
Wczesnochrześcijańska symbolika o charakterze ponerologicznym. Wybrane przykłady
Author(s) -
Mieczysław Celestyn Paczkowski
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
vox patrum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2719-3586
pISSN - 0860-9411
DOI - 10.31743/vp.4014
Subject(s) - heaven , temptation , philosophy , confusion , fell , literature , passion , art , serpent (symbolism) , theology , history , psychoanalysis , psychology , paleontology , psychotherapist , biology
Ponerology is devoted to the study of evil in its different aspects. Indeed, also in the early Church it was created a kind of ponerological symbolism. This short study analyses some of these significant traditionally interpreted symbols. In the Christian symbolism holiness is full of fragrance, however the demons and sins emit a terrible odor. The symbolic value of darkness covers the negative aspects of human ignorance, evil, disbelief, danger and death. The fire represents not only illumination and light, but it has the punitive value. The serpent is first mentioned in connection with the history of the temptation and fall of the humanity. In the Christian tradition the serpent or the „dragon” represents Satan, the malicious enemy. Babylon symbolizes all that is worldly and fell away from God. St. Augustine sees the world in which he lives as a mixture of the city of confusion and the city of heaven (Jerusalem). In the ponerological symbolism appears Amalek. The Fathers equated them with passion or evil. The faithful of Christ always fights against him. In Origen this approach is much more clearly defined in his explicitly spiritualizing reading. The ponerological symbolism of the ancient Christian literature contained a moral or religious lessons or allegories.