, the higher-level theology of the

period did do this, and with increasing clarity and

precision as the period progressed. But it is less clear

that popular piety or pastoral practice had the same focus,

especially during the early middle ages. One reason for

this lack of clarity is that there is little documentation

available which directly pertains to the thoughts, feelings

^ e e , for example, Benedicta Ward, Miracles and the

Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event, 1000-1215
{Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 14-
15.

1
 2

and aspirations of the common people prior to the eleventh

or twelfth century.

From about the twelfth century on, however, there is

increasing documentation of all sorts. This comparative

wealth of material has focussed attention here, and caused

many commentators to posit this time as one of a blossoming

of eucharistic piety.2 There is also an unfortunate

tendency to read the documented theological concerns of

these later centuries back into earlier times.

How can the earlier centuries be allowed to speak for

themselves? Much of the material which does exist, and

which pertains to the early middle ages in Europe, seems

strange by modern standards. For example, the Letters of

Boniface, an eighth century Anglo-Saxon missionary to the

Germanic tribes, betray a strange mix of pagan/Christian

sacrificial practices, presumably centered on the mass.

Priests are forbidden to shed human blood for example, or

to officiate at sacrifices of animals "which foolish folk

perform in the churches, according to pagan custom, in the

2 See, for example, Gary Macy, The Theologies of the

Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period {Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1984), 86. Speaking about devotion to the
real presence of Christ in the eucharist, Macy states that
the "most obvious manifestation of this (new) devotion" is
the "proliferation of miracle stories surrounding the
sacrament." This paper will show that the devotion is not
entirely new.
 3

name of holy martyrs or confessors."3 Bede's

Ecclesiastical History gives similar testimony.4 Miracle

stories abound.3 It seems that we must become familiar

with this strangeness, rather than shying away. It is

necessary in a sense to step inside what is to us the

strange and the weird, and to attempt to feel as the people

of this time felt.

One method of identifying with the people of early

medieval Europe is to study the eucharistic spirituality

which certain miracle stories would illustrate. These

stories span several centuries, and are outwardly concerned

with the change of bread and wine into Christ's flesh and

blood. When examined from a psychological point of view,

however, these stories seem to speak a far different

3 St. Boniface, Letters, translated, with an

Introduction by Ephraim Emerton {New York: Columbia
University Press, 1940), 84 and 92, respectively.

“See B. Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, e d s ., Bede's

Ecclesiastical History of the English People {Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1969). In Book I, chapter 30, Bede quotes
a letter from Pope Gregory I to the Abbot Mellitus, dated
July 601. In it, Gregory gives the English missionaries
advice on how to win the souls of the pagans for the
Christian faith. One of the means is to turn their pagan
rituals {in this case animal sacrifices) to Christian
purposes (pp. 107-109}.

3 See especially in this regard, Gregory of Tours, The

History of the Franks and The Books of Miracles, edited,
translated, and with an Introduction by Ernest Brehaut
[Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies] (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1916). Gregory liberally
sprinkles his account of history with miracle stories.
language — a language which seems not at all concerned

with the eucharistic elements.

A group of such visions comprises Chapter XIV of De

Corpore, on which the dissertation is focussed. The

treatise itself is concerned with presenting the

traditional teaching of the Church on the reality of

Christ's presence in the eucharist. Chapter XIV — the

focus of this study — purports to prove the reality of

this presence by setting out a series of visions of Christ

present in the eucharist. It will be especially pertinent

here that three out of four of the visions in the present

text are of Christ as a child. As part of the

dissertation, Chapter XIV is translated from the Latin (see

the Appendix following Chapter 5 herein) and examined both

for its relationship to the theology of the document as a

whole and for an explication of the above-mentioned

eucharistic spirituality which the author implies by its

content.

As to theology: De Corpore is a seminal document in

the history of a western tradition of teaching on the

sacrament of eucharist. This teaching emphasizes the

"real," true or bodily presence of Christ on the altar, as

opposed to a "spiritual" or symbolic presence. In twenty-

two chapters, the document presents theological material

taken from the tradition which supports the author's

emphasis on real or bodily presence. Chapter XIV: "That

 5

these things often have shown themselves in outward

appearance," brings forth visionary "proof" of the reality

of this presence. The author obviously intends that his

reports of visions be taken as literal evidence that

Christ's true body is in the sacrament. However, Radbert

is doing more in Chapter XIV than presenting visual

"proofs" for a real presence of Christ. His use of

material which is obviously devotional shows that he

intends the material to have some emotional appeal for his

audience. He is, in short, constructing a spirituality

based on his theology ofreal presence.

I will show in the study to follow that when these

visions of Christ as a child are interpreted by means of a

psychological hermeneutic — in particular, that of C.G.

Jung — they are demonstrated as, in actuality, not

focussed on the change of bread and wine into the flesh and

blood of Christ within the sacrament. Rather, their inner

dynamic enables a spirituality of personal, internal change

within the participant. Furthermore, this focus on a

spirituality of dynamic, internal transformation is an

extension of the general theology of the document. The

dissertation will define this spirituality in terms of a

pattern of personal growth which involves a "wounding" of

the psyche and a consequent personal transformation. This

pattern will first be described, then examined in its pagan

manifestations, and finally, related to the needs within

 6

the early medieval Saxon audience which may have led

Radbert to propose it.

Germanic Religion

It will be my contention in this paper that Radbert

was attempting to breath life and spirit into his readers'

practice of Christianity. Thus some knowledge of the

spirit of the Saxon people is fundamental to an

understanding of his work. The Germanic peoples, of whom

the Saxons are one tribe, inhabited areas of Northern

Europe as early as the seventh century BCE.6 Their

language and elements of their culture and religion are

derived from an older Indo-European base. Both

linguistically and religiously they are related to the

Celtic tribes, and this relationship was continued into

R a d b e r t 's time within the Frankish-Germanic empire of

Charlemagne.

It is theorized that all peoples in the Indo-European

family group of languages shared a common basis of myth and

of religious ritual.7 Thus it is today widely accepted

that both Indo-European religion in itself, and all the

religions derived from this — Greek, Roman, pre-Vedic,

Indo-Iranian, Germanic and Celtic, among others — resemble

6 See Mircea Eliade, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion (New

York, 1987), s.v. "Germanic Religion," by Edgar C. Polome.

7 Georges Dumezil, Gods of the Ancient Northmen

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 15.
 7

one another because of a genetic relationship. The shared

mythological systems of all these religions have a three­

fold, or tripartite, structure. That is, the gods are

arrayed in three levels or ranks, which are referred to as

"functions." These ranks or functions both reflect and

serve to constitute the human social order.8

Function one gods concern themselves with magical and

juridical sovereignty and with administration of law and

the sacred. Function two gods convey physical force,

sometimes involving forces of nature, and military force.

Function three gods are more diverse and oversee numerous

provinces: for example, fecundity, abundance in men and

goods, nourishment, health, and sensual gratification.9

Within the Indo-European family of religions it has

become common to compare the remotest western and eastern

branches. Thus, in the pre-Vedic religion of Mitanni, the

gods can be listed on three levels:

Varuna and Mitra

I n d (a)ra
(Twins) the Nasatya or Asvin

8 For a complete, brief explanation of Georges

Dumezil's use of the term "function," see C. Scott
Littleton, The New Comparative Mythology (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1982), 5-7.

9 See Georges Dumezil, The Destiny of the Warrior

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), ix. See
also, Edgar C. Polome, "The Indo-European Component in
Germanic Religion," in Myth and La w Among the Indo-
jEuropeans, ed. Jaan Puhvel (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1970).
 8

Old Rome also had a pre-Capitoline triad:

Jupiter
Mars
Quirinus

Georges Dumezil, a leading theorist in this area of

research, asserts that, "the concordance of Indo-Iranian

and Italic religious features guarantees that the

tripartite theological structure and the practice of

summarizing it in a brief list of gods characteristic of

each level dates back to the time of the Indo-European

community."10 The Scandinavian list of:

Odin and Tyr

Thor
Njord and Frey (with Freya)

is obviously parallel to the above Mitannian and Roman

lists, within an Indo-European context.

Vedic, Indo-Iranian and Scandinavian/Germanic ideology

display a firm solidarity between the first two levels of

their respective triads in opposition to the third. In

Germanic religion the gods of levels one and two are called

Aesir. These are Odin, Tyr and Thor (or, among the

continental Germans, Wodan, Tiwaz and D o n ar ). The gods of

level three are called Vanir. The most typical Vanir are

Njord, Frey and Freya. The triadic structure of the

Scandinavian/Germanic and Indic/Indo-lranian pantheons and

the tendency of both groups to oppose levels one and two to

10Dumezil, Gods, 17.

level three, show that the comparison is not fortuitous,

but is to be explained by common origin.11

Dumezil pairs Odin/Wodan and Tyr/Tiwaz as holders of

the first function. Wodan possesses magical and

administrative sovereignty and is also protector of

earthly power (i.e. that of k i n gs ). Juridical or law-

giving power seems originally to have resided in Tyr/Tiwaz,

although this function seems to decline with time. I will

discuss certain aspects of Odin/Wodan in Chapters 4 and 5.

Thor/Donar is undoubtedly the wielder of physical

force in the Germanic pantheon. He is the thunder-god, who

walks or drives in a cart drawn by goats,and wields the

hammer or axe. He is defender of the world, guardian of

the land.

The third function is inhabited by the Vanir Njord,

Frey and Freya, who hold numerous provinces, all associated

with fecundity and abundance. There is a great deal of

intermingling on this level, both of the identities of the

gods and of their overlapping attributes.12

Dumezil has compared the pre-Vedic, Vedic and

Scandinavian triads rather exhaustively. For example: on

the first level, Varuna is a magician, as is Odin, while

Mitra is concerned with law, as is Tyr. As to the second

rank gods, Dumezil says that there are "precise and complex

11 Dumezil, Gods, 16-18 and 38-39.

12 See Dumezil, Gods, 44-48 for this whole section.

 10

correspondences" between the Vedic Indra, Rome, and the

Germanic world.13 The third level in these systems is

inhabited by inter-related deities.

My discussion has concentrated on the major gods of

the Germanic pantheon, which are not numerous and which

have clearly delineated characteristics. The minor gods

are quite varied on the other hand, and on thelower end of

the scale run to heroic figures and demons.

One further aspect of Germanic religion which is of

interest here concerns sacrifice. A good deal of the

information which has been preserved with regard to the

rites of the religion has to do with sacrifice. One early

twentieth-century writer on Germanic religion thereby

concludes: "It is clear that (sacrifice) was the central

feature in the worship of the gods..." The public peace

and prosperity were believed to depend on sacrifices, and

it was the duty of prominent men, and especially of the

king, to "keep up the sacrifices."14 It seems clear that

the Germanic concentration on sacrifice and the image of

the king as a religious figure influenced the medieval

peri od .

13Dumezil, Destiny, x.

14 W.A. Craigie, The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia

(London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1914), 53-54.
 11

Methodology

The method of this dissertation will be textual,

hermeneutical and interpretive. It is textual insofar as

the initiator of the study is the text of Chapter XIV. But

I pursue the meaning of Radbert*s use of Divine Child

visions in his presentation of a eucharistic theology and

spirituality. Thus the study is a hermeneutical and

interpretative use of the text, rather than a

straightforward textual study. The main tool in the

interpretation of the meaning of the text will be the

psychology of C.G. Jung.

At least one writer on analytical psychology says that

religion must touch a fundamental level of the human psyche

in order to have depth and substance.13 It is when

religion does successfully affect the psyche that it

becomes significant to the individual. Similarly, Karl

Rahner emphasizes this subjective component of religious

experience when he says that most visions are

"imaginative;"16 that is, even visions assumed to be

genuine have a subjective element. He furthermore says

that a genuine vision fosters the religious progress of

mankind.17 Thus the psychology of the visions recounted by

13Michael Fordham, The Objective Psyche {London:

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958), 114.

16 Karl Rahner, Visions and Prophecies (New York:

Herder and Herder, 1963), 38.

17 I bi d . , 56, n. 52.
 12

Radbert will illuminate the following questions: What

spirituality is Radbert proposing? To what needs in his

audience is this spirituality addressed? What do these

needs tell us of the state of Radbert's corner of the

Church in the ninth century?

One sometimes hears the objection that it is

unhistorical to apply the ideas of a twentieth century

thinker such as Jung to a ninth century text. But this

objection is both false and misleading. The objection is

false because any current interpretation of a ninth century

text, even an interpretation which purports to deal only

with the text as it is received, is in reality applying

some hermeneutic to the textual explication. This is true

even if one pursues a merely philological investigation,

since the textual critic is bound to use and apply concepts

of interpretation which would have been unknown to the

original author and to be unaware of interpretive tools

which would have been available to that author in his or

her own time. In fact, to push such a line of reasoning to

its limit, one would be forced to deny the validity of any

non-contemporaneous textual analysis.

Further, the objection is misleading since to take it

seriously could blind the investigator to his or her own

biases. Since it is impossible to separate oneself from

o n e ’s own thinking mechanisms, and since these mechanisms

have undoubtedly been molded by one's environment, it

 13

follows that one always does history from a point of view.

Thus it would seem less biased to make this point of view

explicit to begin with and to state one's hermeneutical

presuppositions in advance. The use of any particular

psychology as an analytical tool in fact forces the

investigator to examine her presuppositions in detail.

Jung's psychologicial system is pertinent for two

reasons: One: this psychology takes internal and

subjective events {e.g. visions} as seriously as external

and objective events. Thus the visions can be plumbed for

meaning, rather than explained away, as they might be under

a different psychological rubric. Second: Jung and others

have written on the significance of visions of a child god.

Of special note is Jung's work on "The Psychology of the

Child Archetype" and C. Kerenyi's "The Primordial Child in

Primordial Times."10 Thus the visions can be viewed as

part of a system.

Jung himself seems to have felt that his work bridged

the gap between ancient and modern man. He called myths,

for example, "psychic phenomena that reveal the nature of

the soul."10 His psychology, similar to all reasonably

empirical studies of humanity, is an attempt to explain us

18 Both in C.G. Jung and C. Kerenyi, Essays on a

Science of Mythology [Bollingen Series XXII] (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1949).

19C.G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective

Unconscious [Collected Works, 9.1] (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1959), para. 7, p. 6.
to ourselves. However, Jung's system outdistances other

psychologies in its ability to cut a window into the souls

of men and women far removed from our own time, people

whose beliefs seem incredible to us. Therefore this

psychology — which is able to explain both myth and

certain miraculous visions in terms of universal, human

psychic make-up — can make understandable what at first

seems only naive and easily dismissed, and Radbert's

vision-stories can assume a real meaning for us in terms of

basic human psychology. When this psychological meaning is

seen to correspond to elements in the theology of the

document, the value of a psychological approach is

demonstrated.

Thus the data which I will put forth for an

understanding of the spirituality of Radbert's Chapter XIV

are broader than the textual and theological. The data

will of necessity include, first, those aspects of Jung's

psychology which are essential to an understanding of his

basic premises; and second, (even more importantly) a

thorough investigation of those ideas which have direct

bearing on visions, especially visions of a child/Divine

Child.

Sources

The critical Latin text of Paschasius Radbertus' De

Corpore et Sanguine Domini is contained in Volume XVI of

 15

the Series Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis,20

Many manuscript and print editions of the work survive,

dating in the former case from contemporaneous ninth

century versions up to the age of printing. Print editions

date from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries.

Previous to the Corpus Christianorum edition, the work was

available in M i g n e ’s Patrologia Latina, Volume 120, columns

1255-1350. Migne, however, printed an edition of the tract

first published in 1733 by Edmund Martene.21 Further

information about the various manuscript traditions and

especially concerning the provenance of the stories in

Chapter XXV of the tract, is contained in Chapter 1 of this

s tud y.

The sources for the psychology of C.G. Jung are dealt

with in detail in the body of this paper, as they arise.

However, it is worthwhile to note at this point that J u n g ’s

Collected Works are available in English as number XX of

the Bollingen Series, produced in the United States by

20Bedae Paulus, ed., Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio

Mediaevalis, XVI (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers
IGP, 1969).

21 For the current critical edition under discussion,

the editor, Bedae Paulus, consulted and compared 120
manuscripts on microfilm and seven print editions, in order
to formulate an idea of the tradition-history of the text.
See the Introduction to the aforementioned Volume XVI, pp.
VII-XLVIII; here, see especially, p. XII.
 16

Princeton University Press.22 Besides Jung himself,

authors consulted for this study include Marie-Louise von

Franz and Michael Fordham.

Dr. von Franz worked closely with Jung from 1934 until

his death in 1961, As a practicing psychotherapist, she

was one of the founders of the C.G. Jung Institute in

Zurich, Switzerland. Two of her works which are pertinent

to this study are Puer Aeternus and C.G. Jung: His Myth in

our Time.23 Michael Fordham was a student of Jung's, who

is well-known for his writing on topics in analytical

psychology. One of his better-known works is The Objective

Psyche,2 A whose title refers to Jung's concept of the

unconscious. Also of interest is Anthony Stevens's work

which concentrates on Jung's notion of the archetypes.20

22 Gerhard Adler, Michael Fordham, and Herbert Read,

e d s ., William McGuire, exec. ed., Collected Works of C.G.
Jung [Bollingen Series XX], trans. R.F.C. Hull (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1954 through 1985).

23Marie-Louise von Franz, Puer Aeternus, 2d ed.,

(Santa Monica, CA: Sigo Press, 1981); and C.G. Jung: His
Myth in our Time, trans. W.H. Kennedy (Boston: Little,
Brown and Company, 197 5).

24 Previously cited; see note 6, above.

25 Anthony Stevens, Archetypes: A Natural History of

the Self (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.,
1982); and see Chapter 2, n. 60 herein for critical
commentary on Stevens's work.
 17

Outline of Chapters

The text of this study is divided into five chapters,

plus the above-mentioned Appendix which includes my

translation of Radbert's Chapter XIV concerning Divine

Child visions. Chapter 1 of the dissertation outlines some

of the pertinent textual history of De Corpore, and

describes the theology of the document in order to

establish a context for the study of Radbert's Divine

Child. The principal source for the text-history is the

Introduction to the critical edition, prepared in German by

the editor, Bedae Paulus. I also introduce some

preliminary remarks about the spirituality of De Corpore in

Chapter 1, since this spirituality is directly related to

the theology of the document as a whole. As part of my

preliminary examination of R a d b er t’s eucharistic

spirituality, I examine the text of Chapter XIV, noting

Radbert's sources and probable methodology in constructing

this portion of the document. However, no final

conclusions as to the meaning of these vision-stories are

drawn until after a psychological method of doing so has

been adduced in Chapters 2 and 3.

In Chapter 2 I first provide background information as

to miracles, and especially to visions as an instance of

the miraculous. Specifically, I deal with the history of

how visions and miracles have been explained within the

Christian tradition. Then I introduce the general

 18

psychological system of C.G. Jung, in order to explain the

subjective component of certain visions and to build a base

of understanding for further exploration of Jung's theory

of individuation, which is the subject of Chapter 3. (As

defined by Jung, "individuation" is a process of self-

discovery which includes the pattern of wounding and

transformation to which I alluded above.) This general

psychological system makes it possible for me to introduce

a notion of symbol-formation which allows a vision to

assume meaning not only for the experiencing individual,

but also for his or her culture. In addition this process

of symbol-formation is here related to the growth of myth

and ritual.

In Chapter 3 I examine that synthesis of personality

which Jung terms the "Self," along with Jung's primary

example of a fully-developed Self, the figure of Christ.

In so doing, I discuss in detail the painful pattern of

personal transformation which Jung and others have traced

as the major part of the process of achieving true Self­

hood, or individuation. Here I also examine the symbol of

the child per se (which appears in Radbert's work as a

vision), and the relationship of the symbols child and

Divine Child. I also analyze the psychological connection

between the child symbol and both the process of

individuation and its component pattern of wounding and

transformation. Wounding (or sacrifice) and personal

 19

growth (or transformation) are seen to be a universal

pattern of human existence.

Continuing to examine wounding and transformation in

Chapter 4, I show that besides being a pattern of human

existence this paradigm is present in the "lives" or

mythology of certain pagan gods. Thus wounding and

transformation are also a pattern of divine life. In

addition, the religious ritual of sacrifice is a method of

objectifying not only the god's pattern of life, but our

own. In other words, sacrifice is a means of providing

significance to one's own suffering, or a ritual expression

of that suffering. Sacrifice is therefore also a means of

channeling one's pain into a transformative path.

In Chapter 5 I relate both the psychological material

introduced in Chapters 2 and 3 and the mythological

material introduced in Chapter 4 to Radbert's Divine Child

image. I show that R a d be rt ’s use of such an image is an

attempt to urge his readers toward a personal and emotional

identification with the Christ Child. Radbert is endorsing

the transformative power of this particular god-image,

which serves to focus and transform one's inner Self.

Furthermore, this attempt to place Christ at the center of

Saxony's spiritual life implies a corresponding removal of

older, deeply entrenched pagan images.

In the end, Radbert is shown to be an artful expositor

of religious feeling. He is able not only to make his

 20

eucharistic doctrine speak to the hearts of his people, but

also to form these hearts into a Christian mold.

 CHAPTER ONE

The Theological Setting

of Paschasius Radbe rt us ‘ Divine Child

In order to establish a context for a study of

R a db er t's Divine Child, it is important to understand how

the visions of a Divine Child in Chapter XIV fit into the

rest of his document. The provenance of the document, and

its textual history (insofar as this history pertains to

this study) is as follows:

Introduction

Paschasius Radbertus was a ninth-century Frankish monk

and theologian, whose tract on the eucharist set the stage

for later medieval discussions of a theology of this

sacrament. He was born toward the end of the eighth

century, at or near Soissons, in present-day France,1 and

may have been exposed following the death of his mother.

Subsequently, he was taken in, raised and given the

beginnings of an education by some Benedictine nuns. Their

Abbess, Theodrade, was cousin to Charlemagne and a sister

of Adalhard and Wala, two famous Abbots of the monastery of

Corbie in northern France. Radbert later entered Corbie

XA date of 785 or 786 is often given. Eugene Choisy,

Paschase Radbert (Geneve: Maurice Richter, 1888), 17 n. 2,
says that these dates seem baseless.

21
 22

under Adalhard, and in 822 accompanied his Abbot into

Saxony for the purpose of founding the monastery of New

Corvey in Westphalia.2 Ordained a deacon, Radbert was for

many years instructor of young monks at Corbie. When he

became Abbot there in 842, he refused priestly ordination,

remaining a deacon for his whole life. He resigned his

post as Abbot about 847, devoting the rest of his life to

scholarly activity with copious literary output. He died

about 859.3

Corbie, near Amiens, was a center of learning in its

time and had an extensive library. Radbert therefore had

great resources on which to call for his work. His

writings are varied and include commentaries on Scripture,

theological works, and biographies.4 Besides the Latin in

2Choisy, 17-23.

3 The critical text of De Corpore et Sanguine Domini is

contained in the Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio
Mediaevalis XVI, ed. Bedae Paulus (Turnhout, Belgium:
Brepols Publishers IGP, 1969). (Hereinafter, CCCM:XVI.)
The text is prefaced by an Introduction (in Germa n) , pp.
VII-XLVIII, which was prepared by the Editor. Here, see
"Der Verfasser", VII. Paulus himself cites the biography
by H. Peltier, Paschase Radbert, Abbe de Corbie (Amiens,
1938).

4 For a short list of R a d b e r t ’s writings see the

Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI (1911), s.v. "Paschasius
Radbertus," by J. Pohle, 518. Choisy also provides a list,
33-42. The locations of extant texts of De Corpore are
given in Paulus following p. IX.
 23

which he wrote, Radbert may have read both Greek and

Hebrew.0

De Corpore et Sanguine Domini is the most significant

of Radbert's works and is also the first lengthy treatise

on the sacrament ofthe eucharist in the West. It is

divided into 22 chapters, but this division reveals no

logical continuity. The "book appears rather as a

compilation of different essays than as a homogeneous

work."6 The critical text of the tract is located in the

Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis XVI.1

Radbert0 himself is responsible for two editions of

the treatise in question. The dating of the first of these

was, for a time, problematical:

The prologue gives definite reference points for

the time of composition of Radbert's work. In it
he mentions: Ars e n i u s ...leader, and more,
father...made an exile for the faith. Who is
this Arsenius...?9

For a while Arsenius was identified with the above-

mentioned Abbot Adelhard, who died in 826 and lived between

814 and 821 in the cloister of Noirmoutiers in exile.

3 See Choisy, 18. The opposite is claimed in The New

Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Volume
IX (1957), s.v. "Paschasius Radbertus," 380.

6 Paulus, "Inhalt und Komposition," VIII.

7 See note 3, above.

6 The name "Radbert" is inscribed on almost all

manuscripts of the treatise in question. Paulus, "Der
Verfasser," VII.

9 Paulus, "Datierung des Traktates," VII.

 24

Radbert's treatise would therefore have to have been

written during these years. However another manuscript,

lost for a while, identifies Arsenius as the Abbot Wala.

Therein

Wala's contemporaries were also named under

pseudonyms. Only thus was it possible for
Radbert to criticize the deplorable state of
affairs at the imperial court without trouble,
and to refute the reproaches of Louis the Pious
against his Abbot Wala. The latter had been
exiled by the Emperor from 831 to 833 on Lake
Geneva. Thus Radbert's book De Corpore... must
have been written during these years, i.e. not
before 831 and not later than 833.10

This information correlates with the stated reason for

the writing of the work: Warin, Abbot of Corvey at this

time (and since 826), asked Radbert, his former teacher,

for a "thorough and comprehensible presentation of the

principal doctrines of the eucharist for the instruction of

his monks...and the guidance of the Saxons."11

Later, at either the Christmas of 843 or the Easter of

844, Radbert presented a copy of his tract to King Charles

the Bald. It seems that this gift prompted Charles to ask

for the opinions of Ratramnus, Radbert's fellow monk at

Corbie, on the same subject. Ratramnus' tract of the same

name (alternately called De Corpore et Sanguine Christi)

was written soon after, and his views on the eucharist

1(»Ibid.r VII-VIII.

11 Ibid., VII.
 25

differ markedly from those of Radbert.12 There are many

extant manuscripts which attest to and derive from this

first edition. Some of these manuscripts are dated by

Paulus to the ninth century.13

Radbert’s gift to the king forms the second manuscript

edition of De Corpore. In this edition Radbert slightly

revises the text and provides a separate list of the 22

chapter headings. The second edition is only preserved in

its entirety in one single tenth-century manuscript.14

The third manuscript edition combines features of the

first and second, and like them seems to have originated in

the ninth century. Six groups of manuscripts testify to

this edition, and the earliest examples of it date to the

ninth century.18

The fourth manuscript edition broadens the third by

means of the following additions:

12 Taken together, the two documents are usually

treated as a theological controversy. Whether the
controversy was ever known more widely than to the king
himself and a few theological writers is unknown.
Ratramnus' tract is available in English in George E.
McCracken and Allen Cabaniss, eds., Early Medieval
Theologyj Library of Christian Classics. Volume 9
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957). See the
"Introduction — Ratramnus of Corbie," 109-17 for further
information.

13Paulus, "Mehrere Auflagen von Radberts Buch," IX and

XII-XIII.

14 Ibid., IX-X and see also p. XXXI.

10 Ibid., XI, and see also p. XXXII.

 26

Chapter VI lines 51 - 108

IX 20 - 61
196 - 403
XIV 71 - 119
XXI 260 - 308
XXII 180 - 20216

Only three manuscripts testify to the fourth edition. The

earliest of these dates to the eleventh century.17

Paulus goes on to list and to analyze in detail

numerous manuscript editions of Radbert's treatise and a

large number of later print editions. It is obvious from

his presentation that the treatise was extensively used and

copied down through the Reformation and into the eighteenth

century. Along the way, the treatise picked up some

further small chapter headings. One list of 65 "Capitula"

indicate that the manuscript was routinely bound with a

copy of August in e’s Sermon on the Trinity, and that the two

were treated as a unit.18 Another manuscript, attributed

to a self-styled "Paschasius Ratherius" (a 10th century

monk and Bishop of Verona), contains 99 Capitula.19

16 Ibid., XI-XII; see also p. XXXV.

17 Ibid., XII and XXXVI.

18Paulus, "Die Handschriften," XV.

19 Ibid., XXII. From my translation of the various

capitula, it seems they have little connection to the text
itself.
 27

Sources and Central Ideas

Radbert seems to intend little beyond presenting the

traditional eucharistic teaching of the Fathers. However

he does not transcribe their own terminology, but

paraphrases their work, writing it down in his own words.

Paulus says that this impedes the detection of the actual

sources which he used. Radbert enumerates the following

sources in his Prologue: Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine,

Hilary {of Poitiers), Isidore (of Seville), John

(Chrysostom), Gregory, Hieronymus (Jerome), Ysitius20 and

Bede. Paulus says, however, that the only marginal

notations as to sources are: Ambrose, Augustine, Hilary, YS

(either Isidore or Ysitius) and Hieronymus. In addition,

Radbert seems to have gotten sloppy in his notations of

these as his work progressed. The names appear less and

less frequently as the treatise progresses.21

The writings of Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, and

Ambrose, wherein the bread and wine of the eucharist are

portrayed realistically as the true body and blood of the

Lord, will indicate a major root of Radbert's ideas on the

20Paulus identifies Ysitius with Hesychius of

Jerusalem (d. after 451); see IX, n. 2.

2Paulus, "Inhalt und Komposition," VIII-IX.

 28

eucharist.22 Here the eating of Christ's body is of

paramount importance and images of human metabolism are

used to emphasize the effect of the eucharist on those who

receive it.

Concerning the eucharistic elements of bread and wine,

D. Stone says that Gregory of Nyssa "teaches with great

definiteness that by the consecration [of the mass] the

elements are transmade and transelemented into the body and

blood of Christ."23 That is, in the ordinary processes of

life bread and wine are transmade into human body and blood

by our consumption, digestion, and assimilation. Something

like this change happens at the consecration.2 4

As the Word of God Himself, when on earth,

received nourishment from bread and wine, so that
they became, by the process of digestion, His
body and blood, while His body also, by its union
with the Word, was raised to the dignity of the
Godhead, in like manner in the Eucharist the
bread which is consecrated by the word of God is
transformed, no longer, as in His earthly life,
by eating, but immediately, into His body by the
Word.2 3

Language such as the above concentrates attention on

22 Hilary of Poitiers is also important. I will

consider him separately, in my discussion of Radbert's
Chapter IX, below.

23D. Stone, A History of the Doctrine of the Holy

Eucharist, Volume I (London: Longmans, Green and Company,
1909), 103.

24 Ibi d., 103-4.

23 Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Volume 5, s.v.

"Eucharist (to end of Middle Ages)," by J.H. Srawley, 550.
 29

Christ's human body. The effect of the consecration is to

reconstitute the Christ of history upon the altar.

John Chrysostom also uses realistic language in

speaking about the eucharist, and especially in his Homily

X X I V on First Corinthians, speaks of the body of Christ in

three senses, mentioning C h r i s t ’s historical body and his

eucharistic body in terms so similar as to imply an

identity, and further blending these two with C h r i s t ’s body

which is the Church.26

In addition, Chrysostom stresses that we are united to

Christ in the sacrament:

"The bread which we break, is it not a communion

of the Body of Christ?" (I Cor. x.l6bj Wherefore
said he not, the participation? Because he
intended to express something more and to point
out how close was the union: in that we
communicate not only by participating and
partaking, but also by being united. For as that
body is united to Christ, so also are we united
to him by this bread. {[4] pp. 139-140!

Chrysostom stresses that we do not merely participate

in Christ's true body, we become united to it: "For as

that Body is united to Christ (i.e. as Christ's historical

body was united to the Word of G o d ) , so also are we united

to Him by this bread." {[4] p. 1401 In other words, we

become as close to Christ by partaking of his eucharistic

2 6 See Philip Schaff, e d . , Nioene and Post-Nicene

Fathers, Volume XII: Chrysostom, Homilies on Corinthians
(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,
1956); Homily XXIV, 138-43. Bracketed numerals refer to
sections in the text.
 30

presence as his own natural body was close to the being of

the Word.

Chrysostom also speaks of the elements as "re­

fashioned and transformed," in a manner similar to Gregory

of Nyssa. He does not resort to Gregory's analysis of how

this occurs, however.27

In the western Church, Ambrose interprets the

eucharist in terms of a transformation of the elements and

explains this in realistic terms. In his treatise "On

Faith" he speaks of the elements as transformed or

transfigured into Christ's flesh and blood.26 In another

treatise, "On the Mysteries", "the writer emphasizes the

importance of the consecration of the elements, which he

regards as a miraculous act of G o d . ..C h r i s t 's own

w o r d ... changes the nature of the material elements on which

it is pronounced."29

2 7 Srawley, 550.

2 8 Ibi d ., 551.

29 Ibid., 551, quoting "On the Mysteries," ix.52-54.

The Ambrosian authorship of both this treatise and another
related tract, "On the Sacraments," has been doubted.
Srawley says that even if they are not authentic,
nevertheless they were taken as such by the medieval church
and used as authorities. Therefore their importance cannot
be minimized for an understanding of the history of the
sacrament, especially in the west. In R.C.D. Jasper and
G.J. Cuming, eds., Prayers of the Eucharist, Early and
Reformed (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), the
editors say that the treatise "On the Sacraments" is now
generally regarded as "the actual words of the addresses of
Ambrose to the newly baptized, taken down at the time by a
notarius" (112).
 31

The foregoing material on Gregory of Nyssa, John

Chrysostom and Ambrose is an example of what is sometimes

referred to as a "conversion" doctrine of the eucharist.

It is a mistake, however, to read into this early material

the later medieval emphasis on the change in and of itself.

These writers are concerned to show that the body of Christ

is truly present on the altar in order to stress that we

are truly united to Christ's body by receiving the

sacrament. This, as I will show, is also Radbert's

concern.

Radbert also claims Augustine as a source, although

Augustine's emphases are different from those of Gregory,

Chrysostom and Ambrose. From Augustine, the western church

received a legacy of deep spiritual meaning attached to the

eucharist. He starts from an earlier Western teaching

which would distinguish between the elements of bread and

wine and that which they signify. In this, he is in a line

with Tertullian and Cyprian. In addition to this, however,

he attempted to define the concept of sacraments and of

sacramentality in general. Augustine defines sacraments as

'visible signs of divine things’. In them 'the invisible

things themselves are h o no re d ’ and 'one thing is seen,

another is understood'. Furthermore 'what is seen has a

bodily appearance, what is understood has spiritual

profit'. He distinguished between the sacramentum {outward

 32

part) and the res (inward part) of a sacrament, and between

the sacrament itself and its virtus or power.30

Radbert also emphasizes the inner power of a

sacrament. He uses the definition of Isidore of Seville

which stresses the interior, spiritual profit of the

sacraments in a manner similar to Augustine:

A sacrament... is anything handed down to us in

any divine celebration as a sort of pledge of
salvation, with the thing done visibly
simultaneously accomplishing something invisibly,
which (invisible thing) is received inside us as
h o l y .31

This definition of sacrament is rather wide. A few

lines further on Radbert distinguishes between his

definition and the legal one, referring to an oath. He

then relates the taking of an oath to inward faith in the

thing sworn, rather neatly connecting the two senses of the

word sacrament. He calls the birth of Christ a great

sacrament, because the divine majesty of God worked

invisibly in Christ on our behalf. Whenever the Holy

Spirit speaks to us through the Scriptures, these also

become a sacrament.32 In other words, it is the inner or

30Srawley, 554.

31Sacramentum...est quicquid in aliqua celebratione

divina nobis quasi pignus salutis traditur, cum res gesta
visibilis longe aliud invisibile intus operatur quod sancte
accipiendum sit. CCCM: XVI, 23; De Corp., Chapter III,
lines 1-5* Radbert took the definition from Isidore of
Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri 20, 6.

32CCCM.XVI; 24-25; Chapter III, lines 19-35. It would

seem to follow from this that Radbert would multiply the
number of ecclesiastical sacraments. In fact he
 33

spiritual effect of the sacrament which is important to

Radbert. It is of note that this inner or spiritual

significance is tied by him to our salvation in the above

q u o te .

Radbert underscores the spiritual or inward effect of

the sacrament of the eucharist in his use ofthe terms

figura and veritas — "figure” and "truth." These terms

are contrasted in passages such as the following:

But it seems to be a figure when it is broken,

when in visible appearance something is
understood as different from what is sensed and
tasted in the fles h. ..Further, that sacrament of
faith is rightly called trut h...genuine truth is
anything rightly understood or believed inwardly
of this mystery.33

Radbert is using the word "figure" to mean "visible

appearance;" that is, what would later be referred to as

the "species." The real "truth" of the sacrament is

interior, and is the same as what we may call the "truth of

faith." Radbert uses the person of Christ as an example.

Christ has two substances — one divine, the other human.

distinguishes between his broad definition, and the

sacraments properly so-called within the Church. These he
lists here in Chapter III as Baptism and anointing and the
L o r d ’s body and blood (Chapter III.14-18, p. 24), leading
many commentators to say that he recognizes three
sacraments. He may actually be grouping Baptism and
anointing as one sacrament. This appears to be the case in
Chapter IX (lines 126-133, p. 57).

33Sed figura esse videtur dum frangitur, dum in specie

visibili aliud intelligitur quam quod visu carnis et gustu
sentitur...Porro illud fidei sacramentum iure veritas
appellatur...veritas vero quicquid de hoc mysterio interius
recte intellegitur aut creditur. (CCCM: XVI, 28-29,
Chapter IV, lines 34-46, excerpted.)
 34

But his human body represents both of them; it is the

"figure" or "character" of the divine substance within.34

Radbert does not mean to sound docetic. He goes on to

illustrate that "figure" in the sense in which he is using

the word, is not to be interpreted as a false or shadowy

representation of a reality concealed within. On the

contrary, like the letters of the alphabet which children

learn and so progress first to reading, then to

understanding, and finally even to an appreciation of the

"spiritual sense" of Scripture, "figures" are meant to lead

us to the truth.33 Radbert also uses the word "figure" to

mean "type." (In chapter IX, the Paschal Lamb is said to

be a "figure" of the mystery of what Christ accomplishes in

the eucharist.} But in both uses, the purpose of the

"figure" is to lead us to the "truth" within.

So far, I have summarized several important Patristic

ideas. Two of these in particular are present in Radbert's

treatise. First, he says that the bread and wine are

converted by the consecrating words of the priest into

Christ's true body and blood. Second, it is the reception

— the eating — of this body and blood which provides

interior value. That is, the conversion in and of itself

is less important than its result, which is spiritual

34CCCM.XVI, 29; Chapter IV, lines 52-55.

33CCCM.XVI, 29; Chapter IV, lines 58-62.

 35

profit for the recipient.36 But neither of these ideas

should be considered in isolation. They are in fact

unified by a further concept, central to R a d b e r t ’s

thinking, in which the eucharist is connected to the

Incarnation.3 7

R a d be rt 's Historical/Eucharistic Body of Christ

Gregory of Nyssa in the East and Hilary of Poitiers in

the West stress the place of the Eucharist in the economy

of the spiritual life. They do this by expounding the idea

that the eucharist is the "extension" of the Incarnation.30

The end result of the thought of both writers is to regard

the eucharist as a means of deification. Gregory of Nyssa,

for example, in his Catechetical Oration #37, says that our

36 Augustine's comments about the spiritual gift of the

eucharist should be read in this light.

3 7 The attempt to draw sharp distinctions of method

among all these patristic writers may indeed be
counterproductive. Srawley, for example, posits three
views on the eucharist: conversionist, dyophysite and
Incarnational. The conversion camp is said to include
Ambrose and John of Damascus. Srawley contrasts this view
with the views of theologians such as Augustine. This
dyophysite camp distinguishes between the elements and that
which they signify. Placed in a separate camp are writers
such as Gregory of Nyssa, who draw a parallel between the
Incarnation and the eucharist. However, as will be shown,
Radbert himself, whom Srawley would categorize as a
conversionist, draws on Hilary of Poitiers, who is an
Incarnationist. Thus these views are not so neatly
separated, and to stress differences in this way can
obscure underlying theological similarities which were the
concerns of the writers themselves.

30Srawley, 551.
union with Christ is a "communion with the Deity" in which

mankind is deified.39

There are three steps in R a d be r t's connecting of the

eucharist to the Incarnation. First, in his exposition of

the reality of Christ's presence in the sacrament, Radbert

states that the body of Christ present on the altar is the

same body as once lived on earth. Second, he affirms a

unity of nature between this Christ of history and God.

And third, Radbert says that we join ourselves to this

unity of nature in God by eating the eucharistic/historical

body of Christ in the sacrament. In constructing this

theology, Radbert is concerned to show how we are saved by

the eating of Christ's flesh.

First, De Corpore strongly advocates belief in a

bodily or corporeal presence of Christ in the sacrament.

Such a doctrine is usually referred to asa theology of

"real presence."

For example, in Chapter 1 he says:

...nothing is set in motion concerning this body

and blood of Christ, which in mystery is real
flesh and real blood, until he so willed who
created: "For everything the Lord willed he made
in heaven and on earth” (Ps. 134.6). And because
he willed, he grants this figure of bread and
wine to be such that after the consecration they
are believed to be entirely nothing other than
the flesh and blood of Christ. Hence the Truth
himself said to his disciples: "This is my flesh
for the life of the world" {Jn. 6.51). And so
that I may speak more wonderfully, not other
entirely than the flesh which was born of Mary,

39 I b i d .
 37

and suffered on the cross and has risen from the

tomb. This, I say, is the same, and therefore is
Christ's flesh which is offered "for the life of
the world" even now today; and when it is rightly
grasped, eternal life is certainly restored in
us .4 0

Note Radbert's insistence that after the consecration

the only remaining reality of the eucharist is as Christ's

flesh and blood. The "figure" of bread and wine maintains

no reality at all and has become "entirely nothing other"

(omnino nihil aliud) than the body and blood of Christ.

Radbert says in several places that this change comes

about through the power of the same Holy Spirit who worked

at the Incarnation. For example in Chapter III he says

that the same Holy Spirit who created the man Christ in the

womb of the Virgin without seed still works our

sanctification daily by invisible power through the

sacraments of Christ's flesh and blood.41 The thrust of

4 0 ...nullus moveatur de hoc corpore Christi et

sanguine, quod in misterio vera sit caro et verus sit
sanguis, dum sic ille voluit qui creavit: Omnia enim
quaecumque voluit Dominus fecit in caelo et in terra. Et
quia voluit licet figura panis et vini haec sic esse,
omnino nihil aliud quam caro Christi et sanguis post
consecrationem credenda sunt. Unde ipsa Veritas ad
discipulos: Haec, inquid, caro mea est pro mundi vita. Et
ut mirabilius loquar, non alia plane, quam quae nata est de
Maria et passa in cruce et resurrexit de sepulchro. Haec,
inquam, ipsa est et ideo Christi est caro quae pro mundi
vita adhuc hodie offertur, et cum digne percipitur, vita
utique aeterna in nobis reparatur. (CCCM.XVI, 14-15;
Chapter I, lines 44-55.) For lines 51 and 52, "Et ut
mirabilius", etc., cf. Ambrose, De mysteriis, 53.)

41 Unde nec mirum Spiritus Sanctus qui hominem Christum

in utero virginis sine semine creavit, etiam si ipse panis
ac vini substantia carnem Christi et sanguinem invisibili
potentia cotidie per sacramenti sui sanctificationem
 38

all Radbert's arguments to this effect is to forge an

identity between the historical body of Christ and the body

which becomes present on the altar at the consecrating

words of the priest.

It is important to keep in mind that Radbert's

ruminations on C h r i s t ’s actual presence in the eucharist

under the appearances of bread and wine predate a

scholastic theology of these appearances as subsistent

accidents by hundreds of years.1,2 Radbert is not a

philosopher, nor even a logician, and his writings predate

the use in theology of philosophical logic and metaphysics

by centuries. Although he will use such words as

"substance" and "appearance," these are for him only a use

of traditional nomenclature inherited from the Church

Fathers of both East and West. These are not therefore to

be confused with the Aristotelian categories of substance

and accidents which were used by scholastic theologians at

a much later date.

The second step in R a d b e r t 's connection of the

eucharist to the Incarnation is an affirmation of the unity

operatur, quamvis nec visu exterius nec gustu saporis

conpraehendatur. (CCCM.XVI, 27, Chapter III, lines 82-87.
See also 27-28, Chapter IV, lines 14-20 and 30, lines 86-
90.) In Chapter IX (lines 43-45, p. 53), Radbert says that
the created bread and wine is changed into the sacrament of
Christ's flesh and blood by the ineffable sanctifying Spirit.

42 See R.G. Fontaine, Subsistent Accident in the

Philosophy of Saint Thomas and in His Predecessors
(Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press,
1950), 27-35.
 39

of nature between Christ — either or both the Christ of

history and Christ present on thealtar — and God.

Actually, Radbert seems to accept this as fact. He does

not set out to prove it, but simply quotes Scripture,

referring often to Christ as the "Word" or the "Truth."

His strongest affirmation of this unity of nature

comes in a passage in which he at the same time moves on to

the third step in his connection of the eucharist to the

Incarnation. He says that we are saved when we join

ourselves to the unity of nature between Christ and the

Father by eating the flesh of Christ.

. . . whosoever as eats this life rightly, they

only are caused to be born again, just as once
through baptism they put on Christ, so now Christ
remains in them bodily through this sacrament; so
that they are believing only in Christ, and
Christ may remain in them...

And indeed Christ is today in us not only through

concordance of the will, but he is in us also
through nature, just as we are rightly said to
remain in him. For, if "the Word was made flesh"
and we truly eat the fleshly Word in the food of
the Lord, how is Christ not rightly judged to
remain in us naturally, who also took to himself
the inseparable nature of our flesh, a man by
nature God, and mingled the nature of his flesh
to the nature of eternity under this sacrament,
for communicating this flesh to us?

And therefore through this, we all, in God the

Father and the Son and also the Holy Spirit are
one, because the Father is shown to be in Christ
and Christ in us. From this cause therefore it
is that we also are naturally made one body in
C h r is t. . .43

43Tertio, ut quicumque digne hanc vitam sumant, renati

unam efficiantur, ut sicut iam per baptismum Christo
induuntur, ita Christus in eis per hoc sacramentum
 40

The principal argument here — that we become one in

nature with God by eating the flesh of Christ — is

borrowed from Hilary of P o it ie rs ’ De Trinitate, although

Radbert's emphasis is entirely his own.44 The passage

makes a spectacular point, especially when it is seen in

juxtaposition with his prior claim that the body of Christ

which we eat in the sacrament is precisely the same body as

was born of Mary, suffered on the cross, and rose from the

tomb. This body is today made to be on our altars by the

action of the same Holy Spirit who once created Christ's

corporaliter maneat, ut sint credentes unum in Christo et

Christus in eis m a n e a t ...(CCCM.XVI, 55, Chapter IX, lines
86-90.)

Necnon et Christus hodie in nobis non solum per

concordiam voluntatis, sed etiam per naturam in nobis sicut
et nos in illo recte manere dicitur. Nam si Verbum caro
factum est et nos vere Verbum carnem in cybo dominico
sumimus, quomodo Christus in nobis manere naturaliter iure
non estimatur qui et naturam carnis nostrae inseparabilem
sibi homo natus Deus adsumpsit et naturam carnis suae ad
naturam aeternitatis sub sacramento hoc nobis communicandae
carnis admiscuit?

Et ideo per hoc omnes in Deo Patre et Filio ac Spiritu

Sancto unum s u m u s , quia Pater in Christo et Christus in
nobis esse probatur. Hinc igitur est, quod et nos in
Christo naturaliter unum corpus efficimur. (CCCM.XVI, 56,
Chapter IX, lines 103-114.)

4 4De Trinitate 8.5,10, and 13. (PL 10: 240B and C;

242C; 246A.) A detailed study of these passages, and of
R a d b e r t 's use of them, still remains to be done. The
passages are especially interesting in light of the fact
that Hilary mentions "heretics", and Radbert carries the
mention over into his own text, at lines 94-95. (He does
not simply copy the reference, however; he re-words the
entire section.) Hilary's heretics were presumably A r i a n s .
Were Radbert's also?
 41

body in the womb of the Virgin. When we eat this body,

therefore, we are in fact joined to the Christ of history,

who himself is already shown to be one with the Father. We

too, then, are united to the Father, just as Christ is.

For emphasis of this crucial point, I will reiterate:

Father and son are one with each other; they are united by

nature, not only by will. Likewise, in the fleshly,

historical, human body of Christ, there existed a true

union of the natures of God and man. We become united to

this true, real body of Christ when we receive the

eucharist; united that is to that body of Christ which is

both divine and human. In being united to C h r i s t ’s human

body, we are at the same time joined to his divine nature,

since this divine nature co-existed with human nature in

his body. Finally, in being joined to Christ's divine

nature — of itself one with the Father — we are caught

up, made one, with the Godhead.

Pushing this concept of union of nature to its logical

end, we see that the reception of the eucharist is a

process of divinization, or deification, although Radbert

himself does not use this word. But as he states it here,

the concept is certainly comparable to the theme of

deification in the Fathers, which may be summarized by

Gregory of Nyssa's statement, mentioned above, in which our

union with Christ in the eucharist is a "communion with the

 42

Deity" by which we are divinized.48 Note that in the above

passage we are united to Christ and to God {that is,

deified) by the actual eating of the sacrament, which in

Radbert's system is tantamount to eating the actual,

historical flesh of Christ. R a d b e r t 's realism in

postulating an identity between Christ's historical and his

eucharistic body is intrinsic to the soteriology which he

posits for the sacrament. His theology is a unified

w h o l e .4 6

48 See note 39, above. Athanasius of Alexandria's

statement is also worthy of note: "He (Christ) was made
man, that we might be made God." On the Incarnation of God
the Word, Article 54, in E.R. Hardy, ed., The Christology
of the Later Fathers {Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954).

46 In Radbert's heading for Chapter IX he indicates a

joint purpose: both to explicate the reasons for a daily
immolation of Christ and to show the "good things" given by
the sacrament when it is rightly received. He states that
the daily immolation is provided because the wisdom of God
the Father has provided this necessary thing for many
reasons. But in all of his enumerated reasons, Radbert
stresses reception of the sacrament. The reasons given
are:

— because we sin daily,

— because we should join ourselves daily to Christ as

our Tree of Life,

— because we seek a daily union with the Father

through Christ's human and divine natures.

— and so that we commemorate the passion of Christ

and remind ourselves that he will return in
judgment.

As one examines each point in detail, it becomes

obvious that Radbert is not speaking only of the daily
oblation, the daily offering of the mass, in and of itself.
In his explanations of each of the reasons, Radbert seems
even more pointedly to be addressing the issue of a daily
 43

In addition to using the term "body of Christ” to

refer both to the historical and eucharistic presence of

Christ on earth, Radbert applies the term to the Church

also. In Chapter IX he states that Baptism and Eucharist

work together for our salvation: Through Baptism we are

reborn in Christ "and through the sacrament of his body and

also his blood, Christ is shown to remain in us not only by

faith, but also by a unity of flesh and blood."

And therefore now members of Christ (cf. Eph

5.30, Rm 12.5, 1 Cor 6.15, 12.27) we are fed by
his flesh, and there is no difference between us
and his body from whence we are enlivened and his
blood from whence we are acquired. This is the
reason, therefore, that "No one has gone up to
heaven, except he who came down from heaven" {Jn
3.13), because we are unified with him through
these mysteries.47

Here Radbert introduces an ecclesiology. As members

of Christ (Eph 5.30, etc., as above) "we are fed by his

flesh." The New Testament citation is an unmistakable

reference to a Pauline notion of the Church as corporate

Body of Christ. R a d b e r t 's next phrase ("...there is no

difference between us and his body from whence we are

enlivened and his blood from whence we are acquired") can

thus be read in two senses. In one reading it refers to

reception, or eating, of the sacrament.

4 7 Et ideo iam membra Christi eius carne vescimur, ut

nihil aliud quam corpus eius, unde vivimus, et sanguis
inveniamur. Hinc igitur est, quod nemo ascendit in [ad]
caelum, nisi qui de caelo descendit, quia cum illo per haec
mysteria unum s u m u s . (CCCM.XVI, 57, Chapter IX, lines 129-
33.)
 44

the divinization of the individual. In another sense

however, it means that as a Church we are united with

Christ and the Father through the eucharist. On this

reading, the historical and eucharistic body of Christ—

previously equated as the same body — is further

identified with the corporate, Churchly body of Christ.

These three modes of understanding the term "body of

Christ" are introduced at chapter VII, lines 1-32. It

seems clear that Radbert intends us to believe that in the

eucharist we are united with each other, made one as a

Church, through our prior unity with Christ and the Father.

However, to limit this, as some commentators do, to the

observation that "By eating this flesh men are incorporated

into the mystical Body of Christ which is the Church,"48 is

to side-step the issue of divinization and limit the unity

effected by the eucharist to an ecclesial bond.

In summary, in his tract as a whole, Radbert insists

that Christ is actually present in the eucharist. That is,

the body and blood of Christ which is present on the altar

is the same body which was born of Mary and lived a true

human life. In addition, Radbert is concerned to show why

48 See, for example, the Oxford Dictionary of the

Christian Church (Second edition, 1974), s.v. "Paschasius
Radbertus," 1039. See also: S. Bonano, "The Divine
Maternity and the Eucharistic Body in the Doctrine of
Paschasius Radbertus," Ephemerides Mariologicae I (1951):
387-389; and George H. Tavard, "The Church as Eucharistic
Communion in Medieval Theology," in Continuity and
Discontinuity in Church History, ed. F.F. Bruce and T.
George (Leiden: Brill, 1979), 98-99.
 45

Christ is truly present on the altar. That is, he posits a

goal for the real presence, which is so that we may be

divinized by eating Christ's true flesh.

Eucharistic Spirituality in De Corpore

The subsequent theology of a real presence of Christ

in the eucharist fastened itself on speculations as to the

change of bread and wine into Christ's body and blood.49

The later doctrine of transubstantiation deals with

precisely this. But Radbert seems far more concerned with

the change in us which is produced by Christ's flesh and

blood, than with the technicalities of exactly how this

apparent bread and wine can be C h r is t’s true body.

Therefore, the theology of De Corpora is rather

clearly focussed on the effects of the sacrament of

eucharist on the participant. In this, Radbert's use of

the language of conversion is similar to the use of this

terminology by the Fathers. Both the Fathers and Radbert

use the language of conversion to indicate the reality of

the presence of Christ in the eucharist so that the effects

of that presence can be addressed.

49 In Gary Macy, The Theologies of the Eucharist in the

Early Scholastic Period (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984),
70, the author says that the predominant image in Radbert's
theology is biological. He refers to medieval theologies
which insist both on real presence, and on the necessity of
receiving the sacrament for salvation, as "Paschasian."
See Chapter II: "The Paschasian Approach to the Eucharist."
But his focus is not divinization.
 46

Radbert's use of Isidore of Seville's definition

emphasizes the spiritual effects of the sacrament. He

locates the veritas — the genuine truth — of the

sacrament in its inward qualities. Likewise, he insists

that we receive the same body of Christ in the eucharist as

once walked the earth, so that he can draw the logical

consequences of this teaching, and expound a soteriology of

divinization.

How is the spirituality which is put forth in the

document similar? Furthermore, what precisely is

spirituality, and how does it differ from theology? If

theology is the study by a person of transcendent things or

ideas, then spirituality is the discipline which enables

transcendence within the person. Theology might lead me to

an understanding of external, spiritual notions, but

spirituality will bring those notions to bear on my being

in the here and now.

In Chapter XIV of De Corpore, Radbert moves from

theology to spirituality. That is, he turns from the

explaining of a theology of the sacrament (which theology

itself addresses the inner effects of the eucharist on the

participant) to an examination of what these effects might

be, or how these effects might be felt within the

individual. It is the visions of a Divine Child in Chapter

 47

XIV which provide the clearest window into R a db er t’s

eucharistic spirituality.00

At this point I will examine Chapter XIV, noting

R adbe rt 's sources and probable methodology in constructing

this portion of his document, but drawing no final

conclusions as to the meanings which these visions might

have had in R a d b e r t 's time. After I have introduced a

psychological method of examining these visions in Chapter

Two of this paper, I will show in Chapter Three that these

visions — and hence Radbert's spirituality — have the

same focus as the theology of the document. They are aimed

at illuminating a particular process of internal change and

growth in the participant — a process which the psychology

of C.G. Jung calls "individuation."

In the current critical edition of De Corpore et

Sanguine Domini, Chapter XIV contains four miracle stories

in the following order:

(1) (Lines 30-43) A Hebrew sees a child being

distributed as communion from the hands of "Blessed

B a s i l .”

(2) (Lines 44-70) The bread of communion is seen as

flesh "overflowing with blood." This is done to

strengthen the faith of a certain woman.

00 See Appendix One for the complete English/Latin text

of De Corpore et Sanguine Domini, Chapter XIV.
 48

(3) (Lines 71-119) An Abbot and two elders from

Scythia see a boy on the altar in place of the

communion breads. When the presbyter extends his hand

to break the bread, an angel carrying a knife descends

from heaven and sacrifices the little boy. When the

bread is broken into little pieces, the angel cuts up

the boy into similar parts.

(4) (Lines 120-168) The presbyter Plecgils requests

that he be able to perceive the natural body of

Christ, hidden under the forms of bread and wine. He

sees an infant boy, whom he is able to pick up,

embrace and kiss.

According to Paul us , the first edition of De Corpore

(831) contained only thestory of Plecgils (number 4,

above), which was introduced by the phrase "one from the

many." In Paulus's critical edition, this phrase is now

incorporated into lines 28-29. Radbert says that this

story is found in the "exploits of the Angli" (line 121).

Paulus indicates that the story is included in the

Monuments Germanise Histories, in a section devoted to the

poetry of the Carolingian Age.ni It is part of a group of

poems which detail the miraculous happenings at the tomb of

01 Monuments Germanise Histories (1923); Poetae Latini,

Aevi Carolini; Tomi IV, Fasciculus III; pp. 943 ff.
"Miracula Nynie Episcopi", Number XII, pp. 957-959.
 49

St. Nynian, a fourth-fifth century Bishop who was

responsible for the conversion of the southern Piets.32

As Radbert tells the story, Plecgils was an "intensely

scrupulous" presbyter who often celebrated mass at the tomb

of St. Nynian. He asked God to show him the true nature of

Christ's body and blood, "not because he was doubtful about

the body of Christ, but because he wanted so much to

perceive Christ." That is, he sought the miracle "not from

faithlessness, as is usual, but from piety of mind."

Plecgils had, in fact, had to leave his native land to

learn about Christ, and had done this willingly.

So, while he was celebrating mass in his usual manner

one day, "he sank to his knees. He said: 'I beg you,

Almighty, reveal to me a bit in this mystery the nature of

the body of Christ, so that I might perceive him here and

now in fleshly aspect and touch with my hands the form of

him whom the mother bore as a wailing child." An angel

appears and addresses him to the effect that because he

wishes, he may see Christ, present here on the altar,

"clothed in the bodily garment which he wore for the sacred

childbirth." Plecgils looks up and sees "the infant boy

whom Simeon had deserved to carry in his arms." The angel

makes it clear that this is the same Christ whom Plecgils

3 2 The Piets were a tribe of Britain, located in the

south of present-day Scotland. The chief authority for the
life of Nynian is Bede (Ecclesiastical History) . See W.
Smith and H. W a c e , eds., Dictionary of Christian Biography
(London: 1887), s.v. "Ninian," 45-46.
 50

formerly consecrated "under the appearance of bread by

means of the mystical words f11 and invites Plecgils to "view

with the eyes, handle with the hands." The priest takes

the boy up "into his trembling arms," embraces him, and

"actually kisses God, pressing with his lips the godly lips

of Christ." At this point there seems to occur some

mystical experience. Christ forms himself into a whirlwind

and speaks directly to Plecgils' mind. Plecgils then begs

God "that he deign to be turned again into the former

appearance." When Plecgils stands up, this has been done.

For the second edition of his work (844) Radbert chose

two further stories to augment his account of showings.

The first of these (number 1, above) is taken from the Life

of Saint Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (i.e.,

the Cappadocian Father, Basil of Caesarea). The Life was

written in Greek in the fourth century by Amphilochios,

Bishop of Ikonion, a friend of the Cappadocians, and

translated into Latin by a certain Urso, a subdeacon.03

According to the story, a Hebrew mixes himself with a

Christian congregation and sees that at communion time, a

little child is being distributed in the hands of Basil.

The Hebrew receives the "flesh truly made" and also from

the "chalice filled with blood," becoming a true

participant "on his own." He then goes home and tells his

33 See PL 73 301D-302A; and Lexikon fur Theologie und

Kirche I, s.v. "Amphilocios, Bp. iconii," 447.
 51

wife what he has seen and done. She responds: "the

Christian mystery is truly frightful and admirable." On

the following day the man returns to Basil and demands that

the miracle be accepted as from Christ. Basil does not

refuse him, but "offering the accustomed eucharist to all

who wanted it for salvation, Basil baptized the man with

all from his house who believed in the Lord."

The other story which has been appended to the second

edition (number 2, above) is taken from the Life of Saint

Gregory the Great, written by Paul the Deacon, a monk of

Montecassino, during the eighth century.34

In this story, when a noble matron is offered the

bread of the Lord's body in communion, she smiles.

Seemingly interpreting her smile as ridicule, Gregory

withdraws the sacred communion from her, places it on the

altar, and asks her why she had smiled. She says: "I

recognized that what I heard you call the body ofthe Lord

was a small portion of my offering, and so I smiled."

(That is, she has brought an offering of bread to the

service with her.) Gregory construes her answer to mean

that she does not know that the bread is now the body of

the Lord. So he speaks to the people, exhorting them "to

entreat God with prayers for the strengthening of the faith

of the woman, so that the Lord would show clearly in

a 4 See PL 75 52C-53B; and Lexikon fur Theologie und

Kirche VIII, s.v. "Paul the Deacon," 230-31.
 52

visible appearance what she was not strong enough to

believe with the eyes of the mind." Then the people get up

in a body and roll back the altar cloth, and the woman is

able to find a small part of the flesh of Christ there on

the altar, "overflowing with blood." Gregory then says to

the woman: "Learn that what the Truth affirms is real.

Because the bread which we offer is truly the body of

Christ, according to his own word, and the blood is truly

drink. Believe now at last that nothing can exist except

what the divine majesty has willed." He then prays that

the flesh return to its prior form, and this is done, "so

that all might glorify God, the faithlessness of the woman

might be driven out," and that she might be healed by the

reception of the sacrament.

As to the last of the miracle stories of Chapter XIV,

Paulus speaks of a fourth edition of Radb er t's work, which

he does not date in and of itself; however its earliest

example is an eleventh century manuscript. This fourth

manuscript edition broadens the third with further

additions. One such is in Chapter XIV, lines 71-119

(number 3, above), which purports to be a story told by the

Abbot Arsenius. Paulus doubts that this story originates

with Radbert33 , but I feel that his assertion is

33 See Paulus, "Einleitung," XXXV-XXXVI, following a

dissertation of 1877: Der theologische Lehrgehalt der
Scriften des Paschasius Radbertus (Marburg). Benedicta
Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 15 and 226 n. 72,
 53

questionable, since the original story predates Radbert by

several centuries, and seems connected to him in some

subtle ways.

The story itself is chapter 18 of The Sayings of the

Elders, which is Book 5 of a collection of the lives of the

early Fathers, reproduced in Volume 73 of M i g n e 1s Latin

Patrology.36 The story's author is unknown; however the

translator of the original Greek is given as Pelagius the

Deacon.37 This Pelagius is probably the same person who

later became Pope Pelagius I, reigning from the years 555

through 560. He would have done the translation while he

was a Deacon, and before he was elected Pontiff. It is

certain that this Pelagius, a native of Rome, both knew

Greek and had the opportunity to know the work in question,

since while he was a Deacon he served for many years as an

ambassador from Rome to Constantinople.50 Thus, as I said,

the story predates Radbert and it is part of an early

intimates that the story was added to Radbert's manuscript

in the twelfth century. This seems incorrect in light of
Paulus's presentation of an eleventh century manuscript
containing the addition.

36 PL 73, 978A-980A. The collection reproduced in

M i g n e 's Latin Patrology, Volumes 73 and 74, was first
published in the sixteenth century by Heribert Rosweyde.

37 For the information which follows, see Rosweyde's

Prolegomenon in PL 73, 49D-50B; 851B; 853C.

38 See A Dictionary of Christian Biography IV, s.v.

"Pelagius (8) I," 295-98. See also Lexikon fur Theologie
und Kirche VIII, s.v. "Pelagius I," 250.
 54

document which was translated into Latin by the sixth

c entury.

It is also highly possible that Radbert had the Verba

Seniorum in his library, since he certainly had the Life of

Basil which is of similar provenance.59 If he did have the

Verba Seniorum, the results are intriguing, since the

anecdote now given as lines 71 through 119 of Chapter XIV

would then become the possible source of his pseudonym for

the Abbot Wala: "Arsenius," who was mentioned above with

regard to the dating of the first manuscript edition.

In the Verba Seniorum itself, the narrator is the

Abbot Daniel, who is telling stories about the Abbot

Arsenius in Scythia, and who narrates that Arsenius has

told him the story. In De Corpore, the story is given as

if "Arsenius" was its source. He is said to have often

told the story of "a certain person living in Scythia." As

it now stands, little homey details about "Arsenius" have

been added to the beginning of the anecdote: "Arsenius" is

said to be a man of sanctity and compunction. He is so

filled with grace that he is forced to carry a handkerchief

in his robe, so that he can wipe his face when he suffers

from "an exuberant excess of tears." These touches sound

59 The Life of Basil is part of the same collection

included in Volume 73 of M i g n e 1s Latin Patrology. It would
be an interesting and informative study which established
the links between the various Lives in Rosweyde's
collection.
 55

like R a d b e r t 's description — he occasionally adopts a

sentimental tone.60

At any rate, the ultimate protagonist of the story,

the Scythian, also an abbot, is said to have been "great in

the active life, but simple in faith." Being uneducated,

he strays from the truth about the eucharist and says that

the bread is not the body of Christ "according to nature,

but it is a figure" of Christ. Two elders, knowing the

greatness of his works, consider that he has spoken

innocently and speak to him. The Abbot owns that he has so

spoken, and they proceed to argue with him. "Abbot, you

may not so hold...we believe that the bread is the very

body of Christ and the chalice the very blood of Christ;

and this is in truth and not in figure." Just as God took

the dust of the earth at the creation and formed man in his

image, in the same way the church believes that the bread

of which Christ said "This is my body" is the body of

Christ in truth. But the Abbot tells them that such claims

will not satisfy him unless he sees the truth of them with

his own eyes. They all in turn pray for this to occur at

the next eucharist, the Abbot saying: "Lord, you know that

I am not incredulous in this thing through malice. But,

60 For example, in Chapter IX, lines 76-78 (CCCM.XVI,

54-55) , he speaks of Christ "raising us high to his heart"
in forgiveness of sin, so that "happily one after another
(we) live in eternity."
 56

lest I might err through ignorance, Lord Jesus Christ,

reveal to me accordingly what the truth is."

At the eucharist, all three are waiting. When the

breads are placed on the altar, "it appeared to just these

three as if a little boy was lying on the altar. And when

the presbyter had extended his hand so as to break the

bread, an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, having a

knife in his hand, and he sacrificed that little boy,

indeed catching up his blood in the chalice. Moreover,

when the presbyter broke the bread into little pieces, the

angel also cut up the boy's limbs into like parts." Later

when the Abbot approaches to take communion, to him alone

"flesh stained with blood" is given. In fear he cries out,

"Lord, Ibelieve that the bread which was placed on the

altar is your body and the chalice is your blood."

Immediately the flesh and blood regain their appearances as

bread and wine, and giving thanks to God, the Abbot

receives communion. The elders explain to him that God

transforms his body into bread and his blood into wine for

the faithful, because human nature is not able to feed on

raw flesh. Then, giving thanks to God that he has not

allowed the good life of the Abbot to come to nothing, they

return with joy into their cells.61

61 If Radbert himself added this story to his treatise,

and if its source was known to his readers, it is possible
that it was meant as an implied criticism of the Abbot
Wala's theology. In the original source "Arsenius" [Wala’s
pseudonym) is the protagonist who errs with regard to the
 57

The remainder of this paper will explain the spiritual

significance of these stories, with special attention given

to the appearances of a Divine Child. As I said above, the

stories encourage a particular type of spirituality,

focussed on a process of interior growth and change which

C.G. Jung has termed "individuation." This process and its

connection to visions of a child will be addressed in

Chapters 2 and 3 herein.

Additional points of note are:

(1) The emphasis on materiality which is provided by

the several instances of visions of "raw flesh" or blood:

— the Hebrew takes the "chalice filled with blood"

from Basil,

--the noble matron finds on the altar a small portion

of the flesh of Christ "overflowing with blood,"

--the Scythian Abbot and his friends watch the

sacrificing angel catch the blood of the sacrificed

boy in the chalice,

— later this same Abbot alone is offered "flesh

stained with blood" at communion.

These instances are an indication of the importance of our

own materiality. In other words, the spirituality being

proposed by Radbert is not world-denying.

reality of C hr i s t ’s body in the eucharist. If this implied

criticism is a fact, the theology of Ratramnus would follow
that of his Abbot, Wala, and Radbert would be the
dissenter.
 58

{2) In all the stories except that of Plecgils, the

visionary experience recounted leads to a conversion. The

Hebrew is converted to Christianity; the woman receives

interior faith; and the Scythian Abbot likewise comes to

believe that Christ is truly present in the eucharist. In

the story of Plecgils it is expressly remarked that he

needs no such conversion.

(3) The interior virtue of faith is an underlying

issue in all of these stories. This is most clearly shown

in the cases of the woman and the Scythian Abbot. Their

good deeds are firmly noted: she regularly brings offerings

to the eucharistic service; he is "great in the active

life." But the visions are granted to them so that their

inner life of faith may come to match their outer lives of

virtue.

All of the above points underscore Radbert's assertion

that the purpose of a "figure" or outward appearance is to

lead us to the genuine truth of faith, which is within.

 CHAPTER TWO

Psychology and Visions

Before I discuss the process of individuation, it is

necessary to discuss the general psychological theory which

forms its base. At the same time, I will provide some

background information with regard to the miraculous in

general, and especially as to visions as an instance of

what is usually termed the miraculous. First, I will look

at some history of how miracles and visions have been

explained within the Christian tradition. Ultimately, one

sees that most visions cannot be understood only as simple,

empirical events ,rout there". The great majority of

genuine visions have a subjective component. Second, I

will provide some psychological insight into this

subjective component. The theories of C.G. Jung, as I have

said, respect this subjective component admirably. That

is, this psychology provides an explanation of what this

component can mean, without explaining the vision away.

Third, {in the next chapter) I will discuss the place of

such visions, and of the subjective element in them, in the

process which Jung calls individuation.

I have referred previously to the "episodes" in

Chapter XIV of Radbert's treatise as both miracle stories

and visions. The terms are not necessarily

interchangeable, but certainly may be connected under the

59
 60

heading of "miraculous visions” . At any rate, it will be

helpful at this point to examine the mind of earlier ages

(insofar as this is possible) on the idea of miracles in

general, tracing a bit of the history of how miracles have

been regarded through the centuries, and remembering that

the eucharist itself was regarded as a miracle. Concepts

in use during the late patristic and early medieval ages

are especially important, followed by some general church

teaching on the subject. Finally, I will present some

modern theory, centering on the psychology of C.G. Jung and

the theology of Karl Rahner.

The Concept of the Miraculous in the Early Middle Ages

The attempt to "make sense" out of the miraculous—

that i s , to present a natural explanation of what is by

definition beyond or above (super) nature — is as old as

humankind's religious quest. Benedicts Ward traces early

medieval thought on miracles to four works of Augustine of

Hippo (d. 430):

. . .De Genesi ad Litteram, De Trinitate, De

Utilitate Credendi, and De Civitate Dei.
Augustine argues that there is only one miracle,
that of creation, with its corollary of re­
creation by the resurrection of Christ. God, he
held, created the world out of nothing in six
days, and within that initial creation he planted
all the possibilities for the future. All
 61

creation was, therefore, both ’natural' and

'miraculous'. . .1

In other words, nature, in and of itself, is filled

with the miraculous — it is itself God's first "miracle"

or sign. Thus, according to Augustine, daily events are

signs of G o d ’s power. In addition, from time to time,

unusual showings of God's power have been provided, usually

through the auspices of holy men and women, for the

edification of God's people.

Gregory of Tours (d. 594), although not systematic in

his presentation, mirrors A ugustine’s concept of the

miraculous.2 According to Ernest Brehaut

Two words are always recurring in his writings;

sanctus and virtus, the first meaning sacred or
holy, and the second the mystic potency emanating
from the person or thing that is sacred.3

Brehaut goes on to say that the concepts of sanctus

and virtus have no ethical meaning; virtus does not refer

to the concept of virtue as this would be defined today,

and it does not imply moral rectitude or ethical goodness.

Rather, virtus "describes the uncanny, mysterious power

emanating from the supernatural and affecting the

1 Benedicts Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind:

Theory, Record and Event 1000-1215 (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 3.

2Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks, ed. ,

with an Introduction by Ernest Brehaut (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1916}.

3Brehaut, "Introduction", xix. I noted in Chapter 1

that Augustine used the term virtus to denote the inner
power of a sacrament.
 62

n atural....The quality of sacredness (i.e. sanctus) and the

mystic potency (i.e. virtus) belong to spirits" (i.e., by

right of possession). However, these can be "acquired by

the faithful, and transmitted to (material) objects."4

Gregory's concept of virtus may be compared to the

primitive concept of mana, which has been described by some

as a sort of free-floating divine potency.3 Mana would be

possessed naturally by the gods (or, in Christianity, would

belong by right to the world of spirits — the spiritual

r e al m) . The gods would in turn bestow this potency on

those who gain their favor. In this way a contact point

would be formed between the supernatural and the natural

worlds. The "graced" person who had been given virtus

and/or sanctus would become a conduit of mystic potency,

and perforce, a doer of wonders.

In a Christianized sense, this mystic potency would

derive from Divine power, and be mediated for the most part

by the saints, or by objects related to the veneration of

saints (such as relics), or by other holy objects (such as

the eucharist).

The notion of virtus was not limited to a potency

attributed to the saints. Occasionally Gregory writes of

nature as if the powers of God are trying to "break

4 Ibid.

3 For some discussion of mana see Geoffrey Parrinder,

ed., World Religions: From Ancient History to the Present
(New York: Facts on File Publications, 1983), 11, 55, 150.
 63

through." It is as if God's power exists just beyond the

field of human vision, and from time to time, in this or

that natural event, the power is recognized. This is the

kind of power which Radbert recognizes in the sacrament of

eucharist and which he is attempting to disclose in his

Chapter XIV.

In fact, all of the sacraments were seen to be a part

of nature (understood in this sense), because they were

daily miracles — particularly the eucharist. Ward says

that the sacraments "were the supreme instances of the

regular but mysterious intervention of God in the created

order: quotidiana miracula." She goes on to list three

types of miracles that were connected to the eucharist:

what was later called 'the miracle of the mass'

itself (the discussion of the content of the
sacrament in theological terms); visions and
miracles that illustrated this; and, as there
were to a much lesser degree for other
sacraments, miracles tangential to the sacrament
that demonstrated its power in practical
situations.6

As I showed in Chapter 1, to Radbert the eucharist is

a daily wonder in which, in a certain sense, the miracle of

the Incarnation is repeated.7 In other words, Radbert

6 Ward, 13-14. Ward seems to place this

differentiation and the miracles which illustrate it, in
the twelfth century. But see the discussion in Chapter 1
on this point, and n. 55 there.

7 See CCCM.XVI, 14-15; De Corpore, Chapter I, lines 44-

55. For example, lines 49-52: Unde ipsa Veritas ad
discipulos: Haec, inguid, caro mea est pro mundi vita. Et
ut mirabilius loquar, non alia plane, quam quae nata est de
M a r i a ... e t c .
 64

connects the overriding 'miracle of the mass' to God's

greatest miracle. He also says in the opening lines of

Chapter XIV that the "mystical sacraments" of Christ's body

and blood "have often been shown in visible appearance" so

that the doubting may be reassured and the believer's faith

might be strengthened. In Ward's terminology, therefore,

these appearances illustrate the reality of the flesh and

blood of Christ usually hidden under the appearances of

bread and wine in the sacrament. R a db e rt ’s treatise could

also be shown to exhibit the use of miracle stories to

demonstrate the power of the eucharist in practical

situations (Ward's third type of eucharistic miracle), but

not in the section of his treatise under discussion.8

Radbert himself uses the word virtus several times in

the final paragraph of Chapter XIV:

Better indeed is the inner power of the thing

than its appearances and fleeting outward
character [color — of eucharistic "accidents"].
For that reason the inner power must be more
weightily considered than the outward character
[color} or taste. Because he who empowered all
of nature, divinely conceded to this sacrament,
that it be his own flesh and blood.9

8 See CCCM.XVI, 60-61; Chapter IX, lines 204-246. In a

story borrowed from Gregory of T o u r s ’ Libri 8 Miraculorum
(Miracle 1,9), a Jewish boy receives the sacrament
following a vision. His father throws him into a furnace
as a punishment, but he is rescued. The Father is in turn
thrown into the furnace by the enraged townspeople, all of
whom come to belief in Christianity.

9 Potior quippe virtus rerum est quam species et

fucatus color. Idcirco virtus magis consideranda est quam
color seu sapor exterius. Quia qui universis virtutem
naturae dedit, hie huic sacramento divinitus indulsit, ut
 65

It is not stretching Radbert's concept to say that a

quality of sacredness is transmitted to the recipient of

the eucharist by means of the virtus or mystic potency of

the sacrament. In other words, the virtus of the sacrament

of eucharist brings sanctus to the recipient,10 or, in

Radbert's words

...[God] conferred the flesh and blood of Christ

on the church, in order to complete the entire
sacrament of this mystery, and mercifully lead
his sinless ones toward immortality.11

What is new in Radb er t’s presentation however, is his

moral emphasis. In Chapter IX for example, in citing

several reasons for a daily immolation and reception of

Christ in the eucharist, two of the reasons given deal with

human sin: We sin daily, and so Christ daily relaxes the

sins which we repeat through our own fault; and, as new

Adam, Christ reconciles us in himself.12 Thus Radbert has

moved beyond the world of Gregory of Tours. Virtus still

sit caro et sanguis ipsius. (CCCM.XVI, 91; Chapter XIV,

lines 176-180.) I have translated the one word virtus as
"inner power" because Radbert is presenting a contrast with
color seu sapor exterius, thus separating what I have
called inner power from outward appearances.

10 Although Radbert does not use this precise

terminology in any passage which I have translated thus
far.

1 1 . . .caro et sanguis Christi ecclesiae contulit, hoc

totum sacramentum huius bysterii compleat et ad
inmortalitatem suos inmaculatos clementer perducat.
{CCCM.XVI, 91; Chapter XIV, lines 180-182.)

12CCCM.XVI, 52-55; Chapter IX, lines 9, 17-19, and 75-

78.
 66

conveys sanctus, but sanctus now implies faith, bringing

with it "spiritualness and incorruptibility."13

Approaches to the Issue of Visions

In his classic work, The Graces of Interior Prayer: A

Treatise on Mystical Theology,14 A. Poulain makes the point

that the granting of a vision is a grace "of much less

importance than the mystic u n i o n . ..(People) imagine that

these graces occupied as large a place in the saint's

existence as in the accounts of their lives."13

He classifies visions into three types:

First: Exterior v i s i o n s , also called ocular and

corporeal, are visions perceived by the bodily
eyes. A material being is formed, or seems to be
formed, outside of us, and we perceive it like
anything else that is round about us.

13 ...spiritalia et incorruptibilia...CCCM.XVI, 91;

Chapter XIV, line 183. Radbert is not the first to apply
moral qualities to sanctus; see C.H. Talbot, ed. and
t ran s. , The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany (New York:
Sheed and Ward, 1954) . The biographies span the late
seventh to late eighth centuries. While "holy power"
certainly surrounds the pious subjects of these
biographies, there is also a growing emphasis cn the
saints' moral qualities which is absent from earlier works
stressing virtus. . . The biographers say that they feel
compelled to write so that the deeds of these holy men and
women can be "imitated with profit" (205), and so that
their readers "may be led towards the pursuit of better
things" (26). Thus these lives are to be emulated, not
merely celebrated.

14 A. Poulain, The Graces of Interior Prayer

(Westminster, VT: Celtic Cross Books, 1910; enlarged
edition, 1950, 1978). (Page references are to the 1978
edition.)

10 I b i d . , 299.
 67

Second: Imaginative visions are visions of

material objects, seen without the assistance of
the e y e s . They are perceived by the imaginative
sense.

Third: Intellectual visions are visions

perceived by the mind alone without any interior
image.

The chief difference, of course, between imaginative

and intellectual visions is the lack of an image in the

case of the latter. According to Poulain, intellectual

visions are of a higher order than the other types.16

Visions of bodiless beings — angels, for example — cannot

be corporeal because these beings do not possess a body.

Poulain devotes the major portion of -his discussion of

visions to imaginative visions. He uses Teresa of Avila as

an exemplar, saying that she never had any exterior

visions.17

Imaginative visions are sometimes accompanied by

ecstasy, but there is no necessity that the vision should

either produce ecstasy nor be produced by such a state.18

These visions are quite real:

’Now and then it seemed to me [Teresa] that what

I saw was an image; but most frequently it was
not so. I thought it was Christ Himself, judging
by the brightness in which He was pleased to show

16 Ibid., 310.

17 Ibid., 302-303. In his discussion of Teresa,

Poulain seems to mingle imaginative and intellectual
visions. Perhaps the line between the two is not always
clear, especially when one is dealing (as Poulain) with old
biographical material.

18 Ibid., 308.
 68

Himself. Sometimes the vision was so indistinct,

that Ithought it was an image, but still not
like a picture, however well painted. . . If what
I saw was an image, it was a living image — not
a dead man, but the living Christ: and he makes
me see that He is God and Man . . . as He was
when He had . .. risen from the dead . . .No
one can have any doubt that it is Our Lord
Himself, especially after Communion: we know that
he is then present, for faith says so.' {Life,
ch. xxviii, II, 12. j19

According to Teresa and John of the Cross, such

visions pass quickly:

’When anyone can contemplate this sight of Our

Lord for a long time, I do not believe it is a
vision, but rather some overmastering idea.’
(Interior Castle, Sixth Mansion, ch. ix, 5.)zo

But Poulain himself doubts that this fleeting quality of

imaginative visions is always the case.21

One of the earmarks of such visions is a sense of

certainty about them:

. . , the more the evil one assails her with

fears, the more certain does she feel that he
could never have produced the great benefits she
is conscious of having received, because he
exercises no such power over the interior of the
soul. He may present a false apparition, but it
does not possess the truth, operations, and
efficacy of the one she has seen.' (Interior
Castle, Sixth Mansion, ch. ix, 8.)22

19Quoted in Poulain, 309. The reality of imaginative

visions is not physical, but psychical. The "realness" of
psychic events becomes understandable in a Jungian context,
as the subsequent portions of this chapter will illustrate.

2“ Quoted in Poulain, 309.

21Poulain, 309-310.

2zQuoted in Poulain, 311.

 69

These visions produce at first fright and confusion,

and then are followed by peace.33 They impart valid

knowledge of divine truths,24 and have salutary effects

upon the visionary's conduct. Their memory persists.20

As to exterior or corporeal visions:26 Poulain says

these may be produced in four ways, ranging from the actual

objective presence of the one who appears, to a subjective

impression imparted {he says) by angels.27 Poulain

describes one of the ways in which a vision is produced as

"semi-objective." In such a "semi-objective” vision, light

rays or some material mode of seeing actually present

themselves.

And as the eye of the person who sees the vision

will then receive the light in a natural way, . .
. the pupil will be lit up as it would be before
any brilliant object, and will reflect the
picture before it. The bystanders might be able
to see the reflection, which has the appearance
of a finely wrought cameo. I know two ecstatics
in whose cases this phenomena has often been
verified.2 8

23Poulain, 311-312.

2 4 Ibid . , 312-313.

2“Ibid., 313.

26 Ibid., 314-317. He devotes only these four pages to

exterior or corporeal visions, having devoted the bulk of
the material on visions to imaginative visions.

27 It is difficult to see how this last can be called

"corporeal" in any sense.

zspoulain, 314.
 70

Poulain mentions no subjective element in these

visions, but presumably one exists.29 He treats visions of

Christ , for example, as having an objective, corporeal

reality, especially "if Our Lord shows Himself in close

proximity to the Sacred Host."30 He includes here visions

of Christ as a child.31

Karl Rahner,32 on the other hand, would place even

more emphasis than Poulain on the imaginative vision, and

he emphasizes the subjective element in all such visions.

He says that "the 'authenticity' of a vision cannot be

simply equated with its corporeality."33 Citing many cases

of seemingly objective visions which show bodies in a

manner inappropriate to that person now — e.g. Christ

shown as a child — he concludes:

In these circumstances is it not the most

probable supposition that an apparition of Christ
or of the saints is an imaginative vision? For

29 Visions tend to be culturally colored. See R.C.

Finucane, Appearances of the Dead: A Cultural History of
Ghosts {Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1984). Finucane
discusses changing "styles" in ghostly apparitions from the
Reformation to the Victorian era; 97, 149, 204.

30Poulain, 315.

31 Ibid., 316. Adolphe Tanqueray is another spiritual

writer who deals with the subject of visions. See Chapter
III, "Extraordinary Mystical Phenomena," especially 700-
709, in The Spiritual Life: A Treatise on Ascetical and
Mystical Theology, trans. H. Branderis (Tournai, Belgium:
Desclee and Co., 1930).

32 Karl Rahner, Visions and Prophecies {New York:

Herder and Herder, 1963).

33 Ibi d. , 33.
 71

what purpose would be served by the 'objective'

formation of an apparent body, or a miraculous
affection of the visionary's external senses?
The presence of Christ's own humanity in such a
vision would be no more 'objective' than it is in
an imaginative vision.

In short: most visions are imaginative, above all

simply because many visions (including those
assumed to be genuine) cannot be corporeal ones:
therefore all of them can at least presumed to be
imaginative visions.34

As to the nature of these imaginative visions, they

must both "conform to the psychic laws determined by the

intrinsic structure of the seer's spiritual faculties" and

"be caused by God."30 He even more strongly states:

To express the matter in theological terms:

generally even authentic visions (in regard to
their content) will not be supernatural quoad
substantial but only quoad modum (as caused by
G o d ) ; or at least it will be impossible to prove
them anything more. In short, neither
experiencing its apparent or real perception nor
the content itself will generally be a strict
'criterion of authenticity', that is, of the
imaginative visions's non-subjective causation
and divine origin, because the nature of an
imaginative vision as such simply cannot offer
such evidence, or at least does not do so under
normal circumstances.3 G

34 Ibid., 38. My emphasis on imaginative visions need

not compromise the objective reality of certain experiences
beyond the normal. See John Heaney, The Sacred and the
Psychic (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), who quotes
Wolfhart Pannenberg to the effect that certain visions may
perhaps be more rightly understood as actually laying hold
of an extrasubjective reality (164).

33Rahner, 41.

36 Ibid., 53-54. There is probability of subjective

influences even in the case of group visions. See
Finucane, 205 passim.
 72

To Rahner, it is not the vision itself which is the

issue, but the process within the visionary of which the

vision is only an effect.

We can assume on principle what is urged by the

testimony of classic mysticism, that even in the
imaginative vision it is not as a rule the vision
as such (the stimulation of the sense-organs)
that is primarily and directly effected by god.
Rather the vision is a kind of overflow and echo
of a much more intimate and spiritual process.37

It is the inner core of the person who receives the

vision which is primary, and the "divine motion" is first

applied to this spiritual center:

If the divine motion were not first applied here,

then the vision would expose the seer instead to
the danger of passing the essential thing by.
Even Judas 'saw' the Lord. But the eyes of his
spirit, of the personal core in him, were closed.
Only in the case of a purely charismatic
'prophetic vision', of a simple gratia gratis
d a t a , could one assume without great hesitation
that the divine impulse directly affects the
faculties of sense as such and them alone. But
generally God will not use a man as Balaam's
ass .3 0

All of the foregoing is so because a vision — if and

when it occurs — has the sanctification of first, the

individual, and then the church (or humanity in general) as

its underpinning and goal. "Normally . . . a vision

presupposes and fosters the moral and religious progress of

man."30 Rahner does not stress this last point, but it

37Rahner, 56. He cites Teresa of Avila and John of

the Cross on this point (n. 53) .

3 0 I b i d ., n. 52.

39 Ibid.
 73

will be central to the ideas presented in this paper that

certain visions are indicative of new spiritual directions,

not only for the visionary, but for his or her culture as a

who1e .

The spiritual center of the visionary is not only

acted upon, but is active.

The graphic content of a vision is not only a

'picture' of the actual divine contact but also
of the person who receives i t ; and since by
definition that content cannot impinge on his
consciousness until it is already a synthesis of
the divine influence and the seer's subjective
limitiations, it will not only be very difficult
in practice to undertake an 'analysis' of the two
sources, but even impossible in principle.40

Thus the content of the vision represents "the joint

effect of the divine influence plus all the subjective

dispositions of the visionary."41

40 Ibid., 64, emphasis added.

41 Ibid., 63. Since the "subjective dispositions of

the visionary" would include his or her idea of God, this
will explain why Hindu visionaries see, for example,
Krishna, while Christians generally perceive Christian
figures. Interestingly, Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose
visionary was a Mexican peasant, is closely related to an
Aztec goddess named Tonantzin — Our Little Mother. See
Patricia Harrington, "Mother of Death, Mother of Rebirth:
The Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe," Journal of the American
Academy of Religion, Spring 1988, LVI.l, 33:
"Notwithstanding the obviously Spanish character of the
Virgin of Guadalupe, her early cult was overwhelmingly
Indian. Sahagun considered it to be paganism that
continued 'under the equivocation of this name Tonantzin,'
which could be used by missionaries as the Nahuatl
translation for the title 'Our Mother' given to Mary."
Bernardino de Sahagun was an early Catholic missionary who
wrote the Florentine Codex; General History of the Things
of Hew Spain, Book I: The Gods, trans. Arthur J.O. Anderson
and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe, NM: The School of American
Research and the University of Utah, 1950).
 74
(
A Psychological Approach

The examination of the foregoing writers will have

shown that a vision generally cannot be understood in and

of itself, because it is not a manifestation into a vacuum.

Rather, the vision should tell us as much about the

visionary as it does about any heavenly content which such

a "showing" may contain. Thus we are led to a

psychological examination of the phenomenon.

It is true that the science of psychology as a whole

has not been supportive of the experience of the visionary

or of the mystic.42 However, C.G. Jung has produced a body

of psychological theory which succeeds in taking seriously

the dynamic, spiritual impulses of m a n ’s most interior

being.

Jung was born in Switzerland in 1875, his father being

a German clergyman and his mother a Swiss. He entered the

medical profession and eventually chose psychiatry as a

42Rahner adverts to this; see pp. 8-9. According to

J. Ruth Aldrich, "Teresa, A Self-Actualized Woman," in
Contemporary Psychology and Carmel, ed. John Sullivan
(Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1982), "Abraham Maslow
expressed the scientific consensus succinctly: '...like
most scientists, I had sniffed at them (mystic experiences)
in disbelief and considered it all nonsense, maybe
hallucinations, maybe hysteria — almost surely
pathological.'"(81) [Maslow citation taken from, Colin
Wilson, New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow and the Post-
Freudian Tradition (New York: Mentor, 1972), 3.]
 75

specialty. In 1900 he began working as an assistant

physician at the Burgholzli Psychiatric Clinic in Zurich.43

According to Joseph Campbell,44 Jung's doctoral

dissertation in psychiatry: "On the Psychology and

Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena,"43 contains

several themes "that were to appear as leitmotifs through

all of Jung's later thinking." These include the notion of

the autonomy of unconscious psychic contents, which can at

times assume control; and the idea that such control

mechanisms have teleological significance, protecting the

individual in a state of crisis, and pointing forward. In

addition, Jung would develop the notion that the

unconscious is an intuiting agent more acute than the

conscious mind. Finally, one of J u n g ’s important

contributions is the theory of "archetypes" — that is,

there seems to be a patterning force inherent in the human

43The details of Jung's life are included in the

introductory material accompanying many of his works. His
autobiography EMemories, Dreams and Reflections, ed. Aniela
Jaffe {New York: Random House, Inc., 1961)] is not very
informative as to the external circumstances of his life,
but gives a deep insight into the development of Jung's
thought and into his sensibilities.

44 Joseph Campbell, "Introduction" to The Portable

Jung, trans. R.F.C. Hull (New York: Viking Press, 1971) .

43C.G. Jung, Psychiatric Studies. Collected Works

Volume I [CW 1] (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1957; second edition 1970).
 76

psyche.46 This propensity to construct patterns lies

behind the erecting of man's meaning-systems.

In this chapter I will for the most part limit myself

to a detailed examination of Jung's theory of archetypes-

- the "patterns" within our unconscious. I also allude to

the teleological control exerted by certain of these

patterns at the end of this chapter. This teleological

principle intuits the possibility of change and pushes

toward development within the individual and the culture.

These further ideas are more fully explained in Chapters 3

to 5.

In 1903 Jung began his work in experimental

psychopathology, and his highly individualistic career may

be said to actually begin here. For a time he collaborated

with Freud (1906-1912), but their basic incompatibility

caused the termination of the relationship, and Jung

proceeded to develop his own ideas.47 Jung died in 1961.

His Collected Works total twenty volumes.48

46 Campbell, "Introduction," xii-xiii.

47 According to Campbell, many place the blame for the

rupture in this relationship on Jung's publication of
Symbols of Transformation [CW 5.1] (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1967). But Jung himself, although
granting that the book was part of it, felt that his
knowledge of Freud's affair with Freud's own wife's younger
sister was even more explicitly the problem (xx).

48 See the excellent bibliography of Jung's works in

Anthony Storr, e d . , The Essential Jung (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1983), 427-36.
 77

Central to any discussion of J u n g ’s psychology are

several concepts. First of all, Jung's notions of the ego

and the Self are seminal, and lead to a discussion of the

even more basic ideas of the conscious and the unconscious.

Each human psyche is, of course, conscious; but an even

larger portion of the psyche is actually unconscious.

After a primary discussion of ego and Self and their

connections to the conscious and unconscious human psyche,

I will introduce two further essential ideas: the

collective unconscious and the archetypes.

The ego is the complex factor to which all conscious

contents are related. It is the center of the field of

consciousness and of the empirical personality. It is the

subject of all personal, conscious acts and is the "I" to

which all psychic activity must be related if this activity

is to be conscious. In fact "The relation of a psychic

content to the ego forms the criterion of its

consciousness, for no content can be conscious unless it is

represented to a subject."49 The ego rests on the total

field of consciousness and is the point of reference of

this consciousness.

The ego also rests on certain unconscious contents.

These may be subliminal perceptions from outside, of which

49C.G. Jung, "Five chapters from: Aion," in Psyche and

Symbol, ed. Violet S. de Laszlo {Garden City, NY: Doubleday
Anchor Books, 1958), 2. (C.G. Jung, Aion [CW 9.2]
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959; second
edition, 1968) .)
 78

we never fully become aware. These are also psychic

unconscious contents which fall into three groups:

...first, temporarily subliminal contents that

can be reproduced voluntarily (memory); second,
unconscious contents that cannot be reproduced
voluntarily; third, contents that are not capable
of becoming conscious at a l l . Group two can be
inferred from the spontaneous irruption of
subliminal contents into consciousness. Group
three is hypothetical; it is a logical inference
from the facts underlying group two. This
contains contents which have not yet irrupted
into consciousness, or which never will.80

Jung devoted a great deal of his writing to this third

level of the unconscious, which we may designate the

unconscious proper. For example:

We may assume that human personality consists of

two things: first, of consciousness and whatever
this covers, and second, of an indefinitely large
hinterland of unconscious psyche. So far as the
former is concerned it can be more or less
clearly defined and delimited, but so far as the
sum total of human personality is concerned one
has to admit the impossibility of a complete
description or definition. In other words, there
is unavoidably an illimitable and indefinable
addition to every personality, because the latter
consists of a conscious and observable part which
does not contain certain factors whose existence,
however, we are forced to assume in order to
explain certain observable facts. The unknown
factors form what we call the unconscious.81

The ego rests on these unconscious contents, but by

definition is not aware of them. However, the human

personality includes these unconscious contents, as becomes

evident when others tell us things about ourselves of which

80 Jung, "Five chapters," 3.

81 C . G. Jung, Psychology and Religion (New Haven, CT:

Yale University Press, 1938), 47-48.
 79

we were previously unaware. The personality as a total

phenomenon therefore does not coincide with the ego, but

forms an entity which must be distinguished from the ego.

This is the Self, which cannot be fully known, and to which

the ego is subordinated.02

The Self is an organizing center and inner guiding

factor of psychic growth which is different from the

conscious personality. It is at first only a possibility,

since the ego is also an organizing function which must be

willing to listen to messages of the Self. Unless aspects

of the Self are "noticed" by the ego, they will not be

brought from potentiality into actuality.33 "The self is

defined psychologically as the psychic totality of the

individual."04 The superordinated self is a center of the

total, illimitable and indefinable psychic personality,

which includes unconscious contents.00 I will return to

this.

According to Jung there is a further level of

unconscious in human beings, to which he referred as the

32 Jung, "Five chapters," 3-4.

3 3M . - L . von Franz, "The Process of Individuation," in

Man and His Symbols, ed. C.G. Jung (New York: Dell
Publishing Co., 1964), 161, 163.

04C. G. Jung, "A Psychological Approach to the Dogma

of the Trinity," in Psychology and .Religion; West and East
[CW 11] (Princeton: Princeton University Press, Second
Edition, 1969), 156.

33 Jung, Psychology and Religion, 48 and n. 8.

 80

collective unconscious. I noted above that there are three

groups of unconscious contents. These might be termed a

"voluntary unconscious," which may be called upon at will;

an "involuntary unconscious," which enlivens dreams and

fantasy; and a "deep unconscious,” which may not ever

become conscious. From the standpoint of the total

personality, or Self, however, there is a two-fold division

of such unconscious contents:

...an "extra-conscious" psyche whose contents are

personal, and an "extra-conscious" psyche whose
contents are impersonal and collective. The
first group comprises contents which are integral
components of the individual personality and
could therefore just as well be conscious; the
second group forms, as it were, an omnipresent,
unchanging, and everywhere identical condition or
substrate of the psyche per se.06

Von Franz similarly refers to "two layers in the realm

of the unconscious products: one layer of personally

experienced, forgotten or repressed contents; the other

consisting of the collective unconscious, which reveals a

generally human innate psychic structure."07

Jung refers to the contents of this collective

unconscious as archetypes. The collective unconscious

itself is

...a substrata level of psychic activity that is

to do with inherited predispositions to act or
react in certain ways to certain life situations.

06 Jung, "Five chapters," 6.

07M .-I*. von Franz, C.G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time,
trans. W.H. Kennedy (New York: G.P. Putnam's sons, 1975),
124.
 81

These innate behavioural patterns are what Jung

has termed archetypes, which simply means an
original model. A synonym of archetype is
prototype. Of the archetypes Jung wrote the
following:

"There are as many archetypes as there are

typical situations in life. The endless
repetition has engraved these experiences into
our psychic constitution, not in the forms of
images, filled with content, but at first only as
forms without content representing merely the
possibility of a certain type of perception or
action."B 6

According to von Franz, the archetypes are "typical

'modes of apprehension1 which appertain structurally to all

human beings and which form at the same time an inner self-

image, so to speak, of human instincts or of their

structure."39 Archetypes have also (although more

technically) been defined as "the neuropsychic centres

responsible for co-ordinating the behavioural and psychic

repertoires of our species in response to whatever

environmental circumstances we may encounter."60 In the

98 Peter O'Connor, Understanding Jung, Understanding

Yourself (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), 17; citing Jung,
Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious [CW 9.1] (New
York: Pantheon Books Edition, 1959), 48.

"von Franz, J u n g .. .Myth, 125-26; citing Jung,

"Instinct and the Unconscious," in The Structure and
Dynamics of the Psyche [CW 8] (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1968), pars. 280-81 and Jung, Aion [CW
9.2], p a r . 278.

60Anthony Stevens, Archetypes: A Natural History of

the Self (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.,
1982), 17. Although he is not as well known as some other
expositors of Jung, Stevens1 book was generally well-
received on publication. The work attempts to present a
biological basis for the archetypes, and draws
 82

twentieth century the theory of archetypes has been

connected mainly with Jung. However, the notion has roots

at least as old as Plato:

Jung himself acknowledged his debt to Plato,

describing archetypes as 'active living
dispositions, ideas in the Platonic sense, that
preform and continually influence our thoughts
and feelings and actions.' For Plato, 'ideas'
were mental forms which were superordinate to the
objective world of phenomena. They were
collective in the sense that they embody the
general characteristics of groups of individuals
rather than the specific peculiarities of one. .
. they are common to all mankind, yet each person
experiences them in his own particular way. But
there the similarity ends, for the Jungian
archetype is no mere abstract idea but a
biological entity, a 'living' organism, endowed
with generative force,' existing as a 'centre' in
the central nervous system. . .61

relationships with the disciplines of ethology and

neurophysiology to do this. According to a review by John
Daniel in Harvest: Journal for Jungian Studies (28, 1982),
171: "The account of Jungian psychology is well written and
the material relating to the more familiar archetypal ideas
and images is amplified with liberal quotations from the
Collected Works and Dr. Stevens’ own clinical
m aterial...The case for an inherited basis of
personality... is argued strongly and convincingly.'1 In
another review (Quadrant: Journal of the C.G. Jung
Foundation for Analytical Psychology. Sp. 1984. Vol. 17,
No. 1, 61-64), Mary Ann Mattoon says: "The evidence
presented for the theory of archetypes [as biological
entities] is considerable and is organized according to
Jungian theories...Archetypes makes a significant
contribution to Jungian psychology by building a bridge to
the more ’scientific' desciplines." A further review
appeared in Journal of Analytical Psychology (1983, No. 28,
80-82 by Kathleen Marriott. Both Marriott and Mattoon felt
that Stevens’ treatment of certain material was sexist.
However, the material in question is not pertinent to this
study.

61 Stevens, 39; citing Jung, [CW 8], para. 154; and

Psychological Types [CW 6] (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1971), para. 6, n. 9.
 83

The German astronomer Johann Kepler (1571-1630) also

anticipated the theory of archetypes:

Kepler believed that his delight in scientific

discovery was due to the mental exercise of
matching ideas or images already implanted in his
mind by God with external events perceived
through his senses.6 2

Kepler even spoke of his innate ideas and images as

"archetypal.11

Because Jung, and others, have referred to archetypes

as "primordial images," however, he has often been accused

of so-called "Lamarckianism."

How could 'primordial imag es ,' as Jung often

referred to archetypes, be inscribed in the brain
and later be 'developed* by experience? It was
this which made one suspect that he believed that
experiences acquired by one generation could be
transmitted genetically to the next — the
discredited view originally advanced by the
French biologist, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-
1829) .63

But properly understood the term is not at all Lamarckian.

In Jung's own words, the term archetype

is not meant to denote an inherited idea, but

rather an inherited mode of functioning,
corresponding to the inborn way in which the
chick emerges from the egg, the bird builds its
nest . . . (etc.) In other words, it is a
'pattern of behaviour.' This aspect of the

62 Stevens, 45.

63 Ibid., 16. See also Robert B. Palmer,

"Introduction," in Walter F.Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult
(Dallas, TX: Spring Publications, 1981, 1986; original
edition, 1965), xvi. Palmer accuses both Freud and Jung of
Lamarckianism.
 84

archetype, the purely biological one, is the

proper concern of scientific psychology.64

Von Franz refers to the archetypes as being like

"■activated points' within an electromagnetic field,

centers which can be delimited to a degree {but only to a

d e g re e) ..."6B Archetypes are also described as "psychic

aptitudes"66 which influence the development of the human

individual in that "the growing child (is) an active,

preprogrammed participant in the developmental process,"67

and not a taJbula rasa, or passive blank slate. According

to Jung himself:

It is in my view a great mistake to suppose that

the psyche of a new-born child is a tabula rasa
in the sense that there is absolutely nothing in
it. In so far as the child is born with a
differentiated brain that is predetermined by
heredity and therefore individualized, it meets
sensory stimuli coming from outside not with any
aptitudes, but with specific ones, and this
necessarily results in a particular, individual
choice and pattern of apperception. These
aptitudes can be shown to be inherited instincts
and preformed patterns, the latter being the a
priori and formal conditions of apperception that
are based on instinct. Their presence gives the
world of the child and the dreamer its

64C.G. Jung, The Symbolic Life [CW 18] (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1976), para. 1228; cited in
Stevens, 17-18.

6ovon Franz, Jung...Myth, 125.

66 Stevens, 45.

67I b id ., 44.
 85

anthropomorphic stamp. They are the

archetypes...6 B

How each individual's predispositions are developed and

expressed does depend upon environmental factors and

individual life experience, however.69

Anthony Stevens has addressed the question of the

relationship between heredity and the archetypes, saying

that there is a considerable conceptual overlap between

Jung's concept of archetype and the theories of others with

regard to species-specific behavioral systems:

Indeed, it would not seem far-fetched to identify

the archetypes with Ernst M a y r ’s ’open
programmes,' in that they are phylogenetically
acquired, genome-bound [i.e. genetically
inherited] units of information which programme
the individual to behave in certain specific ways
while permitting such behaviour to be adapted
appropriately to environmental circumstances. As
Jung Himself put it:

'the instincts form very close analogues to the

archetypes — so close, in fact, that there is
good reason for supposing that the archetypes are
the unconscious images of the instincts
themselves; in other words they are patterns of
instinctive behaviour. The hypothesis of the
collective unconscious is, therefore, no more
daring than to assume that there are
instincts.'7 0

66C.G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective

Unconscious [CW 9.1] {Princeton: Princeton University
Press, Paperback Edition, 1980), para. 136, 66.

69 Stevens, 44.

70 Ibid., 52, citing Jung, The Archetypes and the

Collective Unconscious [CW 9.1], para. 91, italics supplied
by Stevens. He is specifically referring to the
ethological theories of Dr. John Bowlby, who published "The
Nature of the Child's Tie to his Mother" in 1958. Ethology
is the study of behavior patterns in organisms living in
 86

Von Franz distinguishes instinct and archetype as

follows:

The difference between instinct and archetype is

the following: instinct is represented by
physical behavior, similar in all human beings,
while archetypes are represented by a mental form
of realization, similar in all human beings; that
is, homo sapiens mate in the same way all over
the world, die more or less in the same way, run
away, and go erect, all over the world, but
certain patterns of behavior characterize us as
different from other animals. Homo sapiens also
tend to have emotions of the same kind, ideas of
the same kind, religious reactions of the same
kind, seen best in the mythological motifs which
are similar all over the world. So at the one
end are the instincts, and at the other, the
corresponding inner experiences.71

It is here that a distinction should be drawn between

the archetype-as-such and the images which the archetype

their natural environments. Bowlby said, in summary, that

mankind reacts instinctively in certain situations: i.e.,
the forming of mother-child ties. Bowlby was countering
the behaviorists, who would say that the child forms ties
to the mother as a response to the receiving of food and
comfort, etc. See Stevens, 2ff.

71M . - L . von Franz, Puer Aeternus, 2d ed. (Santa

Monica, CA: Sigo Press, 1981), 148. Elsewhere, von Franz
says: "At first Jung regarded the question of the origin of
the archetypes as one of heredity, but in his later works
he left the question completely open. In my own opinion,
research into heredity and behavior may soon be able to
give us more exact information. In any case it is only a
question of time before behavioral research will be in a
position to join hands with Jung's exploration of the
archetypes. Up to the present the principal obstacle in
the way of such cooperation has been the fact that
researchers in behavior {Konrad Lorenz, for example) have
understood the Jungian archetype as an inherited memory-
image and have, accordingly, rejected it." Jung...Myth,
126. See above with regard to "Lamarckianism.11
 87

encourages.72 Archetypes are "the inherent psychic

structures responsible for the production" of images or

symbols.73 According to Jung:

'...archetypes are not determined as to their

content, but only as regards their form, and then
only to a very limited degree. A primordial
image is determined as to its content only when
it has become conscious and is therefore filled
out with the material of conscious experience.'74

Von Franz a d d s :

A clear distinction must be made . . . between

archetypes and archetypal images. Although it
cannot be directly demonstrated, the archetypes
are very probably innate structural
predispositions which appear in actual experience
as the factor, or element, which orders or
arranges representations into certain
'patterns.*7 6

The archetype is the potentiality, the image the

actual content, which content can be taken from experience.

The archetype determines, to an extent, our perception of

reality and gives our perceptions a shape which we can

understand. Jung seems to have been influenced in his

speculations to this effect by Kant and Husserl.

72 See Stevens, 18. See also Heaney, who clearly

distinguishes these two: "...for Jung the archetype is
primarily an innate patterning power and not a specific
image." (46) Heaney says that Jung made this clear only in
his later writings (145).

73 Stevens, 46.

74 Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

[CW 9.1], para. 155; cited in Stevens, 46.

7Dvon Franz, Jung. . .Myth, 125. See also C.G. Jung,

"On the Nature of the Psyche," in The Structure and
dynamics of the Psyche [CW 8], 2d e d . , par. 440.
 88

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804} questioned

whether the senses gave us a true and accurate

picture of what objects were 'really' like. We
cannot know, he believed, what we add to or
subtract from the real world in the act of
perceiving it. We experience the world as we do
because our perceptions impose a certain order on
it. We cannot do otherwise: we see things within
the artificial categories of space and time
because these a priori categories are like a pair
of tinted spectacles which we cannot remove and
they therefore colour every observation that we
m a k e .7 6

Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)

considered the shapes and colours that make up

our visual percepts to stand as 'symbols' of the
real objects perceived. (This . . . was in line
with the Platonic idealism which for centuries
dominated German p hi lo so ph y. One thinks of
G o e t h e ’s statement: 'All transitory things are
but a symbol.') Thus, for Husserl, like Kant, it
is our perceptions, rather than reality, that
determine what we perceive. Instead of a table
imposing itself on our perceptions, we impose our
perceptions on it: our unconscious perceptual
mechanisms marshal the chaotic mass of
information making itself available to our
senses, thus rendering them comprehensible to the
conscious mind.77

According to Stevens, Jung refers often to Kant's

statement that "there can be no empirical knowledge that is

not already caught and limited by the a priori structure of

cognition."7 0

Jung equated this 'a priori structure' with the

archetypal determinants of the phylogenetic
psyche (what he often referred to as the
objective psyche as well as the 'collective

76 Stevens, 55.

7 7 I b i d ., 55-56.

7 B Ibid., 58, quoting Kant's Critigue of Pure Reason.

 89

u n conscious'): he considered that it was these

archetypal structures which controlled the
perceptual mechanism, determining the relative
salience of differing stimuli arising from both
outside and inside the individual's personal
b oundaries.7 9

Jung also says, however, that the image itself as

reflected in consciousness is the only reality of which we

have certain knowledge.80 In other words, we cannot know

the archetype in and of itse lf , only the image which it

produces.8 1

But our subjective perceptions, and the images with

and by which we shape reality, do have an objective worth,

an objective reality, of their own. If this were not the

case our perceptions, and our adaptation to the objective

world, would be faulty and misleading. That is, the

"structure of our perceiving apparatus" in itself is part

of reality and has been developed or evolved in response to

(or in confrontation with) objective reality.82

What I have attempted to show by means of the above is

that our interior images have a reality of their own. They

79 Stevens, 58.

80 Ibid., citing Jung, Psychology and Religion: Nest

and East [CW 11], para. 769: "To the extent that the world
does not assume the form of a psychic image, it is
virtually non-existent. . ."

81 This issue is often confused by certain Jungians who

seem to equate the image with the archetype.

82 Stevens, 59, following Konrad Lorenz, Behind the

Mirror: A Search for a Natural History of Human Knowledge
(London: Methuen, 1977), 7-9.
are not counter to objective reality, but a part of it.

Therefore the ego — the organizing center of consciousness

— can pay attention to these images. Such attention is

not usually a problem, of course, when we are consciously

relating to the outer world. We have no difficulty, for

example, recognizing a dog as a dog. But certain inner

images may be either heeded or ignored, depending upon our

conscious attitude toward them. Such images are rightly

called symbols.

The archetypes express themselves in images, and

only through these can the ego become aware of
their activity. But the images do not become
symbols until a relatively specific attitude of
consciousness is taken towards them. This
attitude is complex, but its essential core is as
follows: the images are not only observed but are
made the object of reflection and given value . .
.The symbolic attitude is therefore one amongst
others, but all of them presuppose an established
conscious mind. . .

It is only when the suitable conscious attitude

is brought into relation with the images that
they become symbolic and consequently creative
and transforming.83

This suitable attitude is one that is adopted by the

ego as a decision. The ego is free to do as it chooses, in

that we can either pay attention to or ignore our images.

We are free either to allow an image to become a symbol and

hence be guided by it, or to ignore the symbolic value of

the image. Thus there is moral weight to this issue.

83 Michael Fordham, The Objective Psyche (London:

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958), 83.
 Furthermore, our consciousness itself arises from the

unconscious. "The ego is conceived as originating from the

unconscious after the manner of a child that is conceived

in and born out of its mother."04 If we ignore our images,

and deny value to our symbols, we do so to our peril. This

is because the process of ego development is progressive0B

— that is, we do not develop an ego-consciousness and stop

there — and symbols play a part in this growth. The ego

continues to develop throughout life. The ego, or

conscious psychic center, develops rightly insofar as it

allows itself {or chooses) to be guided by the total

psyche, including the unconscious. In this sense, the ego

recognizes its own limitations and submits to the

leadership of the Self. I said previously that the Self is

the organizing center and inner guiding factor of psychic

growth arising out of the unconscious. It is essential to

the health of the total psychic individual that this growth

not be stymied. This process of development, wherein the

ego submits to the Self, is called individuation, and is

the subject of Chapter 3.

Archetypal Vision as Symbol

Earlier I showed that Augustine granted that miracles

(and hence, miraculous visions) are part of nature. In a

04 Ibid., 82.

flflIbid.
 92

curious way, Gregory of Tours' position dovetails with

this. That is to say, although Gregory conceived of virtus

as separated from the personality of the person who

exhibited it, he nonetheless assumed that the power was

from God and was quite ordinary. What has been added to

this mix since the writings of the great mystics is the

idea — elaborated by Rahner — that the miraculous

occurrence (in this case a vision) is not super-imposed

upon the personality, but in some sense comes from within

the experiencing subject.

The theory of archetypes can supplement this insight.

That is, it is the archetype which gives form to the

vision; the image which takes shape within the visionary

(in the case of the imaginative or the intellectual vision)

is archetypal in nature.85 It is the archetype within the

psyche of the experiencing subject which develops the germ

of the experience (which we presume, with Rahner, to have

come from God) into an image within the visionary. Granted

value by the ego — the ego of the visionary influenced for

better or worse by the values of his or her society — such

an image becomes a symbol which draws the ego-consciousness

of both the individual and his or her culture forward.87

06 It should at this point be emphasized that external

or objective visions are outside the boundaries of this
discussion.

07 Besides Jung and his followers, other writers have

recognized the power of internal images. These images are
often called "innate" or "eidetic." See for example R.E.L.
 93

At this point it will be helpful to introduce the

term complex. According to Jung, this is "a collection of

associated ideas and images all linked together by a common

affect." Although the term complex has acquired

pathological connotations, Jung himself meant to imply no

pathology by its use. To him, complexes were the

functional units out of which the individual psyche is

composed. "Complexes are archetypes actualized in the

mind."08 This "enfleshment" of an archetype is brought

about by individual experience.

Complexes are part conscious and part

unconscious: they are to the personal
(ontogenetic) psyche what archetypes are to the
collective (phylogenetic) psyche, for they are
composed of ontogenetic ’flesh' covering a
phylogenetic 'skeleton'. At the core of every
complex there is an archetype.09

Complexes play a part in ego-development and the

process of individuation, because they are the means by

which our archetypal psychic structure is personalized or

individualized. They are also instrumental in the process

Masters and Jean Houston, The Varieties of Psychedelic

Experience (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966),
156. These authors refer to eidetic images which are
within the psyche and which can emerge into consciousness:
"probably the images have a common source with the images
of dreams and hypnotic states." They also connect the
eidetic images with myth, legend, folklore and fairy tale,
although without the systematization of Jung's presentation
of archetypes. The authors also say that the eidetic
images are possibly "clothed affect" (161).

88 Stevens, 65. The term "affect" refers to conscious,

subjective feeling.

89 Ibid., 66.
 94

of symbol-formation. Indeed, the ego-development of the

individual is only part of the picture, since we are

communal organisms who learn from one another. As Fordham

says: "The cultural forms of civilization result from the

interaction of the conscious and the unconscious."90 That

is, the symbols formed by and from our complexes have both

an individual and a group role. They play a part in the

development of ego and Self and go on to contribute to the

progress of civilization.

Archetypal, complex-based symbols influence the course

of human culture in two ways: first, the ego development of

an individual is passed on to that person's culture by

direct influence. A visionary, for example, by recounting

his or her experiences, can cause the listener to question

his or her own inner growth as a consequence. (In other

words one is led to ask oneself what this other person's

vision is saying to m e .)

Besides passing on formal knowledge, however, we are

capable of influencing further generations in a more

wholistic sense, as I indicated previously when I said

that, in paying attention to our images we grant them power

as guiding symbols. Here lies the most important role of

our symbols. Our growth-producing complexes, acting

symbolically, speak directly to the unconscious of others,

thus passing on the potential for (or evoking) ego-

90Fordham, 82.
 95

development in these others. This is not a (Lamarckian)

genetic passing on, but a type of unconscious or semi­

conscious influence.

Second, archetypal, complex-based symbols form the

basis of myth (and hence, ritual). Jung said that the

collective unconscious of mankind has "worked along the

same line of thought" for as long as humans have been

human. Thus there is a continuity in the archetypal

contents of the collective unconscious, and the possibility

exists of regenerating the same, or at least similar, ideas

in widely scattered instances of human history without one

person directly influencing another.91 So, the collective

unconscious is "the myth-creating aspect of the mind,"92

and the archetypes and complex potentialities within the

collective unconscious, manifesting themselves through

dreams and other images, form the foundation of myth and

folklore. That is, these contents will emerge in basically

the same form in many different times and places, and the

collective material of the archetypes appears as motifs

within the mythology and folklore of various peoples.

These collective forms or images may therefore be repeated

91 Jung, Psychology and Religion, 112 and n. 40.

92 Jonathan Cott, "Conversation with Marie-Louise von

Franz (1984)," in Visions and Voices (New York: Doubleday,
1987), 53.
 96

from group to group, and are illustrative of the

personality of groups and of individuals within groups.93

It is not that the concepts "archetype" and "myth" are

precisely coterminous. Jung has distinguished between the

archetype-as-such and the myth or symbol-system which the

archetype may produce. Thus, according to von Franz

...mythological patterns (are) not archetypes,

but rather archetypal representations and rites
which formed the contents of the collective
consciousness of a particular people. The
archetypes themselves, on the other hand, are the
unconscious dynamisms behind such conscious
collective representations; they produce them but
are not identical with them.94

Von Franz herself refers to the following passage from

Jung:

Another well-known expression of the archetypes

is myth and fairytale. But here too we are
dealing with forms that have received a specific
stamp and have been handed down through long
periods of time. The term "archetype" thus
applies only indirectly to the representations
collectives, since it designates only those
psychic contents which have not yet been
submitted to conscious elaboration and are
therefore an immediate datum of psychic
experience. In this sense there is a
considerable difference between the archetype and
the historical formula that has evolved.
Especially on the higher levels of esoteric
teaching the archetypes appear in a form that
reveals quite unmistakably the critical and
evaluating influence of conscious elaboration.
Their immediate manifestation, as we encounter it
in dreams and visions, is much more individual,
less understandable, and more naive than in
myths, for example. The archetype is essentially
an unconscious content that is altered by

93 See Jung, Psychology and Religion, 63-64.

94 von Franz, Jung...Myth, 128.

 97

becoming conscious and by being perceived, and it

takes its colour from the individual
consciousness in which it happens to appear.90

In summary: the images produced by the patterning

force of our archetypes can be embodied in symbols and

symbol-systems, and visions are one means of objectifying

this process. The vision is a kind of embodiment of an

archetype or complex, presenting a clear image on which an

individual or group may focus. This image can furthermore

act symbolically, in that it may evoke personal growth.

That is, the vision/image/symbol, experienced either at

first- or second-hand, calls out archetypal elements within

the unconscious of responding individuals, thus fostering

within those individuals a confrontation with their own

archetypes and initiating a process of complex-building ego

development. Such a confrontation, by deepening one's

knowledge of Self, is perforce growth-producing.

In the next chapter I will examine the complex which

Jung terms the Self, along with an example of one instance

of the Self which has exerted a powerful symbolic influence

upon Western culture. This is the figure of Christ, or as

Jung put it, of the Christ Archetype — i.e., the

90 Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

[CW 9.1], par. 6. Jung continues: "One must, for the sake
of accuracy, distinguish between 'archetype1 and
'archetypal ideas.' The archetype as such is a
hypothetical and irrepresentable model, something like the
'pattern of behavior* in biology." Cf. "On the Nature of
the Psyche," sec. 7, in The Structure and Dynamics of the
Psyche [CW 8].
archetypal complex which Christ as an individual embodies.

Then in Chapter 4 I will examine two archetypal symbols

from pagan mythology — the figures of Dionysos and

Odin/Wodan.
 CHAPTER THREE

The Individuation Process

and the Emergence of the Self

At the end of the last chapter I introduced Jung's

idea of the complex as the "enfleshment" of an archetype.

Anthony Stevens goes on to relate this general concept to a

process of growth within the individual psyche:

From the moment of conception the possibility of

individual development is inherent in the genetic
structure of the new individual and, however much
circumstances, both intra- and extra-uterine, may
influence development, the possibilities latent
in the original archetypal structure are primary
a priori determinants of the whole life-cycle.
This basic archetypal structure Jung termed the
Self, calling it 'the archetype of archetypes,’
and saw it as the matrix of the individual
totality, out of which the conscious individual
personality emerges. It is the Self which
determines the stages of ontological development,
functioning as invisible guide and mentor . . .1

I briefly referred in Chapter 2 to the concept of the

Self as an organizing center of the personality and inner

guiding factor of psychic growth. The Self is the psychic

totality of the individual. To draw a parallel with the

1 Anthony Stevens, Archetypes: A Natural History of the

Self (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1982),
66. Some Jungian writers, especially Marie-Louise von
Franz, capitalize references the the archetypal Self in
order to distinguish this entity from ususal references to
the individual as an agent (as in "I did it myself," etc.).
I adopt this practice in the text of this paper. In
citations, however, I retain the usage of the author in
question.

99
 100

ego (which is the center of the conscious personality), the

Self might be called the center of the unconscious

personality, both individual and collective. However, the

parallel is incomplete, in that the Self should also, in

the course of an individual life, assume a position with

regard to the conscious personality. The Self, as a center

of the total personality, both conscious and unconscious,

is discovered (or uncovered) in the course of a lifetime.

The process of coming to knowledge of one's Self is called

individuation.

Individuation means becoming a single,

homogeneous being, and insofar as 'individuality'
embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable
uniqueness, it also implies becoming o n e ’s own
self. We could therefore translate individuation
as 'coming to self-hood' or 'self-realization.'2

Individuation refers to "the better and more complete

fulfillment of the collective qualities of the human being

. . .It is a process by which a man becomes the definite

unique being he in fact is ... (The process) aims at a

living cooperation of all factors."3 Individuation refers

2 C .G . Jung, "The Relations Between the Ego and the

Unconscious," Part 2, "Individuation: I - The Function of
the Unconscious," in The Basic Writings of C.G. Jung, ed.
Violet S. de Laszlo (New York: Random House Modern Library,
1959), 143.

3 Jung, "Relations . . .(etc.)," 144.

 101

to an "integration of the contents of the collective

unconscious."4

Michael Fordham summarizes the individuation process

as follows:

individuation is a transpersonal
development resulting in growing consciousness of
the self; it begins in the second half of life to
continue through it. A considerable degree of
ego maturity is required for it to begin and,
once started, it leads to a development in
consciousness and the formation of an individual
philosophy of life giving increasing moral
autonomy and a sustained transpersonal attitude
to the inner and outer worlds based on the
symbolic experience of the self.3

He also says that "it is only after considerable

consciousness and experience of life has been achieved that

the development can take place."6

In referring to a philosophy of life, Fordham

specifies that this "is a transpersonal manifestation of

personality", related not only to an individual's own

history, but to the history of civilization.7 This can be

so because while the individuation process occurs in

individuals, it makes use of the transpersonal archetypes.

In this regard, within the individuation process, the Self

4 C.G. Jung, "Five Chapters from A i o n ," in Psyche and

Symbol, ed. Violet S. de Laszlo (Garden City, NY: Doubleday
Anchor Books, 1958), 22.

"Michael Fordham, The Objective Psyche (London:

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958), 53.

6 I b i d. , 52.

7 Ibi d., 53 .
 102

seems to function as a complex. A complex fleshes out an

archetype with individual experience. Likewise the Self,

while using the power of an archetype (or archetypes),

seems to be more than a simple and universal patterning

power (which is what an archetype is, in and of itself).

Rather the Self seems to draw on both archetypal content

and personal experience. Further, in the course of

civilization, the individuation process relates the

products of individual experience to the archetypal

contents of the psyche and is therefore both personal (with

regard to experience) and transpersonal (with regard to the

archetypes). Thus the individuation process is larger than

an individual's life experience — i.e., it is not just a

process of maturing as an individual, or gaining life

experience, or "learning a few things" about human nature.

A truly individuated or differentiated Self will, in

fact, cause the beginning of the process in others, not

only by goading or example, but also through the evocative

power of symbols, as I said in Chapter 2. The individuated

use of symbols will call forth the formative power of the

latent archetype in another and allow the other person to

begin his or her own process of enfleshment, or complex-

building. Symbols thus play a role in awakening the

possibilities for Selfhood which are still latent within an

individual psyche.

Personal experience plays similar role:

 103

This drive toward individuation is apparently a

spontaneous urge, not under the leadership of the
ego , but of the archetypal movement in the
unconscious, the non-ego, toward the fulfilment
of the specific basic pattern of the individual,
striving toward wholeness, totality, and the
differentiation of the specific potentialities
that are innately destined to form the particular
personality in question. The unconscious is the
matrix out of which these various qualities arise
step by toward differentiation in
consciousness, which they approach first in
symbolic guise until the ego learns to understand
and incorporate them. In this unconscious
matrix, then, the pattern of the wholeness of the
personality lies hidden awaiting the hand of
experience to stir it into activity; it is not an
ego ideal formed by upbringing, but a dynamic
urge emanating from the core of one's being,
laden with affect and presenting itself to
consciousness in terms of the archetypal
symbols .8

Symbols therefore are a part of individual experience

which surpasses the personal. It is through symbols

(including visions, myths and ritual) that each individual

will tap into the power of the unconscious — both the

personal and the collective unconscious.

If the Self is a complex, as I have said, rather than

only an archetype, then the question of which archetype

lies at its center is raised. Jung's writings suggest that

we are not limited to only one archetype in the realization

of the Self. Further, the choice of a central archetype

will influence not only the course of the individuation

process in the individual person, but also the person's

spiritual life. This is so because the image produced by

8R. Perry, The Self in Psychotic Process (Berkeley and

Los Angeles, 1953), 45; quoted in Fordham, 55.
 104

the central archetype is effectively equated with God.

That is, the self-image produced by the psyche is also a

god-image; or as Jung himself said: "One can never

distinguish empirically between a symbol of the self and a

God-image..."9

There are other archetypal images which are connected

with the Self and with the individuation process. Two of

these are the child — and its correlate, the Divine Child

— and the figure of Christ conceived of both as person and

archetype. With regard to Christ, his life and death—

which includes suffering and transformation — form a

pattern which further illuminates the study of the

archeypes. After a discussion of these three archetypes:

child, Divine Child and Christ, and of the pattern of what

I shall call "wounding", sacrifice and transformation, I

will return to the issue of the god-image.

The Child Archetype

The child figure is an enlarger of consciousness,

which works paradoxically by bringing one into a

relationship with one's unconscious. When confronted in

9 C .G . Jung, "A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of

the Trinity," in Psychology and Religion: West and East [CW
11] (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 156.
Likewise, the archetype and its image are difficult to
distinguish in practice as the interplay of terms in the
above sentences would indicate. Jung himself seems to have
used the terms "image" and "archetype" somewhat
interchangeably.
 105

symbolic form, this figure prepares the individual for a

particular change of personality. This change amounts to a

growth in conscious personality. This transforming

enlargement of consciousness is brought about by a

confrontation with, and a growing accomodation to, the

contents of the unconscious, both individual and

collective. Several writers discuss the position of the

child archetype vis-a-vis the Self and the individuation

process. These include Jung himself,10 Marie-Louise von

Franz,11 and Michael Fordham.12

Fordham speaks of finding our "real self" through the

past, of returning later in life to an experience of

totality which one first had in childhood. But the

totality which is experienced by a person in the second

half of life is qualitatively different from the same

experience in childhood, because now one returns to it

"fully equipped with an organized set of thoughts,

10C.G. Jung and C. K e r en yi , Essays on a Science of

Mythology: The Myth of the Divine Child and the Mysteries
of Eleusis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949,
1963, 1969). See especially, Section II: Jung, "The
Psychology of the Child Archetype," 70-100.

^M.-L. von Franz, Puer Aeternus, 2d ed. (Santa

Monica, CA: Sigo Press, 1981); and idem, C.G. Jung: His
Myth in our Time, tran s. W.H. Kennedy (Boston: Little,
Brown and Company, 1975).

12Fordham, The Objective Psyche, as above, see n. 5.

 106

feelings, sensations, perceptions, standards built out of

experiences spreading over the whole of a lifetime.1,13

One recaptures the infantile contents of the psyche,

which have not gone away, but which were 'put aside' for a

time in the ego-organizing process of the first part of

life. When these infantile contents re-emerge, they come

with a new significance which points to the Self.14 This

new and significant totality utilizes aspects of the psyche

which are not primary and which may be neglected functions

of the personality.

To explain briefly: according to Jung, the personality

of the individual is either introverted or extraverted, and

in addition, is primarily focussed on one method of

operation (or "function" to use his own terminology):

13 Ibid., 44.

14 Ibid. It is necessary to point out here that this

discussion is concerned with child-related, immature, or
infantile aspects of the individual, adult psyche, and not
with children as such. Fordham acknowledges (44-45)
however that part of our society's fascination with
children "springs from this archetype." He seems to mean
that we project onto actual children the immature contents
of our own psyche — those aspects of our personalities
which we have not developed. So we attempt to create
psychologically perfect children who will not suffer as we
have, and who will be able to change the world. But as he
himself says (44), "The world is not changed by children,
it is changed by adults."

An example of this confusion between archetype and

actual child is a series of articles by Alice E. Buck, "The
Child and the Child Archetype in a Nuclear Age," Parts I
through VI, The Journal of Religion and Psychical Research,
October 1982 through October 1987. Buck flips back and
forth between statements about the symbolic nature of
childhood and advice about the rearing of actual children.
 107

thinking, feeling, intuition, or sensation.15 Totality, if

it were possible, would consist of being both introverted

and extraverted, a thinker and a feeler, etc. But it is

not possible to be all of these, even in childhood, before

we are 'set in our ways.' With the onset of individuation,

however, suppressed or ignored parts of the personality may

be allowed to re-emerge, and we may allow ourselves to

nurture or cultivate aspects of our personality of which

previously we may have been unaware.

Looking at individuation from the point of view of the

archetypes adds a further dimension to the study of

personality. The use of archetypal imagery is not truly

separate from Jung's theory of personality, but such

imagery bypasses what might be mistaken for purely

objective, statistical personality data in favor of

focussing on the symbolic content within the emerging, more

wholistic, adult personality which is engaged in a process

of re-integrating aspects of the total Self. The child

archetype, and the image of the child, here possess special

significance.

15 See C.,G. Jung, Psychological Types [CW 6]

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), especially
Part II, paragraphs 556-671. This material is reprinted as
Chapter 8 in Joseph Campbell, ed., The Portable Jung (New
York: Viking Press, 1971), 178-269. Many other books about
Jung or Jungian psychology explain these "psychological
types" or functions of the personality. They are not truly
pertinent to this study.
 108

The child in question is the child within each of us.

This is not to be understood simplistically as our

qualities of playfulness or brightness, but refers, as

indicated above, to archaic and infantile aspects of the

psyche.16 These are both the neglected inferior functions

of the personality which we have not developed, and parts

of our archetypal nature of which we may be unaware. Von

Franz does however speak of a naive quality about this

interior child, but she is referring to the inferior

function, although she begins with notions pertaining to

actual children and the actual state of childhood:

. . . the child has a naive view of life, and if

you recall your own childhood, you remember you
were intensely alive. The child, if it is not
already neurotic, is constantly interested in
something . . .The child (archetype) is an inner
possibility, the possibility of renewal, but how
does that get into the actual life of an adult? .
. . (She goes on to speak of an image of a child,
and interprets an experience of such an image to
mean) a new adventure on the level of those
functions which have remained naive. It has to
do with the inferior function — through which
the renewal comes — which has remained childlike
and completely naive. Therefore, it conveys a
new sight and a new experience of life when the
worn-out superior function comes to its end, and
it imparts all those naive pleasures which one
has lost in childhood.17

Further on, she speaks of the child as a uniting symbol

1 6 See Fordham, 48.

17 von Franz, Fuer, 98-99. See also 29 and 32.

 109

"bringing together the separated or dissociated parts of

the personality . . ,"18

Fordham says that the emergent Self can only be

experienced as a symbolic image19 — that is, as a dream,

vision, or fantasy. The emergent Self has to be m e t , in a

sense (for example, within the image of a chil d) . It

cannot be conjured up by thinking. He says also that the

whole — that is, the Self -- "can never be known because

there is no subject to know it, nor any object to perceive

it."20 What he means is that at its base, the Self remains

grounded in the unconscious, and it is only aspects of this

Self which are capable of being known. The unconscious, as

I said previously, can never be fully conscious. But the

process of individuation makes the previously complete

unknown of the unconscious at least partially conscious.

The beginnings of this are a process of "falling apart."

The image of a child, arising from the unconscious as an

objectification of the child archetype, and indicate the

"birth" of new aspects of the personality.

If any development is initiated in the self,

after the ego is established, its own
deintegration is the first step. There is a
danger here that the ego may be disintegrated
catastrophically in the process if its boundaries
from the deintegrates, the dynamic archetypal
forms, are not distinguished; the disintegration

18 Ibid., 100.

19Fordham, 63.

20 Ibid.
 110

will clearly be the more extensive the larger the

ego. If, however, the boundaries of the ego are
clearly defined, the opposition conscious-
unconscious is set up after the manner which Jung
has described, and the ego, in relating to the
archetypal forms, is then in a position either to
stabilize or to extend and modify its boundaries
by incorporating previously unconscious
contents.21

If one over-identifies with the "dynamic archetypal

forms" in other words, one is in danger of truly

"disintegrating" as a personality. But if one relates to

these forms, these images, "the boundaries of the ego are

clearly defined;" that is, one begins to know oneself on a

previously unplumbed level.

The particular archetypal form under discussion at

this point is, of course, the child. How does one

experience such a symbol? There are several ways. I

showed earlier that imaginative visions can assume

archetypal shape. Three other experiences of an archetypal

image are related to fantasy, dreams, and projection.2 2 I

will not discuss fantasy.23 But dreams and projection seem

21 I b i d ., 62.

2 2 "Projection," as its name implies, is the process of

"projecting" part of oneself onto someone or something
outside oneself. For example, we usually experience our
own interior oppositely-sexed aspects through projection
onto a spouse. See Emma Jung, Animus and Anima (Dallas,
TX: Spring Publications, Inc., 1957, 1981, 1985).

23 The Jungian literature refers to a process of guided

fantasy or "active imagination," which is to be undertaken
in analysis. See Fordham, Chapter V, 67ff., "Problems of
Active Imagination." See also Jung, "The Transcendent
Function," in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche [CW
8] (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968) . This is
 Ill

well documented in medieval sources. And both projection

and visions are the subject of a recent work about medieval

Spain.24

The author contradicts what he refers to as the

general scholarly belief that during the middle ages high

infant mortality led to a low level of emotional investment

in one's children. Rather, the opposite seems true. High

infant mortality led to children being considered as sacred

objects in general. They were regarded as "symbols of

purity (and) used by communities for intercession with

God."23 In other words, their general closeness to death

came to be regarded as a closeness to God.

The arrangement of children in a separate,

advanced place in processions points to their
separate sacred estate, like the separate legal
estates of women, men, nobility, and clergy. In
this sense it is certainly mistaken to assert
that in medieval society the idea of childhood
did not exist. In religious terms it was far
more demarcated and accentuated in fifteenth-
century Europe than in the industrial West of
today. Rather one might say that our idea of
childhood did not exist.26

reprinted as Chapter 9 of The Portable Jung.

24 For dreams, see C.H. Talbot, ed. and tra ns ., The

Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany (New York: Sheed and
Ward, 1954). The parents of Willibrord and Leoba have
prophetic dreams about God's plans for their offspring.
The mechanism of projection is an obvious undercurrent in
William A. Christian Jr., Apparitions in Late Medieval and
Renaissance Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1981), see especially 215-20.

23 Christian, 216.

26 Ibid., 218.
 112

The child — in the person of actual children—

became the projected symbol of a yearned-for closeness to

God. Put differently, one can say that the adults' desire

for wholeness and purity was projected onto their children.

What is the relationship between the symbols of the

child and the Divine Child? The explicit connection

between the two archetypes, child and Divine Child, is not

always clear in the Jungian literature. That they are

somewhat distinct is apparent: the child is a symbol of the

beginnings of the individuation process, that is, a symbol

of deintegration; while the image of the Divine Child is

called "the indissoluble unit of wholeness,27 and would

thus seem to be a symbol of the goal of the process. But

the symbols' bracketing of the individuation process in

this way would also indicate a deep unity within the symbol

child/Divine Child.

Jung himself actually connected a further symbol to

the individuation process, one which he referred to as the

Christ Archetype. After a discussion of the relation of

the figure of Christ to the individuation process, I will

be better able to clarify the connection between the

symbols of the child and Divine Child.

27Fordham, 44.
 113

The Christ Archetype

One of Jung's central concepts with regard to the Self

is that of Christ as archetypical of this Self, or of

Christ as paradigmatic of the individuation process.

J u n g ’s basic work on the Christ Archetype is contained in

Volume 9, Part 2 of his Collected Works.28 "In the world

of Christian ideas, Christ undoubtedly represents the

self."28 "Jesus is the prototype of the 'spiritual inner

man'."30 He focusses in himself the latent seed of

conscious ego- and self-fulfillment which lies in the

unconscious of human persons. This consciousness is

awakened in others by the light of example emanating from

Jesus and we are thereby impelled to bring our own

individual light of conscious self-hood out of the darkness

of unconsciousness.31

Jung seems to have been influenced in his ideas about

Christ as archetypal by nineteenth-century German theology.

According to Eugene TeSelle32 the central theme of the

theology of this era was

2aAion, previously cited. See "Five Chapters," cited

abo ve .

29 Jung, "Five Chapters," 52 and n. 20.

30 Ibid., 55.

31 Ibid ., 56.

32 Eugene TeSelle, Christ in Context: Divine Purpose

and Human Possibility {Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975).
 114

Christology in its relationship with a more

general understanding of human life; not
anthropology pure and simple, however, but
anthropology carried out in relation to an
'archetypal ideal of humanity' which is made the
basis of the link between Christ and others.33

What forges a single movement out of what was in

reality a collage of disparate opinion is that these

thinkers "operate in terms of a correlation between the

meaning of Christ and the human consciousness."3,1 Behind

this theology, moreover, there lies a long

philosophical/theological development.

TeSelle begins with Immanuel Kant who, having a strong

moral bias, said that the goal of human life was holiness,

defined as "love of the law," in the sense of eternal law.

Extending the idea of law to religion, Kant says:

the equivalent of this idea in religion

would be an article of faith: 'God is love.' In
him we can revere the one who loves (with the
love of moral approbation toward men insofar as
they measure up to his holy l a w ) , the Father:
further, insofar as he expresses himself in his
all-sustaining Idea, the archetype of humanity
begotten and beloved by him, his Son: • * .an

Jesus is supremely obedient in that he is the supreme

example and ideal of what a human being is in se.

Ultimately for Kant the ideal (Christ) "hovers out of reach

33TeSelle, "The Archetype Christology," Chapter II in

the above, 47.

34 Ibid., 51.

33 Kant's Gesammelte Schriften, VI, 145, translation by

TeSelle, 67.
 115

above human life" as lived by individuals. But after Kant,

Schelling argued a more accessible Christ, saying that

Christianity is not a unique and special work of

divine providence, for the incarnation of God has
been from eternity, in the entire development of
the cosmos, and it cannot be exhausted in a
single event.36

So Christ as finite/infinite opens up the infinite to

mankind, through the "rule of the Spirit.”37

Continuing this trend: for Schliermacher

The true 'Son of God' is said to be humanity as

such, the idea of humanity in the original
creative power of God — although it is also
acknowledged that men are separated from the
eternal and become aware of their own potential
for a new, untrammeled life only through the
influence of one who did not have to overcome
this cleavage but was 'man as such' from birth.30

Again,

. . . the 'idea' of humanity is always to be

found in the original self-impartation of God in
the creation of human nature with all its
potentialities, and the 'miraculous'character of
Jesus, like that of all other 'heroes' in human
history, consists quite simply in the eruption of
something new into the common life of men out of
this universal fountain of life.39

Christ is hence "one instance of human religious

3 6 TeSelle, 68.

3 7 Schelling, Collected Works, V, 294, in TeSelle, 68.

3 0 TeSe ll e, 78.

3 9 Schliermacher, Die christliche Glaube, Sections 13,

1 and 93, 3; in TeSelle, 78.
 116

consciousness as the perfect actualization of what all are

in potentiality."40

Hegel traces the work of the Spirit within humanity

and implies in his Phenomenology and Philosophy of Religion

that the pilgrimage of the Spirit "leads not toward God's

reduction to man but toward man's participation in God."41

According to TeSelle, Hegel places the reconciliation of

the divine and the human within God. Hegel calls this

reconciliation "a divine idea, implying that it is already

fulfilled, in ideal reality, within God."42 Such a "divine

idea" is Platonic or archetypal.

What makes it different from Kant's 'ideal

archetype of humanity' is that it is not merely
an intention and a demand projected into the
infinite future from before the creation of the
world; it takes into account the actual world as
it goes its way outside God, even man in his
opposition to God, and resolves every problem
first of all within God himself. It is perhaps
rather like what a more straightforwardly
religious type of language calls God's mercy and
faithfulness toward man.43

But the "idea" cannot remain only within God—

conceived as being apart from humanity — if it is to be

meaningful to us. Hegel resolves this need by positing

that Christ represents the "idea" tangibly, so that we may

4 0 T e Se ll e, 78.

41 Ibid., 98.

4 2 I b i d ., 101.

43 Ibid., 102.
 117

discover it in him. Christ represents a pre-existing unity

of divine and human natures.

What makes such a representation necessary is

that they, occupied with their accustomed sphere
of worldly activity, are unaware of their
intrinsic potentialities; what makes it possible
is that the sensible world is not alien to spirit
but is one facet of its own life, and even the
finitude and weakness of J e s u s ’ humanity is not
inconsistent with the intrinsic unity of God and
man. When Jesus exhibits, in his finite
particularity, a fully achieved unity between God
and man, he acts out the message that God is not
alien to man and that man is even being taken up
into God's life. It is appropriate, Hegel
thinks, that there be one individual who
represents the idea, for the idea also is one,
concrete, and real in God, not an abstraction
from a multiplicity of individuals.44

This theme is continued by David Friedrich Strauss:

Humanity is the union of the two natures — God

become man, the infinite manifesting itself in
the finite, and the finite spirit remembering its
infinitude; it is the child of the visible Mother
and the invisible Father, Nature and Spirit; it
is the worker of miracles, in so far as in the
course of human history the spirit more and more
completely subjugates nature, both within and
around man, until it lies before him as the inert
matter on which he exercises his active power . .
. 40

To return to Jung: one might say that he turned the

above line of thought into psychological channels.46

44 Ibid.

43 Strauss, Leben Jesu, Section 151; trans. George

Eliot, in TeSelle, 107.

46 The "Christ Archetype" as Jung denotes this reality,

may possibly be more accurately described as a complex.
Furthermore, along with the German Idealists (and, I
suspect, with Jung himself) I would doubt that the inner
dynamic of the complex can (at least on psychological
grounds) be limited to the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
 118

Looking not first at the figure of Christ, but at

humanity’s search for wholeness, he posits the figure of

Christ as a symbol of inner unity. Jung's focus is on our

inner personality, not on Christ as the God-man, or even as

a human person in his own right. While the German

Idealists were focussed on an Idea which resided both

inside and outside of ourselves, Jung focussed only on the

human psyche and said that the pattern for wholeness

resides there, but can be imaged or symbolized by the

figure of Christ. This is because Christ is the One who

has in his individual life acted out what is to be

humanity's future path to wholeness. He isthe paradigm of

the individuated ego and the fullness of self, and it is

not only his person, but his pattern of existence which is

paradigmatic. This pattern of existence is summarized by

his death and by the meaning attached to that death in

Christian theology. That is, Christ is wounded,

sacrificed, and undergoes a transforming death which is not

an end but a beginning of glory. In writing about the

Self, Jung and his followers continually address the themes

of wounding, sacrifice and transformation.

In Puer Aeternus, von Franz says this about "wounding"

and the conflict which is produced:

When the Self and the ego come together and get
in touch with each other, who is wounded? As
soon as they come together, both are wounded
because to get in touch with the ego is a partial
damage to the symbol of the Self, just as it is a
partial damage of the ego to get in touch with
 119

the Self. These two entities cannot meet without

damaging each other. One way in which the Self
is damaged is that instead of being a potential
wholeness, it becomes a partial reality; in part,
it becomes real within the individuated person—
in the realizing actions and words of the
person. That is a restriction for the Self and
its possibilities. The ego, however, is wounded
because something greater breaks into its life.
Which is why Dr. Jung says that it means
tremendous suffering to get in touch with the
process of individuation. It causes a tremendous
wound because, put simply, we are robbed of the
capacity for arranging our own lives according to
our own wishes.47

In other words when the Self is particularized (when

it becomes the above-mentioned partial reality in a

particular human life) the process causes psychic pain.

Likewise any painful outside experience can touch us in

this interior space and unlock the gates of our psyche.

Our experience of being wounded, of suffering and of

conflict is caused by our state of being conscious.

"Wounding" also enlarges our consciousness.

Man would not suffer if he were not connected

with something greater, or he would suffer as an
animal does: he would just accept fate and die
from it. If you submit to everything that
happens like an animal, you do not suffer
intensely, but in a kind of dumb way. Animals
accept things as they happen: a leg is lost in an
accident, and they hobble along on three legs; .
. .but man feels what happens to him. He has a
greater capacity for suffering because he is more
conscious. If his legs are cut off . . .the
feeling is deeper and more intense because there
is more ego, and therefore, the ability to rebel
against fate.48

47 von Franz, Puer, 112.

4 B Ibi d. , 113.
 120

Both von Franz and others have compared this type of

suffering with crucifixion — both to Christ's particular

crucifixion and to our own experience of the

particularization of Self, which is a type of

crucifixion.4 9

In the apocryphal Acts of Joh n, Christ tells his

disciples that they would be powerless to understand their

own suffering had he not been sent.30 That is, Chr i st ’s

suffering is presented as an explanation of our own; his

suffering is the cosmic acting out of our own lives.

Christ is both man and God. As man he goes to

the cross with anguish but willingly, as part of
his destiny. As God he willingly sacrifices
himself for the benefit of mankind.
Psychologically this means that the ego and the
Self are simultaneously crucified. The Self
suffers nailing and suspension (a kind of
dismemberment) in order to achieve temporal
realization. In order to appear in the spatio-
temporal world it must submit to
particularization or incarnation in the finite.
The Self's willingness to leave its eternal,
unmanifest condition and share the human
condition indicates that the archetypal psyche
has a spontaneous tendency to nourish and support
the ego. Here the passage applies: "...though he
was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so
that by his poverty you might become rich." (II
Cor. 8:9)31

Sacrifice, therefore, may be understood as a ritual

form of suffering and as an explanation in cultic terms of

4 9 I b i d ., 155.

30 von Franz, Jung . . .Myth, 230.

31 Edward F. Edinger, Ego and Archetype: Individuation

and the Religious function of the Psyche (New York: G.P.
Putnam's Sons, 1972), 152.
 121

the suffering of life. Von Franz writes about sacrificing

the ego to the Self:

The act of sacrifice means that I am giving up

something which belongs to me; . . .The central
significance of the sacrifice for the ego now
becomes clear: it is the possibility for the ego
to experience the superior presence and reality
of the Self. Does it also have a meaning for the
Self? For the Self it is the moment in time when
it can enter into us, and so pass from a
condition of unconsciousness into consciousness,
from potentiality into actuality. It is, so to
speak, the moment when the 'unknown god' in us
becomes conscious, thereby becoming at the same
time human.02

Marie-Louise von Franz connects the individuation

process to psychic suffering (and healing) and to an

experience of God or God's will:

The actual processes of individuation — the

conscious coming-to-terms with one's own inner
center (psychic nucleus) or Self — generally
begins with a wounding of the personality and the
suffering that accompanies it. This initial
shock amounts to a sort of "call," although it is
not often recognized as such. On the contrary,
the ego feels hampered in its will or its desire
and usually projects the obstruction onto
something external. That is, the ego accuses God
or the economic situation or the boss or the
marriage partner of being responsible for
whatever is obstructing it.03

Jung himself also refers to the directing influence of

the Self as an experience of the "will of God."04 As I

32 von Franz, Jung. . .Myth, 229, citing Jung,

"Transformation Symbolism inthe Mass," [CW 11], par. 398.

33M.-L. von Franz, "TheProcess of Individuation," in

Man and His Symbols, ed. C.G. Jung (New York: Dell
Publishing Company, 1964), 169.

34 See Jung, "Five Chapters," 2 5 - 2 6 .

 122

noted previously, he effectively equates any symbol of the

Self with a god-image.00

Psychologically speaking, the domain of "gods"

begins where consciousness leaves off, for at
that point man is already at the mercy of the
natural order, whether he thrive or perish. To
the symbols of wholeness that come to him from
there he attaches names which vary according to
time and place.36

Self realization or individuation therefore amounts to

the incarnation of God {or a god) within the life of an

individual. Since man knows himself at first only as an

ego, and the Self, as realized, is indescribable and

indistinguishable from a god-image, it follows that

individuation, seen as a heroic task of struggle with

"God," perforce involves suffering and is transformative.

This suffering comes from an experience of loss (of the

ego) into a greater dimension (the Self).07 The Self, in a

sense, does violence to the ego, and this is perceived as

God's will.08

Von Franz further connects conflict, suffering,

dismemberment and transformation:

The meeting of the opposites within oneself

always means intensive suffering, as has been
noted. This also appears unambiguously in

3 0 J u n g , "Trinity," 156.

36 Ibid.

07Ibid., 157; see also C.G. Jung, Psychology and

Religion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1938), 56-
57.

00 Jung, "Five Chapters," 25-26.

 123

alchemical symbolism. The motif of torment is

very much in evidence in the dream-visions of the
famous early alchemist, Zosimos of Panoplis, who
lived in the third century A.D. In these visions
Zosimos beholds a priest who appears on a bowl­
shaped altar and announces to him that he will
show him a process of spiritualizing the body.
The priest tells Zosimos that he was overpowered
by one who came ’in haste in early morning' and
pierced him through with a sword, dismembering
him, scalped him and burned him until his body
was transformed and became spirit.39

She goes on to say that change (in the sense of

growth) is experienced by us as "punishment, torment, death

and transfiguration."60 This is a "divine process" and

includes sacrifice, defined as the giving up of the ego to

the Self. It is a process of subjecting oneself to an

authority which is higher, and is felt as a new

consciousness of God.61

The particular way in which a god-image addresses the

issue of the struggle between ego and Self will give rise

to a spirituality. In Chapter 1 I said that theology is

39 von Franz, Jung...Myth, 227-28.

60 Ibid., 228, following Jung, "The Visions of

Zosimos," in Alchemical Studies [CW 13] (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1968), pars. 85ff; here, par.
139.

61 See von Franz, J un g . ..Myth, 228-29. C f . C.G. Jung,

"The Significance of the Uniting Symbol," Ch. V, Sec. 3 of
Psychological Types [CW 6], 202 and 204; and
"Transformation Symbolism in the Mass," in Psychology and
Religion: Vest and East [CM 11], pars. 381ff. All of these
refer to the psychological meaning of sacrifice. Since
sacrifice as a "giving up" implies ownership of the thing
given, the sacrifice of the ego to the Self would imply
"ownership" of self or self-knowledge in the sense of ego-
consciousness.
 124

the study of transcendent ideas and that spirituality is

any discipline or practice which enables transcendence

within the person. To this can now be added the further

idea that spirituality concerns the way in which a

particular god-image promotes wholeness. The recognition

that wholeness is to be sought can form a binding

commitment to its realization and to the god-image which

promotes it.62

The struggle or conflict between the ego and the Self

is one instance — albeit an important instance — of our

experience of opposites in life and within ourselves and of

the possible transcending of these opposites. In "The

Significance of the Uniting Symbol,"63 Jung writes about

the uniting of opposite tendencies within the person. To

summarize: we experience life as a series of oppositions.

Quoting from the Hindu Laws of Manu, he says:

'Moreover, in order to distinguish actions, he

separated merit from demerit, and he caused the
creatures to be affected by the pairs of
opposites, such as pain and pleasure.'

As further pairs of opposites, the commentator .

. .names desire and anger, love and hate, hunger
and thirst, care and folly, honour and disgrace.
The Ramayana says: 'This world must suffer under
the pairs of opposites for ev e r . 1 Not to allow
oneself to be influenced by the pairs of
opposites, but to be nirdvandva (free, untouched
by the opposites), to raise oneself above them,
is an essentially ethical task, because

62 See Jung, "Five Chapters," 60.

63 See above, n. 61.

 125

deliverance from the opposites leads to

redemption.6 4

Jung explains that one half of the libido (psychic

energy)65 is deployed in what he calls a Promethean

direction — i.e., it is aimed at mastery or knowledge.

This is an attitude which pursues a known good with no

regard for consequences. The other half of our psychic

energy is aimed at conservation or duty. Jung calls this

an Epimethean direction.

Naturally this split is a hindrance not only in

society but also in the individual. As a result,
the vital optimum withdraws more and more from
the opposing extremes and seeks a middle way,
which must naturally be irrational and
unconscious, justbecause the opposites are
rational and conscious. Since the middle
position, as a function of mediation between the
opposites, possesses an irrational character and
is still unconscious, it appears projected in the
form of a mediating god, a Messiah.66

64 Jung, "Uniting Symbol," 195.

65 In the Jungian sense "libido" denotes all psychic

energy and output. This is not the same as libido in a
Freudian sense, which denotes sexual energy.

66 Jung, "Uniting Symbol," 194. Jung says that in

Western culture this Messiah figure is mysterious and not
meant to be understood. He terms this childish and prefers
instead an Eastern position: "The East has for thousands of
years been familiar with this process and has founded on it
a psychological doctrine of salvation which brings the way
of deliverance within man's ken and capacity. Thus the
religions of India and China, and particularly Buddhism
which combines the spheres of both, possess the idea of a
redemptive middle way of magical efficacy which is
attainable by means of a conscious attitude" (194). It
seems to me, however, that the concept of "magical
efficacy" would also imply lack of a true conscious
attitude. Actually Jung seems to contradict himself,
because he wants a conscious attitude, but on the other
hand says that the process is irrational.
 126

Further on, Jung says that the "idea of a creative

world-principle is a projected perception of the living

essence in man himself."67 In the West "the Christian

principle which unites the opposites is the worship of God

."6 8

Describing this worship (or prayer) as an "upward-

striving will of man towards the holy, the divine",69 and

connecting prayer to a psychological state of concentration

with an accumulation of psychic energy or libido, Jung says

that one induces such a state

by systematically withdrawing attention (libido)

both from external objects and from interior
psychic states, in a word, from the opposites.
The elimination of sense-perception and the
blotting out of conscious contents enforce a
lowering of consciousness (as in hypnosis) and an
activation of the contents of the unconscious,
i.e., the primordial images, which, because of
their universality and immense antiquity, possess
a cosmic and suprahuman character.70

At its strongest, this state would, of course, produce

visions, understood as the surfacing of (previously)

unconscious contents of the psyche. Such visions, given

67 Jung, "Uniting Symbol," 202.

68 Ibid., 221.

69Ibid., 202; quoting Duessen Allegemeine Geschichte

der Philosophie, I, Part 2, p. 117, in reference to
Hinduism. However, the concept seems transferable to the
Judaeo-Christian tradition. The root of the concept (of
prayer or Brahman) derives from the word barh "to swell".
Barh seems very likely to be connected to the Hebrew Brh
"to bless," which has a similar connotation.

70 Jung, "Uniting Symbol," 202.

 127

the proper predispositions of the individual involved,

might pertain to the Self and be interpreted as (and be) a

god-image.

This same idea can be approached from a different

perspective. TeSelle contrasts the notion of "ideal

archetype" put forth by Baur with that of Hegel:

(Baur) thought that the ideal archetype must

remain infinite and unconditioned, that it can be
realized only in the whole of humanity, not in a
single individual. He suggested that the history
of the world, which is the same as the divine
life, would stop if ever there were a perfect
embodiment of the absolute idea, since history is
constituted by the tension between what is
already and what is not yet, between the actual
and the ideal.71

Note the tension of the opposites: actual and ideal,

already and not yet. According to TeSelle, Baur is unable

to reconcile this opposition. But Hegel's doctrine of

Spirit both allows for this tension and for its resolve:

Spirit is

able to go out of itself toward that which is

other than itself — in this case God — without
being totally absorbed, since it remains a
distinct focus of activity and is even fulfilled
in its openness toward the other.72

To return to the surfacing of unconscious contents in

prayer, I said those contents can be objectified, perhaps

7 1TeSelle, 108. His statements about Baur's thought

are based on Die christliche Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit un
Menschwerdung Gottes in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung
(Tubingen: C.F. Osiander, 1843), Volume III, 885, 963-966,
996-999.

7 2 T e S el le , 108.
 128

as a vision. Whatever the objectification of the psychic

content, the objectification itself allows a resolution of

opposites. It is part of man's own Spirit which is

embodied or objectified, or projected into the vision. So

the projection is at the same time a going out of oneself

to that which is other and a reconciliation of opposites

within oneself. The projection becomes both the reaching

out of the human spirit and the divine activity healing

the divisions of that spirit, since the divine is always

within the human.

When the projection or objectification is imaged as a

child, the psychological content is as described above: the

child is a symbol of the beginnings of the individuation

process, i.e., is a symbol of wholeness.73 Images of a

Divine Child seem to indicate a further assimilation of

wholeness, and an identification with the divine (child)

figure. That is, the Divine Child is seen as helpless and

more human than divine. I too am helpless to resolve my

conflicts without divine help. If this child "grew up" to

be a god, perhaps I can also. That is, a perception of a

73 This interpretation assumes that the child is a

symbol of a progressive state, i.e., a state within a
person who is groping toward wholeness. There is also the
possibility of the image of the child as a symbol of a
regressive state, or of an infantile shadow. (The
archetype of the shadow encompasses all the inferior — or
unaddressed — parts of the personality.) It seems to me
that the objectifying of an infantile shadow would be a
step forward in o n e ’s understanding of a psychic situation
and might therefore be progressive, or at least be
potentially progressive.
 129

shared experience of helplessness seems logically to imply

at least the possibility of a shared experience of

divinity.7■* Furthermore, since the experience in question

is archetypal, and the archetypes are instinctual, it seems

possible to say that we are pre-programmed for deification.

The Divine Child

Both Jung himself and von Franz have written rather

extensively about the archetype child/Divine Child. I have

already indicated a basis for the unity of these: the child

is an image of wholeness; the Divine Child is an image of

what this wholeness is about. The archetype of the child,

objectified as a symbol (or vision} can indicate that the

process of individuation has begun within the subject. A

Divine Child, imaged under the same circumstances, is

simply a clearer picture of the "infancy" of the divine

state within the individual. It is an apprehension of a

process of deification.

As I showed above, Jung says that worship is an

unconscious attempt to unite opposite tendencies within

ourselves. In this regard the image of a child (which

74 Christian, 219-20, discusses visions of Mary and of

Christ as children and connects these with a concurrent
fascination with apocryphal gospels which purport to
describe the childhoods of Mary and of Christ. He connects
this fascination with a "need to know and identify with the
Gods as children" (220, emphasis added).
 130

would, if worshipped, be a Divine Child) can play a rather

particular role in the resolving of conflict.

In "The Psychology of the Child Archetype," Jung

writes about the image of the child as a symbol of an .

unconscious resolution to the dilemma of persons caught

between clinging to their "past" and choosing their

"future."

'Child' means something evolving towards

independence. This it cannot do without
detaching itself from its origins: abandonment is
therefore a necessary condition, not just a
concomitant symptom. The conflict is not to be
overcome by the conscious mind remaining caught
between the opposites, and for this very reason
it needs a symbol to point out the necessity of
detaching itself from its origins. Because the
symbol of the ’child' fascinates and grips the
conscious mind, its redemptive effect passes over
into consciousness and brings about that
separation from the conflict-situation which the
conscious mind by itself was unable to achieve.
The symbol anticipates a nascent state of
consciousness.7 3

The child archetype thus comes to consciousness when

one is in conflict. Both Jung and von Franz speak of

conflict together with numinous experiences, including

visions.76 Jung speaks of the "agonizing confrontation

through opposition" which produces consciousness and

?»Jung, "The Psychology of the Child Archetype," in

Jung and Kerenyi, Essays, 87.

76 See for example Jung "Child Archetype," 77-78; also

von Franz, Jung . . . Myth, 227-28, and idem, Puer, 21-22,
28.
 131

insight.77 Speaking of the emergent Self, he says that

these symbols of the Self (i.e., child and Divine Child)

arise in the depths of the body and they express

its materiality every bit as much as the
structure of the perceiving consciousness. The
symbol is thus a living body, corpus et anima',
hence the 'child' is such an apt formula for the
symbol.7 0

He also says that

The child motif represents not only something

that existed in the distant past but also
something that exists now; that is to say, it is
not just a vestige but a system functioning in
the present whose purpose is to compensate or
correct, in a meaningful manner, the inevitable
one-sidednesses and extravagances of the
conscious mind.79

So the child image represents the complex of the Self and

the ego's new-born relationship to that center of

unconsciousness which is becoming conscious.

The child archetype with its related image belongs not

only to the individual but to thewhole race, representing

what is pre-conscious, In addition visions of a child can

represent a cultural dissociation between past and present;

the past being de-valued, the present over-valued. This

situation arises both individually and collectively, and

the vision of a child would indicate a confrontation with a

primary truth, an experience of lost "roots."80

77 Jung, "Child Archetype," 90.

7 8 I b i d. , 92.

7 9 I b i d ., 81.

80 I b i d . , 80-81.
 132

Von Franz explains the pre-conditions for numinous

visions as a feeling of being "lost." "It shows the

psychologically typical situation where the conscious

personality has come to the end of its wits and does not

know how to go on any more consciously."81 She goes on to

analyze this typical situation as one in which "the

previous form of life has broken down."82 She implies that

the state is both individual and collective, and the

specific vision with which she deals is of a numinous

child-helper figure. The numinosity of the situation

consists in its resolution of conflict in an irrational

manner, or as she puts it "the miraculous thing" or

resolution, comes from the unconscious. She also says that

every such encounter with the unconscious begins with an

archetypal situation in which the former activities {of the

individual or group) have broken down, and the goal of life

is obscured and the flow of life'senergies {i.e. libido)

is blocked or stuck. The archetypal image -- in this case,

the child — breaks in as a revelation, as something

completely new.83

This experience is one of newness because the child

within is connected to those of our psychic "parts" with

8 1 von Franz, Puer, 21.

8 2 Ibid ., 22.

83 Ibid., 27.
 133

which we are unfamiliar and unused to dealing.84 She says

that it is the essence of such experiences "that they

always come in a new form."80 The figure of a child

represents the "possibility of an inner creative renewal,

of a first realization of the Self." This is "a new God

image" incarnated within the soul.06

In this regard, R a d be rt 's use of stories about visions

of a Divine Child would indicate that he is espousing an

emotional identification with Christ for his readers. On

the cultural level, in other words, he is trying to foster

an emotional, spiritual attachment to Christ, the new god-

image, in opposition to the the old Germanic gods.

I said earlier that the child figure is an enlarger of

consciousness. Such images "overcome darkness, which is to

say that they overcome the earlier unconscious state."87

"The 'child1 paves the way for a future change of

personality."80 This is "a provisionally complete

synthesis of the personality."09 The confrontation with

8 4 Ibid., 98-99, with regard to the inferior function,

mentioned above.

80 I b i d ., 109.

86 Ibid., 291.

87 Jung, "Child Archetype," 88.

0 8 Ibid ., 83.

8 9 Ibid . , 84.
 134

the "child", with one's inferior psychic aspects,

eventually

leads to the possibility of an accommodation with

the unconscious, and thus to a possible synthesis
of the conscious and unconscious elements of
knowledge and action. This in turn leads to a
shifting of the centre of personality from the
ego to the self.90

Radbert's story of the vision of the dismembered

Divine Child is certainly apropos of the experience of a

meeting of opposites as von Franz describes it in the

alchemical vision concerning the spiritualizing of the

body, previously noted.91 The process of change to which

she refers is both personal and cultural. The process of

identification with Christ as a new God-image is personal

insofar as this identification promotes the individuation

process within the individual. It is also cultural in that

Radbert*s use of the story is illustrative of a major

psychological change taking place within the psyche of the

Saxon people of his time as they begin to appropriate

Christianity on an emotional level. I will explain this

further in Chapter 5.

The Divine Child is source of life and Self,92 and is

90 Ibid., 100.

91 von Franz, Jung . . .Myth, 227-28.

92 von Franz, Puer, 98.

 135

the possibility of total newness arising out of the

"torturing" of the repressed elements within ourselves.93

Jung says:

we are confronted, at every new stage in the

differentiation of consciousness to which
civilization attains, with the task of finding a
new interpretation appropriate to this stage.94

To explicate the new interpretation which Radbert

seems to have been promulgating, I would like to return

briefly to the three points I raised at the end of Chapter

1. The visions which Radbert recounts first of all

emphasize our materiality — R a d b e r t 1s spirituality is not

world-denying. Secondly, these visions encourage

conversion. Thirdly, the interior virtue of faith plays a

role in that Radbert emphasizes throughout his Chapter XIV

that o n e ’s interior dispositions should be brought into

line with one's outer life. That is, exterior practice is

not sufficient; one's inner life is the true issue.

I can now restate these three points in terms of the

psychology which has been the subject of the last two

chapters. Individuation is a process of conversion through

which we come to live our outer life in harmony with our

inner dispositions. But the harmony is a result of a prior

"dismemberment" whereby we are confronted with "parts" of

ourselves which we have previously either suppressed or

93 Ibid., 69. Von Franz here equates the infantile

shadow and the divine child.

94 Jung, "Child Archetype," 76.

 136

rejected outright. It is the assimilation of these aspects

of ourselves — which aspects may appear to be totally new

— which allows us to redirect our energies in such a way

that the exterior life becomes focussed through the lens of

our new interior wisdom. This new orientation is faith-

filled, because it is founded on our deepest Self, and on

our most profound yearnings. Finally, since the process is

archetypal, grounded in our instincual, genetic makeup, it

is material as well as spiritual, affirming our bodiliness

and mortality.

Individuation is a process of redemption or salvation.

Concerning salvation, Jung connects our redemption to the

unexpected "first-born" arising from a (psychic) place

which has previously not been valued in us. This new life-

urge seems powerless and helpless, especially in the face

of our environmental influences which would seek to kill

it.90 But it is from here — this psychic place — that

true rebirth can occur. This is the

". . . Self, something which tries to flow toward

the future, toward the possibility of being
reborn, of finding a new possibility of life
after a crisis, of finding a renewal.96

In the medieval period, as I have shown, visions of

child gods were widespread. The visions of Radbert's

Chapter XIV show this in themselves: they come from widely

98 See Jung, "Child Archetype," 85.

96 von Franz, Puer, 59.

 137

varied sources, both as to geography and to time. But they

all testify to this spirit of newness. In personal terms

this is a new God- and Self-consciousness; and in cultural

terms it is an entirely new religious consciousness,

amounting to the epiphany of Christ into a pagan world.

 CHAPTER 4

Wounded Gods and Sacred Power

I said in Chapter 3 that a movement toward wholeness

resides within the human psyche. This is called the

individuation process by Jung and others, and its unfolding

includes a pattern of wounding or conflict, sacrifice and

transformation. This motif has been typified by the figure

of Christ, who is the paradigm of the individuated ego and

of the fulness of the emergent Self.

It can be said therefore that in Christ (understood as

an archetypal symbol) wounding and transformation are shown

to be a pattern of human existence. This pattern can be

more fully systematized as wounding, dismemberment,

sacrifice and resolution of conflict. The pattern leads to

(or is a process of) transformation, and the transformation

is understood to be a result of the process.

This pattern can also be symbolized by figures other

than Christ, and in fact has appeared historically in the

figures of the gods Wodan and Dionysos. Wodan was the

Saxon high-god, and Dionysos was an important deity of the

ancient Greeks. Both gods are dismembered in order to

receive and/or give a form of higher wisdom. Thus wounding

and transformation, besides being a pattern of human

existence, is also a pattern of divine life.

138
 139

The worship of such gods, their cultus,1 arose in

response to human experience of the transcendent.2 W.F.

Otto devotes a section of his work on Dionysos to an

examination of the relationships between myth and cultus.

When we look . . . at origins, at fundamental

forces, we must characterize all of the creative
activities of man, without distinction, as cult
practices. But among these there is a more
intimate nucleus which could never be secularized
because here man himself, as a being having body
and mind, is the substance in which the Almighty
becomes form. These are the cult forms, in a
special sense of the word. They could lose their

1 See W.F. Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult, trans. with

an Introduction by Robert B. Palmer (Dallas, TX: Spring
Publications, 1981),especially Part I "Myth and Cultus,"
7-46. Cultus, or cult, is defined by Otto's translator:
"The term Kultus, as Otto uses it throughout the book, is
best understood in the light of Joachim Wach's definition:
'All actions which flow from and are determined by
religious experiences are to be regarded as practical
expressions or cultus. In a narrower sense, however, we
call cultus the act or acts of the homo religiosus:
worship' (J. Wach, Sociology of Religion [Chicago: 1944],
25). In any case, Kultus does not mean 'ritual1, which is
only one of the acts of cultus" (4).

2 Transcendent experiences are usually connected with

gifted individuals, who pass their transcendent knowledge
on to their followers, or tribe. "...the ecstatic
experience as such, as an original phenomenon, is a
constitutive element of the human condition; it is
impossible to imagine a period in which man did not have
dreams and waking reveries and did not enter into 'trance'
— a loss of consciousness that was interpreted as the
soul's traveling into the beyond." Mircea Eliade, A
History of Religious Jdeas, vol. I, From the Stone Age to
the Eleusinian Mysteries, trans. Willard R. Trask (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1978), here 19. Eliade
connects such ecstatic experiences with shamanism.
"Shamans are held to discover what is hidden and to know
the future; visions...bestow the same high powers on the
god's worshippers" (273).
 140

resilience, they could disappear, but they could

not be secularized.3

Cultus therefore is a creation of human beings and bears

witness to an encounter with the supernatural.4 Otto

further says that cultus "presupposes myth, even though the

myth may be latent."3 This "latent myth" is created in the

first encounter of man with the transcendent, with the god.

In the center of everything significant, in the

center of every final intention stands the image
of man himself — the form in which he wishes to
see himself. It is asinine to say that he lent
this image to the Almighty, and thus the forms of
men's gods came into being. It was in godhead
that this image first appeared to him. Before
man was in the position to see himself, God
manifested Himself to him. His image preceded
the human image. What the form and nature of man
could and should be, man learned from the
appearance of the Divine.6

As I showed in Chapters 2 and 3, there is a subjective

element in any experience of the transcendent (e.g. a

v isio n) ,7 and this subjective element is archetypal.8

3 O t t o , 27.

4 Ibid., 26.

5 Ibid., 16.

6 Ibid., 29.

7 C. Kerenyi traces the roots of the worship of

Dionysos to Minoan Crete, and Cretan relations with the
Mycenaean civilization, which formed the seedbed of classic
Hellenism. See his Archetypal Images in Greek Religion,
vol. 2, Dionysos, Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life,
trans. Ralph Manheim {Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1976), especially Chapter I "Minoan Visions," 5-28.
Kerenyi's thesis is that Cretan religion had a visionary
foundation. He bases this theory on an analysis of Cretan
art, and on archeological findings which indicate that
mountain sanctuaries were an early aspect of the religion.
 141

Thus, the experience of the divine (the numinous) is so

closely meshed with our experience of our deepest selves

(or Self) that it is difficult to separate, in practice,

the divine from the most purely and finely human.

Therefore it can be asserted that man as human is

created (that is to say encultured) through his experience

of the divine, of the transcendent, and this urge toward

transcendence is within us. The experience of an "almighty

presence"9 -- later embodied in both myth and cult -- is

the basis of all human endeavor, including culture and

ethics. It is the first link in the human evolutionary

chain which is still in process of being forged. Myth and

Mountains, and mountain caves, are traditional places of

religious retreat. Furthermore, there is artistic evidence
for the use of the poppy in the cult, which would indicate
an artificially induced state of transcendence, possibly
for the purpose of calling forth visions. For a review of
Cretan religion see Eliade, Volume I as above, Sections 40
through 42, especially 130.
Many scholars of Dionysos have attempted in the past
to prove that his worship was a late import into Greek
religion. Recent scholarship, including Kerenyi and Otto
(as above), denies this, partially on the basis of more
recent archeological findings. See Kerenyi, Dionysos, 137
n. 15. See also Otto, 52-64 for an exhaustive literary
analysis of the problem.

8 1 showed in Chapter 2 that the origin of myth and of

visions is in what Jung termed the Collective Unconscious.
It can be said that myth is an articulation in language of
unconscious archetypal contents — an enfleshment of an
archetype in words. Myths are therefore conscious
articulations of archetypal material. Likewise, a vision
is an objectification of unconscious contents — the
"capturing” of an archetype by "sight." Sight here refers
either to inner or outer perception, or perhaps even to
both at once.

9 O t t o , 30.
 142

cult are therefore the most real of human and divine

realities, and are not to be dismissed as imagination or

"mere invention," arising as they do from huma ni ty ’s own

unconscious.

I showed previously that the child is a symbol of

wholeness. Visions of a child can indicate that the

process of individuation has begun within the experiencing

subject. Visions of a Divine Child seem to indicate the

immanence of a new god- and Self-image within the subject,

and of a new moral direction. Such an experience can

provide an identification of one's inner being with the

divinity and a nascent realization of divine powers within.

To worship such a Divine Child {with or without a personal

experience of a vision) would then indicate that the

devotee is seeking to appropriate these powers more fully-

- to "grow into" a greater concretization of such powers

within one's individual human life.

The Greek god Dionysos is the best-documented instance

in antique mythology of the worship of a Divine Child.

Dionysos also suffers and is dismembered, and thus there is

a great deal of congruence between his mythology and the

image of Christ sacrificed on the altar as a child in De

Corpore. Hence, an examination of the mythology and

worship of Dionysos, insofar as these can be illustrated,

will shed further light on the power of such a symbol to

further personal transformation.

 143

Closer to Radbert's time, the Germanic god Wodan

(Scandinavian Odin, Odinn)10 suffers a kind of

dismemberment which is very clearly related to a personal

transformation. He is able to "see" (or understand)

everything that is, and his all-seeing quality is ensured

by his sacrifice of an eye. He is blind , or one-eyed,

because he has hidden one of his eyes in the well which

stands beneath the roots of the world-tree and holds all of

wisdom. He pledges his eye in exchange for a drink from

the well "for the sake of the wisdom it provides,”11 In

other words this god gives up an eye to attain inner sight

or wisdom. He diminishes himself to gain newness of self.

How is it possible to relate Dionysos to Wodan and to

a study of Northern European spirituality? Why use a

figure from classical mythology to illustrate the seeking

10 In Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of

Ancient Scandinavia (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1964) , E.O.G. Turville-Petre sums up the probable identity
of Scandinavian/Icelandic Odin and Continental Germanic/
Anglo-Saxon Wodan as follows: "In short, the English
records suggest that, among the pagan English, Woden had
filled a place similar to that which he filled in
Scandinavia as late as the tenth century. This implies
that already the north German ancestors of the English,
Saxones, Angli and Iutae, have seen him in a similar light;
he was god of princes, victory, death and magic, perhaps
also of runes, speech, poetry. It is not insignificant
that the English came chiefly from north Germany and
Denmark, where the cult of Odinn seems to be old and
particularly firmly established" (72).

11 Mircea Eliade, ed.. Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol.

11, (New York, 1987), s.v. "Odinn," by Edgar C. Po lo m e , 58,
following Gylfaginning 15. See also Turville-Petre, 63.
 144

of personal transformation within Germanic Christianity? I

have several concerns here.

(1) The visionaries whose experiences Radbert recounts

were not all Germanic, nor were they all from Radbert's own

time. Basil {d. 379) was from Cappadocia in Asia Minor;

Gregory the Great (d. 604) from a prominent Roman family;12

Radbert's text itself notes the travels of Nynian. The

longest of the vision stories in Radbert's Chapter XIV {the

dismembered child) is taken from an older source which was

written partially in Greek. So, to begin with, the

visionaries in question are an eclectic group, whose mental

or psychic worlds were more than likely illuminated by

classical forms.

(2) Furthermore the native religions of Greece and

Germanic Europe are related; they have common Indo-

European roots.13 This being the case, classical mythology

supplies a rich, diverse and well-documented field from

which to draw parallels.

12Historical details are from Williston Walker, A

History of the Christian Church, 3d e d . , rev. Robert T.
Handy (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970).

13 For a general discussion of who the Indo-Europeans

were and of their religion see Eliade, I, chapter 8, "The
Religion of the Indo-Europeans: the Vedic Gods," sections
61-71, pp. 187-214. The chapter title refers to the fact
that the Vedic gods are manifestly Indo-European. See also
Eliade's critical bibliography on Indo-Europeanism,
sections 61-71, pp. 430-439. The recent archeological work
of Marija Gimbutas is of note, as is the mythological
analysis of Georges Dumezil.
 145

(3) Lastly, from a strictly Jungian perspective a case

can be made that it doesn't matter which mythology one

examines — they are all products of the human psyche

anyway. But, while I believe this to be true in a general

sense, I do not think that it is the whole story. As I

indicated above in reason (1), our psychic terrain is

informed by our culture, and mythology is part of that

culture. However, since it is most probable that classical

mythology was part of the world of our visionaries, this

additional (strictly Jungian) perspective can also provide

further confirmation for the pertinence of this mythology

to a study such as this one.

In this chapter I will examine certain aspects of the

mythologies of first, Odin/Wodan and second, Dionysos,

which seem to share some congruence one with another and

which illustrate the pattern of wounding and transformation

which I introduced in Chapter 3. This is not meant to be a

complete investigation of the "mythological histories" of

these gods. I merely wish, at this point, to show that

both of these gods are "wounded" and that their worshippers

sought some type of transformation.

 146

Odin/Wodan1 4

Odin alone seems to have been accounted the highest

god in later Scandinavian and Icelandic religious practice.

Snorri Sturluson13 calls Odin "all-father", the highest of

14 The primary sources for a knowledge of Germanic

religion are, in chronological order: Roman writers,
medieval European historians and Churchmen, Norse
mythology, and Icelandic sagas. The continental Germans
had no written religious works, and the predominance of
written sources for any Germanic mythology is, in fact,
Norse and Icelandic. Granted all this however, it is
noteworthy that much of the extant evidence for the
religion of the continental Germans, even that which is
distorted by later Christian writers, does indeed agree in
large part with the Norse poems and Icelandic sagas. For
example, the Saxons who entered England in the fifth
century had Wodan as their principal god and their kings
and chiefs claimed descent from him. Wodan was also
mentioned in first place in the formula of renunciation
which the eighth-century Saxons were forced by
Charlemagne’s edict to pronounce at their Baptism. See
J.A. MacCulloch, ed., The Mythology of All R a ce s, vol. II,
Eddie, idem (Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1930), 38.
Although there is a basic congruence between the
religion of the Northern sagas and that of the continental
Germans, there are also differences. It has long been
noted that these differences seem to be related to the
relative state of peace or war which obtained in a given
area. Those tribes which came in contact with Rome and
with those kings which considered themselves to be Rome's
successors {e.g. the Saxons) would be shaped by a long
history of war. Hence their gods of war would predominate.
(Note that in the North Odin is both the king's or
chieftain's god and a war god. Presumably therefore Wodan
shares these attributes.) Likewise those tribes further
north and east, having a more peaceful and stable life,
would be able to concentrate on agriculture, with a
resultant predominance of agricultural deities. See Edgar
Polome, "The Indo-European Component in Germanic Religion,"
in Myth and L a w Among the Indo-Europeans, ed. Jaan Puhvel
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 59-60.

10 Snorri was a Christian from thirteenth century

Iceland who put the legends of his Icelandic and
Scandinavian ancestors into writing. These sagas {known as
Eddas) contain much mythological material that is older
than its date of written composition.
 147

the gods, ruling over all, father of all the gods. Odin

combines knowledge and physical power, lives by wine alone,

and his weapon is the spear. He is a god of war who takes

half the slain from the battlefield to his great hall,

Valhalla, where they feast with him forever. He is also

the supreme magician, master of runes, head of all divine

society, patron of heroes living or dead, and protector of

kings and of kingly power.16 "As he appears in the Eddas,

Odin is on the one hand a War-god who gives victory or

defeat. On the other hand, he is concerned with wisdom,

magic, cunning, and poetry, of which he was creator,

according to the skalds (Norse poets)."17 Moreover,

"...both in (Snorri's) Edda and still more in the (older

Norse) Eddie poems Odin appears in lower

aspects... Especially is his connexion with magic

emphasized."18 In the interpretatio Romana, Odin is

usually identified with Mercury.19 On the continent "Wodan

16 See Georges Dumezil, Gods of the Ancient Northmen

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 4, 26,
29; B. Phillpotts, "Germanic Heathenism," in The Cambridge
Medieval History, vol. 2, Chapter XV {C ), (Cambridge: The
University Press, 1970), 483; and W.A. C r ai gi e, The
Religion of Ancient Scandinavia (London: Constable and
Company, Ltd., 1914), 14, 22.

17MacCulloch, Eddie, 40.

1 8 I b i d ., 45.

19 However, on the basis of comparative Indo-European

considerations, Dumezil identifies Odin with Jupiter. See
Edgar Polome, "Germanic Religion and the Indo-European
Heritage," The Mankind Quarterly, Vol. XXVI, Nos. 1 and 2,
Fall/Winter 1985, 29. Roman writers who came in contact
 148

i s ...probably the Mercury mentioned with Jupiter in the

eighth century Indiculus Superstitionum as gods to whom

sacrifices were offered and whose festivals were observed

by the Saxons even in Christian times."20

One source of O d i n ’s wisdom is indicated by his

ability to "see" (or understand) everything that is, as

previously noted. Odin is known as "one-eyed," and the

myth of the one-eyed god seems quite old.

The Voluspa (str. 28) also contains an allusion

to the loss of one of O d i n n 's eyes. The sibyl,
as if to prove her wisdom, tells Odinn that she
knows well enough where he hid...his eye; it was
in the glorious Well of Mimir. This well,
according to Snorri, stood beneath one of the
roots of the (World-)tree Yggdrasill, and all
wisdom was stored in it. Snorri goes on to say
how O d i n n 1s eye came to be there. The god had
begged for one drought from the well, but it was

with the European tribes referred to their gods under Roman

names; thus the interpretatio Romana. This practice may in
fact reflect these writers' recognition of affinities
between Roman and Northern European gods. These affinities
are now known to be due to the common Indo-European origin
of these gods.
Besides Mercury, Odin has other parallels among the
divinites of diverse peoples; for example, Hermes, Thoth,
and Dionysos, all of whom have connections to wisdom and/or
magic. By extension, these gods become advocates of
learning and of the higher faculties of the human mind,
which can exert influence over personal conduct, human
affairs, and even the world at large. See C.G. Jung, "Five
Chapters from Aion," in Psyche and Symbol, ed. Violet S. de
Laszlo (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1958), 33.
See also his "The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy
Tales," also in Psyche and Symbol, 109. In addition, see
Joseph L. Henderson, "Ancient Myths and Modern Man," in Man
and His Symbols, ed. C.G. Jung (New York: Dell Publishing
C o . , 1964), 135, 153-55.

20MacCulloch, Eddie, 37-38.

 149

not granted until he placed his eye as a

pledge.2 1

Odin's remarkable vision — he sits on his high-

throne overlooking all the worlds — is his most precious

possession. Thus he sacrifices part of it to ensure its

perpetuity and divine acuity.22

A further source of Odin's wisdom comes from his

connection with the World-tree. Sometimes this tree is

pictured as surrounded by goats. Sacred groves of trees

are also attested.23 This sacred tree appears as the

Irminsul in the medieval Saxony of Charlemagne. It is the

central shaft of the universe. The great temple of Uppsala

(Sweden)24 had a terrestrial replica of this tree from

which (or near which) sacrificial victims were hung.

No more mysterious myth is recorded in Norse

literature than that in which it is told how
Odinn hung for nine nights on a windswept tree.
This is found in a section of the Havamal (strs.
138-45), . . . in words said to be spoken by the
god himself. . .

21Turville-Petre, 63. The Voluspa is one of the

poetic or "Older" Edda. These are epics probably composed
orally in the ninth and tenth centuries, and written down
during the thirteenth century. All these Old Norse and
Icelandic compositions have mythological content which is
considerably older than the p o e m ’s date of composition.

22Turville-Petre, 63.

23 Sacred groves are perhaps also associated with the

cult of Wodan on the continent among the Semnones. See
Polome, "Germanic Religion," 531.

24 In his History of the Church of Hamburg (c. 1070),

Adam of Bremen uses the Saxon form of the god's name
(Wodenus) when writing about the gods which were worshipped
in the temple at Uppsala. See MacCulloch, Eddie, 59.
 150

I know that I hung

on the windswept tree
for nine full nights,
wounded with a spear
and given to Odinn,
myself to myself;
on that tree
of which none know
from what roots it r i s e s .(138)25

A further section of the poem notes that Odin,

"glancing down" from his place in the tree, is able to

"take up the runes," i.e., writing. He also takes "nine

mighty songs" with him as he falls from the tree.25

Although others also are said to possess the use of runes,

Odin "unquestionably possesses the most extensive secret

knowledge of their mighty magic."27

This experience of Odin's hanging in the World-tree is

often interpreted as a near-death of the god, or as an

initiation.20 The suffering involved in this experience is

an important source of O d i n ’s power.

zaTurville-Petre, 42, translation by the author. The

Havamal is another of the Older or Poetic Edda. See n. 21.

26Dumezil, 27, citing Havamal 138-140.

27Polome, "Odinn," 58.

20 See Dumezil, 27. See also Mircea Eliade, A History

of Religious Ideas, vol. II, From Gautama Buddha to the
Triumph of Christianity, trans. Willard R. Trask {Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1984), 158-61.
 151

Dionysos29

The worship of Dionysos seems to have pervaded the

Greek (especially the Athenian) calendar.30 At Athens

29 The primary sources for a study of Dionysic

mythology are ancient and fragmented. However, C. Kerenyi
and W.F. Otto have written extensively on Dionysos, and in
addition, have been concerned with his ritual and his
meaning. In their works, both rely heavily on the original
sources. In addition, Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade
have addressed questions which may be taken into a study of
the meaning of Dionysic mythology. Erich Neumann has both
addressed the subject of Dionysos directly and written
extensively on related larger questions, including the
meaning of the dismemberment of a Divine Child.
With regard to Kerenyi, see especially his work
Dionysos, previously cited. See also, "The Primordial
Child in Primordial Times," and "Kore," in C.G. Jung and C.
Kerenyi, Essays on a Science of Mythology: The Myth of the
Divine Child and the Afysteries of Eleusis (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1969). In his Dionysos, 129-
139, Kerenyi gives a brief history of the inquiry into the
myths of Dionysos, mentioning J.J. Bachofen, Mother Right;
P. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy; W.F. O t t o ’s work; E.
Rohde, Psyche; and U. von Wilmowitz-Moellendorf, Der Glaube
der Hellenen. He almost completely discounts the work of
Nietzsche, and writes to correct what he perceives to be
the inaccuracies of the others, including Otto.
With regard to Otto, see Dionysus: Myth and Cult,
previously cited. See also, The Homeric Gods (London:
Thames and Hudson, 1955).
With regard to Campbell, see The Masks of God:
Primitive Mythology, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books,
1969) .
With regard to Eliade, see A History of Religious
Ideas, vol. I, especially pars. 122 ff., pp. 357 ff., with
a critical bibliography, pp. 476-79, previously cited; and
vol. II, especially pars, 178-82, pp. 170-97, with a
critical bibliography, pp. 479-88, also previously cited.
With regard to Neumann, see The Origins and History of
Consciousness, trans. R.F.C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton
University Press: 1970), especially 43-88.

30 See Kerenyi, Dionysos, Chapter V, "Dionysos

Trieterikos, God of the Two-Year Period," especially 205-
6 ; and in the same work, "The Dionysos of the Athenians,"
especially 278-79. The Athenians found room for all
Dionysic festivals and for the Mysteries in a single year,
which was also the year of the vineyard. The annual
 152

Dionysos also had a part in the Eleusinian Mysteries, being

the Divine Child whose birth in the underworld was

proclaimed to the initiates. But, behind all the Athenian

feasts lies the reality of the fermenting wine, which

Kerenyi implies is a form of the child Dionysos, born in

the underworld at the time of the wine harvest. As the

wine is born and matures over the yearly cycle of feasts,

so the Divine Child does likewise.31

Dionysos seems originally to have been identified with

Zeus. {The name means "Zeus of Nysa," Nysa being the

mythical birthplace of Dionysos.) In one version of the

myth of Dionysos' birth, Zeus unites with his own mother

(Rhea),32 both taking the form of snakes, and sires

Persephone, who is thus both his sister and his daughter.

Later he rapes his sister-daughter Persephone, again as a

snake, and sires Dionysos,33 who is born in a cave and

nurtured there.34 The incestuousness of all these

birthday of Dionysos depended, among other things, on the

state of the wine.

31 See Kerenyi, Dionysos, 295-96.

32 Or Demeter, which may be another name for Rhea; see

Kerenyi, Dionysos, 112 n. 220, citing Orpheus, fragment
145.

33 See Kerenyi, Dionysos, 112-14, citing Athenagoras

Libellus pro Christianis 20.

34 Campbell, Primitive Mythology, 101. The one who

appears as snake and child is Zeus-Dionysos of Cretan
origin. That is, he is not really either god, but the
precursor of both who changes his form and reproduces
himself. See Kerenyi, Dionysos, 119, following L.R.
 153

relationships seems to indicate the extraordinary closeness

of Zeus and Dionysos. In a sense Zeus seems to have

intercourse with himself to produce Dionysos.

After his birth, the Divine infant is slaughtered and

eaten, although a part of him is saved. This relic is

swallowed by Zeus who then gives birth to a resurrected

Dionysos.33 In another possible variant of this myth Zeus,

after siring Dionysos by his own mother, emasculates

himself and returns his organ to the Great Mother (Rhea),

so that the endless cycle of birth might continue.36

Kerenyi shows that although the sources for our

knowledge of the myth are late, the myth in some form of a

Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, vol. II (Oxford, 5

Volumes, 1896-1909). This complex is also known as the
myth of Zagreus. See Otto, 191, citing Orphica fragments
110 and Etymologicum Gudianum 227, edited by F.G. Sturz,
(Leipzig, 1818). See also Eliade I, 369.

33 Campbell, Primitive Mythology, 101 and n. 65 p. 476.

Eliade (vol. I, 369, n. 20) says that this myth is known to
us chiefly through Christian authors. He cites Firmicus
Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum 6; Clement of
Alexandria, Protrepticus 2.17.2 and 18.2; and A rn o b i u s ,
Adversus nationes V.21. The texts are reproduced in
0.Kern, e d . , Orphicorum Fragmenta (Berlin, 1922). The
relic itself is usually referred to as the heart of
Dionysos. It may also be his phallus. See Eliade I, 369
and James George Frazer, The Golden Bough [two vol. in one
with a new Foreword] (New York; Avenel Books, 1981), vol.
1, 324, nn. 3 and 4. Frazer cites Proclus, Hymn to
Minerva, found in Lobeck, Aglaphamus, 561; Orphica, ed.
Abel, 23 5; and H y g i n u s , Fab. 167.

36 See Kerenyi, Dionysos, 275-76, following Clement of

Alexandria, Protrepticus 11.15.2; and Arnobius, Adversus
nationes V.21.
 154

child god born in a cave is archaic.37 In one of the late

versions of the myt;h, the sla-ughterers of Dionysos are

Titans. After they consume him they are in turn killed by

an enraged Zeus who slays them with his lightning. Then

"...from the vapor they gave off, soot formed, and from the

soot, a stuff. Of this stuff men were made."36 In other

words, the death of the Divine boy is world-creating.

Another tradition concerns the "nurses" of Dionysos.

Otto refers to the women who worship Dionysos as maenads

(from Greek maenades) . They get their name from the

madness (frenzy, wildness or ecstasy) which Otto associates

with Dionysos and with his worship.39 These Dionysic women

were said to hunt down animals, tear them to pieces, and

eat them raw.40 These animals may be later substitutes for

the prior sacrifice of human beings, or they may be looked

upon as manifestations of the god in their own right. In

37Kerenyi, Dionysos, 110-11.

30Kerenyi, Dionysos, 242 quoting Olympiodoros, In

Platonis Phaedonem commentarii 61 C; see nn. 162 and 164.
The word employed for "soot" means "sublimated vapor," and
in the form quoted above, the myth presupposes alchemical
principles. Kerenyi feels that the present myth is a
synthesis which includes much earlier material, however.
On the archaism of the Orphic myths in general, see 118-
19, n. 231.

39 Otto, 94. Otto thinks that madness is a prime

characteristic of Dionysos himself, so also of his worship
and his worshippers. See chapter 11: "The Mad God," 133-
42.

40 Otto, 108-9. They are also pictured as suckling

fawns and wolves, etc., 96 ff. Eliade connects bands of
hunting women with Artemis; See vol. I, 278-79.
 155

any case it is fairly certain that at least in some places,

children were dismembered as part of a Dionysic rite.41

Otto says that the women responsible for this act are

taking the part of the nurses of Dionysos. Under their

care, the god meets a "tragic fate" and is dismembered.

This may be an alternate story to that of the dismemberment

of Dionysos by Titans in the cave.42 It has some

similarity of content; most notably, the act is instigated

by a jealous Hera.43

One of the most mysterious of the representations of

Dionysos is as liknites, the Divine infant hidden in the

winnowing-basket or liknon. This was a winnow-shaped

basket which was the mythic cradle of many divine

41 See especially Otto, Chapter 9, "The Somber

Madness," 103-19, and his citations.

42 The Dionysic women, who are wild huntresses, who

tear animals (and perhaps humans) apart and eat them, may
indeed be older and more basic to the Dionysic rites than
the notion of initiation by the Titans. If originally
Dionysos was torn apart by his nurses, the story of his
dismemberment by the Titans would be a later version. See
Kerenyi, Dionysos, 238-43ff. and 262ff. The Orphic writers
would be responsible for the later version. For a
discussion of Orphism, see Kerenyi, Dionysos, 262 ff., and
Eliade, II, sections 180ff., pp. 180-202.

43 See Otto, 171-75. "There are almost always three

sisters with whom the god comes into contact, and the
remarkable story of a little boy who is entrusted to them
and is subject to a tragic fate appears again and again in
a variety of forms. Semele, herself, has three sisters—
Ino, Agave, and Autonoe -- who, after her death, take care
of the motherless child" (172). See also 105 and n. 9.
Otto cites Plutarch, Moralia: Quaestiones Graecae 38;
Aelian, VH 3.42; and Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoseon
Synagoge 10. See also Frazer, I, 329.
 156

infants.44 In later Dionysic ritual, Dionysos is "he in

the liknon." At Delphi,43 during the winter months, the

Dionysic women (some of whom had travelled from Athens for

the ceremony) were said to have awakened the infant

Dionysos, sleeping in the liknon. This awakening took

place at night, probably in a cave on Mt. Parnassus, and

was simultaneous with a secret sacrifice performed by men

in the temple of Apollo "where the remains of the

dismembered Dionysos were kept."46 Eliade hypothesizes

(with other scholars) that the central act of initiation

into the mysteries at Eleusis and elsewhere was the

unveiling of a phallus hidden in a liknon.47

The effigy of Dionysos as a phallus hidden in the

liknon is a symbolic representation of the birth of

Dionysos in a cave and of his dismemberment (either by his

nurses or by T i ta ns ). The effigy is both the sacrificed

organ of Zeus (which he returned to his mother/wife to

assist in the endless cycle of rebirth), and the relic of

Dionysos (which was spared by his slaughterers and consumed

44 See Kerenyi, Dionysos, 44-45.

43 See Kerenyi, Dionysos, 204ff., "Dionysos at Delphi,"

especially 218-26.

4 6 Ibid., 223.

47Eliade, II, 282, following F. M a t z , Dionysiake

telete: Archaologische Untersuchungen zum Dionysos-Kult in
hellenistischer und romischer Zeit (1964), 16; and P.
Boyance, "Dionysiaca: A propos d'une etude recente sur
1'initiation dionysiaque," Revue des etudes anciennes 68
(1966), 35, n. 2.
 157

by Zeus to effect Dionysos' resurrection). The effigy is

treated (and worshipped) as if it were the Divine infant

himself. Since the effigy refers both to Zeus and to

Dionysos it perhaps betrays the underlying identity of the

t w o .4 0

Sacrifice Revisited

In Chapter 3 I said that sacrifice is a ritual form of

suffering and a cultic explanation of life. Sacrifice also

allows the ego "to experience the superior presence and

reality of the Self."49 The mythologies and worship of

Odin/Wodan and of Dionysos provide further insight into the

role of sacrificial ritual within that process of wounding

48 In Mankind and Mother Earth (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1976), Arnold Toynbee identifies the
"Mother" as "probably the oldest and certainly the most
potent" primordial religious image. "She is the subject of
the oldest visual representations of the human form; and
since, in this image, motherhood is not seen to be
incompatible with virginity, this mother-image must have
taken shape before the discovery of paternity — that is to
say, before it had been recognized that a woman cannot
become pregnant without having had sexual intercourse with
a male" (289) . The recognition of biological human
fatherhood is therefore, according to him, not primordial.
Since phallus worship denotes knowledge of biological human
fatherhood, this kind of religious practice would seem
newer than the archaic religious concept of virgin-mother.
Thus phallus worship could indicate man's awe in the face
of this new knowledge.

49M.-L. von Franz, C.G. Jung:His Myth in our Time

(Boston: Little,Brown and Company, 1975), 229; citing
Jung, "Transformation Symbolism in the Mass," in Psychology
and Religion: West and East [CW 11] (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1969), par. 398.
 158

and transformation which is my primary focus in this study

of pagan mythology.

Sacrifices to Odin/Wodan, especially human sacrifices,

are documented both on the continent and in Scandinavia.

The Roman historian Tacitus30 explicitly says that human

victims are given to "Mercury" (i.e. Wodan). In Gautreks

Saga, an anonymous Icelandic work, a king is portrayed as

hanged from a tree and stabbed with Odin's spear in a scene

reminiscent of the mythic events portrayed in the

Havamal.01 In Snorri's sagas the connection is made

between Odin and death by hanging. This is also evident in

some of the god's poetic names — he is called Hangi and

Hangagoth for example. Other sources emphasize Odin's

spear. It was believed, for example, that any of Odin's

worshippers who were slain in battle went to Valhalla where

they feasted and fought eternally with Odin, their high-god

and king.32

do Tacitus, Germania: 9; in The Agricola and the

Germania, tra ns . H. Mattingly (New York: Penguin Books,
1948).

31 The episode of King Vikar appears in several sources

including Gautreks Saga, as noted, and Saxo Grammaticus,
The History of the D a n e s , trans. Peter Fisher (Cambridge:
D.S. Brewer, 1979), VI.152-153. See also Donald J. Ward,
"The Threefold Death: An Indo-European Trifunctional
Sacrifice?" in Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans, ed.
Jaan Puhvel (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1970}, especially 140.

32Dumezil, 26-30. See also Tacitus, Germania: 14-15

about the Germans' thirst for battle. Valhalla was O d i n ’s
great hall, the abode of dead warriors. Belief in Valhalla
was connected with the cult of Odin. See Phillpotts, 493,
 159

As I noted previously in the section concerning the

Havamal, the god himself had undergone a rigorous

initiation or near-death experience, whereby he had hung on

the World-tree for nine nights and been wounded with a

spear. Thus to be hung, and/or stabbed in imitation of

Odin was another way (besides death in battle) to ensure a

place with him in Valhalla.33 One could also redeem prior

misconduct if one took one's own life for Odin.34 Tacitus

mentions warriors who have shown cowardice in battle

hanging themselves afterwards.33 If one died in bed, a

wound inflicted with sword or spear "for Odin" would

s u ff ic e.3 6

In the Vedic sources the World-tree is intimately

connected with human sacrifice. Here the sacrificer (i.e.

not necessarily the one who dies, but the one who offers

who also says that all who fell in battle were regarded as
sacrifices to Odin (484). Even the enemy could become
sacrifices to Odin (without presumably sharing in
V al ha ll a) . Several sources mention the throwing of a spear
over the heads of an enemy army at the beginning of a
battle as a dedication of this army to Odin. Thus the
slain became the god's victims. Entire defeated armies
were slain for Odin after such a dedication. See Dumezil,
29 who cites the sagas, and Phillpotts, 483, who cites
Icelandic sources.

33Dumezil, 27, 30.

5 4 Saxo 1.35, 35.

33 Tacitus, Germania, 6.

36Dumezil, 30.
 160

the victim) is said to become equal to the god.07 Because

of the common Indo-European background, a parallel can be

drawn between the Vedas and the Havamal, and the ancient

Vedic sacrifice then illuminates the significance of the

hanging of Odin. The implication is that the act of

sacrificing a victim to Odin by hanging appropriates the

same divine powers that were given to Odin at his

initiation.38 Therefore to sacrifice to Odin is to wish to

gain his wisdom and power for oneself, to take up wisdom

just as the god took up the runes.

Sacrifices to Dionysos are well documented, and I have

already mentioned certain dismemberment practices or

sacrifices in a section above concerning the Dionysic

women. One of the stories referring to the dismemberment

of Dionysos in the cave comes from Crete. The ancient

reporter of the story adds to it that on Crete

...the murder was commemorated by yearly rites,

which repeated what 'the child had done and
suffered at the moment of his death': 'in the
depths of the forests, by the strange cries they
utter, they feign the madness of a raging s o u l , 1
giving it out that the crime was committed
through madness, and 'they tear a living bull
with their teeth.'39

37 See James L. Sauve, "The Divine Victim: Aspects of

Human Sacrifice in Viking Scandinavia and Vedic India," in
Puhvel, 173-191.

38 Sauve, 186-87 and 189-90.

39Eliade, I, 370, quoting Firmicus Matern us , De

errore, 6. In some sense the myth of Dionysos and the
Titans may refer to an initiation ceremony in which a young
boy was circumcised. Later a calf or goat becomes a
 161

According to Otto, the name "Zagreus," which Dionysos

bears in some versions of the myth of the Titans, means

"great hunter." He infers that the ritual of rending and

eating a bull is meant to reproduce this myth

ceremonially.60 An alternate to the rending of a live bull

seems to have been the sacrifice of a bull-calf. Dionysos,

perhaps here called the "render of me n, " receives the

sacrifice: a new-born calf is dressed as a baby (human)

hunter and then slaughtered with an axe. Prior to this its

mother was treated as a human being in the act of giving

birth.61 In some sense, the calf dressed as a human infant

represents the god himself.

With regard to bulls, Frazer says that the rending and

devouring of live bulls and calves seems to have been a

regular feature of Dionysic rites. The god was often

represented in bull form or with some of the features of a

bull (e.g. h o rn s) . It was believed by some that Dionysos

substitute for the human infant. Kerenyi, Dionysos, p.

270. Eliade also says that the myth of Dionysos and the
Titans seems to suggest a type of initiation (i.e.
circumcision) ceremony; volume I, 371. Campbell's material
would suggest something similar; see lOlff. It cannot be
discounted that in early times a child may have been
sacrificed in such a rite.

600tto, 192; and see 191, n. 10.

61 Ibid., 107, citing Aelian, De natura animalium

XII. 34. And see Kerenyi, Dionysos, 190-91. Kerenyi says
here that the rending of a man would have been contrary to
the rite's original meaning, and argues that Otto's
translation of Dionysos' title as "render of men" is
incorrect. But see below.
 162

had originally been dismembered in the form of a bull, and

also that he appeared in bull form to his worshippers at

the sacred rites.62

Another animal sacred to Dionysos was the goat, which

was also one of the god's sacrificial victims. In some

places "...it was believed that the goat sacrificed to the

'goat k i l l e r 1 Dionysus was a surrogate for a sacrificial

offering of a child in the past."63 The goat was

associated with the underworld,6 4 and with the grape

62 Fraz er , I, 326 and see nn. 1 and 2 concerning

artistic representations. He cites Plutarch, Quaest.
Graec. 36 and Isis et Osiris, 35; N o n n u s , Dionys. vi. 205;
Firmicus Maternus, De errore, 6; Euripides, Bacchae, 735
sqq .; Schol. on Aristophanes, Frogs, 357. I leave aside
Frazer's conclusions about all this.

63 Otto, 168, following Pausanias 9.8.2.

6 4 See Otto, 167-169.

 163

vines63 — a kid-goat was sacrificed to the vine, perhaps

to ensure its growth.66

Kerenyi says that Dionysos is the god of

indestructible life, of zoe, which overarches bios, or

individual life, and is eternal. In his myth, Zeus-

Dionysos is eternal father, the snake who begins all

reproduction of bios. He himself is also eternal child,

whose dismemberment, far from causing bios to cease, feeds

its continuance. Dionysos therefore indicates zoe in bios,

63Dionysos, just as Odin, is often associated with

greenery, especially with ivy. Ivy for example accompanies
the presence of Dionysos as the "mask god" (see Otto, 87-
88). The masks, which were sometimes more than life size,
were made of wood or even stone, hung on a column, and
surrounded or topped with ivy. The masks were thought of
as the presence of Dionysos — that is, he appeared as not
in the mask (see Otto, 88-90). The ivy which accompanies
the presence of Dionysos perhaps recalls the ivy which
protected the pre-born infant from the fire of Zeus in some
of the versions of the myth of his birth.
Otto also says that Dionysos was worshipped either in
(or as) a tree; the god is here called Endendros or
Dendrites (see Otto, 87 and nn. 7 and 8, citing Plutarch,
Pausanias and Hesychius). The pine tree is sacred to
Dionysos (Otto, 157) and the women who worshipped him
carried what might be a stylized representation of such a
tree, the thyrsus. This was a wood shaft topped with pine
cones.
Interesting from a psychological point of view is the
account in R.E.L. Masters and Jean Houston, The Varieties
of Psychedelic Experience {New York: Holt, rinehart and
Winston, 1966), 219, of the perhaps archetypal connections
between thyrsus, world-tree and crucifix. The subject was
in a drug-induced state of ecstasy. When the thyrsus was
described to him he at first was able to imagine this
object alone, but very quickly this image disolved into
that of "a man on a tree.”

66 See Kerenyi, Dionysos, 249-50.

 164

the eternal element in human life. Here life and death are

combined, but death touches only bios, not zoe.67

Mythically and ritually these themes are conveyed by

the symbol of Dionysos as biknites and by the tradition

that Zeus had emasculated himself and returned his organ to

the Great Mother {Rhea or Demeter) to assist in the endless

cycle of birth. These two concepts are connected and may

be seen against a background of belief in what we would

call reincarnation or samsara (perhaps dating from the

common Indo-European background of the Hindu and Greek

mythologies). In his last work Joseph Campbell has this to

say about what is suggested by the idea of reincarnation:

It suggests that you are more than you think you

are. There are dimensions of your being and a
potential for realization and consciousness that
are not included in your concept of yourself.
Your life is much deeper and broader than you
conceive it to be here. What you are living is
but a fractional inkling of what is really within
you, what gives you life, breadth, and depth.
But you can live in terms of that depth.60

The cults of both Odin/Wodan and Dionysos focus

strongly on symbols which evoke mastery of the "more" of

human existence, of this "depth" within the worshipper.

The imitation of Odin's physical woundedness was taken as

assurance that a warrior could join the god in an eternal

drinking-bout; and by his wounds the warrior was

67 Ibid., 119; 203-4; 373-74.

68 Joseph Campbell, with Bill Moyers, The Power of

Myth, ed. Betty Sue Flowers (New York: Doubleday, 1988),
58.
 165

"initiated" directly into Odin's great hall. Thus the

warrior becomes heroic in death, worthy himself of

receiving sacrificial honors and, in a sense, divine.69

Within this paradisaical image, even the drinking bout is

cultic, since Odin is the god who has stolen the secrets of

mead from the primeval giants. This precious mead is

actually poetry, which is equated with inspiration and

wisdom. What Odin has stolen from the gods for man is not

a drink so much as what the drink brings.

...in Scandinavia the ecstatic states produced by

alcohol and poetry are holy, taking their place
in ritual and even bringing men into communion
with the gods.70

Dionysos is not only god of wine but also identified

with the wine. As I said previously, the wine is a form of

the sacred child Dionysos, born at the wine harvest and

69 Charlemagne1s Capitulary Concerning the Saxon

Territory commands in section 22 "that the bodies of Saxon
Christians shall be carried to the church cemeteries, and
not to the mounds of the pagans." See F .A . Ogg, A Source
Book of Mediaeval History (New York: American Book Company,
1907), 123. Indeed the Germanic peoples made a practice of
sacrificing on the mounds or barrows of their dead,
especially of their dead heroes. One pagan source tells of
the competition for the corpse of a dead king among the
four chief districts of his tribal kingdom. The matter was
settled by dividing the remains into four parts. See
Phillpotts, 487.

7 °Turville-Petre, 40. He draws a parallel between

Odin's theft of mead, an Irish legend about the theft of
the water of wisdom (whiskey), and Indian myths about the
rape of soma "the half-personified, intoxicating
sacrificial liquor." Polome says that Odin "is essentially
the god of inspired cerebral activity." "Germanic
Religion," 533.
 166

maturing over the yearly cycle of feasts.71 Wine was

probably a facet of the cult of Dionysos from earliest

times, and it was used to produce ecstasy.72 Otto says

that wine fits the cult of Dionysos precisely because of

...its intrinsic power to enchant, to inspire, to

raise up the spirit. And this is the power whose
effect brings even us in contact with the ancient
belief that a god reveals himself in wine.73

This is also the power which produces poetry and the

dramatic tradition of the ancient Greeks. Through drama,

especially tragedy,

...the Dionysiac spirit and its tremendous

excitement make themselves known. No suffering,
no ardent desire of the human soul speaks forth
from out of this excitement, but the universal
truth of Dionysus, the primal phenomenon of
duality, the incarnate presence of that which is
remote, the shattering encounter with the
irrevocable, the fraternal confluence of life and
d e at h. ..This duality has its symbol in the
mask.7 4

It is not that drama is a direct outgrowth of the use of

wine (although it may be) but that the excitement and

confrontative power of drama is a reproduction of the

poetic insight which is also ascribed to wine.

Furthermore, sacrificial dismemberment and the

possible title of Dionysos as "render of men" provide

7kerenyi, Dionysos, 295-96. The identification of

Dionysos with either the wine or the grape-vine recalls his
association with greenery.

7 2 O t t o , 145.

73 I b i d .

74 Ibid., 209. See n. 65 above concerning the mask.

 167

further insight into this god as a symbol of the depths

within human nature which are also a "higher" Self:

. . . the idea of life as an ordeal through which

you become released from the bondage of life
belongs to the higher religions . . .It would
probably come from people of spiritual power and
depth who experienced their lives as being
inadequate to the spiritual aspect or dimension
of their being.78

It is the ecstasy of the Dionysic women which is the

clearest example of the self-transcendent factor in his

cult. Called "madness" by Otto, this frenzy is a type of

dismemberment of the psyche, or "a dismemberment of the

individual."76 Ritual ecstasy allows the worshipper to

break the bonds of the time-bound everyday self and

experience the eternal, divine Self or timeless psyche.

The ecstasy is a rending of the person, a losing of self

into the mystery which is alive in the reality of the god.

This is a primal, creative mystery, so that the emptying of

self — the ex stasis — is akin to rending the god. And

just as the god in being rent paradoxically also gives

birth, so the parts of the psychically dismembered person

are used thereafter in a new way. The person is new — or

not the same as before, which can amount to the same thing.

This of course is related to the individuation process,

wherein the image of the child is related to the

deintegration of the personal psyche. This deintegration

78 Campbell, Power, 58.

76Neumann, 61.
 168

or "rending" is the beginning of individuation and of the

birth of the Self. Thus we return to the issue of the

meaning of a dismembered child.

The Primal Child

Myths of dismemberment have been shown by many to

refer back to Indo-European roots.77 I have previously

discussed the interrelatedness of myth and cult.78 It

would seem probable, in light of this relatedness, that

dismemberment rites are equally as aged as the myths and of

the same provenance. Therefore it is probable that

dismemberment rites are also Indo-European. In addition,

Odin/Wodan and Dionysos {both Indo-European gods) have a

relationship to a primal or world-creating bull, cow or ox.

Furthermore, I feel that the relationship between Dionysos’

bull and child forms (shown in the Zagreus tradition)

indicates that the dismemberment of either primal bull or

child is world-creating.

Bruce Lincoln79 cites three variants of an Indo-

77The works in question are numerous. See n. 13 above

for some general sources.

78 See above, nn. 3-8.

79Bruce Lincoln, "Proto-Indo-European Religion," an as

yet unpublished paper written as part of the Archaic Europe
volume of the Paulist Press (New York) Series: The Classics
of Western Spirituality. See also by the same author,
Priests, Warriors, and Cattle: A Study in the Ecology of
Religions (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1981), 69-95. See also, Jaan Puhvel
"Remus et Frater," History of Religions 15:146-57; and
 169

European creation myth which may be generalized as follows:

Two brothers, a man (or priest) and a king, were traveling

together accompanied by an ox or bull. They decided to

create the world, and so

the priest offered up his brother and the ox in

what was to be the first ritual sacrifice.
Dismembering their bodies, he used the various
parts to create the material universe and human
society as well...80

The variants are Indian [Rgveda 10.90.11-14, which relates

the elements of the material universe to parts of Purusha's

b o d y ) ; Russian (a fragment from the Poem on the Dove King,

which relates the various elements or levels of society to

parts of "honest...holy Adam"); and Germanic (part of an

old North Germanic epic poem, Grimnismal 40-41). This last

is as follows:

From Y m i r 's flesh the earth was made

and from his sweat, the sea;

Mountains from his bones, trees from his hair,

and heaven from his skull.

And from his brows built the gentle gods

Midgard for the sons of men;

And from his brain shaped they all the clouds

Which were hard in mood.01

Walter Burkert, "Caesar und Romulus-Quirinus," Historia

11:356-76.

80Lincoln (unpublished), 13.

01 Lincoln (unpublished), 15. See also Mircea Eliade,

e d . , Encyclopedia of Religion, Volume 5, s.v. "Germanic
Religion" by Edgar C. Polome who says: "In the Prose Edda,
Snorri Sturluson gives a complete description of creation
that combines a number of older sources, which are not
always consistent with each other. The major Eddie poems
 170

One of Lincoln's conclusions from all this is that

"the human organism is a microcosmic model (and indeed, the

source) of the cosmos, while the cosmos is the macrocosmic

projection of the human body."02 I would add that this is

equally true of the primal ox or bull.83 Lincoln further

explains that the process of creation is continuous.

Physical matter alternates, in an eternal cycle, between

used by Snorri are the Vaf thruthnismal and the

Grimnismal...which more or less duplicate each other, and
the Voluspa...; but he also derives some details from
sources lost to us and adds some deductions of his own"
(522). To condense Snorri's account: at the beginning of
time there was a great void. Into this void comes a world
of cold and one of heat. Ice formed in the cold and sparks
of heat caused the emergence of the primeval giant Ymir.
Melting ice took the shape of a "rich hornless cow" who
"feeds Ymir with the milk from her udders." Her licking of
ice eventually gives rise to Odin and his two brothers who
sacrifice the giant Ymir. "The body of Ymir is carried
into the middle of the great void; his blood forms the sea
and the lakes, his flesh the earth, and his skull the sky
(with a dwarf at each corner, as if to uphold i t ) , his hair
the trees, his brain the clouds, his bones the mountains,
and so on." (Polome, as above, 522-23, and see also
Turville-Petre, 55-56.) These gods also create mankind,
upon whom Odin bestows spirit, life and understanding,
among other qualities of mind. (See Turville-Petre, 64-65
and Polome, as above, 527.)
Snorri's creation story seems quite ancient. "...the
idea of an empty space and a world of mere potentiality
preceding creation seems to belong to the ancestral
heritage of the Germanic people since it finds an uncanny
parallel in the well-known cosmogonic hymn of the Rgveda:
'There was neither nonbeing nor being; nor was there space
nor the sky above' (10.129, in Polome, as above, 522).

82 Lincoln (unpublished), 16.

83 In "The Significance of the Uniting Symbol," Chapter

V, Section 3 of Psychological Types [CW 6] (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1971), Jung also cites RgVeda
10.31.6 concerning a divine "bull which existed before the
world was . . .the bull, supporter of earth and heaven."
 171

microcosmic (e.g. human or animal) and macrocosmic

(universal) modes of existence. The human body and the

cosmos are thus alternate forms of the same reality.04

So, in this system, dismemberment is the primal

creative act. Rites of dismemberment would therefore also

have to be understood as creative acts in that they are

meant to be supportive of creation, to keep creation in

motion or being, or as Lincoln says, to "ensure its

continuation."85 So each dismemberment rite is both a re­

enactment of the primal act of creation and a creation in

its own right.

This is not to be understood in a gross sense as

"feeding" the material universe or propitiating the gods to

allow the world to continue. This rending is the actual

stuff of creation, part of the rhythm of the universe.

And, coming back to Dionysos, I think in all cases that the

one dismembered — bull, child, or goat -- is the god

himself. The Orphic myth of the Titans shows that Dionysos

himself is the stuff of mankind. To rend him, in whatever

form, is to participate in re-creation. The bull is the

infant Dionysos and Dionysos is the primal dismembered one

04 See Lincoln, (unpublished), 17. The relationship

between this idea and later philosophical systems is
obvious. One is led to ask whether this relationship is
truly linear, or whether later philosophical constructs are
being read back into earlier material as this is
reconstructed.

05 Lincoln (unpublished), 24.

 172

who lives on in all of creation. The animal

representatives of the god are not substitutes for prior

human sacrifices. They are primal representations in their

own right, as is reflected in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-

European cosmogonic myth above.

In fact a rending sacrifice is an enacting of the

creation of the world. It is the primal bull (or ox or

man) which is rent again, and the universe and mankind are

re-created every time. To participate in such a sacrifice

is to become one with the universe. One becomes united

with a great cosmic mystery, and the cosmos with its great

mystery is shown to be a part of the person.06

Why in myth and rite is a child dismembered? I think,

if the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European myth is at

all correct, that the rending of a bull might be older in

the history of the ritual than the rending of a human

being. If this is so, why would the bull have been

replaced with a child? With this question we open up two

new ideas: the intrinsic worth of a human sacrifice on the

one hand, and the issue of the child/Divine Child archetype

on the other.

Human sacrifice connotes a real notion of the worth of

a human life as opposed to an animal life. To the Indo-

Europeans, cattle were of exceptional worth, perhaps in

86Madness, or ecstasy, is simply a different way into

the same reality. See Neumann, 61.
 173

some cases as valuable as a human person.07 To sacrifice

an ox or a cow, then, would be to give up (consecrate, make

holy, ratify the worth of) this primal animal.88 To

sacrifice a man instead would then become a ratifying of

the greater worth of this human life. So the sacrifice of

a human would be a statement that the human person is more

valuable than the animal, that human life is unique,

perhaps even that human consciousness is pre-eminent.

The sacrifice of a child seems to me to be an even

stronger statement, but along the same lines as the above.

The child is the human future. When I sacrifice my child,

I sacrifice my future and, in a sense, I give up my

immortality. This is, moreover, a profound act of trust:

87 Note the continuing importance of cattle in the

Hindu religion.

88 Odin's connection to a primal ox is illustrated in a

medieval account of what is presumably an actual vision.
Odin visits the Christian King Olaf Tryggvason, who is the
patron saint of Norway and the Christianizer of several
other lands, as the king is keeping the Christian feast of
Easter. "[Odin] appeared as an old man, one-eyed, of
somber aspect, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, and wise of
speech. Olaf was entranced with his conversation, for he
told him of all lands and all times. Hardly would the king
go to bed, even when his bishop told Olaf that he must
sleep. When he awoke, the guest was gone, but not before
telling the cook that the meat which he was preparing was
bad, and giving him two sides of an ox in its stead.
Hearing this, the king ordered the meat to be burned and
thrown into the sea, for the stranger could have been no
other than Odin in whom the heathen had believed." From,
MacCulloch, Eddie, see especially 37-59; cited in Ronald B.
Kledzik, M.D., Assimilation to the Archetype of Wotan: An
Individual and Collective Example (Zurich, 1969), 21-22.
The ox here is shown to have had a ceremonial and/or
sacrificial connection to Odin.
 174

in giving up this child I trust that the fund of life

(broadly understood) is thereby increased, not decreased.

This is an act of trust that life, again broadly

understood, is bigger than my individual life, that meaning

in se is larger than the individual meaning of my own life.

To use Kere ny i's language, it is zoe which is

paramount, not bios. And, the dismembered child is a

mystery which goes to the heart of who I am in this

universe. I am in and of the universe, and in giving up my

child I ratify my bonds with it. I am not separated from

the larger reality — I am in it and it is in me — we are

one. I am one with the cosmos, I am a cosmic Self.

The Divine Child in Radbert

My child, given in sacrifice, is shown to be a Divine

Child.09The child's dismemberment is not just or merely a

re-enacting of creation; as I have attempted to show, it is

re-creation itself. So, as re-creator, the sacrificed

child realizes divinity, or is divine. In the process, I

too, as the giver who is one with the universe, am revealed

as divine, since divinity is an attribute of a cosmic

Self.90 (Or, to be perhaps more correct, a cosmic Self is

89 This is true both of the actual sacrifice of a human

child and of the sacrifice of the child-image within the
individual. See Chapter 5, herein.

90According to Eliade, vol. II, 213, there is a rite

in the Brahmanas wherein Vishnu is identified with
sacrifice (Satapatha Brahmana 14.1.1.6). The sacrificer
 175

an indication — i.e. an attribute — of divinity.) It is

not that I become divine in offering up a Divine Child.

Rather, the inherent divinity residing within both of us is

revealed as having been there all along. Paradoxically,

therefore, dismemberment means oneness. The dismemberment

of the Divine Child unites the universe, the child and the

offerer; or shows their prior oneness.

To turn to Christian theology — specifically

Radbert's: the dismembered Divine Child of Chapter XIV is

Jesus, born at Bethlehem, who is also the Word of God,

Logos, agent of the Creator-God "in the Beginning" (Gen

1.1). His dismemberment is a radical and mystical

statement of Radbert's belief that we are deified by eating

the eucharist. That is, we are made one with the

(re)created universe. Thus, although Radbert advocates a

crass bodily union with the Jesus of history in his ninth

chapter, he seems to go beyond that in Chapter XIV, since

the Jesus of history offered on Calvary is manifestly not a

child. We are forced therefore to look on Radbert's Divine

Child as being, in a sense, not only Jesus. This child is

symbolic of the cosmic oneness of God, man, and all of

creation, and his dismemberment is a cosmic re-creation.

ritually imitates Vishnu's three great strides across all

of the universe, and is thereby assimilated to the god,
attaining the sky (i.e., the sacrificer is deified).
 CHAPTER FIVE

Personal Transformation in a Changing World

. . . one will look in vain among the Carolingian

scholars for that torrential feeling which
becomes articulate in the eleventh century. They
were excerpting and rearranging patristic
Christianity to suit their own capacities. They
could not use it as a basis for further thinking;
nor, on the other hand, had it become for them
the ground of religious feeling. Undoubtedly,
Alcuin and Rabanus Maurus and Walafrid Strabo
were pious Christians, taking their Faith
devoutly. But such religious emotion as was
theirs, was reflected rather than spontaneous. .

The author of the above might well have included

Radbert in his list of early medieval thinkers, since he is

roughly contemporaneous with them. But if he had, he would

have been quite mistaken. For Radbert did manage to turn

eucharistic doctrine into a vehicle of religious feeling

and even attempted thereby to make this feeling a basis for

further reflection and change. This is shown in his use of

the visions of Chapter XIV, which make a statement about

identification with Christ, personal change and ultimately,

deification.

In Chapter XIV Radbert presents a series of visions

which focus on the figure of Christ as a child. I

previously outlined the principal elements of each of these

1 Henry Osborn Taylor, The Medieval Mind {Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press, 1951), 359.

176
 177

four visions. In the order in which Radbert (or an editor)

included them in his document, these are:

-The story of Plecgils, who held the child Jesus in

his arms and kissed "the godly lips of Christ."

-The story of the Hebrew who observed that "a little

child was being distributed "by the Blessed Basil" (of

Caesarea) at communion.2

-The story ofthe noble matron who mistakenly

understood the consecrated communion to be no

different from the bread which she had offered as a

gift before the consecration. This is the only one of

the four visions from Chapter XIV which does not deal

with a Divine Child. Aside from sharing in my remarks

below concerning Radbert's naive interpretation of all

the visions, this story is not pertinent to this

2The original report of this vision says: "...et videt

infantulum membratim incidi in manibus Basilii..." (...and
he saw a small infant torn limb-from-limb in the hands of
Basil...). See PL LXXIII, 301D. Radbert himself added
this story to that of Plecgils for his second edition, and
he seems to have been uncomfortable dealing with
dismemberment in a conscious fashion. The later addition
of the story of the Abbot "Arsenius" betrays no such
discomfort. This is a possible argument in favor of this
latter vision's having been added by a subsequent editor
other than Radbert himself. In fact, stories such as that
of the Abbot Arsenius and the sacrificed boy became
widespread in the later middle ages. (Although the
addition of this story to Radbert's Chapter XIV seems to
have been accomplished no later than the eleventh century.
See Bedae P a u lu s’s "Introduction" [EinleitungJ in CCCM.XVI,
XI-XII and XXXV.) For further reporting of stories about
medieval Divine Child sacrifices, see Leah Sinanoglou, "The
Christ Child as Sacrifice: A Medieval Tradition and the
Corpus Christi Plays," Speculum 48, 1973: 491-509.
 178

study, and I will mention it only insofar as it may

have bearing on the other episodes in Chapter XIV

(namely, those which do concern a Divine Child).

-Lastly, the story of the Abbot who "was great in the

active life, but simple in faith", and who said that

the eucharist was but a "figure" of the body of

Christ. Along with two elders who have challenged him

on this belief, he is granted a vision of an angel who

dismembers the Christ-child as the priest breaks the

bread on the altar during the Mass.

These visions confront the viewer, or anyone who

accepts their validity, with his or her own potential for

divinity in a manner which may be connected to Jung's

individuation process as this process is explained herein

in Chapter 3. Furthermore, since this Divine Child is

Jesus, whose eucharistic presence is a memorial of his

sacrificial death on Calvary, the visions underline that

progression of wounding and transformation which, according

to Jung and von Franz, inevitably forms a part of the

individuation process.

Radbert seems to accept all of the above visions at

face value. To him these are exterior or corporeal visions

which prove that Christ is truly present in the eucharist.

According to the criteria for judging visions which I

outlined in Chapter 2, however, these are most easily

 179

understood as imaginative visions, since they show the body

of Christ in a manner which is inappropriate to him as he

is now understood to be according to Christian doctrine

(i.e., in glory with the Father).3 According to Rahner

such visions arise from the spiritual center of a person,

and foster the spiritual progress of both the individual

and of humanity in general.4

Rahner emphasizes the subjective component of all such

visions when he says that such visions conform to the

psychic laws of humanity's intrinsic structure.3 He

further underlines this subjective component when he

examines how such imaginative occurrences might be caused

by God, examining in turn the production of a picture in

the imagination, the objectification of the same, and the

question of the exact point at which the picture is

elicited.6 He concludes that the imaginative vision "will

inevitably represent the joint effect of the divine

influence plus all the subjective dispositions of the

visionary,"7 and that the vision "is not only a 'picture*

3 Karl Rahner, Visions and Prophecies (New York:

Herder and Herder, 1963), 33 and 38.

4 Ibi d. , 56 n. 52.

3 Ibid., 41.

6 Ibid., 47f f.

7 Ibi d. , 63.
 180

of actual divine contact, but also of the person who

receives it."8

Ninth Century Saxony

And just who were the people who received these

visions from Radbert? In Radbert's time and place,

Christianity was in the process of replacing an older

established pagan system. This system was intimately bound

to the sensibilities of the Saxon people, but it had been

cruelly purged by Charlemagne a generation or two prior to

Radbert's time. Charles literally left no pagan stone

unturned in forcibly uprooting and overthrowing Germanic

paganism. But while the institutions of Church and State

were now Christian, the hearts of the people were less so.

Radbert on the other hand seems thoroughly Christian

in both mind and heart. Doctrinally, as I showed in

Chapter 1, he is grounded in the Fathers of the Church and

has made their concerns his own. Nevertheless, on some

level he is aware of the lag in the sensibilities of his

audience. By means of his Divine Child symbol, he seeks to

bring their hearts into closer line with their new

Christian practice.

Charlemagne’s conquest of Saxony effected many changes

in Saxon society. Their war-chieftains, gaining in

importance through the long struggle with the Franks, but

8 Ibi d. , 64.
 181

treated well by Charles after his conquest, became the new

nobility of Saxony. Serfdom, with corresponding

landlordship, was introduced, or at least strengthened by

Charles' gifts of land, together with the peasants on it,

to nobles and monasteries.9

But the greatest change brought by the conquest was in

religion.10 Charlemagne seems to have felt responsible not

only for his own use ofpower before God, but also for the

acts of his subjects. According to one author, several

sections of Charles' Capitulary of 802 reflect the personal

reactions of Charles himself (sections 13, 14, 16, 17, 32,

33, 3 6 1.11 I would summarize G a n s h o f 's insights by saying

that Charlemagne could not in any modern sense

differentiate between religious and secular power; he

assumed that both devolved on him from God.

He further seems to have equated service to God with

fidelity owed to the emperor,12 and had all of his subjects

swear an oath of fidelity. Such oaths in and of themselves

were no innovation. What was novel after 802 was that

9 See James Westfall Thompson, "Old Saxony," chap. IV

in Feudal Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1928), 170 n. 3, 172 n. 2 and 173 n. 2.

10 Ibid., 172 n. 1.

11 Francois Louis Ganshof, Frankish Institutions Under

Charlemagne, t r a ns . Bryce and Mary Lyon (New York: W.W.
Norton and Company, Inc., 1970), 6, 12-13, and 108. A
Capitulary is a form of legislation which takes its name
after its articles or capitula.

12 I b i d ., 13.
 182

Charles extended the oath to include serving God and doing

His Will, going so far as to bind his subjects to the oath

under pain of mortal sin.13 Thus service to the emperor

became equal to service to God, and in practice his

subjects were called upon to serve God by serving the

emp er or .

Yet German ethnic religion and its practices seems to

have persisted in the countryside, especially in Saxony,

for many years.14 This is attested by many capitularia,

e.g. those forbidding worship at gravesites or barrows.

What seems to have happened is that the new nobility became

Christian, while the peasantry lagged in this regard.

This social stratification of Christianity becomes

apparent when one looks at C harlemagne’s judicial system,

for example, the county court of law or m a l l u s .15 If the

emperor's main duty is the furthering of service to God,

then the maintenance of civil law is not an end in itself,

but a means toward the carrying out of the Divine Will. It

therefore would seem to follow that the practitioners of

this law, agents of the emperor, also are the agents of

God's will and hence, in Charles' scheme of government,

must be Christian. There would therefore have been a

strong social pressure to adopt Christianity, and, on the

13 Ibid., 14-15.

14 See Thompson, 172 n. 1.

13 These met in the p a g u s , or countryside.

 183

lower social levels, conversion to Christianity would

likely have been perceived as a boost to one's social

status. Therefore the whole of Charlemagne's judicial

system would have served to further such conversion and to

reinforce Christian living consequent to Baptism.

However, the social pressure to convert to

Christianity which would have existed for a landowner would

have been absent in the case of the peasant. In addition,

even the landowner, consenting to Baptism for societal

reasons, may not have his heart in the process. Therefore

old pagan symbols may still have remained at the center of

emotional religious life. Prime among these is the figure

of Odin/Wodan.

In Chapter 4 I examined the figures of the gods

Dionysos and Wodan. The mythology of Dionysos includes

dismemberment as a child, and dismemberment has cosmic

significance, as I showed there. But Dionysos himself has

great power as a symbol of the Self. This is shown by the

concepts of zoe in bios associated with his mythology and

the ecstasy associated with his cult. Dionysos is a

powerful paradigm of personal change within a "pagan"

system, in that his worshippers truly seem to have been

seeking a higher (or deeper) Self.

As I also showed, elements of Germanic paganism can be

associated with Dionysic factors. Most notably, certain

aspects of the god Wodan (Scandinavian Odin, Odinn) are

 184

somewhat similar to facets of Dionysic mythology. These

are both "wounded" gods whose worshippers seek

transformation.

The Divine Child and the Individuation Process

In Chapter 2 I introduced the notion that the

subjective component of Radbert's Divine Child visions

could be interpreted archetypally, and I put forth a theory

of visions based on the psychology of C.G. Jung and of

various other writers after him. I said that the images

produced by the patterning force of our archetypes can be

embodied in symbols and symbol-systems, and that visions

are one means of objectifying this process. An imaginative

vision may therefore be seen as an embodiment of an

archetype or complex, presenting a clear image on which an

individual or group may focus in a conscious manner.

Furthermore, such an image is capable of acting

symbolically, in that it may evoke personal growth. That

is, the vision/image/symbol, experienced either at first-

or second-hand, calls out archetypal elements within the

unconscious of responding individuals, thus fostering

within those individuals a confrontation with their own

archetypes and initiating a process of complex-building ego

 185

development. Such a confrontation, by deepening one's

knowledge of self, is growth-producing.16

I also said that the image of a child, arising from

the unconscious as a manifestation of the child archetype,

indicates that a deintegration of personality has begun.17

This deintegration is the "taking apart" which precedes a

new "putting together." That is, the child image

symbolizes the beginnings of the individuation process and

points toward the emergent Self.10 As presented by several

writers, moreover, the child/Divine Child image does more

than signify deintegration. Von Franz says that the image

16 Even though Radbert accepts the accounts of these

visions at face value and naively presents them as proof of
Christ's corporeal presence in the eucharist, it does not
follow that he is completely unaware of their symbolic
power. Although unable to explain this power in
psychological terms, he is nevertheless able to harness it
and put it to use in pulling his audience forward into a
feeling appropriation of Christianity. His choice of
visions is most probably guided by unconscious factors. It
is possible that these were the stories which affected him,
and led him to a fuller acceptance of Christ at the center
of his own life.
The story of Plecgils appears in a contemporary
collection of poetry. Since this was the only story
included in Radbert's first edition, it is likely to have
been a personal favorite. Next to Plecgils’ encounter with
the Divine Child, that of Basil is only an anecdote.
Whoever included the story of the dismembered boy did so
because it was recognized as a dynamic use of the same
symbol. (Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the
story, as presented by Arsenius, is a dynamic experience of
the same symbol.)

17 Michael Fordham, The Objective Psyche (London:

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958), 62.

10C.G. Jung, "The Psychology of the Child Archetype,"

in Jung and C. Kerenyi, Essays on a Science of Mythology
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 87.
 186

itself "conveys a new sight."19 Fordham implies that the

production of such an image by the psyche shows not a

possibility of future renewal, but that a process of this

renewal is already under way.20 Jung refers to the child

symbol as a uniter of opposite tendencies within the

individual. The symbol itself has a redemptive effect and

causes a growth of consciousness.21 The "child" is

therefore simply a formula for a process which is already

under way when the image appears.22 The child image

functions as a representation of the (new) Self. It

focusses libido on the Self and directs the ego away from

the p s y c h e ’s conscious center and toward the Self, which is

both conscious and unconscious.

But the child of Radbert's Chapter XIV is a Divine

Child. When the ego is induced to pay attention to a

Divine Child image (or symbol), one's ego strength becomes

engaged in a process of transformation wherein the image of

what one is becoming transformed into is one of deity. In

other words an identification is formed between one's

psychic center (Self) and a divinity within. According to

Jung these two (the Self and the god-image) are the same.

19M.-L. von Franz, Puer Aeternus, 2d ed. (Santa

Monica, CA: Sigo Press, 1981), 98-99.

20Fordham, 62-63.

21 Jung, "Child Archetype," 87.

2 2 I b i d ., 92.
 187

A Divine Child symbol, when engaged by the ego, would

indicate a recognition of this identity, an assimilation of

wholeness, or at least a recognition of the possibility of

wholeness, and a rising apprehension of a process of

deification within. In other words, the inherent power of

the archetype pulls the emergent Self not only toward

individuation but toward deification.

The focussing of one's ego attention on a particular

image, symbol or divine representation of one's center,

here becomes a moral decision. That is, since the Self

is a complex and the center of this complex is an

archetype, it seems logical that the archetype in question

(whatever it is) will influence the direction of the

developing Self. Another way of stating the same thing is

to say that the god-image (as self-image toward which the

individuating ego strives) will direct the course of the

individuation process and determine the ultimate "shape" of

the Self. Moreover, the choice of a central archetype will

influence not only the course of the individuation process

but also the continuing course of a person's spiritual

life, because the image produced by the central archetype

is effectively equated with God — i.e., the Self-image is

a God-image. Thus the symbol which the Self chooses as a

paradigm is of ultimate importance to the success of the

individuation process within the person, since the gods we

follow determine what we will become.

 188

The inclusion of Divine Child visions/miracle stories

in a document which argues a eucharistic theology of

divinization (in Chapter IX) underscores R a db e rt ’s

concerns. By means of these visions Radbert indicates a

direction for a future eucharistic spirituality. This

spirituality would seek divinization by means of personal

transformation. That is the Divine Child which is the

subject of the visions is both symbol and paradigm of the

Self which is wounded, sacrificed and in the process of

transformation. The image of the Divine Child indicates

that one is seeking tranformation into one's image of the

divine. The god in which one believes — i.e. that symbol

which is at the center of the psyche — is the image

according to which one is transformed. Or, we become what

we believe.

Therefore Radbert (and any editors who may be

responsible for additions) is urging his readers toward a

personal and emotional identification with the Christ-

child and endorsing the transformative power of this

particular god-image which focusses the ego's attention on

an inner Divine Self. In so doing Radbert intends to

remove older pagan images from the center of his reader's

psychic life.
 189

Sacrifice, Transformation, and the Self

I previously said that Dionysos and Wodan are both

wounded gods whose worshippers seek transformation.

Besides any associations which the mythology of Odin/Wodan

may have to the image of Dionysos, it is certainly similar

to the image of Christ as he was portrayed by medieval

artists and writers. In fact, Dionysos, Wodan and Christ

are all approximately congruent symbols of the Self. In his

context (i.e. time and place) Radbert's use of the Divine

Child symbol is an attempt to place the figure of Christ at

the center of the early medieval quest for personal

transformation, replacing the Dionysic figure of Wodan.

With regard to early medieval comparisons of Christ and

Odin/Wodan, two examples are noteworthy. First, in The

Dream of the Rood, a poem which may be dated to the eighth

century, Christ's cross is referred to as a "wondrous

tree". This is comparable to the tree on which Odin was

said to have hung in the very similar Havamal. The cross

speaks of Christ himself as a Germanic warrior:

"Then the young Warrior,God the All-Wielder, put

off His raiment, steadfast and strong;

With lordly mood in the sight of many He mounted

the cross to redeem mankind.

When the Hero clasped mel trembled in terror, But

I dared not bow me nor bend to earth; I must needs
stand fast.

Upraised as the Rood I held the High King, the

Lord of heaven...
 190

I was wet with blood from the Hero's side when He

sent forth His spirit...

Those warriors left me standing bespattered with

blood; I was wounded with spears.23

There are several parallels between the Havamal and

the Dream of the Rood; In both poems the hero suffers on a

tree — Odin on the world-tree, Christ on the tree of glory

(line 98 of the D re a m ) . In both cases the image is

reducible to that of a Tree of Life. Medieval art and

poetry often portrayed the cross of Christ as a Tree of

Life. In both the Havamal and the Dream the hero is

wounded with a spear. Indeed in the Dream the cross is

wounded with "spears" (line 62). The suffering of Odin on

the "windy tree" is an initiation into wisdom. Likewise

the hero on the cross in the Dream has "redeemed us,

endowed us with life." He is "triumphant, possessing power

and strength" (lines 149-152).24

23C.W. Kennedy, Early English Christian Poetry (New

York: Oxford University Press, 1963); the entire poem
appears on pages 93-97. On page 79, with reference to the
Ruthwell Cross, Kennedy mentions the possibility that the
verses carved on that monument may be taken from an earlier
version of the D r e a m . ... I would venture a guess that this
earlier version may be pagan, and possibly related to the
Havamal, since the Ruthwell Cross is in English Saxon
territory.

24 The Havamal in its present written compilation dates

to the thirteenth century, although it reflects an oral
culture of perhaps the tenth century. Thus The Dream of
the Rood is older, in its present form, than the Havamal.
However, it is theorized that the oral roots of the Havamal
and of the older Edda in general extend far back beyond the
times that its current form might indicate — perhaps as
far as an Indo-European base (c. 2500 B.C.). In its
 191

A second instance of Christ's implicit comparison to

Wodan is in the Saxon poem the Heliand;

To the old Saxon poet Christ is a king over his

people, a warrior, a mighty ruler .. .The Christ
in the Heliand is a hero of the old Germanic
type, an ideal of courage and loyalty, and his
disciples are noble vassals from whom He demands
unflinching loyalty in return . . . The
background of the events in the Heliand is the
flat Saxon land with the fresh North Sea .. .
'Nazarethburg,' 'Bethlehemburg,' 'Rumuburg'
[Rome] called up more vivid, if more homely
pictures than any description of Palestine or
Rome; the marriage at Cana and Herod's birthday-
feast become drinking bouts in the hall of a
German prince.28

It would appear that the image and figure of Christ

was held up as a conscious object of the human spiritual

journey, but that the Dionysic figure of Odin/Wodan still

resided in the psyche. I previously defined spirituality

in terms of the struggle between the ego and the Self and

the enabling of transcendence within the person. Any true

spirituality will be concerned with the way in which a

particular god-image promotes wholeness within the psyche.

What is at issue at this point is the way the worship of a

current form the Havamal may have been influenced by

Christianity. If so, this means that the poem's picture of
Odin has been consciously touched by that of Christ
crucified. In other words such influence would indicate a
conscious paralleling of Christ and Odin. Turville-Petre
has this to say about Christian influence on the Havamal;
"While we cannot preclude the possibility of Christian
influence on the scene described in the Havamal, when we
analyse the lines, we realize that nearly every element in
the Norse myth can be explained as a part of pagan
tradition, and even of the cult of Odinn" (43).

20J,G. Robertson, History of German Literature, 20,

quoted in Thompson, 175.
 192

particular god will encourage transcendence in the devotee:

the worshipper is encouraged to do in his/her own life what

the god does in his "life" or mythology — in other words

to repeat the g o d ’s pattern.

Furthermore, the means of repeating this pattern is by

sacrifice, as I said in Chapters 3 and 4. Sacrifice to any

god both repeats the pattern of the g o d ’s self­

transcendence and ritualizes our own suffering. By

repeating the d e i t y ’s sacrificial activity we insert

ourselves into his pattern and particularize that pattern

in terms of our own life. We thus give meaning to our own

life-pattern, our own course of suffering.

The mythology of Odin/Wodan is many-sided, but the

aspect of interest to a spirituality of self-consciousness

is that of Odin's initiation, or sacrifice of self on the

World-tree. Such an initiatory rite symbolizes the

ascendency of the ego and the attainment of maturity within

one's group. One's focus changes from the "competitive

struggle for individual supremacy", and one becomes

"assimilated to the cultural task of forming a

community."2 6

26 Joseph L- Henderson, "Ancient Myths and Modern Man,"

in Man and His Symbols, ed. C.G. Jung (New York: Dell
Publishing Company, 1964), 119. With regard to the world-
tree as a symbol of knowledge, see Henderson, 152, and
Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology
(New York: Viking Press, 1964), 50-51.
 193

This initiatory symbolism goes beyond so-called "hero"

mythology, which only recognizes ego and liberates it from

unconsciousness.27 Rites and symbols of initiation go on

to address

the problem of maintaining and developing that

consciousness in a meaningful way, so that the
individual can live a useful life and can achieve
the necessary sense of self-distinction in
society.2 0

Initiation, therefore, implies submission to o n e ’s

group and o n e ’s role in that group. One accepts a

conscious role as an individual in one's own right within a

society. It is an initiation into relatedness.29 The goal

of such initiation is to spiritualize and civilize the

initiate, and shows man's need for liberation from any

state of being which is too immature for coping with the

world as it is.30

Odin's image illustrates an interior ego-development

and a rising consciousness of self. He shows an ability to

accept some evil or suffering because of a perceived good

which is to come out of it. It can be said that Odin

overcomes evil by extracting a lesson from it. He is thus

a taker of wisdom.

27 See Henderson, 105-6 and Edward F. Edinger, Ego and

Archetype; Individuation and the Religious Function of the
Psyche (New York: G.F. Putnam's Sons, 1972}, 115.

20 Henderson, 120.

29 Ibid., 125-27.

3 0 Ibid., 146.
 194

As typified in Odin, the ego is shown at a point where

it identifies with newly-found wisdom or energy and

appropriates it for personal purposes.31 At the same time,

however, the initiate, through the difficulty of the

initiation procedure itself, learns to recognize his

society's common store of pain. All suffer; therefore, my

suffering is a way toward both compassion for others and

toward self understanding. One learns to be compassionate,

in other words, towards oneself as well as others.32

In the case of Odin, however, this other-oriented

compassion does not extend itself to a self-sacrifice which

would appear weak or yielding. On the contrary, Odin is

chieftain of the hall of dead heroes. It seems, in other

words, that Odin's compassion for my pain is limited to

rewarding me for having gone through it. The cult of Odin

would not recognize a sparing from pain as being truly

compassionate. Rather, this cult would be preoccupied with

personal honor and strength and the despising of those who

would succumb to weakness. This is inevitable and

necessary in the early stages of ego development.33

In fact, the worship of Odin in late antique Europe

seems not to have been connected with rites of initiation

as such, but with human sacrifice. One was "initiated," so

31Edi ng er , 146.

3 2 Ibid., 144.

3 3 I b i d . , 153.
 195

to speak, directly into Odin's great hall. To be hung, or

stabbed, in imitation of Odin was to ensure a place with

him in Valhalla. One could redeem prior misconduct if one

took o n e ’s own life for Odin. Likewise, warriors who had

showed cowardice in battle would hang themselves

afterwards, in order to join their dead comrades in arms.34

Such behavior indicates that in the worship of Odin

the process of individuation has become stymied. Until a

group (or an individual within a group) breaks out of such

ritualistic patterns, the Self cannot be fully recognized

by the ego, and therefore, cannot lead the ego to full

appropriation of individuality.

The sacrificer to Dionysos more clearly seeks a trans­

personal change through forging a link with cosmic forces.

The irrational dismemberment of ecstasy cannot influence

either the god or the cosmos. But one "dismembers" oneself

in order to forge a new combination of psychic "parts” and

a new relationship with the cosmos — the all. In this

regard Dionysos as "render of men" is a giver not a taker

of wisdom. The worship of Odin/Wodan is not as obviously

self-transcendent as that of Dionysos. Nonetheless, such

worship obviously addresses similar themes. The warrior

34 Georges Dumezil, Gods of the Ancient Northmen

{Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 30. See
also Saxo Grammaticus, The History of the Dan es , Volume I,
t r a n s . Peter Fisher (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1979), section
35, p. 35; and Tacitus, Germania, in The Agricola and the
Germania, trans. H. Mattingly (New York: Penguin Books,
1948), chapter 6.
 196

who (literally) gives himself to Odin does so in order to

join the eternal warrior band in Valhalla, and this is

clearly a transcendent concern.

However, it is in the progression toward the Christ

archetype that a path to a more genuine individuation is

indicated. The moral thrust of this archetype is toward

the taking on of full responsibility for the direction of

the ego by the Self.38

Christ is (somewhat like Dionysos) a wounded giver of

wisdom. But unlike Dionysos, his suffering bears the added

significance of having been consciously accepted. The

notion that Christ chose his own suffering, and even his

own death, and that in making this choice he "laid down his

life for his friends" — i.e. for others — has important

consequences when he is considered as a central archetype

or paradigm of the Self.

What does it mean to say that Jesus chooses suffering

in the service of others? In the first place, Jesus is

said to choose suffering because his ultimate crucifixion

seems to have been avoidable. That is, had he modified his

stance vis-a-vis his opponents, or chosen to be less

assertive in proclaiming his own sense of self-hood (which

3 nThe figure of Christ is nonetheless open to

imitation or mere copying. See M.-L. von Franz, "The
Process of Individuation," in Man and His Symbols, ed. C.G.
Jung (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1964), 235-36.
 197

was also godliness),36 his ultimate fate might have been

different. In addition, Jesus' choice of suffering was in

the service of others since it seems that a less assertive

proclaiming of his Self would have correspondingly

mitigated his meaning for others.

It is Jesus' choice of the psychic suffering of

rejection which most clearly indicates his sense of self­

hood. He is able to bear being perceived by others as

mistaken in his own self-image, i.e., as mistaken in his

own understanding of himself as one with the Father. His

inner center is strong enough to allow him to accept

responsibility for the consequences of this image. He in

fact dies, rather than repudiate his self-understanding.

He goes to his death, finally, totally true to his own

sense of self-hood.

In terms of Jungian psychology, the whole concept

of the cross is a sacrifice of the newly won
consciousness in order that it may be reborn
through reimmersion in the unconscious.
Symbolically the water of baptism witnesses to
our return to the waters of the unconscious, 'the
deep' of Gen. 1.2, from which our consciousness
is derived. Moreover, the cross reveals . . .
the discrimination between good and evil, for
Christ is crucified on the horns of this dilemma,

36 Arguments to the effect that Jesus never said he was

God are, for the purposes of this study, moot. The intent
of the synoptic writers is to show that he was condemned by
the Jewish council for blasphemy — i.e., he acted like
God, having healed on the Sabbath.
 198

where superlative goodness and demonic evil

combine in one and the same event.37

Christianity has been founded upon the assumption that

Jesus was correct in his self-understanding, and orthodox

faith has proclaimed Christ homo-ousios with the Father.

Humanity must henceforth deal with a conception of Self

which includes godliness. The consequences for us of this

new self-understanding are awesome and terrifying, because

the imitation of Christ will surely lead to a kind of

d e a t h .3 8

Psychologically understood, the cross can be seen

as C h r i s t ’s destiny, his unique life pattern to
be fulfilled. To take up one's own cross would
mean to accept and consciously realize one's own
particular pattern of wholeness. The attempt to
imitate Christ literally and specifically is a
concretistic mistake in the understanding of a
symbol. Seen symbolically, Christ's life will be
a paradigm to be understood in the context of
one's own unique reality and not as something to
be slavishly imitated. Jung has spoken clearly
on this subject:

37 Charles Bartruff Hanna, The Face of the D e e p : The

Religious Ideas of C.G. Jung (Philadelphia: The Westminster
Pr e s s , 1967), 90.

30 I speak here both of the historical Jesus, insofar

as we can know of him, and of the Christ-image which
orthodox Christianity has put forth for imitation, because
the latter is based on the former. (See Edinger, 132ff.,
on the historical Jesus.) J u n g ’s writings on Christ as an
archetype are based on the figure of Christ as he has been
put forth as an object of belief for centuries. In other
words, Jung concerns himself with the Christian mythus
surrounding Christ, and the import of that mythus for the
development of human persons. However, to force a rigid
separation of Jesus himself from the mythus which has grown
up around him is to be untrue to Christian sources. In
addition, such a separation would undermine the foundations
of any spirituality which would call itself Christian.
 199

"We Protestants must sooner or later face this

question: Are we to understand the 'imitation of
C h r i s t ’ in the sense that we should copy his life
and, if I may use the expression, ape his
stigmata; or in the deeper sense that we are to
live our own proper lives as truly as he lived
his in its individual uniqueness? It is no easy
matter to live a life that is modelled on
Christ's, but it is unspeakably harder to live
one's own life, as truly as Christ lived his.39

The Christian is not to copy Christ, but is to try with a

sincerity and devotion equal to Christ's to live his or her

own life.40

In concrete terms, the individual C h ri st ia n ’s attempt

to follow Jesus to wholeness implies self sacrifice and

moral suffering. One must at least sacrifice too-

idealistic images of Self in order to allow the real Self

to become the guide of the individuating ego. The ego, in

other words, must take into account the "dark side" of

human nature, must allow all aspects of the true Self to

become conscious.41 When this "true Self" becomes the

guide of the conscious ego, one is prodded to make moral

39Edinger, 135, citing Jung, "Psychotherapists or the

Clergy," in Psychology and R el i g i o n : West and East [CW 11]
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), par. 522.

40 von Franz, "Individuation," 235-36.

41 Jung differentiates between suppression of evil

tendencies (which is a conscious and deliberate effort to
either dispose of evil tendencies or to live with t he m ) ,
and repression of disagreeable decisions (which is a half­
conscious and half-hearted attempt to be not conscious of
certain things). Suppression amounts to a conscious moral
choice, but repression is an attempt to remain unconscious
of o n e ’s desires, so that they may be lived out. C.G.
Jung, Psychology and Religion (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1938), 91.
 200

decisions in the world as it is, and to make realistic

adaptations to life.42 One becomes morally responsible for

one's decisions, whether or not these decisions correspond

to the moral norms recognized by others.43 One chooses the

good as one sees it, aware of the paradoxical nature of all

things and no longer able to follow the "rules" as these

have been laid out by others. In the end, such choices, of

course, lead to our rejection by others who are not so

self-directed.

In accepting suffering for the sake of others, Christ

becomes the wounded giver of wisdom whose image illustrates

a rich development of the Self. This is a Self which

accepts full responsibility for whatever part one knows one

can play in the world arena, down to the possibility of

death in order to preserve (inner) life. Christ overcomes

evil by turning it into good. That is, by being thoroughly

true to the Self, he shows evil for what it is, turning it

into good by unleashing its power to repulse.

Sacrifice and Divinization

I said in Chapter 3 that we suffer because we are

conscious, that suffering is an enlarger of

4zEdinger, 140.

43C.G. Jung, "Five Chapters from A i o n ," in Psyche and

Symbol, ed. Violet S. de Laszlo (Garden City, NY: Doubleday
Anchor Books, 1958), 25-26.
 201

consciousness,44 and that sacrifice is a ritual form of

suffering and a cultic explanation of the suffering of

life.43 Therefore sacrifice would be an attempt to enlarge

consciousness and hence would further the individuation

process. The eucharist, as a memorializing of Christ's

sacrifice of self on the cross, is a commemoration of the

original "birth" of C h ri s t ’s consciousness of self on that

cross. By participating in a eucharistic sacrifice, the

worshipper inserts himself into the sacrificial act in

order to gain this new consciousness for him- or herself.

Hence the eucharist is in turn connected to our own

suffering. As the bread and wine is consumed by us, so we

are consumed by life, and this is a divine process. This

effect is underscored by the Christian belief that the

offering of Christ in the Mass is trans-historical and that

the participants join him in offering themselves.

The re-enacting of C h r i st ’s suffering in the Mass is

thus a cosmic acting out of our own lives in the sense that

it is the paradigm of the personal transformation which is

our life's work.46 But it would not be a cosmic acting out

44 von Franz, Puer, 113.

43 See M.-L. von Franz, C.G. Jung: His Myth in our

Time, trans. W.H. Kennedy (Boston: Little, Brown and
Company, 1975), 229-30; and Edinger, 152.

46 See Alexander Gerken, "Historical Background of the

New Direction in Eucharistic Doctrine," Theology Digest,
Vol. 21, No. 1, Spring 1973. Referring to the New
Testament texts concerning the institution of the eucharist
and its sacrificial meaning, the author says: "What could
 202

if it were only a paradigm of personal transformation. The

sacrifice of the Mass is also a paradigm of trans-personal

or cultural transformation — especially in those eras in

which this transformation is being bought "at a great

price," such as Radbert's time.

Von Franz says that the child symbol has two aspects:

When the child motif turns up, it represents a

bit of spontaneity, and the great problem — in
each case an ethical individual one -- is to
decide whether it is now an infantile shadow
which must be cut off and repressed, or something
creative that is moving towards a future
possibility of life. The child is always behind
and ahead of us. Behind us, it is the infantile
shadow which we leave behind, and infantility
which must be sacrificed — that which always
pulls us backwards into being infantile and
dependent, being lazy, playful, escaping
problems, responsibility and life. On the other
hand, if the child appears ahead of us it means
renewal, the possibility of eternal youth, of
spontaneity and of new possibilities — the life
flow towards the creative future. The great
problem always is to make up one's mind in every
situation whether there is now an infantile
impulse which only pulls backwards, or an impulse
which seems infantile to one's own consciousness
but which really should be accepted and lived
because it leads forward.47

the Greek Fathers make of these New Testament statements?

They took it for granted that the basic law of the cosmos
was Platonic exemplarity, according to which the invisible
idea images or embodies itself in a visible reality in
which it is really present, active upon us, and affected by
us. They understood everything in terms of 'symbolic
reality' {Real symbol)" (47). In his introductory abstract,
the author also says that the Council of T r e n t ’s
endorsement of the term "transubstantiation" is simply an
insistence that something is present in the eucharist
beyond what is seen. In this sense "there are many secular
transubstantiations, since personal relationships, by
altering what a thing means, really alter what is" (46).

47 von Franz, Puer, 29.

 203

Jung says that "The child motif represents the pre-

conscious, childhood aspect of the collective psyche."40

In addition, I have shown in Chapter 3 that the child

archetype represents a resolution of conflict.49 Jung says

further that:

The child is potential future. Hence the

occurrence of the child motif in the psychology
of the individual signifies as a rule an
anticipation of future developments, even though
at first sight it may seem like a retrospective
configuration. Life is a flux, a flowing into
the future, and not a stoppage or a backwash. It
is therefore not surprising that so many of the
mythological saviours are child gods. This
agrees exactly with our experience of the
psychology ofthe individual, which shows that
the 'child' paves the way for a future change of
personality. In the individuation process, it
anticipates the figure that comes from the
synthesis of conscious and unconscious elements
in the personality. It is therefore a symbol
which unites the opposites; a mediator, bringer
of healing, that is, one who makes whole.30

Thus the child symbol has both a past and future

quality about it, and the sacrificing of the child could

indicate a "cutting off" (dismemberment) of the past with a

consequent thrust into the future. It is not accidental

that the child visions under discussion occur in a context

which is specifically sacrificial (i.e., eucharistic). In

context the visions represent a sacrifice of a part of the

(interior) image and a "making holy" of what remains. In a

48 Jung, "Child Archetype," 80.

4 9 Ib i d ., 87.

30 Ibid., 83.
 204

sense the past is sacrificed into the future. This is not

the sacrifice of the "merely human" to the "divine,"

because both the past and the future child are aspects of

one individual. It is the sacrifice of dependency, or of

the feeling of being "merely human" within the individual

and the taking up of the divine responsibility of life, as

lived out within our own pain. This progression is also a

true imitation of Christ, as I have shown.

I have indicated that the child symbol "saves" or

redeems by catching the attention of the conscious mind, by

"fascinating" the one who "meets" the child (in a vision

for example). This fascination is able to grip the

conscious mind and force it into paying attention, into

being led, by the unconscious. This resolution of conflict

can also occur culturally, i.e. trans-personally. In this

context an observation of Jung's is pertinent:

In view of the fact that men have not yet ceased

to make statements about the child god, we may
perhaps extend the individual analogy to the life
of mankind and say in conclusion that humanity,
too, probably always comes into conflict with its
childhood conditions, that is, with its original,
unconscious, and instinctive state, and that the
danger of the kind of conflict which induces the
vision of the 'child' actually exists. Religious
observances, i.e., the retelling and ritual
repetition of the mythical event, consequently
serve the purpose of bringing the image of
childhood, and everything connected with it,
again and again before the eyes of the conscious
mind so that the link with the original condition
may not be broken.31

31 Ibid., 81.
 205

What Jung is saying is that there is danger of

becoming too separated from our past, and of becoming

"unchildlike and artificial." Thus the presentation of a

Divine Child figure in R a d b e r t 1s time and to his Saxon

audience is an attempt to prevent this separation and to

reconcile their past with their future. Personally the

individuation process is pushed forward when the personal

ego is "sacrificed" to the Self. One "puts on the new man"

and goes into one's future. Trans-personal or cultural

progress is furthered by individuals whose personal

individuation process is able to produce symbols which will

provoke others into marching into the same future to which

the visionary has dedicated him- or herself. Viable

progress always comes from the cooperation of conscious and

unconscious elements. Thus, with his Divine Child symbol

Radbert is trying to free his whole culture from the

conflict of opposites in which it is caught. As I said

previously, the conscious minds of his audience are caught

between the opposites of an emotional, Dionysic worship of

Wodan and a sterile, intellectualized version of

Christianity. Radbert attempts to build a new Christian

ediface for the Saxons on the ground of their recent

(pagan) past. He attempts this in spite of the fact that

this past has been discredited by Charlemagne's purges, and

he seems to be aware that the religious future of his

audience depends upon a successful re-integration of

 206

elements of this past. Thus he would not "save the souls"

of individuals while losing the "soul" of a people.

In a period of cultural dissociation such as

Radbert's, the Divine Child is a reminder of cultural roots

and an emotional key to the future. All of the good which

a sacrifice to Wodan brought is still available in Christ.

The sacrifice of ego to Self will continue, but at the

center of the Complex of Self is a new archetype, a new

Divine Child and god-image. The old gods are no longer

sufficient; they have been discarded and replaced. But

their ultimate good is not to be rejected. Christ the

Divine Child will take all that is self-transcendent from

the past and project it into a future which is unlimited

because its new god is unlimited and capable of

assimilating a great number of growth-patterns. At the

center of this new religion is a symbol of Self which is

not only a God in himself, but a God-man — Christ.

Sacrifice with (not to) Christ is an attempt to attach a

truly awful power — that of combining the divine with the

human -- that of making conscious the previously

unconscious drive toward divinity and of recognizing one's

own divine power within.

 APPENDIX ONE

De Corpore et Sanguine Domini

Chapter XIV1

XIV. That these often have appeared visible to outward

appearance.

No one who will have read the lives and precedents of

the saints is able to be ignorant that these mystical

sacraments of the body and blood have often been shown in

visible appearance. Either because of doubts, or certainly

because of more ardently loving Christ, these have been

shown in the form of a lamb or in the character of flesh

and blood. This is because Christ, of himself, mercifully

causes belief in the previously unbelieving, so that when

the oblation is broken or the consecrated host is offered,

a lamb may be seen in the hands, and live blood in the

chalice as if flowing forth from an

XIV. Quod haec saepe visibili specie apparuerint.

Nemo qui sanctorum vitas et exempla legerit, potest
ignorare quod saepe haec mistica corporis et sanguinis
sacramenta aut propter dubios aut certe propter ardentius
amantes Christum visibili specie in agni formam aut in
carnis et sanguinis colore monstrata sint, quatinus de se
Christus clementer adhuc non credentibus fidem faceret, ita
ut, dum oblata frangitur vel offertur hostia, videretur
agnus in manibus et cruor in calice quasi ex

1 The Latin text herein is taken from Bedae Paulus,

ed., Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis: XVI
{Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers I G P , 1969), 85-92.
Variations in spelling of individual Latin words are
traceable to that text, and presumably also to Radbert's
tract itself.

207
 208

immolation, so that what was hidden in the mystery would be

revealed to the hitherto doubting in a miracle. For this

divine compassion caused certain persons, now believing and

yet previously doubting, to learn faithfulness from its

source; while others are both strengthened in faith because

of the miracle and also, by the grace of Christ operating

through that same faith, come to share more abundantly.

Now, the Truth proclaimed that they should believe

without seeing. But because we are hard-hearted, he wanted

with divine gentleness to satisfy every kind of person, so

that furthermore, none of these are left doubting. But

further, if neither showings are believed, nor that which

the Truth testifies, they are informed by faith. He

eagerly seeks out anyone at all who is waiting

immolatione profluere, ut quod latebat in mysterio,

patesceret adhuc dubitantibus in miraculo. Fecit enim hoc
pietas divina quibusdam iam credentibus et tamen adhuc
dubitantibus, ut et ipsi fiduciam de veritate perciperent
et alii de miraculo ad fidem solidarentur et de Christi
gratia per eandem fidem uberius participarentur.
Nam quae Veritas repromisit, sine aspectu credenda
sunt. Sed quia duricordes sumus, voluit divina mansuetudo
in quibusdam omnibus satisfacere, ut ulterius de his iam
nemo dubitet. Porro quod si nec ostensa creduntur nec ea
quae Veritas testatur, ex fide communicantur, quaerat
quilibet ob satisfactionem sui quid expectet,
 209

and satisfies them. Because there is nothing beyond reach

of the truth, and whatever the Truth has, this he makes

present whenever he pleases, by showing through the

appearance. Whence it is proper also to believe that these

things have been most fittingly shown, and to doubt nothing

which the Truth proclaims. This is because anyone who

seeks anything outside the Truth finds only falsehood; and

at the same time, if he does not accept those things which

have been said by Christ, he isolates himself from the

Truth. Indeed, however, I have said often that these

things have been shown, and I will reveal one from the many

appearances to the ones who love Christ more ardently, and

a few from those to whom he has appeared in visible

appearance.

quoniam nihil extra veritatem est et quidquid Veritas

habet, hoc ostensio per speciem, quando placuerit,
repraesentat. Unde credere oportet, quod et haec
opportunissime ostensa sint, et nihil dubitare de his quae
Veritas repromittit, quia quisquis extra Veritatem aliquid
quaerit, nonnisi falsitatem inveniet et semetipsum, si ea
quae a Christo dicta sunt non receperit, extra Veritatem
secludit. Quod autem dixi saepe quibusque ardentius
Christum amantibus haec praemonstrata fuisse, unum e
[quibusque visibili specie apparuisse pauca de] pluribus
pandem.
 210

So, while the Blessed Basil was performing the divine

mysteries publicly, a certain Hebrew mixed himself with the

people as a Christian. Inclined to investigate the

minister of the office and service, he saw that a little

child was being distributed in thehands of Basil. And

then all having communicated, he came, and he himself was

also given the flesh truly made. From there he approached

toward the chalice filled with blood, so that he truly

became a participant on his own. And so after observing

the relics he went to his home, and he spoke plainly to his

wife and told what he had seen with his own eyes in order

to verify his words. Therefore believing, she said: "The

Christian mystery is truly frightful and admirable." On

the next day, the man came to Basil demanding that he

accept the miracle as from Christ without delay. But holy

[Beato igitur Basilio divina misteria publice agente,

Hebreus quidam se sicut Christianus populo commiscuit.
Officii ministerium et muneris explorare volens vidit
infantem partiri in manibus Basilii. Et communicantibus
omnibus venit et ipse dataque est ei vere caro facta. Inde
accessit ad calicem sanguine repletem, ut vere est, et
ipsius factus est particeps. Atque de utrisque servans
reliquias abiensque in domum suam ostendit uxori suae ad
confirmationem dictorum et narravit quae propriis oculis
viderat. Credens ergo ait:" vere quia horribile et
ammirabile est Christianorum misterium. In crastino venit
ad Basilium postulans se sine dilatione accipere quod in
Christo est signaculum. Basilius autem sanctus non
 211

Basil did not put him off. Rather, offering the accustomed

eucharist to all who wanted it for salvation, Basil

baptized the man with all from his house who believed in

the Lord.

Also that showing from the life of Blessed Gregory

should be added. Now, a certain noble matron had been

accustomed by habit to make offerings each Lord's Day, and

to offer to the curate likewise. On one such day she came

to holy communion among others in order to accept the body

of Christ. But when the blessed high-priest extended to

her the bread of the Lord's body saying: "May The Body of

our Lord Jesus Christ do good to you in remission of all

your sins", she smiled immediately. But seeing this, the

man of God withdrew the sacred communion from her and

placed it upon the altar. Then he interrupted the sacred

differens, sed consuetam eucharistiam volenti omnes salvare

offerens baptizavit eum cum omni domo sua credentem Domino.
(Cf. PL 73, 301D- 302A in the Vita Sancti Basilii.)
Sed et illud ex vita beati Gregorii addendum. Cum
matrona quaedam nobilis singulis diebus Dominicia
oblationes facere consuevisset more ecclesiastico atque
offerre, quadam die cum ad communionem sanctam inter alias
venisset, ut corpus Christi acciperet, illi autem beatus
pontifex offam Dominici corporisporrexit dicens: Corpus
Domini nostri Iesu Christi prosit tibi in remissionem
omnium peccatorum, continuo subrisit. Quod vir Dei videns
ab ea communionem sacram retraxit et super altare posuit,
donee explicito ministerio sacro interrogavit earn,
 212

service and asked her why she had smiled so. But she

replied: "I recognized that what I heard you call the body

of the Lord was a small portion of my offering, and so I

smi le d."

Then the holy man Gregory, speaking to the people,

exhorted them to entreat God with prayers for the

strengthening of the faith of the woman, so that the Lord

would show clearly in visible appearance what she was not

strong enough to believe with the eyes of the mind. But

when it had been spoken, all the people immediately got up

as if with one mind, and he rolled back the cloth from the

altar. And looking carefully she found the part which had

been placed there, about a finger's breadth in size,

overflowing with blood. Then the priest said to the woman:

"Learn that what the Truth affirms is real.

cur riserit. At ilia: Recognovi, inquit, portiunculam

oblationis meae fuisse quam corpus Domini te appellasse
audivi, et ideo risi.
Tunc sanctus vir Gregorius loquens ad populum
exhortatus est eos Deum exorare precibus ad corroborandam
fidem mulieris, ut visibili specie Dominus demonstraret
quod oculis mentis ilia credere non valebat. Quod cum
oratum fuisset, surgens una cum populo mox cernentibus
cunctis pallam revoluit altaris. Contuente etiam ilia
invenit partem quam posuerat, in modum digiti auricularis
sanguine superfusam. Tunc mulieri sacerdos
inquit: Disce verum esse quod Veritas ait,
 213

Because the bread which we offer is truly the body of

Christ, according to his own word, and the blood is truly

drink. Believe now at last that nothing can exist except

what the divine majesty has willed." Then the priest of

Christ immediately prayed that the flesh and blood would

return to their prior form. And thus it was done, so that

all might glorify God, the faithlessness of the woman might

be driven out, and then, the sacred holy mystery having

been communicated, she might be healed.

Now the Abbot Arsenius, he of such sanctity and

compunction, is said to have been filled with grace, so

that for an exuberant excess of tears, he always carried a

handkerchief in his robe for wiping his face. He it was

who told most frequently of a certain person living in

Scythia who was great in the active life, but simple in

quia panis quern nos offerimus, vere est corpus Christi

iuxta ipsius vocem et sanguis vere ext potus. Crede iam
tandem quod aliud esse non potest nisi quod divina maiestas
voluit. Deinde sacerdos Christi continuo precibus egit, ut
eadem caro et sanguis pristinam reciperet formam. Sicque
factum est, ut omnes glorificarent Deum et infidelitas
pelleretur feminae sacroque sancto communicata misterio
sanaretur.] (Cf. PL 75, 52C-53B in the Sancti Gregorii
Magni Vita. )
Abbas autem arsenius tantae sanctitatis et
compunctionis gratia dicitur repletus fuisse, ut pronimia
lacrimarum exuberatione pannum ad tergendam faciem semper
in sinu deferret. Hie etiam sepissime narrabat de quodam
Scithi habitante qui erat magnus in activa vita, simplex
 214

faith. And he strayed, in as much as he was uneducated,

and he said that that bread which we eat is not the body of

Christ according to nature, but it is a figure of him.

Now two elders, hearing that he spoke in this way, yet

knowing that his life and dealings were great, considered

that he spoke innocently and in simplicity. So they came

to him and spoke to him: "Abbot, we heard the sermon about

a certain infidel who said that the bread which we eat is

not the natural body of Christ, but a figure of him." The

superior said to them: ”1 am the one who said this." But

they questioned him, saying: "Abbot, you may not so hold,

but only as the catholic Church taught. But we believe

that the bread is the very body of Christ and the chalice

the very blood of Christ according to the truth and not

according to a figure. But as in the

autem in fide. Et errabat pro eo quod erat idiota, et

dicebat non esse naturaliter corpus Christi panem istum
quern sumimus, sed figuram eius esse.
Hoc autem duo senes audientes quod diceret hunc
sermonem, scientes quia magna esset vita eius et
conversatio, cogitaverunt quia innocenter et simpliciter
diceret hoc. Et venerunt ad eum et dicunt ei: abba,
sermonem audivimus cuiusdam infidelis qui dicit quia panis
quern sumimus, non naturale corpus Christi, sed figura est
eius. Senex ait eis: ego sum qui hoc dixi. Illi autem
rogabant eum dicentes: non sic teneas, abba, sed sicut
ecclesia catholica tradidit. Nos autem credimus quia panis
ipse corpus Christi est et calix ipse est sanguis Christi
secundum veritatem et non secundum figuram. Sed
 215

beginning he took the dust of the earth and formed man

according to his image — and no one can say that this is

not the image of the incomprehensible God — so the bread

of which hesaid, 'It ismy body', we believe that it is

the body of Christ, according to the truth."

But the superior said to them: "Unless I recognize

the very thing, your claim will not satisfy me." To that

however they said to him: "We beg God that he reveal this

to us on this sabbath of mystery." The superior, with true

joy, offered up that sermon of his and begged God, saying:

"Lord, you know that I am not incredulous in this thing

through malice. But, lest I might err through ignorance,

reveal to me accordingly, Lord Jesus Christ, what the truth

is." And indeed those elders, retiring to their cells,

were also privately asking God for the same

sicut in principio pulverem de terra accepit et plasmavit

hominem ad imaginem suam et nemo potest dicere quia non est
imago Dei incomprehensibilis, ita et panis quem dixit quia
corpus meum est, credimus quia secundum veritatem corpus
est Christi.
Senex autem ait eis: nisi rem ipsam cognovero, non
mihi satisfaciet petitio vestra. Illi autem dixerunt ad
eum: deprecemur Deum hebdomada hac de misterio hoc et
credimus, quia Deus revelat nobis. Senex vero cum gaudio
suscepit sermonem istum et deprecabatur Deum dicens:
domine, tu cognoscis, quia non per malitiam incredulus sum
in re hac, sed ne per ignorantiam errem, revela ergo mihi,
Domine Iesu Christe, quod verum est. Sed et illi senes
abeuntes in cellas s u a s , rogabant et ipsi Deum in cellis
 216

thing, saying: "Lord Jesus Christ, Reveal this mystery to

the superior, so that he may believe and that his work may

not ruin him."

The Lord heard them, and the sabbath having been

fulfilled, they came into the church on the Lord's day and

only those three sat upon the rush seat which was bound

like a bundle, the superior joining them at the middle

hour. Moreover, their intellectual eyes were opened, and

when the breads were placed on the altar, it appeared to

just those three as if a little boy was lying on the altar.

And when the presbyter had extended his hand so as to break

the bread, an angel of the Lord descended from heaven,

having a knife in his hand, and he sacrificed that little

boy, indeed catching up his blood in the chalice.

Moreover, when the presbyter broke the bread into little

suis dicentes: Domine Iesu Christe, revela seni misterium

hoc, ut credat et non perdat laborem suum.
Exaudivit illos Dominus et hebdomada completa venerunt
Dominico die in ecclesia et sederunt ipsi tres soli super
sedile de scirpo quod in modum fascis erat ligatum, medius
horum sedebat senex ille. Aperti sunt autem intellectuales
oculi eorum, et quando positi sunt panes in altare,
videbatur illis tantummodo tribus tamquam puerulus iacens
super altare, et cum extendisset presbiter manum ut
frangeret panem, descendit angelus Domini de celo habens
cultrum in manu et sacrificavit puerulum ilium, sanguinem
vero eius excipiebat in calice. Cum autem presbiter
frangeret in parvis partibus panem,
 217

pieces, the angel also cut up the boy's limbs into like

parts.

Accordingly, when the superior approached in order to

take holy communion, the flesh stained with blood was given

to him alone. When he saw that, he became very much afraid

and cried out saying: "Lord, I believe that the bread

which was placed on the altar is your body and the chalice

is your blood." And immediately that flesh became bread in

his hand in accordance with the mystery. And he took that

in his mouth, giving thanks to God.

But the elders said to him: "God knows that human

nature is not able to feed on raw flesh, and on that

account he transformed his body into bread and his blood

into wine for these who accept that by faith." And they

etiam et angelus incidebat pueri membra per modicas partes.

Cum ergo accessisset senex, ut acciperet sanctam
communionem, data est ipsi soli caro sanguine cruentata.
Quod cum vidisset, pertimuit et clamavit dicens: credo
Domine, quia panis qui in altari ponitur, corpus tuum est
et calix tuus est sanguis. Et statim facta est caro ilia
in manu eius panis secundum misterium. Et sumpsit illud in
ore gratias agens Deo.
Dixerunt autem ei senes: Deus scit, humana natura quia
non potest vesci carnibus crudis, et propterea
transformavit corpus suum in panem et sanguinem suum in
vinum his qui illud fide suscipiunt. Et egerunt gratias
 218

gave thanks to God on account of that superior, that God

did not permit his work to go to waste. And all returned

with joy into their cells.

Sometimes indeed these showings are collected to honor

an annointed vow to the dead; such as this one from the

exploits of the Angli. A certain presbyter who was

intensely scrupulous, Plecgils by name, frequently

celebrated the liturgical solemnities of a bishop and

confessor at the body of St. Nynian. When he was drawn to

the holy life by the fitting guidance of a gracious Christ,

he began to entreat omnipotent God by pious prayers that he

would show him the nature of C h ri st ’s body and blood. And

so he sought those not from faithlessness, as is usual, but

from piety of mind.

Deo de sene illo, quia non permisit Deus perire laborem

eius. Et reversi sunt omnes cum gaudio in cellas suas.
(Cf. PL 73, 978A-980A in the Verba Seniorum.)
Nam [nonnumquam vero ad votum desiderantibus christum
haec praemonstrata leguntur sicut illud in gestis anglorum,
quod] quidam presbiter fuit [fuerit] religiosus valde,
Plecgils nomine, frequenter missarum sollemnia celebrans ad
corpus S. Nini episcopi et confessoris. Qui cum digno
moderamine sanctam Christo propitio duceret vitam, coepit
omnipotentem Deum piis pulsare praecibus, ut sibi
monstraret naturam corporis Christi atque sanguinis.
Itaque non ex infidelitate ut adsolet, sed ex pietate
mentis ista petivit.
 219

For he had been imbued with divine law from childhood,

and on account of the high king's love at that time, he had

left the confines of the fatherland, and the dear regions,

so that as a busy exile he could learn the mysteries of

Christ. And so, inflamed with his greater love and daily

offering costly gifts, he was requesting that what was

hidden under the forms of bread and wine would pierce the

appearances and be shown to him. This was not because he

was doubtful about the body of Christ, but because he

wanted so much to perceive Christ, whom none of the mortals

are able to behold, even though they may have been freed

here and there from the earth and are now above the stars.

Accordingly, a day had come when, piously celebrating

the liturgical sacrifices in his usual manner, he sank to

Fuerat enim a puero divinis legibus inbutus et propter

amorem superni regis olim patriae fines et dulcia liquerat
a r v a , ut Christi mysteria exul sedule disceret. Idcirco
eius amore magis succensus cotidie praetiosa munera
offerens poscebat sibi praemonstrari quae foret species
latitans sub forma panis et v i n i . Non quia de corpore
Christi dubius esset, sed quia vel sic Christum cernere
vellet, quern nemo mortalium iam super astra levatum in
terris passim conspicere potest.
Venerat ergo dies ut idem celebrans pie
sollempnia missarum more solito procubuit genibus.
 220

his knees. He said; "I beg you, Almighty, reveal to me a

bit in this mystery the nature of the body of Christ, so

that I might perceive him here and now in fleshly aspect

and touch with my hands the form of him whom the mother

bore as a wailing child.

While these things were being requested, an angel from

heaven, drawing near, addressed him. He said: "Stand up

quickly, if it pleases you tosee Christ, he is present,

clothed in the bodily garment which hewore for the sacred

childbirth." Then the venerable presbyter, trembling,

raising his countenance from the floor, saw upon the altar

the Son of the Father, the infant boy whom Simeon had

deserved to carry in his arms. At this the angel said:

"Because it has pleased you to see Christ, whom you

previously were accustomed to consecrate under

Te depraecor inquid omnipotens, pande mihi exiguo in hoc

mysterio naturam corporis Christi, ut mihi liceat eum
prospicere praesentem corporeo visu et formam pueri quern
olim sinus matris tulit vagientem, nunc manibus
contrectare.
Qui dum talia praecaretur, angelus de caelo adveniens
adfatur: Surge inquid propere, si Christum videre placet,
adest praesens corporeo vestitus amictu, quern sacra
puerpera gessit. Turn venerabilis presbiter pavidus ab imo
vultum erigens vidit super aram Patris Filium puerum quern
Simeon infantem portare suis ulnibus promeruerat. Cui
angelus inquit: Quia Christum videre placuit quern prius sub
specie panis verbis mysticis sacrare
 221

the appearance of bread by means of the mystical words, now

view with the eyes, handle with the hands." Then the

priest, relying on the heavenly gift, which was wonderfully

done by a word, took the boy into his trembling arms and

joined Christ's own heart to his. And then, in extravagant

embrace, he actually kisses God, pressing with his lips the

godly lips of Christ. At this point, the exquisitely

beautiful bodily members of the Son of God formed into a

whirlwind by the altar and filled his mind with Ch ri s t ’s

heavenly nourishment. Then, cast down again on the ground,

he begged God that he deign to be turned again into the

former appearance. This prayer completed, standing up from

the ground he discovered that the body of Christ had gone

back into the previous form, as he had begged.

solebas, nunc oculis inspice, manibus adtracta. Turn

sacerdos caelesti munere fretus, quod dictu mirum est,
ulnis trementibus puerum accepit et pectus proprium Christi
pectore iunxit. Deinde profusus in amplexum dat oscula Deo
et suis labiis pressit pia labia Christi. Quibus ita
exactis praeclara Filii Dei membra restituit in verticem
altaris et replevit caelesti pabulo Christi mensam. Tunc
rursus humo prostratus depraecatus est Deum, ut dignaretur
ipse iterum verti in pristinam speciem. Qua expleta
oratione surgens e terra invenit corpus Christi in formam
remeasse priorem, uti deprecatus fuerat.
 222

And by wonderful dispensation, the Omnipotent so

deigned to show himself visible in order to satisfy the

desire of one man; and he did this, not in the figure of a

lamb as to those others under this mystery, but in the form

of a boy. And thus the truth would lie open in plain

sight, and both the desire of the priest would be satisfied

by a miracle, and our faith would be strengthened by the

report. But not before he has perused the same

communicated body and blood of the boy as may be going back

into the appearance of the prior form, lest it would seem

foolish that he had presumed, and more abundant interior

faith should be considered necessary in that same

appearance which had been more outwardly beheld by sight.

Et mira Omnipotentis dispensatio qui ob unius

desiderium ita se praebere dignatus est visibilem et non in
figura a g n i , ut aliis quibusque sub hoc mysterio, sed in
forma pueri, quatenus et veritas patesceret in ostenso et
sacerdotis desiderium impleretur ex miraculo nostraque
fides firmaretur ex relatu. Verumtamen non prius idem
communicasse pueri corpus et sanguinem legitur quam rediret
in prioris formae speciem, ne absurdum videretur quod
praesumserat, et fides uberius requiratur interius in eadem
quod exterius visu conspexerat. (Cf. Monumenta Germanise
Histories (1923); Poetae Latini, Aevi Carolini; Tomi IV,
Fasciculus III, "Miracula Nynie Episcopi," pp. 943ff.;
Numero XIII, pp. 957-59.
 223

Meanwhile, this suffices to be said about the

visibleness of the flesh of Christ for the formal

declaration of the truth. For the rest, let them believe

what is written in the gospel. For indeed, those are

higher who had known all flavor and all delight under the

taste of the one appearance, by faith; even though they

might seem lower. And yet it is not that one and then

another is shown. It could be said that however much of

the taste and delight is interior, under one and the same

outward character the manna was shown to all.

Better indeed is the inner power of the thing than its

appearances and fleeting outward character. For that

reason the inner power must be more weightily considered

than the outward character or taste. Because he who

empowered all of nature, divinely conceded to this

Hoc interim dixisse sufficiat de ostensione carnis

Christi pro assertione veritatis. Ceterum si quis ex eo
non credit illud quod in Evangelio praedicatur, prioribus
inquam illis deterior videtur qui sub unius speciei gustu
omnem saporem et omne delectamentum fide perceperant. Nec
tamen illud tunc aliud monstratum, licet quicquid saporis
et delectamenti est interius, sub uno eodemque colore totum
manna praestiterit.
Potior quippe virtus rerum est quam species et fucatus
color. Idcirco virtus magis consideranda est quam color
seu sapor exterius. Quia qui universis virtutem naturae
dedit, hie huic sacramento divinitus indulsit,
 224

sacrament that it be his own flesh and blood. Further, he

conferred the flesh and blood of Christ on the church, in

order to complete the entire sacrament of this mystery, and

mercifully lead his sinless ones toward immortality. The

carnal, too, and the corruptible, he brings to

spiritualness and incorruptability. On that account then,

it ought to be celebrated spiritually, seeing that by this

we might be brought from visible things to invisible. And,

since he still lies hidden, let us more urgently ask for

faith. And nothing need be doubted on account of the

appearance, since by divine oracle the full and more inward

power of Christ guarantees whatever the gospel promises in

accordance with the mystery.

ut sit caro et sanguis ipsius. Ut quod caro et sanguis

Christi ecclesiae contulit, hoc totum sacramentum huius
mysterii compleat et ad inmortalitatem suos inmaculatos
clementer perducat. Carnales quoque et corruptibiles ad
spiritalia et incorruptibilia perficit. Propterea ergo
debuit spiritaliter celebrari, quatinus per hoc de
visibilibus ad invisibilia feramur et quod adhuc latet,
fide instantius requiramus. Nihilque dubitandum de specie,
dum virtus Christi interius totum praestat ex mysterio
quicquid Evangelium repromittit ex divinitatis oraculo.
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Ill DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAE

Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company,

1911. S.v. "Corbie," by G. Cyprian Alston; s.v.
"Paschasius Radbertus", by J. Pohle.

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Eliade, Mircea, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion. New York,

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Hastings, James, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics.

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(Teutonic)," by E. Mogk; s.v. "Sacrifice (Teutonic),"
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"Amphilocios, Bp. iconii;" s.v. "Paul the Deacon."

Ne w Catholic Encyclopedia. 1967 ed. S.v. "Corbie," by

B.L. Ullman; s.v. "Eucharistic Controversies," by N.M.
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Smith, William and Henry Wace, e d s . A Dictionary of

Christian Biography. 1967 ed. S.v. "Ninian;" s.v.
"Pelagius (8) I."

IV LATIN DICTIONARIES

Cassell's Latin Dictionary. Simpson, D.P., Editor. 1977.

Glossary of Later Latin (to 600 A.D.) Souter, A., Editor.

1949.

Media Latinitatis Lexicon Minus Niermeyer, J . F . , Editor.

1976.

Revised Medieval Latin Word-List Latham, R.E., Editor.

1965 .
Patricia McCormick Zirkel

B.S.Ed., St. Thomas Aquinas College (Sparkill, NY)

M.A., St. John's University (NY)

The Divine Child in Paschasius Radbertus1 De Corpore

et Sanguine Domini, Chapter XIV

Dissertation directed by Ewert H. Cousins, Ph.D.

De Corpore et Sanguine Domini is a seminal document in

the history of a western tradition of teaching on the

sacrament of eucharist. This teaching emphasizes the

"real" or bodily presence of Christ on the altar as opposed

to a "spiritual" or symbolic presence. The dissertation

examines one aspect of several visions which comprise

Chapter XIV of the document — the image of Christ present

in the eucharist as a child — and shows that the document

fosters a spirituality of dynamic, internal change within

the participant, rather than a worship of Christ's body and

blood. As part of the dissertation, Chapter XIV of De

Corpore is translated from the Latin and incorporated in an

Appendix.

The early chapters of the dissertation give the

theology and textual history of the treatise. The tribal

religious concerns of its Saxon audience are briefly

introduced, and the text of Chapter XIV is examined in some

detail. The history of a Christian tradition of visions

and miracles is also presented. Finally, the general

psychological system of C.G. Jung is introduced in order to

explain the subjective component of certain visions and to

build a base of understanding for a process of personal

transformation on which the remainder of the dissertation

is focussed.

The dissertation continues with an examination of the

synthesis of personality which Jung terms the "Self," and

adduces a pattern of human existence which includes

wounding and transformation. This pattern of existence is

shown to be typified in the figure of Christ, but is also

present in the mythology of certain pagan gods. Radbert's

use of a Divine Child symbol promotes a personal and

emotional identification of the worshipper with the Christ

Child. This placing of Christ as the center of one's

spiritual life implies a corresponding removal of older,

deeply entrenched Saxon pagan imag es .

 VITA

Patricia Zirkel, the daughter of Lula Marie Hild and

James J. McCormick, was born November 2, 1943 in El Paso,

Texas. After attending St. Helena High School in Bronx,

New York, she entered St. Thomas Aquinas College, Sparkill,

New York, where she received the degree of Bachelor of

Science in Education in 1966.

From 1965 to 1970 she taught as an elementary school

teacher in New York City and on Long Island. In 1971 she

began teaching Adult Religious Education in the Diocese of

Rockville Centre (LI) and began graduate study there at

Immaculate Conception Seminary in 1974. In 1975 she

entered the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of St.

John's University (NY), where she majored in Historical

Theology and New Testament Studies.

From 1978 to the present time she has taught as an

Adjunct Instructor in Theology or Philosophy at St. J o h n ’s,

St Francis (Brooklyn), and Dowling (Oakdale, LI) Colleges.

She entered the doctorate program in the Graduate School of

Arts and Sciences at Fordham University and was a graduate

assistant there in 1986 and 1987. In 1988 she presented a

paper at the Twenty-Third Annual International Conference

on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan. At Fordham,

she majored in Historical Theology under the mentorship of

Dr. Ewert H. Cousins.