Deification in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition: A Biblical Perspective 9781463211141

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DEIFICATION IN THE EASTERN ORTHODOX TRADITION

GORGIAS EASTERN CHRISTIAN STUDIES 2

Deification in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition A Biblical Perspective

STEPHEN THOMAS

GORGIAS PRESS 2007

First Gorgias Press Edition, 2007 Copyright © 2007 by Gorgias Press LLC All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. Published in the United States of America by Gorgias Press LLC, New Jersey ISBN 978-1-59333-324-9 ISSN 1539-1507 This publication is made possible by a generous grant from The Aurelius Trust, UK.

Gorgias Press

46 Orris Ave., Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA www.gorgiaspress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thomas, Stephen, 1951Deification in the Eastern Orthodox tradition : a biblical perspective / Stephen Thomas. -- 1st Gorgias Press ed. p. cm. -- (Gorgias eastern Christian studies ; 2) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-59333-324-9 1. Orthodox Eastern Church--Doctrines. 2. Deification (Christianity) 3. Salvation-Orthodox Eastern Church. 4. Grace (Theology) I. Title. BX323.T445 2007 234--dc22 2007020046

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standards. Printed in the United States of America

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO PAULA

that bi these thingis ye shuln be made felowis of Goddis kynde 2 Peter 1:4, translated by John Wycliffe (1380)

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents..................................................................................................vii Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................xi Introduction .............................................................................................................1 The Theme of This Book ..................................................................................1 The Purpose of This Book................................................................................1 The Structure of This Book ..............................................................................2 1 ......Salvation as “Deification” ............................................................................7 The Meaning of the Term “Deification” as Applied to the Christian........7 Isn’t It Blasphemous to Claim to Be a “god”?...............................................8 “I Said ‘You Are Gods’ ”—Starting from the Bible: John 10:34, Psalm 82:6 ....................................................................................................11 The Humanity of God Makes Possible the Deification of Humanity .....13 2 ......Deification: Overview of the Eastern Orthodox Tradition .................15 A Total Theology ..............................................................................................15 The Christian Meaning of Deification: a Summary.....................................17 Deification as Healing ......................................................................................19 The Transformation of Our Nature ..............................................................24 Paradise after Death .........................................................................................26 The Resurrection of the Glorified Body at the End of the Age ...............27 Deification and the Communion of the Saints ............................................28 In the Image and Likeness of God ................................................................28 Deification and the Work of Salvation..........................................................29 Deification Is the Gracious Work of the Whole Trinity ............................32 The “Uncreated Energies” of God ................................................................33 Deification through a Fully Liturgical Life ...................................................41 The Nature of Orthodox Mysticism..............................................................43 Orthodox Theology Is Practical, Not Speculative.......................................45 Orthodox Theology Is Based on the Bible...................................................48 3 ......Revelation and Experience ........................................................................49 Deification Is Based on Divine Revelation...................................................49 vii

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The Forms of Divine Revelation....................................................................53 The Threefold Structure of Divine Revelation as Manifested in Orthodox Life and Thought ............................................................................62 Divine Revelation and Human Language .....................................................65 4 ......How to Interpret Holy Scripture, Our Guide to Deification...............69 The Importance of Scripture ..........................................................................69 The Letter and the Spirit..................................................................................71 The Scriptures as Treasuries of Spiritual Experience..................................73 The Big Picture: The Meaning of the Bible as a Whole .............................75 The Various Senses of Scripture.....................................................................81 Conclusion .........................................................................................................87 5 ......The Old Testament: The History of the Energies of God in the Bible ............................................................................................................89 Why Read the Old Testament?.......................................................................89 The Old Testament as an Integral Part of the History of God’s Grace ..91 The Creation of Man to Share the Kingship of God: Genesis 1:1–2:3 ...94 Paradise Lost: Genesis 2:4–3:24 .................................................................. 101 The “Natural Man” from Adam to Noah.................................................. 114 Moses and the Law: The Hebrew Theology of Revelation..................... 117 The Prophecies of Fulfillment in Christ: How the Old Testament Speaks of Christ and the Mysteries of the Church .............................. 123 The Saints of the Old Testament ................................................................ 125 Excursus to Chapter 5: Adam Our Ancestor? .......................................... 130 6 ......The Uncreated Light of Mount Thabor ............................................... 141 The Light of Glory ........................................................................................ 141 The Transfiguration in the Gospels............................................................ 145 The Experience St. Peter .............................................................................. 153 The Experience of St. John the Evangelist and Theologian................... 163 The Experience of St. James the Greater, the Son of Zebedee ............. 169 St. Paul’s Experience of the Uncreated Light............................................ 172 At the Foot of the Mountain ....................................................................... 177 Conclusion 179 Appendix: For Further Reading....................................................................... 183 1. Books on Deification ................................................................................ 183 2. Books on the Bible .................................................................................... 184 3. The Fathers and Books on the Fathers.................................................. 186

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Bibliography ........................................................................................................ 191 Abbreviations to Bibliography and References......................................... 191 Index of Scriptural References ......................................................................... 203

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Without the emotional support of my mother Doreen Agnes Therese and her generosity, I could not have written this book. She has always been there for me and her still-sharp mind, in her 90th year, has made me think. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my dear and steadfast friend and mentor, the Reverend Professor John McGuckin of Union Theological Seminary, New York, for his encouragement, advice, and spirit of generosity. He has communicated to me a portion of his greatness of mind and vast erudition, which have inspired and elevated me. I am thankful to Metropolitan Kallistos Ware for advice about doctrinal issues. Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, Bishop of Vienna, supported me at a discouraging time in the composition of the book. I am very grateful to Dr. George Kiraz’s appreciation of my work and his kind and straightforward attitude. Without a faithful group of readers and advisers of a wide variety of backgrounds, this book could not have been written: Adrian Dean, Reverend Stephen Fretwell, Julie Gallagher, Naudette Harvey, Reverend Dr. Brian Kelly, Miriam Lambouras, Mihail Neamts, Sister Seraphima, Fr. Gregory Rosie, and Reverend Dr. Gregory Woolfenden. I acknowledge with thanks certain remarks by Dr. Charles Conti of Sussex University about my work, which have gone toward the strengthening of my Conclusion. I have been supported by the prayers of the Monastery of St. John the Baptist, Tolleshunt Knights, and by the inspiration of the members of the Community, and especially as a result of my dialogues with Sister Mihaila. I have been helped by the prayers of my spiritual father, Archimandrite Symeon, and stimulated by many discussions with him about the “uncreated energies” of God. I am very grateful to all my physicians and their ancillary staff, who have helped me to work during periods of illness: especially Dr. Eklund of the Royal South Hants Hospital. I acknowledge the efficiency, kindness, xi

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and unfailing good-humor of “Pharmacy Direct,” Southampton: the pharmacist, Jennifer Ndichu, and her helpers, Wendy and Dot. I need my medicines, but their personal goodness is a medicine not found in bottles. Dr. Katie Stott of Gorgias Press helped me to prepare the text for the press. I appreciate her vigilance, calmness, professionalism, and supportive attitude more than I can say. Dr. Paula Nicholson, to whom this book is dedicated, has been my tree of life and constant intellectual, theological, and spiritual companion. Without her wise and careful readings of my drafts, the book would be less clear; and without her support, I would have given up. Having said all this, the mistakes are mine! Stephen Thomas 11th May Feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius (New Calendar)

INTRODUCTION THE THEME OF THIS BOOK The theme of this book is how sharing the very life of God heals us and makes us whole. The idea of participation in the life of God is expressed in Orthodox theology by the idea of “deification,” a word which means that in the Christian life one may become in some sense divine or “a god” though not “God”—by grace.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK Since neither of the words “deification” or “divinization” occurs in the Bible, most books about this theme tend to draw on “patristic literature”— that is, on the Fathers of the Church writing from the second century up to the fifteenth century in the Greek East and up to the tenth century in the Latin West. They make up a huge subject area. “Deification” (theosis/theopoiesis) is a theme of the Eastern Fathers, and this subject area is now rich in treatments of this theme in Greek “patristics.” There are a number of very good books on the subject of deification. 1 Moreover, the very recent publication of a major scholarly study by Norman Russell (2005), 2 renewed interest in the subject among Reformed theologians, 3 and the reprint of the classic work by Jules Gross 4 show that deification has been the object of recent intense attention. 1 Among the most notable may be mentioned V. Lossky, The Vision of God; Nellas, Deification in Christ; and Mantzarides, The Deification of Man; the scholarly monographs, in French, of J.-C. Larchet are of major importance, La Divinisation de l’homme selon Maxime le Confesseur and Therapeutique des maladies spirituelles. Moreover, there is the outstanding study of St. Symeon the New Theologian by Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, St. Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox Tradition. 2 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition. 3 Karkäinen, One with God. Salvation as Deification and Justification (2004). 4 Jules Gross, The Divinization of the Christian according to the Greek Fathers.

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However, the concentration upon the Greek Fathers in explaining Orthodox teaching 5 brings with it a danger that the Fathers will be seen as pursuing a quite different kind of theology from that of the Bible, in which they drew upon Greek philosophical ideas rather than upon the teaching of Scripture. Part of the intention of this book is to show that this view of the Greek Fathers is false and that, if they used at times different language from that of the Bible, they were nevertheless securely rooted in biblical teaching. This book, while not neglecting the Fathers, therefore, has its main chapters on the Bible, the source of inspiration for the Fathers and their constant companion. I aim to show that the tradition to which the Greek Fathers belonged—that is, the Greek Orthodox tradition—is rooted in Scripture, with which it is perfectly harmonious. The idea of the “deification” of the Christian, by which one may share the very life of God through grace, is therefore placed in a specific biblical perspective. This perspective is the Eastern Orthodox tradition’s understanding of the Bible’s teaching as a whole. The point, then, of this book is to show that the ideas of the deification of the Christian are expressions of the Orthodox Church’s biblical roots, not only in the teaching of Jesus Christ, St. Paul, and St. John but also as a result of the revelation of the knowledge of God in the Old Testament. There is today a very great need for Orthodox Christians in the West to understand better their biblical roots and for there to be a movement of biblical theology in Orthodoxy. We must not only study the Fathers but also do what the Fathers did, which is to immerse ourselves in Scripture, in order to discover its beauty and spiritual teaching.

THE STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK The main substance of this book will be about the Bible. I shall be using the Bible to explain how “you are gods.” The word “deification” points to a very high view of the state that a human being can attain to, even in this life, through grace. Through an experience of the “glory” of God, which God freely offers to Man, the human life can be taken up into the divine life, so that one can say, even in this life, “It is not I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Beginning from Scripture takes us to a saying of Jesus, recorded in St. John’s Gospel, in which he says to the Jews that the Scripture—that is, the 5 Books on deification in the Greek Fathers as such tend to have, if at all, brief introductions to the biblical roots of the idea, so that the impression is given that the Bible is but the antechamber to greater vistas.

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Law or Old Testament—teaches that human beings are, in a sense, “gods” (John 10:34). The first chapter of this book is gathered around this hard saying of Jesus. It was too hard for the Jews whom Jesus addressed to accept, and it may seem too hard to many of my readers now. However, before continuing in detail the biblical teaching about deification and explaining the characteristically biblical way of expressing this idea, I have to tell you something about the Orthodox tradition on grace and what this tradition finds in the Scriptures. The Orthodox Church interprets the Scriptures by its perspective, which it believes is held in focus by the Holy Spirit. This tradition acts as a key to the Scriptures for people in the Orthodox Church. However, it can also be an interesting new way of looking at the Bible for Christians of all traditions. Chapter 2, then, gives an over-view of Orthodox tradition on the subject. What chapter 2 says about the experience of grace could be described as “mystical.” This word “mystical” is used about the Orthodox tradition to convey the importance of experiencing things in oneself, in the secret chamber of the heart, because this very experience is what transforms and saves us. However, I balance this idea with another, equally important, namely that Orthodoxy relies upon divine revelation. Chapter 3 explains the unique balance between personal experience and faith in divine revelation which characterizes Orthodoxy. The Bible is a form of divine revelation, which has a special relationship to experience. Chapter 4 begins a detailed introduction to the Scriptures themselves. Here I also give a brief account of the various senses in which the Orthodox Church interprets the Scriptures and explain how reading the Bible is not just an academic experience but a life-giving encounter with God. This book is written from the conviction that the Bible has an overall message from beginning to end so that it is a theological unity and not only a collection of books from different periods. Thus the biblical “history” stretches from the Book of Genesis to the Book of Revelation. What we know positively about God comes from God’s actions toward us, which manifest his presence through his glory—what in Orthodox theology are called the “uncreated energies.” Chapter 5, which is concerned with the “Old Testament” 6 of the Bible, shows how God put forth his creative energies in making the universe and Man and tries to answer some difficult questions about how, as modern people, we are to understand the “fall” of Man and our restoration in Christ. Chapter 5 shows how God revealed himself through action, making his presence or 6

This is an expression which will be carefully explained in chapter 5, 93.

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glory present with us through history, in his dealings with human beings in his “covenants” with Man, and at last in his Incarnation, the Incarnation of the Son of God, which the Old Testament prophesied. No account of the Orthodox experience would be complete without reference to “light.” Light holds a special place in Orthodox teaching. Light is not only a symbol—for example, a symbol of enlightenment about the created world or about what are the rules of human conduct. Light is a reality in the Orthodox tradition: it is a divine or uncreated “energy” put forth by God, which transforms the person who receives it. In chapter 6, the final main chapter, I shall try to explain, in terms of the New Testament, what is meant by the “Uncreated Light” as an experience possible for human beings even in this life, centering my account upon an event in the life of Christ that has great importance in the Orthodox tradition, the Transfiguration (the Metamorphosis) of Jesus upon the Mountain. From the above account of the structure of the book, you will see that I am attempting two things at the same time and in relation to one another: I am, firstly, explaining how deification is a doctrine which has its basis in the Bible; I am also, secondly, explaining how the Orthodox perspective provides an introduction to the Bible and a way of reading it and making sense of it. I have also found myself writing not as a systematic theologian, neatly dividing topics into tightly sealed compartments, but in the manner of the biblical commentaries and homilies of the Fathers, where the relationship between all aspects of theology are illustrated and woven together in commenting upon the text of Scripture and applied to the life of the Christian, for building up, or “edification” (Rom 15:2; 1 Cor 14:3). I did not set out with the intention of imitating the style of the Fathers, nor do I pretend that the quality of what I say even comes close to that of the Fathers. It happened naturally. There will perhaps be times when you find the text I have written difficult because of its interweaving of many ideas, its “polyphonic” quality. I have tried very hard to offset what in this book may be difficult and unfamiliar both in content and method by avoiding the technical jargon that is so often found in theology books. I have also kept to a bare minimum the referencing and used the simplest English in my explanations. The book is not written for academics, does not pretend to an original perspective, and aims to be readable without a formal training in theology. It aims to build up the reader toward a love for the Christian Faith as

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something to be lived. I hope that I have been successful in this. Let the reader be the judge!

1 SALVATION AS “DEIFICATION” THE MEANING OF THE TERM “DEIFICATION” AS APPLIED TO THE CHRISTIAN The Churches of Greece, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East have cherished the idea of the “deification,” of the Christian, by which one may share the divine life, the very life of the Holy Trinity, as a result of the generosity or grace of God. For an Orthodox Christian, this participation in God is the aim and culmination of the Christian life. Deification is a transformation of our state by the power of God’s action. It comes about through grace, the free gift which is offered to us in Christ. It is through grace that we can be raised up to a higher level than the one in which we find ourselves, to a level in which we can relate to God as friends and in which we can experience the conquest of death, passion, and sin. When we are thus raised we partly experience before we depart from this life a pledge or down-payment of the Kingdom which is to come after death, so that the Kingdom is to some extent already realized in our lives. The expressions “deification” and “divinization” 1 are translations of two Greek words found in the early Church Fathers: theosis means “the state of being a god” and theopoiesis means “being made into a god.” These words do not occur in Scripture. The Greek Fathers used them in order to express the great height to which God in his goodness wishes to raise us. The words convey the idea of immortality or everlasting life, and of a sharing in the very life of God. Salvation is bound up with the doctrine of deification. The Orthodox tradition sees us as needing salvation from sin and death. Sin is moral 1 In French books on the subject, the Greek words are translated by “divinization.” Sometimes this word may be found in English works, too. For the sake of consistency, I refer to the idea expressed by the Greek words with “deification” throughout.

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corruption and death is physical corruption. Following St. Paul, these two kinds of corruption are seen as related: physical death is the consequence of the moral corruption, and the latter, moral corruption, is in turn the result of our being far from God. Salvation in the Eastern Orthodox Christian view concentrates less upon the offence against God of human sin and more upon the bad effects of sin upon us. It sees God as not so much offended as concerned to raise human beings to the highest possible level, when they have fallen to a very low level, which is a kind of sickness. Thus “salvation” is not about removing the offense against God: rather it is about the transformation in us which can take place if we are taken up into a completely new level, the level of the divine life, and healed by contact with the divine power. This is why “salvation” and “deification” go together in Orthodox teaching.

ISN’T IT BLASPHEMOUS TO CLAIM TO BE A “GOD”? The word “deification” means “to be made into a god.” It does not mean “to become God”—with a capital “G”—but rather to become a being who shares some of the qualities possessed by God. God possesses immortality, happiness, power and strength to heal, and perfect knowledge by his very nature. However, we can share these qualities by grace. Although we are created beings, having a beginning, we can become like God in having no end to our existence by possessing the eternal life that God offers to us. You will probably be more familiar with another sense of the word “gods” used in the Old Testament. By the expression “gods” the Prophets of ancient Israel referred to the false and nonexistent beings that the Israelites were tempted to worship because of the influence of the people around them; this was “idolatry.” The first of the Ten Commandments is: “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exod 20:3) 2

The Second Commandment forbids the use of “a graven image or any likeness” of anything in human experience to represent a divinity and to use in worship: “You shall not bow down to them or serve them.” (Exod 20:5)

Moreover, the Old Testament makes it clear that no human being can be a “god,” in the absolute sense that the God of Israel was the God of the whole universe. The Old Testament teaching is equally against the idea of The biblical quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible unless otherwise specified. 2

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one most powerful or “High God” who is surrounded by other less powerful gods or that human kings were divine beings. This was the basis of the challenge that Moses brought to the Egyptian Pharaoh, who was believed by his people to be a god among the other great gods of Egypt. The Lord tells Moses that Pharaoh will be shown to be a mere mortal by the power of the One True God’s actions in freeing his people from slavery, so that “the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD” (Exod 14:4). 3 However, there is another, less familiar sense of the word “gods,” which is preserved in Jewish tradition, namely that of “the celestials” or created heavenly beings who shared God’s work and were his messengers: there are references in the Old Testament to angels, strictly speaking “messengers”; to the “host” (Neh 9:6) of the Lord—that is, his celestial army—who fought beside the Israelites against their enemies; and to the “assembly of the gods” or the divine council of heavenly creatures who surround the throne of God. One may also mention the “Seraphim” (Isa 6:2, 6:6) and the “Cherubim,” 4 mysterious fiery and powerful creatures who appear when the Lord made himself present on earth. These “celestials” are not like the lesser deities of paganism, because they really do exist: they are essentially created beings, who depend for their existence upon the One and Only God. The Orthodox Church agrees with Jewish tradition in this respect and calls them “the Bodiless Powers.” In addition, Jewish tradition inherited from Scripture the idea that Man was, in some true sense, divine, because God said, “Let us make Man in our image and according to our likeness.” (Gen 1:26) 5

The Jewish interpretation of the words “Let us make” and “our” (Gen 1:26) is that God is addressing the heavenly council of the celestial beings who I am grateful to my friend the Romanian theologian, Mihail Neamts, for the point that the Israelite conception of divinity and the dignity of Man were opposed to all forms of dictatorship and totalitarianism. 4 The Prophet Ezekiel has a vision of the Cherubim surrounding the Lord in chapter 10 of his book. However, the Cherubim were also associated with the glory of the Lord manifested in his Tabernacle. The Cherubim were made into the form of a throne for the Lord’s presence or glory (Exod 26:1, 31). The Lord was customarily described as “dwelling between the Cherubim” (1 Sam 4:4), which refers both to the Man-made throne and to the reality of these mysterious creatures. 5 My literal translation. 3

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served him: the angels. By contrast, Orthodox Christianity interprets Genesis 1:26 as God the Father addressing the Eternal Son and the Holy Spirit, so that the creation of Man is through the will of the divine Trinity. Despite this difference, however, both in Judaism and in Orthodox Christianity, Man is accorded the highest dignity of any created being by possessing the image of God; and in this latter respect there is a degree of convergence between Orthodox Christianity and Judaism as well as difference. Judaism had, and has still, a distinctive interpretation of Psalm 82:6, where God himself declares that men were “gods and sons of the Most High.” This Psalm begins: God is standing in the company of the gods; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment. 6

It refers to the unjust judgments of “the gods” and asserts the duty of “the gods” to look after the weak and give them justice. God declares that “the gods” have a choice: they can judge justly and be heavenly beings, or fail in their vocation and die. I said, “You are gods, all of you sons of the Most High. Nevertheless, you shall die like men and fall like any prince.” (Ps 82:6)

In Jewish tradition, this text refers to those at Sinai who were “gods” by receiving the Word of God but “died like men” in disobeying it. It had a special relevance to the “judges” who were appointed to help Moses rule Israel (Exod 18:13–27). Moses acted upon the advice of his father-in-law, Jethro, who was, strictly speaking, not even an Israelite. Jethro advised Moses to delegate the work of judging cases that were brought to him for dispute, so that he might not “wear himself out” (Exod 18:18). The arrangement came about, then, not as a direct command from the Lord but as a piece of quite secular advice. However, the people to whom Moses delegated his work were nevertheless accorded a divinized status by God. These men had to cooperate with God in the implementation of God’s Law and, in doing so, were dignified with a divine status. For this reason, they drew near to the glory or presence of God along with those whose cases they were judging (Deut 19:17). Having seen the glory of God to some extent, because they “appeared before the Lord” (Deut 19:17), they were made like God because they experienced God’s “glory,” or presence with the people of Israel, which he had put forth from Heaven and which guided My literal translation: elohim is used twice, first to refer to God in the singular and second to the gods in the plural. 6

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them and did mighty acts for them. God had put forth his holy glory, and those who had contact with his glory were either sanctified or consumed as by fire. Having neglected their duties, the bad judges were condemned to “die like men”—that is, like any other bad ruler (Ps 82:7). The Jewish traditional interpretation that this Psalm condemns bad “judges” shows that judging Israel well was a matter of sharing something with God and so becoming “gods,” just as judging Israel badly led to death. Deification, or its opposite, can come about in the practical business of living. The question is discussed in the Talmud as to whether Jews owe their very existence to the sin of their ancestors at Sinai, in worshiping the Golden Calf: if the Jews then had remained “gods,” by obeying the Law against idolatry, would they have procreated, that is, remained ordinary human beings? Would they not have become as the “celestials” like the angels and so not lived together as husband and wife and had children? The answer is that Jews had already been commanded to procreate (Gen 1:28), so that normal family life is not inconsistent with the “deification” envisaged by the Jew—to be as a “god” is not to become a supernatural being but to share in God’s work by fulfilling his will. 7 There was, then, already in Judaism the idea that human beings can be “heavenly beings” while at the same time living an earthly life. What makes men “gods” is not the possession of magical powers or a complete and radical alteration of their created nature, but the sharing of God’s life: having God’s thoughts revealed to them and doing his work, freely cooperating with the revealed will of God. It is against this background that one of the hardest and least familiar of Jesus’ hard sayings may be understood, when Jesus quotes the Law 8 to the effect that that human beings are gods.

“I SAID ‘YOU ARE GODS’ ”—STARTING FROM THE BIBLE: JOHN 10:34, PSALM 82:6 John’s Gospel tells us of a confrontation in the Temple between Jesus and “the Jews.” 9 They pushed him to say if he was the Messiah, or Christ (John 10:24). Jesus said: See Babylonian Talmud, tractate ‘Aboda Zara, 5a. Jesus actually refers to a psalm, Psalm 82, rather than to what is strictly speaking “The Law” or Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. He must be understood as referring to what was accepted at that time by Jewish tradition. 9 This does not mean that Jesus was not himself a Jew in his human nature; St. John, the Evangelist, was a Jew; Jesus’ disciples were also Jews; many Jews received 7 8

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Considering this statement as blasphemous, they took up stones to stone him (John 10:31). Jesus argues that this is not according to the Law a blasphemous claim and cites part of Psalm 82:6: “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said you are gods’?” (Ps 82:6)

Jesus says that those “to whom the word of God came” were called “gods” by the Scripture “and Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). Even more, therefore, is it true of him, that he can claim to be God, since he is the one “whom God has consecrated” (John 10:36) and who does the “works of God” (10:37–38). His opponents were not convinced and tried to stone him (Jn 10:31, but they were unable to lay hands upon him (Jn 10:39) and he withdrew. The form of argument Jesus used was a rabbinic one, from the lesser to the stronger (qual wa homer), literally, “from the lighter to the heavier” or, as we would say, “a fortiori.” But is this all there is to it? Did Jesus win the battle of words and out-quote his opponents by lifting a convenient phrase from one of the Psalms? Then he showed his fleetness of foot in making a quick escape. 10 This is a very humanistic way of seeing this whole exchange. There is some profound theology here—and this theology is about deification: it addresses a real concern that you, my readers, may now be experiencing: Christ may have been God, but surely it is blasphemy for us the faithful to claim that we are “deified”—that is, made into “gods”? There is a link between Christ’s divinity and our deification which comes out in this passage. It is a teaching which must not evade our grasp as Jesus’ whole teaching escaped his opponents. The traditional Jewish reading of this Psalm is, as we have seen, that the “gods” are human beings in this passage; they are the “judges” or officers who were appointed to help Moses rule over Israel and to share his work. Jesus broadens the point with his interpretation that God “called them ‘gods’ to whom the word of God came.” Christ teaches that all those to whom God’s “Word” came were “gods,” because all who were called to Jesus as their Saviour; others did not but treated him courteously and fairly. “The Jews” means in John the religious authorities who particularly hated Jesus and resisted him very strongly. 10 The RSV translates “but he escaped from their hands,” and Fr. Raymond Brown has “he slipped out of their clutches” (John i–xii, 402), as if Jesus was a “slippery customer” or had the qualities of the Scarlet Pimpernel!

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participate in God’s work or proclaim his message during the Old Testament period were raised up to the level of the “celestials” or “gods” (John 10:35). This is a reference not only to the revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai but also to the Prophets—and, indeed, to every Jew who devoutly obeys the Law with his whole heart. The revelation makes holy those to whom it comes and deifies them. However, one may go further and say the person—that is, the divine Word of God—who came to the people of Israel before the Incarnation made those people “gods” to some extent. Jesus’ teaching, then, has three strands, which may be summarized as follows. Firstly, already in the Old Testament sharing God’s work meant sharing in his life and receiving grace to make one a “god,” or a heavenly being. By obeying the divine revelation of the Law, a human being develops his true nature, given to him at Creation, being made in the image and according to the likeness of God. Secondly, the context of the passage where Jesus teaches about our being “gods” is that of the Gospel of St. John, where Christ is the Incarnation of the ever-existing “Word” (logos). Consequently, in context, Christ, in referring to the “Word,” is alluding obliquely to himself and saying that he had himself come to the people of Israel once already in the Old Testament, before his Incarnation. The “Word” came to the people of Israel in this sense in the revelation on Mount Sinai to Moses and in all the revelations to the Prophets. Thirdly, and as a consequence of the second point above, Christ teaches that his coming as the Incarnate Word of God was the fulfillment of the Old Testament, 11 which was written as a result of the action of the “Word” of the Lord upon the Prophets. While the presence of the Word of God in the Old Testament is by way of prophecy and expressed in a dark or implicit way, the person the Prophets met in encountering the “Word of the Lord” was finally made known to all peoples in Christ.

THE HUMANITY OF GOD MAKES POSSIBLE THE DEIFICATION OF HUMANITY The Incarnation of the Word is the union of the divine nature and person of the Word of God with a human nature, so that Christ could rightly say “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). The purpose of the Incarnation is

The ideas of Old and New Covenants or Testaments as it applies to deification is explained in chapter 5. 11

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that all people might be united to God. In his final discourses to his disciples, Jesus made it clear that his union with God was also to be theirs: “No one comes to the Father but through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; from now on, you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:6–7)

To know Jesus Christ is to know God because “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:10). This knowledge makes us “gods” because it takes us up into the life of God; or, if you prefer it, because this knowledge brings the life of God down to us. In knowing Christ, we know God as people who have been transformed to a new level of existence which is different from before, since it is a glorifying knowledge of the glory of God and makes us into sons and daughters of God. I have now given some account of what the Orthodox Church means by “deification,” and it should be clear that it has nothing to do with the Egyptian Pharaoh or with the Greek pagan “apotheosis” by which remarkable human beings were made into gods by human beings and worshiped in a cult. Nor does the “deification” of which I am speaking have anything to do with the tragedy that befell “Adam and Eve” when they reached for the fruit by which the serpent promised that they “would be as gods knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). If there is a wrong kind of deification as a result of our perverse desire to be independent of God, there is also another right kind of deification which God, in his generosity, had always intended for human beings. Consequently, deification is a Christian and biblical idea, which the Greek Fathers used to describe the heights to which we are called by God’s grace. The purpose of this book is to show that the Orthodox teaching about deification is rooted in the Bible.

2 DEIFICATION: OVERVIEW OF THE EASTERN ORTHODOX TRADITION How is it Thou makst men Gods? How is it Thou makst dark light? How comes Man from out of Hell? How rendered deathless from death’s blight? 1 St. Symeon the New Theologian

A TOTAL THEOLOGY In the following account of deification in the Orthodox tradition, you will find that I have overlapped in my discussion into a number of very important areas of theology that are often separated into distinct topics in textbooks: topics such as Christology, or the theology of the person of Christ, who and what he was and is; the Trinity, how God is both one in nature or essence and yet three in persons; ecclesiology, or the theology of what the Church is; theological anthropology, or the theology about what human beings really are; liturgy; and the doctrine of the Communion of the Saints. Salvation is in Western Christian theology often treated as a separate topic, the “work of Christ” or “soteriology,” the theology about salvation. 2 The combination of such a number of important doctrines in one discussion can appear at first to be rather rambling, because it does not stick to one topic and discuss the various topics in order but moves rapidly between all the facets of theology to show how they interconnect in relation to our experience. There is a tendency in Western theology to divide theology up into topics in order to understand the parts of theology. This is systematic theology. However, the greatest summarizer of the Orthodox Symeon le Nouveau Theologian, Hymnes, SC no. 156, Hymns 6, stanza 2, ll, 5– 8, 204 [my translation]. 2 From the Greek soteria, salvation. 1

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Faith, St. John of Damascus, also divided his work systematically into topics. 3 There are in fact a number of excellent modern works of Orthodox theology that also take this topical approach. 4 By contrast, the earlier Fathers, for example St. Irenaeus (2nd century), 5 St. Athanasius (4th century), 6 or St. Gregory Nyssa (4th century), 7 incorporated into a history or narrative account their explanations of doctrine as the issues arose, in the less formal method of organization which I will adopt in this chapter. This method of theologizing is not irrational or incoherent; it is a theology which uses the Bible as the framework and may be described as “salvation history.” 8 What holds it together is the focus upon the personal experience of salvation and the relationship of this experience to the historical events that comprise God’s actions toward us. What a topical approach separates into distinct headings, a salvation history incorporates into one story, weaving together all the main teachings of Christianity and relating them all to our salvation. Since the center of gravity of this book is the Bible, it seemed to me appropriate to use this salvation-history approach by which the Fathers fitted their doctrine into the overall scheme of the Bible. This chapter, then, tells a story, the story of the human race from the point of view of salvation and grace, with a biblical framework. Its parameters are the Creation in the Book of Genesis at the beginning of human history and the Book of Revelation at the very end of human 3 In his main work, On the Orthodox Faith, NPNF, PNF (2), IX. The systematic nature of On the Orthodox Faith is more apparent than real and has much to do with the Damascene’s editors. This work rather belongs to the category of the “century” or collection of sayings or paragraphs. St. John is not systematic in the way that St. Thomas Aquinas is systematic. 4 Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. Justin Popovitch, The Philosophy of the Truth (in French translation). 5 In his Against the Heresies, NPNF, ANF, I and selections in ed. Grant. 6 In his two-volume work, Against the Pagans and On the Incarnation of the Word. There is no good current English translation of Athanasius’ volume I, Against the Pagans. Both texts may be found in English and in Greek in ed. Thomson, Athanasius Contra Gentes and De Incarntione. 7 In his Great Catechism, NPNF, PNF (2), V, and in his Life of Moses (CWS). 8 The expression “salvation history” was popular in Catholic theology of the 1950s—Heilsgeschichte. I have developed the expression, however, in my own way to describe the orderly linear narrative, inspired by the impact of the uncreated energies upon the grace-filled biblical writers, from creation to the End of the Age, which expresses God’s active quality in bringing grace to Man.

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history. I begin from one crucial fact which is associated in biblical theology with an event of some kind: the human sickness which causes us to need salvation is bound up in Orthodox thinking with Adam and the loss of Paradise. Consequently, salvation history is not history in the sense of that pursued by historians today, because salvation history begins and ends with mysterious events which are at the very stretch of human understanding, even if one may recognize, in the middle, the story of the human race which historians tell. 9 However, even with regard to the middle, salvation history differs from academic history. Historians historicize in a line moving always toward the future, the future of Man and the future of knowledge about Man. However, salvation history constantly refers either back or forward to a central point, the coming of Jesus Christ.

THE CHRISTIAN MEANING OF DEIFICATION: A SUMMARY Deification is the end of human life, in the sense that deification is the purpose of life and the end or conclusion to which our lives are intended by God to reach. This end is constantly present to someone for whom Christ is central for salvation. It is present as hope and that for which a Christian prepares for the whole of his or her life. It is also present, in Orthodox spirituality, to our experience now to some extent. Before I begin the history of our salvation according to Orthodox tradition, some revision by way of summary is necessary, in order that the end of human life may be clearly before our minds as the chapter proceeds. Deification is the Orthodox word for the transformation brought about by God in us—a transformation that takes us up to the level of a sharing in the very life of God. It was called “deification” in the period after the New Testament and is an interpretation of ideas in the New Testament itself. These ideas are ideas about our being sons of God by adoption, of our inheriting eternal life, of being “in Christ,” and of being united to the Father through the Son. Orthodoxy teaches that there is a real sense that we become “gods” in that we can become sons of God by grace sharing in the eternal sonship that Christ has by virtue of his divine nature. As synonyms of “deification,” Orthodox Fathers and spiritual writers often use simple words and phrases like “life,” “union with God,” and “grace.” The last word, “grace,” is especially important because it means a gift. If we are deified, it is through God’s free gift. We cannot reach God by our 9 The real problems in believing in the historicity of the Adam narratives in Genesis 1–3 will not be avoided but will be dealt with in the chapter on the Orthodox meaning of the Old Testament. See chapter 5, “Excursus”.

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own efforts. He comes to us. We know God truly because of God’s initiative in making himself known. God’s gift is to be seen firstly in the creation of the universe, which was brought out of absolutely nothing and is a sign of his goodness. Moreover, what God created he originally intended to make holy and to exalt it by contact with the eternal life and power of the divinity. God’s gift is also to be seen in the gift of knowledge of himself which he gave by revealing himself in his dealings with Man, so that in the Old Testament we have a reliable record of what God is like. At last God gave his very self to us, uniting himself to our human nature in the Incarnation. The Bible presents a picture of an increasing intensification of grace. In the Old Testament, God says he is a “jealous” God (Exod 20:5; Deut 4:24, 5:9, 6:15; Josh 24:19). However, he is not jealous in wanting to stop us from sharing in his life or because he has privileges, such as immortality, which he does not want to share with his inferiors. The revealed God’s jealousy is very different from that of the Greek gods and the gods of Mesopotamia. In both Greece and Mesopotamia, the gods are described as punishing humans who try to acquire divine qualities. The revealed God of the Bible is jealous as a lover is; he does not want to share us with “other gods,” that is, with the demonic, or even with any idea that we make into a “god,” by giving human ideas an ultimate value that excludes God from the picture. From an Orthodox point of view, the aspiration to “godhood” is not bad in itself, because there is a true sense in which God wants human beings to share in his life and to achieve immortality. However, there is also a kind of deification which is the lie of the demonic, which offers to human beings what appears to be divine status, as the serpent did to Eve. This false deification has a superficial attractiveness in being permissive with regard to our passions and in offering some apparent benefits, but such deification is really a form of death; it is servitude to the demonic and to our passions. The lie mimics the truth and in this mimicry is to be found the key to its seductive power. Significantly, the early Church Fathers were opposed to pagan cults and to the apotheosis of the emperor, to the point of facing death by their refusal to worship these false gods, but at the same time they taught that there was a true deification, which comes from God’s grace. Deification is a possibility for us brought about by the arrival of the Kingdom of God. It is a time of feasting and celebration every time someone becomes converted to Christianity, because that person has entered this beautiful Kingdom, where we share the life of God, even here on earth.

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DEIFICATION AS HEALING However, the convert is at first someone recovering from an illness. A sick person cannot enjoy a party! The first stage of deification, then, is that of healing. Orthodoxy teaches that human beings, whom God had originally created for a happy life in fellowship with him, have without exception fallen into a sickness. The illness is the result of a tragic mistake or lapse. It is a spiritual illness, a tendency to turn away from the source of all good, light, and beauty—that is, God—toward a selfish attitude where material things are seen as the only good, and where our ability to relate to our fellow human beings has been so damaged as to make us envious and cruel. Orthodoxy sees actual sins as arising from the damaged and diseased state in which human beings mysteriously find themselves. St. Paul found himself, as an unwelcome fact of his existence, to be in a state which he called being “under slavery to sin”: I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but do the very thing that I hate. (Rom 7:15)

One does not necessarily have to accept the story of the loss of Paradise by Adam and Eve to share this view. The urgent need to overcome or escape slavery to perversity and uncontrollable passions is the starting point of many philosophies and religions. “Sin” is the Christian word for falling short of what is possible for us in our relationship to God and our fellow human beings. 10 Man disobeyed God, tried to do things in what appeared to be “his own way,” although his delusion was prompted by evil forces, by the envy of the Devil. Man lost Paradise, a blessed state which could have developed to even better things. One great thing to come would have been the population of the world with human beings in a blessed and undamaged state, ready to develop toward ever fuller communion with God, without pain or death in their lives and where relationships would have been free from anguish and conflict. In his wounded state, however, Man found his way to Paradise barred by the Cherubim and by fire (Gen 3:24). The human race still multiplied, as God had willed, but there was pain and sorrow associated with childbirth and the equal relationship between man and woman became one of subordination of female to male (Gen 3:16–20). All human beings, then, inherited a condition by which they had a tendency to 10 Greek hamartia, translated as “sin” in the New Testament, means “to miss a target, to fall short of a goal.” Thus St. Paul explains the term when he uses it: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23).

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sin as a result of the damage done to human nature by the original disastrous mistake of Adam and Eve. The evidence for the diagnosis that Man has fallen into a state of spiritual sickness is all around us: human history defeats the idea that we are developing by our independent reason toward better and better things, as may be seen in the chronic persistence of war, genocide, torture, and greed. Man chose the wrong kind of deification through the deceit of the Devil, represented by the serpent, who promised that Adam and Eve would “be as gods knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). The wrong kind of deification was that Man went his own way, independently of God. This is the attitude that some modern philosophers express when they say that “God is dead”—that is, that God is an idea that we no longer need, because we can choose how to live by our own understanding. Such philosophers argue that the idea of God restricts human beings from achieving their full potential by restricting their choices as a result of superstitious fear. The “knowledge” promised by the serpent was “of good and evil” (Gen 3:5)— that is, knowledge mixed up with evil. 11 It was not a pure knowledge but the kind of combination of good and bad that results when people make their own experiments and reject God’s help. There is the right kind of deification, which is, above all else, relationship to God. This deification brings the healing that enables Man to return to Paradise. Deification is the restoration of Man, holistically, in body and soul. It overcomes spiritual evil—that is, sin—and physical evil—that is, death. The restoration from a state of “corruption” 12 to “incorruption” 13 is a change from both spiritual corruption and physical corruption. Aging, illness, and death are the signs of the corruption of sin just as much as immorality. Sin has had physical consequences for ill. Deification also has physical consequences for good. It is the victory over death. The incorrupt bodies of the Saints are a sign of their deification and prophetically point to the restoration of the body at the Final Resurrection, when the souls of the blessed will be reunited with their bodies. Deification also produces moral regeneration. One cannot be deified and at the same time lack in love toward both brethren and enemies or be an adulterer or merciless or unjust. In fact, the moral regeneration enabled by deification is that of a high This is the interpretation of St. Gregory Nyssa in On the Making of Man, NPNF, PNF (2), V, 409–10. 12 Greek phtharsia. 13 Greek aphtharsia. 11

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degree of perfection, in which love even of enemies and nonresistance to evil are practical possibilities. The good tree brings forth good fruit (Matt 7:17–19). The bad tree, which has a sickness at its root, can be restored both to life and to fertility, so that it grows again, and its abundant fruit is good for others and feeds them. The contemporary Orthodox theologian Jean-Claude Larchet sees the imagery of sickness and healing as central to Eastern Orthodox teaching and the key to the teaching of the Fathers: Seeing in the original state of Adam the healthy state of humanity, the Fathers and the whole tradition saw the sinful state characterizing fallen humanity as a result of original sin, a state of illness with many symptoms affecting Man in every aspect of his existence. 14

The state of mind brought about by illness results in many errors. If one is in a constant state of pain and if one’s life has been, over a long period, restricted by a chronic illness, one can get used to it, and the mentality that one has acquired during the illness comes to seem normal to the sick person. However, if a person is restored to health, the first thing that they see is how narrow their perspective has become and how the illness has weighed them down and lowered their expectations. The sickness which all human beings suffer as a result of being strangers to God has altered our perspective and, without healing grace, we are accustomed to seeing things in a distorted way. The joy of receiving God’s healing grace is when our perception and strength are restored, so that our whole attitude is changed. This is the beginning of our restoration from the morbid condition in which we had been living. It is the Good News that Christ brings. What about “justification,” one may ask? Does not the New Testament also use pictures about our salvation drawn from the law courts? St. Paul, for example, speaks in terms of the reestablishment of justice. In the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul says that we can move from a state of being wrong before God to a state of justice or “righteousness.” This “justification” or “putting right” takes place though trust in God, or “faith” (Rom 3:21–5:2). These are metaphors or figures of speech and, in dealing with any comparison or metaphor, one has to be careful in explaining a metaphor in terms of logical argument. One should look at all sides of the comparison and try to clarify the writer’s main emphasis. The idea of being 14

J.-C. Larchet, Thérapeutique, 10.

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pronounced not guilty by a judge in a law court 15 conveys an idea of enormous relief. It is also a change of status, from that of prisoner or defendant to a free person. St. Paul uses the language of law in a powerfully unexpected way; one expects judges to condemn and give a sentence to those who deserve it. But God is the merciful judge: he abolishes the sentence altogether even though we deserve punishment by the standards of justice. The language of law is used to convey a “realm change” 16 and is consistent with Orthodox teaching that we have actually changed by virtue of conversion to Christianity through the power of grace. We change into people capable of sharing the life of God. The Eastern Fathers take a softer view than the need to punish Man for his tendency to sin. To give an illustration, if a person behaved in a strange, rude, or even violent way, it would be wrong to blame that person if one discovered that he was suffering from an illness of the brain or a psychiatric illness, such as a personality disorder. A kind, good, and reasonable person, seeing him and knowing the facts, would not want him to be punished but to be cured. That is how the Eastern Fathers explain sin. Sin is a personality disorder. It is, however, a personality disorder that affects our physical well-being. 17 The medieval West, on the other hand, gave a different account of sin and salvation. In the eleventh century, the Latin theologian St. Anselm wrote a book called Why Did God Become Man? 18 Anselm explained Christ’s suffering as paying a debt of justice, required by sin. Christ paid our fine, There was no trial by jury in the time of St. Paul: the magistrate, provincial governor, or, in the case of a Roman citizen who appealed, the Emperor, heard the case, weighed the evidence and decided the verdict, as for example Pontius Pilate was expected to do in Jesus Christ’s case. 16 Douglas Moo, a distinguished scholar declaredly in the conservative Evangelical tradition, comments on Rom 5:1–2, “Jesus Christ through whom we also have access into this grace in which we stand,” that St. Paul balances the language about God’s action with its effect: “It is the realm in which grace reigns, a realm that is set in contrast to the realm or domain of the law.” Moo concludes that “while this state of grace includes our justification as a key element, the notion goes beyond justification to all that is conveyed to us by God in Christ” (Romans, 296– 301; quotations from p. 301). 17 It is debatable how much all “mental illness” is purely mental, rather than a chemical imbalance in the brain. Moreover, extreme emotions, such as grief, can adversely affect the body. 18 Cur Deus Homo. English translation in ed. Davies & Evans, Anselm, Major Works. 15

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since we could not bear the severity of what was due. Christ’s work satisfied love and justice at the same time. The idea is that justice must be satisfied for God to remain just. But Man’s sin was an offense against an infinite person, God, and so required an infinite punishment. Finite human beings could never put right this injustice against God’s nature. Therefore a person with an infinite divine nature—that is, the Son of God—suffered for our sakes. The result was not only that justice was done but also that love was able to find expression in God’s forgiveness of us. This view has dominated both the Catholic and the Protestant understanding of salvation. There is nothing quite like this in Eastern Orthodox thinking, which sees Christ primarily as a healer. Some Eastern Fathers, such as St. Isaac the Syrian (7th century), say frankly that God’s restoration of Man has nothing to do with justice but everything to do with mercy: We cannot possibly say that God acts out of retribution, even though the Scriptures may on the outer surface propose this. Even to think this of God and to suppose that retribution for evil acts is to be found in Him is abominable. 19

This idea is not just a marginal one in Orthodoxy. The popular and muchvenerated nineteenth-century Russian Saint, St. Seraphim of Sarov, said the same thing, citing a homily of St. Isaac: Do not call God just, says St. Isaac; for His justice is not evident in your deeds. If David called Him just and righteous, His Son, on the other hand, showed us He is rather good and merciful. Where is His justice? We were sinners, and Christ died for us. 20

The Orthodox Church sees mercy as a greater quality than justice. The parables about the “injustice” of the father of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32) and about the owner of the vineyard who pays all the workers the same amount irrespective of how long they have worked (Matt 20:1–16) convey both God’s mercy transcending justice but also our inability to receive this idea; we find a merciful God hard to grasp: the complaints of the eldest son in the parable of the Prodigal Son and of the workers in the parable about the vineyard where those hired late in the day are paid the same as those who toiled all day, are warnings to us. Let us not murmur (Matt 20:11) against God’s mercy and prefer his justice!

Isaac the Syrian (Isaac of Nineveh), The Second Part, Chapters IV–XLI, 63. Little Russian Philokalia, I, St. Seraphim of Sarov, (New Varlaam Monastery, 1991), “The Spiritual Instruction for Laymen and Monks,” 25. 19 20

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The Eastern tradition calls attention to Jesus’ statement about his mission to the world: Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what it means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” For I came not to call the righteous but sinners. (Matt 9:12–13, Hos 6:6)

It is clear from this that the disease is sin and Jesus’ call is a call to repentance and salvation seen as healing. 21 Throughout the Gospels, the healing of physical illnesses is accompanied by statements about forgiveness of sins (Matt 9:2–6; Mark 2:5–9; Luke 5:20–24, 7:48). The Orthodox Church takes this quite literally. Repentance is customarily described as a medicine, and the sacraments are for healing of soul and body. This is not to deny that the fruits of this sickness are wickedness and all kinds of cruelty and destructiveness. Sin is a morally degrading and debasing illness. 22 However, Orthodoxy sees sin as a kind of madness rather than something that can be put right by punishment. Man must somehow be called back to his true nature. Man must “come to himself” (Luke 15:17) and realize that he is being deformed by passion and ruled over by the demonic. This realization is the first step toward repentance, a renewal of the mind by which one starts to see things as they really are. The first step toward healing is for someone to realize that they are ill and go to the doctor. Christ is that Good Physician. God matches repentance with the gift of the power to overcome the spiritual and moral death which is in us. But more—God puts us in close contact with himself, so that we can be transformed by the bright rays of his goodness. In Christ, God got as close as possible to fallen Man, by taking up a human nature. The healing power of the divinity could flow through Christ’s humanity to us.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF OUR NATURE Deification has three related senses. So far, I have explained the first stage: it is salvation or redemption by which the sin or alienation from God and the fruits of sin—disease and death—are overcome in each one of us. This is the healing which is the proper meaning of the word “salvation,” because at its root the word means to be made whole or healthy. Luke 5:31 has ugiaiontes, the healthy, bringing out the point even more clearly than Matt 9:12 and Mark 2:17, which have “the strong.” 22 Thus St. Paul describes the shameful and debasing effects of sin Rom 1:18– 32, where sin is a force ruling over people. 21

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Secondly, there is the more proper sense of the word, which has to do with our development into beings like God: in our relation to God we can overcome the finite limitation of created human beings, since by grace we share personally in the divine life of the Trinity. The grace of God is an uncreated active power or energy. This energy is “attached to its source,” 23 that is, to the divine nature. Consequently, in receiving life from Jesus, who is both God and Man, our natures are transformed: Those who share in the energies and act in conformity with them are by God made gods without beginning or end through grace. 24

This last idea, which was a great part of the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas (14th century), will be unfamiliar to Christians in the Western traditions. It may strike some as a scandalous idea, because it seems to be saying that the statement “I am God” is possible for a Christian. St. Gregory Palamas, and with him the Orthodox Church, 25 does make bold claims about what is possible for human beings under the influence of grace. This is the first important point—grace. The sharing in the divine Trinitarian life which brings about deification is not the result of our own efforts. Moreover, grace takes us beyond what we are capable of by our nature. We do not become God by our very nature. Only the persons of the Trinity are God by their original nature. The form that the Fathers use is that we become “gods” (theoi/theous), not “God” (ho theos/ton theon). We become “gods” in the sense of the poem at the beginning of the chapter by St. Symeon the New Theologian. Even so, the Orthodox theology of grace is about a transformation of our human natures. Grace, so to speak, expands the capacities of our finite natures to be able to receive the divine life. St. Gregory Palamas was in fact attacked by Catholics until very recently for this alleged heresy, and the audacity of his language no doubt had a great deal to do with this. Catholicism is much more modest in its view of the effects of grace upon us in this mortal life. Orthodoxy, then, claims that more experience of God is possible in this life than is usual in the Western Christian traditions. The Orthodox use of the word “Paradise” is an example of this. While its Western use is reserved to describe the state of the blessed in Heaven after death, the Eastern tradition teaches that the return to Paradise can begin on St. Gregory Palamas, cited by John Meyendorff, Study of Gregory Palamas, 176, in a section entitled “Uncreated by grace” (176–77). 24 St. Gregory Palamas, Against Akindynos 5.24, cited in Meyendorff, Study, 177. 25 St. Gregory Palamas is very much a Father of Orthodoxy and by no means an eccentric or marginal figure in the Orthodox tradition. 23

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earth. Moreover, we can go even beyond the blessed state that Adam had with God. Adam lost Paradise before he could fully develop the potential that God had given him and experience the fullness of God’s deification. We can develop into the fullness of the stature of Christ (Eph 4:13, see also Luke 2:52). In a spiritual maturity achieved by a mixture of hard work 26 or ascetic struggle and God’s grace, 27 we can know God as his friends or as his sons; we can become children who have God as our inheritance. This is the pledge or anticipation of Paradise in this life. We can start now to live eternal life. If the Devil through jealousy tries to seduce us, we can beat him. The Saints were always on their guard against the tricks of the Devil and his use of our passions. They were forewarned by the seduction of Adam. The beauty of their experience of God made them very determined not to lose grace as Adam did.

PARADISE AFTER DEATH Thirdly, there is the blessed life of the souls in Paradise after death, with Christ, the Mother of God, the Saints, and the angels. Paradise is the victory over death which gives us hope and optimism even in a darkened world and is the word Christ used to promise the good thief that he would be “in Paradise today with me” (Luke 23:43). God in his mercy and love gives this new life in Paradise even to people who have not lived on this earth dedicated lives of prayer but who have at least humbly followed the Church’s teachings and benefited from the effect of the sacraments. Like the humble publican, one can say “God be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). In Paradise after death, there is no longer any possibility of falling. This does not mean that Heaven is a static condition, nor even that the degree of knowledge of God is the same for all. Because God is infinitely beautiful and good, there can never be an end of our enjoyment of him through satiety. All the Saints in Heaven continue to progress “from glory unto glory”—an expression of St. Paul (2 Cor 3:18) which St. Gregory Nyssa developed to explain how beatitude is an endlessly developing vista of the knowledge of the divine Trinity. 28

The Orthodox word for this is “asceticism,” which means “training.” This blend, in which God is the chief partner, is called “synergy” in Orthodox theology—that is, a combination of energies. 28 See the texts in From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa’s Mystical Writings. 26 27

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The infinity of God’s goodness is one reason for the Orthodox teaching that God’s nature or essence is incomprehensible: God is unknowable by virtue of the inexhaustibility of his riches—knowledge of him can never be complete. The second reason for why God is incomprehensible in essence is that he can never be contained by our finite minds. Yet God wants to be known. We will know him in Heaven by the eternal shining upon us of his glory. Even concerning Paradise after death, however, there is nothing corresponding to the Catholic teaching of the “Beatific Vision,” to which Thomas Aquinas gave so much thought in the thirteenth century. According to Catholic doctrine, the Beatific Vision is an intuitive knowledge by the blessed of God’s very essence. By contrast, blessedness in Paradise is, according to the Orthodox picture, a development of what we have begun to experience even here below and which does not differ in kind from it. It is both stable and fuller knowledge of the uncreated energy or divine light. In other words, it is knowledge from which we cannot fall away: loss of grace is no longer possible in Paradise; we can only increase in our knowledge of God. However, even in Paradise, the blessed do not know the essence of God: only the persons of the Trinity know their divine essence or nature.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE GLORIFIED BODY AT THE END OF THE AGE Deification on earth is a holistic deification, of soul and body. Whether married people or monks or laypersons, if we struggle with the body, it is to subdue it to the spirit and not to destroy it. Part of the ascetic struggle is the sanctification of the body. Although when we die, we leave our earthly bodies, our final perfection is to be in the body. The souls of the departed wait in either happiness or torment for the Final Judgment and complete restoration of all things, or endure an intermediate and uncertain state, assisted by the prayers of the faithful. St. Paul teaches that then “with the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor 15:42), we will not be disembodied spirits but will have a body. This new body is a glorified body, like the glorified and risen body of Christ, which is in Heaven. St. Paul calls this body a “spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:44). 29 The “resurrection of the dead” will take place at the end of history together with the restoration of all matter. According to St. Paul, the relationship of our earthly bodies to our spiritual bodies is as seed to fully-grown plant. 29

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DEIFICATION IN THE EASTERN ORTHODOX TRADITION We know that the whole creation has been groaning in sorrow together until now; and not only creation but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Rom 8:22–23)

DEIFICATION AND THE COMMUNION OF THE SAINTS We are not deified alone but together with our brethren in the Church. If someone claims to be deified in a way that sets them apart from their brethren, it is a bad sign. We can only be deified in the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ, risen and glorious, is in Heaven with the Saints. The Body of Christ also exists now on earth, being the gathering into Christ as its head of all those who have faith in him. This gathering is not much use if it does not put love first. Love brings people together. Even hermits, whose vocation is to live in isolation, live their lives in the Body of Christ. They pray for the world more intensely than those who have to make their living in the world. But we should all pray for one another. It is part of our being together in the Body of Christ and mutually supporting one another. The Saints in Heaven are also active in this way. They pray for the world and can help us if we ask them. It is the same principle as if we ask someone on earth to pray for us; but the prayers of the Saints are more powerful because they are closer to God. The heavenly realm and the Church on earth are thus bound together in a relationship of love, the “communion of the Saints.” This communion is held together by Christ in a very physical way, because Christ’s body is not restricted to place or time. Christ’s body is in Heaven but it is also in the Eucharist, where the faithful receive the body and blood of Christ to deify their bodies and souls. Christ will continue to be incarnate having a glorified body, for ever, even after the Final Judgment and restoration of all things.

IN THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF GOD The Eastern Church’s idea of deification lost “in Adam” and regained in Christ has resulted in much reflection and teaching on the Genesis text which first describes the making of Man: Then God said, “Let us make Man in our image, after our likeness. …” So God created Man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen 1:26–27) 30

30

Quoting KJB.

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The human being was created in the image (eikon) and likeness (homoiosis). The Eastern Fathers have woven around the words “Man in the image and likeness of God” its whole theology of the human person. The image (eikon) of God is indestructible. It is what makes a human being to be truly human and a real person because it directs us toward a relationship with God. It is like a mirror in which we can see reflected what we really are and in which we can see a reflection of God. This mirror can never be shattered, but it can be darkened, as a mirror can be with dirt and soot with the result that it reflects back nothing. The darkening of the mirror’s surface is caused by sin: not only the sins that we commit through selfish passions, but also the condition of the spiritual sickness which we share with every member of the human race. The Church teaches that this mirror exists and exhorts us to clean and polish the mirror until it shines brightly and reflects back to us what we were created by God to be like. In fact, the image of God within us is an image of the perfect image of God, Jesus Christ. What polishes the mirror is repentance: in Greek in the Gospels the word for repentance is metanoia, meaning a change of our attitude to life as a whole, accompanied by steady and determined action. Both St. John the Baptist (Mark 1:2–4) and Jesus (Mark 1:15) preached this metanoia and gave specific ideas about how to begin to live it out. In response to the teaching, we have to take the first steps and do something by our own wills, all the time referring back to the beautiful picture or image of what we should be, which is now shining more and more clearly. Orthodox theology distinguishes between image and “likeness” (homoiosis). The latter, “likeness,” is the realization of the potential that we have by virtue of our creation actually to be as God is, really to be sharers in the intimate life of God and to manifest this by God’s leading characteristic: love, even of “enemies.” Orthodox theologians describe the “likeness” in a variety of ways; what they have in common is life at a completely new level, the uncreated divine level.

DEIFICATION AND THE WORK OF SALVATION “Christology” means the teaching about the nature and person of Jesus Christ. Orthodox Christology still holds in a living way to the expressions that were decided by the Ecumenical Councils 31 of the early Church in the

“Ecumenical” means councils that were universally accepted, as distinguished from either orthodox councils of a lesser authority or from heretical councils. 31

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period 325–787. 32 Christ was and is still and will be always the person of the eternal preexistent Son of God or Word or Logos of God, whose nature is equal to that of God and who took upon himself a full and perfect human nature, that is, a human body, a human psychology and a human intellect. This union took place in history by God’s action, being accomplished by the Son with the active cooperation of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. This action brought about our salvation, human nature being healed by the union of God and Man. Christ’s life on earth was, moreover, a progressive sanctification of all that had become unholy and had as its climax the conquest of death, which Christ truly suffered but which was not able to hold him because of his immortal divine nature. The risen Christ who appeared historically in his glorified body to his disciples and to many witnesses (Luke 24:48; Acts 2:32) shows what our destiny is to be in Christ: we can overcome death and rise again with glorified bodies. The standard Orthodox account of why the Incarnation was necessary for human salvation is by St. Athanasius of Alexandria (4th century) in his On the Incarnation of the Word. St. Athanasius defends the divinity of Christ with reasons that are characteristic of the Eastern Christian tradition: Christ had to be divine in order that our nature might be healed. St. Athanasius taught very exactly that the Son and Word or Logos of God existed before all creation and was of equal divinity with God, of the same essence as the Father (homoousios to patri ). 33 The person of Christ had to be a divine person so that the Incarnation might be the means of healing human nature by mingling it with the divine nature, through the union of human and divine natures in Christ. The key idea for human history here is that a person equal to God could become united to humanity. At a particular time and place, the second person of the divine Trinity, the Eternal Son, became incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, by the operation of the Holy Spirit and the will of God the Father: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:14) The Arians, against whom St. Athanasius was arguing, thought that the Word or Logos was a being inferior to God, so that an angelic created 32 The Seven Ecumenical Councils are: Nicea I (325), Constantinople I (381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), Constantinople II (553), Constantinople II (681), Nicea II (787). See NPNF, PNF (2), XIV. 33 This expression, variously translated, is still in the Nicene Creed, which is part of the Eucharistic liturgy of the Western and Eastern Churches.

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being became Man in Christ. St. Athanasius asserts that the Word existed with God from all eternity, before there was time. It was this Word that became flesh in Christ, so that what is intrinsically timeless is manifested in time for us, through God’s initiative, in order that in time we may experience the timeless and uncreated realities which deify us. The experience of God is inseparable from the historical way in which grace was offered to Man in the person of Jesus Christ. The Eastern Fathers express salvation-as-deification in a salvation-history narrative. Salvation history is the history that the Bible narrates. It begins with Creation, in which everything was created “good” and Man “very good.” It tells us, admittedly in a difficult and poetic manner, something about how the first created human beings damaged their goodness through bad choices. It tells us how God worked through history, over thousands of years, to put things right. It points toward the end of Man, not in death, but in a new form of timeless life in Heaven with God. The central point of this history and the climax of history is the coming of Christ, when the person of the Son of God, one in essence with God the Father, became Man. The divinity of Christ is agreed by all traditionalist Christians. However, St. Athanasius argues that something follows from this, namely, the deification of Man. There is a sense in which Man can be made into a god, in that he can gain, through grace, immortality and a share in the life of the Trinity. The consequence of the humanization of God, then, is the deification of Man. At the end of his treatise On the Incarnation of the Word, St. Athanasius declared: He became incarnate in order that we might be divinized. 34

This deification is our salvation taken further than the reversal of the effects of sin by the generosity of God, so that we are restored to the potential for deification that Man had in Paradise before the fall. Our salvation is, as it were, the first stage in a process that we can begin even here on earth. The connection between Christology, deification, and salvation is typical of the theology of the Orthodox East. Salvation does not stop at the remission of sins but includes the complete restoration of the human being

St. Athanasius, De Incarnatione, SC no. 199, 458, “enanthropêsen, hina emeis theopoiesen.” The translation in the SVS series is perhaps a little too bold, “He assumed humanity that we might become God” (St. Athanasius on the Incarnation of the Word, SVSP, 93). The capital G here does not mean that the human being can be God by nature, but rather that he can become a sharer in the life of God by adoption or grace. 34

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to the purpose for which humanity was originally created: fellowship with God.

DEIFICATION IS THE GRACIOUS WORK OF THE WHOLE TRINITY God is a unity of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The operation of the Son cannot be separated from the will of God the Father and of the Holy Spirit. Deification is the gracious work of the whole Trinity. God has revealed himself truly as a unity of three persons by means of his actions, operations, or initiatives in human history. Though grace, that is a free gift, the persons of the Trinity call upon human beings to know the Trinity: first through Jesus Christ, and then through the Holy Spirit eternally proceeding from the Father, whom Christ prayed to be sent to us (John 15:26; 16:7, 13). Knowledge of these persons, a living encounter with them, brings us to God the Father. Our relation to God in deification is to a community of persons: one cannot know one person without also meeting the other two. The Orthodox Church uses St. Paul’s words at the end of his Second Epistle to the Corinthians (13:14), adding “The Father” to make clear that it is a Trinitarian blessing: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God The Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. (2 Cor 13:14)

This blessing contains a wealth of teaching about deification and the actions of God toward us. In St. Paul’s blessing we find a characteristic action associated with a particular person. Jesus Christ sends us “grace” (charis), a gift which is a transforming reality. St. Paul, especially, used it to describe how our relationship to God is changed. The Father’s love (agape) is not a general, remote benevolence but the dynamic love which made him send his Son. In this St. Paul unites in his teaching with St. John: For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16) 35

The Holy Spirit gives koinonia, a Greek word that can be translated as “fellowship,” “sharing,” “partnership,” or “participation,” and which here refers to the fellowship among believers produced by the activity of the Holy Spirit. But it is first a fellowship with the divine life which produces a bond of love between believers (1 John 1:3). However, the divine persons do not act separately, being always united in will. Moreover, “grace,” 35

My literal translation; RSV omits “only begotten,” Greek monogene.

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“love,” and “communion” are not different things in themselves but different aspects of God’s deifying action toward us as they strike us in our experience of them.

THE “UNCREATED ENERGIES” OF GOD From divine revelation, we know the persons and the operations of God. However, Orthodox theology distinguishes this revealed knowledge from the essence or nature of God as God is in himself. We know that the persons of the Trinity are really in God and that there is a true sense in which the Father originates or begets eternally the Son (John 3:16) and that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father (John 15:26). However, we have no experience of the essence or nature of God. Orthodox theology understands by the divine “essence” or “nature” that concerning God which we cannot know, because of the superabundance of God’s being. God’s essence cannot be encompassed by our minds or our experience. Nevertheless, Orthodoxy clearly does teach that we can really know God and that those things which we know of God are divine things or uncreated realities, which make God present to us by his actions. In being touched by them, we are brought into the presence of the divine Trinity and can have fellowship with the persons of the Trinity. This knowledge is described in a variety of ways in the Bible, reflecting the manifold and abundant quality of God’s grace, which is sometimes experienced as “grace,” at another time as “love,” and at another time as “communion.” However, we may add many other words which also convey these graces toward us, as the Bible does. There is, however, a specific expression, for which there is no exact equivalent outside Orthodox theology, for these uncreated divine things: they are called the “energies” of God. The Orthodox theological expression “energies” with regard to God is usually left virtually untranslated. In English the word “energy” renders the Greek word energeia. This is no doubt because of the many-sided nature of the idea that the word expresses. As we shall see, the expression “divine energy” has various senses: it can mean the power that is in a mysterious way essential or built in to the Godhead; then it can mean the continual outpouring of God’s goodness which was being emitted even before the creation of the universe; most frequently, however, it is used to refer to God’s action in space and time by which he makes himself present to humankind. However, thinking in English about the word “energy” can be misleading. For example, one of the commonest uses of the word “energy” in English is to refer to power in reserve, something that one uses up in

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activity. It is less usual to think of the word as meaning activity. Thus, when an athlete shows great “energy,” we think of him as showing this through his actions: we would not normally refer to the “energies” of the athlete in describing his activities but use other words such as “efforts,” “strength,” “speed,” “agility” and so on, all of which derive partly from “energy” and partly from skill. In Greek, by contrast, the word “energy” can have the sense of power in reserve but also has a strong sense of activity. For this reason, the divine “energy” has in Greek Orthodox theology a marked sense of the active character of God and may be translated “operations.” But the real problem is that there is no equivalent concept in Western theology. Perhaps the nearest is the biblical idea of the “glory” of God which he makes known to us and by which he glorifies us. If the theology of the divine energies is explained as a theology of God’s sharing of his glory, then the beginnings of understanding begin to be kindled, especially amongst Evangelical or Bible-Christians. Orthodox theology makes a clear distinction between the essence of God and his energies. This distinction became very important in the teaching of the three Cappadocian Fathers, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory Theologian (Nazianzen), and St. Gregory Nyssa, who taught in the fourth century against the Arian heretic Eunomius. The Cappadocians Fathers taught that, while God’s essence (ousia) was incomprehensible, his energies were knowable. St. Cyril of Alexandria, a Father who taught in the fifth century, after a lifetime of study of the Bible, teaches as follows, continuing the Cappadocian teaching and using “essence” (ousia) and “nature” (physis) as synonyms: The nature and Godhead are one and simple but we say that it is life and power and wisdom and glory. And by life He quickens the one who is made alive, by power He empowers the one who is empowered, and by wisdom He makes wise the one rendered wise, by glory He glorifies the one who needs glory, or what is glorified. 36

This is a classic expression of the distinction in terms of knowledge of God between his essence and his energies. The energies of God are actions or operations which have the power to produce in created beings an effect that takes them beyond the limits of createdness into the very life of God. St. Cyril refines the teaching about the energies of God with great precision:

Dialogue on the Trinity (in French and Greek), SC no. 231, 298–299, Dialogue II (section 442d). 36

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The essence being simple, whatever be the manifold fruit according to energy, God operates in manifold ways but even so God remains simple with regard to his nature. 37

This concise expression does full justice to our experience of grace and our reading of the Bible as a record of that experience. Grace is experienced by us as multiple—we have many ideas of it. This diversity reflects the historical conditions of space and time in which grace is experienced by us and our various needs and callings. However, St. Cyril is clear that God does not become multiple or variable because of our manifold experience. St. Cyril adds that how God is in himself simple but manifold in his energies is not known to us because God and those things which concern him in himself are beyond both intellect and reasoning. 38

Indeed, even the energy of God is single: as St. Cyril says, God gives manifold fruit “according to energy”—that is, according to the single energy which the divine persons put forth from the nature. In that the energies belong to the nature and are attached to the nature as their source, there is really one divine energy. In the Orthodox tradition, that energy is light, not created light but Uncreated Light, which is healing, purifying, enlightening, inspiring, deifying, uplifting, and even, to those who are opposed to this light, burning. Our experience of the Uncreated Light as grace in a manifold way is that light refracted through the prism of a variety of human experiences. The light may take on a color according to our experiences without, however, being reduced to a finite energy because it dwells in us; whether one say that it dwells in us, or whether we say that we see it with the eyes of the body or the eyes of the mind, the Uncreated Light remains uncreated. Moreover, the Uncreated Light has been and can be experienced also specifically as light, and it is correct to say that the uncreated energy of God is a light. The experience of light characterizes Orthodox theology, which describes the experience of the deifying energies as light. Its greatest theologians and the three theologians whom the Orthodox Church gives the title of “Theologian,” St. John the Evangelist, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and St. Symeon the New Theologian, were all theologians of light and describe grace as light. It is a light that is greater than created light and

37 38

Ibid., section 442e. Ibid., section 442e.

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outshines even the light of the sun. It is the light in which we shall dwell in the Kingdom of Heaven. Christians of a wide variety of traditions accept that God has made himself known and that this is the way in which in practice we come to know him, through divine revelation. The expression “energy” expresses the idea that our knowledge of God is based upon the experience of his actions in our history, as God breaks through into time and space. God has proved his mercy by so many acts that we give to God this “attribute” or quality of an “energy,” on the basis of repeated and consistent experience. God’s actions make him present in a way that means he can become known to us as a person. From the experience of this grace as energy the Bible was written. The energies of God are called uncreated firstly because of the nature of the person who makes them known to us. Every nature has energies by which its nature is known to the extent that it can be known. Natural objects and creatures have natural energies. Persons differ from natural inanimate objects, and probably to a great extent from animals, in deciding their actions and so have some control over the energies that they show. The impact of a human being upon another human being may be partly inadvertent but also partly deliberate. The sun, on the other hand, cannot help shining and we know it by its brightness and warmth—by its energies. However, a person may or may not, according to choice, put forth his or her energies. One can choose. God is an uncreated community of persons perfectly united in will. When one of the divine persons chooses to put forth his energy into space and time, the three persons of the Trinity are united in will. The divine energies are uncreated because they are, unlike human energies, put forth from an uncreated nature. Secondly, the energies of God are called uncreated because when we experience an uncreated energy we meet the divinity. In other words, the effects of God’s actions upon human beings are of a different quality than the effects upon us of human beings in their natural state. Human love, for example, can have transforming effects. How much more the love of God, which is an uncreated energy! Moreover, we can also pour forth this uncreated energy of divine love, by sharing in God’s life through deification. Thirdly, the word “uncreated” is used about the divine energy, because it is not created or time-bound as a result of its manifestation in time and space. What is manifested through God’s grace to us is the energy which was, in some sense, from all eternity associated with God’s nature and is

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eternal, not coming into existence for us, so that it is “eternally existent proceeding from the eternally existing God.” 39 Thus the energies of God are uncreated because they exist eternally in God, being put forth by the persons for our benefit in the fullness of time. Who would deny that “God is love,” that is, that love is an eternal quality of God ever with him? The same is true of all the other positive attributes which we accord to God, for example, his wisdom, his goodness, his power, his perfect knowledge and his mercy. These energies belong to his nature in a manner unknown to us and are in one sense ever shining forth through God’s good will; in another sense, they need to be revealed by God to us in our bodily existence, through the senses or in our intellectual dimension, through the mind, or better still in our hearts, that is, to the whole of us, as we move toward God in love. In this latter sense, by which the energies are revealed to us for our salvation, they are an event in time, which make present what is eternal and which draw us into the eternal life of God. The fact that the energies are both made known in time but also uncreated and so timeless creates some intellectual problems. In Orthodoxy, ultimately, the interest is in the experience itself, rather than the intellectual solution of a problem: Orthodoxy is practical rather than speculative. Therefore, to someone who doubts whether such things are possible on the grounds of a particular philosophy, Orthodoxy relies upon the confidence that such experiences are possible. It provides a description of the kind of experience which can be attained and invites the skeptic to follow the guidelines and give it a try. However, there are some explanations to what appears to be the paradox of the infinite God being in some way present in a finite human being. These explanations come from the experience of the Saints and ascetics rather than from philosophical reasoning. The first problem concerns why God’s energies have an end, in the sense that, in our experience, the uncreated energies come and go, if they are uncreated and so infinite and eternal? Saints and Prophets have experienced the Uncreated Light of God but only for a finite time. Why does God seem to withdraw his presence? 39 St. Maximus Confessor, quoted by St. Gregory Palamas, The Hagioritic Tome, Philokalia (Ware), IV, 419. The Hagioritic Tome was a statement of belief by the fathers of the Holy Mountain of Mount Athos in 1340 which equated “grace” and “uncreated energy” and which has a dogmatic force for Orthodox Christians. It was drafted by St. Gregory Palamas (ibid., 418–25).

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There is an explanation for this in spiritual experience. The uncreated energy of God would in this life be unbearable if experienced continually. In our sinful mode of existence, when we have not been fully purified, it would burn us. Therefore God gives as much grace as we can bear, exercising his freedom for our benefit with variety and a sense of the individuality of each person and their particular state. The extent of what may be experienced varies from person to person and from time to time, but no one in this life has been sufficiently purified to withstand the rays of God’s light continually. That is reserved for the next life. Nevertheless, when a person is spurred on to seek the experience of God with his whole heart, soul, and mind, such zeal is rewarded and encouraged. Conversely, when a person falls away from a state of grace, especially when deluded by pride so as not even to realize their fall, God withdraws his grace—as two Apostles say (Jas 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5), quoting received wisdom (Prov 3:34, LXX), God “resists the proud.” 40 This is a painful experience to a person who has tasted God; it makes such a person sorrowful to have lost grace and causes them to make a serious inquisition of themselves and be zealous to recover what they have lost. The result is repentance and humility, qualities which attract divine grace and which are beneficial to us. Thus the experience of the divine energies as temporary is the consequence of the fact that God acts as a wise shepherd with regard to us. Another difficult question is: how can the infinite be experienced by the finite human being? This raises the great controversy of “created grace” and “uncreated grace,” which has been a point of dispute between Catholics and Orthodox. Catholicism argues that grace at least has a created mode of existence, so that it is proper to call it “created” although it is supernatural and infinite. Orthodoxy, however, calls grace uncreated. The reason is to do with the experience which Orthodoxy believes is possible for all Christians, even in this life, but about which Catholicism is much more cautious. However, it is worth observing that if it is impossible for the human being to experience the uncreated life of God, then no real experience of God has taken place.

40 Both Apostles are quoting the Book of Proverbs in the Greek Septuagint version, where the word is antitassetai, which has the sense of conscious resistance as in forming an opposition party to someone or something. This sense is less obvious in reference to the Hebrew Bible, where the sense of Proverbs 3:34 is more that “God scorns the scornful.”

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Orthodox written theology, the knowledge that is expressed in words and sentences, 41 is based upon experience of the uncreated energies toward us, and their uncreated character is understood in its effects upon those who have had a prophetic experience of the energies as a pledge and a foretaste of the things to come. Just as in the Old Testament, the Prophets knew in a certain manner the Trinity and the Logos or Word of God and had an understanding of these realties to come, so in the New Testament age, it is possible through prayer, the ascetic life, and obedience to experienced spiritual fathers, even in this age, to have by “actual experience” “the blessings of the age to come which are promised to the saints.” 42 It follows that one cannot be a “theologian” in the Orthodox tradition by virtue only of skill with words; to be a theologian, one must have the experience which one is describing. Our movement toward God in love is, at least in its first steps, ours, our free created energies moving toward the goodness and beauty of God. Human beings are made like God in that we are absolutely free to choose in our relationships. Thus we can refuse God. For those who choose God, a union of free will and grace takes place called synergy. Synergy means a joining of energies: the uncreated energies of God are united with the created energies of the human person. The personal distinctions remain. God respects freedom; the last thing he wishes is to swallow us up! 43 We have seen how there are some differences between Western and Eastern Orthodox theology concerning the uncreated energies. The matter of created versus uncreated grace can be overestimated in controversy with Catholics, if we say that Catholics only experience something created. 44 What cannot be overestimated, however, is the utter lack of any concept with which to compare uncreated energy in Western theology. Hilda Graef was unusual among Western scholars of the Greek Fathers in being aware of

In addition to formal written theology, such as dogmatic theology, there is in Orthodoxy theology in images (that is, icons), and theology as prayer. Moreover, there is the theology of the liturgy and of the lives of the Saints (or “Synaxarion”) which is theology as much as, or even more than, the theology written in treatises or homilies. 42 Hagioritic Tome, ed Ware Philokalia, IV, 418–19. 43 A relationship in which one person was so dominant could hardly be called a relationship! 44 Like the Orthodox, for example, Catholics believe that they receive the realities of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist, which is not a merely symbolic act. 41

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this disparity between Western and Eastern Christian ways of thinking about grace: The energies of God, as distinct from the Divine Persons, are according to Greek theology, certain Divine operations, such as sanctifying grace, which establish a connection between the inaccessible Divinity and the created world. This conception, which is quite foreign to Western theology, is already in St. Basil, Gregory (Nyssa) and other earlier Fathers. It was later elaborated especially by Gregory Palamas. 45

Western theology is the same as that of the East in basing its ideas about God upon revelation. Human language expresses the experience of God’s grace. Also like the Orthodox Church, the West has a Negative Theology (apophaticism) 46 in order to insist that God cannot be encompassed or fully comprehended by the human intellect. Eastern Orthodox theology differs from the West in regard to the kind of knowledge we have of the positive attributes or qualities of God: that is, for example, his love, his mercy, his justice, his foreknowledge, and his creative and miraculous power in and over nature. Orthodoxy teaches that we can share these qualities, ourselves becoming infinitely loving and merciful and capable of miracles and prophetic foreknowledge. When one encounters an uncreated energy of God, one meets the expression of the divinity, which communicates itself to us according to the measure of our willingness to receive it and our spiritual and moral state. All meetings with God are meetings with his uncreated energies and a participation in them. I have tried to answer the question as to why the phrase “uncreated energies” is used by Orthodox theology in a context, our context, as Christians in the West with our own history, where there is no simple equivalent of the idea. Nevertheless, the teaching about uncreated energies does have positive value and, for all the difficulties of explaining it, is worth persisting with. Firstly, the expression “uncreated energies of God” reflects the maximalism of Orthodox teaching. Orthodoxy teaches that Christianity is about the most, the maximum that is possible for human beings to know of God in this earthly life—that is, what they can experience of God and to 45 Hilda Graef, St. Gregory Nyssa: The Lord’s Prayer; The Beatitudes, 197, notes in Homily on Beatitude 6. 46 That is, what is a matter that we cannot speak about, from the Greek phemi, “to speak” and the preposition apo, which indicates a movement away from something: to be “apophatic” is to be moving away from giving a reality a definite expression in words and having recourse to silence.

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what a great level we are exalted by grace. It teaches how generous God is, how much he wants and expects from us, and how great is our Christian calling. Secondly, “uncreated energies” makes clear the relationship between revelation, the inspiration of Scripture, Christology, salvation theology, and Trinity. It shows clearly that sense of interconnectedness between all facets of Christian teaching with which Orthodox theology works in its method, relating these various aspects of theology to our experience of God.

DEIFICATION THROUGH A FULLY LITURGICAL LIFE The blessing of St. Paul “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God (the Father) and the communion of the Holy Spirit” is addressed to a group of people: the “you” of “be with you all” is plural. It calls attention to the communal reality of our deification, which is the fulfillment of the teaching about the communion of the Saints to which I have earlier referred. We cannot be deified on our own, but together with our brethren in the Body of Christ. As Christians we have been called out of the world into the Church to be together with Christ as our head. Deification involves making the Church as the Body of Christ actual, real, and tangible as a sign of God’s love toward the whole of the human race. In the Acts of the Apostles, the Apostle Luke gives a clear example of how this communal dimension of deification should be realized when he describes the Church at Jerusalem: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship (koinonia) to the breaking of bread and to prayers. (Acts 2:42)

Here we find four things: first, a definite teaching; second, community; third, the Eucharist (“the breaking of bread”); and fourth, prayers. The Orthodox Liturgy is well known as celebrating the presence 47 of the Heavenly Kingdom, so that the faithful go up to worship along with the Heavenly Host. Before the faithful join in the hymn to the thrice-Holy Lord of Hosts, the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great has the priest pray to the Holy Spirit not so much to bring Paradise down as to take us up to the level of the hosts of angels and archangels and the Cherubim and Seraphim; the Spirit is 47 Thus the End of the Age and the coming of the New Age take place in the Eucharist. The Early Christians expressed the Second Coming of Christ as the Parousia, the “appearing” or “presence.” But every time we celebrate the Liturgy, the Parousia is manifested—or more accurately, a pledge or foretaste of the Second Coming.

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DEIFICATION IN THE EASTERN ORTHODOX TRADITION “the fountain of holiness that enables every rational creature having understanding to serve Thee and pour forth an unceasing doxology, for all are thy servants.” 48

The triumphal hymn is doxology, giving glory or celebrating glory. “Doxology” or giving glory to the three persons of the blessed Trinity can only be sincere and sure if we have received the grace to be able to understand, know, and be united with the “glory” (doxa) of God. This is to come into contact with the divine energy that radiates from God’s very nature, which was expressed in the Old Testament in the fire sheathed in cloud that hovered on the throne of the Most Holy Place or “Holy of Holies” in the Tent of Meeting where there is the presence of the mysterious created beings—the Cherubim or throne-guardians and the fiery Seraphim. It was called his “glory.” We have been taken up to the highest level of the “celestial hierarchy.” The Church is a place of miracles and wonders (Acts 2:43). However, the “rational service” of the Liturgy has also a concrete, tangible, and practical side. St. Paul’s “rational service” is the offering of our bodies (Rom 12:1). The Orthodox Liturgy sends us out into the world without conforming to its pattern to make our whole lives a continuous testimony to the divine glory. In the Book of Acts, those in the community love one another and like to meet together to pray, to have meals together—that is, ordinary meals by contrast with the Eucharist, but also extraordinary meals in that the Christians are sharing one another’s lives. During this time, community of wealth was practiced to express the depth of the union they experienced with one another as a result of the supernatural union they had been given with God: All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone who had need. (Acts 2:44–45)

This also is deification, because the Christian people have become like God having in themselves his generosity, God’s philanthropy, his love of Mankind. The Christians who sold all they had “gave to every one who had need.” The Scripture does not say that they restricted their charity to those in the Church. To be philanthropic as God is means caring for all human beings 48 From the anaphora or Prayer of the Offering of the Holy Gifts of Bread and Wine in the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, celebrated on important Feasts of the Church, Divine Liturgy, 121, where the Greek aidion doxologian is rendered “unceasing hymn of glory.”

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and making sacrifices for them. “To every one who had need” also applies to the gift of healing which the Holy Spirit gives to some people in the Church. When St. Peter did not have any money, he gave something even better to a paralyzed beggar who was begging from him: “I have no silver and gold but I give you what I have” (Acts 3:6)

St. Peter gave the man his health back; he could walk again.

THE NATURE OF ORTHODOX MYSTICISM When the “mysticism” of the Orthodox Church is referred to, it is to this experience of likeness to God that the word “mystical” refers. “Mysticism” means the experience of supernatural realities. The word is related to “mystery” because such experiences are experienced as mysterious. There is no doubt that deification is “mystical” in the sense that it is about having a transforming experience of the Ultimate Reality. On the other hand, not all mysticism is Orthodox. Throughout human history, there have been people from every part of the world who have experienced with a great sense of immediacy some Ultimate Reality as good, beautiful, and true. Some have been what we now call philosophers, such as Plotinus (3rd century A.D.) and perhaps Plato (4th century B.C.) in Antiquity, and in the modern period, Spinoza (17th century). Others have been founders of religions: for example, Buddha may be described as mystical because he got over the suffering created by desire in experiencing through meditation a cessation of the greedy self in him. In Islam, the Sufi sages took long and deep journeys into their souls, to the alarm of orthodox, mainstream Islam. Mystics have often been regarded as controversial and dangerous figures by the Christian Church, and opinions were at first divided about some of them, for example, St. John of the Cross in the Catholic Church or St. Symeon the New Theologian in the Orthodox Church. The reservations which people had about them were on account of the boldness of their claims about what a human being could experience of God. When they eventually became accepted as Saints and teachers about the spiritual life, it was because they were centered upon Christ. It was realized that they were living out a dimension of life in Christ which had been lost through a false timidity, as if the things that the Apostles experienced were dead and gone and in the past. Thus Catholic and Orthodox Christianity distinguishes between a general kind of mysticism, which is a communing with an Ultimate Reality of some kind, and christocentric mysticism, which may be found in the Apostles. The general mysticism seems to have to do with a particular

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personality type, while the mysticism of the Catholic Church and of the Orthodox Church is open to anyone who has faith in Christ and loves him. There is no particular type of Christian mystic. The Christian mystic is saying with St. Paul: “It is not I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Protestantism has been historically suspicious of mysticism. Catholicism, on the other hand, has wanted to control it very tightly through external structures. Orthodoxy is a “dogmatic mysticism,” as V. Lossky explained, in which theology is not put in a separate compartment from the living out of that theology: “mystical theology” meant for Lossky a balance between dogmatic belief and personal experience, in which the two are closely related. 49 The revelation from God cannot be completely understood by the intellect, but it can be taken up by the whole person in faith and love as to produce a radical change in us, the transformation of the inner Man and fellowship with God. The mysticism of the Orthodox Church is a Church mysticism, because of the union of Christ with his Body the Church. The Orthodox Church is “in Christ.” It is in Jesus Christ, who is both God and Man. The Church also has been given the Holy Spirit. Deification cannot be separated from the Gospel preached by the Apostles: But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you have received, let him be accursed. (Gal 1:8–9)

These words may seem to many people today to be bigoted and full of hatred—but they are the words of the Apostle St. Paul (Gal 1:8–9). St. Paul is absolutely clear and repeats the point to make sure that the point has got home. The Orthodox teaching about deification is the teaching of the New Testament, and the nature of our union with the Ultimate is personal: persons to persons. Orthodox “mysticism” is not just a mysticism that happens to take place in a Christian tradition. It is the mysticism that is the living experience of God the Father of Jesus Christ his only-begotten and eternally-begotten Son and of the Holy Spirit. While the Orthodox Church does not deny that other religious traditions and philosophies express some wisdom and that the experience of mysticism in general may on occasions 49 See V. Lossky’s very careful account in chap. 1, “Introduction: Theology and Mysticism in the Tradition of the Eastern Church,” The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 7–22.

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be the result of an encounter with God’s love and mercy—the Church does not presume to restrict God’s activity—nevertheless, once as a Church we lose contact with Christ its Head, it is not safe. Mystical experiences can seem good but be deceptive: Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Cor 11:14)

The test for Orthodox as for other Christian traditions is whether or not the life of the “mystic” has been transformed in a Christian way, in accordance with the tradition handed down which makes Christ alone the Savior of all Mankind. Orthodox mysticism, then, is not the same as the mysticisms found in either world religions, or the kind of mysticism universally accessible to spiritually sensitive people. The “mystics” of Orthodoxy are those who are the “illuminated” through baptism, who have united themselves to Christ in the Body of the Church, and who are nourished and fortified by its sacraments and fellowship. Orthodox “mysticism,” then, is not elitism but is about living out the mysteries of Christianity in the Church. There is another way in which the word “mystical” must be qualified in relation to deification. Orthodoxy does not recognize the language of the mystic who is so totally absorbed in his experience that the distinction between him or herself as an individual and the Ultimate disappears in a one-ness where the person disappears. When such mystics say “I am God,” they are describing a deification in which the words “I” and “God” no longer have any meaning as distinctions. The Orthodox Church upholds personal distinctions, so that no individual can ever be absorbed by the divine nature in such a way that personal distinctions are no longer real. For this reason, the Orthodox Church is against speculations concerning the divine nature and declares this nature to be incomprehensible and unreachable directly.

ORTHODOX THEOLOGY IS PRACTICAL, NOT SPECULATIVE To be like God in this way is a tall order. The Orthodox Church teaches that this is not impossible, because our Savior Christ told us actively to be this way and because he did not command the impossible. The canonized Saints of the Church to whom we turn as inspiring examples are not different in kind from us: they were not angels but human beings in the same sinful state as the rest of us. The Saints show us what is possible for us. The Orthodox Church teaches people all to be Saints in the sense that the canonized Saints were: likeness to God can be actualized in deification.

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Orthodox theologians, then, are confronted with a question from the people, who rightly ask them about the practical value of theology for the attainment of sanctity in the particular circumstances of their own lives. The dogmatic side of Orthodox theology is concerned with this question: the Fathers customarily argue in support of correct doctrine by reference to the difference it makes concerning deification. This applies to the Church teaching about the Trinity and the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ. The Church Fathers adopted language from their own time, from the world of the Greeks, just as the divinely inspired writers of the Bible used the existing languages and concepts. It follows that abstract terms such as essence, nature, person-“hypostasis,” theosis, and energies were adopted for a practical purpose—that is, to help us to know how to be Saints in actuality in a world which is complex and difficult to understand. Orthodox theology, even at its most intricate, however, remains close to this practical purpose. The “knowledge” that it teaches keeps more to the Hebrew sense of “to know” than to the Greek philosophical sense. In Hebrew, the root ydh means to know by sharing in the life and being of another. There is no distinction in Hebrew between physical intimacy with a person and knowledge generally: And Adam knew [yadah ] Eve his wife and she conceived and bore Cain. (Gen 4:1)

The speculative genius of Western theology during two periods of enormous intellectual creativity, the Latin Middle Ages and the modern period, since the Enlightenment has generated an agenda in theology with which Orthodoxy is uncomfortable and the value of which it tends to be unsure. This agenda is the answering of questions which the intellect asks in the light of the existing state of knowledge. Orthodox theologians can be very critical of this kind of theology. They denounce it as “scholastic” or “rationalistic” and describe their own approach as “existential.” 50 What underlies this often too-dismissive approach to intellectual problems is the question “What shall it profit a man…?” 51 One may gain the whole world

50 For example, Fr. John Meyendorff describes St. Gregory Palamas as having an “existential theology” (Study of St. Gregory Palamas, 1998, 202–27). 51 Mark 8:36 in the proverbial form of the King James Version of the Bible, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” It is possible that this saying of Jesus is even more urgent, if the word for “soul” (psyche) is translated “life”—“What does anyone gain by winning the whole world at the cost of his life?” Revised English Bible; “forfeit his life,” Standard English Version,

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by explaining it as a system but lose one’s very life or soul, that is, one’s true life, by missing the transforming experience and ethical actuality of deification. This is what caused Evagrius of Ponticus (4th century) to say: If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian. 52

and it is what causes him to be often quoted in Orthodox circles. The Orthodox identification of theology with prayer and devotion raises what is to many a big problem area of Orthodoxy, namely its apparent antiintellectualism. On the other hand, the brilliant intellects of Church Fathers and Orthodox theologians have found plenty of exercise nevertheless. This is first of all because the human mind and psyche (or emotions) are a labyrinth. Prayer is not easy, and it is often difficult to assess the value or fruits of one’s spiritual experiences. The Orthodox guides for the life of prayer, the ascetical writers, applied many carefully thought out, rational distinctions to prayer. Moreover, the dogmatic writings of the Church Fathers are arguments of a kind: their identification and analysis of error or heresy works in terms of how deification is, or is not, enabled by a particular teaching. Clearly, Orthodox theology demands personal experience and discernment in prayer: degrees and learned publications do not necessarily cause the faithful to describe a person as a “theologian.” This makes life difficult for people like me! What is the value of what I say, if I do not have very much spiritual experience behind me? Orthodox theology is not irrational, and it respects scholarship. One thing that a scholar can do is to follow a time-honored path: to summarize and even to summarize the summaries. But this is not as good as reading the books of someone who has experience (empeira) of the divine realities of which he or she writes and the truth of whose experience is witnessed to by the gifts which the Church has always acknowledged as signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit. 53

following the Revised Standard Version, of which it is a revision. However, the New International Version keeps to “soul.” 52 Evagrius, On Prayer, 61, in Philokalia (Ware), I, 62. 53 That is, love, especially love of enemies, exact teaching in accordance with tradition, steadfastness in the face of heresy, miracles of healing, ability to predict the future, deep prayer, and humility.

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ORTHODOX THEOLOGY IS BASED ON THE BIBLE However, although the Church Fathers were Saints and inspired people, they were not infallible. They were not divinely inspired in all that they wrote, as were the writers of Scripture. On initial acquaintance with an Orthodox service, prayers in the home, or even a meal, the first impression may be of a kind of exoticism generated by a multiplicity of words. However, there is hardly a phrase in the Orthodox services or prayers which does not come directly from the Bible. Moreover, although the spiritual teachings of the ascetical writings and contemporary teachers or “Elders” 54 use unfamiliar language, there has never been an Orthodox teacher who is not rooted in Scripture. To have a solid foundation to understand deification, uncreated energies, divine essence, and persons, one needs a thorough knowledge of Scripture. When terms from outside the Bible are used, there is good reason—but they are only valid if they check out against Scripture. Conversely, Scripture can open out wonderfully if it is interpreted in the light of Orthodox teaching about deification.

54 “Elders” translates the Greek geronta. Elders are usually monks. Much contemporary teaching of great value comes from the Fathers of Mount Athos. The Athonite Fathers of today use the ancient language and categories of their forebears and belong to a tradition going back to the Desert Fathers of Egypt in the fourth century.

3 REVELATION AND EXPERIENCE DEIFICATION IS BASED ON DIVINE REVELATION The Orthodox Church balances its sense of the value of a living personal experience of God with respect for the dogmas or teachings revealed by God. The dogmas are found in the Bible; for example, the teaching that Jesus Christ is the Son of God or that there are three persons in one God, the Trinity. The dogmas are expressed by the Church on the basis of what God has revealed through Scripture or, on the other hand, through tradition, for example in the Creed that is recited by all the faithful at the Eucharist. If one has experience of God, you may ask, who needs dogmas? Isn’t one’s own inner conviction the real thing? Why does one need teachings coming from a source outside one’s own experience? In Orthodoxy, both experience and dogmas are correctly seen as belonging together. There is another point of view and you will often come across it in the world; that is, the view that experience and dogmas are actually opposed to one another, that experience has its own authority but that it has been repressed by institutionally minded dogmatic people who are jealous of those who have the real thing, the experience. This puts the mystic at a higher level than the church theologian. This is not Orthodoxy. Our greatest mystics are also our greatest dogmatic theologians: they had either an exact theology or a definite ascetic teaching based upon the theology of the Church. It is very important to get right the relationship between personal, inner experience and the corporate language of the Church. Ortho-doxy means “right opinion.” However, anyone who has attended a Greek Orthodox service will know that the word for opinion, doxa, also means “glory,” a word having to do with prayer, worship, and our personal orientation toward God: “doxa Patri kai Huio kai Hagio Pneumati”

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In this infinitely repeated exclamation, in this doxology, the intellect, with its beliefs, and our heart, with its experiences, meet. We proclaim the doctrine of the Trinity but surely not just with our lips but from our hearts, as people who have to some extent come to know the persons. We join with the Church’s “unceasing doxology,” 1 its teaching-prayer which cannot be too often repeated. This is not the empty repetition of the pagans who think that their prayers are more powerful for being repeated (Matt 6:7). The “unceasing doxology” expresses the eternal truth to which one should constantly return in mind and heart. Orthodoxy teaches that knowledge of God can be acquired by personal experience; there is a strong, constant tradition of the “acquisition of the Holy Spirit.” 2 This knowledge is not just “for information” or to satisfy our curiosity. Moreover, only part of the knowledge of God that is revealed is about God’s will and the kind of morality which brings us into harmony with him in our actions and thoughts. Divine revelation is also a saving knowledge because it transforms us; it can turn our whole life around; it is nothing less than an experience of the energies of the Holy Spirit and fellowship with the very life of God and is both knowledge of and living contact with the personal dimension of God, the persons of the Holy Trinity. Thus the dogmas bring with them the possibility of an experience of God. The mistake is to confuse this experience with religious or spiritual experiences in general and in a rather vague sense. It is an easy mistake to make, because, in the realm of spiritual things, the realities are more difficult for us to perceive than is the case with physical things. To give an example, peaceful and happy feelings as a result of meditation or yoga are not the same as the experience of the Holy Spirit. The inexperienced might jump to that conclusion, but those who are more thoughtful should be able to see that distinguishing between different kinds of happy experience is quite difficult. It needs discernment. One of the tests for the truth and value of a spiritual experience is its relationship with the person’s life. One asks whether a person’s way of life involves the following qualities: benevolence, love of neighbor and enemy, participation in the Church’s sacraments, and Orthodox belief. Moreover, Divine Liturgy, 121, (Liturgy of St. Basil), see first quotation, Chapter 3, 42; footnote 43. 2 See I. M. Kontzevitch, The Acquisition of the Holy Spirit in Ancient Russia. 1

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the Church has always esteemed true and tested guides, who are more used to the spiritual world, good and evil, than we might be ourselves. Such “Elders” or “Spiritual Fathers” are a great blessing when they can be found. What holds this whole package together in the Church, the place of our deification? I argue that one essential pillar is the Church’s dogmas, which it has not made up but which are divinely revealed and essential to help us discern the right from the wrong in the spiritual life. Faith in the Church’s teaching and commandments, which are those of Christ, is one indispensable way in which we can distinguish between our own subjective feelings and an experience of the Holy Spirit. If we are ignoring or going against the witness of the Church down the ages, it is unlikely that our experiences will be from God. “Experience” is a feel-good word. It is wise to get a bit beyond this and to ask oneself which of one’s experiences are, despite their pleasant effects, good (and to what extent), bad and (to be shunned), or neither good nor bad—and so a waste of time. The Orthodox Church goes deeper than this. It recognizes the fineness of the distinctions that need to be made and recognizes that anyone can make mistakes which can be very damaging and which involve our sanity and, in the end, our salvation. The Church has a special word, for which there is no exact English equivalent, to refer to the confusion between what is truly an experience of the Holy Spirit and a false interpretation of a purely subjective and even egotistical experience as coming from the Holy Spirit. That word is in Greek plani. 3 It means “delusion.” The delusion that one is having an experience from God when it is in fact nothing of the kind arises from the hardest thing to see in oneself, pride. To fall into delusion separates one from one’s brethren and makes one vulnerable to the evil, invisible powers, the demonic. The demonic can induce visions and wonderful experiences of light (2 Cor 11:14), to which one can become attached or addicted. However, these experiences do not bring lasting peace or joy and are often followed by a sense of dissatisfaction with what seems ordinary by comparison—that is, to love one’s brethren and to follow what the Church and the Bible teaches. One of the most obvious signs of delusion is when a person in the Church claims to have a “higher wisdom” than that taught by the Church, resists criticism and enquiry, and argues that those who do not accept his or her visions are narrow-minded and jealous. Having cut oneself off from any corrective help, such people become the victims of the demonic. If one is a 3

Slavonic, prelest.

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bishop, a priest, an abbot or a theologian, then one has the capacity to bring harm to others along with oneself. Heresy is a form of delusion—tragically, it is something to which the most learned and ascetic people are vulnerable (Jas 1:19–20). Warnings against being deceived by false teachers “themselves deceived deceiving others” (2 Tim 3:13) are to be found everywhere in the New Testament and in the teaching of Jesus Christ (Luke 21:8; Matt 24:24; Mark 13:5–6; Eph 4:14; 1 John 3:7; 2 John 7; Titus 1:10; 2 Tim 3:13). The dogmas of the Church were revealed to help us to stay on the right path. The Church has, as we have seen, some concrete tests about the matter of delusions. It is true that perhaps in the short term a holy person may seem to be deluded according to these tests. However, there are timehonored tests about the authenticity of a religious experience, and I have referred to some of them above. The great test is whether or not an experience and any spiritual teaching that results from it is strange to the Bible and especially the New Testament, or basically in accord with it. If the experience results in a spiritual teaching which at first seems unfamiliar, can it be shown to be in harmony with the Bible by explaining this experience and spirituality by reference to specific texts? From this it follows that the Orthodox spiritual journey must be undertaken Bible in hand, and that one must know one’s Bible very well and also have a good general knowledge of Church teaching. If someone insists upon the authenticity of their experiences alone and will brook no argument, here is a sure sign of delusion. In this, the Church follows the New Testament way, the way of St. Paul, St. John, St. Peter, all of whom warned against the self-deceived deceivers, and all of whom argued out their position in theological letters. Although St. Paul did have some sublime spiritual experiences, he did not rely upon experience alone in his apostolic teaching; he did not consider himself to be above his brethren, despite a spectacular converting encounter with the uncreated Light of Glory and a spiritual experience of Jesus. These, then are some of the reasons why the Orthodox Church insists upon divine revelation as our rock in the spiritual life. Without a firm dogmatic foundation, our spirituality will be at best uncertain and at worst evil and dangerous. It is right to call pedantry an unnecessary concern with the details of knowledge, making distinctions beyond the point when they are useful. For many people today, that is just what they think of the doctrines of the Trinity, and of the one person and two natures of Christ: it is pedantry, useless knowledge; “it does not make one a better person.” Part of the

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reason for the failure to see the practical need for the Church’s dogmas is that with many people today, practicality is associated with visible and tangible things, while in Orthodox teaching practicality encompasses the spiritual or unseen world. The world sees us as bodies guided by the electrical activity of the brain, so that only material things are practical. The Church sees us as bodies and souls united, so that immaterial realities do affect us in a real way. The superficial view is that guidance concerning what is unseen has nothing to do with practical life or the “real world,” so called. Greek Orthodox theology has a word for the precision and exact distinctions of Orthodox theology: that word is akriveia, a rough translation of which is “accuracy.” It means much more than “accuracy.” Aristotle had already shown that, in some subjects, such as ethics, too much attention to minute detail actually gets in the way of finding out about the subject, with inaccuracy as the result. 4 Akriveia is the right kind of accuracy for the subject. Akriveia in Orthodox theology means something more like a perfect teaching about God whose wonderful harmony and provision for every spiritual problem shows that it is wisdom from Heaven. 5 Orthodoxy holds that all the dogmas of the Church are practical: they all have a bearing upon deification, just as a false or defective teaching causes us to miss the mark. Consequently, doctrine does make a difference to our lives as Christians. The next section will give a brief account of that harmony of divine revelation in all the beauty of its unfolding and show how it is necessary to our experience of God and is the gift of the God who is a “friend to Man” (philanthropos).

THE FORMS OF DIVINE REVELATION What is revealed by God is revealed in three stages: first there is the general revelation given through creation and especially conscience (Rom 1:19–20); secondly and more completely, there is the revelation to God’s chosen people in the Old Testament; and lastly, and finally and in the most complete way there is the revelation in Christ, toward which the Old Testament Prophets pointed. Each form of revelation is a stage toward the completion of our deification and has its own distinctive religious experience and forms a stage in the process of deification.

Nichomachean Ethics, Book I, iii, 1. Orthodox morality contrasts akriveia with economy, the latter a concession to human weakness, as, for example permitting re-marriage after divorce. 4 5

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Thus, God’s revelation through Creation leads to wonder, awe, and reverence toward the Creator and, in the conscience, the “fear of the Lord” (Prov 1:7) and a desire to do what is right. The Old Testament revelation gives a much more exact knowledge of what is right and wrong and shows forth the holiness and the love of God for humankind. The Prophets of the Old Testament, especially Moses, shared in God’s holiness and had a real and definite experience of the personal God by sharing to some extent in the glory of God. The New Testament completes the previous two revelations as Christ “sums up all things in himself” (Eph 1:10) and enables the coming of the Holy Spirit. In the New Testament, a close intimacy with God became possible though grace, so that, being “in Christ,” we can say that there is a true sense in which “we are gods”—that is, that we can be “divinized” or made “divine” by sharing in the divine life. 1) God’s general revelation through creation Natural revelation is not totally different in kind from supernatural revelation and is not something “purely natural,” 6 in that it is bringing the believer to God and points to the supernatural origin of created things. 7 God’s natural revelation is to all peoples from the very beginning of their creation and was the gift of his goodness: it was a gracious action—he made the universe from nothing. Creation is therefore in the realm of supernatural grace, because, for a Christian, there can be no exclusively natural knowledge. All natural knowledge brings us into the presence of the Creator if we have the right attitude to it. This does not exclude scientific research but encourages it; what is wrong is only the view that science excludes the existence of the Creator, on the supposed authority of science. In creation there are two main elements. Firstly, there is the order of the universe which Man can understand by virtue of his intelligence. This intelligence is what makes Man like God and enables him to see the signs of God’s handiwork in the created world. Secondly, Man has a conscience, an inborn knowledge of right and wrong. Even before God’s special revelation through Moses, and then at last though Christ, all human beings had the capacity to appreciate God’s generosity and beauty and to walk in his way.

Dimitru Staniloae, The Experience of God Dogmatic Theology, I, 2. Ibid., 1. The whole chapter 1 of Staniloae’s first volume of his Dogmatic Theology deals with this difference of emphasis in the Christian East, 1–14 compared with Western “natural theology.” 6 7

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With regard to both elements of revelation—that is, both our understanding of the order of creation and in our moral sense through conscience—if we interpret these experiences rightly, then the beginnings of deification are taking place in us. This is because we have started to perceive the harmony between our intellects and that of the creator God. Our pursuit of knowledge, in any area of science, can, for someone with a sense of the grace of creation, be a form of worship in that it celebrates the wonders of God’s work and his goodness (Ps 139 [LXX 138]:13–14). The understanding of Creation is very important for a theological insight vital to Orthodox theology: theology is rational (logike). This rationality is a much broader rationality than the kind that materialists hold. It is not the same, either, as those who hold that God’s existence can be proven by anyone with training in philosophy, by means of logic, narrowly understood as a technical process of reasoning: doing sums in words, or “rationalism.” The rationality which is the culmination of all knowledge is knowledge of the Logos, the second person of the Trinity, who created the world with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. It brings us to a personal God, not an abstraction as does the logic of philosophers. From the earliest times, as the Book of Genesis shows, God’s revelation through Creation drew human beings toward God and God did not draw back from such people. Even after the fall of Adam and Eve, Man continued to be in the likeness of God (Gen 5:1). There were people who “walked with God” before God gave any special revelation of his commandments. Such people gave glory to God through their intellectual perception of Creation’s harmony and beauty, and they obeyed God and were pleasing to him because they lived by an inner law, their consciences, which God had placed in them to guide them. Such people were Enoch, Noah, Melchisedek, the woman of Sarepta who revered Elijah, the Shunnamite woman who revered Elisha, and Job. 8 However, God’s revelation in Creation has become obscure to us because our minds have become darkened by the intellectual loss which is the result of becoming a stranger to God. A tragedy has taken place in the history of Man, which has caused human beings to be weighed down by the body and its desires in the wrong kind of way, so that our minds are unclear. This tragedy was the loss of Eden. 9 The result is that creation is no longer transparent to us, pointing to God the creator. Creation has itself See chap. 5, “The Old Testament,” 116 In what sense, if at all, the Adam and Eve story is to be taken as “history” is discussed in chap. 5, “The Old Testament,” Excursus. 8 9

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become thick and dark in our perception. The result has been, historically, all sorts of religious misuses of Creation, worshipping as gods created things. This is called idolatry and it goes together in the mind of the Fathers with sexual immorality, another misuse of Creation. Orthodoxy views the other religions of the world from the point of view of God’s revelation in Creation and of the loss of Paradise. Firstly, creation still teaches its message: “the heavens proclaim the glory of God” (Ps 19:1) in an orderly way. One may see in aspects of the religions of the world some true insights based upon natural religion: that is, that there is a good Creator who made the world and that we have consciences that bear witness to what is right. Those of other religions who, without knowing the revelations God made to Israel or the complete fulfillment of the revelation in Jesus, nevertheless give glory to a Creator-God and ascribe all things to him, are pleasing to God. Moreover, all people, religious or not, have the testimony of their consciences. The Bible makes it clear that such people were and are pleasing to God and enjoy his mercy. This is because they are imitators of God to some extent, living in his presence and walking his way. However, world religions and philosophies are also full of mistakes: for example, that matter is an illusion, or that there are many gods, or none. The closest religions to the truth are Judaism and Islam. Both are based not only upon natural revelation but also draw upon God’s revelation to Moses of the Old Testament. In practice, God’s wisdom was scattered throughout the philosophies and religions of the world in an incomplete way; and human beings, with their intellects injured by sin, have not been able consistently to come close to God through Creation alone. It is for this very reason that God, in his mercy, initiated a special revelation to Moses, so that the human mind might be strengthened by the illumination of divine grace. By contrast, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, ascribed to Moses, teach both a very clear and exact knowledge of Creation and a precise moral and ritual law, so that, as a start of the return to God from fallen-ness, one nation might be brought back to the full understanding of Creation and act as a light to other nations. Orthodoxy does not therefore teach that other religions and philosophies are deifying in themselves, although there may be many people who belong to these religions who have understood the meaning of creation and led pure and good lives and in this way have drawn near to God; in the absence of the teaching of the Gospel, they are friends of God and, since God is merciful above all else, we may believe that they are saved by his mercy and come to

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know a fuller truth in the next life, when they can meet the Incarnate Savior of all human beings in Paradise. The example, then, of other religions and philosophies shows that in practice natural revelation is not enough to bring deification. Moreover, the very idea of deification shows that God always intended to reveal more about himself than can be discerned in Creation. Deification is more than appreciating God’s goodness and walking in his way, morally. These things are certainly part of it, especially if God is understood to be personal. However, as chapter 1 argues, deification involves a sharing in the very life of God. Even had Adam not lost Paradise, a further revelation would have been necessary for him to attain to that closeness to God that God willed for humankind. The Bible does, nevertheless, have a natural theology, a theology based upon reflection upon the order of creation. This natural theology about creation is different from a merely logical natural theology in that it is strengthened by the divine revelation to Moses about God’s creation of the world. With this perspective, one can look at God’s creation with God’s own eyes and see the things of God’s work that would be hidden from the natural man with his intellect darkened by the passion that is a symptom of his sinful condition. The Hexaemeron, or account of the first six days of God’s Creation by St. Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea in the fourth century, is a classic work of natural theology strengthened by divine revelation. St. Basil thought that creation was revealed to Moses, whose knowledge was imparted “by the dictation of the Holy Spirit” from God. 10 It is these truths that Moses composed in a history—that is, in an orderly account. 11 Using the Septuagint version of the Bible (ca. 3rd century B.C.), where the Hebrew bara (“created”) is translated epoiesen, 12 St. Basil presents creation as an artistic work, a “poem,” a word derived from this Greek word poiein, “to make.” Thus Moses discerned through God’s inspiration the beauty and rational coherence of nature. It is in the light of this aesthetic teleology—of an account of God’s beauty and order—that St. Basil can call attention to the natural witness of God’s handiwork: 13 Hexaemeron, Homily 1.1, in St. Basil: Letters and Select Works, NPNF, PNF(2), VIII, 52. 11 Ibid. “Now it is Moses who has composed this history.” St. Basil is drawing upon the etymological meaning of “history,” which comes from a Greek word meaning “to set in order.” 12 Ibid., 56. 13 Ibid., 80. 10

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St. Basil had been educated at Athens and had a good grasp of Greek philosophy, the lasting importance of which was, for him, its rational understanding of creation. Hence the Hexaemeron abounds with allusions to Hellene learning and to Aristotle’s works of natural philosophy, as they confirm what the Bible teaches. 14 In the following passage, St. Basil echoes Plato’s Timaeus, where Plato argued that the world showed an order and beauty because it was made according to an eternal and invisible pattern by a Creator: Moses almost shows us the finger of the supreme artisan taking possession of the substance of the universe, forming the different parts in one perfect accord, and making a harmonious symphony result from the whole. 15

St. Basil gives the argument of Plato in a very pure form: creation was the ordering of matter, which was previously chaotic and was the work of an “Artisan” (demiourgos) who is called “the god,” but who is not, in Plato, exactly “God” in our Christian sense. This Being did not make matter from nothing but worked with what already existed in a chaotic form: When he took over all that was visible, seeing that it was not in a state of rest but in a state of discordant and disorderly motion, he brought it into order out of disorder, considering that this was in every way better than the other. 16

This “Artisan” is not, in Plato, “the father and maker of this entire universe” who would be a great work to find and who is “impossible to speak about to all people.” 17 However, it is clear that St. Basil can supplement Plato with the account of Moses and make the “Artisan” and the “father and maker of the universe” into the same person, God, who first made the

St. Basil refers to what we would call Aristotle’s “scientific works,” his books about the natural world, and to a host of Greek authors not named but identified as references to Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, Josephus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Galen, and Cleanthes’ Hymn on creation; see notes, ibid., 51–107. 15 Ibid., 56. 16 Timaeus, 30, A. 17 Ibid., 28, C. 14

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world “without form and void” and then ordered it with Man as its crown and glory, the work of the sixth day. 18 The character of this “Artisan” has a very important bearing upon deification, because the Artisan is characterized by Plato as follows: He was good and in him that is good no envy arises concerning anything. And being free from envy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. 19

The Artisan’s generosity causes him to make an intelligent being like himself, Man; for which reason, he established intelligence in soul and soul in body, that he might be the creator of a work which by nature was fairest and best. 20

This “Artisan” of Plato is not like the imagined gods of Greece or the Near East, who were passionate. Homer’s gods are proud beings with sexual passions and vindictive feelings, while the gods of Babylon jealously guarded their privileges and treated Man as a slave rather than as a friend. St. Basil picks up a different picture of the creator-god in Plato, who is implicitly critical of the established gods of the Greek pantheon. Plato’s “Artisan” has no selfishness but is completely benign and gave to Man the very best qualities when he made him. St. Basil, then, can show that there was even a partial understanding of the basis of deification in Greek philosophy—that is, Man “made in the image and likeness of God.” This classic work, St. Basil’s Hexaemeron, makes it clear that Orthodoxy is a religion based upon divine revelation, in which the revelation of the created order prepares us for the more specific revelations found in the Bible. However, what is equally clear is that the best of Greek philosophers were also able to discern to some extent the revelations of natural religion. Using the philosophers who were closest to the Christian view, the Fathers could present philosophy as a preparation for the Law and for the Gospel. By contrast, Orthodoxy has great reservations about natural theology if we understand it as a set of logical proofs for the existence of God that will convince anyone anywhere, what I referred to above as “doing sums in words.” The fact is that the proofs on their own do not convince people; if In the Hexaemeron, St. Basil does not describe the making of Man; but his younger brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa, completed the account with his book On the Making of Man. St. Basil also wrote two homilies on the same subject at a later date. 19 Timaeus, 29, E. 20 Ibid., 30, B 18

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there is anyone convinced of the proofs today, it is some of the philosophers who understand them and work with them, a small and rarified group of people! However, once the link with divine revelation is lost, human reason cannot stand in for it. To replace revelation with reason alone and try to do without the strengthening that comes from divine revelation is “rationalism.” This was the religion of the eighteenth-century gentleman, who, setting aside the revelation of the Bible as primitive, believed in a Benevolent Single Being, supporting that belief with proofs drawn from logic. 21 It is dry; it is not a living experience of the Living God. This kind of rationalism, which if often a feature of college courses on the “Philosophy of Religion,” is a long way from the creation theology of the Eastern Fathers or from the systems of thought of the great scholastics of the West, such as St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Bonaventura. The latter especially read together the two great “books” by which God has made himself known: the book of divine revelation, especially the Bible, and the Book of Nature. The idea that creation shows forth the goodness of the creator can only be used as the preparation for a further revelation. If it helps us with regard to deification, it only does so when we join it with the divine revelation and confess, awe and thanksgiving, the holiness and love of the Father, the creative activity of the Logos or Word or Son of God before his incarnation, and the operations of the Holy Spirit, one God, in making the beautiful world in which we live. In the Saints and poets of the Bible and the Church, there is a theology of creation which comes from minds raised above the feeble condition of our intellects. The Fathers had a special word for the restored and illuminated intellect: they refer to the “noetic” state of the intellect. 2) God’s revelation in the Old Testament God provided a specific revelation about how to walk with him in his revelation to Moses. This revelation made much clearer that God was the creator of the world, and that he was a being perfectly good and completely different from any other being in his absolute perfection; this sets apart God and puts him in a different category from anything or anyone else: in 21 The proofs for the existence of God were used by medieval Catholic theologians in a setting in which God’s creation was taken for granted by people of faith. But in the eighteenth century they were used to replace divine revelation as stand-alone universally convincing proofs by the “Deists” and by theologians such as William Paley (early 19th century).

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Hebrew, this “set-apartness” is expressed by the word “holy” (qadosh). The revelation to Moses teaches us that God wills us to participate in his holiness, by setting ourselves apart in obeying a code, the “Torah” or Law, by which we live a life in accord with God’s nature to some extent, through being both good and holy ourselves. The Law was revealed to a nation, Israel, whom God set apart to be the place where his Law could be obeyed. The Prophets point to the universal significance of this, in that Israel was chosen, not out of caprice, but in order to give all peoples an example: Israel was to be the “light for the nations” (Isa 42:6; 49:6). The Law of Moses was a kind of deification, in the sense that it provided a means by which human beings might become imitators of God: Be therefore holy even as I am holy. (Lev 19:2) 22

The nature of this revelation is very distinctive. It is expressed in words but not in images. Human language, then, has some affinity with the God, because Man, made in the image and likeness of God, has an intellectual nature which resembles God. The sign of this intellectual nature is language. The language of revelation is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gave Moses and the Prophets a true experience of God and the means, through grace, of finding the right words. 23 3) God’s final revelation in Christ The revelation of the Old Testament is, in the Orthodox Christian view, a partial revelation. Christ’s coming was needed to complete the revelation and to give us the knowledge which we need to be deified. Nevertheless, the Old Testament is not rejected because it is incomplete. Orthodoxy sees it as pointing forward toward the New Testament. However, the moral laws and the teaching about holiness remain true, since the Jewish Scriptures are still “the oracles of God,” as St. Paul calls them (Rom 3:2). However, since, in the Incarnation, the Logos or Son of God united himself to a human nature, repairing and raising that nature, we are invited, through faith, to enter into a relationship with God of special closeness and freedom, with the result that the detailed Jewish regulations about every aspect of life and its ritual are not necessary any more. They nevertheless bear witness to an important truth: our commitment to God should be total, involving every

My literal translation. The character of this revelation to Moses will be dealt with in more detail in Chapter 5, esp. 97, 117–123. 22 23

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detail of our lives; yet we should not be legalistic—that is, seek rules which apply in all circumstances. This is because Christ sent the Holy Spirit to be our guide and to lead us into the fullness of truth, which is, as Christ taught, to go beyond the Law to the spirit of the Law. It does not let us off the hook of having to live good lives. In fact, life in Christ demands a higher moral perfection than that of the Law. As Christ taught in the Sermon on the Mount, whereas the Law taught us not to murder, now we are not even to hate and must love our enemies (Matt 5:44). While the Law rightly called adultery a sin, Christ tells us not even to have wrong desires (Matt 5:28). Christ’s Sermon on the Mount demands a greater degree of perfection than the Law requires, but it also refers back to the Law: Be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt 5:48)

The union of the human nature with the divine nature in Christ brought something completely new into existence, a new creation. Through this union, Man’s very nature can be healed and in addition made holy in a way that goes beyond what might be described as ethical to a transformation. It is this new life, “eternal life,” or more exactly “the life of the Age to Come” (zoe aionios) that the New Testament teaches.

THE THREEFOLD STRUCTURE OF DIVINE REVELATION AS MANIFESTED IN ORTHODOX LIFE AND THOUGHT The structure of the Church services The three forms of divine revelation, (1) through Creation, (2) through Moses and the Prophets, and (3) in the Christ are reflected in the structure of the Church services. Vespers, or Evening Prayer, refers to the earliest point in time when God gave grace by creating the world and placing Man in Paradise. Psalm 104 (LXX 103), “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is in me, bless his Holy name,” with its majestic account of the order of creation, is chanted near the beginning of the service; “the words of it induce the worshippers into the blissful condition of the first man, when he, innocent as yet, praised his Creator together with the holy angels.” 24 The Royal Doors of the Iconostasis are open to remind us that Man had not as yet been separated by sin from God and lost his original clarity of vision. Shortly This beautiful expression is from Archbishop Anthony Bashir, Studies in the Greek Orthodox Church, 76. 24

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after the introductory psalm, Psalm 104 [103], the Royal Doors are closed to show that the state of intuition of God through Creation was brief and to suggest that knowledge of God through Creation was no longer, on its own, enough to bring Man to God. Later in Vespers, on feast days, there are readings from the Old Testament. These readings are called Paraemoi, a word meaning literally “parables” or metaphors. This name for the Old Testament readings teaches that the Old Testament points forward to Christ in an indirect manner and not openly but by way of prophecy and shadow or “type”: a typos is an impression of the reality, the reality itself being the prototype. 25 With Morning Prayer or Matins comes the morning of our salvation. Thus in Matins there is a Gospel reading about the Resurrection of Christ. At last, the Holy Liturgy or Eucharist has only New Testament readings, first an Epistle and then a Gospel reading, to show that the Kingdom has arrived. The spiritual structure of human history The order of the services follows the order of God’s work in human history: first Creation, then the Law and the Prophets. These belong to a relative period of darkness for Mankind, in that Man had become alienated from God by sin and because the Revelation to Moses was to a single chosen people and not to the whole world. The prophecies about Christ in the Old Testament give encouraging news; there is a great light coming for the nations in darkness. The fullness of the Good News about Jesus Christ and his Kingdom comes in the morning of his Resurrection and in the birth of the Church. The structure of catechesis “Catechesis” is a word which refers to the instruction given to people who wanted to be initiated by baptism into the Church. There were stages of instruction, as the potential convert became more committed and prepared as he moved toward the illumination promised by baptism, when he would finally move from the night of ignorance and idolatry into the light of new life in Christ. The structure by which catechumens, or converts, were instructed in the Christian Faith follows this movement from darkness to light. First, the arguments from Creation to the existence of a God who made the world I shall also refer to this distinction in the next chapter, on the meaning of Scripture, even at the risk of some repetition, Chapter 4, 86. 25

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can be used to move the minds of pagans, since they have in their best philosophies some idea of an orderly creator, because of the light of reason in them. This “apologetic” or rational defense of Christianity may be strengthened by an appeal to human conscience and to the saintly figures of Greek culture: Socrates, who died for the truth and who criticized idolatry; Plato, who taught about the spiritual basis of reality; and Aristotle, who taught about ethics and the perfect life lived with reason as its end. Secondly, when the potential convert had become more committed, then he or she had to learn the basics of a true morality—that is, freedom from idolatry and from passion and passionate behavior, such as sexual immorality. Here the Ten Commandments were central. Thirdly and lastly, the convert was taught about Christ and, before baptism, had to understand and believe the summary in the Creed of Creation, of Christ’s life and work, and of the coming of the Holy Spirit; and to know the Our Father, the prayer Christ gave to his disciples. Then the convert was ready to participate in the mysteria, the Holy Mysteries of the Faith, especially the Holy Gifts of Christ’s Body and Blood. This last phase was the beginning of true knowledge, the Christian gnosis. Again and again in the early Church, one may find this threefold catechetical structure, in more and more elaborate forms: (1) reasoning to bring out the logos in the pagan—that is, the sense of God the Creator and the promptings of conscience which bring the pagan nearer to the Logos, who is the basis of all reason (logos) 26 and morality; (2) specific moral instruction based upon the Ten Commandments; (3) initiation and progress in the life in Christ—progressive deification. Perhaps Alexandrian Christianity elaborated the catechetical side of Christianity most. St. Clement of Alexandria’s works, for example, move from philosophical reasoning to knowledge of the Logos or Word of God and then on into a deeper knowledge or Gnosis. This gnosis is not Gnosticism 27 but what we would call development in the spiritual life through living out the theology of the Church, becoming perfect in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

The Greek word logos means not only “word” but also “reason.” Gnosticism was a 2nd century heresy whose teachers claimed to have secret revelations and whose picture of Christ lacked a human nature. This movement produced many ‘gospels,’ some of which are even today being rediscovered, especially in Egypt—all of which the Church rejected at the time in favor of only four Gospels. 26 27

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This threefold structure is integral to Orthodox theology and life I shall be returning again and again to this threefold structure of revelation, both in terms of the way God acts toward us, that is his energies, and in the way we experience and understand him: (1) Creation, (2) Law & Prophets, (3) perfect fulfillment in Christ. You will therefore find this structure in the next chapter, when I explain how the Bible is to be interpreted and used. You will find it as the structure by which the chapter on the Old Testament is organized and explained in relation to the New. In the chapter on the New Testament, the fulfillment of the Law and of Creation has come in Christ; therefore, much more will be said about the third stage than about the first two.

DIVINE REVELATION AND HUMAN LANGUAGE The Bible and the dogmas of the Church are expressed in human words. How, one might ask, can mere human words contain such sublime and holy things? This question involves a huge subject, because to answer it fully would be to argue a whole theory about language and knowledge in relation to theology. However, some kind of answer is needed here, in order to explain how words can be holy and make us holy. Rather than giving you my own ideas on this subject or reviewing the complex subject in modern thought, I have turned to one of the Saints and Fathers of the Church for an answer. That Father is the great fourthcentury Father and churchman, St. Basil “the Great,” bishop of Caesarea. St. Basil’s teaching on this subject shows that the early Church was aware of the problem about language. St. Basil knew philosophy well, but his main concern was practical. He wanted to show how the language of the Bible and of the teachings of the Church could bring us to God and make us resemble him. St. Basil turns to our ordinary experience of using language 28 to solve the problem of how divine truths may be expressed in human words. This is because he thought that human beings are rational and still in the image of God. Consequently, their language has an affinity with God the Creator and is capable of expressing true ideas not only about the Creation but, strengthened by revelation, also about uncreated realities. Language behaves as we might expect in a world created by God.

28

te koine chresei (“the common usage”).

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St. Basil starts by showing that even our experience of material things only seems straightforward if we do not think too hard. When we observe how an idea of an object develops in the mind through the workings of reason (logos), we may observe in ourselves a complicated process of getting to know even the simplest things. Everything that we perceive has to be divided up into concepts. We use every day a process of conceptualizing experience by breaking it down into the elements of which it is composed. For example, at first the “body” appears simple but, in order to understand “body,” we have to apply to it concepts in order to analyze it: “body” is actually a complex idea and involves ideas of color, shape, solidity, and size. Moreover, we can use concepts about something as simple as a grain of wheat to describe different aspects of it from different points of view: one may see it as something to eat or as a seed to be planted. For St. Basil, a properly intellectual view of knowledge and of our concepts involves “vision” (theoria) of a kind that understands the complexity of what at first appears to be a simple essence. If ordinary knowledge is a lot more complex than we think, the concepts of the Bible are at least not different in kind from natural knowledge—this is St. Basil’s argument. They function in the same way—that is, by separating the experience of God into different kinds of concepts. However, the raw material for the language of revelation is different from that of ordinary experience. In ordinary experience, the mind organizes natural energies to form an idea about a thing. In the extraordinary experiences upon which divine revelation is based, the raw material of experience is the energies or activities of God. 29 For example, Christ called himself the vine because he nourishes those who are rooted in faith in him, so that they will bring forth the fruit of good works. He called himself “bread” because he keeps and preserves the soul in its right state. On the other hand, other concepts which say what God is not express the incomprehensibility of the divine essence. These are words such as “immutability” or “incorruptibility.” However, there is not one God of the energies and yet another, different God of the essence: [Christ] called Himself the light of the world, meaning by this name the inaccessible Light of Glory in the Godhead, but also that He illuminates as with the lamp of His knowledge those who have been purified as to the eye of the soul. 30 29 30

Contra Eunomius, I, SC no. 299, 190. Ibid. My translation from Greek.

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The Uncreated Light belongs to the inaccessible light of the divine nature (1 Tim 6:16) but also shines upon us. From one point of view, the light belongs to the unknowable essence of God; from another point of view, one may say that the light is an energy which can be experienced by us. “Understanding” or conceptualizing is the process by which we gain a fuller picture of what we have experienced. Experience happens immediately to the mind or to the senses or to both at once—this is “having an experience.” Understanding it so as to express it involves dividing it up into units of language and then contemplating these units. In contemplating the experience of God, the Saints were able to theologize. However, they did not reach the “substance” or “essence” underlying their experience, the reality-in-itself, that is, the very essence of God. Human beings can form only conceptions of the qualities of this reality; in this case the reality is personal, God who is making himself known to us. The language of divine revelation, then, has nothing to do with “automatic writing.” The words of the Bible are concepts or pictures expressing the energies of God as they formed the experience of the Prophets, Saints, and Apostles. They have the capacity still to lead us back to the very experience which these holy people had.

4 HOW TO INTERPRET HOLY SCRIPTURE, OUR GUIDE TO DEIFICATION THE IMPORTANCE OF SCRIPTURE So many Orthodox books concentrate upon the teaching of the Fathers of the Church but neglect the very thing that the Fathers were most interested in, that is, Holy Scripture. The Fathers wrote many biblical commentaries ands sets of homilies or sermons centered upon a book of the Bible. Their aim was to build up the faithful as part of the living Body of Christ. The Fathers were also aware of the fact that the Scriptures were ancient documents written in a variety of grammars, styles, and vocabularies and that these documents presented problems of interpretation. Although the Fathers were competent scholars of language because of their training in rhetoric, or the art of using language, pure or disinterested historical scholarship in the modern sense was not their aim. Their aim was always concerned with deification in one way or another: the Bible was their guide in coming to know God. The Orthodox Church teaches that all revealed truth was received first by the Church in an unwritten form. Eventually, within the first sixty years or so of Christ’s Ascension into Heaven, the New Testament Scriptures were written. The Orthodox Church understands them in the light of its tradition. However, it also uses the Scripture as a guide for teaching. The Scriptures were written with the purpose of building the faithful into a fuller participation in the deification that was offered to them after baptism into the Church. Orthodox books lay great stress upon tradition. Tradition is seen, firstly, in a very conservative way, as preserving, cherishing, and handing down the unwritten teachings, which were kept in secret from the prying eyes of a hostile world. St. Basil the Great set great store by the timehonored practices of the Church (which were also kept secret from outsiders in the early centuries of persecution): he gives as examples of unwritten tradition manifested in Church practices the making of the sign

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of the cross and praying in an easterly direction. 1 For this reason, the first destination of an Orthodox book tends to be the Liturgy of the Church and then the early Church Fathers, because they are a good indication of what the unwritten tradition of the Church is. Tradition, however, has an important relationship to Scripture. First, the outline taught by the unwritten tradition provides a hermeneutic, or a way into the Scriptures which is practical in that it has to do with our salvation and deification. Secondly, tradition has always been seen as a creative force: tradition is the Holy Spirit at work. Tradition provided what Origen called “the standard (canon) of the Heavenly Church,” and by “Heavenly Church” he did not mean the Church in Heaven but the supernaturally endowed Church on earth. In the Latin of this passage by Origen, canon or “standard” is rendered, “the Rule of Faith” (regula fidei ). This standard or canon was used by the Fathers in interpreting the Scriptures. 2 No one can make sense of any text unless one has a method of interpreting it, an approach and a direction. Tradition, then, provides a creative perspective relevant to our knowledge of God as saving us and as deifying us. This creative perspective of tradition can help us to penetrate deeply into the Scriptures in the Orthodox way. This book will concentrate more upon the Scriptures in the light of tradition than upon the later Fathers in themselves, because my purpose is to show how the teaching about deification emerges from the Bible. Study of the Scriptures in modern times has been rather neglected by Orthodoxy, perhaps because the academic discipline of biblical studies is so often exclusively historical and presents many examples of skeptical interpretations, which are good conversation points in a secular age but useless for our development toward holiness. However, Scripture is essential to our progress in the spiritual life: All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:16–17)

In On the Holy Spirit, NPNF, PNF (2), VIII, 40–42, SVSP, 98–101 Origen, Traité des Principes, Book IV, SC no. 268, 301. The Greek here is canon, which Origen’s Latin translator (Rufinus) renders regula, see notes 12–13 in SC no. 269, 175–176. Book IV of Origen’s On First Principles was included in the Philokalia. In English translation the most accessible is still NPNF, ANF, IV, 357. 1 2

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This idea is so important that, exceptionally, I shall depart from the more strict translations of the Bible that I shall usually be giving to give the same verses in a popular paraphrase: 3 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right. It is God’s way of preparing us in every way, fully equipped for every good thing God wants us to do. (2 Tim 3:16–17)

We are all in a mess; we do need straightening out and equipping for a new kind of life.

THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT The distinction between the “letter” (gramma) and “the Spirit” (pneuma) is the first distinction which we must learn if we are to be able to use the Scriptures to help us to be deified. By “letter” was meant the grammatical meaning, the vocabulary and characteristic human style as the Scripture appears to the reader first of all on the page of the written text and the sounds as they are read out to those listening. This dimension of Scripture is not what makes the text being read into Scripture. At this stage it is just a text, not something life-giving. You may have had the experience of reading the Bible and finding that it is just words and does not mean anything to you. Or you may have been sitting in Church hearing the Scripture chanted: you hear words and syllables but it did not help you. There is good reason for this initial inability to get anything out of the Bible. In the previous chapter, I spoke of the threefold structure of divine revelation: (1) Creation; (2) The Law of Moses and the Prophets; (3) the fulfillment in Christ. The Fathers of the early Church knew that a human being may begin to read Bible texts without any of these revelations: he or she is actually in a fallen and confused state, without even the knowledge of Creation fixed in their minds. Consequently, the Fathers all speak of a transition from “the letter” to “the Spirit.” Without this change of state, the Bible, at best even for a very learned person, is a record of the various religious ideas of some of the peoples of Antiquity; at worst, the Bible simply means nothing. How, then, does the progress in understanding from a reading of a variety of texts to a life-giving understanding of God’s Book, “The Book” or 3

The Life Application Study Bible, New Living Translation.

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Bible, actually take place? The Orthodox Church teaches that this understanding can only come from a combination of the grace of the Holy Spirit and human effort. First, the texts have to be read with the same Spirit that inspired them. The Scripture is theo-pneustos (2 Tim 3:16), “God-breathed,” or “divinely inspirited.” The human beings who wrote the Scriptures were moved in a marked way by the energies of the Holy Spirit. They expressed themselves in human language, as their understanding was enlarged by the effect of the divine energies. However, it was the providential action of the Holy Spirit that wove all these expressions together into one united whole, so that we can rightly say that the Bible is not only a collection of books but, more important, “One Book.” Second, we have to work. The benefit of Scripture is not to be gained from a superficial reading. Origen argued that the true meaning was hidden in the texts in order to get us to do some work. 4 Therefore, we are not told just to read the Scriptures but to work with them, to dig into them in order to find the treasure in them (Matt 13:44). The point about work is not that God wants to set human beings a difficult examination, but that our knowledge of divine things comes to us by means of our human understandings though our embodied minds. The knowledge of divine things is at the furthest reach of our minds and so needs more effort than most activities. Application, attention, and concentration begin with the human words, their grammar, and their historical background insofar as we can discover it. Christ encouraged his disciples by telling them that effort would be rewarded: “Seek and you shall find” (Matt 7:7). It is the same with Biblereading: one must first toil in the field and turn over the ground before nature will yield a harvest of crops and good fruits of the earth. In toiling over the Bible, we are harvesting spiritual fruits for ourselves. Application to the Scriptures with a sincere desire to profit spiritually and to act upon what is taught there and with an attitude that seeks grace will be rewarded by the gift of insight into the Scriptures, so that the “veil” which always separated the Jews from the glory of God will be taken away. Origen comments, drawing upon 2 Cor 3:15: The splendor of Christ’s coming, illuminating the Law of Moses by the brightness of truth has revealed to all who believe in him what had been

4

NPNF, ANF, IV, 357.

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added to the letter, separating it from its veil revealing all those good things which were concealed there. 5

It is clear from this that searching the Scriptures brings us into the presence of God. We know the meaning of the Scripture because it is opened to us by an encounter with God’s glorifying grace. Reading the Scripture in this way is integrally connected to our progress in deification.

THE SCRIPTURES AS TREASURIES OF SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE When the Orthodox Fathers wrote about Scripture, we become aware of their depth. The sacred writers themselves belong to a tradition which characterizes our knowledge of God as calling forth an experience of depth: O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how untraceable 6 are his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor?” (Rom 11:33–34, quoting Isa 40:13–14)

The Scriptures reveal what we could never discover through our unassisted reason about God’s actions toward us. St. Paul follows the Jewish tradition in Scripture about the wonderful incomprehensibility and wisdom of God’s ways toward Man. In the above quotation, he cites the Prophet Isaiah to convey this sense of depth. St. Paul follows the Prophet’s teaching about God. With a true knowledge of God, our understanding both recognizes God’s wisdom, yet is at the same time confounded by its extent, subtlety, and finesse. 7 And even in the moment of receiving a revelation, the person privileged to receive it is so overwhelmed by its depth that the appropriate attitude is awe and wonder. Revelation calls forth from St. Paul here a poetic manner of expression rather than a theological system. The “depth” (bathos) conveys the incomprehensibility of the divine nature, which is expressed only in part by the interaction of God with his created world, since the divine nature can never be exhausted by God’s actions. The “riches” convey the generosity of God’s outpouring of his energies, whilst “wisdom” and “knowledge” refer to his perfect plan 8 for Origen On First Principles, , ANF, IV, 354, SC no. 268, 282–3. (My translation.) “Untraceable” is my translation of the Greek anexichniastoi, which means that God’s path cannot be tracked: RSV has “inscrutable.” 7 Job 38 is in the same tradition. 8 The “plan” of God, thought out before the Ages and brought to completion in Christ, is called his plan or economy. St. John Chrysostom remarks that St. Paul’s wonder is called forth after considering the previous economy of God and how his 5 6

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our restoration from sin to grace. 9 As St. Paul exclaims in Ephesians, it is his aim [that you] may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth. (Eph 3:18)

Scripture cannot give us a complete intellectual knowledge of God’s nature; rather, it gives us a record of the impact of God’s operations or energies upon human beings, shaped by the guidance of the Holy Spirit so as to express this experience truly in words. The inspired words show enough of the beauty and goodness of God’s nature to draw us toward him. They help us to realize that, despite our apparent unlikeness to God, such is his generosity and the effectiveness of his grace, we can be his friends (John 15:13–15) really—or, ontologically. Nevertheless, not even the inspired words of Scripture are adequate to the actual experience of God’s energies. Every inspired writer and Saint has admitted that the words they use are only approximations; they point to something greater than words and sentences. This is why the Orthodox Church can never be literalist about the Scriptures. Although God is in himself unfathomable, his generosity toward us causes his revelation to be exact. Here I return to the theme of the akriveia or “accuracy” of Orthodoxy. The words are exact enough to be our guide for life. Consequently, every word of Scripture and its position in the structure of the Bible as a whole gives a variety of applications to our situations in life. It teaches us in poetry, story, and in chronicles of events that actually happened. To read the Bible, then, is not only to gain guidance about how to be deified: it is actually part of the process of our deification, as we are led up into the presence of God through human signs.

plan comes together in the present time of St. Paul’s life: “Having considered what special provision [God] had made for all occurrences, he is awestruck and cries aloud, so making his hearers feel confident that certainly that will happen which he declares” (in modern English); for the context see Homily on Romans 19, NPNF, PNF (1), 494. 9 Douglas Moo (Romans, 741) remarks that the attributes of God here which belong to God’s “depth, that is riches, wisdom and knowledge, are not intrinsic qualities of God but what some theologians have called ‘communicable’ attributes of God: aspects of God’s character that involve interaction with the world God has created.” Thus a very recent and exhaustive scholar of Romans recognizes what the Orthodox Church would call God’s energies.

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THE BIG PICTURE: THE MEANING OF THE BIBLE AS A WHOLE The importance of the “Big Picture” The spirit-filled writers had different cultures and languages, 10 but the Holy Spirit guided them to point to the main idea of Scripture—that is, the economy 11 or plan by which at last God revealed himself as fully as was possible in Christ. The Old Testament first gives a theology of creation which explains why our understanding of God through nature is so feeble: we have lost a blessed state and are spiritually, and so physically, sick. This is the teaching of the first three chapters of the Bible (Gen 1–3). Then, secondly, the Old Testament gives the specific teaching which God intended in order to lead us back to health and to fellowship with him. The Old Testament contains the Law of Moses and the prophecies about Christ, which show how persons and events were influenced by God to prepare for Christ’s coming. Thirdly, the New Testament describes the fulfillment in Christ. Christ is the key to human history in that he gathers into himself everything that has gone before, perfecting it and completing it. St. Irenaeus borrows from a phrase in St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, “Christ summed up all things in himself as their head” (Eph 1:10). 12 This idea St. Irenaeus adapts to make the striking statement of his own that Christ “summed up the long history of mankind.” 13 The journey away from God, which begins in Genesis,

In the Bible, three languages are used: Hebrew, Greek, and a smaller amount of Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Middle East and the administrative language of the Persian Empire. 11 “Economy” means, literally, the law of administrating a household, and so “plan, arrangement.” 12 My literal translation. 13 Irenénée de Lyon, Contre les heresies, SC no. 211, 342–343; the Latin for “summed up” is recapitulavit—literally “recapitulated.” The SC Greek translation is a reconstruction of what St. Irenaeus’s original Greek might have been, since, for the most part, we only have his work surviving in a Latin translation. Based upon Armenian and Syriac fragments, the editors have come up with an educated guess about the Greek, and this is what I have quoted. In any case, it does not much stray from the Latin translation which we do have: [Christ] “longam expositionem hominum in seipso recapitulavit”—“Christ recapitulated in himself the long narrative of men”; expositio will bear the meaning “narrative.” For an argued justification of the editors’ reconstruction see SC no. 210, 331–333. 10

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became a journey toward God. Corruption and decay, both moral and physical, are reversed in the journey back to God. With Christ as the key, every part of Scripture is about deification, because it describes some aspect of the way in which we are invited to share in the uncreated life of God. We can only read the Scriptures in this way if we are prompted by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, reading Scripture in an Orthodox way is to make acquaintance with the Holy Spirit, who takes us to the eternally begotten Son of God, who in turn unites us with the Father. To read the Bible, then, is to gain guidance about how to be deified. It is very important in approaching the Scripture to have a clear idea of the overall theology of the Bible. This overall theology is the history of God’s energies toward mankind, or the history of divine grace. It is salvation history. The Eucharistic Prayer of the “Anaphora” of the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great The most beautiful, concise, and accurate account of the salvation history of the Old Testament of the Bible has already been written. It is the Eucharistic Prayer in the “Anaphora” or “offering,” where the bread and wine are offered to God and changed by divine power into the body and blood of Christ. 14 This Prayer over the Holy Gifts of bread and wine is said on special occasions in the Church’s year, replacing the “Anaphora” of St. John Chrysostom. St. Basil integrates the important references to Scripture about deification in history with great skill, giving an overall picture grandly constructed. Yet his account consists of just over 1000 words in the original Greek! 15 These pages are an epitome of the most important ways by which the workings of God’s grace may be understood. The kind of salvation history upon which St. Basil concentrates is the history of the human experience of God’s uncreated energies or grace. Grace is “historical” in the sense that God’s energies were experienced and recognized by receptive people at certain times; but it does not mean that God’s energies or grace came into existence at these times. The 14 Divine Liturgy, (Oxford, 1982), 119–135. This translation will be the one which is referred to in the following discussion, and is recommended to the reader for the beauty of its language, the profundity of its rendering into English of ideas expressed in Byzantine Greek and its references to Scripture-allusions. 15 It depends upon how the Prayer is set out in the book; that part of the Anaphora which summarizes our salvation-history is nine pages in the translation to which I refer but the words are generously laid-out on the page.

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consequence of this is that the uncreated energies in the Old Testament are the same as in the New Testament; they are the energies, that is, of the Holy Trinity, not only of God the Father, but also of God the Son and Word, and of the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament knowledge of God which the Prophets had was knowledge of the Trinity. This is why they could predict the Incarnation, because it was given to them to know God’s energies as they always are. Although, then, St. Basil has a strong sense of the narrative order and historical dimension of God’s dealings with Man, he chooses the most sublime form of God’s expression of his energies, that of mystical experience given by grace. In the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, the Anaphora begins with a prayer usually said quietly by the Priest. It describes the Trinitarian nature of God and begins with two words almost untranslatable into English,—ho ôn. It is a quotation from the Book of Revelation, where God thus reveals himself: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is [ho ôn] and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev 1:8)

The Greek philosophical term for ultimate truth was similar, using the participle of the verb “to be” but in the neuter to ontôs on, “that which really is.” However, the biblical Greek refers to the Ultimate Reality using the masculine participle ho ôn, “the one, the person who really is.” But this personal being 16 is also the object of an address by the priest; God is a being with whom one may have an I–Thou relationship. The Anaphora of St. Basil, then, starts with this striking affirmation of the hypostatic or personal nature of the Trinitarian God in relation to us, “O Thou who art.” 17

It is this relational Being who enters of his own initiative into a creative relationship with what he makes. After the Thrice-Holy Hymn, 18 the priest addresses God as “a master who is a lover of Man,”—philanthrope, 19 a word that does not quite mean “philanthropic” in the ordinary English sense but 16 It is more accurate to describe the Trinity as a unique community of personal beings, so perfectly united that they can be addressed by the singular pronoun “Thou.” 17 Divine Liturgy, 119. 18 That is, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Sabaoth: heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.” (Isa 6:2–3; Matt 21:9, Mark 11:9–10), Divine Liturgy, 121. 19 Ibid., 122.

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something more along the lines of “friend of humankind,” “one who loves the human race.” 20 St. Basil balances God’s incommunicable holiness and infinite majesty, which have no measure, in other words, God’s incomprehensible essence, on the one hand, with, on the other hand, his energies. St. Basil describes God as hosios or “righteous in his works” (erga). 21 He distinguishes subtly between two words, both of which can mean “holy” in some sense. God is hagios: sacred, set apart. He is also hosios again “holy” 22 in his works. St. Basil drew upon the contrasting senses of these two words in religious cults, where hagios is what is set apart for sacred use and hosios refers to what is permitted to every person’s use. 23 St. Basil describes first how Man was formed from the earth but honored with God’s image, how he was placed in Paradise and promised immortality “and the joy of everlasting good in the keeping of the commandments.” 24 Man lost this joyful state through disobedience and by being tricked by the serpent. The result was that God had to separate Man from Paradise, bringing him “into this world, from the ground from which he was taken.” 25 Here we are reminded that it is not completely natural to Man to live in a sphere of immortality and incorruption, once he is separated from God. God had placed Man in Paradise so that through grace he might obtain deification. When this went wrong, at that very moment God established the means and the process of regeneration. 26 The means of God’s regeneration of Man is “thy Christ himself.” So we can see here the Orthodox teaching that the process that begins in the Old Testament is throughout regeneration “in Christ.” Divine Liturgy, 122. Ibid., 122. 22 Hosios is the usual Greek word for a Saint. In the translation to which I refer, the word hosios is translated “just,” Divine Liturgy, 122, and reference is made to Acts 7:52, where Christ is described as “the just one.” The translator is suggesting that Saints are sanctified by sharing Christ’s justice or righteousness. It is a reference to the intervention of God in human history through Christ, that is, through the economy of his saving works. 23 See Liddel & Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, 1082–1083: hosios was used in Classical Greek to refer to sacrifices and other religious rites. St. Basil the Great, writing 800 years after the classical period of Greek culture, was nevertheless trained in its literature. 24 Divine Liturgy, 122. 25 Divine Liturgy, 123. 26 Divine Liturgy, 123. “Regeneration” is paliggenesia, a word that means “baptism” in Titus 3:5. 20 21

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The Old Testament history is described as a series of initiatives by God. God sent Saints “to every generation,” who in living a life pleasing to God, kept alive in the minds of human beings the godly life. God also sent Prophets who predicted the salvation to come. The Law God gave in order to help Man. Angels were appointed to guard us. At last, though in few words, St. Basil comes to “the fullness of time” (Heb 1:1–2), 27 when the Son was sent becoming incarnated of the Virgin Mary. Christ’s humanity is described following St. Paul in Philippians 2:5– 11 as “the form of a servant” (Phil 2:7). St. Basil expresses deification in the early Church manner of an exchange of natures: God took our nature in order that he might make it like his own. This idea that “God became incarnate that Man might be divinized” 28 is expressed by St. Basil in Scriptural terms: He emptied himself and took upon him the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of our vile body that he might fashion us like unto the image of his glory. (Phil 2:8; Rom 8:29) 29

This passage combines two passages of St. Paul, both of which refer to the Old Testament. The first part of the sentence takes the Christ-Hymn of St. Paul in Philippians 2, in which Christ who had by nature the “form of God” took upon himself our degraded human “form” or condition— “servant” (doulos) means, literally, “slave.” There is an echo of Isaiah 53 in which the Prophet points forward to the suffering vocation of the Messiah: the “man of sorrows” who was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes are we healed. (Isa 53:5)

The second part of St. Basil’s sentence takes the language of restoration from another passage—Romans 8:29—where St. Paul uses the idea of Christ in God’s form: we are to be restored to “the form of the image of his Son.” Christ is the divine being to whose form we are to be restored, so that we become deified.” Restoration is described in terms that go back to the Old Testament. St. Basil uses St. Paul’s comparison between Adam and Christ: just as we fell in Adam, so are we restored through Christ; just as Adam’s decision had consequences for him which we have inherited, death and alienation from Divine Liturgy, 123. St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word; see chap. 1, p. 31. 29 Divine Liturgy, 124. 27 28

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God, so Christ’s actions reestablished obedience and unity between God and Man (Rom 5:12–15). Sin and death are closely connected, so that, as sin is overcome in Christ, so is the death which rules over us, so that we are “quickened” or “made alive” (Eph 2:4–5). 30 The Church is also described in Old Testament terms: it is the New Israel: a peculiar people (Deut 14:2, 26:18), a royal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9), a holy nation (Exod 19:6; 1 Pet 2:9). 31 Christ is the holy offering of this newly sanctified nation. He is the “first- fruits.” 32 The first-fruits were the offering to God of the first part of the harvest. St. Paul was the first to describe Christ in this way, “the first-fruits of those that have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:20). These offerings were “holy” by being set apart for God. They were given to the Priests and Levites (Num 18:21–24). St. Basil has already referred to the faithful as priests. Christ, then, is offered for us. Secondly, Christ is described as the “firstborn from the dead” (Col 1:18). 33 Every firstborn child was “holy,” that is, set apart as belonging to God. Each firstborn child had to be dedicated by the priests and then given back after an offering (Exod 13:2–15). This was to remind the people of the “passing over” of the firstborn of the Hebrew when the angel of the Lord killed the Egyptian firstborn. Christ, then, is the first of the children born into the New Exodus. This “exodus” is Christ’s ascent into Heaven and sitting down on the right hand of the divine majesty, where all the faithful are to follow, death and corruption having been defeated. Without using technical or dogmatic terms (such as physis, theosis, theopoiesis), St. Basil has expressed deification in Scriptural terms. He uses the language of God’s grace to Israel found in the Old Testament and reinterprets it as the preparation for Christ. The “ransom” 34 is the release of slaves previously under the power of their master, sin, by Christ’s conquest of death and his harrowing or opening up of Hades, the place of the dead. The language of “ransom” is derived from the Old Testament and refers especially to God’s deliverance of the Israelites from the slavery to the Egyptians. Purely in terms of the Jewish Scriptures, there was no event more momentous than the deliverance from Egypt; it is the pivot around which all the Old Testament traditions are organized. However, for St.

Divine Liturgy, 124. Ibid., 124. 32 Ibid., 124. 33 Ibid., 125. 34 Divine Liturgy, 125. (See Rom 7: 6) 30 31

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Basil, this great event was pointing forward to an even greater ransom, our restoration from death to life. St. Basil the Great’s Anaphora works on an epic scale, yet in a few pages uses the Old Testament history and prophecy to present a reinterpretation of the whole of human history.

THE VARIOUS SENSES OF SCRIPTURE Every part of the Scripture is “spiritual” in that its key is Christ and its inspiration is the Holy Spirit who brings us to Christ. Thus, in this sense no part of Scripture is properly Scripture when it is being understood literally—that is, according to “the letter.” However, much interpretation both in the Fathers and in modern scholarship seems to be just that: the “literal interpretation.” The Fathers go to a great deal of trouble to establish the grammatical and primary literal meaning of the texts as the basis for any understanding that follows. Modern scholarly commentaries take the same pains with considerably more historical background material. In reading the Fathers, you will become acquainted with the idea that even when reading the Bible according to the Spirit, there are several senses of Scripture. In textbooks about the Fathers you will come across various ways of describing these different senses: for example, the moral sense, and then the spiritual sense. You may also find a distinction between “history” (historia) and “theory” (theoria), which seems to mean the literal meaning of the text and then the spiritual meaning. 35 Different Fathers, moreover, seem to have different emphases in their methods of interpretation, and so do different authors of the New Testament when they interpret the Old Testament. You may also be wondering how you can use, with profit, a modern commentary. Most of the best modern scholarship is by Catholics and Protestants. They have a strong interest in the meaning as the text was meant at the time by the author. On the other hand, many very scholarly and historically informed commentaries do try to give the reader something for his edification in the Christian life. They do, then, go beyond “the letter.” All this is very confusing indeed until one realizes that, although there are some broad agreements about interpretation of the Scripture derived from the age of the Church Fathers, there was, and is, no rule book. The Holy

St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses is constructed on the basis of the difference between historia and theoria. 35

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Spirit cannot be put in a straight-jacket, and the application of the Bible is to a variety of human situations. The purpose of this section is not to burden you with the whole, immense subject of Scripture-interpretation and to sort out all these differences of method, but rather to show how the Bible can be read practically as a means of gaining a better knowledge of God and of understanding our own various situations in relation to God. In order to achieve this end, I propose that we look at the various meanings of Scripture according to the threefold structure of divine revelation, which will already be familiar to you from the last chapter: first, Creation; second, the specific revelation to Israel through Moses and the Prophets; third, fulfillment in Christ. I have also chosen one book from the age of the Church Fathers specifically about the interpretation of Scripture: the Philokalia of Origen. 36 The Orthodox Church does not agree with everything that Origen taught and does not call him a Father or a Saint. However, the Church recognizes that Origen was one of the greatest minds when it came to interpreting Scripture. The word philokalia meant in Greek Antiquity an anthology or collection of extracts. Origen’s Philokalia was an anthology made over a century after his death by St. Gregory Theologian, bishop of Nazianzen, with the collaboration of St. Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea. It was a collection of Origen’s best passages with his errors expurgated, to be used as a handbook for exegesis or Scripture-interpretation. It is arguable to what extent even St. Gregory and St. Basil actually followed its rules. However, St. Gregory did send it to a bishop as a guidebook about preaching the Scriptures. It therefore has some authority. It is, in any case, the only systematic account of Scripture interpretation to be found in Antiquity and so will help as a start, just as it was intended to help Bishop Theodore of Tyana in the fourth century, to whom St. Gregory Nazianzen sent it as a pyktion, or a little book of folded pages, which was intended to provide some examples of how to interpret the Scriptures and answer some common problems. For this work the most accessible source is the work of Origen from which St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Basil of Caesarea made the selections, that is, On First Principles (De Principiis in Latin Peri Archôn in Greek), Book IV, NPNF, ANF, IV, 365. The work may be found in the original Greek and in an early Latin translation in SC nos. 268 & 269 (On First Principles and SC no. 302, (Philokalia of Origen). The critical edition of the Greek text (no translation) by Armitage Robinson (1893) has recently appeared (2004). The English translation (Lewis, 1911) has long been unavailable. 36

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Origen belonged originally to Alexandria, where the threefold structure of revelation was reflected in the preparation of catechumens for baptism and which we discussed in the last chapter.16 1) The literal sense of Scripture This sense of the texts has to do with natural knowledge, such as we have by virtue of our creation. The Philokalia of Origen sees the literal sense of a particular passage of the Bible as belonging to the stage of divine revelation when Man, having lost Paradise, was living in the world. Man still had his God-given reason partly intact. He had to begin from bodily things in order to be led up to spiritual things. However, the letter was a starting point, not, as is the case with some technical commentaries today, an end in itself. The wisdom of the Philokalia is that it urges us on to make some interpretations helpful to us, in terms of grace, by seeking the help of the Holy Spirit. We have already seen how the “letter” was not, strictly speaking, Scripture. Origen argued that the meaning of the Holy Spirit “hid” beneath the letter. The letters were, as he put it, the “body” of Scripture; they had no soul until they were interpreted by the Spirit. Since the body when divided from the soul is dead, one might conclude that Origen had little interest in the primary literal meaning of the text as it can be established from the letters, the vocabulary, and the grammar. However, Origen was, on the contrary, very interested in the literal meaning and at times went to a lot of trouble to try to establish it. 37 Origen’s point is that we should not stay with the literal meaning but use it as a basis for making an application of some kind to the Christian life. St. Basil and St. Gregory Theologian had both been educated in humane learning at Athens and were very interested in what we would now call the lexical side of the Scripture texts, and they liked the “philological” approach of Origen, which combined the best understanding of language to be had at the time with an insistence that we should go on from that to teach something helpful and useful to the faithful. Many people in the fourth century, in a society that had only recently become officially Christian, were puzzled by the Scriptures. Were they tales, like those found in the poets read at school, such as in Homer? In Greek, the various styles 37 Origen compiled a massive research tool, the Hexapla, a six-column version of the Bible with the original text, transliterations, and various translations for critical comparison. This immense work, now only existing in fragments, suggests that Origen was interested in the literal and grammatical meanings.

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of the different biblical writers were much more obvious than in a translation such as the English Authorized Version, which translates all the texts in one grand style. The Old Testament was read in the Greek Septuagint version, the style of which was at times much rougher than Attic Greek and tinged with Hebrew manner of expression. The Old Testament especially presented problems in that it was the product of a “barbarous” or non-Greek culture. This was not only a problem of language. The characters of the Old Testament behaved at times in ways which had become, culturally, difficult to understand. Then there was the question of literary form. Some parts of the Bible seemed to be historical narratives, whilst others were written in poetry. Then there were narratives that should not be taken literally but as parables. Origen addressed all these issues, and St. Gregory and St. Basil could see the benefit of facing these questions. Today, we are as puzzled by some passages of the Bible as were the early Christians, and Origen’s ideas have value as a corrective to the reduction of the meaning of the Bible to historical scholarship about the religious ideas and feelings of ancient peoples a long time ago. One way of better understanding the literal meaning of a passage was to see how it fitted into the meaning of the Bible taken as a whole, considering the author of the whole Bible to be the Holy Spirit. However, the Philokalia of Origen is also wise in teaching that we should read in order to progress in the spiritual life, moving from a rather simpleminded Christianity to a deeper encounter with God. The idea of various senses above and beyond the letter also means that the Scripture can help people at different stages in their lives. 2) The “soul” or “mind” of Scripture If we seek the Holy Spirit in prayer, then we can move to the “soul” (psyche) of Scripture, which has something to say to our psyche. The Greek word psyche, usually translated “soul,” means the human mind and our feelings. It describes what we can understand with our uncreated reason, but “spirit” is used to describe the highest level of understanding. This sense of Scripture corresponds roughly with the revelation in the Old Testament. The first level of spiritual understanding was the “soul of Scripture.” The Philokalia means by this level of meaning what can be learnt from the examples of characters described in the Bible, especially the Old Testament. For this reason it is sometimes called “the moral sense” because it is concerned with concrete behavior. We can read the Bible, then, in order to find some moral instruction and improve our behavior.

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The “soul of Scripture” belongs to the second phase of Revelation, the Law of Moses and the moral teaching of the Prophets. When one starts out sincerely to be a Christian, then a reordering of one’s life is often needed. Definite guidelines are very helpful and need not be seen as legalism or selfrighteousness. The Old Testament is full of moral instruction: in the Book of Proverbs, in the examples of good and bad kings in the Books of the Kings, and in the warnings of the Prophets. There are good examples for us to follow of people who were faithful to God and merciful to their fellow human beings. There are bad examples to avoid and some explanation of why people can become wicked: that is, through greed or covetousness through sensuality, through power and love of money. There are also examples of people who were imperfect and a mixture of good and bad and an account of how and why they failed and how and why succeeded in being good. Most important are the Ten Commandments (Exod 13; Deut 5) This level may seem rather boring, but we cannot get to know God without trying to be good people. 3) The “spirit” of Scripture This is a much deeper level of understanding. The “spirit” of Man is that part of him which is made to be in the likeness of God and which is made for close union with God. This sense corresponds with the third stage of revelation, with the final revelation of Christ’s Incarnation. The “spiritual sense” of a passage of Scripture is always Christological, because the Holy Spirit always bears witness to Christ, one divine person and nature who has united to himself for all eternity to a human nature. The spiritual sense of the Old Testament is in the prophecies concerning Christ. The hard parts of the prophetic writings are those which are not narratives about the Prophet’s life and teaching, but oracles having a many-layered meaning, pointing forward in a dark but powerful manner to events that took place thousands of years later, toward the Messiah and his death for the life of the world. Prophecy lends itself to this “spiritual” or “mystical” sense and needs the interpretation of the Church, for example in the liturgy, to bring it out fully. However, it is surprising how exact the predictions are and how they all fit together through the guiding inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 38 If we meditate upon the words of the Prophets, asking For example Psalm 22 (LXX 21) refers to Christ’s Passion with great exactness, if Christ is our key to interpret the Bible. The Psalm has a literal sense which is 38

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the Holy Spirit for help in our reading, we will be encouraged by realizing how far in the past God planned our salvation, so that we marvel over the care that he has always had for us. We can see how God began the process of our restoration at the very instant Man had fallen from Paradise. 39 The spiritual sense also refers to the Holy Trinity. Once we can begin to perceive the divine energies working through people’s lives in the Bible, one starts to seek a deifying encounter with God’s energies. While at the previous level, the “soul” or “mind” of Scripture, people’s biographies in the Bible were moral examples, if we have the spiritual sense, then we discern how the lives of particular persons were changed by God’s grace, the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, working together with one will, activity, and energy to bring us ever closer to the new life by which we can be like God. As we read about Abraham, Noah, Moses, the Prophets, and then the response of the disciples to Christ—this personal dimension draws us in to be like the ones whom the Father has already drawn to him. The spiritual sense of the Bible, I would add, makes clear that Christology should never be separated from Trinitarian theology. If we read Christologically, with Christ as the key, and pneumatically, with the Holy Spirit’s energies in our hearts and minds, the Bible acts upon us ‘anagogically’: it leads us up to God the Father. The spiritual sense also enables one to discern analogies and connections between passages of the Bible that are not obvious, by means of typology. 40 The Apostles in their Epistles use typology extensively, and the Fathers continued this way of understanding Scripture spiritually. A typos was a stamp, seal, or impression representing something else. For example, when kings were really kings and queens were really queens in England and ruled the land, the Great Seal stamped upon wax on a document represented the royal power. Many passages of the Old Testament can be understood as types, that is, impressions of a greater reality to come: the latter was the prototype. Thus events in the Old Testament such as the crossing of the Red Sea can be understood typologically to refer to salvation in Christ and specifically to baptism. The Burning Bush can be understood related to the contemporary context of the writer, the just man who calls to God for vindication under persecution by wicked people. 39 Divine Liturgy, 123. In the long priestly prayer of consecration in the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, no sooner is Man’s expulsion from Paradise mentioned than St. Basil refers to the establishment by God of “salvation by regeneration which is in Christ Himself. For Thou, O Good Master, didst not wholly forsake Thy creature which Thou hadst made.” 40 See Chapter 3, 63, for a very brief definition.

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both as a type of the Incarnation and of the conception in the immaculate womb of the Virgin of the uncreated Word of God, since the flesh was not burnt by the holiness of the Divinity. The Services of the Feasts of the Church contain a wealth of typology, especially in the Vigil Services of Vespers and Matins. This typological language invites the worshiper to go deeper into the spiritual interconnections between all the parts of the Bible. Lastly, the spiritual understanding can enable an allegorical interpretation. Allegories explore the figurative meaning of the smallest details of the Scripture, the subtlest nuances of the Holy Spirit’s composition of Scripture. They are the least palatable to a modern mind. However, it should be borne in mind that they were not the inventions of the Fathers. St. Paul uses allegory to reinterpret the Old Testament (Gal 4:24, where the word “allegory” is used). The spiritual sense is all about the third stage of God’s Revelation to Man, the fulfillment of all things in Christ.

CONCLUSION In reading the Bible for yourself and in reading the comments of the Fathers, you will come to see that the Philokalia of Origen is a useful handbook. 41 Like all useful handbooks, it gives one a place to start but it should not be taken as a rigid scheme. While the distinction between letter and spirit always holds, the various Fathers differed in the importance in practice that they gave the literal sense. Origen acknowledged it in his writings; but in practice when he was himself interpreting the Bible for the faithful, he preferred the spiritual sense to the virtual exclusion of the literal. On the other hand, St. John Chrysostom, who is the standard for Orthodox Scripture interpretation, stays close to the literal sense and draws his lessons out from the literal sense without ever loosing sight of it. But this does not mean that his interpretations were not Christological; he was in many ways the most Christological of all the Fathers in his interpretation of Scripture, because, for him, everything comes round to Christ. Consequently, St. John Chrysostom did interpret according to the spiritual sense. There are writers of Christian Antiquity who were definitely exotic: for example Didymus the Blind 42 in his commentary on the Old Testament Prophet Zechariah. There has in fact been something of a reaction in Because of a lack of a good modern translation, the essential part of this work may be read as On First Principles 4, NPNF, ANF, IV, 349–382. 42 Didyme L’Aveugle sur Zacharie, SC nos. 83, 84, and 85. 41

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modern times against allegorizing of the Scriptures in favor of the salvation history narrative sense. Fr. George Florovsky is an example: The Bible is intrinsically historical: it is a record of the divine acts, not so much a presentation of God’s eternal mysteries, and these mysteries themselves are available only by historical mediation. 43

The practice of this book will be, on the whole, closer to St. John Chrysostom than to Origen’s practice, although you may assess my interpretation of Scripture according to the threefold scheme of revelation: 1) I shall be quite “philological.” I shall be using the best of recent scholarship on the literal sense. Here I am appealing to natural human knowledge. I shall be giving an account of the main biblical passages according to the best resources for establishing the primary literal meaning of the author. 2) I shall emphasize the place of a particular passage of the Bible in relation to the whole Bible. Here I become much more theological in my assumptions and be concerned with how the Old Testament can be interpreted for our moral edification. 3) I shall refer to the Christological and Trinitarian senses of Scripture and use the typological interpretations that are found in the Church’s liturgies but avoid allegorizing, in the sense of interpretations that actually go against the literal and grammatical meaning. Very important is the idea that the Scripture teaches and explains a definite dogmatic teaching without which deification cannot be achieved. The Christological and Trinitarian meaning of Scripture is often omitted from modern commentaries because the Christology and Trinity belong to a different theological specialism— that is, dogmatic theology or systematic theology or patristic theology. However, I argue that the Scriptures cannot be read this narrowly. We must look for the spiritual meaning if we truly desire to attain deification.

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5 THE OLD TESTAMENT: THE HISTORY OF THE ENERGIES OF GOD IN THE BIBLE WHY READ THE OLD TESTAMENT? Since all Scripture is inspired by God’s Spirit and is to help us to be “fully equipped” (2 Tim 3:16–17), then it follows that all Scripture is about deification, since deification includes everything that a human being needs to know to be restored and to have fellowship with God. There is, then, not a word of Scripture that is irrelevant to our subject. When the devout Christian who desires grace comes to what is called “The Old Testament,” he finds in fact the Jewish Scriptures. Why the sacred writings of the Jews, who do not accept Jesus as the Messiah, should have a bearing upon deification may not be clear. The Jewish Scriptures are called “The Old Testament” as the answer to a problem which the Church met very early. However, before giving the answer, the problem needs to be explained, since it is still a problem for many people today. Perhaps many of the present readers of this book have had the experience of trying, and failing, to read the Bible right through from the Book of Genesis to the Book of Revelation and have got stuck somewhere in the “Old Testament,” for example in the Book of Leviticus or Numbers, wondering what laws about cleanness and uncleanness and rules about different kinds of animal sacrifices have to do with salvation in Christ. Are not the Gospels and the letters of the Apostles enough? Did not Jesus conflict with the rabbis who taught the Law? Did not St. Paul teach that the Law was an obstacle to faith in Jesus Christ? This impression, of the irrelevance of the Old Testament, might well be reinforced for those Orthodox Christians in non-Orthodox lands where services are difficult to find and who manage only at best to attend the Holy Liturgy of the Eucharist on Sundays. In the Eucharistic Liturgy, the Scripture readings are exclusively from the writings called “The New Testament”: first there is a reading from one of the letters of the Apostles or from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, followed by the Gospel reading. The importance of the Gospel has been emphasized liturgically by a procession. The icon-screen or iconostasis might remind one of the 89

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Temple as described in the Old Testament. However, Orthodox Christians in the West are often guests celebrating in churches of other denominations and may not have the benefit of an iconostasis. This impression that the Orthodox Church is liturgically an exclusively New Testament Church is false. The Eucharistic Liturgy is in fact full of Old Testament ideas, words, and phrases in its many long and beautiful prayers. However, the Old Testament finds its proper liturgical place in the service of Vespers or Evening Prayer. There is, in addition, a period in the Church’s yearly cycle when the Old Testament is much more prominent: that time is Lent, the Great Fast in preparation for Pascha, for the “Feast of Feasts” of the Resurrection of Christ. These facts give us a clue to the meaning of the Old Testament in Orthodoxy: it describes the preparation for the coming of Christ. In Lent, every year, the people prepare for the Resurrection of Christ by putting themselves in the place of the people who were looking for the coming of the Messiah. In Vespers, every week, or more often than that if possible, the people are preparing for the coming of Christ as the light of their lives in the darkness of the evening—that is, thinking about and repenting the darkness of their sins, but looking forward with hope to the Eucharist when they may receive Christ. There are other reasons why many Christians do not like the Old Testament. It is full of bloodshed and cruel deeds done in the name of God by Prophets and fanatical people. This fierce spirit seems to contradict the humble acceptance of suffering which Jesus taught and lived. Marcion (2nd century) taught that the Jewish Scriptures were not Christian Scripture and that they described the actions of a different God from the God of the Gospels and the letters of St. Paul: while the Jewish Scriptures teach legalism and a God of wrath, the Gospels and Pauline writings teach about a God of love, a different God from that of the Jews. However, the Church rejected this view, despite its convenience in explaining away some of the difficult passages of the Old Testament. The Marcionite heresy made the Church decide on whether or not the Jewish Scriptures were part of the “canon” of Scriptures—that is, if they were part of Scripture in the way I have described it at the beginning of this chapter: helpful for salvation by giving a standard to which we should aim, and guidance about how to arrive there. The Church gave a clear “Yes” to this question. The Jewish Scriptures were indeed Scripture, and the Orthodox Church today regards these writings as Scripture. There are some obvious reasons why the Church took this view. The Gospels and the letters of the Apostles are full of references to the Jewish Scriptures and describe Jesus in a Jewish category, as “Christ,” a word that

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translates “Messiah,” the Hebrew word for “One Anointed by God” to bring in his Kingdom. Therefore, in order to understand the Gospels and the apostolic letters, converts needed to understand the Jewish Scriptures and Jewish history. However, the Old Testament did not become canonical just as a reference book to help the Christian to understand the early Christian writings, although that is, of course, important. The Church gave a deeper reason. This reason is the theme of this chapter. It is the idea that God worked through and in human history from the very beginning, so that the Incarnation is the climax of the history of God’s actions to bring human beings into his own wonderful life. The “Canon” or list of the books of Scripture describes the whole of this history, not just its dramatic climax in the life of Jesus Christ.

THE OLD TESTAMENT AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE HISTORY OF GOD’S GRACE Although God is always the same in perfect goodness and in his constant love for his creation, his acts or energies were put forth in time and place. In this latter sense, one may speak of the history of God’s energies. God’s grace has a historical quality because it operates upon beings who exist in time and space and who live by their choices and draw conclusions from the succession of cause and effect. This history encompasses everything about God’s grace. It stretches from the creation of the world from nothing, through his special revelation in the Law to provide a help for human beings who had strayed from his way, to the climax of the coming of Christ, God Incarnate, and predicts the future perfection of all things at the End of the Age. St. Irenaeus, drawing upon the Bible, was the first of the Fathers to summarize salvation in this historical way. St. Irenaeus referred to “Adam” as having sinned and described the sin of Adam as affecting the whole human race, because the sin of the first man encapsulated the whole of humanity. However, Christ acted as a second and greater Adam, “recapitulating” or containing within himself the whole of humanity and by his obedience to the Father reversing the ancient sin. St. Irenaeus was drawing upon St. Paul for his idea of “recapitulation” (Eph 1:10). 1 A very important passage worth meditating upon is Romans 5:12–21, where St. Paul begins: “Recapitulate” is often translated “gather together in one”; the Greek verb is anakephalaiein, “to bring together into the head.” 1

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DEIFICATION IN THE EASTERN ORTHODOX TRADITION Just as through one man sin came into the world and through sin death, so also death penetrated into all human beings, in that all have sinned …. But the grace is not as the offence, for, if by the offence of one many died, by so much the more has the grace of God, and the gift freely given from the one man Jesus Christ, come upon many.

There is no reason to suppose that St. Paul did not think of one man, Adam, as being a historical individual, and the same is true of the Fathers. They had not thought of the problems connected with modern science and “evolution,” so that there was no particular problem for them in speaking in this way about Adam. However the historical existence of Adam is not St. Paul’s main point. Rather, his point is that the actions for good or ill of one person affect the welfare of all human beings. The idea is that by our “nature,” as the Fathers would express it, human beings are interconnected, because we share a nature with other human beings. God created Man good, but there was a point when individual persons turned away from God; these individual choices affected other human beings; in fact, they affected the whole human race, because the bad choices damaged human nature. Christ, in taking up human nature, reversed this evil. St. Ireneaeus can say with the same intention that Eve’s sin affected the whole human race and that Mary, in accepting, despite the reproaches of men, to be the bearer of God in her womb, became a second Eve, reversing the sin of the first Eve. 2 The question of the historicity of the first man and woman is a genuine intellectual problem to be faced, and this will be discussed in an Excursus at the end of this chapter, as it bears upon deification. However, it is important to see now that the main point of the teaching of St. Paul and the Fathers is that the acts of any person affect humanity as a whole. The consequence is that the harm done to our nature as a result of one trespass can be healed in a similar way—that is, by the actions of persons, the person of Jesus Christ in union with the will of the Father and the Holy Spirit, and the persons of the Mother of God, Mary. Indeed, by our interconnectedness in the Body of Christ, the Church, we participate in the salvation of one another and of the world through our actions and prayers “in Christ”—that is, in union with Christ through faith. Part, then, of human deification is the sharing in the work by which God saves us, just as we all have a share in the evil by which humanity as a whole is harmed.

2

St. Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, NPNF, ANF, I, 547; SC no. 153, 248–251.

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There is therefore a true and a false way of speaking about one’s “individual salvation.” It is correct to say that each one of us has a choice concerning one’s soul; God cannot save us without our will. On the other hand, no one is saved alone, in a way that is separate from his fellow human beings. Whether we know it explicitly or not, other persons are helping us or hindering us. How then do the Jewish Scriptures belong to this history? The answer is that the human condition which Christ came to heal had a long history. Moreover, God prepared in various ways throughout human history for the coming of Christ. God chose a small nation, the Jews, to whom he would reveal himself more fully and specially, in order that this nation might be a light to other nations (Isa 2:2–3; 42:6; 49:6; 60:3). What then is the meaning of the expression “Old Testament”? The term testamentum was the Latin equivalent of the Greek diatheke, meaning “covenant.” A covenant (Hebrew, berith) was an agreement with a king that described the benefits he had achieved for the people, in return for which he demanded loyalty. The Hebrew writers used “covenant” to describe the grace of God which he manifested to those whom he had chosen. God had done most of the work, in his mighty acts and in his successive covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the People of Israel; he only asked for faith and loyalty. As the people turned away from God and broke the covenant, God initiated another one. The covenants of God with his people thus make up a history of his gracious acts toward them. This “history of the energies of God” starts in what Christians call “The Old Covenant” (Palaiao Diatheke) because they saw that the Old Covenant pointed forward to an even greater grace in the future and was fulfilled in God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, which was the New Covenant (Koine Diatheke). The idea of “covenant” or “Testament,” then, is about God’s actions in establishing a living relationship with us, in which he shares his divine life with us. We come to know God truly as part of this story. Salvation is not something static which can be tuned into at any time and place by realizing some general ideas about human nature. Rather, we need to know the story to which we belong. Thus the history which makes up the Old Testament contains vital information. Orthodoxy teaches that God wanted something even more than obedience to Law—that is, fellowship and friendship with the human race. The Prophets were the friends of God, and they obeyed him because they loved him. Their teaching pointed forward to the possibility of intimacy with God. They prophesied deification in Christ.

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The Old Testament, then, consists of two important stages in the threefold structure of divine revelation, which has been described earlier: first there was Creation and the natural knowledge of God; then, secondly, the special Revelation in the Law; and finally, thirdly, the New Testament describes the fulfillment of the Law in Jesus Christ. The Old Testament teaches about the creation of the world from nothing and the making of Man, by divine inspiration. This creation theology can be appreciated by the human reason. The Old Testament speaks more exactly about the character of God and his will for humankind in the first five books of the Old Testament, the Law or Torah, which describe how Man can live a holy life and be holy just as God is holy. For the Jews, this is the highest revelation; but for the Christian, the end of the Law is Christ, both in the sense that the purpose of the Law was to point to Christ and also because, with the knowledge of God that came with Jesus Christ, there could be greater freedom with regard to some of the commandments of the Law, while others were no longer necessary: for example, sacrifice of animals, many of the laws about ritual uncleanness, and, for pagan converts, circumcision. The perspective of the New Testament is needed to see that the Old Testament teaches about Jesus Christ. The Old Testament has an obscure and poetic way of speaking about Christ. In the Law, there is, as it were, a submerged level of meaning which the Apostles and Christian Fathers brought out. On the other hand, the Prophets did know Christ before his Incarnation. Their experience was profound and difficult, but it explains in poetry the history of salvation and points forward toward a hopeful future which seemed at the time to be at odds with the way things were going. Thus the Old Testament speaks of the knowledge of God by creation, Law, and prophecy.

THE CREATION OF MAN TO SHARE THE KINGSHIP OF GOD: GENESIS 1:1–2:3 The Septuagintal and Greek patristic account: A summary I have explained how the Greek Fathers interpreted the opening of the Book of Genesis in the Greek Septuagint translation made by Greekspeaking rabbis in the second and third centuries B.C. 3 The Fathers saw it as a majestic poem by which the persons of the Trinity cooperated to create the cosmos as an expression of the divine goodness, with Man as the climax 3

See Chapter 3, 57–59.

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of that creation. While the Father initiated the creation, the Holy Spirit shaped the primal matter which had been brought into existence where there was nothing before. However, the Son or Word (the Logos) of God played the part of the divine artist in endowing creation with its reasonable quality. Man was created possessing within himself the image of God as a mirror-image. This image had the potential to be realized by the exercise of human freedom cooperating with divine grace, so that one could become like God. The Fathers saw the rational qualities displayed by humankind as originating in the Creation. Deification was the restoration of perfect reason in Man, not a dry rationalism but a participation in the mind of God, so that the Book of Genesis was the beginning of an education by which we might move toward perfection by understanding our true nature. Deification in the Hebrew text: Every man as sacred king and representative of God The Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, the earliest Jewish translation (c. 300 BC) was used by the Greek Fathers to support their teaching. The Hebrew, in which the original revelation was expressed, contains some different ideas on the subject of deification, especially as interpreted by Jewish tradition. In fact certain Fathers, Origen in the East and St. Jerome in the West, did consult the Hebrew and Jewish tradition. It is important to consider the Hebrew and to show how different interpretations arising from the Greek translation and those coming from the Hebrew may coexist peacefully, not being contradictions. Only on the sixth day does God use the first person plural, “we.” God says “Let us make Man.” The meaning kept in Jewish tradition is that God here turned to the holy angels and bodiless powers to invite their agreement and cooperation in the making of Man. 4 The Orthodox Christian tradition sees the expression “Let us” as an early revelation of the Trinitarian nature of God. One may see the latter meaning as the spiritual sense. However, the spiritual sense does not exclude the reference to the angels in Jewish tradition, which is closer to the literal meaning of the text. It is not necessary to chose between these meanings; one can accept both. The reference to the angels shows God as characteristically inviting beings 4 Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary, 12. For celestial court see 1 Kgs 22:19–22; Isa 6:8; Psalms 29:1–2; 82; 89:6–7; Job 1:6. In Job 38:7 divine beings “the sons of God” are present at creation, ibid., 353. Sarna follows the teaching of the medieval rabbi Rashi, ibid., 353.

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whom he has created to share in his creative work. (It may be that this was the point when some angels experienced the envy of hurt pride which resulted in their rebellion against God; the making of Man in God’s image and likeness was the cause of the revolt. 5 However, though many angels fell, more remained steadfast). In the coming of the Archangel Gabriel to the Mother of God, Mary, we see an angel sharing in the making of the most perfect man, Jesus Christ, and acting as a ministering spirit to God’s purposes [Luke 1:26–38].) 6 Man is made at the furthest reach from the chaos of the undivided waters. The Hebrew text shares the Near Eastern idea of creation as mainly an ordering of dangerous and unruly forces. However, it is not necessary to exclude from the text the idea of God’s creation of everything from absolutely nothing. The Orthodox Church does not accept one early medieval rabbinic way of translating Genesis 1:1: At the beginning of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and empty and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

This way of interpreting the Hebrew grammar 7 suggests that there was a formless matter for which God was not creatively responsible. 8 However, the Jewish medieval interpretation may well have been influenced by Aristotle’s idea of the eternity of matter. 9 In any case, there are some grammatical objections to this translation. 10 Orthodox Christian tradition sees God’s creation as both origination of everything and as a process by which it was gradually ordered and perfected. The latter process, of perfecting Creation and ordering it, is shared by God with his rational creatures. Part of Man’s role was to be king and ruler over Creation, 5 Rev 9:1 refers to “a star fallen from heaven to earth.” See also Isa 14:12, which also describes the fall of an astral being called “Day Star, son of dawn.” 6 In Matt 2:2, the wise men are following the “star” of the Messiah. There may here be an association between angels and stars, so that “star” is a way of referring to a heavenly being. Alternatively, the star may have been a manifestation of the Uncreated Light, which guided the wise men, just as once the fiery cloud had guided Moses and his people. 7 It makes the first two words be-reshith into the construct case. 8 One may add that God’s creation of the universe from absolutely nothing is the doctrine of all the mainstream Christian traditions: Catholic, Reformed, and Orthodox. 9 Medieval Jewish rabbis were learned in the philosophy of Aristotle. 10 That is, the awkward presence of the connecting particle w.

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subjecting it: just as God subjected the mighty elements of firmament, water, light, and darkness, Man was to be God’s co-ruler on earth, ruling Creation for its good (Gen 1:26, 28). St. John Chrysostom interpreted the idea that we are made in the image and likeness of God as referring to this godly rule over the rest of creation. 11 The rabbinic reading blurs the beauty of an important distinction: that is, while God is the ultimate author of all things, he shares his providential work with man. Between primeval chaos and the making of Man, the world is ordered by God with increasing precision and variety. What God sees as not only “good” but “very good” is his making of Man. The basic meaning of the word tsellem (image) is somewhat uncertain, while demuth (likeness) was a well-known word for resemblance. However, we do know that the words belong to the language of sacred kingship and were applied to monarchs. In the ancient Near East, kings were seen as divine beings or divinized representatives of the gods. There is a crucial difference between the Hebrew use of the language of sacred kingship and similar language used in Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian theology. In these totalitarian societies, it was the king only who was seen as deified; the people were the slaves of the gods, and only the king was the regent of the gods. However, in Hebrew thought every person was made in the image and likeness of God; every person had this divine aspect and this kingly status. This revolutionary idea is dramatized in the confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh. The pharaoh thinks that he is a god and behaves with a godlike sense of his power. However, the Lord tells Moses that Pharaoh must learn, through signs and wonders, that he is not God but that only the Lord is God. The theology of the Book of Genesis is to some extent a prelude to the redemption of the enslaved Israelites and the restoration to them of their freedom and dignity, through God’s action. Thus the divine right of kings is, for the sacred writer, the right of all human beings. Our greatest dignity consists in our resemblance to the One True God, so that our very nature fights against efforts to enslave and subjugate us to the will of a ruling elite. 12 The meaning of the Hebrew emphasizes some important practical implications for our deification. First, we are made into co-rulers of the creation with God. Since God’s rule is benevolent and kind, how can we justify misuse and exploitation of our environment and the animals, if we St. John Chrysostom, Genesis, (Trans. Hill), 47, 53: SC no. 433, 192–193. I am indebted to Mihail Neamts for these insights about the political dimension of the Exodus account. 11 12

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are really serious about pursuing deification? Second, deification is at odds with the enslavement of our fellow human beings in whatever form it takes: military or, as so often today, economic. God’s work and Sabbath rest Genesis 1:26–27 is certainly the main text about deification. However, if the first creation narrative (Gen 1:1–2:3) is seen in its Hebrew context, the whole account may be understood as about deification, which is the main idea governing its structure. The first creation narrative of Genesis 1:1–2:3 explains what deity truly is, as opposed to the false notions of deity among polytheistic and idolatrous nations. The issue then is: If we are made in the image and likeness of God, what sort of a god are we created to resemble, and what kind of resemblance are we graciously offered? The theologies of Egypt and Mesopotamia taught many gods and had creation myths which explain how certain gods gained power over the others and Man by controlling the forces of nature and ordering them. By contrast, the sacred writer makes clear the complete separation between Creation and the Creator-God, who not only ordered but also brought what exists into being by his good will and for no other reason. This Creation is reasonably-constructed and can be rationally studied as a reflection of the goodness and reasonableness of the Creator. It is resemblance to such a deity that we are given. The true God appears first as an acting agent or person. He makes the various phenomena of nature. There is no confusion, as in so much pagan polytheism, between natural powers and Godhood. Thus the sun, moon, stars and planets, the trees and animals are not gods but created things or beings brought into being by God’s deliberate action. This picture of the one true God is important, in terms of our resemblance to him. It means that we are gods in that we are capable of good actions through our free will, not for the pleasing of our passions but for the good of others and in the pursuit of things good in themselves. By a reversal of what we might expect, God is first described as behaving as an enlightened human being might behave, a human being enlightened, that is, by the Torah or Law. The Law laid down that Man should work for six days but on the seventh day should rest from all work of any kind. When the sacred writer makes God seem to obey the Sabbath, this is not primitive “anthropomorphism”—that is, making the form of God to be like us. Some of the older biblical critics used to present Genesis 1:1–2:3 in this way, as if the sacred writer thought of God as a man in the heavens, the “old man in the sky” that believers are thought to believe in by

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many. However, the biblical account is much more subtle and interesting once we see it as an entire text about deification. To describe God himself as being like an enlightened man is a very forceful way of saying that Man can be like God. The account suggests a relationship in God between his energies, by which he works, and his unknowable essence, in which he “rests.” This is not a rest through fatigue but an expression of the divine life, lived over and above divine activity. The “days” by which God works are not periods of clock time but are to be understood in relation to the idea of the Sabbath as a sacred day: the “days” express a relationship between activity in time—that is, God’s energies put forth in creation—and God’s eternal nature. A similar relationship between energy and essence is to be found in man, the biblical account suggests, because in a human being living a life influenced by grace—that is, the enlightenment of the Law—there is a balance between human energy and essence. Just as God, Man acts as an acting person, working in an orderly and rational way. However, human activity is not all there is to Man. Man is, like God, more than what he or she does. Man has a hidden eternal nature, in which he can rest. In ceasing to work on the seventh day of the week and keeping that day “holy,” or set apart, Man has learned to live also in communion with his mysterious essence, his Godward nature. Consequently, by the point in the text (1:26–27) at which we reach the explicit statement that Man is made to resemble God, the divinity of Man has already been strongly implied and the main lines of a theology of the person, both human and divine, has been established. To rest in the prayer of inner stillness 13 is like the resting of God: the Bible, from the very first page, takes us to a picture of Man which makes Man more than what he does. It introduces us to the mystery of the person. The force of the language comes from a powerful rhetorical or poetic reversal of expectations. In Genesis 1 we do not have primitive “anthropomorphism,” imposing in savage ignorance Sabbath-observance even upon God. Rather, what we find is “theomorphism”—that is, a philosophy or theology by which the divine form of Man is startlingly expressed. In practicing the Torah, then, the devout Jew was not conforming to a merely outward regulation but expressing with his whole being the balance 13 In the Orthodox tradition, the prayer of stillness is sometimes called hesychasm, from the Greek word for stillness, hesychia. Consequently, contemplatives, and especially monastics, are described as hesychasts.

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in his nature between action and contemplation. On the Sabbath, the Jew was living out his highest nature. When the peoples surrounding the Jews found their strict Sabbath observance to be impractical, irrational, and incomprehensible and mocked it, such people were—and still are today— showing that they have completely missed the point of the Genesis Creation account, which teaches that Man, like God, has a hidden nature and is not the sum of his actions. It is hardly surprising that Christians very early saw the relationship between the seven-day Sabbath pattern of life and the perfection of the Christian life toward which we are working all the time. Thus the author of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote: So, then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labors as God did from his. (Heb 4:9–10)

The author of Hebrews teaches that the possession of the Promised Land of Canaan by Joshua’s conquest was not the “rest” promised by God. The reason the sacred writer gives is that the Psalms, which refer to a later period than the wilderness time and which were regarded as the work of King David, still refer to a “rest” or Sabbath that has not yet been attained (Ps 95:7–8). Thus the “rest” was not only political stability in a new land after the slavery of Egypt, but something much deeper. The “rest” which God promised is that we may enter into the “rest” which exists in God “from the foundation of the world” (Heb 4:3). This “rest” is a sharing in the very hidden life of God, a participation in the essence of God. A long commentary could be written about the relationship between work and rest in the spiritual life in Christ and how we may, by asceticism or the disciplining of our passions by struggle and prayer, reach the stillness where we may commune with God. However, this commentary has already been written by St. Gregory Palamas in the fourteenth century, in his spiritual commentary upon the Ten Commandments in its application to the ascetical life 14 and also in his sublime remarks about the practice of hesychasm or inward stillness. Referring to the hesychasts of his time, St. Gregory Palamas said: Such people keep the Sabbath in a spiritual fashion and, so far as possible they rest from all personal activities; they strip their soul’s powers free from every transient, fleeting and compound form of knowledge, from every kind of sense-perception and in general, from 14

Philokalia (Ware), IV, 227.

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every bodily act that is under our control and, so far as they can, even from those not entirely under our control, such as breathing. 15

Hesychasm, then, is not something exotic and strange to Christianity or to the Bible. It has a firmly biblical basis in the very first chapter of the Old Testament, once our popular misconceptions about the Book of Genesis have been set aside.

PARADISE LOST: GENESIS 2:4–3:24 The differences between the two accounts of creation in Genesis The account of the creation at the very opening of the Book of Genesis is followed by a second account, commencing at Genesis 2:4. This second account reaffirms the teaching of the first account in an abbreviated manner [Gen 2:4–7, 19–20]: thus God created everything and, as the climax of Creation, made Man, giving him the divine spirit and a royal position as lord over creation. However, this second account differs from the first in describing how Man lost his royal position in an ideal environment, in the “Paradise of Eden.” This loss was caused by Man’s failure to trust God but was mitigated by the fact that Man was undone by the deceptive words of a tempting power, the power represented by the serpent, whose words were deceiving and who even used the truth in the service of deceit. Man lost Paradise because attracted to acquisition of wisdom without understanding the dangers and delusions involved and the need for guidance when one is inexperienced. The sad story has been repeated in various forms down the ages. Knowledge is good and brings with it great benefits. However, very sophisticated and advanced developments in philosophy and the natural sciences have not enabled Man the better to find salvation. Moreover, spiritual knowledge is still an area of delusion and danger. The story also explores the fallacy of the idea that we can only learn good at the price of learning evil because we can only learn from experience. This is the very worldly notion that knowledge can only come at the price of our innocence. Experienced people, people who have lived life and had experience of it, are generally less naive than the young and more aware of the dangers. However, such people are not always wise in the Christian sense. They may have gained a worldly-wise or even cynical attitude but lack the conviction that God’s guidance in life can be our only 15

“In Defence of Those Who Devoutly Practise a Life of Stillness,” ibid., 337.

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salvation. This latter is the highest wisdom, but it is not often found among the wise of this world. Because the second account is explaining why Man lost his innocence and original blessedness, it is less optimistic and more disturbing than the beautiful account of Genesis 1, where God sees that everything is “good” or, in Man’s case, “very good.” The second account shows that the idea of deification, the desire to be like God, also may result in evil. There is another important difference. The first account describes Man as humanity in general: Man is made in the image and likeness of God whether male or female. However, the second account is more concerned with relationships between people, and especially the relationship between the man and the woman and between the human beings and God. At the heart of the story is the idea that decisions can have fatal consequences. The result of this is that the human beings and for that matter God himself have characters and interact with one another in the narration. This drama is the special mode of storytelling adopted in the second account. Finally, the second account describes in a way that we may recognize the sad aspects of life as we now have to live it, with death ever-present, with hard and discouraging work to do in order to make a living, and with the battle of the sexes. However, it makes clear, on a hopeful note, that these burdens were not originally intended by God. This is the reason why God’s starts, immediately after the loss of Paradise, the laborious process of restoration—laborious, it has to be said, mainly on God’s side. The symbolic nature of many of the details The account beginning in Genesis 2 expresses many important points in a compressed manner using symbolic language readily understandable in the ancient Near East as a kind of shorthand. In other words, just as philosophical expressions such as “personal,” “individual,” “essential,” and so on are used in books today, although given a precise turn by the writer, so in the ancient Near East ideas such as that of the tree as a source of something good and desirable, the garden as an ideal environment, the serpent as the thief of immortality, and old stories about men trying to become gods and failing all had a kind of general currency for discussing the mysteries of human existence. The sacred writer gives these elements his own theological turn and uses them in the service of true theology, so that Genesis 2 may still act as a guide for life. What especially marks out the story is the shrewd commentary that it makes upon human gullibility and on the double-faced nature of wisdom and the wise, so called. On the other hand, God is consistently benevolent,

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lacking in self-interest, and very straightforward and clear in his dealings with Man—especially in the Eastern Fathers’ interpretation of the account. You may have come across another interpretation that makes God out to be a stern taskmaster who sets Man rather a silly and arbitrary test about not touching or eating the fruit of a particular tree in the garden. Why, after all, place a tree whose fruit is fatal to Man in a Paradise designed to make him happy, unless God wants to catch Man out? Once Man did fail the test, God seems to have acted in a punitive, vengeful, and angry manner, driving Man out of Paradise with fire and sword (Gen 3:24). The difficulty of this picture of an angry God depends upon a literalist view of every detail of the text and fails to grasp the symbolic nature of the method of teaching in the use of the expression “tree.” In the “wisdom literature” of the Bible (for example Psalms and Proverbs), the tree is a metaphorical expression for a source of something good. Thus in the Book of Proverbs, the Torah or Law is called a tree: She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy. (Prov 3:18)

Here the Book of Proverbs teaches that the Law is the highest wisdom, bringing life in the broadest possible meaning of the word “life” for those who take the Law seriously, who cherish it, and who follow in practice what it teaches. The Eastern Fathers were aware of the symbolic nature of many of the details of the Genesis account. Consequently, they were not imprisoned by a literal view which appears to commit one to a view of God which makes him unkind and so less than perfectly good. Origen observed that to take this narrative literally is foolishness: Will any man of sense suppose that there was a first day and a second day? And a third, evening & morning, without sun and stars? And the first, as it were, without a heaven? And who is so silly as to imagine that God, like a husbandman, planted a garden in Eden eastward and put in it a tree of life, which could be seen and felt so that whoever tasted of the fruit with his bodily teeth, as he masticated the fruit of this tree, partook of good and evil? And if God is said also to walk in the garden in the evening and Adam to hide himself under the tree, I do not suppose that anyone will doubt that these passages are written in a way that only seems to be history, since the story never took place, in the body; rather the story discloses certain mysteries? 16

16

Philokalia of Origen (trans. Lewis), 18.

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This passage was selected by St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Theologian for their handbook about how to interpret the Bible, selected from the works of Origen, to which we have already referred. Origen is clearly in accord with the Eastern Church tradition in calling attention to the symbolic nature of the details, although his view that the whole story is a parable or metaphor without any real events that happened is not the view that St. Paul or the Fathers take. It would not be correct to say that the account of Man’s loss of Paradise is only a parable, that is, that it is entirely metaphorical or symbolic. The account with the symbolic elements combines other elements, such as historical genealogies and a claim about the ultimate origin of everything in God’s creative act. These “historical” elements have also to be given their due weight in interpreting the story as a whole. However, it is clear that many of the details of the narrative have a symbolic character. The interpretation that follows may be surprising to some of you, because the kind of literary method employed by the Genesis-writer at this point involves at least some use of metaphor. The serpent The serpent is a symbolic character. We are not committed to the view that our present state of sickness and need for salvation and the many evils of life are to be literally blamed on snakes. The serpent is a creature made by God—the “most subtle” or “wise” (Gen :1). He represents, then, a certain intelligence and natural wisdom, which, however, both falls short of and contradicts divine wisdom. In the latter sense, contradiction, the serpent is already “Satan”—ha-shatan was “the opposer,” the angel of the heavenly court who opposed God’s view of things, for example at the opening of the Book of Job (1:6), where he is called one of “the sons of God.” Christian tradition has made the serpent into a form of the Devil, the fallen angel Lucifer who had already rebelled against God and envied the creation of Man to have fellowship with God instead of him. This interpretation does not do violence to the text: Lucifer was created as was the serpent; the serpent opposed God’s view as did Lucifer; the serpent used words in a crafty and deceitful way, playing upon their ambiguities so as to tempt and seduce the human beings as does the Devil. One may, alternatively, see the Devil as using certain natural powers to deceive Man, so that the serpent symbolizes that part of creation which the Devil drew into his sphere of influence. St. Isaac of Nineveh (7th century) said:

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‘Satan’ is a name denoting the deviation of the human will from truth; it is not the designation of a natural being. 17

This interpretation goes further towards the symbolic than most Orthodox fathers. St. Isaac, writing in Syriac, or Aramaic, knew that the Hebrew and Aramaic word shatana meant “opposition.” Although this interpretation may surprise the reader who knows the view that “Satan” is a personal being, a fallen angel, this alternative may be considered because St. Isaac is revered as a Saint of the Orthodox Church. The result was that nature began to have a seductive, sensuous aspect which took Man away from God. By the end of the story, the serpent represents what is in perpetual enmity with humanity and especially the woman, who has the power to destroy this evil power, or “crush its head” at the cost of danger to herself. There was a long and rich history of literature in which the serpent figured, which would enable a Hebrew audience to appreciate its significance as associated with loss of immortality, with trickery, with danger, and with apparently good but actually poisonous cleverness. The serpent appeared in the Epic of Gilgamesh (an ancient Mesopotamian poem) as the creature who stole from the hero the plant which gave immortality and used it for itself. The ancients found an idea of immortality in the way the snake changed its skin for a new one. In the time of Moses, the serpent was associated with magic. When Moses threw down his rod and it turned into a serpent, the Pharaoh’s magicians could do the same (Exod 7:10–12). In the wilderness, serpents bit the Israelites: God told Moses to nail a serpent to a brass rod to make the people immune from the serpents’ poison (Num 21:7–9). The typological connection with this event and the Crucifixion was made by the Apostle John (John 3:14). Then both Jesus and St. John the Baptist called the Pharisees snakes—“vipers,” referring not only to their poison but also to the learning and cleverness in which they wrapped up their poison (Matt 3:7; 12:34; 23:33; Luke 3:7). However, the wisdom of the serpent is not entirely bad—as Jesus makes clear when he tells his disciples to be “as wise as serpents” but without their poison, “harmless as doves,” (Matt 10:16). It is thus clear that even the cleverness of the serpent is redeemable: one may need subtlety and cleverness in refuting heresy, in confounding persecutors, and in exercising prudence and discretion in life. If one reviews the various associations to the Hebrew reader of “serpent,” it involves quite a complicated and in itself “subtle” set of ideas. 17

Brock, The Wisdom of St. Isaac of Nineveh, 10–11.

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In support of his narrative and to make it shorter in number of words but extensive by association, the sacred writer could call upon many of these ideas. In doing this, the writer is using his skill. The author uses in the right way the wisdom of the serpent—to teach a dove-like message of reconciliation with God, which is medicine for our healing from the poison of sin. The account of Man’s loss of Paradise is, like the serpent, “subtle,” or crafty, because for the first time the sacred writer is giving an account of a deceptive and beguiling situation. The crystalline clarity of the first account of the creation (Gen 1:1–2:3) is therefore followed by an account which has strange and puzzling elements. For the first time, we are in the presence of the mystery of evil. However, the Fathers valued the account of Man’s ‘fall’ in Genesis just because of its subtlety and many-sidedness. For this reason, the ramifications of this story cannot be pursued in a book of this length. The Fathers found in this story endless material for edification and numerous problems of interpretation. “As gods knowing good and evil”: deification and knowledge In ancient Near Eastern stories, the gods are depicted as selfishly jealous of their divine powers—their knowledge, immortality, power over the natural world—and unwilling to share it with human beings, who were in the nature of slaves. Thus for human beings to try to become “as gods” was to invite the vengeance of the gods. The Genesis story in 2:4–3:24 is not like this, from God’s side. This is especially true of the Orthodox tradition’s interpretation. To take “becoming as gods” first—it is not wrong in the biblical account to desire deification. The first creation account, Genesis 1:26–27, has made clear that Man is made to be “as God”—in the divine image and likeness. We have already seen how, in both accounts, God gives Adam godlike dominion over Creation, as it were continuing the work of creation by sharing God’s providence (Gen 1:28). Man is undone by desiring the wrong kind of deification—that is, one which is not a sharing in God’s life but an independent godhood. God does not, in the Eastern Fathers’ interpretation of this account, place a perpetual ban upon “the knowledge of good and evil” in some sense. The “tree” which is its source is the subject of a command and a warning: that Man must not partake of it or Man will certainly die. However, the death that would certainly come was the result of involvement with a kind of knowledge before Man was ready for it. Since God created both the “trees” of “knowledge of good and evil” and of

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“life,” they are both in themselves good, because God cannot create anything evil. However, the premature use of something good can result in evil. We can see that God did give to human beings the knowledge of good and evil, and that there is a true sense in which he intends Man to know “good and evil”—that is, to know the difference between them. The Law or Torah is instruction in what is good and what is evil, providing a way of distinguishing the two. While the Law about holiness explains how to live a good life, the Ten Commandments absolutely prohibit evil. Man fell because he reached out for knowledge against God’s warning when he was as yet immature. To give a simple human comparison: A good parent will not give a very young child the knowledge of how to open a sharp pen-knife (or clasp-knife) because he is too young to learn also how to avoid hurting himself with it. However, this does not mean that the knife is evil or that it will be banned from the child’s use forever. The knife is a useful tool in the hands of an experienced person, and eventually, when a young adult, the child will have to learn how to use it and other tools dangerous to little children. Now, knowledge is very much the same: it is a useful tool but dangerous to the immature. But just as little boys love to play with penknives and the sharp tools in their father’s toolbox (if he unwisely lets them), and are attracted to all sharp, bright things, so also human beings are naturally drawn to knowledge of all kinds. The question of when is the right time for one to be given some particular knowledge rarely occurs even to adults. In fact, if certain knowledge is banned and so becomes a secret known to a few for a very good reason, every one wants to know it. Spiritual knowledge, the highest form of knowledge, is something that people usually believe that they are ready for. They feel insulted to be told they are not ready and brush aside the idea that even good knowledge might be harmful to them. In behaving like this, we are all little boys and girls, reaching for what is forbidden on the highest shelf. The parent has to protect the child. To do this, parents must instill obedience and discipline. It may be a matter of life or death if a child responds correctly and quickly to the words, “Put that down!” or “Don’t touch that!” As is so often the case, reasonable explanations about why certain things are harmful cannot be received by young or inexperienced minds. The adult has no other choice than to rely upon warnings which the child needs to take on trust. However, part of intelligent learning involves satisfying curiosity and trying things out for oneself. Obedience and intelligence exists in an uneasy relationship with one another. Bitter personal experience of the resulting evil is a hard teacher. To lose a hand in

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an accident is a terrible way for a little boy to learn that chainsaws are dangerous. Obedience to his father is, in this case, a far more merciful way for a little boy to learn. Obedience is also necessary because not everything can be kept away from us until we are ready to use it. Since it is the property of human beings to develop gradually toward perfection, there are many points in adult life when we are, in some sense, still children and need to obey God our Father and to trust him. In Genesis chapter 3, the serpent exploits the natural human desire for two good things, deification and the knowledge of good and evil, in order to break down the still young relationship between Man and God. In addition, the serpent exploits the ambiguity of words and sows confusion. The phrase “knowledge of good and evil” can mean at least three things in Hebrew. It can mean, firstly, knowledge about what is right and wrong. This is not knowledge that could possibly have been banned by God. It can also mean knowledge of everything, the words good and evil encompassing every kind of knowledge that is possible. Properly speaking, such knowledge—that is omniscience—belongs only to God. However, human beings can even participate to some extent in God’s omniscience, acquiring through grace knowledge which is above natural knowledge, as did the Prophets, who correctly predicted the future. Absolute omniscience is, however, something that human beings cannot attain. Thirdly, the phrase “knowledge of good and evil” can mean experience of both good and evil, by participating in both. The Hebrew verb for know, yadah, has this sense of knowledge by participation and intimacy; thus for example, when it says that Adam “knew” his wife, it refers to intimacy, including sexual intimacy, and for this reason the consequence of this knowledge is Eve’s conception of a child. To participate in both good and evil can mean, then, that one can come to have an intimacy or sharing in both good and evil. God does not “know” evil in this sense of participating in it. Human beings, however, have come to participate in evil, with the result that they are corrupted. If one has a knowledge both of good and evil, one is both good and bad. When the serpent tempts Eve with the promise of the knowledge of good and evil, the sense of his words is left open. He could mean any one of the three senses above. However, the knowledge that Adam and Eve acquire is the third kind, a share in both good and evil and so a degree of corruption and loss of innocence, as may be seen from the shame that they feel. It is a widespread fallacy today that one can only learn by experience, especially in the moral and spiritual sphere, so that one knows what is bad only by sharing in it and finding out for oneself how bad evil is. For

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example, it is often suggested today that one can only learn about what is good and bad about sex by experiencing good and bad in sex, by becoming “sexually experienced.” The Church’s view that it is not necessary to lose one’s sexual innocence to know what is right and wrong has been widely questioned. However, the logical fallacy of this idea may be seen if one applies it to other more extreme forms of evil. For example, no one suggests that it is necessary to learn by experience what a bad thing it is to murder by actually having the experience of being a murderer. This idea of the effects of what one participates in is very important for deification. Just as deification is participation in God’s perfect goodness, so participation in evil is the very opposite. Participation in what is bad makes one bad, not good, and is not a good experience with good results. Adam and Eve feel shame and fear as a result of their participation in good and evil mixed up together, and their unity is damaged so that they blame one another, lose their trust in God’s kindness and the capacity to take responsibility for their actions. The evil is the distance between God and the human beings that the serpent establishes through fraud. Without remembering God’s warning and turning to him for guidance, they become involved in knowledge which is too much for them. The tree which is the source of potentially good knowledge, if used well with God’s guidance in due time, becomes a source of death. Adam and Eve’s dismay shows that they have much good left in them. The knowledge of being mixed up with good and evil together as an experience does not bring them joy. However, there is a worse consequence, which Adam and Eve do not fall into; that is, that one believes that one’s corrupt knowledge is actually omniscience and the highest form of knowledge. When we separate ourselves from God as our best friend in the search for wisdom, we could end up in even worse a plight than Adam and Eve. They at least felt shame. However, if one becomes deluded, one can fall even further, confusing experience of good and evil as a higher wisdom. This is the state of delusion of which the Apostles and Fathers speak. If “knowledge of good and evil” can mean different things, it can be used differently by a deceiver as contrasted with someone who wishes one well. The serpent leaves the promise open and undefined. The serpent is double-tongued and surrounds Man with coils of ambiguity. He suggests that perhaps God possesses omniscience and is jealously keeping this from Man by the empty threat of death. This idea appeals to the human natural desire to know and our constant dissatisfaction with our state of knowledge. By contrast, God is exact: he gives Man a commandment,

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which is clear and practical. This commandment is already knowledge, the right kind of “knowledge of good and evil” which helps one to see the difference between the two at a particular point of time without having to be corrupted by bad experiences. However, to benefit from it, one has to accept the limitations upon human knowledge, and this is humanly speaking very hard to accept. In the Eastern Fathers, Adam and Eve are seen as victims of a trick and they explain this mitigating circumstance as part of the reason for God’s continuing mercy and love. It is not true to say that God “curses” Man. On the contrary, he continues to act as Man’s friend; and, finding Man cruelly tricked and corrupted by clever words, in a state of shame and fear, God makes provision for the restoration of the human race. God only without qualification “curses” the serpent—that is, the evil power that has seduced Man (Gen 3:14–15). The cursing of the ground “for man’s sake” (Gen 3:17–19) is not so much a curse as a measure to help Man recover; it is part of the way God encourages Man to repent through humility. God’s merciful “economy” for lapsed humanity I have already suggested that, with regard to Man, even God’s “curses” are blessings. It is true that Man is punished by God. The woman is to experience considerably more pain in childbearing and through “desire” to be subordinate to her husband (Gen 3:16). The man is to find the earth resistant to his toil, so that life becomes hard work (Gen 3:18–19). The couple is expelled from Paradise by the Cherubim with their fiery swords (Gen 3:24). However, punishment can be seen in two ways. It can be seen as vengeance, or it can be seen as a measure to correct someone who has gone wrong. The Eastern Fathers universally took the view that God only punishes in order to amend and restore Man to his former glory. This idea of God’s merciful arrangement for Man needs some more comment. God is, after Man’s disobedience, working with a difficult situation in which Man’s nature has been damaged through participation in evil. Man now belongs to the world of “corruption” that comes into being: the Greek word, phtharsia, means both moral corruption and physical corruption, so that sin and death and disease go together, as human nature is damaged both intellectually and materially. God has to make special arrangements that realistically deal with the situation. This provision or arrangement is called by the Fathers the “economy” of our salvation. The word “economy” is used because God is regarded as still being able to bring some good order and healing even in a bad situation. God’s willingness to work with the bad

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situation that has come into existence shows his love: he does not act as a disappointed creator when his plans have gone wrong, and, because things are now not only less than perfect but actually bad, destroy his creation and start again. To take first God’s economy for the woman: the Eastern tradition sees the adversity imposed upon her as deriving from the damage to her nature; sin has brought “desire” or passion and the difficulties of a life ruled by passion. God allows this adversity to continue and even rules that she should be subordinate; this subordination is part of the “economy”—it is clear that from the first, God did not intend woman to be anything other than Man’s equal and companion (Gen 1:27). The pain in childbearing suggests that some ill has come upon our bodily natures as a result of the arrival of corruption in the world. God permits and limits these ills for a definite purpose. Adversity has a tendency to chasten us or make us less full of ourselves and more humble. The woman’s difficult state is intended by God to make her less proud and more open to divine grace. It is balanced with a hopeful promise: Eve will be the source of life. In fact the Hebrew word translated “Eve” means ‘Life,” and the name she is given in the Greek Septuagint is Zoë. From Eve’s womb there shall come offspring who will not give in to evil but will fight against it, in a constant battle against the serpent (Gen 3:15). The Fathers regarded the words about the crushing of the serpent’s head by Eve’s “seed” as referring to Christ. 18 Consequently, Eve, the one through whom the fruit of the forbidden tree came too soon into the world, will also be the one whose fruit shall be the redemption of the whole world in the fullness of time. The man is told that the ground will be “cursed for his sake” and will only give up to him its benefits after a hard struggle. At the end of his life, he will go back to the earth (Gen 3:19), which was an element which God used in his creation of Man. God is acting mercifully and also enabling Man to remember death in a positive way, that is, to realize that he is not selfsufficient and that he needs to depend upon God. When God made Man from the earth (in Hebrew the word for Man, adam, sounds like the word for soil or earth, adamah), he breathed divine life into him so that Man became a living soul (nephesh haya). God is not denying his Spirit to Man after his fall but arranging a situation in which Man will realize his need for God’s Spirit and be receptive to the Spirit, by understanding that he is not 18 The Latin Catholic Church tradition is the same and Eve’s crushing of the serpent’s head was called the ‘protoevangelium,’ the proto-Gospel, prefiguring the Virgin Mary.

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all-powerful and independent of God. Without God’s Spirit we are not fully human. It is important that the highest expression for “Man” in these early chapters of Genesis is not adam—merely “Man” or “humankind”—but “living soul” (nephesh haya, in Greek psychen zosan). In remembering death, we are turning to God and asking for his Spirit to come to us, in order that we may be “living souls.” Both Adam and Eve are not left to suffer the pain of their sense of nakedness. God “made for Adam and his wife garments of skin” (3:21). 19 In doing this, God was protecting Man from the worst consequences of his sin and making life bearable again for him. God does not withdraw from Man the sharing in creation which humanity has by virtue of its power to conceive life. Adam becomes the father of the human race and Eve its source of live. The fallen couple has something to look forward to. In fact, when Eve gives birth to her first child she is thankful to God and says, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord” (Gen 4:1). The expulsion from the Paradise of Eden resembles the expulsions of human beings from paradise by jealous gods, that is, gods jealous of their privileges: Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil; and now lest he put forth his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live for ever”—therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden. (Gen 3:22–23)

The Fathers do not see God here as pronouncing a death sentence upon Man forever, but as setting a limit to his life now that he has been corrupted. Eternal life in Adam’s corrupted state would be hell. Man has become like God, but the phrase “knowing good and evil” does not mean the knowledge of good and evil that is consistent with divinity—that is, knowledge of the difference between good and evil—but rather a corrupting experience of a mixture of both, which would be a torment if it were prolonged forever. The trickery of the serpent’s word becomes clear in the irony of God’s sentence here. By fixing a term to human life, God makes it bearable and allows time for Man, like the Prodigal Son, to “come to himself” (Luke 15:17) and to go back to God his Father, saying

19 Patristic theology has a whole theology associated with the idea of the garments of skin; for a good summary, see Nellas, Deification in Christ, chap. 2, “The Garments of Skin.”

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Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of you hired servants. (Luke 15:19–20)

Seeing his lost son coming back on the road the father ran out and embraced his son and kissed him. For us the “embrace” and the “kiss” of God the Father is the Divine Only Begotten Son, whom he has sent to save us and to restore us to the sonship 20 for which we were created in the beginning. Only when Man has been purified in Christ can eternal life again be offered to him, when Man is in a state to receive it without unending unhappiness. The Paradise of Eden was a world of beauty and light in which God “walked” with Man (Gen 3:8). The nakedness that Man feels after having sinned turns the experience of Paradise into a place from which he must be driven, by fire, the fire of the “Cherubim.” The reference to fire suggests that something like the situation of the unrepentant sinner after death has taken place: the sinner finds the next life a hell of burning, not because God has invented a created fire to torment man, but because the Uncreated Light of God, which a repentant person experiences as light, is felt as fire by the sinner. On the other hand, the “Cherubim” are not entirely merciless figures in the Eastern tradition’s interpretation of them. Scholars have found a parallelism between the “Cherubim” and the winged guardians at the entrances to ancient temples and palaces, which had the function of warding off enemies and the irreverent. However, “Cherubim” is a mysterious word and remains untranslated by the Septuagint and most translations of the Bible, being left as a plural word transliterated into other languages: we have not yet discovered the root meaning of the word. The appearance of the “Cherubim” in other parts of the Bible shows that they are not only beings who drive Man away from God but are also the focus of God’s manifestation of his glory to Man. God appears “on the wings of the Cherubim,” (2 Kgs 19:15) and when God appears in the Tent of the Meeting, he is surrounded by these creatures. The Ark or Chest of the Covenant, which contained the tablets of the Law, was a focus of worship for the Israelites. They built a throne in the appearance of Cherubim upon the Ark, which was kept in the Holy of Holies, as the place where God came down to make his presence known to Man.

Sonship does not exclude females; it means the condition of being an inheritor of God’s substance, rather than a “hired servant.” 20

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It is therefore not correct to see God as a God of anger. Such punishment as he imposes has a restorative purpose and is balanced with hopeful and kind measures to enable Man to look ahead with hope to his life in the future. We can still profit from the death which God pronounces to be our destiny. It is not absolute death and total extinction. We can still bring forth children and participate in the miracle by which God brings life from nothing. The mortality which is announced is, “You are dust and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). It points Man down toward the earth and teaches humility, the latter a word that derives from earth or soil (humus). The mortality which we need to think about is not existence moving toward nothingness—the “Being towards death” of modern existentialism—but memory of death by which we may purify ourselves so as to pass through death to life.

THE “NATURAL MAN” FROM ADAM TO NOAH In practice, the natural knowledge of God, without a special revelation to strengthen it, is very weak. Genesis 4–6 reviews the period when Man had the external evidence of creation and the inner voice of conscience to bring him to God. These chapters conclude that, for most human beings, their natural knowledge, if any, had been so overwhelmed with human passions as to be out of mind. Man’s perverse tendency toward evil took over. First Cain murdered Abel from envy (Gen 4:3–16). Lamech was a vicious and vengeful figure (Gen 4:24). Wickedness grew upon the earth and all human beings had become corrupt and full of violence (Gen 6:5–6, 11–12). Moreover, Man was the victim of death. The words “and he died” are repeated like a drumbeat after the lives of each and every patriarch. The world belongs to death. Of the patriarchs, we know of Noah, who, before any divine covenant with Man, found it possible to live a life in fellowship with God: Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. (Gen 6:9)

There was the remarkable case of Enoch, whose life in harmony with God resulted in a mysterious resurrection. The biblical writer does not say “he died” but Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. (Gen 5:24)

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Enoch 21 belongs to a special category. The only Old Testament person of whom something similar is said is the Prophet Elijah, who did not die but was taken by chariots of fire into Heaven (2 Kgs 2:11–12). However, Elijah knew the revealed Law of Moses, whereas Enoch only had the knowledge of God in Creation. Enoch’s sanctity is altogether exceptional. What the story of Enoch shows is both the possibilities and limitations in practice of natural revelation. No one else was able to attain to such unqualified perfection on the basis of natural revelation alone. God had to keep alive knowledge of himself by making special revelations, that is, by choosing particular individuals and making “covenants” or specific agreements with them, in which he revealed his goodness and his will as he did first with Noah. However, Noah did not live a perfect life (Gen 9:21– 22), nor did any of those whom God chose from Abraham onward. When God chose a nation, Israel, his people did not remain faithful even though he had revealed to them a very full and specific code of life through Moses. Nevertheless, the Old Testament makes clear that people who did not belong to the covenant could be pleasing to God. Job was a wealthy man “of the sons of the East” (Job 1:3). 22 He is not an Israelite, because this phrase meaning Easterner is used in the Bible to refer to foreigners, even Israel’s enemies to the east of Israel’s borders (Gen 29:1; Isa 11:14; Judg 6:3, 33, 7:12, 8:10). They were respected for their wisdom, which was equal to that of the Egyptians. Nevertheless, his religion is pleasing to God. There is no Hebrew expression for “religion,” the “fear of God” being a rough equivalent. However, he is also called by God “my servant” (Job 1:8). Job’s religion is that of a righteous man: he “feared God and shunned evil” (Job 1:1); he made sacrifices showing that he believed in God, and he was concerned about his own and his sons’ good state before God (Job 1:5). Job’s demand that God give him an answer about all his sufferings provokes a revelation by God to him. This revelation, expressed in the language about the awesomeness and unpredictability of nature, suggests that, although God can be experienced, he cannot be fully known. God speaks to Job in a theophany, or manifestation of God, which is as wonderful as any of the theophanies to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Job 38–41). God then rebukes Job’s false comforters for their wrong 21 The proper name “Enoch” means “Man.” Perhaps the sacred writer is suggesting that, of all the human beings before Noah, Enoch was properly speaking, “Man” in fulfilling human nature as it was originally created to be, in the image and likeness of God. 22 The RSV “People of the East” is literally translated “sons of the East.”

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advice (Job 42:7). The example of Job is that of a very high order of the knowledge of God. In fact Job is a Saint of the Orthodox Church. 23 In connection with those of different religion from the Israelites, who were nevertheless pleasing to God, Job is the best example; and the reason that he pleases God is not so much that he belonged to a religion that might be acceptable as an equivalent to the Israelite religion, but that he was a man of conscience with a stronger sense of God than most people have. His knowledge came from Creation and conscience and so is a natural knowledge of God and might be described as “natural religion,” but the important thing is that Job comes to know God by acting upon his conscience. It is through his works that Job pleases God because his works show his sincerity, which God rewards by a personal encounter. There are other examples, such as the widow of Sarepta, who befriended Elijah and Naaman the Syrian, examples of God’s mercy and love for non-Israelites with which Jesus scandalizes those who do not accept him in his own town of Nazareth: “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” (Luke 4:24–27)

Jesus clearly means that these good people were not Israelites in religion. Indeed, Jesus says that the Prophet Elijah ‘was sent’ to the widow of Sarepta—and this does suggest that she received a revelation from God, which she accepted in faith (see 1 Kgs 17:24). These examples are to warn us not to say that peoples of other religions are unable to receive God’s grace and not to be complacent because we have the fullness of truth as knowledge, existing in our minds as ideas; if we have perfect knowledge, why are we not also perfect in works and in thoughts, free from passion, and full of love for all people?

“St. Job the Righteous” is commemorated on 4th May in the Synaxarion or Calendar of Saints. 23

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MOSES AND THE LAW: THE HEBREW THEOLOGY OF REVELATION Before revealing himself finally in Christ, God made a revelation to the people whom he had chosen, the seed of Abraham, who were to become the nation of Israel. In this section, I shall show how important the theology of this revelation is and that there is a teaching about the essence and energies of God and even a theology of deification, deification, that is, through the Torah or Law of Moses. There are many miles along the same road which Jews and Christians can walk. However, the differences are also important and have a direct bearing upon deification. It is not only that Jews and Christians disagree that Jesus was the Messiah: the kind of savior that Christians find in Jesus is strange to Judaism. These differences concern not the value of the Law but the differing assessment of Man’s capability to obey it. Christians and Jews have a different “anthropology” or view of the human state. The Old Testament has some very striking expressions to convey the unknowability of God. The second of the Commandments bans the visual representation of God in sculpted images using likenesses drawn from what is in the heavens above or on the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth. (Exod 20:4)

This commandment placed the Hebrew people in a completely different category from the Canaanites, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians or from the people of Egypt or Greece. All these peoples represent their gods in their visual art and statues. The ban on visual representations is related to the reason that God gives to Moses why he cannot be seen: [God] said “You cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live.” (Exod 33:20)

It is totally inconsistent with the human state and dangerous for a human being to “see” God. Not only can Man not represent God truly by images, because such images would be untrue. God mercifully preserves Man from a direct confrontation with his nature, because such direct knowledge would be fatal. There are already some important points about the Jewish experience of God. Seeing God is excluded, with one mighty exception, that of Moses, who had a partial vision of God, denied to the people of Israel. However, God does speak to human beings. His voice can be heard. The word was capable of describing the experience of God. Although the Jews were forbidden to make statues and pictures of God, they could draw pictures of

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him in words and works and record his word. The knowledge of God for Judaism is in the word of God, and Israel’s theological statements are in words; the Jews produced a great religious literature but no visual art. The idea that “one cannot see God and live” does not, then, prevent definite knowledge of God for the Jew. What we have seen so far is close to the Orthodox idea of the unknowabilty of God’s essence. While the Jew says “one cannot see God,” the Orthodox Christian says “one cannot know God’s essence.” Orthodoxy has much more to say about the vision of God than Judaism. However, it is close to Jewish theology, too, in its negative theology about God. Negative theology, or apophaticism, is something that we share with Judaism. In other words, both Orthodox theology and Jewish theology describe God by saying what he is not (“negative theology”) or by describing a range of ways in which God cannot be described (apophaticism). 24 Hebrew theology has its own vocabulary which both corresponds with and differs from the Orthodox language of essence and energy. The Hebrew term closest to “incomprehensible essence” is “face,” in Hebrew, panim. Moses spoke with God “face to face.” However, there is a clear distinction between conversing “face to face” and seeing God’s face. Emboldened by his love for the Lord, Moses dared to “know your ways” (Exod 33:13). Moses goes further! He says: “Oh, let me behold your glory.” (Exod 33:18) 25

“Glory,” in Greek doxa, is the usual English translation for the divine kabod. 26 This word is used in Jewish biblical theology to describe the presence of God and is associated with the pillar of fire and cloud manifested to the people of Israel. It is only approachable by the few. The kabod cannot tolerate sin or impurity. In the manifestation on Mount Sinai, there are varying grades of ascent of the mountain, nearer to the kabod. These grades of ascent were later incorporated into the architecture of the Temple, with the Most Holy Place or Holy of Holies as the place of the throne of the kabod, glory or presence. God lets Moses see the kabod or as much of it as is safe for him, placing him in the cleft of a rock, so that he may see God’s “back parts (Exod 33:23).” Even Moses, the friend of God (Exod 33:11), cannot get too close to the kabod. Still less is it safe for the “Apophaticism” derives from two Greek words, apo meaning “away from” and phemi meaning “to speak.” 25 My literal translation. 26 Kabod is a Hebrew word which has the sense of “weight.” 24

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people. When Moses “goes in” to the Tent where God’s glory descended, he acquired temporarily the light of God’s glory, with his face shining. This glory was lethal to the rest of the people, so that, for their sakes, Moses wears a veil (Exod 34:35). Moses has, as it were, become like God. For Jews, this knowledge of God given to Moses is unique in the history of the world. We do therefore have in Jewish theology something which corresponds to the essence-energies distinction of Orthodox Christianity. While on the one hand “face” panim is like the incomprehensible essence, on the other hand the Goodness of God which passes Moses by in the cleft of the rock has affinities with the Orthodox idea of the uncreated energies. The glory or kabod is partly knowable and partly unknowable. One might describe it as an uncreated energy, in that it is the manifestation of God to his people in the world, rather than God as he is in himself. Its menacing, or transfiguring, quality, depending upon the state of the recipient, reminds one of the Uncreated Light of God, which becomes a fire to sinners. There is also, however, a big difference between the Jewish theology of God’s presence and that of the Orthodox uncreated energies. Judaism stresses the uniqueness of Moses. Only Elijah had a comparable experience, repeating the sight of God’s glory from the cleft in the rock and finding God, not in the thunder and fire nor by seeing God’s glory, but by hearing a gentle voice, in which the Lord was found (1 Kgs 19:12). The New Testament perspective is that all human beings may experience the divine glory, through faith in Jesus Christ and the operation of the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, Moses acts as an intermediary between God and his people, standing between them and God. Christ’s mediation is different. In the Incarnation, the human nature has been brought into union with the divine nature. If we are “in Christ,” then we come into union ourselves with the divinity through our union with the Union 27 of God and Man in Christ. Biblical Judaism had a different idea of deification, that is, the imitation of God by following his commandments, commandments that reveal something of God’s nature. The Hebrew root for “holy,” q-d-sh, has the sense of being set apart. The Hebrews shared this idea with other people. The word is cultic and expresses the setting aside of a person or animal or object for sacred use; in sacrifice, for example, the animal is set apart for the god. The highest cultic 27 In Orthodox theology the expression for Union is either henosis, oneness, (following St. Cyril of Alexandria a 4th century Father), or “Hypostatic Union,” that is, a union brought about with a human nature by the Divine Person of the Word or Son of God (following the teaching of the Council of Chalcedon, 451).

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act in Israel was the holocaust, or whole-burnt-offering, in which the animal was totally consumed by fire. When the priest set his hands upon the head of the beast, he was indicating its setting apart. This action involves the idea of substitution. Man cannot offer himself to God totally, even to death, but he can express his wish, by substitution, to be totally dedicated to God. In the remarkable chapter 19 of the Book of Leviticus, called by scholars the Holiness Code, something higher than animal sacrifice is taught. This remarkable group of chapters has its own style and formulae. In English, the most obvious is the frequent repetition, after a group of commandments, of the clause, “For I, the Lord your God, am holy.” (Lev 19:2)

The Holiness Code taught the people of Israel to be dedicated or “holy” to God in every detail of their lives, individually, in relation to one another and in their relation to the nation as a whole: “You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation [goy kadosh].” (Exod 19:6)

Leviticus 19, entitled Kedashim, presents the Law in terms of holiness: “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” (Lev 19:2)

The rabbis saw this chapter as a summary of the Law and comment as follows: “Speak to the entire Israelite people and say to them …” (Lev 19:2) These words show that this section is to be read before the whole people of Israel in an assembly. And why is it to be read before the people in an assembly? Because most of the essential laws of the Torah can be derived from it. 28

While referring to the Ten Commandments, this chapter commands care for the poor and the stranger, respect for the disabled, social justice, honesty in commerce, and love of neighbor. The people are told not to bear grudges and not to deal with an enemy spitefully: “You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Reprove your kinsman so as not to incur guilt on his account. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsman. Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Lev 19:17–18)

28

Rabbi Hujya, cited in Baruch Levine, Leviticus, 124.

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There exists, then, a theology of deification in the Hebrew Scriptures, based on the idea of the “imitation of God” though obedience to the Torah. The Torah demanded not only outward obedience but an attitude of love that comes from the heart. Love of Torah developed into the reverential study of Torah, which is an aspect of contemporary Judaism’s idea of worship. In the Torah, God has become the light that enlightens every man and holds the place that the Incarnate Word has for Christians. The Jewish theology of revelation is very similar to that of Eastern Orthodoxy. In both, the nature is unknown but God is known by his energies. Moses Maimonides (1135–1204) summarizes the knowledge that can be had of God: That first and greatest of all thinkers, out teacher Moses, of blessed memory, made two requests and both his requests were granted. His first request was when he asked God to let him know His essence and nature; the second, which was the first in point of time, was when he asked Him to let him know His attributes. God’s reply was to promise that He would let him know all His attributes, telling him at the same time that they were His actions. Thereby He told him that His essence could not be apprehended in itself. But also pointed out to him a starting point from which he could set out to apprehend as much of Him as man can apprehend. And indeed Moses apprehended more than anyone ever did before him or after him. 29

In imitating God, the Jew imitates the divine energies and so becomes like God in behaving as God does. As Moses Maimonides epitomizes his tradition: The highest virtue to which man can aspire is to become similar to God as far as this is possible; that means that we must imitate His actions by our own. 30

God’s holiness is itself an energy, since it describes God’s priestly activity of setting apart a people and giving them the means of becoming holy themselves: “You shall be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples that you should be mine.” (Lev 20:26)

The difference between Christianity and Judaism is often described as Jewish legalism versus Christian freedom. However, this is a distorted perspective. Legalism is possible in all religions, including Eastern 29 30

The Guide of the Perplexed, 71–72 §56. Ibid., 76–77.

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Orthodox Christianity, and may be defined as the human desire to justify oneself by reference to rules of outward conduct. We have seen that the Torah demands inner conversion and that its purpose was to consecrate its people to God. Since the Torah is a revelation of God, Christianity cannot dismiss it. Christ did not dismiss it but said that the Law must be fulfilled. Christ opposed legalism and some of the later interpretations which rabbis placed upon the Torah. St. Paul is famous for seeming to be anti-Torah. However, just like his master, Jesus Christ, (Matt 5:17–18), he upheld it as a divine revelation (Rom 3:2; 11:1–2, 12). What, then, is the difference, in terms of deification, if both Judaism and Christianity saw the Law as a true revelation from God and a “lamp for the feet” (Ps 119 [LXX 118]:105)? One answer—a false one—is that Christians, and especially Orthodox Christians, because of their liking for “mysticism” have sought and found spiritual or inward experience, so that they can dispense with the Law. This “antinomianism” 31 is un-Christian in my view. St. Paul saw the experience of God’s glory as leading to conduct worthy of it. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:1–7:28), Christ does not get rid of the Law but demands a more wholehearted fulfillment of it. If adultery is wrong, so is its root, lust and covetousness; 32 if murder is wrong, so is its root, hatred. Christ repeats the Old Testament demand for holiness: “Be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matt 5:48)33

The real difference between Christianity and Judaism lay in anthropology. In other words, Judaism and Christianity had differing ideas of what it means to be anthropos or a human person. Judaism was and is optimistic about the normal human state. Since God has given the Torah, there is always a practical way to approach life religiously. If one has wronged anyone or committed an offence against God, there was usually something practical that one can do. A bad life can become a good life by doing good things instead of bad things. The Jew saw the Torah as “doable.” Surely God would not have revealed the impossible to Man! At the heart of the disagreement between Christian and Jew, as it became clear during the period when the Christian Scriptures were being 31 That is, an attitude dismissive of law (Greek nomos) or regulation of human conduct by law-codes, because of the conviction that a certain kind of relationship to God makes obedience to law unnecessary. 32 Covetousness is first a thought in the mind or a desire for what belongs to another. In the Ten Commandments, God already, in the Old Testament, teaches that we should cut at the root of bad desires (Exod 20:17). 33 My translation.

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written, was an argument about the human state. St. Paul’s teaching that the Law cannot save needs careful examination. St. Paul’s point is that the fallen human condition makes obedience to the Law impossible. In St. Paul’s view, Christ has taken us to a different level, into a different realm, so that we accept that becoming righteous before God is impossible without incorporation into Christ by grace; this is the first stage of a total transformation. St. Paul turned to Adam’s fatal choice as the explanation for our human condition, and St. Paul’s influence has made Genesis 2–3 more important in Christian thinking than it is in Jewish thinking. In Judaism, Genesis is the prelude to the giving of the Law. In Christianity, the Law is the prelude to Christ. The revelatory truth of the Law enables us to see ourselves truly, and this means to see our need for grace. For St. Paul, the inadequacy of the Law to make us right before God makes it even clearer that God has in Christ made provision for a complete renewal of our situation through faith in Jesus Christ. St. Paul not only pointed to the disease; he showed that its healing takes us to deification or knowledge of God’s glory and a sharing in the energies of the Holy Spirit. Judaism set forth an ethical deification by the imitation of God. Moses is the teacher and lawgiver. Christianity sets forth a deification which is none other than a sharing in the divine life, through grace. We are glorified in Christ. For Orthodox Christians, Moses’ shining face and his friendship with God is the significant thing about him. This is a different kind of deification: it is our sharing in the light of God’s glory and our transformation by transfiguration.

THE PROPHECIES OF FULFILLMENT IN CHRIST: HOW THE OLD TESTAMENT SPEAKS OF CHRIST AND THE MYSTERIES OF THE CHURCH Christ is the end of the Law, the Prophets, and the other Writings of the Old Testament, especially the Psalms. The sacred writers of the Old Testament knew the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, but they knew what was necessary for perfection—Christ—only in part. The overall purpose of the Old Testament is found in Christ. Thus Christ on the road to Emmaus opened to the grieving disciples all the teachings in the Old Testament about him. (Luke 24:25–27)If one asks why some particular texts are not mentioned, it is because all of the Old Testament speaks of Christ. Just as with the wonderful events of Christ’s life, so with the prophecies of him in the Old Testament. There would not be enough books to convey them. In the New Testament writers, the Fathers, and the hymns of the Church’s liturgy, the Old Testament opens out into Christ. Since the Holy Spirit

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works in the Church, the types or impressions and prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament have not been completed, and there is still room for the Church’s teachers, hymnographers, and iconographers to fill up the number of the prophecies until all prophecy—that is, all teaching through the Holy Spirit in the Church on earth—comes to an end on the Day of Judgment. Our participation in the Old Testament is part of our deification, in that we come to see God’s fulfillment of his purposes more and more clearly and because we are being taught by the energies of the Holy Spirit. Typology and prophecy have much in common and can sometimes not be clearly distinguished from one another. Both involve the vision or theoria, which comes from the grace of the Holy Spirit. In this sense they belong to the deification of the interpreter as well as to that of the person who receives the teaching. Consequently, “types” are often called “prophecies.” In the Orthodox liturgies and in the Fathers, a single passage of Scripture may represent typologically several realities. For example, the encounter of Moses with the Lord in the Burning Bush represents prophetically a number of things. First, it represents the Word or Logos of God who spoke to Moses before his Incarnation in Christ. Secondly, it represents the Incarnation, in that the fire of the Divinity did not destroy the human nature but deified it just as the bush burned but was not consumed (Exod 3:2). Thirdly, it prophesies the Virgin Birth, because the womb of the Virgin Mary was not burnt by the fire of the divine nature but was able to give birth to God. This multilayered understanding of the Bible is not forced: it reflects a single general principle—that is, that human life can receive the divine uncreated energy without being destroyed by its fire. Just as the bush burned but was not consumed, so can we be deified by the uncreated energy. Prophecy, 34 strictly speaking, is the inspiration of a person to predict the coming of Christ and the events of his life. It involves foresight; it looks forward from a distant past to the Age of the Church. Thus Isaiah predicted the Virgin birth in Isaiah 7:14: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel;

Psalm 22 (LXX 21) predicts the Passion of Christ: They have pierced my hands and my feet… They stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them; for my raiment they cast lots (Ps 22:16–18, LXX Ps 21, see Matt 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:34). 34

The word is derived from phemi, to speak, and pro, in advance: thus “predict.”

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This does not mean that these passages did not have an application to Israelites at the time when the prophetic oracles were uttered. The former (Isa 7:14) refers to the menace of the Assyrians and the time when this threat will recede. The latter (Ps 22) describes the condition of the persecuted tsaddiq: it is the righteous man’s prayer as he is pursued by his enemies. However, the historical application does not exhaust the meaning, and there is a surplus of meaning which was realized in the fulfillment of the prophecies. This view of the Old Testament is not restricted, confessionally, to the Orthodox Church. For example, an honest and skilled contemporary Protestant scholar, Craig Blomberg, can say that, although Isaiah 7:14 does have reference to the political dilemma of ancient Israel, it must be seen as part of a larger passage about the coming of “Immanuel” (“God with us”), who is the “Mighty God” (Isa 9:6): By the time one reaches Is 9:6 … in no sense can this prophecy be taken as less than messianic or as fulfilled in a merely human figure. So it is best to see a partial, proleptic fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in his time, with the complete and more glorious fulfillment in Jesus own birth. 35

Typology is slightly different: it is the inspiration to be able to see backwards how certain events have a more than literal meaning and point in some way to Christ. An example of this is the liturgical imagery of baptism expressed in terms of the crossing of the Red Sea by Moses and his people. The typological sense is the most common form of theoria in the Church. It takes an event and sees its significance as an impression or image of a greater reality fulfilled in Christ.

THE SAINTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT I have said a great deal that is positive about the Old Testament Prophets’ knowledge of God during their earthly lives and how the Church uses the Old Testament to express its faith in Christ, because there is in the Old Testament knowledge of the mysteries of the New Testament. However, I doubt if I have dispelled a certain nagging unease about the Old Testament. These Old Testament “Saints” were warriors as well as men of God. They showed ruthlessness in destroying their enemies by war. Even the Prophets were capable of great slaughter. Elijah killed all the Prophets of Baal (1 Kgs 18:40). Samuel opposed Saul’s clemency to a defeated king and, having 35

Craig C. Blomberg, Matthew, 60. “Proleptic means “in advance.”

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rebuked Saul, killed the prisoner with his own hand (1 Sam 15:33). As a result of examples such as these, the solution of Marcion in the second century might seem to have some advantages! The Orthodox Church, however, takes the Prophets’ knowledge of the uncreated energies seriously and consistently by commemorating Old Testament characters in the Synaxarion or calendar of the Saints. Thus, Moses the God-Seer is celebrated on September 4, Elijah the Prophet and Isaiah the Prophet on July 20, Hosea on October 17, and “Righteous Joshua, son of Nun” on September 1. If they are in the Synaxarion they have been deified; we can make icons of them, revere them, and pray to them to intercede for us to Christ. However, it is not correct to say that these “friends of God” from the Old Testament were perfected by the knowledge of God which they had during their earthly existence. Deification is only in Christ—that is, in the Word and Son of God Incarnate. They died and their souls went to the place of the dead (Hebrew Sheol, Greek Hades). There they awaited the coming of the Messiah Jesus Christ to that place. After his death on the cross but before he appeared on earth to his disciples as the Risen Lord, Christ visited the place of the dead, bound Satan and destroyed the power of death. He brought out from that place the souls of Adam and Eve and all the Patriarchs and Prophets and took them to Heaven to be with God the Father and the holy angels. This was a decisive stage in the deification of the Old Testament friends of God, the perfection of which will take place when their souls are united to their glorified bodies, along with all the Saints, at the end of the Age, on the Last Day. Joshua the Righteous, son of Nun, is a good example of the problem with seeing the Old Testament friends of God as Saints in the full Christian sense on the basis of the knowledge they had of God in their time. Is not the biography of Joshua that of a military leader? He massacred all the inhabitants of the cities of Jericho and Ai (Josh 6:21; 8:21, 24–25, 29) and understood the killing of the old, women, and children in these cases as an act of obedience to the divine word. The total destruction was a kind of sacrifice to God, the herem (Josh 6:17). It was practised by the peoples contemporary with the Israelites in the Near East in Joshua’s time. These events are a real challenge to Christian sensibilities. In a book found among the later Jewish writings in Greek, the Wisdom of Solomon (1st century B.C.), shows awareness of the problem of Joshua’s massacres. This book explains that the Canaanites were a cruel and wicked people. Nevertheless, the Lord offered them a chance to repent. The fall of their citadels, Ai and Jericho, were warnings. The Canaanites were destroyed slowly or brought under subjection to the Israelites:

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Judging them little by little, thou gavest them a chance to repent. (Wis 12:10)

Joshua was not just a fierce general. He was the worthy successor to Moses, who also had a meeting with the Lord, when the “captain of the hosts of the Lord” (Josh 5:13–15) appeared to him. In some sense this was an experience of the Lord himself, as we are reminded when Joshua is told, like Moses before the Burning Bush: “Put off shoes from your foot; for the place where you stand is holy” (Josh 5:15). Also in comparison with Moses, Joshua leads his people across the Jordan which parts so that the Israelites cross “on dry ground.” Joshua was also a theologian, able in his last speech to put together the history of God’s gracious energies from Terah, Abraham’s father, through the history of the patriarchs to the redemption of Abraham’s offspring from Egypt, concluding with the recent victories over the inhabitants of Canaan (Josh 24:2–15, 19–28). Joshua forms an accurate conception of God as “jealous” (Josh 24:19)—that is, as having a burning personal desire to possess Israel exclusively. Joshua prophesies Israel’s future failure to meet God’s demands and falls into idolatry (Josh 24:19–20). Although this mitigates the picture of the ferocious warrior, it also reminds us that the Prophets were capable of killing on these very grounds of the Lord’s jealousy, just as Elijah killed the Prophets of Baal and Samuel opposed Saul’s clemency. The Bible and the Fathers do have answers to these difficulties. First, the Letter to the Hebrews provides the basis for a general answer. The sacred writer uses the picture of a race in an athletic competition. The spectators are the righteous ones of the Old Testament, the “so great cloud of witnesses.” They are proven in their faith but “did not receive what was promised.” They remain imperfect until they are perfected along with those who have faith in Christ, under the New Covenant (Heb 11:39–12:2). The Prophets and righteous ones only became Saints fully when they were able to share in the Church. Hebrews in turn develops the idea of St. Paul that “Christ is the end”—that is, the purpose and perfection—“of the Law.” St. John Chrysostom comments: For if Christ be the “end of the Law,” he that has not Christ, even if he seem to have righteousness, has it not. 36

The “righteous” of the Old Testament did not become Saints—that is, perfected and deified in their earthly lives—since then they had insufficient knowledge. They did not have Christ, the Word Incarnate. The unincarnate 36

Homilies on Romans, Homily 17, NPNF, PNF(1), XI, 472.

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Word then, was not enough for complete deification, since deification is only in Christ, the Incarnate God. Joshua, then, after he had died went to Hades or Sheol, the place of the dead, where his spirit waited hopefully for the coming of the Risen Christ to release him, along with Adam and the Patriarchs, and to take them to Heaven, where they are now Saints. 37 Here is the answer to the violence of God’s friends in the Old Testament. One Orthodox Father St. Nikodemus of the Holy Mountain (18th century) went so far as to say that, had Adam not fallen, his deification would still have been in Christ—that is, in the incarnate Word. 38 Already in Adam’s walk with God there is the beginning of an Incarnation: that is, the Word manifests himself in human and bodily form in order to meet Adam in the body. However, this Incarnation would have been without the cross. As it is, living in a violent world, ourselves violent, we have to be saved through the cross. It is only in the cross and the grace which comes from Christ’s suffering that we can, in Christ, love our enemies and “resist not evil” (Matt 5:39) in this violent world. It is through Christian discipleship even to the cross that the righteous of the Old Testament are perfected. The limitations of Joshua in terms of his life and the deification in his person does not, however, mean that his story did not in a mysterious way point forward to Christ. Tertullian in his third book against Marcion has already shown that his opponent cannot be consistent in rejecting the Old Testament while calling the Savior “Christ” or “Messiah.” Tertullian goes further. Marcion shows that the name “Jesus,” which Marcion would like to keep, is prophesied in the Old Testament and belongs to the Jewish revelation. Without the Old Testament, the very name of Jesus would not have a meaning. We are the “second people” born in the desert of this age whom Jesus Christ was to bring into the land of promise full of milk and honey— that is the possession of eternal life than which there is nothing sweeter. 37 One might say “not all the righteous” of the Old Testament were sanctified in their earthly lives. However, there were some prophets who were closer to Christ than others even in their day; for example, the Prophet Isaiah’s book is often called The Fifth Gospel. Moses had the character of an Orthodox Saint: he was humble and a friend of God, who desired God’s presence. 38 The arguments are summarized by Metropolitan Nafpaktos Hierotheos, The Feasts of the Lord, 357–367, “The divine incarnation as independent of the fall.” Metropolitan Hierotheos presents this as a contemporary issue, since the early Fathers were concerned with Man as he was, in his fallen state. It is an example of the life and boldness of Orthodox theology and shows that it is not static and intellectually dead.

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This did not arrive through Moses, that is, the discipline of the Law but through Jesus, through the grace of good news, by our circumcision on the edge of a rock—the rock being Christ. 39

God gave Joshua a new name, Yehoshua, or Joshua “The Lord saves” (Num 3:16), to replace his former similar-sounding name Hoshea, which mean “Salvation.” In the Greek-Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which the early Greek Fathers used, the name Joshua (later pronounced in Aramaic Yeshu or Yeshua) was written Iēsous, that is “Jesus.” Tertullian’s point is clearer if we know this information. When he circumcised the people again, after all the circumcised who had wandered in the wilderness had died because they lacked faith in the promise, Joshua was a type or impression of the greater reality to come. This “Jesus son of Nun” superseded Moses, and in this renewal of circumcision unconsciously pointed forward to the one greater than Moses, Christ, who brings a new circumcision. In the interpretation of the deeper significance of Joshua’s life, the rule is that “Christ is the end of the Law.” As a teacher, Tertullian did not recommend Christians of his own time to imitate the ferocity of Joshua the war-leader, but to discern a Christian sense appropriate for their souls: Joshua was a type of the Christian Church to come in the future. This deeper sense than the literal, which needs spiritual vision to discern, is something that we need to take on board as we progress in the spiritual life. It is not the way for beginners and should not be used as part of Orthodoxy’s reasoned defense of the Faith to an unbelieving world—that is, for apologetics. However, the spiritual sense is taught by the Orthodox Church to be a true dimension of Scripture and not something we should remove in the name of modernization. It is part of the discipline of the secret, 40 the mystical truths which the Church holds to be part of the life of those becoming perfect in Christ. 39 Against Marcion, NPNF, ANF, III, 399; but in this version the translation is garbled as a result of being slavishly literal. The English version above from the original Latin is mine from Contre Marcion, Livre III, SC no. 399, 142–145. Figura is the equivalent of the Greek typos. Tertullian was already following a previouslyestablished method of interpreting the Bible, that of St. Justin Martyr, see ibid., 290–291. 40 The discipline of the secret (disciplina arcani) was a Catholic theory about why the earliest Fathers did not explain the Church doctrines as fully as the later Fathers: it was because they were unwilling to reveal in public debate mysteries which were reserved for the faithful—until the challenge of heresy made it absolutely unavoidable, see Selby, The Principle of Reserve in the Writings of John Henry Newman, for a detailed account.

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EXCURSUS TO CHAPTER 5: ADAM OUR ANCESTOR? I have been frequently referring to a “before” and an “after” situation, using the language in a kind of narrative. There was for Man a “before,” when humankind was in a primordial state of bliss. Then there was an “after,” a point in our past after which things seem to have gone wrong, so that we lost our original happiness with God. This “after” shows humankind as sick and in need of healing; deification is that healing. I have argued that the Bible has coherence as a whole, that it is an orderly account which explains things in terms of what previously happened and in terms of what are the real moving forces behind life. Thus the Bible is, in some sense, a “history.” It is a unique kind of history with God as the main character or agent, the subject of which is our salvation. The present reader may find nagging at the back of his mind some questions which did not occur so urgently to the Fathers. In the last two centuries, there has been such a great upsurge in natural science and in critical history that it is hard to repress such questions as: “Did Adam and Eve really exist as historical individuals?” and, “Don’t we all believe in evolution now, so that, although it might be possible to speak about the human race evolving from lower forms of life, we can’t believe that God made one individual man and one woman who were the ancestors of the whole human race, can we?” What is surprising is that recent Orthodox writers do not give straight answers to these questions. Vladimir Lossky wrote a whole book about the theology of our being made in the image and likeness of God without touching upon these issues. 41 The same is true about a variety of distinguished Orthodox writers: Staniloae has a discussion about the “Primordial State”—that is, Man before the Fall. He explains the theology of the human person and speaks in general about “Man” but does not say anything about whether we are to interpret the narrative of Genesis 1–3 as a true story about the individuals, Adam and Eve, who actually existed. 42 Is the answer so obvious as not to need a discussion? Or are there no answers to these questions? Is it sinful and wrong even to ask these questions? I argue that these questions cannot be repressed because they are part of what it means to be modern human beings, interested in historical questions about human origins. At the same time, it is important to be careful about the definition of “a human being.” Scientists have to use a Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God. D Staniloae, The Experience of God. Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, II, ‘Creation and Deification,’ 103–12. 41 42

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definition appropriate to the analysis of human remains, such as brain-size or the nature of the posture indicated by the spinal cord. In medical science, the conflict between Orthodoxy and science is at its most acute with regard to the definition of a human being. Ideas of fetal development are used to define the point at which a child in the womb is not human for the purposes of legal definitions to enable abortions to be described in another way than as murder. The text of Genesis 1–3 has been crucial in providing the basis for a theological definition of the human person. From these early texts in Genesis are derived important revealed ideas which define humanity in a particular way: that Man was made in the image and likeness of God; that humanity was good in both soul and body; that Man was created good; and that human wickedness and godlessness is not natural to humanity; that humanity has a capacity for good. These theological ideas have practical consequences. They therefore cannot be kept in a religious world completely separate from other kinds of knowledge that we now have. However, the literary form of Genesis 1–3 is not history in the modern or even the ancient sense. Although not a history, there is a real question about whether or not Genesis 1–3 contains some historical facts. “History” is a tricky word, because it can mean two important and different things. It can mean a way of investigating and writing about the past—that is, what historians did or now do. Secondly, “history” and “historical” can mean “about something that actually happened.” I do not have to be a historian to say that my father actually existed and that I knew him: my father had an historical existence, but his story is not to be found in any history book, because he was not a famous person. It is in this second sense that Genesis 1–3 might be “historical” in possibly being about people who really did exist once in a state of blessedness. Does, then, Genesis 1–3 preserve an authentic memory about the lives of actual individual human beings, about the first human beings? If the answer is “Yes,” then the beginning of our salvation history still really is “history,” in the sense that it started with some real people and can form part of that history which the Bible narrates and which the Church’s liturgical cycle expresses, along with the tradition about Abraham, Moses, the Prophets, and the coming of the Word and Son of God in the flesh. The Orthodox Church has made no dogmatic definitions about human origins. We have dogmas of the “Theology”—that is, what is strictly about God, about persons of the Trinity, and the two natures of Christ. We do not have a dogma about human anthropology, that is, about the process by which human beings originated. A situation has arisen in which “Adam” is

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used by Orthodox theologians as a rather general term to mean “Man in his fallen aspect,” and there has so far been an unwillingness on the part of theologians to give a defined teaching, precisely because their Church does not have an Ecumenical Council on the subject to which they can refer. It follows that in my attempt to review this question, I am not giving the teaching of the Church with the same confidence as when I speak of the person of Christ, his divinity and human nature, and of the doctrine of the Trinity. With Christology and the Trinity, the teaching of Ecumenical Councils is supported by the thinking of the very Fathers who advocated these teachings against heresy. There is a long history of upholding these teachings, for over a millennium from the time when they were first made dogmas of the Church in the fourth century. By contrast, the anthropological, archeological, and biological issues raised by science are just over a century old, and there is still a lively scientific debate about how to solve the issue of human origins. Various scientific theories crowd the stage. Evolution from lower forms of life is the dominant theory in the popular consciousnesses, although this theory takes a variety of forms. The place to start is the Bible itself and to see what are the best possible interpretations of the text. I shall be working with the idea that the Bible is divinely inspired but that the truths revealed by the Bible are not always historical truths and that the Bible is not to be interpreted literally throughout. We may still wonder if the whole narrative of Genesis 2:4–3:22 is a parable, containing no kernel of historical truth at all. In other words, the narrative expresses in a metaphorical way certain truths about our human condition. Although this solution has been fashionable in Liberal Protestant writings, 43 Origen first suggested that, because of the many symbolic details, the whole Adam-Eve narrative is a sort of parable: The story never took place in the body; rather the story discloses certain mysteries. 44 However, this is not a solution to the issue in Orthodox terms. This is because, in addition to interpreting the narrative symbolically, the Eastern Fathers also very often refer to the narrative as a history of true events. This is especially the case concerning the literal existence of a pair of human beings, one male, one female, created directly by God. This is hardly surprising, since it is probably the case that St. Paul did believe that Adam existed historically. There was no reason not to believe this, because neither For example, the work of Paul Tillich, see Systematic Theology, 2, 29–44, about “the symbol of the fall.” 44 See Chapter 5, 100. 43

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St. Paul nor the Eastern Fathers had thought of the theory of evolution of humankind from earlier nonhuman humanoid species. Today as in Origen’s time (3rd century A.D.), it is easier to say what kind of a narrative Genesis 1–3 is not than to say what kind of writing it is. The kind of writing, the genre of the narrative, is very important in determining meaning. Who today would want to confuse a fable with a statement of fact? I can tell you what I consider that Genesis 1–3 is not. It is not historiography—that is, history-writing, or the kind of writing that historians do. In the ancient Near East, people knew what history in this sense was. 45 It also predates the kind of science which we now practice. It is not science, then. Genesis 1–3 does make some important claims about reality as a whole: for example, that God made the world in an orderly fashion, and that it was originally good. But the literary forms of the writing suggest some other purpose than the language of science, with its charts and mathematical formulae. Is, then, Genesis 1–3 myth? The most recent analyses of Genesis, based upon the structure holding together the various literary devices, refer to the method of interpretation known as poetics 46 or, sometimes, rhetorical criticism. Scholars of Genesis are dissatisfied with the category of “myth.” No one can agree on a definition of myth that applies to the Bible. This is not surprising, since myths were stories from the Greek rather than the Semitic world. The word “myth” is also useless now, when writing nontechnically, since it has come to mean “what is untrue,” as, for example in books entitled President X: the Man and the Myth. One thing is becoming clearer in the most recent research on the Hebrew text: far from being a primitive text or a patchwork of sources, Genesis 1–3 is an advanced piece of writing! There is a sense in which it is such a subtle piece of work that it is still too advanced for us! Only very

45 The following elements are found in ancient accounts: (1) the idea of a true event as opposed to an event that did not happen; (2) extended narratives, dated according to the reigns of monarchs; (3) use of preexisting sources; (4) the ability to distinguish the customs of earlier cultures as different; (5) the keeping of archives; (6) an educated class of scribes. The educated scribes of Israel were capable of critical evaluation of national history; see Karel van der Toorn, Scribal Cultures and the making of the Hebrew Bible, 160–162, 171, for the “History edition” of the Book of Deuteronomy. 46 See Waltke, Genesis, 33–34; Dorsey, Literary Structure of the Old Testament, 15– 44, 48–51.

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recently has work in the analysis of the literary structure of the Old Testament begun to show us what a complex web has been woven. 47 At the very heart of Genesis 1–3 and the recapitulation of 1:26–27 in 5:1–3 is the subtlety of the Hebrew writer’s use of adam. The word can mean, very generally, “Man” or humankind. In Genesis 2 the writer was able to make a pun upon man–earth, since adam means Man or the man and adamah means earth or soil. The name adam also appears in ancient Near Eastern texts as a personal name. 48 In Hebrew, it is impossible to decide whether the general sense of “Man” was earlier than the personal name “Adam” or whether it was the other way around and “Adam” later came to have a general meaning, symbolizing Man. The first occurrence of adam in the Bible is in the general sense; it means “Man,” humanity: Then God said, “Let us make adam in our image (tsellem), according to our likeness (demuth) ….” So God created the adam in his own image (tsellem). He created him in the image (tsellem) of God. He created them male and female. 49 (Gen 1:26–27)

The Hebrew theology of this passage necessitates adam as a general concept of humankind, shared equally by men and women. What is clear in Hebrew is that adam is a concept about humanity in Genesis 1. Equally clear from Genesis 2–5 is the fact that adam could also have the currency of a proper, personal name, “Adam,” just like “Cain,” “Abel,” “Seth,” “Enoch,” or “Kenan.” While these personal names may have originally had some religious meaning, as Near Eastern personal names usually did, 50 they denote individuals who pass on their seed by generation to their sons and are recorded in the genealogical lines marked by the expression sepher todeloth, “the book of generations.” These lists form an important structural role in the Book of Genesis 51 and occur at regular intervals throughout the book. The first genealogy is that of the line of adam, which implies propagation and so personal individuality, as in 5:1, for which 4:1 has prepared us: See Dorsey, Literary Structure. Hamilton, Genesis, 160. 49 My translation. 50 A good example is Elijah, which means “My god is the LORD.” Enoch means Man. 51 The todeloth headings appear at Gen 5:1, 6:9, 10:1, 11:10, 11:27, 25:12, 25:19, 36:1, and 37:2, and all follow with an account of the line of an ancestor, naming the descendants specifically. There is the exception of Gen 2:4, where todeloth refers to the line of the heavens and the earth. 47 48

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And the adam knew his wife, Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain. (Gen 4:1) 52

It is still just possible to translate this as “the man,” but it can hardly be translated as “Humankind lay with his wife.” It is probably best translated “Adam knew his wife Eve,” but it could be translated “The man knew his wife Eve.” Consequently, we must take the first generation-list as having for its ancestor the individual, “Adam”: “This is the book of the generations of ‘Adam.’” Whether we translate “the man” or “Adam,” Genesis 2 uses the Hebrew word adam in a different sense from Genesis 1. However, unlike the translations, the Hebrew word remains the same though the concept changes. The result is that the Hebrew text conveys a sense that Man in general and human beings in particular are closely related. This is part of the subtlety of the text, which is untranslatable. The Hebrew writer’s masterstroke occurs at the beginning of Genesis 5 with his identification of the story of the fall of adam, that is, of the human race, with an early genealogical list about individuals: This is the book of the generations of adam. When God created adam, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them and he blessed them and named them adam when they were created. When adam had lived a hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. The days of adam after he became the father of Seth were 80 years and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days that adam lived were 930 years; and he died. (Gen 5:1–5) 53

The sacred writer interpolates into these verses a repetition of God’s creation of adam in his image and likeness from the very first chapter (Gen 1:28). The result is that adam has both a general and a particular meaning. The general and the particular are united in this passage. Adam is both “humanity” and the patriarch who heads the list of generations. In the latter sense, as patriarch, the proper name “Adam” occurs as the first father in other patriarchal lists in the Bible (e.g., 1 Chr 1:1). There is a very subtle touch: the omission of the doublet “image and likeness” with regard to God and the substitution in Hebrew of “likeness” 54 to God alone, cleverly balanced with the addition of Adam’s human begetting of Seth as “in the image and likeness” of Adam. It reminds the reader how tragic the human condition has become. By the time Seth is My translation. My translation. 54 The LXX exceptionally translates demuth, “likeness,” here as eikon, “image.” 52 53

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born, the murder of Abel and the banishment of Cain have already taken place. Man is specifically less like God than he was before, and more like the sons whom he begets. This perhaps suggests a shift in human consciousness—that is, a fading of the sense of being very precisely like God and an increase of the idea that as a human being one’s significance consists in begetting children and living on through one’s offspring. The word adam is consequently difficult to translate, and translations show great variety. Contemporary Jewish commentaries allow only six occasions when the personal name would be justified. One authoritative Jewish translation does not translate adam as a personal name until God announces the “curses” or prophecies about life in the world the expulsion from Paradise. 55 All the Christian translations into English vary, starting with “Man” and at some point breaking into “Adam” as the narrative proceeds. 56 This lack of translation-consensus arises from something untranslatable in the Hebrew text, to which I have referred; the author is skillfully exploiting a double meaning of the word, producing an effect upon the reader of the Hebrew which hovers between the general and the specific. The Jewish Septuagint translation of the third and second century B.C. translates adam as the name of a person, “Adam,” in twenty of a possible twenty-six instances. 57 This translation interprets the Hebrew as being about an individual, someone called Adam by leaving the Hebrew word untranslated into Greek, so that it has the effect of a proper noun. The Septuagint is the official version of the Bible of the Greek Orthodox Church, because it was the version used by most of the New Testament writers and by all the early Greek Fathers. The Septuagint is part of the tradition by which the Church is guided in interpreting Scripture. What is remarkable in the case of Adam is that the Septuagint gives great weight to the interpretation that Genesis 1–3 is about an individual who actually existed, Adam, rather than a story about Man in general. The Septuagint supports the idea that, although we do not have to take all the details of Genesis 1–3 literally, the story does reflect the memory of what happened to an individual as the result of his choice. 55 Stone Tanakh, the translation of the Jewish law, Prophets and Writings (that is their Bible) by the Rabbi Irving Stone, Gen 3:17 “To Adam He said ….” 56 “Man” becomes “Adam” in the various translations as follows: AV, 2:19; RSV, 3:20; NIV, 3:17; REB, 5:1. 57 Starting with God’s commands concerning the trees of life and knowledge, Gen 2:16. By contrast the Stone Tanakh says, “Ha-Shem God commanded the man ….”

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The idea of Adam as our ancestor in sin, who passed on his sin to the whole of humankind, is a Christian interpretation of the Old Testament, started by St. Paul. In Romans 5, St. Paul explains that just as “through one,” all sinned, so also “through the one” Christ all are redeemed. St. Paul’s teaching is based upon the idea that an individual action has serious and far-reaching consequences. He gives Adam as an example of this: Adam is a “type.” His example illustrates the whole history of mankind until Christ. Adam did not sin alone. He sinned with his partner, the one whom God had provided for him as friend and equal, “because it is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). He also sinned along with the serpent, which represents in Orthodox thought the angels who had rebelled from God and who were jealous of his creation of the man in Paradise. Thus sin is also communal; we sin with others and as a result of what others do. Why, then, did not St. Paul say that we sinned “in Adam and Eve”? I suggest that this is because St. Paul has in mind the consequences of sin for humanity in general. Adam’s choice brought great disaster upon him—but also upon the whole of the human race, because his sin had as its consequence damage to our nature and the sickness of physical and spiritual death, the consequences of sin. Adam passed on the disease by generation through his seed. This inherited “disease” is not actual culpability from the moment of our birth, but rather a damaged nature with a tendency to fall away from God and to be unkind to people. The result was that, in practice, all human beings actually do sin. St. Paul chooses Adam because he is described as our ancestor. Since all the ancestral lists in the Old Testament begin with him, St. Paul can show how great the consequences of an individual’s actions can be. St. Paul is interested in the individual story of Adam to explain the wider power of individual choice. St. Paul teaches that we can never be “individuals” whose choices do not affect the whole human race. There is a very hopeful idea at the end of St. Paul’s arguments. This idea is that Jesus Christ, although an individual person and “one man,” could by his actions repair the human nature as a whole. If we follow St. Paul, then the beginning of human salvation history is the disobedience to God of one individual. This is not to say that Eve did not sin, but to say that Man fell as the result of individual sin. A situation that was first good was destroyed by a free act of individual people. St. Paul could equally well have said that the terrible consequences—death, murders, disease, alienation from God—were the result of Eve’s sin, as they are according to the narrative. Adam has a representative function. He

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becomes “typical” of us all, and so the term “Adam” means all of us. This is how, I suggest, the personal name came to have a general sense. This recognition of individual responsibility as having a very wide effect is important to the state of mind necessary to receive salvation also through the one man Christ. When we are united to Christ in faith and love—when, that is, we are “in Christ”—we too are part of the positive process by which the evil consequences to human nature are being reversed. Thus a holy life lived in Christ need not necessarily involve great ascetical feats or miraculous powers such as were given to some of the Saints by God. Life in Christ can take a humble and apparently insignificant form and yet still be part of the healing, not only of oneself as an individual, but also of the whole human race. I consider the key to the modern issues connected with this narrative to be the idea that individual actions have very broad and lasting consequences. Most consistent with this is the view that God made humankind as individuals. However, I accept that there are other ways of seeing the question. Genesis 1–3 may be seen more generically as a narrative about human decadence, the degeneration of a group or race by the collection of all the bad decisions of a people put together. It is still, on this view, a story about human choice. One may still see individual human beings as being responsible for a collective decline by their choices, either through active wrongdoing or passive acceptance. It can still be a story truly reflecting the human desire for godlike power and for a morality independent of God, “knowing good and evil” in a purely human way. No decadent or corrupt society ever contains exclusively decadent people. However, even the innocent are affected by the lives of the corrupt people who live around them and by the corrupting atmosphere of a bad culture. I have so far attempted to give the outline of an answer to the challenge which modern historical understanding presents to anything but a purely symbolic interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis. 58 Now, however, I turn to a more difficult problem: how to face the difficulties posed by the popularly-held evolutionist picture of the universe, by which life-forms are thought to have developed through “survival of the fittest.” At the heart of this idea is cruelty through ruthless competition. Evolution

58 A purely symbolic interpretation would be that the early Genesis chapters do not refer to any real events at all but are parables. I do not deny that the narratives use symbols.

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cannot fit a totally benevolent scheme: God would have been “doing evil that good may come. (See Rom 3:8) On the other hand, the evolution of life-forms according to the cruel law of the survival of the fittest fits the damaged world after the Fall. Adam and Eve’s choice had cosmic consequences even for the animals, who became enemies of one another after the Fall. It was after the Fall that Man and the animals were competitive with one another and preyed upon one another, not before. In conclusion, it is hard to conceive how any account of the origin of Man in the creative will of God could be told in historical prose or in a factual manner which would satisfy a scientist. However, this need not be in opposition to the idea that there were actually individuals involved. The person of Adam is placed at the beginning of the human race as we know it, because the sacred writer understood that there was a link between the story of Adam and Eve and ancestral history. It is for this reason that he is our ancestor and can properly be placed at the beginning of Christian salvation history. This is the simplest, straightest view: God created the human person when he created the first human individuals, from matter brought to life by a share in his Spirit. We look to the “before” to find out how we should start to be now, “after” Paradise was first lost. The factual element in the story prevents us from blaming the way we are on “human nature.” We know that “human nature” does not predetermine the way we are now. It is a damaged nature that accounts for our condition and behavior—and the good news is that there is a way back to “human nature” as it should be and can be. Paradise can be regained.

6 THE UNCREATED LIGHT OF MOUNT THABOR THE LIGHT OF GLORY In the previous chapter, we have seen how the Orthodox tradition looks to Moses in a different way from mainstream Judaism. In Judaism, the Law or Torah is a light in that it shows one how to live a good life; it is a divinely inspired set of commandments, which is a “lamp to the feet” (Ps 119 [LXX 118]:105]. While not denying the value of the Law, the Orthodox tradition looks rather at the “face-to-face” relationship between Moses and God. Moses did not see God’s face, but he did behold God’s glory. This glory (Hebrew kabod, Greek doxa) was a light or fire, which was dangerous to other Israelites but which Moses was privileged to see, because of his great love of God. The glory of the Lord rested on the Cherubim-throne of the Ark of the Covenant, a chest which contained the stone tablets of the Law revealed to Moses and which was too holy even to touch. When Moses went in to see the Lord’s glory and to converse with him, he was transfigured by the light (Exod 34:29). When he came out, he had to wear a veil, because his face was shining with the Light of Glory, so that for anyone of the people of Israel, he was dangerous to look at directly (Exod 34:33–35). When the Tent of the Meeting between Moses and God became adapted to a fixed temple in Jerusalem, the innermost sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, or the Most Holy Place, contained the Ark of the Covenant and the Cherubim-throne. This part of the Temple was concealed from the rest of the Temple by a thick curtain or veil, and only the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year. The Light of Glory, then, in the Jewish Scriptures is an exceptional experience. The Prophet Elijah also had a similar experience of God’s glory (1 Kgs 19:11–12). However, for the ordinary good person, such an experience was unthinkable.

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With the coming of Christ, the experience of the Light of Glory was given to three chosen Apostles on the Mountain, Mount Thabor: 1 to St. Peter and to the sons of Zebedee, St. James and St. John (Matt 17:1–8; Mark 9:2–8; Luke 9:28–36). 2 What was given to the Apostles here was for all the faithful; therefore, we are promised in this life both the experience of the light or energy of Christ’s divine nature and the fiery energies of the Holy Spirit. This illumination is for all of us. The New Testament expression for this experience is usually “glory,” following the Old Testament translation of kabod, that is, doxa. We do not only give glory to God: we also receive God’s glory. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, when Christ’s purpose on earth has been accomplished by his death, an extraordinary event took place: the veil of the Temple was rent from top to bottom (Matt 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45). This event announced that we are now in the Age in which God’s glory may be experienced much more widely, by all those in the Church. In the Orthodox tradition, this light is called the Thaboric Light or the Uncreated Light of Mount Thabor and is a way of describing the experience of grace. For this reason, this chapter will concentrate upon the amazing event of the Transfiguration of Christ, which has a central place in Orthodox thinking about grace, and what it still means for us now. However, the Light of Glory appeared at other times in the New Testament than at the Transfiguration of Christ upon the Mountain. St. Luke’s Gospel describes an experience of God’s glory given to some poor shepherds: And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them. (Luke 2:8–9)

The vision of the heavenly host is given to poor people to show that we have entered a period of time in which the glory of the Lord can be the experience of humble and ordinary people as well as heroes of the faith. The divine glory was also revealed to some very saintly people, such as Simeon, a devout man who lived in expectation of the Kingdom of God. When he saw the child Jesus, he did not see someone little and helpless, he 1 The NT accounts of the Transfiguration do not specify Mount Thabor. This mountain does exist; it was a place of right worship in OT times (Deut 33:18–19) but the naming of Thabor as the mountain of Christ’s Transfiguration belongs to tradition (attested from 4th century onwards), see Anchor Bible Dictionary, Tabor. 2 In Greek, metamorphosis.

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saw his Messiah and declared that he could now depart this life in peace, because he had experienced the fulfillment which he was awaiting. He uttered prophetic words. Jesus is: “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to thy people Israel.” (Luke 2:32)

St. Simeon was able to theologize exactly. The light was to be a “revelation for the Gentiles,” an uncovering (apokalypsis) of what had been hidden from them. St. Simeon is referring to the prophecy in Isaiah that God will give a “light to the Gentiles” (Isa 42:6; 49:6; 60:3). For the Jews, on the other hand, Simeon uses the well-known term for God’s manifestation in the pillar of fire wreathed in smoke and for the Presence which settled upon the Cherubim-throne—that is, “glory.” St. Simeon was able to teach the coming of God’s glory to both Gentile and Jew. As part of God’s providence, St. Paul experienced the light of God’s glory. It was this experience that changed St. Paul from a persecutor of Christians into an Apostle to the Gentiles. This was the providence of God which Symeon foresaw. The light of God’s glory also appeared at Pentecost as a fire which did not burn the Apostles but rested upon them. This light endowed the Apostles with the gifts of teaching which they needed to spread the Gospel. Orthodox theology teaches that, through grace, it is possible, and even normal, for any one of the faithful in the Church to see this light. For this reason, the rite of baptism refers to the “illumination” of the person baptized and initiated into the Church. St. John the Theologian and Evangelist refers to Christ as the light throughout his Gospel. Christ gave the blind back their sight in two senses. First, he healed blind people. But secondly, he opened people’s eyes spiritually. In the case of the healing of the “man born blind from birth,” there is a double restoration of sight, because the man not only regains his physical sight; he is also able to see the importance of Jesus and to stand up to the synagogue authorities, who, exasperated by his boldness of speech, cast him out (John 9:1–38). Christ is the “light of the world” (John 8:12), not only because he brings moral enlightenment, but because he brings the light of God’s glory into our experiences, transforming us. The idea of the Uncreated Light of God being experienceable even in this life is one which many Christians might find rather too much of a claim, at least for this earthly life. The Salvation Army has a beautiful expression for death, for falling asleep in the Lord—that is, “promoted to glory.” It expresses the idea that glory is what we experience after death but

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not in this life. The Orthodox Christian teaching about the Thaboric light as being part of our present Christian experience might seem to introduce a foreign mysticism into Christianity. We know that, in the Hellenistic world of the time of Jesus and the New Testament writers, light-experiences were associated with all kinds of Greek religions. Moreover, there is St. Paul’s warning that “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14). A certain reserve about the experience of light, and some doubts about it, are therefore justified. The concerns of Bible-Christians about what Orthodox Christians are claiming do deserve some justification on the Orthodox side. It will, I hope, be reassuring if I review the manifestations of light to which I have already referred, in order to draw attention to the ways in which they differ from light-mysticism in general and from the light of the Greek mystery religions. Firstly, the light is personal. It is the energy of God which envelopes those who are in glory. The world of glory is a peopled world. Thus the manifestation to the shepherds was of the host of angels who were praising God (Luke 2:13). To the shepherds was revealed the communion of the Saints in Heaven. Secondly, the Light is part of God’s providence and belongs to his revelation in history. The manifestation of the Uncreated Light in the New Testament is a fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. Thirdly, there has been a better understanding of New Testament eschatology in the last century. The “eschaton” means “the last thing” and refers to the Age to Come which will eventually replace this world on the Day of Judgment. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was a tendency to see the “eschaton” as being entirely in the future, and some sects tried to predict the time when the world would end; which even Christ, in his human nature, declared was not within his knowledge (Matt 24:36). Careful attention to expressions such as “eternal life,” “the Kingdom of God,” and “the Kingdom of Heaven” has shown that they are partly fulfilled in the present earthly life of Christians. “Eternal life” means, literally, “the life of the New Age” or the Age to Come (zoe aionios), but there are times when it clearly refers to the present, as in the case of Jesus’ words to the woman at Jacob’s Well (John 4:14) and in most cases in St. John’s Gospel. The “eschaton” arrived in Jesus because Jesus was the fulfillment of all things, and in him all things are united and recapitulated. Therefore, as Christians we partly live in the New Age even though the old Age of this world continues.

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We realize the last things now, for example, in receiving the Holy Spirit, because one of the prophecies of the Age to Come was that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on all flesh—that is, that all people would have the capacity to prophesy: And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and you young men shall see visions. Even upon the menservants and the maidservants, in those days, I will pour out my spirit. (Joel 2:28–29)

In his First Letter to the Thessalonians, St. Paul shows this balance of future with present eschatology. There was some anxiety about “those who have fallen asleep,” those who had died before the final coming of Christ in glory to judge the world. St. Paul teaches that the Thessalonians should not grieve because the people who have died will rise again on the Last Day (1 Thess 4:13–17). However, St. Paul also teaches that there is a sense in which they should be living partly in the state of the “eschaton”: But you are not in darkness, brethren, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of the day. (1 Thess 5:4)

St. Paul teaches that the Day of Judgment should not be something alien and totally new to believers in Christ, because of the light that they are experiencing. This light or grace is itself eschatological. This is how the Orthodox tradition sees the experience of the Uncreated Light: it is the result of the fact that we have all been made into potential Prophets and can anticipate in our experience the future glory, just as the Old Testament Prophets experienced by anticipation the future coming of Christ and knew Christ in some sense.

THE TRANSFIGURATION IN THE GOSPELS The Transfiguration contains the Orthodox teaching about our experience of deification which is possible in our earthly lives. In the three Gospel accounts, of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, (Matt 17:1–8; Mark 9:2–8; Luke 9:28–36), 3 it is linked with a previous occasion on which, after St. Peter had I do not analyze the relationship between the Gospels in the manner of biblical source-criticism but follow the view of tradition. For the thorough, sophisticated and unique application of critical methods, see J. A. McGuckin, The Transfiguration of Christ in Scripture and Tradition (1987). Not only do considerations of space prevent it: recent research in New Testament studies signals a move back towards accepting the Gospels as eyewitness accounts, see the very recent Richard 3

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declared that Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus gives his teaching about the suffering Messiah: that he must be rejected by the Elders and the people and die at their hands in Jerusalem. St. Peter could not take this! “May God be merciful to you! May this not happen to you!” (Matt 16:22) 4

Jesus is just as frank in reply: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a cause of stumbling to me. You do not think about the things of God but about the things of men.” (Matt 16:23)

This terse and angry exchange conveys, on the one hand, St. Peter’s disillusionment when he hears about Jesus’ surprising and unusual conception of Messiah-ship; and, on the other, Jesus’ grief as he finds that not even Peter can support him on the terrible road ahead, as he sets his will to suffer and to die. However, Jesus did not leave the matter with a rebuke, and he tells all the disciples: “Amen! I tell you there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” (Matt 16:28) 5

It is this exchange with St. Peter and Jesus’ promise that is, in all the three Gospels, linked with the Transfiguration: Matthew and Mark have “after six days” (Matt 17:1; Mark 9:2) and Luke has “about eight days later” (Luke 9:28), making in addition a clear reference back to the previous events with “after these words.” These words are addressed to all the disciples (Matt 16:24) or “the crowd along with the disciples” (Mark 8:34) or “to them all” (Luke 9:23). This message of encouragement contrasts with the argument between Peter and Jesus, when “Peter took him aside” (Matt 16:22; Mark 8:32). The love of Christ for his disciples is movingly illustrated. He does not dwell upon his own human pain and horror at the prospect of his death but responds to the weakness of St. Peter with encouragement, by giving to all a promise. The fulfillment of this promise that they will “not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” is the Transfiguration, when he permitted his divine nature to shine through his flesh. Therefore, Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, (December 2006). 4 My literal translation. The Greek has an Aramaic coloring. 5 My literal translation of another Aramaism, see f.n. 4 above.

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suffering, though a necessary part of our lives as Christians, is balanced by the assurance that we can have an experience of the Uncreated Light. As Orthodox, we do not have to wait until Paradise after death, dwelling here by hope and faith in darkness. We can see the Light of Glory now. Jesus took three disciples on to a high mountain, away from the rest of the disciples and the crowd. These three people were, along with the Most Holy Mother of God, the people closest to him, who had been his disciples from the very first: Peter, and the two sons of Zebedee, James and his younger brother, John. Since Christ made his promise “before all” (Luke) or at the very least as an announcement to many (Matthew and Mark), why did he restrict the experience of the Transfiguration to these three disciples? Jesus keeps to the letter of his promise that “there are certain individuals standing here” (tines ode) who will “see” the Kingdom before death. It is important to understand that Jesus was not being élitist here, telling only a close inner circle his full teaching because he wished to exclude the many. Jesus intended his whole teaching to be known and to be handed down and written down. There is not one teaching for the majority and another for the few, as the Gnostics later suggested. Jesus did on this occasion restrict the vision of his glory. The reason is, however, nothing to do with elitism. The reason for Jesus’ choice of only three disciples is their closeness to him and the fact that, for all their inadequacies, they were the best prepared. A week had passed since Peter’s disagreement with Jesus, during which time we can only assume that he had come to accept Jesus’ rebuke and his teaching: Peter was still with Jesus after a week from the time of their clash. Despite the doubts expressed by Peter, in a matter of days his love made him receptive to what he was about to see. John was the disciple whom Jesus loved; James was the first of the Twelve to give his life. Consequently, of all the disciples, these three were the best prepared, although there is also a sense in which they were unequal to the experience at the time. The point the Gospel accounts all make, then, is that the uncreated Light of Glory, experienced by the three Apostles on Mount Thabor, can also be experienced by us today. But we must be prepared and we must love Christ above all things. Jesus takes them up a mountain not only to avoid the crowd but also to show them that something exceptional is about to happen and to make a comparison in their minds to the revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai. Jesus takes the disciples away into solitude; he teaches them that the mysteries of the Kingdom can be experienced in hesychasm, in stillness and withdrawal from the world.

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St. Gregory Palamas explains the Transfiguration as an experience by the disciples of what Jesus Christ really was all the time. 6 There is a true sense in which Jesus was, by virtue of his divine nature, constantly shining with the Uncreated Light of the energy of the divine nature. However, to human sight this light was concealed by the humanity and could not be perceived without grace. The light shone brightly and suddenly upon the disciples because they were given the grace to see it. 7 If the vision was through grace, it is appropriate that Jesus should take his disciples away from the crowd—that is, away from the world and human thinking—so that they could experience this grace. However, the experience was not subjective in the sense of being something that only took place in the minds of the disciples. There are two reasons. Firstly, Jesus took up the mountain three disciples, the traditional Jewish number for adequate witnessing of the truth of an event. Secondly, they received the vision with their eyes. Their physical faculty of vision was transfigured. This fits with the Orthodox ascetic teaching that those who see a Saint or an angel in the light are themselves in the light, according to the interpretation of the Psalm (Ps 36:9) “In Thy light shall we see light.” Although the Uncreated Light can be experienced as a light in the mind, Christ chose to reveal it on this occasion as a light that struck their eyes, 8 so that the experience should be all the more memorable and so that it could not be doubted; after all, these disciples were destined to teach the gospel: Thus wast transfigured on the mountain and Thy disciples as much as they were able to bear it beheld Thy glory, O Christ Our God, that when they saw Thee crucified, they might know that Thou art in truth the ‘Brightness’ of the Father. 9

This was because Christ was divine by nature. I have simplified the arguments in St. Gregory Palamas, see Philokalia (Ware) IV, 415 (chapter 148 of “Topics of Natural & Theological Science”). 7 Ibid., 414–415: God makes known his uncreated energy by an action which does not in any way make him changeable in the way that creatures are changeable. (My paraphrase of chapter 145) 8 According to St. Gregory Palamas, Philokalia (Ware), 415: “they were privileged to see with their eyes (ophthalmois labein) a foretaste of his advent,” citing St. Basil of Caesarea “On psalm 44.” 9 Festal Menaion, 489, the ‘Brightness’ refers to Heb 1:3: Christ is “the brightness of [God’s] glory.” In fact even this was not enough: “They all forsook him and fled” at his arrest, Mark 14:50! 6

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St. Matthew, himself an Apostle, had contact with the three men, Peter, James, and John as his source. Even if the event was to be kept secret from the other disciples at first (Matt 17:9; Mark 9:9), it was to be revealed in due course. We have it on direct personal testimony. Tradition attributes the material in Mark to St. Peter. 10 St. Luke was not an eyewitness but in composing his Gospel he used eyewitnesses as his sources: he refers to those who were “servants of the word” (or “ministers of the word”) who were also “eyewitnesses from the beginning” (Luke 1:2). These people passed on to Luke what they had seen and heard for themselves about the course of Jesus’ life on earth, his teaching, his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to glory. It was eyewitnesses, then, who passed on their account to the early Church. 11 The Transfiguration became an event in the Gospels and, consequently, part of the teaching of the Gospel. It also follows from this that the Transfiguration is an event in the lives of all Christians. When Jesus was alone with his three disciples, he was, according to Matthew and Luke, “changed in form”—the Greek uses the term “metamorphosed”—and in the Greek Orthodox Church the Feast of the Transfiguration is called Metamorphosis. The meaning of this expression is precisely illustrated by St. Paul’s hymn to Christ in Philippians 2:5–11. Christ was “in the form of God” (morphe Theou) but he “emptied himself” and took upon himself the “form of a slave” (morphe doulou). The Son had from all eternity the divine nature, being equal with God, 12 but he took upon himself a human nature, that is, the “form of a slave.” Jesus had not up to this time manifested in his own person his divine nature, but now he As To Mark, Peter’s disciple at Rome, we learn that he wrote down what the Apostle had preached, Eusebius, (Book II, ch 14–15), NPNF, PNF(2), I, 115–116, (Loeb, 143–145). Eusebius cites early traditions: Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in the 2nd century and Clement of Rome. 11 Some readers may know the “academic orthodoxy,” presently under revision (Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses), that Mark was written first and Matthew and Luke followed Mark as a source. This does not conflict with the traditional view of Luke but as to Matthew earliest tradition states that he wrote first an Aramaic Gospel, see Eusebius Church History, (Book III, ch. 24), NPNF, PNF(2), I, 152, (Loeb, Eusebius, 251). Orthodox tradition sees Matthew’s Greek Gospel as the work of the Apostle. There need not be a contradiction with the priority of Mark, because in writing his Greek Gospel at a later date, Matthew would have naturally consulted the tradition coming from Peter and deferred to it. The lost Aramaic Gospel was probably incorporated into Matthew’s Gospel by the Apostle himself, being the source for Jesus’ sayings which the Apostle Matthew himself translated. 12 Phil 2:6, to einai isa theo, “to be the same as God.” 10

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opened the eyes of the three Apostles by giving them the grace to see the uncreated energies of the divine nature shining through the human nature or the flesh. Luke, perhaps because he did not want to puzzle his Gentile audience, says that the countenance of Jesus was altered (Luke 9:29). All the Gospels 13 say that the disciples saw a dazzlingly white light. Matthew says that his face shone like the sun (Matt 17:2), while Mark and Luke refer to the unusual brightness of his clothes (Matt 17:2; Mark 9:3), which partook of the brightness emanating from Jesus’ body. The disciples, then, saw with their eyes the uncreated energy of the divine nature which Jesus Christ has willed to manifest. But how can the physical eyes see Uncreated Light? This question can be raised; one need not say simply that “it was a miracle” and anaesthetize our reason. It is a central question to theology as a discipline and one of the profoundest questions: how can the human being experience the uncreated energies because both the human sense and the intellect are finite? The answer is that the human faculties are themselves changed into an uncreated dimension of perception: both the sense and the intellect are transfigured. The fact that the disciples saw the Uncreated Light of Christ’s glory, the glory or energy of his divine nature, means that they were themselves in a high state of grace. They had their first experience of grace even before Christ’s Resurrection. However, all the Gospels agree that the Apostles found it to some extent unbearable, although it was at the same time the greatest experience of their lives up to that point. Luke tells us that the disciples became sleepy and awoke to see Christ in glory (Luke 9:32), Mark tells us that at one point St. Peter did not know what he was saying (Mark 9:6), and Matthew tells us that the disciples were terrified and fell to the ground (Matt 17:6)—as they are depicted in so many icons, especially that of Theophanes the Greek. Moses and Elijah appear and converse with Jesus (Matt 17:3; Mark 9:4; Luke 9:30). Luke tells us that they talked about Christ’s exodus 14 —that is, his departure from this world through suffering, death, Resurrection, and Ascension to Heaven. Peter thought that this theophany was equivalent to the Exodus experience of Moses, who spoke with God face to face and whose face shone through the effect of his contact with God’s glory: Peter wanted three tents to be set up, three tabernacles or “booths” for Jesus, That is, all the Gospels that narrate the event directly. John does not refer to the event directly, though he alludes to it, as we shall see below. 14 Only Luke refers to the “exodus”: Christ discusses with Moses and Elijah his leaving of this life in this way (Luke 9:30). 13

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Moses, and Elijah. This is not necessarily a foolish thing to say. At the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths, the people of Israel lived temporarily in tents to remind them of their time in the desert (Lev 23:39–43). Peter is referring to the blessed experience that Moses had in the desert; he wants to prolong the experience of the new revelation on the Mountain. The Exodus allusions continue as a bright cloud appears and a voice comes out of the cloud; this is a repetition of the appearance of the “Glory” or kabod of the Lord, the pillar of smoke which concealed the fire from which God revealed his Law to Moses. Something greater than the Law is revealed here—that is, God the Father’s beloved Only-begotten Son. The event ends quietly and gently with Jesus returning to his familiar form of teacher and master (Matt 17:8; Mark 9:8; Luke 9:36). In Matthew, he touches the disciples and comforts them with the word, “Do not be afraid.” This revelation to Moses is, in Judaism, almost unique in the history of the world, unrepeatable and linked with the giving of the Law. Only the Prophet Elijah had a comparable experience. Elijah went to Horeb, “the Mount of God,” and there the thunderous and awesome manifestation was repeated for his benefit, even to God’s protection of him from the full force of his fiery glory (1 Kgs 19:8–13). There is a difference to the parallel story about Moses. Elijah meets the Lord not in the whirlwind or thunder or fire but in the whisper of God’s Word—the Word of God who is the gentle One, the Son, who inspired the Prophets, and whom the Prophets predicted. It is clear from the matching of Moses and Elijah that the Law and the Prophets are not in conflict. Between them, they contain the whole Old Testament revelation. There is another way in which Moses and Elijah exist together in a unique category: neither passed from this earthly life as did the other Patriarchs and Prophets. 15 Elijah’s passing is the most dramatic in the Old Testament: he was taken up to Heaven by chariots of fire (2 Kgs 2:11–12). However, in Jewish tradition, Moses did not die as other men did. His tomb could not be found (Deut 34:6). In the Hebrew text, Moses is buried by God! “He [the Lord] buried him. (Deut 34:6) 16 With the exception of Enoch (Gen 5: 24). The LXX has “They buried him,” that is, he was buried by a burial-party. The LXX either translates a different Hebrew text from the one we have today (The Masoretic Text), or, startled by the strangeness of the Hebrew, they normalized the account by altering the 3rd person singular to 3rd-person plural. 15 16

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The Jews expected both Elijah and Moses to come again before the Messiah (Mal 4:5; Deut 18:15). Moses was customarily referred to as “The Prophet,” because of his closeness to God (Deut 34:10). Consequently, with the appearance of Elijah and Moses conversing with Jesus, the prophecies had been fulfilled. Even so, coming down from the mountain, the disciples were dazzled and confused. When Jesus is telling them about the resurrection of the Son of Man, they still asked about the future coming of Elijah: Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah Must come? (Matt 17:10; Mark 9:11)

Jesus does have an answer, which is quite complicated. First Jesus says Elijah is to come first and will restore all things (Matt 17:11) 17

The expression for “will restore” (apokatastēsei) suggests that Jesus was referring to the final Restoration of all things, the Apokatastasis, at the end of the world. But then Jesus says, “Elijah has already come!” This Elijah was unrecognized and made to suffer at men’s hands (Matt 17:12; Mark 9:12) According to Matthew, Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist. (Matt 17:13)

Jesus contradicts St. John the Baptist’s own belief about who he was. When St. John the Baptist was asked by the Jewish authorities if he was the Messiah, Elijah, or “The Prophet” (Moses), he answered No to all three questions (John 1:20–21). However, Jesus possessed a divine nature and “himself knew what was in man” (John 2:25). 18 To sum up, first, Elijah reappeared in glory on the mountain with Jesus and Moses. Second, Elijah is to re-appear in the future to herald the Day of Judgment and the restoration of all things. Third, Elijah has already come in the figure of St. John the Baptist. In regard to the latter, Elijah is a suffering figure, but on the mountain and at the end of time, he is glorious. These two aspects of Elijah mirror and prefigure the life of Jesus on earth, because Jesus both suffers and is glorified. The Church adds another interpretation about Moses and Elijah: Moses symbolized the Law whilst

My translation. The RSV does not make it clear that “will restore” is in the future tense. 18 “No man knows what he is in his own eyes: he really is only as he is to God,” Morris, John, 119 17

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Elijah symbolized the Prophets. Therefore Christ is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. Jesus told Peter, James, and John: Tell no one the vision, until the Son of man is raised from the dead.” (Matt 17:9) 19

Why is this? It is because the Gospel, that is the proclamation of the mysteries about Jesus Christ, comes after the Resurrection. An immediate account of the event, even supposing that the three disciples were capable of giving one, might scandalize those who had not actually had the vision but who had only heard about it, and then saw Jesus crucified. 20 It was, therefore, after the Resurrection that Peter, James, and John imparted to the other disciples their vision. For this vision to be proclaimed in human language by the Gospel-writers, the Holy Spirit had to have come, as it did at Pentecost (Acts 2:1–3). Since the Transfiguration is in the Gospels, the vision of Uncreated Light and of the glory of the Saints in Heaven is for all people who accept the Gospel. This wonderful vision, which takes us out of ourselves, is part of the “Good News.” Orthodox teaching about the Transfiguration draws more and greater conclusions from it than any other Christian tradition. The Metamorphosis is not just an historical experience and a stage in the lives of the three disciples: it is also a statement about what is offered to us by Christ, through the grace of the Holy Spirit—namely, that we can experience the uncreated energies of God as light, either through our transfigured senses or through our transfigured intellects. Grace is an uncreated energy enabling us truly to experience the glory of God. The three Apostles who accompanied Jesus up the Mountain and saw his glory were all stamped by the experience.

THE EXPERIENCE ST. PETER St. Peter had resisted the Lord’s mission of suffering and death. He had a worldly idea of what Christ’s “glory” meant. Later, during the trial of Jesus, Peter denied his Master. However, in the writings of St. Peter—two letters of

In Matthew “vision” is oroma, a unique word in the Synoptic Gospels but one which is used in the LXX to translate Hebrew hazon, or vision, Davies & Allison, Matthew, II, 713. Mark has simply “what they had seen” (Mark 9:9). 20 Theophylact, Matthew, 48. 19

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profound theology—we see a St. Peter who has grown into the full measure of the stature of Christ (Eph 4:13). 21 The First Letter of St. Peter In his first letter, St. Peter shows how the sufferings (pathemasi) of Christ are essential for our salvation and deification: For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. (1 Pet 3:18–19)

Christ’s death had as its purpose his descent to the place of the dead, where the “spirits” of the departed awaited him (1 Pet 3:19). There had to be no part of human life that was not transformed by the Savior’s touch—not even death. St. Peter describes baptism as the means of effecting triumph over death, through Christ’s Resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of God, all angels, powers, and spirits being subjected to him (1 Pet 3:21– 22)). Christ’s abasement and his exaltation are perfectly connected: Christ came down in humility to bring Man up from death. The pattern of abasement–exaltation is not only the way by which Christ saved us. This pattern is also our way and provides us with the paradigm of our deification by showing us the way upon which we must set ourselves to attain deification. This way is that of humility and the voluntary acceptance of unjust suffering, which makes us like Christ: For this is grace: if, through mindfulness of God, one endures pain while suffering unjustly. For what glory is it, if when you do wrong and are beaten for it, you take it patiently? But if, when you do good and suffer for it and take it patiently, this is grace with God. (1 Pet 2:20) 22

This way is “grace with God”—that is, what is pleasing to God. The Greek for “glory” here is kleos, “renown,” the word used for the reputation of heroes, who had achieved worldly fame by saving a nation in battle or benefactors who were credited with beautifying a city with temples and public buildings. St. Peter reinterprets this word: the greatest glory is to 21 St. Paul’s words describe a development. Not even the Apostles began their discipleship perfect! 22 My translation. The RSV translation somewhat obscures St. Peter’s understanding of “glory” as suffering, while the AV catches it well: “What glory is it if, when ye be buffeted for your faults ye shall take it patiently?” The RSV is correct in rendering kleos as “credit,” but “glory” catches better the underlying theology of Christ’s suffering being the “glory” that we should imitate.

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accept undeserved suffering, a way that can be followed by the poor and the weak. Whenever we suffer in the same way, we are imitating Christ’s glory. This is a long way from the man who said, “God forbid! May this not happen to you!” when his Master told him that he must go up to Jerusalem to suffer (Matt 16:22). St. Peter uses some unique and striking expressions to convey the way of humility and voluntary suffering as the imitation of Christ. Although it would be correct to say that, for St. Peter, our part in our deification involves moral effort, it is not the morality of a strictly just and rational life. The whole of our behavior should be an imitation of Christ’s humility. This goes deeper than conventional morality. In humility, we enter into the life of the Savior who fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. (Isa 53:7)

We enter into the kind of suffering which is on behalf of the whole of humanity and thus become incorporated in the suffering and glorification of Christ in our lives as a whole. When we suffer in this creative, humble, and voluntary way, the “Glory” of God rests upon us as did the glory upon the Ark in the Tent of Meeting. Through humility, we become tabernacles of God’s glory: Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. (1 Pet 4:12–14)

St. Peter teaches that in following Christ we share in his suffering for all. St. Peter uses an unusual word for “example”—hypogrammos. It is the only occurrence of the word in the New Testament. It can mean the “outline” of a story (2 Macc 2:28). It could also mean the outline of letters and words used in children’s copybooks. Hence, it came to have the sense of a moral example in Greek literature; but in Hellenistic Judaism the “example” could be martyrdom (2 Macc 6:28, 31). The term hypogrammos taken together with another unique expression, “that you should follow in his steps,” makes clear that there is a definite and specific way of following Christ: the way of self-abnegation. If St. Peter had once uncomprehendingly resisted the idea of a suffering Messiah, it is clear that he had fully embraced the idea by the time he came to write the first of his epistles.

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Humility and freely accepted suffering on the one hand, and intimacy with God and a share of his glory on the other, are like two sides of a coin, because suffering was united to resurrection in Christ. If we truly are disciples of Christ, walking in his footsteps, we shall share this double aspect. In the world, suffering and humiliation even to death are the opposites of glory and life. When suffering comes, a worldly outlook sees suffering and glory as opposites. It is possible to have this worldly attitude as a Christian, so that suffering becomes an existential and intellectual problem: why do the innocent suffer if God is good and has the power to alleviate suffering? Since there is, in my view, no satisfactory intellectual answer to this question, the person suffering finds that the question adds to his suffering. The “answer” is not intellectual: it involves a transformation of one’s whole person, in that one becomes a sharer in the sufferings of Christ. The word for suffering is pathos: it suggests an ongoing quality about the sufferings—there is a process of voluntary suffering which continues to be alive in us. This share of suffering is also a share in glory. St. Peter describes himself as “one who shares the glory which is about to be revealed.” The word which conveys the sharing is the simple Greek word for “in common”—koinos (1 Pet 5:1). “Glory” is the word we should expect a Jew to use to describe the manifestation of Light, because it described what Jews later called the Shekinah, the bright fiery descent of God’s energy upon the Ark of the Covenant. The “glory” is both in the future, at the end of time when Christ shall come to judge the world, and also partly in the present. The latter must be true because St. Peter says that he “shares” it. St. Peter sees himself, and by implication also his “fellow-elders” 23 (1 Pet 5:1), as being able to live in the Age to Come now; in our experience we can share in the Light of Glory that will be completely revealed at the end of the world. What, then, does the First Epistle of Peter teach us about St. Peter’s experience of the Uncreated Light on Mount Thabor? St. Peter had resisted Christ’s mission to suffer, and Christ had rebuked him. Indeed they had rebuked one another. One may imagine St. Peter simmering down during the week before Christ took him up the Mountain. It had been a great test of his loyalty and he had only just pulled through! Then he beheld the Light of Christ’s glory, which was to encourage him when the time for Christ’s suffering came. But even the Transfiguration was not enough. St. Peter failed, knew he had failed, and wept bitterly (Matt 26:75) about it. However, 23

The expression translates the Greek sympresbyteroi.

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the St. Peter of the First Epistle has been strengthened by the Resurrection and by the Holy Spirit which descended upon him at Pentecost. Aware of his own failures and of the very great difficulty of understanding the way of humility, St. Peter teaches about “glory,” that “glory” comes, as it did for Christ himself, after a passage through unjust suffering voluntarily and humbly accepted. The Christians whom he addresses, then, should not go for human glory, which is perishable (1 Pet 1:18). St. Peter’s experience has taught him the pattern. First there is suffering. Only afterward—glory. This is what he found in his own time with Jesus. First there was bitter disillusionment which he could not accept, and afterward a manifestation of glory, the light of the Transfiguration. First there was the Crucifixion of his beloved Lord, and only afterward the Resurrection, Ascension to the Glorious realm of Light with God and the Heavenly Host. St. Peter wanted his spiritual children to understand this pattern. First suffering, then subsequent glory, just as the Prophets had predicted. His message is one of sobriety: we should not expect ecstatic experiences of light and an approach to the heavenly realm until one has become like one’s Master in humility. The Second Letter of St. Peter This Letter begins with a clear a statement that it is the testimony of St. Peter the Apostle: Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. (2 Pet 1:1–2) 24

It is, in the tradition of the Orthodox Church, the direct eyewitness testimony of the Apostle himself. This is also still believed today among many Christians who do not belong to the Orthodox tradition. 25 It is written throughout in the first person singular. St. Peter refers in the first person plural to himself and his fellow Apostles who witnessed with him the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ on the mountain. (2 Pet 1:16–18). It is the view of the present author that 2 Peter has, as its author, the Apostle Peter, who was drawing on his personal experience of the Transfiguration. I NIV It is Evangelical Christians who have defended the apostolic authorship of this letter in recent scholarship, for example, Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 805–42; Michael Green, 2 Peter & Jude. 24 25

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base my view mainly on the fact that it was a book eventually included by the Church in the Canon of Scripture. 26 The Greek word “canon” means a ruler by which the correct measurement might be established (it was for example a rod of a certain length), and from this humble meaning it came to mean “standard” or “rule.” To say that a book is canonical Scripture is to say that it belongs to those very few books written about Jesus or on his behalf which go back to the witness of the Apostles and connect us historically to Jesus Christ. The completed list of books which the Church decided were canonical is first found in the Easter Letter of St. Athanasius of Alexandria for the year 367 A.D., where St. Athanasius mentions in his list “of Peter, two” epistles. 27 However, there are influential scholars who have described 2 Peter, as if it were almost a matter of absolute certainty, as “pseudonymous”—that is, a letter pretending to be by St. Peter but actually written by some one else. This view is accompanied by the assertion that the date of the letter is very late, written in the early second century. 28 I consider that such theories undercut the experientialism which I have been arguing for throughout this chapter: that the theology of the Apostles was generated by direct, historical experience of the divine energies. These historical experiences are the very basis of the Orthodox tradition. Insofar, however, as it is possible in such a short book, I shall try to show the reader how it might have been possible for St. Peter to have been the author of an epistle written in quite complicated Greek and containing Greek. How could the simple fisherman have written such a letter? Part of the answer is that the fisherman was not so simple …. But first we must examine the doctrine and testimony of the Letter itself. St. Peter’s Second Epistle contrasts with the somber First Epistle because, perhaps, St. Peter wants to complement it with something more 26 I also consider that the arguments for the pseudonymity of 2 Peter are unconvincing at a scholarly level and align myself with the Evangelical scholars who defend Petrine authorship. 27 Athanasius, Festal Letters of Athanasius, Letter 39 in Select Works. Letters, NPNF, PNF (2), IV, 351–352, letter for 367 the year 367 CE. 28 The Catholic scholar Fr. Raymond Brown is one of these: “Indeed, the pseudonymity of II Pet is more certain than that of any other NT work” (Introduction to the New Testament, 767). This book has the imprimatur of the Catholic Church that it is free from moral or doctrinal error. Fr. Brown’s view, which is shared by many scholars, may be found in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, 64:1, (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1990), 1017. As to the work of the Evangelical scholars to whom I refer in this section, it is as if it had never been written.

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enthusiastic and encouraging. After the conventional opening, it erupts in a blaze of glory: His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion and become partakers of the divine nature. (2 Pet 1:3–4)

St. Peter emphasizes here our share in the divine glory—we have a share (koinonoi ) in the divine nature. This participation is brought about through God’s power, glory, and strength and endows us with immunity from corruption—the corruption of sinful desire that walks in the way of death. St. Peter gives weight to the glorious and triumphant side of the life in Christ for good reason: the Churches were going through a depressing time because of apostasy. Because there were some who had fallen back into a worldly way of thinking, with disastrous consequences for them personally and for the whole Church, St. Peter reaffirmed the Christian potential for triumph over corruption as strongly as he possibly could. St. Peter refers specifically to the glory that he personally experienced on Mount Thabor, when he and his companions, the sons of Zebedee, James and John, were those who had seen his majesty. To say that one “had come to be one who had seen” (epoptai; 2 Pet 1:17) the divine majesty is a very bold statement. For anyone born a Jew it was impossible to claim to have seen God (John 1:18). However, the language of vision is not invented or borrowed from pagan visionary mysticism: “we were with him on the holy mountain” (2 Pet 1:18). St. Peter is recalling his own experience on the mountain when he saw God’s glory at the Transfiguration. St. Peter mitigates the boldness of his visionary language by saying that he was the witness, not of God directly, but of the “majesty” which he beheld in the transfigured Jesus. St. Peter expressed his experience not only in the language of vision but also in the other characteristic form of prophetic experience: he heard a voice from Heaven (1:19) declaring Jesus to be the Son of God. St. Peter also makes it clear that he was not a solitary visionary by referring to those who were with him on the mountain: this is the meaning of “we” in 1:16–19. It is not the use of “we” as a solemn expression of “I,” because when St. Peter refers to himself he uses the singular: “I,” “I intend … I think it right … I am … I know … I will see” (1:12–15). St. Peter refers to the traditional Jewish number of three witnesses as necessary for the verification of an event, in referring to his fellow Apostles.

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We share the nature of God! This participation is brought about through the impact of God’s operations or energies. The divine “power,” “glory,” and “strength,” which we share and to which I have referred to above, are different ways of describing the divine energy which we share by grace. The “participation in the divine nature” is the end of the Christian life and its perfection. The phrase “partakers of divine nature” needs to be seen in its context, where it is explained as a revelation in characteristically Jewish terms but one which also makes sense in the Hellenized world of the time. It is not necessary to see the Second Epistle of St. Peter as written by a Greek pretending to be St. Peter because the Apostle uses one word, physis, “nature,” which is used in Greek philosophy, or that he was incapable of writing Greek. It is possible that St. Peter was writing with the assistance of a secretary who could help him: this is one possible meaning of “by (dia) Silvanus” at the end of 1 Peter (5:12)—that is, “with his help.” We know from the Gospels that St. Peter spoke in a dialect of Aramaic which was recognizably Northern, and for this reason, from his way of speaking, he was recognized as a “Galilean” when he would have preferred to remain inconspicuous (Matt 26:73). 29 However, Galilee was also near the Decapolis or Ten Greek Cities. Now, among the crowds that followed Jesus there were people from these Greek cities (Matt 4:25). Jesus spoke to and healed a man who was from the Decapolis (Mark 5:20). It has been argued plausibly that Jesus and his disciples knew some Greek. 30 We are only beginning to understand how the “bilingualism” of the Roman Empire worked, but recent studies in Hellenistic Greek suggest that most people got by in a form of Greek in addition to their own language and that the Greek they used was tinged with the grammatical forms of their mother 29 Matt 26:73, “Your accent gives you away” (NIV), and famously “for thy speech betrayeth thee” (KJV); Mark 14:70 has “You are a Galilean,” and Codex Alexandrinus (5th century A.D.) adds “and your speech fits this fact,” a reading taken by all the Reformers, Tyndale, Cranmer, Geneva, and KJB, “thy speech agreeth thereto.” This reading of Mark confirming Matthew, however, is omitted from modern translations on the basis of the most recent views on textual criticism. 30 Robert L. Thomas and Stanley N. Gundry, “The Languages Jesus Spoke,” in a learned review of a few pages, which is in itself worth the price of the book, the conclusion is: “Apparently, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic were all commonly spoken and understood amongst Palestinian Jews of Jesus’ day” (303).

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tongue, the dialect of Aramaic spoken in Palestine. 31 Finally, because of the universalism of Christianity and its need to communicate to the whole world, the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament (2nd or 3rd century B.C.) became important for missionaries. If St. Peter had never turned to the Septuagint before he became an Apostle, it is very likely that he did afterward, since it provided so much of the vocabulary that a missionary needed in speaking to Gentiles. Consequently, the view that St. Peter could not have known any Greek or written it is as absurd and as patronizing to working people as to assert a thousand years from now that the Bedfordshire tinker, John Bunyan, with but a few years of grammar school education could not have written such a complex and subtle allegory as A Pilgrim’s Progress in such beautiful English, because he was a working man. 32 Thus, even at a scholarly level, these assumptions are ridiculous. However, the Orthodox Church gives a theological reason for the fact that apparently quite ordinary people can give exceptionally profound teaching under the influence of the Holy Spirit: The Holy Spirit provideth all things. He poureth forth prophecy. He perfecteth the priesthood. He hath taught wisdom to the unlettered. He hath shown forth the fishermen as theologians. He holdeth together the whole institution of the Church. Wherefore, O Paraclete, one in essence and majesty with the Father and the Son, glory be to Thee.33

When this way of interpreting Scripture is lost, especially when it is lost amongst the scholars, a kind of intellectual decadence takes place which generates false theories and assumptions about Scripture. It is in fact a form of that very apostasy which St. Peter is here warning us about—falling back into worldly ways of thinking. They are all marked by a tendency to skepticism and to interpret Scripture in a way that makes it no longer the book of life, so that we feel that we cannot use it to help us.

Natalio Fernandez Markos, “The New Approach to Bilingualism.” It is a complex and specialized subject and a matter of ongoing debate. 32 This analogy between Bunyan and St. Peter is made by Wayne Grudem, “Could Peter have known Greek well?” 30, after a thorough discussion of the possibilities of the question of the literacy of St. Peter, against the Palestinian background. 33 Troparion (or collect) of Pentecost. The expression “unlettered” (aggrammatous) does not mean “illiterate” but rather “without formal education.” The latter would only have been available to the upper classes. 31

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There are two false assumptions which often underlie the way this important passage in 2 Peter about deification has been treated by unbelieving historians. First, there is the idea that the New Testament writers were exclusively Semitic in language and thought, knowing only Aramaic and some Hebrew; second, that any Greek philosophical or religious terms in the New Testament writings suggest that the writer could not have been an Apostle. However, the use of Greek words by the Apostle does not mean that he had turned into a Greek philosopher or pagan. The effect of Christ on the Apostles caused a meltdown in previously used language, both in the Hebrew language, where the legal language of the rabbis was challenged, and in the Greek language, where the true vision of God was shown to be not in the Mystery religions but in the gracious revelation of God and in a historical event of the Incarnate God’s life on earth, the Transfiguration. A great deal can be done to see our way through the problems to which I have drawn your attention by attending to the Scripture itself. “Partakers of the divine nature” occurs as part of a group of words and sentences; 2 Peter 1:3–4 is quite a complicated grammatical structure. To lift a phrase out of context and make it into a slogan is a mistake. The Apostle, having wished “grace” (charis) to his addressees, extends the greeting into a commentary on what is meant by “grace”—thus taking the Letter’s salutation beyond mere formalities. 34 Grace is “strength,” “power,” and “knowledge”: God works by “glory” and “strength.” We have already seen that these terms here are the active operations of God and that St. Peter is referring to a new revelation, which Orthodox theology calls “energies.” May those who cannot swallow the view that in 2 Peter we are reading the personal testimony of experience, written by that very Apostle, St. Peter, at least consider the position that the author of 2 Peter was a disciple of St. Peter and was conveying the Apostle’s experience in his own style but with the Apostle’s authority! However, the Orthodox Church position is altogether straighter: there is something immediate about reading the words of life, from person to person, so that when a believer has the assurance of tradition that the words he reads are Scripture, he comes into contact with the testimonies of the people who knew Jesus Christ when he walked this earth.

In this manner of transforming the normal way of opening a letter in Greek, St. Peter is very like St. Paul. 34

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THE EXPERIENCE OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST AND THEOLOGIAN 35 The effect on St. John’s theology of his experience of the Transfiguration St. John, Peter’s companion on the Mountain with Jesus, also has a theology of glory—that is, a theology of vision and of participation in the divine life. In the Prologue to his Gospel, St. John says: And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten One of the Father. (John 1:14) 36

This statement is placed in parenthesis, as a personal remark, after the momentous statement of the first part of this verse: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:14)

One way of interpreting the “we” is that it is a reference to what he shared with his brother, St. James, and with St. Peter, when he saw Jesus transfigured on the Mountain. This changed him. Even so, he expresses himself as we might expect a Jew concerning the vision of God: No one has ever seen God. (John 1:18)

But he can say that one may see the “glory” of God. The vision of light on Mount Thabor was God’s glory. It was this experience that made it possible for St. John to see Jesus as the revealer of God. Jesus made God known through the manifestation of God’s glory in Christ. St. John also calls this manifestation “grace” (John 1:17), “truth” (1:17), and “life” (1:4). Jesus’ whole life made God known in a narrative of the energies of God: the Greek word exēgēsato (John 1:18), usually translated “has made him known” (RSV) can mean “told the story about (God),” or “made known in a history or sequence of events.” 37

The Evangelist John is one if only three church writers were given the title “Theologian,” the other two being St. Gregory Nazianzen (4th century) and St. Symeon the “New Theologian” (11th century). St. John was given the title because he taught about the divine Logos and because of his sublime teaching, which is continued in his Letters and in the Book of Revelation, the Johannine authorship of which the Orthodox Church accepts. 36 My translation. 37 The related noun diegesis is used in Luke 1:1 to mean “narrative,” “historical account.” 35

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Light and darkness in the writings of St. John the Theologian St. John’s writings are marked by the use of the language of light to describe the revelation in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is light, just as God is light (1 John 1:5), because from Jesus shone the uncreated Light of Glory, the uncreated energy or grace which connects us to the divine nature, since the nature cannot be directly known. This light is, in most instances of St. John’s use of the word, a real light—that is, a real force or energy—not a metaphor for some human teaching or enlightenment. Let us review St. John’s use of the word light (phos). In the Gospel of John, the light appears to describe the as yet unincarnate Word (John 1:4). It is equated with life, a word which in John does not mean only biological life but spiritual life: The light is shining in the darkness and the darkness did not grasp it. 38

The light shines eternally; the present tense of the verb is used to express this everlasting shining (phainei). On the other hand, the darkness is something in time: the aorist tense is used; it has made an assault on the light, trying to overcome it, hating it because not understanding it. The words ouk elaben, which I have translated above as “did not grasp,” mean both “did not overcome” and “did not understand,” in the older senses of the word “comprehended it not” (KJV). The light of Christ and which, for us, is Christ, is transforming as it shines upon those who are willing to receive it and makes us belong to the light: as St. John puts it, it makes us “sons of light.” (12:36). It enables us to walk with knowledge—that is, to follow the way that leads to God, and it banishes from our lives the darkness under which we have been oppressed from as far back as human history can record: despair, depression, injustice, violence, illness, death, and all kinds of evil. St. John’s experience teaches unquenchable hope: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

However, it would not exactly be true to say that St. John’s experience had made him an optimist! The light is opposed by darkness. This darkness is not an eternal force equal to God but represents personal opposition to the light of God by both human beings and the evil immaterial powers, demons, or evil angels. The “world” as a system of thinking is dominated by the Prince of this World—that is, the Devil. When the Divine Word 38

My translation.

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came into the world which he had created, he met not only love and gratitude but also hatred and incomprehension. Christ’s coming divided people: they either loved Christ or they hated him—and the same goes for Christ’s true disciples. This crisis is made quite clear by St. John: This is the judgment [krisis], that the light has come into the world and men loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19)

People were, in St. John’s experience, divided into those who hate the light and those who receive it (John 3:20–21). St. John’s sense of a bitter struggle between Christ the Light and the forces of darkness was intensified when those who had at first been disciples “went out” from the churches and formed sects with a false teaching. Here we have the first examples of heresy. In proportion to St. John’s sense of the goodness of the light, so is his sense of the evil of those who were perverting the true teaching. He has some of the harshest words ever written to describe those who, having received the teaching of the Church, apostatized and formed groups with a false teaching, a teaching that destroyed the Incarnational basis of our deification, that God had come in the flesh: For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who do not confess Jesus Christ coming in the flesh. There is the Deceiver! There is the Antichrist! Look out yourselves that you do not lose what you have worked for: you must receive your reward in full. Anyone who is so “progressive” that he does not remain rooted in the teaching of Christ does not possess God, while anyone who remains rooted in the teaching possesses both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you who does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into the house and do not greet him, for whoever greets him shares his evil deeds. (2 John 7– 10) 39

These words of the Apostle create some problems for the reader today. There are some who would say that St. John’s attitude is not Christian, because it fails in love and especially love of enemy. Moreover, one may disagree with an opponent whilst remaining courteous. St. John, however, tells his disciples not even to greet such people (charein was the 39 This is Raymond Brown’s unusually vivid version (The Epistles of John, 645), which renders the Greek proagon, lit. “going ahead,” as “progressive” in the bad sense of thinking oneself above even the revelation of Christ. Brown remarks on the “with us or against us attitude” of the Apostle in this Epistle and his dualistic mentality (673).

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normal way of saying ‘Hello’). They are also told to refuse hospitality to them. If St. John avoids hatred of his enemies it is not by much, perhaps, and it seems to contradict his own teaching, which comes from Christ: he who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness still. (1 John 2:9, see also 1 John 2:11)

St. John’s language against the heretics, however, is not hatred but springs from a realization that our deification, the light that can change our lives, depends upon a definite teaching and that it is centered upon the person and nature of Jesus Christ, God and Man. It was the duty of an Apostle then, and today, of their successors the bishops, to uphold the teaching of the Church. There is no “nice way” to uphold the teaching of the Church against heresy and schism. It is an unpleasant duty. The refusal of normal social greeting and hospitality may be explained by the fact that the well-prepared sectarians will start up discussions which will confuse and subvert unprepared Christian families. On the island of Patmos, St. John was given a more sublime vision, if this is possible, of the light of Christ. This must have more than compensated for St. John’s bitter disillusionment about the “progressives” who had seceded from his community. God comforted the Apostle with a foretaste of the glory that was to come in the future Age at the end of the world. St. John confirms the truth of this possibility in his vision of the future glory in the Book of Revelation. He distinguishes between natural light (Rev 18:23), which is our physical light on earth, and the Uncreated Light, which will be our equivalent of eternal daylight in the Age to Come, in the Eternal City of God: And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall the nations walk and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it and its gates shall never be shut by day—and there shall be no night there. (Rev 21:23–25, see also 22:5)

The Prophet Isaiah refers to this Light, which does not emanate from the planets but which comes directly from God, as being a characteristic of the Age to Come: The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you by night; but the LORD will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory. (Isa 60:19)

Although this light is not the light of the planets which God made to be as lights, when he said through his Eternal Word “Let there be lights in the

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firmament of the heavens” (Gen 1:14), there is a true sense in which, nevertheless, this light of the Age to Come is truly light. All words are inadequate to the reality they express, especially in matters of Divinity, but they do nevertheless have meanings. The word “light” is not in these biblical texts only a symbol or metaphor of human ethical enlightenment but also a symbol of the energy of God, of the Uncreated Light by which we shall have fellowship with God in the Age to Come, through our faith and love of the Lamb who was slain for us. The battle between light and darkness, which is the battlefield of this world, will be over: And night shall be no more. (Rev 22:5)

The teaching on the experience of the Uncreated Light in the First Letter of John: 1 John 3:2 Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears 40 we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3:2–3)

In this sentence, St. John expresses a wealth of teaching about deification through an experience of the uncreated Light of Glory and about the relationship between the life of faith on earth in the Church and the glory that is to come in the future Age. It therefore deserves a separate section and some careful consideration. 41 The verse can be interpreted both as a reference to present experience in the Church and to the Age to Come. In most Bibles, the future sense is most obvious, in translation, since the subject of “appears” is assumed to be “God.” The appearance of God—the Parousia—is the end of this Age and the inauguration of the Age to Come, the eschaton. However, the verb “appears” (Greek ephanerothe), while being clearly in the third person, does not have a pronoun to make clear whether “he” or “it” is meant; the translations supply the missing pronoun and, in so doing, make an interpretation of the original Greek. Therefore, the verse could also have an application to our present existence as Christians, in that there is a stage in our future before death when it will become clear what we are to be. The final sentence of the verse, about purifying oneself with the hope of having this experience, can be taken as a summary of what those who take up the life 40 41

He Is.

Or “when it appears”—that is, when what we shall be is manifested. As a preparation for reading Archimandrite Sophrony, We Shall See Him As

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of asceticism hope for, even in this life, and what they bear witness to, prophetically, as shining lights, when they have been sanctified. Since, as we have seen throughout the explanation of St. John’s and St. Peter’s teaching, there can be a present experience of the future eschaton by anticipation, it is possible that St. John was deliberately saying two things at once. There is, most obviously, an appearance of God in the future. However, there is also a true experience of that future through grace even now. These two senses do not conflict but complement one another. St. John, then, is teaching about the experience of grace in the present, but he has a sense of what he described more fully in the Book of Revelation. Our complete and full blessedness in the eternal life of glory, confirms and makes eternal what we have experienced through grace by anticipation. What does it mean to see God “as he is,” whether in this life or in the Age to Come? And what does it mean to “be like him”? The latter is dependent upon the former. Thus our deification depends in some sense upon the true vision of God “as he is.” The tradition of the Greek Fathers is to see knowledge of Christ through grace in the Church as also a knowledge of Christ in glory, so that knowledge of Christ is knowledge of God as God really is: this is anagogic knowledge, or knowledge that brings us up to the very throne of the Godhead. Christ is one in essence with God the Father, in his divine nature, and one in essence with us in his human nature. Union with Christ through faith, love, obedience to the commandments, and unceasing prayer takes us through the human nature to the divine nature and so divinizes us, making us godlike, beings who are “like him.” On the other hand, the Greek Fathers did not interpret seeing God “as he is” as meaning seeing what God is, because the essence of God cannot be known and comprehended by a finite understanding. Rather, we know God, whether in this age or in the Age to Come, in his uncreated energies, which connect us to the persons of the Trinity. This, the highest form of human knowledge, is transforming and takes those who have been perfected by the energies before death into a deathless and blissful condition after their departure, at first as blessed souls in Paradise with the Saints and angels awaiting with joy the Age to Come. The conjunction “for” (hoti) links the two statements “We shall be like him” and “We shall see him as he is.” This conjunction, loosely translated “for” or “because,” refers both backward to the preceding statement and forward to the following. The sentence simultaneously conveys two ideas. Firstly, it means that because we see him, we shall be like him: vision of God produces deification. It also means, secondly, that because we have become like him, we shall see him truly—that is, “as he is.” The application of this latter

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meaning is that we must strive to be like God in order to be able to have a vision of him. There are two important theological principles that arise from these two simultaneous senses. From the first sense—vision of God produces deification—it is clear that our experience of the Uncreated Light is effected by God; it is grace. From the second sense—that we need to become like God to see him as he is—comes the need for effort and struggle even to our last breath, because not every one who says to Christ “Lord, Lord” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt 7:21)—and the Kingdom of Heaven is the vision of God.

THE EXPERIENCE OF ST. JAMES THE GREATER, THE SON OF ZEBEDEE St. James, the son of Zebedee and the brother of St. John the Theologian, did not write any Letters. In this he is to be distinguished from St. James “the brother of the Lord”: this St. James, a kinsman of Jesus and not one of the disciples from the first, wrote one Letter and that is the Epistle of James found in the New Testament. St. James, son of Zebedee, is also to be distinguished from another Apostle and follower of Jesus from earliest times, St. James, son of Alphaeus. The latter is only mentioned by St Luke (Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13); he was one of the Twelve apostles whom Jesus chose along with James the son of Zebedee, but nothing more is said of him in Scripture. But why have a section upon a person who never wrote anything? I argue that St. James, the son of Zebedee, does have a teaching for us about deification and that he was, as much as the other two men, St. Peter and St. John, influenced by the glory which he experienced on the Mountain. The mysteries of the life of Christ are breakthroughs of the eschatological glory into the historical world. They are all, in a mysterious way, participable now, giving us a share in the glorious Age which is to come. Some mysteries connected with Christ’s earthly life are immediately and more obviously communicable than others: the Transfiguration is the most obvious, and, as we have seen, Christ made known his glory in order to encourage his disciples after a confrontation about his call to suffer at Jerusalem. The events at Pentecost when Jesus fulfilled his promise to send the Holy Spirit which proceeds from the Father is also something that every Christian can see is for them. We have also seen that Jesus and his Apostles taught that, to be deified, one must participate in Christ’s humiliation and passion in some way: this may be accepting the humiliations of everyday experience in the world, or the acceptance of illness and pain, or martyrdom

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in the more technical sense of the Synaxarion 42 —that is, to accept the destruction of one’s body in order to bear witness to Christ. The Resurrection and Ascension to Heaven to the Right Hand of the Father are less obviously something we can share now. However, they too are events in which we can share even now to some extent. Lazarus was raised from the dead (John 11, especially 43–44) and so, before he departed this life, participated in the Age to Come and the Final Resurrection at the End of the Age, by his first Resurrection. The Church, in its Saints, still has the power, exceptionally, to raise the dead. In the Holy Liturgy, we participate in the Resurrection and the Ascension of Christ, because in the Eucharist we are taken up to Heaven or, alternatively, Heaven descends upon the faithful. The Eucharist is an eschatological sign and reality in the world. In receiving the Communion of the Holy Body and Blood of Christ, the faithful receive the Risen Christ and participate in his incorruption, becoming deified in their flesh and in their spirits. The martyrs are not exactly heroes: they are people who have experienced prophetically the Light of glory. They bear witness to what they have experienced: the Greek word “martyr” means a witness or someone who gives testimony. They, especially, are the “lights of the world” (Matt 5:14), who show by their fearlessness that they have come to know personally the Light of Glory. Because the glory was in them, they were able to proclaim it from the rooftops and, having confidence of the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven, were able to face torture and death. The martyrs were supreme examples of Christ’s words: “A city set upon a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel but on a stand, and it gives light to the whole house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in Heaven.” (Matt 5:14–16)

Persecutors find the light unbearable and try to quench it; but they have never been successful. Martyrdom causes the Church to increase, because “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” 43 St. James went through a process of development from quite a proud man to maturity in Christ. He was present at the argument between Jesus and Peter. James and his brother John may have been named by Christ “Sons of Thunder” because they wanted Christ to bring down fire upon the villages that did not accept Jesus, a request for which Jesus rebuked them That is, the order of the Saints in the Church’s liturgical year and their biographies. 43 Tertullian Apology, NPNF, ANF, III, 55, “The blood of Christians is seed.” 42

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(Luke 9:54–56). They asked Christ if they could have favored places when he came into his Kingdom, one on his right and the other on his left (Mark 10:37). They did not know at the time what they were asking for! Jesus asked them if they could “drink the cup” that He was going to drink and to be “baptized” with the baptism with which he was to be baptized (Mark 10:38)—that is, his Crucifixion, which made possible “the cup of the new covenant in my blood,” the renewing power of the Eucharist. They said, in all naivety, “We are able” (Mark 10:39), and Jesus, with divine foreknowledge, confirmed them (Mark 10:39). By the time St. James was a prominent person in the Jerusalem Church, he was ready and understood things in a different way. Moreover, God’s grace had now made him able to drink the cup which his Lord had drunk and to be baptized with the baptism of martyrdom. “Herod,” to be exact Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod “the Great” 44 and ruler of Galilee, stretched out his hand to harm “certain (tines) of those from the Church,” that is, those who were its representatives: He killed James the brother of John with the sword. (Acts 12:2)

This short, brutal sentence contains a doctrine. To bear witness (martyrein) is to bear witness to something. The first Martyr of the Church, St. Stephen, gave a long theological speech (7:2–53), and when his persecutors heard it “they were sawn through to their hearts,” 45 that is, they were “enraged” (Acts 7:54, RSV). At the other extreme, we have St. James, who belongs to the category of martyrs who had no opportunity to speak in words. However, St. James was, just as St. Stephen, bearing witness to the teaching of the Church.

44 Who had massacred the Innocents and had now died, his inheritance being divided amongst his sons. 45 Fitzmeyer’s vivid literal translation of dieprionto, Acts, 392. The AV has “were cut to the heart” which is more accurate than the RSV’s “enraged.” The expression is not to be mixed up with the word for those who were “pricked in their heart” (katenugēsen) when they repented and were converted by a speech of St. Peter (Acts 2:37). St Luke makes a clear distinction between the reactions of the two audiences, between the pricking of conscience and the emotional tearing-apart of hatred. There is in Orthodox ascetical theology the expression katanixis, which is a good pricking of or to the heart and which brings repentance. The Apostolic message was the same in both cases; the human reactions were different.

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ST. PAUL’S EXPERIENCE OF THE UNCREATED LIGHT The theologian of experience St. Paul understood that we have entered the last times when the divine energies will shine intensely upon humankind: We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory into another. (2 Cor 3:18) 46

St. Paul understood this, not because he had been told by the Twelve, or because he had been a disciple of Jesus and heard his teachings and seen his miracles. St. Paul understood that “we are being changed” (2 Cor 3:18) because of the decisive experience of the blinding light of the Lord’s presence, and because of the continuing experiencing of fellowship with Christ in his own person. The miracle is St. Paul’s own life, which bears witness to the process of deification. St. Paul had at first, before his baptism and the time when he was “with the Apostles going in and out of Jerusalem every day” (Acts 9:28), no authority upon which to rely except the conviction of what he had experienced and was experiencing. It is even possible that St. Paul was not fully acquainted with all the sayings and parables of Jesus but that he had received from the Christian Church only a basic outline or creed, confirming his own transforming experience. So intense was St. Paul’s experience of Christ that his ways of expressing deification are manifold and rich. His teaching on grace (charis) is that, though God’s generosity, we can become united to the Holy Trinity: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship with the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor 13:14). St. Paul was the theologian of the transforming power of grace, because he had experienced that transformation taking place in himself: By the grace of God, I am what I am. (1 Cor 15:10)

St. Paul echoes here God’s mysterious announcement of his name when he says to Moses “I am what I am” (Exod 3:14). God is what he is by nature: St. Paul is what he is by grace—that is, a participant in the divine life. St. Paul taught deification in a great variety of ways, which we cannot begin to explore here. Most important is his doctrine that we are all, by adoption, grace, and baptism, sons of God, sharing in Christ’s Sonship. He was also a theologian of the Holy Spirit. He was, further, a theologian who 46

Literally “from glory unto glory.”

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described grace as energy. In the Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul describes the grace of God as given, precisely, “according to the energy” of God. In the first chapter, St. Paul speaks of “the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the energy of the ruling of his strength” (Eph 1:19). In chapter 3, St. Paul says that he has been made a minister of the Gospel “according to the gift of the grace of God given to me according to the energy of his power” (Eph 3:7). 47 This energy builds up every part of the Church (Eph 4:16). The divine energy is resurrecting, glorifying, and conquers all the powers of death (Phil 3:21). He was, moreover, a theologian of the Church, teaching that, by incorporation into the supernatural Body of the Church, which has as its Head Christ, we are united to Christ and through Christ to the Holy Spirit and to God the Father (Eph 4). Then he was a theologian of glory and taught that, having been justified by Christ and putting all our faith in him, we can experience now the glory of the Age to Come: “those who he justified he also glorified ” (Rom 8:30). All grace is centered upon Christ, so that he can say that Christ unites or sums up all things in himself, whether on earth or in the spiritual realm, in order that, in the fullness of time, “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ might gather together in one all things in Christ” (Eph 1:3, 10). 48 St. Paul’s experience of the Light of Glory The three Apostles whom Jesus took up the Mountain, St. Peter, St. John, and St. James, and the sons of Zebedee experienced in history the Light of Glory. St. Paul also experienced, historically, the Light of Glory, and it is correct to say that he was converted by an experience of the Transfigured Christ—that is, of Christ in glory. St. Luke, who gives the full narrative of St. Paul’s conversion—the Apostle himself is much more modest and reticent about this experience— has already revealed to us that the Light of Glory can appear, through God’s providence in human history. The Light first came to the shepherds. There it was a peopled, personal glory: the angels were in it and God spoke from it (Luke 2:13–15 describes the appearance of the Heavenly Host of 47 Most translations obscure the fact that energy is the expression being used here, and I have translated the passages literally. 48 I quote here the King James translation of anakephalaiosthai, “to sum up in the head”—that is, “gather together in one,” which is much better than the colorless “unite” of the RSV. It is important to know this to appreciate St. Irenaeus’s theology of “recapitulation” (2nd century).

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angels). By paying careful attention to what is said about this glory and who inhabits it in any particular theophany, we can see how the Uncreated Light belongs to the historical revelation of God and is not a light that belongs to the general experience of mysticism or any other allegedly supernatural experience outside the revelation of God in history in the Old and New Covenants. Moses beheld God’s glory first of all, and his face was transformed. He knew that the Light belonged to God because of the voice that came from the glory. On the Mountain, the Apostles also heard God’s voice confirming Jesus’ divine sonship. They also saw in the developing Communion of the Saints, Moses and Elijah already in glory, communing with Jesus. In St. Paul’s experience of the light, Jesus is himself in a state of glory, having by the time St. Paul meets him risen from the dead and ascended to the Right Hand of the Father in Heaven. St. Luke narrates the account of St. Paul’s conversion three times, each in different settings. The first setting is in the third person as St. Luke describes the miraculous event that ended Saul’s career as persecutor of Christians and made him into Paul the Apostle: 49 Now as he journeyed, he approached Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? And he said, “Who are you Lord? And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting; but rise and enter the city and you will be told what you are to do.” (Acts 9:3–7)

The second setting gives St. Paul’s account of himself, his defense or apologia to the Jews, after he had been arrested for his own safety in Jerusalem as a consequence of a riot begun by Jews from Asia who recognized him in the Temple as a missionary of Jesus. Knowing Greek, he was able to persuade the Roman officer to let him address the Jewish people on the steps of the Temple. He then addressed the people “in the Hebrew language,” and St. Luke gives us a version of this in Greek. St. Paul tells them that, as he was on his way to Damascus to persecute the Christians, Changes of name usually signaled a change of vocation when God destined some one for a special purpose: Abram became Abraham; Hoshea became Joshua. It is likely that “Saul” was St. Paul’s Jewish name but that, as with many Jews in the Roman Empire, he also had a Greek or Latin name. St. Paul was a Roman citizen and “Paulus” appears frequently on Latin inscriptions. In Latin it means “little.” Perhaps the name gives the idea that humanly St. Paul is little and powerless but that he is powerful only through God’s grace.

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As I made my journey and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ And I answered, ‘Who are you Lord?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.’ (Acts 22:6–8)

St. Paul adds that those who traveled with him were speechless, hearing the voice but not seeing the light. This light blinded Saul. He asked the Lord what he should do and was told to go to Damascus, where he was “led by the hand,” being blind (Acts 22:11). Then providence acted in a wonderful manner: he was received into the Church by Ananias, who gave him back his sight and arranged for his introduction to the Church and baptism. We may assume that St. Paul already had an accurate understanding of the teaching of the Christians, as an educated strict Jew and keen persecutor of what he had once thought to be “heresy.” However, this experience enabled him to receive baptism, accepting as true what he believed were blasphemies. St. Paul’s experience is not of light in general. The light is personal. Jesus has taken personally his persecution of his people! St. Paul, recognizing the signs of a theophany, a manifestation of God’s presence, fell to the ground, as did the Apostles on the Mountain. There was a voice from Heaven, just as there was on the Mountain. This time the divine voice is that of Jesus himself, now in glory. St. Luke’s third narration of St. Paul’s conversion by a vision of the Uncreated Light is in St. Paul’s account of himself to “King Agrippa.” This personage was King Herod Agrippa II, ruler of Galilee and son of King Herod Agrippa I, who had killed St. James son of Zebedee. St. Paul, having been arrested, had appealed to Rome for judgment, as was his right as a Roman citizen of the city of Tarsus. Agrippa II had shown an interest when Festus, the Roman Governor of Judea, had mentioned St. Paul. One may imagine that Agrippa’s interest was not very serious. However, St. Paul gives him a full account, because it is not for the Apostle to judge who will or will not receive the message of salvation: At midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven brighter than the sun shining around me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It hurts to kick against the goads.” (Acts 26:13–18)

Jesus tells St. Paul that he is “to be a servant and witness … to open the eyes [of the Gentiles] that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:12–18 [selected verses]).

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In this apologia to King Agrippa, St. Paul adds some details. The light “brighter than the sun” reminds us of the Transfiguration on the Mountain. St. Paul says only in his account to King Agrippa that the Light surrounded his fellow-travelers and that they fell to the ground. It is clear from this account that St. Paul’s companions on the journey participated to some extent in this theophany. However, only St. Paul repented and was changed. The grace that was given to St. Paul was something that he accepted wholeheartedly. The light did not just confound him and show him that he was wrong and bad. In the Light of Glory, Jesus is sorry for the persecutor and reveals to St. Paul what perhaps he did not realize he felt: the misery and torment of a person going against the light of God’s glory. St. Paul was re-created on that day, the day of his transfiguration. This is why he as able to teach that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). St. Paul saw the manifestation of the light to him as taking us right back to the light at the creation of the world, which divided the darkness into night and made the light day: Even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the likeness of God. For what we preach is not ourselves. But Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (2 Cor 4:3–6)

This passage is full of references to Moses: “the veil,” “the glory,” and “the face”—that is, to the manifestation of God to Moses which began the redemption from slavery in Egypt. However, St. Paul’s mind thinks further back than this historical event to the very beginning of everything, when, through his Word, God made the light to shine and divided the light from the darkness, calling the light “day” and the darkness ”night” (Gen 1:3–5). This “evening and morning” which was the “first day” of creation manifested a light which is not derived from the sun or the planets: the latter is mentioned as the work of the fourth day (Gen 1:14–19). St. Paul makes a link between the light of the first day and the light of grace. The reversal of death could not be more complete. St. Paul has taken us back, before the fall of Adam to the original Creation, as it was perfectly good. In going back to the beginning of time, St. Paul is also anticipating the end of time and the restoration of all Creation in Christ.

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AT THE FOOT OF THE MOUNTAIN Language about light today is something of a cliché. It has very much weakened from the powerful idea that it was in the ancient world. We speak, rather feebly, of casting light upon an issue and of behaving in an enlightened manner. We do not often speak of bringing light to the blind, of light which is brighter than the sun, which dazzles and astonishes. In the eighteenth century, rationalism was called the Aufklärung, the Enlightenment, the cool reasoning which argued the miraculous out of existence for the educated person. In this final chapter, I have called attention to what the Bible teaches about the light of Christ. This light is a life-changing light. It is the Light of Glory. This light shines from God, because God is good. However, the shining is not a necessity; it does not have to happen as a logical consequence of what God is. The shining of God’s uncreated energy as light is a personal consequence of what God is. The light has broken through human history, because the persons of the divine Trinity were united in will that this light should be put forth. At the very beginning, before the world was perfectly formed, and the Holy Spirit was hovering over the face of the still chaotic waters, God the Father said, through his Uncreated Word, “Let there be light; and there was light.” When his creation fell away from fellowship with him, God said again, “Let there be light!” This is the light of his grace and love, which has appeared to us in the face of Christ. Just as the putting forth of light was not inevitable because God is personal and free in his love, so the reception of the light is not inevitable, either. We, too, are personal beings, and we are free. The Uncreated Light affects different people differently according to their makeup, according to the way they have come to be during their lives. For some, the light is redemption, forgiveness of sins, healing, and joy. For others, this same light is hateful and caustic: it burns those who hate it, although it is the same light which is experienced as love by those who have repented and received God’s grace. It is not a different light to those who receive it and to those who resist it. The light of God is always loving and true. In this world, there are many bright lights to distract a person—but eternity is different.

CONCLUSION In his classic study of deification according to the Greek Fathers, Jules Gross concluded his brief account of the New Testament as follows: Therefore if [“divinisation”] and its equivalents are absent from the New Testament, it is not less certain that the reality that these terms express is found there. Having been united with God, having become an adoptive child of God, living by a truly divine life and assured of blessed incorruptibility, all by and in Christ, the Christian is assimilated to God and partakes of the divine nature as much as is possible for a human creature. 1

I hope that I have been able to show that, with regard to the whole Bible, the reality of deification is taught there in a variety of ways by the Spiritinspired writers of the Scripture. The Eastern Fathers were often highly-trained in Greek philosophy and rhetoric. In the last two centuries, there has been a reaction by biblical theologians against the Fathers, following the idea associated with Adolf von Harnack, 2 that the Fathers distorted Bible-teaching by imposing upon it Greek philosophy. On this theory, the Greek Fathers thought in Greek and missed the Aramaic and Hebrew background to the Greek of the Bible, so that the biblical message became something entirely Greek rather than Palestinian. It has been alleged against the Fathers that they used a baffling vocabulary derived from Greek philosophy but which was in fact a decadent version even of the latter, because they dogmatized without respect for freedom of thought. The opposing idea has been that the New Testament writers thought in Hebrew or Aramaic as did Jesus and the Apostles, and only wrote in Greek. But this reaction is just as questionable as von Harnack’s and puts the New Testament writers in a sealed Hebrew bubble which does not relate to the surrounding world. However, we have seen how the New Testament writers, Jesus and the Apostles, inhabited the “bilingual” world of the first-century Roman Empire, so that they could Gross, Divinization of the Christian, 91–92. History of Dogma, I, 48. For the antecedents to von Harnack, see Thomas, Newman, 171–172, and 299–300, notes 27–29. 1 2

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write and speak a form of Greek partly-coloured by their first language, Aramaic. The New Testament writers all had a missionary and universal view of the Gospel. They used Greek words and ideas as well as Hebraic ones, re-forging both in the crucible of their experience to form a new language of the Spirit. I hope that I have gone some of the way in dispelling these caricatures, either that the Fathers “Hellenized” the Gospel-message or that the Apostles had a purely Hebrew or Aramaic message, which they uncomfortably translated into Greek. My schoolmasters, even if they were clergymen, used to refer to the Greek of the Bible as “bad Greek,” that is, a kind of Greek which did not fit that standard of Classical Greek as written by the aristocracy of 4th-century Athens. The philosophical interests of the Fathers were in many ways an advantage, because, as Christians, they regarded the Bible as the highest philosophy. Consequently, they read the Bible with inquiring minds full of wonder and found in the Bible a still richer form of reflection upon life than they had found in Plato or Aristotle. They were also able to draw upon a multilayered way of interpreting a text, which they derived from Stoicism and from their studies of rhetoric. This enabled them to bring to bear a method of interpretation which was at least as subtle as the rabbinic tradition in Judaism, showed a literary awareness of the art of the text, and which avoided the pitfalls of literalism. Inspired by the Fathers, I have found in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament not an ancient but primitive vitality akin to the folktale but rather a subtle, many-sided style of narrative philosophy. Thus the example of the Greek Fathers, who did not know Hebrew, has nevertheless energized my approach to these texts. However, Orthodox theology is not only a form of intellectual reflection. It is also experience: it arises from experience and it pushes one on to have the experience which it expresses. Orthodox theology is a theology of glory. It is a development of the theology of the experience of God’s kabod, the fiery energy of God which Moses experienced and which St. Paul and St. John took up to express how God enables us to share in the divine life. Although we cannot know the divine nature or essence directly or completely, we do share in the divine nature by means of God’s glory, which is a deifying uncreated energy, graciously given to the faithful to varying degrees in this life. This glory transforms us by its power in our bodies, intellects, and spirits, so that we can experience as a pledge or down payment the glory that is to come after this earthly life is over. It is a glory that we shall share with Christ, the Most Holy Mother of God, and with the

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souls of the Saints in Paradise, where the Saints await with joy the reunion of the souls with their bodies in the Age to Come. This final Resurrection will complete our union with Christ as we become with him priests of Creation, uniting matter to spirit and hallowing it. What are the fruits of deification in our experience as Christians? Firstly, there are the virtues of unshakable faith and sure hope. Secondly, inward joy bears fruit in love, not only of our friends but also of our enemies and those who are indifferent to us. This love cannot function without humility, for how can we approach others if we are proud? Prayer is the hidden fuel for the good works which can be seen. Prayer should be unceasing. St Paul said: Pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17) 3 Adialeiptos proseuchesthe

A standard recent commentary says that this means that Christians should be prayerful people but “obviously he does not mean this to be taken literally.” 4 There is a strong tendency in Orthodoxy to take this command literally and to seek to attain unceasing prayer with every breath and moment of our lives. 5 It has two aspects. Firstly, it is a humble awareness of our own need for grace as we say “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.” Secondly, it is the glorification of God in that, having received glory from God, we give it back to him and so enter the community of love of the divine Trinity, where each person glorifies the others. There are dangers in the life of prayer especially in becoming deluded and misinterpreting our feelings as divine inspirations. On the other hand, we must not be timid that when the King of Kings and Lord of Lords offers us fellowship with him. We should ask for great spiritual gifts and not insult the King of Kings by asking for mean and petty things. It is a great help to be in the Church in the concrete sense of being together with other faithful people. In the Body of Christ, there is the Eucharist to nourish us for incorruptibility and sacramental Confession as Rather than the RSV “Pray constantly.” Wanamaker, Thessalonians, 200. However, an earlier generation of Protestants had a more mystical idea. Jonathan Edwards commented on this verse: “Breathing is essential to living and prayer is the Christian’s vital breath,” ed., Jenks, Comprehensive Commentary, 450 5 In The Way of a Pilgrim, 1–2, the pilgrim’s quest is to find out how this teaching of St. Paul can be perfectly fulfilled. 3 4

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the medicine for our faults. There are the prayers of the Church which we can turn to even when alone, which remind us of our communion with the faithful on earth and the Saints in Paradise. There are the dogmas, or teachings, of the Church to ensure that our giving of glory to God is the right glory, so that our whole life may be a true “doxology” equally to God the Father, to God the Son who is eternally begotten and who became incarnate for our sakes, and to God the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and whom Christ sent to be our Advocate and Comforter—Three Persons in One God, for ever!

APPENDIX: FOR FURTHER READING 1. BOOKS ON DEIFICATION Jules Gross, The Divinization of the Christian according to the Greek Fathers. (Trans. Paul A. Onica. Anaheim, California: A & C Press, 2002. French original, 1938) provides the best overview of the sources. This may be supplemented by V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, New York: SVSP, 1997; French original, 1944), especially ch. 6. Philokalia (Ware), IV, is rich in relevant texts; especially 331–342; 418– 425, the latter being The Hagioritic Tome, written in 1341 by St. Gregory Palamas and signed by the Fathers of Mount Athos. For a more challenging work by St. Gregory Palamas, see below [2]. The anonymous Way of a Pilgrim: the Pilgrim Continues his Way (London & Glasgow: Harper Collins, 1991) is a charming introduction to the Jesus Prayer and the doctrine of deification as it affected Russian piety as a result of the spread of writings from the Slavonic Philokalia. Bishop Kallistos Ware’s account of hesychasm is very clear and uplifting, chapters 6–7 of The Inner Kingdom Volume I of the Collected Works, (New York: SVSP, 2000), 75–110. His pamphlet The Power of the Name. The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality (Fairacres, Oxford: Sisters of the Love of God Press, Convent of the Incarnation, 1991) is a balanced account of a way of prayer cherished by Orthodox people and intimately connected with the desire for deification, by which one aims to know God, rather than knowing about God. A unique book which gives generous extracts from the teaching of Rumanian contemplatives or hesychasts is Bishop Seraphima Joanta, Romania. Its Hesychast Tradition and Culture (Wildwood, California: St. Xenia Skete, 1992). The works of Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov (+1993) are very important. There is his book on St. Silouan of Mount Athos, Saint Silouan the Athonite (trans. Rosemary Edmonds. Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, 1991). Read first Part II “The Writings of Staretz Silouan.” Fr. Sophrony’s theology of deification is also very important, although he rarely uses the word “deification”: especially, His Life is Mine 183

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(Crestwood, New York: SVSP, 1987) and We shall See Him as He Is (Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, 1987). This can be followed up by A. Zacharias Zachariou, Christ Our Way and Our Life. A Presentation of the Theology of Archimandrite Sophrony (South Canaan, Pennsylvania: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press 2003). Another recent ‘elder’ or staretz is the Elder Porphyrios, whose Wounded by Love (Limni, Evia, Greece: Denise Harvey, 2005) shows the relationship between personal deification and the Church.

2. BOOKS ON THE BIBLE a. Orthodox authors George Barrois, Scripture Readings in Orthodox Worship (Crestwood, New York: SVSP, 1997 and Theodore Stylianopoulos, The New Testament. An Orthodox Perspective (Brookline, Mass: Holy Cross Orthodox Seminary Press, 2002) give a good account of general principles of interpretation. Fr. George Florovsky’s Bible, Church, Tradition (Belmont Mass: Notable and Academic Books, 1987) remains useful. For New Testament Scripture in relation to the Fathers, arranged according to the liturgical year, nothing is better than Johanna Manley, The Bible and the Holy Fathers for Orthodox. Daily Scripture Readings & Commentary (Holy Fathers) (SVSP, 1999). By the same author, and also excellent, are the books about the Old Testament arranged again in relation to the Church year: Wisdom, Let us Attend: Job, the Fathers and the Old Testament (Manlo Park, California: Monastery Books 1997), Grace for Grace. The Psalter and the Holy Fathers: Patristic Commentary, Meditations and Liturgical Extracts in relation to the Psalms (Manlo Park, California: Monastery Books 1992), and Isaiah through the Ages (Manlo Park, California: Monastery Books 1995). Some of Johanna Manley’s texts of the Fathers on the Bible are from the Nicene & Post Nicene Fathers (T & T Clark, Edinburgh & Eerdmans, 1994): 19th century translations. Johanna Manley has also translated herself from a variety sources, including the Sources Chrétiennes series (Paris: Editions du Cerf) St. John Chrysostom is the standard for interpretation of Scripture in the Orthodox Church, see NPNF, PNF(1), Volumes IX-XIV, which are commentaries on almost all of the New Testament. Some may find the English off-putting, because it is a very literal and also a nineteenth century style of translating. Useful Introductions in modern English are:Spiritual Gems from the Gospel of Matthew and Spiritual Gems form the Psalms both translated by Robert Charles Hill. (Brookline, Mass: Holy Cross Orthodox Seminary Press, 2004).

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The commentaries of Blessed Theophlact (11th century) are also highly prized, since they so concisely summarize Orthodox tradition. Three have so far been translated into English with the text of the King James Bible printed in the text. References to the Old Testament are adjusted to take account of the Orthodox Church’s use of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament:Explanation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew. Translated by Fr. Christopher Stade. (House Springs, Mo: Chrysostom Press, 2000) Explanation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Mark. Translated by Fr. Christopher Stade. (House Springs, Mo: Chrysostom Press, 1993) Explanation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Luke. Translated by Fr. Christopher Stade. (House Springs, Mo: Chrysostom Press, 1993) The very reasonably-priced CD-ROM of Peter Kirby of NPNF is extremely useful for reference: Early Christian Writings. 2005 Companion CD to www.EarlyChristianWritings.com An excellent summary of quotations from the Fathers in the order that they apply to the Gospels, accompanied by the text of the Gospels, is: Aquinas, Thomas. Catena Aurea. Commentary on the Four Gospels Collected out of the Works of the Fathers. Translated by John Henry Newman. (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2005). For reference to the Old Testament, the version to which the Fathers refer and the Orthodox Church uses, there is a 19th century version of the Septuagint Greek version, Sir Lancelot Brenton The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson, 1992) and The Psalter According to the Seventy (Boston, Mass: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1987), which gives the Psalms in the numbering familiar to the Fathers and to Orthodox readers and arranges them according to the divisions or “sittings” (kathismata) for liturgical use. b. New Testament Studies The Fathers did not have the riches of modern research—archeology, textual and linguistic studies—at their disposal. Orthodox scholars have not probed the Scriptures very deeply in our age but conservative Evangelical scholars have shown that a high standard of scholarship is not inconsistent with a respect for divine inspiration and tradition. A beautifully written and presented commentary which presents the best of recent research in a manner profitable for salvation is the four-volume Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Edited by Clinton Arnold. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan Publishing, 2002). A one-volume Bible commentary that

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explains critical issues clearly in a sober manner is ed. Carson, France, Motyer & Wenham, New Bible Commentary (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 2005). Its approach is the believing criticism of recent conservative Evangelical scholarship which respects tradition on matter of canonicity and apostolic authorship. Even better is D. A. Carson & Douglas M. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 2005). On the other hand, J. A. McGuckin’s The Transfiguration of Christ in Scripture and Tradition (Lewiston, New York: Mellen Press, 1987) presents trenchant insights. His attempt to relate the Fathers to a criticalredactional approach to the NT accounts is still compelling (although I do not entirely agree with it). A fascinating re-evaluation of the whole question of the relationship between the Gospels and their composition has been published at the time of going to press by Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 2006).

3. THE FATHERS AND BOOKS ON THE FATHERS J. A. McGuckin’s Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology (Louisville & London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004) provides clear introductions to individual Fathers and topics pursued by them. This may be supplemented by J. Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977) especially ch. 6. From a Catholic perspective is Tomas Spidlik, S. J., The Spirituality of the Christian East. A Systematic Handbook (Kalamazoo, Mich: Cistercian Publications). A classic by an earlier generation which is excellent if one can find it is Louis Bouyer, Orthodox Spirituality and Protestant and Anglican Spirituality. A History of Christian Spirituality, Vol. III, (Tunbridge Wells; Burns and Oates, 1968). Very interesting is the recent account by the Anglican Evangelical theologian Gerald Bray, The Doctrine of God. Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1993) which draws upon the Eastern Fathers in a manner very sympathetic to the Eastern Orthodox tradition but relates this to the Reformed tradition and especially John Calvin. On Origen: edited by J. A. McGuckin is The Westminster Handbook to Origen (Louisville & London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004) which provides a good overview of this fascinating and controversial figure in the early Church; see the article “Anthropology” by the present author. Also important and interesting is Mark Edwards, Origen against Plato (Hampshire, England & Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2002) which ably

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challenges received ideas about Origen’s “Platonism” and presents this Father as driven rather by the biblical history. There is no better way to get to know ‘patristics’ than to read the Fathers—and for an Orthodox Christian, the period of the Fathers covers what would be described as medieval writings: Byzantium has its Fathers right up to the conquest of the holy city by the Turks in 1453. (It is argued, rightly in my view, that the “elders” of modern times are contemporary Fathers, because, if the Holy Spirit is active in the Church for teaching, then the age of the Fathers has not yet ended.) The following may be recommended. They all exist in attractive contemporary translations with helpful introductions and are listed in chronological order:(second century) St. Irenaeus of Lyons. Early Church Fathers. Edited by Robert M. Grant. (London & New York: Routledge, 1997) (third century) Tertullian, Cyprian and Origen on the Lord’s Prayer. Edited by Alistair Stewart Sykes. Popular Patristics Series. (SVSP, 2004) (fourth century) St. Athanasius. On the Incarnation. Popular Patristics Series. (SVSP, 2004) (fourth century) St. Basil of Caesarea. On the Holy Spirit. Popular Patristics Series. (SVSP, 2004) (fourth century) St. Gregory Nazianzen. Five Theological Orations & Two Letters to Cledonius. Popular Patristics Series. SVSP. An excellent scholarly account of St. Gregory “the Theologian” is given by J. A. McGuckin, Saint Gregory Nazianzen. An Intellectual Biography. (SVSP, 2001) (fourth century) Gregory Nyssa, Lord’s Prayer, Beatitudes. Edited by Hilda Graef. (ACW, 1978) ———.ed. Mursurillo. From Glory to Glory. (SVSP, 1997) (fourth century) St. Macarius the Spirit-Bearer. Coptic Texts relating to St. Macarius the Great. Popular Patristics Series. (SVSP, 2004) (fourth century) St. John Chrysostom. The Early Church Fathers. Edited by Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen. (London and New York: Routledge, 2000). This book contains a selection of his work with a detailed introduction clearly written and selections in translation with notes. (fourth century) St. Ephrem the Syrian. Hymns on Paradise. Translated by Sebastian Brock. (SVSP, 1990) A very attractive translation of St. Ephrem’s midrashe (or poems interpreting Scripture) is: Brock, Sebastian P., & Kiraz, George A. Ephrem the Syrian. Selected Poems. Vocalized Syriac text with introduction and notes. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2006).

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(fifth century) St. Cyril of Alexandria. On the Unity of Christ. Translated by J. A. McGuckin. Popular Patristics Series. (SVSP, 1995) For those who wish to pursue this great Father further, nothing could be better than J. A. McGuckin, St. Cyril and the Christological Controversy, now available in paperback, (SVSP, 2004); it also contains translations of important texts which cannot be found elsewhere. (sixth century) St. Maximus Confessor, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ. Translated by Paul M. Blowers & Robert Louis Wilken. Popular Patristics Series. (SVSP, 2002.) (seventh century) St. Isaac of Nineveh. On Ascetical Life. (SVSP, 1989). This may be supplemented by Hilarion Alfeyev, The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian, (Kalamazoo, Mich: Cistercian Publications, 2000) Brock, Sebastian P., The Wisdom of Isaac of Nineveh (Gorgias Press, 2006) selects short sayings of the Saint and translates them, providing the Syriac text in a facing translation in vocalized Serto. (eighth century) St. John of Damascus. Three Treatises on the Divine Images. Translated by Rev. Professor Andrew Louth. Popular Patristics Series. (SVSP, 2003) ———.On the Orthodox Faith. NPNF, PNF(2), Vol. IX. Unfortunately no modern English edition and translation exists. On St. John of Damascus, a very clear and informative account which also tells one much about the Orthodox tradition as a whole is Rev. Professor Andrew Louth, St. John of Damascus: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, paperback edition, 2004) (eleventh century) St. Symeon the New Theologian. On the Mystical Life. The Ethical Discourses I. The Church and the Last Things. Translated by Alexander Golitzin. Popular Patristics Series. (SVSP, 2002) ———.On the Mystical Life II. The Ethical Discourses II. Translated by Alexander Golitzin. Popular Patristics Series. (SVSP, 2002) NOTE: On the Mystical Life III (SVSP, 2002) is a study of St. Symeon by Alexander Golitzin. Symeon the New Theologian. Chapters and Discourses. Translated by J. A. McGuckin. (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications. Kalamazo, 1982, reprinted 1994). (fourteenth century) St. Gregory Palamas, Topics of Natural and Theological Science and on the Moral and Ascetic Life, Philokalia (Ware), IV, 331–342. A clear and non-technical introduction to this Saint is Metropolitan Nafpaktos Hierotheos, St. Gregory Palamas as a Hagiorite. Translated by Esther Williams (Levadia, Greece: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery,

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1997). This book views St. Gregory from the point of his monastic vocation and his life of prayer. A more academic study is Georgios I. Mantzaridis, The Deification of Man: St. Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Tradition. Contemporary Greek Theologians Series. (SVSP, 1984). (fourteenth century) St. Nicholas Cabasilas, Life in Christ. Translated by Carmino de Catanzaro. (SVSP, 1997)

BIBLIOGRAPHY ABBREVIATIONS TO BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES ACW=Ancient Christian Writers. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press. The editions are of various dates from 1950s to present: this series, which is not complete, presents English translations by the Fathers with scholarly notes and introductions. CWS=Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press. A wide variety of editions of works which are ‘mystical,’ taking the broadest possible interpretation of that word; translations of some of the Fathers in this series by prominent scholars in the field. NPNF= Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, (Edinburgh: T & T Clark; Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, frequent imprints until the early 1990s). These literal translations are from the 19th century and, although other translations and editions have superseded them, they remain the most complete English translations of the Fathers in English. The most recent editions (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson, 1994) are slightly modernized with some re-arrangement of the order of the books; they are now the only editions in print and the 1st series of the Post-Nicene Fathers are not published. (None of the changes affect references made in this book.) However the older T & T Clark and Eerdmans editions are often found in libraries. Being out of copyright, these texts are available online at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/fathers and through an inexpensive CD-R at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/?adword I have divided them into the following three categories for reference purposes, that is, the Ante Nicene Fathers and two series of the PostNicene Fathers.:ANF=Ante Nicene Fathers. 10 volumes. Edited by Rev. Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson, revised A. Cleveland Coxe. Edinburgh: T & T Clark; Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, reprint referred to in this edition, 1996. 191

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PNF(1)=Post Nicene Fathers, 1st Series. 14 volumes. Edited by Phillip Schaff. Edinburgh: T & T Clark; Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1994. PNF(2)=Post Nicene Fathers, 2nd series. 14 volumes. Edited by Philip Schaff & Henry Wace. Edinburgh: T & T Clark; Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, reprint referred to in this edition, 1991. In the footnotes to NPNF the volumes will be cited by series, volume number, and page number in that order. This information will be preceded by the author and title of the work and title of the volume, if the context requires it. Full details are in the main Bibliography below. Philokalia (Ware)=The Philokalia. The Complete Text, compiled by St. Nikodemus of the Holy Mountain & St. Makarios of Corinth, edited & translated, from Greek, Kallistos Ware, G. E. H Palmer, Philip Sherrard. (London: Faber & Faber, various dates, see below). The word “Philokalia” means in Greek “love for what is beautiful or good” and came from this to mean a work of scholarship, especially a collection of texts. The Greek Philokalia was a late 18th century collection of works of the Greek Fathers and of spiritual writers from the early Christian Fathers to writers of 14th century Byzantium. So far four volumes of the projected five are available:Volume I, 1979, (paperback). Volume, II, 1981, (paperback). Volume III, 1984, (paperback). Volume, IV, 1995, (paperback). References to the above volumes in footnotes will be identified by the abbreviation Philokalia (Ware) and referred to in the order: volume number, page number. *NOTE [1] Another Philokalia was compiled by St. Paissy Velichkovsky translating from Greek into Slavonic, and translated in the 19th century into Russian by St. Theophan the Recluse. This Slavonic and Russian “Philokalia” translated different Fathers in a different order. Selections from this work exist in the following two books, not necessarily in print at time of going to press. They are not referred to in this book but would be useful for further reading:trans. from Russian, E. Kadloubovsky & G. E. H Palmer, Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart (London: Faber & Faber, 1951, 9th impression, 1977). trans. from Russian, E. Kadloubovsky & G. E. H Palmer, Early Fathers from the Philokalia (London: Faber & Faber, 1954, 8th impression, 1981).

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[2] These works under [1] above are to be distinguished from another “Philokalia” to which I refer at some points in the book: the Philokalia of Origen, a collection of Origen’s texts made by St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Basil of Caesarea in the 4th century. There is at present no English version in print. [There exists a 19th century version, now unavailable, The Philocalia of Origen. Translated by Rev. George Lewis in 1893. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1911.] A critical edition of this work is to be found in the following Sources Chrétiennes volumes: SC no. 302, ed. Marguerite Harl, Origène Philocalie, 1–20, Sur Les Ecritures. 1983 SC no. 226, ed. Eric Junod, Origène Philocalie 21–27 Sur Le Libre Arbitrie. 1976 SC no. 268, ed. Henri Crouzel & Manlio Simonetti, Origène Traité des Principes. 1980 SC no. 269, ed. Henri Crouzel & Manlio Simonetti, Origène Traité des Principes. Commentaire et Fragments, 1980 SC=Sources Chrétiennes. Paris, editions du Cerf, 1945–present: these scholarly editions contain a critical version of the Greek or Latin text of the Fathers of the Church and facing translation of the text and detailed commentaries and notes (in French). They are referred to by the number of the series, (counting from the first text published in 1945), followed immediately by the page-reference. SVSP=St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press Crestwood, New York State: St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary Press, ongoing: this publisher concentrates on accessible modern translations of the Fathers and Orthodox theology. Alfeyev, Hilarion. St. Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. ———. The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian. Kalamazoo, Mich: Cistercian Publications, 2000. Anchor Bible Dictionary. 6 volumes. Edited by D. N. Freeman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Anselm. Cur Deus homo (Why God Became Man), in Anselm of Canterbury, The Major Works. Edited by Brian Davies & G. R. Evans. Oxford: OUP, Worlds Classics, 1998. Aquinas, Thomas. Catena Aurea. Commentary on the Four Gospels Collected out of the Works of the Fathers. Translated by John Henry Newman. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2005.

194

DEIFICATION IN THE EASTERN ORTHODOX TRADITION

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999. Arnold, Clinton, ed. Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan Publishing, 2002. St. Athanasius. Athanasius on the Incarnation of the Word. Translated by a Religious of C.S.M.V., SVSP. [1944], reprinted, SVSP, 1993. ———. Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione. Edited by Robert W. Thompson. Oxford: OUP, Clarendon Press, 1971. ———. Sur L’Incarnation du Verbe, Edited by Charles Kannengiesser. SC no. 199, 2000. ———. On the Incarnation. Translated by Archibald Robertson (editing material by J. H. Newman). NPNF, PNF (2), IV. Barrois, George. Scripture Readings in Orthodox Worship. Crestwood, New York: SVSP, 1997. Bashir, Archbishop Anthony. Studies in the Greek Orthodox Church. Antiochian Press (no date or place specified), 3rd ed. 1960. St. Basil of Caesarea, The Great. Contra Eunomius, Contre Eunome. Edited by Bernard Sesboué, G. M. de Durand, L. Doutrileau. Volume, I, SC no. 299, 1982; Volume II, SC no. 305, 1983. ———. Divine Liturgy. Oxford: Oxford University Press & Essex: The Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, 1982, pp. 102–151; Anaphora of the Liturgy of St. Basil, 119–135. ———. Letters and Select Works. Translated by Rev. Blomfield Jackson. NPNF, PNF(2), Vol. VIII. ———. On the Holy Spirit, Popular Patristics Series. SVSP, 2004. Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 2006. Blomberg, Craig C. Matthew. New American Commentary, 22. Nashville: Broadman, 1992. Bock, Darrell. Luke, Vol. 1: 1:1–9:50. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Books, 1994. Bouyer, Louis. Orthodox Spirituality and Protestant and Anglican Spirituality. A History of Christian Spirituality, Vol. III, Tunbridge Wells: Burns and Oates, 1968. Bray, Gerald. The Doctrine of God. Contours of Christian Theology. Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1993. Brenton, Sir Lancelot. The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English. Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson, 1992.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

195

Brock, Sebastian P. The Wisdom of Isaac of Nineveh. (Bilingual Edition: Syriac and English) Texts from Christian Late Antiquity. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2006. Brown, Raymond. The Gospel According to John i–xii. Anchor Bible 29. New York: Doubleday, 1966. ———. The Epistles of John. New York: Doubleday, Anchor Bible 30, 1982. Cabasilas, St. Nicholas. Life in Christ. Translated by Carmino de Catanzaro. SVSP, 1997. Carson, D. A. & Moo, Douglas M. An Introduction to the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 2005. Carson, D. A. et al. eds. New Bible Commentary. Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 2005. Cyril of Alexandria. Dialogues sur la Trinité. Edited by G. M. de Durand. SC no. 231, 1976. ———. On the Unity of Christ. Translated by J. A. McGuckin. Popular Patristics Series. SVSP, 1995. Davies, W. D. & Allison, Dale C. Jr. Matthew. Volume II, International Critical Commentary, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991. Dorsey, David A. The Literary Stucture of the Old Testament. A Commentary on Genesis to Malachi. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999. Didymus the Blind. Didyme L’Aveugle, sur Zacharie. Edited by Louis Doutreleau. SC nos. 83, 84, & 85, 1962. Early Christian Writings. 2005 Companion CD to www.EarlyChristianWritings.com Edwards, Mark. Origen against Plato. Hampshire, England & Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2002. St. Ephrem the Syrian. Hymns on Paradise. Translated by Sebastian Brock. SVSP, 1990. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History I. Loeb Classical Library. Translated by Kirsopp Lake. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2001. ———. Translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert. NPNF, PNF(2), Vol. I. ______. Histoire Ecclésiatique (Livres I-IV) Tome I. Translated and annotated by Gustave Bardy(+), 2001. SC no. 31. Festal Menaion. Translated by Mother Mary and Kallistos Ware. South Canaan, Penn: St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press, 1990. Fitzmeyer, Joseph A., S. J. The Acts of the Apostles. Anchor Bible Commentary. New York: Doubleday, 1998. Florovsky, Fr. George. Bible, Church, Tradition. Belmont, Mass: Notable and Academic Books, 1987.

196

DEIFICATION IN THE EASTERN ORTHODOX TRADITION

Golitzin, Fr. Alexander. St. Symeon the New Theologian on the Mystical Life III: Life, Times and Theology. SVSP, 2002. St. Gregory Nazianzen. Five Theological Orations & Two Letters to Cledonius. Popular Patristics Series. SVSP, 2006. Gregory Nyssa. From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa’s Mystical Writings. Edited and translated by Herbert Mursurillo. Introduction by Jean Danielou, SVS, 1997. ———. Great Catechism. Translated by Henry Wace. NPNF. PNF(2), Vol. V. ———. Life of Moses. Translated by A. Malherbe & E. Ferguson. CWS, 1978. ———. Life of Moses. Edited Silas House. San Francisco: Harper Collins. Harper Spiritual Classics, 2006. ———. On the Making of Man. Translated by William More & H. A. Wilson. NPNF. PNF(2), Vol. V. ———. The Lord’s Prayer; The Beatitudes. Edited by Hilda Graef. ACW, 1978. Gregory Palamas. The Hagioritic Tome, in Philokalia (Ware), IV. Gross, Jules. The Divinization of the Christian according to the Greek Fathers. Translated by Paul A. Onica. Anaheim, Calif.: A & C Press, 2002. French original, 1938. Hamilton, Victor P. The Book of Genesis Chapters 1–17. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1990. Harnack, Adolf Von. History of Dogma. Translated from the 3rd German Edition by Neil Buchanan, 6 vols., Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate, 1897. Hierotheos, Metropolitan Nafpaktos, The Feasts of the Lord. An Introduction to the twelve feasts and Orthodox Christology. Trans. Esther Williams. LevadiaHellas: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, Greece 2002. Irenaeus. Against the Heresies. Translated by A. Cleveland Coxe. NPNF, ANF, Vol. I. ———. Contre les heresies. Edited by Adelin Rousseau & L. Doutrelaeu, S.J. SC nos., 100*, and 100**, 1965; nos., 152–153, 1969; nos., 263–264, 1979; nos., 293–294, 1982; nos., 210–211, 2002. ———. Early Church Fathers. Edited by Robert M. Grant. London & New York: Routledge, 1997. St. Isaac of Nineveh. On Ascetical Life. SVSP, 1989. ———. The Wisdom of Isaac of Nineveh. Edited and Translated by Sebastian Brock, with facing Syriac text. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2006.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

197

Isaac the Syrian (Isaac of Nineveh). The Second Part, Chapters IV–XLI. Translated by Sebastian Brock. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Louvain: Peeters, 1995. Jenks, Rev. William, The Comprehensive Commentary on the Holy Bible containing the text according to the Authorized Version; Scott’s marginal references; Matthew Henry’s commentary, condensed, but retaining the most useful thoughts; the Practical Observations of Thomas Scott, D.D., with extensive explanatory, critical and philological notes selected from Scott, Doddridge, Gill, Adam Clarke, Patrick, Poole. Lowth, Burder, Harmer, Calmet, Stuart, Robinson, Bush, Rosenmueller, Bloomfield, and many other writers on the Scriptures, the Whole designed to be a Digest and combination of the advantages of the Best Bible Commentaries, and embracing nearly all that is valuable in Henry, Scott and Doddridge. Conveniently arranged for family and Private Reading & at the same time particularly adapted to the wants of Sabbath School Teachers and Bible classes; with numerous useful tables. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1866. Republished in the Michigan Historical Reprint Series. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, n.d. Joanta, Bishop Seraphim. Romania. Its Hesychast Tradition and Culture. Wildwood, California: St. Xenia Skete, 1992. John Chrysostom. Homilies on Romans. Translated by Rev. J. B. Morris and Rev. W.H Simcox. Revised by George Stevens. NPNF, PNF(1), Vol. XI. ———. Spiritual Gems from the Gospel of Matthew. Translated by Robert Charles Hill. Brookline, Mass: Holy Cross Orthodox Seminary Press, 2004. ———. Spiritual Gems from the Psalms. Translated by Robert Charles Hill. Brookline, Mass: Holy Cross Orthodox Seminary Press, 2004. ———. The Early Church Fathers. Edited by Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. ______. Eight Sermons on the Book of Genesis. Translated by Robert Charles Hill. Boston: Mass: Holy Cross Orthodox Seminary Press, 2004. ______. Sermons sur La Genèse. Translated with notes and introduction by Laurence Brottier, 1998. SC no. 433. John of Damascus. On the Orthodox Faith. Translated by Rev. S. D. Salmond. NPNF, PNF(2), Vol. IX. ———. Three Treatises on the Divine Images. Translated by Rev. Professor Andrew Louth. Popular Patristics Series. SVSP, 2003.

198

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Karkkäinen, Veli-Matti. One with God. Salvation as Deification and Justification. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2004. Kontzevitch, I. M. The Acquisition of the Holy Spirit in Ancient Russia. Translated by Olga Koshansky. Platina, California: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1988 Larchet, J.-C. La Divinisation de l’homme selon Maxime le Confesseur. Paris: Cerf, 1996 ———. Therapeutique des maladies spirituelles. Paris: Cerf, 2000. Levine, Baruch. JPS Torah Commentary. Leviticus. New York, Jewish Publication Society, 1989. Liddel, Henry George & Scott, Robert. A Greek-English Lexicon. 8th Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981. Life Application Study Bible. New Living Translation. Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House, 1988. Lossky, Vladimir. In the Image and Likeness of God. SVSP , 1997. ———. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. SVSP, 1997. ———. The Vision of God. SVSP, 1997. St. Macarius the Spirit-Bearer. Coptic Texts relating to St. Macarius the Great. Popular Patristics Series. SVSP, 2004. Manley, Johanna. Grace for Grace. The Psalter and the Holy Fathers: Patristic Commentary, Meditations and Liturgical Extracts in relation to the Psalms. Manlo Park, California: Monastery Books, 1992. ———. Isaiah through the Ages. Manlo Park, California: Monastery Books, 1995. ———. The Bible and the Holy Fathers for Orthodox. Daily Scripture Readings & Commentary (Holy Fathers). SVSP, 1999. ———. Wisdom, Let us Attend: Job, the Fathers and the Old Testament. Manlo Park, California: Monastery Books, 1997. Mantzarides. The Deification of Man. SVSP, 1997. St. Maximus Confessor, On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ. Translated by Paul M. Blowers & Robert Louis Wilken. Popular Patristics Series. SVSP, 2002. McGuckin, Rev. Professor J. A. St. Cyril and the Christological Controversy. Paperback, SVSP, 2004. ———. Saint Gregory Nazianzen. An Intellectual Biography. SVSP, 2001. ———. The Transfiguration of Christ in Scripture and Tradition. Lewiston, New York: Mellen Press, 1987. ———.The Westminster Handbook to Origen. Louisville & London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

199

———. Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology. Louisville & London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004. Meyendorff, John. St. Gregory Palamas & Orthodox Spirituality. SVSP, 1997. ———. Study of St. Gregory Palamas. SVSP, 1998. Moo, Douglas. The Epistle to the Romans. New International Critical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1996. Moses Maimonides. The Guide of the Perplexed. Abridged with intro. and commentary, Julius Guttman, translated from Arabic by Chaim Rabin. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995. Morris, Leon. The Gospel According to John. Revised. New International Critical Commentary. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1995. Nafpaktos, Metropolitan Hierotheos. St. Gregory Palamas as a Hagiorite. Translated by Esther Williams. Levadia, Greece: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1997. Nellas, P. Deification in Christ. Crestwood, N.Y.: SVSP, 1987. Origen. On First Principles De Prinipiis. NPNF, ANF, Vol. IV. ———. Philocalie 1–20 Sur les Écritures. Edited and translated by Marguerite Harl. SC no. 302, 1983. ———. The Philokalia of Origen. Edited by Armitage Robinson (1983), Elibon Classics, 2004. ———. Philokalia of Origen. Translated by George Lewis. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1911. ———. Traité de principes. Edited by H. Crouzel, and M. Simonetti. SC nos., 268 & 269, 1980. Pelikan, J. The Spirit of Eastern Christendom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. Perceval, Henry R., trans. The Seven Ecumenical Councils. NPNF, PNF (2) XIV. Plato. Timaeus. Translated by R. G. Bury. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1929. Pomazansky, Protopresbyter Michael. Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. A Concise Explanation. Translated by Seraphim Rose. Platina, California: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood Press, 1984. Popovitch, Justin, La Philosophie de La Verite, 5 volumes. Trans. From Serbian, J.-L. Palierne, Paris: L’Age de L’Homme, Collection Lumière de Thabor, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1997. Elder Porphyrios, Wounded by Love. Limni, Evia, Greece: Denise Harvey, 2005. The Psalter According to the Seventy. Boston, Mass: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1987.

200

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Russell, Norman. The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Sakharov, Archimandrite Sophrony. Saint Silouan the Athonite. Translated by Rosemary Edmonds. Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, 1991. ———. His Life is Mine. SVSP, 1987. ———. We shall See Him as He Is. Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, 1987. Sarna, Nahum, S. The JPS Torah Commentary. Genesis. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989. Selby, Robin C. The Principle of Reserve in the Writings of John Henry Newman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. St. Seraphim of Sarov. Spiritual Instructions. Little Russian Philokalia Series, Vol. I, New Valaam Monastery, Alaska, 1991. Spidlik, Fr. Tomas, S. J., The Spirituality of the Christian East. A Systematic Handbook. Kalamazoo, Mich: Cistercian Publications, 1986. Staniloae, Dimitru. The Experience of God. Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, I, Brookline, Mass: Holy Cross, 1994. ———. The Experience of God. Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, II, The World: Creation & Deification, Edited by Iaon Ionaita & Robert Barringer. Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2000. Stone Tanakh. ‘Tanakh’ (The Jewish edition of their Bible, the Law, the Prophets & the Writings) By Rabbi Irving Stone, ed., Rabbi Noson Scherman, New York Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 2003. Stylianopoulos, Theodore. The New Testament. An Orthodox Perspective. Brookline, Mass: Holy Cross Orthodox Seminary Press, 2002. Sykes, Alistair Stewart, ed. Tertullian, Cyprian and Origen on the Lord’s Prayer. Popular Patristics Series. SVSP, 2004. St. Symeon the New Theologian. Hymnes Vol I. Edited by Johannes Koder, translated by Joseph Paramelle. SC no. 156, 1969. ———. On the Mystical Life. The Ethical Discourses I. The Church and the Last Things. Translated by Alexander Golitzin. Popular Patristics Series. SVSP, 2002. ———.On the Mystical Life II. The Ethical Discourses II. Translated by Alexander Golitzin. Popular Patristics Series. SVSP, 2002. Tillich, Paul. Systematic Theology, Volume 2, Part II, “Existence and the Christ.” London, SCM, 1978. Tertullian. Against Marcion. Translated by Dr. Peter Holmes. NPNF, ANF, Vol. III. ———. Apology. Translated by Rev. S. Thelwell. NPNF, ANF, Vol. III.

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201

———. Contre Marcion. Edited by René Braun. SC no. 399, 1994. Blessed Theophylact. Explanation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Luke. Translated by Fr. Christopher Stade. House Springs, Mo: Chrysostom Press, 1993. ———. Explanation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Mark. Translated by Fr. Christopher Stade. House Springs, Mo: Chrysostom Press, 1993. ———. Explanation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew. Translated by Fr. Christopher Stade. House Springs, Mo: Chrysostom Press, 2000. Thomas, Stephen. Newman and Heresy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Thomas, Robert & Gundry, Stanley. “The Languages Jesus Spoke,” The NIV Harmony of the Gospels. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1988, pp. 300–303. Tillich, Paul. Systematic Theology, Volume, 2, Part II, “Existence and the Christ.” London: SCM, 1978. Toorn, Karel van der. Scribal Culture and the making of the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2007. Waltke, Bruce K. Genesis. A Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001. Wanamaker, Charles A. The Epistles to the Thessalonians. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1990. Ware, Kallistos, trans. Philokalia, I-IV. See Abbreviations. ———. The Inner Kingdom, Volume I of the Collected Works. New York: SVSP, 2000. ———. The Power of the Name. The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality. Fairacres, Oxford: Sisters of the Love of God Press, Convent of the Incarnation, 1991. Way of a Pilgrim: the Pilgrim Continues his Way. London & Glasgow: Harper Collins, 1991. The Way of the Pilgrim. Translated by R. M. French. Introduction by Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. London: SPCK, 1997 and frequent reprints. Zachariou, Archimandrite Zacharias. Christ Our Way and Our Life. A Presentation of the Theology of Archimandrite Sophrony, South Canaan, Pennsylvania: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2003.

INDEX OF SCRIPTURAL REFERENCES

Gen 1, 102, 134, 135 1:1, 96 1:1–2:3, 94–101, 98, 106 1:3–5, 176 1:14, 167 1:14–19, 176 1:26, 9, 10, 97 1:26–27, 28, 98, 99, 106, 134 1:27, 111 1:27–28, 135 1:28, 11, 97, 106, 1–3, 75, 130, 131, 133, 134, 136, 138 2, 135 2:4, 101, 134 2:4–7, 101 2:4–3:24, 101–14, 132 2:16, 136 2:19–20, 101 2–3, 123 2–5, 134 3:5, 14, 20 3:17, 136 3:19, 114 3:21, 112 3:22–23, 112 3:24, 19, 103 4:1, 46, 112, 135 4:3–16, 114 4:24, 114 4–6, 114

5, 135 5:1, 55, 134 5:1–3, 134 5:24, 114, 151 6:5–6, 114 6:9, 114, 134 6:11–12, 114 9:21–22, 115 10:1, 134 11:10, 134 11:27, 134 25:12, 134 25:19, 134 29:1, 115 36:1, 134 37:2, 134 Exod 3:2, 124 3:14, 172 7:10–12, 105 14:4, 9 18:13–27, 10 18:18, 10 19:6, 80, 120 20:3, 8 20:4, 117 20:5, 8, 18 20:17, 122 26:1, 9 26:31, 9 33:11, 118 203

204

DEIFICATION IN THE EASTERN ORTHODOX TRADITION

33:13, 118 33:18, 118 33:20, 117 33:23, 118 34:29, 141 34:33–35, 141 34:35, 119 Lev 19, 120 19:2, 61, 120 19:17–18, 120 20:26, 121 23:39–43, 151 Num 18:21–24, 80 21:7–9, 105 Deut 4:24, 18 5:9, 18 6:15, 18 14:2, 80 18:15, 152 19:17, 10 26:18, 80 34:6, 151 34:10, 152 Josh 5:13–15, 127 5:15, 127 6:17, 126 6:21, 126 8:21, 126 8:24–25, 126 8:29, 126 24:2–15, 127 24:19, 18, 127 24:19–20, 127 24:19–28, 127 Judg 6:3, 115

6:33, 115 7:12, 115 8:10, 115 1 Sam 4:4, 9 15:33, 126 1 Kgs 17:24, 116 18:40, 125 19:8–13, 151 19:11–12, 141 19:12, 119 22:19–22, 95 2 Kgs 2:11–12, 151 2:11–12, 115 19:15, 113 1 Chr 1:1, 135 Neh 9:6, 9 2 Macc 2:28, 155 6:28, 155 6:31, 155 Job 1:1, 115 1:3, 115 1:5, 115 1:6, 95, 104 1:8, 115 38, 73 38:7, 95 42:7, 116 38–41, 115 Ps 19:1, 56 22 (LXX 21), 85 29:1–2, 95 36:9, 148

INDEX 82, 95 82:6, 10, 12 82:7, 11 89:6–7, 95 104 (LXX 103), 62 119 (LXX 118):122, 141 139 (LXX 138):13–14, 55 Prov 1:7, 54 3:18, 103 3:34, 38 3:34, 38 3:34, LXX, 38 Wis 12:10, 127 Isa 2:2–3, 93 6:2, 9 6:2–3, 77 6:6, 9 6:8, 95 7:14, 124, 125 9:6, 125 11:14, 115 14:12, 96 40:13–14, 73 42:6, 61, 93, 143 49:6, 61, 93, 143 53, 79 53:5, 79 53:7, 155 60:3, 93, 143 60:19, 166 Ezek 10, 9 Hos 6:6, 24 Joel 2:28–29, 145

205 Mal 4:5, 152 Matt 2:2, 96 3:7, 105 4:25, 160 5:1–7:28, 122 5:14, 170 5:14–16, 170 5:17–18, 122 5:28, 62 5:39, 128 5:44, 62 5:48, 62, 122 6:7, 50 7:7, 72 7:17–19, 21 7:21, 169 9:2–6, 24 9:12–13, 24 10:16, 105 12:34, 105 13:44, 72 16:22, 146, 155 16:23, 146 16:24, 146 16:28, 146 17:1, 146 17:1–8, 142, 145 17:2, 150 17:3, 150 17:6, 150 17:8, 151 17:9, 149, 153 17:10, 152 17:11, 152 17:12, 152 17:13, 152 20:1–16, 23 20:11, 23

206

DEIFICATION IN THE EASTERN ORTHODOX TRADITION

21:9, 77 23:33, 105 24:24, 52 24:36, 144 26:73, 160 26:75, 156 27:35, 124 27:51, 142 Mark 1:2–4, 29 1:15, 29 2:5–9, 24 2:17, 24 5:20, 160 8:32, 146 8:34, 146 8:36, 46 9:2, 146 9:2–8, 142, 145 9:3, 150 9:4, 150 9:6, 150 9:8, 151 9:9, 149, 152, 153 9:11, 152 9:12, 152 10:37, 171 10:38, 171 10:39, 171 11:9–10, 77 13:5–6, 52 14:50, 148 14:70, 160 15:24, 124 15:38, 142 Luke 1:1, 163 1:2, 149 1:26–38, 96 2:8–9, 142

2:13, 144 2:13–15, 173 2:32, 143 2:52, 26 3:7, 105 4:24–27, 116 5:20–24, 24 5:31, 24 6:15, 169 7:48, 24 9:23, 146 9:28, 146 9:28–36, 142, 145 9:29, 150 9:30, 150 9:32, 150 9:36, 151 9:54–56, 171 15:11–32, 23 15:17, 24, 112 15:19–20, 113 18:13, 26 21:8, 52 23:34, 124 23:43, 26 23:45, 142 24:25–27, 123 24:48, 30 John 1:4, 163, 164 1:14, 30, 163 1:17, 163 1:18, 159, 163 1:20–21, 152 2:25, 152 3:14, 105 3:16, 32, 33 3:19, 165 3:20–21, 165 4:14, 144

INDEX 8:12, 143, 164 9:1–38, 143 10:24, 11 10:30, 12, 13 10:31, 12 10:34, 3 10:35, 12, 13 10:36, 12 10:37–38, 12 10:39, 12 11, 170 11:43–44, 170 12:36, 164 14:6–7, 14 14:10, 14 15:13–15, 74 15:26, 32, 33 16:7, 32 16:13, 32 Acts 1:13, 169 2:1–3, 153 2:32, 30 2:37, 171 2:42, 41 2:43, 42 2:44–45, 42 3:6, 43 7:54, 171 9:3–7, 174 9:28, 172 12:2, 171 22:6–8, 175 22:11, 175 26:13–18, 175 Rom 1:18–32, 24 1:19–20, 53 3:2, 61, 122 3:21–5:2, 21

207 3:23, 19 5, 137 5:1–2, 22 5:12–15, 80 5:12–21, 91 7:15, 19 8:22–23, 28 8:29, 79 8:30, 173 11:1–2, 122 11:12, 122 11:33–34, 73 12:1, 42 15:2, 4 1 Cor 14:3, 4 15:10, 172 15:20, 80 15:42, 27 15:44, 27 2 Cor 3:15, 72 3:18, 26, 172 4:3–6, 176 5:17, 176 11:14, 45, 51 13:14, 32, 172 Gal 1:8–9, 44 2:20, 2, 44 4:24, 87 Eph 1:3, 173 1:10, 54, 75, 91, 173 1:19, 173 2:4–5, 80 3:7, 173 3:18, 74 4, 173 4:13, 26, 154

208

DEIFICATION IN THE EASTERN ORTHODOX TRADITION

4:14, 52 4:16, 173 Phil 2, 79 2:5–11, 79, 149 2:7, 79 2:6, 149 3:21, 173 Col 1:18, 80 1 Thess 4:13–17, 145 5:4, 145 5:17, 181 1 Tim 6:16, 67 2 Tim 3:13, 52 3:16, 72 3:16–17, 70, 71, 89 Titus 1:10, 52 3:5, 78 Heb 1:1–2, 79 4:3, 100 4:9–10, 100 11:39–12:2, 127 Jas 1:19–20, 52 4:6, 38 1 Pet 1:18, 157 2:9, 80 2:20, 154

3:18–19, 154 3:19, 154 3:21–22, 154 4:12–14, 155 5:1, 156 5:5, 38 5:12, 160 2 Pet 1:1–2, 157 1:3–4, 159, 162 1:4, 160 1:12–15, 159 1:16–18, 157 1:16–19, 159 1:18, 159 1:19, 159 1 John 1:3, 32 1:5, 164 2:11, 166 3:2, 167 3:2–3, 167 3:7, 52 2 John 7, 52 7–10, 165 Rev 1:8, 77 18:23, 166 21:23–25, 166 22:5, 166, 167