[44] symbol, the reality of the political realm cuts into the reality of the religious realm. In the moment you rationalize this symbol in such a way that you say that suddenly he has not such a grace, he is very DIS-grace-ful (which he was!)--but the point is the symbolic representative power. Now these are symbols in contrast to signs. In this way, all symbols^a participate. E.g., the tremendous power of the Crucifixion, simply the Cross^b, even if there is no body on it: what does it do? In itself it is a sign pointing to an event of the past. But it has become a symbol of such power that it has [been?] shown to blind people, and gives them participation in the power of that event to which it points. Therefore it cannot be simply treated as a sign, it is something which, one can perhaps say, for some people, is largely laden with power. But in any case it has power, it participates in the power. And that makes it so different from the sign. So we can say, briefly: the sign^c and the symbol point beyond themselves-- the sign in terms of expediencey [sic.] and non-participation, the symbol in terms of creativity and participation. The symbol participates in the power of what it represents. The word "represents" is also a very fine word, and I have sometimes thought whether the whole linguistic confusion would not be overcome if we said "representative," instead of "symbolic," but this has other disadvantages. In "represents," there are two elements: "re" (it REPEATS the reality of that for which it stands); and "-present," which means the present (it makes it real here and now, in this moment. And this is the power of every great symbol. Now I would like that for all these reasons, you never should use a combination of words which is used very often, and for which I am also guilty by slips of tongue sometimes, namely to use the combination of the words "only" and "symbol"! This is a very wrong combination of words because a symbol is MORE than anything else. You can say "only a sign"-certainly, and you MUST say that. And if, for instance, the religious symbols^d are understood only as signs^e, then the word "only" is justified. But if you speak of genuine symbols^f, you should never sat "only a symbol," as if there were something higher! This is something fundamentally important for religion and theology because it means that if we call the religious symbols symbols, and someone wants to have them literalistically, then you say this is LESS than if they are symbols. Literalism^g in religion is not more, but is LESS than symbols. For this reason,