Mystical Doctrines of Deification: Case Studies in the Christian Tradition 2018010623, 9780815393245, 9781351189118

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Mystical Doctrines of Deification

The notion of the deification of the human person (theosis, theopoièsis, deificatio) was one of the most fundamental themes of Christian theology in its first centuries, especially in the Greek world. It is often assumed that this theme was exclusively developed in Eastern theology after the patristic period, and thus its presence in the theology of the Latin West is generally overlooked. The aim of this collection is to explore some patristic articulations of the doctrine in both the East and West, but also to highlight its enduring presence in the Western tradition and its relevance for contemporary thought. The collection thus brings together a number of capita selecta that focus on the development of theosis through the ages until the Early Modern Period. It is unique, not only in emphasizing the role of theosis in the West, but also in bringing to the fore a number of little-known authors and texts, and analyzing their theology from a variety of fresh perspectives. Thus, mystical theology in the West is shown to have profound connections with similar concerns in the East and with the common patristic sources. By tying these traditions together, this volume brings new insight to one of mysticism’s key concerns. As such, it will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, mysticism, theology and the history of religion. John Arblaster is a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven and the Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp. His research focuses on the doctrine of deification in the mystical literature of the late medieval Low Countries. With Rob Faesen, he co-edited A Companion to John of Ruusbroec (Brill, 2014) and Mystical Anthropology: Authors from the Low Countries (Routledge, 2017). He has published several articles and book chapters, including a contribution to the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology (OUP). He is co-convener (with Louise Nelstrop and Simon D. Podmore) of the Mystical Theology Network. Rob Faesen S.J. is professor of the history of spirituality and mysticism at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, the Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp, and the School of Catholic Theology, Tilburg University. He has published extensively in the field of medieval mysticism, but also in Jesuit history and spirituality. He was a member of the editorial team responsible for the new critical edition of the works of John of Ruusbroec, and has authored and co-authored numerous contributions.

Contemporary theological explorations in mysticism Series editors: Patricia Z. Beckman, Oliver Davies and George Pattison

This series facilitates new points of synergy and fresh theological engagements with Christian mystical traditions. Reflecting the plurality of theological approaches to Christian mystical theology, books in the series cover historical, literary, practical, and systematic perspectives as well as philosophical, psychological, and phenomenological methods. Although the primary focus of the series is the Christian tradition, exploration of texts from other traditions also highlight the theological, psychological and philosophical questions that Christian mysticism brings to the fore. Mysticism in the French Tradition Eruptions from France Edited by Louise Nelstrop and Bradley B. Onishi Mystical Anthropology Authors from the Low Countries Edited by John Arblaster and Rob Faesen Mystical Theology and Continental Philosophy Interchange in the Wake of God Edited by David Lewin, Simon D. Podmore and Duane Williams Mystical Theology and Contemporary Spiritual Practice Renewing the Contemplative Tradition Edited by Christopher C.H. Cook, Julienne McLean and Peter Tyler Art and Mysticism Interfaces in the Medieval and Modern Periods Edited by Helen Appleton and Louise Nelstrop Mystical Doctrines of Deification Case Studies in the Christian Tradition Edited by John Arblaster and Rob Faesen For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ContemporaryTheological-Explorations-in-Mysticism/book-series/ACONTHEOMYS

Mystical Doctrines of Deification Case studies in the Christian tradition

Edited by John Arblaster and Rob Faesen

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, John Arblaster and Rob Faesen; individual chapters, the contributors The right of John Arblaster and Rob Faesen to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Arblaster, John, 1985– editor. Title: Mystical doctrines of deification : case studies in the Christian tradition / edited by John Arblaster and Rob Faesen. Description: New York : Routledge, 2018. | Series: Contemporary theological explorations in mysticism | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018010623 Subjects: LCSH: Deification (Christianity)—History of doctrines. | Mysticism. Classification: LCC BT767.8 .M97 2018 | DDC 234—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018010623 ISBN: 978-0-8153-9324-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-18911-8 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

This book is dedicated to Deidre and Greta, for all their support.

Contents

Notes on contributors Acknowledgements Introduction

ix xii 1

J O H N A R B L A S T E R AND ROB FAE S E N

1 Θεοποιεῖσθαι and δοξάζεσθαι: deification and glorification in Origen’s exegesis of John 13:31–32

5

V I TO L I M O N E

2 “You can become all flame”: deification in early Egyptian monasticism

16

DANIEL LEMENI

3 Down by the lover’s well: St. Gregory of Nyssa and Annie Dillard on divinization

35

M A RT I N L A I R D , O.S .A.

4 Plato’s contribution to Augustine’s theory of theosis

46

V I C TO R Y U D I N

5 The reception of the Greek patristic doctrine of deification in the medieval West: the case of John Scottus Eriugena

60

E R N E S TO S E R G I O MAI NOL DI

6 The Dream of the Rood: a neglected contemplative text

72

TIM FLIGHT

7 Ubi caro mea glorificatur, gloriosum me esse cognosco: deification in John of Fécamp (c. 990–1078) R O B FA E S E N ( TRANS L AT E D BY JOHN ARBL AS T ER)

89

viii Contents 8 The abyss of man, the abyss of love

98

PAT R I C K RYA N COOP E R

9 “Becoming a cross to thyself ”: loving humility in The Book of Privy Counselling and Thomas Nagel’s “impersonal standpoint”

116

MARIA EXALL

10 The Monk of Farne: a forgotten medieval English mystic

135

L O U I S E N E LS T ROP

11 Psychology, theosis, and the soul: St. Teresa of Avila, St. Augustine, and Plotinus on the Western picture of theosis

152

P E T E R T Y L ER

12 Hans Urs von Balthasar’s indifference to divinization

165

J O N AT H A N MART I N CI RAUL O

Index of names Subject index

186 190

Notes on contributors

John Arblaster is a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven and the Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp. His research focuses on the doctrine of deification in the mystical literature of the late medieval Low Countries. With Rob Faesen, he co-edited A Companion to John of Ruusbroec (Brill, 2014) and Mystical Anthropology: Authors from the Low Countries (Routledge, 2017). He has published several articles and book chapters, including a contribution to the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Mystical Theology (OUP). He is co-convener (with Louise Nelstrop and Simon D. Podmore) of the Mystical Theology Network. Patrick Ryan Cooper wrote his PhD at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, entitled Abiding in Minne’s Demands: A Theological Retrieval of Jan van Ruusbroec and its Interdisciplinary Encounter with JeanLuc Marion. He is currently an assistant professor of theology in the Department of Religious Studies at Saint Martin's University in Lacey, WA, USA. Jonathan Martin Ciraulo is a doctoral candidate in systematic theology at the University of Notre Dame (USA). His dissertation is on the Eucharistic theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. Maria Exall has a PhD in Philosophical Theology from King’s College London. She is a sessional lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University. Her research interests are the interface between modern rationalist philosophy and apophaticism and the relationship between egalitarian ethical and political theory and the Christian tradition of spiritual poverty. Her article “Different Deserts: deconstructionism and Dionysian apophaticism” was published in the recent collection Mystical Theology and Continental Philosophy: Interchange in the wake of God (Routledge, 2017). Rob Faesen S.J. is professor of the history of spirituality and mysticism at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, the Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp, and the School of Catholic Theology, Tilburg University. He has published extensively in the field of medieval mysticism, but also in Jesuit history and spirituality. He was a member of the editorial team responsible for the new critical edition of the works of John of Ruusbroec, and has authored and co-authored numerous contributions.

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Notes on contributors

Tim Flight completed his AHRC-funded doctorate on mysticism in the AngloSaxon period at Magdalen College, Oxford. A former visiting lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London, he is now a freelance writer. Martin Laird, O.S.A. is Professor of Early Christian Studies at Villanova University (USA). Daniel Lemeni is Lecturer of Eastern Christianity at the West University of Timişoara (Department of Theology). His research focuses on the early ascetic tradition and on Christian hagiography, with a particular focus on the relationship between ascetic authority and ecclesiastical authority in early monasticism. His publications include Tradition of Spiritual Direction in the Eastern Christianity, 2010 (in Romanian), The Spiritual World of the Desert Fathers, 2014 (in Romanian), and “Abba, Give Me a Word!”: Dynamics of Spiritual Guidance in the Desert Fathers, 2017 (in Romanian). He is currently preparing a book on Antony the Great and the spirituality of the desert. Vito Limone received a doctorate in Philosophy in June 2017 at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan and in Patristic Studies at the Patristic Institute, Augustinianum, Rome. He has also conducted research at the University of Oxford. He is a member of G.I.R.O.T.A. (Italian Research Group on Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition). He has published widely in the field of Christian antiquity and classical Greek philosophy, with a particular focus on Origen. Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi is PhD in Philosophy, Science and Culture of the Late Ancient, Medieval and Humanistic Ages at the University of Salerno (2006). His main research interests are in medieval music, medieval and byzantine philosophy and theology, with particular interest in John Scottus Eriugena and Dionysius the Areopagite. Since 2007, he has been the secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Eriugenian Studies (SPES). Since 2016, he has been director of the project “Sophia Byzantina,” devoted to byzantine theological and philosophical thought, at the University of Salerno. He has published many essays in the field of early medieval philosophy and, particularly, of eriugenian studies, including a critical edition with Italian translation of Eriugena’s De praedestinatione, and recently a comprehensive monograph on the Corpus Dionysiacum Areopagiticum. Louise Nelstrop is a College Lecturer at Saint Benet’s Hall, Oxford and Lecturer at York St John University. She specializes in the English mystics. In addition to several articles, she co-authored Christian Mysticism: An Introduction to Contemporary Theoretical Perspectives (Routledge, 2009) with Kevin Magill and Bradley B. Onishi. She has also co-edited a number of volumes. She is coconvener (with John Arblaster and Simon D. Podmore) of the Mystical Theology Network. Peter Tyler is Professor of Pastoral Theology and Spirituality at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London and Director of the Centre for Initiatives in

Notes on contributors

xi

Spirituality and Reconciliation (InSpiRe). Recent publications include St Teresa of Avila: Doctor of the Soul (Bloomsbury, 2013) and The Pursuit of the Soul: Psychoanalysis, Soul-making and the Christian Tradition (T & T Clark, 2016). Rev. Victor Yudin was born in Western Ukraine (USSR). He studied in Russia and Hungary before moving to Belgium for PhD research at UC Louvain-la-Neuve, where he wrote a dissertation entitled Augustine’s Timaeus 41ab. He has also conducted research in Religious Studies in Durham (UK) and at KU Leuven (Belgium). He has authored numerous publications related to the contacts between Christian and Neoplatonic thinkers. He has convened workshops in Oxford at the Patristic Conferences, the results of which were published in several volumes of Studia Patristica. He teaches Patrology and Dogmatic Theology at the Institute for Orthodox Studies (Ghent/Brussels) in both the Dutchand French-speaking sections. He is a deacon at the local Russian Orthodox parish of St. Matthew the Apostle (Leuven, Belgium).

Acknowledgements

We would like first to express our profound gratitude to Lieven Boeve and Bradford Manderfield who supported this project from the beginning. We would also like to thank all the contributors for their dedication and commitment to the successful completion of this volume, as well as the editors of the series in which this book appears for their insightful and helpful suggestions for its improvement. For their time and assistance, we are very grateful to Josh Wells and Jack Boothroyd at Routledge. Finally, we would like to thank the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) for generously supporting our research.

Introduction John Arblaster and Rob Faesen

During a presentation at a recent medieval conference, the theme of deification was raised in connection with Marguerite Porete. An audience member expressed surprise at the radical-sounding theological idea that the human person has the potential to be transformed in(to) God, and asked whether this was a common Christian theological position. The presenter responded that only in some rare cases, mystics of questionable orthodoxy have formulated such ideas throughout the Christian tradition. According to the presenter, these were most often considered heterodox positions, and the emphasis of the reply was on the infrequency with which these doctrines were articulated. Witnessing this exchange convinced us all the more of the timeliness of the present volume, which is devoted precisely to the variety of ways in which Christian (primarily mystical) authors addressed the question of deification from the Early Church, through the Middle Ages, and into the Early Modern Period. Neither the surprise expressed by the audience member nor the presenter’s emphasis on the rarity and questionable orthodoxy of the doctrine need surprise us. As Rowan Williams has pointed out in a short but characteristically insightful dictionary entry: The word [deification] has acquired a very suspicious sound in the ears of perhaps the majority of Western Christians, partly as a result of the claims of medieval and sixteenth-century sectarian and apocalyptic groups to be united in essence with God (and so incapable of sin). Discussion of the subject has also been a good deal hampered by the confusion of doctrines of deification with speculations about a divine and uncreated ‘core’ of the human soul.1 Regarding the presence of the doctrine and its theological acceptability, we may point to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (an authoritative document as far as the Roman Catholic tradition is concerned), which twice explicitly refers to deification. In article 460 we read: The Word became flesh to make us ‘partakers of the divine nature’: ‘For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving

2

John Arblaster and Rob Faesen divine sonship, might become a son of God.’ ‘For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.’ ‘The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in this divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.’2

Further, article 1999 states: “The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification.”3 Nonetheless, several scholars have continued to emphasize in recent publications that the theme of deification is absent from theological reflection in the West, and especially in the medieval West, or at least from “mainstream” Western theology in the Middle Ages.4 Some contemporary theologians, in line with Adolf von Harnack, applaud the supposed absence of the theme in the West because they consider it as such to be incommensurable with the foundations of Christian thought. Harnack’s objection was that this theme is a clear example of the pernicious influence of Greek philosophy on Eastern Christianity.5 Indeed, the apparent division between Eastern and Western Christianity with respect to the doctrine of deification has often been noted. The general assumption is that the East and the West may have had a shared heritage of reflection on this theme in the Patristic period, but that the doctrine developed very differently in the West from the Middle Ages onwards (if it existed at all). Ben Drewery, for example, has posited that between East and West the doctrine of divinization remained (and remains) the subject of divisiveness.6 It was to explore not only the question of divisions between Eastern and Western Christian theology on this point, but also the historical development of the doctrine in the East and West that the conference Theosis/Deification: Christian Doctrines of Divinization East and West was held at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium, from 29–31 January 2015. Bringing together representatives of both the Orthodox tradition (His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew) and the Catholic and Reformed traditions (Bishop Johan Bonny, Rowan Williams, Ivana Noble, among others), the conference was conceived as a forum of ecumenical exchange on this subject, and it was the genesis of the majority of the essays in the present volume, which focuses on the latter of the two central themes explored, namely the historical iterations of the doctrine of deification.7 Despite the efforts of several recent scholars, most notably Bernard McGinn in his now seven-volume Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, there is still a relative paucity of publications that focus on medieval articulations of the doctrine of deification, especially in the mystical tradition. One of the best non-exhaustive overviews of key figures is to be found in the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, which includes brief treatments of some of the authors discussed more extensively here.8 This contribution is in many respects now somewhat dated and is, in any case, inaccessible to non-French readers. In the selection of the articles in the present volume, we have adopted a twopronged approach. On the one hand, we have included several articles that treat

Introduction 3 lesser-known figures and sources in the medieval tradition, such as The Dream of the Rood, John of Fécamp, The Book of Privy Counselling, and the Monk of Farne. In so doing, we seek to foster and engage in the ongoing retrieval of medieval contemplative Christian theology, in an attempt to highlight both the clear presence and diversity of Western voices in the theology we now call “mystical.” On the other hand, we have also selected a series of articles on better-known figures in the tradition, including several of the Church Fathers from both the East and West (Origen, the Desert Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine), and famous medieval authors such as John Scotus Eriugena and John of Ruusbroec. In keeping with the nature and purpose of the series in which this volume appears, however, several of these chapters treat their subjects from innovative and contemporary perspectives. For example, Martin Laird brings Gregory of Nyssa into dialogue with the contemporary American author Annie Dillard, while Patrick Cooper discusses the theology of John of Ruusbroec in conversation with a series of contemporary theologians. Peter Tyler’s chapter on Teresa of Avila, who along with John of the Cross is undoubtedly the most famous mystic of the Spanish Golden Age, returns to a theme discussed at the beginning of the volume, namely the ways in which (Neo-)Platonism and Augustine of Hippo had a formative impact on the development of the doctrine of deification throughout the ages. The final article, by Jonathan Ciraulo, highlights the profound relevance of the theme of deification for contemporary theology, through a discussion of the leading twentieth-century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988). It is our sincere hope that this volume may offer a modest contribution to the renewal of interest in the theologies of deification in both the Eastern and Western Christian traditions. We find in these traditions profound articulations of this mystical theme that may inspire and animate contemporary theological debates.

Notes 1 Williams (1983: 106). For the purposes of this volume, we shall treat the terms “deification,” “divinization,” and “theosis” as synonyms. 2 CCC (1994: 102–103). 3 Ibid.: 434. 4 For example, Paul M. Collins notes: “On the whole, the metaphor of deification has been absent from mainstream theological discourse in the West” (Collins 2010: 111). Ruben Angelici suggests that “a doctrine of divinization has always remained foreign to Western theology” (Angelici 2011: 15, n. 66). 5 See Mosser (2002: 37–38). An example of this critical position in line with Harnack is Drewery (1975). 6 Drewery 1975: 35–37. Jeffrey F. Hamburger’s otherwise excellent St. John the Divine repeats this claim as though this past and present divisiveness is simply a matter of fact (Hamburger 2002: 6). 7 A companion volume which focuses on contributions related to Eastern and Western manifestations of the doctrine and their confluences and distinctions is to be found in Arblaster and Faesen (2018). 8 des Places (1954).

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John Arblaster and Rob Faesen

Bibliography Angelici 2011 = Richard of Saint Victor, On the Trinity, trans. Ruben Angelici, Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2011. Arblaster and Faesen 2018 = John Arblaster and Rob Faesen (eds.), Theosis/Deification: Christian Doctrines of Divinization East and West, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, Leuven: Peeters, 2018. CCC 1994 = Catechism of the Catholic Church, London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994. Collins 2010 = Paul M. Collins, Partaking in Divine Nature: Deification and Communion, London: T&T Clark, 2010. des Places 1954 = Édouard des Places, e.a., “Divinisation,” in: Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, vol. III, Paris: Beauchesne, 1954, cc. 1370–1459. Drewery 1975 = Ben Drewery, “Deification,” in: Peter Brooks (ed.), Christian Spirituality: Essays in Honour of Gordon Rupp, London: SCM Press, 1975, pp. 35–62. Hamburger 2002 = Jeffrey F. Hamburger, St. John the Divine: The Deified Evangelist in Medieval Art and Theology, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002. Mosser 2002 = Carl Mosser, “The Greatest Possible Blessing: Calvin and Deification,” Scottisch Journal of Theology 55/1 (2002), pp. 36–57. Williams 1983 = Rowan Williams, “Deification,” in: Gordon S. Wakefield (ed.), A Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, London: SCM Press, 1983, pp. 106–108.

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Θεοποιεῖσθαι and δοξάζεσθαι Deification and glorification in Origen’s exegesis of John 13:31–32 Vito Limone

Origen usually employs the term θεοποιεῖσθαι to denote not only the creation of idols, but also idolatry as such:1 in the occurrences which refer to the εἰδωλολατρία, Origen always criticizes those who deify material beings, and he associates them with those who acknowledge no interpretation of the Holy Scripture except the literal sense, such as the Samaritans of Jn. 4:24 who worship on Mount Gerizim, not in spirit and truth.2 In fact, as those who create idols deify them and acknowledge no god but their idols, so those who only literally interpret the Scriptures think there is nothing divine but the λέξις of the text. There are, however, two occurences of the concept of “deification” in Origen’s Commentary on John (= CIo):3 first, in the context of his exegesis of Jn 1:1, at the beginning of book II (CIo 2, 2, 17–18),4 where “deification” properly results from the relation between the God-Father, the Son-Wisdom and the pre-existent νóες; second, in the context of Origen’s exegesis of Jn. 13:31–32, at the end of the XXXII book (CIo 32, 25, 318–29, 367),5 where he clearly identifies “deification” with “glorification,” δοξάζεσθαι. This paper is divided into two parts: 1) an examination of the semantics of θεοποιεῖσθαι in CIo 2, 2, 17–18; 2, and a detailed presentation of CIo 32, 25, 318–28, 357. This part – the detailed presentation of CIo 32, 318–28, 357 – will be divided into three main parts: a) a syntactical analysis of Jn. 13:31–32, which is similar to Jn. 1:1–2 (CIo 2, 9, 64–67);6 b) the definition of “deification” and “glorification”; c) an examination of different kinds of deification, i.e. glorification.

Deification as participation in God’s divinity (CIo 2, 2, 17–18) The first main occurrence of the term and the idea of “deification” in Origen’s CIo is at the beginning of book II, in the context of the exegesis of Jn. 1:1. After distinguishing ὁ θεóς, which refers to God-Father, from θεός, which refers to the SonLogos, Origen mentions the doctrine of the Monarchians, generically named οἱ πολλοί,7 who recognize only the God-Father and reject either the divinity, θεότης, or the personality, ἰδιότης, of the Son. Origen presents to the reader a quaestio, which is submitted by the Monarchian position and is expressed in interrogative language (λύεσθαι δύναται . . . λεκτέον). He asks whether the oneness of God implies the impossibility for any being to be divine, or whether the Son participates in any way

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Vito Limone

in the God-Father’s divinity. The premise is: if the Father is the entire divinity and is the One, as Jn. 17:38 says – “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent,” then nothing can be divine but the Father himself. The quaestio is: if nothing can be divine except the Father, then either the Son is not divine or he is no different from the Father – this is stated by the Monarchians – or whether he does in some way participate in the Father’s divinity. Origen introduces the concept of μετοχή, i.e. participation, through which he solves the quaestio. In fact, participation is the act by which the Son-Logos, which some passages before Origen had called θεός in reference to John’s Prologue, shares the Father’s divinity and is properly deified, θεοποιούμενον. The deification of the Son, i.e. his θεοποιεῖσθαι, is the same as his participation in the Father’s divinity, i.e. his μετοχή. The idea of “participation,” which is strictly associated with “deification,” allows Origen to solve the previous quaestio: God-Father is divinity in himself, but the Son participates in his divinity and so he is also divine.9 Moreover, it is not only the Son who participates in the Father’s divinity and is deified by him.10 All the νóες, i.e. the intellectual and pre-existent beings, participate in the Son’s divinity and are deified by him. Furthermore, if the Son participates in the Father’s divinity and is deified by him, and the νóες participate in the Son’s divinity and are deified by him, then the Son is εἰκών of the Father and the νóες are εἰκόνες πρωτοτύπου, i.e. of the SonLogos.11 The conclusions of CIo 2,2,17–18 are: a) the concept of “deification,” θεοποιεῖσθαι, is the same as the concept of “participation,” μετοχή, by which Origen not only criticizes the Monarchians, but also explains the relation between the Father, the Son and the νóες;12 b) while Origen had previously stated that ὁ θεóς refers to the Father and θεός refers to the Son, he now states that θεός or θεοὶ denotes every being which participates in divinity and is deified.13

The glory of the Son of Man: on Origen’s exegesis of Jn. 13:31–32 In the context of the exegesis of Jn. 1:1 Origen insists on the identification of “deification” and “participation,” i.e. deification is the participation of the Son in the Father’s divinity or of the νóες in the Son’s divinity. In book XXXII of his CIo, particularly within his exegesis of Jn. 13:31–32, Origen harks back to the question and he associates “deification” with “glorification.”14 The theological context is the feet-washing, which allegorically means the Son’s kenosis,15 and the departure of Judas from the Last Supper, which does not mean the separation of light and darkness,16 but the enlightment of the darkness. Origen’s exegesis of Jn. 13:31–32, whose centre is the identification of “deification” and “glorification,” is divided into three main parts: 1) a syntactical analysis of Jn. 13:31–32; 2) the identification of δοξάζεσθαι and θεοποιεῖσθαι; and 3) different kinds of glorification. Syntactical analysis of Jn. 13:31–32: the hypothetical syllogism First of all, Origen syntactically analyzes Jn. 13:31–32 (“Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify

θεοποιεῖσθαι and δοξάζεσθαι

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the Son in himself, and will glorify him at one”). The period is composed of four sentences: i ii iii iv

“Now the Son of Man is glorified”; “God is glorified in him”; “If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself ”; “And he will glorify him at one.”

After bringing the fourth sentence (iv “And he will glorify him at one”) into the apodosis of the third sentence, Origen suggests to the reader that this is properly a conditional period, and particularly it appears to be a hypothetical syllogism.17 In fact, the sentences i (“Now the Son of Man is glorified”) and ii (“God is glorified in him”) are the protasis, whereas the sentence iii (“if God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself  ”) is the apodosis.18 In fact, Origen explains Jn. 13:31–32 in exactly the same syntactical way in book II of his CIo as he explains Jn. 1:1–2 (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning”). In fact, he divides the entire period into four sentences: i ii iii iv

“In the beginning was the Word”; “The Word was with God”; “The Word was God”; “He was with God in the beginning.”

Origen again reconstructs Jn. 1:1–2 as a conditional period, particularly a hypothetical syllogism, whose protasis is composed by the sentences i (“In the beginning was the Word”), ii (“The Word was with God”) and iii (“The Word was God”), and the apodosis corresponds to sentence iv (“He was with God in the beginning”). On the basis of Origen’s syntactical analysis of Jn. 13:31–32, two main conclusions may be argued: first, the logical reconstruction of Jn. 13:31–32 is exactly the same as the reconstruction of Jn. 1:1–2 and it shows that the period is properly a conditional period, so that both Jn. 13:31–32 and Jn. 1:1–2 are syntactically interpreted according to a logic of implication, ἀκολουθία;19 second, the fact that Origen interprets not only Jn. 13:31–32, but also Jn. 1:1–2 according to the logic of ἀκολουθία reminds the reader of his dependence on Aristotelian-Stoic logic.20

Identification of δοξάζεσθαι and θεοποιεῖσθαι After syntactically examining Jn. 13:31–32, Origen states that it is impossible to understand its meaning without understanding the meaning of the term δόξα, whose passive form verb, δοξάζεσθαι, occurs many times in the passage.21 He immediately advises the reader that the meaning of δόξα is different from how philosophers use it.22 He does not define the term, however, but lists a collation of ancient and new testamentary quotations, which he employs according to a literary disposition. The first quotation is Ex. 40:34–35,23 where Moses cannot enter the Curtain of the Testimony because the glory of JHWH overfills it; the second

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quotation is 3 Kgs. (= 1 Kgs.) 8:10–11,24 where the priests cannot enter the Temple because the glory of JHWH fills it completely; the third quotation is Ex. 34:29–30,25 where Moses’s face was glorified and radiant after speaking with the Lord; the fourth quotation is Lk. 9:29–31,26 i.e. the Transfiguration, where Jesus Christ’s face was glorified and radiant upon the mountain; finally, the fifth quotation is Paul’s 2 Cor. 3:18,27 which is entirely focused on the topic of the glorification of people’s faces in contemplation of God himself. Except for Ex. 40:34–35 and 3 Kgs. 8:10–11, the other quotations not only use the term δόξα and its compounds, but also include an important term, πρόσωπον. In fact, in Ex. 34:29–30 the ὄψις τοῦ χρωτὸς τοῦ προσώπου, i.e. the face of Moses, is glorified by the contemplation of the Lord; in Lk. 9:29–31 the ἰδέα τοῦ προσώπου τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, i.e. his face, is glorified by the light of the Father and his clothes become radiant;28 finally, in 2 Cor. 3:18, Paul declares that we are transformed in the image of God when we reflect his glory προσώπῳ, on our faces. On the basis of this collation of biblical quotations, Origen not only associates the term δόξα and its verbal form δοξάζεσθαι with the term πρόσωπον, i.e. face, but he also states that it is impossible to understand the meaning of δόξα/ δοξάζεσθαι without understanding the meaning of πρόσωπον.29 In his Homilies on Ezekiel, which Nautin – following Eusebius’s Historia ecclesiastica 6, 36, 2 – dates some years after the redaction of the CIo,30 Origen comments on 2 Cor. 3:18 and explains that the term πρόσωπον, i.e. facies in the Latin translation by Jerome, allegorically denotes the principale cordis nostri, which in the CIo he usually calls τὸ ἡγεμονικóν, the prevalent part of our soul,31 or the νοῦς, intellect. The premises of Origen’s exegesis of Jn. 13:31–32 are clearly three: 1) according to his exegesis of Jn. 1:1–2, deification, θεοποιεῖσθαι, properly is participation, μετοχή, in the divinity – of the Son in the Father’s divinity or of the νóες in the Son’s divinity;32 2) on the basis of the collation of ancient and new testamentary quotations, the term δόξα/δοξάζεσθαι is generally associated with the term πρόσωπον, so the meaning of δόξα/δοξάζεσθαι depends also on the meaning of πρόσωπον; 3) according to what Origen says in his Homilies on Ezekiel, the term πρόσωπον allegorically means the “intellect.” Furthermore, Origen argues that the glorification of the face, i.e. the δοξάζεσθαι of the πρόσωπον, is the deification of the intellect, i.e. the θεοποιεῖσθαι of the νοῦς, or the act through which the intellect is deified by its participation, μετοχή, in the divinity. In his exegesis of Jn. 1:1–2, Origen identifies θεοποιεῖσθαι and μετοχή, particularly claiming that “deification” is nothing other than “participation” in God’s divinity. Further, in his exegesis of Jn. 13:31–32, he says that, if the glorification of the face is the act through which the intellect participates in the divinity, then glorification is participation in the divinity, i.e. glorification is properly deification. In Origen’s exegesis of Jn. 1:1–2, he identifies θεοποιεῖσθαι and μετοχή, whereas in his exegesis of Jn. 13:31–32 he finally identifies δοξάζεσθαι and θεοποιεῖσθαι.

Different kinds of glorification On the basis of this theological structure, Origen explains not only the glorification which occurs in the quotations he mentions, but also the glorification of the Son of Man, which is the focus of Jn. 13:31–32. In fact, as the glorification of Jesus’

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face upon the mountain in Lk. 9:29–31 is the full participation of Christ in his Father’s divinity, and as the glorification of Moses’ face on Sinai means his participation in God’s divinity, and as the glorification of our faces – Paul’s statement in 2 Cor. 3:18 – is our contemplation of the Lord and participation in his light, so the glorification of the Son of Man33 in Jn. 13:31–32 means the Son-Logos’ entire participation in the Father’s divinity, i.e. μετοχή, and his definitive deification, i.e. θεοποιεῖσθαι. Moreover, if glorification is participation in the divinity, which is absolutely incorporeal, then the act of glorification is certainly an intellectualcontemplative act.34 Origen then distinguishes three main kinds of glorification of the Son. First, the glorification of the Son is grounded on the contemplation of the Father, so the Son endlessly participates in God’s divinity only through the contemplation of the Father.35 Second, the glorification of the Son is also grounded on the contemplation of himself and participation in his own divinity: actually, the Son can participate in his own divinty only because he originally participates in the God-Father’s divinity. It is clear that the second kind of glorification of the Son is grounded on the first one.36 Finally, the glorification of the Son is grounded on the contemplation of the intellectual world of the νóες, which are properly the Son-Logos himself: actually, the third kind of glorification of the Son of Man results from being grounded on the second one.37 The incipit of John’s passage – “Now the Son of Man is glorified” – is explained. This raises a further quaestio, however. The text says: “God is glorified in him” – Origen concentrates the reader’s attention on the passive form, “God is glorified in him.” If in the context of the Son of Man’s glorification, the God-Father is the cause of the πηγή, the source of glorification and deification, it seems hard to understand how God may be glorified. The difficulty of the quaestio is expressed in interrogative language (ζητῶ δὲ εἰ….) and through Origen’s insistence on the impossibility for our words to speak about this topic.38 If deification, i.e. the θεοποιεῖσθαι, is participation in the divinity, i.e. the μετοχή, as the exegesis of Jn. 1:1–2 shows, and if glorification, i.e. the δοξάζεσθαι, is the contemplative act through which a subject participates in the divinity, as the exegesis of Jn. 13:31–32 shows, particularly in the interpretation of the glorification of the Son of Man, then the glorification of God himself is nothing other than the intellectual act throught which the Father contemplates himself and, through this self-contemplation, endlessly participates in his own divinity. Furthermore, the glorification of the GodFather produces the act through which God contemplates himself and, within this contemplation, perpetually participates in his own divinity.39

Conclusion In his exegesis of Jn. 1:1–2 Origen clearly identifies “deification,” i.e. θεοποιεῖσθαι, and “participation” in the divinity, i.e. μετοχή, so the deification of the Son-Logos results from participation in his Father’s divinity, whereas the deification of the νóες results from participation in the Son’s divinity. In his exegesis of Jn. 13:31–32 Origen connects “deification” with “glorification,” i.e. δοξάζεσθαι: in fact, if glorification is the act through which a subject – e.g. Jesus Christ in the episode of the Transfiguration, Moses at Sinai – participates in the divinity and if participation in

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the divinity is deification, as the exegesis of Jn. 1:1–2 shows, then glorification itself is properly deification.

Notes 1 E.g. HIer 5, 2: οὐδένα γὰρ θεὸν ἡμεῖς ὁμολογοῦμεν, οὐ τὴν κοιλίαν ὡς οἱ γαστρίμαργοι, ὧν ὁ θεóς ἡ κοιλία (Phil. 3:19) ˙ οὐ τὸ ἀργύριον ὡς οἱ φιλάργυροι, καὶ τὴν πλεονεξίαν, ἥτις ἐστὶν εἰδωλολατρία (Col. 3:5), οὐδὲ ἄλλο τι ἐκθεοῦμεν καὶ θεοποιοῦμεν, ὧν οἱ πολλοὶ θεοποιοῦσι (SCh 232: 286) – here Origen criticizes those who consider the silvery idols to be gods. See also: CMt 17,12: ἐμπτύει δὲ καὶ εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον (Deut. 25:9) τοῦ τοιούτου ἡ γυνὴ καὶ ὀνειδίζει ὡς ἀνθρώπῳ αὐτῷ, καὶ οὐ βουληθέντι θεοποιηθῆναι ἐκ τοῦ καρποφορῆσαι (GCS 40: 685, 36 – 686, 3). The “deification” of the “god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4) also results in a sort of idolatry; about this see: CMt 11, 14: ὡς μὴ πιστεύοντες τῇ ἀληθείᾳ ἀλλὰ εὐδοκοῦντες τῇ ἀδικίᾳ (2 Th. 2:12) ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοποιηθέντος ἀπὸ τῶν υἱῶν τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου καὶ διὰ τοῦτο λεγομένου παρὰ τῷ Παύλῳ θεοῦ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου (2 Cor. 4:4) (GCS 40: 55, 33–56, 2). 2 About this see: CIo 13,13,81: ἀλλ̓ ἐπεὶ ̓Ιουδαῖοι μὲν . . . εἰκόνες εἰσὶν τῶν τοὺς ὑγιαίνοντας φρονούντων λόγους, Σαμαρεῖς δὲ τῶν ἑτεροδόξων, ἀκολούθως τὸ μὲν Γαριζεὶν θεοποιοῦσιν οἱ Σαμαρεῖς (SCh 222: 72). 3 The critical edition followed is that in the Sources Chrétiennes (hereinafter CIo), followed by references to the book and page numbers in the Sources Chrétiennes (hereinafter SCh). Unless otherwise noted, the translations from the Greek are ours. 4 CIo 2, 2, 17–18 (SCh 120: 216–218). 5 CIo 32, 25, 318–29, 367 (SCh 385: 324–344). For a very interesting work on Origen’s treatments of “deification” and “glorification” in the exegetical context of Jn. 13:31–32, particularly with respect to the “glorification of the Son of Man,” see Prinzivalli (2006). 6 CIo 2, 9, 64–67 (SCh 120: 244–246). 7 CIo 2, 2, 16: καὶ τὸ πολλοὺς φιλοθέους εἶναι εὐχομένους ταράσσον, εὐλαβουμένους δύο ἀναγορεῦσαι θεοὺς καὶ παρὰ τοῦτο περιπίπτοντας ψευδέσι καὶ ἀσεβέσι δόγμασι, ἤτοι ἀρνουμένους ἰδιότητα υἱοῦ ἑτέραν παρὰ τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς ὁμολογοῦντας θεὸν εἶναι τὸν μέχρι ὀνόματος παρʼαὐτοῖς υἱὸν προσαγορευόμενον, ἢ ἀρνουμένους τὴν θεότητα τοῦ υἱοῦ τιθέντας δὲ αὐτοῦ τὴν ἰδιότητα καὶ τὴν οὐσίαν κατὰ περιγραφὴν τυγχάνουσαν ἑτέραν τοῦ πατρός, ἐντεῦθεν λύεσθαι δύναται (SCh 120: 216). About the meaning of the πολλοί in Origen’s works, see in particular Lebreton (1919, 1922); Carpenter (1963); Monaci Castagno (1981). 8 Origen mentions this quotation in CIo 2, 2, 17 (SCh 120: 218). 9 With regard to the importance of the Platonic concept of “participation” in Origen’s theological and philosophical system, see Cadiou (1944: esp. 329); Corsini (1968: 41); Moreno-Martinez (1972). See also Rius-Camps (1970, 1968–1972). 10 At first, the Son-Logos’ participation in the Father’s divinity appears to be the same as the νóες’ participation in the Son-Logos’ divinity. Actually, the difference consists in the fact that the soul of the Son continously participates in the Father’s divinity, whereas the individual souls may interrupt their participation and fall down. See: prin 2, 6, 3: verum cum pro liberi arbitrii facultate varietas unumquemque ac diversitas habuisset animorum, ut alius ardentiore, alius tenuiore et exiliore erga auctorem suum amore teneretur, illa anima, de qua dixit Iesus quia nemo aufert a me animam meam (Jn. 10:18), ab initio creaturae et deinceps inseparabiliter ei atque indissociabiliter inhaerens, utpote sapientiae et verbo dei et veritati ac luci verae, et tota totum recipiens atque in eius lucem splendoremque ipsa cedens, facta est cum ipso principaliter unus spiritus, sicut et apostolus his, qui eam imitari deberent, promittit, quia qui se iungit domino, unus spiritus est (1 Cor. 6:17) (SCh 252: 314). Among the many essays, see in particular Harl (1958).

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11 CIo 2, 2, 18: ἀληθινὸς οὖν θεóς ὁ θεός, οἱ δὲ κατʼἐκεῖνον μορφούμενοι θεοὶ ὡς εἰκόνες πρωτοτύπου˙ ἀλλὰ πάλιν τῶν πλειόνων εἰκόνων ἡ ἀρχέτυπος εἰκών ὁ πρὸς τὸν θεόν ἐστι λόγος, ὃς ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν, τῷ εἶναι πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ἀεὶ μένων θεός (Jn. 1:1.2), οὐκ ἄν δ᾽αὐτὸ ἐσχηκὼς εἰ μὴ πρὸς θεὸν ἦν, καὶ οὐκ ἄν μείνας θεός, εἰ μὴ παρέμενε τῇ ἀδιαλείπτῳ θεᾷ τοῦ πατρικοῦ βάθους (SCh 120: 218). 12 A very good work about this topic is Balas (1975). Balas insists on the dependence of Origen’s concept of μετοχή on the Platonic and Middle-Platonic traditions. 13 About the entire passage, see Aletti (1973). 14 About this, see Prinzivalli (2006: 138–142). 15 Concerning the idea that the feet-washing means the kenosis of the Logos, see Simonetti (2004 and 2006). About the allegorical meaning of Judas in Origen’s exegesis of Jn. 13:31–32, see Laüchli (1953); Lettieri (2006). 16 The ἀρχὴ τοῦ δεδοξάσθαι corresponds to the departure of Judas from the last supper. See CIo 32, 25, 318: ἀρχὴ τοῦ δεδοξάσθαι τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου μετὰ τὰς ἐπὶ τοῖς σημείοις καὶ τέρασι δόξας καὶ τὴν ἐπὶ τῇ μεταμορφώσει τὸ ἐξεληλυθέναι τὸν Ἰούδα μετὰ τοῦ εἰσελθόντος εἰς αὐτὸν Σατανᾶ ἀπὸ τοῦ τόπου, ἔνθα ἦν ὁ Ἰησοῦς (SCh 385: 324). Some passages before, commenting on Jn. 13:30 (“And it was night”), Origen appears to explain that the Judas’ departure from the supper allegorically means the definitive separation of light and darkness; see CIo 32, 24, 313–317 (SCh 385: 320– 324). Actually, in the exegesis of Jn. 1:5 in book II (“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it”), Origen explicitly focuses on the relation between the light and the darkness and says that the darkness is enlightened by the light. See CIo 2, 27, 170: διχῶς δὲ ἡ σκοτία τὸ φῶς οὐ κατείληφεν, ἢ σφόδρα αὐτοῦ ἀπολειπομένη καὶ διὰ τὴν ἰδίαν βραδυτῆτα τῇ ὀξύτητι τοῦ δρόμου τοῦ φωτὸς οὐδὲ κατὰ τὸ ποσὸν παρακολουθῆσαι δυναμένη, ἢ εἴ που ἐνεδρεῦσαι βεβούληται τὸ φῶς τὴν σκοτίαν καὶ κατ’οἰκονομίαν παρέμεινεν ἐπερχομένην αὐτήν, ἐγγίσασα ἡ σκοτία τοῦ φωτὸς ἠφανίζετο. Πλὴν ἑκατέρως ἡ σκοτία οὐ κατέλαβε τὸ φῶς (SCh 120: 322). According to what Origen says in book II about the relation between the light and the darkness, it is likely that Judas’ departure from the supper, which is associated with Jn. 13:30 (“And it was night”), symbolically means the enlightment of the darkness. About this, see also prin 1, 1, 1 (SCh 252: 90). 17 On Origen’s foundation of Trinitarian theology on logical grounds, see McDonnell (1994). 18 CIo 32, 26, 329–330: ὑπὲρ δὲ τῆς τῶν ῥητῶν σαφηνείας ἐπιμελῶς προσχῶμεν πρώτῳ μὲν λεγομένῳ τῷ νῦν ἐδοξάσθη ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ˙ δευτέρῳ δὲ τῷ καὶ ὁ θεóς ἐδοξάσθη ἐν αὐτῷ˙ τρίτῳ δὲ τοιούτῳ συνημμένῳ εἰ ὁ θεóς ἐδοξάσθη ἐν αὐτῷ, καὶ ὁ θεóς δοξάσει αὐτὸν ἐν αὐτῷ ˙ τετάρτῳ δὲ τῷ καὶ εὐθὺς δοξάσει αὐτόν. Ἐὰν μὴ ἄρα τοῦτο φάσκη τις ἀναλαβεῖν εἰς συμπλοκὴν τὴν ἐν τῷ λήγοντι τοῦ συνημμένου, ἵνα ἄρχηται μὲν τὸ συνημμένον ἀπὸ τοῦ ὁ θεóς ἐδοξάσθη ἐν αὐτῷ, λήγῃ δὲ εἰς τὸ καὶ ὁ θεóς δοξάσει αὐτὸν ἐν αὐτῷ, καὶ εὐθὺς δοξάσει αὐτὸν (SCh 385: 328). 19 Every time Origen uses the term ἀκολουθία in his CIo, he refers to a logic of implication, particularly a logical derivation of a consequent from an antecedent. See CIo 4, 2, 1 (SCh 120: 368); CIo 6, 28, 147 (SCh 157: 242); CIo 10, 26, 161 (SCh 157: 482); CIo 13, 17, 102 (SCh 222: 84–86); CIo 32, 2, 11 (SCh 385: 190). Origen very frequently uses the term ἀκολουθεῖ at the beginning of a period, in order to mean that what is expressed by the period follows what is expressed by the previous period. 20 On Origen’s logic generally, see Chadwick (1947); Roberts (1970); Rist (1981); Heine (1993); Perrone (2005); Somos (2013). Almost all the scholars insist on Origen’s dependence on Stoic logic, particularly his use of the logic of ἀκολουθία, i.e. implication. The logic of ἀκολουθία may be found also in Clement of Alexandria, so we may suppose that Origen derives this kind of logic not only from Stoic philosophy, but also from Clement. About this, see Rizzerio (1987). 21 For this topic, in general, see McCree (2004).

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22 CIo 32, 26, 330: ἀναγκαίως δὲ προσχῶμεν τῷ τῆς δόξης ὀνόματι, οὐ κειμένῳ ἐπὶ τοῦ παρά τισι τῶν Ἑλλήνων μέσου πράγματος, καθ’ὃ ὁρίζονται εἶναι δόξαν τὸν ἀπὸ τῶν πολλῶν ἔπαινον (SCh 385: 328). 23 Ex. 40:34–35: “Then the cloud covered the Curtain of the Testimony, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Curtain of the Testimony because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” 24 3 Kgs. (= 1 Kgs.) 8:10–11: “When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple.” 25 Ex. 34:29–30: “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him.” 26 Lk. 9:29–31: “As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus.” 27 2 Cor. 3:18: “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with everincreasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” 28 Origen notes that in Ex. 34:29–30 only Moses’ face is glorified after the revelation of the law, whereas in the context of Lk. 29:31 (= Mk. 9:4; Mt. 17:3) Moses is completely glorified anew. According to Origen’s interpretation, this denotes that the meaning of the law and the prophets come to light in the encounter with the Son-Logos. About this, see HEx 12,3: illud quoque intuere quale sit, quod in lege vultus quidem Moysi glorificatus refertur, licet velamine contegatur; manus autem eius intra sinum missa leprosa facta memoratur sicut nix (Ex. 4:6). In quo mihi videtur forma totius legis plenissime designari; in vultu enim eius sermo legis, in manu opera designantur. Quia ergo ex operibus legis nullus erat iustificandus (Rm. 3:20) nec aliquem ad perfectum (Heb. 7:19) adducere poterat lex, idcirco manus Moysis leprosa fit et in sinum reconditur tamquam nihil perfecti operis habitura; facies vero eius glorificata est, sed velamine tegitur, quia sermo eius habet scientiae gloriam, sed occultam. Unde et propheta dicit: Nisi audieritis occulte, plorabit anima vestra (Jer. 13:17), et David dicit: incerta et occulta sapientiae tuae manifestasti mihi (Ps. 50:8). In lege ergo Moyses solam faciem habet glorificatam, neque manus eius habent gloriam, immo potius et contumeliam; sed neque pedes. Denique solvere iubetur calciamentum suum, sic nulla erat gloria in pedibus eius; licet et hoc fieret non sine alicuius forma misterii; novissima namque pars hominis pedes sunt. Ostendebatur ergo quod in novissimis temporibus solveret Moyses calciamentum suum, ut alius acciperet sponsam, et illa vocaretur domus discalciati (Deut. 25:10) usque in hodiernum diem (see 2 Cor. 3:15) (SCh 321: 360). 29 About this, in general, see Crouzel (1956). 30 See Nautin (1977: 249, 382). 31 See HEz 3, 1: haec pauca de facie, ut possimus intelligere quid sit quod sequitur: obfirma faciem tuam super filias populi tui (Ez. 13,17). Ista facies, id est principale cordis nostri, nisi obfirmata fuerit super eo quod intelligendum est, ut, quomodo videt, sic adnuntiet audientibus, illud quod adspicitur non videtur (SCh 352: 126). 32 In this case, sometimes Origen seems to define the δόξα as a Christ’s ἐπίνοια; see, e.g., CCels 2,64 (SCh 132: 434). See also CCels 6,68: ἀναβιβάσασς ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ τὸ λογικὸν ὑψηλὸν ὄρον ἔδειξεν ἡμῖν τὴν ἔνδοξον μορφὴν ἑαυτοῦ καὶ τὴν λαμπρότητα τῶν ἐνδυμάτων αὐτοῦ καὶ οὐχ ἑαυτοῦ γε μόνου ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῦ πνευματικοῦ γε νόμου, ὅς ἐστιν ἐν δόξῃ ὀφθεὶς μετὰ Ἰησοῦ Μωυσῆς (SCh 157: 348–350). On this topic, see Crouzel (1980); Wolinski (1987); Pasquier (2003). 33 About the general meaning of the Son of Man in Origen, see Williams (1985); Le Boulluec (1987).

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34 See in particular Crouzel (1961: 47–86); Bruns (2013: 275–277). 35 CIo 32, 28, 345: γινώσκων οὖν τὸν πατέρα ὁ υἱὸς, αὐτῷ τῷ γινώσκειν αὐτóν, ὄντι μεγίστῳ ἀγαθῷ καὶ ὁποῖον ἄγοι ἐπὶ τελείαν γνῶσιν, ἣν γινώσκει ὁ υἱὸς τὸν πατέρα, ἐδοξάσθη (SCh 385: 334–336). 36 CIo 32, 28, 346: οἶμαι δ’ὅτι καὶ ἑαυτὸν γινώσκων, ὅπερ καὶ αὐτὸ οὐ μακρὰν ἀποδεῖ τοῦ προτέρου, ἐδοξάσθη ἐκ τοῦ αὐτὸν ἐγνωκέναι (SCh 385: 336). 37 See CIo 32, 28, 347 (SCh 385: 336). 38 CIo 32, 28, 349: καθ’ὃ καὶ τολμηρὸν μὲν καὶ μεῖζον ἢ καθ’ἡμᾶς ἐστὶν τὸ εἰς ἐξέτασιν ἑαυτοὺς ἐπιδοῦναι τηλικούτου λόγου˙ ὅμως δὲ τολμητέον ὑποβάλλειν τὸν ἐν τῷ τόπῳ ζητηθῆναι δυνάμενον (SCh 385: 336); CIo 32, 28, 351: χρῶμαι δὲ τούτοις τοῖς ὀνόμασιν, οὐχ ὡς κυρίως ἄν λεχθησομένοις ἐπὶ θεοῦ, ἀλλὰ ἀπορῶν τῶν, ἵν’οὔτως ὀνομάσω, ἀρρήτων ῥημάτων, ἅ μóνος αὐτὸς δύναται, καὶ μετ’αὐτὸν ὁ μονογενὴς αὐτοῦ ἐν κυριολεξίᾳ λέγειν ἢ φρονεῖν περὶ αὐτοῦ (SCh 385: 338). 39 See CIo 32, 28, 350: ζητῶ δὲ εἰ ἔνεστιν δοξασθῆναι τὸν θεὸν παρὰ τὸ δοξάζεσθαι ἐν υἱῷ, ὡς ἀποδεδώκαμεν, μειζόνως αὐτὸν ἐν ἑαυτῷ δοξαζόμενον, ὅτε ἐν τῇ ἑαυτοῦ γινόμενος περιωπῇ, ἐπὶ τῇ ἑαυτοῦ γνώσει καὶ τῇ ἑαυτοῦ θεωρίᾳ, οὔσῃ μείζονι ἐν υἱῷ θεωρίας, ὡς ἐπὶ θεοῦ χρὴ νοεῖν τὰ τοιαῦτα, δεῖν λέγειν ὅτι εὐφραίνεται ἄφατόν τινα εὐαρέστησιν καὶ εὐφροσύνην καὶ χαράν, ἐφ’ἑαυτῷ εὐαρεστούμενος καὶ χαίρων (SCh 385: 336–338).

Bibliography Sources and translations CCels = Origène, Contre Celse. I–V, ed. Marcel Borret, Sources Chrétiennes 132, 136, 147, 150, 227, Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1967–1976. CIo = Origène, Commentaire sur Saint Jean. I–V, ed. Cécile Blanc, Sources Chrétiennes 120, 157, 222, 290, 385, Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1966–1992. CMt = Origenes, Commentarius in Matthaeum, Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte 40 (Orig. Werke, X), eds. Erich Klostermann, Ernst Benz, Leipzig: Akademie Verlag, 1935. HEx = Origène, Homélies sur l’Exode, Sources chrétiennes 321, ed. Marcel Borret, Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1985. HEz = Origène, Homélies sur Ézéchiel, Sources chrétiennes 352, ed. Marcel Borret Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1989. HIer = Origène Homélies sur Jérémie. I–II, Sources chrétiennes 232, 238 ed. Pierre Nautin, Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1976–1977. Prin = Origène, Traité des Principes. I–V, Sources chrétiennes 252, 253, 268, 269, 312, eds. Henri Crouzel, Manlio Simonetti, Paris: Éditions du Cerf, Paris 1978–1984.

Studies Aletti 1973 = Jean-Noel Aletti, “D’une écriture à l’autre: Analyse structurale d’un passage d’Origène. Commentaire sur Jean, livre II, 13–21,” Recherches de science religieuse 61 (1973), pp. 27–47. Balas 1975 = David L. Balas, “The Idea of Participation in the Structure of Origen’s Thought: Christian Transposition of a Theme of the Platonic Tradition,” in: Henri Crouzel, Gennaro Lomiento, Joseph Rius-Camps (eds.), Origeniana: Premier colloque international des études origéniennes (Montserrat, 18–21 sept. 1973), Bari: Istituto di Letteratura Cristiana Antica dell’Università di Bari, 1975, pp. 257–275.

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Bruns 2013 = Christoph Bruns, Trinität und Kosmos: Zur Gotteslehre des Origenes, Münster: Aschendorff, 2013. Cadiou 1944 = René Cadiou, Origen: His Life in Alexandria, St Louis, MO: Herder, 1944. Carpenter 1963 = H.J. Carpenter, “Popular Christianity and the Theologians in the Early Centuries,” Journal of Theological Studies 14 (1963), pp. 294–310. Chadwick 1947 = Henry Chadwick, “Origen, Celsus and the Stoa,” Journal of Theological Studies 48 (1947), pp. 34–49. Corsini 1968 = Origene, Commento al Vangelo di Giovanni di Origene, a cura di Eugenio Corsini, Torino: Utet, 1968. Crouzel 1956 = Henri Crouzel, Théologie de l’image de Dieu chez Origène, Paris: Aubier, 1956. Crouzel 1961 = Henri Crouzel, Origène et la ‘connaissance mystique’, Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1961. Crouzel 1980 = Henri Crouzel, “Le contenu spirituel des dénominations du Christ selon le Livre I du ‘Commentaire sur Jean’ d’Origène,” in: Henri Crouzel, A. Quacquarelli (eds.), Origeniana secunda: Second colloque international des études origéniennes, Bari, 20–23 sept. 1977, Roma: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1980, pp. 131–150. Harl 1958 = Marguerite Harl, Origène et la fonction révélatrice du Verbe incarné, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1958. Heine 1993 = Ronald E. Heine, “Stoic Logic as Handmaid to Exegesis and Theology in Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John,” Journal of Theological Studies 44/1 (1993), pp. 90–117. Laüchli 1953 = S. Laüchli, “Origen’s Interpretation of Judas Iscariot,” Church History 22/4 (1953), pp. 253–268. Le Boulluec 1987 = Alain Le Boulluec, “Controverses au sujet de la doctrine d’Origène sur l’âme du Christ,” in: Lothar Lies (ed.), Origeniana quarta: Die Referate des 4. Internationalen Origenskongresses (Innsbruck, 2nd.–6th. Sept. 1985), Innsbruck/Wien: TyroliaVerlag, 1987, pp. 223–237. Lebreton 1919 = Jules Lebreton, “Le désaccord de la foi populaire et de la theologie savante dans l’Église chrétienne du IIIe sciècle,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 19 (1919), pp. 481–506; 20 (1920), pp. 5–37. Lebreton 1922 = Jules Lebreton, “Les degrés de la connaissance religieuse d’après Origène,” Revue des sciences religieuses 12 (1922), pp. 265–296. Lettieri 2006 = Gaetano Lettieri, “Origene, Agostino e il mistero di Giuda: Due esegesi di Giovanni 13 in conflitto,” in: Mario Maritano and Enrico dal Covolo (eds.), Commento a Giovanni: Lettura origeniana, Roma: LAS, 2006, pp. 85–111. McCree 2004 = J. Woodrow McCree, “Glory,” in: J.A. McGuckin (ed.), The Westminster Handbook to Origen, Westminster: J. Knox Press, 2004, pp. 101–103. McDonnell 1994 = Kilian McDonnell, “Does Origen Have a Trinitarian Doctrine of the Holy Spirit?,” Gregorianum 75/1 (1994), pp. 5–35. Monaci Castagno 1981 = Adele Monaci Castagno, “Origene e i ‘molti’: Due religiosità a contrasto,” Augustinianum 21/1 (1981), pp. 99–117. Moreno-Martinez 1972 = J.L. Moreno-Martinez, Estructura de participación según Orígenes: estudio literario de la palabra μετοχή y sus derivadas en el ‘Commentarium in Johannem’, Pamplona: Eunate, 1972. Nautin 1977 = Pierre Nautin, Origène: Sa vie et son oeuvre, Paris: Beauchesne, 1977. Pasquier 2003 = A. Pasquier, “La doctrine des dénominations de Dieu dans le Valentinisme: comparison avec Origène,” in L. Perrone (ed.), Origeniana octava. Papers of the

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8th International Origen Congress, Pisa, 27–31 Aug. 2001, vol. 1, Peeters: Leuven 2003, pp. 335–366. Perrone 2005 = L. Perrone, “Il profilo letterario del ‘Commento a Giovanni’: Operazione esegetica e costruzione del testo,” in: Emanuela Prinzivalli (ed.), Il Commento a Giovanni di Origene: il testo e i suoi contesti. Atti dell’VII Convegno di Studi del Gruppo Italiano di Ricerca su Origene e la Tradizione Alessandrina (Roma, 28–30 sett. 2004), Villa Verucchio (Rimini): Pazzini, 2005, pp. 43–82. Prinzivalli 2006 = Emanuela Prinzivalli, “Discorsi della cena: la glorificazione del Figlio dell’uomo (CIo 32, 318–400),” in: Mario Maritano and Enrico dal Covolo (eds.), Commento a Giovanni: Lettura origeniana, Roma: LAS, 2006, pp. 135–156. Rist 1981 = John M. Rist, “The Importance of Stoic Logic in the ‘Contra Celsum’,” in: A.H. Armstrong, H.J. Blumenthal and R.A. Markus (eds.), Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought: Essays in Honour of A. H. Armstrong, London: Variorum, 1981, pp. 64–78. Rius-Camps 1968–1972 = J. Rius-Camps, “Comunicabilidad de la naturaleza de Dios según Orígenes,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 34 (1968), pp. 5–37; 36 (1970), pp. 201–247; 38 (1972), pp. 430–453. Rius-Camps 1970 = J. Rius-Camps, El dinamismo trinitario en la divinización de los seres racionales según Orígenes, Roma: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 1970. Rizzerio 1987 = L. Rizzerio, “La nozione di ‘akolouthía’ come logica della verità in Clemente di Alessandria,” Rivista di Filosofia Neoscolastica 79/2 (1987), pp. 175–195. Roberts 1970 = L. Roberts, “Origen and Stoic Logic,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 101 (1970), pp. 433–444. Simonetti 2004 = Manlio Simonetti, “La lavanda dei piedi,” in: id., Origene esegeta e la sua tradizione, Morcelliana: Brescia, 2004, pp. 191–201. Simonetti 2006 = Manlio Simonetti, “La lavanda dei piedi (CIo 32, 5–55),” in: M. Maritano and E. dal Covolo (eds.), Commento a Giovanni: Lettura origeniana, Roma: LAS, 2006, pp. 13–21. Somos 2013 = Robert Somos, “Is the Handmaid Stoic or Middle-Platonic? Some Comments on Origen’s Use of Logic,” in: Markus Vinzent (ed.), Studia Patristica LVI: Papers Presented at the Sixteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford 2011, Leuven: Peeters, 2013, pp. 29–40. Williams 1985 = Rowan Williams, “Origen on the Soul of Jesus,” in: R.P.C. Hanson, H. Crouzel (eds.), Origeniana tertia. The Third International Colloquium for Origen Studies, University of Manchester, 7th–11th Sept. 1981, Roma: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1985, pp. 131–137. Wolinski 1987 = J. Wolinski, “Le recours aux ἘPINOIAI du Christ dans le ‘Commentaire sur Jean’ d’Origène,” in L. Lies (ed.), Origeniana quarta. Die Referate des 4. Internationalen Origenskongresses (Innsbruck, 2nd.–6th. Sept. 1985), Innsbruck/Wien: TyroliaVerlag, 1987, pp. 465–492.

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“You can become all flame” Deification in early Egyptian monasticism Daniel Lemeni

This paper explores the theme of deification as it appears in the early ascetic tradition. More specifically, we will attempt to establish a relationship between the Desert Fathers and the doctrine of the Nicene Creed. On our reading, this doctrine played an important role in early Egyptian monasticism. As we will see, the ascetic body, and particularly the face, was an external manifestation of the spiritual life of the monk, a visible proof of his holy life. In the Apophthegmata Patrum, the face of the monk appears to be “full of light,” and shining like stars. No doubt, the glowing visage of the monk is a sign of spiritual growth, a “symbol” of personal holiness. Radiance and light were typically thought to be features of holy bodies for ascetics. In short, ascetic physiognomy was considered a sign of the brilliant monastic vocation, and the true sign of deification was written on the face of the monk. This paper is divided into two sections: in the first part, we shall highlight that the deification of desert monks is seen as a transformation of the flesh, so that the radiant face of the monk could have been read as evidence of his holiness. In the second, we shall focus on the Desert Fathers as “icons” of deification. In this sense, they were the embodiment of Athanasius’s theology because their life offered a concise statement of the doctrine of the Nicene Creed that underlay Athanasius’s theology. Therefore, desert monasticism represents a lived territory of holiness or deification. On our reading, the Desert Fathers not only articulated Athanasius’s theology of deification, but they became a normative model for it.

“Shining face and white body”: holy flesh in desert monasticism It is crucial for the comprehension of deification to understand that it has two elements: God and the World. Generally, the world is associated with the passions, and withdrawal into the desert, so prominent in early Egyptian monasticism, is connected with the spiritual life. The flesh contains passions that are to be purified, so that ascetic life engages the monk in the struggle for virtue and the control of the passions. The essence of this teaching is encapsulated in the words of Abba Arsenius: “A brother asked Abba Arsenius if he could hear a saying from him. The elder said to him: ‘As much as you are able, strive so that what goes on inside you be godly and you conquer your external passions.’”1

Early Egyptian Monasticism 17 Without asceticism, there is no spiritual life, and no spiritual progress because only through asceticism can the heart be cleansed of the passions (apatheia). Evagrius Ponticus defines this practice quite exactly: “The ascetic life is the spiritual method of cleansing the passionate part of the soul.”2 The world contains precisely the values that the desert hermits wanted to escape, so that holiness is achieved through “despising the flesh.” To give only one example: “Hate the world and all that is in it. Hate all physical repose. Renounce this life so you may live for God. . . . Despise the flesh in order to save your souls.”3 Therefore, the Desert Fathers understood the body to be the ascetic environment for the training of the soul. From this perspective, the experience of the desert is part of ascetic holiness because as Columba Stewart has remarked the utter simplicity of the desert landscape itself, the lack of comforts and material distraction, the isolation from the complexity of human society, are all seen to create an atmosphere of simplicity where one may grow in humility and spiritual insight.4 And indeed, it is known that in desert asceticism there is a close relationship between the control of the body and spiritual progress. A rightly disciplined body could attain holiness, because “the human person is capable of angelic ascent.”5 As we will see below, desert monasticism provides ample evidence to see monks living a heavenly life, elders whose bodies were illuminated with flashes of angelic light.6 In fact, one of the striking features of this asceticism is the presentation of the monks’ emaciated bodies as angelic bodies full of light. This foundational element of the spirituality of the desert is powerfully expressed by Georgia Frank: Angelic faces became a shorthand for any monk who lived in perfect imitation of angels. . . . Radiance and Light were typically thought to be features of divinized bodies for ascetics. Rather than present a body broken by ascetic practice, the pilgrims could use references to light and angels to show asceticism’s highest achievement, the reversal of the body’s decay and its transformation into the glorified body of the resurrection.7 In this context, we stress that the Desert Fathers cultivated holiness through rigorous ascetic efforts, and the purpose of this praxis was the spiritual transformation of the monk.8 A story told of Abba Arsenius develops this need for the permanent transfiguration of the monk: Somebody said to the blessed Arsenius: ‘How is it that we have gained nothing from so much education and wisdom, while these rustic Egyptian peasants have acquired such virtues?’ Abba Arsenius said to him: ‘For our part we have gained nothing from the world’s education, but these rustic Egyptian peasants have acquired the virtues by their own labors.9

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Therefore, a monk can grow spiritually only through ascetic effort because the human body is destined to be transformed into a wonderful model and a brilliant vehicle.10 According to Peter Brown, body and soul formed a single field of force, in which what happened in the one had subtle and lasting effects on the other. . . . Somehow, the body itself was the companion of the soul in its effort to recover the ‘image of God.’11 In desert monasticism, the body was not an irrelevant part of the human person but it was an integral part of deification (theosis), and those who came to this deification were those who, like the Desert Fathers, practised an ascetic life. This understanding is encapsulated in the saying of Abba Arsenius, who exhorted all to practice spiritual works. When, for example, a monk asked “to hear a saying from him,” the elder replied: “As much as you are able, strive so that what goes on inside you be godly and you conquer your external passions.”12 In other words, he advised him to turn his attention to the cultivation of the spiritual life, the shaping of the will according to the will of God, so that he should not be dominated by natural desires.13 This intimate relationship between physical effort and spiritual elevation is fully attested in the early ascetic literature. For example, in the Life of Antony, Athanasius describes the archetypal monk as having attained, through arduous, lifelong ascetic practice, an incorruptible body: Nearly twenty years he spent in this manner pursuing the ascetic life by himself, not venturing out and only occasionally being seen by anyone. After this . . . Antony came forth as though from some shrine, having been led into divine mysteries and inspired by God. This was the first time he appeared from the fortress for those who came out to him. And when they beheld him, they were amazed to see that his body had maintained its former condition, neither fat from lack of exercise, nor emaciated from fasting and combat with demons, but was just as they had known him prior to his withdrawal. The state of his soul was one of purity, for it was not considered by grief, nor relaxed by pleasure, nor affected by either laughter or dejection. . . . He maintained utter equilibrium, like one guided by reason and steadfast in that which accords with nature.14 By doing so, Antony was able to exist in the “natural state”15 until the end of his life. Although he lived to be more than one hundred he possessed eyes undimmed and sound, and he saw clearly. He lost none of his teeth – they simply had been worn to the gums because of the old man’s great age. He also remained healthy in his feet and hands.16 In the passage just quoted, as Andrew Crislip has noted, “Athanasius not only echoes the prelapsarian health of Adam but also follows the biblical exemplar of

Early Egyptian Monasticism 19 Moses for his model of Christian sanctity.”17 The Life of Antony promoted a beautiful model for monastic health. According to Crislip, monastic thinkers as early as Antony saw in the ascetic project an opportunity to reclaim the primordial health of Adam and Eve . . . Yet the association of prelapsarian health with monastic asceticism would be radically expanded upon in influential hagiographies – among the most influential, of course, was the Life of Antony to promote an ideology of monastic health: by proper ascetic practice (and presumably adherence to orthodoxy) monks were expected to achieve preternatural health in body and soul, manifested in a healthy longevity.18 There is no dualistic hatred of the body here because asceticism has not subverted Antony’s physicality but restored it to its “natural state,” that is to say, to its true and proper condition as intended by God. This point will be pursued further in the next section where we explore how desert asceticism became part of the structural development of Christology. The redemptive work of Christ and the deification of his own humanity are the conditions for the deification of human beings in general. More specifically, the monastic life was an instantiation of Christ’s own life in each elder through ascetic discipline. Thus, the Desert Fathers offered a powerful glimpse of a humanity renewed in and by Christ. The Incarnation played a positive role in the spirituality of the desert. As Peter Brown has argued, it was in the desert that the transformative implications of the Incarnation for human beings were put into practice: “Through the Incarnation of Christ, the Highest God had reached down to make even the body capable of transformation.”19 In this context, we stress that natural asceticism is a struggle not against the body but for the body, so that natural asceticism has a positive objective: it seeks not to impair but to transform the body, rendering it a willing instrument of the spirit, a partner instead of an opponent. So according to the Life of Antony, self-control (enkrateia) enhanced rather than impaired Antony’s bodily health. In the words of Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen “not despite his ascetic endeavors but because of them, by the end of his life Antony retained health.”20 The point is expressed in one of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers: Abba Isaac visited Abba Poemen and saw him pouring a little water over his feet. As he was quite familiar with him, he said to him: ‘How is it that some used severity and treated their bodies harshly?’ Abba Poemen said to him: ‘We were not taught to slay the body but to slay the passions.’21 The remarkable quality of the desert monks’ moderation encouraged the transformation, not the extirpation the body, so that “much of the soundest desert teaching advocates the middle way of moderation.”22 The positive attitude towards the body is a monastic prerogative in the spirituality of the desert because the body is

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essential to the divine economy: “Because God’s creation is good, it is only necessary to transform the body rather than to destroy it for the human to be capable of redemption.”23 Generally, in the Christian asceticism of Late Antiquity, the body was seen to be problematic, not because it was a body, but because it was not a body of plenitude. Therefore, ascetic labour does not reject the body because the human person – body and soul – is created to become a dwelling place for God. The Desert Fathers describe the ascetic life positively, namely as acquiring virtue. To give only one example: “A person does not advance even in a single virtue without keeping the sacred commandment.”24 Holiness is achieved through an anonymous practice of virtue, so that the desert life became part of personal salvation. According to Caroline T. Schroeder, “physical holiness is reflected in the cultivation of spiritual holiness. . . . Just as in the ascetic struggle between flesh and spirit, cultivating physical purity results in a certain level of spiritual purity. The flesh may even be made spirit.”25 Therefore, the ascetic effort led the monks toward personal transformation, toward the realization of holiness. No story illustrates the profound link between holiness and the ascetic life more clearly than the account of Abba Sisoes: “A brother asked Abba Sisoes: ‘Tell me a saying,’ but he said: ‘Why do you oblige me to speak in vain? Look here and do what you see (me doing).”26 Further, a story recorded from the Desert Fathers expresses the power of the monk’s presence well: Abba Poemen said that somebody once asked Abba Paisios: ‘What am I to do with my soul, for it is insensitive and does not fear God?’ and he said to him: ‘Go and attach yourself to a person who fears God, and from your contact with that person he will teach you too to fear God.’27 Finally, another story told of Antony develops the same idea: Three of the fathers were in the habit of going to the blessed Abba each year. Two of them would ask him about logismoi and the soul’s salvation, but the third always remained silent, asking nothing. After some considerable time Abba Antony said to him: ‘Look, you have been coming here for such a long time and you ask me nothing.’ In reply he said to him: ‘It is enough for me just to see you, father.’28 This alignment of the body with spiritual progress, together with an increased emphasis on seeing the touch of holiness in human physicality, was one of the striking features of desert asceticism. The holiness of the elders was highly visible because “their status as holy men was advertised by their physical appearance.”29 The ascetic literature describes how the face of Antony was so radiant that those who visited his recognized him immediately “as though drawn by his eyes.”30 When Abba Hilarion, a Palestinian monk, visited Antony, he called him a “pillar of light,”31 and when Abba Sisoes was asked if he attained the stature of Abba Antony, he replied, “If I had one of the logismoi of Abba Antony I would have become all on fire.”32

Early Egyptian Monasticism 21 The majority of the sayings are concerned with the monks’ holy faces. For example, the visage of Abba Poemen “shone like lightning.” They used to say of Abba Pambo that, as Moses received the likeness of the glory of Adam when his face was glorified, so too did the face of Abba Pambo shine like lightning, and he was like an emperor sitting on his throne.33 And Abba Sisoes’ face “shone like the sun.”34 Also, the author of the Historia monachorum in Aegypto observed that Abba Or “looked just like an angel, and his face was so radiant that the sight of him alone filled one with awe.”35 The face and body of Abba Silvanus “shone like an angel,”36 while another old man appeared entirely like a fire.37 These sayings are very important to the subject of deification because they show how this understanding of ascetic life is associated with having a dazzling body. Thus, the concept of deification (theosis) is associated with another key term in desert asceticism, namely the dazzling body.38 The essence of these sayings is expressed in the words of Claudia Rapp: “the physical appearance of ascetics was an incontrovertible evidence of their elevated spiritual status. The ascetic ‘look’ was both outward manifestation and advertisement of personal holiness. Late antique authors, following the ancient tradition of physiognomy, placed a high prize on the proper appearance as revealing the inner qualities of the true ascetic.39 Undoubtedly, the Desert Fathers developed a rhetoric of the holy flesh. The ascetic life is conceived as an exercise of the deification of the flesh, because the body of the ascetic was a dazzling body. Perhaps the saying that best encapsulates this transfiguration of the body is the one with which we entitled this paper: Abba Lot visited Abba Joseph and said to him: ‘Abba, to the best of my ability I do my little synaxis, my little fasting; praying, meditating, and maintaining hesychia; and I purge my logismoi to the best of my ability. What else then can I do?’ The elder stood up and stretched out his hands to heaven; his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said to him: ‘If you are willing, become altogether like fire.’40 To conclude, we can say that the radiance of the ascetic often communicated something of their holiness and their spiritual status. This spiritually elevated status is realized within the church, as the following sentence suggests: Abba Paul the Simple, the disciple of Abba Antony, was reputed to have the gift to “see the state of each person’s soul as we see one another’s faces.” In a day, he was watching the brothers going into the church. He saw the ascetics entering with shining faces and a sparkling look. . . . One monk who appeared ‘dark,’ accompanied by demons, while his guardian angel followed behind at a distance, downcast and grieving. However, when the monks emerged from the

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Daniel Lemeni liturgy, again Paul examined each one, for he wanted to know in what state they were coming out. He saw that man who formerly had a body all shady and black coming out of the church with a shining face and a white body.41

The Desert Fathers on deification (theosis): a brief survey If in the first part we discussed the radiant appearance of desert hermits as a fundamental landmark in early ascetic literature, especially the Apophtegmata Patrum, in this section, we emphasize the thought of Athanasius as a normative theology for the deified life of the monk. As we noted earlier, one of the most distinctive features of the desert life was a perpetual purification of the monk.42 In this sense Desert Fathers were spiritual persons (pneumatikoi) in the full sense of the term because the whole life of the monk was fundamentally a spiritual exercise of purification.43 In principle, the ascetic struggle prepares the way for deification (theosis) by purification, so that the monk’s holiness will transpire as a result of his asceticism. And indeed, deification is understood in the monastic tradition as the gradual progress of a monk from the stage of ascetic practice (praktikē) to the stage of mystical life (gnostikē).44 Deification is a concept which plays an immensely important part in the spirituality of the Desert Fathers. According to Paul M. Blowers, the desert’s stark purity adumbrated for its monk-residents the holiness of the new creation: “The desert habitat into which monks flooded in the fourth and fifth centuries itself epitomized in its simplicity and stark beauty, an adumbration of the sanctity of the new creation.”45 More specifically, re-creation is Athanasius’s key understanding of salvation in Christ. The development of Christology had implications for the development of the doctrine of deification. The Desert Fathers’ Christology46 highlights the growth and permanent recreation of the monk in light of Christ’s resurrection. From this perspective, the fight against the passions that the monks raised to the level of an existential programme, can be interpreted as a continuous reaffirmation of spiritual growth. Antony the Great’s Vita as composed by Athanasius presents the model of holiness based on ascetic rigour: the deification of humanity achieved through the Incarnation enabled living men and women to draw closer to the divine through their ascetic discipline. Athanasius never ceased to emphasize that chastity, fasting, and other ascetic practices, while important, were not an end in themselves but a means towards spiritual growth.47 At this point it may be helpful to say a very few words about the doctrine of deification as Athanasius the Great knew it, because this doctrine of the desert was in its origins essentially an Athanasian theology. Many Fathers, particularly Athanasius the Great, considered the doctrine of the Incarnation of God and the deification of man (theosis)48 to be correlative terms.

Early Egyptian Monasticism 23 From this perspective, desert monasticism offered one of the boldest theological articulations of the Nicene faith. Our premise in this section is that the ascetic life of the elder was part of the theological doctrine of the Incarnation.49 The holiness of the monk is based on this doctrine because Nicaea highlights the Christian grammar of deification. Commenting on the Nicene Christology of the Egyptian monks, Virginia Burrus has argued that “the assertion of the Son’s absolute divinity and the divinization of humanity anticipated in his incarnation register their historical effect in the rigid discipline of fourth-century bodies resisting their own carnality.”50 In the passage just quoted, the theology of Athanasius is a case in point. In his thought, Adam and Eve, having at first lived a life of ascetic self-control in Eden, became distracted by the body and turned their attention toward it and away from God.51 Now corrupted, “the body took center stage,” as David Brakke remarks, and he summarizes the function of the incarnation as follows: According to Athanasius, the incarnation of the word made a successful ascetic life possible once again. . . . When the Word of God assumed a human body, and perfectly guided it, he divinized this body and made it incorruptible; through their ‘kinship of the flesh’ to the Word’s body, individual human beings can restore a proper relationship between their own body and soul and thus live a virtuous life.52 From this perspective Athanasius was essentially influenced by the Desert Fathers. For him, the deification achieved through the Incarnation enabled ascetics to draw closer to God through their monastic practice. As David M. Gwynn has noted, “The ideals that Antony represents provide a further demonstration of the principles of Athanasius’ wider ascetic programme, now expressed through a model whom every monk should imitate.”53 Those who came closest to this divinization of the flesh were those who, like Saint Antony, practised ascetic self-discipline. From this perspective, his renunciatory ‘death to the world’ merely clarifies the monk’s vision, allowing him to see how deep his ties to the ‘earthly’ world run. He will spend his life cutting them and taking on, little by little, a ‘heavenly’ lifestyle. But this change is the work of deification, of becoming in some sense divine.54 The ultimate goal of the ascetic odyssey was to acquire “heavenly citizenship” (Phil. 3:20): monasticism propelled its practitioners into an existence with a sharply eschatological and prophetic orientation in which the whole person – soul and body – was urged towards a perfection only fully realized in another realm. Yet for a rare few this transfigured, perfect state had already been realized here on earth.55 Strictly speaking, the Desert Fathers lived heaven on earth, so that we can say that the Apophthegmata Patrum was among the earliest Christian attempts to imagine

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the triumph of the flesh over human fallenness. For this reason the desert monks sought to realize the meaning of the incarnation in their lives. The Desert Fathers were probably the best placed to confirm that theosis was the most important of the orthodox doctrines of the incarnation.56 In this context, we must stress that Christ was the supreme instance of divinity enfleshed because “only in Christ is the flesh fully and lastingly saturated with the indwelling divine power.”57 Thus, the saint’s miraculous powers of healing, discernment, and other charisms are the manifestation of this holy power.58 The Desert Fathers undoubtedly understood the depth of the theology of the incarnation. Their lives became the actualization of the incarnation and resurrection.59 The following story is indicative of the Desert Fathers’ awareness of the theology of deification and their understanding of the newness of life regained by the resurrection: One of the Fathers recounted of a certain Abba Paul, originally from Lower Egypt but residing in the Thebaid, that he would hold asps, snakes, and scorpions in his hands (Lk. 10:19) and cut them in two. The brothers prostrated themselves before him saying: ‘Tell us what kind of activity you undertook so that you acquired this spiritual gift.’ ‘Forgive me, fathers,’ he said: ‘if one acquire purity, everything is subject to him as it was to Adam when he was in Paradise before he contravened the commandment (Gen. 1:28).’60 The culmination of ascetic life is a state of return to humanity’s prelapsarian nature. As noted above, the virtues were the result of long and arduous monastic discipline and training. The acquisition of virtue was closely connected with Flood’s emphasis on the restoration of the monk’s “natural” state. Through ascetic performance within the early ascetic tradition, Gavin Flood remarks, “the ultimate goal of Christian asceticism has been the reconstitution of the pre-fall state through withdrawal (anachoresis) and self-mastery (enkrateia).”61 Thus, monastic leaders saw in the ascetic life an opportunity to regain the primordial health of Adam and Eve. In other words, for the Desert Fathers, deification was seeking the glory of Adam before the Fall and the glory of heaven with the resurrected body.62 Furthermore, Athanasius presents the body of Antony, still vigorous and youthful after decades of ascetic practice, as a prefiguration of the incorruptibility that humans would enjoy in the resurrection.63 Life of Antony highlights the model of health based on ascetic effort, so that the monastic life was a reconstitution of humanity’s health through asceticism and cultivation of virtue. The Desert Fathers’ way to achieve preternatural health in body and soul, manifested in a healthy longevity,64 was the desert, namely an experience that restored their body to its natural harmony. This “natural” status expresses the passing from flesh to spirit, so that the ascetic is a new sort of person – a pneumatikos rather than a bodily human. No doubt, this ascetic emphasis on the attainment of bodily incorruptibility through the exercise of spiritual effort likely provided the general background for early Egyptian monasticism. As we know, the Life of Antony is dominated by a

Early Egyptian Monasticism 25 lifelong process of transformation through spiritual exercises such as obedience, self-examination, repentance, and so on. Yet, Antony achieved what he did, not by virtue of his own agency, but through Christ. The Life emphasizes Antony’s majestic calm: Antony’s soul is “calm”; his character is “stable”; his senses are “undisturbed”; his face has an imperturbability that radiates joy. This is divine passionlessness rendered visible. This is the way Athanasius imagines the deification made possible by Christ. As David Brakke has argued, from Athanasius’ perspective, it is correct to call Antony’s body ‘holy,’ but only in the sense that it has been restored to its original (pre-fall) condition through the divinizing work of the incarnate Word. Antony’s body is not holy in the sense that it transmits or meditates holiness to others.65 In this sense, “not only does Antony articulate Athanasius’ theology of deification, but he becomes an icon for it. Antony is Athanasius’ portrait of what a human being renewed in the image and likeness of God should look like.”66 The ideals that Antony represents provide a further demonstration of the principles of Athanasius’s wider ascetic programme, now expressed through a model that every monk should imitate. As Athanasius declared in the conclusion to his famous biography, Antony was an example from whom all “may learn what the life of the monks ought to be.”67 Therefore, “Antony’s harsh ascesis functions for Athanasius as a strengthening of the soul and evidence of his right belief, and thus Antony becomes the ideal monastic figure in all things.”68 Antony assumes the doctrine of deification that underlay Athanasius’s theology and his understanding of asceticism.69 This is what Athanasius has described in his famous quote: “the Word of God became human so that we might become God.”70 This famous patristic assertion highlights that the purpose of asceticism is to restore the original faculties71 of created reality, which involves individual effort, but which cannot be achieved on one’s own nor indeed apart from the whole of God’s creation in which the human is to play a key role. Antony offered a concise statement of the doctrine of deification that underlay Athanasius’s theology and his understanding of asceticism. The Word of God was not changed, but remaining the same. He assumed a human body for the salvation and benefit of humanity – so that sharing in the human birth. He might enable humanity to share the divine and spiritual nature.72 Similarly, in a rare exposure of Christology, Barsanuphius gives succinct expression to this doctrine of deification: “The Son of God became human for your sake; you, too, should become god through him.”73 It would be more accurate to say that deification understood as total transformation and imitation of Christ includes an intellectual, a relational, and volitional element. The transformation begins here

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and now, and certainly, Barsanuphius would like to tell the hermit to take on his eschatological and even deified identity immediately.74 It says that in Jesus Christ we have “a God who deifies us,”75 so that the end of the process of ascetic purification is not only to be made like God, but to become God, or a god (theopoiēthōmen). It is known that “Christ’s assumed humanity became deified, and this deification is the source of deification for all human beings.”76 The roots of this process, called theosis, focused upon the goal of Christian life as holiness, and sanctification are found in the spirituality of the desert. Abba Theonas summarized this doctrine in a simple and succinct statement: “Abba Theonas said: “We are taken prisoner by the passions of the flesh because of our lack of mental attention in our contemplation of God.”77 According to Maximus the Confessor, the great saints of the past – Abraham, Moses, Elijah, the Apostles, and some monks – had experienced this transfiguration “while still in the flesh” (Amb 10). For the person who through divine grace and personal effort becomes “another Abraham” or “another Moses” there is effective in the soul and the body the deifying presence of God.78 Scripture becomes for the Desert Fathers “a means to transformation and holiness,” so that the biblical figures serve as exemplars for the elders’ own sanctity. We see this in the sayings describing the faces of some elders. They were seen to reflect the uncreated light of the great biblical exemplars. Because of his shining appearance, Abba Pambo was said to be “like Moses, who received the image of the glory of Adam when his face shone.” Abba Arsenius’s “appearance was angelic, like Jacob’s,”79 and Abba Nisterus “as the brazen serpent that Moses made for the healing of the people (cf. Num. 21:9) so was this elder. He excelled in virtue and healed all (who came) while maintaining silence.”80 In the spirituality of the desert many elders were seen transfigured by a shining light. Thus, it is no coincidence that in later Byzantine monasticism the teachers of the doctrine of the holy body were the hesychastic monks of Mount Athos, whose ascetic life was directed specifically towards attaining the vision of the uncreated light. To conclude we will say that for the Desert Fathers, theosis eluded rhetorical exercise and language itself. It was a permanent dynamic towards spiritual perfection. In this sense, the desert was a preparatory stage for their deification, and the best proof for this vibrant and vivifying conception of desert monasticism is that their lives ended in holiness. Indeed, the Desert Fathers communicate the theological heart of deification, they are holy “vehicles” through which holiness can be glimpsed, so that we receive their light just as we receive grace from the holy icons.

Conclusion The Desert Fathers played a key role in the defining of holiness, and in this sense the desert will remain a privileged topos for the theme of deification in the ascetic Egyptian tradition.

Early Egyptian Monasticism 27 In conclusion we would like to make a few points about the significance of deification in this tradition. First, the Apophthegmata Patrum is an attempt to highlight a key aspect of early ascetic spirituality regarding the nature and purpose of holiness. In this context we stress that the Desert Fathers offered a powerful glimpse of a humanity renewed in and by Christ. It is no exaggeration to say that Nicaea received the support of the Desert Fathers because the doctrine of the incarnation was at work in their daily life. In their lives, desert hermits displayed Christ’s life and they revealed deified humanity assumed by Christ. The monks sought to become by grace what Christ was by nature: fully divine. Thus, desert monasticism became the archetype of holiness. Second, the spiritual elevation of the elder was accompanied by a radiant light. In other words, the face of the monk was an outward manifestation of personal holiness, incontrovertible evidence of his elevated spiritual status. In short, the true sign of holiness was written on the visage of the monk. In this context, we stress that the Desert Fathers reactivated the presence of Christ in their lives. From this perspective, the desert is a “map” (or rather, an itinerarium) of holiness, a point of access to deification in a strong, ontological sense. Our conclusion is that the desert represents a lived territory of holiness, and the Desert Fathers were epiphanies of the holy flesh.

Notes 1 Abba Arsenius 9 (Wortley 2014: 41). All quotes from the Apophthegmata Patrum are from this translation. 2 Evagrius, Praktikos 78 (Bamberger 1970: 36). 3 Abba Antony 33 (Wortley 2014: 38–39). The essence of this teaching is confirmed by several sayings: Abba Arsenius 5, 9; Abba Agathon 8, 9; Abba Apphy; Abba Karion 1; Abba Poemen 44, 60; Abba Sarmatas 2. 4 Stewart (1995: 19). 5 Hunt (2012: 5). 6 For a discussion of the “angelic” bodies of desert ascetics in the early ascetic tradition, see Miller (1994). 7 Frank (2000: 161). For additional references, see Miller (1994: 141–142). 8 Cf. Abba Antony 35 (Wortley 2014: 39). 9 Abba Arsenius 6 (Wortley 2014: 41). Similarly, Abba Arsenius highlights what he saw as the deeper purpose of the desert life (cf. Abba Arsenius 7, Wortley 2014: 41). The holiness was a new paideia of the monk, born of the ascetic praxis of the desert. Two sayings sum up this “new alphabet” of the desert: Abba Arsenius 5 and 6. The desert has its own education, an education by monks who wish to change themselves rather than satisfy their intellectual curiosity. This culture is based on Scripture, cf. Clark 1999: 58. Also, Douglas Burton-Christie points out that the sayings present a consistent struggle on the part of the monks to realize in their lives the holiness to which they felt called by Scripture, so that they had become “new living texts,” cf. Burton-Christie (1993: 290). 10 Cf. Brown (2008: 160–177). 11 Brown (1998: 625). This argument is reiterated in Brown (2008, esp. Ch. 11: 213–240).

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12 Arsenius 9 (Wortley 2014: 41). 13 In the early Egyptian tradition, ascetic life connects with the therapy of the soul’s passions. On this theme, see Crislip (2005, 2012). Also, Sorabji (2003) explored the concept of passion in early Christian monasticism (esp. ch. IV: 343–418). 14 Athanasius, Life of Antony 14 (Gregg 1980: 42). According to Chitty, “how we see Antony’s perfection as the return to man’s natural condition. This is the constant teaching of East Christian ascetics. Their aim is the recovery of Adam’s condition before the Fall. That is accepted as man’s true nature, man’s fallen condition being – unnatural” (Chitty 1966: 4). On this aspect of late ancient Christian asceticism, see Moss (2016). For an excellent discussion on the ancient understanding of ascetic body, see Schroeder (2007); Hunt (2012); and Shaw (1998b: 27–28, and 161–219). 15 Cf. Moss (2016: 40–41). On Athanasius’s ascetic anthropology, which stresses man’s ability to return to the primordial state of incorruptibility, see Endsjø (2008: 133–135; 143–146); Davis (2008: 26–27); Harmless (2004: 92–93). 16 Life of Antony 93 (Gregg 1980: 98). 17 Crislip (2012: 65). 18 Ibid.: 167–168. 19 Brown (2008: 31). There has been much recent work on the increasing role of the senses in Christian epistemology and ritual from the fourth century onward. For the presence of the divine in the living bodies of saints, see Harvey (2006); Frank (2000). 20 Ihssen (2014: 81). 21 Abba Poemen 183 (Wortley 2014: 257–258). 22 Hunt (2012: 52). 23 Ibid.: 53. 24 Abba Agathon 3 (Wortley 2014: 54). 25 Schroeder (2007: 110). 26 Abba Sisoes 45 (Wortley 2014: 290). 27 Abba Poemen 65 (Wortley 2014: 238). The Desert Fathers cultivated virtue through ascetic practice, so that we can say that deification resulted from ascetic bodily practices. There is a direct connection between the possession of virtues and ascetic life, between the status of elders as exemplars of holiness and their asceticism. The literature on ancient Christian ascetic practice is voluminous. For a good debate of the relation between bodily renunciation and spiritual progress, see Gould (1993); Burton-Christie (1993); Goehring (1999); Elm (1994); Castelli (1992). 28 Abba Antony 27 (Wortley 2014: 37). 29 Rapp (2013: 269). For this topos in ascetic literature, see The Spiritual Meadow of John Moschos 123 (Wortley 1992: 100–101); Life of Antony 92 (Gregg 1980: 97–98); Abba Sisoes 14; Abba Pambo 12. 30 Life of Antony 67 (Gregg 1980: 81). 31 Abba Hilarion (Wortley 2014: 162). 32 Abba Sisoes 9 (Wortley 2014: 283). 33 Abba Pambo 12 (Wortley 2014: 263). 34 Abba Sisoes 14 (Wortley 2014: 284). 35 Historia monachorum in Aegypto 2.1. On this theme, see Crislip (2016). 36 Abba Silvanus 12 (Wortley 2014: 295). For additional examples, see Gould (1993: 181–182). 37 Abba Arsenius 27 (Wortley 2014: 45). 38 For more details, see the brilliant essay (Miller 2009). 39 Rapp (2005: 102). Also, this has been highlighted in Shaw (1998a) and Caner (2000). 40 Abba Joseph of Panepho 7 (Wortley 2014: 152). 41 Abba Paul the Simple (Wortley 2014: 272–273). 42 Bitton-Ashkelony and Kofsky argue that “Deification (théosis) through mystical experience becomes the ultimate monastic goal. It is also understood according to traditional

Early Egyptian Monasticism 29

43

44

45 46 47 48

49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58 59 60 61 62 63 64

monastic spirituality as an imitation of the Son of God,” Bitton-Ashkelony and Kofsky (2006: 94 and 182). The spiritual exercises played a crucial role in the Egyptian desert of Late Antiquity. From this perspective, ascetic life evokes Pierre Hadot’s category of spiritual exercises because desert asceticism can be described as a means to combat the passions. For more details, see Hadot (1995). For an application of Hadot’s notion of spiritual exercises to Christian monastic texts, see Driscoll (1991); Bitton-Ashkelony (2003, 2006). Cf. Humphries (2013: 16). This is Evagrius’s tripartite model of the monastic life, a model based on a traditional division of philosophy into ascetic discipline (praktiké), natural contemplation (theoria physiké), and theology (theologiké). For a presentation of Evagrius’ scheme, see Tobon (forthcoming ); Konstantinovsky (2016); Casiday (2013) ; Corrigan (2009) ; Sinkewicz (2006); Dysinger (2005); Harmless (2004: 345– 354); Louth (2007: 100–113); Driscoll (2005); Stewart (2003). Blowers (2012: 328). On this subject, see Davis (2008) and Fairbairn (2003). Gwynn (2012: 111). The notion of theosis (literally means to become gods by grace) describes a soteriology in which the individual not only is saved from death, but is deified. In short, “deification” provided the picture: Christ became human in order that we might become divine. Only his assumption of full humanity could make it possible for humans to participate fully in the divine nature. Gregorius of Nazianzus was evidently the first in the history of Christian theology to use the word theosis. See Børtnes and Hägg (2006), especially the contributions of Tollefsen (Ch. 13) and Papaioannou (Ch. 4). In recent years a multitude of books on deification has confirmed the patristic basis of the doctrine. For an admirable and scholarly approach of the subject, see Blowers (2012) and Russell (2004). For an excellent discussion of this theme, see Young (2010); Ayres (2004, 2005); Anatolios (2011). Burrus (2000: 5). Perceptions of the body as integral to human identity were developed in the contexts of the Arian controversies; see Brakke (1998a: 145–161); Lyman (1993: 141–143). For more details, see Miller (2009). Brakke (1998a: 149, 239). Gwynn (2012: 117). Zecher (2015: 173). Cooper (2005: 9). In short, the motives of the success of Nicene orthodoxy are first theological and only secondarily political. This point was astutely argued by Behr (2001). Williams (1999). See, for example, Athanasius’s foundational hagiography, the Life of Saint Antony, in which Athanasius is careful to affirm that Antony’s remarkable holiness was due not to his own agency but to Christ working through him. For the best discussion of the subject, see Brakke (1998b). On this subject, see Marmodoro and Viltanioti (2017, esp. part 2: 127–234). There is an admirable and scholarly treatment of the subject in Young (2010, especially “Athanasius and the Shaping of Nicene Theology”: 40–72 and “Heroes of the Faith: the Literature of the Desert”: 73–134). Paul of Thebes (Wortley 2014: 271). Flood (2009: 145). Cf. Harmless (2004: 243). Cf. Life of Antony 14 (Gregg 1980: 42–43). Also, for the association of prelapsarian health with desert asceticism, see Life of Antony 67 (Gregg 1980: 80–81). Cf. Crislip (2012: 167–168). For a closer examination of this idea, and his significance for the ascetic tradition, see Schenkewitz (2016); Crislip (2012); and Ihssen (2014: 71–104).

30 65 66 67 68 69 70

71

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

Daniel Lemeni Brakke (1998b: 459). See also Brakke (1998a: 36-41). Harmless (2004: 90). Life of Antony 94 (Gregg 1980: 99). Ihssen (2014: 81). On health among monastics, see Crislip (2005, 2006 and 2012). Cf. Gwynn (2012: 119). For the place of the Life of Antony within Athanasius’s theology, see Brakke (1995: 216–244). This edition was published under the title Athanasius and Asceticism (Brakke (1998a)). See also Anatolios (1998: 165–195). On the Incarnation (1998: 54). Here are the seeds of Athanasius’s doctrine of deification (theopoiesis), where he sums up his position in a much quoted sentence: He became man/human that we might become God/divine (DI 54). These words encapsulate Athanasius’s vision of salvation as a process of “deification” or “divinization.” On the doctrine of deification and its development across the history of Christianity, see Edwards and Vasilescu (2016) ; Blowers (2012, 2016 ); Tollefsen (2008, 2012); Cooper (2005); Bathrellos (2005) ; Russell (2004). In direct continuity with the monastic culture of the desert, Maximus the Confessor emphasizes that the training of spiritual perception is bound up with growth in virtue and ascetic struggle with vice, and is a part of the process of deification. For Maximus, the goal of deification is to reintegrate the rational, volitional, affective and sensate functions of the self and thereby attain participatory knowledge of God. Yet, both the process of and the aim of deification presume the cultivation of ascetic virtues as a precondition to direct perceptual knowledge of God. For this reason, ascetic struggle is not merely a preparatory stage in the process of deification; it is an ongoing part of the formation of the deiform person into the likeness of God (cf. Gavrilyuk and Coakley 2014: 115). Life of Antony 74 (Gregg 1980: 85). Letter 199 (Chryssavgis 2006: 208). Zecher (2015: 174). Letter 109 (Chryssavgis 2006: 131). Tollefsen (2006: 267). Abba Theonas (Wortley 2014: 125). Cooper (2005: 9). Abba Arsenius 42 (Wortley 2014: 52). Abba Nisteros the Coenobite (Wortley 2014: 213).

Bibliography Sources and translations On the Incarnation (1998) = Athanasius, On the Incarnation: The Treatise De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, trans. and ed. by a religious of CSMV, Popular Patristics 3, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998. Bamberger 1970 = Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos: Chapters on Prayer, trans. John Eudes Bamberger, Cistercian Studies Series 4, Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1970. Chryssavgis 2006 = Barsanuphius and John, Letters, vol. 1, trans. John Chryssavgis, Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006. Gregg 1980 = Athanasius, The Life of Anthony and The Letter to Marcellinus, trans. Robert C. Gregg, Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1980. Wortley 1992 = John Moschos, The Spiritual Meadow, trans. John Wortley, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1992. Wortley 2014 = Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers, trans. John Wortley, New York, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2014.

Early Egyptian Monasticism 31 Studies Anatolios 1998 = Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought, New York, NY: Routledge, 1998. Anatolios 2011 = Khaled Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic Press, 2011. Ayres 2004 = Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Triniatrian Theology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Ayres 2005 = Lewis Ayres, “Theosis and the Dynamics of Nicene Theology,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 494 (2005), pp. 375–394. Bathrellos 2005 = Demetrios Bathrellos, The Byzantine Christ: Person, Nature, and Will in the Christology of Saint Maximus the Confessor, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Behr 2001 = John Behr, The Way to Nicaea, vol. I, Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Press, 2001. Bitton-Ashkelony 2003 = Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, “Demons and Prayers: Spiritual Exercises in the Monastic Community of Gaza in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries,” Vigiliae Christianae57/2 (2003), pp. 200–221. Bitton-Ashkelony 2006 = Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, “Spiritual Exercises: The Continuous Conversation of the Mind With God,” in: Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony and Aryeh Kofsky, The Monastic School of Gaza, Leiden: Brill, 2006, pp. 157–182. Bitton-Ashkelony and Kofsky 2006 = Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony and Aryeh Kofsky, The Monastic School of Gaza, Leiden: Brill, 2006. Blowers 2012 = Paul M. Blowers, Drama of the Divine Economy: Creator and Creation in Early Christian Theology and Piety, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Blowers 2016 = Paul M. Blowers, Maximus the Confessor: Jesus Christ and the Transfiguration of the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Børtnes and Hägg 2006 = Jostein Børtnes and Tomas Hägg (eds.), Gregory of Nazianzus: Images and Reflections, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2006. Brakke 1995 = David Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Brakke 1998a = David Brakke, Athanasius and Asceticism, Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Brakke 1998b = David Brakke, “‘Outside the Places, Within the Truth’: Athanasius of Alexandria and the Localization of the Holy,” in: David Frankfurter (ed.), Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt, Leiden: Brill, 1998, pp. 445–482. Brown 1998 = Peter Brown, “Asceticism: Pagan and Christian,” in: Averil Cameron and Peter Garnsey (eds.), Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 13: The Late Empire, A.D. 337– 425, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 601–631. Brown 2008 = Peter Brown, Body and Society, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2008. Burrus 2000 = Virginia Burrus,‘Begotten, Not Made’: Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Burton-Christie 1993 = Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1993. Caner 2000 = D. Caner, “Nilus of Ancyra and the Promotion of a Monastic Elite,” Arethusa 22 (2000), pp. 401–410. Casiday 2013 = Augustine Casiday, Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus: Beyond Heresy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

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Castelli 1992 = E. Castelli, “Mortifying the Body, Curing the Soul: Beyond Ascetic Dualism in the Life of Saint Syncletica,” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 4 (1992), pp. 134–153. Chitty 1966: Derwas J. Chitty, The Desert a City, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1966. Clark 1999 = Elizabeth A. Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Cooper 2005 = Adam G. Cooper, The Body in St. Maximus the Confessor: Holy Flesh, Wholly Deified, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Corrigan 2009 = Kevin Corrigan, Evagrius and Gregory: Mind, Soul and Body in the 4th Century, London: Routledge, 2009. Crislip 2005 = Andrew T. Crislip, From Hospital to Monastery: Christian Monasticism and the Transformation of Health Care in Late Antiquity, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Crislip 2006 = Andrew T. Crislip, “‘I Have Chosen Sickness’: The Controversial Function of Sickness in Early Christian Ascetic Practice,” in: Oliver Freiberger (ed.), Asceticism and Its Critics: Historical Accounts and Comparative Perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 179–209. Crislip 2012 = Andrew T. Crislip, Thorns in the Flesh: Illness and Sanctity in Late Ancient Christianity, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. Crislip 2016 = Andrew T. Crislip, The Greek Historia Monachorum in Aegypto: Monastic Hagiography in the Late Fourth Century, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Davis 2008 = Stephen J. Davis, Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Driscoll 1991 = Jeremy Driscoll, “The Ad Monachos of Evagrius Ponticus: Its Structure and a Select Commentary,” Studia Anselmiana 104 (1991), pp. 361–384. Driscoll 2005 = Jeremy Driscoll, Steps to Spiritual Perfection: Studies on Spiritual Progress in Evagrius Pontus, Mahwah, NJ: Newman Press, 2005. Dysinger 2005 = Luke Dysinger, Psalmody and Prayer in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Edwards and Vasilescu 2016 = Mark Edwards and Elena Ene D-Vasilescu, Visions of God and Ideas on Deification in Patristic Thought, New York, NY: Routledge, 2016. Elm 1994 = Susanna Elm, Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity, Oxford: Clarendon, 1994. Endsjø 2008 = Dag Øistein Endsjø, Primordial Landscapes, Incorruptible Bodies: Desert Asceticism and the Christian Appropriation of Greek Ideas on Geography, Bodies, and Immortality, New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2008. Fairbairn 2003 = Donald Fairbairn, Grace and Christology in the Early Church, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Flood 2009 = Gavin Flood, The Ascetic Self: Subjectivity, Memory and Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Frank 2000 = Georgia Frank, The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000. Gavrilyuk and Coakley 2014 = Paul L. Gavrilyuk and Sarah Coakley, The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Goehring 1999 = James E. Goehring, Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Early Egyptian Monasticism, Minneapolis, MN: Life and Light Publishing Company, 1999. Gould 1993 = Graham Gould, The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community, Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.

Early Egyptian Monasticism 33 Gwynn 2012 = David M. Gwynn, Athanasius of Alexandria: Bishop, Theologian, Ascetic, Father, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Hadot 1995 = Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, ed. and trans. Arnold I. Davidson, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. Harmless 2004 = William Harmless, Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Harvey 2006 = Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006. Humphries 2013 = Thomas L. Humphries, Jr., Ascetic Pneumatology From John Casian to Gregory the Great, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Hunt 2012 = Hannah Hunt, Clothed in the Body: Asceticism, the Body and the Spiritual in the Late Antique Era, Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. Ihssen 2014 = Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen, John Moschos’ Spiritual Meadow: Authority and Autonomy at the End of the Antique World, Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Konstantinovsky 2016 = Julia Konstantinovsky, Evagrius Ponticus: The Making of a Gnostic, London: Routledge, 2016. Louth 2007 = Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Lyman 1993 = Rebecca Lyman, Christology and Cosmology: Models of Divine Activity in Origen, Eusebius, and Athanasius, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. Marmodoro and Viltanioti 2017 = Anna Marmodoro and Irini-Fotini Viltanioti, Divine Powers in Late Antiquity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Miller 1994 = Patricia Cox Miller, “Desert Asceticism and ‘The Body From Nowhere’,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 2/2 (1994), pp. 137–153. Miller 2009 = Patricia Cox Miller, The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Ancient Christianity, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Moss 2016 = Yonatan Moss, Incorruptible Bodies: Christology, Society, and Authority in Late Antiquity, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2016. Rapp 2005 = Claudia Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005. Rapp 2013 = Claudia Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013. Russell 2004 = Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Schenkewitz 2016 = Kyle A. Schenkewitz, Dorotheos of Gaza and the Discourse of Healing in Gazan Monasticism, New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2016. Schroeder 2007 = Caroline T. Schroeder, Monastic Bodies: Discipline and Salvation in Shenoute of Atripe, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. Shaw 1998a = Theresa M. Shaw, “Askesis and the Appearance of Holiness,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 6 (1998), pp. 485–499. Shaw 1998b = Theresa M. Shaw, The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity, Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998. Sinkewicz 2006 = Robert E. Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Sorabji 2003 = Richard Sorabji, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Stewart 1995 = Columba Stewart, The World of the Desert Fathers: Stories and Sayings From the Anonymous Series of the Apophthegmata Patrum, Fairacres: SLG Press, 1995.

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Stewart 2003 = Columba Stewart, “Evagrius on Monastic Pedagogy,” in: John Behr, Andrew Louth, Dimitri Conomos (eds.), Abba: The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West. Festschrift for Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003, pp. 241–272. Tobon (forthcoming) = Monica Tobon, Apatheia in the Teachings of Evagrius Ponticus: The Health of the Soul, London: Routledge, forthcoming. Tollefsen 2006 = Torstein Theodor Tollefsen, “Theosis According to Gregory,” in: Jostein Børtnes and Tomas Hägg (eds.), Gregory of Nazianzus: Images and Reflections, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2006, pp. 257–270. Tollefsen 2008 = Torstein Theodor Tollefsen,The Christocentric Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Tollefsen 2012 = Torstein Theodor Tollefsen,Activity and Participation in Late Antique and Early Christian Thought, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Williams 1999 = Rowan Williams, “Troubled Breasts: The Holy Body in the Hagiography,” in: J.W. Drijvers and John Watt (eds.), Portraits of Spiritual Authority: Religious Power in Early Christianity, Byzantium and the Christian Orient, Leiden: Brill, 1999, pp. 63–78. Young 2010 = Frances M. Young and Andrew Teal (eds.), From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature and Its Background, Ada, MI: Baker Academic Press, 22010. Zecher 2015 = Jonathan L. Zecher, The Role of Death in the Ladder of Divine Ascent and the Greek Ascetic Tradition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

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Down by the lover’s well St. Gregory of Nyssa and Annie Dillard on divinization Martin Laird, O.S.A.

The likelihood that Gregory of Nyssa and Annie Dillard have ever been invited into the same lecture hall is slim indeed – I am referring here to St. Gregory of Nyssa, the fourth-century Cappadocian bishop-theologian, and the twenty-firstcentury American author, Annie Dillard, winner of the coveted Pulitzer Prize in 1975, aged a mere 29, for her first prose work (non-fiction), Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Despite a canyon that separates the historical context, cultural and linguistic differences, as well as the scope and sequence of their respective oeuvres, there are nonetheless intriguing similarities in the way each author thinks theosis works. At the outset of this essay, it might be prudent to signal a few of the numerous caveats that attend comparative studies generally. To observe similarities between two authors writing on the same subject is not to suggest that they are saying precisely the same thing. Nor is it to suggest that Gregory of Nyssa has had any historical influence on Annie Dillard; nor is it to imply that Annie Dillard has ever read Gregory of Nyssa (she has read, so it seems, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite). In our case, each of our authors is obviously grounded in completely different historical circumstances, writing in different periods in the development of their respective languages and cultures, and aiming at totally different audiences. All of these factors are going to shape each author’s approach to the topic of divinization. There is also the important difference of literary genre; for Gregory it is the homily/commentary on a book from the Wisdom literature of the Hebrew scriptures, which attempts to train the reader for divinizing union; for Annie Dillard the genre is obviously the prose poem, written for a general readership. After all this one might feel tempted to say, “By the sound of it, the only thing these two have in common is a different Sitz im Leben.” Yet, despite the inherent difficulties in comparative studies, there remains a certain harmony that grounds mind, means, and metaphor. Somehow the comparisons come together in a soft and pleasurable harmony precisely because the elements remain as distinct as melody and descant. In what follows I shall consider but one work by each author: Gregory of Nyssa’s Homilies on the Song of Songs and Annie Dillard’s prose poem, Holy the Firm. First St. Gregory of Nyssa.1 Some scholars even doubt the importance of theosis in Gregory of Nyssa at all. This is an easy enough conclusion to come to if one focuses solely on the use of the technical vocabulary of theosis such as theopoieo

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or sunapotheo. This leads Norman Russell to conclude in his magisterial work on the topic of divinization that Gregory of Nyssa “finds the concept of deification in the end inadequate for the paradoxical “union” of [the human] with God which he wishes to express.”2 This philological approach to texts, helpful as it often is with the aid of word-searches, and, in Gregory’s case, the multivolume Lexicon Gregorianum has its limitations.3 Other scholars, by contrast, such as John McGuckin (as well as myself ), observe that “deification is as much the fabric of Gregory of Nyssa’s thought as it was in the teaching of his older mentor, Gregory Nazianzus.”4 In order to gain entry into the Homilies on the Song of Song, Gregory’s most theologically rich, exegetical work composed towards the end of his life, one must always pay close attention to at least two things at once: 1) the scriptural lemmata that Gregory comments on, as well as 2) the imagery Gregory employs. I shall focus on just two of such images rooted in the text of the Song of Songs itself: the fountain of life and the wound of love.

The fountain of life In Homily 8 on the Song of Songs Gregory twice uses the phrase “becoming something divine.”5 He uses this phrase most notably of water, and we do well to think of baptism in this case; for Gregory uses the phrase, “becoming something divine” while speaking of the River Jordan.6 The River Jordan springs forth from Sanir and Hermon and marks “the beginning of our transformation into what is divine.”7 It should be noted that the imagery of flow, whether it be the flow of dewdrops on the locks of the Beloved or the flow of honey from the comb, flow often signals Gregory’s deep reservoir of epistemology and divinizing union. Let us look at what happens to the bride as she drinks from the fountain of the bridegroom. Her thirst is at once both slaked and insatiable. When she drinks from the fountain of the bridegroom, the bride herself becomes a fountain. As a result she is, as Gregory puts it, “changed into something divine.” The divinizing waters of this fountain appear early on in the Homilies. First in Homily 1, as Gregory comments on the lemma: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.” Here Gregory introduces a scripturally grounded principle of divinization: “The words of the Bridegroom are spirit and life (Jn. 5:24), and everyone who clings to the Spirit becomes spirit.” We see this transfiguration when the bride herself comes in contact with the fountain. Gregory says the Bridegroom’s mouth is a fountain, flowing with eternal life and that the thirsting soul wishes to bring her mouth to his mouth. When the bride places her mouth on the fountain of his lips, her drinking of divine water results not in the slaking of the bride’s thirst but in the manifestation of revelation by means of her divinized speech. The bride herself now embodies Sacred Scripture in such a way that she herself now begins to speak Sacred Scripture: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.” These words have been placed by the Bridegroom into the mouth of the bride who drinks from the fountain of his lips. This elision of images: mouths and fountains, kissing and drinking, a thirst both slaked and insatiable, are typical of the Homilies as a whole. Likewise typical is the coincidence of inner and outer, of interior union with God

Down by the lover’s well 37 the Word and, in this case, the bride’s outward logophasis, that is to say, the manifestation of the Word Itself through her divinized and divinizing speech in such a way that others are attracted to the Word Incarnate. The bride is the Word’s means of manifestation. These images of union suggested by kissing and drinking in of the Word coincide with the manifestation of the bride’s revelatory speech, speech that is divinizing.8 The bride drinks from the Source and thereby becomes a life-giving source for others. This is a one of many examples in Gregory of Nyssa of the double face of union, elaborated within a general context of epectasy. Homily 9 calls the bride “a well of living water.” Gregory notes that this is indeed paradoxical. All wells contain still water. Only the bride is at one and the same time both a well’s still depth as well continuously flowing water. The bride is both “still and still moving,” to give a nod to T. S. Eliot. Why is this an example of divinization? Gregory gives us two important clues. First, he announces that this is a paradox. For Gregory a paradox often relates immediately to his Christology. For example Homily 8 speaks of incarnation and redemption as a coincidence of opposites: “a union of opposites,” he says, “is clearly manifested through the Church: the Word becomes flesh; life is mixed with death; by his own bruises Christ heals our wounds; brings down the adversary’s power by the weakness of the cross, the invisible is manifested in flesh.”9 As the bride embodies paradox she becomes an “intelligent body”10 which manifests union with the divinizing humanity of Christ.11 Second, rivers flowing with divine water directly imply the enlightenment and divinization of baptism. Here in Homily 9, Gregory says that “living water is the divine nature.”12

The wound of love In three homilies of crucial importance, Gregory of Nyssa comments on “the wound of love”: Homelies 4, 12, and 13. Homily 4, where Gregory comments on the lemma: “I am wounded by love” is by far the richest. Here we see divinizing union without any terminology of divinization. Moreover, we see divinizing union under an aspect we often see in these Homilies: the double face of union. That is, when the bride experiences union with God, while deeply personal it is never private to her; for this reason she is at the same time in ecclesial mission. For Gregory of Nyssa, if there is no union with God, there is no ecclesial life in mission. Gregory opens his commentary on this lemma, “I am wounded by love,” by drawing our attention to the bride’s words of praise, praise of the archer’s fine marksmanship, “because,” as Gregory says, “he penetrates her with his arrow.” This praise quickly assumes the form of a boastful paradox. The bride sees within her the sweet arrow of love. She proclaims, “O beautiful wound and sweet blow by which life penetrates within.” Indwelling presence is clearly signalled in this text, and Gregory leaves no doubt that it is the indwelling presence of the Trinity. He says, The archer of these arrows is love who sends his chosen arrow, the only begotten Son, to those who are saved, dipping the triple-pointed tip of the arrow in

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Martin Laird, O.S.A. the Spirit of life. The tip of the arrow is faith, and by faith God introduces the Archer into her heart along with the arrow. As the Lord says, ‘I and the Father are one. We will come and make our home in him’ (see Jn. 14:23).13

Both the spirit-moistened arrow and the archer indwell her. Observe what happens to the bride as a result of the indwelling presence. Gregory says of her: “Earlier we said that the bride was the target; now she sees herself as the arrow in the archer’s hands.”14 The bride herself has become the Archer’s arrow that penetrated her, who is Christ because she is in union with the Archer. Hence, the bride takes on the quality of the arrow that has penetrated her, as she herself, like an arrow, is shot forth. The bride remarks, “His right hand receives me and draws me back easing my journey upward where I am directed, without being separated from the Archer. Simultaneously,” she continues, “I am carried away by his act of shooting and at the same time am at rest in the hands of the Archer.”15 This is a stunning coincidence of opposites. The bride is both at rest in the arms of the Beloved and at the same time shot forth, but as she flies forth she does not remain silent, but exhorts the daughters of Jerusalem so that their love for God might increase. Again we see in Gregory of Nyssa this double face of divine union: union with God establishes the very possibility of ecclesial mission. Personal as divine union is to the bride, it is not private: precisely because of her union with the Bridegroom/Archer she is at one and the same time in ecclesial mission. Moreover, insofar as she enjoys self-forgetful divine union, she serves as vehicle of the Word who attracts us to the Father. Again both “still and still moving,” she exhorts the daughters of Jerusalem, arousing in them their own love of God.16 Throughout this passage Gregory has not used any technical terminology of divinization. Yet, we clearly witness the bride becoming “something divine.” She takes on the qualities of the divine arrow and becomes a vehicle of the incarnational, ecclesial proclamation of the Word. Now to Annie Dillard, who also carries within herself a certain wound.

Annie Dillard’s vaulted and buttressed soul Recently divorced, Annie Dillard finds healing in the theophany of the densely forested Pacific Northwest of America, an island in Puget Sound. Here she seeks healing of a rather different sort of wound. While Gregory’s bride is wounded by the triple-pointed arrow of divine love, Annie Dillard is wounded by a triplepointed arrow of fame, fortune, and divorce. Jacques Maritain comments on the artist at work: “Nature concerns the artist . . . simply because it derives from the divine art in things. The artist . . . is consulting God when [she] looks at things.” For the twenty-first-century, American author, Annie Dillard, especially in the most arresting prose poem of her oeuvre, Holy the Firm,17 the world is become utterly diaphanous to the Sacred. Dillard demonstrates this both in the intricate and hidden structure of a seemingly

Down by the lover’s well 39 structureless prose poem, as well as in the themes which she explores therein. What sort of book have we in Holy the Firm? For rather a long time we have heard the now throw-away line that we cannot separate bibliography from biography; we cannot separate what an author writes from the life she lives. Dillard has fortunately provided us with an autobiographical essay that helpfully situates Holy the Firm in what is going on in her life.18 She writes, It was November 1975. I was living alone . . . on an island in Puget Sound, near the Canadian border. I was thirty years old. I thought about myself a lot (for someone thirty years old). . . . What is my life about? Why was I living alone, when I am so gregarious? Would I ever meet someone, or should I reconcile myself to all this solitude? I disliked celibacy; I dreaded childlessness. I could not even think of anything to write. However, until very recently, Annie Dillard had not been alone and had indeed hoped for children. She had married her creative writing professor from university, R.H.W. Dillard, but the marriage turned out to be childless. It adds especial poignancy for a woman in her thirty-first year, with a biological time-clock ticking, to say: “I dreaded childlessness.” In 1975 Dillard wins the Pulitzer prize for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. She is catapulted overnight from complete obscurity into national fame. At her doorstep are cameras clicking, agents yapping, publishers waving contracts in her face. For a born author this is a gutting felix culpa. All the media interest and intrusion introduce storms into a marriage that ultimately cannot weather them. The marriage breaks up. By November 1975 she has moved from east coast to west, and is living in a small cabin situated on an island in Puget Sound, in the far Pacific Northwest of the United States. With respect to all this fame which she neither sought nor desired, and to this day eschews, she is off to Puget Sound “in full flight,” she says, “from success, from recent fuss over a book I’d published the previous year called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” “They tempted me. . . . I was [on an island in Puget Sound] . . . to rededicate myself to art and to God.”19 Many consider the power of Holy the Firm to exceed that of the heftier, prizewinning, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Still others, rightly or wrongly, say that Annie Dillard exhausts herself in this small volume and never again produces anything with the same trumpeting of the presence of God in creation; or her patient lectio divina of the subtle, sifting of the present moment. A mere seventy-six pages, it takes her fifteen months of daily work to bring to full gestation a work with apparently little structure and even less plot. As she herself puts it early on, “Nothing is going to happen in this book. There is only a little violence here and there in the language, at the corner where eternity clips time.”20 Yet, through this heavily pregnant “nothing,” Dillard creates a theophanic arena of metaphor and symbol that constantly play off one another, imply one another, as a crystal chandelier constantly plays with light. Dillard achieves this with such energy and power that one finds oneself constantly putting the book down simply to take it all in.

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Many find it difficult to discern any structure in this prose poem. Yet, close reading reveals an organizing framework that unifies the book’s triptych of chapters: “Newborn and Salted,” “God’s Tooth,” and “Holy the Firm.” The unifying structure in which Dillard places her entire narrative is the sphere of eternity: the book opens with the morning of the first day and ends with the morning of the third day. Dillard places her entire narrative in the sphere of eternity, in conspectu Dei. But more than just this: she patterns this triptych of chapters according to the great moments in the history of salvation, both across the three chapters of the book and within each chapter. Thus, across the three chapters we see Dillard emphasizing, to one degree or another, creation (Chapter 1) fall (Chapter 2), redemption (Chapter 3). Then the classical seasons of spiritual life: illumination, purgation, and union. The patterns of faith development: faith, doubt, faith transformed, and finally death, descent, resurrection.21 The following table offers a visual aid that makes it easier to understand the underlying structure of Holy the Firm. “Newborn and Salted”

“God’s Tooth”

“Holy the Firm”

Creation Illumination Faith Death

Fall Purgation Doubt Descent

Redemption Union Faith Deepened Resurrection

Hence, we have a prose poem with a subtle, underlying structure of the history of salvation of the people of God, as well as that of every soul who seeks the face of God. Before we look at Dillard’s most striking example of divinization, let us first look at some key texts which help build a literary momentum that brings the reader to the most significant manifestation of divinization in Holy the Firm. Let Geoffrey Hill again set the question for our approach to Dillard on divinization. Geoffrey asks: “beloved soul/what shall you see?” What then shall Annie Dillard see, like Gregory’s bride, down by the lover’s well? Dillard sees much. Before focusing on what Dillard thinks theosis involves, let us attend to some passages that prepare the reader to listen deeply to her as she establishes the divine qualities of nature, likening nature to a cathedral; establishing a liturgical matrix to reflecting on angelic praise, until we see the consummation by grace of Dillard herself. Dillard is keenly aware of the sacred character of time and creation, which evokes from her a rhapsody of praise: Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time. I worship. . . . I praise each day splintered down, splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading, at dawn fast over the mountains split.22 Note that she spells “god” always with lower-case “g” to suggest that nature is itself not “God” but utterly God’s.23 She describes nature as though it were a gothic

Down by the lover’s well 41 cathedral: nature as a manifestation of Creation/Incarnation evoking praise as cathedral liturgy might evoke communal praise. “Today’s god rises,” she continues, “his long eyes flecked in clouds. He flings his arms, spreading colors: he arches, cupping sky in his belly; he vaults, vaulting and spread, holding all and spread on me like skin.”24 Creation serves, she says, as “buttresses for cathedral domes.”25 Dillard simply receives and observes what each day brings; she remarks, “All day long I feel created.”26 In the middle chapter, “God’s Tooth,” Dillard unites epistemology, angelology, liturgy, and, again, a cathedral of public worship space: So I read. Angels, I read, belong to nine different orders. Seraphs are the highest; they are aflame with love for God, and stand closer to him than the others. Seraphs love God; cherubs, who are second, possess perfect knowledge of [God]. So love is greater than knowledge; how could I have forgotten? The seraphs are born of a stream of fire issuing from under God’s throne. They are, according to Dionysius the Areopagite, ‘all wings,’ having, as Isaiah saw, six wings apiece, two of which they fold over their eyes. Moving perpetually toward God, they perpetually praise him, crying, Holy, Holy, Holy. . . . But according to some rabbinic writings, they can sing only the first ‘Holy’ before the intensity of their love ignites them again and dissolves them again, perpetually, into flames. ‘Abandon every thing,’ Dionysius told his disciples. ‘God despises ideas’.27 Annie Dillard knows, as she puts it, “only enough of God to want to worship him, by any means ready to hand.”28 Not so subtly she continues to guide her reader by drawing out the apophatic dynamism of divinization: “We are most deeply asleep at the switch,” she says, when we fancy we control any switches at all. We sleep to time’s hurdy-gurdy; we wake to the deep shores of light uncreated, then when the dazzling dark breaks over the far slopes of time, then it’s time to toss things, like our reason, and our will; then it’s time to break our necks for home.29 During her time on an island in Puget Sound, Dillard worships with a Congregationalist community. She serves the community by buying wine (with some diplomatic work on her part, wine instead of grape juice) for the Sunday service. She purchases the wine and puts it in her rucksack. With the wine on her back she heads home. It is precisely this journey that reveals the gradual divinization of the visible world around her, manifesting creation’s full-flowering as divine arena. She remarks “The world is changing.” . . . “It is starting to utter its infinite particulars.” “leafless stems are starting to live visibly deep in their centers,” . . . “the trees, the grass, the asphalt below me are living petals of mind, . . . held in a greeting or glance full perfectly formed.” “Why are all these apples in the world, and why so wet and transparent?” Dillard’s awareness is restored in such a way that creation is a sacred of transparency, sheer and diaphanous to the Sacred. Responding to

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creation’s pulsing gesture towards God, Dillard now begins to look within. Here ensues Dillard’s own divinization: “Through all my clothing, through the pack on my back and through the bottle’s glass I feel the wine.” . . . “It sheds light in the slats through my rib cage, and fills the buttressed vaults of my ribs with light pooled and buoyant.” The wine Dillard carries on her back is consecrated, is sacrament, and through sacrament she herself is interiorly transformed into the eternal shimmer of the double face of union. Her awareness of inner vastness is like a gothic cathedral with vaults and buttresses that hold light, lift and space. “It is the one glare of holiness; it is bare and unspeakable. There is no speech or language; there is nothing, no one thing, nor motion, nor time. . . . There is only this, and its bright and multiple noise.”30 Dillard uses broad strokes of the painter’s brush to describe transformation in Transcendent Mystery. Because transcendence perpetually transcends transcendence, creation is wholly to the Divine, a sacred arena of eternity. Dillard is caught up in the eternal transcending of transcendence as she herself is transformed interiorly into something divine by way of grace, gift, and sacrament. We have heard Jacques Maritain say “The artist . . . is consulting God when [she] looks at things.” What Annie Dillard shows us is creation as teacher and guide so that we learn to gaze on creation’s sourceless Source. Jacques Maritain quite rightly suggests that the artist is consulting God when [she] looks at things. Yet, we also see, do we not, that God also consults, indeed exegetes, the artist as she beholds the Sacred shimmering in her very desire to seek?

Conclusion Why bring Gregory’s exegesis of the bride down to the lover’s well with Annie Dillard’s exegesis of what the day brings? A number of things present themselves for consideration. I shall signal but a few among many. First, each author emphasizes strongly the incarnation of the Word. For Gregory it is the incarnation of the Word in the text of Scripture, especially the Solomonic literature, which trains the bride, “taking her by the hand,” first through Proverbs, then through Ecclesiastes, then through the Song of Songs.31 In the case of Annie Dillard we see the incarnation of the Word in the book of nature, which serves equally as the soul’s guide through creation to divinizing union. For each author there is both an explicit and an implicit sacramental conviction, which each author grounds in the context of a praying Christian community. For Gregory this is elaborated throughout the Homilies: baptism transforms the bride “into something divine.” Annie Dillard also speaks of baptism but in an altogether subtler manner through the symbolism of salt: “the Jews washed a baby in water, salted him, and wrapped him in cloths.” . . . “In the Roman church’s baptism, the priest places salt on the infant’s tongue.” Despite Dillard’s dalliance with Roman Catholicism, one wonders if she ever saw this form of the rite of baptism take place, where the priest places salt on the tongue of the child. Despite some enthusiastic prayers of exorcism, the primary purpose of placing salt on the child’s tongue is to awaken the child’s taste for Wisdom.

Down by the lover’s well 43 Moreover, both Gregory’s bride and Dillard are divinized by grace within an ecclesial community of worship that also manifests itself in service to the community. A final observation: Gregory of Nyssa and Annie Dillard understand theosis to be concerned with a similar awareness of divine union in what I have termed: the double face of union. We see the bride: as personal as divinizing union is to her, it is not private. To the extent that Gregory’s bride is one with the Beloved, to that extent she is “shot forth” in mission. Dillard describes something rather similar, but with a different starting point in her description of divinization. Dillard begins with service to her praying community of Congregationalists. She serves the community by trekking down the hillside of service to purchase altar wine. Only on her way back from this practical service to her church is she transformed, as buttresses and vaults of a cathedral: that is a place of common worship, where the wine that is purchased becomes both transformed and transforming, shedding “light” as she says, “in slats through my rib cage . . . I am prayer and I can hardly see.”32 Without divinizing union, there is no possibility for mission and ministry. Who sees this point more clearly than Madeleine Delbrêl? “It seems to me impossible to conceive of a life according to the Gospels, without desiring and knowing that it must be a life of silence.”33 Let us conclude by placing Gregory’s bride in conversation with Dillard herself: Gregory’s bride is penetrated by the Bridegroom’s arrow. As a result, she is both embraced by the arrow of the Beloved, and, having thus become arrow, she is shot forth in mission by the Archer/Beloved as she proclaims: “I am carried away by his act of shooting and at the same time am at rest in the hands of the Archer.” Dillard expresses the consummation of her divinization through grace in yet more effusive praise: “Held, held fast by love in the world . . . your life a wick, your head on fire with prayer, held utterly outside and in, you sleep alone, if you call that alone, you cry God [accusative case, not the vocative “God”]).34 Dillard is not crying out “God,” but her tears themselves manifest divinizing union with God.

Notes 1 When citing Gregory of Nyssa I refer to the critical edition by Hermann Langerbeck, Gregorii Nysseni Opera (hereinafter GNO), volume VI, Commentarius in Canticum canticorum (Leiden: Brill, 1960). Hence, a reference such as GNO VI 8: 250, 13–15 refers to volume VI of GNO, Homily 8: page number, and which line(s) on that page. In rendering Gregory of Nyssa I have consulted the more technically precise translation by Norris (2013), as well as the older, and at times more rich and poetic, translation by McCambley (1987). 2 Russell (2004: 232). 3 Mann, F. (ed.), Lexicon Gregorianum: Wörterbuch zu den Schriften Gregors von Nyssa (Leiden: Brill, 1999–). 4 McGucken (2007: 104). It is well to note a recent flourish of interest in the doctrine of divinization generally. A sampling includes: Finlan and Kharlamov (2006); Gross (2002); Hudson (2007); Kärkkänen (2004). 5 GNO VI 8: 250, 13–15: μεταποιηθεῖσα προς τὸ θειότερον. 6 For an excellent study of the importance of baptism throughout the Homilies on the Song of Songs see Cortesi (2000).

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7 GNO VI 8: 250, 13–15: πρὸς τὸ θεῖον μεταποιήσεως. We see similar phraseology at GNO VI 8: 253, 15–16: μεταποιηθεῖσα πρὸς τὸ θειότερον. 8 Elsewhere I have referred to this by a Greek word I coined, λογόφασις, the Word speaking through the deeds and discourse of the one in apophatic union with God; see Laird (2004: 154–173). 9 See GNO VI 8: 255–256. 10 See Miles (2014). 11 On the role of paradox in Gregory see Canévet (1983: 342); see also Daley (1997, reprinted in Coakley 2003: 67–76). 12 See GNO VI 9: 292, 19–20: Πανταχοῦ τοίνυν τῆς θείας φύσεως διὰ τοῦ ζῶντος ὕδατος νοομένης. 13 For more on the Christian appropriation of the arrow, see Osborne (1994). 14 See GNO VI 4: 128, 12–14. 15 GNO VI 4: 129, 12–16: δεχιὰ δὲ αὐτοῦ πρὸς ἑαυτήν με διαλαβοῦσα καί ἐφελκυσαμένη. 16 For a more detailed examination of the theme of union throughout the Homiles, see Laird (2007). 17 Dillard (1977) and subsequent reprintings. 18 Dillard (1979: 13). 19 Ibid.: 13. 20 Dillard (1977: 24). 21 Still the most useful investigation of this is that by Smith (1991). 22 Dillard (1977: 11). 23 In this first chapter she is spelling “god” with lower-case “g” simply to emphasize the sacred character of creation. By the end of the book, “god” is very nearly completely replaced by “God.” 24 Dillard (1977: 12). 25 Ibid.: 14. 26 Ibid.: 25. 27 Ibid.: 45. 28 Ibid.: 55. 29 Ibid.: 62. 30 Dillard (1977: 67–68). 31 While Gregory has no commentary on Proverbs, it is yet arguable that his Commentary on the Titles of the Psalms serves such a purpose. 32 Dillard (1977: 65). 33 Delbrêl (1968: 121): “il me paraît impossible d’envisager une vie évangelique sans vouloir et sans savoir qu’elle doit être une vie de silence.” 34 Dillard (1977: 76).

Bibliography Sources and translations Delbrêl 1968 = Madeleine Delbrêl, La Joie de Croire, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1968. Dillard 1977 = Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm, New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1977. Langerbeck 1960 = Hermann Langerbeck (ed.), Gregorii Nysseni Opera, vol. VI: Commentarius in Canticum canticorum, Leiden: Brill, 1960.

Studies Canévet 1983 = Mariette Canévet, Grégoire de Nysse et l’herméneutique biblique: Études entre le langage et la connaissance de Dieu, Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1983. Coakley 2003 = Sarah Coakley (ed.), Re-Thinking Gregory of Nyssa, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.

Down by the lover’s well 45 Cortesi 2000 = Alessandro Cortesi, Le ‘Omelie sul Cantico dei cantici’ di Gregorio di Nissa: Proposta di un itinerario di vita battesimale, Studia Ephemerides Augustinianum 70, Roma: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2000. Daley 1997 = Brian Daley, “Divine Transcendence and Human Transformation: Gregory of Nyssa’s Anti-Apollinarian Christology,” Studia Patristica 32 (1997), pp. 87–95, reprinted in: Sarah Coakley (ed.), Re-Thinking Gregory of Nyssa, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, pp. 67–76. Dillard 1979 = Annie Dillard, “How I Wrote the Moth Essay,” in: T. Cooley (ed.), The Norton Sampler, New York, NY: Norton, 31979, pp. 13–21. Finlan and Kharlamov 2006 = Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov (eds.), Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology, Princeton Theological Monograph Series, Eugene, OR: Pickwick Press, 2006. Gross 2002 = Jules Gross, The Divinization of the Christian According to the Greek Fathers, trans. Paul A. Onica, Anaheim, CA: A&C Press, 2002. Hudson 2007 = Nancy J. Hudson, Becoming God: The Doctrine of Theosis in Nicholas of Cusa, Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007. Kärkkänen 2004 = Veli-Matti Kärkkänen, One With God: Salvation as Deification and Justification, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004. Laird 2004 = Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith: Union, Knowledge, and Divine Presence, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Laird 2007 = Martin Laird, “The Fountain of His Lips: Gregory of Nyssa’s Homilies on the Song of Songs,” Spiritus 7 (2007), pp. 40–57. Mann 1999 = F. Mann (ed.), Lexicon Gregorianum: Wörterbuch zu den Schriften Gregors von Nyssa, Leiden: Brill, 1999–. McCambley 1987 = Casimir McCambley, Commentary on the Song of Songs, Bookline, MA: Hellenic College Press, 1987. McGucken 2007 = John McGucken, “The Strategic Adaptation of Deification in the Cappadocians,” in: Michael Christensen and Jeffrey Wittung (eds.), Partakers of Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions, Madison, WI: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007. Miles 2014 = Margaret R. Miles, Beyond the Centaur: Imagining the Intelligent Body, Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014. Norris 2013 = Richard A. Norris, Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the Song of Songs, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013. Osborne 1994 = Catherine Osborne, Eros Unveiled: Plato and the God of Love, Oxford: Clarendon, 1994. Russell 2004 = Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Smith 1991 = Linda L. Smith, Annie Dillard, Farmington Hills, MI: Twayne, 1991.

4

Plato’s contribution to Augustine’s theory of theosis Victor Yudin

Augustine’s theology is often cited in opposition to the traditional Orthodox doctrine of deification (theosis) which was dogmatized in 1351 at the Council of Constantinople as a result of the Palamist controversy. One of the achievements of this controversy was the claim that deification is not only the aim of human life, but also its way. From the fourteenth century, this statement became something of a point of contention between Orthodox and Catholic theologians. Over the centuries, the Catholic Church was occasionally critical of the theory of deification, as well as of the accompanying doctrine of the divine essence and energies.1 Nevertheless, the twentieth century saw a shift in Catholic theology towards this teaching.2 In this paper, we question the validity of using Augustine to oppose Palamas’s theory of deification. To simplify the positions, we can summarize Palamas’s doctrine of theosis as a claim that deification is possible during human life. His position also admits the possibility of sanctification in this life. Augustine has long been attributed with the theory that a human person can become a saint exclusively after his death – following Augustine’s late On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sin (411).3 It is thus not surprising that Palamas’s opponents referred to Augustine’s authority to oppose him. Although Palamas’s version of deification has become paradigmatic, it is not exclusive. We find traces of such a view in Augustine’s oeuvre. In some of his texts, Augustine claims that God deifies the human person in resurrection, thereby turning her into a “god,” though a distinction remains between the divinity of God and that of the human person. We can identify certain traces of this theory in Augustine’s polemics against the Neoplatonist Porphyry, who had challenged the Christian doctrine of resurrection in the third century. In his response a century later, Augustine examines a certain passage from Plato’s Timaeus, in which God the Creator delivers a speech to a seminar of gods. In this context, Augustine employs a discourse of deification, referring to the Psalter, which surprisingly appears not at all to be foreign to such vocabulary. In this paper, we shall not describe Augustine’s deification theory as such. Gerald Bonner has done some excellent research in this respect.4 Here we shall deal exclusively with one aspect of the theory, namely the role of Plato and the Platonists in Augustine’s response to the resurrection controversy. Content-wise, we examine the meaning of the plural “gods” for Augustine’s theory of deification.

Plato’s contribution to Augustine’s theory 47 We have subdivided our present contribution into the following sections: first, we examine a passage from De civitate Dei5 book IX, in which Augustine cites Plato’s Timaeus in his response to the Neoplatonist position. Further, we proceed to Augustine’s relativist dynamics of using the words gods, demons, angels, and humans as interchangeable concepts. Finally, we examine the three possible solutions by Augustine in understanding the controversial plurality of the notion gods as (A) demons, (B) angels, (C) humans within the context of deification.

Controversy with the Platonists The key passage in dealing with the above-mentioned aspect of deification is Plato’s Tim 41ab, which is a text Augustine frequently cites in his oeuvre,6 basing his reflections on Cicero’s Latin translation. The passage starts as follows: Vos qui deorum satu orti estis, adtendite. You who rose from the seed of gods, of whose works I am progenitor and effector, hearken!7 This is the translation from Plato’s original: Θεοὶ θεῶν ὦν ἐγὼ δημιουργὸς πατήρ τε ἔργων Gods of gods, of whose works I am craftsman and father (of gods).8 Leaving aside some substantial discrepancies between the Greek original and Cicero’s translation as they were examined in my 2012 doctoral dissertation, we can note that Augustine already cited this passage in his 241–242 Easter sermons in an attempt to defend the Christian theory of resurrection against the Neoplatonists.9 We come across Augustine’s quote from Timaeus in civ.dei for the first time in book IX. If the Platonists prefer to call them (angels – VY ) ‘gods’ rather than ‘demons’ and count them among gods, they may say what they want. Plato, their founder and master, writes that these gods are created by the supreme God; the discussion with them concerns only words. If only they call them immortal because they are made by the supreme God, and not by themselves, then they also mean that they are made happy because they are united to God. They say what we say whatever word they use to call them. (civ.dei IX, xxiii, 1–9)10

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According to recent research on the dates of Augustine’s compositions of civ.dei book IX and Enarrationes ad Psalmos, it is clear that he was working on these treatises simultaneously around the year 415. It was also the time when Augustine delivered 241–242 sermons on Easter Tuesday and Wednesday.11 In these sermons, he cites a passage from Plato’s unknown dialogue On the Creation of the World,12 which naturally turns out to be the Timaeus.13 The second discussion of this passage appears in civ.dei book IX cited supra. From this point on, Augustine started using this text as the main weapon against the critics of the theory of resurrection (cf. civ.dei books XII, XIII, XVI, XVII, XXII). In Book IX, chapter 23 of the civ.dei14 Augustine mentions Plato as “master and founder” of the Platonists and head of the Platonic school, thereby establishing his authority over the platonic tradition. He adds auctor or “founder” in a similar reference to auctor in sermo 241.8. (Plato(nem) magistrum istorum omnium), and bluntly refers to Platonici, the “Platonists” by name. The importance of establishing Plato’s authority is crucial since Augustine was keen to identify similarities between Plato’s philosophy and Christianity. The Neoplatonists tended to follow Porphyry who sharply criticized Christian doctrine. In civ.dei IX, 23, 1–9 Augustine discusses the meaning of the word “god” as used in the plural both by the Platonic philosophers and believers. He is of the opinion that the Platonists do not contradict the Christians, as in fact the former use this word to mean something different than actual gods. Proof is drawn from Plato’s Tim 41ab, where, according to Augustine, Plato – being their chief and master – describes the gods created by the supreme god (a summo deo conditos deos scribit).15 According to Augustine, Plato apparently means something different than straightforward “gods” in this passage. Augustine twice uses the expression “supreme God” (a summo deo conditos deos…. ut tamen a summo deo factos, et si non per se ipsos) in this passage. He seems to be anxious that the reader will not understand and draws explicit attention to supreme. This supreme God appears to be a different kind of god, different from the other gods who he later calls minor gods (dii minores). The text indicates a certain hierarchy between divinities. Augustine highlights the idea that the gods, whose plurality is emphasized both in Augustine and Plato, are created by the Supreme God (a summo deo factos). They are not born from him nor have they existed forever. They are his creatures (conditos and factos), in Augustine’s terminology. He underlines that the gods non per se ipsos – do not exist by themselves – but depend on their Creator. Augustine confirms hereby the gap of creation between the Supreme God and the created gods. Augustine’s opposition between Summus Deus and dii minores with a reference to Plato’s Timaeus here and elsewhere is somewhat suspicious. Such an opposition implies, firstly, polytheism, and secondly, a divine hierarchy and polytheism contradicts fundamental Christian beliefs (Ex. 20:2). Augustine discusses Plato’s “polytheism” in a diplomatic fashion: he wants to read the text so that the Supreme God is the only true God, whereas all the other created “gods” are only a figure of speech. It appears that these “gods” were not always gods, as there was a point at

Plato’s contribution to Augustine’s theory 49 which they did not exist. Since they have a beginning, the word “god” applies to them in different fashion than to the Supreme God. Both expressions, supreme God and minor gods, originate neither from Plato’s Timaeus, nor from Cicero’s Latin translation which Augustine used.16 These did not stem even from the Platonists, with whom Augustine engaged in the dispute. He projects these concepts upon the original in his attempt to identify certain Christian ideas in ancient authors in response to the Neoplatonist challenge of Christian doctrines.17 De verborum controversia It goes without saying that in theology, as much as in any other science, one needs to clarify one’s terminology. Nevertheless, even some basic terms, such as the notion god, are not always unambiguous to the reader. Augustine admits this, saying that people often vainly talk about words (de verborum controversia).18 They tend to misunderstand each other, striving back to their own positions. According to Augustine, we ought firstly to use the same terminology, and secondly, to signify the same realities with consistent terminology in our discourse. In civ.dei book IX Augustine introduces a peculiar terminology in order to decipher Plato’s Tim 41ab. However, this terminology is absent from Plato’s original as well as from Cicero’s translation. Augustine applies the expression Summus Deus (“supreme God”) to the demiurge who delivers a speech. He denotes the addressed divinities with the expression dii minores (“minor gods”). He further continues to employ this dialectic opposition of summus deus-dii minores as a core to his technical exegesis. Due to this terminology, the reader has the impression that Plato’s Timaeus is indeed a Christian treatise. In the above-mentioned passage, Augustine argues something similar: we should not argue about words. Both Platonists and Christians mean the same, despite applying different words to refer to the same reality. Augustine discusses the three descriptions of divinity. First, the key concept used to define “god” for the Platonists is the notion immortalitas 1) – “immortality.”19 This basic understanding of divinity is indeed typical for antiquity, yet not sufficient to define God for the Christians. In some cases, someone who is not god has already become or is going to be immortal. Augustine refers to two other characteristics provided by Plato, which result in the word discrepancy: 2) “being created by the supreme God yet not having existence on one’s own account” (a summo Deo factos, et non per se ipsos, sed ei a qui facti sunt), and 3) a form of happiness: “being happy not on account of one’s own nature but by uniting oneself to the creator” (adherendo beatos esse). These three characteristics of divinity may differ in the use of different philosophical schools and/or religions. This may also lead to the discrepancy in the use of the word “god.” The practice of using the word “god” while referring to a different reality in various contexts also exists within the Judeo-Christian tradition. Surprisingly, this tradition has certain parallels to Plato’s expression “gods of gods” in Tim 41ab.20 The Judeo-Christian expression contains the singular instead of the plural in the

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first word, thus “god of gods,” and not “gods of gods” (cf. infra), clearly highlighting the monotheistic basis of Christianity. Augustine provides four quotes from the Psalms as examples to establish the parallel between the Platonist and Christian understanding in the way the word “god” is used in the plural:21 •

“God of gods, the Lord has spoken” (Deus deorum dominus locutus est) (Ps. 49:1);

•

“Let us confess to God of gods” (Confitemini deo deorum) (Ps. 135:2);

•

“The great king over all the gods” (rex magnus super omnes deos) (Ps. 94:3);

•

“He (God) is terrible over all the gods” (Terribilis est super omnesdeos) (Ps. 94:4–5).

There is a strong parallelism between Tim 41ab and certain passages in the Psalter. Nevertheless, Plato’s demiurge-creator delivers his speech in the first person, whereas the Psalmist’s creator is referred to in the third person. Still one can trace certain linguistic correspondences between the two texts, since in both cases there is a double nominative singular combined with the genitive plural. In the expression Deus deorum dominus locutus est (Psalm 94) the genitive deorum (“of gods”) depends both on Deus and Dominus. Thus, the original expression can be re-read as Deus deorum (“God of gods”), Dominus deorum (“Lord of gods”), thereby twice showing superiority towards the gods, whoever they may be. Similarly, in Plato, Θεοὶ θεῶν ὦν ἐγὼ δημιουργὸς πατήρ τε ἔργων not only necessarily allows for the direct dependence of θεῶν on δημιουργὸς, as well as ἔργων on πατήρ, but rather a cross-correspondence. This was suggested by Proclus,22 correlating θεῶν to πατήρ, and ἔργων to δημιουργὸς, so that instead of a literal yet somewhat absurd “father of things” and “creator of gods,” he achieves a more natural “father of gods” and “creator of things.” Both divinities in Plato, and in the Psalter receive a double name: God and Lord in the Psalms, and Creator and Father in Timaeus.23 Whether or not Augustine really thinks so, as an orator he appears to claim here that the difference between the major philosophical schools is minimal. They differ mostly in their terminology. Curiously, they often use the same words that signify different realities. Therefore, to reconcile them one must decipher what these words mean. Typically for Augustine, he does not plunge into an immediate solution as to who the “gods” are. Instead, he provides three possible readings for the plural “dii” for the given context: he argues that it either refers to “demons” (A), or to the “angels” (B) or finally to the “humans” (C). (A)

Demons as “gods”

The first possibility is that the word “gods” may refer to “demons”/“idols.” The expression dii minores (“minor gods”) from Augustine’s civ.dei book XI appears in

Plato’s contribution to Augustine’s theory 51 a pejorative sense. This is especially so, since Augustine’s interpretation of Tim 41ab is placed in opposition to Summus Deus (“supreme God”) – the only true God. The word “god(s)” is applied inappropriately or even mistakenly according to Augustine: while saying “gods” the writer means false gods or idols. A reference for this reading is the continuation of the last quote (4) from Psalm 94. In the Latin translation quoted by Augustine, it reads: Terribilis est super omnes deos, quoniam omnes dii gentium daemonia, dominus autem caelos fecit. In free translation, it reads: the true God is terrifying for the gods of the other nations (“pagans” = as different to the people of Israel). Moreover, the true God is superior to these gods. The gods of the nations are thus gods only by name, but in reality, they are nothing but demons who pretend to be gods. Psalm 94 also provides the reason why its author considers the so-called “gods” to be demons: dominus autem caelos fecit – these “gods” did not create the heavens, whereas the true God did.24 Here the Psalmist accentuates the exclusivity of the Jewish nation in its relationship with the only true God. Their god is the true God: therefore he is to be called “God,” whereas the other “gods” are mistakenly taken for gods; they should be called idols rather than gods. This raises the question, however, of why these “gods” ought to be understood as the very negative “demons.” Even Augustine admits that though the projection of the meaning “demons” is correct in this particular case, we may not simply substitute the word “gods” with the word “demons” in all the other parallel passages. In fact, such a literal application would be wrong in the first three instances we mentioned before (cf. supra p. 5), as it would place God in a position of being the head of the demons – “deus daemoniorum,” which is absurd, as it would degrade him to the status of a powerful demon, ruler of the demons, or even worse, a usurper demon among other demons. In several chapters of the civ.dei IX preceding the passage under scrutiny here, Augustine challenges the Middle Platonist Apuleius who actively operates with the notion “demons.” He uses it as interchangeable with the notions “gods” and “angels.” Even the title of Apuleius’s book De deo Socratis refers to it.25 Apuleius discusses Socrates who acquired – if we are to believe Plato – a certain personal “god” who took care of him. Socrates did not know the name of his “god,” as he never saw him with his eyes. It had a great influence on him, as to the great surprise of his interlocutor, Socrates could suddenly stop a long discussion at its climax. In fact, it was this “god” or inner state, or rather a living inner being that warned Socrates from proceeding into dangerous speculations.26 It shows Socrates’s obedience to this inner being. According to antique standards, Plato speaks about this being as a “god,” which explains Apuleius’s title. Its author lived half a millennium later, in a period of Late Antiquity in which the word “god” could be substituted with the equally controversial word “demon.” In this way, one could rephrase the title to De demone Socrаtis. Moreover, in the course of the discussion, Apuleius builds up a system of personal demons, to which reverence is due. In civ.dei book IX Augustine gives an extensive response to this discourse, rejecting the claim that demons should be worshipped. Instead, he prefers the notion angels-protectors to Apuleius’s demons and the description seems to perfectly fit his discourse.

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Augustine points out that according to this philosophical system, the same beings seem to receive different names (“gods,” “angels,” “demons”). He wonders whether the word use is somewhat arbitrary. The use of the notion “god” as applied to the creatures under discussion is inappropriate both for the Middle Platonists and the Christians in this context. Yet, since these two teachings also substantially differ from each other, they ought to broaden their respective terminological prospective. Augustine acknowledges the significance that the existence of these beings is recognized in various schools. But none of this implies that Augustine is a kind of terminological relativist who allows for any word use according to his personal preference. The terminological preferences in different schools and most of all in Augustine’s own Christian setting are profoundly important. For example, Augustine rejects Apuleius’s suggestion to use the word “demon” in the sense of “angel,” and even less so in the sense of “god.”27 He claims that the notion “demon” has been completely discredited and thus cannot be used in a positive context for Christians.28 To conclude, Augustine admits that the notion gods in the sense of demons has rather ancient roots: on the one hand, within the Middle Platonist tradition, and especially in Apuleius. On the other hand, it also appears to be employed in this sense in several Psalms. Nevertheless, he suggests that this interpretation must be treated with caution. (B) Angels as “gods” The group of beings whose main task is to announce God’s will to humans is to be called “angels,” according to Augustine, following the Christian line of thought.29 He states that in certain contexts of the Tim 41ab, it is thus more appropriate to read “angels” where the text uses “gods.” However, there are clearly some other texts where, according to Augustine, it seems to be completely inappropriate. None of the two plurals in the expression dii deorum (“gods of gods,” Tim 41a7) may be understood as “angels” for instance.30 If dii hominum “the gods of men,” are understood as angels, then the implication is that there must be some sort of hierarchy (at least structure) among different sorts of beings: god(s)-angels-men. Using the Summus Deus – dii minores opposition as a basis for his discourse, Augustine opts to identify the latter with “angels.” In this case, the angels are perceived as created beings that have been turned into eternal beings by the Creator’s will. Moreover, in this account, the angels are viewed as having souls and even bodies, although the nature of these bodies is unclear. Now Augustine states that “some people object” to this, claiming that it is more dignifying to view the “gods” as angels rather than humans, as we will discuss later. His response is that one interpretation does not necessarily exclude the other, since we are also called to become equal to the angels in the resurrection (quibus nos aequales futuros in resurrectione). The fact that angels are both immortal and happy (immortales and beati – civ.dei IX, 23) is not sufficient for them to be called

Plato’s contribution to Augustine’s theory 53 “gods” by humans, even if the latter are understood to be the “people of God” (dii hominum in populo dei). Thus, we may not call angels “gods of gods” (dii (1) deorum (2)), as though intending to apply the precise wording of the initial demiurge’s address from Tim 41ab. In doing so, we refer to the angels with the first word “gods” (1) in the nominative (dii); and to humans (2) with the word “gods” in the genitive (deorum), but actually designating them as angels in the sense of the gods of the humans (dii hominum in populo dei). Yet, this would be wrong since it would imply that the angels are more important than the humans in the state of resurrection. Such a statement would not be correct, since humans are equal to angels, and in no way lower than them. Nevertheless, according to Augustine, some people – i.e. the Platonists – argue that these beings ought to be called “gods” (dii – see Tim 41ab, as translated by Calcidius)31 since they are both immortal (immortales) and happy (beati) which are the two main characteristics of the divine. Elsewhere, Augustine had already objected to the logic of this argument stating that the characteristics “immortality” and “beatitude” are insufficient to conclude that something possesses “divinity.” One can certainly be happy and eternal and yet not be god. This is exactly the case with the angels. Alternatively, some think that the beings announcing prophecies may also be called “good demons” (demones bonos), and not merely “demons.”32 This may the meaning of the word dii in the above-mentioned Psalm 94, namely, that the gods of the nations are not gods but demons (cf. supra). Augustine disagrees with this alternative because the demons may indeed be called immortal, but this does not mean that they are happy. Moreover, the name “demons” is so detestable to Christians that we might better look for another, more appropriate expression such as “angels.” (С)

Humans as “gods”

The third possibility is that the word “gods” signifies “humans.” Augustine allows this interpretation for the first time in civ.dei IX, and then uses it again and quite persistently later on (Enarationes ad psalmos, Psalm 49; civ.dei XXII). The two previous options ((A) and (B)) seem to become secondary. The notion “gods” may indicate “people,” in the sense of the people of God, who were addressed by God through angels and prophets. Augustine is convinced that the people of God certainly deserve both immortality and beatitude in God’s eyes. He emphasizes the fact that here we do not speak about all humans but only about some of them: the expression “the people of God” refers to those who both believe in God, and were chosen by Him to the challenging mission of becoming divine. There is a clear exclusivity: the interpretation presupposes God’s choice before the chosen human beings can freely express their will to follow him. This becomes evident already in the expression Deus deorum (“God of gods”), meaning that God is recognized as a true God to his people who decides their fate even before they came into being. In his later writing Augustine perseveres with his interpretation of deus deorum first used in civ.dei IX, as mentioned earlier. He identifies the expression Summus Deus (“supreme God”) with the one and true God, and dii minores (“minor gods”)

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with the gods created by him. A subtle implication of this opposition is that the word “deus” which appears twice in the nominative hardly means the same being. Summus Deus supersedes the dii minores in its grammatical form (the superlative). This means the first god is not just superior to the other gods but actually supersedes them absolutely. The expression dii minores is pejorative,33 as when a god is minor, he can hardly be considered a real god, as a divinity presupposes perfection and superiority. Thus, although the minor divinities indeed appear as gods they are not completely so. People appear to be exactly these kinds of gods: they turn into gods, and yet they do not become really “God.” In this connection, it makes sense to look at some details of Augustine’s commentary on Psalm 49, in which he provides a close examination of the notion gods in the sense of humans. Augustine composed this commentary approximately in the same period as he was working on civ.dei book IX. In this commentary, he also refers to some other psalms where the word “god(s)” appears in the plural. We are talking not only about the passages which were cited by the end of civ.dei book IX, namely, Ps. 49:1; Ps. 135:2; Ps. 94:3; Ps. 94:4–5, but also Ps. 81(82):1,34 as well as 6–7,35 Ps. 95(96):4,5.36 Augustine uses some ideas that he had first articulated in his exegesis of Tim 41ab and various books of civ.dei (XII, XIII, XVIII and XXII), and also in his later treatise Contra Julianum.37 In this commentary, Augustine examines the basic terminology concerning the divinization of the human person. He applies the notions deificatos, deificat as derivative forms of the verb deificare (“to deify”).38 Still more often, he uses the word “god(s)” in the plural (dii – “gods”). These terms are used in direct reference to the deification of humans. According to Augustine, when the Psalmist writes Deus deorum dominus locutus est (“God of gods, the Lord has spoken” – Ps. 49:1),39 by “gods” he means people, who used to be (and still remain) humans, yet God transforms them into gods by his divine speech (homines dixit deos).40 In his explanation of this quote, Augustine applies three dialectically interdependent notions deificatio-justificatio-adoptio to clarify what exactly the Psalmist means with the word “god.” The first of these notions, deificatio, consists of two components, deus and facere, meaning that God is in a position to turn someone into a god. The two other notions, justificatio and adoption, depend on the first notion, and clarify its meaning.41 Augustine claims that God, having deified man, justifies him as well. When man is justified, he is cleared of sin. Only when free of sin can people be declared sons of God (ipse deificat, quia justificando, filios Dei facit).42 The main consequence of God turning people into his children is that they also become his heirs (adoptio), thereby receiving the right to return to the kingdom of God. Though there are several heirs, yet the inheritance per capita does not diminish.43 Clearly, the quantity of this kingdom is infinite. This is why there cannot be any jealousy between the heirs, since none of them receives more or less than the other. They all inherit the kingdom of God. The instrument of deification turns out to be grace (ex gratia sua deificatos).44 The Latin gratia also simply means “for free.” This is to say that God turns people

Plato’s contribution to Augustine’s theory 55 into gods not according to their merits but in accordance with his own divine will, or perhaps mercy, which is freely dispensed.45 The process of deification evidently does not concern God or his Son, but humans. God is in no need of deification, since deification is a process of turning someone from the state of a none-god into a god. This process suggests a certain becoming from none-being into a divine being. Clearly, this process is not independent of God himself, as nobody can become god through his own wish. Humans become children of God, but not in accordance with their nature. They were not always his children since initially they belonged to the world of creation. They have turned into God’s children by the process of becoming,46 and acquiring grace (“for free”). God has one Son only according to his divine nature, whose name is Jesus Christ. All the rest are his adoptive children, since they became his children due to his free deliberation.47 Augustine names the process of adoption (adoptio) as the transition from a human into a divine being. He uses the word deificare in participle which applies to the transition from none-being into a divine being. He provides the two following criteria to the divine being: immortality and happiness as we have seen previously (cf. supra). This is not accidental and these criteria are even classical in Antiquity, since Augustine talks about them in civ.dei book IX.48 Thus, the expression deus deorum, being similar to Plato’s Θεοὶ θεῶν, also includes the notion “god” with various meanings that allow for different interpretations. Augustine admits an orthodox exegesis of the plural gods both in civ.dei book IX and in Enarratio 49. It still can be interpreted as idols/demons (a), angels (b), or humans (c) in either of these texts. This tendency intensifies while Augustine proceeds with his exegesis with later books of civ.dei, especially with the last one, which is dedicated to the humans as gods in the resurrection.

Conclusion By the end of civ.dei book IX, Augustine discusses three possible interpretations of the notion “god” in the two comparative expressions, one biblical – deus deorum (“god of gods”), and one Platonic – dii deorum (“gods of gods”). These options are: (a) “gods,” (b) angels, (c) humans. Later on, as the result of his discussion of Psalm 49 (Enarrationes), he favours option (c). This fits into his own theory of resurrection, which he develops by the end of civ.dei book XXII, as well as his method of reconciling both the biblical and Platonic traditions. In doing so, Augustine implies that not only Christians understand the literal dii (“gods”) and deorum (“of gods”) as “humans,” but even Plato did so long before. Augustine provides a similar interpretation for Plato and thus aims to challenge the later Neoplatonic tradition. Augustine further develops this theme in civ.dei book XII-XVIII, and particularly in book XXII, where the humans in the resurrection appear as the characters of Plato’s book on the creation of the world (Timaeus), introducing the demiurge as “supreme God” who creates “minor gods.” In this way, the polemics with Porphyry and some other Platonists had a substantial impact on Augustine’s theory of deification as a whole. Nevertheless, Augustine’s specific terminology

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(“minor gods,” “supreme God”) is neither present in the original Greek of Plato’s Timaeus, nor in Cicero’s Latin translation. In the end, Augustine manages to Christianize this philosophical text, giving it a very different meaning than the one intended by its author.

Notes 1 E.g. Vaihé (1911) describes some aspects of teaching of Gregory Palamas as “monstrous errors,” “heresies” and “resurrection of polytheism.” 2 E.g. John Paul II’s encyclical Orientale Lumen where he refers to the divinization theory as “particularly dear to Eastern Christian thought.” 3 Augustinus, De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptism parvulorum. 2.8.10. Cf. also Bonner (1999: 265–266). 4 Cf. Bonner (1999: 265–266); Bonner (1986a, 1986b); Reta (1993); Lossky (1963). 5 Hereinafter: civ.dei. 6 Seventeen times. Cf. Yudin (2012: 471). 7 Ax 1977: 87. Augustine cites this text several times in the course of civ.dei and his Easter sermons 241–242. The most extensive quote is in civ.dei 13, 16:15–43, where Augustine cites Plato’s demiurge’s speech in full, again in Cicero’s translation. Unless otherwise mentioned, all English translations of the primary sources are the author’s own. 8 Burnet (1968: St III.17a–92c). 9 Twice in sermo 241.8 and once in sermo 242.7. 10 Hos si Platonici malunt deos quam daemones dicere eisque adnumerare quos a summo deo conditos deos scribit eorum auctor et magister Plato dicant quod volunt; non enim cum eis de verborum controversia laborandum est. Si enim sic immortales ut tamen a summo deo factos, et si non per se ipsos, se dei a quo facti sunt adhaerendo beatos esse dicunt, hoc dicunt quod dicimus, quolibet eos nomine appellant (Augustine, De civitate dei (1955): 269). 11 Augustine wrote the commentary on psalms 19–53 in 415 (epist. 169). In 417 Augustine was already working on book 11 (Orosius, Prologue to Historia adversus paganos). Сf. Rondet (1960). 12 Sermons 241–242. 13 Augustine’s title change from Plato’s Timaeus to The Creation of the World is quite significant. This is clear attempt on the part of Augustine to christianize Plato. He needs his alliance against the Neoplatonists, especially Porphyry to certify the theory of resurrection. Сf. Yudin (2006). 14 Augustine, La cite de Dieu (1959): 412. 15 civ.dei IX, 23, 3. 16 Cicero, Timaeus (1977): 87. 17 Yudin (2012: 235). 18 civ.dei IX, xxiii, 6. 19 More precisely: immortales in Si enim immortale. 20 Θεοὶ θεῶν: Tim 41a7. 21 civ.dei IX, 23. 22 In Diehl 1965, III: 200, 23. Also, cf. Opsomer (2000: 131). 23 Later Proclus clarifies the ambiguity of this expression, since he distinguishes four different divinities “father,” “father and creator,” “creator and father” and finally “creator.” Proclus builds up a strict hierarchy between these divinities. The god mentioned in Plato’s Tim 41a occupies the third place in hierarchy. 24 God’s creation of the universe is a common argument in the text of the Psalms, e.g. “I consider Thy heavens, the work of your fingers” (Ps. 8:3); “by the word of the Lord the heavens made” (Ps. 33:6); “the heavens are the work of their hands” (Ps. 102:25) etc.

Plato’s contribution to Augustine’s theory 57 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48

Apuleius, De Deo Socratis (1970). Plato, Apology (1941): 16 (31c–d, 40a). See also Joyal (2005). civ.dei IX, 23. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Plato, Timaeus a Calcidio (1962): 35. civ.dei IX, 23. Yudin 2012: 156. God has taken his stand in the synagogue of the gods, to make a distinction between them (Ps. 81(82):1). You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; yet you shall die as mortals die, and fall as any worldly rulers fall (Ps. 81(82):6–7). The gods of the heathen are demons (Ps. 95(96):4–5). Augustinus, Contra Julianum (1841: 686–688) (II, 7). Bonner (1986a: 265). Boulding (1999: 380). Ibid. Ibid. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos (1956): 576. Ibid. Ibid. We can trace here the anti-Pelagian polemics, in which Augustine clarified the meaning of grace. Plato actively applies notion γένεσις (becoming) in his explanation of the physical world. He distinguishes being from becoming. Being is something which was, is, and will always be. Becoming is something which did not exist, yet it came into existence. Being corresponds to eternity, while becoming corresponds to time. Tim 38.с.4. Boulding (1999: 381). civ.dei IX, xxiii, 1–9.

Bibliography Sources and translations Apuleius, De Deo Socratis (1970) = Apuleius, De Deo Socratis, in: Apuleius: De Philosophia Libri, ed. P. Thomas, with addenda by W. Schaub, Stuttgart: Teubner, 1970. Augustine, Contra Julianum (1841) = Augustinus, Contra Julianum, in: Patrologia Latina 44, cc. 641–874. Augustine, De civitate dei (1955) = Augustinus, De civitate dei: Liber I–X, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 47, Turnhout: Brepols, 1955. Augustine, De peccatorum meritis (1962) = De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo parvulorum, ed. C.F. Uba and J. Zycha, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 60, Wien: Tempsky, 1962. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos (1956) = Augustinus, Enarrationes in Psalmos 1–50, ed. Eligius Dekker and J. Fraipont, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 38, Turnhout: Brepols, 1956. Augustine, La cité de Dieu (1959) = Augustin, La cité de Dieu: Livres vi-x, notes par G. Bardy, Œuvres de saint Augustin 34, Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1959. Augustine, Sermones (1961) = Augustinus, Sermones, ed. C. Lambot, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 41, Turnhout: Brepols, 1961.

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Augustine, Sermons pour la Pâque (1966) = Augustin d’Hippone, Sermons pour la Pâque, introd., texte critique et trad. S. Poque, Sources Chrétiennes 116, Paris: Cerf, 1966. Boulding 1999 = Augustine, The Exposition on the Psalms 33–50, trans. Maria Boulding, New York, NY: New City Press, 1999. Cicero, Timaeus (1977) = Marcus Tullius Cicero, De divinatione, De fato, Timaeus, ed. W. Ax, Stuttgart: Teubner, 1977. Hill 1990 = Augustine, Sermons, trans. and notes by E. Hill, New York, NY: New City Press. 1990. John Paul II, Orientale Lumen (1995) = John Paul II, Orientale Lumen: Apostolic Letter of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II to the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful to Mark the Centenary of “Orientalium Dignitas” of Pope Leo XIII, Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1995. Paulus Orosius, Historias contra los paganos (2008) = Paulus Orosius, Historias contra los paganos, ed. Angeles Romero Cambrón and Ignacio Javier García Pinilla, Zaragosa: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza, 2008. Plato, Apology (1941) = Plato, Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, and Crito, ed. J. Burnet, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1941. Plato, Timaeus (1968) = Plato, Timaeus, ed. J. Burnet, Platonis opera 4, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968. Plato, Timaeus a Calcidio (1962) = Plato, Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque instructus, ed. Jan-Hendrik Waszink, Corpus Platonicum Medii Aevi: Plato Latinus 4, London: Warburg, 1962. Proclus Diadochus, In Timaeum (1965) = Proclus Diadochus, In Timaeum Platonis commentaria, ed. Ernst Diehl, Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1965.

Studies Bonner 1986a = G. Bonner, “Augustine’s Conception of Deification,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 37 (1986), pp. 369–386. Bonner 1986b = G. Bonner, “Deificare,” in: C. Mayer (ed.), Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 1, Basel: Swabe, 1986, pp. 265–267. Bonner 1999 = G. Bonner, “Deification,” in: A.D. Fitzgerald (ed.), Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999, pp. 265–266. Joyal 2005 = J. Joyal, “To Daimonion and the Socratic Problem,” Apeiron 38/2 (2005), pp. 97–112. Lossky 1963 = Vladimir Lossky, The Vision of God, London: Faith Press, 1963. Madec 1998 = Goulvin Madec, Le Dieu d’Augustin, Philosophie et Théologie, Paris: Cerf, 1998. Opsomer 2000 = Jan Opsomer, “Proclus on Demiurgy and Procession: A Neoplatonic Reading of the Timaeus,” in: W. Right (ed.), Reason and Necessity, London: Duckworth, 2000, pp. 113–143. Pépin 1964 = Jean Pépin, Théologie cosmique et théologie chrétienne, Paris: PUF, 1964. Reta 1993 = J. Oroz Reta, “De l’illumination à la déification de l’âme selon saint Augustin,” Studia Patristica 27 (1993), pp. 364–382. Rondet 1960 = H. Rondet, “Essais sur la chronologie des ‘Enarrationes in Psalmos’ de Saint Augustin,” Bulletin de Litterature Ecclésiastique 61 (1960), pp. 111–127; 258–286. Vaihé 1911 = S. Vaihé, “The Greek Church: Palamas,” in: The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 12, New York, NY: Robert Appleton Company, 1911.

Plato’s contribution to Augustine’s theory 59 Wesselschmidt 2007 = Quentin F. Wesselschmidt (ed.), Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Old Testament VIII: Psalms 51–150, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007. Yudin 2006 = Victor Yudin, “Refuting Porphyry With Plato: Augustine’s Reading of Tim. 41ab,” in: F. Young, M. Edwards and P. Parvis (eds.), Studia Patristica 43, Leuven: Peeters, 2006, pp. 329–335. Yudin 2011 = Victor Yudin, “Porphyry Against the Resurrection in Augustine,” in: A. Brent and M. Vinzent (eds.), Studia Patristica 50, Leuven: Peeters, 2011, pp. 301–307. Yudin 2012 = Victor Yudin, Augustine’s Timaeus 41ab (PhD dissertation Université Catholique, Louvain-la-Neuve, 2012).

5

The reception of the Greek patristic doctrine of deification in the medieval West The case of John Scottus Eriugena Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi

Among the factors that permitted an encounter and rapprochement between the theological traditions of Eastern and Western Christianity, one of the most profitable has been in the field of translations. John Scottus Eriugena, the Irish master who lived at the court of Charles the Bald in Carolingian France around the middle of the ninth century, is probably the most significant case of the reception of Greek patristic theological thought in the Latin Middle Ages, on account of his work of translation that involved many important texts of the Eastern tradition, such as the complete writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor’s Ambigua ad Iohannem and Quaestiones ad Thalassium, and Gregory of Nyssa’s De opificio hominis (which Eriugena titled De imagine). All together the Eriugenian translations can be considered the most important medieval corpus of Greek patristic texts translated into Latin by a single author. John Scottus’s speculation was deeply influenced by the Greek Fathers whose texts he translated, to such an extent as to include in his own work many of the teachings he learned from his Eastern sources. The doctrine of deification, which Eriugena often referred to by the Greek word theosis, is one of these1. The theologoumenon of theosis is developed by John Scottus in relation neither to ascetic life nor to sacramental theology, since these aspects find a very minimal place in his speculation. The Irish master introduces the doctrine of deification rather in his eschatological reflection, discussing it in close association with his theory of the return (reditus) of all things to God. Deification in Eriugena is a subject that has been widely studied in the last decades and many publications have been devoted to it, including those of Tullio Gregory, Stephen Gersh, Donald Duclow, Valery Petroff and others.2 In this paper, I would like to follow a different approach, and propose a genetic reconstruction of Eriugena’s thought on deification focused on the influence that his Greek patristic sources played on his elaboration. John Scottus cannot easily be set within a particular theological paradigm, since the vastness of his interests and sources made him a unique figure in the panorama of early medieval theology. Even if the method followed by Eriugena and his mastery of the liberal arts are not foreign to the tradition of the Latin Fathers and to Carolingian scholarly culture, his attempt to create a synthesis with the

Reception of the Greek patristic doctrine 61 theological tradition of the Greek Fathers gave life to a result unique in the whole of the theological literature of the Latin Middle Ages. Due to the fact that the late antique and early medieval Latin traditions were modelled on the cosmocentric paradigm inherited from ancient philosophy, Eriugena was called upon to deal with the problems posed by the natural and cosmocentric paradigm that constituted the basis of his cultural milieu. The theological issues discussed during the reign of Charles the Bald, the royal patron of the Irishman, highlighted the need to provide a philosophical answer to the problems posed by a Christian theological interpretation of the relationship between the domain of divine grace and that of natural powers: disputes involving the beatific vision, the corporeality of resurrected bodies, the nature of the Eucharist and predestination revealed that the Carolingian theological tradition did not have univocal answers to all these questions, and particularly regarding the relations between the divine operations and cosmic reality. As a result, Eriugena found in the Eastern tradition a strong theological answer, involving in particular the doctrine of theosis, which allowed him to resolve the conflict between natural philosophy and the doctrine of grace. The Greek patristic tradition succeeded in going beyond the cosmocentric paradigm developed by the ancient philosophers by means of the Trinitarian ontology of the Cappadocian Fathers, the teachings of the Corpus Dionysiacum – that permitted the dismissal of Neoplatonic idealism – Maximus the Confessor’s theology of deification, and the condemnation of Origen, which constituted a firm and institutional sign of discontinuity with paganism. Eriugena drew from this tradition the theoretical tools that enabled him to confront in his own works the aporias that his theological formation set before him as unsolved problems, involving thus the philosophy of nature, the weight of the Augustinian tradition, the methodological core of the liberal arts, and a certain fascination with Origen, generally shared by Carolingian culture.3 At the beginning of every path of research in Eriugenian thought we must keep in mind that the Irish master paid constant attention to the method of investigation, seeking always the harmonization of ratio and auctoritas. In the case of the theory of the return of all things to God, John Scottus envisages as natural evidence of this universal motion, involving all cosmic realities, natural phenomena such as the generation and corruption of the parts of the sensible world, the motion of the stars, and the rules of the liberal arts: dialectics resolves multiplicity into unity, arithmetic contemplates the numerical multiplicity in the monad, and we could go further with similar examples taken from the science of music, geometry, and astronomy.4 At the beginning of the fifth book of the Periphyseon, Eriugena states the evidence for a general law of the return that affects all creatures: There is no corporeal creature enlivened by the Vital Motion which does not return again from the beginning from which it set forth. For the end of every movement is in its beginning (finis enim totius motus est principium sui): it is concluded in no other term but that origin out of which its movement began, and to which it ever seeks to return in order that therein it may have peace and rest.

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Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi And this can be said not only of the parts but of the whole of the sensible world. For the end of it also is its beginning, which it seeks and in which it will rest when it has found it; a rest which will not consist in the abolition of its substance (substantia), but the return into those “reasons” (rationes) whence it sprang.5

John Scottus recognizes the natural law of return not only by means of reason, but also on the basis of the authority of the Fathers: one of his favourite authors, Pseudo-Dionysius, in the last chapter of the Divine Names (which is dedicated to the name of God as One), states the return of all things to God: So all things are rightly ascribed to God since it is by him and in him and for him that all things exist, are co-ordered, remain, hold together, are completed, and are returned.6 The long 37 and 38 chapters of Maximus the Confessor’s Ambigua ad Iohannem are also significant sources for the Eriugenian theory of processio and reditus, considered as the two general motions of the universe. However, the Irishman takes his analysis further, investigating the role played by divine grace in the motion of the return. Having in mind the perspective shared by the Greek Fathers, Eriugena finds in the doctrine of theosis a way of harmonizing the natural return of all things with the evangelical doctrine of the election of grace of the good. Eriugena took up the adage of the Eastern patristic tradition, according to which God became man so that man might become a god. He could have taken this doctrine from different passages in the works of the Greek Fathers which he had at his disposal, for example, in a passage of Maximus’s Ambigua, quoted in the first book of the Periphyseon, where the incarnation of God is presented as the premise of deification: We find that Maximus the monk, a godly philosopher, . . . says that theophany is effected from no other [cause] but God, but that it happens as a result of the condescension of the Divine Word, that is, of the only begotten Son Who is the Wisdom of the Father, downwards, as it were upon human nature which was created and purified by Him, and of the exaltation upwards of human nature to the aforesaid Word by divine love. By condescension I mean here not that which has already taken place through the Incarnation but that which is brought about by theosis, that is to say, the deification of the creature.7 Attempting to underline the full compatibility of theosis with the views of the Latin Fathers, Eriugena often quotes Augustine, but, at the end of the fifth book of the Periphyseon, he states that discourse on deification is not explicit among Latin theologians, although it is silently present in their understanding, as is the case particularly with Ambrose of Milan: But the use of this word, deification, is very rare in the Latin books. However, we often find it implied, especially in the works of Ambrose. I am not sure of

Reception of the Greek patristic doctrine 63 the reason for this reticence: perhaps it is because the meaning of this word Theosis (the term which the Greeks usually employ in the sense of the psychic and bodily transformation of the Saints into God [sanctorum transitum in Deum non solum anima, sed etiam et corpore] so as to become one in Him and with Him [ut unum in ipso et cum ipso sint], when there will remain in them nothing of their animal, earthly and mortal nature) seemed too profound for those who cannot rise above carnal speculations.8 Through the Eastern theologoumenon of deification, Eriugena envisaged the possibility of an approach to one of his primary philosophical and theological concerns, that of the transcendence of natures, i.e. the supernatural transcending of the limits of ontology. As a matter of fact, Eriugena’s masterpiece, the Periphyseon, is conceptually and literarily structured on the basis of the fourfold division of nature, but its goal is to illustrate the transcending of all natures in God’s superessence. At the beginning of his masterpiece the Irishman declares that the fourth division, in which the nature “neither creates nor is created,” “is classed among the impossibles.”9 The only way to understand what he means in asserting such an impossibility is to think that the fourth nature is the way in which the division of nature can go beyond the concept of nature itself. The concept of deification undergoes a remarkable development in the textual progress of the Periphyseon. In the first book, the word “deification” appears twice as a synonym of the beatitude of the eternal life, and does not insist on the transcendence of natures. In the second book, the theme of theosis appears only in quotations from Pseudo-Dionysius; in the third book, we cannot find any reference to it. In the fourth book reflection on theosis has much greater weight, but it is still generically assumed as synonymous with beatitude, as a result of purification from sin: The Father burns, the Son burns, and the Holy Spirit burns (for together They burn away our transgressions and transmute us, a burnt offering, by the action of θέωσις or deification, into the Unity which is Theirs [in unitatem suam convertunt]).10 Deification is presented as the reward for obedience, which humanity lacked due to its primordial sin: For the reasonable and intellectual nature, although not wishing to be deceived, was not incapable of suffering deceit, especially as she had not yet attained the perfection of her form which she as to receive as the reward of her obedience and by which she was to be transformed in theosis or deification.11 It is important to remark that the theme of knowledge, which is one the central topics of the fourth book and is presented through the allegorical exegesis of the biblical Tree of Life (Gen. 2:9), is not linked to the doctrine of deification. Here Eriugena argues that participation in the “All-tree of Paradise” (omne lignum), shall be interpreted as the human participation in the goods that were freely provided to man

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by the Divine Verb and Wisdom of God. Yet, this primordial participation does not seem to imply any ontological, or better superontological, meaning: And a little later it is written: ‘From the All-tree of Paradise thou shalt eat,’ where by ‘the All-tree’ is meant a single tree. Now, let no follower of our Theologian’s doctrine imagine that there was in Paradise a large number of trees of different forms and different fruits, as though it we’ve a forest thick with trees: there were but two, the one πᾶν, and the other γνωστόν. And the πᾶν ξύλον that is, ‘the All-tree (omne lignum)’, of Paradise is the Word and the Wisdom of the Father, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the fruit-bearing All-tree (omne lignum fructiferum) and is planted in the midst of the Paradise of human nature in two ways: first through His own divinity, by which He creates our nature and contains it and endows it with nourishment and life and light and godhead and movement and being (qua nostram naturam et creat, et continet, et nutrit, et vivificat, et illuminat, et deificat, et movet, et esse facit), ‘for in Him we move and live and have our being.’12 In the fifth book, Eriugena – quite surprisingly – returns to this exegetical theme reviewing it from the very beginning, as if coming back to revise one of the leading topics of the previous book. Many scholars have seen the fifth book as a late addition to the original plan of the Periphyseon, which the Irishman may have added to discuss more extensively the topics of the supernatural reditus and of deification, whose theological and exegetical problems he became aware of during the elaboration of the preceding books of his masterpiece. We may therefore suspect that it is only at this point that Eriugena rethought his teaching on deification and came to a new and decisive conclusion. We may also suppose that the Irish master realized that the attempt to understand the natural motion of reditus in the light of supernatural deification would have led to an irresolvable clash of philosophical perspectives, so that he felt the necessity to rethink this doctrine, giving life to the eschatological fresco attested in the fifth book of the Periphyseon, and in his final works, i.e. the Homily on the Prologue to the Gospel of John and the Commentary on the Gospel of John. The assimilation of the reditus to theosis was a primary challenge to Eriugena’s thought since his first encounter with the texts of the Greek Fathers, as we can judge by a passage in the prefatory letter of his translation of Maximus’s Ambigua, a work prior to the Periphyseon, where he summarizes for his royal patron the scheme of processio and reditus. Processio is the multiplication of the divine goodness in all things, and reditus is the return of all things to God. As we can see, the reditus, or resolutio, is equated to theosis: The aforesaid divine procession in all things is said ΑΝΑΛΥΤΙΚΗ, that is resolution, and the reversion ΘΕΩCΙC, that is deification.13 It is only in the fifth book of the Periphyseon, however, that he established a turning point, or better, a sharper understanding of the theory of the return (reditus),

Reception of the Greek patristic doctrine 65 introducing the distinction between a generalis reditus and a specialis reditus. With the general return, the whole human nature will be restored to its pristine condition, while in the particular return, the elect – and only they – will enter into the divine beatitude, into theosis. We know that Eriugena came to this distinction, which is fundamental for his eschatological doctrine, after reading Maximus’s Quaestiones ad Thalassium. The study of the distribution of the quotations in the Periphyseon shows that the Quaestiones were translated by John Scottus during the composition of his masterpiece, while the Corpus Dionysiacum and Maximus’s Ambigua constitute its background.14 The source for the theory of the double return appears to be a quaestio that occurs toward the end of this massive work, in chapter 54: The resurrection is the reformation (reformatio) of nature, provoking the formation of the nature in paradise, generally (generaliter) in the universal immutability of all things, specially (specialiter) in the ineffable deification of the saints according to grace.15 According to the eschatology depicted in the Periphyseon’s last book, the resurrection is the first step of the return, and it is given by grace, but is also accomplished by means of the synergy with the natural powers. Once human nature has been restored to the splendour of its primordial natural condition, some individuals are given the gift of rising by grace to the trans-natural condition of deification. This further step required Eriugena to revise some of his former positions, such as his exegesis of the Tree of Life. Now it is only eating of the fruit of the Tree of Life (comedere de ligno vitae) that is interpreted as a symbol of deification – and no longer eating the All-Tree as he had stated in the fourth book. Even if all humankind will return to Paradise, only the saints will eat of the Tree of Life: We must consider this Return in two ways (reditus duobus modis consideratur): first, the restoration (restauratio) of the whole of the human nature in Christ; and then, having dealt with its general aspect (generaliter), we must consider the individual bliss and deification of those who shall ascend into God Himself. For it is one thing to return into Paradise, another to eat of the Tree of Life (aliud enim est in paradisum redire, aliud de ligno vitae comedere). Thus, we read that the first man, when he was created in the image and likeness of God, was placed in Paradise, but we do not read that he ate of the Tree of Life. For having first chosen to taste of the forbidden tree, he was prevented from enjoying the taste of the Tree of Life: that would have been his to enjoy thereafter, had he obeyed the Divine Precepts. But even before tasting of it he could have lived happily had he not sinned the moment he was created. From this it follows that while the whole of our nature, which is included generally in the man who was made in the image and likeness of God, shall return into Paradise, that is, to the glory of our original state, it shall only taste of the fruit of the Tree of Life in the case of those who are worthy of deification (in his autem solummodo, qui deificatione digni sunt, ligni vitae

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Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi fructum participabit). Now the Tree of Life is Christ, and its fruits is the blessed life and eternal peace in the contemplation of the Truth; for that is what is meant by deification (deificatio). ‘For’ says St. Augustine, ‘the Blessed Life is joy in the Truth, Which is Christ’.16 And perhaps the Apostle means the same thing when says: ‘For we shall all rise again, but we shall not all be changed’ (1 Cor. 15:51)17

Deification is the fulfilment of the adunatio in Deo, the condition in which each single person will overcome his or her nature to be unified, by grace, with God. The theme of the overcoming of humanity in the state of deification is one of the most striking features of Eriugena’s later thought, attested both in the Homily on the Prologue to the Gospel of John “Vox spiritualis aquilae” and in the Commentarius in Iohannem. In the Homily, the deification of John the Evangelist is described as follows: Then, John was not a man, but more than man (non ergo Joannes erat homo, sed plus quam homo), since he transcended himself and all the things that are . . . and penetrated the secrets of the one essence in three substances (unius essentiae in tribus substantiis), and of the three substances in one essence (trium substantiarum in una essentia). In fact, he could not have ascended to God, if he had not first become a god (non enim aliter potuit ascendere in Deum, nisi prius fieret deus).18 And similarly in the Commentary: Those spiritual ones ascend and rise above their nature by the Grace of the one who illuminates them (spirituales . . . ultra hominem ascendunt et superant suam naturam per ejus, qui eos illuminat, gratiam).19 A further theme taken up from the Greek Fathers, by which Eriugena deepens his vision on deification is the theologoumenon of epektasis, that is, the eternal quest for God and in God by the deified, a doctrine that he learned from Gregory of Nyssa’s De imagine: The blessed Gregory the Theologian, in his sermon De imagine, clearly asserted that every rational and intellectual creatures eternally and endlessly will desire and will seek to see God. Since what is sought is infinite, it is necessary that its quest be endless (quoniam infinitum est quod querit, necesse est ut infinite querat).20 Another issue that Eriugena touches on in the fifth book of the Periphyseon is the Origenian doctrine of apocatastasis. Eriugena does not hide his admiration for the Alexandrian master, going so far as to call him “the blessed”21 and “the great Origen, that most diligent enquirer into the nature of things.”22 Even if the Irishman cannot have read the term apocatastasis in Origen’s Treatise on First Principles

Reception of the Greek patristic doctrine 67 (Περὶ ἀρχῶν), since for him only Rufinus’s translation into Latin was accessible,23 he was clearly conscious of all the problematic implications raised by the Origenian interpretation of the return of all things to God. Nevertheless, turning to the final victory over evil, he rejected the most controversial of Origen’s doctrines, namely the devil’s redemption by apocatastasis, i.e. as a result of the natural motion of return of all things to God, since this idea implies a cosmocentric conception of the eschatological process, leaving out the evangelical doctrine of the Last Judgement (Mt. 25) and the role of the will. But convinced as I now am about human nature, I am still uncertain whether it is in every creature that evil shall be done away with, or only in human nature. For I am of the opinion that the demonic intelligences shall never be without evil and all its consequences; and therefore while granting that, by the bestowal of the Grace of God in cooperation with natural virtue, evil shall be wholly eliminated from the nature of man, I think that in that of the demons it will endure forever, and will be co-eternal therein with the Divine Goodness; and therefore evil will not be eliminated from every nature.24 In discussing redemption of the devil, Eriugena does not even introduce the name of Origen. Evidently the Irishman did not want to address an open criticism against this author, whose theories on the return he deemed worthy to be taken into account some pages later. We do not know to what extent Eriugena was conscious of the condemnation of Origen decreed by the Fifth Ecumenical Council, but the criticism that Prudentius of Troyes addressed to him in the context of the controversy on predestination, accusing Eriugena of often following “the foolishness of Origen” (aliquoties Origenis amentiam),25 would have suggested to Eriugena that he ought to deal prudently. Moving from the theory of the reditus diaboli, to which – as we have seen – he did not fully subscribe Eriugena adds the following ontological argument: God punishes no nature created by Him, whether in human or demonic essence, but that in all natures he punishes what he has not created, that is, the irrational motions of the perverse will.26 The Irish master proceeds then with a discussion of this subject, reviewing the opinions of the Fathers, among which he refers to Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram, Ambrose’s Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, Origen’s On First Principles, and concludes with Pseudo-Dionysius’s Divine Names. Even if he agreed with the solution according to which evil cannot be co-eternal with God, more or less explicitly admitted by Ambrose and openly affirmed by Origen, Eriugena concludes by expressing doubt about the final restoration of the evil powers, on the ground of a lack of clear scriptural or patristic authority.27 The oscillation of Eriugenian thought on this topic can be seen as the result of the Irish master’s admiration of Origen’s teachings, and, at the same time, of his prudence regarding them.

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Moreover, with regard to the return of all people to God, Eriugena could not avoid giving consideration to Origen’s eschatological theories, and going on to quote a long exegetical passage from the latter’s Περὶ ἀρχῶν, which refers back to the Pauline doctrine of deification, summarized in the affirmation that God will “be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28), a passage often recalled by Eriugena: Origen . . . says in the third book of his Treatise on First Principles (Περὶ ἀρχῶν), concerning the end of the world, that is to say, concerning the Supreme Good to Which the whole of nature is hastening that God may be all in all. For according to his teaching the end of the world is nothing else but the being of God as all things in all things (non enim alia consummatio mundi est praeter Deum omnia in omnibus).28 Nevertheless, in this case the Irish master succeeded in harmonizing the theory of the return with the evangelical doctrine of the election of grace, referring to the Pseudo-Dionysian and Maximian doctrine of theosis, and adopting Maximus’s precision on the double return. Therefore, we can assume that Eriugena was stimulated to deal with the cosmic-kind of return affirmed by Origen not only because the ideas of the Alexandrian master were part of his cultural formation but also because Origen’s eschatological teachings appeared to him to be a decisive – even if no less problematic – affirmation of the cosmic law by a supposed patristic authority (as Origen was, at least for the Irish master). We can then affirm, with Édouard Jeauneau, that “(Eriugena’s) problem . . . was to reconcile his personal convictions with the ideas accepted in his milieu and his time,”29 and with Bernard McGinn, that “Origen did not form Eriugena’s mind, but the Irishman’s bold rethinking of the relation between the Bible and philosophy enabled him to find in Origen an inspiration and ally.”30 Hence, we can see that the Latin West, from the end of the ninth century, was able to access the Eastern doctrine of theosis, through the synthesis that John Scottus offered on the basis of the doctrines of Gregory, Dionysius, and Maximus. Nevertheless, no significant developments of this doctrine are to be found in the Latin theological tradition after John Scottus. The case of John Scottus thus provides a good ground for understanding the causes of the progressive rift of the Eastern and the Western theological traditions during the Middle Ages, since these traditions relied on two incommunicable theological paradigms, respectively, that of the personal transcending of the limits of nature by the grace of theosis and that of the cosmic law instantiated by the motion of the procession and return of all things.

Notes 1 2 3 4

On the Greek patristic tradition on theosis, see Russell (2004). Gregory (1975); Gersh (1990); Dietrich and Duclow (2002); Petroff (2002). See Mainoldi (2002). See Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): V, 869A-D.

Reception of the Greek patristic doctrine 69 5 Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): V, 866C-D; trans. O’Meara (1987: 530). 6 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, The Divine Names: XIII, 3; trans. Luibheid and Rorem (1987: 129). Eriugena translates this passage as follows: Proinde et omnia in ipsam [divinam unitatem] iuste remittuntur et referuntur, sub qua et “ex qua et per quam et in qua et in quam” omnia sunt et coordinantur et manent et continentur et replentur et conuertuntur. Eriugena, Sancti Dionysii De divinis nominibus (1989): 546. 7 Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): I, 449B; trans. O’Meara (1987: 34). 8 Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): V, 1015C; trans. O’Meara (1987: 706). 9 Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): I, 442A; trans. O’Meara (1987: 26–27). 10 Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): IV, 743A; trans. O’Meara (1987: 382). 11 Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): IV, 760D; trans. O’Meara (1987: 403). 12 Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): IV, 823B; trans. O’Meara (1987: 478). 13 Eriugena, Maximi Confessoris Ambigua (1988: 4). 14 See Mainoldi (2014: 269–271). 15 Eriugena, Maximi Confessoris Quaestiones ad Thalassium (1980: 474–475). 16 Augustine, De civitate dei, XX, XX. 17 Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): V, 978D–979A; trans. O’Meara (1987: 663). Other metaphors, well investigated by Eriugenian historiography – which we will not dwell on here – accompany the illustration of this double process: the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, the access to the temple of Solomon, etc.; see Dietrich and Duclow (1986: 22–49). 18 Eriugena, Homilia super «In principio erat Verbum» (2008): 285D. 19 Eriugena, Commentarius (2008): 321D. 20 Eriugena, Expositiones in hierarchiam caelestem (1975: 87–88). 21 audiat beatum Origenem, Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): V, 922C. 22 audi magnum Origenem, diligentissimum rerum inquisitorem, Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): V, 929A; trans. O’Meara (1987: 604). 23 Cfr. Jeauneau (2014: 166). 24 Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): V, 927B; trans. O’Meara (1987: 602–603). 25 Prudentius Trecensis, De praedestinatione (1852): 1011A. 26 Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): V, 931A; trans. O’Meara (1987: 607). 27 See Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): V, 941B; trans. O’Meara (1987: 618). 28 Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996–2003): V, 929A; trans. O’Meara (1987: 604–605). 29 Jeauneau (2014: 177). 30 McGinn (2001: 273).

Bibliography Sources and translations Eriugena, Sancti Dionysii De divinis nominibus (1989) = Dionysius Areopagita, De divinis nominibus, trans. Iohannes Scottus Eriugena, in: Philippe Chevalier et al. (eds.), Dionysiaca. Recueil donnant l’ensemble des trad. latines des ouvrages attribués au Denys de l’Aréopage. Faksimile–Neudruck, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann–Holzboog [Originalausgabe: 1937-1951]. Eriugena, Expositiones in hierarchiam caelestem (1975) = Iohannes Scottus Eriugena, Expositiones in hierarchiam caelestem, ed. Jeanne Barbet, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 31, Turnhout: Brepols, 1975. Eriugena, Homilia super «In principio erat Verbum» (2008) = Iohannes Scottus Eriugena, Homilia super «In principio erat Verbum» et Commentarius in Euangelium Iohannis, ed. Édouard Jeauneau, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 166, Turnhout: Brepols, 2008.

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Eriugena, Commentarius (2008) = Iohannes Scottus Eriugena, Homilia super «In principio erat Verbum» et Commentarius in Euangelium Iohannis, ed. Édouard Jeauneau, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 166, Turnhout: Brepols, 2008. Eriugena, Maximi Confessoris Ambigua (1988) = Maximus Confessor, Ambigua ad Iohannem iuxta Iohannis Scotti Eriugenae latinam interpretationem, trans. Iohannes Scottus Eriugena, ed. Édouard Jeauneau, Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca 18, Turnhout: Brepols, 1988. Eriugena, Periphyseon (1996-2003) = Iohannes Scottus Eriugena, Periphyseon libri V, ed. Édouard Jeauneau, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 161-165, Turnhout: Brepols, 1996-2003 Eriugena, Maximi Confessoris Quaestiones ad Thalassium (1980) = Maximus Confessor, Quaestiones ad Thalassium, trans. Iohannes Scottus Eriugena, Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca 7, ed. Carl Laga and Carlos Steel, Turnhout: Brepols, 1980. Luibheid and Rorem 1987 = Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works, trans. Colm Luibheid and Paul Rorem, New York, NY: Paulist, 1987. O’Meara 1987 = Eriugena, Periphyseon (The Division of Nature), translation by Inglis P. Sheldon-Williams and John J. O’Meara, Cahiers d’études médiévales: Cahier spécial 3, Montréal/Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, Bellarmin, 1987. Prudentius Trecensis, De praedestinatione (1852) = Prudentius Trecensis, De praedestinatione contra Joannem Scotum cognomento Erigenam, Patrologia Latina 115, cc. 1010–1352.

Studies Dietrich and Duclow 1986 = Paul A. Dietrich and Donald F. Duclow, “Virgins in Paradise: Deification and Exegesis in ‘Periphyseon’ V,” in: Guy-H. Allard (ed.), Jean Scot écrivain: Actes du IV e Colloque international, Montréal, 28 août–2 septembre 1983, Montréal/ Paris: Bellarmin, 1986, pp. 29–49. Dietrich and Duclow 2002 = Paul A. Dietrich and Donald F. Duclow, “Hell and Damnation in Eriugena,” in: James McEvoy and Michael W. Dunne (eds.), History and Eschatology in John Scottus Eriugena and His Time: Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference of the Society for the Promotion of Eriugenian Studies (Maynooth and Dublin, August 16–20, 2000), Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002, pp. 347–366. Gersh 1990 = Stephen E. Gersh, “The Structure of the Return in Eriugena’s Periphyseon,” in: Werner Beierwaltes (ed.), Begriff und Metapher: Sprachform des Denkens bei Eriugena, Heidelberg: Winter, 1990, pp. 108–125. Gregory 1975 = Tullio Gregory, “L’escatologia di Giovanni Scoto,” Studi Medievali 16 (1975), pp. 497–535. Jeauneau 2014 = Édouard Jeauneau, “From Origen’s Periarchon to Eriugena’s Periphyseon,” in: Willemien Otten and Michael I. Allen (eds.), Eriugena and Creation: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Eriugenian Studies, Held in Honor of Edouard Jeauneau, Chicago, November 9–12, 2011, Turnhout: Brepols, 2014. Mainoldi 2002 = Ernesto S. Mainoldi, “Su alcune fonti ispiratrici della teologia e dell’escatologia del De divina praedestinatione liber di Giovanni Scoto Eriugena,” in: James McEvoy and Michael Dunne (eds.), History and Eschatology in John Scottus Eriugena and His Time:Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference of the Society for the Promotion of Eriugenian Studies (Maynooth and Dublin, August 16–20, 2000), Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002, pp. 313–329.

Reception of the Greek patristic doctrine 71 Mainoldi 2014 = Ernesto S. Mainoldi, “‘Le citazioni dei Padri orientali nelle opere di Giovanni Scoto: Nuove osservazioni sul metodo dell’Eriugena traduttore,’ in: Alessandro Musco and Giuliana Musotto (eds.), Traduzioni e Tradizioni. Il pensiero medievale nell’incontro tra le culture mediterranee, XX convegno internazionale di studi della SISPM, Siracusa, 26–29 Settembre 2011,” Schede Medievali 52 (2014), pp. 255–271. McGinn 2001 = Bernard McGinn, “The Spiritual Heritage of Origen in the West: Aspects of the History of Origen’s Influence in the Middle Ages,” in: Luigi F. Pizzolato and Marco Rizzi (eds.), Origene maestro di vita spirituale, Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2001, pp. 263–289. Petroff 2002 = Valery Petroff, “Theoriae of the Return in John Scottus’ Eschatology,” in: James McEvoy and Michael Dunne (eds.), History and Eschatology in John Scottus Eriugena and His Time: Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference of the Society for the Promotion of Eriugenian Studies (Maynooth and Dublin, August 16–20, 2000), Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002, pp. 527–579. Russell 2004 = Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

6

The Dream of the Rood A neglected contemplative text Tim Flight

With the exception of Beowulf, The Dream of the Rood (hereafter DOTR) is perhaps the most discussed of all Anglo-Saxon texts. The paradox of Rood criticism is that, whilst the text continues to be frequently discussed, it has rarely been interpreted as a contemplative text. As it exists in the Vercelli Book – a manuscript dating from the second half of the tenth century, which is most likely a personal reading book compiled by an individual over time1 – DOTR is best read as the account of a contemplative event, and yet limited critical attention has been paid to this crucial aspect of the poem’s interpretation.2 R. B. Burlin,3 Paavo Rissanen,4 and W. F. Bolton5 all link certain features of the poem to the contemplative definitions of Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Iob. Elsewhere, Robert Boenig discusses the paradoxes in the cross’s narrative as evidence for the influence of PseudoDionysius on Anglo-Saxon thought.6 I extend Boenig’s analysis of the paradoxes later in the article, and discuss a manuscript witness to this specific part of PseudoDionysius’s theology. In this piece I will present DOTR as not only the description of a mystical event, but a textual device to allow readers to participate in theosis, through catharsis and theoria.

Biblical dream/vision, not medieval dream-vision The poem’s given title, DOTR, is based upon equivocal textual evidence.7 Influenced perhaps by nominative determinism, most discussions of the poem assume that the poem is about a dream in an anachronistic sense, making the narrator the source of the vision. DOTR has even been interpreted as the genesis of the dreamvision genre, which produced some of the most profane love lyrics of the medieval period.8 I will demonstrate here that DOTR is best read as a mystical event, rather than as a primitive Roman de la Rose. The given title and subsequent interpretation hinge upon the opening of the poem, and so it is important to analyze closely the section’s grammar and lexical choices: Lo! I intend to relate the best of visions, what came to me at midnight when speech-bearers were at rest! It seemed to me that I saw a tree more wonderful carried in the heavens, surrounded by light, the brightest of beams.9

The Dream of the Rood 73 Hwæt me gemætte to midre nihte (2) is commonly translated as “what I dreamed at midnight.”10 However, this obscures the tenses used: the rendering is influenced by the noun swefna (1a), which is used elsewhere in the Old English Corpus to mean “dream,” but me is accusative, which means that the vision of the poem has been given to the narrator, rather than generated by him, as is the case wherever swefn is employed. This sense of receiving a dream differs from the modern understanding of dreaming, in which dreams are produced by subconscious brain activity. This tense is especially important to bear in mind, as in Isidore’s definition dreams are near-equivalent to visions, in being given to the dreamer: The second kind is vision; as when Isaiah says (Is. 6:1): ‘I saw the Lord sitting upon a high throne.’ The third kind is dream; as Jacob saw the ladder to heaven while sleeping.11 Isidore’s purpose here is to define God’s appearances and communications with mankind, including dreams with reference to God appearing in a dream to advise Jacob of his coming inheritance (Gen. 28:13), recalling the accusative in DOTR (2). With this context established, we can proceed to examine the mystical content of DOTR.

The contemplative structure of the poem DOTR divides neatly around the embedded narrative of the cross. The Prologue (1–27) describes the sequence of events leading up to the cross’s narrative. The cross’s narrative (28–121) subdivides into two sections: the account of the Crucifixion and its discovery (28–77), and the implications of the cross for mankind in the present and future (78–121). The visionary recommences his narrative at line 122, which again can be subdivided into a short section dealing with the immediate aftermath of the vision (122–26a), and extended details of his consequent hope for the future (126b–56). This structure is reproduced below: I: IIa: IIb: IIIa: IIIb:

1–27 Narrator’s Prologue 28–77 Cross’s Crucifixion Narrative 78–121 Cross’s Discussion of its post-Passion role 122–26a Narrator’s reaction to the Cross’s speech 126b–56 Narrator’s reinvigorated hope for the future.12

The rest of this piece will justify my categorization as the analysis proceeds. Although the Anglo-Saxons did not have direct access to texts specifically discussing theosis, equivalent discussions of contemplation were circulating amongst them. Early Medieval theories of contemplation demand that the mind must first be brought beyond earthly things (catharsis), as Bede explains: “certain chosen people who, having purified the eye of the heart, deserve to contemplate in a certain part all the delights that the Church will possess in the future. As did Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and other prophets.”13 “The more that they deliver themselves from

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desiring the lowest things, so the more they are capable of the contemplation of celestial things.”14 This need for catharsis may explain a curious detail of DOTR. The poem contains no mention of place when the vision arrives, unlike other Anglo-Saxon accounts of visions so forthcoming in topographical detail that they have been studied as evidence for Pre-Conquest architecture.15 Whether the vision takes place in a mental landscape or a worldly setting is entirely uncertain: we are merely told the time of the vision and that a beautiful cross was seen (4–5a). This situates the vision beyond the mundane, and demonstrates the extent of the narrator’s detachment from the temporal world, to the point that it is irrelevant to the narrative of the event. The only detail of the vision’s setting given by DOTR is that the cross is seen on lyft lædan (5a), minimizing the relation of the event to terrestrial reality: this suggests that the narrator has separated his thoughts from leviores reddunt, to the extent that he has chosen to mention nothing of the vision’s earthly context. Mental purgation also explains the narrator’s reactions to the vision at different points of the poem. An emotion strongly associated with purifying the mind of worldly things is compunction, sorrow at one’s sinful state. Gregory the Great defines two types of compunctio in his correspondence: One that fears eternal punishments, the other that sighs because of celestial rewards; for the soul that thirsts for God is first stimulated by fear, afterwards by love. For first of all it is affected to weeping because, while it recalls its evils, it fears to suffer eternal penalties for them. But when fear has been consumed by the anxiety of a long grief, a certain security is born from a sense of forgiveness, and the soul is inflamed with the love of celestial joys.16 The compunction of fear serves to direct the mind towards God, the first step towards contemplation. Thus, it is interpreted as sent by God, as Bede explains: “[when] they guide their minds to higher things, it is not their own power, but it is divine largess.”17 The beautiful appearance of the cross thus inspires the narrator’s psychological self-examination, manifest in lines explicitly contrasting their spiritual states: syllic wæs se sigebeam, ond ic synnum fah/forwunded mid wommum (13–14a, “the Beam of Victory was wondrous, and I was stained with sins, grievously wounded with transgressions”). Gazing upon the cross enables the narrator to draw contrasts between their states, explicitly a psychological development in the poem as no biographical detail is provided to establish the narrator’s preexisting penitence. This is later intensified into timor, as more details of the cross’s beauty are given: forht ic wæs for þære fægran gesyhðe (21a, “I was afraid before that beautiful vision”). Line 21a is an esoteric statement that makes little sense outside of the context of compunctive timor. Looking at a cross, the universal symbol of Christianity and its message of hope, would not generally inspire fear, and so this timor is best explained by reference to the penitential contrast of 13–14a. This initial fear, which the soul feels dum malorum suorum reculit, pro his perpeti supplicia aeterna pertimescit (VII.26) (Gregory the Great, Epistulae, 1849: 880), can be linked to the initial presentation of the cross. Anticipating its

The Dream of the Rood 75 later discussion of eschatology (Section IIb), the cross appears on lyft lædan (5b), which is how it will appear at Doomsday, according to a reading of Mt. 24:30.18 This image serves as a reminder of the last things, and can therefore be read as the cause of the narrator’s timor and lament of his sinful state. The sight of the perfect tree, fægere þurh forðgesceaft (10a), thus inspires compunction in the visionary, who grows acutely aware of his sinful state. Loathing one’s sins liberates one from the temporal world, and so when the cross speaks the narrator becomes one of in quibusdam electis . . . qui, purificato cordis oculo, ea quae in futuro cuncta perceptura est Ecclesia, nonnulla ex parte gaudia contemplari merentur (Bede, In Esdram et Nehemiam 1850 III: p. 918). Likewise, just before the cross speaks in DOTR – its first definitively mystical action – and the vision begins in earnest, the narrator gives one last mention of his compunction (24–26). These lines concisely suggest the narrator’s penitence and immense effort of self-catechizing that he undertakes before the vision proceeds. The narrator, having displayed extensive contrition, receives grace directly in the form of the cross’s celestial narrative. Whilst the cross, as a celestial vision, comes to the narrator, in beholding what is before him he nevertheless has some agency. Having identified the matter of the vision as a syllicre treow (4b), the narrator describes its appearance: eall þæt beacen wæs/begoten mid golde (6b–7a, “all of that sign was covered with gold”). The employment of beacen (6b) to describe the cross here recalls Augustine’s definition of signs: What I now call things strictly are things which are not used to signify something, such as wood, stones, sheep and others; but not the wood which Moses sent into the bitter waters to make them lose their bitterness, nor the stone which Jacob put under his head, nor the sheep which Abraham burnt instead of his son. These are things, but they are simultaneously signs of other things. From this it can be understood what I mean by signs: those things which are used to signify something else. For this reason every sign is also a thing; because what is not a thing, does not exist.19 All signs are, on the fundamental level, things. Thus, the cross is first understood on the literal level of its appearance (6a–7b). As a thing, the cross is primarily a beautiful object worthy of adoration. From this position, the narrator progresses to apprehend that it is employed to signify something else: Geseah ic wuldres treow, wædum geweorðode, wynnum scinan, gegyred mid golde; immas hæfdon bewrigene weorðlice wealdendes treow (14b–17, “I saw the tree of splendour honoured with garments, shining beautifully, adorned with gold; the gems had splendidly concealed the Lord’s Tree”). This shift in the narrator’s understanding is reflected in the redefinition of the actions of the gems: at line 15, they merely decorate (gegyred), and then at line 17 they hide (bewrigene) the beacen. That is, they inhibit the narrator’s contemplation of the cross as a sign. The narrator’s increasing comprehension of the cross means that he contemplates it as a sign, and not just as a thing, as both an object

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of beauty and a memorial of the Crucifixion: hwæðre ic þurh þæt gold ongytan meahte/earmra ærgewin, þæt hit ærest ongan/swætan on þa swiðran healfe (18– 20a, “however, through that gold I could understand the former strife of the wretched ones, so that it first began to bleed on the right hand side”). The visionary’s understanding increases with his heightened perspicacity, which recalls the link between seeing and understanding discussed in the Old English Soliloquies: þare saule hawung is gesceadwisnes and smeaung. Ac manige sawle hawiað mid ðam, and þeah ne geseoð þæt þæt hi wilniað, forðamþe hi næbbað ful hale eagan (I, “the soul’s gaze is reason and thought. But many souls look with these and yet cannot see that which they wish, because they do not have fully healthy eyes”).20 Thus, the longer the cross reveals itself to the narrator, the better his understanding, manifested in a verbal hierarchy of vision which indicates the growth of the narrator’s understanding from passive observation (gesawe, 4a) to active thought (ongytan, 18b). This in turn implies that the vision is seen through the saule hawung (Old English Soliloquies I) and so is a phenomenon witnessed mentally. The shift from seeing (gesawe) to understanding (ongytan) the cross means that, although the narrator is seeing something presented to him, this is primarily through his intellectual capabilities, and so what is seen corresponds to what is understood. It is pertinent that the cross’s bleeding (19b–20a) follows directly the intensification of contemplative activity: this is the first physical action of the cross which separates it from other crosses seen in everyday life.21 In the shifting perspective of the vision, hwilum hit wæs mid wætan bestemed/beswyled mid swates gange (23–24a, “sometimes it was drenched with fluid, imbued with the flow of the blood”). This anticipates the cross’s narrative at 48b–49a: eall ic wæs mid blode bestemed/begoten of þæs guman sidan (“I was completely drenched with blood, begotten from the man’s side”). This confirms that the blood on the cross (19b– 20a) – corresponding to Christ being pierced on His right hand side (Jn. 19:34) – is a vision of the blood of Christ, a recurrent feature of contemplative visions.22 The narrator of DOTR progresses to the point that the cross appears in both of its aspects interchangeably, as both a thing and as a manifestation of the event which it signifies: geseah ic þæt fuse beacen/wendan wædum ond bleom; hwilum hit wæs mid wætan bestemed/beswyled mid swates gange, hwilum mid since gegyrwed (21b–23, “I saw that noble sign change clothing and colours; sometimes it was drenched with fluid, imbued with the flow of the blood, at other times it was adorned with jewels”). In the context of our equation of sight and knowledge, the cross shifting from beautiful object to lowly gallows in the vision signifies the narrator’s understanding that the two aspects of the cross are inseparable, introducing the employment of paradox in the poem which is to be continued in the cross’s speech. The narrator remains contemplating the cross in this manner until grace is sent, again as a direct consequence of the devotional activity beheold hreowcearig hælendes treow/oððæt ic gehyrde þæt hit hleoðrode (25–26, “I beheld contritely the Saviour’s tree, until I heard that it made a sound”). It is pertinent that it is only after the true signification of the cross has been recognized that it begins to speak. DOTR makes it clear that the two roles of the cross are inseparable, and must be

The Dream of the Rood 77 understood together. The cross is presented, with orthodox theology, as both a thing to be adored and as a sign of Christ’s crucifixion. However, only once its dual nature has been apprehended and linked can the cross be infused with redemptory power for the individual, and so prayer to the cross is delayed until its speech has ended (122). Contemplating the dual aspects of the cross leads directly into the main part of the vision, the cross’s speech, brought about through the sublime coming of grace, revealing the poem’s preoccupation with the proper understanding and hence recognition of the cross as a sign. In Gregory’s definition, the first type of compunction, timor, aids contemplation and is then transformed into amor after any vision received (Gregory the Great, Epistulae (1849 VII.26: pp. 879–880). The DOTR narrator displays equivalent compunctio amoris in discussing extensively the joys of heaven after the vision ends, suggesting that in amore coelestium gaudiorum animus inflammatur after receiving a contemplative vision: I look forward each day to when the Lord’s Cross, that I before contemplated here on earth, fetches me from this transitory life and might bring me then where there is great joy, delight in the heavens, where there is the Lord’s people seated at the feast, where there is perpetual bliss, and might place me where I might dwell thereafter in splendour, to partake of joy abundantly with the holy ones.23 Enumerating the wonders of heaven in this way strongly indicates that the narrator is infused with the second stage of compunction, having received a celestial vision. The result of the love experienced after a contemplative vision is usually expressed as longing, another concept evident in DOTR. After the cross’s narrative ends, so does the vision. Evidence of its completion, though not explicitly mentioned, is clear from the narrator’s reactions in Section IIIa. I myself prayed to the beam with a joyous spirit, great courage, where I was alone with a small company. My mind was urged on a journey, I endured many times of longing.24 The sentiments expressed after the narrator’s revised form of devotion has been revealed correspond to the Early Medieval definition of contemplation. Once mental ecstasy has ended, the effect on him who undergoes it is to reinvigorate the desire to undergo it again, as Bede demonstrates in quoting Gregory: spirituales deliciae, cum non habentur, in fastidio sunt; cum vero habentur, in desiderio sunt; tantoque a comedente amplius esuriuntur (Bede, Epistolam I S. Petri (1862: 45), “spiritual delights, when they are not possessed, are loathed; however, when they are possessed, they are desired; and the more they are hungered for.” The narrator’s langunghwila, therefore, in coming directly after the end of the cross’s narrative, can be related to the restless desire to be granted again the vision of the cross. The preceding statement (124b–25a) suggests the same, and together the lines demonstrate the mindset of the narrator, who having been granted a vision longs to see it

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again: is me nu lifes hyht/þæt ic þone sigebeam secan mote/ana oftor þonne ealle men (126b–28, “it is now my life’s hope that I might seek the Beam of Victory alone more often than all men”). The narrator’s desire to seek the cross again (127) denotes a life now directed towards being granted another vision of the cross. This desire is intrinsically linked to the celestial vision of the cross, and so necessitates the use of the subjunctive secan mote: the cross of the vision can be sought again, but the narrator’s success in this endeavour is subject to God’s will. The structure of DOTR, therefore, corresponds very closely to the Early Medieval theory of contemplation, which would be recognized by a learned audience. The arrangement of the narrative for their use in preparing for potential contemplative union (theoria) is discussed below.

Apophatic discourse in the cross’s narrative The appearance of the cross in the vision, though beautiful, would be fairly unremarkable in appearance to its contemporary audience, based on survivals from the Anglo-Saxon period: it is golden (7a), and adorned with gemstones (16b–17).25 Besides its ability to speak, the bleeding of the cross (19b–20a) is the only other feature of the vision which takes it beyond the commonplace. However, even this finds a parallel in the artistic tradition. Rissanen suggests the Cross of Lothair, another processional cross of c.1000, one side of which is gold and bejeweled, the other a depiction of the Passion, as a cognate.26 Whilst we cannot ultimately prove any relation of this specific artefact to the poem, the existence of a cross physically presenting both symbolic aspects of the cross suggests that the form of apophatic devotion that will here be shown to characterize DOTR was not an isolated activity in the period, and it would likewise be foolhardy to rule out the possibility that other crosses of a similar design existed. It may at first seem curious that the object of the swefna cyst is a cross, whose appearance would be familiar to many, but this aesthetic choice can be profitably related to a contemplative scheme. The very accessibility of the vision of the celestial cross and the lack of biographical detail together can be interpreted as an invitation to contemplative readers to join in the vision of the poem. The familiarity of the cross’s appearance means that all may meditate upon the appearance of the cross of the vision, like the narrator, from the description of the Prologue. This phenomenon is known as schemata theory in modern psychology: “when comprehended in context, the meanings of the words in an utterance are further articulated in a process of inferential interpolation based on “schemata” which embody one’s knowledge of the language and world.”27 By using images stored in the memory, or schemata, therefore, contemporary audiences of the poem could bring to mind a reasonably accurate mental image of the cross described in the poem from personal experience. Linking words to mental images harmonizes with Bede’s phenomenological theory of image-processing in reading: intrantes ecclesiam omnes etiam litteratum ignari, quaquaversum intenderent, vel semper amiabilem Christi sanctorumque eius, quamvis in imagine (Bede, Historia abbatum (1862: 717), “all who entered the church, even those

The Dream of the Rood 79 who were illiterate, wherever they turned their eyes, might always have in front of them the amiable countenance of Christ and his saints, though in a picture”). It is possible, therefore, that this scheme of familiar imagery was intended by the author of DOTR to allow the reader to share in the visual aspect of the event: the cross can easily be accessed in the reader’s schemata, and Bede’s phenomenology suggests that such visual imaginings would be the result of comprehending a text. Thus, the growth in understanding for narrator and reader are equivalent, directing the contemplative audience to consider the meanings of different parts of the cross’s appearance and experience compunction until, like the narrator, they are prepared to receive the substance of the cross’s narrative. This analysis will now be extended to include the cross’s narrative, the apophatic discourse of which comprises the vision proper, and provides the means for the audience to contemplate potentially something of God, whose actions are implicit in the Crucifixion.28 By taking the mind beyond the earthly logic contained in discourse, apophasis contributes to the catharsis necessary to participate in theoria. Boenig suggests that DOTR is comprised of a series of affirmations and denials about Christ and the cross, under the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius, to create uncertainty over whether the cross or Christ suffers in the Crucifixion narrative.29DOTR certainly displays the nuanced undermining of language associated with the apophatic school of thought, as all paradoxical elements of the cross, Crucifixion, and Christ are unresolved, and merely allowed to co-exist in mutual opposition. We can relate this technique firmly to Pseudo-Dionysius’s thoughts on Christ from Divine Names II.9.648A, which circulated in Anglo-Saxon England through a Latin translation made at the 649 Lateran Council, familiar to, and quoted by, Bede:30 For Dionysius, outstanding amongst ecclesiastical writers, in the works Concerning the Divine Names says this: ‘We are ignorant even of how He was formed, beyond natural law, from virgin’s blood, and how He had feet infused with bodily weight and material burden and [yet] walked on the wet and unstable substance’.31 Here Pseudo-Dionysius highlights the ineffability of Christ, meditating upon the mystical imbuing of His human and divine natures into one will. Emphatically, Pseudo-Dionysius references biblical accounts, and then signals their contrariness to man’s understanding of nature: in so doing, he demonstrates the limits of terrestrial knowledge of Christ. All that we can know of Christ are the indisputable facts of His life given in Scripture, which we cannot understand: these thus pose an unresolvable paradox. It is this ineffable aspect of Christ’s person that DOTR exploits, along with the inherently paradoxical Crucifixion, for the contemplative audience. The clearest negation comes in the cross’s descriptions of Christ: eall ic wæs mid blode bestemed/begoten of þæs guman sidan . . . /geseah ic weruda god/ þearle þenian’ (48b–49a; 51b–52a, “I was completely drenched with blood, poured over from the man’s side. I saw the God of Hosts cruelly stretched out”).

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The cross asserts that Christ is both God and Man, simultaneously, but neither in isolation of the other, recalling the Nicene Creed: “He came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.”32 Whilst the Nicene Creed offers some explanation of the person of Christ, in DOTR there is no attempt to resolve the two terms used to describe Christ, but instead they lie in opposition, conveying the mystery of the Incarnation, as in Bede’s quotation of Pseudo-Dionysius. Though the cross maintains Ic þæt eall beheold (58b, “I beheld all of that”), it sees and yet does not entirely understand what is before it, and so makes no attempt to represent Christ by a single sign. This betrays a distrust of language to describe the ineffable, a tenet of apophasis. To imagine God, according to Pseudo-Dionysius, is to “deny that which is beyond all denial” (Luibheid 1987: pp 140)33 to create semiotic nothingness, since to know what God is not presupposes knowing what He is. Augustine, an influence on both Pseudo-Dionysius and Anglo-Saxon theology, demands the same denial of denial when discussing the unutterable nature of God: Deus ineffabilis est . . . ac per hoc ne ineffabilis quidem dicendus est Deus, quia et hoc cum dicitur, aliquid dicitur (Augustine, De doctrina Christiana (1841 I.6: 21), “God is ineffable. But for this reason God should not be called ineffable, because when this is spoken, something is spoken”). Thus, even negative statements about Christ must be denied to achieve the most adequate divine signification, which the poem achieves, like Pseudo-Dionysius, by describing Christ as two contradictory persons with no attempt at reconciliation. To assert that Christ is both God and man without an explanation of how this is possible, therefore, is to affirm and negate both concepts and thus to signify nothing, resulting in a more accurate depiction of Christ, whose ineffable essence is demonstrated to lie beyond the semantic range of the words applied. The reader encounters eighteen signifiers used for Christ in IIa, excluding third-person singular pronouns and descriptions of His corpse. Fourteen of these are divine in import,34 and four are essentially human.35 In each case, no resolution with the other signifiers is attempted, and the regularity with which the essentially human terms occur, corresponding roughly with the beginning, middle, and end of the cross’s description of the Crucifixion in IIa, ensures that the context of Christ’s humanity is never forgotten by the reader. For the contemplative audience, the negations offered by each signifier are cumulative, progressively leading the mind further from earthly discourse to the ineffable divinity, as Pseudo-Dionysius discusses: We [should] be like sculptors who set out to carve a statue. They remove every obstacle to the pure view of the hidden image, and simply by this act of clearing aside they show up the beauty which is hidden. (Mystical Theology, II, Patrologia Graeca 2, 1025B) “Every obstacle,” in the context of the poem, refers to the inhibiting logic and limited understanding of fallen man. In strategically contradicting its own assertions about Christ, DOTR is essentially silent descriptively, but nevertheless provides unresolvable paradoxes which must be maintained intellectually by members

The Dream of the Rood 81 of the contemplative audience, so as to direct the mind beyond the signification of words and terrestrial knowledge. To further the contemplative scheme of the poem, there is a lexical shift in the cross’s narrative between Parts IIa and IIb, reflecting the proposed structure of the poem. When describing the return of the glorified Christ in IIa, the cross ceases to describe Christ as a man, and exclusively uses twelve divine signifiers for the purpose.36 This narrative shift brings with it a new intellectual task for the contemplative audience. Having attempted to reconcile the persons of Christ, it is now necessary to resolve the discrepancy between the man slain ignominiously (48b–49a) and the deity who will return all-powerful at Judgement Day (110–11). How this transformation was achieved is entirely unknowable: the contemplative audience is thus tasked with keeping the paradox of Christ’s exaltation in mind, in order to consider God’s unknowable actions more accurately. Conveying God in this manner is a characteristically contemplative technique. To affirm and negate aspects of the One is to open up the logical gap between what is asserted and denied about Him. The cross’s narrative, in affirming contradictory aspects of Christ but leaving them unresolved, makes this narrative space available to the narrator and the contemplative audience, and so though neither sees Christ or the Crucifixion with bodily eyes, both are given the preparatory means to contemplate God through the person of Christ as depicted in the Crucifixion narrative with the mind’s eye, should grace be sent. The description of the Crucifixion itself operates on the same apophatic basis. In the Prologue, the narrator asserts of the vision before him, ne wæs ðær huru fracodes gealga (10b, “truly it was not the gallows of a criminal”). Yet, in the cross’s narrative, this observation is explicitly undermined: gestah he on gealgan heanne (40b, “He [Christ] climbed on the lowly gallows”). Neither narrator is incorrect: the cross was intended as the gallows of a criminal, and Christ deliberately suffered an ignominious death, yet it is simultaneously the means of Christ’s glorification and the universal symbol of Christian hope in Christ’s redemptory death, and so signifies the victory of Christ, se sigebeam (13a). The central paradox of the cross is that it is simultaneously the symbol of Christ’s lamentable death and the joyous symbol of everlasting life, since through the cross mankind was redeemed. This enigmatic quality is encapsulated in the cross’s self-portrayal: on me bearn godes/þrowode hwile. Forþan ic þrymfæst nu/hlifige under heofenum, ond ic hælan mæg/æghwylcne anra, þara þe him bið egesa to me (83b–86; “the Son of God suffered on me for a while. Thus, now I stand high beneath the heavens, glorious, and I can save each one of those in whom there is fear of me”). It is glorified because it was the slayer of Christ. This central paradox of the Crucifixion narrative is orthodox, and yet unresolvable, which the text embraces in assisting the contemplative audience to prepare for potential theoria. DOTR does not seek to explain this theological complexity, but instead embraces and emphasizes the inherent paradox of the Crucifixion and the person of Christ to communicate the inscrutability of the event and Him who permitted it to occur. It is incomprehensible that the instrument used to kill the Son of God should be glorified forþan it killed Him. Since the Bible maintains that this was the act and foreordained plan

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of God, Christians have to assume that there was an underlying logic to the Crucifixion. The emphatic conjunction forþan here demonstrates the limits of terrestrial knowledge: no man can interpret this forþan as logical and understand the relation between the two sentences, at least pre-mortem (1 Cor. 13:12). The destruction of narrative logic in this statement, therefore, preserves the mystery of God, which is simultaneously conveyed to the narrator and the contemplative audience as the means to direct the mind beyond the terrestrial realm to the ineffable divine. The conjunction hwæðre, which occurs nine times in sections I-IIb, is also applied disjunctively. Judith N. Garde observes that every use of hwæðre “signals the inconclusive nature of the situation or action just recounted.”37 My analysis here will alternatively suggest that, when it is used, hwæðre operates as a disjunction, and it is not the conclusive nature of the actions indicated that is altered but the logic behind them. In the Prologue, the first use of the conjunction articulates the paradox of the cross as symbol (16–19a). The gems here inhibit the cross’s signification of the agony of Christ’s Passion, yet the narrator is able to get beyond its appearance to understand its other meaning. Despite the use of hwæðre in 18a, there is no conventional logical connection here between the bejeweling of the cross and the narrator’s ability to see it as a symbol of strife, which serves both to convey the mystery of the vision and to undermine terrestrial logic and discourse for the contemplative audience, who must maintain the paradox of the cross’s symbolism to direct the mind toward the ineffable mystery it signifies. Later in the poem, hwæðre is again disjunctive: forht ic wæs for þære fægran gesyhðe/ . . . / hwæðre ic þær licgende lange hwile/beheold hreowcearig hælendes treow/oððæt ic gehyrde þæt hit hleoðrode (21a; 24–26, “I was afraid before that beautiful vision . . . however, lying there for a long time, I beheld contritely the Savior’s tree, until I heard that it made a sound”). The coming of God’s grace in the form of the cross’s narrative is presented as a direct consequence of the visionary’s penitence, but in itself this development is a paradox. Despite the conjunction, there is no logical link between the narrator’s continuing prostration and contrition and the cross beginning to speak, which as in the case above both signals the inherent ineffability of the vision and signals to the contemplative audience the need to maintain the paradoxical connection facilitated by the conjunction. Hwæðre (38a) functions in the same disjunctive manner in the cross’s Crucifixion narrative: þær ic þa ne dorste ofer dryhtnes word/bugan oððe berstan/ . . . ealle ic mihte/feondas gefyllan, hwæðre ic fæste stod (35–36a; 37b–38, “there I dared not to bow or break against the Lord’s word: I could have defeated all of the enemies, however I stood fast”). The cross here shares in the action of Christ: like Him, it chooses to be wounded, since ealle ic mihte/feondas gefyllan. The cross’s willing passivity only makes sense in terms of Crucifixion theology, since no logical connective or explanation is provided, to demand contemplative preparation from the narrator. Yet, as discussed, the Crucifixion is an inherently paradoxical event: the narrative strategy here is to exploit this paradox, so that the more asserted about the event, the less comprehensible it becomes to earthly logic. Later on, the conjunction is again employed paradoxically: sare ic wæs mid sorgum

The Dream of the Rood 83 gedrefed, hnag ic hwæðre þam secgum to handa/eaðmod elne mycle (59–60a, “I was sorely afflicted with griefs, however I bowed to the hands of the men, obedient with great courage”). There is no indication as to why this is a brave act, since secgum here denotes the followers of Christ, whose will the cross has followed throughout its ordeal. Presumably, too, being mid sorgum gedrefed would also make the cross more acquiescent to the will of others than if it was in good health. As in 35–36a and 37b–38, here the contemplative audience is being taken beyond the signification of words and terrestrial knowledge through the undermining of discourse and logic. Another instance of hwæðre being applied disjunctively comes later in the immediate post-Crucifixion scene: reste he ðær mæte weorode/ hwæðere we ðær greotende gode hwile/stodon on staðole, syððan stefn up gewat/ hilderinca (69b–72a, “He rested there with a small company. However, we stood in position there lamenting for a good while, after the voice of the men went up”). There is again nothing to suggest that the two events are linked, and the logic is once more irresolvable: Christ’s prostration has no logical bearing on whether the cross remains erect. The conjunction is employed for the last time in the cross’s Discussion of its post-Passion role, when it briefly describes the Resurrection: deað he þær byrigde, hwæðere eft dryhten aras/mid his miclan mihte mannum to helpe (101–02, “He tasted death there, however the Lord rose again with His great power to help men”). These lines accurately convey the fact that Christ, as a member of the Trinity, cannot die, but again the mystery behind His actions remains unexplained. The unanswerable question posed, and again left to the reader to resolve, is how death necessitates resurrection and exaltation, and how Christ can be said to have died. This is a contemplative prompt, as in the cross’s self-portrayal: the mysterious nature of God is implied and contained within the self-negating apophatic statements of the cross’s narrative. God, despite His self-manifestation into Christ, remains essentially unknowable, and yet the means to achieve (should His grace be awarded) an imperfect understanding, or glimpse, of Him, is paradoxically contained within the text. As in the use of forþan, the narrator is impossibly tasked with comprehending how the conjunction hwæðre can make sense in this context, knowledge that will be perfected post-mortem but may for the present be glimpsed or partially understood by the elect among the living. The illogical application of hwæðre is, like the mutually negating descriptions of Christ as both fully man and fully God, to preserve the mystery of Christ’s ineffable divinity and agency, whilst simultaneously providing the paradoxes required to direct the mind beyond terrestrial knowledge (catharsis) in preparation for theoria. In demonstrating the essential failure of human discourse to describe even the Incarnate Christ through the use of paradox and encouraging penitence through the narrator’s display of compunctio in the Prologue, DOTR enables contemplatives to clear the mind’s eye of all terrestrial logic and knowledge contained within the medium of language (catharsis), and so prepare for a potential ecstatic vision themselves (theoria). The Old English Soliloquies (I) explicates the need for this mental purgation by equating seeing and understanding: DOTR is structured and executed for the very purpose of giving the contemplative audience ful hale eagan.

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Conclusion In its self-portrayal, the cross is unequivocal about its manmade nature, giving detail which the Gospels omit about its origin: ic wæs aheawen holtes on ende (29, “I was cut down on the edge of the forest”). It is, like all imitative crosses after it, a manmade object. In a bold statement about the potential ends of art, man will be redeemed through an object created by man: ic hælan mæg/æghwylcne anra, þara þe him bið egesa to me (85b–86, “I can save each one of those who live in fear of me”). Amongst such manmade creations is the Vercelli Book, and the evangelizing DOTR itself, and so we have here a clue as to part of the poet’s, and manuscript compiler’s, intent for the narrative’s use. In reading the poem, and being directed to devotion to the cross, we are led from one aesthetic object to another, and simultaneously to redemption. Ælfric equates all crosses for being signs of the same thing: Christian men should truly bow to the sanctified rood, in the name of Christ, because we have not the one on which He suffered, but its likeness is nevertheless holy, to which we bow in endless prayers to the Mighty Lord, who suffered for men; and the rood is a memorial to declare His Passion, holy through Him, though it grew in a forest.38 As signifiers of the Crucifixion recorded for the benefit of mankind in the Gospels, all crosses, in being signs of the same thing, are in a sense theophanies. As instances of what God is willing to reveal about Himself, like the visionary readers may all learn eschatological things from devotion to any version of the cross, in their mind’s eye or physically before them, and so hunger for heaven. The homiletic message is clear: all men can reform their lives to achieve a place in heaven amongst the elect, through thinking on the symbolism of the cross. The message for the contemplative audience, however, is twofold, and we have a visual depiction of this other concept in the eleventh-century London, BL, Stowe 944 f.6r. Here, King Cnut and Queen Ælfgifu are depicted presenting a jeweled cross, like that of the Prologue, to Hyde Abbey. Unambiguously, this object provides a link to heaven: it is acknowledged by two angels, emanating from the depiction of Christ in majesty at the top of the page. The sense here is that heaven may be partially known through the cross, which is depicted as an intermediary between heaven and earth, even though no detail or surrounding text suggests its particular sanctity or status as a relic. The poem functions in the same way as the cross of Stowe 944, equivalently a heavenly conduit in providing the potential means to contemplate heaven whilst still in the flesh. Hence, in the narrative vision of DOTR, as well as being instructed in the redemptory need to venerate the cross, we are shown a potential means to know something of God through contemplating the paradox of the cross as symbol. Whilst the poem’s apophatic presentation of the cross firmly circumscribes the limits of man’s divine knowledge, by simultaneously providing the contemplative audience with the means to be prepared for the coming of God’s grace in the form of a similar vision it provides the potential means for greater knowledge.

The Dream of the Rood 85

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21 22 23

24 25 26

Sisam (1976: 37); Zacher (2009: 32–42). For an extensive bibliography on DOTR, see Remley (2009: 318–416) (357–378). Burlin (1968). Rissanen (1987). Bolton (1980). Boenig (1998). Mary Clayton entitles her recent translation “The Vision of the Cross,” adopting a title more common in the nineteenth century (Clayton 2013). Lee (1972) and Napierkowski (1978). Hwæt! Ic swefna cyst secgan wylle, hwæt me gemætte to midre nihte, syðþan reordberend reste wunedon! Þuhte me þæt ic gesawe syllicre treow on lyft lædan, leohte bewunden, beama beorhtost (1–6a). All references to, and quotations of, Old English poetry are to Krapp and Dobbie (1931–1953). See the notes to line 2 in Swanton (1970). Secundum genus visio; sicut apud Esaiam dicentem (Esai. 6:1): “Vidi Dominum sedentem super solium excelsum.” Tertium genus somnium; sicut Iacob subnixam in caelo scalam dormiens vidit. Isidore, Etymologiae (1850): 286 (VII.VIII.34). For an alternative reading of the structure, see Howlett (1976). In quibusdam electis . . . qui, purificato cordis oculo, ea quae in futuro cuncta perceptura est Ecclesia, nonnulla ex parte gaudia contemplari merentur, ut Esaias, Ezechiel, Daniel prophetae. Bede, In Esdram et Nehemiam (1850): 918. Quanto se ab infimorum cupiditae leviores reddunt, tanto capaciores contemplationis supernorum efficient. Bede, In Cantica canticorum (1850): 1107. See McC. Gatch (1993) and Flight (2016). Unum quod aeternas poenas metuit, aliud quod de coelestibus praemis suspirat, quia Deum sitiens anima, prius timore compungitur, post amore. Ante enim semet ipsam in lacrymis afficit, quia dum malorum suorum reculit, pro his perpeti supplicia aeterna pertimescit. At vero cum longa moeroris anxietate fuerit formido consumpta, quaedam iam de praesumpione veniae securitas nascitur, et in amore coelestium gaudiorum animus inflammatur, Gregory the Great, Epistulae (1849): 879–880 (VII.26). Cursum suae mentis ad altiora dirigant . . . non hoc eorum potestatis, sed est divinae largitionis. Bede, In Cantica canticorum (1850): 1109. Hawk (2011). Proprie autem nunc res appellavi, quae non ad significandum aliquid adhibentur, sicuti est lignum, lapis, pecus atque huiusmodi cetera; sed non illud lignum quod in aquas amaras Moysen misisse legimus, ut amaritudine carerent neque ille lapis quem Iacob sibi ad caput posuerat neque illud pecus quod pro filio immolavit Abraham. Hae namque ita res sunt, ut aliarum etiam signa sint rerum . . . Ex quo intellegitur quid appellem signa: res eas videlicet quae ad significandum aliquid adhibentur. Quamobrem omne signum etiam res aliqua est; quod enim nulla res est, omnino nihil est. Augustine, De doctrina Christiana (1841): 19–20 (I.2). Old English Soliloquies (1969). On the relationship of the cross to the Anglo-Saxon plastic arts, see Raw (1970). For example, Byrhtferth, Vita sancti Oswaldi, I.5. ic wene me daga gehwylce hwænne me dryhtnes rod, þe ic her on eorðan ær sceawode, on þysson lænan life gefetige ond me þonne gebringe þær is blis mycel, dream on heofonum, þær is dryhtnes folc geseted to symle, þær is singal blis, ond me þonne asette þær ic syþþan mot wunian on wuldre, well mid þam halgum dreames brucan (135b–44a). Gebæd ic me þa to þan beame bliðe mode, elne mycle, þær ic ana wæs mæte werede. Wæs modsefa afysed on forðwege, feala ealra gebad langunghwila (122–26a). Raw (1970). Rissanen (1987: 13).

86 27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34

35 36

37 38

Tim Flight Anderson (1976: 667). The use of non-apophatic paradox is discussed by Wolf (1958). Boenig (1998: 4). For an analysis of the manuscript of the 649 Lateran Council’s English circulation, and a consideration of Pseudo-Dionysius’s influence in Anglo-Saxon England, see Flight (2017). nam Dionisius egregius inter ecclesiaticos scriptores in opusculis de diuinis nominibus hoc modo loquitur: Ignoramus enim qualiter de uirgineis sanguinibus alia lege præter naturalem formabatur et qualiter infusis pedibus corporale pondus habentibus et materiale onus deambulabat in humidam et instabilem substantiam. Bede, In Marci Evangelium Expositio (1960) II: 518, ll. 1135–1141. Quoted from Kelly (2006: 215–216). All references to the works of Pseudo-Dionysius are to Luibheid (1987). 34b, frean mancynnes, “The Saviour of Mankind”; 35b, dryhtnes, “Lord”; 39b, god ælmihtig, “God Almighty”; 44b, ricne cyning, “The King of Glory”; 45a, heofona hlaford, “The Lord of the Heavens”; 51b, weruda god, “The God of Hosts”; 53b, wealdendes, “The Ruler”; 56a, cyninges, “King”; 56b, Crist, “Christ”; 60b, ælmihtigne god, “Almighty God”; 64a, heofenes dryhten, “The Lord of Heaven”; 67a, sigora wealdend, “The Ruler of Victories”; 71b, gode, “God”; 75b, drhytnes. 39a, geong hæleð, “the young warrior”; 42a, beorn “man”; 49a, guman, “man”; 63a, limwerigne, “the limb-weary one.” 83b, bearn godes, “Son of God”; 90b, wuldres ealdor, “Lord of Glory”; 91b, heofonrices weard, “Guardian of the Kingdom of Heaven”; 93a, ælmihtig god, “Almighty God”; 98a, ælmihtig god, “Almighty God”; 101b, dryhten, “Lord”; 105b, dryhten sylfa, “The Lord Himself ”; 106a, ælmihtig god, “Almighty God”; 107b, se ah domes geweald, “He that possesses Judgement”; 111b, se wealdend, “The Ruler”; 113a, dryhtnes, “Lord”; 116a, Criste, “Christ”; 121a, wealdende, “Lord.” Garde (1991: 104). Cristene men sceolon soðlice abugan to gehalgodre rode, on ðæs Hælendes naman, forðan ðe we nabbað ða ðe he on ðrowade, ac hire anlicnys bið halig swa-þeah, to ðære we abugað on gebedum symle to ðam Mihtigan Drihtne, þe for mannum ðrowade; and seo rod is gemynd his mæran þrowunge, halig ðurh hine, ðeah ðe heo on holte weoxe. Anglo-Saxon Homilies (1971): II.XIX (“Inventio sancti Crucis”).

Bibliography Sources and translations Anglo-Saxon Homilies (1971) = The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Benjamin J. Thorpe, 2 vols., New York, 1971. Augustine, De doctrina Christiana (1841) = Augustinus, De doctrina Christiana, Patrologia Latina, cc. 15–122. Bede, Epistolam I S. Petri (1862) = Beda Venerabilis, Expositio in Epistolam I S. Petri, Patrologia Latina 93, cc. 41–67. Bede, Historia abbatum (1862) = Beda Venerabilis, Vita SS. Abbatum monasterii in Wiramutha et Girvum Benedicti, Ceolfridi, Easteruini, Sigfridi et Huaetbercti, Patrologia Latina 94, cc. 711–729. Bede, In Cantica canticorum (1850) = Beda Venerabilis, Expositionis in Cantica canticorum libri septem, Patrologia Latins 91, cc. 1065–1235. Bede, In Esdram et Nehemiam (1850) = Beda Venerabilis, Exposotionis in Esdram et Nehemiam libri tres, Patrologia Latina 91, cc. 807–923.

The Dream of the Rood 87 Bede, In Marci Evangelium Expositio (1960) = Beda Venerabilis, In Lucae evangelium expositio. In Marci evangelium expositio, ed. D. Hurst, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 120, Turnhout: Brepols, 1960. Byrhtferth, Vita sancti Oswaldi = Byrhtferth, The Lives of St Oswald and St Ecgwine, ed. and trans. Michael Lapidge Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2009. Clayton 2013 = Old English Poems of Christ and His Saints, ed. and trans. Mary Clayton, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 27, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. Gregory the Great, Epistulae (1849) = Gregorius Magnus, Registri epistolarum, Patrologia Latina 77, cc. 431–1327. Kelly 2006 = John N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3rd ed., London: Bloomsbury, 2006. Old English Soliloquies (1969) = King Alfred’s Version of St. Augustine’s Soliloquies, ed. Thomas A. Carnicelli, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969. Krapp and Dobbie 1931–1953 = George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie (eds.), The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records: A Collective Edition, 6 vols., New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1931–1953. Luibheid 1987 = Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works, trans. Colm Luibheid, New York, NY: Paulist, 1987. Sisam 1976 = Celia Sisam, The Vercelli Book: A Late Tenth-Century Manuscript Containing Prose and Verse, Vercelli Biblioteca Capitolare CXVII, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 19, Copenhagen, 1976. Swanton 1970 = The Dream of the Rood, ed. Michael James Swanton, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1970.

Studies Anderson 1976 = R.C. Anderson, e.a., “Instantiation of General Terms,” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 15 (1976), pp. 667–679. Boenig 1998 = Robert Boenig, “Pseudo-Dionysius and The Dream of the Rood,” Studia Mystica 19 (1998), pp. 1–7. Bolton 1980 = W.F. Bolton, “The Book of Job in The Dream of the Rood,” Mediaevalia 6 (1980), pp. 87–103. Burlin 1968 = R.D. Burlin, “The Ruthwell Cross, The Dream of the Rood and the Vita Contemplativa,” Studies in Philology 65 (1968), pp. 23–43. Flight 2016 = Tim Flight, “Aristocratic Deer Hunting in Late Anglo-Saxon England: A Reconsideration, Based Upon the Vita S. Dvnstani,” Anglo-Saxon England 45 (2016), pp. 311–331. Flight 2017 = Tim Flight, “‘Through a Glass, Darkly’: Evidence for Knowledge of PseudoDionysius in Anglo-Saxon England,” The Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 43/1 (2017), pp. 1–23. Garde 1991 = Judith N. Garde, Old English Poetry in Medieval Christian Perspective: A Doctrinal Approach, Cambridge: Brewer, 1991. Hawk 2011 = B.W. Hawk, “Id est, crux Christi: Tracing the Old English Motif of the Celestial Rood,” Anglo-Saxon England 40 (2011), pp. 43–73. Howlett 1976 = D.R. Howlett, “The Structure of The Dream of The Rood,” Studia Neophilologica 48 (1976), pp. 301–306. Lee 1972 = A.A. Lee, “The Unity of The Dream of the Rood,” Neophilologus, 56 (1972), pp. 469–486.

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McC. Gatch 1993 = Milton McC. Gatch, “Miracles in Architectural Settings: Christ Church, Canterbury and St Clement’s, Sandwich in the Old English Vision of Leofric,” AngloSaxon England 22 (1993), pp. 227–252. Napierkowski 1978 = T.J. Napierkowski, “A Dream of the Cross,” Comparative Literature 11 (1978), pp. 3–12. Raw 1970 = Barbara C. Raw, “The Dream of the Rood and Its Connections with Early Christian Art,” Medium Ævum 39 (1970), pp. 239–256. Remley 2009 = Paul G. Remley, “The Vercelli Book and Its Texts: A Guide to Scholarship,” in: Samantha Zacher and Andy Orchard (eds.), New Readings in the Vercelli Book, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009, pp. 318–416. Rissanen 1987 = Paavo Rissanen, The Message and Structure of The Dream of the Rood, Missiolgian Ja Ekumenikan Seuran Julkaisuja 52, Helsinki: Finnish Society for Missiology and Ecumenics, 1987. Wolf 1958 = R. Wolf, “Doctrinal Influences on The Dream of the Rood,” Medium Ævum 27 (1958), pp. 137–153. Zacher 2009 = Samantha Zacher, Preaching the Converted: The Style and Rhetoric of the Vercelli Book Homilies, Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series 1, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

7

Ubi caro mea glorificatur, gloriosum me esse cognosco Deification in John of Fécamp (c. 990–1078) Rob Faesen (Translated by John Arblaster)

As the introduction of this volume discusses, deification has often been considered a theme that was developed almost exclusively in Eastern Christian theology and spirituality, and that it is largely absent from theology in the Latin West because it is considered problematic.1 A number of scholars (e.g. Bernard McGinn),2 however, have indicated that the theme of deification is indeed present in Western Christian thought, namely in mystical literature. Most authors, however, have focused their studies exclusively on scholastic theology. In fact, the older theological tradition, of which mystical literature is a creative continuation, devoted far more attention to this theme.

Johannes Fiscanensis We find a notable witness to the way in which deification was understood in the Latin High Middle Ages in the very popular Confessio Theologica by John of Fécamp (Johannes Fiscanensis). John was born near Ravenna, around the year 990, and he became a monk, first at the Abbey of St. Benignus in Dijon, and then at the Abbey dedicated to the Holy Trinity in Fécamp (Fiscanum). The latter abbey was already relatively old at the time, since it was founded around 658. John was elected prior, and later, in 1028, abbot. He died in Fécamp in 1078 – which means that he was about eighty-eight years old, and had been the abbot for fifty years. We know very little about his life personality, since he never mentions it in his writings, except that, from a very young age, he felt attracted to the eremitic life. Apart from a number of minor works (smaller treatises, prayers, letters) he is known for one major treatise, the Confessio theologica, which he must have rewritten a number of times. It exists in several different versions, each with different titles, and attributed to different authors (Cassian, Ambrose, Alcuin, Anselm, etc.), and it is often entitled The Meditations of Saint Augustine. The critical edition was made by dom Jean Leclercq in 1946,3 after several studies by dom André Wilmart, who was of the opinion that John of Fécamp was the most remarkable spiritual writer of the Latin Middle Ages before Bernard.4 The Confessio enjoyed exceptional popularity, comparable to the later Imitatio Christi by Thomas a Kempis.5

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This treatise articulates an interesting perspective on deification. However, we must first examine John’s specific intention in writing this work. In his introduction, the abbot assures his readers that he has no other intention than to transmit the teachings of the Church Fathers. This was, of course, the basic theological principle of all medieval authors, and he mentions it explicitly: “My words are the words of the Fathers. Read what we will say as though you were reading the words of the Fathers.”6 The abbot’s exposition is then expressed as a long, poetic prayer. The Confessio is, in other words, a prayerful theology, a relational way of thinking, a theological reflection in dialogue with God. Moreover, it contains countless biblical references and allusions to liturgical texts. In short, the type of theology that was especially appreciated in the High Middle Ages: artistic, prayerful, and profoundly rooted in the foundations of the faith. We will focus now on some of his main ideas in the second part of the book.

The Christological foundation First, John faithfully recapitulates the Christology of the Fathers, and particularly how the unio hypostatica of the divine and human nature in the one person of Jesus Christ is conceived:7 I bless your holy name and glorify you with all my heart, Lord our God, for this miraculous and inexpressible conjunction of the divine and the human in the unity of the person, not so that the one is God and the other is man, but so that one and the same is God and man, man and God, and that your one Son, our Lord Jesus Christ is both real, perfect God and real, perfect man. And though from marvelous dignity, the Word became flesh, neither of the natures changed into a different substance. . . . Indeed, the Word of God is united to the human substance and it is not mixed with it, so that what was taken from our reality might ascend to God. . . . Oh marvelous and everadmirable divine benevolence! We were not worthy to be servants, and behold, now we have been made sons of God, heirs of God, co-heirs of Christ (Rom 8:17).8 John of Fécamp rightly states that the unio hypostatica does not result in a fusion, creating a new substance. The Council of Chalcedon used the term inconfuse to express this: God – as the Creator – remains God and the human person – as a creature – remains a human person. The striking thing about the quotation, however, is that John of Fécamp adds the reflection that precisely this is the foundation of how human nature ascends to God (ut in Deum quod ex nobis susceptum fuerat perveniret). This constitutes the core of the view on deification in later Western writers: the human person remains a human person and is nevertheless, drawn completely into God (in with the accusative implies a movement).

Ubi caro mea glorificatur 91

The body of Christ John of Fécamp then takes a second step, based on another Patristic principle, namely that of the body of Christ: He is the head and we are the limbs. These reflections are central to understanding John’s theory of deification: Grant us that we persevere in the service to your will and grant us the goods you have prepared for those who love you, so that we, through your grace, may share in our head, whose limbs we are, as he so mercifully promised us when he said: ‘Father, I wish those you have given me to be with me so that they might behold the glory I had in you before the foundation of the world’.9 It is clear that this quote also concerns the theme of deification. The disciples are united to Christ, as the limbs of the body are united to the head. And since Christ, the head, is glorified, the disciples are consequently also glorified.10 This Johannine reference would be taken up three centuries later by John of Ruusbroec in his Little Book of Clarification.11 John of Fécamp then develops this idea in the following paragraph. The fact that Christ assumed human nature has far-reaching consequences for our nature: Thus, he assumed not an angelic but a human nature and glorified it by the gift of his holy resurrection and immortality, raising it above all the heavens and all the choirs of angels, above the Cherubim and the Seraphim, placing it at your right hand. This the angels praise, the dominations adore, the powers tremble at, and the virtues and the blessed Seraphim the heaven of heavens join together to celebrate in exultation.12 The consequence of Christ assuming our human nature, his resurrection, and ascension, is that human nature now sits at the right hand of the Father. This is not a perspective for a far eschatological future; it is the actual situation of human reality today.

Our human nature and the resurrected Christ John then takes a further crucial step. In the resurrected Christ, human nature is at the right hand of the Father, and this should – in his view – not be understood as valid only for this specific, historically unique, human nature of Christ in the hypostatic union, or of human nature in its abstract sense. No, this is true in the most concrete sense for every human being. Therein lies all my hope and my trust. In this man, Christ, there is a share of each of us, of our blood and our flesh. And where my share reigns, I know that I reign. Where my blood rules, I myself rule. Where my flesh is glorified, I recognize that I myself am glorified.13

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Obviously, we should not understand the use of the first person singular as if John is referring to himself specifically and personally, and even less as if what he says, would be true exclusively for himself. That would be a very anachronistic reading, since a medieval author is not in the least concerned with expressing his own subjective situation. The first person singular offers the possibility for every reader to identify himself or herself with this “I.” Medieval art is neither personal nor even impersonal, but supra-personal. In other words, every reader of the Confessio is given the possibility to say “Where my flesh is glorified, I recognize that I myself am glorified.”

The reality of sin Not surprisingly, at this point the abbot foresees a possible objection, referring namely to the reality of sin. Though I am a sinner, I trust in the community that is given out of mercy. And if sins forbid me, the substance demands it anyway, and if my crimes exclude me, the community of nature will not reject me.14 This quote shows the subtlety of John’s thought. First, he indicates that sin is a personal matter (I am a sinner, my sins, my crimes), and here again, every reader can identify with this “I.” And obviously, sin destroys the reality of deification (sins forbid me; my crimes exclude me). Yet, second, the human person cannot be reduced to that personal reality alone. A human person is more than his individual personality; he is a member of a common human nature, he belongs to the communion of the human family, or better: a limb of the body of Christ. And in that sense, deification is not destroyed at all: “if my crimes exclude me, the community of nature will not reject me.” John then recalls that the incarnation took place precisely for our sake, obviously including our salvation from sin: “For the Lord is not so cruel that he would forget humanity and would not remember that in which he is clothed, so that that which he assumed for my sake would not invite me for that very reason.”15 In other words: since Christ assumed human nature precisely for our sake and to save us from sin, it would be completely contradictory if He would reject me as a human person because of who I am concretely, namely a sinner. And John develops the same in what follows: The Lord is not so severe that He would not love His own flesh, his own limbs, his own body. In the sweetest, most loving and meekest Jesus Christ, God himself and our Lord, we are already resurrected. In Him, we have been brought to life already, we have already been drawn up to heaven and we already live in heaven. In him, our flesh loves us. We have the privilege of the blood in Him. We are His limbs, His flesh. Indeed, He is our head, as it is written: ‘Flesh of my flesh’ and ‘they will be two in one flesh.’16

Ubi caro mea glorificatur 93 In passing, we can note the interesting way he quotes from Genesis. These quotations emphasize both the unity of human nature – Eve is flesh of Adam’s own flesh – and the value of the individual person – Adam and Eve are two in one flesh. This organic unity of the individual subject and human nature and Christ as the “head” is difficult for modern readers – so profoundly influenced by nominalism – to grasp. In our contemporary understanding, a human person is an individual, and human nature is an abstract concept, or an impersonal collectivity. But from this modern perspective, we fail to see what John means when he writes “In Him, we have been brought to life already, we have already been drawn up to heaven and we already live in heaven.”

The relation with the Father Further on, John expresses how everything that he described fundamentally concerns the relation to the Father. He addresses the Father – reverenda potestas, Deus omnipotens – and expresses his gratitude to Him for having revealed this wonderful mystery and having illuminated our inner eyes by the holy Spirit to understand that what Christ has done: “For He is our peace; who has made both one. By his blood, we have access to you, together in one spirit.”17 The latter expression (ambo in uno spiritu) is again a creative biblical quote, now from Eph. (2:18). In the original context, ambo refers to Paul and the Ephesians, while here John uses it to refer to Christ and us, who have the same Holy Spirit, the same relationality to the Father. In making this statement, John announces a theme that will be strongly disputed in the thirteenth century. Two hundred years after John of Fécamp, a complex discussion will be held about the question whether or not our love and the love of Christ is the same Holy Spirit.18

More than paradise regained In the following paragraph, John expresses the idea that the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ did not just restore what had been lost by sin, but that much more is given to us. It is not just a matter of a lost paradise that had been regained – a broken humanity that is now healed again. Much more than that is given to us: the door of the heavens has been opened: To you, the King of the ages, our God, immortal and invisible, be blessing and glory and thanksgiving and honour and power and might for this, your wondrous and ineffable love, with which you have loved us so much and saved us in such a way – by your Only-Begotten, our redeemer, who by dying has destroyed our death and renewed our life by rising again, and ascending above all the heavens, on the appointed day, he poured out the Holy Spirit he had promised into the adoptive sons – so that lost paradise has not only been restored to humanity, but that the door of the heavens has been opened.19

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The door of heaven has been opened, that is: to human nature and to us concretely, a place is given in the realm of God, in the divine life, as members of Christ. And he is seated now on your right hand, interceding for us by the prayers of the faithful, our priest and king, remaining in the same nature of the flesh in which he was born and suffered, and in which he has also resurrected. Indeed, in him human nature has not been destroyed, but is glorified, and will remain with the divinity eternally.20

Conclusion This short exploration of the immensely popular eleventh-century Confessio theologica offers us a number of elements concerning the way in which the Latin continuatio mediaevalis of Patristic theology reflected on deification. Human nature – which every human being shares – is deified as such through the unio hypostatica in Christ. This is not primarily of a moral order: distinct from what they do, human persons are already deified by the very fact that they are humans. The crucial element in this line of thought is, of course, the organic unity of human nature, adopted by Christ in the unio hypostatica. The entire understanding of the Confessio depends on how my own specific, personal human reality is related to that “human nature,” and what the latter means. In an unproblematic way, John of Fécamp can call Jesus Christ’s flesh, “my flesh.” But what does this exactly mean for later generations who will understand the personal human reality in line with e.g. Peter Abelard? For him, persona equals per-se-una; in other words, a person is essentially an individual.21 In that view, “human nature” is merely an abstract concept. And as we know, for a nominalist these concepts are simply a construction of the human mind. This has far-reaching consequences for the understanding of the later Western mystical tradition. In my view, many of the controversial positions adopted by Meister Eckhart make perfect sense when read in line with the underlying convictions of the Confessio. And the fact that they were controversial and had to be discussed even at the papal court of Avignon, is in and of itself telling – they were controversial because these presuppositions were not shared any more, and thus these sentences were not understood. I think it is certainly no coincidence that shortly afterwards, John of Ruusbroec in his most theological work, the Mirror of Eternal Blessedness, provides an extensive analysis and explanation of how this core issue needs to be understood, namely how we as human persons in our individuality – with our personal responsibility – are related to that living “human nature” of which Jesus Christ is the head.22 He is very well aware that this is crucial for the correct understanding of deification, or overforminghe, as he calls it. In fact, all this is already in nucleo present in several prayers of the Latin Christmas liturgy, e.g. the Secreta of the midnight mass, which John of Fécamp, Meister Eckhart, John of Ruusbroec, and so many other medieval priests would have prayed when they celebrated the liturgy:

Ubi caro mea glorificatur 95 May the oblation of this day’s feast be pleasing to you, O Lord, we pray, that through this most holy exchange we may be found in the likeness of Christ, in whom our nature is united to you (who lives and reigns for ever and ever).23

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9

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See the introduction to the present volume. McGinn (2008: 115). John of Fécamp, Confessio theologica (1946). Wilmart (1932: 127). Leclercq (1972: 509–511). Dicta mea sunt dicta patrum. Sic ista quae dicimus, lege ut putes te patrum verba relegere. . . . John of Fécamp, Confessio theologica (1946: 121). As defined by the Council of Chalcedon (451): two natures in one person (in unam personam / εἰς ἓν πρόσωπον καὶ μίαν ὑπόστασιν) – the expression unio hypostatica as such does not appear in the text, and is a later theological term. Benedico itaque nomen tuum sanctum et glorifico ex toto corde meo, Domine Deus noster, pro haec mirabilis et inenarrabili coniunctione divinitatis et humanitatis in unitate personae, ut non alter Deus, alter homo, sed unus idemque Deus homo, homo Deus, unus Filius tuus, Dominus noster Iesus Christus esset idem ipse verus et perfectus Deus, verus et perfectus homo. Sed licet mirabili dignatione Verbum caro factum sit, neutra tamen ex duabus naturis in aliam mutata est substantiam. . . . Unita quippe est, non confusa Verbi Dei hominisque substantia, ut in Deum quod ex nobis susceptum fuerat perveniret. . . . O mira semperque miranda divinae propitiationis benignitas. Servi digni non fuimus et ecce filii Dei facti sumus: haeredes quidem Dei, cohaeredes autem Christi. John of Fécamp, Confessio theologica (1946: 126). Tu da nobis perseverantem in tua voluntate famulatum et da nobis bona tua quae praeparasti diligentibus te, ut ad ipsius capitis nostri, cuius sumus membra, per gratiam tuam tandem pervenire mereamur consortium, sicut ipse polliceri dignatus est dicens: Pater volo quos dedisti mihi sunt mecum, ut videant claritatem meam quam habui apud te ante constitutionem mundi. John of Fécamp, Confessio theologica (1946: 127). Jn. 17:24. Ruusbroec, Boecsken (1989: 149–153). Humanam itaque, non angelicam suspiciens naturam et eam munere sanctae resurrectionis et immortalitatis glorificans, uexit super omnes caelos et super omnes choros angelorum, super Cherubim et Seraphim, collocans ad dexteram tuam. Hanc laudant angeli, adorant dominationes, tremunt potetates, caeli caelorumque uirtutes ac beata seraphim socia exultatione concelebrant.John of Fécamp, Confessio theologica (1946: 128). Haec mihi omnes spes omnisque fiducia. Est in illo Christo homine uniuscuiusque nostrum et portio et sanguis et caro. Ubi ergo portio mea regnet, regnare me credo. Ubi sanguis meus dominetur, dominari me sentio. Ubi caro mea glorificatur, gloriosum me esse cognosco. John of Fécamp, Confessio theologica (1946: 128). Quamvis peccator sim, de hac tamen communione gratiae non diffido et si peccata me prohibent, substantia me requirit; et si delicta propria me excludunt, naturae communio non repellit.John of Fécamp, Confessio theologica (1946: 128). Non enim tam immitis est Dominus ut obliuiscatur hominis et non meminerit ipsius quem ipse gestat, ut quem mei causa susceperit, eius causa me non requirat. John of Fécamp, Confessio theologica (1946: 128). Non enim tam immitis est Dominus ut non diligat carnem suam, membra sua, viscera sua. In ipso deo et Domino nostro Iesu Christo dulcissimo et benignissimo atque clementissimo, in quo iam resurreximus, iam reviximus, iam ad caelum conscendimus, iam in caelibus consedimus, caro nostra nos diligit. Habemus praerogativam sanguinis in

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Rob Faesen (Translated by John Arblaster) ipso. Sumus quidem membra eius, caro eius. Ipse vero caput nostrum sicut scriptum est: Os ex ossibus meis et caro de carne mea, et: erunt duo in carne una. . . . John of Fécamp, Confessio theologica (1946: 128–129). Cf. Augustine, Sermo de Ascensione Domini (1960: 494–495). Ipse autem est pax nostra, qui fecit utraque unum. Per eius sanguinem habemus accessum ad te, ambo in uno spiritu.John of Fécamp, Confessio theologica (1946: 140). Cf. Wéber (1986). Tibi regi saeculorum immortali et inuisibili sit benedictio et claritas el gratiarum actio, honour, uirtus et potestas Deo nostro pro tua hac mira et inenarrabili caritate qua nos sic amasti, sic saluasti per Vnigenitum tuum redemptorem nostrum, qui mortem nostram moriendo destruxit et uitam resurgendo reparavit, atque ascendens super omnes caelos die statuo Spiritum Sanctum promissum tuum in filios adoptionis effudit, ut homini non solum paradisum quem amiserat restitueretur, uerum etiam caelorum ianuam aperiret. John of Fécamp, Confessio theologica (1946: 140). Sedetque nunc ad dexteram tuam interpellans pro nobis simulque precibus fidelium annuens pontifex et rex noster, manente ea natura carnis in qua natus est et passus, in qua etiam resurrexit. Non enim exinanita est in eo humanitatis substantia, sed glorificata et in aeternum cum diuinitate mansura. John of Fécamp, Confessio theologica (1946: 141). Peter Abelard, Expositio fidei in symbolum Athanasii (1855): 624C and 631A. The same expression can be found earlier in the (equally controversial) works of Gottschalc of Orbais († 867/9), see: Gottschalk, Œuvres théologiques (1945: 29). Ruusbroec, Spieghel (2001: 283ff ). Accepta tibi sit, Domine, quaesumus, hodiernae festivitatis oblatio: ut, tua gratia largiente, per haec sacrosancta commercia, in illius inveniamur forma, in quo tecum est nostra substantia . . . Missale Romanum: In nativitate Domini, ad primam missam (in nocte), secreta.

Bibliography Sources Augustine, Sermo de Ascensione Domini (1960) = Augustine, Sermo de Ascensione Domini, Patrologia Latina Supplementum 2, cc. 494–497. Gottschalk, Œuvres théologiques (1945) = Godescalc, Œuvres théologiques et grammaticales de Godescalc d’Orbais, ed. C. Lambot, Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense 20, Louvain: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, 1945. John of Fécamp, Confessio theologica (1946) = Leclercq, Jean and Jean-Paul Bonnes, Un maître de la vie spirituelle au XIe siècle: Jean de Fécamp, Études de théologie et d’histoire de la spiritualité IX, Paris: Vrin, 1946. Peter Abelard, Expositio fidei in symbolum Athanasii (1855) = Petrus Abaelardus, Expositio fidei in symbolum Athanasii, Patrologia Latina 178, cc. 629–633. Ruusbroec, Boecsken (1989) = Jan van Ruusbroec, Boecsken der verclaringhe, ed. Guido De Baere, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 101, Turnhout: Brepols, 1989. Ruusbroec, Spieghel (2001) = Jan van Ruusbroec, Een spieghel der eeuwigher salicheit, ed. Guido De Baere, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 108, Turnhout: Brepols, 2001. Wilmart 1932 = André Wilmart, Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots du moyen âge latin, Études et documents pour servir à l’histoire du sentiment religieux, Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1932.

Ubi caro mea glorificatur 97 Studies Leclercq 1972 = Jean Leclercq, “Jean de Fécamp,” Dictionnaire de spiritualité VIII (1972), pp. 509–511. McGinn 2008 = Bernard McGinn, “A Forgotten Classic of Late Medieval Women’s Mysticism: The Evangelical Pearl,” in: Archa Verbi: Yearbook for the Study of Medieval Theology 5 (2008), pp. 97–121. Wéber 1986 = Wéber, Edouard-H., “Elements néoplatoniciens en théologie mystique au XIIIème siècle,” in: Kurt Ruh (ed.), Abendländische Mystik im Mittelalter. Symposion Kloster Engelberg 1984, Stuttgart: Metzlersche Verlagsbuchandlung, 1986, pp. 196–217.

8

The abyss of man, the abyss of love Patrick Ryan Cooper

You must also know that if this spiritual man is to become a man contemplating God . . . he must feel (ghevoele) that the foundation of his being is an abyss (grondeloes), and as such he must possess it.1

For the late-medieval contemplative theologian John of Ruusbroec (1293–1381) the “abyss” (afgront) of the human person’s non-foundational, relationally theonomous being (wesen) is crucially important for understanding this outstanding figure of the Western mystical canon and his constructive retrieval today. Similarly, coming to terms with the graced, deified perfection of divine love (minne), as a modeless abyss2 is equally crucial to understanding him. As “abyss calls to abyss” (Ps. 41 (42):8), Ruusbroec’s thought attests to the doubled abyss of creaturely being and divine love that are so intimately joined, and yet so radically other – so much so that Ruusbroec repeatedly needed to emphasize the difference throughout his corpus. When speculating upon the mutuality of our “union” with God, he does so exclusively in terms of “love” (minne) and not in “essence” (wesen) or “nature.” However, emphasis upon the greater ontological difference does not, for Ruusbroec, entail distancing the two. Rather, Ruusbroec generally aims to harmoniously synthesize both the “natural” claims of union and “mutual indwelling” with God (in the order of creation) while equally stressing the ontological difference between Creator and creature, which is inflected by and hospitable towards the demands and desires of love’s unity in the life of grace. In the following contribution, the central aim is to illustrate the fruitful interplay of these two themes as “one-in-the-other”; that is, between an anthropological account of the abyss of man and the abyss of love in Ruusbroec’s works, arguing that there is not one, yet two abysses, wherein analogy and the ontological difference is tensed by an appeal for the intensive unity of love’s modeless enjoyment. For Ruusbroec, neither the abyss of unitive sameness nor relational difference ultimately subdues the other, which is precisely why the Brabantine contemplative is such a distinctly Catholic figure. That is, he continually insists upon the relationality and ultimately, the very mystery of mediation itself, as such mediation is uniquely reflected in minne-love’s enduring erotic sense that reflects this tense doubling both in the orders of grace and eternally in glory.3

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Conduct us into thine abyss, and make us know thy love4 Reflecting upon the modelessness of God’s excessive love, Ruusbroec at one point eloquently describes such love as unveiling the ground of the soul – the core of our human interiority – as “mak[ing] us bare of all images, and draws us into our beginning. There we find nothing else but wild, waste unimaged bareness, which always responds to eternity.”5 Even though we undoubtedly are all sinners, Ruusbroec’s descriptions of our human interiority specifically in terms of an abysmal desert is by no means a dreary, pessimistic view of the human person. Clearly motivated by religious and monastic reform in response to the many abuses of his day,6 Ruusbroec’s departure from the collegiate church of Brussels in setting out for the “northern desert” of the Sonian forest and the eventual establishment of the Augustinian monastery of Groenendaal was motivated in part as an imitation of the early Desert Fathers and the beginnings of Christian monasticism. However, frequent reoccurrence of the theme of this abysmal “desert” is not exclusively synonymous with an appeal for moral asceticism. Likewise, we would do violence to the writings of the admirable doctor, if we were to dismiss this theme solely in terms of a concept or metaphor – something which can too easily be deconstructed by our postmodern instincts. Furthermore, we would be just as equally misguided if we were to approach this abyss by a more modern disposition, insisting instead that Ruusbroec is speaking of the experience of the abyss, as though it were somehow a reified object or “image” that was unmediated and freely given to him in contemplation. As a mystical theologian, Ruusbroec’s writings are instead firmly directed towards the love of God, tirelessly aiming to both reflect upon, as well as personally respond to and justly reciprocate the gracious outpouring of God’s minne. This response, given our creatureliness, amounts to an inevitable failure, leaving us with a “hunger unstilled: to always strive in failure is to swim against the current.”7 Such failure attests to a crucial dimension of Ruusbroec’s account of love, from which it continuously turns back from outward activity, only to further incline itself to know and possess the unity of itself united with God without intermediary.8 This desirous, turning back is what Ruusbroec calls an “inward, yearning life,” which endlessly expands the porosity of one’s interiority, frequently relying upon the Pauline notion (cf. Eph. 3:18) of the height, width and depth of minne-love9 – a fruition, stemming from a virtuous, charitable life outwardly given towards God and others. This expansive interiority, which is anything but self-enclosed, “creates a readiness and a disposition for receiving” the in-pouring of God’s minne, the Holy Spirit.10 In more modern terms, one can well say that this endless, dialogical movement and orientation that love fundamentally discloses is none other than the mystery of being11 and Ruusbroec poignantly conveys such an inexhaustible mystery as the movements of minne-love simultaneously unfolds the fundamental truth of the receptivity of our being as creatures. Furthermore, by drawing from both Neoplatonic and Augustinian traditions, Ruusbroec’s mystical theology can be described as possessing a fundamental,

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erotic orientation, from which we can thus come to better appreciate the modeless abyss in clear ontological terms. This is how it is to view becalmed, essential love, which is an enjoyment of God and of all the saints, above modes and above all activities and practice of virtue. It is a becalmed, bottomless flood of richness and joy, into which all the saints together with God are swept in a modeless enjoyment. And this enjoyment is wild and waste as wandering, for there is no mode, no trail, no path, no abode, no measure, no end, no beginning. . . . This is the simple blessedness of us all, the divine essence and our superessence, above reason and without reason. If we are to find this, our spirit must be transported (ontgeest) into that same [essence], above our creatureliness, in the eternal point, wherein all our lines begin and end, the point wherein they lose their name and all differentiation, and are one with the point and the selfsame one that the point itself is. Nonetheless, in themselves, they always remain converging lines. So you see, we shall always remain what we are in our created essence; nonetheless, losing our own proper spirit (ontgeestene), we shall always cross over into our superessence. Therein we shall be brought higher, deeper, broader, and farther than ourselves in an eternal ‘lostness’ without return.12 By speaking in terms of “essential love” (weseleke minne), Ruusbroec’s approach to minne-love is by no means confined to a voluntaristic and exclusively moral description. Rather, his works time and again provide for a more fundamental theological reflection that underlies its otherwise charitable, moral dimensions. For the abyss of minne is itself “above and without reason,” yet paradoxically ─ seen, for example, in his beautiful geometrical reference cited above ─ this does not collapse the ontological difference and distinction, but instead engenders and preserves our creaturely particularity, as seen by Ruusbroec’s “converging lines.” Ruusbroec goes on to reiterate the full extent of the paradox of love’s modeless abyss in the following: Should knowledge and love perish in God, so also would perish the eternal birth of the Son and the gushing forth of the Holy Spirit, as well as Trinity of persons; and so there would be neither God nor any creature, and that is altogether impossible and an insane stupidity (even) to think (of it). For the loveliest and noblest thing that God made in heaven and on earth is the ordering and differentiation of all creatures. Even though we all gather together in one love, in one embrace, and in one enjoyment of God, nonetheless each one keeps his own life and degree in grace and in virtue; each receives from God grace and gifts according to his dignity, and according to his likeness unto God in virtue.13 Taken together, these two passages and his reflections on the “bond of love” (bande van minne) in which “all the saints together with God are swept in a modeless enjoyment” show how the abyss of love exists simultaneously with, and never apart from the activity and fruitfulness of love displayed throughout creation.

The abyss of man, the abyss of love 101 Herein, the abyss facilitates well the synthesis of active charity and restful contemplation, as its point of singularity and resting stillness simultaneously upholds love’s perpetual movement of erotic demand and whirling glory.14 So too does Ruusbroec’s minne-love describe a very Catholic, espousal understanding of love and its greater unity. For us today,15 by constructively retrieving figures from the Tradition – figures, such as Ruusbroec, who more robustly account for love’s distinctly erotic dimensions – we can likewise come to a deeper appreciation for the full force and magnitude underlining the Church’s persistence in attempting to safeguard and uphold the dignity and honour of the gift of espousal love. And more specifically, a giftedness, which is inseparably open to the gift of fruition and life itself. For when we uphold the divine source and dignity of love’s fruition “poured into our hearts” (Rom. 5:5) we can thus learn, analogically and if ever so dimly, that such fecundity stems not only from our graced participation, in the Son, and His “eternal birth” from the Father’s fruitfulness. Yet furthermore, we can learn that such fecundity equally arises from within the dignity of creation itself – which, as Mark’s parable relates, the seed in the field overnight mysteriously yields fruit “of its own accord” (Mk. 4:26–29) – from which comes to flourish particularity, distinction, and otherness. Thus, for Ruusbroec, while minne-love’s ultimate transcendence is reaffirmed as itself bottomless and unknowable, it is the activity of love’s fruition which engenders its various modes and virtues in the praxis of loving, from which ultimately springs its distinct knowability. However, to think love and its relationship to being in such a manner is itself to acknowledge, first and foremost, that Revelation’s disclosure of such meaningfulness is nothing that we could have arrived at or obtained by ourselves alone. The abundance of love itself, while exceeding conceptuality and knowing, nonetheless reveals something fundamentally new about the asymmetric truth of the Trinitarian God and inseparably, the nature of humans alike. By acknowledging love’s giftedness as exceeding, yet mutually unfolding the truth of our human nature as itself redeemed and restored in and by Christ, emphasis is thus placed upon the question of our nature’s receptivity itself and our human dignity in light of its being capax dei. For the gratuitous gift of the Word incarnate, admirably received and given commerce in Mary, is itself a receptivity, which analogically, attests to the very Trinitarian life itself, as Ruusbroec memorably writes: “God is a flowing, ebbing sea, which flows without cease into all His beloved” whereupon the very gift of Himself is intrinsically inscribed as an equal and impossible demand, a reditus or “flowing back.”16 For Ruusbroec, the creaturely perfection of a contemplative life does not thereby yield to a reflection upon God or upon creaturely being itself as an immutable, static presence which we may speculate upon. Rather, it is undeniably characterized by a movement of created (hence, natural) attraction to God, with whom we are naturally united as creatures. By Christian faith and the sacramental life of the Church, human nature itself is redeemed from original sin by way of Mary’s fiat, as our humanity becomes espoused to Christ incarnate17 – who by eternally proceeding from the fruitful excess of the Father, fully conforms His life to ours, the “selfsame point” wherein our converging lines are “without difference or distinction.” Such an economy of grace both vivifies the life and

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supernatural unity of the Body of Christ, the Church by the outpouring mission of the Holy Spirit, which in turn simultaneously “touches the burning spark of our soul” (berrende vonke onser zielen) in its individual members.18 Christian faith and a sacramental life of graced deification is thereby fundamentally erotic for Ruusbroec – an abysmal love (afgrondiger minne) – wherein the life of grace satisfies our natural desire for God, while renewing our desires anew to increasingly share and partake in an eternal life of glory that is none other than God’s own Trinitarian life of communion. By receiving the in-pouring of the Holy Spirit into our hearts – that intoxicating, “noble liquor,” as Ruusbroec calls it19 – our creaturely minne-love becomes deiform (overformt) by becoming modeless,20 i.e. by becoming a pure receptivity, with our native desires gifted to us with an insatiability that we ourselves could never manufacture nor sustain.21 This attention to a more natural, anthropological basis (which is thoroughly characteristic of a more Western theological predisposition) in Ruusbroec’s writings results in a commensurate, albeit different understanding of the eternality and perpetual desire as in Gregory of Nyssa’s epektasis.22 For Ruusbroec, the insatiability of human desire, analogous to that of the abyss, and its vector of absolute alterity and transcendence is primarily reflective of, and perpetually directed as a returning back; that is, a return back within interior intimacy towards our creaturely origins, more so than the moral telos of our individual and collected ends set upon God’s infinite transcendence. The inevitable failure of our loving desire to reciprocate the gift of God’s love, made incarnate in Christ, and its intrinsic demands writ large upon the fecundity of God’s gratuitousness, who cannot but love us with Himself, thereby keys the distinctive, erotic tenor of Ruusbroec’s minne-love, for “minne always begins again from the beginning so that God may be loved.”23 And in seeking to lovingly “possess” these origins, to which we are created in and naturally inclined towards, they remain nonetheless entirely asymmetrical by their alterity, signalling Ruusbroec’s understanding of desire itself as a modeless, gifted abundance, rather than one of scarcity, depravation, and lack.

Collapsing the “abyss” into the “abysmal” In secondary literature, several scholarly reflections have recently appeared that specifically centre upon the theme of the “abyss” in medieval mystical theology, while at the same time noting the strong resonance and continuity (as well as discontinuity) that this theme holds for modern and contemporary thinkers. Notable in this regard are articles by the late feminist theologian, Grace Jantzen,24 the German fundamental theologian Saskia Wendel,25 and the response to Wendel made by the Leuven Jesuit, Rob Faesen.26 I will summarize some of the most salient assertions made in these pieces, in addition to their founding assumptions that underlay their conception of the abyss and more importantly, the way in which it is functionalized in their postmodern re-readings. In her primary reflections upon the influential Brabantine writer Hadewijch, who was an important source for Ruusbroec, Jantzen provides an instructive, historical overview of the theme of the abyss and its usage by vernacular mystical

The abyss of man, the abyss of love 103 authors. Her account is helpful, despite her rhetorically improbable assertion that for several medieval authors, the groundlessness of the abyss is distinctly “feminine.” Herein, “feminine” groundlessness is opposed to the necessary foundationalism and “masculinity” associated with the “ground,” arguing, for example, that in the works of Hadewijch, the abyss is to be seen as “fundamentally a womb” of fecundity.27 This notwithstanding, Jantzen does in fact offer an insightful, intuitive reading upon the modern metaphysical quest for “foundations” and how the modern connotations of a hellish “abyss” in both philosophical and literary parlance heavily stray from its more medieval connotations of “unfathomability and bottomlessness.”28 Such a terrifying absence, Jantzen maintains, has largely been regarded by late-modernity in terms of nihilism. Nevertheless, Jantzen unfortunately yields to this modern reading, while purporting to uphold the valuation of gender differences, as she opts not to critically counter, yet playfully deconstructs modernity’s nihilistic abyss simply by way of substituting metaphors that ultimately produces more of the same. In doing so, Jantzen suggests that by reading medieval mystical texts such as Hadewijch and her treatment of the afgront as a “womb,” this juxtaposition “enables that reconfiguration”29 as a way of reimagining the abyss away from its hellish condemnation and nihilistic nothingness in a bid of revelry and decadent submersion. While for Saskia Wendel and her more speculative, as well as substantially more daring reflections, she indeed introduces us to the “heart of the matter” of the abyss – that is, to the ontological question of identity and difference – as Wendel provides a detailed account of the abyss in terms of the “ground of the soul” in the writings of the Dominican Eckhart, and to a lesser extent, of Marguerite Porete. Wendel presents a very strong reading upon Eckhart’s ground of the soul and the Gottesgeburt, that divine “something” in the created soul, explicitly in terms of an ontological unio. Subsequently, not only does Wendel tread on some very delicate grounds, theologically speaking, but also in a clear anthropological vein, in her appealing to Eckhart’s view of the ground of the soul that at once “democratizes” mysticism and God’s interiorization such that everyone becomes a mystic, Wendel likewise presents a highly modern reading of the mystical tradition as dialectically valorizing a very strong, autonomous human subject. Subsequently, Wendel’s reading of Eckhart as a “mystic of the ground” (grundmystiek) similarly appears to collapse the order of grace and the Church’s mediation of the sacramental economy, since Wendel portrays Eckhart’s unio between the self and the divine self in the ground30 of the soul, not in terms of a graced and participative deification or theosis, yet as a “consubstantiality” and as an “absolute identity which may not contain any twofoldness (i.e. analogia entis), as twofoldness implies a deficiency of any kind whereas God is a perfect being.”31 In sum, Wendel’s presentation of Eckhart easily leads into a discussion of the creature as “consubstantial” with God, which naturally raises various questions about God’s transcendence, the role of mediation and the Church, not to mention a collapse of grace and nature, to which one can no longer distinguish between the natural indwelling of God in the soul’s ground, from that of the sacramental gift of baptism and the dignity it confers. As a retort, Faesen frames his response by

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rightfully situating these themes in a distinctly historical light, principally citing the Christological problems that Eckhart encountered with the papal commission at Avignon, resulting in John XXII’s papal bull In agro dominico (1329).32 Thereafter, Faesen presents Ruusbroec as both largely familiar with, as well as a critical interpreter of Eckhart and the tradition of the Verinwendigung Gottes. The Brabantine mystic recasts Eckhart, and more generally, the mystical theological tradition itself, once more upon a firm theological grounding. This entails seeking out a renewed espousal approach to the question of relationality and the love of God. Faesen states that in the order of creation and nature, “love presupposes both . . . complete alterity” between Creator and creature, as well as in the order of salvation, love presupposes and perfects “their intimate, mutual union.”33 With this said, I would like to briefly expand this by looking at the other side of the coin, namely the tradition of the Verinwendigung Gottes in an unambiguously creaturely, Mariological light.

Receptivity in Mary What underlays these contemporary re-imaginings of the abyss are to be found in a strong convergence, as Wendel emphatically advances Jantzen’s own assumption that regardless of the distinction between Creator and creature, “there is one abyss, not two.”34 Here, appeals to the abyss are made not to uphold relationality and the analogy of being, but instead they collapse the ontological difference in a singular deference towards an absolute unity. When viewed from the primacy of the modern autonomous subject and contemporaneously framed in terms of the question of personal identity, the theme of the “abyss” inevitably functions as “democratizing” our relationship to the Divine by way of flattening creation’s intrinsic orderings, as well as challenging structures of relational mediation itself. Appeals to notions such as the abyss and unmediated immediacy, in a bid of recycled “quietism,” once more ultimately call into question the very “grounds” that appear to legitimate particularity, distinction (onderscheet), and the perduring efficacy of our moral actions and charitable works – what, in Ruusbroec’s terms, amounts to our moral life in which we perpetually grow in perfection as a likeness unto God. What then does this have to do with Mary, the Mother of God? In a deceptively clear and rigorous essay that deals with Eckhart’s works, the late Stratford Caldecott addresses these very same concerns. He aims to read Eckhart, like “Tauler, Suso, Ruysbroeck . . . in the light of the tradition to which he [Eckhart] believed himself faithful.”35 And in this respect, by noting the seeming absence of a more rigorous analogy of being that we see in his fellow Dominican Aquinas, Caldecott offers an elaboration of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s general critique of Eckhart’s lack of a “Marian principle.”36 He cites a private correspondence Caldecott shared between himself and Adrian Walker, wherein his friend and colleague (Walker) argues: When Eckhart talks about the utterly simple ground, he is actually talking about the Father’s innascibility; and when he talks about our oneness with this

The abyss of man, the abyss of love 105 ground, he is actually talking about our participating in it, insofar as we give birth to the Son in our souls: not only like Mary, but in Mary. We receive this participation by grace, but it is also our return into the ground of our souls.37 The insistence upon a dynamic Mariological principle in this context may at first sight appear as arbitrary and unnecessary. However, in no way does Caldecott seek to construct an ecclesial Mariology and its historical and ongoing mediation as an artificial “between” Christ and humanity so as to keep them at a distance. Such a construction is as much a “specious Mariology” as it is a flat understanding of analogy. Rather, the fecundity of seeing the connection of our graced participation in the Theotokos as an “impenetrable” abyss is deeply crucial on several levels, as her person singularly exemplifies that which it generally upholds – namely, the full inalienability of the creature in view of God’s divine indwelling. At the same time, a robust, orthodox Mariology – that is nothing but unambiguously Christocentric – actively forestalls any and all collapse and idolatrous subordination of the divine ground to that of the subject, by clearly preserving the asymmetry of the ontological difference. “Like Mary,” emphasis is given to both the historical and ecclesial dimension of Mary and her fiat in mediating the Incarnation, thereby showing the Virgin Mary as a moral exemplar for the spiritual life and the Gottesgeburt. But furthermore, by speaking in terms of “in Mary,” what is being signalled is nothing short of an ontological claim concerning Mary as mediatrix in whom the newness of “creation re-made” is most poignantly clear. It is “in her,” Caldecott writes on another occasion, that “we see the proper relationship of nature and grace, undistorted by human sin. And the relationship is one of active receptivity.”38 By this admission, we are invited to contemplate the foundation of the Church in whom we are called to participate in the bottomless depths of her mysteries, for in the abyss of Our Lady, we share in the life of “The One whom the heavens cannot contain, [yet] you held in your womb.”39 Herein, the Mariological principal affirms the participatory nature of grace, which does not remove us from our humanity,40 but rather signals “our return into the ground of our souls” in our enduring particularity, and thus towards the One “through Him all things were made” (Jn. 1:3). For it is preeminently Mary, Ruusbroec will point out, who teaches us “how we have received the Son of God in our nature.”41 That is to say that in Mary, deification turns upon anthropology itself and that by deepening in union with God and others, one becomes more creaturely, more particular. This Mariological discussion highlights the distinct manner in which some of the most robust discussions on deification within Western tradition attempt to speculate upon its vast repercussions. That is, as the movement of love itself continually seeks a return to its abundant, creaturely origins, deification itself is by no means contained within a two-tiered ordering of grace indubitably set apart from nature. Conversely, a deified life, seen in terms of Ruusbroec’s “common life” (ghemeyne leven), does not remove one from the world, but deepens one’s engagement with the world in a uniquely evangelical manner, which Ruusbroec portrays – with strong Marian overtones – in terms of a docile obedience42 that is at once utterly passive and “supremely active” in terms of its receptivity.43 The order of

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grace thus remains both asymmetrical, yet intrinsic to and intertwined within nature itself. And Ruusbroec’s neologism for deification, “over-formation” (overforminghe),44 uniquely attests to this view, as the “over” both preserves the grace/ nature tension of asymmetry and mutuality, while equally showing, in terms of receptivity, how our redeemed human nature, espoused to Christ, is less of a “new” nature – which is more implied by the language of “trans-formation” – as itself a return to its original dignity that had become corrupted by sin. Theologically, the imperative remains to uphold this very delicate tension by way of the intrinsic importance of a Marian middle and its continuing mediation, not only in imitation of, yet in whose admirabile commericum shows the creaturely singularity of a reciprocal and mutual fecundity in both receiving and fruitfully responding to God. The mother of God hence uniquely and unrepeatably exemplifies the fullness of grace (Lk. 1:28), the fullness of a deified life itself. Therefore, it is by her fruition that the “mother of God defines the Incarnation, for the part of men,”45 precisely by giving Him himself as man. By this wondrous exchange of love and being eminently seen in Mary’s fiat, from which the endurance of mediation and particularity are upheld, we contemplate the impenetrable mystery of how “we have received the Son of God in our nature” as “she is the means employed by Him to abolish remoteness and to put the human race in direct contact with God.”46 What then does this view of deification say about our human nature itself, such that “[W]ithout the Blessed Virgin, the God-man would not encircle men in themselves; they would not be made, in Him, full sharers in the divine nature, in grace, in divinization?”47 Furthermore, does not such a strong incarnational perspective undermine the mediation of the sacramental economy as superfluous and expendable, if what in fact has occurred is nothing short of a “physical redemption” in the deification of our shared humanity itself ? Ghemeyne menscheit In his seminal study on Ruusbroec’s Trinitarian theology, Rik van Nieuwenhove has sufficiently addressed the difficulty of ascribing to the Brabantine mystic such a view of physical redemption. He contends that other Ruusbroec scholars such as Albert Ampe have indeed done so by holding to the view that human nature has itself already undergone an ontological change since the Word was made flesh and thus humanity itself is already objectively deified.48 Van Nieuwenhove argues that for scholars such as Ampe and later on Fraling, while “the incarnation itself deifies human nature in general . . . this objective redemption still needs to be appropriated by the individual person.”49 Such an appropriation, according to this argumentative position, would thus amount to a psychologizing of Christian faith and the sacramental life. Ruusbroec ruthlessly critiques this naturalizing of the supernatural as a “mode of unbelief ” in view of deification and its explicit, Christological and Mariological dimensions, judging that such errors amount to an anthropological reduction of the singularity of the hypostatic union and Christ’s “venerable humanity.”50 Just as many Free Spirits of Ruusbroec’s day would more enthusiastically exclaim: “And

The abyss of man, the abyss of love 107 that self I am. . . . For with Him I am eternal life and eternal wisdom, born of the Father in divine nature, and all that He Himself is.” So too, in perhaps a more modern orientation, the same tendency is nevertheless at work in the inverse, which the enthusiast equally proclaims regarding the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth, such that “I have been born with Him in time in human nature – everything that He Himself is. Thus I am one with Him, God and man, in every way.”51 Succinctly, Ruusbroec responds to both sides of this error, arguing that “even though God became man and man God, nevertheless the Godhead is not humanity nor humanity the Godhead, but they eternally remain two, created and uncreated, God and creature.”52 Ruusbroec is consistent in this respect, for a graced, deified life in God is unmistakably always one in Christ, filii in Filio. Furthermore, we see that such deification does not collapse, but rather upholds the foundational principal of relationality over that of identity, in which he ardently contests the view of the deification of materiality itself, parodying the view that asserts: Christ’s body is your body, for you fancy that you are His flesh and His blood, one with Him; when is consecrated His holy body and elevated and carried about in the sacrament, you imagine that it is you yourself. And that is why you have no more lust nor worship for the body of our Lord.53 This argument is then reinforced by Ruusbroec’s Mariological stress, arguing that there is nothing “accidental” about Christ receiving the fullness of our human nature by the immaculate Virgin Mary: And you accord Christ no privilege of honor nor of praise; though He is born of a virgin, that is (merely) accidental for Him; you don’t care about it, He could just as well have been born of a common woman . . . [she] who is chosen from eternity above all creatures to be mother of God.54 However, by arguing against scholars such as Ampe who, as Van Nieuwenhove maintains, held to the idea of such a “physical redemption” and deification of humanity itself by virtue of the Incarnation, Van Nieuwenhove seeks to correct this view, not by arguing against its collapse of the ontological difference, but instead by downplaying Ruusbroec’s anthropology of our ghemeyne menscheit. Such a common human nature, Van Nieuwenhove maintains, is “not to be understood in universal terms but in solidaric terms. . . . Our common nature has been exalted in Christ, not in the sense of a universal or collective human nature, but in the sense of a complete human nature.”55 In response to this critique, I definitely share in Van Nieuwenhove’s caution over the delicacy of this theological issue, which can well lead to an anthropological reduction, minimizing the very redemptive nature of Christ’s passion and death, and the entire sacramental economy as mediated by the Church. Nevertheless, I would maintain that we can safeguard Ruusbroec from such an anthropological reduction, while equally distancing ourselves from such a “solidaric” anthropology that would appear to dilute the implications of Ruusbroec’s theology of deification away from its ontological import, fashioning it

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instead more exclusively as a moral union, and away from an understanding of the traditional notion of the “mystical Christ” that contains the “fullness of humanity” in all of its ontological depth.56 If by the incarnation, Christ assumed a complete human nature that was to be merely similar to our own collective humanity, then by extension, our union with God in Christ would always be “in likeness unto,” but never ontologically “in the image” of the Word in whom we are created.57 However, for Ruusbroec, denying humanity’s essential unity, as created “in the image” immediately goes against his exemplarism which he repeatedly stresses. While soteriologically, as sons of Adam, such a view obscures the otherwise biblically rooted emphasis, in keeping with the Fathers, that just as “all perish” in Adam (1Cor 15, 22) in whom, Ruusbroec writes “(human) nature existed in entirety.”58 So too “all shall be made alive in Christ” in espousing our nature with His. Ruusbroec favours a more intrinsic, Scotist position on the Incarnation, more so than one of divine justice for human sinfulness. The incarnation is herein seen as reaffirming the original dignity of creation – to share in the supernatural unity of God and the unity of creation, as “He Himself was the way into unity . . . and [has] unlocked for us the same unity in which we can possess eternal blessedness.”59 Moreover, in no way does holding onto a view of such an anthropology of a common, universal humanity necessarily come into conflict with the sacramental economy itself. Rather, a renewed attention to such an anthropology of the Fathers would precisely re-emerge within twentieth-century theological reflections on the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ as a supernatural unity in Christ that both far exceeds, and yet is undergirded by a philosophical anthropology of man’s natural unity.60 Writing upon a relational view of man’s inherent social dimension and its “social perfection” in the “assumed human nature . . . [that] makes Christ, as man, head of the Mystical Body,”61 Emile Mersch writes: Christ’s human nature has this sociability, as it also has humanity, in an eminent way that befits a human nature belonging to God. The perfection that raises it above all men, also places it in all men. In assuming and divinizing a human nature, God assumes and divinizes all humanity, as the Fathers say so often. Therefore He assumes and divinizes its sociability. He assumes and divinizes human nature socially: the Word has come to dwell in all of us through one of us.62 Although largely forgotten today, Mersch’s historical and systematic works nevertheless exerted a formative influence upon the ressourcement theologian Henri de Lubac, especially his well-known Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man, which opens with the recognition that for the Fathers of the Church, the supernatural unity of the Mystical Body of Christ “supposes a previous natural unity, the unity of the human race.”63 For de Lubac, just as it was for Mersch, such a unity is not solely solidaric, but is in fact ontological, as de Lubac writes that “Man made according to the Image [of Christ] . . . is in each one of us and who makes us so entirely one that we ought not speak of man in the plural any more than we speak of three Gods.”64 While primarily treating Gregory of Nyssa, de

The abyss of man, the abyss of love 109 Lubac then argues that such Patristic views extend well into the later tradition, directly citing Ruusbroec himself as an exemplary figure in whom the implications of this anthropological import unwaveringly continues. In this regard, Ruusbroec claims that relationship with God is fundamentally natural to the human person. This is his exemplarist strain emphasizing that we are eternally begotten in the Image of God, the divinity of Christ, second Person of the Trinity, stating: This image is essentially and personally (weselec ende persoonlec) in all people, and every person has it whole and entire, undivided. . . . And thus are we all one, united in our eternal image, that is God’s image and the origin of us all: of our life and our becoming; wherein our created being and our life hang (in hangt) without intermediary as in its eternal cause.65 However, this exemplarism is not to be confused with the operation of grace, Christian faith and the works of love as necessary for salvation, as Ruusbroec emphatically and repeatedly stresses that “[O]ur createdness does not become God, nor (does) the image of God (become) creature.”66 Hence, Ruusbroec will equally emphasize a soteriological and thus, historical stress, saying that we are also individually “created unto the image” like a mirror and that no matter its degree of likeness, a mirror can never be confused with the Image which it reflects, either in likeness, nor sinfully obfuscated by way of unlikeness. As creatures created unto His likeness, this distinctly creaturely abyss signals a profound receptivity at the core of our being, for the distance and greater dissimilarity between Creator and creature is itself upheld by the abyss of being, as “our createdness does not become God, nor the image of God (become) creature; for we are created unto the image, that is: to receive the image of God.”67 And by this gifted receptivity and the similitude of its graced commercium, so too do we understand love that lays both at the intimate heart of being itself, as well as announcing its difference.

Conclusion – Homo Abyssus As a conclusion of this theological retrieval of Ruusbroec and attempt to rearticulate something of his crucial insight and importance for today, I would like to add briefly certain key insights from the work of Ferdinand Ulrich (°1931), a philosopher of religion and emeritus professor at Regensburg, from his fundamental work, Homo Abyssus.68 In addition to Gustav Siewerth, it would be none other than Hans Urs von Balthasar who discovered in the work of the young Ulrich a pregnant ontology that fluently explored the mutuality of philosophical and theological discussions while remaining intrinsically philosophical all the while. For von Balthasar, Ulrich’s ontology is emblematic of a reflection upon the mysterious plentitude of being seen under the guise of love, as a “fullness and poverty” upon which “Being (Sein) arrives at itself as subsistence only within the entity (Seiendes) and the entity arrives at its actuality on within its participation in Being.”69 By briefly turning to Ulrich, I would like to suggest that not only are many of the

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themes evident in Ruusbroec’s texts are by no means exclusive to his mystical corpus, but are instead vividly strengthened by Ulrich’s metaphysics and thinking of being as indefatigable and “radically given away,” an ontology that can be comprehended in terms none other than love itself. Like his fellow Catholic philosopher Jean-Luc Marion, Ulrich too acknowledges the primary legitimacy of Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics’ Seinsvergessenheit and the difference between Sein and Seiendes. And like Marion, Ulrich’s speculative thought signals an early attempt at what has increasingly become a more familiar response to Heidegger, viewing his critique as indicative not of metaphysics as such, yet primarily as a historical critique of modern metaphysics, thereby exempting Thomas’s enduring originality away from such charges. Thomas is principally seen as unaffected by Heidegger’s claims, as the former upholds the understanding of esse as “sheer act” that is neither identical with entities, nor does it allow for us to onto-theologically “punch through the wall of finitude to reach God.”70 However, unlike Marion’s decidedly postmodern response, Ulrich regards this exemption as a genuine possibility to analogically think anew the gift of love precisely in terms of the gift of being and vice versa, rather than aiming to infinitely distance the two, as in the case of Marion. Consequently, by adopting Thomas’s view of created esse specifically in participatory terms as a similitudo divinae bonitatis,71 Ulrich frames the ontological difference between Creator and creature precisely within the communicability and receptivity of being itself. By radicalizing Thomas’s distinction between God as subsistent being – ipsum esse subsistens – that is in likeness to, yet analogically dissimilar from the nonsubsistence of created esse as ipsum esse,72 Ulrich attempts to think the gift of created esse as the “created means by which the Creator makes himself personally present to the inmost depth of his creatures, thereby liberating them into their own self-being that is perfectly distinct from his own.”73 In Ulrich’s position, we glimpse once again the profundity in maintaining the ontological difference as both asymmetrical, yet inseparably mutual, as created esse continuously communicated to creatures, both “distinct from, though ineffably immediate to, the personal love that is substantially one with God’s own subsistent being.”74 Ruusbroec himself adroitly reflects upon this difference, not in terms of a pantheistic assent and collapse of wesen, but rather the radical mutuality of love’s abyss, that “kernel of love,” wherein: [O]ur being empty, where we are one with God, in the fathomless abyss of His love, there we are indeed satisfied. For we have God in us, and are blessed in our essential being through the inworking of God, with whom we are one in love, not in essence, nor in nature; but we are blessed and blessedness in God’s essential being, where He has joy of Himself and of all of us, in His high nature: that is the kernel of love that is hidden from us in darkness, in fathomless unknowing.75 Herein, the abyss of love signifies a created relation with God, however not solely as a moral union (of likeness, similitude) but more fundamentally as an ontological

The abyss of man, the abyss of love 111 relationship (as image). And this is precisely what we mean when we speak of a “relational anthropology” for mystical theologians, especially those of the Low Countries: as creatures, we are fundamentally and inextricably set in a superabundant relation to God, always prior to one’s creaturely autonomy. For Ruusbroec, reception itself is fundamentally creaturely while in Ulrich’s ontology, we see the attempt to reinterpret philosophically this in terms of the nonsubsistence of creaturely being – the abyss of being – that only comes to understand itself as gifted by way of its nonsubsistence and naturally desirous inclination towards the Other. By way of its intrinsic communicability, “love is the meaning of being,” and this meaningfulness always reaffirms an analogous relationship of difference, and not a univocal identity of the two. For Ruusbroec, union with God is both fundamentally natural as well as always graced in mediation with the sacramental life of the Church. And it is from this plentitude of being and its natural relation that stems a natural desire for God as a desire of abundance, rather than one of lack, similarly akin to what Aquinas and other Scholastic theologians would terms as our potentia obedientialis and our desiderium naturale visionis beatificae. And yet, as we have seen, for Ruusbroec, the desires and demands of minne-love are simultaneously erotic, as they ultimately reflect the non-foundationalism of ourselves as non-subsisting – the abyss of being – wherein we are “poor in ourselves, rich in God.”76 If indeed the retrieval of mystical authors such as Ruusbroec are to have a meaningful impact today, it is to be found in the distinctiveness of their relational anthropologies that help us once more articulate anew our human desire for God as both intrinsically natural and abundantly gifted.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Ruusbroec, Steen (1991: ll. 69–72) (with modifications). Cf. Ruusbroec, Beghinen (2000: ll. 604–611, 612). Cf. Ruusbroec, Boecsken (1989: ll. 34–42). Cf. Ruusbroec, Sloten (1981: ll. 887–888). Ruusbroec, Spieghel (2001: ll. 2065–2066). See generally Ruusbroec, Tabernakel (2006) Bk 5. Cf. Ruusbroec, Steen (1991: ll. 546–564). See e.g., Ruusbroec, Brulocht (1981: ll. b128–b137), wherein he elaborates upon the traditional Augustinian theme of interior intimo meo in view of the movement of grace: “God works in us from within outwards, and all creatures from without inwards.” Cf. Ruusbroec, Becoringhen (1991: ll. 273–279). Ruusbroec, Brulocht (1981: ll. b91–b106). Cf. Gaudium et spes § 22. Ruusbroec, Sloten (1981: ll. 842–860). Ibid.: ll. 700–710. Cf. Hans Urs von Balthasar’s reading of Ruusbroec’s mystical theology and his “essential minne” as a distinct “whirlpool of glory” in Balthasar (1982: 67–78). Cf. Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Deus caritas est (2005), where he too reaffirms the Church’s contemporary need to recover an appreciation for eros that is otherwise present within the Tradition. Cf. Ruusbroec, Brulocht (1981: ll. b1147–b1154).

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See e.g., Ibid.: ll. a1–a36. See e.g., Ruusbroec, Boecsken (1989: ll. 188–189). Cf. Ruusbroec, Brulocht (1981: ll. b101). See e.g., Ruusbroec, Steen (1991: ll. 2066–2068, 2070–2074). See e.g., Ruusbroec, Ghelove (1991: ll. 261–265). Cf. Mateo-Seco (2010: 263–268, 265): “Perfection in virtue is beyond words, because the perfect life is beyond all definition. It is thus, that Gregory maintains, because the Good is unlimited, and consequently, the desire of one who searches to participate in this Good has no limits, one never stops. . . . The doctrine of epekstasis is not an exaltation of the equivocity between God and man, but an exaltation of the infinity and transcendence of God.” See also Van Nieuwenhove (2003: 174–177). Ruusbroec, Brulocht (1981: ll. b1158–b1159). Cf. Jantzen (2005). Cf. Wendel (2013). Cf. Faesen (2013). Jantzen (2005: 116). Ibid.: 123. Historically, however, one should not conclude from this that doctrines such as the “Universalism” of salvation can readily be imputed to mystical theological sources. Nor, can one fully distinguish the “abyss” from an eternity of suffering and isolation from God, of which there are plenty of pre-modern sources that make these very same illusions. Ibid.: 132. Cf. Wendel (2013: 189). Ibid.: 188. Cf. Faesen (2013: 201–203). Ibid.: 204. Ibid.: 115. Caldecott (2013: 171, n. 7). Cf. Ibid.: 179: “In that case, the human person could not be deified by participation, but only dissolved into final nothingness as the Persons give way to That which transcends them. It is here that Balthasar makes his strongest criticisms of Eckhart, writing at one point that his thinking omits the analogy of being and thus ‘what is missing is the Marian principle. . . . Unfortunately, the whole Trinitarian process is clearly undermined in favor of a (Neoplatonic) trend towards absolute unity’.” Ibid.: 179. Cf. Caldecott 2011: 288. Antiphon for the Christmas octave, the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God. See also “philosophari in Maria,” Fides et ratio § 108. Cf. Ruusbroec, Spieghel (2001: ll. 579–580). Cf. Ruusbroec, Steen (1991: ll. 936–949). See e.g., Balthasar (1982: 32): “The Incarnation of the Word is the work of God. The redemption of the world does not occur because man is ready to say yes to God. Nor does the woman already have the man’s seed in herself just because she is prepared to receive it. Insofar as it connotes the renunciation of autonomous decisions, obedience is passivity; but insofar as it is the readiness to receive everything, obedience is supreme activity. This is why obedience can be just as divine as the Father who disposes, why the woman who receives can have the same dignity as the man, why Mary’s word of assent can be a participation in the quality of the Son’s consent. This quality can only be bestowed on her in advance by God, not as something alien to her but as the capability for deepest self-realization. For God is eternal freedom, and, in giving himself, he can only free the creature to highest freedom.” See e.g., Ruusbroec, Steen (1991: ll. 684–688; 690–692).

The abyss of man, the abyss of love 113 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

Mersch (1951: 172). Ibid.: 176. Ibid.: 172. See Van Nieuwenhove (2003: 124–135). Ibid.: 125. See Ruusbroec, Beghinen (2000 2a: ll. 120–285). Ibid.: ll. 126–132. Ibid.: ll. 168–171. Ibid.: ll. 236–240. Ibid.: ll. 269–274. Cf. Van Nieuwenhove (2003: 126). See “The Idea of the Whole Christ,” in Mersch (1951: 51–53). In fact, Van Nieuwenhove likewise upholds a strong reading of Ruusbroec’s exemplarism. See Rik van Nieuwenhove (2017: 242): “This exemplarist theology, fusing spiritual and ontological elements, finds a late expression in Ruusbroec’s theology of the Image. According to the nominalist (for whom only individual things exist), however, divine ideas are not the exemplar or spiritual blueprint of creatures. Rather, they are nothing but the creatures themselves – or rather: the knowledge God has of individual created things. It is therefore little wonder that Jean Gerson, a nominalist, failed to make sense of Ruusbroec’s Christian Neoplatonic exemplarism, as outlined in Book III of Die Geestelike Brulocht.” Ruusbroec, Brulocht (1981: ll. a16). Ibid.: ll. b33–40. See generally Mersch (1951: 96–128). Despite its somewhat acerbic tone, see also the valuable comments of van Beeck (1993: 142–143) and his interesting reference to Emile Mersch’s work on the “Whole Christ,” in which “De Lubac, in his book Catholicism, took advantage of . . . in order to explain systematically that Christian doctrine is nothing if not social.” In the corresponding footnote, he further elaborates: “The original theology of Christ’s Mystical Body was universalist as well as spiritual: it consistently set the Church, viewed as the community intimately united in Christ, against the horizon of the unity of the human race. It is regrettable that the more recent theology of Christ’s Mystical Body came to be encumbered, especially at the hands of Roman theologians, with such strongly hierarchical and institutional accretions that by the time Vatican II came together the image of the People of God had to be introduced by way of corrective.” Mersch (1951: 223). Ibid.: 224. de Lubac 1988: 25. Ibid.: 29. Ruusbroec, Spieghel (2001: ll. 912–913, 913–917). Ibid.: ll. 918–920. Ibid.: ll. 914-920. See Ulrich (1961). Cf. Oster (2010: 660–700). Currently, an English translation of Ulrich’s Homo Abyssus is under preparation by D. C. Schindler. Cf. Balthasar (1991: 625). Oster (2010: 667). Cf. Aquinas, De ver. 22.2.2., as quoted in Schindler (2013: 302). See Ulrich (1961: 34–36). Oster (2010: 670). Ibid. Ruusbroec, Spieghel (2001: ll. 2136–2142). See also Ruusbroec, XII Beghinen, bk 1, ll. 783–822.

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Bibliography Sources and translations Balthasar 1982 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Threefold Garland, San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1982. Balthasar 1991 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol. V, The Realm of Metaphysics in the Modern Age, trans. Oliver Davies, Andrew Louth, Brian McNeil C.R.V., John Saward and Rowan Williams, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991. Ruusbroec, Becoringhen (1991) = Jan van Ruusbroec, Vier becoringhen, ed. Hilde Noë, Opera Omnia 10, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 10, Turnhout: Brepols, 1991, pp. 256–317. Ruusbroec, Beghinen (2000) = Jan van Ruusbroec, Vanden XII beghinen, ed. Mikel M. Kors, Opera Omnia 7A, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 107a, Turnhout: Brepols, 2000. Ruusbroec, Boecsken (1989) = Jan van Ruusbroec, Boecsken der verclaringhe, ed. Guido De Baere, Opera Omnia 1, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 101, Turnhout: Brepols, 1989. Ruusbroec, Brulocht (1981) = Jan van Ruusbroec, Die geestelike brulocht, ed. Joseph Alaerts, Opera Omnia 3, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 103, Turnhout: Brepols, 1981. Ruusbroec, Ghelove (1991) = Jan van Ruusbroec, Vanden kerstenen ghelove, ed. Guido De Baere, Opera Omnia 10, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 110, Turnhout: Brepols, 1981, pp. 380–437. Ruusbroec, Sloten (1981) = Jan van Ruusbroec, Vanden Seven Sloten, ed. Guido De Baere, Opera Omnia 2, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 102, Turnhout: Brepols, 1981. Ruusbroec, Spieghel (2001) = Jan van Ruusbroec, Een spieghel der eeuwigher salicheit, ed. Guido De Baere, Opera Omnia 8, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 108, Turnhout: Brepols, 2001. Ruusbroec, Steen (1991) = Jan van Ruusbroec, Vanden blinkenden steen, ed. Hilde Noë, Opera Omnia 10, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 10, Turnhout: Brepols, 1991, pp. 6–216. Ruusbroec, Tabernakel (2006) = Jan van Ruusbroec, Vanden geesteliken tabernakel, ed. Thom Mertens, Opera Omnia 5–6, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 105– 106, Turnhout: Brepols, 2006. Ulrich 1961 = Ulrich, Ferdinand, Homo Abyssus: Das Wagnis der Seinsfrage, Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1961.

Studies Caldecott 2011 = Stratford Caldecott, “The Marian Dimension of Existence,” in: Nicholas J. Healy Jr. and D.C. Schindler (eds.), Being Holy in the World: Theology and Culture in the Thought of David L. Schindler, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011, pp. 281–294. Caldecott 2013 = Stratford Caldecott, The Radiance of Being: Dimensions of Cosmic Christianity, Tacoma, WA: Angelico Press, 2013. de Lubac 1988 = Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man, San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1988.

The abyss of man, the abyss of love 115 Faesen 2013 = Rob Faesen, “The Abyss of the Soul: A Response to Saskia Wendel,” in: Lieven Boeve and Terrence Merrigan (eds.), Tradition and the Normativity of History, Leuven: Peeters, 2013, pp. 199–209. Jantzen 2005 = Grace Jantzen, “Eros and the Abyss: Reading Medieval Mystics in Post/ Modernity,” Lieven Boeve, Yves De Maeseneer and Stijn Van Den Bossche (eds.), Religious Experience and Contemporary Theological Epistemology, Leuven: University Press, 2005, pp. 111–132. Mateo-Seco 2010 = Lucas Francisco Mateo-Seco, “Epektasis,” in: Lucas Francisco MateoSeco and Giulio Maspero (eds.), The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa, Leiden: Brill, 2010, pp. 263–268. Mersch 1951 = Emile Mersch, Theology of the Mystical Body, St. Louis, MO: Herder Book Co., 1951. Oster 2010 = Stefan Oster, “Thinking Love at the Heart of Things: The Metaphysics of Being as Love in the Work of Ferdinand Ulrich,” Communio 37 (2010), pp. 660–700. Schindler 2013 = D.C. Schindler, The Catholicity of Reason, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013. Van Beeck 1993 = Frans Jozef van Beeck, God Encountered: A Contemporary Catholic Systematic Theology. Volume II: The Revelation of the Glory, Introd. and Part 1: Fundamental Theology, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1993. Van Nieuwenhove 2003 = Rik Van Nieuwenhove, Jan van Ruusbroec: Mystical Theologian of the Trinity, Notre Dame, IN: University Press, 2003. Van Nieuwenhove 2017 = Rik van Nieuwenhove, “Commitments to Medieval Mystical Texts Within Contemporary Contexts: Some Reflections on Medieval Mystical Texts as ‘Classic’ Texts in the Gadamerian Sense,” in: Patrick Cooper and Satoshi Kikuchi (eds.), Reading Medieval Mystical Texts Today, Leuven: Peeters, 2017, pp. 239–254. Wendel 2013 = Saskia Wendel, “Freedom of Mind – Abyss of the Mind – Unification With God,” in: Lieven Boeve and Terrence Merrigan (eds.), Tradition and the Normativity of History, Leuven: Peeters, 2013, pp. 183–197.

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“Becoming a cross to thyself” Loving humility in The Book of Privy Counselling and Thomas Nagel’s “impersonal standpoint” Maria Exall

The exhortation in The Book of Privy Counselling to “think nakedly plainly and simply that you are as you are” in order to be united with God in loving humility and perfect charity has some similarities and resonance with the objectivist epistemology and ethics of the contemporary rationalist philosopher Thomas Nagel. Nagel’s realist and rationalist epistemological approach is expressed as the aspiration to a “view from nowhere” the theme of one of his major works The View from Nowhere.1 Nagel’s philosophy of cognition has direct implications for his moral and political theory, worked through in his conception of the importance of the impersonal standpoint within the self in ethics and the impartial stance in politics. These conceptions in turn serve reciprocally as crucial factors informing, and indeed motivating, the structure of his epistemological enterprise. We have, according to Nagel, the capacity to occupy an objective view in our practical reasoning, and it is this capacity that allows us to adopt an impersonal standpoint through a transcendence of our personal perspective. Thus, Nagel sees a necessary connection between rationality and human action which means that we are all able to “live in part of the truth.”2 It is this that allows for the possibility of shared interests which can then become a universal basis for the ideas of equality and social solidarity. Nagel’s emphasis on the importance of objectivity in practical reasoning leads to a justification of the universality of values which themselves are a response to the reality of the world. In drawing constructively on Nagel’s work I am aware that I am going against a very strong current in recent scholarship which polemicizes against the very idea of a “view from nowhere,” especially in the context of theological and religious discussions.3 Indeed Nagel’s idea has been subject to a variety of sustained critiques, as an inadmissible abstraction from cultural, social and historical contexts and as supportive of dominant Enlightenment discourses of power.4 But what often goes unrecognized is how tightly bound up the epistemology of the “view from nowhere” is with Nagel’s socially engaged ethics and also with the egalitarianism underpinning his political outlook. Below, I outline some constructive and mutually illuminating similarities between Nagel’s understanding of detachment as a “view from nowhere” and the conception of detachment in the tradition of apophaticism based on the works of Pseudo-Dionysius. Because of these similarities, I suggest, there is potential for

“Becoming a cross to thyself” 117 further dialogue between Nagel’s moral objectivism and the tradition of spiritual poverty we find in Christian mystical tradition. It is in this context that I am undertaking the comparison between The Book of Privy Counselling and Nagel’s conception of the impersonal standpoint.

The Book of Privy Counselling The Book of Privy Counselling is one of four original guides to the contemplative life dated from the last quarter of the fourteenth century, and part of a group of seven English religious writings widely read in the Late Middle Ages, whose source text was an adaptation of The Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius (Deonise Hid Divinitie).5 The Book of Privy Counselling is seen by commentators, including A. C. Spearing, Phyllis Hodgson, and John Clark, as a substantial supplement to the better-known Cloud of Unknowing, adding precision and definition to some of its central themes.6 The similarities in style, cross references, and the theological content of the texts make it highly likely that they were by the same anonymous author, probably a Carthusian monk from the East Midlands.7 There are certain emphases on aspects of the contemplative life in The Book of Privy Counselling that are lacking in the Cloud. First, there is an explicit rejection of distinct and particular images of God, following closely the negative way of apophaticism found in the texts of Pseudo-Dionysius.8 Second, the theology of The Book of Privy Counselling, according to Clark, accepts a Thomist view of the primacy of God’s existence, i.e. the subsuming of God’s Goodness to God’s Being.9 Third, there is a linking of a metaphysical conception of naked being with humility and the practice of charity. Fourth, an awareness of the division within our self between our naked intent and the demands of the conscious self, which includes a sorrowfulness at our separate existence from God including an acceptance of the necessity of self-sacrifice, what is described as “becoming a cross to thyself.”10 Some of these emphases were a response to the need to establish orthodoxy at a time of Lollardy, and of the prevalence (real or imagined) of the heresy of the free spirit (particularly among certain enthusiastic followers of Richard Rolle). This is evident in the restating of the gulf between God and human beings, Creator and creature, and nature and grace in the text. But other emphases are evidence of the debt to the emotional and intellectual austerity in the theological thinking of Carthusianism at this time, marked by a focus on unitive prayer, on our total dependence on God’s grace, and on the call to self-crucifixion and the offering up of this for the redemption of humanity.11 In The Book of Privy Counselling the understanding of Christ’s call to take up the cross as self-crucifixion is the imperative to a practice of self-emptying and negation, where we are stripped of all imaginative and intellectual activities and are left with the awareness of our own naked being and of the naked awareness of naked divine being.12 In the rest of this section I will focus on how the Cloud author sees this practice, and in the next two sections of this paper I will examine in more detail the Christology on which this is based.

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Naked being in The Book of Privy Counselling In the early chapters of The Book of Privy Counselling the work of contemplation is described as beginning from our “naked” and simple awareness of our own existence. This “most easy work of contemplation” is described as available to the soul of the simplest uneducated man or woman. Indeed, it is something that is manifest to “the most ignorant cow or beast.”13 In scathing language, the writer of The Book of Privy Counselling criticizes those who would say “what I write to you and others is so difficult and so profound, so abstruse and so ingenious, that it can scarcely be understood by the subtlest scholar or man or woman of intellect alive.” Such a person, he says, is instead “excessively ignorant and simple,” because he is “someone who cannot think and feel that he is – not what he is, but that he is.”14 The lowest level of our understanding, which, he says, “some on the basis of actual experience, hold to be the highest,” is to think “not what you are yourself but that you are yourself.”15 The author of The Book of Privy Counselling extends this simple approach to theological understanding, as we are urged to be “as blind in loving perception of the being of [our] God as [we] are in the naked perception of our own being, without any ingenious searching in [our] thoughts to enquire after any attribute of his being or [ours].”16 Thus, a negative theology follows on from a negative anthropology. In the subsequent chapters of The Book of Privy Counselling, a connection is made between this “simple” awareness and self-denial. The awareness of our own existence includes a “desire sorrowfully to escape the feeling of yourself ” and indeed to “painfully bear the burden of yourself as a cross.” A naked awareness of your mere existence will always follow you and accompany your doings, unless rarely, for some brief moment, God will permit you to feel himself in abundance of love. This naked awareness of your mere existence will always force itself above you, between you and your God, just as when you begin the attributes of your existence will force themselves between you and yourself; then you will feel yourself to be a most heavy and painful burden . . . then you are your own cross . . . you can see then, that you need to desire sorrowfully to escape from the feeling of yourself, and painfully bear the burden of yourself as a cross, before you are made one with God in spiritual feeling of himself, which is perfect charity.17 This “sorrowfulness” of our separate existence is a recognition of our creatureliness and, as Oliver Davies has explained, “the implied, though forever deferred” unity of the self we become aware of in this recognition. Our self-knowing as creatures is, Davies says, “the simultaneous recognition of our dependence on God in sinfulness, finitude and pride.” It is this recognition that leads to contemplation but also reveals “the innate availability of the self for refiguring and regeneration by God.”18The Book of Privy Counselling follows the Dionysian apophatic view (shared by Eckhart) that the way of contemplation is God’s work. Two other significant features of The Book of Privy Counselling that place it squarely within the apophatic tradition developed from the works of PseudoDionysius are first, its use of paradox, the most good knowledge of God is that

“Becoming a cross to thyself” 119 which is known by unknowing, that which appears lewdest is holiest, highest knowledge is ignorance, ignorance is truest knowledge, divine darkness superabundant light, naught is all, and total self-abandonment is self-realization, etc.19 and second, its emphasis on unity. As Marion Glasscoe explains the sense of one’s own being, simply that one is, must be absorbed into our naked intent for God.20 We can experience oneness if we transcend particularities (go beyond discursive thought) and recognize the love within is God. Though this necessitates a self-crucifixion it is also the “easy yoke” of Christ.21 This “chaste” Christology follows on from Christological patterns developed by Latin and Greek tradition, and has, according to Karl Heinz Steinmat, its roots in Cluny and the Gregorian reform where the focus is meditation on the “paupertas” (poverty) and “nuditas” (nakedness) of Christ.22

“Chaste” Christology and The Book of Privy Counselling The specific form of the Christology of the Cloud texts, Steinmat argues, is not explainable by apophatic theology alone but “has to be understood as a creative interpretation of ‘chaste Christology.’”23 He points out that the employment of the Cloud author of such a chaste Christology (most clearly explained in the middle sections of The Book of Privy Counselling) differentiates his work from many other fourteenth-century medieval devotional texts. In The Book of Privy Counselling a meditative path is outlined and the necessary humility and self-sacrifice to follow it are emphasized. This path follows a pattern already established by those adopting a chaste Christology. The first stage is meditation on Christ naked, then on Christ crucified, and finally on the ascended Christ. The aim of such meditative practice is to instill an awareness of our own sinfulness and encourage the practice of a proper creaturely humility. The focus on the humanity of Christ in this meditative practice, however, is preparatory to a more perfect humility that can be developed. The meditative image of Christ naked was used by patristic theologians to emphasize Christ’s self-giving, self-emptying, his patience, his obedience to the Father, and his mission. The imitation of Christ stripped naked has an inner spiritual meaning that is mystical and moral. Steinmat says that, according to the Carthusian Guido I, the point of this mediation is “the imitation of Christ’s moral attitude and internal way of acting rather than other images, experiences or emotions.”24 The specific interpretation of the naked Christ as a model for contemplation is one which recognizes our dependence on divine being. Steinmat elaborates, Because a created being as such is ‘nothing’ . . . this simple ontological fact can be used as a bridge for the mystical union with God; if a praying person wants to find his/her own centre of personality, he or she just has to focus on the pure and naked being, the ‘existing’, the ‘that-it-is’ or ‘being-here’. Since this being is emanating from the divine source by a creatio continua the contemplating person can follow this ‘flowing down’ or ‘receiving itself’ back to the divine source. Then by focusing on the pure and naked divine being a

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Starting from an awareness of one’s own naked being, we identify God as being present only as hidden ground, we “unwrap” the naked divine being from the awareness of one’s own being in a process of “mystical stripping.”26 This mystical stripping is deepened through a concept of self-crucifixion, the next phase on the path. Self-crucifixion involves learning to forget the awareness of all created things in order to focus on one’s own naked being.27 But when the contemplating person tries to abandon the self-awareness of a “separate” mind, they realize that they cannot do this with their own strength. Their self-awareness is a heavy and painful burden. Contemplation then necessitates a “total transformation of the whole person into a cross – becoming a cross to thyself.”28 Steinmat explains that in the Cloud texts the contemplative is exhorted to take the cross “personally” as a signum impressum. It is through following this practice that they can develop a deep compassion for humanity.29 The last phase of the meditative path to perfect humility is that of ascension. Recognizing that in his ascension Christ withdrew his bodily presence from people, the contemplative is able to go beyond visualization or will. Reaching this last stage, we progress beyond meditation on Christ’s humanity to the perfect loving contemplation of Christ’s divinity which necessitates a “blind awareness” as it is of an invisible deity. In both the Cloud and The Book of Privy Counselling two levels of humility are identified, the contemplative progresses from the first which is imperfect, that of self-consciousness, an awareness of oneself as a sinner, to the second which is more perfect, a self-forgetfulness which looks beyond oneself to God’s greatness.30

Meister Eckhart’s bare being and the ethics of apophaticism In Meister Eckhart we also see an uncompromising interpretation of spiritual poverty based on the principles of the Dionysian apophatic tradition that follows the path of the chaste Christology of The Book of Privy Counselling, and is similarly a way of mystical contemplation and the foundation for a moral attitude.31 Though Eckhart rarely refers to ethical issues as such in his writings, Oliver Davies has explained, “we would be quite wrong to think of Eckhart as teaching that we can become so united with God, in our essence, as to be free from a life of struggle and virtue lived out in the real world,” for “although he does not dwell on this struggle, most of what he writes implies it.”32 Davies has explained how Eckhart’s use of the term abegescheidenheit (detachment)33 covers both metaphysics and ethical dimensions, and incorporates the traditional monastic ascetical virtues of humility, obedience, and love.34 It is because of this that detachment can be described as “at once our likeness to God, . . . the state of our creaturely nothingness, . . . our resignation to God’s will, . . . our equal love for all human beings and . . . our humility.”35

“Becoming a cross to thyself” 121 Eckhart’s notion of “bare being” in the practice of detachment is similar to that of “naked being” described by the author of The Book of Privy Counselling. According to Davies, in Eckhart’s view we withdraw from specific being into the “bareness of our universal human nature,” and through being nothing enter into the same nature as Christ.36 Markus Vinzent too has explained that for Eckhart, detachment from “formal being,” i.e. individual existence, the “this or that,” is necessary in order to access “virtual being.” This “virtual being” points to the real “I” that is [individuals’] being in God’s pure and simple being as their origin, in God’s dynamism and spirit.37 It is this power that is the source of all human willing and knowing, ever present because of the imago dei within.38 In order to participate in oneness, we have to adopt the “naked” or “bare” being of inner poverty. This leads to a moral obligation to treat others “without distinction,” for [w]hoever would exist in the nakedness of this nature, free from all mediation, must have left behind all distinction of person, so that he is as well disposed to a man who is across the sea, whom he has never set eyes on, as to the man who is with him and his close friend. As long as you favour your own person more than the man you have never seen, you are assuredly not right.39 The ability to treat others “without distinction,” i.e. (in the modern understanding) to take a universal egalitarian ethical viewpoint is, in Eckhart’s thought, associated with the metaphysical stance of self-emptying which follows from the awareness of our state of creaturely nothingness. The lack of distinction between the man across the sea and my immediate neighbour is also the lack of distinction between my own concerns and those of another: If you love yourself, then you love everyone as much as yourself. But as long as there is anyone whom you do not love as much as yourself, then you have never properly loved yourself . . . a person who loves themselves and everyone as much as themselves, is doing the right thing.40 Bernard McGinn describes these passages in Eckart’s works as ones where Eckhart’s “functional Christology” is in evidence. In his opinion, Eckhart’s view that “if Christ took on our universal human nature, we must love all humans universally and in exactly the same way,” is based on his understanding “that Sonship is one and the same in all the sons of God.” McGinn explains this Christology in the wider Neoplatonic metaphysical context as “the paradoxical notion of universal and equal love for all, just as Jesus, the Incarnate Word, is the ontological bond of the process of emanation and return” and argues that it is therefore related to Eckhart’s other motifs of returning to the ground through detaching/birthing/breaking through.41 McGinn contends that Eckhart saw the purpose of divine intention in taking on our human nature as an invitation to become God’s son by adoption – “that man may become by the grace of adoption what the Son is by nature.”42 This Sonship by adoption, however, has an aspect whereby we can be transformed in the same image as Christ, where I may personally become God’s son.43 The condition for

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the possibility of gaining this Sonship, i.e. taking on the “same image” which is Christ as God and Man, is “total purity, emptiness, detachment – abandoning the esse hoc et hoc of created being.” This possibility is based on the incarnatio continua – the everlasting “hominification” of God and the “deification” of humanity and the universe, itself based on a creatio continua – continuous and eternal creation.44 Eckhartian detachment is, McGinn says, a process that is metaphysical, ethical, and mystical, present in detail in Eckhart’s Latin works but also in his vernacular treatises and sermons. McGinn identifies as a constant theme the idea that a receptive power cannot receive a form unless it is empty or free of other forms, for intellect then “can understand all things because it is no-thing in itself, but the capacity to know all.” McGinn contends that in asserting this principle, Eckhart is restating the paradox of the Christian message of Mt. 16:25, that in order to save our life we must lose it. McGinn links this letting-go of one’s own life with divine presence and the annihilation of the created will. Though Eckhart’s sermon on poverty does not explicitly mention detachment, there are repeated references to being “free” and “empty” (applied to God and the soul).45 And in the treatise “On Detachment,” detachment is described as superior to humility (traditionally the foundation of all the virtues), and more important than love and mercy (traditionally the summit of Christian life).46 McGinn argues that in “On Detachment,” the relinquishing of all possessiveness is seen as not just another example of this letting-go, but rather a formal feature of all true virtue.47 Davies interprets the requirement for a total detachment that allows us to love others without distinction as detachment from our self as our own possession.48 This is not an argument for a loss of self-control, but rather an argument against a self that is unprepared to knowingly risk letting go. Davies suggests that there is a self-possession that is necessary for self-abandonment, and a self-awareness necessary to perform virtuous actions. It is only when we put ourselves at risk for the sake of another that we can achieve the detachment necessary for virtuous action.49 For Eckhart, action without a dispossession of the self is not ethical – if we act from our own self our works are “dead.”50 Eckhart’s radical concept of detachment, based on apophatic principles, is the key to his ethical universalism and he makes a necessary and vital connection between universal abstraction and moral imperatives. The introspective focus such detachment necessitates, the “looking within,” is not a rejection of political and social activity; it is actually the ground for our ethical motivation, i.e. our action for justice in the world.51

Thomas Nagel’s concept of the impersonal standpoint and ethical motivation I will now consider Nagel’s conception of the impersonal standpoint and its role in his objectivist ethical theory. Nagel, alongside other theorists such as Ronald Dworkin, Amartya Sen, and also Gerald Cohen, is part of the later twentiethth-/early twenty-first-century strand of

“Becoming a cross to thyself” 123 the modern liberal tradition, which emerged following the publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in 1970.52 Nagel follows Kant in insisting that the source of human morality is categorical or rational, but whilst Kant makes human freedom the central plank of a proper conception of moral agency, Nagel sees it as based in an impersonal “conception of oneself as a person amongst others equally real.”53 This gives his ethical theory an egalitarian emphasis not found in Kant, though his theory is recognizably Kantian in its use of the principle of universalizability as a criterion of morality. Nagel’s teleology of reason and his realism about our finitude allow us to be open to a reality beyond our human understanding. Whilst in Neoplatonic and patristic thought this is interpreted as responsiveness to the divine mind, in Nagel’s epistemology our reasoning is our response as finite creatures to an independently existing real world. These epistemological principles form the basis for his ethical theory, with a realism about value that leads him to reject relativism and instead devise an ethical system in which we have to take into account a “centreless world” and a “view from nowhere” in our practical reasoning. Nagel’s emphasis on the importance of our human capacity to seek a more and more objective understanding of reality is epistemologically open both in process and in its goal, in contrast to the emphases of modern idealism, and some versions of pragmatism, notably that of Richard Rorty, This “open-ended” character derives expressly from the attempt to transcend our own point of view, for it is precisely when we do this that we come up against our own creaturely limits and the intrinsic incompleteness of human knowledge. Far from espousing an “elitist” view, as Rorty and other critics have charged, for Nagel, a vital consequence of the pursuit of our reasoning towards an objective reality is in fact an integral disposition of intellectual humility; for in the process of this reasoning we will be compelled to acknowledge that there is much which we do not know, do not yet know, or cannot know.54 The desire for objectivity and the adoption of an impersonal stance in moral and political thought is often misconceived as abstract, disregarding empirical facts about the diversity of human nature or the complexity of our “inner life.” Yet for Nagel, the impetus to pursue objectivity and allocate value to an impersonal standpoint is essential in order for us to act ethically. In his view, rather than being a distraction from the realities of human life, adopting an impersonal standpoint allows us to ground our reasons for action in our understanding of the objective facts of human experiences such as the existence of poverty and suffering, or indeed discrimination and denial of aspiration.55 It is through detachment from our own perspective that we can be intimately affected by the claims of others. For Nagel, we must accept that my reasons for action have some basis in a concept of value that has nothing (directly) to do with what has value for me, that an impersonal allocation of value is necessary for ethics. There are “agent-neutral” reasons for action and when we act in such a way we exercise our capacity to see ourselves as others see us. Such a capacity, and the impersonal standpoint that results, is essential for the “impartial interpersonal concern” that Nagel articulates as the foundation of social morality, and is key to the development of a fuller moral and political egalitarianism.56

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Though we are people with a subjective viewpoint and subjective interests,57 our understanding of ourselves as moral and political agents is based on reasoning from the perspective of our “objective self.” It is from this perspective that we can adopt an impersonal standpoint, a position that should not be seen as devoid of ethical engagement, or as somehow less important than personal commitment to a moral code. In fact the impersonal standpoint is the place where “moral demandingness” can seem overwhelming. As Nagel explains If people’s lives matter impersonally at all, they matter hugely. They matter so much, in fact, that the recognition of it is hard to bear, and most of us engage in some degree of suppression of the impersonal standpoint in order to avoid facing our pathetic failure to meet its claims. . . . Suppression of the full force of the impersonal standpoint is a denial of our full humanity and the basis for a full recognition of the value of our own lives.58 The impersonal standpoint within the self then requires us to acknowledge moral obligations that go far beyond our own personal interests, but by doing so we come across demands on our agency that are near to impossible to fulfil. Yet, not to strive to fulfil them is to deny an essential aspect of ourselves. The development of greater moral objectivity which Nagel believes is a prerequisite for all moral and political progress causes a widening division between the demands of the personal and impersonal standpoints within the self. In Nagel’s view it is necessary for social and political legitimacy to achieve a synthesis of the aspiration towards greater social and economic equality which can satisfy the demands of the impersonal standpoint with an individual autonomy arising from the demands of the personal perspective. His liberal egalitarian political theory attempts to do that.

Nagel’s dilemma; a matter of politics and the soul This dilemma of how to reconcile the two standpoints is described by Nagel as a matter of both politics and the soul.59He perceives a deep existential problem in the aspiration towards an egalitarian ideal both as a central problem of modern political philosophy, namely the reconciliation of the rights of the individual with the interests of society, but also the reconciliation of the impersonal and personal standpoints within the self. For Nagel, the reconciliation of the ethical and political demands of being a citizen with the standpoint of the individual is essentially and at origin a matter of the individual’s relation to her/himself, for ethics, and the ethical foundations of political theory have to be understood as arising from a division in each individual between two standpoints, the personal and the impersonal. In Nagel’s view, the impetus for the pursuit of social and economic justice is predicated on the development of our moral objectivity, and therefore an increase in the areas of our lives governed by the impersonal standpoint rather than the personal standpoint. The externalization of the most impartial requirements of the impersonal standpoint fulfils an important and key aspect of our humanity, that part of us which recognizes that others have a claim on us because we are able to

“Becoming a cross to thyself” 125 imagine “standing in their shoes.” It is this impartiality which legitimizes social and political institutions. Nagel sees the externalization of some form of impersonal value as central to the tradition of liberal politics.60 But as a social consensus on the impartiality of political institutions develops it becomes harder, Nagel argues, to imagine a political system which can do justice to both this and the demands of individuality.61 The impersonal demands of political impartiality have a broad scope and it seems that they are impossible to satisfy, just as the demands of the impersonal standpoint push us to the limits of our moral motivation. As Nagel explains: The vast inequalities of wealth and power which even the more egalitarian versions of such [liberal] systems continue to generate are really incompatible with an adequate response to the impartial attitude which is the first manifestation of the impersonal standpoint . . . even if no other system yet devised does better, that does not mean it should be regarded as a satisfactory solution; rather it is a workable arrangement which goes some distance towards accommodating the two standpoints.62 The two standpoints within the self, personal and impersonal, then are in tension and the aspiration towards equality that arises from the impersonal standpoint actually makes it more difficult to reconcile both perspectives. Significantly for Nagel and his egalitarian theory, the integration between our personal lives and our lives as citizens, the reconciliation of individual and collective values within the individual, cannot take place without a change in the political order to more fully reflect the demands of the impersonal standpoint. But whilst greater social and economic equality can facilitate a greater integrity within the self, Nagel contends that the reconciliation of the demands of the impersonal self through impartial political institutions has to exploit the “natural complexities of the self ” rather than erase its divisions and internal differentiation between the personal and impersonal. For though Nagel’s key ethical emphasis is on the importance of the impersonal standpoint, he believes that the personal perspective too has validity in the social sphere. He holds that the objective viewpoint, whilst absolutely necessary, cannot replace the subjective.63 In other words, just as his epistemology acknowledges both the objective and subjective viewpoints, so his moral philosophy acknowledges the two standpoints of the impersonal and the personal.64 So despite the priority of the impersonal standpoint in his ethical theory, Nagel advances a concept of “double vision” in epistemology and ethics, which is the view from the standpoint of both the objective self with a universal character (the “view from nowhere”) and that of the personal self. Nagel maintains that the personal perspective must be accommodated within any theory of ethical and political motivation if we are to make a realistic case for social and moral progress. Nagel’s acceptance of the “natural” complexities of the self, and the impossibility/ lack of desirability of erasing the divisions in the self between the impersonal and personal, contrasts with the model of the soul put forward by the writer of The

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Book of Privy Counselling, where we are exhorted to “let go” of our separate existence. The process of abstraction driven by the objective self in Nagel’s philosophy contrasts with the impetus towards “naked being” we find in The Book of Privy Counselling, or “bare being” in Eckhart, because a full negation of the self is eschewed and instead the concerns of the personal self are seen as “irreducible.” It is this resistance to such a letting-go that accounts for the limitations Nagel places on acting on the basis of the egalitarian impulse alone, which, like his epistemology and ethics, must include the personal perspective together with the impersonal. Nevertheless the capacity to conceive of oneself merely as such a person amongst others, combined with Nagel’s understanding of ethical motivation as coming from the “impersonal standpoint” in the self, in some way echoes the linking of a metaphysical conception of naked being with humility and the practice of charity in The Book of Privy Counselling. Also there is in Nagel’s formulation of two standpoints within the self, one personal and one impersonal, and the tension Nagel sees between them, an awareness of the division within our self between our naked intent and the demands of the conscious self-expressed in the advice given in The Book of Privy Counselling. But the apophatic anthropology of “naked being” in The Book of Privy Counselling has two main features that differentiate it from Nagel’s concept of abstraction and his resulting conception of the impersonal standpoint within the self: first its dialectical character, and second its comprehensively negative nature. It is this dialectical conception that enables the apophatic model of the self to be both “nothing” but also able to access a comprehensive “unknowing” beyond its empirical existence and discursive knowledge. The “simple awareness” of our own existence, that we are, described in The Book of Privy Counselling, can lead us to the highest form of knowledge in contemplation. Such simple awareness is the starting point for a wider understanding of our human existence in the cosmological-historical context, and the ethics and politics that results from such a perspective.65

Towards a contemporary ethic of loving humility Can we take the ethical justification for a certain model of individual autonomy and freedom (such as Nagel employs) to refine the concept of naked being and the tradition of spiritual poverty to which it belongs for contemporary ethics? Can we have a concept of loving humility faithful to the apophatic tradition but relevant to today’s moral and political challenges? Is there a place for the concept of naked being we find in the mystical tradition within contemporary egalitarian moral and political theory? I would propose that a present-day Christian ethics which takes into account the “naked being” and “bare being” conceptions in Christian mystical thought is possible and desirable. For such an ethics could provide an opportunity for dialogue with “secular” moral and political theory such as Nagel’s rationalist egalitarian approach, a dialogue which has the potential to update the apophatic tradition to make it more socially and politically relevant.

“Becoming a cross to thyself” 127 The grounds for any dialogue however would acknowledge a key difference between the essentially pre-modern apophatic tradition and Nagel’s modern liberal egalitarianism. In Nagel’s view we cannot predicate a realistic universal ethic where the self can be annihilated, made bare, or abandoned as Christian mystics from Margurite Porete to Meister Eckhart and Charles de Foucauld have suggested. For Nagel, the ability to achieve total self-transcendence is a rare human occurrence and not an aspiration upon which a realistic moral theory can be built. In his moral and political theory Nagel rejects the view that the absolute detachment of self-annihilation, self-dispossession, or self-abandonment is necessary in order to lead an ethical life; nor does he see it as the necessary basis for an ethic of political change. The achievement of greater social and economic equality, though fundamental for the development of human morality, does not require an abandonment of the personal perspective. This is in contrast to the uncompromising conception of total self-transcendence in the apophatic anthropology that underlies “becoming a cross to thyself ” of the Cloud author, and Eckhart’s understanding that without a total abandoning of the personal perspective our works are dead. Whilst such a radical perception of morality may jar with our modern understanding, we can perhaps ask the question, is Nagel selling the possibilities of our human nature short? Though we cannot all be saints and mystics, is the potential for the self-transcendence of our personal perspective more widespread as an ethical motivation than he allows for in his moral philosophy? If we are to advance a model of Christian ethics which included some aspects of radical self-negation, however, we must avoid common pitfalls that present the message of the cross in an inhuman or life-negating way. One pitfall identified by Kenneth Leech is the promotion of a compulsive religion of self-sacrifice more akin to a victim mentality.66 Another is the damaging effect that distorted models of self-denial can have on women, who often have self-sacrifice imposed upon them. For if “nothingness of the self ” is interpreted in this way, it actually leads to what Mary Grey calls the “female sin” of passivity, i.e. an avoidance of responsibility, allowing others to act upon us rather than taking agency ourselves.67 In order to avoid these pitfalls of compulsive self-sacrifice and enforced passivity, we need a Christian egalitarianism which integrates the kenotic and is valid for everyday ethics and politics. Such a “kenotic egalitarianism” would not be world-denying, and would respect both our creaturely particularity and the fact of human finitude. Nagel’s liberal egalitarian approach assumes both a self-transcendence that is open to a reality beyond our understanding – the source of our ethical motivation to achieve a more just social order – and a respect for our individual freedom. The importance of the personal standpoint in the self and the respect for the individual rights of others in Nagel’s liberal conception of individual freedom can act as a reminder that the radical self-dispossession of Dionysian apophaticism has to be a conscious act of the individual self. An acknowledgement of the “reality” of the personal perspective, its irreducibility of sorts, can act as an important challenge and reminder that any contemporary apophatic or kenotic enterprise needs to

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articulate the self-dispossession at its core in ways that do not diminish the continuing importance of the personal and particular. Oliver Davies and Marcus Vinzent offer us two provisional examples of how this is achievable without sacrificing the primacy of the apophatic, kenotic, and genuinely “altruistic” theological commitment. Their contemporary theological approaches which draw on the apophatic tradition are concerned precisely to retain a place for the individual self within an apophatic perspective, thus pointing towards a possible rapprochement between such liberal conceptions of individual freedom and the kenotic within an Eckhartian metaphysical framework. Markus Vinzent proposes a kenotic anthropology in the Eckhartian tradition that is able to “ring-fence” both individuality and personal freedom, although this individuality and freedom is not based on a conception of the human self as distinct from the divine (the focus of modern philosophy and theology) but rather on an understanding of God’s indistinction and God’s detachment.68 Because, says Vinzent, we know God’s power is outside of ourselves and unable to be grasped by us (because it does not reside in any fixed temporal or spatial location), God is able to totally transform Godself into the common and the ordinary.69 Vinzent asserts therefore, following apophatic principles, that God’s immediacy (the result of God’s detachment) means that no religious institution can “possess” God’s grace and salvation, for it is intimate and immediate and in its “purest form only resides in the individual.”70 The individual freedom of such a self then has its origins in divine causality and spiritual commonality resulting from the generative nature of God’s paternity and love and our “Sonship.”71 Vinzent suggests that such a self does not need to differentiate itself from others, just as God does not need to differentiate Godself from the ordinary and the common.72 In mirroring God’s generative power, such a self “is that fertile ground which gains itself by making room for, giving birth to, relating to and nurturing others.”73 In A Theology of Compassion, Oliver Davies too proposes a kenotic understanding of the ethical self-based on its relationality. Davies maintains that the self-dispossessive virtue necessary for relationality is actually predicated on a prior state of self-possession. The subject “comes to itself negatively and dialectically, precisely in the self-emptying, decentring processes of dispossession” which take place in and through its relationship to the other. Such dispossession is, he says, the “internal form” of compassion, because it is in the nature of compassionate acts that we knowingly put ourselves at risk for another.74 Now Davies – staying true to the apophatic and kenotic perspective – accords an ethical primacy to the full self-dispossession implicit in his account of compassion, in stark contrast to Nagel’s view of such acts as “exceptional” and thus as acts which, while admirable, cannot have any normative place in an ethical (or political) framework. Indeed, following Martha Nussbaum, Davies goes so far as to suggest – and in strong resonance with Eckhart’s claim that unless we are prepared to risk a full self-dispossession we cannot be truly moral – that without an understanding of compassion as a “point of unsurpassable meaning” society would cease to exist in any form of harmony.75

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Conclusion To conclude, the concept of “naked being” in The Book of Privy Counselling, and the ideal of spiritual poverty within the apophatic tradition more generally, is essential for the practice of loving humility and charity. Just as rationalist introspection is the starting point for Nagel’s ethical reasoning and resulting political egalitarianism, so the adoption of an inner poverty by mystics in the Dionysian apophatic tradition can be seen as the source of motivation for social and political action. The concept of “naked” or “bare” being in the apophatic tradition is an uncompromising conception of self-transcendence, more radical than that of Nagel’s liberal egalitarian ethical theory. This different model for ethical universalism could inform an alternative kenotic egalitarian moral and political theory, though one which takes account of modern ideas of individual freedom in some way. A political theology based on this alternative justification of ethical universalism, with the virtue of humility and the practice of compassion at its heart, could provide a valuable theoretical resource for contemporary Christian social and political engagement.

Notes 1 Nagel (1986). 2 For Nagel, the more we place our individual thoughts under the “control” of a universal standard the closer we are to the truth. See Nagel (1997: 76). 3 See Ward (2001: xvi–xx) for the wide array of theologians who have engaged with the “postmodern skepticism at the universalizing certainties of modernity,” including the perceived “implosion of secularism” that is part of it. For more on “postmodern skepticism” see Coakley’s bibliographical notes on “Theology, postmodernity, and philosophical non-foundationalism” (Coakley 2013: 31–32). Here Coakley asserts that various “religious ploys” have been used in the massive assault on the Enlightenment project, including Alasdair MacIntyre’s late modern “adjudication between competing historical paradigms of rationality” as well as the work of Stanley Hauerwas, John Milbank, Nicolas Wolterstorff, and Alvin Plantinga, in addition to those who followed the deconstruction project of Derrida. See also her notes on page 334. 4 Nagel (2002), where Nagel deals with critiques of his rationalism and liberal egalitarianism from socialist and feminist critics including Catherine Mackinnon, and G. A. Cohen. He discusses the critique put forward by Alasdair MacIntyre in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? in Nagel (1995). 5 Spearing (2001: ix). 6 See ibid., The Cloud of Unknowing and Related Treatises (1982), and Clark (1995). 7 Spearing (2001: x). It is also highly likely that the author of The Book of Privy Counselling was aware of the work of Walter Hilton, author of the Scale of Perfection as they lived in the same part of the country when he was a Canon of an Augustinian Priory at Thurgarton, mid-way between Nottingham and Newark. 8 The Cloud of Unknowing and Related Treatises (1982: xxii). See Luibheid (1987). 9 Clark (1995: 64–69). 10 Glasscoe (1993: 201). 11 The Cloud of Unknowing and Related Treatises (1982: xxii). 12 Davis (2008: 206). See also The Cloud of Unknowing and Related Treatises (1982: xxiv). Our naked being mirrors God’s absence.

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13 The Cloud author explains that if the beasts lacking in reason can be aware in some way of their own existence, “much more then is given to human beings, who are uniquely endowed with reason above all other beasts, to think and feel their own existence.’” See “The Book of Privy Counselling,” in Spearing (2001: 105). 14 Privy Counselling, Chapter 1. 15 Privy Counselling, Chapter 2, my emphases. The perception of this simple fact of our own existence, i.e. that I am, is what carries us “gladly upwards in eagerness of love, to be linked and united in grace and in spirit to the precious being of God just as he is in himself – nothing more than that” (Privy Counselling: 107). 16 Privy Counselling, Chapter 4. 17 Privy Counselling, Chapter 8. 18 Davies (2001: 8–9). 19 The Cloud of Unknowing and Related Treatises (1982: l). 20 Glasscoe (1993: 205). 21 Ibid.: 207. 22 Steinmat (2004: esp. 139–140 and 142–145). 23 Ibid.: 140. 24 Ibid.: 142. The nudum Christum nudus sequi was an underlying principle of anchorite monastic life that drove the Gregorian reform, and the ideal of Cistercian and Franciscan ways of life. 25 Steinmat (2004: 142–143). 26 Ibid.: 143. 27 Ibid.: 144. 28 Ibid.: 144–145. 29 Ibid.: 144: “The cross as an external sign which is worshiped in all its blood and gore was a very common feature of medieval devotion.” 30 Clark (1995: 43). Just as the simplicity of contemplation encouraged by the author of The Book of Privy Counselling assumes previous habits of meditation on Christ Passion, perfect humility assumes that we already have an awareness of our own sinfulness. 31 Though Eckhart is seen as an exemplar of the tradition of spiritual poverty in the Roman Catholic mystical tradition, as Richard Woods points out he also had an influence on the development of spirituality in the Protestant tradition. Woods maintains that the ideals of the “Gentle Way” pursued by Eckhart’s more mystical followers, which stressed poverty, simplicity, and peace, were still present after the Reformation in the Mystical Anabaptists, whose teachings would be influential on the Mennonites, the Amish brethren, and the Quakers. See Woods (2011: 94). 32 See his discussion in Davies (1991: 165–167). 33 Literally, “the state of being cut off from.” Oliver Davies argues that this expresses “the freedom of the enlightened soul from attachment to things in the world.” Davies explains that the English term “detachment” is used to translate “Gelassenheit” (self-surrender, or the Heideggerian “releasement”). See Davies (1994: xxix). 34 “‘Detachment’ . . . is an idea which spans both the metaphysical and the moral/ascetical dimensions. Eckhart’s use of the term therefore serves to distinguish him from the greater part of western writers, for whom the metaphysical dimension of morality is implicit rather than explicit. But it can be shown that Eckhart’s abegescheidenheit embraces also the traditional emphasis upon humility, obedience and love, which are the foundations of the ascetical ideal” Davies (1994: 162). 35 Davies (1991: 174). 36 See Ibid.: 165–167. Davies describes Eckhart’s exhortation to shed our specific being as “this” or “that,” to achieve our universal human nature. This is “bare” – a state of being nothing so that we can enter into the same nature as God. 37 See his account of Eckhart’s commentary on Genesis in Vinzent (2008: 58). 38 When Eckhart refers to the divine image in the soul, he talks about it as origin of both the will and the intellect, for example as in his assertion that “there is something in the

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39

40

41 42

43

44 45 46

47 48 49 50 51

soul from which both knowledge and love flow; but it does not itself know or love in the ways that the powers of the soul do.” Quoted from German Sermon 87, in Walshe (1987: 422). See also Oliver Davies’s discussion of the ground of the soul in Davies (1991: 131–135), where he explains the “something” as the mysterious thing that is beyond human explanation but is the source of all human knowledge and love. Sermon 13b in Walshe (1987). See also German Sermon 16 in Davies (1994: 179), where he says: “That person who is thus rooted in God’s love must be dead to themselves and to all created things so that they are no more concerned with themselves than they are with someone who is over a thousand miles away.” Davies (1994: 176). He goes on to say: “Now some people say: I love my friend, who is a source of good things in my life, more than I do someone else. This is not right; it is imperfect. But we must accept it, just as some people cross the sea with a slack wind and still reach the other side.” See McGinn (2001: 127). His idea of Eckhart’s functional Christology is an extrapolation of that of Schneider and Haas; see note 8 to Chapter 6 of McGinn (2001). McGinn (2001: 131–147). See McGinn (2001: 117). This adoption means that a distinction is made between us and the second person of the Trinity – but we are also the same as Christ. As McGinn reads it, there is only one real Son of God, so we are “identically the same Son insofar as we are sons, univocally speaking. From the perspective of our existence as created beings, however, we are sons by adoption and participation, analogically speaking” McGinn (2001: 118). See McGinn (2001, esp. 120–121), where he explains this in terms of redemption: because of the distinction between esse hoc et hoc (Middle High German diz und daz) and esse indistinctum, redemption demands that the Word did not assume this or that person but pure unformed humanity itself. “It is this humanity without image or particularity that the Son takes to himself. Because we too possess this humanity, his Form or Image (i.e. the very Image he eternally receives from the Father) becomes the image of humanity.” McGinn explains that Eckhart’s theme that the purpose of the Incarnation was that “God became man so man could become God,” was not new, but that he stands out amongst his contemporaries in the emphasis he gives to this “ancient theological truth” McGinn (2001: 124). See McGinn (2001: 115), as above and his general explanation of Eckhart’s Christology in Chapter 6 of this text. McGinn (2001: 135). In On Detachment and other works Eckhart advances the idea that detachment surpasses love because true detachment “compels God to work in us.” McGinn describes “how absolute self-emptying ‘forces’ God to fill the vacuum in the soul because it is really nothing else but His [God’s] own emptiness” McGinn (2001: 137). See McGinn (2001: esp. 136–137). “The Eckhartian state of detachment in the world is one of complete self-abandonment, in which the giving up of the ego, of the sense of self, and the giving up of the sense of possession are one” Davies (1991: 170). Davies (2001: 8). See note 40 above on Eckhart’s concept of living works in German Sermon 30, in Davies (1994). Oliver Davies suggests that Eckhart’s emphasis on the inner intention of spiritual practices was an implicit criticism of the extreme ascetical practices of religious communities of women, which reflected the patriarchy and misogyny of his time rather than a path to God. See his introduction in Davies (1994: xxxi). In addition, Dietmar Mieth has suggested that as Eckhart was writing at a time (the fourteenth century) and in a place (Rhineland) of accelerating development of mercantile/trading capitalism, his comments on the importance of poverty and his paradoxical understanding of what makes a man rich was a message with particular resonance for many of his listeners. See Mieth (2012).

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52 Rawls’s influence extends beyond moral philosophy: to jurisprudence (see Dworkin (2011), where he makes the case for ethical and moral value being unitary); and to economics and the social choice theory propounded by Amartya Sen (see particularly Sen (2004) for his explanation of the reciprocity of these two concepts). G. A. Cohen represents an egalitarianism with a different emphasis to Nagel’s. For Nagel, Cohen’s critique of the moral coherence of the liberal egalitarian position (in Cohen 2001, his 1996 Gifford Lectures) is one of the most pertinent for contemporary political theory: see Nagel (2002: 107–112). In addition to these theorists’ considerations, there has been a rich debate on the nature of egalitarianism with reference to Rawls among moral philosophers such as G.E.M. Anscombe, Philippa Foot, and R. M. Hare. 53 Nagel (1978: 14). 54 Nagel (1997: 30). 55 Nagel considers all of this in Nagel (1991), esp. Chapter 10, “Equality and Motivation.” 56 Nagel (1997: 124). 57 By subjective interests Nagel means both our own personal wants and needs and those of people close to us who we may feel personally responsible for. In other words, these are equally obligations on us, but ones that we see from our subjective viewpoint. 58 Nagel (1991: 19–20). 59 Ibid.: 16. 60 Nagel means liberalism as in the system of political democracy and civil rights, and not the hegemony of economic neoliberalism that has predominated since 1970s in the U.S., UK, and other advanced capitalist countries. 61 “The history of liberalism is a history of the gradual growth in recognition of the demands of impartiality as a condition on the legitimacy of social and political institutions. As these impersonal demands achieve broader and broader scope, they gradually come to seem overwhelming, and it becomes progressively harder to imagine a system which does justice to them as to the demands of individuality,” (Nagel 1991: 57–58). 62 Nagel (1991: 58). 63 See Nagel (1986: 155), where Nagel considers the problems of the objectifying impulse taking over the subjective view. He does not believe that it is “possible or desirable” for the objective impersonal standpoint to outweigh the personal perspective in the social sphere – he does not believe the demands of impartiality can replace personal aims completely. 64 And in his political philosophy too he aspires to achieve regulation of these two standpoints on an objective basis – his acknowledgement of the coexistence of the personal and impersonal standpoints within the self underlies his balancing of the partial and the impartial in society. See Nagel (1991, Chapter 2). 65 Rappe has explained that the model of contemplation in the Dionysian tradition requires a move beyond the “narrow confines of a historical selfhood” in order for a larger selfhood of the soul to emerge (Rappe 2000: 85). Nagel also makes an argument for a cosmological-historical understanding of the development of our human consciousness in his defence of a teleology in Nagel (2012). 66 Leech suggests that the true message of Christ crucified is instead one of energy and fulfilment which allows the personality to be liberated in the joyful service of God (Leech 1994: 23–24). 67 Grey puts forward an alternative, gender-equal, and inclusive model of redemption and atonement which, while acknowledging our universal human capacity for radical empathy, is informed by an embodied and relational feminist spirituality. See Grey (1989: esp. 17–19). In discussing whether the fundamental human sin is pride expressed as “self-seeking, self-assertion and self-realization,” Grey refers to the work of Valerie Saiving Goldstein, who drew attention to the problematic understanding of the negation of the self for women whose self is underdeveloped. “The danger for women . . . is that this analysis [of human sin as pride] calls on them to deny what they have never

“Becoming a cross to thyself” 133

68 69

70 71 72

73 74

75

experienced – a sense of self. Women are more guilty of failing to take responsibility, of allowing others to act on them, and for them. Passivity can be regarded as the female ‘original sin.’” Vinzent (2013). Vinzent proposes this Eckhartian dialectical metaphysic (whose roots lie in the Plotinian principle of the double status of transcendence and immanence discussed in Chapter 2 section 1.d.) as the grounds for a total transformation of our daily lives in a sacramental way (Vinzent 2013). Vinzent (2013: 121). Ibid.: 121–122. Vinzent explains this in terms of Eckhart’s thesis of shared “Sonship,” i.e. the fact that “God has generated me as His Son without any difference.” He says Eckhart insists this radical statement is true “because God is indistinct. God is not one God in me and another in somebody else, one in His creatures and another in his Son, but ‘He Himself is in all and everywhere, insofar as he is God’” (Vinzent 2013: 118). For “God’s simplicity is the world’s complexity, the self’s rationality is the other’s sensitivity” (Vinzent 2013: 118, referring to Flasch 2010: 215–216). Davies (2001). Also, “when we do this we are then made aware of the fundamental determination of our own existence as a self that is grounded in the relation to the finite other, in which relation it discovers the further horizon of possibility as the encounter with an Other both infinite and personal” (ibid.: 22), for “in the inner and outer forms of self-transcendence intrinsic to compassion there is a combination of the infinite and the particular in our expectation of encounter with the other” (ibid.: 231). Nussbaum (1996: 27–58).

Bibliography Sources and translations The Cloud of Unknowing and Related Treatises (1982) = The Cloud of Unknowing and Related Treatises, ed. Phyllis Hodgson, Exeter: Catholic Records Press 1982. Luibheid 1987 = Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works, trans. Colm Luibheid, New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1987. Nagel 1978 = Thomas Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978. Nagel 1986 = Thomas Nagel, The View From Nowhere, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1986. Nagel 1991 = Thomas Nagel, Equality and Partiality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Nagel 1995 = Thomas Nagel, “MacIntyre versus the Enlightenment,” in: id., Other Minds: Critical Essays 1969–1994, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 203–209. Nagel 1997 = Thomas Nagel, The Last Word, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1997. Nagel 2002 = Thomas Nagel, Concealment and Exposure, and Other Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Nagel 2012 = Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos; Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Spearing 2001 = The Cloud of Unknowing and Other Works, trans. A.C. Spearing, London: Penguin Books, 2001. Walshe 1987 = Meister Eckhart, Sermons and Treatises, trans. M. O’C Walshe, Shaftesbury: Element Books, 1987.

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Studies Clark 1995 = John P.H. Clark, Introduction to the Cloud of Unknowing, Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 1995. Coakley 2013 = Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality and the Self, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Cohen 2001 = G.A. Cohen, If You’re an Egalitarian How Come You Are So Rich?, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Davies 1991 = Oliver Davies, Meister Eckhart: Mystical Theologian, London: SPCK 1991. Davies 1994 = Oliver Davies, Meister Eckhart: Selected Writings, London: Penguin Books, 1994. Davies 2001 = Oliver Davies, A Theology of Compassion: Metaphysics of Difference and the Renewal of Tradition, London: SCM, 2001. Davis 2008 = Carmel Bendon Davis, Mysticism and Space: Space and Spatiality in the Works of Richard Rolle, “The Cloud of Unknowing” Author, and Julian of Norwich, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008. Dworkin 2011 = Ronald Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. Flasch 2010 = Kurt Flasch, Meister Eckhart: Philosoph des Christentums, Munich: C.H. Beck, 2010. Glasscoe 1993 = Marion Glasscoe, English Medieval Mystics: Games of Faith, London: Longman 1993. Grey 1989 = Mary Grey, Redeeming the Dream: Feminism, Redemption and Christian Tradition, London: SPCK, 1989. Leech 1994 = Kenneth Leech, We Preach Christ Crucified, London: DLT, 1994. McGinn 2001 = Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart: The Man From Whom God Hid Nothing, New York, NY: Crossroad, 2001. Mieth 2012 = Dietmar Mieth, “Meister Eckhart on Wealth,” Medieval Mystical Theology 21/2 (2012), pp. 233–254. Nussbaum 1996 = Martha Nussbaum, “Compassion: The Basic Social Emotion,” Social Philosophy and Policy 13/1 (1996), pp. 27–58. Rappe 2000 = Sara Rappe, Reading Neoplatonism: Non-Discursive Thinking in the Texts of Plotinus, Proclus and Damascius, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Sen 2004 = Amartya Sen, Rationality and Freedom, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Steinmat 2004 = Karl Heinz Steinmat, “Christ as a ‘Signum Impressum’ in the Cloud Texts Against the Background of Expressionistic Christology in Late Medieval Devotional Theology,” in: E.A. Jones (ed.), The Medieval Mystical Tradition Exeter Symposium VII, Cambridge: Brewer, 2004. Vinzent 2008 = Markus Vinzent, “Now: Meister Eckhart,” Eckhart Review 18 (2008), pp. 54–65. Vinzent 2013 = Markus Vinzent, “Neither Money Nor Delights But Daily Bread: The Extraordinary as Spiritual Temptation,” in: Simon Podmore and Louise Nelstrop (eds.), Christian Mysticism and Incarnational Theology: Between Transcendence and Immanence, Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 107–130. Ward 2001 = Graham Ward (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology, Chichester: Wiley, 2001. Woods 2011 = Richard Woods, Meister Eckhart, Master of Mystics, London: Continuum, 2011.

10 The Monk of Farne A forgotten medieval English mystic Louise Nelstrop

“Deification is an arresting term, capturing everything God has destined for us, everything Christ desires to achieve in us.”1

The aim of this essay is to offer some preliminary reflections on the mystical theology of the Monk of Farne and how for him, as Meconi suggests, deification was an idea that encapsulates everything that Christ desires to achieve in the Christian. Living on Farne Island off the coast of Northumberland, the Monk of Farne wrote around the same time as the so-called “English Mystics.” However, unlike them, he composed only in Latin. Indeed W. A. Pantin argued in 1944, “It is unfortunate for him that he wrote in the language of his spiritual master, Latin; had he written his work in Middle English, no doubt it would have been edited, commented, and discussed fifty years ago.”2 As it is, he is rarely mentioned in the context of English mysticism.3 Yet increasingly, scholars are dissatisfied with a closed taxonomy which counts only five authors – Richard Rolle (d. 1349), Walter Hilton (d. 1396), the anonymous Cloud Author (late-fourteenth century), Julian of Norwich (born c. 1342), and Margery Kempe (born c. 1373) – as English Mystics. Nicholas Watson believes that it makes little sense to separate them from their surrounding literary culture (with which he holds they have more in common than each other).4 Middle English translations of continental texts are also increasingly considered part of a holistic picture of English mysticism in this period – not only were they adapted in translation but, as Pantin stresses, if we are to gain an understanding of mysticism in England in this period we must consider not only what people wrote, but also what they read.5 Mystical material in Latin needs to be included in any assessment of English mysticism in the later Middle Ages, especially given that both Rolle and Hilton wrote more extensively in Latin than English (and the material circulated widely).6 The Cloud of Unknowing and Richard Rolle’s Ego Dormio was also translated into Latin in the fifteenth century, and some of Rolle’s and Hilton’s Latin writings were translated into Middle English.7 In what follows, I will consider what the inclusion of the Monk of Farne might add to this picture. In this short essay, I will focus on just one issue, deification, that is, the belief that one can, in some sense, become divine.8

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The Monk of Farne composed a series of meditations to Christ Crucified, the Virgin Mary, John the Evangelist,9 the Angels, David and Abraham, and St. Cuthbert (the latter incomplete), which appear on folios 6–75v of a single quarto-sized manuscript, Durham MS.B.iv.34, all written in a good late-fourteenth-century hand. The manuscript also contains antiphons of the Divine Office in a midfifteenth-century hand and two treatises on the monastic life by Uthred of Bolton, in a hand of c.1400.10 Pantin thought the meditations possibly an autograph copy. However, Hugh Farmer suggests that mistakes in chapter divisions are better attributed to scribal copying errors.11 From the manuscript, we learn that the author was a solitary on Inner Farne, the place to which Saint Cuthbert also retired.12 The Island was used as a hermitage by the Benedictines of Durham from 1255, so we can safely assume that the author was a Benedictine. He possibly studied at Durham College, Oxford – since he reports how his guardian angel saved him from drowning in the river Cherwell: On another occasion when I was walking carelessly on a plank bridging the river, I was very nearly drowned. I had completely lost my balance and was on the point of falling in, when you suddenly lifted me up and set me upright on my feet. . . . How often would I have fallen into a pond or down a well, had you not placed you hand upon me.13 His devotion to John the Evangelist led Farmer to identify him as John Whiterig, who lived on Inner Farne in the latter part of the fourteenth century, having previously been novice master in Durham. Yet, as Pantin notes in his earlier article, John the Evangelist is hardly a surprising subject for an eremitic contemplative. It does not necessarily follow that John was the author’s own name, as Farmer posits.14 What is certain is that our author was well-versed in monastic theology, quoting, amongst others, Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on The Song of Songs, Augustine, and Gregory the Great (particularly his Homilies), as well as referencing Hugh of St. Victor, Peter Lombard, Bede, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Peter Damian, Bonaventure (particularly his Lignum Vitae), Edmund of Canterbury, and John Pecham. His meditations also bear the affective stamp of the spiritual milieu of the period.15 What sets him apart from most of the English mystics, except Rolle, is his mention of deification, which appears just once in his Meditation to Christ Crucified (= MCC)16 The classic account of metaphors employed to portray mystical experience in Middle English mysticism is Wolfgang Riehle’s 1981 study, The Middle English Mystics. Riehle notes that the five English mystics, excepting Rolle, eschew the technical language of deification. Rolle also uses an anglicized form of deificare in Middle English, albeit only once, in his commentary on Ps. 81:6.17 Although the Cloud Author speaks of being clepid a god18 and Julian states that in her experience as it were al God,19 both also maintain a distinction between God and creatures, even when deified. The same is true of Rolle, who qualifies his more frequent Latin usage of the verb deificare with words such as quodammodo.20 This, for Riehle, distinguishes these writers from their continental counterparts, who make radical

The Monk of Farne 137 claims, such as Eckhart’s ich bin got worden! (“I have become god”).21 In the light of this, Riehle argues that deification was not a significant motif in English mysticism, dismissing Edward Vasta’s claim that it was the key to understanding Hilton’s Scale of Perfection.22 As Riehle states, A constant feature of the thesis of the transformation of the soul into God [in Hilton’s Scale] is that the soul as created being is taken into the uncreated divinity, whilst in the idea of deification it is easy for this essential distinction to become blurred. It seems to me therefore significant that the term is hardly ever used in English mysticism.23 Whilst not denying the veracity of this observation,24 particularly in contrast to continental discussions of the same period, recent research into deification is changing scholarly perceptions of the idea. Gone is von Harnack’s belief that deification was an obscure doctrine that had infiltrated Christianity from Hellenic sources and the margins, corrupting its understanding of the Incarnation.25 Over the past thirty years, scholars, including Norman Russell, Daniel Keating, and David Meconi,26 have all endorsed the observations made in Jules Gross’s 1938 classic study, La divinisation du chrétien d’après les pères grecs, that deification was a doctrine developed within Christianity for theological reasons, and was an integral part of early Christian thinking concerned with the purpose of the Incarnation and the nature of humanity, particularly, to borrow a phrase from Alistair MacIntyre, with “human-nature-as-it-could-be-if-it-realised-its-telos.”27 Scholars are now challenging the idea that it is only an Eastern doctrine, that only one notion of deification existed, and that most authors who advocate it deny a separation between God and the deified soul.28 With this research has also come a new awareness that Christian notions of deification are both exegetical and inseparable from Christology.29 The earliest thinking on deification developed in the context of scriptural exegesis – dealing with difficult passages such as Ps. 81:6: “I have said: You are gods and all of you the sons of the most High,” 2 Peter 1:4: “you may be made partakers of the divine nature,” and 2 Cor. 3:18: “But we all beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.” It involved some sense of exchange – Christ giving what he has to the Christian without reducing himself to less than divine or raising humanity beyond its nature. Mark Edwards puts it thus when outlining Cyril of Alexandria’s fourth-century account: The simple and eternal nature of God admits no change or addition: in becoming flesh he makes his own a human body and soul – otherwise what would it mean to become? – but he does not acquire a new nature. Our flesh becomes his flesh, but it remains our nature, not his. Because our flesh is his flesh, it is deified – and therefore we are deified – in him.30 The idea of an “exchange formula” first appears in Irenaeus’s Against Heresies.31 Even though he does not employ any technical vocabulary relating to deification,

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he is generally credited with being the first Christian Father to discuss the idea.32 Yet, given the close tie between Christology and deification, he does not have in mind exactly what Cyril intends. Indeed, as Gross notes, there is a great diversity within Early Christian accounts of deification.33 Although there is still some disagreement concerning the place of deification in the Latin West, increasingly scholars are advocating a varied and fluid picture of deification within Christianity, one that affected both the East and West across the Patristic and Medieval Periods into the Reformation.34 In recognition of this variety J. Todd Billing speaks of “theologies” rather than “doctrines” of deification.35 It is a reading that is opening the door to a rediscovery of the place of deification within Western theology, in which theologies of deification far less radical than those found in the Low Countries and Rhineland in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries can now be identified. With this in mind, in what remains of this essay, I would like to offer some preliminary reflections on what the Monk of Farne might add to our perceptions of English Mysticism in this period and the place of deification within it. The Monk of Farne’s sole reference to deification appears in Chapter 47 of his Meditation to Christ Crucified, where he writes of how the soul can become deiform: The Holy Spirit . . . transforms us into the self-same image after which we were made . . . and thus the soul becomes deiform (deiformis) and like unto God amongst the sons of God . . . he enables it to gaze with face unveiled upon the glory of God (2. Cor. 3:18).36 Motifs associated with deification, however, appear to permeate his corpus on a deeper level. He twice quotes 2 Peter 1:4 on our being partakers in God’s divine nature,37 uses the exchange formula,38 and speaks of God indwelling Christians – an idea also exploited by continental mystics.39 Although he falls short of explicitly claiming, as the twelfth-century William of St. Thierry does, that we love God with the love through which the Trinity loves itself, i.e. the Holy Spirit, the Monk of Farne nonetheless acknowledges that the Holy Spirit is at work in our hearts like a kind of hidden treasure and a healing unction.40 He even makes the rather startling claim in his Meditation to the Virgin, that: “But the flesh of Jesus is God, because the Word has been made flesh; therefore Mary’s flesh is God.”41 What are we to make of these and others similar statements, and how central are they to the overall mystical journey that he plots, most carefully in his Meditation to Crucified Christ? The first thing of note is that the Monk of Farne’s entire corpus is extended exegesis – a point to which Pantin draws attention in his 1944 article: With regard to sources and citations, the first thing that strikes one about the meditations is their use of scripture, not only by the formal citation of texts, but still more by the way in which scriptural phrases and allusions are constantly worked into the texture, often with great effectiveness and subtlety; one is reminded of St. Bernard and his school.42

The Monk of Farne 139 This can be illustrated from almost any section of his Corpus. Take, for example, the passage below from the opening section of the Meditation to Christ Crucified. In just this one sentence we find five direct biblical allusions (inserted in parentheses). Further indirect allusions were most likely anticipated, in keeping with the monastic practice of lectio divina that seems to underpin the corpus as a whole. Remember us then, O Lord, when it shall be well with thee (Gen. 40:14), for thou art our brother and our flesh (Gen. 37:27); suggest to the Father that he should fill the sacks of the brethren (Gen. 42:25) – fill them, I mean, with that wheat which, once it had fallen into the ground and died, brought forth much fruit (John 12:24–5), and filled every living creature with blessing. (Ps. 144:16)43 In both this meditation and that to the Virgin Mary such exegesis is inseparably intertwined with Christology, and, I would argue, deification. We can illustrate the extent to which deification shapes the Monk of Farne’s spirituality by focusing on these two texts, particularly the former. The Meditation to Christ Crucified begins by contrasting the Christian spiritual quest to that of Lucifer: “whose eyes behold all that is lofty and who is himself king of all the sons of pride” (Job 41:34).44 It continues with Old Testament prefigurations of Christ building to discussion of Christ as the second Adam (1 Cor. 15:45). This Christological linchpin facilitates a movement into Christ’s saving death, in which he is described as both justice and sanctification. The Monk of Farne stresses that this status is underpinned by Jesus’s being the God-Man, an idea that he elaborates in Chalcedonian terms, declaring Jesus to be one person, who is at the same time fully God and fully human: “And yet you are not two but one; according to your human nature you died and were buried, according to your divinity you remain unhurt.”45 He also stresses in his Meditation to the Virgin that the two natures were not mixed: In Christ the integrity of both natures remain[s] unimpaired, that is of both the divine and the human, nor was there any intermingling of these natures, for we must not believe that Christ’s divinity is his humanity, although this ineffable union of natures in one person [hypostasis] is such that a man may be said to be God, and God a man.46 His Christology clearly echoes the Chalcedonian definition, first quoted within scholastic discussions of the Incarnation by Thomas Aquinas,47 which, to cite just a few extracts, stresses that Jesus is complete in Godhead and complete in manhood . . . consisting also of a reasonable soul and body . . . one substance with us as regards his manhood . . . of Mary the Virgin, the Godbearer . . . one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Onlybegotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion . . . coming together to form one person and one subsistence [hypostasis].

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It is in the context of clarifying who Jesus is that the Monk of Farne also discusses ideas pertaining to deification, speaking of how Christ not only came to rescue humanity from its “sad, penal condition” but echoing 2 Peter 1:4 that “he might make us sharers in his divinity.”48 According to the Monk of Farne, these two ideas are brought together in meditation on the Passion. The Monk of Farne paints a journey of spiritual growth that begins with meditation of the crucifixion. Twice he speaks of it as Christ holding wide his arms to welcome and kiss souls.49 Christ’s kisses are to be understood both allegorically and tropologically – that is, pertaining to the Church and the soul, so that the cross can be seen as an invitation to consume Christ’s body and blood both communally and personally. He writes of Christ’s body as a book that we must eat,50 and claims that by so doing Christ draws the soul into himself, the outcome of which is spiritual union and glorification. As he states in this context, “thou didst put on the tunic of our humanity and clothe us with the garments of thy glory.”51 Drawing on Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugh of St. Victor, he writes of an everincreasing journey of love – indeed, he expands Bernard’s three stages into nine.52 However, his account is anything but neatly staged.53 Love for the Monk of Farne is a trajectory – in which the more one loves, the more one understands and becomes like God. As he states, according to Gregory [the Great]: ‘Love itself is knowledge’ – that is knowledge of the one towards whom the love is directed. The measure of your love is the measure of your knowledge . . . a precious treasure may lie hidden [in the heart], namely that very unction which would teach him all things . . . This unction is rightly believed to be the Holy Ghost.54 Note here that he stresses that the Holy Spirit is hidden in the soul, bringing to completion the healing enacted through Christ’s death. He reinforces the same idea elsewhere: “without his [The Holy Spirit’s] aid Christ cannot be loved even in his humanity.”55 Grace and humility are described as the key traits of the Christian life without which one cannot succeed on this spiritual path or say with St. Paul: “I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.”56 This graced-indwelling of the Holy Spirit results in increasingly radical perfection, such that ultimately the soul is said to be able to act as it wills, since its will accords so completely with God’s will that although it can sin, it will not: “[this] heart is so possessed by divine love that there is no place within him where God is not loved.”57 It is a form of perfection that seems to be held up in contradistinction to that of Lucifer with whom he begins his meditation, whose sin was a prideful attempt to usurp God’s place. Yet, although underpinned by engagement with the Incarnation, the spiritual trajectory that the Monk of Farne paints results is increased disembodiment. With reference to 2 Cor. 12:2–4, where St. Paul famously writes that he did not know whether he was in or out of his body – understood as a moment of mystical union or rapture in the medieval period – the Monk of Farne describes how the soul is caught up in embraces and ineffable kisses58 that cause it to lose contact with its sensations, and even forget what it is doing:

The Monk of Farne 141 so much absorbed by the love of God and inebriated with it that he forgets himself, and does not know what he does apart from loving. He does not notice what he sees, nor understand what he hears; he does not realize what he is tasting, nor distinguish smell; he is unaware of what he is touching, because the surpassing delight of divine love within his heart makes him forget to use his five senses and reason. . . . Love of this sort so dilates the heart that he cannot bear it any longer, and dies as the result.59 However, the Monk of Farne’s treatment of the relationship between soul and body does in fact mirror the fate of Christ’s soul, which also ultimately leaves his body through an act of love on the Cross. Thus, it is that the Monk of Farne discusses how, even when the soul had left Christ’s body, his divinity remained present, such that it could have animated his body, much in the same way that the Holy Spirit animates the body of the perfected Christian: “[W]ho would declare that when the soul departed [Christ’s body], the head . . . must of necessity sink down, as though God . . . were not present with it?”60 Imitating Christ, such love likewise becomes too much for the embodied soul, which is drawn out of the body by a lingering kiss and literally dies of love.61 Passion meditation causes the soul to be “so completely conformed to Christ that it dies from sheer excess of love.”62 The soul is thus described as, “a glorious martyr to the love of Christ”63 in an act of ultimate imitatio Christi. In his Meditation to the Virgin, Mary is held up as the supreme example of such love. This is not, however, what the Monk of Farne intends when he describes her flesh as God. As he clarifies in Chapter 6 of this meditation, her flesh is God in that, just as Jesus never stops being divine, so Jesus also never ceases to be her son: “it will never cease to be thine own flesh, since he will never cease to be thine own Son.”64 The statement is Christological rather than concerned with deification. Yet, Mary is nonetheless in some sense deified. The Monk of Farne uses her relationship to God to explore what this might mean, stressing that although she is joined to God, she is not joined in exactly the same way that Jesus is. Jesus is “joined to God in personal union, as is the flesh which God’s Only-begotten Son took from [her].”65 Mary on the other hand, like all Christians, is what Cassian terms “a god-receiver.”66 She is one whom God indwells. Indeed she even gives birth to God according to Chalcedon. Yet even so, she remains distinct from Christ and the Holy Spirit, for only they can be “the inhabitant of the soul” to borrow again from Cassian, even if Christians – Mary being the supreme example – can be indwelt by God and thus become in some sense divine. The saints likewise are indwelt in this fashion, such that the Monk of Farne holds that their words can move others to follow this path.67 However, the Monk of Farne does not believe that this process can be completed in this life. Like Bernard of Clairvaux, he holds that the face-to-face vision is reserved for heaven. Bernard in On Loving God uses the term deificare (to deify) to similar effect – stating that such love draws the soul out of the body.68 Elsewhere he stresses how embodiment always ensures a difference between God and the soul – this being the case even after the resurrection.69 Despite this, I do not think

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that we should see the Monk of Farne’s spiritual teleology being driven by anything less than deification. He invites the reader into a spiritual process that is initiated by meditation on the crucified Christ, that places the reader on a trajectory of love in which the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within the soul and increasingly transforms it, such that it even ceases to sin. The Holy Spirit comes ultimately to possess the believer’s body, before finally the soul is drawn out of the body so that (in the next life) it sees God face-to-face. All of this comes about through the operation of the Holy Spirit who is closely identified with love. This appears to be what he means when, earlier in the chapter, he writes that the soul can become deiform. It seems worth repeating the passage: The Holy Spirit . . . transforms us into the self-same image after which we were made. . . . and thus the soul becomes deiform (deiformis) and like unto God amongst the sons of God . . . he enables it to gaze with face unveiled upon the glory of God.70 Given that such an account of deification echoes Bernard of Clairvaux’s position, in which deification only fully occurs after death, the Monk of Farne’s choice of deiformis rather than the more usual deificare seems initially surprising. It is, I believe, suggestive of a further debt, one to Bonaventure, who likewise links deification to meditation on the crucified Christ.71 Bonaventure (d. 1274) held the Franciscan chair of theology at the University of Paris from 1257 – the same year that Aquinas took up his chair.72 As Ilia Delio has convincing argued, for Bonaventure the whole process of spiritual development is inseparably wed to imitation of the crucified Christ. He views Christ as the archetype, the head of creation and “the supreme hierarchy.”73 Through him creation was perfected, making Christ the ultimate source of grace. Although grace involves the working of the Holy Spirit, it is by being conformed to Christ that the soul is saved and perfected. Indeed, devotion to Christ, and particularly to Christ crucified who exemplifies unwavering love for the Father, is the key to deifying union. Ilia Delio notes, for example, how in his Lignum Vitae Bonaventure claims: “With Christ I am nailed to the cross” [Galatians chapter 2] The true worshipper of God and disciple of Christ who desires to conform perfectly to the Savior of all men crucified for him, should, above all, strive with an earnest endeavour of soul to carry about continuously both in his soul and in his flesh, the cross of Christ until he can truly feel in himself what the apostle says above.74 The true worshipper should seek to own the words of St Paul, as s/he enters deeply and affectively into the Passion. Again in his Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, the soul mirrors the Son’s love for the Father in his act of dying on the cross. Although the soul’s union with Christ is not hypostatic, it is an intimate union made possible by the Holy Spirit, such that Delio argues, “conformity to Christ renders one like

The Monk of Farne 143 Christ in body and spirit; one becomes a ‘re-incarnation’ of the [crucified] Word of God,”75 a condition that she agrees is deification. Like Aquinas and Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, however, disagreed with Peter Lombard that the soul loves God with the love through which God love God’s self. This radical idea ran the risk of obliterating the distinction between the soul and God. Bonaventure insisted instead on a distinction between uncreated grace (the Holy Spirit) and created grace (a disposition or habitus within the soul). He saw the Holy Spirit as instrumental in creating this habitus, through which the soul was made receptive to the Holy Spirit, who then came to dwell within the soul as in a temple.76 It was this transition that, for Bonaventure, made the soul deiform.77 As he states in his Breviloquium: If then, the rational spirit is to become worthy of eternal happiness, it must partake of this God-conforming influence. This influence that renders the soul dei-form [deiformis] comes from God, conforms us to God, and leads to God as our end.78 However, he has already just explained that this does not lead to a confusion between the soul and God – because the soul receives an influence that emanates from God and is conformed to God in terms of its disposition or habitus. As he states, Not that God comes down in the terms of the immutable divine essence, but rather through an influence that emanates from God. Neither is the soul lifted up in a physical sense, but by virtue of a habit that renders it conformed to God.79 As we see from the quotation, the distinction that Bonaventure draws between created grace (habitus) and uncreated grace (the Holy Spirit) allows him to argue that the deiform soul never possesses the essence of God but only God’s effects. This is a position which allows him to avoid the pantheism he found implied by Peter Lombard’s assertion that we love God with the very love that God loves God’s self, namely the Holy Spirit (a view William of St. Thierry extends in the twelfth century and which comes to underpin the more radical accounts of deification that we find within the Rhineland and Low Countries).80 Thus, despite the fact that Bonaventure holds that the “the one who enjoys God possesses God” and that “an uncreated Gift, the Holy Spirit” has been bestowed on the soul, nonetheless it is still a creature in God rather than lost in God.81 It is only as such that it “possesses” God and experiences “divinely infused adoption.”82 Created grace (the habitus) thus operates as a kind of infused virtue through which the soul comes to be united with the Trinity ensuring a distinction even though uncreated grace (the Holy Spirit) is operative at all points in the process. The Monk of Farne’s account of grace and love appears to be less clearly defined that this. On one level, he is evidently drawing on the deiform tradition that we find uniquely expressed in Bonaventure. He uses the same term ‘deiformis’, and although Bonaventure is not alone is so doing, the Monk of Farne’s claim that deiform union results from an ever-greater entry into the sacrificial love of the Crucified is

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suggestive of a particular debt to Bonaventure. Yet, at the same time, the Monk of Farne does not clearly distinguish the soul’s love from that of the Holy Spirit. Even if the soul becomes humble and receptive to the operation of the Holy Spirit within it, there is no mention of un/created grace. His discussion of the intricacies of the Incarnation indicates that he thought his readers capable of grasping complex theology pertaining to spiritual anthropology. The Monk of Farne may simply not have known Bonaventure’s distinction or he may have agreed with Lombard. However, more radical accounts of deified union are condemned as heresy within some English texts of the period.83 This perhaps explains why he ultimately follows Bernard of Clairvaux in stressing that deification finds its completion in the afterlife, thus guarding himself against any such accusations. Whilst my reading does, on one level, bear out Riehle’s observation that we find nothing approximate to the radical ideas of deification that circulated on the continent, it does not follow that deification was not a significant motif within English mysticism. As far as the Monk of Farne is concerned, it is the driving force behind his writing. The stance which he takes may not be entirely that of Peter Lombard on which William of St. Thierry builds, yet this does not negate the centrality of deification in his thought. It rather serves to illustrate that, just as in the Early Church, various understandings of deification are to be found within the Christian literature of the later Middle Ages. Including the Monk of Farne amongst the English mystics not only opens to door for fresh considerations of deification and its importance for these writers, it also highlights that ideas of deification were far from uniform in the Middle Ages, being as Gross noted of their earlier Patristic counterparts, “so varied and so rich” that it proves difficult to provide one definition without flattening this theological concept.84

Notes 1 Meconi (2006: 6). 2 Pantin (1944: 181). The Latin text was edited by Hugh Farmer: Monk of Farne, Meditations (1957). The English translation is Sandeman (1994). I use both these texts unless otherwise stated. 3 In addition to Pantin (1944) and Farmer (1957), there is a short discussion by Sharpe (1985). The only other scholarly study of the Monk of Farne that I am aware of is Christiana Whitehead’s recent essay (Whitehead 2013), in which she places him within the textual traditions of St. Cuthbert. 4 Watson (1999: 539). 5 Pantin (1944: 180). There are several Middle English translations of continental mystical texts including Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls, Henry Suso’s, Horologium Sapientiae, Jan van Ruubroec’s Sparkling Stone (translated as The Treatise of Perfection of the Sons of God) and Spiritual Espousals (heavily extracted in The Chastising of God’s Children), Birgitta of Sweden’s Liber Celestis and Catherine of Siena’s Orchard of Syon (Dialogode la seraphica vergine santa Catharina da Siena). On their circulation and content: Sargent (1976); Voaden (1996). Recent scholarly interest has seen the first critical edition of three further continental mystics: Three Women of Liège (2008). A critical edition of the Middle English translation of Mechtild of Hackeborn’s Liber Specialis Gratiae is currently in preparation for EETS (ed. Anne Mouron and Naoe Kukita Yoshikawa et al.).

The Monk of Farne 145 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

On Hilton: Sargent (1983). On Rolle’s Emendatio Vitae: Rolle, Emendatio Vitae (2009). Clark (2009); Amassian and Lynch (1981); Kempster (2007); Schnell (1932). On contemporary interest in deification: Keating (2015). He composes two meditations to John, one appears to be missing from the translation by Sandeman (= Sandeman 1994), as Whitehead (2013) notes. Sandeman (1994: 1). Pantin (1944: 163); Sandeman (1994: 2). It is contained in the title: Sandeman (1994: 2). Semel incaute incedentem super lignum ultra fluuium Charwel positum sine dubio aqua absorbuisset, quem per tocius corporis medium iamiam ad casum inclinatum subito erexisti, ac pedes erectum statuisti . . . Quociens in pontum et in puteos cecidissem, et posuisti super me manum tuam, et saluum me fecit dextera tua. . . . Monk of Farne, Meditation to Christ Crucified (= MCC) 8–9.134: 226. Trans: Sandeman (1994: 134). Sandeman (1994: 3). Pantin (1944: 14) posits that much of the material may have been known via florilegia. MCC 47.71: 187 see n. 36 below. On ‘deiformis’ see n.71 below. I have used the Vulgate (= Vulgate (2010)) numbering system throughout and for all biblical quotations. God stode in the synagoge of goddis: and in myddis goddis he demys. That is god ihu crist stode in the gadirgyne of halymen. Deifide thorgh grace, and in myddis shewand his fauoure til ilkan: he demys goddis. Gifand grace and vertu til ilkan, Richard Rolle, The Psalter of David (1884: 301). Julian of Norwich, Shewings (1994) ch. 54: l. 2221. The Cloud of Unknowing (1997) ch. 67: l. 2274. E.g. Rolle, Le Chant d’Amour (1971: 206). Riehle (1981: 151). Vasta (1965). Riehle (1981: 151–152). This view is reinforced by Watson (1996). Harnack (1901: 318). Keating (2007); Russell (2004); Meconi and Olson (2016). MacIntyre (1981: 53). In addition to the above, also see Christensen and Wittung (2007); Finlan and Kharlamov (2006);Kharlamov (2012); Edwards and Vasilescu (2017). However, aside from the present volume, very little work examines the importance of deification in the Medieval Latin West. Although on this, see Ortiz in Meconi and Olson (2016). Gross (2002); Russell (2004); Keating (2007). Edwards (2017: 86). There is much scholarly debate over Cyril’s Christology and to extent to which his Christ assumes individual humanity rather than an abstraction of humanity. Edward’s reading is thus provided here as an example of the exchange formula. For a summary see, Daniel A. Keating (2004: esp. 46ff ). Irenaeus, Against Heresies (2001: 448). Russell (2004: 108ff ); Keating (2007: 11–12). The earliest use of Psalm 81.6 in the context of deification however was Justyn Martyr. See Mosser (2005). Gross (2002). There is now a large and growing literature. For a recent bibliography see Kharlamov (2012). For a dissenting voice, see Hallonsten (2007). Billings (2007). Spiritus Sanctus . . . transferet in eandem ymaginem ad quam facti sumus . . . quibus fit anima deiformis et similis Deo inter filio Dei inter filios Dei, causante hoc ipsum quod reuelata facie speculatur gloriam Dei. MCC 47.71: 187. Meditation to the Virgin (= VM) 3.121; 26.55. though didst put on the tunic of our humanity and clothe us with the garments of thy glory, MCC 10.41; 43.67.

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39 Faesen (2012). 40 MCC 84.100. On William of St. Thierry and deification, see Arblaster (2015). 41 sed caro Ihesu Deus est quia Verbum caro factum est; ergo caro Marie Deus est. VM 4.122: 218. 42 Pantin (1944: 173). 43 Memento nostra ergo, Domine, dum bene tibi fuerit, quia caro et frater noster es, ut suggeras Patri tuo quatinus impleantur sacci fratrum tuorum illo dico frumento, quod dum semel cadens in terra mortuum fuit, multum fructum attulit et omne animal benediccione repleuit. MCC: 161. 44 cuius oculi omne sublime uident, et ipse est rex super omnes filios superbie. MCC 1.33: 158–159. 45 et non duo tamen sed unus, qui secundum humanam naturam mortuus es et sepultus, et secundum Diuinam manisti illesus. MCC 2.35: 160. Slightly modified. 46 seruata tamen integritate utriusque in Christo nature, diuine scilicet et humane, omni postposita mixtione naturarum, quia neque diuinitas Christi eius credenda est humanitas nec econtra, quamuis propter ineffabilem utriusque nature unionem in una facta ypostasy et homo dicitur Deus et Deus homo. . . . VM 4.122: 218. 47 See Davis (1992: 298, n. 832). 48 nostre penalitatis et miserie, ut nos diuinitatis sue tribueret esse participes. VM 3.121: 217. Farmer notes that this is a quotation from the Missale Romanum: Praefatio in Ascensione Domini (Monk of Farne, Meditations (1957: 217). 49 A commonplace since Anselm, cf. Whitehead (2013: 135). 50 MCC 53.77. Keating stresses the importance of the sacraments within Cyril’s understanding of deification. See Keating (2016: 51). 51 In signum igitur huius indissolubilis federis assumpsisti tunicam humanitatis nostre, et induisti nos tiestimentis glorie tue…. MCC 10.41: 166. 52 See Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God. 53 The more we focus on what he did for us, the more too we grow in love. Pantin suggest that he extends each level of Bernard’s threefold gradation of love into three further triads in terms of “sweet,” “sweeter” and “sweetest,” Pantin (1944: 176). 54 quia secundum Greggorium amor ipse noticia est et eius in quem diriuatur: quia quantum amas, tantum nostri; si multum amas, multum nosti; . . . in quo abscondi poterit tesaurus desiderabilis [in corde], ipsa uidelicet unccio que doceat eum de omnibus . . . que recte fore creditur Spiritus Sanctus . . . Monk of Farne, Meditations (1957: 198). 55 sine quo nichilominus nec Christus secundum carnem diligitur. MCC 64.86: 198. 56 MCC 62.83; Gal. 2:20. 57 cuius cor iam totum occupatum est diuino amore et in eo non sit locus ubi non sit Deus amatus. MCC 70.90: 201. 58 MCC 79.96. 59 summus quando ita absorptus fuerit quis siue debriatus dileccione Dei, ut sui in tantum obliuiscatur, quod quid faciat preter diligere nesciat, quid uidet non aduertat, quid audit non intelligat, quid gustat non sapiat, quid odorat non discernat, quid tangit ipse ignoret propter ipsam nimiam diuini amoris in eius corde fruicionem, que faciat eum obliuisci usus quinque sensum atque racionis . . . in tantum amore ipse cor diligentis dilatet ut hoc sustinere ultra non sufficiat et ob id moriatur homo. MCC 82.98: 207. 60 Quis unquam dicat manus Omnipotentis ad crucem ita posse configi ut solum racione clauorum pendens cruci sic hereret, quasi inuitus moreretur; quod falsum est, cum fuerit oblatus quia uoluit. . . . Vel quis michi tribuat capud angelicis tremendum potestatibus, anima recedente, necessario debere ima petere, quasi non esset Deus cum eo, qui omnia sustentat et a nullo sustentatur. MCC 41.65: 183. 61 MCC 87.103. 62 que meditando statum et Passionem Saluatoris per horas uite sue, tandem in fine sic Christo afficitur, ut pre magnitudine amoris dissoluatur. MCC 84.100: 208. Although

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63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

72 73 74

75 76 77

78

79

the Latin reads “to dissolve,” for the Monk of Farne the effect is the same – the soul dies. This is not the case for Richard of St. Victor in his Four Degrees of Violent Love, where after dissolving the Spirit-filled soul returns to teach others. gloriosissima Christi martire. MCC 85.102: 210 and even tells the story of a young girl who died like this in the arms of a hermit. I am grateful to Judith Woolf for pointing out that his echoes the idea of the human body as a jar of clay (2 Cor. 4. 7–9), which, for the Monk of Farne, bursts apart when filled with God’s presence. que ideo nunquam desinit esse caro tua, quia ipse numquam desinit esse Filius tuus. VM 6.123: 219. non tamen in unitatem persone coniuncta es Deo, sicut caro illa quam de te assumpsit Unigenitus Dei, que pars tui extitit. VM 6.125: 219. This phrase is used of Christians by Ignatius of Antioch: Keating (2007). Cassian reappropriates it from heretical opponents: Cassian, Incarnation, V.4.2–3, quoted in Casiday (2003: 996). Ibid.; Casiday notes that Cassian ultimately derives this image from Evagrius Ponticus. Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God, X.28. Ibid., XI.31. Spiritus Sanctus . . . transferet in eandem ymaginem ad quam facti sumus . . . quibus fit anima deiformis et similis Deo inter filio Dei inter filios Dei, causante hoc ipsum quod reuelata facie speculatur gloriam Dei. MCC 47.71: 187. Deiformis was used by a number of scholastic theologians and monastic writers to refer to deification. The term appears in the Latin translation of Pseudo-Dionysius’ Celestial Hierarchies, where Pseudo-Dionysius speaks of angels having a god-like habitus. Aquinas glosses deiformis as “conformed to God” (Deo conformantur). He stresses that the angels nonetheless remain distant from God (quoted in Breen 2010: 73). Alexander of Hales also uses it (Cunningham 1955: 117). It was Bonaventure, however, who employed it with a particular reference to passion meditation. I am grateful to William Hyland for drawing my attention to this. Cullen (2006: 12f ). An idea that Bonaventure mentions both in Itinerarium Mentis in Deum and his Lignum Vitae: (Delio 1996: 252). All Latin quotations from Bonaventure, Opera Omnia (1882–1885). Bonaventure, Lignum Vitae (1978: 119), partly quoted in Delio (1996: 251–252), on whom I am drawing in this section of the paper. Christo confixus sum cruci, ad Galatas secundo 19. Verus Dei cultor Christique discipulus, qui Saluatori omnium pro se crucifixo perfecte configurari desiderat, ad hoc potissimum attento mentis conatu debet intendere, ut Christi Iesu crucem circumferat iugiter tam mente quam carne, quatenus praefatum Apostoli uerbum ueraciter ualeat in semetipso sentire. Delio (1996: 251). On different methodological approaches to habitus see Breen (2010). Conus (1954) notes that Bonaventure's use of the term deiformis is somewhat ambiguous. At times, it refers to nothing more than a natural attribute, i.e. the soul’s divine origin and its inherent capacity to reflect God due to its being created in God’s image and likeness. Yet, Bonaventure also uses it to convey a sense in which the soul is transformed and made divine through a union with God that arises out from the operation of uncreated grace. Bonaventure, Breviloquium (2005), V.1.3. Necesse est igitur spiritui rationali, ut dignus fiat aeternae beatitudinis, quod particeps fiat influentiae deiformis. Haec autem influentia deiformis, quia est a Deo et secundum Deum et propter Deum, ideo reddit imaginem nostrae mentis conformem beatissimae. Bonaventure, Breviloquium (2005), V.1.3. Deus autem non condescendit per sui essentiam incommutabilem, sed per influentiam ab ipso manantem; nec spiritus elevator supra se per situm locale, sed per habitum deiformem.

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80 Arblaster (2016). 81 Bonaventure, Breviloquium (2005), V.1.4. Rursus, quoniam qui fruitur Deo Deum habet; ideo cum gratia, quae sua deiformitate disponit ad Dei fruitionem, datur donum increatum, quod est Spirtus sanctus, quod qui habet habet et Deum. 82 Bonaventure, Breviloquium (2005), V.1.5. 83 Riehle notes that sentiments to this effect are found in the preface to Richard Methley’s Latin translation of the Cloud of Unknowing, where Methley stresses, Vnio autem est illorum duorum copulacio, quorum vtrumque manet in sua substancia. Et hoc contra heresim Begardorum. Richard Methley, Divina caligo ignorancie (2009): 2, ll. 9–11. 84 Gross (2002: 272). Keating (2007) likewise argues that too uniform a definition flattens the richness of the idea.

Bibliography Sources and translations Bonaventure, Breviloquium (2005) = Bonaventure, Breviloquium, trans. D.V. Monte, New York, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2005. Bonaventure, Lignum Vitae (1978) = Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey into God, The Tree of Live, The Life of St Francis, trans. Ewert Cousins, New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1978, pp. 117–176. Bonaventure, Opera Omnia (1882–1885) = Bonaventure, Doctoris Seraphici S. Bonaventurae S.R.E. Episcopi Cardinalis opera omnia, Ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi), prope Florentiam: Ex Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventuræ, 1882–1885. The Cloud of Unknowing (1997) = The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. Patrick J. Gallacher, Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997. Irenaeus, Against Heresies (2001) = Irenaeus, Against Heresies, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (1891–93), Ante-Nicene Fathers 1, reprint Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001. Julian of Norwich, Shewings (1994) = Julian of Norwich, The Shewings of Julian of Norwich, ed. Georgina Crampton, Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1994. MCC = The Monk of Farne, “Meditation to Christ Crucified,” in: “The Meditations of the Monk of Farne,” ed. Hugh Farmer, Studia Anselmiana 41 (1957), pp. 158–215. Monk of Farne, Meditations (1957) = “The Meditations of the Monk of Farne,” ed. Hugh Farmer, Studia Anselmiana 41 (1957), pp. 141–245. Richard Methley, Divina caligo ignorancie (2009) = Richard Methley: Divina caligo ignorancie: A Latin Glossed Version of The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. John P.H. Clark, Analecta Cartusiana, Salzburg: Institut for Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 2009. Rolle, De emendatione vitae (2009) = Richard Rolle, De emendatione vitae: eine kritische Ausgabe des lateinischen Textes von Richard Rolle: mit einer Übersetzung ins Deutsche und Untersuchungen zu den lateinischen und englischen Handschriften, ed. Spahl Rüdiger, Göttingen: V&R Unipress; Bonn: Bonn University Press, 2009. Rolle, Le Chant d’Amour (1971) = Richard Rolle, Le Chant d’Amour (Melos Amoris), texte Latin de l’édition E.J.F. Arnould, traduction par les Moniales de Wisques, Sources Chrétiennes 168, Paris: Cerf, 1971. Rolle, The Psalter of David (1884) = Richard Rolle, The Psalter of David and Certain Canticles With a Translation and Exposition in English, ed. H.R. Bramely, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884.

The Monk of Farne 149 Sandeman 1994 = The Monk of Farne, Christ Crucified and Other Meditations of a Durham Hermit, trans. Dame Frideswide Sandeman, Leominster: Gracewing, 1994. Three Women of Liège (2008) = J. Brown (ed.), Three Women of Liège: A Critical Edition and Commentary on the Middle English Lives of Elizabeth of Spalbeek, Christiana Mirabilis, and Marie d’Oignies, Turnhout: Brepols, 2008. VM = The Monk of Farne, “Meditation to the Virgin Mary, in Hugh Farmer (ed.), ‘The Meditations of the Monk of Farne’,” Studia Anselmiana 41 (1957), pp. 216-220. Vulgate (2010) = Edgar Swift and Angela M. Kinney (eds.), The Vulgate Bible: DouayRheims Translation, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.

Studies Amassian and Lynch 1981 = Margaret G. Amassian and Dennis Lynch, “Ego Dormio of Richard Rolle in Gonville and Caius MA 140/80,” Medieval Studies 43 (1981), pp. 218–249. Arblaster 2015 = John Arblaster, “The Pious Jackal and the Pseudo-Woman: Doctrines of Deification in Medieval France,” in: Louise Nelstrop and B. Onishi (eds.), Mysticism in the French Tradition: Eruptions From France, Farnham: Ashgate, 2015, pp. 121–148. Arblaster 2016 = John Arblaster, On Becoming “Not God, But What God Is”: Essays on the Doctrine of Deification in the Late Medieval Low Countries (unpublished doctoral dissertation: KU Leuven & University of Antwerp, 2016). Billings 2007 = Todd J. Billings, “John Calvin: United to God Through Christ,” in: Michael J. Christensen and Jeffrey A. Wittung, Partakers of Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Tradition, Madison/Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007, pp. 200–218. Breen 2010 = Katharine Breen, Imagining an English Reading Public, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Casiday 2003 = Augustine Casiday, “Deification in Origen, Evagrius and Cassian,” in: L. Perrone (ed.), Origeniana octava: Origen and the Alexandrian tradition = Origene e la tradizione alessandrina: Papers of the 8th International Origen Congress, Pisa, 27–31 August 2001, Leuven: Peeters, 2003, pp. 995–1001. Christensen and Wittung 2007 = Michael J. Christensen and Jeffrey A. Wittung (eds.), Partakers of Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Tradition, Madison/Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007. Clark 2009 = John P.H. Clark, Introduction and Notes for Nubes ignorandi, the Latin version of The Cloud of Unknowing in Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Bodley 856, Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 2009. Conus 1954 = Humbert-Thomas Conus, “Divinisation: B. Théologiens du 13e siècle,” in: Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, Paris: Beauchesne, 1954, cc. 1413-1432. Cullen 2006 = Christopher Cullen, Bonaventure, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Cunningham 1955 = Francis L.B. Cunningham, The Indwelling of the Trinity: A HistoricoDoctrinal Study of the Theory of St. Thomas Aquinas, Dubuque, IA: Priory Press, 1955. Davis 1992 = Brian Davis, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Delio 1996 = Ilia Delio, Mysticism of the Historical Event: An Approach Through Bonaventure’s Christ Mysticism (unpublished doctoral dissertation: Fordham University, 1996). Edwards 2017 = Mark J. Edwards, “Deification in the Alexandrian Tradition,” in: Mark J. Edwards and Elena Ene D-Vasilescu (eds.), Visions of God and Ideas on Deification in Patristic Thought, Abingdon: Routledge, 2017, pp. 74–88.

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Edwards and Vasilescu 2017 = Mark Edwards and Elena Ene D-Vasilescu (eds.), Visions of God and Ideas on Deification in Patristic Thought, Abingdon: Routledge, 2017. Faesen 2012 = Rob Faesen, “Poor in Ourselves and Rich in God: Indwelling and Nonidentity of Being (wesen) and Suprabeing (overwesen) in John of Ruusbroec,” Medieval Mystical Theology 21 (2012), pp. 147–169. Farmer 1957 = Hugh Farmer, “Introduction,” in: “The Meditations of the Monk of Farne,” ed. Hugh Farmer, Studia Anselmiana 41 (1957), pp. 141–157. Finlan and Kharlamov 2006 = Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov (eds.), Theōsis: Deification in Christian Theology, vol. 1, Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2006. Gross 2002 = Jules Gross, The Divinization of the Christian According to the Greek Fathers, trans. Paul A. Onica, Anaheim, CA: A&C Press, 2002. Hallonsten 2007 = Gosta Hallonsten, “Theosis in Recent Research: A Renewal of Interest and a Need for Clarity,” in: Michael J. Christensen and Jeffrey A. Wittung, Partakers of Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Tradition, Madison/Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007, pp. 281–293. Harnack 1901 = Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma, trans. Neil Buchanan, Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company, 1901. Keating 2004 = Daniel A. Keating The Appropriation of Divine Life in Cyril of Alexandria, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Keating 2007 = Daniel A. Keating, Deification and Grace, Naples: Sapientia Press, 2007. Keating 2015 = Daniel A. Keating, “Typologies of Deification,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 17/3 (2015), pp. 267–283. Keating 2016 = Daniel A. Keating, “Deification in the Greek Fathers,” in David Vincent Meconi and Carl E. Olson (eds.), Called to Be Children of God: The Catholic Theology of Human Deification, San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2016, pp. 40-58. Kempster 2007 = Hugh Kempster, Richard Rolle, Emendatio Vitae:Amendinge of Lyf, a Middle English Translation, Edited From Dublin, Trinity College, MS 432 (unpublished doctoral dissertation: University of Waikota, 2007). Kharlamov 2012 = Vladimir Kharlamov (ed.), Theōsis: Deification in Christian Theology, vol. 2, Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2012. MacIntyre 1981 = Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981. Meconi 2006 = David Vincent Meconi, Union With Christ: Living With God, London: Catholic Truth Society, 2006. Meconi and Olson 2016 = David Vincent Meconi and Carl E. Olson (eds.), Called to be Children of God: The Catholic Theology of Human Deification, San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2016. Mosser 2005 = Carl Mosser, “The Earliest Patristic Interpretations of Psalm 82, Jewish Antecedents, and the Origin in Christian Deification,” Journal of Theological Studies, 56/1 (2005), pp. 30–74. Ortiz in Meconi and Olson 2016 = Jared Ortiz, “Deification in the Latin Fathers,” in David Vincent Meconi and Carl E. Olson (eds.), Called to Be Children of God: The Catholic Theology of Human Deification, San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2016, pp. 59–81. Pantin 1944 = William Abel Pantin, “The Monk-Solitary of Farne: A Fourteenth-Century English Mystic,” The English Historical Review 59/234 (1944), pp. 162–186. Riehle 1981 = Wolfgang Riehle, The Middle English Mystics, London: Routledge, 1981. Russell 2004 = Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Patristic Greek Tradition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

The Monk of Farne 151 Sargent 1976 = Michael G. Sargent, “The Transmission by the English Carthusians of Some Late Medieval Spiritual Writing,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 27 (1976), pp. 225–240. Sargent 1983 = Michael G. Sargent, “Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection: The London Manuscript Group Reconsidered,” Medium Aevum 52 (1983), pp. 189–216. Schnell 1932 = Eugen Schnell, Die Traktate des Richard Rolle von Hampole ‘Incendium Amoris’ und ‘Emendatio Vitae’ und deren Übersetzung durch Richard Misyn, Leipzig: Robert Noske, 1932. Sharpe 1985 = Richard Sharpe, “An Exortacio ad Contemplacionem From Farne Island,” Medium Aevum 54/2 (1985), pp. 159–177. Vasta 1965 = Edward Vasta, The Spiritual Basis of Piers Plowman, The Hague: Mouton, 1965. Voaden 1996 = Rosalyn Voaden (ed.), Prophets Abroad: The Reception of Continental Holy Women in Late Medieval England, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1996. Watson 1996 = Nicholas Watson, “Melting into God the English Way: Deification in the Middle English Version of Marguerite Porete’s Mirouer des simples âmes anienties,” in: Rosalynn Voaden (ed.), Prophets Abroad: The Reception of Continental Holy Women in Late Medieval England, Cambridge: Brewer, 1996, pp. 19–50. Watson 1999 = Nicholas Watson, “The Middle English Mystics,” in: David Wallis (ed.), The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 539–565. Whitehead 2013 = Christiana Whitehead, “The Meditaciones of the Monk of Farne,” in: E. Jones (ed.), The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England: Exeter Symposium VIII: Papers Read at Charney Manor, July 2011, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2013, pp. 125–140.

11 Psychology, theosis, and the soul St. Teresa of Avila, St. Augustine, and Plotinus on the Western picture of theosis Peter Tyler

Teresa of Avila’s debt to St. Augustine is well known. She begins her writing as an hommage to the Bishop of Hippo by choosing the style of “confession” to shape her first exposition of her understanding of theology: The Book of the Life (hereafter V). Thus, if we are to look for a model of theosis in Teresa’s work the most natural place to begin would be in Augustine’s works. However, as well as heir to the Augustinian tradition, she is equally in debt to the medieval exposition of the work of Dionysius the Areopagite as passed to her through the work of the Victorines, Jean Gerson, and the person she declared her “master” – Francisco de Osuna. Accordingly, my argument in this chapter will be that if we want to find an appropriate model for theosis in Teresa’s work we need to look at both traditions – the Neoplatonic and the Augustinian – to see how she relates to both in her work. I shall begin by giving a brief account of what I understand as the main features of both before considering where I think Teresa’s work lies in relation to the two traditions.

The Neoplatonic schema for the deliverance of the soul As well as Teresa’s debt to the Augustinian tradition, as stated, she is completely immersed in the medieval Neoplatonic tradition of mystical theology inherited via the Victorines and their twelfth-century interpretation of Dionysius the Areopagite’s corpus. In an earlier work,1 I have traced that lineage and do not intend to pursue it here. Rather, I want to look at Teresa’s model of theosis and suggest comparisons with two Western models of theosis – a Neoplatonic schema derived from Plotinus and the other from Augustine. The importance of Plotinus (c.204–270 CE) to Augustine (and to subsequent Christian understanding of the self ), is that he summarizes most of the strands of Neoplatonic interpretation that are swirling around the late classical world and presents it in a digestible fashion not only for Augustine but for us today. I would like to summarize this process by emphasizing how for Plotinus theosis is a pattern derived from his Neoplatonic picture of the self (or as I prefer “soul”). For the purposes of this paper I would like to summarize the key features of the Plotinian/Neoplatonic schema for the formation of the soul thus: i It is primarily based on the teachings of Plato and the Greek philosophers. Plotinus sees himself as offering a system that derives from and exemplifies

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the teachings of the great master Plato. Although he clearly sweeps up the earlier Neoplatonic schools and interpretations he sees himself as directly encountering Plato and his text, making it accessible to his contemporaries. We are from a source beyond this world, we contain that source within ourselves and long for a return to it through expression of our eros. Kenney calls the higher part of the Plotinian soul “the unitive or erotic soul,” emphasizing the role of eros in returning the higher part of psyche to the world soul. Eros, and the practice and pursuit of eros through art, culture, beauty, and love, are thus essential parts of the return “of the alone to the Alone.”2 Contemplation is the means by which we return to this source. Because of our amphibious natures (living between matter and spirit) our psyches/ souls are essentially unstable: “our focus shifts up and down, now highly temporal and fractured, now informed by the intelligible, the stable and the authentic.”3 It is through contemplation/theoria that the soul discovers its “more ancient nature” (Enn. 6.9.8). This theoria or meditation seeks to stabilize the soul so that it can be present to its true origins in the One. The source of our selves is non-material. We have “fallen” into the world of matter. The soul has “cooled” (Greek term, psyche) from its origins in a higher realm but this still retains the imprint of its origin to which it is determined to return. We are “weighed down” (Enn. 6.9.7) in our present body but the process of contemplation will enable us to be “born aloft” again. Certain actions and ways of living, for example moral purification and intellectual training, will help the process of the return of the soul to its true origin. Contemplation in itself is insufficient for Plotinus, we must also engage in ethical action and right conduct to form our souls. “Inner” contemplation will lead to the “ascent” of the soul. As Plotinus states in Enn. 6.9.7: “We must withdraw from all the external, pointed wholly inwards, not leaning to the outer; the total of things ignored, first in their relation to us and later in the very idea.” The One lies not outside but within. Such an introspection will inevitably, Plotinus assures us, lead to the in-breaking of the Divine Nous such that “the soul taking that outflow from the divine is stirred; seized with a Bacchic passion, goaded by these goods, it becomes love” (Enn. 6.7.22). The Ascent can be experienced in sudden “ecstasies.” In this respect Plotinus was once again reflecting the great Neoplatonic tradition to which he was heir. In Enn. 6.9.8 Plotinus describes the choreography of the contemplative life as being rather like a “choral dance.” At times we see the One and are caught up in its ecstasy, at other times we move around the circle and the vision is obscured: We are always around it but do not always look at it; it is a like a choral dance: in the order of the singing the choir keeps round its conductor but may sometimes turn away, let it but face aright and it will sing with beauty . . . when we look our Term is attained; this is rest, this is the end of discordance, we truly dance our god-inspired dance around him.

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viii The Plotinian search for the soul is essentially an erotic process. As the soul yearns for its origin through eros, eros must play a significant role in its return to the source. As we have seen, the lover, the musician, and inevitably the philosopher, are deeply imbedded in the search for truth, and the soul, he tells us at the end of the Enneads, “loves God and longs to be at one with Him in the noble love of a daughter for a noble father” (Enn. 9.9.9). ix The goal of the process is deification. By following the practices of contemplation, the exercise of moral virtue, and engaging in the dialectic of the philosophers, we shall reach the Plotinian goal of identification with the Nous and ultimately the One: “You must become first of all godlike and beautiful if you intend to see God and beauty” (Enn. 1.6.9) and thus the soul will end up becoming love itself (Enn. 6.7.22 and 6.9.9). Discovery of self becomes discovery of the Divine (Enn. 5.1.1); in this Plotinus follows Plato’s Theaetaetus 176b. As he states at the end of the Enneads (6.9.9): The soul then in her natural state is in love with God and wants to be united; it is like the noble love of a girl for her noble father . . . There one can see both him and oneself as it is right to see: the self glorified, full of intelligible light – but rather itself pure light – weightless, floating free, having become – but rather, being – a god; set on fire then, but the fire seems to go out if one is weighed down again. In this life the vision will be fleeting, as suggested above, but once cast away from the material burdens of this realm we shall achieve true deification with the Divine (Enn. 6.9.10–11): “the man is changed, no longer himself nor self-belonging; he is merged with the Supreme, sunken into it, one with it: centre coincides with centre.”

St. Augustine’s picture of the soul As stated already, St Augustine (345–430 CE) was no stranger to the writings of Plotinus and the Neoplatonists. As outlined in his Confessions, he encountered practitioners of Neoplatonism and the Neoplatonic writings whilst as a young man seeking God in Rome and Milan. Raised by Pagan and Christian parents, Augustine embodies the struggles of one world ending (late paganism) and a new one emerging (medieval Christianity) and his struggle to find expression of his picture of the soul is no less convoluted. The Plotinian schema described earlier was clearly attractive to the young Augustine and one he sought to pursue as a young man in Italy. However, the mature Augustine of On the Trinity seeks a synthesis between the Neoplatonic and the Christian before arriving at what is effectively a new distinctly Christian way of talking about the soul. In this respect Augustine, unlike Plotinus, sought to amalgamate elements in his schema from the Christian scriptures with which he became increasingly familiar after his conversion to Christianity. For Augustine, the Greek and Hebrew scriptures increasingly became the essential starting point for all reflection on the nature of the self which will reach its apotheosis in his late work On the Trinity.

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According to Trapé, “the essential task of Augustinian spirituality is the restoration of the image of God to man,”4 or as Augustine himself puts it in the Literal Commentary on Genesis: It was in the very factor in which he surpasses non-rational animate beings that man was made in God’s image. That, of course, is reason (ratio) itself, or mens (mind) or intelligentia (intelligence) or whatever we wish to call it. (Comm. Gen. 3.20.30, see also Trin. 14:25) As we have already seen, the chief aim of the Platonic ascent to the divine was to develop the individual psyche such that it could contemplate the World Nous and thus ultimately the One. Whilst clearly influenced by the Platonic model, Augustine presents us with a significantly modified picture. In the first place, Augustine places the Greek and Hebrew scriptures at the origin of his search and thus when he comes to write the later On the Trinity in his fiftieth year he will begin in the first eight books by presenting an exposition of those same scriptures in support of his triune view of the Divine. This he will then relate in the second edition of the book, written between 413 and 420 to the “image” of the divine in the human soul – in particular with reference to memory, will and understanding (Books 9–15 of On the Trinity).5 For Plotinus the theoria of the intellect will lead us to the Nous. Augustine, on the other hand, prefers memory as the attribute of the psyche most likely to bring us to the divine. As well as reflecting the triune life in its constituent parts, Augustine, in contrast to the Platonists, places Christ as the key mediator and educator of the soul. Christ, for Augustine is “the way, the truth and the life” (Jn. 14:6) and as he says in his Homily on the Psalms 84.1: “The Lord himself heals the eyes of our hearts to enable us to see what he shows us” (see also Conf. 7.18.24). Intimacy with the persona Christi will thus lead to the divinization of the soul, not through our own efforts or through merits of our own, but simply through the love and grace of God freely given (in contrast to the Platonic way where our own effort, contemplation/theoria will inevitably lead to union with the Divine): “The Son of God was made a sharer in our mortal nature so that mortals might become sharers in his Godhead” (Hom. Ps. 52.6)6 and It is quite obvious that God called human beings ‘gods’ in the sense that they were deified by his grace, not because they were born of his own substance . . . he alone deifies who is God of himself, not by participation in any other. (Hom. Ps. 49.1.2)7 Thus, God deifies us only by adoption, through no quality inherent in our own natures (unlike in the Plotinian schema). Possibly from his Manichean past, Augustine had a lifelong suspicion of matter and the flesh and saw human nature as essentially corrupt. He was suspicious of our ability to achieve deification from this corrupted flesh by our own means and so championed the power of God’s grace over any “Pelagian” notions of what we would nowadays refer to as “original

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blessing.” In this respect, the body of Christ on earth, the church, remained the sine qua non for reaching the state of bliss denied us by our nature. Although glimpses of this could be afforded in this life the true union would not be possible for Augustine in this world. As he states at the outset of the Confessions: “the house of my soul is too small for you to enter, make it more spacious by your coming. It lies in ruins: rebuild it” (Conf. 1.6). Thus, although there is clearly an overlap and dependence upon the Neoplatonic schema in Augustine’s picture of the soul, there is sufficient difference for us to contrast it with the Augustinian schema. As with Plotinus, I will characterize Augustine’s schema as having nine basic characteristics:8 i As Plotinus bases his schema on the books of Plato and the Greek philosophers, so Augustine’s primary sources are the Hebrew and Greek scriptures. For example, the first seven books of On The Trinity concentrate on what God reveals concerning God’s self in the Scriptures. ii The impetus for the creation and transformation of the soul lies with God. Unlike Plotinus’s One that is to be sought by us, Augustine’s God seeks us out: the Divine is pro-active in pursuing our salvation. Augustine’s God is a very personal affair. As the dynamo for Plotinus’s schema was primarily eros, for Augustine it is primarily grace/gratia – see, for example, Conf. 7.21.27 where he reiterates a common theme in his writing: “So totally is it a matter of grace that the searcher is not only invited to see you, who are ever the same.” As he tells us in Trin. 14.17 God will rescue us from the shipwreck of the world through grace – we cannot do this by ourselves so are dependent upon God in this respect: “You called, shouted, broke through my deafness; you flared, blazed, banished my blindness . . . you touched me and I burned for your peace” (Conf. 10.27). iii Creation is broken/flawed. Unlike the Plotinian scheme where a beautiful soul is held imprisoned in corrupting matter, the soul itself is corrupted in some way that Augustine finds difficult to pin down (see Trin. 8.2.3). But he has no doubt that sexuality and concupiscence has a large part to play in this corruption. We can contrast this with the Plotinian schema where, as we saw, beauty and eros are both vital engines in the mechanism by which we return to the Nous. iv Although Augustine’s schema is not primarily driven by eros, as in Plotinus’s schema we have a longing for the source implanted in us and this desire will be the drive of our earthly search for the Divine. This impels Augustine’s stress on the interior search (so tellingly described in The Confessions) which will, he assures us, ultimately lead us to knowledge and experience of God. v Sudden ecstasies are possible on our journey to the Divine. In the sudden ecstasy in Milan recorded in The Confessions (7.17.23) Augustine talks of the ictus cordis – the sudden “blow on the heart” of the ecstasy. As he writes in Comm. Gen. 12.12.25: “When however the attention of the mind is totally turned aside and snatched away from the senses of the body, then you have what is more usually called ecstasy.”9 The ecstasy is a

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foretaste of the bliss to come – this bliss cannot be attained in full in this realm. vi Augustine’s path is a way of ascent from the material to the spiritual, as famously described in the Ostia Vision in Confessions 9.10.23/24: Step by step (Monica and Augustine) traversed all bodily creatures and heaven itself, whence sun and moon and stars shed their light upon earth. Higher still we mounted by inward thought and wondering discourse on your works, and we arrived at the summit of our minds; and this too we transcended to touch that land of never failing plenty. Withdrawal from the world is necessary to find God. In this respect Augustine lies close to his Platonic influences. vii For the Platonists, the development of the theoria was essential to “enter into the mind of the Divine.” For Augustine the equivalent role is played by memoria (see Confessions Book 10). Augustine’s famous art of confessio is in itself a play of memory and much of the book is concerned with the art of memory and how its cultivation brings us closer to the divine: “confession is Augustine’s way of understanding – a special divinely authorized speech that establishes authentic identity for the speaker and is the true and proper end of mortal life.”10 viii The human soul reflects the triune nature of the Divine. The human soul is the image of God for Augustine. As God is triune (as demonstrated in the first six books of On the Trinity) therefore the soul must be triune. These are its attributes of memory, will, and understanding as discussed in the later books 8–10 of the work (for example in Trin. 10.11.18 or 9.5.8 where the soul is divided up into mens, notitia, and amor: mind, knowledge, and love). Mind, love, and knowledge, as he states in Trin. 9.5.8, reveal a trinity which is “confused by no mingling; although each is singly in itself, and all are wholly in one another, whether one in both or both in one, and so all in all.” ix Christ is the divine mediator to the soul. Thus, when we have the humility to accept Christ’s presence in the soul we can have the true contemplation of the Trinity: The Son of God came (in the form of ) a man and became humble; you are therefore instructed to be humble, it does not teach you to become a brute animal instead of a man. . . . He who comes to me, is incorporated in me, he who comes to me is made humble. (Hom. John 25.16) The moment of baptism is the beginning of this process of renewal in Christ; however, the full extent of our identification with Christ will be a slow one that will is achieved through a lifelong commitment to, and identification with, Christ. Now when we compare Augustine’s schema with that of Plotinus there are of course several overlaps (for example in points v and vi) but generally, we

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encounter in Augustine’s writing a new way of understanding the soul, its relationship to the divine and how we can pursue the divine in this human life. As stated earlier, it is this picture which will prove so important in defining Christian Western notions of selfhood for the next millennium following his death.

Teresa’s picture of the soul and deification To conclude this chapter then, I would like to take these two models and see how far they accord with the picture of the soul and deification presented by Teresa, especially in the Book of the Life and the Interior Castle. In doing so I shall take my previous nine points as the scaffold for interpretation. i

Sources of interpretation

If we begin with the origins of Teresa’s interpretation, it would at first seem clear that her work is based on the Christian scriptures rather than the Platonic tradition. Clearly she was not familiar with the Platonic texts as, unlike John of the Cross, who would have studied them at Medina and Salamanca, she never references them. Yet, her relationship to the Christian scriptures is far from straightforward. As she tells us in Chapter 26 of the Life: When a number of books in Spanish were taken away from us and we were not allowed to read them, I felt it very much because the reading of some of them had given me great recreation, and I could no longer do so since they were only available in Latin. Then the Lord said to me: ‘Don’t be upset, for I will give you a living book.’ (Teresa of Avila V: 26.6)11 In the passage we come across some of the key events that were influencing her: the prohibition of spiritual books in the vernacular in Spain following the Valdés decree of 1559 and her own reliance on just such vernacular books of spirituality in her early life. Thus, after 1559 Christian scripture in the vernacular would not have been available to one who professes not to know sufficient Latin to read them. Her knowledge of scripture, then (having not studied it at university) would be mediated through the mystical writers mentioned, devout reading, and the Divine Office. ii

Origins of the soul

In the Augustinian schema we have a flawed creation that needs God’s grace for our perfection; the Neoplatonic schema, on the other hand, uses the power of eros and Nous through theoria to find its goal in the One. Where does Teresa’s picture fit on this continuum? The first “apparition” of the soul in The Interior Castle is not one of a flawed or broken self, as she describes it so eloquently at the beginning of the exposition: While I was beseeching our Lord today to speak through me (por mí),12 as I was unable to find a thing to say (no atinaba a cosa que decir)13 or how to

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begin to comply with this obedience, what I will say now presented itself (ofreció)14 to begin with this starting point: that we consider our soul to be like a castle, totally of diamond or very clear crystal, where there are many abodes (aposentos),15 as in heaven there are many mansions. Now if we consider it carefully, sisters, the soul of a just person (el alma del justo)16 is nothing else but a paradise where He says he takes his delights (El tiene sus deleites).17 Well then, what do you think such an abode would be like where a King so powerful, so wise, so pure, so full of good things, takes his delight? I cannot find anything with which to compare the great beauty and capacity of the soul; and truly our intellects will no more be able to grasp this than they can comprehend God, no matter how keen they are, for He Himself said that He created us in his own image and likeness. (M: 1.1.1) Admittedly, this picture of the perfect soul will soon be replaced by a darkened one overrun by toads, vipers, and “other venomous creatures” and in The Book of the Life we are presented with visions of corruption, the stench of sin, and Hell that would have met with Augustine’s approval. Yet, the over-riding impression given is of an initial state of unity and bliss – the perfect vision of the soul given at the beginning of the Castle – which we lose but can regain through the methods presented in the Castle. iii

God seeks us out

Even when we stray, God is trying hard to seek us out. In the Fourth Mansion she describes how when we have lost our way in the journey to reunion with God, the “shepherd’s pipe” of the Lord can be heard blowing and leading us back to where we need to be: I don’t know in what way or how they heard their shepherd’s whistling. It wasn’t through the ears, because nothing is heard. But one noticeably senses a gentle drawing inward (un encogimiento suave a lo interior), as anyone who goes through this will observe, for I don’t know how to make it clearer. It seems to me I have read that it is like a hedgehog or tortoise, when they withdraw into themselves; the one who wrote this must have understood it well. (M: 4.3.3) In clear contrast to the Platonic schema, Teresa’s vision of the action of God is closer here to Augustine’s notion of the God of Grace who acts on the soul to rescue us in our fallen state. iv

The role of eros

As I have argued elsewhere, Teresa’s vision of the soul and her drive towards theosis are genuinely erotic and eros is central to her understanding of the self.18 The Divine Platonic eros plays a central stage in Teresa’s work in a way we do not find

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in Augustine, who I would argue, is suspicious of eros and its role in deification. One example will suffice. The most celebrated example of Teresa’s eros is in Chapter 29 of the Life – the incident usually referred to today as the “transverberation” and of course immortalized in Bernini’s famous statue at Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. But if we look at the strikingly similar passage in Mansion Six of the Interior Castle we can appreciate how Teresa is using the erotic tradition (inherited from Osuna, Gerson, et al.) to demonstrate the role of eros in mystical union. In itself a deeply Platonic theme: So powerful is the effect of this on the soul that it dissolves with desire and doesn’t know what to ask for, for clearly it seems that it is with its God. You will ask me: Well, if it knows this, what does it desire or what pains it? What greater good does it want? I don’t know. I do know that it seems that this pain reaches to the soul’s entrails (entrañas)19 and that when He who wounds it draws out the arrow, it indeed seems, in accord with the deep love the soul feels, that God is drawing these very entrails after Him. I was thinking now that it is as though, from this fire enkindled in the brazier that is my God, a spark (un centella) jumped out and so touched the soul that the flaming fire was felt by it and since it was not enough to set the soul on fire, and it is so delightful, the soul is left with that pain; and this produced by it just touching the soul. (M: 6.2.4) v

The role of contemplation in Teresa’s theosis

Although Teresa, like Augustine, firmly insists on God’s action through grace to lead to mystical union, like the Platonists, she equally emphasizes the role of contemplation. Following Augustine we can find in her an emphasis on the “inner contemplation” that will lead to God. Augustine’s vision, as we have seen, insists on an inner vision leading to an ascent. In Teresa’s version, however, we do not so much see ascent as a breaking through of the person of Christ into the essence of the soul. As she puts it at the end of the Book of the Life: Once, during the recitation of the Office with all the Sisters, my soul suddenly became recollected and it seemed to me to be like a totally clear mirror without having back, sides, top or bottom that weren’t totally clear, and in the centre of it Christ Our Lord was represented to me, as I generally see Him. It seemed to me I saw Him in all parts of my soul, clear as a mirror, and also this mirror – I don’t know how to say it – was engraved all over by the same Lord by a communication that I cannot explain but was very loving.20 This dissolution of the personality through contemplation is one of the most puzzling and challenging aspects of Teresa’s account of theosis. In it she seems to introduce a new schema not in her masters – either from the Platonic or

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Augustinian traditions – and, as I have argued elsewhere, shows a unique understanding of the return of the soul to the Divine through the theotic process.21 vi

Moral and ascetical training

As with Plotinus, we see in Teresa’s schema an emphasis on the moral and ascetic training required for theosis. Theosis for Teresa cannot be an end in itself, but as she reassures us at the end of the Interior Castle, the aim of prayer, contemplation and union is “good works”: This is the reason for prayer, my daughters, the purpose of this spiritual marriage: the birth always of good works, good works. . . . I repeat it is necessary that your foundation consist of more than prayer and contemplation. If you do not strive for virtues and practice them, you will always be dwarves. (M: 7.4.6) What she learns from Augustine is the need to temper good works with the ascetic practice of purification of memory and the act of confession itself. The act of making the confession itself, admitting all the wayward movements of the soul to another, in its humility will for Teresa, like Augustine before her, lead us to the union we seek. vii The union can occasionally be experienced in sudden “ecstasies” In common with Augustine and Plotinus, Teresa stresses that it is possible for the soul to experience union on earth for short bursts of time. As she says in the Interior Castle, these are possible for short periods of time. The exstasis as she describes it (like the description of the transverberation above) owes much to the medieval descriptions of mystical theology. viii

Role of Christ

As with Augustine, for Teresa, Christ is the sine qua non for mystical union. Without the practice of the imitation of Christ, the union is not possible. Yet, although in the final mansions of the Castle she emphasizes the growing intimacy with Christ, this is also accompanied by a Dionysian apophasis. As she puts it in Mansion Six: You will ask how if nothing is seen one knows that it is Christ, or a saint, or His most glorious Mother. This, the soul will not know how to explain, nor can it understand how it knows, but it does know with the greatest certitude. (M: 6.8.6)

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Teresa stipulates throughout a “divine unknowing” – the Dionysian stulta sapientia she inherited from the medieval tradition – this, for Teresa, is the “realm of the supernatural” (see M: 6.9.18). ix

Picture of the Trinity

In holding this balance between the Persona Christi and the Divine Unknowing of our encounter with the Source, Teresa is of course throughout these final mansions following Augustine in re-emphasizing how the picture of the soul reflects the picture of the triune Christian God. She calls it in these final mansions a time of quiet “like the building of Solomon’s temple when no sound was heard” (M: 7.3.11). “There is no reason for the intellect to stir or seek anything . . . the faculties are not lost here, but they do not work, remaining as though in amazement.” In these final remarkable passages of the Interior Castle Teresa, I would like to argue, is able to combine the Augustinian tradition of representation of theosis as life in the Trinity with the Dionysian/Platonic tradition of apophasis to present a theological strategy of returning us to Christ through the processes of the theologia mystica.

Conclusion I have tried in this chapter to map onto Teresa’s picture of the soul two classic pictures from the Western tradition – what I have called the Augustinian and the Neoplatonic. My conclusion is that we find in Teresa’s work a fascinating, and highly original blend of the two. Whereas Teresa sticks closely to many of the tropes of the Augustinian tradition, not least in its emphasis on the role of confession, “inner contemplation,” and identification with the persona Christi, from her Neoplatonic sources she also renders the Augustinian vision of theosis alive to the possibility of new dimensions – most notably in her exposition of the role of eros and apophasis. Teresa’s remarkable achievement in the Interior Castle is to blend the linguistic strategies of the theologia mystica, to which she was heir, with theological imagery to present a radical proposal of how the Christian should act in the world through “embodied unknowing” in selfless action. The final result is a sophisticated text of theosis with an unprecedented experiential force in the literature of Western Christian spirituality.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5

Tyler (2011). Kenney (2013: 23). Kenney (2005: 23), cf. Enn. 4.8.8. Trapé (1986: 454). Bernard McGinn, in a number of articles has drawn attention to the difference between “likeness” (similitudo) and “image” (imago) of the soul to God in Augustine’s writings. For more, see McGinn (1991: 243–244) and McGinn (2010). 6 Filius enim Dei particeps mortalitatis effectus est, ut mortalis homo fiat particeps diuinitatis. 7 Manifestum est ergo, quia hominess dixit deos, ex gratia sua deificatos, non de substantia sua natos . . . et ille deificat qui per seipsum non alterius participatio Deus est.

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8 As will be clear by now, the complexity and range of Augustine’s thought makes it difficult to summarize simply. In this schema I am drawing primarily on the descriptions of the self given in The Confessions and On the Trinity. 9 Quando autem penitus auerititur atque abripitur animi intentio a sensibus corporis, tunc magis dici extasis solet. 10 O’Donnell (1992: xlii). 11 Cuando se quitaron muchos libros de romance, que no se leyesen, yo sentí mucho, porque algunos me dava recreación leerlos, y yo no podia ya, por dejarlos en latín; me dijo el Señor: ‘No tengas pena, que yo te dare libro vivo’. My translation from the Spanish of Teresa, Obras (1997) and Teresa, Obras (1998). The English translations of Teresa’s works will be either my own or, unless stated, Kavanaugh and Rodriguez (1980–1987). V = El Libro de la Vida (Book of Her Life), M = Las Moradas (The Interior Castle). 12 Peers (1946) gives “through”; Kavanaugh and Rodriguez (1980–1987) give “for.” 13 Peers (1946) gives “I could find nothing to say”; Kavanaugh and Rodriguez (1980– 1987) “I wasn’t able to think of anything to say.” 14 Peers (1946): “a thought occurred to me”; Kavanaugh and Rodriguez (1980–1987) “there came to my mind.” 15 Peers (1946) “a rather more pretentious word than the English ‘room’: dwelling place, abode, apartment”; Kavanaugh and Rodriguez (1980–1987): “Teresa uses the Spanish words moradas, aposentos y piezas in approximately the same sense; they refer to rooms or dwelling places within the castle . . . Most people today think of a mansion as a large stately home, not what Teresa had in mind with the term moradas. ‘Dwelling places’ turns out to be a more precise translation of Teresa’s moradas than is the classic “mansions” and more biblical and theological in tone.” 16 Peers (1946) “the soul of the righteous man”; Kavanaugh and Rodriguez (1980–1987) “the soul of the just person.” 17 Peers (1946) “He takes His delight”; Kavanaugh and Rodriguez (1980–1987) “He finds His delight,” see also V:14:10 and Exc: 7, allusion to Proverbs 8:31. 18 See, for example, Tyler (2010). 19 Matthew and Allison Peers give “bowels” for entrañas which seems very appropriate. 20 Estando una vez en las Horas con todas, de presto se recogió mi alma, y parecióme ser como un espejo claro toda, sin haber espaldas ni lados ni alto ni bajo que no estuviese toda clara, y en el centro de ella se me representó Cristo nuestro Señor, como le suelo ver. Parecíame en todas las partes de mi alma le veía claro como en un espejo, y también este espejo – yo no sé decir cómo – se esculpía todo en el mismo Señor por una comunicación que yo no sabre decir, muy amorosa. A typically nightmarish piece of Teresa to translate. Kavanaugh gives: “Once while I was reciting with all the Sisters the hours of the Divine Office, my soul suddenly became recollected; and it seemed to me to be like a brightly polished mirror, without any part on the back or sides or top or bottom that wasn’t totally clear. In its center Christ, Our Lord, was shown to me, in the way I usually see Him. It seemed to me I saw Him clearly in every part of my soul, as though in a mirror. And this mirror also – I don’t know how to explain it – was completely engraved upon the Lord Himself by means of a very loving communication I wouldn’t know how to describe.” 21 See Tyler (2013).

Bibliography Sources and translations Armstrong 1966–1988 = Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. A.H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library 440–445, 468 (7 vols.), London: Heinemann, 1966–1988. Boulding 1997 = Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, ed. J. Rotelle, trans. M. Boulding, New York, NY: New City Press. 1997.

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Boulding 2001–2002 = Augustine of Hippo, Expositions of the Psalms, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, ed. J. Rotelle, trans. M. Boulding, New York, NY: New City Press, 2001–2002. Hill 1996 = Augustine of Hippo, The Trinity, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, ed. J. Rotelle, trans. E. Hill, New York, NY: New City Press, 1996. Kavanaugh and Rodriguez 1980–1987 = Teresa of Avila, The Collected Works of St Teresa of Avila, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez (3 vols., vol. 1: 2nd ed.; vols. 2 and 3: 1st ed.), Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1980–1987. Mackenna 1969 = Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. S. Mackenna, London: Faber and Faber, 1969. O’Donnell 1992 = Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, trans. J. O’Donnell, Oxford: Clarendon, 1992. Peers 1946 = Teresa of Avila, The Complete Works of St Teresa of Jesus, trans. E. Allison Peers (3 vols.), London: Sheed and Ward, 1946. Rettig 1988 = Augustine of Hippo, Tractates on the Gospel of John, trans. J. Rettig, Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988. Rotelle 2002 = Augustine of Hippo, On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees, Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, ed. J. Rotelle, trans. E. Hill, New York, NY: New City Press, 2002. Teresa of Avila, Obras (1997) = Obras completas de Santa Teresa de Jésus, ed. Efrén de la Madre de Dios and Otger Steggink, 9th ed., Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1997. Teresa of Avila, Obras (1998) = Santa Teresa Obras Completas, ed. T. Alvarez, 10th ed. Burgos: Editorial Monte Carmelo, 1998. Watts 1928 = Augustine of Hippo, St Augustine’s Confessions, trans. W. Watts, London: Heinemann, 1928.

Studies Kenney 2005 = J.P. Kenney, The Mysticism of Saint Augustine: Rereading the Confessions, London: Routledge, 2005. Kenney 2013 = J.P. Kenney, Contemplation and Classical Christianity: A Study in Augustine, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. McGinn 1991 = B. McGinn, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, vol. 1, The Foundations of Mysticism, London: SCM, 1991. McGinn 2010 = B. McGinn, “Humans as Imago Dei: Mystical Anthropology Then and Now,” in: P.M. Tyler and E. Howells (eds.), Sources of Transformation: Revitalizing Christian Spirituality, London: Continuum, 2010. Trapé 1986 = A. Trapé, “Saint Augustine,” in: Patrology, vol. 4, The Golden Age of Latin Patristic Literature From the Council of Nicea to the Council of Chalcedon, ed. Angelo Di Berardino, Westminster: Christian Classics, 1986. Tyler 2010 = P. M. Tyler, The Return to the Mystical: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Teresa of Avila and the Christian Mystical Tradition, London: Continuum, 2010. Tyler 2011 = P. M. Tyler, The Return to the Mystical: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Theresa of Avila and the Christian Mystical Tradition, London: Continuum, 2011. Tyler 2013 = P. M. Tyler, “To Centre or Not to Centre: Ss. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross and the “Centre of the Soul,” in: Louise Nelstrop and Simon Podmore (eds.), Christian Mysticism and Incarnational Theology: Between Transcendence and Immanence, Surrey: Ashgate, 2013. Tyler and Howells 2010 = P. M. Tyler and E. Howells (eds.), Sources of Transformation: Revitalizing Christian Spirituality, London: Continuum, 2010.

12 Hans Urs von Balthasar’s indifference to divinization Jonathan Martin Ciraulo

The word divinization appears infrequently in the massive corpus of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988). This would be less surprising were he not a major figure in the Ressourcement of the Greek Fathers in the first half of the twentieth century, writing books on Origen, Maximus the Confessor, and Gregory of Nyssa,1 writing major articles on a host of Church Fathers,2 and translating and anthologizing Irenaeus and Origen, as well as Augustine.3 Yet, for all this, the language of divinization never made its way into Balthasar’s bloodstream, and is never enshrined in any significant way in his later theological Trilogy. It does appear on occasion in his work, but due to the intensity of his contact with the major sources of a theology of divinization, this relative infrequency leads inexorably to a simple conclusion: Balthasar was indifferent to divinization. Throughout this essay we will excavate and analyze Balthasar’s indifference, particularly as it takes shape through his interpretation of three major moments, and their representative figures, in his genealogy of the concept: a) Gregory of Nyssa and Plotinus, b) Ruusbroec and Eckhart, and c) John of the Cross and Ignatius of Loyola. It is only at the end that we will see how Balthasar’s indifference to the language of divinization was, all along, really a commitment to viewing Ignatian indiferencia, brought into a Trinitarian framework, as the key to a genuinely Christian conception of divinization. In the first instance, Balthasar’s indifference is something more like the boredom that comes from long familiarity rather than simple disinterestedness. According to Balthasar, divinization is less the particular provenance of the Greek Fathers, or even the Christian East more generally, than it is the most basic and fundamental question of all religious, existential, and philosophical thought.4 Balthasar would thus only agree with Andrew Louth’s statement that θέωσις is not “some isolated theologoumenon, but has what one might call structural significance” if this is left unspecified regarding Christian theology (which is of course what Louth means).5 According to Balthasar, divinization has a “structural significance” as the basic question (or perhaps dialectic or even contradiction) of the relationship between God and the world, the infinite and the finite, the one and the many. This is of course validated by the fact that the vocabulary of divinization has an extraecclesial origin and was only brought into Christian discourse with some trepidation and much reinterpretation. It is this ubiquity of the problem that is the primary

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source for Balthasar’s indifference and equally explains his reluctance to explore the concept at any depth in his patristic studies. As an example, though Norman Russell says that Maximus’s “teaching on deification represents the true climax of the patristic tradition,” when the word appears in Balthasar’s book on Maximus it is often a quote of Maximus rather than Balthasar’s own writing, and around half of Balthasar’s own use of this word has a suspect or even negative connotation.6 But this obvious indifference is only a mask for something far more positive: Balthasar’s obsession with Christian theology’s innumerable attempts to provide an adequate articulation to the problem and the concept (not the language) of divinization. By focusing on Balthasar’s interpretation of the advantages and dangers of previous attempts at conceptualizing participation in God, we will see how Balthasar’s own speculative proposal slowly comes to the surface. The first section, on Nyssa and Plotinus, is also somewhat representative of Balthasar’s own early understanding of divinization, while the following two sections follow chronologically, representing the late medieval and early modern periods, respectively, but do not as cleanly correspond to stages in Balthasar’s thought. Thus, with the exception of the first section, the historical figures that Balthasar engages with on this issue represent various poles, some of which seem initially contradictory, that Balthasar attempts to bring together into a coherent vision of the creature’s participation in the Trinity.

Gregory of Nyssa and Plotinus: the one, being, and distance Balthasar never seemed to have Plotinus far from his mind. Having first encountered Plotinus in the lectures of Hans Eibl in Vienna in the 1920s, which “fascinated” him, Plotinus reappears throughout Balthasar’s career, along with Hegel, as a representative of the heights to which human speculation can climb when philosophy is unapologetically wedded with religion and myth (even if only in the mode of absorption).7 He is thus to be marvelled at as well as to be read cautiously as a supreme intellectual tempter. Above all, considered both as a historical fact and as a type, Plotinus is “an unrepeatable moment, a kairos of human thought in the mode of Advent expectation, which gives decisive direction to the philosophy of the Christian era.”8 The importance of Gregory of Nyssa for Balthasar, among other things, is that he provides the first robust engagement with Plotinus at the level of Christian philosophy, both absorbing what makes his thought kairotic, as well as reshaping it under the weight of Christian revelation. This is why the subtitle of the book is Essai sur la philosophie religieuse de Grégoire de Nysse, which calls attention to the fact that he is analyzing Nyssa’s presentation of a Christian metaphysics, a metaphysics that is concerned primarily, as was Plotinus, with measuring the relative distance between the One and the soul, and with asking what happens to the soul when it is divinized. With regard to Plotinus’s metaphysics, then, Balthasar evinces no anxiety to draw overly sharp boundaries between it and a metaphysics that has been reshaped by the Gospel, and when there is a harmony of visions, or even a borrowing from Plotinus’s

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thought, Balthasar gladly draws attention to this fact.9 Yet, Plotinus does remain at the level of a praeparatio evangelica for Balthasar, while it is Nyssa who shows for what exactly it was a preparation. According to Balthasar, Plotinus’s metaphysical achievement was his ability to hold the radical otherness of the One without sacrificing radical immanence. The One of Plotinus can then be characterized in the same way as the greatest formulations provided by Christian metaphysics, whether Nicholas of Cusa’s “not-other,” or Erich Przywara’s in-über, God both in-and-beyond finite being.10 Plotinus’s system is then formally true, being like a basic structure into which the contents of revelation are poured: “The formal elements of this conception of transcendence and immanence continues, as such, to hold good, even when the Christian revelation fills that form with an entirely new content.”11 We will soon see how even this container may melt and reconstitute due to the heat of its new contents, but here it is important to note that Balthasar avoids disparaging Plotinus as some lugubrious, “world-weary” monist or his One as being utterly disconnected from the world below.12 Plotinus is also essential to our question here because even though he is tireless in his insistence on the transcendence of the One, his entire system is also based upon the desire and the possibility of a return to being “in the One and in the presence of the One.”13 Yet, even given the schema of a descent of the One and the return of the soul to its origin, Plotinus avoids any fusion of the soul with the One, jealously guarding the One’s transcendence even when the closest union of divinization is achieved. While there are innumerable divergences between Plotinus and Nyssa, especially the former’s association of materiality with evil, Balthasar highlights one particular issue that is the difference: while for Plotinus the One is beyond being (and thus beyond any predication), Gregory “does not need to go beyond being in order to affirm God.”14 It is this difference that Balthasar makes the main thesis of his entire book on Nyssa, for in Gregory’s association of God with Being can be discerned, according to Balthasar, the heart of Christianity’s reshaping of pagan metaphysics and a complete reversal of Plotinus’s conception of divinization. Though, like Balthasar, Nyssa does not frequently use the term divinization,15 he does provide an account of participation in God that is based firmly in the fact of the Son of God taking on a human nature, rather than an ascent of the soul to its origin. This will lead then to a re-conceptualization of the relationship between God and Being, and between Being and becoming. Now Christianity brings to religious philosophy a complete reversal of its point of departure. It is no longer a question of knowing how the soul can approach God but of learning how, indeed, God has approached us. Through a historical fact that is exterior, Christianity teaches us a historical fact that is interior. For metaphysics, it substitutes metahistory. In a more profound way, these two facts are, to be sure, but one sole event.16 While Plotinus’s desire to preserve the transcendence of the One led him to reserve the realm of Being to everything below the One (first Nous, then Soul, and ultimately the material world), Nyssa finds himself confronted with the fact of God

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entering into the realm of Being, indeed, of creaturely becoming. First, then, Plotinus’s One and Nous are one and the same reality for Gregory, for the realm of divine attributes is not a step below a God who is beyond Being and description, but rather ideal knowledge reaches “the Supreme Being itself,” and Being is the “negative residue” of God’s attributes, which means positively that our affirmations and negations lead us to his Presence.17 Equally as important as the erasure of the difference between Being and the One who is beyond it is Nyssa’s valorization of the world of becoming. Though our natural impulse is to attribute to Being an infinite repose beyond the flux and erotic movement of finite becoming, Balthasar sees in Nyssa a reversal of these usual priorities: “Through the Incarnation we learn that all the unsatisfied movement of becoming is itself only repose and fixity when compared to that immense movement of love inside of God: Being is a Super-Becoming.”18 Thus, while Plotinus could only understand time and history, and with this the movement of material bodies, as a “measure of the distance from the One,” for Nyssa, as for Augustine, the passage of time that encloses the drama of the creature’s existence is itself the site for transformation and participation in God.19 And though Nyssa does not compromise in the slightest the maior dissimilitudo that pertains between God and the creature, Balthasar notes that Nyssa has a much more profound sense of the continuity between the two than does Plotinus.20 The fundamental characteristics of becoming that Plotinus identified, particularly its movement and change, become the very “chariot of Elijah” that brings the creature to God rather than that which is to be surpassed. While for Plotinus desire, which is the motive force for striving to return to the One, is a mark of diastasis from the Source, for Nyssa desire does not end when union is achieved. In what Balthasar calls Nyssa’s “transposition of becoming (transposition du Devenir),” the movement towards God is one in which the creature takes on an elevated and transformed mode of becoming. Divinization for Nyssa cannot be separated from Christ, the Church, and the Eucharist, and it is often when discussing the Eucharist in Nyssa’s thought that Balthasar begins to use the language of divinization unabashedly. This is because Christ stepped into the world of flux and change (“He enters, therefore, without reservation into the flow of duration”)21 and transformed human nature through his resurrection so as to give it back to us, divinized, in the Eucharist. Divinization for Nyssa is then simultaneously a surpassing of finite human nature and a staying within it, because human nature comes to be identified with Christ such that Balthasar can say that there is a “replacement of ‘Nature’ by Christ” in Nyssa’s thought.22 And thus, instead of divinization as being “Alone with the Alone,” it is fundamentally communal: divinization as incorporation into Christ’s body: “Nature is transformed by the Incarnation into the Mystical Body of Christ, the ‘place’ of this individual assimilation can be none other than the Church.”23 And though Balthasar does note on occasion some spiritualizing tendencies in Nyssa, he never views the Church as something to be surpassed, but rather elevates it as the goal of all desire, or better, the “resumption on a higher plane” of the dynamism of a philosophy of desire.24 Nevertheless, union with Christ in the Church needs to be understood on a higher plane where Plotinus must be definitively left behind:

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“Gregory’s mystical theology ends up logically and necessarily in a trinitarian theology.”25 This is the ultimate grounding for the “transposition of becoming,” where God’s life is characterized as a “Super-Becoming,” for the Trinitarian dynamis shows us that divinity is neither static nor subject to change, but rather is “an infinite circle” because the “infinite life of God is a personal life.”26 And in a motif that will be greatly expanded when Balthasar encounters Ruusbroec, it is the Holy Spirit in particular who is the union of both Father and Son, and subsequently of the creature with God: “He is union as a Person.”27 All of these elements garnered from his interpretation of Nyssa find their way in one way or another into Balthasar’s own conception of participation in the divine life, especially the Trinitarian emphasis, the union with the Church being coterminous with divinization, and the reception of our own transfigured humanity in the Eucharist. Some of these only appear in his interpretation of Nyssa in a fairly muted way, especially when compared with his later perspective in the TheoDrama, particularly Nyssa’s characterization of the Trinitarian life as one of dynamis. In fact, Balthasar notes in this early work that Nyssa seems to prohibit what will later define Balthasar’s own position: “In God all diastasis is excluded, be it in the distinction between his Persons or in his nature as such.”28 This, then, will have to wait. Nevertheless, though Nyssa refuses to posit diastasis within God, his notion of the diastasis between God and the creature as a positive difference that is not to be overcome, even in union, is arguably the most important flower that Balthasar picks from Nyssa’s field. It will also be subject to greater refinement and specification, especially when placed in dialogue with John of the Cross, but Nyssa himself already provides the essential philosophical and theological justification for the later mysticism of the dark night. Because God is Life itself, whose internal dynamism is infinite, even when brought into the divine life, the creature knows no permanent satiety or conclusion of desire. Instead, the desire is only increased. Balthasar quotes and comments on Nyssa thus: ‘the divine source, if it penetrates someone, transforms by its agency the one who touches it and transmits to him its own power.’ The power is the power to be always more desirous, ‘for God has no end. . . . The desire of the one who participates can have no rest [στάσις], because such a one has soared up into the indeterminate and the infinite.’29 God as infinite necessitates that the journey into God will be infinite. This notion of epectasis (not a term that Balthasar himself employs), however, is not an everdeepening of knowledge of God, but is rather an abiding in the darkness of the presence (hence the title of his book) of God: “Thus true knowledge is produced outside of all light, in the night, but in a ‘divine night’ (Θεία νύξ), in a ‘dazzling darkness’ (λαμπρòς γνóφος).”30 Like God passing in front of Moses such that he could only glimpse God from behind, so the creature is united to God not by being God’s dialectical opposite, but is united precisely in following behind the infinite life of God. Diastasis, then, rather than being that which is overcome in order to achieve divinization, is in fact coterminous with it.

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Ruusbroec and Eckhart: God beyond God No matter the extent, which is considerable, that Balthasar considers Eckhart to be especially indebted to Neoplatonism, the Ruusbroec/Eckhart pair does not function as the Nyssa/Plotinus pair of the previous section. Though Balthasar decides in favour of Ruusbroec over Eckhart (not, however, in the sense of a total eclipse), the criteria for evaluating Eckhart are essentially different from those used to evaluate Plotinus. Plotinus’s situation outside of the catholica provides Balthasar with the opportunity to bring him into the camp, via Nyssa, Denys, and Maximus, in order to enrich the whole. His errors are then quickly forgiven and forgotten as the result of inculpable ignorance.31 Eckhart, on the other hand, stands within the Church, and stands there with a stature that is impossible to ignore and impossible to eject from the camp. Thus, extending a generosity towards Eckhart by a priori granting him admission into the symphony of Catholic truth, Balthasar is more concerned to both point out the potential dangers in Eckhart (especially as his thought is extended by those lacking his genuine desire for God) as well as to note resources within the Tradition that can serve to make Eckhart’s intuitions into a fruitful addition rather than a poisonous distraction.32 This correction is provided by Ruusbroec, who on two points that are relevant for the question of divinization serves to make Eckhartian mysticism serviceable: the Gott/Gottheit distinction and the Gottesgeburt. The first issue, the distinction between Gott and Gottheit, and all that this implies for Trinitarian theology as well as the question of the relationship between God and Being, brings Balthasar into conversation with Gregory Palamas, and is thus of utmost importance for the question of divinization. Connecting Eckhart with Palamas is not, it must be remembered, a Balthasarian eccentricity, but is justified precisely by one of the great revivers of Palamas: Vladimir Lossky.33 Before entering into the particulars, it should be noted that Balthasar’s interpretation of Eckhart as a representative of a quasi-Palamite impulse in the West will show quite clearly that, for Balthasar at least, the essence/energies distinction is by no means tied per definitionem to the concept of divinization.34 According to Balthasar, to consider the Palamite (or Eckhartian) solution as constitutive of the concept of divinization is to change divinization from a question with no predetermined answer (as Balthasar sees it) into a solution of a question that is no longer worth asking. Eckhart and Palamas, as solutions that introduce an additional distinction in God beyond that of the common Nature and the three Persons, are then subject to questioning with regards to whether their conceptions of divinization clarify or blur our understanding of the God who elevates his creatures in Christ, receiving no special privileges in this regard.35 To repeat what was said earlier, the benefit that Nyssa provided to Plotinus was in the former’s association of God with Being, or what Aquinas will later clarify and formulate as Deus est Esse: God is Being in its fullest, superabundant expression, where his existence and essence are united into a harmony of life that infinitely exceeds, but also provides a means for union with, the finitude of the creature, where existence and essence remain conceptually and actually distinct.

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Eckhart does not at first, like Plotinus, call for a God beyond Being, but rather does something that Balthasar considers far more pernicious. Eckhart, as is well known, inverses Deus est Esse into an Esse est Deus. While grammatically an insignificant difference, the association of being with God leads to the natural conclusion that creatures are nothing, and if they do in fact have being, it is only as they exist in God: “All creatures are pure nothing.”36 As Balthasar reads him, Eckhart’s notion of divinization comes with the precondition that creatures are un-done, reduced to nothing, so that by the renunciation of the finite, of the many, all returns to One.37 Finitude and multiplicity is then rendered suspect, rendered not as a positive other, but as the dialectical opposite of the infinity and unity of God. This leads eventually to this same reduction to unity occurring with God: behind Being, and even behind the Trinitarian life of God, is the absolute Oneness of God’s depths. Though Balthasar knows that Eckhart is also Proclean, he draws the clear connection with Plotinus’s distinction between nous as the realm of Being beyond which arises the en that stands in utter freedom from all multiplicity and even description.38 By thus securing a strong notion of divinization, where the being of the creature is the Being of God, and as we will see, where the Trinitarian processions occur within the soul, Eckhart almost necessarily posits a God that exceeds the creature’s ability to participate in him. This is the essential similarity that Balthasar finds between Eckhart and Palamas, granting how Balthasar seems to misconstrue the latter. According to Balthasar, both posit a maximal notion of divinization along with a dimension of God that remains sovereignly free from all creaturely participation.39 For Balthasar on the other hand, the Trinity is neither penultimate, nor should there be any notion of dividing God according to some participatable/non-participatable divide: it is false to say that the triune God holds back something for himself when he lets creatures ‘participate in the divine nature’ (2 Pet 1:4) without their becoming themselves the divine giver. We thus encounter one last time the axiom of the positivity of the other.40 Balthasar’s concern with Eckhart (and mutatis mutandis with Palamas) is not then that his notion of divinization is too strong, but rather that it is weak enough to assume both that God “holds something back” and that divinization can only occur through the annihilation of otherness. Eckhart’s drive for divinization then is to be accepted only with significant reservation, but it also seems that Eckhart himself sowed the seeds for the eventual solution in Ruusbroec: “[Eckhart’s] desire for immediate contact with God was not only the first step towards idealistic speculation . . . it was also a stimulus to critical reflection on the Christian’s relation with God, reflection that was undertaken theoretically with hitherto unprecedented purity.”41 Balthasar’s engagement with Ruusbroec is far more limited than with Eckhart, as the former does not spring up again and again throughout his corpus as does the latter. Yet, when Ruusbroec does appear, it is with an unreserved adulation that is rather uncommon for Balthasar. It seems rather than being a question of how much

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Ruusbroec influenced Balthasar’s thought, the better perspective is that Balthasar finds in Ruusbroec a kindred spirit who confirms much of Balthasar’s own intuitions and predilections.42 Ruusbroec’s priorities, especially concerning participation in God, are Balthasar’s priorities: “[Ruusbroec’s] Christological, ecclesial, and sacramental piety is everywhere the firmly-maintained background, and every deification of the creature’s nature [Wesensvergottung der Kreatur] is energetically rejected.”43 Though not viewing these issues as simply recycled anew in each age, Balthasar does see Ruusbroec correcting Eckhart in a manner analogous to Nyssa’s reshaping of Plotinus. Whereas Eckhart’s ultimate, unattainable ground of the reposeful divine essence was placed “behind” the movement of the Trinitarian Persons, for Ruusbroec “it is more the idea that the divine essence is the resting ground in the processions of the persons, the essential love which they hold together.”44 Balthasar’s preference for Ruusbroec over Eckhart on this point is that Ruusbroec conceives the Trinitarian dynamism as simultaneously a reposeful bliss in which unity and otherness are eternally resolved in the I-Thou of the Father and Son, united in the Holy Spirit, without needing to establish a divine ground of unity that Balthasar thinks betrays a mistrust of otherness, both in God and between God and the creature. The Holy Spirit in particular functions for Ruusbroec as the regressus of the Trinitarian flux and reflux, as the return to unity who is, as a Person, the unity of Father and Son, as well as the bond of love that unites creatures in the Church and with God.45 The Trinitarian difference between these two mystics becomes more acute when we turn to how Ruusbroec recasts Eckhart’s revival of the patristic notion of the Gottesgeburt, the birth of God in the soul. Tied closely to his identification of the creature’s being with God’s being, Eckhart writes: the Father gives his Son birth in the soul in the same way as he gives him birth in eternity, and not otherwise . . . he gives birth to me as himself and himself as me and to me as his being and nature.46 Looking forward, Balthasar notes how Eckhart’s conception of the simultaneity of the Son’s eternal procession from the Father and the birth of the Son in the soul will lead to Fichte’s grounding of the empirical subject in the absolute subject. Eckhart’s notion of divinization is realized here at its most radical: not only is the creature’s being the being of God, but the finite I becomes the absolute I. Ruusbroec follows Eckhart in seeking the creature’s ground only in God. But what Ruusbroec finds in that ground is not only an I that replicates itself in the soul, such that otherness is overcome in the unity of one and the same subject, but also the creatures own Thou. The reason why, for Ruusbroec, this Thou does not simply dissolve the finite ego into itself is that in God otherness is already eternally validated: “the eternal I is already in itself I and Thou in the unity of the Holy Spirit.”47 In Balthasar’s survey of metaphysics in GL V, Ruusbroec’s healing of Eckhart on the Gottesgeburt is lauded, but it is in the final volume of the Theo-Drama that Ruusbroec returns as the height of Trinitarian speculation.48 Immediately following a rehearsal of Nyssa’s paradox of God both at rest and in motion in his

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Trinitarian life, he turns to Ruusbroec for a completion of this validation of “the positivity of otherness,” both in God and for the creature.49 For instance, in the Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, Ruusbroec affirms both the “oneness and undifferentiation of the most high Nature of the Godhead” as well as the fact that “the Father begets distinction,” and thus the distinction among the Persons of the Godhead are the eternal basis for creaturely distinction.50 Balthasar notes then that for Ruusbroec the creature is brought into closest union with the triune God, but he does not attempt to exhaustively explain what this union entails beyond both an inclusion in the Trinitarian dynamism as well as a maintenance of creaturely distance (which is itself an imitation of the Trinitarian distinctions): We cannot imagine how our earthly existence is imbedded in God. This is because the mode of this embedding is given to us from above, on the basis of its Trinitarian original. This does not destroy our creaturely modes (which are copies and likenesses) but causes them to transcend themselves.51 The movement then from Nyssa to Ruusbroec is one that allows Balthasar to say that there is, in fact, a diastasis between the Divine Persons, which was disallowed by Nyssa, but which allows Ruusbroec to more adequately ground otherness as an eternal attribute.

John of the Cross and Ignatius of Loyola: darkness and indifference Our first jump from the world of Plotinus and Nyssa to that of the Rhinish-Flemish mystics was temporally much greater than this latest jump from those fourteenthcentury mystics to the sixteenth-century Spaniards, John of the Cross and Ignatius of Loyola. Nevertheless, for Balthasar the gap that separates these last two groups is the far larger one, spiritually and intellectually speaking. Whatever the causal nexus between these Spaniards and the sea changes that came about with the Reformation and the discovery of the New World, they represent for Balthasar a major shift in the question of divinization. According to Balthasar, partially for John and undoubtedly for Ignatius, divinization as it had been framed as a question of the ascent of the soul to God has been definitively cast aside as a matter of indifference. The reason the “metaphysical” notion of divinization has been cast aside is due to a definitive metaphysical decision. Of John he writes, “[his experience] gives religious actuality to the philosophical analogia entis on the highest plane of revelation,” and of Ignatius he says daringly that, because he weds his mysticism with the “Thomistic metaphysical doctrines of secondary causality and the analogia entis,” the analogy of being is “now at last taken seriously.”52 The Spaniards’ acceptance of the analogy that pertains between God and the creature as an axiom (and we could specify that this would be an analogy of proportion rather than attribution), which establishes the positive distance between the creature and the Creator that mysticism does not abrogate but rather proves true, leads their understanding of participation in God to move in a uniquely existential direction.

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In Balthasar’s generous notion of tradition, sometimes one member of the symphony can ex post facto redeem some previous discordance (such as we saw Ruusbroec perform for Eckhart), and at other times what seems initially erroneous is not so much redeemed as it is seen in light of the whole, which gives this particular note purpose and context. This is the case with Balthasar’s understanding of John of the Cross.53 Due both to Balthasar’s own clear admiration for John and especially for his title as a Doctor of the Church, Balthasar is quick to demonstrate that what may seem like an error on John’s part (“Where, in the whole of John’s work, is the neighbor?”) is not an omission but rather so obvious that it receives no particular attention (“it is not forgotten but presupposed and so does not need to be specially mentioned”).54 To then turn to the one issue that will occupy us here, participation in God through darkness and negation, Balthasar is insistent that John’s use of negation is a genuine novum in the spiritual tradition stemming from Eckhart, and even of the entire medieval notion of an ascent to God.55 With John, the notion of an ascent to God is discarded as outdated and insufficiently biblical. It is rather descent that is the only way to God: “everything is gained when everything is abandoned, the ship lands when it is wrecked, you leap on to firm ground when all the rungs of your ladder break.”56 This is because John is led by one sole desire: “John of the Cross seeks, not heaven, not blessedness, but God alone.”57 The soul’s divinization is of no importance, only loving union with the will of God, and even that only for the adorableness of the divine will, heedless of any benefit or cost that may come to the soul. Quoting the Spiritual Canticle, Balthasar notes that the soul’s love “is a love as much robbed as ravished, whose only longing is to do the will of the beloved, whether that means Hell or Heaven – ‘she has no more worldly hopes, no more spiritual longings.’”58 In Balthasar’s reading, then, la noche oscura of John of the Cross is a noche that is at once Trinitarian and Christological. La oscuridad is nothing more than that necessary labeling of all creaturely things as a nada in comparison with God. But John’s nada is not Eckhart’s Nichts, for while the latter’s is a metaphysical claim about the ontological vacuity of the creature, the former’s is a claim that no object meets the soul’s desire for God. There is in John’s nada a metaphysical claim, but it is one that neither seeks opposition or immersion into God, but one that allows the analogical relation of creaturely being to the Font of Being to stand as a symbol of Trinitarian difference: “Within the formless itself we can see once more something like a form emerging out of the Trinitarian distance of the persons.”59 Yet, the nada and the oscuridad find their ultimate justification only in the cross, the cross which is carried in John’s very name, and the subject of one of John’s sketches, to which Balthasar gives enormous weight.60 For Balthasar, John’s insistence on the soul’s mortifications and self-renunciation as a spiritual path is quite simply an imitation of the obedience of the crucified Son of God: “The authentic image of God in the world is the image of crucified love – nothing else.”61 It is this Christological specification that makes John’s spiritual teaching “normative for the whole Church,” for the genius of John is in tying the creature’s “divinization” to the obedience of Christ who “took on the form of a slave” and plunged into the depths of creaturely darkness out of love. To specify, this kenosis is not simply that

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which happens to be the agent to accomplish the creature’s divinization, but is rather the one path that everyone must walk to “participate in the divine nature.” Yet, the most decisive formulation that turns the classical presentation of ascent to God on its head, according to Balthasar (the one-time Jesuit), comes with Ignatius of Loyola.62 In his book on Thérèse of Lisieux, Balthasar writes a quick genealogy of the history of mysticism and the decisive break that comes with Ignatius. The fact that he writes of Ignatius in his book on Thérèse is further evidence that Balthasar saw a deep kinship between Jesuit and Carmelite spirituality, and thus between John of the Cross and Ignatius, especially concerning the emphasis on the will of God. Because it touches on much of our study, this is worth quoting at length: Patristic and even medieval spirituality (influenced by classical conceptions) takes eternal happiness, the contemplation of God, as man’s goal; consequently, the supernatural end of human nature can serve, under the elevating influence of grace, as man’s sure compass throughout his spiritual journey. . . . The emphasis shifts as soon as Ignatius, in his ‘Principle and Foundation’, fixes on the ‘praise, reverence and service of God’ as man’s end and subordinates everything else, the contemplation of God and one’s own happiness, to this end. . . . Therefore Ignatius builds his whole spirituality upon the concept of choice; that is, upon God’s choice, accomplished in eternal freedom, which is offered to man to choose for himself. This new ‘identity’ and ‘fusion’ between the Creator’s choice and that of his creature begins ever more surely to replace the classical ideal of identifying their essences, the ideal of ‘deification.’63 We will see in the conclusion how Balthasar does still have a place for “deification,” even in its classical formulation, but as seen in his interpretation of Ignatius, it is a totally secondary concern. What matters for Ignatius is not only finding God’s will, which the Exercises are designed to help the exercent discover, but in actively cooperating in the accomplishment of that will. Thus, though Igantius’s indiferencia is certainly a translation of the Patristic apatheia and the Eckhartian Gelassenheit, this utter readiness to accomplish the will of God does not necessitate an annihilation of creaturely being or even the creaturely will. Instead, indiferencia goes beyond the passivity of ceding the creaturely sphere to God and instead “can be pursued as the universal operation of God in the active co-operation of the creature – in abandonment, surrender, service.”64 With Ignatius, Balthasar sees the creaturely “ascent” to God as nothing other than the “descent” of mission, of being sent by God to accomplish some definite task in the world. What matters to the soul is not what constitutes the final goal of its own elevated nature, but simply obedience to God’s will, everything else being not so much annulled as simply rendered insignificant. Ignatius’s indiferencia, though it reverses the traditional ascending models, is still framed on the same spatial metaphor. On three occasions in the Exercises, Ignatius uses the term de arriba, “from above.”65 The movement is first a downwards movement, just as for Plotinus it is a movement from the “above” of the

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One downward into the nous, with an eventual return upwards to the original source. The difference with Ignatius, according to Balthasar, is that while the Neoplatonist has purchased a round-trip ticket, the Christian’s is only one way: downwards, with no secondary moment of ascent. The grace that the Christian receives is a kenotic one, thus the perfect likeness to the divinity that the creature can attain is “man’s configuration to the image of his crucified Son.” To employ the light metaphors that are so dear to Plotinus, for Ignatius the light is not more concentrated above, only to be dispersed into darkness as one goes further from the centre, but rather the opposite: “it is precisely when they have reached the very ‘bottom’ that they are in the center of the light.”66 The center of the light is located in the bottom of the pit not in the sense of a Lutheran sub contrario, but rather because the kenotic Christ’s descent into hell, and subsequently the Christian’s descent into mission, is always already enfolded in the positive distance between the Trinitarian persons. It is of course more Balthasar than Ignatius who connects mission and the Trinitarian processions, to which we will return in the conclusion, but the final thing to mention about Ignatius is how “negative theology,” so central to the entire mystical tradition, is retooled. According to Balthasar, the true negation for Christianity can be found nowhere more pronounced than in the silence of the Word on the cross, the most comprehensible utterance of God in the silence and darkness of Golgotha. For the creature, the movement to God through negations means then neither an epistemic purification nor a dissolution of finite being, but “the transformation of the whole creature into an ecce ancilla for the all-filling mystery of the ungraspable love of the self-emptying God.”67 As Balthasar says here explicitly, this Marian receptivity is the key to interpreting both John of the Cross’s nada as well as Ignatius’s sume et suscipe, in which the true Gottesgeburt occurs in the loving disponability of the creature who desires nothing more than to be put into service: fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.

Conclusion: theodramatic divinization This study is one that has intended to trace Balthasar’s interpretation of the history of the concept of divinization through some of its major representatives, but Balthasar’s own preferences and worries regarding this tradition were held in the foreground at each stage. Yet, in as much as his thought is in constant dialogue with previous historical articulations, Balthasar’s own understanding of participation in the divine nature could not be simply deduced from an examination of his major sources. To conclude, then, we will sketch an outline of Balthasar’s understanding of divinization by reading the five volumes of the Theo-Drama as a sustained reflection on this fundamental problematic of what it means to participate in God. There are multiple elements that cannot be mentioned at all in this brief outline, and what was affirmed previously will largely be assumed rather than repeated, but the essential features can be summarized by the following priorities. Divinization for Balthasar is at once Christic, Marian, and Pneumatic, all placed within the primary framework of the relationship between Infinite and finite freedoms.

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The shift from an ontological concept of divinization to one focused primarily on a union of wills, represented by Ignatius, is so axiomatic for Balthasar that his entire Theo-Drama could be considered an analysis of the interplay between the Infinite freedom of God and the finite will of humanity (which again points back to the importance of Maximus’s decision in favour of dyothelitism). This is already established in the unwieldy TD I, the Prolegomena, where he takes from the experience of dramatic tension the polarity between the actor’s “I” and her role in the play. The tension of the human person that Balthasar will then trace in his following four theological volumes is exactly this difficulty of how an individual’s finite freedom can actualize itself in a role (i.e. a mission) that is significant for the whole drama of salvation without either dissolving finite freedom into the good of the whole or considering the whole as actualized only in the finite ego.68 Divinization for Balthasar is then going to be that which enables finite freedom to be established without heteronomy, but a freedom that can only be perfected as it is embedded in God. TD II and III then specify the dramatis personae, first more generally in TD II as a drama between God in his infinite freedom and man with all his tragic finitude. It is already established here that creaturely freedom is not an obvious phenomenon, discernable by empirical observation, but something that must be discovered, or better, given from above. The individual must become a person, must become an actor in the dramatic interchange with God: “The ‘person’ only shines forth in the individual where the absolute Unique God bestows an equally unique name on him.”69 TD II is then specified in TD III, and the subtitles of these two works should be read as moving from the general to the specific: first Der Mensch in Gott, which established the formal issue of freedom, and only then Die Personen in Christus, which provides the answer. TD III then alerts us to the fact of the unwavering (though as we will see, qualified) Christic shape to Balthasar’s understanding of divinization. For Balthasar it is only in Christo that one becomes like God, because he reads the patristic concept of the admirabile commercium to be not simply coincidentally or ornamentally added to their teaching on divinization, but rather to be the very description of this process. Christ’s incarnation and all of the events of salvation were undertaken pro nobis in the (Irenaean) sense that he takes human nature upon himself (in its historical manifestation and process from birth to death) in order to transform it and return it to us. This is, as it was for Nyssa and several other Greek Fathers, particularly Cyril of Alexandria, accomplished consummately in the Eucharist: “the One who gives his body and blood does so in a ‘commercium’: he gives back to us what he has taken from us and transformed into himself.”70 Christ’s mission is then considered the mould in which all Christian missions are to be formed, and thus that to which all human freedoms are to be configured. Balthasar insists again that this does not imply heteronomy or uniformity. The Christic reshaping of humanity does “not interfere with their freedom (something that is denied from Kant up to Hegel): it actually sets it free to journey toward God.”71 Balthasar’s conception of divinization is Christic to such an extent that he intends by this the totus Christus, the head and the members. Divinization is thus

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a qualified sense of conformity to Christ. This qualification comes in the sense of specifying (not replacing) the Christic shape of divinization as Marian. The analogia entis thus prevents not only the creature’s fusion with the divine nature, but also prevents Christ’s pro nobis from becoming a replacement for creaturely freedom.72 Participation in Christ, according to Balthasar, is virtually equivalent to cooperation, synergy, with him. Ignatian indiferencia, interpreted according to the model of Mary’s fiat, then becomes the properly creaturely mode of cooperation with Christ, a cooperation that can be truly said to “add” something to his work, such that Christomonism is frequently critiqued by Balthasar, particularly in TD III.73 However, the Marian and creaturely receptivity of grace is not to be interpreted as a denial that divinization does not also include a real participation in the life of God. As becomes most pronounced in TD IV and V, the distance separating the creature from God is already a positive distance that is best understood as an extension of the diastasis between Father and Son. Balthasar, however, takes divinization further than an imitatio trinitatis, as if this mirroring itself were sufficient to consider the creature embedded in God. The ultimate solution can only come then by qualifying divinization as pneumatic, because the diastasis between Father and Son is a positive distance (understood analogically if not metaphorically) because it occurs in the unity of the Holy Spirit, the vinculum amoris between Father and Son. The creature is thus born of God, affirming Eckhart’s spiritual impulse, but this birth occurs in the Holy Spirit, who for Balthasar provides a positive “space” within the triune life for the creature. This pneumatic space between Father and Son is a “fire of love in which the Father and Son encounter each other.”74 Balthasar understands the creature to be so perfectly taken into this love, which is the Holy Spirit, that the creature comes to love the Beloved with the same abandon that characterizes the triune life. The creature’s divinization is then nothing other than this perfect indifference that enables it to find its true freedom in perfect abandonment and disponibility to the will of God. And ultimately, what God wills for the creature is that its distance from Divinity be retained as a positive addition, as a gift, to the epecstatic superabundance of the triune Life: What does God gain from the world? An additional gift, given to the Son by the Father, but equally a gift made by the Son to the Father, and by the Spirit to both . . . the world acquires an inward share in the divine exchange of life; as a result the world is able to take the divine things it has received from God, together with the gift of being created, and return them to God as a divine gift.75 The Theo-Drama draws the curtain with these final words, indicating that the entire project was concerned to find a place for the creature in God, to describe that which is ultimately a mystery and beyond comprehension.76 Yet, based on what he discerns from the history of salvation, as well as from the best of theological reflection on that mystery,77 Balthasar insists that the creature’s path and ultimate goal of union with God is nothing other than an utter indifference to one’s own being, to one’s own will, in order to hand it over as a gift: sume et suscipe.

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Notes 1 His two essays on Origen, Balthasar (1936 and 1937), were later incorporated into his book Balthasar (1957); Balthasar (1941), English translation of the second edition in Balthasar (1988); Balthasar (1942b); which is an expansion of Balthasar (1939d). English translation in Balthasar (1995). 2 The most important of which include: Balthasar (1939a, 1939b, and 1939c), translated in English by Edward Oakes (Balthasar 1997). His later essays on Irenaeus, Augustine, and Denys in GL II (orig. 1962) should also be noted. 3 Balthasar (1938), English translation of the second edition in Balthasar (1984); Balthasar (1943), English translation of a later edition in Balthasar (1990); Balthasar (1942a). We should also add his translation of Gregory of Nyssa’s commentary on the Song of Songs, to which he provided an important foreword: Balthasar (1939e). 4 In his 1939 essay (trans. Balthasar 1997: 353), Balthasar makes it clear that divinization is not a concept of uniquely Patristic origin, but rather a fundamental aspiration of all times and places: “Now the deepest longing of man is to ascend to God, to become like God, indeed to become equal to God.” We can also add that the majority of Balthasar’s studies were written before the major works that claimed divinization as the guiding principle for either the Greek Fathers or the Christian East more generally, such as Lossky (1944) and Sherrard (1959), and he does not seem to be aware of Myrrha LotBorodine’s essays when he was writing most of his patristic studies. 5 Louth (2007: 43). 6 Russell (2004: 8). For example: “the Asian longing for divinization is brought to rest” by the union of God and creation in Christ; “[Maximus] could bring into Chalcedonian Christology the whole Asian mystique of divinization on the higher level of the biblical mystery, of the personal synthesis of an incarnate God, rather than on the lower level of natural dissolution and fusion;” and “The East’s instinct for divinization is held in check here by the Chalcedonian term ‘unconfused’ (ἀσυγχύτως)” (Balthasar 1988: 46, 48, 275). 7 The major difference between Plotinus and Hegel, for Balthasar, is that even though the former is “chronologically post-Christian, he is still untouched by the Christian ethos.” Balthasar also acknowledges that in Plotinus “Hegel recognizes his one great predecessor.” GL IV: 280 and 281. 8 GL IV: 291. 9 For example, after a long quote from Nyssa, Balthasar writes: “But this, it will be said, is from Plotinus! What does it matter, we shall answer, provided that it is true and it clarifies our problem! And this passage seems happily to give us the key to it.” Balthasar (1995: 77). 10 Balthasar notes Plotinus’ harmony with Cusa in GL IV: 290, even calling attention to Enneads VI.9.8 which uses a similar “not-other” formula. With regards to Erich Przywara, his influence on both Balthasar’s interpretation of the Fathers in particular and his understanding of metaphysics in general is constitutive. In fact, the title for the first section in his treatment of Plotinus in GL IV is “Gott in und über allem” (Balthasar 1965: 252). See Löser (1976: esp. 13–42) on the influence of Przywara’s interpretation of the analogia entis on Balthasar’s patristic studies. This is especially the case for Presence and Thought and Cosmic Liturgy. I draw particular attention to how the analogia entis functions in the latter work in Ciraulo (2016). Almost everything in my description of Przywara’s understanding of divinization is equally true for Balthasar, especially the prohibition of conceiving divinization as an abrogation of the maior dissimilitudo and on the strong emphasis on Christification and kenosis. It should be noted, however, that Plotinus is not a major figure for Przywara. 11 GL IV: 291. 12 GL IV: 284. 13 GL IV: 313. Here he cites Enneads V.8.11, where Plotinus writes: “at once he forms a multiple unity with the God silently present; in the degree of his power and will, the

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two become one; should he turn back to the former duality, still he is pure and remains very near to the God; he has but to look again and the same presence is there,” Plotinus (1991: 422) Balthasar (1995: 22–23). Plotinus provides a nice linguistic illustration for how Being is subsequent to the One: “Pressing (with the rough breathing) on the word for Being (ὅν) we have the word for One (ἓν), an indication that in our very form of speech we tell, as far as may be, that Being (the weaker) is that which proceeds from (the stronger), The One” (Enneads V.5.5, Plotinus 1991: 397). Nyssa “appeals to the doctrine [of deification] very rarely . . . ‘deification’ is not his favoured approach” (Russell 2004: 226); “With Gregory of Nyssa we confront a writer who is hesitant in his use of the terminology of deification, yet who appears to deepen the concept of deification considerably” (Keating 2016: 48). Balthasar (1995: 133). Ibid.: 21 and 23. Ibid.: 153, italics added. Balthasar 1967: 23. Here he is comparing Plotinus and Augustine on the question of time, which is also one of the more important places where Balthasar interprets Plotinus. Or, to speak more precisely, Plotinus has a form of continuity in another way, precisely in his claim that the soul is already divine (and thus nothing in fact needs to be overcome, only the realization of union). There is thus radical separation and union in Plotinus, and though there is a gradiated hierarchy, it is not the same as Nyssa’s affirmation and elevation of becoming into a Super-Becoming in God. Balthasar (1995: 136). Ibid.: 143. And Christ himself is “at once ‘nature’ and ‘more than nature,’” 137. Ibid.: 148. Ibid.: 148–149. Ibid.: 164. Ibid.: 167 and 163. Ibid.: 163. Ibid.: 28. Italics added. Ibid.: 44. Quoting first In Ps. 5; I, 452 BC and then Vit. Moys. I, 301 AB. Ibid.: 103. Quoting first In Cant. 11; I, 1001 B and then Vit. Moys. I, 377 A. This generosity towards Plotinus can be illustrated by comparing it with Balthasar’s treatment of Hegel, who is judged as far less benign and far less potentially enriching than Plotinus. And even though Balthasar notes the similarity of intellectual temperaments between the two, he is insistent that the two need to be carefully distinguished, with the implication being that their fusion would be a great disservice to Plotinus. Balthasar’s symphonic notion of tradition, such that Eckhart can be (cautiously) included in it is explored in depth in O’Regan (1996). Lossky (1998). Originally published in 1960. Paul L. Gavrilyuk, for example, distinguishes between a broad and a developed understanding of divinization: “The broadest definition of deification includes such ideas as participation in God, likeness to God, and union with Christ, along with the exchange formula. A considerably more developed understanding of deification includes synergistic anthropology, sacramental realism, and essence/energies distinction” (Gavrilyuk 2009: 655). Balthasar only treats Palamas in a few places, all later in his career. Palamas makes no appearance in Cosmic Liturgy, and Balthasar gives no special weight to the essence/ energies distinction in Maximus, and certainly does not consider it as a precursor to the later Palamite formulations. Sermon 4, as cited in GL V, 42. For a nice summary of Eckhart’s understanding of Esse est Deus, and the related questions of analogy and ens creatum, see Tobin (1986: 31–64).

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37 See “Word and Silence,” ET I: esp. 143. Also TL II: 111: “For Eckhart, the creature as a whole does not have its truth in itself but in God’s idea of it, so that, as a whole, it has to un-be or un-do itself as image in order, by losing itself, to find itself in God.” 38 See GL V: 43–44. 39 See TL II: 148–149 and TL III: 128–130. Though it does not assuage Balthasar’s worry to any significant extent, it seems that Balthasar incorrectly identifies the Essence of Palamas as extra-Trinitarian, with the energies being the “location” of Trinitarian specification. If anything, Palamas could be read as saying the opposite: the energies are common to the entire Godhead and are thus not differentiated according to Hypostasis (though they are certainly tri-hypostatic, in accordance with the principle opera trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt). 40 TL II: 148–149. 41 GL V: 48. 42 Though these similarities are most obvious concerning questions of Trinitarian theology, Rik Van Nieuwenhove draws attention that what is a highly interesting similarity with regards to the question of the sacrifice of the Mass. See Van Nieuwenhove (2003: 155). More accurately, as will be seen when we see Balthasar’s use of Ruusbroec in TD V, Ruusbroec functions somewhat as a medieval precursor, and thus partial justification, for some of the more daring proposals that Balthasar adopts from Adrienne von Speyr. This does not mean that Balthasar does not have some reservations with regard to Ruusbroec (see TD V, 469), for he even says that it is “Tauler rather than Ruysbroeck who is the central figure, the one who points the way forward,” GL V: 78. 43 My translation from the German of Herrlichkeit 3.1, 424; in English GL V: 67–68. 44 GL V: 76. 45 See Van Nieuwenhove (2003: 82–99). 46 Sermon 6, from Eckhart (1981: 187). 47 GL V: 70. 48 “It was surely Ruysbroeck who gave the most impressive portrayal of the encounter with one’s own uncreated Idea;” “Again it was Ruysbroeck, in contrast to the German mystics (who though in terms of the sole positivity of a Unity conceived along Neoplatonic lines), who best realized this” TD V: 390 and 399. 49 TD V: 399. 50 Ruusbroec (1916: 99). 51 TD V: 400. It is telling that Balthasar follows this by quoting the Thomistic axiom: gratia non destruit, elevat, perficit naturam. He repeats later in TD V: 425 that there are indeed limits to our ability to conceive participation in God: “This participation in the internal divine life is an absolute mystery.” 52 GL III: 170 and GL V: 106. 53 Balthasar’s most extensive treatment of John is in GL III: 105–171, and it should also be noted that Balthasar’s publishing house, Johannes Verlag, published all of John’s work in German, and Balthasar himself translated the second volume (La Noche Oscura), also providing an introduction: Balthasar (1978). 54 GL III: 167. This is not to say that Balthasar is ready to forgive all sins, for John is critiqued on several occasions, but these are critiques less of particular errors and more for an excess of expression. Of the various ways that John can be misunderstood, Balthasar notes a superficial similarity with Hegel (109), Nominalism, Lutheranism, and even Kantianism (128), Evagrius Ponticus or even the “great Asian mystics” (131), as well as the iconoclasm of the Reformation (154). 55 Balthasar happily admits that John is in fact a part of this tradition. Yet, like Ruusbroec, John functions to correct Eckhart: “In John of the Cross the best of Eckhart’s mysticism finds its home and in some respects is redeemed and finds a calmer expression” GL II: 21. 56 GL III: 116. 57 TD V: 429.

182 58 59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66

67 68 69 70 71 72

73 74 75 76

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GL III: 139–140. Quoting the Spiritual Canticle 29, 5. GL III: 143. GL III: 161–165. GL III: 164. Though Balthasar left the Jesuits in 1950 in order to found a secular institute with Adrienne von Speyr, the Johannesgemeinschaft, his devotion for Ignatius did not suffer in the least from his decision. See Löser (1991); Servais (1996); McInroy (2014: 84–91). Balthasar (1992: 302–303, italics added). Balthasar also sees Thérèse as giving greater clarity to John’s notion of a dark night, for with her it is not one moment along the way, but rather “she goes on striding endlessly in the darkness, below the earth, without bearings” (Balthasar 1992: 277). GL V: 105. Nos. 184, 237, and 338. “De Arriba,” in: ET V: 37. Also note TL II: 283: “The primary reality is, not man’s movement from below up to the absolute, in order, if possible, to disappear in it, but rather, as Ignatius of Loyola emphatically repeats, the movement de arriba, coming down from above, in which God empties himself out in order to fill man up with his loving self-expropriation.” TL II: 122. This quote comes at the end of an important section on negative theology (87–122), which mentions all the major figures in this study. For example, TD I: 256: “the content [of the play] can only be man himself, caught between his ‘I’ and his role, between what he is and what he represents . . . indeed, his ‘I’ must responsibly realize itself in this representational role.” TD II: 402. TD III: 243. TD III: 245. This is not heteronomous first because Christ’s identity and mission are considered in as expansive of terms as possible: “[Christ’s] mission is multi-dimensional: it has room enough for everyone” TD IV: 234. He says of Maximus the Confessor in TD IV: 383: “the analogia entis (the irreducible ‘otherness’ of creature nature) excludes any kind of fusion and confusion in this everintensifying reciprocal interpenetration: each increase in ‘divinization’ on the part of the creature also implies an increase of its own freedom.” A good example of how Balthasar views the Church’s cooperation to be an addition to the work of Christ, though an addition always in the mode of receptivity, is his essay “The Mass, A Sacrifice of the Church?” in: ET III: 185–251. TL III: 448. TD V: 521. It is to be remembered that Balthasar’s penchant for metaphorical language, sometimes to the point of excess, is neither his probing too deeply into what cannot possibly be known through revelation nor a turn to poetry by abandoning clear and simple expression. Rather, it is his attempt to render intelligible (and ultimately in order to aid contemplation) the givens of revelation with the very language of revelation. E.g., see TD V: 492–497. Indifference as the key to divinization is not something that Balthasar discerns only in Ignatius, but even claims it explicitly as the key to Maximus and Ruusbroec. Balthasar (1988: 281): “The openness of the supreme hypostatic will of Christ determines the tremendous equilibrium between God and the world, like the tongue on the balance of a scale. So we are not surprised to see the principle of this openness or ‘indifference’, become – as ἀπάθεια, as inner freedom, the dominant factor in the whole spiritual fulfillment of man” GL V: 71, 76–77. For Ruusbroec all of the virtues “together revolve round loving indifference” and “this rhythm of being swings round this narrow central point of indifference. Indifference, for the Christian, means Catholic love, which lets itself be robbed of form in the movement from the world to God and transformed in the

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movement from God to the world. . . . Indifference, understood as Catholic love, holds everything together.” Balthasar even claims that Ruusbroec anticipates the Exercises, GL V: 72.

Bibliography Sources and translations Balthasar 1936 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Le Mystère d’Origène,” Recherches de science religieuse 26 (1936), pp. 514–562. Balthasar 1937 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Le Mystère d’Origène,” Recherches de science religieuse 27 (1937), pp. 38–64. Balthasar 1938 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Origenes: Geist und Feuer: Ein Aufbau aus seinen Schriften, Salzburg: Otto Müller Verlag, 1938. Balthasar 1939a = Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Die Hiera des Evagrius,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 63 (1939), pp. 86–106, 181–206. Balthasar 1939b = Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Metaphysik und Mystik des Evagrius Ponticus,” Zeitschrift für Aszese und Mystik 14 (1939), pp. 31–47. Balthasar 1939c = Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Patristik, Scholastik und Wir,” Theologie der Zeit 3 (1939), pp. 65–104. Balthasar 1939d = Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Présence et Pensée, La philosophie religieuse de Grégoire de Nysse,” Recherches de Science Religieuse 29 (1939), pp. 513–549. Balthasar 1939e = Gregory of Nyssa, Der versiegelte Quell: Auslegung des Hohen Liedes, trans. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Salzburg: Otto Muller, 1939. Balthasar 1941 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Kosmische Liturgie: Höhe und Krise des griechischen Weltbilds bei Maximus Confessor, Freiburg, 1941. Balthasar 1942a = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Aurelius Augustinus: Das Antlitz der Kirche, Einsiedeln, 1942. Balthasar 1942b = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Présence et pensée: Essai sur la philosophie religieuse de Grégoire de Nysse, Paris: Beauchesne, 1942. Balthasar 1943 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Irenäus: Geduld des Reifens: Die christliche Antwort auf den Mythus des 2. Jahrhunderts, Basel, 1943. Balthasar 1957 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Parole et mystère chez Origène, Paris: Cerf, 1957. Balthasar 1965 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Herrlichkeit: Eine Theologische Ästhetik, vol. III.1, Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1965. Balthasar 1967 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, A Theological Anthropology, New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967. Balthasar 1978 = Hans Urs von Balthasar (trans.), Johannes vom Kreuz, Werke Bd. 2: Die dunkle Nacht, Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1978. Balthasar 1984 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Origen: Spirit and Fire, trans. Robert J. Daly, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1984. Balthasar 1988 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor, trans. Brian E. Daley, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988. Balthasar 1990 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Scandal of the Incarnation: Irenaeus Against the Heresies, trans. John Saward, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990. Balthasar 1992 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Two Sisters in the Spirit: Thérèse of Lisieux & Elizabeth of the Trinity, trans. Donald Nichols et al., San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992.

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Balthasar 1995 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Presence and Thought: Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa, trans. Marc Sebanc, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995. Balthasar 1997 = Hans Urs von Balthasar, “The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves,” trans. Edward Oakes, Communio 24 (1997), pp. 347–396. Eckhart 1981 = Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, trans. and intro. Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn, New York: Paulist Press, 1981. ET I-V = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Explorations in Theology, 5 vols., San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989–2014. GL I-VII = Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, 7 vols., Edinburgh: T&T Clark and San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982-1989. Plotinus 1991 = Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. Stephen MacKenna, New York: Penguin, 1991. TD I-V = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, 5 vols., San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988–1998. TL I-III = Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Logic: Theological Logical Theory, 3 vols., San Francisco: Ignatius, 2000–2005. Ruusbroec 1916 = John of Ruusbroec, The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, The Sparkling Stone, The Book of Supreme Truth, trans. C.A. Wynschenk, ed., intro. and notes Evelyn Underhill, London: J.M. Dent, 1916.

Studies Ciraulo 2016 = Jonathan Martin Ciraulo, “Divinization as Christification in Erich Przywara and John Zizioulas,” Modern Theology 32/4 (2016), pp. 479–503. Gavrilyuk 2009 = Paul L. Gavrilyuk, “The Retrieval of Deification: How a Once-Despised Archaism Became an Ecumenical Desideratum,” Modern Theology 25/4 (2009), pp. 647–659. Keating 2016 = Daniel A. Keating, “Deification in the Greek Fathers,” in: David Meconi and Carl E. Olson (eds.), Called to Be the Children of God, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2016. Löser 1976 = Werner Löser, Im Geiste des Origenes: Hans Urs von Balthasar als Interpret der Theologie der Kirchenväter, Frankfurt: Josef Knecht, 1976. Löser 1991 = Werner Löser, “The Ignatian Exercises in the Work of Hans Urs von Balthasar,” in: David L. Schindler (ed.), Hans Urs von Balthasar: His Life and Work, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991, pp. 103–120. Lossky 1944 = Vladimir Lossky, Essai sur la théologie mystique de l’Église d’Orient, s.l.: Aubier Montaigne, 1944. Lossky 1960 = Vladimir Lossky, Théologie négative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart, Paris: Vrin, 1960. Louth 2007 = Andrew Louth, “The Place of Theosis in Orthodox Theology,” in: Michael Christensen and Jeffrey Wittung (eds.), Partakers of Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions, Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007, pp. 32–46. McInroy 2014 = Mark McInroy, Balthasar on the Spiritual Senses: Perceiving Splendour, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. O’Regan 1996 = Cyril O’Regan, “Balthasar and Eckhart: Theological Principles and Catholicity,” The Thomist 60/2 (1996), pp. 203–239.

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Russell 2004 = Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Servais 1996 = Jacques Servais, Théologie des Exercices spirituels: H.U. von Balthasar interprète saint Ignace, Paris: Culture et vérité, 1996. Sherrard 1959 = Philip Sherrard, The Greek East and the Latin West: A Study in Christian Tradition, London: Oxford University, 1959. Tobin 1986 = Frank Tobin, Meister Eckhart: Thought and Language, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. Van Nieuwenhove 2003 = Rik Van Nieuwenhove, Jan van Ruusbroec: Mystical Theologian of the Trinity, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003.

Index of names

Abraham (patriarch) 26, 75, 136 Ælfgifu (queen) 84 Alcuin 89 Aletti, Jean-Noel 11 Alexander of Hales 143, 147 Amassian, Margaret G. 145 Ambrose of Milan 62, 67, 89, 136 Ampe, Albert 106, 107 Anatolios, Khaled 29, 30 Anderson, R.C. 86 Angelici, Ruben 3 Anscombe, G.E.M. 132 Anselm 89 Antony of Egypt 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29 Apuleius 51, 52, 57 Aquinas, Thomas see Thomas Aquinas Arblaster, John 3, 146, 148 Arsenius (abba) 16, 17, 18, 26 Athanasius 16, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30 Augustine 3, 46–57, 62, 66, 67, 69, 75, 80, 85, 89, 96, 136, 152–163, 165, 168, 179, 180 Ayres, Lewis 29 Balas, David L. 11 Balthasar, Hans Urs von 3, 104, 109, 111, 112, 113, 165–183 Barsanuphius 25, 26 Bathrellos, Demetrios 30 Bede 73, 74, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 85, 86, 136 Beeck, Frans Jozef van 113 Behr, John 29 Bernard of Clairvaux 89, 136, 138, 140, 141, 142, 144, 146, 147 Bernini, Gian Lorenzo 160 Billings, Todd J. 145 Bitton-Ashkelony, Brouria 28, 29

Blowers, Paul M. 22, 29, 30 Boenig, Robert 72, 79, 85, 86 Bolton, W.F. 72, 85 Bonaventure 136, 142, 143, 144, 147, 148 Bonner, G. 46, 56, 57 Brakke, David 23, 25, 29, 30 Breen, Katharine 147 Brown, Peter 18, 19, 27, 28 Bruns, Christoph 13 Burlin, R.D. 72, 85 Burrus, Virginia 23, 29 Burton-Christie, Douglas 27, 28 Byrhtferth 85 Cadiou, René 10 Caldecott, Stratford 104, 105, 112 Caner, D. 28 Canévet, Mariette 44 Carpenter, H.J. 10 Casiday, Augustine 29 Cassian 89, 141, 147 Castelli, E. 28 Chadwick, Henry 11 Charles the Bald 60, 61 Chitty, Derwas J. 28 Cicero 47, 49, 56 Ciraulo, Jonathan Martin 179 Clark, Elizabeth A. 27 Clark, John P.H. 117, 129, 130, 145 Cnut (king) 84 Coakley, Sarah 30, 129 Cohen, G.A. 122, 129, 132 Collins, Paul M. 3 Conus, Humbert-Thomas 147 Cooper, Adam G. 29, 30 Corrigan, Kevin 29 Cortesi, Alessandro 43 Crislip, Andrew T. 18, 19, 28, 29, 30 Crouzel, Henri 12, 13

Index of names Cullen, Christopher 147 Cunningham, Francis L.B. 147 Cuthbert (saint) 136, 144 Cyril of Alexandria 137, 138, 145, 146, 177 Daley, Brian 44 Daniel (prophet) 73 Davies, Oliver 118, 120, 121, 128, 130, 131, 133 Davis, Brian 146 Davis, Carmel Bendon 129 Davis, Stephen J. 28, 29 Delbrêl, Madeleine 43, 44 Delio, Ilia 142, 147 Derrida, Jacques 129 Dietrich, Paul A. 68, 69 Dillard, Annie 3, 35–44 Dillard, R.H.W. 39 Drewery, Ben 2, 3 Driscoll, Jeremy 29 Duclow, Donald F. 60, 68, 69 Dworkin, Ronald 122, 132 Dysinger, Luke 29 Eckhart 94, 103, 104, 112, 118, 120, 121, 122, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131, 133, 137, 165, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 178, 180, 181 Edmund of Canterbury 136 Edwards, Mark J. 30, 137, 145 Eibl, Hans 166 Elijah (prophet) 26, 168 Eliot, T.S. 37 Elm, Susanna 28 Endsjø, Dag Øistein 28 Eriugena 3, 60–69 Eusebius of Caesarea 8 Ezekiel (prophet) 73 Faesen, Rob 3, 102, 103, 104, 112, 146 Fairbairn, Donald 29 Farmer, Hugh 136, 144, 146 Finlan, Stephen 43, 145 Flasch, Kurt 133 Flight, Tim 85, 86 Flood, Gavin 24, 29 Foot, Philippa 132 Foucauld, Charles de 127 Fraling, Bernhard 106 Frank, Georgia 17, 27, 28 Garde, Judith N. 82, 86 Gavrilyuk, Paul L. 30, 180

187

Gersh, Stephen E. 60, 68 Gerson, Jean 113, 152, 160 Glasscoe, Marion 119, 129, 130 Goehring, James E. 28 Gottschalk 96 Gould, Graham 28 Gregory, Tullio 60 Gregory of Nazianzus 29, 36 Gregory of Nyssa 3, 35–44, 60, 66, 102, 108, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 172, 173, 177, 179, 180 Gregory Palamas 46, 56, 170, 171, 180, 181 Gregory the Great 72, 74, 77, 85, 136, 140 Grey, Mary 127, 132 Gross, Jules 43, 137, 138, 144, 145, 148 Gwynn, David M. 23, 29, 30 Hadot, Pierre 29 Hallonsten, Gosta 145 Hamburger, Jeffrey F. 3 Hare, R.M. 132 Harl, Marguerite 10 Harmless, William 28, 29, 30 Harnack, Adolf von 2, 3, 137, 145 Harvey, Susan Ashbrook 28 Hauerwas, Stanley 129 Hawk, B.W. 85 Hegel, G.W.F. 166, 177, 179, 180, 181 Heidegger, Martin 110, 130 Heine, Ronald E. 11 Hilarion (abba) 20 Hill, Geoffrey 40 Hilton, Walter 129, 135, 137, 145 Hodgson, Phyllis 117 Howlett, D.R. 85 Hudson, Nancy J. 43 Hugh of Saint-Victor 136, 140 Humphries, Thomas L. Jr. 29 Hunt, Hannah 27, 28 Ignatius of Antioch 147 Ignatius of Loyola 165, 173–177, 182 Ihssen, Brenda Llewellyn 19, 28, 29, 30 Irenaeus of Lyon 137, 145, 165, 179 Isaiah (prophet) 41, 73 Jantzen, Grace 102, 103, 104, 112 Jan van Ruusbroec 3, 91, 94, 95, 96, 98–113, 165, 169, 170–173, 174, 181, 182, 183 Jeauneau, Édouard 68, 69 John (evangelist) 66, 136 John Chrysostom 136

188

Index of names

John of Fécamp 3, 89–96 John Paul II (pope) 56 John Pecham 136 John XXII (pope) 104 Joyal, J. 57 Julian of Norwich 135, 136, 145 Kant, Immanuel 123, 177 Kärkkänen, Veli-Matti 43 Keating, Daniel A. 137, 145, 146, 147, 148, 180 Kelly, John N.D. 86 Kempster, Hugh 145 Kenney, J.P. 153, 162 Kharlamov, Vladimir 43, 145 Konstantinovsky, Julia 29 Laird, Martin 3, 111 Laüchli, S. 11 Le Boulluec, Alain 12 Lebreton, Jules 10 Leclercq, Jean 89, 95 Lee, A.A. 85 Leech, Kenneth 127, 132 Lettieri, Gaetano 11 Löser, Werner 179, 182 Lossky, Vladimir 56, 170, 179, 180 Lot-Borodine, Myrrha 179 Louth, Andrew 29, 165, 179 Lubac, Henri de 108, 109, 113 Lyman, Rebecca 29 Lynch, Dennis 145 MacIntyre, Alasdair 129, 137, 145 Mackinnon, Catherine 129 Mainoldi, Ernesto S. 68, 69 Marguerite Porete 1, 103, 127, 144 Marion, Jean-Luc 110 Maritain, Jacques 38, 42 Marmodoro, Anna 29 Mary (mother of Jesus) 80, 101, 104, 105, 106, 107, 112, 136, 138, 139, 141, 178 Mateo-Seco, Lucas Francisco 112 Maximus the Confessor 26, 30, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 68, 165, 166, 170, 177, 179, 180, 182 McCambley, Casimir 43 McC. Gatch, Milton 85 McCree, J. Woodrow 11 McDonnell, Kihan 11 McGinn, Bernard 2, 68, 69, 89, 95, 121, 122, 131, 162 McGucken, John 43

McInroy, Mark 182 Meconi, David Vincent 135, 137, 144, 145 Mersch, Emile 108, 113 Methley, Richard 148 Mieth, Dietmar 131 Milbank, John 129 Miles, Margaret R. 44 Miller, Patricia Cox 27, 28, 29 Monaci Castagno, Adele 10 Monk of Farne 135–148 Moreno-Martinez, J.L. 10 Moses (prophet) 7, 8, 9, 26, 75, 169 Moss, Yonatan 28 Mosser, Carl 3, 145 Nagel, Thomas 116–133 Napierkowski, T.J. 85 Nautin, Pierre 8, 12 Nicolas of Cusa 167, 179 Nisterus (abba) 26 Norris, Richard A. 43 Nussbaum, Martha 128, 133 Opsomer, Jan 56 Or (abba) 21 O’Regan, Cyril 180 Ortiz, Jared 145 Osborne, Catherine 44 Oster, Stefan 113 Osuna, Francisco de 152, 160 Pambo (abba) 21, 26 Pantin, William Abel 135, 136, 138, 144, 145, 146 Pasquier, A. 12 Paul (apostle) 8, 9, 93, 140, 142 Paul of Thebes 29 Paul the Simple (abba) 21, 24, 28 Paulus Orosius 56 Perrone, L. 11 Peter Abelard 94, 96 Peter Damian 136 Peter Lombard 136, 143, 144 Petroff, Valery 60, 68 Places, Édouard des 3 Plantinga, Alvin 129 Plato 46–57, 153, 154 Plotinus 152–161, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 179, 180 Poemen (abba) 19, 20, 21 Porete, Marguerite see Marguerite Porete Porphyry 46, 48, 55, 56 Prinzivalli, Emanuela 10, 11, 15

Index of names Proclus Diadochus 50, 56 Prudentius Trecensis 67, 69 Przywara, Erich 167, 179 Pseudo-Dionysius 35, 41, 60, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68, 72, 79, 80, 86, 116, 117, 118, 120, 127, 129, 132, 147, 152 Rapp, Claudia 21, 28 Rappe, Sara 132 Raw, Barbara C. 85 Rawls, John 123, 132 Remley, Paul G. 85 Reta, J. Oroz 56 Richard of Saint-Victor 147 Riehle, Wolfgang 136, 137, 144, 145, 148 Rissanen, Paavo 72, 78, 85 Rist, John M. 11 Rius-Camps, J. 10 Rizzerio, L. 11 Roberts, L. 11 Rolle, Richard 117, 135, 136, 145 Rondet, H. 56 Rorty, Richard 123, 127 Russell, Norman 29, 30, 36, 43, 68, 137, 145, 166 Sargent, Michael G. 144, 145 Schenkewitz, Kyle A. 29 Schindler, D.C. 113 Schnell, Eugen 145 Schroeder, Caroline T. 20, 28 Sen, Amartya 122, 132 Servais, Jacques 182 Sharpe, R. 144 Shaw, Theresa M. 28 Sherrard, Philip 179 Silvanus (abba) 21 Simonetti, Manlio 11 Sinkewicz, Robert E. 29 Sisoes (abba) 20, 21 Smith, Linda L. 44 Somos, Robert 11

189

Sorabji, Richard 28 Spearing, A.C. 117, 129, 130 Steinmat, Karl Heinz 119, 120, 130 Stewart, Columba 17, 29 Teresa of Avila 152–164 Thérèse of Lisieux 175, 182 Thomas a Kempis 89 Thomas Aquinas 104, 111, 113, 139, 142, 143, 147, 170 Tobin, Frank 180 Tobon, Monica 29 Tollefsen, Torstein Theodor 29, 30 Trapé, A. 155, 162 Tyler, P. M. 3, 162, 163 Ulrich, Ferdinand 109, 110, 111, 113 Uthred of Bolton 136 Vaihé, S. 56 Van Nieuwenhove, Rik 106, 107, 112, 113, 181 Vasilescu, Elena Ene-D. 30 Vasta, Edward 137, 145 Viltanioti, Irini-Fotini 29 Vinzent, Markus 121, 128, 130, 133 Watson, Nicholas 135, 144, 145 Wéber, Edouard-H. 96 Wendel, Saskia 102, 103, 104, 112 Whitehead, Christiana 144, 145, 146 William of Saint-Thierry 138, 143, 144, 146 Williams, Rowan 1, 2, 3, 12, 29 Wilmart, André 89, 95 Wolf, R. 85 Wolinski, J. 12 Wolterstorff, Nicolas 129 Woods, Richard 130 Zacher, Samantha 85 Zecher, Jonathan L. 29, 30

Subject index

αναλυτική 64 δοξάζεσθαι 5–13 εἰδωλολατρία 5 θεοποιεῖσθαι 5–13 μετοχή 6 abyss of love 98–113 abyss of man 98–113 active receptivity 105 Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage (John of Ruusbroec) 173 Ambigua ad Iohannem 60, 62 Anglo-Saxon theology 80 apocatastasis 66, 67 apophatic discourse in The Dream of the Rood 78–83 apophaticism, ethics of 120–122 Apophthegmata Patrum 16, 22, 23, 27 asceticism 17, 20, 24, 25 ascetic odyssey 23 Augustine’s theory of theosis 46–57 Augustine’s picture of the soul 154–158 Balthasar, Hans Urs von: divinization 165–183; god beyond god 170–173; Gregory of Nyssa 166–169; Ignatius of Loyola 173–176; John of Cross 173–176; Plotinus 166–169; Ruusbroec and Eckhart 170–173 baptism 2, 36, 37, 42, 103 biblical dream/vision 72–73 biblical Tree of Life 63 Blessed Virgin see Mary, receptivity bond of love in Ruusbroec 100 The Book of Privy Counselling 116–133; “chaste” Christology and 119–120; Eckhart’s bare being 120–122; ethics of apophaticism 120–122; naked being in 118–119

The Book of the Life (Teresa of Avila) 152 Breviloquium 143 Byzantine monasticism 26 Cappadocian Fathers 61 Carthusianism 117 Catechism of the Catholic Church 1 Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man 108 “chaste” Christology 119–120 Christology 19, 25, 117, 119, 138 Christ’s crucifixion 77, 79–81, 84 Christ’s Passion 82 Cloud of Unknowing 117, 135 Commentarius in Iohannem (Commentary on the Gospel of John) 64, 66 Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 67 Confessio theologica 89, 94 continuatio mediaevalis 94 Contra Julianum 54 2 Cor. 3:18 8, 9 Corpus Dionysiacum 61, 65 crucifixion theology 82 De civitate Dei 47 De demone Socrаtis 51 De deo Socratis 51 De Genesi ad litteram 67 deificatio-justificatio-adoptio 54 De opificio hominis 60 desert asceticism 17 Desert Fathers 16–19, 21–27, 99 desert monasticism 16–22 detachment 122 deus daemoniorum 51 deus deorum 55 de verborum controversia 49–55; angels as gods 52–53; demons as gods 50–52; humans as gods 53–55

Subject index 191 Dictionnaire de Spiritualité 2 dii minores (minor gods) 48, 49, 54 Dillard, Annie: on divinization 35–44; Holy the Firm 35, 38–40; Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 35, 39; Pulitzer Prize 35, 39; vaulted and buttressed soul 38–42 Dionysian apophaticism 127 divine love (minne) 98–102, 111 divinization 2; Dillard, Annie on 35–44; of flesh 23; Hans Urs von Balthasar 165–183; St. Gregory of Nyssa on 35–44; theodramatic 176–178 docile obedience 105 dominus autem caelos fecit 51 The Dream of the Rood (DOTR) 72–86; apophatic discourse, cross’s narrative 78–83; biblical dream/vision 72–73; contemplative structure 73–78 dynamic Mariological principle 105 early Egyptian monasticism 16–30 Eastern theologoumenon of deification 63 egalitarian theory 125 Ego Dormio 135 Enarrationes in Psalmos 48, 49, 55 eschatology 65 ethical motivation 122–124 Ex. 34:29-30 8 Ex. 40:34-35 7, 8 fægere þurh forðgesceaft 75 ful hale eagan 83 functional Christology 121 ghemeyne menscheit 106–109 glorification 8–9 God’s transcendence 103 Greek Fathers 61, 165 Greek patristic doctrine of theosis 60–69 Gregory of Nyssa 35; De opificio hominis 60; on divinization 35–44; fountain of life 36–37; Homilies on the Song of Songs 35, 36; one, being, and distance 166–169; wound of love 37–38 ground as masculine 103 groundlessness as feminine 103 heavenly citizenship 23 Historia ecclesiastica 8 Historia monachorum in Aegypto 21 holy flesh 16–22 Holy Scripture 5 Holy Spirit 100, 138, 141–144; as noble liquor 102

Homilies on Ezekiel 8 Homily on the Prologue to the Gospel of John 64 hominification, God 122 homo abyssus 109–111 human dignity 101 human interiority 99 humility, contemporary ethic 126–128 Imitatio Christi 89 impersonal standpoint, Nagel’s concept 122–124 In agro dominico 104 incarnation 140; doctrine 23, 24 In Esdram et Nehemiam 75 intrinsic incompleteness, human knowledge 123 Itinerarium mentis in Deum 142 John 1:1-2 8 John 13:31-32 5–13 John of Fécamp: body of Christ 91; Christological foundation 90; deification in 89–96; human nature and resurrected Christ 91–92; paradise regained 93–94; reality of sin 92–93; relation with Father 93 Judgement Day 81 kenotic anthropology 128 3 Kgs. 8:10-11 8 Lexicon Gregorianum 36 liberal egalitarian approach, Nagel 127 Life of Antony 18, 19, 24 Literal Commentary on Genesis 155 Little Book of Clarification 91 Lk. 9:29-31 8, 9 Mary, receptivity 104–106 Maximian doctrine of theosis 68 medieval dream-vision 72–73 The Meditations of Saint Augustine 89 Meditation to Christ Crucified 136, 138, 139 Meditation to the Virgin 138, 139, 141 The Middle English Mystics 136 Mirror of Eternal Blessedness 94 Monarchians, doctrine 5 Monk of Farne as medieval English mystic 135–148 moral asceticism 99 moral demandingness 124 Moralia in Iob 72 mystical stripping 120

192

Subject index

Nagel’s dilemma, politics and soul 124–126 neoplatonic idealism 61 neoplatonic schema, soul deliverance 152–154 Nicene Christology 23 Nicene Creed, doctrine 16 nihilism 103 objective self 124 On Loving God 141 On the Creation of the World 48 On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sin 46 On the Trinity 154–156 Origen’s exegesis 5–13; glorification 8–9; glory of Son of Man 6–7; syntactical analysis(Jn. 13:31-32), hypothetical syllogism 6–7 over-formation (overforminghe) as deification 102, 106 Palamas’s doctrine of theosis 46 Pauline doctrine of deification 68 Periphyseon 61–65 Platonists, controversy 47–55 Plotinian schema, soul formation 152–154 Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (McGinn) 2 primordial sin 63 principale cordis nostri 8 psychology 152–163 Quaestiones ad Thalassium 60, 65 receptivity 104–106 reformation 65, 138, 173 relational anthropology 111 resurrection 17, 22, 24, 40, 46–48, 52, 53, 55, 83, 168

Sayings of the Desert Fathers 19 Scale of Perfection 137 schemata theory, modern psychology 78 Seinsvergessenheit 110 self-crucifixion 117, 120 self-sacrifice 117 self-transcendence 127 Sermons on The Song of Songs 136 signum impressum 120 social morality 123 Son-Logos 6, 9 Spiritual Canticle 174 Summus Deus (supreme God) 48, 49, 54 swefna cyst 78 syllicre treow 75 Teresa of Avila 152–163; god seeks us out 159; interpretation sources 158; moral and ascetical training 161; picture of trinity 162; role of christ 161–162; role of contemplation 160–161; role of eros 159–160; soul and deification 158–162; soul origins 158–159; sudden ecstasies 161 Theo-Drama 177 theodramatic divinization 176–178 A Theology of Compassion 128 A Theory of Justice 123 Timaeus 46–48 timor 77 Treatise on First Principles 66, 68 Tree of Life 63, 65, 66 unio hypostatica 94 Verinwendigung Gottes 104 The View from Nowhere 116 Vox spiritualis aquilae 66