Sign, Method and the Sacred: New Directions in Semiotic Methodologies for the Study of Religion 3110694727, 9783110694727

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Preface
Table of Contents
Introducing new directions in semiotic methodologies for the study of religion
PART I: Theoretical perspectives
Religion in the semiosphere: Theosemiotics in dialogue with Juri Lotman
Reveal and re-veil the sacred: Fetishism and fetishes in religious social discourse and practices
Vain repetitions: The role of joint speech in enacting collective subjectivities
Theology, metasemiosis and the ethics of attention
PART II: Applications: Texts and case studies
The semiotics of likeness: Identity, verisimilitude and falsity in Augustine
An overlooked episode in the history of semiotics: The iconoclast controversy and its relevance for the iconic turn
Semiotics against transubstantiation: Peirce’s reception of Berkeley
A Peircean approach to late antique ascent texts
On the Semiotics of Space in the Study of Religions: Theoretical Perspectives and Methodological Challenges
Religion and the semiotization of space: The case of the Madonna del Rocciamelone
Colors as a semiotic tool for Bible analysis
Form and force of the sacred: A semiotic study of the temptations of Saint Anthony
Authors and editors biographies
Index

Citation preview

Sign, Method and the Sacred

Religion and Reason Founded by Jacques Waardenburg (†) Edited by Gustavo Benavides, Michael Stausberg, and Ann Taves

Volume 64

Semiotics of Religion Edited by Massimo Leone, Fabio Rambelli, and Robert Yelle

Volume 5

Sign, Method and the Sacred New Directions in Semiotic Methodologies for the Study of Religion Edited by Jason Cronbach Van Boom and Thomas-Andreas Põder

ISBN 978-3-11-069472-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-069492-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-069494-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2021936761 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck

www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgements The inspiration for this volume came from the 17th Annual Conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR), held at the University of Tartu 25 through 29 June 2019. The book’s editors organized a multipanel session on semiotics of religion. The papers and discussions provided the template and spirit of the book. We are grateful for the help of Remo Gramigna and Taras Boyko in organizing the session, as well as the tireless efforts of our liaison with EASR, Indrek Peedu. We owe a strong debt of gratitude to all of the session’s participants, especially Robert Yelle, Andrew Robinson, Volkhard Krech and Òscar Castro Garcia. The questions and comments of those who attended the panel presentations, including Gesche Linde and Alexandra Grieser, also contributed to the session’s fruitfulness, as well as conversations with Peeter Torop and Kalevi Kull. We thank all the contributors to this book, not only for their chapters but also for their patience and cooperation throughout the editorial process. We also wish to thank the University of Tartu and the Theological Institute of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church for supporting Thomas-Andreas Põder’s research and editorial work related to the present volume during 2020. We also thank the University of Helsinki, its Theological Faculty and especially Risto Saarinen for hosting Thomas-Andreas Põder’s research stays as a visiting professor during the globally turbulent year of 2020. In addition, we thank the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (HCAS) at the University of Helsinki, where Thomas-Andreas Põder is currently a Kone Foundation Fellow. He also thanks all the international PhD candidates and advanced students who have participated in his regular semiotics of religion seminar at the School of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Tartu since 2018. We thank both Irkutsk State University and Michael and Elizabeth Cronbach for their material support which made Jason Cronbach Van Boom’s work on this volume possible. We thank Massimo Leone, Fabio Rambelli and Robert A. Yelle, the editors of the Semiotics of Religion series. Finally, we are grateful to Sophie Wagenhofer and Katrin Mittmann at Walter De Gruyter for their invaluable help in shepherding this work. This volume, having its roots in Tartu, is dedicated to Juri Lotman (28 February 1922 – 28 October 1993), who made this small, old and picturesque university town a world known center of semiotics and whose centennial will be celebrated in the coming year.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-001

Jason Cronbach Van Boom

Preface We live in a semiotic age. Problems and questions of signification and communication are unusually salient. Of course, semiotic principles are operative in all periods and societies. However, in our times advances in technology and related social changes have made us conscious, at times painfully so, of the processes and problems of representation, interpretation and communication. To give only some technological examples, we have the mass production of images and songs, the ubiquity of advertising, marketing and propaganda, problems of privacy and the development of instant communications technology, originating with the invention of the telegram but now flourishing with today’s plethora of sophisticated messaging devices. There is also the tremendous increase in access to information, to the point that people have unprecedented access to every kind of text from human history, but without any agreed upon paradigms for interpretation or overall coherence. We deal with questions about disinformation, with distinguishing between the real and the virtual and about the pressures that people feel to create and recreate themselves virtually. At a broader level, we are increasingly conscious of identities being accidental contingencies. In this Heraclitean flux of symbolic forms, structures of signification that could have been taken for granted in previous times are now exposed as objects of choice. Religion is not in any way exempt from these processes. It cannot be. Religion, however we define it, by its nature always attempts to provide orientation for practical life. Hence, it also necessarily takes on the characteristics of social reality. In particular, religious questions of representation assume special importance. Regardless of whether they affirm one deity, several or none, they always grapple with transcendence. The transcendent, by definition, eludes or resists ordinary means of perception. To become a principle of orientation for practical life, the transcendent must operate through structures of representation. Doing so, however, evokes the paradoxical character of sign representation. A sign at once both connects and separates what it conveys or signifies. Paradoxes may be implicit or latent in ordinary means of signification. Because religion connects us with the transcendent (or attempts to do so), it always heightens these kinds of paradoxes. Now, in particular, in our semiotic age, we have a consciousness of the changes in how we represent the sacred. Consequently, we now have an occasion for two sets of disciplines to communicate with each other. On the one hand, there is the whole family of disciplines that study religion. This includes religious studies as a formal field of study, the closely related disciplines of theology and philosophy, and a variety https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-002

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of social sciences, such as anthropology, sociology, linguistics, political science and psychology (for the latter, especially cognitive psychology and social psychology). All these disciplines that deal with religion must now pay special attention to semiotic problems. It seems natural, then, for them to make use of semiotics. Likewise, for semioticians themselves, even if they do not have an intrinsic interest in religion, phenomena commonly deemed as religious offer an interesting set of case study applications. A discipline always advances by applying its theories and models to particular examples (sometimes, the more unusual, the better). In the case of religion, precisely because it pushes semiotic boundaries to the limits of representation, the possibilities for interesting and fruitful semiotic explorations is especially pronounced. These considerations provided much of the inspiration for this book, as reflected in its title. Sign, Method and the Sacred refers to the three fundamental factors or dimensions of our proposed dialogue between semiotics and the multidisciplinary study of religion. We take “sign” metonymically, indicating not only something that brings something else to mind when perceived (or whichever definition of “sign” we may prefer), but also the array of phenomena in which signs play a special part, such as sign systems, representation, communication and interpretation. “Method” refers to the book’s focus on presenting the diverse methodological options in studying religion from a semiotic perspective. “The sacred,” like “sign,” also functions metonymically. It refers to a constellation of related meanings, such as “transcendent,” “holy” (as in Greco-Roman and Abrahamic traditions) or “noble” (as in South Asian traditions). The term, as used in the title, does not import any strong philosophical or theological claims, merely indicating the range of topics treated by our contributors. Of course, the term “sacred” can also carry deeper senses, such as those relating to the function of transcendence in social systems. Frequently, religions deal with transcendent principles of life, and so can possess features that their adherents call “sacred” or “holy.” For this book, however, Sign, Method and the Sacred simply means the different methods we can use to explore the use and interpretation of signs in matters that are commonly regarded as religious and experienced by many as sacred. As with all books, there is a story behind how this one originated. It began with Thomas-Andreas Põder’s seminar “Semiotics of Religion” at the University of Tartu. I attended this seminar because, from my own academic and personal connections with Christianity, Judaism and Islam, I had become convinced that comparative studies of these three traditions could benefit greatly from making use of semiotics. In hindsight, the seminar discussions on the literature of semiotics of religion planted the seed for this volume. Then, the European Association of Study of Religions (EASR) announced it would be having its 17th annual conference at the University of Tartu. We took this as an opportunity to initiate

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the first session on semiotics of religion at this general religious studies conference. Sometime afterward, Massimo Leone suggested that the session could provide an occasion for a book in this series, Religion and Reason. And in fact, the papers presented at the session, together with the accompanying discussions, provided the template for the present volume. Inspired by these dialogues, we present this book with a threefold hope. First, we encourage scholars of religion from all fields to make use of the array of semiotic tools and methods available to us today, some of which our contributors exhibit in a variety of case studies. Second, we want to engage more semioticians in the study of religion. The introduction and the first chapter, both by Thomas-Andreas Põder, make the case for this. Third, we would like to make the general public more aware of the relevance of semiotics of religion. Since we do find ourselves in a semiotic age, where questions of communication, meaning, representation, identity and interpretation are prominent, the joint work of semioticians and scholars of religion can be highly relevant to society at large.

Table of Contents Thomas-Andreas Põder Introducing new directions in semiotic methodologies for the study of religion 1

PART I: Theoretical perspectives Thomas-Andreas Põder Religion in the semiosphere: Theosemiotics in dialogue with Juri 29 Lotman Francesco Piluso Reveal and re-veil the sacred: Fetishism and fetishes in religious social 53 discourse and practices Fred Cummins Vain repetitions: The role of joint speech in enacting collective subjectivities 73 Michael L. Raposa Theology, metasemiosis and the ethics of attention

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PART II: Applications: Texts and case studies Remo Gramigna The semiotics of likeness: Identity, verisimilitude and falsity in Augustine 107 Alin Olteanu An overlooked episode in the history of semiotics: The iconoclast controversy and its relevance for the iconic turn 125 Takaharu Oda Semiotics against transubstantiation: Peirce’s reception of Berkeley

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Naomi Janowitz A Peircean approach to late antique ascent texts

171

Tatsuma Padoan On the Semiotics of Space in the Study of Religions: Theoretical Perspectives and Methodological Challenges 189 Jenny Ponzo and Francesco Galofaro Religion and the semiotization of space: The case of the Madonna del Rocciamelone 215 Mony Almalech Colors as a semiotic tool for Bible analysis

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Massimo Leone Form and force of the sacred: A semiotic study of the temptations of Saint 267 Anthony Authors and editors biographies Index

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Introducing new directions in semiotic methodologies for the study of religion 1 Introduction The present edited volume, based on a multi-panel session on semiotics of religion held at the annual conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR) in Tartu, Estonia (25 to 29 June 2019), aims to provide a further contribution to exploring, theorizing about and thereby shaping religion via engagement with semiotics. Arguably, there are signs indicating a revival of semiotics of religion emerging and spreading since the first decade or so of our new millennium. At the same time, to the extent that semiotics of religion implicates a relation between semiotics and religion, and thus a mutual dialogue, there is reason to hope that the volume contributes also to the understanding and practice of semiotics. What is the significance of semiotics if we consider the field of religion? A sign implies a difference and can neither be understood nor explained by itself. Similarly, the meaning of semiotics can only be determined, critically questioned and developed further in relation to something else. Therefore, what is semiotics in relation to religion? In this editorial introduction, I briefly and provisionally comment on previous tendencies and older directions in the history of semiotics of religion (section 2). I make no claims to comprehensiveness because such a history is still a desideratum and needs yet to be written.¹ However, the way I sketch developments

 A more recent review can be found in the introductory chapter of Semiotics of Religion (Yelle 2013, 1– 22; see my discussion of Yelle and further references to his texts in the following chapter, in section 1.1, of the present book). Another short recent paper “Sémiotique de la religion,” aiming at an overview on the history, the present and the likely prospects of semiotics of religion is (Leone 2016; modified as Leone 2018 and titled “Sémiotique et sciences des religion”). In modelling the field, Leone follows an article published twenty years earlier by “deux éminents sémioticiens de la religion” (Leone 2018, 311; Leone refers also to another overview by Delorme and Geoltrain 1982; see more on Delorme in section 2 below). This is Volney P. Gay’s and Daniel Patte’s entry on “Religious Studies” (Gay and Patte 1986; cf. Patte 1990; see more on Patte in section 2 below) in a three-volume encyclopedic dictionary of semiotics. Before that, a programmatic article on the history and function of semiotics in theology appeared in Zeitschrift für Semiotik (Güttgemanns 1982; see more on him in section 2 below). At the start of a new decade, although rooted in research from the first half of the 1980s, an article on “theology” or “semiotic theology” follows in Handbook of semiotics (Nöth 1990, 381– 384), a reworking of the German https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-003

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from the 1960s to the start of the 2000s intends to bring attention to the following three aspects. First, semiotics of religion encompasses various scholarly modes of approaching the study of religion. Most of this book’s chapters discuss and exemplify applications of semiotic methodologies to concrete topics or issues perceived as religious. Some chapters contain suggestions, more or less explicit, for why categorical separations between religious studies (construed in a narrow sense), philosophy and theology ultimately cannot succeed for semiotic reasons. This does not mean, of course, that their differences are not, cannot or should not be relevant. Rather, the book’s editors hope that we acknowledge their intertwined history and consider the continuation of a transdisciplinary dialogue as a never-ending task. Second, if we take the study of religion in the wider sense as a methodologically disciplined engagement with religion, semiotics of religion has undergone various transformations since the 1960s. Two types of dynamics have played a role here: the dynamics of semiotics as a discipline, in both general theory and specific applications, as well as the dynamics of the study of religion in its interdisciplinary breadth. Nevertheless, German speaking theological scholarship provides a striking illustration of a continuing and widening interest in many of its branches in semiotics, as shown below. This one example reminds us, the global community of inquiry, that research in semiotics of religion takes place today at a worldwide level. Although English is the contemporary lingua franca, this research area is developing in diverse languages and contexts. Yet this gives even more reason to find and develop means of communication and cooperation. Third, after having stated the first two aspects, it is nevertheless true that in the present book scholars who very likely would not characterize themselves as theologians or philosophers of religion have authored most of the chapters. As stated in the beginning, the originating context of the volume was a general religious studies conference at a European level with more than 600 participating

original (Nöth 1985). Extensive entries on “sign concepts in religion” in the most comprehensive multivolume bilingual international handbook of semiotics are Volp (1998), covering a period from the Renaissance to the early 19th century, and Deuser (1998), covering a period from the 19th century to the present; both articles are in German. See more on Volp in section 2 below, more on Deuser in the following chapter (in section 1.2). In the same handbook, there is also an entry in German on “Semiotic aspects of religious studies: Semiotics of religion” (Tramsen 2003, see below footnote 18). See also from the time before the turn of the century on semiotics in philosophy of religion and systematic theology Deuser (1999) and on semiotics in practical theology Engemann (1999, more on him in section 2 below).

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scholars worldwide, having for the first time in their program sessions dedicated specifically to semiotics of religion.² After a comment on older directions, I elaborate new directions of semiotic methodologies for the study of religion with the focus lying on the present volume (section 3). I start with preliminary considerations and a few suggestions for clarification regarding terminology (3.1). I then give an overview of current general tendencies, highlighting the main points of connection between the book’s chapters (3.2) as well as explaining the book’s basic structure, culminating in a panoptic view of the content of individual chapters (3.3). In doing so, the issues and challenges that the book addresses, as well as the array of methodological perspectives presented by the contributors, become manifest. A conclusion (4) with a focus on a more inclusive study of religion and on semiotics of religion in the making completes this introduction.

2 Historical remarks on older directions It is a commonplace to trace the beginnings of the institutionalization of contemporary semiotics back to the 1960s, with its main centers in French, Italian, Russian and German speaking cultures.³ The beginnings of semiotics of religion, with a slight alteration, are usually seen in that time frame as well. For example, a major current research project introduces semiotics of religion to the public as follows: “The semiotics of religion was born within the French milieu in the 1970s, as a filiation, on the one hand, of literary semiotics (narratology and the work on narrativity carried out by the Paris School gathered around Algirdas J. Greimas [1917– 1992]) and, on the other, of anthropologic, ethnological and mythographic studies (particularly, the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss [1908 – 2009] and Georges Dumézil [1898 – 1986]).”⁴ The statement corresponds to the way representatives of an important branch of semiotics of religion perceive

 The 2016 Turin semiotics of religion conference on “mediation and immediacy” (see Ponzo, Yelle and Leone 2021) constituted an important inspiration for the organizers, Jason Cronbach Van Boom and myself.  Kull et al. (2015) is a very helpful global survey of semiotics textbooks and primers compiled by a larger group of Estonian semioticians). See especially the resulting general observations and remarks on tendencies (324– 330). One point of asking for all these books was the question “Whether semiotics is seen as a science, philosophy, doctrine, or method” (324– 325).  Cf. the official webpage of NEMOSANCTI (n.d.) The acronym stands for “New Models of Sanctity in Italy (1960s – 2000s) – A Semiotic Analysis of Norms, Causes of Saints, Hagiography, and Narratives.”

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its genesis. In this light, the beginnings of contemporary semiotics of religion connect closely to linguistics, structuralism and literary analysis. The Turin scholars mention two pioneering and still active journals in French as platforms enabling one to monitor the results and developments of semiotics of religion over time until the present. These are Cahiers Evangile (Notebooks of the Gospel, founded in 1972), addressing a wider audience and Semiotique et Bible (Lyon, founded in 1975), dedicated to dialogue between biblical and language sciences. It is noteworthy that both periodicals, referred to as exemplifying the dynamics of semiotics of religion, relate to critical biblical studies or exegesis of the Bible. The journal Linguistica Biblica, established in Bonn in 1970 and edited until 1993 by Erhardt Güttgemanns (1935 – 2008), also belongs to this context. It described itself as an interdisciplinary journal for “theology and linguistics” and later for “theology, semiotics, and linguistics.” A retrospective edited volume on semiotics and biblical studies (Patte 1998) was an important milestone, providing an account of the relationship between semiotics and critical biblical studies since 1968 and of its dynamics over three decades. One can also highly recommend it as a kind of historical, theoretical and methodical introduction to the field by some of its most important practitioners.⁵ Thus, the authors include some of the first generation scholars from the already mentioned “French milieu.” In 1968, “the first meeting in Versailles between francophone biblical scholars and A. J. Greimas and the members of his biblical workshop” took place (see Delorme 1998, 27– 28; Patte 1998, 4). In 1970 (1967?),⁶ Pierre Geoltrain (1929 – 2004) established the Association for Structural Analysis (ASTRUC), bringing together biblical scholars interested in “general linguistics, literary studies, and ‘structural analysis of narrative’” (Delorme 1998, 27). In 1971, an experimental research team under the leadership of Jean Delorme (1920 – 2005; see footnote 1 above; cf. Delorme 1982) and Jean Calloud (b. 1927, also see footnote 1 above) was established at the Department of Theology of the Catholic University of Lyon, becoming known, in English translation, as the Center for Analysis of Religious Discourse (acronym in French: CADIR). They are responsible for the previously mentioned periodical Semiotique et Bible. Lyon developed into a leading research center with many international ties;⁷ for example, with Vanderbilt

 See the introductory essay “Critical Biblical Studies from a Semiotic Perspective” by Daniel Patte (1998) and especially “Orientations of a Literary Semiotics Questioned by the Bible” by Jean Delorme (1998).  Delorme refers to 1970 as the year of the establishment of ASTRUC (Delorme 1998, 27), however the year 1967 also appears in the literature, for example, in Leone (2018, 315).  A classic example of their way of studying the Bible is the collectively authored book on Signs and Parables. Semiotics and the Gospel texts (The Entrevernes Group, 1978, French original 1976).

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University via Daniel Patte (b. 1939; see footnote 1 above), who had moved to the US and has been at Vanderbilt since 1971, and with researchers in Quebec, organized since 1981 as, the Semiotics Workshop on Religious Texts (acronym in French: ASTER) (Patte 1998, 27). One of their most vibrant connections was with the Faculty of Theology at the Catholic University of Tilburg in Holland, where a working group established itself in 1976, including, in addition to exegetes, scholars of liturgy and religious education (catechesis). They became known as Semiotic Analysis by Dutch Theologians (acronym in Dutch SEMANET). They published the first results of their research, developed in the tradition of the Paris School of A.J.Greimas, collectively in 1981. Gerard Lukken (b. 1933) became their most prolific representative. The focus of his semiotic studies in 1980s and 1990s did not, however, lie in biblical literature but in (Christian) ritual, including liturgy and sacraments,⁸ as well as semiotics of architecture, especially of church buildings.⁹ In Lukken’s perception Greimas and his Paris school had contributed the most to developing Saussurean semiotics, and therefore one might speak also of Greimassian semiotics as particularly helpful for the analysis of ritual (Lukken 2005, 83; for a different evaluation see Kreinath 2006). I have already referred to Germany because of the journal Linguistica Biblica (established 1970). A multiauthor volume Zeichen: Semiotik in Theologie und Got-

Cf an early introduction by Calloud, an Old Testament scholar and a leading figure of the CADIR: Structural Analysis of Narrative (Calloud 1976 [French original 1973]).  In this respect, his opus magnum is Rituals in Abundance: Critical Reflections on the Place, Form and Identity of Christian Ritual in our Culture (Lukken 2005; Dutch original 1999). In chapter 3, after having discussed Peircean semiotics, and especially its application to ritual by Roy Rappaport, he elaborates extensively on Greimassian semiotics (83 – 109). The reason: “It is my belief that particularly this semiotics, still so little known in the English-speaking world, is especially suitable for further illuminating ritual.” (83). A selection of his shorter studies (Lukken 1994) contains studies like “Semiotics of the Ritual. Signification in Rituals as a Specific Mediation of Meaning” (269 – 283; Dutch original 1992), “Relevance of Semiotic Analysis to the Liturgical Sciences. Illustrated in the Light of the Rite of Marriage” (299 – 310; Dutch original 1988), and “Semiotic Analysis of the Confession at the Beginning of the Eucharist” (335 – 359; Dutch original 1986). The volume includes Lukken’s complete bibliography from 1953 – 1993, with writings in Dutch, German, French and English (Lukken 1994, 23 – 42).  The main result was Semiotics and Church Architecture: Applying the Semiotics of A. J. Greimas and the Paris School to the analysis of church buildings (Lukken and Searle 1993). The theoretical part, written by Lukken, contains a general overview of semiotics of space and semiotics of architecture and detailed elaboration on how the semiotics of the Paris school can be used for the analysis of architecture (21– 60) and a specification in relation to church buildings (61– 70). Part II entails a semiotic analysis of one particular church building.

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tesdienst (Sign. Semiotics in Theology and Worship; Volp 1982),¹⁰ edited by theologian and liturgical scholar Rainer Volp (1931– 1998; see footnote 1 above),¹¹ serves as an important signpost indicating the widening of the scope of semiotics of religion in the German speaking world, as well as attempts to gain more attention to it. He was a pioneer and a mover in raising awareness of the significance of semiotics within German practical theology insofar as this discipline is concerned with various modes of communicating the Christian religion (or more precisely, of the Gospel) in the present. A decade later, in 1992, his pupil Wilfried Engemann (b. 1959) published another landmark with Volp: a collective tribute with the title Gib mir ein Zeichen. Zur Bedeutung der Semiotik für theologische Praxis- und Denkmodelle (Give Me a Sign. On the Significance of Semiotics for Models of Theological Practice and Thinking) for the 60th birthday of Umberto Eco (1932– 2016). In particular, the editors praised Eco for his contributions to semiotics via integrating theories of sign and communication (cf. Engemann and Volp 1992, vii). In their words, the focus of the book lies not in the creation of a specifically (new) kind of “semiotic theology,” but rather in taking seriously the fact that processes of signification and communication perfuse theology (viii).¹² The book’s concept stems from Engemann, who had defended his second dissertation (Habilitationschrift) on “semiotic homiletics,” that is, on a semiotic theory of preaching or religious discourse (Engemann 1993). A further developed and mature form of his approach is now accessible in English as a comprehensive reference work, Homiletics: Principles and Patterns of Reasoning (Engemann 2019).

 The book contains two major parts, the first one discussing foundations and the second one analyzing worship as a sign-process. In the discussion of foundations, the first two contributions are on perspectives of semiotic exegesis of biblical texts, written by no other than Jean Delorme (1982) and Daniel Patte (1982), repeatedly mentioned above. The next two chapters are dedicated to semiotic paradigms in the history of theology (Augustine and Schleiermacher). The last two chapters deal with semiotic presuppositions of practical theology.  See his major two volume work on liturgy: Liturgik: die Kunst, Gott zu feiern (Liturgics: The Art of Celebrating God) (1992– 1994).  The authors are mostly from different fields of practical theology. They discuss theory of liturgy, including a text by the already mentioned Lukken on the significance of semiotics of Greimas and of the Paris school for the study of liturgy (1992), the theory of the sermon and religious didactics. In addition, a few representatives of systematic theology are included, as well as Walter A. Koch (b. 1934), “a key figure in semiotics since the resurgence of this trans-discipline in the context of European structuralism” (Nöth 2004) with a chapter on “Gott und die Welt. Theogenese als Semiogenese der Kultur” (Koch 1992; cf. also Koch 1991). Koch promoted an “evolutionary cultural semiotics” (see Koch 1986, in English).

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By the end of the 1990s, the reception of semiotics in the context of practical theology had developed long and widely enough that it could be summarized and critically examined in a series of research reports by Michael Meyer-Blanck (b. 1954; Meyer-Blanck 1997, 2001), who had become known for his semiotic critique of religious education in the paradigm of teaching religious symbols¹³ and for his call to its semiotic revision (1995, [1995] 2002). He focuses mainly on Protestant practical theology in Germany. According to him, it had been the primary context for academic research and discussions on the topic, to the extent that practical theology itself may be conceived as a theory of Christian religious sign processes (2001, 94, 97). Within this framework, Umberto Eco’s semiotics had attracted the most interest in recent years, that is, in the 1990s (2001, 98).¹⁴ A year later, a literature report on “theology and semiotics” was published in the journal of the German Society for Semiotics (Vetter 2002), concentrating specifically on the reception of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 – 1914) in recent German-speaking protestant theology, particularly in the fields of New Testament studies, practical theology and systematic theology.¹⁵ The dominating influence of French structuralism that had lasted until the early 1980s transformed slowly to being dominated by engagement with the works of Eco, Peirce¹⁶ and Charles W. Morris (1901– 1979) (cf. Vetter 2002, 112). At the time of compilation, at the start of the 2000s, the report claimed that the number of semiotically oriented contributions from different fields of theology was already so high that a survey by a single hand was hardly possible and necessitated a collective effort (cf. Vetter 2002, 112). I finish this glimpse at the history of semiotics of religion with a jump to America. In 1993, The American Journal of Semiotics dedicated a special issue to “semiotics of religion,” edited by philosopher and philosophical theologian Robert S. Corrington (b. 1950) (Corrington 1993, see section 1.2 in the following

 He criticises this paradigm, the so-called Symboldidaktik, as depending on an ontologizing understanding of “symbol” in the roots of Paul Tillich theory of religious symbols.  The most recent stocktaking on the reception of semiotic theories in practical theology can be found in an extensive study with the title (my translation): “Signs in the System: An Aesthetics of Pastoral Care from the Perspective of System Theory and Semiotics” (Kossatz 2017, 113 – 178). The study emphasizes the special significance of Ecoian semiotics for practical theology and attempts to widen the scope of its reception to the field of theorizing pastoral care.  I would preliminarily explain it as a critical and dialogical explication and theory of the autocommunication of Christian religion regarding its identity, understanding of reality and way of life.  On global level, “the wider study of Peirce among semioticians […] started in the late 1980s, together with a turn towards a more process-based semiotics” (Kull et al. 2015, 326).

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chapter).¹⁷ While this volume demonstrated, among others, a vital interest in the philosophical presuppositions of Peirce’s semiotics, a decade later the religious studies scholar Tim Murphy (1956 – 2013) wrote programmatic articles introducing “a semiotic theory of religion” in a poststructuralist mode (Murphy 2003, 2005). Combining impulses from Jonathan Z. Smith with Ferdinand Saussure (1857– 1913), Roland Barthes (1915 – 1980), Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844– 1900) and Mikhail Bakhtin (1895 – 1975), his theory contains a thorough critique of both essentialist phenomenologies and empiricist explanations of religion. He called his theory “a Nietzschean semiotics of religion” (cf. Murphy 2007, Part II).

3 New directions in semiotics of religion 3.1 Preliminary remarks According to Robert Yelle’s (b. 1966) observation made in his important and provocative Semiotics of Religion, “[t]here was a surge of interest in semiotic methodologies within religious studies from the 1960s to the 1980s,” but since then it seems to him to have “largely moved away from explicit engagement with semiotic methodologies and questions” (Yelle 2013, 8). Yelle is careful to mention some significant exceptions to this trend; quite many others could be added. He himself is convinced of the fruitfulness of an effort to reconsider “semiotics beyond structuralism” in the field of the study of religion (Yelle 2013, 1– 22). It means not forgetting or ignoring the relevance of attempts at cross-cultural comparisons, but at the same time taking “the historical dimensions of the semiotics of religion” more seriously (Yelle 2013, 8). If we take a wider look at the study of religion, in the sense of exploring, theorizing and shaping religion via engagement with semiotics, and if we attempt to take seriously the fact that contemporary research both in semiotics and semiotics of religion takes place in various ways and in different cultural and linguistic contexts, whereby neither religion nor semiotics displays a homogenous and stable essence, the picture becomes quite colorful and pluralistic. Attempts at modelling are necessary and unavoidable for orientation, but these cannot be more than heuristic tools. We can take it as good news signaling that semiotics  The volume includes articles on graphocentric religion, rabbinic semiotics, Catholicism as a sign system, semiotics of Anglican doctrine at the time of English Reformation, the fuzzy logic of religious discourse and on nature’s God and the return of the material maternal. The authors come from different disciplinary backgrounds.

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of religion is very much alive, although there are many blind spots, or even whole fields of blindness, depending on our disciplinary and linguistic backgrounds. Semiotics of religion therefore also means an undiscovered space entailing unpredictable possibilities for encounter and communication. At the start of the main body of the book, that is, in the following chapter (in section 1), I propose a simple model, accompanied by examples, for navigating the varieties of contemporary semiotics of religion. I will not repeat it here. Instead, a few further comments regarding central terminology are due before introducing this book as exemplifying current research in contemporary semiotics of religion. First, it is helpful to distinguish between semiotics of religion and religious semiotics. Religious semiotics can denote what the enormous reference work Semiotik/Semiotics (Posner, Robering and Sebeok 1997– 2004) refers to as “sign conceptions in religion,” as discussed in a series of extensive articles covering different epochs (see above footnote 1). Another possible term is “semiotic ideology” (Keane 2018). It has also been called “indigenous semiotics of religion” (Gay and Patte 1986). Thus, most generally, religious semiotics is religious semiosis or the religious perception or production of meaning, containing a more or less implicit understanding of sign, of signification, of communication, of culture, of the Other, etc. Semiotics of religion can, among other things, explore, study and explain religious semiotics as it has been and continues to become embodied, materialized and performed in different media (not only linguistic) in both in time and space. It can attempt to develop criteria for their comparison and even for evaluation, and think through and imaginatively explicate their significance, insignificance or significant insignificance. Semiotics of religion as a disciplined exercise of study implies an awareness of its difference from the religious process. Insofar as this (critical) awareness has become manifest in reflections on religious semiosis in its difference, we can speak of semiotics of religion avant la lettre. However, contemporary semiotics of religion, it seems to me, could most naturally and fruitfully refer to the academic study of religion in all its forms, appealing somehow explicitly to semiotics. As it becomes manifest from the previous attempts to take stock of semiotics of religion since the start of the 1980s, a clear cut boundary between religious studies in a narrow sense and other disciplines dealing with religion is hardly possible.¹⁸ Instead of strategies towards focusing on shaping disciplinary au An outcome can eventuate in an oscillating and intertwined solution, like in the already mentioned standard reference work Semiotik/Semiotics. “Sign Conceptions in Religion from the 19th Century to the Present,” written by an eminent theologian and philosopher of religion (Deuser 1998), tells the story and theoretically discusses the most ambitious and important ap-

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tonomies and building high level theoretical oppositions, it might be more constructive to identify and develop—on a more mundane and practical level— points of contact and cooperation. In any case, it would help to make semiotics of religion more visible. After being well represented in earlier encyclopedias and handbooks of semiotics, there is, for example, no entry on semiotics of religion or the like—in fact no mention of religion at all—in the International Handbook of Semiotics (Trifonas 2015). The term “methodology” as it appears in the subtitle and chapters of the book has a double meaning. We use it primarily in a more fundamental sense: denoting a paradigm of discovering meaning, of generating information and of building and using a framework for determining and choosing instruments and tools for study (cf. Valsiner 2017, 1– 8). Second, in some of the chapters the term functions as a synonym for “method,” as it is often the custom today. In case of such a synonymous use, one still needs to label and discuss the distinctive issue of the basic dimension and sine qua non of all well-considered research and every responsible use of methods—the fundamental issues of methodology—somehow differently.

3.2 Current trends in semiotics of religion as modelled in the present volume The present volume serves as an example and a point of reference for highlighting some tendencies emerging in contemporary research in semiotics of religion. However, it by no means aims to be a comprehensive guide for orientation in this growing and vibrant field. To refer to specific contributions, I indicate their sequence in the book by assigning the following numbers to authors: Thomas-Andreas Põder (1), Francesco Piluso (2), Fred Cummins (3), Michael Raposa (4), Remo Gramigna (5), Alin Oltenau (6), Takaharu Oda (7), Tatsuma Padoan (8), Naomi Janowitz (9), Jenny Ponzo and and Francesco Galofaro (10), Mony Almalech (11) and Massimo Leone (12). The next subsection (3.3) explains the structure of the book and summarizes the content of its chapters. This synopsis illustrates in more detail the

proaches to religion and to the concept of religion in religious studies, theology and philosophy in that period. In the framework of a section on semiotics and individual sciences, Eckhard Tramsen, author of “Semiotic Aspects of Religious Studies: Semiotics of Religion” with a background in philosophy, again discusses most of the same authors and issues since the 19th century (2003).

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horizons, perspectives, aims, issues and methods topical in current semiotics of religion. Some chapters feature various attempts to suggest general perspectives and elaborate methodological frameworks for theorizing religion (1– 3, but also 4, 12). They contain proposals for universal ways of framing religion, for a semiotic theory of religion at least in nuce, whereby the term “religion” or “the sacred” is handled more like a heuristic or operative tool (as in Grieser and Johnson 2017, 1, footnote 1) and not as a given, although exceptions probably exist (2). Most often, semiotics functions by offering tools for analyzing, illuminating and “reading” cases or phenomena generally considered to be religious (8 – 10, but also 1– 4, 7, 11, 12). Here, semiotics reveals its particular potential and strength allowing it to deal with “religion,” capture it in and across different media and modalities (practices, bodies, voice, space, time, images, buildings, colors, etc.). Many specific traditions, directions or perspectives, some of them partially overlapping or intertwining (see, for example, the clarifications in 9) are explicitly taken up in the following studies. Examples include Peirce (4, 6 – 8), Greimas and the Paris School (2, 9 – 10), Juri Lotman’s (1922– 1993) semiotics of culture (1, 9 – 10, 12), Bruno Latour (b. 1947) and material semiotics (2– 3, 9), linguistic anthropology (3, 8), social semiotics (2– 3, 6, 9), cognitive semiotics (5), embodied and enactive perspectives on language and mind (3, 6, 9), semiotics of the image and iconicity (5 – 6, 12), multimodality (6, 9 – 10, 12), intertextuality (10 – 12) and semiotics of colors (12). The following synopsis of the book gives a more detailed overview of the ways semiotics is applied as a methodological toolkit for the study of religions. On many occasions, ritual appears as a case study (2– 3, 7– 10, but also 12). Examples include the pilgrimage practices of mountain ascetics in Shinto-Buddhism (9), pilgrimage practices in Roman Catholicism related to the Marian sanctuary on Mount Rocciamelone (10), ascent rituals, a kind of “pilgrimage” into heaven, in ancient Judaism (8) and the Eucharist as the focal point of Christian gathering and worship (2, 7, but also in 1). In addition, there are studies of specific religious or theological written texts (5, 7– 8, 11– 12), as well as (aspects of) images and their role in religious contexts (6 – 7, 12), colors in the Bible (11), space in the context of religious practices (9 – 10), and temptation (12). A few chapters illustrate a strand in semiotics of religion aiming more directly at contributing to the general theory and practice of semiotics. This encompasses both more historically oriented studies and engagements with current discussions in semiotic theory. The former includes the works of significant religious thinkers or theoreticians from the past who have engaged in (self‐) reflection of religion. We can study these with the aim of advancing general semiotics or the intellectual history of semiotic thinking. Augustine provides an example from late ancient Roman

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culture with his view of the semiotics of the image (5). I recall that Augustine’s doctrine of the sign, as commonly acknowledged, was an important inspiration for Charles S. Peirce. An additional case study comes from the early medieval Greek period with the long-lasting controversy over the use of images in religious practice. (6) highlights it as an overlooked episode in the history of semiotics, discussing it in connection with Peirce’s concept of the icon and its relevance for social and cognitive semiotics and the “iconic turn” in general. From the modern period, (8) brings to light the special significance of Bishop George Berkeley’s thinking for Peirce. Examples of attempts to advance the discussion of general theory, in order to be better able to study specific religious or ethnographic materials, are related in the context of this volume to semiotics of space (9) and to semiotics of colors (11). Semiotics of religion is a pluralistic field of research in many respects. In this book we meet various religious traditions or confessional cultures like Judaism, Shinto-Buddhism, and Anglican, Roman Catholic and Lutheran Christianities, as well as opportunities for identifying and approaching different emerging modes of religion, and also nonreligion or antireligion. We encounter different traditions, directions and branches of semiotics, as elaborated above. We meet in the horizon various disciplinary backgrounds, the authors themselves usually having affiliation to two or more fields, as the biographies section at the end of the book shows. Looking only at more general disciplinary categories, then besides semiotics we find linguistics, cognitive science, communication studies, art studies, art history, anthropology, philosophy, religious studies and philosophy of religion and theology. The contributions also come from a range of countries (Italy, the USA, Ireland, the UK, Bulgaria and Estonia).

3.3 A panoptic view: Structure and summaries of the chapters We have divided the book into two parts, with the chapters following a carefully considered sequence: “Theoretical perspectives” in chapters 1– 4 and “Applications: Texts and case studies” in chapters 5 – 12. As an elaboration of the general comments made in previous sections, the following summaries bring the contributors’ horizons, perspectives and aims into sharp relief, as well as issues and methods in contemporary semiotics of religion. Once again, the book definitely does not claim to represent everything important in current semiotics of religion, but it does help orient and discover a significant range of possibilities, as well as commonalities and differences, present in today’s semiotics of religion and elaborated in the chapters to follow.

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3.3.1 Theoretical perspectives (1) In my “Religion in the semiosphere: Theosemiotics in dialogue with Juri Lotman,” I start with sketching the current landscape of semiotics vis-à-vis religion. Taking semiotics of religion in a broad sense, I suggest there are two main models in approaching religion from a semiotic perspective. Semiotics of religion can designate either (a) a research device or a toolbox of working methods to be applied in the case of religion (or to phenomena deemed to be religious), or (b) a metaphysical semiotics or philosophical theology in the footsteps of Peirce. I suggest, Juri Lotman’s semiotics of culture, especially his later lesser-known works, open up a highly significant and promising third paradigm for a future semiotics of religion. The main body of my chapter consists of three parts. The first outlines Lotman’s theory of culture, while the second proceeds to show how it can be developed into a fresh perspective for modelling religion(s); the case of Christianity (in its Lutheran mode) and the sign “God” serve as examples. The third introduces a new conception of theosemiotics as (a version of) cultural semiotics of religion. I explicate its tasks and functions and suggest how it affects our understanding of the relationship between different strategies and disciplines (including philosophy and theology) for studying religion, as well as our understanding of the situation where people of different religious and nonreligious convictions live together. The chapter ends with a conclusion highlighting, on the one hand, the relevance of religions as tools for studying the workings of culture, especially creativity in culture, and on the other the contribution of semiotics (of culture) to the lived reality of religion and culture. (2) Francesco Piluso advances in his “Reveal and re-veil the sacred: Fetishism and fetishes in religious social discourse and practices” a socio-semiotic approach for understanding religion. Making particular reference to the works of Bruno Latour and Jean Baudrillard (1929—2007), he aims at analyzing the semiotic aspects of religious discourses, practices and objects according to the category of fetishism. Fetishism, erroneously attributed to “primitive” cults, is not only a mechanism common to all religions but a structural process that reflects the specificity of the broader socio-cultural paradigm and characterizes the entire semiosphere. Religion operates as a social discourse by signifying and projecting immanent social values onto the transcendent (semio)sphere of the sacred. In this semiotic process the social signified, once translated into a religious signifier, must maintain its transcendence. The interdiction that characterizes the sacred is a duplication of the original concealment, or abstraction, of the semiotic relationship between the religious signifier and its social signified. This semiotic relationship of signification establishes a fetishized bar of relationship (of separation) between signifier and signified: the presence of the sign sig-

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nifies the absence of its referent. Objects are effects of signification processes. Signification as such is structurally fetishism. Religion reproduces this original abstraction: in the attempt to mediate between human beings and the sacred, it signifies and materializes the sacred in opposition to what is human. It reflects our fetishized relationship with our social discourses and practices. Religious fetishes reproduce the entire semiotic and material logic through which society is structured and, as such, is always already fetishized. As a final step Piluso provides a socio-semiotic analysis of (Roman Catholic) Christianity, especially its ritual of the Eucharist. (3) In his “Vain repetitions: The role of joint speech in enacting collective subjectivities,” Fred Cummins focuses on collective unison speaking and shows how it gives a reason to critically reconsider some widespread presuppositions regarding language (as a context-independent and medium-neutral code), humans (as individual minds), society and religion. More recent embodied and enactive perspectives on language and mind form the background. Using joint speech as a frame enables us to approach the broad area of prayer and ritual, without an a priori definition of such activities and without insisting that they can be understood through a single lens of religion. Joint speech takes place in specific contexts, in different domains of human activity and across cultures. Joint speech relates to the foundations of social organization as these domains of joint activity play a central role in bringing into being, renewing and expressing diverse kinds of collective identity or attachment. In the course of considering what joint speaking does, the fruitfulness but also the constraints of the theory of speech acts become visible: a reason to focus again on the voice, on the act of uttering and on the manner in which the force of uttering depends upon the constitution and intentions of participants. Cummins takes up the lead given by Latour in his attempt to reframe “religious speech” as a speech that has the capacity to assemble a people. Such speaking has formal characteristics that arise wherever the indubitable ground that nourishes a collective unity is renewed and made real once again, but never finally. Joint speech serves communion rather than communication. Communion speaks of the ground from which uttering proceeds, bringing about a transient enacted commonality that is prior to, and necessary for, communication. This is the background from which we go forth, the unmarked frame against which distinctions can be drawn. Joint speaking with its “vain’’ repetitions is the sustaining activity and empirical index of a collective subjectivity. (4) In his “Theology, metasemiosis, and the ethics of attention,” Michael L. Raposa draws inspiration and resources from Charles S. Peirce’s semiotic philosophy. He compares theology to literary criticism. The latter relates to works of art as metasemiosis. Likewise, theology is metasemiotic to the religious practice

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of developing selves. The first part of the chapter examines Peirce’s understanding of human selves as signs. What that sign comes to mean is a function of how the self chooses to pay attention. This involves both the quality and the object of its attention. Such choices can be deliberate ones as attention plays a role in shaping various kinds of inferences or modes of inquiry: hypothetical or abductive, deductive and inductive. These choices can also be more random and undisciplined. Persons and institutions can dramatically affect these choices by employing a variety of strategies for capturing and shaping the attention of others. In short, the self is a sign whose meaning is determined by acts of attention. In the second part, Raposa develops an understanding of the theology as a metasemiotic reflection on religious practices and spiritual exercises. Theology facilitates the activity of paying attention, thus enhancing the capacity to choose freely how someone directs their own attention. Raposa refers to the similarity of theology to disciplines devoted to the critical assessment of those environments —social, political and cultural—on which human selves-as-signs draw regularly for the purpose of finding or making meaning. A comparison with the so-called “third wave” forms of psychotherapy is fruitful as well.

3.3.2 Application: Texts and case studies The second part of the book contains text and case studies (5 – 12). While also considering methodological and theoretical issues, the chapters focus more on detailed empirical or (multimodal and inter‐) textual applications. The first three (5 – 7) deal with the history of theorizing the sign or image in specific religious contexts for the sake of contributing to general semiotic theory and its history. The others (8 – 12) analyze religious phenomena (or cases of religious significance) with semiotic tools. Some case studies are completely or partially studies of specific texts (5, 7– 8, 10 – 12), while other case studies completely or partially deal with other media and modes (7– 12). (5) Remo Gramigna’s “The semiotics of the image: Likeness, verisimilitude and falsity in Augustine” explores a selection of this Christian thinker’s writings with a view to their significance for a general semiotic theory of images and likeness. Augustine’s inspiration for discussing this issue so extensively lies in the idea of the image or likeness of God. Gramigna investigates the interconnection between the concepts of image, verisimilitude and falsity. This provides an important corollary to Augustine’s general doctrine of lying and deception. In his early dialogue Soliloquia (386 – 387), Augustine discusses the notion of falsity in tandem with the notions of likeness, similitude and resemblance, leading to a classification of types of perceptual errors. In one of Augustine’s proposed def-

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initions revolving around the concept of verisimilitude, something is false because it resembles what is true. The chapter provides illustrations to show how things are false as an effect of verisimilitude. In an interpretative interlude, Gramigna elaborates Augustine’s distinction between deceptive and non-deceptive falsity in the light of recent semiotic scholarship contrasting communication and information, as well as the fake and the fictitious. On the basis of Augustine’s later works De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus, De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber and De trinitate, Gramigna highlights the issue of the interrelation and differences between image, identity and likeness. The concept of image is based on a link of generative or reflective derivation from its source (iconic connection). The chapter concludes with an explanation of the relation between Augustine’s theory of the image and his theory of perceptual knowledge. The act of vision with its three factors, one of which is attention, equates well with the concept of image. (6) Alin Oltenau’s chapter “An overlooked episode in the history of semiotics: The iconoclast controversy and its relevance for the iconic turn” begins with a summary discussion of why studying this controversy over religious images possesses high relevance for contemporary semiotics, and more generally for the humanities and social sciences. Making particular reference to John Deely’s (1942– 2017) groundbreaking work on the history of ideas through a semiotic lens, Olteanu highlights crucial turning points in the history of semiotic consciousness, explains the general importance of semiotics, characterizes some features of contemporary trends and points to the significance of this debate overlooked so far in semiotic scholarship. The following elaborative sections (Peirce’s concepts of sign and icon; Learning through icons; The iconic turn; The semiotics of Christian patristics; The iconoclast controversy; Implications for multimodality; and Inclusivity in the history of semiotics) all aim to convey, both historically and theoretically, the fruitfulness of semiotics. Specifically, Olteanu posits some essential similarities between Peirce’s notion of icon and iconicity with the argumentation in favor of venerating painted images in Christianity during the 8th and 9th centuries of the Byzantine Empire. He brings to the fore correlations between (in contemporary terms) iconicity, multimodality and embodiment. Those debates show that iconicity and multimodality are mutually implicit, evoking an embodiment perspective on (human) knowledge and language. By looking at the iconoclast controversy within the scope of the history of semiotics, the chapter reveals insights for contemporary multimodality and iconicity research and makes concrete suggestions for a more comprehensive history of semiotics research, overcoming certain culturalist biases in Deely’s grand narrative.

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(7) Takaharu Oda’s “Semiotics against transubstantiation: Peirce’s reception of Berkeley” argues meticulously that Peirce derived his pragmatist semiotic from George Berkeley’s interpretation of scientific and religious language. Peirce considered Berkeley as the father of all modern philosophy and the author of the method of modern pragmatism but criticized “Berkeleyan nominalism.” First, Oda explains what Peirce meant by “Berkeleyanism” when he was constructing his own semiotic and thereby pragmatism, showing how Peirce discovered in Berkeley’s nominalist philosophy of language an unformulated pragmatist method. Second, drawing on the work of Kenny Pearce, Oda analyzes Berkeley’s pragmatic method in his theory of signs or signification with the help of the distinction between reference and quasi-reference. In their referential use (e. g., “white” connoting the idea of a wall), terms label individual ideas (objects) that exist extra-linguistically. The ideas to which we quasi-refer depend on the sign system for their existence, but their quasi-referential terms (e. g., “force” in physics or “grace” in religion) are useful or pragmatic in directing the disposition and action in the believer’s mind. Third, Oda recalls some earlier Anglican positions on the Eucharist as a backdrop and then explicates the pragmatic rationale behind Berkeley’s and Peirce’s semiotics of the Eucharist and their similar criticism of Roman Catholic doctrine (the substance of bread is no longer there because it has been changed into the body of Christ by the mystery of transubstantiation). The sacramental sign of spiritual eating is at work in the believer’s mind, leading the believer to understand the eucharistic presence of Christ’s body and blood through the consecrated bread and wine. This is because, besides a visible reference that necessitates labeling objects independent of a sign system (the bread and wine), invisible quasi-referring terms such as “grace” sufficiently make sense in changing the believer’s dispositions and actions in liturgical practice by faith. (8) Naomi Janowitz’ chapter proposes “A Peircean approach to late antique ascent texts” that appear to have the striking ritual efficacy of transporting participants into the heavenly world and possibly transforming them into a new heavenly type of being. She starts with discussing various reasons why no consensus has emerged in research about the techniques used in Jewish rituals of ascent from late antiquity and why the study of these texts poses challenges. Their analysis has often appealed to general notions such as “mystical trance,” “the numinous experience” or “performativity.” However, Peirce’s work on signs, as adapted and expanded by linguistic anthropologists, offers a much more nuanced understanding of ritual efficacy—that is, of how signs both presuppose and create their contexts of use. Signs “do things” based on these contextual connections. Interpreting signs that might be read as iconic instead as indexes —as having spatial connection with what they represent—is called “dicentiza-

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tion.” The concept is particularly helpful in articulating the ways in which humans become embedded in distinct ritual cosmologies. After reviewing Peircean sign meanings and the interpretative processes of rhematization and dicentization, Janowitz examines two texts: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice from Qumran and Ma’aseh Merkavah from the later collection of hekhalot texts. Her textual comparisons are part of a broad investigation into religious language, as outlined by Webb Keane. A Peircean mode of analysis reveals that dicentization works in the first text by transposing the human priestly realm into the divine realm, transforming the human priests and their liturgical recitation into part of the angelic cult. In the later rabbinic ascent rituals, the chain of rabbinic transmission recounted in the (re)telling of an ascent elevates the reciter into the heavenly world. In this case, the model of ritual efficacy is based on rabbinic linguistic ideology. (9) Tatsuma Padoan’s “On the semiotic of space in the study of religions: Theoretical perspectives and methodological challenges” explores the possibility of investigating space in religious discourses from a semiotic viewpoint. In Padoan’s view, history is constantly integrated into semiotics of space, where space can be conceived in three ways: as “semiosphere” (field of translation), as “language” (signifying set) and as “actant” (either an object of value or an interacting subject). Padoan discusses different theoretical scenarios and previous attempts to apply semiotics to the study of space. In particular, he challenges the still too common view of semiotics as a theory of timeless symbols and representations. Instead, following the works of Paris School semioticians and the material semiotic trend developed from their ideas by Bruno Latour, semiotics emerges as a theory of actions, passions, body and materiality, based on an innovative conception of space as object of value and interacting subject. Thus, Padoan aims at exploring space in terms of actions performed in and through it, by considering the role of nonhuman actors. From such a perspective, he undertakes a semiotic analysis of an ethnographic case: the Shugen community of Shinto-Buddhist mountain ascetic practice in central Japan, the Tsukasakō lay group affiliated with the Tenpōrinji temple on Mount Kongō, connected to the current revival of pilgrimage to the twenty-eight sūtra mounds in Katsuragi. From a semiotic point of view, social change is integrated into a sacred landscape through a practice of ritual enunciation performed by human and nonhuman actors. Ritual becomes a way to mobilize space through a specific form of interaction connected to a particular manipulation of time: namely, a ritual interaction between human and nonhuman bodies facing each other, bringing the past into the present, through an operation of presentification. (10) In their “Religion and the semiotization of space: The case of the Madonna del Rocciamelone,” Jenny Ponzo and Francesco Galofaro show how

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a semiotic methodology can be applied to look at the semiotization of space and into the relationship between this spatial semiotization and the identity of a group. Their particular but not exclusive reference is to the Paris School of semiotics. The Marian sanctuary on the top of Mount Rocciamelone is the highest in Europe. Its presence in space is a key feature in the semiosphere of the local community living at the foot of the mountain. Ponzo’s and Galofaro’s chapter explores the construction of different layers of meanings and values surrounding Mount Rocciamelone, its sanctuary with a colossal bronze statue of the Virgin and the related practice of pilgrimage. They introduce a set of homologating structures or semi-symbolic systems which often recur in religious discourse and are useful to frame the Rocciamelone sanctuary and the diachronic development of its meaning. They take up Greimas’ idea of the semiotics of the natural world and his distinction, on the plastic level, between topological, eidetic and chromatic areas, which coincide with the semiotic articulation of space, forms and colors. They apply these plastic categories to the way in which a community makes sense of its natural and cultural environment. In 1889, local Roman Catholic bishop Edoardo Rosaz transferred a statue of the Virgin in the sanctuary and was a central figure in the promotion of the cult. They consider the semiotization of the Madonna del Rocciamelone in Rosaz’ discourse, as well as in poems and hymns composed by devout local authors. Semiotics offers a set of conceptual instruments useful for gaining a better understanding of the way a religious cult, deeply rooted in its territory, can shape the interpretation of the natural milieu as well as the sense of belonging. (11) In his chapter “Colors as a semiotic tool for Bible analysis,” Mony Almalech presents a new and complex approach to colors in the Bible, fashioned in dialogue with existing interdisciplinary scholarship on colors. The presentation of his method requires defining a distinction between verbal and visual color as feasible sign systems. This also involves a detailed semiotics of color, including a complex method based on both the achievements of other scholars and a specific proposal to treat colors as a language, i. e., as a sign system. The approach Almalech puts forward is a development of the semiotics of verbal color as language, not speech. To this end he clarifies a number of relevant terms, such as verbal and visual colors as signs, color language and color speech, color as a cultural unit and mega-color, basic color terms, prototype terms, rivals for prototypes, basic features of prototypes, semio-osmosis (equalization in translation) and biblical colors as a text within a text. A particular challenge for defining the parameters of verbal color language is the connection with visual perception and visual color speech. The semiotics of color in the Bible includes four principal areas: color as a sign in general, color semiotics in the Bible, and their specificities in both Hebrew and translations into different

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languages. As a case study illustrating the potentials of his approach, Almalech focuses on one verse, Song 1:5, treated as a semiotic iceberg, i. e., a structure with a visible semantic level supported by submerged or less apparent ones. This verse’s color semiotic iceberg reveals a small piece of the hidden content of the Song of Songs, a fragment of the depths of the Hebrew worldview. Thus, Almalech’s method aims primarily at a better understanding of biblical texts originally given in Hebrew, with a focus on hermeneutics. A subsidiary aim is the disclosure of the various structures of color presence in biblical texts. (12) The final chapter, “Form and force of the sacred: A semiotic study of the temptations of Saint Anthony,” is by Massimo Leone. In his view, semiotics must know how disciplines dealing with religion conceptualize “the sacred” but re-conceptualize it in terms of language. He proposes to understand the sacred as a force that, in language, is paradoxical. On the one hand, it is the origin of every religious expression: words, images and other signs are shaped in order to signify the telluric energy that underlies human access to language. On the other hand, as this force is expressed by the forms of language, and communicated by them, it is also somehow betrayed, compressed, frustrated. Sacrifice, the making of the sacred, is simultaneously an act of renouncing, a movement of nostalgia. Leone explores such nostalgia of the sacred through a detailed study of a complex intertextual network of texts in various media, at whose center lies one of the most enigmatic literary works of modernity, Gustave Flaubert’s (1821– 1880) La Tentation de Saint Antoine. He sees the semiotic perspective as the most apt at seizing the deep anthropological value of this intertextual maze. Flaubert’s Tentation represents a series of temptations; it meta-represents the temptations of the sacred and the paradoxical interplay between the force of creativity and the form of creation, triggering a reflection on its existential meaning. Leone examines these temptations in six steps, revealing that grasping the essence of the temptation Flaubert dealt with means coming to terms with the semiotic nucleus of ritual. (Interpretations by Barthes, Foucault, Jacques Derrida (1930 – 2004) and the opposition between Flaubert and Nietzsche are of particular relevance.) It is through repetition of forms through time that the force of creativity with its potential for disruption and madness can be tamed. Flaubert wrote and rewrote Tentation so that his other writings might go on. Flaubert’s solution, the only one that allows the human creator to reach an equilibrium between force and form, consisted in ritual, in the exorcism of exercise. Leone raises the question: Is not taming force by form the way in which humans try to cope with the sacred?

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4 Conclusion: Semiotics of religion in the making or toward a more inclusive study of religion The present book documents how contemporary semiotics of religion opens up opportunities for various kinds of interaction and transfer in and between religions, as well as across and beyond them. The same goes for language, time, space and semiotics itself. New possibilities for comparison emerge as well as new ways for perceiving “the sacred,” for finding and making sense of “the religious,” for framing questions, for identifying research trajectories and for determining perspectives, horizons and aims of continuing research. The book as a whole makes a suggestion for a more inclusive semiotics of religion, and thereby for a more inclusive study of religion itself. Semiotics of religion is a field in flux not only on external grounds but because of basic insights that are intrinsic to semiotic awareness and thinking. These challenge considerations and rationales for stabilizing the borders of religious studies in such a way that they exclude disciplines such as theology and philosophy. Of course, the historical process of differentiating disciplines that study religion entails tensions, conflicts, rivalries and often attempts to marginalize the others or deny their right to live in the public space of academia. A proper answer is not “payback” but asking for a more appropriate theory that offers a better orientation in theory and life. Semiotics of religion is “more in flux,” with its semiotic sensitivity towards the importance, but also the relativity of borders. Hence, it invites all to participate. It is one way to foster mutual exchanges between the disciplines and develop awareness of the specificities of their modes of approach to “the sacred.” To be more concrete: There might be good reasons to reconsider and remodel our still too common factual biases regarding religious studies, theology or philosophy of religion. Strategies of self-immunization or exclusive claims for attention in academia, religion or in society more broadly seem all but problematic from a semiotic perspective. Therefore, semiotics of religion, as its history and present depicted shows, is not a domain over which one hand holds hegemonic sway. The study of religion, in the light of semiotics of religion, is a mode and space of encounter, debate and cooperation between all these disciplines dealing with religion. The study of religion in a broad sense encompasses all disciplines studying religion, including academic theologies in the multitude of their sub-disciplines, philosophical theologies and philosophies of religion(s). This is one of the insights that the book as a whole (although not necessarily

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every chapter) hopefully conveys. Semiotics of religion offers itself as a mechanism of dialogue and translation within, between, across and beyond disciplines engaged with religion. Its history and present are one way to illustrate how semiotics continues to astonish (cf. Cobley et al 2011). Our book’s main title is Sign, Method and the Sacred. The last constituent of the title should not be identified too quickly with some kind of traditional essentialist or substantialist notion. In the practice of semiotics of religion, “the sacred” could rather be seen as signaling a semiotic insight that a final and absolute determination of “religion” is not a human option. What is ultimately at stake in semiotics of religion is not reducible to any traditional or habitual notion of it. “The sacred,” “transcendence,” “force,” “unpredictability,” “possibility,” “god(s),” “encounter,” “border,” “dialogue,” “attention,” “openness to experience,” “the indubitable ground,” etc.—all these signs we meet with in one or another of the book’s chapters. These signs remind us of the possibility of unpredictable interruptions, novelties and transformations on both social and individual planes. “The sacred” therefore appears as a requirement to build bridges, to translate, to find opportunities for connection and living together between those considering themselves religious in a different way, but also with those whose ways and views of life do not embody these signs and in whose semiotic ideologies the significance of these signs lies rather in their insignificance. Sign, Method and the Sacred could perhaps reflect Peircean Secondness, Thirdness and Firstness, or alternatively the Lotmanian semiosphere, communication and the boundary always implying what lies beyond. In any case, in semiotics of religion and, more broadly, in the investigation of religion seen from a semiotic perspective, we all come to this study with different horizons and perspectives. We endeavor to study something never reducible to any of our results. At the same time, despite their provisional nature, we stay accountable for every single result. The first part of the book, in particular, makes explicit that semiotics (of religion) helps us attend to and perceive how being a person is a communal (and as such, a natural) matter. So is the making of semiotics of religion. Ultimately, it is because of this irreducible “sacred” that semiotics of religion can never become still, but continues, and hopefully, now and then, continues to astonish.

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Cobley, Paul, John Deely, Kalevi Kull, and Susan Petrilli, eds. 2011. Semiotics Continues to Astonish: Thomas A. Sebeok and Doctrine of Signs. Semiotics, Communication and Cognition 7. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Corrington, Robert S., ed. 1993. “Semiotics of Religion.” Special issue, American Journal of Semiotics 10 (1 – 2): 5 – 132. Delorme, Jean. 1982. “Die Lektüre und ihr Text.” [Original title: “Sémiotique, Exégése, Theologie.”] In Zeichen: Semiotik in Theologie und Gottesdienst, edited by Rainer Volp, 19 – 47. München: Kaiser. Delorme, Jean. 1998. “Orientations of a Literary Semiotics Questioned by the Bible,” in “Thinking in Signs: Semiotics and Biblical Studies … Thirty Years After,” edited by Daniel Patte. Special issue, Semeia 81: 27 – 61. Delorme, Jean and Pierre Geoltrain. 1982. “Le discours religieux.” In Sémiotique: L’école de Paris, edited by Jean-Claude Coquet, 103 – 126. Langue, linguistique, communication 15. Paris: Classiques, Hachette. Deuser, Hermann. 1998. “Zeichenkonzeptionen in der Religion vom 19. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart.” In Semiotik: Ein Handbuch zu den zeichentheoretischen Grundlagen von Natur und Kultur/Semiotics: A Handbook on the Sign-Theoretic Foundations of Nature and Culture, edited by Roland Posner, Klaus Robering und Thomas A. Sebeok, 2:1743 – 1760. Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft/Handbooks of linguistics and communications science 13.2. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Deuser, Hermann. 1999. “Semiotik I. Religionsphilosophisch und systematisch-theologisch.” In Theologische Realenzyklopädie, edited by Gerhard Müller, 31: 108 – 116. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Engemann, Wilfried. 1993. Semiotische Homiletik. Prämissen – Analysen – Konsequenzen, Tübingen: Francke-Verlag. Engemann, Wilfried. 1999. “Semiotik III. Praktisch-theologisch.” In Theologische Realenzyklopädie, edited by Gerhard Müller 31:134 – 142. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Engemann, Wilfried. 2019. Homiletics: Principles and Patterns of Reasoning. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Engemann, Wilfried and Rainer Volp. 1992. Gib mir ein Zeichen: Zur Bedeutung der Semiotik für theologische Praxis— und Denkmodelle. Arbeiten zur Praktischen Theologie 1. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter. Gay, Volney P. and Daniel Patte. 1986, “Religious Studies.” In Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics, edited by Thomas Albert Sebeok, 2:797 – 807. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Grieser, Alexandra K. and Jay Johnston, eds. 2017. Aesthetics of Religion: A Connective Concept. Religion and Reason 58. Berlin: De Gruyter. Güttgemanns, Erhardt. 1982. “Semiotik und Theologie. Thesen zu Geschichte und Funktion der Semiotik in der Theologie.” Zeitschrift für Semiotik 4: 151 – 168. Keane, Webb. 2018. “On Semiotic Ideology.” Signs of Society 6 (1): 64 – 87. Koch, Walter A. 1986. Evolutionary Cultural Semiotics. Bochum: Brockmeyer. Koch, Walter A. 1991. Gott und die Welt: Semiogenese und Theogenese. Bochum: Brockmeyer. Koch, Walter A. 1992. “Gott und die Welt. Theogenese als Semiogenese der Kultur.” In Gib mir ein Zeichen: Zur Bedeutung der Semiotik für theologische Praxis— und Denkmodelle, edited by Wilfried Engemann and Rainer Volp, 45 – 60. Arbeiten zur Praktischen Theologie 1. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

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Kossatz, Lydia. 2017. Zeichen Im System: Eine ästhetische Poimenik in systemtheoretischer und semiotischer Perspektive. Praktische Theologie im Wissenschaftsdiskurs/Practical Theology in the Discourse of the Humanities 20. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Kreinath, Jens. 2006. “Semiotics.” In Theorizing Rituals, Issues, Topics, Concepts, edited by Jens Kreinath, Johannes Augustinus Maria Snoek, and Michael Sausberg, 1: 429 – 470. Studies in the history of religion 114. Leiden: Brill. Kull, Kalevi et al. 2015. “A Hundred Introductions to Semiotics, For a Million Students: Survey of Semiotics Textbooks and Primers in the World.” Sign System Studies 43 (2/3): 281 – 346. Leone, Massimo. 2016. “Sémiotique de la religion: histoire, méthode, et perspectives.” In Les Sciences des religions: État des lieux, 2003 – 2016, edited by Jean-Daniel Dubois, Lucie Kaennel, Renée Koch Piettre and Valentine Zuber. Bulletin de la socie´te´ des amis des sciences religieuse, hors série: 7 – 17 Leone, Massimo. 2018. “Sémiotique et sciences des religions.” In La sémiotique en interface, edited by Amir Biglari, 307 – 321. Paris: Editions Kimé. Lukken, Gerard and Mark Searle. 1993. Semiotics and Church Architecture: Applying the Semiotics of A. J. Greimas and the Paris School to the Analysis of Church Buildings, Kampen: Kok Pharos. Lukken, Gerard. 1994. Per visibilia ad invisibilia. Anthropological, Theological and Semiotic Studies on the Liturgy and the Sacraments, edited by Gaspers van Tongeren. Liturgia condenda 2. Kampen: Kok. Lukken, Gerard. (1999) 2005. Rituals in Abundance: Critical Reflections on the Place, Form and Identity of Christian Ritual in our Culture. Liturgia condenda 17. Leuven: Peeters. Meyer-Blanck, Michael. 1995. “Vom Symbol zum Zeichen. Plädoyer für eine semiotische Revision der Symboldidaktik.” Evangelische Theologie 55 (4): 337 – 351. Meyer-Blanck, Michael. [1995] 2002. Vom Symbol zum Zeichen: Symboldidaktik und Semiotik. Rheinbach: CMZ-Verlag. Meyer-Blanck, Michael. 1997. “Der Ertrag semiotischer Theorien für die Praktische Theologie.” Berliner Theologische Zeitschrift 14: 190 – 219. Meyer-Blanck, Michael. 2001, “Semiotik und Praktische Theologie.” In International Journal of Practical Theology 5: 94 – 133. Murphy, Tim. 2003. “Elements of a Semiotic Theory of Religion.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 15 (1): 48 – 67. Murphy, Tim. 2005. “What is a Semiotic Theory of Religion?” Bulletin [of the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion] 34 (4): 70 – 75. Murphy, Tim. 2007. Representing Religion: Essays in History, Theory and Crisis. London: Equinox. NEMOSANCTI. n.d. “Semiotics of Religion.” Accessed 11 November 2020. https://nemosancti.eu/semiotics-of-religion/ Nöth, Winfried. 1985. Handbuch der Semiotik. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler. Nöth, Winfried. 1990. “Theology.” In Handbook of Semiotics, by Winfried Nöth, 381 – 384. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Nöth, Winfried. 2004. “Walter A Koch: Portrait of the Semiotician on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday.” Semiotix 2. Accessed 11 November 2020. https://semioticon.com/sx-old-issues/semiotix2/sem-2 – 03.html

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Patte, Daniel. 1982. “Toward a Theopoetic—Grundlagen strukturalen Hermeneutik.” [original title: Structuralism, Biblical Studies and Hermeneutic—Toward A Theopoetic.] In Zeichen: Semiotik in Theologie und Gottesdienst, edited by Rainer Volp, 48 – 78. München: Kaiser. Patte, Daniel. 1990. “Religion and semiotics.” In Semiotics in the Individual Sciences, edited by Walter A. Koch, Part I, 1 – 24. Bochum: Brockmeyer. Patte, Daniel. 1998. “Critical Biblical Studies from a Semiotic Perspective”, Thinking in Signs: Semiotics and Biblical Studies … Thirty Years After, Patte, Daniel (ed.), Semeia 81, 3 – 26. Ponzo, Jenny, Robert A. Yelle, and Massimo Leone, eds. 2021. Mediation and Immediacy: A Key Issue for the Semiotics of Religion. Religion and Reason 62. Semiotics of Religion 4. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter. Posner, Roland, Klaus Robering und Thomas A. Sebeok, eds. Semiotik: Ein Handbuch zu den zeichentheoretischen Grundlagen von Natur und Kultur/Semiotics: A Handbook on the Sign-Theoretic Foundations of Nature and Culture. Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft/Handbooks of linguistics and communications science 13.2. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. The Entrevernes Group. (1976) 1978. Signs and Parables: Semiotics and the Gospel Texts. Pittsburgh, PA: Pickwick. Tramsen, Eckhard. 2003. “Semiotische Aspekte der Religionswissenschaft: Religionssemiotik”. In Semiotik: Ein Handbuch zu den zeichentheoretischen Grundlagen von Natur und Kultur, Semiotics: A Handbook on the Sign-Theoretic Foundations of Nature and Culture, edited by Posner, Roland, Klaus Robering und Thomas A. Sebeok, 3:3310 – 3344. Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft/Handbooks of linguistics and communications science 13.3. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Trifonas, Peter Pericles, ed. 2015. International Handbook of Semiotics. Dordrecht: Springer. Valsiner, Jaan. 2017. From Methodology to Methods in Human Psychology. SpringerBriefs in Psychology / SpringerBriefs in Theoretical Advances in Psychology. Cham: Springer. Vetter, Maretin. 2002. “Theologie und Semiotik: Zum Stand des Gesprächs am Beispiel der Peirce-Rezeption in jüngeren Arbeiten evangelischer Theologie.” Zeitschrift für Semiotik, 24 (1): 111 – 129. Volp, Rainer, ed. 1982. Zeichen: Semiotik in Theologie und Gottesdienst. München: Kaiser. Volp, Rainer. 1992 – 1994. Liturgik. Die Kunst, Gott zu feiern. Vol. 1. Einführung und Geschichte, Vol. 2. Theorien und Gestaltung. Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn. Volp, Rainer. 1998. “Zeichenkonzeptionen in der Religion von der Reinaissance bis zum frühen 19. Jahrhundert.” In Semiotik: Ein Handbuch zu den zeichentheoretischen Grundlagen von Natur und Kultur / Semiotics: A Handbook on the Sign-Theoretic Foundations of Nature and Culture, edited by Roland Posner, Klaus Robering und Thomas A. Sebeok, 2:1376 – 1406. Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft/Handbooks of linguistics and communications science, 13.2. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Yelle, Robert A. 2013. Semiotics of Religion: Signs of the Sacred in History. London: Bloomsbury.

PART I: Theoretical perspectives

Thomas-Andreas Põder

Religion in the semiosphere: Theosemiotics in dialogue with Juri Lotman 1 Introduction I start with a brief sketch of the current landscape of semiotics vis-à-vis religion as a context for my proposal of the semiotics in dialogue with Juri Lotman (1922– 1993). The field of semiotics is rich in varieties, but it could be characterized as encompassing two influential classical traditions, considered as ideal types: an American one, going back to the scientist, logician and philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 – 1914) and a European one, stemming from the Swiss French-speaking structural linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857– 1913). For different reasons, occasionally these two traditions continue to be developed independently and in their own right, but most often we encounter various forms of hybridization. “Semiotics” is an ambiguous sign. Roughly corresponding to this hybrid heterogeneity, there are currently two main strands in approaching religion from a semiotic perspective. By semiotics of religion in a broad sense, I mean both of these together. I call the first one semiotics of religion in a narrow sense. In that path, semiotics is a methodological toolbox for approaching and analyzing religious phenomena or data; although it can be envisioned as also suggesting a more general perspective for conceptualizing religion(s), i. e., a semiotic theory of religion (see, for example, Leone 2012, 2019). The second strand elaborates on the ontological, religious and ethical implications of C. S. Peirce’s sem(e)iotic(s).¹ I propose that Juri Lotman’s semiotics of culture, and especially his later lesser-known works, open up a third significant paradigm for a semiotics of religion.

 Peirce himself used the spelling “sem(e)iotic.” https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-004

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1.1 Semiotics of religion in a narrow sense: Using semiotics as a methodological toolbox Right from the mid-1960’s, when the academic institutionalization of semiotics began, the discipline attracted scholars studying myths, rituals and the Bible.² Semiotic approaches and tools have been used to analyze religious phenomena by scholars from different research fields that are not always explicitly linked to “religion,” as, for example, philology, literary studies, biblical studies, folkloristics, ethnology and symbolic, socio-cultural, linguistic and semiotic anthropologies. Nevertheless, semiotic methods have not been widely and consistently appealed to in religious studies in recent decades.³ The very first monograph to have semiotics of religion in its title was the book Semiotics of Religion,⁴ published only in 2013 and deliberately eclectic in its reception of semiotics (Yelle 2013). Its author, Robert A. Yelle, has recently been a leading figure in advancing and promoting “the semiotic turn in the study of religion”⁵ (see Yelle 2010, 2011, 2016; see also a review symposium on Yelle’s book in the journal Religion: Engler 2014). The renewed interest in semiotics in the field of religious studies, as is exemplified in work such as Yelle’s, is characterized by greater sensitivity to the historical, relative and contextual nature of semiotics. In particular, this means greater sensitivity to the history of linguistic theories and practices: what counts as a sign depends on the prevalent semiotic ideology, or semiotic perception, of a particular time period and cannot be universalized as a quasi-eternal and omnipresent structure. In his Semiotics of Religion, intended not as a comprehensive introduction but rather as an exemplary and exploratory study, Yelle focuses on certain “religious phenomena,” such as magical language and rituals. He develops some

 From 1974– 2002 the journal “Semeia” was published by the Society of Biblical Literature, the oldest and largest society supporting critical scholarship of the Bible. See its special issue “Thinking in Signs: Semiotics and Biblical Studies … Thirty Years After” (Patte (1998). In 1975 a journal “Sémiotique et Bible” dedicated to fostering exchange between biblical sciences and language sciences was established. The quarterly continues to be published today at the University of Lyon.  In general, the same is true in the case of Christian theology, although engagement with semiotics has been quite intensive in biblical studies, as well as in liturgical studies and practical theology insofar as their focus lies on processes of communication. See the introduction (section 2) to the present volume.  Subtitled Signs of the Sacred in History.  As reads the subtitle of the international conference “Mediation and Immediacy,” organized by Massimo Leone, Robert Yelle and Jenny Ponzo in Turin, 8 to 10 June 2016.

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basic differentiations within these semiotic processes, common or typical in many “traditional religions.” Furthermore, he highlights the characteristic features of the semiotic ideology of the modern secular period. In this way, a semiotic approach should be helpful for explaining phenomena which are traditionally understood as being part of “religion.” However, it should also contribute to an understanding of the category of “the secular” as itself a particular semiotic ideology. Yelle’s reasoning attaches great importance to “reformation” and the Protestant literalism it heralded. In an arguably misleading and one-sided way, reformation is in fact reduced to its Anglo-Saxon form and considered primarily as Puritanism. In sum, some of the hallmarks of Yelle’s religious studies as “semiotics of religion” are the following: semiotics is understood as a method; the research objects include primarily particular phenomena such as verbal and ritual practices, conventionally seen as “religious” phenomena; religions are viewed mainly as “traditional religions”; reformation and Protestantism mean a thorough transformation of traditional religion and constitute an important factor in the development of the modern-secular semiotic ideology; this leads to relativizing the validity claims of secular criticism of traditional religion and rehabilitation of traditional religion and its associated phenomena (this is, however, a supervening result and by no means done as a militantly apologetic effort).

1.2 Semiotics of religion as theosemiotic, subsequent to C. S. Peirce Another important current strand of semiotics of religion⁶ strives to develop C. S. Peirce’s philosophy of religion. His sem(e)iotic(s) is based on an integrated metaphysical-cosmological framework theory which has “a neglected argument for the reality of God” (see Deuser 2004a; Schmidt 2018) at its core. The neologism “theosemiotic” was firstly used as a designation for this approach more than thirty years ago by Michael L. Raposa (Raposa 1989, 142– 54; Raposa 1987) and his long-lasting theosemiotic explorations have newly culminated in a monograph titled Theosemiotic ⁷ (Raposa 2020). I use this term here heuristically as an umbrella for different versions of metaphysics, philosophy of religion or philosophical theology inspired by Peirce (a good global overview is given by

 See the special issue of The American Journal of Semiotics on “Semiotics of Religion” (Corrington 1993).  Subtitled Religion, Reading, and the Gift of Meaning.

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Slater 2015, 170 – 76; compare with 5 – 11). For example, in Germany, a theologian and philosopher of religion Hermann Deuser (Deuser 1993, 2004b, 2009, esp. 259 – 504) is one of the most prominent representatives of this tradition.⁸ Peircean semiotics as a metaphysical⁹ framework theory or semiotic process cosmology has been proposed as a horizon for Protestant or Catholic theologies, e. g., by Deuser, Raposa (1987, 2010, 2016) and Andrew Robinson (2010, 2014, 2015; Robinson and Southgate 2010, 2012). It can also be seen as an incentive for a more or less radical revision of such theologies, e. g., by Neville (1996; 2006); Corrington ([2000] 2009,1990); Daniel-Hughes (2018).

1.3 Juri Lotman’s semiotics of culture, especially his later work Modelled in this way, the present situation seems to be a situation of choice between semiotics of religion (narrowly construed) on the one side, i. e., semiotics as a research device or a toolbox of working methods to be applied in the case of religion or to phenomena deemed to be religious, and on the other side, theosemiotic(s), i. e., a metaphysical semiotics or philosophical theology. Compared to the classical traditions in semiotics mentioned above, an engagement with the Tartu-Moscow school of cultural semiotics has taken place less in the context of studying religions, whether from theological, philosophical, religious studies, or other perspectives.¹⁰ This is especially the case with Juri Lotman’s later oeuvre, including monographs such as Universe of the Mind. A Semiotic Theory of Culture ([1990] 2000), The Unpredictable Workings of Culture ([written in 1990 – 1992, first published 2010] 2013), Culture and Explosion ([1992] 2009) and many articles (an important selection is now easily accessible in Culture, Memory and History. Essays in Cultural Semiotics (2019)), has up to now received only little attention in the fields of the scientific, theological and philo The fact that the very first collection of Peirce’s writings on philosophy of religion were translated into German, and introduced, commented and edited by Deuser deserves special mention. Peirce’s own writings in this voluminous edition cover over 400 pages (Peirce 1995).  An important alternative reading of Peirce vis-à-vis religion is Ochs (1998); see also Ochs (1992).  One recent exception, engaging more with Lotman’s earlier work, is Lepik (2002, 2015). Among the members of the Tartu-Moscow school, and scholars closely related to it, are Vladimir Toporov (1928 – 2005), Alexander Piatigorski (1929 – 2009), Vyacheslav Ivanov (1929 – 2017), Boris Unspenski (b. 1937), Linnart Mäll (1938 – 2010) and Boris Ogibenin (b. 1940), who worked, among other things, in fields such as mythology, comparative and cultural history of religion, and Asian studies.

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sophical study of religion (at least partly due to the delay in the availability of the texts in English) and is still waiting to be discovered. Lotman’s semiotics of culture seems highly relevant and promising for these fields. It contains important leads that contribute to the understanding of religion as something emerging and operative, here and now in contemporary culture.¹¹ It can be constructively developed further by integrating engagement with religion in a more visible and systematic way into the framework of a general semiotic theory. Such a re-reading of his works could contribute to a third way of combining semiotics and religion.

1.4 Overview of the argument The body of this chapter consists of three parts. The first part provides a sketch of Lotman’s theory of culture, while the second part proceeds to show how it can be developed into a fresh perspective for modelling religion(s). The third part introduces my conception of theosemiotics as (a version of) cultural semiotics of religion by explicating its tasks and functions and suggesting how it affects our understanding of the relationship between different strategies and disciplines for studying religion, as well as our understanding of the situation—a situation of us all—where people of differently religious and nonreligious convictions are living together. The chapter ends with a conclusion, highlighting on the one hand the relevance of religions as tools for studying the workings of culture, especially creativity in culture, and on the other hand the contribution of semiotics (of culture) to the lived reality of religion and culture.

 In the books just mentioned, as well as in his earlier works, Lotman writes extensively about religious matters. In analyzing culture and in identifying and describing its working mechanisms, he quite often discusses questions and examples explicitly presented as connected to religion or as manifestations of religion. It is striking to a scholar of religion not only how much knowledge Lotman displays but also the level of sensitivity in his analysis of this heterogeneous material. However, it is difficult to avoid the impression that for him the real place of religion is in humanity’s cultural past and not the present. All his numerous illustrations and cases concerning religion come from the past. It appears that Lotman himself does not perceive religion as a lived reality of today but as part of our cultural memory.

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2 Lotman’s semiotic theory of culture 2.1 The semiosphere—its beyond and dynamics In his above mentioned later writings¹² Lotman aims “to provide an outline for a general structural description of culture and tentatively to suggest the place of culture among broader and more general forms of organization” (Lotman 2013, 2). The task, as he perceives it lies, “in the creation of a general and historical¹³ semiotics of culture” (Lotman 2000, 273). He tries “to demonstrate the working of the semiotic space or intellectual world in which humanity and human society are enfolded and which is in constant interaction with the individual intellectual world of human beings” (Lotman 2000, 3, emphasis added).¹⁴ These quotes illustrate Lotman’s modelling of culture as semiotic space. Semiotics studies the workings of culture as semiosphere that has both synchronic and diachronic dimensions (Lotman 2009, 171; 2005, 219; [1990] 2016, 8; 2000, part III). Different sign systems¹⁵ in their discreteness can be and are

 Even though I see and stress the particular importance of Lotman’s later work for theorizing and studying religions, I certainly share the view that his earlier writings and phases of work are often very helpful in deepening and concretizing of what has been said in these later writings. At the same time, the reverse is also true; the writings of his so called structuralist mid-period receive a new light in the horizon of the later work, often characterized as post-structuralist. Recently it has been claimed that Lotman’s later “post-structuralist” work should be understood as “pre-structuralist,” because in important respects it is in line with what he did in the early 1960’s (Pilshchikov andTrunin 2016, 389). Within the limits of this chapter, I do not go into details of Lotman exegesis and of related debates, although in developing my understanding of Lotman I have learned much from other, sometimes differing readings of his work, such as Alexandrov (2000); Frank, Ruhe and Schmitz (2010a, 2010b); Grishakova (2009); Grob (2012); Kull (2005); M. Lotman (2002, 2012, 2013, 2014); Nöth (2015); Priimägi (2005, 2007, 2011); Salupere and Kull (2018, esp. 173 – 185, 201– 229); Semenenko (2016); Torop (1999, 2005, 2009).  Historical semiotics asks “how that human individual who has to make a choice looks at the world”; its aim is “the reconstruction of different ethno-cultural types of consciousness” (Lotman 2000, 232– 33). Lotman may call such a study also “cultural psychology” (Lotman 2000, 255; comp. 267; 270).  “The individual human intellect does not have a monopoly in the work of thinking. Semiotic systems, both separately and together as the integrated unity of the semiosphere, both synchronically and in all the depths of historical memory, carry out intellectual operations, [i. e.,] preserve, rework and increase the store of information. […] We are both part and a likeness of a vast intellectual mechanism.” (Lotman 2000, 273; comp. Lotman 2013, 76; Lotman 2009, 24)  Or intellectual systems; or systems of information; or systems of communication (see the definition in Lotman 2000, 2). Lotman understands thinking via translation and translation as dialogue (Lotman 2000, 143). Also, in Culture and Explosion he models the intellectual act as trans-

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studied in various ways—by semiotics and other disciplines. However, in my reading it is of crucial importance to Lotman that we are dealing with “different mechanisms of the single intellectual life of humanity” (Lotman 2000, 273; emphasis added).¹⁶ Therefore, the semiosphere as “the universe of culture” (Lotman 2000, 272)¹⁷ in its strict, specific and most profound sense models something singular, unitary and holistic, although, because of the pervading isomorphism of semiotic systems, one may speak of cultures as semiospheres¹⁸ or of sub-semiospheres within the one semiosphere. The semiosphere is internally organized as a complex unity, a dynamic continuum and characterized by internal oppositions and deep or even radical paradoxes. Here I cannot go into details of Lotman’s truly insightful analysis and powerful description of the semiosphere. However, the most fundamental and complex questions “relating to the description of any semiotic system are” according to Lotman “firstly, its relation to the extra-system, to the world which lies beyond its borders and, secondly, it’s static and dynamic relations. The latter question could be formulated thus: how can a system develop and yet remain true to itself?” (Lotman 2009, 1) These are questions that can be asked vis-àvis every sign system in a culture, vis-à-vis cultures as sign systems and vis-àvis the totality of all sign systems, i. e., the semiosphere.

lation, meaning as translation from one language to another and extra-lingual reality as yet another type of language “endowed with a structural organization and the potential to function as the content of a heterogeneous set of expressions” (Lotman 2009, 6).  I take it as a view that from this perspective natural sciences are in a way also contributing to the semiotics of culture, e. g., physics studies a specific layer or dimension of the semiosphere. See Culture and Explosion (Lotman 2009, 23 – 24), where Lotman speaks of semiotic space as a textual (upper) layer and of the layer of “reality” that is also organized by languages. They together form the subject-matter of semiotics of culture (therefore, for example, biosemiotics is part of the semiotics of culture).  It is the “universe of the mind” (as in the main title of the book in English), the “intellectual world” (Lotman 2000, 3), “a mechanism organizing the collective personality” (Lotman 2000, 34), “the world of culture” (Lotman 2009, 25), “the sphere of culture “ (Lotman 2009, 134), “the single complex whole that is culture” (Lotman [1974] 1977, 258 or 2016, 259), “culture as the collective intelligence of humankind” (Lotman [1988] 2019, 184), “the semiotic universe” (Lotman] 2005, 298).  See Lotman 2000, 138: “the entire space of the semiosphere is transected”; “the internal space of these sub-semiospheres has its own semiotic ‘I’”; 142: “[I]n reality no semiosphere is immersed in an amorphous, ‘wild’ space, but is in contact with other semiospheres which have their own organization […] there is a constant exchange, a search for a common language [… ].” See also Lotman 2005: “Since all levels of the semiosphere […] are a seemingly inter-connected group of semiospheres, each of them is simultaneously both participant in the dialogue (as part of the semiosphere) and the space of the dialogue (the semiosphere as a whole) […].”

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With regard to the first problem, the question of discerning a semiotic unity, of discerning meaning, already implies an idea of marking its borders, a notion of the outside of the system. This in turn implies that a minimal semiotic structure is a dialogical structure as it necessarily relates to the other. “[T]he starting point” is “not the simple isolated sign, but […] the relation between at least two signs” (Lotman 2009, 172; emphasis added; see 2– 3). Any “semiotic structure” emerges “in semiotic space” (Lotman 2009, 172; see Lotman [1989] 2019, 86; Lotman [1984] 2005, 206 – 8, 218 – 19; Lotman [1981] 1988, 40; Lotman 2016, 8). If so, the question of the border and its beyond arises at the levels of a particular sign system within a culture, at the level of cultures in general, but also at the level of the total space of signs¹⁹ (although it remains, of course, a question raised within it). It is therefore not surprising that Lotman’s book The Unpredictable Workings of Culture begins with age-old but ever new questions about the limits of the human condition as questions of orientation. “Who are we?” “Where do we come from?” and “Where are we going?” He continues: “These questions have disturbed human beings throughout the entire course of their intellectual existence. […] [A]ll answers are provisional while reflection is the eternal essence of man.” (Lotman 2013, 37) In this way the space of humanity, together with its borders, undergoes constant construction and reconstruction—both because of its inner dynamics and also because the borders of culture are never absolute, but fluid and porous. Such borders are mechanisms of translation, uniting the translatable and the untranslatable, the determinate and indeterminate, the predictable and the unpredictable. Regarding the second problem, in his last two books Lotman analyzes the relationship between the static and the dynamic in culture. Using an enormous number of examples of varying kinds,²⁰ he attempts to deepen our understanding of culture as a dynamic semiotic whole uniting the opposition of gradual and explosive processes (Lotman 2009, 7).²¹ In continual processes, we perceive a

 “The problem of culture cannot be resolved without a determination of its place in extra-cultural space. The question may be formulated as follows: the unique quality of man as a cultural ‘artefact’ requires the opposition of his world to nature; which is understood as extra-cultural space.” (Lotman 2009, 25; comp. Lotman 2019, 91)  As a resource, various arts are especially suitable because “[t]he laws of the construction of the artistic text are very largely the laws of the construction of culture as whole.” (Lotman 2000, 33)  “The significance of the […] slow and pulsating processes in the general structure of human existence is not inferior to the role of the explosive one and it should be added that, in historical reality, all these types of processes are interwoven and act upon each other, first accelerating,

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change as predictable. In case of explosive processes, the change is unpredictable. In the dynamics of cultural development, these opposing structural tendencies are mutually dependent, not only diachronically but also synchronically. As a complex whole culture “is created from elements which develop at different rates” (Lotman 2009, 11). Gradual and explosive dynamics form various contradictory combinations in different layers and spheres simultaneously without excluding “the interdependence of these layers” (Lotman 2009, 11) and spheres.

2.2 The unpredictability of culture: Explosion in culture As a conclusion of this highly condensed reconstruction of Lotman’s semiotics as semiotics of culture, I highlight two points. These relate directly to the aforementioned most fundamental questions regarding semiotic systems and the semiosphere as a whole, but I reverse the sequence. First, the semiosphere is an open, dynamic and asymmetrical system, not closed within itself. Within this multi-layered intersection of various semiotic systems or languages, relationships between the translatable and the untranslatable are so complex that possibilities for a breakthrough into the space beyond the limits are created. This function is also fulfilled by moments of explosion, which can create a kind of window in the semiotic layer. Thus, the world of semiosis is not fatally locked in itself: it forms a complex structure, which always “plays” with the space external to it, first drawing it into itself, then throwing into it those elements of its own which have already been used and which have lost their semiotic activity. (Lotman 2009, 24, emphasis added; see also Lotman 2019, 92)²²

Lotman identifies and describes the workings of various mechanisms of culture enhancing its dynamics. Explosions “may be of varying force and may encom-

then slowing down general movement” (Lotman 2009, 141; emphasis added). Semiotics of culture seems to amount to a kind of fundamental anthropology.  A little later Lotman states: “In this way the boundary is eroded and the definition of any concrete fact as belonging to a cultural or extra-cultural sphere necessarily includes a high degree of relativity. However, the ‘relativity’ of a specific case is sufficiently obvious when we are talking about categories of abstract classification” (Lotman 2009, 25). The extrasystematic is necessary as a reserve of dynamics (see Lotman [1974] 1977, 209 or 2016, 258). “In moments of ‘cultural (or, in general, semiotic) explosions,’ the most remote and, from the standpoint of a particular system, untranslatable (i. e., ‘unintelligible’) texts are absorbed.” (Lotman [1981] 1988, 42; see Lotman 1983, 70). The intrusion of the extrasystematic “sharply increases the inner unpredictability of the entire system, lending volatility to its next stage of development” (Lotman [1983] 2016, 80).

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pass different portions of the cultural sphere” (Lotman 2009, 69). In explosive moments the incompatible becomes adequate, the untranslatable becomes translatable (see Lotman 2009, 23), new possibilities take shape, “one becomes conscious of another reality,” in sum: “it is a moment of dislocation and of the reinterpretation of memory” (Lotman 2009, 69). It is important to emphasize that this unpredictability and indeterminacy are intrinsic to the semiosphere and to the life of every human being. This situation of uncertainty and ignorance may be experienced in some contexts as something positive—for example as artistic creativity—but in other contexts as a reduction of our ability to orient ourselves. We start to doubt and cannot find our way forward (see Lotman [1978] 2019, 45 – 46; Lotman [1988] 2019, 209, 216 – 17, 220). I recall Lotman’s remark about how in combat mad and unpredictable behavior may intentionally be used to create a situation where one’s enemy loses orientation by becoming unsure and frightened (Lotman 2009, 38). Second, Lotman welcomes the strategy of not engaging with “the yet unsolved problem of the ‘beginning’ of culture” (Lotman 2000, 3).²³ According to him, we can only productively study the structure and dynamics of the semiosphere, not its origins. The assumption of a semiotic sphere as a condition of the possibility for perceiving meaning “does not decide […] the necessity for a theological point of view” (Lotman, M. 2013, 269 [quoting J. Lotman’s postscript]). Indeed, “culture […] can be treated […] as one message transmitted by the collective ‘I’ of humanity to itself. From this point of view human culture is a vast example of autocommunication” (Lotman 2000, 33). In this way Lotman’s semiotics of culture aims at universality without metaphysics. It is a theory of the functioning of humanity as a dynamic semiotic structure, encompassing in principle also a theory of other layers of reality. I understand it as a kind of semiotic fundamental anthropology. I agree with Lotman that, from the perspective of semiotics as a science,²⁴ the question of the beginning of the semiosphere cannot be determined. The unpredictability of the semiosphere is irreducible. The semiotic modelling of cul-

 See on this point Lotman’s extensive postscript to his letter to Boris Uspensky (19 March 1982) (cited in M. Lotman 2013, 268 – 69; also in M. Lotman 2014, 24– 25). See also in his “On the semiosphere”: “[I]s the whole universe not a form of communication, falling within an ever more general semiosphere? Is it not destined for a universal reading? It is doubtful whether we were able to find an answer to this question.” (Lotman 2005 , 220). A more accurate translation from the Russian original [Lotman 1992, 20] would be: “[I]s the whole universe not a message, falling within an ever more general semiosphere? Is the universe not meant to be perused? We are hardly ever going to be able to respond to this question.”  See on the status of semiotics the footnote 3 in the previous chapter.

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ture is not a metaphysics that claims, for example, the necessity of a rational acknowledgment of the existence of God. However, this does not mean that the question of the beginning or “where from” can be avoided; and it does not exclude the possibility that there are other ways of responding to that question.

3 Religions in the perspective of semiotics of culture One clear deficit in Lotman’s semiotics is his naïveté in the way he models religion. Although his acquaintance with religious material of various kinds is profound and his sensitivity toward the specifics of religion are often truly astonishing, religion as a lived reality of the contemporary world seems to be invisible in his writings. It remains a manifestation of the archaic or traditional mind. Its appearance today may be a matter of fact, but it remains something anachronistic.²⁵ In studying the nature of culture, its construction or deep structure and dynamics, art serves as Lotman’s main vehicle. My thesis is that semiotics of culture can very well take religions more seriously and model them as living and adaptive realities in current history and culture. The workings of religion can be conceived as another paradigmatic and irreducible source for understanding creativity and explosion in culture.

3.1 Semiotic mechanisms of relating to the unpredictability of the semiosphere In the framework of a semiotics of culture, I suggest modelling religions as ways of relating to the unpredictability of the semiosphere. They are mechanisms humans use to determine its indeterminacy, to translate its untranslatability. They are rooted in the dynamic coincidence of opposites within the holistic semiotic continuum of culture. They emerge or evolve in moments of explosion as a possible human response to this dialectic. In this way, religions function as semiotic mechanisms and resources for “orientation and transformation” (see their programmatic characterization, as coined by Henriksen (2017)).

 The question is justified and could be investigated further to what extent this apparent naïveté of Lotman’s could be considered as his strategic modus operandi in the context of the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union with its state supported atheism and antireligious propaganda.

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A crucial thing to highlight is that the condition of possibility for any third person perspective or general description of religion is the lived reality of religion in the first person perspective. Therefore, the autocommunication or self-picture of religions is of fundamental significance. At the same time, it cannot, of course, be made absolute or considered as the only or objectively true description of a religion in question. Lotman characterizes art “as a child of explosion. The work of art is born in the moment of explosion and cannot be understood without taking into account the very nature of that birth.” (Lotman 2013, 87) The same is valid with respect to religion. Religion is a child of explosion. Religion is both: What humans do and what happens to them, because its moment of birth is an explosion. In this sense the history of religion is a history of creativity.

3.2 An example: The use of the God-sign in the context of Christianity The attitude religions release towards the semiosphere can be quite different. There is no a priori way for making generalizations. I use here the case of Christianity as an example (Jüngel 2014a, 2014b; Dalferth 2003, 2006, 2009, 2014, 2016). In the context of many religions the sign “God” plays a central role. According to Christian religion’s self-understanding in and through human communication about God, time and again God communicates Godself to humans. The presence of the semiosphere, in both its unpredictability as well as its predictability, becomes qualified and determined by God becoming present. Somebody’s discovery of his or her being present in the presence of God is an unpredictable event. It is an explosion in culture—a re-orientation of life. Therefore, the symbol “God” acquires its religious meaning in the context of life that is perceived as a communication or a dialogue between God and the human “I” or “we.” Such a religious situation is a situation of intimacy, where the sign “God” is perceived and used as a proper name (see Lotman 2009, 30 – 37). The religious meaning of the sign “God” is rooted in the lived context where Christians use this sign in orienting themselves in their lives towards God as the ultimate living source of “the courage to be” (Tillich 2014), as well as of solidarity “in the face of the unpredictable” (Lotman 2013, 217). Therefore, in a way similar to how the significance of art “is based on the essential untranslatability of art into non-artistic languages” (Lotman 2013, 83), there exists no equivalent translation of religion. “This untranslatability […] stimulates continuous attempts at non-equivalent translation. These translations then serve as mechanisms for generating new meanings” (Lotman 2013, 83). From this perspective, different approaches for studying religion are differ-

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ent translations or languages that attempt to model and make sense of religion as a function of culture. In the process of study—this is also true in the case of theology—religion as lived in its intrinsic relation to the first person perspective and to the unpredictable is unavoidably transformed into a modelled religion. In the context of the Christian religion, God—as God is communicated to humans—could be modelled as the sign of unpredictability. God is the sign of the primacy of possibility, a sign of promise. God signals the rootedness of religion in the “other” of the semiosphere, in the space of possibilities or freedom. God is the asymmetrical “other” in and of the semiosphere. Therefore, the religious system in the case of Christianity understands itself and everything else via the sign God (theos). A self-reflection of the Christian religion is consequently called theology. I said that God signals the asymmetry of a religious system. Related to this asymmetry is an internal temptation or danger of wrong self-description in Christian religion. It is the tendency to make Christian religion itself, as a semiotic system, absolute. The possibility of religion—God as the unpredictable promise—is turned into a necessity. The difference between trusting God and possessing God is overlooked. Therefore, a self-reflection of Christian religion implies a permanent task of self-critique, to prevent treating as God something else than God, be it the church or personal faith, or tradition, doctrine, ritual, codes of conduct, political power, etc. The task is to safeguard and respect the asymmetry of religion and semiosphere—the task of deconstructing idols (see, for example, Caputo and Vattimo 2009). Neither my own first person perspective nor the perspectives of others are absolute—no model of religion or of God is absolute. The only absolute is the unpredictable gracious event of God giving birth to trust and hope. Therefore, theology is one of the mechanisms of religion that contributes to its vitality. The example of Christianity demonstrates how ignoring theology— from inside or outside—may contribute to one-sided readings of Christianity, overemphasizing codes like “traditional” or “conservative” (or respectively “progressive” or “liberal”). I have already said that religion deserves attention as a characteristic feature of contemporary culture, playing a significant role within it. Religion is a cultural mechanism that has a determinative influence on the present as it expresses in a unique way the creativity and unpredictability of culture. Looking at the case of the Christian religion, especially in its Lutheran mode and perception, the following picture could be sketched. The beginning of Christian tradition is linked with explosion—an intrusion from outside the system, a radical invasion. The confession made from the first person perspective expresses something that seemed like absurd foolishness or sacrilege in the context of that time: God is dead. And this event was then and

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is continually until today interpreted by some people as an event, that provides a radical positive qualification of the present of the individual person and of the entire world. The explosiveness of the 16th century Reformation naturally depends on this event. Therefore, it is an explosion in relative terms, insofar as the discovery of God’s justice or the justification of the ungodly (the sinner) is acknowledged radically, i. e., as the source, center and criterion of individual life and the life of the communion or the church. Therefore, from the perspective of autocommunication or theology of Christian religion, this creative, unpredictable dimension is actually the focal point of all Christian faith and life. The beginning of Christian faith and life in a person is also perceived theologically as uncontrollable, as a transformation associated with God’s presence, coming and futurity. Again, worship or liturgy is an anamnetic, remembering event, but the content of the memory is God’s unpredictability, his coming and futurity. Thus, the worship service is also, or even primarily, an eschatological event—an invasion from outside the system, which cannot be invoked by human powers. The present appears as an eschatological moment, a moment determined by God’s unpredictable futurity. Therefore, everyday life appears as a transformation into an eschatological life—critically determined by the futurity of God’s love. This raises a number of questions, particularly again the question of eschatology and eschatological presence, which could also possibly be formulated as a question about the future present—namely about the presence of reconciliation and understanding, which encompasses the entirety of humanity, the whole semiosphere.

3.3 The unpredictability, including indeterminacy, of the semiosphere as a conditio humana Using the example of Christianity, I pointed to some traits of a lived religion in culture from the perspective of its autocommunication in its Lutheran mode. Hence, the religious system of a culture lived in the present invites and enables by itself semiotic approaches to religion. However, semiotics of religion as theosemiotics, due to its eminent dialogicity, should certainly not be limited, neither in its interest nor in its relevance, to a particular set of religious phenomena or, more generally, to a religious system. The themes and issues of lived religion could be linked to issues and questions of the reality of a particular culture and to the semiosphere as a whole, because of the inevitable link with the reality

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of unpredictability and indeterminacy that could be perceived in various degrees and in both positive and negative terms. Therefore, the attention of theosemiotics should not only be directed at something that we would or would not traditionally, in dominant forms of Western culture, consider as religious phenomena or as religion. The subject matter of religion is not something that only concerns religious persons. It is something that concerns everyone. The Christian religion, and probably most other religions, are characterized by an orientation towards an explosive self-translation or self-definition of indeterminacy (“revelation”), which also emphasizes the importance of the mnemonic function of culture. As mentioned before, this does not make indeterminacy controllable by human beings. Religion and the frequently appearing notion of God—theos—are rather transformational ways of developing an attitude towards the semiosphere and navigating it.

4 Theosemiotics and the task of an ongoing dialogue between disciplines studying religions How could then theosemiotics in dialogue with Lotman, i. e., such cultural semiotics of religion be conceived and characterized? I suggest that it could be understood as a third way or paradigm of semiotics of religion. It would not be semiotics of religion in the narrow sense, i. e., in the sense of a branch of semiotics or disciplines studying religion “simply” by applying (some) tools of semiotics out of its different traditions and schools. Nor would it be semiotics of religion in the intriguing and deep sense of theosemiotic in Peircean tradition—as signalizing a metaphysical center or basis of all semiotics. I would characterize this cultural theosemiotics as a humbler approach that is developed out of a dialogue with the Lotmanian semiotics of culture and integrates functionally the pluralistic study of religion(s), including theology and philosophy of religion, with a general theory of culture (semiosphere). It explicitly does not reduce the multimodal texts of “religion” and the text (or unity of signification) of “religion” to that, which can only be studied either from the third person perspective, or again, only from the first person perspective. It rather highlights the mutual interdependence of these perspectives, their actual dialogue and the intrinsic need for that. Theosemiotics as cultural semiotics of religion would most importantly be a methodology and not only methods and tools, i. e., it would, in its deepest significance, be a general theory about the topic of research and about the mean-

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ingful ways of gaining epistemic access to it. In the following I try to describe its main dimensions. First of all, theosemiotics in a broad sense refers to a general framework theory of culture; if needed, critically and constructively. That means it refers to basic concepts (not necessarily to these terms) such as “the semiosphere,” “the outside of the system” or “the other,” and “autocommunication.” In this framework the praxis of dialogue between different approaches to the study of religion (and non-religion), as well as the recognition of the crucial relevance of autocommunication would be (critically!) appreciated. Second, theosemiotics in a narrower sense would outline a metadescription of a particular religion out of its autocommunication, proceeding from the unpredictable self-communication of “the outside of the system,” or the other conceived as “revelatory” by that religion. Here often, but by no means always explicitly, the sign “God” plays a crucial role as the center of orientation and as the source of transformation in individual, social and cosmological respects. Therefore, theosemiotics in a narrower sense would encompass the praxis of theology, i. e., it interprets and describes the semiotic situation from the perspective of a specific and particular existential-spiritual relation of trust or life-certitude, and accordingly the semiosphere as a situation of communication of and with God. In this perspective, the significance of the semiosphere becomes manifest as a sign of God. Here again cautiousness and sensibility or paying attention to relevant differences is needed: the significance of “God” can be very different in the context of various lived religions that use this sign. Therefore, the task is to explore what kind of theosemiotics in a narrower sense becomes manifest in the context or perspective of a particular religious or nonreligious lived praxis of life. In short, my second point is that theosemiotics is sensitive towards the differences of religion and, in its narrower sense, works itself out from the source of their particular autocommunication. Third, a further important task of theosemiotics would be the critique of a particular religion out of its autocommunication (i. e., recognizing the difference between the unpredictable break-in of “the other” and its always semiotic comprehension). I brought an example of it in subsection 3.2. Fourth, after the first three methodological points, I come now to the method(s). An important task of theosemiotics would be to critically work out, i. e., to specify, describe and propose in dialogue with Lotman’s own enormous and, in many ways, highly relevant and helpful body of writings, but also with other important traditions of semiotic research, more concrete tools and methods for an analysis and critique suitable and sensitive to particular lived religious or non-religious forms of life. (Here, of course, conflicts can occur, so that the limits of theosemiotics become apparent; for example, a concrete reli-

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gion may understand itself autocommunicatively via the sign “religion,” but cannot see a possibility to make sense of “the semiosphere” and refuses to recognize the results of any theosemiotic analysis and description.) Fifth, religions differ in their forms of “theologies” and, as I proposed, theosemiotics stresses the importance of taking these difference(s) seriously; however, for theosemiotic sensitivity it is crucial to acknowledge that all lived forms (and also non-religious forms) of “coping” with the indeterminacy and unpredictability of the semiosphere are actually engaged in developing selfdescriptions that play a role in their transformation and enable them to be a more adequate and truthful response to the situation they are in (or may happen to be, in fact, hindering such a response). At this stage, these five points or dimensions are not intended to be a complete or final description considering the preliminary and introductory status of my proposal. Therefore, the question raises itself again: how could theosemiotics as a framework theory, as well as a theory of autocommunication or a metasemiosis of a particular religion, be fruitful in extending and deepening our knowledge regarding religion(s) and culture? Sixth, theosemiotics opens up a fresh framework for understanding “religion” (in case this sign is used in some sense in a particular context). However, for all those who do not consider themselves religious or engaged in religion, it means that all who do not use the sign and do not understand it in a way it can be self-referentially used, they still do somehow relate to or “cope with” the intrinsic paradoxes of the semiosphere. Therefore, what are their strategies? How are these paradoxes understood? All this can and should also be studied and explicated in the framework of theosemiotics. The idea that there exists the possibility to give an absolute answer is radically naive. In raising the sensibility towards this recognition, theosemiotics also contributes to the understanding of our situation here and now. I already mentioned the need for a critique of Lotman and to revise his views. I said that his own view of religion is, at the same time, both highly sensitive (and therefore truly instructive) and naive (and therefore requires critique and further development). I doubt whether we understand a particular religion better if we limit (in the sense of a regulative idea) our general view of religion(s) only to a comparison with some other religion (claiming to be one) or with some of its elements. Therefore, it seems to me that there is an urgent need for a continued development and explication of a general understanding of “religion(s).” Theosemiotics, as proposed here, signals at its basis an existential-spiritual attitude towards the ambivalences of the semiosphere. It means that the general theosemiotic framework theory is not meant to be some kind of final explanation of religion, but it

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is rather to be understood as a heuristic instrument of building bridges, i. e., of dialogue. The ways how the indeterminacies of the semiosphere are determined and its unpredictabilities coped with are in life truly different. They imply in themselves irreducibly that which is pragmatically—and it means here: in the concreteness of the existentially-spiritually irreducible first person perspective —perceived as trustworthy truth in orientating and transforming my life or our life. Theosemiotics certainly is, among other things, a call to reconsider the onesided realization of semiotics of culture, viewing the work(s) of art(s) as the foremost access to the deep grammar of the workings of culture or the mechanism of signification. But again, there is no need to start a competition. Already according to Lotman’s own stated insight art and religion both have a special relevance, although he dedicated himself much more to the study of art(s). Therefore, semiotics of culture via theorizing the semiosphere could enable us actually to become more sensitive to the dimension of the creativity of culture manifesting itself in religion. Finally, I want to highlight two possible effects of this proposed theosemiotics. First, in the framework of semiotics of culture the irreducible importance and dignity of the first person perspective (“I/we religion” (religion as a verb), “I/we believe” (not in the sense of assuming something, but in the existential-spiritual sense of a life-attitude, of a determinateness of the whole person, of relating to the unpredictability of the semiosphere)) becomes visible together with the insight into the relativity of “I” and “other” in the semiotic whole of humanity. The border between first and third person perspectives is never absolute. They relate to each other in a constant oscillation. As said above, borders are mechanisms of translation. It is on the border that communication and translation between different languages and semiotic systems happens. In this way, semiotics of culture opens up a view on religion that underscores the value and relevance of different approaches to religion. They are different languages for transmitting, preserving and generating information about religion. In the study of the varieties and dynamics of religion past and present, the never-ending task is therefore dialogue—communication with one another, not exclusion of each other. Secondly, framing religion in the horizon of a semiotic theory of culture can contribute to cohesiveness in societies where people are religious in various ways or understand themselves as not religious at all. As far as every human being is determined by the unpredictability of the semiosphere, they can discover themselves as united in the same situation. They can share with each other their particular ways of determining the indeterminacy in, and with, their lives. The openness to recognize that all people are determined by this same situation can lead to a greater solidarity and tolerance towards each other, to de-

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marginalization of religious perspectives in public and significantly also to selfcriticism of religions, not least regarding their public engagement.

5 Conclusion Conceptually, the novelty, if you wish, of my proposal could be seen in applying Lotman’s ideas of semiosphere, unpredictability, explosion, dialogue and translation to understanding religion and recapturing these features of culture via studying religion. I suggest conceptualizing lived religion as something emerging out of the paradoxical dynamic nature of culture. Culture as semiosphere implies meaning in connection with meaninglessness, translatability in connection with untranslatability, determinacy in connection with indeterminacy, predictability in connection with unpredictability. I suggest that religion reveals in a distinct way the creativity, unpredictability and explosiveness of culture. Therefore, religion as a mechanism for relating to indeterminacy is an excellent tool for studying creativity in culture. From the first person perspective of any lived religion, and in fact also of any explicitly non-religious way of living, a unique version of theosemiotics can be developed. Such a theosemiotics would not be metaphysical semiotics or a philosophical theology, but rather a study of religion, non-religion and negation of religion in the framework of a semiotics of culture focusing on and rooted in their auto-communication. Thus, the contribution of semiotics to the study of religion transcends its use as a toolbox of research devices. Theosemiotics in the proposed sense of a cultural semiotics of religion could eventually be developed into a distinctly recognizable way of modelling and analyzing religion, its alternatives or negations. Lotman concludes and I agree: “The individual human intellect does not have a monopoly in the work of thinking. … We are both a part and a likeness of a vast intellectual mechanism” (Lotman 2000, 273). Once again, we are united in the same situation. We can enter into dialogue. We can share with each other the ways we determine the unpredictable semiosphere in and with our lives. Understanding religion means understanding humanity—and possibly even more.

References Alexandrov, Vladimir E. 2000. “Biology, Semiosis, and Cultural Difference in Lotman’s Semiosphere.” Comparative Literature 52 (4): 339 – 62.

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Caputo, John D. and Gianni Vattimo. 2009. After the Death of God, edited by Jeffrey W. Robbins. Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture. New York: Columbia University Press. Corrington, Robert. 1990. “Peirce and the Semiotics of the Holy.” In Semiotics: The Yearbook of the Semiotic Society of America, edited by Karen Haworth, John Deely, and Terry Prewitt. 345 – 53. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. Corrington, Robert S., ed. 1993. “Semiotics of Religion.” Special issue, American Journal of Semiotics 10 (1 – 2): 5 – 132. Corrington, Robert S. 2009. A Semiotic Theory of Theology and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dalferth, Ingolf U. 2003. Die Wirklichkeit des Möglichen: Hermeneutische Religionsphilosophie. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Dalferth, Ingolf U. 2006. Becoming Present: An Inquiry into the Christian Sense of the Presence of God. Studies in Philosophical Theology 30. Leuven: Peeters. Dalferth, Ingolf U. 2009. “God, Time, and Orientation. ‘Presence’ and ‘Absence’ in Religious and Everyday Discourse.” In The Presence and Absence of God: Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Conference 2008, edited by Ingolf U. Dalferth, 1 – 20. Religion in Philosophy and Theology 42. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Dalferth, Ingolf U. 2014. “Bestimmte Unbestimmtheit. Zur Denkform des Unbestimmten in der christlichen Theologie.” Theologische Literaturzeitung 139 (1): 4 – 36. Dalferth, Ingolf U. 2016. Radical Theology: An Essay on Faith and Theology in the Twenty-First Century. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Daniel-Hughes, Brandon. 2018. Pragmatic Inquiry and Religious Communities: Charles Peirce, Signs, and Inhabited Experiments. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Deuser, Hermann. 1993. Geist und Natur: Theologische Konsequenzen aus Charles S. Peirce’s Religionsphilosophie. Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann 56. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Deuser, Hermann. 2004a. “Gibt es wirklich ein Vernachlässigtes Argument für die Realität Gottes?” In Gottesinstinkt. Semiotische Religionstheorie und Pragmatismus, edited by Hermann Deuser, 118 – 40. Religion in Philosophy and Theology 12. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Deuser, Hermann. 2004b. Gottesinstinkt. Semiotische Religionstheorie und Pragmatismus. Religion in Philosophy and Theology 12. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Deuser, Hermann. 2009. Religionsphilosophie. De Gruyter Lehrbuch. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Engler, Stefen, ed. 2014. “Review Symposium on Robert Yelle’s Semiotics of Religion: Signs of the Sacred in History (2013).” Religion, 44 (1): 84 – 163. Frank, Susi K., Cornelia Ruhe, and Alexander Schmitz. 2010a. “Explosion und Ereignis. Kontexte des Lotmanschen Geschichtskonzepts.” In Kultur und Explosion, Jurij M. Lotman, edited by Susi K. Frank, Cornelia Ruhe, and Alexander Schmitz, 227 – 59. Translated by Dorothea Trottenberg. Suhrkampf taschenbuch wissenschaft 1896. Berlin: Suhrkampf, Frank, Susi K., Cornelia Ruhe, and Alexander Schmitz. 2010b. “Jurij Lotmans Semiotik der Übersetzung.” In Die Innenwelt des Denkens, by Jurij M. Lotman, edited by Susi K. Frank, Cornelia Ruhe, and Alexander Schmitz, 383 – 416. Translated by Gabriele Leupold and Olga Radetzkaja. Suhrkampf taschenbuch wissenschaft 1944. Berlin: Suhrkampf.

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Grishakova, Marina. 2009. “Afterword. Around Culture and Explosion: J. Lotman and the Tartu-Moscow School in the 1980 – 90s.” In Culture and Explosion, by Juri Lotman, edited by Marina Grishakova, 175 – 87. Translated by Wilma Clark. Semiotics, Communication and Cognition. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Grob, Thomas. 2012. “Der doppelte Lotman: Jurij Lotmans Konzeptionen kulturhistorischer Dynamik zwischen Gesetz und Zufall.” In Explosion und Peripherie: Jurij Lotmans Semiotik der kulturellen Dynamik revisited, edited by Susi K. Frank, Cornelia Ruhe, and Alexander Schmitz, 133 – 52. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. Henriksen, Jan-Olav. 2017. Religion as Orientation and Transformation: A Maximalist Theory. Religion in Philosophy and Theology 90. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Jüngel, Eberhard. 2014a. “The World as Possibility and Actuality. The Ontology of the Doctrine of Justification.” In Theological Essays, 95 – 123, Translated by John Webster. Introduction and foreword by John Webster. London: Bloomsbury. Jüngel, Eberhard. 2014b. God as the Mystery of the World: On the Foundation of the Theology of the Crucified One in the Dispute Between Theism and Atheism. Translated by Darrell L. Guder. London: Bloomsbury. Kull, Kalevi. 2005. “Semiosphere and a Dual Ecology: Paradoxes of communication.” Sign Systems Studies 33 (1): 175 – 89. Leone, Massimo. 2012. “Motility, Potentiality, and Infinity—A Semiotic Hypothesis on Nature and Religion.” Biosemiotics 5 (3): 369 – 89. Leone, Massimo. 2019. “Semiotics of Religion: A Map.” American Journal of Semiotics 35 (3 – 4): 309 – 33. Lepik, Peet. 2002. “On Universalism in Connection with the Interpretation of Magic in the Semiotics of Juri Lotman.” Sign Systems Studies 30 (2): 555 – 76. Lepik, Peet. 2015. “(Religious) Belief and Atheism from a Semiotic Viewpoint.” Sign Systems Studies 43 (1): 48 – 76. Lotman, Ju[ri] M. (1974) 1977. “The Dynamic Model of a Semiotic System.” Translated by Ann Shukman. Foreword by R. David Nelson. Semiotica 21 (3 – 4): 193 – 210. Lotman, Yu[ri] M. (1981) 1988. “Text within a Text.” Soviet Psychology 26 (3): 32 – 51. Lotman, Juri. (1984) 2005. “On the semiosphere.” Translated by Wilma Clark. Sign Systems Studies 33 (1): 205 – 29. Lotman, Yuri M. (1990) 2000. Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Translated by Ann Shukman, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Lotman, Juri. (1990) 2016. Kultuurisemiootika. Tekst—kirjandus—kultuur. Translated by Pärt Lias, Inta Somas and Rein Veidemann. [Tallinn:] Tänapäev. Lotman 1992=ЛОТМАН, Ю. М. 1992. “О семиосфере.” Избранные статьи 1: Статьи по семиотике и типологии культуры, Таллинн: Александра. Lotman, Juri. (1992) 2009. Culture and Explosion. Edited by Marina Grishakova. Translated by Wilma Clark. Semiotics, Communication and Cognition. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Lotman, Juri M. (2010) 2013. The Unpredictable Workings of Culture. Edited by Igor Pilshchikov and Silvi Salupere. Translated by Brian James Baer, Bibliotheca Lotmaniana, Tallinn: TLU Press. Lotman, Juri. 2019. Culture, Memory and History: Essays in Cultural semiotics. Edited by Marek Tamm. Translated by Brian James Baer. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Lotman, Mihhail. 2002. “Umwelt und semiosphere.” Sign Systems Studies 30 (1): 33 – 40.

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Lotman, Mihhail. 2012. Struktuur ja vabadus I. Semiootika vaatevinklist. I.I. Tartu–Moskva koolkond: tekstist semiosfäärini. Bibliotheca Controversiarum. Tallinn: TLÜ Kirjastus. Lotman, Mihhail. 2013. “Semiotics and Unpredictability.” The Unpredictable Workings of Culture, by Juri Lotman, edited by Igor Pilshchikov and Silvi Salupere, 239 – 78. Translated by Brian James Baer. Bibliotheca Lotmaniana, Tallinn: TLU Press. Lotman, Mihhail. 2014. “The paradoxes of the semiosphere.” In Estonian Approaches to Culture Theory, edited by Valter Lang and Kalevi Kull, 22 – 32. Approaches to Culture Theory Series 4. Tartu: University of Tartu Press. Neville, Robert C. 1996. The Truth of Broken Symbols. Albany: State University of New York Press. Neville, Robert C. 2006. On the Scope of and Truth of Theology: Theology as Symbolic Engagement. New York: T&T Clark. Nöth, Winfried. 2015. “The Topography of Yuri Lotman’s Semiosphere.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 18 (1): 11 – 26. Ochs, Peter. 1992. “Theosemiotics and Pragmatism.” Journal of Religion 72 (1): 59 – 81. Ochs, Peter. 1998. Peirce, Pragmatism and the Logic of Scripture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patte, Daniel, ed. 1998. “Thinking in Signs: Semiotics and Biblical Studies … Thirty Years After.” Special issue, Semeia 81. Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1995. Religionsphilosophische Schriften. Edited by Hermann Deuser. Translated by Hermann Deuser and Helmut Maaßen. Philosophische Bibliothek 478. Hamburg: Felix Meiner. Pilshchikov, Igor and Mikhail Trunin. 2016. “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics: A transnational perspective.” Sign Systems Studies 44 (3): 386 – 401. Priimägi, Linnar. 2005. “The problem of the autocatalytic origin of culture in Juri Lotman’s cultural philosophy.” Sign Systems Studies 33 (1): 191 – 204. Priimägi, Linnar. 2007. “Semiosfääri piir.” Acta Semiotica Estica 4: 11 – 25. Priimägi, Linnar, 2011. “Järelearvamatu Lotman. Juri Lotmani “Ennustamatud kultuurimehhanismid.” Keel ja Kirjandus 54 (3): 161 – 73. Raposa, Michael L. 1987. “Peirce’s Theological Semiotic.” Journal of Religion 67 (4): 493 – 509. Raposa, Michael L. 1989. Peirce’s Philosophy of Religion. Peirce Studies 5. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Raposa, Michael L. 2010. “In the Presence of the Universe: Peirce, Royce, and Theology as Theosemiotic.” Harvard Theological Review 103 (2): 237 – 247. Raposa, Michael L. 2016. “A Brief History of Theosemiotic: From Scotus through Peirce and Beyond.” In The Varieties of Transcendence: Pragmatism and the Theory of Religion, edited by Hermann Deuser, Hans Joas, Matthias Jung, and Magnus Schlette, 142 – 57. American Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press,. Raposa, Michael L. 2020. Theosemiotic: Religion, Reading, and the Gift of Meaning, New York: Fordham University Press. Robinson, Andrew. 2010. God and the World of Signs: Trinity, Evolution, and the Metaphysical Semiotics of C. S. Peirce. Leiden: Brill. Robinson, Andrew. 2014. Traces of Trinity: Signs, Sacraments and Sharing God’s Life, Cambridge, UK: James Clarke.

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Robinson, Andrew. 2015. “Representation and Interpretation as the Basis of Participation in the Trinity.” Religions 6 (3): 1017 – 32. Robinson, Andrew, and Christopher Southgate. 2010. “Semiotics as a Metaphysical Framework for Christian Theology.” Zygon 45 (3): 689 – 712. Robinson, Andrew, and Christopher Southgate. 2012. “A Semiotic Theology of Nature,” in Darwinism and Natural Theology: Evolving Perspectives, edited by Andrew Robinson, 126 – 44. Conversations in Science and Religion, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Salupere, Silvi and Kalevi Kull, eds. 2018. Semiootika. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli kirjastus. Schmidt, John Alan. 2018. “A Neglected Additament: Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the Reality of God.” Signs–International Journal of Semiotics 9: 1 – 20. Semenenko, Aleksei. 2016. The Texture of Culture: An Introduction to Yuri Lotman’s Semiotic Theory. Semiotic and Popular Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Slater, Gary. 2015. C. S. Peirce and the Nested Continua Model of Religious Interpretation. Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tillich, Paul. 2014. The Courage to Be. The Terry Lectures Series. Third Edition. With a New Introduction by Harvey Cox. New Haven: Yale University Press. Torop, Peter, 1999. “Semiootika piiril.” In Semiosfäärist, by Juri Lotman, [edited by Kajar Pruul], 387 – 404. Translated by Kajar Pruul. Avatud Eesti Fond. [Tallinn:] Vagabund. Torop, Peter. 2005. “Semiosphere and/as the Research Object of Semiotics of Culture.” Sign Systems Studies 33 (1): 159 – 73. Torop, Peter. 2009. “Foreword. Lotmanian explosion.” In Culture and Explosion, by Juri Lotman, edited by Marina Grishakova, xxvii–xxxix. Translated by Wilma Clark. Semiotics, Communication and Cognition. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Yelle, Robert A. 2010. “Semiotic Approaches to Religion.” SemiotiX XN-1, https://semioticon.com/semiotix/2010/03/semiotic-approaches-to-religion/. Yelle, Robert A. 2011. “Semiotics.” In The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion, edited by Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler, 355 – 65. London: Routledge. Yelle, Robert A. 2013. Semiotics of Religion: Signs of the Sacred in History, Bloomsbury Advances in Semiotics. London: Bloomsbury. Yelle, Robert A. 2016. “Semiotics.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion, edited by Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 208 – 19.

Francesco Piluso

Reveal and re-veil the sacred: Fetishism and fetishes in religious social discourse and practices 1 Religion as a socio-semiotic discourse The use of the notion of “fetishism” has been always related to or derived from (the critical analysis of) religion. Starting precisely from an analysis of fetishism in religious discourses, practices and elements, the aim is to extend and generalize such a concept to the broader socio-cultural environment of reference. There is the necessity to highlight the paradigmatic role of religion in reflecting and reproducing the fetishism that characterizes every social discourse, every structure and exchange of signs, and society as a whole. Behind and through the fetishization of the religion domain, what is fetishized is the entire semiosphere: a mechanism in which the immanent social values are abstracted in terms of sacred signs and, reflexively, in which the sacred signs reproduce and mystify their immanent social essence. Each religion presents its own discourses, myths, practices and rituals. The relationships amongst all these elements constitute systems of determinate religious beliefs and, more generally, values. Despite the great variety and peculiarity of their respective elements, all the religions consist in structures of shared perspectives on transcendent objects. Nevertheless, this aspect common to all religions is more structural and immanent. Each religion prescribes a set of values and practices not only aiming and referring to abstract, namely sacred or religious objects, but also directly concerning and affecting the more concrete social life of the specific religious community. Religious discourse is not simply readable in terms of ideological superstructure, false consciousness: its structure of values and exchanges directly reproduces the actual structure of society. Indeed, beyond the general quality or positivity of these elements (i. e., the link to an external meaning or referent), it is their differential (exchange) values, their systematicity, that makes religion a shared code for the interpretation and reproduction of the social reality of their believers. The relational and structural nature of the religious values finds its theoretical basis in semiotics and, in particular, in sociosemiotics—a discipline that highlights the socio-cultural reach of the theory of signification (cf. Eco 1975). According to Eric Landowski (1989), society reflects itself in its own discourses https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-005

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and systems of signs—and religion constitutes one of the main social discursive domains. In this regard, following the same sociosemiotic perspective, Guido Ferraro (2008) states that religion acts as a social discourse by signifying and projecting immanent social values into the transcendent (semio)sphere of sacredness. Such a theoretical position assumed by Ferraro draws its fundamentals from the analysis conducted by Emile Durkheim in Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse (1912). In this work, Durkheim affirms that the “skeleton of our thought” and of our reason is shaped within the religious field, not because it has a metaphysical nature, but—quite the opposite—because it is a consequence of a social and cultural environment within which the individual (and his/her mind) is developed. According to the author, many religious beliefs and rituals appear to be completely irrational; nevertheless, they find what Durkheim himself defines as “symbolical validity”—that we can, in turn, define in terms of semiotic validation. Indeed, religious rituals and beliefs do not count for themselves, but signify fundamental aspects of the individual and social life. In other words, behind (or under) the irrationality of the religious signifiers, there is the reality (and therefore, the rationality—according to a Hegelian-Feuerbachian perspective that Durkheim himself readopts) of their social signified. The crucial aspect of this semiotic process is that the social object, once translated in its sacred signifier, has to maintain such a transcendental aspect. For example, in the Jewish and Christian traditions, there are many liturgical elements and religious norms that prevent the believer from naming God and, in particular, from taking his name in vain. In general, the prohibition against desecrating the object of cult is a feature common to all religions. The interdiction that usually characterizes the sacred object is a duplication of the original concealment of the semiotic relationship between the religious signifier and its social signified, i. e., the concealment of the abstraction of the social into the domain of the sacred. This relationship itself remains interdicted, in order to make the sacred appear and reproduce as an autonomous and transcendent object. It is precisely through such a mystified projection that religion becomes a paradigmatic social discourse, able to reproduce in its own specific domain the broader fetishized mechanism that characterizes society in general. Once signified by its discourses, values and signs, society is progressively absorbed in its semiotic remediation. Such a statement finds its basis in the fundamentals of semiotic theory. In this regard, Jean Baudrillard ([1972] 2019,[1976] 1993) states that signification is the operation that institutes a fetishized bar of relationship, but inevitably of separation, between the chains of signifiers and their signified. In more proper structural terms, the systems of signs are separated by their own referents and acquire meaning exclusively in their differential relations, while referents become mere simulacra within their own signifying structure.

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Religious discourses effectively play out this logic underlying signification: in the attempt to mediate between human beings and the sacred, to give human and material sense to what religious discourse itself has constructed as transcendent, religion signifies the sacred in opposition to what is human, reproducing within its semiotic structure the original abstraction. To this regard, it is not a coincidence that the word “sacred” derives from Latin sacer, “to separate”—an etymology that reveals our fetishized relationship with our own social discourses and practices such as religion.

2 Fetish: Concretization and further exclusion Once the social structures of values are projected in the domain of the sacred, they need to re-acquire a human sense, a social meaning. This is the reason why an important part of religious discourses and practices usually takes place during collective rituals, aimed at reproducing the sharing of a common religious (but inevitably social) code of exchange amongst believers—an exchange materialized through a series of elements, objects, signs, fetishes. It is especially within this last category—the fetish—that we can find the most interesting elements for understanding religion through a socio-semiotic perspective. The broader social role of fetishes in religious discourse and practices can be deconstructed, once again, starting from Durkheim and, in particular, from his well-known analysis of the totem. Despite the lack of a proper and modern semiotic terminology, Durkheim (1912) is able to explain the double process of signification underlying the totemic object. The totem, in its materiality, represents the substance of the expression of the abstract class of “totemic gods,” which, in turn, constitute the form of the expression—the signifier—of the social group or clan: i. e., the ultimate signified of totem. In this regard, Durkheim points out how the cult of the believer, already misdirected from the clan to its religious signifier—the god(s)—is further moved to the material substance of the semiotic relation—the totem. Therefore, it is the totem in its materiality that acquires a sacred value, no longer as a representation of the god(s), but as its material presentification and incorporation. This way, the immanent value of the social structure, once translated in the transcendental religious element(s), is brought back to its immanent and material essence. Despite its capacity to re-materialize the transcendent value, the totem still conceals the entire social basis and semiotic process from which it draws its cult. It is in relation to this entire complex mechanism that the totem becomes a mysterious element, charged with a powerful social and religious energy that seems to be emanated directly by the object itself—in other words, the totem becomes a fetish.

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Thus, the process of abstraction into the sacred domain is complementary to a process of “concretization” (Ellen 1988) of the transcendental object into material, concrete, elements: fetishes.¹ The meaningful role of this material and concrete object is already implicit in the notion of fetishism, a term coined by Charles de Brosses in his Du culte des dieux fétiches ([1760] 2017), in which the author conducts an ethnographic research on different religious cults around the world in the eighteenth century. In particular, the term was referred to the cult, quite spread amongst many Africans populations, of inanimate objects as well as of other non-human entities—such as animal or physical phenomena— ascribed with human features and divine powers. According to Fusillo (2012, 230) it is necessary to specify that these things or entities, rather than a mean or a medium of connection with the transcendent, constitute the objects of cult in themselves. In this regard, many scholars have provided interesting insights. Sansi Roca (2015, 105) states that: “The fetish would be this very object of adoration: not just the representation or image of a divinity, but also a material object or natural event that is worshipped as a divinity itself”; the same author (106) explains that “as opposed to a discourse of idolatry, these travelers understood that African worshiped the objects themselves as gods, not as images (idols) of the gods.” Pietz (1985, 1987) talks about “untranscended materiality” in order to highlight the specificity of the fetish as a sacred object, able to overcome the separation between the sphere of the human and the sphere of the sacred, by reconnecting the abstract alterity of this latter to the concrete and mundane experience of the believer. On the same issue, Ellen (1988, 226) put in relation the mechanism of concretization with what he defines “fusion between signifier and signified,” in order to highlight how the focus of signification is progressively detected in the substance of the expression, which embodies the signified up to a complete identification with it. The strategy that informs the process of concretization is to re-establish the contact and the control over the sacred element through its materialization in a fetishized object. Fetishes have the function of creating a psychological protection enacted to tame, subdue and generally murder vitalities, by replacing social and spiritual values with material objects and by re-transforming abstract repre-

 Though apparently opposed, both these moments are part of the same mechanism of objectification of the social. In this case, objectification is not synonymous with reification through a strictly material object; the object—could be a thing, a phenomenon, a discourse or a practice— has to be interpreted in its etymological meaning of obiectum, i. e., of an element thrown away/ outside from the self, externalized by the subject—in other words, fetishized. The concretization is a fundamental part of this whole process of objectification and fetishization.

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sentation and projections in a tangible and material thing. For these reasons, the attention for details is a fundamental aspect of the fetishistic strategy. By concealing aspects deemed as frightening and uncontrollable, the gaze is directed to the safer aspects of an object, or of a phenomenon: “potential threat (i. e., life) is replaced with something similar (i. e., artificial life) less scaring and unpredictable” (Cereda 2010, 2). Nevertheless, the detail is never completely transparent on itself, or totally self-referring. The attempt to control the spiritual (and social) strength through its materialization in an object-fetish is exceeded by the strength acquired and embodied by the same object-fetish, “People concretise abstractions and make them into objects, which they can then manipulate, but in the process the object also becomes a causative agent with the ability to affect people” (Pool 1990, 118). For these reasons, it is possible to affirm that concretization is characterized by a specular, double, mechanism: on one side, the animation of the object and the anthropomorphization of the non-human element; on the other side, the reification of the person, whose specific human qualities and social relationships are projected and lost in the relation with and between the fetishized objects (see Ellen 1988). Thus, fetishism implies a sort of inversion between people and things that occurs in their relationship, by “[e]ndowing the material strength with an intellectual life and obfuscating the human vitality with a material strength” (Cereda 2010, 1)—and again—“the fetish involves attributing properties to objects that they do not ‘really’ have and that should be correctly be recognised as human” (Dant 1996, 495). On the same issue, Sansi Roca (2015, 106) states that, “ ‘savages’ would worship unexpected events and beings that they couldn’t understand and control, addressing them as persons with a will and a power superior to those of humans—as gods.” Our hypothesis is that the “superior” spiritual value attributed to the fetish is not directly related to the difference between two planes (the inferior human domain vs. the superior sphere of the sacred) but finds its origins in the difference between two elements immanent to the same plane. Indeed, the fetishized value of the sacred thing is sustained by the social structure underlying the religious sphere, of which both the thing and the person constitute differential elements. According to Fusillo (2012, 21), the starting point of this process of fetishization is always a primordial state of equilibrium, a wholeness then lost forever, of which the fetish is a counterfeiting; we are talking about the wholeness of our social structure and, in particular, about the equilibrium of the relationship between people and things that constitute the social structure. This hypothesis invites us to redefine the coordinates of the fetishistic mechanism according to specific categories and dualism. In this regard, Sansi Roca (2015, 107) states that, “the problem of elementary religion” is not the distinction

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between body and spirit, but “starts with the very issue of representation—the capacity of understanding something beyond immediate sensory perception and individual existence […] the representation of a collective entity beyond immediate experience.” Sansi Roca himself refers to Durkheim and, in particular, to his analysis of the totem. This object is not a metaphorical representation of an abstract transcendental element, aimed to overcome, both metaphorically and materially, the constitutive dualism between the material and the spiritual within the same subject; rather, the totem is a metonymical condensation and materialization of a social complex chain of people and things in one of its representative elements, aimed at providing a human sense and experience of such collective entity. Furthermore, Sansi Roca (2015, 106) highlights that though Africans “recognized that their gods were artifices made by them, [they] worship things of their own making, instead of worshiping the creator who made them.” Indeed, what is mystified by the fetish is neither material production, nor the spiritual representation of the subject, but the entire semiotic and material chain of elements and actors underlying that specific fetishist relationship. This is a value that does not transcend the thing in terms of metaphorical link to a spiritual entity or to an external subject, but a valorization that is immanent to the object itself, which indeed constitutes an element of that social chain. What remains excluded by such a condensation is just the subject/fetishist who is unable to acknowledge and manage the development of her/his social identity in the relation with the fetish (as a condensation of the social collectivity) and tends to project and alienate her/his subjective identity onto the single object (understood as a representation of the individualized subject). Such a mechanism is exemplified by the process of personification,² which becomes another key aspect within the process of fetishism: Fetishes are intensely personal objects […] a form of distributed personhood […] a distributed person has to avoid leaving dispersed pieces of his or her self, to avoid the risk of sorcery, and has to add to the body elements that can act as shields. But of course, to make these shields work one has to give a part of one’s self to them, as an offering in a mediated exchange between person and thing: the fetishes have to become part of person, not just instruments or technological devices. (Sansi Roca 2015, 107– 8)

In general, we can affirm that fetishism is the failed attempt to restore a connection with the social chain of elements (along which our social/relational identity

 For a deeper insight on the issue of personification in relation to fetishized objects, see Ellen (1988); De Angelis (1996); Pietz (1985).

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is distributed), through a personalized object (in which our personal/individual identity is lost). In other words, through fetishism, people tend to concentrate a complex structure (or network) of cultural and material relationships, into one of its elements (or knots): a singular personalized thing. Nevertheless, despite or by the same personification, the actual social value of the thing exceeds (is superior to) its personal value; this excess is what prevents the total control over the personalized thing and makes it a fetish.

3 An issue of a socio-cultural paradigm Far from being a “primitive” or an “African” religious feature, fetishism characterizes also our “civilized” and secularized Western culture. According to Cereda (2010, 1), fetishism is a strategy that “individuals use to approach many phenomena that they experience in their everyday life, but it generally remains an unrevealed structure of behavior to their eyes.” Indeed, we are wrongly convinced that by purifying the thing from its human or even divine sense, and by bringing it back to its natural objectivity, we can easily avoid any primitive form of fetishism; nevertheless, the objectified thing maintains a relational and social value that exceeds its pure objectivity: If the atomistic view prevails, as it does in our culture, the isolated thing in itself must inevitably tend to appear as animated because in reality it is part of an active process. If we ‘thingify’ parts of a living system […] if regarded as mere things, they will therefore appear as though they were indeed animated things—fetishes […] Hence, reification leads to fetishism. (Taussig 1980, 36)

Reification or broadly objectification is a modern Western form personalization; it is way to misrecognize the structural social role of the thing and to reduce it to a sort of mirror in which a person could reconnect with his/her image and recognize himself/herself as unified individual subject. Nevertheless, such a dialectic between subject and object cannot reach a synthesis: A fetish is probably undecidable, and for this reason, it can be thought of as existing in a free space between the subject and the object. But for the fetishist, this space is charged with an extraordinary amount of tension. The fetishist cannot tolerate his object’s ambiguity and wants to resolve it. What might have been a symbol, the symbol of connection, has turned into a curse of sorts […] He cannot wholly possess it because it is not self and he cannot abandon it because it is not other. The space between the subject and the object where the fetish object oscillates so painfully is simply too dangerous, he wants somehow to close this space, but he cannot, because neither subjectivity nor reification are ever complete. (Levin 1984, 42– 43).

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At this point, it is necessary to question the deep structure and logic of our culture in which the same mechanism of fetishism seems to have become a fetish itself: an ideological instrument to project on other domains and cultures a structural principle of our Western socio-cultural paradigm. In this regard, Sansi Roca (2015, 105) affirms that “the ‘problem’ of the fetish touches upon some of the basic distinctions of Western thought: people and things, action and event, subject and object, culture and nature, indeed, “Fetishism confuses people with things, events with actions, the given with the made, and immanence with transcendence” (106). In line with Sansi Roca, Hornborg (2014, 120), states that fetishism derives “from the predominant Cartesian paradigm that distinguishes the domain of material objects from that of social relations of exchange […] Paradoxically, the modern (Cartesian) aspiration to achieve power over objects (and objectified Nature) has generated an unprecedented human submission to objects.” On the same issue, MacGaffey (1990, 45) provocatively suggests that, “Instead of asking, as did the nineteenth century, why Africans fail to distinguish adequately between people and objects, we might reverse the question and ask whence comes this dubious distinction in our own thought.” According to Hornborg (2014), the only way to overcome this paradigm and the relative mechanism of fetishism is through the kind of post-Cartesian perspective on material artefacts that has been championed by Bruno Latour (1993, 2010). The author coined the expression “symmetric anthropology” (1993, 101– 3), to define his own approach to the study of human relations, in which both people and things are acknowledged as constitutive elements and actors in the social structure. Thus, a possible solution is to fill the space of interdiction between fetishes and fetishists, by negating any metaphysical difference between subjects and objects. The approach followed by Latour allows us to understand and to point out the structural basis of the mechanism of fetishism, “Latour wonders if it is possible to overcome this distinction between social fictions and real facts, going back to the roots of the problem of the fetish, to overcome theories that reduce processes of objectification to fetishism, alienation, disavowal, and misrecognition” (Sansi Roca 2015, 109). In this regard, Dant (1996, 497) states that; “treating objects as unreal overlooks the importance of the object as a mediator of social value […] the term fetish might be used analytically, not to critique or debunk a set of ignorant beliefs or deviant perceptions, but to explore how material objects are valued in cultural contexts.” Therefore, all the analysis aimed at demystifying fetishism in terms of false consciousness or ideological religious belief does not grasp the structural essence of the phenomenon and contributes to its reproduction through its own critiques. In this regard, “Latour’s program for a social science is not to reveal the hidden truth

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of the artifice of social life dissecting fact from fetish […] but to follow the factish, as it were, to see how things are made into autonomous entities with their own agency” (Sansi Roca 2015, 110). Therefore, to properly interpret fetishism and fetishes it is necessary to analyze their ambivalences. The fetish is not a sign for something else but is characterized by its untranscended materiality; at the same time, it is not a discrete material object, but a metonymical element in a chain with other things, people, or more generally actors on the same immanent social scene. According to Dant (1996, 499): As with all mediation, the fetish is not merely reflecting back the ideas and beliefs of its worshippers. It is transforming them or, in the language of actor-network theory, translating them. The power of the fetish is not reducible to its material form […] the symbolic power of the fetish can be repeated or replicated […] the meaning of the specific object is apparent only in a series of objects.

Latour’s critical perspective on fetishism seems to find the roots of this phenomenon in the Cartesian paradigm and, consequently, in the same Western ethnographic gaze on “primitive” and “African” fetishistic practices, rather than in these religious practices themselves. At the same time, Latour’s lesson stresses on the necessity of acknowledging the structural (not merely ideological) role of fetishes and fetishism, which becomes a generalized socio-cultural principle independent from the specificity of each culture. Hornborg (2014, 128) affirms that “[t]here is a crucial difference between representing relations between people as if they were relations between things (capitalist fetishism), and experiencing relations to things as if they were relations to people (animism and pre-modern forms of fetishism).” Nevertheless, as Hornborg himself affirms “Cartesian objectivism and fetishism here emerge as inversions of one another: the former denies agency and subjectivity even in living beings, whereas the latter attributes such qualities to inert objects.” As argued above, in the case of commodity fetishism, the fetishized value attributed to the object is apparently in contradiction with the Cartesian norm but is actually a consequence of this paradigm that strictly differentiates things as objects from people as subjects and accuses of fetishism any attempt to recognize to the things a value beyond their objectivity as much fetishistic. In the case of pre-modern fetishism, the fetishized value attributed to the thing is not in contradiction with, but a direct reflection of the underlying socio-cultural paradigm that attributes human power and animation to things. This would seem to contradict the principle of fetishism, since things are recognized as active agents/actors in the chain through which the social is structured and developed; such a key role is even marked by social discourses and practices such as religion. Nevertheless, once this anti-fetishistic paradigm is objectified in its col-

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lective social discourses and in a series of things, as it happens in many forms of cults, the relation and the equilibrium amongst the actors is inevitably broken. The human actor vacillates between the distribution and extension of his/her social identity through a series of things and the total alienation and amputation in the individualized fetish. Precisely in its variety and mimesis according to different socio-cultural paradigms, fetishism becomes a universal principle—a structural logic that regulates the material and cultural relationship between person and things through which every society is developed.

4 Structural fetishism in Baudrillard The work by Jean Baudrillard (2019, 1993) provides results useful for understanding the structural logic of fetishism, Baudrillard’s theory of fetishism derives from a critique of Marx’s analysis of the same phenomenon in the capitalist mode of production. Marx borrows the notion of fetishism from the ethnographic studies on pre-modern religions and cults of objects, with the same aim of demystifying the ideological role and value assumed by commodities in concealing the underlying material relationships of production. Despite the direct reference to Marx, Baudrillard’s approach aims at subverting the same structural Cartesian paradigm upon which Marx’s ideological critique is based. In his insight on Baudrillard’s theory of fetishism, Levin (1984, 42) affirms that, “[R]eification ceases to be a mystical veil, a trick of consciousness, an alienation of the subject’s power […] It doesn’t hide social relations”—it is actually a fundamental factor for their reproduction. Baudrillard (2019) starts from the notion of commodity in order to point out the structural logic of such a capitalist form rather than to critique its ideological essence. According to the author, the commodity is not only an exchange value that obscures its origin in labor as a functional object—i. e., use-value; it is an object which has been inserted as an arbitrary term into a purely self-referential system of signs which determinate the object’s differential value. According to Levin (1984, 40), Baudrillard applies “semiology right into the process of political economy, to find the logic of signification in the very structure of the commodity” and, I would add, the very structure of commodity and objects in the logic of signification. Levin himself affirms, “the object is also and especially a commodity because it is a sign […] the commodity is a signifier and a signified, with all the features of abstraction, reduction, equivalence, discreteness and interchangeability implied in the Saussurean theory of the sign” (38). The semiological interpretation of the object, i. e., its valorization as a sign, is not an ideological operation that occurs a posteriori, in order to sustain the exchange

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(value) of the commodity and to foster the cycle of its production. Rather, the signification is the constitutive principle upon which the object acquires its value as differential element in a series. In the words of Baudrillard, “ ‘Object Fetishism’ never supports exchange in its principle, but the social principle of exchange supports the fetishized value of the object” (Baudrillard 2019, 113). This fetishistic logic during capitalism is not a consequence of an ideological mystification, but constitutes the actual essence of the commodity form: its exchange value: What it “veils in mystery” is not the object’s real value: its origin in labor and its finality in the moment of consumption—i. e., its use value. What the object conceals is the object’s own “nullity” […] the object-form (the commodity as sign) hides the fact that its meaning does not exist in a relationship between people (what Baudrillard would call Symbolic Exchange), but in the inner relations of signs and commodities among themselves” (Levin 1984, 39).

This autonomization of the object-commodity is achieved through what Baudrillard (2019, 75) calls the “semiological reduction.” Essentially, the semiological reduction corresponds to the process of translation of the social in its own systems of discourses and object-signs, aimed at a general valorization (signification) of the social elements according to a shared code. This process prevents the possibility of “symbolic exchange” (see Baudrillard 2019, 1993), in which the cycle of the gift (see Mauss 1924) developed around the exchange of objects was still subordinated and functional to the formation of social relationships between people. Though the semiological reduction inverts the hierarchy between people and things in favor of the latter, it is not the same as Marxian fetishism— rather it is the opposite. According to Baudrillard, the issue of the commodity as a systemic and differential element is not that people project their personal and social values/meanings onto it, but precisely that they are prevented in this operation, since the commodity form is a system of signs into which meanings are already coded in their differential relations immanent in the system itself: So the problem of reification, at least at the cultural level, is not that people have projected their powers onto things, but rather that objects have become increasingly closed off from human interaction in their systematic self-referential play. People probably have an incorrigible tendency to “fetishize” objects anyway; but the logic of signification blocks even this symbolic relation, and invites people to fetishize systems of relationships […] The symbolic is always about the potentiality of a relationship. The semiurgy of social objects reduces the availability of things for mediating social relations (symbolic exchange) and assigns them to mediating systems of signs instead. If commodity fetishism exists, it is because in our culture the object has become too rational: commodities come pre-fetishized” (Levin 1984, 42).

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According to Baudrillard, it is the code framing the sign-object that becomes the very object of the fetishistic attraction. The “passion for the code,” which through every new differential element acquires a systematically enclosed perfection, is comparable to the perverse obsession for the completion of any collection; in Levin’s words (1984, 45), “reification is not false consciousness but the systematic closure of autotelic signifying systems […] The point of Baudrillard’s argument is that we feel not so much mystified by the commodity as excluded by it. On the same issue, Dant (1996, 506) argues that, “the fetishism of commodities as objects is the fascination and worship of the system of differences […] continually shifting emphasis from one term to another so that, unlike the perverse desire of the sexual fetishist, the perverse desire of the commodity fetishist is constantly being redirected.” Therefore, the fetishist has no possibility of (symbolical) exchange with the fetishized element, since the only possible exchange is amongst the differential elements of the system. Thus, the agency of the subject is limited to the fetishistic contemplation of this chain of exchanges immanent to the system, from which he/she is excluded. By highlighting the principle of immanence that characterizes the differential elements within a fetishized system, Baudrillard dismisses any possibility for an alienating relationship between subjects and objects. Actually, the theoretical problem with alienation is not that it implies the relationship between people and things, but that it presumes an original integral identity of the human subject. In Marx’s analysis of commodity fetishism, the subject/producer projects and alienates parts of this identity in the product of his/her work that seems to assume an autonomous value once it enters the system of commodities. Our hypothesis is that the process of alienation in commodity fetishism has to be understood and questioned under a different perspective, highlighting the structural (and not merely ideological role) of commodity. In the capitalist logic, the workforce is not a constitutive part of the individual that is then alienated in the commodity but is a commodity itself: an element of exchange within the social structure. In other words, through the commodification of the human subject, the capitalist logic exemplifies and rationalizes the relational essence, that principle of exchange between both human and non-human actors, underlying the formation and the reproduction of every social structure. Baudrillard, through his interpretation of fetishism and the relative critique of the concept of alienation, replaces the centrality of the subject with the underlying structural social code according to which all the relationships between social elements and actors are configured. This change of focus from material production (human as work force) to social reproduction (human as social force) is not aimed at providing a dematerialized perspective on the subject. Quite the opposite, the human body assumes a

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value homologous to the one assumed by the body of the fetishized thing. According to Baudrillard, the body is no longer a field of division, projection and alienation, but a metonymical and fetishized element in which the entire system of social exchanges and relationships converges. In this regard, Gane (2011, 375 – 76) explains how “Baudrillard was already moving to a more complex position, for after briefly examining Freud (division of the body in castration etc.) and Marx (division of the body in work etc.) […] The contemporary cultural system with its positivization of the body (based on need, satisfactions, and rights) eliminates ambivalence and reduces the body to a semiological system.” The surface of the body becomes the field for a game of differential signs through which the fetishization of the body is accomplished: “It is the sign in this beauty, the mark (make-up, symmetry, or calculated asymmetry, etc.), which fascinates; it is the artifact that is the object of desire. […]The erotic is thus the re-inscription of the erogenous in a homogenous system of signs […] whose goal is closure and logical perfection—to be sufficient unto itself” (Baudrillard 2019, 122). Once all the erogenous elements are castrated or closed on themselves, the body loses its (re)productive and biological functions, and becomes a sterile, artificial and inorganic system of self-referential marks: A made-up mouth […] its beautified lips, half open, half closed, are no longer used for speaking, eating, vomiting, or kissing […] The painted mouth, objectified like a jewel, derives its intense erotic value not, as one might imagine, from accentuating its role as an erotogenic orifice, but conversely from its closure […] the mark that institutes its phallic exchange-value: an erectile mouth. (Baudrillard 1993, 103)

Baudrillard’s fascinating insight into the fetishized body is a key element in the analysis of religious fetishism. The understanding of the human body is complementary to the understanding of the body of the sacred object, As we will see more in detail in the next session, the body has always represented that ambivalent element of connection and separation between the mundane reality and the fetishized sphere of the sacred. On one hand, the body is a differential element that materializes the contiguity and the participation of human identity to the social reality; on the other hand, it is the ultimate fetish that excludes the individual from that reality: The gods, the soul and immortality, all those things which have been termed as superstitions or fetishism, were still a spiritual, metaphorical extrapolations of man’s faculties, including the body as a metaphor for resurrection […] Whereas, with biology and genetics, we are in pure materiality […] We are no longer dealing with an imaginary prosthesis […] but with a material prosthesis—a simulation much more destructive than the illusion of the soul. (Baudrillard 1994, 97– 98)

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5 The Eucharistic ritual These long insights into Latour’s (part 3) and Baudrillard’s (part 4) works serve as a theoretical framework necessary for interpreting the fetishized social codes underlying religious discourses and practices. Indeed, leaving apart any specificity and difference (hoping not to fall in the same ethnocentric gaze we want to criticize), we have provided an overall analysis of some religious cults in which the notion of fetishism seems to be quite crucial. Trying to maintain the same general and structural approach, the attention is moved now to a specific and apparently different religious system: Christianity. Though often conceived as a more sophisticated religion in respect to the pre-modern fetishistic cults, Christianity is still characterized by a series of features common to all sacred discourses and practices, and ascribable to the category of fetishism. Some suggestions regarding the necessity of a common framework for the analysis of religion come from de Brosses himself. After he coined the term fetishism to describe African pre-modern forms of cults, de Brosses affirms that “It is not necessary to go searching far away for that which is close” (2017, 42); in particular, the author points out in a series of passages of his work how “modern” Western religions maintain the same “fetishistic” core from which they derive, “widespread among all crude peoples of the universe, in all times, in all places […] Minds of this sort are the most common even in enlightened centuries and among civilized nations” (quoted in Freeman 2014, 205 – 6).). In his work, de Brosses explains how the focus on the sacralization of material objects as a key index of a fetishistic practice is always correlated to an anthropomorphization of the object itself; actually, it is precisely this second aspect that becomes the real index of fetishism and fetishes, as objects invested by “desires and passions similar to those of man” (quoted in Freeman 2014, 204). To this purpose, Freeman (2014, 205) comments, “[w]hile man’s religious evolution transposes these primitive religious anthropomorphisms from sensible objects to recondite theological abstractions, the latter remain just as irrational and dénuée de fondement as the primordial base from which they evolved.” Furthermore, the level of abstraction and spirituality that differentiates and characterizes modern forms of religious anthropomorphization, such as in Christianity, is never exempt from its correlated aspect of reification. In the case of Christianity, the abstraction of human and social features into the sacred domain, which occurs through the creation of an anthropomorphized divine entity, is later counterbalanced by the reification of such social-spiritual domain through material fetishes. Abstraction is a key element that characterizes Western metaphysics and epistemology; in the attempt to suture such a separa-

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tion, the sacred object reproduces the underlying ideological dualism between material and spiritual, becoming indeed a fetish. In Christianity, the ambivalence of the category /connection vs. separation/ has an ancient origin and has been always materialized through all sorts of fetishes. Furthermore, such a category reproduces the dualism /knowledge and mystification/ that we have already analyzed in reference to Durkheim’s work on religion. The structure of thought—i. e., the system of categories that constitutes the basis for the interpretation and the knowledge of social reality—is shaped according to the socio-cultural paradigm of reference. Nevertheless, the immanent essence of this knowledge has been traditionally screened off (in both the sense of mediated and concealed) by religion values and beliefs. In this regard, it is not a coincidence that knowledge, as a potential way of connection between the sacred the human, or rather, as a semiotic instrument to give the transcendental sacred its original social meaning, has been often demonized by religions. In particular, in the Judaic-Christian tradition, knowledge is related to mundanity and materiality, as dimensions separated from the sphere of the sacred. For instance, in the myth of Adam and Eve, the taste (in Latin sapor, which shares the same root with sapere, “to know”) of the fruit of knowledge, malum (Latin word meaning both “apple” and “evil”), condemns human beings to mortality and separation from God. In spite of, or rather, by the same aim to reconnect God and believers, Christian rituality, through its system of fetishes, gives sense to what is transcendental not only in opposition to, but also through what is mundane and material, reproducing the original sin. In particular, the ambivalent nature of the Christian God is expressed through the figure of Jesus Christ (both human and divine) and reproduced in the ritual of the Eucharist. In this regard, Costantino Marmo (2008) provides an interesting semiotic insight into a document written by Paschasius Radbertus,³ a monk of the abbey of Corvey, in Germany, at the beginning of the ninth century. Paschasius’ aim is to demonstrate how the bread and the wine consecrated during the Eucharist do not constitute a mere metaphorical representation of the body and of the blood of Christ, but their real and physical presence. The argument conducted by Paschasius is based on the belief that God has created everything ex nihilo; starting from this principle of faith, the transformation of the substance (transubstantiation), interpreted as a miracle according to natural law, can become the norm according to the divine law and will. Such an explanation opens the dialectic between the unique moment of Christ’s sacrifice and its repetition during the ritual of the Eucharist. It is the ap-

 For the bibliographical reference to Paschasius’ text, see Marmo (2008).

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plication of the shared code of the consecration—in the collective ritual of the Eucharist—to operate the miraculous transformation, or rather, the semiotic association between the substance of the expression (the bread and the wine) and the substance of the content (the body and the blood of Christ). Such an operation results to be effective and, at the same time, mystified in its functioning, through the peculiarity of the signs involved in the ritual. According to Marmo —once again in reference to Paschasius’ text—the Eucharist is both figure (bread and wine signifying something else) and truth (the body and the blood of Christ signified by their figure).⁴ Another translation⁵ of the same text uses the term “character.” In reference to this text, Paschasius refers to the bread and wine as caracteres of the body and the blood of Christ to demonstrate both the mundane and the sacred sides of these elements—their physical contiguity. According to Marmo, when Paschasius uses the notion of “character”: He does not refer to the indexical relationship between a trace and who left it (which was probably what was meant by Saint Paul, instead) […] but rather the relationship between grapheme and phoneme […] Paschasius individuates in the alphabetical character and its relationship with the correspondent sound a special kind of sign, diverse from the one which usually refers to something different from itself, to an absent signified […] In brief, Paschasius supports the idea that the biunivocal relation between alphabetical letters and the minimal sounds of a language is so strict to the point that the reciprocal distinction is annulled—in a way similar to what happens between Son and Father in the Trinity, or between the human and divine nature in Christ, or between the bread and the wine and the body and blood of Christ: in all these cases, there is a relationship of identity so tight to the point that the distinction between signifier and signified is almost annulled, narcotized. (Marmo 2008, 67– 68, translation mine).

The peculiarity and the effectiveness of this sign relationship relies on that “almost”: a quasi-identity between signifier and signified, of which the minimal differential gap has a key pedagogical role. As already said, the fact that the bread and the wine change their substance without changing their appearance is necessary to give the miracle of transubstantiation a human and social sense. The knowledge of the unicity of Christ’s sacrifice is reached through the repetition of the liturgical ritual and, in particular, through the application of the shared code of the consecration. Nevertheless, the knowledge preserves its transcendental aspect, since the immanent socio-semiotic character (the bread and the wine)

 As highlighted by Marmo, the premise of this ambivalence is that not all the figures (signs) imply falsity; for example, Saint Paul talks about the Son as a “figure” of the divine substance of the Father, to sustain the double nature of Christ and not to neglect his human aspect.  For the bibliographical references to the text and their translations, see Marmo (2008).

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that underlies and signifies such a pedagogical process coincides with the sacred object (the body and the blood) of the knowledge itself.⁶ Piero Ricci (2008) reflects on the same ambivalent nature of these religious signs, objects, or—I would say—fetishes. The author describes the bread and the wine as “Eucharistic symbols [that] hide the body of Jesus Christ and reveal it as symbols” (298). This description is developed in reference to Louis Marin’s theoretical insight on the Eucharist, “the same thing can hide and reveal another thing at the same time; since the same thing could be, at the same time, both thing and sign(a double difference of state), it can hide, as a thing, what it reveals, as a sign” (Marin 1986, 19, my translation). According to Ricci, the only way to resolve the aporia of the absolute difference in the maintenance of the absolute identity is to interpret the semiotics of the sacred according to the category of secret, “if a hidden thing was completely concealed the secret would vanish. It is necessary that some trait or trace signifies, or rather, indicates, that something is hidden” (Ricci 2008, 298). In this regard, it is interesting to notice that the revelation of the secret is not implemented by the sacred signs (the bread and the wine), but by the ritual of the consecration that signifies the bread and wine as sacred signs of the body and blood of Christ. In other words, it is the socially shared code of signification that reveals that there is something else behind the bread and wine, without actually revealing the body and the blood of Christ. Therefore, what is revealed by the sacred signs is not the sacred object of the secret, but the existence of the secret itself. In this sense, to reveal does not mean to lift up the veil, but to reflect on the semiotic relationship of separation (the secret) established by the veil itself—in other words: to veil again, to reveil. Since the sacredness is re-veiled, the object is believed to be sacred by the same virtue of not appearing as such. The power of the fetishized object resides precisely in this deceptive game: the Eucharist is the material element that concentrates on and mystifies behind itself the socio-semiotic code of its consecration. The unicity of the Eucharist and of its miracle finds its own conditions of possibilities and validation in its ritual repetition and social sharing—a relational chain that is more than merely abstract or linguistic. Indeed, according to Marmo, in the ritual of the Eucharist, we do not only attend the incorporation, but a co-incorporation—the body of Christ is incorporated in the body of the believers and, at the same time, the body of the believers is incorporated into the  The pedagogical and epistemological function of the Eucharist is sustained precisely by the analogy with the linguistic character: the alphabetical characters constitute the basis for the learning of their correspondent (identical) sounds, of which the characters maintain the trace, the truth.

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body of Christ: i. e., the Church—the social community of believers (Marmo 2008, 63).⁷ This way, the body of the Eucharist acquires its metaphorical value through the metonymical reproduction of a broader social and material chain of relationships in which it is inserted: this is precisely the miracle of fetishism.

References Baudrillard, Jean. (1972) 2019. For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. Translated by Charles Levin. London: Verso. Baudrillard, Jean. 1993. Symbolic Exchange and Death. London: SAGE. Baudrillard, Jean. 1994. The Illusion of the End. Translated by Chris Turner. Oxford: Polity. Brosses, Charles de. [1760] 2017. On the Worship of Fetish Gods: Or, A Parallel of the Ancient Religion of Egypt with the Present Religion of Nigritia. Translated by Daniel H. Leonard. In Rosalind C. Morris and Daniel H. Leonard, The Returns of Fetishism: Charles de Brosses and the Afterlives of an Idea, 44 – 132. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cereda, Ambrogia. 2010. “Book Reviews: Louise J. Kaplan, Falsi idoli. Le culture del feticismo.” Sociologica 3: 1 – 3. Dant, Tim. 1996. “Fetishism and the Social Value of Objects.” Sociological Review 44 (3): 495 – 516. De Angelis, Massimo. 1996. “Social Relation, Commodity-Fetishism and Marx’s Critique of Political Economy.” Review of Radical Political Economy 28 (4): 1 – 29. Durkheim, Émile. 1912. Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. Paris: Alcan. Eco, Umberto. 1975. Trattato di semiotica generale. Milano: Bompiani. Ellen, Roy. 1988. “Fetishism.” Man 23: 213 – 35. Ferraro, Guido. 2008. “Antenato totemico e anello di congiunzione. La connessione tra ‘sacro’ e ‘segno’ nel pensiero di Émile Durkheim.” In Destini del sacro. Discorso religioso e semiotica della cultura, edited by Nicola Dusi e Gianfranco Marrone, 73 – 80. Milano: Meltemi. Freeman, Aaron. 2014. “Charles de Brosses and the French Enlightenment Origins of Religious fetishism.” Intellectual History Review 24 (2): 203 – 14. Fusillo, Massimo. 2012. Feticci: Letteratura, cinema, arti visive. 2012. Bologna: Il Mulino. Gane, Mike. 2011. “Baudrillard’s Radicalization of Fetishism.” Cultural Politics 7 (3): 371 – 90. Hornborg, Alf. 2014. “Technology as Fetish: Marx, Latour, and the Cultural Foundations of Capitalism.” Theory, Culture & Society 31 (4): 119 – 40. Landowski, Eric. 1989. La société réfléchie. Paris: Seuil. Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge: Harvard University Press Latour, Bruno. 2010. On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods. Durham: Duke University Press. Levin, Charles. 1984. “Baudrillard, Critical Theory and Psychoanalysis.” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 8 (1): 35 – 52.

 It is interesting to notice that the ritual of the Eucharist is also called “Holy Communion,” an expression that points out the social sharing implied by the ritual.

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MacGaffey, Wyatt. 1990. “The Personhood of Ritual Objects: Kongo Minkisi.” Etnofoor 3 (1): 45 – 61. Marin, Louis. 1986. La parole mangée. Paris: Méridiens Klincksieck. Marmo, Costantino. 2008. “Semiotica della presenza: l’emergere della transustanziazione nel IX secolo e le sue implicazioni semiotiche.” In Destini del sacro. Discorso religioso e semiotica della cultura, edited by Nicola Dusi e Gianfranco Marrone, 59 – 71. Milano: Meltemi. Marx, Karl. 1976. Capital. Vol 1. Translated by Ben Fowkes. New York: Penguin. Mauss, Marcel. 1923 – 1924. “Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaïques.” L’Année Sociologique. Pietz, William. 1985. “The Problem of the Fetish, I.” RES. Anthropology and Esthetics 9: 5 – 17. Pietz, William. 1987. “The Problem of the Fetish, II: The Origin of the Fetish.” RES. Anthropology and Esthetics 13: 23 – 45. Ricci, Piero. 2008. “Mangiare il sacro. Toccare il santo.” In Destini del sacro. Discorso religioso e semiotica della cultura, edited by Nicola Dusi e Gianfranco Marrone, 297 – 303. Milano: Meltemi. Sansi Roca, Roger. 2015. “Fetishism.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol 9, edited by James D. Wright., 105 – 10. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Taussig, Michael. 1980. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Fred Cummins

Vain repetitions: The role of joint speech in enacting collective subjectivities But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. (Matt 6:7, KJV)

1 Introduction The charge of “vain repetitions” in practices of ritual and prayer has been levelled at non-Christians and Catholics alike, often from a Protestant standpoint (Yelle 2013). The underlying logic of the charge seems to assume that language has a prosaic function in which messages with determinate meanings are exchanged in a communicative transaction. If a message is coded and transmitted, there seems to be no obvious reason why one would transmit it again (unless the transmission channel is particularly noisy). The implied purpose of uttering that motivates this charge seems to be well aligned with the view adopted by default by most linguists, for whom language is a species-specific form of communication, conducted using codes with names such as “French,” “Yoruba,” or “English.” An utterance, within this utterly familiar ideology, is a message whose content has a determinate meaning that has been encoded for transmission from speaker to listener. While this communicative view of speech and language is undoubtedly useful and has been very influential, there are many reasons to approach this framework with caution and to make some of its inherent limitations explicit. It is trivially true that we use our voice for more than simple message passing. Our repertoire of nods and grunts, greetings and routinized exchanges is extensive; a great deal of our use of the voice in face-to-face interaction is best understood as phatic, rather than communicative, resembling in many respects grooming behavior among primates that serves to enact and maintain social bonds (Zegarac 1998). When we interact face to face, our voice is not distinct from the entire embodied context in which it arises; speaking is a whole-body activity that employs gaze, manual gestures and posture, as well as the voice. We speak with a great sensitivity to context, moving easily from a whisper to a shout, from formal to informal registers and from simple monosyllables to complex diatribes, as the https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-006

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situation demands. This is true today and was true long before the complex forms of social organization that we think of as human societies arose, before the normative practices of education that distinguish the grammatical from the sloppy, before texts as free-floating entities were possible and before one might conceive of language as being a distinct thing over and above immanent embodied behavior centered around the voice. The characterization of language as a communicative code serves to divide up a whole-body, context- and interlocutor-sensitive activity into, on the one hand, a set of mutually contrasting elements (words, phonemes) that can be reproduced indifferently in speech or in print (i. e., language) and, on the other, everything else. This act of reification, which is the first act of the linguist, is only possible once literacy is widespread and written texts are freely reproducible (Ong 2013, Olson 1996). Both literacy and the widespread dissemination of texts are innovations of the last 500 years or so, and the object, “language,” that is thereby constructed is curiously divorced from the whole context in which it (an utterance, a written sentence) arises. The use of the voice in embodied, situated interactions is far, far older, and this is surely where we must look as we consider how language may have transformed our species and contributed to the development of a largely shared human lifeworld (Cummins, 2021). Perhaps we might acquiesce to the use of the verb languaging to point to a broad range of coordinative and affiliative forms of interaction involving the voice, rather than to the much more narrowly defined sense of language-as-code? The use of a single term for both languageas-code and for this sense of a much broader set of socially agglutinating activities serves only to shield from our vision those very activities that have given rise to the human world, as imperfectly shared as it may be. Which brings us back to the vain repetitions of prayer, rite and ritual. What is going on when the same sounds are uttered over and over by a collective, in a specific context, frequently one that itself recurs, thereby nesting repetition within repetition? The language-as-code frame seems to be of little use here, but the broader notion of languaging may allow us to interrogate this very widespread behavior with fresh eyes. I have found it useful to define joint speech as utterances produced by multiple people at the same time and with this simple definition, a rather different frame arises that points us in interesting directions (Cummins 2018).

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2 Introducing joint speech Definition: Joint speech is found wherever multiple people utter the same sounds at the same time. This empirical definition allows us to approach a wide variety of culturally saturated activities in which joint speaking takes place and to ask about commonalities and differences among them. It thus allows us one way of approaching the broad areas of prayer, rite and ritual, without an a priori definition of such activities and without insisting that they can be understood through a single lens of religion, or even of practice. Wherever joint speaking is going on, it seems, there are significant activities afoot that are likely to be understood as consequential and binding by those taking part. For joint speaking does not occur in arbitrary contexts. It is a form of languaging that is inextricably bound to context, however greatly those contexts may vary. The definition given above avoids use of elements constructed within linguistic theory, such as words or sentences, and it also self-consciously avoids drawing any principled division between speaking and singing. It is instructive to inquire about the kinds of contexts in which joint speech occurs. Perhaps the most frequent form of joint speech is in prayer, the home of the vain repetitions we began with. The copious repetition of short prayers or mantras is found within many traditions, often accompanied by the material scaffold of prayer beads or mala. Such repetition can be done alone, but it is entirely unexceptional for this to be carried out by a congregation, frequently with distinguished roles for uttering specific phrases. The call and response structure of the Catholic rosary is not much different from that of the kirtan of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) congregation. The preponderance of repetition leads to prosodic stylization, with rhythmic exaggeration of specific elements and often with intonation or melodic contours that are quite idiosyncratic. Prayer is a frequent element in ritual, of course and ritual or liturgy is frequently the context for highly articulated joint speaking. The recurrence of ritual adds a further element of nested repetition, and the spoken forms of ritual and liturgy are frequently stable across many generations. It is a remarkable characteristic of such practices that the language (as code) employed is sometimes not intelligible to those taking part, as witnessed by the role of Hebrew prior to the founding of the modern state of Israel, of Coptic in Egypt, Ge’ez in Ethiopia, of Latin before Vatican II, or, indeed, the singing of the quotidian ritual of Happy Birthday in many non-English speaking countries today. Besides the liberal use of repetition and joint speech, secular and religious rituals share many formal characteristics such as the use of synchronized and

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coordinated gestures and movements. The rather loose alignment between hand gestures in conversational speech becomes specialized, invariant and obligatory in ritual, alerting us that if we wish to understand this reserved form of languaging, we would do well to avoid the somewhat arbitrary divide between the voice and the hands.¹ Beyond ritual and prayer, the next domain of human activity that calls out for recognition is the use of repeated unison speech in protest. Whether spontaneous or planned, officially sanctioned or prohibited, protests the world over employ short, repeated phrases enunciated by large groups of participants who are again both speakers and listeners. The agencies addressed in such chants are frequently abstract (the state, the ruling elites) and nobody would mistake the repeated clamor for one half of a conversation. Repetition begets both rhythmicity and melody, and the chants of protesters occupy a position that is not clearly to be apportioned to either speech or song. The English term “chant” encompasses this ambiguity nicely. The relation of prayer to the broader theatre of ritual has an analogy in the relation of protest chants to chanting in rallies, meetings and assemblies of a political nature. The recent centrality of the rather ugly chants of “lock her up” and “build the wall” in the United States of America provide unfortunate but relevant examples. A third very well populated domain of chant is the manner in which group affiliations are enacted and displayed among supporters of some kinds of sports, specifically those sports in which achievements are collective and the associated team identities persist over years, decades and even across generations. Soccer has very well-developed chanting traditions with many local nuances. Rugby employs singing rather than chanting. But chanting in tennis, golf or snooker would be anomalous and there are no obvious persistent collective identities that might be nourished by chanting. Across all cultures, we find the use of chanting or joint speech in educational practices directed at the very young. This includes the performative recitation of culturally valued texts (pledges, scripture, poems), memorization by rote (multiplication tables) and playful forms of interaction that probably serve the purposes of crowd control and the focusing of collective attention. Inevitably, such educational practices are established and shaped by ideological concerns, though young school children will make independent use of joint speech in the playground, too, in practices of bullying and team formation.

 I have elsewhere argued, along similar lines, that voice and gaze need to be jointly considered as a matter of course (Cummins, 2021).

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3 Joint speech and the foundations of the social order Collective unison speaking is found in many other situations, but the domains just listed stand out in several ways. They seem to be ubiquitous, in that they are found in countries with very different forms of economic activity, of political ideology and across the widest variety of cultural and religious orthodoxy. Each of the domains mentioned plays a central role in bringing into being, maintaining and expressing diverse kinds of group identity or attachment. These practices lie at the foundation of human social activity. They also seem to long predate the spread of literacy. Perhaps the oldest piece of written literature known is the Kesh Temple Hymn from Sumer, which has been found in relatively invariant form over a period from 2,600 BCE to 1,600 BCE. In that time, the ambient language changed from Sumerian to Akkadian, but the text, which is understood to be liturgical in nature, did not change. The text consists of alternating verses and an invariant chorus, strongly suggesting that collective chanting was already an established feature of robust, stable ritual practices by the time of the advent of writing (Cummins 2020). Ritual stabilizes and joint speech is part of the make-up of the basic anatomy of ritual. Indeed, although there is almost no prior literature that has thematized joint speech, Roy Rappaport identified ritual as “the performance of more or less invariant sequences of formal acts and utterances not entirely encoded by the performers” (Rappaport 1999, 24, emphasis added) thereby alluding to one of the defining characteristics of joint speech. He returns to the peculiar nature of joint speech in ritual when he says: It is of great interest that ritualized utterances eschew one of ordinary language’s special talents: its ability to split and split again the world into ever finer categories and conditions and conditionals. It is virtually definitive of ritual speech that it is stereotyped and stylized, composed of specified sequences of words that are often archaic, is repeated under particular, usually well-established circumstances and great stress is often laid upon its precise enunciation (Rappaport 1999, 151).

But formal ritual is usually associated with specific kinds of institutions or ideologies. The empirical definition of joint speech serves to illustrate commonalities between highly formal, stable and recurring rituals that serve explicit purposes within such frameworks and the much more improvised assemblies that we partake in. The ritual of singing Happy Birthday in an informal setting, or the ad hoc assembly of a crowd of taunters in the playground to bully another, also draw on our capacity to bring into being a shared stance born of communion, common-

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ality or shared purpose that finds expression in and through joint speech. When a street performer seeks to assemble an audience, a well-worn technique involves doing something to pique the curiosity of onlookers and then to address them with a cry such as “Do you want to see a show?” When the crowd responds univocally with “yes” (which may require more than one attempt), the collective assent transforms each person from an individual into a member of the audience, committed to watching, at least for now, and sharing purpose with everyone else. The repeated use of “amen” in a religious setting does much the same thing, renewing the commitment of participants, bringing forth once again their common purpose.

4 Speech acts: what joint speech does I have suggested that joint speech is best understood by suspending our conventional framing of the notion of language as a code that can be understood independently of the context in which it occurs, and that the context in which joint speech occurs is central to any understanding of what it is and the role it plays. Making the context explicit alerts us to the centrality of such activities in the establishment and renewal of various kinds of identities, or, as I will suggest, of kinds of collective subjectivities. The activities are anything but neutral: they are the means by which congregations of many kinds are assembled, identities are renewed through joint participation and joint commitments born of mutual entanglement arise. The collectivities that are thus enacted may be relatively transient or may persist for centuries, but they are all enacted, or brought into being, through the joint activity. Taking part in the rituals, chants and assemblies of a football club is essential to renewing one’s identity as a supporter, which is not guaranteed by birthright or certificate, but by participation. The same can be said of many a church, society or gang. Participation and performance go hand in hand. It is not enough that words be spoken; they must be spoken again, be meant again. On a coarse timescale we can see that rituals must be performed for the institutions, ideologies and identities they support to persist through time. Those who wish to belong to such must participate. There is no need to dig down to subterranean levels of belief or sincerity, to debate authenticity or to read the tea leaves of hypothetical cognitive structures and representations to see what is going on. This is public, overt, unashamed and resolutely empirical. At a finer timescale, the repetition of the football chant, the prayer and even the 3-times-table can be seen as part and parcel of the sustaining activity that enacts the respective collective. To enact means to bring forth by doing: there is no shortcut, no textual substitute, no finality.

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A reaction against the hegemony of the view of language-as-code enshrined in modern linguistics was provided by the Ordinary Language movement within philosophy, which birthed the notion of a speech act, as pursued most famously by J. L. Austin and John Searle (Austin 1962, Searle 1969), and which was conducted in a spirit well aligned with the thrust of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, to resist asking what lies behind or beneath words, but to ask instead how they are used and what they effect. The basic question underlying this is what one can use words to do, what are the acts that they facilitate or, indeed, perform? Austin famously introduced the notion of a performative, as exemplified by the phrases “I dub thee knight” or “I now pronounce you man and wife.” A performative is not about something, it does something. After the utterance, if conditions are felicitous, a person’s status is transformed, from peasant to knight, from single to married. The importance of felicity conditions in scaffolding a performative of this sort necessarily draws our attention to the context in which an utterance is produced and which imbues the utterance with its meaning. Performatives of this explicit sort are relatively rare and typically can be invoked only once, as the change they demarcate is considered to be persistent. Joint speech seems to demand a more generous sense of performativity: taking part in the chanting achieves something, but not a single something, no more than eating a sandwich settles the matter of appetite for once and for all. To join in a chant is to transiently coalesce with others, to become part of the enactment of a collective stance, where the continued persistence of the collective is the effect, but not one that is ever final. Unlike formal performatives, joint speech sometimes seems to create its own felicity conditions. Protest marchers typically do not ask for permission and no elaborate conditions need obtain for group worship to succeed. The manner in which performatives are understood might be augmented by consideration of their instantiation in joint speech, where they can serve the kind of role Austin discusses, but where they can also bear repetition in the service of renewing those institutions within which they function. Public performative recitation of specific phrases sometimes provides the necessary and sufficient conditions for religious conversion. Conversion, like being knighted or married, typically happens once only and need not be collective, but the same phrase that signals conversion may be repeated then as a central part of those foundational activities that renew and enact the associated collectivity. Thus, for many Muslims, recitation of the shahāda is both part of the mechanics of conversion, but also an assertion to be jointly and publicly repeated in daily prayers. The Caliphate structure of the Islamic State attracted performative pledges of allegiance, or bay’ah, by groups who wished thereby to signal their fusion with

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the larger movement, whilst the Pledge of Allegiance is also part of the routine by which American (US) patriotism is signaled on a daily basis in classrooms. I do not wish to suggest that Austin’s justly famous analysis of felicity conditions and performatives can be simply extended to the speech acts accomplished by joint speech. Rather, it seems to me that the non-dialogical setting of joint speech presents challenges that might call for an expanded analysis of performatives and their felicity conditions. But performatives provide only one way to consider the accomplishments of joint speech. In everyday conversation we use words to achieve all kinds of things. Searle and Austin list many kinds of illocutionary acts, as indexed by verbs such as “assert,” “command,” “promise,” “argue,” etc. Some of these are achievements that are entirely at home in joint speaking, some make no sense at all in such a situation and many others seem to fall in between. Thus, it seems entirely unsurprising to suggest that a group of chanting protestors are “asserting,” “demanding,” or “insisting.” To the contrary, it seems to make no sense to suggest that a group of people speaking in unison are “describing,” “convincing,” or “reminding.” “Taunting” seems to naturally describe the chanting of bullies, but I fail to see how a group might “warn,” “criticize” or “approve” through chant. That failure may speak more of my limited imagination than of the versatile purposes to which chant can be turned. Theories of speech acts have been developed with conversational exchanges in mind, in which two or more parties are present, speakers are distinct from listeners and conventional assumptions about intentions obtain. Attending to situations of joint speech alerts us to the manner in which such verbs harbor presuppositions about the cognitive makeup of both speakers and listeners. In the absence of a distinguished and cognitively distinct listener, for example, “description” seems rather pointless. “Assertion” or “demanding,” however, do not seem to raise any such problem. Some illocutionary acts would be just plain odd in a joint speech context. “Requesting” seems unlikely, even though “demanding” is fine. The urgency of a demand might need expression even if the party of whom the demand is made is not present or responsive. A request is less urgent and implies a dialogical relationship that expects a response. In conversation this is clearly unremarkable, but it fails to apply to most joint speaking situations. “Lying” might appear to be impossible in chant form, as the use of such a label seems to assume something like hidden secret knowledge of one party and the passing of misleading messages. One could arrange for a group to chant something they know is false (“The Earth is flat!”) but it would look like comedy, rather than a lie. When speakers and listeners are no longer distinguished, who is to be deceived? Would the illocutionary act of apologizing be possible? It is certainly not

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conventional, but one could imagine a group of concerned citizens who disagreed strongly with the activities of their elected representatives and wished to express a collective rejection of acts done in their name. Indeed, an apology is a speech act that seems to carry substantially more force when uttered in person, compared to a written form. Here there is an interesting tension between speaking in the flesh and being spoken for by a representative. When joint speech is used as a frame to interrogate human communicative behaviors, many of the assumptions that underlie linguistic analysis and the theory of speech acts in particular, are found to have implicit presuppositions about the distinct roles of speakers and listeners. Consideration of joint speech might encourage us to renew our interrogation of the voice, of the act of uttering and of the manner in which the illocutionary force of uttering depends upon the constitution and intentions of participants. It might, in short, suggest to us that uttering does more than we have hitherto acknowledged.

5 Is there such a thing as “religious speech”? A radical portrayal of a specific register or mode of speech is provided by Bruno Latour in his book Rejoicing: Or the Torments of Religious Speech (2013). Far from being a theoretical proposal, the entire book is a sustained and passionate lament of the absence of the means to speak or write religiously. Underlying the entire text is Latour’s desire to give voice to his own sense of religious belonging, but in so doing, he identifies another manner in which the act of uttering works that might help us to understand what it is that joint speech does and why collective uttering needs to be understood as something other than the process of producing words that refer or that convey messages. The kind of speech Latour circles around is that which has “the capacity to assemble a people” (60). Such words, by being uttered, then can be understood to “produce those who say them at the same time as those who hear them, gathering them together into a newly convened people united by the same message finally made real” (49, emphasis in the original). He is sensitive to the need to repeatedly utter the words, thereby renewing the force of the words on each iteration. Renewal is a recurring theme, as each utterance is “always the first time” (48), “obliging the old [word] to refer to the present, [and putting] a stamp on it that will renew it for a brief moment” (77). Latour’s concern is with religion, but that word has been so problematized and abused that alternative ways of bringing forth the same concerns might be welcome. We might choose to look at the form of speaking he is pointing to and recognize it also as (often) having formal characteristics that arise wher-

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ever the indubitable ground that nourishes a congregation, a tribe, a nation, or any collective unity is renewed, refreshed and made real once again, and never finally. The logic of ritual is the logic of repetition, at the fine grain of the Hail Mary or the coarse grain of the annual festival. “It is the present that’s at issue, not the past” (55). The repetition of ritual even transcends the individual: pilgrimages are frequently done rarely, or once only, by an individual, but the ritual of pilgrimage may persist across generations and through centuries. Joint speech is languaging in the service of communion, not communication. To communicate, we must already be aligned and capable of sharing an interpretation of that which is passed between us. Communion speaks rather of the ground from which uttering proceeds, bringing about a transient enacted commonality that is prior to, and necessary for, communication. As the mathematician George Spencer-Brown put it: “The more perfect the fit on the communion level, the less needs to be communicated, the more that can be crossed from one being to another in fewer actual communicated acts” (1973). We are all aware of the economy of communication that is possible among interlocutors who share lifeworlds. A mere raised eyebrow among a long-married couple may be wonderfully effective in influencing behavior. Conversely, one might shout at an earthworm all day and communicate nothing. Latour attempts to wrest discussion of this speech that creates, that binds and that renews from the framework within which “religion” is conventionally constructed by coming at the vexed, historical and here useless concept of God, recast instead as the “indubitable framework of ordinary existence” (8) or the “guaranteed reference point of our common existence” (17). When we partake collectively in a ritual that produces us as a collective subject, there are some things that need not, that cannot, be said. This is the background from which we go forth, the unmarked frame against which distinctions can now be drawn, allowing insiders to be distinguished from outsiders and providing us with a common, if transient, orientation. The religious speech Latour wants to indicate is formally of the same kind as the means by which all sorts of collective subjects are brought forth, from football clubs to boy scouts, from angry mobs to austere monastic congregations. None of this makes sense unless we are willing to take collective subjects seriously.

6 Discussion: On collective subjects It is not difficult to define joint speech and when that is done, we have a frame that allows the delineation of many kinds of activity that are foundational for human social order. Yet “joint speech” is barely a term of art and there are no

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departments or institutes of joint speech in our universities, no endowed chairs of joint speech, much less textbooks or syllabuses devoted to the many facets of human social intercourse it brings forth. It has not been treated as a specific topic of scientific or anthropological concern. There is a good deal of expertise within specific genres, such as devotional chant, liturgical structure or even football chant lore. What is signally absent is work that explores structural features that transcend domains, that brings out the many ways in which various kinds of collective subjects are brought forth at many different timescales, that allows us to see football stadia alongside churches as sites of renewal and enacted identity. Once defined, it is not hard to pose and pursue scientific questions related to joint speech. In Cummins (2018) I summarize research that investigates the properties of joint speech in a laboratory setting, for which I employ the term “synchronous speech,” as there are many features of joint speech in the wild that do not transfer to the laboratory (passion, urgency, piety), while synchronous speech turns out to have interesting characteristics of its own. There are phonetic properties of joint speech that are of immediate interest to phoneticians (Cummins 2009, Cummins 2014). Joint speech, considered as synchronized complex sequential behavior, can be straightforwardly investigated as a distinguished form of movement that is amenable to analysis (Cummins 2013). The methods of social psychology have suggested a close link between chanting and group affiliation (Von Zimmermann and Richardson, 2016). We even reported on a neuroscientific fMRI study that found tantalizing effects on cortical activity arising from speaking in real-time reciprocal engagement with another live human that were absent or different when speaking along with a recording (Jasmin et al. 2016). In short, once the topic has been defined, joint speech can be investigated within existing scientific paradigms without problem. The absence of scientific work seems to speak instead of a more fundamental problem: the difficulty of adequately addressing collective subjects and their concerns. For this, there is no quick solution. The cultural context in which psychological, social and linguistic scientific communities have developed has laid enormous importance on the individual human figure, considered as an autonomous subject, and the psychological sciences, in particular, have assumed responsibility for characterizing this individual as a self-contained subject animating a singular body. When we look at joint speech, this is not the subject that we see. We do not see a pre-existing subject, but an enacted one, brought into being, refreshed and renewed through performance and participation. The concerns expressed are collective, the intentionality is communal and the words uttered are not the creation of the individual who speaks. The bodies encountered at morn-

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ing worship are animated differently from the bodies animated by team sports in the afternoon or around the campfire in the evening. We are multiply animated. In his De anima, Aristotle insists that that which has a voice must be ensouled: “Voice is a kind of sound characteristic of what has soul in it; nothing that is without soul utters voice, it being only by a metaphor that we speak of the voice of the flute or the lyre […]” (420b). Voices seem to have an obligatory association with an intentional subject, so that when words are uttered from the unlikeliest of places, we do not ask “How does the belly/corner/attic/doll speak,” but rather, we ask “Who speaks?” In Dumbstruck, Steven Connor traces the history of voices issuing from unlikely places, beginning with the Delphic Oracle, and tracking the association of voices with demons, spirits and the unnatural, to their present employment in ventriloquism, which is probably the only form of children’s entertainment that is also a well-established genre of horror film (Connor 2000). Much of the uncanniness of the displaced voice seems to stem from this necessary link to an intentional agent who utters. Against this history, it seems to be incumbent upon us to recognize that collective voices issue from collective subjects, an insight that current political, social, educational and psychological orthodoxy seems to struggle to accommodate. Voters speak as individuals or by proxy through their representatives. The uneasy fabric of social organization that, since Hobbes’ Leviathan, has sought to cleanly separate the spheres of religious and secular power, was forged in a European cauldron. In a globalized and plural society, this simple distinction attains the character of a regional equilibrium generated by contingent circumstances now several centuries old. The ongoing tussle between communitarian and libertarian ideologies leaves us in no doubt that accommodation of our plural, overlapping and enacted communal affiliations is far from settled. Attention to the manifestation of collective identities revealed in joint speaking offers an empirical index that may serve in the consensual and collective conduct of our affairs.

References Aristotle. 1941. De anima (On the Soul). Translated by J.A. Smith. In The Basic Works of Aristotle, edited by Richard McKeon, 535 – 606. New York: The Modern Library. Austin, J.L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. London: Clarendon Press. Connor, Steven. 2000. Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cummins, Fred. 2009. “Rhythm as Entrainment: The Case of Synchronous Speech.” Journal of Phonetics 37 (1): 16 – 28.

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Cummins, Fred. 2013. “Towards an Enactive Account of Action: Speaking and Joint Speaking as Exemplary Domains.” Adaptive Behavior 13 (3):178 – 186. Cummins, Fred. 2014. “The Remarkable Unremarkableness of Joint Speech.” In Proceedings of the 10th International Seminar on Speech Production (ISSP), 5 – 8 May 2014 Cologne, Germany, edited by Susanne Fuchs, Martine Grice, Anne Hermes, Leonardo Lancia, and Doris Mücke, 73 – 77. Cologne: University of Cologne. Cummins, Fred. 2018. The Ground from Which We Speak: Joint Speech and the Collective Subject. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Cummins, Fred. 2020. “The Territory between Speech and Song: A Joint Speech Perspective.” Music Perception 37 (4): 347 – 358. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2020.37.4.347. Cummins, Fred. 2021. “Language and Languaging from a Phonetic Point of View.” Cadernos de Linguística (Brazilian Association of Linguistics). 2 (1):1 – 28. Jasmin, Kyle M., Carolyn McGettigan, Zarinah K. Agnew, Nadine Lavan, Oliver Josephs, Fred Cummins, and Sophie K. Scott. 2016. “Cohesion and Joint Speech: Right Hemisphere Contributions to Synchronized Vocal Production.” The Journal of Neuroscience 36 (17): 4669 – 4680. Latour, Bruno. 2013. Rejoicing: Or the Torments of Religious Speech. Translated by Julie Rose. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Olson, David R. 1996. The World on Paper: The Conceptual and Cognitive Implications of Writing and Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ong, Walter J. (1982) 2013. Orality and Literacy. 3rd ed. Additional chapters by John Hartley. New York: Routledge. Rappaport, Roy A. 1999. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, John R. 1969. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spencer-Brown, George. (1973) “AUM Conference Transcript, Session Three, Tuesday Morning, March 20, 1973.” Kurt von Meier (website). Accessed Accessed 18 November 2020. https://www.kurtvonmeier.com/aum-transcript-3. Von Zimmermann, Jorina, and Daniel C. Richardson. “Verbal Synchrony and Action Dynamics in Large Groups.” Frontiers in Psychology 7 (2016): 2034. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg. 2016.02034. Yelle, Robert A. 2013. The Language of Disenchantment: Protestant Literalism and Colonial Discourse in British India. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zegarac, Vladimir. 1998. “What is ‘phatic communication’?” In Current Issues in Relevance Theory, edited by Villy Rouchota and Andreas A. Jucker, 327 – 361. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Michael L. Raposa

Theology, metasemiosis and the ethics of attention 1 Introduction From the beginning until the end of an illustrious philosophical career that spanned five decades, Charles S. Peirce characterized the self as a sign, more accurately, as a form of living semiosis. What that sign comes to mean, he asserted very early on, is a function of how the self chooses to pay attention, of both the quality and the object of its attention. These choices can be deliberate ones, as attention plays a role in shaping each of the distinctive modes of inference that Peirce identified in his logical investigations: abduction, deduction and induction. Obviously, they can also be a bit more random and undisciplined. Moreover, such choices can in certain instances be dramatically affected by persons or institutions who employ a variety of strategies in order to capture and shape the attention of others, often for specific religious, political or economic purposes. There are ethical questions that can be raised here, both about the behavior of those who employ such strategies and about the ability of others to discern and perhaps resist their effects. Even apart from the need for such resistance, one might argue for the value of a certain discipline in order to develop the capacity to choose freely how one will direct one’s attention, both with regard to the objects and to the quality of that attention. Drawing inspiration and resources from Peirce’s philosophy, this essay supplies an account of theology that characterizes it as just such a discipline.¹ Rooted in and conceived as an extension of certain religious practices and spiritual exercises, theology is a form of metasemiotic reflection on those behaviors. The semiotic self is engaged in continuous acts of reading and rereading (relegere); theology represents an attempt to understand better both what the self reads and why it reads in the way that it does. In this respect, it stands in a metasemiotic relationship to the self’s practices similar to the one that literary criticism occupies with respect to the production and reception of verbal artworks.

 This account is both an abbreviated version and (in certain respects) a development of the one provided in my book on Theosemiotic (Raposa 2020) https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-007

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I will begin by briefly examining the claim that the self is a sign whose meaning is determined by acts of attention, moreover, that these acts ought to be evaluated as morally significant. I will then proceed in the second part of the essay to show how a theology conceived as a form of metasemiosis is designed to facilitate such activity, not only by creatively and constructively directing the attention, but also critically, by identifying those occasions when it becomes absorbed in distractions. Not always, but quite typically, to become “absorbed in distractions” is to find oneself immersed in a world of things, while failing to recognize the important respects in which these things also function as signs. The deliberate recovery of a thing’s sign function, that is, the achieved recognition of its actually being a sign, requires a certain metasemiotic discipline. To be sure, from a Peircean perspective there is no such thing as an un-interpreted experience, no perception or recognition of anything at all that does not involve semiosis. Yet, while all of our thinking is in or with signs, it is not always the case that we are thinking about signs. This distinction is simply an unpacking, in Peircean terms, of the more commonly discussed contrast between cognition and metacognition, for example, in various treatments of the so-called “third wave” forms of psychotherapy that have evolved in the wake of and as a reaction to cognitive behavioral therapy. In this respect, among the other tasks that it might perform, theology can be shown to have a certain therapeutic function.² I intend to argue here that theology-as-therapy blends readily with a form of praxis devoted to the critical assessment of those environments—social, political and cultural—on which human selves-as-signs draw regularly for the purpose of finding or making meaning.

2 Selves as semiosis The strong claims that “my experience is what I agree to attend to” (emphasis in the original) and that “volition is nothing but attention” were advanced and defended by William James in his classic study The Principles of Psychology (James 1950, 1:402, 447). More emphatically than any of the other pragmatists, James insisted that the decision about how one chooses to pay attention is among the most significant things that one can do. For present purposes, however, my more immediate interest is in the crucial importance of attention for Peirce in shaping both human selves-as-signs and their inferences, consequently, the

 Consult Chapter 4 of Theosemiotic, on “Theology as Inquiry, Therapy, Praxis” (Raposa 2020).

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role that it plays in making our thought and behavior something that can be conceived as deliberate. Only deliberate behavior ought properly to be regarded as ethically significant in a straightforward sense. I could do something accidentally or unconsciously about which someone else might be inclined to pass moral judgement. But that would only be because it was determined that I could and should have acted deliberately in the past in a way that would have prevented, or at least mitigated the deleterious effects of, what I am presently doing. That Peirce conceived of the self as a sign is a distinctive feature of his philosophical perspective and one that has been the topic of significant and ongoing discussion.³ It is not the goal of this essay, however, to supply all of the details of a philosophical anthropology grounded in Peirce’s semiotic. It is sufficient to note that, from his perspective, not only do human selves create and use signs, even further, not only is all human experience a form of ongoing semiosis, but in addition, the self is a sign, with its meaning shifting and growing as its attention is directed first to one thing, then to another. Every self-as-sign “denotes” whatever it is paying attention to “at the moment” and “connotes” whatever it “knows or feels” about the object of its attention (Peirce 1931– 58, 7.591).⁴ To exercise some measure of self-control over this process was the essence of freedom for Peirce (for William James also). What is at stake in the struggle to control how one invests one’s attention is nothing less than the meaning of a human life—as it is displayed both in any given situation and in the Peircean long-run when a person’s habits of attention have become well-developed and entrenched. I think that Peirce’s account of how attention determines the meaning of a self-sign needs to be nuanced a bit; the reality of the matter is a good deal more complicated than his simple statement of it might suggest to his readers. It is complicated because how the self attends, in addition, what it knows and feels—these will all to some extent be shaped by the nature and disposition of any object encountered, while also being influenced by the habits of thought and feeling that have developed over time through interaction with this and similar objects. A person exercises freedom in choosing how to pay attention, but this freedom operates within certain constraints, some appearing as external to the self with others operating as internal factors. Certain things will attract attention more readily than others (a loud noise, for example, rather than a soft  See the classic study published by Vincent Colapietro (Colapietro 1989); John E. Smith’s important essay published somewhat earlier (Smith 1992); and Chapter 2 of Theosemiotic, on “Signs, Selves, and Semiosis” (Raposa 2020).  In this essay, I will follow the standard convention among Peirce scholars in referring to the Collected Papers by volume and paragraph numbers. Read “7.591” as “volume 7, paragraph 591.”

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one) and some persons will be trained, through habit formation, to notice what others might ignore (as in the case of a sommelier who can discern the most subtle taste or aroma). To be sure, in the latter instance the constraint supplied by habit can readily be conceived as skillfulness. It is also the case that, in describing semiosis, Peirce sometimes seemed to imply that the growth of meaning was straightforwardly linear. An object “determines” its sign and that sign determines an interpretant, placing it in a mediated relationship with the same object. It might be difficult to imagine on such an account how the self-as-semiosis is able to exercise any type of agency. Certainly it does so by choosing (within limits) the object of its attention “at the moment.” In addition, there can be a volitional element involved in the formulation of an interpretant for some sign. The interpretant is not simply a mechanical product of the interaction between sign and object; indeed, there is no semiosis without the interpretant. If from one point a view a sign mediates between its object and an interpretant, from another perspective, the interpretant places a sign in relation to its object; different interpretants will construe that relationship differently. One person’s interpretation may contrast with that of another person. And for any single interpreter, what a sign is taken to mean on first encounter does not preclude the possibility that, on rereading, an entirely disparate meaning might be discerned. Now Peirce was first and foremost a logician and so for him the paradigm for deliberate behavior was human reasoning. On his account, there are three basic modes of inference: hypothetical inference or abduction, deduction and induction. Late in his philosophical career, Peirce identified these as the three “stages” of inquiry, proceeding from one to another in the order just presented.⁵ In the encounter with any phenomenon that becomes the object of inquiry, it will be necessary first to identify hypotheses as candidates to explain its nature and meaning. As soon as one of these hypotheses is selected for further investigation, it will then be important to explicate, deductively, all of the consequences that would be entailed if that hypothesis was shown to be true. Finally, the inquirer will want to determine, by observation and experiment, whether any, none, or all of these consequences obtain in fact. This is the process of inductively evaluating a hypothesis, measuring the probability of its truth by matching its entailments with those features of experience selected as salient for this purpose. Peirce’s “stages of inquiry” talk, it seems to me, is a bit misleading in one important sense. Each stage is a snapshot of something occurring in a continu-

 The discussion of “stages of inquiry” can be found in Peirce’s 1908 article on “A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God” (Peirce 1931– 58, 6.468 – 77).

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ous process of semiosis. While from one point of view the inductive testing of a hypothesis may seem to represent the upshot of inquiry, from another viewpoint it generates habits of thought that can serve as (often unconscious) leading principles for future hypothetical inferences. Abduction does not operate in a vacuum or generate hypotheses ex nihilo (about this Peirce was really quite clear), so that it is as true to say that abduction is rooted in our inductive praxis as it is to say that induction concludes a process of inquiry that originates with some abduction. Understanding the relationship between these “stages” is important for developing a clear picture of theology as a mode of inquiry. More immediately, I want to say something briefly about how attention is exercised in each type of inference.⁶ It is only insofar as attention is directed in a manner that is self-controlled that such inferences can be characterized as representing a form of deliberation. Although I have complicated the issue of which ought to be regarded as first and which last, let me begin with what might be designated as the endgame of inquiry by talking about induction. Peirce was quite explicit in his account of how one must pay attention in order to reason inductively. The inquirer will need to be examining whatever is revealed by experience, but quite selectively, by “prescinding” in the observation of some thing or phenomenon from all of its features not considered as relevant to the task at hand. That is to say, the type of abstraction that Peirce called “precission” is a matter of paying attention to one aspect of a thing and ignoring others (Peirce 1931– 59, 1.549). It is a narrowing or focusing of attention in observation, sometimes facilitated by purposefully manipulating a situation in certain distinctive ways; in the latter case, experience becomes “experiment.” To give the simplest kind of example, it is the color of a strip of litmus paper and not anything else about it that will prove salient for the purpose of determining if some substance is acidic. That is where one will direct attention for the purposes of the experiment, ignoring other details, with some belief about the substance being tested resulting from this process (and the strength of such belief growing stronger with further testing). So Peirce was most clear about the role that attention plays for inquirers reasoning inductively, with the end result that certain habits of thought are eventually developed. (Induction was for Peirce pre-eminently a process of habit formation.)  The present essay is a sequel to and the development of arguments first presented in “Religion as relegere: on the role of attention in the discernment of religious meaning,” a paper presented at a meeting of the European Association for the Study of Religion (Tartu, Estonia; June 27, 2019). In that earlier paper, I explored in greater detail how attention is exercised differently at each stage of inquiry.

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Attending to what is relevant for a certain given purpose in induction presupposes that one first knows what is relevant. That knowledge will have resulted for the inquirer as a consequence of her performing certain careful deductions. Once a hypothesis is selected for testing, it must then be deductively explicated, so that if it is true one could identify what its truth would necessarily entail. In deduction, one does not direct attention to whatever is revealed through observation and experiment to be the case. One provides for inductive testing a description of what would have to be observable as the case if the hypothesis is true. Here the exclusive focus of attention is on the hypothesis itself, the logical relationship between ideas and the full exposure for any given hypothesis of its various entailments. Induction is guided by deduction in its evaluation of any given hypothesis. But how is the hypothesis first supplied for deductive explication and analysis? The process whereby this occurs is one that Peirce labeled as “abduction.” As a mode of inference, as a deliberate form of reasoning, it also must involve the exercise of attention. At this particular stage of inquiry, that exercise is a bit more difficult to describe. For anyone trying to explain or to “read” something encountered in human experience, paying careful attention will be of the utmost importance. In this instance, however, by contrast with what is required for success in induction, that attention will not be narrow, selective or focused on this or that feature of experience. It is more a matter of what Peirce called being “fully awake” to whatever it is that experience might reveal, a certain openness to experience (Peirce 1931– 58, 6.461). Here attention takes the form of readiness. The observer will not be looking for anything in particular in order to be ready for whatever might appear. Peirce described this process as one that is “playful” (Peirce 1931– 58, 6.458 ff, 486), a form of cognitive play both with one’s perceptions and with various ideas that one entertains as explanations for what one perceives. At a certain point, one of these ideas will emerge as attractive (for any number of different reasons) and become the sole focus of attention. It is selected as a hypothesis and abduction yields to deduction. Since I have already complicated the issue of how one conceives of the ordering of these stages, I might also want to warn about distinguishing them too sharply one from another. The play of attention in abduction will already involve some vague initial assessment of any hypothesis by turning both to some of the consequences of affirming its truth and then in memory measuring the extent to which past experience confirms that such consequences in fact obtain. That is to say, there are proto-deductions and proto-inductions already occurring in the initial stage of inquiry. In addition to what is occurring deliberately through the conscious exercise of attention, as mentioned earlier, firmly established habits of attention are shaping the abductive process. This is what makes the play of

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attention in abduction such a subtle phenomenon, requiring if inquiry is to be successful a special kind of skill. If inquiry (theological inquiry or any other kind) is to be productively rooted in previous praxis, one should neither aspire nor pretend to wipe the mind clean of all established beliefs and habits. To the extent that such beliefs can be identified and made the objects of a certain kind of attention however, one might be able to hold them lightly, that is, playfully, to have such beliefs as though one did not have them.⁷ Only in this fashion would it be possible for an honest inquirer to be truly “ready” for whatever it is that might be presented to her in experience, not so much inclined to interpret a sign in one way or another, but open to various possibilities. This extended meditation on the role of attention in the making of various kinds of inferences is justified for several reasons. In the first place, theology is a mode of inquiry and will employ each of these types of inference for its own distinctive purposes. Secondly, logic occupied a position adjacent to ethics in Peirce’s scheme of the normative sciences. Reasoning poorly or well, like behaving badly or appropriately, is a deliberate process that can be evaluated against criteria supplied by specific norms and ideals. Moreover, as with the various stages of inquiry, there is a continuity rather than any sharp distinction between reasoning and behavior, most especially insofar as what I choose to do in any given instance is chosen deliberately. For an ethics of attention, the first thing that I must decide to do on such an occasion will concern how I direct and exercise my attention. Everything else that I subsequently do will be dramatically shaped by this initial decision. Given Peirce’s account, already briefly described here, not only will the self’s behavior but also its very meaning as a sign be determined in each act of choosing. For the theologian, there is a good deal at stake here in understanding more thoroughly how and why this is so.

3 Theology as metasemiosis The sort of theology with which this essay is chiefly concerned is not one internal to a particular religious tradition focused on the explication and elaboration of beliefs regarded as distinctive of that tradition. It need not ignore such beliefs, but it is more properly a philosophical theology raising questions and examining phenomena that have a broader significance, a relevance not only for the mem-

 This is an appropriation and paraphrase of St. Paul’s advice concerning the necessity of detachment from worldly matters in anticipation of the second coming, recorded in Corinthians 7: 29 – 3.

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bers of a single community, but for individuals and communities as such, each to be regarded as a form of living semiosis. If the self is a sign the meaning of which is established by how it attends, under what conditions might it come to be regarded as religiously meaningful? How does one read such a self-as-sign and how is that self’s meaning continuously shaped by its own reading of a universe “perfused with signs” (Peirce, 5.448, note 1)? These questions are too big to be answered in a single essay but articulating them here supplies the framework within which a more limited line of analysis might be pursued. For present purposes, that analysis will be restricted to exploring the necessary link between theology as metasemiosis and an ethics of attention very broadly conceived. The basic questions for such a theology will be about how we pay attention and why we pay attention to the things that we do. To be sure, one could ask these questions in a way that has little or no religious or ethical implications. An instructor at a medical school, for example, will need to raise these questions and supply answers for students if they are later to become skillful surgeons. Yet for the most part there would be no specifically moral or religious significance attached to either the questions or their answers. (My qualification “for the most part” is necessary here because clearly the practice of surgery is neither value-neutral nor without potentially serious ethical consequences.) By way of contrast, the theologian will quite typically be concerned with what the self-as-sign denotes when it pays attention, also with how the self is disposed toward those things to which it attends, for distinctively ethical reasons. These concerns will have for the theologian a more pronounced normative status. Now to be engaged in living a religiously meaningful life (abstracting once again from how this takes shape in specific traditions and communities) is always already to be engaged in the practice of paying attention. This is, in fact, a rather vague but quite useful definition of what the word “meditation” means. Moreover, various forms of prayer not narrowly identified as meditation or contemplation, plus numerous types of ritual or liturgical behavior, also involve exercises intended to channel attention in a manner regarded as spiritually felicitous. The proposal presently under scrutiny is that theology, at least in one of its forms, can be conceived as the practice of paying attention to how we pay attention. Since, on the Peircean premises being adopted here, our mode of attending dramatically affects the meaning of our semiotic selves, such a theology would also have to be conceived as a form of metasemiosis.⁸

 As indicated in the introduction to this essay, “metasemiosis” is a broadened, Peircean conception of what psychologists refer to as metacognition: our ability, developed by practice, to

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Theology is a mode of inquiry with a potentially vast subject matter; but my primary interest here is the shape that such inquiry takes when the focus of concern is the spiritual life, once again, not only as understood narrowly in the way that Roman Catholics or Zen Buddhists happen to conceive it, but also as it might be more broadly construed. How ought one to evaluate the significance of certain practices, the purpose of which is to increase the capacity of individuals for self-control with regard to how they invest their attention? To what extent are these practices strategies of resistance to certain distractions, to attempts made by others to “capture” our attention? In what sense is the theology that evaluates them also a type of therapy, intended to identify and address habits of attention and inattention that are judged to be problematic? This characterization of theoretical inquiry as in some sense therapeutic should not be interpreted as an attempt to reduce inquiry to the role that it plays in “problem-solving.” There is a reading of Peirce’s philosophy, heavily influenced by the exaggerated importance of “The Fixation of Belief” (Peirce 1931– 58, 5.358 – 87) as perhaps his best-known article, that perceives inquiry as arising only when some belief has become problematic and thus only under the irritating stimulus of doubt. This is not the place to correct that interpretation of Peirce.⁹ Suffice it to say that any careful reader of Peirce’s much later article on “A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God” (Peirce 1931– 58, 6.452 – 91) will recognize that the sort of inquiry described there—one resulting in a consideration of the hypothesis about God’s reality—begins with the simple decision to take a stroll. Furthermore, I want to suggest that recognizing something as problematic that hitherto had not been regarded as such can result from a certain kind of inquiry and can also produce a certain therapeutic effect. “Problem-seeing” as well as (and sometimes even rather than) “problem-solving” ought to be a central concern for any theology grounded in a robust ethics of attention. To consider just one relevant example, there is no simple theological solution to the problem of racism. But theological reflection conceived as a metasemiotic exercise may prove to be crucial for the task of discerning the nature, presence and effects of racist ideas and practices. Such reflection does not necessarily originate with the recognition of some state of affairs as problematic;

think about our own process of thinking. For Peirce, all thinking was in signs and so to be regarded as an example of semiosis; but semiosis on his account can be reduced neither to human language nor cognition.  For my critique of “The Fixation of Belief” and of any interpretation of Peirce’s theory of inquiry that reduces inquiry to problem-solving, see Raposa (2015a); Raposa (2015b); and Raposa (2020, chapter 4).

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racist habits of thought and behavior are quite typically unconscious and need to be exposed.¹⁰ At the same time, it would be inappropriate to characterize proper recognition as inquiry’s exclusive goal. Praxis can be a form of inquiry also, thought embodied in deliberate behavior, in this case an ameliorative praxis designed to uproot racism and to mitigate its effects. It would be as much of a mistake to assume that pursuing an ethics of attention exhausts our moral obligations as it would be to ignore the essential role that it must play for anyone who aspires to live a life that is religiously and morally meaningful—in Peircean terms, to be a self that is religiously and morally meaningful. These remarks suggest that the comparison between theology-as-therapy and certain kinds of contemporary, mindfulness-based schools of psychotherapy is a fruitful one.¹¹ Careful consideration of the fact that I tend to experience anxiety in certain situations, along with acts of “exposure” to just those situations for the purpose of inducing anxiety, are metacognitive strategies that have proven to be quite effective therapeutically. But they are not effective because they eliminate anxiety (although there is a general expectation that levels of anxiety should be at least to some extent reduced); rather, the metacognitive identification of what I am thinking and feeling along with fostering the “mindful acceptance” of the fact that I tend to feel this way precisely in these contexts are productive methods quite different from any attempt to “fix” the problem of my anxiety. To be sure, there are instances when one consults a therapist for the purpose of dealing with problems that can and should be fixed, most typically the troublesome behaviors that have become linked to things that we habitually think or feel. Nor would I ever want to be understood as suggesting that racism in any of its forms is a phenomenon that needs to be attended to, recognized as such, mindfully accepted, but then never otherwise addressed. The goal here is not to repudiate the pragmatic insight that inquiry is continuous with and should eventuate in practice. It is to suggest, rather, that no practice can be effective that is not always already guided by an ethics of attention. I cannot pretend to care about or be committed to changing any state of affairs to which I do not first pay proper attention. Moreover, this paying of proper attention is also a meaningful form of practice, something that one can do either poorly or well, when done well, a practice that can itself yield positive, therapeutic results.  For an analysis of unconscious habits of racial privilege that draws on the pragmatism of Charles Peirce and William James, as well as on modern cognitive behavioral therapy, see Raposa 2010.  I refer here, in particular, to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).

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When evaluating the methods that might be employed for transforming any problematic situation, we should not underestimate the power of mindfully attending. In some cases, it might be hubris to think that we can do very much more. (Think of the loving attention that one might give at bedside, for example, to a dying person for whom no further medical treatment is possible.) Metacognition is a process of thinking about thinking. From a Peircean perspective all thinking is mediated by signs, so that metacognition can also be analyzed as metasemiosis. Not all signs are thought-signs, however, so that metasemiotic reflection also involves paying attention to the way in which many different things can function as signs. This is the difference, at least on my reading of Peirce, that what one “knows or feels” about the object of attention will make in determining the connotation of one’s self-as-sign. I can direct my attention, for example, to a text written in a language that I do not understand. This differs dramatically from how the thing-like character of marks on a page are transformed into meanings when I possess the skill to read them. This example is misleading, however, because in the case of the opaque text written in a language that is “foreign” to me, I will nevertheless probably still realize that these markings are signs, meaningful for someone. For present theological purposes I am more interested in “languages” that are not recognized as such, the languages embodied in certain patterned feeling responses, for example, or in human conduct, or in social structures and institutional arrangements. To return to the example that I have been using for illustrative purposes, all of these can be read as utterances that are discernibly racist both in content and tone of voice. On the other hand, they may simply be perceived as feelings that we feel, things that we do, places that we inhabit, but in themselves mute, signifying nothing in particular. One may need to attend to them differently in order to be able to recognize their significance. The example of racism is instructive here because in such a case one may be ethically obliged to do so. This obligation is not one that the theologian bears alone. Many of the spiritual practices in which religious persons regularly engage are intended to foster just such a capacity for recognition. Pragmatists are never fond of drawing sharp contrasts or creating rigid boundaries and so I do not want to distinguish too neatly, for example, between meditation as a practice of paying attention, of learning to read signs correctly and theology as a metasemiotic exercise. Both the medieval theologians (who conceived of theology as being rooted in prayer) and Peirce himself (who portrayed inquiry as originating in the playful meditation of musement) understood these practices to be continuous. Yet there is some kind of distinction to be made between the act of reading and subsequent reflection on that act. Even the clear awareness of a thing’s character as a sign is not yet the full metasemiotic awareness of how and what it signifies. It might be the

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case that I know that the anxiety I am experiencing is about something, that is to say, I have moved beyond the unreflective state of simply feeling anxious. Nevertheless, I may have no clear sense of why I feel this way, of what triggers my anxiety, of how it tends to make me behave and so on. For a clearer understanding of my anxiety as a sign and how best to read it, I may very well need to consult a psychotherapist. At this point, it may be useful to recall the earlier discussion of how attention is exercised in each of the different modes of inference. What bearing does such a discussion have on how we are to understand explicitly theological inferences? What is the ethical significance of attending in one way rather than another in the making of such inferences? Here I want to concentrate most especially on what occurs during the process of hypothesis formation and selection, the abductive stage of inquiry. Recall that it involves a discipline of attention designed to facilitate an openness to experience, a readiness not for what one expects or desires but for whatever one happens to find. This is a way of attending that Peirce described most effectively in his phenomenological investigations (what he called “phaneroscopy”), but the insights developed there apply equally well to his account of the logic of abduction, especially in its earliest, playful stages. Playful or not, the failure to be disciplined in this fashion can be morally disastrous. The theologian will need to take special care in evaluating interpretive behavior (semiosis) in order to detect such a failure. In our interpretation of any complex symbol, it will need to be asked and determined: why do we attend to one of its aspects and ignore others, assign certain meanings as relevant while others are occluded? Peirce observed on a number of occasions that the facts that stand immediately before us and “stare us in the face” are not always the one’s most readily discerned (Peirce 1931– 58, 6.162). How can this be the case? For theological and ethical purposes, the symbols to be regarded as most crucial are all of those other selves, persons considered individually or collectively, with whom we have regular and continuous interaction. Such interactions are semiotic events; even in the crudest case where one might treat another person as an object, a thing bearing a certain description but not in any sense a living symbol, some hypothesis has been generated, some classification has occurred. The failure to attend to that person’s sign status, however, to all of the meanings that she might possibly signify, indeed, to how she herself chooses to attend and what she “knows or feels” about the objects of her attention—all of this represents the morally problematic reduction of what is actually encountered, an “inattentional blindness” that any theology rooted in an ethics of attention must

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evaluate critically.¹² It is the reduction of a meaningful subject to an opaque object, a living symbol to a mere thing. Consider an example comparable to racism but also different in certain respects, that is, human poverty. Imagine here that the complex symbol available for contemplation and interpretation is not some other person, but rather, a city or a neighborhood. Let me make this example as concrete as possible. Having grown up on what was left of my grandfather’s farm in southeastern Massachusetts, it was a stark transition for me to find myself, as a graduate student and a newlywed, living in New York City, close to 165th Street in upper Manhattan. On most weekdays, I had to leave our apartment very early in the morning to travel on subway and then by train to the university where I was enrolled. It was impossible not to encounter homeless persons at that time of the day, sleeping on subways or the stations that they moved through, in warmer weather, on sidewalks or in parking lots. I was moved and disturbed by what I saw, fully attentive to a phenomenon that I had not previously encountered elsewhere, and thoughtful about what would be an appropriate response (how to acknowledge such a person, whether or not to extend charity, etc.). After a year of making that kind of commute, I began slowly to experience a certain inattentional blindness, not because of any conscious decision that I had made, but because of certain habits of perception that had become more or less established, almost inexorably. It was only some time later, now as a visitor to the city with my young son who was just a bit older than a toddler, that I found my attention drawn once again to the homeless people living there and to the oppressive poverty that was their normal condition.¹³ I noticed them because he noticed them everywhere. He was seemingly oblivious to the traffic, the noise, the bright lights and tall buildings, while meanwhile able to see every such person that we encountered, asking me questions about their situation, riddled with concern. This was one of my most memorable lessons in the ethics of attention. It is useful to note that returning to a state where one recovers the ability to see the world with the eyes of a child is itself commonly identified as one of the goals of spiritual exercise, for Daoists as well as Christians, and also a desideratum in

 Inattentional blindness is a complex phenomenon that has become a topic of considerable interest in modern cognitive psychology. Not every instance of this phenomenon—for example, the failure to see the “gorilla in the elevator” (to cite just one famous experiment) will be regarded as morally meaningful. For a thorough and provocative account, consider Mack and Rock (1998).  I have described this episode in New York City with my son, Daniel, at somewhat greater length in the final chapter of Raposa (2020).

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philosophy for American thinkers like Emerson and Peirce. Whether it is the recovery of an insight now lost or the development of an entirely new habit of attention, I want to suggest that a theology conceived as metasemiosis is best equipped to evaluate and shape the practices designed for these purposes. It will begin with an assessment of the way that we typically form hypotheses in our encounters with and interpretations of persons, places, things and situations. This process must include some monitoring of the factors that shape our attention, both internally as beliefs, habits and tendencies that we have established for good or ill, and externally in the form of aggressive distractions that compete for our attention. (With regard to the latter, it must be admitted that the bright lights, noisy traffic and commotion at street corners in a big city really do act as forces that might draw one’s interest away from whatever, ethically speaking, one might regard as more significant.) Theological scrutiny must also be brought to bear on the interpretations that we do make, the hypotheses that we do form, on their implications and entailments. Some of these inferences will take the form of perceptual judgements that are virtually automatic, the inferences themselves unconscious. Metasemiotic inquiry guided by an ethics of attention will be crucial for determining what any given hypothesis illuminates and what it conceals. Toward that end, something like a deductive explication of the hypothesis will be required, if not so rigid in its entailments as when deductions are performed in mathematics or formal logic, nevertheless, comparable in how it serves to clarify our ideas and serve as a guide for further inquiry. If my interpretation of a homeless person’s poverty is that it is the direct consequence of her addiction to alcohol and best to be explained as such, what other factors contributing to her present state of affairs are likely to be masked by that hypothesis? The further inquiry that deduction facilitates, it has already been observed here, is the sweaty work of induction. Abduction and deduction may both deepen and broaden our awareness of anything to which we stand in relation as interpreters, as readers invested in the discovery of meaning. And that awareness, once again, can be vitally important, even therapeutic, as one of the goals of any inquiry. This can take the form of “problem seeing” where previously no difficulty had been discerned. Such clarity of vision can be the prelude to mindful acceptance. It can also be a stimulus for action, for the kind of “adjustment” that John Dewey portrayed as essential to the religious attitude, involving both creative attempts to transform our environment and vigorous efforts to transform ourselves, our habits of thought, feeling and conduct, not least of all, our habits of attention (Dewey 1934, 15 – 17). Induction is aptly described as “sweaty” because its life-blood is redundancy, repetition. Recall that for Peirce induction is essentially a process of habit for-

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mation, sometimes habit change. As an experiment, induction will have value only to the extent that the experiment is frequently performed. As such, it represents the upshot of inquiry, the testing of ideas formed otherwise in the crucible of our everyday, ongoing, practical experiences—for theological and ethical purposes, most especially those experiences resulting from our interactions with other persons and communities. We read and we are read by these others; the Peircean premise with which this essay began is that every self is a living symbol, the concrete embodiment of meanings that can both grow and decay over time. We need to test our readings both in comparison with those of others and in various forms of encounter with them. As a result, we may choose to abandon or alter the way we think about certain things; on the other hand, we may be led to challenge how others do so, or to rearrange and restructure the environments and institutions that cause dangerous thinking and behavior to flourish. Induction is a form of exercise as well as of experimentation. In this respect, once again, its life blood will be redundancy. No one ever became fit by doing a single push up or mastered the violin with a single lesson. So too in our spiritual and our moral lives. Virtuosity requires constant practice. The type of virtuosity being given special emphasis here is the ability to pay attention, to the right things and in the right way. This will require the development of nuanced and highly calibrated habits of attention. Success is achievement of the freedom to play a significant role in determining what our lives will eventually come to mean, how we will interpret others and how we will be interpreted by them.

4 Conclusion A theology conceived as metasemiotic reflection and rooted in an ethics of attention will be preoccupied with exposing the habits that shape our interpretive behavior, as well as with identifying practices intended for the cultivation of habits judged to be felicitous by religious and moral standards. In this essay, many of those practices have been classified as spiritual exercises, forms of meditation, prayer or ritual behavior, each in its own way designed to regulate the attention of an exercitant in certain distinctive ways. In this respect, such a theology is always already a theology of the spiritual life. It can also be portrayed as a theology of liberation,¹⁴ a theology of resistance, in the sense that the specific habits formed are intended to increase an

 I have developed at much greater length the argument that any pragmatic theology con-

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individual’s capacity for self-control, her ability to direct attention to what matters most and to resist its “capture” by forces of distraction. Sometimes these forces are guided by a certain agency, by the explicit intention to capture and control attention. At other times they arise in a more purely serendipitous fashion. The flashing signs in Time Square or the items that consistently pop up on my computer screen when I am using the Internet are examples of the former. As I struggle to complete this essay in the midst of a global pandemic crisis unprecedented in my lifetime, distractions of the latter type abound, without any particular person, organization or institution being directly responsible for creating them. Talk about liberation or resistance may make more sense in one scenario than in the other, but both will require of the person immersed in them a similar ability to maintain self-control. As Peirce understood and described it, self-control is not primarily something that one exercises on the spot or in the moment, but rather, it is exerted by the self at present struggling to shape future versions of itself by means of a process of habit formation and change. This is a task that involves the appeal to appropriate ideals about exactly what kind of self one ought to be; insofar as these ideals are religiously or morally meaningful, their discovery or formulation can also be considered as the work of theology. Peirce’s claim that the self-as-symbol denotes what it is paying attention to “at the moment” needs to be extended creatively in order to conceive of the selfas-semiosis, a continuous, living stream of signs, the meaning of which is best communicated by a story, not in a snapshot. What Peirce described as the “ultimate logical interpretant” of such a self-sign will consist in a complex set of interwoven habits (Peirce 1931– 58, 5.491). Pre-eminent among these will be a certain habit of attention that acts as a metahabit coordinating how any given self will tend to think, feel or act in various circumstances. Not only will the inclination to direct attention here rather than there at any given moment be influenced by such a metahabit, so too will everything that the self has come to “know or feel” about that to which it attends. There is no greater challenge for theology than to insure that this habit is formed deliberately, that each self exercises at least some (even if not exclusive) property rights over what it gradually comes to mean.

ceived as metasemiosis (what I refer to as “theosemiotic”) should also be understood as a theology of liberation, in chapters 4 and 7 of Raposa (2020).

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References Colapietro, Vincent. 1989. Peirce’s Approach to the Self: A Semiotic Perspective on Human Subjectivity. Albany: State University of New York Press. Dewey, John. 1934. A Common Faith. New Haven: Yale University Press. James, William. 1950. The Principles of Psychology. 2 vols. New York: Dover Publications. Mack, Arien and Rock, Irvin. 1998. Inattentional Blindness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Peirce, Charles S. 1931 – 58. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Edited by Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss, and Arthur Burks. 8 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Raposa, Michael L. 2010. “Theology, Racial Privilege and the Practice of Resistance,” Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion 1 (10): 1 – 32. Raposa, Michael L. 2015a. “Pragmatism and the Spirit of the Liberal Arts,” The Pluralist 10: 64 – 79. Raposa, Michael L. 2015b. “Pragmaticism among the Pragmatists: A Brief History and Future Prospects,” Cognitio: Review of Philosophy 16: 321 – 34. Raposa, Michael L. 2020. Theosemiotic: Religion, Reading, and the Gift of Meaning. New York: Fordham University Press. Smith, John E. 1992. “Signs, Selves and Interpretation.” In America’s Philosophical Vision, edited by John E. Smith,173 – 92. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

PART II: Applications: Texts and case studies

Remo Gramigna

The semiotics of likeness: Identity, verisimilitude and falsity in Augustine¹ 1 Introduction The goal of this study is to make the case for a semiotics of images. To do so, it presents an account of the theory of the image and likeness on the basis of the interpretation of a selection of Augustine’s works, with a view to its implications to the domain of semiotics. The paper is divided into two parts. Whilst the first part explores Book II of the Soliloquia, the second dwells on the concepts of image, equality and likeness in the De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus, in the De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber. Augustine’s general theory of the image is a vast and complex issue, which cannot be disposed of in a few words. Such a theory entails discussing a plethora of heterogeneous phenomena, which include natural and artificial images, as well as images of a more psychic nature, namely, mental images. The context in which Augustine discusses these issues vary. The framework for discussing the nature of images in addressing the Question 74 of De diversis quaestionibus is exegetic. It is against such a background that Augustine formulates his semiotics of the image. It is worth mentioning that it is the idea of Christ as the image of the likeness of God, imago dei, which forms the theological basis for the discussion and the inspiration for Augustine to take up this issue. As previous studies have shown (Boersma 2016, Marmo 2017) Augustine’s theology of the image is predicated upon a Plotinian and Platonian understanding of the concept of image. The purpose of this paper, however, it is not so much to trace back and study the sources used by Augustine for his doctrine of man as the image of God, but to investigate the connection between the concepts of image, verisimilitude and falsity as discussed in his works. This provides an important corollary to Augustine’s general doctrine of lying and deception.

 A first version of this study was originally published in Gramigna (2020). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-008

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2 Image, verisimilitude and falsity in the Soliloquia Augustine’s Soliloquia is an early dialogue composed in 386 – 387 AD. It takes the form of a “soliloquy” between Augustine and Ratio (or Reason),² that is, an inner dialogue between two parts the self. The subject of this work is quite intricate, and its form is full of twists and turns. The issues raised are addressed by means of the method of questions and answers. Essentially, Reason poses a series of thought-provoking questions whose schema is as follows: question–obvious answer; objection that refutes the previous answer; counter-objection that, in turn, seeks to refute the first objection in what is a dialectical path. Augustine comes to the truth through gradual and successive stages in order to lead the interlocutor to the complete response. This method is referred to as exercitatio animi (or mentis) and is used in other Augustinian works, too. Within the Soliloquia, my interest lies in the disquisition about the problem of likeness, verisimilitude and falsity, which Augustine presents in book II of the dialogue. He engages in a discussion on the concept of falsity, its nature and characteristics, as well as a classification of types of perceptual errors. What is “falsity” (falsitas) and how should this concept be defined? Throughout the Soliloquia, Augustine and Reason put forth, analyze and discuss numerous definitions of what is meant by falsity in a tentative manner. Augustine’s enquiry is cumulative and continues with several changes in direction, which lead him to dismiss the initial definition. In this work four definitions of falsity are presented and discussed one after the other. It is often said that appearances are deceiving, and rightly so, for this tiny piece of wisdom is worth pondering. Falsity and perception are interlocked phenomena more than one would dare to think. To start with, Augustine defines falsity as “that which is other than it seems” (quod aliter sese habet quam videntur).³ This definition is predicated upon the nexus between perception and deception. A preliminary definition of falsitas presupposes a perceiving subject,

 The term “soliloquy” is used for the first time by Augustine. The meaning of this word is explained throughout the dialogue: “As we alone take part, I wish the work to be called and entitled ‘Soliloquies’, a new and harsh name perhaps, but quite suitable to describe what we are doing. There is no better way of seeking truth than by the method of question and answer.”  Sol. II.3.3 (Burleigh, trans., The Soliloquies, 43). This definition of falsity could also be translated as “that which is other than it is perceived to be.” This translation facilitates the comparison with the third definition of falsity (“what is not as it seems”) which is almost identical to the first one.

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an act of perception, and a perceived object. Falsity is grafted upon sense perception inasmuch as it implies a subject who perceives an object in his or her immediate environment. Thus, falsity does not lie in the things themselves but is predicated upon sense perception. In other words, this concept implies a subject who perceives what is sensed as false.⁴ Misperception or error, in turn, occurs when the subject assents to a perceived falsity: R.— Non igitur est in rebus falsitas, sed in sensu: non autem fallitur qui falsis non assentitur. (R.—There is, then, no falsity in things but only in our senses. But no one is deceived who does not assent to what is false.)⁵

This point is worth pondering because it makes clear that (self)deception occurs by means of perception. In this regard, (self)deception can be thought of as an offspring of perception and as such is, strictly speaking, a phenomenon of misperception.⁶ The objection against the first definition of falsity as outlined above is that because this concept is predicated upon sense perception, then without perception there would not be falsity altogether. For this reason, according to Augustine, the first definition of falsitas is disputable. The second definition postulates that “the true is that which is,” and the false, in turn, is defined in negative and oppositional terms as “that which is not.” The objection to this conception is that, given this definition, nothing can be said to be false any longer because anything that is, is true. Augustine, here, admits being lost in such an intricate and obscure subject and he is admittedly very perplexed. The third definition of falsity revolves around the concept of “verisimilitude” (similitudines veri). The kernel of the notion of verisimilitude is to bear some resemblance to the truth. From this vantage point, the false is defined as “what is not as it seems” (quam quod non ita est ut videtur).⁷ At this juncture, the nature of falsity intertwines with the concept of likeness, similitude or resemblance. Indeed, something is false because it resembles, in some respect, what is true, so it is truth-like:

 Sol. II.3.3.  Sol. II.3.3 (Burleigh, trans., The Soliloquies, 43).  In this connection it would be worth looking at the literature on magic (Jastrow 1900) and strategic intelligence (Whaley 1969, 1982), where the nexus between perception and deception has not gone unnoticed.  Sol. II.6.10. (Burleigh, trans., The Soliloquies, 46).

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R.—Nam certe quod oculi vident, non dicitur falsum, nisi habeat aliquam similitudinem veri. (R.—What the eyes see is not said to be false unless it has some resemblance to the truth.)⁸

Augustine provides insightful illustrations in order to expound the idea of falsity as an effect of verisimilitude, which further qualify in what respect the concept of falsity bears some resemblance to the truth: R.—We also speak of a false which we see in a picture, a false face which is reflected in a mirror, the false motion of towers as seen by those sailing by, a false break in the oar in the water: these are false for no other reason than that they resemble the true.⁹

Painted images, like the image of a tree portrayed in a painting, are false for the are the representation of an object, thus are not identical to object represented, although there is a degree of likeness between object and representation. The tree portrayed in a painting is a likeness of a real tree, a representation that has iconic connection to the object represented. The tree is “false” in the sense that it is a representation of a tree, to which it bears a certain degree of likeness. Along the same lines, a reflection in a mirror is false in the sense that such reflections bear resemblance to the object reflected. For this reason, the face reflected in a mirror is thought of as a “false face.” Other illustrations depict the false movements of towers as perceived by navigators or the image of a broken oar immersed in water.¹⁰ If this is not enough there is more to contend with. Dreams, misperceptions, two twins or two eggs resembling each other as well as different seals stamped with one signet-ring are all illustrations of things that are false as effect of verisimilitude. The images seen by a dreamer in a dreamscape—as for instance the image of man—are not real. The image of a man in a dream is false because it resembles a real man but is not a man in flesh and bones. If a man, in his waking state, sees a horse and erroneously takes it to be a man, the man is self-deceived by the false appearance of something that he has perceived as alike to the shape of a man. The illustrations briefly described above fall into the same basket for they show how falsity is rooted in verisimilitude. All these examples of likeness are based on visual perception, however. As Reason states, “as regards visible things

 Sol. II.6.10. (Burleigh, trans., The Soliloquies, 46).  Sol. II.4.10.  Sol. II.4.10.

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it is resemblance that is the mother of falsity.”¹¹ Thus, the connection between likeness and falsity is reiterated. Further on in the dialogue, Augustine discerns such vast and heterogeneous gamut of phenomena into two parts. Thus, visible things which resemble other things are divided into two macro-areas: (i) Resemblance between things that are equal or equivalent (aequales); (ii) Resemblance between things that are not equal but inferior (deteriores) one in respect to the other. Equal things are those things which both resemble each other. In other words, there is a biunivocal relation of likeness between the two things. The first macro-area encompasses examples such as two twins resembling each other or the impressions of a signet-ring. The second macro-area includes things that are not equally resemblant one to the other. In other words, the relation of likeness occurs between one thing inferior that resembles another thing, which is superior or better than the other. In this respect, the relation of likeness is univocal (something worse wishes to imitate something better). The face of a man reflected in a mirror falls into this group. It is the image reflected in the mirror (the inferior thing) that tends to be like the face of the man who projects his own image into the mirror, and not vice versa. Philip Cary pointed out that these two macro-areas of resemblances (resemblance between equals and resemblance between not equals) are respectively “horizontal” and “vertical,” “for the one is a similarity between equals and the other between higher and lower things” (Cary 2008, 62). The class of likeness between an inferior thing that resembles a higher one is, in turn, divided into two subclasses. One subclass refers to “misreadings of what the soul receives” (in eo quod anima patitur), and the other subclass refers to “error in visual perception” (iis rebus quae videntur) (Stock 2010, 192).¹² The likeness that occur as the “misreadings of what the soul receives” is in turn divided into two further species: misperceptions in respect to what the senses perceive (in sensu patitur) and in respect to what the mind receives by itself (apud se ipsam ex eo quod accepit a sensibus).¹³ An example of misperceptions in respect to sense perception is the false movement of the towers as perceived by those sailing by. Illustrations of false

 Sol. II.6.10. (Burleigh, trans., The Soliloquies, 46): “Similitudo igitur rerum quae ad oculos pertinet, mater est falsitatis.”  Sol. II.6.11.  Sol. II.6.11.

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images that the mind receives by itself are dreams and the visions of madmen. Moreover, the subclass of error in visual perception (iis rebus quae videntur) is divided into two subspecies: resemblances of visible things expressed or represented either by nature (a natura…finguntur), or by living creatures (animantibus…finguntur).¹⁴ Resemblances of visible things brought about by nature are of two types: begetting (gignendo) and reflection (resultando). An example of inferior resemblance naturally caused by begetting is when parents have children who resemble them.¹⁵ An illustration of the type of inferior natural resemblance caused by reflection is the already mentioned mirror image.¹⁶ Another example of these types is the “shadows of bodies which closely resemble bodies and may be called false bodies.”¹⁷ Among the resemblances of visible things brought up by living creatures, manmade pictures as well as “figments of demons” are listed. To sum up, several divisions were made to explicate the various ramifications of the concept of falsity: Falsity as an effect of verisimilitude: (i) Resemblance between things that are equal (e. g. twins, impressions of a signet-ring); a. Misreadings of what the soul receives (in eo quod anima patitur); i. Perceptual errors of what the senses perceive (in sensu patitur); (e. g. false movements of the towers perceived by a sailor); ii. What the mind receives by itself (apud se ipsam ex eo quod accepit a sensibus) (e. g. visions of dreamers and madmen); b. Error in visual perception (iis rebus quae videntur); i. Naturally caused inferior resemblance (a natura finguntur); 1. Caused by begetting (gignendo) (e. g. parents and children who resemble them); 2. Caused by reflection (resultando) (e. g. mirror reflections, shadows of bodies); ii. Resemblances brought up by living creatures (e. g. pictures, figments of demons). (ii) Resemblance between inferior things (mirror reflections).

 Sol. II.6.11.  Sol. II.6.11: “gignendo, cum parentibus similes nascuntur.”  Sol. II.6.11: “resultando, ut de speculis cuiuscemodi.”  Sol. II.6.11 (Burleigh, trans., The Soliloquies, 47): “Umbrae autem corporum, quia non nimis ab re abest ut corporibus similes et quasi falsa corpora dicantur, nec ad oculorum iudicium pertinere negandae sunt; in illo eas genere poni placet, quod resultando a natura fit.”

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Up to this point, the dialogue revolved around the realm of visible things. However, the phenomenon of likeness is not limited to the visual sensorium. Indeed, instances of resemblances can be singled out also by considering other human senses besides vision: 1 Hearing: a. “We hear a voice but do not see the speaker, and think it is someone else whose voice resembles the one we hear”;¹⁸ b. The echo is an instance of an inferior type of resemblance based on the sense of hearing; c. Ringing in the ears; d. “The imitation of the merle or the raven that we hear in clocks”;¹⁹ e. Sounds heard by dreamers in dreams or sound heard by mad men; f. False soft notes that resemble true notes. 2 Smell: a. Distinguishing one lily from another by smelling; 3 Taste: a. Honey from different hives; 4 Touch: a. The softness of the plumage of the swan and the goose.²⁰ When the dialogue seemed to have reached the point that “resemblances, whether equal things or unequal, wheedle all our senses and deceive us,” this conclusion is questioned anew.²¹ Reason in fact brings up two new questions that challenge Augustine’s understanding of the subject: R.—Bene facis. Sed attende utrum tibi videatur, cum ova similia videmus, aliquod eorum falsum esse recte nos posse dicere. A.—Nullo modo videtur. Omnia enim si ova sunt, vera ova sunt. R.—Quid, cum de speculo resultare imaginem videmus? quibus signis falsam esse comprehendimus? A.—Scilicet quod non tenetur, non sonat, non per se movetur, non vivit, et caeteris innumerabilibus, quae prosequi longum est.

 Sol. II,6,12 (trans. Burleigh, The Soliloquies, 47): “[…] veluti cum loquentis vocem, quem non videmus, audientes, putamus alium quempiam, cui voce similis est.”  Sol. II,6,12 (trans. Burleigh, The Soliloquies, 47): “[…]vel in horologiis merulae aut corui quaedam imitatio.”  Sol. II,6,12: “R.—Ergo, ne moremur, videturne tibi aut lilium a lilio posse odore, aut mel thyminum a melle thymino de diversis alveariis sapore, aut mollitudo plumarum cycni ab anseris tactu facile diiudicari?.”  Sol. II.6.12 (Burleigh, trans., The Soliloquies, 48): “R.—Ergo apparet nos in omnibus sensibus siue aequalibus, siue in deterioribus rebus, aut similitudine lenocinante falli.”

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R.—Video te nolle immorari, et properationi tuae mos gerendus est. Itaque, ne singula repetam, si et illi homines quos videmus in somnis, vivere, loqui, teneri a vigilantibus possent, nihilque inter ipsos differret, et eos quos expergefacti ac sani alloquimur et videmus, numquidnam eos falsos diceremus? A.—Quo pacto istud recte diceretur? R.—Ergo si eo veri essent, quo veri simillimi apparerent, nihilque inter eos et veros omnino distaret, eoque falsi quo per illas vel alias differentias dissimiles convincerentur; nonne similitudinem veritatis matrem, et dissimilitudinem falsitatis esse fatendum est? (R.—Do you think that when we see two similar eggs we can say that one of them is false? A.—By no means. If they are eggs, both of them are true eggs. R.—When we see an image reflected from a mirror, how do we know that it is false? A.—Because it cannot be grasped; it makes no sound; it does not move of itself; it is not alive […] R.—If the men we see in dreams could live and speak and be grasped by us when we awake, and there was no difference between them and those whom we see and address when we are awake and of a sound mind, would we say that they were false? A.—We could not correctly say so. R.—Then, if they were true so far as they were very like the truth and there was no difference at all between them and real men, but were also false so far as they were proved to be unlike real men by the tests you have mentioned or by other tests, must we not admit that similitude is the mother of truth and dissimilitude the mother of falsity?)²²

There is a conundrum about the subject of falsity because what is false can have at the same time some similitude and some dissimilitude to what is true: “both likeness and unlikeness together entitle a thing to be called false.” The resolution of such a theoretical difficulty is given by Reason. In a very poignant passage of the dialogue two main forms of falsity are singled out. These are called “fallacious” (fallax) and “mendacious” (mendax) and their difference is explained in these terms: R.—Video enim, tentatis quantum potuimus omnibus rebus, non remansisse quod falsum iure dicatur, nisi quod aut se fingit esse quod non est, aut omnino esse tendit et non est. Sed illud superius falsi genus, vel fallax etiam, vel mendax est. Nam fallax id recte dicitur quod habet quemdam fallendi appetitum; qui sine anima intellegi non potest: sed partim ratione fit, partim natura; ratione, in animalibus rationalibus, ut in homine; natura, in bestiis, tamquam in vulpecula. Illud autem quod mendax voco, a mentientibus fit. Qui hoc differunt a fallacibus, quod omnis fallax appetit fallere; non autem omnis vult fallere qui mentitur: nam et mimi et comoediae et multa poemata mendaciorum plena sunt, delectandi potius quam fallendi voluntate, et omnes fere qui iocantur, mentiuntur. Sed fallax vel fallens is recte dicitur, cuius negotium est ut quisque fallatur. Illi autem qui non id agunt ut decipiant, sed tamen aliquid fingunt, vel mendaces tantum, vel si ne hoc quidem, mentientes tamen vocari nemo ambigit.

 Sol. II.7.13 (Burleigh, trans., The Soliloquies, 48).

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(R.—After all our inquiry I see that nothing remains that we may justly term false except that which feigns itself to be what is not, or pretends to be when it does not exist. The former kind is either fallacious or mendacious. Fallacious, strictly speaking, is that which has a certain desire to deceive and this cannot be understood apart from the soul. But deceit is practiced partly by reason and partly by nature; by reason in rational beings like men, by nature in beasts like foxes. What I call lying is done by liars. The difference between the fallacious and the mendacious is that the former all wish to deceive while the latter do not all wish to do so. Mimes and comedies and many poems are full of lies, but the aim is to delight rather than to deceive. Nearly all who make jokes lie. But the fallacious person, strictly speaking, is he whose design is to deceive. Those who feign without intent to deceive are mendacious, or at least no one hesitates to call them liars.)²³

First, falsity takes two forms of manifestation and two definitions of falsity can be given accordingly: 1) Falsity is that which feigns itself to be what is not (se fingit esse quod non est); 2) Falsity is that which pretends to be and is not (esse tendit et non est); Another way to look at this difference is to understand that one thing is to will it to be false and another thing is not to be able to be true. Falsity conceived as, what feigns to be what is not, can be divided into two heads: a deceitful form of falsity (fallax) and non-deceitful (mendax). The rationale of this distinction is that the fallacious form of falsity displays a tendency or inclination towards deception. On the contrary, the mendacious type of falsity does not have such an inclination: it feigns without being deceitful. The second species of falsity, that which pretends to be when it does not exist, is of an entirely different nature. Its characteristic lies in that it tends to be something else and is not (pretends it is and is not). Under this rubric are included many of the examples discussed above: “every picture, statue, or similar work of art tries to be that on which it is modelled,” dreams, visions of madmen, shadows of bodies, the oar plunged in water, the false movement of the towers and so forth.²⁴

 Sol. II.9.16 (Burleigh, trans., The Soliloquies, 49 – 50).  Sol. II.9.16 (Burleigh, trans., The Soliloquies, 50): “R—Quid omnis pictura vel cuiuscemodi simulacrum, et id genus omnia opificum? nonne illud esse contendunt, ad cuius quidque similitudinem factum est?”

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3 Beyond Augustine At this juncture, we shall go beyond Augustine and dwell a little more on the formal distinction between “fallacious” (fallax) and “mendacious” (mendax) which Augustine laid out in the Soliloquia. Whilst fallax is that kind of falsity that strives to deceive, mendax is the type of falsity understood as a product of fiction whose purpose is not to deceive but to entertain. The former type is deceptive, whilst the latter is “that which presents harmless falsehoods for enjoyment” (Dox 2004, 38). This is how Augustine himself explained this distinction. We report in toto the passage where he posits this bifurcation inasmuch as it is very revealing for the purposes of the present discussion: I see, indeed, by our many experiments in all these things, that nothing remains which can justly be called false, save that which feigns to be what it is not, or, in general, that which tends to be and is not. Of the former type of false things are those which are either actually misleading or those which are simply fictitious. Of the misleading it may be said truly that it has a certain appetite for deceiving, which cannot be conceived to exist apart from soul, and results, on the one hand from reason, on the other from nature. But the fictitious I call that which is produced by makers of fiction: these differ from the misleading in this, that every misleader has a desire to deceive: while not every fiction-maker has.²⁵

Falsity can thus be of two kinds: deceptive or non-deceptive. Deceptive falsity can be either intentionally misleading or non-intentionally misleading, that is, potentially leading to errors due to the nature of being what is not. Non-deceptive falsity, on the contrary, does not intend to mislead, and it encompasses products of fictions, poetry, comedies, literature and also jokes and jests. This distinction can be summarized in the following diagram (Fig. 1):

Figure 1: Typology of falsity

 Sol. II.9.16 (Burleigh, trans., The Soliloquies, 50).

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The Augustinian distinction between fallax and mendax could be interpreted, in a more abstract way, by looking at the parties involved in an act of communication and assessing whether there exists an intentional addresser or not. In semiotic scholarship, Roman Jakobson (as well as others) drew attention to a similar distinction. He briefly considered the case in which there is a lack of an intentional addresser. Drawing on C. S. Peirce, he posited that “the sign demands nothing more than the possibility of being interpreted, even in the absence of an addresser” (Jakobson [1975] 1985, 206). Jakobson used the presence of an intentional addresser as a criterion for discerning between “communication,” which “implies a real or alleged addresser,” and “information,” where this aspect is lacking (Jakobson [1968] 1971, 703). Unintended signs are “signs interpreted by their receivers without the existence of any intentional sender” (Jakobson [1968] 1971, 703). These signs are not intentionally produced by an addresser; nonetheless, the process of interpretation still takes place via an interpreter who exploits the potentiality that each sign may have in terms of interpretation. Classical examples of this type of sign are symptoms of diseases interpreted by physicians as indexes, tracks left by animals and used by their hunters, and various forms of divination (Jakobson [1968] 1971, 703). We will return to the difference between mendax and fallax in a successive section since it will be useful in the discussion of non-deceitful untruthfulness. The difference of mendax and fallax allows us to branch out to a similar distinction underscored in general semiotics, providing a more comprehensive interpretation. In this direction, it is worth recalling that both Marina Mizzau (1997) and Umberto Eco (1997) pointed out a distinction between false as fake and false as fictitious. The difference between the two lies in that the former does not display the signs of being fake—therefore pretending to be taken as authentic or true—whereas the latter, on the contrary, exhibits the signs of being untruthful. This is the same logic that is at stake in the difference between lies and jokes. An example of the fictitious type of falsity is the theatrical masking, inasmuch as it does not pretend to be taken as serious; in other words, the audience is fully aware of the fictional nature of the theatrical masking. In this respect, the fictitious has the same logic of jokes that, as described supra, exhibit the signs of their fictional nature. On the other hand, faking involves an intention of being taken as genuine and to hide the signs that are evidence of fakery, such as, for instance, a woman’s wig, for it aims at being taken as real. From the aforesaid, it is apparent that the fictitious is ruled by the logic of the as if. As Umberto Eco pointed out, acting as if being someone else by wearing a mask on a theatrical stage is different than putting on a mask of Diabolik and faking to be another person in order to rob a bank (Eco 1997, 33). To put it differently, the ficti-

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tious and the fake belong to the family of pretending, considered in a broad sense. In both cases, faking and fiction, there is the pretense of being someone else or something else. The difference lies in the fact that the latter, the fictitious, does not involve any intention to deceive, whereas the former, the fake, does involve the intention to mislead. Another way of tackling this issue would be to draw a difference between “pretending” and “acting,” the former conceived as “an intentional deceptive move obtained through counterfeiting that which the hearer is intended to assume,” as for instance “by limping, one can counterfeit lameness” (Vincent, Castelfranchi 1981, 754– 755). On the other hand, “acting” can be seen as “the non-deceptive sister of pretending” inasmuch as the one who acts and the addressee of such action are “accomplices in a game which involves the entertainment of two contradictory worlds: one, the real world, where x is false (a pretence), and the other, a fictional or imaginary world, where x is true” (Vincent, Castelfranchi 1981, 755).

4 Image, identity and likeness in the De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus, in the De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber and in the De trinitate The interest towards the themes of image and likeness is not limited to the early Soliloquia but cut across the Augustinian intellectual itinerary. Indeed, such themes are taken up, discussed and refined in other later works. Augustine develops his semiotics of the image particularly in the De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus (388 – 396). This work consists of a series of eighty-three different questions. Question 74 is of particular interest to the present discussion because here Augustine raises the issue and explains the difference between three interrelated concepts, image (imago), equality or identity (aequalitas) and likeness (similitudo): Imago et aequalitas et similitudo distinguenda sunt: quia ubi imago, continuo similitudo, non continuo aequalitas; ubi aequalitas, continuo similitudo, non continuo imago; ubi similitudo, non continuo imago, non continuo aequalitas. Ubi imago, continuo similitudo, non continuo aequalitas: ut in speculo est imago hominis; quia de illo expressa est, est etiam necessario similitudo, non tamen aequalitas, quia multa desunt imaginis, quae insunt illi rei de qua expressa est. Ubi aequalitas, continuo similitudo, non continuo imago: velut in duobus ovis paribus, quia inest aequalitas, inest et similitudo; quaecumque enim adsunt uni, adsunt et alteri; imago tamen non est, quia neutrum de altero expressum est. Ubi similitudo, non continuo imago non continuo aequalitas; omne quippe ovum omni ovo, in

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quantum ovum est, simile est; sed ovum perdicis, quamvis in quantum ovum est, simile sit ovum gallinae, nec imago tamen eius est, quia non de illo expressum est, nec aequale, quia et brevius est alterius generis animantium. (Image and equality and likeness must be distinguished. For where there is an image, there is necessarily a likeness, but not necessarily an equality; where an equality, necessarily a likeness, but not necessarily an image; where a likeness, not necessarily an image and not necessarily an equality. Where there is an image, there is necessarily a likeness, but not necessarily an equality. For example, there is in a mirror the image of a man. Because the image has been copied from him, there is also necessarily a likeness; but, nonetheless, there is no equality, because there is absent from the image much that is present in that thing of which it is the copy. When there is an equality, there is necessarily a likeness, but not necessarily an image. For example, between two identical (paribus) eggs there is a likeness because there is an equality, for whatever belongs to one belongs also to the other. Still, there is no image, because neither one is the copy of the other. Where there is a likeness, there is not necessarily an image and not necessarily an equality. For every egg is like every other egg insofar as it is an egg; but a partridge egg, although like a chicken egg insofar as it is an egg, is, nonetheless, neither its image, because it is not a copy of that one, nor its equal, because it is smaller and of another species of living being.)²⁶

Although the concepts of image, identity (or equality) and likeness are interconnected, the specific relations between these three concepts must be spelled out. Augustine points out that an image entails likeness, but not equality. We may notice that Augustine gives an example (the mirror reflection) that echoes the one he had already brought up and discussed in the Soliloquia. Although the mirror reflection entails a high degree of likeness to the object reflected, the image reflected in a mirror does not result in an identity between the image and its source. Equality, in turn, implies likeness but not necessarily an image. Once again, the example cited to illustrate this point (two identical eggs) was already mentioned in the Soliloquia. Equality between two things presupposes likeness between them. However, equality does not necessarily involve an image because one thing is not the derivation of the other. Likeness does not imply neither image nor equality. Two eggs of two different species (a partridge egg and a chicken egg) illustrate this point. Because both are eggs, one is like the other. However, strictly speaking, the two eggs are not the image of one another (because they originate from different sources, e. g. a partridge and a chicken) and they are not equal (because these eggs differ in size and are eggs of different species). R. Markus (1964), C. Marmo (2017), O. Boulnois (2008) and E. Zuccotti (2015) all underscored the relevance of Augustine’s use of Quia non de illo expressum

 Div. qu. 83, 74. (Mosher, trans., Eighty-three different questions, 189 – 190).

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est in the passage quoted above. The use of expressum est further specifies the nature of the concept of image which is based on a link of causality or derivation from its source. Marmo is very explicit in this regard: “The verb which characterizes the image is only the passive voice of exprimere […]: the idea repeated here is again that of the causal derivation of the image from the model, which brings along with it likeness (and participation).”²⁷ The theoretical knot between image and likeness is further documented and perfected in another excerpt from De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber (426). In this work, the thematic thread and the context in which the concepts of image and likeness are brought up is the idea that human beings are in the likeness or image of God: Omnis imago est similis ei cuius imago est; nec tamen omne, quod simile est alicui, atiam imago est eius. Sicut in speculo et pictura quia imagines sunt, etiam similes sint necesse est ei cuius imagines sunt. Homines autem duo etiam si inter se similes sunt, tamen, si alter ex altero natus non est, nullus eorum imago alterius dici potest. Imago enim tunc est, cum de aliquo exprimitur. (Every image is like that of which it is an image, but not everything which is like something is also its image. Thus, because in a mirror or in a picture there are images, they are also alike. But if the one does not have its origin from the other, it is not said to be the image of the other. For it is an image only when it is derived from the other thing.)²⁸

Image entails a relation of similitude to its model. However, things that are like other things are not necessarily images. Thus, image and likeness are not coextensive. In this text, the idea of the image as bearing a “genetic” (Zuccotti 2015, 87) connection with its source of origin, or, in other words, a “derivation from something (a model or a cause)” (Marmo 2017) is spelled out with clarity. By comparing the two excerpts from De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus and De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber Marmo (2017) not only has observed the passive use of the verb exprimere, already mentioned before, but also a change in respect to the examples provided in the two texts: the mirror as an illustration of the image is recurrent, whereas the example of the picture is not. If we extend the comparison by including also the second book of early Soliloquia, we could notice, however, that Augustine in this work mentions all these examples (mirror, pictures, as well as statues). The link between, likeness, image and falsity, however, seems to be limited to the Soliloquia and not reiterated in the two other works.  “Il verbo che caratterizza l’immagine è solo la voce passiva di exprimere […]: l’idea qui ribadita è ancora quella della derivazione causale dell’immagine dal modello, che porta con sé somiglianza (e partecipazione)” (Marmo 2017, 45), my translation from the Italian.  Gn. litt. imp. 16, 57. (Teske, trans., On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, 183).

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But there is another aspect that seems to be the fil rouge between these works in their discussion of the concept of image. Like the Quaestio 74 and the De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber, also in the Soliloquia the concept of image is tailored as having a generative connection with its source. However, this connection is not only “generative” as in the case of parents and children, but also “reflective” (resultando) as in the case of the mirror. The images in the mirror are the result of a model (the object reflected). In this category also pictures, figments of demons and shadows are included. The concept of image also cuts through the whole De trinitate, a theological work of Augustine’s maturity. This work is of fundamental importance to understand how revolutionary Augustine’s doctrine of trinity was, not only in relation to Christianity, but also in respect to the ancient world. The novelty of the De trinitate is that it offers a theological key to interpret an epistemological and gnoseological problem (the relation between notitia and cogitation, and the structure of the verbum).²⁹ By analyzing the numerous contexts in which Augustine writes about images in the De trinitate we can find pictures, paintings and mental representations. In book VIII, Augustine examines mental images through the specific example of those images that prompt the recollection to the mind of the cities that were familiar to the author (Carthage and Alexandria). The mental image is that which is interposed between man and the world that is experienced through it, and without which there would be neither sense perception, nor memory, nor thought. In book XI Augustine makes an accurate and sophisticated analysis of the phenomenology of sense perception. Out of the five senses, Augustine selects vision as an object for his analysis because he considers it the most noble of the senses and the most suitable for understanding. Augustine distinguishes three factors in the act of vision: the object (res) that is perceived, the vision (visio) itself, and the animi intentio, namely, that which fixes the vision upon the object of perception.³⁰ These are three distinct factors and each of them has a different nature: the object is corporeal and is external to the subject, the vision is an inner phenomenon because it dwells within the subject, and the animi intentio lies within the soul (Rovighi 1962, 26). It is important to stress that in this work intentio and voluntas are alike and they both refer to the intentional attention that the mind places upon the object of perception through the act of vision. Intentio, thus, entails an active and voluntary desire to see.  I cannot provide a full analysis of this work in the limited province of my enquiry. For a full discussion on the concept of image in the De trinitate, see Boersma (2016), (Daniels (1977), McCool (1956) and Zuccotti (2015).  De trin. 11, 2,2.

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The relation between Augustine’s theory of sense knowledge and his theory of the image is tailored in the following terms. The act of vision equates well with the concept of image because vision is a similitude or image of the object perceived. The image is inferred and impressed (by the mind and reason) from the perception of an external object (sense perception) and they form a unity (Rovighi 1962, 26).

References Latin texts of Augustine De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII. 1975. Edited by Almut Mutzenbecher. Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (CCSL 44 A). Turnhout: Brepols. De trinitate. (1968) 2001. Edited by William John Mountain et al. Patrologia Latina 42; Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina (CCL 50 – 50 A). Turnhout: Brepols. Soliloquia. 1986. Edited by Wolfgang Hörmann. Patrologia Latina 32. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL 89). Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky. De Genesi ad litteram, De Genesi ad litteram liber imperfectus, Locutiones in Heptateuchum.1986. Edited by Josephus Zycha. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL 18/1). Vienna: Tempsky.

Other sources Augustine. 1953. The Soliloquies. Translated by J. H. S. Burleigh, in Augustine: Earlier Writings. The Library of Christian Classics (Ichthus Edition). Philadelphia: Westminster. Augustine. 1982. Eighty-Three Different Questions. Translated by David L. Mosher. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. Augustine. 1983. The Literal Meaning of Genesis. Edited by J. Quasten, W. Burghardt, T. Comeford Lawler. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Boersma, Garald P. 2016. Augustine’s Early Theology of Image: A Study in the Development of Pro-Nicene Theology. New York: Oxford University Press. Boulnois, Olivier. 2008. Au-delà de l’image. Une archéologie du visuel au Moyen Âge, VXVI siécle. Paris: Seuil. Cary, Phillip. 2008. Outward Signs: The Powerlessness of External Things in Augustine’s Thought. New York: Oxford University Press. Daniels, Donald E. 1977. “The argument of the ‘De Trinitate’ and Augustine’s Theory of Signs.” Augustinian Studies 8: 33 – 54. Dox, Donnalee. 2004. The Idea of the Theater in Latin Christian Thought: Augustine to the Fourteenth Century. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Eco, Umberto. 1997. “Dire il contrario.” In Menzogna e Simulazione, edited by Massimo Bonfantini, Cristiano Castelfranchi, Arturo Martone, Isabella Poggi, and Jocelyne Vincent, 33 – 43. Napoli: Edizione Scientifiche Italiane.

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Gramigna, Remo. 2020. Augustine’s Theory of Signs, Signification, and Lying, Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. Jakobson, Roman. (1968) 1971. “Language in relation to other communication systems.” In R. Jakobson, Selected Writings. Vol. II. Word and Language, 697 – 708. The Hauge: Mouton. Jakobson, Roman. (1975) 1985. “A glance at the development of semiotics.” In R. Jakobson, Selected Writings. Vol. VII. Contributions to Comparative Mythology: Studies in Linguistics and Philology 1977 – 1982, edited by Stephen Rudy, 199 – 218. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Jastrow, Joseph. 1900. Fact and Fable in Psychology. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin. Markus, Robert A. 1964. “ ‘Imago’ and ‘similitudo’ in Augustine.” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 10: 125 – 43. Marmo, Costantino. 2017. “Statue e sculture come modelli teorici tra tardo-antico e medioevo.” In Statue. Rituali, scienza e magia dalla Tarda Antichità al Rinascimento. Micrologus Library 81, edited by Luigi Canetti, 19 – 66. Firenze: Sismel, Edizioni del Galluzzo. McCool, Gerald A. 1956. “The Historical Sources of the Image and Likeness of God in the Anthropology of Saint Augustine.” Unpublished Dissertation: Fordham University. Mizzau, Marina. 1997. “Il falso e il finto.” In Menzogna e Simulazione, edited by Massimo Bonfantini, Cristiano Castelfranchi, Arturo Martone, Isabella Poggi, and Jocelyne Vincent, 121 – 28. Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane. Rovighi, Sofia V. 1962. “La fenomenologia della sensazione in Sant’Agostino.” Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica 54: 18 – 32. Stock, Brian. 2010. Augustine’s Inner Dialogue: The Philosophical Soliloquy in Late Antiquity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Vincent, Jocelyne M., and Cristiano Castelfranchi. 1981. “On the art of deception: how to lie while saying the truth.” In Possibilities and Limitations of Pragmatics, edited by Herman Parrett, Marina Sbisà, and Jef Verschueren, 749 – 77. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Whaley, Barton. 1982. “Toward a theory of deception”, Journal of Strategic Studies, 5 (1), 178 – 92. Zuccotti, Elisa. 2015. “Facie ad faciem. Il concetto di immagine nel De Trinitate di Agostino di Ippona.” Unpublished dissertation: University of Bologna.

Acknowledgments This result is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement N. 819649 – FACETS).

Alin Olteanu

An overlooked episode in the history of semiotics: The iconoclast controversy and its relevance for the iconic turn 1 Introduction: Why is the iconoclast controversy relevant for contemporary semiotics? The debates on religious paintings during the iconoclast controversy (8th–9th centuries) in Christianity have far reaching implications for the theoretical development of semiotics and subsequent methodologies. The contemporary scholarly concept of icon is the product of these debates. The controversy took place in the Byzantine space and lasted for more than two centuries, being the cause of much violence, in the form of political and religious persecution. On one side of the debate, those who considered that the veneration of images depicting holy persons and events from in the history of Christianity is theologically correct were termed iconodules, and, on the other side, those who opposed this practice by considering it idolatrous were termed iconoclasts. Theologically, the debate concluded in favor of the iconodules at the Second Council of Nicaea (Seventh Ecumenical Council) in 786 – 787, but the persecuting of iconodules continued in Byzantium until the mid-ninth century. As common, I refer to the three most prominent iconodule theologians as representative for their side of the debate, namely John of Damascus, Theodore the Studite and Patriarch Nikephoros of Constantinople. Andreopoulos (2005, 31) considers that the writings of these three theologians “were quite sophisticated treatises on the semiotics of visual representation,” as I also advocate. Studies on the history of semiotics, though, tend to overlook these debates and authors. It is interesting that Andreopoulos observes affinities between the semiotics of the iconodules and poststructuralism. While many parallels, worthwhile exploring, can be drawn, I here explain a striking similarity between this ancient visual semiotics with that of Charles Peirce, particularly in regard to the notion of iconicity, which contrasts Peirce to (post)structuralism. While the icon concept is central for semiotic theory, and of particular actuality (e. g., Eco 1997; Stjernfelt 2007, 2015; Elleström, Fischer and Ljungberg 2013), especially in the effort of explicating meaning as embodied (e. g., Ahlner and Zlatev 2010; Elleström 2013; Mittelberg 2007, 2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2017), scholarship on the history of semiotics did not approach this specific period, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-009

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so far. In this paper I point out some fundamental similarities between Charles Peirce’s notion of iconicity and the theology of icons of Christian iconodules (John of Damascus, in particular), as developed during the Iconoclast controversy. As such, this paper has the double aim of (1) addressing a gap in scholarship on the history of semiotics which (2) will reveal new directions for contemporary tools of semiotic analysis. The semiotic concept of icon presents new paths beyond modern ontological mind/body dualism. Arguably, the emergence of the concept of sign as a relational tool of logic and/or ontology already is a major step forward beyond modern dualism and in the direction of understanding knowledge as embodied (e. g., Deely 2001; Stables 2012; Olteanu 2015). However, positions towards the notion of icon can direct semiotic epistemology towards either dualist or embodiment philosophy. In the second half of the 18th century, after four centuries of dualist philosophy in the West, Peirce, via a thorough study of the Scholastics, directly recovered the concept of sign from certain patristic authors, among whom Saint Augustine in particular (Todorov and Klein 1974, 118; Deely 2001; Marmo 2010), as a non-dualist alternative to the dualist concept of idea. Starting with landmark early modern philosophers such as Descartes (e. g., [1643] 2008) and Locke (e. g., [1690] 1836), the concept of idea, understood as a purely mental entity, has been considered the main (and perhaps only) tool of epistemology and, even, ontology. In the context of Enlightenment and its contractualist take on education, language was understood as the only medium through which ideas can be communicated and learned. This conception flourished in the 20th century, as seen in the linguistic turn (e. g., Rorty 1967) and (classical) semiology (Saussure [1916] 1959). As John Deely’s (2001) wording emphasizes, Peirce did not lay the foundation of his philosophy on a newly invented concept, but upon one that he recovered from premodern scholars. In contemporary parlance, premodern European philosophy can be described as semiotic or, at least, much more akin to contemporary semiotics than both early modern idealism (including both rationalism and empiricism) and late modern philosophy of language. Mainstream in Christian patristic and Scholastic thought, and, arguably, in many medieval Muslim and Judaic scholars (see Deely 2001, 187– 89), the doctrine of signs was disrupted by the preference for idea instead of sign as the vehicle of knowledge in modernity. This shift, actually, is defining for the beginning of modern philosophy. As such, excavating these premodern notions can reveal new insights on how to think non-dualistically, which does not come without effort for the modern mind, shaped by print monomodality and monolingualism and a scientific language that is heavily symbolic. This endeavor comes in light of Robert Yelle’s (2013, 1) argument that “a focus on religious phenomena can bring to reinvigo-

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rating the field of semiotics,” particularly as needed to overcome the perceived impasse that structuralism and poststructuralism seem to have arrived at. Currently, semiotics takes a central stage in the ongoing iconic and embodiment turn in the humanities. This consists in the reorientation towards schematic, embodied forms of meaning as tools of knowledge, in which language modelling is also grounded. The effort of informing semiotics with up-to-date findings in the natural sciences and, arguably, vice versa is correlated with a growing interest for Peirce’s pragmatism (see Favareau 2010, vii). It is noteworthy that biosemiotics, the semiotic theory of modelling in the biological world, took Peirce’s concept of sign as its main theoretical pillar. From the outset of this theory, Sebeok (1991) explicitly contrasted the Peircean notion of sign, that he used to develop a modelling theory, from the more popular notion at the time, as perpetrated in (post)structuralism (e. g., Barthes 1977; Derrida [1974] 1997; Lotman 1991), in inspiration of Saussure (1959). The concept of icon plays a central role in Peirce’s semiotics, which makes this an opportune philosophy for the postmodern age and, as I argue below, contexts of digita(li)zation. In the yet most comprehensive study of the history of ideas through a semiotic lens, Deely proposed regarding Peirce as “first of the postmoderns” (2001, 614), which opens the perspective of understanding postmodernism in relation to Peirce’s semeiotic. The crux of Deely’s argumentation lies in the relational ontology that the Peircean concept of sign implies. From this perspective, the subject/object dyad of modern logic is collapsed or, rather, bridged by the suprasubjectivity of a semiotic reality. Whether one accepts Deely’s daring proposal or not, Peirce’s pragmaticist (CP 5.18, 5.414; see Deely 2001, 616; Olteanu 2019) logic is foundational for semiotics, constituted a step out of modern dualism, has been adopted to discuss meaning as embodied (e. g., Hoffmeyer 1996; Deacon 1997; Stjernfelt 2007, 2014; Favareau 2010), digital coding and modelling (Sowa 2014; Ciula and Eide 2017) and, as I explain below, can offer new insights for methodologies of the multimodality framework (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001), the latter being a prominent concern at the moment. I argue that Peirce’s icon concept, which both drew interest and caused controversy around his semiotics, is peculiarly similar to the concept denoted by the same term, albeit in its original Greek etymology (εἰκών), of the iconodules during the Iconoclast controversy. Besides identifying a new subject for the investigation of the history of semiotics, I argue that this concept of certain medieval Byzantine theologians can inspire new developments for semiotic methodology. Given the state of scholarship at the moment, it is very difficult to tell what was Peirce’s firsthand knowledge of the theological debates of the iconoclast controversy. While Peirce was profoundly knowledgeable in Church history

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(e. g., CP 6.3) and obviously inspired by religious ideas (e. g., 1.560, 6.311, 6.441– 43), he never mentioned Christian theologians of the time of the iconoclast controversy (as far as his available writings show). Nevertheless, he mentioned that he “once bought and read through Dr. Schaff’s three volumes upon the Creeds of Christendom” (CP 6.3). These volumes cover, of course, the seventh Ecumenical Council and the prominent theologians involved therein. We do not know how much Peirce insisted on the study of the Iconoclast controversy in his reading “through” of Schaff’s work. Also, he mentioned that he read these studies with a particular purpose, namely in view of his doctrine of agapism, which is only indirectly connected to iconicity. This focus, it can be speculated, might have distracted him from noticing the relevance of that controversy for his notion of iconicity. Nevertheless, it is likely that Peirce’s decision to term ‘icon’ the sign that signifies due to similarity was inspired, directly or indirectly, from the homonymous Christian theological concept, as developed during the controversy. Peirce’s nonlinguistic concepts of proposition, symbol and argument (see Stjernfelt 2014) underpin a methodology reminiscent of the iconodules’ argument, as championed by John of Damascus, that Scripture can be understood, also at symbolical levels, due to its primarily iconic mode of intertextual signification. The intricacies of this specific theological hermeneutic can be highly insightful for further developments of semiotic theory and methodology in the direction of non-dualism and multimodality.

2 Peirce’s concepts of sign and icon In Peirce’s conception, the icon “is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes merely by virtue of characters of its own, and which it possesses, just the same, whether any such Object actually exists or not.” (CP 2.247) Simplified, it is a sign that signifies due to a similarity with its object. This simplified definition, though, has caused some confusion. The notion of iconicity is central in Peirce’s semiotics because of how it accounts for the operationality of the sign, which makes it a more subtle concept than merely undirected similarity (Stjernfelt 2015). For the foundational concept of sign, Peirce left many definitions, many of which equivalent, but some complementary to others. For example, he claimed that “a sign is something, A, which denotes some fact or object, B, to some interpretant thought, C” (CP 1.346). This implies a definition, for instance, that explicates the instrumental role played by signs in learning, namely “a sign is something by knowing which we know something more.” (CP 8.332) It is generally accepted that Peirce (see CP 6.498, 1.560, 5.84) took his concept of the sign directly from Saint Augustine’s definition of signum from De Doc-

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trina Christiana, completed in the late fourth century. Augustine introduced this concept by pointing to its specific relational characteristic, which challenges Aristotelian substance metaphysics: Now that I am discussing signs, I must say, conversely, that attention should not be paid to the fact that they exist, but rather to the fact that they are signs, or, in other words, that they signify. For a sign is a thing which of itself makes some other thing come into mind, besides the impression that it presents to the senses. (Augustine 2009, II.1.57)

That the defining aspect of signs is their signification, which implies relationship and not their (individual) existence, is the reason for which, according to Deely, this concept is instrumental for philosophical postmodernity, namely for overcoming subject/object dualism. Arguably, this could be one of the major reasons for which Peirce adopted this concept. The sign’s transcendence of the subject/ object dichotomy, according to Deely, implies an embodied and environmental view on knowledge as suprasubjective: “That form of being [the sign] is relation as suprasubjectively linking things in the environment among themselves, linking things to objects in apprehension, linking objects apprehended among themselves, and linking objects to the organisms doing that apprehending […].” (2009, 73) Augustine developed a learning theory revolving around the sign concept with the aim of empowering his contemporary Christians with the hermeneutic ability necessary for reading the Bible and understanding it, in view of what is deemed apostolic allegoresis, namely as intended by the curators of Christian Scripture at the First Ecumenical Council. The other aim of this book by Augustine was that of justifying the educational program of pre-Christian Hellenism in the new Christian Roman society. For these two purposes, he found it necessary to develop a doctrine of signs because, he argued, “all teaching is teaching of either things or signs, but things are learnt through signs” (Augustine 1995, I.4.13). This is the starting point of the medieval liberal curriculum, developed later, in Augustine’s lasting influence, by medieval scholars, among which prominently Boethius, Cassiodorus and Isidore of Seville (see Deely 2001, 183; Olteanu 2015, 40 – 41). The Augustinian notion of sign is also the main tool of Scholastic logic, as extensively discussed in the concern of history of semiotics, recently, by Deely (2001) and Marmo (2010), but, first of all, by Peirce himself. Peirce’s philosophy can be labelled Neoscholastic, given his adoption and development of Scholastic logic, which he termed semeiotic. Deely left a monumental work on the history of semiotics, proving how enormously vast the subject is because of how entangled semiotic notions are with the development of logic, education, linguistics and philosophy, in general. However, neither Deely approached the

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Iconoclastic controversy in a semiotic concern. Peirce did not mention it either (as far as I am aware and as far as Peirce’s manuscripts are available) but some curious similarities suggest that the specifically Peircean notion of icon has its roots in there. This can be very insightful for contemporary undertakings, besides scholarly history. It would be at least rushed, if not impossible, to claim that Peirce’s icon-centered semiotics is directly taken from the Iconoclast controversy. Nevertheless, by bringing to the fore some of the main conceptual similarities, I aim to posit the relevance of a pre-Scholastic logic for contemporary semiotics.

3 Learning through icons Recently, there has been a growing interest for Peirce’s pragmatism in semiotics. The scholarship responsible for this (e. g., Short 2007; Pietarinen 2006; Stjernfelt 2007, 2014, 2015) brings to the fore Peirce’s late semiotic developments, when he explicitly claimed the centrality of the notions of icon and iconicity for his logic. If by knowing signs one knows more than what the perceived signs immediately present, following Peirce (see above), then all signs must have an iconic component which makes them operational. The icon is the sign type that secures this sign function: For a great distinguishing property of the icon is that by the direct observation of it other truths concerning its object can be discovered than those which suffice to determine its construction. Thus, by means of two photographs a map can be drawn, etc. Given a conventional or other general sign of an object, to deduce any other truth than that which it explicitly signifies, it is necessary, in all cases, to replace that sign by an icon. This capacity of revealing unexpected truth is precisely that wherein the utility of algebraical formulae consists, so that the iconic character is the prevailing one. (CP 2.279)

Arguably, one of the main reasons for the current surge of interest for Peirce’s semiotics is that it posits iconicity as the phenomenon that makes semiosis operational. In this context, Stjernfelt (2007, 63; 2015) suggests that one of the reasons for which semiotic scholarship during the 20th century often dismissed certain aspects of Peirce’s thought (e. g., Derrida 1997, 45 – 50; Eco 1976) consists in the perpetuation of some misunderstandings regarding icon and iconicity. In support of this claim, Stjernfelt (2007, 66) points out that one of the main motivations behind Umberto Eco’s reconsideration of his earlier theories (e. g., 1976) in Kant and the Platypus (1997) has to do with the famous semiotician’s new reading of Peirce’s iconicity notion, stimulated by the new trend of cognitive linguistics. Of course, another, connected reason for Peirce’s lack of popularity dur-

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ing the 20th century is that Peirce’s semiotics cannot be reconciled with the linguistic turn, which imposed glottocentrism as mainstream philosophy and, implicitly, a predominantly conventional notion of meaning (see also Cobley 2016, 27). This latter position towards iconicity, namely that pure iconicity does not suffice for the construction of meaning and that conventionality must always be present, even if minimally, in meaning-making, is descriptive of the iconoclast view, as well. The iconoclast position was that, in the absence of clear indexicality, reference can only be established in light of a convention, as the famously iconoclast Carolingian books claimed (see Bettetini 2014). Particularly because of a mistranslation, the Emperor Charlemagne found the conclusion of the Second Council of Nicaea heretical. From the point of view of Charlemagne’s court theologians, reacting to a wrong Latin translation of the Greek acta of the named Ecumenical Council, painted religious images can only have an aesthetic function, being nothing more than imagines formosae (beautiful images) (see Bettetini 2014, 141). From this point of view, symbolic language is preferable for spiritual contemplative purposes: because of the lack of conventionality of painted images, their object is open to infinite interpretation. The bottom-line argument in the Carolingian books is that iconic representations on their own cannot have a clear reference. They need a conventional, symbolic addition to actually convey something (see Libri Carolini IV, 16 and III, 16 in Tatarkiewicz and Barrett 1970, 100, 106). Following Peirce, this is the essence of nominalism, to which he opposed realism, clearly taking a side in what was the late medieval debate on the reality of universals, in Scholasticism. While not explicit and in different terms, the debates and attitudes towards iconography during the Iconoclast controversy have direct consequences for the debate between nominalism and realism (Stith 1993 – 1994). Together with the notion of iconicity, that of significance is seminal for Peirce’s (advocacy of) realism. Short (2007, 6) considers that, in contemporary language, the term intentionality, coming from phenomenology (Brentano [1874] 1973), with Scholastic origins, too, is even more appropriate for what Peirce meant by significance. Peirce’s semiotic realism stands in the assumption that thoughts are signs. This does not imply a solipsistic ontology or psychologism, namely that logical operations are strictly cognitive phenomena. The intentionality concept, like Peirce’s significance does not suppose a psychological intention but merely the representation’s stretching towards the represented. To explain this, Short (2007, 6) cites Brentano (1973, 68): “Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call […] reference to a

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content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity.” This is not the place to expand on Peirce’s realism, beyond the scope of what his notions of icon and iconicity entail. In what regards icons, Stjernfelt (2007, 49 – 50) explains that, according to Peirce, besides similarity, they require a direction. This is similar but more basic than phenomenological intentionality, as it does not require a mind doing the representation at all. Direction makes the icon asymmetrical: if a is similar to b then b is similar to a but if a signifies b then b does not necessarily signify a. Thus, if a is an icon of b then b is similar to a, but it cannot be said whether b is also an icon of a. This is relevant both for the relation between tokens and (proto)types, discussed below (see section 5), as well as for understanding the place of Peircean iconcitiy vis-à-vis the patristic notion of verisimilitude, namely bearing resemblance to something true. Gramigna (2020) explains that according to Augustine a verisimilitude, that is, something that is truth-like, is by default false. Thus, an iconic representation, from this perspective, cannot said to be true because it signifies by showcasing something else than its represented. In brief, a drawing of myself may represent me to others because of similarity, but the drawing can do that precisely because it is not me. This aspect of the icon is evident in yet another definition that Peirce (CP 2.247) provided for this sign type: An Icon is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes merely by virtue of characters of its own, and which it possesses, just the same, whether any such Object actually exists or not. It is true that unless there really is such an object, the Icon does not act as a sign; but this has nothing to do with its character as a sign. Anything whatever […] is an Icon of anything, in so far it is like that thing and used as a sign of it.

Augustine’s concept of verisimilitude does not imply a contradiction between his logic and the icon notion of the iconodules. It merely posits that the icon is not what it represents, a fact comprehended by the iconodules through the distinction between token and prototype. However, it might well be the case that the iconodules’ carefully developed theory of representation and that of Augustine are not in full agreement. Further inquiry should compare verisimilitude in Augustine, icon according to 8th century iconodules and Peirce’s iconicity in light of intentionality (direction). Of main interest here is that since Peirce’s justification of realism rests, among other claims, primarily on a concept of iconicity is particularly insightful for contemporary discussions on representation and factuality, in the situation where discursive theory is challenged by the multiplication of media representations caused by digitalization and the consequent need for intermedial and cross-modal translations. Just like religious icons explained the Scriptures to

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the illiterati in the Middle Ages, so does digitalization currently redefine the modern concept of literacy. Literacy, the rationale of modern education, has been conceived and traditionally understood as bound to the monomodality of print. From the perspective of the Enlightenment, individuals could be empowered to act as citizens by mastering reading, writing and arithmetic, namely operations with symbols. The spectrum of skills for practicing one’s rights and prospering in contemporary societies is much broader, fluid and permissive than merely that of dealing with alphabets and numbers (e. g., Lankshear and Knobel 2010). This is primarily due to the process of digitalization (boyd 2014; Mills 2015; Lacković 2020; Lacković and Olteanu 2020, Campbell et al. 2021), which brings about a plurality of media and modes of representation, undermining print-capitalism.

4 The iconic turn The recently refreshed interest for Peirce coincides with the iconic turn, which has been observed to take place in the humanities and social sciences, over the past three decades. This turn, as well, is connected to the increase of media and modes of social representation. Put very generally, it consists in acknowledging the importance of schematic representations for knowledge. More precisely than undoing the linguistic turn, the iconic turn consists in the realization that language is a medium and a modelling system among others. It has been first mentioned explicitly and, also, discussed extensively in visuality studies (Boehm and Mitchell 2006; Moxey 2008). The turn has been manifest for some time in various disciplines where glottocentrism, namely the assumption that the articulated language of humans is essential for grasping concepts, appeared sterile for theoretical development and obsolete in light of recent empirical findings. For instance, the emergence of cognitive linguistics, based on the observation that knowledge and language are organized according to schemata that are embodied (e. g., Lakoff and Johnson 1999), is a remarkable breakthrough in linguistics and philosophy that exhibits the iconic turn. This paradigm of linguistics marks the breakthrough from the polarized picture of language as cultural, as traditionally studied by sociolinguistics and discursive theory, or as cognitive computation, as viewed in Chomskyan linguistics (see Geeraerts and Cuykens 2007, 9 – 11). This example suggests the pragmatic synthesis that the iconic turn, the turn from seeing meaning as strictly articulated in language to meaning as embodied and schematic, leads to.

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As shown by a wide spectrum of scholarship on meaning, from Lakoff and Johnson (1980) to Kress and van Leuween (2001), modern philosophy tended to regard metaphors and images as trivial and irrelevant for knowledge acquisition. This is an implication of modernity’s dismissal of the role of the body for conceptualization. I explain below that materiality and even, using a contemporary term, embodiment are characteristic of the iconodules’ attitude towards iconography. The resurgent interest for Peircean iconicity stems from within the trend of the iconic turn, as Stjernfelt explains: “In recent years, a new ‘morphological turn’ or even ‘iconic turn’ as a part of the vast domain of cognitive science has changed the picture. Here, continuous models not reducible to algebra are introduced alongside feature-preserving mappings of such models between (mental) domains—in cognitive semantics, cognitive linguistics, in the Peirce renaissance in semiotics, etc.” (Stjernfelt 2007, 53)

5 The semiotics of Christian patristics Augustine developed a semiotic theory within a general paradigm of his time that implied the type of relational hermeneutics that he explicated through his theory. I have also argued somewhere else (Olteanu 2018) that the Christian Church Fathers used to interpret Scripture through intertextual analogy, particularly as between passages from the Old and the New Testament, but not only. In the same publication, I suggested that the scholarly discipline of semiotics, what Deely termed semiotic consciousness (2001, 40), emerged when Middle Eastern text hermeneutics met classical Greek and Roman philosophy, that is, when a highly analogical and codified system of interpretations was brought into a context of systematic philosophical conceptualization. It is remarkable that formalizing the doctrine of signs was not a popular endeavor. Only Augustine undertook this effort and he did so strictly for an educational purpose, which includes integrating secular teaching in a Christian context. Many other Christian authors, contemporary with Augustine, exhibited a rich semiotic hermeneutic but no drive to formalize it into philosophical concepts that could serve as methodological tools. The intertextual analogy typical of patristics can be exemplified through a reflection on fragments from the New Testament, such as the following: Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but

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you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed. (Matt 16:1– 4, NKJV)

While the Scriptural use of the term “sign” (σημήϊον) is different from that of the philosophical concept, a connection can be observed here. One of the messages in this passage is that the scholars of Scripture, in this case the Pharisees, should know that Scripture provides signs about the Messiah. The patristic reading of this passage is that the “sign of Jonah’’ refers to the Resurrection, as Jonah’s escape from the Leviathan prefigures Christ’s Resurrection. Since the Apostolic age, this manner of signification as typology has been normative in Christian Biblical hermeneutics (e. g., Westerfield 2013): in this example, Jonah is a type of the Messiah. Interestingly, the sign is iconic, as it functions in virtue of a similarity: the reader is meant to understand that something that Jonah did resembles something that the Messiah does. Thus, for the patristic reader, the lesson of this text is that Scripture is understood through intertextual analogies that signify because of similarity or, more precisely, because of some qualities which they share. In this sense, the Old Testament prefigures the New Testament. Herein, another introductory remark of Augustine to his De Doctrina Christiana is insightful as to why the intellectual ambiance of the early centuries of Christianity was favorable for a semiotic type of thinking. Namely, in the Praefatio of the book he explained that not understanding the “obscure passages of the divine scriptures” is like looking at a person’s hand rather than to the stars to which that hand is pointing. Loosely, this can be compared with looking at the representation and its represented without understanding the concluding interpretation that the analogy between the two entails. Specifically, that concluding interpretation is, in Peirce’s terms, the Interpretant of an icon. This icon (in the Peircean sense) is evoked through monomodal written language, if we leave aside possible mental images (such as that of Jonah coming out a Leviathan). From this perspective, symbolic codification (i. e., written language) as a mode and as a medium of representation is fit for conveying the Gospel because it affords a syntax between representation and represented, which is what Peirce termed iconicity (Stjernfelt 2015; see CP 4.561n). Peirce’s definition of the icon, as well as of the sign, in general, does not ascribe meaning as belonging to any particular modality. While often confused with (mental) imagery, in a pictorial sense, an icon can afford any modal representation, or any combination of modalities. This is the same as the iconodules’ bottom-line argument in favor of practicing icon veneration in Christianity: namely, that the veneration of (written) Scripture is the same practice as the ven-

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eration of painted images (Lock 1997, 10; John of Damascus 2003, 29). In contemporary terms, this is a matter of intermedial and cross-modal translation.

6 The Iconoclast controversy As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, as a scholarly concept, icon originates in the debates of the Iconoclast controversy. Here I sketch the conceptual similarities between the icon notion of the iconodules and that of Peircean semiotics. The term is of Greek etymology. The (classical) Greek εἰκών (eikṓn), loosely translatable into English as image, is the word used in the Septuagint in the striking verse 27 of the first chapter of Genesis, about the creation of the human: “So God created man in His own image [εἰκόνα]; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Gen 1:27, NKJV) While there is no doubt that the roots of the Peircean notion of sign, as well as those of contemporary semiotics in general, lie in Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana, there is little to no scholarship on the roots of Peirce’s concept of icon. As explained above, this latter concept is of particular contemporary importance, being responsible, in part, for Peirce’s newfound popularity. Peirce’s semiotics provided a remarkable grounding for the current iconic turn. Stjernfelt (2015) has recently clarified that the term iconicity originates in Peirce and not in later Peirce-influenced scholars, as commonly supposed for a rather long time. This concept emerges in Peirce’s development of Existential Graphs (EGs) (CP 4.561n, see also 4.394– 4.395, 8.331), namely his system of graphic representation of logical operations, which also defines his logic. Here, iconicity is a quality of the relation between the logical operation or quantifier and its representation. The need for an iconicity of logic is what determined Peirce to develop a graphic system of representation for logic as minimal as possible in predefined operations. He claimed that algebraic notations are unsatisfactory because they require conventions and do not reflect the syntax of logical operations. The EGs system, which shall not be explained here as this is not the purpose of the chapter, requires only the operations of conjunction and negation, to which Peirce also added the line of identity (literally, a line, see CP 4.583), as a tool for constructing complex propositions without repeating quantifiers when their represented entity is not itself repeated. Any other logical operation besides conjunction and negation can be represented through EGs by combinations of these two basic operations. Also, conjunction and negation are represented in a minimal and iconic way: two quantifiers next to each other are in conjunction (AB means A and B) and a bubble drawn around a quantifier means that quantifier’s negation. Peirce termed these ways of representing logical operations iconic be-

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cause of how they are interpreted to relate to their object in virtue of their background. The only assumption that Peirce claimed in his system was that of the line of assertion (CP 4.396): namely, the page on which to read or write (e. g., a blank page) acts as a sheet of assertion, or phemic sheet, which represents the Universe of Discourse. Thus, anything inscribed on the sheet is asserted within the Universe of Discourse. If something is circumscribed within, say, a bubble, it is literally separated from the Universe of Discourse, hence, a negation. This is an example of iconicity. It is noteworthy that Peirce’s EGs system was adopted in digital coding, as Conceptual Graphs (Sowa 2014). This demonstrates the modal flexibility of this system of logical notations, which thus highlights the contemporary relevance of non-glottocentrism for semiotic theory. The philosophy behind EGs is reminiscent of the reasoning behind the theology of icons. Certainly, EGs of logic and depictions meant to be used in religious practices have very different purposes, but they both rely on the same notion of, in Peirce’s term, iconicity, understood as material and perceivable. For instance, that in EGs an inscription, first of all, signifies an assertion in a Universe of Discourse, can be paralleled to the habit in iconography, given the difference in rationale, to first draw an eye on the surface on which the icon itself would be painted, underneath which the word “God” would be written (Andreopoulos [2006] 2014, 26; 2005, 75). Through this practice the iconographer, it can be said in Peirce’s terms, establishes the Universe of Discourse. Everything that is depicted on that surface, hence, is understood as asserted before the Divine gaze. During the Iconoclast controversy, the main theological argument of the iconodules was that since God was incarnate as a human being and could thus be perceived through human (or, indeed, a non-human animal’s) senses, then He can also be depicted (see Andreopoulos 2005, 74). The theologians who advocated in favor of icon veneration supported this argument with a Biblical reference, namely: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9, NKJV) When coining the expression theology of icons in the 20th century, Ouspensky and Lossky invoked and explained this justification in the iconodules’ argumentation: “One knows that the defenders of the holy images founded the possibility of Christian iconography on the fact of the Incarnation of the Word: icons, just as well as the Scriptures, are expressions of the inexpressible, and have become possible thanks to the revelation of God which was accomplished in the Incarnation of the Son.” (Ouspensky and Lossky, [1952] 1999, 14) This argument overturns the construal that veneration of representations of the divine is idolatry, as the Old Testament commandment used to be interpreted (see Locke 1997, 9). The iconoclasts had, at first, invoked this interpretation of the Old Testament restrictions. However, countering this with the argument of the In-

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carnation did not settle the debate but only revealed that one of its most important stakes was aside a purely theological matter. Namely, the dispute was of a philosophical kind, between (neo)idealist and embodiment perspectives. The iconoclasts assumed a Neoplatonic position, arguing against the veneration of matter in general, as matter, from this perspective, would be gnostically unreliable. The argumentation of the iconodules, on the other hand, is implicit of an embodied perspective on knowledge, according to which sense perception is reliable if not, actually, necessary for spiritual practice. As Stith (1993 – 1994, 34) explains the position of the iconodules, “[t]he icon […] offers us a way […] to reconnect the body (and matter itself) with the spirit—a way actually to see God with our human eyes in this passing life.” The task of the iconodule theologians, thus, was to collapse the dualistic Neoplatonic ontology that opposed matter to mind and/or spirit so that they could claim that a depiction of a holy person or event is to be venerated as the very person or event. In the case where the represented is God, who is worshipped, which is more than veneration, which is appropriate to offer to saints, the representation is not worshipped, but venerated. This aspect of spiritual practice offers an important insight: that the iconodules would not confuse representation and what is represented. To counter their opponents in a satisfying manner they used, as well, a Neoplatonic language, maintaining the distinction between prototype and image (icon), the latter being understood as a token or copy of the prototype. From their point of view, which, in contemporary terms, I here label as an embodiment perspective, the iconodules could argue that “the copy shares the glory of its prototype, as a reflection shares the brightness of light” (Theodore the Studite 1981, 28). The argumentation of the iconodules, then, displays a notion of icon as a property of the relation between represented and representation and not a modality (painting, written text) or a property of a modality. It is, rather, a matter of syntax. John of Damascus (e. g., 2003, 37) challenged the iconoclasts by claiming that it is inconsistent to venerate Scripture, the very object that embodies it (the book itself), while not venerating painted icons. In this way, he pointed to the fact that by venerating what Scripture represents, anti-materialists cannot be true to their doctrine as they are venerating the materialized representation, too. John of Damascus used the same argument regarding the veneration of the sign of the cross. What Scripture represents, is the point, can be represented also by painted images because both of these modalities of representation are icons. His argument in contemporary terminology is not only anti-glottocentric, but also supportive of multimodality, as he explained that learning Christian doctrine by either reading or listening is equally valid (2003, 37). The argument further develops by including matters of embodiment and positioning: if matter

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is irrelevant for spirituality, John of Damascus raised the question, why do Christians care about facing the East when praying? In brief, in the iconodules’ argumentation, sense perception and the body’s role for representation cannot be overlooked. If a modality affords an appropriate representation-represented syntax, then it is as good as any other. Interestingly, the idea of likeness, that is the criterion of iconic signification in Peirce’s conception, was invoked to explain the relation between image and prototype: The prototype and the image are one in hypostatic likeness, but two in nature: one entity is not split into two likenesses, so as thereafter to have no participation or relation with each other; nor is one and the same entity called by two names, so that at one time the prototype would be called image, and at another time the image would be called prototype. (Theodore the Studite 1981, 108 – 9)

7 Implications for multimodality The same manner of reference by typology as interpreted in written Scripture is at play in iconography (Ouspensky and Lossky 1999, 7). Peirce’s notions of sign and iconicity allow for the same cross-modal freedom, which contrasts the monomodal rigidity of sign systems in the Saussurean purview. In their founding of the multimodality framework, Kress and van Leuween (2001, 4) started with a criticism of the old Saussurean notion of meaning as fixed signifier-signified articulation: “Where traditional linguistics had defined language as a system that worked through double articulation, where a message was an articulation as a form and as a meaning, we see multimodal texts as making meaning in multiple articulations.” This critical revision of the notion of meaning as a single and, therefore, conventionally fixed articulation of signifier and signified generated a rich research program, coined multimodality, by the same Kress and van Leuween. In this foundational statement it is not clear which notion of double articulation are they opposing precisely: is it that of Hjelmslev’s structuralism (1954), or of Martinet’s (1962) and Labov’s (1966) phonology (1962), or the revised and, arguably, more flexible version of Derrida’s ([1974] 1997) poststructuralism? I find that the epistemological strength of Kress and van Leeuwen’s theory stands in this generality and, even, ambiguity. It points to the general limitations of the signifiersignified polarization, bibliographically originating in Saussure (1959), but possibly even older, assumed by default in a glottocentric academic environment. Particularly, it reveals that this distinction, like that between language (langue) and speech (parole) is mutual with a monomodal construal of meaning.

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Herein an investigation of the debates of the Iconoclast controversy can be of much relevance for contemporary semiotic research. Albeit in a different language and for different purposes, those debates exhibit that iconicity and multimodality are mutually implicit. Furthermore, the relation between these concepts, eventually, evokes an embodiment perspective on (human) knowledge (e. g., Ahlner and Zlatev 2010; Martinelli 2010, 91; Mittelberg 2007, 2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2017; Elleström 2013; Stjernfelt 2014). However, the multimodality framework is yet to fully integrate such a comprehensive theory. Notably, the effort of bridging these three foundational concepts—iconicity, multimodality, embodiment—within one unified theory is the enterprise of cognitive semiotics, rather than of the multimodality framework. That is to say, it is rather present in scholarship where Peirce’s semiotics is a commonplace. It is surprising, actually, that multimodality research, nested in social semiotics (e. g., Kress 2010) and starting off with a criticism of double articulation, only marginally considered Peirce’s semiotics for its theoretical constitution. Peirce’s semiotics, as particularly noticeable in his concept of iconicity, but not only (e. g., see the multimodality of Peirce’s proposition concept in Stjernfelt 2014), avoids double articulation from the start. Only very few recent and avantgarde examples (e. g., Bateman 2018; Lacković 2020) of work carried out in the multimodality purview integrate a Peircean perspective. By doing so, particularly with a focus on the notions of icon and iconicity, this emerging line of research is paving the way for an integrative synthesis in semiotics. Investigating the history of the icon concept and, particularly, the Iconoclast controversy debates, should contribute to this synthesis, this being one instance of Yelle’s (2013) consideration that religious studies can enrich semiotic theory. The curious similarities between the iconodules’ refutation of Neoplatonism and Peirce’s logic offer credible proof, I consider, that at least in an indirect way Peirce’s icon concept takes inspiration from there. Direct or indirect, we do not yet know how this concept reached Peirce. More important than the history of the concept, however, is that the Iconoclast controversy displays the mutual implications between, in contemporary terms, iconicity, multimodality and embodiment, that Peirce’s semiotics currently inspires and social semiotics takes interest in.

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8 Concluding: Inclusivity in the history of semiotics The most comprehensive historian of semiotics, John Deely, did not discuss the Iconoclast controversy. This is not a criticism of this influential scholar’s work. The grasp of his exploration of the history of semiotics is unrivaled and it is because of his work that a history of ideas investigation of semiotic theory begot a distinct justification. It is because of his work, as well, that we now have an idea of the complexity and entanglements of the historical development of semiotic consciousness. He could not have possibly covered all the relevant episodes of the history of the discipline. However, overlooking this particular moment of relevance for semiotics might be due to the narrative that Deely eventually appears to have seen in the history of semiotics. This narrative takes the student of semiotics on a journey from pre-Socratic symptomatology to post-Peircean developments through a long and defining Latin Age of intellectual and semiotic history. A fourth (Part II) of Deely’s monumental Four Ages of Understanding is entitled “The Latin Age.” To a large extent, Deely identified the intellectual history between classical antiquity and modernity with the intellectual history of Latin, Western Europe. Thus, he considered that the forging of the “Latin Lebenswelt” (2001, 161– 63), an expression that can very hardly be excused of culturalism, abruptly replaced Greek with Latin as the dominant academic language on the European continent, interrupting the heritage of Greek philosophy. With this lens, he marginalized the importance of developments occurring in the Byzantine Empire: Beginning with the overlap of Christianity and Paganism as the religion of the state in the reigns of Constantine and Julian, the careers of the Roman emperors fall squarely into the pattern of sea-changes which separated Europe, the original seat of the Roman Empire, from the Constantinople-based remnant of that empire. This remnant was to last, steeped in the Greek culture but philosophically stagnant, for yet another thousand years – the whole period in which modern Europe took form, politically as well as philosophically. (Deely 2001, 165)

Besides rushing to declare that the Eastern Roman Empire had been philosophically stagnant throughout its entire history, Deely considered that the “wealth of Greek culture” (2001, 187) properly lasted only remote from Europe, in the Middle East. This, as well, begs another question: why does Deely’s history of semiotics not display a more thorough consideration on the Arabic Age, then, overlapping with the Latin one? He explicitly noted the merits for intellectual history of what he termed Islamic culture (2001, 187– 88), yet another culturalist expression.

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While in some places he took the “Islamic” academic stage at face value, he seemed to have seen its ultimate contribution in merely delivering “Greek Intellectual Freedom to Latin European Civilization” (2001, 188). In his narrative, which has to conclude with Peircean pragmatic semiotics, “the abdication in principle and in detail of all judgment to the religious interpreters of sacred texts, for which Islam as a civilization opted after the twelfth century, left no room for the development in its tradition of the way of thinking called in postmodern times ‘pragmaticism.’ “ (2001, 188 – 89) For Deely, that the way to pragmaticism is obstructed meant that organized and institutionalized free and critical thinking is at a halt. He cast the same judgement onto Orthodox Judaism (2001, 181). In Islam, he found al-Ghazali’s The Incoherence of Philosophy (c. 1095) particularly responsible for this decline into the Dark Ages. While he discussed the opposition to al-Ghazali in Ibn Rushd’s The Incoherence of the Incoherence, he did not give the same weight to the influence this latter work had. This is surprising, given Deely’s (e. g., 2001, 209, 2009) particular interest in the semiotics of Iberian scholars, albeit of Late Scholasticism and of Latin affiliation. Ibn Rushd, it should be mentioned, spent much time in Córdoba, which became one of the three major Iberian university centres in Late Scholasticism. An investigation of a possible handover of scholarship from the Al-Andalusian Córdoba to the Conimbricensean heroes of Deelyan history of semiotics is called for. Deely did not leave us a thorough investigation of this possible pathway. He (2001, 197) considered that the work of Charlemagne, the opponent of the anti-iconoclast Second Council of Nicaea, was uniquely defining for the continuity of the free, critical and institutionalized inquiry that would lead, eventually and among other things, beyond Renaissance and Enlightenment, to postmodern semiotics: By comparison with the centers of learning at the time in Constantinople, Baghdad and Cordova, the network of Charlemagne’s schools was feeble. But out of them would come in a few centuries the universities first of Europe and then of the New World, centers of learning and inquiry that would establish the frontiers of a postmodern community of inquiry as global.

From the point of view assumed in the present paper this comes not without suspicion. Indeed, the inheritance left by Charlemagne’s Empire can hardly be overstated. It is strange, nevertheless, that the line of intellectual history that Deely considered to lead to Peirce has a pivotal point in a centre of anti-iconicity. My suggestion is that one explanation for this is a Eurocentric bias in Deely’s investigation, of the sort that was termed orientalism by Said (1979). He chose to marginalize the importance of scholarship both in Byzantium and the Arabic-speaking world, even in the case of Al-Andalus scholars, which might well have

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inspired the particularly semiotic type of Iberian Late Scholasticism. This certainly explains overlooking the Iconoclast controversy and the anti-Neoplatonism of the iconodules, which must have reached, in some form, the court of Charlemagne at least through the latter’s dialogue with Pope Leo III.

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Martinet, André. 1962. A Functional View of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mills, Kathy A. 2015. Literacy Theories for the Digital Age: Social, Critical, Multimodal, Spatial, Material and Sensory Lenses. New Perspectives in Language Education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Mittelberg, Irene. 2007. “Methodology for Multimodality.” In Methods in Cognitive Linguistics, edited by Monica Gonzalez-Marquez, Irene Mittelberg, Seana Coulson, and Michael J. Spivey, 225 – 48. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mittelberg, Irene. 2013. “The Exbodied Mind: Cognitive-Semiotic Principles as Motivating Forces in Gestures.” In Body—Language—Communication: An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction, Vol. 1, edited by Cornelia Müller, Alan J. Cienki, Ellen Fricke, Silvia H. Ladewig, David McNeill, and Sedinha Teßendorf, 755 – 84. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Mittelberg, Irene. 2014a. “Iconic and Representational Gestures.” In Body—Language— Communication: An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction, Vol. 2, edited by Cornelia Müller, Alan J. Cienki, Ellen Fricke, Silvia H. Ladewig, David McNeill, and Jana Bressem. 1732 – 746. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Mittelberg, Irene. 2014b. “Gestures and Metonymy.” In Body—Language—Communication: An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction, Vol. 2, edited by Cornelia Müller, Alan J. Cienki, Ellen Fricke, Silvia H. Ladewig, David McNeill, and Jana Bressem. 1732 – 746. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Mittelberg, Irene. 2017. “Experiencing and Construing Spatial Artifacts from Within: Simulated Artifact Immersion as a Multimodal Viewpoint Strategy.” Cognitive Linguistics 28 (3): 381 – 415. Moxey, Keith. 2008. “Visual Studies and the Iconic Turn.” Journal of Visual Culture 7 (2): 131 – 46. Olteanu, Alin. 2015. Philosophy of Education in the Semiotics of Charles Peirce: A Cosmology of Learning and Loving. Oxford: Peter Lang. Olteanu, Alin. 2018. “Semiotics as a Proposal for a Numanistic Educational Program.” In Readings in Numanities, edited by Oana Andreică, and Alin Olteanu, 3 – 17. Cham: Springer. Olteanu, Alin. 2019. “Schematic Enough to be Safe from Kidnappers: The Semiotics of Charles Peirce as Transitionalist Pragmatism.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 53 (4): 788 – 806. Ouspensky, Leonid, and Vladimir Lossky. (1952) 1999. The Meaning of Icons. Translated by G. E. H. Palmer and Evgeniia Kadloubovsky. Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Peirce, C. S. 1931 – 1935, 1958. The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Edited by Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss, and A. W. Burks. 8 vols. Cambridge: Belknap. [In-text references are to CP, followed by paragraph number.] Pietarinen, A.-V. 2006. Signs of Logic. Dordrecht: Springer. Rorty, Richard. M., ed. 1967. The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method with Two Retrospective Essays. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Said, Edward. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Saussure, Ferdinand de. (1916) 1959. Course in general linguistics. Translated by Wade Baskin. New York: McGraw-Hill. Sebeok, Thomas. (1994) 2001. Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

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Takaharu Oda

Semiotics against transubstantiation: Peirce’s reception of Berkeley 1 Introduction This article argues that George Berkeley’s (1685 – 1753) interpretation of scientific and religious language was significantly received in C.S. Peirce’s (1839 – 1914) pragmatist semiotic. ¹ To this end, their similar views against transubstantiation in the Eucharist (Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion) will be considered. Berkeley being an Anglican bishop and Peirce’s life being linked to the Episcopal Church,² a chief emphasis will be placed upon Peirce’s deriving his pragmatic method from Berkeley’s philosophy of language. At least three times, Peirce reviewed Berkeley’s works, including Manuscript Introduction (to the Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710), in which he identified his version of Berkeleyan nominalism. Berkeley’s original Manuscript Introduction (1708) reads: “whatsoever proposition is made up of terms standing for general notions or ideas, the same is to me, so far forth, [absolutely] unintelligible” (1901 III, 370; MI 27).³ If terms do not

 “I am, as far as I know, a pioneer, or rather a backwoodsman, in the work of clearing and opening up what I call semiotic [emphasis in the original], that is, the doctrine of the essential nature and fundamental varieties of possible semiosis” (1907, CP 5.488; MS 318, 96). The abbreviations of Peirce’s œuvre are found in the references at the end.  According to Peirce’s draft letter (24 April 1892) to the Rev John Wesley Brown (Rector of St Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, in New York City), he had a “mystical” experience of the Eucharist: “no sooner had I got into the church than I seemed to receive the direct permission of the Master to come. […] But when the instant [of the communion] came, I found myself carried up to the altar rail, almost without my own volition” (MS L482). Also, drafting “The First of Six Lessons in Elocution for Episcopalian Ministers” (MS 1570), Peirce intended to apply for a vacant post at the Episcopal Church’s theological seminary but in vain. Peirce was born to a devout Unitarian father Benjamin Peirce (Harvard professor of mathematics) but converted to the Episcopal Church in 1863 when he married the first wife Zina Fay, who partly influenced him to espouse Trinitarianism. We have no evidence that Peirce apostatized from Christianity. See Johnson (2006, 552– 562); Slater (2015, 46, 134, 160 – 162); Raposa (1989, 167, n. 7). The Episcopal Church is the American branch of the Anglican Communion (as the Church of Ireland, to which Berkeley belonged, is the Irish branch).  As to Berkeley’s œuvre, see the following abbreviations: A Defence of Free-thinking in Mathematics, section x = Defence x; Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher, dialogue x, section y = Alciphron x.y; An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, section x = NTV x; De motu, sive de motus https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-010

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denote anything particular but “abstract and universal ideas” expressed by “metaphysicians” (1901 III, 370), then there exist no such ideas. ⁴ In this section, though arguably, one can see the budding of Berkeley’s pragmatic (or use) theory of meaning, according to which there is no general or universal idea independent of its practical use of the term. MI, containing this section, was first published in the Fraser edition (1871).⁵ The later pragmatist Peirce read Berkeley’s MI in that edition, as he claimed in his first “Berkeley Review” (1871, CP 8.26): In the first draft⁶ of the Introduction of the Principles of Human Knowledge, which is now for the first time printed, he even goes so far as to censure Ockam [sic] for admitting that we can have general terms in our mind; Ockam’s opinion being that we have in our minds conceptions, which are singular themselves, but are signs of many things.

Through the medieval scholastic realist-nominalist debate, such as William of Ockham’s nominalism,⁷ Peirce criticised his version of Berkeleyan nominalism

principio & natura et de causa communicationis motuum, section x = DM x; Manuscript Introduction (to the Principles of Human Knowledge), section x = MI x; Notebooks (also known as Philosophical Commentaries), entry x = Notebooks x; Part I of A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, section x = Principles x; Siris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Enquiries, section x = Siris x; The Analyst, section x = Analyst x; The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, vol. x, page y = Works x.y; Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, dialogue x, page y = Dialogues x.y. Except Manuscript Introduction in the Fraser edition (1901) that Peirce read (and the Belfrage edition with its sections) and Alciphron in the Jaffro-Brykman-Schwartz edition, I used the Luce-Jessop edition of the Works (9 vols.). The two Fraser editions (1871 I, 422; 1901 III, 370), which Peirce read and I quoted as above (MI 27), slightly differ from those of Belfrage and Luce-Jessop, whilst the Belfrage edition is the most detailed and annotated presentation.  However, this early view (1708) is to be modified in the published version of the Principles (e. g., Intro 12, 15) and Berkeley’s mature philosophy of language (e. g., DM 1721, 39, 71; Alciphron 1732/1752, 7.7), for general or universal ideas are useful and meaningful in (mechanical) theories and locutions, unless they are abstract or abstracted. More of this anon.  Manuscript Introduction was included in the two Fraser editions as Berkeley’s Rough Draft of the Introduction to the Principles of Human Knowledge, though not in the Sampson edition. The current standard Luce-Jessop edition also includes MI (Works II). See Fraser 1871 I, 407– 437; 1901 III, 357– 383; Belfrage 1987, 12– 13.  MI is arguably no “first draft” unlike Peirce’s assumption. As Belfrage (1987, 11) notes, “it was no draft at all, and certainly no rough draft, but intended as a final copy to be printed.” Thus Belfrage adopts a neutral name “manuscript.”  Berkeley referred to “schoolmen call’d Nominals” (1901 III, 365 – 366, MI 19a). Ockham, whose spelling often differs, is a representative of scholastic nominalists. A passage containing this reference was erased by Berkeley himself, but the Fraser editions presented it in footnotes.

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(i. e., no abstract, universal, general ideas, notions, or mental representations) in the hitherto unpublished MI. In effect, Peirce was an extremely attentive reader of Berkeley’s Works. In his 1901 review of the second Fraser edition (i. e., his third review after the 1871 and 1899 ones),⁸ Peirce rather extolled: “Berkeley is […] entitled to be considered the father of all modern philosophy […] more than any other single philosopher, who should be regarded as the author of that method of modern ‘pragmatism.’”⁹ In this Peircean sense of pragmatism,¹⁰ the question is whether he derived his pragmatic method from Berkeley’s philosophy of language in semiotic idealism, both in scientific and religious contexts. There I consider Berkeley’s own pragmatic method in line with that of Peirce;¹¹ especially, I approach this comparison through their critical comments on transubstantiation (i. e., substantial change of the consecrated bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood). In what follows, the article is divided into three sections. §1 firstly introduces what Peirce meant by “Berkeleyanism” when he was constructing his own semiotic and thereby pragmatism. Here I will specifically examine Peirce’s Harvard Lectures (1903) and his reviews of Berkeley’s Works. §2 explicates Berkeley’s pragmatic method in his theory of signs or signification. For this analysis, revising Kenny Pearce’s argument (2017), I will apply the distinction between (genuine) reference and quasi-reference in Berkeley to Peirce’s use of terms or language. The former referential terms (e. g., “white” about the idea of a wall) label individual ideas (objects) that exist extra-linguistically. On the other hand, in the latter use, the ideas to which we quasi-refer purely depend on the sign system for their existence, but their quasi-referential terms (e. g., “force” and “gravity” in physics; “grace” and “mercy” in theology) are useful or pragmatic in directing the disposition and action in the believer’s mind. Specifically, I

 Peirce’s first review (1871) was on the first Fraser edition of Berkeley’s Works (1871); his second review (1899) was on the Sampson edition (1897– 1898); his third review (1901) was on the second Fraser edition (1901).  See Peirce’s later laudatory, perhaps exaggerating, remarks: Berkeley is “a very distinguished master of the pragmatist mode of thinking” (c.1907, MS 322); “great pabulum [i. e., food for thought] in Berkeley” (1909, MS 620); “a thinker to whom I owed half what I owe to Berkeley” (1910, MS 663); Friedman (1997, 253).  What Peirce meant by “pragmatism” as “a maxim of logic” (Harvard Lecture Four, P 189) is e. g., to “Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object. […] an application of the sole principle of logic which was recommended by Jesus; ‘Ye may know them by their fruits,’ and it is very intimately allied with the ideas of the gospel” (“How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” 1878, CP 5.402, n. 2; Matt 7.20).  On Peirce’s theological semiotic or “theosemiotic,” see Raposa (1989, 142– 148, 167).

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argue that this referential and quasi-referential distinction lends itself to understanding Peirce’s reception of Berkeley’s pragmatic method in using terms or signs. Then, provided the two semioticians’ pragmatic methods aligned with religious discourse, §3 presents some earlier Anglican positions on the eucharistic semiotics (since Thomas Cranmer) in terms of spiritual presence of the body of Christ.¹² Against this backdrop on their Anglican sides, I clarify the rationale behind Berkeley’s and Peirce’s similar criticisms of the Roman Catholic doctrine of corporeal presence, namely, transubstantiation. Regarding their respective pragmatic methods against transubstantiation, I will consider quasi-reference of theoretical or religious terms, such as “grace,” as well as the eucharistic terms “bread” and “wine.” Thereby we will stand to recognize that Peirce’s pragmatic method, albeit not exactly his categorised “Berkeleyanism,” is viably established on his reception of Berkeley’s pragmatic thinking of terms, language, or the sign system.

2 Berkeleyanism through the lens of Peirce’s pragmatism Concerning each pragmatic method, it is first crucial to explain why I defend a semiotic connection between Berkeley and Peirce. This section deals with what Peirce meant by “Berkeleyanism,” and why he differed from it (the 1903 Harvard Lectures). Then, I focus on how he discovered a pragmatist “unformulated method followed by Berkeley” (1908, CP 6.482) in relation to Berkeley’s nominalist philosophy of language (the Berkeley Reviews). Although paying exceptional attention to Berkeley’s Works (as he wrote the Works reviews three times at least), Peirce did not precisely label himself a Berkeleyan. At the beginning of Lecture Four of the Harvard Lectures (also in Lecture Three), Peirce places “Berkeleyanism” as one of the seven systems of metaphysics (CP 5.77; P 189 – 190). In the seven “metaphysico-cosmical elements” within three categories, the “Berkeleyanism” Peirce meant is a combination of categories I and III without II: that is, “I. Nihilism […] and Idealistic Sensualism [and the like]” plus “III. Hegelianism of all shades” but without “II. Strict indi-

 The Calvinist “spiritual presence” theory can be included in the theories of real presence, whereas Huldrych Zwingli rejects real presence in his immoderately nominalist sense (i.e., the bread is merely a sign of Christ’s body). See Calvin (1960 II; Institutes 1559, 4.17.14– 18, against transubstantiation and consubstantiation); Douglas (2012 I, 24– 25); Arcadi (2019, 187, 192). I thank Kenny Pearce on this point.

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vidualism. The doctrine [of Wincenty] Lutosławski and his unpronounceable master [Mickiewicz]” (P 189 – 190, 268, clarification added).¹³ According to Peirce’s trichotomy (Lecture Three, CP 5.66; P 167, etc.), the First category (Firstness) is “the Idea of that which is such as it is regardless of anything else […] a Quality of Feeling”; the Second category (Secondness) is “the Idea of that which is such as it is as being Second to some First […] Reaction as an element of the Phenomenon”; and the Third category (Thirdness) is “the Idea of that which is such as it is as being a Third, Medium, between a Second and its First […] Representation as an element of the Phenomenon.”¹⁴ Explaining diverse philosophical positions, this distinction of Firstness (quality), Secondness (reaction) and Thirdness (representation) is the basis for his semiotic. It is logically clear for Peirce, if not necessarily so for us. Peirce’s semiotic theory of triadic categories is arguably his central philosophy. Here I argue that it has evolved through his lifelong critical, yet misleading,

 “[A feeling of effort without a regular connection between the feeling and the occurrence of motions of matter] is a sort of pragmatism very much like Berkeley’s inasmuch as it involves the recognition of the first and third categories… I make my regular argumentative attack upon this quasi-Berkeleyan position,” as it lacks category II or reaction (Harvard Lecture Two, Part B: On Phenomenology [Draft One], MS 304; P 143, emphasis added). The “seven possible classes” that Peirce postulated are: “I. […] II. […] III. […] II III. Cartesianism of all kinds, Leibnizianism, Spinozism, and the metaphysics of the Physicists of today. I III. Berkeleyanism. I II. Ordinary Nominalism. I II III. The metaphysics that recognizes all the categories […] Kantism, Reid’s Philosophy, and the Platonic philosophy of which Aristotelianism is a special development” (CP 5.77; P 190). Neither here nor in the Berkeley Reviews did Peirce clarify “conceptualism” (i. e., universals are “real thoughts” or concepts in individual minds), a third scholastic position different to “nominalism” and “realism,” though he might have indicated it as regards Ockham (1871, CP 8.26, see the introduction above). If not positively, he articulated the third position from his realist perspective: “Their calling their ‘conceptualism’ a middle term between realism and nominalism is itself an example in the very matter to which nominalism relates” (1909, CP 1.27). Be that as it may, Peirce once confusingly included all “Descartes […] Locke […] Berkeley, Hartley, Hume […] Reid […] Leibniz […] Kant […] Hegel” in “a tidal wave of nominalism” (1903, CP 1.19). See also Jaffro 2013, 128 – 131: Thomas Reid (in Peirce’s seventh class) can be one of early modern conceptualists.  The trichotomy in Peirce’s “propedeutic [i. e., introduction] to logic” (1902, CP 2.199) is a trinity of normative sciences: Firstness as aesthetics; Secondness as ethics and Thirdness as logic. “Ethics, or the science of right and wrong, must appeal to Esthetics for aid in determining the summum bonum. It is the theory of self-controlled, or deliberate, conduct. Logic is the theory of self-controlled, or deliberate, thought; and as such, must appeal to ethics for its principles” (1903, CP 1.191; see also Harvard Lecture One P 118 – 119; CP 1.281, 1.573 – 575, 2.197; Bennett 2014, 260). Although aesthetics was little defined in a vast amount of his writings (CP 1.573, n. 2), this triadic definition, where aesthetics ought to be prior to logic, can be germane to Peirce’s semiotic position on matters of religion and theology.

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reading of Berkeley’s Works. About forty years after his first “Berkeley Review” (1871, CP 8.29), he writes a manuscript “The Rationale of Reasoning” (1910, MS 663, 11– 13), where he also criticises Berkeley’s thesis “esse is percipi” (to be is to be perceived) (Principles 3). For Peirce, “Berkeley had strangely failed to appreciate” the distinction between the possibility (“capable of being perceived”) and its actuality (“being perceived”). Based on this criticism of Berkeleyanism, Peirce proposed another set of “three categories of Reals; to wit, 1st, would-bes, 2nd, Existents and Actuals, which are definite individuals; and 3rd, Can-bes” (MS 663, 13). In his third “Berkeley Review” (1901, CN 3.37), Peirce construes that Berkeley deemed “possibility [to be] absolute nonentity: material objects must […] be all along actually present to the Divine mind, or they would collapse into utter nothingness.” According to Peirce’s reading of Berkeley’s nominalist idealism, every being is actually perceived by the divine mind. Therefore, to better understand the possible and actual realities than Berkeley’s perceptual system, Peirce concluded that the Berkeleyans “deny Secondness [i. e., individualism or “Reaction as an element of the Phenomenon,” P 167], which they wish to replace with Divine Creative Influence.” For Peirce takes it that this divine act “certainly has all the flavor of Thirdness” or representative medium (1903, P 172, 190; Friedman 1997, 263 – 264). However, he might have deliberately disregarded why Berkeley did not expunge general ideas from his nominalism about particulars: “I do not deny absolutely there are general ideas, but only that there are any abstract general ideas” (Principles Intro 12).¹⁵ Peirce’s triadic framework can be undermined without considering Berkeley’s own confirmation of general ideas, as it relates to category II. In Berkeley’s nominalism about ideas “by sense, or by reason,” our minds make particular ideas, being signs, “corresponding” to their immediate sensible qualities that are rendered general or universal; or by “a natural or just way of thinking,” our minds induce from “partic-

 Peirce does recognize Berkeley as a nominalist about particular ideas, albeit not a strict individualist due to the divine interaction of ideas/signs (categories I and III): e. g., “Berkeley and nominalists of his stripe deny that we have any idea at all of a triangle in general” (Lecture Seven, CP 5.180; P 241; see also the first “Berkeley Review,” CP 8.26). However, Berkeley confirms general ideas, though refuting “abstract general ideas,” where he claims that “an idea, which considered in it self is particular, becomes general […] by being a sign” (Principles Intro 12). For Berkeley, particular ideas, things and signs cannot be just abstracted to be general and universal, because succumbing to metaphysical “abstractions” is being “bound to pursue terms which have no certain signification and […] mere shadows of scholastic things” (DM 8), “however useful they may be in argument” (DM 4). See also Principles Intro 15, 18 – 19; MI 6, 20, 27, 30 – 34; Dialogues 1.193, 2.214; Defence 45 – 48; Alciphron 7.8, 7.15, 7.17, 7.21; DM 2– 11, 16 – 17, 47, 71; Belfrage (1987, 39); Pearce forthcoming. Overall, I think, Peirce’s interpretation of Berkeley’s nominalism is misleading.

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ular and concrete” objects to conclude “general” notions or ideas (Principles Intro 15, Part I 18; Dialogues 3.241; Alciphron 7.23, etc.). Here, the second category of Reaction (“individuals”) by our minds, though under the divine influence, cannot be jettisoned from the Berkeleyan framework of ideas (mental representations). Thus, in my view, Peirce’s categorisation of I and III without II does not clearly capture Berkeley’s nominalism, where ideas are not restricted to the first category of Quality (“would-bes”) and third category of Representation (“can-bes”). Nonetheless, opposing such Berkeleyanism and the other five systems, Peirce defended his own seventh system (I∧II∧III), labelling himself “an Aristotelian of the scholastic wing, approaching Scotism, but going much further in the direction of scholastic realism” about universals or general ideas (CP 5.77; P 190).¹⁶ Given his realism, Peirce formulated each “fatal defect” of “the six kinds of metaphysics,” for they “fail to recognize the reality of all the categories” (P 190). Therefore, to the extent of the Harvard Lectures (1903), it may suffice to say that Peirce does not identify himself as a nominalist Berkeleyan, but a scholastically developed realist. In fact, Peirce’s view of scholastic realism, since his first “Berkeley Review” (1871, CP 8.7– 38; 1903, CP 1.20, etc.), can be somewhat consistent in his career as a logician and semiotician. To that effect, he does not commit himself to deep theological doctrines that Christian scholastics such as Scotus and Ockham were concerned with. This is rather a contentious point regarding whether Peirce drew on a pragmatic method from Berkeley’s theistic philosophy, as expressed in his third “Berkeley Review” (1901, CN 3.36). There he did not label himself a Berkeleyan, either.¹⁷ Indeed, he found “great inconsistency of the Berkeleyan theory” (CP 8.34; Popkin 1953, 138). Nonetheless, from the time when he “used to preach” in the Harvard Metaphysical Club (1871), stated Peirce, he discovered “the unformulated method followed by Berkeley, and in conversation about it [he] called it ‘Pragmatism’” (“A Neglected Argument,” 1908, CP 6.482).¹⁸ As to  Peirce’s doctrine of scholastic realism is that laws or “general principles are really operative in nature” (Harvard Lecture Four, CP 5.101; P 193). The normativity of law is strictly grounded in Peirce’s realist argument.  In contrast to the Fraser edition(s), Peirce’s second (very short) “Berkeley Review” highly evaluates the Sampson edition (1897– 1898) as “quite beyond Fraser” (1899, CN 2.212). Here he does not label himself a Berkeleyan, either.  To clarify that Peirce derived his pragmatism (later pragmaticism) from that of Berkeley, it is worth quoting the preceding passage in full (CP 6.481): “Since I have employed the word Pragmaticism, and shall have occasion to use it once more, it may perhaps be well to explain it. About forty years ago, my studies of Berkeley, Kant, and others led me, after convincing myself that all thinking is performed in Signs, and that meditation takes the form of a dialogue, so that

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the distinction between the actuality and possibility of being to be perceived, the very inconsistency lies in Berkeley’s immaterialist treatment of mind and matter (idea)—metaphysically different kinds—in his nominalism, whereby matters (ideas) are accidentally outside human minds. This nominalist thinking of Berkeley was to be replaced by Peirce’s version of medieval Scotist realism, whereby matters are universally objective to human minds.¹⁹ Despite his criticism of Berkeleyanism, however, what Peirce claimed should be kept in mind. In his third “Berkeley Review” (1901, CN 3.36), Peirce championed the following view: Berkeley is, in truth, far better entitled to be considered the father of all modern philosophy than is Kant²⁰. […] It was he, more than any other single philosopher, who should be regarded as the author of that method of modern “pragmatism”—i. e., the definition, or interpretation, of conceptions by their issues […] which neither philosopher [i. e., neither Berkeley nor Kant, but Peirce himself] grasped clearly enough to formulate it in general terms [emphasis and clarification added].

Peirce’s pragmatic method, even in his “general terms” against nominalism, was indeed gleaned from Berkeley’s way of reasoning (see especially Principles 102– 7). Here, I interpret that Peirce positively received and incorporated Berkeley’s pragmatic method for inference. I take it that the Berkeleyan way of infer-

it is proper to speak of the ‘meaning’ of a concept, to conclude that to acquire full mastery of that meaning it is requisite, in the first place, to learn to recognize the concept under every disguise, through extensive familiarity with instances of it. But this, after all, does not imply any true understanding of it; so that it is further requisite that we should make an abstract logical analysis of it into its ultimate elements, or as complete an analysis as we can compass. But, even so, we may still be without any living comprehension of it; and the only way to complete our knowledge of its nature is to discover and recognize just what general habits of conduct a belief in the truth of the concept (of any conceivable subject, and under any conceivable circumstances) would reasonably develop; that is to say, what habits would ultimately result from a sufficient consideration of such truth. It is necessary to understand the word ‘conduct,’ here, in the broadest sense. If, for example, the predication of a given concept were to lead to our admitting that a given form of reasoning concerning the subject of which it was affirmed was valid, when it would not otherwise be valid, the recognition of that effect in our reasoning would decidedly be a habit of conduct [emphasis added].” I thank Jason van Boom for suggesting that I quote this in full, as it transpires that Peirce’s reception of Berkeley led to his pragmatic method entailing habitual normativity.  Peirce replies to Chauncey Wright after his first “Berkeley Review” (1871, CN 1.45): “the realists assuming that reality belongs to what is present to us in true knowledge of any sort, the nominalists assuming that the absolutely external causes of perception are the only realities.”  Peirce’s first “Berkeley Review” (CP 8.34): “Berkeley ought to have a far more important place in the history of philosophy than has usually been assigned to him.”

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ence that Peirce learned is how to define or interpret conceptions grounded in the sign system, which entails the notion of habit in the normative sciences.²¹ In the first “Berkeley Review” (1871), a set of normative tests is proposed by Peirce (CP 8.31; Popkin 1953, 137): A better rule for avoiding the deceits of language is this: Do things fulfil the same function practically? Then let them be signified by the same words [emphasis added]. Do they not? Then let them be distinguished. If I have learned a formula in gibberish which in any way jogs my memory so as to enable me in each single case to act as though I had a general idea, what possible utility is there in distinguishing between such a gibberish and formula and an idea? Why use the term a general idea [emphasis original] in such a sense as to separate things which, for all experimental purposes, are the same?

This indicates Peirce’s linguistic and normative concern with general ideas: how to preempt the misuse of terms that “fulfil” or “signify” ideas which do not correspond to existent things or sensory objects (i. e., “gibberish” or nonsense). This Peirce acknowledges from Berkeley’s arguments of the relationship between mind (spirit) and idea, to the effect that all the meaningful use of terms or signs in the mind relates to, or refers to, sensory things or ideas. As I will argue, this referential use or rule in Peirce’s pragmatic method can primarily assimilate Berkeley’s metaphysical but linguistically inferential or normative argument, irrespective of nominalism. Moreover, Peirce stated clearly: “Berkeley on the whole has more right to be considered the introducer of pragmatism into philosophy than any other one man, though I was more explicit in enunciating it” (Peirce’s 1903 letter to James; Perry 1935 II, 425). This explains Peirce’s incorporation of Berkeley’s implicit pragmatic method as he intended to make it explicit. Nonetheless, their pragmatic methods in terms of linguistic reference and habitual normativity dif-

 Peirce argued the importance of habit in a pragmatic way of normative inference: “The habit is good or otherwise, according as it produces true conclusions from true premisses or not; and an inference is regarded as valid or not, without reference to the truth or falsity of its conclusion specially, but according as the habit which determines it is such as to produce true conclusions in general or not. The particular habit of mind which governs this or that inference may be formulated in a proposition whose truth depends on the validity of the inferences which the habit determines; and such a formula is called a guiding principle of inference” (“The Fixation of Belief,” 1877, CP 5.367; Nöth 2016, 56). On Berkeley’s references to habit/custom and its role in language and inferential rule, some of which I think Peirce must have read, see DM 7: “terms have been invented by common habit to abbreviate speech […] they come in useful for handing on received opinions by making […] the propositions universal”; Defence 50: “habits of just and exact reasoning”; NTV 17: “habitual or customary connexion between […] ideas,” 21, 77, 147; Alciphron 4.21, 7.17; Analyst 2, 49; MI 57; Principles Intro 23, etc.

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fer from what Peirce meant by “Berkeleyanism” including nominalism. In other words, extending the scope of his pragmatism to theological matters, Peirce expressed his consistent attitude against the Berkeleyan nominalism in a letter to his lifelong friend, William James (1904, Perry 1935 II, 430): I have always insisted—as, for example, in my notice of Frazer’s [sic] Berkeley in the North American Review of October, 1871—is that under that conception of reality we must abandon nominalism. That in my opinion is the great need of philosophy. […] I also want to say that after all pragmatism solves no real problem. It only shows that supposed problems are not real problems. But when one comes to such questions as immortality, the nature of the connection of mind and matter […] we are left completely in the dark. The effect of pragmatism here is simply to open our minds to receiving any evidence, not to furnish evidence. […] Come up and see our waterfalls, therein is peace [emphasis added].

Whether or not we can see tranquillizing “peace” in such pragmatically open “waterfalls,” which let any evidence drift away, we may read this passage with Peirce’s religious connotation about “immortality.”²² What we may well wonder, however, is the very pragmatism that Peirce actually found in Berkeley’s philosophy. In effect, Peirce later left this manuscript: “Among all the doctrines of metaphysics, there is none that seems to me to be more obviously favored by this rule of methodeutic [i. e., pragmatism] than what may be called conditional idealism, which is Berkeleyanism with some corrections” (c.1907, MS 322, 20, emphasis added). In this context, Peirce identifies his conditional, or pragmatic, idealism with his corrected version of Berkeley’s idealist metaphysics, although some commentators (e. g., Friedman 1997, 254) take it “superficial” and argue fundamental differences between them. On the contrary, with some modifications or discounting Berkeley’s nominalism and the problem of category II, I consider that Peirce had long held his version of pragmatic method in his metaphysical and religious thinking. Moreover, what Peirce meant by “conditional” as above can be clarified in his sense of formulating a “conditional sentence” in the imperative mood, as it results in the maxim of pragmatism. Peirce addressed that he has “not succeeded any better than [putting] this: Pragmatism is the principle that every theoretical judgment expressible in a sentence in the indicative mood is a confused form of thought whose only meaning, if it has any, lies in its tendency to enforce a corresponding practical maxim expressible as a conditional sentence having its

 There seem to be two incompatible Peirces (Goudge 1950, 5–7): a naturalistic epistemologist with his empiricism and philosophy of science, on the one hand, and a transcendentalist or religious thinker with his metaphysical speculation and realism, on the other. It may be so difficult to reconcile these prima facie contradicting tendencies within Peirce.

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apodosis [i. e., concluding clause or consequence] in the imperative mood” (Harvard Lecture One, CP 5.18; P 110, emphasis and clarification added; see also CP 5.543; MS 301; P 111, 257). Then, our question is whether Berkeley’s pragmatic method about quasi-reference (as shown below) is fundamentally expressible in a conditional sentence in the imperative mood. I answer in the affirmative because such quasi-referential terms as “gravity” and “grace” are imperatively or normatively conditioned to be meaningful or useful as laws of nature, or they are not at work in the indicative mood as lacking reference to existent objects. This can be pertinent to Berkeley’s and Peirce’s realisms about the normativity of (divine) laws in their pragmatic methods. Hence, given Peirce’s critical reading of his “Berkeleyanism” (categories I and III without II), his realism about universals disagrees with Berkeley’s nominalism about particular ideas. Thus, Peirce’s category of “Berkeleyanism” and the pragmatic method that he found in Berkeley differ from each other. However, on my reading, there is indeed an unformulated pragmatic method in Berkeley’s metaphysical mind-idea argument concerning the normativity of terms/signs in use (such as defining and interpreting concepts, CN 3.36). This method of Berkeley is originated in his philosophy of language before Peirce clearly uttered, or rather complicated, his own pragmatic method.

3 Berkeley’s pragmatism in his theory of signs: the case for quasi-reference Assuming Peirce’s understanding delineated in the last section, this section will chiefly shed light on Berkeley’s pragmatic method, or way of thinking, in the scientific and religious contexts. To this end, I introduce a technical linguistic distinction in referring to things or ideas, within the purview of Berkeley’s normative use of terms or signs. In terms of Berkeley’s philosophy of language, taking his theory of signs into account, Berkeley scholarship is radically changing. Previously, for instance, Ian Hacking (1975, 43, 51– 53) argued that early modern empiricists, Berkeley included, offered no “well-worked-out theories of meaning at all” in the contemporary (or Hacking’s Fregean) sense. However, I disagree with this kind of treatment that underestimates early modern philosophers’ concern with the use of language or signs.²³ This is because, as Peirce may have comprehended, Berkeley  On scholarly debate of Berkeley’s philosophy of language, see Roberts 2017, 423 – 424, 432– 434; Fields 2018, 79 – 83; Jaffro 2013, 130 – 137; Pearce 2017, 62– 65; forthcoming. John Roberts re-

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was consistently mindful of the misuse of language. For instance, Berkeley sets forth in the very first sentence of his scientific work in Latin, De motu (On Motion, DM 1): “In order to discover the truth, it is most important that one avoid being obstructed by terms that are poorly understood.” From this linguistic concern with conventional normativity of terms/signs,²⁴ one can corroborate Berkeley’s philosophy of language, or more technically, his theory of reference between signs and the things signified (significations) within the use, featuring Berkeley’s entire works including MI, DM and Alciphron. Based on the philosophy of language developed in Berkeley scholarship, I will clarify why there are two uses of terms: (genuine) referential terms and quasi-referential ones. Recently, Kenny Pearce (2017, 86 – 96) distinguished two uses of language in Berkeley (especially the uses in DM): i. e., “genuine reference” and “quasi-reference.” Whilst both types of reference are ruled by the same syntactic (and thus inferential) systems, they differ semantically. For the former (genuine) referring expressions (words and phrases),²⁵ e. g., “gold” and “Charles Santiago,” are used to label or name individual objects or ideas/notions (e. g., a crown and Peirce himself),²⁶ which exist extra-linguistically or independently of the sign system. Whereas the latter quasi-referring expressions do not label objects (ideas/notions), although sentences containing them do bear truth-value (either true or false) and can be meaningful for the user or definer. In speaking about natural science, the quasi-referential expressions are considered to be theoretical terms,²⁷ such as “force, gravity, attraction” or “mathematical hypotheses,” because they are “useful for reasoning, and for calculating about motion and moving bodies” (DM 17).²⁸ However, despite the utility, the quasi-referring expres-

jects Berkeley’s ideational (or representational) theory of meaning (i.e., denoting representational mental entities or “ideas”), and instead favors the use theory of meaning (i. e., words are meaningful because they are used, irrespective of such idea-denoting). Siding with Roberts and Pearce, I support the latter use theory.  On normativity as to Berkeley’s meaning of “habitual connextion,” see footnote 21 above.  Unlike Pearce’s original distinction, I prefer not to employ the term “genuine.” For, to me, the term is merely an emphatic or rhetorical adjective of linguistic “reference” or relating to objects as representational ideas.  According to Pearce (2017, 87– 89), “labelling” is to “call [multiple objects] by the same name” (NTV 128, emphasis and clarification added; MI 7, 17– 19).  By “theoretical terms” I mean something “purely referential” in postulates or sentences involving them, “open to existential generalization” (Lewis 1970, 429). As will be clear, I uphold that theoretical terms (“force” and “grace”) refer to no extra-linguistic ideas of existent objects independent of the use of language or signs in Berkeley and Peirce.  See also DM 28, 66; Alciphron 7.10: “beneficial […] of use”; Siris 234; Downing (2005, 247– 248).

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sions of physics, typically “force,” do not “signify certain nature” (DM 6) or “stable essence” (DM 67), such that “in the truth of things [force] would be looked for in vain” (DM 39). This is because such theoretical terms as “attractive forces” or mathematical hypotheses “depend on the notion of the definer” (DM 67). Hence, theoretical terms are merely conventionally intelligible within our linguistic use, or in sentences involving them, so as to relate (or quasi-refer) to their phenomena within the sign system. Likewise, religious terms in Christian discourse, such as “grace,” are quasireferential expressions.²⁹ According to Berkeley’s mouthpiece Euphranor, refuting the free-thinking antagonist Alciphron, “grace may […] be an object of our faith, and influence our life and actions, as a principle destructive of evil habits and productive of good ones, although we cannot attain a distinct idea of it” (Alciphron 7.10, emphasis added). That is, theoretical terms such as “grace” quasi-refer or do not label extra-linguistic objects (ideas), even though sentences containing them have truth-value for one’s judgement (faith or assent) and bear the meaning (e.g., producing good habits) only when they are uttered in particular propositions. This signifies that Berkeley’s theory of signs is undergirded if and only if terms are used for invoking ideas corresponding to them in sentences, or within the sign system. This is just because “a particular idea can become general by being used to stand for or represent other ideas […] yet become universal, being used as a sign” (Alciphron 7.7, emphasis added). Here, one can see Berkeley’s pragmatism where pragmatics (or use of terms in particular sentences) necessarily lends itself to semantics; otherwise, the meaning of words or signs cannot be understood. In other words, anything theoretically occult or unperceivable through sensible qualities, or anything beyond empirical facts, cannot be practical without the linguistic use of reference and quasi-reference. Hence, Berkeley previously argued: “one thing for to keep a name constantly to the same definition, and another to make it stand every where for the same idea: the one is necessary, the other useless and impracticable” (Principles 18, emphasis added). That is, constant use of the same terms stays useful in Berkeley’s nominalist and pragmatic method, wherein they do not have to stand for abstract ideas. In short, Berkeley consistently refrained from abstract general ideas (e. g., metaphysical abstractions of “gravitation,” “velocity,” etc. from “motion,” DM 11), however useful they may be. As with his early works such as Principles (including the prior Manuscript Introduction), he semantically and epistemologically  In line with Pearce (2017, 167), I hold the view that the use of quasi-reference in natural philosophy can be theoretically extended to the divine matters such as “grace” and “faith,” for one can assume the coherent continuum of Berkeley’s philosophical argument from empirical science to Anglican theology. See e. g., Alciphron 7.11.

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upheld anti-abstractionism against his (Cartesian) precursors including Nicolas Malebranche, the Port-Royalists such as Antoine Arnauld and the empiricist John Locke.³⁰ For Berkeley was critical about the abuse of (scientific) language and terms, as in DM 2: “when the motion is discussed, many words [vocabula] of too abstract and obscure signification occur, such as “solicitation of gravity,” “effort,” “dead powers,” etc. (see also DM 23, 44). Therefore, Berkeley was coherently careful of how to use language in his inference, with which the pragmatist Peirce strongly agrees as he also intended to rescue philosophy from “meaningless surplusage” (c.1905, CP 5.525; Friedman 2003, 86). On the other hand, though Peirce might be confused, general words that Berkeley meant are not abandoned in the scientific context of his De motu, because they are still quasi-referentially used to formulate mechanical theories as well as calculations. Rather, as Walter Ott (2003, 128) argues, Berkeley’s “theoretical discourse itself is at bottom practical” without distinguishing the theoretical and practical uses of language, such as the term “force.” This scientific use of words or theoretical terms is, I think, the very foundation for Berkeley’s religious and theological discourse on matters apologetics in using the term “grace.” This converges upon a normative point that the definition “grace” should be meaningful or useful in its quasi-referential use. Finally, centring on Berkeley’s theological argument for the ultimate beauty designed by God or divine language of nature, Berkeley of Alciphron (via his theist mouthpiece Crito) seems to propound an apologetic version of pragmatism (i. e., defending the utility of faith). This theological pragmatism may not be his invention but derived from the very beginning of Christianity, e. g., St Justin Martyr in the second century (Bradatan 2006, 78 – 83, 140 – 44). However, one can clarify the extent to which Berkeley’s original, pragmatic method has also ad-

 See, e. g., Malebranche 1997 (Dialogues 1688, 7.6); Arnauld and Nicole 1996 (Logic 1662, pt. 1, ch. 5); Locke 1975 (Essay 1690); Pearce 2017, 13 – 16, 26 – 27; Jaffro 2013, 129 – 146. For Locke, a proper use of words (or names) is to make each word signify immediately and consistently a certain idea; otherwise, the signification is insignificant, meaningless, or an “abuse of Words” (Essay 3.10.5). Therefore, Locke advocates for the proper use of terms that signify general or abstract ideas through sense perception, for “advantageous use of Sounds was obtain’d by the difference of the Ideas they were made signs of. Those names becoming general, which are made to stand for general Ideas” (Essay 3.1.3). In his anti-abstractionist and nominalist approach, Berkeley criticizes Locke and the other abstractionists (e. g., Dialogues 2.214, against Malebranche) because for him, terms merely signify particular ideas (e. g., this triangle and that circle), but not abstract general ideas, whose representational contents are “incomprehensible” in one’s own sense perception and imagination (NTV 123 – 125). See further Berkeley’s objection to the “abuse of language,” “the deception of words,” and the verbal “weeds” undermining the progress of scientific knowledge (Principles Intro 6, 22, 23).

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vanced in theology, based on his normative theory of reference and quasi-reference in empirical science (as in DM). On this linguistic point, I side with Gavin Ardley who argues (1968, 138): Berkeley utilises language as a pragmatic [emphasis added] and enlivening instrument, a force for directing our attention to the obvious (Principles Intro 20; Euphranor in Alciphron 7.5 f). Words are not merely passive signs of static things; when combined into sentences they become dynamic. The passages on the beauties of Nature, with which his writings abound, are not mere extraneous ornaments; like the dramatic settings of Plato’s dialogues.

Following Ardley’s pragmatic analysis, it is resoundingly important that one consider the directing, active, dynamic nature of signs, rather than the passive things signified (significations), in Berkeley’s religious argument specifically against transubstantiation. It is, then, my view that the divine language of nature originally designed the sign system in Berkeley’s philosophy of language, whereby the quasi-reference of religious terms (e. g., “grace”) is meaningful or useful for changing the dispositions of human souls. In this linguistic and religious sense implying quasi-reference, accordingly, I evaluate that what Berkeley argued for normative use of signs or terms is fundamentally essential to Peirce’s semiotic pragmatism. To this effect, in the distinction between reference and quasi-reference, Peirce’s pragmatic method can assimilate or incorporate Berkeley’s use of quasi-reference within the sign system. On their similar linguistic, semiotic views, the next section will discuss the eucharistic semiotics in view of Protestant, more narrowly Anglican, rejections of transubstantiation.

4 Against transubstantiation in Berkeley’s and Peirce’s pragmatist semiotics Assuming Peirce’s pragmatic method assimilating Berkeley’s quasi-referential use of theoretical terms (e. g., force and grace) as distinguished from reference to extra-linguistic objects, we are now in a position to see transubstantiation that they both critically opposed. For this subject matter, this section firstly casts some light on the Anglican backdrop of the eucharistic doctrines that Christ is really but spiritually present. Against this backdrop, secondly, I will consider Berkeley’s and Peirce’s similar views against transubstantiation. Most significantly, the sacrament (such as the Eucharist) is a sign, on which both Catholics and Protestants have concurred (Schillebeeckx 2005, 96–99). Nonetheless, Anglicanism generally emphasises the signs signifying and the spi-

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ritual presence of Christ in the Eucharist,³¹ in opposition to Catholicism that posits the things signified (by the signs) and the corporeal presence, specifically the doctrine of transubstantiation (Davies 1970, 85, 120 – 21; Turrell 2014, 140 – 41).³² In view of Anglican eucharistic theology,³³ after the influence of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1489 – 1556, during the time of Henry VIII), another Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Grindal (1519 – 1583) argued that “Christ did eat the sacrament with the apostles: ergo, the sacrament is not Christ himself” (1843, 43; Davies 1970, 121). In this nominalist sense of receiving the Eucharist following in Christ’s footsteps, the sacramental sign, or act of spiritually eating the bread and wine by faith, has to be distinguished from the body of Christ, or the thing or matter signified by the sign. Furthermore, sacraments, especially the Eucharist or Holy Communion, have been taken to be “means of grace,”³⁴ or such semiotic instruments, whereby the signs function in the liturgical act of one’s soul in seeking reunion with God. Certainly, except for transubstantiation, Ca-

 Here I have no room for examining the vast literature on Protestant doctrines of spiritual presence, such as John Calvin’s theory of pneumatic presence of the Holy Spirit. See, however, Calvin (1960 II, 4.17); Arcadi (2016, 200n11). On the Anglican interpretation of spiritual presence for Berkeley and Peirce, I do not side with a High Church Anglican, James Arcadi, who distinguishes three theories of corporeal presence in the Eucharist (2016, 201– 202): 1. transubstantiation, 2. consubstantiation (originally Luther’s doctrine of real presence of Christ’s body and blood alongside the bread and wine, denying any mystical change in the liturgy) and 3. impanation (primarily the German Lutheran Osiander’s doctrine that Christ’s body and blood are impanated (em-breaded, i. e., panis factum) or incarnated in the consecrated bread and wine without substantial change, featured in the patristic to medieval periods, Eastern Orthodoxy and High Church Anglicanism in an Anglo-Catholic direction). See also Davies (1970, 115); Turrell (2014, 152– 157); O’Brien (2014, 92n85); Johnson (2006, 555 – 556); Arcadi (2018, 194– 199, 2019, 184– 186).  See e. g., the Port-Royalists’ Catholic view of transubstantiation: “the substance of bread […] is no longer there, since it has been changed into the body of Jesus Christ by the mystery of Transubstantiation” (Arnauld and Nicole [1662] 1996 pt. 4, ch. 12; see also pt. 1, ch. 4; [1664] 1841 I, 79 – 86, particularly against the Calvinist view of spiritual presence).  Realist assumptions were not expunged from Anglican eucharistic theology in the Reformation period (Douglas 2012 I, 67– 68, 627). That is, whilst not dependent on corporeal notions of presence and sacrifice, Christ’s presence and memorial remembrance of His sacrifice are so real that the signs of the Eucharist (i. e., bread, wine and their offering) are linked with the things signified (i. e., the body and blood of Christ and His sacrifice). However, more dominant were nominalist assumptions: the things signified are merely symbolically represented as thankful remembrance of the past sacrifice of Christ without any real linkage with the signs of the Eucharist.  On the Anglican semiotics of sacraments as “effectuall” and thereby instrumental “means of grace” (Richard Hooker), see Turrell 2014, 151, 156 – 158. See also Berkeley’s mention of them as “signs” in his sermon (Works 7.75).

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tholicism rejects the other theories of real presence, be they corporeal or spiritual, as simply heretical. On the other hand, I consider that Berkeley’s and Peirce’s analyses provide a clear pathway to a pragmatic thinking in religious discourse against transubstantiation, through the thicket of these doctrinal issues on their Anglican sides. Anglican theologians unanimously went against the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation; so did Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne.³⁵ For example (Davies 1970, 81), one of the earliest Anglican Archbishops, Thomas Cranmer had three objections to transubstantiation: 1. an accident cannot be independent of its substance (his nominalism about individual accidents of the bread and wine remaining still);³⁶ 2. a body (or the body of Christ) cannot exist simultaneously in many places or ubiquitously (his empiricism or empirical knowledge of physical bodies); 3. transubstantiation contradicts Biblical knowledge (Scripture and the Apostles’ Creed) of Christ’s body in heaven. Berkeley seems to have followed in much of this Anglican tradition of nominalism, empiricism and Biblical arguments in the context of the Church of Ireland. The most telling is Alciphron 7.18 (an additional part in the 1732 second edition): ALCIPHRON. According to this doctrine [i. e., Berkeley’s “doctrine of signs,” according to which all signs can be meaningful without “standing for and exhibiting ideas,” Alciphron 7.16 – 17, clarification added], all points may be alike maintained. There will be nothing absurd in Popery, not even transubstantiation. CRITO. Pardon me. This doctrine justifies no article of faith which is not contained in Scripture, or which is repugnant to human reason, which implies a contradiction, or which leads to idolatry or wickedness of any kind: all which is very different from our not having a distinct or an abstract idea of a point.

 See Notebooks 350; Principles 84, 124; Alciphron 2.26, 7.18; sermons, etc. (Works 7.89, 99, 100, 169, 176). For example, his Newport Sermon 10 (c.1730, Works 7.75): “Wrong apprehensions about the Eucharist in Papists not considering the circumcision is called the covenant, lamb the passover, cup ye new testament. Their folly too gross.—in Enthusiasts or mistaken men who reject it as not spiritual, but why pray, why preach, why build houses of worship? because these are signs or means of grace or things spiritual [emphasis added]. The like to be said of ye Eucharist.” Journals of Travels in Italy (1717, Works 7.322): “The heathens had nothing so absurd as transubstantiation, so Knavish as Indulgences, so cruel as the inquisition.”  On Cranmer’s avoiding the nominalist-realist complications, see Arcadi (2019, 188). On the other hand, John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury (1691– 1694), expressed a nominalist view of “solemn remembrance” or “solemn participation of the body and blood of Christ” in the Eucharist (Douglas 2012 I, 400 – 401). For “what we see and handle and taste to be Bread is Bread, and not the Body of a man” (Tillotson 1684, 2). Tillotson’s Anglican view against transubstantiation might have an immediate influence on Berkeley.

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Here, through his theist mouthpiece Crito, Berkeley vehemently argues against Roman Catholicism and its doctrine of “transubstantiation” in particular. This is because his theory of signs, in favour of Anglican eucharistic theology, stands against the Catholic mystical metaphysics beyond Biblical description and human rationality. Above all, Berkeley’s theological standpoint can be seen in the following sermon, where he explains “so many Signs and Tokens” of a better state, “which in the stile of the Gospel is termed Life Eternal” (Works 7.115). As to the better state of eternal life, he preaches (Works 7.116):³⁷ [T]he right Understanding of which Words we must observe that by the Knowledge of God, is not meant a barren Speculation, either of Philosophers or Scholastic Divines, nor any notional Tenets fitted to produce Disputes and Dissensions among Men; but, on the contrary, an holy practical Knowledge, which is the Source, the Root, or Principle of Peace and Union, of Faith, Hope, Charity, and universal Obedience. […] this saving Knowledge of God [i. e., that of Life Eternal] is inseparable from the Knowledge and Practice of his Will, the explicit Declaration whereof, and of the Means to perform it, are contained in the Gospel, that Divine Instrument of Grace and Mercy to the Sons of Men [emphasis and clarification added].

This suggests that Berkeley’s theological semiotic or theosemiotic, if so called, does not engage with any “barren speculation” of metaphysical philosophers and scholastic theologians. I construe that such an unprofitable or useless speculation includes the scholastic and succeeding Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation in the Eucharist. In contrast to this negative view, Berkeley spotlights the “holy practical knowledge” of the divine will.³⁸ This phrase can be captured as theologically pragmatic, because we enjoy the divine “grace and mercy” to the extent to which they are used or practised as the means to accomplish the divine knowledge. Most significantly, grace and mercy here do not label any ideas of extra-linguistic objects, whence they are quasi-referential terms. Thus, we can read that such quasi-referential terms are useful and meaningful in Berkeley’s theosemiotic pragmatism. In my view, Peirce could have read Berkeley’s published sermon containing the above quote and became aware of Berkeley’s theosemiotic and pragmatic method therein. In line with Berkeley, therefore, the pragmatist Peirce seems to have shared Anglicanism from his Unitarian-become-Episcopalian perspec-

 This Anniversary Sermon, also known as A Sermon Preached before the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, is the only sermon published in Berkeley’s lifetime (preached in 1731) and included in all the editions (Fraser 1871 III; Sampson 1898 II; Fraser 1901 III) that Peirce read and reviewed.  On the practical faith or assent, see e. g., Alciphron 5.4, 7.12, 7.18.

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tive.³⁹ But it is true, in Peirce’s semiotic system, his metaphysics in religious aspects was meant to hinge “on phenomenology and on normative science” (CP 1.186; P 151), though not vice versa. As Michael Raposa points out (1989, 85, n. 27), Peirce’s metaphysical argument, such as synechism (i. e., his neologism of upholding how everything continues and how the nature of reality evolves), makes a segue into his argument about religious morality (e. g., love, community and how to think and behave for oneself), if not adopting any particular religious and moral ideas. Then, when we interpret the Peircean semiotic against transubstantiation, the bread and wine indicate (or point to) the ritualistic goal in the believer’s mind (i. e., indexical function) and make the believer understand the signification of them (i. e., symbolic function); these functions are distinguished from icons, namely, physical likenesses to the two objects (i. e., iconic function) (Yelle 2016, 242).⁴⁰ On this point, one can reconstruct the active nature of signs in the spiritual eating at work in the interpretative process of the triadic functions, regardless of the passive things signified in the physical eating (i. e., transubstantiation). With reference to theological matters, Peirce has been reticent or perhaps indifferent. However, he clearly states as follows (1878, CP 5.401): [O]ur action has exclusive reference to what affects the senses, our habit has the same bearing as our action, our belief the same as our habit, our conception the same as our belief; and we can consequently mean nothing by wine but what has certain effects, direct or indirect, upon our senses; and to talk of something as having all the sensible characters of wine, yet being in reality blood, is senseless jargon [emphasis added].⁴¹

If we read the quote from the Berkeleyan theosemiotic-pragmatic perspective, what Peirce means by “exclusive reference” can be quasi-reference, because such a quasi-referential term or sign does not refer to, or relate to, any object in-

 See footnote 2 above.  See also O’Brien 2014, 84– 88; 1Cor 3:17– 18; Matt 5:43 – 48.  See further CP 5.401 (“How to Make Our Ideas Clear”): “consider in the light of it such a doctrine as that of transubstantiation. The Protestant churches generally hold that the elements of the sacrament are flesh and blood only in a tropical sense; they nourish our souls as meat and the juice of it would our bodies. But the Catholics maintain that they are literally just meat and blood; although they possess all the sensible qualities of wafercakes and diluted wine. But we can have no conception of wine except what may enter into a belief”; CP 5.360 (“The Fixation of Belief”): “Of all kinds of experience, the best, [the empiricist Roger Bacon] thought, was interior illumination, which teaches many things about Nature which the external senses could never discover, such as the transubstantiation of bread”; CP 6.362 (“Notes on Metaphysics”): “a great metaphysical dispute arose [regarding the ‘form of corporeity’ after Avicenna, Aquinas and scholastics]. It sprung from the study of the doctrine of transubstantiation.”

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dependent of the sign system in “our [linguistic] action.” That is to say, the term “wine” quasi-refers to make sense in the linguistic user’s proposition or belief system. For what we mean by “wine” refers to “nothing” or no extra-linguistic object; if it tries (but fails) to refer to Christ’s “blood” in reality, then it is indeed “senseless jargon.” Nonetheless, quasi-referring terms, including the term “wine” in Peirce’s eucharistic sentence, do change the senses in the linguistic user’s “conception” or mind and “habit” or normative way of thinking. Therefore, we can infer that Peirce employs quasi-referential expressions, similar to Berkeley’s quasi-referential “grace and mercy,” in his version of holy practical knowledge. Whilst the triadic functions of the Peircean sign system are always at work, Peirce implies that “talk of something as having all the sensible characters of wine,” or sentence involving the term “wine” in the Eucharist, is meaningful, useful and true, only if such quasi-reference is used or practised to alter the disposition in the believer’s mind. However, Peirce was decisively negative about the Catholic theory of corporeal, substantial presence of Christ, or “the transubstantiation of bread,” due to the metaphysical “Nature which the external senses could never discover” (CP 5.360). Here, we can reinforce the compatibility between the Anglican attitude against transubstantiation and Peirce’s use of quasi-reference that alters the senses in the believer’s consciousness. This is because, on my reading of Peirce, only when the terms “bread” and “wine” quasirefer in the eucharistic sentences, albeit denoting nothing otherwise, can Christ be present to the believer’s mind in the visible bread and wine (sensible qualities). As we saw in Berkeley’s argument, the terms are meaningless or senseless, if quasi-reference is detached from the linguistic use of the sentences that cause effects in our sense perception. In short, Berkeley would agree with Peirce on this pragmatic method or way of thinking, insofar as the eucharistic proposition (or belief) is meaningful and true only if religious terms quasi-refer in the sentence that one assents to. By quasi-reference, I stress that (theoretical) terms do not label extra-linguistic objects (unlike reference) but signify the meaning in one’s linguistic use, particularly with reference to such theological terms as “grace” and “mercy” in one’s act of believing. This highlights a key feature of the anti-transubstantiation semiotics between the two semioticians. In each negative construal of the Catholic doctrine, I summarise that Peirce’s pragmatic method, regarding the inferential or normative use of signs/terms that form the user’s dispositions, can assimilate Berkeley’s linguistic quasi-reference as distinguished from reference.

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5 Conclusion To conclude thus far, I deliberated that Peirce’s semiotic and thereby pragmatic understanding of the eucharistic spiritual presence crucially incorporated Berkeley’s theosemiotic and philosophy of language, given the distinction between reference and quasi-reference. On my reading, if radically, the semiotician Peirce could agree with Berkeley’s theory of signs encompassing “grace,” “faith,” and other theological doctrines. That is, taking Berkeley’s theosemiotic into account, his mouthpiece Euphranor hammers out (Alciphron 7.17): Thus much, upon the whole, may be said of all signs: […] when they suggest ideas, they are not general abstract ideas: that they have other uses besides barely standing for and exhibiting ideas, such as raising proper emotions, producing certain dispositions or habits of mind, and directing our actions in pursuit of that happiness, which is the ultimate end and design […] that sets rational agents at work [… by] an active, operative nature, tending to a conceived good [emphasis added].

In their anti-transubstantiation semiotics, therefore, Berkeley and Peirce would concur on this pragmatic point: quasi-reference of the term or sign “grace” can habitually set rational agents at work towards a certain disposition, as distinguished from reference to extra-linguistic objects (ideas/notions).⁴² In other words, the sacramental sign of the spiritual eating is at work in the believer’s mind to understand the eucharistic presence of Christ’s body and blood through the consecrated bread and wine. This is because, besides visible reference that necessitates to label objects independent of the sign system (the bread and wine), invisible quasi-referring terms such as “grace” sufficiently make sense

 On a trichotomy in Berkeley’s metaphysics, though different to Peirce’s semiotic trichotomy (representamen-object-interpretant, e. g., “Syllabus,” 1902, CP 2.274), one may assume a triad of ideas/things (perceived or signified), spirits/minds (notions or active beings) and relations/habitudes/proportions (between ideas/things). See Principles 89: “ideas, spirits and relations are all in their respective kinds”; 142: “all relations including an act of the mind, we cannot so properly be said to have an idea, but rather a notion of the relations or habitudes between things”; Notebooks 540; Alciphron (additions to the 1752 third edition) 7.15, 7.17: “relations, habitudes or proportions.” I thus consider, based on the distinction between reference (to [1] objects or sensible ideas labelled by [2] spirits) and quasi-reference (such as [3] “relations” or “habitudes” similar to “grace” and “force”), that Berkeley also had a triadic category of metaphysics that Peirce did not explicitly formulate.

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in changing the believer’s dispositions and actions in the liturgical practice by faith.⁴³

References Works of George Berkeley Belfrage, Bertil, ed. 1987. George Berkeley’s Manuscript Introduction. An edition diplomatica transcribed and edited with introduction and commentary. Oxford: Doxa. Fraser, A.C., ed. 1871. The Works of George Berkeley, D.D.: Formerly Bishop of Cloyne. Collected and edited with prefaces and annotations, 4 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fraser, A.C., ed. 1901. The Works of George Berkeley, D.D.; Formerly Bishop of Cloyne. With prefaces, annotations, appendices, and an account of his life, 4 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jaffro, Laurent, Genevieve Brykman, and Claire Schwartz, eds. 2010. Berkeley’s Alciphron: English Text and Essays in Interpretation. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag. Luce, A.A. and T.E. Jessop, eds. 1948 – 1957. The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, 9 vols. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons. Sampson, George, ed. 1897 – 1898. The Works of George Berkeley, D.D. Bishop of Cloyne, 3 vols. With a biographical introduction by the Rt. Hon. A.J. Balfour, M.P. London: George Bell and Sons.

Works of C.S. Peirce Peirce, C.S. 1958. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Vols. 1 – 6, edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, 1931 – 35, vols. 7 – 8 edited by Arthur Burks. Cambridge: Belknap Press [Cited as “CP”] Peirce, C.S. 1967. Manuscripts in microfilm rolls, following the Annotated Catalogue of the Papers of Charles S. Peirce, edited by Richard S. Robin. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. [“MS”] Peirce, C.S. 1975 – 1987. Charles Sanders Peirce: Contributions to The Nation., edited by Kenneth L. Ketner and James Edward Cook. 4 vols. Lubbock: Texas Technological University Press. [“CN”] Peirce, C.S. 1997. Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking: The 1903 Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism, edited by Patricia Ann Turrisi. Albany: State University of New York. [“P”]

 For their comments, I express my deep gratitude to Raul Veede, Roomet Jakapi and participants in the 2019 conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (Tartu, Estonia), the book editors Thomas-Andreas Põder and Jason Van Boom, and the following Berkeley scholars at Trinity College, Dublin: Clare Moriarty, Peter Larsen, Peter West, and most significantly, Kenny Pearce.

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Perry, R.B. 1935. The Thought and Character of William James. 2 vols. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. [Peirce’s letters to James]

Other sources Arcadi, James M. 2016. “Idealism and Participating in the Body of Christ.” In Idealism and Christianity. Vol. 1 of Idealism and Christian Theology, edited by Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton, 197 – 215. London: Bloomsbury. Arcadi, James M. 2018. An Incarnational Model of the Eucharist. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Arcadi, James M. 2019. “Discerning the Body of Christ: A Retrieval of Thomas Cranmer’s Eucharistic Theology by Way of the Spiritual Senses.” Journal of Anglican Studies 17: 183 – 97. Ardley, Gavin. 1968. Berkeley’s Renovation of Philosophy. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. Arnauld, Antoine, Pierre Nicole, Pierre, Anselme de Paris, and Eusèbe Renaudot. 1841. Perpétuité de la foi de l’Église catholique sur l’Eucharistie. 4 vols. Paris: M. l’abbé Migne. Arnauld, Antoine, & Pierre Nicole. 1996. Logic or the Art of Thinking: Containing besides Common Rules, Several New Observations Appropriate for Forming Judgments, edited and translated by Jill V. Buroker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bennett, Tyler J. 2014. “Semiotic Propedeutics for Logic and Cognition.” In Charles Sanders Peirce in His Own Words: 100 Years of Semiotics, Communication and Cognition, edited by Torkild Thellefsen and Bent Sørensen, with a preface by Cornelis de Waal, 259 – 62. Berlin: de Gruyter. Bradatan, Costica. 2006. The Other Bishop Berkeley: An Exercise in Reenchantment. New York: Fordham University Press. Calvin, John. 1960. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. Davies, Horton. 1970. Worship and Theology in England: From Cranmer to Hooker 1534 – 1603. Vol. 3. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Douglas, Brian. 2012. A Companion to Anglican Eucharistic Theology. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill. Downing, Lisa. 2005. “Berkeley’s Natural Philosophy and Philosophy of Science.” In The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, edited by Kenneth Winkler, 230 – 65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fields, Keota. 2018. “Berkeley’s Semiotic Idealism.” In Berkeley’s Three Dialogues: New Essays, edited by Stefan Storrie, 160 – 75. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friedman, Lesley. 1997. “Peirce’s Reality and Berkeley’s Blunders.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 35 (2): 253 – 68. Friedman, Lesley. 2003. “Pragmatism: The Unformulated Method of Bishop Berkeley.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 41 (1): 81 – 96. Goudge, Thomas A. 1950. The Thought of C. S. Peirce. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Grindal, Edmund. 1843. The Remains of Edmund Grindal, D.D., edited by William Nicholson. Cambridge: Parker Society.

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Jaffro, Laurent. 2013. “Language and Thought.” In The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century, edited by James A. Harris, 128 – 48. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnson, Jr., Henry C. 2006. “Charles Sanders Peirce and the Book of Common Prayer: Elocution and the Feigning of Piety.” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 42 (4): 552 – 73. Lewis, David. 1970. “How to Define Theoretical Terms.” The Journal of Philosophy 67 (13): 427 – 46. Locke, John. 1975. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Peter H. Nidditch. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Malebranche, Nicolas. 1997. Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion. Edited by Nicholas Jolley. Translated by David Scott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nöth, Winfried. 2016. “Habits, Habit Change, and the Habit of Habit Change According to Peirce.” In Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit: Before and Beyond Consciousness, edited by Donna E. West and Myrdene Anderson, 35 – 63. Cham: Springer. O’Brien, William P., S.J. 2014. “The Eucharistic Species in Light of Peirce’s Sign Theory.” Theological Studies 75 (1): 74 – 93. Ott, Walter. 2003. Locke’s Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pearce, Kenneth L. 2017. Language and the Structure of Berkeley’s World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pearce, Kenneth L. Forthcoming. “Berkeley’s Theory of Language.” In The Oxford Handbook of Berkeley, edited by Samuel Rickless. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Popkin, Richard H. 1953. “Berkeley’s Influence on American Philosophy.” Hermathena 82: 128 – 146. Raposa, Michael L. 1989. Peirce’s Philosophy of Religion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Roberts, John R. 2017. “Berkeley on the Philosophy of Language.” In The Bloomsbury Companion to Berkeley, edited by Bertil Belfrage and Richard Brook, 421 – 34. London: Bloomsbury. Schillebeeckx, Edward. 2005. The Eucharist. London: Burns & Oates. Slater, Gary. 2015. C.S. Peirce and the Nested Continua Model of Religious Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tillotson, John. 1684. A Discourse against Transubstantiation. London: Brabazon Aylmer. Turrell, James F. 2014. “Anglican Theologies of the Eucharist.” In A Companion to the Eucharist in the Reformation, edited by Lee P. Wandel, 139 – 58. Leiden: Brill. Yelle, Robert. 2016. “The Peircean Icon and the Study of Religion: A Brief Overview.” Material Religion 12 (2): 241 – 43.

Naomi Janowitz

A Peircean approach to late antique ascent texts 1 Introduction A simple trip up a mountain was once the means by which Moses and an entire dinner party joined the deity for a meal (Exod 24:9). The ritual “technique” for this adventure is not an issue, similar to many other descriptions of ascents to the heavens and descents into the netherworld which were dangerous but did not involve complex ritual actions.¹ In later Jewish texts, trips to heaven are presented with confusing and often confounding complexity both as to the map of the heavenly world itself and the means of ascent.² The question of when ascent became a realizable ritual goal was unsettled by Gershom Scholem’s insistence that the hekhalot material, with its ascent rituals, was not a medieval degeneration of rabbinic Judaism (Scholem 1960) and then by the contested connection between these texts and texts found at Qumran.³ No consensus has emerged about the techniques used in Jewish rituals of ascent from late antiquity for several reasons. First, scholars seem flummoxed by a dearth of direct instructions included in the texts.⁴ This stance takes a very narrow view of ritual technique, ignoring the rich anthropological evidence of how rituals encode their contexts of use in less explicit ways. Not all ritual texts include instructions such as “Do X in order to achieve Y.”. Many lack reports of their own success or first-person primary performative forms. Second, analysis of ascent rituals is too often based on a universal notion of a “mystical trance” or some very general model of ritual such as Arnold Van Gennep’s rite of passage and other older anthropological

 For a range of descriptions of ascent see Himmelfarb (1993) and Johnston (1997).  See, for example, Leicht’s attempt to outline and illustrate possible ways of construing rabbinic cosmologies which layer ancient ideas about the “sandwich” heaven/earth model on top of the multi-layered heavens that encircle the earth (Leicht 2013).  See Smith (1981) and (1990), and the bibliography below.  For complaints that the ritual strategies in the Qumran text Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice are not made sufficiently explicit see Fletcher-Louis (2002, 279). Alexander joins Fletcher-Louis in looking to theater (play scripts) (Alexander 2006, 111), an implicit claim about the texts’ entextualization that is not supported by any specific evidence. About the Songs, Davila states, “The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice contains no such instructions and presents the tour of the heavenly realm without making clear how it is being experienced…. [M]agic and theurgy are entirely missing” (Davila 2000, 93). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-011

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models.⁵ These models are far too general and therefore can be applied to almost any ritual.⁶ Nor is it helpful to simply adopt a general notion of “performativity,” as many recent studies of ritual have.⁷ Third, yet another challenge is that the ascent rituals seem to transform participants into a new type of being.⁸ Transformation into a new being by death and resurrection is familiar in later Jewish and Christian theological traditions and therefore not controversial.⁹ The possibility that transformation might happen during a lifetime is more controversial; modern notions of ancient Jewish theology only begrudgingly accept the rich range of human/divine categorization found in late antique texts. In the first centuries CE the notion of deification “was often expressed with a boldness which surprises moderns who have been brought up to think of the category of divinity as infinitely remote” (Nock 1951, 214). Transformational ascent rituals therefore begin with several strikes against them. Their goals and structures go against modern stereotypes of Judaism and Christianity, or monotheism generally. The very idea of human transformation is thought to smack of polytheism. An entire world of scholarship on ritual, generally ignored in the analysis of ascent, stems from the fundamental work of Charles S. Peirce on signs. His theory of signs, as adopted and expanded by linguistic anthropologists, offers a much more nuanced understanding of ritual efficacy—that is, of how signs both presuppose and create their contexts of use.¹⁰ Signs (verbal and non-verbal) “do things” based on these contextual connections.¹¹ Interpreting signs as indexes—as having spatial connection with what they represent—is referred to as “dicentization” (Ball 2014).¹² The concept of dicentization, which is explained

 For the use of Van Gennep see Meerson (2013). Alexander cites the universal model of “the numinous experience” as outlined by Rudolph Otto (Alexander 2006, 8).  For trance see, for example, Schäfer’s shaky distinctions between types of trances (Schäfer, 1992, 154– 55). Alexander cites Philo’s description of a Therapeutae worship service, though no specific details mesh with the Songs (Alexander 2006, 114). For a counter to universalized claims about shamanic trance such as the one made by (Davila 2001), see the helpful critique in Kehoe (2000).  Performativity was first made popular by Austin (1962). For critiques of Austin and all performativity theories derived from his work see Lee (1997, 139) and Silverstein (2010, 344).  See the discussion in Fletcher-Louis (2002, 1– 32).  See the examples of transformation by burial discussed in Smith (1983).  For an introduction to Peirce see Parmentier (1994) and Lee (1997).  On both iconic and indexical signs see Peirce (1955) and on indexes in particular see Parmentier (1994, 126 – 28, 172). For the integration of indexicality into the study of language, see in particular Silverstein (1976).  On dicentization see also Keane (2018, 74).

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in greater detail below, is particularly helpful in articulating the ways in which humans become embedded in distinct ritual cosmologies. Specifically, “signs in ritual and other modes of action are semiotically transformed by social actors from icons, or relations of similarity, into indexes, or signs of actual contiguity, through dicentization” (Ball 2014, 168). Tracking the processes of dicentization outlines the capacity of rituals to bring about “actual contiguity” with, in our examples, the angelic cult. After a review of Peircean sign meanings and the interpretive processes of rhematization and dicentization, I will contrast two modes of dicentization as evidenced in two models found in two different texts. The first, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, was found at Qumran and Masada, while the second, Ma’aseh Merkavah, is part of the later collection of hekhalot texts retroactively associated with various late antique rabbinic figures. It is important to clarify exactly what my claims are and are not about the relationship between the examples, since this points to a fourth problem with the study of these texts. The second example comes from the complex and hard-to-date collection of materials referred to as the “hekhalot” corpus. Caution is well-deserved in the face of many too simplistic connections made about the textual status of these texts and their relationship with earlier texts including those from Qumran (Mizrahi 2009). It is still possible, while awaiting more detailed textual analysis, to examine and compare the semiotics of the texts: Moulie Vidas, for example, compares the distinct ideologies of the hekhalot circles with later rabbinic figures in terms of how a person can embody a text (a specific version of entextualization) and the relationship between word and deed (labeled magic by those with a different view of how language works) (Vidas 2013). The textual comparisons carried out here are part of a broad investigation into religious language, as outlined by Webb Keane (1997).¹³ In particular, the focus is on the processes of entextualization, that is, “the process of rendering discourse extractable, of making a stretch of linguistic production into a unit—a text—that can be lifted out of its interactional setting” (Bauman and Briggs 1990, 73).¹⁴ Richard Bauman and Charles Briggs explain that, “A text, then, from this vantage point, is discourse rendered decontextualizable. Entextualization may well incorporate aspects of context, such that the resultant text carries elements of its history of use within it” (73). This mode of analysis depends on having a rich enough semiotic vocabulary so as to be able to distinguish between different ways of relating a text and to its

 This survey cites and places my prior research on some aspects of the hekhalot texts into a broader survey of religious language (Janowitz 1993).  See Silverstein and Urban (1996).

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context of use created by the text itself.¹⁵ For this, we must turn to Charles Peirce who has detailed the relationships between the use of signs and their contexts of use. An Peircean mode of analysis reveals that dicentization works in the first text by transposing the human priestly realm into the divine realm, transforming the human priests and their liturgical recitation into part of the angelic cult. In the later rabbinic ascent rituals, the chain of rabbinic transmission recounted in the (re)telling of an ascent elevates the reciter into the heavenly world via both iconic (mapping) and indexical (context-related) signs. In this case, the model of ritual efficacy is based on the rabbinic linguistic ideology—that is, that angelic liturgy supplies the fuel for ascent.

2 A Peircean approach to signs in ascent In Peircean semiotics, sign meaning is shaped by the specific relation between the sign vehicle, the sign’s object and the interpretant (Peirce 1955).¹⁶ The character of the sign has three types: abstract possibilities, called qualisigns (the feeling of redness); actual existent signs (something red), called sinsigns; and signs marked by conventionality, called legisigns (conventional use of red to stand for danger). The sign’s relation to its object (its ground) can be formal (iconic), contiguous (indexical), or arbitrary (symbolic).¹⁷ Finally, the degree of reality of a sign’s relationship to its interpretant marks the sign as a rheme (the interpretant represents as icon), dicent (the interpretation represents as index), or argument (the interpretation represents as symbol).¹⁸ The specific “standing for” relationships of these three aspects of a sign establish how cultural claims about similarity are constructed (X stands for Y because it is like it in terms of Z).

 “Basic to the process of entextualization is the reflexive capacity of discourse… [t]he metalingual (or metadiscursive) function objectifies discourse by making discourse its own topic; the poetic function manipulates the formal features the discourse to call attention to the formal structures by which the discourse is organized” (Bauman and Briggs 1990, 73).  See in particular Parmentier (1994, 3 – 22).  On both iconic and indexical signs see Peirce (1955) and on indexes in particular see Parmentier (1994, 126 – 28, 172). For the integration of indexicality into the study of language, see in particular Silverstein (1976).  “Whereas icon, index, and symbol classify the relationship between sign vehicle and object, rheme, dicent, and argument are metalevel construals of that relationship as represented by the interpretant” (Keane 2018, 77).

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Signs do not come with pre-made classifications (Parmentier 2009).¹⁹ Interpretations of sign meaning are the products of processes of interpretation. Cultural conflicts often erupt, for example, around what type of “standing for” relation the sign vehicle has with the sign object. Does the sign vehicle have the same form as the object it represents, or does it point to the object it represents? The former, which interprets what might be seen as indexes instead as icons, is called rhematization, and the latter, interpreting what might be seen as icons instead as indexes, is called dicentization. Looking first at rhematization, one brief example demonstrates the social results of attributing formal representation where other interpreters see indications of co-occurrence.²⁰ Parmentier offers a clear example from a study of fifteenth century Italian painting. A culturally informed viewer from that period would recognize the use of expensive blue pigment as a sign pointing to the painting’s rich patron (an indexical dicent sinsign).²¹ When that context is lost, the same blue pigment is interpreted via rhematization as an icon, a formal resemblance of something blue (iconic rhematic sinsign). The second process, dicentization, interprets a sign that could be understood as a likeness or conventional relation instead as a sign of an actual relation of connection (Ball 2014, 152).²² Christopher Ball offers a brief example, contrasting the Homeric understanding of anger as a replication of an iconic form of anger with a Freudian indexical reading of the same sign. Anger in Homer formally copies anger in other Greek texts; it is described in the same and easily recognizable way. In the Freudian interpretive system, in contrast, anger points towards childhood experiences that are instantiated when anger is present in the context of the psychoanalytic session. Dicentization explains the capacity of rituals to bring participants into “actual contiguity” with social cosmologies. A sign that is interpreted as an architectural order (in Peircean terms a rhematic iconic legisign) of the heavenly world is interpreted as placing the speaker into the heavenly world (a dicent indexical legisign) (Ball 2014, 160). We begin this investigation with two points in place. First, the context relations of sign meanings are not always explicit, and

 As Parmentier states, “The assignment of a representamen (that is, the sign vehicle) to a sign class is a positional evaluation relevant at a slice of time and from a particular point of view” (Parmentier 2016, 50).  As Gal explains, “The concept of rhematization captures the way registers that are taken up as indexes of social personae from one ideological perspective can also be construed as icons, or can be construed as icons in another ideological frame” (Gal 2013, 34).  See Ball (2014, 155).  See Keane (2018, 74).

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second, different rituals will exploit the context implications of sign meaning in different ways in the process of creating the contexts for successful completion of a rite.

3 Human and angelic choruses sing together Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, found in numerous fragments at Qumran and also at Masada, comprises thirteen liturgical compositions.²³ The compositions describe the heavenly world, detailing the ranks of angelic priests, their thrones and even the heavenly decorations. Carol Newsom argues that the hymns are intended for recitation on the first thirteen Sabbaths of the year, organized as two sets of six hymns with a central, most important seventh (Newsom, 1985, 1).²⁴ Each song begins with a call to praise, with the most elaborate one appearing in the seventh song. The Songs employ technical vocabulary for the angelic forces, with their seven priesthoods and seven chief priests worshipping in heaven, as well as the seven heavenly Temples and the innermost part of the seventh Temple. Heavenly beings and decorations join together in offering specific acts of praise depending on their place in the heavenly hierarchy. The stature of the human priests, whose interests the text represents, is elevated by their intimate knowledge of the heavenly world. Certainly, “[t]he role of the celestial angel-priests validates the role of the terrestrial human priests, who are engaged in a comprehensive imitatio angelorum” (Alexander 2006, 16). The central question is the nature of the “imitation” of the angelic chorus. Based on the preliminary publication of some of the fragments by John Strugnell, Morton Smith argued that the text was an ascent text (Smith 1981).²⁵ So too for Newsom, the central vision of the celestial high priest in the seventh hymn is not simply a description of the heavens. Instead, it is the climax of a step-by-step ascent by the individual reciting the text, culminating in a vision of the highest level of

 The Qumran copies are written in generally datable Hasmonean (75 – 50 BCE) and early Herodian (25 BCE) scripts. For the critical edition see Newsom (1985); for Cave Four see DJD (11), with important emendations in Tigchelaar (1998); and for Cave Eleven, see Garcia Martinez et al. (1998) and DJD (23:259 – 304). For translations and analysis see Davila (2000), FletcherLouis (2002, 252– 394), Alexander, (2006) and the citations below.  Although the Priestly source generally portrays this sacrificial system as silent, see references to songs sung on the Sabbath in 2 Chr 29:27– 28, Sabbath songs attributed to David in 11QPsa 27:5 – 9, and a Sabbath song mentioned in Words of the Luminaries 4Q504 1– 2.  Smith also offered the first comparison of the Songs with the later hekhalot hymns (Smith 1981, 412), a comparison that is taken up in the final section of this paper.

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the heavenly Temple and its cult (Newsom 1985, 59 – 72).²⁶ Phillip Alexander also argues that the blessing recited by humans in Song 6 “implies some sort of mystical ‘ascent’ to the heavenly temple” (Alexander 2006, 28) The question is, then, when is a liturgical text simply a description of angelic praise and when is it a rite of heavenly ascent? Bilha Nitzan, for example, distinguishes between two types of praise descriptions. In the first, “the praises invoked from all the cosmos express in harmony the magnificence and majesty of God, the creator of the whole universe” (Nitzan 1994, 166). No special claims are made about human participation in the angelic world.²⁷ The second, a “mystical” type that includes the Songs, leads humans to an “experience of mystic communion” (Nitzan 1994, 166 – 68).²⁸ Nitzan’s basic contrast may be as helpful as any broad-sweep structural/thematic comparison of choruses can be, correctly pointing out that some descriptions repeat Biblical praise models. Her specific examples, however, are likely to be debated, as she does not offer consistent analysis of the ritual techniques. Esther Chazon, for example, generally accepts Nitzan’s model but offers some modifications. In the Songs, Chazon distinguishes among (1) the general Biblical model of praise choruses familiar from Nitzan’s first category, (2) two choruses (angelic and human) and (3) one chorus that specifically joins humans and angels (Chazon 2003). A detailed review of her categories shows that her main distinctions are based on valuing explicit indexicals—that is, words with obvious contextual implications, such as “you” and “I.”²⁹ Chazon’s first type repeats Nitzan’s first category. Distinguishing Chazon’s second and third types in the Songs is difficult: the identities and number of the members of the choruses are obscure, unlike in the clearer Biblical models. The first example of type #2 (two choruses) reads: “[We] the sons of your covenant shall praise […] with all troops of [light]” (Daily Prayers [4Q503]). The number of distinct choruses here is indeterminate. The vague terms used to identity groups do not help. The term “troops of the light,” Chazon argues, “evidently

 Newsom (1990) changed her mind on the question of whether the text was produced specifically for the group living at Qumran, since the appearance of a version of the text at Masada belies a narrow sectarian origin.  In all these schemas the “cosmological” version is drawn primarily from Biblical texts, as in Chazon’s citation of Psalm 148 as the paradigm (Chazon 2003, 37).  Wolfson rejects her classification of the texts as mystical because of his extremely narrow definition of mysticism, an example of the circularity of definitions of mystical experience (Wolfson 1994).  Words dependent on their context for their meaning are often called “deictics” as well as “indexical.” For a helpful introduction see Lee (1997, 358).

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serves here as an epithet for the angels associated with the heavenly lights” (Chazon 2003, 39).³⁰ But this example might better belong to type #3. Chazon’s next examples of type #2, from Blessings (4QBerakot), differentiate between human praise (4QBerb 3 2 and 4QBerb 5 11) and angelic praise (4QBera 2 4 and 4QBera 7 i 7). Only some angels recite God’s holy and glorious name (Chazon 2003, 40 – 41). Again, this is not evidence of two distinct choruses but rather points to issues of deference and specific liturgical roles, part and parcel to the complex depictions of angelic choruses found at Qumran. Her final example of the “two chorus” model is the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. Even though “joint praise is mentioned explicitly in one passage” (4Q400 2 1– 7) (Chazon 2003, 41), this example still does not meet her criteria for a single chorus, an inconsistent analysis of even the explicit indexicals. Finally, for type #3, humans joining the angels, Chazon turns to the Thanksgiving Hymns (Hodayot).³¹ These texts meet her criteria when, and only when, they include first-person “I” statements and/or the term “together” is used (Chazon 2003, 43). For example, the speaker in the Self-Glorification Hymn asks, “Who is like me among the heavenly beings?” (Chazon 2003, 44). The emphasis on only a few explicit indexicals overlooks all less explicit contextual linking. The structure of the text is central because it establishes the cosmology, the formal context that is linked to the spoken liturgy. Even in fragmentary form, the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice clearly has an elaborately constructed liturgy. The text maps the increasingly inner and holy levels of the heavenly world and correlates those levels with types of angels and actions. The liturgy presents, in Peircean terms, a formal icon of the heavenly world. This mapping is not a literary mapping but occurs in a ritual text, an example of ritual hyperstructure. “Hyperstructure is the key to this, since ritual actions are not just conventional, they are so conventionalized that they highlight or call attention to the rules, that is to the pattern, model, or semiotic type which the ritual action instantiates” (Parmentier 1994, 128). This “hyperstructure” creates the specific context for the ritual. Decades ago Stephen Katz emphasized the crucial role of language in not just describing but creating the ritual context for religious experiences, but he lacked the semiotic terminology to explain the power of signs to create a context (Katz 1978). The hyperstructure of the liturgy, played out in time as it is recited, places the one speaking the liturgy in

 She notes other phrases that suggest conjoint worship: “host of angels” (frg. 65), “those who testify with us” (frgs. 11, 15, 65) and “those praising with us” (frgs. 38, 64).  On communal human/angelic prayer see also Chazon (2000).

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the heavens; the heavens are present only to the extent that they are present by the signs—and in this case the words—employed in the rite. Beyond the explicit indexicals, the Songs refer to hierarchical but confusing social groupings that rework any simple human/divine divide. Some terms pertain to social roles, such as “ministers of the presence,” “inhabitants of the highest heights,” “chief priests,” and “princes.” At times the terms indicate activities usually associated with humans, including “nasi/prince,” “am bina/people of discernment,” and “maskil/teacher” (Fletcher-Louis 2002, 256– 57, 282, 298). Other terms are quite vague, such as “pure ones,” “holy ones,” and “eternal holy ones.”³² Distinct meanings for these terms do not emerge from usages in the text.³³ Trickiest are plurals of divine beings, such as elim (plural of el, god) and Elohim. “Elohim” is used for both the deity and what might be translated as “angels.” Given this situation, Newsom has chosen to translate the construct form elohey into a variety of phrases, including “godlike ones,”³⁴ “heavenly beings,”³⁵ and “angels.”³⁶ The vague terms are ambiguous about membership. Newsom notes, “There is a certain ambiguity in the term kedoshim (holy ones), which might refer either to the few members of the Qumran community or to the angels” (Newsom 1985, 63). However, it is clear that the location of the “holy ones” is in the abode of the deity, along with the angel of the presence. Even more complicated is the term “elim,” which appears to be cosmic beings who engage in cultic activities. Newsom simply leaves this form untranslated, the same strategy used by Yadin in translating the War Scroll (Yadin 1962, 230): “He established for Himself priests of the inner sanctum, the holiest of the holy ones, [..g]od[like] elim, priests of the lofty heavens” (4Q400 1, lines 19 – 20). Whoever belongs to this group has a particularly high status. The second Song states: “Elim are honored among all the camps of godlike beings and reverenced by mortal councils, a w[onder] beyond godlike beings and mortals (alike)” (4Q400 2 line 2– 3).³⁷ The enumeration of new categories of heavenly figures occurs in other Qumran texts as well. Eileen Schuller, discussing the terminology of the Hodayot, notes that the “beloved ones” whose job it is to praise the deity include both humans and angels (Schuller 1999). Similarly, 1QSbs (Blessings = 1Q28b) offers a

 On the terms see Alexander (2006, 17, 22).  Since some of the terms appear in later Jewish texts, the challenge is to not jump to anachronistic understandings.  “O you godlike ones among all the holiest of the holy ones” (4Q400 1 line 2).  “…to the King of heavenly beings” (4Q402.3 line 12).  “Camps of angels” (4Q401.14 line 8).  The extensive late antique evidence shows that Mizrahi’s assumption that humans are by nature excluded from the inner sanctum is too simple (Mizrahi 2015).

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priestly blessing that merges humans and angels, elevating humans into the ranks of the highest beings: May the Lord bless you and set you as a splendid ornament in the midst of the Holy ones… May you be as an angel of the Presence in the holy Abode for the glory of God of hos[ts]. May you attend upon the service in the Temple of the kingdom and decree destiny with the angels of the Presence, and may you be in common council [with the holy ones] for eternal time and for all everlasting ages. (iii. 25 – 26, iv. 24– 26)

A variant reading of the War Scroll (4QMa) describes an individual who becomes one of the “elim” via an ascent (Smith 1990). The phrase “I shall be reckoned with gods and established in the holy congregation” is a brag that, as Smith points out, makes more sense coming from someone originally mortal than from an angel (Smith 1990).³⁸ The terminology reflects a spectrum of divinity and not a simple dichotomy, much like the one-sex model described by Thomas Laqueur (1990). Male and female are not so much strict dichotomies as points on a fluid spectrum. Action determines placement on the spectrum: men who act like women will move towards the female end of the spectrum and vice versa. The centrality of behavior for classification is crucial yet likely to be misunderstood by modern readers who have a very different perspective on essential identity (male, female, human, divine). Rituals could move humans towards the divine end of the spectrum.³⁹ Table 1: Human-divine continuum human Humans Priests

Divine Some angels; some human priests associated with the Songs

Elim; special priests who draw nearest to the deity⁴⁰

Angel of the presence

Sometimes the indexical linkages to this complex cosmology are made explicit, like the familiar signs that state “You are here.” Explicit first- and second-person

 Fletcher-Louis argues that the humans do not ascend but instead engage in heavenly worship on earth, which negates the basic cosmology of multiple heavens and the location of the most important praise as that carried out in heaven in the heavenly Temple (Fletcher-Louis 2002). For a range of additional critiques of this argument see Alexander (2006, 45 – 47).  The variety of ritual modes of transformational is striking; to cite only a few examples: ascent (Philo, QuesEx 29.40), the taurobolum (Prudentius, Peristeph. 10.1048), drowning in the Nile (Vout 2005) and the funeral rites for a Roman emperor as described by Herodian (Gradel 2002).  Following Mizrahi (2015).

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indexicals appear, but only in the first two songs. Newsom argues that these terms drop out as the human community becomes increasingly merged with the angelic (Newsom 1985, 14). That is, once the liturgy is launched, explicit indexicals are not needed, as the reciter is linked to increasingly divine levels of cult: the tour of the heavenly world enacted via the recitation of the liturgy leads the participant into increasingly holy territory. The movement into the inner sanctum is done with a strong sense of awe at the drama that this progression implies. The Songs present both the elaborate deference of honorifics and an audacious claim about the role of priests, who now draw near to the deity and are present at the most intimate forms of cult. The priestly role necessitated by animal sacrifice has been replaced by regular attendance in the inner sanctum, usually reserved for only the High Priest. Ritual technique may appear to be lacking because the Songs present a “words-only” priestly version of ascent. The presentation of the heavenly sacrificial cult is the ultimate priestly totalizing imagery of their religious role. All of the non-priestly elements of sacrifice have been eliminated from the picture. The entire cult takes place in an area restricted to the ritual actions of a hierarchy of heavenly-level priests. The Songs draw on Ezekiel’s “definition of the cultic duty of the priests: to approach God in order to serve him” (Mizrahi 2015, 53). This words-only presentation of the angelic cult, now entextualized in the liturgy, is a reworked image of the earthly “deeds-only” version of silent sacrifice as imagined by the Priestly source (Knohl 1995). The Songs do not include any specific citations of angelic liturgy. The cosmology may assume that only some priests recite liturgy, while other priests perform in silence.⁴¹ The actions of sacrifice have been eliminated, leaving the highest-level priests with the same cultic silence envisaged by the Priestly source, who assigned singing to the Levites. A “spoken-words-only” ritual text might seem to be the most democratic version of an ascent ritual possible. However, the liturgy seems to assume a priestly liturgist and probably a very restricted type of priestly reciter. Mizrahi argues that the unusual term “priests of qoreb,” translated as “priests of the inner sanctum” by Newsom, appears to refer to one group of priests who had special status, marked by their capacity to “draw near” the deity (Mizrahi 2015).⁴² Mizrahi’s analysis supports the idea that the liturgy was not part of standard cultic practice—for example, in early synagogues—but instead reflects one priestly vision  Alexander surveys and rejects many of the explanations for the lack of citation, agreeing that the highest level of angels might be silent (Alexander 2006, 113 – 15). See also Mizrahi (2015, 47). The extensive citation of specific angelic liturgy in the hekhalot texts is discussed in the next section.  For instances of the term in the Songs, see Mizrahi (2015, 38).

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among what may have been many. The claim by some human priests of participating in the heavenly cults drew sharp distinctions between them and both other Jews and other priests. To some priests this would have been a clear outgrowth of the prior priestly tradition that being a priest meant being ready to serve not only on earth but in the highest level of the cosmic Temple as well. Priests had the strongest claim that they could “draw near” to the deity without any problem, a claim that was also made by Jews who did not even have priestly status.

4 Divine words of praise: Humans sing angelic liturgy Jewish ascent rituals are most famously found in the loosely defined corpus of hekhalot (palace) texts (third through eighth century CE), whose relationship with normative rabbinic literature is contested.⁴³ The most striking revelation of even a quick survey of these later ascent rituals is the continued importance of the angelic cult as the ritual engine. Now, however, it is the recitation of specific angelic liturgical formulas that is central. While later writers, including the 10th century Hai Gaon, associated other ritual techniques, such as fasting, with ascent, here the recitation of angelic liturgy is the main technique for the ascent: “In the extant Hekhalot literature […] fasting is not explicitly prescribed for the purpose of the vision of the Merkavah” (Swartz 1994, 145).⁴⁴ Unlike in the Songs, in Ma’aseh Merkavah the liturgical engine of ascent is the direct citation of specific angelic praise formulas, once again embedded in the heavenly hierarchy. The text’s basic form includes a dialogic outer frame: Rabbi Ishmael said “I asked Rabbi Akiba a prayer that a man does when ascending. He said to me ‘Purity and holiness are in his heart… he prays a prayer, You will be blessed, etc.’”

 For the Hebrew texts see Schäfer et al. (1981), for translations see Davila (2013) and for recent discussion and further bibliography see Boustan et al. (2013). On the competitive relationship of these texts to standard rabbinic literature, see Vidas (2013).  Fasting, for example, is part of the Sar Ha-Torah/Prince of the Torah rites, aimed at effortless assimilation of Torah and rabbinic teachings and often appearing alongside ascent rituals (Swartz 1994, 142).

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As reported speech, this text frames the prayer formulas (such as “You will be blessed”) as reported dialogues or, more correctly, the reports of reported speech.⁴⁵ The device of reported speech, when combined with rabbinic ideas about how words work, results in a didactic text that conveys not only knowledge about but also the experience of ascent. Effective language in this case includes the angelic formulas and the recitation of divine names, the central liturgical fuel for rabbinic prayers (a topic beyond the scope of this paper but familiar from other ritual settings).⁴⁶ In this version of ascent, Rabbi Akiba states that two things are needed: a pure heart and the proper formula. The frame describes the requirements and then the formula instantiates them. After the recitation of the formula, Akiba joined the chorus. The extremely limited contextual needs reinforce the “automatic” effectiveness of the prayers. Efficacy is established for the original recitation of each formula by report. It is then established for each repetition by the linguistic ideology implicit in the text. If the formulas were indeed successful on some previous occasion, and the only other necessity is the pure heart of the reciter, then word will equal deed in all of the subsequent recitations, including reported ones. In linguistic terms, the contexts created lack external grounding for referential indexicals within the formulas. That is, the frames do not point to or index any external world beyond that established by the reported speech situations. These situations are self-contained worlds. They are that much more effective and applicable to the reader and, therefore, that much more useful as a didactic text. In this way, the text strives to set up the most ahistorical setting possible. The angelic cult is central, particularly for mapping out the heavenly realm. There is, however, no special relationship between human priests and the angelic cultic system. The cultic formulas can easily be adopted and recited by anyone, not just priests. The rites are potentially available for anyone who has the required knowledge. Not surprisingly, other versions of ascent rituals direct the efficacy of the “words-only” rite towards diverse goals and add different techniques and routinization. In an ascent in, for example, Rabbi Nehunya’s ascent described in Hekhalot Rabbati separates his body from his soul and the latter traverses the fiery and terrifying heavens, describing them as he goes.⁴⁷ Despite the now cen On reported speech see Lee (1997, especially 166 – 67).  Discussed at length in Janowitz (1993) and Janowitz (2019).  Morton Smith astutely observed that when Rabbi Nehunya’s companions want to ask him a question they must carefully interrupt him, because he is not simply talking about an ascent but ascending while he talks (Smith 1963, 145). A reference to placing an object on his knee shows

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turies old device of joining the angelic chorus by reciting its liturgy, the text includes references to fasting, and the flow is interrupted by narrative interludes (HR 424). Scholem argued that ascent was a foretaste of the heavenly world (Scholem 1965, 17– 18). Whether that or a this-worldly taste of transformation into a new type of being was the goal, the ascent in Hekhalot Rabbati has been re-edited into a new frame which promises that the ascent hymns will enable the reciter to “see the deeds of men” and know what the future holds. This frame redirects the ascent towards new goals. The ability to work the cosmology, to go up and down at will, becomes a tool that permits the ascender to achieve a myriad of decidedly this-worldly goals. The multifunctionality of the rite is acknowledged in Hekhalot Rabbati when Nehunya says that knowing the ritual is like having a ladder in one’s home. Ascent has become routinized. The world of the angels remains the apex of the cosmology, and anyone traversing it is likely to confront the numerous dangers inherent in getting closer to divine power, but the question of credentials for ascending has been completely reinterpreted.

5 Concluding thoughts What is most striking about both of the ascent texts examined in this paper is their emphasis on angelic cult as the content of human liturgical texts. Structure and content mirroring each other, the ascent texts function both iconically and indexically to construct the heavenly world and mark human travels through it. This “dicentization is a way to ritual achievement of alternate realities” (Ball 2014, 161). A priest could see himself as directly inserted into the angelic cult, divinizing both himself and his cultic processes, entextualizing this process in the Songs. Later readers, including modern scholars, could interpret the Songs as simply an iconic description of the angelic world, based in part on the assumptions (about monotheism, the function of liturgy, etc.) they brought to the text. Short of including a statement of successful use by someone, the text is built to be as automatically effective as possible. It begins with a call to praise that puts the liturgy into action and builds methodically from there. Given the widespread imagery of a heavenly Temple, it is surprising that we do not find more

that his knee is still available to his companions. For the text see Schäfer et al. (1981), and for a translation without the framing devices marked see Davila (2013, 37– 157).

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texts like the Songs, since the place for priests is in the heavenly world, just as rabbis study in the heavenly rabbinic academies. In the hekhalot version of ascent, non-priests can see themselves as part of a special group of humans who have access to the heavenly world. Following another major theme of late antique religion, special knowledge is the key. Again, ascent is made as automatic as possible, though who could understand and use the text may have been restricted. One who knew how to recite the words could map their presence “there,” whether or not later readers can even agree on where “there” is. Being aware of the semiotic process of dicentization helps us understand how cosmologies, when other indexicals are lacking, “can offer a portal to alternate time-spaces, collapsing…the separation between actors and events located elsewhere by bringing them into spatiotemporal contiguity” (Ball 2014, 168).Such is the power of signs, able to create a heavenly Temple and permit some humans to draw near to divinity because their own rituals demonstrated that they belonged in the heavenly cult themselves.

References Alexander, Philip S. 2006. The Mystical Texts: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and Related Manuscripts. London: T&T Clark. Austin, J. L. 1962. How to do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ball, Christopher. 2014. “On Dicentization.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 24 (2): 151 – 73. Bauman, Richard and Charles L. Briggs. 1990. “Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life.” Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 59 – 88. Boustan, Ra’anan, Martha Himmelfarb, and Peter Schäfer, eds. 2013. Hekhalot literature in context: Between Byzantium and Babylonia. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Chazon, Esther. 2000. “Liturgical Communion with the Angels at Qumran.” In Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetic Texts from Qumran: Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Oslo 1998; Published in Memory of Maurice Baillet, edited by Daniel K. Falk, Florentino García Martínez, and Eileen Schuller, 95 – 105. Leiden: Brill. Chazon, Esther. 2003. “Human and Angelic Prayer in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” In Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, edited by Esther G. Chazon, Ruth Clements, and Avital Pinnick, 35 – 47. Leiden: Brill. Davila, James. 2000. Eerdsmans Commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Liturgical Words. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Davila, James. 2001. Descenders to the Chariot: The People Behind the Hekhalot Literature. Boston: Leiden. Davila, James. 2013. Hekhalot Literature in Translation: Leiden: Brill.

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Fletcher-Louis, C. H. T. 2002. All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Leiden: Brill. Gal, Susan. 2013. “Tastes of Talk: Qualia and the Moral Flavor of Signs.” Anthropological Theory 13 (1 – 2): 31 – 48. García Martínez, Florentino, Elbert J.C. Tigchelaar, and Simon van der Woude. 1998. 11QShirot ’Olat Ha-Shabbat. In Qumran Cave 11.2 (11Q2 – 18, 11Q20 – 31). DJD: Vol. 23.l Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gradel, Ittai. 2002. Emperor Worship and Roman Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Himmelfarb, Martha. 1993. Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses. New York: Oxford University Press. Janowitz, Naomi. 1993. “Re-creating Genesis: The Metapragmatics of Divine Speech.” In Reflexive Language, edited by John A. Lucy, 393 – 405. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Janowitz, Naomi. 2019. “Speech Acts and Divine Names: Comparing Linguistic Ideologies.” In Religion and Language, edited by Robert A. Yelle, 139 – 57. The Hague: Mouton De Gruyter. Johnston, Sarah. 1997. “Rising to the Occasion: Theurgic Ascent in its Cultural Milieu.” In Envisioning Magic, edited by Peter Schaefer and Hans Kippenberg, 165 – 93. Leiden: Brill. Katz, Steven T. 1978. “Language, Epistemology and Mysticism.” In Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, edited by Steven T. Katz, 22 – 74. London: Sheldon Press. Keane, Webb. 1997. “Religious Language.” Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 47 – 71. Keane, Webb. 2018. “On Semiotic Ideology.” Signs and Society 6 (1): 64 – 87. Kehoe, Alice. B. 2000. Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Knohl, Israel. 1995. The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Laqueur, Thomas. 1990. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lee, Benjamin. 1997. Talking Heads: Language, Metalanguage, and the Semiotics of Subjectivity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Leicht, Reimund. 2013. “Major Trends in Rabbinic Cosmology.” In Hekhalot Literature in Context: Between Byzantium and Babylonia, edited by Ra’anan Boustan, Martha Himmelfarb, and Peter Schäfer, 245 – 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Meerson, Michael. 2013. “Rites of Passage in Magic and Mysticism.” In Hekhalot Literature in Context: Between Byzantium and Babylonia, edited by Ra’anan Boustan, Martha Himmelfarb, and Peter Schäfer, 323 – 47. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Mizrahi, Noam. 2009. “The Supposed Relationship between the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and Hekhalot Literature: Linguistic and Stylistic Aspects” [in Hebrew], Meghillot 7, 263 – 98. Mizrahi, Noam. 2015. “Priests of Qoreb: Linguistic Enigma and Social Code in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice.” In Hebrew of the Late Second Temple Period, edited by Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar and Pierre van Hecke, 37 – 64. Leiden: Brill. Newsom, Carol. 1985. Songs of the Sabbath sacrifice: A Critical Edition. Atlanta: Scholars Press.

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Newsom, Carol. 1990. “ ‘Sectually-Explicit’ Literature from Qumran.” In The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters, edited by William Henry Propp, Baruch Halpern and David Noel Freedman, 167 – 87. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Nitzan, Bilha. 1994. “Harmonic and Mystical Characteristics in Poetic and Liturgical Writings from Qumran.” Jewish Quarterly Review 85, no. 1/2 (July-October): 163 – 83. Nock, Arthur. D. 1951. “Review of Meecham’s Epistle to Diognetus.” Journal of Religion, 31: 214 – 16. Parmentier, Richard. 1994. Signs in Society: Studies in Semiotic Anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Parmentier, Richard. 2009. “Troubles with Trichotomies: Reflections on the Utility of Peirce’s Sign Trichotomies for Social Analysis.” Semiotica 177 (1/4): 139 – 55. Parmentier, Richard. 2016. Signs and Society: Further Studies in Semiotic Anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Peirce, Charles Sanders. (1940) 1955. The Philosophical Writings of Charles Peirce. Edited by Justus Buchler. Dover: [n.p.]. Schäfer, Peter. 1992. The Hidden and Manifest God: Some Major Themes in Early Jewish Mysticism. Albany: State University of New York Press. Schäfer, Peter, Margarete Schlüter, and Hans-Georg von Mutius, 1981. Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur. Tübingen: Mohr. Scholem, Gershom. 1960. Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Scholem, Gershom. 1965. On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism. New York: Schocken Books. Schuller, Eileen. 1999. Hodayot. In Qumran Cave 4.XX: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 2 (DJD, Vol. 29, 69 – 232). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Silverstein, Michael. 1976. “Shifters. Linguistic Categories and Cultural Descriptions.” In Meaning in Anthropology, edited by Keith H. Basso and Henry A. Selby, 11 – 55. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico. Silverstein, Michael. 2010. “ ‘Direct and ‘Indirect’ Communicative Acts in Semiotic Perspective.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2): 337 – 53. Silverstein, Michael and Greg Urban. 1996. Natural Histories of Discourse. University of Chicago Press. Smith, Morton. 1963. “Observations on Hekhalot Rabbati.” In Biblical and Other Studies, edited by Alexander Altmann, 142 – 60. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Smith, Morton. 1981. “Ascent to the Heavens and the Beginning of Christianity.” Eranos Jahrbuch 50: 403 – 29. Smith, Morton. 1983. “Transformation by Burial (1 Cor 15:35 – 49, Rom 6:3 – 5 and 8:9 – 11).” Eranos Jahrbuch 52, 87 – 112. Smith, Morton. 1990. “Ascent to the Heavens and Deification in 4MQa.” In Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls, edited by Lawrence Schiffman, 181 – 88. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Swartz, Michael. 1994. “ ‘Like the Ministering Angels’: Ritual and Purity in Early Jewish Mysticism and Magic.” AJS Review 19, issue 2 (November): 135 – 68. Tigchelaar, Elbert J. C. 1999. “Reconstructing 11Q17 Shirot ’Olat ha-Shabbat.” In The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues, edited by Donald Parry and Eugene Ulrich, 171 – 85. Leiden: Brill.

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Vidas, Moulie. 2013. “Hekhalot Literature, the Babylonian Academies, and the Tanna’im.” In Hekhalot Literature in Context: Between Byzantium and Babylonia, edited by Ra’anan Boustan, Martha Himmelfarb, and Peter Schäfer, 141 – 76. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Vout, Caroline. 2005. “Antinous, Archaeology and History.” Journal of Roman Studies 95: 80 – 96. Wolfson, Elliot. 1994. “Mysticism and the Poetic-Liturgical Compositions from Qumran: A Response to Bilhah Nitzan.” Jewish Quarterly Review 85, no. 1/2 (July-October): 185 – 202. Yadin, Yigael. 1962. The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness. London: Oxford University Press.

Tatsuma Padoan

On the Semiotics of Space in the Study of Religions: Theoretical Perspectives and Methodological Challenges 1 Introduction The study of space as social category provides central ideas to investigate religious practice, as it opens up fundamental questions about how we can situate ritual action, when places start to be considered as sacred and why, and what kind of role the environment plays in the religious construction of cultural life. Some scholars have even talked about a “spatial turn” in social sciences and humanities, and study of religions more specifically (Knott 2010; Tweed 2006; Rots 2017; Blair 2015; see also Smith 1987; Grapard 2016; Ambros 2008; Moerman 2005; Kawano 2005; Thal 2005). The work of Henri Lefebvre The Production of Space (1991) has undoubtedly played an influential role in reassessing social studies of space, as it is evident in many of these publications, and in those scholars who have been associated with the aforementioned “spatial turn” in cultural theory and study of religions (Knott 2005; Warf and Arias 2009; Soja 1996). Lefebvre in fact provided a formidable critical analysis of space in late capitalist societies, by looking at its construction through the creation and preservation of social relations and ideological values. Through the way we perceive, conceive and live space, he says, we tend to reproduce hegemonic assumptions about political power and a modern Cartesian division between human subjects and reality. However, the semiotic approach here presented will tend to diverge from Lefebvre’s (1991, 45) representational view of reality, which—despite his attempts to show interrelation between physical, mental and social fields (11, 29 – 31, 38 – 39, 73 – 74)—still betrays a strong divide between “language” and “real nature” (29 – 31, 70 – 71). A major point of departure will be the fact that, from a material semiotic perspective, space is not only constructed, but also endowed with agency. By adopting such perspective, in the first part of this chapter, we will explore the possibility to investigate space from a semiotic point of view examining the theoretical potentials of this approach and the methodological issues involved. After a discussion of different theoretical scenarios, in the second part we will then move to a case study in central Japan, namely a contemporary Shugen 修験 community of Shinto-Buddhist ascetic practice, the Tsukasakō 司講 lay https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-012

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group affiliated to the Tenpōrinji 転法輪寺 temple on Mount Kongō 金剛山, connected to the revival of the pilgrimage to the “sutra mounds of the twenty-eight lodges of Katsuragi” (Katsuragi no nijūhasshuku kyōzuka 葛城の二十八宿経塚). Through the semiotic analysis of this case using both historical and ethnographic sources, I will try to challenge the still too common view of semiotics as a theory of timeless symbols and representation. On the contrary, following the work of Paris School semioticians like Algirdas Julien Greimas, Paolo Fabbri, Manar Hammad, Jacques Fontanille and Eric Landowski and the material semiotic trend developed from their ideas by Bruno Latour, semiotics will here emerge as a theory of actions, passions, body and materiality. Yuri Lotman (1990, 271– 72) has poignantly remarked that history has often been referred to as the memory of humankind. But if history is cultural memory, this means that “it is not only a relic of the past, but also an active mechanism of the present.” He also adds: “Memory is more like a generator, reproducing the past again; it is the ability, given certain impulses, to switch on the process of generating a conceptualized reality which the mind transfers into the past” (272). In other words, if history is a form of collective memory, it is based on a cultural reconstruction of the past from the point of view of the present, on view of future expectations, hopes and purposes. Such dialogue between memory and history is fundamental for the construction of social identities and, interestingly enough, proceeds through the introduction of cultural texts from the past. Texts and fragments from previous societies work as both condensers and generators of cultural memory (18) and are then integrated into the space of the semiosphere, interacting with the mechanisms of contemporary world. The “semiosphere,” according to Lotman (1985, 1990, 123 – 42), is thus the internal sphere of culture in constant dialogue with its borders, a semiotic field of translations between different languages, texts and discourses circulating at different levels, through which new meanings are produced. We will see in our case study how all these considerations about history, memory and cultural spaces well apply to the important place of mountain asceticism called Katsuragi 葛城. Here, different semiotic texts were introduced and produced over the centuries, they were circulated, translated one into the other and integrated into a semiosphere, where different languages coexisted in a multi-layered space. We will thus argue that history is constantly included, integrated into a spatial semiotics. And we define here spatial semiotics in three ways: (1) a space conceived as “semiosphere” or field of translation, constituted by multiple layers of cultural texts originated in the past and present time; (2) a space considered as “language” or signifying set, which not only communicates social relations, but may also be manipulated to stipulate different subjectivities and forms of life; and most importantly, (3) a space understood as “actant” or syntactic char-

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acter, in other words either as an object of value constructed and negotiated by human and nonhuman actors, or as an interacting subject who can actively perform actions. We will try to explore the theoretical scenarios and the methodological challenges offered by this approach to sacred space and history.¹

2 A different idea of semiotics While reflecting on possible scenarios offered by semiotic perspectives on sacred space, it may be useful to address forms of criticism made about semiotic theories and methods, as such critiques illustrate the way semiotics has sometimes been portrayed in study of religions and elsewhere in social sciences and humanities. In the first volume of his monumental project Gods of Medieval Japan, Bernard Faure (2016a) described semiotics as a sort of empty cognitive symbolism, which would only partially explain the nature of divine entities, while missing their phenomenological presence: Gods may be part of a semiotic system, but they are not mere signs. They represent not just beliefs but the vanishing trace of a presence, perhaps a floating feeling of uncanniness, fear, or joy caused by a close encounter with an elusive higher power. Discourse about gods reveals not merely the content of beliefs but a certain existential or phenomenological tonality, which is always at risk of slipping through the meshes of symbolic discourse (Faure 2016a, 48).

Elsewhere, in both the first and second volume (2016a, 9 – 50, 317– 28; 2016b, 4– 12, 332– 52), Faure instead prefers to adopt Latour’s Actor-Network-Theory (ANT), as a better interpretive framework for understanding Japanese hybrid gods, also to overcome what he rightly perceives as an often limiting binarism of the kami-Buddha combinatory model: Rather than focusing on individual actors, actor-network theory instead examines the network made up by relationships between actors, looking specifically at how (but not why) a network developed, how the network survives, and how it dissolves or transforms. In this

 Although related more to religious materiality than sacred space, Fabio Rambelli’s work Buddhist Materiality (2007) is to date one of the few studies in Japanese religions to systematically apply semiotic models to themes closely related to the present discussion, like Buddhist conceptions of environment and the role of religious objects. Other examples may include Yamaguchi Masao (1988), who analysed the concepts of centre and periphery in Japan using Tartu School semiotics, as well as Manar Hammad’s (2006) work on religious aspects of Tea Ceremony (Cha no yu 茶の湯) and Bachnik’s (1995) research on indexical meanings in ritual, mentioned below.

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context actors (or “actants” in actor-network theory parlance) are formed largely through their relationships within the network. […] By viewing the Japanese gods as actors in this sense, and by remembering that they are ever-changing nodes within a network constantly in flux, we can more accurately perceive the Japanese gods as the unstable aggregates that they are rather than as static projections of human minds, society, culture, or what have you (Faure 2016a, 10).

Although Faure’s project remains invaluable for the breadth of its scholarship, as well as in terms of its scope and effectiveness in reassessing the field, one important link is here missing, especially concerning how ANT emerged and from where it borrowed its sophisticated vocabulary, including the concepts of “actant,” “actors” or “network” mentioned above. A possible clue is indeed provided by Latour himself, in his most quoted Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, when he writes, “It would be fairly accurate to describe ANT as being half Garfinkel and half Greimas: it has simply combined two of the most interesting intellectual movements on both sides of the Atlantic and has found ways to tap the inner reflexivity of both actor’s accounts and of texts” (Latour 2005, 54n54). Faure and Latour might thus have a rather different idea of semiotics in mind, or more likely they might refer to different semiotic theories. A considerable number of concepts used by Latour in his works—including not only “actant,” “nonhuman actors” and “network,” but also “figuration,” “modality,” “enunciation,” “isotopy,” “internal referent,” “program of action,” “shifting,” etc.—derive in fact from A. J. Greimas and his Paris School semiotics, combined with Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology (Akrich and Latour 1992; Latour 2014, 2013a, 1998, 1992, 1988; Latour and Woolgar [1979] 1986, 19 – 21, 90nn,121, 184n2). It comes as no surprise that ANT is often defined as a form of material semiotics (Law 2009), since this theory was developed by Latour also thanks to his early collaboration with semioticians Paolo Fabbri, Manar Hammad and Françoise Bastide,² and then with sociologists John Law and Michel Callon (Latour 2013b). Therefore, since such semiotic apparatus proposed by Latour and other theorists—and its conceptual underpinnings behind, productively endorsed by Faure—became relevant for an understanding of divine entities in a complex and multifaceted religious discourse such as the one found in Japan,

 For an account of how ANT first emerged in connection to semiotics, see in particular Latour (2013b, 291, 296 – 97). Fabbri and Latour started collaborating in the Seventies in San Diego and in 1977 they co-wrote one of first articles in sociology of science, published on Pierre Bourdieu’s journal Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales (Latour and Fabbri 1977). Latour’s collaboration with semioticians continued at Greimas’ seminar in Paris (especially with Françoise Bastide, see Latour and Bastide 1986).

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we need to clarify in which way the same notions may also be applied to other dimensions of religious life, including ritual action, historical time and, of course, sacred space.

3 A theory of embodied action In the following sections, we will argue that, in order to understand how a material semiotics of space might look like, we need to move away from a modern—and according to Webb Keane (2007), originally “Protestant” and “Calvinist”—ideological divide between language and body, cognition and sensory world, which is implied by the idea of semiotics as a theory of symbols and cognitive representations. The latter has been considered as the standard semiotic approach for a long time. Semiotics has in fact often been presented as the study of signs and texts conceived as mental representations of reality and distinct from phenomenological approaches based on the analysis of embodied experience and perception of the world (Csordas 1994, 80 – 81). However, this definition seems to completely rule out the pragmatic and affective domains of reality from language, communication and signification, insofar as it considers meaning as a disembodied and inner product of thought. This notion has been for instance objected by linguist and semiotician Émile Benveniste (1971, 25), who criticized representation as “the symbolic transformation of the elements of reality or experience into concepts […] [through] which the rationalizing power of the mind is brought about.” It is in fact important to notice that, on the contrary, most late and post-Greimassian semiotics, from the Eighties on, has shifted its attention—e. g., through the work of Fontanille (2007; Greimas and Fontanille 1993), Coquet (2007) and Landowski (2005, 2004)—to the phenomenological dimension of discourse (Parret 1989, x–xi; 1993, 173; Merleau-Ponty 1964) and the close interconnection between semantic and somatic, sense and senses (Fontanille 2004, 17– 28; Greimas 1987a). As linguistic anthropologists have often repeated, even the idea of verbal language as a cognitive-only phenomenon is highly questionable, since language is always a practice: we talk by using our bodies (including, and not limited to, our phonatory organs) and other material means, we do not project speech from our brains onto the mind of others (Duranti 1997; Goodwin 1997). We thus need to start from a re-conceptualization of semiotics as a theory of embodied action. The basic idea behind is that not only action can be considered as meaningful (which is the standard view shared by a number of theorists, from Max Weber to Clifford Geertz), but also, most importantly, meaning can be described as a course of actions, as articulation of sense (i. e., articulation of an “oriented intentionality,” Greimas and Courtés 1982, 240). Discourse, including not

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only verbal, but also audiovisual, bodily and other forms of communication, is more specifically redefined as a fabric of actions and passions, producing assemblages of agents and patients called “actants” (Fabbri 2005, 24– 26; Greimas 1987b, 106 – 20; Cooren 2010, 4– 8). Every action generates in fact a modal reconfiguration of what its receiver feels (Lat. patire, whence the terms “passion” and “patient”) in terms of obligation, volition, knowledge and power (Greimas and Courtés 1982, 193 – 95; Greimas and Courtés [1986] 2007, 236 – 37). The subject who feels, thus pragmatically reacts producing new actions (Cooren 2010, 58 – 62; Perron and Fabbri 1993, vii–xvi). These considerations lead to a radical rethinking of signs as semiotic acts, signs as forces creating and transforming situations, as actions produced by and on bodies (Fabbri 2005, 37, 97). According to Jacques Fontanille (2004, 2007, 2, 16 – 17), the body becomes the interlocking element between signifiers and signifieds, between the two faces of the sign function. It occupies the place of semiosis, the case vide of the apparatus of enunciation, located between the sensory world on the plane of expression, and cognitive, affective as well as pragmatic meanings on the plane of content (2007, 11– 3, 38). A performing body taking position in the world, whether human or nonhuman, becomes the origin of a process of signification as action, namely of every semiotic text circulating and being translated across different networks and generated by “assemblages of collective enunciations” (Deleuze and Guattari 1987).³ The terms semiotic text and discourse are here not used as logocentric metaphors. They are analytical categories to be understood in their etymological sense: text from textus, meaning “texture,” “fabric,” and discourse from dis-cursus, “running here and there” (Barthes 1975, 64; 1990, 3). From the point of view of their receivers, visual, musical or other texts are thus not read, they are seen, heard or perceived according to their related sensory processes. From the point of view of their producers instead, semiotic texts and discourses are textures, courses of actions and passions (Fabbri 2005, 32– 37; Cooren 2010, 28 – 31; Silverstein and Urban 1996).

 For the key role played by the model of “acentered systems,” proposed by Paris School semioticians Pierre Rosenstiehl and Jean Petitot (1974), on the formulation of the idea of rhizome, see Deleuze and Guattari (1987, 16 – 18, 519 – 20nn14– 15, 544n82).

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4 A semiotics of space Once a rather ideological separation between sense and matter, signification and action, language and body, is dissolved by adopting a nonrepresentational theory of discourse, at least two different options come out to investigate space and materiality from a semiotic point of view. The first option is given by Umberto Eco in a number of his early works on architecture (Eco 1968, 1986), as well as in his widely read A Theory of Semiotics (1976). According to the latter work, the functional use of objects and tools, once socially shared within a certain community, becomes their plane of content, i. e., their meaning or signified. Eco gives the example of the Australopithecine who discovers a sharp stone and starts using it to split the skull of baboons. He then shares this knowledge and practice with members of his community, who will begin to assign the function of splitting baboons’ skulls to that particular kind of stone. Once the practice is socially stipulated, the stone becomes the signifier of its use. Using the words of Eco, “once the possible use of the stone has been conceptualized, the stone itself becomes the concrete sign of its virtual use” (1976, 24). According to Eco, the function of buildings and objects can thus be considered as their meaning (1986, 59 – 63). He gives the example of a cave. When the cave was first inhabited by humans in prehistoric times, it provided them with shelter from wind and water, delimiting the space inside from the one outside, through the mediation of an entrance hole. Seen from outside, such entryway evoked an image of the cave’s internal space, made up by covering vaults, rock walls and the area within, with its shadows and lights, illuminated by daylight or by the light of a fire. Together with feelings of protection and maybe some unclear nostalgia for the womb, the cave, recognized from its entrance hole, communicated to its inhabitants its function as a shelter space and it was thus readily codified into a model or type, which allowed to assign the same function to other similar entryways seen from the outside, on the side of a mountain (1986, 58 – 59). A second option or perspective is provided instead by Manar Hammad, whose work on spatial enunciation had a considerable influence on Latour’s ANT and modes of existence, alternatively called “regimes of enunciation” (Latour 1988, 1998, 2013a). Hammad ([1989] 2002), going beyond Eco’s idea that “use is meaning,” takes space as starting point for semiotic investigation. For him space is not just a container for actions. In a truly nonrepresentational move, which cuts across a supposed divide between materiality and discourse, space can be considered as a language in itself, but different from verbal language. Unlike Umberto Eco, Hammad does not ask what the function of space is, but which potentialities of action it opens up to us. Instead of focusing on

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use, this approach deals with possibilities of action offered by different portions of space, called topoi (from Greek topos, “place”). Hammad (2002, 18n9) defines as topos any portion of space which tends to elicit some particular set of behaviors, thus interacting with human actors. Topoi are therefore spatial actants, which can alternatively play the syntactic role of agents or patients, subjects or objects of action. A locked door, in Hammad’s analysis, can be considered as a subject delegated by someone else (a private landlord, a tenant, or a more abstract collective institution) to keep natural and human agents outside of a given space, unless they have the ability or the authority to unlock it (55 – 67). The closed door not only imposes a limitation, to the power of human actors to open it, but also operates on their volitions and obligations (telling them that they should not open it unless they are entitled to do it) (44– 46). Following the Paris School semiotic approach, the idea is to analyse space in terms of actions performed in and through it, by considering the role of nonhuman actors such as architectural elements, infrastructures, features of the landscape, parts of the urban environment, etc. Hammad’s analysis builds on previous works by Greimas ([1976] 1990), who had already defined urban space as a “cluster of beings and things,” a relational network “made up of all the relations of an individual with the surrounding objects,” to the point that we should imagine the whole city “as a set of interrelations and interactions between subjects and objects” (148 – 50). Such ideas also connect to the complex relationship between space and subjectivity, investigated by Denis Bertrand (1995) through three levels of analysis described in terms of enunciative, narrative and discursive subjectivity. Bertrand (1995, 55 – 71) argues that space can produce certain profiles of users when it manifests an enunciative subjectivity, in which a certain topological organization defines particular attitudes, positions and systems of values, often expressed through diagrams and cartographies (e. g., mandalas). In other words, spatial organization may present certain models of identity and orders of knowledge, which the subject encounters and negotiates during its movements. But there is also a narrative subjectivity of space, when the pathways of subjects through space follow certain narrative trails and programs of action, related to the same spatial organization (e. g., foundation narratives and miraculous stories inscribed within shrines and temples’ precincts, but also ritual courses of action prescribed in them). This level thus investigates the relationship between space and narrative processes, by analysing configurations of actions and passions localized in specific places and seeing how such places are interconnected and transform the subject according to orientations, plans and expectations inscribed in them. Finally, the discursive subjectivity of space corresponds to how the subject mobilizes and creates space through its gestures and movements,

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namely its proxemics. At this level, the interaction between subject and space can resemantize both the terms involved, in much the same way as Michel de Certeau (1988a, 97– 99) describes “walking as a space of enunciation,” in which the walker appropriates the space through “pedestrians speech acts,” exploring possibilities but also subverting them through improvisation (e. g., ritual invention adapting the script to changing circumstances). We will now consider what kind of implications these perspectives may have for the analysis of religious space, in the particular case study we are going to discuss.

5 Sacred space in Katsuragi Katsuragi is a remarkable mountain area in central Japan, stretching for more than 100 km from Wakayama city 和歌山市 on the west coast to Kame no se 亀の瀬, where the River Yamato 大和川 narrows between the ancient provinces of Yamato 大和国 and Kawachi 河内国 (Miyake 2001, 162– 65). The main peak of this area is the Mount Kongō 金剛山 (1125 m, literally “Mount Vajra”), located some thirty kilometers south from modern Osaka (Kongōsan sōgō bunka gakujutsu chōsa iinkai 1988, 3). Ritual activities are documented in these mountains at least from the eight century CE. Rokutanji 鹿谷寺and Iwaya 岩屋were probably founded at that time on Mount Nijō 二上山 (or “Two-Peak Mountain”), next to Mount Kongō, by Korean immigrants from Shiragi 新羅 (Šilla), who imported construction techniques of Chinese origin (Fukuroi shiritsu Asabakyōdo shiryōkan 2007). Rokutanji is an example of sekkutsu jiin 石窟寺院, a temple completely excavated from rock, in a place originally used as stone quarry. Its thirteenstory stone pagoda is still visible nowadays, not far away from the other analogous site Iwaya (Haga 2009, 106). Their construction could epitomize a process described by Satō Hiroo (2009), as a passage from a conception of mountain as inaccessible residence of kami, to the mountain as a place of ritual practice. One of the first written sources documenting ascetic activity in Katsuragi, is the Shoku Nihongi 続日本紀 (797), which recorded some events concerning the life of E no kimi Ozunu (entry 699) (KT 2:4; Gorai 1980, 22). The figure of E no Ozunu 役小角 (or E no Ubasoku 役優婆塞, En no Gyōja 役行者) will undergo different narrative transformations and embellishments, starting from the Nihon ryōiki 日本霊異記 (823),⁴ acquiring then a special role in the Shozan engi 諸山

 For the figure of “E no Ubasoko” (alternative reading of E no Ubasoku) in this text, see Nihon ryōiki in NKBT 70: 134– 37. English translation in Nakamura (1973, 140 – 42.) See also Earhart (1965, 306 – 37).

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縁起 (late twelfth century), which we will soon examine. On the other hand, we know about a shrine dedicated to the god Hitokotonushi 一言主神 of Katsuragi, which was sponsored by the court at the time of the Engi shiki 延喜式 (927), and which was given a number of offerings during the ainamesai 相嘗祭 (Bock 1970, 90 – 92). However, at least since the twelfth century, Katsuragi area has been crossed by a pilgrimage route, which connects together twenty-eight spots. These twenty-eight stations were associated by specific narratives with the twenty-eight chapters of the prominent Mahāyāna Buddhist scripture Lotus Sutra, which were said to be buried in sutra mounds (kyōzuka 経塚), one chapter for each spot, and venerated as the Word and Body of the Buddha inscribed into the land itself (Kashibashi Nijōsan Hakubutsukan 1999, 10; Padoan and Sedda 2018, 55 – 57). The lay ascetic group I have been studying—called Tsukasakō and affiliated to the Shingonshū Daigoha 真言宗醍醐派 Tenpōrinji temple on top of Mount Kongō—was founded by the bettō 別当 Rev. Katsuragi Kōryū 葛城光龍 (b. 1972) in 2005 and is part of a larger Shugendō 修験道 revivalist trend which started in the Second After War. Shugendō, literally meaning “The way to master/acquire ascetic powers,” may be described as a Japanese form of mountain asceticism which, according to current views, started being established around the late thirteenth century in major sacred mountain areas (Blair 2015, 272), combining together Buddhist Esoteric, Daoist and shamanic elements with the worship of kami, the local deities. Having first met this group in 2008, I could study their activities from an ethnographic perspective over the years,⁵ conducting interviews and participant observation during ritual performances, pilgrimages, communal gatherings and celebratory events, business meetings, as well as cleaning activities at their main temple. The modern history of this temple is closely related to the 1868 edicts shinbutsu bunri rei 神仏分離令 (“Kami-Buddha Separation Edicts”) which dramatically reconfigured the role of Shugendō in Katsuragi and across Japan (Tamamuro 1977; Sekimori 2005). In 1871, after three years from the promulgation of the edicts, the temple Tenpōrinji with its Ōshukubō 大宿坊 (Great Temple Lodgings) on top of Mount Kongō⁶ was dismantled by the supporters of the new re-

 More recently in 2017– 18, during a ten-month fieldwork project based at Osaka University, Anthropology Department, sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS grant PE16043).  Since the Kōwa 弘和 period (1381– 1384) the Ōshukubō, under the local powerful clan Katsuragi (Katsuragi ke 葛城家) ruling over the Tenpōrinji mountain temple complex, had been at the centre of a system including the Six Sub-Temple Lodgings (Wakidera rokubō 脇寺六坊) located on Mount Kongō—namely Gyōjabō 行者坊, Nagatokobō 長床坊, Nishimuroin 西室院, Jissōin 実

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gime, who tried to separate a supposedly ‘pure’ Shinto from its Buddhist ‘foreign’ influences. Buildings were destroyed and the main icon Hōki Bosatsu 法起菩薩 (Dharmodgata bodhisattva) was damaged, together with several other Buddhist statues located in the sacred precincts (Miyasaka 1988, 212, 216, 228n20).⁷ This amounted to the laicization of the abbot of Tenpōrinji Katsuragi Shinjun 葛城 真純 (1842 – 1905) and his conversion to the position of head priest of the Shinto shrine Katsuragi jinja 葛木神社 (Katsuragi and Ōya 1988, 183).⁸ The pilgrimage to the twenty-eight sutra mounds was no longer undertaken, until in the second half of the twentieth century, a group of Buddhist temples connected with Shugendō—first Inunakisan 犬鳴山 in 1953, then Miidera 三井寺 in 1958 and Shōgoin 聖護院 the following year—started to retrace the ancient pilgrimage spots and paths (Nakano 2002, 280). Meanwhile after the Second War, with the shūkyō hōjin rei 宗教法人令 allowing groups to register as religious juridical persons (Miyake 2009, 86), Shugendō groups could gain more independence and visibility and the Katsuragi family, at the head of the Katsuragi shrine, tried to reconnect to the Buddhist institutional side. Katsuragi Mitsugu 葛城貢 (1905 –

相院, Ishidera 石寺 and Asaharadera 朝原寺—and the Seven Kongō Temple Lodgings (Kongō shichibō 金剛七坊) located at the foot of the mountain within a range of two kilometres, both on the Kawachi side—Shudōji 修道寺, Bōryōsan 坊領山, Tamonji 多聞寺—and on the Yamato side—Asaharadera, Takamadera 高天寺, Ishidera and Ōsawadera 大沢寺 (Ōya 1988, 144; Heibonsha 1997, 400).  Scholars disagree on this point. According to Horiike (2000, 105) the honzon 本尊 or main icon (together with most of the old documents and statues) was burnt during the wave of haibutsu kishaku 廃仏毀釈 (“Abolish the Buddha, destroy Śākyamuni”) in Meiji 明治 period and after that the wooden head of Hōki Bosatsu, which survived the fire, would have been protected and sent by some of the villagers to the Bodaiji 菩提寺 temple in Fushimi 伏見. According to Ōya (1988, 157) instead, the wooden head now preserved at Bodaiji was saved from the big fire of 1804, which had destroyed the temple main hall (hondō 本堂) and part of the main icon.  According to different records and testimonies, the abbot Shinjun himself (later renamed as Masumi) might have been responsible for stirring anti-Buddhist sentiment among villagers, having become a fervent supporter of the emperor a few years before (Miyasaka 1988, 216; Katsuragi 1988, 479; Goseshishi hensan iinkai 1965, 338). As the abbot suffered himself from severe economic damage because of the shinbutsu bunri edicts, we do not know whether this was actually a strategy to preserve control on the mountain, by readily accepting the new regime’s regulations. What we do know is that a few monks showed signs of resistance, as the head of the Gyōjabō 行者坊 temple Jōjun 定純, who petitioned seventy-two times Nara 奈良 and Gojō 五 條 prefectures to be reappointed as abbot of Kuruno Jifukuji 久留野地福寺, matsuji 末寺 or branch-temple located at the foot of the mountain, where the icons from his temple, together with some of the statues from Tenpōrinji, had been relocated in 1869 (Ōya 1988, 169). Such presence of different voices on the mountain in early Meiji, shows the polyphonic character of Katsuragi Shugen discourse even during the period of epochal transformations triggered by the edicts.

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1997), then the chief priest of the Shinto shrine, underwent formal initiation at the Shingon temple Daigoji Sanbōin 醍醐寺三宝院. He re-established Tenpōrinji temple in 1950 and became probably the first Shinto priest in modern times to be at the same time the head of a Buddhist temple and a Shinto shrine (Katsuragi and Ōya 1988, 187– 88). His two sons became respectively the abbot of Tenpōrinji and the chief priest of Katsuragi shrine, and the Buddhist ramification of his family continued, through his son Takehiko 武彦 (1942– 2001) and his grandson Kōryū, current abbot of the Tenpōrinji.

6 The semiotics of the natural world: Sacred narratives in translation One of the narratives contemporary ascetics often refer to when discussing the origin of the pilgrimage route is the aforementioned Shozan engi (late twelfth century) which states: Ritual procedure of the mansions: under the steps walked by En no Gyōja there are 69.384 characters. Walking without distracting thoughts, following the five sutra practices,⁹ and raising the ten vows, these are the mountains where he practiced asceticism with singleminded determination (NST 20:117, translation mine).¹⁰

This passage establishes an exact correspondence between the number of Chinese characters contained in the Lotus Sutra (69.384) and the number of steps that En no Gyōja undertook to complete the pilgrimage. In other words, the written text becomes the mountain and the mountain becomes a spatial text not to be ‘read’, but walked by the ascetics, following the steps of the legendary founder, according to what Fontanille (2007, 131– 32) describes as three interrelated dimensions of meaning: cognitive (the ascetic knows what to see), pragmatic (he can make the pilgrimage) and affective (he can control emotions according to a precise ritual and bodily language—see above “without distracting thoughts,”

 The text mentions the “five kinds of monastic practice” (goshu hōshi gyō 五種法師行). These are five modes of ritual activity here associated with the Lotus Sutra, namely learning, reading, recitation, explanation and transcription.  宿の次第。行者の歩み歩みたまふ御足の下に、六万九千三百八十四字あり。散じて余念 乱心なし。五種の法師行じて十願を立て、発行し給ふ所の峯なり。The original kanbun text is “宿次第＜行者歩々御足下、六万九千三百八十四字、散無余念乱心、五種法師行立十願発 行給所之峯也＞” (NST 20: 353). On Shozan engi, see Kawasaki (2005), Roth Al Eid (2014) and Grapard (1982).

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or “he practiced asceticism with single-minded determination”). Moreover, this may be an example of inter-semiotic translation—defined by Jakobson (1959) as translation from one semiotic system to another—from the written language of the sutra to a semiotics of the natural world (Greimas and Courtés 1982, 374– 75), namely the spatial landscape of the mountains. Using the term translation, we wish to emphasize that the content of the verbal text is not ‘read’ in the mountain but is rather perceived through the landscape’s phenomenological and “sensible qualities” (375), i. e., experienced through the mediation of the mountain’s natural elements and of the perceiving body of the practitioner who walks throughout it. Therefore, the figure of En no Gyōja plays here the role of mediator (Latour 2005, 39) between the practitioner and the Katsuragi territory, in which the teachings of the Buddha are inscribed word by word, character by character. These narratives are continuously brought back to memory today, both orally and through a re-enactment of the founder’s ritual actions, as we can see from the following ethnosemiotic analysis.

7 Texts, bodies, places and temporalities Space, from a semiotic point of view, is inextricably related not only to history, as mentioned before, but also to different forms of temporality, which may be either inscribed into geographical landmarks—as argued by Mikhail Bakhtin (1981, 7) with his concept of chronotope—or produced by actors through different kinds of action, the most prominent of which is without doubt ritual. During the ritual performed nowadays at the twenty-eight sutra mounds, Katsuragi ascetics chant a series of mantras and sutras, accompanied by the rhythmic shaking of shakujō 錫杖 (short Buddhist staff provided with six metal rings on top). The whole ceremony is temporally demarked by the sound of horagai 法螺貝 conch shells at the beginning and at the end, and lasts for about eight minutes. Such ritual is preceded or ended by five protective mudrās and mantras called goshinbō 護 身法performed before the first and after the last ceremony enacted during the day at the pilgrimage spots, only by practitioners who received ascetic initiation (yamabushi tokudo girei 山伏得度儀礼).¹¹ The main prayer offered is the Heart Wisdom Sutra (Hannya shingyō 般若心 経). Often, in this as in other services, specific deities from Katsuragi are also invoked, reflexively mentioning in this way the name of the places and of the lead-

 See Sawa (2008, 215) for an explanation of goshinbō esoteric practice.

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er’s family (“Katsuragi” 葛城), which share the same designation.¹² This invocation of a sacred place-name that coincides with the leader’s family name has the effect of reinforcing the bond between the group and the leader implicitly referred to; but it also reinforces a ‘kinship’ relation between the group and the landscape itself. The abbot belongs in fact to the Katsuragi household, which has been running the Tenpōrinji temple throughout the centuries and which claims to be direct descendant of the ancient local clan Kazuraki 葛城 from the same area (Miyake 1986, 61; Kashibashi Nijōsan Hakubutsukan 1999, 8; KK: 550).¹³ This double isotopy (Greimas and Courtés 1982, 163 – 65), or co-presence of two trails of meaning activated by the invocation of the name Katsuragi, connects therefore people and places together, highlighting the deep historical relation between the leader’s ancestors, the temple and the sacred mountains. Moreover, rhythmic intensification, use of tools and positions in space, play a crucial role during the ritual, with the practitioners facing the mound where the Lotus Sutra chapter is venerated (an important semiotic aspect which will be analyzed in detail below). The act of praying in front of sacred scriptures containing the Word of the Buddha, considering them as main icons of worship, has been considered standard Buddhist practice in Japan for a long time (Moerman 2007, 252). For the Shugen practitioners in particular, the sutra mound may be considered as an object of value, a term used in semiotics to indicate specific targets of action—human or nonhuman actors, namely people, deities, animals, things or portions of space playing the actantial role of “object”—which are phenomenologically invested with values by the acting subjects (Greimas 1987b, 84– 105). Portions of space where sacred scriptures have been buried, are in fact charged with religious meanings by the ascetics, becoming objects of worship, i. e., objects of value actively constructed by the practitioners. However, the values invested on the sutra chapters, enable the semiotic construction of sutra mounds not as inert things, but as bodies. The Lotus Sutra itself provides justification for this practice, somehow clarifying to the readers, as a sort of manual of instructions, the way the scripture itself should be venerated, by stating:

 For example, when reciting the prayer “Adoration to the Seven Great Womb [Maṇḍala] Divine Children of Katsuragi (Namu Katsuragi shichidai taizō dōji 南無葛城七大胎蔵童子).”  For the early history of the Kazuraki clan, intertwined with mytho-historical chronicles from Kojiki 古事記 and Nihon shoki 日本書紀, see Tsukaguchi (1993) and Kitatani (1988, 249 – 52). For some of the narratives related to the Kazuraki clan in the two ancient chronicles, see Heldt (2014, 133 – 34) and Aston (1972, 242).

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Whatever place a roll of this scripture may occupy, in all those places one is to erect a stupa of seven jewels […] There is no need to even lodge a śarīra [corporal relic of the Buddha] in it. What is the reason? Within it there is already a whole body of the Thus Come One [i. e., the Buddha himself] (T 9.262.31b; Hurvitz 1976, 178).¹⁴

In this and other passages,¹⁵ the Lotus Sutra presents itself as corporal relic of the Buddha. It is striking that in well-documented Buddhist practices across Asia, relics and religious icons have been envisaged for centuries, in a clear nonrepresentational and immanentist move, as concrete material presence of the body of the Buddha on earth, rather than symbols or representations of the sacred (Sharf and Sharf 2001; Sharf 1999; Faure 1998).¹⁶ The same devotional attitude is shared by ascetic practitioners in Katsuragi, who ritually engage with the sutra mounds, in the same way in which they perform prayers, chants and mantric powerful ritual formulas in front of other Buddhist icons. We should however note that a specific form of temporality had also been previously inscribed in the materiality of mound by the act of burying the Buddhist scripture itself, a temporality which is no longer considered relevant in the contemporary practice. Katsuragi and the nearby mountain areas of Ōmine 大峰 and Kumano 熊野, had been in fact in classical time, in particular between the tenth and the twelfth century, the site for an intensive activity of sutra burial called maikyō 埋経 (“sutra burial”), performed by aristocratic people for eschatological and millenarian purposes (Miyake 1986, 62; Seki 1999; Sekine 1968; Moerman 2007). In a time when a discourse about the End of the Dharma (mappō 末法)—a period of world degeneration when Buddha’s teachings are no longer understood—was permeating the life of aristocrats and monks alike, powerful court politicians and Emperors commissioned and even engaged themselves in copying and burying a great number of sutras, including especially the Lotus Sutra. In so doing, they were following the teaching that through this practice they could preserve the Buddhist Law, until the arrival of the next Buddha Maitreya (Jpn. Miroku 弥勒), some 5.67 billion years in the future. Also, through the practice of sutra burial, aristocrats and monks could achieve enough merits to be reborn in Maitreya’s paradise (Tuśita, Jpn. Tosotsu 兜率). Sutra tubes and sutra mounds thus worked as time-capsules, introducing a future temporality in

 Ch. 23 “Bhaiṣajyarāja.”  The text also praises “who shall receive and keep, read and recite, explain, or copy in writing a single verse of the Scripture of the Blossom of the Fine Dharma, or who will look with veneration on a roll of this scripture as if it were the Buddha himself” (T 9.262.31b; Hurvitz 1976, 178).  See Henare, Holbraad and Wastell (2007) for other examples of nonrepresentational approaches to materiality, coming from ethnographic research.

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the sacred landscape of the pilgrimage. However, differently from these premodern concerns for the future, embedded in material practices expressing the anxieties and hopes of aristocrat people, time undergoes a radical process of collapse during the contemporary rituals.

8 Ritual enunciation of space As mentioned above, the practitioners and the sutra mound face one another in the ritual situation—using a term of Landowski (1989), in the “semiotic context”—establishing a relation of co-presence (Fig. 1).

Figure 1: Practitioners facing the sutra mound during the ritual performance. Courtesy of Tatsuma Padoan.

Both are characterized by what Hammad (2006, 75 – 115) calls “immanent referential” (référentiel immanent). These are centers of reference inscribed in humans, things, architectural elements and other nonhuman actors, orienting spatial directions around them according to topological schemes and axial systems (e. g., front/back, up/down, right/left, etc.), a phenomenon also observed by Lotman (2001) in his analysis of artistic space in Gogol. Positions of people and things in space, would be related to the mutual intersection of their immanent

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referential, according to the form of interaction prescribed, or the course of action followed (Hammad 2006, 82– 83). In other words, when people approach a material object or a particularly marked place, especially in ritual situations (but often in other circumstances too), they need to be aware of the immanent referential inscribed in it, whether for example a pot or tray in a Cha no yu Tea Ceremony should be handled from a particular side (2006, 84– 85), or an altar should be oriented towards east, with the shaman, patient and audience standing behind it, as in the Maya exorcism ritual in Yukatán analyzed in a similar way by William Hanks (1996).¹⁷ If we apply this to the ritual stage performed in Katsuragi, we can see how practitioners, icons and mounds have all their centers of reference in the space and how places inscribed with the Lotus Sutra are worshipped from a particular spatial position, as they have to be orientated towards the Shugen ascetics (Fig. 2).

Figure 2: Immanent referential embedded in the sutra mound as topos.

Such referential embedded in the sutra mounds makes them the ‘zero point’ topos around which space and ritual action are deictically structured, as an immanent ‘I’ according to which a co-present ‘you’ (the ascetics) and a lateral  See also the Japanese funeral ritual analysed by Bachnik (1995) in terms of uchi/soto (inside/ outside) and omote/ura (front/back) deictic anchoring, for another parallel example.

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‘them’ (human bystanders or deities evoked through mantras) are spatially rearranged. Ritual thus works as a concerted conversation, in which different nonhuman actors are brought together and put into motion by the enunciation of space.¹⁸ Space is here not only produced by actions, but it can actually become a producer of actions itself, an acting subject or topos (a “spatial actant,” following Hammad 2002) eliciting a response from the practitioners, prompting their volitions and obligations to perform the ritual. If in presentia, as immanent referentials, we can observe ascetics and mound in mutual relation, in absentia we instead have a second couple of elements, consisting in the figure of the founder En no Gyōja and in the Lotus Sutra considered as relic and Body of the Buddha, according to the following homologation:

Figure 3: Homologation between terms in presentia and in absentia.

However, what occurs through this ritual is actually a presentification of the second couple of terms within the first one. A homological pattern or semi-symbolic relation, of the kind used for example by Lévi-Strauss (1966) to describe relations between totems and social groups, is not explanatory enough in order to analyse this process. Practitioners in fact constantly stress the idea that En no Gyōja and the Buddha left their concrete traces on those mountains. Moreover, En no Gyōja often emerges as a strong simulacrum of identification for them, not only as a devotional figure, but also as exemplar to be embodied while praying and walking. Quite a few members of the group, besides following ordinary ritual activities in the Tsukasakō, also make pilgrimages dedicated to the life of En no Gyōja and to the sacred sites he allegedly visited in Japan. Moreover, some of them pursued this model to such an extent that a physical resemblance with the iconographic image of the founder was also sought—as pointed out by some participants while talking about a member, whose look ended up being so similar to that of En no Gyōja, because he was the one who had climbed and practiced in sacred peaks for the highest number of times in the group. What in the interviews they describe in terms of an immediate religious experience, is expressed

 Some of the Buddhist deities evoked through mantras are Hōki Bosatsu, Zaō Gongen 蔵王権 現, Fudō Myōō 不動明王, the Seven Great Womb Divine Children of Katsuragi and the Eight Great Vajra Divine Children of Ōmine.

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in ritual through the mediation of these two simulacra of identification, En no Gyōja and the Buddha’s Body:

Figure 4: Apparatus of enunciation.

We could consider this as an apparatus of enunciation, namely a way of constructing subjectivities into the ritual discourse. We might more precisely define this operation, in semiotic terms, as a “shifting in” or engagement (Greimas and Courtés 1982, 100 – 2) corresponding, on one side, to the embodiment of the founder’s identity by the practitioners, and on the other side, to the identification of the Buddha’s Body with the landscape (the sutra mound or topos, which is the actor to whom the prayers are offered). Such operation is realized through the ritual activation and presentification of the traces left by the two virtual terms in absentia. It is worth noting here, that Latour (2013a, 2001) describes religious enunciation as a way of realizing a relation of presence, as an instauration of co-presence between the enunciators, deictically defined by we/here/now. In other words, he sees religious enunciation as a way to set a form of simultaneity of bodies. Every time religious enunciation occurs, the presence of enunciators is re-actualized and renovated. Such positions of enunciators may be occupied by both human and nonhuman actors. This might be quite an accurate description of what also occurs in this ritual in Katsuragi. Cosmological actors, times and spaces are actually re-actualized and played out, reconfigured through patterned action. If we look at the rituals of Tsukasakō, soteriological effects are indeed produced by a specific mode of interaction, which sets up a relation of copresence between humans and deities. Such presentification is achieved through rhythm, through voice, prosodic elements and tools, all activated by the body. According to Leroi-Gourhan (1993) in fact, rhythm is not only sound, but involves deeply somatic, visceral sensorimotor mechanisms, thus producing a common bodily sensory field. Rhythm synchronizes a bodily presence, becoming a mechanism of interaction between practitioners and deities. From a semiotic point of view, ritual becomes a way to mobilize space through a specific form of interaction, connected to a particular manipulation of time: namely, a ritual interaction between human and nonhuman bodies (topoi) facing each other,

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bringing the past into the present, through an operation of presentification and synchronization.

9 Conclusion Either considering the sutra mound as object of value—the target of ritual action —or as acting subject—a topological body prescribing ritual acts—the Lotus Sutra is materially buried and inscribed in the mountains, it is not just the representation of a transcendent or remote reality these practitioners think about or imagine. The Sutra, considered as Body of the Buddha, is embedded in the natural landscape of the mountain and can only be grasped through the experience of the ascetic practice. This claim is supported not only by the fact that the revivalist ascetics themselves were always very keen to stress the importance of experiencing the practice and the mountain through their body and affectivity (often using expressions like ogamu kimochi, or “mood to pray,” and mi ni tsukeru, or “learning through the body”), but also by the idea that gods and Buddhas live in the landscape (an idea which I found was not commonly shared by tourists or hikers). The body of the practitioners plays the role of great translator in the Katsuragi pilgrimage, creating a specific semiotics of the natural world by realizing— as we have seen in the analysis of the ritual—the presence of the Buddha. And yet, such ritual activities produce spaces and times, which overlap with other ones, including the premodern mythological narratives, the mountain trails as differently practiced by hikers and tourists and different pilgrimages made by ascetic groups in competition with each other. To conclude, we have seen that history, from a semiotic perspective, is not to be considered as a hard timeline of reality, running below signs, meanings, texts and discourses. History, especially in the case of religious revivalist movements, is instead understood as a strategy of memory. We need to recall what anthropologist Michael Lambek (2003, 212) said about the entangled relation between history and memory: “Memory is history located in relatively subjective space; history is memory located in relatively objectified space. History is memory inscribed, codified, authorized; memory is history embodied, imagined, enacted, enlivened.” Then, together with a clear-cut division between history and memory, a strong demarcation too, between “writers of history” and those experiencing it as “living memory,” soon falls apart. What we call history is in fact, following De Certeau (1988), inevitably constructed by both the scholars and the people they are studying. But as we have seen, history is also constantly included, integrated into a spatial semiotics, into a space constituted by multiple layers of cultural texts originated in the past. All these modes of experience compose a

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multiple, multifaceted landscape, which we may end up calling the “mountains of Katsuragi.”

References Akrich, Madeleine and Bruno Latour. 1992. “A Summary of a Convenient Vocabulary for the Semiotics of Human and Non-Human Assemblies.” In Shaping Technology—Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, edited by Wiebe Bijker and John Law. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press. Ambros, Barbara. 2008. Emplacing a Pilgrimage. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press. Aston, W. G., trans. 1972. Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697. Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle. Bachnik, Jane. 1995. “Orchestrated reciprocity: belief versus practice in Japanese funeral ritual.” In Ceremony and Ritual in Japan, edited by Jan van Bremen and Dolores Martinez. London: Routledge. Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press. Barthes, Roland. 1975. The Pleasure of the Text. New York: Hill and Wang. Barthes, Roland. 1990. A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments. London: Penguin Books. Benveniste, Émile. 1971. Problems in General Linguistics. Miami: University of Miami Press. Bertrand, Denis. 1995. L’espace et le sens. Paris: Hadès-Benjamins. Blair, Heather. 2015. Real and Imagined: The Peak of Gold in Heian Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bock, Felicia, trans. 1970. Engi shiki: Procedures of the Engi Era. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Sophia University Press. Cooren, François. 2010. Action and Agency in Dialogue: Passion, Incarnation and Ventriloquism. John Benjamins: Philadelphia. Coquet, Jean-Claude. 2007. Phusis et logos. Une phénoménologie du langage. Paris: PUV. Csordas, Thomas. 1994. The Sacred Self. Berkeley: University of California Press. De Certeau, Michel. 1988a. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. De Certeau, Michel. 1988b. The Writing of History. New York: Columbia University Press. Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Duranti, Alessandro. 1997. Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Earhart, Byron. 1965. “Shugendō, the Traditions of En no Gyōja, and Mikkyō Influence.” In Studies in Esoteric Buddhism and Tantrism: In Commemoration of the 1,150th Anniversary of the Founding of Kōyasan. Kōyasan: Kōyasan University. Eco, Umberto. 1968. La struttura assente. Milan: Bompiani. Eco, Umberto. 1976. A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Eco, Umberto. 1986. “Function and Sign: Semiotics of Architecture.” In The City and the Sign, edited by Mark Gottdiener and Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos. New York: Columbia University Press. Fabbri, Paolo. 2005. La svolta semiotica. Rome: Laterza. Faure, Bernard. 1998. “The Buddhist Icon and the Modern Gaze.” Critical Inquiry 24 (3): 768 – 813.

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Jenny Ponzo and Francesco Galofaro

Religion and the semiotization of space: The case of the Madonna del Rocciamelone 1 Introduction

The Marian sanctuary on the top of the mount Rocciamelone (Italy) is the highest in Europe.¹ Its presence in the space is a key feature in the semiosphere (Lotman 1984) of the local community living at the foot of the mountain. The analysis of the cultural and religious meanings attributed to the Rocciamelone constitutes, therefore, a good case study to show how a semiotic methodology can be applied to look into the semiotization of space and into the relationship between this spatial semiotization and the identity of a group. Indeed, semiotics offers a set of conceptual instruments useful to gain a better understanding of the way in which a community attributes meaning to its land and, more specifically, how a religious cult deeply rooted on the territory can shape the interpretation of the natural milieu as well as the sense of belonging of the individuals of the group. This enquiry explores different layers of meaning in a corpus of texts:² on the one hand, it singles out a set of homologating structures working as semi-symbolic systems, on the other it takes inspiration from Greimas’ idea of the semiotics of the natural world and from his distinction, on the plastic level, between the topological, eidetic and chromatic areas, which coincide with the semiotic articulation of—respectively—space, forms and colors (Greimas 1984). Even though these plastic categories are often used to analyze visual texts, in this case we will apply them to study the way in which a community makes sense of its natural and cultural environment.

 This paper is part of the research project NeMoSanctI (New Models of Sanctity in Italy (1960s– 2000s)—A Semiotic Analysis of Norms, Causes of Saints, Hagiography, and Narratives), which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 757314). Even though the work results from a close cooperation between the authors, for formal attribution, please consider sections 1, 4 and 5 as authored by Jenny Ponzo and sections 2 and 3 as authored by Francesco Galofaro. The translations of the stanzas in section 5 are also by Jenny Ponzo.  Taking inspiration from Peircean and anthropological perspectives, we adopt here a wide notion of text, including not only verbal texts, but also, for instance, works of architecture and ritual practices, such as pilgrimage. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-013

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The Rocciamelone is a 3,538 meters high mountain in the western Alps, between the Italian Valle di Susa (Valley of Susa), in the region of Piedmont, 50 km west of Turin, and the French province of Maurienne (figure 1)³. On the top of the Rocciamelone, there is a sanctuary devoted to the Virgin, venerated with the appellative of “Madonna del Rocciamelone.”

Figure 1: The Rocciamelone, winter.

The origins of the cult on the Rocciamelone date back to the pre-Christian era: archaeological evidences seem to indicate that the Romans had consecrated the Rocciamelone to the god Jupiter (Minola 2016, 9 – 10). A number of legends surround the mountain, involving devils, hidden treasures, nobles, prelates and kings: especially in the Middle Ages, high mountains were generally considered mysterious places, dominated by supernatural forces, either divine or diabolic (Minola 2016, 25 – 34). However, a first turning point locating this mountain out of the vague time of legend and rooting it into history took place in the 14th century, when the marquise Boniface Rotarius placed a bronze triptych representing the Virgin on the top. According to the tradition, Rotarius was a crusader who fell prisoner of the Turks. In this circumstance, he made a vow to the Virgin promising her that, if she helped him to survive and to return home, he would make a triptych for her and place it into a chapel located on  License: CC. https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rocciamelone_inverno.JPG (accessed on April 8, 2020).

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the highest top of the Piedmontese Alps (Piardi 1999, 19 – 23). The first Marian chapel, probably simply a little cavern, was thus built on the top. An inscription on the triptych indicates that Boniface located it in its shrine on September 1, 1358. In 1673, the triptych was stolen from the shrine by a nobleman and offered to the Savoy king Carlo Emanuele II, who gave it back to the local community. The triptych was first placed in the cathedral of Susa, but since it is a fine and precious artwork (figure 2)⁴, it is now kept in the Museo Diocesano di Arte Sacra (diocesan museum of sacred art) in Susa, the main town at the foot of the mount Rocciamelone.⁵ According to the tradition, Rotarius tried to reach the top twice. The first time, he was stopped by difficult meteorological conditions at midway, where he built a first hut, Ca’ d’Asti, which was widened in the course of time. It is significant to note that the pilgrimage of Rotarius took place about twenty years after Petrarch’s ascent to Mont Ventoux (1336): the poet Petrarch (1999) describes the ascent as both a physical and spiritual journey which had a capital importance for his religious conversion, thus providing an excellent testimony of the widespread (or we could dare say universal) symbolism associating the ascent to high mountains to a spiritual ascent (Minola 2016, 20; Ponzo 2021). In the course of time, the pilgrimage to the Virgin of the Rocciamelone became an increasingly consolidated tradition among the people of the Valley of Susa and of the region. After a phase of regression in the 18th century, when the local Church authorities discouraged the cult on the top and promoted the veneration in a chapel built at Ca’ d’Asti, the pilgrimage to the top knew an important development during the 19th century, which represents a second turning point in the history of the Rocciamelone: on June 15, 1899, a colossal bronze statue of the Virgin (about 3 m high and 650 Kg weight) was placed on the top of the mountain (figure 3).⁶ The main promoter of this initiative was the bishop of Susa, Edoardo Rosaz (1830 – 1903), who is the subject of an open cause for canonization and was proclaimed blessed in 1991 by Pope John Paul II.⁷ The Rocciamelone was one of the

 License: CC. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trittico_della_Madonna_di_Rocciame lone_Susa.jpg (accessed on April 8, 2020).  On the triptych, see Piardi (1999, 121); Bertolo (1986, 9 – 20).  License: CC. https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Madonna_Rocciamelone.jpg (accessed on April 8th 2020).  The collection of Rosaz’ official documents and discourses, the acts of his cause for canonization and copies of the newspaper Il Rocciamelone are kept in the diocesan archive of Susa. Some documents are also kept in the seat of the Congregation that he founded in Susa, namely

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Figure 2: The bronze triptych offered by Boniface Rotarius (1358).

Figure 3: The statue of the Madonna del Rocciamelone.

the Congregation of the Suore Francescane Missionarie di Susa. The seat of this Congregation also hosts a small museum about the founder.

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central points of interest in Rosaz’ actions and discourse. He often described the Virgin as a sentinel, protecting the Valley of Susa from above, and he saw the practice of pilgrimage as a powerful way to reinforce the faith and the cohesion of the Catholic community, which he used to describe as menaced by several enemies, in particular the masonry and the liberal spirit promoted by the French Revolution and spreading across Europe since then. The centrality of the Rocciamelone in Rosaz’ view is also demonstrated by the fact that he founded a local newspaper dedicated to the mountain (“Il Rocciamelone”). In order to help to collect the money necessary to build the statue of the Virgin, Giovanni Battista Ghirardi, director of the children periodical “Innocenza,” launched a national campaign, asking all Italian children to make a little offering. The initiative had a large success and 130,000 children sent their obol, because Ghirardi promised that a register with the names of all the donors would have been placed at the foot of the statue, where it still lies, underneath a placard reading: “I bimbi d’Italia a Maria” (the children of Italy to Mary). Pope Leo XIII was moved by this initiative, so he proposed the following dedication, also put on the base of the statue: “Alma Dei mater / nive candidior / Maria lumine / benigno Segusiam respice tuam ausoniae tuere fines / coelestis patrona” (“Oh Mary, great Mother of God, brighter than snow, look with benignity at your Susa and protect, heavenly patron, the borders of Italy”). The statue was realized by the Turin sculptor Giovanni Stuardi and was brought on the top of the mountain, divided into eight pieces and there assembled by the Alpini, the Italian army’s mountain infantry corps. This fact testifies to the institutional and communitarian engagement in this endeavor. The statue was entitled as “Madonna delle Nevi” (Virgin of the Snows), one of the traditional appellatives of the Virgin venerated on August 5, which is consequently also the date of the yearly celebration taking place on the top of the mountain, but the local community calls and evokes her much more often with the title “Madonna del Rocciamelone.” The development of the cult was accompanied by a progressive development of the sanctuary: the original cavern was substituted by a wooden chapel which was rebuilt several times, the last of which in 1895. In 1913, the wooden chapel was destroyed by fire and therefore a stone sanctuary was projected: the inauguration of the sanctuary that is still there today dates from 1923 (Piardi 1999, 36 – 37), but important works of renovations were made between the 1970s and 80s (figure 4).⁸

 License: CC. https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chiesa_vetta_Rocciamelone.jpg (accessed on April 8, 2020).

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Figure 4: The sanctuary on the top of the Rocciamelone as it looks today. The statue of the Madonna is placed behind and above the sanctuary.

In what follows, we adopt a semiotic viewpoint to look into the construction of the meanings and values surrounding the mount Rocciamelone, its sanctuary and statue, and the related practice of pilgrimage. After some general reflections about the homologating structures connecting meanings to topological categories, we take into consideration the semiotization of the Madonna del Rocciamelone in the discourse of a key figure in the promotion of the cult, bishop Edoardo Rosaz, and then in a corpus of poems and hymns by local authors devout to the Madonna del Rocciamelone.

2 Homologating structures of the religious discourse To approach the case of the Rocciamelone, we introduce some relations of homologation between a manifesting category and some manifested semantic values which often recur in religious discourse. These general structures will turn useful to frame the Rocciamelone sanctuary, in order to understand the diachronic development of its meaning. The first homologating structure concerns the idea of heaven. In particular, since the Rocciamelone sanctuary is the highest in Europe, one should notice that a phenomenological glance at the religious discourse reveals immediately

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how the topological opposition top / bottom is widespreadly used to manifest the abstract demarcation between sacred and profane. Thus, we can start noting the homologation (a): a. top / bottom = sacred / profane In fact, heaven is deified in many ancient religions (cf. the Chinese 天, tiān). In Plato’s chariot allegory (Phaedrus, 245c–249d), the kingdom of the Gods is located in heavens; winged human souls try to rise to contemplate being, the truth. If they fail, they lose their wings and they fall to Earth. In the Lord’s prayer (Matt 6:9 – 13), Our Father is in heaven. Because of this fundamental homomorphism, the Gospels and Neoplatonic tradition could merge in such authors as Dionysius the Areopagite. However, the homology (a) is obviously an arbitrary relationship. For example, in Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle—The Mansions, the soul is represented as a castle: Jesus lives in the seventh mansion. To reach Him, the soul has to enter into itself—Teresa was well aware of the paradox—and to cross all the mansions of the castle. Thus, we have a second and different homologation between topological and abstract categories: b. interior / exterior = sacred / profane This homology is present in Teresa’s religious culture, since it belongs to the Gospel: “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, ‘The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.’” (Luke 17:20 – 21, KJV). However, as in the case of the chariot allegory, even in the interior castle there is a possible journey that souls can begin to leave the material dimension and to reach a spiritual plane, to enter into communion with God. Another trait in common is related to the phenomenological experience: the journey starts from everyday life, and it is directed toward an uncommon space. In Teresa’s description, this journey can imply also intermediate stages. For the same reason, the pilgrimage to the Rocciamelone can be seen as a spiritual journey, with the intermediate stage of the Ca’ d’Asti mountain hut, foreseen by the founder himself, Boniface Rotarius. Another consequence of the arbitrariness of the homologation (a) is the variability of the values that can be manifested by the topological opposition top / bottom. In Phaedrus, the “top” position is associated to truth and knowledge. Thus, we have: c. top / bottom = knowledge / absence of knowledge

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If we compare (a) and (c), we see how in (c) a privative opposition (s / -s) is manifested by an antonymic relation (s1 / s2). Thus, the ascendant journey is connected to the conjunction of the subject with both sacred and cognitive values (knowledge). As we will see, this is true also in the case of the Rocciamelone, the Virgin of which is compared to a lookout by mons. Rosaz. In language and literature, the substance of the expression plane is made of phonemes or graphemes⁹ organized in words, sentences, paragraphs….whereas both the manifesting, topologic oppositions and the manifested, cognitive ones belong to the content plane: they are semantic, abstract categories which organize the figurativity of the represented world (cf. Greimas 1966). The sacred / profane thence manifests a phoric opposition: d. sacred / profane = euphoric / (dysphoric or aphoric) When we analyse pilgrimage, we are no more considering language, but the semiotics of the world of our experience. Thus, the analyst can attribute the top / bottom category directly to the expression (i. e., manifesting) plane, while cognitive and phoric oppositions are relative to the content plane. The reason is simple: according to Louis Hjelmslev (1943), expression and content plane are interdefined in reciprocal opposition. They are never to be identified with specific substances.¹⁰ Thus, in semiotic tradition, the ultimate decision on what is expression and what is content is always left to the analyst, who identifies the locus of the semiosis. In the specific case of pilgrimage, the relation between expression and content plane is clearly heteromateric: while the matter of the content plane is identified with a transcendent semantic universe, where the soul and the sacred / profane values are individuated, the matter of the expression plane is constituted by the world of our experience (mountains, lowlands). We project on the content plane the net of relations constituted by the form of the expression plane, the same that we found above, in the phenomenology of religious and philosophic discourse. Thus, the ascendant journey of the soul from the profane to the sacred, where it becomes conjoint to a euphoric value of knowledge, is manifested by the ascendant journey of a manifesting body, including the possible intermediate stages.

 Graphemes are the smallest functional unit of a writing system. See Hjelmslev (1959, 82).  To found lingustics on substances, one should list the existing substances, distinguishing the ones of the expression from the ones of the content plane, providing an explanation for the variability of their attribution to the first or to the second. In other terms, we would need an indisputable metaphysical theory.

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3 The Madonna del Rocciamelone in Rosaz’ discourse The sanctuary of the Rocciamelone is an interesting case study to test the semiotic relations we reconstructed above. As we said, it is the highest European sanctuary (3.538 m). Boniface Rotarius of Asti, the crusader who founded it, left a bronze triptych on the peak, and marked also an intermediate stage, now identified with the mountain refuge Ca’ D’Asti. After a period in which the pilgrimage was limited by ecclesiastic authorities, it was restored by Blessed Mons. Edoardo Giuseppe Rosaz in 1899, by posing there a colossal bronze statue of the Virgin. Before realizing the restoration, however, Mons. Rosaz wrote different considerations on the symbolic meaning he associated to the top / bottom topological opposition.

3.1 The lookout In Rosaz (1884) we read this passage: The Holy Father […] at every opportunity insists on the need for prayer and intercession of the Great Mother of God Mary Most Holy. Elevated above the high mountain, which is the Church, she sees better than we do the plots of the enemies and therefore that watchful custody of the flock, entrusted to her by God, does not cease to raise her voice as a warning and makes us careful to avoid them.

Interestingly, we are in presence of a military metaphor: Mary is a lookout, watching for the enemies. Thus, Mary is a figure, embodying the abstract value of “knowledge” because she plays the thematic role of the lookout. This is clearly a variant of the homologation (c).

3.2 Manifesting the cult A second important function of Marian devotion is related to what Rosaz (1899) calls the external cult. In the pastoral letter for Lent 1899—the same year of the inauguration of the sanctuary—Blessed Rosaz explains that liberals promote an interiorization of the cult, in particular contrasting Catholic exterior forms of devotion. However, they omit to criticize other confessions. Rosaz explains that Catholicism promotes self-renunciation to exercise virtues, while other religions are based on freedom of speech and manners. In this context, the external cult is

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useful to let God be known, because we manifest affections through external senses. It is a way to disseminate knowledge among uneducated people, and to preserve them from heresy. Finally, it builds up social links, spreading happiness. He eventually dedicates two pages on Marian devotion and to the Madonna of Rocciamelone, which evidently has the same function of manifesting the cult.

3.3 The Enemy and the war As we said above, while the Virgin embodies a helper and the acquisition of knowledge, liberals embody an anti-subject spreading ignorance of the truth. Ten years before, Rosaz (1889) had written about the confrontation between the army of the City of God (St. Augustine) and the army of the world (rebellion and revolution): “[…] the dominant liberalism strives to remove Jesus entirely from society.” He draws a comparison between the program of revolution and the program of the Church: Table 1: Rosaz’ comparison of revolutionary and ecclesial programs. Program of the revolution

Program of the Church

Freedom against God; religion is no more the basis of rule of law; freedom of cult; freedom of the press; atheist education; separation of Church and State; marriage as a civil contract.

to promote welfare, peace among people, wellness; to let Jesus rule above the Nations.

Rosaz returns to this war in 1898, when he justifies sacred zeal as rebuttal against irreligious zeal, motivated by charity and by the war that Jesus said He came to make. In the conclusion of the letter (Rosaz 1898), the Virgin, and more specifically the Madonna of the Rocciamelone, is represented once again as a helper.

3.4 Another top/bottom opposition In 1885, Rosaz wrote a pastoral letter on mortification. In this occasion, he addressed the problem of the relation science/faith. According to him, religion is not an enemy of scientific knowledge. However, the latter is not capable, when left alone, to grant a fraternal union of peoples; it rather leads to revolution, civil war, extermination and death. Thus, reason must guide science. According to Rosaz, human beings are subdivided in two parts:

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e. top / bottom = reason / passion Mortification is directed top-down, since the bottom part frees itself from the rule of reason. Rosaz does not explicitly connect the opposition (e) to the Virgin, but we think it is nevertheless significant because we find the same euphoric/dysphoric opposition that we already saw in relation (d): top is euphorically related to reason and to the fraternal union of peoples; bottom is dysphorically linked to passion, conflict and death.

3.5 Rosaz and the encyclopedia of his time The new sanctuary of the Rocciamelone simply translates the homologating structures (a, c, d) from literature to architecture, engraving them directly onto landscape in form of journey and pilgrimage, and embodying a military metaphor. The hostility toward liberals is motivated, above all, because the new Italian State was founded at the expense of the annexation of the former Pontifical State. The encyclopaedic format (Eco 1984) of the times is represented in a pastoral letter on charities (Rosaz 1885b): charities underline the failings and failures of the liberal state and of political ethics based on selfishness in the care of populations. In fact, Rosaz’ engagement in creating charities is one of the reasons why he has been beatified. However, the military metaphor is also part of the rhetorical sensibility of the period. For example, Therese of Lisieux writes: “The person to whom you deign to unite myself with the sweet bonds of love will go and fight in the plain to conquer hearts, and I, on the mountain of Carmel, I will beg you to give him the victory” (Teresa di Gesù Bambino 2009, 945). Like the little saint, Mons. Rosaz quotes Exod 17:9 – 13: while Joshua fights Amalek, Moses praises God staying on the top of a hill. Regarding the Virgin, she is often associated to the war in defense of faith. For example, according to tradition, the Akathist hymn was first sung in 626 AD when it was performed in the Blachernae Church to thank the Virgin Mary for saving Constantinople from a military invasion of Persians and Avars. This practice influenced Polish tradition: the war song Bogurodzica (Mother of God) was sung by Polish armies at the battle of Grunwald, when they defeated the Prussian Teutonic Knights—cf. Jakóbczyk-Gola (2019). During the early modern period, after the 1571 defeat of the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto, Catholics attributed the victory to the banner of “Our Lady of Victory,” and raised this battle standard also against protestants—cf. Tvrtković (2020). Thus, Mons. Rosaz was updat-

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ing tradition to the fight against liberals, the new heretics who had put an end to the ultramillenarian Papal State. Ironically, the same military corps of the Italian army that carried the Virgin’s statue on the top, placed near it the bust of Vittorio Emanuele II, the first Italian king, who had conquered the Papal State, realizing the dream of the Italian liberals of a unified State. The military isotopy is not a necessary component of the meaning of the pilgrimage, otherwise the identification of the Virgin with a lookout would not be a metaphor: in fact, nowadays pilgrims do not actualize this virtual value. In semiotic terms, we can interpret the situation as a borrowing of a semantic value from a military section of the encyclopedia (Eco 1984) to the religious one. Let us label “militant” this semantic value. Rastier (1987) proposes an interesting model of this transfer of semantic values. In keeping with structural semantics, Rastier calls these semes afferent, to distinguish them from the inherent semes, which already hold in the system of language. From a methodological point of view, to prove this transfer we must indicate two taxemes,¹¹ i. e., two minimal classes whose elements are semes, that already share at least one seme, to allow the borrowing. If we label /lookout/ the military taxeme and /pilgrimage/ the religious one, they share the search for knowledge, associated to a euphoric state: − Taxemes: /lookout/ (T1), /pilgrimage/(T2) − Shared inherent semes: “search” + “knowledge” + “euphoric” − Afferent seme from T1 to T2: “militant” These values explain a wide superposition that we can register in historical terms between the two encyclopedic regions, as it is proved by such sememes as mission, scout, expedition, patrol, sentinel. Pilgrimage and war are wonderfully merged in the term crusade: curiously, this military isotopy is present in the Rocciamelone pilgrimage from the foundation: thus, we must conclude that it is periodically reactualized, depending on the ideological norm.

 Rastier (1987) defines the taxeme as a minimal class whose elements are semes. For example, bus and metro belong to the classeme of /urban transportation/, and coach and train belong to the taxeme of /inter-urban transportation/. – see also Kurdi (2017, 84– 91). In Hjelmslev (1943, 99) the taxeme is defined as the output of the analysis when it is not possible to reach a further stage using the criterion of selection, i. e., searching for functions between a constant and a variable in a process.

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4 The semiosphere of the Rocciamelone in the Valley of Susa 4.1 Topological and eidetic categories The Valley of Susa is about 50 km long and placed on an east-west line. The Rocciamelone appears as a topologically dominating element in the valley not only because it is the highest mountain, but also because it is placed in a central position, on the side facing South, the one more enlightened by the sun (figure 5)¹².

Figure 5: The Valley of Susa: the Rocciamelone is in the black circle. On the left, the thin white line indicates the border with France.

This centrality of the Rocciamelone is a pertinent topological category in the discourse of the people of the valley. For instance, the local tourist guides often invite visitors to note that the Rocciamelone is perfectly framed by the Roman Arch of Augustus in Susa, one of the most important historical monuments of the town. The Madonna of the Rocciamelone is moreover a center of the local devo-

 License: CC. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Val_di_Susa_mappa.png, created by Lorenzo Rossetti (accessed on April 8, 2020).

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tion, and this centrality is also represented by a spatial directionality; for instance in the village of Foresto, where a series of small chapels devoted to the Virgin are placed in an axial line converging with the top of the Rocciamelone and its Madonna (figure 6). The statue of the Virgin works therefore as a central perspectival spot, reachable through a vertical movement (of the head and the eyes if one watches it, of the whole body in the case of pilgrimage).

Figure 6: The village of Foresto: the mount Rocciamelone is the highest and whiter peak, and the small Marian chapels on the mountain (in the black circles) are placed so as to point towards the top and the Madonna of the Rocciamelone.

A similar pattern can be observed in a kind of via crucis present in different northern Italian regions. The via crucis is a Catholic ritual that retraces the story of Jesus and, in particular, his Passion and the ascent to Mount Golgotha, where he was crucified: the narration of the story is accompanied by a physical movement articulated in stops in the correspondence of icons (paintings, reliefs, tables, sculptures, etc.) representing the main events. Each spot hosting an icon and connected to a particular event is called “station.” In most cases, the stations are located inside a church, but there are several via crucis where the Passion and the ascent of Jesus are reproduced on the sides of mounts or hills, so that the faithful too, during the performance of the ritual, take part in the labor of a physical ascent, generally ending in a sacred place, such as a sanctuary. Instances of this kind of via crucis can be found in Lussari (in the Eastern

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Alps), at the Sacro Monte (Sacred Mount) of Varallo (Piedmont), and at the Santuario della Beata Vergine del Carmelo (Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of the Carmel) of Montevecchia, in the province of Lecco (Lombardy). The topological semantization of the Rocciamelone is related to an eidetic feature. Indeed, the idea of ascent is connected to the idea of converging oblique lines, namely to the form of the triangle. This triangular form is the natural form of the mountain and is emphasized by the shape of the statue’s base, which further increases the acuteness of the top angle of the mount. The thinning of the rocks (of the matter) and its culmination in the icon of the Virgin is a symbol of ascent towards the sky, intended in this case as heaven. The fusion between natural elements and cultural/religious values is very effective here, and it also involves the chromatic area: the image of the Madonna of the Rocciamelone, reproduced in countless pictures, is most often surrounded by a blue sky. It is known that blue is a color traditionally connected to the figure of the Virgin, and in particular with her veil or mantle, and that our culture tends to associate the color blue with spirituality (Pastoreau 2000). The isotopy with the triangular form and the associated semantic values can also be found in examples of local architecture, and, in particular, in the church devoted specifically to the Madonna of the Rocciamelone in Mompantero, a small town near Susa. The sanctuary of Mompantero is placed at the starting point of the most direct pathway leading to the top of the Rocciamelone. A first chapel was built there in 1858, in occasion of the fifth centenary of the sanctuary on the top; the local community intended to substitute the chapel with a proper sanctuary on the occasion of the sixth centenary, in 1958, and the new building, projected by the architect Emanuele Godone, was consecrated in 1961 (Bertolo 1986, 85 – 150). The whole sanctuary is projected as a set of acute triangles, spatially pointing to the statue of the Madonna del Rocciamelone, towards which the church is oriented, and which can be seen from the big glass wall of the apse (figures 7 and 8). The same pattern characterizes the majestic apse tower (26,2 m high), formed by two oblique—almost vertical—slabs of reinforced concrete, culminating with a statue reproducing the Madonna of the Rocciamelone. The church thus evokes the shape of the mount Rocciamelone, working as a deictic sign pointing to the Madonna on the top, and evokes the meaning of spiritual ascent towards the Madonna and, by her intercession, to the sky/heaven. The shape of the sanctuary, as Bertolo (1986) observes, also is reminiscent of two hands joined in prayer towards the Virgin on the top of the mountain.

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Figure 7: The Sanctuary of Mompantero, sketch by Noelle Cuk.

Figure 8: The interior of the Sanctuary of Mompantero: the apse with the altar and the glass wall, sketch by Noelle Cuk.

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4.2 Poems and hymns The centrality of the Rocciamelone in the local culture also emerges from the numerous poems and hymns that local people devoted to the Madonna. A rich collection of these texts, from the period of the inauguration of the statue of the Madonna to our days, was gathered by the local author Laura Grisa and published in Piardi (1999). In this corpus, including 70 compositions, we can identify several recurring themes.

4.2.1 Physical/spiritual, ascending/descending movement The poems and hymns describe several patterns of movement between top and bottom. This movement can be physical or mental/spiritual. The physical movement goes in two directions: the first is of course the ascent to the top of the mountain, which characterizes the pilgrimage. Many poems describe personal experiences of ascent to the mount;¹³ some of them describe the itinerary of Rotarius, the first pilgrim of the Rocciamelone, and a third, quite curious, movement of ascent is the one of the Madonna, which some poems composed in the period of the construction and inauguration of the statue describe in her journey towards her sanctuary. A small number of poems focus on the contrary on the opposite movement: the descent of the pilgrims from the mount, in the concluding phase of the pilgrimage.¹⁴ A second kind of movement, which is only partially physical, concerns the movement of the eyes: on the one hand, several poems describe the look of the people down in the valley up to the Madonna; on the other hand, the Madonna looks down to the people of the valley from the top of her mountain. A third kind of movement is a spiritual and mental one, entailing a temporal and aspectual dimension connected to the wait for the visit to the statue on the top: typically, the poets imagine the moment of the pilgrimage to the Virgin, during the summer, and their thought flies up to the Madonna all alone in the snow and surrounded by a perfect silence. A further kind of mental movement is the spiritual ascent towards faith through the Madonna: in several poems the Madonna is described as a lighthouse and a star, a center of irradiation of divine truth.  For instance, Carmela Savaris Banaudi, “Rocciamelone,” from Santuario Madonna del Rocciamleone, anno XXX, n. 1, 1° semestre 1993, cit. in Piardi (1999, 203).  The descent is described for instance in Giovanni Germena, 1928, “Rocciamelone” from La Valsusa, n. 22, 21/05/1928, cit. in Piardi (1999, 187).

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The elevated position of the statue is also connected to the most recurrent figure of the sentinel. In many cases, especially in the poems composed until the 1950s, the figure of the sentinel is coupled with references to the semantic field of war,¹⁵ thus constituting an isotopy with regard to the discourses of Mons. Rosaz. However, while Rosaz mainly used the lexicon of war as a metaphor (as we said, he mainly referred to an ideological war), especially the poems composed in the first half of the 20th century refer to the actual military conflicts menacing Italy and its national borders, which were recommended to the protection of the Madonna. In general, the figure of the sentinel is usually connected to the theme of motherhood: the Madonna is represented as a lovely mother, watching her people from above to protect them from dangers. The use of this metaphor is often connected to an eidetic component, because the metaphor of the motherly sentinel is often reinforced through the description of the pose of the statue: the arms of the Madonna look opened in a protective gesture.¹⁶ With time, the Madonna loses her connotation of military sentinel, and is rather represented as a lovely mother guarding her children. Further recurring themes are connected to the chromatic area. The Madonna of the Rocciamelone is often described by using the traditional Latin epithet nive candidior, often in relation to the bright character and whiteness of the snow that surrounds her. An interesting figure regards the description of the sky as her mantel or crown: the blue of the sky or the orange and red tones of the dawn frame the statue and appear as her attributes.¹⁷ This figure, as mentioned above, underlines the close relationship between the Virgin and the Heaven, and her role of guidance of mankind towards Heaven and Paradise. Coherently, she is also often described as a star and a lighthouse, which orientates the look and the spirit of her people.¹⁸ The following extracts from various poems provide examples of these recurring themes.

 For instance, Mary is invoked as the protector of the homeland against the foreigner and armed invader in Luigi Vitali, 1900, “Alla Madonna del Rocciamelone,” from Il Rocciamelone n. 12, 24/03/1900, cit. in Piardi (1999, 182– 183); P. Paolo Belgrano, 1944, “Al Rocciamelone,” from Avanguardia Serafica n. 1, 15/02/1944, cit. in Piardi (1999, 194); Natale Reviglio, 1955, “Per la cappella sul Rocciamelone, from La Valsusa n. 41, 15/10/1955, cit. in Piardi (1999, 190).  The gesture of the Madonna, with her open arms, is described for instance in: Giuseppe Manni, 1900, “Alla Madonna del Rocciamelone” in Il Rocciamelone n. 31, 04/08/1900, cit. in Piardi (1999, 184).  For instance, Mary appears as surrounded by a blue cupola in Giuseppe Manni, 1900, “Alla Madonna del Rocciamelone” in Il Rocciamelone n. 31, 04/08/1900, cit. in Piardi (1999, 184).  The Madonna is described as a lighthouse and as a polar star in the darkness by Pietro San Pietro, “15 giugno,” from Il Rocciamelone, n. 24, 17/06/1899, cit. in Piardi (1999, 180).

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“Madonna del Rocciamelone” – 

“Madonna of the Rocciamelone”

Quando il vento urla nei dirupi sferzando di neve i rami spogli dei pioppi in fila lungo la Dora penso a te mia dolce Madonna avvolta in un manto di gelo, tutta sola sul Rocciamelone.

When the wind screams in the cliffs beating with snow the bare branches of the poplars lined along the (river) Dora I think of you my sweet Madonna wrapped up in a cape of frost, all alone on the Rocciamelone.

Tornerò sulla tua vetta nel mese di luglio, allo sbocciar dei fiori sul ripido sentiero. Vergine dei monti, porterò con me la rosa che ho coltivato quaggiù nella valle.

I will return to your peak in the month of July, when the flowers bloom on the steep path. Virgin of the mounts, I will bring with me the rose which I cultivated down here in the valley.

Quando il sole cocente dell’estate scioglie in lacrime lungo il tuo bel viso Le gemme fredde di ghiaccio fulgente che t’impennano fronte e corona, è l’ora mia cara Madonna di vederci sul Rocciamelone.

When the hot sun of the summer melts in tears along your beautiful face the cold gems of shining ice that bead your forehead and crown, it is time, my dear Madonna, to meet you on the Rocciamelone.

[…]

[…]

Quando penso all’appuntamento io preparo lo zaino e la piccozza poi scruto il cielo al tenue tramonto e mentre la cima si arrossa chiamo il mio amore vicino a guardare il Rocciamelone.

When I think of the date I prepare the backpack and the ice ax then I scan the sky in the tenuous sunset and as the top reddens I call my love next to me to look at the Rocciamelone.

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Vito Brusa and Mario Piovano, from La Valsusa, n. , //, cit. in Piardi (, ).

This poem develops the theme of the expectation and the spiritual and mental movement of ascent towards the Madonna. In the first strophe, the thought of the poet ascends to the top of the Mountain; in the refrain, he expresses the wait for the time of the pilgrimage, in the summer; in the second strophe, the movement of the thought is accompanied by the symbolic act of sending a kiss up to the Madonna; and only in the last strophe the mental and spiritual movement towards the Virgin converts in the physical movement of the eyes that look upwards to the Madonna, in the imminence of the pilgrimage (the

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poet prepares his equipment for the pilgrimage). The poem therefore designs a climax of concretization of the ascent from the purely mental one, to the physical ascent to the mountain, which is only foreshadowed. The passage of time is symbolized by the reference to meteorological conditions, which provide a chromatic element: in the beginning, when it is winter, the frost forms a mantle around the statue, and in the end, in the summer, the top is surrounded by a tenuous red sunset. “Preghiera” – 

“Prayer”

Maria, Signora della Valle, ancora una volta fin qui son salito per guardare il tuo bronzeo volto contro l’azzurro, per chiederti di stendere la tua mano su un pargolo che è alle soglie della luce e per implorare (non vorrei!) un miracolo. Tu sai, Maria, che laggiù a quattro anni una bimba ancora non muove i primi passi e non sa ripetere il tuo nome. […] Raggiungi ti prego mia madre su qualche nuvola del Cielo e dille che non sono mutato da quando ci ha lasciati. […]

Mary, Lady of the Valley, once more up here I have climbed to look at your bronze face against the blue, to ask you to stretch out your hand on a baby who is at the threshold of light and to implore (I would not want!) a miracle. You know, Mary, that down there, a four-years old girl does not take her first step and cannot repeat your name yet. […] Reach I beg you my mother on some cloud in Heaven and tell her that I have not changed since she left us. […]

Marco Pent, , from Pensieri di Borgata, cit. in Piardi (, ).

This poem describes the culminating moment of the pilgrimage as a very personal and intimate experience: the poet has climbed the mountain and is on the top,

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in presence of the statue. His prayer takes the form of a heartfelt discourse to Mary, treated with familiarity and love. The face of the Madonna is surrounded by the blue of the sky and her proximity with the celestial dimension is also underlined by her role of mediator between the poet and his mother, who has passed away and is imagined on a cloud in Heaven. In this sense, the cult of the Virgin also guarantees the continuity of the local community through time, not only connecting living and dead people, but also because she is represented as someone knowing personally everyone, taking part empathically in life problems and feelings, almost as a family member or, more precisely, as a loving mother. “Nostra Signora del Rocciamelone” – 

“Our Lady of the Rocciamelone”

Sul monte più alto di nostra Valsusa, tra la terra ed il cielo tu svetti o Maria. Lassù, t’han voluta o Madre, o Regina, in un giorno lontano i bimbi d’Italia. E tu stendi le braccia, sorridi pensosa avvolta in un velo: sei bella, Maria! Sei una cara presenza per chi vive ai tuoi piedi […]. Sei un caro pensiero per chi ti saluta passando veloce nel cielo o nel piano; sei un dolce richiamo a salire sul monte portando nel cuore affanni e preghiera. Sei stella d’Italia E da altissima rupe domini invitta le forze del male; sei faro di luce Per chi vuol ritrovare

On the highest mount of our Valley of Susa, between heaven and earth you stand out oh Mary. Above there, they wanted you oh Mother, oh Queen in a faraway day the children of Italy. And you stretch out your arms, you smile pensive enveloped in a veil: you are beautiful, Mary! You are a dear presence for those who live at your feet […]. You are a dear thought for those who greet you passing by fast in the sky or in the plain; you are a sweet call to climb the mount bringing in the heart griefs and prayer. You are the star of Italy and from the highest peak you dominate undefeated the forces of evil; you are a beacon of light for those who want to find again

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la fede perduta tra le brume del mondo. O madre del Verbo a te affidiamo i nostri bambini: proteggili tu. […]

the faith lost among the mists of the world. Oh mother of the Verb we entrust you with our children: protect them. […]

Clelia Baccon, , from Santuario Madonna del Rocciamelone, anno XXX, n. , ° semestre , cit. in Piardi (, ).

This poem underlines the special relation between the Madonna of the Rocciamelone and the Italian children: after the initial invocation, the poet evokes their active participation in the construction of her statue and in the end, they are especially entrusted to her protection. This reference to the children provides the poem with a ring composition. The Madonna is placed between Heaven and earth, and she is a powerful sentinel. Her smile and look are put in a direct connection with the pose of her open arms to convey the meaning of protection of her people. While the Madonna looks down, the inhabitants of the valley look up to her: the Madonna is a “star,” a “lighthouse” for those who lost their faith, a central point of reference not only visually but also for the thought of her people; she is a point of orientation, both spatially and spiritually. “Il Simulacro di Maria sul Rocciamelone” – 

“The Simulacrum of Mary on the Rocciamelone”

Mio manto è neve. Sul mio crin più bella Ad annunziare il dì sorge l’Aurora; E al Sol che nasce il bel cammino infiora, Mentre ei di raggi sempre più s’abbella Nel cielo azzurro I’ son di mare Stella; […] Torre di David qui m’alzo a difesa, Che sul nemico mia potenza mostri, A le fini d’Italia, a Santa Chiesa, Bimbi, qui mi voleste? O figli, anch’Io Con me qui voglio puri i cuori i vostri […]

My cape is snow. On my hair more beautiful The Dawn rises to announce the day; And she decks with flowers the rising Sun’s Beautiful path, as he adorns himself with rays In the blue sky I am the Star of the see; […] Tower of David I rise here in defense, So that I show my power on the enemy, To the Italian borders, to the Holy Church, Here you wanted me, children? O sons, me too I want here with me your pure hearts […]

C.co Giovanni Battista Spadini, camer. Serg. Super.o di S. Santità, form Il Rocciamelone, n. , //, cit. in Piardi (, ).

This poem, which has the peculiarity of imagining a discourse pronounced by the Virgin herself, was composed by the secretary of Leo XII in honor of the Madonna of the Rocciamelone, in the year of the inauguration of the monument.

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The text mentions traditional epithets of the Virgin, which can be found, for instance, in the litanies, such as Turris Davidica and Stella Maris, and it displays the theme of the snow mantle of the Madonna, of the rising sun that forms a crown on her hair, and of the blue sky surrounding her. The Madonna is also a motherly sentinel, protecting her children from the enemy. “Nel giorno sacro a nostra Signora del Rocciamelone” – 

“In the day sacred to our Lady of the Rocciamelone”

[…] Ma se l’Arte T’onora, e la Natura, Ne la pompa di sole e di colori, Men grato da la valle di sventura L’omaggio salirà de’ nostri cuori?

[…] But if the Art and the Nature honor you, In the pomp of sun and of colors, Will the homage of the valley of misfortune Rise less grateful from our hearts?

[…] Perché de’ Tuoi Santuari al più sublime Tra noi la sede, o Vergine, sceglievi. Fra quanti monti lanciano le cime Nel lor candido vel d’eterne nevi? D’Italia nostra bella ed infelice, sentinella avanzata in sul confine, Por ti volesti, e l’arida pendice Infiorar di bellezze peregrine! Sì, noi faremo al tuo altar ritorno, Colla prece sul labbro, e in cor la speme, Che, Tua mercè, Ti rivedrem nel giorno, Che tramonti né nuvole non teme!

[…] Why, o Virgin, did you choose your seat Among us, in the most sublime of your shrines, Between the mounts that rise their peaks In the brilliant white veil of eternal snows? You wanted to place yourself as the sentinel Advanced on the border Of our beautiful and unhappy Italy, and to Embellish the dry slope with pilgrim beauties! Yes, we will return to your altar, With prayer on our lips, and hope in our heart, That, with your help, we will see you again In the day that fears no sunsets nor clouds!

Cyclamen, , from Il Rocciamelone, n. , //; Piardi (, p. ).

This long poem presents three recurring themes: the veneration of the faithful ascends to the Madonna; the Madonna is a sentinel watching the Italian borders, and for this reason she chose the highest peak as her sanctuary; the poet looks forward to seeing the Madonna again, so he awaits for the pilgrimage, in a utopic future of peace. The quoted passage displays several topoi: the sun and the beauty of the nature surrounding her appear as an ornament honoring the Virgin, and she is surrounded by the bright veil of snow on the high peak. “Alla Madonna del Rocciamelone” – 

“To the Madonna of the Rocciamelone”

Non sei discesa Tu, come la prole Saturnia, da l’olimpo al nostro monte in un barbaglio tremulo di sole, a spandere il terrore con la fronte

You did not descend, as Saturn’s offspring, from the Olympus to our mount in a tremulous glimpse of sun, to scatter fear with a forehead

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aggrottata a fierissimo cipiglio, a fulminare con saette pronte. No. Raggia la bontà tra ciglio e ciglio, a Te, Divina Madre: ogni mortale al tuo cospetto ti si sente figlio. Al peso forse gli angeli dier l’ali allor che il simulacro per la bruna costa del monte al vertice nivale lieve saliva, d’un chiaror di luna illuminando l’alta rupe tetra. […] Dal cielo con le palme e le corone quel giorno i Santi in lunga teoria su l’ardua vetta del Rocciamelone incontro a te discesero, o Maria. […]

expressing a most proud frown, to strike with ready lightnings. No. Goodness radiates through your eyelashes, Divine Mother, every mortal in front of you feels like your son. Maybe the angels put wings on the weight when the simulacrum on the brown side of the mount to the snowy top lightly ascended, illuminating the high dark rock with moonlight. […] From the sky with the palms and the crowns that day the Saints in a long line on the hard top of the Rocciamelone descended to you, o Mary. […]

Alpha, , “Alla Madonna del Rocciamelone,” from La Valsusa n. , //, cit. in Piardi (, p. ).

In this text there are several patterns of ascending and descending movements: the pagan deity, Jupiter, descended from above, while Mary, we could say “embodied” in her statue, climbs the mountain from its foot. This curious distinction tends to underline the proximity of the Madonna to the people, her “humanity” and goodness, compared with the cruelty and pride of the pagan deities. When Mary reaches the top, saints descend from Heaven to greet her. “Nive candidior, Segusiae tuta es fines!” – “Nive candidior, Segusiae tuta es fines!”  Tornàro i giorni tristi, per la vetusta Susa, a la prova del fuoco perennemente adusa, in un tardo meriggio, nel cielo di cobalto, quasi scoppi di tuono scrosciarono da l’alto: dal gallico confine, in inegual tenzone, echeggiava sinistro il rombo del cannone… […] Ma scolta a la frontiera, la “più di neve candida”, – ne la figura nera –, distendeva le braccia, da la rôcca superna, su la diletta Susa, in protezion materna: e del nemico certo contro la volontà non un projetto cadde su la nostra Città.

Sad days came back, for the old Susa, always accustomed to the trial of the fire, in a late noon, in the cobalt blue sky, almost thunder bursts roared from above: from the Gallic border, in an unequal battle, the sinister rumble of the cannon echoed… […] But the sentry at the border, “whiter than snow,” in her black figure, stretched out her arms, from the supreme rock, on the beloved Susa, in motherly protection: and surely against the enemy’s will not a bullet felt on our City.

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… Oh Vergin Santa e pia, che […] Volesti la tua effigie da’ bimbi fosse eretta,

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… Oh, holy and pious Virgin, […] You wanted that your icon was erected by the children, so that the virginal candor of the innocents make a persistent echo to your virginal heart,

perché degli innocenti il verginal candore facesse un’eco assidua al verginal Tuo Cuore, deh segua il tuo presidio a tutelar la chiostra Oh, may your defense keep protecting the chain de l’Alpi, che son gloria ognor d’Italia nos- of the Alps that are always the glory of our Italy! tra! Cesare Napoli, , from La Valsusa n. , //, cit. in Piardi (, ).

This poem, composed during the war, develops the military theme of the Madonna as the sentinel of the Valley of Susa and of Italy, strategically placed on the border between Italy and France.

5 Conclusion The cult of the Madonna of the Rocciamelone plays an important influence on the local semiotization of space. The top of the mountain with its sanctuary works as a fulcrum that polarizes the orientation of the people of the valley. If we consider that to “inhabit” a place means to be able to orientate oneself in it, to identify with it and to share with a community a set of meanings attributed its space (Norberg-Shulz 1981, Ponzo 2013), we can understand the semiotic importance of this sanctuary for the local community of the Valley of Susa. Human beings codify the space they live in by elaborating semiotic systems expressed in different substances of expression, from architecture to literature, from newspapers to speeches. In this paper, we pointed out how the discourse by the blessed Mons. Rosaz and the poems and hymns composed by the local community between the end of the 19th century and the end of the 20th century play a key role in interpreting and expressing systems of meanings and values that contribute to the implementation of the meaning of the space by loading it with cultural, social and, most of all, religious values, thus reinforcing the identity of the local community. In the analyzed corpus, it is possible to single out different layers of meaning. If we apply the idea of the generative trajectory of meaning by Greimas, we can say that in the considered discourse, there is a more superficial level composed of all the specific features characterizing the local geography, community and characters or actors. At a deeper level, there is a set of more general values, organized in couples of oppositions, which coincide with the five homologating structures—or semi-symbolic systems—that we discussed. In the discourse of

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Rosaz and of the local poets, the meaning appears coherent with these homologating structures, which belong to the wider culture, or, we can say in the terms of Eco (1975, 1979) to the broader encyclopedia derived from Christianism. In particular, the homologating structure (a), connecting the opposition top / bottom with the opposition sacred / profane finds a perfect expression in the idea of sacredness connected with the sanctuary and the statue on the top of the Rocciamelone and in the association of the valley with the space of human beings, afflicted with sorrow, sin and war. As we saw, also the result of the oppositions (b) and (c) is relevant, in that the pilgrimage is always not only a physical, but also a spiritual journey, an interior itinerary towards divine truth, and the Madonna is often described as a star or a lighthouse indicating the pathway towards faith. The thymic opposition (d) is often related to the other oppositions; maybe its most significant expression resides in the description of the joy of the natural elements for the ascension and then the presence of the statue of the Madonna on the top (see above). On the contrary, the homologating structure (e) results idiolectal and specifically related to Rosaz’ discourse. The comparison between the semi-symbolic structures we find in Rosaz’ discourse, in poems and hymns, and the valley considered as a living world sheds new light on the link between visibility and knowledge in the case of pilgrimage. In the mountains it is possible to oppose the glance of a viewer positioned low, and looking up, to the glance positioned at the top, and looking down, and knowing everything happens in the valley. While ascending, the glance of the pilgrim progressively shifts from the first to the second point of view. We can see how, in the world of experience, landscape is a modal dispositive linking vision, knowledge, and power—this explains why the military metaphor is adequate— see Galofaro (2015). Likewise, the semi-symbolic structure (a-d) and the related figurative expressions are very much rooted in the local culture of the Valley of Susa, as proved by the very scarce evolution of the related themes at the figurative level over the considered period. This stability and recurrent presence are clear clues indicating that the knot of signs we analyzed occupies a central position in the local semiosphere.

References Bertolo, Felice. 1986. Madonna del Rocciamelone: cenni di storia religiosa sul Rocciamelone ed il Santuario di Mompantero. Chieri: Edigraph Coop. Eco, Umberto. 1975. Trattato di semiotica generale. Milan: Bompiani. Eco, Umberto. 1979. Lector in fabula: la cooperazione interpretativa nei testi narrativi. Milan: Bompiani.

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Eco, Umberto. 1984. Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Galofaro, Francesco. 2015. “Sguardi letterari alla battaglia: Comisso, Gadda, Gatti e Stuparich.” Quaderni del Novecento, XV: 93 – 102. Greimas, Algirdas Julien. 1966. Sémantique structurale. Paris: PUF. Greimas, Algirdas Julien. 1984. “Sémiotique figurative et sémiotique plastique.” Actes sémiotiques, VI, 60: 5 – 24. Hjelmslev, Louis Trolle. 1943. Omkring sprogteoriens grundlaeggelse, Copenhagen: Akademisk forlag. Hjelmslev, Louis Trolle. 1959. “Note sur les oppositions supprimables (1939).” Essais Linguistiques I, TCLC XII: 82 – 89. Jakóbczyk-Gola, Aleksandra. 2019. “The Akathist Hymn to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Polish Marian Songs in Context of Performative Practices in Litany Tradition.” Roczniki Humanistyczne, 67 (1): 145 – 162. Kurdi, Mohamed Zakaria. 2017. Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistics 2: Semantics, Discourse, and Applications. London: ISTE. Lotman, Juri. 1984. “O semiosfere.” Trudy po znakovym sistemam, 17: 5 – 23. Minola, Mauro. 2016. Il Rocciamelone in Valle di Susa. Santuario Mariano più alto d’Europa (3538 m). Sant’Ambrogio di Torino: Susalibri. Pastoreau, Michel. 2000. Bleu. Histoire d’une couleur. Paris: Seuil. Petrarch, Francesco. 1999. “Ascent to Mont Ventoux.” In Pilgrim Souls: An Anthology of Spiritual Autobiographie, edited by Amy Mandelker & Elizabeth Powers, 399 – 407. New York: Simon and Schuster. Piardi, Gian Piero. 1999. Il Rocciamelone ieri e oggi. Borgone Susa: Tipolito Melli. Ponzo, Jenny. 2013. “Genius loci et identité nationale: représentations de l’espace dans la narration italienne portant sur le Risorgimento.” Études de lettres (online), 1 – 2, https:// journals.openedition.org/edl/494. Ponzo, Jenny. 2021. “Religious-artistic epiphanies in 20th-century literature: Joyce, Claudel, Weil, C.S. Lewis, Rebora, and Papini.” In Mediation and Immediacy: A Key Issue for the Semiotics of Religion, edited by Jenny Ponzo, Robert Yelle, and Massimo Leone, 149 – 164. Berlin: De Gruyter. Rastier, François. 1987. Sémantique interprétative. Paris: PUF. Rosaz, Edoardo Giuseppe. 1884. Pastoral letter. 30 June 1884. Without typographical indications. Rosaz, Edoardo Giuseppe. 1885a. Mortification: Pastoral Letter for Lent. Susa: Tipografia Gatti. Rosaz, Edoardo Giuseppe. 1885b. Pastoral Letter on Charities. Torino: Tipografia e Libreria S. Giuseppe. Rosaz, Edoardo Giuseppe. 1889. Revolution and Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: Pastoral Letter. N. 39, June. Turin: Tipografia di S. Giuseppe. Rosaz, Edoardo Giuseppe. 1898. Pastoral Letter for Lent. N. 69. Susa: Tipografia Gatti. Rosaz, Edoardo Giuseppe. 1899. External Cult: Pastoral Letter for Lent. N. 72. Susa: Tipografia Gatti. Teresa di Gesù Bambino. 2009. Opere complete. Roma: Libreria editrice vaticana.

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Tvrtković, Rita George. 2020. “Our Lady of Victory or Our Lady of Beauty?: The Virgin Mary in Early Modern Dominican and Jesuit Approaches to Islam.” Journal of Jesuit studies, 7: 403 – 16.

Mony Almalech

Colors as a semiotic tool for Bible analysis 1 Introduction

The article presents a new and complex approach to colors in the Bible. The demonstration of the method requires defining the distinction between verbal and visual color as feasible sign systems. No such distinction has been made up to now. This method serves one major goal: a better understanding of biblical texts originally given in Hebrew, with a focus on hermeneutics. A subsidiary aim is the disclosure of the various structures of color presence in biblical texts. This also involves a detailed semiotics of color, including a complex method based on both the achievements of other scholars and a specific proposal to treat colors as a language, as a sign system. The semiotics of color in the Bible includes four principal areas: color as a sign in general, color semiotics in the Bible and their specificities in both Hebrew and translations in different languages. As a case study, the article focuses on one verse, Song 1:5 , treated as a “semiotic iceberg,” i. e., a structure with a visible semantic level supported by “submerged” or less apparent ones.¹ Presenting this method cannot be short and simple because, on the one hand, it is complex, holistic and interdisciplinary, and on the other, there are many novelties in the analysis, including new terms and hypotheses that we must connect with existing terminology in color research. As such, we provide clarification for a number of terms, such as verbal and visual colors as signs, color language and color speech, semio-osmosis, color as a cultural unit, the inner form of the word, mega-color, basic color terms (BCT), prototype Terms (PT), rivals for prototypes (RT) and basic features of prototypes (BFPT).

 More examples for the application of the method (Almalech 2011b, 2012a, 2012b, etc.) can be found at Academia.edu https://newbulgarian.academia.edu/MonyAlmalech and at https://in dependent.academia.edu/MonyAlmalech. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-014

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2 The method 2.1 Color language and color speech: Visual and verbal color language Current scholarship focuses on colors in multimodal texts or messages in an attempt to formulate a visual communication grammar. Kress and van Leeuwen (2002) deal with visual color by analyzing color speech and visual rhetoric, but not verbal language about color. According to them, color is metafunctional in Halliday’s terms (1978; 1993) with ideational, interpersonal and textual functions. Sometimes, color fulfills these three metafunctions simultaneously (346), but color does not always fulfill all three functions (350). Kress and van Leeuwen recognize that there are two ways to produce color meaning. The first is psychological: by associations that come from culture and the past, but also present-day advertising and brands. An important element is the context in which an association operates. The second way is to accept visual qualities of color—hue, saturation, purity, modulation, differentiation—as semantic distinguishing features, which appear within ideational, interpersonal and textual functions (355). Thus, we consider physical properties of color first, in the territory of natural language, and second, in social and individual cultures and tastes. This means that we can hardly find a specific color grammar for an entire society. Van Leeuwen holds that “[l]ooking at color as a semiotic resource means […] focusing on its materialities and technologies.” (2011, 1). This means, in my terms, to focus on the “speech apparatus” of humankind regarding producing color-signs. Van Leeuwen declares that “looking at color as a semiotic resource not only means looking at color technologies, it also means looking at the way color meanings are developed.” (2). Van Leeuwen is concerned with the possibility that colors may indicate ideas and feelings, which I consider essential in the semiotics of color. An important semiotic study is the motivation of the color sign. Van Leeuwen provides historical details (2), although not in comparison with natural language where the linguistic sign is arbitrary, except for a small number of onomatopoeic words. Along with this, there are many important features of the motivation and the ability to make completely subjective interpretations of color idiolect or color dialect positions. In the examples from my corpora (Almalech 2001; 2011a), there are facts I treat as important features in color language: − The same color can have opposite meanings. I call this intra-color antonymy. − Many colors can mean the same feeling or idea. This is inter-color synonymy.

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Both effects are due to the small number of tokens in the color language – visual and verbal.

Volli ([1988] 1990) deals with colors in fashion showing that semiotic change is the basic rule. Leone (2007) reviews different semiotic instruments for the analysis of color. He proposes the idea that the qualities of visual color – hue, saturation, purity – present an array of distinguishing features. This opinion is similar to that of Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2002) but with certain differences, since he does not use systemic linguistics. For understanding the language of colors, it is necessary to analyze the semantic function of these three elements and the combinations of all of them “in the common sense” of features “tint,” “shade” or “the synecdoche color” (164). The physical properties of visual color hue, saturation, purity, etc., should be understood as distinguishing features in terms of phonology—in the structural version of Leone’s semiotics and the systemic linguistics methodology of Kress and van Leuwen. However, in my opinion, such properties are irrelevant to natural language and color meanings of righteousness, sinfulness and illness. Semioticians deal with the translation of colors—from verbal to visual. Kourdis (2017) explicitly speaks of such translations in advertisements. Leone (2009) presents a semiotic interpretation in the art of Marc Chagall of Moses receiving from God the Tablets of the Law. He indicates how the visual colors match the biblical text. Caivano (1998) also is concerned with the visual aspect of colors, but without using the methodology of systemic linguistics. He advocates making “[S]emioticians interested in visual semiotics better acquainted with the very elaborate aspects of color theory, from which they could take models to develop other aspects of visual semiotics, and to make color theorists more familiar with general semiotics” (390). An important related question is, “Are there shared meanings between visual and verbal colors?” I present a list of such shared meanings in Almalech (2011a). Treating colors as cultural units, as Eco ([1985] 1996) does, gives more freedom and chances for reflecting on the constantly elusive non-color meanings of colors (visual or/and verbal). We should note that Eco implies relationships between visual and verbal color.

2.2 The B&K tradition and mega color: Color as a cultural unit and mega-color Over the past fifty years, Berlin and Kay’s Basic Colour Terms: Their Universality and Evolution (1969) has stimulated discussion and given a greater prominence to basic color terms (BCT). The Berlin and Kay (B&K) tradition (Berlin and Kay

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1969; Kay and Maffi 1999) uses the term macro-color (macro-white, macro-red, macro-grue, etc.). Macro-color deals with basic color categories (BCC), which are categories of the visual level of the human senses. A macro-color appears in connection with warm and cool categories, e. g., macro-red unites red, orange, yellow and warm, while grue includes green, blue, gray and cool. Macro-color is a “composite category.” It may be represented by different basic color terms (BCT), and vice versa (Witkowski and Brown 1977, 50). These categories are related to the primary colors in human biology, as in opponent process theory. However, the prototypes of colors are never part of the B&K tradition. While the B&K tradition focuses only on basic color terms (BCT), my method includes all four channels referring to color: basic color terms (BCT), prototype terms (PT), rival terms for prototypes (RT) and terms for basic features of prototypes (TBFP). This unity is mega-color: mega-white, mega-black, mega-green, etc. Colors expressed in the biblical text occur within four different kinds of lexemes, i. e.; within the channels BCT, PT, RT and TBFP. In the B&K tradition, BCC’s are presented only by BCTs. However, anthropological data show that in different cultures BCCs are presented by PT or RT (see, for example, Borg 1999 and 2007). The word mega is appropriate for many reasons but mainly to avoid any confusion with the Berlin and Kay tradition. To avoid confusion and scientific uncertainty, I will use the terms mega-black, mega-white, mega-red, etc., but not macro-black, macro-white, macro-red, etc. The mega-color category includes: − All possible linguistic ways to refer to a color (e. g., black) in different cultures and languages: basic color terms (BCT), prototype terms (PT), rival terms for prototypes (RT) and terms for the basic features of the prototypes (TBFP). Examples for different members of mega-Black are: BCT black, be black, PT darkness, coals (according to Rosch 1972a, 1972b, 1973; Wierzbicka (1990), RT, e. g., raven, shadow, ebony, apple of the eye and TBFP, e. g., obscurity. − The mega-color category includes distinguishing the feature “warm–cold” in the sense of Kay and Maffi (1999, 744): “Distinguish the warm primaries (red and yellow) from the cool primaries (green and blue).” − BCT, PT, RT and TBFP form a cultural unit, in the sense of Eco (1996). − The ultimate result of color perception is the sensation of color according to Hering’s theory or Helmholtz’s theory. In this sense, the mega-color category stands close to the macro-color category but differs in that the mega-category includes anthropological, psychological and cultural aspects of colors. − BCTs are context-independent—they always mean color, while PTs could mean warm (for fire, blood, the sun at midday), cool (for darkness, sky,

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sea), fresh (for all plants), wide, spacious (for the sky and sea), e. g., they are context-dependent. RTs and TBFPs have strong context dependence. Lakoff pointed out the complexity of colors, and his opinion is close to the mega category in my terms: Color concepts are embodied in that focal colors are partly determined by human biology. Color categorization makes use of human biology, but color categories are more than merely a consequence of the nature of the world plus human biology. Color categories result from the world plus human biology plus a cognitive mechanism that has some of the characteristics of fuzzy set theory plus a culture-specific choice. (Lakoff 1987, 29)

My conviction that the semiotics of color should include all four channels (BCT, PT, RT and TBFP) in a verbal sign system and treating colors encyclopedically as cultural units corresponds to Sutrop’s (2011) observation that “focusing research only on the BCTs minimizes the linguistic, semantic and semiotic richness of a color language. […] BCTs form the absolute minority (maximally 0.5 to 5 percent) of the color terms in a language. We can paraphrase Lotman’s formula in the following way: color language = BCTs and non-BCTs + history of language and culture” (46 – 47). There have been two scholarly monographs dealing with color in the Old Testament: Athalya Brenner (her dissertation of 1979, published as a book in 1982) and John Hartley (2010). Both authors know Hebrew and both start with а review of the paradigm of Berlin and Kay (1969), including its development in Berlin and Kay’s World Color Survey (WCS). The prime object of both authors is BCTs. Brenner briefly mentions “objects of typical color,” i. e., RT, while for Hartley an important aspect is the comparative analysis of Hebrew BCTs with Semitic and Indo-European languages. Gershom Scholem’s text (1979 – 1980) illuminates important aspects of Hebrew color terms in the Jewish tradition without reference to the B&K method. Mega-color includes words referring to color but not visual colors, while cultural unit color should include both visual and verbal colors. As Eco said, When one utters a color term, one is not directly pointing to a state of the world (process of reference), but, on the contrary, one is connecting or correlating that term with a cultural unit or concept. The utterance of the term is determined, obviously, by a given sensation, but the transformation of the sensory stimuli into a percept is in some way determined by the semiotic relationship between the linguistic expression and the meaning or content culturally correlated to it. (1996, 160)

To read a sacred text through color means to present a linguistic worldview. This worldview, which should also be thought through problems of translation, can

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both be preserved and/or changed. And this shows the importance of linguistics and culture. Color as a cultural unit should include problems of linguistics, semiotics and Hebraic studies if we talk about color in the Bible, verbal and visual colors, color and non-color meanings (lexical and contextual) and the entirety of information on semantics of verbal and visual colors—synchronic and diachronic, cultural and social. Color as a cultural unit should include meanings of visual and verbal colors in folk and religious rituals. Color language covers non-color meanings of visual and/or verbal color: 1. In novels, we have words for colors; 2. In rituals, colors are visual; 3. Both are categorized with non-color meanings and some of these meanings are similar. Eco (1996) calls the non-color meanings of colors “values” (174). For me, these “values” are the principal goal of semiotics of color. To reach this goal is very difficult because it needs many preconditions, clarifications and an enormous scientific apparatus. We should take into account folklore and religious culture—in both diachronic and synchronic directions. In short, a large personal encyclopedia. Until (2011a), I abstained from using the term “cultural unit” about color because properly decoding the semantic values of colors requires a large personal encyclopedia. “Values” like hope, health, love, etc. are relevant in novels and rituals. How does it happen that for flags “the system of basic values to be expressed by colors is a limited one,” but for rituals and novels, it is not so limited? Despite the many contributions hitherto, there has been no clear differentiation of the semiotic statuses of visual and verbal color. Eco (1996) points out the difference and, at the same time, the connection between visual and verbal colors: “We are dealing with verbal language so far as it conveys notions about visual experiences, and we must, then, understand how verbal language makes the non-verbal experience recognizable, speakable and effable” (159). The Prototypes (light, milk, or snow for White; darkness and/or coals for Black, etc.) are visual nature objects valid for all peoples, regardless of political and economic systems and social structure, and the degree of technological development. They are a universal phenomenon based on human anatomy and the environment. Studies of the rituals of different peoples give one reason to think about a small number of universal values, motivated by the strategy of ritual and its relationship with color prototypes. Just as diachronic changes are the mien of permanent semiosis for natural languages, changes in the language of color during the centuries are something we can expect to happen.

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2.3 Translation as a criterion and semiotic value; Semio-osmosis: Black ↔ Dark; Green ↔ Grass; Green ↔ Fresh Equalization between BCTs and PTs is a process which can also be called semioosmosis. This metaphor is appropriate because translators try to equalize the sense and the meaning of two languages. The goal of semio-osmosis is equalizing the worldviews between the target and the source languages. The septum/ membrane that translators must overcome is the different worldviews and grammars of the two languages. Often, it is impossible to translate a word in the same derivative string as in the source language. A typical example is the derivative string of the Hebrew root Aleph-Dalet-Mem. In Hebrew, man, Adam, ground, red, Edom, blood, ruby are derivatives linked to this one root. The ultimate effect of semio-osmosis is to keep the original meaning, according to the cultural habits and linguistic parameters of the carriers of the target language. Semio-osmosis flows between Hebrew and a translation, passing on the vehicle of the prototypes, their most typical features and some culturalizations. Most English translations (e. g., KJV, NKV) of Job 30:28 render the Hebrew black [kodèr] as go about mourning or go about in gloom instead of go about blackened. The ultimate goal of semio-osmosis is the highest equality of texts. In this sense, accommodation and semio-osmosis are opposite processes. In fact, the authors of key translations adhere more to semio-osmosis, despite inter-linguistic asymmetry, dissymmetry, the difference of worldviews, cultural differences and traditions. The BCT green is more frequently used in translations than in the Hebrew text. If we add the “green” translations of grass, leaf and meadow, many more uses of BCT green are registered in translations than in the Hebrew original. Is this a mistake? Does this change the meaning, the sense and the holy text? Equalization between BCTs and Terms for the Basic Features of Prototypes (TBFP) also appears in translations. The sum of Hebrew BCT green in different forms ([ièrek], [iaràk], [iarokà] and the diminutive [ierakràk]) is 11 times, while the BCT green appears (with tiny differences among different translations) about 30 times in translations. In Hebrew, the word fresh [raanàn] is an attribute of tree 11 times, fresh tree [etz raanàn]. Fresh [raanàn] is an attribute also of olive and leaf in Song 1:16: “Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green.” (KJV); “How handsome you are, my lover! Oh, how charming! And our bed is verdant.”

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(NIV) The universality of prototypes and their most typical qualities overcome difference between worldviews. The Septuagint is highly important, not only as the first translation of the Hebrew Bible in another language, but also it was made by Jewish priests and represents Alexandrian Judaism. Badgers, Hebrew [tahashìm] is translated in Septuagint ύακίνθινος (hyacinth-color, dark blue). Bulgarian and Russian Orthodox versions follow the Septuagint with син, синий (blue). If somebody suffers from ignorance of the history of translations, he/she says that in the Bible there is no color in the noun phrase badgers’ skin [or tahashìm], but it will be Anglocentrism or Catholic-, or Protestant- centrism, depending on the translation the reader uses. I have such experience with specialists in color names who claimed that there is no color in verses where Hebrew [or tahashìm] is translated as badgers’ skin. They followed the English version of the Bible they are familiar with, where there are no blue skins, but badgers’ skins. Such an evaluation of a biblical text shows a lack of culture for a history of translations and a specialist in color naming suffering from mother-tongue centrism. It could be any language-centrism caused by the lack of encyclopedic knowledge, in Eco’s terms. A similar case obtains with blue [tehèlet] and purple [argamàn]. We cannot understand their functional and sacral semantics if we do not know that the dyes signified by these terms must be produced from sea creatures, murex trunculus but nothing else. The same is with scarlet [tolàat šanì], where the word [tolàat], is the case-form of Hebrew word worm [tolà].

2.4 Biblical colors are a text within a text Lotman’s idea of the text within the text (1994) is very appropriate to the system of verbal colors, although Lotman applied it to art: The text within the text is a specific rhetorical construction in which the determining factor in the author’s construction of the text and in the reader’s reception of it is the differential codification of various parts of the text. The transition from a semiotic system of textual comprehension to a system of internal structural boundaries constitutes the basis for the generation of meaning. (Lotman 1994, 380)

Lotman points out the great complexity of texts within any civilization, and that this issue is “closely connected to the problem of the text’s relation to its cultural context” (380). Further, “[c]ulture in its entirety may be considered a text—a complexly structured text, divided into a hierarchy of intricately interconnected text within texts. To the extent that the word text is etymologically linked to weaving, the term’s original sense has been restored” (384).

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Lotman’s idea is appropriate in several aspects. Colors present a “differential codification of various parts of the text” (380). In natural language, as a leading communicative sign system, visual knowledge for the prototypes of colors and their local and universal non-color meanings are interwoven. The “transition from” the semiotic system of a natural language providing “textual comprehension” of an internal system of color “structural boundaries constitutes the […] generation of meaning” (380). The basic feature of the color text within the texture (including genres, stories, chapters, books, etc.) of the Bible is that in the reader’s minds the non-color meanings come and work at the subconscious level. Finally, “internal” boundaries of color structure result in “demarcating different levels of codification” (380). We can say that the color system in the text is an internal structure with “boundaries” which are “mobile” but the boundaries depend on the worldview matrix of Hebrew and languages of translation. Hebrew has one color text within the biblical text, based on root derivations. Indo-European languages have a different color text. Correspondingly, the color text in Hebrew presents another logical and theological space, e. g., the first man ‫[ ָא ָדם‬adàm], Adam ‫[ ָא ָדם‬adàm] is red ‫[ ָאד ֹם‬adòm], as the ground ‫[ ֲא ָדַמה‬adamà] he was made of (Gen 2:7), blood ‫[ ָדם‬dam] and ruby ‫א ֶדם‬ ֹ [òdem] are part of Creation…. The color text within the biblical text depends on the general problem “of the text’s relation to its cultural context” (Lotman 1994, 380). An important element of the “text’s relation to its cultural context” is the inter-linguistic asymmetry and dissymmetry which swims in the ocean of cultural traditions as folklore, philosophy (e. g., Plato) and material culture. At the same time, color structure, being coded in its verbal version, remains based on visual knowledge and its culturalization, i. e., the color text within the biblical text is “doubly coded”: “in the simplest occurrence the included section is encoded in the same way as the remaining text and thus is doubly coded” (381). Unlike the literary text analyzed by Lotman, where the “authentic subtext within the rhetorical unity of the text is to create the semblance of reality” (382), the subconscious color text has two directions. The first one serves the conscious flow of the “rhetorical unity of the text” as the color of something. The second one is the system of one color that flows through the entire text of the Bible, and the color is encoded to build a color text within the complete text. For example, in the Hebrew Bible, there are only nine uses of BCTs for Black. This statistically poor appearance is a sign that needs decoding. These nine Hebrew BCTs for black are situated in the context of about 1000 uses of the PT (darkness) as a tool to refer to black color, overgrown with luscious metaphorical, metonymic, theological and artistic meanings.

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2.5 Statistics for different color words have important semantic and semiotic values. BCT sequence. Bankov (2017, 121) points to Eco’s opinion that “an encyclopedic competence is based on cultural data which is socially accepted on the basis of the statistical constancy of its occurrence” (Eco 1979, 18). For Bankov this sentence “unlocked” Eco’s interpretative semiotics. Bankov is right that the quotation integrates the Peircean doctrine of infinite semiosis with Eco’s theory of the open text, which “relies quite diligently on some of the key notions of Greimassian semiotics” (121). In a way, this statement bridges two previously mutually impervious universes—that of Peirce and of structural textual analysis. Bankov’s statement (121) gives an interpretative and hermeneutic value to colors as a cultural unit: “[T]his is the only place (and only in the Italian version of the book) where the expression ‘statistical constancy’ is used, and obviously this exact formulation was necessary to unlock the hermeneutic circle. […] The encyclopedic model of culture—based on the principle of the statistical constancy of the occurrence of cultural units.” Color presence in the Old Testament is a cultural unit, in Eco’s terms, in two directions: − The BCT root paradigms are not the same as the root paradigms of Indo-European color terminology. The Hebrew root paradigms of BCTs are dissymmetrical or asymmetrical with respect to Indo-European worldviews, being an untranslatable categorization of the world and of thinking based on it. We have unique cultural aspects of the understanding of the Hebrew text by Hebrew readers and Indo-European readers. (This does not apply to biblical scholars of all nations familiar with the biblical text and culture.) This happens although the translations are correct, adapted and accommodated. − If we need color presence completeness, we must check BCTs, PTs (e. g., light, darkness, sun, fire, blood, sky, sea, all plants), RTs (e. g., linen, cherry, duckling, ruby, wine, sapphire) and TBFPs (e. g., clean, pure, immaculate for light; hot, warm for fire; fresh for plants, etc.). Both Eco’s idea of color as a cultural unit and mega-color should include statistical data on different words referring to color. The semiotic value of statistics of BCTs, PTs and RTs has many implications: it gives a notion of the big picture of the Bible text—its history, and structure; a structural scheme of contextual semantics which is the other side of the coin of the semiotics of colors; the extended semantics of Hebrew roots which in Hebraic tradition is a tool for interpretation, but in modern terms the Hebrew worldview is a hermeneutic tool for decoding the original messages of Hebrew texts.

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Statistics as a semiotic tool is important for BCTs because they are contextindependent and always signify color. Frequency is not the main direction of my method but only insofar as it has semiotic value. The frequency of BCTs in the Old Testament is relative to Hebrew and not to translations, because translations do not reflect Hebrew facts due to the work of translators who sometimes translate Hebrew BCTs with Indo-European PTs and vice versa. The Hebrew BFPTs fresh, well-watered (plant) and moist are very frequently translated with the English BCT green. From a semiotic point of view, not only the highest frequencies but also cases of hapax legomena are important. In my study of BCT in the novels of three Bulgarian popular writers from the second half of the 20th century (Almalech 2001), white, black and red have the highest frequency. These three colors are the only ones in the culture of the Ndembu tribe (Turner [1966] 2004). This corresponds to the first three BCTs in the evolution of languages according to Berlin and Kay (1969). In the Hebrew Bible, the situation is very different. The most frequently used are the three BCTs from the color tetrad of blue, crimson and purple (the fourth member of the sacral color tetrad being an RT, flax). They are followed by white, then red, then green—ten uses. Black has only nine uses throughout the Old Testament. For yellow, the Old Testament has no BCT. We could expect that the Primordial BCT (White and Black) should be the most frequent and appear first in the text. The facts indicate the opposite. BCT-Black is used only nine times and it appears for the first time after the first appearance of any other of the BCTs. As we know from linguistics, a lack of a sign is a sign. An indirect aspect of these statistics is the sequence of BCTs and it can be compared with the Berlin and Kay (1969) sequence. Sometimes the first and last appearances of BCT or PT have semiotic and hermeneutic values. The following table is compiled according to the Berlin and Kay (1969) sequence compared to the first appearance of BCTs in the Bible. The sequence in the project “Semiotics of Colors in the Bible” traces the first appearance of BCTs in the biblical text, where Scarlet and Purple are under mega red, and black-1 [shahòr], dark/brown [hum] are under mega black. I avoid the grue of WCS.

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Table 1: BCT sequence according to Berlin and Kay (1969) and in the Bible first use of BCTs

I II

III IV V VI VII

Berlin and Kay () BCTs

Hebrew Bible BCTs

Black & White (Dark I & Light) Red II

Green ‫[ ֶי ֶרק‬ierek] (Gen :)

Green/Yellow Green/Yellow Blue Brown Orange, Pink, Purple, Gray

‫[ ֲאדמוֹני‬admonì] Red– diminutive from Red– ‫[ ָאד ֹם‬adom] Gen :; Red--Scarlet ‫[ ׇשׁ ִני‬shani] Gen :; Elements of color tetrad (Red--Purple ‫[ ַא ְר ָגָמן‬argamàn] + Red- Scarlet ‫[ תוַֹלַעת ָשׁ ִני‬tolàat shanì] Exod : III Dark/Brown ‫[ חוּם‬hum] Gen : IV White ‫[ ָלָבן‬lavan] Gen : V Blue ‫[ ְתֵכֶלת‬tekhelet] Exod : VI Dark/Brown ‫[ חוּם‬hum] Gen : Black- ‫[ ָשׁחוֹר‬shahòr] Lev : VII -

The first to appear is green (Gen 1:30), the second is Red-1, reddish ‫[ ֲאדמוֹני‬admonì] (Gen 25:26) diminutive of Red-1, ‫[ ָאד ֹם‬adòm] (Gen 25:30), the third is dark/brown ‫[ חוּם‬hum] (Gen 30:32), the fourth is Red-2, scarlet ‫[ ָשׁ ִני‬shanì] (Gen 38:28), the fifth is white ‫[ ָלָבן‬lavàn] (Gen 30:35), sixth is the hapax Red-3/Dark, ‫[ ַחְכִליִלי‬hahlalì] (Gen 49:12), the seventh is color Tetrad Red-4, purple ‫[ ַא ְר ָגָמן‬argamàn] + scarlet ‫[ תוַֹלַעת ָשׁ ִני‬tolàat shanì] + blue ‫[ ְתֵכֶלת‬tehèlet] (+ RT fine linen [shesh], Exod 25:4) and the last is the most common BCT Black-2 ‫[ ָשׁחוֹר‬shahor] (Lev 13:31). Such a sequence does not match completely the B&K academic paradigm associated with the BCT evolution hypothesis in its 1969 version. The version of 1999 also does not correspond to the biblical sequence because the most common term for Black appears last, eighth in frequency while the 1999 version covers five levels.

2.6 Conclusions The B&K method excludes PT, PT and BFPT from the study object. This is inappropriate for the Hebrew worldview, at least because of the words red, ground, man, a blood, Adam, Edom, mankind and ruby derivational string are linked in one logical, mental and theological unit by their mutual root Aleph-DaletMem. In terms of Jewish culture, every word and letter are important as a

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God’s message and any delicate change is unacceptable. The process of translation includes semio-osmosis, but the practice includes accommodation both replacing Hebrew BCT (black) with Indo-European PT (darkness) or Hebrew BFPT (fresh) with Indo-European BCT (green) or Hebrew PT (darkness) with Indo-European BCT (black). The symbolism of colors in every culture is based on universal prototypes. Decoded structures of Hebrew color terms and semiotic data serve a better understanding of original Hebrew semantics, worldview and biblical context because much remains hidden in Hebrew. Better understanding presupposes the hermeneutic value of the method. This holistic approach merges a psycholinguistic test and the theory of prototypes to reveal the links between visual and verbal colors. I consider translation from Hebrew to be an element of the semiosphere, e. g., the Septuagint exhibits an attempt to present the Hebrew worldview within the worldview of the Greek language, as well as the cultural traditions of Hellenism and Alexandrian Judaism. Leone (2019) pointed out “the most convincing suggestions for semiotic color analysis come essentially from the semiotics of visual texts” (163). The method I put forward for consideration is a development of the semiotics of verbal color as language (langue) not speech (parole).

3 A semiotic iceberg 3.1 Introduction The metaphor of an iceberg is appropriate because one verse contains a large number of colors, of which only one is explicit (“visible”), while seven others are implicit (“invisible”). Song 1:5 illustrates various manifestations of megacolor in the Bible. The iceberg is an appropriate metaphor for the Hebrew text, which has “visible” and “invisible” parts for most Indo-European readers on account of inter-linguistic symmetry and asymmetry. This does not pertain to biblical scholars familiar with the biblical text and culture. We also need Jewish and biblical cultural information for recognizing colors. I analyze the verse according to the Hebrew worldview. Colors are in one explicit (visible) part/level while three other parts/levels are “underwater” or invisible to most readers coming from an Indo-European linguistic background. The term level reflects the possibility for recognizing the color and its symbolism. The harder it is to capture symbolism and colors, the lower or more “submerged” the level.

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Our objects of consideration are the basic color term black ‫[ ְשׁחוׇֹרה‬shehorà] and the comparisons “like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon.” For a skilled reader of the Pentateuch, the multi-colored parts/levels (tents, Kedar and curtains, i. e., three of the “invisible” parts/levels), are comprehensible because cultural knowledge is needed but not a Hebrew worldview. The goal is to present the original Hebrew biblical meanings for most contemporary readers with IndoEuropean linguistic backgrounds.

3.2 The semiotic iceberg in more detail The verse contains four color messages. The explicit (visible) part of the semiotic iceberg is the basic color term black ‫[ ְשׁחוׇֹרה‬shehorà] because it completely corresponds to the Indo-European BCT black in distinct languages. This is due to inter-lingual symmetry. The visible in Indo-European languages terms are μέλαινά (Greek), nigra (Latin) black (English), nera (Italian) noire (French), schwarz (German), черна (Bulgarian), чорна (UKR), черна (RST). It is the first or highest and the “visible” level of the semiotic iceberg. Song 1:5 ‫שׁחוֹרה אני ונאוה בּנוֹת ירושלים כהלי קדר כיריעות שלמה‬ Μέλαινά εἰμι καλή θυγατέρες Ιερουσολημ ὡς σκηνώματα Κηδαρ ὡς δέρρεις Σαλωμων (LXX) nigra sum sed formonsa filiae Hierusalem sicut tabernacula Cedar sicut pelles Salomonis (1:4 VUL) I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. (КJV) I am black, but comely, Oh ye daughters of Jerusalem, As the tents of Kedar, As the curtains of Solomon. (ASV) I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, Like the tents of Kedar, Like the curtains of Solomon. (NAS) I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. (NRS) Io sono nera ma bella, o figlie di Gerusalemme, come le tende di Kedar, come le cortine di Salomone. (LND) Je suis noire, mais je suis belle, filles de Jérusalem, Comme les tentes de Kédar, comme les pavillons de Salomon. (LSG) Je suis noire, moi, mais jolie, filles de Jérusalem, comme les tentes en poil sombre (the tents in dark hair) comme les rideaux somptueux. (TOB) Ich bin schwarz, aber gar lieblich, ihr Töchter Jerusalems, wie die Hütten Kedars, wie die Teppiche Salomos. (LUO) Черна съм, но хубава, ерусалимски дъщери, Като кидарските шатри, като Соломоновите завеси (BUL1, BUL2) Дочки єрусалимські, я чорна та гарна, немов ті намети кедарські, мов занавіси Соло-

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монові! (UKR) Дочери Иерусалимские! черна я, но красива, как шатры Кидарские, как завесы Соломоновы (RST Song of Solomon 1:4)

For the ancient Hebrews, blackness was an unusual association with beauty. “[I] n high circles beauty is associated with a ruddy, shiny or glowing complexion“ (Hartley 2010, 76). The prophet describes the beauty of David with the BCT red ‫[ ָאד ֹם‬adòm] (1Samuel 16:12) translated as ruddy in English: “So he sent and had him brought in. He was ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features. Then the LORD said, Rise and anoint him; he is the one.” Bulgarian translations accommodate this to рус (“blond”). Most of the translations use the corresponding BCT for black, but there are exceptions. The English dark, Italian scura “dark” and Portuguese morena “dark” equalize the Hebrew BCT with a Prototype term (PT). The German BCT braun changes the color or pretends that the Hebrew BCT ‫[ ְשׁחוׇֹרה‬shehorà] refers to black but also brown. The Spanish morena (“brunette”) replaces the original Hebrew BCT black, an exceptional term for designating beauty, with a more common beauty term expressed by an RT, brunette. Dark am I, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains of Solomon. (NIB) I am very dark, but comely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. (RSV) Sono scura ma bella, o figlie di Gerusalemme, come le tende di Chedar, come i padiglioni di Salomone. (NRV) Ich bin braun, aber gar lieblich, ihr Töchter Jerusalems, wie die Zelte Kedars, wie die Teppiche Salomos. (LUT) Eu estou morena e formosa, ó filhas de Jerusalém, como as tendas de Quedar, como as cortinas de Salomão. (ARA) Morena soy, oh hijas de Jerusalem, Mas codiciable; Como las cabañas de Cedar, Como las tiendas de Salomón. (SRV)

The above-mentioned multilingual translations of the Hebrew black ‫[ ְשׁחוׇֹרה‬shehorà] with brown, brunette, etc. can be treated as accommodations but also as sharing Sasson’s opinion that “in the cultural milieu of the Near East in modern times-and ancient times-a black complexion (to make a generalization) cannot be so beautiful that it inspires love songs, certainly not a literary masterpiece like the Song of Songs. I therefore think the lady in the Song was ‘dark’ and not ‘black’ of complexion. It should be remembered at this point that the issue is not mere dark complexion but dark beauty” (1989, 413). The invisible (implicit) layers of the semiotic iceberg remain below the IndoEuropean worldview “waters.” Comparisons such as like the tents of Kedar and

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like the curtains of Solomon are not very clear to today’s readers because they are not elements of modern culture and require insight into the ancient cultures and symbols. In the general case, they remain implicit (invisible).

3.3 Tents of Kedar This noun phrase contains two directions for color associations for carriers of Hebrew and Jewish culture. The first direction is the name of the tribe Kedar ‫[ ֵק ָדר‬kedàr]. It involves in a semi-explicit manner dark, black. It is “first” level because it reduplicates the blackness in the verse due to relation to the root Kuf-Dalet-Reish K-D-R ‫קדר‬: Table 2: Regular root semantics of Kuf-Dalet-Reish . to mourn, mourn, grieve; . to be dark dark, black darkness, gloom

‫[ ָק ַדר‬kadàr] ‫[ ָק ַדר‬kadàr] ‫[ ָקדרוּת‬kadrùt]

Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias do not deal with the meanings “nice” or “pleasant” of the root Kuf-Dalet-Reish, K-D-R ‫קדר‬. According to TWOT and ISBE, the Kedar tribe inhabited the Arabian Peninsula and made tents of skins. In the Jewish understanding, there is an association with the Tabernacle. Bulgarian translations make use of the word хубава (“beautiful”), while in English, the preferred terms are comely and lovely, and in French they are belle (“beautiful”), jolie (“pretty”), etc. If the Biblical Hebrew term for this tribe is the proper name Kadar, then the members of the tribe seemed to have dark skin or some other dark feature, important for the Hebrew worldview.² The proper name reflects a logical feature, which lies at the basis of any word or so-called “inner form,” in Humboldt’s (1883) terminology. The inner form presents an appropriate approach to proper names such as Edom (“red”), the twin brother of Jacob/Israel; Lavan (“white”), the father-inlaw of Jacob/Israel and many other biblical proper names. Perhaps the tribe of Kedar called itself by a different name, but in the Hebrew text, this proper  On the Internet, there is an opinion I do not share: the tribe “lived in black-hair tents” (Song 1:5). A quick Google search shows many sites repeating this assertion uncritically. The source seems to be Matthew George Easton’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary (1893). Although it’s an out of date source, its public domain status may be responsible for this opinion being widespread.

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name is a reflection of the Hebrew worldview and linguistic and cultural habits. Thus, Kedar is a reduplication of blackness by a Prototype Term (PT) dark. The other direction lies in the word tents. Decoding this requires an excellent knowledge of the Pentateuch and Jewish culture. Tents comprise a completely implicit level of the invisible parts of the semiotic iceberg for Indo-European speaking non-specialists in biblical topics. We do not know what the colors of the tents among the Kedar tribe were. The word tent in the verse is ‫אֶהל‬ ֹ [ohèl]. It is one of the terms for the Tabernacle, which remained a term also for the buildings of the First and the Second Temple. This term [ohèl] is one of the other several terms for the temple, e. g., [mishkàn], a dwelling place of God. Gesenius (1996) notes: “To the distinction in the tabernacle, between [ohèl] and [mishkàn], [ohèl] denoted the exterior covering, consisting of twelve curtains of goats’ hair, which was placed over the proper dwelling [mishkàn], i. e., the twelve interior curtains or hangings which lay upon the frame-work; see Ex[od] 26:1;7;36; 8:14; 19:2.” (18). The Septuagint omits the word tent, replacing it with “dwelling-place” σκηνώματα [skinòmata]: μέλινά εἰμι καἰ καλή θυγατέρες Ιερουσαλημ σκηνώματα Κηδαρ ώς δέρρεις Σαλωμων. Keeping in mind that Septuagint involves Jewish interpreters, it is possible to think they emphasized another notion of the Temple, which is the Hebrew [mishkàn] dwelling place, but not to the temple ‫אֶהל‬ ֹ [ohèl]. Thus, they emphasize the holiness of the relations between Solomon and the black Shulamite, which also exists in the Hebrew text. This invisible for Indo-European non-specialists in biblical topics is the presence of the idea that the love between Solomon and Shulamite is a sacral space, as in the case of the Temple. The outer covering of the Tabernacle tent are different red and blue skins: red [adumìm] goats’ skins and blue (badgers’/dolphin) skins (Num 4:5 – 15). This is a color dyad. The Septuagint interpretation of badgers’ (dolphin; seal) skins is δέρμα ύακίνθινος [dèrma hakìntos] (hyacinth-colored, dark blue, “dark-blue skins”), i. e., the focus is on the color and not the material of the outer covering of the Tabernacle tent. Later, Protestant and Catholic versions translate the term literally as badgers’ (dolphin) skins, in accordance with the Hebrew term [or tahàsh], while most Orthodox versions follow the Septuagint tradition with blue skins (кож синего цвета RST; сини кожи BUL2). If a Hebrew reader has not seen processed dolphin skin, he will not see a color dyad on the Tabernacle’s exterior. The Vulgate used ianthinarum pellium (“violet sealskin”): Num 4:6 And shall put thereon the covering of badgers’ skins […] (KJV) and shall put thereon a covering of sealskin […] (ASV) Then they are to cover this with hides of sea cows […] (NIV)

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καὶ ἐπιθήσουσιν ἐπ αὐτὸ κατακάλυμμα δέρμα ὑακίνθιον […] et operient rursum velamine ianthinarum pellium extendentque desuper pallium totum hyacinthinum et inducent vectes (VUL) и положат на нее покров из кож синего цвета […] (RST) и да турят отгоре й покривката от сини кожи […] (BUL2)

3.4 Curtains of Solomon I connect the third invisible (implicit) level to the term curtains. It comes fourth if we count the visible level of BCT ‫[ ְשׁחוֹ ַרה‬shehorà]. This invisible level is also multi-colored. In the temple interior, the curtains divide the Holy of Holies of the grand hall. Solomon keeps the colors of the curtains in the First Temple. There is no description of the curtains in Solomon’s palace in the Bible. Therefore, the association is with the curtains in the Temple. The twelve interior curtains in the temple are in four colors – blue, purple, scarlet and white. This tetrad of sacral colors is categorized by special terms: blue [tehèlet], purple [argamàn], scarlet [tolàat shanì], and fine linen [shesh]/[butz]. The skins of the exterior of the Tabernacle tent are different reds and blues: red [adumìm] and blue (badgers’/dolphin). For Song of Solomon 1:5, NIB presents a strange direction using like the tent curtains of Solomon. It is an oxymoron for the tent is a term for the Tabernacle, but Solomon builds a temple of “stone and wood.” The meaning and significance of the whole verse encompasses both the regular text and the semiotic iceberg. For an Indo-European speaking reader, the meaning remains clear enough. For the Hebrew speaking addressee, the whole verse can be compared to an iceberg with multiple levels and color based cultural meanings. The verse is a kind of threat to the daughters of Jerusalem—the beauty of a black woman is unacceptable according to tradition, but in this case, this black beauty must not be hindered but should be perceived as a sacred space for the association with the tent of the temple and the colors of Solomon curtains. Thus, love between Solomon and Shulamite is like a sacral space which should be honored and not impeded. The Daughters of Jerusalem must not forget that Solomon is the king, and if they oppose his love for the Shulamite, they will face the Sacred. Can we consider the meaning and the significance of the whole verse as constituting a fifth level? It depends on individual styles and preferences.

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3.5 Conclusions If we expand the metaphor of the iceberg, it has visible (explicit) and invisible (invisible) parts/levels/layers. The semiotic iceberg includes one recognizable level of BCT black for Hebrew and Indo-European readers and the three invisible ones for Indo-European readers who are non-specialists in biblical topics. The visible and one invisible (semi-visible) levels are related to mega-black, expressed with BCT black and a proper name derived from PT dark, Kedar. Two of the invisible (implicit) levels are the color tetrad of curtains and the color dyad at the tent. The color tetrad and dyad are comprehensible for any Indo-European skilled expert of the Pentateuch. The individual reader can shift the levels if the color connection of Kedar with darkness is clear. If for someone the curtains are a clear carrier of colors and sacredness, then the levels can be shifted again. My logic is that Kedar precedes Solomon’s curtains in the word order. The next recognized level could be the warning to the daughters of Jerusalem that they respect the sacred love between the black Shulamite woman and Solomon the Jewish leader. The semiotic iceberg needs a large encyclopedia, in Eco’s terms, to see and decode correctly the existence of the phenomenon at many levels. The idea for levels illustrates the mega-color approach, e. g., distinguishing the means of a color through different terms (BCT, PT), expressing different cognitive abilities for expressing color. The root Kuf-Dalet-Reish acquires association of this type of darkness with grief, mourning and several explicit and implicit context semantizations of unpleasant feelings, experiences, conditions and states. Here, the root has an atypical context-dependent meaning—beauty, pleasantness. Explicit and implicit colors are part of the richness of Song of Solomon, reminiscent of the popular view that holds Song of Songs to be the most esoteric of the entire canon (Dennis 2009). I hope the color semiotic iceberg of a verse reveals a small piece of the hidden content of Song of Songs.

4 General conclusions The greatest difficulty in defining the parameters of the verbal color language is the connection with visual perception and visual color speech. However, the connection between prototypes and the verbal language of colors is the culturalization of prototypes. Culturalization takes place in the mind and subconscious,

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passes into rituals and finally into natural languages through categorization with basic color terms, prototype terms, rivals to prototype terms and the second most important quality (pure for White, fresh for Green, warm for Red, infinity for Blue) of a prototype. The contexts in which the various words signify color are also important. The semiotic iceberg partially reveals the power of this method. The concept of mega-color includes the idea of color as a cultural unit, while also taking into account Jewish culture, which includes diachrony of the Hebrew language and the sacredness of the Bible. Mega-color takes into account translations, the semio-osmosis process, reiteration of ritual, statistics on the frequency of BCTs and PTs, the first use of a BCT as a rhematic use of color. The method includes the outlining of color structures as text within text and the symbolic connections between the Old and New Testaments characterized by unity regardless of the different stages of Hebrew and the Greek text of the New Testament. Although a small fragment, the semiotic iceberg is an example of the abundance of color-related semiotic values and demonstrates the effectiveness of the method. The semiotic iceberg illustrates a small fragment of the depths of the Hebrew worldview and the original content of the Old Testament.

References Almalech, Mony. 2001. Цвят и слово. Прагматични и психолингвистични аспекти. [Colour Language and Natural Language: Psycholinguistic and Pragmatic Aspects.] Sofia: Marin Drinov Academic Publishing House. Almalech, Mony. 2011a. Advertisements: Signs of femininity and Their Corresponding Colour Meanings. Sofia: Marin Drinov Academic Publishing House. Almalech, Mony. 2011b. “The Eight Kinds of Linen in the Old Testament.” Lexia, Journal of Semiotics, new series. Special issue: Immaginario. 7 – 8: 325 – 64. Almalech, Mony. 2012a. “What Does ‘Psalm’ Mean in Hebrew?” Lexia, Journal of Semiotics, new series, special issue: Worship, 11 – 12: 153 – 73. Almalech, Mony. 2012b. “Biblical Windows.” Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism, special issue: Semiotics as a Theory of Culture: Deciphering the Meanings of Cultural Texts, 20: 93 – 104. Bankov, Kristian. 2017. “Eco and the Google Search Innovations.” In Eco in his own words, edited by Torkild Thellefsen and Bent Sørensen, 119 – 26. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Berlin, Brent and Paul Kay. 1969. Basic Colour Terms: Their Universality and Evolution. Berkeley: University of California Press. Borg, Alexander. 1999. “Linguistic and ethnographic observations on the color categories of the Negev Bedouin.” In The Language of Colour in the Mediterranean, edited by Alexander Borg, 121 – 47. Stockholm: University of Stockholm. Borg, Alexander. 2007. “Towards a History and Typology of Colour Categorization in Colloquial Arabic.“ In Anthropology of Colour: Interdisciplinary Multilevel Modeling,

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edited by Robert MacLaury, Galina Paramei, and Don Dedrick, 263 – 93. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Brenner, Athalya. 1982. Colour Terms in the Old Testament. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Brenner, Athalya. 1979. “Colour Terms in the Old Testament.” A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Ph.D. in the Faculty of Arts, 1979, Department for Near East Studies. Caivano, Jose. 1998. “Color and Semiotics: A Two-way Street.” Colour Research and Application 23 (6): 390 – 401. Dennis, Geoffrey. 2009. “Song of Songs: The Secret Meaning is the Plain Meaning.“ Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism. 13 December 2009. http://ejmmm2007.blogspot.com/2009/12/song-of-songs-allegory-is-plain-meaning.html Eco, Umberto. 1979: Lector in Fabula. Milano: Bompiani. Еco, Umberto. (1985) 1996. “How Culture Conditions the Colours We See” In The communication theory reader, edited by Paul Cobley, 148 – 171. New York: Routledge. Gesenius, William. (1847) 1996. Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament. 18th edition. Boston: Crocker and Brewster. Halliday, Michael. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic. London: Arnold. Halliday, Michael. 1993. Language in a Changing World. Canberra: ALAA Occasional Paper 13. Hartley, John. 2010. The Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Colour Lexemes. Louvain; Peeters. Humboldt, Wilhelm von. (1883) 1971. Die sprachphilosophischen Werke. Edited by Heymann Steinthal. Berlin: Ferd. Dümmlers Verlagsbuchhanlung Harrwitz und Grossman. Kay, Paul and Luisa Maffi. 1999. “Colour Appearance and the Emergence and Evolution of Basic Colour Lexicons.” American Anthropologist, 101 (4): 743 – 60. Kourdis, Evangelos. 2017. “Colour as Intersemiotic Translation in Everyday Communication: A Sociosemiotic Approach.“ In Proceedings of the 12th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, Sofia 2014, 16‒20 of September, New Bulgarian University, edited by Kristian Bankov, Ivan Kasabov, Mony Almalech, Borislav Georgiev, George Tsonev, Reni Iankova, Dimitar Trendafilov, Ivo Iv. Velinov, Yagodina Manova, and Boyka Buchvarova, 736 – 46. Sofia: NBU Publishing House & IASS Publications. Kress, Gunther and Theo van Leeuwen. 2002. “Colour as a Semiotic Mode: Notes for a Grammar of Colour.” Visual Communication 1 (3): 343 – 68. Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Leone, Massimo. 2007. “Strumenti semiotici per lo studio dei colouri.” In Squillacciotti. Sguardi sui colouri: Arti, Comunicazione, Linguaggi, edited by Massimo Leone, 163 – 74. Siena: Protagon editori. Leone, Massimo. 2009. “La Legge e il Coloure – Analisi semiotica di alcune incisioni di Marc Chagall.“ In Testure – Scritti seriosi e schizzi scherzosi per Omar Calabrese, edited by Stefano Jacoviello, et al., 61 – 90. Siena: Protagon Editori. Leone, Massimo. 2019. “Semiotics of Religion: A Map.” American Journal of Semiotics 35 (3/4): 309 – 33. Lotman, Yuri. 1994. “The Text within the Text.” Translated by Jerry Leo and Amy Mandelker. PMLA 109, no. 3 (May): 377 – 84. https://doi.org/10.2307/463074. Rosch, Eleanor 1972a. “Probabilities, sampling, and ethnographic method: The Case of Dani Colour Names.” Man, new series 7: 448 – 66.

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Rosch Eleanor 1972b. “Universals in Colour Naming and Memory.” Journal of Experimental Psychology 20 –10 :(1) 93. Rosch, Eleanor 1973. “Natural Categories.” Cognitive Psychology 4: 328 – 50. Sasson, Victor. 1989. “King Solomon and the Dark Lady in the Song of Songs.” Vetus Testamentum 9 (4): 407 – 14. Scholem, Gershom. 1979 – 1980. “Colours and Their Symbolism in Jewish Tradition and Mysticism.” Diogenes Part I 1979, 27 (57): 84 – 111; Part II 1980, 28 (64): 64 – 76. Sutrop, Ulmas. 2011. “Towards a Semiotic Theory of Basic Colour Terms and the Semiotics of Juri Lotman.” In New Directions in Colour Studies, edited by Carole Biggam, Carole Hough, Christian Kay, and David Simmons, 43 – 6. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Turner, Victor (1966) 2004. “Colour Classification in Ndemby Ritual.” In Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Michael Banton, 47 – 84. London: Routledge. Van Leeuwen, Theo. 2011. Language of Colour: An Introduction. London: Routledge. Volli, Ugo. (1988) 1990. Contro la Moda. Milano: Feltrinelli. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1990. “The Meaning of Colour Terms: Semantics, Cultures and Cognition.” Cognitive Linguistics 1 (1): 99 – 150.

Abbreviations Bibles Dictionaries and Encyclopedias ISBE – International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. 5 vol. set, (1915) 1939. James Orr (general ed.) Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co; 1915. Chicago: Howard-Severance Co. Online: https://www.internationalstandardbible.com/S/seraphim.html TWOT – The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament by Laird Harris, Gleason Archer, Bruce Waltke. Illinois: Moody Press. (1980) 2003. BibleWorks 4. 1989 LLC. Montana: Hermeneutika, Big Fork.

Bibles, Translations Cyrillic BUL1 Bulgarian Protestant Version 1940, 1995, 2005 BUL2 Bulgarian Orthodox Version 1925, 1991 RST Russian Synodal Text of the Bible (1996) 1997 UKR Ukrainian Orthodox Version

Colors as a semiotic tool for Bible analysis

English ASV American Standard Version 1901 KJV King James (1611,1769) 1997 – 1998 NAS (NASB) New American Standard Bible 1977 NIB New International Version UK 1983 NIV New International Version 1984 (US) NRS New Revised Standard Version 1989 RSV Revised Standard Version (1952) 1971

French LSG The French Louis Segond Version (1910) 1988 – 1997 TOB French Traduction Oecuménique de la Bible 1988

German LUO The German Luther Bibel (1912) 1995 LUT Revidierte Lutherbibel 1984

Greek LXX Septuagint. Retrieved from http://biblehub.com/interlinear/; BW

Hebrew Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia 1990

Italian LND The Italian La Nuova Diodati 1991

Latin VUL Latin Vulgate

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Portuguese ARA The Brazilian Portuguese João Ferreira de Almeida, Revista e Atualizada, 2nd edition 1993

Spanish SRV – Versión Reina-Valera 1909 [1997 – 1998]

Bible software BW – Bible Works 4. 1989 LLC. Montana: Hermeneutika, Big Fork.

Massimo Leone

Form and force of the sacred: A semiotic study of the temptations of Saint Anthony¹ Forse un mattino andando in un’aria di vetro, arida, rivolgendomi, vedrò compirsi il miracolo: il nulla alle mie spalle, il vuoto dietro di me, con un terrore da ubriaco.² (Eugenio Montale, 1925. Ossi di Seppia)

1 Introduction “The sacred” has been at the core of reflection in most disciplines dealing with religion (Leone 2014). Semiotics must know this literature but cannot merely rely on pre-existing definitions. Its aim consists, instead, in reconceptualizing the sacred in terms of language. The article that follows understands the sacred as a force that, in language, is paradoxical; on the one hand, it is the origin of every religious expression: words, images and other signs are shaped in order to signify the telluric energy that underlies the human access to language; on the other hand, however, as this force is expressed by the forms of language and communicated by them, it is also somehow betrayed, compressed, frustrated. The sacred, in religious discourse, remains always as shadow of what it could not be possibly said, as echo of the unfathomable, as an aura of unexpressed potentiality. Sacrifice, therefore, that is, literally, “the making of the sacred,” is also simultaneously an act of renouncing, a production of residues, a movement of nostalgia. The article that follows explores such nostalgia of the sacred through the study of a complex intertextual network, at whose center lies one of the most enigmatic literary works of modernity, that is, Gustave Flaubert’s La tentation de Saint Antoine. This work represents a series of temptations but it also metarepresents the temptations of the sacred, the paradoxical interplay between the force of creativity and the form of creation. The essay deals, in particular, with four types of ‘temptation’: first, the temptation represented by Gustave Flaubert in the opera La Tentation de Saint Antoine

 An earlier version of the present essay, in Italian, was published as Leone (2012).  “Perhaps one morning walking in dry glassy air, / I will turn, I will see the miracle complete: / nothingness at my shoulder, the void behind / me, with a drunkard’s terror”; translation mine. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925-015

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(The Temptation of Saint Anthony), whose last edition in life of the author dates back to 1874; second, the way in which the story of this first temptation echoes those of Flaubert with respect to writing; third, the way in which the first and second temptations, the textual one and the authorial temptation, evoke the reader’s temptations with respect to the text; and fourth, the way in which the first three levels of temptation trigger a reflection on the existential meaning of what can be tentatively called as the tension between the “temptation of the force” and the “resistance of the form.” The essay examines these four types of temptation through six sections. In the first, “The Roots of the Temptation: Jerusalem and Athens,” it considers the visual and verbal sources of Flaubert’s Tentation; in the second, “The Contagion of Temptation: from Cézanne to Ernst,” it describes the inter-media adaptations of the Tentation, in particular the pictorial ones; in the third, “The Biographies of Temptation: Foucault, Valéry, Borges, Barthes,” it analyzes the philosophical transfers originating from the Tentation; in the fourth, “Majesty of the Temptation: Nietzsche,” it deals with the counter-transfer operated by Nietzsche with respect to the writing of Flaubert; in the fifth, “Theatricality of the Temptation: Marionettes,” it traces the passage from the medieval mystery plays to the puppet theater and from this to the Flaubertian imagination; finally, in the sixth and final part, “Scenographies of the Temptation: Callot,” it focuses on the intersemiotic translation from the scenography to the graphic arts, from these to literature and from literature to cinema.

2 The roots of temptation: Jerusalem and Athens The traditional historical approach to literature transfers to the study of creative verbal discourse the ontological patterns through which biological creativity is usually understood: the author creates the text, which is like a creature existing in time and space with a punctual identity and precise temporal and spatial limits. Semiotics, on the contrary, encourages a deconstruction of such patterns, not only through undermining the author’s ontological relevance (as it was already suggested by Barthes with his formula on “the death of the author”) but also by suggesting that every text is in fact the coagulation of a complex network of cultural forces, which converge in time, space and within a specific natural language so as to manifest a certain system of values. Flaubert’s work, from this point of view, cannot be simply read as the literary output of a genial writer, but as a new way at determining the point of equilibrium between opposite cultural agencies (the “force” and the “form”) usually conceived as separated, con-

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tradictory and antagonistic by both the Judeo-Christian and the Graeco-Roman cultures. From this perspective, the narrative of the temptations of Saint Anthony is at the center of a vast intertextual network composed of fictional texts in various media as well as of critical and philosophical essays. In this network, Flaubert is a crucial knot, exemplifying how texts of different kinds influence each other in the genesis of representation. In a letter to Alfred Le Poittevin, written in Milan on May 13, 1845, the French writer recalls the genesis of his literary inspiration: I have seen a painting by Brueghel representing the Temptation of St. Anthony, which made me think of arranging for the theater the Temptation of St. Anthony; but that would require another, more valiant, fellow than me. I would give all the Moniteur’s³ collection, if I had it, and 100,000 Francs with it, to buy this painting, which is considered as bad by most people who examine it.⁴

The painting mentioned by Flaubert—attributed to Brueghel the Younger⁵ and kept, at that time, in the Balbi collection in Genoa—was the visual prompt to the French author’s work but was also itself part of a longer intertextual tradition. Bruegel the Younger was an imitator of his father, Pieter Bruegel the Elder.⁶ Max J. Friedländer⁷ points it out in his monograph on Dutch painting: “The second Pieter Bruegel was nothing but an imitator and copyist who lived on his father’s heritage” (Friedländer 1956, 135). The picture Flaubert admired in Genoa, therefore, was certainly a copy of a representation of Bruegel the

 Le Moniteur universel is a French newspaper founded on 24 November 1789 in Paris by CharlesJoseph Panckouke (Lille, 26 November 1736–Paris, 19 December 1798) and active until 30 June 1901.  “J’ai vu un tableau de Bruegel représentant la Tentation de Saint-Antoine, qui m’a fait penser à arranger pour le théâtre la Tentation de saint Antoine ; mais cela demanderait un autre gaillard que moi. Je donnerais bien toute la collection du Moniteur si je l’avais, et 100.000 francs avec, pour acheter ce tableau-là, que la plupart des personnages qui l’examinent regardent assurément comme mauvais” (Flaubert 1976, 173; translation mine).  Brussels, 1564–Antwerp, 10 October 1638.  Breda or nearby, Duchy of Brabant, Habsburg Netherlands (modern-day Netherlands), c.1525 – 1530–Brussels, Duchy of Brabant, Habsburg Netherlands (modern-day Belgium), 9 September 1569.  Max Jakob Friedländer; Berlin, 5 July 1867–Amsterdam, 11 October 1958.

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Elder, well exemplified by The Temptation now kept in the Samuel H. Kren Collection in the Washington National Gallery of Art.⁸ Bruegel the Elder, in turn, was inspired by Hieronymus Bosch’s works, which he perfectly knew also through the engravings of Hieronymus Cock. A long tradition in art history, indeed, defines Pieter Brueghel (the Elder) as “the second Bosch.” Humanist and artist Domenicus Lampsonius started this tradition, which continues until present day art history. Walter S. Gibson, for example, in his monograph on Bruegel, points out the differences between the two painters, but still names Bruegel “a second Hieronymus Bosch” (Gibson 1977, 44). The visual source of Bruegel’s painting, then, was probably one of the many representations Bosch devoted to the topic. The most famous of them is the triptych Temptation of Saint Anthony,⁹ currently at the Lisbon Museum of Art (Aymès and Clément 1975). Hieronymus Bosch was particularly fond of this iconographic theme. Walter S. Gibson points it out in his monograph on the painter: St. Anthony is a recurrent figure in Bosch’s work. In addition to the left wing of the Hermit Saints triptych, his figure appears several times in a drawing in the Louvre. A small panel in the Prado, showing the saint meditating in a sunny landscape, is also generally attributed to him although many details deviate from his usual style. (Gibson 1973, 138)

In conceiving the first idea of his Tentation, then, Flaubert was inspired by a painting (Bruegel the Younger), which was a copy of another painting (Bruegel the Elder), which, through the reproduction of an engraving (Hieronymus Cock), imitated a third painting (Hieronymus Bosch). But in Bosch the intertextual relation is reversed, for, in conceiving his own Temptations of Saint Anthony, the Dutch painter was probably inspired by verbal sources of two kinds: on the one hand, old Dutch proverbs, riddles and jokes (Bax 1948, 1956); on the other hand, medieval hagiographies: “[T]he Lysbon triptych remains his most comprehensive statement of the theme, the particulars of which he drew from the Lives of the Fathers and the Golden Legend, both of which were available in contemporary Dutch translation” (Gibson 1973, 138). The Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend), written between 1228 and 1230 by Jacobus da Varagine, the archbishop of Genoa, is a central source of Christian iconography. It contains, inter alia, a hagiographic narrative of the life of Saint An-

 Currently attributed to a Follower of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. 1550 – 1575. The Temptation of Saint Anthony. Oil on canvas. 58,5 x 85,7 cm. Washington: National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection.  Hieronymus Bosch. c. 1500. The Temptation of Saint Anthony. Central panel. 131,5 x 119 cm; side panel w. 53 cm. Lisbon: Museo Nacional de Arte Antiga.

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thony in the desert (Jacobus da Varagine 1969, 99 – 103); this is based, in turn, on earlier patristic texts. The first Christian author to ever give an account of Saint Anthony’s temptations was Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, who in 356, just after the hermit’s death in 355, composed in Greek the text known as “Vita Antonii.” Athanasius himself was inspired by previous sources, although researchers do not always agree in identifying them. Certainly, the New Testament was one of them. Robert C. Gregg points it out in his introduction to the English translation of Athanasius’s hagiography of Anthony: “A number of suggestions have been advanced by those scholars keen on underlining the connection between the Vita Antonii and certain ‘classic’ biblical themes and motifs. It is argued that the basic structure of the work derives from the temptation story in the Gospels” (Athanasius 1980, 4). Other scholars have stressed the influence of classic Greek literature. Robert C. Gregg himself lists some probable sources: “Evidence was marshalled to indicate Athanasius’s familiarity with and dependence on such works as the Life of Pythagoras, Philostratus’s Life of Apollinius of Tyana, Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus and the Life of King Agesilaus by Xenophon” (5). Hence, the roots of the genealogical tree of Flaubert’s Tentation stretch back to the threshold between Jerusalem and Athens (Seznec 1945, 1949).

3 The contagion of temptation: From Cézanne to Ernst As it will be increasingly clear through the unfolding of the present essay, grasping the essence of the temptation Flaubert dealt with means coming to terms with the semiotic nucleus of ritual. It is through repetition of forms through time, indeed, that the force of creativity, with its potential for disruption and madness, can be tamed. That emerges quite starkly if one considers how the relation between media is often seen by artists as an occasion to realize the insufficiency of the form but also as a stimulus to recuperate the force of creativity in the intertextual exercise, as if inspiration coming from other media were an exorcism aimed at reconciling the ebullient subjectivity of creation with the necessary constraints of language. Along this line, less bodily arts like poetry and literature look at the temptation of painting, and even more—as shall be seen—at that of theater, yet such gaze is reciprocated by that through which the fine arts see in Flaubert’s Tentation, a sublime literary way of trapping the chaos of human imagination into a crystalline form. Ritual, then, at its semiotic core, is

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linguistic form patterning the pre-linguistic force of the body, of the pre-social body. Indeed, if one reverses the temporal direction of the series explored above, the net of intertextual influences becomes even more complicated. Athanasius’s Vita Antonii is quoted in many patristic works, such as Jerome’s De viribus illustribus,¹⁰ for instance. Its rhetorical structure becomes a sort of hagiographic archetype for any further saint’s biography. The iconography that stemmed from the countless versions of Anthony’s life between the 4th and the 12th century is equally abundant (Ferrari 1956). The echo of Bosch’s Temptations in literature, then, especially in Spanish works from the 16th to the 17th century (Heidenreich 1970), is extensive. Spanish writer Baltasar Gracián, for example, quotes the painting in his Criticón: ¹¹ “Take into account—said Chiron—that you are daydreaming. Oh, how well Bosch painted! Now I understand his capriciousness. You shall see incredible things […].”¹² In 1577, Tintoretto invented a new iconography of the Temptations, which then exerted a vast influence on Baroque Italian painters. An alternative depiction was elaborated by Matthias Grünewald in his Saint Anthony’s Temptation on the left wing of the second opening of the Issenheim altar painting.¹³ Joris-Karl Huysmans, fascinated by this representation, described it and commented on it in his work Grünewald of Colmar’s Museum (1904). Huysmans’ aesthetics and writing were both deeply affected by this painting. Flaubert knew most of the tradition of previous texts representing the Temptations of Saint Anthony, both in words and in images. He had read the relevant patristic texts in Migne’s Patrologia; he had seen Bruegel the Younger’s painting; he had hanged in his study a reproduction of it, engraved by Callot (Daniel 1974). But Flaubert’s narrative synthesis of this monumental intertextual network was itself the point of departure of further versions of the story, inter-semiotically translating Flaubert’s work through sundry expressive means. In music, for example, between 1935 and 1937, Cecil Gray composed a Saint Anthony Temptation, adapted from Flaubert, for twelve soloists, choir and orchestra. In the “Analytical and Explanatory Notes” to the musical work, the Scottish composer wrote:

 On Illustrious Men; a collection of short biographies of 135 authors, written in Latin, completed at Bethlehem in 392– 3.  Published in three stages, in 1651, 1653 and 1657.  “Haced cuenta—dijo el Quirón—que soñáis despiertos. ¡Oh qué bien pintaba el Bosco!, ahora entiendo su capricho. Cosas veréis increíbles […]” (Gracián y Morales 1971, 1, crisis VI: 79; translation mine).  Matthias Grünewald. C. 1506 – 15. The Temptation of Saint Anthony. Second opening, left side panel. Oil on canvas. Colmar, Alsace (France): Musée d’Unterlinden.

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“Saint Anthony is one of those conceptions realizable in any art. Flaubert was inspired by a picture of Breaghal [sic]. I was inspired by Flaubert. This is one of the many embodiments of the romantic conception” (Gray 1954, 1). Cecil Gray also stressed, in the same introduction, that “the present work is primarily conceived for some form of visual presentation, whether of stage, cinema or television” (1). Flaubert’s Temptation, indeed, attracted especially painters. Cézanne executed three versions of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (Cachin et al. 1996, 157– 58), the most accomplished and famous of which between 1875 and 1877.¹⁴ In 1878, Félicien Rops executed his scandalous Temptation of Saint Anthony,¹⁵ replacing Jesus with a crucified woman; the painting is also known as The Woman on the Cross. Rops wrote about it in humorous words to his friend, the painter Jean Francois Taelemans: All this is basically only an excuse to paint from life a pretty girl who, a year ago already, cooked us some eggs and tripe à la mode de Touraine and who, for the first time, and after much persuasion, agreed to sit for her old Fély as Princess Borghese sat for Canova. I only changed the hairstyle. (Arwas 1972, introduction)

In 1884, Fernand Knoppf exposed a Temptation of Saint Anthony following Flaubert ¹⁶ (1883) at the first exposition of Belgian symbolists. Four years later, James Ensor composed another monumental representation of the subject,¹⁷ where Anthony is exposed to all sorts of modern bourgeois temptations, including popular street food. Odilon Redon first read Flaubert’s Tentation in 1882 and, also influenced by its enormous popularity among the Belgian symbolists, devoted to it three lithographic albums, in 1888,¹⁸ 1889 and 1896.¹⁹ Huysmans described and commented on one of these versions, in an article on “the monster” (Huys-

 Paul Cézanne. c. 1875 – 77. The Temptation of Saint Anthony. 47 x 56 cm. Oil on canvas. Paris: Musée d’Orsay.  Félicien Rops. 1890. The Temptation of Saint Anthony. Brussels: Belgian Royal Library, Cabinet of Prints.  Brussels: Private collection.  James Sidney Ensor. 1887. The Temptation of Saint Anthony. 17,95 × 15,47 cm. Colored pencils and scraping, with graphite, charcoal, conté crayon and additions in colored chalk and watercolor, selectively fixed, with cut and pasted elements, on 51 sheets of ivory wove paper (discolored to cream), joined and formerly laid down on canvas. Chicago, IL: Chicago Art Institute.  See, for instance, Odilon Redon. 1888. The Temptation of Saint Anthony. 27,5 x 17 cm. Lithography. London: British Museum.  See Hobbes (1977); Gamboni (1989); Eisenman (1992).

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mans 1889). Max Ernst, inspired by Grünewald’s altar painting in Issenheim, created another remarkable Saint Anthony Temptation in 1945.²⁰

4 The biographies of temptation: Foucault, Valéry, Borges, Barthes The semiotic perspective is the most apt at seizing the deep anthropological value of the intertextual maze of Flaubert’s Tentation, for it understands it not in theological terms, as the struggle between a superior spiritual imperative and the opposite impulses of “the down below,” of an inferior realm of existence, but in terms of language. In relation to the sphere of meaning and semiosis, indeed, temptation essentially consists in aiming at an impossible return to a pre-linguistic, pre-social, “natural” stage of unbridled force of the body, in cultivating the utopia of an art that can be such without the filter of the form. As it shall be seen later, the likeliest outcome of this utopia is violent madness, yet repressing the wild call of the force through cultivating literature as a stereotypical cage is not a solution. One has to come to terms with the seductive power of disruption, as Flaubert did, inventing a new literary exorcism, a ritual of liberation. This section will now attempt at exploring the reasons for this power of seduction, for the way in which Flaubert’s Tentation was able to inspire painters, writers and philosophers. Moreover—in relation to the broader topic of Saint Anthony’s temptations—the section will also seek to understand why, in this cultural tradition, writers were so much attracted by paintings and painters so much enticed by verbal narratives. The abundant literary and philosophical criticism spurred by Flaubert’s book complicates the picture even further. Valéry, Borges, Sartre, Foucault, Barthes and others were all seduced by Flaubert’s text. The section, therefore, will try to account also for this further level of seduction, the one exerted by La Tentation on thinkers and philosophers. Flaubert was devoted to the cult of form. Here the term “form” is conceived as Danish semiotician Louis T. Hjelmlsev did, that is, as a systemic organization concerning both the expressive and the semantic plane of language (Hjelmslev 1943). As regards the expressive organization, Flaubert was obsessed with “labor limae” (literally, “file work”); as a craftsman he would constantly strive to improve his sentences until they sounded perfect. As regards content compo Max Ernst. 1945. The Temptation of Saint Anthony. 108 x 128 cm. Oil on canvas. Duisburg: Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum.

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sition, the French writer was a maniac of methodic reading, of the patient accumulation of detailed knowledge. Flaubert’s monumental correspondence is replete with references to his obsession for precise structures; in every page, his literary works witness to the persistence of this effort, which is also unmistakably underlined by critics in their analysis. Such an obsession for precise forms had several consequences in Flaubert’s literary technique: his writing was characteristically slow. He would constantly erase words and change them, then he would delete again those that he had chosen and change them again, and so on and so forth through an extenuating process. The definition of content was slow too. Before and while writing, Flaubert would read, write notes, fill notecards, accumulate a vast and detailed bibliography. As a consequence, Flaubert’s lifestyle was often characterized by isolation and immobility. In the same letter where he mentioned for the first time his desire to write La Tentation, he described his conception of an artist’s life: The only way not to be unfortunate is to shut yourself up in art and to count for nothing all the rest; […] I told practical life an irrevocable goodbye. For long, I won’t ask for anything but five or six hours of tranquility in my room, a big fire in winter and two candles every night to enlighten me.²¹

In a letter to Ernest Chevalier completed on 13 August 1845, Flaubert then wrote: What I dread being passion, movement, I believe, if happiness is somewhere, it is in stagnation; ponds do not have storms. My habit of life is by now chosen, I live in a regulated, calm, regular manner, occupying myself exclusively with literature and history.²²

Then, again, just one week before unpacking the engraving by Callot that he had bought in Italy—the one representing Breughel’s Temptations of Saint Anthony— Flaubert wrote to Louise Colet: “One only achieves style through atrocious labor, through fanatic and devoted obstinacy.” ²³ Such solemn statements about the ar-

 “Le seul moyen de n’être pas malheureux c’est de t’enfermer dans l’Art et de compter pour rien tout le reste; […] J’ai dit à la vie pratique un irrévocable adieu. Je ne demande d’ici à longtemps que cinq ou six heures de tranquillité dans ma chambre, un grand feu l’hiver, et deux bougies chaque soir pour m’éclairer” (Flaubert 1976, 16, 172; translation mine).  “Ce que je redoute étant la passion, le mouvement, je crois, si le bonheur est quelque part, qu’il est dans la stagnation ; les étangs n’ont pas des tempêtes. Mon pli est à peu près pris, je vis d’une façon réglée, calme, régulière, m’occupant exclusivement de littérature et d’histoire” (Flaubert 1963, 33; translation mine).  “On n’arrive au style qu’avec un labeur atroce, avec une opiniâtreté fanatique et dévouée” (14– 15 August 1846; Flaubert 1963, 39; translation mine).

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tist’s inevitable stylistic toil were often accompanied by parallel exclamations about the mounting feeling of depression before the exhausting slowness of writing: A superhuman willpower is necessary for writing and I am just a man. Sometimes it seems to me that I need to sleep six months without interruption. Ah! By how desperate a gaze I look at them, at the peaks of those mountains that my desire would like to climb! Do you know how many pages shall I have written after my return home? Twenty. Twenty pages in one month and working every day at least seven hours!²⁴

In a letter well known to specialists, Flaubert crucially suggested a comparison between, on the one hand, the writer’s efforts, attainments and discouragements and, on the other hand, the hermit’s pains, victories and losses: I do not know how sometimes my arms do not fall from my body, out of fatigue, and how my head does not turn into a pulp. I lead a harsh life, deserted from all outward joy, and where I have nothing to support me but a kind of permanent rage, which sometimes cries of impotence, but which is continual. I love my work with frenzied and perverted love, like an ascetic the hairshirt that scratches his belly. Sometimes, when I find myself empty, when the expression refuses itself, when, after having scribbled long pages, I discover I have not made a sentence, I fall on my couch and I remain dazed in an interior marsh of boredom.²⁵

On the basis of this comparison, many interpreters have proposed an identification between Flaubert and his literary alter ego Anthony, since both live an isolated existence, both are sometimes touched by grace and both are at times discouraged (Séginger 1997). A long list of passages in Flaubert’s correspondence corroborates this self-styled image of him as a writer devoted to the cult of the expressive form. Such list should be complemented by the numerous texts in  “Il faut une volonté surhumaine pour écrire, et je ne suis qu’un homme. Il me semble quelquefois que j’ai besoin de dormir pendant six mois de suite. Ah ! De quel œil désespéré je le regarde, les sommets de ces montagnes où mon désir voudrais monter ! Sais-tu dans huit jours combien j’aurai fait de pages depuis mon retour de pays ? Vingt. Vingt pages en un mois et en travaillant chaque jour au moins sept heures !” (Letter to Louise Colet, 3rd of April 1852; 68; translation mine).  “Je ne sais pas comment quelquefois les bras ne me tombent pas du corps, de fatigue, et comment ma tête ne s’en va pas en bouillie. Je mène une vie âpre, déserte de toute joie extérieure et où je n’ai rien pour me soutenir qu’une espèce de rage permanente, qui pleure quelquefois d’impuissance, mais qui est continuelle. J’aime mon travail d’un amour frénétique et perverti, comme un ascète le cilice qui lui gratte le ventre. Quelquefois, quand je me trouve vide, quand l’expression se refuse, quand, après [avoir] griffonné de longues pages, je découvre n’avoir pas faite une phrase, je tombe sur mon divan et j’y reste hébété dans un marais intérieur d’ennui” (Letter to Louise Colet, 24 April 1852; 69; translation mine).

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which Flaubert inventories his readings, his achievements and defeats as a researcher. This parallel self-image of Flaubert as a writer of content organization has attracted especially the attention of scholars and philosophers. Here follows what Michel Foucault wrote in a subtle passage of his Bibliothèque fantastique about Flaubert’s Tentation: Now, in fact of dreams and deliriums, we now know that the Temptation is a monument of meticulous knowledge. For the scene of the heresiarchs, [Flaubert] perused the Tillemont’s Ecclesiastical Memoirs, read Matter’s four volumes on the history of Gnosticism, consulted the History of Manichea by Beausobre, Reuss’ Christian Theology; to which one must add Saint Augustine, of course, and the Patrology of Migne (Athanasius, Jerome, Epiphanius). As for the gods, Flaubert went to rediscover them in Burnouf, Anquetil-Duperron, Herbelot and Hottinger, in the volumes of the Picturesque Universe, in the works of the English Layard, and especially in the translation of Creutzer, The Religions of Antiquity. The Teratological Traditions by Xivrey, the Physiologus that Cahier and Martin had republished, the prodigious Histories of Boaistrau and Duret’s treatise on plants and their “admirable history” gave information on monsters. Spinoza had inspired the metaphysical meditation on the extended substance […].²⁶

Paul Valéry, in a brief article dedicated to The Temptation, criticized Flaubert’s method: “Nothing is more painful to me than imagining the amount of work spent on building a tale on the illusory foundation of an erudition that is always more futile than any fantasy.”²⁷ Jorge Louis Borges, who was a mighty reader and, albeit with a different style, transfused such erudition into his writings, praised, on the contrary, Flaubert’s effort: “[Flaubert] was the first Adam of a new species: that of the man of letters as a priest, as an ascetic and almost as

 “Or, en fait de rêves et de délires, on sait maintenant que la Tentation est un monument de savoir méticuleux. Pour la scène des hérésiarques, dépouillement de Mémoires ecclésiastiques de Tillemont, lecture de quatre volumes de Matter sur l’Histoire du gnosticisme, consultation de l’Histoire de Manichée par Beausobre, de la Théologie chrétienne de Reuss ; à quoi il faut ajouter saint Augustin bien sûr, et la Patrologie de Migne (Athanase, Jérôme, Épiphane). Les dieux, Flaubert est allé les redécouvrir chez Burnouf, Anquetil-Duperron, Herbelot et Hottinger, dans les volumes de l’Univers pittoresque, dans les travaux de l’Anglais Layard, et surtout dans la traduction de Creutzer, les Religions de l’Antiquité. Les Traditions tératologiques de Xivrey, le Physiologus que Cahier et Martin avaient réédité, les Histoires prodigieuses de Boaïstrau, le Duret consacré aux plantes et à leur “histoire admirable” ont donné des renseignements sur les monstres. Spinoza avait inspiré la méditation métaphysique sur la substance étendue[…]” (Foucault 1995, 8; translation mine).  “Rien ne m’est plus pénible que de me figurer la quantité de travail dépensée à bâtir un conte sur le fondement illusoire d’une érudition toujours plus vaine que toute fantaisie” (Valéry 1957, 1, 613; translation mine).

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a martyr.”²⁸ Roland Barthes, then, deeply passionate about Flaubert’s works, and one of his most gifted analysts—especially as regards form and style matters—in an interview with André Bourin affirmed: Flaubert experienced a drama of writing, a drama of what was and is still called style. But it goes much further than that. You know all of Flaubert’s absolutely poignant phrases about working with form. They show that, indeed, he lived with anguish the separation, the secession, the weaning, if I can say, of literary writing, far, precisely, from good conscience.²⁹

Again, in Sade, Fourier, Loyola, Barthes mentions “the uncertainty of the phrase,” which “made Flaubert very unhappy.”³⁰ Moreover, in an article written in honor of French linguist André Martinet, “Flaubert et la phrase,” Barthes returned to dwell at length on Flaubert’s slowness in writing: Long before Flaubert, writers had felt—and expressed—the hard work of style, the fatigue of incessant corrections, the sad necessity of long hours to achieve a miniscule output. Yet in Flaubert, the dimension of this pain is quite different; in him, the work of style entails indescribable suffering (even if he often writes about it), an almost expiatory pain, to which he does not attribute any compensation of magic (that is to say, random) order, as it might have been, for many writers, the feeling of inspiration: Flaubert’s style is absolute pain, infinite pain, useless pain. Writing is disproportionately slow (“four pages in a week,” “five days for a page” “two days searching for two lines”); it demands an “irrevocable goodbye to life,” a pitiless sequestration.³¹

 “[Flaubert] fue el primer Adán de una especie nueva: la del hombre de letras como sacerdote, como asceta y casi como mártir” (Borges 1964, 1 145; translation mine).  “Flaubert a vécu un drame de l’écriture, un drame de ce qu’on appelait et ce qu’on appelle encore maintenant le style. Mais cela va beaucoup plus loin que le style. Vous connaissez toutes les phrases absolument poignantes de Flaubert sur le travail de la forme. Elles montrent qu’effectivement, il vivait avec déchirement la séparation, la sécession, le sevrage, si je puis dire, de l’écriture littéraire, loin, précisément, de la bonne conscience” (Barthes [1970] 1994, 3, 638; translation mine).  “[…] l’incertitude de la phrase [qui] rendait Flaubert très malheureux” (Barthes [1970] 1994, 2, 1134; translation mine).  “Bien avant Flaubert, l’écrivain a ressenti—et exprimé—le dur travail du style, la fatigue des corrections incessantes, la triste nécessité d’horaires démesurés pour aboutir à un rendement infime. Pourtant chez Flaubert, la dimension de cette peine est toute autre ; le travail du style est chez lui une souffrance indicible (même s’il la dit souvent), quasi expiatoire, à laquelle il ne reconnaît aucune compensation d’ordre magique (c’est-à-dire aléatoire), comme pouvait l’être chez bien des écrivains le sentiment de l’inspiration : le style, pour Flaubert, c’est la douleur absolue, la douleur infinie, la douleur inutile. La rédaction est démesurément lente («quatre pages dans la semaine», «cinq jours pour une page », «deux jours pour la recherche de deux lignes ») ; elle exige un «irrévocable adieu à la vie», une séquestration impitoyable” (Barthes 1968, 48 ; translation mine).

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In the categories of classical rhetoric, Flaubert cultivates inventio (“invention,” the finding of subjects) through the meticulous accumulation of contents; he perfects dispositio and compositio (the subtle “arrangement” of topics and the scrupulous “structuring” of sentences; he masters elocutio (the “refinement” of style); his obsession for notes and cards, furthermore, manifest his dedication to memoria (“memory”). On the contrary, actio, “action,” is absent twice in Flaubert’s writing: first, within the text, in its mise en œuvre (“work creation”), since modern prose—unlike classical rhetoric—occults any reference to the corporal dimension of language; second, outside the text and in its mise en place (“emplacement”), as Flaubert’s writing itself excludes movement, action, dynamism and includes stagnation, slowness, patience. Flaubert was a writer of passion, in the etymological meaning of the word, rather than a writer of action.

5 The majesty of the temptation: Nietzsche Precisely because of this lack of action, Nietzsche hated Flaubert. In Nietzsche contra Wagner,³² the German philosopher writes: Flaubert, a new edition of Pascal, but as an artist with this instinctive belief at heart: “Flaubert est toujours haïssable, l’homme n’est rien, l’œuvre est tout.” […] He tortured himself when he wrote, just as Pascal tortured himself when he thought—the feelings of both were inclined to be “non-egoistic”…“Disinterestedness.”³³ Then again, in Der Wille zur Macht (1884 – 1988) Nietzsche considered Flaubert as an example of the dissolution of the French “spirit”: That characteristic transformation of which G. Flaubert is the most striking example among Frenchmen, and Richard Wagner among Germans, shows how the romantic belief in love and the future changes into a longing for nonentity in the period 1830 – 1850.³⁴

 It was written in his last year of lucidity (1888 – 1889) and published by C.G. Naumann in Leipzig in 1889.  “Flaubert, eine Neueausgabe Pascal’s, aber als Artist, mit dem Instinkt-Urtheil aus dem Grunde: “Flaubert est toujours haïssable, l’homme n’est rien, l’oeuvre est tout”… Er torturirte sich, wenn er dichtete, ganz wie Pascal sich torturirte, wenn er dachte—sie empfanden beide unegoistisch … “Selbstlosigkeit”” (Nietzsche 1969a, 3:424; English translation Nietzsche [1911] 1909 – 13, 8: 67).  “[J]ene typische Verwandlung, für die unter Franzosen G. Flaubert, unter Deutschen Richard Wagner das deutlichste Beispiel ist, wie der romantische Glaube an die Liebe und die Zukunft in das Verlangen zum Nichts sich verwandelt, 1830 in 1850” (Nietzsche 1959: 79; English translation Nietzsche 1909 – 13, 14 (1909 – 10): 88 – 89).

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The philosopher was deeply influenced by Paul Bourget, who, in his collection Essai de psychologie contemporaine (1883) had entitled a part of the chapter devoted to Flaubert “Du nihilisme de Gustave Flaubert.” The first paragraph of it reads as follows: It is through his destiny that Flaubert saw the destiny of other existences—and, indeed, the cause of the misfortune of all his characters is, as with him, a disproportion. Generalizing this remark, he even seems to recognize that this disproportion is not an accident. In his eyes it is a constant law that human effort results in an abortion, first because external circumstances are contrary to the dream, then because the very favor of circumstances would not prevent the soul from devouring itself in full satisfaction of its chimera.³⁵

Inspired by Bourget, Nietzsche wrote—in aphorism 34 of Götzen-Dämmerung— his most famous sentence on Flaubert: On ne peut penser et écrire qu’assis (G. Flaubert).—Now I’ve got you, you nihilist! Sitting still is precisely the sin against the holy ghost. Only thoughts which come from walking have any value.³⁶

The philosopher had found this quotation in Guy de Maupassant’s preface to the Lettres de Gustave Flaubert à George Sand (Flaubert 1884). Nietzsche blamed the French writer exactly for his disinclination to action. The image of a static writing —of a writing written while sitting—precisely expressed the epitome of this lack. Nietzsche hated those who would write while sitting, in the stagnation of thoughts. In the Gaia Scienza he wrote: But why, then, do you Write?—A: I do not belong to those who think with the wet pen in hand; and still less to those who yield themselves entirely to their passions before the open ink-bottle, sitting on their chair and staring at the paper.³⁷

 “C’est à travers son destin que Flaubert a vu le destin des autres existences—et, en effet, la cause du malheur de tous ses personnages est, comme chez lui, une disproportion. Même, généralisant cette remarque, il semble reconnaître que cette disproportion n’est pas un accident. C’est à ses yeux une loi constante que l’effort humain aboutisse à un avortement, d’abord parce que les circonstances extérieures sont contraires au rêve, ensuite parce que la faveur même des circonstances n’empêcherait pas l’âme de se dévorer en plein assouvissement de sa chimère” (Bourget [1883] 1917, 148; translation mine).  “On ne peut penser et écrire qu’assis (G. Flaubert).—Damit habe ich dich, Nihilist! Das Sitzfleich ist gerade die Sünde wider den heiligen Geist. Nur die ergangenen Gedanken haben Werth” (Nietzsche 1969, 3: 58; English translation Nietzsche 1998, 9).  “Aber warum schreibst denn du?—A.: Ich gehöre nicht zu Denen, welche mit der nassen Feder in der Hand denken; und noch weniger zu Jenen, die sich gar vor dem offenen Tintenfasse

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But Nietzsche was, on the opposite, fond of a second image, that of a writing while dancing. In Götzendämmerung he famously wrote: For you cannot subtract every form of dancing from noble education, the ability to dance with the feet, with concepts, with words; do I still need to say that you must also be able to dance with the pen—that you must learn to write?”³⁸

Nietzsche tried to recover the action that writing denies, the force that the form rejects. Writing while walking, writing while dancing, but also the “writing while bleeding” of Also sprach Zarathustra—“Of all that is written, I love only what a man has written with his blood. Write with blood, and you will experience that blood is spirit”³⁹—are attempts to find a perfect harmony between the body and its spiritual expressions, between life and text.

6 The theatricality of the temptation: Marionettes Flaubert too, the vestal of the literary form, was nevertheless tempted by the allure of force. Through Breughel’s painting, body and action penetrated into his writing. Nevertheless, painting was just the channel of this transfusion, since representations of force and life are a simulacrum in painting as they are in literature. Through Breughel’s painting, indeed, and especially through Callot’s engraving, Flaubert could grasp the theatrical dimension of the Temptations of Saint Anthony. In Flaubert, theatre plays the same role that dance does in Nietzsche’s philosophy: it brings body and its representations to the fore. Yet Flaubert was not dominated, as Nietzsche and, later, Antonin Artaud were, by this temptation of force, body and theatre. Rather, the French writer used La Tentation de Saint Antoine in order to convey such temptation and crys-

ihren Leidenschaften überlassen, auf ihrem Stuhle sitzend und auf’s Papier starrend” (Nietzsche 1973, 2: 124; English translation Nietzsche 1909 – 13, 10: 127).  “Man kann nämlich das Tanzen in jeder Form nicht von der vornehmen Erziehung abrechnen, Tanzen-können mit den Füssen, mit den Begriffen, mit den Worten; habe ich noch zu sagen, dass man auch mit der Feder können muss—dass man schreiben lernen muss?” (Nietzsche 1969b, 3:104; English translation Nietzsche 1909 – 13, 10:127).  “Von allem Geschriebenen liebe ich nur Das, was einer mit seinem Blute schreibt. Schreibe mit Blut: und du wirst erfahren, daß Blut Geist ist” (Nietzsche 1950: 41; English translation Nietzsche 1909 – 13 (11 (1909) Thus spake Zarathustra, English translation Thomas Common; seventh speech, “On Reading and Writing,” 152).

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tallize it into a text. In other terms, the writing of La Tentation would prepare those of all Flaubert’s important works; the French writer was haunted by the topic of the Temptation all his writing life through. He wrote three versions of it: in 1849, in 1856 and in 1872. When, in 1872, the French writer completed the third and definitive edition of the work, he wrote to mademoiselle Leroyer de Chantepie a letter in which he described the long effort of this literary creation. At the same time, he mentioned, for the second and last time in his correspondence, the picture of Brueghel that had inspired his imagination at the beginning of the creative process. The circle of references from word to image was, then, perfectly closed: painting had appeared in Flaubert’s correspondence at the beginning of writing and, almost thirty years after, it manifested itself a second and last time, in order to mark the achievement of literary composition (Seginger 1997): In the midst of my sorrows, I finish my Saint Antoine. It is the work of my whole life, since the first idea came to me in 1845, in Genoa, in front of a painting by Breughel, and since that time I have not stopped thinking about it and making related readings.⁴⁰

Michel Foucault was the best interpreter of this cyclical return of La Tentation during Flaubert’s literary career. As the philosopher pointed out, the desire of writing the story of the saintly hermit introduced and accompanied the creation of Flaubert’s most celebrated works: “Three times, Flaubert wrote, rewrote La Tentation: in 1849—it was before Madame Bovary—, in 1856, before Salammbô, in 1872, when writing Bouvard and Pécuchet.”⁴¹ Foucault’s explanation for this recurring literary effort is convincing: One has the feeling that La Tentation is, for Flaubert, the dream of his writing: what he would have liked it to be, but also what he had to stop being so as to receive its final form. La Tentation existed before all Flaubert’s books […]; and it was repeated—ritual, exercise, rejected “temptation”?—before each of them. Overhanging the work, it surpasses it with its talkative excesses, its overabundance of wasteland, its bestiary population; and in retreat from all the texts, it offers, with the negative of their writing, the dark, murmuring

 “Au milieu de mes chagrins, j’achève mon Saint Antoine. C’est l’œuvre de toute ma vie, puisque la première idée m’en est venue en 1845, à Gênes, devant un tableau de Breughel et depuis ce temps-là je n’ai cessé d’y songer et de faire des lectures afférentes” (Flaubert 1976, 385; translation mine).  “Trois fois, Flaubert a écrit, récrit La tentation: en 1849—c’était avant Madame Bovary—, en 1856, avant Salammbô, en 1872, au moment de rédiger Bouvard et Pecuchet” (Foucault 1995, 5; translation mine).

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prose which they had to repress and gradually lead back to silence to come themselves to the light.⁴²

Valéry, in his brief article about Flaubert’s Tentation, had quoted Goethe’s statement in Johann Peter Eckermann’s Gespräche mit Goethe (1836), about the scene of the Walpurgisnacht in the first part of Faust: “An infinite number of mythological figures throng to enter into it; but I take care of myself. And I only accept those who present to the eyes the images that I seek.”⁴³ Then, the French poet subtly reproached Flaubert his not being able to exert the same control. He wrote: “This wisdom does not appear in La Tentation.”⁴⁴ According to Foucault’s interpretation, on the contrary, La Tentation precisely was such an exercise of wisdom, an exercise that was an exorcism. In both cases, whether one agrees with Valéry or with Foucault, such temptation—accepted or refused might it be—was related to theater. Indeed, as Flaubert contemplated for the first time Breughel’s picture, his initial creative impulse was to compose not a novel but a theatrical adaptation of it: “I have seen a painting by Brueghel representing the Temptation of St. Anthony, which made me think of arranging for the theater the Temptation of St. Anthony […].⁴⁵ In addition, several scholars have stressed the importance, for Flaubert’s imagination, of the way in which popular and parish theatre would represent the Temptation. Michel Foucault mentioned it in his interpretation: “Flaubert, as a child, had often seen the Mystery of Saint Anthony staged by Father Lagrain in his puppet theater; later he took George Sand there.”⁴⁶ Foucault had found the information in French literary critic and musicologist René Du-

 “On a le sentiment que La Tentation, c’est pour Flaubert le rêve de son écriture : ce qu’il aurait voulu qu’il fût, mais aussi ce qu’il devait cesser d’être pour recevoir sa forme terminale. La Tentation a existé avant tous les livres de Flaubert […] ; et elle a été répétée—rituel, exercice, «tentation » repoussée ?—avant chacun d’eux. En surplomb au-dessus de l’œuvre, elle la dépasse de ses excès bavards, de sa surabondance en friche, de sa population de bestiaire ; et en retrait de tous les textes, elle offre, avec le négatif de leur écriture, la prose sombre, murmurante qu’il leur a fallu refouler et peu à peu reconduire au silence pour venir eux-mêmes à la lumière” (Foucault 1995, 5; translation mine).  “Un nombre infini de figures mythologiques se pressent pour y entrer ; mais je prends garde à moi. Et je n’accepte que celles qui présentent aux yeux les images que je cherche” (Valéry 1957, 617; translation mine).  “Cette sagesse n’apparaît pas dans La Tentation” (Valéry 1957, 617; translation mine).  “J’ai vu un tableau de Bruegel représentant la Tentation de Saint-Antoine, qui m’a fait penser à arranger pour le théâtre la Tentation de saint Antoine “ (Flaubert 1976, 173; translation mine).  “Flaubert, enfant, avait vu souvent le Mystère de saint Antoine que donnait le père Lagrain dans son théâtre de poupées ; plus tard, il y conduisit George Sand” (Foucault 1995, 15).

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mesnil’s essay on Flaubert, entirely devoted to Flaubert’s works and life; it contains an accurate description of Legrain’s theatre: In Flaubert’s time—and many years after his death—a puppet theater attracted a crowd of children. He was held by a good man, Father Legrain, and his name was La Tentation de Saint Antoine. The verve of the figurine-shower was inexhaustible, and its pattern perpetuated, in its naive and drunken form, old traditions dating back to the mysteries of the Middle Ages.⁴⁷

After a brief summary of the main contents of the puppet show, Dumesnil comments: Flaubert was a regular at the shows given in the fairground booth. We know with what fidelity he always remained attached to the memories of his youth: every year, in October, when Father Legrain mounted his stage, Flaubert returned to see the Temptation. He took there Turgenev, Feydeau, George Sand […]. One day, as he was sitting with her at the back of the barrack, someone warned Father Legrain. The latter—before that the curtain would rise on the decor of the hermitage—advanced to the banister and, after having made the three salutes in the manner of the Comédie Française, pronounced these words: “Ladies and Gentlemen, the author is in the room and he honors us with attending the performance of his work!” Flaubert was never so happy!⁴⁸

The origin of this play for puppet theatre goes back in history. Polish scholar Henryk Jurkowsky, in his monumental Écrivains et marionnettes, does not mention Flaubert’s interest in the rendition of the Temptation for puppet theater but, nevertheless, quotes Legrain once: The theme of the Temptation of Saint Anthony was very popular in France and Belgium. The text has been published by Gaston Baty. The puppeteer Louis Levergeois, who had it from a

 “Au temps de Flaubert—et bien des années après sa mort—un théâtre de marionnettes attirait la foule des enfants. Il était tenu par un brave homme, le père Legrain, et il avait pour enseigne La Tentation de Saint Antoine. La verve du montreur de figurines était intarissable et son boniment perpétuait, dans sa forme naïve et drue, de vieilles traditions remontant aux mystères de moyen âge” (Dumesnil 1962, 81– 2; translation mine).  “Flaubert fut un habitué des spectacles donnés dans la baraque foraine. On sait avec quelle fidélité il demeurait toujours attaché aux souvenirs de sa jeunesse : tous les ans, en octobre, lorsque le père Legrain montait ses tréteaux, Flaubert retournait voir la Tentation. Il y emmena Tourgueniev, Feydeau, George Sand[…]. Un jour qu’il avait pris place avec elle au fond de la baraque, quelqu’un avertit le père Legrain. Celui-ci, avant que le rideau se levât sur le décor de l’ermitage, s’avança à la rampe et, après avoir fait les trois saluts comme à la Comédie Française, prononça ces mots : « Mesdames, Messieurs, l’auteur est dans la salle et nous fait l’honneur d’assister à la représentation de son œuvre ! ». Jamais Flaubert ne fut si heureux !” (Dumesnil 1962, 83; translation mine).

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certain Legrain, wrote it from memory in 1875. The piece is very simple. It draws from the text its naive dramatic force. Whenever a character performs an action, he warns of his intentions. It is a hagiographic piece with moralizing intentions.⁴⁹

Unfortunately, the texts of puppet theater are rarely preserved, so that it is impossible to precisely determine the origin of the play. In any case, Legrain’s staging of the Temptation of Saint Anthony probably had its remote origins in the theatrical plays that the Discalced Augustinians of Rouen (both Flaubert’s and father Legrain’s hometown) had been putting on stage until 1667. In 1678, indeed, an anonymous writer published in Orleans a poem, whose title was Seduxerunt populum meum in mendacio suo (“they seduced my people with their fraud”). The author complains about the use of puppets during the Passion and describes a play that could be, indeed, a Temptation of Saint Anthony (Chesnais 1980, 103). The relation between such puppet shows and the medieval mystery plays is certain. In his Histoire générale des marionnettes, Jacques Chesnais writes: “The participation of puppets in the Mysteries is undisputed.”⁵⁰ Although the precise text of the mystery play representing the Temptation of Saint Anthony cannot be identified, it is well known that the Gospel episode of the Temptation of Christ—after which Athanasius’s Vita Antonii was modeled—is one of the main scenes of religious drama: Byzantine manuscripts from before the iconoclasm attest its central role in Greek sermon-dramas. The same subject was often represented also in the Middle Ages, through the impressive diffusion of the Meditationes vitae Christi (attributed to Saint Bonaventure). Lybette R. Muir describes the structure of the Temptation of Christ in her classic study on the topic, The Biblical Drama of Medieval Europe (1995): Found only in the synoptic gospels but typologically important because it echoes and reverses the Temptation of Adam and Eve, this story occurs in almost all the cycles and cyclic plays as well as a few separate ones. Some plays begin with a council of the devils, who boast of their skill as tempters. The tempter of Jesus is normally Satan […]. Many plays follow Meditationes 122 in emphasizing that the triple Temptation is to gluttony, vainglory and avarice: the three sins of Adam. The devil explains he needs to know whether Jesus is God or Man but at the end he is still bewildered. Several authors stress Jesus’ humility in allow-

 “Le thème de la Tentation de saint Antoine était très populaire en France et en Belgique. Le texte en a été publié par Gaston Baty. Le marionnettiste Louis Levergeois, qui le tenait d’un certain Legrain, le rédigea de mémoire en 1875. La pièce est très simple. Elle tient du texte sa force dramatique naïve. Chaque fois qu’un personnage accomplit une action, il prévient de ses intentions. C’est une pièce hagiographique à caractère de moralité” (Jurkowski 1991: 95 – 6 ; translation mine).  “La participation des marionnettes aux Mystères est incontestée” (Chesnais 1980, 81; translation mine).

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ing the devil to touch him, even carry him on his shoulders to the top of the pinnacle or the mountain. […] In several plays, Satan disguises himself: as a hypocrite, and then theologian, hermit, doctor and king in turn. (Muir 1995, 115)

One can certainly recognize, in such a description, some key features of the Temptation of Saint Anthony. The relation between the puppet theatre that inspired Flaubert and the medieval mystery plays should not be overlooked. To this regard, Dumesnil quotes Éduard Maynal’s statement about Flaubert’s Temptation: The influence of popular theater, Edouard Maynal quite rightly remarked, was all the more profound on Flaubert as the fable imagined by Father Legrain was more naive, more respectful of the old mystery from which it was inspired: it is in this sense that it has been said, with reason, that the Tentation, like Goethe’s Faust, emerged from the medieval drama.⁵¹

The same theatrical source influenced, then, both the literary and the pictorial archetype of the subject. The connection between scene painting in mystery plays and Bosch’s imagination is, indeed, incontestable (Meredith and Tailby 1983, 103; Crabtree and Beudert 1998, 236 – 37). Both the Golden Legend and the Meditationes influenced Bosch through Dutch translations, as well as through the countless pictorial representations of Jacobus da Varagine and Bonaventure (Twycross 1983, 70). These are further fascinating intertextual relations. Bonaventure would describe gestures by words but use, at the same time, a very precise figurative language, leading to theatrical and pictorial translations. As Meg Twycross stresses in her study (1983): “Bonaventure has visualized completely the gestures of the characters and their spatial relation to each other, so that the scene could be transferred onto the stage almost intact. It does indeed appear in painting, as for example in a fifteenth-century Netherlandish panel […].” Bonaventure’s text was, therefore, a sort of scenario, as Flaubert’s Temptation ultimately is. As regards the cultural role of mystery plays in Bosch’s time, Muir writes: “Plays were particularly common along the border areas between France and the Holy Roman Empire which dominated the areas cast of the Rhine. By the end of the fifteenth century, the map shows concentrations

 “L’influence du spectacle populaire, remarque fort justement Édouard Maynial, fut d’autant plus profonde sur Flaubert que l’affabulation imaginée par le père Legrain était plus naïve, plus respectueuse du vieux mystère dont elle était inspirée : c’est en ce sens, on l’a dit avec raison, que la Tentation, comme le Faust de Goethe, est sortie du drame médiéval” (Dumesnil 1962, 83 – 4).

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of drama records in the trading centers of the Netherlands, Dutch-speaking Antwerp and Brussels […]” (Muir 1995, 7). The cultural geography of the Temptation of Saint Anthony shows, then, a strong concentration around Belgium and the Netherlands. Both Flaubert and Bosch were seduced by the same theatrical source: medieval mystery plays. The painter was a direct spectator of them. The writer perceived an echo of them in puppet theatre.⁵² A third theatrical source, however, influenced Flaubert. Although the French writer’s first creative impulse sparkled from a contemplation of Bruegel’s picture, the writing of the Temptation benefited, then, from the contemplation of Callot’s reproduction of the painting. The French engraver produced two different versions of the Temptation, the first dating from around 1617 and the second around 1635, towards the end of the artist’s life. Callot knew both Bruegel’s and Bosch’s works through the engravings of Hieronymus Cock, but Callot’s Temptations have their origin, once again, in a theatrical source (Choné 1992, 415 – 29).

7 Scenographies of the temptation: Callot In the same period as Callot was active in Florence, between the end of the 16th century and the first forty years of the 17th, the Medici’s court would put on stage, on the occasion of noble weddings or to honor official visitors, some majestic theatrical shows (Nagler 1964). They would usually represent mythological libretti, in whose intricate plots numerous gods and goddesses would seek to disentangle their complicated love affairs. Giulio Parigi and his son Alfonso were the uncontested masters of scenography and scenery painting. Between 1624 and 1625, after Cosimo II’s death and as the prince inheritor was only ten years old, the Grande Duchesse Christina of Lorraine and Maria Maddalena of Austria ran the regency. During this period, the theatrical repertory of the court knew a great religious fervor and sacre rappresentazioni were predominant. Callot often engraved the Parigis’ scenographies,⁵³ and his engraving of the

 There would be much to write about what puppets represent in relation to the theme of temptation: in short, a formidable evocation of the individual’s dependence on the forces that dominate him/her and which he/she cannot control but from which he/she is, instead, controlled, even without noticing it. Reflection on this aspect of puppet theater has a long tradition, from Heinrich von Kleist (Über das Marionettentheater, 1810) to Goethe (Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, 1821) up to the concept of “super puppet” in Edward Gordon Craig (Craig [1911] 2008; Walton 1983).  See Mancini (1966); Marotti (1974); Schnapper (1982); Viale Ferrero (1988); Carini Motta, Carapecchia, and Tamburini (1994); for a survey, Ferrone (1997, 1062– 1087).

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Temptation of Saint Anthony features, indeed, their characteristic theatrical perspective as well as their taste for the multiplication of characters within the scene. At the end of the 17th century, his engraving even provided the model for the construction of a toy-theatre—now in the Museum of Theater in Stockholm, Sweden—whose stage is occupied by a Temptation of Saint Anthony.⁵⁴ Through the contemplation of Callot’s engraving, then, Flaubert elaborated a new version of Medici’s court spectacle. Indeed, the paratextual structure of the Tentation is that of a theatrical scenario. In the same way, the plethora of characters and the multiplicity of both enunciative levels and points of view imitate the perspective of Callot’s reproduction. Foucault noticed such topological analogy in his analysis: Between the reader and the ultimate visions that fascinate the fantastic apparitions, the distance is immense: regimes of language subordinate to each other, as well as relay-characters looking at each other push back, in the depths of this “text-representation,” a whole population teeming with chimeras.⁵⁵

Flaubert condensed, then, in the structure of his literary work, the space, the time and the pattern of action of a theatrical play. At the same time, this condensation was, once again, the point of departure for a further intertextual passage in the opposite direction. In 1898, for example, Georges Méliès, pioneer of fictional cinema, directed a Temptation of Saint Anthony inspired by Flaubert (Hammond 1974, 110). The director himself played the role of Saint Anthony and one of the last sequences of the short movie shows a crucified woman, exactly as in Rops’s pictorial rendition of the subject. Yet the main source of Meliès’ imagination was, again, popular theatre: the Fantasmagorie of Robertson, presented in Paris in 1874, includes in its repertory also a Temptation of Saint Anthony. Méliès’ cinema, indeed, was closely reminiscent of the impromptu stages of these fantasmagories. In 1962, then, another master of world cinema, Federico Fellini, filmed Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio (The Temptations of Dr. Anthony), a short movie that modernizes and parodies the tradition of Saint Anthony’s Temptations in order to stress the narrow-mindedness of the Italian Catholic moral. One of

 French anonymous (end of the 17th century). Miniature theatre with scenographies and characters cut out in cupper and painted, 115 x 182 x 124 cm. Stockholm: Drottningholm Teatermuseum.  “Entre le lecteur et les ultimes visions qui fascinent les apparitions fantastiques, la distance est immense : des régimes de langage subordonnés les uns aux autres, des personnages-relais regardant les uns par-dessus les autres repoussent, au plus profond de ce «textereprésentation», tout un peuple foisonnant de chimères” (Foucault 1995, 18; translation mine).

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the characters is a colossal puppet impersonated by Anita Ekberg, provoking the bigotry of prudish Peppino de Filippo, a modern personification of the hermit.⁵⁶ The inversion of influences between verbal and theatrical texts came to completion thanks to the shadow theatre of the Chat Noir. In 1887, Henri Rivière, who certainly did not know Flaubert’s theatrical source but must have perceived its dramatic potential notwithstanding, brought on stage a Temptation of Saint Anthony, a show in two acts and forty pictures, with music by Albert Tinchant and George Fragerolle (Chesnais 1980, 212; Segel 1995, 67). Eventually, Michel de Ghelderode, “the Flemish Shakespeare,” whose position in the history of theatre is between Alfred Jerry and Antonin Artaud, a precursor of Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett and André Genet, adapted for puppet theatre a Temptation of Saint Anthony (Jurkowski 1991, 331– 33). Puppets as a supreme metaphor of the human condition are indeed central in Ghelderode’s philosophy of theatre, which anticipates that of Artaud. Whereas Flaubert had conveyed—through a narrative topology simulating a theatrical space—the temptation that, through Breughel’s picture and Callot’s engraving, provoked in him the crisis of form and raised the suspicion of the deficiency of the significant, Artaud yielded to such temptation and, like Nietzsche, embraced it down into the abyss of unreasoning. Indeed, whilst one can act while standing and actually must dance while standing, writing is an action performed by those who sit. In Le Théâtre et son double (The Theater and Its Double), one of his densest theoretical texts, Artaud mentions Bosch’s Temptation of Saint Anthony as the epitome of what, in painting, constitutes the nature of theatre: the fact of overtaking form, the verbal discourse and words written on paper. The passage is so central that it deserves a long quotation: It would be quite singular if the person who rules a domain closer to life than the author’s, i. e., the director, had on every occasion to yield precedence to the author, who by definition works in the abstract, i. e., on paper. Even if the mise en scene did not have to its credit the language of gestures which equals and surpasses that of words, any mute mise en scene, with its movement, its many characters, lighting and set, should rival all that is most profound in paintings such as van den Leyden’s “Daughters of Lot,” certain “Sabbaths” of Goya, certain “Resurrections” and “Transfigurations” of Greco, the “Temptation of Saint Anthony” by Hieronymus Bosch and the disquieting and mysterious “Dulle Griet” by the elder Breughel, in which a torrential red light, though localized in certain parts of the canvas, seems to surge up from all sides and, through some unknown technical process, glue the spectator’s staring eyes while still yards away from the canvas: the theater swarms in all directions. The turmoil of life, confined by a ring of white light, runs suddenly aground on

 On the “architecture of temptation” in Méliès and Fellini, see Penz and Thomas (1997).

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nameless shallows. A screeching, livid noise rises from this bacchanal of grubs of which even the bruises on human skin can never approach the color. Real life is moving and white; the hidden life is livid and fixed, possessing every possible attitude of incalculable immobility. This is mute theater, but one that tells more than if it had received a language in which to express itself. Each of these paintings has a double sense and beyond its purely pictorial qualities discloses a message and reveals mysterious or terrible aspects of nature and mind alike. But happily for the theater, the mise en scene is much more than that. For besides creating a performance with palpable material means, the pure mise en scene contains, in gestures, facial expressions and mobile attitudes, through a concrete use of music, everything that speech contains and has speech at its disposal as well. Rhythmic repetitions of syllables and particular modulations of the voice, swathing the precise sense of words, arouse swarms of images in the brain, producing a more or less hallucinatory state and impelling the sensibility and mind alike to a kind of organic alteration which helps to strip from the written poetry the gratuitousness that commonly characterizes it. And it is around this gratuitousness that the whole problem of theater is centered.⁵⁷

Roland Barthes perceived very subtly, although in a non-systematic way, the intertextual and inter-semiotic relations connecting Flaubert, Artaud and Nietzsche. On the one hand, Flaubert was the hero and even the martyr of  “Il serait tout de même singulier que dans un domaine plus près de la vie que l’autre, celui qui est maître dans ce domaine, c’est-à-dire le metteur en scène, doive en toute occasion céder le pas à l’auteur qui par essence travaille dans l’abstrait, c’est-à-dire sur le papier. Même s’il n’y avait pas à l’actif de la mise en scène le langage des gestes qui égale et surpasse celui de mots, n’importe quelle mise en scène muette devrait avec son mouvement, ses personnages multiples, ses éclairages, ses décors, rivaliser avec ce qu’il y a de plus profond dans les peintures comme Les filles de Loth de Lucas de Leyde, comme certains Sabbats de Goya, certaines Résurrections et Transfigurations du Greco, comme la Tentation de saint Antoine de Jérôme Bosch, et l’inquiétante et mystérieuse Dulle Griet de Breughel le Vieux où une lueur torrentielle et rouge, bien que localisée dans certaines parties de la toile, semble sourdre de tous les côtés, et par je ne sais quel procédé technique bloquer à un mètre de la toile l’œil médusé du spectateur. Et de toutes parts le théâtre y grouille. Une agitation de vie arrêtée par un cerne de lumière blanche vient tout à coup buter sur des bas-fonds innommés. Un bruit livide et grinçant s’élève de cette bacchanale de larves où des meurtrissures de peau humaine ne rendent jamais la même couleur. La vraie vie est mouvante et blanche ; la vie cachée est livide et fixe, elle possède toutes les attitudes possibles d’une innombrables immobilité. C’est du théâtre muet mais qui parle beaucoup plus que s’il avait reçu un langage pour s’exprimer. Toutes ces peintures sont à double sens, et en dehors de leur côté purement pictural elles comportent un enseignement et révèlent des aspects mystérieux ou terribles de la nature et de l’esprit. Mais heureusement pour le théâtre, la mise en scène est beaucoup plus que cela. Car en dehors d’une représentation avec des moyens matériels et épais, la mise en scène pure contient par des gestes, par des jeux de physionomie et des attitudes mobiles, par une utilisation concrète de la musique, tout ce que contient la parole, et en plus elle dispose aussi de la parole[…] (Artaud [1938] 1964, 4: 145; English translation Artaud 1958, 120).

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form. He was its martyr since, differently from Nietzsche, he did not write aphorisms; and, differently from Artaud, he did not yield to his flumen orationis. Nietzsche, on the opposite, as Barthes wrote, “burns the rules of intellectual exposition.”⁵⁸ In France, continues the semiotician, “there was no Nietzsche to dare speaking from burst to burst, from abyss to abyss.”⁵⁹ Following Nietzsche, Barthes must admit that “[…] we are not subtle enough to perceive the probably absolute flow of becoming; the permanent exists only thanks to our gross organs which summarize and bring things back to common plans, whereas nothing exists in this form. The tree is at every moment a new thing; we affirm the form because we do not grasp the subtlety of an absolute movement.”⁶⁰ According to Barthes’ interpretation, Artaud precisely cultivated that actio that was neglected by Flaubert: “If it were possible to imagine an aesthetics of textual pleasure, it would include: writing aloud. We do not practice this vocal writing (which is not the word at all), but it is probably what Artaud recommended and Sollers asks for.”⁶¹ In another passage, unpublished during Barthes’ life, the opposition between Artaud and Flaubert was even more explicitly presented: Happy is the one who knows Artaud only in his broken, disseminated, Heraclitean form (the “rubbish of writing” is perhaps only its continuum, this flumen orationis that ancient rhetoric held as the supreme value of the style and that Flaubert, for his greater good, could never accomplish.⁶²

Also, Jacques Derrida, in L’écriture et la difference (Writing and Difference) (1967), implicitly builds a parallel between Nietzsche and Artaud. Both do not accept a

 “Brûle les règles de l’exposé intellectuel” (Barthes [1966] 1994, 2: 36; translation mine).  “Il n’y a pas eu de Nietzsche pour oser discourir d’éclat en éclat, d’abîme en abîme” (Barthes [1970] 1994, 2: 1007; translation mine).  “[…] nous ne sommes pas assez subtils pour apercevoir l’écoulement probablement absolu du devenir ; le permanent n’existe que grâce à nos organes grossiers qui résument et ramènent les choses à des plans communs, alors que rien n’existe sous cette forme. L’arbre est à chaque instant une chose neuve ; nous affirmons la forme parce que nous ne saisissons pas la subtilité d’un mouvement absolu” (Barthes [1973] 1994, 2: 1525; translation mine).  “S’il était possible d’imaginer une esthétique du plaisir textuel, il faudrait y inclure : l’écriture à haute voix. Cette écriture vocale (qui n’est pas du tout la parole), on ne la pratique pas, mais c’est sans doute elle que recommandait Artaud et que demande Sollers” (Barthes 1994, 1528; translation mine).  “Heureux celui qui ne connaîtrait Artaud que sous sa forme cassée, disséminée, héraclitéenne (“la «cochonnerie de l’écriture» n’est peut-être que son continu, ce flumen orationis dont l’ancienne rhétorique faisait la valeur suprême du style et que Flaubert, pour son plus grand bien, n’a jamais pu accomplir” (Barthes 1994, 1186).

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‘writing while sitting’ and both wish for a ‘writing through the body’, a ‘writing while bleeding’: Although the rigorous system of this emancipation is found only in The Theater and its Double, protest against theater had always been Artaud’s primary concern. Protest against the dead letter which absents itself far from breath and flesh. Artaud initially dreamed of a graphism which would not begin as deviation, of a nonseparated inscription: an incarnation of the letter and a bloody tattoo.⁶³

At the end of the chapter of L’écriture et la différence entitled “Force et signification,” then, Derrida summarized the opposition between Nietzsche and Flaubert, proposing a convincing interpretation of it: Nietzsche was certain, but Zarathustra was positive: “Here do I sit and wait, old broken tables around me and also new half tables. When cometh mine hour?—The hour of my descent, of my down-going.” “Die Stunde meines Niederganges, Unterganges.” It will be necessary to descend, to work, to bend in order to engrave and carry the new Tables to the valleys, in order to read them and have them read. Writing is the outlet as the descent of meaning outside itself within itself: metaphor-for-others-aimed-at-others-here-and-now, metaphor as the possibility of others here-and-now, metaphor as metaphysics in which Being must hide itself if the other is to appear.⁶⁴

Also by virtue of this interpretation, the questions at stake at the beginning of the present essay can now be reformulated. Writers are attracted by painting and, specifically, by pictorial representations of the Temptation of Saint Anthony for, in general, painting allows writers to approach the meaningful force which is

 “La première urgence d’un théâtre inorganique, c’est l’émancipation à l’égard du texte. Bien qu’on en trouve le rigoureux système que dans le Théâtre et son Double, la protestation contre la lettre avait été depuis toujours le premier souci d’Artaud. Protestation contre la lettre morte qui s’absente loin du souffle et de la chair. Artaud avait d’abord rêvé d’une graphie qui ne partît point à la dérive, d’une inscription non séparée : incarnation de la lettre et tatouage sanglant” (Derrida 1967, 281 ; English translation Derrida 1978, 87).  “Mais Nietzsche se doutait bien que l’écrivain ne serait jamais debout ; que l’écriture est d’abord et à jamais quelque chose sur quoi l’on se penche. Mieux encore quand les lettres ne sont plus des chiffres de feu dans le ciel. Nietzche s’en doutait bien mais Zarathoustra en était sûr : “Me voici entouré de tables brisées et d’autres à demi gravées seulement. Je suis là dans l’attente. Quand viendra mon heure, l’heure de redescendre et de périr… ‘Die Stunde meines Niederganges, Unterganges‘. Il faudra descendre, travailler, se pencher pour graver et porter la Table nouvelle aux vallées, la lire et la faire lire. L’écriture est l’issue comme descente hors de soi en soi du sens : métaphore-pour-autrui-en-vue-d’atrui-ici-bas, métaphore comme possibilité d’autrui ici-bas, métaphore comme métaphysique où l’être doit se cacher si l’on veut que l’autre apparaisse” (Derrida 1967, 49; English translation Derrida 1978, 28).

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compressed in ‘writing while sitting’. Specifically, writers are seduced, as painters are, by the theatrical nature of the Temptation. In order to thoroughly understand the essential nature of such theatrical force, the origin of this narrative tradition must be retraced more in-depth. Athanasius, the author of the Vita Antonii, was not merely a hagiographer but a subtle theologian, who struggled all his life long against the Arian heresy. Anthony’s hagiography constitutes, thus, the narrative and fictional coat of a precise theological thesis: Christ is the unique source of salvation. Arius had written (according to historian Philostorgius, abridged by Photios) some popular songs, in order to attract people to his own doctrine.⁶⁵ Athanasius reproached him this ruse but understood its persuasive efficacy. He countered it, then, with analogous means, through composing himself the dramas known under the name of Ἁντι-θάλεια. Giorgio La Piana describes them as follows: Of the Ἁντι-θάλεια, which is thought as opposed by the Orthodox to the work of Arius, nothing, as it has been said, is known; however, it is easy to speculate that, if it ever existed, it had to be composed on the same model of the work to which it was opposed.⁶⁶

In the same way, the Vita Antonii features a theatrical, straightforward narrative structure. Its effects are remarkable: the clear theological opposition between Good and Evil easily translate into the theatrical composition, then transmogrify into the pictorial imagination. The force of content sparkles with all its brilliance and attracts writers with the aura of an exact word, of a perfect form.

8 Conclusions: Literary exercise and ritual exorcism Flaubert’s La tentation de Saint Antoine tells a story, that of a pious man in the desert, besieged by tempting visions, struggling against them, seeking to stay firm in a storm of alluring images. It tells, however, also a meta-story, that of the writer sitting at his desk, perfecting his sentences, structuring the figments of his imagination, while his persona is painfully in the midst of another storm, that of words, images and, above all, thoughts that flow into the mind without any rule, uncontrolled and undisciplined, sprouting from an invisible,  See Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, LXV, 455.  “Dell’ Ἁντι-θάλεια, che si afferma opposta dagli ortodossi all’opera di Ario, nulla, come si è detto, si sa ; è facile però congetturare, che, se pure esistette, dovette esser composta sullo stesso modello dell’opera a cui si contrapponeva” (La Piana 1912, 28).

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mysterious source. The paradox is even deeper, for the writer continuously senses that this source does not lie in precise words, careful sentences and orderly ideas, but has its roots in the body itself, in that same body that the effort of creativity requires to be sitting, immobile, struggling to channel its force into the form of language. That is why the writer is tempted by painting, whose execution more freely yields to the force underneath language—to the action of the body— but he is tempted even more by theater, the ultimate equilibrium between the force of the sacred and the form of sacrifice; the equivalent, in art, of ritual. Yet Flaubert himself could never be appeased, since he constantly perceived the humiliation of language, the deceptiveness of the form; even theater, moreover, did not completely liberate the human imagination from its necessary abode in language. Those philosophers who wished to “write while dancing,” to “write through dancing,” or even to “write while bleeding” (Nietzsche), as well as those dramatists that longed for a theater beyond language (Artaud) had to pay their ambition by a fall into the abyss of the sacred, into the disruption that awaits those who mystically try to attain the source itself of the sacred force. As Barthes, Foucault and Derrida suggested with their critical commentaries, Flaubert’s choice was, therefore, the only one that allows the human creator to reach an equilibrium between force and form, between the unbridled eruption of the sacred and its inevitable concretion into language. Flaubert’s solution ultimately consisted in ritual, in the exorcism of exercise: he wrote and rewrote the Tentation, so that his other writing might go on. But isn’t that the way in which human beings try to cope with the sacred? “Managing” its disruptive force into rituals and liturgies, taming the force by the form? Most religious people content themselves with that; other dishevel it into madness; and yet others seek to constantly juggle between the two poles of language and madness. Perhaps, they are those who, like Flaubert, are doomed to be tempted and suffer more.

References Artaud, Antonin. (1938) 1964. Le Théâtre et son double. Vol. 4 of Œuvres Complètes. Paris: Gallimard, 1956– Artaud, Antonin. 1958. The Theater and Its Double. Translated by Mary Caroline Richards. New York: Grove Press. Arwas, Victor. 1972. Félicien Rops. London: Academy Edition. Athanasius. 1980. The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus. Translated and introduction by Robert C. Gregg. Preface by William A. Clebsch. New York: Paulist Press.

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Aymès, Wertheim and Clément, Antoine. 1975. The Pictorial Language of Hieronymus Bosch: Represented in a Study of two Pictures, The Prodigal Son, and the Temptations of St Anthony, with Comments on Themes in Other Works. Translated by E.A. Frommer. Horsham: New Knowledge Books. Barthes, Roland. 1966. Critique et verité. Paris: Seuil. Now also in Barthes. 1994. Œuvres complètes. Vol. 2. Paris: Seuil. Barthes, Roland. 1968. “Flaubert et la phrase.” Word 24, nos. 1 – 3 (April–August–December): 48 – 54. Barthes, Roland. 1970a. “Les nouvelles littéraires.” Interview with André Bourin, 5 March. Now also in Barthes. 1994. Œuvres Complètes. Vol. 3. Paris: Seuil. Barthes, Roland. 1970b. “Interview with Raymond Bellour.” In Les lettres françaises, 20 May. Now also in Barthes. 1994. Œuvres Complètes. Vol. 3. Paris: Seuil. Barthes, Roland. 1994. Œuvres Complètes, 3 vols. Paris: Seuil. Bax, Dirk. 1948. Ontcijfering van Jeroen Bosch. ‘s-Gravenhage: Staatsdrukkerij. Bax, Dirk. 1956. Beschrijving En Poging Tot Verklaring Van Het Tuin Der Onkuisheiddrieluik Van Jeroen Bosch, Gevolgd Door Kritiek Op Fraenger. Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie Van Wetenschappen. Afd. Letterkunde. Verhandelingen; Nieuwe Reeks, Deel 63, No.2. Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitg. Mij. Borges, Jorge Luis. 1964. “Flaubert y su destino ejemplar.” 1923 – 1949. In Borges. 1964. Obras Completas. 1 vol. “Discusión” (1923). Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores. Bourget, Paul. (1883) 1917. Essais de psychologie contemporaine. Paris: Librairie Plon. Cachin, Françoise, et al., eds. 1996. Cézanne. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art. Carini Motta, Fabrizio, Romano Carapecchia and Elena Tamburini, eds. 1994. Scenotecnica barocca: Costruzione de’ teatri e machine teatrali. Rome: E & A editori associati. Chesnais, Jacques. 1980. Histoire générale des marionnettes. Paris: Les édition d’aujourd’hui. Choné, Paulette, ed. 1992. Jacques Callot 1592 – 1635. Paris: Édition de la Réunion des musées nationaux. Crabtree, Susan and Peter Beudert. 1998. Scenic Art for the Theatre. Boston: Focal Press. Craig, Edward Gordon. (1911) 2008. On the Art of the Theatre, edited by Franc Chamberlain. London: Routledge. Daniel, Howard, ed. 1974. Callot’s Etchings: 338 Prints. New York: Dover Publications. Derrida, Jacques. 1967. L’écriture et la difference. Paris: E´ditions du Seuil. Derrida, Jacques. 1978. Writing and Difference. Translated by Alan Bass. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Dumesnil, René. 1962. Gustave Flaubert : L’homme et l’œuvre. Paris: Librairie Nizet. Eisenman, Stephen F. 1992. Biography, Ideology, and Style in the Noirs of Odilon Redon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ferrari, Guy. 1956. “Source for the Early Iconography of St. Anthony.” In Antonius Magnus Eremita, 356 – 1956; studia ad antiquum monachismum spectantia, edited by Basilius Steidle, 248 – 53. Studia Anselmiana, philosophica, theologica, fasc. 38. Rome: Orbis Catholicus. Ferrone, Siro. 1997, “Il teatro.” In La fine del Cinquecento e il Seicento, edited by Enrico Malato, 1057 – 110. Vol. 5 of Storia della letteratura italiana. Rome: Salerno Editrice. Flaubert, Gustave. 1884. Lettres de Gustave Flaubert à George Sand, précédées d’une étude par Guy de Maupassant. Paris: G. Charpentier.

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Flaubert, Gustave. 1963. Extraits de la correspondance, ou, Préface à la vie d’écrivain. Paris: Seuil. Flaubert, Gustave. 1976. Correspondance, first series (1830 – 1846), in Flaubert 1976. Œuvres complètes. Vol. 16. Paris: Louis Conard. Foucault, Michel. 1995. La Bibliothèque fantastique. Bruxelles: La Lettre volée. Friedländer, Max J. 1956. From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting. Edited, with notes, by Fritz Grossmann. Translated by Marguerite Kay. London: Phaidon. Gamboni, Dario. 1989. La plume et le pinceau : Odilon Redon et la littérature. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. Gibson, Walter S. 1977. Pieter Bruegel. London: Thomas and Hudson. Gracián y Morales, Baltasar. 1971. El criticón (1601 – 1658). Edited by Evaristo Correa Calderón. 3 vols. Clásicos castellanos 166. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe. Gray, Cecil. 1954. The Temptation of Saint Antony. London: Chappel. Hammond, Paul. 1974. Marvellous Méliès. London: Gordon Fraser. Heidenreich, Helmut. 1970. “Hieronymus Bosch in Some Literary Contexts.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute 33: 171 – 99. Hjelmslev, Louis T. 1943. Omkring Sprogteoriens Grundlæggelse. Copenhagen: Bianco Lunos. Hobbes, Richard. 1977. Odilon Redon. London: Studio Vista. Huysmans, Joris-Karl. 1889. “Le monstre.” In Huysmans, Certains, 137 – 66. Paris: Tresse & Stock, Éditeurs. Huysmans, Joris-Karl. 1904. “Les Grünewald du Musée de Colmar.” Le Mois littéraire et pittoresque, 63 (March): 282 – 300. Jacobus da Varagine. 1969. The Golden Legend. Translated and adapted by Granger Ryan and Helmut Ripperger. New York: Arno Press. Jurkowski, Hanrik. 1991. Écrivains et marionnettes; Translated by Max Blusztajn. Adapted by Jean Allemand. Charleville-Mezieres: Éditions Institut International de la Marionnette. Leone, Massimo. 2012. “Tentazioni semiotiche: una danza intertestuale intorno a Flaubert.” In E/C—Rivista online dell’Associazione Italiana di Studi Semiotici. 17 April 2012. http://www.ec-aiss.it/. Leone, Massimo. 2014. Percorsi di semiotica della religione. 2 vols. Rome: Aracne. Mancini, Franco. 1966. Scenografia italiana dal Rinascimento all’età romantica. Milan: Fabbri. Marotti, Ferruccio. 1974. Lo spazio scenico: Teorie e tecniche scenografiche in Italia dall’età barocca al Settecento. Rome: Bulzoni. Meredith, Peter and John E. Tailby. 1983. The Staging of Religious Drama in Europe in the Later Middle Ages: Texts and Documents in English Translation. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications. Muir, Lynette R. 1995. The Biblical Drama of Medieval Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nagler, Alois Maria. 1964. Theatre Festivals of the Medici. New Haven: Yale University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1909 – 1913. The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Edited by Oscar Levy. 18 vols. Edinburgh: T. N. Foulis. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. (1896) 1950. Also sprach Zarathustra. Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner Verlag. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. (1884 – 1888) 1959. Der Wille zur Macht. Edited by Peter Gast. Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner Verlag.

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Authors and editors biographies Mony Almalech is Full Professor at the New Bulgarian University, a Guest Professor at the Institute for the Bulgarian Language with Bulgarian Academy of Science (1998 – 2013) and at Higher Evangelical Theological Institute (2004 – 2009). His scientific interests are in the fields of Biblical studies, Bulgarian and Hebrew studies, semiotics and general, contrastive and structural linguistics. Almalech is a pupil of the semiotician Dimitri Segal (Tartu-Moscow School and Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1970). Almalech’s knowledge of Hebrew (Hebrew-Bulgarian Dictionary, Trud 2004; 2nd ed. 2011) and semiotic competence allows him to analyze and comment on the Bible in comparison with various translations. Mony Almalech is the author of fifteen monographs and many articles on colors in the Bible, folklore, Bulgarian novels and advertisements. Fred Cummins is Co-Director of the Cognitive Science Programme at University College Dublin since 1999. He obtained a PhD with a joint major in cognitive science and linguistics in 1997 from Indiana University. His empirical work has been largely concerned with joint speech or chant, as found in prayer, protest, sports, education and beyond. Joint speech arises any time multiple people utter the same words at the same time. This topic raises questions of relevance to many areas, including ritual studies, anthropology, music and ethnomusicology, neuroscience, phonetics, movement studies and the philosophy of enaction. In joint speech, we approach human vocal coordination in a way that obliterates any strong distinction between speech and music. Joint speech is the topic of a recent book The Ground from Which We Speak: Joint Speech and the Collective Subject (Cambridge Scholars 2018). His more recent work combines themes from embodied and enactive cognition to try to understand how we are multiply constituted and how we might seek to understand ourselves as incorrigibly plural. This challenge leads to a form of dialogical realism that eschews certainty to work instead towards joint actionable consensus. Francesco Galofaro is Researcher at the NeMoSanctI Research Project (ERC Starting Grant, g.a. no 757314), undertaking a semiotic study of the process of canonization and the issuing of hagiographic texts by the Catholic Church. He currently focuses on Saint Pio of Pietrelcina. A semiotician, Galofaro graduated with a MA in Communication Studies and holds a PhD in Semiotics from the University of Bologna. His research focuses on ethnosemiotics, epistemology, information retrieval and morphodynamics, with particular regard to litanic structures. He has single-authored the books Eluana Englaro (Meltemi 2009), dedicated to the political, scientific and ethical debate on euthanasia, and Dopo Gerico: I nuovi spazi della psichiatria (After Jericho: The New Spaces of Psychiatry, Esculapio 2015), an ethnosemiotic analysis of psychiatric service design. He has co-edited the books Morphogenesis and Individuation (Springer 2014; with Federico Montanari and Alessandro Sarti), dedicated to Gilbert Simondon, and Il senso della tecnica: Saggi su Bachelard (The Meaning of Technology: Essays on Bachelard, Esculapio 2017; with Paola Donatiello and Gerardo Ienna). Remo Gramigna is Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Turin, where he teaches Semiotics. His academic research to date has mainly focused on semiotics and culture studies, cognitive theory, communication studies, semiotics of culture and history of ideas. He ob-

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tained his PhD in Semiotics and Culture Studies at the University of Tartu. His areas of research include lying and deception in human interactions and fakes and manipulation. His current work focuses on the representation of the face across cultures and media and the semiotics of masks. His recent publications include Augustine and the Study of Signs, Signification, and Lying (De Gruyter 2020) and Imagining Others: Deception, Prediction, and Disguised Intentions in Strategic Interactions (Versus 2020). He has published in such journals as Versus, Frontiers of Narrative Studies, Lexia, Sign Systems Studies, deSignis and Journal for Communication Studies. In the past few years, he has worked as part of the editorial team of Sign Systems Studies, the oldest international semiotic journal. Naomi Janowitz, Professor of Religious Studies at University of California Davis, is the author of numerous articles on Judaism, Christianity and Graeco-Roman religions in late antiquity and four books: The Poetics of Ascent: Rabbinic Theories of Language in a Late Antique Ascent Text (SUNY Press, 1989), Magic in the Roman World: Pagans Jews and Christians (Routledge 2001), Icons of Power: Ritual Practices in Late Antiquity (Pennsylvania State University Press 2002), which was chosen as a Choice Journal Outstanding Academic book for 2003, and The Family Romance of Maccabean Martyrdom (Routledge Press 2017) She has also published articles on Semiotics in Signs in Society and on Psychoanalytic Semiotics in The American Journal of Psychoanalysis. Massimo Leone is Full Tenured Professor of Philosophy of Communication, Cultural Semiotics and Visual Semiotics at University of Turin and Permanent Part-Time Visiting Full Professor of Semiotics in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, University of Shanghai. He is currently Vice-Director for Research at the Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, University of Turin. He is editor-in-chief of Semiotica and of Lexia, and editor of the book series “I Saggi di Lexia” (Aracne) and “Semiotics of Religion” (De Gruyter). He graduated in Communication Studies from the University of Siena, holds a DEA in History and Semiotics of Texts and Documents from Paris VII, an MPhil in Word and Image Studies from Trinity College Dublin, a PhD in Religious Studies from the Sorbonne and a PhD in Art History from University of Fribourg. He has held numerous visiting professor positions in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia and has also lectured in Africa and Latin America. He has singleauthored twelve books, edited more than forty multiauthor volumes and has published more than five hundred articles in Semiotics, Visual Studies and Religious Studies. His most recent books are On Insignificance (Routledge 2019; Chinese translation 2019), Colpire nel segno: La semiotica dell’irragionevole (Aracne 2020), and Scevà: Parasemiotiche (Aracne 2020). His current research is on the semiotics of the face in the digital era. Takaharu Oda is PhD Candidate and Provost’s Scholar at Trinity College Dublin. As a historian of Early Modern Philosophy, his research focuses on a pragmatist theory of causation in George Berkeley’s metaphysics of science, featuring De motu (1721). Recent publications include Irish Philosophy in the Age of Berkeley (Cambridge University Press 2020; with Kenneth Pearce), “Izutsu’s Zen Metaphysics of I-Consciousness vis-à-vis Cartesian Cogito” (Comparative Philosophy 11: 2020; with Alessio Bucci) and “Berkeley on Voluntary Motion: A Conservationist Account” (Ruch Filozoficzny 74: 2018). Alin Olteanu is Postdoctoral Researcher at RWTH Aachen University and Senior Researcher at Kaunas University of Technology. He is an active researcher in a number of areas of inquiry

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akin to semiotics, from learning and education to multiculturalism and digitalization. His theoretical approach to such matters developed in the context of the recent iconic turn, namely the recognition of the epistemological value of schematic and nonverbal representation. His most recent book (Multiculturalism as Multimodal Communication: A Semiotic Perspective, Springer 2019) develops a criticism of mainstream theories of multiculturalism from the perspective of state-of-the-art semiotic theory. Pursuing this direction, he is currently interested in exploring how semiotics can bridge cognitive and cultural studies. He completed his PhD (Roehampton University 2015) with a thesis that exhibits the educational implications of Peirce’s semiotics (Philosophy of Education in the Semiotics of Charles Peirce: A Cosmology of Learning and Loving, Peter Lang 2015). Tatsuma Padoan, (PhD, Venice), is Lecturer in East Asian Religions (Assistant Professor) at the University College Cork and a Research Associate at SOAS, University of London. As an anthropologist and a semiotician, he has worked on ritual in Japan—including pilgrimage, asceticism, ritual apprenticeship, religious materiality and spirit possession—as well as on the study of design practices and the politics of urban space. His most recent publications include “Reassembling the Lucky Gods: Pilgrim Economies, Tourists, and Local Communities in Global Tokyo” (2019) in Journeys 20 (1): 75 – 97 and, with Franciscu Sedda, “Sémiotique et anthropologie” in Sémiotique en interface (Kimé 2018; edited by Amir Biglari and Nathalie Roelens). Francesco Piluso is PhD candidate in Semiotics at the University of Bologna, where he graduated in 2016. His research focuses on the fields of socio-semiotics, semiotics of culture and semiotics of media. In particular, his interests concern the processes of integration of critical contents and practices within hegemonic structures and discourses. He has been an exchange graduate student at UCLA (2015 – 2016) and a visiting scholar at Northwestern University (2019 – 2020). His works have been published in several journals of media studies and semiotics. Thomas-Andreas Põder is Professor and Head of the Chair of Systematic Theology at the Institute of Theology of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church (Tallinn) and lecturer of philosophy of religion at the University of Tartu. Currently he is Kone Foundation Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies of the University of Helsinki. Põder holds a doctoral degree (Dr. theol.) from the University of Greifswald, Germany. He is a member of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the Estonian Semiotics Association, the Estonian Academic Society of Theology and the Nordic Society for Philosophy of Religion. Põder’s scholarly interests lie in the fields of systematic and ecumenical theology, philosophy of religion and semiotics of religion. His current research focuses, in particular, on advancement of a cultural theosemiotics. In addition to numerous articles and four edited books, he has authored two monographs: The Culture of Faith in Lutheran Perspective. Historical and Constructive Explorations in Theological Thought (EELK UI 2018; in Estonian) and Solidaristic Tolerance: Theology of the Cross and Social Ethics in the Work of Alexander von Oettingen (V&R 2016; in German). Jenny Ponzo is Associate Professor in Semiotics at the University of Turin. She is Principal Investigator of the research project NeMoSanctI (ERC Starting Grant, g.a. no 757314). She is currently Director of the Interdepartmental Research Center on Communication CIRCe and the

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President of the Master’s Degree Program in Communication and Media Cultures at the University of Turin. Between 2014 and 2017 she was a postdoctoral researcher at the LudwigMaximilians-University Munich (Germany), where she carried out a project about religious themes in fiction and taught courses in semiotics of religion. Previously, she worked at the University of Lausanne and at the University of Turin. She holds a PhD in Language and Communication Sciences from the University of Turin and a PhD in Arts from the University of Lausanne. She is the author of three monographs, the latest of which Religious Narratives in Italian Literature after the Second Vatican Council: A Semiotic Analysis (De Gruyter 2019). Her research interests include semiotic and narrative theories, interdisciplinary methods for the study of identity, subjectivity, values and interpretative styles, Italian and comparative literature and cultural and religious studies. Michael L. Raposa is Professor of Religion Studies and the E. W. Fairchild Professor of American Studies at Lehigh University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1985. He received his BA from Yale College in 1977, an MAR degree from Yale Divinity School in 1979, and his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1987. Raposa’s scholarly interests are focused on topics in the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology, most especially insofar as the thought of American pragmatists in general and Charles S. Peirce in particular can be brought to bear on such topics. He is the author of four books: Peirce’s Philosophy of Religion (Indiana University Press 1989), Boredom and the Religious Imagination (University Press of Virginia 1999), Meditation and the Martial Arts (University of Virginia Press 2003) and Theosemiotic: Religion, Reading, and the Gift of Meaning (Fordham, 2020). Jason Cronbach Van Boom is PhD Candidate in Religious Studies at the University of Tartu and Lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology and Business Communications at Irkutsk State University. He received his MA in Philosophy from Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California. He has taught several courses and seminars in religious history at Graduate Theological Union and a recent course in philosophy and medieval religious thought at the University of Tartu. He has also served as programming manager at Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California and the host of its Islam and Authors series. His research area is Jewish studies from Peircean and Lotmanian perspectives. His dissertation is on the life and works of Michael Heilprin (1823 – 1888) as a case study in pragmaticist and semiotic treatments of Jewish identity.

Index academic theology (Christian) 21, 30n3 – Biblical studies 4, 6n10, 7, 30 – catechetics 5 – homiletics 6, 6n12 – liturgical studies 6, 6n12 – pastoral care 7n14 – practical theology 1 – 2n1, 5 – 7, 30n3 – religious education 7 – see theology – systematic theology 1 – 2n1, 6n12, 7, 7n15 Adam and Eve (the myth of) 67, 285 action – see semiotic theory of embodied action Actor-Network-Theory – see material semiotics al-Ghazali 142 Anglicanism – see Eucharist ascent texts (late antique) – angelic cult as ritual engine 182 – deification 172 – dicentization (icon as index) 172 – 173, 175, 184 – 185 – fluid human / divine categorization 172, 179 – 180 – heavenly (angelic) cult 176 – 185 – hekhalot texts 18, 171, 173, 182 – Jewish theology 172 – mystical trance model 171, 172n6 – numinous experience model 172n5 – performativity model 172, 172n7 – power of signs 178 – priest, cultic duty 181 – 182 – pure heart and proper formula 183 – rhematization 173, 175 – rite of passage model 171 – ritual cosmology 171n2, 173, 175, 178, 185 – see ritual efficacy – transformational ascent 172, 180n39 anthropology – philosophical (Peirce) 89 – see collective subject(ivity) – see human being

– see self (semiotic) – see self-control (freedom) – semiotic fundamental 36 – 37n21, 38 – soul 65, 84, 111, 161 – 162, 183, 221 – 222 – symmetric 60 architecture 5n9, 195, 215n2 Aristotle 84, 129, 151n13, 153 Artaud, Antonin 289 – 292 ascetic practices (Shinto-Buddhist) 189 – 190, 197 – 209 attention – constrains of freedom 89 – ethical significance 98 – intentional 121 – meaning of human life 89 – see ethics of attention – see meditation – see reasoning – see self – see signs Athanasius 271 – 272, 285, 293 Augustine 6n10, 107 – 122, 128 – 129, 132, 134 – 136 Austin, John Langshaw 79 – 80, 172n7 autocommunication 7n15, 38, 40, 42, 44 – 45 awareness (metasemiotic) 9, 21, 105, 108 Bakhtin, Mikhail 8, 201 Barthes, Roland 8, 127, 194, 268, 278, 290 – 291, 294 Bastide, Francoise 192 Baudrillard, Jean 54, 62 – 65 Berkeley, George 147 – 168 Berkeley’s pragmatic method 149 – 150, 155, 157, 159 – 161, 164 – philosophy of language 147, 149 – 150, 157 – 158, 161, 167 – pragmatic theory of meaning 148, 154 – 157 – religious language 147 – scientific language 147 – see Eucharistic semiotics

304

Index

– see Peirce’s pragmaticist logic – see quasi-reference – theological pragmatism 164 – theosemiotic pragmatism 164 – 165, 167 blindness – inattentional 98 – 99, 99n12 – see attention body – fetish 58, 64 – 65 – fetishization 65 – fetishized system of differential signs 65 – manifesting 222 – performing 194 – see embodiment – see material semiotics – see religious fetish(ism) Bosch, Hieronymus 270, 272, 286 – 287, 289 Brosses, Charles de 56, 66 Brueg(h)el the Elder, Pieter 269 – 270, 289 Brueg(h)el the Younger 269 – 270, 272 Buddha 198, 201 – 203, 206 – 208 – Word and Body 198 Buddhism 191n1 – Mahāyāna 198 – see Lotus Sutra – see Shinto-Buddhism – Zen-Buddhism 95 Callon, Michel 192 capitalism – capitalist logic 62, 64 – commodity fetishism 61, 63 Cartesian objectification 60 – 62 – see dualism – see fetish(ism) Catholicism 8n17, 66 – 70, 95, 99, 150, 161 – 166, 223 Chariot allegory (Plato) 221 Charlemagne 131, 142 – 143 Christianity – Adam and Eve (myth of) 67, 285 – Christ 67 – 70, 107, 135, 161, 228, 285, 293 – creation ex nihilo 67 – God 40 – 42, 67, 107, 137 – 138 – God’s ambivalent nature 67

– imago Dei 107, 120, 136 – incarnation 137 – revelation 69, 137 – see academic theology (Christian) – see Eucharist – see theology – self-critique 41 – Trinity 68, 121, 147n2 church architecture 5, 225, 229, 239 – see architecture – see text (architectural works) code – communicative 74, 126 – languge (communicative view) 73 – 74 – see social system – social (structural) 63, 66 collective (social) subject(ivity) 78, 82 – 84, 190 – see joint speech – see self (semiotic) – see semiosphere colors in the Bible – God’s message 255 – Greek worldview 255 – (Hebrew and) Jewish culture 254 – 255, 258, 262 – Hebrew worldview 251 – 252, 254 – 255, 262 – Indo-European worldviews 232 – interpretative semiotics 252 – linguistic worldview 247, 249 – 250 – presence in the Old Testament 252 – sacred text 247 – statistics 252 – 253 – structural textual analysis 252 – structures of Hebrew color terms 255 – translation 245, 249 – 250, 255 communication – act 117 – audiovisual, bodily and other 194 – border 22, 46 – encounter 9 – pragmatic and affective domain of reality 193 – see autocommunication – see code – see dialogue

Index

– see language – see semiotic ideology – see sign – species-specific (language) 73 – systems 34 – 35n15 – theories of sign and c. 6 – universe 38n23 – visual communication grammar 244 – vs. communion 82 – vs. information 117 – with intentional addresser 117 – without intentional addresser 117 communion – Anglican Communion 147n2 – church, the 42 – collective unity 82 – communion with God 221 – Holy Communion 70n7, 147, 162 – mystic communion 177 – see collective subject(ivity) – see semiosphere – shared purpose 77 – shared stance 77 community 165, 181, 195, 215, 239 – living semiosis 94 – postmodern c. of inquiry 142 – see semiosphere – see social system creativity – artistic 37, 268, 282 – 283, 287 – biological 268 – creativity and unpredictability of culture 39, 41, 46 – 47 – creativity in culture 33 – Divine 152 – explosiveness of culture 39, 47 – focal point of Christian faith and life 42 – force of creativity 267, 271 – history 40 – see semiosphere (unpredictability) – transforming environment and ourselves 100 – verbal discourse 268 critical socio-semiotic discourse – alienation 58 – 59, 62, 64 – atomistic view 59 – autonomization of object-commodity 63

305

– commodity fetishism 61, 63 – 64 – metonymical reproduction 70 – principle of immanence 64 – reification (cultural problem of) 57, 59, 63, 64, 66 – re-veils structural fetishism 62 – 65, 69 – see fetishism – semiological reduction 63 – social code 64, 66 – symbolic exchange 63 – translation of the social 54, 63 crusade 226 cultural semiotics of religion – see theosemiotics (cultural) culture – encyclopedia 225 – 226, 240, 252 – mechanism of fetishism 54 – see fetish(ism) – see semiosophere Daoism 99, 198 Deely, John 126 – 127, 129, 134, 141 – 142 Delorme, Jean 1n1, 4, 6n10 Derrida, Jacques 139, 291 – 292, 294 desire 64 – 66, 98, 115 – 116, 121, 276 Dewey, John 100 dharma 203 dialogue – d. of disciplines 1 – 2, 4, 22, 29, 43 – 47 – dialogical relationship 80 – God and human 40 – inner dialogue 108 – meditation 153 – 154n18 – memory and history 190 – minimal semiotic structure 35 – prayer 75 – see semiosphere – soliloquy 108n2 – space of dialogue 25n18, 190 discourse – Cartesian division 189 – course of action and passion (def.) 194 – entextualization 171n4, 173, 174n15 – linguistic anthropology 172, 193 – nonrepresentational theory 195, 203 – phenomenological dimension 193 – ritual 207

306

Index

– see critical socio-semiotic d. – see religious discourse – see text (semiotic) – semantic and somatic 193 – semiotic text 194 – sense and senses 193 – social 53 – 55 – study of creative verbal d. 286, 289 – universe of discourse 137 dualism – knowledge / mystification 67 – material / spiritual 57 – 58, 67 – modern ontological 126 – 127 – non-dualism and multimodality 128 – see paradigm, socio-cultural – subject / object 126, 129 – Western thought 59, 66, 151n13 Duns Scotus 153 Durkheim, Emile 54 – 55, 58, 67 Eco, Umberto 6 – 7, 117, 195, 240, 245 – 248 embodiment – cognitive semiotics 140 – color concepts 247 – embodied action 193 – 194 – embodyment turn 127 – knowledge as embodied 127, 133 – 134 – language and knowledge 133, 138, 140 – language as embodied 133 – meaning as embodied 127, 133 – 134 – memory 208 – perspective 138, 140 – philosophy 126, 138 – see iconic turn – see iconicity – see joint speeking – see multimodality – social semiotics 53, 140 enactment – (collective) subject(ivity) 78, 82, 84 encyclopedia 225 – 226, 240 – model of culture 252 – religious section 226 – see culture – see semiosphere Engemann, Wilfried 6

equilibrium – Adam and Eve (the myth of) 67, 285 – amongst actors 57, 62 – force and form 268, 294 – primordial state 57 – religious and secular power 84 – wholeness of social structure 57 entextualization 171n4, 173, 174n15 ethics of attention 93 – 96, 98 – 101 – problem of racism 95 – see attention – see theology (metasemiosis) ethnosemiotic analysis 201 – 209 exercise – attention 92 – 93 – exorcism 283, 294 – induction 101 – meditation 94, 97, 101 – prayer 94 – see habits – see reasoning – see ritual – see spiritual life – self-control 89 – spiritual 99 – study 9 – virtues 223 – wisdom 283 Eucharist – abstractions 66 – Anglican(ism) 147, 161 – 168 – Catholic(ism) 66 – 70, 150, 161 – 166 – Lutheran 162n31 – see Eucharistic semiotics – see religious fetish(ism) – shared code of consecration 68 – 69 – signifier / signified quasi-identity 68 Eucharistic semiotics 150, 161 – 168 – Berkeley against transubstantiation 163 – 164 – corporeal presence 150, 162 – Peirce against transubstantiation 164 – 166 – real presence 150n12, 162n31, 163 – spiritual presence 150n12, 162n31 – substance of content 68 – substance of expression 68

Index

– transubstantiation 67 – 68 Eurocentric bias (orientalism) 142 Fabbri, Paolo 191 – 192 Faure, Bernard 191 – 192 fetish(ism) – abstraction 55, 66 – alienation 60, 62, 64 – 65 – anthropomorphization 57, 66 – capitalist 61 – 64 – Cartesian objectification 60 – 62 – Christianity 66 – 70 – concretization 55 – 59 – condensation of collectivity 58 – connection / separation 58 – 59, 67 – demystification as reproduction 60 – fetishization 53, 56n1, 57, 65 – implying entire social chain 58, 61, 65, 70 – mechanism 54 – 55, 56n1, 57 – 58, 60 – mystification 54 – objectification of the social 56n1, 59 – 61, 65 – personification 58 – 59 – pre-modern forms 61 – reification 57, 59, 62 – 64, 66 – see critical socio-semiotic discourse – see dualism – see religious fetishism – signification as fetishization 54 – 56, 62 – 63, 69 – simulation 65 – structural 62 – 65 – universal principle 61 – 62 – vs. idiolatry 56 fiction 60, 116 – 118, 269, 288, 293 Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness 22, 151 – 152 Flaubert, Gustave 267 – 268, 271, 274, 290, 293 – 294 force and form 267 – 268, 294 – body 294 – cult of form 274 – cultural agencies 268 – exercise 283, 293 – 294 – force of creativity 267, 271 – force of the body 272, 274 – force of the sacred 294

307

– form of language 294 – form of sacrifice 294 – inspiration 269, 271, 278, – power of seduction 274 – see semiosphere – utopia of art 274 Foucault, Michel 277, 281, 283, 288, 294 freedom – see anthropology – see attention – see self-control Garfinkel, Harold 192 God – Christianity 40 – 42, 67, 107, 120, 136 – 137 – God’s reality (neglected argument) 31, 90n5, 95 – guaranteed reference point of common existence 82 – hypothesis about God’s reality 95 – imago Dei 107, 120, 136 – inducitable framework of ordinary existence 82 – metaphysics 38 – 39 – naming 54 – religion 40, 43 – 44 – see icon – see iconoclast controversy – see sacred, the – seeing God 138 Greimas, Algirdas J. 3 – 6, 190, 192 – 194, 201, 215, 252 Grünewald, Matthias 272, Güttgemanns, Erhardt 1n1, 4 habits – evil / good 159 – guiding principle of inference 155n21 – habits of attention 89, 100 – 101 – habits of behavior 96, 100, 154 – habits of mind 167 – habits of perception 99, 100 – habits of thought 89, 91, 96, 100, 155n21 – habitual normativity 153 – 154n18, 155n21 – (linguistic) and cultural habits 249, 259 – metahabit (of attention) 102

308

Index

– see exercise – see reasoning (induction) hagiographic archetype 272 hagiographic narrative 270 Hammad, Manar 190, 192, 195 – 196, 204 – 206 heaven 11, 132, 163, 171, 174 – 175, 184 – 185 Hebrew Bible 243, 250 hermeneutics – interpretation of the Bible 134 – 135, 243, 252 – 253, 255 – see patristic hermeneutics history and (cultural) memory 190, 208 Hjelmslev, Louis 139, 222, 226n11, 274 homiletics (theory of sermon) 6, 6n12 human being – see anthropology – see collective subject(ivity) – see imago Dei – see self – see subjectivity human / divine continuum 172, 179 – 180 Ibn Rushd 142 icon – asymmetry 132 – beyond mind / body dualism 126, 129 – iconicity, Peirce 126, 128 – image of God 107, 120, 136 – intentionality (direction) 131 – 132 – intertextual signification 128, 134 – 135, 268 – 269, 271 – 272, 274, 290 – knowledge as embodied 127, 133 – meaning as embodied 133 – non-dualistic thinking 126 – Peirce’s pragmaticist logic 127 – relational tool of logic 126 – relational tool of ontology 126 – semiotic epistemology 126 – sign, signifies due to similarity 128 – token / (proto)type 132, 138 iconic turn 133 – 134 – cognitive linguistics 130, 133 – 134 – knowledge acquistion 134 – language as one modelling system 133 – meaning as embodied 127, 133

– meaning as schematic 133 – metaphors and images 134 – monomodality of print 126, 133 – schematic representation 133 – see linguistic turn – see multimodality – visuality studies 133 iconicity 125 – 126, 128, 130 – 132, 134 – 137, 139 – 140 – cognitive semiotics 11, 140 – cross-modal translations 132 – intermedial translations 132 – justification of realism 132 – making signs operational 128, 130 – material and perceivable 137 – multimodality 140 – multiplication of media representations 133 – Peirce’s pragmaticist logic 127, 130 – representation and factuality 132 iconoclast controversy 125 – 130, 136 – 139, 143, 285 – anti-iconicity view on meaning 131 – iconoclasm (anti-iconicity) 131 – iconodules / iconoclasts 125 – iconodulism (pro-multimodality) 138 – (neo)idealist / embodiment perspectives 138 – nominalism / realism debate 131 – pro-iconicity (anti-glottocentric) 138 – pro-iconicity (embodiment perspective) 134, 138 – theology of icons 126, 137 – veneration of images 126 – visual semiotics (ancient) 125 iconography 131, 134, 137, 139, 270, 272 icons – Divine gaze 137 – explaining the Scriptures 132 – expressions of the inexpressible 137 – image / prototype 138 – 139 – learning through icons 130 – 133 – likeness 139 – painted religious images 131 – see iconoclast controversy – see image – see learning

Index

– theology of icons 126, 137 – veneration in Buddhism 198, 203 – visual semiotics (ancient) 125 identity (enacted) 83 image (Augustine’s theory) 107 – 122 – derivation from source 120 – equality 118 – 120 – general theory 107 – generative connection 120 – 121 – iconic connection 110 – idenity and likeness 118 – 120 – likeness 108 – 115 – link of causality 120 – reflective connection 121 – see icon – see iconoclast conroversy – token of the prototype 138 – verisimilitude and falsity 108 – 115, 132 – vision 121 – 122 imago Dei 107, 120, 136 – Christ (God incarnate) 107, 137 – human being 107, 120, 136 indexicality (study of) 172n11 induction – exercise and experimentation 101 – habit formation 91 – see reasoning inference – see reasoning inquiry – awareness 97, 100 – centers 142 – metasemiotic 100 – origin 97 – playful meditation (musement) 97 – see reasoning inspiration – feeling 278 – force of creativity 271 – literary 269 interaction – semiotic event 98 interpretation – see sign intertextual network 267, 269, 272 Issenheim altar 272

309

Jakobson, Roman 117, 201 James, William 88 – 89, 96n10, 156 Japanese religions 191n1 Jewish theology (ancient) 172 – see ascent text (late antique) John of Damascus 125 – 126, 128, 138 – 139 joint speech – domains of social activity 75 – 76 – embodied and enactive approach 73, 78 – empirical definition 75, 77 – foundations of social order 77 – 78 – performative 79 – 81 – prayer 75 – ritual speech 77 – ritualized utterances 77 – see repetition – see ritual – see voice – speech act 78 – 81 Judaism – Hebrew worldview 251 – 252, 254 – 255, 262 – (Hebrew and) Jewish culture 254 – 255, 258, 262 – Jewish theology 172 – linguistic ideology (rabbinic) 174, 183 – see ascent texts (late antique) Kant, Immanuel

151n13, 153 – 154n18, 154

Landowski, Eric 53 – 54, 190, 193 language – communicative code 74, 126 – communicative view 73 – 74 – context- and interlocutor sensitive 74, 172 – context-independent 78 – embodied behavior 74 – embodied in patterned feeling 97 – embodied perspective 127, 138 – indexicals (deictics) 177n29 – language / speech (Saussure) 139, 225 – languaging 74 – 75 – medium-neutral – reification of language 74 – see communication – see joint speech – see semiotic ideology

310

Index

– see sign – see voice – semiotic ideology 73 – socially agglutinating activity 74 – speech act theory 79 – utterance 73, 79 Latour, Bruno 60 – 61, 81 – 82, 191 – 192, 195, 207 Law, John 192 learning – by signs 128 – 129 – centers142 – Christian doctrine 138 – reading or listening 138 – religious education 7 – ritual activity 200n9 – sign reading 97 – teaching religious symbols 7 – through icons 130 – 133 – through the body 208 Lefebvre, Henri 189, 172, 193 linguistic turn 131 – conventional notion of meaning 131 – glottocentrism 131, 133, 139 – iconoclast view of meaning-making 132 – meaning as linguistic 133 – Saussurean notion of meaning 62, 139 – see iconic turn – see spacial turn liturgy – anamnetic event 42 – angelic 174, 181n41 – eschatological event 42 – exercise to channel attention 94 – icon of heavenly world 178 – joint speaking 75 – recitation 181, 184 – see ascent texts (late antique) – see Eucharist – see icon – see joint speech – see ritual – technique for the ascent 182 – theory 6n10 – worship as sign process 6n10 Locke, John 126, 137, 160

Lord’s prayer 221 – see prayer Lossky, Vladimir 137, 139 Lotman, Juri 22, 32 – 39, 43, 127, 190, 204, 215, 250 – 251 Lotus Sutra 198, 200, 202 – 203, 205 – 206, 208 Lukken, Gerard 5, 6n12 lying and deception (Augustine’s theory) 108 magic 30, 109n6, 173, 278 Marx, Karl 62 – 65 Mary of Rocciamelone – manifesting the cult 223 – 224 – semiotization in discourse 220 – symbolic meaning 223 – war in defense of faith 225 material artefacts 60 material semiotics – Actor-Network-Theory 61, 191 – 192 – assemblages of collective enunciations 194 – Cartesian division 189 – material semiotic perspective 189 – 190, 192 – 193 – materiality / discourse 195 – materiality 134, 190, 195, 203n16 – network 196, 268 – nonrepresentational theory 195, 203 – pure materiality 65 – representational view of reality 189 – theory of actions and passions 190 – theory of body and materiality 190 – untranscended materiality 56, 61 meaning of life – attention 89 – religiously meaningful life 94 meditation – dialogue 153 – 154n18 – exercise to channel attention 94 – learning sign reading 97 – metaphysical 277 – musement 97 – practice of paying attention 94, 97, 101 – religiously meaningful life 94 – see attention

311

Index

– see ethics of attention – see prayer – see reading – see ritual – see sign – theology 94, 97 metacognition – metasemiosis 88, 94n8, 97, – thinking about thinking 97 method and methodology 10 Meyer-Blanck, Michel 7 mindfulness 96 modernity 126, 134, 141, 267 – see paradigm, socio-cultural – see post-modernity Mount Kongō 198 mountain ascetism 190, 198 multimodality – criticism of Saussurean notion of meaning 139 – digitalization 132 – 133 – double articulation view of meaning 139 – 140 – language / meaning 139 – language / speech 139, 225 – methodological framework 127 – 128, 139 – 140 – multimodal texts 43, 139, 244 – see iconicity – sign / idea 126 Murphy, Tim 8 musement – see inquiry – see meditation Neoplatonic tradition 138, 140, 143, 221 New Testament 134 – 135, 262, 271 New Testament Studies 7 Old Testament 134 – 135, 262 openness (to experience) 46, 92, 98 – see reasoning Ordinary Language movement 79 orientation – loss of orientation 38 – orientation (point) 43 – 44, 82, 196, 236, 239

– orientation and transformation – questions of orientation 36 – re-orientation 40 – see transformation Ouspensky, Leonid 137, 139

39, 44

Paris school of semiotics 3, 5, 6n12, 190, 192, 196 patristic hermeneutics – iconic mode of intertextual signification 128 – interpretations through intertextual analogy 134 – 135 – signification as typology 135, 139 – signification by similarity 135 – typology 135, 139 Patte, Daniel 1n1, 5, 6n10 Peirce, Charles Sanders 5n8, 7, 29, 31 – 32, 43, 87, 125, 141 – 142, 147, 172 – 175, 215n2, 252 Peirce’s philosophy – philosophy for postmodern age 127, 129 – philosophy of religion 31 – see Peirce’s pragmaticist logic – semeiotic and postmodernity 127, 129 – theosemiotic 164 – 165, 167 Peirce’s pragmaticist logic – Berkeleyanism as nominalism 150 – 154 – foundational for semiotics 127 – habit (principle of inference) 155n21 – habitual normativity 153 – 154n18, 155n21 – knowledge as suprasubjective 129 – medieval Scotic realism 153 – 154 – pragmati(ci)sm (def.) 153 – 154n18 – pragmatic method 147, 149, 153 – 157 – pragmatic semiotic 147 – pre-scholastic logic 130 – realist / nominalist debate 148, 151 – 154 – scholastic logic 129 – semiotic (def.) 147n1 – semiotic realism 131 – 132 – semiotic theory of triadic categories 151 – seven systems of metaphysics 150 – 154, 151n13 – subject / object dyad of modern logic 127 – suprasubjectivity of semiotic reality 127 – trichotomy 151 – 152

312

Index

– trinity of normative sciences 151n14 – universe of discourse 137 person – see anthropology – see collective subject(ivity) – see human being – see self – see semiosphere phenomenology 8, 98, 121, 131 – 132, 151n13, 165, 193, 202, 220 – 222 philosophical theology 31, 47, 93 philosophy of religion 1 – 2n1, 12, 21, 31, 43 – see philosophical theology philosophy – see Peirce’s pragmaticist logic pilgrimage 190, 198 – 201, 204, 206, 208, 220, 222, 225, 231, 240 postmodern community of inquiry 142 post-modernity – Peirce’s sem(e)iotic 29, 31 – 32, 127, 129 – philosophical 129 – see Peirce’s philosophy – see socio-cultural paradigm poststructuralism 8, 34n12, 125, 127, 139 practical theology 5 – 7, 30n2 – see academic theology (Christian) prayer 75 – 76, 94, 97, 101, 183 – see attention – see exercice priest 181 – 182 psychotherapy 88, 96 – mindfulness based schools 96 – see theology (metasemiosis) – see theology (metasemiotic reflection) Qumran 172 – 173, 176, 177n26, 178 – 179 quasi-reference – in science (theoretical terms) 157 – 159, 160 – 161 – referential and q.-referential terms 149 – 150, 157 – 161 – religious terms 159 – 161, 166 – see Berkeley’s pragmatic method Raposa, Michael L. 31 – 32, 149n11, 165 Rappaport, Roy 5n8, 77

reading and rereading – act / reflection 97 – continuous acts 90 – methodic 275 – misreadings 111 – 112 – rereading (relegere) 87, 90 – see sign – see theology (metasemiotic) – test 101 – universe perfused with signs 94 reality – another 37 – conceptualizied 190 – extra-lingual 34 – 35n15 – God’s 31, 90n5, 95 – historical 36 – 37n21 – history 190, 208 – human subjects / r. (Cartesian) 189, 208 – literary text 251 – lived r. of religion 33, 39 – organized by languages 35n16 – pragmatic and affective domains 193 – real / fictional 118 – representational view 189, 193 – reproduction 53 – see fiction – see Peirce’s pragmaticist logic – see semiosphere (unpredictability) – social 53 – 54, 65, 67 – socio-cultural and material – suprasubjectivity of semiotic reality 127 – understanding 7n15 reasoning – abduction 91 – 93, 98, 100 – basic modes of inference 87, 90, 98 – deduction 90, 92, 100 – openness to experience (readiness) 22, 46, 92, 98 – role of attention 87, 90n6, 91 – 93, 100 – 101 – snapshots in process of semiosis 90 – 91 – three stages of inquiry 90 reification of language 74 – see fetish(ism) religion(s) – autocommunication 38, 40, 42, 44 – 45 – concept as heuristic tool 11

Index

– false conciousness (not) 53, 60, 64 – ideological superstructure (not) 53 – orientation and transformation 39 – see religious discourse – see religious fetish(ism) – see religious language – see ritual – see sacred space – see sacred, the – self-critique 41 – semiotic mechanism(s) 39 – 40 – semiotics of culture 39 – 43, 46 – 47 – signifying the sacred 55 – socio-semiotic perspective 53 – 55 religious attitude – transforming environment 100 – transforming ourselves 100 religious discourse 267 – fetishism 53, 55, 66 – fuzzy logic 7n17 – gods in Japanese religions 192, 198 – homologating structures 220 – 222 – phenomenology 220, 222 – pragmatic method 150, 163 – preaching 6 – see religious fetish(ism) – see religious language – see religious signs – see sacred, the – semi-symbolic structures 240 – social 53, 55, 66 – specific features / general values – topological and abstract categories 220 – 222 religious education 7 religious experience 178, 206 – 208 religious fetish(ism) – Adam and Eve (the myth of) 67 – Christianity 66 – 70 – Eucharistic ritual (transubstantiation) 66 – 70 – immanent essence 67 – knowledge / mystification 67 – original social meaning 67 – „primitive“, „African“ 59, 61, 66 – religious reification 67 – reproduction of fetishization 67, 70

313

– sacred object 56, 65 – see fetish(ism) – totem 55, 58 – Western ethnographic gaze 61, 66 religious language 147, 173 – ritual context for religious experience 178 – see quasi-reference – see religious discourse – speech 81 – 82 religious objects – ambivalent nature 69 – religious materiality 191n1 – see iconoclast controversy – see icons – see material semiotics – see religious fetish(ism) – signs 69 religious semiotics 9 – see semiotic ideology religious (spiritual) practice 61, 87, 101, 137 – 138 – see exercise – see liturgy – see meditation – see pilgrimage – see prayer – see ritual – see sacrifice – see spiritual life religious signs – ambivalent nature 69 – charged with religious meanings 202 – construction of values 220 – fetishes 69 – ideological values 189 – object of value 202 – religious (sacred) values 53, 67, 222, 229, 239 – religious signifiers 54 – sacred (religious) signs 53, 61, 69 – see sign – spiritual values 56 – systems of values 196, 268 religious studies – see study of religion repetition – enactment of ascent 181

314

Index

– enactment of subjectivity 73, 83 – life blood of induction 100 – liturgical ritual 67 – 69 – logic of ritual 82 – Lotus Sutra 200n9 – mechanics of conversion 79 – performative recitation of valued texts 76, 79 – recitation of liturgical formulas 174, 176, 181 – 183 – repetition of forms / force of creativity 271 – rhythmic 75, 290 – ritual and prayer 73, 75, 82, 183 – see ascent texts (late antique) – see join speech – see ritual – shahāda 79 – vain 54, 73 – 74 revelation – collective identity 84 – experience 91 – God 137 – mysterious aspects of nature and mind 290 – observation and experiment 90 – phenomenological tonality 191 – reveal / re-veil the sacred 53 – secret 69 – self-translation of indeterminacy 43 – separation 55, 69 – unexpected truth 130 rhythm 75 – 76, 201 – 202, 207, 290 ritual 77 – collective 55, 68 – cosmology 173, 178, 180 – 181, 184 – cultic silence 181 – discourse 207 – enaction 78, 181, 201 – exercise to channel attention 94 – hyperstructure 178 – joint speech 75 – 84 – mystical trance model 171, 172n6 – numinous experience model 172n5 – performativity model 172, 172n7 – prayer 73, 75 – rite of passage model 171

– ritual(ized) utterance 77, 81 – sacraments 5 – see ascent texts (late antique) – see Eucharist – see liturgy – see pilgrimage – see repetition – see ritual efficiacy – see ritual enunciation of space – see ritual technique – semiotic core 271 – 272, 294 – via crucis 228 – worship as sign process 6n10 ritual efficacy – angelic formulas 183 – becoming embedded in ritual cosmology 173, 178, 180 – 181, 184 – dicentization (icon as index) 172 – 173, 175, 184 – 185 – effective language 183 – established by linguistic ideology 174, 183 – God 177 – 178 – humans and angels sing together 176 – 182 – humans sing angelic liturgy 182 – 184 – Peircian analysis 174 – 176 – recitation of divine names 178, 183 – rhematization 173, 175 – ritual technique 172, 177 – see linguistic ideology – signs do things 172 – signs presuppose and create context 171 – 172 ritual enunciation of space 204 – 208 – apparatus of enunciation 207 – body (topos) 196, 205 – 207 – chronotope 201 – immanent referential 204 – 206 – object of value (actiantial role) – presentia / absentia 206 – 207 – presentification 55, 206 – 208 – religious experience 206 – 208 – rhythm 201 – 202, 207 – ritual situation (semiotic context) 204 – 205 – spaces and times 208

Index

– synchronization 207 – 208 – topoi 196, 205 – 207 ritual technique 172, 177 – fasting 182 – five modes of ritual activity 200n9 – recitation of angelic liturgy 182, 184 – recitation of divine names 183 Rosaz, Edoardo (bishop) 217 – 218, 220, 223, 239 – 240 sacraments 5 – see Eucharist sacred, the 67, 267, 294 – abstract alterity 56 – abstract (transcendent) object(s) 51, 53 – 56, 208 – Buddha(s) 208 – concept as heuristic tool 11 – divine entities 191 – 192 – Divine gaze 137 – divine names 54, 183 – gods 65, 197 – 198, 208 – holy territory 181 – Japanese gods 192, 198 – making of the sacred 267 – origin of religious expression 267 – 268 – paradoxical force in language 267 – sacred / profane (abstract category) 221 – 222 – sacred mountain 198, 202, 229 – sacred texts (scriptures) 142, 202, 247 – see God – see religion – see religious signs – semiotics of the sacred 69 – semiotics of the secret 69, 267 – separate (sacer) 55 – sphere 57, 65, 67 – suprasubjectivity of semiotic reality 127 – symbols or representations 203 – temptation of the sacred – transcendent (semio)sphere 54 – unexpected events and beings 57 sacred space 197 – 209 – church buildings 5, 225, 229, 239 – function of objects as meaning 195 – history 191, 193

315

– object of value (actantial role) 202 – pilgrimage 190, 198 – 201, 204, 206, 208, 220, 222, 225, 231, 240 – see material semiotics – see ritual enunciation of space – spatial enunciation 195 – topoi 196, 205 – 207 sacrifice 67 – 68, 162n33, 181, 267, 294 Saussure, Ferdinand de 5, 8, 29, 62, 126 – 127, 139 Scholem, Gershom 171, 184 self-control – freedom 89, 101 – 102 – habit formation and change 90, 102 – paying attention 89 self (semiotic) 87 – acts of attention 88 – choice to pay attention 87 – (living) semiosis 87, 88 – 93, 94, 102 – living symbol 98 – 99, 101 – 102 – see attention – see reasoning – self-(as)-sign 89, 94, 97, 102 – story 102 – stream of signs 102 – ultimate logical interpretant 102 semantics of Hebrew roots 252 – boundaries 250 – 251 – color values (non-color meanings) 245, 248, 251 – decoding Hebrew text 252, 248, 251, 259 – encyclopedic competence 252 – Hebraic studies 248 – hermeneutic tool 252 – linguistics 245, 248 – mother-tongue centrism 250 – see semiotics of (verbal) color – semio-osmosis (equalization) 249 – semiotics 248 – text within text 250, 262 – translation 247 – 248, 249 – 250, 255 semiology – political economy 62 – 63 – Saussurean theory of sign 62, 139 semiosis – body 194 – continuous process 90 – 91

316

Index

– doctrine 147n1 – growth of meaning 90 – iconicity makes operational 128, 130 – infinite 248, 252 – irreducible to human cognition 94 – 95n8 – irreducible to human language 94 – 95n8 – locus 222 – metasemiosis 45, 87 – 88, 94n8 – never without interpretant 90 – object, sign, interpretant 90 – religious 9 – see semiosphere – see sign – self 87, 88 – 93, 94, 102 – sphere 274 – world 37 semiosphere 22, 34 – 37, 53, 190, 255 – beyond 34 – 37 – border (boundary) 22, 35 – 36, 250 – 251 – collective personality 35n17 – conditio humana 42 – 43 – dynamics 36 – 39 – fetishized 53 – local 215, 227, 240 – religion 39 – 47 – see collective subject(ivity) – see culture – see dialogue – see semiosis – see sign – see theosemiotics (cultural) – semiospheres 35, 35n18 – semiotic field of translation 190 – singular 35 – universe of culture 35, 35n17 – unpredictability 38 – 39 – translation 34 – 35n15, 36, 40, 43, 46 semiotic exegesis – see academic theology (Biblical studies) semiotic ideology 9, 30 – 31, 73 – Greek worldview 255 – (Hebrew and) Jewish culture 254 – 255, 258, 262 – Hebrew worldview 251 – 252, 254 – 255, 262 – Indo-European worldviews 232 – linguistic ideology (rabbinic) 174, 183

– linguistic worldview 247 semiotic turn 30 semiotics – biosemiotics 35n16, 127 – cognitive semiotics 11, 140 – ethnosemiotics 201 – general 11, 34, 117, 134, 245, 267, 268, 274 – history 125 – 128, 141 – 143 – linguistic anthropology 30, 172, 193 – see embodiment – see material semiotics – see Peirce’s pragmaticist logic – see semiotic theory of embodied action – see semiotics of religion – see semiotics of the natural (experienced) world – see semiotics of (verbal) color – semiotic consciousness 134, 141 – semiotic epistemology 126 – semiotics of culture 34 – 39 – semiotics of space 195 – 197 – social semiotics 53 – 55, 68 – 69, 140 – status 3n3 – theory of embodied action 193 – 194 – visual semiotics 107 – 122, 125 semiotics of Christian patristics 134 – 136 semiotics of religion – methodological toolbox 29 – 31 – religious semiotics 9 – see theosemiotics (cultural) – wider sense 2, 8, 21 – 22 – history 1 – 2n1, 3 – 8 – current trends 10 – 12, 12 – 20 semiotics of the image 107 – 122 – see icon – see iconicity semiotics of the natural (experienced) world 200 – 201, 208 – chromatic area 215, 229, 232 – codifying 239 – deictic sign 177n29, 205, 207, 229 – eidedic categories 227, 229, 232 – encyclopedia 225 – 226, 240 – expression plane and content plane 194, 222 – figurativity of the represented world 222

Index

– generative trajectory of meaning 239 – inter-semiotic translation 201 – isotopy 192, 202, 226, 229, 232 – locus of the semiosis 222 – manifesting / manifested 220 – 222 – mediation 206 – 207 – mediator 207 – modal dipositive 240 – object of value (actantial role) 202 – physical / spiritual movement 231 – plastic categories 215 – sacred / profane (abstract categories) 220 – 222 – see material semiotics – semiotization of space 215 – space, history, temporality 201 – 204 – structural semantics 226 – substance of expression 222 – taxeme 226 – topological semantization 229 – world of our experience 222 semiotics of (verbal) color 243 – 244, 247 – 248, 256 – basic color terms (BCT) 245 – 247, 249, 252 – 254 – basic features of prototypes (BFPT) 246 – 247, 253 – 254 – color as cultural unit 245, 247 – 248, 252 – color language 244 – 245, 248 – color speech 244 – 245, 255, 261 – color theory 245 – in multimodal texts 244 – mega color 245 – 247 – motivation (color sign) 244 – non-color meanings 245, 248, 251 – prototype terms (PT) 246 – 247, 249, 252 – 254 – rival terms for prototypes (RP) 246 – 247 – semio-osmosis 249 – semiotic (semantic, hermeneutic) value 249, 252 – 253, 262 – semiotic iceberg 243, 255 – 257, 261 – 262 – sign system (language) 243, 247, 251 – structural semiotics 245 – structures of color presence 243, 252 – symbolism of colors in culture 255 – systemic lingustics 245

317

– translation 245, 249 – 250, 255 – verbal color language 245, 247 – 248, 255, 261 – visual color language 245, 247 – 248, 255 – visual communication grammar 244 semiotic theory of embodied action 193 – 194 – acentered systems 194n3 – language / body 195 – meaning as course of action 193, 205 – nonrepresentational theory of discourse 195, 203 – performing body 194 – plane of content 194 – 195 – plane of expression 194 – rhizome 194n3 – ritual discourse (definition) 207 – sense / matter 195 – sense / senses 193 – signification as action 194 – 195 – signs as semiotic acts, forces, actions 194 sense perception (Augustin’s theory) – fallacious (deceitful) 115 – 116 – false as fake, false as fictitious 117 – 118 – falsity (effect of verisimilitude) 16, 110, 112, 132 – mendacious (non-deceitful) 115 – 116 – phenomenology 121 – resemblance between visibles, two types 111 – 112 – two types of falsity 114 – 116 – vision 121 – 122 sermon (theory) 6 Shinto-Buddhism 190, 199 – see ascetic practices (Shinto Buddhist) – Shinto (def.) 198 Shugendō 198 – 209 significance – cognitive, pragmatic, affective 200 signification 63 – intentionality (direction) 131 – 132, 193 – intertextual 128, 134 – 135, 268 – 269, 271 – 272, 274, 290 – see fetish(ism) – see semiosis – see sign

318

Index

sign – Augustine’s definition 129 – behaviour (human conduct) 97 – biosemiotics 35n16, 127 – challenges substance metaphysics 129 – color as sign (system) 243 – 244, 251 – context implications of sign meaning 172 – 174, 175 – 176 – creating context for religious experience 178 – dicentization (icon as index) 172 – 173, 175, 184 – 185 – feeling as sign 97 – hermeneutics 128 – 129, 134 – 135, 252 – icon, index, symbol 174 – iconicity makes operational 128, 130 – institutional arrangements 97 – object, sign, interpretant 90 – Peirce’s (triadic) definition 90, 127 – 128, 135, 174 – possibility of being interpreted 117 – (post)structuralist (Saussure) 127 – pre-scholastic logic 130 – qualisigns, sinsigns, legisigns 174 – relational ontology 127 – rhematization 173, 175 – rheme, dicent, argument 174 – Saussueran (dyadic) definition 62, 139 – scholastic logic 129 – see iconicity – see reading – see religious sign – see self (semiotic – semiotic act 194 – semiotic action 194 – semiotic force 194 – signification 129 – signifier / signified 68, 139, 194 – social structure as sign 97 – unintended sign 117 – vehicle, object, interpretant 174 social semiotics 53 – 55, 68 – 69, 140 – see critical socio-semiotic discourse – see fetish(ism) socio-cultural paradigm 53, 59 – 62 – Actor-Network-Theory 61, 191 – 192 – Cartesian-Marxist paradigm 62

– mechanism of fetishism 54 – modern (Cartesian) 60 – 61 – post-Cartesian perspective 60 – see dualism – socio-semiotic paradigm 55 – Western 59, 66 solidarity 40, 46 spatial turn 189 spiritual life – ability to pay attention 101 – broad sense 95, 101 – Daoism (goal) 99 – practice of self-control 101 – 102 – Roman Catholicism (goal) 95, 99 – see religious (spiritual) practice – theology 101 – virtuosity 101 – Zen Buddhism (goal) 95 spiritual practice – necessity of sense perception 138 – see iconoclast controversy structuralism 4, 6n12, 7 – 8, 34n12, 125, 127, 139 study of religion – broad notion 21 – 22 – enrichment of semiotic theory 1, 21, 42 – 43, 45 – 47, 126, 140 – narrow notion 30 – 31 – see academic theology (Christian) – see philosophy of religion – see theology – semiotic turn 30 subjectivity 59, 61 – creation 271 – enunciative, narrative, discursive 196 – see autocommunication – see creativity – see self (semiotic) systematic theology 6n12, 7 Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics 32 temptation – biographies 274 – contagaton 271 – exorcism as exercise 271, 274, 283, 293 – 294 – four types 267 – 268

Index

– literary exercise 293 – majesty 279 – roots 268, 271 – scenographies 287 – 288 – temptetations of the sacred 267 – theatricality 281 Teresa of Avila 221 text (semiotic) 173, 190, 194, – architectural works 195, 215n2 – coagulation of cultural forces 268 – courses of actions 194 – courses of passions 194 – culture 35 – 36 – infinite semiosis 252 – message 139 – open text 252 – pilgrimage 215n2 – ritual practices 215n2 – text within text 250, 262 theater 171n4, 268 – 269, 283 – 290, 292, 294 Theodore the Studite 125, 138 theology 21 – deliberate habit formation 102 – extension of praxis 87 – internal to religious tradition 93 – irreducable to problem solving 95 – Jewish (ancient) – mechanism of self-critique in religion – metasemiosis 88, 93 – 101 – metasemiotic reflection 87, 100 – 101 – mode of inquiry 88, 91, 93, 95 – perfused with sign processes 6 – philosophical 31 – 32, 47, 93 – pragmatic (theosemiotic) 164 – 165, 167 – problem seeing 95, 100 – rooted in praxis 87, 93 – see academic theology (Christian) – see ethics of attention (as root) – see meditation – see psychotherapy – see theosemotics (narrow sense) – self-reflection of Christianity 41 – spiritual life 95, 101 – theology of icons 126, 137 – theology of liberation 105, 101 – 102n14, 102

319

– theology of resistance 105, 102 – theology of spiritual life 102 – therapeutic function 88 theosemiotic 31 – 32, 101 – 102n14 – Berkeley 164 – 165, 167 – Peirce 149n11 – theological semiotic 149n11, 164 theosemiotics (cultural) 13, 29, 33, 42 – 47 – broad sense 43 – 44 – Lotmanian 29, 42 – 47 – narrow sense 44 – theory of culture 43 tolerance 46 totem 55, 58 – see religious fetish(ism) transformation – beginning of faith 42 – everyday life 42 – God as the source 44 – narrative 197 – new being 172, 184 – religion 39, 43 – resources for orientation and t. 39 – ritual modes 180n39 – self-description 45 – substance 67.68 – symbolic 193 translation – borders 36, 46 – dialogue 22, 34 – 35n15 – from verbal to visual 245 – intermedial and crossmodal 132, 136 – inter-semiotic 201, 268 – mechanism 22, 36, 40, 46 – (new) meaning 34 – 35n15, 40 – non-equivalent 40 – see semantics of Hebrew roots – see semiosphere (border) – see semiotics of (verbal) color – see semiotics of the natural (experienced) world – self-t. of indeterminacy (revelation) 43 – semiological reduction 63 – semiotic field 190 – semiotics of religion 22, 40 – theatrical and pictorial 109

320

Index

– thinking 34 – 35n15 Trinity 68, 118, 121, 147 universe – culture 34, 35n17 – discourse 137 – perfused with signs

194

veneration of icons – Buddhism 198, 203 – see icons – vs. idiolatry 56 veneration of the scripture 203n15 Vita Antonii 271 – 272, 285, 293

voice – act of uttering 81, 207, 290 – collective 84 – communicative use 73 – embodied context 73 – embodied, situated interaction – phatic use 73 Volp, Rainer 1 – 2n1, 6

74, 98

William of Ockham 148, 151n13, 153 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 79 worship as sign process 6n10 – see liturgy Yelle, Robert A. 1 – 2n1, 8, 30 – 31, 126, 140