Partaking in Divine Nature: Deification and Communion 9780567660701, 9780567031877

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1 introduction

The idea that you or I might be ‘partaking in divine nature’ is for many people something which rarely if ever occurs to them. It is, of course, a reference to an ‘unlikely’ text in Scripture (2 Peter 1.4). For many faithful Christians as well as for those who discourse in the academy it may seem an abhorrent or presumptuous, esoteric or irrelevant idea. However, over the past 20 years or so there has been something of a renaissance in theological discourse concerning the doctrine which is variously referred to as ‘deification’, ‘divinization’ or ‘theoˉsis’: in 1987 Panayiotis Nellas’ work, Deification in Christ, was published in English; more recently, George A. Maloney’s work, The Undreamed Has Happened: God Lives in Us (2003); and Norman Russell’s works, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (2004) and Fellow Workers with God: Orthodox Thinking on Theosis (2009). Two collections of essays have also appeared. In 2006 Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov published Theoˉsis: Deification in Christian Theology and in 2007 Michael J. Christensen and Jeffrey A. Wittung published Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Tradition. Each of these collections includes an investigation of understandings of deification beyond the Eastern Orthodox Tradition. Yet for many in the ‘West’ the words ‘deification’, ‘divinization’ and ‘theoˉsis’ are opaque and problematic.1 One of the purposes of this book is to investigate whether the words and the doctrine(s) they indicate are necessarily opaque, problematic or esoteric. At the present time much energy in theological discourse is directed towards the exterior, to the external world. The words ‘practical’, ‘political’ and ‘public’ are often to be found in conjunction with the word ‘theology’. Theologians are engaging with matters beyond the confines of academic and ecclesial discourse, in order to engage with the relationship that the believing community of the Church has with

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I will generally refer to ‘deification’ on the assumption that deification, divinization and theoˉsis are interchangeable terms which have the same meaning.

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the city and society and the world. Much attention is given to mission and missiology, to Fresh Expressions of Church, to making the Christian Gospel accessible in the cultures in which it is proclaimed today. In relation to all this outward engagement, the study of theoˉsis seems inward and introverted, something which deals with the interior realm of the individual and her soul; something which is not accessible to any kind of external evaluation; something which is intensely personal and framed by the promise of the future. Can such a doctrine or set of practices be relevant in the present day? Does a focus on theoˉsis not seem like withdrawal from engagement with the world into an escapist journey of interiority? But for me, far from being an irrelevant distraction, the analysis and discussion of the doctrine of ‘theoˉsis’ is of crucial importance for the Church today. Using sources from Scripture and Tradition, and from the experience of the revivalist spiritualities of different times and places such as the Hesychasts, the Evangelical Revival, the Wesleyan Holiness movement and the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, I will argue for a ‘functionalization’2 of the doctrine of deification understood in a broad sense. I will structure this ‘functionalization’ through an application of Thunberg’s phrase ‘energetic communion’3 used to describe the process and outcome of theoˉsis. Thus, the project of this book is to investigate the corporate and collective dimensions of theoˉsis in Scripture and Tradition and to relate these to an understanding of the dynamics of the divine–human relationship premised on an appeal to communion [koinoˉnia].

A problematic doctrine Before proceeding further I want to acknowledge the problematic status of the concept of ‘theoˉsis’ or deification. It is a disputed and contentious doctrine. The idea that the word ‘god’ should be used to describe a Christian believer remains a ‘scandal’. While the Apostles’ Creed refers to a ‘communion of saints’ and the Nicene Creed refers to the holiness of Church, many Christian believers prefer to emphasize the fallen and sinful reality of the believer and the Church. Holiness is the attribute of God, and the concept of participating in that holiness is seen by many as a distant and eschatological calling. However, the Revivalist movements do appeal to the calling to ‘perfection’ in the present. Perhaps the appeal to ‘perfection’ is more

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I am indebted to Pecknold, C. C., ‘How Augustine Used the Trinity: Functionalism and the Development of Doctrine’, Anglican Theological Review (Winter) (2003): 127–42, for the exploration of the notion of ‘functionalization’.

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Thunberg, C., Man and the Cosmos: The Vision of St Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), p. 143.

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‘hearable’ than an appeal to become ‘god’. Similarly an appeal to the calling to ‘immortality’ may be more palatable than the language of ‘divinization’. These differences of language and emphasis already suggest that the exploration of what may pass for an understanding of ‘theoˉsis’ may turn out to be very broad indeed. Nonetheless, it needs to recognized from the outset that there remains a deep-seated suspicion and hostility towards any notion of ‘partaking in divine nature’. One of the most famous condemnations is to be found in the writings of Adolf von Harnack.4 The core thesis of Harnack’s attack was that the Early Church has allowed the original pristine Christian kerygma to be overlaid by pagan and ‘Hellenistic’ thought forms and concepts, which he rejects in the strongest of terms. Jules Gross has argued that such views underestimate the Greek Fathers. He argues that they were not unaware of their context and of the issues which Hellenism and the philosophy of the time raised. Christian understandings of deification may easily be confused with pagan notions such as ‘apotheoˉsis’, but there is evidence that the Early Church writers were aware of these difficulties and sought to avoid and combat them. Another area of concern regarding deification is voiced by present day Protestant writers who raise objections to what they perceive is the eliding of the Creator–creature difference in the construction of theories of deification. A particular feature of this critique is Protestant abhorrence at the language of divine–human synergy, which seems either to elide the difference between the divine and the human or to suggest their ‘equality’ or ‘symmetry’. Another form of this suspicion is to be seen in relation to the Protestant construal of ‘justification’. Writers in the Middle Ages in the West tend not to distinguish between justification and sanctification as different events or processes, a distinction which the Reformers on the whole do make. The Reformers see union with Christ as ‘total’ in terms of justification but ‘partial’ in terms of sanctification. Medieval writers took justification and sanctification together and saw union with Christ as a single ‘growing’ process. This latter stance tends to make Protestant and Evangelical authors nervous, leading many to repudiate the notion of divine–human ‘union’. The twentieth century also saw theologians calling deification into question. The Roman Catholic theologian Hans Küng, writing in a post-war, postHolocaust context, suggests that there is a need for human beings to be humanized rather than divinized.5 It will form part of the agenda of this book to address these concerns, and if possible, to allay these fears. 4

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von Harnack, A., History of Dogma (London: Williams & Norgate, 1896–99), Vol. 3, pp. 121–304. Küng, H., On being a Christian (Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co Ltd, 1974), p. 442.

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Deification in the context of Christian Tradition So where does deification fit in the Christian Tradition? Is it a doctrine of the Christian ‘East’ rather than the Christian ‘West’? Is it an esoteric idea which need not detain the majority of Christian believers, or is it of crucial relevance to a proper understanding of the claims of the Gospel and the Christian Tradition? The notion of human ‘partaking in divine nature’ or deification relates to foundational concepts and raises key questions in Christian theological discourse: what are the divine purposes or intentions in creating and redeeming the cosmos? What is the purpose and goal of human existence? What is a human being? What does it mean to speak of human being as created in the image and likeness of God? What is the human condition? What does it mean to speak of salvation or of sanctification? In response to these questions as they relate in particular to the formulation of a metaphor of deification, I will examine discourse concerning the relationship between creation, theological anthropology, salvation, justification and theoˉsis. This will necessitate some reference to models of salvation, but it is beyond the scope of this book to pursue an in-depth enquiry into these. ‘Partaking in divine nature’ in particular raises questions of theological anthropology and human psychology. If the human person is understood to be simul justus et peccator, is it possible to construct a concept of deification on this basis? How are such notions as mind, soul and body to be understood theologically in the present day? Can the writings of the Early Church and the Middle Ages offer any insights for a theological psychology today? What if anything can be retrieved from traditional understandings of the human person in relation to ‘the Fall’? Does it make sense to speak of a pre- and post-lapsarian human condition? Does Early Church theological reflection on the ‘garments of skins’ (Genesis 3.21) have anything to contribute to contemporary understandings of human sexuality and gender? Is there ‘a deiform faculty’ in the human person? These questions will inform the structure of the discourse of this book. The examination of discourse relating to creation, theological anthropology, salvation, justification and theoˉsis will need to bear in mind the following questions. Does an appeal to deification require the kind of overarching doctrinal framework, which is to be discerned in Eastern Orthodoxy? How does the language of deification operate as a metaphor in relation to ontological claims? How is experience to be received in the construal of a doctrine of deification? Are the claims concerning holiness and perfection found in the spirituality of the Revivalist movements to be treated as parallel with and equal to the understanding of theoˉsis as taught in the Orthodox traditions? Caponi frames three crucial questions around the construction of a doctrine of deification: what conditions within a human being make divinization possible? What does it mean to actualize these conditions? How is this 4

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INTRODUCTION

actualization accomplished?6 In relation to a broad construct of deification, Hallonsten usefully suggests that clarifying whether the distinction between ‘theoˉsis’ and ‘union with God’ points to different concepts. He argues that this distinction is rooted in the use of a particular vocabulary to express particular understandings of teleology, relating to the doctrines of creation and of salvation. He concludes that ‘theoˉsis’ and ‘union with God’ are not to be seen as precisely meaning the same thing but that they are not mutually exclusive.7 The pursuit of a doctrine construed around a concept of koinoˉnia will entail an appeal to the doctrine of the Church which raises a further set of questions. How do models and metaphors of the Church resonate with a doctrine of theoˉsis? How is the Church to be understood as the context for the collective reception of (mystical) experience? How is the collective experience of the sacraments to be related to understandings of union with God? Furthermore is ‘theoˉsis’ an ‘ecclesiastical’ doctrine, as the doctrine of the Trinity is understood to be? The language of theoˉsis has not been adopted by the Church universally. The creeds speak of ‘the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting’ (The Apostles’ Creed), and ‘the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come’ (The Constantinopolitan-Nicene Creed of 381). In each of these statements an appeal to ‘immortality’ may be discerned. It is the use of the language of immortality in the New Testament documents which I believe is the main impetus towards the emergence of the metaphor of deification in the Early Church. Deification is not a creedal claim. But the later understandings of deification are predicated on the Chalcedonian statement of the person of Christ, as well as the soteriological implications of the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople. Although theoˉsis is one metaphor for redemption among others, the construal of the doctrine in relation to the councils indicates that there is a basis for claiming it as an ‘ecclesial doctrine’ if not of the same order as the doctrine of the Trinity.

Method Before proceeding further, the question of what method or methods could or should be used in analysing and constructing a doctrine of deification needs to be addressed. In particular, what approach should be used to interpret historical expressions of the doctrine? How are the antecedents to and 6

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Caponi, F. J., ‘Karl Rahner: Divinization in Roman Catholicism’, in M. J. Christensen and J. A. Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Tradition (Madison, Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007), p. 259. Hallosten, G., ‘Theosis in Recent Research: A Renewal of Interest and a Need for Clarity’ in Christensen and Wittung, Partakers, p. 287.

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imperatives behind the emergence of the doctrine of deification to be interpreted? How are different ideas, terms and authors to be understood to relate to each other? Assuming that they do relate to each other, which may be questionable. An analogy for how ideas, terms and authors may be placed in relation to one another could be that of stamp collecting or of threading beads on a string. These activities place commodities in relation to one other, usually in terms of the place of origin and chronology for a stamp collector. A stamp collector has criteria to which she works in placing the stamps and creating the collection. In terms of the expression or construction of the doctrine of deification how are different authors to be ‘placed’? What criteria are to be used? A brief acquaintance with those who have recounted the ‘history’ of the doctrine of deification will demonstrate that there are selfevident schools of thought or traditions by which authors, such as ‘the Fathers’ are ‘placed’ in relation to one another. Usually of course the placement is chronological, but, within an overall chronological structure, historians of doctrine have discerned pathways or trajectories of development. Such trajectories will be examined in Chapters 2 to 5. The notion of development, particularly chronological development is questionable; something that is chronologically later need not necessarily be a development of the earlier or be better than the earlier. The Orthodox tradition perceives that the doctrine of ‘theoˉsis’ finds a definitive expression in the writings of Maximos the Confessor and Gregory Palamas. From the writings of these two theologians modern Orthodox theologians have constructed a synthesized and systematized view of the divine purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos of which ‘theoˉsis’ is a central feature. In pursuit of a more broadly conceived doctrine I will argue that this is not the only way to construe the metaphor of deification. To return to the question of method, is it possible to discern a method which is appropriate to the study of deification in Christian Tradition? In recent literature on deification the question of method has become explicit. Russell8 draws upon the work of Eric Osborn: The Beginning of Christian Philosophy (1981),9 whose brief but positive review of the use of the metaphor of deification stresses the need to be clear about method in relation to any analysis of the ‘development’ of the doctrine of deification. Osborn sets out various possible methods: cultural, polemical and elucidatory. The latter he subdivides into doxographical, retrospective or problematic. These methods had already been identified in an article on the historical development

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Russell, N., The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) pp. 7–9. Osborn, E., The Beginning of Christian Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 111–20, 273–88.

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of philosophy by John Passmore: The Idea of a History of Philosophy (1965).10 The method of Passmore and Osborn may be summarized as follows. A cultural approach to deification elicits the question: how does it reflect the culture in which it emerged? This would interpret all components of a doctrine of deification in relation to the sociocultural setting from which they emerged. A polemical approach raises questions such as: does it make sense? Is it true? It looks for strengths and weaknesses and for the truth or falsity of the arguments used. As regards the elucidatory methods, Osborn suggested that the doxographer asks: ‘What has been said and how is it related to what other writers were saying?’ She looks for connections between writers. The focus of this method is not the context of the writer or the issues to which a writer is responding, but how what is written relates to predecessors and contemporaries.11 Osborn argues that though doxography is widely used, it has severe limitations. When dealing with ancient literature the gaps in chronology mean that arguments are constructed on limited evidence, or from a surviving text, which is elevated beyond its actual importance.12 Another limitation is that doxography often ignores the framework of an argument. It tends to add up citations, which does not prove the extent of an idea.13 Rather what is necessary is the careful weighing of arguments. Osborn does not dismiss doxography but argues that it needs to be supplemented by other methods. The doxographer tends to ignore logical questions and does not address problems which philosophers and theologians are seeking to ‘solve’. A second form of elucidation is retrospective method. This asks how is it possible to assess and place a theological ‘opinion’. It compares ideas and authors with historical sources rather than contemporary ones. Retrospective method relates to the ‘history of ideas’, where certain moments are identified as peaks. Osborn argues that the elevation of Chalcedon and Nicaea as such ‘peaks’ of thought distorts the appreciation of writings from the second century, for the concerns of the second and fourth centuries were very different.14 In terms of the concerns of the twenty-first century, the second century probably has more to say than the fourth because of the pluralism of the context in the second century. Retrospective method with its ‘history of ideas’ is very different from ‘cultural history’, which focuses solely on the contemporary context. Passmore argues that there are inherent weaknesses in cultural and retrospective histories. 10

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Passmore, J., ‘The Idea of a History of Philosophy’, History and Theory (Supplement), 4 (1965): 1–32. Osborn, The Beginning, p. 277. Osborn, The Beginning, p. 278. Osborn, The Beginning, p. 279. Osborn, The Beginning, p. 285.

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They sit at opposite extremes from one another. In cultural histories successive philosophers remain unrelated to one another, while in retrospective history philosophers are assembled together too tightly in a continuous pattern.15 Passmore prefers the problematic approach, which he summarizes as the analysis of the construction of systems.16 He expounds the notion of the development of ideas around the suggestion that certain types of problems recur, sometimes in different ‘shapes’. Philosophers look for and suggest ‘solutions’ to these problems. Through careful analysis of the ideas of different authors and their arguments an advance in understanding may be discerned. In a problematic approach the following questions emerge: ‘What problem as he trying to solve?’ ‘How did this problem arise for him?’ ‘What new methods of tackling it did he use?’17 Passmore goes on to argue that the problematic historian needs to be a philosopher as well as an historian and that the problematic approach is the only one which sheds light on the ‘inner’ development of philosophy. In a problematic approach to deification, the quest would be to identify the problems to which it is given as the solution. Osborn argues that without the latter approach any writing about deification is pointless.18 This study of deification will draw upon authors and their texts across two-and-a-half millennia. This raises enormous questions in terms of historiography and the ‘translatability of texts’ from one culture to another.19 MacIntyre suggests such ‘translatability’ is taken for granted in scholarship which relies upon the presuppositions of the ‘Enlightenment view’ of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.20 He argues that the Enlightenment understanding of rational debate assumed that a conclusive outcome could be reached. This would ensure the refutation of error and the vindication of truth. In the present day he argues that there is a more inclusive understanding of debate and a weaker conception of rationality. He concludes that this means that, ‘There is no theoretically neutral, pre-theoretical ground from which the adjudication of competing claims can proceed.’21 The problem of the ‘translatability of texts’ raises two further questions: who speaks to whom? And how?22 In contemporary philosophy there are many different approaches to questions of the reception and interpretation

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Passmore, The Idea, p. 23. Passmore, The Idea, p. 27. Passmore, The Idea, p. 29. Osborn, The Beginning, p. 113. MacIntyre, A., Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy and Tradition (Gifford Lectures 1998) (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), p. 171. MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions, p. 172. MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions, p. 173. MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions, p. 196.

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of texts. MacIntyre appeals to the model of ‘conversation’ as a means of understanding and using texts from a variety of contexts and historical periods. If a text is seen as a moment in a conversation, it will be interpreted from the standpoint of the participants in that conversation. Each participant will have his or her own point of view and history. In addition, there will be different points of entry into a conversation and different understandings of why the conversation is happening, and the conversation may be extended over time.23 The questions and concerns identified in this exploration of appropriate methods for an exposition of the doctrine of deification, will be marshalled to answer the question: what imperatives are behind a given discourse on ‘deification’? Each example in the overall exposition will be discussed and analysed in relation to its context and its tradition(s). These may be self-identified or attributed, and the analysis will need to encompass any traditions that it relates to or opposes. It will be necessary to investigate each example’s place within a narrative of ‘development’. This will entail identifying the characteristics of the context of each example, such as the ‘Hellenist’ environment of the Early Church; the identification of heresy; the emergence of scholasticism in the Middle Ages in the West; the motivation for reform and change at the Reformation; and the ways in which the various revival movements have expressed the spirit of the age, where the ‘shift to subject’ is perhaps manifest in the spiritual goals of perfection and holiness and ‘romanticism’ is manifest in the appeal to the aesthetics of experience. This brings me to the investigation of experience. Each example will be examined in terms of the existential dimensions of religious or mystical experience. This is particularly relevant in the analysis of Hesychasm, the Western mystical texts, the charismatic and mystical phenomena associated with the radical reformers and the later revivals. This will entail the acknowledgement of experience in terms of either rapture or contemplation. This will extend the discourse beyond the discussion of cognitive elements of the doctrine of deification and into the realm of what is understood as mystical and aesthetic, although it is beyond the scope of this book to examine the psychology of such experiences.

Elements of the metaphor of deification I begin from the premise offered by Russell that deification is to be understood as a metaphor.24 The ‘metaphor’ is generally expressed in terms of one of two main ‘models’, which have antecedents in Plato. The first model is

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MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions, p. 196. Russell, Deification, pp. 1–3.

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‘imitation’ of the divine and an extrinsic understanding of deification. The second model is ‘participation’ in the divine which is an intrinsic understanding of deification. In spite of there being a clear distinction between these models, both may result in (a) emulation of or a sharing in the divine attributes, such as incorruption, immortality and stability; (b) the ascent of the soul to God, which implies particular understandings of intellectual and/ or epistemological progress; and (c) transformation of the human subject or believer, which raises ontological questions. The identification of these outcomes of deification raises a further set of issues, which need to be borne in mind when analysing different texts and authors. First, there is an ontological concern about the difference between or potential merging of the created and uncreated orders of existence. The question of ontic difference has been a perennial concern in the construal of deification, and clarity about this area is fundamental for any exposition of the doctrine. Second, there is the approach of an author to the notion of the ineffability of God. What are the epistemological consequences of an appeal to divine ineffability? Does this manifest itself in an apophatic approach to the construal of doctrine? Is the goal of theoˉsis a knowledge of God?

Methodological approach What I take forward from the exploration of method will be based upon what Passmore and Osborn identify as a problematic approach. I will identify where certain types of problems recur, what ‘solutions’ are offered and whether it is possible to speak of an advance in understanding. It will be important to bear in mind the issue of the ‘translatability of texts’ from one culture and period to another. And I will draw upon Russell’s distinction that the metaphor of deification is either an ethical or a realistic construct.25 Three key questions will be addressed to each example of the formulation of the doctrine of deification: what is the structure of deification? What is the essence of deification? What are the means of deification?26 In addition, I will ask of each author why does he write about deification? What question(s) is he seeking to answer by discussing or positing a theory (or doctrine) of deification? What is the outcome of asking the question(s)? I am writing this as an adherent to the Christian tradition and, specifically, as a priest in the Church of England. I understand myself to be working within the hermeneutical community of the Church and that, as a hermeneutical community, the Church continues to shape the hermeneutical tradition of Christianity as well as being itself shaped by that tradition. The approach to theological reflection which I will use in pursuing this 25 26

Russell, Deification, p. 2. Caponi, ‘Karl Rahner’, p. 259.

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analysis and interpretation of the metaphor of deification will be the ‘Anglican’ method expressed in the work of Richard Hooker, in which Scripture, Tradition and Reason illuminate each other in the quest to receive the Christian faith afresh in the contemporary context. To Hooker’s triad, I will add Wesley’s appeal to experience as well as an appeal to context. The appeal to Scripture and Tradition is made with an acknowledgement that the use made of the Bible and patristic sources by systematic theologians has been called to account in recent times.27 In treating the different stances of the interpreters of the doctrine of deification, I shall draw upon Lindbeck’s categorizations of doctrine as cognitive, experiential-expressive or a combination of these.28 My own preference is the latter combination of a cognitive with an aesthetic approach to theological reflection, to which I add Kaufmann’s understanding of the (theological) imagination.29 The doctrine of deification is a good example of the way in which the theological imagination and the aesthetic of experience have been used in theological reflection in the past. I will endeavour to continue this use in the present. The book is divided into five further chapters. In Chapter 2, I examine the sources of the Christian use of a metaphor of deification in the popular piety and philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome as well as in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. In Chapter 3, I analyse how the metaphor emerges in Christian discourse in the early centuries of the Church, particularly around the construal of heresy and orthodoxy. In Chapter 4, I examine the correlation of the construal of theoˉsis with the self-understanding of the Orthodox tradition. In Chapter 5, I narrate the usage of elements of the ‘architecture’ of the metaphor in the traditions of the West in order to reclaim Western understandings of deification for the present. Finally, in Chapter 6, I have set out a vision of a relational understanding of deification for today in terms of personal and ecclesial transformation, construed in terms of ‘virtue ecclesiology’.

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Barnes, M. R., ‘Rereading Augustine’s Theology of the Trinity’, in S. T. Davis, D. Kendall and G. O’Collins (eds), The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 145–76. Lindbeck, G., The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (London: SPCK, 1984). Kaufmann, G., The Theological Imagination (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1981).

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2 popular piety, philosophy and scripture

Introduction The developed doctrine of deification may be traced to a variety of sources in the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans, some of them within popular piety; some within the philosophical traditions; and others within the Scriptures of Judaism and the New Testament. The extent to which Christian understanding is closely dependent on non-Scriptural sources is a matter of debate and interpretation. One of the major differences between Christian tradition and other traditions and practices in the ancient world relates to the conceptuality of ‘salvation’ and of the perceived need in Christian tradition to be saved from sin and death. This means that the level of dependency on non-Scriptural sources is often tenuous. Nonetheless, the effects of the context of the ancient world on the development of broad understandings of deification and emerging terminology in Christian tradition should not be underestimated. The emergence of the language of deification can be traced in various practices and examples in the popular piety and philosophical traditions of the ancient world. These ideas and practices of divinization in the ancient world may be ascribed to the general human desire for immortality. Such ‘immortal longings’1 have manifested themselves in various ways throughout documented human history. The ancient world seems to have taken it for granted that human beings could become ‘gods’. The gods of the ancient religions were little more than immortal human beings. Such an anthropomorphic notion of divinity puts the concept of transcendence at risk. The difference between divinity and humanity remains a fundamental ongoing question for theology. Does an over emphasis on the complementarity between the divine and the human inevitably dissolve claims for divine 1

Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act 5, Scene 2.

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‘otherness’? This question will inform this investigation of the Christian doctrine of deification. The ancient world envisaged apotheoˉsis for the individual in terms of four possible pursuits or activities, which may be labelled as follows: educational, ethical, mystical and ritual. The educational path is associated with the pursuit of ‘academic’ philosophy or popular, less elitist expressions of philosophy. This path focused on the soul or the mind and often appealed to metaphors of light and to concepts of enlightenment or illumination. The ethical path could be pursued in its own right but was often associated with one or more of the other pursuits and was focused on training the human will through living a virtuous life. The mystical path had elitist and more popular manifestations, some of which included the practice of contemplation. This path was rooted in personal, spiritual experience of some kind and an appeal to metaphors of light. The ritual path was manifested in elite and popular forms and might include magical or liturgical practices to enable the individual to find deification for the soul. As the investigation proceeds it will be useful to bear these different paths in mind in order to place the different examples of deification theory and practice in relation to each other.

Apotheoˉsis in the ancient world The notion of apotheoˉsis in the ancient world was construed around two key concepts. The first of these is the status of the gods as immortals and a second relates to the phrase: ‘Know thyself’.

Immortality The status of the gods as immortals in the religions and myths of the ancient world is assumed. To be a god is to be immortal. This is the fundamental distinction between what is human (mortal) and divine (immortal). Jules Gross argues that the works of Homer, the Iliad and Odyssey, make clear the assumptions of the ancient world about divinity and also the possibilities for humankind to rise to it. He is clear that there is a strong association of divinity with immortality. He goes so far as to suggest that qeo/j [God] and a0qa/natoj [immortal] are synonyms.2 The acquisition by a human being of ‘immortality’ inferred that the person had become ‘divine’. There were different usages or registers of what it meant to ‘become god’. It is possible that within the works of the same writer that there were different ‘kinds’ of god. Insofar as there are different levels of deity, there may be different levels or kinds of apotheoˉsis. The identification of divinity with immortality 2

Gross, J., The Divinization of the Christian according to the Greek Fathers, trans. Paul A. Onica (Anaheim, CA: A & C Press, 2002; originally published in French by Editions J. Gabalda, 1938), p. 11.

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in the ancient world is key to understanding the development of Christian deification. What did St Paul expect his readers to take from his claim that As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15.48–56) St Paul may not have a conception of deification in his mind comparable with that of the Orthodox doctrine of eighth or fourteenth centuries, but the language and imagery of this passage from 1 Corinthians, when set in the context of the ancient world, has strong resonances with the identification of what is immortal with what is divine. This is not to say that St Paul or the Christian Tradition more widely considers that salvation is simply a matter of becoming ‘immortal’ and in that sense ‘divine’. Rather the Christian Tradition takes such understandings and reworks them. Belief in God who is transcendent as expressed in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures confronts the anthropomorphic gods in Greek and Roman mythology. This confrontation is the basis upon which the conceptuality of apotheoˉsis is reworked into a conceptuality of theoˉsis premised on transcendent divinity.

Know yourself The phrase, ‘Know yourself’, was written on the walls of the forecourt of the temple of Apollo at Delphi in ancient Greece. Delphi was the site of the famous ‘oracle’ whom people came to consult to discover their future fate. The aphorism, ‘Know yourself’, is known in various ancient writers.3 3

For example, Chilon of Sparta, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Solon of Athens, Thales of Miletus, Phemonoe.

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The imperative to ‘Know yourself’ points to an inward journey of discovery which brings self understanding. The imperative echoes the quest for selfknowledge and the need for personal change in the Allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic.4 The quest to ‘know yourself’, invites each person to enquire: Who am I? What am I? What is a person? The search for the real within oneself could also be a search for the divine; the imperative to know may also be interpreted as an imperative find or become (like) God. Those who followed the path of ‘knowing yourself’ sought the divine within themselves. As a consequence, they often came to see this world as illusory and sought to escape from its ‘reality’. The aphorism not only expresses what the philosophers taught about human personhood but was also used by Christian theologians. Philosophers argued that personal apotheoˉsis was possible because of what a person is or has within him or herself. Many Christians came to accept this philosophical premise. Gregory Thaumaturgus (the Wonderworker, c.213–70), a pupil of Origen, appeals to the aphorism, ‘Know thyself,’ in his panegyric for Origen and argues that it forms the basis for attaining apotheoˉsis.5 Origen himself appealed to the aphorism and saw the imperative to ‘know yourself’ as a means of looking into the soul, where one could find reflected the image of the divine mind. Here are to be seen some of the building blocks of a Christian doctrine of deification.

Expressions of apotheoˉsis Within the culture of ancient Greece and the wider Mediterranean world various traditions of apotheoˉsis may be identified. ‘Apotheoˉsis’ refers to the exaltation of a human person to divine rank or stature. Apotheoˉsis was understood to be possible for the individual in (a) mystery cults, (b) Orphism and (c) the religious instincts of Platonism. Mystery cults such as Mithraism instructed adherents in the theory and practice of the journey of the soul into the afterlife and in some cases into divine status. Orphism is a name given to a set of religious beliefs in ancient Greece, which included the understanding that the soul is divine and yet needs to be rescued or saved in order to attain ultimate communion with the gods. Much Orphic mythology focused on the descent of Orpheus and others into Hades and included ideas of resurrection and rebirth. The tradition of Platonism focused on the immortal potential of the soul and the human possibility of imitating or participating in the divine. These notions of the possibility of apotheoˉsis are supported by Greek and Roman mythology, in particular the example of Heracles or Hercules.6 Heracles was understood to be the offspring of the 4 5

6

Plato, Republic, Book 7. Gregory Thaumaturgus, The Oration and Panegyric addressed to Origen, Chapter 11 (11 PG10, 1081D–1084A: especially 1084C). The well-known hero is known as Heracles in Greek mythology and Hercules in Roman.

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god Zeus and a human mother Alcmena. He was understood to be an example of the ‘incarnation’ of divinity in a human life. While this example is not apotheoˉsis as such, the myth of Heracles is a further example of the cultural milieu in which apotheoˉsis is understood and ‘practiced’. It is an interesting parallel with the Christian understanding of incarnation, which became a core component in the construction of the doctrine of deification, as well as the paradigm of what Christian salvation understood as deification, both meant and looked like. Not all Christians see this is as a positive parallel, and some have rejected the model of incarnation because of possible associations with such myths as that of Heracles.

The Imperial cult Another key expression of the cultural currency of apotheoˉsis is the cult of the Roman Emperor. In the period before the Emperor Constantine, the general polytheistic milieu of the Roman Empire meant that the concept of the apotheoˉsis of a human being was widely accepted. So the notion that the emperor himself was divine was by no means extraordinary. The Imperial cult served to reinforce the person of the emperor as a focus of social unity, identity and cohesion. In the ancient world many of the cults in local temples had arisen around human persons who had acquired divine status. Each city built a temple to the Roman Emperor. From the time of Augustus each emperor was proclaimed ‘god’ after death and from Domitian onwards emperors were seen as divine during their lifetime. There is evidence that these developments did not receive universal acclaim. While the populace on the whole accepted the Imperial cult, the intellectual elite tended to be more critical and dubious. However, even Jews and Christians found ways of living with the Imperial cult. Jews were content to pray for the emperor and to offer sacrifice for him in the Jerusalem Temple prior to its destruction. Early Christian theologians accepted the cultural reality of polytheism and did not see it as a great problem, since the ‘gods’ were former human beings. During times of persecution Christians did not acknowledge the emperor as ‘god’, but at other times Christians were often prepared to accommodate themselves to the general cultural expectations, particularly as the Imperial cult was a unifying factor in society. Scholars have tended to see the emergence and acceptance of the apotheoˉsis of the emperor as part of a wider development of the possibility of apotheoˉsis of other individual persons. The apotheoˉsis of an emperor was enacted through the imperial funeral rites. This became the inspiration for a ‘democratization’ of apotheoˉsis for ordinary citizens of the empire. From the second century there is evidence that ‘apotheoˉsis’ referred to and indicated no more than ‘solemn burial’. This demonstrates that the aspirations of the ordinary citizen were to be understood in terms of ‘immortal longings’. 16

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Theurgy The last example of the expression of apotheoˉsis in the ancient world are the ritual or liturgical practices known as ‘theurgy’ [qeourgi/a] from the words theos and energeia, meaning ‘divine working’, ‘energy’ or ‘action’. Rituals were enacted, which were sometimes understood to be magical in nature, with the intention of invoking the action of one or more gods, specifically with the aim of uniting an individual with the divine. This union known as henoˉsis was understood to bring about the perfection of the individual or her soul. The oldest surviving record of the term ‘theurgy’ is found in the mid-second-century work, the Chaldean Oracles.7 There are examples of the theory and practice of theurgy to be found in the philosophical works of the later Platonists as such Iamblichus. Plotinus urged that those who wished to perform theurgy should practice contemplation, as part of the overall goal of reuniting with the Divine. The school of Plotinus was evidently a school of meditation or contemplation. Iamblichus of Calcis (in Syria) was a student of Porphyry, who in turn was a student of Plotinus, he taught a more ritualized method of theurgy that involved invoking the gods and magical ritual. Iamblichus believed that the practice of theurgy was a form of imitating of the gods. In his work, On the Egyptian Mysteries, he described theurgic practice as ‘ritualized cosmogony’, which bestowed on embodied souls the divine responsibility of creating and preserving the cosmos. Iamblichus understood that the divine cannot be comprehended through contemplation because what is transcendent is beyond reason. He argued that theurgy is a series of rituals and practices with the goal of attaining the divine essence by discovering traces of the divine in the different layers of being. Through these processes the practitioner of theurgy seeks the soul’s innate divinity as well as reunion with the Divine. It is possible to understand Christian worship as a form of theurgy. The rituals of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are understood in the writings of St Paul as means of participating in the death and resurrection of Christ and in the Body and Blood of Christ. Such New Testament understandings are reinforced in the developed doctrine of the Latin Medieval Church in the concept of the transubstantiation. The change of substance of the bread and wine understood in this doctrine suggest that when the communicant receives the sacramental elements, there is an assimilation of the communicant with the divine in Christ. The Eucharist understood in terms of the change of substance or of the Real Presence may be interpreted as a kind of theurgy in the sense that it contributes to the divinization of the participants. In the Greek Orthodox tradition some scholars have explicitly understood

7

Chaldean Oracles, Greek text found in Kroll, W., De Oraculis Chaldaicis (Hildesheim, Olms Verlag, 1962; Breslau 1894).

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the Liturgy as a form of theurgy; indeed Vladimir Lossky refers to ‘Christian theurgy’. Sacramental rituals and other forms of worship may be understood in a thaumaturgical way, which is a nuanced re-reception of the theory of theurgy within Christian tradition. Christian thaumaturgy seeks to understand the liturgy in terms of ‘miracle’ or ‘wonder’, while excluding any magical connotation, by stressing the divine initiative of grace and the human response of faith.

Philosophy There are at least two reasons why philosophical traditions should be included in a narrative of the emergence of the Christian doctrine of deification. First, popularized expressions of philosophical teaching, delivered in ‘schools’ around ‘guru’ figures explicitly developed notions of and practices to enable ‘divinization’ of individuals. Second, the more formal expressions of the great philosophical traditions of ancient Greece provide the conceptual framework and terminology which are core components in the emergence of a language of deification. In this section my focus will be on Plato and his much later ‘disciple’ Plotinus, but the narrative will include other figures and examples as well. In any discussion of Plato (429–347 BCE) and his contribution to later Christian thought, the first thing to note is the style in which Plato delivers his teachings. Plato’s writings are dialogues between persons holding different understandings. Some dialogues may represent the actual views of historical persons, while others may be constructs based on alternative perspectives which Plato thought it important to express. This dialogical and dialectical style means that it is not always possible to be certain what Plato himself thought, or to discern ‘development’ or change in his thinking. This is particularly the case when analysing Plato’s understanding of the idea of human imitation of or participation in the ‘divine’. Nonetheless, it is important to attempt to discern something of his understanding in this area, insofar as later Christian writers were influenced and inspired by Platonism in the construction of notions of deification. Imitation is understood in terms of the practice of the virtues and is an ethical approach. Participation suggests an outcome which is more ‘realistic’ and has ontological implications. So I will ask: why does Plato write about the possibility of human imitation of and participation in the divine? What questions is Plato seeking to answer by discussing or positing these theories about imitation and participation? What is the outcome of asking these questions? Statements of the conceptuality of imitation are found in the Republic (613), in Phaedrus where it is expressed in the myth of the Charioteer and in Theaetus (176a f.) where the core statement of this idea is to be found. One of the main reasons for Plato’s concern with ‘imitation’ relates to his 18

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understanding of evil as ‘vice’ and ‘ignorance’ (Sophist 228 c,d). ‘Ignorance’ is a lack of symmetry between the soul and truth, leading to evil. These concerns are voiced in the allegory of the cave found in the Republic (Book 7, 514a–20a). Although evil has made its home in human nature, Plato suggests that salvation is possible through assimilation to God: o9moi/wsij qew|~, which he defines in terms of growing in holiness, justice and wisdom, and, in other words, developing godlike characteristics. Imitation and participation are offered as solutions to the problems of evil and of the corruption of human nature. There are two issues which emerge from this appeal to imitation. One concerns the theory of ‘the forms’ and the other concerns the possible interpretation of Plato’s works in terms of a growing interest in the divine. The human soul might imitate the forms or imitate God. Does the imitation of the divine imply the use of the conceptuality and terminology of participation used in relation to the forms? If this were so, does ‘participation’ suggest the same notion of an inadequate resemblance to an (ideal) exemplar? How does the imitation of the forms relate to the imitation of God? ‘If man imitates God, does he no longer imitate or participate in the form of “man”?’8 The question of what may be understood as ‘divine’ in Plato’s works is complex. One answer might be the gods of mythology, the souls of the ancients and the divine heroes, who were the ‘visible’ gods of the heavens. Another might be the world itself, or the soul of the world, that which is the intellect which gives order to all things, or the answer might be ‘the forms’ and their ultimate expression ‘the Good’. Each of these might be said to refer to the divine. The idea of the Good was to be identified with the notion of being (Theaetetus, 186a). Plato’s works suggest a hierarchy of being or what is really ‘real’. At the bottom are ‘receptacles’, which are not really ‘real’ (Timaeus, 52b). Above this is the world of becoming, which is ‘real’ insofar as it participates in a higher form of reality (i.e. the realm of forms; Timaeus 50b, 51de, 52b; Phaedo 100d) This is the sensible world, the world of particulars, which is intermediate between true being and its opposite (Republic 477 f, 479c). Though Supreme Being cannot be found here, it is found in the higher realm which gives space-time its (partial) reality. Finally, there is the higher realm, the world of forms, in which the many individuals of the sensible world participate (Republic, 596a). The extent of this world is not defined by Plato but may include not only the ideas of sensible objects and sensible qualities but also ideas of moral qualities and relations such as ‘greater’ or ‘less’ and categories of the ‘same’ or the ‘other’ (Parmenides, 130; Phaedrus, 250b; Republic, 479c, Timaeus, 30cd, Phaedo, 103de, 101af; Theaetetus, 185cd; Sophist, 254–55) ‘To be’ is understood to mean participating in ‘being’ (Sophist, 252a). So it may be argued that ‘Ultimate Reality’ 8

Rutenber, C. G., The Doctrine of the Imitation of God in Plato (Philadelphia, PA: King’s Crown Press: 1946), p. 2.

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is Supreme Being, that is, God. In the Republic, the Good is seen as the source of intelligibility and existence of all things (Republic, 509b), but the Good is NOT ‘essence’; it far exceeds this. And yet the Good enters into relations and is sometimes called a form or idea (Republic, 517b, 526e) The notion of the ‘divine’ in Plato’s writings is multilayered and offers the later conceptualization of deification a number of core components. The further question of human imitation and participation is rooted in the understanding of anthropology which emerges from the creation myth as told in Timaeus 29e, which declares that all human beings should as far as possible be like the ‘divine’ (Demiurge) [paraplh/sia e(autw|~]. This understanding is expressed in a variety of ways in other writings. The soul is said to be like God (Phaedrus, 247c-e), and human beings are exhorted to follow in the steps of God, for they are ‘like’ (o(/moioj) God (Laws, 716bc). Plato argues that there is a human likeness to God (o(moi/wsij) (Theaetetus, 176a) as well as a likeness of the cosmos to God [paraplh/sia] (Timaeus, 29e). Such likeness is the ground for both, me/qecij [participation] and mi/mhsij [imitation]. Me/qecij refers to the participation of ‘forms’ in immanent things (Phaedo, 100cd; Republic, 476a); it is the presence [parousia] of ‘forms’ in things and the communion [koinoˉnia] of the ‘forms’ with things. Despite the language of likeness and imitation and participation, Plato argues that human beings are dissimilar to God in terms of nous [mind], which affects the potential of the human acquisition of knowledge. Although any acquisition of knowledge is understood as imitation of God, human beings struggle to acquire knowledge. Categorizing knowledge in terms of ‘truth’, Plato suggests that there several stages by which the human mind achieves ‘truth’ and identifies two main stages (1) opinion, and (2) knowledge, each of which is subdivided further. The two stages of opinion are (1) e)ikasia, a very foggy state of mind, and (2) pi/stij, a step higher but which only relates to sensible objects. The two stages of knowledge are (1) dianoi/a the divisions of the sciences, and (2) noh/sij is true knowledge. This final stage of knowing is achieved through dialectic. This is the ability to analyse and synthesize in the abstract. The philosopher is understood be a dialectician, imitating God, who is the supreme dialectician (Republic, 531d). The acquisition of knowledge is not for the lazy. Only the disciplined are able to see and know. For human beings attaining to knowledge is a long and arduous path, for the eye of the soul has been corrupted through its contact with the body. The educative process requires the pursuit of the virtues and other disciplines; this enables the human mind to acquire the skills of the dialectician, by disengaging the mind from the distractions of the senses. The educative process culminates in the vision of the idea of the Good (Republic, 505a–509c [Allegory of the Cave]). It is at the point where the human subject attains insight into the Good that she becomes most godlike and is transferred into the likeness of God’s image. In summary it is

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in the acquisition of knowledge that the human subject becomes like god. This understanding has resonances with the narrative of Genesis 3 and the eating of the fruit of the ‘tree of knowledge’. ‘Knowing’ in Plato’s writings is understood in terms of contemplation, another feature of the later understandings of deification. Plato argues that God contemplates (Phaedrus, 246–9; Timaeus, 29a) and that the human subject is a contemplator (Phaedo, 79c–80a). Contemplation is understood to bring knowledge of God, and likeness to God, and indeed enables the contemplator to become like God (Theaetetus, 176b–177a). The outcomes of questions concerning imitation and participation are expressed in terms of the imitation of God by human beings: o9moi/wsij qew|~ and the imitation of God by the cosmos: paraplh/sia e(autw|~. However, if human beings imitate their ‘form’, what ‘space’ would there be for the imitation of ‘God’? A ‘form’ is understood to be the eternal, changeless and perfect pattern, which is imitated by things. This imitation is limited; the ‘limit’ may be pursued but it is never reached: (Philebus, 54b f.; Phaedo, 75ab). The pursuit of its possibilities by each particular is through the attainment of excellence or virtue: a)reth/. ‘Virtue’ is the correct functioning of a thing according to the purpose for which it exists (i.e. its telos; Gorgias, 506d; Republic, 444d, Phaedo, 75ab; Philebus, 54b; Laws, 653a; Meno, 87d). On this basis a human being is understood to embody in time and space, ‘manness’, or perfect ‘manhood’, which is the goal of human life (Laws, 770d; Gorgias, 507de; Phaedo, 114c). This understanding of imitation and participation seems to preclude any imitation of ‘God’. The notion of paideia as the perfection of character in accordance with its nature may assist in understanding the notion of the imitation of the divine in the later writings of Plato. ‘God’ understood as the self-moving soul, and as perfect goodness and wisdom, is a model to be imitated by living/moving creatures. This offers a basis for resolving the conflict between the imitation of forms and the imitation of God. ‘God’ in Plato’s thought is the ensoulment of the Good, the Beautiful and the True. But God is not the form of ‘the Good’; rather ‘God’ is the highest possible ‘moving Good’. So God does not exist in complete static immutability like the forms. ‘Thus just as God himself is a kind of middle term between forms and things, so the imitation of God is a kind of mediated imitation of forms.’9 On this basis, it is possible to see that Plato argues that the imitation of God for human beings is a special case because human beings are moral creatures. Human beings have a mind [nou~j] which enables them to make the conscious achievement of true ‘manhood’ a possibility. This true humanity is seen in terms of the forms of justice, wisdom and temperance, of which God is the ‘ensoulment’, so making God the human subject’s larger ‘self’. ‘As such he serves as a definite, individual 9

Rutenber, Imitation of God, p. 37.

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example for imitation. The likeness of humanity is also the image and likeness of God’ (Republic, 501b, 589d).10 God as the human subject’s larger ‘self’ is ontologically significant for humankind’s imitation of God. Human imitation and participation is not in the form of ‘manhood’ but in ‘God’. Human beings vary in their likeness to God (Phaedrus, 248 cf.) and not all are like God (Phaedrus, 249b). The gap between God and human beings remains unbridgeable, despite the potential human likeness to God. The ‘divine’ is an ideal, which human beings endeavour to attain, but will never realize. The recognition of the difficulty of attaining to the likeness of the divine leads not only to an understanding of the limitation of achieving this goal as such but also of the number of human beings who are able to do this at all. Plato argues that the true imitator of God, who is most like God, is the philosopher (Phaedrus, 278d, 248d). Only a philosopher is able to enter communion with the gods at death (Phaedrus, 82bc). Plato laments that there are so few philosophers in his own day (Republic, 494a, 496ab), but argues that the philosopher is a superior creation, whose gifts and character enable him to achieve imitation of the divine (Republic, 535b–36a). As a lover of all wisdom, all truth, beauty and being (Phaedrus, 248d, 249c; Republic, 485a) the philosopher seeks assimilation with the truth (Republic, 533bc, 490ab). By participating in Wisdom the philosopher is himself assimilated to God, growing in likeness to God, so that the secular, temporal self is remade in likeness to the eternal (Phaedo, 78b–84b). Plato argues that only God knows all truth, while the philosopher seeks insight into truth: ‘The imitator of the God whose essence is nou~j is the man who knows.’11 God’s mind is complete and eternal, but even the philosopher’s mind remains potential, until it is ‘begotten’ through assimilation to the divine realm (Republic, 490b; Timaeus, 51e, 46d). Is this outcome of imitation and assimilation achieved through a kind of ‘religious mysticism’? Later Platonists such as Plotinus argued that assimilation to God [o(moi/wsij qew|~] was achieved through ecstasy or mystical experience in which the soul became like God and was united with God. This union was rooted in a purified moral life. Plotinus argued that assimilation was based on a high degree of interiority, in which ‘god’ and the ‘human’ became ontologically identical. At first sight the language used in Book 7 of the Republic seems very similar to this. However, in Plato’s understanding the vision of the Good is not religious mysticism. Plato’s understanding is akin to a non-religious mysticism, based on the experience of oneness with the truth. Evelyn Underhill identifies five stages of religious mysticism: (1) awakening (2) self-knowledge or purgation (3) illumination (4) surrender and (5) union and unitive life. It seems fairly clear that Plato’s description 10

Rutenber, Imitation of God, p. 38.

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Rutenber, Imitation of God, p. 59.

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concludes at stage three, which does not necessarily mean that Plato was unspiritual. A further outcome of imitation and participation is transformation. The person who loves knowledge is understood to be a seeker after God; so that, in discovering the truth a person discovers God, and in this discovery, there is a transformation of the human will and morals. The contemplation of beauty, truth and goodness leads towards the outcomes of perfection [teleio/thj], adequacy [i(kanothj] and self-sufficiency [a)uta/rkeia]. This achievement is based upon a life of temperance. But in relation to imitation this raises a question as to whether God practices temperance? If temperance is the self-control of bodily pleasures (and God has no body) does this mean that the human subject needs to be emotionless in order to imitate God? Plato suggests an intriguing possibility of combining wisdom and ‘pure pleasure’. He suggests moderation rather than the elimination of pleasure as such. He appeals to the notion of a state of graciousness [ i(/lewn] which he sees as a condition of the ‘divine’. Plato rejects extreme asceticism, distinguishing between bodily pleasures which are mixed with pain, relative pleasures and pure pleasures. ‘Like God in the cosmos, man in making a cosmos out of his own inner life takes what is already present and brings it to maximum order and value, eliminating only in extreme cases.’12

Later Platonism A discussion of later Platonism (what has often been called Neo-Platonism) follows in order to set out and analyse together the main influences and sources of the Christian understanding of deification. There will be further discussion of Plotinus and others in this era in the next chapter, in order to examine the context of Christian writers. Plotinus (c.204–70) was a philosopher and teacher in his own right as well as being a significant influence upon Christian thinking. The thought of Plotinus may have been influenced in certain respects by Christian theology, which sometimes leads him to oppositional conclusions. My interest in the writings of Plotinus relates particularly to his understanding of ‘deification’. What were the questions he sought to address by positing a theory of deification? What outcomes emerge from asking these questions? Later Platonism emerged from a revival of interest in Platonism in the first century prior to the common era. A leading author at this time, Eudorus of Alexandria, working c.25 BCE, wrote of ‘likeness to God’ as the telos of human life. This became a key focus in later Platonism. Prior to this the Stoics had seen ‘conformity to nature’ as the telos of human existence. The change of focus to the ‘likeness to God’ raised 12

Rutenber, Imitation of God, p.71.

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two major questions. What aspect of the divine were human beings expected to become like? And what aspect of human being could become like God, so that such likeness could be attained? Theos ‘God’ or ‘a god’ was certainly more than human. The ‘divine’ in philosophical understanding was equivalent to ‘true being’. For the ancient Greek philosophers, ‘being’ was contextual; things did not simply exist, they existed in a particular way. ‘Being’ was understood to have degrees of being or reality. The most ‘real’ was the ‘divine’. To be deficient in being was to be deficient in divinity. For Plato the highest level of reality was the ‘Forms’. The form of the Good was understood to be transcendent and the cause of all lesser degrees of being. Below this there was a dynamic or cosmogenic aspect of the divine, the demiurge, and below the demiurge were the gods of polytheism, in a descending hierarchy. Aristotle (384–322 BCE) did not accept the conceptuality of the Forms and the mythology which Plato embraced. For Aristotle the divine was immaterial, eternal substance, whose only activity was intuitive knowledge (Metaphysics, XII, 6–7). This divinity was the ‘unmoved mover’, a perfect living and intelligent being below which were the moved movers. Later Platonism developed a synthesis of the thought of Plato and Aristotle and gave rise to a notion of the ‘really real’. In this understanding the ‘divine’ is nous [mind], whose self-intellection is the divine ‘forms’. In relation to the question of what aspect of the divine human beings become like, Plotinus constructed a descending hierarchy of deity. The ‘One’ was beyond being and intellection. There was a second hypostasis, nous, produced from the One, because the perfect is productive. A third hypostasis, psyche, produced from the second, as the second is from the first, is also rational. This third hypostasis is understood to be the immanent power of life and growth. This hierarchy of divinities disclosed the One at a variety of levels. Both nous and psyche were to be found in each human being. This became a core concept in later Platonism. Following Plato, it was understood that the soul as a unity was not composite and, therefore, was indestructible and immortal and possessed the recollection of memory. Plato had allowed for passions and desires within the soul. This acknowledged that there was struggle and conflict within the human psyche. Yet the nous was ‘a god to each person’, ensuring that the notion of immortality was attached to the human soul. Aristotle taught that parts of the soul are immortal. This meant that human beings could become immortal if they strove to live in accordance with the immortal parts of the soul. Later thinkers taught a duality of the soul, in which the soul was divided into the rational and irrational. The embodiment of the composite soul was seen as a kind of ‘fall’. Premised on these concepts of the divine and the soul Plotinus taught that although the soul was one ousia, it needed to be freed from its lower parts in order to attain oneness with the psyche [the world soul]. Further purification 24

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and abstraction was required for the soul to attain union with the One (Enneads, V.5.4.8). This final stage of the soul’s journey was completed through an annihilation of all duality. The soul became one with what it sought, yet was not absorbed by it. This process is described as one full of fear and pain. The union is described in terms of vision. However, vision implies a duality of the seer and the seen. Union is also described as touch, blending, self-surrender, ecstasy and erotic mingling. The union is understood in terms of the superimposed centres of two circles, which become indistinguishable and yet can be seen separately if they move apart. This union with the One is thought of as a ‘dizzying leap’ and yet is not something outside the human person. Plotinus argues that ‘We do not need to become gods but simply to realize what we are, which we attain in its fullness through union with the One: “for a god is what is linked to that centre.”’13 Despite these understandings of the deiform nature of the soul, the conceptuality of ‘deification’ remained problematic because of the doctrine of the ‘undescended soul’. The potential for deification was opened up by Iamblichus (250–325), who rejected the doctrine of the ‘undescended soul’. As a consequence the three divine hypostases came to be understood as a hierarchy of different essences. These essences could be ‘participated in’, and the individual might ascend and descend without compromising the transcendence of the higher hypostases. Plotinus’ pupil Porphyry (c.234–305) had anticipated this change, himself using the technical language of deification for first time about the year 300. He argued that to become like God was to attain the godlike quality of incorruptibility which was understood as ‘being deified’ (Ad Marcellam, 17). Iamblichus, who was Porphyry’s pupil, recast the context of deification by arguing that the human soul is non-divine. This meant that for deification to occur an ontological change becomes necessary. This placed further emphasis on the need for preparation for the ascent to the divine. Iamblichus argued that the transformation from human to divine was achieved through the practice of theurgy, which he understood as both intellectual as well as ritual. The works of Iamblichus provide virtually the only examples of the language of deification in philosophical discourse prior to fifth century. In the context of philosophy the conceptuality of deification was understood in terms of two different outcomes the ethical or the realistic. In the ethical outcome, ‘deification’ is understood in terms of a likeness to God achieved through ascetic and philosophical practices. Certain divine attributes could be attained by the human person through ‘imitation’ (homoiosis) [attaining likeness to God]). In the realistic outcome, human beings are in some sense transformed through a participation in God (methexis). Homoiosis and methexis are terms used in Plato and later Platonism and 13

Russell, Deification, p. 41.

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have different but overlapping meanings. Methexis suggests a more concrete outcome, but both concepts explore the relation between ‘being’ and ‘becoming’: that which exists ‘absolutely’ and that which is contingent. ‘“Participation” (methexis) is the name of the “relation” which accounts for the togetherness of the elements of diverse ontological type in the essential unity of a single instance.’14 In the instance of the togetherness of ‘holiness’ within a holy person there is a relation, which is substantial and not just an appearance and which is asymmetrical (i.e. not of equals). ‘Likeness’ (homoiosis) is another construal of the ‘relation’ between elements of differing ontological kinds but is weaker and non-constitutive, namely, holy people resemble each other and share in holiness. However, ‘participation’ may itself be strong or weak, for it may be used literally [kuri&wj] or figuratively [kataxhstikw=j].15 Another key aspect of the architecture of the doctrine of deification is the ancient Greek conceptuality of the going out from and return of the cosmos to its divine Creator. This notion relates in the thought of Plato to the understanding of the creation as an emanation from its (divine) origin. However, in the Christian reception of this concept it is reconstrued in terms of the conceptuality of creatio ex nihilo. In other words, the conceptuality of going forth (exitus) and of returning (reditus) to the divine is reconceived in terms of an ontological difference between the Creator and the created order. But the movement of flowing out and of return is retained. This is to be seen in the work of both Maximos the Confessor and Thomas Aquinas. The conceptuality of exitus and reditus becomes a metaphysical construct, which informs not only the doctrines of creation and of salvation (deification) but notions such as the missio dei. In other words the potential to ‘become divine’ for the human creation and perhaps for the whole cosmos (e.g. Romans 8. 22, 23) is part of the fabric of the creation, imprinted upon it by the divine intention and initiative in the act of creating. It is around these concepts that the later Christian doctrine of deification is constructed. Does this examination of the antecedents of the doctrine of deification in ancient Greek philosophy and practice imply that there is direct or wholesale influence of Platonism and other world views on the development of Christian doctrine, as Adolf von Harnack claimed. The works of Plato exercised a profound influence upon philosophers and theologians such as Philo of Alexandria, Plotinus, Porphyry, Gregory of Nazianzen, Augustine, Ps-Dionysius and Eriugena. Christian thinkers were as much part of the culture and world views as any of their contemporaries in the ancient world. But this does not mean that Christian belief was adversely affected by or changed into Greek philosophy. Many scholars argue that Christian belief is 14

Bigger, C. P., Participation: A Platonic Inquiry (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), p. 7. 15 Russell, Deification, p. 2.

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‘other’ in comparison with such ‘systems’ as Platonism. Dörrie argues that there is a ‘pseudomorphosis’, that is to say only the outward elements of Greek thought are used by Christians and that these have been inhabited and made their own by Christian writers.16 ‘They can have nothing but the outward appearance, the words and the images which may seem to be Platonic . . . in fact are completely alien to the metaphysic they seem to reproduce.’17 Not all scholars agree with Dörrie, but it is important to acknowledge that both later Platonist writers as well as Christians were not simply repeating the ideas of Plato. They produced innovative understandings, which in the Christian tradition were as much as inspired by the Gospel tradition as any contemporary world view.

The Jewish and Christian scriptures Filiation, perfection and holiness are foundational forms of expression for an understanding of divine – human intimacy, union or deification. The extent to which such concepts are found in the Hebrew Scriptures or the Septuagint is a matter of debate. But within these texts are instances of phraseology or conceptuality upon which a metaphor of deification can be constructed. Filiation, the divine adoption of human beings as sons and daughters is probably the most problematic of the three concepts. In patristic exegesis Psalm 82 verse 6 is used as a ‘proof text’ for filiation. There are other examples in the Hebrew corpus such as texts in Job and Psalm 29, which have been associated with ‘filiation’. These texts have been translated using ‘sons of God’, but in the New Revised Standard Version the phrase is rendered ‘heavenly beings’. Texts which refer in Hebrew to the ‘sons of God’ possibly indicate beings such as angels which inhabit the divine realm. These texts demonstrate an understanding of beings intimately related to the divine to an extent that they are called ‘sons of God’. Examples from the Septuagint suggest an idea of adoption. In the Wisdom of Solomon (chapter 5), a text related to those who have been persecuted, suggests that they have ‘been numbered among the children of God’ (Wisdom of Solomon 5.5). In Ecclesiasticus with reference to the poor and oppressed, it is suggested that ‘you will then be like a son of the Most High’ (Ecclesiasticus 4.10). These examples demonstrate that persons were held by their peers in the status of a child of God because of certain virtuous attitudes and actions. This may be interpreted as entirely metaphorical, but it demonstrates a shift in understanding from that in the Hebrew corpus. There is evidence in the Septuagint 16

Dörrie, H. S., ‘Jahre Forschung zum Thema Platonismus und Kirchenvästerhe’ in Platonica minora (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1976), pp. 508–23. 17 Vogel, C. J., ‘Platonism and Christianity: A Mere Antagonism or a Profound Common Ground?’ Vigiliae Christianae 39 (1985): 7.

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texts of an understanding of the potential for human beings to become perfect, which in the Hebrew corpus is understood to be a divine attribute.18 In the Book of Wisdom (4.10–14) the text suggests that a perfected humanity is possible, although it seems only on the basis of removal from this world. Similar examples are to be found in the book of Ecclesiasticus.19 The notion of sharing in the divine attribute of perfection is a possibility available at least to certain human beings. But it is an exclusive elite who achieve this end. The concept to being holy as God is holy is, however, a key understanding in the book Leviticus in the Hebrew corpus; chapter 11. 44, 45 is a key text: 44

For I am the Lord your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming creature that moves on the earth. 45For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall be holy, for I am holy. This and other examples from Leviticus may be understood in terms of ritual holiness or purity. The inference of such a claim being that there is a marked difference between ritual purity and moral holiness. Whether such a sharp distinction is justified is questionable, as the Levitical law code may be understood to comprehend an understanding of holiness which is both ritual and moral.20 These phrases and concepts in the Hebrew Scriptures and Septuagint provide a basis for understandings of filiation, perfection and holiness in the New Testament, and they also provide a basis for the emergence of the metaphor of deification in the Early Church. Covenant’ is a pervasive concept in the Hebrew, Septuagint and Christian scriptures. It is word used in a variety of ways, but the usual understanding of covenant is of a ‘relationship’ or agreement between God and ‘his people’. This intimacy between the human and the divine is rooted in the notion that humankind is made in the divine image and is the basis for the Incarnation. Such intimacy also provides the basis for the idea of a synergy of wills. The following passage from the prophet Jeremiah promises a ‘new covenant’ which is more intimate: 31

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33But this is the 18

For example, Deuteronomy 32.4; 2 Samuel 22.31; Psalm 18.30. For example, Ecclesiasticus 31.10; 44.17 (Noah); 45.8 (Moses); 50.11. 20 See Leviticus 19.2; 20.26 and Numbers 15.40. 19

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covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31)21 The concept of covenant is found extensively in the Wisdom literature of the Septuagint corpus. The concept of a covenant relationship between God and his people remains of crucial importance for the construction of a doctrine of deification in the present context which demonstrates the relational dimensions of partaking in the divine nature. The phrase ‘image and likeness’ has been the focus of much attention in Christian theology, among those who want to exploit the phrase to formulate a Christian anthropology as well as among the detractors of such terminology. Among the theologians of the Early Church Clement of Alexandria brought together the understanding of ‘image’ in Genesis 1.26 with that of Plato in Theaetetus 176b, as Philo of Alexandria had done previously. The phrase occurs in the first creation narrative of Genesis. Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1.26, 27) 22

Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him, is to become holy, just, and wise. (Theaetetus, 176b)23

The Genesis narrative articulates the belief that human beings, male and female, are made in the ‘image and likeness’ of God. However, it provides no

21 22

23

See Hebrews chapter 8. From the NRSV: in Hebrew the word translated as ‘humankind’ is ‘adam’. There is further articulation of the imago dei in the blessing of Noah and his sons at the conclusion of the Flood narrative in Genesis 9.6. Plato, Theaetetus (trans. Jowett), 176b.

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content to this notion. It seems to be a means of establishing the distinctiveness of human being over against other sentient creatures. Subsequent generations have sought to puzzle out what such an extraordinary claim might mean. One understanding of imago dei has been in terms of human capability for language and reason. Another text from the Hebrew Scriptures may explain why this has been the case: You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God. (Exodus 20.4, 5) The association of image and likeness with idolatry has had considerable consequences upon Christian thinking about the imago dei and has tended to direct conceptualizations of the divine image away from anything material, reinforcing an emphasis upon rationality. At various moments in the history of the Church there have been violent disputes about images, such as during the Iconoclast Controversy among the Eastern churches and at the time of the Reformation in the West. These conflicts have tended to reinforce a cerebral or spiritual understanding of the divine image in humankind. In addition, in some traditions a distinction has been drawn between ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ which often relates to the outcome of the Fall. In the Orthodox tradition it is usual to distinguish between the divine image which remains part of human nature after the Fall and the divine likeness which is lost and needs to be restored. Understandings of the divine image are shaped by the desire to speculate on what human nature was like before the Fall in comparison with afterwards. Within the Orthodox tradition the comparison of the pre- and post-lapsarian state of humanity is often focused on the phrase ‘garments of skin’ as well as understandings of the divine image and likeness. In the aftermath of the disobedience of Adam and Eve there is a catalogue of consequences or curses (Genesis 3.14–19). At the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden, ‘The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all who live. And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them’ (Genesis 3.20, 21). The clothing of Adam and Eve in ‘garments of skin’ gives rise to whole raft of ideas about pre-lapsarian human nature, including questions of gender, sexuality and reproduction. Some scholars24 have drawn a parallel between the ‘garments of skin’ in Genesis 3 with the text of Genesis Rabbah, a midrash on the Torah, which speaks of Adam and Eve being clothed by God with ‘garments of light’ on the sixth day of creation (Genesis Rabbah 24

Barker, M., The Hidden Tradition of the Kingdom of God (London: SPCK, 2007).

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XX.12).25 The inference being that a potential for ‘immortality’ is lost through the clothing in ‘garments of skin’ implying bodily mortality. Adam and Eve having eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and in that sense having become like God, are expelled from Eden in order to prevent them eating of the tree of life and becoming immortal (Genesis 3.22–4). Despite the lack of any direct reference to ‘deification’ in the Hebrew Scriptures, there are strong resonances with the later conceptualities upon which the doctrine of deification was constructed. On the whole the consensus of scholarly opinion is agreed that the Hebrew Scriptures contain little or nothing which explicitly suggests a notion of deification. However, later exegesis, both Jewish and Christian, has interpreted elements within the Hebrew corpus as the basis for the metaphor of deification. These Jewish ‘post-biblical’ schools of exegesis are known as Rabbinic, Hellenist and Enochic. The main texts on which later understandings of deification are construed are narratives concerning Enoch, Moses and Elijah. These texts relate stories of the exaltation of a human person to God and to a heavenly status. On the whole readings of the Hebrew Scriptures have suggested that there is deep gulf between the Creator and the creation and that the fate of human beings at death is in the shades of Sheol (e.g. Job 7.9, Psalm 6.5, Proverbs 1.12) Pre-exilic texts suggest that there is no continuation of human existence beyond death. But it is interesting to note that among the references to Sheol, some speak of being rescued from Sheol (1 Samuel 2.6, Psalm 30.3, Psalm 49.15), and others speak of it as a place not devoid of God (Psalm 139.8). Another tradition suggests that some human beings are taken up into heaven, in particular Enoch (Genesis 5.24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2.11). The text suggests that Enoch had a close relationship with God. The interpretation of the phrase, ‘God took him,’ came to be interpreted as meaning more than physical death. In the light of such interpretation, some biblical scholars place the stories of Enoch and Elijah among the post-exilic texts of the Hebrew Bible. It is only in the post-exilic literature of the Hebrew Scriptures that anything approaching the metaphor of deification may be discerned. An example is the vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37.1–14, and the vision of the throne chariot of God, in Ezekiel 1.1–28; 10.1–22; 43.1–5. These texts suggest not only a vision of the divine in the here and now but also the potential for a vision of God, which unites the individual with God in the courts of heaven, perhaps eternally. The ideas found in the post-exilic text of Ezekiel may be traced in the texts of the later Wisdom and Apocalyptic literature. In these texts grades of angels and demons are portrayed, which connect God and the creation and ideas of immortality and resurrection find explicit expression along with the translation of the heroes of the faith into heaven. 25

See Psalm 104. 1,2.

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These trends were reinforced by the destruction of the second Temple in 70. In Judaism the Messianic expectations were brought into doubt, and, in the place of such expectation, there is a renewed emphasis on the study of Torah, and there emerges a spirituality of assimilation to the life of the angels or of ‘angelification’. If the angels are understood to be ‘gods’, this can be seen as a kind of deification. In some understandings it was possible to anticipate this in the present life through ‘an ecstatic ascent to the vision of the throne-chariot of God’.26

A patristic proof text The use of proof texts by the theological writers of the Early Church is focused on Psalm 82. This appeal emerges not so much from a reading of the Hebrew Scriptures or Septuagint as from a key text in the Gospels. In the narrative in the Gospel of John following the ‘Good Shepherd’ discourse, there is an attempt to arrest Jesus for blasphemy, during which Jesus himself cites Psalm 82 verse 6. The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus replied, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?’ The Jews answered, ‘It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.’ Jesus answered, ‘Is it not written in your law, “I said, you are gods”? If those to whom the word of God came were called “gods” – and the scripture cannot be annulled – can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, “I am God’s Son?”’ (John 10.31–6) The passage makes play of the correlation between the claim to be ‘gods’ and the claim attributed to Christ of being God’s Son. Here something of the later architecture of the metaphor of deification in terms of ‘filiation’ may be discerned. The later notions of becoming a ‘god’, being the Son of God and becoming a child of God are traceable to this text. Psalm 82.6 is the most often cited ‘proof text’ in early Christian sources for the emergent understanding of what became the doctrine of deification. The text of 2 Peter 1.4 may seem to the contemporary eye to be much more relevant, but this is a view from hindsight and has probably acquired more standing in the light of the construction of the later doctrine.

26

Russell, Deification, p. 53.

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Harnack and Bousset27 among others argued that in constructing the doctrine of deification early Christian writers had borrowed from ancient philosophical traditions, the mystery religions and the Imperial cult, and had overturned the original eschatological Gospel message. In particular, these critics pick up on the appeal made to Psalm 82 through the text of John 10. They interpreted this appeal as a justification for the development of something foreign to the Christian tradition. In their view, ‘The patristic appeal to Ps. 82.6 was thus an ex post facto justification for deification that did not contribute to the origin of the doctrine.’28 Carl Mosser argues that such a view misrepresents the biblical basis for the doctrine of deification and seriously misunderstands the way in which the early Christian writers approached Scripture.29 Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria are the earliest examples of this appeal to John 10 and Psalm 82.30 Psalm 82.6 is not simply read out of the Gospel text, but New Testament notions are being read into it by the early writers. Christians were developing ideas and not simply reiterating traditional, received understandings in the form of a scriptural warrant.31 What becomes evident is that Christians not only inherited the Hebrew Scriptures but also received some of the different traditions of scriptural interpretation in Judaism. However, the interpretation of Psalm 82 in the rabbinic literature of the Second Temple period is difficult to establish, since most patristic sources pre-date Jewish texts, other than 11QMelchizedeck of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 11QMelchizedeck and the Gospel of John are two examples of the interpretation of Psalm 82 in Second Temple Judaism. Mosser argues that what is of particular importance for early Christian writers is the declaration of sonship rather than the question of ‘godhood’ per se. 32 Mosser argues that Justin, Irenaeus and Clement understood Psalm 82.6–7 as a summary of the narrative of the Creation and Fall of humanity. God had created the human race to be his immortal ‘sons’. If humanity had not fallen they would have matured in their likeness of God. The Fall disrupts God’s intentions in creating the cosmos. The glory of the garden of Eden, the intimate relationship of a child of God and life itself are lost, and in their place the fate of humanity becomes corruption and death. However, the phrase, ‘the scripture cannot be annulled’ (John 10.35) was interpreted

27

For example, Bousset, W., Kyrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1970), pp. 420–53. 28 Mosser, C., ‘The Earliest Patristic Interpretations of Psalm 82, Jewish Antecedents, and the Origin of Christian Deification’, Journal of Theological Studies, 56(1) (2005): 33. 29 Mosser, Psalm 82, 34. 30 The earliest example is in Justin Martyr, The Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 124. 31 See Mosser, Psalm 82, 35. 32 Mosser, Psalm 82, 64.

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to mean that the divine intentions are not destroyed by the Fall. Verse 6 of Psalm 82 was seen as prophetic, pointing to the Incarnation and resurrection of Word, which fulfils the divine intentions of creation by recapitulating the fate of Adam. Mosser argues that the early writers came to understand that verses 6 and 7 of Psalm 82 pointed to a ‘Complete fulfilment . . . found in the new humanity consisting of those who are baptized into the death and resurrection of this new Adam’.33 This interpretation led to a conceptuality upon which later understandings of deification are constructed. ‘The conceptual synonymy between qeo/j, a)qa/natoj and a!fqartoj and the synonymous parallelism of Ps. 82:6 allowed for the patristic writers aptly to summarize their eschatological-soteriological expectations in terms of being made qeo/j / qeoi/.’34 This vocabulary becomes the basis for the terms used later: qeopoie/w and qeopoi/hsij. The particular question which arises from these understandings of Psalm 82, is whether this interpretation has any Jewish antecedents, or does this play into the hands of those who condemn deification on the grounds that it is based upon pagan conceptualities and terminology. Moser suggests that there is such evidence in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Enochic literature.35 An examination of this evidence follows. The figure of Enoch, a son of Cain, known from Genesis chapters 4 and 5 became the focus of reflection and speculation in the period from the third century BCE. Enoch came to be understood as a mediator between heaven and earth. In later Rabbinic texts the worship of Enoch is prohibited, which suggests that some saw him as a manifestation of Yahweh. In the first Book of Enoch and in the texts of the Qumran community the figure of Enoch becomes allied to a notion of transcendent life beyond ‘death’. This idea in these contexts may have emerged independently of any direct Greek influence. The texts of the Qumran community express the notion that the righteous are predestined to transcend death and join the company of the angels. The leader of the Qumran community was seen as the ‘new Moses’ who would lead the community towards ‘angelic life’. These ideas were based upon passages from the Psalms which were understood to refer to the heavenly court. The ‘Sons of Heaven’ who are angels are often referred to as elohim or elim, based on Psalm 82.1. The writings of the Qumran community suggest that the boundary between heaven and earth is either permeable or dissolved, suggesting an inaugurated eschatology.36 These understandings provide the basis on which the worship of the Qumran community came to be understood in terms of an anticipation of the ‘divine life’ of the heavenly court. 33 34 35

36

Mosser, Psalm 82, 59. Mosser, Psalm 82, 59. See Mosser, Psalm 82, 66–7. Jewish sources include Dead Sea Scrolls: 1QS 4.20,22–3; 1QH 4.15; also 2 Enoch 31.1; 4 Ezra 3.7; Sibylline Oracles 1.50; Wisdom 2.23; 3.4,7; 2 Baruch 73–4, for example, 74.3. 1QS 11.5–9; 1QH 3.21–2.

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In both the Book of Enoch and the writings of Qumran community there are the beginnings of a democratization of these expectations in that all of the righteous are admitted to the heavenly court, and take part in the heavenly liturgy of the angels. The significance of Moses is expressed in a drama dating from the second century BCE, Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian, which is written in Greek verse. Some fragments of this survive in the Stromateis (1.23.155–6) of Clement of Alexandria and Praepatio Evangelica (IX, 28.1–3) by Eusebius. The Exagoge suggests Moses’ superior status over Enoch, because of his ascent to the divine throne, his revelatory vision and his ‘deification’ on Sinai. In the Exagoge, Moses does not merely ascend and have a vision of God’s throne: God bids Moses to sit on his divine throne. Moses is given God’s own scepter and crown, God’s insignia. Moses shares God’s throne: he is divinized. Moses thus not only sees God’s throne as did Enoch: he rules from God’s own throne. This is a significant development in the Mosaic tradition: Moses, the human, is the patriarch who not only ascends, but shares God’s dignity. It brings to mind Philo’s later understanding of Moses as god and king, as well as rabbinic midrashism on Deut 33.1 which claims that Moses was a man when he ascended Sinai, and a god when he descended.37 (emphases in original) Moses’ ascent to heaven and sitting on the throne of God not only implies deification but also suggests that he is restored to the glory lost by Adam and becomes a prototype of a new humanity. Rabbinic sources provide evidence of the evolution of an understanding of deification, which is related to ‘Merkabah mysticism,’ a spiritual practice which emerged from meditation on Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot throne of God. This strand of Jewish tradition was an alternate to the view of the ascent to God understood in Greek philosophy. In this rabbinic tradition the exegesis of Psalm 82.6 interpreted the ‘gods’ as those who attain immortality through proper observance of the Torah. There is evidence that this interpretation strongly influenced later Christian understandings of deification. The Enochic texts make a fundamental contribution to the emergence of a doctrine of deification in Christianity. This dependency is witnessed in that survival of these texts is due mainly to their use and preservation by the Christian community.

Wisdom literature The book, the Wisdom of Solomon, dating from the first-century BCE, sits within the broad tradition of Wisdom literature that is found within the 37

Ruffatto, K. J., ‘Polemics with Enochic Traditions in the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian’, Journal for the Study of Pseudepigrapha, 15(3) 2006: 204.

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Hebrew Scriptures and the wisdom texts of the ancient Near East and Greece. The Book of Wisdom brings to expression a Jewish idea of ‘blessed immortality’, which emerges from contact with and influence from ancient Greek philosophy. The beginning of the personification of ‘Wisdom’ can be found in the texts of Jewish Wisdom literature, such as Proverbs chapter 8. But in Hebrew Wisdom literature immortality is understood in terms of leaving a son after oneself, while in the Book of Wisdom the personification of Wisdom indicates something much closer to the ‘being’ of God, expressed in the vocabulary of ‘emanation’ and ‘image’ (Wisdom 7). The connection between personified Wisdom, understood as an emanation form God, and human beings, brings about an intimacy with God so that human beings are called the ‘friends of God’ and are not separated from God by death. Although she is but one, she can do all things, and while remaining in herself, she renews all things; in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God, and prophets; (Wisdom 7.27) The Book of Wisdom may pre-date the writings of Philo of Alexandria, in which case this text is the first example of an appeal to immortality in ‘Hellenistic Judaism’. This construal of an immortal destiny for humankind is based upon the concept of personified Wisdom. Passages from Wisdom 3.1–9 and 5.15 suggest that the dead become immortal and live forever in the presence of God. Immortality [a0qanasi/a] or incorruption [a0fqarsi/a] is the telos for which human beings are created. The human soul is not naturally immortal, but God bestows immortality on merit. ‘Incorruption’ is a divine attribute, which the Epricureans saw as the difference between the divine and the human. In the Book of Wisdom incorruption is ascribed to human beings on the basis of the divine image: for God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his company experience it. (Wisdom 2.23–4) The understanding of immortality as divine gift is reinforced in the reference to ‘manna’, described as the food of the gods, the ‘ambrosial food’ in Wisdom 19.21. This is the food of immortality, which bestows the divine gift on human beings and has resonances with later eucharistic understandings. The writings of Philo of Alexandria (20–50 BCE) are of interest for an analysis of the emergence of a Christian doctrine of deification for a number of reasons. In particular Philo is an example of an adherent to Judaism who lived and worked in the context of the cultural milieu of the ancient city of Alexandria, renowned for its philosophical schools. He is of significance 36

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because several Early Church writers explicitly refer to his writings, particularly Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Basil of Caesarea. Philo had been educated in the traditions of the contemporary understandings of Greek philosophy, and he took up an apologetic task of presenting Judaism in ways which would commend it to educated Jews and gentile converts. His apologetics are rooted in an Alexandrine tradition of allegorical interpretation, which can be seen in the interpretation of the works of Homer. Philo argued that between God and human beings there is a chain of being, which nonetheless meant that God remained transcendent. This ‘chain of being’ allowed for the possibility of the ascent of the soul to God through the practice of philosophy. The interpretation of the relationship between Jewish and Greek traditions in Philo’s writings is a matter of some dispute. Wesche argues that Philo brought together Hebrew and Platonist categories in a synthesis, which was taken up later by Origen.38 For example Philo writes that the mind [nous] is ‘intimately related to the divine Logos, being an imprint or fragment or effulgence of that blessed nature’ (De Opificio Mundi, 46). This divine Logos is ‘begotten of God’ and mediates between God and creation. But Dörrie argues that this is not so much a synthesis as a ‘pseudomorphosis’, in which only the outward elements of Greek thought remain. In this understanding Philo’s contribution to Jewish and Greek thought is much more innovative. The Wisdom tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures, and possibly of the Septuagint, is extended by Philo. Using Platonist concepts Philo sets out four different ways by which the soul ascends to God. The first is a religious approach (De Specialibus Legibus I.269–72) in which the soul abandons idolatry and turns to the true religion. Second, there is a philosophical approach (De Migratione Abrahami 194–5) in which the mind rises from sensible to intelligible objects through contemplation. Third, there is an ethical approach (Legum Allegoriarum I.108) which leads to immortality, through the practice of the virtues, making the soul ‘godlike’. Finally there is a mystical approach (De Somniis 2.32.2). On this path the true philosopher goes out of herself and attains the highest level possible for a human being to pure mind (nous). Moses was such a person. He embodied wisdom and so occupied a mediating position between God and human beings. But even Moses is called ‘god’ only ‘figuratively’, on the basis of sharing in the divine attributes of incorporeality and immortality.39 The philosophical and exegetical traditions of those Jewish writers influenced by the ‘Hellenistic’ environment of Roman Empire provide a context 38

39

Wesche, K. P., ‘Mind and Self in the Christology of Saint Gregory the Theologian: Saint Gregory’s Contribution to Christology and Christian Anthropology’, Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 39(1) (1994): 45. Russell, Deification, p.11.

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for early Christian writers which can be summarized in four distinctive understandings which form the basis for a Christian metaphor of deification. First, these traditions suggest that immortality is a gift from God, rather than an innate property of the soul. Second, the human soul enjoys a kinship with the divine glory but, nonetheless, remains distinct from the divine. Third, the possibility of moral progress allows the soul to participate in certain of the divine attributes. Finally, there are rare examples of human beings attaining an ecstatic encounter with God even in their earthly lives.40

New Testament The texts of the New Testament contain no explicit reference to ‘deification’. For some this will endorse their view that the metaphor of deification is foreign to the primitive Gospel. In my exploration of various themes in the New Testament I will endeavour to demonstrate that many of the features of the later metaphor are to be found throughout the writings of the New Testament. This is not surprising if one accepts that the metaphor arises from reflection on the New Testament witness. The metaphor of deification arises not only from reflection on the text of the New Testament but also from reflection on the experiences to which it testifies. The narrative of the Transfiguration provides a particular and important instance of an experience which Christian theologians believed was reiterated in the lives of the faithful. The hope of immortality is set out in 1 Corinthians 15. The play on the difference between mortal and immortal, perishable and imperishable is striking and resonates with the understanding that the divine is immortal and imperishable. The defeat of death and the putting on of immortality is seen in terms of the reversal of the fate of Adam:41 Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15. 20–6)

40 41

Russell, Deification, p.77. See also Revelation 2.7, ‘To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.’

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The hope of immortality is related by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 to the possibility of the resurrection of a ‘body’ after the burial and decomposition of the mortal remains of a person. The possibility of the ‘resurrection body’ is construed in relation to a notion of a ‘last Adam’ as well as a ‘first Adam’. The first Adam is understood to be ‘a living soul’ [yuxh\n zw~san] ‘from the dust of the earth’, while the second Adam is ‘a life-giving spirit’ [pneu~ma zwopoiou~n] ‘from heaven’. In the resurrection of believers, the body of yuxh/ from Adam will be transformed into a body of pneu=ma from Christ. For those still living at the moment of the second coming there will be an instantaneous and radical transformation. The psychikon body will become the pneumatikon body. The Gospel of Matthew is the only one of the four gospels to include the extended passage of teachings called the ‘Sermon on the Mount’, in which is found the command to be perfect, in imitation of the divine perfection. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the taxcollectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5. 43–8) This command to imitate the divine perfection is given concrete content as the passage above reveals. This godlike attribute of patient acceptance and inclusion is seen as the goal and standard for human behaviour. The passage itself makes no assumptions about becoming godlike as such. But the practice and habit of such behaviour is no doubt assumed to bring about a fundamental transformation of ‘sinful’ human attitudes and actions. The potential for attaining to divine attributes became a core element in the expression of the metaphor of deification. The passage is the core text in John Wesley’s construal of Christian Perfection and of the later Holiness movements in the Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions to which I will return.42 The notion of the divine image is found in Colossians 1 where the ‘image’ is understood in relation to the person of Christ rather than humankind.

42

Wesley, J., ‘A Plain Account of Christian Perfection’, in T. Jackson (ed.), The Works of John Wesley (1872), vol. 11, pp. 366–446; Wesley also appeals to other texts, for example, Hebrews 6.1; Philippians 3.15; 1 John 4.18.

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This passage became the basis for the interpretation of the imago dei in later Christian thought. The passage sets out a detailed and complex faith statement in relation to Christ, on the basis that he is the image [eikoˉn] of the invisible God. But how does this use of image relate to the human race in general? The understanding that Christ in his particular role and relationship with God is understood as ‘icon’ and that human beings are also ‘icons’ of God could be interpreted in terms of either difference or similarity. Kathryn Tanner argues for the latter.43 She suggests that any notion that the human and the divine are in ‘competition’ is a misunderstanding of the Christian Tradition. Christ as the icon of the invisible God allows humanity to be understood as perspicacious of the divine. The human potential of perspicacity of the divine is to be found in the gospel narrative of the ‘Transfiguration’ or ‘metamorphoˉsis’ of Christ. The ‘event’ of the Transfiguration, which is recounted in each of the Synoptic Gospels,44 becomes a core component in the construal of deification in the Orthodox tradition. Indeed icons of the Transfiguration are the pictorial expression of the metaphor of deification: Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’ When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. (Matthew 17.1–8) The narrative of the Transfiguration has a number of elements which become key in the construction of the doctrine of deification. The figures of Moses and Elijah are notable not only as key figures of Judaism but also as those who had their own ascent to the divine. There are several aspects to the story to highlight in terms of the later doctrine. The event occurs on a high mountain, which is a symbol of the ascent to the divine. It is a place of vision and light. The three disciples see the transfigured Christ and witness the light 43

44

Tanner, K., Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2001), for example, chapter 1. Matthew 17.1–8; Mark 9.28; and Luke 9.28–36.

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from his face. The vision of God [theoˉria] becomes a key factor in the construal of deification. Vision and light suggest contemplation, illumination and enlightenment, each of which becomes a core element in the theorization of deification. The revelation of the divine light on Mount Tabor may be seen as comparable with ‘Resurrection light’ and the ‘tongues of flame’ on the day of Pentecost. This appeal to light and illumination has strong echoes of Plato’s allegory of the Cave. The Transfiguration is a model of the transformation for the Christian believer. The paradigmatic status of the narrative is to be understood in terms of the much later conceptuality of the ‘Hypostatic Union’ expounded by the council of Chalcedon. The perichoˉrēsis of the human and divine revealed in Christ’s transfigured face on Mount Tabor becomes an exemplar of human redemption and sanctification. Furthermore, the perichoˉrēsis of the human and divine in Christ may be understood in terms of a ‘synergy’ of wills. The perspicacity of the human for the divine as witnessed in the narrative of the Transfiguration is not only a matter of ontology but also a matter of moral intent and of divine–human synergy. This comes to be understood as absolutely central to the construal of what is meant by deification in the Christian tradition. An example of the concept of the synergy of wills in the New Testament texts is the core Christian prayer: the ‘Our Father’. The Lord’s Prayer as used liturgically is based on the Matthean text: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. (Matthew 6.9–13) The phrase in verse 10 concerning the divine will may be understood as an invitation to conform one’s human will to the divine, and so enter into a synergy of wills. This interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer became widespread as the doctrine of deification came to be accepted, particularly in the Orthodox churches. The passage in 2 Peter 1.4 is the clearest statement of anything approaching ‘deification’ in the New Testament. But among the earliest Christian writers this verse does not evoke much interest. Later theologians such Cyril of Alexandria and John of Damascus and the post-Reformation writers do 41

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cite this verse in relation to their understandings of deification.45 However, in terms of biblical texts 2 Peter 1.4, together with Genesis 1.26 and John 10.34-5, provide the strongest basis for a theology of deification. His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants in the divine nature. (2 Peter 1.3, 4) In this passage from 2 Peter, the understanding that ‘divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness,’ means that through God’s promises Christian believers ‘may participate in (literally, ‘become sharers [koinoˉnoi] of’) the divine nature’ escaping from the corruption in the world which is caused by evil desires.46 Karl Barth interpreted this passage to mean nothing more than ‘the practical fellowship of Christians with God and on this basis the conformity of their acts with the divine nature’.47 But for exponents of a Christian understanding of deification the passage in 2 Peter 1.4 is a key text, which offers not only a strong biblical basis for the notion of human participation in the divine but also relates this verbally to the concept of koinoˉnia. There are two major themes in the letters of St Paul to examine in relation to the later understanding of deification in the Christian tradition. They are filiation, adoption as sons or daughters of God and ‘Christification’. I have chosen the word ‘Christification’ as an alternate to ‘deification’ to emphasize that Paul does not write of becoming divine explicitly. He does write of becoming closely identified with Christ, which Albert Schweitzer described as ‘in Christ mysticism’. While Paul himself had ‘mystical’ experiences, the use of ‘mysticism’ can be misleading in terms of a general exposition of Paul’s concepts of becoming identified with Christ. The identification of the believer with Christ occurs through a variety of means. It is possible through ritual or liturgical practices, specifically Baptism and Eucharist. There is also an ethical path in which the believer pursues the virtues or the gifts of the Spirit. In each of these cases Paul appeals to the metaphor of the Body of Christ. And in each case he argues that the believer has some kind of personal experience. In terms of Baptism the believer needs to experience death 45

See Benea, O., Theosis in the Biblical and Eucharistic Ecclesiology of Patristic Theology, MA Th, Lampeter University (Dissertation) p. 184.

46

Rakestraw, R. V., ‘Becoming Like God: An Evangelical Doctrine of Theosis’, Journal of Evangelical Theological Studies, 40(2) 1997: 258. Barth, K., The Christian Life: Church Dogmatics IV, 4, Lecture Fragments (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981), p. 28.

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and resurrection for himself as moral ‘conversion’ from sin to new life. St Paul uses various expressions for ‘participatory union’: ‘in Christ’, ‘with Christ’, ‘Christ in us’, ‘sons of God’. Paul’s expressions became the basis for reflection which informed the emergence of the metaphor of deification. There is a strand within the writings of St Paul which some scholars interpret in terms of a mystical understanding of the vision of and possible union with God. Paul writes of his own experience of ascent to the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12.2–4). This experience is parallel with the revelation of the eschatological life, which is found in esoteric traditions such as Gnosticism. In this instance it is clear that the detail of the revelation is personal to him. The experience is parallel with Merkabah revelatory experience, and it is possible that Paul was aware of traditions like that of Qumran. Paul’s writings are full of references to ‘union’ expressed in phrases such as being ‘in Christ’, ‘in the Spirit’, the ‘spiritual life’ and ‘life in God’, but such phrases are not used in relation to mystical experience as such. The two themes of adoption (filiation) and Christification in the letters are not mutually exclusive, and passages where one theme is used explicitly may also suggest the implications of the other. The idea of becoming one with Christ (Christified) is expressed by Paul in various ways. A foundation for this idea and experience is Paul’s identification of Christ and Adam. Adam is seen as a type of Christ in Romans 5.14, while Christ is seen as the second Adam in 1 Corinthians 15.45. The persons of Christ and Adam and their actions have consequences for whole human race, and it is on this premise that Paul speaks of the experience and process(es) of Christification. Paul also identifies Christ and Abraham, in relation to the notion of a covenant for all. In Galatians 3.23–29 Christ is understood in relation to Abraham and his seed, so that those who have ‘put on’ Christ in Baptism are the children of God. In Romans 8 Paul describes participation in Christ as a process of successive stages: liberation from demonic powers, sharing in the sufferings of Christ, sharing in Christ’s glory; indeed the whole creation groans waiting for liberation from vanity and corruption. There are references to being in Christ through the indwelling of the Spirit, the outcome of which is adoption, for those who call upon God their Father as ‘Abba’. Paul explores the work of the Spirit within the believer in 1 Corinthians 2.10–16.48 Paul distinguishes between the spiritual and the unspiritual, indicating that the Spirit interprets for the spiritual the consequence of which is to have the mind of Christ. This passage has strong resonances with the practice of a school of instruction gathered around a spiritual teacher, a practice which was often found in the ancient world and has been identified as a key element in the emergence of practices around the doctrine of deification.

48

Other instances of being ‘in Christ’: 1 Corinthians 15.22; 1 Corinthians 1.2; 2 Corinthians 5.17; Romans 6.23.

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Paul writes of ‘putting on’ Christ in Baptism, and extending the metaphor appeals to the image of being clothed in life and incorruption.49 The passage in Romans 6 on Baptism is a particular instance of the experiential as well as theological in the process of Christification: How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6.3–5) This ritual or liturgical example demonstrates that Christification is an experience with moral as well as eschatological consequences. This passage anchors the later doctrine of deification in a ritual and sacramental context, which was equivalent to contemporary theurgical praxis. Paul’s teaching on the Eucharist is not without its moral implications, but the emphasis in 1 Corinthians is on the twin understanding of the Body of Christ, where the one loaf is the material and ritual means of becoming and expressing the metaphor of the one Body of Christ, the Church. The one eucharistic bread is the means of expounding the relation of the one and the many in terms of koinoˉnia. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing [koinwni/a] in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing [koinwni/a] in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10.16–17) Paul reiterates the collective understanding of ecclesial belonging in 1 Corinthians 12.27, ‘Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.’ The ecclesial metaphor of the Body of Christ and its sacramental equivalent is a core element in Paul’s understanding of Christification and is central to the construal of the later doctrine of deification. This is central to a (re-)reception of the doctrine and practice of deification today. The construal of deification around corporate sacramental worship is the basis for a renewal of understanding which has a strong emphasis on the corporate and collective aspects of deification alongside the individual experience of partaking of the divine nature by each person.

49

See Romans 13.14, 1 Corinthians 15.53; Galatians 3.27; Ephesians 4.24; Colossians 3.10.

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The second and related theme in Paul’s letters is that of filiation or adoption as the sons, daughters or children of God. Paul writes that the faithful become sons of God by ‘adoption’ in Romans 8.14–15, Galatians 4.5 and Ephesians 1.5. He declares that the faithful are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ in Romans 8.17, Galatians 3.29 and Ephesians 1.14. The passage in Galatians 3 as noted previously is constructed on the basis of an identity between Christ and Abraham, which implies that the once-exclusive covenant is now extended to all people. There are precursors to this understanding in the Hebrew Scriptures, for example, Genesis 12.3 where God promises to Abraham that, ‘in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ The prophet Hosea (1.10) extends these ideas further still in his vision of the eschatological community, where all are invited to become ‘children of the living God’, members of a restored covenant relationship, enjoying intimacy with God. St Paul’s understanding of filiation builds upon these precursors in the Hebrew Scriptures, but he is the first Jewish writer to use the term ‘adoption’ [ui9oqesi/a].50 In Romans 8.12–17 Paul extends the idea from adoption as children of God, to becoming fellow heirs with Christ, suggesting that the Holy Spirit as the agent of adoption is contrasted with spirit of slavery. The outcome of adoption will be an end to present suffering and the arrival of the joy of the end times. In the Deutero-Pauline letters such as Ephesians there is a further extension of the idea of ‘adoption’. In Ephesians 1.5 the adoption of believers as sons through Jesus Christ is seen as part of God’s plan ‘to sum up [a0nakefalaw&sasqai] all things in Christ’, which has resonances with the later understanding of recapitulation in the work of Irenaeus. In Ephesians 1.10 the metaphor of the Body of Christ is changed, for here Christ is head of Body. This change of metaphor may indicate a change of emphasis. As head of the Body, Christ provides access [parrhsi&a] to the Father for his adopted brothers and sisters. Access to the Father relates to the notion of ‘imitation’. There are examples in the letters of Paul of his encouragement to his ‘spiritual children’ to imitate Christ through him.51 In Ephesians 5.1 there is an exhortation to the faithful to ‘be imitators of God’, which leads to the possibility of being ‘filled with all the fullness of God’ (Ephesians 3.19). The imitation of God is based upon the claim that the faithful are already saved and enthroned with Christ (Ephesians 2.6). Although salvation is assured, there is still room for development and growth until the full stature of Christ is attained. There are fewer references in the Pauline corpus to imitation than participatory union, but Paul does write of imitation and obedience, and this understanding is given further ethical emphasis in Ephesians. The themes of participation and adoption are also found in the letter to the Hebrews. 50 51

See Romans 8.15, 23, 9.4; Galatians 4.5; Ephesians 1.5. See 1 Corinthians 4.16, 11.1; 1 Thessalonians 1.6.

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Scholarly opinion is divided over the interpretation of Pauline teaching concerning Christification and adoption.52 Sanders argues that ‘the very diversity of the terminology helps to show how the general conception of participation permeated his thought.’53 The emphasis on participatory union with Christ is not disputed, but whether it is to be understood as soteriological is another matter. The outcome of participation is also disputed. Albert Schweitzer argued that while Paul stressed union of the believer with Christ, he did not speak of being one with God,54 while other scholars have argued that there are grounds for understanding ‘participation’ in the Pauline corpus in terms of ‘deification’. The balance of opinion is on the side of Schweitzer, as it is usual to argue that Christ was not understood to be divine until the writings of the second century. On this basis, union with Christ is not the same as union with God. Paul does not reflect on ‘participation’ per se; rather it is a means to an end, which may be ecclesial or liturgical or eschatological. Paul’s use of terms is understood to be metaphorical, but later writers reworked this into a technical language. It is for such reasons that I used the term Christification rather than deification. However, this does not preclude an understanding of participation which includes ‘real change’. In 1 Corinthians 10 it is clear that Paul considers that eating food sacrificed to idols is a participation in a certain kind of reality. Eating and drinking the eucharistic elements is seen as a ‘real’ participation in Christ, and by implication in the new creation. On the basis of such understanding, ‘participation’ is not to be understood as something solely within the subjective self-understanding of the believer. ‘Participatory union’ refers to something considered ‘real’ rather than being just a figure of speech. It may be difficult to categorize this ‘reality’. There remains a difference between Christ and those ‘in Him’, but he is not isolated from his people. In Christ believers are ‘renewed inwardly’ (2 Corinthians 4.16) and advance from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3.18). Such passages do not amount to a doctrine of deification. But they provide core elements which became the components of the architecture of the later doctrine, and they offer the potential for considered theological reflection on the calling and destiny of the human creation within the divine purposes of creating and redeeming. The Johannine corpus in the New Testament has many parallels with the Pauline corpus in terms of the themes of adoption and Christification, even if the vocabulary and phraseology are different. What is of particular interest for me are those texts which inspired an understanding of perichoˉrēsis. 52

53

54

Deissmann, A., Paul (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1927); Schweitzer, A., The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1957). Sanders, E. P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (London: SCM Press, 1977), p. 456. Schweitzer, Mysticism, pp. 3, 26.

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Perichoˉrēsis emerged as a theological concept in the writings of Gregory Nazianzen in the context of the discussion of how divinity and humanity relate to each other in the Incarnation. But in the Gospel of John the notion of indwelling is not only of the Father and the Son but also of the faithful with and in the Father and the Son. The Christological and Trinitarian developments of the notion of perichoˉrēsis are important in applying the doctrine of deification in the present day. But at this juncture what is important is the concept of the human indwelling in the divine, with the implications for participation in, adoption by and union with God. Within the Johannine corpus there are high expectations for the destiny of the Christian believer.55 In John 17 the unity of believers with the Father produces an outcome of receiving glory and of becoming completely or perfectly one. The unity of the Father and the Son is shared with the faithful, and the faithful receive the divine gifts of life, love and glory (light). that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17.21–3) The element of missiological witness in this text reinforces the potential for the metaphor of deification to be re-received today in the collective context of the Church and to provide the basis for an enriched understanding of mission as well as a renewed understanding of the cosmic dimensions of the divine purposes. The understanding of salvation in the Christian Tradition is something which was never the subject of ‘definition’ by an ecumenical council. The work of Christ in the Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection ultimately remains a mystery beyond definition, yet the New Testament texts and the writings of the Early Church theologians bear witness to a profound sense of being ‘saved’ through these events in human history. St Paul uses a multiplicity of metaphors to express the experience of being saved, and these have informed Christian discourse ever since. Some metaphors are more favoured in certain Christian traditions more than others. The metaphor of deification is a clear example of such preference. But whatever preference a Christian believer may hold, within whichever tradition, attempts to ‘explain’ the outcomes of the historical events of Christ’s birth, ministry, death and

55

For example, John 14.23; 1 John 3.24.

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resurrection remain metaphors of ‘salvation’. This is as true of deification as it is of any other metaphor of salvation. The metaphorical status of deification is particularly important to hold on to, as the language of imitation and participation may suggest a level of experiential reality which goes beyond the metaphorical. This is in no way to deny the reality of the experience of ‘mystical union’ with God. But it is a warning against reducing the mystery of Christ to the mechanism of human words. This is why the notion of ‘unknowing’ remains so crucial in the discussion of the metaphor of deification. I have shown that philosophical and scriptural sources each make use of the language of imitation and participation. The authors of the New Testament may be dependent on the philosophical traditions of the ancient world for some of their preconceptions, but, on the whole, while the language may be shared, their conceptual frameworks are very different. This is particularly the case in terms of ‘salvation’. The philosophical and scriptural traditions understand that the human predicament requires some kind of ‘solution’. Although imitation and participation are premised on philosophical understandings of the ‘forms’ in Plato, they are premised on the Person of Christ in Paul. Christ is the Logos ‘made flesh’. This is as much a challenge to philosophical understandings as an adoption of them by the Church. Nonetheless, the corporate and collective dimensions of the metaphor of deification were predicated on philosophical conceptions of communion as well as the Church’s experience of divine fellowship.

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The purpose of this chapter is to discern how the metaphor of deification was used in the period of the first five centuries and to assess how the Church today can receive the witness of this common patristic heritage in order to understand and live out the divine purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos. The expression of the metaphor of deification in the texts of the patristic era has been examined in great detail by authors such as Jules Gross and Norman Russell. This chapter does not in any sense to try to replicate the detailed investigation which is found in those works. My concerns are to examine the imperatives, which lie behind the use of the metaphor, and to discern what reciprocity there was between Christianity and other world views. I will also identify how components of the later expression of the metaphor were inherited from the patristic era. This is not to suggest that the ‘patristic era’ was in any sense homogenous. The Christian Tradition emerged through the very varied use of vocabulary and metaphor and the use of the theological imagination and speculation in reflecting on the Gospel tradition and the experience of the Christian life. Different approaches to theological reflection emerge and develop and wane across the Christian world in the early period. One of the intriguing aspects of the trajectory of the metaphor of deification in the first five centuries is the gradual spread of the broad appeal to the metaphor by theologians, only for that to disappear during the fifth century because of a growing sense of ‘orthodoxy’ within the Tradition. There are five basic components used in the patristic era to express the metaphor of deification. Three are pairs of opposites and two are pairings from the philosophical/theological tradition. The pairs of opposites are uncreated and created, immortal and mortal, divine and human, and the pairs of concepts are image and likeness, and ousia [essence] and energeia [energy]. The conceptuality of deification is also constructed around a variety of formulae. The philosophical tradition of ancient Greece provides at least three of these: (1) imitation of the divine, (2) participation in the divine and (d) the ascent of the soul to the divine. Each of these relates to the immortal– mortal pairing. Imitation relates closely to the practice of the virtues. 49

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Participation and ascent relate to a concept of contemplation or ‘theoˉria’ [vision], which suggests an encounter with divine light. In the Judeo-Christian Tradition the pairing of image and likeness plays a complex role. In particular, the notion of the ‘restoration’ of divine likeness holds a key place in the Orthodox understanding of deification, premised on the biblical narratives of the Creation and Fall in Genesis 1–3. The texts of the New Testament suggest a further set of concepts which become core elements in the construal of a notion of deification. The most fundamental of these is ‘filiation’ or adoption. Being adopted as a son or daughter of God suggests transition or transformation, which is certainly the understanding of the text of Romans 8. Such change or transformation is premised on the idea of divine– human exchange. This is most graphically illustrated in the Gospel narratives of the Transfiguration or Metamorphoˉsis of Christ. The notion that God becomes human in order that human beings might become divine has come to be understood as the ‘exchange formula’ which is found in many early writers and continues to be used liturgically as well as theologically to the present time.1 Also premised on the paradigm of the Incarnation or the Hypostatic Union is the core notion of divine–human synergy. This in turn relates to the use to the essence–energies pairing in Palamite understandings of deification. The appeal to the sacraments is fundamental to the construction of a doctrine of deification. Its ecclesial and corporate aspects extend deification beyond the realms of personal experience and individualistic piety. Baptism and the Eucharist express relational aspects of the doctrine. The correlation between Eucharist, being deified and communion [koinoˉnia] is crucial to the possibility of presenting a relational understanding of participating in the divine life. The appeal by Thunberg and Zizioulas to ‘an event of communion’ in respect of theoˉsis resonates with a notion of inclusion within a dynamic divine living and being, earliest evidence for which is found in the texts of Origen. This too is important in the development of a relational understanding of deification. The outcome of deification was understood in radically different terms, within the patristic period. Theologians used a wide variety of concepts and categories to express the metaphor of deification, and these are reflected in the considerable variety of outcomes of deification. There are three ways in which the outcome of deification is most often expressed: nominal, analogical and metaphorical. In a nominal usage the word ‘gods’ is applied to human beings as an honorific title. The analogical use extends the nominal; a biblical example is found in the text of Exodus 7.1 where Moses is said to be a god to Pharaoh. The use of metaphor is more complex, for there are two distinct means in which metaphor can be employed which suggest different outcomes: ethical and realist. In the ethical construal of the metaphor 1

For example, the exchange formula is used among prayers at the offertory in the contemporary Roman Rite of the Mass.

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deification is understood in terms of the attainment of likeness [homoiosis] to God through ascetic and philosophical practices. In other words, an individual might achieve some divine attributes by ‘imitation’, possibly by practising the virtues. In the realist construal of the metaphor, human beings are in some sense transformed, on the basis of a model of participation [methexis] in God. These outcomes do not suggest any collapsing of the creator–creature distinction. Deification remains a metaphor for God’s intended destiny for the human race and is a metaphor for the intimacy between the divine and the human in the present and in ‘ta eschata’. I will split the examination of patristic texts into two chronological sections, the first looking at the period until the Council of Nicaea and the second looking at the period after Nicaea. In the first part I will focus on the vocabulary used to express the metaphor of deification in the writings of Christian philosophers and theologians, including those who taught in the didaskaleia.

Before Nicaea: didaskaleia, apologetics and exegesis Probably the first evidence of the idea of being deified beyond what became the New Testament corpus is to be found in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch. I say ‘probably’ because there are issues regarding the dating of Ignatius’ life and, therefore, with the dating of the letters themselves. Evidence for Ignatius’ birth is scant, and dates for his martyrdom range between 98 and 117. The corpus of letters attributed to Ignatius is known in a shorter and longer collection. The shorter collection is usually deemed to be the more ‘authentic,’ but even these are contested because of what is seen as an appeal to a ‘monarchical’ episcopate, which would suggest a date in the fourth century.2 The letters of Ignatius use the language of ‘participatory union’ rather than any technical terms for deification, which may suggest an earlier rather than later date in this respect at least. Ignatius refers explicitly to Christ as ‘God’. On this basis it is inferred that if Christians participate in Christ, then they participate in God. In other words, to be ‘in Christ’ or to be ‘Christified’ is to be ‘deified’. The letters explore themes such as participation in God, the Eucharist, martyrdom, Church unity, attaining to God and the imitation of God.3 These ideas may be interpreted as evidence of a move away from

2

3

For example, Ruis-Camp, J., The Four Authentic Letters of Ignatius the Martyr; A critical Study Based on the Anomalies Contained in the Textus Receptus (Rome: 1979); Hübner, R. M., Thesen zur Echtheit und Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochien (Berlin: 1997). Ignatius writes of believers’ intimacy with God, for example, ‘God-bearers’ (Ephesians 4.2); ‘God-runners’ (Philadelphians 2.2); ‘participate in God’ (Ephesians 4.2): ‘are wholly God’ (Ephesians 8.1); ‘are full of God’ (Magnesians 14.1); ‘have God in themselves’ (Romans 6.3).

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the eschatological understandings of the New Testament writings to a conceptuality of the resurrection of believers through an ascent of the soul to immortality, which suggests the influence of ‘Gnostic’ sources. But Ignatius has a thoroughly ecclesial and collective outlook rather than a focus on the individual which is associated with Gnostic writings. The impetus behind Ignatius’ rhetoric of intimacy and union with the divine is the explicit claim that Christ is ‘God’. It is this Christological basis which is the predicate for human participation in the divine, which is achieved through becoming ‘in Christ’ in the ecclesial context of the sacraments.

The didaskaleia Ignatius was a bishop and pastor and had explicated the ecclesial tradition as he understood it. During the first half of the second century there is evidence of the emergence of didaskaleia or ‘schools’ which were groups of disciples or students gathered around a teacher. This reflects the growth of Christianity among those who were more educated, and perhaps schooled in philosophy. Christian didaskaleia were to be found in the main cities of the empire, modelled on philosophical schools. The clientele of these schools sought deeper spiritual insights, which can be seen to have apostolic sanction in such passages as 1 Corinthians 2.6–13. While these schools were in some sense independent, they were not usually separated from the local Church and its bishop. Among those who taught in this way were Basilides and Carpocrates in Alexandria, Aristides in Athens and Marcion, Valentinus and Justin in Rome. Evidently some schools had a more ecclesial basis than others. Some teachers focused on esoteric knowledge, which related to those who understood themselves to be ‘true Christians’. Some schools followed the path of ‘Know thyself’ and sought the divine within. Others taught that this world was an illusion and, on this basis, sought unity with God outside a pattern of salvation focused on the Church and the ‘reality’ of this world. One such teacher was Valentinus (c.100–175) who was born near Alexandria and educated there. He claims to have studied under a disciple of St Paul, and prior to the year 140 had moved to Rome, where he founded a school. There he developed doctrines which would become a source of Christian heterodoxy for centuries to come. The teachings of Valentinus survive only as quotations in the works of those who argued against them, such as Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus of Rome. The Gospel of Truth a text which survives in Coptic among the Nag Hammadi texts may possibly have been authored by Valentinus. It is possibly ‘the earliest surviving sermon on Christian mysticism’4 and encourages believers to turn inwards, in order to find true knowledge and through Christ return to the source of being.

4

Layton, B., The Gnostic Scriptures (London: SCM Press, 1987), p. 250.

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The Gospel of Truth suggests that the material world is illusory, while the truth is unchangeable. It suggests that ordinary believers are subject to the error of the soul’s forgetfulness, which was standard, contemporary, Platonist teaching. The solution to this ‘error’ was gnosis, which was understood to be personal and experiential rather than philosophical. However, the process of acquiring and pursuing gnosis is through a solitary path of ‘self-discovery’. The believer is to stretch upwards for salvation and in doing so discovers that gnosis reaches down to them. The final goal of this process is repose in the Father, for all who emanate from Father will return to him. However, knowledge of the Father is never ‘total’ for he always remains hidden, unnameable and indescribable. Such teachings influence the formation and construction of the Christian Tradition insofar as orthodoxy emerges over against these ideas. Equally some of these ideas become accepted within the Christian Tradition. For example, Origen taught the descent and ascent of the soul, and similar ideas are found in the works of Evagrios Ponticus and Gregory of Nyssa. Among those who formed a didaskaleion in Rome was Justin Martyr (c.100–165). This has been described as being akin to the school of Plotinus described by Porphyry. Among the disciples of Justin was Tatian and possibly Irenaeus. The writings of Justin include two Apologies, addressed to the Roman Emperor and the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. Justin’s main motivation for writing was to explicate the Christian faith, particularly for the benefit of those who were not Christian. Justin may also be identified as a seeker after truth. He took his bearings from both Stoicism and Platonism, and he understood that the goal of life was to ‘see God’. However, he seems to have doubted that philosophy could achieve this by itself. He poses a fundamental question (from an old man on the seashore) ‘What affinity is there between us and God?’ Is the human soul divine and immortal as understood in Platonism?5 Here is an example of a key question in relation to the construal of a doctrine of deification: what is the distance or compatibility between the divine and the human? Justin’s answer rests on an understanding that the affinity between the human and the divine is not only an ontological concern but relates to what is moral. In other words, in order to ‘see God’ the believer requires righteousness and therefore virtue. Justin rejected the notion that the soul is immortal, that is, unbegotten, arguing that only God is unbegotten. Justin argued that the soul cannot see God without the Holy Spirit and needs Christ to ‘open the gates of light’, so that illumination is understood to be a gift from God. This gift of God is construed in relation to knowledge and experience of the incarnate Logos, which is attained through the grace of Baptism and the Eucharist. Thus knowledge is not extrinsic but is personal and leads to restoration of the

5

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Dialogue 4.

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‘Adamic state’. In the Dialogue with Trypho, Justin makes an explicit reference to the language of ‘deification’ in relation to the exegesis of Psalm 82.6. Justin argues that Christians are the ‘New Israel’ that the ‘gods’ are those who are obedient to Christ. It is Justin’s endeavour to give an account of Christianity in terms which his non-Christian audience, either Pagan or Jewish, would understand that leads him towards an understanding of deification. This is based upon a critical reading of either philosophy or the Hebrew Bible, in relation to his own commitment to an understanding of the Incarnation of the Logos in Jesus Christ. According to Eusebius, Tatian (c.120–80) was a pupil of Justin, and after a period in Justin’s school he returned to live in his native Mesopotamia. Tatian is best known for his harmony of the four Gospels, the Diatessaron. One of his core understandings is that the Christian life is lived in order to recover immortality lost by Adam. He rejected the standard philosophical understanding of the human subject as a rational animal capable of receiving nous and knowledge. He preferred the biblical notion that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1.26). The human soul is to seek union with divine pneuma which was lost through the Fall. This union is achieved through the Holy Spirit, given to human beings as a gift from God, in order to participate in immortality and to recover the divine image and likeness. Some of Tatian’s ideas are parallel with those of Gnostics. But for him knowledge is available to all and is not esoteric. However, in order for the soul and body to become immortal it is necessary to refrain from the eating of meat and drinking of wine and sexual activity. Tatian describes the achievement of the deification of the body in terms of putting on a royal robe, which has parallels in the Gospel of Thomas: The believer indeed transforms his body through deification. He is able to do it precisely because Jesus is not unique, having twins, or ‘multiple personalities’, since the historical personality of Jesus is only vaguely defined. All this comes as a result of the quest for true wisdom, which the believer can now embrace.6 Deification, a sharing in divinity and immortality, results from the acquisition of wisdom but is predicated on an understanding of the divine image and likeness: The celestial Word, made Spirit from the Spirit and Word from power of the Word, in the likeness of the Father who begot him made man an image of immortality, so that just as incorruptibility belongs to God,

6

Siverstev, A., ‘The Gospel of Thomas and Early Stages in the Development of the Christian Wisdom Literature’, Journal of Early Christian Studies, 8(2) (2000): 332.

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in the same way man might share God’s lot and have immortality also. (Oratio ad Graecos, 7.6–10)7 Tatian seems to understand that immortality is the outcome of individual deification in this life, which would indicate a wholly realized eschatology. Furthermore, the distinction between the divine Logos and human beings is blurred through the use of the same terms to describe both. This appears to indicate an identification of humankind with the Logos. Tatian’s ideas are intriguing in that they demonstrate a close connection with the trajectory within mainstream Christian Tradition exploring the biblical concepts of the divine image and likeness and the recapitulation of Adam’s fate, while placing a strong emphasis on an appeal to wisdom and immortality and a realized eschatology. His writings demonstrate how varied, fluid and exploratory much early Christian writing could be. They demonstrate that deification was a recurring theme, relating to God’s original intentions in creating the world as well as in the outcomes of the redemption of ‘fallen’ humanity and the cosmos. If Tatian is an example of a disciple of Justin who took the Tradition in a direction which would soon be seen as heterodox, Irenaeus (c.202) is hailed as a champion of orthodox belief. Irenaeus, teaching in Lyons was faced with a different set of problems. He perceived that the teachers of Gnosticism focused on esoteric knowledge. His response was to proclaim a true Christianity available to all. In his polemic against Gnostic teachings Irenaeus developed the baptismal possibilities of Psalm 82.6, in which he sought to assure Christian believers that the attainment of immortality as ‘gods’ is possible for all. This claim is predicated on the Incarnation and participation in the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. Irenaeus did not develop a technical language of ‘deification’ and only refers to ‘gods’ in relation to Psalm 82.6. He explores the conceptuality of the recapitulation of the fate of Adam, which is resolved in the adoption of believers as the ‘sons’ of God, based upon the exchange formula that God had become human, in order that the human might become divine. Salvation is construed in relation to Christology, but in a way totally unlike Tatian’s formulation. For Irenaeus it is the deified Body of Christ which is the basis of human participation in the divine: ‘the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through his transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself’ (Preface of Book 5, Against Heresies). This is an exchange of properties, but it does not produce an identity of substance rather it makes believers into ‘sons’ by adoption. Adoption relates to the distinction Irenaeus draws between the divine image and likeness

7

Siverstev, Gospel of Thomas, p. 335; see M. Whittaker (ed.), Tatian: Oratio ad Graecos and Fragments (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982).

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(Against Heresies 5.6.1, 5.11.2, 5.16.2; Proof of Apostolic Preaching 11). The image is of the yet invisible Son, which is manifested in Adam’s body. The divine likeness is communicated by the Spirit and is manifest in Adam’s participation in the divine life and the freedom of the Son. On this basis, Irenaeus understands that the divine likeness conveys two gifts: first, life, which human beings participate in but do not possess, and second, freedom, the possibility of exercising free will. True freedom is understood in terms of obeying the divine will. This notion has within it the seeds of a later understanding of divine–human synergy. In responding to the esoteric teachings of the Gnostics, Irenaeus begins a line of thought which considers who Christ is, in order for salvation to be achieved. Irenaeus argues that Such is the reason why the Word was made man and the Son of God made the Son of man so that man, in being mingled with the Word and in receiving in this way the filial adoption, becomes the Son of God. (Against Heresies 3.19.1)8 Irenaeus receives St Paul’s exposition of an Adamic Christology and extends these understandings to form ‘recapitulation’ as his main metaphor for salvation. On the far side of the empire from Lyons, Alexandria was a city of longstanding intellectual traditions and was a leading centre for philosophical and theological thought and speculation in the second century. It is in this city that two of the most creative Christian theologians of the early centuries had their home, Clement of Alexandria and Origen. As an intellectual centre, Alexandria would have been host to a number of didaskaleia at any one time. Among the Christian schools some were ecclesial, and others independent, as Clement and Origen’s schools were. Among the teachers in Alexandria at the end of the second century was Ammonius Saccas (c.160–242), whom Porphory reckoned was an ex-Christian. He had a didaskaleion, which may have been attended by Plotinus and Origen. This indicates something of the fluidity of thought among the intellectual class in Alexandria at the time, which included the teachings of such figures as Valentinus and Basilides. Alongside the private didaskaleia, there were official catechetical schools, sponsored by the bishop. At the end of the fourth century even these catechetical schools were closed down because of the controversy which by then surrounded Origen’s thought. In the works of Clement of Alexandria (c.150–215) there is the beginning of a direct appeal to deification as a metaphor for salvation. Clement’s

8

See Smith, D. A., ‘Irenaeus and the Baptism of Jesus, Theological Studies’, 58(4) (1997): 618–42.

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reasons for doing so were polemical and apologetic. Clement is the first Christian theologian to develop a ‘technical’ language for deification. He wrote that the Christian is deified by a heavenly teaching (Protrepticus 11.114.4), and when fully perfected after the likeness of his teacher, he ‘becomes a god while still moving about in the flesh’ (Stromateis 7.101.4). He was clear not to conflate the human with the divine. God remains transcendent, while human beings are not naturally divine (Stromateis 2.16.73); however, the telos of human existence is to become divine. Clement holds these ideas together by appealing to an understanding of the divine image and likeness, in both Genesis 1.26 and Plato’s Theaetetus 176b, as Philo had done previously. Clement appeals to a notion of participatory union with Christ, akin to the ideas found in the writings of St Paul and Irenaeus. Clement develops a specific vocabulary to express his ideas of deification, using qeopoie/w and e0kqeo/w as ‘to deify’ and qeopoio/j as ‘deifying’. He used qeopoie/w three times in a specifically Christian context, while qeo/w and qeopoio/j are used within a philosophical framework to indicate ‘dispassion’. As Irenaeus before him had done, in relation to the exegesis of Psalm 82.6 Clement taught that the baptized were adopted by God as ‘gods’, to which he added a philosophical dimension, that the ‘gods’ were those who have detached themselves as far as possible from everything human (Stromateis 2.125.5). Through overcoming the passions and contemplation of the intelligible, he taught that one could transcend the corporeal state and participate in the divine attributes. Clement links these two approaches – the ecclesiastical and the philosophical; though attaining the divine likeness required intellectual effort, it was at heart the ‘restoration to perfect adoption through the Son’ (Stromateis 2.134.2). Some scholars have argued that Clement produced a synthesis of Gnostic and Platonist concepts, with the more problematic elements removed. But Russell argues for an ecclesial and Philonic synthesis, drawing out his appeal to Baptism and Psalm 82.6 which had already been used by Irenaeus and Justin.9 In this interpretation deification is understood in terms of an inaugurated eschatology, which begins now and is fulfilled in heaven. Clement avoids Philo’s rejection of the body and argues that the body becomes immortal through adoption in the Son, the incarnate Logos. In this way all perfected Christians become ‘gods’, not in essence, but in title and by analogy. They participate in the divine attributes, through freedom from passion and through the grace and immortality given by Christ. The shape of the later Orthodox doctrine of deification is formed around these developments which emerged in the fluid and speculative context of Alexandria. Justin and Irenaeus had provided a basis for the doctrine, but the development of a technical language; a philosophical framework; the

9

Russell, Deification, p. 139.

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use of Hellenistic motifs, together with an allegorical exegesis of Scripture; and emerging Christological developments are Alexandrian contributions. Clement and Origen provide the means for deification to become a key metaphor for salvation. Unlike Justin and Clement of Alexandria, Origen (c.185–253) was not a convert from paganism, which probably means that he had a different approach to the intellectual traditions of Alexandria. He is less inclined to appeal to philosophy than Justin or Clement, and his focus was primarily on biblical exegesis. Origen is often cited as a writer who ‘promotes’ the conceptuality of deification, yet there are only seventeen references to deification in his extant writings. He uses deification language as a metaphor for salvation, although it is not altogether clear what his motivation for doing this was. He never appeals to Clement by name, but he does cite him occasionally and uses parallel terminology for deification. Origen uses a narrower vocabulary than Clement and does not use apotheoˉsis or qeo/w. Most commonly he uses qeopoie/w which he employs eight times in a Christian context and nine times pejoratively, and he uses qeopoio/j once (Selecta in Ezechielem 1.3). Christians are referred to as ‘gods’ in relation to Psalm 82.6. To some extent Origen stood in a ‘tradition’ which used the metaphor of deification, but unlike Clement, Origen understood deification in terms of the soul’s return to an unfallen condition. The study of the Scriptures was part of this process. He wrote of the outcome of this study and prayer to his former pupil Gregory Thaumaturgus: If you have done well or not in venturing, God and his Christ know, and anyone who partakes of the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. May you too be a partaker and ever increase the participation, that you may say not only, ‘We have become partakers of Christ’ (Hebrews 3.14), but also, ‘We have become partakers of God.’ (Philocalia, 13.4)10 For Origen deification is the participation of rational creatures in the divine through the operation of the Son and the Holy Spirit in the divinity of the Father, who alone is understood to be the ultimate source of divinity. The Father is o9 qeo/j and au0to/qeoj, while the Son and Spirit are qeo/j and qeopoiou/ menoj. The Son is uniquely qeopoiou/menoj in relation to the Father, but qeopoio/j in relation to human beings, for he is the prime agent of deification. The Holy Spirit makes human beings spiritual so that the divine Son may make them sons and gods. In Origen’s understanding human beings need to recover the divine likeness and become ‘gods’ in order to contemplate the source of divinity, the Father and thus partake in life, goodness, immortality and incorruption, which are the attributes of the Father alone.

10

Russell, Deification, p. 141.

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This construct of participation is rooted in the conceptuality of the dependence of the contingent upon the self-existent and the dynamic reaching out of the Persons of the Trinity in order to endow rational creatures with divine attributes. Origen’s emphasis on the ascent of soul to God is quite different from Clement’s understanding of deification in terms of the perfection of the ‘Christian Gnostic’ through ethical purification. In Origen’s view deification is participation of the rational creature in a dynamic divinity, so there is less of an emphasis on ethics and more on the dynamic relationship which connects the contingent with the self-existent. Russell argues that this conceptuality of participation is closer to Plato and Philo than Clement’s understanding of participation.11 For Origen the emphasis on ‘living with the life of God’, is a reconstrual of Paul’s understanding of participation, in terms which are more dependent on philosophical concepts. Origen’s relational and collective understandings of the processes of deification provide the conceptual basis for an attempt to craft a trinitarian and ecclesial understanding of deification today.

Apologetics and religious experience The cultural milieu of the North African Christian community in the Roman province of ‘Africa’ was different from that of Alexandria and in particular it was Latin speaking. This was the context in which Tertullian (c.155–220) worked as an apologist for the Christian faith and sought to confront heretical views. He wrote to defend Christianity against ‘pagan’ views and to commend the faith to those in authority in the Roman Empire and also wrote for catechumens. Tertullian’s creativity and theological imagination finds a parallel in the writings of Origen, and like Origen he too came under ecclesiastical suspicion, particularly as later in life he become a member of the Montanist ‘movement’. This was a group which experienced the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit and were deemed by the mainstream Church to have become overenthusiastic in their pursuit of these gifts. In particular, the group understood that the Spirit might reveal new truths contrary to the Apostolic faith. Tertullian was the earliest Latin author (whose writings survive) to use expressions which convey an understanding of deification. He crafted an exegesis of Psalm 82, arguing that this did not contain a reference to polytheism and that the ‘gods’ were not divine (Against Marcion 1.7. I). But he argued from the same text that human beings might become ‘gods’ by the grace of God (Against Hermogenes 5). In this interpretation he may have been influenced by Irenaeus. Also in Against Marcion Tertullian alludes to 2 Peter 1.4 which would be about 10 years earlier than Origen’s appeal to the text in De Principiis. Tertullian suggests that the divine response to 11

Russell, Deification, p. 154.

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the Fall is to take humanity into divinity, which he qualifies as human beings being invested with ‘an incorruptible nature’ (cf. 1 Corinthians 15.52–3) (Against Marcion 3.24). Tertullian’s writings demonstrate that elements of the metaphor of deification were acceptable and relatively commonplace expressions of God’s purposes in creating and redeeming by the late second century. The elements of the metaphor of deification are also to be found in the texts of Christian communities which spoke Syriac, Coptic and Chaldean as well as in the Greek- and Latin-speaking world. It is possible to see a common thread across the different linguistic communities expressed in the exchange conceptuality used by Irenaeus. The Son of God had become human so that human beings might become divine. Although within the Syrian traditions the metaphor of deification was known, it never had a prominent place in theological discourse. Deification was expressed in poetic literature and was explored through the use of symbolism and typology, rather than through the development of a technical vocabulary. There is a general consensus in the Syrian traditions that human destiny is to recover that which was lost by Adam and to share the divine life. A leading theologian in this tradition is Ephrem the Syrian (c.306–73). He was born in the city of Nisibis and was baptized as a youth. Bishop Jacob of Nisibis appointed Ephrem as a teacher in the city’s Christian school. He was ordained deacon and in his role as teacher began to compose hymns and write biblical commentaries. Later in life he taught in the school at Edessa. He was a contemporary of Athanasius and possibly used elements of the metaphor of deification before Athanasius. Ephrem uses poetic imagery to express his understanding of deification but does not develop a technical language. His understanding of deification emerges from an exegesis of the narratives of the Creation and Fall in Genesis. Deification is the aim and purpose of the Incarnation. In the Odes of Solomon, he writes of ‘putting on Christ’ (7.4; 13.12) and of clothing ourselves in holiness (13.3) and of being clothed with Christ’s name (39.3) and he crafts a version of the exchange formula: ‘He gave us divinity, we gave him humanity’ (Hymns on Faith 5.17). Ephrem probably did not know Greek, but it is possible that some of the works of Irenaeus had been translated into Syriac. In the outcome of deification Ephrem sees no merging of the human and divine. Deification is the product of grace and does not bring equality. While human beings become God by grace, the Second Adam is God by nature. Deification is seen an ‘exchange of names’, which preserves the ontological gap between creator and creature.12 Another source of Syrian teaching is found in the Macarian Writings which are associated with Macarios of Egypt (c.300–91); however, the 12

Brock, S., The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of St Ephrem (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1992), p. 154.

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context of these writings is Syrian monasticism. The use of ‘makarios’ may be as a title rather than as a specific person’s name. These writings are often compared with the work of Evagrios Ponticus, but while his works are characterized by an appeal to the intellectual tradition of Platonism, these writings are the product of reflection on the experience of prayer and of the Holy Spirit. It is worth remembering that both sets of writings find a place in the Philokalia of 1782. There are three collections of Macarian texts: the Homilies, Erotapocriseis (Questions and Answers) and an ascetical treatise (Epistula Magna). Russell suggests that these were written in the 380s in Mesopotamia or eastern Anatolia.13 The writings draw on the rich poetic imagery of the Syrian tradition but have been associated with Messalianism. The Messalians taught that the soul was occupied from birth with a demon. As this could not be removed by Baptism alone, constant prayer was also required. The goal of the Messalians was a personal experience of the Holy Spirit, manifest in ecstatic devotions. The Macarian writings focus on the work of the Holy Spirit in the spiritual life, but scholars on the whole agree that this experience is not predicated on the same understanding as the Messalians. The Macarian writings expound the spiritual life in terms of three stages. In the first stage the believer turns to God, but his heart remains dominated by sin; in the second, the heart becomes a battleground; and, finally, in the third, sin is driven out through the cooperation of the human will with the Holy Spirit. In this stage the believer attains a higher state than that in which Adam was created, and it is this which is sometimes referred to it terms of deification. In the Homilies there is frequent use of metaphors of mingling and participation, and the biblical passage 2 Peter 1.4 is cited in relation to the discussion of mixing and mingling. (Collection II, Homilies, 44.9) The relation of the divine and human in the spiritual life is expressed through metaphors of interpenetration and transformation. In relation to this Ezekiel’s vision of the throne chariot is linked to Christ’s Transfiguration (Collection II, Homilies, 1.2). The Syrian tradition demonstrates how elements of the metaphor of deification permeated theological reflection and discourse on the divine response to the human condition. It is a tradition which values the use of poetic language and draws on believers’ experience. These continue to be core elements in the reception of the metaphor of deification today.

Nicene orthodoxy: apologetics and polemics The response to the controversy concerning the views of Arius (c.250–336) resulted in the inclusion of the ‘homoousion’ in the conciliar statement of 325. This was an ontological solution. But the issues which Arius raised 13

Russell, Deification, p. 241.

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also impacted on soteriology and theological anthropology. In many respects Arius had expressed the logical out-workings of the biblical and philosophical traditions in construing the person of Jesus Christ as a creature, or a lesser god. But this conflicted with the believer’s existential and sacramental experience of the appropriation of salvation. Church practice and personal belief claimed that salvation was a divine initiative and gift bestowed through the divinity of the person of Christ, who being divine had become human in order that human beings might become divine. The authenticity of this ‘exchange formula’ as an interpretation of the New Testament tradition by the early fathers is called into question by some scholars, who continue to accept the critique of Adolf von Harnack. But this is to underestimate the dynamics of Pauline texts such as, ‘For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich,’ (2 Corinthians 8.9) the kenotic hymn (Philippians 2.5–11) and the claims about incorruption and immortality in 1 Corinthians 15. Following the Council of Nicaea in 325 the controversy did not subside, but took on new forms, in which the ‘homoousion’ was qualified with the appeal to ‘homoiousion’ and the status of the Holy Spirit was disputed. The period between 325 and the Council of Constantinople in 381 (and later) is a time when the claims made at Nicaea produce all kinds of different polemics. In this section I will examine some of the key writers who reflect upon the outcome of Nicaea in relation to the metaphor of deification, to ask why they are doing so and with what effect. One of the main protagonists for the Nicene understanding of Christ and the Godhead was Athanasius (c.293–373), Patriarch of Alexandria. He was a staunch defender of the homoousion and wrote a number of polemical works against those who sought to promote the conceptuality of Arianism. His uncompromising stance meant that he was several times exiled from Alexandria and deposed as Patriarch. Athanasius did not write systematically about deification. An analysis of his surviving writings shows that in many works, such as the Festal Letters and the Life of Antony, he does not mention deification. But in those texts where he does refer to deification, the concept is used as a polemical tool to defend Nicene orthodoxy against (Neo) Arianism. Athanasius appeals to the exchange formula to assert not only the divinity of Christ but also the divine reality of salvation. So Athanasius asserts that, ‘God became man so that man might become God’ (On the Incarnation 54:3). Athanasius employs a particular vocabulary for deification, mainly using qeopoie/w in relation to salvation, but refraining from using this in relation to the attainment of moral perfection. The language and conceptuality of deification are used in the conflict with Arianism, in order to demonstrate that the ‘unbegotten’ or ‘agenetic’ status of the Son enables him to deify. The Son is only able to make human beings ‘gods’ if he is of the same substance as the Father. 62

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Athanasius’ writings demonstrate that understandings which are found in the writings of Origen were received during the fourth century in different and complex ways, by authors writing from very different perspectives. Origenism not only fuels neo-Arianism but is also a source for those who defend Nicene orthodoxy. In particular, Athanasius took the idea of dynamic participation in the divine from Origen, but Athanasius expounds this on the basis of a more apophatic approach than that of Origen. Athansius argued that human beings could only be deified by means of participation in the deified flesh of the Incarnate Logos. Athanasius’ modification of Origenist understandings of deification entails the rejection of Origen’s speculative anthropology. Human beings are not fallen noes who can rise up the scale of logika; rather they are separated from God by a deep ontological difference, so human beings can only participate in the deified flesh of the incarnate Logos. This is achieved through participation in the ‘Body of Christ’, by which believers participate in the divinity with which the ‘Body’ is endowed. On this basis the believer could participate in incorruption and immortality, and in the resurrection life of heaven. It is probable that this ‘apophatic’ development in the writings of Athanasius gives rise to the emphasis on participation in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, which is seen in later theorization of the doctrine of deification. This emphasis in the works of Athanasius continues to provide a basis for an ecclesial and corporate understanding of deification today. Another staunch defender of Nicene orthodoxy was Hilary of Poitiers (c.315–67) who lived and worked in the province of Gaul. He was well educated and became a Christian, and c.353 he was elected bishop of Poitiers. His episcopate provides the context for his writings. Though Hilary wrote in Latin, he does not draw on the works of Tertullian, probably because Tertullian’s status was suspect. This may have inhibited the discussion of deification within the Latin-speaking community. Hilary is often described as the Athanasius of the West in that he shared his anti-Arian stance. He spent 4 years in exile in Phrygia (356–60) where he learned Greek, and it is possible that he came to know some of the works of Origen.14 During his exile he wrote De Trinitate, but there is no evidence that he drew explicitly on any Greek writer. In the concluding books of De Trinitate he used the exchange formula, which is parallel with the usage found in the writings of Irenaeus and Athanasius. He argues that the goal of human life is that believers may become ‘god’ in his earlier commentary on Matthew (On Matthew, 5.15). In Hilary’s understanding the deification of humanity is achieved in Christ. Christ’s humanity becomes fully deified at his Resurrection, and human beings share in this at their own resurrection. At the general resurrection human beings will be changed from corruption to immortality

14

Jerome argues that Hilary imitated Origen in his Commentaries on the Psalms.

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and from human weakness to divine glory. Thus, in Hilary’s construal of the metaphor, deification is essentially an eschatological reality. Hilary’s works demonstrate the use of the metaphor of deification in the defence of Nicene orthodoxy and roots it in a Trinitarian context. The witness of the texts of Evagrios Ponticus (345–99) demonstrates that the appeal to experience and speculation did not disappear in the period of the reception of Nicene orthodoxy. Evagrios, who is known as ‘the Solitary’, was a protégé of Basil and Gregory Nazianzen and became an Archdeacon in Constantinople during the time of Gregory’s patriarchate. After the Council of Constantinople, Evagrios experienced various temptations and as a result decided to follow the vocation of a monk at first in Palestine and later in Egypt. Although his ideas were condemned by the second Council of Constantinople in 553, his writings remained in circulation, and some were included in the Philokalia of 1782. Evagrios undertook to record and systematize the writings of the Desert Fathers, as well as to write his own reflections on the spiritual life. Although his work is seen as contributing to the Orthodox understanding of deification, he himself did not use the language of deification. Apollinarius, bishop of Laodicea (d.390), who had defended Nicene orthodoxy but had denied that Christ had a rational human soul, had used the language of deification. So the lack of an appeal to this language in the works of Evagrios may demonstrate a kind of polemic against the stance of Apollinarius. Evagrios witnesses to the beginning of the end of the use of the language of deification in early fifth century and to a move to the language of participation. This can be traced in the works of Gregory of Nyssa and Cyril of Alexandria. The explicit language of the metaphor of deification had become unhelpful, because of the controversy surrounding Origenism and Apollinarianism, and it came to be seen as incompatible with Nicene orthodoxy.15 Evagrios developed the speculative side of Origen still further, seeing the spiritual life as a process in which created intelligences returned to the divine source of their being. These ideas were strongly attacked by the ecclesiastical authorities, which led eventually to his teaching being condemned. He argues that the use of ‘gods’ in Psalm 82.6 is metaphorical. He has a strong sense that the human and the divine are different orders of being. The divine is ineffable, so in order to approach the divine, the believer needs spiritual training, in which the passions must be eliminated and the mind purified of all material images. Only in this way can the ascent of the mind to God take place. Evagrios expounds the goal of the spiritual life in terms of utter assimilation to Christ, in which all the material elements which make up the individual are removed. This in effect is an understanding of deification parallel to that found in the writings of Gnostics. The inclusion

15

Russell, Deification, p. 235.

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of Evagrios in the Philokalia meant that his ideas were to some extent rehabilitated, but it is his omission of the language of deification which is of particular interest.

The Cappadocian Fathers I will examine the contribution of the Cappadocian Fathers separately below, but I begin with an introduction to the background to their separate and distinction contributions to the construal of deification. How are their contributions to be situated? Scholars tend to agree that the Cappadocians reappropriated Origen for their fourth century context, and following the reassertion of the significance and values of classical antiquity in the short reign of the Emperor Julian ‘the Apostate’ (361–3) they sought to reach out to non-Christian rhetoricians. In doing so, the Cappadocians evolved and pursued a missionary strategy in relation to late Platonism. They used the terminology and conceptuality of deification as an element of their apologetics in relation to of this ‘strategy’ and in their polemics against Eunomius and Apollinarius. Their apologetic and polemical use of the conceptuality of deification relied upon their re-reading of Origen. Russell draws attention to the work of Brooks Otis, who interprets the re-reception of Origen by the Cappadocians.16 Otis argues that the Cappadocians recovered the angelogical and anthropological elements of Origen’s teaching and reinterpreted them by relating them to the anti-Origenist stance of Athanasius. In terms of the discussion of deification, the construal of the divine likeness and the ascent of the soul to God in Origen are related to Athanasius’ distinction between an ‘agenetic’ Trinity and a ‘genetic,’ created order. Athanasius expounded the concept of the fully divine Logos as the mediator between the agenetic and the genetic through the deification of the human flesh of Christ. The Cappadocian fathers sought to relate this ‘Nicene’ understanding of salvation with the Platonist tradition of the soul’s attaining likeness to God. The father of Basil of Caesarea was a professor of rhetoric, and Basil himself (c.329–79) was educated in Athens. He was initially drawn to monasticism but decided to live a ‘philosophic’ life. It was only in 370 that he became bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Basil does not frequently appeal to the conceptuality of deification, but it has been argued that when he does so, he draws on the Alexandrian tradition. It is by no means a straightforward task to discern the sources which Basil draws upon. He mentions Philo only once, but some argue that there is evidence that he draws on Philo more

16

Russell, Deification, p. 6: Otis, B., ‘Cappadocian Thought as a Coherent System’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 12 (1958): 95–124.

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than this. He cites Clement of Alexandria directly, and again it can be argued that his influence and that of Origen is evident in his writings. Basil’s grandmother Macrina the elder had been baptized by Gregory Thaumaturgus, the pupil of Origen, who had evangelized Cappadocia, but it is difficult to assess the extent of the influence of Origen. Some scholars, McGuckin among them, have argued that Basil and Gregory Nazianzen had selected and edited works of Origen for their first major work the Philocalia. But Basil only cites Origen directly once (On the Holy Spirit 29.73). So while Basil knew Athanasius personally and held Origen in high esteem, he drew mostly from Clement of Alexandria rather than more recent theologians. In Basil’s understanding deification is a gradual process, in which human beings may be referred to as ‘gods’ only in the final state. With Athanasius he argues for the divinity of the Holy Spirit on the understanding that the Spirit is able to deify. But Basil does not appeal to the deification of the flesh as Athanasius did, nor does he identify becoming ‘gods’ with Baptism. For him the ‘gods’ are those who attain perfection through the practice of virtue. Such views stand closer to a Platonist understanding, and when this is taken together with his apophatic approach, Basil’s writings closely parallel the work of Clement of Alexandria. Basil argues that when human beings contemplate God they look on an incomprehensible beauty, and in so doing become ‘like’ God, imitating the divine moral excellence. So ‘gods’ is used by Basil in a titular sense. Like Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen (c.330–90) belonged to the landed aristocracy of Cappadocia. He was born in Nazianzus where his father (also Gregory) was bishop. He was well educated, including 10 years that he spent in Athens (348–58), where he studied rhetoric, and came to know Basil. He returned to Cappadocia to live the ‘philosophical life’ on the family estates and was eventually ordained priest (361) and then bishop (372). Following his father’s death in 375 he withdrew to a monastery at Seleukia, but in 379 he was requested to go to Constantinople to become Patriarch, in order to promote Nicene orthodoxy in the city. He was the victim of various political intrigues and acts of violence, but in 380 was confirmed as Patriarch. Under his leadership the Council of Constantinople was convoked, but during the Council he decided to return to Nazianzus and remained there as bishop there until 383. Due to ill health he decided once more to take up the monastic life in the monastery of Arianzum, where he lived until his death. Gregory Nazianzen was a popular and well-respected theologian in his own day, which is evident in the ascription of ‘the Theologian’ given to him. He was held as a standard theological authority for many centuries, as witnessed in the appeal made to him by John of Damascus. It is only since the Second World War that Gregory of Nyssa has received more attention. As a well-read theologian, philosopher and rhetorician Gregory Nazianzen seems to use the language of deification as part of an apologetic attempt to 66

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address fellow philosophers and rhetoricians. He relates deification to the ‘homoousion’ status of the Son and the Holy Spirit, as Athanasius had done, in the struggle against Eunomius and Apollinarius, which is a polemical use of deification. Gregory is credited with coining the technical term theoˉsis, but there is a question as to whether this language and conceptuality is to be seen as ‘core’ to his theology. Between 362 and 363 in response to the policies of Julian ‘the Apostate’ Gregory wrote his Invectives against Julian, in which he criticizes the emperor’s morals and intellect. In the Invectives Gregory argues that Christianity will overcome imperfect rulers such as Julian through love and patience. This process as described by Gregory is the public manifestation of the process of deification (theoˉsis). There is a variety of expression of the metaphor of deification in Gregory’s writings. He sets out a version of the exchange formula (Oration 29.19) and refers to the philosopher as a ‘god’, which suggests that Gregory had a figurative, rather than realist view of deification. Gregory was well aware of Plato’s understanding of pre-existent noetic being, which returns by spiritual ascent to the authentic state of being (Oration 26–7), and he emphasizes the return of the soul to a transcendent condition, which is achieved through God’s purification of the soul and the insight of the soul into divine beauty. So it is that contemplation (theoˉria) lies at the heart of the process of deification (Commentary on John 32.27). Gregory uses the vocabulary of metousia as well as theoˉsis in the expression of the metaphor of deification. He argues that in Christ humanity was ‘brought to participate in the very deity itself’ (Contra Eunomium 3.4.22). Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa use the conceptuality of deification as a means of expressing Origen’s great and mystical vision of cosmic mystery and of the soul’s long journey to union with God within that mystery. Gregory understands this in terms of an ‘imitation’ of Christ. But he does not see imitation as an external ‘following’; rather it means becoming like the incarnate Son through the sacraments and the practice of philosophy. Through this process human beings transcend their limitations and experience transformation (metamorphoˉsis) by ‘mingling’ with the divine light. The vocabulary of ‘mingling’ is particular to Gregory Nazianzen, but he does not intend that the difference between the created and uncreated is abolished. Russell argues that while Gregory developed the vocabulary of theoˉsis, this does not necessarily mean that he develops a conceptuality of deification any more than Athanasius had done. Theoˉsis became a key word and concept for later writers, such as Ps-Dionysius and Maximos the Confessor. Gregory had emphasized the moral dimension of deification but did not take up Athanasius’ understanding of participation. This is something which Gregory of Nyssa would do. Gregory of Nyssa (330–94) was the brother of Basil of Caesarea and a friend of Gregory Nazianzen; unlike them he did not attend a major school, but he was educated in philosophy and theology. In 372 he became bishop of Nyssa, adjacent to the diocese of his brother Basil. Two landmark studies 67

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of Gregory were published in 1942 by Jean Danéliou and Hans Urs von Balthasar, and, since the Second World War, Gregory’s writings have been the focus of attention of scholars from a wide variety of Christian traditions. In his work, God according to the Gospel: The Triune Identity (1982), Robert W. Jenson argues that Gregory of Nyssa, perhaps more than Gregory Nazianzen or Athanasius, took from Hellenistic philosophy, but reinterpreted and reused its categories in the light and service of the Christian gospel. More recently, Sarah Coakley and Morwenna Ludlow have sought to resituate and reinterpret Gregory’s ideas.17 Gregory’s works continue to be the focus of much scholarly attention, which means that the reception of his ideas are coloured by many layers of interpretation. Gregory of Nyssa, like the other Cappadocians uses the metaphor of deification in his polemic against the neo-Arians and in his exploration of the Origenist legacy. Related to his understanding of deification is Gregory’s understanding of anthropology and gender in terms of the ‘garments of skin’ (Genesis 3.21).18 Gregory is often referred to as a speculative theologian which may be misleading, but he is a theologian who is not afraid of making connections and perhaps of using his imagination. In his work To Abablius: On ‘Not Three Gods’ Gregory draws out the connection between the word for the Godhead qeothj and the words qea [beholding] and qeathj [beholder] (Non Tres Dii PG 45, 121D). Gregory of Nyssa uses the phrase metousi&a qeou= in order to express the metaphor of deification, in the context of moral philosophy. Encouraged by Basil and Macrina, Gregory employs philosophical speculation in order to develop a new language code to clarify the differences between concepts of Christian deification and Platonist understandings of ‘assimilation’. Some scholars have argued that Gregory has a strong focus on deification, but he refers to the doctrine rarely. For Gregory, deification is predicated primarily on an understanding of the flesh assumed by the Son at the Incarnation and by extension on the sacraments. Basil and the two Gregories all appeal to reception of the Eucharist as a means of deification. Gregory of Nyssa in particular stresses this, in relation to his understanding of the Incarnation and the deified flesh of Christ. Deification is the human participation in the divine attributes and attainment to ‘likeness’ to God. Russell argues that Gregory of Nyssa found the language of deification inappropriate for the paradoxical ‘union’ of human and divine that he wished to express. While Gregory Nazianzen had been content to use the language of deification as a metaphor for human growth towards fulfilment in God, Gregory of Nyssa does not do so. Russell suggests

17

18

Coakley, S., Re-Thinking Gregory of Nyssa (Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003); Ludlow, M., Gregory of Nyssa, Ancient and (Post) modern (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). For example, Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses 22.

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that this may be so because Gregory thought that this might compromise the utter transcendence and unknowability of God. In place of the language of deification he used the language of participation to express the everdeepening relationship with God through union with the divine energies, while the divine essence remained beyond human comprehension.19 The texts of the Cappadocian fathers witness to a varied appeal to the metaphor of deification in terms of why and how the appeal is made. In particular, they demonstrate a developing trend towards a collective understanding of deification in terms of participation in the sacraments and a moral understanding in terms of a life lived in pursuit of the virtues.

Later witnesses Another strand in the defence of Nicene orthodoxy is witnessed in the writings of Augustine of Hippo (354–430). A convert to Christianity, he was baptized by Ambrose in Milan in 387 and became bishop of Hippo in 396. Augustine was a North African, whose language was Latin. Despite his mother Monica’s Christian faith, he chose to live as a pagan intellectual, and his journey to faith is recounted in his Confessions. It is in the Confessions that Augustine wrote ‘Thou hast made us for thyself. Therefore, our hearts are restless until they find rest in thee, O God.’20 It is in these words that Augustine shows that he understands that God is the goal of human existence. Indeed Augustine refers to forms of expression of deification more frequently than any other Latin writer.21 Augustine’s references to deification are rooted in the biblical example of Psalm 82, as it had been received in Church tradition.22 Despite this clear evidence, commentators on Augustine have argued that he was not faithful to earlier patristic tradition and had no understanding of deification. Orthodox writers have claimed that Augustine’s psychology left no room for ‘a deiform faculty’ in the human person.23 Lot-Borodine argues that Augustine’s construal of ‘beatitude’ is not equivalent to an Eastern understanding of deification, because he allows for no interpenetration of the divine and the human.24 These views are echoed

19 20

21

22 23

24

Russell, Deification, p. 232. Augustine, Confessions 1.1; R. J. Deferrari (ed.), The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1953), vol. 21, p. 4. For example, De Vera religione 46(86); De natura et gratia 33.37; Contra Adimantum 93.2. For example, In Johannis evangelium tractatus 2.15; Sermon 166.4. Drewery, B., ‘Deification’, in P. Brooks (ed.), Christian Spirituality (London: SCM, 1975), pp. 35–62. Lot-Borodine, M., La Déification de l’homme (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1970), pp. 39–40.

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by writers from the Church of the Latter Day Saints, who argue that for Augustine, God’s absolute oneness and otherness was so different from humanity’s created status that salvation, dependent on divine grace alone, could not bridge the gap between the eternal Creator and the creatures contingent upon him.25 So how is Augustine’s work to be received and situated? Augustine knew less Greek than Tertullian and Hilary, and he seems to have asked Jerome for translations of Origen’s commentaries. But once Jerome had embarked on a refutation of Origenism, these were never produced for Augustine. So there is little evidence to suggest that Augustine was influenced by Origen. But Augustine was profoundly influenced by contemporary philosophy. Following his Baptism Augustine lived in Numidia with a community of servi Dei [believers] who sought to live the Christian life in its fullness. The community focused on preparing for death by seeking deification, through freeing themselves from worldly constraints. In Letter 10.2 Augustine uses the phrase ‘deificari in otio’ [to attain deification in a life of scholarly seclusion], which may be taken from Porphyry’s Sententiae ad intelligibilia ducentes. Augustine could have known the works of Porphyry from the introduction to the Enneads of Plotinus in the Latin translation of Marius Victorinus. Most commentators agree that Augustine held together his Christian beliefs with contemporary Platonism. On this basis Augustine understood that the human soul was ‘divine’ in the sense that that God is always present to it. In other words, the human person participated in God’s being simply by existing. Alongside this belief Augustine understood that the soul is alienated from God by sin but is never separated from God’s presence. These views are comparable with those of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa for whom the Fall is a slipping away from a very close affinity between God and humanity and a veering off the true path. In his early work, De vera religione (390/1) Augustine argues that God confers divine status on the rational creation in common with Porphyry, and in his later work De Civitate Dei he continues to cite Porphyry and Plotinus as authorities for the understanding that divine likeness is the goal of human life. Augustine construes the imitation of the divine nature as an equivalent of deification: man is said to be after the image, on account, as we have said, of the inequality of the likeness; and therefore after our image, that man might be the image of the Trinity; not equal to the Trinity as the Son is equal to the Father, but approaching to it, as has been said, by a certain likeness; just as nearness may in a sense be signified in things distant

25

Norman, K. E., ‘Deification, Early Christian’, in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan, 1992).

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from each other, not in respect of place, but of a sort of imitation. For it is also said, Be transformed by the renewing of your mind; to whom he likewise says, Be therefore imitators of God as dear children. For it is said to the new man, which is renewed in the knowledge of God, after the image of Him that created him.26 He writes that those who imitate God come to be penetrated by intelligible light and enjoy the participation of God (The City of God 10.2), which refers to John 1. Augustine’s exegesis of Psalm 82.6 (cf. Psalm 116.11) shares the earlier understanding that the ‘gods’ referred to by the psalmist are the baptized. He develops a notion that human beings are deified by grace, which makes a connection between his concerns for justification with deification. The outcome of deification is that believers become ‘sons’ of God (cf. John 1.12) and fellow heirs with Christ (Enarrationes in Psalmos 49.2). Deification can be known ‘now’ but its fulfilment is eschatological, which relates to the possibility of the beatific vision, through which believers participate in God (The City of God 22.30). In this way Augustine employs the language of ‘participation’ to suggest a relationship between the contingent and the self-existent. For Augustine human nature was never entirely freed from ‘sin’, which meant that even the baptized where never literally like God, but the believer receives the possibility of not sinning as a gift from God. The believer is bestowed with the gift of ‘gratia increata’ [uncreated grace] by the Holy Spirit, which Kärkkäinen argues is ‘the personal presence of the Triune God in man through the Holy Spirit’.27 The model of participation lies at the heart of Augustine’s construal of redemption but is always qualified. Human persons can never become the same as God, even if they share in his flesh through the sacraments. For Augustine deification always remained beyond human explanation: ‘that he should make men gods is to be understood in divine silence’ (Contra Adimantus, 93.2). Deification remains at the level of metaphor and analogy in Augustine’s writings, it is appropriated through Baptism and the Eucharist, and its fullness is only achieved in the eschaton, always remaining a mystery. Deification is construed in relation to the Trinity and a trinitarian understanding of the imago dei and in relation to the sacraments, so it has a strong collective and ecclesial

26

27

‘Augustine of Hippo, On the Trinity Book 7.6.12’, in P. Schaff (ed.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 3 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887). Kärkkäinen, V.-M., ‘The Ecumenical Potential of the Eastern Doctrine of Theosis: Emerging convergences in Lutheran and Free Church Soteriologies’, in Toward Healing Our Divisions. Reflecting on Pentecostal Diversity and Common Witness. 28th Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Springfield, MO, 11–13 March 1999, vol. I, p. 27.

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dimension in Augustine’s thought. This remains crucial for contemporary exploration of the metaphor. The fifth century was a time when the language of deification began to recede and disappear from mainstream theological discourse. I have drawn attention to some of the reasons for this in the discussion of the work of Evagrios Ponticus. Another witness to these changes is Cyril of Alexandria (c.378–444). He was born into an influential Christian family. His mother’s brother, Theophilus, was Patriarch of Alexandria. Cyril was given a thorough education in rhetoric, philosophy and theology. In 412, following the death of his uncle, Cyril was appointed Patriarch of Alexandria. Cyril is known as a great controversialist in the Christological debates, which led to the calling of the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451), and was a staunch defender of the Alexandrian tradition of Christology. He fiercely attacked the opinions and person of his opponent Nestorius (c.386–451), who was the Patriarch of Constantinople between 428 and 431. Cyril developed his understanding of deification in relation to his polemic against Judaism, Apollinarianism and Nestorianism. But he was reticent about using a technical language for deification even before the controversy with Nestorius. In his earliest writings he had followed the example of Athanasius and had used the terminology of deification, but in his later writings he ceased doing this. In its place he used the phraseology of 2 Peter 1.4: ‘partakers of the divine nature’. It is this Cyrilline usage which brings the New Testament phraseology into mainstream theological discourse. The phraseology had previously been employed Origen, Athanasius and Theophilus of Alexandria, but only infrequently. The issue at stake in using the phraseology of 2 Peter 1.4 surrounds the word physis [nature] and the relationship of this to ousia [substance or essence]. Cyril seems to use physis in a more dynamic sense than ousia. In other words physis is that aspect of the divine which is communicable to human beings. This means that his construal of ‘deification’ rests more on the recovery of the lost divine likeness, than an Athanasian transformation of the flesh. For the first time Cyril brings together an understanding of moral endeavour and the sacramental life in a construal of deification. He constructs an understanding of ‘dynamic participation’, which begins with reception of the Holy Spirit in Baptism. The Spirit then dwells in the baptized, who achieve adoption as ‘sons’ and ‘gods’ through God’s grace. The Holy Spirit and Son enable sanctification and filiation, which lead to incorruptibility. Cyril distinguishes between the corporeal and spiritual aspects of this process. Through participation in the Eucharist, the Son dwells within the participants corporeally. The Spirit motivates the believer’s moral life towards an inward transformation. Cyril argues that the human will relates to the divine image, so that human beings can choose the good and in doing so may participate in the divine. Based on his understanding of Christ’s human soul, Cyril construes deification in terms of a unity of body and soul, which involves the human will and the 72

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pursuit of virtue. He holds together moral progress towards divine likeness, with participation in the Eucharist and assimilation to Christ, which is the first fully rounded understanding of deification. The combined effect of the leadership of Athanasius and Cyril contributes to the eclipse of the Alexandrian tradition of the didaskaleia. In its stead a biblical and Irenaean approach emerges towards deification which has four main features.28 Each of these provides a firm basis for a relational understanding of the doctrine of deification today. First, there is a strong emphasis on the convergence of transcendence and immanence in Christ, and through participation in Christ the believer manifests the first fruits offered in Christ to all humanity. This conceptuality is rooted in St Paul’s language of being ‘in Christ’ and is extended by Irenaeus and Cyril. Second, there is a focus on a notion of participation as a way of understanding how what is ‘becoming’ can share in ‘being’ at an ontological level. That is to say how the created may share in the uncreated without losing its contingent status, and on a dynamic level how the created and contingent can partake increasingly of the divine nature through the work of the Holy Spirit and attain the image and likeness of God. Third, there is a clear rejection of any collapse of the gulf between the created and the uncreated. Mediation between the two orders is achieved through the exaltation of Christ’s humanity. Finally, the ecclesial context of deification is brought to the fore. There is a move away from individual contemplation to the practice of the virtues and the reception of the Eucharist in the synaxis of the faithful. The transformation of the believer begins in Baptism and is continued by the gift of the Spirit and the ongoing reception of the Eucharist in communion with the Bishop.

28

Russell, Deification, pp. 203–4.

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4 the doctrine of deification in orthodoxy

In this chapter and the one which follows I have constructed a narrative of the use of the metaphor of deification in theological discourse in the period since the first five centuries. I have decided to recount this narrative in two chapters each delineated by geography as well as chronology. In making this geographical division in the narrative I am following the contours of the discourse concerning deification which emerged particularly in the twentieth century. I have made this decision despite the increasing unease within contemporary theological discourse with the designations of types of theology as ‘Eastern’ or ‘Western’ and ‘Greek’ or ‘Latin’. For centuries theologians and historians have been using such designations as Roman or Latin Catholic, Eastern or Greek Orthodox, and Protestant. In recent times theologians have become increasingly aware of the problematic surrounding the designation of texts and their authors. One strand of this awareness is to be seen in the critique of the so-called de Régnon paradigm, and another is to be seen in the critique of Neo-Palamism. The caricature of Trinitarian theology as a competition between an Augustinian West and a Cappadocian East was a working paradigm among systematic theologians in the twentieth century largely as a result of the interpretation of the work of the Jesuit author Théodore de Régnon,1 by Eastern Orthodox writers such as Vladimir Lossky.2 This polarization and valuation of East against West is now challenged by patristic and systematic theologians alike.3 Vladimir Lossky along with

1

2

3

de Régnon, T., Études de théologie positive sur la Sainte Trinité, 3 vols, (Paris: Retaux, 1892–98). Lossky, V., The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Cambridge and London: James Clarke & Co. Ltd, 1957), chapter 3, especially pp. 56–8. For example, Louth, A., ‘Unity and Diversity in the Church of the Fourth Century’, in E. Ferguson (ed.), Recent Studies in Early Christianity: A Collection of Scholarly Essays, (London: Garland, 1999), vol. IV, pp. 1–18.

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John Meyendorff is seen as responsible for reawakening interest in the work of the fourteenth-century monk of Mount Athos, Gregory Palamas.4 Here again the ‘Eastern’ view is deemed to be more adequate and, therefore, preferable to the ‘Western’ view of divine activity, grace and the human knowing of God.5 The construal of the ‘East’ and ‘West’ as perceived from the standpoint of the ‘Byzantine’ Orthodox tradition has been re-assessed recently by Christos Yannaras and Aristotle Papanikolaou.6 So although this chapter is focused on the narrative of the use of the metaphor of deification in ‘Eastern’ Orthodoxy this is by no means an attempt to privilege the ‘East’ over the ‘West’. The concept of ‘orthodoxy’ emerges from a long-standing hermeneutical tradition within Christianity, which is premised on distinguishing truth from falsehood, or, indeed, orthodox views from heretical views. McGuckin7 argues that this hermeneutic has been operating at least since the earliest Church histories were written, for example, by Eusebius of Caesarea and that the same instincts are seen in the New Testament texts of the Johannine letters and Pastoral epistles. The main premise of the hermeneutic is that Church was born in truth and later became infected with heresy. Theological reflection on the need to challenge mistaken or heretical views led to a conceptualization of ‘orthodoxy’ in which ‘Church fathers’ are understood to be raised up providentially to defend the truth. This conceptuality is reinforced in particular by the Arian controversy. For example, Athanasius wrote the Life of Antony the Great in which he depicts Antony as one of first of the ‘fathers’ who represents a standard of truth, holiness and orthodoxy. Later Gregory Nazianzen identified Athanasius as the great defender of Nicene orthodoxy (Oration 21 and Oration 33.5). By the fifth century the concept of ‘authoritative fathers’ had emerged. For example, Cyril of Alexandria compiled a collection of the ‘sayings of orthodox fathers’ which he appealed to in his controversy with Nestorius. This conceptuality is endorsed in the canons of Ecumenical Councils (e.g. Ephesus 431: Canon 7). In this way the Council itself becomes part of the formulation of what orthodoxy is, by claiming to continue the tradition of the orthodox fathers. The broad conceptuality of ‘orthodoxy’ is part of a shared Christian heritage. But this shared understanding came to be the designation of a ‘tradition’

4

5 6

7

See Finch, J. D., ‘Neo-Palamism, Divinizing Grace, and the Breach between East and West’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature. See Lossky, Mystical Theology, chapter 4. Yannaras, C., Orthodoxy and the West (Brooklyn, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2006), especially chapters 1 and 2; Papanikolaou, A., ‘Orthodoxy, Postmodernity, and Ecumenism: The Difference That Divine-Human Communion Makes’, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Fall (2007): 527–46. McGuckin, J. A., ‘Patristics’, in The Westminster Handbook of Patristics (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), pp. 252–4.

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within the Christian tradition, so that some churches claim to be ‘Orthodox’ as distinct from those who either do not claim this designation for themselves, or are denied this designation by the ‘Orthodox’. The structure of this distinction and separation relates to many factors, such as the claims of the Papacy, the fall of the ‘Western’ Roman Empire, the rise of Islam as well as doctrinal disputes involving the filioque. Perhaps a symbol of this distinction is to be seen in John of Damascus’s work The Defence of the Orthodox Faith [de fide orthodoxa] in the eighth century. A major component in the construction of the identity of the Orthodox ‘East’ during the twentieth century was the perception that the doctrine of deification is a touch stone of what it means to hold Orthodox beliefs over against a Catholic or Protestant ‘West’. Writers such as Dimitru Staniloae, Andrew Louth and Norman Russell have argued that the doctrine of deification, which is a core feature of Orthodoxy, is part of an overarching conceptuality of the divine purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos in Orthodoxy. The emergence of Neo-Palamism within Orthodox theological discourse in the twentieth century shaped the interpretation of the ‘evolution’ of the doctrine of deification. Within this discourse two figures dominate the landscape, Gregory Palamas and Maximos the Confessor. The conceptuality of deification in Orthodoxy today is a synthesis of the ideas of these two writers constructed by Orthodox authors in the twentieth century. Texts of the Early Church and Medieval periods are interpreted in the light of these twentieth-century constructs of deification. In addition, the interpretation of the reception of the collection of texts known as the ‘Philokalia’ and published in the eighteenth century is of vital importance in the construction of a narrative of the metaphor of deification and of Orthodox identity in the twentieth century. The focus of the chapter is on the emergence of a doctrine of deification in ‘Byzantine’ Orthodoxy. This will be related to the emergence of Orthodox identity, particularly in the twentieth century. The structure of the chapter is a series of chronological surveys of the narrative of the metaphor of deification, beginning with the present and successively proceeding into the past to a final section on the ‘classic’ statement of deification in the sixth to eighth centuries. I begin with twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which have seen the re-emergence of Orthodox self-understanding in its own right as well as in relation to the dynamics of the Ecumenical Movement. This section will provide an overview of the metaphor of deification in the Byzantine Orthodox tradition as it is understood today. I then examine the expression of deification in Byzantine Orthodoxy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This will focus in particular on the publication of the Philokalia in the late eighteenth century and the influence that this has had subsequently, particularly in Russia in the nineteenth century. Following this, I examine examples of the understanding of deification in Orthodoxy in the Middle Ages. The main focus here will be upon Gregory Palamas 76

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and the Hesychast controversy. I will also examine the work of Symeon the New Theologian, and the work of Cydones who translated texts of Thomas Aquinas into Greek. In the concluding section I examine the work of earlier writers who are understood within the Orthodox tradition to contribute to the emergence of a ‘classic’ understanding of deification. This will include an examination of the texts of Ps-Dionysius the Aeropagite, Maximos the Confessor and John of Damascus. The purpose of proceeding in this manner is to highlight the hermeneutical processes in the reception of ancient texts in the present day.

Twentieth and twenty-first centuries It is clear from even a cursory reading of the works of Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century that ‘deification’ is understood to be a core element in the construal of Orthodox identity. The metaphor is used partly as a polemic against those outside the Orthodox tradition, and partly as an apologetic to them. From my perspective ‘deification’ has been construed as a touchstone of Orthodoxy, as a symbol of what distinguishes Orthodox belief from the beliefs of other Christians. It demonstrates a new self-understanding, identity and confidence among Orthodox communities, both those within traditional homelands and those in diaspora. The claims made about deification symbolize an ‘escape’ from a history of perceived ‘Westernization’. Westernization included the acceptance by the Orthodox church of the Latin Church’s dogma of seven sacraments and the influence on Orthodox theology of the thought of Aquinas as a result of Cydones’ translation of his works. The revival in Orthodox self-understanding can be seen in the emergence of a Neo-Palamite theological movement and the construction of the Aquinas/Palamas controversy. This revival encourages the construal of the metaphor of deification as part of a comprehensive theological conceptuality of the doctrine of creation and redemption. The metaphor is presented in terms of an appeal to experience and the transformation of the human subject. This construction of the metaphor is assembled from the texts of authors such as Maximos the Confessor, Gregory Palamas and Seraphim of Sarov. Their understanding that experience is often to be found within the corporate activities of the Church such as the Liturgy and the reception of the sacraments is particularly important. These theurgical and ecclesial dimensions of deification are important components for a contemporary interpretation of the doctrine. In this discussion of Orthodox theologians of the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries, I will focus on the work of Bulgakov, Sophrony, Lossky, Nellas, Staniloae, Louth, McGuckin, Papanikolaou and Zizioulas. It would have been possible to highlight the work of other theologians such as Kallistos Ware, Hilarion Alfeyev and Christos Yannaras, and I have drawn 77

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on their contribution to the discourse on deification elsewhere. My selection here has been determined mainly by the way in which a theologian approaches the ecclesial dimension of the metaphor of deification. There are a number of basic preconceptions to a contemporary Orthodox understanding of deification. The metaphor of deification is constructed on an a priori understanding that each person is created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1.26). This is the premise for the possibility of eternal life and a relationship with God. Furthermore, every human person is free and autonomous and as a creature made in the ‘image of God’ can intentionally seek and acquire the divine ‘likeness’. Deification is premised on the notion of Divine philanthropia, that is, God’s unconditional love for human beings, which is manifest in God’s desire that all people should be saved. Salvation is required because through disobedience human beings lost their divine potential and are now subject to bondage to sin, disintegration and corruption. Despite their fallen state, human beings are called to live out their lives in response to God. This means that there is a need to raise awareness of the transcendent goal of human life. In order to achieve this awareness and his or her divinely human potential, each person requires forgiveness and reconciliation. This is achieved through God’s initiative in kenoˉsis and obedience in the Incarnation, through which the God-Man [theanthropos / bogochelovek] re-perfects human nature. The outcomes of the Incarnation need to be applied to and appropriated by each person through an inner journey, whereby each is re-imaged and participates in the glorified divinely human nature.8 Sergei Bulgakov (1871–1944) was a highly creative and speculative theologian, whose sophisticated and collective conceptualization of theology continues to inspire theological enquiry today. He was a Russian Orthodox priest, who had left Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution and founded l’Institut de Théologie Orthodoxe Saint-Serge, in Paris, where he was professor until his death. His ideas were not universally welcomed among the Orthodox theological community. Georges Florovsky and Vladimir Lossky distanced themselves from what they saw as his speculative work on sophiology, and in 1935 Bulgakov’s notions surrounding sophia were condemned. Bulgakov is influenced by Vladimir Solovyov in a number of different areas, one of which is his collective and historical understanding of salvation, which he argues reaches its final stage in the work of Christ. Christ’s work enables believers to grow in and achieve salvation, understood in terms of deification. Milbank argues that for Bulgakov to become divine

8

See Golubov, A., ‘Foreword’, in D. Staniloae (ed.), Orthodox Spirituality: A Practical Guide for the Faithful and a Definitive Manual for the Scholar (South Canaan, PA: St Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2002).

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now means constantly to shape better images of deity.9 This relates to how the difference or distance between the divine and the human is ‘calculated’. Milbank argues that Bulgakov’s understanding of deification suggests that the divine creative economy is such that all human working is a coming to know. Inversely, coming to know is a constant process of collective just distribution: ‘economy is knowledge in action; knowledge is economy in theory’.10 In relation to his collective construal of deification Bulgakov espouses a theurgic understanding of theoˉsis, for in his view all theology is theurgic; because ‘God only reaches us through the liturgical invocations latent in all human creative bringing forth of the unanticipated.’11 Bulgakov sympathized with the neo-Palamite revival of the Jesus Prayer associated with the Russian émigrés and their understanding that praying the prayer itself brings about the energetic presence of the Divine Person. This notion is predicated on the belief that ‘in some ineffable way the sonorous patterns and other sensorial resonances of human language have become attuned over the ages to a certain receptivity of transcendence.’12 However, for Bulgakov the premise for the metaphor of deification is not the distinction which the neo-Palamites draw between energies and essence in the divine; rather human beings can become God because God is constantly becoming human. The precondition of the possibility of Incarnation is the eternal descent of God into the Creation as Sophia and the eternal raising of humanity through deification.13 Bulgakov’s construal of a collective understanding of the divine–human potentiality and its outcome in deification supports a relational understanding of the doctrine for today. Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov 1896–1993) another remarkable Russian émigré, who after living in Paris and on Mount Athos settled in England and became a founder of the monastery at Toleshunt Knights in Essex. Sophrony was a disciple of St Silouan of Mount Athos and published a number of works on him, in which he sets out his teaching on and experience

9

Milbank, J., ‘Sophiology and Theurgy: The New Theological Horizon’ (Paper delivered in December 2005) http://www.theologyphilosophycentre.co.uk/papers.php (accessed 2 June 2009). Milbank argues that the reshaping of the understanding of divinity in the exposition of the doctrine of deification is also to be found in the Hermetic corpus, p. 35. See ‘Asclepius’, in B. P. Cophenhaver, Hermetica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992) paragraphs 22–4, pp. 79–81. 10 Bulgakov, S., Philosophy of Economy: The World as Household (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 2000), p. 131. 11 Milbank, ‘Sophiology and Theurgy’, p. 36; see Bulgakov, ‘The Unfading Light’, in R. D. Williams (ed.), Sergii Bulgakov (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1999), pp. 149–59. 12 Milbank, ‘Sophiology and Theurgy’, p. 36; see Williams, Sergii Bulgakov ‘General Introduction’, pp. 1–19. 13 Milbank, ‘Sophiology and Theurgy’, p. 53.

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of ‘transfiguration’.14 In his spiritual testimony Sophrony vividly describes his own experience of the divine light.15 Sophrony’s life is an important example of the monastic vocation to pursue conformity to Christ, from which flowed his remarkable testimony to the mystical experience of communion with God. This appeal to ‘raw’ experience remains a key factor in the understanding and reception of the doctrine of deification within Orthodoxy at the present time. Sophrony also had a profound personal influence on John Zizioulas, which is most evident in his construal of personhood. Vladimir Lossky (1903–58), another Russian émigré, settled in Paris following the Bolshevik Revolution. He was one of the main contributors to the Orthodox revival in self-understanding and confidence in the twentieth century. He is probably best remembered for The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, published in French in 1944 and in English in 1957. Lossky pursued a strong polemic against the ‘West’ as he expounded and defended the ‘East’. In so doing he constructs or reconstructs the self-identity of Orthodoxy. In particular he reworked Russian Orthodox theology against the sophiology of Bulgakov, which he thought was ‘philosophically tainted’.16 Lossky perceives the doctrine of deification as the crowning achievement of Byzantine theology.17 He understands deification as mystical union with God, through a participation in the uncreated energies. In making this construction, he polarizes the ‘dynamic’ theology of ‘East’ against the ‘static’ theology of ‘West’. Lossky goes so far as to state that theoˉsis is ‘echoed by the fathers and the theologians of every age’.18 This is an overstatement and is part of his polemical assertion of the status of the doctrine of deification in the patristic period and within later Orthodoxy. Referring to 2 Peter 1.4, Lossky argues that The words of St. Peter are explicit: partakers of the divine nature. They leave us in no doubt as to the reality of the union with God which is promised us, and set before us as our final end, the blessedness of the age to come. It would be childish, not to say impious, to see in these words only a rhetorical expression or metaphor.19

14

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16

17

18

For example, Sophrony, A., The Undistorted Image: Staretz Silouan, 1866–1938 (London: Faith Press, 1958); The Monk of Mount Athos: Staretz Silouan 1866–1938 (London: Mowbray, 1973); Wisdom from Mount Athos: The Writings of Staretz Siloan 1866–1938 (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1975). Sophrony, A., We Shall See Him As He Is (Essex, England: Stravropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1988). Papanikolaou, A., Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human Communion, (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), p. 1. See Lossky, V., In the Image and Likeness of God (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary 1985), especially pp. 97–98; and Mystical Theology, chapter 10. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 134.

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Thus, Lossky defends a realistic and ontological understanding of deification. Whether this is truly representative of the tradition is another matter. As Russell suggests deification is a metaphor for understanding the goal and outcome of the divine purposes in creating and redeeming. This may include ontological claims, but such claims need to be made within a careful and nuanced framework, rather than as a piece of polemic. This is not to dismiss the influence which Lossky exerted on Orthodoxy and the reception of Orthodox understandings more widely. But it is to recognize his polemical approach. Nonetheless, Lossky does make important contributions to the discourse concerning the human person, preparing the ground for Ziziouolas’ understanding that in an ontological sense ‘person’ refers to the same kind of reality in the human as well as the divine. This modelling of ‘person’ echoes Lossky’s mystical interpretation of the human person.20 These concepts of personhood are important in relation to how the deiform characteristics of the human person are understood in relation to the viability of the metaphor of deification. Panayiotis Nellas (1936–86) provides an important lay voice in Orthodox discourse on deification. He taught in a high school in Athens, after studies in Athens, Lille, Paris and Rome. His work on deification is another landmark book of the twentieth century, bringing home the full sense of the way in which deification is a core feature of Orthodox theology.21 The book is premised on the understanding that until the twelfth century ‘East’ and ‘West’ shared a (more or less) common understanding of salvation but that from the twelfth century onwards East and West diverge and expound different understandings of anthropology, soteriology and ecclesiology. Such an understanding of doctrinal development is an expression of the Orthodox unease with scholasticism in general and the writing of Aquinas in particular. His writing may be seen as part of a renewal of self-understanding in Orthodoxy, in which the centrality of deification becomes primary and is closely related to a renewed ‘Orthodox’ understanding of anthropology and Christology. His concern to restate the doctrine of deification is rooted in the existential question, ‘what is a person?’ Kallistos Ware suggests that Nellas’ concerns are related to the question found on the walls of the Oracle at Delphi: ‘know yourself,’ raising questions for the individual: who am I? What am I? Nellas is clear that the human person is created in the divine image and likeness, and he sees the notion of ‘image’ as an axis in Orthodox anthropology, cosmology and Christology. Yet he argues that there is a ‘mysterious, indefinable

19 20 21

Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 67. Lossky, Image and Likeness, pp. 111–23. Nellas, P., Deification in Christ: Orthodox Perspectives on the Nature of the Human Person (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997).

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character of person’ and that God’s ‘icon’ within the human being and the human race is ‘incomprehensible’. In arguing so he sets out an apophatic or ‘negative anthropology’. Drawing upon Gregory Nazianzen, Nellas argues in a more positive vein that the human person is ‘a living creature that is being deified’ [zoˉon theoumenon] (Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 38.11). So the human person is not only a rational or political animal, nor just one who laughs, but is primarily an animal called to share consciously in the life and glory of God. This calling Nellas understands is mirrored by the human being’s sense of ‘inspiration’. He reflects on this phenomenon and argues that it is the nature of the human person to experience this ‘inspiration’, which he understands as ‘the inclination towards God’. In other words, human beings made in the image of God are, ‘simultaneously earthly and heavenly, transient and eternal, visible and invisible, truly and in fact “a deified animal”’.22 The outcome of human growth is to attain ‘full stature’ in Christ; Nellas designates this with the term ‘Christification’, by which he signifies the connection between anthropology and Christology. He strongly argues for a Christological structure of the human person.23 This claim relates to the notion that the incarnate Logos is the ‘Archetype’ of the divine image and of human life. The divine ‘image’ is understood to be a gift but is also a ‘goal’ and a pledge; thus, the ‘iconic’ or potential being of a human person is in the possibility to become ‘authentic’. Nellas argues that ‘Man finds in the Archetype his true ontological meaning.’24 In other words, the anthropological outcome of deification is Christification. Nellas is a key exponent of the renewed understanding of deification in Orthodoxy for an Anglophone audience and offers a clear exposition of the core components of the metaphor of deification in contemporary Orthodoxy. Another very significant figure in the development of Orthodox theology in the twentieth century is Dumitru Staniloae (1903–93), a Romanian Orthodox priest and theologian, who studied in Bucharest and Munich. He taught at the University of Bucharest and worked for the Romanian Orthodox Church. Between 1958 and 1963 he was imprisoned by the Communist regime in Romania. One of Staniloae’s main works is his Orthodox Dogmatic Theology (1978) known in English translation as The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, of which the second volume is entitled The World: Creation and Deification. Staniloae became aware of the need to liberate Orthodoxy from its so-called ‘Western captivity’ expressed in the frequent use of Latin theological categories in Orthodox theology from the seventeenth century onwards. Yet Staniloae’s own thought is influenced by many different voices, including Bulgakov, and the philosophers Kant, Hegel 22 23

24

Nellas, Deification, p. 15. He draws on Origen and Athanasius in making these claims: for example, Origen, Against Celsus 6.63; Athanasius, On the Incarnation 3, 4; Against the Greeks 2. Nellas, Deification, p. 37.

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and Schopenhauer. Later he became aware of the Hesychast tradition through studying the works of Gregory Palamas, which led him to take up the work of translating the Philokalia into Romanian. It is from these different influences that Staniloae develops his understanding of deification, partly as a statement of Orthodoxy’s distinctiveness; partly in interaction with Christians of other traditions; and partly to respond to the contemporary context. Ion Bria argues that in the Dogmatic Theology Staniloae sought to use a different approach and method from the predominant method which had been constructed by Vladimir Lossky. Bria suggests that Staniloae challenges Lossky’s cataphatic style of theologizing and sets an apophatic method alongside a cataphatic approach, seeing the two approaches not as competitors but rather as interdependent. Staniloae challenged an institutional view of the Church and was one of the first Orthodox theologians to construct a relational ecclesiology rooted in an understanding of koinoˉnia. Emerging from his experience of the Communist state in Romania, Staniloae pursued a theology of the world, in which the world was understood as God’s creation, called and destined for deification.25 His construal of deification is rooted in his understanding of Christology. In Christ is concentrated and realized all that is expressed in Christian dogmas: there is expressed the divine infinity in which his human nature participates and in which everything else, through his common human nature, has power to participate.26 The mystery of the person of Christ is the mystery of the communion between the divine and the human. Staniloae uses Maximos the Confessor’s understanding of the human person as microcosm of the cosmos and of the world as macro-anthroˉpos.27 This is the premise for a reciprocity between Christ, the human race and the cosmos, which means that salvation is as much a collective as an individual reality. Unusually for an Orthodox Staniloae develops a theologia crucis, but in doing so he overcomes the polarization usually found in a Protestant construal of the Cross, which sets up creation and salvation, nature and grace in opposition to each other. Rather he argues that The impossibility of separating human persons from cosmic nature means that the salvation and perfection of persons is projected onto the whole of nature, while it simultaneously depends upon nature.28 25 26

27 28

See Bria, I., ‘Preface’ in Orthodox Spirituality, pp. vii–xiv. Staniloae, D., The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology (New York: T&T Clark, 2000), vol. 1, p.79. For example, Maximos the Confessor, Letter 6, PG 91, 429D. Staniloae, Dogmatic Theology, vol. 1, p. 324.

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Staniloae’s construal of deification is rooted in the experience of living the Christian life. He understands that the practice of the virtues is not just a question of obeying commandments but is growth in transformation. Christian spirituality concerns the experience of the perfection of the faithful in Christ, which is achieved by participation in Christ’s divinely human life. This union with God is understood as an unending process; it is a perfection achieved through purification. Deification or participation in divinity is understood to be the goal of a believer’s life, which is achieved by a believer’s participation in the divine energies. Staniloae’s understanding of salvation, deification and the Church in terms of communion is another important instance of the possibility of expounding a relational doctrine of deification. Andrew Louth’s understanding of deification sits within the construal of Orthodox theology which distances itself from ‘Western Theology’.29 His understanding that deification lost ground in the West from the twelfth century places his thought within a neo-Palamite stance. He argues that deification relates to the whole of Orthodox theology and that this suggests a theological framework in which the divine purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos are understood in terms of a human–divine union or communion designated by the term theoˉsis. He draws on the texts of the Fathers and argues that the events of deification and of Incarnation are parallel events (Athanasius) and that the event of deification is a consequence of the event of the Incarnation, whose outcome is ‘incorruption’ (Irenaeus). In distinguishing these ideas he argues that a Western understanding predicates redemption on a restoration from the consequences of the Fall, and he cites the text of the Exsultet [Easter Proclamation]. In the Eastern view deification is God’s intention from the moment of Creation, and the Incarnation is the interior basis of Creation and its final cause, so the purpose of Creation has always been deification. He describes deification as intimacy with God, rather than transcending what it means to be human. Deification is the fulfilment of what it is to be human. The Christian tradition does not advocate ceasing to be human, but deification does mean transformation; it is the transfiguration of the ‘human’. The ‘divine’ remains beyond comprehension, so deification is beyond comprehension and is a mystery. In other words, Louth espouses an apophatic theology of divine–human union. He suggests that there are two different ways in which ‘apophatic’ may be understood. He refers first to Christos Yannaras, who argues that an apophatic approach suggests poetry and images rather than cerebral dogma. This relates to understandings of the ‘beauty of soul’ in its ascetic struggle and its participation in the celebration of the liturgy. Yannaras explains his understanding by an appeal to etymology: kalloj [beauty], which he suggests 29

Louth, A., ‘The Place of Theosis in Orthodox Theology’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, pp. 32–44.

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relates to kalein [to call]. The beauty of the soul is about being called back to God. Second, Louth refers to Ps-Dionysius in whose view ‘unknowing’ is ‘apophatic’, which transcends the limits of language. In his understanding theoˉsis is itself apophatic, for the human person encounters God through the gates of repentance. Louth provides another nuanced understanding of the metaphor of deification in its place in the overall landscape of an Orthodox theological framework. John McGuckin another contemporary Orthodox theologian constructs an understanding of theoˉsis in relation to communion. He argues that deification is to be understood in terms of sanctification, which is a process of being conformed to God. This process is construed in terms of the ‘metaphor’ of transfiguration. The just believer will share in the glory of the Kingdom by means of a ‘metamorphoˉsis’. He argues that even though the words theoˉsis and theopoiesis are not used in the New Testament, they are evocative of the destiny to which all human beings are called. He argues that deification is the ascent of the creature to communion with the divine, which is based on the prior divine election and ‘summoning’ of the creature to fullness of life. Thus, deification and salvation are understood in terms of a restoration of communion between the human and the divine.30 The question which Aristotle Papanikolaou, a contemporary Orthodox writer working in the United States, poses is whether contemporary Orthodox theology may only be expressed in neo-Palamite terms. In order to pursue this question he has provided a critique and comparison of the work Lossky and Zizioulas on the themes of communion and divine–human union or theoˉsis.31 The difference which emerges from this critique concerns the approach to ontology and epistemology as it is understood not only in trinitarian theology but also in respect of Christology. Although Papanikolaou is clear that neither Lossky nor Zizioulas construe the doctrine of the Trinity as a soteriological doctrine per se, he does argue that elements of trinitarian theology are used to construe the doctrine of salvation (as deification). It is this difference concerning the construal of the soteriological implications of the Trinity and the Incarnation which brings into question the dominance of neo-Palamite theology in Orthodoxy today. In his careful exposition and critique of the understandings of Lossky and Zizioulas he argues that while Lossky understands that the divine energies are a core component in the realization of divine–human communion, Zizioulas rejects the notion that the energies have a soteriological role. In place of the energies, Zizioulas construes the notion of hypostasis as the core theological understanding in the realization of divine–human communion. This difference has implications not only for the construal of deification but also for epistemology: for 30

31

McGuckin, J., ‘The Strategic Adaptation of Deification in the Cappadocians’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, pp. 95–114. Papanikolaou, Being with God.

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understanding how God is unknowable and knowable, incommunicable and communicable, transcendent and immanent. While Lossky argues that God’s essence is unknowable in accordance with his neo-Palamite understanding, Zizioulas rejects such absolute apophaticism. Zizioulas agrees that the what of God’s existence, that is, God’s ousia, is completely transcendent and unknowable and that theology has nothing to say about the divine ousia. But for him apophaticism does not extend to God’s Trinitarian existence, that is, the how of God’s existence, which is a personal existence, revealed to and known experientially by human believers.32 The Son in whom is the communion of the uncreated and the created is made present in the Eucharist. This is an expression of the immanent Trinity, that is, God’s being itself. ‘To give expression to this affirmation, the crucial distinction is not that between essence and energies, but between the existence of God and the way in which God exists.’33 This distinction is attributed to the Cappadocian fathers. Zizioulas goes on to argue that God is known (if only in a certain way) and that this leads to an ontology of personhood, both divine and human, which is the ground for divine–human communion. Papanikolaou argues that Zizioulas has constructed a more convincing understanding of the possibility of theoˉsis. In Zizioulas’ construct deification is Trinitarian because of the unity in the hypostasis of Christ, which is not possible in Lossky’s thought.34 Papanikolaou concurs with Zizioulas that an understanding of divine–human communion requires a distinction in the divine other than between energies and essence, and that is the distinction of hypostases, which Zizioulas argues emerged in the writing of the Cappadocians. Hypostasis is that in and through which divine-human communion is realised, and is a distinction necessary not simply for conceptualizing how such a communion is possible in Christ, but how it is possible at all. In this sense, Zizioulas’s ‘ontology’, though not explicit in the Greek fathers, may be interpreted to be consistent with their own logic.35 (emphasis in original) The concept of hypostasis is reworked by Zizioulas on the basis of the realism of divine–human communion in Christ – who is fully human and fully divine. In Papanikolaou’s understanding this use of hypostasis opens up language in a way in which essence language could not do. 32

33 34 35

Papanikolaou, A., ‘Divine Energies or Divine Personhood: Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas on Conceiving the Transcendent and Immanent God’, Modern Theology, 19(3) (2003): 373. Papanikolaou‚ Divine Energies‘, p. 373. Papanikolaou, ‘Divine Energies’, p. 377. Papanikolaou, ‘Divine Energies’, p. 378.

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Papanikolaou argues that divine–human communion understood in terms of the Incarnation sets before the world and the churches the understanding, ‘that God has created the world for so as to effect a communion between God and the world’.36 On the basis of this understanding, Papanikolaou argues that the mystical and the political are not opposed to one another. Rather the mystical is not to be understood only in personal terms, and ‘any experience of the love of God must be embodied and manifested in particular relations.’37 Such an understanding does not identify the divine with worldly structures but refers rather to the Orthodox understanding that the world is ‘sacramental’. ‘The world is already participating in God’s life, and the challenge for humans is to create the kinds of relationships, both political and ecclesial, that would maximize the degree of participation of the world in God.’38 He sees the outcomes of divine–human communion and/or theoˉsis in terms of ‘a world in which particularity, otherness, difference, relationality, and freedom are the norm and reflect the glory of God, which is the presence of God’s love that is always striving to show itself’.39 The use of these categories is crucial in the realization of a relational understanding of deification. Despite the polemic in the crafting of the East–West differences and the propagation of false conflicts in terms of the ‘de Régnon paradigm’ and the artificial dispute between Aquinas and Palamas, there is much inspiration to gained from recent Orthodox reflection on deification. In the construal of the doctrine in relational terms, Bulgakov provides the basis for an appeal to the collective; Sophrony, to experience; Lossky, to personhood and anthropology; Nellas, to Christification and, by extension, to ecclesiology; Staniloae, to the cosmic and the practice of the virtues; Louth, to the an overarching framework; McGuckin, to communion; and Papanikolaou, to alterity and relationality.

Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries The period of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a time in which Orthodox theology was faced with a number of extraneous influences. The outcomes of the interaction between the Orthodox tradition and Western theological and philosophical traditions produced a revival, in the monasteries at least, in the Hesychast tradition of contemplative prayer. Kallistos Ware has suggested that the second half of the eighteenth century was a moment when Orthodox theologians and monks began to recognize that 36 37 38 39

Papanikolaou, ‘Orthodoxy, Postmodernity, and Ecumenism’, p. 541. Papanikolaou, ‘Orthodoxy, postmodernity, and ecumenism’, p. 545. Papanikolaou, ‘Orthodoxy, Postmodernity, and Ecumenism’, p. 545–6. Papanikolaou, ‘Orthodoxy, Postmodernity, and Ecumenism’, p. 546.

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their tradition was threatened by the influences from Roman Catholicism, Protestantism and the Enlightenment. In Ware’s view, while the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 was an event of enormous significance in terms of the Orthodox understanding of Christendom, in many ways the Orthodox tradition continued to function more or less on the same intellectual and spiritual premises as it had before the Ottoman period.40 By the second half of the eighteenth century it became evident that there were new intellectual developments among educated Greeks. This has been termed ‘modern Hellenism’, which was more secular in outlook and looked back beyond the Christian era to ancient Greece for its inspiration. It was also influenced by the philosophers of the Enlightenment such as Voltaire and Encyclopaedists.41 The influence of Latin theology upon Orthodox theology and spirituality had been evident from at least the thirteenth century, and this too begins to be questioned. A spiritual and theological revival associated with a group of monks from Mount Athos known as the Kollyvades, which commended the practice of frequent communion among other things, emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century. Among that group were Makarios of Corinth (1731–1805) and Nikodimos the Hagiorite (1749–1809), who are understood to be the editors of the collection of texts known as the Philokalia, published in Venice in 1782.42

The Philokalia43 Perhaps the first thing to recognize about this collection of texts from the Patristic and Medieval periods is that the reason for its publication is an awareness among Orthodox monks and theologians that there is a problem. A problem associated with the new learning of the Enlightenment as well as the different perspectives of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. In other words, the Philokalia may be interpreted as a product of the Enlightenment. It is a deliberate collecting together of early and medieval Christian sources in support of a tradition of Hesychast or contemplative prayer, which is seen as a distinctive Orthodox practice. The motivation behind and purpose of

40

41

42

43

Ware, K., ‘The Inner Unity of the Philokalia and its influence in East and West’, in S. Alexander (ed.) (Athens: Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, 2004), p. 1. The main exponent of ‘modern Hellenism’ in the eighteenth century was Adamantios Korais. See Ware, Inner Unity, p. 3. The Philokalia of the Holy Neptic Fathers, Filokali/a tw~n I9erw~n Nhptikw~n, published in Venice in 1782. Partial English translations of the Russian of Theophan the Recluse were published by Faber and Faber in 1951 and 1954. A full English translation is still in production in five volumes by Faber. The first four volumes are currently available the first was published in 1979. ‘Philokalia’ means love for what is beautiful and good, love for God as the source of beauty and goodness, and also love for what leads to union with the divine and uncreated beauty. Philokalia can also mean ‘anthology’.

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the Philokalia was to offer an answer, a distinctive answer to the issues which the Enlightenment and the perspectives of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism brought to bear upon Orthodoxy. This answer is rooted in an appeal to two core practices: nepsis and hesychia. Nepsis [nh~yij] relates to the virtues of sobriety, temperance and lucidity; vigilance and watchfulness; and hesychia [h9suxi/a] to the inner stillness of the heart. In other words, this is an appeal to inner, rather than external action and to the concerns of the kingdom within each believer. Second, this collection of texts is concerned with deification. The words of first sentence of the preface state that God, the blessed nature, perfection that is more than perfect, the creative principle of all that is good and beautiful, Himself transcending all goodness and all beauty, in His supremely divine plan preordained from all eternity the deification [theoˉsis] of humankind.44 Transforming union with the living God is the ongoing theme throughout the Philokalia, which is to be achieved through the constant invocation of the Holy Name of Jesus. In this way the grace of Baptism which becomes obscured during life is to be reactivated. The editors of the Philokalia express in this collection the perspective that the Greek Church and nation need to be reminded of their distinctive heritage and that this is best done through reading the mystical theology of the patristic and medieval periods. The method of the editors is to use these sources as a kind of ressourcement in order to combat in particular the perspective of the Enlightenment philosophers. So the purpose of the Philokalia is primarily practical and is intended not just for specialists, that is, monks, but for all the Orthodox. The title page states that it is for the ‘benefit of all the Orthodox’ [ei0j koinh\n tw~n 9Orqodo/cwn w0fe/leian]. Most texts included in the collection were written by monks for monks, but the editors had a much broader audience and purpose in mind. Nikodimus understood that the vocation to ‘pray without ceasing’ is for all Christians, those married as well as monks; those with families; and farmers, merchants and lawyers. The preface of the Philokalia recognizes that not everyone agrees with this broad ‘democratic’ intention and purpose. Indeed there might even be risk involved in making the texts available. The editors were clear that obedience to a spiritual father was very important, and yet they took the risk of publishing the Philokalia. In this way the Philokalia may be said to be a product of the Enlightenment in that its promotion of a democratic reception of the tradition is akin to the agenda of the encyclopaedists. The scheme of the book is a simple chronological order, with no systematic classification and no indication which texts were for beginners or which

44

Ware, Inner Unity, p. 2.

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were meant for the more experienced. The texts advocate ‘a scientific method’ of continual prayer to Christ in which the whole intellect is turned towards the inner self. This ‘spiritual and scientific work’ evokes the virtues against the passions in order to reactivate the grace of Baptism. The predominating approaches to prayer and deification in the Philokalia are the ideas of the writers Evagrios of Pontus from the fourth century, a colleague and friend of the Cappadocian fathers, and Maximos the Confessor from the seventh century. Ware argues that the editors were followers of the interpretation of Hesychasm associated with Gregory Palamas. Nikodimos edited a threevolume collection of Palamas’ works, although this was never published. However, the fourteenth-century Hesychast writings occupy no more than a quarter of the collection of the texts and the Heyschast texts chosen contain little about the experience of divine light and the essence–energies distinction associated with the Heyschast controversy. Andrew Louth suggests that the editors created a ‘canon’ for the Hesychast tradition. What the Philokalia does is to canonize a tradition of hesychast spirituality stretching right back from the hesychast controversy to the fourth century; quite what lies behind this creation of a canon is not clear, though it is very likely that the selection derives from many years, probably centuries, of monastic formation: these are the kinds of works monks were recommended to read by their spiritual fathers, especially in the Athonite tradition. . . . But once seen as part of a tradition, works are read with presuppositions that may be foreign to the spirit in which they were originally written.45 So how are the preconceptions and intentions of the editors to be understood and received? Some scholars have argued that Nikodimos was influenced significantly by Roman Catholic spirituality, canon law and theology. This is evidenced in his translations of The Spiritual Combat published originally in 1589 by Lorenzo Scupoli, renamed Unseen Warfare, and the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. He appealed to Roman Catholic canon law in The Rudder, and Roman Catholic influence is also found in his manual on sacramental confession, the Exomologetarion. The influence of Western pietistic moralism is to be seen in his Chrestoethia of Christians. Ware argues that while Nikodimos adapted to a Western audience by using Western texts and approaches, this is not the case in the Philokalia. Nikodimus does not use texts from the Counter Reformation in the Philokalia. The collection is not framed as an attack on ‘the West’; rather the collection is

45

Louth, A., ‘Light, Vision, and Religious Experience in Byzantium’, in M. T. Kapstein (ed.), The Presence of Light: Divine Radiance and Religious Experience (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 89.

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offered to all Christians: monks and laity as ‘a mystical school of noetic prayer’.46 As an influential collection of texts, the Philokalia may be said to be a ‘hermeneutical filter’ which conditions the self-understanding of the Orthodox as well as the perception of the Orthodox by the ‘non-Orthodox’. Although the intention of the editors was that the collection should be available to all Christians, the texts were published in their original form of the Greek language which most Greeks in 1782 and since would not have found particularly accessible. Only from 1957 has there been a project to produce the Philokalia in modern Greek, facilitating its use by a much broader audience. It was the Slavonic translation published in 1793 made by Paissy Velitchkovsky and encouraged by Metropolitan Gabriel of St Petersburg which meant that the Philokalia had a popular audience in Russia. The 1793 collection was enlarged in the edition of Theophan the Recluse in 1877. The Philokalia was regularly reprinted throughout the nineteenth century and became very popular. It was an influence upon Seraphim of Sarov who encouraged its dissemination, and it was popularized in the publication of The Way of the Pilgrim. The Philokalia has been translated into many languages during the second half of the twentieth century. Staniloae published a Romanian translation which was complete by 1981. An English translation based on the Russian edition of Theophan was published by Faber and Faber through the encouragement of T. S. Eliot and spread the collection’s influence and popularity to an Anglophone audience. Thus, the Philokalia is a hermeneutical filter between the early and medieval sources and their reception in the twentieth century, offering to the Orthodox themselves as well as to ‘nonOrthodox’ Christian traditions a sense of Orthodox identity and practice. In summary Louth writes that The Philokalia . . . has had an enormous impact on modern Orthodoxy: virtually all the great names of twentieth century Orthodox theology – Lossky, Florovsky, Meyendorff, Greeks such as Nellas and Mantzaridis and even Yannaras, the Romanian Staniloae, and such representatives of monastic theology as Archimandrite Sophrony of Essex and Bishop Hierotheos Vlachos – can be regarded as standing in a ‘Philokalic’ or ‘Neo-Palamite’ tradition. This tradition of ‘Byzantine mysticism’ is then a living tradition, which only makes it the more difficult to approach it in a critical, scholarly way. Most scholarly work on Byzantine mysticism that has been done in the past hundred years, including the edition of texts, has been done from within this tradition, with the result that the perspective represented by the Philokalia has been taken for granted.47 46 47

Ware, Inner Unity, p. 12. Louth, Light, Vision, and Religious Experience, p. 88.

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The Russian Hesychast revival Although it would be oversimplistic to suggest that the only developments within Orthodoxy took place in Russia in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, I will focus on two figures from the Russian landscape of theology and philosophy as examples of the influence which Russia has on the development of Orthodox theology. One is primarily an experiential example, and the other, theoretical. However, the experiential has doctrinal implications, and the theoretical is rooted in personal mystical experience. Both examples testify to the impact of the revived interest in the experience and practices witnessed in the Philokalia. The witness to the experience of deification in the life Seraphim of Sarov (1759–1833) is to be seen against the background of the adoption of aspects of the Western European Enlightenment in the Russian Empire from the late seventeenth century onwards. The reforms of the Church by Tsars such as Peter the Great and Catherine II led to the closure of many Russian monasteries. However, during the second half of the eighteenth century there was a spiritual revival within the monastic life. The life of Seraphim of Sarov provides a clear witness to this revival. His understanding of spiritual warfare and his theology and experience of ‘charismatic shining’ sits in the tradition of the Philokalia and the practice of the Jesus Prayer. Seraphim was influenced in particular by Paissy Velitchkovsky (1722–94) a staretz from Moldova. He translated the Philokalia into Church Slavonic which was published in St Petersburg in 1793 under the title Dobrotoliubie. Some scholars claim that it is through this translation that the Philokalia attains its widest influence in Orthodoxy. Velitchkovsky is credited with beginning a neo-Hesychast revival in Russian and Moldovan monasteries, and which contributed to a revival of starchestvo [staretsism] the practice of spiritual leadership and direction which St Seraphim developed after his time as a hermit. Further evidence of the influence of this movement can be seen in the nineteenth-century publication, The Way of a Pilgrim, the work of an anonymous Russian monk, which details the practice of the Jesus Prayer and the study of the Philokalia.48 Tikhon of Zadonsk, bishop of Voronezh (1724–82) is another witness to this revival. He experienced visions of the divine light and wrote of the transfiguring power of the resurrection, mediated through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Despite his ascetical life and mystical experiences Seraphim was not elitist in his understanding of prayer and spirituality. He encourages his lay disciple Nicholas Motovilov in his catechism on the Holy Spirit by insisting that God makes no distinction between the monk and the lay man. ‘The Lord hears the prayers of a simple layman just as he does a monk’s, provided they are both living in true faith and loving God from the depths 48

The Way of a Pilgrim (London: SPCK, 1972).

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of their heart.’49 Such an understanding is an important aspect of Orthodox tradition which is often perceived, perhaps especially by those hostile to or sceptical about theoˉsis, as a tradition which favours a spiritual elite of mystic monks. Here in the teachings of Seraphim is evidence of a corporate and ‘democratic’ understanding of the spirituality which accompanies the metaphor of deification. Vladimir Solovyov [Soloviev] (1853–1900) is one of the main figures in the landscape of Russian philosophy and theology in the nineteenth century. In his early years he rejected Christianity but found faith again in his late teens and stands within the Russian Orthodox tradition. His approach to faith and religion led him to a strong interest in ecumenism particularly between Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church. He taught philosophy in the University of Moscow and was known as a poet.50 It is through poetry that he expressed his mystical experiences. These experiences and his philosophical enquiry together inform his theological views, in which ‘unity’ plays an important role. It is in relation to this focus on unity that he explores the concept of Sophia and expounds his notion of sophiology and his understanding of God-manhood.51 His experience of the divine light, which he associates with wisdom [Sophia], is expressed in the concluding stanzas of the poem, Three Meetings: Still the slave of the vain world’s mind, But beneath rough matter’s rind, I’ve clearly seen eternal violet, rich royal purple, And felt the warm touch of divine light! Triumphing over death in wisdom’s light, Stilling the dream of time from its unyielding flight, Eternal Beloved, your name is held hid by my utmost plight, And forgive my timorous song!52 Solovyov’s exposition of sophiology is something which in the long term was officially rejected by the Russian Orthodox Church but continues to

49

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Cited by Bobrinskoy, B., ‘Introduction’ in V. Zander, St Seraphim of Sarov (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999), p. xii. For example, Solovyov, V., The Crisis of Western Philosophy: Against the Postivists, (Lindisfarne Press, 1996); Three Encounters (Three Meetings) 1875. Solovyov, V., ‘Lectures on Godmanhood’ (1878) in V. S. Solovyov and E. L. Radlov (eds), Collected Works of V. S. Solovyov (St Petersburg, 1911–14; Brussels, 1966). Solovyov, V., concluding stanzas of the Three Meetings (http://www.poetry-chaikhana. com/S/SolovyovVlad/ThreeMeeting.htm), accessed 2 June 2009. English version by Ivan M. Granger.

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fascinate theologians today.53 However, I shall focus on his understanding of unity and God-manhood, which are generally deemed to be more within a traditionally Orthodox framework of Christian theology. The expression of Solovyov’s understanding of unity has particular implications for the construal of ecclesiology and a relational interpretation of deification. His focus on unity is manifest in his understanding of the universal character of Christianity, which he expresses in the terms: panwholeness, worldwideness and globalism. This ecclesial manifestation of unity is rooted in prior Christological claims: ‘The all-connecting pivot in the unity is the Godman Christ. “Godmanhood” [bogočelovečestvo] is the historical-theological realization of pan-unity.’54 He understands that the union achieved in Christ is a union of things divine and human, a union of spirit and matter, eternity and time; it is the culmination of evolution and the beginning of the deification of humankind and world. ‘God-manhood’ is an uncommon term, which, in Solovyov’s usage, encompasses not only the divine Incarnation but also its outcome – redeemed humankind. Solovyov expresses his understanding of redemption in the terms: obožestvlenie [deification], preobrazovanie [transformation] and pereoždenie [rebirth], which he understands as not so much as a future outcome as a present reality. ‘Redemption is considered to be a harmonic-evolutionary process, instead of an eschatological break in history; and as a cosmic and collectively human event, instead of an appeal from God aimed at the individual human being.’55 God-manhood is then a collectivist concept, for Christ’s ‘act’ of redemption is contained in his cosmic function of re-creator of mankind. Solovyov rejects Western understandings of redemption, both Catholic and Protestant, as satisfaction for the ‘disturbed legal relation with God’. Although he understands salvation to be collectivist, he warns against any political or ideological understandings of salvation, particularly those associated with socialism, for salvation is understood to be based solely on the divine–human unity, found in Christ and presently in the Church. Thus, he understands that the task of the Church is to bring about unity for all humankind.56 The Church is the ‘world-wide [vsemirnaja] organisation of true life’. The Church is the mediator between divine life and physical life; it is the divine–human life in which eternity is achieved in time and which is at the same time the realization of divine love in human freedom. It is in effect an instance of collective divine–human synergy. Solovyov’s influence is received mainly through his appropriation by Bulgakov. But his understandings of redemption as 53 54

55 56

For example, Milbank, ‘Sophiology and Theurgy’. Bercken, W. Van den, ‘The Ecumenical Vision of Vladimir Solovyov’, Exchange, 28(4) (1999): 314. Bercken, ‘Ecumenical Vision’, p. 314. Solovyov, V., History and Future of Theocracy (1889); Russia and the Universal Church (published in French 1889).

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deification and of the Church as the corporate means of achieving Godmanhood in the present remain key concepts for an understanding of deification which goes beyond the interior experience of the individual. The reception of the Philokalia in nineteenth-century Russia facilitated not only a spiritual revival but also a theological renewal which was based on the core element of experience. The concepts which Solovyov developed contribute to an understanding that deification is not simply a private concern or experience but something which forms and frames the Church as a believing community in its relationship with God’s purposes for the whole cosmos. This conceptuality provides a strong basis for my own purposes in construing the metaphor of deification as a relational doctrine today.

The Middle Ages The reception and interpretation of the work of theologians in the Middle Ages by neo-Palamite writers in the twentieth century is focused mainly around two authors, Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas. Their place in the firmament of the defenders of Orthodoxy is secured partly through their inclusion in the Philokalia and in the case of Palamas through the vindication of his views in the outcome of the Hesychast controversy in the mid-fourteenth century. Their place in the construal of Orthodox history is a further indication of the importance of the Philokalia as a means by which present-day Orthodoxy has come to understand itself. Symeon and Gregory are key figures in the presentation of a Hesychast understanding of prayer and of the outcome of the Christian Life in deification. The period from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries in the Byzantine Empire and the Orthodox Church was one in which controversy and the threat of the Ottoman Turks were never far away. The period witnesses the ongoing struggles relating to the filioque controversy with the Latin Church, which informs the context of the Hesychast controversy. During this period there is a movement of renewal in secular learning and ‘humanism’ which is also part of the background to the Hesychast revival. I will focus primarily upon the figures elected by the neo-Palamites: Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas, but in addition I will illustrate the theological temper of the period with a brief examination of the ideas of Michael Psellus, and Gregory Scholarius, who became the first Patriarch following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople as Gennadios II. It will also be important to acknowledge the work of Prochorus Cydones, a monk of Mount Athos, who represents another dimension of this period – the increasing interest in Latin theology among some Orthodox theologians. The work of Michael Psellus (c.1018–78) provides a remarkable example of the renaissance in learning which occurred in the Byzantine world from the eleventh century onwards and produced what has been called a 95

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‘Christian Hellenism’.57 Psellus was a polymath working in many disciplines, including philosophy and theology. In relation to the metaphor of deification he explores the use of image and likeness,58 the understanding of deification in terms of perfection,59 and he reiterates the conceptuality of the exchange formula.60 He employs the technical language of qewqh~nai [ [to become one with God] and mi/cei [to mingle] in order to express the metaphor of deification. The work of Psellus provides clear evidence of an ongoing tradition of deification in Greek theology in the eleventh century. The life of Symeon the New Theologian spans the tenth and eleventh centuries (949–1022); however, some scholars have suggested later dates. He became a monk in 977 having been employed in imperial service. His discussion of deification is set out in traditional terms, but he also writes of his own experience of participation in the divine light. This focus on the divine light places him alongside other witnesses to the divine light such as Gregory Nazianzen and the Hesychasts of the fourteenth century. Andrew Louth argues that Symeon is a newcomer to a Greek audience and is more well-known and popular in Russian tradition.61 Symeon’s work is included in the Philokalia, where three texts are attributed to him, but most scholars agree that the third text on the Jesus Prayer is not Symeon’s work. In the twentieth century Symeon has become more widely known, through the work of Basil Krivocheine,62 and Symeon is now established as a major resource for neo-Palamist theologians. Many scholars have assumed that Symeon was a precursor of the Hesychasts of the fourteenth century because of the way in which he draws on the experience of divine light. Louth questions this assimilation of Symeon into the Hesychast tradition. This interpretation of Symeon may be an example of the effect of the Philokalia on the reception of the Orthodox mystical tradition. But rather than situating him in the tradition, some have seen Symeon as ‘the great exception’. It is interesting to reflect that he acquires the title ‘the New Theologian’, which sets him alongside the two other ‘Theologians’ of the Orthodox tradition: John the Evangelist and Gregory Nazianzen. Perhaps the acquisition of this title, given to him by his immediate disciples, is evidence of the desire to establish him as an orthodox figure despite his unconventional appeal to

57

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Pelikan, J., The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600–1700) (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1974, 1977), p. 243. Psellus, M., in L. G. Westerink (ed.), De omnifaria doctrina (Utrecht, 1948), p. 15. Psellus, De omnifaria doctrine, p. 71. Psellus, On The Annunciation PO 16, 518 1Edei ga\r pa/ntwj qewqh~nai to\n a1nqrwpon, u9perfuou~j tuxga/nontoj pra/gmatoj kata/llhlon ei}nai kai\ to\ prooi/mion. Dia\ tau~ta Xristo\j e0nhnqpw&phsen, o3ti teqe/wtai th|~ kainh|~ pro\j au)ton mi/cei o9 a1nqrwpoj. Louth, ‘Light, Vision, and Religious Experience’. Krivocheine, B., In the Light of Christ: Saint Symeon the New Theologian (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1986).

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experience and the controversy which he caused. Louth argues that the ‘life’ written by his follower, Nicetas Stethatos, is to be seen as an attempt to rehabilitate Symeon. But he suggests that the text of the life obscures or distorts why Symeon encountered so much opposition. On the whole, modern scholarship has accepted the life of Symeon as recounted by Nicetas, which has given him his place in the Hesychast tradition.63 John McGuckin has argued that attempts to interpret Symeon as a Hesychast is wilful misrepresentation, which emerges from a misreading of Symeon’s account of experience and the way in which he appeals to the paradigm of Christ’s Transfiguration.64 Louth and McGuckin argue that this stems from the crudely ‘realist’ interpretations of Symeon by modern writers. ‘A properly critical approach needs to treat Symeon’s visions not simply as straightforward records, but as literary texts composed for a purpose by someone who was certainly not ignorant of the skills of rhetoric.’65 This means that there is a need to distinguish between those texts in which Symeon appeals to ‘vision’ as a metaphor rather than necessarily referring to actual experience and those “epiphanic” visions, where Symeon does give an account of his own experience of visions. In recounting his own experience Symeon follows the example of St Paul in 2 Corinthians 12. McGuckin sets out a typology for interpreting such ‘Epiphanic visions’, based upon three biblical paradigms: (1) ‘Sinai paradigm’, for example, Moses’ vision of God on Mount Sinai and Christ’s Transfiguration; (2) ‘Pauline paradigm’, for example, Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus and his third heaven rapture; and (3) ‘Open heaven paradigm’, for example, as witnessed at the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 7.55). The second and third paradigms sit in an apocalyptic context, and Louth suggests that there is not much to distinguish between them. Using this typology McGuckin argues that the Transfiguration is the least suitable paradigm by which to interpret Symeon’s writings and experiences, as he appeals to the Transfiguration only once explicitly. It is on these grounds in particular that Symeon may be said to be different from the Hesychasts, as they drew heavily on the paradigm of the Transfiguration as interpreted by Maximos the Confessor. McGuckin suggests that the ‘Pauline paradigm’ is probably the most appropriate interpretation of Symeon’s experience. Paul used his account of his vision to reinforce his authority, which Symeon does for himself and his spiritual father, Symeon ‘Eulabes’. Louth argues that Symeon’s stress on the conscious 63 64

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Louth, ‘Light, Vision, and Religious Experience’, p. 95. McGuckin, J., ‘The Notion of Luminous Vision in 11th-Century Byzantium: Interpreting the Biblical and Theological Paradigms of St. Symeon the New Theologian’, in M. Mullett (ed.), Work & Worship at the Theotokos Evergetis [Acts of the Belfast Byzantine Colloquium, Portaferry 1995] (Belfast: Queens University Press, 1997), pp. 90–123. Louth, ‘Light, Vision, and Religious Experience’, p. 95.

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experience of divine things, especially of divine activity in the sacraments, is a feature of a longstanding tradition in Byzantine monasticism. Louth suggests that Symeon may have reasserted this tradition in the face of growing hierarchical authority in Constantinople at the turn of the millennium. The background to Symeon’s appeal to experience may have been the growing intellectual and formal approach to theology, witnessed in the work of Michael Psellus. Some have seen this move toward a more philosophical theology as the beginnings of a scholastic turn in Orthodox theology. In the Discourses, Symeon warns the monks of whom he is the abbot: brethren in Christ, let us not desire to learn by mere words that which is beyond utterance; it is equally impossible both for those who teach about such matters and for those who listen to them. Those who teach about intellectual and divine realities are not able to supply clear proofs, . . . or to express their truth concretely. Nor are their pupils able to learn by mere words the meaning of that about which they speak. It is by practice and effort and labours that we must be anxious to grasp these things and attain to contemplation of them. (Discourse 14.5)66 Symeon’s understanding of deification as the outcome of mystical experience is related to the standard conceptualizations of theoˉsis in terms of the exchange formula, an appeal to the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, as well as to theoˉria [the vision of light]. He sees the metaphor of deification as the core expression of salvation. The deification of humanity is understood to be the purpose of the Incarnation: ‘Why did God become man?’ ‘So that man might become god’ (Ethics 5.31–4; 7.59–8). Believers put on the divinity of Christ in Baptism and receive the ‘wondrous exchange’ of the Incarnation in the Eucharist. So as well as his appeal to mystical experience his understandings of deification are firmly rooted in ecclesial and corporate contexts. Symeon was criticized for his teachings, in particular for his veneration of his spiritual father Symeon the Studite immediately following his death and for his understanding of deification in relation to the divine light. Critics at the time saw deification as a goal locked away in the future eschaton. While it may be correct to separate Symeon from the fourteenth-century Hesychast revival, his appeal to the experience of the divine light is important in the development of an understanding of the place of experience within Orthodoxy and of the relationship between experience and deification. This understanding has been received in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as an indication that participation in the divine life is not only a hope for the future but also for the present. 66

Symeon the New Theologian, The Discourses (London: SPCK, 1980).

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There are a number of different questions which emerge when seeking to situate Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) or as he is more often known within Orthodoxy, Gregory of Thessaloniki. First, there is the question of the place of theoˉsis in theological discourse in Orthodoxy in fourteenth century. Russell has suggested that most theologians did not read the Orations of Gregory Nazianzen or the works of Maximos the Confessor, so that theoˉsis was used in general theological writing as a metaphor for baptismal adoption by grace and the final outcome of resurrected life.67 However, he does suggest that the texts of Gregory Nazianzen and Maximos were read and understood by the pioneers of the ‘Hesychast revival’. Second, was ‘Palamism’ a forgotten strand in Orthodoxy until the renewal of interest in the twentieth century, as was argued in the 1974 edition of Istina?68 Both Yannaras and Barrois have argued fervently that this was not the case.69 Rather the defence of the Hesychast vision of divine light at the synods in Constantinople in 1341, 1357 and 1351 and also in the formal statement of the Hagioretic Tome issued by monks of Mount Athos (1340–1) are acknowledged formal additions to Orthodox belief, which are reaffirmed each year on the first Sunday of Great Lent, in the reading of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy. Yet despite these formal declarations the Hesychast controversy was never quite resolved, and any resolution there might have been was overtaken by fall of Constantinople in 1453. Arising from this lack of resolution a third question emerges: were the teachings of Gregory Palamas in continuity with the tradition or were they innovatory? Russell argues that Palamas not only stands in continuity with but also develops the tradition. Indeed Palamas acknowledged that his teaching was a ‘development’ of the fathers, for in the Council of 1351 he acknowledges that his understandings are an ‘anapryxis’ [unfolding] of what fathers had said.70 In terms of a doctrine of development this claim corresponds to what Maurice Wiles understood as a ‘logical’ model of development, in which implicit understandings are later drawn out. The evolutionary model was expounded by Newman, and Wiles proposed a third model of ‘change through alteration of perspective’ in which new insights are acknowledged. Russell argues that Palamas approaches theoˉsis from a new perspective, from the particular understanding and experience of Hesychasm, which is no doubt why Palamas’ understandings were questioned and rejected by his opponents. Palamas builds upon the appeal to experience found in the writings of Macarius ‘the Great’ (c.300–91) and 67

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Russell, N., ‘Theoˉsis and Gregory of Palamas: Continuity or Doctrinal Change?’ St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 50(4) (2006): 357. Istina, 19(3) (1974). Yannaras, C., ‘The Distinction between Essence and Energies and Its Importance for Theology’, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 19(4) (1975): 232–45; Barrois, G., ‘Palamism Revisited’, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 19(4) (1975): 211–31. Russell, ‘Theoˉsis and Gregory of Palamas’, p. 378.

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Symeon the New Theologian, and he gives this appeal a rationale. The experience of the divine light through the practices of prayer in the Hesychast revival are construed around the distinction between the divine essence and energies in order to preserve the unknowability of God in se, while asserting that the outcome of prayer is an ‘uncreated’ deification of the believer. The experience of the divine light, to which the Hesychasts bear testimony, is given a rationale in the terms of a highly sophisticated, if not always consistent epistemology. Palamas produces a first defence of deification against overt criticism, which led the Orthodox Church to grant an official status to the doctrine of deification. Gregory Palamas became a monk at age 20, and around the year 1318 he visited Mount Athos and encountered those who followed the Hesychast life, a life of prayer and of withdrawal from world, in order to seek participation in the uncreated energies of God. Gregory began a correspondence with Barlaam of Calabria, a leading philosopher in Constantinople, concerning the problem of the knowledge of God. In relation to this quest for understanding in 1337 Gregory published the first of his Triads in defence of Hesychast understanding and practice. Gregory maintained the ineffability of the divine essence while arguing that human beings could know and participate in God, through the divine energies. Barlaam rejected any claim that human beings could participate in God and in Against the Messalians he accuses the Hesychasts of the same heresy as the Messalians of the fourth century; that is, through constant prayer a corporeal vision of the divine essence could be achieved. In 1340 Palamas was accused of heresy; in his defence, he expounded a theory of deification, arguing that human persons are transformed by God, through real experience of the vision of divine light, which is both perceptible and completely spiritual. This was construed on the basis of the distinction between energies and essence: the divine essence remaining imparticipable and transcendent. The Taboric Light (referring to the Mount of Transfiguration) is understood by Palamas to be ‘symbolic’ but nonetheless ‘real’. The Taboric light is not just an external phenomenon; it is enhypostatic and is related to the hypostasis of the person of Christ, who is both human and divine. So the Taboric light is an ‘enhypostatic symbol’ which enables the beholder to participate in the divine. But Barlaam argued that a symbol was something other than the reality it represents. Thus, while Barlaam accepted a notion of theoˉsis, he understood that the believer shared in a ‘created’ divinity because there is only one uncreated divinity. Palamas argued in response that Barlaam’s notion of ‘created divinity’ meant in some sense that God was a creature! Through his appeal to the essence–energies distinction Palamas was able to leave the divine transcendence uncompromised, while the believer participated in the uncreated divine life. It is this very point which remains a contested issue among those who pit Palamas against Aquinas. The Orthodox who champion Palamism

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argue that Aquinas’ understanding of deification only permits the believer to participate in created grace. There were other dissenting voices within Orthodoxy. Prochorus Cydones, an Athonite monk, wrote against Palamas in 1360s. Cydones is also known for his translation the works of Aquinas. Cydones denied that God can be divided into essence and energies and that God could be participated in. He asserted that God IS light, so that divine light is of the divine essence. Cydones did not reject the term ‘theoˉsis’, but he argued that any change in the believer was qualitative, rather than substantial. On Mount Tabor the Apostles had been changed, but there was no change in Christ himself. On this basis, theoˉsis is understood as a relational term and believers become ‘gods’ only in title or analogy. Cydones’ interest in and translation of Aquinas into Greek is understood by many scholars as a symptom of the ‘Westernization’ of Orthodoxy, which twentieth-century Palamism sought to redress. His own views may have been influenced by his study of Aquinas’ works. The main interest in Palamas’ teaching relates to his exposition of the Hesychast experience, within a monastic context. However, there is evidence in his preaching of a much greater emphasis on the Incarnation, where deification and immortality are attained through Baptism and the imitation of Christ. Palamas understands the outcome of theoˉsis not in terms of created grace, that is, a change brought about in the believer by divine action, but rather theoˉsis ‘signifies a real participation in the life of God, making us homoethoi and gods by grace’.71 Palamas achieves an understanding of deification which brings the creature to share in the life of the creator, without, in his own terms, compromising either the createdness of the creature or the uncreatedness of the creator, and without overthrowing the unknowability of God in se. The philosopher and theologian George Scholarios (c.1405–72), who became the first Patriarch after the fall of Constantinople as Gennadios II, bears witness to the ongoing controversy surrounding Hesychasm a century on from the time of Palamas. Two anti-Barlaamite texts of Scholarios survive,72 in which he defends the stance of Palamas in favour of the Heyschasts and in particular endorses the essence–energies distinction. Scholarios wrote various works after his resignation as Patriarch in 1459. These are mainly works of apologetic in which he defends Orthodox Christian belief in the

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Russell, ‘Theoˉsis and Gregory of Palamas’, p. 376. Gennadius II Scholarios, in L. Petit, X. Siderides and M. Jugie (eds), Oeuvres Completes de Georges Scholarios, volumes I–VII (Paris: Maison de la Bonne Presse, 1928–36) Anti-Barlaamite texts: (1) ‘Against the Partisans of Acindyne’, (2) ‘The distinction between the divine essence and energies’, in vol. III (1930), pp. 434–52.

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Trinity and the Incarnation for a potential Muslim audience. Scholarios had attended the Council of Florence (1439) and that stage had supported reunion with Rome. But later he changed his mind and became a staunch advocate of Orthodoxy over against the Latin West. This polemic was enhanced by his knowledge of scholasticism and of the works of Aquinas, some of which he had translated into Greek. Scholarios is a witness to the ongoing controversy surrounding a Palamite construal of mystical experience and deification. As Patriarch he endorses the acceptance of Palamism as Orthodox, but his main energies were devoted to a polemic against the ‘West’ and an apologetic to the Ottoman Turks and their Muslim faith. The lack of resolution to the Hesychast controversy in the Middle Ages demonstrates the extent to which the combination of the publication of the Philokalia and the neo-Palamite revival in the twentieth century have shaped the acceptance of the metaphor of deification and the identity of Orthodoxy in recent times.

A new beginning or revival? By the late fifth century the language of deification and its underlying conceptuality were not much in use in theological discourse, for the appeal to deification as a metaphor for salvation was no longer in vogue. The reason for this is mainly to be found in the suspicion surrounding the teachings of Origen and those who shaped theological reflection along similar lines. Suspicion had accrued to Origen’s texts insofar as some of his ideas were used by Arius, as well as the ‘orthodox’ such as Athanasius and the Cappadocian fathers. Epiphanius of Salamis publicly condemned Origen’s teachings in 394 in Jerusalem. Others such as John of Jerusalem and Rufinus had sought to defend his work at this stage. However, during the sixth century, Origen’s theological stance was officially condemned, a synod in Constantinople in 544 condemned fifteen propositions attributed to Origen, and the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 (the Fifth Ecumenical Council) reiterated this condemnation. This council was concerned to defend the orthodoxy of the Chalcedonian understanding of the Person of Christ and condemned a number of other theologians who were considered to have strayed from the understanding of the Hypostatic Union enunciated in 451.73 It was against this background that Ps-Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximos the Confessor ‘revive’ the language of deification. Later generations have interpreted their work as the classic construction of deification in the late patristic period. The question which emerges is whether this construction is to be understood as a revival or in effect a new beginning in terms of the discourse 73

Among those condemned in 553 at the Second Council of Constantinople for their heretical understandings of the Person of Christ were Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinarius Nestorius, Eutyches, Origen, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret.

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concerning theoˉsis in the Tradition. The background to this question may be understood in relation to the two ecumenical councils which followed the Second Council of Constantinople. The Third Council of Constantinople in 680–1 dealt with the issue of how many wills are to be understood as functioning in the Person of Christ. The notion of a single will, the so-called ‘Monothelite’ heresy was condemned, and it was declared as orthodox to believe that Christ exercised two wills, human and divine, parallel with the Chalcedonian construal of the two natures. The following council, the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 dealt with the iconoclast controversy and reiterated a Chalcedonian understanding of the Hypostatic Union.74 The texts of Maximos the Confessor and of John of Damascus influence the outcomes of these councils, which in part rests upon their advocacy and exposition of the metaphor of the deification, grounded in their interpretation of Chalcedonian orthodoxy. As the analysis of Ps-Dionysius and Maximos unfolds I will assess whether it is possible to answer the question whether this is a new beginning or revival. Diadochos of Photike (d.c.486) provides a useful witness to fifth-century usage. He had been a student of Evagrios, and as bishop of Photiki attended the Council of Chalcedon. His principal work On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination: One Hundred Texts is a classic text on mystical experience and prayer.75 He draws upon the ascetical theology of Evagrios combined with an appeal to experience found in the Macarian writings. Diadochos sets out a detailed understanding of the stages of the spiritual life, of which the final goal is divine – human communion, understood as an eschatological reality. But he avoids the language of deification, presumably because it was too suspect to be used. Diadochos draws a distinction between the divine image and likeness in the human person. He argues that while the image remains after the Fall the likeness was lost. He expresses the difference between image and likeness in terms of an analogy of cartoon and finished portrait. In order to recover the likeness the believer needs to find a way of ascent to God. Diadochos understands the spiritual ascent in terms of the imagery of light and fire, with increased illumination being achieved at each successive stage. To be perfect is to be permeated with divine light and love, but even this is not described in the language of deification, for only at the end of time would the human subject attain to the fullest communion with the divine. Diadochos demonstrates that while the language of deification was not in vogue in the fifth century, interest in the spiritual life remains, the outcome of which was understood in terms of divine–human intimacy.

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Among those condemned in 787 at the Second Council of Nicaea were Origen, Evagrius and Didymus, for their ‘mythical speculations’. ‘On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination: 100 texts’ is cited in the Philokalia, vol. 1, (1979).

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If Diadochus typifies a reticence in expressing the metaphor of deification in the theological discourse of the fifth century, Dionysius initiates a new boldness of expression in the sixth. The identity of the person who called himself ‘Dionysius the Areopagite’ remains a mystery. ‘Dionysius the Areopagite’ refers to the man named as one of those who joined St Paul as a believer after he addressed the people of Athens on the Areopagus (or Mars Hill; Acts 17.34). His claim to be the Areopagite gave his writings an almost apostolic status. The authenticity of the claim was questioned as early as the sixth century by Hypatius of Ephesus and much later in the West by Nicholas of Cusa, but it was not until the period of the Western European Renaissance that figures such as Erasmus openly suggested that the author lived much later than St Paul’s convert. In order to situate the writings of Dionysius it is usual to refer to his dependence on the ideas of the pagan philosopher Proclus (c.412–85). Some modern scholars suggest that the author was a pupil of Proclus and of Syrian origin. As the first known citation of his work by Severus of Antioch is dated between 518 and 528, it is generally accepted that the Corpus Areopagiticum was complete before 532. Dionysius seems to have been influenced by the writings of Gregory Nazianzen as well as by Proclus, combining Gregory’s emphasis on the ascent of the soul and Proclus’ on ‘unity’. Proclus was probably the first non-Christian philosopher to borrow the language of deification which had developed in Christian theological reflection. Dionysius uses the language of deification as the equivalent of being ‘saved’ and is particularly interested in the liturgy as the locus of the realization of deification as much as in any mystical experience. He appeals to the idea of exchange – that God became human, that the human might become God in Epistle 4 – and to the experience and concept of theoˉria, illumination by the divine light in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 2.3.1. Dionysius is the first Christian theologian to offer a definition of deification [qe&wsij]: ‘theoˉsis is the attaining of likeness to God and union with him so far as is possible’ [h9 de\ qe/wsi/j e0stin h9 pro\j qeo\n w9j e0fikto\n a0fomoi/wsij te kai\ e9/nwsij] (Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 1.3). Some commentators have argued that this definition demonstrates a high level of dependency on philosophy, mediated through Plotinus and Proclus. The task of evaluating Dionysius’ writings is complicated. Some see him as primarily a philosopher while others see him as a Christian apologist who is writing for the educated classes of the day. Louth has argued that different works suggest different perspectives for different audiences; the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and the Divine Names are examples of such difference. The main discussion of deification is set in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, while in the Divine Names, which is closer to the philosophy of Proclus, Dionysius sums up the goal of the Christian tradition as unification of the whole created order with God through a movement of return effected by a process of purification, illumination

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and perfection. But in this work he does not appeal to the metaphor of deification to express this.76 The discussion of deification is understood in relation to the ‘earthly’ liturgy rather than to the divine darkness and to the operation of the sacraments than to the intellectual work of the philosopher. The ecclesial context of his understanding of theoˉsis places Dionysius alongside the earlier work of Origen, Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria. In his exposition of Baptism, Dionysius argues that this ‘divine birth’ raises a believer to a ‘divine level of existence’ ((Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 2.1). This is achieved on the basis of the Incarnation of the Word, which transforms human nature, enabling it to receive a ‘god-like’ form. This salvation is to be appropriated through the ascent of mind and the imitation of divine will, and the Incarnation supplies grace in terms of light and beauty in order to achieve this. Dionysius’ ecclesial perspective on deification is parallel with his philosophical take expressed in terms of ontology and ethics. Theoˉsis is understood to be both likeness and union with God, which are not separate activities, but are focused in the effort to return to the source of being and attain the highest realization of the self. Dionysius sets out this understanding in the Divine Names, which is expressed in a language closest to Proclus’ own usage. Proclus argued that the return of the human soul to the divine was achieved through asceticism and virtue, whereby the human soul participates in the divine soul. Through philosophy the human subject is able to participate in divine intelligence. However, Proclus understood that the highest level of union is beyond philosophy and is achieved through love, aided by theurgy. The appeal to theurgy in Proclus is comparable with Dionysius’ appeal to the sacraments. However, Russell argues that while Dionysius locates the language of deification in relation to the sacraments, this language refers to the intellectual reception of symbols rather than physical participation in the sacrament (i.e. the body and blood of Christ), which raise the mind to unity and simplicity.77 Dionysius understands deification in terms of participation in the divine attributes of goodness, wisdom, oneness and deity. The human subject returns to the supreme cause and becomes a ‘god’. The supreme cause is understood to be beyond all intellection and being, yet Dionysius does not simply understand deification as an intellectual process. The return is a reaching out to a personal triadic God, who actively responds, not only with gift of the capacity for deification but also with the gift of himself in his attributes.78 76

77 78

Louth, A., ‘Review of Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin), Et Introibo ad Altare Dei: The Mystagogy of Dionysius the Aeropagita, with Special Reference to Its Predecessors in the Eastern Tradition’, Journal of Theological Studies, 48 (1997): 713. Russell, Deification, p. 261. Russell, Deification, p. 262.

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The writings of Dionysius brought the conceptuality of deification into the mainstream of theological discourse at the beginning of the sixth century. This emerges from a renewed interest in the writings of Proclus and from a desire to understand salvation in ecclesial and liturgical terms. Dionysius connects the appeal of Proclus to theurgy and the sacramental tradition of the Church in order to expound the effects of Baptism and Eucharist in bringing about divine–human communion. Dionysius became an apologist for these concerns among the educated classes and practising believers. He is a ‘mystical theologian’ in the sense that he explicates and encourages intimacy and union with the divine, but his apologetic is not necessarily based on personal mystical experience, although it has been used to provide a rationale for such experience. Around the beginning of the sixth century Dionysius had presented the notion of deification as a core concept in theological reflection. In the seventh century Maximos the Confessor (c.580–662) took this a stage further and discussed the topic in its own right for first time. ‘Deification’ had been used in the Christian tradition as a metaphor for salvation and sanctification, but during the sixth century the metaphorical use was supplemented by Dionysius’ ‘definition’, so that deification became a technical term. ‘That is to say, the same truth which was originally expressed in metaphorical language came in the early Byzantine period to be expressed conceptually and dogmatically.’79 This suggests a step change in the understanding of the role of deification in theological discourse as well as in the self-understanding of ‘Orthodoxy’. The main question which drives Maximos’ exploration of the doctrine of deification is, how can what is mortal participate in what is transcendent? In other words, he has an interest in the ‘distance’ which separates the human and divine and seeks to understand how the divine purposes in creating and redeeming not only the human race but the whole cosmos are resolved in the understanding that God seeks to be all in all. The motivation for pursuing this enquiry may arise from his own personal spiritual quest and experience, particularly his vocation to the monastic life, although his appeal to experience is oblique. The core answer to his main question is expressed in a theandric understanding of cooperation between the mortal and transcendent, modelled on the paradigm of the Hypostatic Union. This reflects the ongoing debates concerning Christology in the Eastern Church at that time, particularly the question of how many wills are to be predicated to the Person of Christ. Using the Incarnation as his paradigm Maximos argues that the divine and human interpenetrate each other in the believer, without becoming confused, changed, divided or separated, according to the four adverbs of the Chalcedonian statement. So it is axiomatic for Maximos that

79

Russell, Deification, p. 1.

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God became human that human beings might become god; in other words, the divine kenoˉsis produces human theoˉsis. Deification is understood as not just another way of expressing a Christian understanding of salvation; rather, it is the purpose for which Adam was created. Adam lost this possibility, but it is restored through Christ, and since the human person is a microcosm of the cosmos, deification does not only concern the human creation but the entire cosmos (Ad Thalassum, 60, 73–5) The construct of theoˉsis found in the writings of Maximos centres on the possibility of a union with God, which is a gift from God and by which human beings become ‘gods’. This is achieved through attaining likeness to God (as far as possible for human beings), by participating in the divine attributes through a virtuous exercise of the will. Human beings become what God is – but remain creatures. Theoˉsis begins in the present life but only reaches completion in the eschatological state. The main discussion of theoˉsis is to be found in Maximos’ works: Commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, Mystagogia, early Ambigua; Quaestiones ad Thalassium (630–3); Ambiguam ad Thomam (633 or later); and Chapters on Theology (630–4). Maximos construes theoˉsis according to several different approaches, namely, deification as the goal for which human beings are created; as moral effort and divine grace; and as participation in the divine attributes (especially eternity). Maximos does not appeal to 2 Peter 1.4 as Cyril of Alexandria had done. This is possibly because of the use of physis [nature] in the passage could be interpreted as the equivalent of ousia, which Maximos understood was non-participiable. The narrative of the Transfiguration [Metamorphoˉsis] of Christ is a key text in Maximos’ construction of deification. He discusses the Transfiguration in three places, which are all relatively early works, before he became involved in the Monothelite controversy (Difficulties [Ambigua] 10; Centuries on Theology and the Incarnation, 2.13).80 Louth argues that Maximos’ understanding of the Transfiguration emerges from a common antecedent tradition established by Origen.81 The Transfiguration operates as a kind of matrix for theology, but it is something to be experienced as the believer’s ascends to communion with God. The Commentary on the Lord’s Prayer focuses on the possibility of the synergy between the divine and human wills, which is premised on an understanding of divine–human reciprocity. The possibility of the ascetic habit of the virtues and the manifestation of love rests upon this inherent divine–human reciprocity. (Epistle 2 PG 91 401C) This is understood in relation to the imago dei 82 and the freedom of the human 80 81

82

See Louth, ‘Light, Vision, and Religious Experience’, pp. 91–5. There is also an assimilation of Christ on Tabor and Moses on Sinai, which may be seen the writings of Ps-Dionysius, Gregory of Nyssa and Clement of Alexandria. See Thunberg, L., Man and the Cosmos: The Vision of St Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), pp. 54–5.

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will and energy to be able to respond to God, without being annihilated in the resultant exchange (Two Hundred Texts on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation, 2nd Century 83). The outcome of this process is described by commentators in terms of deification and communion. The connection between the paradigm of the Hypostatic Union, the process of deification and the goal of communion is explored by Thunberg, in his analysis that Maximos understands imago dei as imago trinitatis.83 It is on the basis of this understanding, together with the notion that the Incarnation is an instance of neither assimilation nor assumption, but of reciprocity that Thunberg writes of an ‘energetic communion’.84 Despite the appeal to synergy, which is the cause of so much suspicion among many Protestant commentators, Maximos retains a distance between the human and divine. God and the human being are understood to be paradigms of each other, rooted in the concepts of image and likeness. The process of theoˉsis results in a perfect coinherence without change of nature, so that deification remains analogous and nominal rather than realistic. There is an experiential component to Maximos’ writings: he draws upon the reality of the contemplative life and in doing so secures deification as the goal of the monastic spiritual life in Orthodoxy. But Maximos does not locate deification in private mystical experiences; he locates it in the experience of the Liturgy, and he understands the Eucharist to be a prime source of the grace of theoˉsis. Overall, Maximos establishes ‘deification’ as a core doctrine in Orthodoxy. The status of ‘deification’ was also related to the ongoing Christological controversy and process of definition seen in the councils of the fifth, sixth and eighth centuries. This was not part of the experience of the Latin Church of the ‘Dark Ages’, and it is this as much later developments which causes divergence between the traditions. Another example of the self-understanding of Orthodoxy in terms of the metaphor of deification is seen in the writings of John of Damascus (c.676–750). The context of these writings was two different but crucial developments for Eastern Christianity, which are the rise of Islam and the Iconoclast controversy. Evidence suggests that John, like his father before him, had worked in the service of the Caliph in Damascus, but around the age of 30 he left that work and followed his vocation to become a monk in the deserts of Palestine at the monastery of Saint Sabas. John wrote a defence of the use of icons and a work in three sections the Fountain Head of Knowledge, the third section of which is known as the Defence of the Orthodox Faith [De Fide Orthodoxa]. John’s writings are designed to defend and inform. He predicates his understanding of deification on the Hypostatic Union and in particular on the concept of ‘theandric energy’ which he

83 84

Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, p. 47. Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, p. 143.

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ascribes to Dionysius.85 John’s construal of deification is based largely on the writings of Gregory Nazianzen, but he also draws on Maximos the Confessor. John sets out a theological anthropology in which deification is understood to be the goal of human life. In Paradise human beings were a composite of matter and spirit. Adam was created perfect and was a microcosm of the cosmos, but he misused his free will and ‘fell’. John distinguishes between image and likeness; the image relates to the mind and the will, whereas the divine likeness can be only be attained by virtue. The likeness was lost by Adam, but the image remains intact. Christ took on himself human nature in order that human beings might become incorruptible and partake of divinity. This goal is attained through Baptism and Eucharist, whereby the believer is incorporated into Christ and deified by the Spirit. John’s defence of the Orthodox Faith against the background of the rise of Islam and the Iconoclast controversy provides him with the opportunity to state the priorities of the Gospel and the Christian Life as he understood them. It is evident that the deified human nature of Christ and the theandric synergy of the divine and human in Christ are core concepts for John. These form the basis for what he construes to be the outcome of salvation for the Christian believer. In time John’s defence of the Orthodox Faith acquired an elevated status and his focus on the theandric outcome of salvation in theoˉsis became a key element in the construal of Orthodox self-understanding. The interpretation of the collective status of these writers will depend on the perspective of the person evaluating the contribution to the Christian tradition which Dionysius, Maximos and John make. Undoubtedly these theologians have had enormous influence on the reception of the Tradition within Eastern Christianity. From the perspective of Orthodoxy, it is important to claim that their construal of deification is part of an ongoing orthodox tradition, which set its face against anything understood as ‘innovation’. Innovation has long been equated with heresy. But Gregory Palamas was able to suggest that he had ‘unfolded’ what the fathers had taught. Certainly Dionysius and Maximos are at least part of a move to revive the language of deification, and Dionysius can probably be credited with initiating this move. Between them Dionysius and Maximos define and bring deification to the centre of theological discourse in a way in which it had not been previously. Deification becomes a key component in the theological edifice of God’s purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos. This emerges from the Church’s ongoing endeavour to clarify the nature and implications of the Incarnation understood in terms of the Chalcedonian concept of the Hypostatic Union. While Dionysius, Maximos and John each in different ways understand deification in ‘mystical’ terms, they all emphasize the collective and ecclesial accessibility of deification for all believers in the

85

See De Fide Orthodoxa, book 2, chapter 19.

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sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist. Intimacy and union with the divine are understood to be personal and corporate. Divine–human communion which is the goal of deification is no esoteric or elitist endeavour. It is celebrated by and for the Church through God’s grace in the sacraments and is manifested in living out the virtues. The exposition of deification to be found in Dionysius, Maximos and John provides a rich resource for a present day construal of a relational doctrine of deification. In this chapter I have examined how the metaphor of deification is used in Byzantine Orthodoxy today, and how present usage relates to the use of the metaphor in the past. I sought to trace the interplay between the use of the metaphor and the self-understanding of the Orthodox tradition. I narrated how the doctrine of deification emerged in Byzantine Orthodoxy beginning with the present and proceeding into the past in order to highlight the hermeneutical processes which have been used in the reception of texts. In doing so I demonstrated how texts have been re-received in different eras and how this process of reception has been used to form and change doctrinal and ecclesial identity in the Orthodox tradition. In particular I sought to demonstrate how neo-Palamism within Orthodox theological discourse in the twentieth century shaped the interpretation of the ‘evolution’ of the doctrine of deification. I mapped the contours of the reception of the metaphor of deification which have emerged as a result of the publication of the Philokalia, in relation to the hesychast revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the texts of the Middle Ages, and the patristic era. In doing so, I have attempted to expound the narrative of the use of the metaphor of deification in ‘Eastern’ Orthodoxy, without privileging the ‘East’ over the ‘West’. Yet I hope that it is evident from this narrative that the use of the metaphor of deification is a distinctive feature of Orthodoxy, which has changed and evolved over time and which continues to provide a rich resource for all church traditions today in seeking to interpret the divine purposes for the cosmos. The main ecumenical question which emerges from the contemporary take on deification in Orthodoxy is whether it is possible for the Orthodox churches to accept that there might be different ways of construing the doctrine of deification. Traditions such as Pentecostalism have equivalent understandings of the destiny of the human person but express this in very different terms and within very different overall theological frameworks. Is it possible for the Byzantine Orthodox tradition to acknowledge a formulation of the doctrine of deification other than it has been construed in neo-Palamism? Papanikolaou suggests that Zizioulas has provided the basis for a different formulation; could such an understanding assist in bringing different approaches to deification closer together? The narrative of this chapter will form the background to the narrative of the use of the metaphor of deification in the ‘West’, which is discussed in the next chapter. A comparison of the narratives may provide the basis for an answer to these questions. 110

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5 the ‘architecture’ of the metaphor in the west

Introduction On the whole, the metaphor of deification has been absent from mainstream theological discourse in the West. This rather bald statement is true of the Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions of Western Christianity. The renewal in Orthodox self-understanding during the twentieth century placed the metaphor of deification at the heart of the theological enterprise within Orthodoxy, which means that deification is not simply a metaphor for salvation but is a core feature of the doctrines of God, creation, theological anthropology, sanctification, the sacraments and eschatology. By comparison there is no equivalent in the West. The doctrines of grace or of justification by faith have been employed in ways which have an effect on the construal of an overall theological pattern or system, but in ‘modern’ theology it is epistemological concerns which have exercised a controlling effect more than the doctrines of grace or justification. Within what is understood as mainstream Western theological discourse from the early Middle Ages until the present time, the metaphor of deification has largely been ‘off the radar’. It is not so much that deification as a metaphor and concept was deliberately rejected; for many theologians it was simply not ‘recognizable’; it was not a possibility because of the ways in which the divine and the human, the created and uncreated, sin and grace were construed. Yet within Western traditions there are constant traces of the metaphor of deification, both within the mainstream as well as in what are perceived to be the ‘peripheral’ traditions. What distinguishes these traditions has been an appeal to (religious) experience. While on the whole Western theological discourse has found it difficult to draw on experience as a resource for theological reflection, it was a major source of Gregory Palamas’ defence of Hesychasm. It was the experience of the Jesus Prayer, in the Hesychast revival which was the source of Palamas’ reflection on and defence of theoˉsis as a core theological concept. 111

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Reflection upon experience has often been the source for those in the West who have embraced the metaphor of deification. The medieval mystics, the Anabaptists, the Wesleys and Pentecostals, who appeal to forms of expression of deification do so on the basis of primary religious experience, which is often related to the practice of prayer. I have drawn on authors and texts in this chapter in order to highlight my interpretation of how the metaphor of deification has been used in the ‘West’. On the whole these are texts which are either from the margins of the tradition or have been marginalized. It will become evident that the use of the metaphor of deification has often been tenuous and fragile. The writers that I have drawn on do not necessarily see themselves in a tradition of using the metaphor of deification, but I have highlighted their texts because in my view they are using the architecture of the metaphor, even if they do not use the explicit language of ‘deification’. I am reinterpreting their usage. So in this chapter I will endeavour to re-receive the use of the metaphor of deification in Western sources and reclaim a tradition which was pushed to the margins and exists only in traces. The use of the metaphor is often ‘marginal’ even when used by mainstream writers such as Lombard, Bernard and Aquinas. Luther and the Wesleys used the metaphor when they were at the margins of the mainstream of theological discourse, but when the church traditions which owe their identity to them became mainstream they tend to turn their backs on the metaphor. The chapter will follow a chronological shape, beginning with an analysis of mystical theology in the Middle Ages and the early modern period. I will then examine the use of the metaphor in the traditions of the Reformation. This will be followed by an examination of the metaphor in various revival and holiness movements and conclude with contemporary Roman Catholicism.

Theologia Mystica The Schoolmen The Theologia Mystica of this title refers to the work by Ps-Dionysius the Areopagite, which circulated widely during the Middle Ages and became a source of inspiration around which to construct a theology rooted in mystical experience and prayer. These medieval constructions did not necessarily arise out of the authors’ personal experience. Dionysius himself does not draw explicitly on personal experience but crafts a ‘mystical theology’ on the basis of a philosophical and metaphysical set of references which provide a framework in order to be able to communicate the processes and outcomes of the ascent of the soul and of union with divine to other Christian believers. In this section I will examine those theologians who worked and taught in the context of what would become the universities of Western Europe. 112

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In the following section I will examine those who write from the perspective of personal mystical experience. I begin the narrative of the use of the metaphor of deification in the ‘West’ with a discussion of the work of John Scottus Eriugena (c.800–77). He is understood to have been Irish by birth, the adjectives ‘Scottus’ and ‘Eriugena’ both referring to Irish origin. Much about his life is difficult to substantiate, but there is evidence that he worked in the ‘palace school’ of the Carolingian king, Charles the Bald (823–77). It is probable that Eriugena began his education in Ireland and that it was here that he first learnt Greek. Today Eriugena is understood to have been of one the most significant intellectuals of his time. His influence and standing varied during the Middle Ages, because some of his views were condemned as heterodox. However, the importance of his work as a theologian, translator and commentator should not be underestimated. Where is Eriugena to be situated: at the close of the patristic age or at the beginning of the Middle Ages? Perhaps he is best seen as someone with a very creative and original mind, who stands out from both eras. Eriugena’s familiarity with Greek allowed him access to the Greek theological tradition, in particular the works of the Cappadocian fathers, who were almost entirely unknown in the Latin West at the time. He translated the works of Ps-Dionysius the Areopagite and wrote commentaries on them and translated Gregory of Nyssa’s De hominis opificio and Maximos the Confessor’s Ambigua ad Iohannem. Eriugena was able to analyse the underlying Platonist framework of the theology of the Greek fathers and to use this to develop a highly original cosmology, where the highest principle, the ‘the immovable self-identical one’ [unum et idipsum immobile] (Periphyseon, CXXIII), creates all things and draws them back into itself. Eriugena understands this infinite, transcendent and ‘unknown’ God to be beyond being and non-being. Through a process of self-articulation, procession or ‘self-creation’, the divine proceeds from his ‘darkness’ or ‘non-being’ into the light of being and speaks the Word who is understood as Christ and at the same timeless moment brings forth the Primary Causes of creation. These Causes, which are understood to be diverse and infinite in themselves, are actually one single principle in the divine One. Thus, the whole of reality or nature is understood to be involved in a dynamic process of outgoing [exitus] from and return [reditus] to the One. In the dialogue Periphyseon, Eriugena argues contrary to traditional Platonism, that this first and highest cosmic principle is called ‘nature’ [natura] and includes both God and creation. Eriugena had little influence in the centuries immediately following his death. His thought was perhaps too conceptually advanced for the philosophers and theologians of his time, as well as being heterodox in certain aspects. There was renewed interest in his main work, Periphyseon, during the twelfth century, but this was condemned in the thirteenth century, for 113

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promoting the identity of God and creation. Despite this, Eriugena continued to be read in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and had an important influence on thinkers and mystics such as Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa. The first printed editions of his works appeared in the seventeenth century, but it was not until the nineteenth century that there was a renewal of interest in him, especially among Hegelians who interpreted Eriugena as a forerunner of speculative idealism. His life, works and influence have come to be appreciated much more during the twentieth century.1 In terms of his interest in and contribution to the understanding of deification, Eriugena’s reflections on the works of Gregory of Nyssa and Maximos the Confessor, lead him to construct a particular understanding of prelapsarian humanity, in which the human person enjoyed a purely spiritual nature in communion with God. Eriugena argues that humanity is called to return to that state, through a process of deification, on the basis that ‘relations between God and the world, and between all existing things, are not conceived as external contacts between self-subsisting entities but as mutual participation.’2 Eriugena states that ‘Everything that is, is either participant, or participated, or participation, or (both) participated and participant at once’ (Periphyseon III) and argues that there is no opposition between nature and grace because ‘every perfect creature consists of nature and grace.’ (Periphyseon III). He discovers the conceptuality of deification in his reading of Gregory of Nyssa and Maximos and Ps-Dionysius and expresses regret that the doctrine is not found in Latin theology. In Nyssen, Eriugena found a ‘neoplatonizing interpretation of theoˉsis’, which was construed on the basis of a strong understanding of the incompatibility between participation in divine life and materiality or ‘animality’. The issue at stake here is whether matter including the material human body is transfigured into divine life. Does the return to God allow any permanent value for matter? In relation to this issue, Eriugena borrows his understanding of human gender from Gregory of Nyssa. In other words, gender was created only in view of the forthcoming Fall. Meyendorff argues that ‘beyond the specific issue of gender, the Neoplatonic understanding of deification deprives human activity, human creativity, and therefore the exercise of human freedom in this world of ontological meaning.’ 3 Nonetheless, Eriugena strongly emphasizes the reality of deification, arguing that God not only will be all in all at the end of time but always was and is all in all the foundation and essence of all things. 1

2

3

For example, Cappuyns, M., Jean Scot Erigène: sa vie, son oeuvre, sa pensée (1933); O’Meara, J. J., Eriugena (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). Meyendorff, J., ‘Remarks on Eastern Patristic Thought in John Scottus Eriugena’, in B. McGinn and W. Otten (eds), Eriugena: East and West, (London and Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), p. 56. Meyendorff, ‘Remarks’, p. 57.

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Eriugena provides an example of a highly sophisticated thinker, who draws upon the works of the Greek fathers, in order to express his understandings of the divine purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos. He crafts his understanding of deification around the concept of participation, albeit that his thought is trapped within the structures of ‘Neoplatonist monism’. His emphasis upon the metaphor of deification provides later thinkers and mystics with the conceptual framework and tools to be able to articulate their ideas within the tradition of the Latin West. The re-reception of his ideas would enhance a dynamic and relational understanding of the metaphor of deification today. Peter Lombard (1095–1160) was one of the leading scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages, who influenced the shape and methods of theology for many centuries. Peter taught at the cathedral school of Notre Dame in Paris, and it was here that he wrote the Libri quatuor sententiarum [The Four Books of Sentences]. The importance of Peter Lombard’s works rests on the status given to his Sentences in medieval theology. Earlier dogmatic theologians, such as Isidore of Seville, Alcuin and Paschasius Radbertus, had attempted to assemble a compendium of the teaching of the Church from Bible texts and quotations from the Fathers. In the eleventh century this method gave way to a dialectical and speculative method in the interpretation of traditional texts. Peter Lombard began his academic career during this period of change, when the new methods were still widely questioned. At this time various scholars produced ‘text-books’; of these, the one which attained greatest status was Lombard’s Sentences. The first book of the Sentences focuses on the evidences for the existence of God, and on the doctrine of the Trinity, appealing to analogies used since Augustine. The second book of the Sentences deals with creation and the doctrine of the angels. Peter, following Hugh of St Victor, considers the ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ of God in the human person as distinct (Sentences Book 2, Distinction 16, chapter 3). The third book focuses on Christology and salvation. Peter’s understanding of redemption is influenced by Abelard’s views. He argues that Christ as man is perfect and made sufficient sacrifice to achieve reconciliation, through the revelation of God’s love made in his death; however, ‘the death of Christ justifies us, when by it love is awakened in our hearts.’ The fourth and final book deals with the sacraments. Peter Lombard’s most controversial doctrine in the Sentences is his identification of charity with the Holy Spirit in book 1, distinction 17. According to this doctrine, when the Christian loves God and neighbour, this love literally is God. The believer becomes divine and is taken up into the life of the Trinity. This idea was never declared unorthodox, but few theologians have been prepared to follow Peter Lombard in this teaching. Peter continues to explore the metaphor of deification, in relation to the Incarnation and the deified humanity of Christ in the Sentences book 3, distinction 5, chapters 14–16 (1–3), and distinction 6, chapters 17–22 (1–6). It is evidently significant 115

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that this work which so shapes and informs Western medieval theology should have a clear understanding of salvation in terms of the metaphor of deification. The influence of Lombard’s Sentences meant that deification was understood in relation to the Incarnation and, on the basis of the exchange formula, was never absent from Western theological discourse, at least in the Middle Ages. It may not have had the pivotal place in the construction of a theological scheme which it has in the Orthodox tradition, but contrary to popular understanding the metaphor of deification was one option (alongside others) for understanding salvation and sanctification and the goal of human existence. The theological endeavour of Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) is related to the rediscovery of Aristotle’s works in Western Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This was a new departure in comparison with the main developments in patristic thought, which had on the whole been rooted in Platonism. Aristotle’s philosophy was mediated to the West through the writings of both Islamic and Jewish philosophers. It was the radical thought of Averroes which evoked much controversy in Aquinas’ life time and in which his own thought became embroiled. The reception of Aquinas’ work varies considerably. Some scholars interpret Aquinas’ work in terms of a standard understanding of scholasticism, while others such as Burrell and Phelan4 have sought to interpret Aquinas’ approach to theology in ways that refute charges of rationalism or formalism. It is against this background of disputed interpretations of Aquinas that the comparison with Gregory Palamas has been constructed and the debate concerning the knowledge of God and of essence and energies has been conducted.5 How then is Aquinas to be interpreted in relation to the exposition of the metaphor of deification? The contemporary Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church endorses the notion of deification and appeals to Scripture, Irenaeus, Athanasius and Aquinas in doing so. Contrary to what might be expected, Aquinas is claimed alongside two of the main proponents of deification, as another and equal champion of the doctrine: The Word became flesh to make us ‘partakers of the divine nature’. (2 Peter 1.4)

4

5

Burrell, D. B., Aquinas: Action and Being (London: Routledge, Kegan and Paul, 1979) and Phelan, G. B., Selected Papers (Toronto: 1967). For example, Barrois, G., ‘Palamism Revisited’, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 19(4) (1975): 211–23; Yannaras, C., ‘The Distinction between Essence and Energies and Its Importance for Theology’, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 19(4) (1975): 232–45; Williams, A. N., The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). It is beyond the scope of this book to analyse the Aquinas–Palamas dispute.

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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 divine sonship, might become a son of God. (Irenaeus, Against the Heresies 3, 19, 1) For the Son of God became man so that we might become God. (Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 54, 3) The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods. (Thomas Aquinas, Opuscula 57, 1–4.; Catechism of the Catholic Church, revised edition 1999, section 460) In the texts by which Aquinas is generally known, such as the Summa Theologiae and the Summa contra Gentiles, he tends not to employ traditional forms of the metaphor of deification. Keating argues it is in the biblical commentaries that Aquinas explores the concept of deification using the more traditional forms of expression. Careful study and comparison between the earlier commentaries and the later Summa, Keating argues, reveals that Thomas continued to expound a doctrine of deification.6 The conceptualization of justification, sanctification and divinization in Thomas’ thought were not discrete stages in a process, but were held together to ‘depict . . . the passage or transit of the human race from a state of sin and separation from God to one of righteousness, new birth, and union with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit’.7 In his Commentary on John on the passage 1.14–17 Thomas explicitly makes the connection between the Incarnation of the Word and the purpose of the Incarnation, which he understands to be the grace of transformation (divinization) of the human race. Thomas cites Chrysostom and Augustine as authorities for the notion that the Word became flesh in order that human beings might become ‘Sons of God’; in this way Aquinas identifies himself with filiation and the formula of exchange as expressions of the metaphor of deification. He also appeals to Nyssen’s idea that the Logos assumed human nature in order to repair it. Aquinas affirms the uniqueness of Christ but argues in relation to John 1.14b that believers can participate in God with the result that there are many sons of God, ‘sunt multi filii Dei per participationem,’ which is understood to be an allusion to Psalm 82.6. So there is evidence, particularly in the commentaries that Aquinas uses the language and imagery of the patristic account of deification. He argues that these outcomes depend on divine grace. Christ who is full of grace and truth (John 1.14b) allows human beings to participate in 6

7

Keating, D.A., ‘Justification, Sanctification and Divinization in Thomas Aquinas’, in T. G. Weinandy, D. A. Keating and J. P. Yocum (eds), Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction (London and New York: T & T Clark, 2004), p. 139. Keating, ‘Justification’, p. 139.

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grace and truth, but only partially and imperfectly. In relation to John 1.16b, Aquinas interprets ‘grace upon grace’ in terms of a first grace, which is justifying and prevenient (i.e not given because of works), and a second grace which is eternal life, and is in part dependent on human merits, but primarily deification depends on prevenient grace. In his commentary on Ephesians 2.8–10 a classic ‘Pauline’ text on salvation by grace through justification Aquinas argues that the human person is saved by grace and he equates being saved with being justified. He holds faith together with the infusion of grace, so that faith does not originate within the human person and so is not determined by human desire, rather faith is the gift of God through grace. Notably Aquinas interprets Ephesians 2.10a ‘for we are his workmanship’ and ‘whatever good we possess is not from ourselves but from the action of God’ by equating justification with creatio ex nihilo. The final clause of Ephesians 2.10 ‘good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life’, he interprets in relation to his understanding of human free will, so that believers are to cooperate with God, becoming coworkers with Christ. Aquinas holds together the grace of justification with salvation, sanctification, the remission of sins, the infusion of grace and spiritual regeneration through the Holy Spirit. God remains principal agent in the achievement of personal salvation, yet for Aquinas there is no opposition between divine and human agency in justification. Both are required but there is an order and priority. A typical interpretation of Aquinas suggests that he holds a generic notion of grace, which is infused into soul. This approach focuses on the created effect of that generic grace. A critique of this stance suggests that there is a worrying disjunction between the newly graced nature and the indwelling of the Trinitarian God.8 A. N. Williams seeks to hold these two understandings together when she argues that the concept of divinization found in the Summa is construed around an understanding that grace is the equivalent of divine indwelling. This means that grace is not an entity distinct from God, and she argues that contrary to the understanding of Peter Lombard, Aquinas does not use the language of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Williams argues that Aquinas prefers the language of ‘infusion’, thus clearly maintaining a distinction between the creator and the creature. However, Keating argues that the commentaries demonstrate that Aquinas does use the language of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believer. For Aquinas even the initial event of conversion includes a participatory relationship with Christ through the Spirit, and that justification and regeneration are mediated sacramentally through Baptism and the Eucharist. The metaphor of deification is evidently to be found in the works of Aquinas. Divinization is rooted in the Incarnation of Christ and understood

8

Keating, ‘Justification’, p. 149.

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in terms of filial adoption (Sentences Commentary, III, d. 5, q. 1, a. 2), which is received by grace in Baptism through the Holy Spirit. This filiation is understood by Aquinas to be a participation in Christ’s own Sonship and is conformity to Christ. This is construed in relation to the ‘divine image’ by which God communicates his very goodness to believers. Aquinas’ appeal to the texts of 2 Peter 1.4 and Psalm 82.6 demonstrates his close affinity with patristic tradition. He often uses 2 Peter 1.4 in the treatise on grace in the Summa. It is crucial to recognize this, for it offsets the tendency to interpret his doctrine of grace as the application of Aristotelian categories to Christian theology, that is, the view that sanctifying grace is an accidental quality of the soul.9 Aquinas’ doctrine of grace is rather a doctrine of the divinization of soul. Through Christ the soul participates in the divine nature, which means that graced nature is participation in the divine life. I began this section by looking at the work of John Scottus Eriugena who stands on the threshold between two eras. I conclude the section by examining the work of Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64), who stands on the threshold between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern era. Nicholas was educated at the school of the Brothers of the Common Life at Deventer and was influenced by their leader Geerte Groote (1340–84), as well as by the mystical writings of Meister Eckhart (c.1260–1328). Cusanus became involved in the religious controversies of the time and was called upon by the Pope to assist with the Council of Florence (1438–45), convoked in an attempt to heal the breach between Rome and Constantinople. He was sent to Constantinople to accompany the Patriarch to the Council, and there became acquainted with the works of some of the Greek fathers. Cusanus was the first theologian to separate himself from the methods of scholasticism. He developed a logic based on the coincidence of opposites, which was at variance with Aristotelian-scholastic logic, which is based on the principle of contradiction. Cusanus drew on the works of Augustine, Ps-Dionysius, Eriugena and Bonaventure. On his return from Greece he wrote one of his main works, De docta ignorantia (1440), which develops an understanding of ‘learned ignorance’ and creates a unique version of negative theology. In de filiatione Dei (1445) he begins his exploration of deification, which became a theme permeating his later works. Cusanus is variously interpreted as a scholastic and a fideist, as a medieval or an early modern man, and as a philosopher as a monist or pantheist. His ‘Platonized Christianity’ is seen as stressing the immanence of God in creation, to the detriment of the divine transcendence. In his exposition of deification Cusanus explores ideas of identity or similitude with God and of being closely united with God. So where did Cusanus find the resources for his exposition of the metaphor of deification? It is probable that he knew

9

Keating, ‘Justification’, p. 154.

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Berthold Moosburg’s Commentary on Proclus’ Elements of Theology and had possibly read the works of Eckhart and Eriugena, and Ps-Dionysius. Through this reading he became acquainted with the works of Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximos the Confessor and Origen.10 Cusanus draws on the concept of ‘filiation’ to articulate his understanding of deification and used the metaphor of the mirror. He construes deification in relation to Christology and the development of the intellect. Cusanus argues that the incarnate Logos is the medium for sonship and that divine Sonship is to be understood as unity with Infinite Reason. On this basis deification is the realization that there is no otherness between God and the intellectual spirit. Since the created order traces its origins to the unfolding of divine being itself, deification is understood as ‘an original condition for all things’. As God is present in creation, theoˉ sis is an already realized destiny. This construal of deification is criticized for the lack of an imperative towards deification because it is simply an intellectual process of perceiving that the One or God is the immanent cause of all things. However, Cusanus argues that deification is not the same as a theophany or divine self-manifestation. In the third book of de docta ignorantia Christ is seen as the goal and fulfilment of all creation. Deification is not construed as a monist concept but on the basis of the autonomous existence of the created order and its return towards God. Christ draws all things into union with himself and through himself into union with God the Father. So the question emerges: is deification based on philosophy or theology? Is it intellectual ascent to God or based on the Incarnation and Christology? Cusanus brings together learned ignorance, mystical vision and filiation (sonship), which leaves open the questions as to whether deification is reached by the natural powers of the intellect or through divine revelation. It is a question of the relation between nature and grace. As a Platonist salvation is based on wisdom, in which the mind [mens] is the locus of the imago dei. If this were his only understanding then union with the divine would be achieved through philosophical reflection and Christian notions of grace, and the Cross would be lost. However, if the transformation of the human person occurs through divine agency and is communicated by means of revelation, and if transformation includes the sinful condition of the human being, then, in that case Cusanus remains within the Christian tradition, albeit from a highly unique perspective. The exploration of the metaphor of deification in medieval ‘Mystical Theology’ in the schools and universities is focused mainly on the ascent of the soul to God and the attainment of mystical union. This is not simply predicated on the categories of Platonism but is also constructed around an appeal to the ‘exchange formula’ and, therefore, rooted in the Incarnation. 10

Hudson, N. J., Becoming God: The Doctrine of Theosis in Nicholas of Cusa (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), p. 3.

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The metaphor is explored in terms of filiation: a being ‘in Christ’ achieved through participation in the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. Elements of the metaphor relate to the processes of sanctification and include the doctrines of the Holy Spirit and of grace. Although the metaphor of deification had no official doctrinal status, it remained an ongoing element in Western discourse on salvation and sanctification, and spiritual practice. But insofar as it was marginal to the mainstream theological endeavour, issues concerning the implications of deification remained unresolved. Gregory Palamas’ insistence on the essence–energies distinction enabled him to construct a clear understanding of epistemological and ontological issues arising from the metaphor of deification. In the medieval West, these issues are not resolved. Nicholas of Cusa has been interpreted as a pantheist in the light of his understanding of the creation and its potentiality for deification. Others who wrote enthusiastically about mystical union laid themselves open to charges of abolishing the distinction between the uncreated and the created, the divine and the human. It is this kind of critique which meant that the reception of Mystical Theology by the Reformers would, on the whole, be so negative. The narrative of the rejection of Mystical Theology is traced in an essay by W. J. Sparrow-Simpson (1859–1952) an Anglican theologian and patristic scholar.11 He pays particular attention to the way in which Eriugena’s interpretation and presentation of the writings of Ps-Dionysius and of Mystical Theology as a ‘sub-discipline’ influenced the Western tradition in the Middle Ages. While Sparrow-Simpson does not address the reception of Ps-Dionysius and Mystical Theology at the Reformation, he traces the critique of the work of Ps-Dionysius, which culminated in the dismissal of deification by Harnack. Sparrow-Simpson begins by highlighting the work of Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860) who was one of the founders of the Protestant school of theology at the University of Tübingen.12 He argued that Ps-Dionysius in his explorations of Platonism and mysticism had reduced the doctrine of the Trinity to mere names. Etienne Vacherot (1809–97) a French philosopher, another critic of Ps-Dionysius, argued that his work is Platonism disguised as Christianity, in which the soul is far removed from God and the Trinity is an abstraction.13 The Lutheran theologian, Izaak August Dorner (1809–84) in particular questioned Ps-Dionysius’ commitment to the uniqueness of the Incarnation in Christ, which he saw as a 11

12

13

Sparrow-Simpson, W. J., ‘The Influence of Dionysius in Religious History’, in Dionysius the Areopagite: The Divine Names and the Mystical Theology, trans. C. E. Rolt (London: SPCK, 1940), pp. 202–19. Baur, F. C., Christliche Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit und Menschwerdung Gottes, vol. 2 (Tübingen: C. F. Osiander, 1842). Vacherot, E., Histoire critique de l’école d’Alexandrie, 3 vols (Paris: Librairie Philosophique de Ladrange, 1846–51).

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consequence of his mystical explorations.14 The Roman Catholic theologian Joseph Bach questions Ps-Dionysius’ highly speculative approach to Christology and soteriology.15 Finally Sparrow-Simpson highlights the critique of the Anglican bishop B. F. Westcott (1825–1901), who argued that the work Ps-Dionysius is barely recognizable as Christian.16 Sparrow-Simpson does not mention the work of Harnack, but it is evident that scholars in the nineteenth century had a very negative view of Ps-Dionysius and mystical theology. This is a consequence of an ‘Enlightenment reading’ of medieval sources and a utilitarian understanding of doctrine which emerges from the work of Schleiermacher. I will return to Harnack’s critique of deification later in this chapter. But it is important to be clear that the negative reception of the metaphor of deification in the West is as much the product of the Enlightenment as it is of the Reformation. In recent works a negative reception of the work of Ps-Dionysius is found in the work of Gunton, 17 but a more positive reception and reinterpretation of Ps-Dionysius is found in the contemporary work of Turner, McGinn and Coakley.18

The Medieval mystics The distinction between the ‘mystics’ in this section and the schoolmen in the previous section may seem rather arbitrary. I have sought to make a distinction not only on the basis of the appeal made to experience by writers but also on the basis that the ‘mystics’ understood that they themselves had experienced ‘mystical union’ or ‘rapture’ or some kind of ecstatic experience and are reflecting on that personal experience in their works. Some schoolmen may have had such experiences, but what distinguishes the ‘mystics’ is their deliberate choice to offer to a public audience access to their own personal experience of the divine. I am not going to attempt to verify the claims which the mystics make about such experience, nor am I going to attempt any kind of analysis of these experiences in terms of the modern discipline

14

15

16

17 18

Dorner, I. A. (J. A.), Entwicklungsgesch. der Lehre von der Person Christi, 4 vols (1846–56); English translation: History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, 5 vols (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1861–63). Bach, J., Die Dogmengeschichte des Mittelalters vom christologischen Standpunkt, 2 vols (Vienna, 1873, 1875; Frankfurt: Minerva, 1966). Westcott, B. F., Essays in the History of Religious Thought in the West (London and New York: Macmillan, 1891). Gunton, C. E., Act and Being (London: SCM Press, 2002). Turner, D., The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); McGinn, B., The Foundations of Mysticism. Origins to the Fifth Century (New York: Crossroads, 1994); Coakley, S., ‘Introduction: Re-thinking Dionysius the Areopagite’, Modern Theology, 24(4) (2008): 531–40.

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of psychology. I shall take the claims made at ‘face value’ and interpret them in relation to the metaphor of deification. Some of the writers may have had no explicit intention of reflecting on their experience in terms of the metaphor of deification, but it is a legitimate enquiry to ask whether understandings of ascetical practice, contemplative prayer and mystical union may not be understood in relation to the process and outcome of deification. The main criterion for making such a judgement relates to the writer’s understanding of the connection between the experience of mystical union and of ‘being saved’, since the metaphor of deification is understood primarily as a means of expressing what it means to be saved in Christ and sanctified in the Holy Spirit. This exploration of the writings of the medieval mystics of Western Europe will enable me to examine further how the metaphor of deification continued to be part of the Western tradition, and, crucially, it will give voice to the experience and thoughts of women. I have chosen to begin with Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) because he provides an example of a ‘mainstream’ mystical theologian who used the metaphor and technical language of deification. At the age of 19, he was drawn to the newly founded order of the Cistercians. It is in this context that Bernard wrote this works. The high esteem in which Bernard was held by contemporaries is seen in Pope Urban II’s commission to ‘preach’ the second Crusade in 1146. Bernard’s approach to theology was an interesting mix of attention to the Tradition as well as an appeal to the emotions. Bernard’s use of the metaphor of deification is construed around the typical medieval notions of the beatific vision and mystical union with God, and he writes of ‘filling ourselves with God’.19 A number of questions emerge relating to Bernard’s understanding of ‘mystical union’. First, how does Bernard conceive of union with God? Second, what is the role of knowledge in this union? Third, is this union possible only for the few or for all? And finally what is the relation between ‘union’ and the institutional church? Bernard understands that mystical union does not abolish the difference between the divine and the human; rather he sees union as a union of love and of wills. Union with God is not a union of essence(s) but is a ‘spiritual’ union. Bernard writes with a strong emphasis on love. For Bernard the ‘knowledge’ of God is connected with this love. It is an experiential rather than a theoretical knowledge of God, and it is a knowledge of God’s goodness. He argues that it is not possible to know the divine essence and that this would be useless anyway. Nonetheless, union with God is a union with the Holy Trinity, and significantly he argues that the Church is the indispensable context for union. Mystical union is based upon the ongoing process of sanctification, which he understands is a lifelong growing in the love of God

19

See Clendenin, D. B., ‘Partakers of Divinity: The Orthodox Doctrine of Theosis’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 37(3) (1994): 368.

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and neighbour. Union with God would only be consummated in the final resurrection. Bernard represents a strand in the Western tradition’s diverse understanding of deification, which is rooted in an appeal to the emotions and to the experience of prayer and contemplation, as well as to the collective reality of the Church. My second example of a mystical writer Marguerite Porete (d. 1310) was very much on the margins of theological discourse. A French mystic, she is understood to be the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, a work describing the encounter of the soul with Divine Love.20 After a long trial Marguerite was condemned for heresy and burnt at the stake for heresy in Paris in 1310. The details of Marguerite’s life are known only from the records of her trial. This means that what is known of her life is probably biased and incomplete. She was associated with the ‘Beguines’, who were women who lived a ‘religious life’ but not within the usual ecclesiastical norms of religious orders. Although generally acceptable to the authorities, Beguines were at times accused of heresy. Marguerite has also been associated with the Free Spirit movement, a group which was considered heretical because of their antinomian views, but this connection with the ‘Free Spirits’ is rather tenuous. Other mystics such as Meister Eckhart were condemned and later rehabilitated by the Church, but it seems unlikely that Marguerite will be recognized in this way. It was only realized that Marguerite was the author of the Mirror in the twentieth century. The Mirror which was published after her death, refers to a simple soul who is united with God and has no will other than God’s. Originally written in old French, the book was translated into Latin and other languages and circulated widely. Some of the vocabulary reflects a familiarity with the style of courtly love which was popular at the time and is evidence of Marguerite’s high level of education and sophistication. The Mirror is in the form of a conversation or dialogue between three female allegorical ‘persons’: Love, Reason and the Soul on the theme of the life of perfection. The focus of the conversation is the attainment by the soul of a state of perfection by divine ‘fruiction’ or ‘peace of life’ (French 1:4–5). This state of perfection is understood to involve the annihilation of the soul’s creatureliness and is described in terms of absolute fulfilment and absolute deprivation. The soul progresses through various stages towards this state. In the sixth stage, which is experienced only briefly in this life, the soul ‘sees not herself, through the abyss of her humility, nor God, through the height of his goodness; but God sees himself in her by divine majesty’ (French 118: 175–7).21 Watson interprets the outcome of this state: This becoming God’s mirror means that it can only be said of the soul that she experiences God at all because God is all that exists for and in 20

Porete, M., The Mirror of Simple Souls, trans. Ellen L. Babinksy (Paulist Press, 1993).

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her – so that the ‘she’ who experiences is nothing but God experiencing himself in her.22 In other words, God has become ‘“all in all” and the soul is melted, fused, drowned in his infinity.’23 Such conceptuality is comparable with Bernard of Clairvaux’s work De diligendo deo [On Loving God]. 24 Bernard wrote: To become this is to be deified. [Sic affici deificari est] Just a drop of water place in a great quantity of wine seems to lose itself entirely, and as fiery, glowing iron becomes like a fire, and as air pervaded by the sun’s light is transformed into the same luminous clarity, so every human affection in the saints must in an unspeakable manner melt from itself, and the will be wholly transposed into God. Or how else will God be all in all? (1 Corinthians 15.28; De diligendo deo, 10.28) The main difference between the understanding of Porete and Bernard is that while Bernard reserves such a state to the next life, apart perhaps from momentary realizations in this, Marguerite speculates about the possibility of achieving such a state in this life. In this state the ‘Annihilated Soul’ gives up everything but God through Love. The soul is truly full of God’s love and is united with God in a state of union which causes it to transcend the contradictions of this world. In this beatific state it is unable to sin because it is wholly united with God’s will. In this vision of the soul united with God through Love, and returning to its source the presence of God in everything, Marguerite shares much in common with the ideas of Eckhart. Porete and Eckhart may have had acquaintances in common, but it is not clear whether they ever met or had access to each other’s work. Marguerite writes of the outcomes of perfect union between God (Love) and the Soul: I am God, says Love, for Love is God and God is Love, and this Soul is God by the condition of Love. I am God by divine nature and this Soul is God by the condition of Love. Thus this precious

21

22 23 24

Watson, N., ‘Melting into God the English Way: Deification in the Middle English Version of Marguerite Porete’s Mirouer des simples âmes anienties’, in R. Voaden (ed.), Prophets Abroad: The Reception of Continental Holy Women in Late-Medieval England (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996), p. 27. Watson, ‘Melting’, p. 27. Watson, ‘Melting’, p. 28. See Bernard, ‘De diligendo deo’, in J. Leclerq, C. H. Talbot and H. M. Rochais (eds), Sancti Bernardi opera, 6 vols (Paris: Editiones Cisterciennes, 1957–77), vol. III, pp. 119–54; and Williams, W. (ed.), ‘Select Treatises of S. Bernard of Clairvaux: De Diligendo Deo’, in B. R. V. Mills (ed.), De Gradibus Humilitatis et Superbiae (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926).

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beloved of mine is taught and guided by me, without herself, for she is transformed into me, and such a perfect one, says Love, takes my nourishment. (The Mirror of Simple Souls) Marguerite expresses an outcome of union which can be described in terms of deification. Her understanding is highly nuanced in that, even in such a state of perfection, the soul is understood to be God ‘by condition of Love’ and not by ‘nature’. It is evident that Marguerite understood that this state of perfection related to ‘being saved’ and that mystical experiences are not a means of bypassing the economy of salvation.25 Porete’s writings became suspect with some Church authorities, because of her claims that the soul in this perfect state was above conventional morality and the teachings and control of the Church. The soul was above the demands of ordinary virtue, not because virtue is not needed but because in its state of union with God virtue becomes automatic. Although such ideas were held to be orthodox as such, some Church authorities nevertheless claimed that it was amoral. Two centuries later St John of the Cross expressed an almost identical view of the nature of the soul’s union with God in his The Ascent of Mount Carmel, but his views were not denounced as a heretical. Today Meister Eckhart (c.1260–1328) is one of the best known medieval mystical writers, but in his own day his work was marginalized. He became a Dominican friar (c.1275), and it seems that his teaching and preaching left a deep mark on his hearers. However, his teaching aroused suspicion, and he was accused of holding heretical views. In his sermons preached in vernacular German, he often used bold language, which came to be misinterpreted. It seems that Eckhart was summoned before the tribunal of the Inquisition at Cologne, which was led by Franciscans. To some extent Eckhart’s misfortune is due to the rivalry between the two Orders of Dominicans and Franciscans. Despite professing himself willing to withdraw anything in his writings contrary to the teaching of the Church, this did not put an end to the matter, and Eckhart was required to go to the Papal court at Avignon for a further trial. It seems that Eckhart died there in 1328. In 1329 views attributed to Eckhart were condemned in the papal bull In agro dominico. This condemnation has never been officially rescinded, although in 1987 Pope John Paul II spoke of Eckhart’s ministry in a positive light. Due to his suspect status Eckhart’s work was largely forgotten until it was rediscovered in the twentieth century. His legacy was perpetuated to some extent through the work and influence of his more circumspect disciples Johannes Tauler (c.1300–61) and Henry Suso (c.1295–1366). In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Dominican Order promoted the ideal of human self-discovery. It is in the context that Meister Eckhart

25

Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls, p. 181.

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wrote and preached. He pursued an analysis of the self-movement of the intellect, which represented the possibility of self-discovery. For Eckhart the goal of the rational form of life is to live in and with spiritual perfections and at the level of transcendental being to live in and from the absolute One, in and from the divine nature as presupposition-less unity. He understood that the ground of the soul is something uncreated and is one with the divine nature or ‘ground’. Hie ist gotes grunt mîn grunt und mîn grunt gotes grunt [Here, God’s ground is my ground and my ground God’s ground] (Predigt 5b; DW I, 90, 8). The human person is not simply on the way towards unity [unio]. Instead, unity is something that has always already been achieved. This being-unified is alone what matters (Predigt 12; DW I, 197, 8–9; Predigt 39; DW II, 265, 6–266, 2) because the human person as reason has left behind everything that stands in the way of living in and from unity. This true equanimity or letting-go [Gelâzenheit] is the goal of human life. Living in and from unity is the goal of self-discovery which becomes possible through a change in intellectual disposition. Conversion in disposition leads the intellect to the uncreated and ‘uncreatable’ ground of the soul, whose movement, as a process of reason, reaches its goal in the absolute One. This goal is itself nothing other than the ground of the soul. In his sermons Eckhart demonstrates a vivid understanding of union with God. He appeals to Scripture and to an understanding of God’s grace to instruct his hearers in the kind of union with God which is possible to attain: The more that the soul receives of the Divine Nature, the more it grows like It, and the closer becomes its union with God. It may arrive at such an intimate union that God at last draws it to Himself altogether, so that there is no distinction left, in the soul’s consciousness, between itself and God, though God still regards it as a creature.26 (The Selfcommunication of God) In a second quotation Eckhart appeals to St Paul’s understanding of being ‘in Christ’ and to the effects of grace. When Christ lives in the soul, it comes to resemble the divine and to be ‘full of God’. ‘The man who is wholly sanctified is so drawn towards the Eternal, that no transitory thing may move him, no corporeal thing affect him, no earthly thing attract him. This was the meaning of St Paul when he said, “I live; yet not I; Christ liveth in me.” . . . This immovable sanctification causes man to attain the nearest likeness to God that he is capable of’27 (Sanctification). Eckhart’s mystical

26

27

Field, C., Meister Eckhart’s Sermons: First Time Translated into English (London: H. R. Allenson, 1909), pp. 38–9. Meister Eckhart’s Sermons, pp. 44–5.

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theology describes the soul’s partaking in the divine nature, which is based upon being ‘in Christ’. On this basis it is possible to conclude that despite the highly speculative nature of much of Eckhart’s writings that his understanding of mystical union is an expression of the metaphor of deification and of the effects of salvation and sanctification. The reception of Eckhart’s ideas remained problematic in the Middle Ages as is testified by Nicholas of Cusa, who was clear that despite claims to the contrary that Eckhart did not identify the creature with the creator. He recognized Eckhart’s great scholarship and insight, but he thought that that Eckhart’s books should be removed from the public sphere because they could confuse and misled the less well informed.28 The works of John of Ruusbroec (c.1293–1381) provide another example of the use of elements of the metaphor of deification. In 1304 he joined his uncle Jan Hinckaert, a canon of Sainte-Gudule in Brussels, to live an ‘Apostolic life’. At the age of 24 he was ordained and spent the following 25 years attached to Sainte-Gudule, living an ascetic life in company with Hinckaert and Frank Van Coudenberg. In 1343, Ruusbroeck, together with Hinckaert and Van Coudenberg, left Brussels to found a hermitage at Groenendaal. They were soon joined by others, and in 1349 it became necessary to form the community around the rule of the Augustinian canons. Ruusbroec became known as a spiritual director and people came from far beyond Flanders to seek his counsel. Among those who visited Groenendaal were Johannes Tauler and Geert Groote. The best known of Ruusbroec’s works is The Spiritual Espousals, which is divided into three books, focusing on the active, the interior and the contemplative life.29 He focuses on the virtues of detachment, humility and charity and emphasizes flight from the world; meditation upon the Life of Christ, especially the Passion; abandonment to the Divine Will; and an intense personal love of God. In his exposition of mystical theology Ruusbroec begins with God and descends to the human level and then rises again to the divine plain and in doing so demonstrates the close unity between the divine and the human. He wrote that ‘Man, having proceeded from God is destined to return, and become one with Him again.’ But he was careful to add that ‘There where I assert that we are one in God, I must be understood in this sense that we are one in love, not in essence and nature.’ Despite this evident qualification of his assertions of divine–human unity, many readers of his work have found his language bold and incautious. Among these was Geert Groote. Later Jean Gerson wrote that he found traces of ‘unconscious pantheism’ in his works. Nonetheless, Ruusbroec did not teach that the soul 28

29

Nicholas of Cusa, ‘Apologia Doctae Ignorantiae’ in R. Klibansky (ed.), Nicolai de Cusa Opera Omnia, vol. II (Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, 1932), pp. 25, 7–12. Ruusbroec, J., The Spiritual Espousals and other works (New York: Paulist Press, 1985).

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is fused with God and that, even at the summit of the ascent, the soul still preserves its identity. At the beginning of the third book of The Spiritual Espousals, on ‘The Contemplative Life’, Ruusbroec writes of the soul’s union to God in terms of the relationality of the divine persons of the Trinity. He expresses an understanding of participation in the divine nature which not only is an expression of the metaphor of deification, in terms of salvation in Christ, but in terms of the perichoretic unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The hidden divine nature is eternally active in contemplation and love as regards the Persons and is constantly in a state of blissful enjoyment insofar as the Persons are embraced in the Unity of the divine being. All interior spirits are one with God through their loving immersion in this embrace, which takes place within God’s essential Unity; they are that same oneness which the divine being is in itself according to the mode of blessedness.30 In this passage, Ruusbroec might be seen to advocate a universalism; however, this text needs to be balanced with others which appeal directly to Christ. Ruusbroec’s construal of participation in the divine life is a prime example of an understanding of ‘deification’ construed in relation to divine communion. The Cloud of Unknowing produced during the second half of the fourteenth century in Middle English is a spiritual manual on contemplative prayer, which encourages the reader to be a perfect follower of Christ. The path of contemplative prayer is construed in terms of ‘unknowing’ a concept which many scholars accept is dependent on the Mystical Theology of Ps-Dionysius. The Mystical Theology had long been available in Eriugena’s Latin translation, and in the mid-fourteenth century, a version in Middle English Dionise Hid Divinite began to circulate.31 The reader of the Cloud is counselled to reject the normal ways of knowing in her approach to God in contemplation and to seek God in ‘naked intent’ and a ‘blind stirring of love’. The language of deification per se is not found in the text of The Cloud of Unknowing, but there are various expressions, metaphors, analogies and allegories which may be interpreted in terms of the metaphor of deification. The text does not appeal directly to the notion of ‘Spiritual Marriage’ as a metaphor for the union of the soul with the divine but in continuity with patristic tradition it does occasionally appeal to the person of Moses and to the Ark of the Covenant as examples of union and communion with the divine. Much more frequent is the use of the language of 30 31

Ruusbroec, The Spiritual Espousals, pp. 145–6. See Underhill, E., ‘Introduction’ to The Cloud of Unknowing (London: John M. Watkins, 1922), pp. 6–7.

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perfection and of union. Both of these possibilities are understood in terms of the practice of the virtues and of a ‘right’ approach to contemplation. That is to say in ‘naked intent’ and a ‘blind stirring of love’. In chapter 67 there is an appeal to the traditional interpretation of John 10.34 and Psalm 82.6 in order to describe the outcome of contemplation. The author of the Cloud understands that this becoming ‘a god’ relates to the human coincidence with the divine in Creation and the human separation from the divine in the Fall. The union of the believer with God is predicated on the Spirit, love and a coincidence of the divine and human wills. But the state of union is qualified, and the distinction between Creator and creature is not lost. The Cloud of Unknowing may not employ the technical language of deification, but it does appeal to the classic components of the doctrine and, in that sense, is comparable with the understanding with Maximos the Confessor. The strong emphasis on the calling to ‘perfection’ in the text is an indication of the Western preference in expressing the metaphor of deification. In the writings of Julian of Norwich (c.1342–1416) there is another example of an English mystic whose work bears witness to the metaphor of deification. Little is known of her life, but when she was 30 years old she had a severe illness and believed that she was dying. During this period she had a series of visions of Jesus Christ, which finished when she recovered from her illness on May 13, 1373. As soon as she was able she committed these visions to writing, and then 20 years later wrote up a reflection on them in more theological depth. These reflections are the source of her main work, the Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love (c.1393). This is understood to be the first book written in the English by a woman. Julian came to be well known throughout England as a spiritual guide, for example, Margery Kempe (c.1373–1438) records that she went to Norwich to speak with her. Julian lived through troubled times. There were virulent outbreaks of Plague during the fourteenth century and a series of civil disturbances, including the ‘Peasants’ Revolt’ (1381). Despite these events Julian’s understanding of the divine love remained optimistic. Julian understood that suffering was not a punishment which God inflicted, which was a common belief. Rather she believed that God loved and wanted everyone to be saved. Some have interpreted these understandings as incipient universalism, particularly as she understood that behind the reality of hell is the greater mystery of God’s love. But she never explicitly suggested more than a hope that all might be saved. Although her teachings were atypical for the age in which she lived, she was not challenged by the ecclesiastical authorities, probably because of her status as an anchoress. In the Revelations she writes constantly about the practice of contemplative prayer and its goal of union with the divine. She expresses her understanding of the divine–human union in terms of Christology, the Triune reality of the divine and of soteriology. Union with God is by no means an avoidance of the economy of salvation. She uses the language of 130

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perfection in relation to this ‘union’, but she does not use the language of deification. However, the text of the Revelations provides evidence of the structure of the conceptuality of deification, which relates not just to the practice of contemplation but also to the outcome of salvation. In chapter 53 of the Revelations, Julian writes in her own way of the exitus and reditus from and to the divine and of what being made in the image and likeness of God means for the human person and specifically the human soul. She reaffirms the economy of salvation and then goes on to describe the basis for salvation and for union with the divine. So man’s soul is made by God and in the same instant joined to God. I understand man’s soul to be made. I mean, it is made, but of nothing created. . . . Thus is created nature rightly united with its Maker who is essential nature and uncreated: in other words, God. From which it follows that there can be nothing at all between God and man’s soul. (Revelations of Divine Love, chapter 53)32 In this passage Julian not only sets out an optimistic view of human nature and of salvation, but she does so on the basis of something which looks very like a Platonist, or Origenist, set of assumptions about the affinity between the divine and the human. It is on this basis that the soul is able to be saved and to be (re)united with the divine. Julian’s understandings are based upon highly personal experiences, and in her reflections on these experiences she bears witness to an ongoing readiness to accept the architecture of the metaphor of deification in the later Middle Ages.

The early modern mystics The tradition of mystical writing continued into the Early Modern period and is known particularly in the works of Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross. The reception of their works since the sixteenth century has placed them in the mainstream of mystical and spiritual theology. However, in their own day they often struggled to be heard. Their writings demonstrate that elements of the architecture of the metaphor of deification continued to be used in the expression of spirituality, even if in the academic discourse of the universities this was not so. Teresa of Ávila (1515–82) is an outstanding author in terms of the expression of mystical experience. In recognition of this Pope Paul VI named her as a Doctor of the Church in 1970. At the age of 20 Teresa entered the

32

Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,1966), p. 155–6.

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convent of the Carmelites outside Ávila. There she was afflicted with illness. During in her incapacity, she experienced religious ecstasy as she read a devotional book the Third Spiritual Alphabet, written by Francisco de Osuna (1527). In her reflections on these experiences during her illness, she writes that she progressed from the lowest stage of prayer: ‘recollection’, to the ‘devotions of silence’ and to the ‘devotions of ecstasy’ – perfect union with God. In the mid-1550s those around Teresa began to suggest that her experiences were diabolical, rather than divine. This led her to inflict various tortures and mortifications of the flesh upon herself. However, her confessor, Francis Borgia was able to reassure her that her experiences and reflections were divinely inspired. On St Peter’s Day in 1559 Teresa testifies that she became convinced that Christ had presented himself to her in bodily form, although remaining invisible. These visions of Christ continued for almost 2 years. In another vision, which has become very well known, Teresa testifies that a seraph drove the fiery point of a golden lance repeatedly through her heart, causing indescribable pain. I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. (Teresa of Avila, Life 29.17) It is this vision which inspired Bernini’s Ecstasy of St Teresa, located in the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria Rome. Some commentators have interpreted both the vision and the sculpture in terms of an erotic encounter. The memory of this experience served as an inspiration to Teresa for the rest of her life and was the motivation for her imitation of the life and suffering of Jesus. Teresa remains one the most read authors on mental prayer. Her approach to mystical theology arises directly from reflection on her personal experiences, and she communicates a practical approach to prayer and the ascent of the soul to God with insight and directness. Her understanding of prayer is cited in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: ‘Contemplative prayer [oración mental] in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us’ (CCC 2709). The understanding of the soul’s union with the divine in Teresa’s writing is expressed in a variety of metaphors and analogies, of which ‘Spiritual Marriage’ is most prominent. The basis for union is not understood in terms of particular experiences, but in terms of a coincidence of the divine and human wills, akin to synergy. But Teresa draws a distinction between various stages or states of union, of which Spiritual Marriage 132

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is the metaphor of the closest union achievable. In The Interior Castle she explains that in this state of union the intimacy achieved is a merging of the soul and God.33 This understanding of union may be interpreted as an expression of the metaphor of deification. The language used by Teresa is more explicit than would be found in the Greek fathers. Teresa is not so much abolishing the distinction between Creator and creature as expressing the possibility of continuity between the two. Nonetheless, she understands the reality of human weakness and of sin. The union of Spiritual Marriage is not achieved by many but is nonetheless the potential of all human persons. In 1563 John of the Cross (1542–91) entered the Carmelite order, and the following year he moved to Salamanca, where he studied theology and philosophy at the university and in 1567 he was ordained priest. At this time he sought to join the Carthusian Order in order to led a life which was more solitary and given to silent contemplation. Before he could do this, he met Teresa of Avila. She spoke to him of her ideas to reform the Carmelite Order and asked him to delay joining the Carthusians. The following year, she started a reform of the Order at Duruelo and John assisted Teresa in the work of reform until 1577. The foundation of new houses and the reform of the Order were resisted by a great number of Carmelite friars, some of whom felt that Teresa’s interpretation of the Carmelite calling was too strict. This led to a separation in the Order, in which the followers of John and Teresa called themselves the ‘discalced’, ‘barefoot’ Carmelites. John is well known for his writings, and particularly for his poetry, which many commentators consider are outstanding examples of Spanish literature. On the night of 3rd to 4th December 1577, because he had refused to obey his superior’s orders and allegedly for his attempts to reform the Carmelite order, he was taken prisoner by his superiors, and jailed in Toledo, where he was kept under a brutal regimen. Nine months later he managed to escape on 15 August 1578. During this time he composed a large part of his poem the Spiritual Canticle, which draws on his harsh sufferings and spiritual endeavours during imprisonment. These were to become the subject of reflection in all of his subsequent writings. The Spiritual Canticle relates the search of the bride (representing the soul) for the bridegroom (representing Jesus Christ). The bride is anxious at having lost the groom but both are filled with joy upon reuniting. The poem has been seen as a free-form Spanish version of the Song of Songs. In the Dark Night of the Soul John narrates the journey of the soul from her bodily home to her union with God. It occurs during the night, to represent the hardships and difficulties the soul encounters in seeking detachment from the world and the light of the union with the Creator. There are several steps in this night, which are related in

33

The Interior Castle, The Seventh Mansion, chapter 2.

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successive stanzas. The poem focuses on the painful experience of growing in spiritual maturity and union with God. John’s understanding of the union of the soul with the divine is parallel with that of Teresa’s understanding. He too uses the metaphor of the Spiritual Marriage to describe the highest state of union. In the Ascent of Mount Carmel, John sketches an anthropology in which he distinguishes the affinity between the human person and God on the basis of Creation, from the affinity which develops as an outcome of the transformation of love, through the practice of contemplative prayer, in God’s grace. John writes, when we speak of union of the soul with God, we speak not of this substantial union which is continually being wrought, but of the union and transformation of the soul with God, which is not being wrought continually, but only when there is produced that likeness that comes from love; we shall therefore term this the union of likeness, even as that other union is called substantial or essential. The former is natural, the latter supernatural. And the latter comes to pass when the two wills – namely that of the soul and that of God – are conformed together in one, and there is naught in the one that is repugnant to the other. And thus, when the soul rids itself totally of that which is repugnant to the Divine will and conforms not with it, it is transformed in God through love. (Ascent of Mount Carmel, book 2, chapter 5.3)34 However, in describing the state of Spiritual Marriage, John is perhaps more reticent and cautious in his forms of expression and of the conceptuality he is using. Complete union with the divine is really something only to be known in the life to come (Spiritual Canticle stanza 12: 7–8). John’s own experiences of suffering inform his construal of union with the divine and do so in relation to redemption and the Cross. Although John does not use the language of deification, his understanding of the union of the soul with God may be seen as an expression of the outcome of the metaphor. John’s writings are testimony that the mystical tradition in West continued to draw implicitly on the architecture of the metaphor of deification in the early modern period. The continued interest in his works demonstrates that Western Christians and theologians envisage the purpose and goal of human existence in terms of union with the divine, which is a communion or partaking in the divine love and life. To conclude this section I will highlight the work of Angelus Silesius (1624–77) who was born Johann Scheffler, but he is generally known by the pseudonym Angelus Silesius [Silesian messenger], under which his

34

John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, trans. Allison Peters (3rd revised edition).

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poems were published. Scheffler was brought up a Lutheran and educated as a scientist and physician. In 1649 he became physician to the Duke of Württemberg-Oels. During this time he met Abraham von Franckenberg (1593–1652), the biographer of Jakob Böhme (1575–1624), a Protestant mystic, who had held heterodox views. Franckenberg introduced Scheffler to the writings of a number of different mystics, including Tauler. Franckenberg himself was a poet, and he encouraged Scheffler to write down his reflections, in the form of short verses. These became part of the Cherubinic Wanderer. Scheffler sought to have some of his poetic work published but found that the Lutheran pastor of the court of the Duke had prevented this. This event in his life probably played a significant part in his decision to convert to Roman Catholicism in 1652, which also took place against the background of the reconversion of Silesia to Catholicism. In 1654 Scheffler became court physician to Emperor Ferdinand III in Vienna, and in 1661 he returned to Breslau and was ordained priest; later on, he became coadjutor to the Prince-bishop of Breslau. In 1657 he published two collections of poetry one of which was republished in 1674 under the name The Cherubinic Wanderer and Holy Joy of the Soul. The latter is a collection of 205 traditional pastoral poems in which Christ is portrayed as the loving shepherd and the soul as a loving bride. Some of these became popular hymns and were included in contemporary Protestant hymn books. The Cherubinic Wanderer is a collection of rhyming couplets, which express a form of mystical panentheism and demonstrate the influence of Jakob Böhme. Silesius sought to express a paradoxical mysticism. He writes of the essence of God, which he sees as love. But God could love nothing inferior to himself; he could not be an object of love to himself, without going out from himself and manifesting his infinity in a finite form, in other words, by becoming human. In this sense God and the human person are essentially one. Silesius’ writings present a fascinating example of the religious milieu of the mid- to late-seventeenth century. He himself crosses over from Protestant to Catholic allegiance and is influenced by heterodox thought which emphasizes the affinity between the divine and the human. Many of the verses of the Cherubinic Wanderer were written while he was a Lutheran, yet his work is received as from a Catholic. The metaphysics underlying the verses are remarkably inclusive, yet he is famed for a series of tracts against the ‘wrongs’ of Protestantism, published under the title Ecclesiologia. The couplets of the Cherubinic Wanderer35 express not only the affinity between the divine and the human but also a union or merging of the two. While the couplets in no way represent a systematic approach to theology, they do contain the architecture of the metaphor of deification. A selection of

35

Angelus Silesius, The Cherubinic Wanderer (New York: Paulist Press, 1986).

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couplets demonstrates something of Silesius’ sense of the possibility and reality of becoming divine. God is the fire in me and I in him the shine; Are we not with each other most inwardly entwined? (11) Book 1 This couplet, as many others do, expresses the affinity and reciprocity between the divine and the human. The spirit which God breathed when he had made me first, In essence must return and stand in Him immersed. (74) Book 1 This expresses something of union in terms of the return to God, which echoes the structure of the conceptuality of the exitus and reditus. The noblest prayer will a man so much transform That he becomes that which he does adore. (140) Book 4 This couplet suggests the transforming power of prayer and the identity and union which are produced. To be like unto God is highest divine service, To have the form of Christ in love, in life, in bearing. (150) Book 4 This expresses something of the Christological shaping of divine–human union. It was not the first time, God to the Cross was nailed, It was already Abel in whom he has been slayed. (103) Book 5 The Passion of Our Lord did not end on the Cross: By night and also day he suffers still for us (159) Book 5 These couplets demonstrate something of Silesius’ heterodox thoughts, in this instance concerning salvation. But they might be interpreted in terms of an orthodox understanding of the Cross and of the infinite salvation and forgiveness available in Christ. Overall in these couplets various components of an understanding of deification can be seen, including elements of soteriology. Silesius does not present a neat understanding of the process of deification or union with the divine. But he offers resources for mystical theology and demonstrates that interest in ‘becoming divine’ as an understanding of the calling of humankind continued despite the religious struggles of the seventeenth century, the beginning of the Enlightenment and the formalism of much ‘mainstream’ theology. The writings of the medieval and early modern mystics follow the classical pattern of the process of divine–human union: purification, illumination and divinization. The soul cleansed of sin through Baptism and living a good 136

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moral life is led to a deep and intimate communion with God by letting go of one’s will and egotistic desires, rising above all creatures in the world, and by turning inwards in a state of inner unity, calm and silent contemplation. Several of these authors draw not only on personal mystical experience but also draw upon the experience of suffering of one kind or another which informs and possibly ‘allows’ the mystical experiences which they have. The mystical experiences of Maximos the Confessor also emerge against a background of incapacity and suffering. This is an important insight for mystical theology and the construal of divine–human communion. What is important to notice is that while many of the authors in the medieval and early modern periods do not use the language of deification, they do use extravagant, and perhaps incautious, language to describe the processes of becoming united with God. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross use the metaphor of Spiritual Marriage in order to conceptualize this divine–human union, and other authors appeal to ‘Perfection’, to express the intimacy they experienced and sought to communicate. One of the consequences of not depending upon and utilizing an explicit metaphysical framework is that the distinction between the Creator and the creature, and between the uncreated and the created, is often compromised, whether intentionally or otherwise. This is particularly to be seen in the forms of expression in the writings of Teresa of Avila and the Cherubinic Wanderer. Such incaution often reinforces the views of those who find mystical theology in general and the metaphor of deification in particular repugnant. This difficulty of maintaining the distinction between God and the human creature may in part result from the ways in which the mystical theology of Ps-Dionysius was received in the West. While in the Orthodox tradition the writings of Ps-Dionysius were part of a corpus of patristic material and were interpreted together with the writings of Maximos the Confessor and John of Damascus, the parallel of this process in the West was a reception via the writings of Eriugena. So while in the East, Gregory Palamas defended the mystical experience of the Hesychasts on the basis of the distinction between God’s essence and energies, with the purpose of preserving the distinction between the uncreated and the created, there is no parallel framework in the West.

Mystical theology in the twentieth century A renewal of interest in mysticism and mystical theology began in the midnineteenth century and has continued into the twentieth and twenty-first. The main focus of this renewal of interest centred on the kinds of experiences the authors describe and identify as ‘mystical’. This was rooted in the newly developed disciplines of psychology and psychoanalysis. One of the works which influenced understandings of mysticism in the early twentieth century 137

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and continues to shape the discourse surrounding mysticism and mystical theology is The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) written by the American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842–1910). James was personally interested in the phenomena of mystical experience and took various drugs to stimulate these in himself. He defended the notion of ‘mystical experience’ as such but denied that it was communicable to others. This raised questions about the reality and validity of the experiences which mystics such as Teresa of Avila had recounted in their works. This in turn raised the question as to whether ‘mystical union’ (with the divine or transcendent) is to be understood in terms of ‘exotic’ experiences such as trances, visions and levitation or whether it is to be understood in terms of ‘ordinary’ experiences such as the pursuit of the virtues and participation in the liturgy of the Church. Detailed discussion of the mystical experience of the great mystics such as Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross and of the mystical theology which emerges from reflection upon this experience is to be seen in works published at the beginning of the twentieth century, such as Friedrich von Hügel’s Mystical Element of Religion (1909),36 James Henry Leuba’s The psychology of religious mysticism (1925)37 and Albert Farges and S. P Jacques’ Mystical Phenomena Compared with Their Human and Diabolical Counterfeits: A Treatise on Mystical Theology in Agreement with the Principles of St. Teresa Set Forth by the Carmelite Congress of 1923 at Madrid (1926).38 In the main, these works do not consider the outcome of mystical experience or of union with the divine in terms of the metaphor of deification. Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941) in her classic exposition, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness (1911)39 is dismissive of the concept. She writes Unless safeguarded by limiting dogmas, the theory of Immanence, taken alone, is notoriously apt to degenerate into pantheism; and into those extravagant perversions of the doctrine of ‘deification’ in which the mystic holds his transfigured self to be identical with the Indwelling God.40 36

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von Hügel, F., Mystical Element of Religion: A Study of St Catherine of Genoa (London: Dent, 1908). Leuba, J. H., The psychology of religious mysticism (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & co., 1925). Farges, A., and Jacques, S. P., Mystical Phenomena Compared with Their Human and Diabolical Counterfeits: A Treatise on Mystical Theology in Agreement with the Principles of St. Teresa Set Forth by the Carmelite Congress of 1923 at Madrid (Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1926). Underhill, E., Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of man’s spiritual consciousness (London: Methuen, 1949). Underhill, Mysticism, p. 99.

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Dom Cuthbert Butler, in his work, Western Mysticism: The Teaching of Augustine, Gregory and Bernard on Contemplation and the Contemplative Life (1922),41 recognizes the use of the metaphor in the work of Bernard of Clairvaux and the Greek fathers and a parallel usage in the works of Ruusbroec and John of the Cross.42 But he argues that ‘deification’ is an idea to be treated with caution, and as a consequence he does not explore it in any depth. An avoidance of any discussion of the metaphor of deification in relation to the outcome of mystical experience is to be found in later works, such as Rowan Williams’ The Wound of Knowledge (1979)43 and Ursula King’s Christian Mystics (2001).44 In The Study of Spirituality (1986)45 ‘deification’ is only discussed in relation to the Greek Fathers. The lack of recognition of the metaphor of deification in relation to the discussion of mystical experience and theology relates to the scepticism of the psychologists such as James and to the pervading influence of the views expressed by Harnack. This is not the whole picture, some have understood that any investigation of the shape and outcome of mystical theology needs to include some discussion of the metaphor of deification. Among those who recognize this need is Dom David Knowles (1896–1974). In his work What Is Mysticism? (1967)46 he acknowledges the metaphor of deification in his appeal to the tradition of the ‘exchange formula’ by citing the prayer accompanying the mixing of water with the wine of the chalice at Mass, which says, ‘we may be sharers in the divine nature of him who deigned to share with us in our human nature.’47 He affirms the affinity between the divine and the human, bestowed by God in the creation of humankind, which he suggests is often ignored. ‘We do not in common life realize even what a likeness of the divine powers we have been given as human beings by our capacity to know and to love.’48 These are the premises upon which Knowles discusses mysticism and its outcomes, although he does not provide any extensive analysis of the terminology or conceptuality of deification. Dom Illtyd Trethowan, in

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Butler, C., Western Mysticism: The teaching of Augustine, Gregory and Bernard on contemplation and the contemplative life (London: Constable, 1967; 1st edn, 1922; 2nd edn, 1926). Butler, Western Mysticism, pp. 108–10. Williams, R. D., The Wound of Knowledge: Christian Spirituality from the New Testament to St. John of the Cross (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1979). King, U., Christian Mystics: Their Lives and Legacies Throughout the Ages (London and New York: Routledge, 2001, 2004). Jones, C., Wainwright, G., and Yarnold, E. (eds), The Study of Spirituality (London: SPCK, 1986). Knowles, D., What Is Mysticism? (London: Sheed and Ward, 1967). Knowles, What Is Mysticism? p. 15. Knowles, What Is Mysticism? p. 15.

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his work Mysticism and Theology (1975)49 recognizes the need to discuss ‘deification’ and argues that union with God ‘is the ordinary goal which the Christian sets before him, the purpose for which the human life is ordered. . . .’50 The ‘ordinariness’ of religious (and mystical) experience is affirmed by Nicholas Lash in Easter in Ordinary: Reflections on Human Experience and the Knowledge of God (1988).51 In this work Lash provides a response to William James’ construal of the incommunicability of religious experience and suggests that all may seek and find the divine – as Herbert wrote, ‘Heaven in ordinary’ (Prayer). Much of the discussion of ‘mysticism’ in these works is focused on an individualistic take on mystical theology and union with God, which is not surprising, given that these works are premised on modern psychology. But this does not represent the whole picture. Thomas Merton (1915–68) in his work The Waters of Siloe (1949)52 reflects on the collective dimension of contemplation and union with God. He writes that ‘the eternal, insatiable, unlimited, and unlimitable love, for which the monk lives is to be found within the monastic community.’53 Love is the life of the monastery, as it is of the whole Church. ‘This love holds them together and is the one life principle which vitalizes and perfects them all in one.’54 This love is the Holy Spirit, Vinculum perfectionis [bond of perfection], which creates and sustains the Church, the Body of Christ. Merton argues that the monk’s times of contemplation in solitude are not moments of isolation or separation; rather in contemplation the monk enters into communion with the divine, becoming united with God and with his brothers. In its highest expression, the fraternal charity of the contemplative seeks a union with other men far beyond mere benevolence and mutual tolerance and good fellowship. It is a union in which all souls are fused into one – into the soul of the Mystical Christ, in Whom they all become one Person. Now, the true end of monastic vocation is the perfection of the Mystical Person, not only the perfection of individual sanctity.55 Merton confirms that the contemplative’s union with the divine is an ecclesial calling and reality, which expresses the divine love and fellowship as it 49

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Trethowan, I., Mysticism and Theology: An essay in Christian metaphysics (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1975). Trethowan, Mysticism and Theology, p. 79. Lash, N., Easter in Ordinary: Reflections on Human Experience and the Knowledge of God (1988). Merton, T., The Waters of Siloe (London: Sheldon Press, 1950). Merton, The Waters of Siloe, p. 337. Merton, The Waters of Siloe, p. 337. Merton, The Waters of Siloe, p. 246.

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instantiates the Body of Christ, through the divine gifts of grace and love and faith. Merton’s writing expresses an understanding which enhances the metaphor of deification by including within the mystical experience of divine–human communion the corporate and ecclesial dimensions of participating in the divine nature.

Deification in the traditions of the Reformation The reception of the metaphor of deification within the Reformation traditions of the West may be traced in two trajectories from the sixteenth century through the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century revival movements to the present day. These twin trajectories were reinforced through the writing of Adolf von Harnack and Albrecht Ritschl in the nineteenth century. Both theologians were Liberal Protestants influenced by the agenda of the Enlightenment. But each construed the effect of the Enlightenment upon theology in a different way, and this becomes particularly evident in their modelling of the reception of the metaphor of deification. It is important to recognize the influence which the Enlightenment has had upon the reception of the doctrine of deification not only in the West but in the Orthodox East. It is in response to the secularizing agenda of the Enlightenment that Nikodimos and Makarios undertook their work of editing and publishing the patristic and medieval texts which make up the volumes of the Philokalia (1782). As a ‘product’ of the Enlightenment the Philokalia has influenced and shaped the reception not only of Hesychast practice but also of the doctrine of deification in contemporary Orthodoxy. In a different but parallel way the philosophy of Kant shaped theological discourse and in doing so has influenced the reception of the metaphor of deification in the West to the present day. The different takes on the metaphor of deification as expressed in the works of Harnack and Ritschl provide an equivalent hermeneutical filter in the West, to the Philokalia in the East. Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930) was a church historian and theologian, and his work is seen as a classic exposition of Liberal Protestantism. He and Ritschl were exponents of what was called Kulturprotestantismus [Culture-Protestantism], which sought to express Christianity within the modes of thought of contemporary culture. This apologetic approach may be traced to Schleiermacher, in his work On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799). The credibility of Kulturprotestantismus was challenged by Barth, when leading theologians, including Harnack, wrote a letter supporting the Kaiser’s prosecution of the First World War. The presuppositions of Harnack’s theology correspond with the Enlightenment agenda of questioning historic authorities and of focusing on the ‘subject’, which produced a quest for the original or authentic ‘Gospel’. In terms of the metaphor of deification, Harnack identifies this development as 141

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evidence that the Greek fathers had subverted the ‘true Gospel’ by their appeal to pagan and Hellenistic sources (History Dogma III, 121–304).56 He laments the transformation of the ‘living faith’ of ‘the glowing hope of the Kingdom of Heaven into a doctrine of immortality and deification’ (History Dogma I, 45). In his refutation of the doctrine of theoˉsis, Harnack rejects any appeal to the mindset of a writer’s context in order to pursue the apologetic and missionary task. Yet he himself was making precisely such an appeal within his own context. Harnack attacked the expression of deification in the ‘exchange formula’ as something derived from mystery cults. He states that when the Christian religion was represented as the belief in the incarnation of God and as the sure hope of the deification of man, a speculation that had originally never got beyond the fringe of religious knowledge was made the central point of the system and the simple content of the Gospel was obscured. (History Dogma II, 318). He sees the construal of salvation in terms of deification as the ‘the abrogation [Aufhebung] of the natural state by a miraculous transformation of our nature’, which excluded any understanding of the atonement and which was based on Christological formulas, rather than the Jesus of the Gospels (History Dogma III, 164–6). Harnack interpreted the patristic appeal to the divine image and likeness as ‘soteriological naturalism’, by which he understood that physical contact with the incarnate Logos mechanically deified human nature. On the whole current theological discourse is no longer premised on the kind of presuppositions to be found in Harnack’s work. The notion of the simplicity of the Gospels is no longer current, but the influence of Harnack’s view of deification is still found in those who portray deification as unbiblical or irrational. 57 Those scholars who have studied the patristic texts closely disagree with what is seen as Harnack’s simplistic understanding of the method and self-awareness of the fathers. Far from being under the influence of Hellenic superstitions, the Greek fathers, as Gross depicts them, were deliberate and studied in their advancing of the doctrine, giving to it a viability in Christian thought that has long outlived any theoretical pagan roots. Thus, while not

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Harnack, A. von, History of Dogma, vol. 3 (London: Williams & Norgate, 1896–99). For example, Rashdall, H., The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology (London: Macmillan, 1919); Werner, M., The Formation of Christian Doctrine (New York, 1957), pp. 168f.; Lawson, J., The Biblical Theology of Saint Irenaeus (London: 1948), p. 154.

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denying a Hellenic precursor, Gross goes far to show that divinization in the thought and teaching of the Greek fathers is thoroughly Christian and highly defensible for Christian faith.58 While Harnack’s construal of the metaphor of deification in the light of his understanding of the relationship between the Gospel and culture is no longer acceptable for most theologians, Harnack’s concerns pose the question of how the experience of God is to be expressed in language which makes sense in any particular context. In a secularized culture such as that of the West today, to what extent does it make sense to speak of an experience of becoming divine, or of becoming one with the God, in a context where most people do not have the language to articulate their spiritual instincts and experiences and where God-talk is all but disappeared? The second trajectory is expressed by Albrecht Ritschl (1822–89) who understood himself to be following and developing the theology of both Luther and Schleiermacher. Ritschl was influenced by Kant’s critique of the claims of ‘Pure Reason’, the understanding of the value of morally conditioned knowledge and the concept of the kingdom of ends, and by Schleiermacher’s historical treatment of Christianity, his appeal to the idea of religious fellowship and his emphasis on the importance of religious feeling. In his approach to the metaphor of deification he provides something of a response to the question of how to speak in a secularized context. He agreed with Harnack that in Protestant tradition it is more usual to speak of salvation in moral terms rather than quasi-physical ones.59 Ritschl was utterly dismissive of ‘mysticism’. He insisted that there was an absolute opposition between justification and mysticism and argued that the ‘subordination of public revelation to mystical experience is not acceptable.’60 This rejection is based in the reality that there was and perhaps is no consensus regarding the meaning of ‘mystical’. In order to understand Ritschl’s take on the metaphor of deification, it is important to note that he is critical of a ‘Churchly theology’ in Lutheranism, which he suggests sees no connection between justification by faith and the functions of Christian perfection. He argues that this disjunction produced ‘the decomposition of Evangelical Christianity’ at the time of the Enlightenment, which Protestant theology in the nineteenth century had not been able to address (The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation,

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Robichaux, K. S., and Onica, P. A., ‘Introduction to the English edition’, in J. Gross, The Divinization of the Christian according to the Greek Fathers (Anaheim, CA: A & C Press, 2002) p. ix. See Ritschl, A., The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1900), vol. 1, pp. 8–21. Ritschl, A., Justification and Reconciliation, vol. 3, p. 113.

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pp. 656–7) Ritschl was convinced that religious conceptions are ‘social’ that is to say they relate to the world ‘on the part of God, and those who believe in Him’. (Justification and Reconciliation, p. 27) On this basis, he constructs an argument that religion includes consciousness of a common salvation, which is understood to be a fellowship which is more than the similarity of all its members. Justification and reconciliation need to be examined in relation to the individual and the community, which means that religion is understood to be a striving after ‘goods’ a summum bonum. One expression of summum bonum is the Kingdom of God, which is an operation of God towards human persons and a human common task to render obedience so that God’s sovereignty is realized. Ritschl is indicating that there is something collaborative or reciprocal in the idea of the Kingdom, and he extends this idea to justification and faith. Justification is the product of divine operation (grace) in the human person, but it is no mere mechanical process, for it includes the response of faith, which is also part of divine operation. So he argues faith is part human and part divine, and ‘the conceptions of the Kingdom of God and justification are homogeneous’; both are expressions of divine grace and of personal independence (Justification and Reconciliation, p. 33). Ritschl construes an understanding of human vocation in relation to the Person of Christ and argues that ‘it is possible for us to enter into His relation to God and to the world,’ which means that ‘the disciples of Jesus take the rank of sons of God (Matthew 17.26), and are received into the same relation to God in which Christ stands to the His Father’ (John 17.21–23; Justification and Reconciliation, p. 387). Ritschl goes on to recognize that the ‘mutual relation between the Godhead of Christ and the raising of the members of his community to mastery over the world as their true destiny’ relates to the Greek church’s teaching: ‘The communication of a0fqarsi/a through the teaching – otherwise the Incarnation – of the Divine Word, is regularly described also as qeopoi/hsij.’ In support of this understanding of ‘being made god’ Ritschl cites Aquinas and Luther’s hymn: Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schaar – in which the exchange formula occurs: ‘God became man that man might become God’ (Justification and Reconciliation, p. 389). In addition to this exposition of the doctrines of justification and reconciliation in terms of a reciprocity of wills, filiation and the exchange formula Ritschl explores the notion of Christian Perfection. He appeals to the witness of the Augsburg Confession for an understanding of faith in God’s fatherly providence, prayer, humility, and moral activity, which he argues ‘are the expression of our consciousness of reconciliation, and also of Christian perfection . . .’ (Augsburg Confession xx.24; Justification and Reconciliation, p. 647). Furthermore, he argues that while Roman Catholicism understands perfection in terms of the monastic vocation, rather than in terms of living ‘in the world’, the Reformers understood the calling to Christian Perfection as the calling of all Christians (and not just the Religious). 144

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It would be reasonable to expect that Ritschl’s reconceptualization of the doctrines of Christology and justification in terms of ‘value’ would leave no room for a doctrine such as deification. But instead Ritschl configures his understandings around some of the core elements of the architecture of the metaphor of deification. Not only does he do this but in his appeal to a social and ‘worldly’ understanding of the Kingdom of God, he reiterates the Anabaptists’ claim that filiation and perfection are for all people rather than just for some. The democratization of these outcomes of salvation is something which was of consequence not only in his day but is of crucial importance today. The mainstream rejection of deification in the West, expressed by Harnack, is challenged by the subtlety of Ritschl’s construal of the nexus of issues which surround the metaphor of deification. In the discussion of the works of Luther and Calvin and the Anglican divines which follows, it will be crucial to bear this in mind. The writings of Luther, Calvin, Hooker and Andrewes perceive the complexity of the issues which surround the formulation of the doctrines of salvation and sanctification in ways in which many of their contemporaries or followers failed to do. Martin Luther’s (1483–1546) dispute with the Church’s hierarchy in 1517 began the Protestant Reformation. Many of his writings are highly polemical and he produced nothing comparable with Calvin’s ‘systematic’ account of Christian belief in the Institutes. This means that the interpretation of Luther’s thought is open to considerable variation. Nonetheless, Luther’s work is focused on what he saw as core beliefs and doctrines, such as Justification by Faith. Luther’s desire was for a ‘gracious God’, for a salvation which could not be bought and sold, which was the free gift of God. Given this focus in Luther’s writings, it is surprising to find that some interpreters have seen a strong emphasis on deification in his work. This is surprising, given the normative view of mainstream Protestant theology that the reformed doctrines of Justification and of Grace are incompatible with any notion of deification. This incompatibility is premised on the understanding that a doctrine of deification is constructed around notions of divine–human ‘likeness’ and of a synergy of wills, which are considered ‘impossible’ in relation to a Protestant understanding of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of the human person. A caricature of the doctrine of justification holds that for Luther ‘to justify’ meant to declare a believer righteous or just, but not ‘to make’ her righteous or just. In other words, ‘justification’ is about an extrinsic justice which in the view of some commentators is a spiritual fiction. Many Lutheran scholars hold that this understanding of Justification is inadequate and that it is construed around a negative perception of a ‘law-court metaphor’ which reduces Luther’s insights to legalism. Such a caricature fails to acknowledge Luther’s understanding that Christ’s person and work is ‘present’ in ‘faith’, so that ‘the present Christ’ is the link between faith and good works. 145

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In recent decades a ‘Finnish School’ of Lutheran studies led by Tuomo Mannermaa61 has provided a radical interpretation of Luther’s writings.62 In Mannermaa’s view an idea of theoˉsis is to be discerned at the heart of Luther’s theology. On this basis he claims that ‘The Lutheran understanding of the indwelling of Christ implies a real participation in God and is analogous to the Orthodox doctrine of participation in God, or theosis.’63 Mannermaa premises this interpretation in relation to his understanding of the influence of Kantian categories upon ‘modern Protestant thought’. In Mannermaa’s view, ‘classic Lutheranism was familiar with the notion of God’s essential indwelling in the believer [inhabitatio Dei]’ and rejected ‘any notion that God . . . does not “dwell” in the Christian and that only [God’s] “gifts” are present in the believer.’64 The later Lutheran statement of faith the Formula of Concord (1577) distinguished between ‘justification by faith’ and God’s ‘indwelling’ in the believer, which, according to Mannermaa, implies that justification is forensic and that indwelling is only a consequence of being justified. Mannermaa states that Luther himself does not distinguish between the Person of Christ and his work, ‘Christ is, in this unity of person and work, really present in the faith of the Christian [in ipsa fide Christus adest].’65 And he claims that Luther understands that the idea of Christ’s presence is ‘real-ontic’ and not just a subjective experience [Erlebnis] or God’s effect on the believer [Wirkung] as the neo-Protestant school has held.66 Mannermaa focuses in particular on Luther’s words: in ipsa fide Christus adest’ [in faith itself Christ is really present], in order to contrast them with ‘a purely forensic concept of justification, in which the Christus pro nobis [Christ for us] is separated from the Christus in nobis [Christ within us].67 61

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Mannermaa’s ideas were first presented in Der im Glauben gegenwärtige Christus. Rechtvertigung und Vergottung zum ökumenischen Dialog (Hannover: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1989). See Turcescu, L., ‘Soteriological Issues in the 1999 Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration on Justification: An Orthodox Perspective’, Journal of Ecumenical Studies (2001), and Vandervelde, G., ‘Justification and Deification – Problematic Synthesis: A Response to Lucian Turcescu’, Journal of Ecumenical Studies (2001): 75–8. Mannermaa, T., ‘Justifiation and Theosis in Lutheran-Orthodox Perspective’, in C. E. Braaten and R. W. Jenson (eds), Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998), p. 25. Mannermaa, ‘Justification and Theosis’, p. 27. Mannermaa, ‘Justification and Theosis’, p. 28. See Mannermaa, T., ‘Theosis as a Subject of Finnish Luther Research’, Pro Ecclesia, 4(1) (1995): 38–42; also Kärkkäinen, V.-M., ‘The Ecumenical Potential of the Eastern Doctrine of Theosis: Emerging convergences in Lutheran and Free Church Soteriologies’ in Toward Healing Our Divisions. Reflecting on Pentecostal Diversity and Common Witness. The 28th Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Springfield, MO, 11–13, 1999.

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Mannermaa argues that ‘In Luther research there is a long tradition of solving the problem of the presence-of-Christ motif with the help of transcendental effect-orientation,’68 which means that there is no human knowledge of God, but only of his effects. Christ being present through faith is not a ‘real’ event; at least it cannot be known except in its effects.69 The conclusion which Mannermaa draws from his interpretation is that Luther’s own writings on justification by faith imply a participation in God, which is parallel with the Orthodox doctrine of deification. The writers of the Finnish School suggest that a statistical analysis of Luther’s work reveals that deificatio and Vergöttlichung occur more often than the phrase theologia crucis.70 This reinforces the view that Luther’s works are understood in the light of nineteenth-century scholarship which focused on justification rather than deification. While the evidence of statics provides useful information, it is problematic to base interpretation simply on quantity. George Vandervelde goes on to argue that ‘the issue is not simply whether and how justification by faith and theosis are compatible but whether and how a notion of renewal that flows from the Lutheran notion of “forensic” justification is compatible with the notion of divinization.’71 A crucial hermeneutical question arises: does Luther’s use of ‘Vergottlichung’ [becoming like God/deification] and of being ‘vergottet’ [deified] mean that the language of righteousness, holiness, love, adoption and union with Christ are to be interpreted in terms of divinization? Vandervelde argues that it is a more authentic interpretation of Luther to understand that ‘the language of Vergottlichung [is] his way of underscoring the superlative reality of the new life of holiness as God’s gift, evidence of God’s being truly present in Christ.’72 Luther does use language which appears to express the metaphor of deification. An explicit example comes from Luther’s Sermon for the feast of St Peter and St Paul (1519): For it is true that a man helped by grace is more than a man; indeed, the grace of God gives him the form of God and deifies him, so that even the Scriptures call him ‘God’ and ‘God’s son’.73 67

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‘Preface: The Finnish Breakthrough in Luther Research’, in Braaten and Jenson, Union with Christ, p. viii. Mannermaa, ‘Finnish Luther Research’, p. 42. See Kärkkäinen, ‘The Ecumenical Potential’, endnote 46: For an analysis of underlying philosophical presuppositions and their effects on Luther interpretation in neo-Kantian traditions, see Saarinen, R., Gottes Wirken auf uns. Die transzendentale Deutung des Gegenwart-Christi-Motivs in der Lutherforschung (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1989). The terms deifico / vergotten / durchgotten appear thirty times in Luther’s works. Vandervelde, ‘Justification and Deification’, p. 77. Vandervelde, ‘Justification and Deification’, p. 78. D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar, 1883), section 1, vol. 2, pp. 247–8 (English translation, Kärkkäinen, ‘The Ecumenical Potential’).

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Earlier at Christmas 1514 Luther had preached that Just as the word of God became flesh, so it is certainly also necessary that the flesh become word. For the word becomes flesh precisely so that the flesh may become word. In other words: God becomes man so that man may become God. Thus power becomes powerless so that weakness may become powerful. The logos puts on our form and manner.74 In the tradition of Irenaeus and Athanasius Luther premises his language of deification on the union of logos and flesh. The divine does not cease to be divine as the human does not cease being human, but there is a real communion of divine and human. The metaphor of deification is expressed by Luther in terms of the presence of Christ in faith, participation in God, union with God and perichoˉrēsis. The understanding of the real presence of Christ in believer is core to Luther’s soteriology, but the centrality of the conceptuality of deification in Luther’s thought remains a contested interpretation. John Calvin (1509–64) became involved in attempts to reform the Catholic Church in France, but violent opposition to these attempts led him to flee in 1535. In 1536 he was persuaded by Farel to join the attempt to reform the Church in Geneva, and in the same year he published the first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion.75 Although I suggested earlier that this was a ‘systematic’ exposition of belief, it does not mean that the Institutes should be seen primarily as a work of logic or system. The work was addressed to the Catholic king of France, Francis I, and in that sense is an apologetic work. T. F. Torrance argued that Calvin himself saw the Institutes as a summa pietatis and that the influence of Calvin’s spirituality in the work should not be underestimated. The idea of including Calvin in a work on deification may seem preposterous to some readers. Patrick Gillespie Henry argues that in Calvin’s view, ‘God became by nature man that men might know definitively and without excuse just how far from God they are.’76 Yet in the opening passage of Book 3 Calvin writes of becoming one with Christ, being indwelt by him, through ‘the secret efficacy of the Spirit’. Various scholars have argued that Calvin

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Luthers Werke, Section 1, vol. 1, pp. 25–32 (English translation, Kärkkäinen, ‘The Ecumenical Potential’). Calvin, J., Institutes of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1989). Henry, P. G., ‘A Presbyterian Response to the Orthodox Agreed Statement’, in P. Fries and T. Nersoyan (eds), Christ in East and West (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987), p. 197.

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drew on notions of the beatific vision and mystical union with God from the works of Bernard of Clairvaux. Norris argues that at the beginning of the Reformation, the reformers were exploring ideas of union with Christ [unio cum Christo] as the premise to the entire process of salvation and sanctification and that this was especially so in the thought of John Calvin.77 Calvin explores this in relation to Romans 6 and Paul’s concept of dying and rising and being united with and in Christ through Baptism. This does not mean that Calvin accepted the validity of mystical experience. He rejects ‘mysticism’ referring to the Theologia Deutsch (Institutes 1.14.4) and criticizing the work of Ps- Dionysius and of Osiander for his the idea of ‘absorption’ into God (Institutes 3.11). However, Tamburello argues that Calvin’s use of mystical theology from the Middle Ages is more positive than is often acknowledged.78 Calvin wrote of ‘union with Christ’ in terms of a ‘mystical union’ (Institutes 3.11.10) and often cites Bernard of Clairvaux in the Institutes, but only on one occasion in relation to union with Christ (Institutes 3.22.10). Moreover, lest by his cavils he deceive the unwary, I acknowledge that we are devoid of this incomparable gift until Christ become ours. Therefore, to that union of the head and members, the residence of Christ in our hearts, in fine, the mystical union, we assign the highest rank, Christ when he becomes ours making us partners with him in the gifts with which he was endued. Hence we do not view him as at a distance and without us, but as we have put him on, and been ingrafted into his body, he deigns to make us one with himself, and, therefore, we glory in having a fellowship of righteousness with him. (Institutes 3.11.10) The use of unio mystica in the Institutes lacks precise definition. He does not envisage that union abolishes the difference between the divine and the human. For Calvin union with Christ is the immediate consequence of faith and is fundamental to Christian experience. So union with Christ is not a union of essences but is a ‘spiritual’ union, which is achieved through the Holy Spirit. Calvin does not use the phrase ‘union of wills’ to describe unio cum Christo, but he does understand that to have faith is to keep God’s commandments, especially love of God and neighbour. And he understands that the cognitive element of faith is knowledge of God’s will and God’s goodness. He sees that the Church is the indispensable context of union; for

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Norris, F. W., ‘Deification: Consensual and Cogent’, Scottish Journal of Theology, 49(4) (1996): 422. Tamburello, D. E., Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St Bernard, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), p. 2.

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example, he writes, ‘Paul, addressing believers, includes communion with Christ in the sacraments, as when he says, “As many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3: 27). Again, “For by one Spirit we are all baptised into one body” (1 Cor. 12: 13.)’ (Institutes 4.14.7). Calvin separates justification from sanctification, so that in terms of justification ‘union’ is achieved totally, but in terms of sanctification, only in part. An assessment of the significance of Calvin’s appeal to union with Christ does not inevitably lead to the recruitment of Calvin into the band of theologians who espouse the metaphor of deification. But even the solitary use of ‘mystical union’ in the Institutes suggests that Calvin’s theology and spirituality contain something of the architecture of the metaphor of deification.

Anabaptists Alongside the groups which were attached to the main reformers such as Luther, Zwingli and Calvin there were other groups, who often rejected involvement in the state or civil society, which emerged during the 1520s and are referred to collectively as the ‘Radical Reformation’. Among such groups were those who understood that only believers should be baptized and who re-baptized those who joined them who had been baptized as infants. They became known as ‘Anabaptists’ by mainstream reformers, because of their practice of baptizing a second time. In Britain this group became known simply as ‘Baptists’ and in North America a number of groups emerge from this origin: Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, Brethren in Christ. The Anabaptists appealed to an understanding of ‘perfection’ or sinlessness, achieved through the rejection of involvement in ordinary human or civic life. This led to accusations of ‘antinomian aberrations’. The Anabaptists were critical of the contrast made by the mainstream reformers of salvation by faith and grace against salvation by works. In their view the reformers construed grace not so much as having transforming or ontological power but as a declaration of pardon and favour. The classic Protestant understanding of the human person as always ‘justified and a sinner’ [simul justus et peccator] was seen by the Anabaptists to lead to an understanding that all ‘works’ are corrupted by sinful dispositions and motives. In other words, ‘works’ were righteous because God counted them as such on the basis of Atonement, but they were not ontologically righteous.79 The Anabaptists challenged any notion of salvation which they considered to be ‘forensic’. For them, Christians were not only to be declared

79

Finger, T. N., ‘Post-Chalcedonian Christology: Some Reflections on Oriental Orthodox Christology from a Mennonite Perspective’, in Christ in East and West, pp. 155–69.

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righteous, but they were actually to be righteous. So the Anabaptists were distinguished from the mainstream Reformers on the basis of not only their understanding of ‘works’ but also their explicit articulations of the metaphor of deification. Nonetheless, it would be mistaken to suggest that Anabaptists believed that salvation was not based on grace and faith. Mainstream Protestantism has found great difficulty with the concept of divinization. The idea that a human believer actually becomes what God is seemed to deny the fundamental difference between the Creator and the creature. Divinization appeared to depersonalize grace. It seemed to reduce the Incarnation to a ‘natural fact’ and ‘to the mere penetration of human substance by divine substance. It conceived the sacraments as the moreor-less automatic “infusion” of the latter.’80 The Anabaptists were clear that divinization is not impersonal and based their claim on a subtle construal of grace, in which grace is understood to create love, which is itself the essence of God. God’s grace is not understood to begin as a response to sin; rather, the creation is grounded in grace. ‘Grace is God’s personal act of creating ex nihilo. It requires no mediating conditions or means for its operation.’81 Salvation is understood to be a new creative divine act, which is not earned by human action. Dirk Phillips (1503–68), who, with Menno Simons (1496–1561), became the founder of the Mennonites, provides a concise statement of the architecture of the metaphor of deification in the Mennonite/ Anabaptist tradition: All believers are participants of the divine nature, yes, and are called gods and children of the Most High, they yet do not become identical in nature and person itself to what God and Christ are. Oh, no! The creature will never become the Creator and the fleshly will never become the eternal Spirit itself which God is. But the believers become gods and children of the most high through the new birth, participation, and fellowship of the divine nature.82 Salvation is not merely forensic or merely imputed but is a participation in the divine, which has to be expressed in actions (works) of a new quality. The Anabaptists understood that ethical behaviour was not pursued in order to be saved but because one was already saved. A question which is difficult to answer is whether there is evidence to support the idea that the sixteenth-century Anabaptist writers were dependent on patristic writers. There is a convergence between the early Free Church

80 81 82

Finger, ‘Post-Chalcedonian Christology’, p. 162. Finger, ‘Post-Chalcedonian Christology’, p. 163. Dyck, C. J., Keeney, W. E., and Beachy, W. A., The Writings of Dirk Philips, 1504–1568. Classics of the Radical Reformation 6 (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1992), pp. 145–6.

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theologies and the Eastern view of salvation. This may only be due to a similarity of language, and it remains unclear whether terms, such as ‘divinization’ have the same meanings in the two traditions. Nonetheless, Anabaptist writers crafted a subtle understanding of grace and of deification which was unusual in the Protestant tradition. It became the source of inspiration for a strand within Western Christianity which embraced the view that the outcome of salvation may be understood in terms of union with the divine, sharing in the divine nature and in a certain sense ‘becoming god’.

The English Reformation The period after the Elizabethan Settlement (Act of Uniformity 1559) allowed for a period in which mature reflection on what the English Reformation meant. Richard Hooker (1554–1600) and Lancelot Andrewes (1555–1626) in different ways typify the development of an Anglican theological method and style in this period. This development was often crafted against the background of controversy with an element within the Church of England which sought further reform of the institution and its practice. These were the ‘Puritans’ who looked to the Calvinists in continental Europe for their theology. Hooker and Andrewes were widely read scholars who drew on a variety of traditions contemporary and historic. From these riches they construed a doctrine of salvation which included the metaphor of deification. The extent to which this element of their theology became influential may be seen in the works of the Cambridge Platonists and later still in the work of the Wesleys. But the metaphor of deification did not become a common topic in theological discourse and preaching in the Church of England. Hooker’s most influential work, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,83 was published in 1593 in a total of eight volumes. Although Hooker’s work primarily focused on the institution of the Church, it deals, nevertheless, with issues of biblical interpretation, soteriology, ethics and sanctification. Hooker is clear that theology is rooted in prayer and is concerned with traditional doctrines but is aware that theology is ‘applied’ to use an anachronism. Hooker understood that salvation is grounded in the person and the work of Christ and that, although God takes the initiative in salvation, the believer needs to display a rational faith. Hooker’s notion of justification has been variously interpreted.84 Gordon Rupp85 argues that Hooker’s view of

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Hooker, R., ‘Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity’, in J. Keble (ed.), Works (1836), vol. 1. See Simut, C. C., ‘Pigeonholing Richard Hooker: A Selective Study of Relevant Secondary Sources’, Perichoresis, 3(1) (2005): 99–112. Rupp, E. G., Studies in the Making of the English Protestant Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1949), pp. 166–91.

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justification is forensic. But Lee Gibbs86 argues that in Hooker’s view sanctification is the source of justification, not vice versa, which is a more Catholic approach to soteriology. In the Laws he explores the metaphor of deification, writing that No good is infinite, but only God; there he [is] our felicity and bliss. Moreover desire leadeth unto union with what it desireth. If then in him we are blessed, it is by force of participation and conjunction with him. . . . Then are we happy . . . when fully we enjoy God, even as an object wherein the powers of our soul are satisfied, even with everlasting delight; so that although we be men, yet being into God united we live as it were the life God. (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, I.11.2) Hooker uses the language of participation and union to describe the outcome of salvation. He is clear that that there is no blending of natures between human and divine; in this, he is faithfully following in the tradition of the Greek fathers, whom he cites in the Laws. The present-day reception of Andrewes, whose prose is not always easy to read, has been greatly influenced by T. S. Eliot’s regard for his work.87 Andrewes drew widely on patristic sources and presents an understanding of salvation which relies on forms of expression which are comparable with the Orthodox doctrine of theoˉsis. In this extract from a Christmas sermon preached at court in 1605 Andrewes is exploring the Incarnation as the model for salvation, drawing upon the dynamics of the exchange formula and making a strong claim for participation in the Eucharist as a means of deification. Now ‘the bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the body, of the flesh, of Jesus Christ?’ It is surely, and by it and by nothing more are we made partakers of this blessed union. . . . we also ensuing His steps will participate with Him and with His flesh which He hath taken of us. It is most kindly to take part with Him in that which He took part in with us, and that, to no other end, but that He might make the receiving of it by us a means whereby He might ‘dwell in us, and we in Him’. He taking our flesh, and we receiving His Spirit; by His flesh which He took of us receiving His Spirit which He imparteth to us; that, as He by ours became consors humanae naturae, so we by His

86

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Gibbs, L., ‘Richard Hooker’s Via Media Doctrine of Justification’, Harvard Theological Review, 74(1) (1981): 212–13. Eliot, T. S., For Lancelot Andrewes: Essays on Style and Order (London: Faber, 1928).

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might become consortes Divinae naturae, ‘partakers of the Divine nature’. (Preached on Christmas Day, 1605)88 The theology of Lancelot Andrewes is ‘at once practical and mystical, looking to the deification of man, [and] his participation in the divine nature’.89 Andrewes does not craft a systematic exposition of the doctrine of deification, but he does appeal to core elements of the patristic exposition of the metaphor of deification. In the mid-seventeenth century a group known as the ‘Cambridge Platonists’ emerged, who were associated with the University of Cambridge. They share an interest in and commitment to the philosophy of Plato and Plotinus but otherwise have varied concerns, some of which related to contemporary philosophers such as Descartes and others to patristic sources. They also shared a common interest in theological issues, which makes them of interest in this context. As Platonists they defended the rationality of religious faith against the anti-intellectuals among the Puritan movements and defended the existence of God and the immortality of the soul against the attacks of rationalists. The via media between these two extremes which the Cambridge Platonists walked meant that they continued to hold a place for ‘mystery’ within the Christian faith. That mystery centred on the connection which they perceived between the mundane and the celestial, the visible and the transcendental, Nature and Grace. The ‘mystery’ is not denied; it is in fact accentuated. It is accentuated because the candle of the Lord was said to enable man to attain an almost mystical awareness of God at the point where the rational and the spiritual merge.90 The mysticism of the Cambridge Platonists is to be distinguished from the emotional language of the Spanish mystics and from the language of ‘unknowing’. Their mysticism is more akin to that of the Brothers of the Common Life. As well as a Platonist understanding of the immortality of the soul the works of the members of the group construe an understanding of human deiformity in terms of the metaphor of the ‘seed’. They appeal to the expression ‘the seed of woman’ (Genesis 3.15) understood as a prophecy of Christ and to the notion that the ‘seed’ is the Word of God implanted in the human soul. This deiformity of human nature is the basis for understanding

88

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Lancelot Andrewes Works Sermons (vol. 1: Sermons of the Nativity) (Library of AngloCatholic Theology, 1841). Lossky, N., Lancelot Andrewes the Preacher: The Origins of the Mystical Theology of the Church of England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 355. Patrides, C. A. (ed.), The Cambridge Platonists (London: Edward Arnold, 1969), p. 17.

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the Incarnation, through which the ‘God-man’ deifies human nature and overcomes the seed of the evil one.91 I will focus on the exposition of deification in the sermons of two of the members of the group Benjamin Whichcote (1609–83) and Ralph Cudworth (1617–89). In his sermon, The Manifestation of Christ and the Deification of Man,92 Whichcote takes as his text, Acts 13.24 ‘Of this man’s seed hath God, according to his promise, raised unto Israel a Saviour Jesus’, which refers to the metaphor of the ‘seed’ mentioned previously. He explores what benefits arise from the Incarnation of the Word and argues that, by indwelling human nature, the Word has worked righteousness to overcome sin. Then he explores how these benefits are appropriated by the believer: Now, let us look for the Explication of this, in our selves; in our Nativity from above; in Mental Transformation, and DEIFICATION. Do not stumble at the use of the Word. For, we have Authority for the use of it, in Scripture, 2 Pet. 1.4 Being made Partakers of the Divine Nature; which is in effect our Deification.93(emphases in original) This exposition of the metaphor of deification draws directly on the text of 2 Peter and is related to an understanding of the effects of the Incarnation in terms of the exchange formula. It speaks of deification as being born from above, and in terms of transformation, which are understood to be the outcome of being delivered from sin and sanctified. This is a very explicit and classic understanding of deification. A Sermon Preached before the House of Commons, March 31, 1647,94 was delivered by Ralph Cudworth and was ‘the only exposition of Cambridge Platonism ever addressed to such an influential body. The sermon was published on the express “desire” of Parliament.’95 Cudworth explores how God is truly to be known, and argues that The Gospel is nothing else, but God descending into the World in Our Form, and conversing with us in our likenesse; that he might allure, and draw us up to God, and make us partakers of his Divine Form. Qeo\j ge/gonen a1nqrwpoj (as Athanasius speaks) i9/na h(maj e)n e(autw| qeopoih/sh|, God was therefore incarnated and made man, that he

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93 94

95

Patrides, The Cambridge Platonists, p. 20. Anthony, Third Earl of Shatesbury (ed.), Benjamin Whichcote, Select Sermons (1698), part II, sermon III, pp. 331–60. Cited by Patrides, The Cambridge Platonists, p. 70. Cudworth, R., A Sermon Preached before the House of Commons, March 31, 1647 (Cambridge, 1648). Patrides, The Cambridge Platonists, p. xxv.

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might Deifie us, that is, (as S. Peter expresseth it) make us partakers of the Divine nature.96 (emphases in original) Here again there is direct reference to 2 Peter and to the classic exposition of the exchange formula by Athanasius. This is a remarkable expression of the metaphor of deification, all the more so because of the context in which it was delivered. In these texts the classic conceptuality of deification is brought to the audience of the English Reformation in explicit forms of expression. These understandings of salvation and sanctification did not become widely accepted in theological discourse or preaching, but they bear witness to an ongoing reception of deification within the context of the English Reformation, which fed into the revival movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Great Awakening and ‘Christian Perfection’ From the late seventeenth century a movement developed first within Lutheranism, and later within other Protestant traditions, including the Anabaptists, which is known as ‘Pietism’. This movement influenced and inspired the Wesleys, leading to the formation of Methodism, and Alexander Mack, leading to the Brethren movement. Pietism had a particular emphasis on individual piety, and a vigorous Christian life, which was manifest in an appeal to ‘perfection’. In 1311 the Council of Vienne declared that any idea ‘that man in this present life can acquire so great and such a degree of perfection that he will be rendered inwardly sinless, and that he will not be able to advance farther in grace’ (Denziger §471) was heretical. This condemnation indicates from the outset that the concept of ‘Christian Perfection’ is controversial. I do not propose to attempt to trace the origins or development of the Evangelical Revival in Britain; I will simply focus on some key figures associated with that Revival who promoted understandings of Christian Perfection and explored forms of expression around the metaphor of deification. The Scottish theologian and minister Henry Scougal (1650–78) whose father had been Bishop of Aberdeen, produced a number of works while he was a professor of divinity at King’s College in the University of Aberdeen. His work, The Life of God in the Soul of Man (1677),97 was written originally to provide spiritual counsel for a friend. This became a seminal text of ‘the Great Awakening’. George Whitefield is credited with saying that he

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Patrides, The Cambridge Platonists, p. 101. Scougal, H., The Life of God in the Soul of Man (1677) (Cambridge: John Wilson and Son, 1868).

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never really understood what true religion was until he had read Scougal’s work. The Life of God in the Soul of Man is a text which presents the architecture of the metaphor of deification before a Protestant and Evangelical audience. In the introductory passages of his book, Scougal writes, ‘I know not how the nature of religion can be more fully expressed, than by calling it a divine life’ (The Life of God in the Soul of Man, p. 7). He continues that this life is wrought in the souls of men by the power of the Holy Spirit; but also in regard of its nature, religion being a resemblance of the divine perfections, the image of the Almighty shining in the soul of man: it is a beam of the eternal light, a real participation of his nature, it is a beam of the eternal light, a drop of that infinite ocean of goodness; and they who are endued with it, may be said to have God dwelling in their souls, and Christ formed within them. (The Life of God in the Soul of Man, p. 13) Understandings of partaking in the divine life, which in the view of some commentators is parallel with deification developed in Methodism and in other branches of Pietism where there was renewed interest in the asceticism of the early church and some of the mystical traditions of the West. Wesleyan traditions in particular developed an understanding akin to deification which taught a doctrine of entire sanctification which implies that the Christian’s goal is to live without any sin. This is the Wesleyan doctrine of Christian Perfection, which was sharply criticized by commentators in the Church of England during John Wesley’s life time (1703–91) and continues to be a matter of controversy to this day. Wesley’s understanding is more nuanced than the phrase ‘Christian Perfection’ might suggest. Perfection is understood in terms of the process of sanctification and is a work of grace. It is ‘purity of intention, dedicating all the life to God’ and having ‘the mind which was in Christ, enabling us to walk as Christ walked’. It is ‘loving God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourselves’ (A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, 109). Furthermore, it is ‘a restoration not only to the favour, but likewise to the image of God,’ our ‘being filled with the fullness of God’ (The End of Christ’s Coming, 482). However, for Wesley, perfection is not sinlessness or a state of being unable to sin, but rather a state of choosing not to sin.98 Wesley’s understanding of perfection means a change of life and freedom from wilful rebellion against God. It was a state which was not necessarily permanent. Perfection in Wesley’s understanding is closely allied with holiness.

98

See Wesley’s sermons ‘On Christian Perfection’ (40) and ‘On Perfection’ (76) in T. Jackson (ed.), John Wesley Sermons text from the 1872 edition.

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In his exploration of the union of the believer with God, Wesley expresses many of the features of the architecture of the metaphor of deification in his sermons. In the following text he explores the outcome of the Incarnation in terms of immortality and union: What is the very root of this religion? It is Immanuel, God with us! God in man! Heaven connected with earth! The unspeakable union of mortal with immortal. For ‘truly our fellowship’ (may all Christians say) ‘is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. God hath given unto us eternal life; and this life is in his Son.’ What follows? ‘He that hath the Son hath life: And he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.’ (Human Life a Dream, Sermon 121, August 1789) For Wesley this union of divine and human, mortal and immortal, in which believers share as a consequence of the Incarnation, produces an outcome which reverses and goes beyond the destiny of Adam and produces a cosmic communion with the Trinity (The New Creation, Sermon 64). In another sermon, Wesley appeals to the text of 2 Peter 1.4 and draws out the soteriological implications of participating in the divine. He goes on to speak of conformity, if not synergy, of the divine and human wills premised on the work of the Holy Spirit, who enables the believer to live according to the virtues (On grieving the Holy Spirit, Sermon 138, written 1733). These texts demonstrate that John Wesley was familiar with the key components of the doctrine of deification. He uses these to express his understanding of the divine purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos and the outcome of grace and sanctification in a believer’s present as well as future life. The use of the metaphor is also seen in Charles Wesley’s (1707–88) hymns. Charles draws upon classic elements of the metaphor of deification such as the exchange formula to construe the Incarnation of God in Christ as the means not only of human justification and salvation but also of deification and perfection. These core understandings of Wesleyan Methodism influence later Holiness Traditions.99 Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen100 and David Bundy101 have argued that there are shared theological roots between Pentecostal-Holiness and Eastern Orthodox traditions. A number of scholars have found evidence of

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100 101

See Dayton, D., Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988). Kärkkäinen, ‘The Ecumenical Potential’. Bundy, D., Vision of Sanctification: Themes of Orthodoxy in the Methodist, Holiness and Pentecostal Traditions, Unpublished manuscript, 1997, 22 pp; cited in Kärkkäinen, ‘The Ecumenical Potential’.

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Orthodox themes within Wesleyan theology,102 including Albert Outler, who claims that Wesley’s reading of Greek patristic texts influenced Methodist theology,103 but such interpretations of Wesley are not uncontested. Bundy104 argues that a particular strand of Eastern Christianity can be traced from Clement of Alexandria to Origen to Pseudo-Macarius to Wesley to Madame Guyon and from both of them to the Holiness theologian Thomas Cogswell Upham, Phoebe Palmer, and from them to formative theologians of Pentecostalism including William Seymour, Minnie Abraham and Thomas Ball Barrett.105 In his sermons John Wesley spoke of the goal of the Christian life in terms of ‘Christian perfection’, which he understood as a movement toward final unity with God. In common with Orthodox spiritual writers, Wesley emphasized prayer as a means for achieving contemplation of God and the ascetic life as a means of struggling for victory over the ungodly influences in life. Kärkkäinen argues that ‘this was undoubtedly the mentality of (early) Pentecostal meetings where power from on high was expected to finish what was lacking in sanctification and empowerment for service.’106

The Oxford Movement and its legacy Through the study of patristic texts and the works of the Anglican Divines of the seventeenth century the leaders of the Oxford Movement rediscovered and re-received the metaphor of deification in their polemic against the ‘apostasy’ of the Church of England in the early nineteenth century. In his Lectures on Justification107 Newman explored salvation in terms of being filled with the divine life and partaking in the divine nature,108 while Keble expounded the metaphor in terms not only of deification being the outcome of salvation but also in terms of the process of being saved, referring to

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103 104 105 106 107 108

For example, R. Maddox, ‘John Wesley and Eastern Orthodoxy: Influences, Convergences and Divergences’, Asbury Theological Journal, 45(2) (1990): 29–53, and Campbell, T. A., John Wesley and Christian Antiquity: Religious Vision and Cultural Change (Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 1991). Outler, A., John Wesley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964). Bundy, ‘Vision of Sanctification’, p. 2. Kärkkäinen, ‘The Ecumenical Potential’. Kärkkäinen, ‘The Ecumenical Potential’. Newman, J. H., Lectures on Justification (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1838). Newman, Lectures on Justification, p. 197 (reference to 2 Peter 1.4).

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‘a deifying discipline’ [deifica disciplina].109 Deification is a strong element in the works of Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–82). An outcome of Pusey’s research and theological reflection may be seen in the sermon which he preached before the University of Oxford in May 1843, The Holy Eucharist, a Comfort to the Penitent. The re-presentation of doctrine in this sermon led to Pusey being suspended from preaching for 2 years. An immediate consequence of his suspension was the sale of 18,000 copies of the condemned sermon. The sermon and its consequences made Pusey one of the most influential people in the Church of England for the next quarter of a century. In The Holy Eucharist, a Comfort to the Penitent, Pusey produces a catena of patristic quotations, taken from Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, Augustine and Ephrem the Syrian, in order to make it clear that his understanding of the Eucharist is entirely patristic in its contours and that this is the understanding which is the inheritance of the Church of England. He also refers to earlier Anglican Divines such as Lancelot Andrewes, who had similarly construed the heritage of the Ecclesia Anglicana. The outcome of this Eucharistic doctrine is a construction of the metaphor of deification in a sacramental and ecclesial context, which draws on an understanding of the Incarnation in terms of the exchange formula. This is extended into sacramental theology so that the sacraments become the locus of deification, construed as participation in the divine nature. ‘We are,’ adds Saint Cyril, ‘perfected into unity with God the Father, through Christ the Mediator. For having received into ourselves, bodily and spiritually, Him Who is by Nature and truly the Son, Who hath an essential Oneness with Him, we, becoming partakers of the Nature which is above all, are glorified.’ ‘We,’ says another, ‘come to bear Christ in us, His Body and Blood being diffused through our members; when, saith Saint Peter, we become “partakers of the Divine Nature.”’ (The Holy Eucharist, a Comfort to the Penitent)110 Pusey was primarily concerned to convince the Church of England that its heritage is the common patristic corpus. It is on this basis that he defends and promotes a doctrine of deification. In his polemic against what he sees as a reductionist Protestant understanding of the Church of England’s theological heritage Pusey has re-received the understandings not only of the ancient fathers but also of the earlier Anglican Divines. On this basis, the

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See A. M. Allchin, Participation in God: A Forgotten Strand in Anglican Tradition (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1988), p. 53. Pusey, E. B., A Sermon Preached Before the University in the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford on the Fourth Sunday after Easter (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1843).

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Oxford Movement all too easily seems focused on the past. But Pusey’s construal of the doctrine of the sacraments and of deification was directed to contemporary understanding and practice, which is why it provoked such a furore. The publication of Lux Mundi in 1889 demonstrates how the legacy of the Oxford Movement continued to influence theological reflection in England. The purpose of the authors was primarily apologetic, ‘to put the Catholic faith into its right relation to modern intellectual and moral problems’.111 Both John Richardson Illingworth (1848–1915) and the lead editor Charles Gore developed understandings of deification arising from this goal. The Lux Mundi group stands in the tradition of Oxford Movement but explores the Tradition in the light of the contemporary world. In his later work, Personality, Human and Divine (1894),112 Illingworth developed a theological anthropology construed on a relational understanding of the triune Godhead. And this new insight into the divine nature, threw a new light upon the destiny of man, as capable, through the Incarnation, of being made holy in the Beloved, and so raised . . . to be a partaker of the eternal love of God. Thus the actual Trinity of God explains the potential trinity of man; and our anthropomorphic language follows from our theomorphic mind. (Personality, Human and Divine, 101) Illingworth does not construe an understanding of deification around the traditional elements of the metaphor but opens another set of possibilities premised on a ‘social’ doctrine of the triune God. Russell argues that the outcome of Illingworth’s exploration of the doctrine is that To become partakers of the divine nature is, therefore, to share fully in the relationship of love between the Father and the Son that was made accessible to us through the Incarnation. Only in this way do we realize the full potentiality of our personhood.113 Illingworth became a source of inspiration for the work of Gunton and Schwöbel in their pursuit of a relational understanding of divine and human persons.114 Illingworth’s work provides a core element in the endeavour to 111

112

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Gore, C., (ed.), ‘Introduction’, in Lux Mundi: A Series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation (London: John Murray, 1889). Illingworth, J. R., Personality, Human and Divine Being the Bampton Lectures for the year 1894 (London: Macmillan & Co, 1903). Russell, Deification, p. 313. Schwöbel, C., and Gunton C. E., (eds), Persons Divine and Human (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991).

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construct a collective and relational understanding of the metaphor of deification. Through his editorship of Lux Mundi Charles Gore (1853–1932) developed new approaches to theological reflection. This included a kenotic understanding of Incarnation, which led him to consider the architecture of the metaphor of deification. In his work The Body of Christ (1901) he came to express a collective vision of deification focused on the corporate experience of the Eucharist, which was informed by Anglican Divines such as Hooker and Daniel Waterland (1683–1740). Gore writes that in the sacraments we are made and continued members of Christ’s body, of His flesh and of His bone. Our union with the Deity rests entirely upon our mystical union with our Lord’s humanity, which is personally united with His divine nature.115 He also expresses the view that the outcome of Holy Communion is ‘the indwelling of Christ in the soul of the individual and in the living Church’.116 Such collective understandings of the metaphor of deification are reiterated in the work of Lionel Spencer Thornton (1884–1960). Thornton addresses ‘the problems which beset the Christian society in the modern world’.117 He draws upon the work of Irenaeus and Whitehead in order to interpret the Incarnation in relation to the divine purposes of creating and redeeming. He understands the person as a microcosm of the processes of creation and re-creation, in which humanity ‘is taken up on to the level of deity’.118 Thornton appeals to the work of Athanasius as well as Irenaeus as examples of the patristic understanding of deification expressed in the exchange formula.119 In his later work, Revelation and the Modem World (1950), Thornton reproduces in great detail the entire architecture of the metaphor of deification, construed in particular on Irenaeus’ understanding of the recapitulation of Adam’s fate in Christ, in which he argues that ‘Christ sanctified and deified all human nature.’120 This forms the basis for a new kind of society in which the ‘Body of Christ’, will

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Gore, C., The Body of Christ: An Enquiry into the Institution and Doctrine of Holy Communion (London: John Murray, 1902) p. 51. Gore, The Body of Christ, p. 141. Thornton, L. S., Revelation and the Modem World (Westminster: Dacre Press, 1950), p. x. Thornton, L. S., The Incarnate Lord (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1928), p. 255. For example, Thornton, L. S., The Doctrine of the Atonement (London: John Heritage, 1937), p. 127. Thornton, Revelation and the Modern World, p. 129.

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be clothed with the extended image of deity in Christ [and] . . . become an integral participator in that image as actualized in the redeemed society; and this in turn means to be taken into the response of ‘the perfect man’ to his Creator, the response of the incarnate Son rendered through the Spirit to the Father. So by his rebirth into Christ the redeemed man is renewed in that image of the Trinity according to which he was created. (Revelation in the Modern World, 187) Thornton’s collective understanding of the outcome of redemption construed in terms of the conceptuality of deification provides a vivid sense of the possibility of constructing a contemporary doctrine of deification which is ecclesial and sacramental and cosmic in its dimensions. Interest in the metaphor of deification is to be found in the work of Arthur Michael Ramsey (1904–88) who had a particular regard for the Orthodox concept of ‘glory’, which is articulated in his work The Glory of God and the Transfiguration (1949). While Ramsey is cautious about the use of the term ‘deification’, he expounds a doctrine that ‘salvation consists in an actual participation in the life of God wherein we become by grace what Christ is by nature.’121 Ramsey prefers to employ biblical categories and refers to terms such as ‘Godlikeness’ and ‘Christlikeness’. A relational understanding of deification is also expressed in the work of Eric Mascall (1905–93). He stood in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England and had a profound interest in Eastern Orthodoxy, as well as being an exponent of Thomism. His exploration of deification is in the line of thought of Illingworth. In his work, Christ, the Christian and the Church (1946), he set out an understanding of deification rooted in the participation of the baptized in the love of the Son for the Father.122 These examples from the twentieth century demonstrate how the Oxford Movement and its legacy provide a witness to the reception and exploration of the metaphor of deification in Anglicanism and offer key resources in the construction of the metaphor of deification as an ecclesial and collective doctrine.

Holiness, perfection and the Holy Spirit The Holiness Movement is premised on the understanding that fallen human nature can be cleansed through faith in Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. In this state the believer is endowed with spiritual power and an ability to maintain purity of heart. This doctrine is typically known in

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Miller, E. C. Jr, Toward a Fuller Vision: Orthodoxy and the Anglican Experience (Wilton: Morehouse Barlow, 1984), p. 122. Mascall, E. L., Christ, the Christian and the Church (1946), pp. 96–7.

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Holiness churches as ‘entire sanctification’, which is the equivalent of the Wesleyan concept of Christian Perfection. The Holiness Movement is associated with promoting a faith which is understood to be personal, practical, life-changing and thoroughly charismatic. The Movement emphasizes regeneration by grace through faith; entire sanctification as a second definite work of grace, received by faith, through grace and accomplished by the power and ministry of the Holy Spirit; the assurance of salvation by the witness of the Spirit; and living a holy life. In 1836 two Methodist women, Sarah Worrall Lankford and Phoebe Palmer, began a ‘Tuesday Meeting’ for the Promotion of Holiness in New York. In the following year Phoebe experienced what she called ‘entire sanctification’. At the Tuesday Meetings, Methodists soon enjoyed fellowship with Christians of different denominations. Thomas Upham was the first man to attend the meetings, and his participation in them led him to study mystical experiences, looking to find precursors of holiness teaching in the writings of the German Pietist Johann Arndt, and the Catholic mystic Madame Guyon. Other non-Methodists contributed to the Holiness Movement. In 1836 Asa Mahan experienced what he called a ‘Baptism with the Holy Ghost’. Mahan believed that this experience had cleansed him from the desire and inclination to sin. Thomas C. Upham (1799–1872), who joined the ‘Tuesday Meeting’, was an American philosopher and psychologist and became an important leader of the Holiness Movement. In his work, A Treatise on Divine Union,123 he explores as the title suggests various ways in which the human person is united with the divine. His understanding of this union is an expression of the metaphor of deification. He writes of the union of the human will with the divine and of the destiny of human beings in God’s creative and redemptive purposes to be God’s ‘sons’ and ‘children’. He writes of the outcome of union, ‘So far as we have faith in God, we have a portion of the divine life, and, of course, a portion of the divine power’ (A Treatise on Divine Union, p. 61). Phoebe Palmer (1808–74) one of the founders of the ‘Tuesday Meeting’ promoted the doctrine of Christian Perfection in her writings. In her spiritual journal The Way of Holiness,124 she writes, 23 Feb. 18. . . now the calm sunshine of God’s presence illuminates my soul. The precious words ‘whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine

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Thomas C. Upham, A Treatise on Divine Union, Designed to Point Out Some of the Intimate Relations between God and Man in the Higher Forms of Religious Experience (Boston: George C. Rand & Avery, 1856). Phoebe Palmer, The Way of Holiness (New York, 1854).

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nature,’ were applied to my soul with much power this evening. . . . What! am I to be made a partaker of the divine nature? Shout, O heavens! Be glad O earth! (The Way of Holiness p. 118) Here again is an appeal to core elements of the metaphor deification. In other passages she writes of being conformed to God’s image, sharing in the divine life and knowing God’s presence, which are related to understandings of redemption in Christ, the Incarnate Son of God. Two later writers, who were evangelists in the Church in China, Watchman Nee (1903–72) and Witness Lee (1905–97), stand in the revivalist tradition of Holiness and Pentecostal gifts. Both became victims of the Chinese communist revolution. Watchman Nee remained in China, while Witness Lee fled first to Taiwan and later to the United States, where he founded a church in Los Angeles and ‘Living Stream Ministry’. Watchman Nee, Nee Shu-tsu, whose English name was Henry Nee, was born of second-generation Christian parents in Foochow in China. He became the founder and leader of an assembly-type movement prior to the revolution. In his written works he explores the metaphor of deification as the outcome of the God’s purposes and the goal of human life. Angus I. Kinnear, the editor and translator of the 1957–8 editions of The Normal Christian, working in Bangalore in India, recalls that the text is based on spoken addresses given during Nee’s visit to Europe in 1938 and 1939. His location in India indicates the broad global audience that Nee’s works reach. In his work, The Normal Christian Life, 125 Nee presents a detailed understanding of the union of the believer with God. In respect of His divinity the Lord Jesus remains uniquely ‘the only begotten Son of God’. Yet there is a sense in which, from the resurrection onward through all eternity, He is also the first begotten, and His life from that time is found in many brethren. For we who are born of the Spirit are made thereby ‘partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:4), though not, mark you, as of ourselves but only, as we shall see in a moment, in dependence upon God and by virtue of our being ‘in Christ’. We have ‘received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God’ (Rom. 8:5, 16). It was by way of the Incarnation and the Cross that the Lord Jesus made this possible. Therein was the Father-heart of God satisfied, for in the Son’s obedience unto death the Father has secured His many sons. (The Normal Christian Life, p.51)

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Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life, trans. Angus I. Kinnear, (1958).

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This passage demonstrates Watchman Nee’s detailed conceptualization and expression of deification. Later in the same work he asserts of Christ’s work, ‘It has made us partakers of the very life of God Himself’ (p. 55). A similar understanding is to be found in the works of Nee’s coworker, Witness Lee. In his hymnody, he writes of being filled with God’s life by being ‘in Christ’ and uses the language of blending or mingling to express this experience. He also uses the metaphors of adoption and sonship to describe the outcomes of salvation. Lee founded Living Stream Ministry, whose publishing arm A&C Press is the publisher of the new English translation of Gross’ work on deification. In the Introduction to the English Translation, Kerry S. Robichaux and Paul A. Onica reflect on the Orthodox understanding of deification but make no explicit connection with the works of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. However, Robichaux and Onica do argue that deification, with its collective, ecclesial implications, is a useful counterbalance to the overt individualism of much Christianity today. 126

Contemporary Roman Catholic teaching The articulation of a doctrine of deification in the contemporary Roman Catholic Church can be traced to various sources. One source of this development is a renewed awareness of the shared patristic tradition and another is the effect of the ecumenical movement and the rapprochement between the Eastern Orthodox Churches and Rome, symbolized by the rescinding of the mutual anathemas, following the meeting between the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI in 1964. An ecumenical dimension continues to influence the formal teachings of the Catholic Church. It is clear that Catholic theologians, and the Pope himself, employ elements of the architecture of the metaphor of deification with enthusiasm. This does not mean that the overarching doctrinal conceptuality, of which deification is a core element in Orthodoxy, has been adopted in official Roman Catholic teaching. Rather the use of elements of the patristic doctrine of deification by Rome remains piecemeal. The ‘rediscovery’ of the metaphor of deification in twentieth-century Catholicism is to a great extent the result of the ressourcement movement. These explorations were to some extent anticipated in the nineteenth century in the work of John Henry Newman (1801–90). Before his reception into the Roman Catholic Church, Newman had authored a number of works, in which he explored the patristic understanding of salvation, such as Lectures on Justification. In this work he explored the architecture of the

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Gross, Divinization of the Christian, pp. xiii, xviii.

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metaphor of deification, appealing, for instance, to 2 Peter 1.4.127 Following his reception into the Catholic Church, he continued his work on patristic sources and published a detailed analysis of Athanasius’ work on deification.128 Newman’s work has some parallels in continental Europe, although, on the whole, European patristic scholars were disdainful of the doctrine of deification in the nineteenth century. The research of von Balthasar into the works of Gregory of Nyssa and Maximos the Confessor and of Daniélou into the works of Nyssa provide clear evidence of an awakening to a shared patristic inheritance in which deification is significant. The Catholic theological faculty of the University of Strasbourg in particular pursued this field of enquiry in the 1930s led by Amann and Chavasse.129 Jules Gross, a Roman Catholic priest who taught in the faculty at Strasbourg, published his doctoral thesis on divinization in 1938.130 Probably due to the outbreak of the Second World War his work was not as widely received as it might have been, although it does feature in the gradual re-reception of the doctrine into mainstream theological discourse during the twentieth century. Gross set out to provide a counter argument to Harnack. He appeals to the biblical roots of deification and argues that it is the equivalent of the notion of ‘sanctifying grace’ in West.131 The acceptability of elements of the metaphor of deification in the second half of the twentieth century can be seen in the work of Karl Rahner (1904–84) and Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–88), who typify two main trajectories in Catholic theology. Rahner sought to engage with modernity, while von Balthasar sought to challenge it; nonetheless, they explore elements of the doctrine of deification in their theological writings. In the context of this approach to the theological task, Rahner appeals to the conceptuality of deification while avoiding the terminology. His understanding of revelation and of the Godhead in terms of the axiom that ‘the “economic” Trinity is the “immanent” Trinity and the “immanent” Trinity is the “economic” Trinity’ suggests that the interplay of the three Trinitarian persons in salvation history offers a window into the eternal divine life. When this is used to explicate salvation, Rahner’s axiom suggests that salvation is to

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Newman, Lectures on Justification, p. 197. Newman, J. H., Select Treatises of St Athanasius in Controversy with the Arians (vol. II: Being an Appendix of Illustrations) (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1895), pp. 88–90. I am grateful to Professor Michael Denken of the Catholic Theology Department of the University of Strasbourg for background information. Gross, J., La Divinisation du Chrétien d’après les Pères Grecs: Contribution historique de la doctrine de la grace (A thesis for a doctorate in theology at the University of Strasbourg) (Paris: J. Gabalda et Co., 1938). Gross, Divinisation, p. vi.

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be understood in terms of the believer’s participation in Jesus’ relationship with his heavenly Father. In other words, salvation is the outworking of the perichoretic relationality of the Trinitarian persons, which is akin to Illingworth’s construal of the metaphor. The possibility of this participation is rooted in Rahner’s construal of the status of the human creation. In his understanding, God ‘does not originally cause and produce something different from himself in the creature, but rather that he communicates his own divine nature and makes it a constitutive element in the fulfilment of the creature’.132 Catherine Mowry LaCugna echoes Rahner’s Trinitarian construal of the outcome of salvation, but she is concerned to use the term ‘theoˉsis’ rather than avoid it. She argues that Since theoˉsis means the true union of human and divine, the model for which is Jesus Christ, in a theanthroponomous ethic persons are defined neither autonomously nor heteronomously but with reference to the coincidence of divine and human, Jesus Christ. The ultimate good of human beings is to achieve theoˉsis, to realize the fullness of our humanity in union with the Trinity.133 God is the ultimate goal of salvation and the fulfilment of the identity of human persons. Salvation is participation in the life of the triune God. To become saved is to realize much more than an alteration in juridical status. To become saved is to be transformed through the shared ‘being’ of persons divine and human. Both Rahner and LaCugna situate deification in a Trinitarian and ecclesial context, in which the divine love and communion are the means and outcome of transformation. In contrast to Rahner, von Balthasar grounds his exploration of deification in a love of the fathers of the Early Church. He sets out a somewhat idiosyncratic conceptualization of deification in his work Theologik III, Der Geist der Wahrheit.134 However, von Balthasar is perhaps more aware than other Catholic theologians of the architecture of deification in Orthodoxy. In his work on Maximos he demonstrates an understanding that God the Holy Trinity caused the expansion [diastole] and contraction [systole] of the cosmos that God may be all in all, bringing everything into unity with him135

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Rahner, K., Foundations of Christian Faith, An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1978), p. 121. LaCugna, C. M., God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), p. 284. von Balthasar, H. U., Theologik III, Der Geist der Wahrheit (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1987), 169ff. von Balthasar, H. U., Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe according to Maximus the Confessor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, [1988] 2003), p. 281.

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through the Hypostatic Union. It is against this background of rediscovery that Popes John Paul II (Karol Jozef Wojtyla, 1920–2005) and Benedict XVI (Joseph Alois Ratzinger) (1927–) have themselves explored the doctrine of deification in their official teaching. During his pontificate John Paul II appealed to the metaphors of adoption and filiation to express union with God and the unity of the Church, doing so from his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis (1979).136 David V. Meconi suggests that there are three elements in John Paul II’s teaching which demonstrate how his thought relates to the metaphor of deification.137 First, John Paul II appeals to the imago dei as the basis upon which divine grace effects union between the divine Creator and the human believer.138 Second, he expounds an understanding of how the persons of the Trinity share divine life within human persons. This is premised on the Incarnation of the Son, which allows human beings to become one with God.139 Third, John Paul holds that the sacraments are a means of deification, insofar as they extend the Incarnation throughout time. In Orientale Lumen (1995), commemorating the centenary of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Orientalium Dignitatis (1894) on the Eastern Churches, John Paul II wrote, In the Eucharist, the Church’s inner nature is revealed, a community of those summoned to the synaxis to celebrate the gift of the One who is offering and offered: participating in the Holy Mysteries, they become ‘kinsmen’ of Christ, anticipating the experience of divinization in the now inseparable bond linking divinity and humanity in Christ. (Orientale Lumen, section 10, 1995) In appealing to the phrase ‘kinsmen’ of Christ he referenced works of Nicholas Cabasilas, Cyril of Alexandria and John Chrysostom. This demonstrates that the Catholic Church’s interest in the language of deification arises in part from a desire to foster better ecumenical relations with the Orthodox. Throughout the work of John Paul II, it is possible to descry contours of the conceptuality of deification. His primary concern is with the understanding of the human person, but insofar as this anticipates the purpose and goal of human existence, John Paul II construed an understanding of divine–human communion which is radically ecclesial in its expression. Similar concerns are found in Benedict XVI’s work. In his first encyclical Deus Caritas est (2005) he wrote of human union with God, rooted in an

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John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis (1979), for example, sections 11 and 18. Meconi, D. V., ‘Deification in the Thought of John Paul II’, Irish Theological Quarterly, 71 (2006): 129. For example, John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, (1988) section 8. For example, John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater (1987) section 51.

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understanding of ‘mystical knowledge and experience’ (Deus Caritas est, section 10). Divine love evokes ‘the most intimate union with God, through which the soul is totally pervaded by him’ (section 41). But Benedict warns against understanding union as ‘mere fusion’ and argues that ‘it is a unity which creates love, a unity in which both God and man remain themselves and yet become fully one’ (section 10). He writes of a sacramental ‘mysticism’ (section 13), which gives expression to an ecclesial understanding of union. this sacramental ‘mysticism’ is social in character, for in sacramental communion I become one with the Lord, like all the other communicants. As Saint Paul says, ‘Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread’ (1 Cor 10:17). Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians. (Deus Caritas est, section 14) This ecclesial and ecumenical understanding of union with God in Christ, construed in relation to the Eucharist provides a vivid basis for crafting a doctrine of deification which expresses a collective outcome of the divine purposes of creating and redeeming. In this chapter, I have narrated the use of elements of the metaphor of deification in Western theological discourse across a wide variety of traditions. The usage is itself varied and often implicit, in the sense that the architecture of the metaphor is discernible even though the explicit terminology of deification is absent. The traditions of mystical theology and those who appeal to holiness and perfection present mystical or intimate union with God as the goal of human existence. The appeal to ‘partaking of the divine nature’ is a common strand across the different traditions. But some authors use the language of deification only once across the entire range of their (surviving) works. Other authors explicitly appeal to the metaphor in their earlier writings but not (so much) in their later writings. All of this makes it difficult to interpret their usage. My purpose is to re-receive and reclaim the usage of the metaphor in Western discourse and to build upon the appeal made by Anglican theologians since the Oxford Movement for the construal of deification in ecclesial and relational terms. This endeavour is shared and promoted by the Holiness and Pentecostal movements as well as in the writings of popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. And it is reiterated in particular in the writings of Zizioulas and Papanikolaou. In the concluding chapter, I will draw these different strands together in order to present a contemporary relational expression of the metaphor of deification.

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6 transformation and community

In this concluding chapter I will pursue the question: What does it mean to claim that believers participate in the divine nature (2 Peter 1.4), in the contemporary context? My context is the contemporary ‘West’, by which I mean a pluralist, ‘secularized’, consumerist context typified by the United Kingdom where I live and work and exercise ordained ministry in the Church of England. The context of late or postmodernity and of ‘late capitalism’ has been described and analysed by many scholars, and I do not intend to replicate such analysis here. I offer this construal of the doctrine of deification in a context where to acknowledge God explicitly is in itself to speak of something of which many people have little or no vocabulary by which to express their spiritual or ‘God’ experiences. So to speak of sharing in the nature or life of God, or even of becoming ‘god’, is perhaps doubly difficult. But to speak of deification is as much to ask about human nature and potential and experience as it is to ask about the transcendent. The doctrine of deification not only proclaims the transcendent and the divine purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos but also proclaims the absolute worth and wonder of that cosmos in general and of the human person in particular. The worth and wonder of the human person as construed in a doctrine of deification questions many of the values of the present day context and offers a different set of values and a challenging vision of the human person as a creature created in the ‘image and likeness of God’. This is not to forget about or to ignore the fall and its consequences for the human person. The doctrine of deification is not a denial of, or escape from, human sin and guilt, but it is an affirmation of what God’s initiative and grace calls the human person to, through the forgiveness of sin and the healing of guilt. The doctrine of deification proclaims a transformation of the person (and the cosmos) and does so in the context of community and through an appeal to the concept of communion. In constructing a doctrine of deification for the contemporary context I will be drawing upon the riches of the Tradition in order to point to key components which can be used in 171

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the construal of the metaphor of deification today. In earlier chapters I have highlighted the witness of the Tradition to a collective understanding of deification in terms of process and context. In this chapter I will focus on four themes which arise from the Tradition which seem to me to be useful in drawing up an architecture of the metaphor of deification for today. First, there is the methodology of ‘Mystical Theology’ with its appeal to the aesthetic of the believer’s experience. In classic Mystical Theology the experiences of the union of the believer with God are understood in terms of ‘unknowing’ and of ‘vision’ [theoˉria]. This is articulated in particular in the writings of Ps-Dionysius, who was, and remains, profoundly influential on the spiritual traditions of both ‘East’ and ‘West’. This approach may seem highly individualistic, but ‘Mystical Theology’ as much as any other ‘theology’ is an ecclesial endeavour which seeks to interpret and explicate the profound inner experiences of the believer in the context of the believing and worshipping community. For example, the hermit desert fathers and mothers were baptized Christians and members of a Eucharistic community. The appeal to experience is crucially important for the explication of the doctrine today. The life of prayer of the ‘ordinary’ believer and the reception of the gifts of the Holy Spirit as witnessed in the Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions, as much as the ‘ecstatic’ experience of Teresa of Avila, are examples of an experience of intimacy with God upon which deification is premised. Second, there is the concept of a dynamic participation in the life of the communion [koinoˉnia] of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. This was first articulated in the writings of Origen and rearticulated in the work of the Cappadocian fathers as a ‘horizontal’ rather ‘hierarchical’ set of relations. This provides the conceptuality for a relational understanding of the metaphor of deification. This brings me to the third element in the articulation of deification, which is ‘Sacramental Theology’. Zizioulas argues that the understanding of the Godhead in terms of koinoˉnia arises from reflection on the experience and praxis of the Church as a community which baptizes and celebrates the Eucharist.1 The sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist are the tangible moments in the life of the believer when she or he is ‘united’ with Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit and drawn into the life of communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Fourth, there is the lived reality of the believer as a disciple called to a virtuous life in Christ. The pursuit of the virtues is a key element in many patristic articulations of the metaphor of deification. Not only is this the calling and pursuit of the individual believer, it is also a collective responsibility which provides the basis for understanding the Church as a ‘virtuous community’2 and the 1

2

Zizioulas, J. D., Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and Church (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985), p. 17. See Mannion, G., Ecclesiology and Postmodernity: Questions for the Church in Our Time (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2007), pp. 192–236.

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possibility of ‘virtue ecclesiology’.3 I will relate this to the classical exposition of the virtues in relation to the collective context of the city [polis] and to re-reception of the Enlightenment concept of the ‘cosmopolis’ in late modernity.

The methodology of Mystical Theology An initial response to the inclusion of the methodology of ‘Mystical Theology’ in support of a collective understanding of deification might be one of surprise. Surely mystical experience and mysticism is the stuff of which LaCugna is rightly critical, with its tendency towards solipsism. I want to suggest that Mystical Theology properly understood is itself a bastion against such solipsistic understanding of mystical experience. The experiences of the union of the believer with God understood in terms of ‘unknowing’ and of ‘vision’ [theoˉria] provide an important contribution not only to theology in general but also to the doctrine of deification in particular. Mystical Theology provides a methodology, a framework for interpreting inner experiences, which allows those experiences to be expressed and received in the community of faith. This provides the basis for the democratization of experiences which might otherwise be perceived as individualistic and elitist; it firmly places those experiences within the context of the community of faith, as shared experiences, and as instances of the vocation to union with God to which all are called. Mystical Theology places experiences of union with God, the ascent of the soul to God, unknowing and the vision of God [theoˉria] with their consequent methodological implications in the arena of public theological discourse. How then is ‘inner’ or ‘mystical’ experience to be of use in constructing a doctrine of deification today? One of the first questions which a Mystical Theology raises concerns the makeup of a human being. In what does a human being consist? What are the components of a theological anthropology? This is often answered in terms of a simple dualism of body and spirit, but in terms of the developed theology of the patristic witness the answer is more complex. The complexity emerges from the influences of Greek philosophy, particularly Platonism, but this is also to be seen in the New Testament writings, where the person is understood in various texts to have a spirit, a soul and/or a mind. The idea that a person has a soul has itself been expressed in terms of many different understandings, including the pre-existence of the soul or its immortality. Such understandings it seems to me are matters entirely of speculation which are probably best avoided. The soul suggests an element of human reality which is independent in some sense of physical or fleshly reality and which points to the enduring reality 3

See Mannion, Ecclesiology, pp. 215–22.

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of the human individual beyond the present earthly existence. In the writings of the mystics the concept of the soul often plays a crucial role in seeking to find mastery over earthly passions. Generally speaking, the soul is understood to be created rather than uncreated but is also often associated with understandings of what it means for the human person to be created in the image and likeness of God. The claim that the person is more than just a ‘body’ is also expressed in the sophisticated appeal to ‘mind’ [nous]. In contemporary scientific and philosophical discourse ‘mind’ still eludes definition. Biologists and psychologists sense that ‘mind’ and the related notion of (self-)consciousness are not simply to be identified with the physical brain. In Mystical Theology the ‘mind’ [nous] is sometimes seen as the equivalent of the soul or is a nuanced addition to or refinement of the understanding of the soul. Mind [nous] implies something about understanding, perceiving and intelligence. Within the methods of Mystical Theology it suggests something about the potential for intimacy with God. The mind may even be seen as the divine likeness or a divine or uncreated element within the human person. But rather than confirming the divine image and likeness straightforwardly in terms of rationality, the concept of ‘unknowing’ suggests that ‘mind’ [nous] is about transcending the norms and the limits of rationality. It is perhaps here that the tradition of Mystical Theology is closest to Michel Foucault’s valuation of mystical experience, as subversive of (political) norms.4 The questions of theological anthropology which Mystical Theology brings to the construal of the metaphor of deification relate fundamentally to how inner human experience is to be received and shared in the wider community and particularly in the worshipping community of the Church. The experience of the mystics is often expressed in terms of union (of the soul) with God and/or ascent of the soul to God. The conceptualization of these experiences and processes varies not only between the traditions of the East and the West but also within those traditions. Both of these metaphors express spiritual aspiration and a sense of the human contribution to the process of acquiring intimacy with the divine, without of course precluding the divine initiative and grace involved in achieving such intimacy. On the face of it, these metaphors present a very positive and realist expression of the potential for and process towards human intimacy with the divine. They represent a cataphatic form of expression in Mystical Theology. But the content of these experiences is usually qualified by appeal to apophatic forms of expression such as ‘unknowing’ and the qualified understanding of ‘vision’ [theoˉria]. This duality in the forms of expression and of methodology in Mystical Theology also informs the construal of the metaphor of deification. The conceptuality of ‘unknowing’ is taken as fundamental to the

4

Foucault, M., Les mots et les choses (Paris: Gallimard, 1966); The Order of Things (London: Tavistock Publications, 1970).

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expression of mystical prayer and union with God, as is witnessed in the classic English mystical work, The Cloud of Unknowing. At this juncture it is important to register that there are instances of theological discourse where mystical experience is peripheral to or excluded as a source of theological reflection and where the conceptuality of ‘unknowing’ is itself seen as highly problematic, if not irrelevant. Karl Barth is an example of a theologian who deliberately rejects any understanding of revelation as an anthropological phenomenon rooted in the conscience of the individual and adopts an understanding of God as the ‘Subject’ of revelation. Barth construes his doctrine of revelation as divine self-revelation in his conceptualization of the doctrine of the Trinity.5 The form of revelation in the Church Dogmatics is construed around the notion of ‘unveiling’ (Enthuellung). Barth argues that ‘Revelation, revelatio, a)poka/ luyij, means the unveiling of what is veiled. If this is meant strictly and properly, then all that is distinct from revelation is concealment, the hiddenness of the veiled.’6 The notion of unveiling is further defined as self-unveiling (Selbstenthuellung)7 and as an act of sovereign divine freedom, rather than an unveiling initiated by the human subject. This is an expression of Barth’s cataphatic approach, which contrasts with the anagogic methodology of Schleiermacher and Troeltsch. The divine act of self-unveiling has a further function in relation to Luther’s understanding that behind the Deus revelatus [revealed God] there remained a Deus absconditus [hidden God]. This is rejected in the notion of divine self-unveiling, in which God is said to reveal himself as such. However, the notion of unveiling is complemented by the notion of veiling. Barth juxtaposes veiling and unveiling in a paradoxical claim that revelation is both.8 This paradox rests on the understanding that the God who reveals himself is the same God ‘who by nature cannot be unveiled to men. . . .’9 The concept of the hidden, unveiled God10 may seem perilously close to the concept of the Deus absconditus. However, the notion of the hiddenness of God rests upon the claim that God is unknowable without the assistance of grace and the knowledge of faith. For the human subject without faith, God remains hidden and inapprehensible (unerfasslich),11 and even in revelation God is known to faith ‘in his hiddenness’.12 Barth also

5

6

7 8 9 10 11 12

Barth, K., Göttingen Dogmatics, vol. 1 (1925), (Grand Rapids, MI: 1991), see section 5, pp. 87–109. Barth, K., Church Dogmatics [CD] (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936–69), 1.1, pp. 118–19. Barth, CD, 1.1, p. 315. For example, Barth, CD, 1.1, p. 175. Barth, CD, 1.1, p. 315. Barth, CD, 2.1 § 27.1. Barth, CD, 2.1, p. 187. Barth, CD, 2.1194.

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accepts that the God, who reveals himself, always remains a mystery.13 His understanding of the divine mystery may be different from the apophatic approach of the patristic witness, but it is parallel with that approach. Barth’s concept that the divine self-revelation is not only an unveiling but also a veiling suggests an epistemic reticence despite his cataphatic approach. The appeal to ‘unknowing’ in Mystical Theology is not to be confused with what Barth might call ‘the hiddenness of the veiled’; rather it is an attempt to express the outcome of an experience of intimacy and union with the divine in terms of what is ‘understood’ or ‘known’ of God. The language of ‘unknowing’ is not an attempt at ‘mystification’ or an attempt to locate revelation in the conscience of the individual; rather it is an attempt to communicate profound inner human experience in a way that recognizes God is ultimately a mystery who may be encountered in prayer and in the other means of grace. The language of ‘unknowing’ is a recognition of the need for epistemic reticence rather than extravagance in making claims about intimacy with God. Such epistemic reticence is also methodologically important in the construal of the expression of the form and content of deification. This is particularly the case when deification is premised on the basis of mystical prayer and experience or the reception of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The conceptuality of ‘vision’ [theoˉria] in Mystical Theology is a further example of epistemic reticence. Ps-Dionysius in the Mystical Theology claims that ‘to see’ God is to experience darkness, silence and unknowing. The vision of God is expressed in terms of a silence and a darkness which in some sense is light and vision. The contemplation and vision of God construed in this sense is understood not only to produce union with God but also to produce in the one contemplating what she contemplates, in other words deification.14 The ‘vision’ of God produces a new understanding of knowing and of the intellect which may be understood in terms of a theandric Christology and the experience of Transfiguration. The practice and experience of theoˉria as expressed by the mystics may seem very removed from everyday life. Yet mystical union and the transformation to which it refers is surely the calling of all believers, indeed of all human persons. St Paul expresses this calling: ‘And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed [transfigured] into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit’ (2 Corinthians 3.18). This calling and process of transformation is understood by Tamara Grdelidze in terms of an existential change in which human beings experience a deep repentance for their fallen state and spiritually, in prayer and devotion, advance towards new life in Christ. 13 14

Barth, CD, 1.1, pp. 321 and 324. Plato, Timaeus, 90bd; Origen, Commentary on John, 32.27.

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Conversion to the Christian faith is a lifelong companionship with Christ; human beings are converted progressively from one stage of faith to another.15 Mystical experience is one expression of the process of transformation to which all are called; it is a reminder that the outcome of salvation is nothing less than the vision of God, a vision in which the believer is transformed and deified. Sophrony recalls that ‘Contemplation is a matter, not of verbal statements but of living experience. In pure prayer the Father, Son and Spirit are seen in their consubstantial unity.’16 The mystic or visionary recalls the Church to its focus on the triune God, and each believer to a collective understanding of salvation expressed in the metaphor of deification in terms of an unknowing and vision which enters into the mystery of the divine communion.

Dynamic participation The concept of a dynamic participation in the communion [koinoˉnia] of the Persons of the Holy Trinity is the key element in the construal of a relational expression of the metaphor (and process) of deification. The articulation of a dynamic participation in the life of the Trinity in the works of Origen means that to some extent this conceptualization has been suspect. However, the reworking of Origen’s conceptuality in the writings of the Cappadocian fathers, now re-received in the work of John Zizioulas, provides a crucial basis for understanding not only personhood and the Godhead but also the ‘participation’ implied in deification.17 I will explore three core components in seeking to construe an understanding of ‘dynamic participation’ in the ‘divine nature’. First, I will examine how the divine–human relationship may be construed in the light of understandings of the creation and fall. Second, I will explore how a theandric understanding of the Person of Christ, when construed in terms of a Chalcedonian notion of the Hypostatic Union, may be viewed as the premise upon which concepts of divine–human and intra-divine relationality may be drawn together in the metaphor of deification. This will include an exploration of the relationship between the divine and human in Christ in terms of perichoˉrēsis and synergy, which is

15

16

17

Grdelidze, T., ‘“God, in Your Grace, Transform the World”: Bible Study on 2 Corinthians 3:18’, Ecumenical Review, July (2004). Archimandrite Sophrony: His Life Is Mine (Oxford: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977). See Papanikolaou, A., ‘Divine Energies or Divine Personhood: Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas on Conceiving the Transcendent and Immanent God’, Modern Theology, 19(3) (2003): 377–8.

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the premise upon which deification of the believer is construed. A theandric Christology is also the wellspring for a collective understanding of deification, expressed in the context of the Church, the Body of Christ. Finally, I will examine understandings of the Godhead and the three divine Persons in terms of koinoˉnia as the basis for a conceptual framework on which a collective understanding of the metaphor of deification may be constructed. Understandings of the divine–human relationship in the light of the creation and fall vary significantly within the Christian Tradition. For some there is an unbridgeable difference or ‘abyss’ between the Creator God and the created human person. This difference is further exacerbated by the ‘Fall’. Marilyn McCord Adams and Kathryn Tanner have both called such understandings into question. McCord Adams suggests that the ‘size gap’ between the divine and the human has been premised on social analogies. In these God is conceived as king, patron, husband or parent, and human beings as subject, client, wife or child. While projecting human social systems onto the divine–human relationship may have advantages, it is also flawed ‘because God is too big to squeeze into social roles of human devising.’18 Kathryn Tanner has argued that theological discourse has often suggested a false dichotomy between the divine and the human, which is long overdue recognition and can be overcome through a rereading of Chalcedon which does not polarize divine over against human. 19 The reconstrual of divine–human relations on a paradigm which is not ‘competitive’ is fundamental to any crafting of the metaphor of deification. The consequences of the ‘Fall’ premised on the narrative in Genesis 3 are seen by most, if not all, Christians in terms of a disconnection from God, which also disconnects human beings from each other, resulting in a disruption and disharmony in the creation. There is a consensus that the ‘Fall’ is not part of the divine intentions for the cosmos or the human creature but that, as a consequence of the Fall, God responds to this changed situation. God’s response is manifested in the Incarnation, the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ. The patristic witness suggests that the Incarnation is a reversal of the Fall. Some writers argue that the Incarnation was part of God’s original plan in creating the universe. In this tradition the divine intention to become incarnate as a human person also becomes a remedy for the consequences of the Fall.20 The incarnation of the Logos becomes the means of the recapitulation of the fate and calling of Adam, and the restoration of the divine image 18

19

20

McCord Adams, M., ‘Face to Faith: The “Size Gap” between God and Man Invariably Leads Us to Create Systemic Evils’, The Guardian, Saturday 16 May 2009. Tanner, K., Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2001), for example, chapter 1, ‘Jesus’. See Nellas, P., Deification in Christ: The Nature of the Human Person (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987), pp. 54–60 and 81–5; Maximos the Confessor, Ambigua, PG 91, 1308D.

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and likeness in humanity. In this tradition of patristic witness the process of the appropriation of recapitulation, restoration and deification rests upon a paradigm of divine–human exchange or reciprocity.21 This is founded upon an understanding of the Hypostatic Union.22 The reciprocity between the divine and the human in the hypostasis of Christ is the paradigm for a general reciprocity between God and humankind, which is also expressed through the notion of perichoˉrēsis. The possibility of an inherent divine– human reciprocity is also understood in relation to understandings of the imago dei23 and of the freedom of the human will to be able to respond to God, without being annihilated in the resultant exchange.24 This possibility is described in terms of ‘synergy’. The divine–human relationality has also been premised on the idea that the imago dei may be understood as imago trinitatis.25 Catherine Mowry LaCugna raises a number of concerns with regard to an Augustinian understanding of the human subject as imago trinitatis. She warns against understanding the human person in terms of a soul which ‘images God, and . . . returns to and is united with God by a process of inwardness and self-reflection’.26 Rather she suggests that human and divine natures should be understood in relation to the person of Jesus Christ.27 In a comparable understanding Barth suggests that the relationship between the divine and the human be understood in terms of an analogia relationis.28 LaCugna’s appeal to Christology as an antidote to the soul’s solipsistic self-reflection suggests that the hypostatic relation of the two natures in Christ is the premise for a much more corporate and collective understanding of the outcome of salvation in deification. A ‘theandric’ understanding of the Person of Christ is the basis for such a collective understanding of deification premised on the Hypostatic Union. By following this approach it is possible to avoid imposing a social or collective understanding on the doctrine of deification as an external demand. Rather a collective conceptualization of deification is constructed upon the corporateness of the Incarnate Lord, in terms of the metaphor of the Body of Christ and the communion of

21 22

23

24

25 26

27 28

Maximos the Confessor, Ambigua 10, PG 91, 1113B. See von Balthasar, H. U., Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe according to Maximus the Confessor (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2003), p. 125. See Thunberg, L., Man and the Cosmos: The Vision of St Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), pp. 54–5. Maximos the Confessor, Centuries on Theology and the Incarnation, II.83 PG 90, 1164AB; also Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, pp. 62–3. Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, p. 47. LaCugna, C. M., God for Us: The Trinity and the Christian Life (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), p. 103. LaCugna, God for Us, p. 293. Barth, K., CD, 3.2, pp .218–22.

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the triune Godhead. The classic expression of the doctrine of theoˉsis in the writings of Maximos the Confessor is premised on a ‘theandric’ Christology. Maximos argues that the divine purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos are focused in the Hypostatic Union of the Logos with human nature, before the creation, as the foundation and goal of the cosmos.29 The Hypostatic Union of the divine and human in Christ produces the goal of the deification for humankind. A theandric Christology is also construed around the notion of the perichoˉrēsis, interpenetration or mutual indwelling of the two natures in Christ. This is a strict interpretation of (neo-) Chalcedonian orthodoxy which avoids a synthetic understanding of the person and natures of Christ and is extended into the understanding of the process and outcome of deification in general. A perichoretic understanding not only avoids a synthesis of the two natures in Christ but also of the wills and energies in Christ.30 Thus, the process of deification in the human person can be said to bring about a perfect coherence with God, without any change of nature, will or energy.31 This is faithful to the four adverbs of the Chalcedonian statement, in which the two natures in Christ are ‘to be acknowledged . . . without confusion, without change, without division, without separation’. In Maximos’ writings the process of participation in God is characterized by causality and intentionality. Based upon his construal of the Hypostatic Union the process of deification achieves an intentional communion between God and the human person. The process of deification, which is achieved through grace and issues in love, does not abolish the difference between divine and human nature, will or energy. Through the mutual intentionality of God and the human person grace renders human freedom capable of entering into a dynamic, perichoretic relation with the goodness of God.32 On this basis, the language of ‘synergy’ is consistent with the paradigm of the Hypostatic Union. In Christ the natural operations of the human and divine enter into a perichoretic exchange, and the human will is reestablished in communion with the divine will, in synergy.33 It is this synergy of communion manifest in Christ which is set before humankind as its vocation and salvation in the fulfilment of love. It is my understanding that this synergy of communion or, as Thunberg expresses it, this ‘energetic communion’, may also be related to the divine koinoˉnia, and by extension, to the

29

30 31

32 33

Maximos the Confessor, Ambigua 7, PG 91, 1080C, 1084C, 1097BD; Quaestiones ad Thalassium, 60, PG 90, 621B. Maximos the Confessor, Opuscula 7, PG 91, 88A. See Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, p. 17; Maximos the Confessor, Opuscula 7, PG 91, 81A. Maximos the Confessor, Epistle 2, PG 91, 401 D. See Maximus’ exposition of the events in the Garden of Gethsemane. For example, Opuscula 3, PG 91, 48D–49A.

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perichoretic relations of the divine hypostases of that communion. This would still be understood in terms of the qualifications of causality and intentionality. Participation in the divine nature is not unqualified and is not absorption into the perichoˉrēsis of the Holy Trinity. But it may justifiably be characterized as an ‘energetic communion’, within the Hypostatic Union of Christ and the perichoˉ rēsis of the three divine hypostases. The promise and actuality of enhypostatized filial adoption in Christ is imprinted on human nature by the Holy Spirit.34 The believer is conformed to that same synergy of wills and enters into the communion of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.35 In order to craft a conceptual framework for this collective shaping of the metaphor of deification in terms of an ‘energetic communion’,36 I will use the category of koinoˉnia which has become a sine qua non of much trinitarian theology and ecclesiology. Constance J. Tarasar has argued that the discussion of ‘communion’ is not only a discourse of categories and concepts but is also a discourse about a theological understanding of life.37 She suggests that to be in communion with God is to be in a relationship of love with God, with fellow human beings and with the whole of creation.38 In other words, she points to the collective implications of ‘being in communion’ which are both intimate and cosmic at the same time. Zizioulas has argued that the use of the category of communion was introduced into theological discourse in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus and Athanasius, who as bishops approached the being of God through the experience of the ecclesial community, of ecclesial being. This experience revealed something very important: the being of God could be known only through personal relationships and personal love. Being means life, and life means communion.39(emphases in original) Zizioulas argues that from their reflection on the Eucharistic experience of the Church, Athanasius and the Cappadocian fathers were able to develop an ontological understanding of communion. They formulated a concept of the being of God as a relational being, which was expressed in their use of

34 35

36 37

38 39

Maximos the Confessor, Orationis Dominicae, PG 90, 905 D. See the passage on the Baptism of Christ, Maximos the Confessor, Ambigua, PG 91, 135D– 1349A. Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, p. 143. Tarasar, C. J., ‘Worship, Spirituality and Biblical Reflection: Their Significance for the Churches’ Search for Koinoia’, Ecumenical Review, 45(2) (1993): 219. Tarasar, ‘Worship, Spirituality and Biblical Reflection’, p. 220. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, p. 16.

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the terminology of communion. This communion was understood in terms of God’s inherent reality as Trinity. In his discussion of the conceptuality of koinoˉnia, Zizioulas appeals to the concept of an event of communion40 to denote the dynamic quality of the communion and freedom of the Godhead, which he understands, finds expression in a mutually constituted communion of the three divine persons. The concept of event is used to explicate the dynamic quality of the relational ontology of koinoˉnia. Such conceptualization of the divine being provides a framework for the appeal to a collective understanding of the metaphor and process of deification in the present day. George Pattison reflects on the outcome of a relational understanding of deification. He argues that ‘Theosis does not mean that we get a new essence or substance, that we stop being human beings or get an injection of “Goodness.” It means that in our most decisive personal being we come to know ourselves as we are in and through the relation to the personal God.’41 He also suggests a relational understanding of human personhood mirrors perichoˉrēsis ‘in its own deepest reaches, (which) expresses or opens out into that same inner divine conversation’. Pattison suggests ‘conversation’ is a way of understanding the inner divine communion. He goes on to write To come to know who we truly are is to come to know ourselves as we are in and as participants in the divine conversation, and, as partakers in that conversation, finding ourselves being partakers of the divine way of being, namely this being-as-conversation itself.42 This dynamic participation is no mere sharing in a divine essence rather ‘we become in our human way divine.’ 43

Sacraments as symbols of deification One of the commonest features in the patristic witness to deification is an appeal to the sacraments as an example, perhaps the example of being ‘in Christ’ and of being filled with the Holy Spirit. The sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist in particular are seen as means of participating in the life of communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The sacraments are a sine qua non of an architecture of a collective construal of the metaphor of deification, for they are the expression not only of each person’s being ‘in Christ’ but also of incorporation into the Body of Christ, the Church. The claim to

40 41 42 43

Zizioulas, Being as Communion, p. 17. Pattison, G., A Short Course in Christian Doctrine (London: SCM Press, 2005), p. 40. Pattison, A Short Course in Christian Doctrine, p. 40. Pattison, A Short Course in Christian Doctrine, p. 41.

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understand the Godhead in terms of koinoˉnia arises from reflection on the experience and praxis of the Church as a community which baptizes and celebrates the Eucharist. It is the participation of the Church in the divine Trinitarian communion which is the premise for the believer’s participation in the divine life. In this sense, the sacraments function in a way parallel with what the ancient world understood as ‘theurgy’. Theurgy relates to ritual practice aimed at invoking the divine presence, in order to achieve union with the divine. Christian sacraments are understood as instances of the divine initiative and of divine grace rather than as examples of ritual ‘incantation’. Nonetheless, the Christian sacraments fulfil the role of theurgy in pagan equivalents of theoˉsis. For example, the celebration of the sacraments of Baptism44 and Eucharist45 are central to the process of deification as envisaged in the works of Maximos the Confessor. A sacramental encounter with the theandric Christ is an instance of the exchange formula being symbolically enacted, so that as the Word who became human is encountered, the human believer by sharing in the material elements ‘becomes divine’. The sacrament of Baptism is a sharing in and incorporation into Christ’s death and resurrection as expounded in Romans 6, and a spiritual rebirth in John 3. The language of the prayer of thanksgiving following water Baptism in the Book of Common Prayer (1662) rite uses many concepts and phrases which are part of the architecture of the metaphor of deification: We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this Infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own Child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy Church. And humbly we beseech thee to grant, that he, being dead unto sin, and living unto righteousness, and being buried with Christ in his death, may crucify the old man, and utterly abolish the whole body of sin; and that, as he is made partaker of the death of thy Son, he may also be partaker of his resurrection; so that finally, with the residue of thy holy Church, he may be an inheritor of thine everlasting kingdom; through Christ our Lord. Amen. (The Ministration of Publick Baptism of Infants BCP 1662) The prayer does not use the language of participating in the divine life explicitly, but its reference to adoption and incorporation, regeneration and abolishing ‘the whole body of sin’, as well as dying and rising with Christ demonstrates the classic elements of what it means to share in the divine life. Baptism is seen as the appropriation of Christ’s recapitulation of the

44 45

Maximos the Confessor, Ambigua, PG 91, 1348 BD. Maximos the Confessor, Orationis Domincae 2, PG 90, 877C.

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outcome of the Fall, which enables the recipient to be liberated from earthly passions, by experiencing conversion, faith and grace. This sets the believer on the path of self-discipline and love of neighbour and the pursuit of the virtues. Teilhard de Chardin in Le Milieu Divin writes of divinization of the believer in terms of human ‘activities’ and ‘passivities’,46 which is premised on his understanding of ‘Holy Matter’.47 He connects the celebration of the sacraments and the sacramental elements themselves with the divine purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos. The Baptism of Christ is seen as a moment when God’s salvific purposes effect a transformation of the whole creation, ‘as he emerges (from the river Jordan), in the words of St Gregory of Nyssa, with the water which runs off his body he elevates the whole world.’48 This establishes a direct relationship between deification, its context and the transformation of that context itself. The sacrament of Eucharist is understood to be a communion in body and blood of Christ in the light of the passage in 1 Corinthians 10. The words of the Prayer of Humble Access echo the idea of communion in 1 Corinthians and explicitly pray for the mutual indwelling of Christ and the communicant: grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. (The Order of the Administration of the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion, BCP 1662) The Prayer of Thanksgiving following reception of Holy Communion in the 1662 rite clearly articulates the consequences of receiving the sacrament in collective terms in relation to the Body of Christ: we most heartily thank thee, for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ; and dost assure us thereby . . . that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people. (The Order of the Administration of the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion, BCP 1662)

46

47 48

de Chardin, P. T., Le Milieu Divin (London: William Collins & Sons, 1960; published in French, 1957; written 1927), see parts 1 and 2. de Chardin, Le Milieu Divin, p. 106. de Chardin, Le Milieu Divin, p. 110.

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These texts from the rites of the Anglican Reformation demonstrate clearly the architecture of a collective understanding of the outcomes of the sacraments, and I would argue of the classic elements of the metaphor of deification, without explicitly using its terminology. The reception of Holy Communion in the Eucharist is the instantiation of fellowship [koinoˉnia] with God the Holy Trinity and with fellow believers in Christ. The Eucharist is a gathering [synaxis] of the Body of Christ, in which communicants receive what they are and will become ‘the Body of Christ’. The reception of Holy Communion can be seen as an end in itself, but it is also a means to an end, whereby the Church is a ‘being-in-Christ’ expressed and renewed in the synaxis of the Eucharist and entered by Baptism. Constance Tarasar argues that the koinoˉnia of the Church is not ‘occasional’. The Body of Christ is the metaphor for an organic relationship (e.g. Vine), and Baptism and Eucharist renew that being-in-relationship as members-in-Christ.49 The process of deification of the individual believer is set in this context of organic relationship, which God the Holy Trinity creates and sustains through the sacraments in order to bring all (believers) to a sharing in the divine communion and life. In the construal of a collective understanding of the metaphor of deification, the question emerges as to what purpose, if any, the collective context may have beyond the appropriation of salvation by the individual. Ion Bria clearly identifies the celebration of the sacraments with the divine purposes, ‘The ecclesial koinonia is indeed constituted by the participation of the baptized in the eucharistic communion, the sacramental actualization of the economy of salvation, a living reality which belongs both to history and to eschatology.’50 But Bria is very conscious that this can seem self-serving and inward looking; he offers a clear critique of such a stance and argues that the collective context of deification is not an end in itself but is an expression of the divine purposes for the whole of the human creation and indeed of the cosmos. He writes that the Liturgy is not a self-centred service and action, but is a service for the building of the one Body of Christ within the economy of salvation which is for all people of all ages. The liturgical assembly is the Father’s House, where the invitation to the banquet of the heavenly bread is constantly voiced and addressed not only to the members of the Church, but also to the non-Christians and strangers.51 The celebration of the sacraments in the collective context of the Church sets the process of deification in relation to the Church’s participation in 49 50

51

Tarasar, ‘Worship, Spirituality and Biblical Reflection’, p. 221. Bria, I., Liturgy after the Liturgy (Précis) http://www.rondtb.msk.ru/info/en/Bria_en. htm (accessed on 24 July 2009). Bria, Liturgy after the Liturgy.

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God’s mission [missio dei] in the world. The calling to deification, and the processes of being deified are not esoteric or elitist but are part of the Church’s witness to the purpose and value of human life and of God’s purposes in calling all things into existence so that God may become ‘all in all’. (1 Corinthians 15.28; Ephesians 1.23) A further question emerges in relation to this construal of the process of deification in the light of a theandric Christology and that is the question of whether the Incarnation is ‘extended’ in some sense in the life of the Church and the celebration of the sacraments. If the Church itself is understood as a ‘theandric reality’ does this mean that it must be understood as an extension of the Incarnation of the Logos in the present? Thomas Hopko provides a lucid statement of a theandric understanding of ecclesiology and suggests that this is in effect an extension of the Incarnation. He writes that the Church is the divine presence of the Kingdom of God in human forms on earth, the mystery of the fullness of the divine being and life, truth and love, dwelling in the community of human persons headed by Christ and animated by His Spirit, the community which is dogmatically and spiritually identical and continuous as the gracious incarnation in men of all the fullness of divinity, and whose essential content and form is sacramental and mystical.52 Such understandings of the Church are fiercely contested by those who see such claims as ignoring the broken and often ‘sinful’ reality of the life of the Church. Many would wish to express the distance between the reality of the present-day Church and that of the coming Kingdom much more. In seeking to construe a collective understanding of the metaphor of deification it is possible to hold together a theandric ecclesiology, premised on a theandric Christology while also acknowledging the brokenness of the Church’s existence in the present. This mirrors the process of deification of the individual which is not achieved all at once and which probably entails numerous times of regression and stumbling along the way. De Chardin suggests a particular understanding of the relationship between the individual, the community of the Eucharist and the Incarnation. He argues that in reality there is only one Mass and one communion, which is celebrated in each Eucharist; on this basis, he argues that the Incarnation is realized in each individual through the Eucharist.53 As the communicant assimilates the material world in the

52

53

Hopko, T., ‘Catholicity and Ecumenism’, in All the Fullness of God: Essays on Orthodoxy, Ecumenism and Modern Society (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1982), p. 103. de Chardin, Le Milieu Divin, p. 124.

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bread of the Eucharist, the ‘Host’ assimilates humanity: ‘the Eucharistic bread is not consumed by me, but rather it consumes me . . . the Eucharist must invade my life.’54 So the Eucharistic transformation goes beyond and completes the transubstantiation of bread on the altar, and the Eucharist ‘invades the universe’.55 De Chardin expresses the outcome of this exchange in the sacraments as a deification of the human subject which includes the deification of the world: My life must become, as a result of the sacrament, an unlimited and endless contact with you – that life which seemed . . . like a baptism with you in the waters of the world, now reveals itself to me as communion with you through the world.56 There is another aspect of the construal of the process of deification in relation to the sacraments which is the cosmic and ecological implications of the divine desire to be ‘all in all’. Bria recognizes that There is a double movement in the Liturgy: on the one hand, the assembling of the people of God to perform the memorial of the death and resurrection of our Lord ‘until He comes again’. It also manifests and realizes the process by which ‘the cosmos is becoming ecclesia’. Therefore the preparation for Liturgy takes place not only at the personal spiritual level, but also at the level of human historical and natural realities.57 The collective context of deification is itself caught up in the divine purposes of creating and redeeming, of which the human subject of deification is herself a ‘microcosm’.58 Participation in the material elements of the sacraments is not only a means of sharing in the divine life but also demonstrates that the whole cosmos is the subject of God’s love and calling into transformation. ‘For God so loved the world [cosmos] that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life’ (John 3.16). The present ecological crisis is a challenge to recognize that salvation as understood in terms of deification concerns not only the fate of

54 55 56 57 58

de Chardin, Le Milieu Divin, p. 126. de Chardin, Le Milieu Divin, p. 125. de Chardin, Le Milieu Divin, pp. 126–7. Bria, Liturgy after the Liturgy. For example, Maximos the Confessor, Quaestiones ad Thalassium 60, 73–5; John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa, book 1, p. 12; Thornton, L. S., The Incarnate Lord (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1928), p. 255; and Thunberg, L., Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor (Lund: Gleerup, 1965).

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humankind but the entire created order. The reception of the sacraments entails not only personal transformation but also a responsibility to value the non-human creation and to seek its transformation: The mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God has inaugurated the hope that the time will come for all creatures, including those who now are subject to sin, to be restored to their original form and thus ‘a harmony of thanksgiving will arise from all creation.’59

The practice of the Virtues The calling of each Christian disciple is to a virtuous life in Christ. In the classic statement of deification the ascetic following and development of the Virtues60 is pursued towards participation in the divine communion of love. This is not only an individual calling but is also a collective responsibility which leads to an understanding of the Church as a ‘virtuous community’61 and to the possibility of ‘virtue ecclesiology’.62 This is a crucial element in authentic testimony to Jesus Christ in the world today. The Church as Eucharistic Community is sent into the world to confess the Gospel and to be involved in the struggle for human dignity and liberation. It is in this context as much as in relation to the quest for personal spiritual growth that the disciple is called to live out the Virtues. The tradition of the virtues is found in the Scriptures as well as in Greek philosophy. In addition to the three great theological virtues of faith, hope and love (1 Corinthians 13.13), in the letter to the Galatians St Paul designates a list of the fruits of the Holy Spirit which may be understood as ‘virtues’, which are related to an ascetic of ‘crucifying the passions’: By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. (Galatians 5.22–5)

59

60

61 62

Grdelidze, ‘God, in your grace’, quotation from Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism, in Nicean and Post-Nicene Fathers of Christian Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), p. 494. For example, Maximos the Confessor, Ambigua, PG 91, 1249C; Epistle 2, PG 91, 393B & 401; Centuries on Theology and the Incarnation, II.95 PG 90, 1169D–1172A; Mystagogia 5, PG 91, 677B. For example, Mannion, Ecclesiology, pp.183–4. For example, Mannion, Ecclesiology, p.192.

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Aristotle records a list of virtues, which are seen as a middle way between the extremes of being overconcerned or not concerned enough with the pursuit of the virtuous life: courage, temperance, liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, proper ambition/pride, patience/good temper, truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness, modesty, righteous indignation.63 The virtues are pursued in the quest for eudaimonia which can be translated as ‘well-being’, ‘happiness’ or ‘blessedness’. The term has been taken up in the context of virtue ethics and is often understood in terms of ‘human flourishing’.64 In classical philosophy eudaimonia is understood to characterize the well-lived life, irrespective of the emotional state of the person experiencing it. In this sense the outcome of living the virtues is seen in terms of objectivity rather than subjectivity. The pursuit of eudaimonia by the human person consists in exercising the quality of reason, which is the soul’s proper activity. Like Plato before him, Aristotle argued that eudaimonia was an activity that could only properly be exercised in a collective context, that is, the polis or city-state. In virtue theory eudaimonia describes that goal achieved by the person who lives a proper human life, an outcome which can be reached by practising the virtues. In this understanding a virtue is a habit or quality which brings success in relation to a desired goal or activity. For example, the virtue of a knife is its sharpness, while for a racehorse its virtue would be speed. In order to identify virtues for human beings, it is necessary to give an account of human purpose. There is, however, little agreement about this. In After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre observed that while thinkers such as Homer, Aristotle, the authors of the New Testament, Thomas Aquinas and Benjamin Franklin have all proposed lists of the virtues, these lists do not often overlap.65 From this philosophical understanding of the virtues two areas emerge which inform the construal of a collective and relational understanding of the metaphor of deification: first, the question of purpose in relation to ‘human flourishing’, and second, the context in which such flourishing is envisaged, that is, the polis. The conceptuality of deification itself provides an understanding of ‘human purpose’, in the pursuit of the virtues which produce human flourishing. This flourishing is conceived as a perichoretic and synergistic participation in the divine communion of love. Contemporary theories of communication reinforce the quest to situate this pursuit of the virtues and human flourishing within a collective context. Indeed they call the Church beyond the confines of confessional identity into dialogue

63 64

65

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book II, p. 7. For example, Pojman, L. P., and Fieser, J., Virtue Theory in Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2009), pp. 146–69. MacIntyre, A., After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (London: Duckworth, 1985), p. 181.

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and life within the ‘polis’ and what Enlightenment philosophers have understood as the ‘cosmopolis’. The concept of a virtuous community is something which has been explored in depth in contemporary philosophical and theological discourse, by writers such MacIntyre, Hauerwas and Adams.66 This provides a basis for ‘Virtue Ecclesiology’ which Gerard Mannion has proposed in his work Ecclesiology and Postmodernity.67 As a ‘virtuous community’ the Church aspires to be an embodiment of love (caritas), of the very being of God. This corresponds to a theandric understanding of ecclesiology and provides a framework for understanding the Church as a collective context of deification. Such construals of ecclesiology need to bear in mind the challenge to relate to the broader context of the world (cosmos) itself. In order to attempt to relate the concept of a virtue ecclesiology to the contemporary context, I will explore the possibility of appealing to contemporary understandings of the city [polis] and to the re-reception of the Enlightenment concept of the ‘cosmopolis’ in late modernity. Leonardo Boff provides a theological basis for such an endeavour when he argues: Here are the Trinitarian roots of a Christian commitment to the transformation of society; we seek to change society because we see, in faith, that the supreme reality is the prototype of all other things, and that this supreme reality is the absolute communion of three distinct realities, each of equal dignity, with equal love and full reciprocal communion of love and life. Furthermore, we wish our society, our visible reality, to be able to speak to us of the Trinity through egalitarian and communitarian organization, and thus afford us an experience of the three divine persons.68 There has been a strong critique of the Trinitarian premise for social concern. Scholars have argued that this is to project human political ideals onto the Godhead.69 But Mannion argues that the approach of Boff and others is not projection: ‘For, as we shall see, this is not so much to project human ideals onto our understanding of God, but rather to enable the church to strive, however imperfectly, to be both sign and mediator of that perfect community of love.’70 66

67 68 69

70

For example, MacIntyre, A., After Virtue; Hauerwas, S., A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981); Adams, R. M., Finite and Infinite Goods (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Mannion, Ecclesiology, p. 215. Boff, L., ‘Trinity’ in Sobrino and Ellacuria (eds), Systematic Theology, pp. 77–8. For example, Kilby, K., ‘Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with Social Doctrines of the Trinity’, New Blackfriars (October, 2000): 432–45. Mannion, Ecclesiology, p. 185.

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The shape and content of a ‘virtue ecclesiology’ might be structured around an appeal to an ethically based understanding of community such as that found in MacIntryre’s After Virtue and to such notions as ‘A Community of Character’ in the work of Stanley Hauerwas.71 The concept of the Church as a ‘moral community’ has also been addressed by the Faith and Order Commission and the Justice, Peace and Creation team of the World Council of Churches in a series of documents on Ecclesiology and Ethics.72 And there has been discussion of the Church as a ‘school of virtue’.73 All of these contribute to the possibility of a virtue ecclesiology. Alongside such understandings, I want to draw on Jürgen Habermas’ concept of ideal speech communities. This conceptuality of communication and community provides a means of correlating the twin concerns of human purpose and the collective context of the (cosmo)polis. It also offers further possibilities for crafting a virtue ecclesiology which holds together an understanding of relationality rooted in intersubjectivity with an understanding that ‘emancipation’ emerges from the communication which is the expression of that relationality. On this basis the Church can re-receive her calling to mission in the context of the (cosmo)polis. The Church can explore new ways of living as part of the ‘political’ community as she herself seeks to be a virtuous community where together her members find participation in the divine life. These processes can be understood in relation to Habermas’ understanding of ‘the corporate and communicative nature of language’,74 which entails and ensures sociability: any speech-act implies a desire to communicate and a commitment to the possibility of the creation of mutual understanding and shared meaning. Such conversations can be harnessed in the service of emancipatory principles and practices, by acting as the testing ground for rationality and political strategy. Speech therefore establishes relationship and reveals intentions to forge moral-practical or aesthetic-practical reason.75 In his construal of ideal speech communities Habermas argues that a notion of intersubjectivity emerges and functions. This is the basis on which Habermas offers a re-visioning or reconstructing of concepts of community at local and international levels, which are reworking of Kant’s conceptions of world

71 72

73 74

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See Hauerwas, A community of character. Best, T., and Robra, M., Ecclesiology and Ethics: Costly Commitment (Geneva: WCC, 1995). Mannion, Ecclesiology, p. 216. For example, Habermas, J., Knowledge and Human Interests (London: Heinemann Educational, 1972). Graham, E., Transforming Practice: Pastoral Theology in an Age of Uncertainty (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2002), p. 146.

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citizenry and cosmopolitan right. Kant set out an understanding of the universal community in which all are entitled ‘to present themselves in the society of others by virtue of their right to the communal possession of the earth’s surface.’76 This lies at the heart of Habermas’ commitment to and vision of the reconstruction of community. He sets this reconstruction in relation to his understanding of everyday communication.77 The most basic relationship between human beings is the act of communicating through language. When such everyday communication is ‘authentic’ Habermas suggests that ‘a bit of ideality’ enters ordinary human existence. The city and the ‘cosmopolis’ are the location for this communication and of the reception of ‘ideality’. The collective context of the polis provides the space for intersubjectivity to flourish and produce communicative action and a virtuous life. It is the (cosmo)polis which is the context of the Church’s life and witness and the collective pursuit of deification. The Church shares in the possibility of the emergence of ‘ideality’ in everyday life. In her life as a virtuous community of believers, the Church is called not only to share in that ideality but herself to be a context in which it emerges for the benefit of all, those within the believing community as well as those ‘beyond’ it. As communication discloses moral and virtuous intentions and the possibility of ‘emancipation’ it also reinscribes the intersubjectivity of those who participate in it. The communal life of the (cosmo)polis is itself the bearer of relationality and virtue, as in Christian Tradition the ‘Body of Christ’ is both the context and the content of fellowship and salvation. This correlation of relationality, context and moral intent found in the thought of Habermas helps to frame the construal of a collective and relational understanding of deification and of virtue ecclesiology. But what would it mean to shape the Church around the pursuit of the virtues? First, it is necessary to determine the kind of ethics which the Church would embrace upon which the virtues would be pursued. Mannion suggests that the choice is often perceived between deontological ethics based on obligations and consequentialist ethics based on outcomes.78 But he appeals to the understanding of the virtues themselves as a middle way between extremes and suggests that following this via media will avoid the extremes of exclusivism and relativism. As an alternative he recommends an understanding of the virtues as ‘dispositions’ which focuses not only on interior human motivation but also on the public pursuit of the common ‘good’. 76

77

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Kant also assumed that such conceptions of the universal community would lead (eventually) to ‘perpetual peace’. Kant, I., Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf (Könisberg, Friedrich Nicolovius, 1795, 1796). Habermas, J., Theory of Communicative Action, 2 vols (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984, 1987). Mannion, Ecclesiology, p. 218.

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This he suggests is the basis for a ‘dispositional’ ecclesiology.79 This would provide the parameters for a virtue ecclesiology which avoided extremes and focused on the pursuit of the common good and the theological virtues of faith, hope and love. It is one thing to pursue framing the metaphor of deification in a theoretical discussion of the city or cosmopolis, but the reality of cities in the present day seems far removed from the ‘ideal’ context which Kant and Habermas seem to portray. Cities are often places of violence and depravation and exclusion. These conditions are symbolic of human alienation and sin. However, the appeal to the context of the (cosmo)polis in the construal of the metaphor of deification is not naïvely optimistic or idealistic. Habermas’ appeal to ‘ideality’ is precisely an appeal to a quality of communication and relationality which addresses the deep-seated problems of city life and seeks emancipation from them. The collective pursuit of the virtues in the Church is to be premised on just such an understanding. The work of Illingworth and Thornton provides a rich theological undergirding to these claims and helps to give further shape to a virtue ecclesiology. Illingworth argued that deification could be premised on a ‘social’ doctrine of the triune God and that the content of deification was to be understood in terms of the realization of human personhood through partaking in the relationship of the persons of the Holy Trinity. This collective and relational construal of deification is premised on a sharing in the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, as an instantiation of the divine love. Thornton took this conceptuality a stage further, applying Christ’s recapitulation of the consequences of the fall to all humankind, and to the formation of a ‘new kind of redeemed society’ in which the ‘Body of Christ’ is ‘clothed with the extended image of deity in Christ’.80 These understandings offer a possibility of constructing a contemporary doctrine of deification which is ecclesial and sacramental and cosmic in its dimensions.

Conclusion I began by asking whether the metaphor of deification is irrelevant today, because it is often seen as esoteric or elitist or ‘un-biblical’. I hope that I have demonstrated that it is none of these things. The goal or outcome of the metaphor of deification can be understood in terms of St Paul’s claim that ultimately God will be all in all. This is equivalent of claiming that the believer is called to participate in divine nature. It is my understanding that 79 80

Mannion, Ecclesiology, p. 220. Thornton, L. S., Revelation and the Modem World (London: Dacre Press, 1950) pp. 129, 187.

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this is the calling and destiny of all human persons. Theoˉsis is not an esoteric or elitist set of practices; it is the content of true discipleship of Christ; it is what it means to be ‘in Christ’. Theoˉsis concerns the soul and the body; it concerns the practice of the virtues, and it is rooted in and often experienced through the practice of prayer in various forms. The outcome of deification may be compared with the Gospel understanding of God’s Kingdom ‘on earth and in heaven’. The Kingdom is not a reality distinct from deification. Rather the deification of the believer is an aspect of the coming of the Kingdom. There are no parallel ‘processes’, one of which concerns being deified, while the other is the coming of the Kingdom. Deification is the content of the Kingdom for the believer. Indeed if this were not the case the Kingdom would be extrinsic and ‘imposed’ from without. This is an argument for a partially realized and interior understanding of eschatology. Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among (within) you.’ (Luke: 17.20, 21) As the text of the Lord’s Prayer suggests, ‘Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.’ A divine–human communion and synergy predicated on a theandric Christology lies at the heart of this understanding of the coming of the Kingdom. It is also to be predicated on the paradigm of theandric Christology: the Transfiguration. Deification is an expression of the divine purposes in creating and redeeming: and expression of the calling to transformation or transfiguration so that God may be all in all. This is a transfiguration which entails the transformation not only of the believer but also of the Church, of society and of the cosmos. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transfigured into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3.18)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life, trans. A. I. Kinnear (1958). Watson, N., ‘Melting into God the English Way: Deification in the Middle English Version of Marguerite Porete’s Mirouer des simples âmes anienties’, in R. Voaden (ed.), Prophets Abroad: The Reception of Continental Holy Women in LateMedieval England (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996). Way of a Pilgrim (London: SPCK, 1972). Werner, M., The Formation of Christian Doctrine (New York, 1957). Wesche, K. P., ‘Mind and Self in the Christology of Saint Gregory the Theologian: Saint Gregory’s Contribution to Christology and Christian Anthropology’, Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 39(1) (1994): 33–61. Wesley, J., The Works of John Wesley, ed. Jackson (1872). Westcott, B. F., Essays in the History of Religious Thought in the West (London: Macmillan, 1891). Whittaker, M. (ed.), Tatian: Oratio ad Graecos and Fragments (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982). Williams, A. N., The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Williams, R. D., The Wound of Knowledge: Christian Spirituality from the New Testament to St John of the Cross (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1979). —, Sergii Bulgakov (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1999). Yannaras, C., ‘The Distinction between Essence and Energies and its importance for Theology’, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 19(4) (1975): 232–45. —, Orthodoxy and the West (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2006). Zizioulas, J. D., Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and Church (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985).

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index of subjects and names

Abraham 43, 45 Abraham, Minnie 159 Absolute (the) 127 act (divine) 26, 151, 175 action (divine) 17, 101, 118 Adam 29 n.22, 30, 31, 34, 35, 38, 39, 43, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 107, 109, 158, 162, 178 adoption 27, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 55, 56, 57, 72, 99, 119, 147, 165, 166, 169, 181, 183 alterity 87 Ambrose of Milan 69 Amish 150 Anabaptists 112, 145, 150, 151, 152, 156 analogy 57, 71, 101, 103 Andrewes, Lancelot 145, 152, 153, 154, 160 angelification 32 Angelus Silesius 134, 135 animality 114 anthropology (theological) 4, 20, 29, 62, 63, 68, 81, 82, 87, 109, 111, 134, 161, 173, 174 Apocalyptic literature 31 Apollinarius (Apollinarianism) 64, 65, 67, 72, 102 n.73 apophaticism 10, 63, 66, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 174, 176 Apostles’ Creed (the) 2, 5 apotheoˉsis 3, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 58 Aquinas, Thomas 26, 77, 81, 87, 100, 101, 102, 112, 116–19, 144, 189 Arianism 62, 63 Aristides 52 Aristotle 24, 116, 189 Arius 61, 62, 102 Ark of the Covenant 129

Arndt, Johann 164 ascent (of soul or mind) 10, 25, 32, 35, 37, 40, 43, 49, 50, 52, 53, 59, 64, 65, 67, 85, 103, 104, 105, 112, 120, 129, 132, 173, 174 asceticism 23, 105, 157 assimilation 17, 19, 22, 32, 64, 68, 73, 108 Athanasius 60, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 72, 73, 75, 82 n.23, 84, 105, 116, 117, 148, 155, 156, 162, 167, 181 Athenagoras (Ecumenical Patriarch) 166 Aufhebung 142 Augustine of Hippo 26, 69–72, 115, 117, 119, 160 Averroes 116 awakening 22, 156 Balthasar, Hans Urs von 68, 167, 168 Baptism 17, 42, 43, 44, 50, 53, 55, 57, 61, 66, 71, 72, 73, 89, 90, 98, 101, 105, 106, 109, 110, 118, 119, 121, 136, 149, 172, 182, 183, 184, 185, 187 Barlaam of Calabria 100 Barrett, Thomas, B. 159 Barth, Karl 42, 141, 175, 176, 179 Basil of Caesarea 37, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70 Basilides 52, 56 Baur, F. C. 121 beauty 22, 23, 66, 67, 84, 85, 89, 105 Beguines 124 Benedict XVI (Pope) 169, 170 Bernard of Clairvaux 112, 123, 124, 125, 139, 149 blending 25, 153, 166

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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND NAMES body (human) 4, 5, 14, 20, 39, 54, 56, 57, 72, 114, 173, 174, 183, 194 Body of Christ 17, 42, 44, 45, 55, 63, 105, 140, 141, 149, 150, 153, 160, 162, 170, 178, 179, 182, 184, 185, 192, 193 Boff, Leonardo 190 bogochelovek (God-man) 78 Bonaventure 119 Book of Common Prayer (1662) 183 Bousset, W. 33 Brethren (movement) 150, 156 Bria, Ion 83, 185, 187 bride 133, 135 bridegroom 133 Brothers of the Common Life 119, 154 Bulgakov, Sergei 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 87, 94 Butler, Cuthbert 139 Cabasilas, Nicholas 169 calling (human) 2, 3, 46, 82, 130, 136, 140, 144, 172, 176, 178, 186, 187, 188, 194 Calvin, John 145, 148, 149, 150 Cambridge Platonists 152, 154 Cappadocian fathers 65, 68, 69, 74, 86, 90, 102, 113, 172, 177, 181 Carmelite (Order) 132, 133 Carpocrates 52 cataphatic (approach) 83, 174, 175, 176 cause 84, 105, 113, 120 chariot throne (throne chariot) 31, 32, 35, 61 Charioteer (myth of) 18 charismatic gifts 59, 92 Charismatic tradition 2, 39, 164, 172 Christian Perfection 39, 143, 144, 156, 157, 159, 164 Christification 42, 43, 44, 46, 51, 82 Christology 55, 56, 72, 81, 82, 83, 85, 106, 115, 120, 122, 130, 145, 176, 178, 179, 180, 186, 194 Clement of Alexandria 29, 33, 35, 37, 52, 56, 57, 58, 59, 66, 159 Cloud of Unknowing (the) 129, 130, 175 communion, passim

community 45, 144, 171, 191, 192 community (of faith) 1, 10, 95, 169, 172, 173, 174, 181, 183, 186, 190, 192 consciousness 127, 138, 144, 174 Constantinople (Council of) (381) 5, 62, 64, 66 Constantinople (2nd Council of) (553) 64, 102, 103 Constantinople (3rd Council of) (680–1) 103 contemplation 9, 13, 17, 21, 23, 37, 41, 50, 57, 67, 73, 98, 124, 129, 130, 131, 133, 137, 140, 159, 176, 177 conversion 43, 118, 127, 177, 184 cosmopolis 173, 190, 192, 193 cosmos 4, 6, 17, 20, 21, 23, 26, 33, 49, 55, 76, 83, 84, 95, 106, 107, 109, 110, 115, 158, 168, 171, 178, 180, 184, 185, 187, 190, 194 covenant 28, 29, 43, 45 creatio ex nihilo 26, 118 creation 4, 5, 20, 26, 29, 31, 33, 34, 37, 43, 46, 50, 60, 70, 77, 79, 83, 84, 111, 113, 114, 115, 119, 120, 121, 130, 134, 139, 151, 162, 177, 178, 181, 184, 188 Creator (God) 3, 26, 31, 51, 60, 70, 101, 118, 128, 130, 133, 137, 151, 163, 169, 178 Cross (the) 83, 120, 134, 136, 165, 178 Cudworth, Ralph 155 Cydones, Prochorus 77, 95, 101 Cyril of Alexandria 41, 64, 72, 73, 75, 105, 107, 169 Cyril of Jerusalem 160 Daniélou, Jean 167 de Chardin, Teilhard 184, 186, 187 de Régnon paradigm 74, 87 de Régnon, Théodore 74 Dead Sea Scrolls 33, 34 deiform (faculty) 4, 25, 69, 81 deiformity 154 Delphi 14, 81 demiurge 20, 24 democratization 16, 35, 145, 173

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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND NAMES Descartes, René 154 Desert Fathers and Mothers 64, 172 deus absconditus (hidden God) 175 Diadochos of Photike 103 diastolē (expansion) 168 didaskaleion (ia) 51, 52, 53, 56, 73 difference (ontological) 10, 12, 26, 36, 38, 40, 63, 67, 79, 87, 123, 149, 151, 178, 180 Dionysius (Pseudo-) the Aeropagite 26, 67, 77, 85, 102, 104, 105, 106, 109, 110, 112, 113, 114, 119, 120, 121, 122, 129, 137, 149, 172, 176 dispassion 57 Dörrie, H. S. 27, 37 ecclesial being 181 ecclesiology 81, 83, 87, 94, 181, 186, 190, 193 Eckhart, Meister 114, 119, 120, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128 economy (of salvation) 126, 130, 131, 185 ecstasy 22, 25, 132 ecumenical movement 76, 166 election (divine) 85 Elijah 31, 40 Eliot, T. S. 91, 153 energeia (energy) 17, 49 energetic communion 2, 108, 180, 181 energy (ies) (divine) 17, 49, 50, 69, 79, 80, 84, 85, 86, 90, 100, 101, 108, 116, 121, 137, 180 Enlightenment (the) 8, 88, 89, 92, 122, 136, 141, 143, 173, 190 enlightenment (illumination) 13, 41 Enoch 31, 34, 35 ensoulment 21 Ephesus (Council of) (431) 72, 75 Ephrem the Syrian 60, 160 Epiphanius of Salamis 102 epistemology 85, 100 Erasmus, Desiderius 104 Eriugena, John Scottus 26, 113, 114, 115, 119, 120, 121, 129, 137 eros 25, 132

eschatology 2, 33, 34, 43, 44, 45, 46, 52, 55, 57, 64, 71, 94, 103, 107, 111, 185, 194 essence (divine) 17, 20, 22, 25, 49, 57, 69, 72, 79, 86, 100, 101, 115, 116, 123, 135, 137, 151, 182 essence-energies 50, 90, 100, 101, 121 Eucharist 17, 36, 42, 44, 46, 50, 51, 53, 55, 63, 68, 71, 72, 73, 86, 98, 106, 108, 109, 110, 118, 121, 153, 160, 162, 169, 170, 172, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188 eudaimonia 189 Eudorus of Alexandria 23 Eusebius 35, 54, 75 Evagrios Ponticus 53, 61, 64, 65, 72, 90, 103 Evangelical Revival 2, 156 event conceptuality 182 event of communion 50, 182 Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian 35 exchange formula 50, 55, 60, 62, 63, 67, 96, 98, 104, 116, 117, 120, 139, 142, 144, 153, 155, 156, 158, 160, 162, 179, 183 exclusion 193 existential (approach) 9, 62, 81, 176 exitus 26, 113, 131, 136 experience (mystical) 5, 22, 42, 43, 48, 80, 90, 92, 93, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 108, 113, 122, 123, 124, 126, 131, 132, 134, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 149, 164, 166, 170, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177 experience (religious) 2, 4, 9, 11, 13, 38, 44, 47, 49, 61, 64, 77, 95, 103, 111, 112, 140, 143, 162, 171, 172, 183, 190 faith 18, 69, 92, 93, 111, 118, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 163, 164, 175, 177, 184, 188, 190, 193 Faith and Order (Commission) 191 Fall (the) 4, 24, 30, 33, 34, 50, 54, 60, 70, 84, 103, 114, 130, 171, 177, 178, 184, 193

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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND NAMES Father (God the) 32, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 53, 54, 58, 62, 70, 120, 129, 144, 158, 160, 161, 163, 165, 168, 177, 181, 182 fellowship 42, 48, 140, 143, 144, 149, 151, 158, 185, 192 filiation 27, 28, 32, 42, 43, 45, 50, 72, 117, 119, 120, 144, 145, 169 filioque 76, 95 Finnish School 146, 147 Florence (Council of 1439) 102, 119 Florovsky, Georges 78, 91 forms (the) 19, 20, 21, 24, 48 Foucault, Michel 174 Free Spirits 124 freedom 56, 57, 87, 94, 107, 114, 157, 175, 179, 180, 182 fullness (of God) 25, 45, 157, 186 garments of light 30 garments of skins 4, 30, 31, 68 Geert Groote 119, 128 gender 4, 30, 68, 114 Gennadius II Scholarius 95 gift (divine) 36, 38, 53, 54, 62, 71, 82, 105, 107, 118, 141, 145, 146, 147, 149 gifts (of the Spirit) 42, 59, 73, 165, 172, 176 gnosis 53 Gnosticism 43, 55 Godhead 62, 68, 161, 167, 172, 177, 178, 180, 182, 183, 190 God-manhood 93, 94, 95 good (the) 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 89 good works 32, 118, 145 Gore, Charles 161, 162 Gospel of Thomas 54 grace 18, 53, 57, 59, 60, 70, 71, 72, 75, 83, 89, 90, 99, 101, 105, 107, 108, 110, 111, 114, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 127, 134, 141, 144, 145, 147, 150, 151, 152, 154, 156, 157, 158, 163, 164, 167, 169, 171, 174, 175, 176, 180, 183, 184 Grdelidze, Tamara 176

Gregory of Nazianzen 26, 47, 64, 66, 67, 68, 75, 82, 96, 99, 104, 109, 120 Gregory of Nyssa 53, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 113, 114, 120, 167, 184 Gregory Palamas 6, 75, 76, 77, 83, 90, 95, 99, 100, 109, 111, 116, 121, 137 Gregory Thaumaturgus 15, 58, 66 Groenendaal 128 Gross, Jules 3, 13, 49, 142, 143, 166, 167 ground (of God) 127 Gunton, Colin E. 122, 161 Habermas, Jürgen 191, 192, 193 Harnack, Adolf von 3, 26, 33, 62, 121, 122, 139, 141, 142, 143, 145, 167 Hauerwas, Stanley 190, 191 heavenly court 34, 35 Hegel, G. W. F. 82 Hellenism 3, 88, 96 henoˉsis 17 Heracles (Hercules) 15, 16 hermeneutical community 10 Hesychast(s) 2, 77, 83, 87, 88, 90, 92, 95, 96, 97 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 110, 111, 137, 141 hesychia 89 hidden God see deus absconditus hidden(ness) 53, 129, 175, 176 hierarchy (of being) 19, 24, 25 Hilary of Poitiers 63, 64, 70 Hippolytus (of Rome) 52 holiness 2, 4, 9, 19, 26, 27, 60, 75, 145, 147, 157, 170 holiness (moral) 28 holiness (ritual) 28 Holiness Movement 2, 39, 112, 158, 159, 163–6, 170 Holocaust 3 Holy Spirit 45, 53, 54, 58, 59, 61, 62, 66, 67, 71, 72, 73, 92, 117, 118, 119, 121, 123, 129, 140, 149, 157, 158, 163, 172, 176, 181, 182, 183, 188 Homer 13, 37, 189

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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND NAMES homoiosis (imitation) 25, 26, 51 homoiousios (-n) 62 Hooker, Richard , 11, 145, 152, 153, 162 Hopko, T. 186 Hügel, F. von 138 Hugh of St Victor 115 human condition 4, 61 human flourishing 189 Hutterites 150 hypostasis (-es) 24, 25, 85, 86, 100, 179, 181 Hypostatic Union (the) 41, 50, 102, 103, 106, 108, 109, 169, 177, 179, 180, 181 Iamblichus 17, 25 icon 40, 82, 108 Iconoclast controversy 30, 103, 108, 109 ideal speech communities 191 ideality 192, 193 idolatry 30, 37 Ignatius of Antioch 51, 52, 181 Ignatius of Loyola 90 Illingworth, J. R. 161, 163, 168, 193 illumination (enlightenment) 13, 22, 41, 53, 103, 104, 105, 136 image (icon) [eikoˉn], 30, 36, 40, 56, 64, 79, 163, 176, 193, 194 image (and likeness) 4, 14, 15, 20, 22, 28, 29, 30, 36, 39, 49, 50, 54, 55, 57, 70, 71, 72, 73, 78, 81, 82, 96, 103, 108, 109, 115, 119, 131, 142, 157, 165, 171, 174, 178 imago dei 30, 40, 71, 107, 108, 120, 169, 179 imago trinitatis 108, 179 imitation 10, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 39, 45, 48, 49, 51, 67, 70, 71, 101, 105, 132 immanence 73, 119, 138 immortal 12, 13, 14, 15, 15, 24, 31, 33, 37, 38, 49, 53, 54, 57, 158 immortality 3, 5, 10, 12, 13, 14, 24, 31, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 52, 54, 55, 57, 58, 62, 63, 101, 142, 154, 158, 173 Imperial cult 16, 33 imperishability 14, 38

Incarnation (the) 28, 34, 47, 50, 54, 55, 60, 68, 78, 79, 84, 85, 87, 94, 98, 101, 102, 105, 106, 108, 109, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 142, 144, 151, 153, 155, 158, 160, 161, 162, 165, 169, 178, 186, 188 inclusion 39, 50 incommunicability (of God) 86, 140 incorporation (into the Body of Christ) 182, 183 incorruption 10, 36, 44, 58, 62, 63, 84 individualism 166 ineffability (of God) 10, 100 infusion (of grace) 118, 151 intellect 10, 16, 19, 25, 56, 57, 58, 61, 67, 69, 88, 90, 98, 105, 120, 127, 161, 176 interpenetration 61, 69, 180 intimacy 27, 28, 36, 45, 51, 52, 84, 103, 106, 110, 133, 137, 172, 174, 176 Irenaeus of Lyons 33, 45, 53, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 63, 73, 84, 116, 117, 148, 162, 181 Jacob of Nisibis 60 Jenson, Robert W. 68 Jesus Prayer (the) 92, 96, 111 John (the Evangelist) 32, 47, 96 John Chrysostom 169 John of the Cross 126, 131, 133, 134, 137, 138, 139 John of Damascus 41, 66, 76, 77, 103, 108, 109, 110, 137 John of Jerusalem 102 John Paul II (Pope) 126, 169, 170 Judaism 12, 32, 33, 36, 37, 40, 72 Julian of Norwich 130, 131 Julian ‘the Apostate’ 65, 67 justification (by faith) 3, 4, 33, 71, 111, 117, 118, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 150, 152, 153, 158, 159, 166 Justin Martyr 33, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58 Kant, Immanuel 82, 141, 143, 146, 191, 192, 193 Kärkkäinen, V-M. 71, 158, 159

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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND NAMES Keble, John 159 King, Ursula 139 Kingdom of God (Heaven) 14, 38, 41, 85, 89, 142, 143, 144, 145, 183, 186, 194 Knowles, David 139 koinoˉnia 2, 5, 20, 42, 44, 50, 83, 172, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185 Kollyvades 88 Krivocheine, Basil 96 Kulturprotestantismus (Culture-Protestantism) 141 Küng, Hans 3 LaCugna, Catherine Mowry 168, 173, 179 Lankford, Sarah Worrall 164 Lash, Nicholas 140 late modernity 173, 190 Leo XIII (Pope) 169 Liberal Protestants (ism) 141 likeness 4, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 33, 49, 50, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 65, 68, 70, 72, 73, 78, 81, 96, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 115, 127, 131, 134, 139, 142, 145, 155, 171, 174, 179 Lindbeck, George 11 Logos 37, 48, 53, 54, 55, 57, 63, 65, 82, 117, 120, 142, 148, 178, 180, 186 Lossky, Vladimir 18, 74, 77, 78, 80, 81, 83, 85, 86, 87, 91 Lot-Borodine, M. 69 Louth, Andrew 76, 77, 84, 85, 87, 90, 91, 96, 97, 98, 104, 107 love 22, 39, 47, 55, 67, 78, 87, 94, 103, 105, 107, 115, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 129, 130, 132, 134, 135, 136, 139, 140, 141, 147, 149, 151, 161, 163, 168, 170, 180, 181, 184, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 193 Ludlow, Morwenna 68 Luther, Martin 112, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 175 Lux Mundi 161, 162 Macarian writings 60, 61, 103 Macarios of Egypt 60

MacIntyre, Alasdair 8, 9, 189, 190 Mack, Alexander 156 macro-anthroˉpos 83 Madame Guyon 159, 164 Mahan, Asa 164 Makarios of Corinth 88, 141 Maloney, George A. 1 Mannermaa, Tuomo 146, 147 Mannion, Gerard 190, 192 Marcion 52 Mascall, E. L. 163 materiality 114 Maximos the Confessor 6, 26, 67, 76, 77, 83, 90, 97, 99, 102, 103, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 113, 114, 120, 130, 137, 167, 168, 180, 183 McCord Adams, M. 178 McGinn, B. 122 McGuckin, John 66, 75, 77, 85, 87, 97 Mennonites 150, 151 Merton, Thomas 140, 141 Messalianism 61 metamorphoˉsis (transfiguration) 40, 50, 67, 85, 107 methexsis (participation) 25, 26, 51 Methodism 156, 157, 158 Meyendorff, John 75, 91, 114 Milbank, John 78, 79 Milieu Divine (le) 184 mind (nous) 4, 10, 13, 15, 20, 21, 22, 24, 37, 43, 64, 71, 93, 105, 109, 120, 157, 161, 173, 174 mission 2, 47, 186, 191 Monothelite (heresy) 103, 107 Moses 31, 34, 35, 37, 40, 50, 97, 129 Mosser, Carl 33, 34 Motovilov, Nicholas 92 Mount Athos 75, 79, 88, 95, 99, 100 Mount Sinai 35, 97 Mount Tabor 41, 100, 101 Mystical Theology 89, 112, 120, 121, 122, 128, 129, 132, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 149, 170, 172, 173, 174, 176 mystical union (unio mystica) 48, 80, 120, 121, 122, 123, 128, 138, 149, 150, 162, 176

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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND NAMES mysticism 22, 35, 42, 52, 91, 121, 135, 137, 138, 139, 140, 143, 149, 154, 170, 173 Nag Hammadi (texts) 52 Nellas, Panayiotis 1, 77, 81, 82, 87, 91 Neo-Palamism 74, 76, 110 nepsis 89 Nestorius 72, 75 Newman, John Henry 99, 159, 166, 167 Nicaea (Council of) (325) 5, 51, 62 Nicaea (Second Council of) (787) 103 Nicene Creed (381) 2, 5 Nicene orthodoxy 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 69, 75 Nicholas of Cusa 104, 114, 119, 120, 121, 128 Nikodimos the Hagiorite 88, 90, 141 Normal Christian (the) 165 nous (mind) 20, 24, 37, 54, 174 Onica, P. A. 166 ontology 41, 85, 86, 105, 182 Origen 15, 37, 50, 53, 56, 58, 59, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 70, 72, 102, 105, 107, 120, 159, 172, 177 Orpheus 15 Orthodoxy (Byzantine) 76, 110 Osborn, E. 6, 7, 8, 10 otherness 12, 70, 87, 120 ousia 24, 49, 72, 86, 107 Palamism 99, 100, 101, 102 Palmer, Phoebe 159, 164 pantheism 128, 138 Papanikolaou, Aristotle 75, 77, 85, 86, 97, 110, 170 parousia 20 participation, passim participatory union 43, 45, 46, 51, 57 Passmore, John 7, 8, 10 Pattison, George 182 Paul (St) 14, 17, 39, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 52, 56, 57, 59, 73, 97, 104, 127, 149, 150, 170, 176, 188, 193 Paul VI (Pope) 131, 166 Peasants’ Revolt 130 Pentecost (day of) 41

Pentecostal (tradition) 2, 39, 110, 112, 158, 159, 165, 170, 172 perfection 2, 4, 9, 17, 21, 23, 27, 28, 39, 59, 62, 66, 83, 84, 89, 96, 105, 124, 126, 127, 130, 131, 137, 140, 145, 150, 156, 157, 158, 170 perichoˉrēsis 41, 46, 47, 148, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182 person (human) passim person of Christ 5, 39, 43, 48, 62, 83, 100, 102, 103, 106, 140, 144, 146, 152, 177, 179, 180 person(s) (of the Trinity) 59, 79, 129, 167, 168, 169, 172, 177, 178, 182, 190, 193 personhood (human) 15, 80, 81, 86, 87, 161, 177, 182, 193 Peter Lombard 112, 115, 116, 118 Phelan, G. B. 116 philanthropia 78 Phillips, Dirk 151 Philo of Alexandria 29, 35, 36, 37, 57, 59, 65 Philokalia of the Holy Neptic Fathers (1782) 61, 64, 65, 76, 83, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, 96, 102, 110, 141 Pietism 156, 157 Plague (the) 130 Plato 9, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 41, 48, 57, 59, 67, 154, 189 Platonism 15, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 37, 53, 57, 61, 65, 66, 68, 70, 113, 116, 120, 121, 131, 154, 173 pleasure 23 Plotinus 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 53, 56, 70, 104, 154 Porete, Marguerite 124, 125, 126 Porphyry 17, 25, 26, 53, 70 post-lapsarian (condition) 4, 30 postmodernity 171 pre-lapsarian (condition) 30, 114 Protestant(ism) (tradition) 3, 74, 76, 83, 88, 89, 94, 108, 111, 121, 135, 143, 145, 146, 150, 151, 152, 156, 157, 160 Psellus, Michael 95, 96, 98 psyche (soul) 24

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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND NAMES psychoanalysis 137 psychology 4, 9, 123, 137, 140 psychology (theological) 69 Pusey, Edward Bouverie 160, 161 Qumran community 34, 35, 43 Rahner, Karl 167, 168 Ramsey, Michael 163 rapture 9, 97, 122 Ratzinger, Joseph see Benedict XVI Real Presence 17, 148 recapitulation 45, 55, 56, 162, 178, 179, 183, 193 reciprocity 49, 83, 107, 108, 136, 144, 179 recollection (of memory) 24 reditus 26, 113, 131, 136 Reformation (the) 9, 30, 112, 121, 122, 141, 145, 149, 150, 152, 156, 185 regeneration 118, 164, 183 relationality 87, 129, 168, 177, 179, 191, 192, 193 resurrection (of Christ) 17, 34, 47, 48, 63, 92, 165, 178, 183, 187 (of believer) 5, 15, 31, 38, 39, 43, 44, 52, 63, 124 resurrection light 41 revelation 120, 143, 167, 175, 176 Revivalist (movements) 2, 4, 9, 141, 156, 165 Ritschl, Albrecht 141, 143, 144, 145 Robichaux, K. S. 166 Roman Catholic (ism) (church) (tradition) 88, 89, 90, 93, 111, 112, 116, 135, 144, 166 Russell, Norman 1, 6, 9, 10, 49, 57, 59, 61, 65, 67, 68, 76, 81, 99, 105, 161 Ruusbroec, J. 128, 129, 139 sacrament(s) 5, 50, 52, 55, 63, 67, 68, 69, 71, 77, 98, 105, 110, 111, 115, 120, 150, 151, 160, 161, 162, 169, 172, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188 salvation, passim sanctification 3, 4, 41, 72, 85, 106, 111, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 123,

127, 128, 145, 149, 150, 152, 153, 156, 157, 158, 159, 164 Sanders, E. P. 46 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 122, 141, 143, 175 Schopenhauer 83 Schweitzer, A. 42, 46 Schwöbel, Christoph 161 Scougal, Henry 156, 157 seeker (after God / truth) 23, 53 self-consciousness 174 self-intellection 24 self-surrender 25 self-unveiling (of God) 175 Septuagint 27, 28, 29, 32, 37 Seraphim of Sarov (St) 77, 91, 92 Severus of Antioch 104 sexuality (human) 4, 30 Seymour, William 159 silence 71, 132, 176 Silouan of Mt Athos (St) 79 Simons, Menno 151 Solovyov, Vladimir 78, 93, 94, 95 Son of God 32, 56, 60, 117, 158, 165, 188 Sophia (wisdom) 78, 79, 93 sophiology 78, 80, 93 Sophrony, Archimandrite 77, 79, 80, 87, 91, 177 soteriology 62, 81, 122, 130, 136, 148, 152, 153 soul (psychē) passim Sparrow-Simpson, W. J. 121, 122 Spirit of God 58 Spiritual Marriage 129, 132, 133, 134, 137 Staniloae, Dumitru 76, 77, 82, 83, 84, 87, 91 starchestvo 92 Stethatos, Nicetas 97 Stoics (ism) 23, 53 subject (human) 10, 20, 21, 22, 23, 54, 77, 103, 105, 175, 178, 179, 187 substance 17, 24, 55, 62, 72, 151, 182 surrender 22 Symeon the New Theologian 77, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100 Symeon the Studite 98

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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND NAMES synergy 3, 28, 41, 50, 56, 94, 107, 108, 109, 132, 145, 158, 177, 179, 180, 181, 194 Taboric Light 100 Tamburello, D. E. 149 Tanner, Kathyrn 40, 178 Tarasar, Constance J. 181, 185 Tatian 53, 54, 55 Tauler, Johannes 126, 128, 135 Teresa of Avila 131, 132, 133, 134, 137, 138, 172 Tertullian 59, 60, 63, 70 theandric (understanding) 106, 108, 109, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 183, 186, 190, 194 theologia crucis 83, 147 Theologia Deutsch 149 Theophilus of Alexandria 72 theoˉria 41, 50, 67, 98, 104, 172, 173, 174, 176 Theos (ho) (the God) 17, 24 theoˉsis 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 14, 50, 67, 79, 80, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 93, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 114, 120, 142, 146, 147, 153, 168, 180, 182, 183, 194 theurgy 17, 18, 25, 105, 106, 183 Thornton, Lionel S. 162, 163, 193 throne-chariot 31, 32, 61 Thunberg, Lars 2, 50, 108, 180 Tikhon of Zadonsk 92 Torrance, T. F. 148 transcendent (God) 14, 17, 24, 37, 55, 57, 86, 100, 106, 113, 138, 171 transformation 10, 11, 23, 25, 39, 41, 50, 61, 67, 72, 73, 77, 84, 94, 117, 120, 134, 142, 155, 168, 171, 176, 177, 184, 187, 188, 190, 194 Trethowan, I. 139 Trinity (the) 5, 59, 65, 70, 71, 85, 86, 102, 115, 121, 123, 129, 158, 161, 163, 167, 168, 169, 172, 175, 177, 181, 182, 185, 190, 193 Troeltsch, Ernst 175 truth 7, 8, 19, 20, 22, 23, 53, 75, 98, 106, 117, 118, 186

Tuesday Meeting 164 Turner, Denys 122 unbegotten 53, 62 Underhill, Evelyn 22, 138 unio mystica (mystical union) 149 union (divine-human) passim unknowing 48, 85, 129, 130, 154, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177 unmoved Mover 24 Upham, Thomas C. 159, 164 Valentinus 52, 56 Vandervelde, G. 147 Velitchkovsky, Paissy 91, 92 Vergöttlichung 147 Vienne (Council of) (1311) 156 Virtue Ecclesiology 11, 173, 188, 190, 191, 192, 193 Virtues (the) 18, 20, 37, 42, 49, 51, 69, 73, 84, 87, 89, 90, 107, 110, 128, 130, 138, 158, 172, 173, 184, 188, 189, 192, 193, 194 virtuous community 172, 188, 190, 191, 192 vision (of God) 31, 41, 97, 100, 125, 173, 176, 177 (beatific) 71, 123, 149 Ware, Kallistos 77, 81, 87, 88, 90 Watchman Nee 165, 166 Waterland, Daniel 162 Way of a Pilgrim 92 Wesley, Charles 158 Wesley, John 11, 39, 112, 152, 156, 157, 158, 159 Wesleyan Holiness Movement 2 Westcott, B. F. 122 Whichcote, B. 155 Wiles, Maurice 99 will (human) 13, 23, 41, 61, 72, 107, 130, 132, 158, 164, 179, 180 (divine) 41, 56, 105, 107, 128, 130, 132, 134, 158, 164, 180 Williams, A. N. 118 Williams, Rowan D. 139 wisdom (of God) (Sophia) 21, 22, 36, 93, 105

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INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND NAMES Witness Lee 165, 166 Word (of God) 32, 34, 54, 55, 56, 105, 113, 116, 117, 144, 148, 154, 155, 183

Yannaras, Christos 75, 77, 84, 91, 99 Zizioulas, John D. 50, 77, 80, 85, 86, 110, 170, 172, 177, 181, 182

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index of scripture references Quotations from the Hebrew Bible and New Testament are from the New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), unless otherwise stated.

Genesis 1.26, 27 3 3.14–19 3.15 3.20, 21 3.21 3.22–24 5.24 9.6 12.3

29, 42, 54, 57, 78 21, 3, 178 30 154 30 4, 68 31 31 29 n.22 45

Exodus 7.1 20. 4, 5

50 30

Leviticus 11.44, 45 19.2 20.26 Numbers 15.40 Deuteronomy 32.4

28 28 n.20 28 n.20

28 n.20

28 n.18

Job 7.9 Psalms 6.5 18.30 29 30.3 49.51 82 82.1 82.6

31

104.1, 2 116.11 139.8

31 28 n.18 27 31 31 32, 33, 34, 59, 69 34 27, 32, 33, 34, 35, 54, 55, 57, 58, 64, 71, 117, 119, 130 31 n.25 71 31

Proverbs 1.12 8

31 36

Jeremiah 31.31–34

29

31 31 31 31

45

1 Samuel 2.6

31

2 Samuel 22.31

28 n.18

Ezekiel 1.1–28 10.1–22 37.1–14 43.1–5

2 Kings 2.11

31

Hosea 1.10

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INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES Apocrypha (Septuagint) The Wisdom of Solomon 2.23 34 n.35 2.23,24 36 3.1–9 36 3.4, 7 34 n.35 5 27 5.5 27 5.15 36 7 36 7.27 36 19.21 36 Ecclesiasticus 4.10 4.10–14 31.10 44.17 45.8 50.11

27 28 28 n.19 28 n.19 28 n.19 28 n.19

Pseudepigrapha 1 Enoch

34

2 Enoch 31.1

34 n.35

4 Ezra 3.7

34 n.35

2 Baruch 73–74

34 n.35

New Testament Matthew 5.43–8 6.9–13 17.1–8 17.26

39 41 40 144

Mark 9.28

40 n.44

Luke 9.28–36 17.20, 21

40 n.44 194

John 1 1.12 3 3.16 10 10.31–6 10.34 10.34–5 10.35 14.23 17.21–23

71 71 183 187 33 32 130 42 33 47 n.55 47, 144

Acts of the Apostles 7.55 97 13.24 155 17.34 104 Romans 5.14 6 6.3–5 6.23 8 8.12–17 8.14, 15 8.17 8.22, 23 9.4 13.14

43 44, 149, 183 44 43 n.48 43, 50 45 45 45 26 45 n.50 44 n.49

1 Corinthians 1.2 2.6–13 2.10–16 4.16 10 10.16–17 11.1 12.27 13.13 15 15.20–6 15.22 15.28 15.45 15.48–56 15.52–3 15.53

43 n.48 52 43 45 n.51 46, 184 44 45 n.51 44 188 38, 39, 62 38 43 n.48 125, 186 43 14 60 44 n.49

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INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES 2 Corinthians 3.18 4.16 5.17 8.9 12 12.2–4

46, 176, 194 46 43 n.48 62 97 43

Galatians 3 3.23–29 3.27 3.29 4.5 5.22–25

45 43 44 n.49 45 45, 45 n.50 188

Ephesians 1.5 1.10 1.14 1.23 2.6 2.8–10 3.19 4.24 5.1

45, 45 n.50 45 45 186 45 118 45 44 n.49 45

Philippians 2.5–11 3.15

62 39 n.42

Colossians 1 3.10

39 44 n.49

1 Thessalonians 1.6

45 n.51

Hebrews 3.14 6.1 8

58 39 n.42 29 n.21

2 Peter 1.3,4 1.4

42 1, 32, 41, 42, 59, 61, 72, 80, 107, 116, 119, 155, 156, 158,

159 n. 108, 165, 167, 171 1 John 3.24 4.18

47 n.55 39 n.42

Revelation 2.7

38 n.41

Aquinas, Thomas Commentary on John 1.14–17 117 Commentary on Ephesians 2.8–10 118 Opuscula 57, 1–4

117

Sentences Commentary III, d. 5, q. 1, a. 2 119 Aristotle Metaphysics XII, 6–7

24

Athanasius On the Incarnation 54, 3 62, 117 Augustine of Hippo Confessions 1.1 69 n.20 Contra Adimantus 93.2 71 De natura et gratia 33.37 69 n.21 De Vera religione 46 (86) 69 n.21 Enarrationes in Psalmos 49.2 71 In Johannis evangelium tractatus 2.15 69 n.22 Letter 10.2 70 Sermon 166.4 69 n.22

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INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES On the Trinity Book 7.6.12 71 The City of God 10.2 71 22.30 71 Clement of Alexandria Protrepticus 11.114.4 57 Stromateis 1.23.155–56 35 2.16.73 57 2.125.5 57 2.134.2 57 7.101.4 57 Dead Sea Scrolls 11QMelchizedeck 33 1QH 3.21–2 34 n.36 1QH 4.15 34 n.35 1QS 4.20, 22–3 34 n.35 1QS 11.5–9 34 n.36 Dionysius the Areopagite Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 1.3 104 2.1 105 2.3.1 104 Epistle 4 104 Ephrem the Syrian Hymns on Faith 5.17 60 Odes of Solomon, 7.4 60 13.3 60 13.12 60 39.3 60 Eusebius Praepatio Evangelica IX, 28.1–3 35 Genesis Rabbah XX.12 31

Gregory Nazianzen Commentary on John 32.27 67 Contra Eunomium 3.4.22 67 Oration 21 75 26–27 67 29.19 67 33.5 75 38.11 82 Gregory of Nyssa To Abablius: On ‘Not Three Gods’ PG 45, 121D 68 Gregory Thaumaturgus The Oration and Panegyric addressed to Origen Chapter 11 (PG10, 1081D) 15 n.5 Hilary of Poitiers On Matthew 5.15 63 Ignatius of Antioch Ephesians 4.2 51 n.3 8.1 51 n.3 Magnesians 14.1 51 n.3 Philadelphians 2.2 51 n.3 Romans 6.3 51 n.3 Irenaeus Against Heresies 3.19.1 56 Preface of Book 5 55 5.6.1 56 5.11.2 56 5.16.2 56 Proof of Apostolic Preaching 11 56

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INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES Book 3, Distinction 5 Chapters, 14–16 (1–3) 115 Book 3, Distinction 6 Chapters 17–22 (1–6) 115

John of Damascus De Fide Orthodoxa Book1 187 n.58 Book 2, Chapter 19 109 n.85 John Scottus Eriugena Periphyseon III 114 CXXIII 113

Philo De Migratione Abrahami 194–5 37 De Opificio Mundi 46 37 De Somniis 2.32.2 37 De Specialibus Legibus I.269–272 37 Legum Allegoriarum I.108 37

Justin Martyr Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 4 53 n.5 124 33 n.30 Macarian Writings Collection II, Homilies 1.2 61 44.9 61 Maximos the Confessor Ad Thalassum 60, 73–5 107 Centuries on Theology and the Incarnation 2.13 107 2.95 188 n.60 Difficulties [Ambigua] 10 107 Epistle 2 107, 188 n.60 Two Hundred Texts on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation, 2nd Century 83 108, 179 Origen Philocalia 13.4 58 Selecta in Ezechielem 1.3 58 Peter Lombard Sentences Book 1, distinction 17 115 Book 2, Distinction 16, Chapter 3 115

Plato Gorgias 506d 507de Laws 653a 716bc 770d Meno 87d Parmenides 130 Phaedo 75ab 78b–84b 79c–80a 100cd 100d 101a f 103de 114c Phaedrus 82bc 246–249 247c–e 248 c–f 248d

21 21 21 20 21 21 19 21 22 21 20 19 19 19 21 22 21 20 22 22

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INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES Phaedrus (Cont’d) 249b 22 249c 22 250b 19 278d 22 Philebus 54b f 21 Republic 444d 21 476a 20 477 f 19 479c 19 485a 22 490ab 22 494a 22 496ab 22 501b 22 505a–509c 20 509b 20 514a–520a 19 517b 20 526e 20 531d 20 533bc 22 535b–536a 22 589d 22 596a 19 613 18 Sophist 228 c,d 19 252a 19 254–55 19 Theaetetus 176a 20 176a f. 57 176b 29 176b–177a 21

185cd 186a Timaeus 29a 29e 30cd 46d 50b 51de 51e 52b 90bd

19 19 21 20 19 22 19 19 22 19 176 n.14

Plotinus Enneads V.5.4.8

25

Porphyry Ad Marcellam 17

25

Psellus, Michael On The Annunciation PO 16, 518 96 n.60 Sibylline Oracles 1.50 34 n.35 Tatian Oratio ad Graecos 7.6–10 55 Tertullian Against Hermogenes 5 59 Against Marcion 1.7. I 59 3.24 60

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